It was then his Deed and it was his gift it was his Deed of gift and it hath all the formalities and circumstances that belong to that for here is a seale in his blood and here is a delivering pregnantly implied in this word which is not onely Dedit he gave but Tradidit he delivered First Dedit he gave himselfe for us to his Father in that eternall Decree by which he was Agnus occisus ab origine mundi The Lamb slain from the beginning of the world And then Tradidit he delivered possession of himselfe to Death and to all humane infirmities when he took our Nature upon him and became one of us Yea this word implies a further operativenesse and working upon himself then all this for the word which the Apostle uses here for Christ giving of himselfe is the same word which the Evangelists use still for Iudas betraying of him so that Christ did not onely give himselfe to the will of the Father in the eternall Decree nor onely deliver himselfe to the power of death in his Incarnation but he offered he exhibited he exposed we may say he betrayed himselfe to his enemies and all this for worse enemies to the Iewes that Crucified him once for us that make finne our sport and so make the Crucifying of the Lord of life a Recreation It was a gift then free and absolute Hee keeps us not in fear of Resumption of ever taking himselfe from the Church again nay he hath left himself no power of Revocation I am with you sayes he to the end of the world To particular men he comes he knocks and he enters and he stays and hesups and yet for their unworthinesse goes away again but with the Church he is usque ad consummationem till the end It is a permanent gift Dedit and Dedit seipsum It was he that did it That which he did was to give and that which he gave was himselfe Now since the Holy Ghost that is the God of unity and peace hath told us at once that the satisfaction for our sins is Christ himselfe and hath told us no more Christ entirely Christ altogether let us not divide and mangle Christ or tear his Church in pieces by froward and frivolous difputations whether Christ gave his divinity for us or his humanity whether the divine Nature or the humane Nature redeemed us for neither his divinity nor his humanity is Ipse He himselfe and Dedit seipsum He gave himselfe Let us not subdivide him into lesse pieces then those God and Man and enquire contentiously whether he suffered in soul as well as in body the pains of Hâ—ll as well as the sting of Death the Holy-Ghost hath presented him unite and knit together For neither soul nor body was Ipse He himselfe and Dedit seipsum He gave himselfe let us least of all shred Christ Iesus into lesse scruples and atoms then these Soul and body and dispute whether consisting of both it were his active or his passive obedience that redeemed us whether it were his death and passion onely or his innocency and fulfilling of the Law too let us onely take Christ himselfe for onely that is said he gave himselfe It must be an Innocent person and this Innocent person must die for us seperate the Innocency and the Death and it is not Ipse it is not Christ himselfe and Dedit seipsum it was himselfe Let us abstain from all such curiosities which are all but forc'd dishes of hot brains and not sound meat that is from all perverse wranglings whether God or Man redeemed us and then whether this God and Man suffered in soule or in body and then whether this person consisting of soule and body redeemed us by his action or by his passion onely for as there are spirituall wickednesses so there are spirituall wantonnesses and unlawfull and dangerous dallyings with mysteries of Divinity Money that is changed into small pieces is easily lost gold that is beat out into leaf-gold cannot be coyned nor made currant money we know the Heathens lost the true God in a thrust they made so many false gods of every particular quality and attribute of God that they scattered him and evacuated him to an utter vanishing so doth true and sound and nourishing Divinity vanish away in those impertinent Questions All that the wit of Man adds to the Word of God is all quicksilver and it evaporates easily Beloved Custodi Depositum sayes the Apostle keep that which God hath revealed to thee for that God himselfe cals thy Talent it hath weight and substance in it Depart not from thy old gold leave not thy Catechism-divinity for all the School-divinity in the world when we have all what would we have more if we know that Christ hath given himselfe for us that we are redeemed and not redeemed with corruptible things but with the precious blood of Christ Jesus we care for no other knowledge but that Christ and Christ crucified for us for this is another and a more peculiar and profitable giving of himselfe for thee when he gives himselfe to thee that is when he gives thee a sense and apprehension and application of the gift to thy self that Christ hath given himselfe to thy selfe We are come now to his exchange what Christ had for himselfe when he gave himselfe And he had a Church So this Apostle which in this place writes to the Ephesians when he preached personally to the Ephesians he told them so too The Church is that Quam acquisivit sanguine suo which he purchased with his bloud Here Christ bought a Church but I would there were no worse Simony then this Christ received no profit from the Church and yet he gave himselfe for it and he stayes with it to the end of the world Here is no such Non-residency as that the Church is left unserved other men give enough for their Church but they withraw themselves and necessary provision And if we consider this Church that Christ bought and paid so dearly for it was rather an Hospitall then a Church A place where the blind might recover sight that is Men borne in Paganisme or Superstition might see the true God truly worshipped and where the lame might be established that is those that Halted between two Religions might be rectified in the truth where the Deaf might receive so quicke a hearing as that they might discerne Musique in his Thunder in all his fearefull threatnings that is mercy in his Judgments which are still accompanied with conditions of repentance and they might finde Thunder in his Musique in all his promises that is threatnings of Judgements in our misuse of his mercies Where the hereditary Leper the new borne Child into whose marrow his fathers transgression cleaves in originall sinne and he that hath enwrapped Implicatos morbos one disease in another in Actuall sinnes might not onely come if he would but be intreated to come yea
against the holy Ghost for this is the nearest step thou hast made to it to think that thou hast done it walke in that large field of the Scriptures of God and from the first flower at thy entrance the flower of Paradise Semen mulieris the generall promise of the seed of the woman should bruise the Serpents head to the last word of that Messias upon the Crosse Consummatum est that all that was promised for us is now performed and from the first to the last thou shalt find the savour of life unto life in all those flowers walke over the same alley againe and consider the first man Adam in the beginning who involv'd thee in originall sinne and the thiefe upon the Crosse who had continued in actuall sinnes all his life and sealed all with the sinne of reviling Christ himselfe a little before his expiration and yet he recovered Paradise and Paradise that day and see if thou canst make any shift to exclude thy selfe receive the fragrancy of all these Cordialls Vivit Dominâ—â— as the Lord liveth I would not the death of a sinner Quandocunque At what time soever a sinner repenteth and of this text Neminem judieat Christ judgeth no man to destruction here and if thou find after all these Antidotes a suspitious ayre a suspicious working in that Impossibiâ—e est that it is impossible for them who were once inlightened if they fall away to renew them againe by repentance sprinkle upon that worme wood of Impossibile est that Manna of Quorum remiseritis whose sinnes yee remit are remitted and then it will have another tast to thee and thon wilt see that that impossibility lies upon them onely who are utterly fallen away into an absolute Apostasie and infidelity that make a mocke of Christ and crucifie him againe as it is expressed there who undervalue and despise the Church of God those means which Christ Jesus hath instituted in his Church for renewing such as are fallen To such it is impossible because there are no other ordinary meanes possible but that 's not thy case thy case is onely a doubt that those meanes that are shaâ—â— not be applied to thee and even that is a slippery state to doubt of the mercy of God to thee in particular this goes so neare making thy sinne greater then Gods mercy as that it makes thy sinne greater then daily adulteries daily murthers daily blasphemies daily prophanings of the Sabbath could have done and though thou canst never make that true in this life that thy sinnes are greater then God can forgive yet this is a way to make them greater then God will forgive Now to collect both our Exercises and to connexe both Texts Christ judgeth all men and Christ judgeth no man he claimes all judgment and he disavows all judgement and they consist well together he was at our creation but that was not his first sense the Arians who say Erat quando non erat there was a time when Christ was not intimating that he had a beginning and therefore was a creature yet they will allow that he was created before the generall creation and so assisted at ours but he was infinite generations before that in the bosome of his Father at our election and there in him was executed the first judgment of separating those who were his the elect from the reprobate and then he knows who are his by that first Judgment And so comes to his second Judgment to seale all those in the visible Church with the outward mark of his baptisme and the inward marke of his Spirit and those whom he calls so he justifies and sanctifies and brings them to his third Judgment to an established and perpetuall glory And so all Judgment is his But then to judge out of humane affections and passions by detraction and calumny as they did to whom he spoke at this time so he judges no man so he denies judgment To usurpe upon the jurisdiction of others or to exercise any other judgment then was his commission as his pretended Vicar doth so he judges no man so he disavows all judgment To judge so as that our condemnation should be irremediable in this life so he judges no man so he forswears all judgment As I live saith the Lord of hosts and as I have died saith the Lord Jesus so I judge none Acknowledge his first Judgment thy election in him Christ his second Judgment thy justification by him breath and pant after his third Judgement thy Crown of glory for him intrude not upon the right of other men which is the first defame not calumniate not other men which is the second lay not the name of reprobate in this life upon any man which is the third Judgement that Christ disavows here and then thou shalt have well understood and well practised both these texts The Father hath committed all Iudgment to the Sonne and yet The Sonne judges no man SERMON XIIII Preached at Lincolns Inne JOB 19. 26. And though after my skin wormes destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God AMongst those Articles in which our Church hath explain'd and declar'd her faith this is the eight Article that the three Creeds that of the councell of Nice that of Athanasius and that which is commonly known by the name of the Apostles Creed ought throughly to be received and embrac'd The meaning of the Church is not that onely that should be beleev'd in which those three Creeds agree for the Nicen Creed mentions no Article after that of the holy Ghost not the Catholique Church not the Communion of Saints not the Resurrection of the flesh Athanasius his Creed does mention the Resurrection but not the Catholique Church nor the communion of Saints but that all should be beleev'd which is in any of them all which is summ'd up in the Apostles Creed Now the reason expressed in that Article of our Church why all this is to be beleeved is Because all this may be prov'd by most certaine warrants of holy Scriptures The Article does not insist upon particular places of Scripture not so much as point to them But they who have enlarged the Articles by way of explanation have done that And when they come to cite those places of Scripture which prove the Article of the Resurrection I observe that amongst those places they forbeare this text so that it may seem that in their opinion this Scripture doth not concerne the Resurrection It will not therefore be impertinent to make it a first part of this exercise whether this Scripture be to be understood of the Resurrection or no And then to make the particular handling of the words a second part In the first we shall see that the Iews always had and have still a persuasion of the Resurrection We shall look after by what light they saw that whether by the light of naturall reason And if not by that by what light given in other places
Then his trust is in him And who shall preserve him Almighty God and therefore his trust must be at last in him To what nation is their God come so near to them as the Lord our God is come neare unto us what nation hath laws and ordinances so righteous as we have Moses sayd this historically of the Iew and prophetically of us T is true we are governed by a peaceable and a just law Moses his prophecy is fulfilled upon us and so is Esays too Reges nutricii Kings shall be thy nursing fathers It is true to us The law is preserved to us by a just and a peacefull prince but how often have the sinnes of the people and their unthankfulnesse especially induc'd new laws and new princes The prince and the law are the two most reverend and most safe things that man can rely upon but yet in other nations at least sacred and secular story declares that for the iniquity of the people the law hath been perverted by princes and for the sinne of the people the prince hath been subverted by God Howsoever there may be some collaterall and transitory trust in by things the radicall the fundamentall trust is onely in God Iob trusted in him that is in nothing but him but then speravit he hoped for something at his hands none can give but God but God will give to none that doe not hope for it and that doe not expresse their hope by asking by prayer God scatters not his blessings as Princes doe money in Donatives at Coronations or Triumphes without respect upon whom they shall fall God rained downe Manna and Quailes plentifully abundantly but he knew to what hand every bird and every graine belonged To trust in nothing else is but halfe way it is but a stupid neglecting of all It is an ill affection to say I look for nothing at the worlds hands nor at Gods neither God onely hath all and God hath made us capable of all his gifts and therefore we must neither hope for them any where else nor give over our hope of them from him by intermitting our prayers or our industry in a lawfull calling for we are bound to suck at those breasts which God puts out to us and to draw at those springs which flow from him to us and prayer and industry are these breasts and these springs and whatsoever we have by them we have from him Expectavit Iob trusted not in the meanes as in the fountaine but yet speravit he doubted not but God who is the fountaine would by those meanes derive his blessings temporall and spirituall upon him Hee Hoped now Hope is onely or principally of invisible things for Hope that is seen is not hope says the Apostle And therefore though we may hope for temporall things for health wealth strength and liberty and victory where Gods enemies oppresse the Church and for execution of laws where Gods enemies undermine the Church for whatsoever we may pray for we may hope for and all those temporall blessings are prayed for by Christs appointment in that petition Give us this day our daily bread yet our Hope is principally directed upon the invisible part and invisible office of those visible and temporall things which is that by them we may be the better able to performe religious duties to God and duties of assistance to the world When I expect a friend I may go up to a window and wish I might see a Coach or up to a Cliffe and wish I might see a ship but it is because I hope that that friend is in that Coach or that ship so I wish and pray and labour for temporall thingsâ— because I hope that my soule shall be edified and my salvation established and God glorified by my having them And therefore every Christian hope being especially upon spirituall things is properly and purposely grounded upon these stones that it be spes veniae a hope of pardon for that which is past and then spes gratiae a hope of Grace to establish me in that state with God in which his pardon hath placed mee and lastly spes gloriae a hope that this pardon and this grace shall lead me to that everlasting glory which shall admit no night no eclipse no cloud First for the first object of this hope pardon we are to consider sinne in two aspects two apprehensions as sinne is an injury a treason yea a wound to God And then as sinne is a Calamity a misery fallen inevitably upon man Consider it the first way and there is no hope of pardon Nectalem Deum tuum putes qualis nec tu debes esse is excellently said by Saint Augustine never imagine any other quality to be in Christ then such as thou as a Christian art bound to have in thy selfe And if a Snake have stung me must I take up that Snake and put it into my bosome If so poore a snake so poore a worme as I have stung my Maker have crucified my Redeemer shall he therefore therefore take me into his bosome into his wounds and save me and glorifie me No if I look upon sinne in that line in that angle as it is a wound to God I shall come to that of Cain Major iniquitas my sinne is greater then can be forgiven and to that of Iudas Peccavi tradens I have sinned in betraying the innocent bloud that is in Crucifying him againe who was crucified for me in betraying his righteous bloud as much by my unworthy receiving as Iudas did in an unjust delivering of it But if I look upon sinne as sinne is now the misery and calamity of man the greater the misery appears the more hope of pardon I have Abyssus Abyssum as David speakes One Depth calls upon another Infinite sinnes call for infinite mercy and where sinne did abound grace and mercy shall much more First David presents the greatnesse of his sinnes and then followes the Miserere mei have mercy upon me according to the greatnesse of thy mercy Is there any little mercy in God Is not all his mercy infinite that pardons a sinne done against an infinite majesty yes but herein the greatnesse appeares to us that it delivers us from a great calamity Quia infirmus Because I am weake borne weake and subject to continuall infirmities Quia oss a conturbata Because my bones are troubled my best repentances and resolutions are shaked Quia vexata anima because my soule is in anguish when after such resolutions and repentances and vowes I relapse into those sinnes these miseries of his were Davids inducements why God should pardon him because it is thus with me have mercy upon me And so God himselfe seemes to have had a diverse a two-fold apprehension of our sinnes when he says that because all the imaginations of the thoughts of mans heart were onely evill continually therefore he would spare none he would destroy all and
too much for so I may presume Of Schoolmen some affirm Prayer to be an act of our will for we would have that which we aske Others of our understanding for by it we ascend to God and better our knowledge which is the proper aliment and food of our understanding so that is a perplexed case But all agree that it is an act of our Reason and therefore must be reasonable For onely reasonable things can pray for the beasts and Ravens Psalme 147. 9. are not said to pray for food but to cry Two things are required to make a Prayer 1. Pius affectus which was not in the Devills request Matth. 8. 31. Let us goe into the Swine nor Job 1. 2. Stretch out thy hand and touch all he hath and stretch out thy hand and touch his bones and therefore these were not Prayers And it must be Rerum decentium for our government in that point this may inform us Things absolutely good as Remission of sinnes we may absolutely beg and to escape things absolutely ill as sinne But mean and indifferent things qualified by the circumstances we must aske conditionally and referringly to the givers will For 2 Cor. 8. when Paul begged stimulum Carnis to be taken from him it was not granted but he had this answer My grace is sufficient for thee Let us now not in curiosity but for instruction consider the reason They know not what they doe First if Ignorance excuse And then if they were ignorant Hast thou O God filled all thy Scriptures both of thy Recorders and Notaries which have penned the History of thy love to thy People and of thy Secretaries the Prophets admitted to the foreknowledge of thy purposes and instructed in thy Cabinet hast thou filled these with prayses and perswasions of wisedome and knowledge and must these persecutors be pardoned for their ignorance Hast thou bid Esay to say 27. 11. It is a people of no understanding therefore he that made them shall not have compassion of them And Hosea 4. 6. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge and now dost thou say Forgive them because they know not Shall ignorance which is often the cause of sinne often a sinne it self often the punishment of sinne and ever an infirmity and disease contracted by the first great sinne advantage them Who can understand his faults saith the man according to thy heart Psalme 19. 12. Lord cleanse me from my secret faults He durst not make his ignorance the reason of his prayer but prayed against ignorance But thy Mercy is as the Sea both before it was the Sea for it overspreads the whole world and since it was called into limits for it is not the lesse infinite for that And as by the Sea the most remote and distant Nations enjoy one another by traffique and commerce East and West becoming neighbours so by mercy the most different things are united and reconciled Sinners have Heaven Traytors are in the Princes bosome and ignorant persons are in the spring of wisdome being forgiven not onely though they be ignorant but because they are ignorant But all ignorance is not excusable nor any lesse excusable then not to know what ignorance is not to be excused Therefore there is an ignorance which they call Nescientiam a not knowing of things not appertaining to us This we had had though Adam had stood and the Angels have it for they know not the latter day and therefore for this we are not chargeable They call the other privation which if it proceed meerly from our owne sluggishnesse in not searching the meanes made for our instruction is ever inexcusable If from God who for his owne just ends hath cast clouds over those lights which should guide us it is often excusable For 1 Tim. 1. 13. Paul saith I was ablasphemer and a persecutor and an oppressor but I was received to mercy for I did it ignorantly through unbelief So though we are all bound to believe and therefore faults done by unbeliefe cannot escape the name and nature of sinne yet since beliefe is the immediate gift of God faults done by unbeliefe without malicious concurrences and circumstances obtaine mercy and pardon from that abundant fountaine of grace Christ Jesus And therefore it was a just reason Forgive them for they know not If they knew not which is evident both by this speech from truth it self and by 2 Cor. 2. 8. Had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory and Acts 3. 17. I know that through ignorance ye did it And though after so many powerfull miracles this ignorance were vincible God having revealed enough to convert them yet there seemes to be enough on their parts to make it a perplexed case and to excuse though not a malitious persecuting yet a not consenting to his Doctrine For they had a Law Whosoever shall make himself the sonne of God let him dye And they spoke out of their Lawes when they said We have no other King but Caesar. There were therefore some among them reasonably and zealously ignorant And for those the Sonne ever-welcome and well-heard begged of his Father ever accessible and exorable a pardon ever ready and naturall We have now passed through all those roomes which we unlockt and opened at first And now may that point Why this prayer is remembred onely by one Evangelist and why by Luke be modestly inquired For we are all admitted and welcommed into the acquaintance of the Scriptures upon such conditions as travellers are into other Countries if we come as praisers and admirres of their Commodities and Government not as spies into the mysteries of their State nor searchers nor calumniators of their weaknesses For though the Scriptures like a strong rectified State be not endangered by such a curious malice of any yet he which brings that deserves no admittance When those great Commissioners which are called the Septuagint sent from Hierusalem to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into Greeke had perfected their work it was and is an argument of Divine assistance that writing severally they differed not The same may prove even to weake and faithlesse men that the holy Ghost super-intended the foure Evangelists because they differ not as they which have written their harmonies make it evident But to us faith teacheth the other way And we conclude not because they agree the holy Ghost directed for heathen Writers and Malefactors in examinations do so but because the holy Ghost directed we know they agree and differ not For as an honest man ever of the same thoughts differs not from himself though he do not ever say the same things if he say not contraries so the foure Evangelists observe the uniformity and samenesse of their guide though all did not say all the same things since none contradicts any And as when my soule which enables all my limbs to their functions disposes my legs to go my whole body is truly said to
is in the midst he is in the midst of the throne though al his great glorious company be round about him one hundred and forty foure thousand Israelites innumerable multitudes of all Nations Angels and Elders yet it is the Lambe that is in the midst of them and not they that are about him that sheds down these blessings upon us And it is the Lambe that is there still in the midst of the throne not kneaded into an Agnus Dei of wax or wafer here not called down from heaven to an Altar by every Priests charme to be a witnesse of secrecy in the Sacrament for every bloudy and feditious enterprise that they undertake It is Agnus qui est in medio Throni the Lambe that is there and shall be so till he come at last as a Lion also to devoure them who have made false opinions of him to serve their mischievous purposes here This is the person then that gives the assurance that all these blessings belong to them who are ordained to be so sealed and so washed this is he that assures us and approves to us that all this shall be first Quia reget because he shall govern them secondly Quia deducet because he shall lead them to the fountaines of waters thirdly Quia absterget because he shall wipe all teares from their eyes First he shall govern them he shall establish a spiritual Kingdome for them in this world for to govern which is the word of the first translation and to feed which is in the second is all one in Scriptures Dominabitur gentium he shall be Lord of the Gentiles but Rex Israelis he shall governe his people Israel as a King by a certain and a cleare law So that as we shal have interest in the Covenant as well as the Israclites so we shal have interest in that glorious acclamation of theirs Unto what nation are their Gods come so neare unto them as the Lord our God is come near unto us what nation hath Laws and ordinances so righteous as we have for in that Paul Barnabas express the heaviest indignation of God upon the Gentiles that God suffered the Gentiles to walke in their own ways he shewed them not his ways he setled no church no kingdome amongst them he did not govern them Except one of those Eight persons whom God preserved in the Arke were here to tell us the unexpressible comfort that he conceived in his safety when he saw that flood wash away Princes from their thrones misers from their bagges lovers from their embracements Courtiers from their wardrobes no man is able to expresse that true comfort which a Christian is to take even in this That God hath taken him into his Church and not left him in that desperate and irremediable inundation of Idolatry and paganisace that overflowes all the world beside For beloved who can expresse who can conceive that strange confusion which shall overtake and oppresse those infinite multitudes of Soules which shall be changed at the last day and shall meet Christ Jesus in the clouds and shall receive an irrevocable judgment of everlasting condemnation dut of his mouth whose name they never heard of before that must be condemned by a Judge of whom they knew nothing before and who never had before any apprehension of torments of Hell till by that lamentable experience they began to learn it What blessed meanes of preparation against that fearfull day doth he afford us even in this that he governes us by his law delivered in his Church The first thing that the housholder in the parable is noted to have done for his Vineyard was Sepe circumdedit he hedged it in That God hath done for us in making us his Church he hath inlaid us he hath hedged us in But he that breaketh the hedge a Serpent shall bite him he that breaketh this hedge the peace of the Church by his Schisme the old Serpent hath bitten and poysoned him and shall bite worse hereafter and if God having thus severed us and hedged us in have expected grapes and we bring none though we breake no hedge here amongst our selves that is no Papist breaks in upon us no Separatist breakes out from us we enjoy security enough yet even for our own barrennes Godwill take away the hedge and it shall be eaten up he will breake the wall and it shall be troden down Surely says the Prohet there The Vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel and the Men of Indah are his pleasant plans Surely we are the Church which God hath hedged in but yet if we answer not his expectation certainly the confusion of the Gentiles at the last day when they shal say to themselves of Christ Nescivi te dost thou condemne us and we know thee not shall not be so great as out confusion shall be when we shall hear Christ say to us whom he bred in his Church Nesiciovos I know not whence you are Even this that the ill use of this mercy of having been bred in his Church shall aggravate our condemnation then shewes the great benefit which we may receive now by this Quod regit nos that he takes care of us in his Church for how many in the world would have lived ten times more christianly then we do if they had but halfe that knowledge of Christ which we have When he hath then brought us into his kingdome that we are his subjects for all the heathen are in the condition of slaves he brings us nearer into his service he gives us outward distinctions liveries badges names visible markes in Baptisme yea he incorporates us more inseparably to himself then that which they imagine to be done in the Church of Rome where their Canonists say that a Cardinall is to incorporated in the Pope he is so made one flesh and bloud with him as that he may not let bloud without his leave because he bleeds not his own but the Popes bloud But of us it is true that by this Sacramēs we are so incorporated into Christ that in all our afflictions after we fulfill the sufferings of Christ in our flesh and in all afflictions which we lay upon any of our Christian brethren our consciences hear Christ crying to us Quid me persequerts why persecutest thou me Christs body is wounded in us when we suffer Christs body is wounded by us when we violate the peace of the Church or offend the particular members thereof First then deducet he shall lead them it is not he shall force them he shall thrust them he shall compell them it implies a gentle and yet an effectuall way he shall lead them Those which come to Christianity from Iudaisme or Gentisme when they are of years of discreation he shall lead them by instruction by Catechisme by preaching of his word before they be baptized for they that are of years are baptized without the
lost all ordinary expiations of their sinnes for they had no sacrifices there as the Iews which are now in dispersion are everywhere without their sacrifices They were to rise but not to stay Arise and depart And they were to depart both from their Imaginary comforts which they had framed and proposed to themselves when they were fallen from God they should be deceived in their trust in themselves and they were to depart even with the law and ordinances in which their preheminence and prerogative above all nations consisted when Man comes to be content with this world God will take this world from him when Man frames to himselfe imaginary pleasures God will inflict reall punishments when he would lie still he shall not sleep but God will take him and raise him but to a farther vexation And this vexation hath another heavy weight upon it in this little word for for this drawes a Curtain between the face of God and them this locks a dore between the Court of mercy and them when God presents his judgements with such an assurednesse such a resolution as leaves no hope in their heart that God will alter it no power in themselves to solicite God to a pardon or a reprieve but as he was led as a foole to the stocks when he hearkened to pleasant sins before so he is led as an oxe to the slaughters when he hears of Gods Judgements now his own Conscience prevents God and tels him there is a for a reason a necessity an irrecoverablenesse in his condemnation God had iterated and multiplied this Quia this for oftentimes in their ears This Prophet was no upstart no sodain no transitory Man to passe through the streets with a Vae Vae Wo wo unto this City and no more but he prophecied constantly during the reign of three Kings of Iotham Ahaz and Hezekiah He was no suspitious Man out of his singularity but he prophecied jointly with Isaiah without separation and he held the communion of his fellow-Prophets He was no particular man as many Interpreters have taken it so as that he addressed his prophecies upon Iudah onely but he extended it to all to all the Tribes It is not a prophecy limited to Idolatry and the sins against the first Table but to robbery and murder and fornication and oppression and the sins between Man and Man It is not a timorous prophecy directed onely to persons whom a low fortune and a miserable estate or a sense of sin and a wounded Conscience had depress'd and dejected but principally bent upon rulers and Magistrates and great persons So that no Man hath a Quia against this Quia a for against this for to say we need not heed him for he is an upstart a singular person and all these his threatnings are rather Satyricall then Propheticall or Theologicall but this thunderbolt this Quia this reason why these judgements must necessarily fall upon them fell upon them with so much violence as that it stupefied with the weight and precluded all wayes of escape These be the heaviest Texts that a Man can light upon in the Scriptures of God and these be the heaviest Commentaries that a Man can make upon these Texts that when God wakens him and raises him from his dream and bed of sin and pleasure and raises him with the voice of his judgements he suffers him to read to the Quia but not to come to the Tamen He comes to see reason why that Judgement must fall but not to see any remedy His inordinate Melancholy and halfe desperate sadnesse carries his eye and mind upon a hundred places of Commination of threatning in the Prophets and in them all he finds quickly that Quia This curse must fall upon me for I am faln into it but he comes not to the Tamen to that reliefe yet turn to the Lord and he will turne to thee This was a particular step in their misery that when they were awaked and risen that is taken away from all tast and comfort in their own imaginations and pleasures when God was ready to give fire to all that artillery which he had charged against them in the service of all the Prophets they could see no refuge no sanctuary nothing but a quia an irresistiblenesse an irremediablenesse a necessity of perishing a great while there was no such thing as Judgement God cannot see us Now there is no such thing as Mercy God will not see us What then is this heavy Judgement that is threatned â— It is the deprivation of Rest. Though there be no war no pestilence no new positive calamity yet privative calamities are heavy Judgements to lose that Gospell that Religion which they had is a heavy losse Deprivations are heavy Calamities and here they are deprived of Rest Here is not your Rest Now besides that betwixt us and heaven there is nothing that rests all the Elements all the planets all the spheres are in perpetuall motion and vicisitude and so the Joyes of heaven are express'd unto us in that name of Rest Certainly this blessing of Rest was more pretious more acceptable to the Jewes then to any other Nation and so they more sensible of the losse of it then any other For as Gods first promise and the often ratification of it had ever accustom'd them to a longing for that promis'd rest as their long and laborious peregrinations had made them ambitious and hungry of that Rest so had they which no other Nation had but they a particular feast of a Sabhath appointed for them both for a â—â—all cessation and rest from bodily labours and for a figurative expressing of the eternall Rest their imagination their understanding their faith was fill'd with this apprehension of Rest. When the contentment and satisfaction which God took in 〈◊〉 sacrifice after he came out of the Ark is express'd it is express'd thus The Lord 〈◊〉 a savor of Rest our services to God are a Rest to him he rests in our devotions And when the Idolatrous service and forbidden sacrifices of the people are expressed they are expressed thus When I had brought them into the Land Poâ—uâ—runt ibi â—dorem quieturn suarum they placed there the sweet savors of their own Rest not of Gods Rest his true Religion but their own Rest a Religion which they for collaterll respects rested in And therefore when God threatens here that there shall be no rest that is none of his rest he would take from them their Law their Sacrifices their Religion in which he was pleas'd and rested gratious towards them he will change their Religion And when he sayes Here is not your Rest he threatens to take from them that Rest that Peace that Quiet which they had propos'd and imagin'd to themselves when they say to themselves Why 't is no great matter we may doe well enough for all that though our Religion be chang'd he will impoverish them he will
thee in directing body and soul to thy glory and when thou shalt be pleased to take us in pieces by death receive our souls to thee and lay up our bodies for thee in consecrated ground and in a Christian buryall And lastly thine arrows were followed and pressed with the hand of God The hand of God pressed upon thee in that eternall decree in that irrevocable contract between thy Father and thee in that Oportuit pati That all that thou must suffer and so enter into our glory Establish us O Lord in all occasions of diffidences here and when thy hand presses our arrows upon us enable us to see that that very hand hath from all eternity written and written in thine own blood a decree of the issue as well and as soon as of the tentation In which confidence of which decree as men in the virtue thereof already in possession of heaven we joyn with that Quire in that service in that Anthem Blessing and glory and wisdome and thanksgiving and honour and power and might be unto our God for ever and ever Amen SERMON XX. Preached at Lincolns Inne PSAL. 38. 3. There is no soundnesse in my flesh because of thine anger neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sinne IN that which is often reported to you out of Saint Hierome Titulus clavis that the title of the Psalme is the key of the Psalm there is this good use That the book of Psalms is a mysterious book and if we had not a lock every man would thrust in and if we had not a key we could not get in our selves Our lock is the analogy of the Christian faith That wee admit no other sense of any place in any Psalm then may consist with the articles of the Christian faith for so no Heretique no Schismatique shall get in by any countenance of any place in the Psalms and then our key is that intimation which we receive in the title of the Psalm what duty that Psalm is principally directed upon and so we get into the understanding of the Psalm and profiting by the Psalm Our key in this Psalm given us in the title thereof is that it is Psalmus ad Recordationem a Psalm of Remembrance The faculty that is awakened here is our Memory That plurall word nos which was used by God in the making of Man when God said Faciamus Let us us make man according to our image as it intimates a plurality a concurrence of all the Trinity in our making so doth it also a plurality in that image of God which was then imprinted in us As God one God created us so wee have a soul one soul that represents and is some image of that one God As the three Persons of the Trinity created us so we have in our one soul a threefold impression of that image and as Saint Bernard calls it A trinity from the Trinity in those three faculties of the soul the Vnderstanding the Will and the Memory God calls often upon the first faculty O that this people would but understand But understand Inscrutabiliâ— judicia tua Thy judgements are unsearchable and thy ways past finding out And oh that this people would not goe about to understand those unreveâ—led decrees and secrets of God God calls often upon the other faculty the Will too and complaines of the stiffe perversnesse and opposition of that Through all the Prophets runs that charge Noluerunt and Noluerunt they would not they refused me Noluerunâ— audire says God in Esay They are rebellious children that will not hear Domus Israel noluit says God to Ezekiel The house of Israel will not hear thee not Thee not the minister That 's no marvail it is added by God there Noluit me they will not hear me Noluerunt erubescere says God to Ieremy They will not be ashamed of their former ways And therefore Noluerunt reverti They will not return to better ways Hee that is past shame of sin is past recovery from sin So Christ continues that practise and that complaint in the Gospel too He sends forth his servants us to call them that were bidden Et noluerunt venire and they would not come upon their call Hee comes himself and would gather them as hen her chickens and they would not Their fault is not laid in this that they had no such faculty as a will for then their not coming were not their fault but that they perverted that will Of our perversenesse in both faculties understanding and will God may complain but as much of our memory for for the rectifying of the will the understanding must be rectified and that implies great difficulty But the memory is so familiar and so present and so ready a faculty as will always answer if we will but speak to it and aske it what God hath done for us or for others The art of salvation is but the art of memory When God gave his people the Law he proposes nothing to them but by that way to their memory I am the Lord your God which brought you out of the land of Egypt Remember but that And when we expresse Gods mercy to us we attribute but that faculty to God that he remembers us Lord what is man that thou art mindfull of him And when God works so upon us as that He makes his wonderfull works to be had in remembrance it is as great a mercy as the very doing of those wonderfull works was before It was a seal upon a seal a seal of confirmation it was a sacrament upon a sacrament when in instituting the sacrament of his body and his bloud Christ presented it so Doe this in remembrance of me Memorare novissima remember the last things and fear will keep thee from sinning Memorare praeterita remember the first things what God hath done for thee and love love which mis-placed hath transported thee upon many sins love will keep thee from sinning Plato plac'd all learning in the memory wee may place all Religion in the memory too All knowledge that seems new to day sayes Plato is but a remembring of that which your soul knew before All instruction which we can give you to day is but the remembring you of the mercies of God which have been new every morning Nay he that hears no Sermons he that reads no Scriptures hath the Bible without book He hath a Genesis in his memory he cannot forget his Creation he hath an Exodus in his memory he cannot forget that God hath delivered him from some kind of Egypt from some oppression He hath a Leviticus in his memory hee cannot forget that God hath proposed to him some Law some rules to be observed He hath all in his memory even to the Revelation God hath revealed to him even at midnight alone what shall be his portion in the next world And if he dare but remember that nights communication
the strength of that Grace which God gave me heretofore But as God infuseth a Soul into every man and that Soul elicites a new Act in it self before that man produce any action so God infuses a particular Grace into every good work of mine and so prevents me before I co-operate with him For as Nature in her highest exaltation in the best Morall man that is cannot flow into Grace Nature cannot become Grace so neither doth former Grace flow into future Grace but I need a distinct influence of God a particular Grace for every good work I do for every good word I speak for every good thought I conceive When God gives me accesse into his Library leave to consider his proceedings with man I find the first book of Gods making to be the Book of Life The Book where all their names are written that are elect to Glory But I find no such Book of Death All that are not written in the Book of Life are certainly the sonnes of Death To be pretermitted there there to be left out wraps them up at least leaves them wrapt up in death But God hath not wrought so positively nor in so primary a consideration in a book of Death as in the Book of Life As the aftertimes made a Book of Wisdome out of the Proverbs of Salomon and out of his Ecclesiastes but yet it is not the same Book nor of the same certainty so there is a Book of Life â—ere but that is not the same book that is in Heaven nor of the same certainty For in this Book of Life which is the Declaration and Testimony which the Church gives of our Election by those marks of the Elect which she seeth in the Scriptures and believeth that she seeth in us a man may be Blotted out of the Book of the living as David speaketh and as it is added there Not written with the Righteous Intimating that in some cases and in some Book of Life a man may have been written in and blotted out and written in again The Book of Life in the Church The Testimony of our Election here admits such expunctions and such redintegrations but Gods first Book his Book of Mercy for this Book in the Church is but his Book of Evidence is inviolable in it self and all the names of that Book indelible In Gods first Book the Book of Life Mercy hath so much a precedency and primogeniture as that there is nothing in it but Mercy In Gods other Book his Book of Scripture in which he is put often to denounce judgements as well as to exhibite mercies still the Tide sets that way still the Biass leads on that hand still his method directs us ad Primogenitum to his first-born to his Mercy So he began in that Book He made man to his Image and then he blest him Here is no malediction no intermination mingled in Gods first Act in Gods first purpose upon man In Paradise there is That if he eat the forbidden fruit if he will not forbear that that one Tree He shall die But God begins not there before that he had said of every tree in the Garden thou maist freely eat neither is there more vehemency in the punishment then in the libertie For as in the punishment there is an ingemination Morte morieris Dying thou shalt die that is thou shalt surely die so in the liberty there was an ingemination too Comedendo comedes Eating thou shalt eat that is thou maist freely eat In Deut. we have a fearfull Chapter of Maledictions but all the former parts of that Chapter are blessings in the same kind And he that reads that Chapter will beginne at the beginning and meet Gods first-born his Mercy first And in those very many places of that Book where God divides the condition If you obey you shall live if you rebell you shall die still the better Act and the better condition and the better reward is placed in the first place that God might give us possession In jure Primogeniti in the right of his first-born his mercy And where God pursues the same method and first dilates himself and expatiates in the way of mercy I will beat down his foes before his face and plague them that hate him when after that he is brought to say If his children forsake my Law I will visit their transgression with the rod where first he puts it off for one Generation from himself to his Children which was one Mercy And then he puts it upon a forsaking an Apostasie and not upon every sinne of infirmity which was another Mercy when it comes to a correction it is but a milde correction with the râ—d And in that he promises to visite them to manifest himself and his purpose to them in the correction all which are higher and higher degrees of Mercy yet because there is a spark of anger a tincture of judgement mingled in it God remembers his first-born his Mercy and returns where he begun Neverthelesse my Covenant will I not break nor alter the things that is gone out of my lips once have I sworn by my Holinesse that I will not lie unto David There are elder pictures in the world of Water then there are any of oyl but those of oyl have got above them and shall outlive them Water is a frequent embleme of Affliction in the Scriptures and so is oyl of Mercy If at any time in any place of Scripture God seemed to begin with water with a judgement yet the oyl will get to the top in that very judgement you may see that God had first a mercifull purpose in inflicting that medicinall judgement for his mercy is his first-born His Mercy is new every morning saith the Prophet not onely every day but as soon as it is day Trace God in thy self and thou shalt find it so If thou beest drowzie now and unattentive curious or contentious or quarrelsome now now God leaves thee in that indisposition and that is a judgement But it was his Mercy that brought thee hither before In every sinne thou hast some remorse some reluctation before thou do that sinne and that pre-reluctation and pre-remorse was Mercy If thou hadst no such remorse in thy last sinne before the sinne and hast it now this is the effect of Gods former mercy and former good purpose upon thee to let thee see that thou needest the assistance of his Minister and of his Ordinance to enable thee to lay hold on Mercy when it is offered thee Can any calamity fall upon thee in which thou shalt not be bound to say I have had blessings in a greater measure then this If thou have had losses yet thou hast more out of which God took that If all be lost perchance thou art but where thou begunst at first at nothing If thou begunst upon a good heighth and beest fallen from that and fallen low yet as God
plurall too And againe in that declaration of his Justice in the confusion of the builders of Babel Descendamus confundamus Let us doe it And then lastly in that great worke of mingling mercy with justice which if we may so speake is Gods master-peece when he says Quis ex nobis who will goe for us and publish this In these places and these onely and not all these neither if we take it exactly according to the originall for in the Second the making of Eve though the Vulgat have it in the plurall it is indeed but singular in the Hebrew God speakes as a King in his royall plurall still And when it is but so Reverenter pensandum est says that Father it behoves us to hearken reverently to him for Kings are Images of God such Images of God as have eares and can heare and hands and can strike But I would aske no more premeditation at your hands when you come to speake to God in this place then if you sued to speake with the King no more fear of God here then if you went to the King under the conscience of a guiltinesse towards him and a knowledge that he knew it And that 's your case here Sinners and manifest sinners For even midnight is noone in the sight of God and when your candles are put out his Sunne shines still Nec quid absconditum à calcre ejus says David there is nothing hid from the heate thereof not onely no sinne hid from the light thereof from the sight of God but not from the heate therof not from the wrath indignation of God If God speak plurally onely in the Majesty of a soveraign Prince still Reverenter pensandum that calls for reverence What reverence There are nationall differences in outward worships and reverences Some worship Princes and Parents and Masters in one some in another fashion Children kneele to aske blessing of Parents in England but where else Servants attend not with the same reverence upon Masters in other nations as with us Accesses to their Princes are not with the same difficulty nor the same solemnity in France as in Turkey But this rule goes thorough all nations that in that disposition and posture and action of the body which in that place is esteemed most humble and reverend God is to be worshipped Doe so then here God is your Father aske blessing upon your knees pray in that posture God is your King worship him with that worship which is highest in our use and estimation We have no Grandees that stand covered to the King where there are such though they stand covered in the Kings presence they doe not speake to him for matters of Grace they doe not sue to him so ancient Canons make differences of Persons in the presence of God where and how these and these shall dispose of themselves in the Church dignity and age and infirmity will induce differences But for prayer there is no difference one humiliation is required of all As when the King comes in here howsoever they sate diversly before all returne to one manner of expressing their acknowledgement of his presence So at the Oremus Let us pray let us all fall down and worship and kneel before the Lord our maker So he speakes in our text not onely as the Lord our King intimating his providence and administration but as the Lord our maker and then a maker so as that he made us in a councell Faciamus Let us and that that he speakes as in councell is another argument for reverence For what interest or freedome soever I have by his favour with any Counseller of State yet I should surely use another manner of behaviour towards him at the Councell Table then at his owne Table So does there belong another manner of consideration to this plurality in God to this meeting in Councell to this intimation of a Trinity then to those other actions in which God is presented to us singly as one God for so he is presented to the naturall man as well as to us And here enters the necessity of this knowledge Oportet denuo nasci without a second birth no salvation And no second birth without Baptisme no Baptisme but in the name of Father Sonne and holy Ghost It was the entertainment of God himselfe his delight his contemplation for those infinite millions of generations when he was without a world without Creatures to joy in one another in the Trinity as Gregory Nazianz a Poet as well as a Father as most of the Fathers were expresses it ille suae splendorem cernere formae Gaudebat It was the Fathers delight to looke upon himselfe in the Sonne Numenque suum triplicique parique Luce nitens and to see the whole Godhead in a threefold and an equall glory It was Gods owne delight and it must be the delight of every Christian upon particular occasions to carry his thoughts upon the severall persons of the Trinity If I have a bar of Iron that bar in that forme will not naile a doore If a Sow of Lead that Lead in that forme will not stop a leake If a wedge of Gold that wedge will not buy my bread The generall notion of a mighty God may lesse fit my particular purposes But I coine my gold into currant money when I apprehend God in the severall notions of the Trinity That if I have been a prodigall Sonne I have a Father in heaven and can goe to him and say Father I have sinned and be received by him That if I be a decayed Father and need the sustentation of mine own children there is a Sonne in heaven that will doe more for me then mine own of what good meanes or what good nature so ever they be can or will doe If I be dejected in spirit there is a holy Spirit in heaven which shall beare witnesse to my spirit that I am the child of God And if the ghosts of those sinners whom I made sinners haunt me after their deaths in returning to my memory and reproaching to my conscience the heavy judgements that I have brought upon them If after the death of mine own sinne when my appetite is dead to some particular sinne the memory and sinfull delight of passed sinnes the ghosts of those sinnes haunt me againe yet there is a holy Ghost in heaven that shall exorcise these and shall overshadow me the God of all Comfort and Consolation God is the God of the whole world in the generall notion as he is so God but he is my God most especially and most applyably as he receives me in the severall notions of Father Sonne and holy Ghost This is our East here we see God God in all the persons consulting concurring to the making of us But then my West presents it selfe that is an occasion to humble me in the next words He makes but Man A man that is but Adam but Earth
them all Grieve not the holy Ghost whereby you are sealed unto the day of Redemption says the Apostle they were sealed and yet might resist the Spirit and grieve the Spirit and quench the Spirit if by a continuall watchfulnesse over their particular actions they did not refresh those seales formerly received in their Creation in Christs incarnation in their Baptisme and in their beginnings of faith to themselves and plead them to the Church and to the world by such a declaration of a holy life But these seales being so many and so univesall that argues still that which we especially seek to establish that is the Accessiblenesse the communicablenesse the sociablenesse the affection shall I say the Ambition that God hath to have us all Now how is this extensivenesse declared here in our text It is declared in the great number of those who were sealed both before and after to the consideration of both which we are invited by this phrase which beginnes the text After this for before that Iohn saw this there were one hundred forty foure thousand sealed Is that then that one hundred forty foure thousand intended for a small number If it had been so it would rather have been said of such a Tribe but twelve thousand and but twelve thousand of such a Tribe but God as expressing a joy that there were so many repeats his number of twelve thousand twelve times over of Iuda twelve thousand of Levi twelve thousand and twelve thousand of every Tribe So that then we may justly take this number of twelve and twelve thousand for an indefinite and uncertain number and as Saint Augustine does wheresoever he finds that number of twelve as the twelve Thrones where the Saints shall judge the world and divers such we may take that number of twelve and twelve pro universitate salvandorum that that number signifies all those who shall be saved If we should take the number to be a certaine and exact number so many and no more yet this number hath relation to the Iews onely And of the Iews it is true that there is so long a time of their exclusion so few of them doe come in since Christ came into the world as that we may with Saint Augustine interpret that place of Genesis where Abrahams seed is compared both to the Starres of heaven and to the dust of the earth that the Stars of heaven signifie those that shall be saved in heaven and the dust of the earth those that perish and the dust of the earth may be more then the Stars of heaven though by the way there are an infinite number of Stars more then we can distinguish and so by Gods grace there may be an infinite number of soules saved more then those of whose salvation we discerne the ways and the meanes Let us embrace the way which God hath given us which is the knowledge of his Sonne Christ Iesus what other way God may take with others how he wtought upon Iob and Naaman and such others as were not in the Covenant let us not inquire too curiously determine too peremptorily pronounce too uncharitably God be blessed for his declaring his good-wil towards us his will be done his way upon others Truly even those places which are ordinarily understood of the paâ—city of the Iews that shall be saved will receive a charitable interpretation and extension God says in Ieremy I will take you one out of a City two out of a family yet he says he wil do this therefore because he is married to them so that this seems to be an act of his love And therefore I had rather take it that God would take a particular care of them one by one then that he would take in but one and one As it is in that place of Esay In that day ye shall be gathered one by one o yee children of Israel that is in the day of Christ of his comming to and toward Judgement Howsoever they come in but thinly yet by the way yet the Apostle pleads in their behalfe thus Hath God cast away his people God forbid At this present says he there is a Remnant then when they had newly crucified Christ God had a care of them God hath given them the spirit of slumber says he also it is but a slumber not a death not a dead sleep Have they stumbled that they should fall Fall utterly God forbid But says he as concerning the Gospell they are enemies for your sakes that is that room might be made for you the Gentiles but as touching election they are beloved for their Fathers sakes that is they have interest by an ancient title which God will never disannull And therefore a great part of the ancient and later men too doe interpret divers passages of Saint Paul of a generall salvation of the Iews that all shall be effectually wrought upon to salvation before the second comming of Christ. I end this concerning the Iews with this note that in all these Tribes which yeelded to this sealing twelve thousand a peece the Tribe of Dan is left out it is not said that any were sealed of the Tribe of Dan many have enquired the reason and satisfied themselves over easily with this that because Antichrist was to come of that Tribe that Tribe is forsaken It is true that very many of the Fathers Irenaeus Ambrose Augustine Gregory and more then these have thought so that Antichrist must be of that Tribe but yet for all that profession which they make in the Roman Church of adhering to the Fathers one amongst them says Incertum be the Fathers as clear and as unanimous as they will in it it is a very uncertain a very disputable thing and another says fabulosum est be the Fathers as earnest as they will it is but a poeticall and a fabulous thing that Antichrist must come of the Tribe of Dan. But he that hath most of the workes of Antichrist upon him of any person in the world now is thus far of the Tribe of Dan Dan signifies Iudgement And he will needs be the Judge of all faith and of all actions too and so severe a Judge as to give an irrevocable Judgement of Damnation upon all that agree not with them in all points Certainly this Tribe of Dan that is of such uncharitable Judges of all other men that will afford no salvation to any but themselves are in the greatest danger to be left out at this generall seale nothing hinders our own salvation more then to deny salvation to all but our selves This then which was done before though it concerne but the Iews was in a great number and was a great argument of Gods sociable application of himselfe to man but that which was after was more A great multitude which no man could number of all nations c. Gods mercy was not confined nor determined upon the Iews
And at the judgement you shall stand but stand at the barre But when you stand before the Throne you stand as it is also added in this place before the Lamb who having not opened his mouth to save his owne fleece when he was in the shearers hand nor to save his own life when he was in the slaughterers hand will much lesse open his mouth to any repentant sinners condemnation or upbrayd you with your former crucifyings of him in this world after he hath nailed those sinnes to that crosse to which those sinnes nayled him You shall stand amicti stolis for so it follows covered with Robes that is covered all over not with Adams fragmentary raggs of fig-leafes nor with the halfe-garments of Davids servants Though you have often offered God halfe-confessions and halfe-repentances yet if you come at last to stand before the Lambe his fleece covers all hee shall not cover the sinnes of your youth and leave the sinnes of your age open to his justice nor cover your sinfull actions and leave your sinfull words and thoughts open to justice nor cover your own personall sinnes and leave the sinnes of your Fathers before you or the sinnes of others whose sins your tentations produced and begot open to justice but as he hath enwrapped the whole world in one garment the firmament so cloathed that part of the earth which is under our feet as gloriously as this which we live and build upon so those sinnes which we have hidden from the world and from our own consciences and utterly forgotten either his grace shall enable us to recollect and to repent in particular or we having used that holy diligence to examine our consciences so he shall wrap up even those sinnes which we have forgot and cover all with that garment of his own righteousnesse which leaves no foulnesse no nakednesse open You shall be covered with Robes All over and with white Robes That as the Angels wondred at Christ coming into heaven in his Ascension Wherefore art thou red in thine Apparell and thy garments like him that treadeth the wine fat They wondred how innocence it selfe should become red so shall those Angels wonder at thy coming thither and say Wherefore art thou white in thine apparell they shall wonder how sinne it selfe shall be clothed in innocence And in thy hand shall be a palm which is the last of the endowments specifyed here After the waters of bitternesse they came to seventy to innumerable palmes even the bitter waters were sweetned with another wood cast in The wood of the Crosse of Christ Jesus refreshes all teares and sweetnes all bitternesse even in this life but after these bitter waters which God shall wipe from all our eies we come to the seventy to the seventy thousand palms infinite seales infinite testimonies infinite extensions infinite durations of infinite glory Go in beloved and raise your own contemplations to a height worthy of this glory and chide me for so lame an expressing of so perfect a state and when the abundant spirit of God hath given you some measure of conceiving that glory here Almighty God give you and me and all a reall expressing of it by making us actuall possessors of that Kingdome which his Sonne our Saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood Amen SERMON XXXIII Preached at Denmark house some few days before the body of King Iames was removed from thence to his buriall Apr. 26. 1625. CANT 3. 11. Goe forth ye Daughters of Sion and behold King Solomon with the Crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals and in the day of the gladnesse of his heart IN the Creation of man in that one word Faciamus let Vs make man God gave such an intimation of the Trinity as that we may well enlarge and spread and paraphrase that one word so farre as to heare therein a councell of all the three Persons agreeing in this gracious designe upon Man faciamus let us make him make and him mend him and make him sure I the Father will make him by my power if he should fall Thou the Sonne shalt repayr him re-edify him redeem him if he should distrust that this Redemption belonged not to him Thou the Holy Ghost shalt apply to his particular soule and conscience this mercy of mine and this merit of the Sonnes and so let us make him In our Text there is an intimation of another Trinity The words are spoken but by one but the persons in the text are Three For first The speaker the Director of all is the Church the spouse of Christ she says Goe forth ye daughters of Sion And then the persons that are called up are as you see The Daughters of Sion the obedient children of the Church that hearken to her voice And then lastly the persons upon whom they are directed is Solomon crowned That is Christ invested with the royall dignity of being Head of the Church And in this especially is this applyable to the occasion of our present meeting All our meetings now are to confesse to the glory of God and the rectifying of our own consciences and manners the uncertainty of the prosperity and the assurednesse of the adversity of this world That this Crown of Solomons in the text will appear to be Christs crown of Thornes his Humiliation his Passion and so these words will dismisse us in this blessed consolation That then we are nearest to our crown of Glory when we are in tribulation in this world and then enter into full possession of it when we come to our dissolution and transmigration out of this world And these three persons The Church that calls The children that hearken and Christ in his Humiliation to whom they are sent will be the three parts in which we shall determine this Exercise First then the person that directs us is The Church no man hath seen God and lives but no man lives till he have heard God for God spake to him in his Baptisme and called him by his name then Now as it were a contempt in the Kings house for any servant to refuse any thing except he might heare the King in person command it when the King hath already so established the government of his house as that his commandements are to be signifyed by his great Officers so neither are we to look that God should speak to us mouth to mouth spirit to spirit by Inspiration by Revelation for it is a large mercy that he hath constituted an Office and established a Church in which we should heare him When Christ was baptized by Iohn it is sayd by all those three Evangelists that report that story in particular circumstances that there was a voice heard from heaven saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased and it is not added in any of those three
all the rich attire that can be put upon it And howsoever the rich man that is invested in Power and Greatnesse may be a better picture of God of God considered in himself who is all Greatnes all Power yet of God considered in Christ which is the contemplation that concerns us most the poor man is the better picture and most resembles Christ who liv'd in continual poverty And so he that oppresses the poor reproaches God God in his Orphans God in his Picture Saint Augustine carries this consideration farther then that the poore is more immediately Gods Orphan and more perfectly his picture That he is more properly a member of himself of his body For contemplating that head which was not so much crowned as hedged with thorns that head of which he whose it was sayes The Sonne of man hath not where to lay his head Saint Augustine sayes Ecce caput Panperum Behold that head to which the poore make up the body Ob eam tantùm causam venerabiles sayes that Father Therefore venerable therefore honourable because they are members sutable to that head And so all that place where the Apostle sayes That upon those members of the body which we think to be lesse honourable we bestow most honour that Father applies to the poore that therefore most respect and honour should be given to them because the poore are more sutable members to their head Christ Jesus then the rich are And so also he that oppresses the poore reproaches God God in his Orphans God in his Image God in the Members of his owne body Saint Chrysostome carries this consideration farther then this of Saint Augustine That whereas every creature hath filiationem vestigii that because God hath imparted a being an essence from himselfe who is the roote and the fountaine of all essence and all being therefore every creature hath a filiation from God and is the Sonne of God so as we read in Iob God is the father of the raine and whereas every man hath filiationem imaginis as well Pagan as Christian hath the Image of God imprinted in his soule and so hath a filiation from God and is the Sonne of God as he is made in his likenesse and whereas every Christian hath filiationem Pacti by being taken into the Covenant made by God with the Elect and with their seed he hath a filiation from God and is the Sonne of God as he is incorporated into his Sonne Christ Jesus by the Seals of the Christian Church besides these filiations of being in all creatures of the Image in all men of the Covenant in all Christians The poore sayes that Father are not onely filii but Haeredes and Primogeniti Sonnes and eldest Sonnes Sonnes and Sonnes and Heires And to that purpose he makes use of those words in St. Iames Hearken my beloved brethren hath not God chosen the poore of this world rich in faith and Heirs of that Kingdome Heirs for Ipsorum est sayes Christ himself Theirs is the Kingdome of heaven And upon those words of Christ Saint Chrysostome comments thus Divites ejus regnitantum habent quantum à pauperibus eleemosynis coemerunt The rich have no more of that Kingdome of heaven then they have purchased of the poore by their almes and other erogations to pious uses And so he that oppresses the poore reproaches God God in his Orphans God in his Image God in the Members of his own Body God in his Sonnes and Heires of his Kingdome But then Christ himself carries his consideration beyond all these resemblances and conformities not to a proximity onely but to an identity The poore are He. In as much as you did it unto these you did it unto me and In as much as you did it not unto these you did it not unto me And after his ascension and establishing in glory still he avowed them not onely to be his but to be He Saul Saul why persecutest thou me The poore are He He is the poore And so he that oppresseth the poore reproaches God God in his Orphans God in his Image God in the Members of his owne Body God in the Heirs of his Kingdome God in himself in his own person And so we have done with all those peeces which constitute our first part the hainousnesse of the fault in the elegancy of the words chosen by the holy Ghost in which you have seen The fault it self Oppression and the qualification thereof by the marks Violence Deceit and Scorne And then the specification of the persons The poore as he is the Ebâ—onite the very vocall begger and as the word is Dalal a decayed an aged a sickly man And in that branch you have also had that Probleme Whether aemulation of higher or oppression of lower be the greater sinne And then the aggravation of this sinne in those weights That it is a reproach a reproach of God of God as The Maker as His Maker whom he oppresses and as his own Maker And lastly in what respects especially this increpation is laid upon him And farther we have no occasion to carry that first part the fault In passing from that first part the fault to the duty and the celebration thereof in those words of choice elegancy He that hath mercy on the poore honours God though we be to looke upon the persons the poore and the act shewing mercy to the poore and the benefit honouring of God yet of the persons who are still the same poore poore made poore by God rather then by themselves more needs not be said then hath been said already And of the act showing of mercy to the poore onely thus much more needs be said that the word in which the holy Ghost expresses this act here is the very same word in which he expresses the free mercy of God himself Miserebor cujus miserebor I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy So that God hath made the charitable man partaker with himself in his own greatest attribute his power of showing mercy And then left any man should thinke that he had no interest in this great dignity that God had given him no meanes to partake of this attribute of God this power of shewing mercy to the poor because he had left him poor too and given him nothing to give the same word which the holy Ghost uses in this text and in Exodus for mercy which is Canan he uses in other places particularly in the dedication of the Temple for prayer So that he who being destitute of other meanes to relieve the poore prayes for the poore is thereby made partaker of this great attribute of Gods this power of showing mercy He hath showed mercy to the poore if having nothing to give he have given mild and confortable words and have prayed to his abundant and inexhaustible God to relieve that poor
Oppresse not that soule by violence by Fraud nor by Scorne which was the other signification of this word Oppression Hoc nos perdit quod divina quoque eloquia in facetias in dicteria vertamus Damnation is a serious thing and this aggravates it that we slight and make jests at that which should save us the Scriptures and the Ordinances of God For by this oppression of thy poore soule by this Violence this Fraud this Scorne thou wilt come to Reproach thy Maker to impute that losse of thy soule which thou hast incurred by often breach of Lawes evidently manifested to thee to his secret purpose and un-revealed will then which thou canst not put a greater Reproach a greater Contumely a greater Blasphemy upon God For God cannot bee God if hee bee not innocent nor innocent if hee draw bloud of mee for his owne Act. But if thou show mercy to this soule mercy in that signification of the word as it denotes an actuall performance of those things that are necessary for the making sure of thy salvation or if thou canst not yet attaine to those degrees of Sanctification mercy in that signification of the word as the word denotes hearty and earnest Prayer that thou couldest Lord I beleeve Lord help mine unbeliefe Lord I stand yet yet Lord raise mee when I fall Honorabis Deum thou shalt honour God in the sense of the word in this Text thou shalt enlarge God amplifie dilate God that is the Body of God the Church both here and hereafter For thou shalt adde a figure to the number of his Saints and there shall bee a Saint the more for thee Thou shalt adde a Theme of Joy to the Exultation of the Angels They shall have one occasion of rejoycing the more from thee Thou shalt adde a pause a stop to that Vsquequo of the Martyrs under the Altar who solicite God for the Resurrection for Thou shalt adde a step to the Resurrection it selfe by having brought it so much nearer as to have done thy part for the filling up of the number of the Saints upon which fulnesse the Resurrection shall follow And thou shalt adde a Voyce to that Old and ever-new Song that Catholique Hymne in which both Churches Militant and Triumphant shall joyne Blessing Honour Glory and Power bee unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lambe for ever and ever Amen SERMON XLIII A Sermon upon the fist of Novemb. 1622. being the Anniversary celebration of our Deliverance from the Powder Treason Intended for Pauls Crosse but by reason of the weather Preached in the Church LAMENT 4. 20. The breath of our nostrils the Anointed of the Lord was taken in their pits The Prayer before the Sermon O LORD open thou my lips and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise for thou O Lord didst make haste to help us Thou O Lord didst make speed to save us Thou that sittest in heaven didst not onely looke down to see what was done upon the Earth but what was done in the Earth and when the bowels of the Earth were with a key of fire ready to open and swallow us the bowels of thy compassion were with a key of love opened to succour us This is the day and these are the houres wherein that should have been acted In this our Day and in these houres We praise thee O God we acknowledge thee to bee the Lord All our Earth doth worship thee The holy Church throughout all this Land doth knowledge thee with commemorations of that great mercy now in these houres Now in these houres it is thus commemorated in the Kings House where the Head and Members praise thee Thus in that place where it should have been perpetrated where the Reverend Judges of the Land doe now praise thee Thus in the Universities where the tender youth of this Land is brought up to praise thee in a detestation of their Doctrines that plotted this Thus it is commemorated in many severall Societies in many severall Parishes and thus here in this Mother Church in this great Congregation of thy Children where all of all sorts from the Lievtenant of thy Lievtenant to the meanest sonne of thy sonne in this Assembly come with hearts and lippes full of thankesgiving Thou Lord openest their lippes that their mouth may shew forth thy prayse for Thou O Lord diddest make haste to helpe them Thou diddest make speede to save them Accept O Lord this Sacrifice to which thy Spirit giveth fire This of Praise for thy great Mercies already afforded to us and this of Prayer for the continuance and enlargement of them upon the Catholick Church by them who pretend themselves the onely sonnes thereof dishonoured this Day upon these Churches of England Scotland and Ireland shaked and threatned dangerously this Day upon thy servant our Soveraigne for his Defence of the true Faith designed to ruine this day upon the Prince and others derived from the same roote some but Infants some not yet Infants enwrapped in dust and annihilation this day upon all the deliberations of the Counsell That in all their Consultations they may have before their eyes the Record and Registers of this Day upon all the Clergie That all their Preaching and their Governement may preclude in their severall Iurisdictions all re-entrances of that Religion which by the Confession of the Actours themselves was the onely ground of the Treason of this day upon the whole Nobilitie and Commons all involved in one Common Destruction this Day upon both our Universities which though they lacke no Arguments out of thy Word against the Enemies of thy Truth shall never leave out this Argument out of thy Works The Historie of this Day And upon all those who are any wayes afflicted That our afflictions bee not multiplyed upon us by seeing them multiplyed amongst us who would have diminished thee and annihilated us this Day And lastly upon this Auditory assembled here That till they turne to ashes in the Grave they may remember that thou tookest them as fire-brands out of the fire this Day Heare us O Lord and hearken to us Receive our Prayers and returne them with Effect for his sake in whose Name and words wee make them Our Father which art c. The SERMON OF the Authour of this Booke I thinke there was never doubt made but yet that is scarce safely done which the Councell of Trent doth in that Canon which numbers the Books of Canonicall Scriptures to leave out this Book of Lamentations For though I make no doubt but that they had a purpose to comprehend and involve it in the name of Ieremy yet that was not enough for so they might have comprehended and involved Genesis and Deuteronomie and all between those two in one name of Moses and so they might have comprehended and involved the Apocalypse and some Epistles in the name of Iohn and have left out the Book it selfe in the number But one of their
scandall which Christ found in these Disciples of Iohn and which wee have noted in their progeny and off-spring but goe on to the fourth The way that Christ took to devest them thereof by calling them to the contemplation of his works Consider what you have seen done The blinde see The lame goe The deafe hear and then you will not endanger your blessednesse by being offended in me The evidence that Christ produces and presses is good works for if a man offer me the roote of a tree to taste I cannot say this is such a Pear or Apple or Plum but if I see the fruit I can If a man pretend Faith to me I must say to him with Saint Iames Can his Faith save him such a Faith as that the Apostle declares himself to mean A dead Faith as all Faith is that is inoperative and workes not But if I see his workes I proceed the right way in Judicature I judge secundum allegata probata according to my evidence And if any man will say those workes may be hypocriticall I may say of any witnesse He may be perjured but as long as I have no particular cause to think so it is good evidence to me as to hear that mans Oath so to see this mans workes Cum in Coelis sedentem in Crucem agere non possum Though I cannot crucifie Christ being now set at the right hand of his Father in Heaven yet there is Odium impietatis saith that Father A crucifying by ungodlinesse An ungodly life in them that professe Christ is a daily crucifying of Christ. Therefore here Christ refers to good works And there is more in this then so It is not onely good works but good works in the highest proportion The best works that he that doth them can doe Therefore in his own case he appeals to Miracles For if fasting were all or wearing of Camells haire all or to have done some good to some men by Baptizing them were all these Disciples and their Master might have had as much to plead as Christ. Therefore he calls them to the consideration of works of a higher nature of Miracles for God never subscribes nor testifies a forged Deed God never seals a falshood with a Miracle Therefore when the Jewes say of Christ He hath a Devill and is mad why heare ye him some of the other Jewes said These are not the words of one that hath a Devil But though by that it appear that some evidence some argument may be raised in a mans behalfe from his words from that he saith from his Preaching yet Christs friends who spoke in his favour doe not rest in that That those are not the words of one that hath a Devill but proceed to that Can the Devill open the eyes of the blinde He doth more then the Devill can doe They appeal to his works to his good workes to his great works to his Miracles But doth he put us to doe miracles no Though in truth those sumptuous and magnificent buildings and endowments which some have given for the sustentation of the poore are almost Miracles half Miracles in respect of those penurious proportions that Myut and Cumin and those half-ounces of broken bread which some as rich as they have dropped and crumbled out Truely he that doth as much as he can is almost a Miracle And when Christ appeals to his Miracles he calls us therein to the best works we can doe God will be loved with the whole heart and God will have that love declared with our whole substance I must not thinke I have done enough if I have built an Almes-house As long as I am able to doe more I have done nothing This Christ intimates in producing his greatest works Miracles which Miracles he closeth up with that as with the greatest Pauperes evangelizantur The poore have the Gospell preached unto them In this our Blessed Saviour doth not onely give an instruction to Iohns Disciples but therein also derives and conveyes a precept upon us upon us who as we have received mercy have received the Ministery and indeed upon all you whom he hath made Regale Sacerdotium A royall Priesthood and Reges Sacerdotes Kings and Priests unto your God and bound you therby as well as us to preach the Gospell to the poore you by an exemplar life and a Catechizing conversation as well as us by our words and meditations Now beloved there are Poore that are literally poore poore in estate and fortune and poore that are naturally poore poore in capacity and understanding and poore that are spiritually poore dejected in spirit and insensible of the comforts which the Holy Ghost offers unto them and to all these poore are we all bound to preach the Gospell First then for them which are literally poore poore in estate how much doe they want of this means of salvation Preaching which the rich have They cannot maintain Chaplains in their houses They cannot forbear the necessary labours of their calling to hear extraordinary Sermons They cannot have seats in Churches whensoever they come They must stay they must stand they must thrust they must overcome that difficulty which Saint Augustine makes an impossibility that is for any man to receive benefit by that Sermon that he hears with pain They must take pains to hear To these poore therefore the Lord and his Spirit hath sent me to preach the Gospell That Gospell The Lord knoweth thy povertie but thou art rich That Gospell Be content with such things as thou hast for the Lord hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee And that Gospell God hath chosen the poore of this world rich in faith heires of that Kingdome which he hath promised to them that love him And this is the Gospell of those poore literally poore poore in estate To those that are naturally poore poore in understanding the Lord and his Spirit hath sent me to preach the Gospell too That Gospell If any man lacke wisedome let him aske it of God Solomon himselfe had none till he asked it there And that Gospell where Iohn went bitterly because there was a Booke preseated but no man could open it It were a sad consideration if now when the Booke of God the Scripture is afforded to us we could not open that Booke not understand those Scriptures But there is the Gospell of those poore That Lambe which is spoken of there That Lambe which in the same place is called a Lion too That Lambe-Lion hath opened the Booke for us The humility of the Lambe gathereth the strength of the Lion come humbly to the reading and hearing of the Scriptures and thou shalt have strength of understanding The Scriptures were not written for a few nor are to be reserved for a few All they that were present at this LambLions opening of the Book that is All they that come with modesty and humility
fear that is naturally imprinted in us We need not teach men to bee sad when a mischiefe is upon them nor to feare it is coming towards them for fear respects the future so as sadnesse does the present feal looks upon Danger and sadnesse upon Detriment fear upon a sick friend and sadnesse upon as dead And as these need not bee taught us because they are naturall so because they are naturall they need nor bee untaught us they need not be forbidden nor disswaded Our Saviour Christ had them both fear and sadnesse and that man lacks Christian wisedom who is without a provident fear of future dangers and without Christian charity who is without a compassionate sadnesse in present calamities Now this fear thought but imprinted in nature is Timor Domini Tha fear of the Lord because the Lord is the Lord of Nature He is the Nature of Narture Lord of all endowments and impressions in Nature And therefore though for this naturall feare you goe no farther then nature for it is born with you and i◠lives in you yet the right use even of this naturall fear is from Grace though in the root it be a feare◠of nature yet in the government thereof in the degrees and practise thereof it is the feare of the Lord Not onely as hee is Lord of Nature for so you have the feare it selfe from the Lord but as this naturall fear produces good or had effects as it is regulated and ordered or as it is deserted and abandoned by the Spirit of the Lord And therefore you ae called hither Come that you may learne the fear of the Lord that is the right use of naturall fear and naturall affections from the Law of God For as it is a wretched condition to be without naturall a affections so is it a dangerous dereliction if our naturall affections be left to themselves and not regulated not inanimated by the Spirit of God for then my sadnesse will sinke into Desperation and my fear will betray the succours which reason offereth This I gain by letting in the fear of the Lord into my naturall fear that whereas the naturall object of my naturall fear is malum something that I apprehend sub ratione mali as it is ill for me for if I did not conceive it to be ill I would not fear it yet when I come to thaw this Ice when I come to discusse this cloud and attenuate this damp by the light and heat of Grace and the illustration of the Spirit of God breathing in his word I change my object or at least I look upon it in another line in another angle I look not upon that evill which my naturall fear presented me of an affliction or a calamity but I look upon the glory that God receives by my Christian constancy in that afflicton but I look upon that everlasting blessednes which I should have lost if God had not laid that affliction upon me So that though fear look upon evill for affliction is malum poenae evill as it hath the nature of punishment yet when the feare of the Lord is entred into my naturall feare my feare is more conversant more exercised upon the contemplation of Good then Evill more upon the glory of God and the joys of heaven then upon the afflictions of this life how malignant how manifold soever And therefore that this feare and all your naturall affections which seem weaknesse in man and are so indeed if they bee left to themselves now in our corrupt and depraved estate may advance your salvation which is the end why God hath planted them in you Come and learn the fear of the Lord Learn from the Word of God explicated by his minister in his Ordinance upon occasions leading him thereunto the limits of this naturall fear where if may become sin if it be not regulated and inanimated by a better fear then it self There is a fear which grows out of a second nature Custome and so is half-naturall to those men that have it The custome of the palce we live in or of the times we live in or of the company we live in Topical customes of such a place Chronical customes of such an Age Personal customes of such a company The time or the place or the persons in power have advanced drawn into fashion and reputation some vices such men as depend upon them are afraid not to concur with them in their vices for amongst persons in times places that are vicious and honest man is a rebel he goes against that State that Government which is the kingdom of sin Amongst drunkards a sober man is a spy upon thē Amongst blasphemers a prayer is a libell against them And amongst dissolute and luxurious persons a chast man is a Bridewell his person his presence is a house of Correction In vicious times and companies a good man is unacceptable and cannot prosper And because as amongst Merchants men trade halfe upon stock and halfe upon credit so in all other courses because men rise according to the opinion estimation which person in power have of them as well as by reall goodnesse therefore to build up or to keep up this opinion and estimation in them upon whom they depend they are afraid to crosse the vices of the Time so far as by being vertuous in their owne paticular They are afraid it will be called a singularity and a schismaticall and seditious disposition and taken for a Reproach and a Rebuke laid upon their betters if they be not content to be as ill as those their betters are Now the fear of the Lord brings the Quo Warranto against all these priviledged sins and priviledged places and persons and overthrows all these Customes and Prescriptions The fear of the Lord is not a Topicall not a Chronicall ot a Personall but a Catholique a Canonicall a Circular an Vniversall fear It goes through all and over all and when this halfe-naturall feare this feare grown out of Custome suggests to me That if I be thus tender-conscienced if I startle at an oath if I be sick at a Health if I cannot conform my selfe to the vices of my betters I shall lose my Master my Patron my Benefactor This feare of the Lord enters and presents the infallible losse of a farre greater Master and Patron Benefactor if I comply with to other And therefore as you were called hither that is to the explication of the Word of God to learn how to regulate the naturall fear that that fear doe not deject you into a diffidence of Gods mercy so come hither ot learne the fear of God against this half-naturall fear that is bee guided by the Word of God how far you are to serve the turnes of those persons upon whom ye depend and when to leave their commandements unperformed Well what will this feare of the Lord teach us Valour fortitude feare
for the New that there was an Old so the two testaments grow one Bible so in these two Affections if there were not a jealousie a fear of losing God we could not love him nor can we fear to lose him except we doe love him Place the affection by what name soever upon the right object God and I have in some measure done that which this Text directed Taught you the fear of the Lord if I send you away in either disposition Timorous or amorous possessed with either the fear or the love of God for this fear is inchoative love and this love is consummative fear The love of God begins in fear and the fear of God ends in love and that love can never end for God is love SERMON XLVII An Anniversary Sermon preached at St. Dunstans upon the commemoration of a Parishioner a Benefactor to that Parish GEN. 3. 24. And dust shalt thou eat all the dayes of thy life THis is Gods malediction upon the Serpent in Paradise There in the Region in the Store-house of all plenty he must starve This is the Serpents perpetuall fast his everlasting Lent Dust shalt thou eat all the dayes of thy life There is a generation derived from this Serpent Progenies viperarum a generation of Vipers that will needs in a great and unnecessary measure keep this Serpents Lent and binde themselves to performe his fact for the Carthusian will eat no flesh and yet I never saw better bodied men men of better habitudes and constitution howsoever they recompense their abstinence from flesh and the Fueillans will eat neither flesh nor fish but roots and fallets and yet amongst them amongst men so enfeebled by roots was bred up that man who was both malicious courage and bodily strength to kill the last King who was killed amongst them They will be above others in their fasts Fish and Roots will they eat all the dayes of their life but their Master will be above them in his fast Dust must he eat all the dayes of his life It is Luthers observation upon this place That in all Moses his Books God never spoke so long so much together as here upon this occasion Indeed the occasion was great It was the arraignment of all the world and more of mankinde and of Angels too of Adam and Eve and there were no more of them and then of the Serpent and of Satan in that and of all the fallen Angels in him For the sentence which God as Judge gave upon them upon all these Malefactors of that part which fell upon the woman all our mothers are experimentall witnesses they brought forth us in sorrow and in travaile Of that part of the sentence which fell upon man every one of us is an experimentall witnesse for in every calling in the sweat of our face we eat our bread And of that part of the Judgement which was inflicted upon the Serpent and Satan in him this dead brother of ours who lyes in this consecrated earth is an experimentall witnesse who being by death reduced to the state of dust for so much of him as is dust that is for his dead body and then for so long time as he is to remaine in that state of dust is in the portion and jurisdiction and possession of the Serpent that is in the state which the Serpent hath induced upon man and dust must he eat all the dayes of his life In passing thorough these words we shall make but these two steps first What the Serpent lost by this judgement inflicted upon him and secondly What man gained by it for these two considerations imbrace much involve much first That Gods anger is so intensive and so extensive so spreading and so vehement as that in his Justice he would not spare the Serpent who had no voluntary no innate no naturall ill disposition towards man but was onely made the instrument of Satan in the overthrow of man And then that Gods mercy is so large so overflowing so super-abundant as that even in his Judgement upon the Serpent he would provide mercy for man For as it is a great waight of judgement upon the Serpent that the Serpent must eat dust so is it a great degree of mercy to man that the Serpent must eate but dust because mans best part is not subject to be served in at his table the soule cannot become dust and dust must he eate all the dayes of his life O in what little sinne though but a sinne of omission though but a sinne of ignorance in what circumstance of sinne may I hope to scape Judgement if God punished the Serpent who was violently and involuntarily transported in this action And in what depth in what height in what hainousnesse in what multiplicity of sin can I doubt of the mercy of my God who makes judgement it self the instrument the engin the Chariot of his mercy What room is there left for presumption if the Serpent the passive Serpent were punished What room for desperation if in the punishment there be a manifestation of mercy The Serpent must eate dust that is his condemnation but he shall eate no better meat he shall eate but dust there is mans consolation First then as it is a fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God so is it an impossible thing to scape it God is not ashamed of being jealous he does not onely pronounce that he is a jealous God but he desires to be known by none other name The Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God so jealous as that he will not have his name uttered in vaine not onely not blasphemed not sworne by but not used indifferently transitorily not Proverbially occasionally not in vaine And if it be what then Even for this he will visite to the third and fourth generation and three and foure are seven and seven is infinite So jealous as that in the case of the Angels not for looking upon any other Creatures or trusting in them for when they fell as it is ordinarily received there were no other creatures made but for not looking immedidiately directly upon God but reflecting upon themselves and trusting in their own naturall parts God threw those Angels into so irrecoverable and bottomelesse a depth as that the merits of Christ Jesus though of infinite super-infinite value doe not boye them up so jealous a God is God so jealous as that in Adams case for over-loving his own wife for his over tender compassion of her foreating the forbidden fruit ne contristaretur delicias suas as Saint Hierome layes his fault left he should deject her into an inordinate and desperate malancholy and so make her incapable of Gods mercy God threw the first man and in him all out of Paradise out of both Paradises out of that of rest and plenty here and that of Joy and Glory hereafter Consider Balaams sin about cursing Gods people or Moses sinne
or distrust in God and his mercy and to that purpose we consider the Serpents punishment and espcially as it is heightned and aggravated in this Text Dust shalt thou eate all the days of thy life There are three degrees in the Serpents punishment First Super pectus He must creep upon his belly And secondly Inimicitias ponam I will put enmity God will raise him an enemy And thirdly Pulverem comedes Dust shalt thou eate all the days of thy life And in all these three though they aggravate the judgement upon the Serpent there is mercy to us For for the first that the Serpent now does but creep upon his belly S. Augustine and S. Gregory understands this belly to be the seat of our affections and our concupiscencies That the Serpent hath no power upon our heart nor upon our brain for if we bring a tentation to consideration to deliberation that we stop at it think of it study it and forsee the consequences this frustrates the tentation Our nobler faculties are always assisted with the grace of God to resist him though the belly the bowels of sin in sudden surprisals and ebullitions and foamings of our concupiscencies be subject to him for though it may seem that if that be the meaning which from S. Augustine and S. Gregory we have given you That the Serpent hath this power over our affections and that is intended by that The belly it should rather have been said super pectus vestrum Hee shall creep upon your belly then upon his owne yet indeed all that is his own which we have submitted and surrendred to him and hee is upon his own because we make our selves his for to whom ye yeeld your servants to obey his servants you are So that if he be super pectus nostrum if he be upon our belly he is upon his own But he does but creep He does not fly He is not presently upon you in a present possession of you you may discern the beginning of sin and the ways of sin in the approaches of the Serpent if you will The Serpent leaves a slime that discovers him where he creeps At least behinde him after a sin you may easily see occasion of remorse and detestation of that sinne and thereby prevent relapses if you have not watched him well enough in his creeping upon you When hee is a Lion he does not devoure all whom he findes He seeks whom he may devoure He may not devoure all nor any but those who cast themselves into his jaws by exposing themselves to tentations to sin He does but creep why did he any more before was his forme changed in this punishment Many of the Ancients think literally that it was and that before the Serpent did goe upon feet we are not sure of that nor is it much probable That may well be true which Luther says fuit suavissima bestiola till then it was a creature more lovely more sociable more conversable with man and as Calvin expresses the same Minus odiosus man did lesse abhor the Serpent before then after Beloved it is a degree of mercy if God bring that which was formerly a tentation to mee to a lesse power over me then formerly it had If deformity if sicknesse if age if opinion if satiety if inconstancy if any thing have worn out a tentation in that face that transported me heretofore it is a degree of mercy Though the Serpent be the same Serpent yet if he be not so acceptable so welcome to me as heretofore it is a happy a blessed change And so in that respect there was mercy It was a punishment to the Serpent that though he were the same still as before yet he was not able to insinuate himself as before because hee was not so welcome to us So the having of the same form which he had might be a punishment as nakednesse was to man after his fall He was naked before but he saw it not he felt it not he needed no cloathes before Now nakednesse brings shame and infirmities with it So God was so sparing towards the Serpent as that he made him not worse in nature then before and so mercifull to us as that hee made us more jealous of him and thereby more safe against him then before Which is also intimated pregnantly in the next step of his punishment Inimicitias ponam That God hath kindled a war between him and us Peace is a blessed state but it must be the peace of God for simeon and Levi are brethren they agree well enough together but they are instruments of evill and in that case the better agreement the worse So war is a fearfull state but not so if it be the war of God undertaken for his cause or by his Word Many times a State suffers by the security of a Peace and gains by the watchfulness of a War Wo be to that man is so at peace as that the spirit fights not against the flesh in him and wo to them too who would make them friends or reconcile them betweene whom God hath perpetuated an everlasting war The seed of the woman and the seed of the Serpent Christ and Beliall Truth and Superstition Till God proclaimed a warre between them the Serpent did easily overthrow them but therefore God brought it to a war that man might stand upon his guard And so it was a Mercy But the greatest mercy is in the last and that which belongs most directly though all conduce pertinently and usefully to our present occasion Dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life He must eat dust that is our bodies and carnall affections Hee was at a richer diet he was in better pasture before before he fed upon souls too But for that his head was bruised in the promise of a Messias who delivers our souls from his tyranny But the dust the body that body which for all the precious ransome and the rich and large mercy of the Messias must die that dust is left to the Serpent to Satan that is to that dissolution and that putrefaction which he hath induced upon man in death He eats but our dust in our death when he hath brought us to that that is a mercy nay he eats up our dust before our death which is a greater mercy our carnal affections our concupiscencies are eaten up and devoured by him and so even his eating is a sweeping a deansing a purging of us Many times we are the better for his tentations My discerning a storm makes me put on a cloak My discerning a tentation makes me see my weaknesse and fly to my strength Nay I am somtimes the safer and the readier for a victory by having been overcome by him The sense and the remorse of a sin after I have fallen into it puts me into a better state and establishes better conditions between God and me then were before when I felt no
and fragrancy which the word breaths out That they shall see it that is understand it consider it For as when the wicked come to say The Lord does not see it it is presently added Neither doth the God of Iacob regard it It is a seeing that induces a regarding so when the godly come to see their afflictions they come to regard them to regard Gods purpose in them Vidisti Domine ne sileas sayes David All this thou hast seen O Lord Lord do not hold thy peace David presumed that if God saw his afflictions he would stirre in them when we come to see them we stir we wake we rise we looke about us from whence and why these afflictions come and therein lyes this comfort Vidi I have seen afflictions I have been content to look upon them to consider them The Prophets in the Old Testament doe often call those sights and those prenotions which they had of the misery and destruction of others Onus visionis Onus verbi Domini O the burden of this sight O the burden of this message of God It was a burden to them to see Gods judgements directed upon others how much more is it a burden to a man to see his own affliction and that in the cause thereof But this must be done we must see our affliction in the Cause thereof No man is so blinde so stupid as that he doth not see his affliction that is feele it but we must see it so as to see through it see it to be such as it is so qualified so conditioned so circumstanced as he that sends it intends it We must leave out the malice of others in our oppressions and forgive that leave out the severity of the Law in our punishments and submit to that and looke intirely upon the certainty of Gods judgement who hath the whole body of our sins written together before him and picks out what sin it pleaseth him and punisheth now an old now a yesterdayes sin as he findeth it most to conduce to his glory and our amendment and the edification of others We must see the hand of God upon the wall as Belshazzar did for even that was the hand of God though wee cannot read that writing no more then Belshazzar could Wee must see the affliction so as we must see it to be the hand of God though wee cannot presently see for what sinne it is nor what will be the issue of it And then when we have seen that then we must turn to the study of those other particulars for till we see the affliction to come from God we see nothing There is no other light in that darknesse but he If thou see thy affliction thy sicknesse in that glasse in the consideration of thine own former licentiousnesse thou shalt have no other answer but that soure remorse and increpation you might have lived honestly If thou see thy affliction thy poverty in that glasse in the malice oppression of potent adversaries thou wilt get no farther then to that froward and churlish answer The Law is open mend your selfe as you can But Iactate super Dominum saith David Lay all thy burden upon the Lord and hee will apply to thee that Collyrium that soveraigne eye-salve whereby thou shalt see thy afffiction it shall not blinde thee And see from whence it commeth from him who as hee liveth would not the death of a sinner And see why it commeth that thou mightest see and taste the goodnesse of God thy selfe and declare his loving kindnesse to the Children of Men. And this is the comfort deduced from this word Vidi I have seen affliction And this leadeth us to our other Comfort That though these Afflictions have wrought deepe upon thee yet thou canst say to thy soule Ego vir I am that man Thy Morality thy Christianity is not shaked in thee It is the Mercy of God that wee are not conumed saith Ieremy here And it is a great degree of his mercy to let us feele that wee are not consumed to give us this sense that our case is not desperate but that Ego vir I am the man that there remaineth still strength enough to gather more That still thou remainest a man a reasonable man and so art able to apply to thy selfe all those medicines and reliefs which Philosophy and naturall reason can afford For even these helps deduced from Philosophy and naturall reason are strong enough against afflictions of this world as long as we can use them as long as these helps of reason and learning are alive and awake and actuated in us they are able to sustain us from sinking under the afflictions of this world for they have sustained many a Plato and Socrates and Seneca in such cases But when part of the affliction shall be that God worketh upon the Spirit it selfe and damps that enfeebles that that he casts a sooty Cloud upon the understanding and darkens that that he doth Exuere hominem devest strip the man of the man Eximere hominem take the man out of the man and withdraw and frustrate his naturall understanding so as that to this purpose he is no man yet even in this case God may mend thee in marring thee hee may build thee up in dejecring thee hee may infuse another Ego vir another Manhood into thee and though thou canst not say Ego vir I am that Morall man safe in my Naturall Reason and Philosophy that is spent yet Ego vir I am that Christian man who have seen this affliction in the Cause thereof so farre off as in my sinne in Adam and the remedy of this affliction so farre off as in the death of Christ Iesus I am the Man that cannot repine nor murmure since I am the Cause I am the man that cannot despair since Christ is the remedy I am that man which is intended in this Text Gheber Not onely an Adam a man amongst men able to convince me though they speak eloquently against me and able to prove that God hath forsaken me because he hath afflicted me but able to prevail with God himself as Iacob did and to wrastle out a blessing out of him though I doe halt become infirm with manifold afflictions yet they shall be so many seals of my infallibility in him Now this comfort hath three gradations in our text three circumstances which as they aggravated the discomfort in the former so they exalt the comfort in this part That they are His The Lords That they are from his rod That they are from the rod of his wrath We may compare our afflictions that come immediately from God with those that come instrumentally from others by considering the choice and election which David made and the choice which Susanna made in her case The Prophet Gâ—d offers David his choice of three afflictions War Famine or pestilence It does not appeare it is not