with the multitudes before and behind the whole multitude of Saints of so many Ager then with a few scattered headless heedless companies forbear it better pray and praise with them then prattle and prate with these better their Hosanna and Benedictus to him that cometh in the name of the Lord then these mens sensless Sermons and Discourses who come in their own name and of their own heads without Gods sending them at all Having then so full a Choir so many voices to bear us company let us also now sing with them Yet that we may be sure to sing in Tune let 's first listen a little to the key and more they bless in 'T is a loud one for 't is a crying they cried not in the sense we often take it for a mournful tone or note for 't is an expression of joy and gladness So S. Luke xix 37. They began to rejoyce c. but with a loud voice it was they praised him that 's the meaning so expressed in the same verse by that Evangelist Indeed true it is God has turn'd our songs of joy into the voice of weeping as the Prophet complains taken away our Feasts and gaudy days and we may well cry and cry aloud in that sadder sense of the word crying yet for all that must we not lay down the other or forget the Song of prayer and praise especially upon the point of Christs coming to us Here it must be crying in another tone singing speaking proclaiming the great favour and honour of him that cometh in the name of the Lord. Blessing and honour and glory to him that so cometh Now that we be not out in tune or note let 's mind the word we shall find the sweetest ways of blessing in it 1. 'T is a loud crying such is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that teaches us to be devout and earnest in our prayers and praises in blessing Christ. 2. 'T is loud and to be heard to instruct us not to be asham'd of our way of serving Christ he that is Christ will be asham'd of him so Christ professes S. Mark viii 38. 3. 'T is the crying of a multitude many multitudes and intimates to us what prayer and praise does best even the Puâ—lick and Common Service 4. 'T is the crying of several multitudes the same thing and insinuates peace and unity that 's the only Christian way of praising God one God and one Faith and one Christ says the Apostle and one heart and mind of all that profess them and 't were best one way of doing it the same Hosanna the same Benedictus the same voice and form of prayer and praise and Worship if it could be had 5. 'T is of some before and some that follow 't is not a confused or disorderly note or way hudling and confounding all together but the voice of Order where every one sings in time in tune and place some begin and others follow and the Chorus joyns all in decency and order this to preach decency and order to them that come in at any time or call any where upon the name of Christ even the very multitude here in Christs praise keep their parts and order 6. 'T is a crying yet of joy we told you the voice of mirth and gladness that we may know Christ is best served with a chearful spirit Christianity is no such dull heavy thing as some have fancied it it admits of Mirth and Songs so they be in nomine Domini either to the praise of God or not to his dishonour so they be not light or wanton or scurrilous or such like 7. This crying here is general and our praises of God must be so too all that is without me and all that is within me praise his holy name all the powers of my soul superiour and inferiour all the organs of my body all the instruments of my life and living my estate and means all to concur in giving praise to God in celebrating the mercies the humilities the condescensions the out-goings and in-comings of my Redeemer Thus we have the key and tune of blessing God and Christ devoutly confidently publickly unanimously orderly chearfully and universally with all our faculties and powers Let 's now hear the Song of praise Hosanna to the Son of David Blessed is he c. And that we may sing in tune let 's know our parts Three parts there are in it as in other Songs Bassus Tenor and Altus the Bass the Tenor and the Treble Hosanna to the Son of David there 's the Bass the deepest and lowest note the humanity of Christ in filio David being the Son of David the Bass sings that that 's low indeed for him we can go no lower Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord there 's the Tenor or middle part he and the name of the Lord joyn'd together God and Man united that 's a note higher then the first the Mediator between God and Man God in the highest Son of David in the lowest the middle note then follows And Hosanna in altissimis the Altus or Treble the highest note of all we can reach no higher strain we never so high We begin low that 's the way to reach high Hosanna to the Son of David Yet as low as it is 't is hard to hit hard to reach the meaning of it Hosanna a hard note so Interpreters have found it St. Augustine will have it an Interjection only to express rejoycing like that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Greeks or Io triumphe among the Latines The truth is 't is an expression and voice of joy and gladness though no Interjection an expression us'd by the Jews at the Feast of Tabernacles a joyful acclamation enough to authorize common and received expressions of joy though it may be they that use them do not perfectly understand them especially joy inexpressible such as ours should be for the Son of Davids coming may be allow'd to express it self as it can or as it does in other rejoycings when it can do no better Some interpret it Redemption others an Hymn or Praise others Grace others Glory others Boughs to the Son of David All yet concur in this that 't is a joyful wish for prosperity to Christ under the title of the Son of David Grace Redemption Praise and Glory Psalms and Hymns and all the other outward expressions of Thanks Respect and Joy be given to him who now comes to restore the Kingdom of his Father David Nothing too much to be given to the Messiah for him they always mean by the Son of David No inward or outward joy enough for the coming of our Redeemer But though Hosanna mean all these several rendrings yet the construction is no more then Salvum fac or salva obsecro Save we beseech thee like our Vivat Rex God save the King Save the Son of David we beseech thee and save us by the Son of David For
19. We cannot discern his track by reason of their tumultuous doings These are they that are to be prepared and stilled and quieted the Soul calm'd and laid and smooth'd that Christ may come into it But this is the way into which and not by which he comes The way by which he comes or we meet him is first the way of Faith Faith is the way by which he comes into the souls of men the way in which St. Paul worshipped the God of his Fathers Acts xxiv 14. in and by which we first come unto our Lord and worship him as did our fathers Prepare your hearts for it prepare them for him that when he comes he may find faith upon the earth in this earth of ours where e're else he miss it And here as Faith is the way so the several Articles of it may pass for the paths God grant we keep them right and streight and our selves streight to them in this perverse and crooked generation 2. The way secondly by which we meet him is the Law Mandata Legalia says another Not much distant from St. Paul's stiling it Schoolmaster to Christ the way to bring us to him The terrors and threatnings of the Law a good way to prepare us for his coming the Types and Figures a good way to lead us to him that we may see he is the same that was and is and is to come the Saviour of all that were and are and shall be sav'd the same the Patriarchs promised the Sacrifices prefigured the Prophets prophecied of the Iews expected the Apostles preach'd of the world believed on and all must be saved by With such thoughts as these then are we to set upon our preparation 1. To break our high and haughty spirits by the consideration of the terrors of the Law the curses due to them that break it and alas who is it that does not so to make way to let him in Then 2. by the Types and Figures to confirm our faith and make them so many several paths to trace out his foot-steps and know his coming 3. The third way by which we are prepared or which we are to prepare for him is Repentance The very way St. Iohn Baptist came to preach His Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand being the same with this Prepare ye the way of the Lord make his paths streight Those words of the Prophet the Text and his the Comment No way indeed to Christ but by this way No way but by Repentance to begin it Turn ye turn ye says the Prophet we are all out of the way God knows from the beginning If we will into the way again into the way of our Lord turn we must repent we must of our former ways and doings get us into better ways And then paths here will be the streight and narrow ways the rigours and austerities of repentance the streightning our selves of all our former liberties and desires making our paths so streight and narrow that no tumour of pride no swellings of lust no pack-horses or heavy carriages of the world or Devil may pass by that way any more nothing but Christ and his little flock of humble vertues such as can enter at the streight state none else henceforward to walk in it Prepare we repentance and all its parts and paths for the third way and its paths A fourth is Baptism the way St. Iohn Baptist came in too a way that nam'd him so the way that was always thought to lead all to Christ and his Kingdom that came there in any ordinary way Arise and be baptized Acts xxii 16. that 's the way to the Lord Iesus The way he sent his Disciples in to bring in the world unto him St. Mark xvi 16. whatever shorter way our new men of late have found for their Disciples The Articles and conditions of the Covenant of Baptism promised and undertaken by the baptized either in their own persons or by proxy are the title paths of this great way the several tracks that make it up the ways and paths we are to walk in if we intend ever to meet the Lord. The fifth way is Gods Commandments a way that we all must make ready for him his own way indeed drawn out by his own hands and fingers a way of which himself professes that he came not to destroy it as some vainly delude themselves but to fulfil it to perfect to exalt it to a greater height from the outward act to the inward thought from the lower degree of vertue to the highest of it from bare precepts to additional counsels from meer external performances to right and regular intentions in them And here as the moral Precepts are the great plain way so the Christian Enhâ—â—sements of them to the highest pitch the regulations of them to right intentions and Christian counsels are the paths the narrow and straiter paths The sum and short is this Holy Christian life and conversation in all its parts according to our powers and capacities is the fifth way to be prepared by them that seek the Lord and expect to see his face And yet if there be room and leave for a private conjecture the way of Gods providence in his judgments and mercies towards Ierusalem the way of his mercy in saving the believing and destroying the unbelieving Iew now near at hand may come in for a sixth way of the Lord A way indeed past finding out in all its secret paths yet to be prepared for and more then pointed at by the Prophet Isaiah in that place whence the words are taken and by St. Iohn in this God there bids comfort his captive people for their deliverance from Babylon was now nigh at hand and their enemies near destruction calls to them therefore to prepare themselves for it to make ready and expect it And here S. Iohn Baptist tells the people the Kingdom of Heaven is now at hand S. Matth. 3. 2. which by comparing it with that wrath to come threatned to the Pharisees and Sadduces v. 7. with his exhortation to flee from it and by the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord mentioned by the Prophet Malachi iv 5. in the place where S. Iohn Baptists coming is foretold and the dreadfulness of it exprest Chap. iii. 2. where he is said to come to prepare his way before him but ver 1 c. S. Iohns inviting to repentance to divert or shun it can be no other than Christs coming in Judgment against Ierusalem to execute vengeance upon his enemies and deliver his faithful servants vengeance and deliverance the two great manifestations of his Power and Kingdom and sure no more then need to cry out to us to prepare and make right paths against that coming make way for his judgments to pass by us and his mercies to come to us Thus you have the way and paths observe them many several paths but one only way to Christ and Heaven
in the Christian Dypticks And you see to day we have revived the Custom here 3. But 't is not a meer remembring them for honour but also a real remembring them and them that do them for a blessing all sorts of blessings So that would I commend to my dearest friend a Trade to make him rich and happy it should be doing good to the House of God 'T is an old Jewish saying Decima ut dives fias Pay thy Tyths if thou wilt grow rich Build God a House say I and he will build thee one again Do good to His House say I and he 'll do good to thine and a wicked Son shall not be able to cut off the Entail For 't is worth the notice that when God promised David a House upon this account he tells him that though his Son commit iniquity he would not utterly take his mercy from him I know there are that to be excused talk much of unsetled times This is the way to settle them When God and man shall see we are in earnest for the House of God and the Offices thereof all your Sects will cease to trouble you and vanish Some cry the State must be setled first Why Fundamenta ejus in montibus Sanctis says the Psalm the foundations of Hierusalem are upon the Holy Hills Lay your foundations there and you shall never be removed God of his goodness will make your Hill so strong No better way to fix the House of the Kingdom or your own than to begin with His. Others to get loose tell us of the decay of Trade Why how can it be other says God Hag. i. 9. You looked for much and it came to little and when you brought it home and 't was scarce worth bringing home I did blow upon it blew it into nothing And why was it says the Lord of Hosts Because of my house that lieth waste and ye run every man to his own house You dwell in Cedars and you lap your selves in Silks and Silver and you have all neat and fine about you but the House of God that lies in the dust and rubbish But is it time for you O ye says he for I know not what to call you to dwell in cieled houses and my house lie no better Did God think you make Gold and Silver Silks and Purples Marbles and Cedars for us only and our houses and not for himself also or his own Or do you think to thrive by being sparing to it or holding from it No says God from the day that the Foundation of the Lords Temple was laid consider it from this that day will I bless you Hag. ii 18 19. And prove him so say I for he bids so himself Mat. iii. 10. and see if he will not pour you out a blessing Indeed he has been before us with it He has brought us home and stablisht our Estates and restor'd our Religion done more to us and to our houses than we durst desire or hope and is it not all the reason in the world we should do good to his again Hang up our remembrances upon the Walls pay our acknowledgments upon his Altars and bless all the Offices of his house for so great blessings God will remember you again for what ever it is If you would yet more engage him to you know God loves the Gates of Sion more then all the dwellings of Iacob Psal. lxxxvii 2. must needs therefore love these most that most love them And I doubt not but we shall find many here that do so many too that will so express it Yet not according to what a man has not but to what he has says our St. Paul does God accept him We cannot expect that all that love most can express most Yet according to their abilities they will do it A cup of cold water I confess to a Prophet in the name of a Prophet shall not lose the reward no more shall a single Mite to the house of God as his Every one however may do somewhat towards it They that cannot give much may give a little they that cannot pay may yet pray for it And to wish it well and to rejoyce in the prosperity and welfare of it the repairing and adorning of it are two mites that any one can give and God will accept where there can be no other Only where there is most we must present it with humility as David did 1 Chron. xxix What am I O Lord that I should be able after this sort to offer thus to do it And where there is but little we must present it with a regret that we can do no more Will God remember and accept us remember and pardon us remember and bless us with blessings of the right hand and blessings of the left remember us in all places both at home and abroad in all conditions both in the days of our prosperity and in the time of trouble in our goings out and in our comings in in our Persons and in our Estates in our selves and in our Posterities with them shall remain a good inheritance and their children shall be ever within the Covenant And when all earthly glances shall be forgotten that which we have done to the House of God shall be still remembred when our bodies shall lie down in dust our names shall live in heaven when a cold stone shall chill our ashes our bones shall flourish out of their graves when time shall have eaten out our Epitaphs our righteousness shall not be forgotten God will remember it for ever And though the general conflagration shall at last calcine these glorious structures into ashes we shall dwell safe in buildings not made with hands eternal in the heavens where the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb shall be the Temple and we sing the Offices of heaven with Angels and Archangels and all the holy Spirits with joy and gladness for evermore To which glorious House and Office God of his mercy bring us in our several times and orders through c. THE FIRST SERMON On the Day of the PURIFICATION OF THE Blessed Virgin St. LUKE ii 27 28. And when the Parents brought in the Child Iesus to do for him after the custom of the Law Then took he him up in his arms and blessed God AND when That When was as this day When the days of the blessed Virgins Purification according to the Law of Moses were accomplished forty days after Christs Nativity this day just then they brought him to Ierusalem to present him to the Lord ver 22. Then blessed Mary and Ioseph brought then devout Simeon and Anna blessed and if we be either Maries or Anna's Iosephs or Simeons holy men or devout women we too will this day bless God for the blessing of the day For this day also of his presentation as well as those other days of his Birth Circumcision and Manifestation Candlemas-day as well as Christmas-day New-years-day or Epiphany is a day
our pleasures and vagaries our mirths and vanities our successes and prosperities to steal away the time we are to spend in giving God thanks and glory for them Nor 2. to permit our selves so much time to the reflection upon our griefs and troubles as to omit the praising God that they are no worse and that he thus fatherly chastises us to our bettering and amendment does all to us for the best Yet not to cease praising him day and night seems still to have some difficulty to understand it The Angels perhaps that neither eat nor drink nor sleep nor labour they may do it but how shall poor man compass it Why first Imprint in thy soul a fixt and solid resolution to direct all thy words and actions to his glory Renew it 2. every day thou risest and every night thou liest down Renounce 3 all by-ends and purposes that shall at any time creep in upon thee to take the praise and honour to thy self Design 4. thy actions as often as thou canst particularly to Gods service with some short offering them up to Gods will and pleasure either to cross or prosper them and when they be done say Gods Name be praised for them And lastly omit not the times of Prayer and Praise either in publick or in private but use thy best diligence to observe them to be constant and attentive at them Thus with the Spouse in the Canticles when we sleep our hearts awake and whether we eat or drink or walk or talk or whatsoever we do we do all to the glory of God and may be said to praise him day and night and not cease saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come And so I come to the second General The form here set us to praise him in In which first we have to consider the glory it self that is expresly given him Holy Holy Holy To speak right indeed the whole sentence is nothing else yet this evidently referring to that of Isai. vi 3. where the Seraphims use this first part in their Hymn of praise I conceive this the chief and most remarkable part of of it which may therefore bear the name before the rest Now this saying Holy Holy Holy is attributing all purity perfection and glory to God as to the subject of it himself and the original of it to others thereby acknowledging him only to be worship'd and ador'd So that saying thus we say all good of him and all good from him to our selves Thrice 't is repeated which according to the Hebrew custom is so done to imprint it the deeper in our thoughts and may serve us as a threefold cord which is not easily broken to draw us to it But another reason the Fathers give And it is 1. they say to teach us the knowledge of the holy and blessed Trinity Indeed why else thrice and no less or more Why follows Lord God Almighty three more words why 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 three yet again and yet but three who was who is who is to come Why do the Seraphims in Isaiah say no more yet say so too Why have we in the following verses Glory and Honour and Thanks ver 9. and Glory and Honour and Power so punctually thrice and thrice only offered to them How came it to be so universally celebrated throughout the World and put into all the Catholik Liturgies every where words fall not from Angels and Angelical Spirits by chance or casually The holy Penmen write not words hap hazard Nor is it easie to conceive so hard a doctrine so uneasie to reason should be so generally and humbly entertain'd but by some powerful working of Gods Spirit This may be enough to satisfie us that the blessed Trinity is more then obscurely pointed out to us here And 2. to be sure the Fountain of all Holiness is here pointed to us that we may learn to whom to go for grace that we may see we our selves are but unholy things that nothing is in it self pure or holy none but God And 3. it points us out what we should be Be ye holy as I am holy says God No way otherwise to come near him no way else to come so near him as to give him thanks for out of polluted lips he will not take them For in the second place the Lord God Almighty it is we are to give this glory to The three Persons here me thinks are evident however God the Father the Lord the Son and the Almighty Spirit that made all things that does but blow and the waters flow that does but breath and man lives that with the least blast does what he will Yet these three it seems are still but one one Lord and one God and one Spirit Ephes. iv 4 5 6. all singulars here nounes verbs articles and participles all in the singular number here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that we might see though a Trinity there be to be believed yet 't is in unity though three Personalities but one Nature though three Persons but one God All the scruple here can but arise from the setting Lord the Son before God the Father but that 's quickly answered when they tell you there is none here afore or after other none greater and lesser than another and therefore no matter at all for the order here where all is one and one is all Lord God Almighty Yet now to encourage us the better to our Praises and Thanksgivings see we in the last place the benefits they here praise him for and they are intimated to us in the close of all Who was and is and is to come In the first we understand the benefit of our creation God it was that created us In the second we read the benefit of our Redemption the Lord it is that redeems us daily pardons and delivers us In the third we have the benefit of our Glorification still to come the Holy Spirit here sealing us and hereafter enstating us in glory In them all together we may in brief see as in a Prospect that all the benefits we have received heretofore he was the Author of them that all the mercies we enjoy he is the Fountain of them that all the joys or good we hope for he is the donour of them he was he is he must be the bestower of them all without him nothing he was and is and will be to us all in all And now sure though I have not the time to specifie all the mercies we enjoy from this blessed Lord God Almighty and indeed had I all time I could not and all tongues Si mihi sint linguae centum sint oraque centum I could not yet we cannot but in gross at least take up a Song of Praise for altogether say somewhat towards it Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty holy in our Creation Holy in our Redemption holy in our Sanctification Holy in Heaven holy in Earth holy under the Earth too Holy in glorifying of his Angels holy in justifying his Saints holy in punishing the Devils Holy in his Glory and holy in his Mercy and
us stand up to it and stand for it to the last A Souldier will venture all to save his colours rather wrap himself up in them and dye so than part with them For Christ for his Word for his Sacraments for his Cross for our Gospel and Religion we should do as much But I am asham'd the age has shewed us too many cowards that have not only run away from this Standard but betray'd it too the more unworthy certainly that they should ever reap fruit or benefit twig or branch from the root of Iesse The very Gentiles in the next words will sufficiently shame them For to it to this Ensign do all the Gentiles seek III. Shail it is I confess in the future tense here reach'd no further in the Prophets time but now it does the Prophesie is fulfill'd it so came to pass And it quickly came so after the Ensign was set up the Cross reared and the Resurrection had display'd it For I if I be lifted up from the earth says he himself will draw all men to me St. Iohn xii 32. Parthians and Medes and Elamites the dwellers in Mesopotamia and Cappadocia Pontus and Asia Phrygia and Pamphylia Egypt and Lybia Rome and Cyrene as well as the dwellers in Iudea Cretes and Arabians as well as Israelites Proselites as well as Iews he will draw all in to him The vast multitudes that came daily in from all quarters of the world so many Churches of the Gentiles so suddenly rais'd and planted are a sufficient evidence to this great truth And the term the Iews at this day give the Christians of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very word in the Text for Gentiles confirms as much by their own confession So true was both Isaiah's Prophesie here and Father Iacob's so long before that to him should the gathering of the people be Gen. xlix 10. But that which is an evidence as great as any if not above all is St. Paul applies the Text as fulfilled then Rom. xv 12. And there is this only to be added for our particular that we still go on and continue seeking him IV. But there is Rest and Glory here added to the success of this great design His rest shall be glorious Now by his Rest we in the first place understand the Church the place where the Psalmist tells us his honour dwells Psal. xxvi 3. the place of which himself says no less than This shall be my rest for ever here will I dwell for I have delight therein Psal. cxxxii 14. And glorious it is the Apostle tells us a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle Ephes. v. 27. glorious all over so glorious that the Prophet says the Gentiles shall come to its Light and Kings to the brightness of its rising Isa. lx 3. they shall bring Gold and Incense from Shebah the flocks of Kedar and the rams of Nebaioth shall come with acceptance to his Altar ver 7. the glory of Lebanon shall come unto it ver 13. They shall call the walls of it salvation and the gates praise ver 18. The Lord is an everlasting light unto it and God is its glory ver 19. So that we may well cry out with David Glorious things are spoken of thee O thou City of God thy Church thy Congregation O thou root of Iesse thou Son of David which thou hast gathered and thy Churches or holy Temples too which are rais'd to thee exceed in glory the beauty of Holiness thy holy mysteries thy blessed self art there And indeed in the holy Mysteries of the Blessed Sacrament is his second place of Rest. There it is that the feeds his flock and rests at noon Cant. i. 7. And he is glorious there glorious in his Mercies illustrious in his Benefits wonderful in his being there No such wonder in the world as his being under these consecrated Elements his feeding our souls with them his discovering himself from under them by the comforts he affords us by them His Cratch to day was a third place of his Rest glorious it was because 1. the God of Glory rested there because 2. the glorious Angels displaid their Wings and gave forth their light and sung about it St. Luke ii 13 14. because 3. Kings themselves came from far to visite it and laid all their glories down there at his feet There his rest was glorious too Nay 4. his Sepulchre the place of his rest in Death was as glorious is as glorious still as any of the other And I must tell you the Latin reads it Sepulchrum ejus Gloriosum From thence it is he rose in glory by that it was he gain'd the glorious victory over Death and Hell from thence he came forth a glorious Conqueror Thither have devout Christians flock'd in incredible numbers There have Miracles been often wrought there have Kings hung up their Crowns there have millions paid their homage And thence have we all receiv'd both Grace and Glory from his Sepulchre where he lay down in Death and rose again to Life There is one Rest still behind and it is not only glorious but it self is glory His rest himself calls it Heb. iii. 11. yet a rest into which he would have us enter too Heb. iv 9 11. And in Heaven it is no rest to this no rest indeed any where but there and perfect glory no where else And now to wind up all together This rest and glory or glorious rest which ends the Text and 't is the best end we can either make or wish springs from the root at the beginning The Church it self and all the rest and glory the Churches ever had or have or shall enjoy grows all from that Our Holy Temples our Holy Sacraments our Holy Days this day the first of all the rest all the benefits of his Death Resurrection and Ascension into Glory nay our greatest glory in Heaven it self comes from this little Branch of Iesse this humble Root and the way to all is by him and his humility And the time suits well and the day hits fair for all In that day says the Text all this you have heard shall be and that day now is this To day the Root sprang forth the Branch appeared To day the Ensign was displaid to all the people From this day the Gentiles began their search This day he began to call in his Church and the Shepherds were the first To day he first was laid to mortal rest To day the glory of his Star appeared to wait upon his Cradle To day we also may enter into his rest one or other of them One of his places of rest we told you was in the Church or holy place let us seek him there Another Rest of his we mentioned to be in the Blessed Sacrament let us seek him there His Ensign is there set up let us go in to him and offer our lives and fortunes at his feet proffer to fight his Battels and obey his Commands strive we
or secular respects and motions but a sweetness without sensual daintiness a lustre without lightness a modest look without dejectedness a grave countenance without severity a fair face without fancy eyes sparkling only heavenly flames cheeks commanding holy modesty lips distilling celestial sweetness beauty without its faults figure and proportion and all such as was most answerable and advantageous to the work he came about every way fitted to the most perfect operations of the reasonable and immortal soul the most beautiful then sure when beauty is nothing else but an exact order and proportion of things in relation to their nature and end both to themselves and to each other Take his description from the Spouses own mouth Cant. v. 10 11 12 c. My beloved is white and ruddy the chiefest among ten thousand His head is as the most fine gold his locks are bushy or curled and black as a Raven His eyes are as the eyes of Doves by the rivers of water washed with water and fitly set that is set in fulness fitly placed and as a precious stone in the soil of a Ring His cheeks are as a bed of Spices as sweet flowers his lips like Lillies dropping sweet smelling Myrrhe his hands are as gold Rings set with Beryl his belly as bright Ivory over-laid with Saphyrs His legs are as pillars of Marble set upon sockets of fine Gold His countenance like Lebanon excellent as the Cedars His mouth is most sweet yea he is altogether lovely This is my beloved and this is my friend O daughters of Ierusalem This is our beloved too Solomon indeed has poetically express'd it Yet something else there is in it besides a poetick phrase Beautiful he thus supposes he is to be who was to be this Spouse have the beauty of all beautiful things in the world conferr'd upon him at least to have the finest and subtilest part of all worldly beauties those imperceptible yet powerful species of them which make them really amiable and attractive a head and locks and eyes and hands and feet quantity colour and proportion such as darted from them not only a resemblance but the very spirit of heavenly beauty innocence purity strength and vigour Poets when they commend beauty call it divine and heavenly this of his it was truly so a kind of sensible Divinity through all his parts Shall I give you his colour to make up the beauty He was white pure white in his Nativity ruddy in his Passion bright and glistering in his life black in his death Azure-vein'd in his Resurrection No wonder now to see the Spouse sit down under his shadow with great delight Cant. ii 3. we sure our selves now can do less and yet this is but the shadow of his beauty The true beauty is the souls the beauty of the soul the very soul of beauty the beauty of the body but the body nay the carcase of it And this of the souls he had 2. in its prime perfection 2. Now beauty consists in three particulars the perfection of the lineaments the due proportion of them each to other and the excellency and purity of the colour They are all compleat in the soul of Christ. The lineaments of the soul are its faculties and powers the proportion of them is the due subordination of them to God and one another The colours are the vertues and graces that are in them His powers and faculties would not but be compleat which had nothing of old Adam in them His understanding without ignorance he knew all the very hearts of all thoughts as they rose what they thought within themselves S. Luke v. 22. thoughts before they rose what the Pharisees with other would have done to him had he committed himself unto them Now Tyre and Sidon would have repented had they had the mercy allowed to Corazin and Bethsaida S. Luke x. 13. His will without wilfulness or weakness his passions without infirmity or extravagance his inferiour powers without defect or maim his understanding clear his will holy his passions sweet all his powers vigorous Hear the Wise man describe him under the name of Wisdom Wisd. xvii 22 23 c. In her that is in him who is the Wisdom of the Father is an understanding Spirit holy one onely manifold subtile lively clear undefiled plain nor subject to hurt loving the thing that is good quick which cannot be letted ready to do good kind to man stedfast sure free from care having all power overseeing all things and going through all understanding pure and most subtile spirits and ver 25 26. A pure influence flowing from the Glory of the Almighty the brightness of the everlasting light the unspotted mirror of the power of God and the image of his goodness The powers of his soul being thus pure vigorous and unspotted they cannot 2. but be in order the will following his understanding the passions subordinate to them both all the inferiour powers obedient and ready at command and pleasure He had no sooner exprest a kind of grievance in his sensitive powers at the approach of those strange horrors of his death and sufferings but presently comes out Non mea sed tua Not my will but thine all in a moment at peace and in tranquillity No rash or idle word no unseemly passage no sowre look nor gesture or expression unsuitable to his Divinity throughout his life the very Devils to their own confusion cannot but confess it We know thee who thou art the Holy One of God S. Mark i. 24. To this add those heavenly colours and glances of grace and vertues and you have his soul compleatly beautiful Meekness and Innocence and Patience and Obedience even to the death Mercy and Goodness and Piety and what else is truly called by the name of good are all in him insomuch that the Apostle tells us the very fulness of the Godhead dwells in him bodily Col. ii 9. No Divine Grace or Vertue wanting in him In him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge ver 3. In him all sanctity and holiness not so much as the least guile in his mouth 1 S. Pet. ii 22. So holy that he is made holiness and sanctification unto us 1 Cor. i. 30. Sancti quasi sanguine uncti We Saints and holy become hallowed by the sprinkling of his blood In him lastly is all the power and vertue omnis virtus that is omnis potestas all the power in heaven and earth fully given to him S. Matth. xxviii 18. So that now we shall need to say little of the other particular of this first general point of Christs perfect beauty that he is not only Formosus but Formosus prae not only fair but very fair for where there is so much as you have heard exceeding and excellent it must needs be Where the body is compleat in all its parts the soul exact in all its powers the body without any ill inclination natural or habitual the soul without
Court of Heaven than the greatest Emperours Cup-bearer or the Viceroy of Iudea nay of Emperour of East and West This only by the way that He forgets himself and God will not remember him who thinks his Honour and greatness exempt him from the service of Gods House or values any beyond it King David himself had rather be a door-keeper there than dwell any where else One day there better says he than a thousand Psal. lxxxiv 9 10. And one poor Me is worth as many Worships and Honours that single Syllable of as few Letters as you can make it with a few good deeds to back it better than all glorious Titles without them But enough of so small a Particle Enough too here of the Person considered in himself because I shall speak of him all the way in his good deeds To which now I pass and enquire 1. What he did to the House of God and then 2. What to the Offices thereof And the several readings give us them under two Heads Misericordias and Beneficentiam His Mercy and his Bounty to them both both House and Offices His Mercy to the House that I begin with and that take in these particulars In his Compassion towards it his Petitioning for it his Repairing his Cleansing his Protecting it Give me leave to trace the Story as 't is fit I should and I shall shew you them in some or other of the neighbouring Chapters as they rise 1. His Compassion towards it that we may easily see in his sitting down and weeping over the ruines in his fasting and sadly praying for it Chap. i. 4. For 't is not Hierusalem only or principally either though first mentioned for which he does so but Sion the place that God had chosen to put his Name there ver 9. For that it is because of the House of the Lord his God that he thus seeks O Hierusalem to do thee good David plainly professes so for himself Psal. cxxii 9. And for Sion Thy servants says he they think upon her stones and it pittieth them to see her in the dust Psal. cii 14. All good men still it does as much they more bewail the ruines of God's houses than of their own Alas Hierusalem is but a sad dwelling without Sion no more than any other City any ordinary Heathen City not the City of the great King or a sure refuge without that Even a Fox as Tobiah the Ammonite jeer'd it Chap. iv 3. if he go up shall break down the wall if the wall of the House be not joyn'd to it and built with it 'T is for this principally Nehemiah mourn's and maks as it were a Cement for it out of the rubbish by the mixture of his tears 'T is a Tender mercy that first 2. But he does not meerly and dully sit down and weep end the business there Up he gets 2. and to the King he goes and petitions him for a Commission to repair it Chap. ii 7. Begs of him some supplies and materials towards it Good it is to do good to the House our selves but 't is doubled when we can work others to it too when we promote it with our friends and put our selves as it were to the blush to beg for it 'T is yet a mercy we need not blush at a holy impudence in doing good a very serviceable mercy a mercy not ashamed of any thing to do good to Gods house or any thing that is his That 's a second 3. These yet are but the Proems of his mercy He thirdly sets closely to the work provides necessaries and materials for the House and begins the repairs completes the unfinished Walls and Turrets not of the City only but the Temple too where ere they wanted Chap. iii. It had been begun to be re-edified by Zerubbabel Ezra vi Where by the way take notice they began their building with Gods House then yet it seems it was not fully finished Great works are not the business of a little time not of days but years Above forty years in building was this House wherein we are Nor are such Houses at any time so perfect at the last but that a religious hand will easily find somewhat or other always to be added to their beauty and glory And this is a point of Nehemiahs mercy too A mercy that thinks no pains too much no time too long to continue doing good to the House of God a laborious and continued mercy That 's the third 4. Nay sometimes it seems and we have found it by our own experience that the House is not fully finished yer it is afresh polluted Nehemiah 4. is fain to cleanse it Tobiah the Ammonite his houshold-stuff was gotten into the House Chap. xiii 5. The High Priest his Allie had brought it thither When the Priest himself profanes the House le ts the Ammonite come in or suffers it God help us God help us indeed to some good Nehemiah to throw out that stuff as you may see ours does Chap. xiii 9. A cleansing purifying mercy the House needs sometimes needed it we remember too long Such is Nehemiahs too A clean pure mercy That 's the fourth 5. And yet the Ammonite is not so easily cast out Nehemiah must stand to what he has done and still protect it or Sanballat Tobiah and Geshem the Horonite the Ammonite and the Arabian all Sects Schism Atheism and Prophaneness will in again If the Princes Authority and the Magistrates Sword do not protect as well as recover it from unhallowed hands and Offices 1. From corrupt Priests such as Eliashib ver 7. 2. From false ones such as cannot prove their succession Chap. vii 64. 3. From such as pollute it with strange marriages as one of the Sons of Ioiada ver 28. strange mixtures suppose the waters of the Tiber the Frith or the Leman Lake with the Springs of Sion 4. From strange Levites too so strange that we know not whence they came nor what their Pedigree even in those mercies of the most Highest which he hath lately shewed us contrary to the Psalm we shall all miscarry 'T is the highest Commendation of Nehemiahs mercies that he does not forsake the House but strill protects it both from open enemies and from treacherous friends the one by his Sword and Spear Chap. iv 16. the other by the restoring good order and Discipline Chap. xii 24. And this is a couragious and constant mercy The Fifth Commendation of Nehemiahs And thus you have his Mercies to the House it self His compassion on the Ruines his soliciting the Repairs his setting himself upon the work his delivering the house from prophanation his protecting it from the prophaners 1. a tender 2. active 3. laborious 4. pure 5. constant goodness to the House of God These are the first branches of those Mercies which God here commends to us to be shewn by his to his House The Second sort are those to the Offices And Misericordias in Custodiis in
establish him a throne for ever 2 Sam. vii 11 12 13. God will be behind hand with none that do good to his Habitation or really intend or go about it Nay the very Sparrow is blest and the Swallow is blest that love but his House that sing their Mattens and Vespers at his Altars the devout Prophet even envies them for it Psal. lxxxiv 3. So great are the blessings of the House of God and so ever are those persons under his eye so in the eye of blessing whose good deeds are there continually putting God in mind of them If you would but remember how God forgets his mercy or which is the same how he remembers them in Iudgment who do ill to his House or to the Offices how he strikes Vzzah dead for an irreverent touch of the Holy Ark how he smites Vzziah with a leprosie for an encroachment upon the sacred Office 2 Chron. xxvi 19. and turns Saul out of his Kingdom for the like fault 1 Sam. xiii 14. How he thrusts Nebuchadnezzar out of doors Dan. iv 33. because he had burnt up his Houses in the Land 1 King xxv 9. 'T is just indeed he should have no House who will let God have none How he despoils Belshazzar of his Kingdom because he had spoild his Temple and was now prophaning those holy spoils carouzing in the sacred bowles Dan. v. 30. How he quite forgets all mercy to the Iews and casts them out as soon as they prophaned his holy Temple and abused his Messengers Priests and Prophets 2 Chron. xxxvi 14. and professes he could hold no longer when they had arrived at that height of insolent wickedness How he makes the Heavens forget their dew and the earth her fruit because they let his house lie waste Hag. i. 9 10. you will readily conclude how he remembers those that raise the Walls and repair the Ruines and reverence the Sanctuaries and love the Priests If them with Curses then these with Blessings if them with diseases then these with health if them with exile these with quiet dwellings if them with scarcity these with plenty Vbertate Domus the plenty of his house if them with desolate and decaying Families these with happy and full Posterities if them with death then these with life even for ever and ever VI. But 't is time now to remember our selves And many things we are here to be remembred of That 1. We have a House of God as well as Nehemiah to do good to Many houses of God in the Land now as well as in the Psalm lxxiv. 9. This above the rest whose decay'd Towers and ruin'd Pinacles and ragged Walls and open Windows and falling Roofs and broken Pavements call loud for a Repairer of the breaches And 't is not Nehemiahs Mercy and Bounty nor the Levites thin revenue added that can do it Blessed indeed be God that he hath put it into the heart of the King to begin and offer so freely to the Work But I hope we shall ere long have reason to bless him for your offerings too This House is Gods all such houses Gods as well as that of Bethel or that of Sion or those Synagogues of the Iews stiled several times his houses That they are so the solemn Dedications always of them to his Name with so much glory say enough And if Domus orationis be Domus mea the House of Prayer be Gods and Christ says it is and sure he knows both what is his own and how to call it the daily celebration of that Publick Worship there will give a second proof That some such there were even in the Apostles times some house besides such as we eat and drink in that must not be so used must not be so despised the Apostle tells us 1 Cor. xi â—â— and that it was then called the Church of God in the same verse is to tell you in plain English our Churches are Gods houses And God has in our days own'd them for his own That signal preserving them in the heat of War and Plunder rage and fury when men were so wrathfully displeased at them and so implacably set against them That protecting them 2. through all the Triumphs of a godly Atheism and a sacriledge out of Conscience both as unsatisfied as the grave so miserably greedy that they would violate their Fathers Sepulchres and scatter their ashes in the air and wind for an inconsiderable piece of lead or brass or stone That miraculous restoring them 3. to all the holy Offices this Church in particular destined to a sale and deferred only to see who would give most are evidences of it too great to be disputed that God has vindicated his right and kept it for himself And I hope you will all remember it and now help him in it Court and City both of you And remember 2. These Houses have their Officers their Offices their Ceremonies as well as that here in the Text. Offices to be performed Officers to perform them and Ceremonies to perform them with Your countenancing your encouraging your protecting them are the good deeds you may do to them Remember therefore 3. I beseech you that you do so Three arguments there are in the Text to perswade it 1. Good it is to do so good deeds they are God 2. will remember them when they are done God 3. will remember you for doing them 1. Good they are remember that And good works are a good foundation 1 Tim. vi 19. a foundation upon which you may lay hold on eternal life says St. Paul there and can you desire a better Indeed Iudas tells us it would do better upon the poor But had he had the selling of the Ointment then or when some of his Disciples had the selling of it since Were the poor ever the better for it Were not thousands sent a begging by it Sure sure he that can be content to see the Church in ruines will not much pass to see the poor in rags He that envies the Church-mans wealth will never pity the poor mans want and he that one time sells the Church will next time sell the poor if he can get by him But we will not set good deeds together by the ears 'T is enough that these are good but 't is more 2. that God remembers them that he takes a particular notice of them 2. I may say too a notice of the particulars The Scrowles of them are laid up for an everlasting remembrance Feasts of Dedication have been always kept for a memorial of them and Christ himself vouchsafed to be present at them St. Ioh. x. 22. And if the Syriac Translator may be allowed to read the last verse of the Chapter Et ad oblationes ad sacra temporibus Festis Statutis memoriam hujus rei mihi serva we see these good deeds were solemnly remembred in those solemn Feast and Nehemiah expected his should be so Their persons have anciently been remembred
context will quickly be resolved within a few years backward vers 22. to be when the days of her Purification the Mothers purification were accomplished The Law would not sooner suffer the Mother to come near the Sanctuary so scrupulous did God seem to be of the pollution of his Temple that he would not accept his own dues and offerings from a hand of that body which had but on it the least semblance of impurity though it was no other than a meer natural course which himself had made Nature it self it seems when its motions are but meerly natural must have nothing to do at the Altars of Holiness God made all things good makes many good things which yet he thinks not good enough to approach his holiness without a previous purification Corah Dathan and Abiram and their followers may cry out the whole Congregation is holy all holy enough any thing good and pure enough for the Temples Altars Sacrifices Services ministrations of the Lord and his Christ but it seem'd they wanted fire to cleanse them and their Censers and God sent it with a vengeace They would not keep apart from holy Offices but God parts the earth to sever them from his Altars and when our sins are sufficiently punished their followers will find some strange purging fires for thus boldly daring without purifying their hands after the law or custom of the Church to lay them to Christs plough before their days be out either themselves or their days accomplished not their very apprentiships out some of them so presumptuously intruding into holy Offices Functions Offerings and places such mens damnation slumbers not though it tarry it will come sure at last The holy Virgin who needed no purification for this Child-birth as not conceiving as the Text runs Lev. xii 2. suscepto semine must be purified before she come though to bring an offering as pure as purity it self So is Gods method and order so he requires it after the custom of the Law it is said here and were there no reason else Church-law and custom in Church business in all reason should carry it And it being holy business purification cannot but be a necessary disposition to it some kind of separation to prepare for it There is a legal separation and it did well when it was in use There is an Evangelical still in force an external and an internal both Holy things not to be medled with but with holy hands hands separated from civil and secular employments none to offer as Priests but those that are so accomplished with that kind of separation And none to present neither any thing to be offered but such as have holy hearts accomplished with inward purity Unsanctified hearts and unhallowed hands are not fit to bring in Iesus nor touch the offerings of so pure a God Not the word not the Sacraments not the Services none of them to be either offered or taken by any he whoever that hates to be reformed who is not purified and disposed rightly before he comes Forty were the days of this Purification something there may be in the number So many days Moses prepared for the receiving of the Law Exod. xxiv 18. So many Eâ—ah in his advance to the Mount of God 1 Kings xix 8. So many Christ himself before he entred upon his Office St. Mat. iv 2. So many the Church designs for a preparation to Easter as a purification of our souls and bodies by Prayer and Fasting against our Easter offerings Whether this number tell us by ten four times multiplied that the Decalogue of Moses is in the four Evangelists completed the Law perfected by the Gospel Or that these bodies we bear about us consisting of four Elements are by the observation of the ten Commandments accomplished with all vertues and thereby best purified or that the tenth parts of all our years to which forty days do well near draw so many being but little more then the tenth portion of a year are hereby required to be spent in Gods Service the purifying of our souls and bodies for his use Whether it be for the one reason or the other or the third for this sure it is that we may understand a large and considerable portion of our days is to be always spent in good preparations purifications and retirements Christ can never be too much provided for nor we too much purified when we come to take or offer him Nor is the place 3. for that 's the next point where we are to offer though a great way off to be complained of for its distance If it be the place where God has set his name and appointed for his worship as far as Mount Moriah from Abrahams Tents or the uttermost borders of Iudea from the Temple go we must thither and not think much of it They brought him in says the Text that is into the Temple at Ierusalem From Bethlehem to Ierusalem is a pretty walk to go with a young Child to offer but where God commands there is no gain-saying There is no burthen neither to such souls as just Iosephs and blessed Maries and the Child will get no cold by the way it goes to God Our niceness makes the trouble and betrays us to the fear The Child gets no hurt by being carried to the Font nor did it in devouter times when it was wholly dipt no more than so great a pain as Circumcision hurt the Infants health Our tenderness and fooleries who have not Faith enough to trust God with them or to submit mildly to God's Ordinances are the only causes of all miscarriages in holy business where we will be wiser than God tenderer than God and more careful than God would have us The greatest argument for this generation not turning Iews is I think for fear of Circumcision lest they should put themselves to any pain or fear to lose their Children by that bloody Sacrament else I fear they are too well disposed towards it One thing would much perswade I am sure if they might so pull down all our Churches and have but one to go to once a year So godly is the age we live in so well are we reformed Yet the fittest place sure for Gods offerings are God's houses his own Altars for his own Service holy places for holy works for holy offerings Templum Domini for Dominum Templi as devout Bernard The Temple of the Lord the fittest place for the Lord of the Temple that the fittest the likeliest to find him in So the prophesie so the desire call it which you please of holy David fulfilled Suscepimus misericordiam in medio Templi Ps. xlviii 8. We have found or we wait for thy loving kindness in the midst of thy Temple Mercy it self there this day found We may pray any where and offer and offer any where either our own Children or the Child Iesus if necessity so be but the best souls love the best places holy souls holy places
whoever shall take him shall take us too We will not part no not in death we will live and die and sleep and rise again together He that will have him shall have us whether he will or no He is in our arms there we will keep him Yet in lieu of parting with him we will part with our selves and offer our selves for him if that will do it yes and that will do it Duo minuta habeo Domine corpus animam says the devout Father I have two mites O Lord I have two mites to offer to give thee for thy Son to offer thee for him my soul and my body Them thou shalt have willingly I am content to part with them so I may keep him and they will content him Offer them up then a living reasonable sacrifice for it will be an acceptable service too an acceptable blessing of him Yet as we offer up our selves we must now lastly offer up Christ too He gave him to us to be an offering for us to sanctifie all our offerings for a blessing to us to bless all our blessings And for the imperfection of all our righteousness offerings and sacrifices prayers and praises and blessings to make them accepted which in themselves and their weak performances no way deserve he was given us to offer His perfection will make amends for our imperfections his purity for our impurities his strength for our weakness and for them when we have done all we can to be accepted we must offer him or have all rejected We must when we begin to bless turn our selves with old Iacob to this Caput lectuli this beds-head whereon only the soul can rest or leaning upon the top of this Staff as the Apostle renders it the only staff wherein old Israel trusts the only staff whereon we rely for mercy and acceptance This is the name of the Angel in whom only we are to bless in whom only we are blest in whom either God blesses us or we him This is the sum he the chief of all our oblations all our blessings by oblation and the blessing both of our resolutions and endeavours all without whom we can do neither the one nor other neither resolve good nor practice it He therefore is to be offered with all thankfulness to God by us his merits only to be pleaded by us and the form of all our blessing thus to run Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy holy Son the Child Iesus give the praise It was not our own arm that helped us to him 't is not our own arms that can hold him 't is not our own strength that can keep him 't is not our own hands that can present any offering worthy of the least acceptance To God only therefore be the praise to Chrìst only the merit of all our blessings Thus are we lastly to pray too that God would accept us and our blessing Bless him with our petitions 1. That he would please to pardon all our sins or pass by all our weaknesses in this days in every days performance our neglects our coldnesses our drinesses our wearinesses and all the issues of our infirmities any ways That 2. he would accept our offerings and be pleased with us in his Son accept us in his beloved That 3. he would grant us the benefit of that holy Sacrament which we have this day received all the benefits of his Death and Passion the full remission of all our sins and the fulness of all his graces signified and conveyed by those dreadful mysteries That 4. he would particularly arm us every one of us against their particular corruptions with strength and grace proportionable to every one and effectual to us all For proper and particular petitions rising from the sense of our several necessities are this day proper to be askt and as easie to be obtained whilst it is his own day in which he invited us to him and will deny us nothing that we shall earnestly faithfully and devoutly ask him For this also to pray to petition is benedicere and it is a way of blessing God to offer up our prayers thereby acknowledging and confessing his power and goodness which is no less in other words than to praise and bless him He that offers praise honours him and he that presents prayers professes and proclaims him Almighty Father gracious and good and glorious God at the very first dash God blessed for evermore Light up now your Candles at this evening Service for the glory of your morning Sacrifice 't is Candlemas Become we all burning and shining lights to do honour to this day and the blessed armful of it Let your souls shine bright with grace your hands with good works Let God see it and let man see it so bless we God Walk we as Children of the light as so many walking lights and offer we our selves up like so many holy Candles to the Father of light But be sure we light all our lights at this babes eyes that lies so enfolded in our arms and neither use nor acknowledge any other light for better than darkness that proceeds from any other but this eternal light upon whom all our best thoughts and words and works must humbly now attend like so many petty sparks or rays or glimmerings darted from and perpetually reflecting thankfully to that glorious light from this day beginning our blessing God the only lightsome kind of life till we come to the land of light there to offer up continual praises sing endless Benedicite's and Allelujahs no longer according to the Laws or Customs upon earth but after the manner of Heaven and in the Choire of Angels with holy Simeon and Anna and Mary and Ioseph all the Saints in light and glory everlasting Amen Amen He of his mercy bring us thither who is the light to conduct us thither he lead us by the hand who this day came to lie in our arms he make all our offerings accepted who was at this Feast presented for us he bless all our blessings who this day so blessed us with his presence that we might bless him again and he one day in our several due times receive our spirits into his hands our souls into his arms our bodies into his rest who this day was taken corporally into Simeons arms has this day vouchsafed to be spiritually taken into ours Iesus the holy Child the eternal Son of God the Father To whom with the holy Spirit be all honour and praise and glory and blessing from henceforth for evermore Amen A SERMON ON THE First Sunday in Lent 2 COR. vi 2. Behold now is the accepted time behold now is the day of Salvation ANd truly such a time is worth beholding For the business of it here being of no less concernment than Gods reconciling us to himself ver 18 19. of the former Chapter the committing the word and office of this reconciliation to his Ministers ver 20. of the
come upon us and hurry us hence before we are aware into the horrors and miseries of everlasting darkness 4. By this time you understand this ecce is not to set us a gazing up into Heaven or observing days and months and times and years but to retrive our months of vanity as holy Iob calls them and fill the days we live with more acceptable employments For God having so late accepted our persons and our complaints and prayers and tears or rather us indeed without them and desiring only of us that we would but accept and employ those mercies and all others of his to our own salvation we should be me thinks the most unreasonable of men to be so unkind to God as either not to receive his grace or receive it still in vain Worthy it is of better usage for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. iv 9. Accepted here the same with that worthy of all acceptation there The very time says our Apostle is such what then is the salvation of it that surely much more Accept we it therefore and the time of it with all readiness with all thankfulness with all humility Take we all the opportunities henceforward of salvation look every way about us and slip none we can lay hold on This ecce ecce reiterated is to rouse us and to tell us that our ecce should answer Gods Ecce tempus says he ecce me or nos say we Behold the time behold the day says God Behold us say we O God our hearts are fixed our hearts are fixed our hearts are ready our hearts are ready to accept it Ecce adsum says Abraham behold here I am Ecce venio says Christ Lo I come to do thy will O God Behold thy servants are ready says David to do whatsoever my Lord shall appoint And behold we are coming we are here we are ready with thee according to thy heart these are the returns or Eccho's we are to make God back again Nor is it time to dally now Time is a flitting Post Day runs into night e're we are aware this Now is gone as soon as spoken and no certainty beyond it and no salvation if not accepted e're we go hence There are I know that cry to day shall be as yesterday and to morrow as to day all things continue as they were since our Fathers fell asleep And this thing you call Religion does but delude us and our Preachers do but fright us this salvation they talk of we know not what to make of it if there be such a thing indeed the day is long enough we may think time enough of it many years hence Such scoffers indeed St. Peter told us we should meet with But I hope better things of you my beloved and such as accompany salvation And I have told you nothing to fright you from it I have not scar'd you with the antient rigour nor terrified you with primitive austerities I have only shewed you there is such a thing as salvation to be thought of and 't is time to set about it You cannot fast you 'l tell me you are weak and sickly it will destroy you You cannot watch you say it will undo you you cannot give Alms you have no moneys You cannot come so oft to Prayers as others your business hinders you But however can you do nothing towards it towards your own salvation can you not accept it when 't is offered can you not consider and think a little of it If you do but that I shall not fear but you will do more When you have business you can spare a meal now and then to follow it and nothing's made on 't when you are at your sports or play you can sit up night after night and catch no hurt for a new fashion impertinence or vanity you can find mony and time enough at any time for any of these I desire you would but do as much nay half as much I am afraid I may say the tenth part so much to save your souls spend but as much time seriously upon that as you do upon your dressing your visits your vanities not to require any thing so much of you upon that as upon worldly business and dare promise you salvation you shall be accepted at that day at that day when our short Fasts shall be turned into eternal Feasts our petty Lents consummate into the great Easters when time it self shall improve into eternity this day advance into an everlasting Sun-shine and salvation appear in all its glories Accept us now O Lord we pray thee in this accepted time save us we beseech thee in this day of salvation that we may one day come to that eternal one through him in whom only we are accepted thy beloved Son Christ Jesus To whom with thee and thy Holy Spirit be consecrated all our times and days all our years and months and hours and minutes from henceforward to whom also be all honour and praise all salvation and glory for ever and ever Amen A SERMON ON THE Second Sunday in Lent 1 COR. ix 27. But I keep under my body and bring it into subjection lest that by any means when I have preached to others I my self should be a castaway DVrus sermo A hard Text you 'l say a whipping Sermon towards that begins with castigo and ends with reprobus that is so rough with us at the first as to tell us of chastning and keeping under the body and so terrible at the last as to scare us with being castaways unless we do it And that too cum aliis praedicaverim the greatest Preachers the very Apostles themselves after all their pains no surer of their Salvation than upon such severe conditions If the Preacher will needs be preaching this tell us of disciplining our bodies talk to us of being castaways Quis cum audire potest who can endure him who can bear it Well bear it how we can think of it what we please be the doctrine never so unpleasing it must be preacht and bear it we must unless we know what to preach better than St. Paul or you what to hear or do better than that great Apostle And 't is but time for us to preach for you to hear it Men daily fool away their souls by their tenderness to their bodies and their salvation by the certainties they pretend of it 'T is time to warn them of it And this Time as fit a time as any can be to do it in the holy time of Lent A time set apart by the holy Church to chasten and subdue the body in And the opportunity is fallen into my hand among the rest and vae mihi si non I cannot excuse my self if I do not take it if I neglect the occasion to do my utmost to keep my self and you from being castawaies I know people do not love to hear on 't and the Preacher shall get
nor stir nor raise up our selves or our heads Who shall ascend Whatever question it is it is most certainly an assertion of difficulty Who shall ascend no man can read it but he will read hardness in the ascending And yet it would be harder but for the last consideration of the words that 't is a kind of admiration of the Prophets at the foresight of Christs Ascension He in his spirit foresaw his Saviour climb this Hill and wonder'd â—t it From his ascending some of the difficulty is abated He has led one way â—â—ac'd a path open'd a door into Heaven unto all Believers so we us'd to sing in the Te Deum I need not tell you he has ascended in all the senses of the words no height of holiness but he has none frequenter in the Temple than he was none in Heaven till he came thither He the first that made our dull earth ascend so high He rose and ascended up on high without the least help of metaphor or figure rose from the Grave ascended into the Hill aâ—cended thence into the Hill of the Lord stands there at his right hand St. Stephen saw him so Acts â—ii 53. Never said Prophet any thing that more punctually fell out than this he may well admire it and so may we Yea and praise him too To him we owe all our Ascensions all the height and ascensions of our spirits in grace and goodness all our priviledges to worship him in holy places all our assurances and hopes of Heaven and the possession of it His rising raises us his ascending makes us ascend He the only prime singular one we only as parts and members of him What is then left us to do What for all this priviledge Why if Christs grace and Gods Worship and Heaven it self be such priviledges I hope we will not be so silly to forgo them or betray them Seeing they be so high ones we cannot be so unworthy now to do any thing beneath them any base or unworthy thing Being holy ones too we will not be so profane to pollute our selves or them with lusts and sacriledges Being so admirable priviledges all we cannot certainly but adore Gods mercy in them Being glorious ones too we must glorifie him for them count all things dross and dung in comparison of them Being yet hard to come by the more need we have to labour for them set all our powers make it all our work to get them to get grace and worship and glory to ascend the hill and holy place with all holiness as the way to glory In a word seeing all this priviledge comes by Christ 't is him we are to thank and serve and worship upon his own hill and in his own holy place till the time come till we ascend in glory And yet there is something more behind the way to this hill the conditions required to obtain this priviledge what we are to perform that we may attain it To have clean hands and pure hearts minds not lift up to vanity and mouths that will not swear to deceive our neighbour For he only shall ascend into the hill of the Lord he only shall rise up in his holy place he only is a true Believer he only truly worships God when he comes to Church to worship he only shall go to Heaven that hath clean hands c. THE FIRST SERMON UPON Whitsunday St. JOHN iii. 8. The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth So is every one that is born of the Spirit THe wind bloweth And this day it blew to purpose A mighty rushing wind there was that this day fill'd the House where the Disciples were assembled Acts ii 2. And it blew truly where it listed when it blew only in that Chamber where they were And the sound of it was heard sufficiently when Parthians and Medes and Elamites the dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Iudea in Cappadocia Pontus and Asia Phrygia and Pamphilia in Aegypt and in the parts of Lybia about Cyrene and strangers of Rome Iews and Proselites Cretes and Arabians all of them this day heard it fram'd into articulate voices into Tongues as many and divers as the Countries they came from Yet could not any of them tell whence this wind blew whence these sounds came for they were all amazed and in doubt saying one to another What meaneth this ver 12. Nor could the Disciples themselves but in general that from heaven it came nor whither it went when it retired from them This Day then was this Text fulfilled in your ears O happy Disciples Nicodemus might to day by experiment understand what in this Chapter he could not apprehend the Wind and Spirit both together and feel the workings of them both there both in one descent together though here he did not when they were put in one word together where whether Spiritus Ventus or Spiritus Spiritus both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were understood Expositors have disputed and it stands yet upon the question The Ancients restrained the words to the holy Spirit and translate it Spiritus The Modern Expositors to the Wind and translate it Ventus To do both right we shall joyn both senses understand the words as a similitude made by our blessed Saviour to instruct both Nicodemus and us in the ways of the Spirit and in the knowledge of the spiritual Regeneration by the likeness of the Wind. So two Simile's there will be in the Text. Sicut Ventus sic Spiritus and Sicut spiritus sic spiritualis The First Similitude is between the Wind and the Spirit The Second between the Spirit and the spiritual man or him that is born of the Spirit In the similitude betwixt the Wind and the Spirit we shall observe I. The Nature of them both in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 breath or Wind or Spirit it signifies them all II. The Power and Operation both of the one and of the other they blow both of them where they list III. The Plainness of their sounds Thou hearest the sound thereof both of them easie enough to be heard IV. The Obscurity yet of both their Motions ye know of neither of them whence they come or whither they go According to these four points will the second similitude be extended too He that is born of the Spirit will be like the Spirit in all four In his Nature in his Operations in his Plainness in some particulars and his Obscurity in others So is every one that is born of the Spirit But to tell you fully the true Condition of him that is born of the Spirit I must tell you first the Nature the Operations and the Properties of the Spirit And to tell you the Nature the Operations and the Properties of the Spirit I must shew you also those of the Wind that so by the more perfect discovery of them we may the more perfectly admire them and
and rule these resolutions desires and endeavours two Lights he makes true rectified reason and supernatural grace to guide them what to do at all seasons days and years and many little Stars many glimmerings of truth begin then to discover themselves which before did not After all this 5. the sensitive faculties in their course and order bring forth their living creature according to their kind submit themselves to the command of the superiour reason And then lastly when the Spirit has thus totally renewed the face of the earth of our mind and affections is the new man created after the likeness and image of God in righteousness and true holiness This the course this the order of the Spirits coming He comes moving upon the waters of repentance and first enlightens the darkness of our souls he orders all our faculties and powers he makes us fruitful to good works he daily encreases divine light and heat within us he reforms our sense subdues our passions regulates our reason sanctifies them all comes in light comes in grace comes in truth comes in strength comes in power that we might in his strength and power come one day all in glory And now he that thus created the old World and still creates the new new create and make us new and pray we all with holy David Psal. li. 10. Create O Lord in us new hearts and renew right spirits within us Cast us not O Lord for ever though we are now full of errors from thy presence and keep not thy holy Spirit from us but let thy Spirit of truth come down and guide us out of our wandrings give us the comfort of his help again guide us again into the ways of truth and stablish us there with thy free Spirit and that for the merits and mercies of thine only Son who here promised to send him and this day accordingly sent him to guide us to himself from grace to grace from truth to truth from truth below to true happiness above Jesus Christ our Saviour To whom c. THE THIRD SERMON UPON Whitsunday St. JOHN xvi 13. Howbeit when He the Spirit of Truth is come He will guide you into all truth AND He this day began to guide has continued guiding ever since will go on guiding to the end began it with the Apostles continued it to the Church and will continue it to it to the end of the World Indeed he that looks upon the face of the Christian Churches now would be easily tempted to think that either the time was not yet come that it should be fulfilled or that it had been long ago and his promise come utterly to an end for evermore For so far are we from a guide into all truth that we have much ado to find a guide in truth false guides and false spirits are so rise so far from being guided into all truth that 't is neerer truth to say into all error as if this guide had quite forsaken us or this promise belong'd not at all to us Yet for all that to us it is For the truth is 't is not this Guides this Spirits fault but ours that this all truth is so nigh none at all He will guide still but we will not be guided And into all truth too he will but we will not we will have no more than will serve our turn stand with our own humour ease and interest that 's the reason why he guides not now as in the days of the Apostles the first times the times of old We will not let him we cannot bear it as it is in the verse before or worse we will not bear we will not endure it every one will be his own guide go his own way make what truth he pleases or rather what him pleases the only truth every one follow his own spirit that 's the reason why we have so little of the Spirit of Truth among us There are so many private spirits that there is no room for this Yet if into all or indeed any truth that 's worth the name of saving we would be guided to this One we must return to one spirit or to no truth There is but one Trurth and one Spirit all other are but fancies He that breaks the unity of the Spirit that sets up many spirits sets up many guides but never a true one chance he may perhaps into a truth but not be guided to it and as little good come of it where the analogie of Scripture and Truth must needs be broken by so many differing and divided spirits 'T is time we think of holding to one Spirit that we may all hold the same Truth and in time be led into it all The only question is Whether we will be led or no If we will not the business is at an end If we will we must submit to this Spirit and his guidance his manner and way of guiding By so doing we shall not fail in any necessary saving truth He will guide us into all truth Which that he may as I have heretofore out of the former words told you of his coming so shall I now by his assistance out of these latter tell you of his guiding for to that intent and purpose he came to day and comes every day came at first and comes still comes 1. to guide to guide 2. into truth 3. into all truth 4. even you and all into it yet 5. to guide only not to drive or force us to guide after his own way and fashion not our fancie of which lastly we need not doubt or make a question he will do it So that now the Parts of the Text will plainly rise into these Propositions 1. That though Christ be gone he has not left us without a guide but has sent Him that shall guide us still 2. That He that shall do it is He that very He that is the Spirit of Truth just before No other can 3. That guide therefore into truth he will no other will 4. That he will guide not into this truth or that truth only but into all 5. That he will guide even us too You and you and you us as well as those that were before us all 's but You. 6. That he will do it yet but after his own way and fashion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after the way he comes after as he comes so will he guide set us a way to find the truth and guide us after that way and no other 7. That for certain so it is He will Howbeit he will though yet he has not though yet we peradventure will not or cannot endure to be guided yet when we will set our selves to it He will guide us into c. it shall be no fault or failure of his for he for his part will is always willing The sum of all is this to assure us 1. that notwithstanding all the errors and false spirits now abroad there is a Spirit of Truth still
for the business of Christ. 3. Yet cloven they must be too 'T is not a single tongue will do it The Apostles were to preach to the world and in the world there were a world of tongues that they might therefore so preach as to be understood as many tongues were necessary to be given them as there were people with whom they were to deal Behold the greatness of Gods goodness here Tongues were divided for a curse at first lo he turns them into a blessing then they were sent to divide the world now they are given to unite it then they wrought confusion now they are given to unite it Thus God can turn our curses into blessings when he pleases And fit it is that we then should turn our tongues to his praise and glory This we may do with one tongue alone But they who would be Preachers and teach others had need of more Tongues though they come not now suddenly like the wind yet come they must as they can come by our industry and Gods blessing God would not have sent so many tongues if more then one had not been necessary for his work though not now perhaps to preach yet to understand surely what we preach 'T is a bold adventure to presume to the office of a Teacher with a single tongue He is not able to teach children to spell true that knows no more much less to spell the mysteries of the Gospel to men who understands not so much as that one tongue he speaks if he understand no more Unless we be wiser than Christ and his Holy Spirit we cannot think any sufficiently endued to preach them but such as have received the gift of tongues more then one or two the gift I say for though to speak with tongues be not given now miraculously as it was here yet given it is to us it is the gift still of the Holy Spirit as a blessing upon our labours But there are other tongues besides which come from this days mercy The tongue that speaks right things the tongue that comforts the afflicted soul the tongue that recals the wandring step the tongue that defends the fatherless and widow the tongue that pours it self out in prayers and praises the tongue that speaks continually of holy things the tongue that speaks no evil nor does no hurt the tongue that speaks nothing but a meek and humble and obedient spirit these are the tongues of the Holy Spirit and even from this day they have their rise these are for all orders and sorts of men and if those men who now take to themselves to be Teachers had but learnt to speak with these tongues they would have spoke to far better purpose and more to Gods acceptance than now they do in speaking as they do they had not thus blasphemed the Holy Spirit to entitle him to the extravagancy of their tongues Yet fire and tongues and tongues of fire are not all the wonders that this day produced These fell not only like a flash of Lightning upon the Apostles but they sate upon them or rather It sate upon them says the Text. All these tongues as divided and cloven as they were like so many flames or tongues of fire at top they were all united in one root below with one mouth Rom. xv 6. with one voice Chap. iv 24. they spake all but the same thing They are not the tongues of the Spirit that speak now one thing now another that agree not in the foundation at the least Nor is that fire of the Holy Ghosts enkindling that cannot sit for to the fire we may 2. refer this It. The holy flame is not like the fire of thorns that are always crackling making a noise it can sit quietly in the heart and on the lips and on the head sometimes in the one and sometimes on the other it sits upon the heads and singes not a hair it sits in the heart and scalds it not at all it sits upon the lips yet makes them not burst out into a heat the firy zeal that is so much cried up for spirit in the world is too unquiet too hot too raging to be of this days fire Yet 3. we may refer this It to the Holy Spirit it self That sate upon each of them too It sate first upon each of them as a crown of glory so St. Cyril The Apostles were the Crowns and Glory of the Churches and so this install'd them It sate 2. upon them as in a Chair of State to fix authority upon them to set them in their Chairs to give them power to govern and guide the Church It sate 3. upon them so to call into their mind the promise of their Master that he would send one to sit in counsel with them and be with them always to the end of the world for sitting is a posture to denote constancy establishment and continuance It sate 4. as it were to teach us to be setled and constant too to be establisht and grounded in our faith not to be wavering and carried about with every wind of doctrine There is no greater evidence against error then that it is not constant to it self no greater argument against these great pretended spirits then that they cannot sit know not where to fix are always moving as if the Psalmists curse had taken hold upon them as it does and will do without doubt upon all that take the houses of God in possession Psal. lxxxiii 12. that usurp upon the office or portion of the Church as if God had made them like a wheel and as stubble before the wind that can sit no where rest at nothing but turn about from one uncertainty to another The Holy Spirit is a Spirit that will sit still and be at peace continue and abide It sate 5. upon each to teach each of us peace and quiet in all our passions constancy and continuance in truth and goodness and a setled and composed behaviour in all conditions blow the winds never so high burn the fires of persecution never so hot against us It were well now if we could say as it follows next concerning the Apostles that we were filled with this Spirit that we were filled with the Holy Ghost that we might arrive at that point within our selves though we cannot now arrive at that particular in the Text. The only filling now that I have time to tell you of is that before us and 't is a good one the filling us with the body and bloud of Christ which is a signal filling us with the Spirit Go we will then about it so to fill our our souls The tongues and fire in the Text we may well apply to it we may have use of there For tongues are not to speak with only but tast with two O tast we then how good and gracious the Lord is there that vouchsafes so graciously to come under our roofs to come upon tongues And Tongues 2. are to help
only that meek and merciful man St. Gregory that valiant Lion St. Ambrose that laborious Oxe St. Ierome that sublime Eagle St. Augustine as some please to fancy these four beasts or the four first Patriarchates as others have interpreted them but all the four corners of the earth have since profest it and with the twenty four Elders faln down and worshipt it The lustre and glory of that glorious mystery has shone thorow all the quarters of the World and all his famous mercies to his people and his judgments against their enemies are still daily celebrated and magnified in all the Congregations of the Saints This St. Iohn foresaw and here foretels the poor persecuted Christians then that how hard soever things went with them then they should ere long turn all their sighs and lamentations into Songs of praise for their deliverance and salvation This they should and 3. we should as much It was foretold of them they should it is commanded us we should Therefore glorifie him says the Apostle 1 Cor. vi 20. glorifie him in your bodies and glorifie him in your spirits glorifie him with the bodies that glorifie him and glorifie him with the Spirits that glorifie him bear them all company in so doing do it all the ways you can you can neither do it too many nor too much Put on the faces of Eagles in the Temple and raise your souls up there and praise him Put on the faces of men at home and let the holiness of your conversation praise him there Put on the appearance of Oxen in your Callings and let the diligence of your Actions and Vocations praise him Put on the appearance of Lions abroad in all places of temptations and let your courage in the resisting and repelling them praise him there Thus we truly copy out our pattern Yet to transcribe it perfectly well we must now secondly also transcribe their earnestness For here they not only give praise and glory unto God but they do it earnestly they rest not doing it they rest not saying that is 1. They cannot rest unless they say it And I will not suffer mine eyes to sleep nor mine eye-lids to slumber neither the temples of my head to take any rest till I have found out a way to praise my God till I have offered up the service of my thanks and added something to his glory must be the Christians resolution 2. They rest not saying is they say it and say it again say it over and over Holy Holy Holy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is in some Copies nine times read Holy nine times repeated they think they can never say it enough No more it seems did David when he so oft repeated For his mercy endureth for ever in one single Psalm Psal. cxxxvi And hence it is the Church to imitate this holy fervour so often reiterates the Doxologie and inserts so many several Hymns and even either begins almost all its Prayers and Collects with an acknowledgment either of his Mercy Goodness and Providence or ends them with acknowledgment of his Majesty Power and Glory this both to imitate the glorious Saints and to obey the Apostles injunction of being fervent in Prayers and Praises 3. They rest not saying is they rest not but in so doing That 's their rest their joy their happiness to do so thus to be always praising God It would be ours too had we the same affections to it or the same senses of it We could not go to rest nor lie down to sleep could not sit down and take our rest till we had first lift up our eyes and hearts nay and voices too sometimes till we had first paid our thanks and given him praise for his protections in our ways and labours untill then 3. But to be thus eager and earnest at it is not all So we might be for a start and give over presently but 't is day and night that Angels and good men do it There is no night indeed properly with the Angels 'T is with them eternal day yet all that time which we call day and night they are still a saying it The Morning comes and they are at it the Night comes and they are at it still Let me go for the day breaketh says the Angel that strove with Iacob Gen. xxxii 26. And I must sing my Mattens adds the Chaldee Paraphrase as if he had said I can stay no longer I must go take my Morning course in the heavenly Choirs And in the depth of night we find them by whole hosts and multitudes at their Gloria in Excelsis Glory be to God in the highest St. Luke ii 13. The first fervours of Christian Piety were somewhat like this of the Angels You might have seen their Churches full at midnight all the Watches of the night you might have heard them chanting out the praises of their God and all the several hours of the day you might have found some or other continually praising God in his holy Temples as well as in their Closets Nay in the Iewish Temple they ceased not to do so Ye that by night stand in the House of the Lord Psal. cxiv 2. Praise him ye says holy David for indeed ye stand there to praise him and the Temple it self stood open all the day for all comers to that purpose when they would Therefore shall every good man sing of thy praise without ceasing says the Psalmist Psal. xxx 13. 'T is a good thing to do so Psal. xcii 1 2. To tell of thy loving kindness early in the morning and of thy Truth in the night season so good that David himself resolves upon it Psal. cxlv 2. Every day will I give thanks unto thee and praise thy Name for ever and ever prays also that his mouth may be filled with Gods praise that he may sing of his glory and honour all the day long Psal. lxxi 7. from morning to night and from night again to morning he would willingly do nothing else Nay be the night and day taken either in their natural or moral sense either properly for the spaces and intervals of light and darkness or morally for the sad hours of affliction and adversity and those bright ones of jollity and prosperity good men praise God in them both do not cease to do it if sorrows curtain up their eyes with tears and put out all their light of joy and comfort yet blessed be the Name of the Lord cry they out with patient Iob Chap. i. 21. Again if their paths be strow'd with light and the Sun gild all their actions with lustrous beams if Heaven shine full upon them they are not yet so dazell'd but they see and adore Gods mercy in them and in the mid'st of all their glories and successes they are still upon his praise and render all to him Neither the one night nor this other day make them at any time forget him A good item to us hence 1. not to suffer
consider it as the voice of a sinful man of humane nature corrupted with sin Though all created Substances contract a kind of trembling or drawing back at the approach of God the very Seraphims covering their faces with their wings yet did not sin and folly cover them with a new confusion the weakest and poorest of them would draw a kind of solace and happiness from the beams of that Majesty that so afrighted them 'T is sin that speaks the Text in a louder key that more actually cries to him not softly and weakly out of weakness but aloud and strongly out of wilfulness to depart It does more then so It drives God from us not only bids him go but forces him It is not so mannerly as to intreat him it discourteosly and unthankfully thrusts him out of doors Exi a me Get you out says the sinful soul to God no obsecro no entreaty added not go out I pray thee or depart I beseech thee We should do well to think how uncivilly we deal with God we are not content to put him out of his own house and dwelling the temples of our bodies the altars of our souls by our sins nay and his holy Temples by sacriledges and profaneness but sometimes in ruder terms we bid him be gone and thrust him out by wilful and deliberate transgressions by solemn and legal sacriledges and profanenesses which we commit and reiterate in contempt of him as if expresly we said to him Go from us we will have nothing to do with thee any longer thou shalt not only not dwell but not stand or be amongst us The people of Gennesaret besought Christ to depart out of their Coasts These sinners will out with him whether he will or no and though he come again and knock to be let in and continue knocking till his head be wet with the dew and his locks with the drops of the night yet can he hear no other welcome from us then depart from us we are in bed well at ease in our accustom'd sins and we will not rise to let thee in we will not be troubled with thy company with a course so chargeable or dangerous as is thy wonted service Strange it is that we should thus deal with God but thus we do yet no man lays this unkind usage to his heart never considers how he thus dayly uses God If good motions arise within us we bid them be gone they trouble us they hinder our sports or projects our quiet or interest If good opportunities present themselves without we bid them go we are not at leisure to make use of them they come unseasonably If the Word preached desire to enter in if it touch our Consciences and strike home we bid that depart too it is not for our turn it crosses our interests or our profits or our pleasures we will not therefore have it stay any longer with us If God by any other way as of afflictions or of deliverances by blessings or curses or any other way come to us they are no sooner over nor these any sooner tasted but we send them gone to purpose and think of them again no more our sins return and send them going make us forget both his justice and his mercies This is the course the sinner treads to God-ward From whence it is that the soul thus ill apparell'd with its own sins dares not look God in the face without the mediation of a Redeemer She has driven God from her by her sins and having thus incens'd him flees away when he draws towards her Thus Adam and Eve having by sin disrob'd themselves of their original righteousness when they hear the voice of God though but gently walking towards them and calling to them they run away and hide themselves from the presence of the Lord amongst the trees of the Garden Gen. iii. 8. They felt it seems they wanted something to shelter them from the presence of God into the thickets therefore they hie themselves as if they then fore-saw they had need of the Rod out of the stem of Iesse the branch out of his roots as the Prophet calls Christ Isa. xi 1. to bear off the heat of Gods anger from them Under the leaves of this branch alone it is that we are covered sheltered from the wrath to come His leaves his righteousness it is that clothes our nakedness the very garments which our first Parents were fain to get to themselves before they durst venture again into his presence There is no enduring Gods presence still no coming nere him unless we look upon him through these leaves from under the shelter of this branch of Iesse Tell the sinner who keeps not under this shelter that lies not at this guard of Gods coming to him of his looking towards him of his approach to judgment and with Felix he trembles at it puts off the discourse to another time refuses to hear so terrible news as Gods coming is if Christ came not with him Such a one has sin made him that he desires not to see him whose eyes will not behold sin Depart from me O Lord in stead of Thy Kingdom come is his daily Prayer Yet as hardly or unadvisedly as nature or corruption may deliver this speech of St. Peter's it may be delivered in a softer sweeter tone and so it was by him It may 3. be the voice of the humble spirit casting himself down at the feet of Iesus and confessing himself altogether unworthy of so great a favour as his presence If we peruse the speeches of humble souls in Scripture by which they accosted their God or their Superiors we shall see variety of expression indeed but little difference in the upshot of the words I am but dust and ashes says father Abraham Gen. xviii 27. Now how can dust and ashes with their light scattering atoms endure the least breath of the Almighty The Prophet Isaiah saw the Lord in a Vision sitting upon a Throne and presently he cries out Wo is me for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for mine eyes have seen the King the Lord of Hosts Isai. vi 5. What undone Isaiah Yes Wo is me I am undone for mine eyes have seen the Lord of Hosts who certainly cannot but consume me for so boldly beholding him I am not worthy says the Centurion to Christ St. Matth. viii 8. that thou should'st come under the roof of my house speak the word only as if his presence were so great he might not bear it And St. Paul assoon as he had told us that he had seen Christ 1 Cor. xv 8 tells us he was one born out of due time was the least of the Apostles and not meet to be called an Apostle as if the very seeing of Christ had made him worth nothing Indeed it makes us think our selves so of whom we ever think too much till we look up
day as Simeons arms with the Child Iesus with the Lords Christ. This work is never unseasonable Christ may at all times be taken so with reverence into our mouths or arms or hearts or any part about us Yet he has a proper time besides and that is when he is presented in the Temple after his Circumcision and his mothers Purification At such a time as that when our hearts are purified by repentance and faith when the devout soul which like his Mother conceives and brings him forth has accomplished the days of her Purification and offered the forementioned offerings of the Turtle and the Dove and we circumcised with the Circumcision of the Spirit all our excrescent inclinations exorbitant affections and superfluous desires cut off we may with confidence take him into our arms But till then 't is too much sawciness to come so near him at least presumption to conceive we have him truly in our arms that he is truly embraced by us whilst we have other loves other affections which cannot abide with him already in our arms and too ready in our hands Prophane we him not therefore with unhallowed hands nor touch this holy Ark of the Covenant with irreverent fingers lest we die Many that have done so says the Apostle for so doing are sick and weak upon it and many sleep that is die suddenly in their sins whilst the hallowed meat is yet in their mouths 'T is as dangerous as death and damnation too to take Christ with unpurified and unprepared hearts or hands Take him not then till you are prepared Yet 2. if prepared take him when you can and as soon as you can when he is offered to you whilst you may To day if you will 't is offering day with him yet any day too when he is offered and whilst he is so for he always will not be so 't will not be always Candlemas he will not be offered every day There is a time when he will go and not return when he will not any longer strive with flesh when we shall stretch out our hands and he will not come nor hear nor see us neither To day if you will do it do it you are not sure of your selves to morrow much less of him To day if you will if not I know not what day to pitch nor will you find it easie to meet another if you at any time neglect the present This day then whilst it is called to day lay hold of him if you be wise and would not be put off by him with a Discedite hands off I have nothing to do with you nor you with me it is too late Many are the times and days as well as means and ways wherein Christ is offered to us but this day he has been thrust into our arms put into our hands and we have taken him Yet say I still take him up in your arms and I say it without either tautology or impertinence or impropriety Into our hands we have taken him and I hope into our arms into our bosoms into our hearts besides take him yet up higher and higher into our affections the very natural arms of our souls more and more into them nearer and nearer to us closer and closer to our hearts embrace and hug him close as we those we most affectionate-love and hold him fast that he may no more depart from us but delight to be with us as with those that so love him that they cannot live without him Thus 't is no impertinence to wish you to take him still though you have taken him Thus you are every day to take him or this days taking him will come to nothing or to worse If you go not on still taking him nearer and nearer deeper and deeper every day into your bosoms and hearts as you have this day into your hands and mouths you will be questioned in indignation by him Why have you taken me into your mouths Why have you taken me up in your hands seeing you now seem to hate me are so soon grown weary of me and put me from you and even cast me behind you Take heed I beseech you of doing thus of drawing back your hands so soon drawing back at all For after this favour whereby you have been made partakers of him whereby he has so infinitely condescended from himself as to be received into so unclean and filthy and extremely unworthy hands and souls to be embraced by such vile Creatures what can we render him sufficient for such goodness 'T is but this O man that he requires a poor thing O man that he requires at thy hand for this vast infinite favour and thou hast Simeon here doing it before thee blessing God And he took him up in his arms and blessed God Indeed we can do little if we cannot bless bless him that blesses us benedicere speak well of him say he is good and gracious loving and merciful unto us tell and speak forth his praise tell and declare the great and gracious things that he hath done for us the wonderful things that he this day did for the Children of men Came and took their place and was presented and accepted for them who were but reffuse and rejected persons were fain to send Bulls and Lambs and Rams the very beasts to plead for them glad of any thing to stand between them and their offended God even the heifers dung and ashes to make atonement for them and as it were her skin to cover them Numb xix 2. till this day when this holy Child was presented for all and all those former poor shifts and shelters at an end no need of those dead offerings more being fully reconciled by this living one for ever Bless we him and praise him and speak good of him for this Bless we him yet more for vouchsafing us the touches of his sacred Body for so kindly coming into our arms our own children do not sometimes do so but come often with much frowardness and crying reluctance and unwillingness This Child Iesus comes of his own accord slips down from Heaven into our laps when we are not aware is in our arms e're we can stir them up And that this Son of God should so willingly leave his Fathers bosom the true and only seat of joy and pleasure for ours the perfect seat of sorrow and misery and rest himself in our weak arms who have nor rest nor shelter but in his that he should thus really infinitely bless us and yet require no greater a return than our imperfect blessing him again How can we keep our lips shut our tongues silent of his praise But having this day seal'd all these favours and blessings to us by the holy Sacrament the pledge and seal of this love wherewith he loved us having so really and fully and manifestly and fast given himself into our arms we cannot sure but bless him both with our tongues and hands with holy Simeon make an
Hymn of his goodness an Anthem of his love a Psalm of his mercy and in sweet numbers carol forth his praise set our heads to do it our hearts to endite it our pens to write it our voices to sing it and with the three Children in their Song invite all the creatures in Heaven and Earth Angels and men all the sensible and insensible creatures to bear us company so to make a full noise of all kinds of Musick to set forth his praise Do it with our hands too do that which will exalt his praise Then 't is benedixit complete when it has benefecit next it We speak best when we do best when our lives and actions speak it Benedixit bene vixit are not so near of sound for nothing A holy life is not more truly Gods blessing to man than again it is mans chiefest and most acceptable blessing God Many ways may this blessing God be performed by us but as we stand now with some relation to this days blessing the blessed Eucharist the feast of blessing the cup of blessing as the Apostle stiles it I shall shew you now you have taken it what blessing is more peculiarly required after it Three acts of blessing there are to be performed after this act of so taking Christ into our arms and for it three points of blessing for this great blessing of the Holy Communion Thanksgiving Oblation and Petition Bless him and give thanks to him Bless him and offer up his Son to him again and our selves with him offer his Son in our own arms him and our selves Bless him and present our petitions to him our prayers as well as praises Or in the language of the Text Benedicamus Speak well of him do somewhat for him and bring our requests and petitions to him You see I need not run out of the Text for any kind of blessing First then Bless him with your tongues Speak good of his Name and let your lips speak forth his glory and wonderous works tell the world what he has done for you what great and mighty things Salutem ejus evangelizate Psal. xcvi 4. Tell it out for good tidings the tidings of great joy Be always speaking always telling it Call to all the creatures to bear you company every thing to rejoyce with you Tell your happiness to the Woods and Mountains in your solitary retirements tell it to the Towns and Villages speak of it in all companies tell it to the young Men and Maids old Men and Children all Sexes and Ages what God has done for your souls Tell it to the Summer and Winter both in your prosperity and adversity let nothing make you forget your thanks Tell it to the Frost and Fire in your coldnesses and in your fervencies and zeals to the Earth and to the Waters in your drinesses of soul and in the sorrows of your hearts praise him in all conditions Tell it to the Angels and Heavens as you are about your heavenly business Tell it to the Fowls of the Air even in the midst of your airy thoughts and projects that they may be such as may set forth his glory Tell it to the Priests and Servants of the Lord to solemnize your thanksgiving Tell it to the Spirits and Souls of the righteous to bear a part with you in your Song and intreat them all all estates and orders all conditions and things to bring in each their blessing to make up one great and worthyblessing for this days blessing to rejoyce and sing exult and triumph with you for this happy arm-full of eternal blessings this day bestowed upon you Begin we the blessing blessing and honour and power and glory and thanks and praise and worship and great glory be unto God for ever and ever and let all the creatures say Amen Bless we him secondly with our Offerings Hold we up first our hands and bless him hold we up our hands and vow and resolve to serve him from henceforth with hand and heart and all our members offer him our vows and resolutions holy ones strengthen our hands and renew our purposes to serve him now henceforward with a high hand maugre all the pleasures and profits of the world say what they will against it with a strong hand do they what they dare or can against us Bless him and resolve to bless him for ever and every day renew we still our resolutions that our hands may be so strengthened by them that none may be able to take him out of our hands 2. Catch we fast hold of him with our hands when we bless him clasp him fast by a lively hope as assured that all our hope is in him all our hope in holding him clasp we him fast and bless him 3. Spread your arms and bless him with your Faith Open your souls and every day more and more let him come in let it be your continual exercise more and more to trust him to rely upon him 4. Open your hands and cast down your blessings upon the poor He that blesses the poor blesses God What you have done to them says Christ you did to me St. Matth. xxv Open your hands and bless God 5. Cross your hands and beat your breasts Bless him with your hands a cross as humbly acknowledging your vileness and unworthiness of so great a favour as his presence as the seeing and touching and handling and â—asting him He truly blesses God on high that thus makes himself low 6. Fill your hands and bless him bless him with a full hand both your hands full of blessings blessings of all sorts all good works and vertues An universal obedience is the onliest blessing God Simeon being interpreted is obedient and he it is that here blesses the obedient soul that at any time only truly blesses God 7 Wash we yet our hands before we either open or spread or hold up or cross or clasp or fill them Wash we before we bless wash away our impurities with our tears bewail and bemoan our defects and weaknesses and imperfections which in our receiving have been too many that by this hand our oblation and blessing may be offered with pure and unspotted hands and hearts 8. Clap we then our hands and bless him do it with joy and not with grief we may do it well when we have so washt them first Let it be our way of blessing to do it chearfully to settle our selves to all the works of piety and obedience of faith and hope and charity and humility and in a word to an universal righteousness with all the purity we can with all the strength and resolution we are able Bless with a chearful and ready hand set our selves ever hereafter merrily to this work But remember we all this while we so use our hands to bless that we so open and shut so spread and cross them that we let not Christ go out the while Offer we up our selves and him together Resolve we