to diminish mercy The names of first or last derogate from it for first and last are but ragges of time and his mercy hath no relation to time no limitation in time it is not first nor last but eternall everlasting Let the Devill make me so far desperate as to conceive a time whē there was no mercy and he hath made me so far an Atheist as to conceive a time when there was no God if I despoile him of his mercy any one minute and say now God hath no mercy for that minute I discontinue his very Godhead and his beeing Later Grammarians have wrung the name of mercy out of misery Misericordia praesumit miseriam say these there could be no subsequent mercy if there were no precedent misery But the true roote of the word mercy through all the Prophets is Racham and Racham is diligere to love as long as there hath been love and God is love there hath been mercy And mercy considered externally and in the practise and in the effect began not at the helping of man when man was fallen and become miserable but at the making of man when man was nothing So then here we consider not mercy as it is radically in God and an essentiall attribute of his but productively in us as it is an action a working upon us and that more especially as God takes all occasions to exercise that action and to shed that mercy upon us for particular mercies are feathers of his wings and that prayer Lord let thy mercy lighten upon us as our trust is in thee is our birdlime particular mercies are that cloud of Quailes which hovered over the host of Israel and that prayer Lord let thy mercy lighten upon us is our net to catch our Gomer to fill of those Quailes The aire is not so full of Moats of Atomes as the Church is of Mercies and as we can suck in no part of aire but we take in those Moats those Atomes so here in the Congregation we cannot suck in a word from the preacher we cannot speak we cannot sigh a prayer to God but that that whole breath and aire is made of mercy But we call not upon you from this Text to consider Gods ordinary mercy that which he exhibites to all in the ministery of his Church nor his miraculous mercy his extraordinary deliverances of States and Churches but we call upon particular Consciences by occasion of this Text to call to minde Gods occasionall mercies to them such mercies as a regenerate man will call mercies though a naturall man would call them accidents or occurrences or contingencies A man wakes at mid-night full of unclean thoughts and he heares a passing Bell this is an occasionall mercy if he call that his own knell and consider how unfit he was to be called out of the world then how unready to receive that voice Foole this night they shall fetch away thy soule The adulterer whose eye waites for the twy-light goes forth and casts his eyes upon forbidden houses and would enter and sees a Lord have mercy upon us upon the doore this is an occasionall mercy if this bring him to know that they who lie sick of the plague within passe through a furnace but by Gods grace to heaven and hee without carries his own furnace to hell his lustfull loines to everlasting perdition What an occasionall mercy had Balaam when his Asse Catechized him What an occasionall mercy had one Theefe when the other catechized him so Art not thou afraid being under the same condemnation What an occasionall mercy had all they that saw that when the Devil himself fought for the name of Jesus and wounded the sons of Sceva for exorcising in the name of Jesus Act. 19.14 with that indignation with that increpation Iesus we know and Paul we know but who are ye If I should declare what God hath done done occasionally for my soule where he instructed me for feare of falling where he raised me when I was fallen perchance you would rather fixe your thoughts upon my illnesse and wonder at that then at Gods goodnesse and glorifie him in that rather wonder at my sins then at his mercies rather consider how ill a man I was then how good a God he is If I should inquire upon what occasion God elected me and writ my name in the book of Life I should sooner be afraid that it were not so then finde a reason why it should be so God made Sun and Moon to distinguish seasons and day and night and we cannot have the fruits of the earth but in their seasons But God hath made no decree to distinguish the seasons of his mercies In paradise the fruits were ripe the first minute and in heaven it is alwaies Autumne his mercies are ever in their maturity We ask panem quetidianum our daily bread and God never sayes you should have come yesterday he never sayes you must againe to morrow but to day if you will heare his voice to day he will heare you If some King of the earth have so large an extent of Dominion in North and South as that he hath Winter and Summer together in his Dominions so large an extent East and West as that he hath day and night together in his Dominions much more hath God mercy and judgement together He brought light out of darknesse not out of a lesser light he can bring thy Summer out of Winter though thou have no Spring though in the wayes of fortune or understanding or conscience thou have been benighted till now wintred and frozen clouded and eclypsed damped and benummed smothered and stupified till now now God comes to thee not as in the dawning of the day not as in the bud of the spring but as the Sun at noon to illustrate all shadowes as the sheaves in harvest to fill all penuries all occasions invite his mercies and all times are his seasons If it were not thus in generall it would never have been so in this particular in our case Achaz case in the Text in King Achaz If God did not seeke occasion to doe good to all he would never have found occasion to doe good to King Achaz Subjects are to look upon the faults of Princes with the spectacles of obedience and reverence to their place and persons little and dark spectacles and so their faults and errors are to appeare little and excusable to them Gods perspective glasse his spectacle is the whole world he looks not upon the Sun in his spheare onely but as he works upon the whole earth And he looks upon Kings not onely what harme they doe at home but what harme they occasion abroad through that spectacle the faults of Princes in Gods eye are multiplyed farre above those of private men Achaz had such faults and yet God sought occasion of Mercy Iotham his Father is called a good King and yet all Idolatry was not removed in his time and he
erected Iegar-Sehadutha by an extraction from the last word of our Text Sahad Jacob calls it by the first word And the reason is given in the body of the Text it selfe in the vulgat Edition though how it got thither we know not for in the Originall it is not Vterque juxta proprietatem lingua suae Laban spake in his language Syriaque Jacob spake in his Hebrew and both called that heape of stones a witnesse Now our bestowing this little time upon the clearing of the words hath saved us much more time for by this meanes we have shortned this clause of our Text and all that we are to consider is but this My witnesse is in heaven And truly that is enough I care not though all the world knew all my faults I care not what they conclude of Gods not granting my prayers my witnesse is in heaven To be condemned unjustly amongst men to be ill interpreted in the acts of my Religion is a heavy case but yet I have a reliefe in all this my witnesse is in heaven The first comfort is Quia in Coelis Quia in Coelis because he whom I rely upon is in heaven For that is the foundation and Basis upon which our Saviour erects that prayer which he hath recommended unto us Qui es in coelis Our Father which art in heaven when I lay hold upon him there in heaven I pursue cheerefully and confidently all the other petitions for daily bread for forgivenesse of sins for deliverance from tentations from and for all Psal 〈◊〉 Acts. 〈◊〉 Est in coelis he is in heaven and then Sedet in coelis be sits in heaven That as I see him in that posture that Stephen saw him standing at the right hand of the Father and so in procinctu in a readinesse in a willingnesse to come to my succour so I might contemplate him in a judiciary posture in a potestative a soveraigne posture sitting and consider him as able as willing to relieve me He is in heaven and he sits in heaven and then habitat in coelis he dwels in heaven Psal 113.5 he is and he is alwayes there Baals Priests could not alwaies finde him at home Iobs God and our God is never abroad He dwels in the heavens and as it is expressed there In excelsis he dwels on high so high that as it is there added God humbles himselfe to behold the things that are in heaven With what amazednesse must we consider the humiliation of God in descending to the earth lower then so to hell when even his descending unto heaven is a humiliation God humbles himselfe when he beholds any thing lower then himselfe though Cherubins though Seraphins though the humane nature the body of his owne and onely eternall Son and yet he beholds considers studies us wormes of the earth and no men This then is Iobs Testis and our first comfort Quia in coelis because he is in heaven and sits in heaven and dwels in heaven in the highest heaven and so sees all things But then if God see and say nothing David apprehends that for a most dangerous condition and therefore he sayes Psal 28.1 Psal 1â—â— 1 Be not silent O Lord lest if thou be silent I perish And againe Hold not thy peace O God of my praise for the mouth of the wicked is opened against me And Lord let thy mercy be as forward as their malice And therefore as God from that heighth sees all and the strictest examination that we put upon any Witnesse is that if he pretend to testifie any thing upon his knowledge we aske how he came by that knowledge and if he be oculatus testis a Witnesse that saw it this is good evidence as God is to this purpose all eye and sees all so for our farther comfort he descends to the office of being a Witnesse There is a Witnesse in heaven But then Testis meus God may be a Witnesse and yet not my Witnesse and in that there is small comfort 〈◊〉 29.22 if God be a Witnesse on my adversaries side a Witnesse against me Even I know and am a Witnesse saith the Lord that is a Witnesse of the sins which I know by thee Job 10.27 And that is that which Iob with so much tendernesse apprehended Thou renewest thy witnesses against me Thou sent'st a witnesse against me in the Sabaeans upon my servants and then thou renewedst that witnesse in the Caldaeans upon my cattell and then thou renewedst that in thy stormes and tempests upon my children All this while God was a Witnesse but not his witnesse but a witnesse on his adversaries side Now if our own heart our owne conscience condemne us this is shrewd evidence saies S. Iohn 1 Iohn 3.20 for mine owne conscience single is a thousand witnesses against me But then saies the Apostle there God is greater then the heart for saies he he knowes all things He knowes circumstances of sinne as well as substance and that we seldome know seldome take knowledge of If then mine owne heart be a thousand God that is greater is ten thousand witnesses if he witnesse against me But if he be my Witnesse a Witnesse for me as he alwaies multiplies in his waies of mercy he is thousands of thousands millions of millions of witnesses in my behalfe for there is no condemation no possible condemnation Rom. 8.1 to them that are in him not if every graine of dust upon the earth were an Achitophel and gave counsell against me not if every sand upon the shoare were a Rabshakeh and railed against me not if every atome in the ayre were a Satan an Adversary an Accuser not if every drop in the Sea were an Abaddon an Apollyon a Destroyer there could be no condemuation if he be my Witnesse If he be my Witnesse he proceeds thus in my behalfe his Spirit beares witnesse with my spirit for mine inward assurance that I stand established in his favour and either by an actuall deliverance or by some such declaration as shall preserve me from fainting if I be not actually delivered he gives a farther testimony in my behalfe For he is in Heaven and he sits in Heaven and he dwels in Heaven in the highest Heaven and sees all and is a Witnesse and my Witnesse there is the largenesse of our comfort But will all this come home to Iobs end and purpose Iudeâ— That he need not care though all men knew all his faults he need not care though God passed over his prayers because God is his Witnesse what declarations soever he had in himselfe would the world beleeve that God testified in his behalfe when they saw his calamities multiplied upon him and his prayers neglected If they will not herein lyes his and our finall comfort That he that is my Witnesse is in the highest Heaven there is no person above him and therefore He that is my Witnesse is my
your Master hath dealt thus mercifully with you all that to you all all he sends a message Sciant omnes Let all the house of Israel know this Needs the house of Israel know any thing Needs there any learning in persons of Honour We know this characterizes this distinguishes some whole Nations In one Nation it is almost a scorn for a gentleman to be learned in another almost every gentleman is conveniently and in some measure learned But I enlarge not my self I pretend not to comprehend Nationall vertues or Nationall vices For this knowledge which is proclaimed here which is the knowledge that the true Messias is come and that there is no other to bee expected is such a knowledge as that even the house of Israel it self is without a Foundation if it be without this knowledge Is there any house that needs no reparations Is there a house of Israel let it be the Library the depositary of the Oracles of God a true Church that hath the true word of the true God let it be the house fed with Manna that hath the true administration of the true Sacraments of Christ Jesus is there any such house that needs not a farther knowledge that there are alwaies thieves about that house that would rob us of that Word and of those Sacraments The Holy Ghost is a Dove and the Dove couples paires is not alone Take heed of singular of schismatical opinions what is more singular more schismaticall then when all Religion is confined in one mans breast The Dove is animal sociale a sociable creature and not singular and the Holy Ghost is that And Christ is a Sheep animal gregale they flock together Embrace thou those truths which the whole flock of Christ Jesus the whole Christian Church hath from the beginning acknowledged to be truths and truths necessary to salvation for for other Traditionall and Conditionall and Occasionall and Collaterall and Circumstantiall points for Almanack Divinity that changes with the season with the time and Meridionall Divinity calculated to the heighth of such a place and Lunary Divinity that ebbes and flowes and State Divinity that obeyes affections of persons Domus Israel the true Church of God had need of a continuall succession of light a contiuall assistance of the Spirit of God and of her own industry to know those things that belong to her peace And therefore let no Church no man think that he hath done enough or knowes enough If the Devill thought so too we might the better think so but since we see that he is in continuall practise against us let us be in a continuall diligence and watchfulnesse to countermine him We are domus Israel the house of Israel and it is a great measure of knowledge that God hath afforded us but if every Pastor look into his Parish and every Master into his own Family and see what is practising there sciat domus Israel let all our Israel know that there is more knowledge and more wisdome necessary Be every man farre from calumniating his Superiours for that mercy which is used towards them that are fallen but be every man as far from remitting or slackning his diligence for the preserving of them that are not fallen The wisest must know more though you be domus Israel the house of Israel already Crucifixistis and then Etsi Crucifixistis though you have crucified the Lord Jesus you may know it sciant omnes let all know it S. Paul saies once If they had known it they would not have crucified the Lord of life but he never saies if they have crucified the Lord of life 1 Cor. 2.8 they are excluded from knowledge I meane no more but that the mercy of God in manifesting and applying himself to us is above all our sins No man knowes enough what measure of tentations soever he have now he may have tentations through which this knowledge and this grace will not carry him and therefore he must proceed from grace to grace So no man hath sinned so deeply but that God offers himself to him yet Sciant omnes the wisest man hath ever something to learn he must not presume the sinfullest man hath God ever ready to teach him he must not despaire Now the universality of this mercy Sciant hath God enlarged and extended very farre in that he proposes it even to our knowledge Sciant let all know it It is not only credant let all beleeve it for the infusing of faith is not in our power but God hath put it in our power to satisfie their reason and to chafe that waxe to which he himself vouchsafes to set to the great seale of faith And that S. Hierome takes to be most properly his Commission Tentemus animas quae deficiunt a fide natur alibus rationibus adjuvare Let us indevour to assist them who are weak in faith with the strength of reason And truly it is very well worthy of a serious consideration that whereas all the Articles of our Creed are objects of faith so as that we are bound to receive them de fide as matters of faith yet God hath left that out of which all these Articles are to be deduced and proved that is the Scripture to humane arguments It is not an Article of the Creed to beleeve these and these Books to be or not to be Canonicall Scripture but our arguments for the Scripture are humane arguments proportioned to the reason of a naturall man God does not seale in water in the fluid and transitory imaginations and opinions of men we never set the seale of faith to them But in Waxe in the rectified reason of man that reason that is ductile and flexible and pliant to the impressions that are naturally proportioned unto it God sets to his seale of faith They are not continuall but they are contiguous they flow not from one another but they touch one another they are not both of a peece but they enwrap one another Faith and Reason Faith it self by the Prophet Esay is called knowledge Esay 53.11 By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justifie many sayes God of Christ that is by that knowledge that men shall have of him So Zechary expresses it at the Circumcision of Iohn Baptist That hee was to give knowledge of salvation Luke 1.77 for the remission of sins As therefore it is not enough for us in our profession to tell you Qui non crediderit damnabitur Except you beleeve all this you shall be damned without we execute that Commission before Ite praedicate go and preach work upon their affections satisfie their reason so it is not enough for you to rest in an imaginary faith and easinesse in beleeving except you know also what and why and how you come to that beliefe Implicite beleevers ignorant beleevers the adversary may swallow but the understanding beleever he must chaw and pick bones before he come to assimilate him
and is implyed in this name Children of God Heires of heaven which is not a Gavel-kinde every son every man alike but it is an universall primogeniture every man full so full as that every man hath all in such measure as that there is nothing in heaven which any man in heaven wants Heires of the joyes of heaven Joy in a continuall dilatation of thy heart to receive augmentation of that which is infinite in the accumulation of essentiall and accidentall joy Joy in a continuall melting of indissoluble bowels in joyfull and yet compassionate beholding thy Saviour Rejoycing at thy being there and almost lamenting in a kinde of affection which we can call by no name that thou couldst not come thither but by those wounds which are still wounds though wounds glorified Heires of the joy and heires of the glory of heaven where if thou look down and see Kings fighting for Crownes thou canst look off as easily as from boyes at stool-ball for points here And from Kings triumphing after victories as easily as a Philosopher from a Pageant of children here Where thou shalt not be subject to any other title of Dominion in others but Iesus of Nazareth King of the Iews nor ambitious of any other title in thy selfe but that which thou possessest To be the childe of God Heires of joy heires of glory and heires of the eternity of heaven Where in the possession of this joy and this glory The Angels which were there almost 6000. yeares before thee and so prescribe and those soules which shall come at Christs last comming and so enter but then shall not survive thee but they and thou and all shall live as long as he that gives you all that life as God himselfe Heires to heaven and co-heires with Christ There is much to be said of that circumstance but who shall say it I that should say it have said ill of it already in calling it a Circumstance To be co-heires with Christ is that Essentiall salvation it selfe and to that he intitled us when after his Resurrection he said of us John 20.17 Goe tell my brethren that I am gone When he was but borne of a woman and submitted to the law when in his minority he was but a Carpenter and at full age but a Preacher when they accused him in generall that he was a Malefactor or else they would not have delivered him John 18.30 but they knew not the name of his fault when a fault of secular cognizance was objected to him that he moved sedition that he denied tribute And then a fault of Ecclesiasticall cognizance that he spoke against the Law and against the Temple when Barrabas a seditious murderer was preferred before him and saved and yet two theeves left to accompany him in his torment and death in these diminutions of Christ there was no great honour no great cause why any man should have any great desire to be of his kindred to be brother or co-heire to his Crosse But if to be his brethren when he had begun his triumph in his Resurrection were a high dignity what is it to be co-heires with him in heaven after his Ascension But these are inexpressible unconceivable things bring it backe to that which is nearest us to those seales and marks which wee have in this life That by a holy a sanctified passage through this life and out of this life from our first seale in Baptisme to our last seale upon our death-bed The Spirit may beare witnesse to our spirit that we are the children of God Amen SERM. XXXV Preached upon Whitsunday MAT. 12.31 Wherefore I say unto you All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men But the blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men AS when a Merchant hath a faire and large a deep and open Sea into that Harbour to which hee is bound with his Merchandize it were an impertinent thing for him to sound and search for lands and rocks and clifts which threaten irreparable shipwrack so we being bound to the heavenly City the new Jerusalem by the spacious and bottomelesse Sea the blood of Christ Jesus having that large Sea opened unto us in the beginning of this Text All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men It may seeme an impertinent diversion to turne into that little Creek nay upon that desperate and irrecoverable rock The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven to men But there must be Discoverers as well as Merchants for the security of Merchants who by storme and tempest or other accidents may be cast upon those sands and rocks if they be not knowne they must be knowne So though we faile on with a merry gale and full sailes with the breath of the holy Ghost in the first Part All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men yet we shall not leave out the discovery of that fearfull and ruinating rock too But the blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men I would divide the Text and fewer Parts then two we cannot make and this Text hath scarce two Parts The whole Text is a conveiance it is true but there is a little Proviso at the end The whole Text is a rule it is true but there is an exception at the end The whole text is a Royall Palace it is true but there is a Sewar a Vault behinde it Christ had said all that of himselfe he would have said when he said the first part All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to men But the iniquity of the Pharisees extorted thus much more But the blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men The first part is the sentence the proposition and the sense is perfect in that All manner of sin c. The last part is but a Parenthesis which Christ had rather might have been left out but the Pharisees and their perversenesse inserted But the blasphemy c. But since it deserves and requires our consideration as well that the mercy of God can have any stop any rub determine any where as that it can extend and spread it selfe so farre as it doth in this text let us make them two parts And in the first consider with comfort the largenesse the expansion of Gods mercy that there is but one sin that it reacheth not to And in the second let us consider with feare and trembling that there is one sin so swelling so high as that even the mercy of God does not reach to it And in the first we shall proceed thus in the magnifying Gods mercy first in the first terme Sin we shall see that sin is even a wound a violence upon God and then Omne peccatum Every sin is so and nothing is so various so divers as sin and even that sin that amounts to Blasphemy a sin not onely conceived in the thought but expressed in
whom it is hid But that is not all that is intended by the Apostle in this place It is not onely a censorious speech It is a shame for them and an inexcusable thing in them if they doe not love the Lord Jesus Christ but it is a judiciary speech thus much more since they doe not love the Lord The Lord judge them when he comes I sayes the Apostle take away none of his mercy when he comes but I will have nothing to doe with them till he comes to me he shall be Anathema Maran Atha separated from me till then then the Lord who shews mercy in minutes do his will upon him Our former Translation had it thus Let him be had in execration and excommunicated till death In death Lord have mercy upon him till death I will not live with him To end all If a man love not the Lord if he love not God which is which was and which is to come what will please him whom will he love If hee love the Lord and love not Christ and so love a God in generall but lay no hold upon a particular way of his salvation Sine Christo sine Deo sayes the Apostle to the Ephesians when ye were without Christ Eph. 2.12 ye were without God A non-Christian is an Atheist in that sense of the Apostle If any man finde a Christ a Saviour of the World but finde not a Iesus an actuall Saviour 1 Iohn 2.22 that this Jesus hath saved him Who is a lyar sayes another Apostle but he that denieth that Iesus is the Christ 1 Iohn 5.1 And as he sayes after Whosoever beleeveth that Iesus is the Christ is borne of God From the presumptuous Atheist that beleeves no God from the reserved Atheist that beleeves no God manifested in Christ from the melancholique Atheist that beleeves no Jesus applied to him from him of no Religion from him of no Christian Religion from him that erres fundamentally in the Christian Religion the Apostle enjoynes a separation not till clouds of persecution come and then joyne not till beames of preferment come and then joyne not till Lawes may have beene slumbred some yeares and then joyne not till the parties grow somewhat neare an equality and then joyne but Maran Atha donec Dominus venit till the Lord come to his declaration in judgement If any man love not the Lord Iesus Christ let him be accursed Amen SERM. XLI Preached upon Trinity-Sunday PSAL. 2.12 Kisse the Son lest he be angry WHether we shall call it a repeating againe in us of that which God had done before to Israel or call it a performing of that in us which God promised by way of Prophesie to Israel that is certainely afforded to us by God which is spoken by the Prophet of Israel Hos 11.4 God doth draw us with the cords of a man and with bands of love with the cords of a man the man Christ Jesus the Son of God and with the bands of love the band and seale of love a holy kisse Kisse the Son lest he be angry No man comes to God except the Father draw him The Father draws no man but by the Son and the Son receives none but by love and this cement and glue of a zealous and a reverentiall love a holy kisse Kisse the Son c. The parts upon which for the enlightning of your understandings Divisio and assistance of your memories we shall insist are two first our duty then our danger The first is an expression of love Kisse the Son the second is an impression of feare lest he be angry In the first we shall proceed thus we shall consider first The object of this love the Person the second Person in the Trinity The Son The rather because that consideration will cleare the Translation for in no one place of Scripture do Translations differ more then in this Text and the Roman Translation and ours differ so much as that they have but Apprehendite disciplinam Embrace knowledge where we have as you heard Kisse the Son From the Person The Son we shall passe to the act Osculamini Kisse the Son In which we shall see That since this is an act which licentious men have depraved carnal men doe it and treacherous men doe it Iudas and not onely Iudas have betrayed by a kisse and yet God commands this and expresses love in this Every thing that hath or may be abused must not therefore be abandoned the turning of a thing out of the way is not a taking of that thing away but good things deflected to ill uses by some may be by others reduced to their first goodnesse And then in a third branch of this first part we shall consider and magnifie the goodnesse of God that hath brought us into this distance that we may Kisse the Son that the expressing of this love lies in our hands and that whereas the love of the Church in the Old Testament even in the Canticle went no farther but to the Osculetur me O that he would kisse me with the kisses of his mouth now Cant. 1.1 in the Christian Church and in the visitation of a Christian soule he hath invited us enabled us to kisse him for he is presentially amongst us And this will lead us to conclude that first part with an earnest perswasion and exhortation to kisse the Son with all those affections which we shall there finde to be expressed in the Scriptures in that testimony of true love a holy kisse But then lest that perswasion by love should not be effectuall and powerfull enough to us we shall descend from that duty to the danger from love to feare Lest he be angry And therein see first that God who is love can be angry And then that this God who is angry here is the Son of God He that hath done so much for us and therefore in Justice may be angry He that is our Judge and therefore in reason we are to feare his anger And then in a third branch we shall see how easily this anger departs a kisse removes it Do it lest he be angry And then lastly we shall inquire what does anger him and there consider That as we attribute power to the Father and so sins against power the undervaluing of Gods power in the Magistrate over us or the abusing of Gods power in our selves over others were sins against the Father so wisedome being the attribute of the Sonne ignorance which is so far under wisedome and curiosity which carries us beyond wisedome will be sinnes against the Sonne Our first branch in our first part 1 Part. Persona Filius directs us upon him who is first and last and yesterday and to day and the same for ever The Son of God Osculamini filium Kisse the Sonne Where the Translations differ as much as in any one passage The Chalde paraphrase which is for the most part good evidence and the
for so is it twice taken in one verse Psal 58.4 Their poison is like the poison of a Serpent so that this Hot displeasure is that poison of the soule obduration here and that extention of this obduration a finall impenitence in this life and an infinite impenitiblenesse in the next to dye without any actuall penitence here and live without all possibility of future penitence for ever hereafter David therefore foresees that if God Rebuke in anger it will come to a Chastening in hot displeasure 1 Sam. 2.25 For what should stop him For If a man sinne against the Lord who will plead for him sayes Eli Plead thou my cause sayes David It is onely the Lord that can be of counsell with him and plead for him and that Lord is both the Judge and angry too So Davids prayer hath this force Rebuke me not in anger for though I were able to stand under that yet thou wilt also Chasten mee in thine hot displeasure and that no soule can beare for as long as Gods anger lasts so long he is going on towards our utter destruction In that State it is not a State in that Exinanition in that annihilation of the soule it is not an annihilation the soule is not so happy as to come to nothing but in that misery which can no more receive a name then an end all Gods corrections are borne with grudging with murmuring with comparing our righteousnesse with others righteousnesse Job 7.20 In Iobs impatience Quare posuisti me contrarium tibi Why hast thou set me up as a marke against thee O Thou preserver of men Thou that preservest other men hast bent thy bow I. am 3.12 and made me a mark for thine arrowes sayes the Lamentation In that state we cannot cry to him that he might answer us If we doe cry and he answer we cannot heare Job 9.16 if we doe heare we cannot beleeve that it is he Cum invocantem exaudierit sayes Iob If I cry and he answer yet I doe not beleeve that he heard my voyce We had rather perish utterly Ver. 23. then stay his leisure in recovering us Si flagellat occidat semel sayes Iob in the Vulgat If God have a minde to destroy me let him doe it at one blow Et non de poenis rideat Let him not sport himselfe with my misery Whatsoever come after we would be content to be out of this world so we might but change our torment whether it be a temporall calamity that oppresses our state or body or a spirituall burthen a perplexity that sinks our understanding or a guiltinesse that depresses our conscience Vt in inferno protegas Job 14.13 as Iob also speaks O that thou wouldest hide me In inferno In the grave sayes the afflicted soule but in Inferno In hell it selfe sayes the dispairing soule rather then keepe me in this torment in this world This is the miserable condition or danger that David abhors and deprecates in this Text To be rebuked in anger without any purpose in God to amend him and to be chastned in his hot displeasure so as that we can finde no interest in the gracious promises of the Gospel no conditions no power of revocation in the severe threatnings of the Law no difference between those torments which have attached us here and the everlasting torments of Hell it selfe That we have lost all our joy in this life and all our hope of the next That we would faine die though it were by our own hands and though that death doe but unlock us a doore to passe from one Hell into another This is Ira tua Domine faror tuus Thy anger O Lord and Thy hot displeasure For as long as it is but Ira patris the anger of my Father which hath dis-inherited me Gold is thine and silver is thine and thou canst provide me As long as it is but Ira Regis some mis-information to the King some mis-apprehension in the King Cor Regis in manu tua The Kings heart is in thy hand and thou canst rectifie it againe As long as it is but Furor febris The rage and distemper of a pestilent Fever or Furor furoris The rage of madnesse it selfe thou wilt consider me and accept me and reckon with me according to those better times before those distempers overtooke me and overthrew me But when it comes to be Ira tua furor tuus Thy anger and Thy displeasure as David did so let every Christian finde comfort if he be able to say faithfully this Verse this Text O Lord rebuke me not in thine anger neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure for as long as he can pray against it he is not yet so fallen under it but that he hath yet his part in all Gods blessings which we shed upon the Congregation in our Sermons and which we seale to every soule in the Sacrament of Reconcilation SERM. LI. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 6.2 3. Have mercy upon me O Lord for I am weake O Lord heale me for my bones are vexed My soule is also sore vexed But thou O Lord how long THis whole Psalme is prayer And the whole prayer is either Deprecatory as in the first verse or Postulatory Something David would have forborne and something done And in that Postulatory part of Davids prayer which goes through six verses of this Psalme we consider the Petitions and the Inducements What David asks And why of both which there are some mingled in these two verses which constitute our Text. And therefore in them we shall necessarily take knowledge of some of the Petitions and some of the Reasons For in the Prayer there are five petitions First Miserere Have mercy upon me Thinke of me looke graciously towards me prevent me with thy mercy And then Sana me O Lord heale me Thou didst create me in health but my parents begot me in sicknesse and I have complicated other sicknesses with that Actuall with Originall sin O Lord heale me give me physick for them And thirdly Convertere Returne O Lord Thou didst visit me in nature returne in grace Thou didst visit me in Baptisme returne in the other Sacrament Thou doest visit me now returne at the houre of my death And in a fourth petition Eripe O Lord deliver my soule Every blessing of thine because a snare unto me and thy benefits I make occasions of sinne In all conversation and even in my solitude I admit such tentations from others or I produce such tentations in my selfe as that whensoever thou art pleased to returne to me thou findest me at the brinke of some sinne and therefore Eripe me O Lord take hold of me and deliver me And lastly Salvum me fac O Lord save me Manifest thy good purpose upon me so that I may never be shaken or never overthrown in the faithfull hope of that salvation which thou hast preordained for me These are
determine wholly and entirely in God too and in his glory Quoniam non in morte Do it O Lord For in Death there is no remembrance of thee c. In some other places Propter misericordiam Psal 40.11 David comes to God with two reasons and both grounded meerely in God Misericordia veritas Let thy Mercy and thy Truth alwaies preserve me In this place he puts himselfe wholly upon his mercy for mercy is all or at least the foundation that sustaines all or the wall that imbraces all That mercy which the word of this text Casad imports is Benignitas in non promeritum Mercy is a good disposition towards him who hath deserved nothing of himselfe For where there is merit there is no mercy Nay it imports more then so For mercy as mercy presumes not onely no merit in man but it takes knowledge of no promise in God properly For that is the difference betweene Mercy and Truth that by Mercy at first God would make promises to man in generall and then by Truth he would performe those promises but Mercy goeth first and there David begins and grounds his Prayer at Mercy Mercy that can have no pre-mover no pre-relation but begins in it selfe For if we consider the mercy of God to mankinde subsequently I meane after the Death of Christ so it cannot bee properly called mercy Mercy thus considered hath a ground And God thus considered hath received a plentifull and an abundant satisfaction in the merits of Christ Jesus And that which hath a ground in man that which hath a satisfaction from man Christ was truly Man fals not properly precisely rigidly under the name of mercy But consider God in his first disposition to man after his fall That he would vouchsafe to study our Recovery and that he would turne upon no other way but the shedding of the blood of his owne and innocent and glorious Son Quid est homo aut filius hominis What was man or all mankinde that God should be mindfull of him so or so mercifull to him When God promises that he will be mercifull and gracious to me if I doe his Will when in some measure I doe that Will of his God begins not then to be mercifull but his mercy was awake and at worke before when he excited me by that promise to doe his Will And after in my performance of those duties his Spirit seales to me a declaration that his Truth is exercised upon mee now as his mercy was before Still his Truth is in the effect in the fruit in the execution but the Decree and the Roote is onely Mercy God is pleased also when we come to him with other Reasons When we remember him of his Covenant When we remember him of his holy servants Abraham Isaac and Iacob yea when we remember him of our owne innocencie in that particular for which wee may be then unjustly pursued God was glad to heare of a Righteousnesse and of an Innocencie and of cleane and pure hands in David when hee was unjustly pursued by Saul But the roote of all is in this Propter misericordiam Doe it for thy mercie sake For when we speake of Gods Covenant it may be mistaken who is and who is not within that Covenant What know I Of Nations and of Churches which have received the outward profession of Christ we may be able to say They are within the Covenant generally taken But when we come to particular men in the Congregation there I may call a Hypocrite a Saint and thinke an excomunicate soule to be within the Covenant I may mistake the Covenant and I may mistake Gods servants who did and who did not dye in his favour What know I We see at Executions when men pretend to dye cheerefully for the glory of God halfe the company will call them Traitors and halfe Martyrs So if we speake of our owne innocency we may have a pride in that or some other vicious and defective respect as uncharitablenesse towards our malicious Persecutors or laying seditious aspersions upon the justice of the State that may make us guilty towards God though wee be truly innocent to the World in that particular But let mee make my recourse to the mercy of God and there can bee no errour no mistaking And therefore if that and nothing but that be my ground God will Returne to me God will Deliver my soule God will Save me For his mercy sake that is because his mercy is engaged in it And if God were to sell me this Returning this Delivering this Saving and all that I pray for what could I offer God for that so great as his owne mercy in which I offer him the Innocencie the Obedience the Blood of his onely Son If I buy of the Kings land I must pay for it in the Kings money I have no Myne nor Mint of mine owne If I would have any thing from God I must give him that which is his owne for it that is his mercy And this is to give God his mercy To give God thanks for his mercy To give all to his mercy And to acknowledge that if my works be acceptable to him nay if my very faith be acceptable to him it is not because my works no nor my faith hath any proportion of equivalencie in it or is worth the least flash of joy or the least spangle of glory in Heaven in it selfe but because God in his mercy onely of his mercy meerely for the glory of his mercy hath past such a Covenant Crede fac hoc Beleeve this and doe this and thou shalt live not for thy deed sake not nor for thy faith sake but for my mercy sake And farther we carry not this first reason of the Prayer arising onely from God There remaines in these words another Reason In morte in which David himselfe and all men seeme to have part Quia non in morte For in death there is no remembrance of thee c. Upon occasion of which words because they seeme to imply a lothnesse in David to dye it may well be inquired why Death seemed so terrible to the good and godly men of those times as that evermore we see them complaine of shortnesse of life and of the neerenesse of death Certainely the rule is true in naturall and in civill and in divine things as long as wee are in this World Nolle meliorem est corruptio primae habitudinis Picus Heptapl l. 7. proem That man is not well who desires not to be better It is but our corruption here that makes us loth to hasten to our incorruption there And besides many of the Ancients and all the later Casuists of the other side and amongst our owne men Peter Martyr and Calvin assigne certaine cases in which it hath Rationem boni The nature of Good and therefore is to be embraced to wish our dissolution and departure out of this World and yet many good and
Belial in this Text. For the adhering of persons born within the Church of Rome to the Church of Rome our law sayes nothing to them if they come But for reconciling to the Church of Rome by persons born within the Allegeance of the King or for perswading of men to be so reconciled our law hath called by an infamous and Capitall name of Treason and yet every Tavern and Ordinary is full of such Traitors Every place from jest to earnest is filled with them from the very stage to the death-bed At a Comedy they will perswade you as you sit as you laugh And in your sicknesse they will perswade you as you lye as you dye And not only in the bed of sicknesse but in the bed of wantonnesse they perswade too and there may be examples of women that have thought it a fit way to gain a soul by prostituting themselves and by entertaining unlawfull love with a purpose to convert a servant which is somewhat a strange Topique to draw arguments of religion from Let me see a Dominican and a Jesuit reconciled in doctrinall papistry for freewill and predestination Let me see a French papist and an Italian papist reconciled in State-papistry for the Popes jurisdiction Let me see the Jesuits and the secular priests reconciled in England and when they are reconciled to one another let them presse reconciliation to their Church To end all Those men have their bodies from the earth and they have their soules from heaven and so all things in earth and heaven are reconciled but they have their Doctrine from the Devill and for things in hell there is no peace made and with things in hell there is no reconciliation to be had by the blood of his Crosse except we will tread that blood under our feet and make a mock of Christ Jesus and crucifie the Lord of Life againe SERMON II. Preached at Pauls upon Christmas Day in the Evening 1624. ESAIAH 7.14 Part of the first Lesson that Evening Therefore the Lord shall give you a signe Behold a Virgin shall conceive and beare a Son and shall call his name Immanuel SAint Bernard spent his consideration upon three remarkable conjunctions this Day First a Conjunction of God and Man in one person Christ Jesus Then a conjunction of the incompatible Titles Maid and Mother in one blessed woman the blessed Virgin Mary And thirdly a conjunction of Faith and the Reason of man that so beleeves and comprehends those two conjunctions Let us accompany these three with another strange conjunction in the first word of this Text Propterea Therefore for that joynes the anger of God and his mercy together God chides and rebukes the King Achaz by the Prophet he is angry with him and Therefore sayes the Text because he is angry he will give him a signe a seale of mercy Therefore the Lord shall give you a signe Behold a Virgin c. This Therefore shall therefore be a first part of this Exercise That God takes any occasion to shew mercy And a second shall be The particular way of his mercy declared here Divisie The Lord shall give you a signe And then a third and last what this signe was Behold a Virgin c. In these three parts we shall walk by these steps Having made our entrance into the first with that generall consideration that Gods mercy is alwaies in season upon that station upon that height we shall look into the particular occasions of Gods mercy here what this King Achaz had done to alien God and to avert his mercy and in those two branches we shall determine that part In the second we shall also first make this generall entrance That God persists in his own waies goes forward with his own purposes And then what his way and his purpose here was he would give them a signe and farther we shall not extend that second part In the third we have more steps to make First what this sign is in generall it is that there is a Redeemer given And then how thus First Virgo concipiet a Virgin shall conceive she shall be a Virgin then And Virgo pariet a Virgin shall bring forth she shall be a Virgin then And Pariet filium she shall beare a Son and therefore he is of her substance not only man but man of her And this Virgin shall call this Son Immanuel God with us that is God and Man in one person Though the Angel at the Conception tell Ioseph That he shall call his name Jesus Mat. 1.21 and tell Mary her selfe that she shall call his name Jesus Luc. 1.31 yet the blessed Virgin her selfe shall have a further reach a clearer illustration She shall call his name Immanuel God with us Others were called Iesus Iosuah was so divers others were so but in the Scriptures there was never any but Christ called Immanuel Though Iesus signifie a Saviour Ioseph was able to call this childe Iesus upon a more peculiar reason and way of salvation then others who had that name because they had saved the people from present calamities and imminent dangers for the Angel told Ioseph that he should therefore be called Iesus because he should save the people from their sins and so no Iosuah no other Iesus was a Iesus But the blessed Virgin saw more then this not only that he should be such a Iesus as should save them from their sins but she saw the manner how that he should be Immanuel God with us God and man in one person That so being Man he might suffer and being God that should give an infinite value to his sufferings according to the contract passed between the Father and him and so he should be Iesus a Saviour a Saviour from sin and this by this way and meanes And then that all this should be established and declared by an infallible signe with this Ecce Behold That whosoever can call upon God by that name Immanuel that is confesse Christ to bee come in the flesh that Man shall have an Ecce a light a sign a token an assurance that this Immanuel this Jesus this Saviour belongs unto him and he shall be able to say Ecce Behold mine eyes have seen thy salvation We begin with that which is elder then our beginning 1 Part. Psal 101.1 and shall over-live our end The mercy of God I will sing of thy mercy and judgement sayes David when we fixe our selves upon the meditation and modulation of the mercy of God even his judgements cannot put us out of tune but we shall sing and be chearefull even in them As God made grasse for beasts before he made beasts and beasts for man before he made man As in that first generation the Creation so in the regeneration our re-creating he begins with that which was necessary for that which followes Mercy before Judgement Nay to say that mercy was first is but to post-date mercy to preferre mercy but so is
Ephemerides his journals he writes them downe under that Title sins and he reads them every day in that booke as such and they grow greater and greater in his sight till our repentance have washed them out of his sight Casuists will say that though a dead man raised to life againe be not bound to his former marriage yet he is bound to that Religion that he had invested in Baptisme and bound to his former religious vowes and the same obedience to Superiours as before We were all dead in Adam and he that is raised againe even by Election though he be not so married to the world as others are not so in love with sin not so under the dominion of sin yet he is as much bound to an obedience to the Will of God declared in his Law and may no more presume of a liberty of sinning before nor of an impunity of sin after then he that pretends no such Election to confide in Prospeâ— For this is excellently said to be the working of our election by Prosper the Disciple of S. Augustines Doctrines and the Eccho of his words Vt fiat permanendi voluntaria foelixque necessitas That our assurance of salvation by perseverance is necessary and yet voluntary Consider it in Gods purpose easily it cannot consider it in our selves it might be resisted For we are no better then those Angels and In those servants he put no trust and those Angels he charged with folly But such as they are Numerus â—â—â— 130.7 we shall be And since with the Lord there is Copiosa Redemptio Plenteous Redemption that overflowing mercy of our God those super-superlative Merits of our Saviour that plenteous Redemption may hold even in this particular blessednesse in our assimilation to them That as though there fell great numbers of Angels yet great and greater then they that fell stood So though The way to Heaven be narrow and the gate strait which is said by Christ to excite our industry and are rather an expression arising out of his mercy lest we should slacken our holy endeavours then any intimidation or commination for though the way be narrow and the gate strait yet the roome is spacious enough within why by this plenteous redemption may we not hope 〈◊〉 12. â— that many more then are excluded shall enter there Those words The dragons taile drew the third part of the stars from Heaven the Fathers generally interprete of the fall of Angels with Lucifer and it was but a third part And by Gods grace whose mercy is overflowing whose merits are super-abundant with whom there is plenteous redemption the serpent gets no farther upon us I know some say that this third part of the stars is meant of eminent persons illustrated and assisted with the best meanes of salvation and if a third of them how many meanlier furnished fall But those that we can consider to be best provided of meanes of salvation nextto these are Christians in generall and so may this plenteous Redemption be well hoped to worke that but a third part of them of Christians shall perish and then the God of this plenteous Redemption having promised us that the Christian Religion shall be carried over all the world still the number of those that shall be saved is enlarged Apply to thy selfe that which S. Cyril saies of the Angels Tristaris quia aliqui vitam amiserunt Does it grieve thee that any are fallen At plures meliorem statum apud Deum obtinent Let this comfort thee even in the application thereof to thy selfe that more stood then fell As Elisha said to his servant in a danger of surprisall Feare not 2 King 6.16 for they that be with us are more then they that are with them so if a suspition of the paucity of them that shall be saved make thee afraid looke up upon this overflowing mercy of thy God this super-abundant merit of thy Saviour this plenteous Redemption and thou maist finde finde in a faire credulity and in a well regulated hope more with thee then with them that perish Live so in such a warfare with tentations in such a colluctation with thy concupiscences in such a jealousie and suspition of thine indifferent nay of thy best actions as though there were but one man to be saved and thou wouldst be that one But live and die in such a sense of this plenteous Redemption of thy God as though neither thou nor any could lose salvation except he doubted of it I doubt not of mine own salvation and in whom can I have so much occasion of doubt as in my self When I come to heaven shall I be able to say to any there Lord how got you hither Was any man lesse likely to come thither then I There is not only an Onely God in heaven But a Father a Son a Holy Ghost in that God which are names of a plurality and sociable relations conversable notions There is not only one Angel a Gabriel But to thee all Angels cry alond and Cherubim and Seraphim are plurall terminations many Cherubs many Seraphs in heaven There is not only one Monarchall Apostle a Peter but The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee There is not onely a Proto-Martyr a Stephen but The noble army of Martyrs praise thee Who ever amongst our Fathers thought of any other way to the Moluccaes or to China then by the Promontory of Good hope Yet another way opened it self to Magellan a Straite it is true but yet a way thither and who knows yet whether there may not be a North-East and a North-West way thither besides Go thou to heaven in an humble thankfulnesse to God and holy cheerfulnesse in that way that God hath manifested to thee and do not pronounce too bitterly too desperately that every man is in an errour that thinkes not just as thou thinkest or in no way that is not in thy way God found folly weaknesse in his Angels yet more stood then fell God findes weaknesse wickednesse in us yet hee came to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance and who that comes in that capacity a Repentant sinner can be shut out or denied his part in this Resurrection The key of David opens and no man shuts The Son of David is the key of David Christ Jesus He hath opened heaven for us all let no man shut out himself by diffidence in Gods mercy nor shut out any other man by overvaluing his own purity in respect of others But forbearing all lacerations and tearings and woundings of one another with bitter invectives all exasperations by odious names of subdivision let us all study first the redintegration of that body of which Christ Jesus hath declared himselfe to be the head the whole Christian Church and pray that he would and hope that he will enlarge the means of salvation to those who have not yet been made partakers of it That so he that called the gates of heaven
upon beauty in that face that misleads thee or upon honour in that place that possesses thee And let the opening of thine eyes be to look upon God in every object to represent to thy self the beauty of his holinesse and the honour of his service in every action And in this rapture and in this twinkling of an eye will thy Resurrection soon though not suddenly speedily though not instantly be accomplished And if God take thee out of the world before thou think it throughly accomplished yet he shall call thine inchoation consummation thine endeavour performance and thy desire effect For all Gods works are intire and done in him at once and perfect as soon as begun And this spirituall Resurrection is his work and therefore quickned even in the Conception and borne even in the quickning and grown up even in the birth that is perfected in the eyes of God as soone as it is seriously intended in our heart And farther we carry not your consideration upon those two Branches which constitute our second Part That some shall be alive at Christs comming That they that are alive shall receive such a change as shall be a true death and a true Resurrection And so shall be caught up into the Clouds to meet the Lord in the Aire and so be with the Lord for ever which are the Circumstances of our third and last Part. In this last part we proposed it for the first Consideration 3 Part. Resurrectio justorum that the Apostle determines the Consideration of the Resurrection in those two Them and Us They that slept in Christ and We that expect the comming of Christ Of any Resurrection of the wicked here is no mention Not that there is not one but that the resurrection of the wicked conduced not to the Apostles purpose which was to minister comfort in the losse of the dead because they were to come again and to meet the Lord and to be with him for ever whereas in the Resurrection of the wicked who are only to rise that they may fall lower there is no argument of comfort And therefore our Saviour Christ determines his Commission in that This is the Fathers will that sent me John 6.39 that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing but should raise it up again at the last day This was his not losing if it were raised again but he hath only them in charge to raise at the last day whom the Father had given him given him so as that they were to be with him for ever for others he never mentions And upon this much very much depends For Chiliasts this forbearing to mention the resurrection of the wicked with the righteous gave occasion to many in the Primitive Church to imagine a two-fold a former and a later Resurrection which was furthered by their mistaking of those words in S. Iohn Apoc. 20.6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection which words being intended of the Resurrection from sin by grace in this life the Chiliasts the Millenarians interpreted of this Resurrection in our Text That at Christs comming the righteous should rise and live a thousand yeares as S. Iohn sayes in all temporall abundances with Christ here in recompence of those temporall calamities and oppressions which here they had suffered and then after those thousand yeares so spent with Christ in temporall abundances should follow the resurrection of the wicked and then the wicked and the righteous should be disposed and distributed and setled in those Mansions in which they should remain for ever And of this errour as very many of the Fathers persisted in it to the end S. Augustine himself had a touch and a tincture at beginning And this errour S. Hierome also though truly I think S. Hierome was never touched with it himselfe out of a reverence to those many and great men that were Irenaeus Tertullian Lactantius and the rest would never call an Heresie nor an Errour nor by any sharper name then an opinion which is no word of heavy detestation And as those blessed Fathers of tender bowels Pagani enlarged themselves in this distribution and apportioning the mercy of God that it consisted best with the nature of his mercy that as his Saints had suffered temporall calamities in this world in this world they should be recompenced with temporall abundances so did they inlarge this mercy farther and carry it even to the Gentiles to the Pagans that had no knowledge of Christ in any established Church You shall not finde a Trumegistus a Numa Pompilius a Plato a Socrates for whose salvation you shall not finde some Father or some Ancient and Reverend Author an Advocate In which liberality of Gods mercy those tender Fathers proceed partly upon that rule That in Trismegistus and in the rest they finde evident impressions and testimonies that they knew the Son of God and knew the Trinity and then say they why should not these good men beleeving a Trinity be saved and partly they goe upon that rule which goes through so many of the Fathers Facienti quod in se est That to that man who does as much as he can by the light of nature God never denies grace and then say they why should not these men that doe so be saved And upon this ground S. Dionyse the Areopagite sayes That from the beginning of the world God hath called some men of all Nations and of all sorts by the ministry of Angels though not by the ministry of the Church To me to whom God hath revealed his Son in a Gospel by a Church there can be no way of salvation but by applying that Son of God by that Gospel in that Church Nor is there any other foundation for any nor other name by which any can be saved but the name of Jesus But how this foundation is presented and how this name of Jesus is notified to them amongst whom there is no Gospel preached no Church established I am not curious in inquiring I know God can be as mercifull as those tender Fathers present him to be and I would be as charitable as they are And therefore humbly imbracing that manifestation of his Son which he hath afforded me I leave God to his unsearchable waies of working upon others without farther inquisition Neither did those tender Fathers then Angeli lopsi in Coelis much lesse the School after consist in carying this overflowing and inexhaustible mercy of God upon his Saints after their Resurrection in temporall abundances nor upon the Gentiles who had no solemne nor cleare knowledge of Christ Psal 138.2 Psal 17.7 which is Magnificare misericordiam to magnifie to extend to stretch the mercy of God but Mirificant misericordiam as David also speaks they stretch this mercy miraculously for they carry this mercy even to hell it self For first for the Angels that fell in heaven from the time that they
therefore proposed it to the Senate that so that honour which Jesus should have might bee derived from him And when the Senate had an inclination of themselves to have done Christ that honour but yet forbore it because the intimation came not from themselves but from the Emperour who still wrought and gained upon their priviledges neither of these though they meant collaterally and obliquely to doe Christ an honour neither of them did say Iesum Dominum that is professe Jesus so as is intended here for they had their owne ends and their own honors principally in Contemplation There is first an open profession of the tongue required And therefore the Holy Ghost descended in fiery tongues Et lingua propria Spiritui Sancto sayes S. Gregory The tongue is the fittest Instrument for the Holy Ghost to worke upon and to worke by Qui magnam habet cognationem cum Verbo sayes he The Son of God is the Word and the Holy Ghost proceeds from him And because that faith that unites us to God is expressed in the tongue howsoever the heart be the center in which the Holy Ghost rests the tongue is the Spheare in which he moves And therefore sayes S. Cyril as God set the Cherubim with a fiery sword to keep us out of Paradise so he hath set the Holy Ghost in fiery tongues to let us in againe As long as Iohn Baptist was unborne Zachary was dumbe when hee was borne Zachary spoke Christ is not borne in us we are not regenerate in him if we delight not to speake of his wondrous mercyes and infinite goodnesse to the sons of men as soone as he is borne in us his Spirit speakes in us and by us in which our first profession is Iesum esse That Jesus is That there is a Jesus This is to professe with Esay Iesus Esay 4.2 That he is Germen Iehovae The Bud of the Lord The Blossome of God himselfe for this Profession is a two-edged sword for it wounds the Arians on one side That Jesus is Jehovah because that is the name that signifies the very Essence of God And then it wounds the Jews on the other side because if Jesus be Germen Iehovae The Bud the Blossome the Off-spring of God then there is a plurality of Persons Father and Son in the God-head So that it is a Compendiary and Summary Abridgement and Catechisme of all our Religion to professe that Jesus is for that is a profession of his everlasting Essence that is his God-head It hath been denyed that he was such as he was pretended to be that is borne of a Virgin for the first Heretiques of all Gerinthus and Ebion who occasioned S. Iohns Gospel affirmed him to be a meere man made by ordinary generation between Ioseph and Mary It hath been denyed that he was such a man as those Heretiques allowed him to bee for Apelles his Heresie was That he made himselfe a Body out of the Elements as hee came downe from Heaven through them It hath been denyed that he had any Body at all Cerdon and Marcion said That he lived and dyed but in Phantasmate in apparance and onely in a forme and shape of a Body assumed but in truth no Body that did live or dye but did onely appeare and vanish It hath beene denyed that that Body which hee had though a true and a naturall Body did suffer for Basilides said That when he was led to Execution and that on the way the Crosse was laid upon Simon of Cyren Christ cast a mist before their eyes by which they tooke Simon for him and crucified Simon Christ having withdrawne himselfe invisibly from them as at other times he had done It hath been denyed though he had a true Body and suffered truly therein that he hath any Body now in Heaven or shall returne with any for hee that said hee made his Body of the Elements as hee came downe from Heaven sayes also that hee resolved that Body into those Elements againe at his returne It hath beene denyed That hee was That he is That he shall be but this Profession that Jesus is includes all for He of whom that is alwayes true Est He is He is Eternall and He that is Eternall is God This is therefore a Profession of the God-head of Christ Jesus Now Dominus A Lord. in the next as we professe him to be Dominus A Lord we professe him to be God and man we behold him as he is a mixt person and so made fit to be the Messias the Anointed high Priest King of that Church which he hath purchased with his blood And the anointed King of that Kingdome which he hath conquered with his Crosse As he is Germen Iehovae The off-spring of Jehovah so he must necessarily be Jehovah that is the name which is evermore translated The Lord So also as he is Jehovah which is the fountaine of all Essence and of all Beeing so he is Lord by his interest and his concurrence in our Creation It is a devoute exercise of the soule to consider how absolute a Lord he is by this Title of Creation If the King give a man a Creation by a new Title the King found before in that man some vertuous and fit disposition some preparation some object some subject of his favour The King gives Creations to men whom the Universities or other Societies had prepared They Created persons whom other lower Schooles had prepared At lowest he that deales upon him first finds a man begotten and prepared by Parents upon whom he may worke But remember thy Creator that called thee when thou wast not as though thou hadst beene and brought thee out of nothing which is a condition if we may call it a condition to be nothing not to be farther removed from Heaven then hell it selfe Who is the Lord of life and breathed this life into thee and sweares by that eternall life which he is that he would have this life of thine immortall As I live saith the Lord I would not the death of a sinner This Contemplation of Jesus as a Lord by Creating us is a devout and an humble Contemplation but to contemplate him as Lord by Redeeming us and breeding us in a Church where that Redemption is applied to us this is a devout and a glorious Contemplation As he is Lord over that which his Father gave him his Father gave him all power in Heaven and in earth and Omne Iudicium His Father put all Judgement into his hands all judiciary and all military power was his He was Lord Judge and Lord of Hosts As he is Lord over his owne purchase Quod acquisivit sanguine Acts 20.28 That Church which he purchased with his owne blood So he is more then the Heretiques of our time have made him That he was but sent as a principall Prophet to explaine the Law and make that cleare to us in a Gospel Or as a Priest to sacrifice
unto all men and then herein also is Gods mercy to man magnified that it is to man that is only to man Nothing can fall into this comparison Non Angelis but Angels and Angels shall not be forgiven We shall be like the Angels we shall participate of their glory which stand But the Angels shall never be like us never return to mercy after they are fallen They were Primogeniti Dei Gods first born and yet disinherited and disinherited without any power at least without purpose of revocation without annuities without pensions without any present supply without any future hope When the Angels were made and when they fell we dispute but when they shall return falls not into question Howsoever Origen vary in himselfe or howsoever he fell under that jealousie or misinterpretation that he thought the devill should be saved at last I am sure his books that are extant have pregnant and abundant testimony of their everlasting and irreparable condemnation To judge by our evidence the evidence of Scriptures for their sin and the evidence of our conscience for ours there is none of us that hath not sinned more then any of them at first and yet Christ hath not taken the nature of Angels but of man and redeemed us Iude 6. having reserved them in everlasting chaines under darknesse How long Vnto the judgement of the great day sayes that Apostle And is it but till then then to have an end Alas no It is not untill that day but unto that day not that that day shall end or ease their torments which they have but inflict accidentall torments which they have not yet That is an utter evacuation of that power of seducing which till that day come they shall have leave to exercise upon the sons of men To that are they reserved and we to that glory which they have lost and lost for ever and upon us is that prayer of the Apostle fallen effectually Ver. 2. Mercy and peace and love is multiplied unto us for sin and all sin blasphemy and blasphemy against the Son shall be that is is not nor was not but may be forgiven to men to all men to none but men And so we passe to our second part In this second part 2. Part. Divisio which seemes to present a banke even to this Sea this infinite Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus And an Horizon even to this heaven of heavens to the mercy of God we shall proceed thus First we shall inquire but modestly what that blasphemy which is commonly called The sin against the holy Ghost is And secondly how and wherein it is irremissible that it shall never be forgiven And then thirdly upon what places of Scripture it is grounded amongst which if this text do not constitute and establish that sin The sin against the holy Ghost yet we shall finde that that sin which is directly intended in this text is a branch of that sin The sin against the holy Ghost And therefore we shall take just occasion from thence to arme you with some instructions against those wayes which leade into that irrecoverable destruction into that irremissible sin for though the sin it self be not so evident yet the limmes of the sin and the wayes to the sin are plain enough S. Augustine sayes Quid. There is no question in the Scripture harder then this what this sin is And S. Ambrose gives some reason of the difficulty in this Sicut una divinitas una offensa As there is but one Godhead so there is no sin against God and all sin is so but it is against the whole Trinity and that is true but as there are certain attributes proper to every severall person of the Trinity so there are certaine sins more directly against the severall attributes and properties of those persons and in such a consideration against the persons themselves Of which there are divers sins against power and they are principally against the Father for to the Father we attribute power and divers sins against wisdome and wisdome we attribute to the Son and divers against goodnesse and love and these we attribute to the holy Ghost Of those against the holy Ghost considered in that attribute of goodnesse and of love the place to speak will be in our conclusion But for this particular sin The sin against the holy Ghost as hard as S. Augustine makes it and justly yet he sayes too Exercere nos voluit difficultate quaestionis non decipere falsitate sententiae God would exercise us with a hard question but he would not deceive us with a false opinion Quid sit quaeri voluit non negari God would have us modestly inquire what it is not peremptorily deny that there is any such sin It is for the most part agreed that it is a totall falling away from the Gospell of Christ Jesus formerly acknowledged and professed into a verball calumniating and a reall persecuting of that Gospel with a deliberate purpose to continue so to the end and actually to do so to persevere till then and then to passe away in that disposition It fals only upon the professors of the Gospell and it is totall and it is practicall and it is deliberate and it is finall Here we have that sin but by Gods grace that sinner no where It is therefore somewhat early somewhat forwardly pronounced though by a reverend man Certum reprobationis signum in spiritum blasphemia That it is an infallible assurance Calvin that that man is a Reprobate that blasphemes the holy Ghost For whatsoever is an infallible signe must be notorious to us If we must know another thing by that as a signe we must know that thing which is our signe in it selfe And can we know what this blaspheming of the holy Ghost is Did we ever heare any man say or see any man doe any thing against the holy Ghost of whom we might say upon that word or upon that action This man can never repent never be received to mercy And yet sayes he Tenendum est quod qui exciderint nunquam resurgent We are bound to hold that they who fall so shall never rise again I presume he grounded himselfe in that severe judgement of his upon such places as that to the Romanes Rom. 1.18 When they did not like to retaine God in their knowledge God gave them over to a reprobate minde That that is the ordinary way of Gods justice to withdraw his Spirit from that man that blasphemes his Spirit but S. Paul blasphemed and S. Peter blasphemed and yet were not divorced from God S. Augustines rule is good not to judge of this sin and this sinner especially but à posteriori from his end from his departing out of this world Neither though I doe see an ill life sealed with an ill death dare I be too forward in this judgement He was not a Christian in profession but worse then he are
swore so many a man prayes and does not remember his own prayer As a Clock gives a warning before it strikes and then there remains a sound and a tingling of the bell after it hath stricken so a precedent meditation and a subsequent rumination make the prayer a prayer I must think before what I will aske and consider againe what I have askt and upon this dividing the hoofe and chewing the cud David avowes to his own conscience his whole action even to this consummation thereof Let mine enemies be ashamed c. Now these words whether we consider the naturall signification of the words Impreeatoria or the authority of those men who have been Expositors upon them may be understood either way either to be Imprecatoria words of Imprecation that David in the Spirit of anguish wishes that these things might fall upon his enemies or els Praedictoria words of Prediction that David in the spirit of Prophecy pronounces that these things shall fall upon them If they be Imprecatoria words spoken out of his wish and desire then they have in them the nature of a curse And because Lyra takes them to be so a curse he referres the words Ad Daemones To the Devill That herein David seconds Gods malediction upon the Serpent and curses the Devill as the occasioner and first mover of all these calamities and sayes of them Let all our enemies be ashamed and sore vexed c. Others referre these words to the first Christian times and the persecutions then and so to be a malediction a curse upon the Jewes and upon the Romans who persecuted the Primitive Church then Let them be ashamed c. And then Gregory Nyssen referres these words to more domesticall and intrinsicke enemies to Davids owne concupiscences and the rebellions of his owne lusts Let those enemies be ashamed c. For all those who understand these words to be a curse a malediction are loath to admit that David did curse his enemies meerly out of a respect of those calamities which they had inflicted upon him And that is a safe ground no man may curse another in contemplation of himselfe onely if onely himselfe be concerned in the case And when it concernes the glory of God our imprecations our maledictions upon the persons must not have their principall relation as to Gods enemies but as to Gods glory our end must be that God may have his glory not that they may have their punishment And therefore how vehement soever David seeme in this Imprecation and though he be more vehement in another place Let them be confounded and troubled for ever yea let them be put to shame Psal 83.17 and perish yet that perishing is but a perishing of their purposes let their plots perish let their malignity against thy Church be frustrated for so he expresses himselfe in the verse immediately before Fill their faces with shame but why and how That they may seeke thy Name O Lord that was Davids end even in the curse David wishes them no ill but for their good no worse to Gods enemies but that they might become his friends The rule is good which out of his moderation S. Augustine gives that in all Inquisitions and Executions in matters of Religion when it is meerly for Religion without sedition Sint qui poeniteant Let the men remaine alive or else how can they repent So in all Imprecations in all hard wishes even upon Gods enemies Sint qui convertantur Let the men remaine that they may be capable of conversion wish them not so ill as that God can shew no mercy to them for so the ill wish falls upon God himselfe if it preclude his way of mercy upon that ill man In no case must the curse be directed upon the person for when in the next Psalme to this David seemes passionate when hee asks that of God there which he desires God to forbear in the beginning of this Psalme when his Ne arguas in ira O Lord rebuke not in thine anger is turned to a Surge Domine in ira Arise O Lord in thine anger S. Augustine begins to wonder Quid illum quem perfectum dicimus ad iram provocat Deum Would David provoke God who is all sweetnesse and mildnesse to anger against any man No not against any man but Diaboli possessio peccator Every sinner is a slave to his beloved sin and therefore Misericors or at adver sus cum quitanque or at How bitterly soever I curse that sin yet I pray for that sinner David would have God angry with the Tyran not with the Slave that is oppressed with the sin not with the soule that is inthralled to it And so as the words may be a curse a malediction in Davids mouth we may take them into our mouth too and say Let those enemies be ashamed c. If this then were an Imprecation a malediction yet it was Medicinall and had Rationem boni a charitable tincture and nature in it he wished the men no harm as men But it is rather Pradictorium Praedictoria a Propheticall vehemence that if they will take no knowledge of Gods declaring himselfe in the protection of his servants if they would not consider that God had heard and would heare had rescued and would rescue his children but would continue their opposition against him heavy judgements would certainly fall upon them Their punishment should be certaine but the effect should be uncertaine for God only knowes whether his correction shall work upon his enemies to their mollifying or to their obduration Those bitter and waighty imprecations which David hath heaped together against Iudas Psal 109 Acts 1.16 seeme to be direct imprecations and yet S. Peter himselfe calls them Prophesies Oportet impleri Scripturam They were done sayes he that the Scripture might be fulfilled Not that David in his owne heart did wish all that upon Iudas but only so as fore-seeing in the Spirit of Prophesying that those things should fall upon him he concurred with the purpose of God therein and so farre as he saw it to be the will of God he made it his will and his wish And so have all those judgements which we denounce upon sinners the nature of Prophesies in them when we reade in the Church that Commination Cursed is the Idolater This may fall upon some of our owne kindred and Cursed is he that curseth Father or Mother This may fall upon some of our owne children and Cursed is he that perverteth judgement This may fall upon some powerfull Persons that we may have a dependance upon and upon these we doe not wish that Gods vengeance should fall yet we Prophesie and denounce justly that upon such such vengeances will fall and then all Prophesies of that kinde are alwaies conditionall they are conditionall if we consider any Decree in God they must be conditionall in all our denunciations if you repent they shall not fall upon you if
yet this is still limited by the law of God so far as God hath instituted this power by his Gospel in his Church and far from inducing amongst us that torture of the Conscience that usurpation of Gods power that spying into the counsails of Princes supplanting of their purposes with which the Church of Rome hath been deeply charged And this usefull and un-mis-interpretable Confession which we speake of Adversum me is the more recommended to us in that with which David shuts up his Act as out of S. Hierome and out of our former translation we intimated unto you that he doth all this Adversum se I will confesse my sinnes unto the Lord against my selfe The more I finde Confession or any religious practise to be against my selfe and repugnant to mine owne nature the farther I will goe in it For still the Adversum me is Cum Deo The more I say against my selfe the more I vilifie my selfe the more I glorifie my God As S. Chry sostome sayes every man is Spontaneus Satan a Satan to himselfe as Satan is a Tempter every man can tempt himselfe so I will be Spontaneus Satan as Satan is an Accuser an Adversary I will accuse my selfe I consider often that passionate humiliation of S. Peter Exi à me Domine He fell at Iesus knees saying Depart from me for I am a sinfull man O Lord Luk. 5.8 And I am often ready to say so and more Depart from me O Lord for I am sinfull inough to infect thee As I may persecute thee in thy Children so I may infect thee in thine Ordinances Depart in withdrawing thy word from me for I am corrupt inough to make even thy saving Gospel the savor of death unto death Depart in withholding thy Sacrament for I am leprous inough to taint thy flesh and to make the balme of thy blood poyson to my soule Depart in withdrawing the protection of thine Angels from me for I am vicious inough to imprint corruption and rebellion into their nature And if I be too foule for God himselfe to come neare me for his Ordinances to worke upon me I am no companion for my selfe I must not be alone with my selfe for I am as apt to take as to give infection I am a reciprocall plague passively and actively contagious I breath corruption and breath it upon my selfe and I am the Babylon that I must goe out of Gen. 32.10 Mat. 8.8 or I perish I am not onely under Iacobs Non dignus Not worthy the least of all thy mercies nor onely under the Centurions Non dignus I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roofe That thy Spirit should ever speake to my spirit which was the forme of words in which every Communicant received the Sacrament in the Primitive Church Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roofe Nor onely under the Prodigals Non dignus Luke 15.21 Not worthy to be called thy sonne neither in the filiation of Adoption for I have deserved to be dis-inherited nor in the filiation of Creation for I have deserved to be annihilated Mark 1.7 But Non dignus procumbere I am not worthy to stoop down to fall down to kneele before thee in thy Minister the Almoner of thy Mercy the Treasurer of thine Absolutions So farre doe I confesse Adversum me against my selfe as that I confesse I am not worthy to confesse nor to be admitted to any accesse any approach to thee much lesse to an act so neare Reconciliation to thee as an accusation of my selfe or so neare thy acquitting as a self-condemning Be this the issue in all Controversies whensoever any new opinions distract us Be that still thought best that is most Adversum nos most against our selves That that most layes flat the nature of man so it take it not quite away and blast all vertuous indeavours That that most exalts the Grace and Glory of God be that the Truth And so have you the whole mystery of Davids Confession in both his Acts preparatory in resenting his sinfull condition in generall and survaying his conscience in particular And then his Deliberation his Resolution his Execution his Confession Confession of true sins and of them onely and of all them of his sins and all this to the Lord and all that against himselfe That which was proposed for the second Part must fall into the compasse of a Conclusion and a short one that is Gods Act Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin This is a wide doore 2 Part. and would let out Armies of Instructions to you but we will shut up this doore with these two leaves thereof The fulnesse of Gods Mercy He forgives the sin and the punishment And the seasonablenesse the acceleration of his mercy in this expression in our text that Davids is but Actus inchoatus He sayes he will confesse And Gods is Actus consummatus Thou forgavest Thou hadst already forgiven the iniquity and punishment of my sin These will be the two leaves of this doore and let the hand that shuts them be this And this Particle of Connection which we have in the text I said And thou didst For though this Remission of sin be not presented here as an effect upon that cause of Davids Confession It is not delivered in a Quia and an Ergo Because David did this God did that for mans wil leads not the will of God as a cause who does all his acts of mercy for his mercies sake yet though it be not an effect as from a cause yet it is at least as a consequent from an occasion so assured so infallible as let any man confesse as David did and he shall be sure to be forgiven as David was For though this forgivenesse be a flower of mercy yet the roote growes in the Justice of God If wee acknowledge our sin 1 John 1.9 he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sin It growes out of his faithfulnesse as he hath vouchsafed to binde himselfe by a promise And out of his Justice as he hath received a full satisfaction for all our sins So that this Hand this And in our Text is as a ligament as a sinew to connect and knit together that glorious body of Gods preventing grace and his subsequent grace if our Confession come between and tie the knot God that moved us to that act will perfect all Here enters the fulnesse of his mercy Plenitudo Rev. 3 20. at one leafe of this doore well expressed at our doore in that Ecce sto pulso Behold I stand at the doore and knock for first he comes here is no mention of our calling of him before He comes of himselfe And then he suffers not us to be ignorant of his comming he comes so as that he manifests himself Ecce Behold And then he expects not that we should wake with that light and look out of our selves but he knocks
solicits us at least with some noyse at our doores some calamities upon our neighbours And againe he appeares not like a lightning that passes away as soon as it is seene that no man can reade by it nor work by it nor light a candle nor kindle a coale by it but he stands at the doore and expects us all day not only with a patience but with a hunger to effect his purpose upon us he would come in and sup with us Accept our diet our poore endeavours And then would have us sup with him as it is there added would feast us with his abundant Graces which he brings even home to our doores But those he does not give us at the doore not till we have let him in by the good use of his former grace And as he offers this fulnesse of his mercy by these meanes before so by way of Pardon and Remission if we have been defective in opening the doore upon his standing and knocking this fulnesse is fully expressed in this word of this Text as our two Translations neither departing from the naturall signification of the word have rendred it The word is the same here in Davids sweetnesse as in Cains bitternesse Gnavon Poena Gen 4.13 and we cannot tell whether Cain speake there of a punishment too great to be borne or of a sin too great to be pardoned Nor which David meanes here It fills up the measure of Gods mercy if we take him to meane both God upon Confession forgives the punishment of the sin So that the just terror of Hell and the imaginary terror of Purgatory for the next World is taken away and for this World what calamities and tribulations soever fall upon us after these Confessions and Remissions they have not the nature of punishments but they are Fatherly Corrections and Medicinall assistances against relapses and have their maine relation and prospect upon the future For not onely the sin it selfe but the iniquitie of the sin is said to be forgiven Iniquitas God keeps nothing in his minde against the last day But whatsoever is worst in the sin the venome The malignity of the sin The violation of his Law The affrontings of his Majesty residing in that Law though it have been a winking at his light a resisting of his light the ill nature the malignity the iniquity of the sin is forgiven Onely this remaines That God extinguishes not the right of a third Person nor pardons a Murder so as that he barres another from his Appeale Not that his pardon is not full upon a full Confession but that the Confession is no more full if it bee not accompanied with Satisfaction that is Restitution of all unjustly gotten then if the Confession lacked Contrition and true sorrow Otherwise the iniquity of the sin and the punishment of the sin are both fully pardoned And so we have shut one leafe of this doore The fulnesse The other is the speed and acceleration of his mercy and that leafe we will clap to in a word This is expressed in this David is but at his Dixit and God at his Remisit Promptitudo David was but Saying nay but Thinking and God was Doing nay Perfecting his work To the Lepers that cryed out for mercy Christ said Go shew your selves to the Priest Luke 17.11 So he put them into the way and they went sayes the text and as they went they were healed upon the way No man comes into the way but by the illumination and direction of God Christ put them into the way The way is the Church no man is cured out of the way no man that separates himselfe from the Church nor in the way neither except he goe If he live negligently and trust onely upon the outward profession nor though he goe except he goe according to Christ bidding except he conforme himself to that worship of God and to those means of sanctification which God hath instituted in his Church without singularities of his owne or Traditions of other mens inventing and imposing This this submitting and conforming our selves to God so as God hath commanded us the purposing of this and the endeavouring of this is our Dixit in the Text our saying that we will doe it and upon this Dixit this purposing this endeavouring instantly immediately infallibly follows the Remisit God will God does God hath forgiven the iniquity and the punishment of the sin Therefore to end all Poure out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lament 2.19 No liquor comes so clearly so absolutely from the vessel not oyle not milk not wine not hony as that it leaves no taste behind so may sweet sins and therefore poure out saies the Prophet not the liquor but the heart it selfe and take a new heart of Gods making for thy former heart was never so of Gods making as that Adam had not a hand in it and his Image was in it in Originall sin as well as Gods in the Creation As liquors poured out leave a taste and a smell behinde them unperfected Confessions And who perfects his Confession leave ill gottten goods sticking upon thine heire and they leave a taste and a delight to thinke and speake of former sins sticking upon thy selfe But poure out thy heart like water All ill impressions in the very roote And for the accomplishment of this great Mystery of Godlinesse by Confession fixe thy Meditations upon those words and in the strength of them come now or when thou shalt bee better strengthened by the Meditation of them to the Table of the Lord The Lord looketh upon men And if any say I have sinned Job 33.27 and perverted that which was right and it profited me not he will deliver his soule from going down into the pit and his life shall see light and it is added Loe all these things worketh God twice and thrice Here is a fulnesse of consolation first plenary and here is a present forgivenesse If man if any man say I have sinned God doth God forgives and here is more then that an iteration if thou fall upon infirmity againe God will on penitence more carefully performed forgive againe This hee will doe twice or thrice sayes the Hebrew our Translation might boldly say as it doth This God will doe often But yet if God finde dolum in spiritu an over-confidence in this God cannot be mocked And therefore take heed of trusting upon it too often but especially of trusting upon it too late And whatsoever the Holy Ghost may meane by the twice or thrice be sure to doe it once doe it now and receive thy Saviour there and so as he offers himselfe unto thee in these his Ordinances this day once and twice and thrice that is in prayer in preaching in the Sacrament For this is thy trinity upon earth that must bring thee to the Trinity in heaven To which Trinity c. SERM. LIX Preached upon the
themselves Be glad Rejoyce and Shout for joy Which joy is first an inward love of the Law of God Glad Psal 119.111 Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever for they are the joy of my heart It is not Dant but Sunt not that they Bring joy but that they Are joy There is no other joy but the delight in the Law of the Lord For all other joy the Wise King said Eccles 2.2 Of laughter thou art mad and of joy what is this that thou dost True joy is the earnest which we have of heaven It is the treasure of the soule and therefore should be laid in a safe place and nothing in this world is safe to place it in And therefore with the Spouse we say Cant. 1.4 We will be glad in thee we will remember thy love more then wine Let others seek their joy in wine in society in conversation in musique for mee Thou hast put gladnesse into my heart more then in the time that their corne and their wine increased Rejoyce therefore in the Lord alwayes Rejoyce Phil. 4.4 and againe I say rejoyce Againe that is Rejoyce in the second manner of expressing it by externall declarations Goe chearfully and joyfully forward in the works of your callings Rejoyce in the blessings of God without murmuring or comparing with others And establish thy joy so in an honest and religious manner of getting that thy joy may descend to thine heire as well as thy land No land is so well fenced no house so well furnished as that which hath this joy this testimony of being well gotten Job 20.4 For This thou knowest of old since man was placed upon earth that the Triumphing of the wicked is short and the joy of the Hypocrite but for a moment And then the last degree is louder then this Iubilate Shout for joy Iubilate Declare thy joy in the eares of other men As the Angels said to the Shepheards Luke 2. I bring you tidings of great joy which shall be unto all people So be thou a chearfull occasion of glorifying God by thy joy Declare his loving kindnesse unto the sons of men Tell them what he hath done for thy soule thy body thy state Say With this staffe came I over Iordane Be content to tell whose Son thou wast and how small thy beginning Smother not Gods blessings by making thy selfe poore when he who is truly poore begges of thee for that Gods sake who gave thee all that thou hast Hold up a holy chearfulnesse in thy heart Goe on in a chearfull conversation and let the world see that all this growes out of a peace betwixt God and thee testified in the blessings of this world and then thou art that Person and then thou hast that Portion which growes out of this root in this Text Mercy shall compasse him about that trusteth in the Lord. SERM. LXIV Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 51.7 Purge me with Hyssope and I shall be cleane wash me and I shall bewhiter then snow IN the Records of the growth and propagation of the Christian Church The Ecclesiasticall Story we have a relation of one Pambo an unlearned but devout and humble Ermit who being informed of another man more learned then himselfe that professed the understanding and teaching of the Book of Psalmes sought him out and applied himselfe to him to be his Disciple And taking his first lesson casually at the first verse of the thirty ninth Psalme I will take heed to my wayes that I sin not with my tongue He went away with that lesson with a promise to returne againe when he was perfect in that And when he discontinued so long that his Master sometimes occasionally lighting upon him accused him of this slacknesse for almost twenty yeares together he made severall excuses but at last professed that at the end of those twenty yeares he was not yet perfect in his first lesson in that one verse I will take heed to my wayes that I sinne not with my tongue Now that which made this lesson hard unto him was that it employed all his diligence and his watchfulnesse upon future things to examine and debate all his actions and all his words for else he did not take heed to his wayes at least not so as that hee would not sin with his tongue But if he had begun with this lesson with this Psalme which is but a calling to our memory that which is past The sinfull employment of that time which is gone and shall not returne The sinfull heats of our youth which since we wanted remorsefull teares to quench them even the sin it selfe and the excesse thereof hath overcome and allayed in us sinfull omissions sinfull actions and habits and all those transitory passages in which the Apostle shewes us our prodigality our unthriftinesse our ill bargaine when he askes us that question of Confusion Rom. 6.21 What fruit had you then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed If he had begun his first lesson at this with the presenting of all his passed sins in the sight of the Father and in the Mediation and merit of the Sonne he would have been sonner perfect in that lesson and would have found himselfe even by laying open his disease so purged with Hyssop as that he should have been cleane and so washed as that he should have been whiter then snow For Repentance of sins past is nothing but an Audit a casting up of our accounts a consideration a survey how it stands between God and our soule And yet as many men run out of plentifull estates onely because they are loath to see a list of their debts to take knowledge how much they are behind hand or to contract their expenses so we run out of a whole and rich inheritance the Kingdome of heaven we profuse and poure out even our own soule rather then we will cast our eye upon that which is past rather then we will present a list of our spirituall debts to God or discover our disease to that Physician who onely can Purge us with hyssope that we may be cleane and wash us that wee may be whiter then snow In the words we shall consider the Person Divisio and the Action who petitions and what he asks Both are twofold for the persons are two the Physitian and the Patient God and David Doe thou purge me doe thou wash me and the Action is twofold Purgabis doe thou purge me and Lavabis doe thou wash me In which last part and in the first branch thereof wee shall see first the Action it selfe Purgabis Thou shalt purge mee and what that imports And then the meanes Purgabis hyssopo Thou shalt purge me with hyssope what that implies and then the effect Mundaber I shall bee made cleane and what that comprehends And in the other branch of that second part Lavabis Thou shalt wash me wee shall also looke
his anchor Let him that hath any diffident jealousie or suspition of the free and full mercy of God apprehend God as God is his Salvation And him that walks in the ingloriousnesse and contempt of this world contemplate God as God is his Glory Any of these notions is enough to any man but God is all these and all else that all soules can thinke to every man Wee shut up both these Considerations man should not Mic. ult 5. that is not all God should be relied upon with that of the Prophet Trust ye not in a friend put not your confidence in a guide keepe the doores of thy mouth from her that lies in thy bosome there is the exclusion of trust in man and then he adds in the seventh verse because it stands thus betweene man and man I will looke unto the Lord I will looke to the God of my Salvation my God will heare me SERM. LXVI The second of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalmes Preached at S. Pauls Ianuary 29. 1625. PSAL. 63.7 Because thou hast been my helpe Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce THe Psalmes are the Manna of the Church Wisd 16.20 As Manna tasted to every man like that that he liked best so doe the Psalmes minister Instruction and satisfaction to every man in every emergency and occasion David was not onely a cleare Prophet of Christ himselfe but a Prophet of every particular Christian He foretels what I what any shall doe and suffer and say And as the whole booke of Psalmes is Oleum effusum Cant. 1.3 as the Spouse speaks of the name of Christ an Oyntment powred out upon all sorts of sores A Searcloth that souples all bruises A Balme that searches all wounds so are there some certaine Psalmes that are Imperiall Psalmes that command over all affections and spread themselves over all occasions Catholique universall Psalmes that apply themselves to all necessities This is one of those for of those Constitutions which are called Apostolicall Constitut Apostol one is That the Church should meet every day to sing this Psalme And accordingly S. Chrysostome testifies That it was decreed and ordained by the Primitive Fathers Chrysost that no day should passe without the publique singing of this Psalme Under both these obligations those ancient Constitutions called the Apostles and those ancient Decrees made by the primitive Fathers belongs to me who have my part in the service of Gods Church the especiall meditation and recommendation of this Psalme And under a third obligation too That it is one of those five psalmes the daily rehearsing whereof is injoyned to me by the Constitutions of this Church as five other are to every other person of our body As the whole booke is Manna so these five Psalmes are my Gomer which I am to fill and empty every day of this Manna Now as the spirit and soule of the whole booke of Psalmes is contracted into this psalme so is the spirit and soule of this whole psalme contracted into this verse Divisie The key of the psalme as S. Hierome calls the Titles of the psalmes tells us Hieron that David uttered this psalme when he was in the wildernesse of Iudab There we see the present occasion that moved him And we see what was passed between God and him before in the first clause of our Text Because thou hast been my helpe And then we see what was to come by the rest Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce So that we have here the whole compasse of Time Past Present and Future and these three parts of Time shall be at this time the three parts of this Exercise first what Davids distresse put him upon for the present and that lyes in the Context secondly how David built his assurance upon that which was past Because thou hast been my help And thirdly what he established to himselfe for the future Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce First His distresse in the Wildernesse his present estate carried him upon the memory of that which God had done for him before And the Remembrance of that carried him upon that of which he assured himselfe after Fixe upon God any where and you shall finde him a Circle He is with you now when you fix upon him He was with you before for he brought you to this fixation and he will be with you hereafter for He is yesterday Heb. 13.8 and to day and the same for ever For Davids present condition who was now in a banishment in a persecution in the Wildernesse of Judah which is our first part we shall onely insist upon that which is indeed spread over all the psalme to the Text and ratified in the Text That in all those temporall calamities David was onely sensible of his spirituall losse It grieved him not that he was kept from Sauls Court but that he was kept from Gods Church For when he sayes Ver. 1. by way of lamentation That he was in a dry and thirsty land where no water was he expresses what penury what barrennesse what drought and what thirst he meant To see thy power Ver. 2. Ver. 5. Ver. 3. and thy glory so as I have seene thee in the Sanctuary For there my soule shall be satisfied as with marrow and with satnesse and there my mouth shall praise thee with joyfull lips And in some few considerations conducing to this That spirituall losses are incomparably heavier then temporall and that therefore The Restitution to our spirituall happinesse or the continuation of it is rather to be made the subject of our prayers to God in all pressures and distresses then of temporall we shall determine that first part And for the particular branches of both the other parts The Remembring of Gods benefits past And the building of an assurance for the future upon that Remembrance it may be fitter to open them to you anon when we come to handle them then now Proceed we now to our first part The comparing of temporall and spirituall afflictions In the way of this Comparison 1 Part. Afflictio universalis 2 Cor. 4.17 falls first the Consideration of the universality of afflictions in generall and the inevitablenesse thereof It is a blessed Meraphore that the Holy Ghost hath put into the mouth of the Apostle Pondus Gloriae That our afflictions are but light because there is an exceeding and an eternall waight of glory attending them If it were not for that exceeding waight of glory no other waight in this world could turne the scale or waigh downe those infinite waights of afflictions that oppresse us here There is not onely Pestis valde gravis the pestilence grows heavy upon the Land but there is Musca valde gravis Exod. 9.3.8.24 God calls in but the fly to vexe Egypt and even the fly is a heavy burden unto them Job 7.20 2 Sam. 14.26 Lament
away I am sure that thou who art returned to him and hast re-manifested thy selfe to him who in the diffidence of his sad soule thought thee gone for ever wilt never depart from mee nor hide thy selfe from me who desire to dwell in thy presence And so by this liberality I stand by giving I receive comfort We follow our text Rex Christus in the Context our Prophet as he places this liberality in the King in the Magistrate in the People Here the King is Christ The Magistrate the Minister The People the people whether collectively that is the Congregation or distributively every particular soule Afford your devotions a minute to each of these and we have done When we consider the liberality of our King the bounty of God to man in Christ it is Species ingratitudinis It is a degree of ingratitude nay it is a degree of forgetfulnesse to pretend to remember his benefits so as to reckon them for they are innumerable Sicut in visibilibus est Sol Nazlan in intelligibilibus est Deus As liberall as the Sun is in Nature God is in grace Bonitas Dei ad extra liberalitas est It is the expressing of the Schoole and of much use That God is Essentiall Goodnesse within doores in himselfe But Ad extra when he comes abroad when this interiour Goodnesse is produced into action Barnard then all Gods Goodnesse is Liberality Deus est voluntas Omnipotens is excellently said by S. Bernard God is all Almightinesse all Power but he might be so and we never the better Therefore he is Voluntas omnipotens A Power digested into a Will as Willing as Able to doe us all all good What good Receive some drops of it in S. Bernards owne Manna his owne honey Creans mentes ad se participandum So good as that he hath first given us soules capable of him and made us so partakers of the Divine Nature Vivificans ad sentiendum So good as that he hath quickned those soules and made them sensible of having received him for Grace is not grace to me till it make me know that I have it Alliciens ad appetendum So good as that he hath given that soule an appetite and a holy hunger and thirst to take in more of him for I have no Grace till I would have more and then Dilatans ad capiendum So good as that he hath dilated and enlarged that soule to take in as much of God as he will And lest the soule should lose any of this by unthankfulnesse Luke 6.31 God is kind even to the unthankfull sayes God himselfe which is a degree of goodnesse in which God seldome is nay in which God scarce looks to be imitated To be kinde to the unthankfull But if the whole space to the Firmament were filled with sand and we had before us Clavius his number how many thousands would be If all that space were filled with water and so joyned the waters above with the waters below the Firmament and we had the number of all those drops of water And then had every single sand and every single drop multiplied by the whole number of both we were still short of numbring the benefits of God as God But then of God in Christ infinitely super-infinitely short To have been once nothing and to be now co-heire with the Son of God is such a Circle such a Compasse as that no revolutions in this world to rise from the lowest to the highest or to fall from the highest to the lowest can be called or thought any Segment any Arch any Point in respect of this Circle To have once been nothing and now to be co-heires with the Son of God That Son of God who if there had been but one soule to have been saved would have dyed for that nay if all soules had been to be saved but one and that that onely had sinned he would not have contented himselfe with all the rest but would have dyed for that And there is the goodnesse the liberality of our King our God our Christ our Jesus But we must looke upon this liberality as our Prophet leads us in the Magistrate too Magistratus that is in this part The Minister As I have received mercy I am one of them as S. Paul speaks And why should I deliver out this mercy to others in a scanter measure then I have received it my selfe from God Why should I deliver out his Talents in single farthings Or his Gomers in narrow and shallow thimbles Why should I defalke from his generall propositions and against all Grammar and all Dictionaries call his Omnes his All a few Why should I lie to the Holy Ghost Acts 5. as S. Peter charges Ananias Soldest thou the land for so much Yea for so much Did God make heaven for so few yes for so few Why should I say so If we will constitute a place for heaven above and a place for hell below even the capacity of the place will yeeld an argument that God as we can consider him in his first meaning meant more should be saved then cast away As oft as God tells us of painfull wayes and narrow gates and of Camels and needles all that is done to sharpen an industry in all not to threaten an impossibility to any If God would not have all why tooke he me And if he were sorry he had taken me or were wearied with the sins of my youth why did he not let me slide away in the change of sins in mine age or in my sinfull memory of old sins or in my sinfull sorrow that I could not continue in those sins but still make his mercies new to me every morning My King my God in Christ is liberall to all He bids us his Officers his Ministers to be so too and I am even thus far If any man doubt his salvation if any man thinke himselfe too great a sinner to attaine salvation let him repent and take mine for his with any true repentant sinner I will change states for God knowes his repentance whether it be true or no better then I know mine Therefore doth the Prophet here promise this liberality as in the King in Christ Populus and in the Magistrate the Minister so in the people too in every particular soule He cryes to us his Ministers Consolamini Consolamini Comfort O Comfort my people Esay 40.1 and he cryes to every one of you Miscrere animae tuae Have mercy upon thine own soule Ecclus. 30.24 and I will commiserate it too Be liberall to thy selfe and I will beare thee out in it God asks Quid potui What could have been done more to my Vineyard Doe but tell him Esay 5.4 and he will doe that Tell him that he can remove this dampe from thy heart Tell him as though thou wouldest have it done and he will doe it Tell him that he can bring teares into
torments is the everlasting absence of God and the everlasting impossibility of returning to his presenâ—â— Horrendum est sayes the Apostle It is a fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God Heb. 10.31 Yet there was a case in which David found an ease to fall into the hands of God to scape the hands of men Horrendum est when Gods hand is bent to strike it is a fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God but to fall out of the hands of the living God is a horror beyond our expression beyond our imagination That God should let my soule fall out of his hand into a bottomlesse pit and roll an unremoveable stone upon it and leave it to that which it finds there and it shall finde that there which it never imagined till it came thither and never thinke more of that soule never have more to doe with it That of that providence of God that studies the life of every weed and worme and ant and spider and toad and viper there should never never any beame flow out upon me that that God who looked upon me when I was nothing and called me when I was not as though I had been out of the womb and depth of darknesse will not looke upon me now when though a miserable and a banished and a damned creature yet I am his creature still and contribute something to his glory even in my damnation that that God who hath often looked upon me in my foulest uncleannesse and when I had shut out the eye of the day the Sunne and the eye of the night the Taper and the eyes of all the world with curtaines and windowes and doores did yet see me and see me in mercy by making me see that he saw me and sometimes brought me to a present remorse and for that time to a forbearing of that sinne should so turne himselfe from me to his glorious Saints and Angels as that no Saint nor Angel nor Christ Jesus himselfe should ever pray him to looke towards me never remember him that such a soule there is that that God who hath so often said to my soule Quare morier is Why wilt thou die and so often sworne to my soule Vivit Dominus As the Lord liveth I would not have thee dye but live will nether let me dye nor let me live but dye an everlasting life and live an everlasting death that that God who when he could not get into me by standing and knocking by his ordinary meanes of entring by his Word his mercies hath applied his judgements and hath shaked the house this body with agues and palsies and set this house on fire with fevers and calentures and frighted the Master of the house my soule with horrors and heavy apprehensions and so made an entrance into me That that God should frustrate all his owne purposes and practises upon me and leave me and cast me away as though I had cost him nothing that this God at last should let this soule goe away as a smoake as a vapour as a bubble and that then this soule cannot be a smoake a vapour nor a bubble but must lie in darknesse as long as the Lord of light is light it selfe and never sparke of that light reach to my soule What Tophet is not Paradise what Brimstone is not Amber what gnashing is not a comfort what gnawing of the worme is not a tickling what torment is not a marriage bed to this damnation to be secluded eternally eternally eternally from the sight of God Especially to us for as the perpetuall losse of that is most heavy with which we have been best acquainted and to which wee have been most accustomed so shall this damnation which consists in the losse of the sight and presence of God be heavier to us then others because God hath so graciously and so evidently and so diversly appeared to us in his pillar of fire in the light of prosperity and in the pillar of the Cloud in hiding himselfe for a while from us we that have seene him in all the parts of this Commission in his Word in his Sacraments and in good example and not beleeved shall be further removed from his sight in the next world then they to whom he never appeared in this But Vincenti credenti to him that beleeves aright and overcomes all tentations to a wrong beliefe God shall give the accomplishment of fulnesse and fulnesse of joy and joy rooted in glory and glory established in eternity and this eternity is God To him that beleeves and overcomes God shall give himselfe in an everlasting presence and fruition Amen SERM. LXXVII Preached at S. PAULS May 21. 1626. 1 COR. 15.29 Else what shall they doe which are baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all why are they then baptized for the dead I Entred into the handling of these words upon Easter day for though the words have received divers Expositions good and pervers yet all agreed that the words were an argument for the Resurrection and that invited me to apply them to that Day At that Day I entred into them with Origens protestation Odit Dominus qui festum ejus unum putat diem God hates that man that thinks any holy-day of his lasts but one day that never thinks of the Resurrection but upon Easter day And therefore I engaged my selfe willingly according to the invitation and almost the necessity of the words which could not conveniently scarce possibly be determined in one day to returne againe and againe to the handling thereof For they are words of a great extent a great compasse The whole Circle of a Christian is designed and accomplished in them for here is first the first point in that Circle our Birth our spirituall birth that is Baptisme Why are these men thus baptized sayes the Text And then here is the point directly and diametrally opposed to that first point our Birth that is Death Why are these men thus baptized for the dead sayes the Text And then the Circle is carried up to the first point againe to our Birth in another Birth in the Resurrection Why are these men thus baptized for the dead if there be no Resurrection So that if we consider the Militant and the Triumphant Church to be as they are all one House and under one roofe here is first Limen Ecclesiae as S. Augustine calls Baptisme The Threshold of the Church we are put over the Threshold into the Body of the Church by Baptisme and here we are remembred of Baptisme Why are these men thus baptized And then here is Chorus Ecclesiae The Quire the Chancell of the Church in which all the service of God is officiated and executed for we are made not onely hearers and spectators but actors in the service of God when we come to beare a part in the Hymnes and Anthems of the Saints by our Death and here we are
give us all for asking so he meant to give us the words by which we should ask As that Prayer consists of seven petitions and seven is infinite so by being at first begun with glory and acknowledgement of his raigning in heaven and then shut up in the same manner with acclamations of power and glory it is made a circle of praise and a circle is infinite too The Prayer and the Praise is equally infinite Infinitely poore and needy man that ever needst infinite things to pray for Infinitely rich and abundant man that ever hast infinite blessings to praise God for Gods house in this world is called the house of Prayer but in heaven it is the house of Praise No surprisall with any new necessities there but one even incessant and everlasting tenor of thanksgiving And it is a blessed inchoation of that state here here to be continually exercised in the commemoration of Gods former goodnesse towards us My voyce shalt thou heare in the morning Psal 5.3 Psal 55.17 O Lord sayes David What voice the voice of his prayer it is true In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee saies David there And not only then but at noone and at night he vowes that Sacrifice Evening and morning and at noone will I pray and cry unto thee But Davids devotion began not when his prayers began one part of his devotion was before morning Psal 119.62 At midnight will I rise to give thanks unto thee O Lord sayes he Doubtlesse when he lay downe and closed his eyes he had made up his account with God and had received his Quietus est then And then the first thing that he does when he wakes againe is not to importune God for more but to blesse God for his former blessings And as this part of his devotion Praise began all so it passes through all I will blesse the Lord at all times Psal 34.11 and his praise shall be continually in my mouth He extends it through all times and all places and would faine do so through all persons too as we see by that adprecation which is so frequent with him O that men would therefore praise the Lord and declare the wondrous workes that he doth for the children of men If we compare these two incomparable duties Prayer and Praise it will stand thus Our Prayers besiege God as Tertullian speakes especially of publique Prayer in the Congregation Agmine facto obsidemus Deum but our praises prescribe in God we urge him and presse him with his ancient mercies his mercies of old By Prayer we incline him we bend him but by Praise we bind him our thanks for former benefits is a producing of a specialty by which he hath contracted with us for more In Prayer we sue to him but in our Praise we sue him himselfe Prayer is as our petition but Praise is as our Evidence In that we beg in this we plead God hath no law upon himselfe but yet God himselfe proceeds by precedent And whensoever we present to him with thanksgiving what he hath done he does the same and more againe Neither certainly can the Church institute any prayers more effectuall for the preservation of Religion or of the State then the Collects for our deliverances in the like cases before And when he heares them though they have the nature of Praise onely yet he translates them into Prayers and when we our selves know not how much we stand in need of new deliverances he delivers us from dangers which we never suspected from Armies and Navies which we never knew were prepared and from plots and machinations which we never knew were brought into Consultation and diverts their forces and dissipates their counsels with an untimely abortion And farther I extend not this first part of Prayer in generall in which to that which you may have heard often and usefully of the duty and dignity of Prayer I have only added this of the method and elements thereof that prayer consists as much of praise for the past as of supplication for the future We passe now to our second Part To this particular Prayer 2 Part. and those limmes that make up this body those pieces that constitute this Part. They are many as many as words in it Satisfie and satisfie Vs and doe that early and doe that with that which is thine and let that be mercy So that first it is a prayer for fulnesse and satisfaction Satura satisfie And then it is a prayer not onely of appropriation to our selves Satisfie me But of a charitable dilatation and extension to others Satisfie us all us all thy servants all thy Church And then thirdly it is a prayer of dispatch and expedition Satura nos mane Satisfie us early and after that it is a prayer of evidence and manifestation Satisfie us with that which is and which we may discerne to be thine And then lastly it is a prayer of limitation even upon God himselfe that God will take no other way herein but the way of mercy Satisfie us early with thy mercy And because these are the land-markes that must guide you in this voyage and the places to which you must resort to assist your memory be pleased to take another survay and impression of them I may have an apprehension of a conditionall promise of God and I may have some faire credulity and testimony of conscience of an endeavour to performe those conditions and so some inchoations of thoses promises but yet this is not a fulnesse a satisfaction and this is a prayer for that Satura satisfie I may have a full measure in my selfe finde no want of temporall conveniencies or spirituall consolation even in inconveniencies and so hold up a holy alacrity and cheerefulnesse for all concerning my selfe and yet see God abandon greater persons and desert some whole Churches and States upon whom his glory and Gospel depends much more then upon me but this is a prayer of charitable extension Satura nos not me but us all us that professe thee aright This also I may be sure that God will doe at last he will rescue his owne honour in rescuing or establishing his Servants he will bring Israel out of Egypt and out of Babylon but yet his Israel may lye long under the scourge and scorne of his and their enemies 300. yeares before they get out of Egypt seventy yeares before they get out of Babylon and so fall into tentations of conceiving a jealousie and suspition of Gods good purpose towards them and this is a Prayer of Dispatch and Expedition Satura nos mane Satisfie us early O God make speed to save us O Lord make hast to help us But he may derive help upon us by meanes that are not his not avowed by him He may quicken our Counsels by bringing in an Achitophell he may strengthen our Armies by calling in the Turke he may establish our peace and friendships by remitting
every day of holy Convocation All this at home and here yee have slept out and neglected Now upon the Sabbath and in these holy Exercises this Sonne shines out as at noone the Grace of God is in the Exaltation exhibited in the powerfullest and effectuallest way of his Ordinance and if you will but awake now rise now meet God now now at noone God will call even this early Have any of you slept out the whole day and are come in that drowsinesse to your evening to the closing of your eyes to the end of your dayes Yet rise now and God shall call even this an early rising If you can make shift to deceive your owne soules and say We never heard God call us If you neglected your former callings so as that you have forgot that you have been called yet is there one amongst you that denies that God calls him now If he neglect this calling now to morrow he may forget that he was called to day or remember it with such a terror as shall blow a dampe and a consternation upon his soule and a lethargy worse then his former sleepe but if he will wake now and rise now though this be late in his evening in his age yet God shall call this early Isai 26.9 Bee but able to say with Esay this night My soule hath desired thee in the night and thou maist be bold to say with David to morrow morning Satura nos mane Satisfie us early with thy mercy and he shall doe it But yet no prayer of ours howsoever made in the best disposition in the best testimony of a rectified conscience must limit God his time or appoint him in what morning or what houre in the morning God shall come to our deliverance The Sonne of man was not the lesse the Sonne of God nor the lesse a beloved Sonne though God hid from him the knowledge of the day of the generall Judgement Thou art not the lesse the servant of God nor the lesse rewarded by him though he keepe from thee the knowledge of thy deliverance from any particular calamity All Gods deliverances are in the morning because there is a perpetuall night and an invincible darknesse upon us till he deliver us God is the God of that Climate where the night is six Moneths long as well as of this where it is but halfe so many houres The highest Hill hinders not the roundnesse of the earth the earth is round for all that hill The lowest vaults and mines hinder not the solidnesse of the earth the earth is solid for all that Much lesse hath a yeare or ten yeares or all our threescore and ten any proportion at all to eternity And therefore God comes early in a sort to me though I lose abundance of my reward by so long lingring if he come not till hee open me the gate of heaven by the key of death There are Indies at my right hand in the East but there are Indies at my left hand too in the West There are testimonies of Gods love to us in our East in our beginnings but if God continue tribulation upon us to our West to our ends and give us the light of his presence then if he appeare to us at our transmigration certainly he was favourable to us all our peregrination and though he shew himselfe late hee was our friend early The Prayer is that he would come early but it is if it be rightly formed upon both these conditions first that I rise early to meet him and then that I magnifie his houre as early whensoever he shall be pleased to come All this I shall doe the better Tuâ— if I limit my prayer and my practise with the next circumstance in Davids prayer Tuâ Satisfie us early with that which is thine Thy mercy For there are mercies in a faire extent and accommodation of the word that is Refreshings Eases Deliverances that are not his mercies nor his satisfactions How many men are satisfied with Riches I correct my selfe few are satisfied but how many have enough to satisfie many and yet have never a peny of his mony Nothing is his that comes not from him that comes not by good meanes How many are there that are easie to admit scruples and jealousies and suspitions in matter of Religion Easie to think that that Religion and that Church in which they have lived ill cannot bee a good Religion nor a true Church In a troubled and distempered conscience they grow easie to admit scruples and then as over-easie to admit false satisfactions with a word whispered on one side in a Conventicle or a word whispered on the other side in a Confession and yet have never a dram of satisfaction from his word whose word is preached upon the house top and avowed and not in corners How many men are anguished with torturing Diseases racked with the conscience of ill-spent estates oppressed with inordinate melancholies and irreligious dejections of spirit and then repaire and satisfie themselves with wine with women with fooles with comedies with mirth and musique and with all Iobs miserable comforters and all this while have no beames of his satisfaction it is not Misericordia ejus his mercy his satisfaction In losses of worldly goods in sicknesses of children or servants or cattell to receive light or ease from Witches this is not his mercy It is not his mercy except we goe by good wayes to good ends except our safety be established by allyance with his friends except our peace may bee had with the perfect continuance of our Religion there is no safety there is no peace But let mee feele the effect of this Prayer as it is a Prayer of manifestation Let mee discerne that that that is done upon mee is done by the hand of God and I care not what it be I had rather have Gods Vinegar then mans Oyle Gods Wormewood then mans Manna Gods Justice then any mans Mercy for therefore did Gregory Nyssen call S. Basil in a holy sense Ambidextrum because he tooke every thing that came by the right handle and with the right hand because he saw it to come from God Even afflictions are welcome when we see them to be his Though the way that he would chuse and the way that this Prayer intreats be only mercy Satisfie us early with thy mercy That rod and that staffe with which we are at any time corrected is his Misâ—ricordia Esay 10.5 So God cals the Assyrians The rod of his anger and he sayes That the staffe that is in their hand is his Indignation He comes to a sharper execution from the rod and the staffe to the sword and that also is his It is my sword that is put into the hands of the King of Babylon Ezek. 30.24 and he shall stretch out my sword upon the whole land God will beat downe and cut off and blow up and blow out at his pleasure which is expressed in
a phrase very remarkeable by David He bringeth the winde out of his Treasuries And then follow in that place Psal 135.7 all the Plagues of Egypt stormes and tempests ruines and devastations are not onely in Gods Armories but they are in his Treasuries as hee is the Lord of Hosts hee fetches his judgements from his Armories and casts confusion upon his enemies but as he is the God of mercy and of plentifull redemption he fetches these judgements these corrections out of his treasuries and they are the Money the Jewels by which he redeemes and buyes us againe God does nothing God can doe nothing no not in the way of ruine and destruction but there is mercy in it he cannot open a doore in his Armory but a window into his Treasury opens too and he must looke into that But then Gods corrections are his Acts as the Physitian is his Creature God created him for necessity When God made man his first intention was not that man should fall and so need a Messias nor that man should fall sick and so need a Physitian nor that man should fall into rebellion by sin and so need his rod his staffe his scourge of afflictions to whip him into the way againe But yet sayes the Wiseman Ecclus. 38.1 Honour the Physitian for the use you may have of him slight him not because thou hast no need of him yet So though Gods corrections were not from a primary but a secondary intention yet when you see those corrections fall upon another give a good interpretation of them and beleeve Gods purpose to be not to destroy but to recover that man Do not thou make Gods Rheubarbe thy Ratsbane and poyson thine owne soule with an uncharitable misinterpretation of that correction which God hath sent to cure his And then in thine owne afflictions flie evermore to this Prayer Satisfie us with thy mercy first Satisfie us make it appeare to us that thine intention is mercy though thou enwrap it in temporall afflictions in this darke cloud let us discerne thy Son and though in an act of displeasure see that thou art well pleased with us Satisfie us that there is mercy in thy judgements and then satisfie us that thy mercy is mercy for such is the stupidity of sinfull man That as in temporall blessings we discerne them best by wanting them so do we the mercies of God too we call it not a mercy to have the same blessings still but as every man conceives a greater degree of joy in recovering from a sicknesse then in his former established health so without doubt our Ancestors who indured many yeares Civill and forraine wars were more affected with their first peace then we are with our continuall enjoying thereof And our Fathers more thankfull for the beginning of Reformation of Religion then we for so long enjoying the continuance thereof Satisfie us with thy mercie Let us still be able to see mercy in thy judgements lest they deject us and confound us Satisfie us with thy mercie let us be able to see that our deliverance is a mercy and not a naturall thing that might have hapned so or a necessary thing that must have hapned so though there had beene no God in Heaven nor providence upon earth But especially since the way that thou choosest is to goe all by mercy and not to be put to this way of correction so dispose so compose our minds and so transpose all our affections that we may live upon thy food and not put thee to thy physick that we may embrace thee in the light and not be put to seeke thee in the darke that wee come to thee in thy Mercy and not be whipped to thee by thy Corrections And so we have done also with our second Part The pieces and petitions that constitute this Prayer as it is a Prayer for Fulnesse and Satisfaction a Prayer of Extent and Dilatation a Prayer of Dispatch and Expedition and then a Prayer of Evidence and Declaration and lastly a Prayer of Limitation even upon God himselfe Satisfie and satisfie us and us early with that which we may discerne to be thine and let that way be mercy There remaines yet a third Part 3 Part. Gaudium what this Prayer produces and it is joy and continual joy That we may rejoyce and be glad all our dayes The words are the Parts and we invert not we trouble not the Order the Holy Ghost hath laid them fitliest for our use in the Text it selfe and so we take them First then the gaine is joy Joy is Gods owne Seale and his keeper is the Holy Ghost wee have many sudden ejaculations in the forme of Prayer sometimes inconsiderately made and they vanish so but if I can reflect upon my prayer ruminate and returne againe with joy to the same prayer I have Gods Seale upon it And therefore it is not so very an idle thing as some have mis-imagined it to repeat often the same prayer in the same words Our Saviour did so he prayed a third time and in the same words This reflecting upon a former prayer is that that sets to this Seale this joy and if I have joy in my prayer it is granted so far as concernes my good and Gods glory It hath beene disputed by many both of the Gentiles with whom the Fathers disputed and of the Schoolemen who dispute with one another An sit gaudium in Deo de semet Whether God rejoyce in himselfe in contemplation of himselfe whether God be glad that he is God But it is disputed by them onely to establish it and to illustrate it for I doe not remember that any one of them denyes it It is true that Plato dislikes and justly that salutation of Dionysius the Tyran to God Gaude servato vitam Tyranni jucundam that he should say to God Live merrily as merrily as a King as merrily as I doe and then you are God enough to imagine such a joy in God as is onely a transitory delight in deceivable things is an impious conceit But when as another Platonique sayes Plotinus Deus est quod ipse semper voluit God is that which hee would be If there be something that God would be and he be that If Plato should deny that God joyed in himselfe we must say of Plato as Lactantius does Deum potius somniaver at quà m cognoverat Plato had rather dreamed that there was a God then understood what that God was Bonum simplex sayes S. Augustine To be sincere Goodnesse Goodnesse it selfe Ipsa est delectatio Dei This is the joy that God hath in himselfe of himselfe And therefore sayes Philo Iudaeus Hoc necessarium Philosophiae sodalibus This is the tenent of all Philosophers And by that title of Philosophers Philo alwaies meanes them that know and study God Solum Deum verè festum agere That only God can be truly said to keepe holy day and to rejoyce This
Man as to calumniate him to blaspheme him was an inexcusable sin To say of him who had fasted forty dayes and forty nights Mat. 11.19 Mar. 12.14 Ecce homo vorax Behold a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber To say of him of whom themselves had said elsewhere Master we know that thou art true and carest for no man that he was a friend of Publicans and sinners That this man who was The Prince of Peace Heb. 12.3 should indure such contradiction This was an inexcusable sin If any man therefore have had his good intentions mis-construed his zeale to assist Gods bleeding and fainting cause called Innovation his proceeding by wayes good in themselves to ends good in themselves called Indiscretion let him be content to forgive them any Calumniator against himselfe who is but a worme and no man since God himselfe forgave them against Christ who was so Filius hominis The Son of Man as that he was the Son of God too There is then forgivenesse for sin for all sin even for blasphemy Infuturo for blasphemy against the Son but it is Infuturo remittetur It shall be forgiven It is not Remittebatur It was forgiven Let no man antidate his pardon and say His sins were forgiven in an Eternall Decree and that no man that hath his name in the book of life hath the addition sinner that if he were there from the beginning from the beginning he was no sinner It is not in such a sense Remittebatur It was forgiven nor it is not Remittitur that even then when the sin is committed it is forgiven whether the sinner think of it or no That God sees not the sins of his Children That God was no more affected with Davids adultery or his murder then an indulgent Father is to see his child do some witty waggish thing or some sportfull shrewd turne It is but Remittetur Any sin shall be that is may be forgiven if the meanes required by God and ordained by him be entertained If I take into my contemplation the Majesty of God and the uglinesse of sin If I devest my selfe of all that was sinfully got and invest my self in the righteousnesse of Christ Jesus for else I am ill suted and if I clothe myself in Mammon the righteousnesse of Christ is no Cloke for that doublet If I come to Gods Church for my absolution and the seale of that reconciliation the blessed Sacrament Remittetur by those meanes ordained by God any sin shall be forgiven me But if I relie upon the Remittebatur That I had my Quietus est before hand in the eternall Decree or in the Remittuntur and so shut mine eyes in an opinion that God hath shut his and sees not the sins of his children I change Gods Grammer and I induce a dangerous solecisme for it is not They were forgiven before they were committed nor They are forgiven in the committing but They shall be by using the meanes ordained by God they may be And so They shall be forgiven unto men saies the Text and that is first unto every man The Kings of the earth are faire and glorious resemblances of the King of heaven Omni homini they are beames of that Sun Tapers of that Torch they are like gods they are gods The Lord killeth and maketh alive He bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up 1 Sam. 2.6 This is the Lord of heaven The Lords anointed Kings of the earth do so too They have the dispensation of judgement and of mercy they execute and they pardon But yet with this difference amongst many other that Kings of the earth for the most part and the best most binde themselves with an oath not to pardon some offences The King of heaven sweares and sweares by himselfe That there is no sinner but he can and would pardon At first Illuminat omnem hominem He is the true light John 1.9 which lightneth every man that commeth into the world Let that light because many do interpret that place so let that be but that naturall light which only man and every man hath yet that light makes him capable of the super-naturall light of grace for if he had not that reasonable soule he could not have grace and even by this naturall light he is able to see the invisible God in the visible creature and is inexcusable if he do not so But because this light is though not put out brought to a dimnesse by mans first fall Therefore Iohn Baptist came to beare witnesse of that light that all men through him might beleeve Ver. 7. God raises up a Iohn Baptist in every man every man findes a testimony in himselfe that he draws curtaines between the light and him that he runs into corners from that light that he doth not make that use of those helpes which God hath afforded him as he might Thus God hath mercy upon all before by way of prevention thus he enlightneth every man that commeth into the world but because for all this men do stumble even at noon God hath given Collyrium an Eye-salve to all Apoc. 3.18 by which they may mend their eye-sight He hath opened a poole of Bethesda to all where not only he that comes at first but he that comes even at last he that comes washed with the water of Baptisme in his infancy and he that comes washed with the teares of Repentance in his age may receive health and cleannesse For the Font at first and the death-bed at last are Cisterns from this poole and all men and at all times may wash therein And from this power and this love of God is derived both that Catholique promise Quandocunque At what time soever a sinner repents And that Catholique and extensive Commission Quorum remiseritis Whose sins soever you remit shall be remitted All men were in Adam because the whole nature mankinde was in him and then can any be without sin All men were in Christ too because the whole nature mankinde was in him and then can any man be excluded from a possibility of mercy There were whole Sects whole bodies of Heretiques that denied the communication of Gods grace to others The Cathari denied that any man had it but themselves The Novatians denied that any man could have it again after he had once lost it by any deadly sin committed after Baptisme But there was never any Sect that denied it to themselves no Sect of despairing men We have some somewhere sprinkled One in the old Testament Cain and one in the new Iudas and one in the Ecclesiastique Story Iulian but no body no Sect of despairing men And therefore he that abandons himself to this sin of desperation sins with the least reason of any for he prefers his sin above Gods mercy and he sins with the fewest examples of any for God hath diffused this light with an evidence to all That all sins may be forgiven unto men that is
of that so that that be no occasion of neglecting due respects to others This being then thus fixed An Trinitas that Abraham received them as men that they were in truth no other then Angels there remaines for the shutting up of this Part this Consideration whether after Abraham came to the knowledge that they were Angels he apprehended not an intimation of the three Persons of the Trinity by these three Angels Whether Gods appearing to Abraham which Moses speaks of in the first verse were manifested to him Ver. 13. Ver. 17. when Sarah laughed in her selfe and yet they knew that she laughed Or whether it were manifested when they imparted their purpose concerning Sodome for in both these places they are called neither men nor Angels but by that name The Lord and that Lord which is Jehovah whether I say when Abraham discerned them to be such Angels as God appeared in them and spoke and wrought by them whether then as he discerned the Divinity he discerned the Trinity in them too is the question I know the explicite Doctrine of the Trinity was not easie to be apprehended then as it is not easie to be expressed now It is a bold thing in servants to inquire curiously into their Masters Pedigree whether he be well descended or well allied It is a bold thing too to inquire too curiously into the eternall generation of Christ Jesus or the eternall procession of the Holy Ghost When Gregory Nazianzen was pressed by one to assigne a difference between those words Begotten and Proceeding Dic tu mihi sayes he quid sit Generatie ego dicam tibi quid sit Processio ut ambo insaniamus Doe thou tell me what this Begetting is and then I will tell thee what this Proceeding is and all the world will finde us both mad for going about to expresse inexpressible things And as every manner of phrase in expressing or every comparison does not manifest the Trinity so every place of Scripture which the Fathers and later men have applied to that purpose does not prove the Trinity And therefore those men in the Church who have cryed downe that way of proceeding to goe about to prove the Trinty out of the first words of Genesis Creavit Dii That because God in the plurall is there joyned to a Verb in the singular therefore there is a Trinity in Unity or to prove the Trinity out of this place that because God who is but one appeared to Abraham in three Persons therefore there are three Persons in the God-head those men I say who have cryed downe such manner of arguments have reason on their side when these arguments are imployed against the Jews for for the most part the Jews have pertinent and sufficient answers to those arguments But yet betweene them who make this place a distinct and a literall and a concluding argument to prove the Trinity and them who cry out against it that it hath no relation to the Trinity our Church hath gone a middle and a moderate way when by appointing this Scripture for this day when we celebrate the Trinity it declares that to us who have been baptized and catechised in the name and faith of the Trinity it is a refreshing it is a cherishing it is an awakening of that former knowledge which we had of the Trinity to heare that our onely God thus manifested himselfe to Abraham in three Persons Luther sayes well upon this text If there were no other proofe of the Trinity but this I should not believe the Trinity but yet sayes he This is Singulare testimonium de articule Trinitatis Though it be not a concluding argument yet it is a great testimony of the Trinity Fateor saies he historico sensu nihil concludi praeter hospitalitatem I confesse in the literall sense there is nothing but a recommendation of hospitality and therefore to the Jews I would urge no more out of this place Sed non sic agendum cum auditoribus ac cum adversariis We must not proceed alike with friends and with enemies There are places of Scriptures for direct proofes and there are places to exercise our meditation and devotion in things for which we need not nor aske not any new proofe And for exercise sayes Luther Rudi ligne ad formam gladii utimur We content our selves with a foyle or with a stick and we require not a sharpe sword To cut off the enemies of the Trinity we have two-edged swords that is undeniable arguments but to exercise our owne devotions we are content with similitudinary and comparative reasons He pursues it farther to good use The story doth not teach us That Sarah is the Christian Church and Hagar the Synagogue But S. Paul proves that from that story he proves it from thence Gal. 4.24 though he call it but an Allegory It is true that S. Augustine sayes Figuranihil probat A figure an Allegory proves nothing yet sayes he addit lucem ornat It makes that which is true in it selfe more evident and more acceptable And therefore it is a lovely and a religious thing to finde out Vestigia Trinitatis Impressions of the Trinity in as many things as we can and it is a reverent obedience to embrace the wisdome of our Church in renewing the Trinity to our Contemplation by the reading of this Scripture this day for even out of this Scripture Philo Iudaeus although hee knew not the true Trinity aright found a threefold manifestation of God to man in this appearing of God to Abraham for as he is called in this Story Iehova he considers him Fontem Essentiae To be the fountaine of all Being As hee is called Deus God he considers him in the administration of his Creatures in his providence As he is called Dominus Lord and King he considers him in the judgement glorifying and rejecting according to their merits So though hee found not a Trinity of Persons he found a Trinity of Actions in the Text Creation Providence and Judgement If he who knew no Trinity could finde one shall not we who know the true one meditate the more effectually upon that by occasion of this story Let us therefore with S. Bernard consider Trinitatem Creatricem and Trinitatem Creatam A Creating and a Created Trinity A Trinity which the Trinity in Heaven Father Son and Holy Ghost hath created in our soules Reason Memory and Will and that we have super-created added another Trinity Suggestion and Consent and Delight in sin And that God after all this infuses another Trinity Faith Hope and Charity by which we returne to our first for so far that Father of Meditation S. Bernard carries this consideration of the Trinity Since therefore the confession of a Trinity is that which distinguishes us from Jews and Turks and al other professions let us discerne that beame of the Trinity which the Church hath shewed us in this text and with the words of the Church
conclude this part O holy blessed and glorious Trinity three Persons and one God have mercy upon us miserable sinners We are descended now to our second part 2 Part. Expostulatio Iob 31.13 what past between God and Abraham after he had thus manifested himselfe unto him Where we noted first That God admits even expostulation from his servants almost rebukes and chidings from his servants We need not wonder at Iobs humility that he did not despise his man nor his mayd when they contended with him for God does not despise that in us God would have gone from Iacob when he wrestled Gen. 32.26 and Iacob would not let him go and that prevailed with God If we have an apprehension when we beginne to pray that God doth not heare us not regard us God is content that in the fervor of that prayer we say with David Evigila Domine and Surge Domine Awake O Lord and Arise O Lord God is content to be told that he was in bed and asleepe when he should heare us If we have not a present deliverance from our enemies God is content that we proceed with David Eripe manum de sinu Pluck out thy hand out of thy bosome God is content to be told that he is slack and dilatory when he should deliver us If we have not the same estimation in the world that the children of this world have God is content that we say with Amos Pauperem pro calceamentis Amos 2.6 that we are sold for a paire of shooes And with S. Paul that we are the off-scouring of the world God is content to be told that he is unthrifty and prodigall of his servants lives and honours and fortunes Now Offer this to one of your Princes says the Prophet and see whether he will take it Bring a petition to any earthly Prince and say to him Evigila and Surge would your Majesty would awake and reade this petition and so insimulate him of a former drowsinesse in his government say unto him Eripe manum pull thy hand out of thy bosome and execute Justice and so insimulate him of a former manacling and slumbring of the Lawes say unto him we are become as old shooes and as off-scourings and so insimulate him of a diminution and dis-estimation faln upon the Nation by him what Prince would not and justly conceive an indignation against such a petitioner which of us that heard him would not pronounce him to be mad to ease him of a heavier imputation And yet our long-suffering and our patient God must we say our humble and obedient God endures all this He endures more for when Abraham came to this expostulation Shall not the Iudge of all the earth do right God had said never a word of any purpose to destroy Sodom but he said only He would go see whether they had done altogether according to that cry which was come up against them and Abraham comes presently to this vehemency And might not the Supreme Ordinary God himselfe goe this visitation might not the supreme Judge God himselfe go this Circuit But as long as Abraham kept himselfe upon this foundation It is impossible that the Iudge of all the earth should not do right God mis-interpreted nothing at Abrahams hand but received even his Expostulations heard him out to the sixt petition Almost such an Expostulation as this Moses uses towards God He asks God a reason of his anger Iudex Exod. 32.11 Lord why doth thy wrath waxe hot against thy people He tels him a reason why he should not doe so For thou hast brought them forth with a great power and with a mighty hand And he tels him the inconveniences that might follow The Egyptians will say He brought them out for mischiefe to slay them in the mountaine He imputes even perjury to God himselfe and breach of Covenant to Abraham Isaac and Iacob which were Feffees in trust betweene God and his people and he sayes Thou sware'st to them by thine owne selfe that thou wouldst not deale thus with them And therefore he concludes all with that vehemence Turne from thy fierce wrath and repent this evill purpose against them But we finde a prayer or expostulation of much more exorbitant vehemence in the stories of the Roman Church towards the blessed Virgin towards whom they use to bee more mannerly and respective then towards her Son or his Father when at a siege of Constantinople they came to her statue with this protestation Looke you to the drowning of our Enemies ships or we will drowne you Si vis ut imaginem tuam non mergamus in mari merge illos The farthest that Abraham goes in this place is That God is a Iudge and therefore must doe right Iob 32.10 for Far be wickednesse from God and iniquity from the Almighty surely God will not do wickedly neither will the Almighty pervert judgement An Usurer an Extortioner an Oppressor a Libeller a Thiefe and Adulterer yea a Traytor makes shift to finde some excuse some flattery to his Conscience they say to themselves the Law is open and if any be grieved they may take their remedy and I must endure it and there is an end But since nothing holds of this oppressor and manifold malefactor but the sentence of the Judge shall not the Judge doe right how must this necessarily shake the frame of all An Arbitrator or a Chancellor that judges by submission of parties or according to the Dictates of his owne understanding may have some excuse He did as his Conscience led him But shall not a Iudge that hath a certaine Law to judge by do right Especially if he be such a Judge as is Iudge of the whole earth which is the next step in Abrahams expostulation Now as long as there lies a Certiorari from a higher Court Omnem terram or an Appeale to a higher Court the case is not so desperate if the Judge doe not right for there is a future remedy to be hoped If the whole State be incensed against me yet I can finde an escape to another Country If all the World persecute me yet if I be an honest man I have a supreame Court in my selfe and I am at peace in being acquitted in mine owne Conscience But God is the Judge of all the earth of this which I tread and this earth which I carry about me and when he judges me my Conscience turnes on his side and confesses his judgement to be right And therefore S. Pauls argument seconds and ratifies Abrahams expostulation Is God unrighteous God forbid for then sayes the Apostle Rom. 3.6 how shall God judge the World The Pope may erre but then a Councell may rectifie him The King may erre but then God in whose hands the Kings heart is can rectifie him But if God that judges all the earth judge thee there is no error to be assigned in his judgement no appeale from God not throughly
and that is very high for Society implies community partnership And we finde low descents Minorits men lesse then others And Minims least of all men and lower then all them Nullans men that call themselves Nothing And truly this Order best of all others hath answered and justified the name for very soone they came to nothing Wee finde all extreames amongst them even in their names but none denominated from this mediocrity But to passe from names to the thing indeed what is Mediocrity where is it Is it the same thing as Competency But what is competency or where is that Is it that which is sufficient for thy present degree perchance thy present degree is not sufficient for thee Thy charge perchance perchance thy parts and abilities or thy birth and education may require a better degree God produced plants in Paradise therefore that they might grow God hath planted us in this world that we might grow and he that does not endeavour that by all lawfull meanes is inexcusable as well as he that pursues unlawfull But if I come to imagine such a mediocrity such a competency such a sufficiency in my selfe as that I may rest in that that I thinke I may ride out all stormes all dis-favours that I have enough of mine owne wealth health or morall constancy if any of these decay this is a verier vanity then trusting in men of low degree and a verier lye then men of high degree for this is to trust to our selves Habbak 1.16 this is a sacrificing to our owne nets our owne industry our owne wisdome our owne fortune And of all the Idolatries of the Heathen who made Gods of every thing they saw or imagined of every thing in and betweene Heaven and hell we reade of no man that sacrificed to himselfe Indeed no man flatters me so dangerously as I flatter my selfe no man wounds me so desperately as I wound my selfe And therefore since this which we call Mediocrity and Competency is conditioned so that it is enough to subsist alone without relation to others dependency upon others feare from others induces a confidence a relying upon my selfe As that which we imagine to be the middle region of the ayre is the coldest of all So this imagined mediocrity that induces a confidence in our selves is the weakest rest the coldest comfort of all and makes me a lye to my selfe Therefore may the Prophet well spread and safely extend his asseveration his Surely upon all high and low and meane Surely to be laid in the balance they are altogether lighter then vanity Here then upon a full enumeration of all parts the Prophet concludes upon all Lighter then vanity If therefore thou have the favour of great ones the applause of the people confidence in thy selfe in an instant the power of those great ones may be overthrowne or their favour to thee withdrawne from thee and so that bladder is pricked upon which thou swommest The applause of the people may be hushed and silenced either they would not or they dare not magnifie thee And thine owne constancy may be turned into a dejection of spirit and consternation of all thy faculties Put all together which fals out seldome that any man can do so but if he can do that which is the best state of man that can be imagined in this world that he hath all these together the favour of High and low and of himselfe that is his owne testimony in his conscience though perchance an erring a mistaking conscience yet the Prophet had delivered the same assurance before even of that state of man which is rather imagined then ever possest Surely every man Psal 39.5 at his best state is altogether vanity And here he adds lighter then vanity Vanity is nothing but there is a condition worse then nothing Confidence in the things or persons of this world but most of all a confidence in our selves will bring us at last to that state wherein we would faine be nothing and cannot But yet we have a balance in our text And all these are but put together in one balance In the other scale there is something put to in comparison whereof all this world is so light God does not leave our great and noble faculty and affection of hope and trust and confidence without something to direct it selfe upon and rectifie it selfe in He does not for for that he proposes himselfe The words immediately before the text are God is a refuge and in comparison of him To be laid in the balance Surely they are altogether lighter then vanity So then Deus omnia Ier. 17.5 it is not enough not to trust in the flesh for for that Cursed be man that trusted in man or maketh flesh his arme Their flesh cannot secure thee neither is thine owne flesh brasse Iob 6.12 Mat. 16.17 that thou canst endure the vexations of this world neither can flesh and blood reveale unto thee the things of the next world It is not enough not to trust in flesh but thou must trust in that that is Spirit And when thou art to direct thy trust upon him who is spirit the spirit of power and of consolation stop not stray not divert not upon evill spirits to seeke advancement or to seeke knowledge from them nor upon good spirits the glorious Saints of GOD in Heaven to seeke salvation from them nor upon thine owne spirit in an over-valuation of thy purity or thy merits For there is a pestilent pride in an imaginary humility and an infectious foulenesse in an imaginary purity but turne onely to the onely invisible and immortall God who turnes to thee in so many names and notions of power and consolation in this one Psalme In the last verse but one of this Psalme David sayes God bath spoken once and twice have I heard him God hath said enough at once but twice in this Psalme hath he repeated this in the second and in the sixt verse He onely is my Rocke and my Salvation and my Defence And as it is inlarged in the seventh verse my Refuge and my Glory If my Refuge what enemy can pursue me If my Defence what tentation shall wound me If my Rock what storme shall shake me If my Salvation what melancholy shall deject me If my Glory what calumny shall defame me I must not stay you now to infuse into you the severall consolations of these severall names and notions of God towards you But goe your severall wayes home and every soule take with him that name which may minister most comfort unto him Let him that is pursued with any particular tentation invest God as God is a Refuge a Sanctuary Let him that is buffeted with the messenger of Satan battered with his owne concupiscence receive God as God is his Defenoe and target Let him that is shaked with perplexities in his understanding or scruples in his conscience lay hold upon God as God is his Rock and