to be angry for this 4. 3. and after about the Gourd dost thou well to be angry for that he replies I do well to be angry even unto death How much worse a death then death is this life which so good men would so often change for death But if my case be St. Pauls case Quotidie morior 1 Cor. 15.31 that I die dayly that something heavier then death fall upon me every day If my case be Davids case Tota die mortificamur psa 44.22 all the day long we are killed that not only every day but every hour of the day something heavier then death fals upon me though that be true of me conceptus in peccatis I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me 51. 5. There I died one death though that be true of me natus filius irae I was born not only the child of sin but the child of the wrath of God for sin which is a heavier death yet Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis with God the Lord are the issues of death and after a Job and a Joseph and a Jeremy and a Daniel I cannot doubt of a deliverance and if no other deliverance conduce more to his glory and my good yet He hath the keyes of death Apo. 1.18 and he can let me out at that dore that is deliver me from the manifold deaths of this world the omni die and the tota die the every daies death and every hours death by that one death the final disolution of body and soul the end of all But then is that the end of all Exitus a morte Incinerationis is that dissolution of body and soul the last death that the body shall suffer for of spiritual deaths we speak not now it is not Though this be exitus a morte it is introitus in mortem though it be an issue from the manifold deaths of this world yet it is an entrance into the death of corruption and putrifaction and vermiculation and incineration and dispersion in and from the grave in which every dead man dies over again It was a prerogative peculiar to Christ not to die this death not to see corruption What gave him this privilege not Josephs great proportions of gums and spices that might have preserved his body from corruption and incineration longer then he needed it longer then three daies but yet would not have done it for ever What preserv'd him then did his exemption and freedome from original sin preserve him from this corruption and incineration 'T is true that original sin hath induc'd this corruption and incineration upon us 1 Câ—â— 15.33 If we had not sinn'd in Adam mortality had not put on immortality as the Apostle speaks nor corruption had not put on incorruption but we had had our transmigration from this to the other world without any mortality any corruption at all But yet since Christ took sin upon him so far as made him mortal he had it so far too as might have made him see this corruption and incineration though he had no original sin in himself What preserv'd him then did the hypostatical union of both natures God and man preserve his flesh from this corruption this incineration 't is true that this was a most powerful embalming To be embalm'd with the divine nature it self to be embalm'd with eternity was able to preserve him from corruption and incineration for ever And he was embalm'd so embalm'd with the divine nature even in his body as well as in his soul for the Godhead the divine nature did not depart but remain still united to his dead body in the grave But yet for all this powerful imbalming this hypostatical union of both natures we see Christ did die and for all this union which made him God and man he became no man for the union of body and soul makes the man and he whose soul and body are seperated by death as long as that state lasts is properly no man And therefore as in him the dissolution of body and soul was no dissolution of the hypostatical union so is there nothing that constrains us to say that though the flesh of Christ had seen corruption and incineration in the grave this had been any dissolving of the hypostatical union for the divine nature the Godhead might have remain'd with all the elements and principles of Christs body as well as it did with the two constitutive parts of his person his body and soul This incorruption then was not in Josephs gums and spices nor was it in Christs innocency and exemption from original sin nor was it that is it is not necessary to say it was in the Hypostatical union But this incorruptibleness of his flesh Psa 16 10. is most conveniently plac d in that non dabis Thou wilt not suffer thy holy one to see corruption We look no farther for causes or reasons in the mysteries of our religion but to the will and pleasure of God Mat. 11.26 Christ himself limited his inquisition in that Ita est even so father for so it seemed good in thy sight Christs body did not see corruption therefore because God had decreed that it should not The humble soul and only the humble soul is the religions soul rests himself upon Gods purposes and his decrees but then it is upon those purposes and decrees of God which he hath declared and manifested not such as are conceiv'd and imagin'd in our selves though upon some probability some verisimilitude So in our present case Act. 2.31.13.35 Peter proceeded in his sermon at Jerusalem and so Paul in his at Antioch they preached Christ to be risen without having seen corruption not only because God had decreed it but because he had manifested that decree in his Prophet Therefore does St. Paul cite by special number the second Psalme for that decree and therefore both St. Peter and St. Paul cite for that place in the 16. Psal for v. 10. when God declares his decree and purpose in the express word of his Prophet or when he declares it in the real execution of the decree then he makes it ours then he manifests it to us And therefore as the mysteries of our religion are not the objects of our reason but by faith we rest in Gods decree and purpose it is so O God because it is thy will it should be so so Gods decrees are ever to be considered in the manifestation thereof All manifestation is either in the word of God or in the execution of the decree and when these two concur and meet it is the strongest demonstration that can be when therefore I find those marks of Adoption and spiritual filiation which are delivered in the word of God to be upon me when I find that real execution of his good purpose upon me as that actually I do live under the obedience and under the conditions which are
those faculties by the help of the Law And he calls it Suam their righteousness because they thought none had it but they And upon this Pelagian righteousness it thought Nature sufficient without Grace or upon this righteousness of the Cathari the Puritans in the Primitive Church that thought the Grace which they had received sufficient and that upon that stock they were safe and become impeccable and therefore left out of the Lords Prayer that Petition Dimitte nobis Forgive us our trespasses upon this Pelagian righteousness and this Puritan righteousness Christ does not work He left out the righteous not that there were any such but such as thought themselves so and he took in sinners not all effectually that were simply so but such as the sense of their sins and the miserable state that that occasioned brought to an acknowledgement that they were so Non Justos sed peccatores Peccatores Here then enters our Affirmative our Inclusive Who are called peccatores for here no man asks the Question of the former Branch there we asked Whether there were any righteous and we found none here we ask not whether there were any sinners for we can finde no others no not one He came to call sinners and only sinners that is only in that capacity in that contemplation as they were sinners for of that vain and frivolous opinion that got in and got hold in the later School That Christ had come in the flesh though Adam had stood in his innocence That though Man had nor needed Christ as a Redeemer yet he would have come to have given to man the greatest Dignity that Nature might possibly receive which was to be united to the Divine Nature of this Opinion one of those Jesuites whom we named before Maldonat who oftentimes making his use of whole sentences of Calvins says in the end This is a good Exposition but that he is an Heretick that makes it He says also of this Opinion That Christ had come though Adam had stood this is an ill Opinion but that they are Catholicks that have said it He came for sinners for sinners onely else he had not come and then he came for all kind of sinners Mat. 21.31 for upon those words of our Saviours to the High Priests and Pharisees Publicans and Harlots go into the Kingdom of Heaven before you good Expositors note that in those two Notations Publicans and Harlots many sorts of sinners are implyed in the name of Publicans all such as by their very profession and calling are led into tentations and occasions of sin to which some Callings are naturally more exposed then other such as can hardly be exercised without sin and then in the Name of Harlots and prostitute Women such as cannot at all be exercised without sin whose very profession is sin and yet for these for the worst of these for all these there is a voice gone out Christ is come to call sinners onely sinners all sinners Comes he then thus for sinners What an advantage had S. Paul then to be of this Quorum and the first of them Quorum Ego Maximus That when Christ came to save sinners he should be the greatest sinner the first in that Election If we should live to see that acted Mat. 24.41 which Christ speaks of at the last day Two in the field the one taken the other left should we not wonder to see him that were left lay hold upon him that were taken and offer to go to Heaven before him therefore because he had killed more men in the field or robbed more men upon the High-way or supplanted more in the Court or oppressed more in the City to make the multiplicity of his sins his title to Heaven Or two women grinding at the Mill one taken the other left to see her that was left offer to precede the other into Heaven therefore because she had prostituted her self to more men then the other had done Is this S. Pauls Quorum his Dignity his Prudency I must be saved because I am the greatest sinner God forbid God forbid we should presume upon salvation because we are sinners or sin therefore that we may be surer of salvation S. Pauls title to Heaven was not that he was primus peccator but primus Confessor that he first accused himself came to a sense of his miserable estate for that implies that which is our last word and the effect of Christs calling That whomsoever he calls or how or whensoever it is ad Resipiscentiam Non ad satisfactionem to repentance It is not ad satisfactionem Christ does not come to call us to make satisfaction to the justice of God he call'd us to a heavy to an impossible account if he call'd us to that If the death of Christ Jesus himself be but a satisfaction for the punishment for my sins for nothing less then that could have made that satisfaction what can a temporary Purgatory of days or hours do towards a satisfaction And if the torments of Purgatory it self sustain'd by my self be nothing towards a satisfaction what can an Evenings fast or an Ave Marie from my Executor or my Assignee after I am dead do towards such a satisfaction Canst thou satisfie the justice of God for all that blood which thou hast drawn from his Son in thy blasphemous Oaths and Execrations or for all that blood of his which thou hast spilt upon the ground upon the Dunghil in thy unworthy receiving the Sacrament Canst thou satisfie his justice for having made his Blessings the occasions and the instruments of thy sins or for the Dilapidations of his Temple in having destroyed thine own body by thine incontinency and making that the same flesh with a Harlot If he will contend with thee Job 9.9 thou canst not answer him one of a thousand Nay a thousand men could not answer one sin of one man It is not then Ad satisfactionem but it is not Ad gloriam neither Non ad Gloriam Christ does not call us to an immediate possession of glory without doing any thing between Our Glorification was in his intention as soon as our Election in God who sees all things at once both entred at once but in the Execution of his Decrees here God carries us by steps he calls us to Repentance The Farmers of this imaginary satisfaction they that fell it at their own price in their Indulgencies have done well to leave out this Repentance both in this text in S. Matthew and where the same is related by S. Mark In both places they tell us that Christ came to call sinners but they do not tell us to what as though it might be enough to call them to their market to buy their Indulgencies The Holy Ghost tells us it is to repentance Are ye to learn now what that is He that cannot define Repentance he that cannot spell it may have it and he that hath
only in the earth nature and naturall reason do not produce grace but yet grace can take root in no other thing but in the nature and reason of man whether we consider Gods subsequent graces which grow out of his first grace formerly given to us and well employed by us or his first grace which works upon our natural faculties and grows there still this salvation that is this grace is near us for it is within us then the third term believing is either quando credidistis primum when you began to believe either in an imputative belief of others in your baptism or a faint belief upon your first Catechisings and Instrustions or quando credidistis tantum when you only professed a belief or faith and did nothing in declaration of that faith to the edification of others Salus First then salvation in this second sense is the internal operation of the holy Ghost in infusing grace for therefore doth St. Basil call the holy Ghost verbum Dei the word of God which is the name properly peculiar to the Son quia interpres filii sicut filius patris that as the Father had revealed his will in the Prophets and then the Son comes and interprets all that actually this prophecy is meant of my coming this of my dying and so makes a real comment and an actual interpretation of all the prophecies for he does come and he does die accordingly so the holy Ghost comes and comments upon this comment interprets this interpretation and tels thy soul that all this that the Father had promised and the Son had performed was intended by them and by the working of their spirit is now appropriated to thy particular soul In the constitution and making of a natural man the body is not the man nor the soul is not the man but the union of these two makes up the man the spirits in a man which are the thin and active part of the blood and so are of a kind of middle nature between soul and body those spirits are able to doe and they doe the office to unite and apply the faculties of the soul to the organs of the body and so there is a man so in a regenerate man a Christian man his being born of Christian Parents that gives him a body that makes him of the body of the Covenant it gives him a title an interest in the Covenant which is jus ad rem thereby he may make his claim to the seal of the Covenant to baptism and it cannot be denied him and then in his baptism that Sacrament gives him a soul a spiritual seal jus in re an actual possession of Grace but yet as there are spirits in us which unite body and soul so there must be subsequent acts and works of the blessed spirit that must unite and confirm all and make up this spiritual man in the wayes of sanctification for without that his body that is his being born within the Covenant and his soul that is his having received Grace in baptism do not make him up This Grace is this Salvation and when this Grace works powerfully in thee in the wayes of sanctification then is this Salvation neer thee which is our second term in this second acceptation propè neer This neerness which is the effectuall working of Grace Prope Heb. 4.12 the Apostle expresses fully That it pierceth to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit for though properly the soul and spirit of a man be all one yet divers faculties and operations give them somtimes divers names in the Scriptures Anima quia animat sayes St. Ambrose and spiritus quia spirat The quickning of the body is the soul but the quickning of the soul is the spirit If this Salvation be brought to this neerness that is this grace to this powerfulness thou shalt find it in anima in thy soul in those organs wherein thy soul uses thy body in thy senses and in the sensible things ordain'd by God in his Church Sacraments and Ceremonies and thou shalt find it neerer in spiritu as the spirit of God hath seal'd it to thy spirit invisibly inexpressibly It shall be neer to thee so as that thy reason shall apprehend it and neerer then that thy faith shall establish it and neerer then all this it shall create in thee a modest and sober but yet an infallible assurance that thy salvation shall never depart from thee Magnificabit anima tua Dominum as the B. Virgin speaks Thy soul shall magnifie the Lord all thy natural faculties shall be employed upon an assent to the Gospel thou shalt be able to prove it to thy self and to prove it to others to be the Gospel of Salvation And then Exultabit spiritus Thy spirit shall rejoyce in God thy Saviour because by the farther seal of sanctification thy spirit shall receive testimony from the spirit that as Christ is Idem homo cum te the same man that thou art so thou art Idem spiritus cum Domino the same spirit that he is so far as that as a spirit cannot be separated in it self so neither canst thou be separated from God in Christ And this this exaltation of Grace when it thus growes up to this height of sanctification is that neerness which brings Salvation farther than our believing does and that 's the last term in this part Believing Credidistis Now neerer then Believing neerer than Faith a man might well think nothing can bring Salvation for Faith is the hand that reaches it and takes hold of it But yet as though our bodily hand reach to our temporal food yet the mouth and the stomach must do their office too and so that meat must be distributed into all parts of the body and assimilated to them so though our faith draw this salvation neer us yet when our mouth is imployed that we have a delight to glorifie God in our discourses and to declare his wonderfull works to the sons of men in our thankfulness And when this faith of ours is distributed over all the body that the body of Christs Church is edified and alienated by our good life and sanctification then is this Salvation neerer us that is safelier seal'd to us then when we believed only Either then this quando credidistis when you believed may be refer'd to Infants or to the first faith and the first degrees thereof in men In Infants when that seminall faith or potentiall faith which is by some conceived to be in the Infants of Christian parents at their baptism or that actuall faith which from their parents or from the Church is thought to be applyed to them accepted in their behalf in that Sacrament when this faith growes up after by this new comming of Christ in the power of his Grace and his Spirit to be a lively faith expressed in charity then Salus proprior then is Salvation neerer than when they believed whether this belief were their
his alleigance induces an addition of punishment upon the devil himself Consider a little further our wretchedness in this prodigality we think those Laws barbarous and inhumane which permit the sute of men in debt for the satisfaction of Creditors but we sell our selves and grow the farther in debt by being sold we are sold and to even rate our debts and to aggravate our condemnation We find in the history of the Muscovits that it is an ordinary detainder amongst them to sell themselves and their posterity into everlasting bondage for hot drink In one winter a wretched man will drink himself and his posterity into perpetual slavery But we sell our selves not for drink but for thirst we are sory when our appetite too soon decaies and we would fain sin more than we do At what a high rate did the blessed Martyrs sell their bodies They built up Gods Church with their blood They sowed his field and prepared his harvest with their blood they got heaven for their bodies and we give bodies souls for hell In a right inventary every man that ascends to a true value of himself considers it thus First His Soul then His life after his fame and good name And lastly his goods and estate for thus their own nature hath ranked them and thus they are as in nature so ordinarily in legal consideration preferred before one another But for our souls because we know not how they came into us we care not how they go out because if I aske a Philosopher whither my soul came in by propagation from my parents or by an immediate infusion from God perchance he cannot tell so I think a divine can no more tell me whither when my soul goes out of me it be likely to turn on the right or on the left hand if I continue in this course of sin And then for the second thing in this inventary Life the Devil himself said true skin for skin and all that a man hath will he give for his life Indeed we do not easily give away our lives expresly and at once but we do very easily suffer our selves to be cousened of our lives we pour in death in drink and we call that health we know our life to be but a span and yet we can wash away one inche in ryot we can burn away one inch in lust we can bleed away one inch in quarrels we have not an inch for every sin and if we do not pour out our lives yet we drop them away For the third peece of our self our fame and reputation who had not rather be thought an usurer then a beggar who had not rather be the object of envy by being great than of scorn and contempt by being poor upon any conditions And for the last of all which is our goods Seneca though our coveteousness appears most in the love of them in that lowest thing of all Adeo omnia homini cariora seipso so much does every man think every inferiour thing better than himself than his fame than his body than his soul which is a most perverse undervaluing of himself and a damnable humility yet even with these goods also as highly as he values them a man will past if to fuell and foment and maintain that sin that he delights in that which is the most precious our souls we undervalue most and that which we do esteem most though naturally it should be lowest our estate we are content to wast and dissipate for our sins And whereas the Heathens needed laws to restrain them from an expensive and wastful worship of their Gods every man was so apt to exceed in sacrifices and such other religious duties til that law Deus frugi Colunto Let men be thrifty moderate in religious expenses was enacted which law was a kind of mortmain and inhibition That every man might not bestow what he would upon the service of those Gods we have turned our prodigality the other way upon the devil whom we have made Haeredem in esse and our sole executor and sacrificed soul and life and fame and fortune all the gifts of God and God himself by making his religion and his Sacraments and the profession of his name in an hypocriticall use of them to be the devils instruments to draw us the easilyer and hold us the faster and what prodigality can be conceived to exceed this in which we do not onely mispend our selves Nihil but mispend our God The other point in this exprobration is that as we have prodigally sold our selves so we have inconsiderately sold our selves for nothing we have in our bargain diseases and we have poverty and we have unsensibleness of our miseries but diseases are but privations of health and poverty but a privation of wealth and unsensibleness but a privation of tenderness of Conscience all are privations and privations are nothing if a man had got nothing by a bargain but repentance he would think and justly he had got little but if thou hadst repentance in this bargain thy bargain were the better if thou couldst come to think thy bargain bad it were a good bargain but the height of the misery is in this that one of those nothings for which we have sold our selves is a stupidity an unsensibleness of our own wretchedness The Laws do annull and make void fraudulent conveyances and then the laws presume fraud in the conveyance if at least half the value of the thing be not given now if the whole world be not worth one soul who can say that he hath half his value it were not meerly nothing if considering that inventary which we spoke of before we had the worse for the better that were but an ill exchange but yet it were not nothing If we had bodies for our souls it were not meerly nothing but we finde that sin that sells our souls decays and withers our bodies our bodies grow incapable of that sin unable to commit that sin which we sold our souls for If we had fame and reputation for out bodies it were not nothing but we see that Heretiques that give their bodies to the fire are by the very law infamous and they are infamous in every mans apprehension If we had worldly goods for loss of fame and of our good name yet still it were not nothing but we see that witches who are infamous persons for the most part live in extreme beggery too So that the exprobration is just we have sold our selves for nothing and however the ordinary murmuring may be true in other things that all things are grown dearer our souls are still cheap enough which at first were all sold in gross for perchance an Apple and are now retailed every day for nothing Joseph was sold underfoot by his brethren but it is hard to say for how much some Copies have that he was sold for 20 pieces and some for 25 and some for 30 and S. Ambrose and S.
Rule Whensoever thou enter prisest any action says he consider what Socrates what Plato that is what a wise and religious man would have done in that case and do thou so This way our Saviour directs us Ja. 13.15 I have given you an example It is not only Mandatum novum but exemplum Novum That ye should do even as I have done unto you And this is the way that the Apostle directs us to Phil. 3.13 Brethren be followers of me and because he could not be always with them he adds Look on them which walk so as you have us for an example Love the Legends the Lives the Actions and love the sayings the Apopththegms of good men In all tentations like Josephs tentations Gen. 39.9 love Josephs words How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God In all tentations like Jobs tentations love the words of Job Job 2.10 Shall we receive good at the hands of God and shall we not receive evil In all tentations like to Shidrachs and his fellow-Confessors Dan 3.17 love their words Our God is able to deliver us and he will deliver us but if not we will not serve thy god nor worship thine image Certainly without the practise it is scarce to be discern'd what ease and what profit there is in proposing certain and good Examples to our selves And when you have made up your profit that way rectified your self by that course then as your Sons write by Copies and your Daughters work by Samplars be every Father a Copy to his Son every Mother a Samplar to her Daughter and every house will be an University O in how blessed a nearness to their Direction is that Child and that Servant and that Parishioner who when they shall say to Almighty God by way of Prayer What shall I do to get eternal life shall hear God answer to them by his Spirit Do but as thou seest thy Father do do as thou seest thy Master do do as thou seest thy Pastor do To become a precedent govern thy self by precedent first which is all the Doctrine that I intended to deduce out of this second Proposition Sicut Deus As God commanded light out of darkness so he hath shin'd in our hearts God did as he had done before and so we pass from the Idem Deus and the Sicut Deus to the Quid Deus What that is which God hath done here He commanded light out of darkness Quid Deus The drowning of the first world and the repairing that again the burning of this world and establishing another in heaven do not so much strain a mans Reason as the Creation a Creation of all out of nothing For for the repairing of the world after the Flood compared to the Creation it was eight to nothing eight persons to begin a world upon then but in the Creation none And for the glory which we receive in the next world it is in some sort as the stamping of a print upon a Coyn the metal is there already a body and a soul to receive glory but at the Creation there was no soul to receive glory no body to receive a soul no stuff no matter to make a body of The less any thing is the less we know it how invisible how intelligible a thing then is this Nothing We say in the School Deus cognoscibilior Angelis We have better means to know the nature of God then of Angels because God hath appeared and manifested himself more in actions then Angels have done we know what they are by knowing what they have done and it is very little that is related to us what Angels have done what then is there that can bring this Nothing to our understanding what hath that done A Leviathan a Whale from a grain of Spawn an Oke from a buried Akehorn is a great but a great world from nothing is a strange improvement We wonder to see a man rise from nothing to a great Estate but that Nothing is but nothing in comparison but absolutely nothing meerly nothing is more incomprehensible then any thing then all things together It is a state if a man may call it a state that the Devil himself in the midst of his torments cannot wish No man can the Devil himself cannot advisedly deliberately wish himself to be nothing It is truely and safely said in the School That whatsoever can be the subject of a wish if I can desire it wish it it must necessarily be better at least in my opinion then that which I have and whatsoever is better is not nothing whithout doubt it must necessarily produce more thankfulness in me towards God that I am a Christian but certainly more wonder that I am a Creature it is vehemently spoken but yet needs no excuse which Justin Marter says Ne ipsi quidem Domino fidem haberem c. I should scarce believe God himself if he should tell me that any but himself created this world of nothing so infallible and so inseparable a work and so distinctive a Character is it of the Godhead to produce any thing from nothing and that God did when he commanded light out of darkness Moses stands not long upon the Creation in the description thereof no more will we When there went but a word to the making it self why should we make many words in the description thereof We will therefore onely declare the three terms in this Proposition and so proceed first God commanded then he commanded light and light out of darkness For the first that which we translate here commanded is in St. Pauls mouth the same that is Moses Dixit and no more God said it But then if he said it Cui dixit to whom did he say it Procopius asks the Question and he answers himself Dixit Angelis He said it to the Angels For Procopius being of that opinion which very many were of besides himself that God had made the Angels some time before he came to the Creation of particular Creatures he thinks that when he came to that he call'd the Angels that they by seeing of what all other Creatures were made might know also of what stuff themselves were made of the common and general nothing Some others had said that God said this to the Creature it self which was now in fieri as we say in the School in the production ready to be brought forth Athanasius But then says Athanasius God would have said Sis Lux and not Sit Lux He would have said Be thou O Light or appear and come forth O Light and not Let there be Light But what needs all this vexation in Procopius or Athanasius When as Dicere Dei est intelligere ejus practicum Dionysius Carthus when God would produce his Idaea his pre-conception into action that action that production was his Dixit his saying It is as we say in School Actus indicativus practici intellectus Gods outward