Father and this Father now became the Son of Man and made himself our Brother The Antient of days that sate on the throne in the 7. of Dan. whose garment was white as snow and the hairs of his head as pure wooll to shadow his eternity who hath neither beginning of days nor end of life This is he that is this day born a young and tender child even that mighty and Almighty God now a weak and swadled Infant This sure is new and marvellous rightly therefore still do his titles begin with wonderful whose person and birth may well be admired cannot be expressed for Quis enarrabit And yet this is not all the wonder that is in him strange and very strange it is that he should be the Son of Man and Mans everlasting Father that is God and Man but yet it is another new thing and little less strange that this God should be perfect Man and yet have no Humane Person A Humane Nature he had but a Humane Person he had not And therefore non solum actus est novus sed is qui nascitur est homo novus it is not only a new birth but he that is born is a new kind of Man the like whereof was never known having a Humane Nature but a Divine Person Nestorius indeed after the manner of other Hereticks not content to leave this mystery unto his Faith but seeking to comprehend it with his reason was so blinded with gazing upon a light too strong for his eyes as he would not acknowledge the thing because his weakness could not conceive who it should be how a Humane Nature should be and subsist without a created and Humane Person and therefore he impiously formed unto himself a double Person in Christ and so in effect two Christs one that had a Humane another that had a Divine both Nature and Person a great errour and pernicious For were it so were they not several Natures but two distinct persons the actions or passions of the one could not properly be attributed to the other since the one is not the other Christ the God could not be Man and Christ the Man could not be God but one God alone the other Man alone and so neither could have redeemed the world for God could not suffer nor Man satisfy Christ Jesus therefore our blessed Lord is but one one substance and hypostasis that hath two Natures Divine and Humane both knit and united in one and the self-same Person and therefore justly and truly may be said to be and is both God and Man and because Man could die because God could add an infinite price unto his death and so reconcile both God and Man But you will say how is it possible that a Humane Nature should subsist in a person and hypostasis not her own who may conceive who can apprehend it neither do I say you should but that you should believe it Had we reason to demonstrate it it were not wonderful had we example it were not singular But now when besides and above the whole order of created Nature a new Man and after a new manner with so great a miracle is born and brought forth having a created and Humane Nature subsisting in a Divine and uncreated Person we may truly say quis enarrabit And this for the person who or what he is that is born Now if we shall remove our consideration unto her of whom he was born peradventure we shall find neither less nor fewer marvels and miracles in this than in that other For certainly that God should become Man is very much but that he should be born of a Woman is yet much more For he might have created a Humane Nature out of the Earth as he did the first Man and had it pleased him assumed it in an instant and therefore needed not have lain nine months in the womb after that manner as we shame to imagine and is altogether unfit we should speak there is horror in the very conceipt of it and therefore well saith the Hymn thou didst not abhor the Virgins womb This would be very strange indeed could we apprehend the infinite Majesty of that God who was pleased for our sakes to descend so low That that sublime and excellent glory in presence whereof the holy Angels themselves cover their faces with their wings that Almighty Lord which sate on the circle of the Heavens and in comparison of whom the inhabitants of the Earth are but as Grashoppers and all the Nations of the World but as the dropping of a bucket that such and so great a God for our good and that we might have nearer affinity with him should disrobe himself of all his honour and be wrapped in films and skins instead of a Garment leave that circle of the Heavens and cast himself into the Dungeon of the womb not abhorring that dark place which we our selves abhor but to think on Astonishment may well seise the mind that shall truly meditate on it If it do not kindle your affection and devotion it cannot at the least but raise up admiration enforcing us to cry out with the Prophet Quis enarrabit Neither is this all the strangeness that God was born of a Woman who by this means was advanced into a strange affinity with her Maker becoming at once both the Mother of her Father and Daughter of her own Son It is strange too and a miracle in Nature that he was born of none but a Woman that he who before had a Father and no Mother should now have a Mother and no Father Three sorts of Generation or rather Production had passed before The first without Man or Woman so Adam The second of Man without Woman so Eve The third of both Man and Woman so we all their posterity But now to make all compleat and never till now the fourth is added of a Woman without a Man that so a Fatherless Son and a Virgin Mother might double the wonder this is it which my Prophet intimates in the first entrance of this Chapter he shall grow up as a pleasant plant and as a root out of a dry ground as a root springing of its own accord from that virgin earth untill'd unsown and unmanured by the hand of Man So sprang he from the maiden loins of his Mother and had no Mans assistance living for a Father who then shall declare c. And as he was begotten without a Father so that we may touch upon the manner was he born as it is likely without pain or hurt unto his Mother It is true a punishment it was and from the beginning and from the beginning until now hath it ever prevailed all Women naturally bringing forth in sorrow But our Saviour was no natural Man All things in him you see are miraculous and supernatural And why not this in his birth as well as so many things else why not born without sorrow as well as conceived without pleasure It is
demonstration of the intrinsick goodness that is holiness of the Lord that vouchsafed it For if the detestation of evil be an argument of goodness how full of goodness is he who that we might know how utterly he hates and abhors all sin and wickeness rather than it should escape unrevenged would incarnate the Divinity it self that so he might punish it and severely too even in his own Son which doth not only manifest his goodness but his Justice also and together with both the greatness and grievousness of our sins How far were our Souls gone and how deadly our Iniquities that must either draw God from Heaven yea dragg him to the Cross or plunge us in an everlasting Hell And unto that our blessed Lord vouchsafed to be brought that we might be delivered from this Who then shall declare either the heinous guilt of our sin or the infinite power the manifest wisdom or infinite both goodness and justice declared in his generations Especially his goodness unto us miserable sinners which we must ever especially think on but never hope to utter O what mind what speech shall utter say or conceive the great honour he hath this day done unto our nature how many and marvellous benefits he hath in it confer'd on our persons freeing us from all that is evil sin sorrow death and Hell and investing us with whatsoever is good Grace Joy and Glory everlasting in Heaven Say we then all with Pelergus Age O Christe Dei Verbum Sapientia Well then O dear Jesus the word and wisdom of the Father what shall we poor miserable Creatures return unto thee for all thy favours Tuae enim omnia à nobis nihil cupis nisi salvari for thou hast done all things for us and requirest nothing of us again but that we would suffer our selves to be saved nay thou givest us salvation and takest it kindly at our hands yea as a benefit unto thy self if we will but receive it O infinite goodness and that we may laud and praise and worship thee worthily for it add one more mercy unto all that is past and as thou wast pleased to be born in our nature so vouchsafe to be born again by thy holy Spirit in our Persons that we may once more say Quis enarrabit c. So we pass unto our last point from his Divine birth of the Father and his Humane from the womb of the blessed Virgin unto his spiritual in the Souls of all the faithful For it is not enough that the Son of God was born for us or in our nature unless he be also born within â—us and in our particular spirits by his grace that so as he was made the Son of Man by being united unto our flesh we might become the Sons of God by being united again unto him in the spirit By wihch spiritual union and mystical are conveyed and applyed unto us all the benefits and graces purchased by the personal And it is not the meriting of Mercy but the actual conferring of it that must do us good which is never fully done until he that was born for us be reborn again in and within us till he live in our hearts by Faith and his life revive in our conversation till his patience be stamped upon our Spirits and the rest of his Divine Vertues ingraven and formed on our Souls For so speaks St. Paul of this Spiritual Generation My little children of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you Gal. iv 19. And formed then he is in us not before when we can shape and form our hearts in some good measure according to the pattern and precedent he hath left us truly saying with the same St. Paul Vivo jam non ego sed Christus vivit in me I live now and yet not I but Christ liveth in me A birth and formation so full of marvel and miracle as we may no less say of it than of those other Quis enarrabit c For in the first indeed God is born of God in the second God is born of a Woman but in the third many Men and Women at once both bear and are born of God because Gods formation in Man is Mans reformation unto the image of God his generation in us our regeneration in him And so by the same act in which God is born in Man in the self-same both act and instant Man is born of God as St. John speaks And that by the insensible and unsearchable working of the Spirit which works so secretly as Man himself cannot observe and discern it though it work within himself and even in his own spirit The child is not more inobservably conceived in the womb of the Mother than Christ Jesus in the Soul of the Christian. And therefore the kingdom of heaven cometh not by observation saith our Saviour that it is come we find but how it came we perceive not and what we cannot discern how should we express who then shall declare c. Neither is it more secret than strange and powerful there being nothing of greater admiration than the wonderful work of God in the conversion of a sinner How marvellous is it that the hearts of wicked Men that were for so many years before domicilia Daemonum the habitation of Devils wherein the Foxes had holes and the fowls of the air their nests that is deceipt and ambition roosted and with them Luxury and Avarice Envy Wrath and Malice Prophaneness Falshood and all manner of filthiness until it became a den of beasts a cage of unclean birds and indeed a very Hell of impure spirits that such a Stable of filth Augeaâ—'s Stable should suddenly be cleansed and a Tenent of Grace Jesus as in that of Bethlem be born in it in an instant That so dark vaults of lusts and uncleanness should presently be transformed into Temples of the Holy Ghost That so impotent and inthralled Souls should be indued with power from above and inspired with such an Almighty and miraculous Faith as is able in a moment to cast out all those Devils To teach the prophane to speak with a new tongue the wrathful and vindictive with patience to suck up all the poysoned malice venemous stomachs can disgorge against them without hurt and not only to be good in themselves but by laying their hands on the sick by their charitable works unto the distressed not only relieve them but with their very example recover others that were sick of sin unto death Who can behold such a change such and so sudden a mutation and not say with David This is the Lords doing and it is marvellous in our eyes Sure it is digitus Dei the finger of God indeed the very power of his Spirit nay no other than another incarnation and spiritual birth of the Son of God in such a Soul And quis enarrabit A generation performed with so secret and yet so powerful an operation Which yet we
any of them precisely secundùm opera according to their works Indeed some there are that like well enough of the secundùm but can by no means away with the propter in this case But yet St. Gregory for this reason conceives otherwise and since the reward is ever beyond or on this side the work takes the propter to be more properly spoken than the secundùm opera But the truth is both are true and the reward shall be now given both for and according to their works not indeed in a strict Arithmetical adequation but yet in a proportion exactly Geometrical for bonis bona retribuet melioribus meliora God shall now give good things as Aquinas hath it unto the good and though not in precise equality unto the goodness of their works in themselves considered yet comparatively in what degree of goodness they exceed others the excess of their reward shall arise ever in the same proportion And so on the other side malis mala pejoribus pejora in like manner Neither will the Parable of the Labourers and their penny any way destroy this though we have not leisure at this time to consider it because of another difficulty arising from hence which as it shall be the last so it seems to be the greatest of all other For be it that good works are rewarded beyond their merit yet how should those that for short and momentany pleasures burn in perpetual and everlasting fires be said to be punished short of their desert yea how should not their desert rather seem much short of their punishment For that the Sins of a Mortal Man acted in an instant and the pleasure thereof perishing even with the act should be rewarded with infinite and interminable sorrows is more than earthly mans wit I suppose can easily reach unto And therefore is well termed by St. Paul Ira revelata de Coelo wrath revealed from Heaven as being without those brighter beams of Revelation not fully penetrable by the Star-light of reason For what reason may well be rendred why or from whence it should be that limited and finite works should arise and grow up to an infinite and unlimited demerit Is it that men are born in an aversion from God and but for God might they never die would never leave sinning and so in the proportion well deserve punishment without ceasing as St. Gregory would have it voluissent utique sine fine vivere ut potuissent sine fine peccare But no man is now judged for what he would have done upon suppositions but what he really hath done and that in the body otherwise Tyre and Sidon should have been saved and peradventure even Enoch himself have perished of whom the Wiseman affirms raptus est nè malitia mutaret intellectum ejus This therefore is but vain and for this reason the Learned Schoolmen rest not on it but relie rather on the common answer that the full estimate of sin is taken not from the person that sins or the time and continuance of the sin but from the object the person offended And this person being the infinite God the sin therefore deserves an infinite punishment But even this way is lyable to many and great difficulties For though offences do otherwise arise in proportion unto the dignity and greatness of the Person that is hurt or wronged by them yet it seems not so in this case where the party offended is infinite First because such a Person is clear out of the reach of Man out of danger of any real lesion or hurt by him or any of his actions Secondly for that infinity I conceive is a proper Attribute of God's and absolutely incommunicable to any creature unless it be where he communicates his own Essence and Person as in our blessed Lord by union hypostatical though yet even then he made not the Humane Nature infinite or yet gave the actions of that nature an estimate so much as morally infinite any other way but by assuming it into the unity of his Person which alone could make the sufferings of Man the passions of God also from whence only they receive the infinity of merit But between the act and the object there is no such union to affect that with a demerit as infinite on the other side And lastly à posteriori were the act after that infinite manner affected by the object how then should not all sins be equal and equally to be punished since in Infinites there is no inequality of magnitude nor can there be made any augmentation or diminution by any thing we can do or imagine unto them For to that which is once conceived as such nothing can be added to make it greater or taken away to render it lesser than before no not though we should take away finite parts or yet add one infinite to another For one infinite divided will but make two and two yea two thousand infinites clapt together would run all into one For as one indivisible point amounts to as much as a million so a million of united infinites will arise to no more than one because all those have not any and every of these hath all quantity in it He that once should conceipt an infinite number of Towers though his imagination should furnish every Tower with six Bells yet he could not with reason say for all that there were more Bells than Towers for more than infinite may not be imagined And this is alike true even in moral magnitudes as well as mathematical whether discrete or continued And as nothing is to be gained by Addition so Substraction on the other side will lose as little He must of necessity take half whosoever will take any thing from that which is infinite As the circle that hath no bounds is every where Center so an infinite line the Diameter of that Circle having no extremities is therefore all middle cut it where you list you shall still divide it into two equal parts and which is stranger both parts will be equal to the whole for either part will still be infinite in regard of one end and therefore of quantity immensurable and that can be no more which is infinite on both ends The Product of this will be not only that all sins are equal because infinite but that one sin is equal in demerit unto all to all that have been committed yea and to infinite sins too if they might be imagined As appears plainly in the sufferings of our Saviour which though of different degrees in regard of the sorrow and torment yet because infinite through his Person they were all equal in respect of the merit Whence it is that that satisfaction which was required for any one sin could even in strictness of Justice expiate all though never so many and that which had faln short of expiating all could never have given satisfaction for any one even the least sin that is mortal Neither will this be avoided by that
by one and the same reason which both imagined◠was to be had of both these opposite Decrees And therefore as they saw a necessity of framing the one so they ordered the other the one making both upon foresight the other both absolute whereby it is impossible but either of them must err in one since both cannot be true For if Reprobation upon foresight only leave man to be the cause of his ruine let Election be upon foresight too and by the same reason it intitles him to his own salvation So on the other side if an absolute Election make God the Supream Author of all our Good how should as absolute a Reprobation choose but say the same of him in our Evil For if good works be therefore the effects of Gods Election because it is absolute evil works must needs be the effects of absolute Reprobation for the same reason what is said of one cannot be denied of the other especially since they do so exactly square and sort one in all points answerable unto the other Election that is absolute intends the end and then provides the means doth not absolute Reprobation do the like wherein they say the first Act or Decree of God was to manifest his glory by the declaration of his Justice but because Justice might not be shewed but upon sinners he did in the second place Will Ordain and Decree for these are the words of some and it is the meaning of all the ingression of sin by the fall of Adam that so he might make a way for the execution of his Justice according to the former Decree and whereby they are of necessity constrained thereunto For either God by his second Decree must determine Adams Will unto the committing of Sin or Adam by the freedom of his Will should have power to frustrate Gods first Decree in the Declaration of his Justice Horribile decretum fateor an horrible Decree I confess saith Mr. Calvin whom but in this and his Platform I shall ever honour A horrible Decree indeed and of all pious minds to be abhorred that first makes God unjust that so he might shew his Justice which in regard of the former is not just neither Nec enim justitia dicatur for his Justice shall not be just saith Fulgentius si puniendum reum non invenisse sed fecisse dicatur if he doth not find but make Men worthy of that punishment which it inflicts For what greater injustice saith the same Father quà m lapso retribuere poenam quem stantem praedestinâsse dicitur ad ruinam than to punish him for falling whom he did predestinate to fall whilst he stood It is reported of Tiberius Caesar that he had a great desire to have certain young Maids of Rome strangled to death not for any offence of theirs but such was the cruelty of his disposition only because he had a mind to have it so but understanding that it was not lawful by the custom of the Countrey to put Virgins to death he decreed and commanded so to open a passage unto his former purpose that the Hangman should first force and vitiate and afterwards strangle them I forbear to make application it is too manifest and chuse rather to pray and make supplication unto Christ that he would be favourable and merciful unto the Doctors and Pastors of his Church if deceived through Errour they are bold to teach and speak and write according to the example of Tiberius I know it is not their desire or meaning to charge God with the Sin and Iniquity of Man they constantly and with great indignation deny him to be the Author thereof but like ill Logicians they deny the conclusion and in the mean time establish those premises from whence though they grow hoarse yea burst with denying it will of necessity follow All the distinctions brought for the purpose fail and should a Man rack and ransack every dusty corner of his brain for more they would still be all too few to defend or excuse it That of the act and of the vitiosity in the act with the lame instance of an halting Horse or an untuned Lute is often urged and may have its use but not here For God they say is the cause of the action but not of the obliquity in the action As when a good Horseman rides a lame Jade or a skilful Musician strikes a crackt Lute the one is the cause of the motion but not of the lameness the other of the sound but not of the harshness these are defects wherewith they are not to be blamed because they arise not from their manner of working but from the distemper of the subjects on which they wrought After Adam indeed had lamed and maimed himself by a fall this distinction finds room for application but what hath it to do with Adam in his Innocency free from all lameness or laxation in his joints a well-strung and a well-tun'd Instrument Nor when the question is by what means he came to his hurts let them take heed how they make God ride him lame or strike him so as to strike him out of tune Let him be never so acute he shall find it an hard matter to bestow the action upon one and the obliquity on another In positive and affirmative precepts where a good action may be ill done as he that gives Alms to be seen of Men 't is easy to distinguish the vitiosity from the act but in negative inhibitions where not the manner of acting but the act it self is forbidden so that do it after what sort soever he will he can never do it well how we can discern the one from the other and how God in this case may be the cause of the act and not of the Sin which is necessarily annexed to the act because the act is it which is implyed is more than my apprehension can reach unto I know there is a difference even here between the act and the Sin because the act as the act is not evil but as forbidden by the Law But how God may be an antecedent cause that Adam should eat and yet not the cause of his transgressing the Law when he did eat is that which I say I cannot and which I think few else can any way conceive For when God by his will leaves a necessity of the act I pray what will become of Mans possibility to avoid the sin surely there is no plea for it but this that since necessity hath no Law that which is done under it is no sin for sin is the transgression of a Law Many other distinctions there are alledged as that of the decree and the execution of the decree of necessity and coaction a diverse respect of the Divine decree and the Nature of Man of a double will signi beneplaciti a secret and revealed will and lastly the label annexed unto all is the addition of the End that it is willed and decreed only for the
entring into his rest any of you should seem to come short of it For even those Jews had a promise of Canaan and in it of the eternal rest whose Carcasses notwithstanding for their disobedience fell short of it in the desert and God sware in his wrath they should not enter into his rest And therefore though the passion and death of Christ be absolute and in it self belonging to all yet there may be but a few to whom the good and benefit of it shall redound For remission of sins doth not immediately flow from his blood without intercedent obedience in us the next effect of it is not presently Salvation but a way and means whereby non obstante justitiâ without any impeachment to his justice we may now attain unto Salvation It doth not instantly convey us again into Paradise but only gives us the word whereby we may if we will safely and without impeachment pass the Angel and his flaming Sword that guards the entrance thither so that by it non solvitur omnibus captivitas sed solvitur omnibus captivitati necessitas though all be not actually loosed from Captivity yet all are loosed from the necessity of Captivity as the late and learned Writer of the Pelagian Story The gates of Brass and bars of Iron are smitten in sunder and so a way opened unto the Captives who notwithstanding if they be so far enamoured with their misery and captivity may for all that lie still in their Prison It is a potion for the good of all that are sick sed si non bibitur non medetur if it be not faithfully drank it shall never effectually cure saith◠Prosper And therefore we need not be anxious or doubtful on Gods behalf but only careful and solicitous for our selves what he hath promised in Baptism that he for his part will not be wanting sure he will never break in his Supper He will not fail to perform his promise if we but seriously bewail the breach of ours It is a Spiritual Banquet whereunto there never came any sorrowful and hungry Soul that ever departed empty And therefore let us draw near in full assurance of Faith no way wavering for he is faithful that hath promised saith St. Paul And as he is faithful that hath promised yet because he promiseth nothing here but to the faithful we must bring this with us though it be not of us a living Faith that only can work Repentance from dead works not to be repented of And this Faith only once thoroughly rooted begets that other confidence and fullness of Faith the Apostle speaks of which if it hath any other Parent is illegitimate ill born and falsly termed Faith when the true Father's name is Presumption And for this cause those that the Apostle exhorts to draw near with full assurance of Faith he thus qualifies having a true heart an heart sprinkled from an evil Conscience Then we go on rightly and orderly when we come not to the confident faith but by the penitent and as we go from faith to faith here so we shall appear before the God of Gods in Sion hereafter if therefore our heart within be true an upright within us if by a deep and entire Repentance it be sprinkled from an evil Conscience let us draw near in full assurance of faith as being most confident that our lips do not more truly drink the fruit of the Vine than our Souls do the blood of our Saviour the effect and merit of his blood whereby that which before was but sprinkled shall now be drenched and thoroughly cleansed from all the stains and impurities of Sin Our heart is ready O God our heart is ready only come thou and dwell in our hearts purge them and cleanse them wholly with thy blood and being cleansed keep and preserve them by thy Spirit spotless and blameless until the day of thy second coming in the Clouds with Glory That we who receive thee with fulness of faith now may stand before thee with the same confidence then and be received by thee and with thee into those eternal habitations at the right hand of God where is fulness of joy an pleasure for evermore To whom with thee and the Holy Ghost three Persons c. Amen Laus Deo in aeternum THE WAY TO HAPPINESS SERMON VII Upon MAT. vi 33. But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you IT is a part of our Saviours Sermon in the Mount and the conclusion of a larger discourse in the precedent Verses whereto it refers And indeed it is or should be the Conclusion of all our discourses For all are little material and to no purpose unless they tend unto this issue The Kingdom of God and his righteousness Let us hear the Conclusion of all saith Solomon of all not only discourses but humane endeavours upon Earth Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole duty of man The second Solomon infinitely wiser than that first strikes here but on the same string though by his double touch it receives an air and relisheth more evangelical Unto the Righteousness of God adding the reward of it the Kingdom of God That so the works which the Law requires might be rightly wrought in the hope and faith of that immortality and glory which the Gospel proposeth However then we busy our selves about many things this is that unum necessarium the one thing that is necessary able to resolve Parmenides his Riddle Unum omnia one thing necessary wherein all necessaries are included whatsoever is necessary for the body or the soul whatsoever concerns either imployment here or felicity Eternal hereafter the whole perfection of man and the whole goodness of God If these things be all all these are enclosed in this one this one little exhortation Seek ye first c. The communication of divine goodness besides that of hypostatical union particular and supereminent hath generally but three degrees of participation Nature Grace and Glory And here they are all three either in their utmost extent or in their highest exaltations First all the necessaries of Nature pertaining to the body but slightly indeed inferred as deserving our least and slightest care These things shall be added unto you but though slightly yet fully All these things all that are requisite shall be added Secondly the utmost improvement of Grace that cannot farther adorn and beautify the Soul than with the righteousness of God His Righteousness And lastly the highest degree of glory nothing can be higher than participation with God in his own Kingdom The Kingdom of God The less marvel therefore that our search and travel for these these latter yea our utmost industry and endeavour be so carefully called led upon and inculcated with a Quaerite and a Primum quaerite seek and first seek Seek ye first the Kingdom of God c. Wherein the division is as plain as the
Mary whom all generations must call blessed though a Virgin though the best of Women though separated and sanctified for the Mother of God yet as you may read in the very Chapter before this at the appearance of an Angel they are afraid both and both comforted as these here with a noli timere by the Angel fear not Zachary v. 13. fear not Mary v. 30. And the like might be shown of divers others so general it was to fear at the appearing of an Angel that scarce ever any Angel appears but with this salutation of fear not seven times as a learned Man observes we read it in this very Gospel But whence is it and how comes it about Timere ubi non est timor to fear where no fear is argues a guilty Conscience but these were innocent and just persons why then do they fear the Messengers of their comfort Sure though some may be more innocent than others yet it is not so absolutely right as it ought to be in any None so good and unreproveable in the sight of Men but yet they may be conscious of something more or less within themselves But say they were not suppose them free from actual sin yet they cannot be freed from natural infirmity occasioned by the first original sin which Adam had no sooner committed but he was afraid of God himself when he appeared and hid his head in a bush as soon as he heard his voice in the Garden And ever since all the Sons of Adam have been afraid at the appearing of any Messenger or receiving of any message from that Divine Majesty Two things therefore it argues first that our nature is fallen from her first original that her primitive excellence and dignity is gone since he saith Stella who was framed and created to behold the Glory of God cannot now endure the aspect of one of his Angels And secondly besides weakness it argues something of wickedness and shews all is not right Heaven and we are not in the terms we should be not the best of us all Angels are Messengers from Heaven what tydings they bring good or bad we know not and therefore we fear because we know not a plain sign all is not well between Heaven and us that upon every coming of an Angel we presage to our selves no better news from thence but still are afraid of the messages and Messengers that come from that place Since then it befell so great Saints it might well be the case of poor Shepherds in this case to be afraid and being afraid they must be comforted or the message will hardly be received fear being in the mind nothing else can well enter fitly therefore before he pours in the one doth he seek to cast out the other with a nolite timere And the c. But fear is not so easily cast forth it is plenus consternationis affectus a tenacious affection full of distraction and consternation and will not presently be thrown out with a couple of words Comfortable words they are indeed and may well serve to stay their minds and collect their spirits but not throughly to eject their fear To effect this something more is required than bare words It is not enough to speak them but he must give a reason for them too that would have them prevail And what better reason not to fear than to shew them there is no reason of their fear Timor est expectatio mali fear is the expectation of evil and here is no evil towards nothing but good and good not towards but present that were but tydings of hope this is of joy and great joy to them and to all the people besides And this is a nolite timere indeed a fear not to the purpose not barely propounded but backed with a reason of power to destroy it for behold c. Wherein the Angel doth at once as dispel their passion so with an honourable Elogy advance and magnifie his own message before he will deliver it he pours it not forth presently but sends a preface of state before to usher it in with reverence and regard And every degree that is in it for you see it hath many joy great joy common joy and every degree I say in it is as a comfort to the Shepherds and diminution of their fear so an ecce of admiration and attention unto his errand for Ecce Behold c. ecce est vox admirantis it is ever commonly the watch-word to a wonder atleast is seldom set but as a note or mark upon things of greatest importance and such as require our special regards And indeed what do Men regard so much as news rare and admirable events who grows not erect what ear is not open and attent to receive them And such here is this no ordinary and trivial matter every day to be seen and met withall but news it is unusual and unheard of it is which you are called to behold Behold I bring you tidings strange tidings indeed of a strange birth full of prodigies and wonders wherein the Antient of days is become a swadled child and he who is the Son of God without a Mother now made the Son of a Woman without a Father a strange Woman too that is both a Mother and a Virgin nay at once both Mother of her own Father and the Daughter of her own Son For such a Mother she must needs be that is the Mother of God Where is Solomon with his nibil novum sub sole there is no new thing under the Sun sure here are many new things which the Sun never saw nor the world ever heard of before and therefore a greater than Solomon is here of whom Jeremy spake when he said creavit Dominus novum super terram a new thing hath the Lord created upon the earth a woman shall compass about a man Jer. xxxi News then it is and that strange and admirable but yet if it be as well good as strange as well beneficial to us as wonderful in it self we much more willingly behold it Do so then for it is both both news and good news tidings and tidings of joy great joy too for behold I bring you tidings of great joy Joy for the benefit and honour great joy for the great benefit and honour we reap by it Such as the fewel is such is the fire and as the benefit is such should be the joy Never such a benefit never so great honour to us and our nature never therefore so great cause of joy nay never any cause of joy at all but in this or at least in the hope of this Set it aside and nothing but argument of wo and lamentation through the whole world to be seen All mankind without it utterly lost in everlasting sorrow and the whole frame of Nature and whatsoever is within the compass of it subject to malediction too for their sakes and therefore could do nothing but groan and travel
satisfaction He is the eternal wisdom of the Father and indeed none but the Fathers wisdom could have found out a way to shew mercy unto Man and yet give full satisfaction unto his own justice For Justice and Mercy Man offending were as it were at variance either pretending who should have him Justice demands him to be given to her for revenge Mercy opposeth and with all her might pretends for a pardon both strugling in the bowels of the Almighty that dearly affects both Justice proposeth but few only two arguments but they are powerful The first urgeth the Almighty with his own verity and truth Thou hast spoken the word the day that thou eatest thou shalt die the death And with thee there is no shadow of change therefore thou must not alter the thing that is gone out of thy lips The second with a precedent drawn from his former actions The Angels sinned and thou didst not spare them why be alike then unto all For why shouldest thou afford earthly men that favour which thou deniedst unto Celestial Spirits of far more excellent Nature But now Mercy on the other side cries out pitifully with that cry in the Psalm wherefore hast thou made all men for nought what though thou hast said the word it was but the word of legislation and thou art Lord of the Law the supream Lawgiver and therefore maist dispense with the Law which thou givest and in doing so thou dost but remit thine own right thou wrongest none other which therefore is without all wrong to thy Justice And for the Angels they were but some of them not all the Angels that sinned and they sinned willingly and wilfully of their own accord and without a Tempter their sin remaining in themselves not propagated to others and therefore they perished worthily in thy wrath and I made no intercession for them But Man was deceived and seduced by the subtlety of the Serpent his sin besides not cleaving to himself alone but passing forth upon all his posterity that pass from him And shall the whole generation and kind who sinned not of their own will but by being in his loins be eternally destroyed for one and that anothers transgression It is sufficient that Justice hath triumphed in those evil Spirits let me have my victory now in these Good reason there should be some regard had of me as well as of her she is thy Daughter indeed yet she is but thy Daughter-in-law I am thy natural it is thy nature and property to have Mercy and compassion Thus these two the very favourites and darlings of the Divinity contend together and who or what wit shall decide the controversy or give both content when they have contrary demands Herein then shines the infinite wisdom of God that in so difficult a case and perplext as Damascen terms it could discover a way find out an issue that should give full satisfaction unto either and not only so but manifest the glory of the rest of his Attributes of his power wisdom goodness and all and all at once and in one action by informing a piece of our clay and contriving himself and his whole Divinity into a trunk of Earth that so one person might be made of both A person on whom Justice might take her full revenge that Mercy afterwards might be shown unto the offender that so both death might be inflicted as the one urged and a pardon granted as the other intreated For being Man he could die and being God his temporary death could satisfy for an eternal And being God and Man he could dye and with conquest having satiated revenge rise again from the dead and proclaim life and grace unto the whole world So by the infinite wisdom of this work all strife ends and both are well pleased Mercy and Truth are met together Righteousness and Peace do kiss each other Yea so great is the wisdom of it that the blessed Angels themselves desire to pry into it profoundly Sure it exceeds the natural understanding of the wise and subtle Lucifer himself who for all his wit and cunning was clearly deceived and foil'd in this mystery whereby he was drawn on to bite at that heel which he little dreamt would crush his head even whilst he bit it For supposing to swallow the humanity which he saw he was suddenly choaked with the divinity which he could not comprehend So wisely God by Man restored Man and vanquisht Satan in theself-same nature he had conquered before And therefore who shall declare the wisdom of his generation But above all either power or wisdom the wonderful love and goodness of the Lord in this act shown unto the whole world especially unto wretched Man may well drink up admiration and confound the understanding of both Man and Angel For what an astonishing consideration would it be could we consider it as it deserves that such vile worms and wretches as we should receive such high and undeserved favour from that God whom we had so grievously offended and having offended never notwithstanding so much as sought or regarded That he for all this should seek us yea and assume our nature and become as one of us that he might the better find us That instead of hurling such rebellious sinners into the depth of Hell as they well deserved he descended from his own glory in the highest Heavens and took on him the infirmity and baseness of our earth that he might carry it thither and into that glory from whence he descended O the infinite goodness of this God to undergoe the wretchedness of Man that Man might be assumed to the blessedness of God that sinful Man to the blessedness of that God against whom he sinned and delighted only to sin O Lord saith David what is man that thou didst so regard him or the son of man that thou didst so visit him Surely homo est res nihili Man is a thing of nought of no worth no value yet such the eternal Son of God vouchsafed to become that he might advance this thing of nought far above all Principalities and Powers and Crown him with Worship and Glory Neither did he by this act glorify that particular humanity alone which he assumed but the benefit shall redound though not in that manner nor yet so fully yet in a marvellous degree unto all others that shall but glorify him for in him they shall be made partakers too even of the Divine Nature 1 Pet. 1 4. He was anointed indeed with the Oyl of gladness above his fellows not alone then anointed but above and more abundantly than any others As that precious Oyntment which was poured forth on Aarons head so Divine honours and graces by this union descended upon His which it most plentifully drenched but drencht not it alone for of his fulness we have all received and therefore it trickles down upon his beard and all men living that shall adhere unto him and not so only but from