us in this History of this Heroical Woman Esther what she did in a perplexed and scrupulous case when an evident danger appeared and an evident Law was against her action and from thence consider Serm. 22. what every Christian Soul ought to do when it is surprised and overtaken with any such scruples or difficulties to the Conscience For Esther in particular this was her case She being Wife to the King Haman who had great power with the King had got from him an Edict for the destruction of all her people the Jews When this was intimated to her by Mordecai who presented to her Conscience not onely an irreligious forsaking of God if she forbore to mediate and use her interest in the King for the saving of hers and Gods people but an unnatural and unprovident forsaking of her self because her danger was involved in theirs and that she her self being of that Nation could not be safe in her person though in the Kings house if that Edict were executed though she had not then so ordinary access to the King as formerly she had had yea though there were a Law in her way that she might not come till she was called yet she takes the resolution to go she puts off all Passion and all particular respects she consecrates the whole action to God and having in a rectified and well informed Conscience found it acceptable to him she neglects both that particular Law That none might have access to the King uncalled and that general Law That every Man is bound to preserve himself and she exposes her self to an imminent and for any thing she knew an unescapable danger of death If I perish I perish For the ease of all our memories we shall provide best Divisio by contracting all which we are to handle to these two parts Esthers preparation and Esthers resolution How she disposed her self how she resolved What her consultation was what her execution was to be Her preparation is an humiliation and there first she prepares that that glory which God should receive by that humiliation should be general All the people should be taught and provoked to glorifie God vade congrega Go and assemble all Secondly The act which they were to do was to fast Jejunate And thirdly It was a limited fast Tribus diebus Eat not nor drink in three days and three nights And then this fast of theirs was with relation and respect to her Jejunate super me Fast ye for me But yet so as she would not receive an ease by their affliction put them to do it for her and she do nothing for her self Ego cum Ancillis I and my Maids will fast too and similiter likewise that is As exactly as they shall And so far extends her preparation Her resolution derives it self into two branches First That she will break an Humane and Positive Law Ingrediar contra legem I will go in though it be not according to the Law and secondly She neglects even the Law of Nature the Law of Self-preservation Si peream peream To enter into the first part The assembling of the people though the occasion and purpose here were religious yet the assembling of them was a civil act 1. Part. Assemblies an act of Jurisdiction and Authority Almost all States have multiplied Laws against Assemblies of People by private Authority though upon pretences of Religious occasions All Conventicles all Assemblies must have this character this impression upon them That they be Legitima lawful And Legitima sola sunt quae habent authoritatem principis onely those are lawful which are made by the Authority of the State Aspergebatur infamia Alcibia des quòd in domo sua facere Mysteria dicebatur There went an ill report of him because he had sacrifices and other worships of the gods at home in his own house And this was not imputed to him as a Schismatical thing or an act of a different Religion from the State but an act of disaffection to the State and of Sedition In times of persecution when no exercise of true Religion is admitted these private Meetings may not be denied to be lawful As for bodily sustenance if a man could no otherwise avoid starving the Schoolmen and the Casuists resolve truly That it were no sin to steal so much meat as would preserve life so those souls which without that must necessarily starve may steal their Spiritual food in corners and private meetings But if we will steal either of these foods Temporal or Spiritual because that meat which we may have is not so dressed so dished so sauced so served in as we would have it but accompanied with some other ceremonies then are agreeable to our taste This is an inexcusable Theft and these are pernicious Conventicles Dan. 6. When that Law was made by Darius That no man for thirty days should ask any thing of God or man but onely of the King though it were a Law that had all circumstances to make it no Law yet Daniel took no occasion by this to induce any new manner of worshipping of God he took no more company with him to affront the Law or exasperate the Magistrate onely he did as he had used to do before and he did not disguise nor conceal that which he did but he set open his windows and prayed in his Chamber But in these private Conventicles where they will not live voto aperto that is pray so as that they would be content to be heard what they pray for As the Jews in those Christian Countreys where they are allowed their Synagogues pray against Edom and Edomites by name but they mean as appears in their private Catechisms by Edom and Edomites the Christian Church and Christian Magistracy so when these men pray in their Conventicles for the confusion and rooting out of Idolatry and Antichrist they intend by their Idolatry a Cross in Baptism and by their Antichrist a man in a Surpless and not onely the persons but the Authority that admits this Idolatry and this Antichristianism As vapors and winds shut up in Vaults engender Earth-quakes so these particular spirits in their Vault-Prayers and Cellar-Service shake the Pillars of State and Church Domus mea Domus orationis and Domus orationis Domus mea My house is the house of Prayer says God and so the house of Prayer must be his house The Centurion of whom Christ testified That he had not found so great Faith even in Israel Matth. 8.10 thought not himself worthy that Christ should come under his Roof and these men think no Roof but theirs fit for Christ no not the Roof of his own House the Church For I speak not of those Meetings where the blessed Children of God joyn in the House to worship God in the same manner as is ordained in the Church or in a manner agreeable to that Such Religious Meetings as these God will give a blessing to but when
the Law of Nature it self in exposing her self to that danger How far Humane Laws do binde the conscience how far they lay such an obligation upon us as that if we transgress them we do not only incur the penalty but sin towards God hath been a perplexed question in all times and in all places But how divers soever their opinions be in that they all agree in this That no Law which hath all the essential parts of a Law for Laws against God Laws beyond the power of him that pretends to make them are no Laws no Law can be so meerly a Humane Law but that there is in it a Divine part There is in every Humane Law part of the Law of God which is obedience to the Superior That Man cannot binde the conscience because he cannot judge the conscience nor he cannot absolve the conscience may be a good argument but in Laws made by that power which is ordained by God man bindes not but God himself And then you must be subject not because of wrath but because of conscience Though then the matter and subject of the Law that which the Law commands or prohibits may be an indifferent action yet in all these God hath his part and there is a certain Divine soul and spark of Gods power which goes through all Laws and inanimates them In all the Canons of the Church God hath his voice Ut omnia ordine fiant that all things be done decently and in order so the Canon that ordains that is from God in all the other Laws he hath his voice too Ut piè tranquillè vivatur That we may live peaceably and religiously and so those Laws are from God And in all of all sorts this voice of his sounds evidently qui resistit ordinationi he that resists his Commission his Lieutenancy his Authority in Law-makers appointed by him resists himself There is no Law that is meerly humane but only Lex in membris The Law in our flesh which rebels against the Law in our minde and this is a Rebellion a Tyranny no lawful Government In all true Laws God hath his interest and the observing of them in that respect as made by his authority is an act of worship and obedience to him and the transgressing of them with that relation that is a resisting or undervaluing of that authority is certainly sinne How then was Esthers act exempt from this for she went directly against a direct Law That none should come to the King uncalled Whensoever divers Laws concur and meet together that Law which comes from the superior Magistrate and is in the nature of the thing commanded highest too that Law must prevail If two Laws lie upon me and it be impossible to obey both I must obey that which comes immediately from the greatest power and imposes the greatest duty Here met in her the fix'd and permanent Law of promoting Gods glory and a new Law of the King to augment his greatness and Majesty by this retiredness and denying of ordinary access to his person Gods Law for his glory which is infinite and unsearchable and the Kings Law for his ease of which she knows the reason and the scope were in the ballance together if this Law of the King had been of any thing naturally and essentially evil in it self no circumstance could have delivered her from sin if she had done against it Though the Law were but concerning an indifferent action and of no great importance yet because Gods Authority is in every just Law if she could not have been satisfied in her conscience that that Law might admit an exception and a dispensation in her case she had sinn'd in breaking it But when she proceeded not upon any precipitation upon any singular or seditious spirit when she debated the matter temperately with a dispassioned man Mordecai when she found a reservation even in the body of the Law That if the King held up his Scepter the Law became no Law to that party when she might justly think her self out of the Law which was as Josephus delivers it Ut nemo ex domesticis accederet That none of his servants should come into his presence uncalled she was then come to that which onely can excuse and justifie the breaking of any Law that is a probable if not a certain assurance contracted Bona fide in a rectified conscience That if this present case which makes us break this Law had been known and considered when the Law was made he that made the Law would have made provision for this case No presuming of a pardon when the Law is broken no dispensation given before hand to break it can settle the Conscience nor any other way then a Declaration well grounded that that particular case was never intended to have been composed in that Law nor the reason and purpose thereof So when the Conscience of Esther was and so when the Conscience of any particular Christian is after due consideration of the matter come to a religious and temperate assurance That he may break any Law his assurance must be grounded upon this That if that Law were now to be made that case which he hath presently in hand would not be included by him that made that Law in that Law otherwise to violate a Law either because being but a Humane Law I think I am discharged paying the penalty or because I have good means to the King I may presume of a pardon in all cases where my priviledge works any other way then as we have said that is that our case is not intended in that Law it had been in Esther it should be in us a sin to transgress any Law though of a law-Law-nature and of an indifferent action But upon those circumstances which we mentioned before Esther might see that that Law admitted some exceptions and that no exception was likelier then this That the King for all his majestical reservedness would be content to receive information of such a dishonor done to his Queen and to her god she might justly think that that Law intended onely for the Kings ease or his state reached not to her person who was his wife nor to her case which was the destruction of all that professed her Religion It was then no sin in her to go in to the King Si Peream though not according to the Law but she may seem to have sinned in exposing her self to so certain a danger as that Law inflicted with such a resolution Si peream peream If I perish I perish How far a man may lawfully and with a good conscience forsake himself and expose himself to danger is a point of too much largeness and intricacy and perplexity to handle now The general stream of Casuists runs thus That a private man may lawfully expose himself to certain danger for the preserving of the Magistrate or of a superior person and that reason might have justified Esthers enterprise if
then lastly The illusion upon this what a fearful state this shuts them up in That therefore their hearts are fully set in them to do evil And these three The perversness of colouring sins with Reasons and the impotency of making Gods mercy the Reason and the danger of obduration thereby will be the three parts in which we shall determine this Exercise Part I. First then in handling the perversness of assigning Reasons for sins we forbid no man the use of Reason in matters of Religion As S. August says Contra Scriptura nemo Christianus No man can pretend to be a Christian if he refuse to be tryed by the Scriptures And as he adds Contra Ecclesiam nemo pacificus No man can pretend to love order and Peace if he refuse to be tryed by the Church so he adds also Contra Rationem nemo sobrius No man can pretend to be in his wits if he refuse to be tryed by Reason He that believes any thing because the Church presents it he hath Reason to assure him that this Authority of the Church is founded in the Scriptures He that believeth the Scriptures hath Reasons that govern and assure him that those Scriptures are the Word of God Mysteries of Religion are not the less believ'd and embrac'd by Faith because they are presented and induc'd and apprehended by Reason But this must not enthrone this must not exalt any mans Reason so far as that there should lie an Appeal from Gods Judgements to any mans reason that if he see no reason why God should proceed so and so he will not believe that to be Gods Judgement or not believe that Judgement of God to be just For of the secret purposes of God Mat. 11.26 we have an Example what to say given us by Christ himself Ita est quia complacuit It is so O Father because thy good pleasure was such All was in his own breast and bosome in his own good will and pleasure before he Decreed it And as his Decree it self so the wayes and Executions of his Decrees are often unsearchable for the purpose and for the reason thereof though for the matter of fact they may be manifest They that think themselves sharp-sighted and wise enough to search into those unreveal'd Decrees they who being but worms will look into Heaven and being the last of Creatures who were made will needs enquire what was done by God before God did any thing for creating the World In ultimam dementiam reverant says S. Chrysost They are fallen into a mischievous madness Et ferrum ignitum quod forcipe deberent digitus accipiunt They will needs take up red hot Irons with their bare fingers without tongs That which is in the Center which should rest and lie still in this peace That it is so because it is the will of God that it should be so they think to toss and tumble that up to the Circumference to the Light and Evidence of their Reason by their wrangling Disputations If then it be a presumpteous thing and a contempt against God to submit his Decrees to the Examination of humane reason it must be a high treason against the Majesty of God to find out a reason in him which should justifie our sins To conclude out of any thing which he does or leaves undone that either he doth not hate or cannot punish sinners For this destroys even the Nature of God and that which the Apostle lays for the foundation of all To believe that God is Heb. 11.6 and that he is a just Rewarder Adam's quia Mulier The woman whom thou gavest me gave me the Apple And Eve's quia Serpens Because the Serpent deceiv'd me and all such are poor and unallowable pleas which God would not admit For there is no Quia no Reason why any man at any time should do any sin God never permits any perplexity to fall upon us so as that we cannot avoyd one sin but by doing another or that we should think our self excusable by saying Quia inde minus malum There is less harm in a Concubine then in another wife Or Quia inde aliquod bonum That my incontinence hath produc'd a profitable man to the State or to the Church though a bastard much less to say Quia obdormivit Deus Tush God sees it not or cares not for it though he see it If thou ask then why thou should'st be bound to believe the Creation we say Quia unus Deus Because there can be but one God and if the World be eternal and so no Creature the World is God If thou ask why thou should'st be bound to believe Providence we say Quia Deus remunerator Because God is to give every man according to his merits If thou ask why thou should'st be bound to believe that when thou seest he doth not give every man according to his merits we say Quia inscrutabilia judicia ejus O how unsearchable are his Jugdements and his ways past finding out For thou art yet got no farther in measuring God but by thine own measure and thou hast found no other reason to lead thee to think that God doth not govern well but because he doth not govern so to thine understanding as thou shouldst if thou wert God So that thou dost not onely make thy weakness but thy wickedness that is thy hasty disposition to come to a present Revenge when any thing offends thee the Measure and the Model by which the frame of Gods Government should be erected and so thou comest to the worst distemper of all insanire cum ratione to go out of thy wits by having too much and to be mad with too much knowledge not to sin out of infirmity or tentation or heat of blood but to sin in cold blood and upon just reason and mature considerations and so deliberately and advisedly to continue to sin Part II. Now the particular reason which the perversness of these men produceth here in this Text is Because God is patient and long-suffering So he is so he will be still Their perversness shall not pervert his Nature his goodness As God bade the Prophet Osea do 1.2 he hath done himself Go says he and take to thee a wife of fornication and children of fornication so hath he taken us guilty of spiritual fornication But as in the fleshly fornications of an adulterous wife the husband is for the most part the last that hears of them so for our spiritual fornications such is the loathness the patience the longanimity of our good and gracious God that though he do know our sins as soon as they speak as soon as they are acted for that 's peccatum cum voco says S. Gregory A speaking sin when any sinful thought is produc'd into act yea before they speak as soon as they are conceiv'd yet he will not hear of our sins he takes no knowledge of them by punishing them till our brethren have
the abundant love of God to man many concluded that howsoever though Adam had not sinned God would have dignified the nature of man in the highest degree that that nature was any ways capable off and since it appears now because that hath been done that the nature of man was capable of such assuming by the Son of God they argue that God would have done this though Adam had not sinn'd He had not come say they ut medicus if man had not contracted that infections sickness by Adams sin Christ had not come in the nature of a Physitian to recover him non ut Redemptor say they If man had not forfeited his interest and state in heaven by Adams sin Christ had not come in the nature of a Redeemer but ut frater ut Dominus ad nobilitandum genus humanus out of a brotherly love and out of a royal favour to exalt that nature which he did love to impart and convey to us a greater and nobler state then we had in our Creation in such a respect and to such a purpose he should have come But since they themselves who follow that opinion come to say That that is the more subtle opinion and the more agreable to mans reason because man willingly embraces and pursues any thing that conduces to the dignifying of his own nature but that the other opinion that Christ had not come if our sins had not occasioned his comming is magis conformis scripturis magis honorat Deum is more agreable to the Scriptures and derives more honor upon God we cannot err if we keep with the Scriptures and in the way that leads to Gods glory and so say with St. August Si homo non periisset filius hominis non venisset If man could have been sav'd otherwise the son of God had not come in this manner ot if that may be interpreted of his comming to suffer only we may enlarge it with Leo Creatura non fieret qui Creator mundi He who was Creator of the world had never become a Creature in the world if our sins had not drawn him to it It is usefully said by Aquinus Deus ordinavit futura ut futura erant God hath appointed all future things to be but to be so as they are that is necessary things necessarily and contingent things contingently absolute things absolutely and conditional things conditionally He hath decreed my salvation but that salvation in Christ He had decreed Christs comming into this world but a comming to save sinners And therefore it is a frivolous interogatory a lost question an impertinent article to enquire what God would have done if Adam had stood But Adam is fallen and we in him and therefore though we may piously wish what St. Augustine utinam non fuisset miseria ne iste misericordia esset necessaria I would man had not been so miserable as to put God to this way of mercy yet since our sins had induced this misery upon us and this necessity if we may so say upon God let us change all our disputation into thanksgiving and all our utrums and quaeres and quando's of the school to the Benedictus and Alelujahs and Osanna's of the Church Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who hath visited and redeemed his people blessed that he would come at all which was our first and blessed that he is come already which is our second consideration venit He came He is come Venit As in the former branch the Gentils the Heathens are our adversaries they deny the venit that a Messias is to come at all so in this the Jews are our enemies they confess the veniet a future comming but they deny the venit that this Messias come yet In that language in which God spoke to man there is such assurance intimated that whatsoever God promises shall be performed that in that language ordinarily in the Prophets the times are confounded and when God is intended to purpose or to promise any thing in the future it is very often expressed in the time past that which God means to do he is said to have done future and present and past is all one with God But yet to man it is much more that Christ is come then that he would come not but that they who apprehended faithfully his future comming had the same salvation as we but they could not so easily apprehend it as we God did not present so many handles to take hold of him in that promise that he would come as in the performance that he was come They had most of these handles that liv'd with him and saw him and heard him but we that come after have more then they which were before them we have more in the history then they had in the Prophets It was time for him to come in the beginning of the world for the Devil was a murderer from the beginning Joh. 8 44. As the Devil was felo de se a murderer of himself as he killed himself Christ gave him over he never came to him in that line he never pardoned him that sin but as he practis'd upon man Christ met with him from the beginning He sav'd us from his killing by dying himself for us for being dead having taken us into his wounds and being risen and having taken us into his glory if we be dead in Christ already the Devil cannot kill us if we be risen in Christ the Devil cannot hold us And so he was Agnus occisus ab origine mundi the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world that is as soon as the world had any beginning in the purpose of God God saw from all eternity that man would need Christ and as soon as there was conceiv'd an ego occido I will kill in the Devils mouth then was an ego vivificabo I will raise from death in Gods mouth and so there was an early comming from all eternity for he is the Ruler of Israel saies the Prophet Mâ—ch 5.2 and his goings forth have been from the beginning and from everlasting it is goings in the plural Christ hath divers goings forth divers commings all from the beginning not only from Moses his In principio which was the beginning of the Creation for then also Christ came in the promise of a Messiah but from St. Johns In principio that beginning which was without beginning the eternal beginning for there Christ came in that eternal decree that he should come Neither is this only as he is Germen Jehovae the bud of Jehovah issuing from him as his eternal Son Esa 4 2. but as the Prophet Michaeas saies in that place cited before it is as he shall come out of Bethlem and as he shall be a Ruler of Israel so as he came in our humane nature as he came to dye for us as he came to establish a Church so his comming is from all eternity for all this was
Psalms of Deprecation and of Imprecation too how divers soever the nature of the Psalm be yet the Church hath appointed to shut up every Psalm with that one Acclamation Glory be to the Father and to the Son c. Whether I pray or praise depricate Gods Judgements from my self or imprecate them upon pods enemies nothing can fall from me nothing can fall upon me but that God may receive glory by it if I will glorifie him in it So that then in a useful sense Gloria Dei is Gloria Deo but yet more literally more directly the glory of God in this place is the glorious Gospel of Christ Jesus which is that which is intended and expressed in the next phrase which is the last Branch in this first acceptation of these words in facie The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ In facie When our Saviour Christ charged the Sadduces with errour it was not meerly because they were ignorant the Sadduces were not so Mat. 22.29 but Erratis nescientes Scripturas says Christ You erre because you understand not the Scriptures All knowledge is ignorance except it conduce to the knowledge of the Scriptures and all the Scriptures lead us to Christ Heb. 1.3 He is the brightness of his Fathers glory Sap. 2. 26. and the express image of his person The brightness of the everlasting light and the image of his goodness And to insist upon a word of the fittest signification Jo. 6. 27. Hillari Him hath God the Father sealed Now Sigillum imprimitur in Materia diversa A Seal graven in gold or stone does not print in stone or gold in Wax it will and it will in Clay for this Seal in which God hath manifested himself we consider it not as it is printed in the same metal in the eternal Son of God but as God hath sealed himself in Clay in the humane Nature but yet in Wax too in a person ductile pliant obedient to his will And there Signatum super nos Lumen vultus tui says David The light of thy countenance that is the image of thy self is sealed that is derived imprinted upon us that is Ps 4. upon our nature our flesh Signatum est id est significatum est Tertul. God hath signified this pretence manifested revealed himself in the face of Jesus Christ For that is the Office and service that Christ avows himself to have done O Father I have manifested thy Name that is thy Name of Father as thou art a Father for Qui Solum Deum novit Creatorem Cipri Judaicae mensuram prudentiae non excedit Knowest thou that there is a God and that that God created the world What great knowledge is this The Jews know it too Non est Idem nosce Deum opificem esse habere filium It is another Religion another point of Faith Chrysost to know that God had a Son of eternal begetting and to have a world of late making God therefore hath shin'd in no mans heart till he know the glory of GOD in the face of Jesus Christ till he come to the manifestation of God in the Gospel So that that man comes short of this light that believes in God in a general in an incomprehensible power but not in Christ and that man goes beyond this light who will know more of God then is manifested in the Gospel which is the face of Christ Jesus the one comes not to the light the other goes beyond and both are in blindness Christ is the Image of God and the Gospel is the face of Christ and now I rest nor in Gods picture as I find it in every Creature though there be in every Creatare an Image of God I have a livelier Image of God Christ And then I seek not for Christs face as it was traditionally sent to Agabarus in his life nor for his face as it was imprinted in the Veronica in the womans Apron as he went to his death nor for his face as it was described in Lentulus his Letter to the Senate of Rome but I have the glory of God in Christ I and I have the face of Christ in the Gospel Except God had taken this very person upon him this individual person me which was impossible because I am a sinful person he could not have come nearer then in taking this nature upon him Now I cannot say as the man at the Pool Hominem non habeo I have no man to help me the Heathen cannot say I have no God but I cannot say I have no man for I have a Man the Man Jesus him who by being Man knows my misery and by being God can and will show mercy unto me Rom. 13.12 The night is far spent says the Apostle the day is at hand Gregor Nox ante Christum Aurora in Evangelio Dies in Resurrectione Till Christ all was night there was a beginning of day in the beginning of the Gospel and there was a full noon in the light and glory thereof but such a day as shall be always day and overtaken with no night no cloud is onely the day of Judgement the Resurrection And this hath brought us to our last step to the consideration of these three terms 1. knowledge 2. glory 3. the face of Christ Jesus in that everlasting Kingdom For this purpose did God command light out of darkness that men might glorifie God in the contemplation of the Creatures and for this purpose hath God shin'd in our hearts by the Scriptures in the Church that man might be directed towards him here but both these hath God done therefore to this purpose this is the end of all that man might come to this light in that everlasting state in the consummation of happiness in Soul and body too when we shall be call'd out of the solitariness of the grave to the blessed and glorious society of God and his Angels and his Saints there Nazianzen Hoc verbo re-concinnor componor in alium virum migro with that word Surgite mortui Arise yee that sleep in the dust all my peeces shall be put together again Reconcinnor with that word Intra in gaudium Enter into thy Masters joy I am settled I am established Componor and with that word Sede ad dextram sit down army right hand I become another manner of man In alium virum migro another manner of Miracle then the same Father makes of man in this world Quodnam Mysterium says he What a Mystery is man here Parvus sum Magnus I am less in body then many Creature in the World and yet greater in the compass and extent of my Soul then all the World Humillimus sum Excelsus I am under a necessity of spending some thoughts upon this low World and yet in an ability to study to contemplate to lay hold upon the next Mortalis sum immortalis in a Body that may that
is his giving of glory That prayer which our Saviour Christ makes Glorifie me O Father with thine own self Joh. 17.5 with the Glory which I had before the world was is not a prayer for the Essential Glory of God for Christ in his Divine Nature was never devested never unaccompanied of that glory and for his humane Nature that was never capable of it the attributes and so the Essence of the Glory of the Divinity are not communicable to his Humane Nature neither perpetually as the Ubiquitaries say nor temporarily in the Sacrament as the Papists imply But the glory which Christ asks there is the glory of sitting down at the right hand of his Father in our flesh in his humane Nature which glory he had before the world for he had it in his predestination in the Eternal Decree And that 's the glory of God which we shall know know by having it We shall have a knowledge of the very glory the Essential glory of God because we shall see Sicuti est as God is in himself and Cognoscam at cognitus I shall know as I am known 1 Cor. 13.12 that glory shall dilate us enlarge us give us an inexpressible capacity and then fill it but we shall never comprehend that glory the Essential glory but that glory which Christ hath received in his humane Natute in all other degrees excepting those which flow from his hypostatical union we shall comprehend we shall know by having we shall receive a Crown of glory that sadeth not 1 Pet. 5.4 It is a Crown that compasses round no enterance of danger any way and a crown that fadeth not fears no winter we shall have interest in all we see and we shall see the treasure of all knowledge the face of Christ Jesus Then and there In facio we shall have an abundant satisfaction and accomplishment of all St. Augustines three Wishes He wish'd to have seen Rome in her glory to have heard St. Paul preach and to have seen Christ in the flesh We shall have all we shall see such a Jerusalem as that Rome if that were literally true which is hyperbolically said of Rome In Urbe in Orbe that City is the whole world yet Rome that Rome were but a Village to this Jerusalem We shall hear St. Paul with the whole quire of Heaven pour our himself in that acclamation Saluation to our God that sitteth upon the Throne Apoc. 7.10 and to the Lamb and we shall see and see for ever Christ in that flesh which hath done enough for his Friends and is safe enough from his Enemies We shall see him in a transfiguration all clouds of sadness remov'd and a transubstantiation all his tears changed to Pearls all his Blood-drops into Rubies all the Thorns of his Crown into Diamonds for where we shall see the Walls of his Palace to be Saphyr and Emerald and Amethist Apoc. 21.19 and all Stones that are precious what shall we not see in the face of Christ Jesus and whatsoever we do see by that very sight becomes our Be therefore no strangers to this face see him here that you may know him and he you there see him as St. John did who turned to see a voice see him in the preaching of his Word see him in that seal which is a Copy of him as he is of his Father Apoc. 1. see him in the Sacrament Look him in the face as he lay in the Manger poor and then murmur not at temporal wants suddainly enrich'd by the Tributes of Kings and doubt not but that God hath large and strange ways to supply thee Look him in the face in the Temple disputing there at twelve years and then apply thy self to God to the contemplation of him to the meditation upon him to a conversation with him betimes Look him in the face in his Fathers house a Carpenter and but a Carpenter Take a Calling and contain thy self in that Calling But bring him nearer and look him in the face as he look'd upon Friday last when he whose face the Angels desire to look on he who was fairer then the children of men Psa 45.3 Esai 52.14.53.3 as the Prophet speaks was so marr'd more then any man as another Prophet says That they hid their faces from him despised him when he who bore up the heavens bowed down his head he who gives breath to all gave up the ghost and then look him in the face again as he look'd yesterday not lam'd upon the Cross not putrifi'd in the Grave not singed in Hell rais'd and raised by his own power Victoriously triumphantly to the destruction of the last Enemy death look him in the face in all these respects of Humiliation and of Exaltation too and then as a Picture look upon him that look upon it God upon whom thou keepest thine Eye will keep his Eye upon thee and as in the Creation when he commanded light out of darkness he gave thee a capacity of this light and as in thy Vocation when he shin'd in thy heart he gave thee an inchoation of this light so in associating thee to himself at the last day he will perfect consummate accomplish all and give thee the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus there This is the last word of our Text but we make up our Circle by returning to the first word the first word is For for the Text is reason of that which is in the Verse immediately before the Text that is We preach not our selves but Christ Jesus the Lord and our selves your servants for Jesus sake We stop not on this side Christ Jesus we dare not say that any man is sav'd without Christ we dare say that none can be saved that hath received that light and hath not beleev'd in him We carry you not beyond Christ neither not beyond that face of his in which he is manifested the Scriptures Till you come to Christ you are without God as the Apostle says to the Ephesians and when you goe beyond Christ to Traditions of men you are without God too There is a fine Deo a left handed Atheism in the meer natural man that will not know Christ and there is a sine Deo a right handed Atheism in the stubborn Papist who is not content with Christ They preach Christ Jesus and themselves and make themselves Lords over you in Jesus place and farther then ever he went We preach not our selves but him and our selves your servants for his sake and this is our service to tell you the whole compass the beginning the way and the end of all that all is done in and by and for Christ Jesus that from thence flow and thither lead and there determine all to bring you from the memory of your Creation by the sense of your Vocation to the assurance of your glorification by the manifestation of God in Christ and Christ in