men that one should succeed another but after the power of an endless life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a life that cannot be dissolved that cannot part from the body And thus as he liveth for evermore so whatsoever issueth from him is like himself everlasting the beams as lasting as the light His Word endureth for ever his Law is eternal his Intercession eternal his Punishments eternal and his Reward eternal Not a Word which can fall to the ground like ours who fall after it and within a while breathe out our souls as we do our words and speak no more Not Laws which are framed and set to the times and alter and change as they do and at last end with them but which shall stand fast for ever Psal 62.11 aeternae ab aeterno eternal as he is eternal He hath spoken once and he will speak no more Not an Intercession which may be silenced with power but imprinted in him and inseparable from him and so never ceasing an Intercession which Omnipotency it self cannot withstand Not a a transitory Punishment which time may mitigate or take away but an everlasting Worm Not a Reward which may be snatched out of our hands but lasting as the heavens nay as Christ himself And they who would contract and shrink it up into one and so make a temporary perishing everlastingness that shall last as long as it lasteth do stretch beyond their line which may reach the Right hand as well as the Left and do put an end to the Reward as they would do to the Punishment For of the one as well as of the other it is said that it shall be everlasting All that floweth from Christ is like himself yesterday Hebr. 13.8 Hebr. 7.26 and to day and the same for ever And such an High Priest became us who was to live for ever For what should we do with a mortal Saviour or what could a mortal Saviour do for us What could an arm of flesh a withering dying arm avail us Shadow us to day and leave us to morrow raise us up now and within a while let us fall into the dust and at last fall down and perish with us Man is weak Job 14.10 and dieth man giveth up the ghost and where is he Where is I will not say Alexander or Caesar but where is Moses that led his people through the Red-Sea where are his lawes Where is David S. Peter speaketh it freely that he is both dead and buried Acts 2.29 and that his Sepulchre was with them unto that day But the son of David is ascended into heaven is our Priest for ever and liveth for evermore And this title of Eternity is wrought in his Girdle and Garment may be seen in his Head and Eyes of fire adorneth his burning Feet is engraven on his Sword may be read in his Countenance and platted in his Crown and doth well become his Power his Wisdome his Justice his Goodness For that which is not eternal is next to nothing What Power is that which sinketh What Wisdome is that which faileth What Riches are they that perish What Mercy is that which is as the morning dew which soon falleth and is as soon exhaled and dryed up again Virtue were nothing Religion were nothing Faith it self were nothing but in reference to Eternity Heaven were nothing if it were not eternal Eternity is that which maketh every thing something maketh every thing better than it is and addeth lustre to Light it self I live evermore giveth life unto all things Eternity is a fathomless Ocean and carrieth with it Power and Wisdome and Goodness an efficacious Activity a gracious and benevolent Power a wise and provident Goodness If Christ live for evermore then is he independent if independent then most powerful if most powerful then blessed and if blessed then good He is powerful but good good but wise And these Goodness and Power and Wisdome and a diligent Care for us meet in him who liveth for evermore and worketh on us for our eternal salvation And first as he liveth for evermore so he intercedeth for us for evermore and he can no more leave to entercede for us than he can to be Christ His Priesthood must fail before his Intercession because this power of helping us is everlastingly and inseparably inherent in him St. Paul joyneth them together his Sitting at the right of God and his interceding for us Rom. 8.34 So that to leave interceding were to leave the right hand of God where he looketh down upon us is present with us and prepareth a place for us His wounds are still open his merits are still vocal his sufferings are still importunate his everlasting presenting of himself before his Father is an everlasting prayer Jesus at the right hand of the Father is more powerful than the full vials the incense the prayers the groans the sighs the roarings of all the Saints that have been or shall be to the end of the world If he sate not there if he interceded not they were but noise nay they were sins but his Intercession sanctifieth them and offereth them up and by him they are powerful By his power the sighs and breathings and desires of mortal men ascend the highest heavens and draw down eternity And this is a part of Christ's Priestly office which he began here on earth and continueth for us maketh it compleat holdeth it up to the the end of the world Again this title of Eternity is annexed to his Regality and is a flower of his Crown not set in any but his Thou art a King for ever cannot be said to any mortal Did he not live for evermore he could not threaten eternal death Nor promise everlasting life For no mortal power can rage for ever but passeth as lands do from one Lord to another lyeth heavy on them and at last sinketh to the ground with them all Nor can the hand that must wither and fall off reach forth a never-failing reward Infinitude cannot be the issue and product of that which is finite and bounded vvithin a determined period And this might open a vvide and effectual door unto Sin and but leave a sad and disconsolate entrance for Virtue and Piety vvhich is so unsatisfying to flesh and blood that the perseverance in it requireth no less a povver than that vvhich Eternity bringeth along with it to draw it on How bold and daring would men be before the Sun and the People What joy and delight vvould fill them did not the thought of a future endless estate pierce sometimes through them and so make some vent to let it out When the evil that hangeth over is but a cloud vvhich vvill soon vanish few men are so serious as to look about and seek for shelter Post mortem nihil est ipsáque mors nihil est There is nothing after death and Death it self is nothing setteth up a chair for the Atheist to set at ease in
Scripture Eph. 5.14 Awake thou that sleepest in Sloth and Idleness thou that sleepest in a tempest in the midst of thy unruly and turbulent Passions arise from the grave and sepulchre wherein thy Sloth hath intombed thee arise from the dead from that nasty charnel-house of rotten bones where so many vitious Habits have shut thee up Break up thy monument Hebr. 12.1 cast aside every weight and every sin that presseth down and rise up and be but a Man improve thy Reason to thy best advantage and this Good shall shine upon thee with all its beams and brightness and Christ shall give thee light if not to see things to come to satisfie thy Curiosity yet to see things to come which shall fill thy soul as with marrow and fatness Psal 63.5 if not to know the uncertain yet certain wayes of Gods providence yet to know the certain and infallible way to bliss if not to know things too high for thee yet to know that which shall exalt thee to heavenly places in Christ Jesus He hath shewn thee O man what is good Dost thou see it dost thou believe it Thou shalt see greater things then these Thou shalt see what thou dost believe and enjoy what thou dost but hope for Thou shalt see God who hath shewed thee this Good that thou mightest see him Thou shalt then have a more exact knowledge of his Wayes and Providence a fuller tast of his Love and Goodness a clearer sight of his Beauty and Majesty and with all his Angels and all his Saints behold his Glory for evermore Thus much of this Good as it is an Object to be lookt on We shall in the next place consider it as a Law QVID REQVIRIT What doth the Lord require The Third SERMON PART III. MICAH VI. 8. He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly c. HE hath shewed thee O man what is good what it is thou wert made for even that which is fitted and proportioned to thy Soul that which is lovely and amiable and so a fit object to look on that which will fill and satisfy thy Soul and turn the greatest evil the world can lay as a stone of offense in thy way into good and raise it self upon it to its highest pitch of glory And this he hath made plain and manifest drawn out in so visible a character that thou mayest run and read it And thus far we have already brought you We must yet lead you further even to the foot of mount Sinai What doth the Lord require of thee This is as the publication of it and making it a Law Hebr. 12.19 For with the thunder and the lightning and the sound of the trumpet Exod. 20.2 and the voice of words this voice was heard I AM THE LORD THVS SAITH THE LORD is the Prophets Warrant or Commission I THE LORD HAVE SPOKEN IT is a seal to the Law By this every word shall stand by this every Law is of force It is a word of power and command and authority For he that can do what he will may also require what he will in heaven or in earth So then if he be the Lord he may require it In this one word in this Monosyllable all power in heaven and in earth is contained For in calling him Lord he assigneth unto him an absolute Will which must be the rule of our Will and of all our actions which are the effects and works of our Will and issue from it as from their first principle and mover And this his Will is attended 1. with Power 2. with Wisdome 3. with Love By his Power he made us and still protecteth and preserveth us and from this issueth his legislative Power Again as by his Wisdome he made us so by the same Wisdome he giveth us such a Law as shall sweetly and certainly lead us to that end for which he made us And last of all his Love it is to the work of his own hands thus to lead us And all these are shut up in this one word Lord. Let us view and consider all these and so look upon them as to draw down their influence and virtue into our souls to work that obedience in us which this Lord requireth and will reward First it is the Lord requireth I need not trouble you with a recital of those places of Scripture where God is called the Lord. For if the Scripture be as the Heaven this is a Star of the greatest magnitude and spreadeth its beams of Majesty and Power in the eyes of all men And to require is the very form of a Law I will I require if Power speak it is a Law It will be more apposit and agreeable to our purpose that we may the more willingly embrace and entertein this Good which is publisht as a Law to look upon this word Lord as it expresseth the Majesty and Greatness of God He is therefore said to be the Lord because he is omnipotent and can do all things that he will He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene a vast and boundless Ocean of Essence and he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a boundless and infinite Sea of Power Take the highest pitch of Dominion and Lordship that our imagination can reach yet it falleth short of his who is Lord of Lords to whom all earthly Majesty must vail and at whose feet all Princes lay down their Crowns and Sceptres And therefore Dionysius Longinus falling upon the story of the Creation De sublimi genere orat Sect. 7. maketh that expression of Moses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let there be light and there was light Let there be earth and there was earth the highest and most sublime that the art or thought of man could reach 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for thus the Majesty of God is best set forth He no sooner speaketh but it is done Nor can it be otherwise For as he is a Lord and hath an absolute and uncontrollable Will so his Will is attended by an infinite Power which is inseparable from it You may find them both joyned together Acts 4.28 All things are done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whatsoever his hand and his counsel determined to do Because he can do all things therefore he bringeth to pass whatsoever he will And his Hand and Power hath here the first place because all Counsell falleth to the ground if Power be not as a pillar and supporter to uphold it What is the strength of a strong man if there be a stronger then he to bind and disarm him What is it to conceive something in the womb of the mind to shape and form and fashion it and to bring it even to the door of life if there be no strength to bring it forth What is my Will if it be defeated Libera voluntas in nullum habet imperium praeterquam in se Hierocles apud
which we offer him a place and seat for honours sake who hath done some notable and meritorions service And so Christ having spoiled the adversary by his death having led captivity captive and put the Prince of darkness in chains at his return with these spoils heareth from his Father Sit now down at my right hand Nor doth God's right hand point out to any fixt or determined place where he sitteth For Christ himself telleth the high Priest that they shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of God and coming in the clouds of heaven Mark 14.62 which if literally understood we must needs conceive him coming and sitting at the same time All agree it is a Metaphor and some interpret it of that Supremacy Christ hath above the Creature For so he is described sitting at the right hand of God in heavenly places Eph. 1.20 21. far above all principality and power and every name that is named not onely in this world but in the world to come Some have conceived that by this honour of sitting at the right hand of God not onely an Equality with God is implyed but something more Equal to the Father as touching his God head Atha Nas Cr. Not that the Son hath any thing more then the Father for they are equal in all things but because in respect of the exercise and execution of his Royal office he hath as it were this dignity to sit in his Royal seat as Lord and Governour of his Church For the Father is said as I told you to commit all judgement to the Son But we may say with Tertullian Malo in scripturis fortè minùs sapere quà m contrá De Pudicit c. 9 We had rather understand less in Scripture then amiss rather be wary then venture too far and wade till we sink And that will prove the best interpretation of Scripture which we draw out of Scripture it self And then S. Paul hath interpreted it to our hands For whereas the Prophet David telleth us The Lord said unto my Lord Sit thou at my right hand the Apostle speaketh more expresly 1 Cor. 15.25 He must reign till he hath put down all enemies under his feet and in the Epistle to the Hebrews Heb. 8.1 We have such an high Priest who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens that is We have such an high Priest who is also a Lord and King of majesty and power to command and govern us who hath absolute authority over things in heaven and things in earth over all the souls and bodies of men and may prescribe them Laws reward the obedient and punish offenders either in this world or the next or in both For though he were a Lord and King even in his cratch and on his cross yet now his dominion and Kingly power was most manifest and he commandeth his Disciples to publish the Gospel of peace and those precepts of Christian conversation to all the world and speaketh not as a Prophet but as a Prince in his own name enjoyneth repentance and amendment of life to all the nations of the earth which were now all under his dominion Thus saith Christ himself Luke 24.46 47. it is writen and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in his name among all nations And his Dominion is not subordinate Matth. 8.9 but absolute He commandeth not as the Centurion in the Gospel who had divers under him yet himself was under authority but Prov. 30.31 as Solomon's King he is Rex ALKVM a King against whom there is no rising up And now that it may appear that he is not for ever thus to sit at the right hand of God but there sitteth to rule and govern us to behold and observe us in every motion and in every thought and will nay must come again with a reward for those who bow to his sceptre and with vengeance to be poured forth upon their heads who contemn his laws and think neither of him nor the right hand of God and will not have him reign over them though they call him their King let us a little further consider the nature and quality of his Dominion that our fear and reverence our care and caution may draw him yet a little nearer to us and we may not onely conceive of him as sitting at the right hand of God but so live as if he were now coming in the clouds Tell ye the daughter of Sion Matth. 2.51 Behold thy King cometh to thee meek and sitting on an ass and a colt the foal of an ass This was his first coming in great humility Philip. 2.8 9. And this and his retinue shew that his Kigdom was not of this world He humbled himself saith S. Paul wherefore God hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name given him power dignity and honour and made him our Lord and King For his Prophetical office which he exercised in the land of Judea was in a manner an act and effect of his Kingly office by which he sitteth as Lord in the throne of Mejesty For by it he declared his Fathers will and promulged his Laws throughout the world As a King and Lord he maketh his Laws and as a Prophet he publisheth them a Prophet and a Priest and a Lord for ever For he teacheth his Church he mediateth and intercedeth for his Church and governeth his Church to the end of the world Take then the Laws by which he governeth us the virtue and power the compass and duration of his Dominion and we shall find it to be of a higher and more excellent nature then that which the eye of flesh so dazleth at Rev. 19.16 that he is The LORD of Lords and KING of Kings And first the difference between his Dominion and the Kingdomes of the world is seen not onely in the Authours but the Laws themselves The Laws of men are enacted many times nec quid nec quare and no reason can be given why they are enacted good reason there is why there should be Laws made against them and they abolished Some written in blood too rigid and cruel some in water ready to vanish many of them but the results and dictates of mens lusts and wild affections made not so safeguard any State but their own But Christs are pure and undefiled exact and perfect such as tend to perfection to the good of his Subjects and will make them like unto this Lord heirs together with him of eternity of bliss And as the reward is eternal so are they unchangeable the same to day and to the end of the world not like the Laws of the Heathen which were raised with one breath and pulled down by another which were fixed by one hand and torn down by a
no right at all if it could be taken from him Neither deceit nor violence can take away a right No man can lose his right till he forfeit it which was impossible for this supreme Lord to do All the contradictions of all the men in the world cannot weaken his title or contract his power If all should forsake him Luke 19.14 if all should send this message to him We will not have thee reign over us yet in all this scorn and contempt in this open rebellion and contradiction of sinners he is still the Lord. And as he favoureth those subjects who come in willingly whom he guideth with his staff so he hath a rod of iron to bruise his enemies And this Lord shall command and at his command his servants and executioners shall take those his enemies who would not have him reign over them 27. and slay them before his face He will not use his power to force and drag them by violence to his service but if they refuse his help abuse the means which he offereth them and turn his grace into wantonness then will he shew himself a King and his anger will be more terrible then the roaring of a lion They shall feel him to be a Lord when it will be too late to call him so when they shall weep and curse and gnash with their teeth and howl under that Power which might have saved them For the same Power openeth the gates of heaven and of hell Psal 75.8 In his hand is a cup saith the Psalmist and in his hand is a reward and when he cometh to judge he bringeth them both along with him The same Power bringeth life and death as Fabius did peace or war to the Carthaginians in the lap of his garment and which he will he powreth out upon us and in both is still our Lord. When Faith faileth and Charity waxeth cold and the world is set on wickedness when there be more Antichrists then Christians he is our Lord yesterday and to day Hebr. 13.8 and the same for ever In the last place as the Dominion of our Lord is the largest that ever was so is it most lasting and shall never be destroyed Dan. 2.44 It shall break in pieces and destroy all the Kingdoms of the earth but it self shall stand fast for ever No violence shall shake it no craft undermine it no time wast it but Christ shall remain our Lord for ever The Apostle indeed speaketh of an end of delivering up his Kingdom 1 Cor. 15.24 28. and of subjection It is true there shall be an end but it is when he 〈◊〉 delivered up his Kingdom and he shall deliver up his Kingdom but not till he hath put down all authority Finis hic defectio non est nec traditio amissio nec subjectio infirmitas saith Hilary This end is no fayling this delivery no loss this subjection no weakness nor infirmity Regnum regnans tradet He shall deliver up his power and yet be still a Lord. Take Nazianzen's interpretation and then this Subjection is nothing else but the fuâ—filling of his Father's will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he in his 36th Oration which he made against the Arians Take others and by Christ is meant his Church which in computation is but one Person with Christ and when his Church is perfected then doth he deliver up his Power and Dominion But let us but observe the manner of the ending of this Kingdom and the fayling and period of others and we shall gain light enough to guide us in the midst of all these doubts and difficulties Either Kingdoms are undermined by craft and shaken by the madness of the people who shun the whip and are beaten with Scorpions cast off one yoke and put on a heavier as the young men in Livy complained or Kingdoms are changed and altered as it pleaseth those who are victorious whose right hand is their God But the Power of this Lord is then and onely in this sense said to have an end when indeed it is in its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perfection when there will be no enemy stirring to subdue no use of laws when the subjects are now made perfect when this Lord shall make his subjects Kings and crown them with glory and honour for ever Here is no weakness no infirmity no abjuration no resignation of the Crown and Power but all things are at an end his enemies in chains and his subjects free free from the fear of Hell or temptations of the Devil the World or the Flesh And though there be an end yet he reigneth still though he be subject yet he is as high as ever he was though he hath delivered up his Kingdome yet he hath not lost it but remaineth a Lord and King for evermore And now you have seen this Lord that is to come you have seen him sitting at the right hand of God his Right and Power of government his Laws just and holy and wise the Virtue and Power the Largeness and the Duration of his government A sight fit for those to look on who love and look for the coming of this Lord. For they that long to meet him in the clouds cannot but delight to behold him at the right hand of God Look upon him then sitting in majesty and power and think you now see him moving towards you and descending with a shout For his very sitting there should be to us as his coming it being but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the preparation to that great day Look upon him and think not that he there sitteth idle but beholdeth the children of men those that wait for him and those that think not of him And he will come down with a shout not fall as a timber-log for every frog every wanton sinner to leap upon and croak about but come as a Lord with a reward in one hand and a vengeance in the other Oh it is far better to fall down and worship him now then not to know him to be a Lord till that time that in his wrath he shall manifest his power and fall upon us and break us in pieces Look then upon this Lord and look upon his Laws and write them in your hearts For the Philosopher will tell us that the strength and perfection of Law consisteth not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the wise and discreet framing of them but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the right and due performance of them For Obedience is the best seal and ratification of a Law Christ is Lord from all eternity and cannot be devested of his Royal office yet he counteth his Kingdome most complete when we are subject and obedient unto him when he hath taken possession of our hearts where he may walk not as he did in Paradise terrible to Adam who had forfeited his allegiance but as in a garden of pleasures to delight himself with the sons of men Behold
him who perswaded him who was his counsellour He was all-sufficient and stood in need of nothing l. 4. c. 28. Non quasi indigens plasmavit Adam saith Irenaeus It was not out of any indigencie or defect in himself that he made Adam after his image He was all to himself before he made any thing nor could million of worlds have added to him What was it to him that there were Angels made Athenag Legat pro Christianis or Seraphim or Cherubim He gained not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Aristotle For there could be no accession nothing to heighten his perfection Did he make the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Athenagoras calleth it as an instrument to make him musick Did he clothe the lilies and dress up Nature in various colours to delight himself Or could he not reign without Man saith Mirandula God hath a most free and powerful and immutable will and therefore it was not necessary for him to work or to begin to work but when he would For he might both will and not will the creation of all things without any change of his will But it pleased him out of his goodness thus to break forth into action Sext. Emperic adv Mathemat pag. 327. Will you know the cause saith the Sceptick why he made world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He was good Nihil ineptius saith one quà m cogitare Deum nihil agentem There is nothing more vain then to conceive that God could be idle or doing of nothing And were it not for his Goodness we could hardly conceive him ad extrà agentem working any thing out of himself who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all-sufficient and blessed for evermore infinitely happy though he had never created the heaven and the earth though there had neither been Angel nor Man to worship him But he did all these things because he was good Bonitas saith Tertullian Adv. Marcion l. 2. otium sui non patitur hinc censetur si agatur Goodness is an active and restless quality and it is not when it is idle It cannot contain it self in it self And by his Goodness God made Man made him for his glory and so to be partaker of his happiness placed him here on earth to raise him up to heaven made him a living soul ut in vita hac compararet vitam that in this short and transitory life he might fit himself for an abiding City Heb. 13.14 and in this moment work out Aeternity Thus of himself God is good nor can any evil proceed from him If he frown we first move him if he be angry we have provoked him if he come in a tempest we have raised it if he be a consuming fire we have kindled it Heb. 12.29 We force him to be what he would not be we make him Thunder who is all Light Tert. advers Marc. l. 2. c. 11. Bonitas ingenita severitas accidens Alteram sibi alteram rei Deus praestitit saith the Father God's Goodness is natural his Severity in respect of its act accidental For God may be severe and yet not punish For he striketh not till we provoke him His Justice and Severity are the same as everlasting as Himself though he never speak in his wrath nor draw his sword If there were no Hell yet were he just and if there were no Abrahams bosome yet were he good Luk. 16. If there were neither Angel nor Man he were still the Lord blessed for evermore In a word he had been just though he had never been angry he had been merciful though Man had not been miserable he had been the same God just and good and merciful Rom. 5.12 though Sin had not entred in by Adam and Death by Sin God is active in good and not in evil He cannot do what he doth detest and hate he cannot decree ordain or further that which is most contrary to him He doth not kill me before all time and then in time ask me why I will die He doth not condemn me first and then make a Law that I may break it He doth not blow out my candle and then punish me for being in the dark That the conviction of a sinner should be the onely end of his exhortations and expostulations cannot consist with that Goodness which God is who when he cometh to punish facit opus non suum saith the Prophet Isa 28.21 doth not his own work doth a strange work a strange act an act that is forced from him a work which he would not do And as God doth not will our Death so doth he not desire to mani-his glory in it which as our Death proceedeth from his secondary and occasioned will For God saith Aquinas Aqui 1. 2 2. q 132. art 1. ◠seeketh not the manifestation of his glory for his own but for our sakes His glory as his Wisdome and Justice and Power is with him alwayes as eternal as himself No quire of Angels can improve no raging Devil can diminish his glory which in the midst of all the Hallelujahs of Seraphim and Cherubim in the midst of all the blasphemies of Men and Devils is still the same And his first will is to see it in his Image in the conformity of our wills to his where it shineth in the perfection of beauty rather then where it is decayed and defaced in a damned Spirit rather in that Saint he would have made then in that Reprobate and cursed soul which he was forced to throw into the lowest pit And so to receive his glory is that which he would not have which he was willing to begin on earth and then have made it perfect and compleat in the highest heavens Tert. ibid. Exinde ad mortem sed antè ad vitam The sentence of death was pronounced against Man almost as soon as he was Man but he was first created to life We are punished for being evil but we were first commanded to be good God's first will is that we glorifie him in our bodies and in our souls 1 Cor. 6.20 But if we frustrate his loving expectation here then he rowseth himself up as a mighty man and will be avenged of us and work his glory out of that which dishonoured him Prov. 14.28 and write it with our blood In the multitude of the people is the glory of a king saith the wisest of Kings and more glory if they be obedient to his laws then if they rebel and rise up against him That Common-wealth is more glorious where every man filleth his place then where the prisons are filled with thieves and traytours and men of Belial And though the justice and wisdome of the King may be seen in these yet it is more resplendent in those on whom the Law hath more power then the Sword In heaven is the glory of God best seen and his delight is to see it in the Church of the first
a word where there is no true Charity there can be no true Church and where there is the least Charity there it is least Reformed Talk not of Reformation Purity and Discipline They may be but names and make up a proud malicious faction but it is Charity and Charity alone that can build up a Church into a body compact within it self Malice and Pride and Contention do build indeed but it is in gehennam downwards to hell and present men on earth as so many damned Spirits And there is no greater difference between them then this that the one may the other can never repent An imbittered faction is a type and representation of Hell it self Let then Faith and Charity meet in our Trial and Preparation Faith is a foundation but if we raise not Charity upon it to grow up and spread and dilate it self in all its acts and operations it is nothing it is in vain and we are yet in our sins Let not Anger or Rancour or Malice keep you from this Table and bring you within that sad Dilemma That you must and may not come That to come and not to come is damnation And do not forfeit so great mercy to satisfie so vile and brutish affections Lose not the hope of being Saints by pleasing your selves in being beasts Why should LOVE be wrote so thick on your walls and scarce any character any 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any title of it in your hearts The Heart is the best table to receive it There engrave it with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond and then it will be legible also in your actions Remember it was Love that brought down Christ from heaven that nailed him to his cross that drew his heart-bloud from him and all to beget Love in us Love of God and Love of our Brethren And let this Love rule in our hearts and put down all our Malice Bitterness and Evil speaking all these our enemies under our feet Sacrifice and offer them up before we come to the Altar then shall we be fit to sit down at this Table Thus we must put our Charity to trial For this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a feast of Love Examine therefore whether thy Charity be firm and strong such a Charity as is stronger then Death a Charity that in Christ's cause will stand out against Poverty Imprisonment and Death it self a Charity which in respect of thy brethren will bear all things bear injuries kiss the hand that striketh thee bow to them that are in the dust condescend to the lowest a Charity which will die for the brethren For that Charity which speaketh big and doeth nothing scattereth words but casteth no bread on the waters defieth a tempest and runneth away at a blast can embrace a brother and yet persecute him forgive and yet wound him that is love and yet hate him will never fit and qualifie us for this feast of Love Let us then examine our selves And let us consider also him that inviteth us the Apostle and high Priest of our profession Christ Jesus Consider him as our high Priest and that we shall soon do For what captive would not be set at liberty Who that hath a debt to pay would not have a Surety that should pay it down for him Who that hath a request to put up would not have an Intercessour All this we may desire and yet not consider him as our high Priest And we must not think that he was such an high Priest for such as would not consider him and that he came to free those who did love their fetters to satisfie for wilful bankrupts to deliver them who all their life time delight in bondage to offer up those prayers which malice or oppression or deceit or hypocrisie have turned into sin Therefore let us also consider him as our Prophet putting into our hands those weapons of righteousness that spiritual armour those helps and advantages which are necessary and sufficient to work our liberty to strike off our fetters and demolish in us the Kingdom of Sin And here put it to the trial and ask thy self the question Art thou willing to hearken to this Prophet Art thou willing he should teach thee Wouldst thou not make the way to heaven wider and his yoke easier then he hath made it Hast thou not looked on these helps and advantages as superstitious and unnecessary As he is thy Prophet so art not thou his interpreter and hast taught him to speak friendly to thy lusts and sensual appetite Hast thou not given a large swinge to Revenge let out a longer line to Christian Liberty and given a broader space for the Love of the world to trade in then ever this Prophet did This is not to consider him but effoeminare disciplinam to corrupt his discipline and to make Christianity it self which is a severe Religion wanton and effeminate by the interpretations And therefore thou must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 examine thy self yet more and more Bring it to a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a judgment till thou hast censured and condemned those thy glosses and presented in thy conversation an Expurgatory Index of them all till thou canst digest his precepts with all the aloes and gall with all the hardness and bitterness that is in them and then thy stomach also and thy heart will be prepared for this Bread of life for this celestial Manna Last of all canst thou consider him as thy King and Lord Is his fear to thee as the roaring of a Lion and his wrath as messengers of death And art thou willing to kiss to bow and worship him that he be not angry Canst thou discover Majesty in him now Majesty in his discipline wisdom in his Laws power in weakness now in this life when he is whipped and scourged and crucified again when his precepts are made subject to flesh and bloud and dragged in triumph after the wills of men when for one Hosanna he hath a thousand Crucifiges for one formal and hypocritical acknowledgment a thousand spears in his sides Who hath most command over thee the Prince of this world or this King Will not a smile from beauty move thee more then the glory of his promises Art thou not more afraid of the frown of a man of power then of his wrath Will not the love of the world drive thee against more pricks and difficulties then the love of a Saviour Will not that carry thee from east to west when the command of this King shall not draw thee a Sabbath dayes journey to visit the fatherless and widows Art thou of the same mind with him Are thy will and affections bound up in his will Is his will thy Law and his Law thy delight Then he is thy Priest and hath sacrificed himself to make thee a Feast He is thy Prophet to invite and fit thee and thy King to welcome thee and he shall gird himself and make thee sit
yet be dead to the world and so make his way through the valley and shadow of death to his journeyes end Psal 23.4 to that rest which remaineth for the people of God who are but strangers Hebr. 4.9 and pilgrimes upon earth This is the best supply Hebr. 11.13 And for this the Psalmist putteth up his petition in the words of my Text I am a stranger upon earth hide not thy commandments from me They are the words of the Kingly Prophet And in the thirty ninth Psalm he hath the very same Hold not thy peace at my tears Psal 39.12 for I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner as all my fathers were In them he presenteth unto us his state and condition and in his own the condition of all mankind Menander fecit Andriam Perinthiam One man is the map of all Mankind and he that knoweth one knoweth them all David was and then all men are but accolae inquilini Howsoever their pomp and glory may dazle the eyes of men yet if we will define them aright and set them out as they are they are but strangers and pilgrimes upon earth We have here first a Doctrine declaring what we are We are but strangers upon earth That is our condition He that is least in it is so and he that hath most and is Lord of it is no more Secondly the Use or Inference Hide not thy commandments from me He that hath one eye upon his Frailty and Defects will have another upon a Supply He that knoweth himself a stranger will desire a guide Or you have 1. our Character We are strangers and 2. our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Viaticum our Provision in our way the commandments of God Or if you please you may consider I. the Person I David II. his Quality and Condition a King and yet a stranger on the earth And these two draw together into one the two most different states of the world a powerful Prince and a poor Pilgrime him that sitteth on the Throne and him that grindeth at the mill the crowned Head and that Head which hath not a hole to hide it seif in And III. the Reason why the holy Ghost to teach us our condition doth make choice of a King Out of which we shall raise this Doctrine which is but a Paraphrase of the Text first That Man by nature is but a stranger to the world secondly That he is to make himself so And that you may I must hold out to you IV. your Provision the commandments of God and shew you of what use they be to you in this your peregrination and pilgrimage First we must look on the Person that speaketh And we may peradventure wonder that he speaketh it that he who was as a God upon earth one of those whom God himself calleth so should yet speak in the low and humble language of a Lazar and count himself a stranger We may well think the character doth but ill befit him It may seem rather to be the speach of some one of the Rechabites who by their father Jonadab were forbidden to build houses Jer. 35 7. to sow seed to plant vineyards or to have any but all their lives to dwell in tents or of some one of the Essenes a Sect amongst the Jews who left the City and betook themselves to fields and mountains Nat. Hist l. 6. 1◠Gens aeterna in qua tamen nemo nascitur said Pliny of them a lasting nation in which notwithstanding none were born for they begat Sectaries and not Children or of some one of them of whom the Apostle speaketh Hebr. 11.38 that wandred in desarts and mountains in dens and caves of the earth or of some Ascetical Monk devoted and shut up in some cloyster or of some Anchorete shut up between two walls This speach had well befitted one of these And had Demosthenes or Tully been to draw the character of a Stranger upon earth they would have brought him out of the streets or high-wayes out of some cell or prison with all the marks about him but their imagination would have passed by the Palaces of Princes as yielding nothing of him For a KING is but a nick-name but a soloecisme if he be not at home in every place But the holy Ghost regardeth not this Rhetorick observeth not this art which indeed is made up but by the eye His method is è schola Coeli drawn out by that Wisedome which formed and fashioned us and knoweth whereof and what we are made And that which flesh and bloud counteth a soloecisme with him is the most exact propriety of language What with us is lookt upon as against the rules of art with him is most regular I may say Truth is the Spirits art and those words which convey it are the best elegancies And thus to commend this lesson to us he maketh choice of a person to an eye of flesh most unlikely 1 Kings 18.33 as Elijah took water to kindle the fire upon the Lords Altar A King on the earth and a stranger on the earth will hardly be coupled together in the same proposition For how can they be strangers on earth who are the onely Lords and proprietaries of it Kings are Domini rerum temporúmque Lords of the times and of all affairs and carry all before them 1 Sam. 8.11 c. This shall be the manner of the King saith Samuel He shall take your sons and your daughters and make them his servants He shall take your fields and your vineyards and turn them to his own use A KING The very name striketh a terrour into us and putteth out the best eye we have our Reason that we cannot discern between the King and the Man nor the Man and the Stranger that we judge of him by what he is Si libet licet His will is his Law and what he doth is just or he will make it so for who dares say Eccl. 8.4 What dost thou And yet this King this God is but a stranger Take him in his Zenith take all his broad-blown glories his swelling titles his over spreading power and all are drawn together and shrunk up in this one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Accola Whatsoever he is whatsoever he appeareth he is but a stranger Behold here the Kingly Prophet maketh it his profession layeth by the title of a King as guilty of a Misnomer and calls himself a Pilgrime And as in the darkness of Popery he that vowed a Pilgrimage either to our Lady or some other Saint to Rome or to Jerusalem did present himself before the Altar and then receive his Scrip and Staff so am I here this day occasioned by this Pilgrime this honoured Knight to exhort you to vow a Pilgrimage not to this or that Saint but to the King of Saints and this you may do and stay at home In your house and peivate closets this Pilgrimage is best vowed
unto death There is lex Factorum the Law of Works For they are not all Credenda in the Gospel all articles of Faith there be Agenda some things to be done Nor is the Decalogue shut out of the Gospel Nay the very articles of our Creed include a Law and in a manner bind us to some duty and though they run not in that imperial strain Do this and live yet they look towards it as towards their end Otherwise to believe them in our own vain and carnal sense vvere enough and the same faith vvould save us vvith vvhich the Devils are tormented No thy Faith to vvhich thou art also bound as by a Law is dead that is is not faith if it do not vvork by a Law Thou believest there is a God Thou art then bound to vvorship him Thou believest that Christ is thy Lord Thou art then obliged to do what he commandeth His Word must be thy Law and thou must fulfill it His Death is a Law and bindeth thee to mortification His Cross should be thy obedience his Resurrection thy righteousness and his Coming to judge the quick and the dead thy care and solicitude In a word in a Testament in a Covenant in the Angel's message in the Promises of the Gospel in every Article of thy Creed thou mayest find a Law Christ's Legacy his Will is a Law the Covenant bindeth thee the Good news obligeth thee the Promises engage thee and every Article of thy Creed hath a kind of commanding and legislative power over thee Either they bind to some duty or concern thee not at all For they are not proposed for speculation but for practice and that consequence vvhich thou mayest easily draw from every one must be to thee as a Law What though honey and milk be under his tongue and he sendeth embassadours to thee and they intreat and beseech thee in his stead and in his name Yet is all this in reference to his command and it proceedeth from the same Love which made his Law And even these beseechings are binding and aggravate our guilt if we melt not and bow to his Law Principum preces mandata sunt the very intreaties of Kings and Princes are as binding as Laws preces armatae intreaties that carry force and power with them that are sent to us as it were in arms to invade and conquer us And if we neither yield to the voice of Christ in his royal Law nor fall down and worship at his condescensions and loving parlies and earnest beseechings we increase our guilt and make sin sinful in the highest degree Nor need we thus boggle at the word or be afraid to see a Law in the Gospel if either we consider the Gospel it self or Christ our King and Lord or our selves who are his redeemed captives and owe him all service and allegeance For first the Gospel is not a dispensation to sin nor was a Saviour born to us that he should do and suffer all and we do what we list No the Gospel is the greatest and sharpest curb that was ever yet put into the mouth of Sin The grace of God saith S. Paul hath appeared unto all men teaching us that is commanding us Tit. 2.11 to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts Libertas in Christo non fecit innocentiae injuriam saith the Father Our liberty in Christ was not brought in to beat down innocency before it but to uphold it rather and defend it against all those assaults which flesh and bloud our lusts and concupiscence are ready to make against it Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world He taketh away those sins that are past by remission and pardon but he setteth up a Law as a rampire and bulwork against Sin that it break not in and reign again in our mortal bodies There Christ is said to take away not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sins but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sin of the world that is the whole nature of Sin that it may have no subsistence or being in the world If the Gospel had nothing of Law in it there could be no sin under the Gospel For Sin is a transgression of a Law But flatter our selves as we please those are the greatest sins which we commit against the Gospel And it shall be easier in the day of judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah then for those Christians who turn the grace of God into wantonness who sport and revel it under the very wings of Mercy who think Mercy cannot make a Law but is busie onely to bestow Donatives and Indulgences who are then most licencious when they are most restrained For what greater curb can there be then when Justice and Wisdom and Love and Mercy all concur and joyn together to make a Law Secondly Christ is not onely our Redeemer but our King and Law-giver As he is the wonderful Counsellour Isa 9 6. Psal 2.6 so he came out of the loyns of Judah and is a Law-giver too Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion The government shall be upon his shoulder He crept not to this honour Isa 9.6 but this honour returned to him as to the true and lawful Lord With glory and honour did God crown him and set him over the works of his hands Heb. 2.7 As he crowned the first Adam with Understanding and freedom of Will so he crowned the second Adam with the full Knowledge of all things with a perfect Will and with a wonderful Power And as he gave to Adam Dominion over the beasts of the field so he gave to Christ Power over things in heaven and things on earth And he glorified not himself Heb. 5.5 but he who said Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee he it was that laid the government upon his shoulder Not upon his shoulders For he was well able to bear it on one of them For in him the Godhead dwelleth bodily And with this power he was able to put down all other rule autority and power 1 Cor. â—5 24 to spoil principalities and powers and to shew them openly in triumph to spoil them by his death and to spoil them by his Laws due obedience to which shaketh the power of Hell it self For this as it pulleth out the sting of Death so also beateth down Satan under our feet This if it were universal would be the best exorcism that is and even chase the Devil out of the world which he maketh his Kingdom For to run the way of Christ's commandments is to overthrow him and bind him in chains is another hell in hell unto him Thirdly if we look upon our selves we shall find there is a necessity of Laws to guide and regulate us and to bring us to the End All other creatures are sent into the world with a sense and understanding of the end for which they come and so without particular direction and yet unerringly
the sea in the deluge of our lusts if we do not bury our selves alive in stubborn impenitency if we do not stop up all the passages of our souls if we do not still love darkness and make it a pavilion round about us he will look upon us through this light and look lovingly upon us with favour and affection He will look upon us as his purchase and he that delivered his Son for us will with him also freely give us all things Which is the End of all the End of Christ's being delivered and offereth it self to our consideration in the last place IV. God delivered God sent God gave his Son All these expressions we find to make him a Gift He is the desire and he is the riches of all Nations As whatsoever we do we must do so whatsoever we have we receive in his name The name of Jesus saith S. Peter of the impotent man Acts 3.13 1 Cor. 6.11 Col. 2.3 hath made this man strong By his name we are justified by his name we are sanctified by his name we shall enter into glory With him we have all things for in him are all the treasures of riches and wisdome We may think of all the Kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them but these come not within the compass nor are to be reckoned amongst his Donations For as the Naturalists observe of the glory of the Rainbow that it is wrought in our eye and not in the cloud and that there is no such pleasing variety of colours there as we see so the pomp and riches and glory of this world are of themselves nothing but are the work of our opinion and the creations of our phansie and have no worth or price but what our lusts and desires set upon them Luxuria his pretium fecit It is our Luxury which hath raised the market and made them valuable and in esteem which of themselves have nothing to commend them and set them off My Covetousness maketh that which is but earth a God my Ambition maketh that which is but air an heaven and my Wantonness walketh in the midst of pleasures as in a paradise There is no such thing as Riches and Poverty Honour and Peasantry Trouble and Pleasure but we have made them and we make the distinction There are no such plants grow up in this world of themselves but we set them and water them and they spread themselves and cast a shadow and we walk in this shadow and delight or disquiet our selves in vain Diogenes was a king in his tub when Great Alexander was but a slave in the world which he had conquered How many Heroick persons lie in chains whilest Folly and Baseness walk at large And no doubt there have been many who have looked through the paint of the pleasures of this life and beheld them as monsters and then made it their pleasure and triumph to contemn them And yet we will not quite exclude and shut out Riches and the things of this world from the sum For with Christ they are somthing and they are then most valuable when for his sake we can fling them away It is he alone that can make Riches a gift and Poverty a gift Honour a gift and Dishonour a gift Pleasure a gift and Trouble a gift Life a gift and Death a gift By this power they are reconciled and drawn together and are but one and the same thing If we look up into heaven there we shall see them in a neer conjunction even the poor Lazar in the Rich mans bosome In the night there is no difference to the eye between a pearl and a pibble between the choicest beauty and most abhorred deformity In the night the deceitfulness of Riches and the glory of Affliction lie hid and are not seen or in a contrary shape in the false shape of terrour where it is not or of glory where it is not to be found But when the light of Christ's countenance shineth upon them then they are seen as they are and we behold so much deceitfulness in the one that we dare not trust them and so much hope and advantage in the other that we begin to rejoyce in them and so make them both conducible to that end for which he was delivered and our convoyes to happiness All things is of a large compass large enough to take in the whole world But then it is the world transformed and altered the world conquered by faith i Cor. 3.21 22 23. the world in subjection to Christ All things are ours when we are Christ's There is a Civil Dominion and right to these things and this we have jure creationis by right of Creation Psal 24.1 115.16 For the earth is the Lord's and he hath given it to the sons of men And there is an Evangelical Dominion not the power of having them but the power of using them to God's glory that they may be a Gift and this we have jure adoptionis by right of Adoption as the sons of God begotten in Christ Christ came not into the world to purchase it for us or enstate us in it He did not suffer that we might be wanton nor was poor that we might be rich nor was brought to the dust of death that we might be set in high places Such a Messias did the Jews look for and such a Messias do some Christians worse than the Jews frame to themselves and in his name they beat their fellow-servants and strip them deceive and defraud them because they phansie themselves to be his in whom there was found no guile They are in the world as the mad Athenian was on the shore Every ship every house every Lordship is theirs And indeed they have as fair a title to their brothers estate as they have to the kingdome of heaven for they have nothing to shew for either I remember S. Paul calleth the Devil the God of this world 2 Cor. 4.4 and these in effect make him the Saviour of the world For as if he had been lifted up and nailed to the cross for them to him every knee doth bow nor will they receive the true Messias but in this shape They conceive him giving gifts unto men not spiritual but temporal not the graces of the Spirit Humility Meekness and Contentedness but Silver and Gold dividing inheritances removing of land-marks giving to Ziba Mephibosheth's land making not Saints but Kings upon the earth Thus they of the Church of Rome have set it down for a positive truth That all civil Dominion is founded in Grace that is in Christ A Doctrine which bringeth with it a Pick-lock and a Sword and giveth men power to spoyl whom they please to take from them that which is theirs either by fraud or by violence and to do both in the name and power of Christ But let no man make his Charter larger than it is In the Gospel we find none of such an
We have also the testimony of Martyrs who took their death on 't and when they could not live to publish it laid down their life and sealed it with their Blood And therefore we on whom the ends of the world are come have no reason to complain of distance and that we are removed so many ages from the time wherein it was done For now Christ risen is become a more obvious object than before the diversity of mediums have increased and multiplyed it We see him in his Word we see him through the Blood of Martyrs and we see him with the eye of faith Christ is risen and alive 1 Cor. 15.3 4. secundum scripturas saith S. Paul and he repeateth it twice in the same chapter Offenderunt Judaei in Christum lapidem it is S. Augustines and let it pass for his sake When the Jew stumbled at him he presented but the bigness of a stone but our Infidelity will find no excuse if we see him not now when he appeareth as visible as a mountain There is more in this VIVO than a bare rising to life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He liveth in as much as He giveth life There is vertue and power in his Resurrection a power to abolish Death 2 Tim. 1.10 and to bring life and immortality to light a power to raise our vile bodies and a power to raise our viler souls He will raise them nay he hath done it already Col. 2.12 3.1 We are risen together with him and we live with him We cannot think that he that made such haste out of his own grave can be willing to see us rotting in ours From this VIVO it is that though we dye yet we shall live again Christ's Living breatheth life into us In his Resurrection he cast the modell of ours Idea est eorum quae fiunt exemplar aeternum saith Seneca And this is such a one an eternal pattern Plato 's Idea or common Form by which he thought all things have their existence is but a dream to this This is a true and real an efficacious and working pattern For as an Artificer hath not lost his art when he hath finished one piece no more did Christ lose his power when he had raised himself but as he is so it is everlasting and worketh still to the end of the world Perfectum est exemplar minùs perfecti That which Christ wrought upon himself is most exact and perfect a fit pattern of that which he meaneth to work on us which will be like to his indeed but not so glorious And now VIVO I live is as loud to raise our Hope as the last trump will be to raise our Bodies And how shall they be able to hear the sound of the trump who will not hear the voice of their Saviour Christ's life derives its vertue and influence on both Soul and Body on the Body with that power which is requisite to raise a body now putrified and incinerated and well near annihilated and on the Soul with such a power as is fitted to a soul which hath both Understanding and Will though drawn and carried away from their proper operations for which they were made We do not read of any precept to bind us or any counsel â—o perswade us to contribute any thing or put a hand to the resurrection of our bodies nor can there be it will be done whether we will or no But to Awake from the pleasant sleep of sin to be Renewed and raised in the inward man to Die to sin and Live to righteousness we have line upon line and precept upon precept And though this Life of Christ work in us both the will and the deed Phil. 2.12 Phil. 2.13 yet a necessity and a law lieth upon us and wo will be unto us if we work not out our salvation By his power we are raised in both but not working after the same manner There will be a change in both As the flesh at the second so the soul at the first resurrection must be reformata Angelificata spiritualized refined and angelified or rather Christificata If I may so speak Christified drawing in no breath but Christs Phil. 2.5 Job 17.13 14 having the same mind which was in Christ Jesus Whilst our bed is in the darkness whilst Corruption is our father and the Worm our mother and sister we cannot be said to be risen and whilest all the alliance we have is with the World and it is both Father and Mother and Sister to us whilest we mind earthly things we are still in our graves nay in hell it self Death hath dominion over us For let us call the World what we please our Habitation our Delight our Kingdome where we would dwell for ever yet indeed it is but our Grave If we receive any influence from Christ's life we shall rise fairly not with a mouth which is a sepulchre but with a tongue which is our glory not with a withred hand but with a hand stretched out to the needy not with a gadding eye but an eye shut up by covenant not with an itching but with an obedient ear not with a heart of stone but with a heart after Gods own heart Our Life Col. 3.3 saith the Apostle is hid with Christ in God and whilest we leave it thereby a continual meditation of his meritorious suffering by a serious and practical application of his glorious resurrection we hide it in the bosome of Majesty and no dart of Satan can reach it When we hide it in the minerals of the earth in the love of the world the Devil who is the Prince of the world is there to seize on it when we hide it in malicious and wanton thoughts they are his baits to catch it when we hide it in sloth and idleness we hide it in a grave which he digged for us we entomb our selves alive and as much as in us lies bury the Resurrection it self But when we hide it in Christ we hide it in him who carrieth healing and life in his wings Mal. 4.2 When we worship God through Jesus Christ our Lord and put our life in his hands 2 Cor. 4.11 then the life of Jesus is made manifest in our mortal flesh then we have put off the old man yea in a manner put off our mortality we are candidati aeternitatis as Tertullian speaketh Candidates for eternity and stand for a place with Abraham and Isaac for we have the same God and he is not the God of the dead Matth. 21.32 but of the living We see now what virtue and power there is in this VIVO in the Life of Christ But we must rise yet higher even as high as Eternity it self Hebr. 6.20 Hebr. 7.16 For as he liveth so behold he is alive for evermore a Priest for ever and a King for ever being made not after the law of a carnal commandment after that law which was given to
from whence he looketh dovvn upon those vvho are such fools as to be virtuous and smileth to see them toil and svveat in such rugged and unpleasing vvayes carried on vvith a fear on the one side and a hope on the other of that which will never be And indeed how weary and how soon weary would men be of doing good if there were not a lasting recompense if they were not half-perswaded for a ful perswasion is but rare that there were something laid up in everlasting habitations Honour Repute and Advantage these may bring forth a Hypocrite these may bind on the phylacteries on a Pharisee but nothing can raise up a Saint but Eternity nor can that which fleeteth and passeth away build us up in a holy faith And then there would be no such ship as Faith which might fear a wreck 1 Tim. 1.19 no such anchor as Hope but our faith would be vain and our hope also vain and we left to be tossed up and down on the waves of uncertainty having no haven to thrust into but that which is as turbulent and uncertain as the sea it self and with it ebbeth and floweth and at last will ebb into nothing But I am alive for evermore deriveth an Eternity to that which in it self is fading maketh our actions which end in the doing and are quickly gone and past eternal our words which are but wind eternal and our thoughts which perish with us eternal We shall meet them again and feel the effect of them to all eternity It maketh Hell eternal that we may fly from it and Heaven eternal that we may press towards it and take it by violence Christ's living for ever eternizeth his Threatnings and maketh them terrible his Promises and maketh them perswasive and eloquent eternizeth our Faith and Hope eternizeth all that is praise-worthy that they may be as a pass or letters commendatory to prevail and procure us admittance into his presence who only hath immortality and can give eternal life This is the virtue and operation of I am alive for evermore For though a time will come that Christ shall not govern nor intercede yet the power of his Scepter and the virtue of his Intercession is carried on along with joy and happiness of the Saints as the Cause with the Effect even to all eternity shall have its operation in the midst of all our glorious ravishments and shall tune our Halellujahs and Songs of thanksgiving to this our Priest and King that liveth for evermore We pass now from the Duration and Continuance of his Life to his Power He hath the keys of Hell and of Death Habeo claves I have the keyes is a Metaphorical speech And Metaphorae ferascissimae controversiarum saith Martin Luther Metaphors are a soyl wherein controversies will grow up thick and twine and plat themselves one within the other whilest every man manureth them and soweth upon them what seed he please even that which may bring forth such fruit as may be most agreeable to his taste and humour Lord what a noise have these keyes made in the world You would think they were not Keyes but Bells sounding terrour to some and making others more bold and merry than they should be Some have gilded them over others have even worn and filed them quite away put them into so many hands that they have left none at all For though they know not well what they are yet every man taketh courage enough to handle them and let in and let out whom they please One faction turneth them against another the Lutherane against the Calvinist and diabolifieth him and the Calvinist against the Lutherane and superdiabolifieth him The Church of Rome made it a piece of wisdome to shut Us out and all that will not bow unto her as subordinate and dependant on that Church Which was but idle Physick and did neither hurt nor good but was as a dart sent after those who were gone out of reach a Curse denounced against those who heard it and blest themselves in it Indeed a point of ridiculously affected gravity such as that Church hath many For what prejudice could come to us by her shutting Us out who had already put our selves out of her Communion unless you will think the valour of that Souldier fit for Chronicle who cut of the head of a man who was dead before I have the keyes saith Christ and it is most necessary he should keep them in his hands For we see how dangerous it may prove to put them into the hand of a mortal man subject to passions and too often guided and commanded by them and we know what tragedies the mistaking of the Keyes have raised in the world And yet he that hath these Keyes this Power hath delegated also a power to his Apostles not only to preach the Gospel but to correct those who disobey it I would not attribute too much to the Pastours of the Church in this dull and iron or rather in this wanton age where any thing where nothing is thought too much for them where all hath been Preaching till all are Preachers Yet I cannot but think they have more to do than to speak in publick which it is thought every Christian may do They are the Ambassadours of Christ 2 Cor. 5.20 set apart on purpose in Christs stead to minister to his Church yea to rule and govern his Church 1 Tim. 3.5 5.17 it is S. Pauls phrase And they carry about with them his Commission a power delegated from him to sever the Goats from the Sheep even in this life that they may become Sheep to segregate them to abstein or withhold them Abstinere Cypr. Segregare Exauctorare Virgâ Pastorali ferire c. Hieron to exauctorate them to throw them out to strike them with the pastoral rod to anathematize them c. This was the language of the first and purest times By degrees this power fell in its esteem through some abuse of it it being drawn down from that most profitable and necessary end for which it was given And this at last brought all Religion into disgrace Nor indeed could it be otherwise For if upon the abuse of a thing we must straight call for the beesome to sweep it away what can stand long in its place The Temple is prophaned that must down to the ground Liberality is abused shut up your purse and your bowels together Prayer is abused and turned into babling tack up your tongues to the roof of your mouth Nay every thing in the world is abused therefore if this argument be good the world it self should long since have had its end But such a power Christ did leave unto his Church and the neglect of it on the one side and the contempt of it on the other hath brought in that lukewarmness and indifferency amongst the professours of Christianity which if God prevent not will at last shake and throw down the profession
weigh the danger of them and from what they proceed First if we would find out the fountain from whence they flow we shall find it is nothing else but a strange Distrust in God and a violent Love of the World a Distrust in that God who is so far from leaving Man destitute of that which is convenient for him Psal 147.9 that hee feedeth the young Ravens that call upon him For if the windows of heaven do not open at our call if riches increase not to fill our vast desires we murmur and repine and even chide the Providence of God and by foul and indirect means pursue that which would not fall into our mouthes As Saul in the book of Kings 1 Sam. 28.6 7. Acheronta movemus when God will not answer we ask counsel of the Devil Secondly we may think perhaps that they are the effects of Power and Wisdome the works of men who bear a brain with the best the glorious victories of our Wit and trophies of our Power but indeed they are the infallible arguments of Weakness and Impotency and as the Devils marks upon us Non est vera magnitudo posse nocere It is not true Power or true Greatness to be able to injure our brethren It is not true Wisdome to be cunning artists in evil and to do that in the dark which may be done with more certainty and honour in the light and to raise up that with a lye which will rise higher and stand longer with the truth That Power more emulateth the Power of God by which we can do good that cometh nearer by which we will Nor can we attribute Wisdome to the fraudulent but that which we may give to a Jugler or a Pick-purse or indeed to the Devil himself And commonly these scarabees are bred in the dung of Laziness and Luxury and their crafty insinuating and subtle sliding into other mens estate had its rise and beginning from an indisposition and inability to manage their own He that can bring no Demonstration must play the Sophister And if the body will not do then he that will be rich saith Nevisanus the Lawyer must venture his soul Lastly weigh the danger Though the bread of deceit have a pleasant tast and goeth down glibly yet passing to thee through so foul a chanel as Fraud or Oppression it will fill thee with the gall of Asps The robbery of the wicked shall destroy them Prov. 21.7 saith Solomon shall fall upon them like a talent of lead Zech. 5.7 8. fall upon the mouth of their Ephah and lye heavy upon it Serrabit eos so it is rendred by others shall tear their Conscience as with a saw exossabit so others shall consume them to the very bones and break them as upon a wheel or as others rapina eorum diversabitur that which is got unjustly shall not stay long with them It may give them a salutation a complement peregrinabitur like a traveller on the way it may lodge with them for a night but dwell longer as with a friend it will not but take the wing and fly away from these unjust usurpers Psal 26.6 never at rest but in those hands which are washt in innocency and in that mouth which knoweth no guile 1 Pet. 2.12 will dwell with none but those that do justly To conclude Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man who doth that which is evil and unjust to the oppressour and deceiver Rom. 2.7 9 10. to the man that boasteth himself in his Power and to the man that blesseth himself in his Craft to the proud Hypocrite and the demure Politician but to those that do justly that are as God is just in all their waies Psal 145.17 and righteous in all their dealings that walk holily before God and justly with men shall be glory and honour and peace and immortality and eternal life Thus much of Justice and Honesty The next is the Love of Mercy The Fifth SERMON PART V. MICAH VI. 8. He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly c. WE have laid hold of one Branch of this Tree of life and beheld what fruit it bare We must now see what we can gather from the second Mercy or Liberality which groweth upon the same stock is watered with the same dew from heaven and bringeth forth fruit meet for repentance and answerable to our heavenly calling Whether you take it in actu elicito or in actu imperato whether you take it in the habit or in the act which is misericordia eliquata that which runneth from it in the melting as it were the Love of Mercy includeth both both a sweet and heavenly disposition a rich treasurie of goodness full and ready to empty it self and those several acts which are drawn out of it or rather which it commandeth And here though miracles be ceased yet this by the blessing of the God of mercy retaineth a miraculous power healeth the sick bindeth up the wounded raiseth the poor out of the dust and in a manner the dead to life again upholdeth the drooping and fainting spirit which is ready to fail intercedeth and fighteth against the cruelty of persecutours filleth up the breaches which they make raiseth up that which they ruine clotheth the naked whom they have stripped buildeth up what they have pulled down and is as a quickning power and a resurrection to those whom the hand of Wickedness and Injustice hath laid low and even buried in the dust A Branch it is which shadoweth and refresheth all those who are diminished and brought low by oppression Psal 107.39 evil and sorrow And these two Justice and Mercy are neighbouring Branches so enwrapped and entwined one within the other that you cannot sever them For where there is no Justice there can be no Mercy and where there is no Mercy there Justice is but gall and wormwood Therefore in the Scripture they go hand in hand Vnto the upright man there ariseth light in darkness Psal 112. he is gracious and full of compassion and righteous There is an eye of Justice a single and upright eye as well as an eye of Mercy There is an eye that looketh right on Prov. 4.25 Prov. 22.9 and there is a bountiful eye and if you shut but one of them you are in darkness He that hath an evil eye to strip his brother can never see to clothe them He whose feet are swift to shed blood will be but a cripple when he is called to the house of mourning and if his bowels be shut up his hand will be scon stretcht out to beat his fellow servants It becometh the Just to be thankful Psal 33.1 In their mouth praise is comely it is a song it is musick And it becometh the Just to be merciful and liberal out of their heart mercy floweth kindly streameth forth like the river out
in any office for which the one should be pluckt out or the other cut off both the one and the other are in their highest exaltation being both now under the will of God Our Understanding many times walketh in things too high for it yet thinketh she is above them and our Will inclineth and that too oft to things forbidden because they are so cannot endure the check and restraint of a command but breaketh it under that name the two greatest evils under the Sun We are too wise and we are too willful Now the pride of our Will is quickly seen and therefore the more curable It sheweth it self in the wild irregular motions of the outward man It lifteth up the Hand it moveth the Tongue it rowleth the Eye it painteth it self upon the very Countenance either in smiles or frowns either in chearfulness or terrour It is visible in each motion and there be laws to check and curb it that it may not be so troublesome and destructive as otherwise it would be But quae latent nocent The Serpent at the heel an overweening conceit of our own knowledge of our own perfections how invisible doth it enter us how deceitfully doth it flatter us how subtilly ensnare us Bene sapimus in causa nostra We are wise in our own cause We have digged deep and found the Truth which others do but talk of We cannot be deceived and the thought That we cannot be deceived doth deceive us most Now we are rich now we are learned now we are wise 1 Cor. 4.8 now we reign as Kings and carry all before us We controll the weak with our power the ignorant with our knowledge the poor with our wealth the simple with our wisdome and confute our selves with our own arguments and are poor because we are so rich can do little because we can do so much are deceived and manifest our folly unto all men because we are so wise For whither will this high conceit of our selves lift us Even above our selves besides our selves against our selves For wheresoever we stand we stand a contradiction to our selves and others and are as far from what we would set up as they are who would set up something else which is nothing like it We conceive the world is shaken and out of order and we put forth our hand to bear up the pillars of it We form Common-wealths we square out one by another and know the dimensions of neither We model Churches draw out their Government that is make a coat for the Moon We make a Church and clothe it with our phansie fit it with a Government as with a garment which will never be put on or if it be the next Power may pluck it off and leave it naked leave it nothing or put on some other which may be worn with more honour and safety to that Power which put it on This is visible and open to the eye and that eye is but weak and dull which doth not see and observe it Why should then our Pride and Self-conceit thus walk as in shadow as in a dream Why should we thus disquiet our selves in vain and busie our selves and trouble others to build up that to which we can contribute no more then a poor feeble wish which hath not power enough to raise it to that desired height in which we would have it seen but will leave it where it was first set up an useless unregarded thing in our brain and imagination Christ and his Apostles did not leave the Church naked but fitted her with a garment which she wore for many ages in which there were scarce any that did stand up and say it did not become her And if we do not now like the fashion but sit down and invent another we do but teach and prompt others to do the like so we shall have many more and none at all be ever chusing ever changing even to the end of the world This is it which hath divided Christians which have but one name and giveth them so many that it will cost us labour and study but to number them This rendeth the Church with schism For men that will not be confined are ever asking how they should be governed and they are busiest to question the present form of discipline who would have none And if you observe the behaviour of the Schismatick you may behold him walk as if he had the Urim and Thummim on his breast the breast plate of judgement ever with him For by a thought which is but a look of the mind he discovereth and determineth all things So dangerous is this spiritual Pride both to our selves and others Nor is the high conceit of our own perfections and holiness less dangerous but most fatal to our selves For that heaven which we draw out in our phansie hath no more light and joy in it then the region of darkness Onely what is wanting in reality we supply with thought but to no more purpose then that Souldier who having no other pillow to lay his head on but his head-piece that he might make it more easie filled it with chaff Gal. 6.3 We think our selves to be something as the Apostle speaketh and we are nothing and are deceived Pride is but a thought and Pride is folly Nazianz. Nor we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more regular then the rule more exact then the Law more bright then light above the command Not believe us is infidelity not to obey us is a kind of rebellion not to admire us is profaneness not to joyn with us is schism not to subscribe to what we say is heresie We are and we alone We are as he that lyeth on the top of the mast and we sleep and dream out the tempest We may be Adulterers Murderers Traytours and the Favourites of God We may be men after Gods own heart and yet do what his soul hateth All our sins are venial though never so great Our sins do not hurt but rather advantage us The greatest evil that is in us will turn to our good for our faith is stedfast our hope lively and our election sure And to this height our imagination hath raised us and from this we fall and are lost for ever And therefore it will concern us to captivate both our Understanding and our Will Rom. 12.3 16. First not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be overwise not to be wise in our own conceits not to be such Gnosticks as to seem to know what we do not nay sometimes not to seem to know what we do know This will defend us from errour and our Brethren from offense Then it concerneth us to subdue our Will to our Reason and the Rule and to subject our Will against our natural desire and inclination to the Will of God ad nutum ejus nutu citiùs obedire to obey every beck of his as soon as the beck is given in the twinkling of an
not be a House subject to weather but some house of pleasure a Seraglio not in Egypt or Babylon but in the Fortunate Islands or in Paradise Our Lily should be set far enough from the Thorns We would go to Heaven without any Ifs or And 's without any Buts or difficulties We would be eased but not weary be saved but not believe or believe but not suffer Acts 14.22 We would enter into Gods Kingdome but not with tribulation that is we would have God neither provident nor just nor wise that is which is a sad interpretation we would have no God at all But Gods method is best Honorem operis fructus excusat Tâ—rtul Scorpiac c. 5. Luk. 17 25. 24.46 And that which we call Persecution is his art his way of making of Saints De perverso auxiliatur He raiseth us by those evils we labour under As in his manifold wisdome he redeemed mankind so the manner and method of working out our salvation is from the same Wisdome and Providence which as it set an Oportet upon Christ to suffer for us so it set an Oportet upon the Church to have a fellowship in his sufferings â—ct 14 22. We must through many afflictions be consecrated be made perfect and so enter into the Kingdome of God We must first be made more spiritual by the contradiction of those who are born after the flesh more Isaacs then before for the many Ishmaels So Perfection is not onely agreeable to the wisdome of God but convenient to the weakness of Man God will not save us we cannot be saved any other way Phil. 1.29 Oportet we must go this way Nay Datum est It is a gift It is given not onely to believe but to suffer a gift for which heaven it self is given Matth. 5. And it is a Beatitude Blessed poverty blessed mourning blessed persecution Blessedness is set upon these as a Crown or as â—ich embroyderie upon sackcloth or some courser stuff Thus you see the Church is not cannot be exempt from Persecution if either we consider the Quality of the Persons themselves or the Nature and Constitution of the Church or the Providence and Wisdome and Mercy of God As it was then so is it now In Abraham's family Ishmael mocketh and persecuteth Isaac In the world the Synagogue persecuteth the Church and in the Church one Christian persecuteth another It was so it is so and it will be so to the end of the world Let us now look back upon this dreadful but blessed sight and see what advantage we can work what light we can strike out of this cloud of blood to direct and strengthen us in this our warfare Revel 2.10 that we may be faithful unto death 1 Pet. 4.12 and so receive the crown of life And first let us not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Peter speaketh think it strange or be amazed at the fiery trial not be dismayed when we see that befall the Church which befalleth all the Kingdoms and Common-wealths in the world when we see the face of the Church gather blackness and not shine in that beauty in which formerly we beheld her For what strange thing is it that Ishmael should mock Isaac The Church so far as she is visible in respect of her visibility and outward form is as subject to change as any other thing that is seen as those things which we use to say are but the balls of Fortune to play with For those things of the Church which are seen are but temporal 2 Cor 4.18 those which are eternal are not seen 1 Cor. 7.31 The fashion of this world passeth away saith S. Paul and so doth the fashion of the Church And when the scene is changed it cometh forth with another face and speaketh now like a servant who spake before like a Queen In brief the Church turned about on the wheel of change is subject to the same storms to the same injuries to the same craft and violence which the Philosopher saith make that alteration in States change them not into those which may bear some faint resemblance of them but into that which is most unlike and contrary to them setteth up that in their place leaving them lost and labouring under the expectation of another change Thus it is and ever was and ever shall be with the Church in respect of outward profession Gen. 3.15 which is the face of the Church nor hath the Seed of the woman so bruised the Serpents head but that he still biteth at the heel Exod. 17. Behold the children of Israel in the wilderness sometimes in straits anon in larger wayes sometimes fighting sometimes resting as at mount Sinai sometimes going forward and sometimes turning backward sometimes on the mountains and sometimes in the vallies sometimes in places of sweetness as Mithkah and sometimes in places of bitterness as Marah Behold them in a more settled condition when their Church had Kings for her nursing-fathers how did Idolatry follow Religion at the heel and supplant it And of all their Kings how few of them were not Idolaters How many professours were there when Elijah the great Prophet could see but one And how can that have alwayes the same countenance which is under the powers and wills of mortal men which change so oft sometimes in the same man but are never long the same in many amongst whom one is so unlike the other that he will not suffer that to stand long which a former hand hath set up but will model the Church as he please and of those who look upon it with an eye of distast will leave so few and under such a cloud that they shall be scarce visible Not to speak of former times of those seven golden Candelsticks which are now removed out of their place Rev. 1.12 20. nor of those many alterations in after-ages but to come home to our selves Our Reformed Religion cannot boast of many more years then make up the age of a Man That six years light of the Gospel in the dayes of Edward the Saint was soon overspread and darkned with a cloud of blood in Queen Maries reign Since when we have been willing to believe for we made our boast of it that it shined out in beauty to these present times which have thought fit to reform the Reformation it self And now for the glory of it for its Order and Discipline which is the face of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where is it to be seen We may say of it as Job doth of frail Man It dieth it wasteth it giveth up the ghost Job 14.10 and where is it Talk what we will of Perpetuity of Visibility of outward Profession quod cuiquam accidere potest cuivis potest What we have seen done to one Church may certainly be done to another may be done to all What was done in Asia may be done in Europe and if the Candlestick
each other the civil Power to exalt Religion and Religion to guard and fence the civil Power and both should concur in this 1 Tim. 2.2 that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty Our commission is from Heaven and we need no other power then his that sealed it And the virtue and divinity of it shall then be made manifest when all earthly Power shall cease and even Kings and they who did what they list shall tremble before it We see that Power which is exercised here on earth though the glory of it dazle an eye of flesh yet sitteth heavy upon them who wear it we see it tortureth them that delight in it eateth up them that feed on it eateth up it self driving all before it at last falleth it self to the ground and falleth as a milstone upon him that hath it and bruiseth him to pieces It is not such a power But I may be bold to say though it be lookt upon and laught at and despised by the men of this world yet is it a greater power than that which sometimes setteth it upon high and sometimes maketh it nothing and hath its end when it hath not its end For to publish our Master's will to command in his name is all And though the command prove to some the savour of death unto death yet the Power is still the same and doth never fail And if men were what they profess themselves Christians Heb. 6.5 if they had any tast of the powers of the world to come they would more tremble at this then at the other be more afraid of a just Reproof then of a Whip of an Excommunication then of a Sword of the wrath of God which is yet scarce visible then of that which cometh in fire and tempest to devour us For Gods favour or his wrath ever accompanieth this power which draweth his love nearer to them that obey it and poureth forth his vengeance on them that resist it To conclude then Look upon the command and honour the Apostle that bringeth it for the commands sake for his sake whose power and command it is A Power there is proper and peculiar to them who are called to it And if the name of Power may move envy for we see men fret at that which was ordained for their good and so wast and exhale all their Religion till it be nothing if the name of Power bear so harsh a sound we will give you leave to think it is not much material whether you call it so or no vvhether vve speak in the Imparative mood HOC FAC Do this upon your peril or onely positively point as vvith the finger This is to be done We vvill be any thing do any thing be as lovv as you please so vve may raise you above the Vanities of the vvorld above that Wantonness vvhich stormeth at that vvhich vvas ordained for no other end but to lift you out of ruine into the highest heavens Our Povver and the Command of Christ differ not so much but the one includeth and upholdeth the other And if you did but once love the command you vvould never boggle at the name of Power but bless and honour him that bringeth it Oh that men vvere vvise but so vvise as not to be vviser then God as not to choose and fall in love vvith their own wayes as more certain and direct unto the end then Gods as not to prefer their own mazes and labyrinths and uncertain gyrations drawn out by Lust and Phansie before those even and unerring paths found out by an infinite Wisdome and discovered to us by a Mercy as infinite Oh that we could once work out and conquer the hardship of a command and then see the beauty of it and to what glory it leadeth us We should then receive an Apostle in the name of an Apostle Matth. 10.40 look upon the command though brought in an earthen vessel as upon Heaven it self Oh that we were once spiritual Then those precepts which concern our conversation on earth would be laid hold on and embraced as from Heaven heavenly then should we be as quiet as the Heavens which are ever moving and ever at rest because ever in their own place then should we be as the Angels of heaven who envy not one another malice not one another trouble not one another but every Angel knoweth his office and moveth in his own order and our assiduous labour in our calling would be a resemblance of the readiness of those blessed Spirits who at the beck of Majesty have wings and hast to their duty who are ever moving and then in their highest exaltation when they are in their ministery in a word then should we every one sit under his own vine and figtree and no evil eye should look towards him no malice blast him no injury assault him no bold intrusion unsettle him but we should all rejoyce together the poor with the rich the weak with the strong the low with the high all bless one another help one another guard one another and so in the name of the Prince of Peace walk peaceably together every one moving in his own place till we reach that Peace which yet we do not understand but shall then fully enjoy to all eternity The Tenth SERMON PART I. MATTH XXIV 42. Watch therefere For yee know not what hour your Lord doth come THese are the words of our blessed Saviour and a part of the answer he returned to that question which was put up by his Disciples vers 3. Tell us When shall these things be and what shall be the signe of thy coming and of the end of the world Where we may observe that he doth not satisfy their curiosity which was measuring of Time even to the last point and moment of it when it shall be no more but he resolveth them in that which was fit for them to know and passeth by in silence and untoucht the other as a thing laid up and reserved in the bosome of his Father The time he telleth them not but foretelleth those fearful signes which should be the forerunners of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the end of the world Which two are so interwoven in the prediction that Interpreters scarce know how to distinguish them We need not take any pains to disintangle or put them asunder At the thirtieth verse our Saviour presents himself in the clouds with power and great glory The Angels sound the Trumpet at the next The two men in the Field and the two women grinding at the mill in the verses immediately going before my Text the one taken the other left are a fair evidence and seem to point out to the end of the world which will be a time of discrimination of separating the Goats from the Sheep And then these words will concern us as much as the Apostles In which He who is our Lord and King to rule
did such service for his friend then but a private man that he made him first a Conquerour then a King the Historian giveth this note That Kings love not to be too much beholding to their Subjects nor to have greater service done then they are able to reward and so how truly I know not maketh the setting on of the Crown on his friends head one cause of the losing of his own But it is not so with this our Lord who being now in his throne of Majesty cannot be outdared by any sin be it never so great never so common and can break the hairy scalp of the most giant-like offender and shiver in pieces the tallest cedar in Libanus Who shall be able to stand up in his sight In his presence the boldest sinner shall tremble and fall down and see the horrour of that profitable honourable sin in which he triumpht and called it Godliness The Hypocrite whose every word whose every motion whose every look was a lye shall be unmaskt And the man of Power who boasted in malice and made his Will a Law and hung his sword on his Will to make way to that at which it was levelled shall be beat down into the lowest pit to howl with those who measured out justice by their sword and thought every thing theirs which that could give them Before him every sin shall be a sin and the wages thereof shall be Death Again he hath rewards and his Treasury is full of them Not onely the powring forth my blood as water for the Truths sake Matth. 10.42 but a cup of cold water shall have its full and overflowing recompense nor shall there ever any be able to say What profit is it that we have kept his Laws No Mal 3.14 saith S. Paul Non sunt condignae Put our Passions to our Actions Rom. 8.18 our Sufferings to our Alms our Martyrdome to our Prayers they are not worthy the naming in comparison of that weight of glory which our Lord now sitting at the right hand of God 1 Cor. 2 9. hath prepared for them that fear him Nec quisquam à regno ejus subtrahitur Nor can any go out of his reach or stand before him when he is angry He that sitteth on the throne and he that grindeth at the mill to him are both alike Psal 76.7 And now in the third place that every knee may bow to him Rom. 14.11 and every tongue confess him to be the Lord let us a little take notice of the large compass and circuit of his Dominion The Psalmist will tell us that he shall have dominion from sea to sea Psal 72 8. and from the river unto the ends of the earth Adam the first man and he that shall stand last upon the earth every man is his subject For he hath set him Eph. 1.20 21. saith S. Paul at his right hand in heavenly places and hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be the Head over all things to his Church And what a thin shadow what a Nothing is all the overspreading power of this world to this All other Dominion hath its bounds and limits which it cannot pass but by violence and the sword Nor is it expedient for the world to have onely one King nor for the Church to have one universal Bishop or as they speak one visible Head For as a ship may be made up to that bulk that it cannot be managed so the number of men and distance of place may be so great that it cannot subsist under one Government Thus it falleth out in the world but it is not so in the Kingdom of this our Lord. No place so distant or remote to which this Power cannot reach Libyam remotis Gadibus jungit All places are to him alike and he sees them all at once It is called the Catholick Church and in our Creed we profess we believe SANCTAM CATHOLIC AM ECCLESIAM the holy Catholick CHVRCH that is That that Church which was shut up within the narrow confines of Judea now under the Gospel is as large as the world it self The invitation is to all and all may come They may come who are yet without and they might have come who are bound hand and foot and cannot come The gate was once open to them but now it is shut Persa Gothus Indus philosophantur saith S. Hierom The Persian and the Goth and the Indian and the Egyptian are subjects under this Lord. Barbarism it self boweth before him and hath changed her harsh notes into the sweet melodie of the Cross Judg. 6.37 â—0 There was dew onely upon the Fleece the people of the Jews but now that flâ—ece is dry Matth. 24.14 and there is dew upon all the earth The Gospel saith our Saviour must be Preached to all nations And when the holy Ghost descended to seal and confirm the Laws of this Lord there were present at this great sealing or confirmation some Acts 2.5 11. saith the Text of all nations under heaven that did hear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wonderful things of God every one in his own language so that the Gospel might seem to have been Preached throughout the world before the Apostles did stir a foot from Jerusalem But here we may observe that Christ who hath jus ad omnem terram hath not in strictness of speech jus in omni terrâ The right and propriety is his for ever but he doth not take possession of it all at once but successively and by parts It is as easie for him to illuminate all the world at once as the least nook and corner of it but this Sun of righteousness spreadeth his beams gloriously but is not seen of all because of the interposition of mens sins who exclude themselves from the beams thereof John 1. This true Light came into the world but the world received him not But yet what our sensuality will not suffer him to do at once he doth by degrees and passeth on and gaineth ground that so successively he may be seen and known of all the world But suppose men shook off their allegiance as too many the greatest part of the world the greatest part of Christendome do suppose there were none found that will bow before him which will never be suppose they crucifie him again yet is he still our King and our Lord the King and Lord of all the world Such an universal falling away and forsaking him would not take away from him his Dominion nor remove him from the right hand of God and strip him of his Power If all the world were Infidels yet he were a Lord still and his Power as large and irresistible as ever For his Royalty dependeth not on the duty and fidelity of his subjects If it did his Dominion would be indeed but of a very narrow compass the Sheep not so many as the Goats his flock but little Indeed he could have
didicit perfectè obedire l. 4. de instit Caeâ—ob he hath no judgement non habet suum velle he hath no will of his own when our understandings wills and affections are Christ's as if we were but one flesh and one bloud and one soul that we will neither know nor serve nor hearken to any but Christ that we will have no King no Priest no Prophet but him then we dwell in him More particularly thus If we dwell in Christ we shall 1. discover and admire his majesty 2. acknowledge his power and love his command 3. rely and depend upon him alone as our sure castle and protection We shall dwell as it were within the beauty of his rayes within his jurisdiction and under the shadow of his wing 1. If we dwell in Christ we shall discover and admire his Majesty We may observe that every thing that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in any eminency sendeth a kind of majesty from it as the Sun doth its beams which maketh a welcome and pleasing glide into the minds of men and at once striketh them with admiration and with love Sometimes this appeareth in the persons sometimes in the manners and behaviour of men sometimes in the order and polity of a well-governed Common-wealth So we read the skin of Moses's face after he had talked with God Exod. 34.29 30. did shine so bright that Aaron and the people were afraid to come neer him So when holy Job went out to the gate the young men saw him and hid themselves Job 29.7 8. and the aged arose and stood up It sheweth it self also in a well-ordered Common-wealth It was called majestas pop Romani Majestas est in imperio atque in omni Pop. Rom. dignitate Quint. l. 7. Iustit c. 3. Matth. 17.2 6 the Majesty of the people of Rome Now if Christ be considered by thee as one in eminency and supreme thou wilt behold him not onely fair and lovely but clothed with Majesty I do not mean his Majesty in his transfiguration when his face did shine as the Sun and his Disciples fell on theirs nor his Majesty when he shall come to judge the quick and the dead and yet these are fit objects for the eye of Faith to look on but his Majesty in his cratch his Majesty in his humility his Majesty on the cross even here the thief discovered it and it was imputed to him for righteousness and made the Cross it self a gate and passage into Paradise But these are too remote and for the many we look upon them as at distance have so small regard of them as if they concerned us not We can see Majesty in a lump of flesh in those that cannot save themselves sooner then in him we call our Saviour But then canst thou discover Majesty in him now Majesty in his discipline Wisdome in the foolishness of Preaching Power in weakness now in this life when he is whipt and spit upon and crucified again when he liveth covered over with disgraces and contumelies when his Precepts are dragged in triumph after flesh and blood and whatsoever it dictateth when for one Hosanna he hath a thousand Crucifige's for one formal hypocritical acknowledgment a thousand spears in his sides when the Truth is what we will make it the Gospel esteemed no more then a fable and Christ himself if we look into mens lives the most disesteemed thing in the world When thou seest him in this cloud in this disfiguration in this Golgotha where is thy faith what eyes hast thou Doth he not still appear a worm Psal 22.6 and no man a man of sorrows When thou seest him thus Isa 53.2 3. is there any form that thou shouldest desire him Or dost thou even now see his glory as the glory of the onely-begotten Son of God 1 John 1.14 Doth he now appear to thee as the Head of all principality and power Col. 2.10 Canst thou see him in that naked Lazar that persecuted forlorn imprisoned Saint Doth his Majesty shine through the vanities of this World and make them loathsome through thy labour of charity and make it easie through persecution Hebr. 6.10 and make it joyful In the midst of rage and derision of fury and contumely is he still to thee the King of glory Psal 24.8 10. Then thou dwellest in him even in the beauty of holiness 2. If we dwell in Christ we shall be under his Command For they who command us do in a manner take us into themselves they possess and compass bound and keep us in on every side And if we dwell in Christ we shall be within his reach and power we shall not have our excursions and run from him into the streets and high wayes again into Bethâ—aven the house of vanity I say we shall be under Christs command we shall be his possession his propriety For Man is a little world I may say he is a little Common-wealth De Resurrect carn c. 40. Tertullian calleth him fibulam utriusque substantiae the clasp or button which tieth together divers substances and natures the Soul and the Body the Flesh and the Spirit And these two are contrary one to the other Gal. 5.17 saith S. Paul are carried divers wayes the Flesh to that which pleaseth it and the Spirit to that which is proportioned to it looking on things neither as delightful nor irksome but as they may be drawn in to contribute to the beauty and perfection of the soul These lust and struggle one against the other and Man is the field the theatre where this battle is fought and one part or other still prevaileth Many times nay most times God help us the Flesh with her sophistry prevaileth with the Will to joyn with her against the Spirit and then Sin taketh the chair the place of Christ himself and setteth us hard and heavy tasks setteth us to make brick but alloweth us no straw biddeth us please and content our selves but affordeth us no means to work it out See how Mammon condemneth one to the mines to dig for metalls and treasure for that money which will perish with him See how Lust fettereth another with a look with the glance of an eye bindeth him with a kiss a kiss that will at last bite like a Cockatrice See how Self-love driveth us on as Balaam did his beast on the point of the sword Thus Sin doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exercise its force and power Rom. 6.12 Lord it and King it reign in our mortal bodies Again sometimes and why but sometimes but sometimes the Will sanctified and upheld and encouraged by the Spirit of Christ taketh the Spirit 's part determineth for it against the Flesh chuseth any thing which the Spirit commendeth though it be compassed about with terrours and fearful apparitions though it be irksome and contrary to the Flesh And when we depose Mammon Matth. 16.24 crucifie the flesh deny our selves
wayes but delight themselves in their own and rest and please themselves in Errour as in Truth to awake them out of this pleasant dream we must trouble them we must thunder to them we must disquiet and displease them For who would give an opiate pill to these Lethargicks To please men then is to tell a sick man that he is well a weak man that he is strong an erring man that he is orthodox instead of purging out the noxious humour to nourish and increase it to smooth and strew the wayes of Errour with roses that men may walk with ease and delight and even dance to their destruction to find out their palate and to fit it to envenom that more which they affect as Agrippina gave Claudius the Emperour poyson in a Mushrome What a seditious flatterer is in a Common-wealth that a false-Apostle is in the Church For as the seditious flatterer observeth and learneth the temper and constitution of the place he liveth in and so frameth his speach and behaviour that he may seem to settle and establish that which he studieth to overthrow to be a Patriot for the publick good when he is but a promoter of his private ends to be a servant to the Common-wealth when he is a Traytor so do all seducers and false-teachers They are as loud for the Truth as the best champions she hath but either subtract from it or add to it or pervert and corrupt it that so the Truth it self may help to usher in a lye When the Truth it self doth not please us any lye will please us but then it must carry with it something of the Truth For instance To acknowledge Christ but with the Law is a dangerous mixture It was the errour of the Galatians here To magnifie Faith and shut out Good works is a dash That we can do nothing without Grace is a truth but when we will do nothing to impute it to the want of Grace is a bold and unjust addition To worship God in spirit and truth Joh. 4.23 our Saviour commandeth it but from hence to conclude against outward Worship is an injurious defalcation of a great part of our duty Gal. 5.1 To stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free the Apostle commandeth it but to stand so as to rise up in the face of the Magistrate is a Gloss of Flesh and Bloud and corrupteth the Text. Rom. 13.1 Let every soul be subject to the higher powers that is the Text but to be subject no longer then the Power is mannaged to our will is a chain to bind Kings with or a hammer to beat all Power down that we may tread it under our feet And when we cannot relish the Text these mixtures and additions and subtractions will please us These hang as Jewels in our ears these please and kill us beget nothing but a dead Faith and a graceless life not Liberty but Licentiousness not Devotion but Hypocrisie not Religion but Rebellion not Saints but Hypocrites Libertines and Traytors The Truth is corrupted saith Nyssene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat. 1. contra Eunom by subtraction by alteration by addition And these we must avoid the rather because they go hand in hand as it were with the Truth and carry it along with them in their company as lewd persons do sometimes a grave and sober man to countenance them in their sportiveness and debauchery De nostro sunt sed non nostrae saith Tertullian De Proscript They invade that inheritance which Christ hath left his Church Some furniture some colour something they borrow from the Truth something they have of ours but ours they are not And therefore as S. Ambrose adviseth Gratian the Emperour of all errours in doctrine we must beware of those which come nearest and border as it were upon the Truth and so draw it in to help to defeat it self because an open and manifest errour carrieth in its very forehead an argument against it self and cannot gain admittance but with a veil whereas these glorious but painted falsehoods find an easie entrance and beg entertainment in the Name of Truth it self This is the cryptick method and subtil artifice of Men-pleasers that is Men-deceivers to grant something that they may win the more and that too in the end which they grant not rudely at first to demolish the Truth but to let it stand a while that they may the more securely raise up and fix that Errour with which it cannot stand long S. Paul saw it well enough though the Galatians did not Gal. 5.2 If you be circumcised Christ profiteth you nothing that is is to you as if there were no Christ at all If the false Apostles had flatly denied Christ the Galatians would have been as ready as S. Paul to have cut them off because they had received the Gospel but joyning and presenting the Law with Christ they did deceive and please them well who began in the Spirit and did acknowledge Christ but would not renounce the Law propter metum Judaeorum for fear of their brethren the Jews Now these Men-pleasers these Crows Dictam Diogenis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athen. Deipnos l. 6. c. 17. which devour not dead but living men are from an evil eg and beginning are bred and hatcht in the dung in the love of this world and are so proud and fond of their original that it is their labour their religion the main design of their life to bring the Truth Religion and Christ himself in subjection under it And to this end they are very fruitful to bring forth those mishapen issues which savour of the earth and corruption and have onely the name of Christ fastned to them as a badge to commend them and bring them to that end for which they had a being which is to gain the world in the name but in despite of Christ And these are they who as S. Peter speaketh make merchandise of mens souls nummularii sacerdotes 2 Pet. 2.3 as Cyprian calleth them Doctours of the Mint who love the Image of Caesar more then the image of God and had rather see the one in a piece of gold then the other renewed and stampt in a mortal man And this image they carry along with them whithersoever they go and it is as their Holy Ghost to inspire them For most of the doctrines they teach savour of that mint and the same stamp is on them both The same face of Mammon which is in their heart is visible also in their doctrine Thus Hosea complained of the false Prophets in his time Hos 4.8 They eat up the sin of my people that is by pleasing them they have consented to their sin and from hence reaped gain for flattery is a livelyhood Or they did not seriously reprehend the sins of the people that they might receive more sacrifices on which they might feed Some render it Levabant animum
best and most experienced Masters so doth he condescend and indulge to our infirmity and appointeth the fittest for us and those of whom we will soonest learn Our first question commonly is Who is the Preacher We deliver up our Judgments to our Affections and converse rather with mens fortunes then their persons and make use of no other rule in our censure of what is done or said then the Man himself that did or spake it If Honour or Power or Wealth have made the man great in our eyes then whatsoever he speaketh is an oracle though it be a doctrine of Devils and have the same Father which all other lyes have Truth doth seldome go down with us unless it be presented in the cup in which we love to divine and prophesie Eccl. 9.15 There was a poor wise man found saith Solomon that delivered the city by his wisdome but none remembred or considered this poor wise man For Poverty is a cloud and casteth a darkness over that which is begot of light sullieth every perfection that is in us hideth it from an eye of flesh which cannot see Wisdome and Poverty together in one man whereas Folly it self shall go for Wisdome and carry away that applause which is due to it if it dwell in the heart or issue from the mouth of a purple and gallant fool Vt sumuâ— sic judicamus As we are so we judge and it is not our Reason which concludeth but our Sense and Affection If we love Beauty every painted wanton is as the Queen of Sheba and may ask Solomon a question If Riches Dives with us will be a better Evangelist then S. Luke If our eyes dazle at Majesty Acts 12.21 22 Herodes royal apparel will be a more eloquent oratour then he that speaketh and the people shall give a shout and cry The voice of a God and not of a man Do but ask our selves the question Doth not Affection to the person beget Admiration in you and Admiration commend whatsoever he saith and gild over Errour and Sin it self and make them current Do not your Hopes or Fears or Love make up every opinion in you and build you up in your most unholy faith Is not the Coward or the Dotard or the Worldling in your Creed and Profession Do you not measure out one another as you do a tree by the bulk and trunk and count him best who is most worth Is not this the compass by which you steer Is not this the bond of your peace the cement of all your friendship Doth not this outward respect serene or cloud your countenance and as the wind and the state of things change make you to day the dearest friends and to morrow the deadliest enemies Can you think ill of them you gain by or speak ill of them you fear Can he be evil who is powerful or dare you be more wise then he that hath thirty legions We may say this is a great evil under the sun But it is the property of the blessed Spirit to work good out of evil to teach us to remember what we are by those who so soon make us forget what we are to make use of Riches which we dote on of Power which we tremble at of that Glory which we have in admiration to instruct us to the knowledge of our condition and to put us in mind of our mortality and frailty by Kings whom we count as Gods Behold a King from his throne proclaimeth it to his subjects and all the world That his Power is but as a shadow cast from a mortal his Glory but his garment which he cannot wear long and his Riches but the embroidery which will be as soon worn out And when we have gazed and fallen down and worshipt and are thus lost in our own thoughts if we could take away the film from our eye which the world hath drawn over it and see every thing in its nature and substance as it is we should behold in all these raies of glory and power and wealth nothing but David the stranger So that we see Kings who are our nursing-Fathers are become our School-masters to teach us Psal 49.10 For we see that ignorant and foolish men perish and they dye as fools dye not remembred nor thought on as if nothing fell to the ground but their Folly The begger dyeth Luke 16.22 but what is that to the rich who cannot see him carried by the Angels into Abrahams bosome The righteous also perish and no man layeth it to heart I Isa 57.1 but Kings of the earth fall and cannot fall but with observation they fall as a star are soon mist in their orb and soon forgot But then living Kings make their Throne a Pulpit and preach from thence and publish to the world their own frail and fading condition measure out their life by a span Psal 39.5 12. Psal 85.8 and prophesie the end of it call their life a Pilgrimage and shall we not hearken what the Lord God doth say by such royal Prophets Shall their Power make us beasts of burden to carry it whithersoever their beck shall direct us and shall not their Doctrine and Example perswade us that we are men travelling men hasting to another counâ—ry Behold then here David a Prophet and a King made and set up an ensample to us And if David be a stranger upon the earth we can draw no other conclusion then this Then certainly much more we If David and all his Fathers if pious Kings and bloudy Tyrants if good and bad found no setled estate no abiding place here why should we be so foolish and ignorant as to turmoil or sport and delight our selves under the expectation of it If Kings be pulled down from their thrones and fall to the dust we have reason to cast up our accounts and reckon upon it that we are gliding and passing nay posting and flying as so many shadows and that our removal is at hand 1 Cor. 10.11 For these things happened to them for ensamples and they are written for our admonition They prophesied to us and they spake to us I may say They died to us and to all that shall follow them to the last man that shall stand upon the earth When Adam had lived nine hundred and thirty years Gen. 5.5 he dyed led the way to his posterity not that they should live so long but that they should surely dye every son of his till the second coming of the second and last Adam Abraham was a stranger and Moses a stranger and David a stranger that we might look back upon them and see our condition When Patriarchs and Prophets and Kings preach not onely living but dying not onely dying but dead we shall not onely dye but dye in our sins if we take not out the lesson and learn to speak in their dialact and language ACCOLAE SVMVS ET PEREGRINI We are strangers and pilgrimes on the
the Devil Why should any mortal now fear to dye It is most true Christ dyed and by his death shook the powers of the Grave Consummatum est all is finished and he is returned victoriously with the spoils of his enemies and of this last enemy Death Job 18.14 But for all this his triumph Death may be still the King of terrours and as dreadful as before All is finisht on his part but a Covenant consisteth of two parts and something is required on ours He doth not turn Conditions into Promises as some have been willing to perswade themselves and others It must be done is not Thou shalt do it If thou wilt believe is not Thou shalt believe But every Promise every Act of grace of his implieth a Condition He delivereth those that are willing to be delivered who do not feed Death and supply this enemy with such weapons as make him terrible 1 Cor. 15.56 All the terrour Death hath is from our selves our Sin our Disobedience to the commands of God that is his sting And our part of the Covenant is by the power and virtue of Christs death every day to be plucking it off from him at last to take it quite away We we our selves must rise up against this King of terrours and in the Name and Power of Christ take the sceptre out of his hand and spoil him of his strength and terrour And this we may do by parts and degrees now cut from him this sin now that now this desire and anon another and so dye daily as S. Paul speaketh dye to Profit dye to Pleasure dye to Honour be as dead to every temptation which may beget sin in us and a sting in him and so leave him nothing to take from us not a desire not a hope not a thought nothing that can make us fear Death Then we shall not look upon it as a divorcement from those delights which we have cast off already or a passage into a worse condition from that we loved too well to that we never feared enough but we shall consider it as a Sleep as it is to all wearied pilgrimes as a Message sent from heaven to tell us our walk is at an end now we are to lay down our staff and scrip and rest in that Jerusalem which is above Tert. De patientia for which we vowed this pilgrimage Et quis non ad meliora festinat What stranger will be afraid to return to his Fathers house or lose that life quam sibi jam supervacuam fecit which by dying daily to the world he hath already made superfluous and unnecessary To conclude this He that truly feareth God can fear nothing else nor is Death terrible to any but to those who would build their tabernacle here who love to feed with swine on husks Luk. 15.16 Heb. 6.5 because they have not tasted of the powers of the world to come who wish immortality to this mortal before they put it on who are willing to converse and trade with Vanity for ever who desire not with David to be spared a little but would never go hence Psal 39.13 Last of all this will moderate our sorrow for those our friends who are dead or rather fallen asleep or rather at their journeys end For why should any man who knoweth the condition of a stranger how many dangers and how many cares and how many storms and tempests he is obnoxious to hang down the head and complain that his friend hath now passed through them all and is set down at his journeys end Why should he who looketh for a City to come Hebr. 13.14 be troubled that his fellow-pilgrime is come thither and entred before him It might be a matter of holy emulation perhaps but why it should afflict us with grief I cannot see unless it be because we have not made it our meat and drink to keep Gods commandements which might give us a tast of a better estate to come unless it be because we have not well learnt to act the part of a stranger Miserable men that we are that we will be that know not our own quality and condition that are strangers yet unwilling to draw near our selves or to see others come to their home but think them lost where they are made perfect We stand by the bed of our sick and dying friend as if he were now to be removed to a place of torment and not of rest and to be either nothing or more miserable then he was in a region of misery We send out shreeks and outcries to keep time with his gasps to call him back if it were possible from heaven and to keep him still under the yoke harrow when as the fainting of his spirits the failing of his eyes the trembling of his joynts are but as the motion of bodies to their center most violent when they are nearest to their end And then we close up his eyes and with them our hopes as if with his last gasp he had breathed out his soul into air when indeed there is no more then this One pilgrime is gone before his fellows one is gone hath left others in their way in trouble and more troubled that he is gone to rest Migrantem migrantes praemisimus saith S. Hierome We are passing forward apace and have sent one before us to his journeyes end his everlasting sabbath With this contemplation doth Religion comfort and uphold us in our way and keepeth us in that temper which the Philosopher commendeth as best in which we do sentine desiderium Sen. ad Marciam op primere She giveth Nature leave to draw tears but then she bringeth in Faith and Hope to wipe them off She suffereth us to mourn for our friends but not as men without hope Nature will vent and Love is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Thess 4.13 saith the Oratour ever querulous and full of complaints when the object is removed out of sight and God remembreth whereof we are made Ps 103.14 is not angry with our Love and will suffer us to be Men But then we must silence one Love with another our natural Affection with the Love of God at least divide our language thus Alas my Father Alas my Husband Alas my Friend but then He was a stranger and now at his journeyes end And here we must raise our note and speak it more heartily Rev. 14 13. Blessed are such strangers Blessed are they that dye in the Lord even so saith the Spirit for they rest from their labours For conclusion Let us fear God and keep his commandments Eccl. 12.13 This is the whole duty of a stranger to observe those Laws which came from that place to which he is going Let these Laws be in our heart and our heart will be an Elaboratory a Limbeck to work the water of life out of the vanities and very dregs of the world
first command with promise For Man to be under the Law is to be under God For the Law is nothing else but the mind of God To be under the Gospel is to be under God For he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Author and Finisher of it And then to bound our Christian Liberty to bring it under under Sobriety Charity Authority is to place our selves under God even under the shadow of his wings For his wing and power spreadeth it self over all these He gave us our Charter thus interlined he past over this Liberty unto us with these exceptions and limitations that it should not break the bounds of Sobriety and the rules of Charity nor fly loose and lift it self up against Authority And this we must do if we will put Humilitie's mantle and be God's humble servants we must have our SUB we must come under under the Precept under the Gospel under our selves under the meanest thought we have Our Christian Liberty must come under Sobriety under Charity under Authority And this will make us Descendent right in our right point and aspect in our Nadir even SUB DEO under God himself Thus have we run the whole compass of the Duty and at last brought you under the mighty hand of God For that we may humble our selves the Apostle here bringeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Theodoret calleth it the plow of Reason to plow up the fallow-ground of our hearts and dig up Pride by the very roots and he calleth us to the consideration of God's Power of his mighty hand with which he bindeth Kings in chains and Nobles with fetters of iron with which he bruiseth the nations and breaketh them to pieces like a potter's vessel And if any thing will strike reverence into us and melt and thaw our petrified hearts God's Power will If his Eye his care and providence over us if his Ear his facility in hearing our complaints if his Tongue his Prophets and Teachers will not yet his powerful hand should humble us Sure I am this is the rule of Wisdom it self and if you will trust S. Peter and his keys this is the low door of Humility and the righteous must enter into it Unto the Mighty bow we should For what he will do we know not but what he can do we know even in a moment humble us so that we shall never lift up our heads again And when we are advancing our plumes and thinking what goodly creatures we are he can humble that thought too and strike us into a spiritual dejection nay annihilate that thought and which is worse punish that thought which hath but the continuance of a thought Psal 46.6 everlastingly The Lord uttered his voice and the earth melted saith the Psalmist When Power speaketh every thing even the mountains and rocks and those Hearts which are more exalted and harder then they should melt We see how the Power of Man of as near kin to the Worm and Rottenness as we doth rule and awe us how it doth unnaturalize and unprinciple and unman us and even transform us into Beasts how it fettereth the Hand and naileth the Tongue to the roof of the mouth how it maketh us kiss the hand that striketh us worship what we hate and fall down before any Idol it shall set up how it maketh us to say that we do not think to swear to that we know a lie to do that which we were never resolved to do to do that to day which we loathed and abhorred yesterday We see how many proselytes it maketh how he is able to baptize a Jew and circumcise a Christian and make them both at last turn Turks And shall not the hand of God bow us to whom all Power belongeth Shall the breath of mortals make the earth to tremble and shake and shall it be earth still or a sensless and immoveable rock when God is angry Why are we so led by Sense and yet so much commend the Eye of Faith as to give her a more certain knowledge then that of Sense and yet fear that we see more then that we believe fear the shaking of a mortal's whip more then the scorpions of a Deity fear a prison more then Hell and the frown of a man more then the wrathful displeasure of God Why do we call him the mighty God and make it an article of our Creed when we do not believe it And if we believe it why do we sleep when God thundereth and startle when Man threateneth Why do ye fear Why do ye not fear Why do you fear where no fear is and not fear him who alone is to be feared O ye of little faith Beloved what can God do more then he hath done to make bare his arm and manifest his power His Voice is in his thunder his Power is in his judgments his mighty Hand is alwayes over us But hath it not of late been as visible as that Hand Belshazzar saw written upon the wall Might we not even read a TEKEL and a PERES in capital letters Do we not see how little we weighed and how much we lost I will not ask now Whose thoughts have troubled him Whose joynts have been loosed Whose knees have smote one against another But What hath this Hand this mighty Hand this visible Hand wrought in us Hath it dulleâ— the teeth of the Oppressour or deaded the appetite of the Intempâ—â—ate Hath it beat the deceitful weights out of the bag Hath it bound the hand of the Sacrilegious or stopt the mouth of the Blasphemer Hath it plucked the phylacteries from the Pharisee or the visour from the Hypocrite Hath it turned our harp into mourning or our purple into sackcloth Miserable men that we are and the more miserable that we feel it not but lie under God's hand nay feel the weight of it and so behave our selves as if he had no hand at all To be under his hand when he striketh and not to bow to be broken and bruised and yet not humble to be brayed as it were in a mortar and be as very fools as before O dolor what a grief is this saith the Father nay what a judgment is this To be under God's hand and not to bow to be under judgment and not to feel it is the last and greatest judgment in this world But the best sight of God's Power is in his Mercy For his Mercy hath a hand as well as his Justice and there is a Crown and Diadem in the hand of the Lord as well as a Thunderbolt Isa 62.3 And indeed our Humiliation is never so kindly never so proper as when it is the product of Mercy There is mercy with thee that thou mayest be feared Psal 130.4 saith David This was the end why the acceptable year of the Lord was preached and a Jubilee proclaimed God was reconciled to his enemies that they might be friends he bought them with a price
we love him then we love also his appearance and his coming 2 Tim. 4.8 And our Love is a subscription to his promise by which we truly testifie our consent and sympathize with him and say Amen to the Angels promise Amen Even so come Lord Jesus That of Faith may be forced that of Hope may be groundless but this of Love is a free and voluntary subscription Though I know he will come yet I shall be unwilling he should come to me as an enemy that he should come to me when I sit in the chair of the scornful or lie in the bed of lust that he should come to me and find me with a strumpet in my arms or a sword in my hand fighting against that Power which is his ordinance For doth any condemned person hope for a day of execution But when I love him and bow before him when I have improved his Talent and brought my self to that temper and constitution that I can idem velle idem nolle will and nill the same things and be of the same mind with that Jesus who is to come when I have made my self the friend of the Judge then Spes festina then Hope is on the wing then substantia mea apud Christum as the Vulgar readeth it my expectation my substance my being is with Christ Nec pareo Deo sed assentior And I do not onely subscribe to the VENIET to his coming because he hath decreed and resolved it but because I can make an hearty acknowledgment that the will of Christ is just and good and I assent not of necessity but of a willing mind And as he who testifieth these things confirmeth the Angels promise with this last word Surely I come quickly so shall I be able truly to answer Even so come Lord Jesus In the last place this VENIET this foretelling of Christ's second coming hath another operation and is powerful to work in us Fear and Circumspection the very prop and foundation of those three Theological vertues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the preservative of all the good we have It tempereth our Love that it be not too bold our Faith that it be not too forward and our Hope that it be not too confident It is as a watch and guard upon us to keep us in all our wayes VENIET is of the future tense and though it be most certain that Christ will come yet the time is not determined that we may so love Christ as that we may be fit to believe and hope and long for his coming The VENIET may end this moment and the promise be made good as well this day or the next as a thousand years hence The When God hath kept as a secret in his own breast ut pendulâ expectatione solicitudo fidei probetur saith Tertullian that by suspending our expectation and leaving us uncertain of the time he may make trial of the watchfulness of their faith whom he meaneth to place among the few but great examples of eternal happiness Semper diem observant qui semper ignorant semper timent qui quotidie sperant Whilest men are ignorant of the day they observe every day and fear that Christ may come this minute who they know will come at last Veniet fratres veniet sed vide quomodo te inveniet saith Augustine Brethren he will come he will come assuredly and we must be careful how he findeth us when he cometh He will come not as at the first in the form of a servant but as a King not as a sheep that openeth not his mouth but with a mighty voice shaking the heaven and earth with Angels and with Archangels by the power of his Trump raising the dead out of their graves and bringing them all to his seat of judgment He shall come in great majesty and glory So come say the Angels as ye have seen him go into heaven Which pointeth to the manner of Christ's coming and should now come to be handled But the time will not permit Onely for conclusion let us remember that he shall come and shall not keep silence that a fire shall devour before him and a tempest round about him that he shall come cum totius mundi motu cum horrore orbis cum planctu omnium si non Christianorum with an earthquake and the horrour of the world and with the lamentation of all except Christians Et qui nunc ventilat gentes per fidem tunc ventilabit per judicium And he that now winnoweth the nations and separateth them one from the other by faith will then search and divide the whole world by his last and decretory sentence And let this noise startle the Adulterer in his twilight strike the sword out of the hand of the Rebellious and awake the Atheist out of his deep sleep and lethargy For this Jesus this same Jesus shall so come who placed Adultery in the eye and Murther in the thought and commanded to give unto Caesar the things which are Caesar'◠and he shall judge the Adulterer and the seditious Rebel according to that Gospel which he preached in great humility and which many Christians Atheistical Christians trample under their feet with as great pride 2 Cor. 5.11 And let this terrour of the Lord as S. Paul calleth it persuade men to lay aside every weight and those sins which do so easily beset us our Covetous desires which fasten us to the dust our Pride which though it lift up our heads on high yet at last will have a fall our Ambibition which though it reach the pinnacle yet cannot build its nest in heaven our Seditious and Atheistical imaginations which can never enter that place where Obedience and Humility sit crowned for neither Covetousness nor Pride nor Rebellion can ascend with Christ who was humble and yet the Prince of peace But SURSUM CORDA Let us lift up our hearts even lift them up unto the Lord. Let our conversation be in heaven Imitemur quod futuri sumus Let our life be a type of the Ascension and our present holiness an imitation of our future bliss Let us mortifie our earthly members now that then they may be glorified Let us ascend in heart and with all the powers of our soul now in this life that when this Jesus shall come again in glory and great Majesty we may be caught up in the clouds and meet the Lord in the air and be with him for evermore The Fifteenth SERMON PART I. 1 COR. VI. 20. For ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which are God's WE have in our last presented before your eyes the bloudy and victorious Passion and glorious Resurrection of Jesus Christ The later our Apostle mentioneth ver 14. And God hath both raised up the Lord and will also raise up us by his own power raise us not onely out of the grave but out of that deep prison and dungeon
the Anabaptists call it if it be not levelled to its right end which is not to afflict but to purge and refine us to withdraw us from the present momentany pleasures that we may be fitted for the future for those which are not seen which are eternal that we may so abstain from meats ut solo Deo alamur as Tertullian speaketh of Moses and Elias that we may feed on God alone which is to seek him Last of all Prayer is of great force and availeth much saith Saint James It is the best guide and conduct to lead us in our way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nyssene it addeth wings unto us even the wings of a Dove that we may fly after God and be at rest It is impossible that it should return empty if we ask for grace not wealth that we may do God's will and not that we may bring our own purposes about and then say it is his will The wicked are not heard for God regardeth not their prayers but loatheth them as an abomination And yet they are heard and have that which they request granted them but for another end even as God gave the Israelites a King in his wrath and indignation and to their further condemnation But when we bow before God and desire power and ability to seek him that is to walk in his wayes we pray for that which God is alwayes ready to give We pray that we may seek him who beseecheth and commandeth us to seek him who sendeth his Prophets to call upon us to seek him Such prayers are as musick in the ears of the Almighty and our diligence in seeking him is the resultance We may call Prayer with Dionysius the Areopagite 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a bright and radiant chain by which we ascend unto God and God descendeth unto us by which we are drawn to follow and seek the Lord. To conclude this part then these three Hearing Fasting and Prayer as they are helps to forward our repentance so are they signs of a troubled spirit probable symptoms of a heart thirsting and panting after God and yet through the corruptions of our hearts they are nothing else but bare signs and types and shadows Signs but such as signifie nothing Types but such as have no Antitypes Shadows of which the substance was never seen For as it was observed of the Jews that the greatest sacrifices so it may be amongst Christians that the most frequent hearers the greatest fasters and they that are longest and loudest in prayer may be the greatest sinners It is well we can be brought to these if it be in God's name but commonly some other wind driveth us to the Temple some other hand putteth on our sackcloth and our love nay the Prince of this world may bring us on our knees and then in these our devotion is terminated and if we can well pass over these as we may well for we delight and pride our selves in them we think we have God in a chain and bound him with our merits that we have past through as many punishments as they did who were to be consecrated to Mithras the God of the Persians In a word in these three Hearing Fasting and Prayer our devotion our seeking is at an end We please and content our selves with the service of the ears of the body of the lips with a Sermon I should say many Sermons with a Fast and that is not complete without something which they call by that name with the labour of the lips with a Prayer and that too must have something of the Sermon and something of the Libel when as indeed our turning to God is the best commendation of a Sermon to loose the bonds of wickedness of that wickedness we now stand guilty of before God and men is the best sanctifying of a Fast and to seek the Lord with all the heart the most effectual Prayer we can make To this end are these duties enjoyned and to this end alone they are useful and serviceable that we may seek the Lord. We have beheld the Object which we must seek the Lord who is the sole and adequate object of our desires in whom alone they may rest If we desire Wealth the earth is the Lord's and all that therein is if Strength he is the Lord of Hosts if Wisdom he created her and poured her out upon all his works if Life he is the living God if Immortality he onely is immortal And if we seek not him our riches are snares our greatest wisdom the greatest folly our strength will overthrow us and our momentany life will deliver us over to eternal death We have also seen what it is to seek the Lord namely to seek him in Christ to seek him in those wayes of obedience and humility which he hath drawn out unto us in his Gospel in a word to bow our wills and receive him into our hearts that God in us may be all in all Now we pass from the Act to the Time when we must seek the Lord while he may be found my last part And do we ask when we should seek the Lord We do not well to ask it because we should not stay so long as to ask the question before we seek him Huic rei perit omne tempus quodcunque alteri datur All time is lost to this which we bestow in any thing else For shall we prefer our pleasure our profit our health our life before God Nor is there need of deliberation in that action wherein all the danger is not to do it Fides pura moram non patitur If we love God and truly believe in him we cannot be so patient as to endure the least delay We may miss of happiness but certainly we cannot meet it too soon I know God may be found at any time which we can call ours at any time of our life in the morning or at noon in the heat of the day or in the cool of the evening But a great presumption it is to promise to our selves to seek and find him when we please He may be found in our old age but it is most safe to remember him in our youth he may be found in affliction but it is not good to stay till the rod be on the back he may be found in war and yet it is hard to find the God of peace in war and therefore it is a folly to delay seeking him till we see the glittering spear and hear the noise of the whip and the prauncing of the horses If we will determine and fix a time we must take the first opportunity lay it to the first beam and dawning of our reason The second or third opportunities though they come not peradventure too late to find him yet they come too late for us to begin to seek him because we lost the first which for ought we knew might have been the last To morrow may be but Now is the while
this they did contradict themselves who brought in their Wiseman sensless of pain even on the rack and wheel When the Body is an unprofitable burden unserviceable to the Soul oportet educere animam laborantem we ought to do drive the Soul out of such an useless habitation Cum non sis quod esse velis non est quod ultrà sies When thou art what thou shouldst be there is no reason thou shouldst be any longer Quare mori voluerim quaeris En quia vivam Would you know the reason why I would dye The onely reason is because I do live These were the speeches of men strangers from the common-wealth of Israel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of those who were without without Christ and so without God in this world But the Christian keeps his station and moves not from it injussu Imperatoris but when the Lord of all the world commands who hath given us a Soul to beautifie and perfect with his graces but hath not given us that power over it when it is disquieted and vexed as he hath given to the Magistrate over us if we offend and break the peace of the common-wealth Qui seipsum occidit est homicida si est homo He that kills himself is a murderer and homicide if he be a man And he that thus desires death desires it not to that end for which it is desireable to be with Christ but to be out of the world which frowns upon him and handles him too roughly which he hath not learnt to withstand nor hath will to conquer This desire is like that of the damned that hills might cover them and mountains fall on them that they migâ—â— be no more No this desire of S. Paul is from the heaven heavenly drawn from that place where his conversation was wrought in him by the will of God and bowing in submission to his will a longing and panting after that rest and sabbath which remains after that crown which was laid up for him And this Desire filled the hearts of all those who with S. Paul loved God in sincerity and truth in whom the Soul being of a divine extraction and like unto God and cleaving and united to him had a kind of striving and inclination to the things above and was restless and unquiet till it came to rest in him who is the centre of all good Here they acted their parts in the world as on a stage contemned hated reviled it trod it under foot and longed for their exit to go out Vae mihi quia incolatus meus prolongatus est saith David Wo is me that I sojourn in it any longer So Elias who could call down fire from heaven give laws to the clouds and shut and open heaven when he would cryes out unto God It is enough Take away my life for I am not better then my fathers And this affection the Gospel it self instills into us in that solemn Prayer Thy kingdome come wherein we desire saith Tertullian maturius regnare non diutiùs servire to reign in heaven sooner and not to stay longer and serve and drudge upon the earth Wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death this whole state and generality of sins of Calamities and those evils which the world swarms with life brings along with it So Pharaoh speaking of the Locusts which were sent Intreat saith he the Lord your God to take away this death from me This desire that vvas in S. Paul in some degree possesseth the heart of every regenerate person and is nourished and fomented in them by the operarion of the blessed Spirit as a right spirit a spirit of Love vvorking in us the Love of God and as a spirit of Peace filling our hearts vvith Peace making our conscience a house of Peace as the Ark of God as the Temple of Solomon where no noise was heard We love Christ and would be there where his honour dwelleth our conscience is at rest and we have confidence in God Now first to love God is not a duty of so quick despatch as some imagin It is not enough to speak good of his name to call upon him in the time of trouble to make laws against those which take his name in vain to give him thanks for that he never did and will certainly punish to make our boast of him all the day long For do not even hypocrites and Pharisees the same But to love him is to do his will and keep his commandments John 17. By this we glorifie him I have glorified thee on earth saith Christ and the interpretation follows I have finished the work thou gavest me to do that is I have preached thy law declared thy will publisht both thy promises and precepts by the observation of which men may love thee and long after thee and be delivered from the fear of death Idem velle idem nolle ea demùm est firma amicitia then are we truly servants and friends to God when we have the same will when we have no will of own The sting of Death is sin and there is no way to take it out to spoil this King of terrour of his power but by subduing our Affections to our Reason the Flesh to the Spirit and surrendring up our wills unto God Then we dare look Death in the face and ask him Where is thy terrour Where is thy sting God loves them that love him nay he cannot but love them bearing his Image and being his workmanship in Christ And he that is thus loved and thus loves cannot but hasten and press forward and fly like the Doves as the Prophet speaketh to the windows of heaven It is a famous speech of Martin Luther Homo perfectè credens se esse haeredem Dei non diu superstes merueret A man that perfectly and upon sure grounds doth believe himself to be the child and heir of God would not long survive that assurance but would be swallowed up and dye of immoderate joy This is that transformation and change by which our very nature is altered Now Heaven is all and the World is Nothing All the rivers of pleasures vvhich this world can yield cannot quench this love What is Beauty to him that delights in the face of God what is Riches to him vvhose treasure is in heaven vvhat is Honour to him vvho is candidatus Angelorum vvhose ambition is to be like unto the Angels This true unfeigned Love ravisheth the soul and setteth it as it were in heavenly places This makes us living dying men nay dead before we depart not sensible of Pleasures which flatter us of Injuries vvhich are thrown upon us of Miseries vvhich pinch us having no eye no ear no sense no heart for the world vvilling to loose that being which vve have in this shop of vanities and to be loosed that vve may be with Christ Secondly this Love of God and this Obedience to his will
by their words and by their works Let us think we hear him say Go and do likewise Did I say God speaketh by St. Paul and by all the Saints There be who will allow Paul holy but not Saint which is as if they should say he were a reasonable creature but not a Man But Saint is a name of danger and hath brought men on their knees to commit Idolatry By this argument the Sun must also lose its name and not be called the Sun because some have worshipped it But it hath been given to wicked men Saint Ignatius and Saint Garnet And I fear it is given at this day to those who are as wicked as they But God forbid that an honest man should lose his name because sometimes it is given to a Knave and because we call him Honest friend who is our deadly enemy What though the Pope have canonized them and wrote them down in red letters in the Kalender That I am sure cannot expunge their names out of the Book of life nor yet unsaint them unless you will say that a Virgin is no more a Virgin if once a strumpet call her so or that Christ was not the Son of the living God because he was called by that name by a Legion of Devils Such Gnats as these do these men strain at who every day before the sun and the people shallow down camels They check at every feather and pull milstones upon their heads They will not call Paul and the Apostles and the blessed Martyrs Saints oh take heed of that but they take that title to themselves and in that name work not wonders but commit those abominations which the blessed Saints of God abhorred They scruple at the name of Saint and triumph in that of a man of Belial They tremble at a shadow which themselves cast and court a monster They startle at a straw and play with a thunderbolt O beloved let not us be afraid of the name Saint not be afraid to give it to others though our Humility will not let us fix it on our selves There were Saints at Corinth and Saints at Philippi and Saints at Colosse and Saints at Ephesus St. Paul calleth them so And shall we be afraid to give him and the rest of the Apostles and the Martyrs of Christ that name Nay rather In the second place let us bless God for his Saints and look upon them and follow them in those wayes which made them Saints though honour and dishonour through fire and water through terrours and affrightments through the valley of death into the land of the living and the paradise of God Let their glory work in us an holy emulation Let us be sorry to see our selves at such a distance let us be angry at our own backwardness let us love that virtue which hath crowned them and let us labour in hope to overtake them and live with them in the same region of happiness Envy is a torment but Emulation filleth us with Hope which is a comforter Indeed when we speak of the glorious Saints of God we need make no mention of Envy we are free enough from that If any man be rich or mighty or honourable or learned we are presently on the rack But if any man be good we are well content he should be so alone Righteousness and Temperance and Martyrdom which are bought at a dear rate and cost us our very life and bloud are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without envy We look back upon those Worthies which were our fore-runners in the way to heaven as upon sad and uncouth spectacles We are ready to fright our selves with the conceit of impossibilities we talk of nothing else The Law we say is impossible and to follow the Saints is impossible And why is it not to reign with them also impossible And all this is for want of that Hope which we are as willing to stifle as the Examples of good men are active to kindle it in our hearts Beloved these great Ensamples are strong arguments against us nec tà m praecipiunt quà m convitium faciunt they do not only call after us but upbraid us if we follow not They have virtue and power in them to raise a hope within us which may stir us up to action and pull our hands out of our bosom Quid deficimus Quid desperamus Quicquid fieri potuit potest Why do we faint or despair Whatsoever hath been done by any Saint of God may be taken up by us and done again The very Heathen maketh it his argument Ignem Mutius exsilium Rutilius Mutius overcame the fire Socrates poison Rutilius banishment Cato death Singula vicerunt jam multi nos vincamus aliquid Many have overcome several evils let us overcome something Is obedience difficult Abraham would have sacrificed his son his only son at the command of God Is Patience a burthen Job blessed God when he lay on the dunghill Is Humility distasteful You may behold the King of Israel in a dance Is Martyrdom terrible We have a cloud of ensamples purpuratas nubes those purple clouds which have watered the field of Christ with showres of bloud that after them there may grow up Martyrs through all generations This power this influence have the Examples of the Saints if we will but receive it that we may grow up thereby Brethren I may boldly speak to you of the blessed Patriarchs Noah Abraham Isaac Jacob David and of the blessed Apostle S. Paul that they are both dead and buried And though we have not their Sepulcres with us yet we have their Inscriptions PERFECT NOAH FAITHFUL ABRAHAM DEVOUT DAVID PAUL THE SERVANT OF JESUS CHRIST Which we should reade and translate into our selves to drive us to Perfection to confirm our Obedience to nourish our Faith and to raise the heat of our Devotion Therefore In the last place let us emulate the best Par est optimum quemque ad imitandum proponere saith the Philosopher It is fit we should propose the best paterns Nay Stultissimum est it is folly not to do so saith the Oratour Elige Catonem saith Seneca Chuse such a man as Cato for thy example Elige Paulum Chuse such a one as S. Paul S. Peter S. Stephen And when any difficulty or tentation assaulteth thee as S. Cyprian would often call for Tertullian's Works DA MAGISTRUM Give me my Master so do thou Da Magistros Give me the examplcs of those glorious Saints of God to settle and compose and establish me in all my wayes A shame it is that after so long a time after so many fair and bright examples after so great a multitude of Professors when all Arts and Sciences are advanced every day Grace and Holiness should suffer a kind of solstice nay go back more then ten degrees That so many Peters and Pauls should pass by us and not so much as their shadow reach us That so many examples of perfection should shine in the
proceeded to the attaining of it The Stork in the air knoweth her appointed times Jer. 8.7 and the Turtle and the Crane and the Swallow observe the time of their coming Pliny speaking of the Bees telleth us Quod maximè mirum est mores habent A wonderful thing it is to see that natural honesty and justice which is in them Onely Man the soveraign Lord of all the creatures whom it most principally concerned to be thus endowed was sent into the world utterly devoid of any such knowledge nisi alienâ misericordiâ sustinere se nequit as Ambrose speaketh and without forein and borrowed help never so much as getteth a sight of his own proper end Amongst natural men none there are in whom appetite is so extinct but that they see something which they propose unto themselves as a scope of their hopes and reward of their labours and in the obtaining of which they suppose all their happiness to reside Yet even in this which men principally incline to direction is so faulty particulars so infinite that most sit down in the midst of their way and come far short of that mark which their hopes set up And if our Wisdom be so feeble and deficient in those things which are sensible and open to our view what laws what light what direction have we need of to carry us on in the way to that happiness which no mortal eye can approch Hannibal in Livy being to pass the Alps a thing that time held impossible yet comforteth himself with this Nullas terras coelum contingere nec inexsuperabiles humano generi esse That how high soever they were they were not so high as heaven nor unpassable if men were industrious The pertinacy of Man's industry may find waies through desarts through rocks through the roughest seas But our attempt is far greater The way we must make is from earth to heaven a thing which no strength or wit of man could ever yet compass Therefore Christ our King who knoweth Man to be a wandring and erring creature would not leave it to his shallow discretion who no sooner thinketh but erreth nor setteth down his foot but treadeth amiss but he cometh himself into the world promulgeth his Laws which may be to him as Tiresias his staff in the Poet able to guide his feet were he never so blind and in his Gospel he giveth him sound directions no way subject unto errour guideth him as it were with a bridle putteth his Law into his heart chalketh out his way before him and like a skilful Pilot sheweth him what course to take what Syrtes what rocks to avoid lest he make an irrecoverable shipwreck of body and soul His Laws are the Compass by which if he steer his course he shall pass the gulf and be brought to that haven where he would be 1 Pet. 2.9 Rom. 2. 6. Therefore hath Christ called us out of darkness into his wonderful light And we are the called of Jesus Christ gathered together into a Church an House a Family a City a Republick Our Conversation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 municipatus as Tertullian rendreth it our Burgership is in heaven And the Philosopher will tell us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that will erect a Society a Commonwealth must also frame Laws and fit and shape them to that form of Commonwealth which he intendeth For Lavvs are numismata Reipublicae the coins as it were by vvhich vve come to knovv the true face and representation of a Commonvvealth the different complexions of States and Societies And Christ our King hath dravvn out Laws like unto his Kingdom vvhich are most fit and appliable to that end for vvhich he hath gathered us into one body His sceptre is a sceptre of righteousness and his Laws are just He came down from heaven and his Laws carry us back thither He received them from his Father John 10.18 as himself speaketh and these make us like unto his Father These govern our Understanding nè assentiat that it yield not assent to that errour which our lusts have painted over in the shape of Truth and these regulate our Will nè consentiat that it do not bow and chuse it and these order our Affections that they may be servants and not commanders of our Reason These make a heaven in our Understanding these place the image of God in our Will and make it like unto his these settle peace and harmony in the Affections that they become weapons of righteousness and fight the battels of our King and Law-giver My Anger may be a sword my Love a banner my Hope a staff and my Fear a buckler In a word Christ's Laws will fit us for his Kingdom here and prepare us for his Kingdom hereafter Therefore in the next place they are necessary for us as the onely means to draw us nigh unto himself and to that end for which he came into the world Every end hath its proper means fitted and proportioned to it Knowledge hath study Riches have labour and industry Honour hath policy Even he that setteth up an end which he is ashamed of and hideth from the Sun and the people draweth a method and plot in himself to bring him to it The Thief hath his night and darkness and the Wanton his twilight And his hope entitleth and joyneth him to the end though he never reach it In the Kingdom of Satan there are rules and laws observed A thought ushereth in a Sin and one Sin draweth on another and at last Destruction And this is the way of that wisdome which is but foolishness And shall men work iniquity as by a law and can we hope to be raised to an eternity of glory and be left to our selves or to attain it by those means which hold no proportion at all with it Will the Gospel the bare Tidings of peace do it Will a phansie a thought a wish an open profession have strength enough to lift us up to it Happiness in phansie is a picture and no more In a wish it is less for I wish that which I would not have And barely to profess the means and acknowledge the way unto it is to give my self the lie nay to call my self a fool for what greater folly can there be then to say This is the way and not to walk in it If we were thus left unto our selves all our happiness were but a dream and every thought a sin against the holy Ghost We should wish our King neither just nor wise nor holy we should call him our King and leave him no sceptre in his hand no power to make a Law look forward toward the mark and run backward from it give Christ a Hail and crucifie him call an innocent Christ our King and be men of Belial an humble Christ and swell above our measure a merciful Christ and be cruel a just Christ and be oppressours hope to attain the end without the means and against
in the Gospel as it were with the Sun-beams S. Paul giveth it this character that it is profitable that is 2 Tim. 3.16 17. sufficient for doctrine which is either of things to be believed or of things to be done for reproof of greater and more monstrous crimes for correction of those who fall by weakness or infirmity for instruction in righteousness that those who have begun well may grow up in grace and every vertuous work that the man of God may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perfect and consummate throughly furnished unto all good works Take him in what capacity you please there in the Scripture in the New Testament especially yea and in that alone he may find what will fill and qualifie him and fit him in every state and condition Take him in the worst condition as an unbeliever there is that will beget faith and form Christ in him as wavering in the faith there is that will confirm him as believing and fallen into errour or sin there is that will restore him as rooted and built up in Christ there is that will settle and establish him as under the cross there is that will strengthen him as crowned with peace there is that will crown that crown and settle it on his head as in health there is that will make him run the wayes of God's commandments as in sickness there is that will tune his grones and quicken him even when he is giving up the ghost as a King there is that which will manage his sceptre as a Subject there he may learn to bow Take him as a Master or a Servant as Rich or Poor as in prison or at liberty living or dying there he shall find what is necessary for him in that condition of life even to the last moment and period of it and not onely that which is necessary but under that formality as necessary so fitted and proportioned to the end that without it we can never attain it They that lay hold of it shall have peace with God and they who despise it shall have a worm ever gnawing them These shall go away saith our Saviour into everlasting punishment but the righteous who look into this perfect Law into life eternal Will you behold the Object of your Faith There you shall see not onely a picture of Christ but Christ even crucified as S. Paul speaketh to the Galatians before your eyes Will you behold that Faith which shall save you There you shall behold both what she is and what wonders she can work Have you so little Charity as not to know what she is There you may see her in every limb and lineament in every act and operation which is proper to her her Hand her Ear her Eye her Bowels There you may see what is worth your sight Et quod à Deo discitur totum est We can learn no more then God will teach us When we affect more and pour forth all the lust of our curiosity to find it out we at last shall be weary and sit down and complain that we have lost our labour For thus Curiosity which is a busie Idleness punisheth it self as a frantick person is punished with his madness Quicquid nos beatos facturum est aut in aperto est saith Seneca aut in proximo Whatsoever can make us happy is either open to the eye or near at hand We will instance but in one and that the main point Justification because the Church of Rome hath set it in the front of those points of doctrine which are imperfectly or obscurely delivered in the Gospel and therefore require a visible and supreme Judge of controversies to settle and determine them It is true indeed The Gospel hath been preached these sixteen hundred years and above and many questions have been started and many controversies raised about Justification For though men have been willing to go under the name of Justified persons yet have they been busie to enquire how Justification is wrought in them They are justified they know not how Many and divers opinions have been broached amongst the Canonists and Confessionists and others Osiander nameth twenty And there are many more at this day And yet all may consist well enough for ought I see and still that sense which is delivered in Scripture as necessary remain entire For 1. it is necessary to believe that no man can be justified by the works of the Law precisely taken And in this all agree 2. It is necessary to believe that we are not justified by the Law of Moses either by it self or joyned with Faith in Christ And in this all agree 3. It is necessary to believe that Justification is by Faith in Christ And in this all agree 4. That Justification is not without Remission of sins and Imputation of righteousness And in this all agree 5. That a Dead Faith doth not justifie And here is no difference 6. That that is a Dead faith which is not accompanied with Good works and a holy and serious purpose of good life And in this all agree 7. Lastly that faith in Christ Jesus implieth an advised and deliberate assent that Christ is our Prophet and Priest and King Our Prophet who hath fully delivered the will of his Father to us in his Gospel the knowledge of all his precepts and promises Our Priest to free us from the guilt of sin and condemnation of death by his bloud and intercession Our King and Law-giver governing us by his Word and Spirit by the vertue and power of which we shall be redeemed from death and translated into the Kingdom of heaven And in this all agree Da si quid ultrà est And is there yet any more All this which is necessary is plainly delivered in the Gospel And what is more is but a vapour from Curiosity which when there is a wide door and effectual is ever venturing at the needles eye This is so plain that no man stumbleth at it But those interpretations and comments and explications which have been made upon this nihil ampliùs quà m sonant make a noise but no Musick at all nec animum faciunt quia non habent nor can they add spirit to us in the way to bliss because they have none And as we find them not in the Scripture so have we no reason to list them amongst those doctrines which are necessary As to instance for the act of Justification what mattereth it whether I believe or not believe know or not know that our Justification doth consist in one or more acts so that I certainly know and believe that it is the greatest blessing that God can let fall upon his creature and believe that by it I am made acceptable in his sight and though I have broke the Law yet shall be dealt with as if I had been just and righteous indeed whether it be done by pardoning all my sins or imputing universal obedience to me or the active
vanity or the next business will drive it away and take its place Nor let us make a room for it in our Phansie For it is an easie matter to think we are free when we are in chains Who is so wicked that he is not ready to persuade himself he is just And that false persuasion too shall go for the dictate of the Holy Ghost Paganism it self cannot shew such monsters as many of them are who call themselves Saints But let us gird up our loins and be up and doing the work those works of piety which the Gospel injoyneth It is Obedience alone that tieth us to God and maketh us free denisons of that Jerusalem which is above In it the Beauty the Liberty the Royalty the Kingdom of a Christian is visible and manifest For by it we sacrifice not our Flesh but our Will unto God and so have one and the same will with him and if we have his will we have his power also and his wisdom to accompany it and to to fulfil all that we can desire or expect Servire Deo regnare est To serve God is to reign as Kings here and will bring us to reign with him for evermore Let us then stand fast in our obedience which is our liberty against all the wiles and invasions of the enemy all those temptations which will shew themselves in power and craft to remove us from our station In a calm to steer our course is not so difficult but when the tempest beateth hard upon us not to dash against the rock will commend our skill Every man is ready to build a tabernacle for Christ when he is in his glory but not to leave him at the Cross is the glory and crown of a Christian And first let us not dare a temptation as Pliny dared the vapour at Mount Vesuvius and died for it Let us not offer and betray our selves to the Enemy For he that affecteth and loveth danger is in the ready way to be swallowed up in that gulf Valiant men saith the Philosopher are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quiet and silent before the combat but in the trial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ready and active But audacious daring men are commonly loud and talkative before encounters but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 flag and fail in them The first weigh the danger and resolve by degrees the other are peremptory and resolve suddenly and talk their resolution away It is one thing to talk of a tempest at sea another to discourse of it leaning against a wall It is one thing to dispute of pain another to feel it Grief and Anguish hath not such a sting in the Stoicks gallery as it hath on the rack For there Reason doth fight but with a shadow and a representation here with the substance it self And when things shew themselves naked as they are they stir up the affections When the Whip speaketh by its smart not by my phansie when the Fire is in my flesh not my understanding when temptations are visible and sensible then they enter the soul and the spirit then they easily shake that resolution which was so soon built and soon beat down that which was made up in haste Therefore let us not rashly thrust our selves upon them But in the second place let us arm and prepare our selves against them For Preparation is half the conquest It looketh upon them handleth and weigheth them before hand seeeth where their great strength lieth and goeth forth in the power of the Spirit and in the name of Christ and so maketh us more then conquerers before the sight And this is our Martyrdom in peace For the practice of a Christian in the calmest times must nothing differ in readiness and resolution from times of rage and fire As Josephus speaketh of the military exercises practised amongst the Romans that they differed from a true battel only in this that their battel was a bloudy exercise and their exercise a bloudless battel So our preparation should make us martyrs before we come to resist ad sanguinem to shed a drop of bloud To conclude as the Apostle exhorteth let us take unto us the whole armour of God that we may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand to stand against the horrour of a prison against the glittering of the sword against the terrour of death to stand as expert souldiers of Christ and not to forsake our place to stand as mount Sion which cannot be moved in a word to be stedfast unmoveable alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as we know that our labour is not in vain in the Lord. For whoso looketh into the perfect Law of Liberty and continueth therein he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work this man shall be blessed in his deed The Seven and Fortieth SERMON PART VII JAMES I. 25. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work this man shall be blessed in his deed TO Persevere or continue in the Gospel and To be blessed for ever are the two stages of a Christian the one here on earth the other in heaven and there is scarce a moment but a last breath between them nothing but a mouldering and decaying wall this tabernacle of flesh which falleth down suddenly and then we pass and enter And that we may persevere and continue means are here prescribed first assiduous Meditation in this Law we must not be forgetful hearers of it but look into it as into a glass vers 23 24. yet not as a man that beholdeth his natural face in a glass and then goeth away and forgetteth himself not as a man who looketh carelesly casteth an eye and thinketh no more of it but rather as a woman who looketh into her glass with intention of mind with a kind of curiosity and care stayeth and dwelleth upon it fitteth her attire and ornaments to her by a kind of method setteth every hair in its proper place and accurately dresseth and adorneth her self by it And sure there is more care and exactness due to the soul then to the body Secondly that we may continue and persevere we must not only hear and remember but do the work For Piety is confirmed by Practice To these we may now add a third which hath so near a relation to Practice that it is even included in it and carrried along with it And it is To be such students in Christ's School as S. Paul was Acts 24.16 To study and exercise our selves to have alwayes a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men Not to triflle with our God or play the wanton with our Conscience Not to displease and wound her in one particular with a resolution to follow her in the rest Not to let our love of the world or fear of danger make that a truth which we formerly
and govern us He that was and that is and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to come telleth us of his coming openeth his will Rev. 1.4 and manifesteth his power and as he hath given us Laws telleth us he will come to require them at our hands He that is the Wisdome of his Father He that neither slumbreth nor sleepeth calleth upon us maketh this stir and noise about us and the alarum is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be watchful Call it what we please an Admonition or an Exhortation it hath the necessitating and compulsive force of a Law and Christ is his own Herald and proclaimeth it as it were by the sound of the trumpet For this VIGILATE ERGO Watch therefore is tuba ante tubam is as a trumpet before the last trumpet and thus it soundeth To you it is commanded to fling your selves off from the bed of security to set a court of guard upon your selves to rowze up your selves to stand as it were on a watch-tower looking for and expecting the coming of the Lord. I may call it a Law but it is not as the laws of men which are many times the result of mens wills and are guided and determined by their lusts and affections and so Ambition maketh laws and Covetousness maketh laws and private Interest maketh laws with this false Inscription BONO PVBLICO For the publick good But it is prefaced and ushered in with Reason which concerneth not so much the Head as the Members not the Lord as his Servants not the King as his Subjects for us men and for our salvation For him that is in the field and him that is in the house for him that sitteth on the throne and her that grindeth at the mill for the whole Church is this warning given is this law promulged And every word is a reason 1. That he is our Lord that is to come 2. That he will come 3. That the time of his coming is uncertain A Lord to seal and ratifie his laws with our blood which we would not subscribe to nor make good by our obedience Matth. 25.14 and a Lord gone as it were into a far Countrey Luk. 19.12 13. and leaving us to traffick till he come but after a while to come and reckon with us and last of all at an uncertain time at an hour we know not that every hour may be unto us as the hour of his coming for he that prefixeth no hour may come the next Every one of these is a reason strong enough to enforce this Conclusion Watch therefore A Lord he is and shall we not fear him To come and shall we not expect him To come at an hour we know not and shall we not watch These are the Premisses and the Conclusion is Logically and formally deduced primae necessitatis the most necessary Conclusion that a servant or subject can draw So that in these words we have these things considerable first the Person coming your Lord secondly his Advent He will come thirdly the Uncertainty of the hour We know not when it will be Out of which will naturally follow this Conclusion which may startle and awake us out of sleep Watch therefore We will follow that method which we have laid down and begin with the premisses First it will concern us to look upon the Person For as the person is such is our expectation And could we take the Idea of him in our hearts and behold him in the full compass and extent of his power we should unfold our arms and look about us veternum excutere shake off our sloth and drowsiness and prepare for his coming For it is Christ our Lord. Ask of me Psal 2.8 and I shall give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance saith God to Christ John 10.30 And Christ saith I and the Father are one We believe he shall judge the world John 5.22 and we read that the Father hath committed all judgement to the Son Take him as God or take him as Man he is our Lord. Cùm Dominus dicitur unus agnoscitur for there is but one faith Eph. 4 5. and but one Lord. So that Christ may well say John 13.13 You call me Lord and Master and so I am A Lord as in many other respects so jure redemtionis by redemption having bought us with a price 1 Cor. 6.20 and jure belli by way of conquest by treading our enemies under our feet and taking us out of slavery and bondage And that we may not think that Christ laid down his power with his life or that he is gone from us never to come again we will a little consider the nature of his Dominion and behold him there from whence he must come to judge the quick and the dead And the Prophet David hath pointed out to him sitting at the right hand of God where we should ever behold him and fix our thoughts and our eye of faith upon him in this our watch Psal 110.1 The Lord said unto my Lord Sit thou at my right hand till I make thy enemies thy footstool Which speech is metaphorical and we cannot draw it to any other sense then that on which the intent of the speaker did level it which reacht no further then this To shew that his own Kingdom was nothing in comparison of Christs which was of another and higher nature Non ex parabolis materias commentimur sed ex materiis parabola◠interpretamur Tertull De Pudicit c 8. As Tertulian spake of Parables We do not draw conclusions and doctrines out of Metaphors but we expound the Metaphor by the doctrine which is taught and the scope of the teacher nor must we admit of any interpretation which notwithstanding the Metaphor might yield that is not consonant and agreeable to the doctrine and analogie of faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Philosopher We can neither bring a Metaphor into a definition nor can we build an argument upon it We may say of Metaphors as Christ spake of the voice from heaven They are used in Scripture for our sakes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist 5. Top. c. 2. for likeness and proportions sake and serve to present intellectual objects to the eye and make that light which we have of things familiar to us a help and medium by which we may more clearly see those which are removed and stand at greater distance For he cannot be said to sit there at the right hand of God from the position and site of his body We cannot entertain so gross an imagination Acts 7.56 And S. Stephen telleth us he saw him standing at the right hand of God But it may declare his victory his triumph and his rest as it were from his labour Secundùm consuetudiuem nostram illi consessus offertur qui victor adveniens honoris gratiâ promeretur ut sedeat It is borrowed saith S. Ambrose from our customary speech by
by quickning and enlivening our Faith Eph. 3.17 He dwelleth in our hearts by faith so that we are rooted and grounded in love We read of a dead faith Jam. 2.20 a faith vvhich moveth no more in the vvayes of righteousness then a dead man sealed up in his grave And if the Son of man should come he would find enough of this faith in the World From hence from this that our Faith is not enlivened that the Gospel is not throughly believed but faintly received cum formidine contrarii vvith a fear or rather a hope that the contrary is true from hence proceed all the errours of our lives From hence ariseth that irregularity those contradictions and inconsequences in the lives of men even from hence that we have Faith but so as we should have the World We have it as if vve had it not 1 Cor. 7. and so use it as if we used it not or vvhich is vvorse abuse it Not believe and be saved but believe and be damned And we are vain men James 2.20 saith S. James if we think otherwise if we think that a dead faith can work any thing or any thing but death But when it is quickned and made a working faith vvhen Christ dwelleth in our hearts by faith then it worketh wonders We read of its valour that it subdueth kingdoms Hebr. 11.23 and stoppeth the mouthes of lions We read of its policy 2 Cor. 2.11 that it discovereth the Devils enterprises or devises We read of its medicinal virtue Acts 15.9 that it purifieth the heart We read too furta fidei the thefts and pious depredations of Faith It stealeth virtue from Christ Matth. 9.20 21. and taketh heaven by violence Yea such a wonderful power it hath in that soul in which Christ dwelleth 11.12 that it vvorketh out our corruption and stampeth his image upon us It vvorketh in us the obedience of faith Rom. 1.5 that is that obedience which is due to Faith and to which Faith naturally tendeth and to which it would bring us if we did not dull and dead and hinder it Christ first worketh in us a universal and equal obedience For if he dwell in us every room is his There are saith Parisiensis particulares voluntates particular wills or rather particular inclinations and dispositions to this virtue and not to another as to be liberal but not temperate to be sober but not chast to fast and hear and pray but not to do acts of mercy These are virtues but in appearance they proceed from rotten and unsound principles from a false spring but not from Christ And so they make up a spiritual Hermaphrodite a good speaker Duos in uno homine Syllas fuisse crediderit Valerius Max. l. 6. c. 9. and a bad liver a Jew and a Christian an Herode and a John Baptist a Zelote a Phinehas and an Adulterer and as the Historian said two Sylla's in one man like a Play-book and a Sermon bound up together But these I told you are not true virtues but proceed many times from the same principles which vices do for I may be a Hypocrite and a man of Belial for the same end But where Christ dwelleth he purgeth the whole house not one but every faculty of the soul that is the whole man as he raised not a part but all Lazarus For if any part yet favour of rottenness and corruption we cannot say that Lazarus is risen He worketh I say an universal and equal obedience in every respect answering to the command and working of Christ as a Circle doth in every part look upon the point or Centre Secondly Christ worketh in us an even and constant obedience The Apostle calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Col. 2.5 the firmity and stedfastness of our faith in Christ. The Philosopher well observeth that the Affections do but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist l. 2. Ethic. c. 1. 5. lightly move us raise some motion in the minde trouble us and vanish so that one affection many times driveth out another as Amnon did Tamar our Love ending in Hatred our sorrow in Anger and our Fear in Joy But from Virtue we are said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be strongly disposed to be confirmed and established in our actions So the reason of that unevenness instability and inconstancy in the conversation of men that they are now loud in their Hosanna and anon as loud in their Crucifige now in Abrahams bosom and anon into Dalilah's lap now fighting anon cursing now very Seraphical and anon wallowing in the mire is from this That they have no other motive no other principle then peradventure some private respect or a weak impression of some good lesson they have lately heard and some faint radiations from the truth and therefore they can rise no higher then the Fountain and will soon run out with it Now it is not so with the true Christian in whom Christ dwelleth He moveth with the Sun which never starteth out of his sphere he hath Christ living in him and the power of the Gospel assisting him in every motion and so cannot have these qualms of devotion these waverings this unevenness these Cadi-surgia Ephr. Sytus as the Father calleth them these risings and fallings these marches and halts these proffers and relapses because Christ is living in him 1 John 3.9 1 Pet. 1.5 because the seed of God abideth in him and he is kept by this power of Christ unto salvation Thirdly Christ worketh a sincere and real obedience in that heart in which he dwelleth And this is proper to the true Christian For the actions of an hypocrite are not natural but artificial not like unto the actions of a living soul but like unto the motions of that artificial body which Albertus made not proceeding from any life but forced as it were by certain wheels and engines by Love of a good name by Fear of smart or Hope to bring their purposes about Thus many times the Hypocrite walketh to his end in the habit of a Saint when no other appearance will serve But where Christ dwelleth there is his Spirit and where his Spirit is there is truth and he fashioneth and shapeth out our affections to the things themselves and maketh them such as so fair an object requireth As his promises so our affections are Yea and Amen 2 Cor. 1 20. As his reward is real so is our love to it real As the Gospel and Heaven and Christ is true so are our affections towards them hearty and sincere true as he is true and faithful as he is faithful So then to conclude this Christ dwelleth in every true Christian not as a contracted or divided Christ as the antient Hereticks made him but as the Apostle speaketh fully and plentifully Secondly he dwelleth in him as Christ yesterday and to day and the same for ever not as Baal Hebr. 13.8 1 Kings 18.27
now present with us and anon asleep Lastly he dwelleth in him not as Marcion blasphemed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a phantasme or apparition for so he is in every hypocrite but true and perfect God by the same power his Father gave him as truly dwelling in him by his virtue and efficacy as he now doth in glory in the highest heavens And now we have have seen both the parts 1. Our part to dwell in Christ 2. His gracious act to dwell in us Let us a little look back upon this great light and see what matter it will further afford us for our instruction First we must look back upon the resemblance the two Cherubins and see how they keep their places and never turn away the face but eye each other continually and by them learn not to turn away from Christ but to look up upon the Finisher of our faith as he looketh upon us and to dwell in him as he dwelleth in us which maketh up our union and communion with Christ and knitteth us together in the bond of love As it is between Christ and his Father so it must be between us and him I am in the Father and the Father in me John 14.11 John 17. and All mine is thine and thine mine and I glorifie him and he glorifies me And this relation betwixt him and his Father is the ground and foundation of that reference and union which is between Christ and a regenerate soul And then see how it echoeth between them My beloved is mine Cant. 6.3 John 10.17 6.56 and I am my wellbeloveds I know my sheep and my sheep know me They dwell in me and I in them O happy interchanges O blessed reciprocation when Christ looketh upon us in love and we look back upon him in faith working by love when he shineth upon us with all his graces and we reflect back again upon him not in his person for he needeth it not being the fulness of him that filleth all things but in our selves searching the inward man and decking and preparing a place for him reflect upon him in that poor Lazar in those his brethren and our brethren nay even in our enemies for even in them he is pleading for them Mat. 5.44 and commanding us to love them I say unto you Love your enemies Nay further yet reflect upon him in his enemies And can Christ be in his enemies Not indeed so near as to dwell in them but so neer unto them as to call unto thee to pray for them to pity them to restore them John 10.16 For even they may be in the number of those his other sheep which he will bring into his fold Oh remember the resemblance but withall remember the thing too and be very careful to uphold this relation this blessed reciprocation between Christ and thy soul Secondly from this great sight Christ dwelling in Man and Man in Christ let us rouse up our selves and take courage to set a price upon our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Pythagoras counselled to honour and reverence our selves to remember we are Men and so have something of God in us are made partakers of the high calling in Jesus Christ and not to debase and dishonour our selves to become vile in our imaginations and place them on that which is far below the exalted nature of Man And shall I perswade you to think well of your selves I may as well make use of Logick and raise arguments to prevail with a hungry man to eat For how greedily do we suck in air What a perfume is the breath of fools In what perfection of beauty would we be seen to every man In what shape of glory would we be fixt up in their phansie What gods would we be taken for Praise is a most sweet note and we delight to hear it But what a thunderclap is a reproach How sick are we of a reprehension What a loss is the loss of another mans thought What an Anathema is it it is a vulgar phrase to be out of his books And yet in the midst of all disgraces and calamities when we are made the scorn of the world when fools laugh at us and drunkards sing of us nay when wisemen condemn us amongst them all there is none who entertaineth a viler thought of us then we do of our selves for we think our selves good for nothing but to be evil We think indeed we highly honour our selves when we take the upper seat and place others at our footstool when with Herode we put on royal apparel and make us a name when men bow before us and call us their Lords we think so and this thought dishonoureth us degradeth us from that high honour we were created to For is not the life better then meat Matth 6.25 and the body then raiment Is not the soul better then all these 1 Cor. 9.27 Then we honour our selves when we beat down our bodies Rom. 12.16 when we beat down our minds and make our selves equal to them of low degree Then we tread the wayes of honour look towards our original Isa 51.1 unto the rock out of which we were hewn are candidates of bliss Matth. 8.11 and stand for a place in heaven to sit with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God Synes ep 57. For Man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an honourable creature of a high and noble extraction honourable no doubt seeing the Son of God was content to die for him onely that he might dwell in him And if Christ who knew well the worth of a soul did so honour us as to unite our nature in his person and lift up himself upon his Cross to draw our persons after him then will it necessarily follow and Ingratitude it self cannot deny the consequence that we also ought to honour our selves and not fall under the vanity of the creature in a base disesteem of our selves as if we were fit for nothing but to be fuel for hell not make that a stews of uncleanness a forge of mischief a work-house of iniquity which Christ did chuse to make his house to dwell in his temple to sit in and his heaven to reign in Oh let us remember our high extraction our heavenly calling and not thus uncover our selves be thus vile and base in the sight and presence of Christ And that we may thus honour our selves our third inference shall be for caution That we do not deceive our selves and think that Christ dwelleth in us when we carry about us but slender evidence that we dwell in him It is an easie matter to be deceived and we never fall with such a slide and easiness into any errour as into that which is most dangerous and fatal to the soul In the affairs of this life Lord how cautelous are we We ask counsel we look about us we use our own eyes and we borrow other mens eyes and if