word that is without understanding or considering the institution vertue of baptisime expressed in Gods word and so receive baptisme onely for temporall and naturall respects they are not led to the waters but they fall into them and so as a Man may be drowned in a wholsome bath so such a Man may perish eternally in baptisme if he take it for satisfaction of the State or any other by respect to which that Sacrament is not ordained in the word of God He shall lead Men of years by Instruction and he shall lead young children in good company and with a strong guard he shall lead them by the faith of his Church by the faith of their Parents by the faith of their sureties and undertakers He shall lead them and then when he hath taken them into his government for first it is Reget he shall govern them and then Deducet that is he shall lead them in his Church and therefore they that are led to baptisme any other way then by the Church they are misled nay they are miscarried misdriven Spiritu vertiginis with the spirit of giddinesse They that joyne any in commission with the Trinity though but as an asstsant for so they say in the Church of Rome baptisme may be administred in the name of the Father Sonne and holy Ghost and the virgin Mary they follow not as Christ led in his Church Non fuit sic ab initio it was not so from the beginning for quod extra hos tres est totum Conservum est though much dignity belong to the memory of the Saints of God yet whosoever is none of the three Persons Conservus est he is our fellow-servant though his service lie above staires and ours below his in the triumphant ours in the militant Church Conservus est yet he or she is in that respect but our fellow-servant and not Christs fellow-redeemer So also if we be led to Marah to the waters of bitternesse that we bring a bitter taste of those institutions of the Church for the decency and signification in Sacramentall things things belonging to Baptisme if we bring a misinterpretation of them an indisposition to them an aversnesse from them and so nourish a bitternes and uncharitablenesse towards one another for these Ceremonies if we had rather crosse one another and crosse the Church then crosse the child as God shewed Moses a tree which made those waters in the wildernesse sweet when it was cast in so remember that there is the tree of life the crosse of Christ Iesus and his Merits in this water of baptisme when we all agree in that that all the vertue proceeds from the crosse of Christ the God of unity and peace and concord let us admit any representation of Christs crosse rather then admit the true crosse of the devill which is a bitter and schismaticall crossing of Christ in his Church for it is there in his Church that he leads us to these waters Well then they to whom these waters belong have Christ in his Church to lead them and therefore they need not stay till they can come alone till they be of age and years of discretion as the Anabaptists say for it is Deducet and Deducet cos generally universally all that are of this government all that are appointed for the Seal all the one hundred and forty foure thousand all the Innumerable multitudes of all Nations Christ leads them all Be Baptized every one of you in the name of Iesus Christ for the remission of sinnes for the promise is made unto you and your children Now all promises of God are sealed in the holy Ghost To whom soever any promise of God belongs he hath the holy Ghost and therefore Nunquid aquam quis prohibere potest Can any Man forbid water that these should not be baptized which havereceived the holy Ghost as well as we says S. Peter And therfore the Children of the Covenant which have the promise have the holy Ghost all they are in this Regiment Deducet cos Christ shall lead them all But whither unto the lively says our first edition unto the living says our last edition fountaines of waters In the originall unto the fountaines of the water of life now in the Scriptures nothing is more ordianry then by the name of waters to designe and meane tribulations so amongst many other God says of the City of Tyre that he would make it a desolate City and bring the deep upon it and great waters should cover it But then there is some such addition as leads to that sense either they are called Aqua multae great waters or Profunda aquarum deep waters or Absorbebit aqua whirlepooles of waters or Tempestas aquae tempestuous waters or Aqua Fellis bitter water God bath mingled gall in our water but we shall never read fontes aquarum fountaines of waters but it hath a gratious sense and presents Gods benefits So they have forsaken me the fountaine of living waters So the water that I shall give shall be in him a well of water springing up unto everlasting life and so every where else when we are brought to the fountaines to this water in the fountaine in the institution howsover we puddle it with impertinent questions in disputation however we soule it with our finnes and all conversation the fountaine is pure Baptisme presents and offers grace and remission of sinnes to all Nay not onely this fountaine of water but the greatest water of all the flood it selfe Saint Basil understands and applies to Baptisme as the Apostle himselfe does Baptisme was a figure of the flood and the Arke for upon that place The Lord sitseth upon the flood and the Lord doth remaine King for ever he says Baptismi gratiam Diluvium nominat nam deles purgat David calls Baptisme the flood because it destroyes all that was sinfull in us and so also he referrs to Baptisme those words when David had confessed his sinnes I thought I would confesse against my selfe my wickednesse unto the Lord and when it is added Surely in the flood of great waters they shall not come near him peccato non appropinquabunt says he originall sinne shall not come neare him that is truly baptized nay all the actuall sinnes in his future life shall be drowned in this baptisme as often as he doth religiously and repentantly consider that in Baptisme when the merit of Christ was communicated to him he received an Antidote against all poyson against all sinne if he applied them together sinne and the merit of Christ for so also he says of that place God will subdue all our iniquities and cast our sinnes into the bottome of the Sea Hoc est in mare Baptismi says Basil into the Sea of Baptisme There was a Brasen Sea in the Temple and there is a golden Sea in the Church of
of nature to behold him so as to fixe upon him in meditation God benights us or eclipses us or casts a cloud of medicinall afflictions and wholsome corrections upon us Naturally we dwell longer upon the consideration of God when we see the Sun eclipsed then when we see it rise we passe by that as an ordinary thing and so in our afflictions we stand and looke upon God and we behold him A man may see God and forget that ever he saw him When saw we thee hungry or naked or sick or in prison say those mercilesse men they forgot but Christ remembers that they did see him but not behold him see him and looke off see him so as aggravated their sin more then if they had never seene him But that man who through his owne red glasse can see Christ in that colour too through his own miseries can see Christ Jesus in his blood that through the calumnies that have been put upon himselfe can see the revilings that were multiplyed upon Christ that in his own imprisonment can see Christ in the grave and in his owne enlargement Christ in his resurrection this man this Enosh beholds God and he beholds him é longinquo which is another step in this branch he sees him afar off Now this seeing afar off is not a phrase of diminution a circumstance of extenuation as though it were lesse to see God afar off and more to see him neerer This far off is far from that it is a power of seeing him so as wheresoever I am or wheresoever God is I can see him at any distance Being established in my foundation upon God being built up by faith in that notion of God in which he hath manifested himselfe to me in his Sonne being mounted and raised by dwelling in his Church being made like unto him in suffering as he suffered I can see round about me even to the Horizon and beyond it I can see both Hemispheres at once God in this and God in the next world too I can see him in the Zenith in the highest point and see how he works upon Pharaoh on the Throne and I can see him in the Nadir in the lowest dejection and see how he workes upon Ioseph in the prison I can see him in the East see how mercifully he brought the Christian Religion amongst us and see him in the West see how justly he might remove that againe and leave us to our own inventions I can see him in the South in a warme and in the North in a frosty fortune I can see him in all angles in all postures Abraham saw God coming to him as he fate at the doore of his Tent and though as the Text sayes there God stood by him yet sayes the Text too Abraham ran to meet God I can see God in the visitation of his Spirit come to me and when he is so he is already in me but I must run out to meet him that is labour to hold him there and to advance that manifestation of himselfe in me Abraham saw God comming Moses saw God going his glory passing by he saw posteriora his hinder parts so I can see God in the memory of his blessings formerly conferred upon me And Moses saw him too in a burning bush in thornes and fire And had I no other light but the fire of a pile of faggots in that light I could see his light I could see himselfe Let me be the man of this Text this Enosh to say with Ieremy I am the man that hath seene affliction by the rod of his wrath Let me have had this third concoction that as I am Adam a man of earth wrought upon that wheele and as I am a Christian a vessell in his house a member of his Church wrought upon that wheele so let me be vir dolorum a man of affliction a vessell baked in that furnace fitted by Gods proportion and dosis of his corrections to make a right use of his corrections and I can see God E longinquo afar off I can see him writing downe my name in the booke of life before I was borne and I can see him giving his Angels The Angell of the great Counsell Christ Jesus himselfe and his spirit charge of my preservation all the way and of my transmigration upon my death-bed and that is E longinquo from before I was to after I shall be no more There remaines a word more 'T is scarce well said for there remaines not a word more There is not another word and yet there is another branch in the Text. This man not every man as before this Enosh not every Adam as before he sees not onely as before but he beholds afarre off and so farre we are gone but what beholds he afarre off That the Text tels us not Before there was an illud Every man may see that aske what is that and I can tell you I have told you out of the coherence of the Text It is Gods workes manifesting himselfe even to the naturall man But this man this Enosh raised by his dejection rectified by humiliation may behold what here is no illud no such word as that no object limited and therefore it is that which no eye hath seene nor eare heard nor heart of man conceived it is God in the glory and assembly of his immortall Saints in heaven How many times go we to Comedies to Masques to places of great and noble resort nay even to Church onely to see the company If I had no other errand to heaven but the communion of Saints the fellowship of the faithfull Lo see that flock of Lambs Innocent unbaptized children recompensed with the twice-baptized Martyrs baptized in water and baptized in their owne blood and that middle sort the children baptized in blood and not in the water that rescued Christ Jesus by their death under Herod to see the Prophets and the Evangelists and not know one from the other by their writings for they all write the same things for prophecy is but antidated Gospell and Gospell but postdated prophecy to see holy Matrons saved by the bearing and bringing up of children and holy Virgins saved by restoring their bodies in the integrity that they received them sit all upon one seate to see Princes and Subjects crowned all with one crowne and rich and poore inherit one portion to see this scene this Court this Church this Catholique Church not onely Easterne and Westerne but Militant and Triumphant Church all in one roome together to see this Communion of Saints this fellowship of the faithfull is worth all the paynes that that sight costs us in this world But then to see the head of this Church the Sunne that shed all these beames the God of glory face to face to see him sicuti est as he is to know him at cognitus as I am knowne what darke and inglorious fortune would I not passe thorow
Oppresse not that soule by violence by Fraud nor by Scorne which was the other signification of this word Oppression Hoc nos perdit quod divina quoque eloquia in facetias in dicteria vertamus Damnation is a serious thing and this aggravates it that we slight and make jests at that which should save us the Scriptures and the Ordinances of God For by this oppression of thy poore soule by this Violence this Fraud this Scorne thou wilt come to Reproach thy Maker to impute that losse of thy soule which thou hast incurred by often breach of Lawes evidently manifested to thee to his secret purpose and un-revealed will then which thou canst not put a greater Reproach a greater Contumely a greater Blasphemy upon God For God cannot bee God if hee bee not innocent nor innocent if hee draw bloud of mee for his owne Act. But if thou show mercy to this soule mercy in that signification of the word as it denotes an actuall performance of those things that are necessary for the making sure of thy salvation or if thou canst not yet attaine to those degrees of Sanctification mercy in that signification of the word as the word denotes hearty and earnest Prayer that thou couldest Lord I beleeve Lord help mine unbeliefe Lord I stand yet yet Lord raise mee when I fall Honorabis Deum thou shalt honour God in the sense of the word in this Text thou shalt enlarge God amplifie dilate God that is the Body of God the Church both here and hereafter For thou shalt adde a figure to the number of his Saints and there shall bee a Saint the more for thee Thou shalt adde a Theme of Joy to the Exultation of the Angels They shall have one occasion of rejoycing the more from thee Thou shalt adde a pause a stop to that Vsquequo of the Martyrs under the Altar who solicite God for the Resurrection for Thou shalt adde a step to the Resurrection it selfe by having brought it so much nearer as to have done thy part for the filling up of the number of the Saints upon which fulnesse the Resurrection shall follow And thou shalt adde a Voyce to that Old and ever-new Song that Catholique Hymne in which both Churches Militant and Triumphant shall joyne Blessing Honour Glory and Power bee unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lambe for ever and ever Amen SERMON XLIII A Sermon upon the fist of Novemb. 1622. being the Anniversary celebration of our Deliverance from the Powder Treason Intended for Pauls Crosse but by reason of the weather Preached in the Church LAMENT 4. 20. The breath of our nostrils the Anointed of the Lord was taken in their pits The Prayer before the Sermon O LORD open thou my lips and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise for thou O Lord didst make haste to help us Thou O Lord didst make speed to save us Thou that sittest in heaven didst not onely looke down to see what was done upon the Earth but what was done in the Earth and when the bowels of the Earth were with a key of fire ready to open and swallow us the bowels of thy compassion were with a key of love opened to succour us This is the day and these are the houres wherein that should have been acted In this our Day and in these houres We praise thee O God we acknowledge thee to bee the Lord All our Earth doth worship thee The holy Church throughout all this Land doth knowledge thee with commemorations of that great mercy now in these houres Now in these houres it is thus commemorated in the Kings House where the Head and Members praise thee Thus in that place where it should have been perpetrated where the Reverend Judges of the Land doe now praise thee Thus in the Universities where the tender youth of this Land is brought up to praise thee in a detestation of their Doctrines that plotted this Thus it is commemorated in many severall Societies in many severall Parishes and thus here in this Mother Church in this great Congregation of thy Children where all of all sorts from the Lievtenant of thy Lievtenant to the meanest sonne of thy sonne in this Assembly come with hearts and lippes full of thankesgiving Thou Lord openest their lippes that their mouth may shew forth thy prayse for Thou O Lord diddest make haste to helpe them Thou diddest make speede to save them Accept O Lord this Sacrifice to which thy Spirit giveth fire This of Praise for thy great Mercies already afforded to us and this of Prayer for the continuance and enlargement of them upon the Catholick Church by them who pretend themselves the onely sonnes thereof dishonoured this Day upon these Churches of England Scotland and Ireland shaked and threatned dangerously this Day upon thy servant our Soveraigne for his Defence of the true Faith designed to ruine this day upon the Prince and others derived from the same roote some but Infants some not yet Infants enwrapped in dust and annihilation this day upon all the deliberations of the Counsell That in all their Consultations they may have before their eyes the Record and Registers of this Day upon all the Clergie That all their Preaching and their Governement may preclude in their severall Iurisdictions all re-entrances of that Religion which by the Confession of the Actours themselves was the onely ground of the Treason of this day upon the whole Nobilitie and Commons all involved in one Common Destruction this Day upon both our Universities which though they lacke no Arguments out of thy Word against the Enemies of thy Truth shall never leave out this Argument out of thy Works The Historie of this Day And upon all those who are any wayes afflicted That our afflictions bee not multiplyed upon us by seeing them multiplyed amongst us who would have diminished thee and annihilated us this Day And lastly upon this Auditory assembled here That till they turne to ashes in the Grave they may remember that thou tookest them as fire-brands out of the fire this Day Heare us O Lord and hearken to us Receive our Prayers and returne them with Effect for his sake in whose Name and words wee make them Our Father which art c. The SERMON OF the Authour of this Booke I thinke there was never doubt made but yet that is scarce safely done which the Councell of Trent doth in that Canon which numbers the Books of Canonicall Scriptures to leave out this Book of Lamentations For though I make no doubt but that they had a purpose to comprehend and involve it in the name of Ieremy yet that was not enough for so they might have comprehended and involved Genesis and Deuteronomie and all between those two in one name of Moses and so they might have comprehended and involved the Apocalypse and some Epistles in the name of Iohn and have left out the Book it selfe in the number But one of their
in families are therein truly learned fathers of the Church A good father at home is a S â—ugustin and a S. Ambrose in himself and such a Thomas may have governed a 〈◊〉 as shall by way of example teach children and childrens children more to this purpose then any Thomas Aquinas can Since therefore these noble persons have so good a glasse to dresse themselves in the usefull as the powerfull example of Parents I shall the lesse need to apply my selfe to them for their particular instructions but may have leave to extend my selfe upon considerations more general and such as may be applyable to all who have or shall embrace that honourable state or shall any way assist at the solemnizing thereof that they may all make this union of Mariage a Type or a remembrancer of their union with God in Heaven That as our Genesis is our Exodus our proceeding into the world is a step out of the world so every Gospell may be a Revelation unto us All good tydings which is the name of Gospel all that ministers any joy to us here may reveal and manifest to us an Interest in the joy and glory of heaven and that our admission to a Mariage here may be our invitation to the Mariage Supper of the Lamb there where in the Resurrection we shall neither mary nor be given in mariage but shall be as the Angels of God in heaven These words our blessed Saviour spake to the Sadduces who not believing the Resurrection of the Dead put him a Case that one woman hath had seven husbands and then whose wife of those seven should she be in the Resurrection they would needs suppose and prefume that there could be no Resurrection of the body but that there must be to all purposes a Bodily use of the Body too and then the question had been pertinent whose wife of the seven shall she be But Christ shews them their errour in the weaknesse of the foundation she shall be none of their wives for In the Resurrection they neither mary c. The words give us this latitude when Christ sayes In the Resurrection they mary not c. The words give us this latitude when Christ sayes In the Resurrection they mary not c. from thence flowes out this concession this proposition too Till the Resurrection they shall mary and be given in mariage no inhibition to be laid upon persons no imputation no aspersion upon the state of mariage And when Christ saies Then they are as the Angels of God in heaven from this flowes this concession this proposition also Till then we must not look for this Angelicall state but as in all other states and conditions of life so in all mariages there will be some encumbrances betwixt all maried persons there will arise some unkindnesses some mis-interpretations or some too quick interpretations may sometimes sprinkle a little sournesse and spread a little a thin a dilute and washy cloud upon them Then they mary not till then they may then their state shall be perfect as the Angels till then it shall not These are our branches and the fruits that grow upon them we shall pull in passing and present them as we gather them First then Christ establishes a Resurrection A Resurrection there shall be for that makes up Gods circle The Body of Man was the first point that the foot of Gods Compasse was upon First he created the body of Adam and then he carries his Compasse round and shuts up where he began he ends with the Body of man againe in the glorification thereof in the Resurrection God is Alpha and Omega first and last And his Alpha and Omega his first and last work is the Body of man too Of the Immortality of the soule there is not an expresse article of the Creed for that last article of The life everlasting is rather de proemio poena what the soule shall suffer or what the soule shall enjoy being presumed to be Immortall then that it is said to be Immortall in that article That article may and does presuppose an Immortality but it does not constitute an Immortality in our soule for there would be a life everlasting in heaven and we were bound to beleeve it as we were bound to beleeve a God in heaven though our soules were not immortall There are so many evidences of the immortality of the soule even to a naturall mans reason that it required not an Article of the Creed to fix this notion of the Immortality of the soule But the Resurrection of the Body is discernible by no other light but that of Faith nor could be fixed by any lesse assurance then an Article of the Creed Where be all the splinters of that Bone which a shot hath shivered and scattered in the Ayre Where be all the Atoms of that flesh which a Corrasive hath eat away or a Consumption hath breath'd and exhal'd away from our arms and other Limbs In what wrinkle in what furrow in what bowel of the earth ly all the graines of the ashes of a body burnt a thousand years since In what corner in what ventricle of the sea lies all the jelly of a Body drowned in the generall flood What cohaerence what sympathy what dependence maintaines any relation any correspondence between that arm that was lost in Europe and that legge that was lost in Afrique or Asia scores of yeers between One humour of our dead body produces worms and those worms suck and exhaust all other humour and then all dies and all dries and molders into dust and that dust is blowen into the River that puddled water tumbled into the sea and that ebs and flows in infinite revolutions and still still God knows in what Cabinet every seed-Pearle lies in what part of the world every graine of every mans dust lies and sibilat populum suum as his Prophet speaks in another case he whispers he hisses he beckens for the 〈◊〉 of his Saints and in the twinckling of an eye that body that was fcattered over all the elements is sate down at the right hand of God in a glorious resurrection A Dâ—opsie hath extended me to an enormous corpulency and unwieldinesse a Consumption hath attenuated me to a feeble macilency and leannesse and God raises me a body such as it should have been if these infirmities had not interven'd and deformed it David could goe no further in his book of Psalms but to that Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord ye saies he ye that have breath praise ye the Lord and that ends the book But that my Dead body should come to praise the Lord this is that New Song which I shall learne and sing in heaven when not onely my soule shall magnify the Lord and my Spirit rejoyce in God my Saviour but I shall have mine old eies and eares and tongue and knees and receive such glory in my body
doth nothing so like a subject as when he puts himselfe to the pain to consider the profit and the safety of his Subjects and such a subjection is that of a Husband who is bound to study his wife and rectify all her infirmites Her infirmities he must bear but not her sins if he bear them they become his own The pattern the example goes not so far Christ maried himself to our Nature and he bare all our infirmities hunger and wearinesse and sadnesse and death actually in his own person but so he contracted no sin in himselfe nor encouraged us to proceed in sin Christ was Salvator corporis A Saviour of his body of the Church to which he maried himselfe but it is a tyranny and a devastation of the body to whom we mary our selves if we love them so much as that we love their Sin too suffer them to goe on in that or if we love them so little as to make their sin our way to profit or preferment by prostituting them and abandoning them to the solicitation of others still we must love them so as that this love be a subjection not a neglecting to let them doe what they will nor a tyrannizing to make them doe what we will You must love them then first Quia vestrae because they are yours As we said at first God loves Couples He suffers not our body to be alone nor our soule alone but he maries them together when that 's done to remedy the vae soli left this Man should be alone he maries him to a help meet for himâ— and to avoid fornication that is if fornication cannot be avoided otherwise Every Man is to have his wife and every woman her own husband When the love comes to exceed these bounds that it departs à vestris from a Man 's own wife and settles upon another though he may think he discharges himselfe of some of his subjection which he was in before yet he becomes much more subject subject to houshold and forain Iealousies subject to ill grounded quarrels subject to blasphemous protestations to treacherous misuse of a confident friend to ignoble an unworthy disguises to base satisfactions subject lastly either to a clamorous Conscience or that which is worse slavery to a sear'd and obdurate and stupefied Conscience and to that Curse which is the heavier because it hath a kind of scorn in it Be not deceived as though we were coâ—sened of our souls Be not deceived for no adulterer shal enter into the kingdom of heaven All other things that are ours we may be the better for leaving Vade vende which Christ said to the yong Man that seemed to desire perfection reached to all his goods Goe and sell them sayes Christ and thou shalt follow me the better But there is no selling nor giving nor lending nor borrowing of wives we must love them Quia nostrae because they are ours and if that be not a ty and obligation strong enough that they are Nostrae ours we must love them Quia nos because they are our selves for no man yet ever hated his own flesh We must love them then Quia nostrae because they are ours those whom God hath given us and Quia uxores because they are our wives Saint Paul does not bid us love them here Quanquam uxores but Quia not though they be but because they are our wives Saint Paul never thought of that indisposition of that disaffection of that impotency that a Man should come to hate her whom he could love well enough but that she is his wife Were it not a strange distemper if upon consideration of my soule finding it to have some seeds of good dispositions in it some compassion of the miseries of others some inclination of the glory of God some possibility some interest in the kingdome of heaven I should say of this soule that I would fast and pray and give and suffer any thing for the salvation of this Soule if it were not mine own soule if it were any bodies else and now abandon it to eternall destruction because it is mine own If no Man have felt this barbarous inhumanity towards his owne soul I pray God no man have felt it towards his own wife neither That he loves her the lesse for being his own wife For we must love them not Quanquam says Saint Paul though she be so That was a Caution which the Apostle never thought he needed but Quia because in the sight of God and all the Triumphant Church we have bound our selves that we would do so Here Mariages are sometimes clandestine and witnesses dye and in that case no Man can bind me to love herâ— Quia uxâ—r because she is my wife because it lyes not in proofe that she is so Here sometimes things come to light which were concealed before and a Mariage proves no Mariage Decepta est Ecclesia The Church was deceived and the poor woman loses her plea Quia uxâ—r because she is his wife for it fals out that she is not so but if thou have maried her in the presence of God and all the Court and Quire of heaven what wilt thou doe to make away all these witnesses who shall be of thy Councell to assign an Error in Gods judgement whom wilt thoubribe to embezill the Records of heaven It is much that thou are able to doe in heaven Thou art able by thy sins to blot thy name out of the book of life but thou are not able to blot thy wifes name out of the Records of heaven but there remains still the Quia uxâ—r because she is thy wife And this Quia uxâ—r is Quaâ—diu uxâ—r since thou art bound to love her because she is thy wife it must be as long as she is so You may have heard of that quinquâ—nnium Neronis The worst tyran that ever was was the best Emperour that ever was for five years the most corrupt husbands may have been good at first but that love may have been for other respects satisfaction of parents establishing of hopes and sometimes Ignorance of evill that ill company had not taught them ill conditions it comes not to be Quia uxor because she is thy wife to be the love which is commanded in this text till it bring some subjection some burthen Till we love her then when we would not love her except she were our wife we are not sure that we love her Quia uxor that is for that and for no other respect How long that is how long she is thy wife never ask wrangling Controverters that make Gypsie-knots of Mariages ask thy Conscience and that will tell thee that thou wast maried till death should depart you If thy mariage were made by the Dâ—vill upon dishonest Conditions the Devill may break it by sin if it were made by God Gods way of breaking of Mariages is onely by death It is then a Subjection and it is
joyned to the element or to the Action then there is a true Sacrament are ill understood by two sorts of Menâ— first by them that say that it is not verbum Deprecatorium nor verbum Conciâ—natâ—riuâ— not the word of Prayer nor the word of preaching but verbum Consecratorium and verbum Sacramentale that very phrase and forme of words by which the water is sanctified and enabled of it selfe to cleanse our Soules and secondly these words are ill understood by them who had rather their children dyed unbaptized then have them baptized without a Sermon whereas the use of preaching at baptisme is to raise the whole Congregation to a consideration what they promised by others in their baptisme and to raise the Father and the Sureties to a consideration what they undertake for the childe whom they present then to be baptized for therefore says Saint Augustine Acoedaâ— verbum there is a necessity of the word Non quâ—a dicitur sed quia creditur not because the word is prâ—ached but because it is beleeved and That Beleese faith belongs not at all to the incapacity of the child but to the disposition of the rest A Sermon is usefull for the congregation not necessary for the child and the accomplishment of the Sacrament From hence then arises a convenience little lesse then necessary in a kind that this administration of the Sacrament be accompanied with preaching but yet they that would evict an absolute necessity of it out of these words force them too much for here the direct meaning of the Apostle is That the Church is cleansed by water through the word when the promises of God expressed in his word are sealed to us by this Sacrament of Baptisme for so Saint Augustine answers himselfe in that objection which he makes to himselfe Cum per Baptisâ—â—â— fundati sint quare sermoni tribuit radicem He answers In Sermone intelligendus Baptismusâ— Quia sine Sermone non perficitur It is rooted it is grounded in the word and therefore true Baptisme though it be administred without the word that is without the word preached yet it is never without the word because the whole Sacrament and the power thereof is rooted in the word in the Gospell And therefore since this Sacrament belongs to the Church as it is said here that Christ doth cleanse his Church by Baptisme as it is argued with a strong probability That because the Apostles did baptize whole families therefore they did baptize some children so we argue with an invincible certainty that because this Sacrament belongs generally to the Church as the initiatory Sacrament it belongs to children who are a part and for the most part the most innocent part of the Church To conclude As all those Virgins which were beautifull were brought into Susan Ad domum mulierum to be anointed and persumed and prepared there for Assuerus delight and pleasure though Assuerus tooke not delight and pleasure in them all so we admit all those children which are within the Covenant made by God to the elect and their seed In domum Sanctorum into the houshold of the faithfull into the communion of Saints whom he chooseth for his Mariage day that is for that Church which he will settle upon himselfe in heaven we know not but we know that he hath not promised to take any into that glory but those upon whom he hath first shed these fainter beames of glory and sanctification exhibited in this Sacrament Neither hath he threatned to exclude any but for sinne after And therefore when this blessed child derived from faithfull parents and presented by sureties within the obedience of the Church shall have been so cleansed by the washing of water through the word it is presently sealed to the possession of that part of Christs purchase for which he gave himselfe which are the meanes of preparing his Church in this life with a faithfull assurance I may say of it and to it Iam mundus es Now you are cleanâ— through the word which Christ hath spoken unto you The Seale of the promises of his Gospell hath sanctified and cleansed you but yet Mandatus mundandus says Saint Augustine upon that place It is so sanctified by the Sacrament here that it may be farther sanctified by the growth of his graces and be at last a member of that glorious Church which he shall settle upon himselfe without spot or wrinkle which was the principall and final purpose of that great love of his whereby he gave himselfe for us and made that love first a patterne of Mens loves to their wives here and then a meanes to bring Man and wife and child to the kingdome of heaven Amen SERMON VI. Preached at a Christning 1 JOHN 5. 7 8. For there are three which beare record in heaven The Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one And there are three which beare record in the Earth The Spirit and the water and the bloud and these three agree in one IN great and enormous offences we find that the law in a well governed State expressed the punishment upon such a delinquent in that form in that curse Igni aqua interdicitor let him have no use of fire and water that is no use of any thing necessary for the sustentation of life Beloved such is the miserable condition of wretched Man as that we come all into the world under the burden of that curse Aqua igni interdicimâ—r we have nothing to doe naturally with the spirituall water of life with the fiery beames of the holy Ghost till he that hath wrought our restitution from this banishment restore us to this water by powring out his owne bloud and to this lively fire by laying himselfe a cold and bloudlesse carcasse in the bowels of the Earth till he who haptized none with waâ—er direct his Church to doe that office towards us and he without whom none was baptized with fire perfect that Ministeriall worke of his Church with the effectuall seales of his grace for this is his testimony the witnesse of his love Yea that law in cases of such great offences expressed it selfe in another Malediction upon such offenders appliable also to us Intestabiles sunte let them be Intestable Now this was a sentence a Condemnation so pregnant so full of so many heavy afflictions as that he who by the law was made intestable was all these ways intestable First he was able to make no Testament of his owne he had lost all his interest in his owne estate and in his owne will Secondly he could receive no profit by any testament of any other Man he had lost all the effects of the love and good disposition of other Men to him Thirdly he was Intestable so as that he could not testifie he should not be beleeved in the behalfe of another and lastly the testimony of another could doe him no good no Man could be admitted to
speake for him After that first and heavy curse of Almighty God upon Man Morte morieris If thou eate thou shalt die and die twice thou shall die a bodily thou shalt die a spirituall death a punishment which no sentence of any law or law-maker could ever equall to deterre Men from offending by threatning to take away their lives twice and by inflicting a spirituall death eternally upon the Soule after we have all incurred that malediction Morte moriemur we shall die both death we cannot thinke to scape any lesse malediction of any law and therefore we are all Intestabiles we are all intestable in all these senses and apprehensions which we have touched upon We can make no testament of our owne we have no good thing in us to dispose we have no good inclination no good disposition in our Will we can make no use of anothers testament not of the double testaments of Almighty God for in the Old testament he gives promises of a Messias but we bring into the world no Faith to apprehend those promises and in the New testament he gives a performance the Messias is come but he is communicable to us no way but by baptisme and we cannot baptize our selves we can profit no body else by our testimony we are not able to endure persecution for the testimony of Christ to the edification of others we are not able to doe such workes as may shine before Men to the glorifying of our God Neither doth the testimony of others doe us any good for neither the Martyrdome of so many Millions in the primitive Church nor the execution of so many judgments of God in our owne times doe restifie any thing to our Consciences neither at the last day when those Saints of God whom we have accompanied in the outward worship of God here in the visible Church shall be called to the right hand and we detruded to the left shall they dare to open their mouthes for us or to testifie of us or to say Why Lord these Men when they were in the world did as we did appeared and served thee in thy house as we did they seem'd to goe the same way that we did upon Earth why goe they a sinister way now in heaven We are utterly intestable we can give nothing we can take nothing nothing will be beleeved from us who are all falshood it selfe nor can we be releeved by any thing that any other will say for us As long as we are considered under the penalty of that law this is our case Interdicti intestabiles we are accursed and so as that we are intestable Now as this great malediction Morte marieris in volves all other punishments upon whom that falls all fall so when our Saviour Christ Jesus hath a purpose to take away that or the most dangerous part of that the spirituall death when he will reverse that judgment Aqua igni interdicitur to make us capable of his water and his fire when he will reverse the intestabiles the inteâ—â—ability and make us able to receive his graces by faith and declare them by works then as he that will reedifie a demolished house begins not at the top but at the bottome so Christ Jesus when he will make this great preparation this great reedification of mankind he beginnes at the lowest step which is that we may have use of the testimony of others in our behalfe and he proceeds strongly and effectually he produces three witnesses from heaven so powerfull that they will be heard they will be beleeved and three witnesses on earth so neare us so familiar so domestique as that they will not be denied they will not be discredited Three are three that beare Record in heaven and three that beare record in earth Since then Christ Jesus makes us all our owne Iury able to conceive and judge upon the Evidence and testimony of these three heavenly and three earthly witnesses let us draw neare and hearken to the evidence and consider three things Testimonium esse Quid sit and Qui testes That God descends to meanes proportionable to Man he affords him witnesse and secondly the matter of the proofe what all these six witnesses testifie what they establish Thirdly the quality and value of the witnesses and whether the matter be to be beleeved for their sakes and for their reasons God requires nothing of us but Testimony for Martyrdome is but that A Martyr is but a witnesse God offers us nothing without testimony for his Testament is but a witnesse Teste ipso is shrewd evidence when God says I will speake and I will testifie against thee I am God even thy God when the voice of God testifies against me in mine owne conscience It is more pregnant evidence then this when his voice testifies against me in his word in his Scriptures The Lord testified against Israel by all the Prophets and by all the Seers When I can never be alone but that God speakes in me but speakes against me when I can never open his booke but the first sentence mine eye is upon is a witnesse against me this is fearfull evidence But in this text we are not in that storme for he hath made us Testabiles that is ready to testifie for him to the effusion of our bloud and Testabiles that is fit to take benefit by the testament that hee hath made for us The effusion of his bloud which is our second branch what is testified for us what these witnesses establish First then that which a sinner must be brought to understand and beleeve by the strength of these witnesses is Integritas Christi not the Integrity as it signifies the Innocency of Christ but integrity as it signifies Intireness not as it is Integer vitae but Integra vita not as he kept an integrity in his life but as he onely is intirely our life That Christ was a person composed of those two Natures divine and humane whereby he was a fit and a full satisfaction for all our sinnes and by death could be our life for when the Apostle writ this Epistle it seemes there had been a schisme not about the Mysticall body of Christ the Church but even about the Naturall that is to say in the person of Christ there had been a schisme a separation of his two natures for as we see certainly before the death of this Apostle that the Heresie of Ebion and of Cerinthus which denied the divine nature of Christ was set on foot for against them purposely was the Gospell of Saint Iohn written so by Epiphanius his ranking of the Heresies as they arose where he makes Basilides his Heresie which denied that Christ had any naturall body to be the fourth herefie and Ebions to be the tenth it seemes that they denied his humanity before they denied his Divinity And therefore it is well collected that this Epistle of Saint Iohn being written long
before his Gospell was written principally and purposely against the opposers of Christs humanity but occasionally also in defence of his divine nature too Because there is Solutio Iesu a dissolving of Jesus a taking of Jesus in peeces a dividing of his Natures or of his Offices which overthrowes all the testimonies of these six great witnesses when Christ said Solvite templum hoc destroy dissolve this temple and in three dayes I will raise it he spoke that but of his naturall body there was Solutio corporis Christs body and soule were parted but there was not Solutio Iesu the divine nature parted not from the humane no not in death but adhered to and accompanied the soule even in hell and accompanied the body in the grave And therefore says the Apostle Omnis spiritus qui solvit Iesum ex deo non est for so Irenaeus and Saint Augustine and Saint Cyrill with the Grecians read those words That spirit which receives not Jesus intirely which dissolves Jesus and breakes him in peeces that spirit is not of God All this then is the subject of this testimony first that Christ Jesus is come in the flesh there is a Recognition of his humane nature And then that this Jesus is the sonne of God there is a subscription to his divine nature he that separates these and thereby makes him not able or not willing to satisfie for Man he that separates his Nature or he that separates the worke of the Redemption and says Christ suffered for us onely as Man and not as God or he that separates the manner of the worke and says that the passive obedience of Christ onely redeemed us without any respect at all to his active obedience onely as he died and nothing as he died innocently or he that separates the perfection and consummation of the worke from his worke and findes something to be done by Man himselfe meritorious to salvation or he that separates the Prince and the Subject Christ and his members by nourishing Controversies in Religion when they might be well reconciled or he that separates himselfe from the body of the Church and from the communion of Saints for the fashion of the garments for the variety of indifferent Ceremonies all these do Solvere Iesum they slacken they dissolve that Jesus whose bones God provided for that they should not be broken whose flesh God provided for that it should not see Corruption and whose garments God provided that they should not bee divided There are other luxations other dislocations of Jesus when we displace him for any worldly respect and prefer preforment before him there are other woundings of Jesus in blasphemous oathes and exerations there are other maimings of Jesus in pretending to serve him intirely and yet retaine one particular beloved sinne still there are other rackings and extendings of Jesus when we delay him and his patience to our death-bed when we stretch the string so farre that it cracks there that is appoint him to come then and he comes not there are other dissolutions of Jesus when men will melt him and powre him out and mold him up in a waser Cake or a peece of bread there are other annihilations of Jesus when Men will make him and his Sacraments to be nothing but bare signes but all these will be avoided by us if we be gained by the testimony of these six witnesses to hold fast that integrity that intirensse of Jesus which is here delivered to us by this Apostle In which we beleeve first Iâ—sum a Saviour which implies his love and his will to save us and then we beleeve Christum the anointed that is God and man able and willing to doe this great worke and that he is anointed and sealed for that purpose and this implies the decree the contract and bargaine of acceptation by the Father that Pactum salis that eternall covenant which seasons all by which that which he meant to doe as he was Iesus should be done as he was Christ. And then as the intirenesse of Jesus is expressed in the verse before the text we beleeve Quod venit that as all this might be done if the Father and Sonne would agree as all this must be done because they had agreed it so all this was done Quâ—a venit because this Jesus is already come and that for the father intirenesse for the perfection and consummation and declaration of all venit per aquam sanguinem He came by water and bloud Which words Saint Bernard understands to imply but a difference between the comming of Christ and the comming of Moses who was drawen out of the water and therefore called by that name of Moses But before Moses came to be a leader of the people he passed through bloud too through the bloud of the Egyptian whom he slew and much more when he established all their bloudy sacrifices so that Mases came not onely by water Neither was the first Testament ordained without bloud Others understand the words onely to put a difference between Iohn Baptist and Christ because Iohn Baptist is still said to baptize with waterâ— Because he should be declared to Israel therefore am I come baptizing with water but yet Iohn Baptists baptisme had not onely a relation to bloud but a demonstration of it when still he pointed to the Lambe Ecce Agnus for that Lambe was slâ—ine from the beginning of the world So that Christ which was this Lambe came by water and bloud when he came in the risuall types and figures of Moses and when he came in the baptisme of Iohn for in the Law of Moses there was so frequent use of water as that we reckon above fifty severall Immunditi as uncleannesses which might receive their expiation by washing without being put to their bloudy sacrifies for them And then there was so frequent use of bloud that almost all things are by the Law purged with bloud and without shedding of bloud is no Remission But this was such water and such bloud as could not perfect the worke but therefore was to be renewed every day The water that Jesus comes by is such a water as he that arinketh of it shall thirst no more nay there shall spring up in him a well of water that is his example shall worke to the satisfaction of others we doe not say to a satisfaction for others And then this is that bloud that perfected the whole worke at once By his own bloud entred he once into the holy place and obtained eternall Redemption for us So that Christ came by water and bloud according to the old ablutions and old sacrifices when he wept when he sweat when he powred out bloud pretious incorruptible inestimable bloud at so many channels as he did all the while that he was upon the altar sacrificing himselfe in his passion But after the immolation of this sacrifice after his Consummatum est when Christ
Sacrament yet he is always present in it Yet this plot the devill had upon the Church And whereas this first Epistle of Saint Iohn was never doubted to be Canonicall whereas both the other have been called into some question yet in this first Epistle the first verse of this text was for a long time removed or expung'd whether by malice of Heretiques or negligence of transcribers The first Translation of the new testament which was into Syriaque hath not this verse That which was first called Vulgata editio had it not neither hath Luther it in his Germane translation very many of the Latine Fathers have it not and some very ancient Greeke Fathers want it though more ancient then they have it for Athanasius in the Councell of Nice cites it and makes use of it and Cyprian beheaded before that Councell hath it too But now he that is one of the witnesses himselfe the Holy Ghost hath assured the Church that this verse belongs to the Scripture and therefore it becomes us to consider thankfully and reverently this first ranke of witnesses the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost The Father then hath testified De integritate Christi of this intirenesse that Christ should be all this and doe all this which we have spoken of abundantly he begunne before Christ was borne in giving his name Thou shalt call his name Iesus for he shall save his people from sin Well how shall this person be capable to doe this office of saving his people from sinne Why in him say God the father in the representation of an Angell shall be fulfilled that prophecy A virgin shall beare a Sonne and they shall call his name Emanuel which is by interpretation God with us This seemes somewhat an incertaine testimony of a Man with an Alià s dictus with two names God says he shall be called Iesus that the prophecy may be fulfilled which says he shall be called Emanuel but therein consists Integritas Christi this intirenesse he could not be Jesus not a Saviour except he were Emanuel God with us God in our nature Here then is Jesus a Saviour a Saviour that is God and Man but where is the Testimony De Christo that he was anointed and prepared for this sacrifice that this worke of his was contracted between the Father and him and acceptable to him It is twice testified by the Father both in Christs act of humiliation when he would be Baptized by Iohn when he would accept an ablution who had no uncleannesse then God says This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased he was well pleased in his person and he was well pleased in his act in his office And he testifies it againe in his first act of glory in his transfiguration where the Father repeates the same words with an addition Heare him God is pleased in him and would have Men pleased in him too He testified first onely for Iosephs sak that had entertained and lodged some scrupulous suspition against his wife the Blessed Virgine His second testimony at the baptisme had a farther extent for that was for the confirmation of Iohn Baptist of the preacher himselfe who was to convey his doctrine to many others His third testimony in the transfiguration was larger then the Baptisme for that satisfied three and three such as were to carry it farre Peter and Iames and Iohn All which no doubt made the same use of his testimony as we see Peter did who preached out of the strength of his manifestation we followed not deceivable fables but with our owne eyes we saw his Majesty for he received of God the Father honor and glory when there came such a voice to him from the Excellent glory This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased But yet the Father gave a more free a more liberall testimony of him then this at his Conception or Baptisme or Transfiguration when upon Christs prayer Father glorifie thy Name there came a voice from heaven I have both glorified it and will glorifie it againe For this all the people apprehended some imputed it to Thunder some to an Angel but all heard it and all heard Christs comment upon it That that voice came not for him but for their sakes so that when the Father had testified of a Iesus a Saviour and a Christ a Saviour sent to that purpose and a Sonne in whom he is pleased and whom we must heare when it is said of him moreover Gratificavit â—â—s in Dilectâ— he hath made us accepted in his beloved this is his way of comming in water and bloud that is in the sacraments of the Church by which we have assurance of being accepted by him and this is this Integritas Christi the intirenesse of Christ testified by our first witnesse that bears record in heaven The father The second witnesse in heaven is verâ—um The Word and that is a welcome message for it is Christ himselfe It is not so when the Lord sends a word The Lord sent a word unto Iacob and it lighted upon Israelâ— there the word is a judgement and an execution of the Judgement for that word that signifies 2 word there in the same letters exactly signifies a pestilence a Calamity It is a word and a blow but the word here is verbum cara that Word which for our sakes was made our selves The word then in this place is the second person in the Trinity Christ Iesus who in this Court of heaven where there is no corruption no falsification no passion but fair and just proceeding is admitted to be a witnesse in his owne cause It is Iesus that testifies for Iesus now when he was upon earth and said If I should beare witnesse of my selfe my witnesse were not true whether we take those words to be spoken per Coâ—nlventiam by an allowance and concession It is not true that is I am content that you should not beleeve my witnesse of my selfe to be true as Saint Cyrill understand them or whether we take them Humana mare that Christ as a man acknowledged truely and as he thought that inlegall proceeding a mans owne testimony ought not to be beleeved in his owne behalfe as Athanâ—â—ius and Saint Ambrose understand them yet Christ might safely say as he did Though I beare a record of my selfe yet my record is true why because I know whence I come and whither I goe Christ could not be Singularis â—â—stis a single witnesseâ— He was alwayes more then one witnesse because he had alwayes more then 〈◊〉 God and man and therefore Christ instructing Nicodemus speakes plurally we speake that 〈◊〉 know we testifie that we have seene and you receive not Testimoniâ—â— nâ—strum our witnesseâ— he does not say my witnesse but ours because although a singular yet he was a plurall person too His testimony then was credible but how did he testifie Integritatem this intirenesse
bed that he in the name of the dead man might answer to all the questions usually asked in administring of Baptisme But this was a corrupt effect of pure and sincere doctrine which doctrine is That Baptisme is so necessary as that God hath placed no other ordinary scale nor conveyance of his graces in his Church to them that have not received that then buptisme And they who doe not provide duly for the Baptisme of their children if their children die have a heavier accompt to make to God for that child then if they had not provided a Nurse and suffered the child to starve God can preserve the child without Milke and he can save the child without a sacrament but as that mother that throwes out and forsakes her child in the field or wood is guilty before God of the Temporall murder of that child though the child die not so are those parents of a spirituall murder if their children by their fault die unbaptized though God preserve that child out of his abundant and miraculous mercy from spirituall destruction When the custome of the Christian Church was to baptize but twice in the year at Easter and Whiâ—sontide for the greater solemnity of that action yea when that ill custome was grown as it was even in the Primitive Church that upon an opinion that all sins were absolutely forgiven in Baptisme Men did defer their Baptisme till their death-bed as we see the Ecclesiasticall histories full of such examples even in some of the Christian Emperors and according to this ill custome we see Tertullian chides away young children for comming so soon to Baptisme quid festinat innocens aetas ad remâ—ssionem peccatorum why should this child that as yet hath done no sinne make such hast to be washed from sinnce which opinion had got so much strength that Saint Basil was faine to oppose it in the Easterne Church and both the Gregories Nazianzen and Nissen and Saint Ambrose in the Western yet in the height of both their customes of seldome baptizing and of late baptizing the case of insants that might be in danger of dying without baptisme was ever excepted So that none of those old customes though some of them were extreamly ill went ever so farre as to an opinion that it were all one whether the child were baptized or no. I speake not this as though the state of children that died without baptisme were desperate God forbid for who shall shorten the Arme of the Lord God is able to raine downe Manna and Quailes into the soules of these children though negligent parents turne them out into the wildernesse and put God to that extraordinary work They may have Manna and Quailes but they have not the Milke and Hony of the Land of promise They may have salvation from God but they have not those graces so sealed and so testified to them as God hath promised they should be in his Sacraments When God in spirituall offences makes Inquisition of bloud he proceeds not as Man proceeds for we till there appear a Man to be dead never inquire who killed him but in the spirituall Murder of an unbaptized child though there be no child spiritually dead though Gods mercy have preserved the child from that yet God imputes this as such a murder to them who endangered the child as farre as they could by neglecting his ordinance of baptisme This is then the necessity of this Sacrament not absolutely necessary but necessary by Gods ordinary institution and as it is always necessary so is it always certaine whosoever is baptized according to Christs institution receives the Sacrament of baptisme and the truth is always infallibly annexed with the signe Nec fieri potest visio hominis ut non sit Sacramentum quod figurat Though the wicked may feele no working by the Sacrament yet the Sacrament doth offer and present grace as well to the unworthy as to the worthy Receiver Nec fallaciter promittit The wicked may be a cause that the Sacrament shall doe them no good but that the Sacrament become no Sacrament or that God should be false in his promises and offer no grace where he pretends to offer it this the wicked cannot doe baptisme doth truly and without collusion offer grace to all and nothing but baptisme by an ordinary institution and as an ordinary meanes doth so for when baptisme is called a figure yet both that figure is said there to save us The figure that now saveth us baptisme and it is a figure of the Arke it hath relation to it to that Arke which did save the world when it is called a figure So it may be a figure but if we speake of reall salvation by it baptisme is more then a figure Now as our putting on of Christ was double by faith and by sanctification so by this Sacrament also we are baptized in Nomen Christi into the Name of Christ and in mortem Christi into the death of Christ we are not therefore baptized into his Name because names are imposed upon us in our baptisme for that was not always permanently accustomed in the Christian Church to give a name at baptisme To men who were of years and well known in the world already by their nameâ— if they were converted to the Christian faith the Church did not use to give new names at their baptisme neither to Children alwayes but sometimes as an indifferent thing they left them to the custome of that country or of that family from which they were derived When Saint Augustine sayes that he came to Milan to S. Ambrose at that time quâ— dari nomina oportuit when Names were to be given it is true that he speaks of a time when Baptisme was to be administred but that phrase of Giving of Names was not a receiving of Names at Baptisme for neither Ambrose nor Augustine received any new name at their Baptisme but it was a giving up of their Names a Registring a Matriculating of their Names in the book of the profession of the Christian Religion and a publique declaration of that profession To be baptized therefore into the name of Christ is to be translated into his Family by this spirituall adoption in which adoption when it was legall as they that were adopted had also the name of the family into which they were adopted as of octavius Octavianus and the rest so are we so baptized into his name that we are of Christus Christiani and therefore to become truly Christians to live Christianly this is truly to be baptized into his name No other name is given under heaven whereby we can be saved nor must any other name accompany the name of God in our Baptisme When therefore they teach in the Romane Church that it is a good Baptisme which is administred in this forme I baptize thee in the name of the Father and Sonne and holy Ghost and the virgin Mary if he which baptizes so
doe not meane in his intention that the virgin Mary is equall to the Trinity but onely an assistant this is not onely an impertinent but an impious addition to that God that needs no assistant And as in our baptisme we take no other name necessarily but the name of Christ So in our Christian life we accept no other distinctions of Iesuits or Franciscans but onely Christians for we are baptized into his name and the whole life of a regenerate man is a Baptisme For as in putting on Christ sanctification doth accompany faith so in baptisme the imitation of his death that is mortification and the application of his passion by fulfilling the sufferings of Christ in our flesh is that baptisme into his death Which doe so certainly follow one another that he that is truly baptized into the name of Christ is also baptized into his death as that Saint Paul couples them together Was Paul crucified for you or were you baptized into the name of Paâ—l If you were not baptized into his name then you have no interest no benefit by his death nor by any thing which he suffered that his merits or his works of supereragation should be applied to you And if he did not suffer for you if all that any Paul much lesse any Ignatins could doe were but enough and too little for himselfe then you are not baptized into his name nor to be denominate by him This is then to be Baptized into Christs death Habere reddere testimonium Christam pro me mortuum to be sure that Chirst dyed for me and to be ready to dye for him so that I may fulfill his sufferings and may think that all is not done which belongs to my Redemption except I finde a mortification in my selfe Not that any mortification of mine works any thing as a cause of my redemption but as an assurance and testimony of it 〈◊〉 sit pignus sigilluâ— redemptionis It is a pledge and it is a Seale of my redemption Christ calls his death a Baptisme So Saint Augustine calls our Baptisme a death Quod crux Christo Sepâ—lcrâ—m id nobis Baptisma Baptisme to us says he is our Croffe and our passion and our buriall that is in that we are conformed to Christ as he suffered dyed and was buried Because if we be so baptized into his Name and into his death we are thereby dead to sinne and have dyed the death of the righteous Since then Baptisme is the death of sinne and there cannot be this death this conquest this victory over sinne without faith there must necessarily faith concurre with this baptisme for if there be not faith none in the child none in the parents none in the sureties none in the Church then there is no baptisme performed Now in the Child there is none actually In the sureties we are not sure there is any for their infidelity cannot impeach the sacrament The child is well baptized though they should be misbeleevers for when the Minister shall aske them Doest thou beleeve in God dost thou renounce the Devill perchance they may ly in their owne behalfes perchance they doe not beleeve they doe not renounce but they speake truth in the behalfe of the child when they speake in the voyce of the Church who receives this child for her childe and binds her selfe to exhibit and reach out to that child her spirituall paps for her future nourishment thereof How comes it to passe says Saint Augustine that when a man presents another mans child at the font to be baptized if the Minister should aske him Shall this man child be a valiant man or a wise man shall this woman child be a chast and a continent woman the surety would answer I cannot tell and yet if he be ask'd of that child of so few dayes old Doth that child beleeve in God now will he renounce the Devill hereafter the surety answers confidently in his behalfe for the beleefe and for the renouncing How comes this to passe says Saint Augustine He answers to this that as Sacramentum Corporis Christi est secundum modum Corpus Christi so Sacramentum fidei est fides As the Sacrament of the body and bloud of Christ is in some sense and in a kinde the body and bloud of Christ says Augustine so in the sacrament of faith says he that is Baptisme there is some kinde of faith Here is a child borne of faithfull parents and there is the voyce of God who hath sealed a Covenant to them and their seed Here are sureties that live by Gods gratious spirit in the unity and in the bosome of the Church and so the parents present it to them they present it to the Church and the Church takes it into her care It is still the naturall child of her parents who begot it it is the spirituall child of the Sureties that present it but it is the Christian child of the Church who in the sacrament of Baptisme gives it a new inanimation and who if either parents or sureties should neglect their parts will have a care of it and breed it up to a perfection and full growth of that faith whereof it hath this day an inchoation and beginning As then we have said that Baptisme is a death a death of sinne and as we said before sinne dyes not without faith so also can there be no death of sinne without sorrow and contrition which onely washes away sinne as therefore we see the Church and Christs institution furnishes this child with faith which it hath not of it selfe so let us bring to this action that sorrow and that condoling that we produce into the world such miserable wretches as even by peccatum involuntarium by that sinne to which no act nay no will of theirs concurred that is Originall sinne are yet put into the state of damnation But let us also rejoyce in our owne and this childes behalfe that as we that have been baptized so this child that shall be have and shall put on Christ Jesus in Baptisme Both as a garment for Sacramenta sunt vestimenta As Christ is a garment so the Sacraments are Christs garment and as such a garment as Ornat militem and convincit desertores It gives him that continues in Gods battailes a dignity and discovers him that forsakes Gods tents to be a fugitive Baptisme is a garland in which two ends are brought together he begins aright and perseveres so Ornat militem It is an honour to him that fights out in Gods battaile but Convincit Desertorem Baptisme is our prest-money and if we forsake our colours after we have received that even that forfaits our lives our very having been baptized shall aggravate our condemnation Yea it is such a garment as those of the children of Israel in the wildernesse which are by some expositors thought to have growne all the forty yeares with their bodies for so by Gods blessed provision
of Saint Iohn and another by Saint Marke to the memory of Saint Peter whilest yet both Saint John and Saint Peter were alive Howsoever it is certaine that the purest and most innocent times even the infancy of the Primitive Church found this double way of expressing their devotion in this particular of building Churches first that they built them onely to the honour and glory of God without giving him any partner and then they built them for the conserving of the memory of those blessed servants of God who had sealed their profession with their bloud and at whose Tombs God had done such Miracles as these times needed for the propagation of his Church They built their Churches principally for the glory of God but yet they added the names of some of his blessed servants and Martyrs for so says he who as he was Peters successor so he is the most sensible feeler and most earnest and powerfull promover and expresser of the dignities of Saint Peter of all the Fathers speaking of Saint Peters Church Beato Petri Basilica quae uni Deo vero vivo dicata est Saint Peters Church is dedicated to the onely living God They are things compatible enough to beare the name of a Saint and yet to be dedicated to God There the bodies of the blessed Martyrs did peacefully attend their glorification There the Histories of the Martyrs were recited and proposed to the Congregation for their example and imitation There the names of the Martyrs were inserted into the publique prayers and liturgies by way of presenting the thanks of the Congregation to God for having raised so profitable men in the Church and there the Church did present their prayers to God for those Martyrs that God would hasten their glory and finall consummation in reuniting their bodies and soules in a joyfull resurrection But yet though this divers mention were made of the Saints of God in the house of God Non Martyres ipsi sed Deus â—orum nobis est Deus onely God and not those Martyrs is our God we and they serve all one Master we dwell all in one house in which God hath appointed us severall services Those who have done their days work God hath given them their wages and hath given them leave to goe to bed they have laid down their bodies in peace to sleep there till the Sunne rise againe till the Sunne of grace and glory Christ Iesus appeare in judgment we that are yet left to work and to watch we must goe forward in the services of God in his house with that moderation and that equality as that we worship onely our Master but yet despise not our fellow servants that are gone before us That we give to no person the glory of God but that we give God the more glory for having raised such servants That we acknowledge the Church to be the house onely of God and that we admit no Saint no Martyr to be a lointenant with him but yet that their memory may be an encouragement yea and a seale to us that that peace and glory which they possesse belongs also unto us in reversion and that therefore we may cheerfully gratulate their present happinesse by a devout commemoration of them with such a temper and evennesse as that we neither dishonor God by attributing to them that which is inseparably his nor dishonor them in taking away that which is theirs in removing their Names out of the Collects and prayers of the Church or their Monuments and memorialls out of the body of the Church for those respects to them the first Christian founders of Churches did admit in those pure times when Illa obsequia ornamenta memoriarum nâ—n sacrificia mortuorum when those devotions in their names were onely commemorations of the dead not sacrifices to the dead as they are made now in the Romane Church when Bellarmine will needs falsifie Chrysostome to read Adoramus monumenta in stead of Adornamus and to make that which was but an Adorning an adoring of the Tombes of the Martyrs This then was in all times a religious work an acceptable testimony of devotion to build God a house to contribute something to his outward glory The goodnesse and greatnesse of which work appears evidently and shines gloriously even in those severall names by which the Church was called and styled in the writings and monuments of the Ancient Fathers and the Ecclesiastique story It may serve to our edification at least and to the axalting of our devotion to consider some few of them First then the Church was called Ecclesia that is a company a Congregation That whereas from the time of Iohn Baptist the kingdome of heaven suffers violence and every violent Man that is every earnest and zealous and spiritually valiant Man may take hold of it we may be much more sure of doing so in the Congregation Quando agâ—â—ine factâ— Deum obsidemus when in the whole body we Muster our forces and besiege God For here in the congregation not onely the kingdome of heaven is fallen into our hands The kingdome of heaven is amongst you as Christ says but the King of heaven is fallen into our hands When two or three are gathered together in my Name I will be in the midst of you not onely in the midst of us to encourage us but in the midst of us to be taken by us to be bound by us by those hands those covenants those contracts those rich and sweet promises which he hath made and ratified unto us in his Gospell A second name of the Church 〈◊〉 in use was Dominicum The Lords possession It is absolutely it is intirely his And therefore as to shorten and contract the possession and inheritance of God the Church so much as to confine the Church onely within the obedience of Rome as the Donatists imprisoned it in Afrique or to change the Landmarks of Gods possession and inheritance which is the Church either to set up new works of outward prosperity or of personall and Locall succession of Bishops or to remove the old and true marks which are the Word and Sacraments as this is Injuria Dominico mystico a wrong to the mysticall body of Christ the Church so is it Injuria Dominico materiali an injury to the Materiall body of Christ sacrilegiously to dilapidate to despoile or to demolish the possession of the Church and so farre to remove the marks of Gods inheritance as to mingle that amongst your temporall revenues that God may never have nor ever distinguish his owne part againe And then to passe faster over these names It is called Domus Dei Gods dwelling house Now his most glorious Creatures are but vehicula Dei they are but chariots which convey God and bring him to our sight The Tabernacle it selfe was but Mobilis domus and Ecclesia portatilis a house without a foundation a running a progresse house but
the Church is his standing house there are his offices fixed there are his provisions which fat the Soule of Man as with marrow and with fatnesse his precious bloud and body there work his seales there beats his Mint there is absolution and pardon for past sinnes there is grace for prevention of future in his Sacraments But the Church is not onely Domus Dei but Basilica not onely his house but his Court he doth not onely dwell there but reigne there which multiplies the joy of his houshold servants The Lord reigneth let all the earth rejoyce yea let the multitude of the Islands be glad thereof That the Church was usually called Martyrium that is a place of Confession where we open our wounds and receive our remedy That it was called Oratorium where we might come and aske necessary things at Gods hands all these teach us our severall duties in that place and they adde to their spirituall comfort who have been Gods instruments for providing such places as God may be glorified in and the godly benefited in all these ways But of all Names which were then usually given to the Church the name of Temple seems to be most large and significant as they derive it à Tuendo for Tueri signifies both our beholding and contemplating God in the Church and it signifies Gods protecting and defending those that are his in his Church Tueri embraces both And therefore though in the very beginning of the Primitive Church to depart from the custome and language and phrase of the Iews and Gentiles as farre as they could they did much abstain from this name of Temple and of Priest so that till Ireneus time some hundred eighty years after Christ we shall not so often find those words Temple or Priest yet when that danger was overcome when the Christian Church and doctrine was established from that time downward all the Fathers did freely and safely call the Church the Temple and the Ministers in the Church Priests as names of a religious and pious signification where before out of a loathnesse to doe or say any thing like the Iews or Gentiles where a concurrence with them might have been misinterpretable and of ill consequence they had called the Church by all those other names which we passed through before and they called their Priests by the name of Elders Presbyteros but after they resumed the use of the word Temple againe as the Apostle had given a good patterne who to expresse the principall holinesse of the Saints of God he chooses to doe it in that word ye are the Temples of the holy Ghost which should encline us to that moderation that when the danger of these ceremonies which corrupt times had corrupted is taken away we should returne to a love of that Antiquity which did purely and harmelesly induce them when there is no danger of abuse there should be no difference for the use of things in themselves indifferent made necessary by the just commandement of lawfull authority Thus then you see as farre as the narrownesse of the time will give us leave to expresse it the generall manner of the best times to declare devotion towards God to have been in appropriating certaine places to his worship And since it is so in this particular history of Iacobs proceeding in my text I may be hold to invert these words of David Nisi Deus aedificaverit domum unlesse the Lord doe build the house in vaine doe the labourers work thus much as to say Nisi Domino aedificaveritis domum except thou build a house for the Lord in vaine dost thou goe about any other buildings or any other businesse in this world I speake not meerly literally of building Materiall Chappell 's yet I would speake also to further that but I speake principally of building such a Church as every man may build in himselfe for whensoever we present our prayers and devotions deliberately and advisedly to God there we consecrate that place there we build a Church And therefore beloved since every master of a family who is a Bishop in his house should call his family together to humble and powre out their soules to God let him consider that when he comes to kneele at the side of his table to pray he comes to build a Church there and therefore should sanctifie that place with a due and penitent consideration how voluptuously he hath formerly abused Gods blessings at that place how superstitiously and idolatrously he hath flatter'd and humour'd some great and usefull ghests invited by him to that place how expensively he hath served his owne ostentation and vain-glory by excessive feasts at that place whilest Lazarus hath lien panting and gasping at the gate and let him consider what a dangerous Mockery this is to Christ Iesus if he pretend by kneeling at that table fashionally to build Christ a Church by that solemnity at the table side and then crucifie Christ again by these sinnes when he is sat at the table When thou kneelest down at thy bed side to shut up the day at night or to beginne it in the morning thy servants thy children thy little flock about thee there thou buildest a Church too And therefore sanctifie that place wash it with thy tears and with a repentant consideration That in that bed thy children were conceived in sinne that in that bed thou hast turned mariage which God afforded thee for remedy and physique to voluptuosnesse and licenciousnesse That thou hast made that bed which God gave thee for rest and for reparation of thy weary body to be as thy dwelling and delight and the bed of idlenesse and stupidity Briefly you that are Masters continue in this building of Churches that is in drawing your families to pray and praise God and sanctifie those severall places of bed and board with a right use of them And for you that are servants you have also foundations of Churches in you if you dedicate all your actions consecrate all your services principally to God and respectively to them whom God hath placed over you But principally let all of all sorts who present themselves at this table consider that in that receiving his body and his bloud every one doth as it were conceive Christ Jesus anew Christ Jesus hath in every one of them as it were a new incarnation by uniting himselfe to them in these visible signes And therefore let no Man come hither without a search and a privy search without a consideration and re-consideration of his conscience Let him that beganne to think of it but this morning stay till the next When Moses pulled his hand first out of his bosome it was white as snow but it was leprous when he pulled it the second time it was of the color of flesh but it was sound When thou examinest thy conscience but once but flightly it may appear white as snow innocent but examine it againe and it
against the holy Ghost for this is the nearest step thou hast made to it to think that thou hast done it walke in that large field of the Scriptures of God and from the first flower at thy entrance the flower of Paradise Semen mulieris the generall promise of the seed of the woman should bruise the Serpents head to the last word of that Messias upon the Crosse Consummatum est that all that was promised for us is now performed and from the first to the last thou shalt find the savour of life unto life in all those flowers walke over the same alley againe and consider the first man Adam in the beginning who involv'd thee in originall sinne and the thiefe upon the Crosse who had continued in actuall sinnes all his life and sealed all with the sinne of reviling Christ himselfe a little before his expiration and yet he recovered Paradise and Paradise that day and see if thou canst make any shift to exclude thy selfe receive the fragrancy of all these Cordialls Vivit Dominâ—â— as the Lord liveth I would not the death of a sinner Quandocunque At what time soever a sinner repenteth and of this text Neminem judieat Christ judgeth no man to destruction here and if thou find after all these Antidotes a suspitious ayre a suspicious working in that Impossibiâ—e est that it is impossible for them who were once inlightened if they fall away to renew them againe by repentance sprinkle upon that worme wood of Impossibile est that Manna of Quorum remiseritis whose sinnes yee remit are remitted and then it will have another tast to thee and thon wilt see that that impossibility lies upon them onely who are utterly fallen away into an absolute Apostasie and infidelity that make a mocke of Christ and crucifie him againe as it is expressed there who undervalue and despise the Church of God those means which Christ Jesus hath instituted in his Church for renewing such as are fallen To such it is impossible because there are no other ordinary meanes possible but that 's not thy case thy case is onely a doubt that those meanes that are shaâ—â— not be applied to thee and even that is a slippery state to doubt of the mercy of God to thee in particular this goes so neare making thy sinne greater then Gods mercy as that it makes thy sinne greater then daily adulteries daily murthers daily blasphemies daily prophanings of the Sabbath could have done and though thou canst never make that true in this life that thy sinnes are greater then God can forgive yet this is a way to make them greater then God will forgive Now to collect both our Exercises and to connexe both Texts Christ judgeth all men and Christ judgeth no man he claimes all judgment and he disavows all judgement and they consist well together he was at our creation but that was not his first sense the Arians who say Erat quando non erat there was a time when Christ was not intimating that he had a beginning and therefore was a creature yet they will allow that he was created before the generall creation and so assisted at ours but he was infinite generations before that in the bosome of his Father at our election and there in him was executed the first judgment of separating those who were his the elect from the reprobate and then he knows who are his by that first Judgment And so comes to his second Judgment to seale all those in the visible Church with the outward mark of his baptisme and the inward marke of his Spirit and those whom he calls so he justifies and sanctifies and brings them to his third Judgment to an established and perpetuall glory And so all Judgment is his But then to judge out of humane affections and passions by detraction and calumny as they did to whom he spoke at this time so he judges no man so he denies judgment To usurpe upon the jurisdiction of others or to exercise any other judgment then was his commission as his pretended Vicar doth so he judges no man so he disavows all judgment To judge so as that our condemnation should be irremediable in this life so he judges no man so he forswears all judgment As I live saith the Lord of hosts and as I have died saith the Lord Jesus so I judge none Acknowledge his first Judgment thy election in him Christ his second Judgment thy justification by him breath and pant after his third Judgement thy Crown of glory for him intrude not upon the right of other men which is the first defame not calumniate not other men which is the second lay not the name of reprobate in this life upon any man which is the third Judgement that Christ disavows here and then thou shalt have well understood and well practised both these texts The Father hath committed all Iudgment to the Sonne and yet The Sonne judges no man SERMON XIIII Preached at Lincolns Inne JOB 19. 26. And though after my skin wormes destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God AMongst those Articles in which our Church hath explain'd and declar'd her faith this is the eight Article that the three Creeds that of the councell of Nice that of Athanasius and that which is commonly known by the name of the Apostles Creed ought throughly to be received and embrac'd The meaning of the Church is not that onely that should be beleev'd in which those three Creeds agree for the Nicen Creed mentions no Article after that of the holy Ghost not the Catholique Church not the Communion of Saints not the Resurrection of the flesh Athanasius his Creed does mention the Resurrection but not the Catholique Church nor the communion of Saints but that all should be beleev'd which is in any of them all which is summ'd up in the Apostles Creed Now the reason expressed in that Article of our Church why all this is to be beleeved is Because all this may be prov'd by most certaine warrants of holy Scriptures The Article does not insist upon particular places of Scripture not so much as point to them But they who have enlarged the Articles by way of explanation have done that And when they come to cite those places of Scripture which prove the Article of the Resurrection I observe that amongst those places they forbeare this text so that it may seem that in their opinion this Scripture doth not concerne the Resurrection It will not therefore be impertinent to make it a first part of this exercise whether this Scripture be to be understood of the Resurrection or no And then to make the particular handling of the words a second part In the first we shall see that the Iews always had and have still a persuasion of the Resurrection We shall look after by what light they saw that whether by the light of naturall reason And if not by that by what light given in other places
conversation and is received in our conformity and imitation So have you seen what the Inheritance of this Kingdome is it is a Having and Holding of the Gospel a present and a permanent possession a holding fast lest another another Nation another Church take our Crown There remains onely that you see upon whom the exclusion fals and for the clearing of that This I say brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God It is fully express'd by Saint Paul The carnall mind is enmity against God It is not a coldnesse a slacknesse an omission a preterition of some duties towards God but it is Enmity and that 's an exclusion out of the Kingdome for says the Apostle there it is not subject to the Law of God and no subjection no Kingdome it is not says hee neither can it be It is not that excludes the present It cannot be that excludes the future so that it is onely this incorrigible this desperate state that constitutes this flesh and blood that cannot inherit the Kingdome of God for this implies impenitablenesse which is the sin against the holy Ghost Take the word flesh so literally as that it be either the adorning of my flesh in pride or the polluting of my flesh in wantonnes whether it be a pampering of my flesh with voluptuous provocations or a withering a shriveling of my flesh with superstitious and meritorious fastings or other macerations and lacerations by inhumane violence upon my body Take the word Bloud so literally as that it be either an admiring and adoring of honourable blood in a servile flattering of great persons or an insinuating of false and adulterous blood in a bastardizing a race by supposititious children whether it bee the inflaming the blood of young persons by lascivious discourse or shedding the blood of another in a murderous quarrell whether it be in blaspheming the blood of my Saviour in execrable oathes or the prophaning of his blood in an unworthy receiving thereof all these ways and all such doth this flesh and blood exclude from the Kingdome of God It is summarily all those works which proceed meerly out of the nature of man without the regeneration of the Spirit of God all that is flesh and blood and enmity against God says the Apostle in that place But in another place that Apostle leads us into other considerations to the Galatians he says The works of the flesh are manifest And amongst those manifest works of the flesh he reckons not onely sins of wantonnesse and sins of anger not onely sins in concupiscibili and in irascibili but in intelligibili sins and errours in the understanding particularly Heresie and Idolatry are works of the flesh in Saint Pauls inventory in that place Heresie and Idolatry are that flesh and blood which shall not inherit the Kingdome of God Bring wee this consideration home to our selves The Church of Rome does not charge us with affirming any Heresie nor does she charge us with any Idolatry in our practise So far we are discharged from the works of the flesh If they charge us with Doctrine of flesh and blood because we prefer Mariage before Chastity it is a charge ill laid for Mariage and Chastity consist well together The bed undefiled is chastity If they charge us that wee prefer Mariage before Continency they charge us unjustly for we do not so Let them contain that can and blesse God for that heavenly gift of Continency and let them that cannot mary and serve God and blesse him for affording them that Physick for that infirmity As Mariage was ordained at first for those two uses Procreation of children and mutuall assistance of man and wife so Continency was not preferr'd before Mariage As there was a third use of Mariage added after the fall by way of Remedy so Mariage may well be said to be inferiour to continency as physick is in respect of health If they charge us with it because our Priests mary they doe it frivolously and impertinently because they deny that wee are Priests We charge them with Heresie in the whole new Creed of the Councell of Trent for if all the particular doctrines be not Hereticall yet the doctrine of inducing new Articles of faith is Hereticall and that doctrine runs through all the Articles for else they could not be Articles And we charge them with Idolatry in the peoples practise and that practise is never controld by them in the greatest mystery of all their Religion in the Adoration of the Sacrament And Heresie and Idolatry are manifest works of the flesh Our Kingdome is the Gospel our Inheritance is our holding that our exclusion is flesh and blood Heresie and Idolatry And therefore let us be able to say with the Apostle when God had called us and separated us immediately we conferred not with flesh and blood Since God hath brought us into a fair prospect let us have no retrospect back In Canaan let us not look towards Aegypt nor towards Sodom being got to the Mountain since God hath setled us in a true Church let us have no kind of byas and declination towards a false for that is one of Saint Pauls manifest works of the flesh and I shall lose all the benefit of the flesh and bloud of Christ Jesus if I doe so for flesh and bloud cannot inherite the kingdome of God We have done Adde we but this by way of recollecting this which hath been said now upon these words and that which hath been formerly said upon those words of Iob which may seem to differ from these In my flesh I shall see God Omne verum omni vero consentiens whatsoever is true in it selfe agrees with every other truth Because that which Iob says and that which Saint Paul says agree with the truth they agree with one another For as Saint Paul says Non omniâ— caro eadem caro there is one flesh of man another of beasts so there is one flesh of Iob another of Saint Paul And Iobs flesh can see God and Pauls cannot because the flesh that Iob speakes of hath overcome the destruction of skin and body by wormes in the grave and so is mellowed and prepared for the sight of God in heaven And Pauls flesh is overcome by the world Iobs flesh triumphes over Satan and hath made a victorious use of Gods corrections Pauls flesh is still subject to tentations and carnalities Iobs argument is but this some flesh shall see God Mortified men here Glorified men there shall Pauls argument is this All flesh shall not see God Carnall men here Impenitent men there shall not And therefore that as our texts answer one another so your resurrections may answer one another too as at the last resurrection all that heare the sound of the Trumpet shall rise in one instant though they have passed thousands of years between their burialls so doe all ye who are now called by a lower and
these will be the particular branches of our two generall parts the proposition Gaudeo in afflictionibus c. And the reason Quiae adimpleo c. To beginne then with the first branch of the first part The person we are sure it was Sainâ— Paul who we are sure was an Apostle for so he tells the Coloâ—sians in the beginning of the Epistle Paul an Apostle of Iesus Christ by the will of God but yet he was not properly peculiarly their Apostle he was theirs as he was the Apostle of the Gentiles but he was not theirs as he was the Apostle of the Corinthians If I be not an Apostle to others says he yet doubtlesse I am to you for amongst the Corinthians he had laid the foundations of a Church Are ye not my worke in the Lord says he there but for the Colossians he had never preached to them never seen them Epaphras had laid the foundation amongst them And Archippus was working now at the writing of this Epistle upon the upper buildings as we may see in the Epistle it selfe Epaphras had planted and Archippus watered How entred Paul First as an Apostle he had a generall jurisdiction and superintendency over them and over all the Gentiles and over all the Church And then as a man whose miraculous conversion and religious conversation whose incessant preaching and whose constant suffering had made famous and reverend over the whole Church of God all that proceeded from him had much authority and power in all places to which it was directed As himselfe says of Andronicas and Iunia his kinsmen that they were Nobiles in Apostolis Nobly spoken of amongst the Apostles so Saint Paul himselfe was Nobilis Apostolus in Discipulis reverendly esteemed amongst all the Disciples for a laborious Apostle Saint Augustine joyned his desire to have heard Saint Paul preach with his other two wishes to have seen Christ in the flesh and to have seen Rome in her glory And Saint Chrysostome admires Rome so much admired for other things for this principally that she had heard Saint Paul preach And that Siâ—utâ—orpus magnum validum ita duos haberet illustres oculos as she was a great and glorious body so she had two great and glorious eyes The presence and the memories of Saint Peter and Saint Paul he writes not to them then meerely as an Apostle not in that capacity for he joines Timothy with himselfe at the beginning of the Epistle who was no Apostle properly though upon that occasion of Pauls writing in his owne and in Timothies name Saint Chrysostame say in a larger sense Ergo Timotheâ—s Apostolus if Timothy be in commission with Paul Timothy is an Apostle too But Saint Paul by his â—ame and estimation having justly got a power and interest in them he cherishes that by this salutation and he binds them the more to accept his instructions by giving them a part in all his persecutions and by letting them see how much they were in his care even in that distance A servile application of himselfe to the humors of others becomes not thâ— ministers of God It becomes him not to depart from his ingenuity and freedome to a servile humoring but to be negligent of their opinion of him with whom he is to converse and upon whose conscience he is to worke becomes him not neither It is his doctrine that must beare him out But if his discretion doe not make him acceptable too his doctrine will have the weaker root when Saint Paul and the Colossians thought well of one another the work of God was likely to goe forward amongst them And where it is not so the work prospers not This was then the person Paul as he had a calling and an authority by the Apostleship and Paul as he had made his calling and authority and Apostleship acceptable to them by his wisedome and descreet behaviour towards them and the whole Church The season followes next when he presents this doctrine to them Nunc Gaudeo now I rejoyce and there is a Nunc illi and a Nunc illis to be considered one time it hath relation to Saint Paul himselfe and another that hath relation to the Colossians His time the Nunc illis was nunc in vinculis now when he was in prison at Rome for from thence he writ this Epistle Ordinarily a prisoner is the lesse to be beleeved for his being in prison and in fetters if he speak such things as conduce to his discharge of those fetters or his deliverance from that imprisonment it is likely enough that a prisoner will lye for such an advantage But when Saint Paul being now a prisoner for the preaching of the Gospell speaks still for the advancement of the Gospell that he suffers for and finds out another way of preaching it by letters and by epistles when he opens himselfe to more danger to open to them more doctrine then that was very credible which he spake though in prison There is in all his epistles impetus Spiritus Christi as Irenaeus says a vehemence of the holy Ghost but yet amplius habent quae è vinculis says Chrisostome Those epistles which Saint Paul writ in prison have more of this vehemency in them a sentence written with a cole upon a wall by a close prisoner affects us when we come to read it Stolne letters by which a prisoner adventers the losse of that liberty which he had come therefore the more welcome if they come It is not always a bold and veliement reprehension of great persons that is argument enough of a good and a rectified zeale for an intemperate use of the liberty of the Gospell and sometimes the impotency of a satyricall humor makes men preach freely and over-freely offensively scandalously and so exasperate the magistrate God forbid that a man should build a reputation of zeale for having been called in question for preaching of a Sermon And then to think it wisdome redimere se quo queat minimo to sinke againe and get off as good cheape as he can But when the malignity of others hath slandred his doctrine or their galled consciences make them kicke at his doctrine then to proceed with a Christian magnanimity and a spirituall Nobility in the maintenance of that doctrine to preferre then before the greatnesse of the their persons and the greatnesse of his owne danger the greatnesse of the glory of God and the greatnesse of the losse which Gods Church should suffer by his lenity and prevarication To edifie others by his constancy then when this building in apparence and likelyhood must be raised upon his owne ruine then was Saint Pauls Nunc concerning himselfe then was his season to plant and convey this doctrine to these Colossians when it was most dangerous for him to doe so Now to consider this season and fitnesse as it concerned them The Nunc illis It was then
when Epaphras had declrared unto him their love and when upon so good testimony of their disposition he had a desire that they might be fulfilled with knowledge of Gods will in all wisdome and spirituall understanding as he says verse 9. when he knew how farre they had proceeded in mysteries of the Christian Religion and that they had a spirituall hunger of more then it was seasonable to present to them this great point that Christ had suffered throughly sufficiently aboundantly for the reconciliation of the whole world and yet that there remained some sufferings and those of Christ too to be fulfilled by us That all was done and yet there remained more to be done that after Christs consummatum est which was all the text there should be an Adimplendum est interlined that after Christ had fulfilled the Law and the Prophets by his sufferings Saint Paul must fulfill the residue of Christs sufferings was a doctrin unseasonably taught till they had learnt much and shewed a desire to learn more In the Primitive Church men of ripe understandings were content to think two or three yeares well spent in learning of Catechisms and rudiments of Christian Religion and the greatest Bishops were content to think that they discharged their duties well if they caâ—echized ignorant men in such rudiments for we know from Gennaâ—dius an Ecclesiasticall author that the Bishops of Greece and of the Eastern Church did use to con S. Cyrils sermons made at Easter and some other Festivals without book and preached over those Sermons of his making to Congregations of strong understanding and so had more time for their Caâ—echizing of others Optatus thinks that when Saint Paul says Ego plantavi Apollos rigavit I planted the faith and Apollos watered he intended in those words Ego de pagano feci catechumenum ille de catechumeno Christianum That Saint Paul took ignorant persons into his charge to catechize them at first and when they were instructed by him Apollos watered them with the water of Baptism Tertullian thought hee did young beginners in Christianity no wrong when he called them catulos infantiae reâ—entis nec perfectis luminibus reptantes Young whelps which are not yet come to a perfect use of their eyes in the mysteries of Religion Now God hath delivered us in a great measure from this weaknesse in seeing because we are catechized from our craâ—â—â—s and from this penury in preaching we need not preach others Sermons nor feed upon cold meat in Homilies but wee are fallen upon such times too as that men doe not thinke themselves Christians except they can tell what God meant to doe with them before he meant they should bee Christians for we can be intended to be Christians but from Christ and wee must needs seek a Predestination without any relation to Christ a decree in God for salvation and damnation before any decree for the reparation of mankind by Christ every Common-placer will adventure to â—each and every artificer will pretend to understand the purpose yea and the order too and method of Gods eternall and unrevealed decree Saint Paul required a great deal more knowledge then these men use to bring before he presented to them a great deal a lesse point of Doctrin then these men use to aske This was then the Nunc illis their season when they had humbly received so much of the knowledge of the fundamentall points of Religion Saint Paul was willing to communicate more and more stronger and stronger meat unto them That which he presents here is that which may seem least to appertain to a Christian that is loy because a Christian is a person that hath surrendred himself over to a sad and serious and a severe examination of all his actions that all bee done to the glory of God but for all this this joy true joy is truly properly onely belonging to a Christian because this joy is the Testimony of a good conscience that wee have received God so as God hath manifested himself in Christ and worshipt God so God hath ordained In a true Church there are many tesserae externae outward badges and marks by which others may judge and pronounce mee to bee a true Christian But the tessera internaâ— the inward badge and marke by which I know this in my selfe is joy The blessednesse of heaven it selfe Salvation and the fruits of Paradise that Paradise which cannot be expressed cannot be comprehended have yet got no other name in the subtilty of the Schools nor in the fulnesse of the Scriptures but to be called the joys of heaven Essentiall blessednesse is called so Enter into thy Masters joy that is into the Kingdome of heaven and accidentall happinesse added to that essentiall happinesse is called so too There is joy in heaven at the conversion of a sinner and so in the Revelaâ—ion Rejoyce ye heavens and yee that dwell in them for the aâ—câ—ser of our brethren is cast downâ— There is now joy even in heaven which was not there before Certainly as that man shall never see the Father of Lights after this to whom the day never breaks in this life As that man must never look to walk with the Lamb wheresoever he goes in heaven that ranne away from the Lamb whensoever he came towards him in this life so he shall never possesse the joyes of heaven hereafter that feels no joy here There must be joy here which Tanquam Cellulae mellis as Saint Bernard says in his mellifluous language as the honey-comb walles in and prepares and preserves the honey and is as a shell to that kernell so there must bee a joy here which must prepare and preserve the joys of heaven it self and be as a shell of those joys For heaven and salvation is not a Creation but a Multiplication it begins not when wee dye but it increases and dilates it self infinitely then Christ himself when he was pleased to feed all that people in the wildernesse he asks first Quot panes habetis how many loafes have you and then multiplyed them abundantly as conduced most to his glory but some there was before When thou goest to eat that bread of which whosoever eates shall never dye the bread of life in the Land of life Christ shall consider what joy thou broughtest with thee out of this world and he shall extend and multiply that joy unexpressibly but if thou carry none from hence thou shalt find none there Hee that were to travell into a far country would study before somewhat the map and the manners and the language of the Country Hee that looks for the fulnesse of the joyes of heaven hereafter will have a taste an insight in them before he goe And as it is not enough for him that would travail to study any language indifferently were it not an impertinent thing for him that went to lye in France to study Dutch So if wee pretend to make the joys
imploys the hand of sicknesse the hand of poverty the hand of justice the hand of malice still it is his hand that breakes the vessell and this vessell which is his own for can any such vessell have a propriety in it selfe or bee any other bodies primarily then his from whom it hath the beeing To recollect these if I will have joy in suffering it must be mine mine and not borrowed out of an imaginary treasure of the Church from the works of others Supererogation mine and not stollen or enforced by exasperating the Magistrate to a persecution mine by good title and not by suffering for breach of the Law mine in particular and not a generall persecution upon the Church by my occasion And mine by a stranger title then all this mine by resignation mine by disavowing it mine by confessing that it is none of mine Till I acknowledge that all my sufferings are even for Gods glory are his works and none of mine they are none of mine and by that humility they become mine and then I may rejoyce in my sufferings Through all our sufferings then there must passe an acknowledgement that we are unprofitable servants towards God utterly unprofitable So unprofitable to our selves as that we can merit nothing by our sufferings but still we may and must have a purpose to profit others by our constancy it is Pro vobis that Saint Paul says hee suffers for them for their souls I will most gladly bestow and be bestowed for your soules says he But Numquid Paulus crucifixus pro vobis was Paul crucified for you is his own question as he suffered for them here so we may be bold to say he was crucified for them that is that by his crucifying and suffering the benefit of Christs sufferings and crucifying might be the more cheerfully embraced by them and the more effectually applyed to them Pro vobis is Pro vestro commodo for your advantage and to make you the more active in making sure your own salvation We are afflicted says he for your consolation that 's first that you might take comfort and spirituall courage by our example that God will no more forsake you then he hath done us and then hee addes salvation too for your consolation and salvation for our sufferings beget this consolation and then this consolation facilitates your salvation and then when Saint Paul had that testimony in his own conscience that his purpose in his sufferings was Pro illis to advantage Gods children and then saw in his experience so good effect of it as that it wrought and begot faith in them then the more his sufferings encreast the more his joys encreast Though says he I be offered up upon the service and sacrifice of your faith I am glad and rejoyce with you all And therefore hee calls the Philippians who were converted by him Gaudium Coronam his Joy and his Crown not onely a Crown in that sense as an auditory a congregation that compasses the Preacher was ordinarily called a Crown Corâ—na In which sense that Martyr Cornelius answered the Judge when he was charged to have held intelligence and to have received Letters from Saint Cyprian against the State Ego de Corona Domini says he from Gods Church 't is true I have but Contra Rempublicam against the State I have received no Letters But not onely in this sense Saint Paul calls those whom he had converted his Crown his Crown that is his Church but he cals them his Crown in heaven What is our hope our joy our Crown of rejoycing are not even you it and where even in the presence of our Lord Iesus Christ at his coming says the Apostle And therefore not to stand upon that contemplation of Saint Gregories that at the Resurrection Peter shall lead up his converted Jewes and Paul his converted Nations and every Apostle his own Church Since you to whom God sends us doe as well make up our Crown as we doe yours since your being wrought upon and our working upon you conduce to both our Crowns call you the labour and diligence of your Pastors for that 's all the suffering they are called to till our sins together call in a persecution call you their painfulnesse your Crown and we shall call your applyablenesse to the Gospel which we preach our Crown for both conduce to both but especially childrens children are the Crown of the Elders says Solomon If when we have begot you in Christ by our preaching you also beget others by your holy life and conversation you have added another generation unto us and you have preached over our Sermons again as fruitfully as we our selves you shall be our Crown and they shall be your Crowns and Christ Jesus a Crown of everlasting glory to us all Amen SERMON XVII Preached at Lincolns Inne MATTH 18. 7. We unto the world because of offences THe Man Moses was very meeke above all the men which were upon the face of the Earth The man Moses was so but the Child Iesus was meeker then he Compare Moses with men and Moses will scarce be parallel'd Compare him with him who being so much more then man as that he was God too was made so much lesse then man as that he was a worme and no man and Moses will not be admitted If you consider Moses his highest expression what he would have parted with for his brethren in his Dele me Pardon them or blot my name out of thy book yet Saint Pauls zeale will enter into the balance and come into comparison with Moses in his Anathema pro fratribus in that he wished himselfe to be separated from Christ rather then his brethren should be But what comparison hath a sodaine a passionate and indigested vehemence of love expressed in a phrase that tasts of zeale but is not done Moses was not blotted out of the book of life nor Saint Paul was not separated from Christ for his brethren what comparison hath such a love that was but said and perchance should not have been said for we can scarce excuse Moses or Saint Paul of all excesse and inordinatenesse in that that they said with a deliberate and an eternall purpose in Christ Jesus conceived as soon as we can conceive God to have knowen that Adam would fall to come into this world dye for man and then actually and really in the fulnesse of time to do so he did come and he did dye The man Moses was very meeke the child Jesus meeker then hee Moses his meeknesse had a determination at least an interruption a discontinuance when hee revenged the wrong of another upon that Egyptian whom he slew But a bruised reed might have stood unbroken and smoking flax might have lien unquenched for ever for all Christ. And therefore though Christ send his Disciples to School to the Scribes and Pharisees because they sate in Moses seat for other lessons yet for
he be put to give judgement upon a particular man that stands before him at the bar according to that Law That that man that stands there that day must that day be no man that that breath breathed in by God to glorify him must be suffocated and strangled with a halter or evaporated with an Axe he must be hanged or beheaded that those limbs which make up a Cabinet for that precious Jewell the image of God to be kept in must be cut into quarters or torne with horses that that body which is a consecrated Temple of the Holy Ghost must be chained to a stake and burnt to ashes hee that is not affected in giving such a judgment upon such a man hath no part in the bowels of Christ Jesus that melt in cōpassion when our sinnes draw and extort his Judgements upon us in the mouth of those Prophets those men whom God sends it is so and it is so in the mouth of God himself that sends them Heu vindicabor says God Alas I will revenge mee of mine enemies Alas I will is Alas I must his glory compels him to doe it the good of his Church and the sustentation of his Saints compell him to it and yet he comes to it with a condolency with a compassion Heu vindicabor Alas I will revenge mee of mine enemies so also in another Prophet Heu abominationes Alas for all the evill abominations of the house of Israel for as it is added there they shall fall that is they will fall by the sword by famine by pestilence and as it follows I will accomplish my fury upon them Though it were come to that height fury and accomplishment consummation of fury yet it comes with a condolency and compassion Heu abominationes Alas for all the evill abominations of the house of Israel I would they were not so ill that I might be better to them Men sent by God do so so does God that sends those men he that is both God and man Christ Jesus does so too We have but two clear records in the Scriptures of Christs weeping and both in compassion for others when Mary wept for her dead brother Lazarus and the Jews that were with her wept too Iesus also wept and he groan'd in the spirit and was troubled This was but for the discomfort of one family it was not a mortality over the whole Country It was but for one person in that family it was not a contagion that had swept or did threaten the whole house it was but for such a person in that family as he meant forthwith to restore to life again and yet Iesus wept groaned in the Spirits was trobled he would not lose that opportunity of shewing his tendernesse and compassion in the behalf of others How vehement how passionate then must we beleeve his other weeping to have been when hee had his glorious and beloved City Jerusalem in his sight and wept over that City and with that stream of tears powred out that Sea that tempestuous Sea those heavy judgements which though he wept in doing it he denounced upon that City that glorious that beloved City which City though Christ charge to have stoned them that were sent to her and to bee guilty of all the righteous blood shed upon the earth the holy Ghost cals the holy City for all that not onely at the beginning of Christs appearance The Devill took him up into the holy City for at that time she was not the unholyer for any thing that shee had done upon the person of Christ but when they had exercised all their cruelty even to death the death of the Crosse upon Christ himselfe the Holy Ghost calls still the holy City Many bodies of Saints which slept arose and went into the holy City When the Fathers take into their contemplation and discourse that passionate exclamation of our Saviour upon the Crosse My God my God why hast thou forsaken me those blessed Fathers that never thought of any such sense of that place that Christ was at that time actually in the reall torments of hell assign no fitter sense of those words then that the foresight of those insupportable and inevitable and imminent judgements upon his City and his people occasioned that passionate exclamation My God my God why hast thou forsaken me That as after he was ascended into heaven he said to Saul Cur me persequeris He called Sauls persecuting of his Church a persecuting of him so when hee considered that God had forsaken his people his Citie his Jerusalem he cryed out that God had forsaken him God that sent the Prophets the Prophets that were sent Christ who was both the person sent and the sender came to the inflicting and denouncing of judgements with this Vae dolentis a heart and voice of condoling and lamentation Grieve not then the holy Spirit of God says the Apostle extort not from him those Judgements which he cannot in justice forbear and yet is grieved to inflict How often doe we use that motive to divert young men from some ill actions and ill courses How will this trouble your friends how will this grieve your Mother this will kill your Father The Angels of heaven who are of a friendship and family with us as they rejoyce at our conversion so are they sorry and troubled at our aversion from God Our sins have grieved our Mother that is made the Church ashamed and blush that he hath washed us and clothed us in the whitenesse and innocency of Christ Jesus in our baptisme and given us his bloud to drinke in the other Sacrament Our sins have made our mother the Church ashamed in her selfe we have scandalized and offended the Congregation and our sinnes have defamed and dishonoured our mother abroad that is imprinted an opinion in others that that cannot be a good Church in which we live so dissolutely so falsely to our first faith and contract and stipulation with God in Baptisme Wee have grieved our brethren the Angels our mother the Church and we have killed our Father God is the father of us all and we have killed him for God hath purchased a Church with his bloud says Saint Paul And oh how much more is God grieved now that we will make no benefit of that bloud which is shed for us then he was for the very shedding of that bloud We take it not so ill pardon solow a comparison in so high a mystery for since our blessed Saviour was pleased to assume that metaphor and to call his passion a Cup and his death a drinking we may be admitted to that Comparison of drinking too we take it not so ill that a man go down into our Cellar and draw and drinke his fill as that he goe in and pierce the vessells and let them runne out in a wastfull wantonneste To satisfie the thirst of our soules there was a
nor that melancholy that dampes me in a jealousie and suspicion a diffidence and distrust in God The Devill had no hand in composing me in my constitution But the Devill knows which of these govern and prevail in me and ministers such tentations as are most acceptable to me and this is Scandalum amoris the scandall of Love So have ye then the Name and Nature and extent of the Active Scandall against which the inhibition given in this Text is generall wee are forbidden to scandalize any person by any of these ways The scandall of Example or the scandall of Perswasion The scandall of Fear or the scandall of Love For there is scarce any so free to himselfe so entirely his own so independent upon others but that Example or Perswasion or Fear or Love may scandalize him that is Lead him into tentation and make him doe some things against his own mind Our Saviour Christ had spoken De pusillis of little children of weak persons easie to be scandalized before this Text and he returns ad pusillos to the consideration of little children persons easie to bee scandalized again this Text is not of them or not of them onely but of all say not thou of any man aetatem habet he is old enough let him look to himselfe he hath reason as other men have he hath had a learned and a religious education ill example can doe him no harm but give no ill example to any study the setling and the establishing of all for scarce is there any so strong but may bee shaked by some of these scandals Example Perswasion Fear or Love And hee that employs his gift of wit and Counsell to seduce and mislead men or his gift of Power and Authority to intimidate and affright men or his gift of other graces lovelinesse of person agreeablenesse of Conversation powerfulnesse of speech to ensnare and entangle men by any of these scandals may draw others into perdition but he falls also with them and shall not be left out by God in the punishments inflicted upon them that fall by his occasion The Commandement is generall scandalize none scarce any but may bee overthrown by some of these ways And then the Apostles practise was generall too we give no occasion of offence in any thing As he requires that wee should eat and drinke to the glory of God so hee would have us study to avoid scandalizing of others even in our eating and drinking If meat make my brother to offend offend either in eating against his own conscience or offend in an uncharitable mis-interpretation of my eating In aeternum says the Apostle there I will eat no flesh while the world standeth Nor destroy my brother with my meat for whom Christ dyed That 's the Apostles tendernesse in things He would give no occasion of offence in any thing And it is as generall in contemplation of persons he would have no offence given neither to the Iew nor to the Grecian nor to the Church of God He was as carefull not to scandalize not to give just occasion of offence to Jew not Gentile as not to the Church of God so must we be towards them of a superstitions religion amongst us as carefull as towards one another not to give any scandall any just cause of offence But what is to be called a just cause of offence towards those men Good ends and good ways plain and direct and manifest proceedings these can be called no scandall no just cause of offence to Jew nor Gentile to Turk nor Papist nor does Saint Paul intend that we should forbear essentiall and necessary things for fear of displeasing perverse and peevish men To maintain the doctrinall truths of our religion by conferences by disputations by writing by preaching to avow and to prove our religion to be the same that Christ Jesus and his Apostles proposed at beginning the same that the generall Councels established after the same that the blessed Fathers of those times unanimely and dogmatically delivered the same that those glorious Martyrs quickned by their death and carryed over all the world in the rivers in the seas of their blood to avow our religion by writing and preaching to be the same religion an then to preserve and protect that religion which God hath put into our hearts by all such meanes as hee hath put into our hands in the due execution of just Laws this is no scandall no just cause of offence to Jew not Gentile Turke nor Papists But when leaving fundamentall things and necessary truths we wrangle uncharitably about Collaterall impertinencies when wee will refuse to doe such things as conduce to the exaltation of Devotion or to the order and peace of the Church not for any harme in the things but onely therefore because the Papists doe them when because they kneel in the worship of the bread in the Sacrament wee will not kneel in Thanksgiving to God for the Sacrament when because they pray to Saints we will reproach the Saints or not name the Saints when because they abuse the Crosse we will abhor the Crosse This is that that Saint Paul protests against and in that protestation Catechizes us that as he would give no just occasion of offence to the true Church of God so neither would hee doe it to a false or infirme Church He would not scandalize the true Church of God by any modifications any inclinations towards the false nor hee would not scandalize the false and infirme Church by refusing to communicate with them in the practise of such things as might exalt our Devotion and did not endanger nor shake any foundation of religion which was the wisdome of our Church in the beginning of the Reformation when the Injuctions of our Princes forbad us to call one another by the odious names of Papist or Papisticall Heretique or Schismatique or Sacramentary or such convitions as the word of the Injunction is and reprâ—achfull names but cleaving always intirely and inseparably to the fundamentall truths of our own religion as farre as it is possible we should live peaceably with all men Saint Paul would give no offence to the true Church of God he would not prevaricate nor to the Jew nor Gentile neither he would not exasperate And this may bee enough to have been said of the active scandallâ— and passe we now in our order to the Passive It is no wonder to see them who put all the world into differences the Jesuits to differ sometimes amongst themselves And therefore though the Jesuit Maldonat say of this Text That Christ did not here intend to warne or to arm his Disciples against scandals as scandals occasions of sin but onely from offering injury to one another That scandall in this text is nothing but wrong yet another Jesuit Vincemius Rhegius is not onely of another opinion himselfe but thinks that opinion as he calls it absurd It is absurd says he
to declare the sins or to denounce the punishments of those sins upon the people to call it by this word Onus visionis Onus Babylonis Onus Ninives O the burden of Babylon the burden of Niniveh And because some of those woes those Iudgements those burdens did not always fall upon that people presently they came to mock the Prophets and say to them New what is the burden of she Lord What Burden have you to preach to us and to talke of nowâ— Say unto them says God to the Prophet there This is the Burden of the Lord I will even forsake you And as it is elegantly emphatically vehemently added Every mans word shall be his burden That which he says shall be that that shall be laid to his charge His scorning his idle questioning of the Prophet What burden now what plague what famine what warre now Is not all well for all your crying The burden of the Lord Every mans word shall be his burden the deriding of Gods Ordinance and of the denouncing of his Judgements in that Ordinance shall be their burden that is aggravate those Judgements upon them Nay there is a heavyer weight then that added Ye shall say no more says God to the Prophet the burden of the Lord that is you shall not bestow so much care upon this people as to tell them that the Lord threatens them Gods presence in anger and in punishments is a heavy but Gods absence and dereliction a much heavyer burden As if extremes will admit comparison the everlasting losse of the fight of God in hell is a greater torment then any lakes of inextinguishable Brimstone then any gnawing of the incessant worme then any gnashing of teeth can present unto us Now let no man ease himself upon that fallacy sin cannot be nor sin cannot induce such burdens as you talk of for many men are come to wealth and by that wealth to honour who if they had admitted a tendernesse in their consciences and forborn some sins had lost both for are they without burden because they have wealth and honour In the Originall language the same word that is here a burden Châ—bad signifies honour and wealth as well as a burden And therefore says the Prophet Woe unto him that loadeth himselfe with thick clay Non densantur nisi per laborem There goes much pains to the laying of it thus thick upon us The multiplying of riches is a laborious thing and then it is a new pain to bleed out those riches for a new office or a new title Et tamen lutum says that Father when all is done we are but rough-cast with durt All those Riches all those Honours are a Burden upon the just man they are buâ— a multiplying of fears that they shall lose them upon the securest man they are but a multiplying of duties obligations for the more they havet he more they have to answer and upon the unjust they are a multiplying of everlasting torments They possess months of vanity and wearisom nights are appointed them Men are as weary of the day upon Carpets and Cushions as at the plough And the labourers wearinesse is to a good end but for these men They weary themselves to commit iniquity Some doe and some doe not All doe The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them Why Because he knows not how to goe to the City He that directs not his labours to the right end the glory of God he goes not to Jerusalem the City of holy peace but his sinfull labours shall bee a burden to him and his Riches and his Office and his Honour hee shall not be able to put off then when he puts off his body in his death-bed He shall not have that happinesse which he till then thought a misery To carry nothing out of this world for his Riches his Office his Honour shall follow him into the next world and clog his soule there But we proposed this consideration of this Metaphor That sinne is a burden as there is an infinite sweetnesse and infinite latitude in every Metaphor in every elegancy of the Scripture and therefore I may have leave to be loath to depart from it in some particular inconveniences that a burden brings and it is time to come to them SERMON XXIII Preached at Lincolns Inne The third Sermon on PSAL. 38. 4. For mine iniquities are gone over my head as a heavy Burden they are too heavy for mee AS a Torch that hath been lighted and used before is easier lighted then a new torch so are the branches and parts of this Text the easier reduced to your memory by having heard former distributions thereof But as a Torch that hath been lighted us'd before will not last so long as a new one so perchance your patience which hath already been twice exercised with the handling of these words may be too near the bottom to afford much And therefore much I have determined not to need God did his greatest work upon the last day and yet gave over work betimes In that day he made man and as the context leades us most probably to thinke he made Paradise and placed man in Paradise that day For the variety of opinions amongst our Expositors about the time when God made Paradise arises from one errour an errour in the Vulgat Edition in the translation of the Roman Church that reads it Plantaver at God had planted a garden as though God had done it before Therefore some state it before the Creation which Saint Hierome follows or at least relates without disapproving it and others place it upon the third day when the whole earth received her accomplishment but if any had looked over this place with the same ingenuity as their own great man Tyr an active man in the Councell of Trent hath done over the Book of Psalms in which one Booke he hath confessed 6000 places in which their translation differs from the Originall they would have seen this difference in this place that it is not Plantaver at but Plantavit not that God had before but that he did then then when hee had made man make a Paradise for man And yet God made an end of all this days work betimes in that day He walked in the garden in the cool of the Evening The noblest part of our work in handling this Text falls upon the conclusion reserved for this day which is the application of these words to Christ. But for that I shall be short and rather leave you to walke with God in the cool of the Evening to meditate of the sufferings of Christ when you are gone then pretend to expresse them here The Passion of Christ Jesus is rather an amazement an astonishment an extasie a consternation then an instruction Therefore though something we shall say of that anone First we pursue that which lies upon our selves the Burden in those four mischievous
doe so in the time of his Consecration And yet as easily as they come by it they will givesus none They have told us that we had it per Concomitantiam by a necessary concomitancy That because we had the body in the bread and that body could not be without the bloud that therefore we had the bloud also But if the bread alone be enough if the Cup be impertinent why did Christ give it If we have no losse in their detaining it from us what gain have they in retaining it to themselves let all have it or none It is true that they can performe all the ill that they would doe by the bread alone They can worke the spirituall ill of inducing adoration to a Creature by the bread alone And they could work the temporall ill of poysoning an Emperour in the Sacrament by the bread alone They can come to all their purposes to all their ill by the bread alone but we have not all our good because we have not Christs intire Institution And so in this troubling and in this stopping of these waters in these confusions we challenge any Babylon in the behalfe of this Italian Babylon Rome All these oppressions are aggravated by the last and as weightiest things sink to the bottome so is this in the bottome the heaviest pressure that they did this with their feet they corrupted the grasse with their feet and troubled the waters with their feet Now in the Scriptures when this word feet doth not signifie that part of mans body which is ordinarily so called but is transferred to a Metaphoricall signification as in our text it is it does most commonly signifie Affections or Power So the Lord will keep the feet of his Saints that is direct their desires and affections in the ways of holinesse And then for Power which is the more frequent acceptation of the word he will not suffer thy foot to be moved that is thy power to be shaked And all such places qui festinus he hath hasteth with his feet sinneth our interpreters expound of a hasty abuse of Power And those they have not refrained their feet and then thy feet are sunk in the mire are still interpreted of Power of a wonton abuse of Power or of a withdrawing this Power from man by God feet signifies Affections and them corrupted and depraved and power and that abused David seems to have joyned them as when they are joyned they must necessarily be the most heavy in that prayer Let not the foot of pride come against me The hand of pride nay the sword of pride affects not a tender soule so much as the foot of pride to be oppressed and that with scorne not so much in an anger as in a wantonnesse Rehoboams people were more confounded with that scornfull answer of his to them when they were come My little finger shall be thicker then my Fathers loynes my father chastised you with whips but I will chastise you with Scorpions then they were with the grievances themselves for which they came when the King would not onely be cruelly sharp but wittily sharp upon them this cut on every side and pierced deep And so doe the Rabbins the Jewish expositors expound this text literally that in the captivity of Babylon the great men of their Synagogues compounded with the State and for certain tributes had commissions by which they governed their people at their pleasure and so milked them to the last drop the last drop of bloud and sheared them to the naked skin then flead off that al this while laughed at them contemned them because they had no where to appeal nor relieve themselves And this we complain to have been the proceeding in the Italian Babylon Rome with our Fathers They oppressed them with their feet that is with Power and with scorne First for their illimited and enormous Power they had so slumbred so intoxicated the Princes of the Earth the weaker by intimidations the stronger by communicating the spoile and suffering those Princes to take some fleeces from some of the sheep in their dominions as there was no reliefe any way They record nay they boast gloriously triumphantly of three score thousand of the Waldenses slain by them in a day in the beginning of the Reformation and Possevine the Jesuit will not lose the glory of recording the five hundred thousand slain in a very few years onely in France and the low Countrey for some declarations of their desire of a Reformation Let all those innumerable numbers of wretches but now victorious Saints in the Triumphant Church who have breathed out their souls in the Inquisition where even the solicitations of Kings and that for their own sons have not prevailed confess the power the immensness of that power then when as under some of the Roman Emperours it was treason to weep treason to sigh treason to look pale treason to fall sicke and all these were made arguments of discontent and ill affection to the present government so in Rome there were Hereticall sighes Hereticall teares palenesse and Hereticall sicknesse every things was interpreted to be an accusation of the present times and an anhelation after a Reformation and that was formall heresie three pil'd deep-died heresie so that a man durst scarce have prayed for the enlarging of Gods blessings to the Church because to with it better seemed a kind of accusing of it that it was not well already and it was heresie to thinke so Let those Israelites which found no way from this Egypt but by the red sea no way out of Idolatry but by Martyrdome as they have testified for Christ so testifie against Antichrist how heavy his feet as feet signifie Power trod upon the necks of Princes and people But that that affected and afflicted most was the scorne and the contempt that accompanied their oppressions To bring Kings to Kisse his feet was a scorne but that scorne determined in man but it was a scorne to God himselfe to say that he had said it should be so to apply Scripture to the justification thereof Kings and Queens shall bow down to thee their faces towards the Earth and lick up the dust of thy feet But limit we all considerations of their scorne in one In this that they did these wrongs professedly and without any disguise Great men will oppress and ruine others a great while before they will be content to be seen and known to doe it There is such a kinde of reverence not onely to Law but even to honour and opinion as that men are lothe to publish their evill actions To sinne as Sodome did and not to hide it is an evidence of neglecting and scorning of all the world And therefore the Roman Historiographers would not forbeare to note the insolency of that young gallant who knowing what any man whom he strook could recover by action against him would strike
serve God at home to Church they must come and there all their grasse was troden and all their water troubled What should they doe God never brings us to a perplexity so as that we must necessarily do one sinne to avoyd another Neverâ— It seemes that the Apostles had been traduced and insimulated of teaching this Doctrine That in some cases evill might be done that good might follow and therefore doth S. Paul with so much diligence discharge himself of it And yet long after this when those men who attempted the Reformation whom they called Pauperes de Lugduno taught that Doctrine That no lesse sinne might he done to escape a greater this was imputed to them then by the Roman Church for an Heresie That that was Orthodox in Saint Paul was Heresie in them that â—studyed a Reformation But the Doctrine stands like a rocke against all waves That nothing that is naturally ill intrinsecally sinne may upon any pretence be done not though our lifes nor the lifes of all the Princes in the world though the frame and beeing of the whole world though the salvation of our souls lay upon it no sinne naturally intrinsecally sinne might be done for any respect Christus peccatum factus est sed non fesit peccatum Though Christ pursued our redemption with hunger and thirst yet he would have left us unredeemed rather then have committed any sinne Of this kinde therefore naturally intrinsecally sinne and so known to be to them that did it certainely our Fathers coming to the superstitious service in the Church of Rome was not for had it been naturally sinne and so known to them when they did it they could not have been saved otherwise then by repentance after which we cannot presume in their behalfe for there are not testimonies of it If any of them had invested at any time a scruple a doubt whether they did well or no alasse how should they devest and overcome that scruple To whom durst they communicate that doubt They were under an invincible ignorance and sometimes under an indevestible scruple They had heard that Christ commanded to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadduces and so of the Herodians that is of the doctrines of those particular sects of affirming Fate and Destiny and Stoicall necessity with the Pharisees of denying Spirits and Resurrection with the Sadduces of mis-applying the prophesies concerning the Messias to the person of Herod or any earthly King But yet after all this he commands them to observe and performe the doctrine of the Pharisees because they sate in Moses chaire Though with much vehemence and bitternesse he call them Hypocrites though with many ingeminations upon every occasion he reiterate that name though he aggravate that name with other names of equall reproach Fools blinde guides painted tombes and the like yet he commands to obey them and which is most remarkable this is sayd not onely to the common sort but even to his own disciples too Christ had begunne his work of establishing a Church which should empty their Synagogues but because that worke was not yet perfected he would not withdraw the people from their Synagogues for there wrought Gods Ordinance though corrupted by the workmen which Ordinance was that the law should be publiquely expounded to the people and so it was there There God was present And though the Devill by their corruption were there too yet the Devill came in at the window God at the dore the Devill by stealth God by his declared Ordinance and Covenant And this was the case of our Fathers in the Roman Church They must know that all that hath passed between God and man hath passed Ex pacto by way of contact and covenant The best works of the best man have no proportion with the kingdome of heaven for I give God but his own But I have it Ex pacto God hath covenanted so Fac hoc vives Doe this and thou shalt live and at the last judgement Christ shall ground his Venite benedicti Come ye blessed and his Ite maledicti Goe ye accursed upon the Quia and upon the Quia non Because you have and Because you have not done this and this Faith that is of infinite value above works hath yet no proportion to the kingdome of heaven Faith saves mee as my hand feeds mee It reaches the food but it is not the food but faith saves Ex pacto by vertue of that Covenant which Christ hath made Tantummodo crede Onely beleeve To carry it to the highest the merit of Christ Iesus himselfe though it bee infinite so as that it might have redeemed infinite worlds yet the working thereof is safeliest considered in the School to be Ex pacto by vertue of that contract which had passed between the Father and him that all things should thus and thus be transacted by Christ and so man should be saved for if we shall place it meerely onely in the infinitenesse of the merit Christs death would not have needed for his first drops of bloud in his Circumcision nay his very Incarnation that God was made man and every act of his humiliation after being taken singly yet in that person God and man were of infinite merit and also if it wrought meerly by the infinitnesse of the merit it must have wrought not onely upon all men but to the salvation of the Devill for certainely there is more merit in Christ then there is sinne in the Devill But the proceeding was Ex pacto according to the contract made and to the conditions given Ipse conteret caput tuum That the Messias should bruise the Serpents head for us included our redemption That the Serpents head should be bruised excluded the Serpent himselfe This contract then between God and man as it was able to put the nature of a great fault in a small offence if we consider onely the eating of an apple and so to make even a Trespass High-Treason because it was so contracted so does this contract the Ordinance of God infuse a great vertue efficacie in the instruments of our reconciliation how mean in gifts or how corrupt in manners soever they be Circumcision in it self a low thing yea obscene subject to mis-interpretation yet by reason of the covenant He that is not circumcised that person shall be cut off from my people So also Baptism considered in it selfe a vulgar and a familiar thing yet except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of heaven The Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ a domestique a dayly thing if we consider onely the breaking of the bread and participation of the Cup but if we ascend up to the contract in the institution it is to every worthy receiver the seale and the Conduit of all the merits of Christ to his soule God threw down the walls of Jericho with
1000 The infection grew hotter and hotter in Rome their may came to a must those things which were done before de facto came at last to be articles of Faith and de jure must be beleeved and practised upon salvation They chide us for going away and they drove us away If we abstained from communicating with their poysons being now growen to that height they excommunicated us They gave us no room amongst them but the fire and they were so forward to burne Heretiques that they called it heresie not to stay to be burnt Yet we went not upon their driving but upon Gods calling As the whole prophecy of the deliverance of Israel from Babylon belongs to the Christian Church both to the Primitive Church at first and to the Reformed since so doth that voice spoken to them reach unto us Egredimini de Babylone Goe ye out of Babylon with a voice of singing declare show to the ends of the earth that the Lord hath redeemed his servant Iacob For that Rome is not Babylon they have but that one half-comfort that one of their own authors hath ministred that Romae regulariter male agitur that Babylon is Confusion disorder but at Rome all sinnes are committed in order by the book and they know the price and therefore Rome is not Babylon And since that many of their authors confesse that Rome was Babylon in the time of the persecuting Emperours and that Rome shall be Babylon againe in the time of Antichrist how they will hedge in a Ierusalem a holy City between these two Babylons is a cunning peece of Architecture From this Babylon then were our Fathers called by God not onely by that whispering sibilation of the holy Ghost sibilabâ— populum I will hisse for my people and so gather them for I have redeemed them and they shall increase not onely by private inspirations but by generall acclamations every where principall writers and preachers and Princes too as much as could stand with their safety crying out against them before Luther howsoever they will needs doe him that honour to have been the first mover in this blessed revolution They reproach to us our going from them when they drove us and God drew us and they discharge themselves for all by this one evasion That all that we complain of is the fault of the Court of Rome and not of the Church of the extortion in the practise of their Officers not of error in the doctrine of their Teachers Let that be true as in a great part it is for almost all their errors proceed from their covetousness and love of money this is that that we complain most of and in this especially lies the conformity of the Iewish Priests in the Chaldean Babylon and these Prelates in the Roman Babylon that the Court and the Church joined in the oppression But since the Court of Rome and the Church of Rome are united in one head I see no use of this distinction Court and Church If the Church of Rome be above the Court the Church is able to amend these corruptions in the Court If the Court be got above the Church the Church hath lost or sold away her supremacy To oppresse us and ease themselves now when we are gone from them they require Miracles at out hands when indeed it was miracle enough how we got from them But magnum charitatis argumentum credere absque pignoribus miraculorum He loves God but a little that will not beleeve him without a miracle Miracles are for the establishing of new religions All the miracles of and from Christ and his Apostles are ours because their Religion is ours Indeed it behooves our adversaries to provide new miracles every day because they make new articles of Faith every day As Esop therefore answered in the Market when he that sold him was asked what he could do that he could do nothing because his fellow had said that he could do all so we say we can do no miracles because they do all all ordinary cures of Agues and tooth-ach being done by miracle amongst them We confesse that we have no such tye upon the Triumphant Church to make the Saints there do those anniversary miracles which they do by their reliques here upon their own holy days ten days sooner every year then they did before the new computation We pretend not to raise the dead but to cure the sick and that but by the ordinary Physique the Word and Sacraments and therefore need no miracles And we remember them of their own authors who do not onely say that themselves do no miracles in these latter times but assigne diligently strong reasons why it is that they doe none If all this will not serve we must tell them that we have a greater miracle then any that they produce that is that in so few years they that forsook Rome were become equall even in number to them that adhered to her We say with Saint Augustine That if we had no other miracle hoc unum stupendum potentissimum miraculum esse that this alone were the most powerfull and most a mazing miracle ad hanc religionem totius orbis amplitudinem sine miraculis subjugatam that so great a part of the Christian world should become Protestants of Papists without any miracles They pursue us still being departed from them and they aske us How can ye pretend to have left Babylon confusion Dissention when you have such dissentions confusions amongst your selves But neither are our differences in so fundamental points as theirs are for a principall author of their own who was employed by Clement the eight to reconcile the differences between the Iesuits and the Dominicans about the concurrence of the grace of God and the free will of man confesses that the principall articles and foundations of faith were shaken between them between the Iesuits and Dominicans neither shall we finde such heat and animosity and passion between any persons amongst us as between the greatest amongst them The succeeding Pope mangling the body of his predecessor casting them into the river for buriall disannulling all their decrees and ordinations their Ordinations so that no man could be sure who was a Priest nor whether he had truely received any Sacrament or no. Howsoever as in the narrowest way there is most justling the Roman Church going that broad way to beleeve as the Church beleeves may scape some particular differences which we that goe the narrower way to try every thing by the exact word of God may fall into Saint Augustine tells us of a City in Mauritania Caesarea in which they had a custome that in one day in the year not onely Citizens of other parishes but even neighbours yea brethren yea Fathers did fling stones dangerously and furiously at one another in the streets and this they so solemnized as a custome received from their
ancestors which was a licentious kind of Carnavall If any amongst us have fallen into that disease to cast stones or dirt at his friends it is an infection from his own distemper not from our doctrine for if any man list to be contentious we have no such custome neither the Church of God We departed not from them then till it was come to a hot plague in a necessity of professing old opinions to be new articles of Faith not till we were driven by them and drawn by the voice of God in the learnedest men of all nations when they could not discharge themselves by the distinction of the Court of Rome and the Church of Rome because if the abuses had been but in the Court it was the greatest abuse of all for that Church which is so much above that Court not to mend it Nor can they require Miracles at our hands who doe none themselves and yet need them because they induce new articles of Religion neither can they reproach to us our Dissentions amongst our selves because they are neither in so fundamentall points nor pursued with so much uncharitablenesse as theirs So we justifie our secession from them but all this justifies in no part the secession of those distempered men who have separated themselves from us which is our next and our last consideration When the Apostle says study to be quiet 1 Thes. 4. 11. me thinks he intimates something towards this that the lesse we study for our Sermons the more danger is there to disquiet the auditory extemporall unpremeditated Sermons that serve the popular care vent for the most part doctrines that disquiet the Church Study for them and they will be quiet consider ancient and fundamentall doctrines and this will quiet and settle the understanding and the Conscience Many of these extemporall men have gone away from us and vainly said that they have as good cause to separate from us as we from Rome But can they call our Church a Babylon Confusion disorder All that offends them is that we have too much order too much regularity too much binding to the orderly and uniforme service of God in Church It affects all the body when any member is cut off Cum dolore amputatur etiam quae putruit pars corporis and they cut off themselves and feel it not when we lose but a mysticall limbe and they lose a spirituall life we feel it and they doe not When that is pronounced sit tibi sicut ethnicus if he hear not the Church let him be to thee as a Heathen gravius est quà m si gladio feriretur flammis absumeretur feris subigeretur it is a heavier sentence then to be beheaded to be burnt or devoured with wild beasts and yet these men before any such sentence pronounced by us excommunicate themselves Of all distempers Calvin falls oftenest upon the reproof of that which he calls Morositatem a certain peevish frowardnesse which as he calls in one place deterrimam pestem the most infectious pestilence that can fall upon a man so in another he gives the reason why it is so semper nimia morositas est ambitiosa that this peevish frowardnesse is always accompanied with a pride and a singularity and an ambition to have his opinions preferred before all other men and to condemn all that differ from him A civill man will depart with his opinion at a Table at a Councell table rather then hold up an argument to the vexation of the Company so will a peaceable man doe in the Church in questions that are not fundamentall That reverend man whom we mentioned before who did so much in the establishing of Geneva professes that it was his own opinion that the Sacrament might be administred in prisons and in private houses but because he found the Church of Geneva of another opinion and another practise before he came he applied himself to them and departed in practise from his own opinion even in so important a point as the ministration of the Sacrament Which I present to consideration the rather both because thereby it appears that greater matters then are now thought fundamentall were then thought but indifferent and arbitrary for surely if Calvin had thought this a fundamentall thing he would never have suffered any custome to have prevailed against his conscience and also because divers of those men who trouble the Church now about things of lesse importance and this of private Sacraments in particular will needs make themselves beleeve that they are his Disciples and always conclude that whatsoever is practised at Geneva was Calvins opinion Saint Augustine saith excellently and appliably to a holy Virgin who was ready to leave the Church for the ill life of Church-men Christus nobis imperavit Congregationem sibi servavit separationem Christ Jesus hath commanded us to gather together and recommended to us the Congregation as for the separation he hath reserved it to himself to declare at the last day who are Sheep and who are Goats And hee wrought that separation which our Fathers made from Rome by his expresse written Word and by that which is one word of God too Vox populi The invitation and acclamation of Doctors and People and Princes but have our Separatists any such publique and concurrent authorising of that which they doe since of all that part from us scarse a dozen meet together in one confession When you have heard the Prophet say Can two walke togeâ—her except they be agreed when you have heard the Apostle say I beseech you brethren by the name of our Lord Iesus Christ that ye all speake the same things and that there be no divisions among you for if preachers speake one one way another another there will be divisions among the people And then it is not onely that in obedience to authority they speake the same things But Be perfectly joyned in the same mind and in the same judgement you had need make haste to this union this pacification for when we are come thither to agree among our selves we are not come to our journeys end Our life is a warfare other wars in a great part end in mariages Ours in a divorce in a divorce of body and soule in death Till then though God have brought us from the First Babylon the darknesse of the Gentiles and from the Second Babylon the superstitions of Rome and from the third Babylon the confusion of tongues in bitter speaking against one another after all this every man shall finde a fourth Babylon enough to exercise all his forces The civill warre the rebellious disorder the intestine confusion of his own Concupiscencies This is a transmigration a transportation layd upon us all by Adams rebellion from Jerusalem to Babylon from our innocent State in our Creation to this confusion of our corrupt nature God would have his children first brought to Babylon before he would be glorifyed in
that 's the use which we have of the North in this place The consideration of our West our low estate that we are but earth but red earth dyed red by our selves and that imaginary white which appeares so to us is but a white of leprosie This West enwraps us in heavy clouds of murmuring in this life that we cannot live so freely as beasts doe and in clouds of desperation for the next life that we cannot dye so absolutely as beasts doe we dye all our lives and yet we live after our deaths These are our clouds And then the North shakes these clouds The North Winde driveth away the raine says Solomon There is a North in our text that drives all those teares from our eyes Christ calls upon the North as well as the South to blow upon his Garden and to diffuse the perfumes thereof Adversity as well as prosperity opens the bounty of God unto us and oftentimes better But that 's not the benefit of the North in our present consideration But this is it that first our sunne sets in the West The Eastern dignity which we received in our first Creation as we were the worke of the whole Trinity falls under a Western cloud that that Trinity made us but earth And then blowes our North and scatters this cloud That this earth hath a nobler forme then any other part or limbe of the world For we are made by a fairer pattern by a nobler Image by a higher likenesse Faciamus Though we make but a man Let us make him in our Image after our likenesse The variety which the holy Ghost uses here in the pen of Moses hath given occasion to divers to raise divers observations upon these words which seem divers Image and likenesse as also in the variety of the pharse For it is thus conceived and laid in our Image and then after our likenesse I know it is a good rule that Damascen gives Parva parva non sunt ex quibus magna proveniunt Nothing is to be neglected as little from which great things may arise If the consequence may be great the thing must not be thought little No Jod in the Scripture shall perish therefore no Jod is superfluous If it were superfluous it might perish Words and lesse particles then words have busied the whole Church In the Councell of Ephesus where Bishops in a great number excommunicated Bishops in a greater Bishop against Bishop and Patriarch against Patriarch in which case when both parties had made strong parties in Court and the Emperor forbare to declare himselfe on either side for a time he was told that he refused to assent to that which six thousand Bishops had agreed in the strife was but for a word whether the blessed Virgin might be called Deipara the mother of God for Christipara the mother of Christ which Christ all agree to be God Nestorius and all his party agreed with Cyrill that she might be In the Councell of Chalcedon the difference was not so great as for a word composed of syllables It was but for a syllable whether Ex or In. The Heretiques condemned then confessed Christ to be Ex duabus naturis to be composed of two natures at first but not to be in duabus naturis not to consist of two natures after and for that In they were thrust out In the councell of Nice it was not so much as a syllable made of letters For it was but for one letter whether Homoousion or Homousion was the issue Where the question hath not been of divers words nor syllables nor letters but onely of the place of words what tempestuous differences have risen How much Sola fides and fides sola changes the case Nay where there hath been no quarrell for precedency for transposing of words or syllables or letters where there hath not been so much as a letter in question how much doth an accent vary a sense An interrogation or no interrogation will make it directly contrary All Christian expositors read those words of Cain My sin is greater then can be pardoned positively and so they are evident words of desperation The Jews read them with an interrogation Are my sinnes greater then can be pardoned And so they are words of compunction and repentance The Prophet Micah says that Bethlehem is a small place the Evangelist Saint Matthew says no small place An interrogation in Micahs mouth reconciles it Art thou a small place amounts to that thou art not Sounds voices words must not be neglected For Christs forerunner Iohn Baptist qualified himselfe no otherwise He was but a voice And Christ himselfe is Verbum the Word is the name even of the Sonne of God No doubt but Statesmen and magistrates finde often the danger of having suffered small abuses to passe uncorrected We that see State businesse but in the glasse of story and cannot be shut out of Chronicles see there upon what little objects the eye and the jealousie of the State is oftentimes forced to bend it selfe We know in whose times in Rome a man might not weep he might not sigh he might not looke pale he might not be sicke but it was informed against as a discontent as a murmuring against the present government and an inclination to change And truly many times upon Damascens true ground though not always well applied Parva non sunt parva nothing may be thought little where the consequence may prove great In our own Spheare in the Church we are sure it is so Great inconveniencies grew upon small tolerations Therefore in that businesse which occasioned all that trouble which we mentioned before in the Councell of Ephesus when Saint Cyrill writ to the Clergy of his Dioces about it at first he says prastiterat abstinere it had been better these questions had not been raised But says he Si his nugis nos adoriantur if they vex us with these impertinencies these trifles And yet these which were but trifles at first came to occasion Councells and then to divide Councell against Councell and then to force the Emperour to take away the power of both Councells and govern in Councell by his Vicar generall a secular Lord sent from Court And therefore did some of the Ancients particularly Philastrius cry down some opinions for Heresies which were not matters of faith but of Philosophy and even in Philosophy truly held by them who were condemned for heretiques and mistaken by their Judges that condemned them Little things were called in question left great things should passe unquestioned And some of these upon Damascens true ground still true in the rule but not always in the application Parva non sunt parva nothing may be thought little where the consequence may be great Descend we from those great Spheares the State and the Church into a lesser that is the Conscience of particular men and consider the danger of exposing those vines to little Foxes of leaving small
no Image no pattern to thy selfe to imitate and yet propose thy selfe for a pattern for an Image to be adored Thou wilt have singular opinions and singular ways differing from all other men and yet all that are not of thy opinion must be heretiques and all reprobates that goe not thy wayes Propose good patterns to thy selfe and thereby become a fit pattern for others God we see was the first that made Images and he was the first that forbad them He made them for imitation he forbad them in danger of adoration For Qualis dementiae est id colere quod melius est What a drowzinesse what a lazinesse what a cowardlinesse of the soule is it to worship that which does but represent a better thing then it selfe Worship belongs to the best know thou thy distance and thy period how far to goe and where to stop Dishonor not God by an Image in worshiping it and yet benefit thy selfe by it in following it There is no more danger out of a picture then out of a history if thou intend no more in either then example Though thou have a West a darke and a sad condition that thou art but earth a man of infirmities and ill counsailed in thy selfe yet thou hast herein a North that scatters and dispells these clouds that God proposes to thee in his Scriptures and otherwise Images patterns of good and holy men to goe by But beyond this North this assistance of good examples of men thou hast a South a Meridionall heighth by which thou seest thine Image they pattern to be no copy no other man but the originall it selfe God himselfe Faciamus ad nostram Let us make man in our Image after our likenesse Here we consider first where this Image is and then what it does first in what part of man God hath imprinted this his Image And then what this Image confers and derives upon man what it works in man And as when we seek God in his essence we are advised to proceed by negatives God is not mortall not passible so when we seek the Image of God in man we beginne with a negative This Image is not in his body Teriullian declined to thinke it was nay Tertullian inclined others to thinke so For he is the first that is noted to have been the author of that opinion that God had a body Yet Saint Augustine excuses Tertullian from heresie because says he Tertullian might meance that it was so sure that there is a God and that that God was a certaine though not a finite Essence that God was so far from being nothing as that he had rather a body Because it was possible to give a good interpretation of Tertullian that charitable Father Saint Augastine would excuse him of heresie I would Saint Augustines charity might prevaile with them that pretend to be Augustinianissimi and to adore him so much in the Roman Church not to cast the name of Heresie upon every probleme nor the name of Heretique upon every inquirer of Truth Saint Augustine would deliver Tertullian from heresie in a point concerning God and they will condemne us of heresie in every point that may be drawne to concerne not the Church but the Court of Rome not their doctrine but their profit Malo de Misericordia Deo rationem reddere quà m de crudelitate I shall better answer God for my mildenesse then for my severity And though anger towards a brother or a Raca or a foole will beare an action yet he shall recover lesse against me at that bar whom I have called weake or mislead as I must necessary call many in the Roman Church then he whom I have passionately and peremptorily called heretique For I dare call an opinion heresie for the matter a great while before I dare call the man that holds it an heretique For that consists much in the manner It must be matter of faith before the matter be heresie But there must be pertinacy after convenient instruction before that man be an heretique But how excusable so ever Tertullian be herein in Saint Augustines charity there was a whole sect of heretiques one hundred years after Tertullian the Audiani who over literally taking those places of Scripture where God is said to have hands and feet and eyes and eares beleeved God to have a body like ours and accordingly interpreted this text that in that Image and that likenesse a bodily likenesse consisted this Image of God in man And yet even these men these Audians Epiphanius who first takes knowledge of them calls but Schismatiques not Heretiques so loth is charity to say the worst of any Yet we must remember them of the Roman perswasion that they come too neare giving God a body in their pictures of God the Father And they bring the body of God that body which God the Sonne hath assumed the body of Christ too neare in their Transubstantiation not too near our faith for so it cannot be brought too near so it is as really there as we are there too neare to our sense not too neare in the Vbi for so it is there There that is in that place to which the Sacrament extends it selfe For the Sacrament extends as well to heaven from whence it fetches grace as to the table from whence it delivers Bread and Wine but too neare in modo For it comes not thither that way We must necessarily complaine that they make Religion too bodily a thing Our Saviour Christ corrected Mary Magdalens zeale where she flew to him in a personall devotion and he said Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father Fix your meditations upon Christ Jesus so as he is now at the right hand of his Father in heaven and entangle not your selves so with controversies about his body as to lose reall charity for imaginary zeale nor enlarge your selves so far in the pictures and Images of his body as to worship them more then him As Damdscen says of God that he is Super-principale principium a beginning before any beginning we can conceive and prae-aeterna aeternitas an eternity infinitely elder then any eternity we can imagine so he is Super-spiritualis Spiritus such a Super-spirit as that the soule of man and the substance of Angels is but a body compared to this Spirit God hath no body though Tertullian disputed it though the Audians preached it though the Papists paint it And therefore this Image of God is not in the body of man that way Nor that way neither which some others have assigned that God who hath no body as God yet in the creation did assume that forme which man hath now and so made man in his Image that is in that forme which he had then assumed Some of the Ancients thought so and some other men of great estimation in the Roman Church have thought so too In particular Oleaster a great officer in the
of the Persons of the Trinity are Power to the Father Wisedome to the Sonne and Goodnesse to the holy Ghost And the three faculties of the Soule have the Images of these three The Understanding is the Image of the Father that is Power For no man can exercise power no man can governe well without understanding the natures and dispositions of them whom he governes And therefore in this consists the power which man hath over the creature that man understands the nature of every creature For so Adam did when he named every creature according to the nature thereof And by this advantage of our understanding them and comprehending them we master them and so obliviscuntur quod nata sunt says Saint Ambrose the Lion the Beare the Elephant have forgot what they were borne to Induuntur quod jubentur they invest and put on such a disposition and such a nature as we enjoine them and appoint to them Serviunt ut famuli as that Father pursues it elegantly and verberantur ut timidi they waite upon us as servants who if they understood us as well as we understand them might be our Masters and they receive correction from us as though they were afraid of us when if they understood us they would know that we were not able to stand in the teeth of the Lion in the horne of the Bull in the heels of the Horse And adjuvantur ut infirmi they counterfeit a weakenesse that they might be beholden to us for help and they are content to thanke us if we afford them any rest or any food who if they understood us as well as we doe them might teare our meate out of our throates nay teare out our throats for their meat So then in this first naturall faculty of the soule the Understanding stands the Image of the first Person the Father Power and in the second faculty which is the Will is the Image the Attribute of the second Person the Sonne which is Wisdome for wisdome is not so much in knowing in understanding as in electing in choosing in assenting No man needs goe out of himselfe nor beyond his owne legend and the history of his owne actions for examples of that that many times we know better and choose ill wayes Wisdome is in choosing in Assenting And then in the third faculty of the soule the Memory is the Image of the third person the holy Ghost that is Goodnesse For to remember to recollect our former understanding and our former assenting so far as to doe them to Crowne them with action that 's true goodnesse The office that Christ assignes to the holy Ghost and the goodnesse which he promises in his behalfe is this that he shall bring former things to our remembrance The wiseman places all goodnesse in this faculty the memory properly nothing can fall into the memory but that which is past and yet he says Whatsoever thou takest in hand remember the end and thou shalt never doe amisse The end cannot be yet come and yet we are bid to remember that Visus per omnes sensus recurrit says Saint Augustine As all senses are called fight in the Scriptures for there is Gustate Dominum and Audite and Palpate Taste the Lord and heare the Lord and feele the Lord and still the Videte is added taste and see the Lord so all goodnesse is in remembring all goodnesse which is the Image of the holy Ghost is in bringing our understanding and our assenting into action Certainly beloved if a man were like the King but in countenance and in proportion he himselfe would thinke somewhat better of himselfe and others would be the lesse apt to put scornes or injuries upon him then if he had a Vulgar and course aspect With those who have the Image of the Kings power the Magistrate the Image of his Wisdome the Counsell the Image of his Goodnesse the Clergy it should be so too There is a respect due to the Image of the King in all that have it Now in all these respects man the meer naturall man hath the Image of the King of Kings And therefore respect that Image in thy selfe and exalt thy naturall faculties Aemulate those men and be ashamed to be outgone by those men who had no light but nature Make thine understanding and thy will and thy memory though but naturall faculties serviceable to thy God and auxiliary and subsidiary for thy salvation For though they be not naturally instruments of grace yet naturally they are susceptible of grace and have so much in their nature as that by grace they may be made instruments of grace which no faculty in any creature but man can be And doe not thinke that because a naturall man cannot doe all therefore he hath nothing to doe for himselfe This then is the Image of God in man the first way in nature and most literally this is the intention of the text Man was this Image thus and the roome furnished with this Image was Paradise But there is a better roome then that Paradise for the second Image the Image of God in man by grace that is the Christian Church For though for the most part this text be understood De naturalibus of our naturall faculties yet Origen and not onely such Allegoricall Expositors but Saint Basill and Nyssen and Ambrose and others who are literall enough assigne this Image of God to consist in the gifts of Gods grace exhibited to us here in the Church A Christian then in that second capacity as a Christian and not onely as a man hath this Image of God of God first considered intirely And those expressions of this impression those representations of this Image of God in a Christian by grace which the Apostles have exhibited to us that we are the sonnes of God the feed of God the off-spring of God and partakers of the divine nature which are high and glorious exaltations are enlarged and exalted by Damascen to a farther height when he says Sicut Deus homo it a ego Deus As God is man so I am God says Damascen I taken in the whole mankinde for so Damascen takes it out of Nazianzen and he says Sicut verbum caro ita caro verbum as God was made man man may become God but especially I I as I am wrought upon by grace in Christ Jesus So a Christian is made the Image of God intirely To which expression Saint Cyrill also comes neare when he calls a Christian Deiformem hominem man in the forme of God which is a mysterious and a blessed metamorphosis and transfiguration that whereas it was the greatest trespasse of the greatest trespasser in the world the Devill to say Similis ero Altissimo I will be like the Highest it would be as great a trespasle in me not to be like the Highest not to conforme my selfe to God by the use of his grace in the Christian Church
to you for our third part Goe forth behold Solomon c. Here are two duties enjoyn'd at least two steps two degrees Egredimini Go forth and then Videte Behold contemplate And after the duty or wrap'd in the duty we have the Object which we are to look upon in that divers things to be considered as we shall see in their order First when we are bid to Go forth it is not to go so far as out of that Church in which God hath given us our station for as Moses says That the word of God is not beyond Sea so the Church of God is not so beyond Sea as that we must needs seek it there either in a painted Church on one side or in a naked Church on another a Church in a Dropsie overflowne with Ceremonies or a Church in a Consumption for want of such Ceremonies as the primitive Church found usefull and beneficiall for the advancing of the glory of God and the devotion of the Congregation That which Christ says to the Church it selfe the Church says to every soule in the Church Goe thy way forth by the footsteps of the flocke Associate thy selfe to the true shepheard and true sheep of Christ Jesus and stray not towards Idolatrous Chappels nor towards schismaticall Conventicles but goe by the footsteps of the flock there must be footsteps some must have gone that way before take heed of Opinions that begin in thy selfe and the whole flock must have gone that way take heed of opinions vented by a few new men which have not had the establishment of a Church And truly the best way to discerne footsteps is Daniels way Daniels way was to straw ashes and so their footsteps that had been there were easily discerned Walke in thine own ashes in the meditation of thine own death or in the ashes of Gods Saints who are dead before thee in the contemplation of their example and thou wilt see some footsteps of the flock some impressions some directions how they went and how thou art to follow to the heavenly Jerusalem In conversing evermore with them which tread upon Carpets or upon Marbles thou shalt see no footsteps Carpets and Marbles receive no impressions Amongst them that tread in ashes in the ways of holy sorrow and religious humiliation thou shalt have the way best marked out unto thee Goe forth that is goe farther then thy selfe out of thy selfe at least out of the love of thy self for that is but a short a giddy a vertiginous walk how little a thing is the greatest man If thou have many rooms in thy selfe many capacities to contemplate thy selfe in if thou walke over the consideration of thy selfe as thou hast such a title of Honour such an Office of Command such an Inheritance such a pedegree such a posterity such an Allyance if this be not a short walke yet it is a round walke a giddy a vertiginous proceeding Get beyond thine own circle consider thy selfe at thine end at thy death and then Egredere Goe further then that Go forth and see what thou shalt be after thy death Still that which we are to look upon is especially our selves but it is our selves enlarg'd extended into the next world for till we see what we shall be then we are but short-sighted Wouldst thou say thou knew'st a man because thou hadst seen him in his Cradle no more canst thou be said to have known thy self because thou knowest the titles and additions which thou hast received in this world for all those things w ch we have here are but swadling clouts all our motions preferments from place to place are but the rocking of a cradle The first thing that Christ says to his spouse in the Canticles is If thou know not thy selfe for so all the Ancients read it and so the Originall beares it If thou know not thy selfe O thou fairest of women she might know that she was the fairest of women and yet not know her selfe Thou mayst know that thou art the happyest of men in this world and yet not know thy self All this life is but a Preface or but an Index and Repertory to the book of life There at that book beginnes thy study To grow perfect in that book to be dayly conversant in that book to find what be the marks of them whose names are written in that book and to finde those marks ingenuously and in a rectified conscience in thy selfe To finde that no murmuring at Gods corrections no disappointing of thy hopes no interrupting of thy expectations no frustrating of thy possibilities in the way no impatience in sicknesse and in the agony of death can deface those marks this is to goe forth and see thy self beyond thy self to see what thou shalt be in the next world Now we cannot see our own face without a glasse and therefore in the old Temple In or about that laver of brasse where the water for the uses of the Church was reserved Moses appointed looking-glasses to be placed that so at the entring into the Temple men might see themselves and make use of that water if they had contracted any foulnesse in any part about them Here at your coming hither now you have two glasses wherein you may see your selves from head to foot One in the Text your Head Christ Iesus represented unto you in the name and person of Solomon Behold King Solomon crowned c. And another under your feet in the dissolution of this great Monarch our Royall Master now layd lower by death then any of us his Subjects and servants First then behold your selves in that first glasse Behold King Solomon Solomon the sonne of David but not the Son of Bathsheba but of a better mother the most blessed Virgin Mary For Solomon in this text is not a proper Name but an Appellative a significative word Solomon is pacificus the Peacemaker and our peace is made in and by Christ Jesus and he is that Solomon whom we are called upon to see here Now as Saint Paul says that he would know nothing but Christ that 's his first abridgement and then he would know nothing of Christ but him crucifyed and that 's the re-abridgement so we seek no other glasse to see our selves in but Christ nor any other thing in this glasse but his Humiliation What need we Even that his lowest humiliation his death is expressed here in three words of exaltation It is a Crown it is a Mariage it is the gladnesse of heart Behold King Salomon crowned c. The Crown which we are called to see him crowned with his mother put upon him The Crown which his Father gave him was that glory wherewith he was glorifyed with the Father from all eternity in his divine nature And the Crown wherewith his Father crowned his Humane nature was the glory given to that in his Ascension His Mother could give him no such Crown she
go because none stayes behinde so when the holy Spirit which had made himself as a common soule to their foure soules directed one of them to say any thing all are well understood to have said it And therefore when to that place in Matth. 27. 8. where that Evangelist cites the Prophet Ieremy for words spoken by Zachary many medicines are applyed by the Fathers as That many copies have no name That Ieremy might be binominous and have both names a thing frequent in the Bible That it might be the error of a transcriber That there was extant an Apocryph booke of Ieremy in which these words were and sometimes things of such books were vouched as Iannes and Iambres by Paul St. Augustine insists upon and teaches rather this That it is more wonderfull that all the Prophets spake by one Spirit and so agreed then if any one of them had spoken all those things And therefore he adds Singula sunt omnium omnia sunt singulorum All say what any of them say And in this sense most congruously is that of St. Hierome applyable that the foure Evangelists are Quadriga Divina That as the foure Chariot wheeles though they looke to the foure corners of the world yet they move to one end and one way so the Evangelists have both one scope and one way Yet not so precisely but that they differ in words For as their generall intention common to them all begat that consent so a private reason peculiar to each of them for the writing of their Histories at that time made those diversities which seem to be for Matthew after he had preached to the Jewes and was to be transplanted into another vineyard the Gentiles left them written in their owne tongue for permanency which he had preached transitorily by word Mark when the Gospell fructified in the West and the Church enlarged her self and grew a great body and therefore required more food out of Peters Dictates and by his approbation published his Evangile Not an Epitome of Matthewes as Saint Ierome I know why imagines but a just and intire History of our blessed Saviour And as Matthewes reason was to supply a want in the Eastern Church Markes in the Western so on the other side Lukes was to cut off an excesse and superfluitie for then many had undertaken this Story and dangerously inserted and mingled uncertainties and obnoxious improbabilities and he was more curious and more particular then the rest both because he was more learned and because he was so individuall a companion of the most learned Saint Paul and did so much write Pauls words that Eusebius thereupon mistaketh the words 2 Tim. 2. 1. Christ is raised according to my Gospell to prove that Paul was author of this Gospell attributed to Luke Iohn the Minion of Christ upon earth and survivor of the Apostles whose books rather seem fallen from Heaven and writ with the hand which ingraved the stone Tables then a mans work because the heresies of Ebion and Cerinthus were rooted who upon this true ground then evident aud fresh that Christ had spoke many things which none of the other three Evangelists had Recorded uttered many things as his which he never spoke Iohn I say more diligently then the rest handleth his Divinity and his Sermons things specially brought into question by them So therefore all writ one thing yet all have some things particular And Luke most for he writ last of three and largeliest for himselfe 1 Act. 1. saith I have made the former Treatise of all that Iesus began to doe and teach untill the Day that he was taken up which speech lest the words in the last of Iohn If all were written which Iesus did the world could not contain the Bookes should condemne Ambrose and Chrysostome interpret well out of the words themselves Scripsit de omnibus non omnia He writ of all but not all for it must have the same limitation which Paul giveth his words who saith Acts 20. in one verse I have kept nothing back but have shewed you all the counsell of God and in another I kept back nothing that was profitable It is another peculiar singularity of Lukes that he addresseth his History to one man Theophilus For it is but weakely surmised that he chose that name for all lovers of God because the interpretation of the word suffereth it since he addeth most noble Theophilus But the work doth not the lesse belong to the whole Church for that no more then his Masters Epistles doe though they be directed to particulars It is also a singularitie in him to write upon that reason because divers have written In humane knowledge to abridge or suck and then suppresse other Authors is not ever honest nor profitable We see after that vast enterprise of Iustinian who distilled all the Law into one vessell and made one Booke of 2000. suppressing all the rest Alciate wisheth he had let them alone and thinketh the Doctors of our times would better have drawn usefull things from those volumes then his Trebonian and Dorothee did And Aristotle after by the immense liberality of Alexander he had ingrossed all Authors is said to have defaced all that he might be in stead of all And therefore since they cannot rise against him he imputes to them errours which they held not vouches onely such objections from them as he is able to answer and propounds all good things in his own name which he ought to them But in this History of Lukes it is otherwise He had no authority to suppresse them nor doth he reprehend or calumniate them but writes the truth simply and leaves it to outweare falshood and so it hath Moses rod hath devoured the Conjurers rods and Lukes Story still retains the majestie of the maker and theirs are not Other singularities in Luke of form or matter I omit and end with one like this in our Text. As in the apprehending of our blessed Saviour all the Evangelists record that Peter cut off Malchus eare but onely Luke remembers the healing of it again I think because that act of curing was most present and obvious to his consideration who was a Physician so he was therefore most apt to remember this Prayer of Christ which is the Physick and Balsamum of our Soule and must be applied to us all for we doe all Crucifie him and we know not what we do And therefore Saint Hierome gave a right Character of him in his Epistle to Paulinus Fuit Medicus pariter omnia verba illius Animae languentis sunt Medicinae As he was a Physitian so all his words are Physick for a languishing soule Now let us dispatch the last consideration of the effect of this Prayer Did Christ intend the forgivenesse of the Jewes whose utter ruine God that is himselfe had fore-decreed And which he foresaw and bewaild even then hanging upon the Crosse For those Divines which reverently forbeare to interpret the words
it should be Unto you that beleeve saith Saint Peter it is a precious stone but unto the disobedient a stone to stumble at for if a man walke in a gallery where windowes and tables and statues are all of marble yet if he walke in the darke or blindfold or carelesly he may breake his face as dangerously against that rich stone as if it were but brick So though a man walke in the true Church of God in that Jerusalem which is described in the Revelation the foundation the gates the walls all precious stone yet if a man bring a mis-belief a mis-conceipt that all this religion is but a part of civill government and order if a man be scandalized at that humility that patience that poverty that lowlinesse of spirit which the Christian Religion inclines us unto if he will say Si Rex Israel If Christ will be King let him come downe from the Crosse and then we will beleeve in him let him deliver his Church from all crosses first of doctrine and then of persecution and then we will beleeve him to be King if we will say Nolumus hunc regnare we will admit Christ but we will not admit him to reign over us to be King if he will be content with a Consulship with a Collegueship that he the world may joyn in the government that we may give the week to the world and the Sabbath to him that we may give the day of the Sabbath to him and the night to our licentiousnesse that of the day we may give the forenoon to him and the afternoon to our pleasures if this will serve Christ we are content to admit him but Nolumus regnare we will none of that absolute power that whether we eat or drink or whatsoever we doe we must be troubled to thinke on him and respect his glory in every thing If he will say Praecepit Angelis God hath given us in charge to his Angels and therefore we need not to look to our own ways He hath locked us up safely and lodged us softly under an eternall election and therefore we are sure of salvation if he will walke thus blindely violently wilfully negligently in the true Church though he walke amongst the Saphires and Pearls and Chrysolytes which are mentioned there that is in the outward communion and fellowship of Gods Saints yet he may bruise and break and batter himselfe as much against these stones as against the stone Gods of the heathen or the stone Idols of the Papists for first the place of this falling upon this stone is the true Church Qui jacet in terra he that is already upon the ground in no Church can fall no lower till he fall to hell but he whom God hath brought into his true Church if he come to a confident security that he is safe enough in these outward acts of Religion he falls though it be upon this stone he erreth though in the true Church This is the place then the true Church the falling it selfe as farre as will fall into our time of consideration now is a falling into some particular sinne but not such as quenches our faith wee fall so as we may rise againe Saint Hierome expresseth it so Qui cadit tamen credit he that falls but yet beleeves that fals and hath a sense of his fall reservatur per paenitentiam ad salutem that man is reserved by Gods purpose to come by repentance to salvation for this man that fals there fals not so desperately as that he feeles nothing between hell and him nothing to stop at nothing to check him by the way Cadit super he falls upon some thing nor he falls not upon flowers to wallow and tumble in his sinne nor upon feathers to rest and sleep in his sinne nor into a cooling river to disport and refresh and strengthen himself in his sinne but he falls upon a stone where he may receive a bruise a pain upon his fall a remorse of that sinne he is fallen into And in this fall our infirmitie appears three wayes The first is Impingere in lapidem To stumble for though he be upon the right stone in the true Religion and have light enough yet Impingimus meredie as the Prophet saith even at noon we stumble we have much more light by Christ being come then the Jewes had but we are sorry we have it when Christ hath said to us for our better understanding of the Law He that looketh and lusteth hath committed Adultery He that coveteth hath stollen He that is angry hath murdered we stumble at this and we are scandalized with it and we thinke that other Religions are gentler and that Christ hath dealt hardly with us and we had rather Christ had not said so we had rather he had left us to our libertie and discretion to looke and court and to give a way to our passions as we should finde it most conduce to our ease and to our ends And this is Impingere to stumble not to goe on in an equall and even pace not to doe the will of God cheerefully And a second degree is calcitrare to kick to spurre at this stone that is to bring some particular sinne and some particular Law into comparison To debate thus if I doe not this now I shall never have such a time if I slip this I shall never have the like opportunitie if I will be a foole now I shall be a begger all my life and for the Law of God that is against it there is but a little evill for a great deale of good and there is a great deale of time to recover and repent that little evill Now to remove a stone which was a landmarke and to hide and cover that stone was all one fault in the Law to hide the will of God from our owne Consciences with excuses and extenuatious this is calcitrare as much as we can to spurn the stone the landmarke out of the way but the fulnesse and accomplishment of this is in the third word of the Text Cadere to fall he falls as a piece of money falls into a river we heare it fall and we see it sink and by and by we see it deeper and at last we see it not at all So no man falleth at first into any sinne but he heares his own fall There is a tendernesse in every Conscience at the beginning at the entrance into a sinne and he discerneth a while the degrees of sinking too but at last he is out of his owne sight till he meete this stone this stone is Christ that is till he meete some hard reprehension some hard passage of a Sermon some hard judgement in a Prophet some crosse in the World some thing from the mouth or some thing from the hand of God that breaks him He falls upon the stone and is broken So that to be broken upon this stone is to come to this sense
quia innumeris curis distraheris Busie man belongeth it not to thee to study the Scriptures because thou art oppressed with worldly businesse Imòmagis tuum est saith he therefore thou hadst the more need to study the Scriptures Illi non tam egent c. They that are not disquieted nor disordered in their passions with the cares of this world doe not so much need that supply from the Scriptures as you that are doe It is an Authour that lived in the obedience of the Romane Church that saith the Councell of Nice did decree That every man should have the Bible in his house But another Authour in that Church saith now Consilium Chrysostomi Ecclesiae nunc non arridet The Church doth not now like Chrysostomes counsell for this generall reading of the Scriptures Quia etsi ille locutus ad plebem plebs tunc non erat haeretica Though Saint Chrysostome spoke that to the people the people in his time were not an Hereticall people And are the people in the Roman Church now an Hereticall people If not why may not they pursue Saint Chrystomes counsel and reade the Scriptures Because they are dark It is true in some places they are dark purposely left so by the Holy Ghost ne semel lectas fastidiremus lest we should think we had done when we had read them once so saith S. Gregory too In plain places fami occurrit he presents meat for every stomach In hard and dark places fastidia detergit he sharpens the appetite Margarita est undique perforari potest the Scripture is a Pearl and might be bored through every where Not every where by thy self there may be many places which thou of thy self canst not understand not every where by any other man no not by them who have warrant to search Commission from God by their calling to interpret the Scriptures not every where by the whole Church God hath reserved the understanding of some places of Scripture till the time come for the fulfilling of those Prophecies as many places of the Old Testament were not understood till Christ came in whom they were fulfilled If therefore thou wilt needs know whether when Saint Paul took his information of the behaviour of the Corinthians from those of Chloe whether this Chloe were a woman or a place the Fathers cannot satisfie thee the latter Writers cannot satisfie thee there is not Testimonium ab homine no such humane Arguments as can determine thee or give thee an Acquittance the greatest pillars whom God hath raised in his Church cannot give a satisfaction to thy curiosity But if the Doctrine of the place will satisfie thee which Doctrine is that S. Paul did not give credit to light rumors against the Corinthians nor to clandestine whisperers but tells them who accused them and yet as well as he loved them he did not stop his eares against competent witnesses for he tells them they stood accused and by whom then thou maist bore this pearle thorough and make it fit for thy use and wearing in knowing so much of Saint Pauls purpose therein as concerns thy edification though thou never know whether Chloe were a Woman or a Place Tantum veritati obstrepit adulter sensus quam corruptor stylus a false interpretation may doe thee as much harme as a false translation a false Commentary as a false copy And therefore forbearing to make any interpretation at all upon dark places of Scripture especially those whose understanding depends upon the future fulfilling of prophecies in places that are clear evident thou maist be thine own interpreter In places that are more obscure goe to those men whom God hath set over thee and either they shall give thee that sense of the place which shall satisfie thee by having the sense thereof or that must satisfie you that there is enough for your salvation though that remaine uninterpreted And let this Testimonium ab homine this testimony of man establish thee for the Scripture that there is a Scripture a certaine book that is the word and the revealed will of God That these books which we receive for Canonicall make up that book And then that this and this is the true sense of every place which the holy Ghost hath opened to the present understanding of his Church We said before that a Christian being a Common-wealth to himselfe the Scripture was his law and for that law that Scripture he was to have Testimonium ab homine the testimony of man And then his Conscience is his Iudge and for that he is to have the same testimony too Thou must not rest upon the testimony and suggestions of thine owne conscience Nec illud de trivio paratum habere thou must not rest in that vulgar saying sufficit mihi c. As long as mine owne Conscience stands right I care not what all the world say Thou must care what the world says and study to have the approbation and testimony of good men Every man is enough defamed in the generall depravation of our whole natureÌ„ Adam hath cast an infamy upon us all And when a man is defamed it is not enough that he purge himselfe by oath but he must have compurgators too other men must sweare that they beleeve he sweares a truth Thine owne conscience is not enough but thou must â—atisfie the world and have Testimonium ab homine good men must thinke thee good A conscience that admits no search from others is cauterizata burnt with a hot Iron not cured but seared not at peace but stupefied And when in the verse immediately before our text it is said That Iohn came to beare witnesse of that light it is added that through him that is through that man through Iohn not through it through that light that through him all men beleeve For though it be efficiently the operation of the light it selfe that is Christ himselfe that all men beleeve yet the holy Ghost directs us to that that is nearest us to this testimony of man that instrumentally ministerially works this beliefe in men If then for thy faith thou must have testimonium ab homine the testimony of men and maist not beleeve as no man but thy selfe beleeves much more for thy manners and conversation Thinke it not enough to satisfie thy self but satisfie good men nay weake men nay malicious men till it come so far as that for the desire of satisfying man thou leave God unsatisfied endeavour to satisfie all God must waigh down all thy selfe and others but as long as thy selfe onely art in one balance and other men in the other let this preponderate let the opinion of other men waigh downe thine owne opinion of thy selfe 'T is true but many men flatter themselves too far with this truth that it is a sin to do any thing in Conscientiâ dubiâ when a man doubts whether he may doe it or no and in
large Commission Behold this day I have set thee over the Nations and over the Kingdomes to pluck up and to rout out to destroy and to throw down and though many of the Prophets had their Commissions drawn by that precedent we claime not that we distinguish between the extraordinary Commission of the Prophet and the ordinary Commission of the Priest we admit a great difference between them and are farre from taking upon us all that the Prophet might have done which is an errour of which the Church of Rome and some other over-zealous Congregations have been equally guilty and equally opposed Monarchy and Soveraignty by assuming to themselves in an ordinary power whatsoever God upon extraordinary occasions was pleased to give for the present to his extraordinary Instruments the Prophets our Commission is toâ— pray and to intreat you Though upon those words Ascendunt salvatores in Montem Sion there shall arise Saviours in Mount Sion in the Church of God Saint Hierom saith That as Christ being the light of the world called his Apostles the light of the world too so Ipse Salvator Apostolas voluit esse Salvatores The Saviour of the world communicates to us the name of Saviours of the world too yet howsoever instrumentally and ministerially that glorious name of Saviour may be afforded to us though to a high hill though to that Mount Sion we are led by a low way by the example of our blessed Saviour himself and since there was an Oportuit pati laid upon him there may well be an Opâ—rteâ— Obsecrare laid upon us since his way was to be dumb ours may well be to utter no other voyce but Prayers since he bled we may well sweat in his service for the salvaâ—ion of your souls If therefore our selves who are sent be under contempt or under persecution if the sword of the Tongue or the sword of the Tyrant be drawn against us against all these Arma nostra preces fletus we defend with no other shield we return with no other sword but Tears and Prayers and blessing of them that curse us Yea if he that sent us suffer in us if we see you denounce a warre against him nay triumph over him and provoke him to anger and because he showes no anger conclude our of his patience an impotency that because he doth not he cannot when you scourge him and scoffe him and spit in his face and crucifie him and practise every day all the Jews did to him once as though that were your pattern and your businesse were to exceed your pattern and crucifie your Saviour worse then they did by tearing mangling his body now glorified by your blasphemous oaths and execrable imprecations when we see all this Arma nostra preces fletus we can defend our selves nor him no other way we present to you our tears and our prayers his tears and his prayers that sent us and if you will not be reduced with these our Commission is at an end I bring not a Star-chamber with me up into the Pulpit to punish a forgery if you counterfeit a zeale in coming hither now nor an Exchequer to punish usurious contracts though made in the Church nor a high Commission to punish incontinencies if they be promoted by wanton interchange of looks in this place Onely by my prayers which he hath promised to accompany and prosper in his service I can diffuse his overshadowing Spirit over all the corners of this Congregation and pray that Publican that stands below afar off and dares not lift up his eyes to heaven to receive a chearfull confidence that his sinnes are forgiven him and pray that Pharisee that stands above and onely thanks God that he is not like other men to believe himselfe to be if not a rebellious yet an unprofitable servant I can onely tell them that neither of them is in the right way of reconciliation to God Nec qui impugnant gratiam nec qui superbè gratias agunt neither he who by a diffidence hinders the working of Gods grace nor he that thanks God in such a fashion as though all that he had received were not of meer mercy but between a debt and a benefit and that he had either merited before or paid God after in pious works for all and for more then he hath received at Gods hand Scarce any where hath the Holy Ghost taken a word of larger signification then here for as though it were hard even to him to expresse the humility which we are to use rather then lose any soul for which Christ hath dyed he hath taught us this obsecration this praying this intreating in our Text in a word by which the Septuagint the first Translators into Greek expresse divers affections and all within the compasse of this Obsecramus We pray you Some of them we shall present to you Those Translators use that word for Napal Napal is Ruere Postrare to throw down to deject our selves to admit any undervalue any exinanition any evacuation of our selves so we may advance this great work I fell down before the Lord says Moses of himself and Abraham fell upon his face says Moses of him and in no sense is this word oftner used by them then in this humiliation But yet as it signifies to need the favour of another so does it also to be favourable and mercifull to another for so also the same Translators use this word for Chanan which is to oblige and binde a man by benefits or to have compassion upon him Have pity upon me have pity upon me O ye my friends for the hand of God hath touched me there is our word repeated So that whether we professe to you that as Physicians must consider excrements so we must consider sin the leprosie the pestilence the ordure of the soule there is our dejection of our selves or make you see your poverty and indigence and that that can be no way supplied but by those means which God conveys by us both ways we are within our word Obsecramus we pray you we intreat you They use this word also for Calah and Calah is Dolere to grieve within our selves for the affliction of another But it signifies also vulnerare to wound and afflict another for so it is said in this word Saul was sore wounded So that whether we expresse our grief in the behalf of Christ that you will not be reconciled to God or whether we wound your consciences with a sense of your sins and his judgements we are still what in the word of our Commission Obsecramus we pray we intreat To contract this consideration they use this word for Cruciare to vex and for Placare too to appease to restore to rest and quiet Therefore will I make thee sick in smiting thee there it is vexation And then They sent unto the House of the Lord Placare Dominum to appease the Lord as we translate
all the spirituall parts of the Indulgence be performed by the poore sinner yet if he give not that money though he be not worth that money though that Merchant of those Indulgencies doe out of his charity give him one of those Indulgencies yet all this doth that man no good in these cases they are indeed Rei suae Legati Ambassadours to serve their own turns and do their owne businesse When that Bishop sends out his Legatos à latere Ambassadours from his own chair and bosome into forain Nations to exhaust their treasures to alien their Subjects to infect their Religion these are Rei suae Legati Ambassadours that have businesses depending in those places and therefore come upon their own errand Nor can that Church excuse it self though it use to do so upon the mis-behaviour of those officers when they are imployed for they are imployed to that purpose And Tibi imputae quicquid pateris ab eo qui sine te nihil potest facere Since he might mend the fault it is his fault that it is done he cannot excuse himself if they be guilty and with his privity for as the same devout man saith to Eugenius then Pope Ne te dixeris sanum dolentem latera If thy sides ake if thy Legats à latere be corrupt call not thy self well nec bonum malis innitentem nor call thy self good if thou rely upon the counsell of those that are ill They those Legats à latere are as they use to expresse it incorporated in the Pope and therefore they are Rei sui Legati Ambassadours that ly to doe their own businesse But when we seek to raise no other warre in you but to arme the spirit against the flesh when we present to you no other holy water but the teares of Christ Jesus no other reliques but the commemoration of his Passion in the Sacrament no other Indulgencies and acquittances but the application of his Merits to your souls when we offer all this without silver and without gold when we offer you that Seal which he hath committed to us in Absolution without extortion or fees wherein are we Rei nostrae Legati Ambassadours in our own behalfs or advancers of our owne ends And as we are not so so neither are we in the second danger to come sine Principali Mandato without Commission from our Master Christ himselfe would not come of himselfe but acknowledged and testified his Mission The Father which sent me he gave me commandment what I should say and what I should speake Those whom he imployed produced their Commissions Neither received I it of man neither was I taught it but by the revelation of Iesus Christ. How should they preach except they be sent is a question which Saint Paul intended for a conclusive question that none could answer till in the Romane Church they excepted Cardinals Quibus sine literis creditur propter personarum solennitatem who for the dignity inherent in their persons must be received though they have no Commission When our adversaries do so violently so impetuously cry out that we have no Church no Sacrament no Priesthood because none are sent that is none have a right calling for Internall calling who are called by the Spirit of God they can be no Judges and for Externall calling we admit them for Judges and are content to be tried by their own Canons and their own evidences for our Mission and vocation or sending and our calling to the Ministery If they require a necessity of lawfull Ministers to the constitution of a Church we require it with as much earnestnesse as they Ecclesia non est quae now habet sacerdotem we professe with Saint Hierome It is no Church that hath no Priest If they require that this spirituall power be received from them who have the same power in themselves we professe it too Nemo dat quod non habet no man can confer other power upon another then he hath himself If they require Imposition of hands in conferring Orders we joyn hands with them If they will have it a Sacrament men may be content to let us be as liberall of that name of Sacrament as Calvin is and he says of it Institut l. 4. c. 14. § 20. Non invitus patior vocari Sacramentum it a inter ordinaria Sacramenta non numero I am not loth it should be called a Sacrament so it be not made an ordinary that is a generall Sacrament and how ill hath this been taken at some of our mens hands to speak of more such Sacraments when indeed they have learnt this manner of speech and difference of Sacraments not onely from the ancient Fathers but from Calvin himself who always spoke with a holy warinesse and discretion Whatsoever their own authors their own Schools their own Canons doe require to be essentially and necessarily requisite in this Mission in this function we for our parts and as much as concerns our Church of England admit it too and professe to have it And whatsoever they can say for their Church that from their first Conversion they have had an orderly derivation of power from one to another we can as justly and truly say of our Church that ever since her first being of such a Church to this day she hath conserved the same order and ever hath had and hath now those Ambassadours sent with the same Commission and by the same means that they pretend to have in their Church And being herein convinced by the evidence of undeniable Record which have been therefore shewed to some of their Priests not being able to deny that such a Succession and Ordination we have had from the hands of such as were made Bishops according to their Canons now they pursue their common beaten way That as in our Doctrine they confesse we affirm no Heresie but that we deny some Truths so in our Ordination and sending and Calling when they cannot deny but that from such a person who is by their own Canons able to confer Orders we in taking our Orders after their own manner receive the Holy Ghost and the power of binding and loosing yet say they we receive not the full power of Priests for we receive onely a power in Corpus mysticum upon the mysticall body of Christ that is the persons that constitute the visible Church but we should receive it in Corpus verum a power upon the very naturall body a power of Consecration by way of Transubstantiation They may be pleased to pardon this rather Modesty then Defect in us who so we may work fruitfully and effectually upon the mysticall body of Christ can be content that his reall and true body work upon us Not that we have no interest to work upon the reall body of Christ since he hath made us Dispensers even of that to the faithfull in the Sacrament but for such a power as exceeds the Holy Ghost who in the incarnation
of Christ when he overshadowed the blessed Virgin did but make man of the woman who was one part disposed by nature thereunto whereas these men make man and God too of bread naturally wholly indisposed to any such change for this power we confesse it is not in our Commission and their Commission and ours was all one and the Commission is manifest in the Gospel and since they can charge us with no rasures no expunctions we must charge them with interlinings and additions to the first Commission But for that power which is to work upon you to whom we are sent we are defective in nothing which they call necessary thereunto This I speak of this Church in which God hath planted us That God hath afforded us all that might serve even for the stopping of the Adversaries mouth and to confound them in their own way which I speak onely to excite us to a thankfulnesse to God for his abundant grace in affording us so much and not to disparage or draw in question any other of our neighbour Churches who perchance cannot derive as we can their power and their Mission by the ways required and practised in the Romane Church nor have had from the beginning a continuance of Consecration by Bishops and such other concurrences as those Canons require and as our Church hath enjoyed They no doubt can justly plead for themselves that Ecclesiasticall positive Laws admit dispensation in cases of necessity They may justly challenge a Dispensation but we need none They did what was lawfull in a case of necessity but Almighty God preserved us from this necessity As men therefore Qui nec jussi renuunt nec non jussi affectant which neither neglect Gods calling when we have it nor counterfeit it when wee have it not Qui quod verecundè excusant obstinatiùs non recusant who though wee confesse our selves altogether unworthy have yet the seales of God and his Church upon us Nec rei nostrae legati not to promove our own ends but your reconciliation to God Nec sine principali mandate not without a direct and published Commission in the Gospell we come to you in Christs stead and so should be received by you As for our Mission that being in the quality of Ambassadours we submitted our selves to those two obligations which we noted to lie upon Ambassadours so here in our Reception we shall propose to you two things that are for the most part practised by Princes in the reception of Ambassadours One is that before they give audience they endevour by some confident servant of theirs to discern and understand the inclination of the Ambassadour and the generall scope and purpose of his negotiation and of the behavior that he purposeth to use in delivering his Message left for want of thus much light the Prince might either be unprepared in what manner to expresse himselfe or be surprised with some such message as might not well comport with his honour to heare But in these Ambassages from God to man no man is made so equall to God as that he may refuse to give Audience except he know before hand that the message be agreeable to his minde Onely he that will be more then man that Man of sinne who esteemeth himselfe to be joyned in Commission with God onely he hath a particular Officer to know before hand what message Gods Ambassadours bringeth and to peruse all Sermons to be preached before him and to expunge correct alter all such things as may be disagreeable to him It cannot therefore become you to come to these Audiences upon conditions to informe your selves from others first what kinde of messages such or such an Ambassadour useth to deliver whether he preach Mercy or Iudgement that if he preach against Vsury you will heare Court-sermons where there is less occasion to mention it If hee preach against Incontinency you will goe whither Is there any place that doth not extort from us reprehensions exclamations against that sinne But if you beleeve us to come in Christs stead what ever our message be you must hear us Doe that and for the second thing that Princes practise in the Reception of Ambassadours which is to referre Ambassadours to their Councell we are well content to admit from you Whosoever is of your nearest Councell and whose opinion you best trust in we are content to submit it to Let naturall reason let affections let the profits or the pleasures of the world be the Councell Table and can they tell you that you are able to maintaine a warre against God and subsist so without being reconciled to him Deceive not your selves no man hath so much pleasure in this life as he that is at peace with God What an Organe hath that man tuned how hath he brought all things in the world to a Consort and what a blessed Anthem doth he sing to that Organe that is at peace with God His Rye-bread is Manna and his Beefe is Quailes his day-labours are thrustings at the narrow gate into Heaven and his nightâ—watchings are extasies and evocations of his soule into the presence and communion of Saints his sweat is Pearls and his bloud is Rubies it is at peace with God No man that is at suite in himselfe no man that carrieth a Westminster in his bosome and is Plaintiffe and Defendant too no man that serveth himself with Process out of his owne Conscience for every nights pleasure that he taketh in the morning and for every dayes pound that he getteth in the evening hath any of the pleasure or profit that may be had in this life nor any that is not at peace with God That peace we bring you how will you receive us That vehemence of zeale which the Apostle found we hope not for you received me as an Angell of God even as Christ Iesus And if it had been possible you would have plucked out your owne eyes and have given them to me Consider the zeale of any Church to their Pastor it will come short of the Pastor to the Church All that Saint Paul saith of the Galatians towards him is farre short of that which he said to the Romanes That he could wish himselfe separated from Christ for his brethren or that of Moses that he would be blotted out of the Booke of Life rather then his charge should When we consider the manner of hearing Sermons in the Primitive Church though we doe not wish that manner to be renewed yet we cannot deny but that though it were accompanied with many inconveniences it testified a vehement devotion and sense of that that was said by the preacher in the hearer for all that had been formerly used in Theaters Acclamations and Plaudites was brought into the Church and not onely the vulgar people but learned hearers were as loud and as profuse in those declarations those vocall acclamations and those plaudites in the passages and transitions in Sermons as ever they
had been at the Stage or other recitations of their Poets or Orators S. Hierom charges Vigilantius that howsoever he differed from him in opinion after yet when he had heard him preach of the Resurrection before he had received that Doctrine with Acclamation and Plaudites And as Saint Hierome saith of himselfe that he was thus applauded in his Preaching he saith it also of him whom he called his Master Gregory Nazianzen a grave and yet a facetious man of him he telleth us this Story That he having intreated Nazianzen to tell him the meaning of that place What that second Sabbath after the first was he played with me he jested at me saith he Eleganter lusit and he bad me be at Church next time he preached and he would preach upon that Text Et toto acclamante populo cogeris invitus scire quod nescis and when you see all the Congregation applaued me and cry out that they are satisfied you will make your self beleeve you understand the place as they doe though you doe not Et si solus tacueris solus ab omnibus stultitiae condemnaberis And if you doe not joyne with the Congregation in those Plaudites the whole Congregation will thinke you the onely ignorant person in the Congregation for as we may see in Saint Augustin the manner was that when the people were satisfied in any point which the Preacher handled they would almost tell him so by an acclamation and give him leave to passe to another point for so saith that Father Vidi in voce intelligentes plures video in silentâ—o requirentes I heare many to whom by this acclamation I see enough hath been said but I see more that are silent and therefore for their sakes I will say more of it Saint Agustine accepted these acclamations more willingly at least more patiently then some of the Fathers before had done Audistis laudastis Deo gratias you have heard that hath been said and you have approved it with your praise God be thanked for both Et laudes vestrae foliae sunt arborum sed fructus quaero Though I looke for fruit from you yet even these acclamations are Leafes and Leafes are Evidences that the tree is alive Saint Chrysostome was more impatient of them yet could never overcome them To him they came a little closer for it was ordinary that when he began to speake the people would cry out Audiamus tertiumdecimum Apostolum Let us hearken to the thirteenth Apostle And he saith Si placet hanc nunc legem firmabimus I pray let us now establish this for a Law between you and mee Ne quis auditor plaudat quamdiu nos loquimur That whilest I am speaking I may speaking I may heare no Plaudate yet he saith in a Sermon preached after this Animo cogitavi Legem ponere I have often purposed to establish such a Law Vt decore cum silentio audiatis that you would be pleased to heare with silence but he could never prevail Sidonius Apollinaris a Bishop himselfe but whether then or no know not saith of another Bishop that hearing even praedicationes repentinas his extemporall Sermons raucus plausor audivi I poured my selfe out in loud acclamations till I was hoarse And to contract this consideration wee see evidently that this fashion continued in the Church even to Saint Bernards time Neither is it left yet in some places beyond the Seas where the people doe yet answer the Preacher it his questions be applyable to them and may induce an answer with these vocall acclamations Sir we will Sir we will not And truely wee come too neare re-inducing this vain glorious fashion in those often periodicall murmurings and noises which you make when the Preacher concludeth any point for those impertinent Interjections swallow up one quarter of his houre and many that were not within distance of hearing the Sermon will give a censure upon it according to the frequencie or paucitie of these acclamations These fashions then howsoever in those times they might be testimonies of Zeale yet because they occasioned vain glory and many times faction as those Fathers have noted we desire not willingly we admit not We come in Christs stead Christ at his comming met Hosann ' as and Crucifige's A Preacher may be aplauded in his Pulpit and crucified in his Barne but there is a worse crucifying then that a piercing of our hearts Because we are as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voyce and can play well on an Instrument and you heare our words and doe them not Having therefore said thus much to you first of our manner of proceeding with you Obsecramus of all those waies of humiliation which we insisted upon and ingaged our selves in we pray intreat you and the respect which should come from you because we come in Christs stead if as the Eâ—â—â—ch said to Philip Here is water what doth hinder me to be baptized so you say to us we acknowledge that you do your duties and we do receive you in Christs stead what is it that you would have us doe it is but this We pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God which is our third and last part and that to which all that we have said of a good Pastor and a good people which is the blessedest union of this world bendeth and driveth what and how blessed a thing it is to be reconciled to God Reconciliation is a redintegration a renewing of a former friendship that hath been interrupted and broken So that this implyeth a present enmity and hostility with God and then a former friendship with God and also a possibility of returning to that former friendship stop a little upon each of these and we have done Amongst naturall Creatures because howsoever they differ in bignesse yet they have some proportion to one another we consider that some very little creatures contemptible in themselves are yet called enemies to great creatures as the Mouse is to the Elephant For the greatest Creature is not Infinite nor the least is not Nothing But shall man betweene whom and nothing there went but a word Let us make Man That Nothing which is infinitely lesse then a Mathematicall point then an imaginary Atome shall this Man this yesterdayes Nothing this to morow worse then Nothing be capable of that honour that dishonour able honour that confounding honour to be the enemy of God of God who is not onely a multipled Elephant millions of Elephants multiplied into one but a multiplied World a multiplied All All that can be conceived by us infinite many times over Nay if we may dare to say so a multiplyed God a God that hath the Millions of the Heathens gods in himselfe alone shall this man be an enemy to this God Man cannot be allowed so high a sinne as enmity with God The Devill himselfe is but a slave to God and shall Man
shall feare the Lord and his goodnesse in the later dayes And beyond this land there is no more Sea beyond this mercy no more Judgement for with this mercy the Chapter ends Consider our text then as a whole Globe as an intire Spheare and then our two Hemispheares of this Globe our two parts of this text will bee First that no perversnesse of ours no rebellion no disobedience puts God beyond his mercy nor extinguishes his love still hee calls Israel rebellious Israel his Children nay his owne anger his owne Judgements then when hee is in the exercise thereof in the execution thereof puts him not beyond his mercy extinguishes not his love hee hides not his face from them then hee leaves them not then in the darke hee accompanies their calamity with a light hee makes that time though cloudy though overcast yet a day unto them the Children of Israel shall abide many days in this case But then as no disobedience removes God from himself for he is love and mercy so no interest of ours in God doth so priviledge us but that hee will execute his Judgements upon his Children too even the Children of Israel shall fall into these Calamities And from this first part wee shall passe to the second from these generall considerations That no punishments should make us desperate that no favours should make us secure we shall passe to the particular commination and judgements upon the children of Israel in this text without King without Prince c. In our first part we stop first upon this declaration of his mercy in this fatherly appellation Children the children of Israel He does not call them children of Israel as though hee disavowed them and put them off to another Father but therefore because they are the Children of Israel they are his Children for hee had maried Israel and maried her to himselfe for ever Many of us are Fathers and from God here may learne tendernesse towards children All of us are children of some parents and therefore should hearken after the name of Father which is nomen pietatis potestatis a name that argues their power over us and our piety towards them and so concernes many of us in a double capacity as we are children and parents too but all of us in one capacity as we are children derived from other parents God is the Father of man otherwise then he is of other creatures He is the Father of all Creatures so Philo calls all Creatures sorâ—res suas his sisters but then all those sisters of man all those daughters of God are not alike maried God hath placed his Creatures in divers rankes and in divers conditions neither must any man thinke that he hath not done the duty of a Father if he have not placed all his Sonnes or not matched all his daughters in a condition equall to himselfe or not equall to one another God hath placed creatures in the heavens and creatures in the earth and creatures in the sea and yet all these creatures are his children and when he looked upon them all in their divers stations he saw omnia valde bora that all was very well And that Father that imploies one Sonne in learning another to husbandry another to Merchandise pursues Gods example in disposing his children his creatures diversly and all well Such creatures as the Raine though it may seem but an imperfect and ignoble creature fallen from the wombe of a cloud have God for their Father God is the Father of the Raine And such creatures as light have but God for their Father God is Pater lâ—minum the Father of lights Whether we take lights there to be the Angels created with the light some take it so or to be the severall lights set up in the heavens Sun and Moon and Stars some take it so or to be the light of Grace in infusion by the Spirit or the light of the Church in manifestation by the word for all these acceptations have convenient Authors and worthy to be followed God is the Father of lights of all lights but so he is of raine and clouds too And God is the Father of glory as Saint Paul styles him of all glory whether of those beames of glory which he sheds upon us here in the blessings and preferments of this life or that waight of glory which he reserves for us in the life to come From that inglorious drop of raine that falls into the dust and rises no more to those glorious Saints who shall rise from the dust and fall no more but as they arise at once to the fulnesse of Essentiall joy so arise daily in accidentiall joyes all are the children of God and all alike of kin to us And therefore let us not measure our avowing or our countenancing of our kindred by their measure of honour or place or riches in the world but let us looke how fast they grow in the root that is in the same worship of the same God who is ours and their Father too He is nearest of kin to me that is of the same religion with me as they are creatures they are of kin to me by the Father but as they are of the same Church and religion by Father and mother too Philo calls all creatures his sisters but all men are his brothers God is the Father of man in a stronger and more peculiar and more masculine sense then of other Creatures Filius particeps con-dominus cum patre as the law calls the Sonne the partner of the Father and fellow-Lord joint-Lord with the Father of all the possession that is to descend so God hath made man his partner and fellow-Lord of all his other creatures in Moses his Dominamini when he gives man a power to rule over them and in Davids Omnia subjecisti when he imprints there a naturall disposition in the creature to the obedience of man So high so very high a filiation hath God given man as that having another Sonne by another filiation a higher filiation then this by an eternall generation yet he was content that that Sonne should become this Sonne that the Sonne of God should become the Sonne of Man God is the Father of all of man otherwise then of all the rest but then of the children of Israel otherwise then of all other men For he bought them and is not be thy Father that hath bought thee says God by Moses Not to speake of that purchase which he made by the death of his Sonne for that belongs to all the world he bought the Jews in particular at such a price such silver and such gold such temporall and such spirituall benefits such a Land and such a Church such a Law and such a Religion as certainly he might have had all the world at that price If God would have manifested himselfe poured out himselfe to the Nations as hee did to
properly Protestant And though the Injunctions of our Church declare the sense of those times concerning Images yet they are wisely and godly conceived for the second is That they shall not extoll Images which is not that they shall not set them up but as it followeth They shall declare the abuse thereof And when in the 23 Injunction it is said That they shall utterly extinct and destroy amongst other things pictures yet it is limited to such things and such pictures as are monuments of feigned miracles and that Injuction reaches as well to pictures in private houses as in Churches and forbids nothing in the Church that might be retained in the house For those pernicious Errors which the Romane Church hath multiplied in this point not onely to make Images of men which never were but to make those Images of men very men to make their Images speak and move and weep and bleed to make Images of God who was never seen and to make those Images of God very gods to make their Images doe daily miracles to transferre the honour due to God to the Image and then to encumber themselves with such ridiculous riddles and scornfull distinctions as they doe for justifying unjustifiable unexcusable uncolourable enormities Va Idololatris woe to such advancers of Images as would throw down Christ rather then his Image But Vae Iconeclastis too woe to such peremptory abhorrers of Pictures and to such uncharitable condemners of all those who admit any use of them as had rather throw down a Church then let a Picture stand Laying hold upon S. Hieromes exposition that fals within the Vae the Commination of this Text to be without those Sacrifices those Ephods those Images as they are outward helps of devotion And laying hold not upon S. Hierome but upon Christ himselfe who is the God of love and peace and unity yet fals under a heavy and insupportable Vae to violate the peace of the Church for things which concern it not fundamentally Problematicall things are our silver but fundamentall our gold problematicall out sweat but fundamentall our blood If our Adversaries would be bought in with our silver with our sweat we should not be difficult in meeting them halfe way in things in their nature indifferent But if we must pay our Gold our Blood our fundamentall points of Religion for their friendship A Fortune a Liberty a Wife a Childe a Father a Friend a Master a Neighbour a Benefactor a Kingdome a Church a World is not worth a dramme of this Gold a drop of this Blood Neither will that man who is truly rooted in this foundation redeeme an Empoverishing an Emprisoning a Dis-inheriting a Confining an Excommunicating a Deposing with a dramme of this Gold with a drop of this Blood the fundamentall Articles of our Religion Blessed be that God who as he is without change or colour of change hath kept us without change or colour of change in all our foundations And he in his time bring our Adversaries to such a moderation as becomes them who doe truly desire that the Church may bee truly Catholique one stock in one fold under one Shepherd though not all of one colour of one practise in all outward and disciplinarian points Amen SERMON XLII A Sermon Preached in Saint Pauls in the Evening November 23. 1628. PROV 14. 31. He that oppresseth the poore reprocheth his Maker but he that honoureth him hath mercy on the poore Part of the first Lesson for that Evening Prayer THese are such words as if we were to consider the words onely might make a Grammar Lecture and a Logick Lecture and a Rhetorick and Ethick a Philosophy Lecture too And of these foure Elements might a better Sermon then you are like to heare now be well made Indeed they are words of a large of an extensive comprehension And because all the words of the Word of God are in a great measure so that invites me to stop a little as upon a short first part before the rest or as upon a long entrie into the rest to consider not onely the powerfulnesse of the matter but the sweetnesse and elegancy of the words of the Word of God in generall before I descend to the particular words of this Text He that oppresseth the poore c. We may justly accommodate those words of Moses to God the Father What God is there in Heaven or in Earth that can doe according to thy workes And those words of Ieremie to God the Sonne Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow And those to the Holy Ghost which are in Esay Loquimini ad Cor speake to the heart speake comfortably to my People And those of Saint Iohn too A voyce of Thunder and after A voyce of seaven Thunders talking with me for who can doe like the Father who can suffer like the Sonne who can speake like the Holy Ghost Eloquia Domini eloquia casta saith David The words of the Lord are chaste words sincere pure words no drosse no profanenesse no such allay mingled with them for as it followeth there They are as silver tried and purified seaven times in the fire They are as that silver that is so tried and they are as that fire that trieth it It is Castum a Pure Word in it self and then it is powerfull upon the Hearer too Ignitum Eloquium tuum vehementer saith he Thy word hath the vehement operation of fire and therefore thy servant loveth it well as it followeth there Therefore because it pierces But therefore especially because it carrieth a sweetnesse with it For the sting of the Serpent pierces and the toothe of the Viper pierces but they carry venenosam salivam a venimous and mischievous liquour with them But Dulcia faucibus super Mel Thy words are sweeter to my mouth then Hony then Hony it selfe For verba composita saith Solomon chosen words studied premeditated words pleasing words so we translate it are as a Hony-combe Now in the Hony combe the Hony is collected and gathered and dispensed and distributed from the Hony-combe And of this Hony-combe is wax wax apt for sealing derived too The distribution of this Hony to the Congregation The sealing of this Hony to the Conscience is in the outward Ordinance of God and in the labour of the Minister and his conscionable fitting of himselfe for so great a service But the Hony-Combe is not the Hony The gifts of the man is not the Holy Ghost Iacob laid this blessing upon his sonne Naphtali Dabit Eloquia pulchritudinis That he should be a well-spoken and a perswasive man For of a defect in this kinde Moses complained and so did Esay and Ieremie did so too when they were to be imployed in Gods service Moses that he was of uncircumcised Esay that he was of unclean lips and Ieremie that he was a Childe and could not speak and therefore this was a Blessing upon
their places A declination in the Kingdome of the Jewes in the body of the Kingdome in the soul of the State in the form of Government was such an Earth-quake as could leave nothing standing Of all things that are there was an Idea in God there was a modell a platform an examplar of every thing which God produced and created in Time in the mind and purpose of God before Of all things God had and Idea a preconception but of Monarchy of Kingdome God who is but one is the Idea God himselfe in his Unity â—s the Modell He is the Type of Monarchy He made but one World for this and the next are not two Worlds This is but the Morning and that the everlasting Noon of one and the same Day which shall have no Night They are not two Houses This is the Gallery and that the Bed-chamber of one and the same Palace which shall feel no ruine He made this one World but one Eye The Sunne The Moone is not another Eye but a Glasse upon which the Sunne reflects He made this one World but one Eare The Church He tells not us that he heares by a left Eare by Saints but by that right Eare the Church he doth There is One God One Faith One Baptisme and these lead us to the love of one Soveraign of Monarchy of Kingdome In that Name God hath convayed to us the state of Grace and the state of Glory too and he hath promised both in injoining that Petition Adveniat Regnum Thy Kingdome come Thy Kingdome of Grace here Thy Kingdome of Glory hereafter All forms of Government have one and the same Soul that is Soveraignty That resides somewhere in every form and this Soveraignty is in them all from one and the same Root from the Lord of Lords from God himself for all Power is of God But yet this form of a Monarchy of a Kingdome is a more lively and a more masculin Organe and Instrument of this Soul of Soveraigntie then the other forms are Wee are sure Women have Soules as well as Men but yet it is not so expressed that God breathed a Soule into Woman as hee did into Man All formes of Government have this Soule but yet God infuseth it more manifestly and more effectually in that forme in a Kingdome All places are alike neare to Heaven yet Christ would take a Hill for his Ascension All governments may justly represent God to mee who is the God of Order and fountaine of all government but yet I am more eased and more accustomed to the contemplation of Heaven in that notion as Heaven is a kingdome by having been borne and bred in a Monarchy God is a Type of that and that is a Type of Heaven This form then in nature the noblest in use the profitablest of all others God always intended to his best-beloved people God always meant that the Jews should have a King though he prepared them in other forms before As hee meant them peace at last though he exercised them in Warre and meant them the land of promise though he led them through the Wildernesse so he meant them a King though he prepared them by Iudges God intended it in himselfe and he declared it to them 400 yeares before he have them a King he instructed them what kinde of King they should set over them when they came to that kinde of government And long before that he made a promise by Iacob to Iudah of a Kingdome and that the Scepter should not depart from him till Siloh came And when God came neare the time in which he intended to them that government in the time of Samuel who was the immediate predecessor to their first King Saul God made way for a Monarchy for Samuel had a much more absolute authority in that State then any of the Judges had Samuel judged them and in their petition for a King they ask but that Make us a King to judge us Samuel was little lesse then a King and Sauls reign and his are reckoned both in one number and made as the reign of one man when it is said in the Acts that Saul reigned 40 yeares Samuels time is included in that number for all the yeares from the death of Eli â— to the beginning of David are but 40 years God meant them a Kingdome in himselfe promised them a kingdome in Iudah made Laws for their kingdome in Deuteronomy made way for the kingdome in Samuel and why then was God displeased with their petition for a Kingdome It was a greater fault in them then it could have been in any other people to ask a King not that it was not the most desirable form of government but that God governed them so immediately so presentially himselfe as that it was an ingratefull intemperance in them to turn upon any other meanes God had ever performed that which he promised them in that which comprehended all Ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people And therefore Iosephus hath expressed it well All other people are under the forme of Democratiâ— or Aristocratiâ— or such other formes composed of men Sed noster Legislator Theocratiam instituit The Jews were onely under a Theocratiâ— an immediate government of God he judged them himselfe and hee himselfe fought their battels And therefore God says to Samuel They have not rejected thee Thou wast not King But they have rejected mee I was To bee weary of God is it enough to call it a levity But if they did onely compare forme with forme and not God himselfe with any forme if they did onely thinke Monarchy best and beleeve that God intended a Monarchy to them yet yet to limit God his time and to make God performe his promise before his day was a fault and inexcusable Daniel saw that the Messiah should come within seventy weekes Daniel did not say Lord let it bee within fifty weekes or let it bee this weeke The Martyrs under the Altar cry Vsqueque Domine How long Lord but then they leave it there Even as long as pleaseth thee Their petition should have been Adveniat regnum â—wordsâ— Let us have that Kingdome which because thou knowest it is good for us thou hast promised to us But yet Fiat voluntas tua Let us have it then when thy Wisdome sees it best for us You said to mee says Samuel by way of Reproofe and Increpation You said Nay but a King shall reigne over us Now that was not their fault but that which followes The unseasonablesse and inconsideration of their clamorous Petition You said a King shall reigne over us when the Lord your God was your King They would not trust Gods meanes there was their first fault And then though they desired a thing good in it selfe and a good intended to them yet they fixed God his time and they would not stay his leisure And either of these To aske other things then
scandall which Christ found in these Disciples of Iohn and which wee have noted in their progeny and off-spring but goe on to the fourth The way that Christ took to devest them thereof by calling them to the contemplation of his works Consider what you have seen done The blinde see The lame goe The deafe hear and then you will not endanger your blessednesse by being offended in me The evidence that Christ produces and presses is good works for if a man offer me the roote of a tree to taste I cannot say this is such a Pear or Apple or Plum but if I see the fruit I can If a man pretend Faith to me I must say to him with Saint Iames Can his Faith save him such a Faith as that the Apostle declares himself to mean A dead Faith as all Faith is that is inoperative and workes not But if I see his workes I proceed the right way in Judicature I judge secundum allegata probata according to my evidence And if any man will say those workes may be hypocriticall I may say of any witnesse He may be perjured but as long as I have no particular cause to think so it is good evidence to me as to hear that mans Oath so to see this mans workes Cum in Coelis sedentem in Crucem agere non possum Though I cannot crucifie Christ being now set at the right hand of his Father in Heaven yet there is Odium impietatis saith that Father A crucifying by ungodlinesse An ungodly life in them that professe Christ is a daily crucifying of Christ. Therefore here Christ refers to good works And there is more in this then so It is not onely good works but good works in the highest proportion The best works that he that doth them can doe Therefore in his own case he appeals to Miracles For if fasting were all or wearing of Camells haire all or to have done some good to some men by Baptizing them were all these Disciples and their Master might have had as much to plead as Christ. Therefore he calls them to the consideration of works of a higher nature of Miracles for God never subscribes nor testifies a forged Deed God never seals a falshood with a Miracle Therefore when the Jewes say of Christ He hath a Devill and is mad why heare ye him some of the other Jewes said These are not the words of one that hath a Devil But though by that it appear that some evidence some argument may be raised in a mans behalfe from his words from that he saith from his Preaching yet Christs friends who spoke in his favour doe not rest in that That those are not the words of one that hath a Devill but proceed to that Can the Devill open the eyes of the blinde He doth more then the Devill can doe They appeal to his works to his good workes to his great works to his Miracles But doth he put us to doe miracles no Though in truth those sumptuous and magnificent buildings and endowments which some have given for the sustentation of the poore are almost Miracles half Miracles in respect of those penurious proportions that Myut and Cumin and those half-ounces of broken bread which some as rich as they have dropped and crumbled out Truely he that doth as much as he can is almost a Miracle And when Christ appeals to his Miracles he calls us therein to the best works we can doe God will be loved with the whole heart and God will have that love declared with our whole substance I must not thinke I have done enough if I have built an Almes-house As long as I am able to doe more I have done nothing This Christ intimates in producing his greatest works Miracles which Miracles he closeth up with that as with the greatest Pauperes evangelizantur The poore have the Gospell preached unto them In this our Blessed Saviour doth not onely give an instruction to Iohns Disciples but therein also derives and conveyes a precept upon us upon us who as we have received mercy have received the Ministery and indeed upon all you whom he hath made Regale Sacerdotium A royall Priesthood and Reges Sacerdotes Kings and Priests unto your God and bound you therby as well as us to preach the Gospell to the poore you by an exemplar life and a Catechizing conversation as well as us by our words and meditations Now beloved there are Poore that are literally poore poore in estate and fortune and poore that are naturally poore poore in capacity and understanding and poore that are spiritually poore dejected in spirit and insensible of the comforts which the Holy Ghost offers unto them and to all these poore are we all bound to preach the Gospell First then for them which are literally poore poore in estate how much doe they want of this means of salvation Preaching which the rich have They cannot maintain Chaplains in their houses They cannot forbear the necessary labours of their calling to hear extraordinary Sermons They cannot have seats in Churches whensoever they come They must stay they must stand they must thrust they must overcome that difficulty which Saint Augustine makes an impossibility that is for any man to receive benefit by that Sermon that he hears with pain They must take pains to hear To these poore therefore the Lord and his Spirit hath sent me to preach the Gospell That Gospell The Lord knoweth thy povertie but thou art rich That Gospell Be content with such things as thou hast for the Lord hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee And that Gospell God hath chosen the poore of this world rich in faith heires of that Kingdome which he hath promised to them that love him And this is the Gospell of those poore literally poore poore in estate To those that are naturally poore poore in understanding the Lord and his Spirit hath sent me to preach the Gospell too That Gospell If any man lacke wisedome let him aske it of God Solomon himselfe had none till he asked it there And that Gospell where Iohn went bitterly because there was a Booke preseated but no man could open it It were a sad consideration if now when the Booke of God the Scripture is afforded to us we could not open that Booke not understand those Scriptures But there is the Gospell of those poore That Lambe which is spoken of there That Lambe which in the same place is called a Lion too That Lambe-Lion hath opened the Booke for us The humility of the Lambe gathereth the strength of the Lion come humbly to the reading and hearing of the Scriptures and thou shalt have strength of understanding The Scriptures were not written for a few nor are to be reserved for a few All they that were present at this LambLions opening of the Book that is All they that come with modesty and humility
invested in the light of joy and my body in the light of glory How glorious is God as he looks down upon us through the Sunne How glorious in that glasse of his How glorious is God as he looks out amongst us through the king How glorious in that Image of his How glorious is God as he calls up our eyes to him in the beauty and splendor and service of the Church How glorious in that spoufe of his But how glorious shall I conceive this light to be cum sub loco viderim when I shall see it in his owne place In that Spheare which though a Spheare is a Center too In that place which though a place is all and every where I shall see it in the face of that God who is all face all manifestration all all Innotescence to me for facies Deiest qua Deus nobis innotescit that 's Gods face to us by which God manifests himselfe to us I shall see this light in his face who is all face and yet all hand all application and communication and delivery of all himselfe to all his Saints This is Beatitudo in Auge blessednesse in the Meridionall height blessednesse in the South point in a perpetuall Sommer solstice beyond which nothing can be proposed to see God so Then There And yet the farmers of heaven and hell the merchants of soules the Romane Church make this blessednesse but an under degree but a kinde of apprentiship after they have beatified declared a man to be blessed in the fruition of God in heaven if that man in that inferiour state doe good service to that Church that they see much profit will rise by the devotion and concurrence of men to the worship of that person then they will proceed to a Canonization and so he that in his Novitiat and years of probation was but blessed Ignatius and blessed Xavier is lately become Saint Xavier aud Saint Ignatius And so they pervert the right order and method which is first to come to Sanctification and then to Beatification first to holinesse and then to blessednesse And in this method our blessed God bee pleased to proceed with us by the operation of his holy Spirit to bring us to Sanctification here and by the merits and intercession of his glorious Sonne to Beatification hereafter That so not being offended in him but resting in those meanes and seales of reconciliation which thou hast instituted in thy Church wee may have life and life more abundantly life of grace here and life of glory there in that kingdome which thy Sonne our Saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible bloud Amen SERMON XLV Preached at Saint Dunstans Aprill 11. 1624. The first sermon in that Church as Vicar thereof DEUT. 25. 5. If brethren dwell together and one of them die and have no Childe the Wife of the dead shall not mary without unto a stranger her husbands brother shall goe in unto her and take her to him to wife and performe the duty of an husbands brother unto her FRom the beginning God intimated a detestation a dislike of singularity of beeing Alone The first time that God himselfe is named in the Bible in the first verse of Genesis hee is named plurally Creavit Dit Gods Gods in the plurall Created Heaven and Earth God which is but one would not appeare nor bee presented so alone but that hee would also manifest more persons As the Creator was not Singular so neither were the creatures First he created heaven and earth both together which were to be the generall parents and out of which were to bee produced all other creatures and then he made all those other creatures plurally too Male and female created hee them And when he came to make him for whose sake next to his own glory he made the whole world Adam he left not Adam alone but joyned an Eve to him Now when they were maried we know but wee know not when they were divorced we heare when Eve was made but not when shee dyed The husbands death is recorded at last the wives is not at all So much detestation hath God himselfe and so little memory would hee have kept of any singularity of being alone The union of Christ to the whole Church is not expressed by any metaphore by any figure so oft in the Scripture as by this of Mariageâ— and there is in that union with Christ to the whole Church neither husband nor wife can ever die Christ is immortall as hee is himselfe and immortall as hee is the head of the Church the Husband of that wife for that wife the Church is immortall too for as a Prince is the same Prince when he fights a battaile and when hee triumphs after the victory so the militant and the triumphant Church is the same Church There can bee no widower There can bee no Dowager in that case Hee cannot shee cannot die But then this Metaphore this spirituall Mariage holds not onely betweene Christ and the whole Church in which case thee can be no Widow but in the union between Christs particular Ministers and particular Churches and there in that case the husband of that wife may die The present Minister may die and so that Church be a Widow And in that case and for provision of such Widows wee consider the accommodation of this Law If brethren dwell together and one of them die and have no childe the wife of the dead shall not mary without unto a stranger c. This law was but a permissive law rather a dispensation then a law as the permitting of usury to bee taken of strangers and the permitting of divorces in so many cases were At most it was but a Iudiciall law and therefore layes no obligation upon any other nation then them to whom it was given the Iews And therefore wee enquire not the reasons of that law the reasons were determined in that people wee examine not the conveniences of the law the conveniences were determined in those times wee lay hold onely upon the Typique signification and appliablenesse of the law as that secular Mariage there spoken of may be appliable to this spirituall Mariage the Mariage of the Minister to the Church If brethren dwell together c. From these words then wee shall make our approaches and application to the present occasion by these steps First there is a mariage in the case The taking and leaving of a Church is not an indifferent an arbitrary thing It is a Mariage and Mariage implies Honour It is an honourable estate and that implies charge it is a burdensome state There is Honos and Onus Honour and labour in Mariage You must bee content to afford the honour wee must bee content to endure the labour And so in that point as our Incumbencie upon a Church is our Mariage to that Church wee shall as farre as the occasion admits see
a widow Nubat in Domino saith the Apostle In Gods name let her marry But the former husband must be dead The husbands absence makes not the wife a widow nor doth the necessary and lawfull absence of the Pastor make the Church vacant The sicknesse of the husband makes not a widow The bodily weaknesse nay the spirituall weaknes of the Pastor in case that his parts and abilities and faculties be grown but weak do not make his Church vacant If the Pastor be suspended or otherwise censured this is but as a separation or as a divorce and as the wife is not a widow upon a divorce so neither is the Church vacant upon such censures And therefore for them that take advantages upon the weaknesses or upon the disgrace or upon the povertie of any such incumbent and so insinuate themselves into his Church this is intrusion this is spirituall adultery for the husband is not dead though he be sick Nay if they would remove him by way of preferment yet that is a supplantation when Iacob had Esau by the heel whether he kept him in till he might be strong enough to goe out before him or whether he pushed him out before he would have gone Iacob was a supplanter Some few cases are put when a wife becomes as a widow her husband living but regularly it is by death In some few cases Churches may otherwise be vacant but regularly it is by death And then Esto vidua in Domâ— Patris saith Iudah to Thamar Remain a widow at thy fathers house Then the Church remaineth in the house in the hands of her Father the Bishop of that Diâ—ces till a new husband be lawfully tendred unto her And till that time as our Saviour Christ recommended his most blessed Mother to Saint Iohn but not as a wife so that Bishop delivers that Church to the care and administration of some other during her widowhood till by due course she become the wife of another Thus our calling is a mariage It should have honour It must have labour and it is a lawfull mariage upon a just and equitable vacancy of the place without any supplantation upon death And then it is upon death of a brother If brethren dwell together and one of them die and have no childe the wife c. Aswell Saint Gregory as Saint Augustine before interpret this of our elder our eldest brother Christ Iesus That hee being dead we mary his wife the Church and become husbands to her But Christ in that capacity as he is head of the Church cannot die That to which the application of this law leads us is That predecessor and successor bee brethren of the same faith and the same profession of faith The Sadduces put a case to Christ of a woman maried successively to seven men let seven signifie infinite still those seven were brethren How often soever any wife change her husband any Church her Pastor God sends us still a succession of brethren sincere and unfeigned Preachers of the same truth sonnes of the same father Who is that father God is our Father Have we not all one Father says the Prophet Yes we have and so a worme and we are brethren by the same father and mother the same God the same Earth Hath not the raine a father The raine hath and the same that wee have More narrowly and yet very largely Christ is our father One of his names is The everlasting Father And then after these after God after Christ the King is our father See my father the skirt of thy robe in my hand says David to his King Saul Now if any husband should be offered to any widow any Pastor to any vacant Church who were not our brother by all these fathers in a right beliefe in God the Father of all men in a right profession of Christ Iesus the Father of all Christians in a right affection and allegiance to the King the Father of all Subjects Any that should incline to a forain father an imaginary universall father he of whom his Vice-fathers his Junior fathers the Iesuites for all the Jesuits are Fathers says That the Fathers of the Church are but sons and not fathers to him They that say to a stock to the Image of the beast Thou art my father who not in a sense of humiliation as Iob speaks the words but of pride say to corruption Thou art my father that is that prostrate themselves to all the corruptions of a prostitute Church If any so inclined of himself or so inclinable if occasion should invite him or rather tempt him be offered for husband to any widow for a Pastor to any vacant Church he is not within the accommodation of this law hee is not our brother by the whole bloud who hath not a brotherhood rooted in the same religion and in the allegiance to the same Soveraign He must be a brother and Frater Cohabitans a brother dwelling with the former brother As he is a brother we consider the unity of faith As he dwels in the same house we consider the unity of discipline That as he beleeves and professes the same articles of faith so by his own obedience and by his instructing of others hee establish the same government A Schismatique is no more a brother to this purpose then an Heretique If we look well we shall see that Christ provided better for his garments then for his flesh he suffered his flesh to be torn but not his seamlesse garment There may bee in many cases more mischief in disobeying the uniformity of the discipline of the Church then in mistaking in opinion some doctrine of the Church Wee see in Gods institution of his first Church whom he called brethren Those who were instructed and cunning in the songs of the Church they are called brethren To oppose the orders of the Church solemnly ordained or customarily admitted for the advancement of Gods glory and the devotion of the Congregation forfeits this brotherhood or at least discontinues the purpose and use of it for howsoever they may bee in a kinde brothers if they succeed in the profession of the same faith yet wee see where the blessednesse is settled Blessed are they that dwell in thy house And we see where the goodnesse and the pleasantnesse is settled Behold how good and how pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity So that if they be not brothers in the same faith and brothers in the same houshold of the faithfull and brothers in the same allegiance If they advance not the truth of the Church and the peace of the Church and the head of the Church fomentors of Error and of Schisme and Sedition are not husbands for these widows Pastors for these Churches Hee must bee a brother A brother dwelling in the same house of Christ and then brother to one
dead without children as Tertullian expresses it in his particular elegancy Illiberis that is content to be his brother in that sense in that capacity to claime no children no spirituall children of his own begetting not to attribute to himself that holy generation of the Saints of God as though his learning or his wit or his labour had saved them but to content himselfe to have been the foster father and to have nursed those children whom the Spirit of God by over-shadowing the Church hath begot upon her for though it be with the word of truth in our preaching yet of his own will begot he us though by the word says the Apostle Saint Paul might say to the Corinthians Though you have tenne thousand instructors in Christ yet have yee not many fathers for in Christ Iesus I have begotten you through the Gospel And hee might say of his spirituall sonne Onesimus That he begot him in his bonds Those to whom he first of any presented the Gospel That had not heard of a Christ nor a holy Ghost before They into whom he infused a new religion new to them might well enough bee called his children and hee their father But we have no new doctrine to present no new opinion to infuse or miracles to amaze as in the Romane Church they are full of all these wee have no children to beget of our own Paul was not crucified for you nor were you baptized in the name of Paul sayes Paul himself as he sayes again who is Paul but a Minister by whom ye beleeved and that also not by him but as the Lord gave to every man Not as Paul preached to every man for he preached alike to every man but as the Lord gave to every man I have planted says he it is true but he that planteth is nothing says he also Only they that proceed as they proceed in the Romane Church Ex opere operato to tye the grace of God to the action of the man will venter to call Gods children their children in that sense My prayer shal be against that commination That God will not give us a miscarrying womb nor dry breasts that you may always suck pure milk from us and then not cast it up but digest it to your spirituall growth And I shall call upon God with a holy passion as vehement as Rachels to Iacob Da mihi liberos give me children or I die That God would give me children but his children that he by his Spirit may give you an inward regeneration as I by his ordinance shall present to you the outward means that so being begot by himselfe the father of life and of light you may be nursed and brought up in his service by me That so not attributing the work to any man but to Gods Ordinances you doe not tye the power of God nor the breath of life to any one mans lips as though there were no regeneration no begetting but by him but acknowledging the other to be but an instrument and the weakest to be that you may remember also That though a man can cut deeper with an Axe then with a knife with a heavy then with a lighter instrument yet God can pierce as far into a conscience by a plain as by an exquisite speaker Now this widow being thus maried This Church thus undertaken He must perform the duty of a husbands brother First it is a personall office he must doe it himself When Christ shall say at the Judgement I was naked and ye cloathed me not sick and ye visited me not it shall be no excuse to say When saw we thee naked when saw we thee sick for wee might have seen it wee should have seen it When we shall come to our accompt and see them whose salvation was committed to us perish because they were uninstructed and ignorant dare we say then we never saw them show their ignorance wee never heard of it That is the greatest part of our fault the heaviest weight upon our condemnation that we saw so little heard so little conversed so little amongst them because we were made watchmen and bound to see and bound to hear and bound to be heard not by others but by our selves My sheep may be saved by others but I save them not that are save so nor shall I my self be saved by their labour where mine was necessarily required The office is personall I must doe it and it is perpetuall I must perform it sayes the text goe through with it Lots wife looked backe and God never gave her leave to look forward again That man who hath put his hand to the plow and looks back Christ disables him for the kingdome of God The Galatians who had begun in the spirit and then relapsed before whose eyes Christ Iesus had been evidently set forth as the Apostle speaks fall under that reproach of the Apostle to bee called and called againe fooles and men bewitched If I beginne to preach amongst you and proceed not I shall fall under that heavy increpation from my God you beganne that you might for your owne glory shew that you were in some measure able to serve the Church and when you had done enough for your own glory you gave over my glory and the salvation of their souls to whom I sent you God hath set our eyes in our foreheads to look forward not backward not to be proud of that which we have done but diligent in that which we are to doe In the Creation if God had given over his worke the third or fift day where had man been If I give over my prayers due to the Church of God as long as God enables me to doe it service I lose my thanks nay I lose the testimony of mine own conscience for all My office is personall and it is perpetuall and then it is a duty He must perform the duty of a husbands brother unto her It is not of curtesie that we preach but it is a duty it is not a bounty given but it is a debt paid for though I preach the Gospel I have nothing to glory of for a necessity is laid upon me sayes Saint Paul himself It is true that as there is Vae si non Wo be unto mee if I doe not preach the Gospel so there is an Euge bone serve Well done good and faithfull servant to them that doe But the Vae is of Iustice the Euge is of Mercy If doe it not I deserve condemnation from God but if I doe it I deserve not thanks from him Nay it is a debt not onely to God but to Gods people to you and indeed there is more due to you then you can claime or can take knowledge of For the people can claime but according to the laws of that State and the Canons of that Church in which God hath placed them such preaching as those Laws and
to Damnation by being conceived in sinne as the eldest man nay he is as old a Sinner as the eldest man that is nay as the eldest man that ever was for he sinn'd in Adam and though conceived but this night sinn'd 6000 yeares agoe In young Men vanity begets excesse excesse licentiousnesse licentiousnesse envy hatred quarrels murders so that here is generation upon generation here are risen Grandfather and Great-grandfather-sinnes quickly a forward generation And then they grow suddainly to be habits and they come to prescribe in us Prescription is when there is no memory to the contrary and we cannot remember when that sinfull custome begun in us yea our sinnes come to be reverenced in us and by us our sinnes contract a majestie and a state and they grow sacred to us we dare not trouble a sinne we dare not displace it nor displease it we dare not dispute the prerogative of our sinne but we come to thinke it a kinde of sedition a kinde of innovation and a troubling of the state if we begin to question our Conscience or change that security of sinne which we sleepe in and we thinke it an easier Reformation to repent a sinne once a yeare at Easter when we must needs Receive then to watch a sinne every Day There is scarce any sinne but that in that place of the Apostle to the Galatians it comes within the name of workes of the flesh for though he names divers sinnes which are litterally and properly workes of the flesh as Adultery fornication uncleannesse wantonnesse yet those sinnes that are against a mans owne selfe as Gluttony and Drunkennesse those that are against other men as Contentions and Murders those that are directed upon new Gods as Idolatry those that are Contracts with the Devil as Witchcraft those that are offences to the Church as Heresy are all called by Saint Paul in that place workes of the flesh So that the object of this Spirituall Circumcision is all that concernes the flesh the world the Devil or God or man or the Church in every one of these we may finde somewhat to circumcise But because abundance and superfluity begets these workes of the flesh for though vve carry the Serpent about us yet he does not sting nor hisse till he be warme As long as poverty and vvretchednesse freezes our Concupiscences they are not so violent therefore spirituall Circumcision is vvell expressed by Saint Bernard Moralis Circumcisio est victum vestitum habentem esse contentum A cutting off of these superfluities is this morall that is this spirituall Circumcision Novv for some understanding of these superfluities vve must consider that sometimes a poore man that hath no superfluity in his estate is yet vvastfull in his minde and puts himselfe to superfluous expences in his diet in his apparell and in all things of outvvard shevv and ostentation And on the other side a covetous man that hath a superfluous estate yet starves him selfe and denies himselfe all conveniences for this life Here 's a superfluous confidence in the one that he cannot vvant though he throvv avvay money and here 's a superfluous feare in the other that he shall vvant if he give himselfe bread and here 's vvorke for this spirituall Circumcision on both sides But then the Circumcision is not necessarily to be applied to the riches of the rich man so as that every rich man must necessarily cast away his riches a Godly man may be rich nor necessarily applied so to all outward expences of the free and liberall minded man as that he should shut up dores and weare ragges for a Godly man may fare in his diet and appeare in his garments according to that Degree which he holds in that state But the superfluity is and consequently the Circumcision is to be in the Affection in our Confidence that whatsoever we wast by one meanes or other we shall have more or in our diffidence that if we lay not up all we shall never have enough These be the inordinate affections that must be Circumcised But how for that 's intended in this part We need enquire no farther for the meanes of this spirituall Circumcision then to the very word which the Holy Ghost hath chosen for Circumcision here which is Mul and Namal for that word hath in other places of Scripture three significations that expresse much of the manner how this Circumcision is to be wrought It signifies Purgare to purge to discharge the Conscience and that is by Confession of our sinnes It signifies Mundare to cleanse and purify the Conscience and that is by Contrition and Detestation of that sinne And it signifies Succidere to cut downe to weed and root out whatsoever remaines in our possession that is unjustly got and that is by Destitution Now for the first of these the purging the proper use and working of purging Physick is not that that Medicine pierces into those parts of the Body where the peccant humour lies and from which parts Nature of her selfe is not able to expell it the substance of the Medicine does not goe thither but the Physick lies still and draws those peccant humours together and being then so come to an unsupportable Masse and burden Nature her selfe and their owne waight expels them out Now that which Nature does in a naturall body Grace does in a regenerate soule for Grace is the nature and the life of a regenerate man As therefore the bodily Physick goes not to that part of the body that is affected we must not stay till out Spirituall Physick the Iudgements of God worke upon that particular sinne that transports us That God should weaken me with a violent sicknesse before I will purge my selfe of my licentiousnesse Or strike me with poverty and losse of my stocke before I will purge my selfe of my usury or lay me flat with disgraces and dis-favours of great Persons before I will purge my selfe of my Ambition or evict my land from me by some false title that God in his just Judgement may give way to to punish my sinnes before I will purge my selfe of my oppression and racking of Tenants But before these violent Medicines come if thou canst take Gods ordinary Physick administred in the Word and Sacraments if thou canst but endure that qualme of calling thy selfe to an account and an examination if thou canst draw all thy sinnes together and present them to thine owne Conscience then their owne waight will finde a vent and thou wilt utter them in a full and free Confession to thy God and that is Circumcision as Circumcision consists in the purging of the Conscience to be mov'd upon hearing the Word preached and the denouncing of his Iudgements in his Ordinance before those Judgements surprize thee to recollect thy sinnes in thine owne memory and poure them out in a true Confession The next step in this Circumcision as they are intimated in that word which the Holy
gate into Heaven in thy selfe If thou beest not sensible of others mens poverties and distresses yet Miserere animae tuae have mercy on thine own soule thou hast a poor guest an Inmate a sojourner within these mudwals this corrupt body of thine be mercifull and compassionate to that Soule cloath that Soul which is stripp'd and left naked of all her originall righteousnesse feed that Soule which thou hast starv'd purge that Soule which thou hast infected warm and thaw that Soul which thou hast frozen with indevotion coole and quench that Soul which thou hast inflamed with licentiousness Miserere animae tuae begin with thine own Soule be charitable to thy self first and thou wilt remember that God hath made of one bloud all Mankind and thou wilt find out thy selfe in every other poor Man and thou wilt find Christ Jesus himselfe in them all Now of those divers gates which God opens in this life those divers exercises of charity the particular which we are occasion'd to speak of here is not the cloathing nor feeding of Christ but the housing of him The providing Christ a house a dwelling whether this were the very place where Solomons Temple was after built is perplexedly and perchance impertinently controverted by many but howsoever here was the house of God and here was the gate of Heaven It is true God may be devoutly worshipped any where In omni loco dominationis ejus benedic anima mea Domino In all places of his dominion my Soule shall praise the Lord sayes David It is not only a concurring of men a meeting of so many bodies that makes a Church If thy soule and body be met together an humble preparation of the mind and a reverent disposition of the body if thy knees be bent to the earth thy hands and eyes lifted up to heaven if thy tongue pray and praise and thine ears hearken to his answer if all thy senses and powers and faculties be met with one unanime purpose to worship thy God thou art to this intendment a Church thou art a Congregation here are two or three met together in his name and he is in the midst of them though thou be alone in thy chamber The Church of God should be built upon a Rock and yet Iob had his Church upon a Dunghill The bed is a scene and an embleme of wantonnesse and yet Hezekiah had his Church in his Bed The Church is to be placed upon the top of a Hill and yet the Prophet Ieremy had his Church in Luto in a miry Dungeon Constancy and setlednesse belongs to the Church and yet Ionah had his Church in the Whales belly The Lyon that roares and seeks whom he may devour is an enemy to this Church and yet Daniel had his Church in the Lions den Aquae quietudinum the waters of rest in the Psalme were a figure of the Church and yet the three children had their Church in the fiery furnace Liberty life appertaine to the Church and yet Peter Paul had their Church in prison and the thiefe had his Church upon the Crosse. Every particular man is himselfe Templum Spiritus sancti a Temple of the holy Ghost yea Solvite templum hoc destroy this body by death and corruption in the grave yet there shall be Festum encaeniorum a renuing a reedifying of all those Temples in the generall Resurrection when we shall rise againe not onely as so many Christians but as so many Christian Churches to glorifie the Apostle and High-priest of our profession Christ Jesus in that eternall Sabbath In omni loco domiâ—ationis ejus Every person every place is fit to glorifie God in God is not tyed to any place not by essence Implet continendo implet God fills every place and fills it by containing that place in himselfe but he is tyed by his promise to a manifestation of himselfe by working in some certain places Though God were long before he required or admitted a sumptuous Temple for Solomons Temple was not built in almost five hundred years after their returne out of Egypt though God were content to accept their worship and their sacrifices at the Tabernacle which was a transitory and moveable Temple yet at last he was so carefull of his house as that himselfe gave the modell and platforme of it and when it was built and after repaired again he was so jealous of appropriating and confining all his solemne worship to that particular place as that he permitted that long schisme and dissention between the Samaritans and the Iews onely about the place of the worship of God They differed not in other things but whether in Mount Sion or in Mount Garizim And the feast of the dedication of this Temple which was yearly celebrated received so much honor as that Christ himselfe vouchsafed to be personally present at that solemnity though it were a feast of the institution of the Church and not of God immediatly as their other festivalls were yet Christ forbore not to observe it upon that pretence that it was but the Church that had appointed it to be observed So that as in all times God had manifested and exhibited himselfe in some particular places more then other in the Pillar in the wildernesse and in the Tabernacle and in the poole which the Angell troubled so did Christ himselfe by his owne presence ceremoniously justifie and authorise this dedication of places consecrated to Gods outward worship not onely once but anniversarily by a yearly celebration thereof To descend from this great Temple at Jerusalem to which God had annexed his solemne and publique worship the lesser Synagogues and Chappell 's of the Iews in other places were ever esteemed great testimonies of the sanctity and piety of the founders for Christ accepts of that reason which was presented to him in the behalfe of the Centurion He is worthy that thou shouldst do this for him for he loveth our Nation And how hath he testified it He hath built us a Synagogue He was but a stranger to them and yet he furthered and advanced the service of God amongst them of whose body he was no member This was that Centurions commendation Et quanto commedatior qui adificat Ecclesiam How much more commendation deserve they that build a Church for Christian service And therefore the first Christians made so much haste to the expressing of their devotion that even in the Apostles time for all their poverty and persecution they were come to have Churches as most of the Fathers and some of our later Expositors understand these words Have ye not houses to eate and drinke or doe ye despise the Church of God to be spoken not of the Church as it is a Congregation but of the Church as it is a Material building Yea if we may beleeve some authors that are pretended to be very ancient there was one Church dedicated to the memory