Evangelists that that voice added Hear him for after that Declaration that he who was visibly and personally come amongst them was the Sonne of God there was no reason to doubt of mens willingnesse to hear him who went forth in person to preach unto them in this world As long as he was to stay with them it was not likely that they should need provocation to hear him therefore that was not added at his Baptisme and entrance into his personall ministery But when Christ came to his Transfiguration which was a manifestation of his glory in the next world and an intimation of the approaching of the time of his going away to the possession of that glory out of this world there that voyce from heaven sayes This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased heare him When he was gone out of this world men needed a more particular solicitation to heare him for how and where and in whom should they heare him when he was gone In the Church for the same testimony that God gave of Christ to authorize and justifie his preaching hath Christ given of the Church to justifie her power The holy Ghost fell upon Christ at his Baptism and the holy Ghost fell upon the Apostles who were the representative Church at Whitsontide The holy Ghost tarried upon Christ then and the holy Ghost shall tarry with the Church usque ad consummationem till the end of the world And therefore as we have that institution from Christ Dic Ecclesiae when men are refractary and perverse to complaine to the Church so have they who are complained of to the Church that institution from Christ also Audi Ecclesiam Hearken to the voyce of God in the Church and they have from him that commination If you disobey them you disobey God in what fetters soever they binde you you shall rise bound in those fetters and as he who is excommunicated in one Diocese should not be received in another so let no man presume of a better state in the Triumphant Church then he holds in the Militant or hope for communion there that despises excommunication here That which the Scripture says God sayes says St. Augustine for the Scripture is his word and that which the Church says the Scriptures say for she is their word they speak in her they authorize her and she explicates them The Spirit of God inanimates the Scriptures and makes them his Scriptures the Church actuates the Scriptures and makes them our Scriptures Nihil salubrius says the same Father There is not so wholsome a thing no soule can live in so good an aire and in so good a diet Quà m ut Rationem praecedat authoritas Then still to submit a mans owne particular reason to the authority of the Church expressed in the Scriptures For certainly it is very truly as it is very usefully said by Calvin Semper nimia morositas est ambitiosa A frowardnesse and an aptnesse to quarrell at the proceedings of the Church and to be delivered from the obligations and constitutions of the Church is ever accompanied with an ambitious pride that they might enjoy a licentious liberty It is not because the Church doth truly take too much power but because they would be under none it is an ambition to have all government in their own hands and to be absolute Emperors of themselves that makes them refractary But if they will pretend to believe in God they must believe in God so as God hath manifested himself to them they must believe in Christ so if they will pretend to heare Christ they must heare him there where he hath promised to speake they must heare him in the Church The first reason then in this Trinity the person that directs is the Church the Trumpet in which God sounds his Iudgements and the Organ in which he delivers his mercy And then the persons of the second place the persons to whom the Church speakes here are Filiae Sion The daughters of Sion her owne daughters We are not called Filii Ecclesiae sonnes of the Church The name of sonnes may imply more virility more manhood more sense of our owne strength then becomes them who professe an obedience to the Church Therefore as by a name importing more facility more supplenesse more application more tractablenesse she calls her children Daughters But then being a mother and having the dignity of a Parent upon her she does not proceed supplicatorily she does not pray them nor intreat them she does not say I would you would go forth and I would you would looke out but it is Egredimini videte imperatively authoritatively Do it you must do it So that she showes what in important and necessary cases the power of the Church is though her ordinary proceedings by us and our Ministery be To pray you in Christs stead to be reconciled to God In your baptisme your soules became daughters of the Church and they must continue so as long as they continue in you you cannot devest your allegiance to the Church though you would no more then you can to the State to whom you cannot say ◠will be no subject A father may dis-inherit his son upon reasons but even that dis-inherited childe cannot renounce his father That Church which conceived thee in the Covenant of God made to Christians and their seed and brought thee forth in baptisme and brought thee up in catechizing and preaching may yet for thy misdemeanor to God in her separate thee à Mensa Toro from bed and board from that sanctuary of the soule the Communion Table and from that Sanctuary of the body Christian buriall and even that Christian buriall gives a man a good rise a good helpe a good advantage even at the last resurrection to be laid down in expectation of the Resurrection in holy ground and in a place accustomed to Gods presence and to have been found worthy of that Communion of Saints in the very body is some earnest and some kinde of first-fruits of the joyfull resurrection which we attend God can call our dead bodies from the sea and from the fire and from the ayre for every element is his but consecrated ground is our element And therefore you daughters of Sion holy and religious souls for to them onely this indulgent mother speaks here hearken ever to her voice quarrell not your mothers honor nor her discretion Despise not her person nor her apparell Doe not say she is not the same woman she was heretofore nor that she is not so well dressed as she was then Dispute not her Doctrine Despise not her Discipline that as you sucked her breasts in your Baptism in the other Sacrament when you entred and whilst you stayd in this life so you may lie in her bosome when you goe out of it Hear her a good part of that which you are to hear from her is envolv'd inwrapped in that w ch we have propos'd
there is but one place of this booke of Iob cited at all To the Corinthians the Apostle makes use of those words in Iob God taketh the wise in their owne craft And more then this one place is not I thinke cited out of this booke of Iob in the new Testament But the authority of Iob is established in another place you have heard of the patience of Iob and you have seen the end of the Lord says Saint Iames. As you have seen this so you have heard that seen and heard one way out of the Scripture you have hard that out of the booke of Iob you have seen this out of the Gospell And further then this there is no naming of Iobs person or his booke in the new Testament Saint Hierome confesses that both the Greeke and Latine Copies of this booke were so defective in his time that seven or eight hundred verses of the originall were wanting in the booke And for the originall it selfe he says Obliquus totus liber fertur lubricus it is an uncertaine and slippery book But this is onely for the sense of some places of the book And that made the authority of this book to be longer suspended in the Church and oftner called into question by particular men then any other book of the Bible But in those who have for many ages received this book for Canonicall there is an unanime acknowledgement at least tacitely that this peece of it this text When after my skin wormes shall destroy my body yet in my flesh I shall see God does establish the Resurrection Divide the expositors into three branches for so the world will needs divide them The first the Roman Church will call theirs though they have no other title to them but that they received the same translation that they doe And all they use this text for the resurrection Verba viri in gentilitate positi erubescamus It is a shame for us who have the word of God it selfe which Iob had not and have had such a commentary such an exposition upon al the former word of God as the reall and actuall and visible resurrection of Christ himselfe Erubescamus verba viri in gentilitate positi let us be ashamed and confounded if Iob a person that lived not within the light of the covenant saw the resurrection more clearly and professed it more constantly then we doe And as this Gregory of Rome so Gregory Nyssen understood Iob too For he considers Iobs case thus God promised Iob twofold of all that he had lost And in his sheep and camels and oxen and asses which were utterly destroyed and brought to nothing God performes it punctually he had all in a double proportion But Iob had seven sonnes and three daughters before and God gives him but seven sonnes and three daughters againe And yet Iob had twofold of these too for Postnati cum prioribus numerantur quia omnes deo vivunt Those which were gone and those which were new given lived all one life because they lived all in God Necquicquam aliud est mors nisi viti ositatis expiatio Death is nothing else but a devesting of those defects which made us lesse fit for God And therefore agreeably to this purpose says Saint Cyprian Scimus non amitti sed praemitti thy dead are not lost but lent Non recedere sed praecedere They are not gone into any other wombe then we shall follow them into nec acquirendae atrae vestes pro iis qui albis induuntur neither should we put on blacks for them that are clothed in white nor mourne for them that are entred into their Masters joy We can enlarge our selfes no farther in this consideration of the first branch of expositors but that all the ancients tooke occasion from this text to argue for the resurrection Take into your Consideration the other two branches of moderne expositors whom others sometimes contumeliously and themselves sometimes perversly have call'd Lutherans and Calvinists and you may know that in the first ranke Osiander and with him all his interpret these words so And in the other ranke Tremellius and Pellicanus heretofore Polanus lately and Piscator for the present All these and all the Translators into the vulgar tongues of all our neighbours of Europe do all establish the doctrine of the Resurrection by these words this place of Iob. And therefore though one and truly for any thing I know but one though one to whom we all owe much for the interpretation of the Scriptures do think that Iob intends no other resurrection in this place but that when he shall be reduc'd to the miserablest estate that can bee in this life still he will look upon God and trust in him for his restitution and reparation in this life let us with the whole Christian Church embrace and magnifie this Holy and Heroicall Spirit of Iob Scio says he I know it which is more in him then the Credo is in us more to know it then in that state then to believe it now after it hath been so evidently declar'd not onely to be a certain truth but to be an article of faith Scio Redemptorem says he I know not onely a Creator but a Redeemer And Redemptorem meum My Redeemer which implies a confidence and a personall application of that Redemption to himself Scio vivere says he I know that he lives I know that hee begunne not in his Incarnation I know he ended not in his death but it always was and is now and shall for ever be true Vivit that he lives still And then Scio venturum says he too I know hee shall stand at the last day to Judge me and all the world And after that and after my skinne and body is destroyed by worms yet in my flesh I shall see God And so have you as much as we proposed for our first part That the Jews do now that they always did believe a Resurrection That as naturall men and by naturall reason they might know it both in the possibility of the thing and in the purpose of God that they had better helpes then naturall reason for they had divers places of their Scripture and that this place of Scripture which is our text hath evermore been received for a proof of the Resurrection Proceed we now to those particulars which constitute our second part such instructions concerning the Resurrection as arise out of these words Though after my skinne worms destroy my body yet in my flesh I shall see God In this second part the first thing that was propos'd was That the Saints of God are not priviledg'd from this which fell upon Iob This Death this dissolution after death Upon the Morte morieris that double death interminated by God upon Adam there is a Non obstante Revertere turn to God and thou shalt not dy the death not the second
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