Reformation by way of example though not by Doctrine have so much prevailed upon them as that they have now twenty Sermons in that Church for one that they had before Luther yet if a man could heare six Sermons a day all the days of his life he might die without having heard all the Scriptures explicated in Sermons But when men have a Christian liberty afforded to them to read the Scriptures at home and then are remembred of those things at Church and there taught to use that liberty modestly to establish their faith upon places of Scripture that are plain and to suspend their judgment upon obscurer places till they may by due meanes preaching or conference receive farther satisfaction therein from them who are thereunto authorized by God in his Church there certainly is this Rule of our Saviours Take heed what you hear preach all that you have received from me likelyer to be observed then there where the body of the conveyance the Scripture it self is locked up from us and the soule of the conveyance the sense and interpretation of the Scriptures is locked into one mans brest and the Great Seal of that conveyance the Sacrament of our Reconciliation is broken and mutilated and given us but by halfe But they do not onely stray on that hand in not giving all that the Scripture gives They doe not give the liberty of meates nor the liberty of mariage which the Scripture gives Nay they doe not give the liberty of trying whether the Scripture give it or no for they doe not give the liberty of reading the Scriptures But on the other hand they stray too and further That they deliver more then the Scriptures doe and make other Rules and Canons equall to Scriptures In which excesse they doe not onely make the Apocryphall Books Books that have alwaies had a favourable aspect and benigne countenance from the Church of God equall to Canonicall Scriptures But they make their decretall Epistles of their Popes and of their Extravagants as they call them and their occasionall Bulls nay their Bull-baitings their Buls fighting and crossing and contradicting one another equall to Canonicall Scripture So that these men have put the salvation of the world upon another science upon another profession It is not the Divine that is the Minister of salvation but the Canonist I must not determine my beleef in the Apostles Creed nor in Athanasius nor in that of the Nicen Fathers not onely not the Scriptures but not the Councels nor Fathers must give the Materials and Elements of my faith but the Canon law for so they rule it Gratian that hath collected the sentences of Fathers and Councels and digested them into heads of Divinity he is no rule of our beleef because say they he is no part of the body of the Canon law But they that first compiled the Decretals and the Extravagants and they who have since recompiled more Decretals and more Extravagants the Clementins and the Sextins and of late yeares the Septims with those of Iohn the 22. these make up the body of the Canon law and these must be our Rule what to beleeve How long Till they fall out with some State with whom they are friends yet or grown friends with some State that they are fallen out with now and then upon a new Decretall a new Extravagant I must contract a new or enlarge or restrain my old beleef Certainly as in naturall things the assiduity takes off the admiration The rising and the setting of the sunne would be a miracle to him that should see it but once and as in civill things the profusenesse and the communication and the indifferency takes off the Dignity for as gold is gold still the heaviest metall of all yet if it be beat into leaf gold I can blow it away so Honour is honour still the worthyest object of the worthyest spirits and the noblest reward of the greatest Princes yet the more have it the lesse every one hath of it So in the Roman Church they have not found a better way to justify their blasphemy of the insufficiency of the Scriptures then by making contemptible writings as sufficient as Scriptures equall to Scripture If they could make me beleeve the Scriptures were no more sufficient then their Decretals and Extravagants I should easily confesse there were no Scriptures sufficient for salvation And farther we presse not this evidence how farre they depart from this rule Take heed what you heare How much lesse and how much more then Christ gave they give but passe to the third acceptation of these words as in a fair accommodation they are spoken to you who are now as the Apostles were then Hearers Take heed what you heare And into this part I enter with such a protestation as perchance may not become me That this is the first time in all my life I date my life from my Ministery for I received mercy as I received the ministery as the Apostle speaks this is the first time that in the exercise of my Ministery I wished the King away That ever I had any kinde of loathnesse that the King should hear all that I sayd Here for a little while it will be a little otherwise because in this branch I am led to speak of some particular duties of subjects and in my poor way I have thought it somewhat an Eccentrique motion and off of the naturall Poles to speake of the Duties of subjects before the King or of the duties of Kings in publike and popular Congregations As every man is a world in himself so every man hath a Church in himself and as Christ referred the Church for hearing to the Scriptures so every man hath Scriptures in his own heart to hearken to Obedience to Superiours and charity to others are In-nate Scriptures Obedience and Charity are the Naturall mans the Civill mans the Morall mans Old and New Testament Take heed that is observe what you heare from them and they will direct you well And first Take heed what you heare is take heed that you hear That you do hearken to them whom you should hear Our Saviour saith He that is of God heareth his words ye therefore hear them not because you are not his Transferre this to a civill application to obedience to Superiors Christ makes account that he hath argued safely so If you heare him not you are none of his If you heare him not in his Lawes heare him not in his Proclamations heare him not in the Declarations of his wants and necessities you are none of his that is you had rather you were none of his There is a Nolumus hunc regnare smothered in our breasts if we will not hear and we had rather we might devest our Allegeance rather we might be no subjects By the Law he that was willing to continue in the service of his Master was willing to bee boared in the eare willing to testify a
that the Gospel of Saint Iohn containes all Divinity this Chapter all the Gospell and this Text all the Chapter Therefore it is too large to goe through at this time at this time we shall insist upon such branches as arise out of that consideration what and who this light is for we shall finde it to be both a personall light it is some body and otherwise too a reall light it is some thing therefore we inquire what this light is what thing and who this light is what person which Iohn Baptist is denied to be Hereafter we shall consider the Testimony which is given of this light in which part in due time we shall handle the person of the witnesse Iohn Baptist in whom we shall finde many considerable and extraordinary circumstances and then his Citation and calling to this testimony and thirdly the testimony it selfe that he gave and lastly why any testimony was requisite to so evident a thing as light But the first part who and what this light is belongs most properly to this day and will fill that portion of the day which is afforded us for this exercise Proceed we therefore to that Iohn Baptist was not that light who was what was Though most expositors as well ancient as modern agree with one generall and unanime consent that light in this verse is intended and meant of Christ Christ is this light yet in some precedent and subsequent passages in this Chapter I see other senses have been admitted of this word light then perchance those places will beare certainly other then those places need particularly in the fourth verse In it was life and that life was the light of men there they understand life to be nothing but this naturall life which we breath and light to be onely that naturall life naturall reason which distinguishes us men from other creatures Now it is true that they may have a pretence for some ground of this interpretation in antiquity it selfe for so says Saint Cyrill Filius Dei Creativè illuminat Christ doth enlighten us in creating us And so some others of the Fathers and some of the Schooles understand by that light naturall Reason and that life conservation in life But this interpretation seemes to me subject to both these dangers that it goes so farre and yet reaches not home So far in wresting in divers senses into a word which needs but one and is of it selfe cleare enough that is light and yet reaches not home for it reaches not to the essentiall light which is Christ Iesus nor to the supernaturall light which is Faith and Grace which seemes to have been the Evangelists principall scope to declare the comming of Christ who is the essentiall light and his purpose in comming to raise and establish a Church by Faith and Grace which is the supernaturall light For as the holy Ghost himselfe interprets life to be meant of Christ He that hath the Sonne hath life so we may justly doe of light too he that sees the Sonne the Sonne of God hath light For light is never to my remembrance found in any place of the Scripture where it must necessarily signifie the light of nature naturall reason but wheresoever it is transferred from the naturall to a figurative sense it takes a higher signification then that either it signifies Essentiall light Christ Jesus which answers our first question Quis lux who is this light it is Christ personally or it signifies the supernaturall light of Faith and Grace which answers our second question Quid lux what is this light for it is the working of Christ by his Spirit in his Church in the infusion of Faith and Grace for beliefe and manners And therefore though it be ever lawfull and often times very usefull for the raising and exaltation of our devotion and to present the plenty and abundance of the holy Ghost in the Scriptures who satisfies us as with marrow and with fatnesse to induce the diverse senses that the Scriptures doe admit yet this may not be admitted if there may be danger thereby to neglect or weaken the literall sense it selfe For there is no necessity of that spirituall wantonnesse of finding more then necessary senses for the more lights there are the more shadows are also cast by those many lights And as it is true in religious duties so is it in interpretation of matters of Religion Necessarium Satis convertuntur when you have done that you ought to doe in your calling you have done enough there are no such Evangelicall counsailes as should raise workes of supererogation more then you are bound to doe so when you have the necessary sense that is the meaning of the holy Ghost in that place you have senses enow and not till then though you have never so many and never so delightfull Light therefore is in all this Chapter fitliest understood of Christ who is noted here with that distinctive article Illa lux that light For non sic dicitur lux sicut lapis Christ is not so called Light as he is called a Rock or a Cornerstone not by a metaphore but truly and properly It is true that the Apostles are said to be light and that with an article the light but yet with a limitation and restriction the light of the world that is set up to convey light to the world It is true that Iohn Baptist himselfe was called light and with large additions Lucerna ardens a burning and a shining lampe to denote both his owne burning zeale and the communicating of this his light to others It is true that all the faithfull are said to be light in the Lord but all this is but to signifie that they had been in darknesse before they had been beclouded but were now illustrated they were light but light by reflexion by illustration of a greater light And as in the first creation vesper mane dies unus The evening and the morning made the day evening before morning darknesse before light so in our regeneration when wee are made new Creatures the Spirit of God findes us in naturall darknesse and by him we are made light in the Lord. But Christ himselfe and hee onely is Illa lux vera lux that light the true light Not so opposed to those other lights as though the Apostles or Iohn Baptist or the faithfull who are called lights were false lights but that they were weake lights But Christ was fons lucis the fountaine of all their light light so as no body else was so so as that hee was nothing but light Now neither the Apostles nor Iohn Baptist nor the Elect no nor the virgin Mary though wee should allow all that the Roman Church aske in her behalfe for the Roman Church is not yet come to that searednesse that obduratenesse that impudency as to pronounce that the virgin Mary was without originall sinne though they have done many
wardrobe not to make an Inventory of it but to finde in it something fit for thy wearing Iohn Baptist was not the light he was not Christ but he bore witnesse of him The light of faith in the highest exaltation that can be had in the Elect here is not that very beatificall vision which we shall have in heaven but it beares witnesse of that light The light of nature in the highest exaltation is not faith but it beares witnesse of it The lights of faith and of nature are subordinate Iohn Baptists faith beares me witnesse that I have Christ and the light of nature that is the exalting of my naturall faculties towards religious uses beares me witnesse that I have faith Onely that man whose conscience testifies to himself and whose actions testifie to the world that he does what he can can beleeve himself or be beleeved by others that he hath the true light of faith And therefore as the Apostle saith Quench not the Spirit I say too Quench not the light of Nature suffer not that light to goe out study your naturall faculties husband and improve them and love the outward acts of Religion though an Hypocrite and though a naturall man may doe them Certainly he that loves not the Militant Church hath but a faint faith in his interest in the Triumphant He that cares not though the materiall Church fall I am afraid is falling from the spirituall For can a man be sure to have his money or his plate if his house be burnt or to preserve his faith if the outward exercises of Religion faile He that undervalues outward things in the religious service of God though he begin at ceremoniall and rituall things will come quickly to call Sacraments but outward things and Sermons and publique prayers but outward things in contempt As some Platonique Philosophers did so over-refine Religion and devotion as to say that nothing but the first thoughts and ebullitions of a devout heart were fit to serve God in If it came to any outward action of the body kneeling or lifting up of hands if it came to be but invested in our words and so made a Prayer nay if it passed but a revolving a turning in our inward thoughts and thereby were mingled with our affections though pious affections yet say they it is not pure enough for a service to God nothing but the first motions of the heart is for him Beloved outward things apparell God and since God was content to take a body let not us leave him naked nor ragged but as you will bestow not onely some cost but some thoughts some study how you will clothe your children and how you will clothe your servants so bestow both cost and thoughts thinke seriously execute cheerfully in outward declarations that which becomes the dignity of him who evacuated himselfe for you The zeale of his house needs not eat you up no nor eat you out of house and home God asks not that at your hands But if you eat one dish the lesse at your feasts for his house sake if you spare somewhat for his reliefe and his glory you will not be the leaner nor the weaker for that abstinence Iohn Baptist bore witnesse of the light outward things beare witnesse of your faith the exalting of our naturall faculties beare witnesse of the supernaturall We do not compare the master and the servant and yet we thank that servant that brings us to his master We make a great difference between the treasure in the chest and the key that opens it yet we are glad to have that key in our hands The bell that cals me to Church does not catechise me nor preach to me yet I observe the sound of that bell because it brings me to him that does those offices to me The light of nature is far from being enough but as a candle may kindle a torch so into the faculties of nature well imployed God infuses faith And this is our second couple of lights the subordination of the light of nature and the light of faith And a third payre of lights of attestation that beare witnesse to the light of our Text is Lux aeternorum Corporum that light which the Sunne and Moone and those glorious bodies give from heaven and lux incensionum that light which those things that are naturally combustible and apt to take fire doe give upon earth both these beare witnesse of this light that is admit an application to it For in the first of these the glorious lights of heaven we must take nothing for stars that are not stars nor make Astrological and fixed conclusions out of meteors that are but transitory they may be Comets and blazing starres and so portend much mischiefe but they are none of those aeterna corpora they are not fixed stars not stars of heaven So is it also in the Christian Church which is the proper spheare in which the light of our text That light the essentiall light Christ Jesus moves by that supernaturall light of faith and grace which is truly the Intelligence of that spheare the Christian Chruch As in the heavens the stars were created at once with one Fiat and then being so made stars doe not beget new stars so the Christian doctrine necessary to salvation was delivered at once that is intirely in one spheare in the body of the Scriptures And then as stars doe not beget stars Articles of faith doe not beget Articles of faith so as that the Councell of Trent should be brought to bed of a new Creed not conceived before by the holy Ghost in the Scriptures and which is a monstrous birth the child greater then the Father as soon as it is borne the new Creed of the Councell of Trent to containe more Articles then the old Creed of the Apostles did Saint Iude writing of the common salvation as he calls it for Saint Iude it seems knew no such particular salvation as that it was impossible for any man to have salvation is common salvation exhorts them to contend earnestly for that faith which was once delivered unto the Saints Semel once that is at once semel simul once altogether For this is also Tertullians note that the rule of faith is that it be una immobilis irreformabilis it must not be deformed it cannot be Reformed it must not be mard it cannot be mended whatsoever needs mending and reformation cannot be the rule of faith says Tertullian Other foundation can no man lay then Christ not onely no better but no other what other things soever are added by men enter not into the nature and condition of a foundation The additions and traditions and superedifications of the Roman Church they are not lux aeternorum corporum they are not fixed bodies they are not stars to direct us they may be meteors and so exercise our discourse and Argumentation they may raise controversies And they may be Comets and so
25. Every man may see it man may behold it afar off p. 271. Serm. XXXII APOC. 7 9. After this I beheld and loe a great multitude which no man could number of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues stood before the throne and before the Lambe clothed with white robes and Palmes in their hands p. 279. Serm. XXXIII CANT 3. 11. Go forth ye daughters of Sion and behold King Solomon with the Crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals and in the day of the gladnesse of his heart p. 288. Serm. XXXIIII LUKE 23. 34. Father forgive them for they know not what they doe p. 304. Serm. XXXV MAT. 21. 44. Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken but on whosoever it shall fall it will grinde him to powder p. 311. Sermons preached at S. Pauls Sermon XXXVI JOH 1. 8. He was not that Light but was sent to beare witnesse of that Light p. 320. Serm. XXXVII A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 334. Serm. XXXVIII A third Ser. on the the same Text. p. 343. Serm. XXXIX PHIL. 3. 2. Beware of the Concision p. 356. Serm. XL. 2 COR. 5. 20. We pray yee in Christs stead Be ye reconciled to God p. 364. XLI HOSEA 3. 4. For the Children of Israel shall abide many dayes without a King and without a Prince and without a Sacrifice and without an Image and without an Ephod and without Teraphim p. 375. Serm. XLII PROV 14. 31. He that oppresseth the poor reprocheth his Maker but he that honoureth him hath mercy on the 〈◊〉 p. 385. Serm. XLIII LAMENT 4. 20. The breath of our nostrils the Anointed of the Lord was taken in their pits p. 396. Serm. XLIV MAT. 11. 6. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me p. 411. Sermons preached at S. Dunstans Serm. XLV DEUT. 25. 5. If brethren dwell together and one of them dye and have no childe the Wife of the dead shall not marry 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 p. 422. Serm. XLVI PSAL. 34. 11. Come ye children Hearken unto me I will teach you the feare of the Lord. p. 430. Ser. XLVII GEN. 3. 24. And dust shalt thou eate all the dayes of thy life p. 439. Ser. XLVIII LAMENT 3. 1. I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath p. 445. Serm. XLIX GEN. 7. 24. Abraham himself was ninety nine yeeres old when the foreskin of his flesh was Circumcised p. 456. Serm. L. 1 THES 5. 16. Rejoyce evermore p. 466. A SERMON PREACHED At the Earl of Bridgewaters house in London at the mariage of his daughter the Lady Mary to the eldest sonne of the L. Herbert of Castle-iland Novemb. 19. 1627. The Prayer before the Sermon O Eternall and most gracious God who hast promised to hearken to the prayers of thy people when they pray towards thy house though they be absent from it worke more effectually upon us who are personally met in this thy house in this place consecrated to thy worship Enable us O Lord so to see thee in all thy Glasses in all thy representations of thy selfe to us here as that hereafter we may see thee face to face and as thou art in thy self in thy kingdome of glory Of which Glasses wherein we may see thee Thee in thine Unity as thou art One God Thee in thy Plurality as thou art More Persons we receive this thy Institution of Mariage to be one In thy first work the Creation the last seale of thy whole work was a Mariage In thy Sonnes great work the Redemption the first seale of that whole work was a miracle at a Mariage In the work of thy blessed Spirit our Sanctification he refreshes to us that promise in one Prophet That thou wilt mary thy selfe to us for ever and more in another That thou hast maryed thy selfe unto us from the beginning Thou hast maryed Mercy and Iustice in thy selfe maryed God and Man in thy Sonne maryed Increpation and Consolation in the Holy Ghost mary in us also O Lord a Love and a Fear of thee And as thou hast maryed in us two natures mortall and immortall mary in us also the knowledge and the practise of all duties belonging to both conditions that so this world may be our Gallery to the next And mary in us the Spirit of Thankfulnesse for all thy benefits already bestowed upon us and the Spirit of prayer for the continuance and enlargement of them Continue and enlarge them O'God upon thine universall Church c. SERM. I. MATTH 22. 30. For in the Resurrection they neither mary nor are given in Mariage but are as the Angels of God in heaven OF all Commentaries upon the Scriptures Good Examples are the best and the livelyest and of all Examples those that are nearest and most present and most familiar unto us and our most familiar Examples are those of our owne families and in families the Masters of families the fathers of families are most conspicuous most appliable most considerable Now in exercises upon such occasions as this ordinarily the instruction is to bee directed especially upon those persons who especially give the occasion of the exercise that is upon the persons to bee united in holy wedlock for as that 's a difference betweene Sermons and Lectures that a Sermon intends Exhortation principally and Edification and a holy stirring of religious affections and then matters of Doctrine and points of Divinity occasionally secondarily as the words of the text may invite them But Lectures intend principally Doctrinall points and matter of Divinity and matter of Exhortation but occasionally and as in a second place so that 's a difference between Christening sermons and Mariage sermons that the first at Christnings are especially directed upon the Congregation and not upon the persons who are to be christened and these at mariages especially upon the parties that are to be united and upon the congregation but by reflexion When therefore to these persons of noble extraction I am to say something of the Duties and something of the Blessing of Mariage what God Commands and what God promises in that state in his Scriptures I lay open to them the best exposition the best Commentaries upon those Scriptures that is Example and the neerest example that is example in their own family when with the Prophet Esay I direct them To look upon the Rock from whence they are hewen to propose to themselves their own parents and to consider there the performance of the duties of mariage imposed by God in S. Paul and the blessings proposed by God in David Thy Wife shall be a fruitfull Vine by the sides of thy House The children like olive plants round about the table For to this purpose of edifying children by example such as are truly religious fathers
need not the Scriptures reason will evict it forceibly enough against all the world but when I come beyond all Philosophy that for Adams fault six thousand year agoe I should be condemned now because that fault is naturally in me I must find reason before I beleeve this and my reason is because I find it in the Scrpiture Nascimur filii Irae and therefore nifi renatus we are borne children of wrath and therefore must be borne againe That a Messias should come to deliver Mankind from this sinne and all other fins my reason is the Semen mulieris the seed of the woman for the promise and the Ecce agnus Dei Behold the Lambe of God for the performance That he should come I reft in that The seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpents head And that he is come I rest in this that Iohn Baptist shewed the Lambs of God that taketh away the sinnes of the world That this merit of his should be applied to certaine Men my reason is in the Semini two Gods Covenant to Abraham and to his seed That we are of that number included in that Covenant to Abraham my reason is in spiritu adoptionis the spirit of adoption hath ingraffed us inserted us into the same Covenant When my reason tells me that the Seale of that Covenant Circumcision is gone I am not circumcised and therefore might doubt my reason tells me too that in the Scriptures there is a new Seals Baptisme when my reason tells mee that after that regeneration I have degenerated againe I have fallen from those graces which I received in Baptisme my reason leades mee againe to those places of Scripture where God hath established a Church for the remession and absolution of sinnes If I have been negligent of all these helpes and now my reason beginnes to worke to my prejudice that I beginne to gather and heape up all those places of the Law and Prophets and Gospell which threaten certaine condemnation unto such sinners as I find my selfe to bee yet if my reason can see light at the Nolo mortem peccatoris at the Quandocunque resipiscct That God would not the death of any sinner That no time is unseasonable for repentance That scatters the clands of witnesses againe and to till my reason can tell me which it can never doe that it hath found places in Scripture of a measure and finitenesse in God that his mercy can goe no farther and then of an infinitenesse in Man that his finne can goe beyond God my reason will defend me from desperation I meane the reason that is grounded upon the Scripture still I shall find there that Quia which David delighted in so much as that he repears it almost thirty times in one Psalm For his mercy endureth for ever God leaves no way of satisfaction unperformed unto us sometimes he workes upon the phantasie of Man as in those often â—isions which he presented to his Prophets in dreames sometimes he workes upon the senses by preparing objects for them So he filled the Mountaine round about with horses and chariots in defense of Elisha but alwayes he workes upon our reason he bids us feare no judgment he bids us hope for no mercy except it have a Quia a reason a foundation in the Scriptures For God is Logos speech and reasone He declares his will by his Word and he proved it he confirmes it he is Logos and he proceeds Logically It is true that we have a Sophistry which as farre as concerns our owne destruction frustrates his Logique If Peter make a Quia a reason why his fellowes could not bee drunke Because it was but nine a Clocke wee can find Men that can overthrow that reason and rise drunke out of their beds If Christ make a Quia a reason against fashionall and Circumstantiall christians that doe sometimes some offices of religion out of custome or company or neighborhood or necessity because no man peecethan old garment with new cloth nor puts new wine into old vessells yet since S. Augustine says well Carnalitas vetustas gratia novitas our carnall delights are our old garments and those degrees and beames of grace which are shed upon us are the new we do peece this old with this new that is long habits of sin with short repentances flames of concupiscence with little sparks of remorse and into old vessells our sin-worne bodies we put in once a year some drops of new wine of the bloud of our Saviour Christ Iesus in the Sacrament when we come to his table as to a vintage because of the season and we receive by the Almanack because it is Easter and this new wine so taken in breakes the vessells as Christ speakes in that similitude And his breaking shall be as the breaking of a Potters pot which is broken without pity and in the breaking thereof is not found a shard to take fire at the hearth nor to take water out of the pit No way in the Church of God to repaire that Man because he hath made either a Mockery or at best but a Civil action of Gods institution in the Church To conclude this all sin is but fallacy and Sophistry Religion is reason and Logique The devill hides and deludes Almighty God demonstrates and proves That fashion of his goes through all his precepts through all his promises which is in Esay Come now and let us reason together that which was in Iob is a bundantly in God That he did not contemne the judgment of his servant nor of his maid when they did contend with him Nec decet Dei judicium quicquid habere affine tyrannidi we may not think that here is any thing in God like a Tyran and it is a Tyrannicall proceeding as to give no reason of his cruelties so to give no assurance of his benefits and therefore God seales his promises with a Quia a reason an assurance Now much of the strength of the assurance consists in the person whose seale it is and therefore as Christ did we aske next Cujus inscriptio whose Image whose inscription is upon his seale who gives this assurance And it is the Lambe that is in the midst of the throne If it werethe Lion the Lion of the tribe of Iuda is able to perform his promises but there are more then Christ out of this world that beare the Lion The devill is a Lion too that seeketh whom he may devoure but he never seales with that Lambe with any impression of humility to a Lambe he is never compared in the likenesse of a lambe he is never noted to have appeared in all the Legends It is the Lambe that is in the midst thereby disposed to shed and dispense his spirituall benefits on all sides The Lambe is not immured in Rome not coffined up in the ruines and tubbidge of old wals nor thrust into a corner in Conventicles The Lambe
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
we draw a corrupt Nature from our parents and we have lamed the other foot by crooked and perverse customes Now as God provided a liquor in his Church for Originall sinne the water of Baptisme so hath he provided another for those actuall sinnes that is the bloud of his owne body in the other Sacrament In which Sacrament besides the naturall union that Christ hath taken our Nature and the Mysticall union that Christ hath taken us into the body of his Church by a spirituall union when we apply faithfully his Merits to our soules and by a Sacramentall union when we receive the visible seales thereof worthily we are so washed in his bloud as that we stand in the sight of his Father as cleane and innocent as himselfe both because he and we are thereby become one body and because the garment of his righteousnesse covers us all But for a preparation of this washing in the bloud of Christ in that Sacrament Christ commended to his Apostles and in them to all the world by his practise and by his precept too ablutionem pedam a washing of their feet before they came to that Sacrament he washed their feet And in that exemplary action of his his washing of their feet he powred water into a Bason says the text Aqua spiritus sanctus pelvis Ecclesia These preparatory waters are the gift of the holy Ghost the working of his grace in repentance but pelvis Ecclesia the bason is the Church that is these graces are distributed and dispensed to us in his institution and ordinance in the Church No Man can wash himselfe at first by Baptisme no Man can baptize himselfe no Man can wash in the second liquor no Man that is but a Man can administer the other Sacrament to himselfe Pelvis ecclesia the Church is the bason and Gods Minister in the Church washes in both these cases And in this ablutione pedum in the preparatory washing of our feet by a survey of all our sinfull actions and repentance of them no Man can absolve himselfe but pelvis ecclesia the bason of this water of absolution is in the Church and in the Minister thereof First then this washing of the feet which prepares us for the great washing in the bloud of Christ requires a stripping of them a laying of them naked covering of the feet in the Scriptures is a phrase that denotes a foule and an uncleane action Saul was said to cover his feet in the Cave and Eglon was said to cover his feet in his Parler and we know the uncleane action that is intended here but for this cleane action for washing our feet we must discover all our sinfull steps in a free and open confession to almighty God This may be that which Solomon calls sound wisdome My sonne keep sound wisdome and discretion There is not a more silly folly then to thinke to hide any sinfull action from God Nor sounder wisdome then to discover them to him by an humble and penitent confession This is sound wisdome and then discretion is to wash and discerne and debate and examine all our future actions and all the circumstances that by this spirit of discretion we may see where the sting and venome of every particular action lies My sonne keep sound wisdome and discretion says he And then shalt thou walke in thy way safely and thy foot shall not stumble If thy discretion be not strong enough if thou canst not always discerne what is and what is not sinne he shall give his Angells charge over thee that thou dash not thy foot against a stone and that 's good security and if all these faile though thou doe fall thou shalt not be utterly cast downe for the Lord shall uphold thee with his hand says David God shall give that Man that loves this found wisdome humble confession of sinnes past this spirituall discretion the spirit of discerning spirits that is power to discerne a tentation and to overcome it confesse that which is past with true sorrow that is sound wisdome and God shall enlighten thee for the future and that 's holy discretion The washing of our feet then being a cleane and pure and sincere examination of all our actions we are to wash all the instruments of our actions in repentance Lavanda facies we are to wash our face as Ioseph did after he had wept before he looked upon his brethren againe If we have murmured and mourned for any crosse that God hath laid upon us we must returne to a cheerfull countenance towards him in embracing whatsoever he found best for us we must wash our Intestina our bowels as it is after commanded in the law when our bowels which should melt at the relation and contemplation and application of the passion of our Saviour doe melt at the apprehension or expectation or fruition of any sinfull delight Lavanda intestina we must wash those bowells Lavanda vestimenta we must wash our clothes when we apparell and palliate our sinnes with excuses of our owne infirmity or of the example of greater Men these clothes must be washed these excuses Lavanda currus arma as Ahabs chariot and armour were washed If the power of our birth or of our place or of our favour have armed us against the power of the law or against the clamour of Men justly incensed Lavandi currus these chariots and armes this greatnesse must be washed Lavanda retia what Nets soever we have fished with by what meanes soever we raise or sustaine our fortune Lavanda retia These nets must be washed Saint Bernard hath drawn a great deale of this heavenly water together for the washing of all when he presents as he cals it Martyrium sine sanguine triplex a threefold Martyrdome all without bloud and that is Largitas in paupertate a bountifull disposition even in a low fortune parcitas in ubertate a frugall disposition in a full fortune and Castitas in Iuventute a pure and chaste disposition in the years and places of tentation These are Martyrdomes without bloud but not without the water that washes our feet This is sound wisdome and discretion to strip and lay open our feet our sinfull actions by Confession To cover them and wrap them up by precaution from new uncleannesse and then to tye and bind up all safe by participation of the bloud of Christ Jesus in the Sacrament for that 's the seale of all And Christ in the washing of his disciples feet tooke a towell to dry them as well as water to wash them so when he hath brought us to this washing of our feet to a serious consideration of our actions and to repentant teares for them Absterget omnem lachrymam he will wipe all teares from our eyes all teares of confusion towards Men or of diffidence towards him Absterget omnem lachrymam and deliver us over to a setled peace of
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
Father or of my friend shall bee glorifyed there mine eyes shall be glorifyed as much and we are both kept in the same proportion there as wee had towards one another here here my naturall eye could see his naturall face and there mine eye is as much mended as his body is and my sense as much exalted as mine object And as well as I may know that I am I I may know that He is He for I shall not know my selfe nor that state of glory which I am then in by any light of Nature which I brought thither but by that light of Glory which I shall receive there When therefore a man finds that this consideration does him good in his conversation and retards him towards some sinnes how shall I stand then when all the world shall see that my solicitation hath brought such a woman to the stews to the Hospitall to hell who had scap'd all this if I had not corrupted her at first which no man in the world knew before and all shall know then Or that my whispering and my calumny hath overthrown such a man in his place in his reputation in his fortune which he himself knew not before and all shall know then Or that my counsell or my example hath been a furtherance to any mans spirituall edification here He that in rectified reason and a rectified conscience finds this in Gods name let him beleeve yea for Gods sake let him take heed of not beleeving that we shall know one another Actions and Persons in the Resurrection as the Apostles did know Christ at the Transfiguration which was a Type of it This Transfiguration then upon earth was the same glory which Christ had after in heaven Qualis venturus talis apparuit such as all eyes shall see him to be when he comes in glory at last those Apostles saw him then but of the particular circumstances even of this transfiguration upon earth there is but little said to us Let us modestly take that which is expressed in it and not search over-curiously farther into that which is signifyed and represented by it which is the state of glory in the Resurrection First his face shin'd as the Sunne says that Gospell he could not take a higher comparison for our Information and for our admiration in this world then the Sunne And then the Saints of God in their glorifyed state are admitted to the same comparison The righteous shall shine out as the Sunne in the Kingdome of the Father the Sunne of the firmament which should be their comparison will be gone But the Sun of grace and of glory the Son of God shall remain and they shall shine as he that is in his righteousnesse In this transfiguration his clothes were white says the text but how white the holy Ghost does not tell us at once as white as snow says Saint Mark as white as light says Saint Matthew Let the garments of the glorifyed Saints of God be their bodies and then their bodies are as white as snow as snow that fall's from heaven and hath touâ—ht no pollution of the earth For though our bodies have been upon earth and have touched pitch and have been defiled yet that will not lye in proof not be given in evidence Though he that drew me and I that was drawen too know in what unclean places and what unclean actions this body of mine hath been yet it lyes not in proof it shall not be given in evidence for Accusator fratrum The accuser of the brethren is cast down the Devill shall find nothing against me And if I had spontaneum Daemonem as Saint Chrysostome speaks a bosome Devill and could tempt my self though there had been no other tempter in this world so I have spontanâ—um Demonem a bosome accuser a conscience that would accuse me there if I accuse my self there I reproach the mercy of God who hath seal'd my pardon and made even my body what sins soever had discoloured it as white as snow As white as snow and as white as light says that Gospel Light implies an active power Light is operative and works upon others The bodies of the Saints of God shall receive all impressions of glory in themselves and they shall doe all that is to bee done for the glory of God there There they shall stand in his service and they shall kneel in his worship and they shall fall in his reverence and they shall sing in his glory they shall glorifie him in all positions of the body They shall be glorified in themselves passively and they shall glorifie God actively sicut Nix sicut Lux their beeing their doing shall be all for him Thus they shall shine as the Sun Thus their garments shall be white white as snow in being glorified in their own bodies white as light in glorifying God in all the actions of those bodies Now there is thus much more considerable and applyable to our present purpose in this tranfiguration of Christ that there was company with them Be not apt to think heaven in an Ermitage or a Monastery or the way to heaven a sullen melancholy Heaven and the way to it is a Communion of Saints in a holy cheerfulnesse Get thou thither make sure thine own salvation but be not too hasty to think that no body gets thither except he go thy way in all opinions and all actions There was company in the transfiguration but no other company then Moses and Elias and Christ and the Apostles none but they to whom God had manifested himself otherwise then to a meer naturall man otherwise then as a generall God For in the Law and in the Padagogie and Schoolmastership and instruction thereof God had manifested himself particularly by Moses In Elias and the Prophets whom God sent in a continuall succession to refresh that manifestation which he had given of himself in the Law before in the example of these rules in him who was the consummation of the Law and the Prophets Christ Iesus And then in the Application of all this by the Apostles and by the Church established by them God had more particularly manifested himself then to naturall men Moses Elias Christ and the Apostles make up the houshold of the faithfull and none have interest in the Resurrection but in and by these These to whom and by whom God hath exhibited himself to his Church by other notions then as one universall God For nothing will save a man but to believe in God so as God hath proposed himself in his Son in his Scriptures in his Christ. These were with him in the transfiguration and they talked with him says that text As there is a Communion of Saints so there is a Communication of Saints Think not heaven a Charter-house where men who onely of all creatures are enabled by God to speak must not speak to one another The Lord of heaven is
belly men that will shake the articles of Religion But Vae si scandalizemur woe if we be so scandalized at that as to defame that Church or separate our selves from that Church which hath given us our Baptism for that It is the chasing of the Lion and the stirring of the Viper that aggravates the danger The first blow makes the wrong but the second makes the fray and they that will endure no kind of abuse in State or Church are many times more dangerous then that abuse w ch they oppose It was only Christ Jesus himself that could say to the Tempest Tace â—bâ—utesce peace be still not a blast not a sob more onely he could becalm a Tempest at once It is well with us if we can ride out a storm at anchour that is lie still and expect and surrender ourselves to God and anchor in that confidence till the storm blow over It is well for us if we can beat out a storm at sea with boarding to and again that is maintain and preserve our present condition in Church and State though we encrease not that though we gain no way yet wee lose no way whilst the storm lasts It is well for us if though we be put to take in our sayls and to take down our masts yet we can hull it out that is if in storms of contradiction or persecution the Church or State though they be put to accept worse conditions then before and to depart with some of their outward splendor be yet able to subsist and swimme above water and reserve it selfe for Gods farther glory after the storme is past onely Christ could becalm the storme He is a good Christian that can ride out or board out or hull out a storme that by industry as long as he can and by patience when he can do no more over-lives a storm and does not forsake his ship for it that is not scandalized with that State nor that Church of which he is a member for those abuses that are in it The Arke is peace peace is good dispositions to one another good intepretations of one another for if our impatience put us from our peace and so out of the Arke all without the Arke is sea The bottomlesse and boundlesse Sea of Rome will hope to swallow us if we dis-unite our selves in uncharitable mis-interpretations of one another The peace of God is the peace that passeth all understanding That men should subdue and captivate even their understanding to the love of this peace that when in their understanding they see no reason why this or this thing should be thus or thus done or so and so suffered the peace of God that is charity may passe their understanding and goe above it for howsoever the affections of men or the vicissitudes and changes of affairs may vary or apply those two great axiomes and aphorisms of ancient Rome Salus populi suprema lex estâ—â— The good of the people is above all Law and then Quod Principi places lex esto The pleasure of the Prince is above all Law howsoever I say various occasions may vary their Laws adhere we to that Rule of the Law which the Apostle prescribes that we always make Finem praâ—cepti charitâ—tem The end of the Commandement charity for no Commandement no not those of the first Table is kept if upon pretence of keeping that Commandement or of the service of God I come to an uncharitable opinion of other men That so first Fundemur radicâ—mur in charitate that wee be planted and take root in that ground in charity so wee are by being planted in that Church that thinks charitably even of that Church that uncharitably condemns us And then Vt â—ultipliceâ—ur That Grace and peace may be multiplyed in us so it is if to our outward peace God adde the inward peace of conscience in our own bosomes and lastly Vt abundemus that we may not onely encrease as the Apostle says there but as he adds abound in charity towards one another and towards all men for this abundant and overflowing charity as long as we can to beleeve well for the present and where we cannot do so to hope well of the future is the best preservative and antidote against the woe of this Text Woe unto the world because of scandals and offences which though it be spoken of the Active is more especially intended of the Passive scandal and though it be pressed upon us first Quia Illusiones fortes because those scandals are so strong and then Quia inferâ—â— nos because we are so weak doe yet endanger us most in that respect Quia prâ—varicatores because we open ourselves nay offer our selves to the vexation of scandals by an easie a jealous a suspicious an uncharitable interpreting of others SERMON XIX Preached at Lincolns Inne PSAL. 38. 2. For thine arrâ—wes stick fast in me and thy hand presseth me sore ALmost every man hath his Appetite and his tast disposed to some kind of meates rather then others He knows what dish he would choose for his first and for his second course We have often the same disposition in our spirituall Diet a man may have a particular love towards such or such a book of Scripture and in such an affection I acknowledge that my spirituall appetite carries me still upon the Psalms of David for a first course for the Scriptures of the Old Testament and upon the Epistles of Saint Paul for a second course for the New and my meditations even for these publike exercises to Gods Church returne oftnest to these two For as a hearty entertainer offers to others the meat which he loves best himself so doe I oftnest present to Gods people in these Congregations the meditations which I feed upon at home in those two Scriptures If a man be asked a reason why he loves one meat better then another where all are equally good as the books of Scripture are he will at least finde a reason in some good example that he sees some man of good tast and temperate withall so do And for my Diet I have Saint Augustines protestation that he loved the Book of Psalms and Saint Chrysostomes that he loved Saint Pauls Epistles with a particular devotion I may have another more particular reason because they are Scriptures written in such forms as I have been most accustomed to Saint Pauls being Letters and Davids being Poems for God gives us not onely that which is meerly necessary but that which is convenient too He does not onely feed us but feed us with marrow and with fatnesse he gives us our instruction in cheerfull forms not in a sowre and sullen and angry and unacceptable way but cheerfully in Psalms which is also a limited and a restrained form Not in an Oration not in Prose but in Psalms which is such a from as is both curious aud requires diligence in the making and then when
the strength of that Grace which God gave me heretofore But as God infuseth a Soul into every man and that Soul elicites a new Act in it self before that man produce any action so God infuses a particular Grace into every good work of mine and so prevents me before I co-operate with him For as Nature in her highest exaltation in the best Morall man that is cannot flow into Grace Nature cannot become Grace so neither doth former Grace flow into future Grace but I need a distinct influence of God a particular Grace for every good work I do for every good word I speak for every good thought I conceive When God gives me accesse into his Library leave to consider his proceedings with man I find the first book of Gods making to be the Book of Life The Book where all their names are written that are elect to Glory But I find no such Book of Death All that are not written in the Book of Life are certainly the sonnes of Death To be pretermitted there there to be left out wraps them up at least leaves them wrapt up in death But God hath not wrought so positively nor in so primary a consideration in a book of Death as in the Book of Life As the aftertimes made a Book of Wisdome out of the Proverbs of Salomon and out of his Ecclesiastes but yet it is not the same Book nor of the same certainty so there is a Book of Life â—ere but that is not the same book that is in Heaven nor of the same certainty For in this Book of Life which is the Declaration and Testimony which the Church gives of our Election by those marks of the Elect which she seeth in the Scriptures and believeth that she seeth in us a man may be Blotted out of the Book of the living as David speaketh and as it is added there Not written with the Righteous Intimating that in some cases and in some Book of Life a man may have been written in and blotted out and written in again The Book of Life in the Church The Testimony of our Election here admits such expunctions and such redintegrations but Gods first Book his Book of Mercy for this Book in the Church is but his Book of Evidence is inviolable in it self and all the names of that Book indelible In Gods first Book the Book of Life Mercy hath so much a precedency and primogeniture as that there is nothing in it but Mercy In Gods other Book his Book of Scripture in which he is put often to denounce judgements as well as to exhibite mercies still the Tide sets that way still the Biass leads on that hand still his method directs us ad Primogenitum to his first-born to his Mercy So he began in that Book He made man to his Image and then he blest him Here is no malediction no intermination mingled in Gods first Act in Gods first purpose upon man In Paradise there is That if he eat the forbidden fruit if he will not forbear that that one Tree He shall die But God begins not there before that he had said of every tree in the Garden thou maist freely eat neither is there more vehemency in the punishment then in the libertie For as in the punishment there is an ingemination Morte morieris Dying thou shalt die that is thou shalt surely die so in the liberty there was an ingemination too Comedendo comedes Eating thou shalt eat that is thou maist freely eat In Deut. we have a fearfull Chapter of Maledictions but all the former parts of that Chapter are blessings in the same kind And he that reads that Chapter will beginne at the beginning and meet Gods first-born his Mercy first And in those very many places of that Book where God divides the condition If you obey you shall live if you rebell you shall die still the better Act and the better condition and the better reward is placed in the first place that God might give us possession In jure Primogeniti in the right of his first-born his mercy And where God pursues the same method and first dilates himself and expatiates in the way of mercy I will beat down his foes before his face and plague them that hate him when after that he is brought to say If his children forsake my Law I will visit their transgression with the rod where first he puts it off for one Generation from himself to his Children which was one Mercy And then he puts it upon a forsaking an Apostasie and not upon every sinne of infirmity which was another Mercy when it comes to a correction it is but a milde correction with the râ—d And in that he promises to visite them to manifest himself and his purpose to them in the correction all which are higher and higher degrees of Mercy yet because there is a spark of anger a tincture of judgement mingled in it God remembers his first-born his Mercy and returns where he begun Neverthelesse my Covenant will I not break nor alter the things that is gone out of my lips once have I sworn by my Holinesse that I will not lie unto David There are elder pictures in the world of Water then there are any of oyl but those of oyl have got above them and shall outlive them Water is a frequent embleme of Affliction in the Scriptures and so is oyl of Mercy If at any time in any place of Scripture God seemed to begin with water with a judgement yet the oyl will get to the top in that very judgement you may see that God had first a mercifull purpose in inflicting that medicinall judgement for his mercy is his first-born His Mercy is new every morning saith the Prophet not onely every day but as soon as it is day Trace God in thy self and thou shalt find it so If thou beest drowzie now and unattentive curious or contentious or quarrelsome now now God leaves thee in that indisposition and that is a judgement But it was his Mercy that brought thee hither before In every sinne thou hast some remorse some reluctation before thou do that sinne and that pre-reluctation and pre-remorse was Mercy If thou hadst no such remorse in thy last sinne before the sinne and hast it now this is the effect of Gods former mercy and former good purpose upon thee to let thee see that thou needest the assistance of his Minister and of his Ordinance to enable thee to lay hold on Mercy when it is offered thee Can any calamity fall upon thee in which thou shalt not be bound to say I have had blessings in a greater measure then this If thou have had losses yet thou hast more out of which God took that If all be lost perchance thou art but where thou begunst at first at nothing If thou begunst upon a good heighth and beest fallen from that and fallen low yet as God
thee a recovery from sicknesse that doth not make thee Immortall God gives thee a good interpretation of thine actions from a gracious Prince this doth not make thee impeccable in thy self God gives thee titles of Honour upon thy self this doth not alwayes give thee honour and respect from others For as it is God that Raiseth up the poore out of the dust and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill that he may set him with Princes so it is God that Cuts off the spirit of Princes and is terrible to the Kings of the Earth It is God that maketh the devices of the People of none effect and it is God that destroyes the Counsels of Egypt It is God that maketh their Nobles like Oreb and like Zeb and like them that perisht at Endor and became as dung for the Earth that is profitable onely in their ruine and conculcation And so with the same unwillingnesse that God comes to the execution we come to the denunciation of this malediction They They these inveterate incorrigible sinners Quamvis centum annorum though God have spared them so long yet Quia centum annorum because they have imployed all that time in sinne They shall be accursed Accursing is malediction malediction is literally but maledicence and that is but evill speaking Now all kinds of evill speaking do not inwrap a man within the curse of this Text For though it be a shrewd degree of this curse of God to be generally ill spoken of by sad sober and discreet and dis-passioned and dis-interessed Men yet we are fallen into times when men will speak ill of men in things which they do not know nor should not know and out of credulity and easie beleeving of men whom they should not beleeve men distempered and transported with passion So men speak evill out of passion and out of compassion out of humour and out of rumour But malediction in our Text is an Imprecation of evil by such men as would justly inflict it if they could and because they cannot they pray to God that he would and he doth When God seconds the Imprecations of good men that is this curse The Person that is curst here is Peccator centum annorum an habituall an incorrigible sinner If you put me to assigne in what rank of men Magistrates or Subjects rich or poore Judges or prisoners All. If you put me to assigne for what sinnes sins of complexion and constitution sinnes of societie and conversation sinnes of our profession and calling sinnes of the particular place or of the whole times that we live in sins of profit or sins of pleasure or sins of glory for we all do some sins which are sins merely of glory sins that we make no profit by nor take much pleasure in but do them onely out of a mis-imagined necessity left we should go too much lesse and sink in the estimation of the World if we did them not if I must say which of these sinnes put us under this curse All If he be centum annorum Inveterate Incorrigible He is accursed But then who curses him God put an extraordinary spirit and produc'd extraordinary effects from curses in the mouths of his Prophets which have been since the World began So Elizeus curses and two Bears destroy fourty two persons These curses are deposited by God in the Scriptures and then inflicted by the Church in her ordinary jurisdiction by excommunications and other censures But this may be but matter of form in the Church or matter of indignation in the Prophet Not so but as God saith That the rod in Ashurs hand is his rod and the sword in Babylons hand his sword so the curse deposited in the Scripture and denounced by the Church is his curse For as the Prophet saith Non est malum all the evill that is all the penall ill all plagues all warre all famine that is done in the World God doth so all the evill that is spoken all the curses deposited in the Scriptures and denounced by the Church God speaks But be all this so there is a curse deposited denounced seconded by God yet all this is but malediction but a speaking here is no execution spoken of yes there is for as the sight of God is Heaven and to be banisht from the sight of God is Hell in the World to come so the blessing of God is Heaven and the curse of God is Hell and damnation even in this Life The Hieroglyphique of silence is the hand upon the mouth If the hand of God be gone from the mouth it is gone to strike If it be come to an Os Domini locutum that the mouth of the Lord have spoken it it will come presently to an Immittam manum That God will lay his hand upon us in which one Phrase all the plagues of Egypt are denounced Solomon puts both hand and tongue together In manibus linguae saith he Death and Life are in the hand of the tongue Gods Tongue hath a hand where his Sentence goeth before the execution followeth Nay in the execution of the last sentence we shall feel the Hand before we heare the Tongue the execution is before the sentence It is Ite maledicti go ye accursed First you must Go go out of the presence of God and by that being gone you shall know that you are accursed Whereas in other proceedings the sentence denounces nounces the execution here the execution denounces the sentence But be all this allowed to be thus There is a malediction deposited in the Scriptures denounced by the Church ratified by God brought into execution yet it may be born men doe bear it How men do bear it we know not what passes between God and those men upon whom the curse of God lieth in their dark horrours at midnight they would not have us know because it is part of their curse to envy God that glory But we may consider in some part the insupportablenesse of that weight if we proceed but so farre as to accommodate to God that which is ordinarily said of naturall things Corruptio optimi pessima when the best things change their nature they become worst When God who is all sweetnesse shall have learned frowardnesse from us as David speaks and being all rectitude shall have learned perversenesse and crookednesse from us as Moses speaks and being all providence shall have learned negligence from us when God who is all Blessing hath learned to curse of us and being of himself spread as an universall Hony-combe over All takes in an impression a tincture an infusion of gall from us what extraction of Wormwood can be so bitter what exaltation of fire can be so raging what multiplying of talents can be so heavy what stifnesse of destiny can be so inevitable what confection of gnawing worms of gnashing teeth of howling cries of scalding brimstone of palpable darknesse can be so so
pieces and slackens the band of the Christian faith which faith is That Christ consisting of two natures in one person suffered for the salvation of man So then not onely to take from Jesus one of his natures God or man but to adde to him another person this addition is a Diminution a dissolution an annihilation of Jesus So also to adde to the Gospel to adde to the Scriptures to adde to the articles of faith this addition is a Diminution a Dissolution an Annihilation of those Scriptures that Gospel that faith and the Author and finisher thereof Iesus grew in stature says the Gospel But he grew not to his lifes end we know to how many feet he grew So the Scriptures grew to the number of the books grew But they grow not to the worlds end we know to how many bookes they grew The body of man and the vessels thereof have a certain and a limited capacity what nourishment they can receive and digest and so a certaine measure and stature to extend to The soul and soul of the soul Faith and her faculties hath a certain capacity too and certain proportions of spirituall nourishments exhibited to it in certaine vessels certaine measures so many these Bookes of Scriptures And therefore as Christ saies Which of you can adde one Cubit to your stature how plentifully and how delicately soever you feed how discreetly and how providently soever you exercise you cannot doe that so may he say to them who pretend the greatest power in the Church Which of you can adde another booke to the Scriptures A Codicill to either of my Testaments The curse in the Revelation fals as heavy upon them that adde to the booke of God as upon them that take from it Nay it is easie to observe that in all those places of Scripture which forbid the taking away or the adding to the Book of God still the commandment that they shall not and still the malediction if they do is first placed upon the adding and after upon the taking away So it is in that former place Plagues upon him that takes away but first Plagues upon him that addes so in Deut. you shall not diminish but first you shall not adde So again in that Book whatsoever I command you observe to do it Thou shalt not diminish from it but first Thou shalt not adde to it And when the same commandment seems to be given in the Proverbs there is nothing at all said of taking away but onely of adding as though the danger to Gods Church consisted especially in that Every word of God is pure saith Solomon there Adde thou not unto his word lest thou be reproved and found a lyer For though heretofore some Heretiques have offered at that way to clip Gods coin in taking away some book of Scripture yet for many blessed Ages the Church hath enjoyed her peace in that point None of the Books are denied by any church there is no substraction offered But for addition of Apocryphal Books to Canonicall the Church of God is still in her Militant state and cannot triumph and though she have victory in all the Reasons the cannot have peace You see Christs way to them that came to heare him Audiistis and Audiistis This and that you have heard others say Egâ— autem dico your Rule is what I say for Christ spoke Scripture Christ was Scripture As we say of great and universall Scholars that they are viventes Bibliothecae living walking speaking Libraries so Christ was lâ—quens Scriptura living speaking Scripture Our Sermons are Text and Discourse Christ Sermons were all Text Christ was the Word not onely the Essentiall Word which was alwayes with God but the very written word too Christ was the Scripture and therefore when he refers them to himselfe he refers them to the Scriptures for though here he seem onely to call upon them to hearken to that which he spoke yet it is in a word of a deeper impression for it is Videte See what you hear Before you preach any thing for my word see it see it written see it in the body of the Scriptures Here then lies the double obligation upon the Apostles The salvation of the whole world lies upon your preaching of that of All That of onely That which you hear from me now And therefore take heed what you hear And farther we carry not your consideration upon this first acceptation of the words as they are spoken personally to the Apostles but passe to the second as by reflexion they are spoken to us the Ministers of the Gospel In this consideration we take in also our Adversaries for we all pretend to be successors of the Apostles though not we as they in the Apostolicall yet they as well as we in the Evangelicall and Ministeriall function for as that which Christ said to Saint Peter he said in him to all the Apostles Vpon this Rock will I build my Church so in this which he saith to all the Apostles he saith to all us also Take heed what you heare Be this then the issue between them of the Roman distemper and us whether they or we do best perform this commandment Take heed what you heare conceal nothing of that which you have heard obtrude nothing but that which you have heard Whether they or we do best apply our practise to this rule Preach all the Truth preach nothing but the Truth be this lis contestata the issue joyned between us and it will require no long pleading for matter of evidence first our Saviour saith Man liveth by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God And this Christ saith from Moses also so that in the mouth of two unreproachable witnesses Moses and Christ the Law and the Gospel we have this established Mans life is the Word of God the Word is the Scripture And then our Saviour saith further The Holy Ghost shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance and here is the Latitude the Totality the Integrality of the meanes of salvation you shall have Scriptures delivered to you by them the Holy Ghost shall teach you all things and then you shall be remembred of all by the explication and application of those Scriptures at Church where lies the principall operation of the Holy Ghost Now is this done in the Roman Church Are the Scriptures delivered and explicated to them To much of the Scriptures as is read to them in their Lessons and Epistles and Gospels is not understood when it is read for it is in an unknown language so that that way the Holy Ghost teaches them nothing Neither are all the Scriptures distributed into these Lessons and Epistles and Gospels which are read so that if they did understand all they heard yet they did not heare all they were bound to understand And for remembring them by the way of preaching though it be true that the
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
If wee winke wee cannot chuse but see it if we stare wee know it never the better No man is yet got so neare to the knowledge of the qualities of light as to know whether light it selfe be a quality or a substance If then this naturall light be so darke to our naturall reason if wee shall offer to pierce so far into the light of this text the Essentiall light Christ Iesus in his nature or but in his offices or the supernaturall light of faith and grace how far faith may be had and yet lost and how far the freewill of man may concur and cooperate with grace and yet still remaine nothing in it selfe if wee search farther into these points then the Scripture hath opened us a way how shall wee hope to unentangle or extricate our selves They had a precious composition for lamps amongst the ancients reserved especially for Tombes which kept light for many hundreds of yeares we have had in our age experience in some casuall openings of ancient vaults of finding such lights as were kindled as appeared by their inscriptions fifteen or sixteen hundred years before but as soon as that light comes to our light it vanishes So this eternall and this supernaturall light Christ and faith enlightens warmes purges and does all the profitable offices of fire and light if we keep it in the right spheare in the proper place that is if wee consist in points necessary to salvation and revealed in the Scripture but when wee bring this light to the common light of reason to our inferences and consequencies it may be in danger to vanish it selfe and perchance extinguish our reason too we may search so far and reason so long of faith and grace as that we may lose not onely them but even our reason too and sooner become mad then good Not that we are bound to believe any thing against reason that is to believe we know not why It is but a slacke opinion it is not Beliefe that is not grounded upon reason He that should come to a Heathen man a meere naturall man uncatechized uninstructed in the rudiments of the Christian Religion and should at first without any preparation present him first with this necessitie Thou shalt burn in fire and brimstone eternally except thou believe a Trinitie of Persons in an unitie of one God Except thou believe the Incarnation of the second Person of the Trinitie the Sonne of God Except thou believe that a Virgine had a Soone and the same Sonne that God had and that God was Man too and being the immortall God yet died he should be so farre from working any spirituall cure upon this poore soule as that he should rather bring Christian Mysteries into scorne then him to a beliefe For that man if you proceed so Believe all or you burne in Hell would finde an easie an obvious way to escape all that is first not to believe Hell it selfe and then nothing could binde him to believe the rest The reason therefore of Man must first be satisfied but the way of such satisfaction must be this to make him see That this World a frame of so much harmony so much concinnitie and conveniencie and such a correspondence and subordination in the parts thereof must necessarily have had a workeman for nothing can make it selfe That no such workeman would deliver over a frame and worke of so much Majestie to be governed by Fortune casually but would still retain the Administration thereof in his owne hands That if he doe so if he made the World and sustaine it still by his watchfull Providence there belongeth a worship and service to him for doing so That therefore he hath certainly revealed to man what kinde of worship and service shall be acceptable to him That this manifestation of his Will must be permanent it must be written there must be a Scripture which is his Word and his Will And that therefore from that Scripture from that Word of God all Articles of our Beliefe are to bee drawne If then his Reason confessing all this aske farther proofe how he shall know that these Scriptures accepted by the Christian Church are the true Scriptures let him bring any other Booke which pretendeth to be the Word of God into comparison with these It is true we have not a Demonstration not such an Evidence as that one and two are three to prove these to be Scriptures of God God hath not proceeded in that manner to drive our Reason into a pound and to force it by a peremptory necessitie to accept these for Scriptures for then here had been no exercise of our Will and our assent if we could not have resisted But yet these Scriptures have so orderly so sweet and so powerfull a working upon the reason and the understanding as if any third man who were utterly discharged of all preconceptions and anticipations in matter of Religion one who were altogether neutrall disinteressed unconcerned in either party nothing towards a Turke and as little toward a Christian should heare a Christian pleade for his Bible and a Turke for his Alcoran and should weigh the evidence of both the Majesty of the Style the punctuall accomplishment of the Prophecies the harmony and concurrence of the foure Evangelists the consent and unanimity of the Christian Church ever since and many other such reasons he would be drawne to such an Historicall such a Grammaticall such a Logicall beliefe of our Bible as to preferre it before any other that could be pretended to be the Word of God He would believe it and he would know why he did so For let no man thinke that God hath given him so much ease here as to save him by believing he knoweth not what or why Knowledge cannot save us but we cannot be saved without Knowledge Faith is not on this side Knowledge but beyond it we must necessarily come to Knowledge first though we must not stay at it when we are come thither For a regenerate Christian being now a new Creature hath also a new facultie of Reason and so believeth the Mysteries of Religion out of another Reason then as a meere naturall Man he believed naturall and morall things He believeth them for their own sake by Faith though he take Knowledge of them before by that common Reason and by those humane Arguments which worke upon other men in naturall or morall things Divers men may walke by the Sea side and the same beames of the Sunne giving light to them all one gathereth by the benefit of that light pebles or speckled shells for curious vanitie and another gathers precious Pearle or medicinall Ambar by the same light So the common light of reason illumins us all but one imployes this light upon the searching of impertinent vanities another by a better use of the same light finds out the Mysteries of Religion and when he hath found them loves them not for the lights sake but for the naturall and
watchfulnesse that we fall not into sinne we have lucem essentiae possession and fruition of heaven and of the light of Gods presence and then if we doe by infirmity fall into sinne yet by this denudation of our soules this manifestation of our sinnes to God by confession and to that purpose a gladnesse when we heare our sinne spoken of by the preacher we have lumen gloriae an inchoation of our glorified estate and then an other couple of these lights which we propose to be considered is lumen fidei and lumen naturae the light of faith and the light of nature Of these two lights Faith and Grace first and then Nature and Reason we said something before but never too much be cause contentious spirits have cast such clouds upon both these lights that some have said Nature doth all alone and others that Nature hath nothing to do at all but all is Grace we decline wranglings that tend not to edification we say onely to our present purpose which is the operation of these severall couples of lights that by this light of Faith to him which hath it all that is involved in Prophecies is clear and evident as in a History already done and all that is wrapped up in promises is his own already in performance That man needs not goe so high for his assurance of a Messias and Redeemer as to the first promise made to him in Adam nor for the limitation of the stock and race from whence this Messias should come so far as to the renewing of this promise in Abraham nor for the description of this Messias who he should be and of whom he should be born as to Esaias nor to Micheas for the place nor for the time when he should accomplish all this so far as to Daniel no nor so far as to the Evangelists themselves for the History and the evidence that all this that was to be done in his behalf by the Messias was done 1600. yeares since But he hath a whole Bible and an abundant Library in his own heart and there by this light of Faith which is not onely a knowing but an applying an appropriating of all to thy benefit he hath a better knowledge then all this then either Propheticall or Evangelicall for though both these be irrefragable and infallible proofs of a Messias the Propheticall that he should the Evangelicall that he is come yet both these might but concern others this light of Faith brings him home to thee How sure so ever I be that the world shall never perish by water yet I may be drowned and how sure so ever that the Lamb of God hath taken away the sinnes of the world I may perish without I have this applicatory Faith And as he needs not looke back to Esay nor Abraham nor Adam for the Messias so neither needs he to looke forward He needs not stay in expectation of the Angels Trumpets to awaken the dead he is not put to his usquequo Domine How long Lord wilt thou defer our restitution but he hath already died the death of the righteous which is to die to sinne He hath already had his buriall by being buried with Christ in Baptisme he hath had his Resurrection from sinne his Ascension to holy purposes of amendment of life and his Iudgement that is peace of Conscience sealed unto him and so by this light of applying Faith he hath already apprehended an eternall possession of Gods eternall Kingdome And the other light in this second couple is Lux naturae the light of Nature This though a fainter light directs us to the other Nature to Faith and as by the quantitie in the light of the Moone we know the position and distance of the Sunne how far or how neare the Sunne is to her so by the working of the light of Nature in us we may discern by the measure and virtue and heat of that how near to the other greater light the light of Faith we stand If we finde our naturall faculties rectified so as that that free will which we have in Morall and Civill actions be bent upon the externall duties of Religion as every naturall man may out of the use of that free will come to Church heare the Word preached and believe it to be true we may be sure the other greater light is about us If we be cold in them in actuating in exalting in using our naturall faculties so farre we shall be deprived of all light we shall not see the Invisible God in visible things which Saint Paul makes so inexcusable so unpardonable a thing we shall not see the hand of God in all our worldly crosses nor the seal of God in all our worldly blessings we shall not see the face of God in his House his presence here in the Church nor the mind of God in his Gospell that his gracious purposes upon mankinde extend so particularly or reach so far as to include us I shall heare in the Scripture his Vinite omnes come all and yet I shall thinke thatâ— his eye was not upon me that his eye did not becken me and I shall heare the Deus vult omnes salves that God would save all and yet I shall finde some perverse reason in my selfe why it is not likely that God will save me I am commanded scrutari Scripturas to search the scriptures now that is not to be able to repeat any history of the Bible without booke it is not to ruffle a Bible and upon any word to turne to the Chapter and to the verse but this is exquisit a scrutatio the true searching of the Scriptures to finde all the histories to be examples to me all the prophecies to induce a Saviour for me all the Gospell to apply Christ Jesus to me Turne over all the folds and plaits of thine owne heart and finde there the infirmities and waverings of thine owne faith and an ability to say Lord I beleeve help mine unbeleefe and then though thou have no Bible in thy hand or though thou stand in a dark corner nay though thou canst not reade a letter thou hast searched that Scripture thou hast turned to Marke 9. ver 24 Turne thine eare to God and heare him turning to thee and saying to thy soule I will marry thee to my selfe for ever and thou hast searched that Scripture and turned to Hos. 2. ver 19. Turne to thine owne histery thine owne life and if thou canst reade there that thou hast endeavoured to turne thine ignorance into knowledge and thy knowledge into Practice if thou finde thy selfe to be an example of that rule of Christs If you know these things blessed are you if you do them then thou hast searched that Scripture and turned to Io. 13. ver 14. This is Scrutari Scripturas to Search the Scriptures not as though thou wouldest make a concordance but an application as thou wouldest search a
that in some visible in some permanent manner in writing and that that writing is Scripture if we had not these testimonies these necessary consequences derived even from the naturall reason of man to convince men how should we convince them since our way is not to create Faith but to satisfie reason And therefore let us rest in this testimony of men that all Christian men nay Iewes and Turkes too have ever beleeved that there are certain Scriptures which are the revealed will of God and that God hath manifested to us in those Scriptures all that he requires at our hands for Faith or Manners Now which are those Scriptures As for the whole body intirely together so for the particular limbs and members of this body the severall books of the Bible we must accept testimonium ab homine humane Arguments and the testimony of men At first the Jewes were the Depositaries of Gods Oracles and therefore the first Christians were to aske the Jewes which books were those Scriptures Since the Church of God is the Master of those Rolls no doubt but the Church hath Testimonium à Deo The Spirit of God to direct her in declaring what Books make up the Scripture but yet even the Church which is to deal upon men proceedeth also per testimonium ab homine by humane Arguments such as may work upon the reason of man in declaring the Scriptures of God For the New Testament there is no question made of any Book but in Conventicles of Anabaptists and for the Old it is testimony enough that we receive all that the Jews received This is but the testimony of man but such as prevails upon every man It is somewhat boldly said not to permit to our selves any severer or more bitter animadversion upon him by a great man in the Romam Church that perchance the book of Enoch which S. Iude cites in his Epistle was not an Apocryphal book but Canonicall Scripture in the time of the Iews As though the holy Ghost were a time-server and would sometimes issue some things for present satisfaction which he would not avow nor stand to after as though the holy Ghost had but a Lease for certain years a determinable estate in the Scriptures which might expire and he be put from his evidence that that book might become none of his which was his before We therefore in receiving these books for Canonicall which we do and in post-posing the Apochryphall into an inferior place have testimonium ab homine testimony from the People of God who were and are the most competent and unreproachable witnesses herein and we have Testimonium ab inimico testimony from our adversary himself Perniciosius est Ecclesiae librum recipere pro sacro qui non est quà m sacrum rejicere It is a more pernicious danger to the Church to admit a book for Canonicall which is not so then to reject one that is so And therefore ne turberis novitie saith another great Author of theirs Let no young student in Divinity be troubled si alicubi repererit libros istos supputari inter Canonicos if he finde at any time any of these books reckned amongst the Canonical nam ad Hiero. limam verba Doctorum Concilio rum reducenda for saith he Hieroms file must passe over the Doctors and over the Councels too and they must be understood and interpreted according to S. Hier. now this is but testimonium ab homine S. Hier. testimony that prevailed upon Cajetan and it was but testimonium ab homine the testimony of the Iews that prevailed upon S. Hierom himself It is so for the whole body The bible it is so for all the limbs of this body every particular book of the Bible and it is so for the soul of this body the true sense of every place of very book thereof for for that the sense of the place we must have testimonium ab homine the testimony that is the interpretation of other men Thou must not rest upon thy self nor upon any private man Iohn was a witnesse that had witnesses the Prophets had prophesied of Iohn Baptist. The men from whom we are to receive testimony of the sense of the Scriptures must be men that have witnesses that is a visible and outward calling in the Church of God That no sense be ever admitted that derogateth from God that makes him a false or an impotent or a cruell God That every contradiction and departing from the Analogy of Faith doth derogate from God and divers such grounds and such inferences as every man confesses and acknowledges to be naturally and necessarily consequent these are Testimonia ab homine Testimonies that passe like currant money from man to man obvious to every man suspicious to none Thus it is in the generall but then when it is deduced to a more particular triall what is the sense of such or such a place when Christ saith Scrutamini Scripturas search the Scriptures non mittit ad simplicem lectionem sed ad scrutationem exquisitam It is not a bare reading but a diligent searching that is enjoyned us Now they that will search must have a warrant to search they upon whom thou must rely for the sense of the Scriptures must be sent of God by his Church Thou art robbed of all devested of all if the Scriptures be taken from thee Thou hast no where to search blesse God therefore that hath kept thee in possession of that sacred Treasure the Scriptures and then if any part of that treasure ly out of thy reach or ly in the dark so as that thou understandest not the place search that is apply thy self to them that have warrant to search and thou shalt lack no light necessary for thee Either thou shalt understand that place or the not understanding of it shall not be imputed to thee nor thy salvation hindred by that Ignorance It is but to a woman that Saint Hierome saith Ama Scripturas amabit te Sapientia Love the Scriptures and Wisdome will love thee The weaknesse of her Sex must not avert her from reading the Scriptures It is instruction for a Childe and for a Girle that the same Father giveth Septem annorum discat memoriter Psalterium As soone as she is seaven yeares old let her learn all the Psalmes without book the tendernesse of her age must not avert her from the Scriptures It is to the whole Congregation consisting of all sorts and sexes that Saint Chrysostome saith Hortor hortari non desinam I alwayes doe and alwayes will exhort you ut cum domi fueritis assiduae lectioni Scripturarum vacetis that at home in your owne houses you accustome your selves to a dayly reading of the Scriptures And after to such men as found or forced excuses for reading them he saith with compassion and indignation too O homo non est tuum Scripturas evolvere
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
departs from that posture which God in nature gave him that is erect to look upward for his eye is always down upon them that lie in the dust under his feet Certainly he that seares up himselfe and makes himselfe insensible of the cries and curses of the poor here in this world does but prepare himselfe for the howlings gnashings of teeth in the world to come It is the Serpents taste the Serpents diet Dust shalt thou eate all the days of thy life and he feeds but on dust that oppresses the poor And as there is evidently more inhumanity more violation of nature in this oppression then in emulation so may there well seem to be more impiety and more violation of God himselfe by that word which the holy Ghost chooses in the next place which is Reproach He that oppresses the poor reproaches his Maker This word which we translate to Reproach Theodotion translates to Blaspheme And blasphemy is an odious thing even towards men For men may be blasphemed The servant of God Moses is blasphemed as well as God And Goliah blasphemed the Israel of God as well as the God of Israel and for the most part where we read Reviling the word is Blaspheming Our word here that we may still pursue our first way a reverent consideration of the elegancy of the Scriptures in the origination of the words is Charak and this word Iob uses as it is used in our text for reproach My heart shall not reproach me so long as I live And this this reproaching of the heart is in many cases a Blaspheming and a strange one a self-blaspheming When I have had by the goodnesse of Gods Spirit a true sense of my sinnes a true remorse and repentance of those sinnes true Absolution from those sinnes true seales of reconciliation after those sinnes true diligence and preclusion of occasions of relapsing into those sinnes still to suspect my state in Gods favour and my full redintegration with him still to deny my selfe that peace which his Spirit by these meanes offers me still to call my repentance imperfect and the Sacramentall seales ineffectuall still to accuse my selfe of sinnes thus devested thus repented this is to reproach this is to to blaspheme mine owne soule If I will say with Iob My heart shall reproach me of nothing this is not that I will accuse my selfe of no sinne or say the elect of God cannot sinne no nor that God sees not the sinnes of the elect nor that God is not affected or angry with those sinnes and those sinners as long as they remaine unrepented but after I have accused my selfe of those sinnes and brought them into Judgement by way of Confession and received my pardon under seale in the Sacrament and pleaded that pardon to the Church by a subsequent amendment of life then I reproach my selfe of nothing for this were a self-blaspheming and a reproaching of mine owne soule Now the word of our text in the root thereof Charak is manifestare prostituere It is to publish the fault or to prostitute the fame of any man extrajudicially not in a right forme of Judgement and amongst those men who are not to be his Judges So to fill itching eares with rumours and whisperings so to minister matter and fuell to fiery tongues so to lay imputations and aspersions upon men though that which we say of those men be true is a libelling is a calumny is a blaspheming and a reproach in the word of this text for it is manifestare prostituere to publish a mans faults and to prostitute a mans fame there where his faults can receive no remedy if they be true nor his fame Reparation if they be false It is properly to speake ill of a man and not before a competent Judge And in such a sense a man may reproach God himselfe But is there then a Judge between God and man Shall not the Iudge of all the earth doe right is Abrahams question but there that Judge of all the earth is God himself But is there a Judge of heaven too A Judge between God and man for Gods proceeding there There is The Scripture is a Judge by which God himself will be tryed As the Law is our Judge and the Judge does but declare what is Law so the Scripture is our Judge and God proceeds with us according to those promises and Judgements which he hath laid down in the Scripture When God says in Esay Iudge betweene me and my Vineyard certainly God means that there is something extant some contract some covenant something that hath the nature of a Law some visible some legible thing to judge by And Christ tels us what that is Search the Scriptures says hee for by them wee must bee tryed for our lives So then if I come to thinke that God will call me in question for my life for my eternall life by any way that hath not the Nature of a Law And by the way it is of the Nature and Essence of a Law before it come to bind that it be published if I think that God will condemn me by any unrevealed will any reserved purpose in himself this is to reproach God in the word of this Text for it is prostituere to prostitute to exhibit God otherwise then he hath exhibited himselfe and to charge God with a proceeding upon secret and unrevealed purposes and not rest in his Scriptures God will try us at last God himself will be tryed all the way by his Scriptures And to charge God with the damnation of men otherwise then by his Tantummodo Crede I have commanded thee to beleeve and thou hast not done that And by his Fac hoc vives I have commanded thee to live well and thou hast not done that which are conditions evidently laid downe in the Scriptures and not grounded upon any secret purpose is a reproaching of God in the word of this Text. This this Oppressor of the poor is said to doe here He reproaches the Maker God in that notion as he is the Creator Now this is the clearest notion and fastest apprehension and first handle that God puts out to man to lay hold upon him by as hee is The Creator For though God did elect mee before hee did actually create mee yet God did not mean to elect mee before hee meant to create mee when his purpose was upon me to elect me surely his purpose had passed upon me to create mee for when he elected me I was I. So that this is our first notion of God towards us as he is The Creator The School will receive a pregnant child from his parents and work upon him The Vniversity will receive a grounded Scholar from the School and work upon him The State or the Church will receive a qualified person from the University and worke by him But still the State and the Church and the University and the first School it self
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
is incorporated and manifested in a body by works and the way to both is that Hearing which amounts to this Hearkning to a diligent to a considerate to a profitable Hearing In which one essentiall circumstance is that we be not over affectionately transported with an opinion of any one person but apply our selves to the Ordinance Come and hearken unto me To any whom God sends with the Seale and Character of his Minister which is our fourth and last branch in your part David doth not determine this in his own person that you should hearken to him and none but him but that you should hearken to him in that capacity and qualification which is common to him with others as we are sent by God upon that Ministery Me. that you say to all such Blessed art thou that comest in the Name of the Lord. St. Augustine and not he alone interprets this whole Psalme of Christ that it is a thankesgiving of Christ to his Father upon some deliverance received in some of his Agonies some of his persecutions and that Christ calleth us to hearken unto him To him so as he is present with us in the Ministery of his Church He is a perverse servant that will receive no commandment except he have it immediately from his Masters mouth so is he too that pretendeth to rest so wholly in the Word of God the Scriptures as that he seeks no interpretation no exposition no preaching All is in the Scriptures but all the Scriptures are not alwaies evident to all understandings He also is a perverse servant that wil receive no commandment by any Officer of his Masters except he like the man or if his Master might in his opinion have chosen a fitter man to serve in that place And such a perversnesse is in those hearers who more respect the man then the Ministery and his manner of delivering it then the message that he delivers Let a man so account of us as of the Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the mysteries of God That is our Classis our rank our station what names soever we brought into the world by our extraction from this or that family what name soever we took in our baptisme and contract between God and us that name in which we come to you is that The Ministers of Christ The Stewards of the Mysteries of God And so let men account of us says the Apostle Invention and Disposition and Art and Eloquence and Expression and Elocution and reading and writing and printing are secondary things accessory things auxiliary subsidiary things men may account us and make account of us as Orators in the pulpit and of Authors in the shop but if they account of us as of Ministers and Stewards they give us our due that 's our name to you All the Evangelists mention Iohn Baptist and his preaching but two of the foure say never a word of his austerity of life his Locusts nor his Camels haire and those two that do Matthew and Marke they insist first upon his calling and then upon his actuall preaching how he pursued that Calling And then upon the Doctrine that he preached Repentance and Sanctification and after that they come to these secondary and subsidiary things which added to his estimation and assisted the passage of his Doctrine His good life Learning and other good parts and an exemplar life fall into second places They have a first place in their consideration who are to call them but in you to whom they are sent but a second fixe you in the first place upon the Calling This Calling circumcised Moses uncircumcised lips This made Ieremy able to speak though he called himself a childe This is Esays coale from the Altar which takes away even his sinne and his iniquity Be therefore content to passe over some infirmities and rest your selves upon the Calling And when you have thus taken the simplicity of Children they are the persons which was our first step and are come to the Congregation that is your Action and was our second and have conformed your selves to hearken that also is the Disposition here which was our third And all this with a reverence to the Calling before an affection to the man that is your submission to Gods Ordinance and was our fourth and last step you have then built up our first part in your selves laid together all those peeces which constitute your Duty Come ye Children and hearken unto me And from hence we passe to our duty I will teach you the fear of the Lord. In this second part we made two steps first The manner Docebo I will teach And then the Matter Timorem Domini I will teach you the feare of the Lord. Upon the first we will stay no longer but to confesse That we are bound to teach and that this teaching is to preach And Vae si non Wâ— be unto us if we do not preach Wo to them who out of ease or state silence themselves And woe to them too who by their distemper and Schismaticall and seditious manner of preaching occasion and force others to silence them and think and think it out of a profitable and manifold experience That as forbidden books sell best so silence Ministers thrive best It is a Duty Docendum we must teach Preach but a duty that excludes not Catechizing for cateching seems especially to be intended here where he calls upon them who are ot be taught by that name Children It is a duty that excludes not Praying but Praying excludes not it neither Prayer and Preaching may consist nay they must meet in the Church of God Now he that will teach must have learnt before many yeers before And he that eill preach must have thought of it before many days before Extemporall Ministers that resolve in day what they will be Extemporall Preachers that resolve in a minute what they will say outgo Gods Spirit and make too much hast It was Christs way He tooke first Disciples to learne and thenâ— out of them he tooke Apostles to teach an those Apostles made more Disciples Though your first consideration be upon the Calling yet our consideration must be for our fitnesse to that Calling Our Prophet David hath put them both together well O God thou hast taught me from my youth you see what was his Vniversity Moses was his Aristotle he had studied Divinity from his youth And hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works says he there Hitherto How long was that It follows in the next verse Now am I old and gray headed and yet he gave not over Then Gods work goes well forward when they whom God hath taught teach others He that can say with David Docnistime O God thou hast taught me may say with him too Docebo vos I will teach you But what that remains only I will teach you the fear of the Lord. There is a fear which needs no teaching a