him for his ease that is compound with him easily and continue him in his estate and errors but Cape nobis Take him for us so detect him as he may thereby be reduced to Christ and his Church Neither onely this counsel of Christ to his Church but that commandment of God in Levit. Exod. 23.3 Lev. 19.15 is also applyable to this Non misereber is pauperis in judicio Thou shalt not countenance a poore man in his cause Thou shalt not pity a poore man in judgement Though a new opinion may seeme a poore opinion able to doe little harme though it may seem a pious and profitable opinion and of good use yet in judicio if it stand in judgement and pretend to be an article of faith and of that holy obligation matter necessary to salvation Non misereberis Thou shalt not spare thou shalt not countenance this opinion upon any collaterall respect but bring it to the onely tryall of Doctrines the Scriptures In the beginning of the Reformation in Germany there arose a sect whom they called Intermists and Adiaphorists who upon a good pretence were like to have done a great deale of mischiefe They said Since all the hope of a Reformation that we can promise our selves must come from a generall Councell and of such a Councel we can have no hope but by the Pope it were impertinent and dis-conducing to our owne ends to vexe or exasperate the Pope in this Interim till the Councel be setled and so the Reformation put into a way and in the Interim for this short time till the Councel these Adiaphora the indifferent things in which mild word they involved all the abuses and all the grievances that were complained of may be well enough continued But if they had continued so long they had continued yet If they had spared their little foxes then they had destroyed their vines If they had pitied the poore in judgement the cause had been judged against them If they had reprieved those abuses for a time they had got a pardon for ever And therefore blessed were they in taking those children and dashing them against the stones In taking those new-born opinions and bringing them to the true touch-stone of all Doctrines An ab initio whether they had been from the beginning or could consist with the Scriptures Neither doth this counsel of Christs Take us these little foxes nor this commandment of God Thou shalt not pity the poor in judgment determine it self in the Church or in the publique only but extends it self rather contracts it self to every particular soul and conscience Capite vulpeculas Take your litle foxes watch your first inclinatiōs to sins for if you give them suck at first if you feed them with the milke and hony of the mercy of God it shall not be in your power to weane them when you would but they will draw you from one to another extreme from a former presumption to a future desperation in Gods mercy So also Non misereberis Thou shalt not pity the poore in judgement now that thou callest thy selfe to judgement and thy conscience to an examination thou shalt not pity any sin because it pretends to be a poore sin either poore so that it cannot much endanger thee not much encumber thee or poore so as that it threatens thee with poverty with penury with disability to support thy state or maintaine thy family if thou entertaine it not Many times I have seene a suitor that comes in forma pauperis more trouble a Court and more importune a Judge then greater causes or greater persons And so may such sins as come in forma pauperis either way That they plead poverty That they can doe little harme or threaten poverty if they be not entertained Those sins are the most dangerous sins which pretend reason why they should be entertained for sinnes which are done meerely out of infirmity or out of the surprisall of a tentation are in comparison of others done as sins in our sleep but in sins upon deliberation upon counsell upon pretence of reason we doe see the wisdome of God but we set our wisdome above his we do see the law of God but we insert and interline non obstantes of our own into Gods Law If therefore thou wilt corruptly and vitiously and sinfully love another out of pity because they love thee so If thou wilt assist a poore man in a cause out of pretence of pity with thy countenance and the power of thy place that that poore man may have something and thou the rest that is recovered in his right If thou wilt embrace any particular sin out of pity lest thy Wife and Children should be left unprovided If thou have not taken these little foxes that is resisted these tentations at the beginning yet Nunc in judicio now that they appeare in judgement in examination of thy conscience Non misereberis Thou shalt not pity them but as Moses speakes of false Prophets Deut. 13. and by a faire accommodation of all bewitching sins with pleasure or profit If a Dreamer of Dreames have given thee a signe and that signe be come to passe If a sin have told thee it would make thee rich and it have made thee rich yet if this Dreamer draw thee to another God If this profit draw thee to an Idolatrous that is to an habituall love of that sin for Tot habemus recentes Deos quot vitiae sayes S. Hierom Hieron Every man hath so many Idols in him as he hath habituall sins yet Though this dreamer as God proceeds there be thy brother or thy son or thy friend which is as thine owne soule How neare how deare how necessary soever this sin be unto thee Non misereberis sayes Moses Thine eye shall not pity that Dreamer thou shalt not keepe him secret but thine owne hand shall be upon him to kill him And so of this pleasurable or profitable sin Non misereberis Thou shalt not hide it but poure it out in Confession Non misereberis Thou shalt not pardon it no nor reprieve it but destroy it for the practise presently Non misereberis Thou shalt not turne out the Mother and retaine the Daughter not leave the sin and retaine that which was sinfully got but devest all roote and body and fruits by confession to God by contrition in thy selfe by restitution to men damnified Elfe that will fall upon thee and thy soule which fell upon the Church That because they did not take their little foxes they endangered the whole vine Because they did pity the poore in judgement that is as S. Augustine sayes they were loath to wrastle with the people or force them from dangerous customes they came from that supine negligence in tolerating prayer for the Dead to establish a doctrinall point of Purgatory and for both prayer for the Dead and Purgatory they detort this text Else that is if no Purgatory why then are these men
sayes Praescribimus adulteris nostris Wee prescribe above them which counterfeit our doctrine for we had it before them and they have but rags and those torn from us Fabulae immissae quae fidem infirmarent veritatis They have brought part of our Scriptures into their Fables that all the rest might seem but Fables too Gehennam praedicantes iudicium ridemur decachinnamur They laugh at us when we preach of hell and judgement Et tamen Elysii campi fidem praeoccupaverunt And yet they will needs be beleeved when they talk of their Elysian fields Fideliora nostra quorum imagines fidem inveniunt Is it not safer trusting to our substance then their shadows To our doctrine of the judgement in the Scriptures then their allusions in their Poets So far Tertullian considers this But to say the truth and all the truth Howsoever the Gentiles had some glimmering of a judgement that is an account to be made of our actions after this life yet of this judgement which we speak of now which is a generall Judgement of all together And that judgement to be executed by Christ and to be accompanied with a Resurrection of the body of this the Gentiles had no intimation this was left wholly for the holy Ghost to manifest And of this all the world hath received a full convincing from him because he hath delivered to the world those Scriptures which do so abundantly so irrefragably establish it And therfore Ecclus. 7.36 Bernard Memorare novissima non peccabis Remember the end and thou shalt never do amisse Non dicitur memorare primordia aut media If thou remember the first reproofe that all are under sin that may give occasion of excusing or extenuating How could I avoid that that all men do If thou remember the second reproofe That there is a righteousnesse communicable to all that sin that may occasion so bold a confidence Since I may have so easie a pardon what haste of giving over yet But Memorare novissima consider that there is a judgement and that that judgement is the last thing that God hath to doe with man consider this and thou wilt not sin not love sin not doe the same sins to morrow thou didst yester-day as though this judgement were never the nearer but that as a thousand yeares are as one day with God so thy threescore yeares should be as one night with thee one continuall sleep in the practise of thy beloved sin Thou wilt not think so if thou remember this judgement Now in respect of the time after this judgement which is Eternity the time between this and it cannot be a minute and therefore think thy self at that Tribunall that judgement now Where thou shalt not onely â—â—are all thy sinfull workes and words and thoughts repeated which thou thy selfe hadst utterly forgot but thou shalt heare thy good works thine almes thy comming to Church thy hearing of Sermons given in evidence against thee because they had hypocrisie mingled in them yea thou shalt finde even thy repentance to condemne thee because thou madest that but a doore to a relapse There thou shalt see to thine inexpressible terror some others cast downe into hell for thy sins for those sins which they would not have done but upon thy provocation There thou shalt see some that occasioned thy sins and accompanied thee in them and sinned them in a greater measure then thou didst taken up into heaven because in the way they remembred the end and thou shalt sink under a lesse waight because thou never lookedst towards him that would have eased thee of it Bernard Quis non cogitans haec in desperationis rotetur abyssum Who can once thinke of this and not be tumbled into desperation But who can think of it twice maturely and by the Holy Ghost and not finde comfort in it when the same light that shewes mee the judgement shewes me the Judge too Knowing therefore the terrors of the Lord we perswade men 1 Cor. 5.15 but knowing the comforts too we importune men to this consideration That as God preceeds with judgement in this world to give the issue with the tentation and competent strength with the affliction as the Wiseman expresses it Wisd 12.21 That God punishes his enemies with deliberation and requesting as our former Translation had it and then with how great circumspection will he judge his children So he gives us a holy hope That as he hath accepted us in this first judgement the Church and made us partakers of the Word and Sacraments there So he will bring us with comfort to that place which no tongue but the tongue of S. Paul and that moved by the Holy Ghost could describe and which he does describe so gloriously and so pathetically You are come unto Mount Sion Heb. 12.22 and to the City of the living God The heavenly Ierusalem And to an innumerable company of Angels To the generall Assembly and Church of the first borne which are written in heaven and to God the Iudge of all and to Iesus the Mediator of the new Covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things then the blood of Abel And into this blessed and inseparable society The Father of lights and God of all comfort give you an admission now and an irremoveable possession hereafter for his onely Sons onely sake and by the working of his blessed Spirit whom he sends to work in you This reproofe of Sin of Righteousnesse and of Iudgement Amen SERMONS Preached upon Trinity-Sunday SERM. XXXVIII Preached upon Trinity-Sunday 2 COR. 1.3 Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort THere was never Army composed of so many severall Nations the Towre of Babel it self in the confusion of tongues gave not so many severall sounds as are uttered and mustered against God and his Religion The Atheist denies God for though David call it a foolish thing to do so The foole hath said it in his heart And though David speake it in the singular number The foole as though there were not many so very fooles as to say and to say in their heart There is no God yet some such fooles there are that say it in their very heart and have made shift to think so indeed But for such fools as say it in their actions that is that live as though there were no God Stultorum plena sunt omnia We have seen fooles in the Court and fooles in the Cloister fooles that take no calling and fooles in all callings that can be taken fooles that heare and fooles that preach fooles at generall Councells and fooles at Councell-tables Stultorum plena sunt omnia such fooles as deny God so far as to leave him out are not in Davids singular number but super-abound in every profession So that Davids manner of expressing it is not so much singular as though there were but
not Oportet impleri Scripturam The Scripture must be fulfilled We doe not wish them we do but Prophesie them no nor we doe not prophesie them but the Scriptures have preprophesied them before they will fall upon you as upon Iudas in condemnation and perchance as upon Iudas in desperation too Davids purpose then being in these words to work to their amendment Mollior sensus and not their finall destruction we may easily and usefully discerne in the particular words a milder sense then the words seeme at first to present And first give me leave by the way only in passing by occasion of those words which are here rendred Convertentur Erubescent and which in the Originall are Iashabu and Ieboshu which have a musicall and harmonious sound and agnomination in them let me note thus much even in that that the Holy Ghost in penning the Scriptures delights himself not only with a propriety but with a delicacy and harmony and melody of language with height of Metaphors and other figures which may work greater impressions upon the Readers and not with barbarous or triviall or market or homely language It is true that when the Grecians and the Romanes and S. Augustine himselfe undervalued and despised the Scriptures because of the poore and beggerly phrase that they seemed to be written in the Christians could say little against it but turned still upon the other safer way wee consider the matter and not the phrase because for the most part they had read the Scriptures only in Translations which could not maintaine the Majesty nor preserve the elegancies of the Originall Their case was somewhat like ours at the beginning of the Reformation when because most of those men who laboured in that Reformation came out of the Romane Church and there had never read the body of the Fathers at large but only such ragges and fragments of those Fathers as were patcht together in their Decretat's and Decretals and other such Common placers for their purpose and to serve their turne therefore they were loath at first to come to that issue to try controversies by the Fathers But as soon as our men that in braced the Reformation had had time to reade the Fathers they were ready enough to joyne with the Adversary in that issue and still we protest that we accept that evidence the testimony of the Fathers and resuse nothing which the Fathers unanimly delivered for matter of faith and howsoever at the beginning some men were a little ombrageous and startling at the name of the Fathers yet since the Fathers have been well studied for more then threescore yeares we have behaved our selves with more reverence to wards the Fathers and more confidence in the Fathers then they of the Romane perswasion have done and been lesse apt to suspect or quarrell their Books or to reprove their Doctrines then our Adversaries have been So howsoever the Christians at first were fain to sink a little under that imputation that their Scriptures have no Majesty no eloquence because these embellishments could not appeare in Translations nor they then read Originalls yet now that a perfect knowledge of those languages hath brought us to see the beauty and the glory of those Books we are able to reply to them that there are not in all the world so eloquent Books as the Scriptures and that nothing is more demonstrable then that if we would take all those Figures and Tropes which are collected out of secular Poets and Orators we may give higher and livelier examples of every one of those Figures out of the Scriptures then out of all the Greek and Latine Poets and Orators and they mistake it much that thinke that the Holy Ghost hath rather chosen a low and barbarous and homely style then an eloquent and powerfull manner of expressing himselfe To returne and to cast a glance upon these words in Davids prediction Erubescent upon his enemies what hardnesse is in the first Erubescent Let them be ashamed for the word imports no more our last Translation sayes no more neither did our first Translators intend any more by their word Confounded for that is confounded with shame in themselves This is Virga desoiplinae sayes S. Bernard as long as we are ashamed of sin we are not growne up and hardned in it we are under correction the correction of a remorse As soone as Adam came to be ashamed of his nakednesse he presently thought of some remedy if one should come and tell thee that he looked through the doore that he stood in a window over against thine and saw thee doe such or such a sin this would put thee to a shame and thou wouldest not doe that sin till thou wert fure he could not see thee O if thou wouldest not sin till thou couldst think that God saw thee not this shame had wrought well upon thee There are complexions that cannot blush there growes a blacknesse a sootinesse upon the soule by custome in sin which overcomes all blushing all tend ernesse White alone is palenesse and God loves not a pale soule a soule possest with a horror affrighted with a diffidence and distrusting his mercy Rednesse alone is anger and vehemency and distemper and God loves not such a red soule a soule that sweats in sin that quarrels for sin that revenges in sin But that whitenesse that preserves it selfe not onely from being died all over in any foule colour from contracting the name of any habituall sin and so to be called such or such a sinner but from taking any spot from comming within distance of a tentation or of a suspition is that whitenesse which God meanes when he sayes Thou art all faire my Love Cant. 4.7 and there is no spot in thee Indifferent looking equall and easie conversation appliablenesse to wanton discourses and notions and motions are the Devils single money and many pieces of these make up an Adultery As light a thing as a Spangle is a Spangle is silver and Leafe gold that is blowne away is gold and sand that hath no strength no coherence yet knits the building so doe approaches to sin become sin and fixe sin To avoid these spots is that whitenesse that God loves in the soule But there is a rednesse that God loves too which is this Erubescence that we speak of an aptnesse in the soule to blush when any of these spots doe fall upon it God is the universall Confessor the generall Penitentiary of all the world and all dye in the guilt of their sin that goe not to Confession to him And there are sins of such waight to the soule and such intangling and perplexity to the conscience in some circumstances of the sin as that certainly a soule may receive much ease in such cases by confessing it selfe to man In this holy shamefastnesse which we intend in this outward blushing of the face the soule goes to confession too And it is one of
still it was a future thing Christ is often called the Expectation of the world but it was all that while but an Expectation but a reversion of a future thing So God fed that old world with expectation of future things as that that very name by which God notified himself most to that people Exod. 3.14 in his commission by Moses to Pharaoh was a future name howsoever our Translations and Expositions run upon the present as though God had said Qui sum my name is I am yet in truth it is Qui ero my name is I shall be They had evidences enow that God was but God was pleased to establish in them an assurance that he would be so still and not only be so still as he was then but that hee would be so with them hereafter as he was never yet he would be Immanuel God with us so as that God and man should be one person It was then a faire assurance and a blessed comfort which the children of Israel had in that of Zechary Zech. 9.9 Ecce venit rex Rejoyce ye daughters of Sion and shout ye daughters of Ierusalem Behold thy King commeth riding unto thee upon an Asse But yet this assurance though delivered as in the present produced not those acclamations Mat. 21.9 and recognitions and Hosannaes and Hosanna in the highest to the Son of David as his personall and actuall and visible riding into Jerusalem upon Palme-Sunday did Amougst the Jews there was light enough to discern this future blessing this comming of Christ but they durst not open it nor publish it to others We see the Jews would dye in defence of any part of their Law were it but the Ceremoniall were it but for the not eating of Swines flesh what unsufferable torments suffered the seven brothers in the Maccabees for that But yet we never finde that any of them dyed or exposed themselves to the danger or to the dignity of Martyrdome for this Doctrine of the Messias this future comming of Christ Nay we finde that the Septuagint who first translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek for King Ptolome disguised divers places thereof and departed from the Originall rather then propose this future comming of the Son of God to the interpretation of the world A little Candle they had for themselves but they durst not light anothers Candle at it So also some of the more speculative Philosophers had got some beames of this light but because they saw it would not be beleeved De verarelg cap. 4. they let it alone they said little of it Hence is it that S. Augustine sayes si Platonici reviviscerent if Plato and his Disciples should rise from the dead and come now into our streets and see those great Congregations which thrust and throng every Sabbath and every day of holy convocation to the worship of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus Hoc fortasse dicerent This it is likely they would say sayes he Haec sunt quae populis persuadere non ausi consaetudini cessimus This is that religion which because it consisted so much in future things we durst not propose to the people but were fain to leave them to those present and sensible and visible things to which they had been accustomed before lest when we had shaked them in their old religion we should not be able to settle and establish them in the new And as in civill government a Tyranny is better then an Anarchy a hard King better then none so when we consider religions Idolatry is better then Atheisme and superstition better then profanenesse Not that the Idolater shall any more be saved then the Atheist but that the Idolater having been accustomed to some sense and worship of God of God in his estimation is therefore apter to receive religious impressions then the Atheist is In this then consists this second act of Christs mercy to us in this word veni I am actually really personally presentially come that those types and figures and sacrifices which represented Christ to the old world were not more visible to the eye more palpable to the hand more obvious to the very bodily senses that Christ himself hath been since to us Therefore S. Iohn does not only rest in that That which was from the beginning 1 John 1.1 Christ was alwayes in purpose in prophecy in promise nor in that That which we have heard the world heard of Christ long before they saw him but he proceeds to that That which we have seen and looked upon with our eyes and handled with our hands that declare we unto you So that we are now delivered from that jealousie that possessed those Septuagint those Translators that they durst not speak plain and delivered from that suspition that possessed Plato and his disciples that the people were incapable of that doctrine Wee know that Christ is come and we avow it and we preach it and we affirm that it is not onely as impious and irreligious a thing but as senslesse and as absurd a thing to deny that the Son of God hath redeemed the world as to deny that God hath created the world and that he is as formally and as gloriously a Martyr that dyes for this Article The Son of God is come as he that dyes for this There is a God And these two acts of his mercy enwrapped in this one word veni I came first that he who is alwayes present out of an abundant love to man studied a new way of comming and then that he who was but betrothed to the old world by way of promise is married to us by an actuall comming will be farther explicated to us in that which only remaines and constitutes our third and last part the end and purpose of his comming That they might have life and might have it more abundantly And though this last part put forth many handles wee can but take them by the hand and shake them by the hand that is open them and so leave them First then in this last part we consider the gift it self the treasure Life 3. Part. Vita That they might have life Now life is the character by which Christ specificates and denominates himselfe Life is his very name and that name by which he consummates all his other names I am the Way the Truth and the Life John 14.6 And therefore does Peter justly and bitterly upbraid the Jews with that Ye desired a murderer an enemy to life to be granted unto you and killed the Prince of Life Acts 3.14 It is an honour to any thing that it may be sworn by by vulgar and triviall things men might not sweare Jer. 5.7 How shall I pardon them this sayes God They have sworn by things that are not gods And therefore God who in so many places professes to sweare by himself and of whom the Apostle sayes Heb. 6.13 That because he could sweare by no greater he
bottomelesse Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus so they would know as well what God hath done for my soule as what my soule and body have done against my God so they would reade me throughout and look upon me altogether I would joyne with Iob in his confident adjuration O Earth cover not thou my blood Let all the world know all the sins of my youth and of mine age too and I would not doubt but God should receive more glory and the world more benefit then if I had never sinned This is that that exalts Iobs confidence he was guilty of nothing that is no such thing as they concluded upon of nothing absolutely because he had repented all And from this his confidence rises to a higher pitch then this Nec clamor O Earth cover not thou my blood and let my cry have no place What meanes Iob in this Doubtfull Expositors make us doubt too Some have said Clamor that Iob desires his cry might have no place that is no termination no resting place but that his just complaint might be heard over all the world Stunnica the Augustinian interprets it so Some have said that he intends by his cry his crying sins that they might have no place that is no hiding place but that his greatest sins and secret sins might be brought to light Bolduc the Capuchin interprets it so according to that use of the word Clamor God looked for righteousnesse ecce clamorem behold a cry that is Esay 5.7 sins crying in the eares of God But there is more then so in this phrase in this elegancy in this vehemency of the Holy Ghost in Iobs mouth Let my cry have no place In the former part Iobs Protestation he considered God and man righteousnesse towards man in cleane hands and in pure prayers devotion towards God In this part his Manifest he pursues the same method he considers man and God Though men knew all my sins that should not trouble me sayes he and that we have considered yea though my cry finde no place no place with God that should not trouble me I should be content that God should seeme not to heare my prayers but that hee laid me open to that ill interpretation of wicked men Tush he prayes but the Lord heares him not he cries but God relieves him not And yet when wilt thou relieve me O thou reliever of men if not upon my cries upon my prayers Yet S. Augustine hath repeated that more then once more then twice Non est magnum exaudiri ad voluntatem non est magnum Be not over-joyed when God grants thee thy prayer Exauditi ad voluntatem Daemones sayes that Father The Devill had his prayer granted when he had leave to enter into the Heard of Swine And so he had sayes he exemplifying in our present example when he obtained power from God against Iob. But all this aggravated the Devils punishment so may it doe thine to have some prayers granted And as that must not over-joy thee if it be so if thy prayer be not granted it must not deject thee God suffered S. Paul to pray and pray and pray yet after his thrice praying granted him not that he prayed for God suffered that si possibile if it be possiblle and that Transeat calix Let this Cup passe to passe from Christ himselfe yet he granted it not But in many of these cases a man does easilier satisfie his owne minde then other men If God grant me not my prayer I recover quickly and I lay hold upon the hornes of that Altar and ride safely at that Anchor God saw that that which I prayed for was not so good for him nor so good for me But when the world shall come to say Where is now your Religion where is your Reformation doe not all other Rivers as well as the Tiber or the Poe does not the Seine and the Rhene and the Maene too begin to ebbe back and to empty it selfe in the Sea of Rome why should not your Thames doe so as well as these other Rivers Where is now your Religion your Reformation Were not you as good run in the same channell as others doe This is a shrewd tentation and induces opprobrious conclusions from malicious enemies when our cries have no place our religious service no present acceptation our prayers no speedy return from God But yet because even in this God may propose farther glory to himselfe more benefit to me and more edification even to them at last who at first made ill constructions of his proceedings I admit as Iob admits O Earth cover not thou my blood let all the world see all my faults and let my cry have no place let them imagine that God hath forsaken me and does not heare my prayers my satisfaction my acquiescence arises not out of their opinion and interpretation that must not be my triall but testis in coelis My witnesse is in heaven and my record is on high which is our third and last Consideration We must doe in this last as we have done in our former two parts crack a shell 3 Part. to tast the kernell cleare the words to gaine the Doctrine I am ever willing to assist that observation That the books of Scripture are the eloquentest books in the world that every word in them hath his waight and value his taste and verdure And therefore must not blame those Translators nor those Expositors who have with a particular elegancy varied the words in this last clause of the Text my witnesse and my record The oldest Latine Translation received this variation and the last Latine even Tremellius himselfe as close as he sticks to the Hebrew retaines this variation Testis and Conscius And that collection which hath been made upon this variation is not without use that conscius may be spoken de interno that God will beare witnesse to my inward conscience and testis de externo that God will in his time testifie to the world in my behalfe But other places of Scripture will more advance that observation of the elegancy thereof then this for in this the two words signifie but one and the same thing it is but witnesse and witnesse and no more Not that it is easie to finde in Hebrew nor perchance in any language two words so absolutely Synonymous as to signifie the same thing without any difference but that the two words in our Text are not both of one language not both Hebrew For the first word Gned is an Hebrew word but the other Sahad is Syriaque and both signifie alike Levit. 5.1 and equally testem a witnesse He that heares the voyce of swearing and is a witnesse sayes Moses in the first word of our Text and then the Chalde Paraphrase intending the same thing expresses it in the other word Sahad So in the contract between Laban and Jacob Gen. 31.47 Laban calls that heap of stones which he had
incorruptionem sicut anima per fidem Because our bodie shall be regenerated by glory there as our soules are by faith here Therefore Tertul. cals the Resurrection Exemplum spei nostrae The Originall out of which we copy out our hope and Clavem sepulchrorū nostrorum How hard soever my grave be locked yet with that key with the application of the Resurrection of Christ Jesus it will open And they are all names which expresse this well which Tertullian gives Christ Vadem obsidem fidejussorem resurrectionis nostrae That he is the pledge the hostage the surety of our Resurrection So doth that also which is said in the Schoole Sicut Adam forma morientium Theoph. it a Christus forma resurgentium Without Adam there had beene no such thing as death without Christ no such thing as a Resurrection But ascendit ille effractor as the Prophet speaks The breaker is gone up before and they have passed through the gate that is assuredly Mich. 2.13 infallibly they shall passe But what needs all this heat all this animosity all this vehemence about the Resurrection May not man be happy enough in heaven though his body never come thither upon what will ye ground the Resurrection upon the Omnipotence of God Asylum haereticorum est Omnipotentia Dei which was well said and often repeated amongst the Ancients The Omnipotence of God hath alwaies been the Sanctuary of Heretiques that is alwaies their refuge in all their incredible doctrines God is able to do it can do it You confesse the Resurrection is a miracle And miracles are not to be multiplied nor imagined without necessity and what necessity of bodies in Heaven Beloved we make the ground and foundation of the Resurrection to be not meerely the Omnipotency of God for God will not doe all that he can doe but the ground is Omnipotens voluntas Dei revelata The Almighty will of God revealed by him to us And therefore Christ joynes both these together Erratis Ye erre Mat. 22.29 not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God that is not considering the power of God as it is revealed in the Scriptures for there is our foundation of this Doctrine we know out of the Omnipotence of God it may be and we know out of the Scriptures it must be That works upon our faith this upon our reason That it is man that must be saved man that must be damned and to constitute a man there must be a body as well as a soule Nay the Immortality of the soule will not so well lie in proofe without a resuming of the body For upon those words of the Apostle If there were no Resurrection we were the miserablest of all men the Schoole reasons reasonably Naturally the soule and body are united when they are separated by Death it is contrary to nature which nature still affects this union and consequently the soule is the lesse perfect for this separation and it is not likely that the perfect naturall state of the soule which is to be united to the body should last but three or foure score yeares and in most much lesse and the unperfect state that in the separation should last eternally for ever so that either the body must be beleeved to live againe or the soule beleeved to die Never therefore dispute against thine own happinesse never say God asks the heart that is the soule and therefore rewards the soule or punishes the soule and hath no respect to the body Nec auferamus cogitationes a collegio carnis saies Tertullian Never go about to separate the thoughts of the heart from the colledge from the fellowship of the body Siquidem in carne cum carne per carnem agitur quicquid ab anima agitur All that the soule does it does in and with and by the body And therefore saies he also Caro abluitur ut anima emaculetur The body is washed in baptisme but it is that the soule might be made cleane Caro ungitur ut anima consecretur In all unctions whether that which was then in use in Baptisme or that which was in use at our transmigration and passage out of this world the body was anointed that the soule might be consecrated Caro signatur saies Tertullian still ut anima muniatur The body is signed with the Crosse that the soule might be armed against tentations And againe Caro de Corpore Christi vescitur ut anima de Deo saginetur My body received the body of Christ that my soule might partake of his merits He extends it into many particulars and summes up all thus Non possunt in mercede separari quae opera conjungunt These two Body and Soule cannot be separated for ever which whilst they are together concurre in all that either of them doe Never thinke it presumption saies S. Gregory Sperare in te quod in se exhibuit Deus homo To hope for that in thy selfe which God admitted when he tooke thy nature upon him And God hath made it saies he more easie then so for thee to beleeve it because not onely Christ himselfe but such men as thou art did rise at the Resurrection of Christ And therefore when our bodies are dissolved and liquefied in the Sea putrified in the earth resolv'd to ashes in the fire macerated in the ayre Velut in vasa sua transfunditur caro nostra Tertul. make account that all the world is Gods cabinet and water and earth and fire and ayre are the proper boxes in which God laies up our bodies for the Resurrection Curiously to dispute against our owne Resurrection is seditiously to dispute against the dominion of Jesus who is not made Lord by the Resurrection if he have no subjects to follow him in the same way Wee beleeve him to be Lord therefore let us beleeve his and our Resurrection This blessed day Ille Iohn 2.19 Iohn 10.17 which we celebrate now he rose he rose so as none before did none after ever shall rise He rose others are but raised Destroy this Temple saies he and I will raise it I without imploying any other Architect I lay downe my life saies he the Jewes could not have killed him when he was alive If he were alive here now the Jesuits could not kill him here now except his being made Christ and Lord an anointed King have made him more open to them I have a power to lay it downe saies he and I have a power to take it up againe This day Nos Iohn 2.3 we celebrate his Resurrection this day let us celebrate our owne Our own not our one Resurrection for we need many Upon those words of our Saviour to Nicodemus Oportet denuo nasci speaking of the necessity of Baptisme Non solum denuo sed tertiò nasci oportet saies S. Bernard He must be born againe and againe againe by baptisme for Originall sin and for actuall sin againe by repentance Infoelix homo ego
a City or the Martyrdome of an Army This was not a red Sea such as the Jews passed a Sinus a Creek an Arm an Inlet a gut of a Sea but a red Ocean that overflowed and surrounded all parts and from the depth of this Sea God raised them and such was their Resurrection Such as that they which suffered lay and bled with more ease then the executioner stood and sweat and embraced the fire more fervently then he blew it and many times had this triumph in their death that even the executioner himself was in the act of execution converted to Christ and executed with them such was their Resurrection When the State of the Jews was in that depression in that conculcation in that consternation in that extermination in the captivity of Babylon as that God presents it to the Prophet in that Vision in the field of dry bones so Fili hominis Son of man as thou art a reasonable man dost thou think these bones can live that these men can ever be re-collected to make up a Nation The Prophet saith Domine tu scis Lord thou knowest which is not only thou knowest whether they can or no but thou knowest clearly they can thou canst make them up of bones again for thou madest those bones of earth before If God had called in the Angels to the making of man at first and as he said to the Prophet Fili hominis Son of man as thou art a reasonable man so he had said to them Filii Dei as you are the Sons of God illumined by his face do you think that this clod of red earth can make a man a man that shall be equall to you in one of his parts in his soul and yet then shall have such another part as that he whom all you worship my essentiall Son shall assume and invest that part himself can that man made of that body and that soul be made of this clod of earth Those Angels would have said Domine tu scis Lord thou must needs know how to make as good creatures as us of earth who madest us of that which is infinitely lesse then earth of nothing before To induce to facilitate these apprehensions there were some precedents some such thing had been done before But when the Church was newly conceived and then lay like the egge of a Dove and a Gyants foot over it like a worm like an ant and hill upon hill whelmed upon it nay like a grain of corn between the upper and lower Mill-stone ground to dust between Tyrans and Heretiques when as she bled in her Cradle in those children whom Herod slew so she bled upon her crutches in those decrepit men whom former persecutions and tortures had creepled before when East and West joyned hands to crush her and hands and brains joyned execution to consultation to annihilate her in this wane of the Moon God gave her an instant fulnesse in this exinanition instant glory in this grave an instant Resurrection But beloved the expressing the pressing of their depressions does but chafe the Wax the Printing of the seale is the reducing to your memory your own case and not that point in your case as you were for a few yeares under a sensible persecution of fire and prisons that was the least part of your persecution for it is a cheap purchase of heaven if we may have it for dying Mat. 13.44 To sell all we have to buy that field where we know the treasure is is not so hard as not to know it To part with all for the great Pearle not so hard a bargaine as not to know that such a Pearle there might have beene had we could not say heaven was kept from us when we might have it for a Fagot and when even our enemies helpt us to it but your greater affliction was as you were long before in an insensiblenesse you thought your selves well enough and yet were under a worse persecution of ignorance and of superstition when you in your Fathers were so farre from expecting a resurrection as that you did not know your low estate or that you needed a Resurrection And yet God gave you a Resurrection from it a reformation of it Now who have their parts in this first resurrection or upon what conditions have you it We see in the fourth verse They that are beheaded for the witnesse of Iesus that is that are ready to be so when the glory of Jesus shall require that testimony In the meane time as it followes there They that have not worshipped the Beast that is not applied the Honour and the Allegiance due to their Soveraign to any forraign State nor the Honor due to God that is infallibility to another Prelate That have not worshipped the Beast nor his Image sayes the Text that is that have not been transported with vain imaginations of his power and his growth upon us here which hath been so diligently Painted and Printed and Preached and set out in the promises and practises of his Instruments to delude slack and easie persons And then as it is added there That have not received his mark upon their foreheads That is not declared themselves Romanists apparently nor in their hands sayes the Text that is which have not under-hand sold their secret endeavours though not their publique profession to the advancement of his cause These men who are ready to be beheaded for Christ and have not worshipped the Beast nor the Image of the Beast nor received his mark upon their foreheads nor in their hands these have their parts in this first resurrection These are blessed and holy sayes our Text Blessed because they have meanes to be holy in this resurrection For the Lamb hath unclasped the book the Scriptures are open which way to holinesse our Fathers lacked And then our blessednesse is that we shall raigne a thousand yeares with Christ Now since this first resurrection since the reformation we have raigned so with Christ but 100. yeares But if we persist in a good use of it our posterity shall adde the Cypher and make that 100. 1000. even to the time when Christ Jesus shall come againe and as he hath given us the first so shall give us the last resurrection and to that come Lord Jesus come quickly and till that continue this This is the first resurrection 2 Part. Apeccato in the first acceptation a resurrection from persecution and a peaceable enjoying of the Gospell And in a second it is a resurrection from sin and so it hath a more particular appropriation to every person Aug. So S. Augustine takes this place and with him many of the Fathers and with them many of the sons of the Fathers better sons of the Fathers then the Romane Church will confesse them to be or then they are themselves The Expositors of the Reformed Church They for the most part with S. Augustine take this first resurrection to be a resurrection
opinions yet even from their various opinions there arise good instructions we shall rather Problematically inquire then Dogmatically establish first whether these words were spoken of Angels or no whether this word Angell in this text be not as it is in many other places of Scriptures and in the nature of the Word it selfe communicable to other servants and other messengers then those whom ordinarily we intend when we say Angels and then secondly if the words be spoken of Angels then whether of Good or Bad Angels of those which stand now or those which fell at first and againe if of those that stand then what degree of perfection they have and what that which we use to call their Confirmation is how it accrues to them and how it works in them if even of them it be said Behold he put no trust in his Servants and his Angels he charged with folly In our second part what was inferd upon these premisses what was concluded out of these propositions what reflected upon us by this assimilation of ours to the Angels because it is a matter of much weight we shall first in our entrance into that part consider the weight of the testimony in the Person that gives it for it is not Iob himselfe that speaks these words It is but one of his friends but Elephaz but the Temanite a Gentile a stranger from the Covenant and the Church of God and yet his words are part of the Word of God And then for the matter that is inferd from our assimilation to the state of Angels will be fairely collected that if those Angels stand but by the support of Grace not by any thing inseparably inhering in their nature when we are at our best in heaven we shall do but so neither much lesse whilst we are upon earth have we in us any impossibility of falling by any thing already done for us Our standing is meerely from the grace of God and therefore let no man ascribe any thing to himselfe and Let him that standeth take heed lest he fall for God hath done no more for the best of us here nor hereafter then for those Angels and of them we heare here He put no trust in his Servants and his Angels he charged with folly First then 1 Part. An Angeli for our first Disquisition in our first part De quibus the persons of whom these words are spoken Amongst all our Expositors of this book of Iob which are very many and amongst all Authors Ancient and Moderne which have had occasion in their Sermons and Tractates to reflect upon this text which are many more infinite I have never observed more then one that denies these words to be spoken of Angels or that there is any mention any intention any intimation of Angels in these words And which is the greater wonder this one single man who thus departs from all and prefers himselfe above all is no Jesuit neither It is but a Capuccin but Bolduc upon this Book of Iob and yet he adventures to say That that Person of whom it is said in this text He put no trust in his Servants and He charged his Angels with folly is not God and that they of whom it is said He trusted not his Servants and his Angels he charged with folly are not Angels But that all that Eliphaz intended in all this passage of Iob was no more but this That no great Person must trust in any kind of Greatnesse particularly not in great retinues and dependances of many servants and powerfull instruments for that was Iobs owne case and yet he lost them all The doctrine truly is good neither should I sodainly condemne his singularity if it were well grounded For though in the exposition of Scriptures singularity alwaies carry a suspition with it singularity is Indicium as we say in the Law some kind of evidence It is Semi-probatio a kind of halfe-proofe against that man that holds an opinion or induces an interpretation different from all other men yet as these which we call Indicia in the Law worke but so as that they may bring a man to his oath or in some cases to the rack and to torture but are not alone sufficient to condemne him So if we finde this singularity in any man we take from thence just occasion to question and sift him and his Doctrine the more narrowly but not only upon that presently to condemne him For this was S. Augustines case S. Augustine induced new Doctrines in divers very important points different from all that had written before him but upon due examination for all his singularity the Church hath found reason to adhere to him in those points ever since his reasons prevailed In our single Capuccins case here in our text it is not so And therefore here we must continue that complaint which we are often put to make of the iniquity of the Roman Church to us If the Fathers seeme to agree in any point wherein we differ from them they cry out we depart from the Fathers If we adhere to the Fathers in any point in which they differ from them then they cry out we forsake the Church Still they presse us with their Trent-Canon You must interpret Scriptures according to the unanime consent of the Fathers and yet they suffer a single Capuccin of their owne to depart from the Fathers and Sons from the Ancient and Moderne Expositors in their owne Church And I may adde from the Holy Ghost too from the evident purpose and meaning of the place in more places then any Author whom I have seene and in this more then in any other place when he saies with such assurance that in these words He put no trust in his Servants and his Angels he charged with folly there is no mennon no intention of God or Angels but it is onely spoken of men of the infidelity of servants and of the insecurity of Masters relying upon such dependancies We take this then Ande Angelis Boâ—â— as All do All for this single Capuccin makes no considerable exception more then a mole-hill to the roundnesse of the earth to be spoken of Angels which was our first probleme and disquisition And our second is being spoken of Angels of what Angels they are spoken Good or Bad of those that fell or those that stood Here we meet with the same rub as before singularity For amongst all our Expositors upon this book I have not observed any other then Calvin to interpret this place of the good Angels of those that stand confirmed in grace Not that Calvin is to be left alone in that opinion as though he were the onely man that thought that the good Angels considered in themselves might be defective in the offices committed unto them by God for it is evident that Origen in divers of his Homilies upon the book of Numbers in his twentieth and twentie two and foure and twentie sixt and in his
be well Christ said in his behalfe Verily I have not found so great faith no not in Israel When Christ makes so much of this single grain of Mustard-seed this little faith as to prefer it before all the faith of Israel surely faith went very low in Israel at that time Nay when Christ himself sayes speaking of his last comming after so many ages preaching of the Gospell When the Son of man comes shall he finde faith upon earth Luk. 18.8 any faith We have I say a blessed beam of comfort shining out of this text that it is no small number that is reserved for that Kingdome For whether the Apostle speak this of himself and the Thessalonians or of others he speaks not as of a few but that by Christs having preached the narrownesse of the way and the straitnesse of the gate our holy industry and endeavour is so much exalted which was Christs principall end in taking those Metaphors of narrow wayes and strait gates not to make any man suspect an impossibility of entring but to be the more industrious and endeavorous in seeking it that as he hath sent workmen in plenty abundant preaching so he shall return a plentifull harvest a glorious addition to his Kingdome both of those which slept in him before and of those which shall be then alive fit all together to be caught up in the clouds to meet him and be with him for ever for these two armies imply no small number Now of the condition of these men who shall be then alive and how being clothed in bodies of corruption they become capable of the glory of this text in our first distribution we proposed that for a particular consideration and the other branch of this second part and to that in that order we are come now I scarce know a place of Scripture more diversly read Immutabimur and consequently more variously interpreted then that place which should most enlighten us in this consideration presently under our hands which is that place to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 15.51 Non omnes dormiemus We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed The Apostle professes there to deliver us a mystery Behold I shew you a mystery but Translators and Expositors have multiplyed mysticall clouds upon the words S. Chrysostome reads these words as we do Chrysost Non dormiemus We shall not all sleep but thereupon he argues and concludes that wee shall not all die The common reading of the ancients is contrary to that Omnes dormiemus sed non c. We shall all sleep but we shall not all be changed The vulgat Edition in the Romane Church differs from both and as much from the originall as from either Omnes resurgemus We shall all rise again but we shall not all be changed S. Hierome examines the two readings and then leaves the reader to his choice as a thing indifferent S. Augustine doth so too and concludes aquè Catholicos esse That they are as good Catholiques that reade it the one way as the other But howsoever that which S. Chrysostome collects upon his reading may not be maintained He reads as we do and without all doubt aright We shall not all sleep But what then Therefore shall we not all die To sleep there is to rest in the grave to continue in the state of the dead and so we shall not all sleep not continue in the state of the dead But yet Statutum est sayes the Apostle Heb. 9.27 as verily as Christ was once offered to beare our sinnes so verily is it appointed to every man once to die Rom. 5.12 And as verily as by one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne so verily death passed upon all men for that all men have sinned So the Apostle institutes the comparison so he constitutes the doctrine in those two places of Scripture As verily as Christ dyed for all all shall die As verily as every man sins every man shall die In that change then which we who are then alive shall receive for though we shall not all sleep we shall all be changed we shall have a present dissolution of body and soul and that is truly a death and a present redintegration of the same body and the same soul and that is truly a Resurrection we shall die and be alive again before another could consider that we were dead but yet this shall not be done in an absolute instant some succession of time though undiscernible there is It shall be done In raptu in a rapture but even in a rapture there is a motion a transition from one to another place It shall be done sayes he In ictuoculi In the twinkling of an eye But even in the twinkling of an eie there is a shutting of the eie-lids and an opening of them again Neither of these is done in an absolute instant but requires some succession of time The Apostle in the Resurrection in our text constitutes a Prius something to be done first and something after first those that were dead in Christ shall rise first and then Then when that is done after that not all at once we that are alive shall be wrought upon we shall be changed our change comes after their rising so in our change there is a Prius too first we shall be dissolved so we die and then we shall be re-compact so we rise again This is the difference they that sleep in the grave put off and depart with the very substance of the body it is no longer flesh but dust they that are changed at the last day put off and depart with only the qualities of the body as mortality and corruption It is still the same body without resolving into dust but the first step that it makes is into glory Now transfer this to the spirituall Resurrection of thy soul by grace here Here Grace works not that Resurrection upon thy soul in an absolute instant And therefore suspect not Gods gracious purpose upon thee if thou beest not presently throughly recovered God could have made all the world in one day and so have come sooner to his Sabbath his rest but he wrought more to give us an example of labour and of patience in attending his leasure in our second Creation this Resurrection from sin as we did in our first Creation when we were not made till the sixt day But remember too that the last Resurrection from death is to be transacted quickly speedily And in thy first thy spirituall Resurrection from sin make haste The last is to be done In raptu in a rapture Let this rapture in the first Resurrection be to teare thy self from that company and conversation that leads thee into tentation The last is to be done Inictu oculi In the twinkling of an eye Let that in thy first Resurrection be The shutting of thine eyes from looking upon things in things upon creatures in creatures
see he did in the Councell of Nice when after many disputations amongst the great Men of great estimation the weakest Man in the Councell rose up and he o◠whom his owne party were afraid lest his discourse should disadvantage the cause overthrew and converted that great Advocate and defender of Arius whom all the rest could never shake for though this man said no more then other men had said yet God at this time disposed the understanding and the abilities of the Adversaries otherwise then before sometimes God will have glory in arming his friends sometimes in disarming his enemies sometimes in exalting our abilities and sometimes in evacuating or enfeebling theirs And so as the Apostles were as many of us as celebrate this day as they did are filled with the Holy Ghost that is with so much knowledge as is necessary to Gods purpose in us Enough for our selves if we be private men and enough for others if wee have charge of others private men shall have knowledge enough where to seeke for more and the Priest shall have enough to communicate his knowledge to others And though this knowledge were delivered to the Apostles as from a print from a stampe all at once and to us but as by writing letter after letter syllable after syllable by Catechismes chismes and Sermons yet both are such knowledges as are sufficient for each As the glory of heaven shall fall upon us all and though we be not all of equall measure and capacity yet we shall be equally full of that glory so the way to that glory this knowledge shall be manifest to us all and infallible to us all though we do not all know alike The simplest soul that heares me shall know the way of his salvation as well as the greatest of those Fathers whom he heares me cite And upon us all so disposed the holy Ghost shall fall as he did here in fire and In tongues In fire to inflame us in a religious zeal and in Tongues to utter that in confession and in profession that is to glorifie God both in our words and in our actions This then is our portion in this Legacy A sober seeking after those points of knowledge which are necessary for our salvation and these in this text Christ derived into these three That I am in my Father That you are in me That I am in you The first of these is the knowledge of distinction of persons and so of the Trinity Ego in Paetre Trinitas Principale munus scientiae est cognoscere Trinitatem saith Origen The principall use and office of my knowledge is to know the Trinity for to know an unity in the Godhead that there is but one God naturall reason serves our turn to know a creation of the world of nothing reason serves us too we know by reason that either neither of them is infinite if there be two Gods and then neither of them can be God or if both be infinite which is an impossibility one of them is superfluous because whatsoever is infinite can alone extend to all So also we can collect infallibly that if the world were not made of nothing yet that of which the world shall be pretended to have been made of must have been made of nothing or else it must be something eternall and untreated whatsoever is so must necessarily be God it self To be sure of those two an unity in the Godhead and a creation of the world I need no Scriptures but to know this distinction of Persons That the Son is in the Father I need the Scriptures and I need more then the Scriptures I need this Pentecost this comming this illustration of the holy Ghost to inspire a right understanding of these Scriptures into me For if this knowledge might be had without Scriptures why should not the heathen beleeve the Trinity as well as I since they lack no naturall faculties which Christians have And if the Scriptures themselves without the operation of the holy Ghost should bring this clearnesse why should not the Jews and the Arians conform themselves to this doctrine of the Trinity as well as I since they accept those Scriptures out of which I provethe Trinity to mine own cōscience We must then attend his working in us we must not admit such a vexation of spirit as either to vex our spirit or the Spirit of God by inquiring farther then he hath been pleased to reveale If you consider that Christ sayes here You shall know That I am in the Father and doth not say You shall know How I am in the Father and this to his Apostles themselves and to the Apostles after they were to be filled with the holy Ghost which should teach them all truth it will out off many perplexing questions and impertinent answers which have been produced for the expressing of the manner of this generation and of the distinction of the persons in the Trinity you shall know That it is you shall not ask How it is It is enough for a happy subject to enjoy the sweetnesse of a peaceable government though he know not Arcana Imperii The wayes by which the Prince governes So is it for a Christian to enjoy the working of Gods grace in a faithfull beleeving the mysteries of Religion though he inquire not into Gods bed-chamber nor seek into his unrevealed Decrees It is Odiosa exitialis vocula Quomodo sayes Luther A hatefull a damnable Monosyllable How How God doth this or that for if a man come to the boldnesse of proposing such a question to himself he will not give over till he finde some answer and then others will not be content with his answer but every man will have a severall one When the Church fell upon the Quomodo in the Sacrament How in what manner the body of Christ was there we see what an inconvenient answer it fell upon That it was done by Transubstantiation That satisfied not as there was no reason it should And then they fell upon others In Sub and Cum and none could none can give satisfaction And so also have our times by asking Quomodo How Christ descended into Hell produced so many answers as that some have thought it no Article at all some have thought that it is all one thing to have descended into hell and to have ascended into heaven and that it amounts to no more then a departing into the state of the dead But Servate depositum Make much of that knowledge which the holy Ghost hath trusted you withall and beleeve the rest No man knows how his soul came into him whether ther by infusion from God or by generation from Parents no man knows so but that strong arguments will be produced on the other side And yet no man doubts but he hath a soul No man knows so as that strong arguments may not be brought on the other side how he sees whether by reception of species from without or
use the Law lawfully Let us use our liberty of reading Scriptures according to the Law of liberty that is charitably to leave others to their liberty if they but differ from us and not differ from Fundamentall Truths Si quis quaerat ex me quid horum Moses senserit If any man ask me which of these which may be all true Moses meant Non sum sermones istiâ—â—onfessiones Lord sayes hee Ibid. This that I say is not said by way of Confession as I intend it should if I doe not freely confesse that I cannot tell which Moses meant But yet I can tell that this that I take to be his meaning is true and that is enough Let him that findes a true sense of any place rejoyce in it Let him that does not beg it of thee Vtquid mihi molest us est Why should any man presse me to give him the true sense of Moses here or of the holy Ghost in any darke place of Scripture Ego illuminem ullum hominen venientem in mundum 1.13 C. 10. saies he Is that said of me that I am the light that enlightned every man any man Iohn 1.9 that comes into this world So far I will goe saies he so far will we in his modesty and humility accompany him as still to propose Quod luce veritatis quod fruge utilitatis excellit such a sense as agrees with other Truths that are evident in other places of Scripture and such a sense as may conduce most to edisication For to those two does that heavenly Father reduce the foure Elements that make up a right exposition of Scripture which are first the glory of God such a sense as may most advance it secondly the analogie of faith such a sense as may violate no confessed Article of Religion and thirdly exaltation of devotion such a sense as may carry us most powerfully upon the apprehension of the next life and lastly extension of charity such a sense as may best hold us in peace or reconcile us if we differ from one another And within these limits wee shall containe our selves The glory of God the analogie of faith the exaltation of devotion the extension of charity In all the rest that belongs to the explication or application to the literall or spirituall sense of these words And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters to which having stopped a little upon this generall consideration the exposition of darke places we passe now Within these rules we proceed to enquire who this Spirit of God is or what it is Spiritus whether a Power or a Person The Jews who are afraid of the Truth lest they should meete evidences of the doctrine of the Trinity and so of the Messias the Son of God if they should admit any spirituall sense admit none but cleave so close to the letter as that to them the Scripture becomes Liter a occidens A killing Letter and the savour of death unto death They therefore in this Spirit of God are so far from admitting any Person that is God as they admit no extraordinary operation or vertue proceeding from God in this place but they take the word here as in many other places of Scripture it does to signifie onely a winde and then that that addition of the name of God The Spirit of God which is in their Language a denotation of a vehemency of a high degree of a superlative as when it is said of Saul Sopor Domini A sleepe of God was upon him it is intended of a deepe a dead sleepe inforces induces no more but that a very strong winde blew upon the face of the waters and so in a great part dryed them up And this opinion I should let flye away with the winde if onely the Jews had said it But Theodoret hath said it too and therefore we afford it so much answer That it is a strange anticipation that Winde which is a mixt Meteor to the making whereof divers occasions concurre with exhalations should be thus imagined before any of these causes of Winds were created or produced and that there should be an effect before a cause is somewhat irregular In Lapland the Witches are said to sell winds to all passengers but that is but to turne those windes that Nature does produce which way they will but in our case the Jews and they that follow them dreame winds before any winds or cause of winds was created The Spirit of God here cannot be the Wind. It cannot be that neither which some great men in the Christian Church have imagined it to be Operatio Dei The power of God working upon the waters so some or Efficientia Dei A power by God infused into the waters so others August And to that S. Augustine comes so neare as to say once in the negative Spiritus Dei hic res dei est sed non ipse Deut est The Spirit of God in this place is something proceeding from God but it is not God himselfe And once in the affirmative Posse esse vitalem creaturam quâ universus mundus movetur That this Spirit of God may be that universall power which sustaines and inanimates the whole world which the Platoniques have called the Soule of the world and others intend by the name of Nature and we doe well if we call The providence of God Spiritus Sanctus But there is more of God in this Action then the Instrument of God Nature or the Vice-roy of God Providence for as the person of God the Son was in the Incarnation so the person of God the Holy Ghost was in this Action though far from that manner of becomming one and the same thing with the waters which was done in the Incarnation of Christ who became therein perfect man That this word the Spirit of God is intended of the Person of the Holy Ghost in other places of Scripture is evident undeniable unquestionable and that therefore it may be so taken here Where it is said The Spirit of God shall rest upon him Esay 11.2 upon the Messiah where it is said by himselfe The Lord and his Spirit is upon me And the Lord and his Spirit hath anointed me there it is certainly and therefore here it may be probably spoken of the Holy Ghost personally It is no impossible sense it implies no contradiction It is no inconvenient sense it offends no other article it is no new sense nor can we assigne any time when it was a new sense Basil The eldest Fathers adhere to it as the ancientest interpretation Saint Basil saies not onely Constantissimè asseverandum est We must constantly maintaine that interpretation for all that might be his owne opinion not onely therefore Quia verius est for that might be but because he found it to be the common opinion of those times but Quia à majoribus nostris approbatum because it is accepted for the true
because the Son is the second and the holy Ghost the third person but the second was not before the third in time nor is above him in dignity There is processio corporalis such a bodily proceeding as that that which proceeds is utterly another thing then that from which it proceeds frogs proceed perchance of ayre and mise of dust and worms of carkasses and they resemble not that ayre that dust those carkasses that produced them There is also processio Metaphysica when thoughts proceed out of the minde but those thoughts remaine still in the mind within and have no separate subsistence in themselves And then there is processio Hyperphysica which is this which we seek and finde in our soules but not in our tongues a proceeding of the holy Ghost so from Father and Son as that he remaines a subsistence alone a distinct person of himselfe This is as far as the Schoole can reach Ortu qui relationis est non est à se Actu qui personae est per se subsistit Consider him in his proceeding so he must necessarily have a relation to another Consider him actually in his person so he subsists of himselfe And De modo for the manner of his proceeding we need we can say but this As the Son proceeds per modu intellectus so as the mind of man conceives a thought so the holy Ghost proceeds per modum voluntatis when the mind hath produced a thought that mind and that discourse and ratiocination produce a will first our understanding is setled and that understanding leads our will And nearer then this though God knows this be far off we cannot goe to the proceeding of the holy Ghost This then is The Spirit The third person in the Trinity but the first person in our Text Spiritus noster The other is our spirit The Spirit beareth witnesse with our spirit I told you before that amongst the manifold acceptations of the word spirit as it hath relation particularly to man it is either the soul it self or the vitall spirits the thin and active parts of the bloud or the superiour faculties of the soul in a regenerate man that is our spirit in this place So S. Paul distinguishes soul and spirit Heb. 4.12 The word of God pierces to the dividing asunder soule and spirit where The soule is that which inanimates the body and enables the organs of the senses to see and heare The spirit is that which enables the soule to see God and to heare his Gospel The samephrase hath the same use in another place 1 Thes 5.25 Calvin I pray God your spirit and soule and body may be preserved blamelesse Where it is not so absurdly said though a very great man call it an absurd exposition That the soule Anima is that qua animales homines as the Apostle calls them that by which men are men naturall men carnall men And the spirit is the spirit of Regeneration by which man is a new creature a spirituall man But that that Expositor himselfe hath said enough to our present purpose The soule is the seat of Affections The spirit is rectified Reason It is true this Reason is the Soveraigne these Affections are the Officers this Body is the Executioner Reason authorizes Affections command the Body executes And when we conceive in our mind desire in our heart performe in our body nothing that displeases God then have we had benefit of S. Pauls prayer That in body and soule and spirit we may be blamelesse In summe we need seek no farther for a word to expresse this spirit but that which is familiar to us The Conscience Rem 9.1 A rectified conscience is this spirit My conscience bearing me witnesse sayes the Apostle And so we have both the persons in this judiciall proceeding The Spirit is the holy Ghost Our spirit is our Conscience And now their office is to testifie to beare witnesse which is our second generall part The Spirit bears witnesse c. To be a witnesse 2 Part. is not an unworthy office for the holy Ghost himselfe Heretiques in their pestilent doctrines Tyrans in their bloody persecutions call God himselfe so often so far into question as that he needs strong and pregnant testimony to acquit him First against Heretiques we see the whole Scripture is but a Testament and Testamentum is Testatio ment is it is but an attestation a proofe what the will of God is And therefore when Tertullian deprehended himselfe to have slipped into another word and to have called the Bible Instrumentum he retracts and corrects himselfe thus Magìs usui est dicere Testamentum quà m Instrumentum It is more proper to call the Scripture a Testament then a Conveyance or Covenant All the Bible is Testament Attestation Declaration Proofe Apoc. 11.2 Evidence of the will of God to man And those two witnesses spoken of in the Revelation are very conveniently very probably interpreted to be the two Testaments And to the Scriptures Christ himselfe refers the Jews Iohn 5.39 Search them for they beare witnesse of me The word of God written by the holy Ghost is a witnesse and so the holy Ghost is a witnesse against Heretiques Against Tyrans and Persecuters the office of a witnesse is an honourable office too for that which we call more passionately and more gloriously Martyrdome is but Testimony A Martyr is nothing but a Witnesse He that pledges Christ in his own wine in his own cup in bloud He that washes away his sins in a second Baptisme and hath found a lawfull way of Re-baptizing even in bloud He that waters the Prophets ploughing and the Apostles sowing with bloud He that can be content to bleed as long as a Tyran can foame or an Executioner sweat He that is pickled nay embalmed in bloud salted with fire and preserved in his owne ashes He that to contract all nay to enlarge beyond all suffers in the Inquisition when his body is upon the rack when the rags are in his throat when the boots are upon his legs when the splinters are under his nailes if in those agonies he have the vigour to say I suffer this to shew what my Saviour suffered must yet make this difference He suffered as a Saviour I suffer but as a witnesse But yet to him that suffers as a Martyr as a witnesse a crowne is reserved It is a happy and a harmonious meeting in Stephens martyrdome Proto-martyr and Stephanus that the first Martyr for Christ should have a Crown in his name Such a blessed meeting there is in Ioash his Coronation Posuit super eum Diadema Testimonium 2 King 11.12 They put the Crowne upon his head and the Testimony that is The Law which testified That as he had the Crowne from God so he had it with a witnesse with an obligation that his Government his life and if need were his death should testifie his zeale to him
called Christians that said Qui pius est summè Philosophatur The charitable man is the great Philosopher Trismeg and it is charity not to suspect the state of a dead man Consider in how sudden a minute the holy Ghost hath sometimes wrought upon thee and hope that he hath done so upon another It is a moderation to be imbraced that Peter Martyr leads us to The Primitive Church had the spirit of discerning spirits we have not And therefore though by way of definition we may say This is that sin yet by way of demonstration let us say of no man This is that sinner I may say of no man This sin in thee is irremissible Now in considering this word Irremissible That it cannot be forgiven wee finde it to be a word rather usurped by the Schoole then expressed in the Scriptures Irremissibilitas for in all those three Euangelists where this fearfull denunciation is interminated still it is in a phrase of somewhat more mildnesse then so It is It shall not be forgiven It is not it cannot be forgiven It is an irremission it is not an irremissiblenesse Absolutely there is not an impossibility and irremissiblenesse on Gods part but yet some kinde of impossibility there is on his part and on ours too For if he could forgive this sin he would or else his power were above his mercy and his mercy is above all his works But God can doe nothing that implies contradiction and God having declared by what meanes onely his mercy and forgivenesse shall be conveyed to man God should contradict himselfe if he should give forgivenesse to them who will fully exclude those meanes of mercy And therefore it were not boldly nor irreverently said That God could not give grace to a beast nor mercy to the Devill because either they are naturally destitute or have wilfully despoiled themselves of the capacity of grace and mercy When we consider that God the Father whom as the roote of all we consider principally in the Creation created man in a possibility and ability to persist in that goodnesse in which he created him And consider that God the Son came and wrought a reconciliation for man to God and so brought in a treasure in the nature thereof a sufficient ransome for all the world but then a man knowes not this or beleeves not this otherwise then Historically Morally Civilly and so evacuates and shakes off God the Son And then consider that the holy Ghost comes and presents meanes of applying all this and making the generall satisfaction of Christ reach and spread it selfe upon my soule in particular in the preaching of the Word in the seales of the Sacraments in the absolution of the Church and I preclude the wayes and shut up my selfe against the holy Ghost and so evacuate him and shake him off when I have resisted Father Son and holy Ghost is there a fourth person in the God-head to work upon me If I blaspheme that is deliberately pronounce against the holy Ghost my sin is irremissible therefore because there is no body left to forgive it nor way left wherein forgivenesse should work upon me So farre it is irremissible on Gods part and on mine too And then take it there in that state of irremissiblenesse and consider seriously the fearefulnesse of it Mat. 5.22 I have been angry and then as Christ tells me I have been in danger of a judgement but in judgement I may have counsell I may be heard I have said Racha expressed my anger and so been in danger of a Councell but a Councell does but consult what punishment is fit to be inflicted and so long there is hope of mitigation and commutation of penance But I have said fatue I have called my brother foole and so am in danger of hell fire August Chrysost In the first there is Ira an inward commotion an irregular distemper In the second there is Ira vox In the first it is but Ira carnis non animi It is but my passion it is not I that am angry but in the second I have suffered my passion to vent and utter it selfe but in the third there is Ira vox vituperatio A distemper within a declaration to evill example without and an injury and defamation to a third person and this exalts the offence to the height But then when this third Person comes to be the third Person in the Trinity the Holy Ghost in all the other cases there is danger danger of judgement danger of a Councell danger of hell but here is irremissiblenesse hell it selfe and no avoiding of hell no cooling in hell no deliverance from hell Irremissible Those hands that reached to the ends of the world in creating it span the world in preserving it and stretched over all in redeeming it those hands have I manacled that they cannot open unto me That tendernesse that is affected to all have I damped retarded that pronenesse stupified that alacrity confounded that voyce diverted those eyes that are naturally disposed to all And all this Irremissibly for ever not though he would but because he will not shew mercy not though I would but because I cannot ask mercy And therefore beware all approaches towards that sin from which there is no returning no redemption We are come now In quibus Script in our order to our third and last Branch of this last Part That this Doctrine of a sin against the Holy Ghost is not a dreame of the Schoole-men though they have spoken many things frivolously of it but grounded in evident places of Scriptures Amongst which we looke especially how farre this Text conduces to that Doctrine There are two places ordinarily cited which seeme directly to concerne this sin and two others which to me seeme not to doe so Those of the first kinde are both in the Epistle to the Hebrewes Heb. 6.4 There the Apostle sayes For those who were once inlightned and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost If they fall away it is impossible to renew them by repentance Now if finall impenitence had been added there could have been no question but that this must be The sin against the Holy Ghost And because the Apostle speaks of such a totall falling away as precludes all way of repentance it includes finall impenitence and so makes up that sin The other place from which it rises most pregnantly Heb. 10.29 is Of how sore a punishment shall they be thought worthy who have trodden under foot the Son of God and have done despite unto the Spirit of grace Ver. 26. As he had said before If we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins but a certain fearfull looking for of judgement and fiery indignation But yet though from these places there arises evidence that such a sin there is as naturally shuts out
been defiled But yet for all these Waters other Waters soaked in and corrupted them earely for for Baptisme the Disciples of Simon Magus annulled Christs Baptisme and baptized in Simons name and his Disciple Menander annulled the Baptisme of Christ and Simon and baptized in his owne name And then for the other Water Repentance the Heretiques drained up that shrewdly when they took away all benefit of repentance for sins committed after Baptisme David denies not nay David assures us that collectively the whole Church shall be beaten upon with waters Water multiplied Aquae multae Many waters so the vulgat reades this Multae that wee Translate here Great waters So multiplied Heresies The excellency of the Christian Religion is that it is Verbum abbreviatum A contracted Religion All the Credenda all that is to be beleeved reduced to twelve Articles of the Creed All the Speranda all that is to be hoped for prayed for expressed in seaven Petitions in the Lords Prayer All the Agenda all that is to be done in it comprised in ten Commandements in the Decalogue And then our blessed Saviour though he would take away none of the burden for it is an easie yoke and a light burden yet he was pleased to binde it in a lesse roome and a more portable forme when he re-abridged that Abridgement and recontracts this contracted Doctrine in those two Love God and Love thy Neighbour And then the Devill hath opposed this Abridgement by Multiplication by many waters many heresies for it is easie to observe that in every Article of the Creed there have been at least a dozen Heresies And in those Articles which were most credible most evident most sensible most of all Many more Heresies upon the Humanity of Christ then about his Divinity And then as in matters of Faith so for matter of Manners there was scarce any thing so foule and so obscene which was not taught by some Heretiques to be religious and necessary Things which cannot be excused things which may not be named made by the Gnostiques essentiall and necessary in the Consecration of the Sacrament And then when these waters of death were in a good part dryed up these grosse errors in Faith and Manners were reasonably well overcome Then came in those waters of Traditional Doctrines in the Romane Church which are so many as that they overflow even the water of life the Scriptures themselves and suppresse and surround them Therefore does David in this text call these many waters Diluvium Diluvium A flood of great waters many and violent For this word Shatach Inundans signifies Vehemence Eagernesse and is elegantly applied to the fiercenesse of a horse in Battel Equus inundans in Bellum A horse that overflowes the Battell that rushes into the Battell Jer. 8.6 Esay 15.9 Therefore speaks the Prophet of waters full of blood What Seas of blood did the old Persecutions what Seas have later times poured out when in the Romane Church their owne Authors will boast of sixty thousand slaine in a day of them that attempted a Reformation in the times of the Waldenses Surely sayes our Prophet These waters shall be Heresies there shall be Omnis sanctus And no man may look for such a Church as shall have no water Evermore there will be some things raw and unconcocted in every Church Evermore some waters of trouble and dissention and a man is not to forsake a Church in which he hath received his Baptisme for that But waiving this generall and collective application of these waters to the Church and to take it as the letter of the Text invites us Omnis sanctus surely every godly man shall finde these waters many waters floods of many waters for affliction is our daily bread for we cannot live in this world a spirituall life without some kinde of affliction for as with long fasting we lose our stomachs so by being long unexercised in tribulation we come to lose our patience and to a murmuring when it falls upon us For that last Petition of the Lords Prayer Liberanos à malo Deliver us from evill may as some interpret it suppose that this Evill that is Malum poenae Affliction will certainly fall upon us and then we doe not so much pray to be delivered from it as to be delivered in it not that afflictions may not come but that they may not overcome when they come that they may not be ineffectuall upon us For it was Durus sermo A harder and an angryer speech then it seemes when God said to his people Esay 1.4 Why should yee bee smitten any more Why should I keep you at Schoole any longer Why should I prepare Physick or study your recovery by corrections any farther When God was wearied with their afflictions and they were not this was a heavy case He afflicted them forty yeares together in the Wildernesse and yet he saies Forty yeares long was I grieved with this generation He never saies They were grieved but he was with their stupidity They murmured but they sorrowed not to any amendment So they perverted this word Non approximabunt They shall not come nigh thee they shall not affect thee That they must doe we must be sensible of Gods corrections but yet there is a good sense and a plentifull comfort in this word of our Text. To the godly man non approximabunt the floods of great waters though waters though floods though great floods they shall not come nigh him and that is our last word and finall conclusion Consider the Church of God collectively Non approximabunt and the Saints of God distributively in which Babylon you will in the Chaldean Babylon or in the Italian Babylon and these waters doe come nigh us touch and touch to the quicke to the heart But yet as David intends here 2 Cor. 4.7 they touch not us they come not nigh us for wee have treasures in earth-then vessels They may touch the vessels but not the Treasure And this is literally expressed in the Text it selfe non approximabunt eum not that they shall not come neare his house or his lands or his children or his friends or his body but non eum they shall not come nigh him For for the Church the peace of the Church the plenty of the Church the ceremonies of the Church they are sua but not illa they are hers but they are not she And these things riches ceremonies they may be washed off with onetide and cast on with another discontinued in one Age and re-assumed in another devested in one Church and invested in another and yet the Churches she in her fundamentall Doctrines never touched And so for us a wave may wash away as much as Iob lost and yet not come nigh us for if a Heathen could say Vix ea nostra voco That outward things were scarce worthy to bee called Ours shall a Christian call them not onely His
worke of ours The wages of sinne is death but eternall life is the gift of God through Iesus Christ our Lord Through Jesus Christ that is as we are considered in him and in him who is a Saviour a Redeemer we are not considered but as sinners So that Gods purpose works no otherwise upon us but as we are sinners neither did God meane ill to any man till that man was in his sight a sinner God shuts no man out of heaven by a lock on the inside except that man have clapped the doore after him and never knocked to have it opened againe that is except he have sinned and never repented Christ does not say in our text Follow me for I will prefer you he will not have that the reason the cause If I would not serve God except I might be saved for serving him I shall not be saved though I serve him My first end in serving God must not be my selfe but he and his glory It is but an addition from his own goodnesse Et faciam Follow me and I will doe this but yet it is as certaine and infallible as a debt or as an effect upon a naturall cause Those propositions in nature are not so certaine The Earth is at such a time just between the Sunne and the Moone therefore the Moone must be Eclipsed The Moone is at such time just betweene the Earth and the Sunne therefore the Sunne must be Eclipsed for upon the Sunne and those other bodies God can and hath sometimes wrought miraculously and changed the naturall courses of them The Sunne stood still in Ioshua And there was an unnaturall Eclipse at the death of Christ But God cannot by any Miracle so worke upon himselfe as to make himselfe not himselfe unmercifull or unjust And out of his mercy he makes this promise Doe this and thus it shall be with you and then of his justice he performes that promise which was made meerely and onely out of mercy If we doe it though not because we doe it we shall have eternall life Therefore did Andrew and Peter faithfully beleeve such a net should be put into their hands Christ had vouchsafed to fish for them and caught them with that net and they beleeved that he that made them fishers of men would also enable them to catch others with that net And that is truly the comfort that refreshes us in all our Lucubrations and night-studies through the course of our lives that that God that sets us to Sea will prosper our voyage that whether he six us upon our owne or send us to other Congregations he will open the hearts of those Congregations to us and blesse our labours to them For as S. Pauls Vaesi non lies upon us wheresoever we are Wo be unto us if wee doe not preach so as S. Paul sayes to we were of all men the most miserable if wee preached without hope of doing good With this net S. Peter caught three thousand soules in one day at one Sermon and five thousand in another Acts 2.41.4.4 With this net S. Paul fished all the Mediterranean Sea and caused the Gospel of Christ Jesus to abound from Jerusalem round about to Illyricum This is the net Rom. 15.19 with which if yee be willing to bee caught that is to lay downe all your hopes and affiances in the gracious promises of his Gospel then you are fishes reserved for that great Mariage-feast which is the Kingdome of heaven where whosoever is a dish is a ghest too whosoever is served in at the table sits at the table whosoever is caught by this net is called to this feast and there your soules shall be satisfied as with marrow and with fatnesse in an infallible assurance of an everlasting and undeterminable terme in inexpressible joy and glory Amen SERM. LXXIII Preached to the King in my Ordinary wayting at VVhite-hall 18. Aprill 1626. JOH 14.2 In my Fathers House are many Mansions If it were not so I would have told you THere are occasions of Controversies of all kinds in this one Verse And one is whether this be one Verse or no For as there are Doctrinall Controversies out of the sense and interpretation of the words so are there Grammatticall differences about the Distinction and Interpunction of them Some Translations differing therein from the Originall as the Originall Copies are distinguished and interpuncted now and some differing from one another The first Translation that was that into Syriaque as it is expressed by Tremellius renders these words absolutely precisely as our two Translations doe And as our two Translations doe applies the second clause and proposition Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you as in affirmation and confirmation of the former In domo Patris In my Fathers house there are many Mansions For If it were not so I would have told you But then as both our Translations doe the Syriaque also admits into this Verse a third clause and proposition Vado parare I goe to prepare you a place Now Beza doth not so Piscator doth not so They determine this Verse in those two propositions which constitute our Text In my Fathers house c. and then they let fall the third proposition as an inducement and inchoation of the next Verse I goe to prepare a place for you and if I goe I will come againe Divers others doe otherwise and diversly For some doe assume as we and the Syriaque doe all three propositions into the Verse but then they doe not as we and the Syriaque doe make the second a proofe of the first In my Fathers house are many Mansions For If it were not so I would have told you But they refer the second to the third proposition If it were not so I would have told you For I goe to prepare you a place and being to goe from you would leave you ignorant of nothing But we find no reason to depart from that Distinction and Interpunction of these words which our own Church exhibits to us and therefore we shall pursue them so and so determine though not the Verse for into the Verse we admit all three propositions yet the whole purpose and intention of our Saviour in those two propositions which accomplish our Text In my Fathers house c. This Interpunction then offers and constitutes our two parts Divisic First A particular Doctrine which Christ infuses into his Disciples In domo Patris In my Fathers house are many Mansions And then a generall Rule and Scale by which we are to measure and waigh all Doctrines Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you In the order of nature the later part fals first into consideration The rule of all Doctrines which in this place is The word of God in the mouth of Christ digested into the Scriptures In which wee shall have just more then just necessary occasion to note both their
distempers both theirs that think That there are other things to be beleeved then are in the Scriptures and theirs that think That there are some things in the Scriptures which are not to bee beleeved For when our Saviour sayes Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you he intends both this proposition I have told you all that is necessary to be beleeved and this also All that I have told you is necessary to bee beleeved so as I have told it you So that this excludes both that imaginary insufficiency of the Scriptures which some have ventured to averre for God shall never call Christian to account for any thing not notified in the Scriptures And it excludes also those imaginary Dolos bonos and fraudes pias which some have adventured to averre too That God should use holy Illusions holy deceits holy frauds and circumventions in his Scriptures and not intend in them that which he pretends by them This is his Rule Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you If I have not told you so it is not so and if I have it is so as I have told you And in these two branches we shall determine the first part The Rule of Doctrines the Scripture The second part which is the particular Doctrine which Christ administers to his Disciples here will also derive and cleave it selfe into two branches For first wee shall inquire whether this proposition in our Text In my Fathers house are many Mansions give any ground or assistance or countenance to that pious opinion of a disparity and difference of degrees of Glory in the Saints in heaven And then if we finde the words of this Text to conduce nothing to that Doctrine wee shall consider the right use of the true and naturall the native and genuine the direct and literall and uncontrovertible sense of the words because in them Christ doth not say that in his Fathers house there are Divers Mansions divers for seat or lights or fashion or furniture but onely that there are Many and in that notion the Plurality the Multipliciry lies the Consolation First then 1 Part. for the first branch of our first part The generall Rule of Doctrines our Saviour Christ in these words involves an argument That hee hath told them all that was necessary Hee hath because the Scripture hath for all the Scriptures which were written before Christ and after Christ were written by one and the same Spirit his Spirit It might then make a good Probleme why they of the Romane Church not affording to the Scriptures that dignity which belongs to them are yet so vehement and make so hard shift to bring the books of other Authors into the ranke and nature and dignity of being Scriptures What matter is it whether their Maccabees or their Tobies be Scripture or no what get their Maccabees or their Tobies by being Scripture if the Scripture be not full enough or not plaine enough to bring me to salvation But since their intention and purpose their aime and their end is to under-value the Scriptures that thereby they may over-value their owne Traditions their way to that end may bee to put the name of Scriptures upon books of a lower value that so the unworthinesse of those additionall books may cast a diminution upon the Canonicall books themselves when they are made all one as in some forraigne States we have seene that when the Prince had a purpose to erect some new Order of Honour he would disgrace the old Orders by conferring and bestowing them upon unworthy and incapable persons But why doe we charge the Roman Church with this undervaluing of the Scriptures when as they pretend and that cannot well be denied them That they ascribe to all the books of Scripture this dignity That all that is in them is true It is true they doe so But this may be true of other Authors also and yet those Authors remaine prophane and secular Authors All may be true that Livy sayes and all that our Chronicles say may be true and yet our Chronicles nor Livy become Gospell for so much they themselves will confesse and acknowledge that all that our Church sayes is true that our Church affirmes no error and yet our Church must be a hereticall Church if any Church at all for all that Indeed it is but a faint but an illusory evidence or witnesse that pretends to cleare a point if though it speake nothing but truth yet it does not speake all the truth The Scriptures are our evidence for life or death Iohn 5.39 Search the Scriptures sayes Christ for in them ye thinke ye have eternall life Where ye thinke so is not ye thinke so but mistake the matter but ye thinke so is ye thinke so upon a well-grounded and rectified faith and assurance Now if this evidence the Scripture shall acquit me in one Article in my beliefe in God for I doe finde in the Scripture as much as they require of me to beleeve of the Father Son and Holy Ghost And then this evidence the Scripture shall condemne me in another Article The Catholique Church for I doe not finde so much in the Scripture as they require me to beleeve of their Catholique Church If the Scripture be sufficient to save me in one and not in the rest this is not onely a defective but an illusory evidence which though it speake truth yet does not speake all the truth Fratres sumus quare litigamus sayes S. Augustine Wee are all Brethren by one Father one Almighty God and one Mother one Catholique Church and then why do we goe to Law together At least why doe we not bring our Suits to an end Non intestatus mortuus est Pater sayes he Our Father is dead for Deut. 32.30 Is not he your Father that bought you is Moses question he that bought us with himselfe his blood his life is not dead intestate but hath left his Will and Testament and why should not that Testament decide the cause Silent Advocati Suspensus est populus Legant verba testamenti This that Father notes to be the end in other causes why not in this That the Counsell give over pleading That the people give over murmuring That the Judge cals for the words of the Will by that governs and according to that establishes his Judgement I would at last contentious men would leave wrangling and people to whom those things belonged not leave blowing of coales and that the words of the Will might try the cause since he that made the Will hath made it thus cleare Si quo minus If it were not thus I would have told you If there were more to be added then this or more clearnesse to bee added to this I would have told you In the fift of Matthew Christ puts a great many cases what others had told them Mat. 5. but he tels them that is not
which is a Crowne of gold without any intimation of any such lesser crownes growing out of themselves This then is their new Alchymy that whereas old Alchymists pretend to make gold of courser Metals these will make it of Nothing Out of a supposititious word which is not in the Text they have hammered and beat out these Aureolas these lesser crownes And these Aureolaes they ascribe onely to three sorts of persons to Virgins to Martyrs to Doctors Are then all the other Saints without Crowns They must make shift with that beame which they have from the Crowne of Christ for for these additionall crownes proceeding from themselves they have none And yet say they there are Saints which have some additions growing out of themselves though not Aureolas little crownes and those they call Fructus peculiar fruits growing out of themselves And for these fruits they distraine upon that place of Matthew where Christ saith Matt. 13.6 That some brought forth fruit a hundred fold some sixty and some thirty And the greater measure they ascribe to Virgins the sixty to Widowes and the thirty to Maried persons but onely such maried persons as have lived continently in mariage So then to make this Riddle of theirs as plaine as the matter will admit They place salvation it selfe Blessednesse it selfe if a man will be content with that in that union with God which is common to all the Saints But then they conceive certaine Dotes as they call them certaine dispositions in this life by which some have made themselves fitter to be united to God in a nearer distance then an ordinary Saint And these Dotes these endowments and dispositions here produce those Aureolas and those Fructus those lesser crownes and those measures of fruits which are a particular Joy not that they are united to God for so every Saint is but that they had those Dotes those dispositions to take that particular way of being united to God The way of Virginity the way of Martydome and the way of Preaching for by this they become Sancti Majores as they call them Saints in favor Saints in office and fitter to receive our petitions and mediate between God and us then those whom they call Mediocres and Inferiores Saints of a middle forme or of an inferiour ranke Yet these are so farre provided for by them too that wee must pray also to these Inferiour Saints either because I may have had a more particular interest in this life in that Saint then in a greater and so the readinesse and the assiduity of that Saint may recompence his want of power Or else Ad tollendum fastidium lest a great Saint should grow weary of me if I trouble him every day and for every trifle in heaven And some other such reasons it pleases them to assigne why though some Saints have more power with God then others yet we are bound to pray to all And thus they play with Divinity as though after they had troubled all States with politicall Divinity with their Bulls and Breves of Rebus sic stantibus That as long as things stood thus this should be Catholique Doctrine and otherwise when otherwise And in this politicall Divinity Machiavel is their Pope And after they had perplexed understandings with Philosophicall Divinity in the Schoole and in that Divinity Aristotle is their Pope They thought themselves in courtesie or conscience bound to recreate the world with Poeticall Divinity with such a Heaven and such a Hell as would stand in their Verses and in this Divinity Virgill is their Pope And so as Melancthon said when he furthered the Edition of the Alcoran that hee would have it printed Vt videamus quale poema sit That the world might see what a piece of Poetry the Alcoran was So I have stopped upon this point that you might see what a piece of Poetry they have made of this Problematicall point of Divinity The disparity and degrees of Glory in the Saints in Heaven Be this then thus settled Non liquet ex Scripturis In the matter The difference of degrees of Glory we will not differ In the manner we would not differ so as to induce a Schisme if they would handle such points Problematically and no farther But when upon matter of fact they will induce matter of faith when they will extend Problematicall Divinity to Dogmaticall when they will argue and conclude thus It may be thus therefore it must be thus A man may be saved though he beleeve this therefore he cannot be saved except hee beleeve this when in this point in hand out of our acknowledgement of these degrees of Glory in the Saints they will establish the Doctrine of Merits and of Invocation of Saints then wee must necessarily call them to the Rule of all Doctrines the Scriptures When they tell us Historically and upon a Historicall Obligation and for a Historicall certitude that Peter was at Rome and that hee was Bishop of Rome we are not so froward as to deny them that But when upon his Historicall and personall being at Rome they will build that mother Article of an universall Supremacy over all the Church then we must necessarily call them to the Rule to the Scriptures and to require them to prove both his being there and his being Bishop there by the Scriptures and either of these would trouble them As it would trouble them in our present case to assigne evident places of Scripture for these degrees of Glory in the Saints of Heaven For though we be far from denying the Consentaneum est That it is reasonable it should be and likely it is so and farre from denying the Piè creditur That it may advance Devotion and exalt Industry to beleeve that it is so Though we acknowledge a possibility a probability a very similitude a very truth and thus farre a necessary truth that our endevours may flagge and slacken except we doe embrace that helpe that there are degrees of Glory in Heaven yet if wee shall presse for places of Scriptures so evident as must constitute an Article of faith there are perchance none to be found to which very learned and very reverend Expositors have not given convenient Interpretations without inducing any such necessity At least Minus ex hee Taxtu however other places of Scripture may seeme to contribute more this proposition of our text In my Fathers house are many mansions though it have beene applyed to the proofe of that hath no inclination no inclinablenesse that way For in this text our Saviour applies himselfe to his Disciples in that wherein they needed comfort That Christ would go away That they might not goe too That Peter had got a Non-obstante He might and they might not and Christ gives them that comfort that all might In my Fathers house are many mansions 1 Tim. 3.16 When the Apostle presents a great part of our Christian Religion together so as that he cals
of all other places there is scarce one to which Bellarmine himselfe doth not by way of objection against himselfe give some better sense and interpretation then that which himselfe sticks to and such a sense as when the matter of Purgatory is not in question his fellowes often times in their writings and himselfe sometimes in his writings doth accept and adhere to I offer it for a note of good use and in the observing whereof I have used a constant diligence in reading the Roman Writers That those Writers which write by way of Exposition and Commentaries upon the Scriptures and are not engaged in the professed handling of Controversies doe very often content themselves with the true sense of those places which they handle and hunt after no curious nor forced nor forraine nor unnaturall senses But if the same Authors come to handle Controversies they depart from that singlenesse of heart and that holy ingenuity and stray aside or soare up into other senses of the same places I looke no farther for a reason of this then this That almost all the Controversies between Rome and the rest of the Christian world are matters of profit to them and rayse money and advance their Revenue So that as they are but Expositors they may have leave to be good Divines and then and in that capacity they may give the true sense of that Scripture But as they are Controverters they must be good Subjects good Statesmen good Exchequer men and then and in that capacity they must give such senses as may establish and advance their profit As an Expositor he may interpret this place of the Resurrection as it should be but as a Controverter he must interpret it of Purgatory for so it must be when profit is their end And as our Alchymists can finde their whole art and worke of Alchymy not onely in Virgil and Ovid but in Moses and Solomon so these men can finde such a transmutation into gold such a foundation of profit in extorting a sense for Purgatory or other profitable Doctrines out of any Scripture So Bellarmine does upon this place and upon this place principally he relyes De purg l. 1. c. 6. in this he triumphs when he sayes Hic locus apertè convincit quod volumus Here needs no wresting no disguising here Purgatory is clearly and manifestly discovered Now certainly if we take the words as they are and as the Holy Ghost hath left them to us we finde no such manifestation of this Doctrine no such cleare light no such bonfire no such beacon no beame at all no spark of any such fire of Purgatory That because S. Paul sayes That no man would be baptized Pro mortuis for Dead or for the Dead except he did assure himselfe of a Resurrection that this should be Aperta convictio an evident Conviction of Purgatory is if it be not a new Divinity certainly a new Logique But it is not the word but the sense that they ground their assurance upon Now the sense which should ground an assurance in Doctrinall things should be the literall sense And yet here in so important a matter of faith as Purgatory it must not be a literall a proper a naturall and genuine sense but figurative and metaphoricall for in this place Baptisme must not signifie literally the Sacrament of Baptisme but it must signifie in a figurative sense a Baptisme of teares And then that figure must be a pregnant figure a figure with childe of another figure for as this Baptisme must signifie teares so these teares must signifie all that they use to expresse by the name of Penance and discipline and mortification Weeping and fasting and almes and whipping all must be comprehended in these teares And then as there was a mother figure and a daughter figure so there is a grand-child too for here is a Prosopopoeia an imagining a raysing up of a person that is not That all this must be done by some man alive with relation and in the behalfe of a dead person that these afflictions which he takes upon himselfe in this world may accrew in the benefit thereof to a man in another world Now if any of this Evidence be defective if it be not evident that this is a figurative speech but that the literall sense is very proper to the place if it be not evident that this figure of Baptisme is meant for teares and other penances If it be not evident that this penance is more then that man needed to have undergone for his own salvation but that God became indebted to him for that penance so sustained and if it be not evident that this penance and supererogation may be applied and communicated to a dead man it is a little too forwardly and too couragiously pronounced Hic locus apertè convincit quod volu mus We desire no more then this place for the proofe of Purgatory Yet he pursues his triumph Vera genuina interpretatio sayes he As though he might waive the benefit of making it a figurative sense and have his ends by maintaining it to be the literall sense This is sayes he the true and naturall sense of the place But it will be hard for him to perswade us either that this is the literall sense of the place or that this place needs any other then a literall sense Since he will not allow us a figurative sense in that great mystery in the Sacrament in the Hoc est Corpus meum but binde us punctually in the letter without any figure not onely in the thing for in the thing in the matter we require no figure we beleeve the body of Christ to be in the Sacrament as literally as really as they doe but even in the words and phrase of speech He should not looke that we should allow him a figurative sense in that place which must be Apertissimus locus his most evident place for the proofe of so great an article of faith as Purgatory is with them We have a Rule by which that sense will be suspicious to us which is Not to admit figurative senses in interpretation of Scriptures where the literall sense may well stand And he himselfe hath a Rule if he remember the Councell of Trent by which that sense cannot be admitted by himselfe which is That they must interpret Scriptures according to the unanime consent of the Fathers and he knowes in his conscience that he hath not done so as we shall remember him anone Not to founder by standing long in this puddle he makes no other argument that Baptisme must here be understood of afflictions voluntarily sustained but that that word Baptisme is twice used and accepted so in the Scriptures by Christ himselfe It is taken so there therefore it must be taken so here But not to speake at all of the weaknesse of that Consequence the word hath been taken figuratively therefore it must never returne to a literall sense which will hold
to the Office of a Prophet 54. D. The promises of God in the Prophets how different from those in the Gospel 40. E. A This a seditious inference the Prophets did thus and thus in the Law therefore the Ministers of the Gospel should doe so likewise and why 734. A Psalmes The Booke of Psalmes the dignity and vertue of it 653. D. E They are the Manna of the Church 663. B Such forbid to bee made Priests that were not perfect in the Psalmes 813. B Singing of the Psalmes how generall and commendable in S. Hieromes times ibid. B. C Purgatorie none in the old Testament and why 783. E How derived from Poets and Philosophers to Fathers 784. A. B. C How suspitiously and doubtfully the Fathers speak of it bid specially S Augustine 786. E Bellarmine refuted about it 792.793 Q QVestions arising taken away by Silencing of both parties 42. D Against curiosity in seeking after them 57. D There is alwaies Divinity enough to save a soule that was never called into Question 745. A How peevish some Romish Authors doe detoâ—t the Scripture when they fall upon any Question or Controversie though otherwise they content themselves with the true meaning and sense of the same words 790. E. 791. A Quomodo to Question how God doth this or that dangerous 301. E. 367. C R REason not to be enquired after in all points of Faith 23. B Reasons not convincing never to be proffered for to prove Articles of Faith 205. D God useth to accompany those Duties which hee commands with Reasons to enduce us to the performance of them 593. A Reconciliation how little amongst the Papists 10. D All Nations under heaven have acknowledged some meanes of Reconciliation to their offended gods in the remission of their sinnes 564. C Religion against such as damnifie Religion by their outward profession more than if they did forsake it 757. D Every Religion had her mysteries her Reservations and in-intelligiblenesse which were not easily understood of all men 690. D And therefore Religion not to be made too homely and course a thing ibid. C Christian Religion an easie yoke a short and contracted burden 71. D All points of Religion not to bee divulged to the people 87. D Defects in Religion safer than superfluities 291. A Of peaceable conversation with men of divers Religions 310. C Wee charged to have but a negative Religion 636. A Religion how farre we may proceed in the outward declaration of our Religion 814. A Resurrection of three sorts 149. E Of that from persecution 185. B. C. D Of that from Sinne 186. D. E. c Of that from Death 189. D How a Resurrection of the soule being the soule cannot die 189. D Christ how the First Resurrection 191. B Our Resurrection a mystery 204. C Resurrection All Religions amongst the Heathens had some Impressions of it 800. E Retrospection or looking upon time past the best rule to judge of the future 668. D Reverence how much due to men of old Age 31. D What Required in Gods House 43. D Revelations wee are not to hearken after them 238 E Nor yet to binde God from them 239. A Rewards against bribery or receiving of Rewards 389. E God first proposes to himselfe persons to be Rewarded or condemned before he thinks of their condemnation or their Reward 674. B. 675. B. C Riches the cause of lesse sinne than poverty 658. D Especially considered in the highest degree and in the lowest that is abundant Riches and extreme beggerly poverty 659. D Against the perverse desire of Riches 728. C Riches S. Chrysostome calls the parents of absurdities and why 729. A The Remane Church a true Church as the Pest house is a house 606. A. 621. C Rome the Church of Rome the better for reformamation 621. B They doe charge us that we have but a negative Religion 636. A Why they so much under-value the Scripture and yet endevour to bring bookes of other Authors into that ranke as the Macchabees and such like 738. E Rome it selfe how it hath beene handled ever by Catholikes in their bloody warres 779. A Almost all the Controversies between Rome and the Christian world are matters of profit 791. A Rule and Example the two onely wayes of Teaching 571. E. 668. B The onely Rule of doctrine the Scripture and Word of God 738. E S THe Sabbath a Ceremoniall Law 92. C Sacrament how effectually Christ is present in it 19. C Of preparing our selves to the worthy receiving of it 32. A. c 33. A. c Against Superstition and Prophanesse too in the comming to it 34. A Of Christs reall presence in it 36. D. 37. B. C That which we receive in the Sacrament to bee Adored 693. B Against unworthy receiving of it 693. D. E Of both extremes about Chrsts presence in the Sacrament 821. E Saints against praying to them 90. D. 378. D. 595. A. 744. A. 757. B The Saints in heaven pray for us 106. B Why they must not pray to Saints in the Church of Rome upon good Friday Easter and Whitsunday 485. D Whether they enjoy degrees of Glory in heaven 742. E Salvation of the generall possibility of Salvation for all men 66. B. 330. A. B. 742. B. C. D. Not to be ascribed to our Workes 107. D Nor to our Faith ibid. E More that are Saved than that are damned 241. A. 259. C The impossibility of Salvation to any man before hee was a man a discomfortable doctrine 278. B Of that certaintie of Salvation which is taught of some in the Roman Church and how farre we are from it 339. D. E. 340. A. 608. C Salvation offered to all men and in earnest 742. A. B Saviour the name of Saviour attributed to others beside Christ 528. D Scriptures the most eloquent Books that are 47. E 556. E. 557. C foure Elements of the right exposition and sense of Scripture 305. B Moderation in reading of them 323. C Scripures the only rule of Doctrine 738. E Secrecy in Confession commended but in case of disloyaltie 92. E. 575. E Seeing of God in our Actions how necessary 169. E Against Selfe-Subsistence or standing of our selves 240. A. B Against Selfe-Love 156. A Sermons how loth the Fathers were to lacke company at them 48. C Of preaching the same Sermons twice 114. C 250. C The danger of hearing Sermons without practising 455. C. D Sighing for sinne the benefit of it 537. D Sight the noblest of the sences and all the sences 225. B Signe of the Crosse wherefore used in the Primative times 538. A And why by us in baptisme ibid. Signes how they may be sought after and how not 15. B. C. D Shame for sinne a good signe 557. D To be voice-proofe not afraid nor Ashamed of what the World sayes of a Man an ill signe of a Spirituall obduration in sinne 589. A Silence the severall sorts of it Silence of Reverence 575. C Silence of subjection ibid. D