last motive Iosh 7.19 must be the glory of God Therefore Ioshuah sayes to Achan My Son give I pray thee glory unto the Lord God of Israel and make Confession unto him Now the glory of God arises not out of the Confessing but because every true Confessing is accompanied with a detestation of the sin as it hath separated me from God and a sense of my re-union and redintegration with God in the abjuration of my former sins for to tell my sin by way of a good tale or by boasting in it though it be a revealing a manifesting is not a Confession in every true confession God hath glory because he hath a straid soule re-united to his Kingdome And to advance this Glory David confesses Peccata sins which is our next Consideration I said I will confesse my sins unto the Lord. First he resents his state All is not well Then he examines himselfe Peccata vera Thus and thus it stands with me Then he considers then he resolves then he executes He confesses so far we are gone and now he confesses sins For the Pharisees though he pretended a Confession was rather an exprobration how much God had beene beholden to him for his Sabbaths for his Almes for his Tithes for his Fasting David confesses sins first such things as were truly sins For as the element of Ayre that lyes betweene the Water and the Fire is sometimes condensed into water sometimes rarified into fire So lyes the conscience of man betweene two operations of the Devill sometimes he rarifies it evaporates it that it apprehends nothing feeles nothing to be sin sometimes he condenses it that every thing falls and sticks upon it in the nature and takes the waight of sin and he mis-interprets the indifferent actions of others and of his owne and destroyes all use of Christian liberty all conversation all recreation and out of a false feare of being undutifull to God is unjust to all the world and to his owne soule and consequently to God himselfe who of all notions would not be received in the notion of a Cruell or Tyrannicall God In an obdurate conscience that feeles no sin the Devill glories most but in the over-tender conscience he practises most That is his triumphant but this is his militant Church That is his Sabbath but this is his six dayes labour In the obdurate he hath induced a security in the scriptures which the Holy Ghost hath exprest in so many names as Sin Sin Wickednesse Iniquity Transgressions Offences Many many more And all this that thereby we might reflect upon our selves often and see if our particular actions fell not under some of those names But then lest this should over-intimidate us there are as many names given by the Holy Ghost to the Law of God Law Statutes Ordinances Covenants Testimony Precept and all the rest of which there is some one at least repeated in every verse of the hundred and nineteenth Psalme that thereby we might still have a Rule to measure and try our actions by whether they be sins or no. For as the Apostle sayes He had not knowne sinne if he had not knowne the Law So there had beene no sin if there had beene no Law And therefore that soule that feeles it selfe oppressed under the burden of a Vow must have recourse to the Law of God and see whether that Vow fall under the Rule of that Law For as an over-tender conscience may call things sins that are not and so be afraid of things that never were so may it also of things that were but are not now of such sins as were truly sins and fearfull sins but are now dead dead by a true repentance and buried in the Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus and sealed up in that Monument under the seale of Reconciliation the blessed Sacrament and yet rise sometimes in this tender conscience in a suspition and jealousie that God hath not truly not fully forgiven them And as a Ghost which we thinke we see afrights us more then an army that we doe see So these apparitions of sins of things that are not against any Law of God and so are not sins or sins that are dead in a true repentance and so have no being at all by the Devils practise worke dangerously upon a distempered conscience for as God hath given the Soule an Imagination and a Fancy as well as an Understanding So the Devill imprints in the conscience a false Imagination as well as a fearefull sense of true sin David confesses sins sins that were truly sins But the more ordinary danger is Omniae in our not calling those things which are truly sins by that name For as sometimes when the Baptisme of a Child is deferred for State the Child dyes unbaptized So the sinner defers the Baptisme of his sin in his teares and in the blood of his Saviour offered in the blessed Sacrament till he dye namelesse namelesse in the booke of Life It is a Character that one of the ancientest Poets gives of a well-bred and well-governed Gentleman That he would not tell such lyes as were like truths not probable lyes nor such truths as were like lyes not wonderfull not incredible truths It is the constancy of a rectified Christian not to call his indifferent actions sins for that is to slander God as a cruell God nor to call sins indifferent actions for that is to undervalue God as a negligent God God doth not keepe the Conscience of man upon the wrack in a continuall torture and stretching But God doth not stupifie the conscience with an Opiate in an insensiblenesse of any sin The law of God is the balance and the Criterium By that try thine actions and then confesse David did so Peccata he confessed sinnes nothing that was not so as such neither omitted he any thing that was so And then they were Peccata sua His sins I said I will confesse my sins unto the Lord. First Sua. Sua His sinnes that is à se perpetrata sins which he confesses to have been of his voluntary committing He might and did not avoyd them When Adam said by way of alienation and transferring his fault The woman whom thou gavest me And the woman said Gen. 3.12 The Serpent deceived me God tooke this by way of Information to finde out the Principall but not by way of extenuation or alleviation of their faults Every Adam eats with as much sweat of his browes and every Eve brings forth her Children with as much paine in her travaile as if there had been no Serpent in the case If a man sin against God who shall plead for him If a man lay his sins upon the Serpent upon the Devill it is no plea but if he lay them upon God it is blasphemy Iob finds some ground of a pious Expostulation with God in that My flesh is not brasse nor my strength stones And such as I am thou hast made me
parts of this text and to all that the Holy Ghost is to do upon the world for howsoever he may rebuke the world of sin he cannot be said to rebuke it of righteousnesse and of judgement according to S. Augustines later interpretation of these words for in one place of his workes he takes this word Reproofe in the harder sense for rebuke but in another in the milder we have and must pursue the second signification of the word That the Holy Ghost shall reprove the world of sin of righteousnesse of judgement by convincing the world by making the world confesse and acknowledge all that that the Holy Ghost intends in all these And this manifestation and this conviction in these three will be our parts In the first of which That the Holy Ghost shall Reprove that is convince the world of sin we shall first looke how all the world is under sin and then whether the Holy Ghost being come have convinced all the world made all the world see that it is so and in these two inquisitions we shall determine that first branch For the first for of the other two we shall reach you the boughes anon 1 Part. Mundus sub peccato when you come to gather the fruit and lay open the particulars then when we come to handle them That all the world is under sin and knowes it not for this Reproofe Elenchus is sayes the Philosopher Syllogismus contra contraria opinantem An argument against him that is of a contrary opinion we condole first the misery of this Ignorance for August Quid miserius misero non miser ante seipsum What misery can be so great as to be ignorant insensible of our owne misery Every act done in such an ignorance as we might overcome is a new sin And it is not onely a new practise from the Devill but it is a new punishment from God August Iussisti Domine sic est ut poena sit sibi omnis inordinatus animus Every sinner is an Executioner upon himselfe and he is so by Gods appointment who punishes former sins with future This then is the miserable state of the world It might know and does not that it is wholly under an inundation a deluge of sin For sin is a transgression of some Law which he that sins may know himselfe to be bound by For if any man could be exempt from all Law he were impeccable he could not sin And if he could not possibly have any knowledge of the Law it were no Law to him Now under the transgression of what Law lyes all the World Lex Humana For the positive Laws of the States in which we live a man may keepe them according to the intention of them that made those Laws which is all that is required in any humane Law to keepe it if not according to the letter yet according to the intention of the Law-maker Nay it is not onely possible Seneca but easie to do so Angusta innocentia ad legem bonum esse sayes the morall mans holy Ghost Seneca It is but a narrow and a shallow honesty to be no honester then the Law forces him to be Thus then in violating the Laws of the State all the World is not under sin If we passe from Laws meerely humane Ceremonialia though in truth scarce any just Law is so meerely humane for God that commands obedience to humane Laws hath a hand in the making of them to those ceremoniall and judiciall Laws which the Jews received immediately from God in which respect they may be called divine Laws though they were but locall and but temporary which were in such a number as that though penall Laws in some States be so many and so heavy as that they serve onely for snares and springes upon the people yet they are no where equall to the ceremoniall and judiciall Laws Psal â— 6 which lay upon the Jews yet even for these Laws S. Paul sayes of himselfe That touching that righteousnesse which is in the Law he was blamelesse Thus therefore in violating ceremoniall or judiciall Laws all the World is not under sin both because all the World was not bound by that Law and some in the World did keepe it But in two other respects it is Lex Naturae first That there is a Law of Nature that passes through all the World a Law in the heart and of the breach of this no man can be alwayes ignorant As every man hath a devill in himselfe Chrysost Spontaneum Daemonem A Devill of his owne making some particular sin that transports him so every man hath a kinde of God in himselfe such a conscience as sometimes reproves him Carry we this consideration a little higher and we may see herein some verification at least some usefull application of Origens extreme error Origen He thought that at last after infinite revolutions as all other substances should be even the Devill himselfe should be as it were sucked and swallowed into God and there should remaine nothing at last as there was nothing else at first but onely God not by an annihilation of the Creature that any thing should come to nothing but by this absorption by a transmigration of all Creatures into God that God should be all and all should be God So in our case That which is the sinners devill becomes his God That very sin which hath possessed him by the excesse of that sin or by some losse or paine or shame following that sin occasions that reproofe and remorse that withdraws him from that sin So all the world is under sin because they have a Law in themselves and a light in themselves And it is so in a second respect Originale peecatum Esay 1.4 Wisd 2.23 That all being derived from Adam Adams sin is derived upon all Onely that one man that was not naturally deduced from Adam Christ Jesus was guilty of no sin All others are subject to that malediction Vae genti peccatrici Wo to this sinfull World God made man Inexterminabilem sayes the Wiseman undisseisible unexpellible such as he could not be thrust out of his Immortality whether he would or no August for that was mans first immortality Posse non mori That he needed not have dyed When man killed himselfe and threw upon all his posterity the morte morieris that we must dye and that Death is Stipendium peccati The wages of sin and that Anima quae peccaverit Ezech. 18.4 ipsa morietur that That soule and onely that soule that sins shall dye Since we see the punishment fall upon all we are sure the fault cleaves to all too all do dye therefore all do sin And though this Originall sin that over-flowes us all may in some sense be called peccatum involuntarium a sin without any elicite act of the Will for so it must needs be in Children and so properly no sin yet as
expressed it for according to the Originall word Galal it is in the Margin not Commit but Roll thy way upon the Lord which may very well imply and intend this precept Carry thy Rolling trench up to God and gather upon him Gen. 18.23 As Abraham when he beat the price with God for Sodom from fifty to ten rolled his Petition upon God fo roll thy wayes upon him come up to him in a thankfull acknowledgement what he hath done for thee in the Gospel in the Law and in Nature And then as Tertullian sayes of publique Prayers Obsidemus Deum In the Prayers of the Congregation wee besiege God So this way wee entrench our selves before God so as that nothing can beat us out of our trenches for if all the Canons of the Church beat upon me so that I be by Excommunication removed from the assistances of the Church though I be inexcusable if I labour not my Reconciliation and my Absolution yet before that be effected I am still in my first trench still I am a man still I have a soule capable of Grace still I have the light of Nature and some presence of God in that though I be attenuated I am not annihilated though by my former abuses of Gods graces and my contumacy I be cast back to the ends of the earth and a far off upon the Sea yet even there God is the confidence of all them As long as I consider that I have such a soule capable of Grace and Glory I cannot despaire Thus Nature makes Pearls Thus Grace makes Saints A drop of dew hardens and then another drop fals and spreads it selfe and cloathes that former drop and then another and another and become so many shels and films that invest that first feminall drop and so they say there is a pearle in Nature A good foule takes first Gods first drop into his consideration what he hath shed upon him in Nature and then his second coate what in the Law and successively his other manifold graces as so many shels and films in the Christian Church and so we are sure there is a Saint Roll thy wayes upon God And as it followes in the same verse Spera in eo ipse faciet we translate it Trust in him and he shall bring it to passe Begin at Alpha and hee shall bring it to Omega Consider thy selfe but in the state of Hope for the state of Nature is but a state of Hope a state of Capablenesse In Nature wee have the capacity of Grace but not Grace in possession in Nature Et ipse faciet sayes that Text God shall doe God shall work There is no more in the Originall but so Ipse faciet Not God shall doe it or doe this or doe that but doe all doe but consider that God hath done something for thee and he shall doe all for He is the confidence of all the ends of the earth and of them that are a farre off upon the Sea Here is a new Mathematiques without change of Elevation or parallax I that live in this Climate and stand under this Meridian looke up and fixe my self upon God And they that are under my feete looke up to that place which is above them And as divers as contrary as our places are we all fixe at once upon one God and meet in one Center but we doe not so upon one Sunne nor upon one constellation or configuration in the Heavens when we see it those Antipodes doe not but they and we see God at once How various formes of Religion soever passe us through divers wayes yet by the very light and power of Nature we meet in one God and for so much as may make God accessible to us and make us inexcusable towards him there is light enough in this dawning of the day refection enough in this first meale The knowledge of God which we have in Nature That alone discharges God and condemns us for by that He is that is He offers himselfe to be The confidence of all the ends of the Earth and of them who are a far of upon the Sea that is of all mankinde But then Lunae radiis non matureseit botrus fruits may be seene by the Mooneshine but the Mooneshine will not ripen them Therefore a Sunne rises unto us in the law and in the Prophets and gives us another manner of light then we had in nature Prov. 4.19 The way of the wicked is as Darknesse sayes Solomon Wherein It follows They know not at what they stumble A man that calls himselfe to no kinde of account that takes no candle into his hand never knowes at what he stumbles not what occasions his sin But by the light of nature if he will looke upon his owne infirmities his own deformities his own inclinations he may know at what he stumbles what that is that leads him into tentation For though S. Paul say That by the law is the knowledge of sin And Rom. 3.20 Rom. 5.13 Rom. 7.7 Sin is not imputed when there is no law And againe I had not knowne sin but by the law in some of these places the law is not intended onely of the law of the Jews but of the law of nature in our hearts for by that law every man knows that he sins And then sin is not onely intended of sin produced into act but sin in the heart as the Apostle instances there I had not knowne lust except the law had said Thou shalt not covet Of some sinnes there is no cleare evidence given by the light of nature That the law supplied and more then that The law did not onely shew what was sin but gave some light of remedy against sin and restitution after sin by those sacrifices which though they were ineffectuall in themselves yet involved and represented Christ who was their salvation So then God was to the Jews in generall as he was to his principall servant amongst them Moses He saw the land of promise but he entred not into it The Jews saw Christ Deut. 34.1 but embraced him not Abraham saw his day and rejoyced They saw it that is they might have seen it but winked at it Luther sayes well Iudaei habuere jus mendicandi The Jews had a licence to beg They had a Breve and might gather They had a Covenant and might plead with God But they did not and therefore though they were inexcusable for their neglect of the light of Nature and more inexcusable for resisting the light of the law That they and we might be absolutely inexcusable if we continued in darknesse after that God set up another light the light of the Gospel which is our third and last part wrapped up in those first words of our Text By terrible things in righteousnesse wilt thou answer us O God of our salvation This word Salvation Iashang is the roote of the name of Iesus 3 Part. Ecclesia Christiana In the beginning of
the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort pa. 375 SERM. XXXIX 1 PET. 1.17 And if ye call on the Father who without respect of persons judgeth according to every mans works passe the time of your sojourning here in feare pa. 384 SERM. XL. 1 COR. 16.22 If any man love not the Lord Iesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha pa. 393 SERM. XLI PSAL. 2.12 Kisse the Son lest he be angry pa. 403 SERM. XLII GEN. 18.25 Shall not the Iudge of all the Earth do right pa. 412 SERM. XLIII MAT. 3.17 And lo A voyce came from heaven saying This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased pa. 423 SERM. XLIV REV. 4.8 And the foure Beasts had each of them six wings about him and they were full of eyes within And they rest not day and night saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come pa. 432 SERM. XLV APOC. 7.2 3. And I saw another Angel ascending from the East which had the seale of the living God and he cryed with a loud voyce to the foure Angels to whom power was given to hurt the Earth and the Sea saying Hurt yee not the Earth neither the Sea neither the Trees till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads pa. 445 SERM. XLVI ACTS 9.4 And he fell to the earth and heard a voyce saying Saul Saul why persecutest thou me pa. 459 SERM. XLVII ACTS 20.25 And now Behold I know that all yee among whom I have gone preaching the kingdome of God shall see my face no more pa. 468 SERM. XLVIII ACTS 28.6 They changed their minds and said That he was a God pa. 476 SERM. XLIX ACTS 23.6 7. But when Paul perceived that one part were Sadduces and the other Pharisees he cryed out in the Councel Men and Brethren I am a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee Of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question And when he had so said there arose a dissention between the Pharisees and the Sadduces and the multitude was divided pa. 487 SERM. L. PSAL. 6.1 O Lord Rebuke me not in thine anger neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure pa. 499 SERM. LI. PSAL. 6.2 3. Have mercy upon me O Lord for I am weake O Lord heale me for my bones are vexed My soule is also sore vexed But thou O Lord how long pa. 209 SERM. LII LIII PSAL. 6.4 5. Returne O Lord Deliver my soule O Lord save me for thy mercies sake For in death there is no remembrance of thee and in the grave who shall give thee thanks pa. 522. pa. 530 SERM. LIV. PSAL. 6.6 7. I am weary with my groaning All the night make I my bed to swim I water my couch with my teares Mine eye is consumed because of griefe It waxeth old because of all mine enemies pa. 535 SERM. LV. PSAL. 6.8 9 10. Depart from me all yee workers of iniquitie for the Lord hath heard the voyce of my weeping The Lord hath heard my supplication the Lord will receive my prayer Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed let them returne and be ashamed suddenly pa. 548 SERM. LVI PSAL. 32.1 2. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquitie and in whose spirit there is no guile pa. 560 SERM. LVII PSAL. 32.3 4. When I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me my moysture is turned into the drought of Summer Selah pa. 571 SERM. LVIII PSAL. 32.5 I acknowledged my sinne unto thee and mine iniquitie have I not hid I said I will confesse my transgressions unto the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquitie of my sin pa. 582 SERM. LIX PSAL. 32.6 For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him pa. 592 SERM. LX. PSAL. 32.7 Thou art my hiding place Thou shalt preserve me from trouble Thou shalt compasse me about with songs of deliverance pa. 601 SERM. LXI PSAL. 32.8 I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt goe I will guide thee with mine eye pa. 609 SERM. LXII PSAL. 32.9 Be not as the Horse or the Mule which have no understanding whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle lest they come neere unto thee p. 619 SERM. LXIII PSAL. 32.10 11. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked But he that trusteth in the Lord Mercy shall compasse him about Be glad in the Lord and rejoyce ye righteous And shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart pa. 629 SERM. LXIV PSAL. 51.7 Purge me with Hyssope and I shall be cleane wash me and I shall be whiter then snow pa. 639 SERM. LXV PSAL. 62.9 Surely men of low degree are vanitie and men of high degree are a lie To be laid in the balance they are altogether lighter then vanity pa. 643 SERM. LXVI PSAL. 63.7 Because thou hast been my help Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce pa. 663 SERM. LXVII PSAL. 64.10 And all the upright in heart shall glory pa. 673 SERM. LXVIII PSAL. 65.5 By terrible things in righteousnesse wilt thou answer us O God of our salvation who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth and of them that are a far off upon the Sea pa. 683 SERM. LXIX PSAL. 66.3 Say unto God How terrible art thou in thy works Through the greatnesse of thy Power shall thine Enemies submit themselves unto thee pa. 695 SERM. LXX PROV 25.16 Hast thou found Honey eat so much as is sufficient for thee lest thou be filled therewith and vomit it 709 SERM. LXXI LXXII MAT. 4.18 19 20. And Iesus walking by the Sea of Galile saw two brethren Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother casting a net into the Sea for they were fishers And he saith unto them Follow me and I will make you fishers of men And they straightway left their nets and followed him pa. 717. 726 SERM. LXXIII JOHN 14.2 In my Fathers house are many Mansions If it were not so I would have told you pa. 737 SERM. LXXIV PSAL. 144.15 Blessed are the people that be so Yea blessed are the people whose God is the Lord. pa. 749 SERM. LXXV ESAY 32.8 But the liberall deviseth liberall things and by liberall things he shall stand pa. 758 SERM. LXXVI MARK 16.16 He that beleeveth not shall be damned pa. 766 SERM. LXXVII LXXVIII 1 COR. 15.29 Else what shall they doe which are baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all why are they then baptized for the dead pa. 777. 790 SERM. LXXIX PSAL. 90.14 O satisfie us early with thy mercy that we may rejoyce and be glad all our dayes pa. 803 SERM. LXXX
JOHN 11.21 Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not dyed pa. 816 NOVEMB 29. 1639. Imprimatur THO BROUN SERMONS Preached upon Christmas-day SERMON I. PREACHED AT St. PAVLS upon Christmas day 1622. Coloss 1.19 20. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulnesse dwell And having made peace through the bloud of his Crosse by Him to reconcile all things to himselfe by Him whether they be things in Earth or things in heaven THE whole journey of a Christian is in these words and therefore we were better set out early then ride too fast better enter presently into the parts then be forced to passe thorow them too hastily First then wee consider the Collation and Reference of the Text and then the Illation and Inference thereof For the Text looks back to all that was said from the twelfth verse For the first word of the text For which is a particle of connexion as well as of argumentation is a seale of all that was said from that place And then the Text looks forward to the 23 ver where all these blessings are sealed to us with that Condition If ye continue setled in the Gospell This is the Collation the Reference of the text for the Illation and Inference the first clause thereof For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulnesse dwell presents a double Instruction First that we are not bound to accept matters of Religion meerely without all reason and probable inducements And secondly with what modesty we are to proceed and in what bounds we are to limit that inquisition that search of Reason in matters of that nature When the Apostle presents to us here the great mystery of our reconciliation to God he in whose power it was not to infuse faith into every reader of his Epistle proceeds by reason He tels us V. 13. That the Father hath translated us into the Kingdome of his deare Son the Son of his love That were well if we were sure of it If our consciences did not accuse us and suggest to us our owne unworthinesse and thereby an impossibility of being so translated Why no sayes the Apostle V. 14. there is no such impossibility now For Now we have Redemption and forgivenesse of sinnes Who should procure us that If a man sin against God who shall plead for him What man is able to mediate 1 Sam. 2.25 and stand in the gap between God and man You say true sayes the Apostle no man is able to doe it and therefore He that is the Image of the invisible God V. 15. he by whom all things were created and by whom all things consist he hath done it Hath God reconciled me to God And reconciled me by way of satisfaction for that I know his justice requires What could God pay for me What could God suffer God himselfe could not V. 18. and therefore God hath taken a body that could And as he is the Head of that body he is passible so he may suffer And as he is the first born of the dead he did suffer so that he was defective in nothing not in Power as God not in passibility as man for Complacuit It pleased the Father that in him All fulnesse a full capacity to all purposes should dwell Thus farre we are to trace the reason of our redemption intimated in that first word For. And then we are to limit and determine our reason in the next Quia complacuit because it was his will his pleasure to proceed so and no otherwise Christ himselfe goes no farther then so Mat. 11.25 in a case of much strangenesse That God had hid his mysteries from the wise and revealed them unto babes This was a strange course but Ita est quia Even so Father for so it seemed good in thy sight I would faine be able to prove to my selfe that my redemption is accomplished and therefore I search the Scriptures and I grow sure that Christ hath redeemed the world and I search the Scriptures again to finde what marks are upon them that are of the participation of that Redemption and I grow to a religious and modest assurance that those marks are upon me I finde reasons to prove to me that God does love my soule but why God should love men better then his own Son or why God should love me better then other men I must end in the reason of the text Quia complacuit and in the reason of Christ himself Ita est quia It is so O Father because thy good pleasure was it should be so To passe then from the Collation and Reference Divisio by which the text hath his Cohaerence with the precedent and subsequent passages and the Illation and Inference by which you have seene the generall doctrine That reason is not to be excluded in religion but yet to be tenderly and modestly pressed we have here the Person that redeemed us and his Qualification for that great office That all fulnesse should dwell in him And then we have the Pacification and the Meanes thereof Peace was made through the bloud of his Crosse And then the Effect the application of all this to them for whom it was wrought That all things in earth and heaven might be reconciled to God by him In the qualification of the person we finde plenitudinem fulnesse and omnem plenitudinem all fulnesse and omnem plenitudinem inhabitantem all fulnesse dwelling permanent And yet even this dwelling fulnesse even in this person Christ Jesus by no title of merit in himselfe but onely quia complacuit because it pleased the Father it should be so In the pacification which is our second part Peace was made by the bloud of his Crosse we shall see first quod bellum what the warre was and then quae pax what the peace is and lastly quis modus how this peace was made which was strange per sanguinem by bloud to save bloud and yet by bloud And per sanguinem ejus by his bloud his who was victoriously to triumph in this peace and per sanguinem Crucis ejus by the bloud of his Crosse that is his death the bloud of his Circumcision the bloud of his Agony the bloud of his scourging was not enough It must be and so it was the bloud of his Crosse And these peeces constitute our second part the Pacification And then in the third the Application That all things might be reconciled to God we shall see first what this Reconciliation is and then how it extends to all things on earth which we might thinke were not capable of it and all things in heaven which we might think stood in no need of it And in these three parts The person and his qualification The thing it selfe The Pacification The effect of this The Reconciliation the Application wee shall determine all First 1. Part. Plenitudo In the person that redeemes us we finde fulnesse And there
from the tyran to cancell the covenant betweene hell and them and restore them so far to their liberty as that they might come to their first Master if they would this was Redeeming But in his other worke which is Adoption and where the persons were more particular Adoptio not all but wee Christ hath taken us to him in a straiter and more peculiar title then Redeeming For A servando Servi men who were by another mans valour saved and redeemed from the enemy or from present death they became thereby servants to him that saved and redeemed them Redemption makes us who were but subjects before for all are so by creation servants but it is but servants but Adoption makes us who are thus made servants by Redemption sons 〈◊〉 for Adoption is verbum forense though it be a word which the Holy Ghost takes yet he takes it from a civill use and signification in which it expresses in divers circumstances our Adoption into the state of Gods children First he that adopted another must by that law be a man who had no children of his owne And this was Gods case towards us Hee had no children of his owne wee were all filii irae The children of wrath not one of us could be said to bee the child of God by nature if we had not had this Adoption in Christ Secondly he who Eph. ◠by that law might Adopt must be a Man who had had or naturally might have had children for an Infant under yeares or a man who by nature was disabled from having children could not Adopt another And this was Gods case towards us too for God had had children without Adoption for by our creation in Innocence we were the sons of God till we died all in one transgression and lost all right and all life and all meanes of regaining it but by this way of Adoption in Christ Jesus Againe no man might adopt an elder man then himselfe and so our Father by Adoption is not onely Antiquus dierum The ancient of Daies but Antiquior diebus ancienter then any Daies before Time was he is as Damascene forces himselfe to expresse it Super-principale principium the Beginning and the first Beginning and before the first beginning He is saies he aeternus and prae-aeternus Eternall and elder then any eternity that we can take into our imagination So likewise no man might adopt a man of better quality then himselfe and here we are so far from comparing as that we cannot comprehend his greatnesse and his goodnesse of whom and to whom S. Augustin saies well Quid mihi es If I shall goe about to declare thy goodnesse not to the world in generall but Quid mihi es how good thou art to me Miserere ut loquar saies he I must have more of thy goodnesse to be able to tell thy former goodnesse Be mercifull unto me againe that I may bee thereby able to declare how mercifull thou wast to me before except thou speake in me I cannot declare what thou hast done for me Lastly no man might be adopted into any other degree of kindred but into the name and right of a son he could not be an adopted Brother nor cosin nor nephew And this is especially our dignity wee have the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father So that as here is a fulnesse of time in the text so there is a fulnesse of persons All and a fulnesse of the worke belonging to them Redeeming Emancipation delivering from the chaines of Satan we were his by Creation we sold our selves for nothing and he redeemed us without money that is Esa 52. without any cost of ours but because for all this generall Redemption we may turne from him and submit our selves to other services therefore he hath Adopted us drawne into his family and into his more especiall care those who are chosen by him to be his Now that Redemption reached to all there was enough for all this dispensation of that Redemption this Adoption reaches onely to us all this is done That wee might receive the Adoption of Sonnes But who are this Wee why they are the elect of God But who are they Nos who are these elect Qui timidè rogat docet negare If a man aske me with a diffidence Can I be the adopted son of God that have rebelled against him in all my affections that have troden upon his Commandements in all mine actions that have divorced my selfe from him in preferring the love of his creatures before himselfe that have murmured at his corrections and thought them too much that have undervalued his benefits and thought them too little that have abandoned and prostituted my body his Temple to all uncleannesse and my spirit to indevotion and contempt of his Ordinances can I be the adopted son of God that have done this Ne timidè roges aske me not this with a diffidence and distrust in Gods mercy as if thou thoughtst with Cain thy iniquities were greater then could be forgiven But aske me with that holy confidence which belongs to a true convert Am not I who though I am never without sinne yet am never without hearty remorce and repentance for my sinnes though the weaknesse of my flesh sometimes betray mee the strength of his Spirit still recovers me though my body be under the paw of that lion that seekes whom hee may devoure yet the lion of Judah raises againe and upholds my soule though I wound my Saviour with many sinnes yet all these bee they never so many I strive against I lament confesse and forsake as farre as I am able Am not I the child of God and his adopted son in this state Roga fidenter aske me with a holy confidence in thine and my God doces affirmare thy very question gives me mine answer to thee thou teachest me to say thou art God himselfe teaches me to say so by his Apostle The foundation of God is sure and this is the Seale God knoweth who are his and let them that call upon his name depart from all iniquity He that departs so far as to repent former sinnes and shut up the wayes which he knows in his conscience doe lead him into tentations he is of this quorum one of us one of them who are adopted by Christ to be the sonnes of God I am of this quorum if I preach the Gospell sincerely and live thereafter for hee preaches twice a day that followes his owne doctrine and does as he saies And you are of this quorum if you preach over the Sermons which you heare to your owne soules in your meditation to your families in your relation to the world in your conversation If you come to this place to meet the Spirit of God and not to meet one another If you have sate in this place with a delight in the Word of God and not in the words of any speaker If you goe out of this
disproportion betweene us Illis qui nihil Esay 40.15 and so the first exaltation of his mercy towards us Man is sayes the Prophet Esay Quasi stilla situlae As a drop upon the bucket Man is not all that not so much as that as a drop upon the bucket but quasi something some little thing towards it and what is a drop upon the bucket to a river to a sea to the waters above the firmament Man to God Man is sayes the same Prophet in the same place Quasi momenntum staterae we translate it As small dust upon the balance Man is not all that not that small graine of dust but quasi some little thing towards it And what can a graine of dust work in governing the balance What is man that God should be mindfull of him Vanity seemes to be the lightest thing that the Holy Ghost could name and when he had named that he sayes and sayes and sayes often very very often All is vanity But when he comes to waigh man with vanity it selfe he findes man lighter then vanity Take sayes he Ps 62.9 great men and meane men altogether and altogether they are lighter then vanity When that great Apostle sayes of himselfe that he was in nothing behinde the very chiefest of the Apostles 2 Cor. 12.11 and yet for all that sayes he was nothing who can think himselfe any thing for being a Giant in proportion a Magistrate in power a Rabbi in learning an Oracle in Counsell Let man be something how poore and inconsiderable a ragge of this world L. 1. de rerum generatione is man Man whom Paracelsus would have undertaken to have made in a Limbeck in a Furnace Man who if they were altogether all the men that ever were and are and shall be would not have the power of one Angel in them all whereas all the Angels who in the Schoole are conceived to be more in number then not onely all the Species but all the individualls of this lower world have not in them all the power of one finger of Gods hand Man of whom when David had said as the lowest diminution that he could put upon him I am a worme and no man He might have gone lower Ps 22.6 and said I am a man and no worm for man is so much lesse then a worm as that wormes of his own production shall feed upon his dead body in the grave and an immortall worm gnaw his conscience in the torments of hell And then if that which God and God in the counsaile and concurrence and cooperation of the whole Trinity hath made thee Man be nothing canst thou be proud of that or think that any thing which the King hath made thee a Lord or which thy wife hath made thee Rich or which thy riches have made thee an Officer As Iob sayes of impertinent comforters miserable comforters so I say of these Creations miserable creations are they all Only as thou maist be a new creature in Christ Jesus thou maist be something for that 's a nobler and a harder creation then the first when God had a clod of red earth in his hand to make me in Adam he had more towards his end then when he hath me an unregenerate and rebellious soule to make a new creature in Christ Jesus And yet Ille illis to this man comes this God God that is infinitely more then all to man that is infinitely lesse then nothing which was our first disproportion and the first exaltation of his mercy and the next is Ille illis Illis qui hostes that this God came to this man then when this man was a professed enemy to this God Si contrarium Deo quaeras nihilest saies S. Augustine If thou aske me what is contrary to God I cannot say that any thing is so for whatsoever is any thing hath a beeing Illis qui Hostes and whatsoever hath so hath in that very beeing some affinity with God some assimilation to God so that nothing is contrary to God If thou aske mee Quis hostis who is an enemy to GOD I cannot say that of any thing in this World but man That viper that flew at Saint Paul was not therein an enemy to GOD Acts 28. that viper did not direct it selfe upon S. Paul as S. Paul was a usefull and a necessary instrument of Christ But S. Paul himselfe was a direct enemy to Christ himselfe Tu me thou persecutest me saies Christ himselfe unto him And if we be not all enemies to God in such a direct opposition as that we sinne therefore because that sinne violates the majesty of God and yet truly every habituall and deliberated sinne amounts to almost as much because in every such sinne we seeme to try conclusions whether God can see a sinne or be affected with a sinne or can or cares to punish a sinne as though we doubted whether God were a present God or a pure God or a powerfull God and so consequently whether there be any God or no If we be not all enemies to God in this kind yet in adhering to the enemy we are enemies In our prevarications and easie betrayings and surrendring of our selves to the enemy of his kingdom satan we are his enemies For small wages and ill paid pensions we serve him and lest any man should flatter and delude himselfe in saying I have my wages and my reward before hand my pleasures in this life the punishment if ever not till the next The Apostle destroyes that dreame with that question of confusion What fruit had you then in those things Rom 6.21 of which you are now ashamed Certainly sin is not a gainfull way without doubt more men are impoverished and beggered by sinful courses then enriched what fruit had they says the Apostle and sin cannot be the way of honour for we dare not avow our sins but are ashamed of them when they are done fruitlesness unprofitableness before shame and dishonor after and yet for these we are enemies to God and yet for all this God comes to us Ille illis the Lord of Hosts to naked and disarmed man the God of peace to this enemy of God Some men will continue kinde where they finde a thankfull reciver Luke 6.35 but God is kinde to the unthankfull sayes Christ himselfe There may be found a man that will dye for his friend sayes he but God dyed for his enemies Then when ye were enemies you were reconciled to God by the death of his Son To come so in-gloriously he that is infinitely more then all to him that is infinitely lesse then nothing that was our first disproportion and the first axaltatation of his mercy to come shall we venture to say so so selfe proditoriously as to betray himselfe and deliver himselfe to his enemies that was our second is equalled at least in a third ille illis he to them that is unus omnibus 2 Cor. 5.14
it is truly all for our light is the light of good works and that light proceeds from all the other three and so is all those and then it goes beyond all three and so is none of them It proceeds from all for if we consider the first light the light of nature Ephes 2.10 in our creation We are sayes the Apostle his workmanship created in Christ Iesus unto good works So that we were all made for that for good works even the naturall man by that first light Consider it in the second light in baptisme there we dye in Christ and are buried in Christ and rise in Christ and in him we are new creatures and with him we make a covenant in baptisme for holinesse of life which is the body of good works Consider the third that of faith and as every thing in nature is so faith is perfected by working Jam. 2.26 for faith is dead without breath without spirit if it be without workes So this light is in all those lights we are created we are baptized we are adopted for good works and it is beyond them all even that of faith for though faith have a preheminence because works grow out of it and so faith as the root is first yet works have the preheminence thus both that they include faith in them and that they dilate and diffuse and spread themselves more declaratorily then faith doth Therefore as our Saviour said to some that asked him John 6.28 What shall we do that we might work the work of God you see their minde was upon works something they were sure was to be done This is the work of God that ye beleeve in him whom he hath sent and so refers them to faith so to another that asks him What shall I do that I may have eternall life Mat. 19.16 all goe upon that that something there must be done works there must be Christ sayes Keepe the Commandements and so refers him to works He hath shewed thee O man what is good Mic. 6.8 and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to shew mercy and to walk humbly with thy God This then is the light that lighteth every man that goes out of the world good works for their works follow them Their works they shall be theirs Apoc. 14.13 even after their death which is our second branch in this first part the propriety lux vestra let your light shine I cannot alwaies call the works that I do my works for sometimes God works them Proprietas vestra Esay 28.21 and sometimes the devill Sometimes God works his owne worke The Lord will do his worke his strange worke and bring to passe his act his strange act Sometimes he works my works Thou Lord hast wrought all our workes in us In us and in all things else Esay 26.12 1 Cor. 12.6 Ephes 1.11 Esay 43.13 Rom. 7.15 Operatur omnia in omnibus he worketh all in all And all this in all these Secundum consilium voluntatis suae After the counsaile of his owne will for I will worke and who shall let it But for all this his generall working his enemy works in us too That which I doe I allow not saies the Apostle nay I know it not for saies he what I hate that I doe And if I doe that I would not doe it is no more I that doe it but sin that dwelleth in me Yet ver 20. for all this diverse this contrary working as S. Augustine sayes of the faculty of the will Nihil tam nostrum quam voluntas there is nothing so much our owne as our will before we worke August so there is nothing so much our owne as our workes after they are done They stick to us they cleave to us whether as fomentations to nourish us or as corrasives to gnaw upon us that lyes in the nature of the worke but ours they are and upon us our works work Our good works are more ours then our faith is ôurs Our faith is ours as we have received it our worke is ours as we have done it Faith is ours as we are possessors of it the work ours as we are doers actors in it Faith is ours as our goods are ours works as our children are ours And therefore when the Prophet Habakkuk saies Fide sua Hab. 2.4 The just shall live by his faith that particle His is a word of possession not a word of Acquisition That God hath infused that faith into him and so it is his not that he hath produced that faith in himselfe His faith must save him his own and not anothers not his parents faith though he be the son of holy parents not the Churches faith if he be of yeares though he be within the covenant but his own personall faith yet not his so as that it grew in him or was produced in him by him by any plantation Rom. 1.17 Gal. 3.11 Heb. 10.36 or semination of his own And therefore S. Paul in citing that place of Habakkuk as he doth cite it three severall times in all those places leaves out that particle of propriety and acquisition his and still sayes The just shall live by faith and he sayes no more And when our blessed Saviour sayes to the woman with the bloody issue Fides tua Daughter Mar. 5.34 thy faith hath made thee whole it was said then when he had seen that woman come trembling and fall down at his feet he saw outward declarations of her faith he saw works And so in divers of those places where Christ repeats that fides tua thy faith we finde it added Iesus videns fidem Iesus seeing their faith With what eyes he looked upon them with his humane eyes not his divine he saw not that is considered not at that time their hearts but their outward declarations and proceeding as a good man would out of their good works concludes faith Velle nolle nostrum est to assent or to dis-assent is our own Hieron we may choose which we will doe Ipsumque quod nostrum est sine Dei miseratione nostrum non est But though this faculty be ours it is ours but because God hath imprinted it in us So that still to will as well as to doe to beleeve as well as to work is all from God but yet they are from God in a diverse manner and a diverse respect and certainly our works are more ours then our faith is and man concurres otherwise in the acting and perpetration of a good work then he doth in the reception and admission of faith Sed quae non fecimus ipsi sayes the Poet and he was Vates a Prophet in saying so Vix ea nostra voco nothing is ours but that which we have done our selves and all that is ours And though Christ refer us often to beliefe in this life because he would be sure to plant and fasten
that with sweetnesse with respect with reverence It was a better rule in so high a businesse then a man would look for at a Friars hands which S. Bernard hath Absque prudentia benevolentia non sunt perfecta consilia No man is a good Counsellor for all his wisdome and for all his liberty of speech except he love the person whom he counsels If he do not wish him well as well as tell him his faults he is rather a Satyrist and a Calumniator and seeks to vent his own wisdome and to exercise his authority then a good Counsellor And therefore sayes that Father before Christ took Peter into that high place he asked him and asked him thrice Amas me Lovest thou me He would be sure of his love to him first before he preferred him Vix in multitudine hominum unum reperio in utraque gratia consummatum sayes he still Not one man amongst a thousand that is both able to give counsell to great persons and then doth that office out of love to that person but rather to let others see his ability in himself or his authority and power over that person and so upon pretence of counselling opens his weaknesses to the knowledge and to the contempt of other men as Davids wife when he had danced as she thought undecently before the Ark spoke freely enough with liberty enough but it was with scorn and contempt And this is in no sort any payment of this ceremoniall debt which is that the foundations and the substance being preserved that is the glory of God and morall and religious truths being kept inviolate to think and say and doe those things which may conduce to the estimation and dignity of his superiour Now this hath led us to our other list of humane creditors that is our inferiours Inferiores and to render to them also their dues for to them we said at beginning there was due counsell if they were weak in understanding and there was due reliefe if they were weak in their fortunes For the first there are some persons in so high place in this world as that they can owe nothing to any temporall superiour for they have none But there is none so low in this world but he hath some lower then he is to pay this debt of counsell and advise to at least the debt of prayer for him if he will not receive the debt of counsell to him But in this place for haste we contract our selves to the debt of reliefe to the poore Amongst whom we may consider one sort of poore whom we our selves have made poore and damnified and then our debt is Restitution and another sort whom God for reasons unknowne to us hath made poore and there our debt is Almes For the first of these those whom thou hast damnified and made poore thou needst not come to the Apostles question of the blinde man Did this man sin or his parents that he is born blinde Did this man waste himselfe in house-keeping or in play or in wantonnesse that he is become poore Neither he sinned nor his parents sayes Christ neither excesse nor play nor wantonnesse hath undone this man but thy prevarication in his cause thy extortion thy oppression And now he starves and thou huntest after a popular reputation of a good house-keeper with his meate now he freezes in nakednesse and thy train shines in liveries out of his Wardrobe every Constable is ready to lay hold upon him for a rogue and thy son is Knighted with his mony Sileat licèt fama non silet fames sayes good and holy Bernard fame may be silent but famine will not perchance the world knowes not this or is weary of speaking of it but those poore wretches that starve by thy oppression know it and cry out in his hearing where thine own conscience accompanies them and cryes out with them against thee Pay this debt this debt of restitution and pay it quickly for nothing perishes nothing decayes an estate more nothing consumes nothing enfeebles a soule more then to let a great debt run on long But if they be poore of Gods making Eleemosyna and not of thine as they are to thee if thou know not why or how they are become poore for though God have inflicted poverty upon them for their sins that is a secret between God and them that which God hath revealed to thee is their poverty and not their sins then thou owest them a debt of almes though not restitution though thou have nothing in thy hands which was theirs yet thou hast something which should be theirs nothing perchance which thou hast taken from them but something certainly which thou hast received from God for them and in that sense S. Bernard sayes truly in the behalfe and in the person of the poore to wastfull men Nostrum est quod effunditis you are prodigall there is one fault but then you are prodigall of that which is not your own but ours and that is a greater and then we whose goods you wast are poore and miserable and that is the greatest fault of all Nobis crudeliter subtrahitur quod inaniter expenditis whatsoever you spend wantonly and vainly upon your selves or sinfully upon others is cruelly and bloodily drawen out of our bowels and worse then so sacrilegiously too because we are the Temples of the Holy Ghost If not properly taken away because we had it not yet unjustly and cruelly with-held and kept away because we should have it say those poore soules to these wastfull prodigalls in that devout and perswasive mouth of S. Bernard Here is a double misery of which you you that are prodigals are authors Vos vanitando peritis nos spoliando perimitis In this prodigality you waste your selves even your soules and you rob us you leave us naked in the cold and you cast your selves into dark and tormenting fire So that whether they be poore of Gods making or poore of your making Reddite debitum pay the debt you owe to the one by almes to the other by restitution We descend now to our last creditors 3. Part. Nos our selves It is a good rule of S. Bernard Qui ad sui mensuram proximum diligit seipsum diligere norit since we are commanded to love our neighbour as our selves we must be sure to love our selves so as we should doe or else we proceed by a wrong and a crooked rule So to give some guesse of our ability and of our willingnesse to pay our debts to God and our debts to man we must consider what we owe Rom. 1.14 and how we pay our selves Thou art a debtor as S. Paul sayes of himselfe to the Greek and to the Barbarian to the wise and to the unwise And thou thy selfe art amongst some of these wise and learned in the best art though thou know not a letter rich and mighty in the best treasure though thou possesse not a penny
City and save it for mine own sake 2 Reg. 19.34 and for my servant Davids sake Quantus murus Patriae vir justus is a holy exclamation of S. Ambrose What a Wall to any Towne what a Sea to any Iland what a Navy to any Sea what an Admirall to any Navy is a good man Apply thy selfe therefore and make thy conversation with good men and get their love and that shall be an armour of proofe to thee When Saint Augustines Mother lamented the ill courses that her sonne tooke in his youth still that Priest to whom she imparted her sorrowes said Filius istarum lacrymarum non potest perire That Son for whom so good a Mother hath shed so many teares cannot perish He put it not upon that issue filius Dci the elect child of God the son of predestination cannot perish for at that time that name was either no name or would scarce have seemed to have belonged to S. Augustine but the child of these teares of this devotion cannot be lost Mat. 8.13 Christ said to the Centurion fiat sicut credidisti Goe thy way and as thou beleevest so be it done unto thee and his servant was healed in the selfe-same houre The master beleeved and the servant was healed Little knowest thou what thou hast received at Gods hands by the prayers of the Saints in heaven that enwrap thee in their generall prayers for the Militant Church Little knowest thou what the publique prayers of the Congregation what the private prayers of particular devout friends that lament thy carelesnesse and negligence in praying for thy selfe have wrung and extorted out of Gods hands in their charitable importunity for thee And therfore at last make thy selfe fit to doe for others that which others when thou wast unfit to doe thy selfe that office have done for thee in assisting thee with their prayers If thou meet thine enemies Oxe Exod. 23 4 5. or Asse going astray sayes the Law thou shalt surely bring it back to him again If thou see the Asse of him that hateth thee lying under his burden and wouldest forbeare to help him thou shalt surely help him Estnè Deo cura de Bobus is the Apostles question Hath God care of Oxen of other mens Oxen How much more of his owne Sheep And therefore if thon see one of his Sheep one of thy fellow Christians strayed into sins of infirmity and negligent of himselfe joyne him with thine owne soule in thy prayers to God Relieve him if that be that which he needs with thy prayers for him and relieve him if his wants be of another kinde according to his prayers to thee Cur apud te homo Collega non valeat sayes S. Ambrose why should not he that is thy Colleague thy fellow-man as good a man that is as much a man as thou made of the same bloud and redeemed with the same bloud as thou art why should not he prevaile with thee so farre as to the obtaining of an almes Cum apud Deum servus interveniendi meritum jus habe at impetrandi when some fellow-servant of thine hath had that interest in God as by his intercession and prayers to advance thy salvation wilt not thou save the life of another man that prayes to thee when perchance thy soule hath been saved by another man that prayed for thee Well then Ejus Christ had respect to their faith that brought this sick man to him Consuetudo est miserecordis Dei It is Gods ordinary way sayes S. Chysost hunc honorem dare servis suis ut propter eos salventur alii to afford this honour to his servants that for their sakes he saves others But neither this which we say now out of S. Crhysostome nor that which we said before out of S. Ambrose nor all that we might multiply out of the other Fathers doth exclude the faith of that particular man who is to be saved It is true that in this particular case S. Hierome sayes Non vidit fidem ejus qui offer ebatur sed corum qui offerebant That Christ did not respect his faith that was brought but onely theirs that brought him but except S. Hierome be to be understood so that Christ did not first respect his faith but theirs we must depart from him to S. Chrysostome Neque enim se portari sustinuisset He would neither have put himselfe nor them to so many difficulties as he did if he had not had a faith that is a constant assurance in this meanes of his recovery And therefore the Rule may be best given thus That God gives worldly blessings bodily health deliverance from dangers and the like to some men in contemplation of others though themselves never thought of it all the examples which we have touched upon convince abundantly That God gives spirituall blessings to Infants presented according to his Ordinance in Baptisme in Contemplation of the faith of their Parents or of the Church or of their sureties without any actuall faith in the Infant is probable enough credible enough But take it as our case is de adultis in a man who is come to the use of his own reason and discretion so God never saves any man for the faith of another otherwise then thus that the faithfull man may pray for the conversion of an unfaithfull who does not know nor if he did would be content to be prayed for and God for his sake that prayes may be pleased to work upon the other but before that man comes to the Dimittuntur peccata that his sinnes are forgiven that man comes to have faith in himselfe Iustus in fide sua vivit there is no life without faith nor In fide aliena Habak 2.4 no such life as constitutes Righteousnesse without a personall faith of our owne So that this fides illorum in our Text this that is called their faith hath reference to the sick man himselfe as well as to them that brought him And then in Him and in Them it was fides visa faith which by an ouvert act Visae was declared and made evident For Christ who was now to convay into that company the knowledge that he was the Messias which Messias was to be God and Man as afterwards for their conviction who would not beleeve him to be God he shewed that he knew their inward thoughts and did some other things which none but God could doe so here for the better edification of men he required such a faith as might be evident to men For though Christ could have seene their faith by looking into their hearts yet to think that here he saw it by that power of his Divinity nimis coactum videtur It is too narrow and too forced an interpretation of the place sayes Calvin They then that is all they declared their faith their assurance that Christ could and would help him It was good evidence of a strength of faith in him that
least in the making of lice A man may stand a great tentation and satisfie himselfe in that and thinke he hath done enough in the way of spirituall valour and then fall as irrecoverably under the custome of small I were as good lie under a milstone as under a hill of sand for howsoever I might have blowne away every graine of sand if I had watched it as it fell yet when it is a hill I cannot blow it nor shove it away and when I shall thinke to say to God I have done no great sins God shall not proceed with me by waight but by measure nor aske how much but how long I have sinned And though I may have done thus much towards this purity as that for a good time I have discontinued my sin yet if my heart be still set upon the delight and enjoying of that which was got by my former sins though I be not that dog that returnes to his vomit yet I am still that Sow that wallowes in her mire though I doe not thrust my hands into new dirt yet the old dirt is still baked upon my hands though mine owne cloathes doe not defile me againe as Iob speakes Iob. 2.22 though I do not relapse to the practise of mine old sin yet I have none of Ieremies Nitre and Sope none of Iobs Snow-water to wash me cleane except I come to Restitution As long as the heart is set upon things sinfully got thou sinnest over those yeares sins every day thou art not come to the purity of this text for it is pure and pure in heart But can any man come to that purenesse to have a heart pure from all foulenesse Corde Iob 14.4 Prov. 20. can a man be borne so Who can bring a cleane thing out of filthinesse is Iobs unanswerable question can any man make it cleane of himselfe Who can say I have made cleane my heart is Solomons unanswerable question Beloved when such questions as these are asked in the Scriptures How can who can doe this Sometimes they import an absolute impossibility It cannot be done by any meanes And sometimes they import but a difficulty It can hardly be done it can be done but some one way When the Prophet saies Quid proderit sculptile What good can an Idoll or an Idolatrous Religion do us Habak 2. It shall not helpe us in soule in reputation in preferment it will deceive us every way it is absolutely impossible that an Idoll or an Idolatrous Religion should doe us any good But then when David saies Domine quis habitabit Lord who shall ascend to thy Tabernacle Psal 15.2 and dwell in thy holy hil David does not mean that there is no possibility of ascending thither or dwelling there though it be hard clambring thither hard holding there And therefore when the Prophet saies Quis sapiens intelliget haec Hos 14.8 Who is so wise as to finde out this way he places this cleannesse which we inquire after in Wisdome What is Wisdome we may content our selves with that old definition of Wisdome that it is Rerum humanarum divinarum scientia The Wisdome that accomplishes this cleannesse is the knowledge the right valuation of this world and of the next To be able to compare the joyes of heaven and the pleasures of this world and the gaine of the one with the losse of the other this is the way to this cleanenesse of the heart because that heart that considers and examines what it takes in will take in no foule no infectious thing 1 Thes 4.7 God hath not called us to uncleannesse but to holinesse saies the Apostle If we be in the waies of uncleannesse God hath not called us thither We may slip into them by the infirmity of our nature or we may run into them by a custome of sin wee may bee drawne into them by the inordinatenesse of our affections or we may be driven into them by feare of losing the favour of those great Persons upon whom we depend and so accompany or assist them in their sins So we may slip and run and be drawne and be driven but we are not called not called by God into any sin not called by any Decree of God not by any profession or calling not by any complexion or constitution to a necessity of committing any sin All sin is from our selves But if we be in the waies of holinesse it is God that call'd us thither we have not brought our selves God calls us by his Ordinance and Ministery in the Church But when God hath call'd us thither we may see what he expects from us by that which the Apostle saies 2 Cor. 7.1 Let us cleanse our selves from all filthinesse that is let us employ that faculty that is in our selves let us be appliable and supple easie and ductile in those waies to which God hath called us Since God by breeding us in the Christian Church and in the knowledge of his word by putting that balance into our hand to try heavenly and earthly things by which we may distinguish Lepram à non lepra what is a leprous and sinfull what is an indifferent and cleane action let us be content to put the ware and the waights into the balance that is to bring all objects and all actions to a consideration and to an examination by that tryall before wee set our hearts upon them for God leaves no man with whom he hath proceeded so far as to breed him in the Christian Church without a power to doe that to discerne his owne actions if he do not winke Upon those word Gen. 26.18 Isaac digged the Wels of water which they had digged in the daies of Abraham Homil. 13. in Gen. and the Philistims had stopped Origen extends this power far though not very confidently Fortè in uniuscuiusque nostrûm anima saies he perchance in every one of our soules there is this Well of the water of Life and this power to open it whether Origens Nostrûm our soule be intended by him of us as we are men or of us as wee are Christians I pronounce not but divide it In all us as we are naturall men there is this Well of water of Life Abraham digged it at first The Father of the faithfull our heavenly Abraham infused it into us all at first in Adam from whom as wee have the Image of God though defaced so we have this Well of water though stopped up But then the Philistims having stopped this well Satan by sinne having barred it up the power of opening it againe is not in the naturall man but Isaac diggs them againe Isaac who is Filius laetitiae the Son of Joy our Isaac our Jesus he opens them againe to all that receive him according to his Ordinance in his Church he hath given this power of keeping open in themselves this Well of Life these meanes of Salvation Peccata tua alios
shall learne what to call it That so we may goe the Apostles way to his end That being made free from sinne Rom. 6.22 and become servants to God wee may have our fruit unto holinesse and then the End life everlasting SERMONS Preached in LENT SERMON XIII Preached in Lent To the KING April 20. 1630. JOB 16. v. 17 18 19. Not for any injustice in my hands Also my prayer is pure O earth cover not thou my blood and let my cry have no place Also now behold my Witnesse is in heaven and my Record is on high IObs friends as in civility we are faine to call them because they came upon a civill pretence to visit him and to comfort him had now done speaking It was long before they would have done Andivi frequenter talia saies Iob to them v. 2. I have often heard such things as you say they are not new to me and therefore Onerosi consolatores Miserable comforters troublesome comforters are ye all old and new But Numquid finem habebunt verba ventosa saies he Shall your windy words your empty your aery v. 3. your frothy words have any end Now they have an end Eliphas ends his charge in the last and in this Chapter Iob begins to answer for himselfe But how By a middle way Iob does not justifie himselfe but yet he does not prevaricate he does not betray his Innocence neither For there may be a pusillanimity even towards God A man may over-clog his owne conscience and belie himselfe in his confessions out of a distempered jealousie and suspition of Gods purposes upon him Iob does not so Many men have troubled themselves more how the soule comes into man then how it goes out They wrangle whether it comes in by Infusion from God or by Propagation from parents and never consider whether it shall returne to Him that made it or to him that marr'd it to Him that gave it or to him that corrupted it So many of our Expositors upon this Booke of Iob have spent themselves upon the Person and the Place and the Time who Iob was when Iob was where Iob was and whether there were ever any such person as Iob or no and have passed over too slightly the senses and doctrines of the Booke S. Gregory hath to good use given us many Morals as he cals them upon this Booke but truly not many Literals for for the most part he bends all the sufferings of Iob figuratively mystically upon Christ Origen who except S. Gregory hath written most of this Booke and yet gone but a little way into the booke neither doth never pretend much literalnesse in his expositions so that we are not to looke for that at Origens hands We must not therefore refuse the assistance of later men in the exposition of this Text Not for any Injustice in my hands c. In this Chapter and before this text we have Iobs Anatomy Iobs Sceleton the ruins to which he was reduced In the eighth verse he takes knowledge That God had filled him with leannesse and wrinckles and that those wrinckles and that leannesse were witnesses against him and That they that hated him had torne him in peeces in the ninth verse In the eleventh verse That God had delivered him over to the ungodly and That God himselfe had shaked him in peeces and set him up as a marke to shoote at in the twelfe verse That God had cleft his reins and poured out his gall upon the ground in the thirteenth verse and in the fourteenth That he broke him breach after breach and run over him as a Gyant and at last in the sixteenth verse That foulenesse was upon his face and the shadow of death upon his eye-lids Now let me aske in Iobs behalfe Gods question to Ezekiel Putasnè vivent ossaista Doest thou belceve that these bones can live Ezek. 37.2 Can this Anatomy this Sceleton these ruines this rubbidge of Iob speake It can it does in this Text Not for any Injustice in my hands c. And in these words it delivers us first The confidence of a godly man Doe God what he will say ye what ye will That because I am more afflicted then other men therefore I am guilty of more hainous sins then other men yet I know that whatsoever Gods end be in this proceeding It is not for any Injustice in my hands Also my prayer is pure Secondly it delivers us that kinde of infirme anguish and indignation that halfedistemper that expostulation with God which sometimes comes to an excesse even in good and godly men O earth cover not thou my blood and let my cry have no place I desire not that any thing should be concealed or disguised let all that ever I have done be written in my forehead and read by all men And then thirdly and lastly it delivers us the foundation of his confidence and the recovery from this his infirmity and from his excesse in the manner of expressing it if he have beene over-bold therein My Witnesse is in heaven and my Record is on high God is his Witnesse that that which they charge him with is false That that which he saies in his owne discharge in that sense that he saies it is true And in these three Iobs Protestation Not guilty Iobs Manifest I would all the world knew all Iobs Establishment and consolidation My Witnesse is in Heaven in these three branches and in some fruits which in passing we shall gather from them we shall determine all that appertaines to these words I remember S. Gregory 1. Part. in handling one text professes that he will endevour to handle it so Vt ejus altitudo non sic fieret nescientibus cognita ut esset scientibus onerosa So as that the weakest understanding might comprehend the highest points and the highest understanding not be weary to heare ordinary doctrines so delivered Indeed it is a good art to deliver deepe points in a holy plainnesse and plaine points in a holy delightfulnesse for many times one part of our auditory understands us not when we have done and so they are weary and another part understands us before we begun and so they are weary To day my humble petition must be That you will be content to heare plaine things plainly delivered Of which be this the first That Iob found himselfe under the oppression and calumny of that mis-interpretation that Kings themselves and States and Churches have not escaped The towre of Siloe fell and slew them Luk. 13.4 therefore they were the greater sinners in Jerusalem this man prospers not in the world Therefore he proceeds not in the feare of God the heire wastes the estate therefore the estate was ill gotten are hasty conclusions in private affaires Treasures are empty therefore there are unnecessary wastes Discontented persons murmure therefore things are ill carried our neigbours prosper by Action therefore we perish by not appearing are hastie conclusions in
erected Iegar-Sehadutha by an extraction from the last word of our Text Sahad Jacob calls it by the first word And the reason is given in the body of the Text it selfe in the vulgat Edition though how it got thither we know not for in the Originall it is not Vterque juxta proprietatem lingua suae Laban spake in his language Syriaque Jacob spake in his Hebrew and both called that heape of stones a witnesse Now our bestowing this little time upon the clearing of the words hath saved us much more time for by this meanes we have shortned this clause of our Text and all that we are to consider is but this My witnesse is in heaven And truly that is enough I care not though all the world knew all my faults I care not what they conclude of Gods not granting my prayers my witnesse is in heaven To be condemned unjustly amongst men to be ill interpreted in the acts of my Religion is a heavy case but yet I have a reliefe in all this my witnesse is in heaven The first comfort is Quia in Coelis Quia in Coelis because he whom I rely upon is in heaven For that is the foundation and Basis upon which our Saviour erects that prayer which he hath recommended unto us Qui es in coelis Our Father which art in heaven when I lay hold upon him there in heaven I pursue cheerefully and confidently all the other petitions for daily bread for forgivenesse of sins for deliverance from tentations from and for all Psal 〈◊〉 Acts. 〈◊〉 Est in coelis he is in heaven and then Sedet in coelis be sits in heaven That as I see him in that posture that Stephen saw him standing at the right hand of the Father and so in procinctu in a readinesse in a willingnesse to come to my succour so I might contemplate him in a judiciary posture in a potestative a soveraigne posture sitting and consider him as able as willing to relieve me He is in heaven and he sits in heaven and then habitat in coelis he dwels in heaven Psal 113.5 he is and he is alwayes there Baals Priests could not alwaies finde him at home Iobs God and our God is never abroad He dwels in the heavens and as it is expressed there In excelsis he dwels on high so high that as it is there added God humbles himselfe to behold the things that are in heaven With what amazednesse must we consider the humiliation of God in descending to the earth lower then so to hell when even his descending unto heaven is a humiliation God humbles himselfe when he beholds any thing lower then himselfe though Cherubins though Seraphins though the humane nature the body of his owne and onely eternall Son and yet he beholds considers studies us wormes of the earth and no men This then is Iobs Testis and our first comfort Quia in coelis because he is in heaven and sits in heaven and dwels in heaven in the highest heaven and so sees all things But then if God see and say nothing David apprehends that for a most dangerous condition and therefore he sayes Psal 28.1 Psal 1â—â— 1 Be not silent O Lord lest if thou be silent I perish And againe Hold not thy peace O God of my praise for the mouth of the wicked is opened against me And Lord let thy mercy be as forward as their malice And therefore as God from that heighth sees all and the strictest examination that we put upon any Witnesse is that if he pretend to testifie any thing upon his knowledge we aske how he came by that knowledge and if he be oculatus testis a Witnesse that saw it this is good evidence as God is to this purpose all eye and sees all so for our farther comfort he descends to the office of being a Witnesse There is a Witnesse in heaven But then Testis meus God may be a Witnesse and yet not my Witnesse and in that there is small comfort 〈◊〉 29.22 if God be a Witnesse on my adversaries side a Witnesse against me Even I know and am a Witnesse saith the Lord that is a Witnesse of the sins which I know by thee Job 10.27 And that is that which Iob with so much tendernesse apprehended Thou renewest thy witnesses against me Thou sent'st a witnesse against me in the Sabaeans upon my servants and then thou renewedst that witnesse in the Caldaeans upon my cattell and then thou renewedst that in thy stormes and tempests upon my children All this while God was a Witnesse but not his witnesse but a witnesse on his adversaries side Now if our own heart our owne conscience condemne us this is shrewd evidence saies S. Iohn 1 Iohn 3.20 for mine owne conscience single is a thousand witnesses against me But then saies the Apostle there God is greater then the heart for saies he he knowes all things He knowes circumstances of sinne as well as substance and that we seldome know seldome take knowledge of If then mine owne heart be a thousand God that is greater is ten thousand witnesses if he witnesse against me But if he be my Witnesse a Witnesse for me as he alwaies multiplies in his waies of mercy he is thousands of thousands millions of millions of witnesses in my behalfe for there is no condemation no possible condemnation Rom. 8.1 to them that are in him not if every graine of dust upon the earth were an Achitophel and gave counsell against me not if every sand upon the shoare were a Rabshakeh and railed against me not if every atome in the ayre were a Satan an Adversary an Accuser not if every drop in the Sea were an Abaddon an Apollyon a Destroyer there could be no condemuation if he be my Witnesse If he be my Witnesse he proceeds thus in my behalfe his Spirit beares witnesse with my spirit for mine inward assurance that I stand established in his favour and either by an actuall deliverance or by some such declaration as shall preserve me from fainting if I be not actually delivered he gives a farther testimony in my behalfe For he is in Heaven and he sits in Heaven and he dwels in Heaven in the highest Heaven and sees all and is a Witnesse and my Witnesse there is the largenesse of our comfort But will all this come home to Iobs end and purpose Iudeâ— That he need not care though all men knew all his faults he need not care though God passed over his prayers because God is his Witnesse what declarations soever he had in himselfe would the world beleeve that God testified in his behalfe when they saw his calamities multiplied upon him and his prayers neglected If they will not herein lyes his and our finall comfort That he that is my Witnesse is in the highest Heaven there is no person above him and therefore He that is my Witnesse is my
be strong enough to make benefit of that assistance And so death adheres when sin and Satan have weakned body and minde death enters upon both And in that respect he is Vltimus hostis the last enemy and that is Sextum vestigium our sixth and next step in this paraphrase Death is the last and in that respect the worst enemy In an enemy Novisssnsâ—s hostis that appeares at first when we are or may be provided against him there is some of that which we call Honour but in the enemie that reserves himselfe unto the last and attends our weake estate there is more danger Keepe it where I intend it in that which is my spheare the Conscience If mine enemie meet me betimes in my youth in an object of tentation so Iosephs enemie met him in Putifars Wife yet if I doe not adhere to this enemy dwell upon a delightfull meditation of that sin if I doe not fuell and foment that sin assist and encourage that sin by high diet wanton discourse other provocation I shall have reason on my side and I shall have grace on my side and I shall have the History of thousand that have perished by that sin on my side Even Spittles will give me souldiers to fight for me by their miserable example against taht sin nay perchance sometimes the vertue of that woman whom I sollicite will assist me But when I lye under the hands of that enemie that hath reserved himselfe to the last to my last bed then when I shall be able to stir no limbe in any other measure then a Feaver or a Palsie shall shake them when everlasting darknesse shal have an inchoation in the present dimnesse of mine eyes and the everlasting gnashing in the present chattering of my teeth and the everlasting worme in the present gnawing of the Agonies of my body and anguishes of my minde when the last enemie shall watch my remedilsse body and my desconsolate soule there there where not the Physitian in his way perchance not the Priist in hi shall be able to give any assistance And when he hath sported himselfe with my misery upon that stage my death-bed shall shift the Scene and throw me from that bed into the grave and there triumph over me God knowes how many generations till the Redeemer my Redeemer the Redeemer of all me body aswell as soule come againe As death is Novissimus hostis the enemy which watches me at my last weaknesse and shall hold me when I shall be no more till that Angel come Who shall say and sweare that time shall be no more in that consideration in that apprehension he is the powerfullest the fearefulest enemy and yet evern there this enemy Abolebitur he shall be destroyed which is Septimum vestigium our seventh and last step in this paraphrase This destruction this abolition of this last enemy is by the Resurrection Abolebieur for the Text is part of an argument for the Resurrection And truly it is a faire intimation and testimony of an everlasting end in that state of the Resurrection that no time shall end it that we have it presented to us in all the parts of time in the past in the present and in the future We had a Resurrection in prophecy we have a Resurrection in the present working of Gods Sprit we shall have a Resurrection in the finall consummation The Prophet speaks in the furture He will swallow up death in victory there it is Abolebit Esay 25.8 All the Erangelists speak historically of matter of fact in them it is Abolevit And here in this Apostle it is in the present Aboletur now he is destroyed And this exhibites unto us a threefold occasion of advancing our devotion in considering a threefold Resurrection First a Resurrection from dejections and calamities in this world a Temporary Resurrection Secondly a Resurrection from sin a Spirituall Resurrection and then a Resurrection Secondly a Resurrection A calamitate When the Prophets speak of a Resurrection in the old Testament 1. A calamitate for the most part their principall intention is upon a temporall restitution from calamities that oppresse them then Neither doth Calvin carry those emphaticall words which are so often cited for a proofe of the last Resurrection Job 19.25 That he knows his Redeemer lives that he knows he shall stand the last man upon earth that though his body be destroyed yet in his flesh and with his eyes he shall see God to any higher sense then so that how low soeve he bee brought to what desperate state soever he be reducedin the eyes of the world yet he assures himself of a Resurrection a reparation a restitution to his former bodily health and worldly fortune which he had before And such a Resurrection we all know Iob had In that famous and most considerable propheticall vision which God exhibited to Ezekiel where God set the Prophet in a valley of very many and very dry bones and invites the severall joynts to knit again tyes them with their old sinews and ligaments clothes them in their old flest wraps them in their old skin and cals life into them again Gods principall intention in that vision was thereby to give them an assurance of a Resurrection from their present calamity not but that there is also good evidence of the last Resurrection in that vision too Thus far God argues with them áre nota from that which they knew before the finall Resurrection he assures them that which they knew not till then a present Resurrection from those pressures Remember by this vision that which you all know already that at last I shall re-unite the dead and dry bones of all men in a generall Resurrection And them if you remember if you consider if you look upon that can you doubt but that I who can do that can also recollect you from your present desperation and give you a Resurrection to your former temporall happinesse And this truly arises pregnantly necessarily out of the Prophets answer God asks him there Son of man cna these bones live And he answers Domine tu nósti O Lord God thou knowest The Prophet answers according to Gods intention in the question If that had been for their living in the last Resurrection Ezekiel would have answered God as Martha answered Christ John 11.24 when he said Thy brother Lazarus shall rise again I know that he shall rise again at the Resurrection at the last day but when the question was whether men so macerated so seattered in this world could have a Resurrection to their former temprorall happinesse here that puts the Prophet to his Domine tu nósti It is in thy breast to proposeit itis in thy hand to execute it whether thou do it or do it not thy name be glorisied It fals not within our conjecture which way it shall please thee to take for this Resurrection Domine tu nósti Thou
Lord and thou only knowest Which is also the sense of those words Heb. 11.35 Others were tortured and accepted not a deliverance that they might obtain a better Resurrection A present deliverance had been a Resurrection but to be the more sure of a better hereafter they lesse respected that According to that of our Saviour Mat. 10.39 He that findes hi life shall lose it He that fixeth himself too earnestly upon this Resurrection shall lose a better This is then the propheticall Resurrection for the future but a future in this world That if Rulers take counsell against the Lord the Lord shall have their counsell in derision If they take armes against the Lord the Lord shall break their Bows and cut their Spears in sunder Psal 2.4 If they hisse and gnash their teeth and say we have swallowed him up If we be made their by-word their parable their proverb their libell the theame and burden of their songs as Iob complaines yet whatsoever fall upon me dmage distresse scorn or Hostis ultimus death it self that death which we consider here death of possessions death of estimation death of health death of contentment yet Abolebitur it sahll be destroyed in a Resurrection in the return of the light of Gods countenance upon me even in this world And this is the first Resurrection But this first Resurrection 2. Apeecatis which is but from temporall calamities doth so little concerne a true and established Christian whether it come or no for still Iobs Basis is his Basis and his Centre Etiamsi occiderit though he kill me kill me kill me in all these severall deaths and give me no Resurrection in this world yet I will trust in him as that as though this first resurrection were no resurrection not to be numbred among the rersurrections S. Iohn calls that which we call the second which is from sin the first resurrection Blessed and holy is be who hath part in the firstresurrection And this resurrection Christimplies Apoe 20.6 John 5.25 when he saies Verely verely I say unto you the houre is comming and now is when the dead shall heare the ovyce of the Son of God and they that heare it shall live That is by the voyce of the word of life the Gospell of repentance they shall have a spirituall resurrection to a new life S. Austine and Lactantius both were so hard in beleeving the roundnesse of the earth that they thought that those homines pensiles as they call them those men that hang upon the other cheek of the face of the earth those Antipodes whose feet are directly against ours must necessarily fall from the earth if the earth be round But whither should they fall If they fall they must fall upwards for heaven is above them too as it is to us So if the spirituall Antipodes of this world the Sons of God that walk with feet opposed in wayes contrary to the sons of men shall be said to fall when they fall to repentance to mortification to a religious negligence and contempt of the pleasures of this life truly their fall is up wards they fall towards heaven God gives breath unto the people upon the earth sayes the Prophet Et spiritum his qui calcant illam Esay 45.5 Our Translation carries that no farther but that God gives breath to people upon the earth and spirit to them that walk thereon But Irenaeus makes a usefull difference between afflatus and spiritus that God gives breath to all upon earth but his spirit onely to them who tread in a religious scorne upon earthly things Is it not a strange phrase of the Apostle Mortifie your members fornication uncleanenesse inordinate affections He does not say mortifie your members against those sins Col. 3.5 but he calls those very sins the members of our bodies as though we were elemented and compacted of nothing but sin till we come to this resurrection this mortification which is indeed our vivification Till we beare in our body the dying of our Lord Iesus that the life also of Iesus may be made manifest in our body 2 Cor. 4.10 God may give the other resurrection from worldly misery and not give this A widow may be rescued from the sorrow and solitarinesse of that state by having a plentifull fortune there she hath one resurrection but the widow that liveth in pleasure is dead while she lives 1 Tim. 5.6 shee hath no second resurrection and so in that sense even this Chappell may be a Church-yard men may stand and sit and kneele and yet be dead and any Chamber alone may be a Golgotha a place of dead mens bones of men not come to this resurrection which is the renunciation of their beloved sin It was inhumanely said by Vitellius upon the death of Otho when he walkedin the field of carcasses where the battle was fought O how sweet a perfume is a dead enemy But it is a divine saying to thy soule O what a savor of life unto life is the death of a beloved sin What an Angelicall comfort was that to Ioseph and Mary in Aegypt after the death of Herod Arise for they are dead that sought the childes life Mat. 2.20 And even that comfort is multiplied upon thy soul when the Spirit of God saies to thee Arise come to this resurrection for that Herod that sin that sought the life the everlasting life of this childe the childe of God thy soule is dead dead by repentance dead by mortification The highest cruelty that story relates or Poets imagine is when a persecutor will not afford a miserable man death not be so mercifull to him as to take his life Thou hast made thy sin thy soule thy life inanimated all thy actions all thy purposes with that sin Miserere animatuae be so mercifull to thy selfe as to take away that life by mortification by repentance and thou art come to this Resurrection and thugh a man may have the former resurrection and not this peace in his fortune and yet not peace in his conscience yet whosoever hath this second hath an infallible seale of the third resurrection too to a fulnesse of glory in body as well as in soule For Spiritus maturam efficit carnem capacem incorruptelae this resurrection by the spirit Irenaeus mellowes the body of man and makes that capable of everlasting glory which is the last weapon by which the last enemy death shall be destroyed A morte Upon that pious ground that all Scriptures were written for us as we are Christians that all Scriptures conduce to the proofe of Christ and of the Christian state 3. A morte it is the ordinary manner of the Fathers to make all that David speaks historically of himselfe and all that the Prophet speaks futurely of the Jews if those place may be referred to Christ to referre them to Christ primarily and but by reflection and in a second
And even God himselfe who had that omni-sufficiency in himselfe conceived a conveniency for his glory to draw a Circumference about that Center Creatures about himselfe and to shed forth lines of love upon all them and not to love himselfe alone Selfe-love in man sinks deep but yet you see the Apostle in his order casts the other sin lower that is into a worse place To be without naturall affections S. Augustine extends these naturall affections to Religious affections because they are naturall to a supernaturall man to a regenerate man who naturally loves those that are of the houshold of the faithfull that professe the same truth of Religion and not to be affected with their distresses when Religion it selfe is distressed in them is impietie He extends these affections to Morall affections the love of Eminent and Heroicall vertues in any man we ought to be affected with the fall of such men And he extends them to civill affections the love of friends not to be moved in their behalfe is argument enough that we doe not much love them For our case in the Text These men whom Jesus found weeping and wept with them were none of his kindred They were Neighbours and Christ had had a conversation and contracted a friendship in that Family V. 5. He loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus saies the Storie and he would let the world see that he loved them for so the Jewes argued that saw him weepe V. 36. Behold how he loved them without outward declarations who can conclude an inward love to assure that Iesus wept To an inordinatenesse of affections it never came to a naturall tendernesse it did and so far as to teares Laerymae and then who needs be ashamed of weeping Look away far from me for I will weep bitterly sayes Hierusalem in Esay But look upon me sayes Christ in the Lamentations Behold and see if ever there were any sorrow any teares like mine Not like his in value but in the roote as they proceeded from naturall affection they were teares of imitation and we may we must weepe teares like his teares They scourged him they crowned him they nailed him they pierced him and then blood came but he shed teares voluntarily and without violence The blood came from their ill but the teares from his owne good nature The blood was drawne the teares were given We call it a childish thing to weepe and a womanish and perchance we meane worse in that then in the childish for therein we may meane falshood to be mingled with weaknesse Christ made it an argument of his being man to weepe for though the lineaments of mans bodie eyes and eares hands and feet be ascribed to God in the Scriptures though the affections of mans mind be ascribed to him even sorrow nay Repentance it selfe is attributed to God I doe not remember that ever God is said to have wept It is for man And when God shall come to that last Act in the glorifying of Man when he promises to wipe all teares from his eyes what shall God have to doe with that eye that never wept He wept out of a nuturall tendernesse in generall and he wept now out of a particular occasion What was that Quia mortuus because Lazarus was dead We stride over many steps at once waive many such considerable circumstances as these Lazarus his friend was dead therefore he wept Lazarus the staffe and sustentatio of that family was dead he upon whom his Sisters relied was dead therefore he wept But I stop onely upon this one step Quia mortuus that he was dead Now a good man is not the worse for dying that is true and capable of a good sense because he is established in a better world but yet when he is gone out of this world he is none of us he is no longer a man The stronger opinion in the Schoole is That Christ himselfe when he lay dead in the grave was no man Though the God head never departed from the Carcasse there was no divorce of that Hypostaticall union yet because the Humane soule was departed from it he was no man Hugo de S. Victor who thinks otherwise that Christ was a man then thinkes so upon a weak ground He thinkes that because the soule is the form of man the soul is man and that therefore the soul remaining the man remaines But it is not the soule but the union of the soul that makes the man The Master of the Sentences Peter Lombard that thinks so too that Christ was then a man thinkes so upon as weak a ground He thinkes that it is enough to constitute a man that there be a soul and body though that soul and body be not united but still it is the union that makes the man And therefore when he is disunited dead he is none of us he is no man and therefore we weep how well soever he be Abraham was loath to let go his wife though the King had her A man hath a naturall lothnesse to let go his friend though God take him to him S. Augustine sayes that he knew well enough that his mother was in heaven and S. Ambrose that he knew wel enough that his master Theodosius the emperor was in heaven but because they saw not in what state they were they thought that something might be asked at Gods hands in their behalf and so out of a humane and pious officiousnesse in a devotion perchance indigested uncocted and retaining yet some crudities some irresolutions they strayed into prayers for them after they were dead Lazarus his sisters made no doubt of their brothers salvation they beleeved his soul to be in a good estate And for his body they told Christ Lord we know that he shall rise at the last day And yet they wept Here in this world we who stay lack those who are gone out of it we know they shall never come to us and when we shall go to them whether we shall know them or no we dispute They who think that it conduces to the perfection of happinesse in heaven that we should know one another think piously if they think we shall For as for the maintenance of publique peace States and Churches may think diversly in points of Religion that are not fundamentall and yet both be true and Orthodoxall Churches so for the exaltation of private devotion in points that are not fundamentall divers men may think diversly and both be equally good Christians Whether we shall know them there or no is problematicall and equall that we shall not till then is dogmaticall and certain Therefore we weep I know there are Philosophers that will not let us weep nor lament the death of any And I know that in the Scriptures there are rules and that there are instructions convayed in that example that David left mourning as soon as the childe was dead And I know that there are Authors of a
the devill gives us is affliction upon affliction and to that there belongs a woe Per tenuitatem assimilamur Deo saies the same Author The attenuation the slendernesse the deliverance of the body from the encumbrance of much flesh gives us some assimilation some conformity to God and his Angels The lesse flesh we carry the liker we are to them who have none That is still the lesse flesh of our owne making for for that flesh which God and his instrument Nature hath given us in what measure or proportion soever that does not oppresse us to this purpose neither shall that be laid to our charge but the flesh that we have built up by curious diet by meats of provocation and witty sawces or by a slothfull and drowsie negligence of the works of our calling All flesh is sinfull flesh sinfull so as that it is the mother of sin it occasions sin naturall flesh is so But this artificiall flesh of our owne making is sinfull so as that it is also the daughter of sin It is indeed the punishment of former sins and the occasion of future The soule then requires not so large so vast a house of sinfull flesh to dwell in Macerationes corporis But yet on the other side we may not by inordinate abstinencies by indiscreet fastings by inhumane flagellations by unnaturall macerations and such Disciplines as God doth not command nor authorize so wither and shrinke and contract the body as though the soule were sent into it as into a prison or into fetters and manacles to wring and pinch and torture it Nihil interest saies S. Hierome It is all one whether thou kill thy selfe at one blow or be long in doing it if thou do it All one whether thou fall upon thine own sword or sterve thy selfe with such a fasting as thou discernest to induce that effect for saies he Descendit a dignitate viri not as insaniae incurrit He departs from that dignity which God hath imprinted in man in giving him the use and the dominion over his creatures and he gives the world just occasion to thinke him mad And as Tertullian adds Respuit datorem qui datum deserit He that does not use a benefit reproaches the Benefactor and he is ungratefull to God that does not accept at his hands the use of his blessings Therefore is it accepted as a good interpretation which is made of Christs determining his fast in forty daies Ne sui homicida videretur Lest if he continued it longer he might have seemed to have killed himselfe by being the author of his owne death And so do they interpret aright his Esuriit That then he began to be hungry that he began to languish to faint to finde a detriment in his body for else a fasting when a man is not hungry is no fasting but then he gave over fasting when he found the state of his body empaired by fasting And therefore those mad doctrines so S. Hierom cals them Notas insaniae habent yea those devilish doctrines so S. Paul cals them that forbid certaine meats and that make un-commanded macerations of the body meritorious that upon a supposititious story of an Ermit that lived 22. yeares Abbasll sperg without eating any thing at all And upon an impertinent example of their S. Francis that kept three Lents in the yeare which they extoll and magnifie in S. Francis and S. Hierom condemned and detested in the Montanists who did so too have built up those Carthusian Rules That though it appeare that that and nothing but that would save the patients life yet he may not eat flesh that is a Carthusian And have brought into estimation those Apocryphall and bastardly Canons which they father upon the Apostles That a man must rather sterve then receive food from the hand of a person excommunicate or otherwise detected of any mortall sin And that all that can be done with the almes of such a person is that it be spent in wood and coales and other fuell that so as the subtile philosophy of their Canon is it may be burnt and consumed by fire for to save a mans life it must not be spent upon meat or drink or such sustentation These Doctrines are not the Doctrines of this Resurrection by which man considered in Composito as he consists of soule and body by a sober and temperate life makes his body obsequious and serviceable to his soule but yet leaves his soule a body to worke in and an Organ to praise God upon both in a devout humiliation of his body in Gods service and in a bodily performance of the duties of some calling for this is our first Resurrection A casu separationis from having falne into a separation of body and soule for they must serve God joyntly together because God having joyned them man may not separate them but as God shall re-unite them at the last Resurrection so must we in our Resurrections in this life And farther we extend not this Resurrection from this separation this divorce The second fall of man in naturall death Casus in dissolutionem is Casus in dissolutionem The man being fallen into a divorce of soule and body the body fals by putrefaction into a dissolution of dust and the Resurrection from this fall is a re-efformation when God shall recompact that dust into that body This fall and this resurrection we have in our spirituall death too for we fall into daily customes and continuall habits of those sins and we become not onely as that Lazarus in the parable to have sores upon us but as that Lazarus in the Gospell that was dead Domine jam faetemus quatriduani sumus Lord we stinke in thy nostrils and we have beene buried foure dayes All the foure changes of our life Infancy Youth Middle Age and Old have beene spent and worne out in a continuall and uninterrupted course of sin In which we shall best consider our fall and best prepare our Resurrection by looking from whence we are fallen and by what steps and they are three First Nardus nostra Cant. 1.12 Perdidimus nardum nostrā We have lost the sweet savour of our own Spikenard for so the Spouse saies Nardus mea dedit odorem suum My Spikenard hath given forth her sweet savour There was a time when we had a Spikenard and a sweet savour of our own when our own Naturall faculties in that state as God infused them in Adam had a power to apprehend and lay hold upon the graces of God Man hath a reasonable soule capable of Gods grace so hath no creature but man man hath naturall faculties which may be employed by God in his service so hath no creature but man Onely man was made so as that he might be better whereas all other creatures were but to consist in that degree of goodnesse in which they entred Miserable fall Only man was made to mend and only man does grow
worse Only man was made capable of a spirituall soveraignty and only man hath enthralled and mancipated himselfe to a spirituall slavery And Perdidimus possibilitatem boni August We have lost that good and all possibility of recovering it by our selves in losing Nardum nostram The savour of our Spikenard the life and vigour of our naturall faculties to supernaturall uses For though the soule be Forma hominis it is but Materia Dei The soule may be the forme of man for without that Man is but a carcasse But the soule is but the matter upon which God works for except our soule receive another soule and be inanimated with Grace even the soule it selfe is but a carcasse And for this we have lost Nardum nostram The odour the verdure the vigour of those powers in possession whereof God put us into this world But there is a step in our fall lower then this We have not only lost Nardum nostram Vnguentum Domini The use of our own faculties in originall sin But we have lost also Vnguentum Domini The sweet savour and the holy perfume of that oyntment which the Lord hath poured out upon us For Cant. 1.3 as the Spouse sayes in the same Chapter Oleum effusum nomen ejus His name is an oyntment poured out upon us The name of Christ hath been shed upon us all in our baptisme and that hath made us Christians And the merits and promises of Christ have been shed upon us all in the preaching of his word and that hath declared us to be Christians The oyntment is super caput super barbam super oram vestimenti as David speaks It is fallen upon the Head Psal 133.2 we have had and have religious Princes And upon the Beard the Beard of Aaron we have had and have no Time no Church ever more ever so much a religious Clergy vigilancy in the Superiour laboriousnesse in the Inferiour Clergy And it is fallen upon the Skirts of the garment the love the desire the hunger of hearing is fallen upon the lowest and upon all our Congregations Oleum effusum nomen ejus his Name and his Ordinance is poured out upon us all but as the Spouse sayes there Adolescentulae dilexerunt te Only the virgins have loved thee And where are those Virgins which of us have preserved that virginity that integrity which of us hath not married himselfe to some particular sin which of us hath not multiplied his fornications and yet is not satisfied we have all lost Nardum nostram that which we had at first in Adam and that which hath been offered us since in Christ And this is our second step in this fall But there is a lower then this We come to lose Odorem agri The sweet savour of the field it self Oder agri Gen. 27.27 As Isaac said of his Son The smell of my Son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed So the Lord of heaven as he smelt a savour of Rest from the Sacrifice of Noah may have smelt from us the savour of medicinall hearbes of Remorse and Repentance and Contrition and Detestation of former sins And the savour of odoriferous and fragrant and aromaticall hearbes works worthy of Repentance amendment of life edification of others and zeale to his glory and yet we may relapse into former sins or fall into new and come to savour only of the earth in a worldly covetousnesse or to savour of the flesh in a licentious filthinesse We may have received the good seed and dured for a while as S. Matthew expresses Christs words Received it and Beleeved it for a while as S. Luke expresses them Mat. 13.18 Luke 8.13 and then depart from the goodnesse which Gods grace had formerly wrought in us and from the Grace of God it selfe Now to this lamentable state belong those fearefull words of the Apostle That for a man that sins thus there remaineth no more sacrifice And those also in another place Heb. 10.2 Heb. 6.4 That for such a man it is impossible impossible to be renewed Some of the Fathers out of a holy tendernesse and compassion have mollified this impossibile with a difficile It is impossible say they that is it is very hard very hard for him that hath been in Gods service and is run away to return to it again For as Tertullian sayes elegantly in that case Iudicatò pronunciavit That sinner sayes he hath proceeded solemnly and judicially and hath heard what both sides could say what grace could say and what sin what God could say and what Satan and now he hath decreed the cause against Grace and against God and declared the other side to be in the right because he hath applyed himself to the other side But there is more in this Impossibile then Difficile It is not only hard but truly impossible So as it is impossible for God to lie so the Apostle speaks so as it is impossible to take away sin by the blood of Buls and Goats so he speakes so as it is impossible to please God without faith so he speaks so impossible is it for this man to be renewed Cap. 6. Cap. 10. Cap. 11. Impossibile est non speres quod impossibile sayes Chrysostome It is impossible never hope for that which is impossible For as that Father exalts this impossibility Non dixit non decet non prodest non licet God hath not said it becomes not the majesty and the constancy of my proceedings to renew such a man he sayes not so non decet He doth not say it conduces not to my ends nor to my manner of government it would not be good for the publique for the Church for the rest of my servants who might be scandalized if I should exact so much as I doe at their hands and renew such a man He sayes not so non prodest He doth not say non licet I cannot do it in justice it cannot consist with my Laws and my Edicts by which I have proclaimed That with the froward I will grow froward and harden their hearts that oppose themselves against me He doth not say so non licet for to all these it stands not with my wayes non decet or it conduces not to my ends non prodest or it consists not with my justice non licet mercy would still present dispensations but it is expresly directly impossibile impossible It is true that the hardnesse of this saying put the Fathers to hard Expositions The greater part by much of them who finde themselves put to a necessity of admitting an impossibility for as I told you before some of them mollifie and souple the impossibility into a difficulty place the impossibility in this That it is impossible for such a man to be renewed by baptisme as he was renewed before for in those Primitive times though they excluded not children yet the greatest part of them who
He who onely is head of the whole Church Christ Jesus is this Archangell Heare him It is the voyce of the Archangell that is the trne and sincere word of God that must raise thee from the death of sin to the life of grace If therefore any Angell differ from the Archangell and preach other then the true and sincere word of God Gal. 1.8 Anathema saies the Apostle let that Angell be accursed And take thou heed of over-affecting overvaluing the gifts of any man so as that thou take the voice of an Angell for the voyce of the Archangell any thing that that man saies for the word of God Yet thou must heare this voice of the Archangell in the Trumpet of God In Tuba Dei The Trumpet of God is his loudest Instrument and his loudest Instrument is his publique Ordinance in the Church Prayer Preaching and Sacraments Heare him in these In all these come not to heare him in the Sermon alone but come to him in Prayer and in the Sacrament too For except the voyce come in the Trumpet of God that is in the publique Ordinance of his Church thou canst not know it to be the voyce of the Archangell Pretended services of God in schismaticall Conventicles are not in the Trumpet of God and therefore not the voyce of the Archangell and so not the meanes ordained for thy spirituall resurrection And as our last resurrection from the grave is rooted in the personall resurrection of Christ 1 Cor. 15.17 For if Christ be not raised from the dead we are yet in our sins saies the Apostle But why so Because to deliver us from sin Christ was to destroy all our enemies Now the last enemy is Death and last time that Death and Christ met upon the Crosse Death overcame him and therefore except he be risen from the power of Death we are yet in our sins as we roote our last resurrection in the person of Christ so do we our first resurrection in him in his word exhibited in his Ordinance for that is the voice of the Archangell in the Trumpet of God And as the Apostle saies here Ver. 15. This we say unto you by the word of the Lord that thus the last resurrection shall be accomplished by Christ himselfe so this we say to you by the Word of the Lord by the harmony of all the Scriptures thus and no other way By the pure word of God delivered and applied by his publique Ordinance by Hearing and Beleeving and Practising under the Seales of the Church the Sacraments is your first resurrection from sin by grace accomplished So have you then those three branches which constitute our first part That they that are dead before us shall not be prevented by us but they shall rise first That they shall be raised by the power of Christ that is the power of God in Christ That that power working to their resurrection shall be declared in a mighty voyce the voyce of the Archangell in the Trumpet of God And then then when they who were formerly dead are first raised and raised by this Power and this power thus declared then shall we we who shall be then alive and remaine be wrought upon which is our second and our next generall part When the Apostle sayes here 2. Part. Nos Nos qui vivimus We that are alive and remaine would he not be thought to speake this of himselfe and the Thessalonians to whom he writes Doe not the words import that That he and they should live till Christs comming to Judgement Some certainly had taken him so But he complaines that he was mistaken We beseech you brethren 2 Thes 2.2 be not soone shaken in minde nor troubled by word or letter as from us that the day of the Lord is at hand so at hand as that we determine it in our dayes in our life So that the Apostle speakes here but Hypothetically he does but put a case That if it should be Gods pleasure to continue them in the world till the comming of his Son Christ Jesus thus and thus they should be proceeded withall for thus and thus shall they be proceeded with sayes he that shall then be alive Our blessed Saviour hath such a manner of speech of an ambiguous sense in S. Matthew Mat. 16.28 That there were some standing there that should not taste of death till they saw the Son of man comming in his Kingdome And this might give them just occasion to think that that Kingdome into which the Judgement shall enter us was at hand For the words which Christ spoke immediatly before those were evidently undeniably spoken of that last and everlasting kingdome of glory The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his Angels c. Then follows Some standing here shall live to see this And yet Christ did not speak this of that last kingdome of glory but either he spoke it of that manifestation of that kingdome which was shewed to some of them to Peter and Iames and Iohn in the Transfiguration of Christ for the Transfiguration was a representation of the kingdome of glory or else he spoke it of that inchoation of the kingdome of glory which shined out in the kingdome of grace which all the Apostles lived to see in the personall comming of the Holy Ghost and in his powerfull working in the conversion of Nations in their life time And this is an inexpressible comfort to us That our blessed Saviour thus mingles his Kingdomes that he makes the Kingdome of Grace and the Kingdome of Glory all one the Church and Heaven all one and assures us That if we see him In hoc speculo in this his Glasse in his Ordinance in his Kingdome of Grace we have already begun to see him facie ad faciem face to face in his Kingdome of Glory If we see him Sicuti manifestatur as he looks in his Word and Sacraments in his Kingdome of Grace we have begun to see him Sicuti est As he is in his Essence in the Kingdome of Glory And when we pray Thy Kingdome come and mean but the Kingdome of Grace he gives us more then we ask an inchoative comprehension of the Kingdome of Glory in this life This is his inexpressible mercy that he mingles his Kingdomes and where he gives one gives both So is there also a faire beam of comfort exhibited to us in this Text That the number reserved for that Kingdome of Glory is no small number For though David said The Lord looked down from heaven and saw not one that did good no not one Psal 14.2 there it is lesse then a few though when the times had better means to be better when Christ preached personally upon the earth when one Centurion had but replyed to Christ Sir Mat. 8.10 you need not trouble your self to go to my house if you do but say the word here my servant will
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
as all sin is a violating of God God being the God of mercy and the God of life because it deprives us of both those of mercy and of life in opposition to mercy Ephes 2.3 Rom. 5.12 it is called anger and wrath We are all by nature the children of wrath And in opposition to life it is called death Death enters by sin and death is gone over all men And as originall sin hath relation to our souls It is called that indeleble foulnesse and uncleannesse which God discovers in us all Jer. 2.22 Though thou wash thee with nitre and take thee much sope yet thine iniquity is marked before me saith the Lord And which every man findes in himself as Iob did If I wash my self in Snow-water Job 9. and purge my hands never so cleane yet mine own clothes shall make me filthy As it hath relation to our bodies so it is not only called Lex carnis A law which the flesh cannot disobey And Lex in membris A law written and imprinted naturally in our bodies and inseparably inherent there but it is a law that hath got Posse comitatus All our strength and munition into her own hands all our powers and faculties to execute her purposes against us and as the Apostle expresses it fully Hath force in our members to bring forth fruits unto death Rom. 7.5 Consider our originall weaknesse as God lookes upon it so it is inexcusable sin consider it as our soules suffer by it so it is an indeleble foulnesse consider it as our bodies contribute to it and harbour it and retain it and so it is an unquenchable fire and a brand of hell it self It hath banished me out of my self It is no more I that do any thing but sin that dwelleth in me It doth not only dwell but reign in these mortall bodies not only reign but tyrannize and lead us captives under the law of sin which is in our members Ver. 23. So that we have utterly lost Bonum possibilitatis for as men we are out of all possibility not only of that victorious and triumphant gratulation and acclamation to our selves as for a delivery I thank God through Iesus Christ but we cannot come to that sense of our misery Ver. ult as to cry out in the Apostles words immediately preceding O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death Now as this death hath invaded every part and faculty of man understanding and will and all for though originall sin seem to be contracted without our will yet Sicut omnium natura ita omnium voluntates fuere originaliter in Adam sayes S. Augustine As the whole nature of mankinde and so of every particular man was in Adam so also were the faculties and so the will of every particular man in him so this death hath invaded every particular man Death went over all men for as much as all men had sinned And therefore they that do blasphemously exempt some persons from sin they set them not above the Law but without the Law They out-law them in taking from them the benefit of the new Law the Gospel and of the author of that Law Christ Jesus who came a Physitian to the sick and was sent only to save sinners for them that are none it is well that they need no Redeemer for if they did they could have no part in ours for he came only to redeem sinners and they are none God brought his Son out of Aegypt not out of Goshen in Aegypt not out of a priviledged place in Aegypt but out of Aegypt God brought his Son Christ Jesus out of the Virgin Mary without sin but he brought not her so out of her mother If they might be beleeved that the blessed Virgin and Iohn Baptist and the Prophet Ieremy were without all sin they would goe about at last to make us beleeve that Ignatius were so too For us in the highest of our sanctification still let us presse with that Dimitte nobis debita nostra O Lord forgive us our trespasses and confesse that we needed forgivenesse even for the sins which we have not done Dimissa fateor quae mea sponte feci quae te duce non feci sayes S. Augustine I confesse I need thy mercy both for the sins which I have done and for those which if thy grace had not restrained me I should have done And therefore if another think he hath scaped those sins that I have committed August Non me derideat ab eo medico aegrum sanari à quoei praestitum ne aegrotaret Let him not despise me who am recovered since it is the same physitian who hath wrought upon us both though by a diverse method for he hath preserved him and he hath recovered me for for himselfe we say still with the same Father Perdiderat bonum possibilitatis As well he as I had lost all possibility of standing or rising after our fall This was our first branch Quid homo potest The universall impotency And our second is That this is In homine In man no man as man can make this profession That Iesus is the Lord and therefore we consider first wherein and how far man is disabled In every Age some men have attributed to the power of nature more then a naturall man can doe and yet no man doth so much as a naturall man might doe For the over-valuing of nature and her power there are impressions in the Fathers themselves which whether mis-understood by the Readers or by the Authors have led and prevailed much When Iustin Martyr sayes Ratio pro fide Graecis Barbaris That rectified reason did the same office in the Gentiles as faith did in the Christians when Clement sayes Philosophia per sese justi ficavit Graecos That the Gentiles to whom the Law and Gospell was not communicated were justified by their Philosophy when Chrysostome sayes Satis fuit Gentibus abstinuisse ab Idololatria It was sufficient for the Gentiles if they did not worship false gods though they understood not the true when S. Augustine sayes Rectè facis nihil quaerere ampliùs quà m quod docet ratio He doth well that seeks no farther then his reason leads them these impressions in the Fathers have transported later men farther so far as that Andradius in the Romane Church saves all honest Philosophers that lived morally well without Christ And Tostatus takes all impediments out of their way That originall sin is absolutely remitted to them In prima bona operatione in charitate In their first good morall work that they do So that they are in an easier way then we who are but Christians for in the opinion of Tostatus himselfe and that whole Church we cannot be delivered from originall sin but by baptisme nothing lesse then a Sacrament would deliver us from originall sin and any good worke shall deliver any of the Gentiles
that gave him that Crowne Thus the holy Ghost himselfe is a witnesse against Heretiques in the word and those men who are full of the holy Ghost as Stephen was are witnesses against persecution in action in passion At this time and by occasion of these words we consider principally the first The testification of the holy Ghost himselfe and therein we consider thus much more That a witnesse ever testifies of some matter of fact of something done before The holy Ghost the Spirit here as we shall see anon witnesses that we are the children of God Now if a Witnesse prove that I am a Tenant to such Land or Lord of it I doe not become Lord nor Tenant by this Witnesse but his testimony proves that I was so before I have therefore a former right to be the child of God that is The eternall Election of God in Christ Jesus Christ Jesus could as well have disobeyed his Father and said I will not goe or disappointed his Father and said I will not goe yet as he could have dis-furnished his Father and said He would not redeem me The holy Ghost bears witnesse that is he pleads he produces that eternall Decree for my Election And upon such Evidence shall I give sentence against my selfe Chrysost Si testaretur Angelus vel Archangelus posset quisquam addubitare I should not doubt the testimony of an Angel or Archangel and yet Angels and Archangels all sorts of Angels were deceivers in the Serpent And therefore the Apostle presents it though impossible in it selfe as a thing that might fall into our mis-apprehension Gal. 1.8 If we that is the Apostles or if an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel Anathema sit let him be accursed But Quando Deus testatur quis locus relinquitur dubitationi when God testifies to me it is a rebellious sin to doubt And therefore how hyperbolically soever S. Paul argue there If Apostles If Angels teach the contrary teach false Doctrine it never entred into his argument though an argument ab Impossibili to say If God should teach or testifie false doctrine Though then there be a former evidence for my being the child of God a Decree in heaven yet it is not enough that there is such a Record but it must be produced it must be pleaded it must be testified to be that it must have the witnesse of the Spirit and by that Innotescit though it doe not become my Election then it makes my election appeare then and though it be not Introductory it is Declaratory The Root is in the Decree the first fruits are in the testimony of the Spirit but even that spirit will not be testis singularis he will not be heard alone and single but it is Cum spiritu nostro The Spirit testifies with our spirit c. The holy Ghost will fulfill his owne law In ore duorum In the mouth of two witnesses Cum spiriou nostro Sometimes our spirit bears witnesse of somethings appertaining to the next world without the testimony of the holy Ghost Tertullian in that excellent Book of his De testimonio Animae Of the testimony which the soule of man gives of it selfe to it selfe where he speaks of the soule of a naturall an unregenerate man gives us just occasion to stop a little upon that consideration If sayes he we for our Religion produce your own Authors against you he speaks to naturall men secular Philosophers and shew you out of them what Passions what Vices even they impute to those whom you have made your Gods then you say they were but Poetae vani Those Authors were but vaine and frivolous Poets But when those Authors speake any thing which sound against our Religion then they are Philosophers and reverend and classique Authors And therefore sayes he I will draw no witnesse from them Perversae foelicitatis quibus in falso potiùs creditur quà m in vero Because they have this perverse this left-handed happinesse to be beleeved when they lye better then when they say true Novum testimonium adduco saies he I wayve all them and I call upon a new witnesse A witnesse Omni literaturi notius More legible then any Character then any text hand for it is the intimation of mine owne soule and conscience and Omni Editione vulgatius More publique more conspicuous then any Edition any impression of any Author for Editions may be called in but who can call in the testimony of his owne soule He proceeds Te simplicem Idioticum compello I require but a simple an unlearned soule Qualem te habent qui te solam habent Such a soule as that man hath who hath nothing but a soule no learning Imperitia tua mibiopus est quoniam aliquantulae peritiae tuae nemo credit I shall have the more use of thy testimony the more ignorant thou art for in such cases Art is suspicious and from them who are able to prove any thing we beleeve nothing And therefore saies he Nolo Academiis bibliothecis instructam I call not a soule made in an University or nursed in a Library but let this soule come now as it came to me in my Mothers wombe an inartificiall an unexperienced soule And then to contract Tertullians Contemplation he proceeds to shew the notions of the Christian Religion which are in such a soule naturally and which his spirit that is his rectified reason rectified but by nature is able to infuse into him And certainly some of that which is proved by the testimony mentioned in this text is proved by the testimony of our owne naturall soule in that Poet whom the Apostle cites that said Genus ejus We are the off-spring of God Acts 17.28 So then our spirit beares witnesse sometimes when the Spirit does not that is Nature testifies some things without addition of particular grace And then the Spirit the Holy Ghost oftentimes testifies when ours does not How often stands he at the doore and knocks How often spreads he his wings to gather us as a Hen her chickens How often presents he to us the power of God in the mouth of the Preacher and we beare witnesse to one another of the wit and of the eloquence of the Preacher and no more How often he bears witnesse that such an action is odious in the sight of God and our spirit beares witnesse that it is acceptable profitable honourable in the sight of man How often he beares witnesse for Gods Judgements and our spirit deposes for mercy by presumption and how often he testifies for mercy and our spirit sweares for Judgement in desperation But when the Spirit and our spirit agree in their testimony That he hath spoke comfortably to my soule and my soule hath apprehended comfort by that speech That to use Christs similitude He hath piped and we have danced He hath shewed me my Saviour and my Spirit hath rejoyced in God my Saviour He deposes for the Decree
Abrahams taske was an easie taske to tell the stars of Heaven so it were to tell the sands or haires or atomes in respect of telling but our owne sins And will God say to me Confide Fili My Son be of good cheere thy sins are forgiven thee Mat. 9.2 Does he meane all my sins He knowes what originall sin is and I doe not and will he forgive me sin in that roote and sin in the branches originall sin and actuall sin too He knowes my secret sins and I doe not will he forgive my manifest sins and those sins too He knowes my relapses into sins repented and will he forgive my faint repentances and my rebellious relapses after them will his mercy dive into my heart and forgive my sinfull thoughts there and shed upon my lips and forgive my blasphemous words there and bathe the members of this body and forgive mine uncleane actions there will he contract himselfe into himselfe and meet me there and forgive my sins against himselfe And scatter himselfe upon the world and forgive my sins against my neighbour and emprison himselfe in me and forgive my sins against my selfe Will he forgive those sins wherein my practise hath exceeded my Parents and those wherein my example hath mis-led my children Will he forgive that dim sight which I have of sin now when sins scarce appeare to be sins unto me and will he forgive that over-quick sight when I shall see my sins through Satans multiplying glasse of desperation when I shall thinke them greater then his mercy upon my death bed In that he said all he left out nothing Heb. 2.8 is the Apostles argument and he is not almighty if he cannot his mercy endures not for ever if he doe not forgive all Sin and all sin even blasphemy now blasphemy is not restrained to God alone Blasphemia other persons besides God other things besides persons may be blasphemed 1 Tim. 6.1 Iude 8 10. The word of God the Doctrine Religion may be blasphemed Magistracy and Dignities may be blasphemed Nay Omnia quae ignorant saies that Apostle They blaspheme all things which they know not And for persons the Apostle takes it to his owne person 1 Cor. 4.13 Being blasphemed yet we intreat and he communicates it to all men Neminem blasphemate Tit. 3.2 Blaspheme no man Blasphemy as it is a contumelious speech derogating from any man that good that is in him or attributing to any man that ill that is not in him may be fastned upon any man For the most part it is understood a sin against God and that directly and here by the manner of Christ expressing himselfe it is made the greatest sin All sin even blasphemy And yet a drunkard that cannot name God will spue out a blasphemy against God A child that cannot spell God will stammer out a blasphemy against God If we smart we blaspheme God and we blaspheme him if we be tickled If I lose at play I blaspheme and if my fellow lose he blasphemes so that God is alwayes sure to be a loser An Usurer can shew me his bags and an Extortioner his houses the fruits the revenues of his sinne but where will the blasphemer shew mee his blasphemy or what hee hath got by it The licentious man hath had his love in his armes and the envious man hath had his enemy in the dust but wherein hath the blasphemer hurt God In the Schoole we put it for the consummation of the torment of the damned Aquin. 221. q. 13. ar 4. that at the Resurrection they shall have bodies and so be able even verbally to blaspheme God herein we exceed the Devill already that we can speake blaspemously There is a rebellious part of the body that Adam covered with figge leaves that hath damned many a wretched soule but yet I thinke not more then the tongue And therefore the whole torment that Dives suffered in hell Luke 16.24 is expressed in that part Father Abraham have mercy upon me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and coole my tongue The Jews that crucified God will not sound the name of God and we for whom he was Crucified belch him out in our surfets and foame him out in our fury An Impertinent sin without occasion before and an unprofitable sin without recompence after and an incorrigible sin too for almost what Father dares chide his son for blasphemy that may not tell him Sir I learnt it of you or what Master his servant that cannot lay the same recrimination upon him How much then do we need this extent of Gods mercy that he will forgive sin and all sin and even this sin of blasphemy and which is also another addition blasphemy against the Son This emphaticall addition arises out of the connexion in the next verse In filium A word that is a blasphemous word against the Son shall be forgiven And here wee carry not the word Son so high as that the Son should be the eternall Son of God Though words spoken against the eternall Son of God by many bitter and blasphemous Heretiques have beene forgiven God forbid that all the Photinians who thought that Christ was not at all till he was borne of the Virgin Mary That all the Nativitarians that thought he was from all eternity with God but yet was not the Son of God That all the Arians that thought him the Son of God but yet not essentially not by nature but by grace and adoption God forbid that all these should be damned and because they once spoke against the Son therefore they never repented or were not received upon repentance We carry not the word Son so high as to be the eternall Son of God for it is in the text Filius hominis The Son of Man And in that acceptation we doe not meane it of all blasphemies that have beene spoken of Christ as the Son of man that is of Christ invested in the humane nature though blasphemies in that kind have beene forgiven too God forbid that all the Arians that thought Christ so much the Son of Man as that he tooke a humane body but not so much as that he tooke a humane soule but that the Godhead it selfe such a Godhead as they allowed him was his soule God forbid that all the Anabaptists that confesse he tooke a body but not a body of the substance of the Virgin That all the Carpocratians that thought onely his soule and not his body ascended into Heaven God forbid all these should be damned and never called to repentance or not admitted upon it There were fearfull blasphemies against the Son as the Son of God and as the Son of Man against his Divine and against his Humane Nature and those in some of them by Gods grace forgiven too But here we consider him onely as the Son of Man meerely as Man but as such a Man so good a
unto all men and then herein also is Gods mercy to man magnified that it is to man that is only to man Nothing can fall into this comparison Non Angelis but Angels and Angels shall not be forgiven We shall be like the Angels we shall participate of their glory which stand But the Angels shall never be like us never return to mercy after they are fallen They were Primogeniti Dei Gods first born and yet disinherited and disinherited without any power at least without purpose of revocation without annuities without pensions without any present supply without any future hope When the Angels were made and when they fell we dispute but when they shall return falls not into question Howsoever Origen vary in himselfe or howsoever he fell under that jealousie or misinterpretation that he thought the devill should be saved at last I am sure his books that are extant have pregnant and abundant testimony of their everlasting and irreparable condemnation To judge by our evidence the evidence of Scriptures for their sin and the evidence of our conscience for ours there is none of us that hath not sinned more then any of them at first and yet Christ hath not taken the nature of Angels but of man and redeemed us Iude 6. having reserved them in everlasting chaines under darknesse How long Vnto the judgement of the great day sayes that Apostle And is it but till then then to have an end Alas no It is not untill that day but unto that day not that that day shall end or ease their torments which they have but inflict accidentall torments which they have not yet That is an utter evacuation of that power of seducing which till that day come they shall have leave to exercise upon the sons of men To that are they reserved and we to that glory which they have lost and lost for ever and upon us is that prayer of the Apostle fallen effectually Ver. 2. Mercy and peace and love is multiplied unto us for sin and all sin blasphemy and blasphemy against the Son shall be that is is not nor was not but may be forgiven to men to all men to none but men And so we passe to our second part In this second part 2. Part. Divisio which seemes to present a banke even to this Sea this infinite Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus And an Horizon even to this heaven of heavens to the mercy of God we shall proceed thus First we shall inquire but modestly what that blasphemy which is commonly called The sin against the holy Ghost is And secondly how and wherein it is irremissible that it shall never be forgiven And then thirdly upon what places of Scripture it is grounded amongst which if this text do not constitute and establish that sin The sin against the holy Ghost yet we shall finde that that sin which is directly intended in this text is a branch of that sin The sin against the holy Ghost And therefore we shall take just occasion from thence to arme you with some instructions against those wayes which leade into that irrecoverable destruction into that irremissible sin for though the sin it self be not so evident yet the limmes of the sin and the wayes to the sin are plain enough S. Augustine sayes Quid. There is no question in the Scripture harder then this what this sin is And S. Ambrose gives some reason of the difficulty in this Sicut una divinitas una offensa As there is but one Godhead so there is no sin against God and all sin is so but it is against the whole Trinity and that is true but as there are certain attributes proper to every severall person of the Trinity so there are certaine sins more directly against the severall attributes and properties of those persons and in such a consideration against the persons themselves Of which there are divers sins against power and they are principally against the Father for to the Father we attribute power and divers sins against wisdome and wisdome we attribute to the Son and divers against goodnesse and love and these we attribute to the holy Ghost Of those against the holy Ghost considered in that attribute of goodnesse and of love the place to speak will be in our conclusion But for this particular sin The sin against the holy Ghost as hard as S. Augustine makes it and justly yet he sayes too Exercere nos voluit difficultate quaestionis non decipere falsitate sententiae God would exercise us with a hard question but he would not deceive us with a false opinion Quid sit quaeri voluit non negari God would have us modestly inquire what it is not peremptorily deny that there is any such sin It is for the most part agreed that it is a totall falling away from the Gospell of Christ Jesus formerly acknowledged and professed into a verball calumniating and a reall persecuting of that Gospel with a deliberate purpose to continue so to the end and actually to do so to persevere till then and then to passe away in that disposition It fals only upon the professors of the Gospell and it is totall and it is practicall and it is deliberate and it is finall Here we have that sin but by Gods grace that sinner no where It is therefore somewhat early somewhat forwardly pronounced though by a reverend man Certum reprobationis signum in spiritum blasphemia That it is an infallible assurance Calvin that that man is a Reprobate that blasphemes the holy Ghost For whatsoever is an infallible signe must be notorious to us If we must know another thing by that as a signe we must know that thing which is our signe in it selfe And can we know what this blaspheming of the holy Ghost is Did we ever heare any man say or see any man doe any thing against the holy Ghost of whom we might say upon that word or upon that action This man can never repent never be received to mercy And yet sayes he Tenendum est quod qui exciderint nunquam resurgent We are bound to hold that they who fall so shall never rise again I presume he grounded himselfe in that severe judgement of his upon such places as that to the Romanes Rom. 1.18 When they did not like to retaine God in their knowledge God gave them over to a reprobate minde That that is the ordinary way of Gods justice to withdraw his Spirit from that man that blasphemes his Spirit but S. Paul blasphemed and S. Peter blasphemed and yet were not divorced from God S. Augustines rule is good not to judge of this sin and this sinner especially but à posteriori from his end from his departing out of this world Neither though I doe see an ill life sealed with an ill death dare I be too forward in this judgement He was not a Christian in profession but worse then he are
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
all our other faculties were August so omnium voluntates in Adam all our wils were in Adam and we sinned wilfully when he did so and so Originall sin is a voluntary sin Our will is poysoned in the fountaine and as soone as our will is able to exercise any election we are willing to sin as soone as we can and sorry we can sin no sooner and sorry no longer we are willing before the Devill is willing and willing after the Devill is weary and seek occasions of tentation when he presents none And so as the breach of the Law of Nature and as the deluge of Originall sin hath surrounded the whole world the whole world is under sinne That all the world is so requires not much proofe But then does the Holy Ghost An arguat Spiritus sanctus by his comming reprove that is convince the whole world that it is so The Holy Ghost is able to doe it and he hath good cause to doe it But does he doe it Is this Cum venerit when he comes come Is he come to this purpose to make all the world know their sinfull condition God knowes they know it not Howsoever they may have some knowledge of the breach of the Law of Nature yet they have no knowledge of any remedy after and so lack all comfort and therefore this is no knowledge from the Holy Ghost from the Comforter And for the knowledge of Originall sin which lies more heavy upon them then upon us who have the ease of Baptisme which slackens and weakens Originall sin in us they are so farre from knowing that that sin is derived from Adam as that they doe not know that they themselves are derived from Adam not that there is such a sin not that there was such an Adam How then doth the Holy Ghost who is come according to Christs promise according to his promise Reprove that is Convince the world of sinne since this being to bee done by the Holy Ghost implies a knowledge of Christ and a way of comfort in the doing thereof This one word Arguet He shall reprove convince admits three acceptations First Antequam abierit in the future as it is here presented He shall and so the Cum venerit When he comes signifies Antequam abierit Before he departs He came at Pentecost and presently set on foot his Commission by the Apostles to reprove convince the world of sin and hath proceeded ever since by their successors in reducing Nation after Nation and before the consummation of the world before he retire to rest eternally in the bosome of the Father and the Son from whom he proceeded he shall reprove the whole world of sin that is bring them to a knowledge That in the breach of the law of nature and in the guiltinesse of originall sin they are all under a burthen which none of them all of themselves can discharge This work S. Paul seemes to hasten sooner Rom. 10.18 To convince the Jews of their infidelity he argues thus Have not they heard the Gospell They that is the Gentiles and if They much more You And that They had heard it he proves by the application of those words In omnem terram Psal 19.3 Their voice is gone through all the earth and their words to the end of the world That is the voice of the Apostles in the preaching of the Gospell Hence grew that distraction and perplexity which we finde in the Fathers Whether it could be truly said that the Gospell had been preached over all the world in those times If we number the Fathers most are of that opinion That before the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem this was fulfilled Of those that think the contrary some proceed upon reasons ill grounded particularly Origen Quid de Britannis Germanis Origen qui nec adhuc audierunt verbum Euangelii What shall we say of Britanny and Germany who have not heard of the Gospell yet For before Origens time though Origen were 1400. yeares since in what darknesse soever he mistook us to be we had a blessed and a glorious discovery of the Gospell of Christ Jesus in this Iland S. Hierome Hierom. who denies this universall preaching of the Gospell before the destruction of the Temple yet doubts not but that the fulfilling of that prophecy was then in action and in a great forwardnesse I am completum aut brevi ternimus complendum Already we see it performed sayes he Or at least so earnestly pursued as that it must necessarily very soon be performed Nec puto aliquam remanere gentem quae Christi nomen ignor at I do not think sayes that Father more then 1200. yeares since that there is any nation that hath not heard of Christ Et quanquam non habuerit praedicatorem ex viciais c. If they have not had expresse Preachers themselves yet from their neighbours they have had some Echoes of this voice some reflexions of this light The later Divines and the School that finde not this early and generall preaching over the world to lye in proofe proceed to a more safe way That there was then Odor Euangelii A sweet savour of the Gospell issued though it were not yet arrived to all parts As if a plentifull and diffusive perfume were set up in a house we would say The house were perfumed though that perfume were not yet come to every corner of the house But not to thrust the world into so narrow a straite as it is when a Decree is said to have gone out from Augustus Luk. 2.1 Acts 2.5 to taxe all the world for this was but the Romane world Nor That there were men dwelling at Ierusalem devout men of every nation under heaven for this was but of nations discovered and traded withall then nor when S. Paul sayes Rom. 11.18 Mat. 24.14 That the faith of the Romanes was published to the world for that was as far as he had gone those words of our Saviour This Gospell of the kingdome shall be preached in all the world for a witnesse to all nations and then shall the end come have evermore by all Ancient and Modern Fathers and School Preachers and Writers Expositors and Controverters been literally understood that before the end of the world the Gospell shall be actually really evidently efectually preached to all nations and so Cum venerit When the holy Ghost comes that is Antequam abierit Before he go he shall reprove convince the whole world of sin and this as he is a Comforter by accompanying their knowledge of sin with the knowledge of the Gospell for the remission of sins It agrees with the nature of goodnesse to be so diffusive communicable to all It agrees with the nature of God Gen. 7.11 who is goodnesse That as all the fountaines of the great Deep were broken up and the windows of heaven were opened and so came the flood over all
gods as there are Creatures from God and more then that as many gods as they could fancie or imagine in making Chimera's of their owne for not onely that which was not God but that which was not at all was made a God And then as in narrow channels that cannot containe the water the water over-flowes and yet that water that does so over flow flies out and spreads to such a shallownesse as will not beare a Boat to any use so when by this narrownesse in the Gentiles God had over-flowne this bank this limitation of God in an unity all the rest was too shallow to beare any such notion any such consideration of God as appertained to him They could not think him an Omnipotent God when if one God would not another would nor an Infinite God when they had appeales from one God to another and without Omnipotence and without Infinitenesse they could not truly conceive a God They had cantoned a glorious Monarchy into petty States that could not subsist of themselves nor assist another and so imagined a God for every state and every action that a man must have applied himselfe to one God when he shipped and when he landed to another and if he travailed farther change his God by the way as often as he changed coynes or post-horses Deut. 6.4 But Heare O Israel the Lord thy God is one God As though this were all that were to be heard all that were to be learned they are called to heare and then there is no more said but that The Lord thy God is one God There are men that will say and sweare they do not meane to make God the Author of sin but yet when they say That God made man therefore that he might have something to damne and that he made him sin therefore that he might have something to damne him for truly they come too neare making God the Author of sin for all their modest protestation of abstaining So there are men that will say and sweare they do not meane to make Saints Gods but yet when they will aske the same things at Saints hands which they do at Gods and in the same phrase and manner of expression when they will pray the Virgin Mary to assist her Son nay to command her Son and make her a Chancellor to mitigate his common Law truly they come too neare making more Gods then one And so do we too when we give particular sins dominion over us Quot vitia tot Deos recentes sayes Hierom As the Apostle sayes Covetousnesse is Idolatry so sayes that Father is voluptuousnesse and licentiousnesse and every habituall sin Non alienum sayes God Thou shalt have no other God but me But Quis similis sayes God too Who is like me Hee will have nothing made like him not made so like a God as they make their Saints nor made so like a God as we make our sins Wee thinke one King Soveraigne enough and one friend counsellor enough and one Wife helper enough and he is strangely insatiable that thinks not one God God enough especially since when thou hast called this God what thou canst Hâ—â—â—r he is more then thou hast said of him Cum definitur ipse sua definitione crescit When thou hast defined him to be the God of justice and tremblest he is more then that he is the God of mercy too and gives thee comfort When thou hast defined him to be all eye He sees all thy sins he is more then that he is all patience and covers all thy sins And though he be in his nature incomprehensible and inaccessible in his light yet this is his infinite largenesse that being thus infinitely One he hath manifested himselfe to us in three Persons to be the more easily discerned by us and the more closely and effectually applied to us Now these notions that we have of God as a Father as a Son as a Holy Ghost Trinitas as a Spirit working in us are so many handles by which we may take hold of God and so many breasts by which we may suck such a knowledge of God as that by it wee may grow up into him And as wee cannot take hold of a torch by the light but by the staffe we may so though we cannot take hold of God as God who is incomprehensible and inapprehensible yet as a Father as a Son as a Spirit dwelling in us we can There is nothing in Nature that can fully represent and bring home the notion of the Trinity to us There is an elder booke in the World then the Scriptures It is not well said in the World for it is the World it selfe the whole booke of Creatures And indeed the Scriptures are but a paraphrase but a comment but an illustration of that booke of Creatures And therefore though the Scriptures onely deliver us the doctrine of the Trinity clearely yet there are some impressions some obumbrations of it in Nature too Take but one in our selves in the soule The understanding of man that is as the Father begets discourse ratiocination and that is as the Son and out of these two proceed conclusions and that is as the Holy Ghost Such as these there are many many sprinkled in the Schoole many scattered in the Fathers but God knowes poore and faint expressions of the Trinity But yet Praemisit Deus naturam magistram Tertul. submissurus prophetiam Though God meant to give us degrees in the University that is increase of knowledge in his Scriptures after yet he gave us a pedagogy he sent us to Schoole in Nature before Vt faciliùs credas prophetiae discipulus naturae That comming out of that Schoole thou mightest profit the better in that University having well considered Nature thou mightest be established in the Scriptures He is therefore inexcusable that considers not God in the Creature that comming into a faire Garden sayes onely Here is a good Gardiner and not Here is a good God and when he sees any great change sayes onely This is a strange accident and not a strange Judgement Hence is it that in the books of the Platonique Philosophers and in others much ancienter then they if the books of Hermes Trismegistus and others be as ancient as is pretended in their behalfe we finde as cleare expressing of the Trinity as in the Old Testament at least And hence is it that in the Talmud of the Jews and in the Alcoran of the Turks though they both oppose the Trinity yet when they handle not that point there fall often from them as cleare confessions of the three Persons as from any of the elder of those Philosophers who were altogether dis-interested in that Controversie But because God is seene Per creaturas ut per speculum per verbum ut per lucem Aleus In the creature and in nature but by reflection In the Word and in the Scriptures directly we rest in the knowledge which we
to execution Thou hast sinned thy selfe and hast repented and hast had thy pardon sealed in the Sacrament but thy pardon was clogged with an Ita quòd se bene gerat Thou wast bound to the peace by that pardon and hast broken that peace since in a relapse and so fallest under execution for thine old sins God cuts off men by unsearchable wayes and meanes and therefore feare this Father as a Soveraigne as a Magistrate for that use this word in S. Iohn may have In Malachie we consider him in his supreme spirituall power Iudiciaria and in S. Iohn in his supreme temporall power And in this Text this Father is presented in a power which includes both in a judiciary power as a Judge as our Judge our Judge at the last day beyond all Appeale And as this Apostle S. Peter is said by Clement who is said to have beene his successor at Rome to have said Quis peccare poterit c. Who could commit any sin at any time if at all times he had his eye fixed upon this last Judgement We have seene purses cut at the Sessions and at Executions but the Cutpurse did not see the Judge looke upon him we see men sin over those sins to day for which Judgement was inflicted but yesterday but surely they doe not see then that the Judge sees them Rom. 2.5 Thou treasurest up wrath sayes the Apostle against the day of wrath and revelation of the judgement of God There is no Revelation of the day of Judgement no sense of any such day till the very day it selfe overtake him and swallow him Represent God to thy selfe as such a Judge as S. Chrysostome sayes That whosoever considers him so as that Judge and that day as a day of irrevocable judgement Gehennae poenam tolerare malit quà m adverso Deo stare He will even think it an ease to be thrown down into hell out of the presence of God rather then to stand long in the presence and stand under the indignation of that incensed Judge The Ite maledicti will be lesse then the Surgite qui dormitis And there is the miserable perplexity Latere impossibils Apparere intolerabile Bernard To be hid from this Judge is impossible and to appeare before him intolerable for he comes invested with those two flames of confusion which are our two next branches in the Text first He respects no persons Then He judges according to workes Without respect of persons c. Nine or ten severall times it is repeated in the Scriptures and I thinke Acceptor personarum no one intire proposition so often That God is no accepter of persons It is spoken by Moses that they who are conversant in the Law might see it and spoken in the Chronicles that they might see it who are conversant in State-affaires and spoken in Iob that men in afflictions might not mis-imagine a partiality in God It is spoken to the Gentiles by the Apostle of the Gentiles S. Paul severally To the Romanes to the Galatians to the Ephesians to the Colossians And spoken by the chiefe Apostle S. Peter both in a private Sermon in Cornelius his house and now in this Catholique Epistle written to all the world that all the world and all the inhabitants thereof might know That God is no accepter of persons And lest all this should not be all it is spoken twice in the Apocryphall books and though we know not assuredly by whom yet we know to whom To all that exercise any judiciary power under God it belongs to know That God is no accepter of persons In divers of those places this also is added Nor receiver of Rewards whether that be added as an equall thing That it is as great a sin to accept persons as to accept rewards Or as a concomitancy they goe together He that will accept persons will accept rewards Or as an Identity It is the same thing to accept persons and to accept rewards because the preferment which I looke for from a person in place is as much a reward as money from a person rich in treasure whether of these it be I dispute not Clearly there is a Bribery in my love to another and in my feare of another there is a Bribery too There is a bribery in a poore mans teares if that decline me from justice as well as in the rich mans Plate and Hangings and Coach and Horses Let no man therefore think to present his complexion to God for an excuse and say My choler with which my constitution abounded and which I could not remedy enclined me to wrath and so to bloud My Melancholy enclined me to sadnesse and so to Desperation as though thy sins were medicinall sins sins to vent humors Let no man say I am continent enough all the yeare but the spring works upon me and inflames my concupiscencies as though thy sins were seasonable and anniversary sins Make not thy Calling the occasion of thy sin as though thy sin were a Mysterie and an Occupation Nor thy place thy station thy office the occasion of thy sin as though thy sin were an Heir-loome or furniture or fixed to the freehold of that place for this one proposition God is no accepter of persons is so often repeated that all circumstances of Dispositions and Callings Ambros and time and place might be involved in it Nulla descretio personarum sed morum God discernes not that is distinguishes not Persons but Actions for He judgeth according to every mans works which is our next Branch Now this judging according to works Opera excludes not the heart nor the heart of the heart the soule of the soule Faith God requires the heart My sonne give me thy heart He will have it but he will have it by gift and those Deeds of Gift must be testified and the testimony of the heart is in the hand the testimony of faith is in works If one give me a timber tree for my house I know not whether the root be mine or no whether I may stub it by that gift but if he give me a fruit tree for mine Orchard he intends me the root too for else I cannot transplant it nor receive fruit by it God judges according to the worke that is Root and fruit faith and worke That is the worke And then he judges according unto Thy worke The works of Other men the Actions and the Passions of the blessed Martyrs and Saints in the Primitive Church works of Supererogation are not thy works It were a strange pretence to health that when thy Physitian had prescribed thee a bitter potion and came for an account how it had wrought upon thee thou shouldst say My brother hath taken twice as much as you prescribed for me but I tooke none Or if he ordained sixe ounces of bloud to be taken from thee to say My Grandfather bled twelve God shall judge according to The worke that is
in the next Psalme but one he that thought to sleepe out the night come to weepe out the night When the Saints of God have that security which S. Hierome speaks of Vt sanctis ipse somnus sit oratio They sleepe securely for their very sleepe is a glorifying of God who giveth his beloved sleepe yet David could have none of this Euseb But why not he Noctem letiferam nocte compensat First for the place the sinne came in at those windowes at his eyes and came in in fire in lust And it must goe out at those windowes too and goe out in water in the water of repentant teares And then for the time as the night defiled his soule so the sinne must be expiated and the soule washed in the night too And this may be some Embleme some usefull intimation how hastily Repentance follows sinne Davids sinne is placed but in the beginning of the night in the Evening In the evening he rose and walked upon the Terase and saw Bathsheba and in the next part of time in the night he falls a weeping no more between the sweetnesse of sinne and the bitternesse of repentance then between evening and night no morning to either of them till the Sunne of grace arise and shine out and proceed to a Meridionall height and make the repentance upon circumstance to be a repentance upon the substance and bring it to be a repentance for the sinne it selfe which at first was but a repentance upon some calamity that that sinne induced He wept then Omni nocte and wept in the night in a time when he could neither receive rest in himselfe which all men had nor receive praise from others which all men affect And he wept Omni nocte which is not onely Omnibus noctibus sometime every night but it is Tota nocte cleane through the night And he wept in that abundance as hath put the Holy Ghost to that Hyperbole in Davids pen to expresse it Liquefecit stratum natare fecit stratum Hieron it drowned his bed surrounded his bed it dissolved it macerated it melted his bed with that brine Well Qui rigat stratum he that washes his bed so with repentant teares Non potest in cogitationem ejus libidinum pompa subrepere Tentations take hold of us sometimes after our teares after our repentance but seldome or never in the act of our repentance and in the very shedding of our teares At least Libidinum pompa The victory the triumph of lust breaks not in upon us in a bed so dissolved so surrounded so macerated with such teares Thy bed is a figure of thy grave Such as thy grave receives thee at death it shall deliver thee up to Judgement at last Such as thy bed receives thee at night it shall deliver thee in the morning If thou sleepe without calling thy selfe to an account thou wilt wake so and walke so and proceed so without ever calling thy selfe to an account till Christ Jesus call thee in the Clouds It is not intended that thou shouldest afflict thy selfe so grievously as some over-doing Penitents to put chips and shels and splints and flints and nayles and rowels of spurres in thy bed to wound and macerate thy body so The inventions of men are not intended here But here is a precept of God implied in this precedent and practise of David That as long as the sense of a former sinne or the inclination to a future oppresses thee thou must not close thine eyes thou must not take thy rest till as God married thy body and soule together in the Creation and shall at last crowne thy body and soule together in the Resurrection so they may also rest together here that as thy body rests in thy bed thy soule may rest in the peace of thy Conscience and that thou never say to thy head Rest upon this pillow till thou canst say to thy soule Rest in this repentance in this peace Now as this sorrow of Davids continued day and night Oculus in the day for the better edification of men and in the night for his better capitulation with God so there is a farther continuation thereof without any wearinesse expressed in the next clause Turbatus à furore oculus meus as the Vulgat reads it and Mine eye is dimmed for despight or indignation as our former or as this last Translation hath it Mine eye is consumed because of griefe and to speake neerest to the Originall Erosus est oculus Mine eye is eaten out with Indignation A word or two shall be inough of each of these words these three Termes What the eye which is the subject what this consuming or dimming which is the effect and what this Griefe or Indignation which is the affection imports and offers to our application First Oculus the Eye is ordinarily taken in the Scriptures Pro aspectu for the whole face the looks the countenance the ayre of a man and this ayre and looks and countenance declares the whole habitude and constitution of the man As he looks so he is So that the Eye here is the whole person and so this griefe had wrought upon the whole frame and constitution of David and decayed that though he place it in the eye yet it had growne over all the body Since thou wast not able to say to thy sinne The sinne shall come to mine eyes but no farther I will looke but not lust I will see but not covet thou must not say My repentance shall come to mine eyes and no farther I will shed a few teares and no more but with this Prophet David and with the Apostle S. Paul thou must beat downe thy body to that particular purpose and in that proportion as thou findest the rebellions thereof to require Thou couldest not stop the sin at thine eyes stop not thy repentance there neither but pursue it in wholesome mortification through all those parts in which the sinne hath advanced his dominion over thee and that is our use of the first word the Eye the whole frame For the second word which in our Translations is in one dimmed Turbatus Reuchlin in the other consumed and in the Vulgat troubled a great Master in the Originall renders it well elegantly and naturally out of the Originall Verminavit Tineavit which is such a deformitie as wormes make in wood or in books If Davids sorrow for his sinnes brought him to this deformitie what sorrow doe they owe to their sinnes who being come to a deformitie by their own licentiousnesse and intemperance disguise all that by unnaturall helpes to the drawing in of others and the continuation of their former sinnes The sinne it selfe was the Devils act in thee But in the deformity and debility though it follow upon the sinne God hath a hand And they that smother and suppresse these by paintings and pamperings unnaturall helps to unlawfull ends doe not deliver themselves of the plague but
fainting with that After his weeping and dissolving with that After his consuming and withering with that foresees no rescue no escape Inveteravit he waxes old amongst his enemies Who were his enemies and what was this age that he speaks of It is of best use to pursue the spirituall sense of this Psalme and so his enemies were his sins And David found that he had not got the victory over any one enemy any one sin Anothers bloud did not extinguish the lustfull heat of his owne nor the murther of the husband the adultery with the wife Change of sin is not an overcomming of sin He that passes from sin to sin without repentance which was Davids case for a time still leaves an enemy behind him and though he have no present assault from his former enemie no tentation to any act of his former sin yet he is still in the midst of his enemies under condemnation of his past as well as of his present sins as unworthy a receiver of the Sacrament for the sins of his youth done forty yeares agoe if those sins were never repented though so long discontinued as for his ambition or covetousnesse or indevotion of this present day These are his enemies and then this is the age that growes upon him the age that David complaines of I am waxenold that is growne into habits of these sins There is an old age of our naturall condition We shall waxe old as doth a garment Psal 102.26 David would not complaine of that which all men desire To wish to be old and then grudge to be old when we are come to it cannot consist with morall constancy There is an old age expressed in that phrase The old man which the Apostle speaks of which is that naturall corruption and disposition to sin cast upon us by Adam Rom. 6.6 But that old man was crucified in Christ sayes the Apostle and was not so onely from that time when Christ was actually crucified one thousand six hundred yeares agoe but from that time that a second Adam was promised to the first in Paradise And so that Lambe slaine from the beginning of the world from the beginning delivered all them to whom the means ordained by God as Circumcision to them Baptisme to us were afforded and in that respect David was not under that old age but was become a new creature Nor as the Law was called the old Law which is another age also for to them who understood that Law aright the New Law the Gospel was enwrapped in the Old And so David as well as we might be said to serve God in the newnesse of spirit and not in the oldnesse of the Letter Rom. 7.6 so that this was not the age that opprest him The Age that oppresses the sinner is that when he is growne old in sin he is growne weak in strength and become lesse able to overcome that sin then then he was at beginning Blindnesse contracted by Age doth not deliver him from objects of tentations He sees them though he be blind Deafnesse doth not deliver him from discourses of tentation he heares them though he be deafe Nor lamenesse doth not deliver him from pursuit of tentation for in his owne memory he sees and heares and pursues all his former sinfull pleasures and every night every houre sins over all the sins of many yeares that are passed That which waxeth old is ready to vanish sayes the Apostle Heb. 8.13 If we would let them goe they would goe and whether we will or no they leave us for the ability of practise But Thesaurizamus we treasure them up in our memories Rom. 2.5 and we treasure up the wrath of God with them against the day of wrath And whereas one calling of our sins to our memories by way of confession would doe us good and serve our turnes this often calling them in a sinfull delight in the memory of them exceeds the sin it selfe when it was committed because it is more unnaturall now Ezek. 23.19 then it was then and frustrates the pardon of that sin when it was repented To end this branch and this part So humble was this holy Prophet and so apprehensive of his own debility and so far from an imaginary infallibility of falling no more as that after all his agonies and exercises and mortifications and prayer and sighs and weeping still he finds himselfe in the midst of enemies and of his old enemies for not onely tentations to new sins but even the memory of old though formerly repented arise against us arise in us and ruine us And so we passe from these pieces which constitute our first Part Quid factum what David upon the sense of his case did to the other Quid faciendum what by his example we are to doe and what is required of us after we have repented and God hath remitted the sin Out of this passage here in this Psalme and out of that history 2 Part. where Nathan sayes to David The Lord hath put away thy sin and yet sayes after 2. Sam. 12.13 The child that is borne to thee shall surely dye and out of that story where David repents earnestly his sin committed in the numbring of his people and sayes Now now that I have repented 2 Sam. 24.10 Now I beseech thee O Lord take away the iniquity of thy servant for I have done very foolishly yet David was to indure one of those three Calamities of Famine Warre or Pestilence And out of some other such places as these some men have imagined a Doctrine that after our repentance and after God hath thereupon pardoned our sin yet he leaves the punishment belonging to that sin unpardoned though not all the punishment not the eternall yet say they there belongs a temporary punishment too and that God does not pardon but exacts and exacts in the nature of a punishment and more by way of satisfaction to his Justice Now Stipendium peccati mors est There is the punishment for sin The reward of sin is death If there remaine no death there remaines no punishment For the reward of sin is death And death complicated in it selfe death wrapped in death and what is so intricate so intangling as death Who ever got out of a winding sheet It is death aggravated by it selfe death waighed downe by death And what is so heavy as death Who ever threw off his grave stone It is death multiplied by it selfe And what is so infinite as death Who ever told over the dayes of death It is Morte morieris A Double death Eternall and Temporary Temporall and Spirituall death Now the Temporary the Naturall death God never takes away from us he never pardons that punishment because he never takes away that sin that occasioned it which is Originall sin To what Sanctification soever a man comes Originall sin lives to his last breath And therefore Heb 9.27 Statutum est That Decree stands
God against sin and sinners Vt erubescatis that we might see blood in your faces the blood of your Saviour working in that shame for sin That that question of the Prophet might not confound you Were they ashamed when they committed abomination nay they were not ashamed Ier. 6.15 Erubescere nesciebāt they were never used to shame they knew not how to be ashamed Therefore sayes he they shall fall amongst them that fall they shall do as the world does sin as their neighbours sin and fall as they fall irrepentantly here and hereafter irrecoverably And then Vt conturbati sitis that you may be troubled in your hearts and not cry Peace Peace where there is no peace and flatter your selves because you are in a true Religion and in the right way for a Child may drowne in a Font and a Man may be poysoned in the Sacrament much more perish though in a true Church And also Vt revertamini that you may returne againe to the Lord returne to that state of purenesse which God gave you in Baptisme to that state which God gave you the last time you received his body and blood so as became you And then lastly Vt erubescatis velociter that you may come to the beginning of this and to all this quickly and not to defer it because God defers the judgement For to end this with S. Augustines words upon this word Velociter Quandocunque venit celerrimè venit quod desperatur esse venturum How late soever it come that comes quickly if it come at all which we beleeved would never come How long soever it be before that judgement come yet it comes quickly if it come before thou looke for it or be ready for it Whosoever labours to sleepe out the thought of that day His damnation sleepeth not sayes the Apostle It is not onely that his damnation is not dead that there shall never be any such day but that it is no day asleepe every midnight shall be a day of judgement to him and keepe him awake and when consternation and lassitude lend him or conterfait to him a sleep as S. Basil sayes of the righteous Etiam somnia justorum preces sunt That even their Dreames are prayers so this incorrigible sinners Dreames shall be not onely presages of his future but acts of his present condemnation SERM. LVI Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 32.1 2. Blessed is he whose trangression is forgiven whose sinne is covered Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquitie and in whose spirit there is no guile THis that I have read to you can scarce be called all the Text I proposed for the Text the first and second verses and there belongs more to the first then I have delivered in it for in all those Translators and Expositors who apply themselves exactly to the Originall to the Hebrew the Title of the Psalme is part of the first verse of the Psalme S. Augustine gives somewhat a strange reason why the Booke of Enoch cited by S. Iude in his Epistle and some other such ancient Books as that were never received into the body of Canonicall Scriptures Vt in Authoritate apud nos non essent nimia fecit eorum Antiquitas The Church suspected them because they were too Ancient sayes S. Augustine But that reason alone is so far from being enough to exclude any thing from being part of the Scriptures as that we make it justly an argument for the receiving the Titles of the Psalmes into the Body of Canonicall Scriptures that they are as ancient as the Psalmes themselves So then the Title of this Psalme enters into our Text as a part of the first verse And the Title is Davidis Erudiens where we need not insert as our Translators in all languages and Editions have conceived a necessity to do any word for the cleering of the Text more then is in the Text it selfe And therefore Tremellius hath inserted that word An Ode of David we A Psalme of David others others for the words themselves yeeld a perfect sense in themselves Le David Maschil is Davidis Erudiens that is Davidis Eruditio Davids Institution Davids Catechisme And so our Text which is the first and second verse taking in all the first verse in all accounts is now Davids Catechisme Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven c. In these words Divisio our parts shall be these first That so great a Master as David proceeded by way of Catechisme of instruction in fundamentall things and Doctrines of edification Secondly That the foundation of this Building the first lesson in this Art the first letter in this Alphabet is Blessednesse for Primus actus voluntatis est Amor Man is not man till he have produced some acts of the faculties of that soule that makes him man till he understand something and will something Till he know and till he would have something he is no man Now The first Act of the will is love and no man can love any thing but in the likenesse and in the notion of Happinesse of Blessednesse or of some degree thereof and therefore David proposes that for the foundation of his Catechisme Blessednesse The Catechisme of David Blessed is the Man But then in a third Consideration we lay hold upon S. Augustins Aphorisme Amare nisi nota non possumus We cannot truly love any thing but that we know And therefore David being to proceede Catechistically and for Instruction proposes this Blessednesse which as it is in Heaven and reserved for our possession there is in-intelligible as Tertullian speaks unconceivable he purposes it in such notions and by such lights as may enable us to see it and know it in this life And those lights are in this Text Three for The forgivenesse of Transgressions And then The Covering of sinnes And lastly The not imputing of Iniquity which three David proposes here are not a threefold repeating of one and the same thing But this Blessednesse consisting in our Reconciliation to God for we were created in a state of friendship with God our rebellion put us into a state of hostility and now we need a Reconciliation because we are not able to maintaine a war against God no nor against any other enemy of man without God this Blessednesse David doth not deliver us all at once in three expressings of the same thing but he gives us one light thereof in the knowledge that there is a Forgiving of Transgressions another in the Covering of sinnes and a third in the not Imputing of Iniquity But then that which will constitute a fourth Consideration when God hath presented himselfe and offered his peace in all these there is also something to be done on our part for though the Forgiving of Transgression The Covering of sinne The not Imputing of Iniquity proceed onely from God yet God affords these to none but him In whose spirit there is no guile And
Summum bonum this Happinesse this Blessednesse was For they considered only some particular fruits thereof and it is much easier how high soever a tree be to come to a taste of some of the fruits then to digge to the root of that tree They satisfied themselves with a little taste of Health and Pleasure and Riches and Honour and never considered that all these must have their root in heaven and must have a relation to Christ Jesus who is the root of all And as these Philosophers could never tell us what this blessednesse was so Divines themselves and those who are best exercised in the language of the Holy Ghost the Originall tongue of this Text cannot give us a cleare Grammaticall understanding of this first word in which David expresses this Blessednesse Ashrei which is here Translated Blessed They cannot tell whether it be an Adverb And then it is Bene viro Well is it for that man A pathetique a vehement acclamation Happily Blessedly is that man provided for Or whether it be a Plurall Noune and then it is Beatitudines such a Blessednesse as includes many all blessednesses in it And one of these two it must necessarily be in the Rules of their Construction That either David enters with an Admiration O how happily is that man provided for Or with a Protestation That there is no particular Blessednesse which that man wants that hath this This Reconciliation to God Eusebius observes out of Plato that he enjoyned the Poets and the Writers in his State to describe no man to be happy but the good men none to be miserable but the wicked And his Scholar Aristotle enters into his Book of Ethiques and Morall Doctrine with that Contemplation first of all That every man hath naturally a disposition to affect and desire happinesse David who is elder then they begins his Book of Psalmes so The first word of the first Psalme is the first word of this Text Blessed is the man He comprehends all that belongs to mans knowledge and all that belongs to mans practise in those two first in understanding true Blessednesse and then in praising God for it Davids Alpha is Beatus vir O the Blessednesse of righteous men And Davids Omega is Laudate Dominum O that men would therefore blesse the Lord And therefore as he begins this Book with Gods blessing of man so he ends it with mans praising of God For where the last stroak upon this Psaltery the last verse of the last Psalme is Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord Yet he addes one note more to us in particular Praise ye the Lord and there is the end of all And so also our Saviour Christ himselfe in his owne preaching observed that Method Mat. 5.3 He begun his great Sermon in the Mount with that Blessed are the poore inspirit Blessed are they that mourne Blessed are the pure in heart Blessednesse alone was an abundant recompence for all And so the subject of Iohn Baptists Commission before and of his Disciples Commission after Mat. 3.2 was still the same to preach this Blessednesse That the Kingdome of God that is Mat. 10.7 Reconciliation to God in his Visible Church was at hand was forthwith to be established amongst them Though then the Consummation of this Blessednesse be that Visio Dei That sight of God which in our glorified state we shall have in heaven yet because there is an inchoation thereof in this world which is that which we call Reconciliation it behooves us to consider the disposition requisite for that It is a lamentable perversenesse in us that we are so contentiously busie in inquiring into the Nature and Essence and Attributes of God things which are reserved to our end when we shall know at once and without study all that of which all our lives study can teach us nothing And that here where we are upon the way we are so negligent and lazy in inquiring of things which belong to the way Those things we learne in no Schoole so well as in adversity As the body of man and consequently health is best understood and best advanced by Dissections and Anatomies when the hand and knife of the Surgeon hath passed upon every part of the body and laid it open so when the hand and sword of God hath pierced our soul we are brought to a better knowledge of our selves then any degree of prosperity would have raised us to All creatures were brought to Adam and because he understood the natures of all those creatures he gave them names accordingly In that he gave no name to himselfe it may be by some perhaps argued that he understood himselfe lesse then he did other creatures If Adam be our example in the time and Schoole of nature how hard a thing the knowledge of our selves is till we feele the direction of adversity David is also another example in the time of the Law who first said in his prosperity Psal 30.6 He should never bee moved But When sayes he Thou hidest thy face from me I was troubled and then I cryed unto thee O Lord and I prayed unto my God Then but not till then The same Art the same Grammar lasts still and Peter is an example of the same Rule in the time of grace who was at first so confident as to come to that Si omnes scandalizati if all forsook him Si mori oportuit If he must die with him or dye for him he was ready and yet without any terror from an armed Magistrate without any surprizall of a subtile Examiner upon the question of a poore Maid he denied his Master But then the bitternesse of his soule taught him another temper and moderation when Christ asked him after Amas me Lovest thou me not to pronounce upon an infallible confidence I have loved and I doe and I will doe till death but Domine tu scis Lord thou knowest that I love thee My love to thee is but the effect of thy love to me and therefore Lord continue thine that mine may continue No study is so necessary as to know our selves no Schoole-master is so diligent so vigilant so assiduous as Adversity And the end of knowing our selves is to know how we are disposed for that which is our end that is this Blessednesse which though it be well collected and summed by S. Augustine Beatus qui habet quicquid vult nihil mali vult He onely is blessed that desires nothing but that which is good for him and hath all that we must pursue in those particulars which here in Davids Catechisme constitute this Blessednesse and constitute our third Part and are delivered in three Branches first The forgiving of our transgressions And then The covering of our sinnes And thirdly The not imputing of our iniquities First then that in this third Part we may see in the first Branch 3 Part. Transgression the first notification of this Blessednesse we
consider the two termes in which it is expressed what this is which is translated Transgression and then what this Forgiving imports The Originall word is Pashang and that signifies sin in all extensions The highest the deepest the waightiest sin It is a malicious and a forcible opposition to God It is when this Herod and this Pilat this Body and this soule of ours are made friends and agreed that they may concurre to the Crucifying of Christ When not onely the members of our bodies but the faculties of our soul our will and understanding are bent upon sin when we doe not only sin strongly and hungerly and thirstily which appertain to the body but we sin rationally we finde reasons and those reasons even in Gods long patience why we should sin We sin wittily we invent new sins and we thinke it an ignorant a dull and an unsociable thing not to sin yea we sin wisely and make our sin our way to preferment Then is this word used by the Holy Ghost when he expresses both the vehemence and the waight and the largenesse and the continuance all extensions all dimensions of the sins of Damascus Amos 1.3 Thus saith the Lord for three transgressions of Damascus and for foure I will not turne to it because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of Iron So then we consider sin here not as a staine such as Originall sin may be nor as a wound such as every actuall sin may be but as a burden a complication a packing up of many sins in an habituall practise thereof This is that waight that sunke the whole world under water in the first floud and shall presse downe the fire it selfe to consume it a second time It is a waight that stupifies and benums him that beares it August so as that the sinner feeles not the oppression of his owne sins Et quid miserius miscro non miserante seipsum What misery can be greater then when a miserable man hath not sense to commiserate his owne misery Our first errors are out of Levity and S. Augustin hath taught us a proper ballast and waight for that Amor Dei pondus animae The love of God would carry us evenly and steadily if we would embarke that But as in great tradings they come to ballast with Merchandise ballast and fraight is al one so in this habituall sinner all is sin plots and preparations before the act gladnesse and glory in the act sometimes disguises sometimes justifications after the act make up one body one fraight of sin So then Transgression in this place in the naturall signification of the word is a waight a burden and carrying it as the word requires to the greatest extension it is the sin of the whole World And that sinne is forgiven which is the second Terme The Prophet does not say here Forgiven Blessed is that man that hath no transgression for that were to say Blessed is that man that is no man All people all Nations did ever in Nature acknowledge not onely a guiltinesse of sin but some meanes of reconciliation to their Gods in the Remission of sins for they had all some formall and Ceremoniall Sacrifices and Expiations and Lustrations by which they thought their sins to be purged and washed away Whosoever acknowledges a God acknowledges a Remission of sins and whosoever acknowledges a Remission of sins acknowledges a God And therefore in this first place David does not mention God at all he does not say Blessed is he whose transgression the Lord hath forgiven for he presumes it to be an impossible tentation to take hold of any man that there can be any Remission of sin from any other person or by any other meanes then from and by God himselfe and therefore Remission of sins includes an Act of God But what kinde of Act is more particularly designed in the Originall word which is Nasa then our word forgiving reaches to for the word does not onely signifie Auferre but ferre not onely to take away sin by way of pardon but to take the sin upon himselfe and so to beare the sin and the punishment of the sin in his owne person And so Christ is the Lambe of God Qui tollit not onely that takes away Esay 53.4 but that takes upon himselfe the sins of the world Tulit portavit Surely he hath borne our griefes and carried our sorrowes Those griefes those sorrowes which we should he hath borne and carried in his owne person So that as it is all one never to have come in debt and to have discharged the debt So the whole world all mankinde considered in Christ is as innocent as if Adam had never sinned And so this is the first beame of Blessednesse that shines upon my soule That I beleeve that the justice of God is fully satisfied in the death of Christ and that there is enough given and accepted in the treasure of his blood for the Remission of all Transgressions And then the second beame of this Blessednesse is in The covering of sins Now to benefit our selves by this part of Davids Catechisme Sinne. we must as we did before consider the two termes of which this part of this Blessednesse consists sin and covering Sin in this place is not so heavy a word as Transgression was in the former for that was sin in all extensions sinne in all formes all sin of all men of all times of all places the sin of all the world upon the shoulders of the Saviour of the world In this place the word is Catah and by the derivation thereof from Nata which is to Decline to step aside or to be withdrawne and Kut which is filum a thread or a line that which we call sin here signifies Transilire lineam To depart or by any tentation to be withdrawne from the direct duties and the exact straightnesse which is required of us in this world for the attaining of the next So that the word imports sins of infirmity such sins as doe fall upon Gods best servants such sins as rather induce a cofession of our weaknesse and an acknowledgement of our continuall need of pardon for some thing passed and strength against future invasions then that induce any devastation or obduration of the conscience which Transgression in the former branch implied For so this word Catah hath that signification as in many other places there where it is said Iudg â—â— 16 That there were seven hundred left-handed Benjamits which would sling stones at a haires breadth and not faile that is not misse the marke a haires breadth And therefore when this word Catah sin is used in Scripture to expresse any weighty hainous enormous sin it hath an addition Peccatum magnum peccaverunt sayes Moses Exod. 32.31 when the people were become Idolaters These people have sinned a great sin otherwise it signifies such sin as destroyes not the foundation such as in the nature
thereof does not wholly extinguish Grace nor grieve the Spirit of God in us And such sinnes God covers saies David here Now what is his way of covering these sins As Sin in this notion is not so deepe a wound upon God as Transgression in the other Covering so Covering here extends not so far as Forgiving did there There forgiving was a taking away of sin by taking that way That Christ should beare all our sins it was a suffering a dying it was a penall part and a part of Gods justice executed upon his one and onely Son here it is a part of Gods mercy in spreading and applying the merits and satisfaction of Christ upon all them whom God by the Holy Ghost hath gathered in the profession of Christ and so called to the apprehending and embracing of this mantle this garment this covering the righteousnesse of Christ in the Christian Christ In which Church and by his visible Ordinances therein the Word and Sacraments God covers hides conceales even from the inquisition of his owne justice those smaller sins which his servants commit and does not turne them out of his service for those sins So the word the word is Casah which we translate Covering is used Prov. 12.23 A wise man concealeth knowledge that is Does not pretend to know so much as indeed he does So our mercifull God when he sees us under this mantle this covering Christ spread upon his Church conceales his knowledge of our sins and suffers them not to reflect upon our consciences in a consternation thereof So then as the Forgiving was Auferre ferendo a taking away of sin by taking all sin upon his owne person So this Covering is Tegere attingendo To cover sin by comming to it by applying himselfe to our sinfull consciences in the meanes instituted by him in his Church for they have in that language another word Sacac which signifies Tegere obumbrando To cover by overshadowing by refreshing This is Tegere obumbrando To cover by shadowing when I defend mine eye from the offence of the Sun by interposing my hand betweene the Sun and mine eye at this distance a far off But Tegere attingendo is when thus I lay my hand upon mine eye and cover it close by that touching In the knowledge that Christ hath taken all the sins of all the world upon himselfe that there is enough done for the salvation of all mankinde I have a shadowing a refreshing But because I can have no testimony that this generall redemption belongs to me who am still a sinner except there passe some act betweene God and me some seale some investiture some acquittance of my debts my sins therefore this second beame of Davids Blessednesse in this his Catechisme shines upon me in this That God hath not onely sowed and planted herbs and Simples in the world medicinall for all diseases of the world but God hath gathered and prepared those Simples and presented them so prepared to me for my recovery from my disease God hath not onely received a full satisfaction for all sinne in Christ but Christ in his Ordinances in his Church offers me an application of all that for my selfe and covers my sin from the eye of his Father not onely obumbrando as hee hath spread himselfe as a Cloud refreshing the whole World in the value of the satisfaction but Attingendo by comming to me by spreading himself upon me as the Prophet did upon the dead Child Mouth to mouth Hand to hand In the mouth of his Minister he speaks to me In the hand of the Minister he delivers himselfe to me and so by these visible acts and seales of my Reconciliation Tegit attingendo He covers me by touching me He touches my conscience with a sense and remorse of my sins in his Word and he touches my soule with a faith of having received him and all the benefit of his Death in the Sacrament And so he covers sin that is keepes our sins of infirmity and all such sins as do not in their nature quench the light of his grace from comming into his Fathers presence or calling for vengeance there Forgiving of transgressions is the generall satisfaction for all the world and restoring the world to a possibility of salvation in the Death of Christ Covering of sin is the benefit of discharging and easing the conscience by those blessed helps which God hath afforded to those whom he hath gathered in the bosome and quickned in the wombe of the Christian Church And this is the second beame of Blessedness cast out by David here and then the third is The not imputing of iniquity Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity In this also Impute as in the two former we did we consider this Imputing and then this Iniquity in the roote and Original signification of the two words When in this place the Lord is said not to impute sinne it is meant That the Lord shall not suffer me to impute sinne to my selfe The word is Cashab and Cashab imports such a thinking such a surmising as may be subject to error and mistaking To that purpose we finde the word where Hannah was praying 1 Sam. 1.12 and Eli the Priest who saw her lips move and heard no prayer come from her thought she had been drunke Imputed drunkennesse unto her and said How long wilt thou be drunke put away thy wine So that this Imputing is such an Imputing of ours as may be erronious that is an Imputing from our selves in a diffidence and jealousie and suspition of Gods goodnesse towards us To which purpose we consider also that this word which we translate here Iniquity Gnavah is oftentimes in the Scripture used for punishment as well as for sinne and so indifferently for both as that if we will compare Translation with Translation and Exposition with Exposition it will be hard for us to say Gen. 4.13 whether Cain said Mine iniquity is greater then can be pardoned or My punishment is greater then I can beare and our last Translation which seems to have been most carefull of the Originall takes it rather so My punishment in the Text and lays the other My sinne aside in the Margin So then this Imputing being an Imputing which arises from our selves and so may be accompanied with error and mistaking that we Impute that to our selves which God doth not impute And this mis-imputing of Gods anger to our selves arising out of his punishments and his corrections inflicted upon us That because we have crosses in the world we cannot beleeve that we stand well in the sight of God or that the forgiving of Transgressions or Covering of sinnes appertains unto us we justly conceive that this not Imputing of Iniquity is that Serenitas Conscientiae That brightnesse that clearnesse that peace and tranquillity that calme and serenity that acquiescence and security of the Conscience in which I am delivered from all scruples and
all timorousnesse that my Transgressions are not forgiven or my sins not covered In the first Act we consider God the Father to have wrought He proposed he decreed he accepted too a sacrifice for all mankind in the death of Christ In the second The Covering of sinnes we consider God the Sonne to worke Incubare Ecclesiae He sits upon his Church as a Hen upon her Eggs He covers all our sinnes whom he hath gathered into that body with spreading himselfe and his merits upon us all there In this third The not Imputing of Iniquity we consider God the Holy Ghost to worke and as the Spirit of Consolation to blow away all scruples all diffidences and to establish an assurance in the Conscience The Lord imputes not that is the Spirit of the Lord The Lord the Spirit The Holy Ghost suffers not me to impute to my selfe those sinnes which I have truly repented The over-tendernesse of a bruised and a faint conscience may impute sinne to it selfe when it is discharged And a seared and obdurate Conscience may impute none when it abounds If the Holy Ghost work he rectifies both and if God doe inflict punishments according to the signification of this word Gnavah after our Repentance and the seals of our Reconciliation yet he suffers us not to impute those sinnes to our selves or to repute those corrections punishments as though he had not forgiven them or as though he came to an execution after a pardon but that they are laid upon us medicinally and by way of prevention and precaution against his future displeasure This is that Pax Conscientiae The peace of Conscience when there is not one sword drawne This is that Serenitas Conscientiae The Meridionall brightnesse of the Conscience when there is not one Cloud in our sky I shall not hope that Originall sin shall not be imputed but feare that Actuall sin may not hope that my dumbe sins shall not but my crying sins may not hope that my apparant sins which have therefore induced in me a particular sense of them shall not but my secret sins sins that I am not able to returne and represent to mine owne memory may for this Non Imputabit hath no limitation God shall suffer the Conscience thus rectified to terrifie it selfe with nothing which is also farther extended in the Originall where it is not Non Imputat but Non Imputabit Though after all this we doe fall into the same or other sins yet we shall know our way and evermore have our Consolation in this That as God hath forgiven our transgression in taking the sins of all mankinde upon himselfe for he hath redeemed us and left out Angels And as he hath covered our sin that is provided us the Word and Sacraments and cast off the Jews and left out the Heathen So he will never Impute mine Iniquity never suffer it to terrifie my Conscience Not now when his Judgements denounced by his Minister call me to him here Nor hereafter when the last bell shall call me to him into the grave Nor at last when the Angels Trumpets shall call me to him from the dust in the Resurrection But that as all mankinde hath a Blessednesse in Christs taking our sins which was the first Article in this Catechisme And all the Christian Church a Blessednesse in covering our sins which was the second So I may finde this Blessednesse in this worke of the Holy Ghost not to Impute that is not to suspect that God imputes any repented sin unto me or reserves any thing to lay to my charge at the last day which I have prayed may be and therefore hoped hath been forgiven before But then after these three parts which we have now in our Order proposed at first passed through That David applies himselfe to us in the most convenient way by the way of Catechisme and instruction in fundamentall things And then that he lays for his foundation of all Beatitude Blessednesse Happinesse which cannot be had in the consummation and perfection thereof but in the next world But yet in the third place gives us an inchoation an earnest an evidence of this future and consummate Blessednesse in bringing us faithfully to beleeve That Christ dyed sufficiently for all the world That Christ offers the application of all this to all the Christian Church That the Holy Ghost seals an assurance thereof to every particular Conscience well rectified After all this done thus largely on Gods part there remains something to be done on ours that may make all this effectuall upon us Vt non sit dolus in spiritu That there be no guile in our spirit which is our fourth part and Conclusion of all Of all these fruits of this Blessednesse there is no other root but the goodnesse of God himselfe but yet they grow in no other ground then in that man 4. Part. Dolus In cujus spiritu non est dolus The Comment and interpretation of S. Paul Rom. 4.5 hath made the sense and meaning of this place cleare To him that worketh the reward is of debt but to him that beleeveth and worketh not his faith is counted for righteousnesse Even as David describeth the blessednesse of Man sayes the Apostle there and so proceeds with the very words of this Text. Doth the Apostle then in this Text exclude the Co-operation of Man Differs this proposition That the man in whom God imprints these beames of Blessednesse must be without guile in his spirit from those other propositions Si vis ingredi Mat. 19.17 If thou wilt enter into life keepe the Commandements And Maledictus qui non Cursed is he that performes not all Grows not the Blessednesse of this Text from the same roote as the Blessednesse in the 119. Psal ver 1. Blessed are they who walke in the way of the Lord Or doth Saint Paul take David to speake of any other Blessednesse in our Text then himselfe speaks of If through the Spirit yee mortifie the deeds of the body yee shall live Rom. 8.13 Doth S. Paul require nothing nothing out of this Text to be done by man Surely he does And these propositions are truly all one Tantùm credideris Onely beleeve and you shall be saved And Fac hoc vives Doe this and you shall be saved As it is truly all one purpose to say If you live you may walke and to say If you stretch out your legges you may walke To say Eat of this Tree and you shall recover and to say Eat of this fruit and you shall recover is all one To attribute an action to the next Cause or to the Cause of that Cause is to this purpose all one And therefore as God gave a Reformation to his Church in prospering that Doctrine That Justification was by faith onely so God give an unity to his Church in this Doctrine That no man is justified that works not for without works how much soever he magnifie his faith
there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in his spirit As then the Prophet Davids principall purpose in this Text is according to the Interpretation of S. Paul to derive all the Blessednesse of man from God so is it also to put some conditions in man comprehended in this That there be no guile in his spirit For in this repentant sinner that shall be partaker of these degrees of Blessednesse of this Forgiving of this Covering of this Not Imputing there is required Integrapoenitentia A perfect and intire repentance And to the making up of that howsoever the words and termes may have been mis-used and defamed we acknowledge that there belongs a Contrition a Confession and a Satisfaction And all these howsoever our Adversaries slander us with a Doctrine of ease and a Religion of liberty we require with more exactnesse and severity then they doe For for Contrition we doe not we dare not say as some of them That Attrition is sufficient that it is sufficient to have such a sorrow for sin as a naturall sense and fear of torment doth imprint in us without any motion of the feare of God We know no measure of sorrow great enough for the violating of the infinite Majesty of God by our transgression And then for Confession we deny not a necessity to confesse to man There may be many cases of scruple of perplexity where it were an exposing our selves to farther occasions of sin not to confesse to man And in Confession we require a particular detestation of that sin which we confesse which they require not And lastly for Satisfaction we imbrace that Rule Condigna satisfactio malè facta corrigere Our best Satisfaction is to be better in the amendment of our lives And dispositions to particular sins we correct in our bodies by Discipline and Mortifications And we teach that no man hath done truly that part of Repentance which he is bound to doe if he have not given Satisfaction that is Restitution to every person damnified by him If that which we teach for this intirenesse of Repentance be practised in Contrition and Confession and Satisfaction they cannot calumniate our Doctrine nor our practise herein And if it be not practised there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in their spirit that pretend to any part of this Blessednesse Forgiving or Covering or Not imputing without this For he that is sorry for sin onely in Contemplation of hell and not of the joyes of heaven that would not give over his sin though there were no hell rather then he would lose heaven which is that which some of them call Attrition He that confesses his sin but hath no purpose to leave it He that does leave the sin but being growne rich by that sin retaines and enjoyes those riches this man is not intire in his Repentanne but there is guile in his spirit He that is slothfull in his work Prov. 18.9 is brother to him that is a great waster He that makes half-repentances makes none Men run out of their estates as well by a negligence and a not taking account of their Officers as by their own prodigality Our salvation is as much indangered if we call not our conscience to an examination as if we repent not those sins which offer themselves to our knowledge and memory And therefore David places the consummation of his victory in that Psal 18.37 I have pursued mine enemies and overtaken them neither did I turne againe till they were consumed We require a pursuing of the enemy a search for the sin and not to stay till an Officer that is a sicknesse or any other calamity light upon that sin and so bring it before us We require an overtaking of the enemy That we be not weary in the search of our consciences And we require a consuming of the enemy not a weakning only a dislodging a dispossessing of the sin and the profit of the sin All the profit and all the pleasure of all the body of sin for he that is sorry with a godly sorrow he that confesses with a deliberate detestation he that satisfies with a full restitution for all his sins but one Dolus in spiritu There is guile in his spirit he is in no better case Berna◠then if at Sea he should stop all leaks but one and perish by that Si vis solvi solve omnes catenas If thou wilt be discharged cancel all thy Bonds one chain till that be broke holds as fast as ten And therfore suffer your consideration to turn back a little upon this object that there may be Dolus in spiritu Guile in the spirit in our pretence to all those parts of Blessednesse which David recommends to us in this Catechisme In the Forgivenesse of transgrestions In the Covering of sin In the Not imputing of iniquity First then Forgiving in this Forgiving of transgressions which is our Saviour Christs taking away the sins of the world by taking them in the punishment due to them upon himselfe there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in that mans spirit that will so farre abridge the great Volumes of the mercy of God so farre contract his generall propositions as to restrain this salvation not only in the effect but in Gods own purpose to a few a very few soules When Subjects complaine of any Prince that he is too mercifull there is Dolus in spiritu Guile and deceit in this complaint They doe but think him too mercifull to other mens faults for where they need his mercy for their own they never think him too mercifull And which of us doe not need God for all sins If we did not in our selves yet it were a new sin in us not to desire that God should be as mercifull to every other sinner as to our selves As in heaven the joy of every soule shall be my joy so the mercy of God to every soule here is a mercy to my soule By the extension of his mercies to others I argue the application of his mercy to my selfe This contracting and abridging of the mercy of God will end in despaire of our selves that that mercy reaches not to us or if we become confident perchance presumptuous of our selves we shall despaire in the behalfe of other men and think they can receive no mercy And when men come to allow an impossibility of salvation in any they will come to assigne that impossibility nay to assigne those men and pronounce for this and this sin This man cannot be saved There is a sin against the Holy Ghost and to make us afraid of all approaches towards that sin Christ hath told us that that sin is irremissible unpardonable But since that sin includes impenitiblenesse in the way and actuall impenitence in the end we can never pronounce This is that sin or This is that sinner God is his Father that can say Our Father which art in heaven And his God that can say I beleeve in God And
sin no lesser covering serves then God in his Church It was the prayer against them Nehem. 4.5 August who hindered the building of the Temple Cover not their iniquity neither let their sin be put out in thy presence Our prayer is Peccata nostra non videat ut nos videat Lord looke not upon our sins that thou maist looke upon us And since amongst our selves 1 Pet. 4.8 Prov. 10.12 it is the effect of Love to cover Multitudinem peccatorum The multitude of sins yea to cover Vniversa delicta Lovè covereth all sins much more shall God who is Love it selfe cover our sins so as he covered the Egyptians in a red Sea in the application of his blood by visible meanes in his Church That therefore thou mayest be capable of this covering Psal 37.6 Commit thy wayes unto the Lord that is show unto him by way of confession what wrong wayes thou hast gone and inquire of him by prayer what wayes thou art to go and as it is in the same Psalme He shall bring forth thy righteousnesse as the light and thy judgement as the noone day And so there shall be no guile found in thy spirit which might hinder this covering of thy sin which is the application of Christs merits in the Ordinances of his Church nor the Not imputing of thine iniquity which is our last consideration and the conclusion of all This not imputing Imputing is that serenity and acquiescence which a rectified conscience enjoyes when the Spirit of God beares witnesse with my spirit that thus reconciled to my God I am now guilty of nothing S. Bernard defines the Conscience thus Inseparabilis gloria vel confusio uniuscujusque pro qualitate depositi It is that inseparable glory or that inseparable confusion which every soule hath according to that which is deposited and laid up in it Now what is deposited and laid up in it Naturally hereditarily patrimonially Con-reatus sayes that Father from our first Parents a fellow-guiltinesse of their sin and they have left us sons and heires of the wrath and indignation of God and that is the treasure they have laid up for us Against this God hath provided Baptisme and Baptisme washes away that sin for as we doe nothing to our selves in Baptisme but are therein meerely passive so neither did we any thing our selves in Originall sin but therein are meerely passive too and so the remedy Baptisme is proportioned to the disease Originall sin But originall sin being thus washed away we make a new stocke we take in a new depositum a new treasure Actuall and habituall sins and therein much being done by our selves against God into the remedy there must enter something to be done by our selves and something by God And therefore we bring water to his wine true teares of repentance to his true blood in the Sacrament and so receive the seales of our reconciliation and having done that we may boldly say unto God Doe not condemne me Iob 10.2 shew me wherefore thou contendest with me When we have said as he doth I have sinned Iob 7.20 what shall I doe to thee And have done that that he hath ordained we may say also as he doth O thou preserver of men why dost thou not pardon my transgression and take away mine iniquity Why doest thou suffer me to faint and pant under this sad apprehension that all is not yet well betweene my soule and thee We are far from encouraging any man to antidate his pardon to presume his pardon to be passed before it is But when it is truly passed the seales of Reconciliation there is Dolus in spiritu Guile and deceit in that spirit nay it is the spirit of falshood and deceit it selfe that will not suffer us to injoy that pardon which God hath sealed to us but still maintaine jealousies and suspition between God and us My heart is not opener to God then the bowels of his mercy are to me And to accuse my selfe of sin after God hath pardoned me were as great a contempt of God as to presume of that pardon before he had granted it and so much a greater as it is directed against his greatest attribute his Mercy Si apud Deum deponas injuriam Tertul. ipse ultor erit Lay all the injuries that thou sufferest at Gods feet and hee will revenge them Si damnum ipse restituet Lay all thy losses there and he will repaire them Si dolorem ipse medicus Lay downe all thy diseases there and he shall heale thee Si mortem ipse resuscitator Dye in his armes and he shall breath a new life into thee Add wee to Tertullian Si peccata ipse sepeliet lay thy sins in his wounds and he shall bury them so deepe that onely they shall never have resurrection The Sun shall set and have a to morrows resurrection Herbs shall have a winter death and a springs resurrection Thy body shall have a long winters night and then a resurrection Onely thy sins buried in the wounds of thy Saviour shall never have resurrection And therefore take heed of that deceit in the spirit of that spirit of deceit that makes thee impute sins to thy selfe when God imputes them not But rejoyce in Gods generall forgiving of Transgressions That Christ hath dyed for all multiply thy joy in the covering of thy sin That Christ hath instituted a Church in which that generall pardon is made thine in particular And exalt thy joy in the not imputing of iniquity in that serenity that tranquillity that God shall receive thee at thy last houre in thy last Bath the sweat of death as lovingly as acceptably as innocently as he received thee from thy first Bath the laver of Regeneration the font in Baptisme Amen SERM. LVII Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 32.3 4. When I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me my moysture is turned into the drought of Summer Selah ALL wayes of teaching are Rule and Example And though ordinarily the Rule be first placed yet the Rule it selfe is made of Examples And when a Rule would be of hard digestion to weake understandinge Example concocts it and makes it easie for Example in matter of Doctrine is as Assimilation in matter of Nourishment The Example makes that that is proposed for our learning and farther instruction like something which we knew before as Assimilation makes that meat which we have received and digested like those parts which are in our bodies before David was the sweet singer of Israel shall we say Gods Precentor His sonne Solomon was the powerfull Preacher of Israel shall we say Gods Chaplain Both of them excellent abundantly super-abundantly excellent in both those wayes of Teaching Poet and Preacher proceed in these wayes in both Rule and Example the body and soule of Instruction So this Psalme is qualified in the Title
thou be tempted with over-valuing thine owne purity finde an Example to answer that Job 14.27 Pro. 20.9 Quis mundum Who can bring a cleane thing out of uncleannesse Or that Who can say I have made my heart cleane I am pure from sinne There is no Example No man ever did it No man can say it If thou be tempted to worship God in an Image be able to answer God something to that To whom will yee liken God or what likenesse will yee compare unto him Esay 40.18 There can be no example no patterne to make God by for that were to make God a Copy and the other by which he were made the Originall If thou have a tentation to withdraw thy selfe from the Discipline of that Church in which God hath given thee thy Baptisme finde an Example to satisfie thy Conscience and Gods people in what age in what place there was any such Church instituted or any such Discipline practised as thou hast fancied to thy selfe Beleeve nothing for which thou hast not a Rule Doe nothing for which thou hast not an Example for there is not a more dangerous distemper in either Beliefe or Practise then singularity for there onely may we justly call for Miracles if men will present to us and binde us to things that were never beleeved never done before David therefore in this Psalme his Psalme of Instruction as himselfe calls it doth both He lays downe the Rule he establishes it by Example and that was our first Consideration and we have done with that Our second is That he goes not far for his Example 2 Part. Exemplum ipse He labors not to shew his reading but his feeling not his learning but his compunction his Conscience is his Library and his Example is himselfe and he does not unclaspe great Volumes but unbutton his owne breast and from thence he takes it Men that give Rules of Civill wisedome and wise Conversation amongst men use to say that a wise man must never speak much of himselfe It will argue say they a narrow understanding that he knows little besides his own actions or els that he overvalues his own actions if he bring them much into Discourse But the wise men that seeke Christ for there were such wise men in the world once Statesmen in the kingdome of heaven they goe upon other grounds and wheresoever they may finde them they seeke such Examples as may conduce most to the glory of God And when they make themselves Examples they doe not rather choose themselves then others but yet they doe not spare nor forbeare themselves more then other men David proposes his owne Example to his owne shame but to Gods glory For David was one of those persons Qui non potuit solus perire Bernar. He could not sin alone his sin authorized sin in others Princes and Prelates are Doctrinall men in this sense and acceptation that the subject makes the Princes life his Doctrine he learns his Catechisme by the eye he does what he sees done and frames to himselfe Rules out of his Superiors Example Therefore for their Doctrine David proposes truly his own Example and without disguising tells that of himselfe which no man else could have told Christ who could doe nothing but well proposes himselfe for an example of humility Iohn 3.15 Titus 2.7 I have given you an example Whom what That you should doe as I have done So S. Paul instructs Titus In all things shew a patterne of good works But whom for Titus might have shewed them many patternes but Shew thy selfe a patterne sayes the Apostle and not onely of assiduous and laborious preaching but of good works 1 Cor. 16.10 And this is that for which he recommends Timothy to the Church Hee works the work of the Lord And not without a patterne nor without that patterne which S. Paul had given him in himselfe He works so as I also doe S. Paul who had proposed Christ to himselfe to follow might propose himselfe to others and wish as he does I would all men were even as my selfe 1 Cor. 7.7 For though that Apostle by denying it in his owne practise 2 Cor. 4.5 seeme to condemne it in all others To preach our selves We preach not our selves but Christ Iesus the Lord yet to preach out of our owne history so farre as to declare to the Congregation to what manifold sins we had formerly abandoned our selves how powerfully the Lord was pleased to reclaime us how vigilantly he hath vouchsafed to preserve us from relapsing to preach our selves thus to call up the Congregation to heare what God hath done for my soule is a blessed preaching of my selfe And therefore Solomon does not speak of himselfe so much nor so much propose and exhibit himselfe to the Church in any Book as in that which he calls the Preacher Ecclesiastes In that Book he hides none of his owne sins none of those practises which he had formerly used to hide his sins He confesses things there which none knew but himselfe nor durst nor should have published them of him the King if they had knowne them So Solomon preaches himself to good purpose and poures out his owne soule in that Book Which is one of the reasons which our Interpreters assigne why Solomon cals himselfe by this name Lorin Proleg C. 5. Ecclesiastes Coheleth which is a word of the Foeminine gender and not Concionator but Concionatrix a Shee-preacher because it is Anima Concionatrix It is his soule that preaches he poures out his owne soule to the Congregation in letting them know how long the Lord let him run on in vanities and vexation of spirit and how powerfully and effectually he reclaimed him at last For from this Book the Preacher the she-Preacher the soule-Preacher Solomon preaching himselfe rather her selfe the Church raises convenient arguments and the best that are raised for the proofe of the salvation of Solomon of which divers doubted And though Solomon in this Book speak divers things not as his owne opinion but in the sense of worldly men yet as we have a note upon Plato's Dialogues that though he doe so too yet whatsoever Plato sayes in the name and person of Socrates that Plato alwayes meanes for his owne opinion so whatsoever Solomon sayes in the name of the Preacher the Preacher sayes this or sayes that that is evermore Solomons own saying When the Preacher preaches himselfe his owne sins and his owne sense of Gods Mercies or Judgements upon him as that is intended most for the glory of God so it should be applied most by the hearer for his own edification for he were a very ill natured man that should think the worse of a Preacher because he confesses himselfe to be worse then he knew him to be before he confessed it Therefore David thought it not enough to have said to his Confessor to Nathan in private Peccavi I have sinned but here before
it was the inchoation of his repentance which began diffidently and with fearefull vociferations Bellarm. And so some of our later men understand it That because David had continued long in his sin when the Ice brake it brake with the greater noyse when he returned to speake to God he spake with the more vehemence And truly the word Shaag Rugiit though it signifie properly the voyce of a Lyon yet David uses this word Roaring not onely of himselfe but of himselfe as he was a type of Christ for this very word is in the beginning of that Psalme which Christ repeated upon the Crosse Psal 22.1 or at least begun it My God my God why hast thou for saken me and why art thou so far from the voyce of my Roaring So that Roaring may admit a good sense and does not alwayes imply a distemper and inordinatenesse for in Christ it could not But does it not in our Text In our former Translation it might stand in a good sense where the two actions are distinguished in time thus When I held my tongue or when I roared whether I kept or broke silence all was one no more ease in one then the other But with the Originall and with our later Translation it cannot be so which is When I held my tongue through my roaring this and this fell upon me They were concomitant actions actions intermixt and at the same time when he was silent he roared too and therefore that that he calls Roaring is not a voyce of Repentance for if hee had beene come to that then hee had broke his former silence for that Silence was a not Confessing a not Repenting This is then that miserable condition which is expressed in Davids case though God delivered David from any deadly effect of it that he had occasion of Roaring of howling as the Scripture speaks often though he kept silence That he was at never the more ease for all his sins The eases that he laid hold on were new sins in themselves and yet they did not ease him of his other sins he kept silence and yet was put to exclamations And how many examples can we present to our selves in our owne memory where persons which have given themselves all liberty to forge writings to suborne witnesses to forsweare themselves to oppresse to murder others to make their wayes easier to their ends and yet have for all this though the hand of Justice have not fallen upon them seene their whole estates consume and moulder away When men out of their ill-grounded plots and perverse wisdome thinke themselves safe in the silence and secrecy of their sins God overtakes them and confounds them with those two fearefull blowes those two Thunderbolts He brings them to Exclamations to Vociferations upon Fortune upon Friends upon Servants upon Rivals and Competitors he brings them to a Roaring for their ruine Never man was thus dealt withall as I am never such a conspiracy as against me And this they do All day sayes David here Through my roaring all day Totadie It was long so with David A day as long as two of their dayes that have dayes of six months almost a yeare was David in this darke dead silence before he saw day or returned to speaking With those that continue their silence all day the roaring continues all day too All their lives they have new occasions of lamentations and yet all this reduces them not but they are benighted they end their life with fearefull voyces of desperation in a Roaring but still in a silence of their sins and transgressions And this is that that falls first under his Confession Roaring with Silence paine and shame and losse but all without Confession or sense of sin And then that which falls next under his acknowledgement is the vehement working the lamentable effect of this Silence and Roaring Inveteration of Bones incineration of his whole substance My Bones are waxen old and my moysture is turned into the drought of Summer Both these phrases in which David expresses his owne Humidum literale and prophecies of other such sinners misery have a literall and a spirituall a naturall and a morall sense For first this affliction of this silenced and impenitent finner though it proceed not from the sense of his sinne though it brought him not yet to a confession but to a roaring that is an impatient repining and murmuring yet it had so wrought upon his body and whole constitution as that it drunke up his naturall and vitall moysture Prov. 17.22 Psal 102.3.63.9 Spiritus tristis exsiccarat as Solomon speaks A broken spirit had dryed him up His dayes were consumed like smoake and his bones were burnt like a hearth and that Marrow and fatnesse in which hee sayes he had such sat is faction at other times was exhausted This is the misery of this impenitent sinner he is beggered but in the Devils service he is lamed but in the Devils wars his moysture his blood is dryed up but with licentiousnesse with his overwatchings either to deceive or to oppresse others for as the proverbe is true Plures gulae quà m gladius The Throate cuts more throates then the sword does and eating starves more men then fasting does because wastfulnesse induces penury at last so if all our Hospitals were well surveyed it would be found that the Devill sends more to Hospitals then God does and the Stewes more then the wars Thus his bodily moysture was wasted literally the sinner is sooner infirmed Humidum morale sooner deformed then another man But there is an Humidum radicale of the soulle too A tendernesse and a disposition to bewayle his sins with remorsefull teares When Peter had denied his Master and heard the Cocke crow he did not stay to make recantations he did not stay to satisfie them to whom he had denied Christ but hee looked into himselfe first Flevit amarè sayes the Holy Ghost He wept bitterly His soule was not withered his moysture was not dryed up like summer as long as he could weepe Horace The learned Poet hath given some character some expression of the desperate and irremediable state of the reprobate when he calls Plutonem illacrymabilem There is the marke of his incorrigiblenesse and so of his irrecoverablenesse That he cannot weepe A sinfull man an obdurate man a stony heart may weepe Marble and the hardest sorts of stones weepe most they have the most moysture the most drops upon them But this comes not out of them not from within them Extrinsecall occasions paine and shame and want may bring a sinner to sorrow enough but it is not a sorrow for his sins All this while the miserable sinner weeps not but the miserable man All this while though he have winter in his eyes his soule is turned into the drought of summer God destroyed the first world and all flesh with water Teares for the want or for the losse of friends
shall seeke his face yea when God shall kill him yet he will trust in God and seeke him And as the Prophet carries it farther Cum ingreditur putredo when Rottennesse enters into their Bones yet they shall rest even in that day of trouble of dissolution of putrefaction God shall call upon them as he did upon Judah Tritura mea filius are ae O my threshing place and the sonne of my floore Esay 21.10 Thou whom I have beaten and bruised with my flayls when I have threshed and winnowed and sifted thee by these afflictions and by this heavy hand still thou shalt fix thy faithfull eyes in heaven and see a roome reserved there for thee amongst those Apoc. 7 14.17 which come out of great tribulations and have made their long robes white in the bloud of the Lambe who shall therefore dwell in the midst of them and governe them and lead them to the lively fountains of waters and wipe away all teares from their eyes Even upon his own Children his hand shall grow heavy but that heavinesse that waight shall awake them and that hand shall guide them to and in the wayes of peace and reconciliation And this both day and night as our Text sayes That is Die ac nocte both in the day of their prosperity and the night of their adversitie Even in prosperity the childe of God shall feele the hand of God grow heavy upon him He shall finde a guiltinesse of not having employed those temporall benefits to their right use He shall finde the Pluit laqueos Psal 11.6 a showre of snares to have been powred downe upon him occasions of sinne occasions of falling into sinnes himselfe occasions of drawing others and of buying those soules with his money which Christ Jesus had a pre-emption of and had bought them before with his bloud He shall finde the hand of God in adversity and love it because it shall deliver him He shall finde his hand in prosperity and be afraid of it because that prosperity hath before and may againe lead him into tentations To end all all this the Holy Ghost by the pen of David Selah seales with the last word of this Text Selah A word of uncertain sense and signification for the Jews themselves do not know exactly and certainly what it signifies but deriving this Selah from Selal which signifies Attollere To lift up they think it to be but a Musicall note for the raising of the voyce at that part of the Psalme where that word is used as indeed the word is never used in the Bible but in the Psalmes and twice in one Chapter in the Prophet Habakkuk which is a Musicall a Metricall Chapter In the Latine Translation Hab. 3.3 9. and in the Arabique Translation of the Psalmes it is cleane left out because they were not sure how to translate it aright But to speak upon the best grounds in the Grammar of that language and upon best Authority too the word signifies a Vehement a Patheticall a Hyperbolicall asseveration and attestation and ratification of something said before Such in a proportion as our Saviours Amen Amen is Verily verily I say unto you Such as S. Pauls fidelis Sermo with which he seales so many truths is This is a faithfull saying Such as that Apostles Coram Domino is with which he ratifies many things Before the Lord I speak it and such as Moses his Vivo ego and Vivit Dominus As I live saith the Lord and As the Lord liveth And therefore though God be in all his words Yea and Amen no word of his can perish in it selfe nor should perish in us that is passe without observation yet in setting this seale of Selah to this Doctrine he hath testified his will that he would have all these things the better understood and the deeplier imprinted That if a man conceale and smother his sins Selah Assuredly God will open that mans mouth and it shall not shew forth his praise but God will bring him Ad rugitum to fearfull exclamations out of the sense of the affliction if not of the sin Selah Assuredly God wil shiver his bones shake his best actions and discover their impurity Selah assuredly God will suffer to be dried up all his moysture all possibility of repentant teares and all interest in the blood of Christ Jesus Selah Assuredly Gods hand shall be heavy upon him and he shall not discerne it to be his hand but shall attribute all to false causes and so place all his comfort in false remedies Hee shall leave out God all day and God shall leave out him all night all his everlasting night in which he shall never see day more Selah Assuredly Verily Amen Fidelis Sermo This is a faithfull an infallible Truth Coram Domino Before the Lotd Vivit Dominus as the Lord liveth as Moses as Christ as S. Paul testifie their David testifies his Doctrine All between God and man is conditionall and where man will not be bound God will not be bound neither If man invest a habit and purpose of sinning God will study a judgement against that man 1. Sam 3.11 and doe that even in Israel which shall make all our eares to tingle and all our hearts to ake Till that man repent God will not and when he does God will repent too For though God be not Man that he can repent yet that God who for Mans sake became Man for our sakes and his owne glory will so farre become Man againe as upon Mans true repentance to repent the Judgements intended against that Man SERM. LVIII Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 32.5 I acknowledged my sin unte thee and mine iniquity have I not hid I said I will confesse my transgressions unto the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin THis is the Sacrament of Confession So we may call it in a safe meaning That is The mystery of Confession for true Confession is a mysterious Art 2. Thess 2.7 Mat. 22.1 As there is a Mystery of iniquity so there is a Mystery of the Kingdome of heaven And the mystery of the Kingdome of heaven is this That no man comes thither but in a sort as he is a notorious sinner One mystery of iniquity is that in this world though I multiply sins yet the Judge cannot punish me if I can hide them from other men though he know them but if I confesse them he can he will he must The mystery of the Kingdome of heaven is That onely the Declaring the Publishing the Notifying and Confessing of my sins possesses me of the Kingdome of heaven There is a case in which the notoriety of my sins does harme when my open sinning or my publishing of my sin by way of glory in that sin casts a scandall upon others and leads them into tentation for so my sin becomes theirs because they sin my sin by example And their sin becomes
mine because I gave the example and we aggravate one anothers sin and both sin both But there is a publication of sin that both alleviates nay annihilates my sin and makes him that hates sin Almighty God love me the better for knowing me to be such a sinner then if I had not told him of it Therefore doe we speak of the mystery of Confession for it is not delivered in one Rule nor practised in one Act. In this Confession of Davids Divisie I acknowledged my sin unto thee c. We shall see more then so for though our two Parts be but the two Acts Davids Act and Gods Act Confession and Absolution yet is there more then one single action to be considered in each of them For first in the first there is a reflected Act that David doth upon himselfe before he come to his Confession to God Something David had done before he came to say I will confesse As he did confesse before God forgave the iniquity of his sin Now that which he did in himselfe and which preceded his Confession to God was the Notum feci I acknowledged my sin which was not his bringing it to the knowledge of God by way of Confession for as you see by the Method of the Holy Ghost in the frame of the Text it preceded his purpose of confessing but it was the taking knowledge of his sin in himselfe It was his first quickning and inanimation that grace gave his soul as the soule gives the child in the Mothers womb And then in Davids act upon himselfe followes the Non operui I have not hid mine iniquity none of mine iniquities from mine owne sight I have displayed to my selfe anatomized mine own conscience left no corner unsearched I am come to a perfect understanding of mine own case Non operui This is Davids act upon himselfe the recalling and recollecting of his sins in his own memory And then finding the number the waight and so the oppression of those sins there he considers where he may discharge himselfe of them And Dixi sayes David which is a word that implies both Deliberation and Resolution and Execution too I thought what was best to doe and I resolved upon this and I did it Dixi Confitebor That I would make a true a full a hearty Confession to God of all those sins for such we see the Elements and the Extent of his Confession to be He will confesse Peccata Transgressions Sins Neither by an over-tendernesse and diffidence and scrupulosity to call things sins that are not so nor by indulgent flattering and sparing of himself to forbear those things which are truly so He will confesse Peccata Sins and Peccata sua His sins First Sua that is A se perpetrata He will acknowledge them to have proceeded and to have been committed by himself he will not impute them to any other cause least of all to God And then Sua non aliena he will confesse sins that are his own sins and not meddle with the sins of other men that appertain not to him This is the subject of his Confession Sins His sins and then Peccata sua Domino His sins unto the Lord both in that consideration That all sins are committed against the Lord and in that also That Confession of all sins is to be made unto the Lord And lastly all this as S. Hierome reads this text and so also did our former Translation Adversum se Against himself that is without any hope of reliefe or reparation in himself He begins to think of his own sinfull state and he proceeds to a particular inquisition upon his conscience There is his preparation Then he considers and thereupon resolves and thereupon proceeds to confesse things that are truly sins And then all them as his own without imputing them to others If they be his own without medling with others And these to the Lord against whom all sin is committed and to whom all Confession is to be directed And all this still against himself without any hope from himself All this is in Davids action preparatorily in himself and then declaratorily towards God and doe but make up our first Part. In the other which is Gods Act towards David the Absolution the Remission the Forgivenesse we shall consider first the fulnesse for it is both of the sin and the punishment of the sin for the word imports both and our two Translations have expressed it between them for that which one Translation calls the Iniquity of the sin the other calls The punishment And then we shall consider the seasonablenesse the speed the acceleration of Gods mercy in the Absolution for in David it is but Actus inchoatus and Actus consummat as in God David did but say I will confesse and God forgave the iniquity and the punishment of his sin Now as this Distribution is Paraphrase enough upon the text so a little larger Paraphrase upon every piece of the Paraphrase will be as much as will fall into this exercise For as you see he branches are many and full of fruit and I can but shake them and leave every one to gather his own portion to apply those notes which may most advance his edification First then in this mystery of Confession 1 Part. Notum seci we consider Davids reflected act his preparatory act preceding his confession to God and transacted in himselfe of which the first motion is the Notum feci I acknowledged in my selfe I came to a feeling in my selfe what my sinfull condition was This is our quickning in our regeneration and second birth and til this come a sinner lies as the Chaos in the beginning of the Creation before the Spirit of God had moved upon the face of the waters Dark and voyd and without forme He lies as we may conceive out of the Authors of Naturall Story the slime and mud of the River Nilus to lie before the Sun-beames strike upon it which after by the heat of those beames produces severall shapes and formes of creatures So till this first beame of grace which we consider here strike upon the soule of a sinner he lies in the mud and slime in the dregs and lees and tartar of his sinne Hee cannot so much as wish that that Sunne would shine upon him he doth not so much as know that there is such a Sunne that hath that influence and impression But if this first beame of Grace enlighten him to himselfe reflect him upon himselfe notum facit as the Text sayes if it acquaint him with himselfe then as the creatures in the Creation then as the new creatures at Nilus his sins begin to take their formes and their specifications and they appeare to him in their particular true shapes and that which hee hath in a generall name called Pleasure or Wantonnesse now cals it selfe in his conscience a direct Adultery a direct Incest and that which he hath called Frugality and
Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 32.6 For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him YOu would not bee weary of reading a long conveiance Divisio in which the land were given to your selves nor of a long Will in which the body of the state were bequeathed to you Be not weary if at any time your patience be exercised some minutes beyond the threescore sometime beyond the houre in these exercises for we exhibit the conveiance in which the land the land of Promise is made yours and the Testament in which even the Testator himselfe is bequeathed to you But Legacies must be demanded and oftentimes sued for and in this text you are directed how to come by it by prayer For this shall every one c. And you are encouraged in the suit by the value of that you are to recover by the effect of prayer Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh to him and these two the way and the end the manner and the matter prayer and the benefit thereof will be our two parts And in the first of these The duty of prayer though wee be elsewhere commanded To pray continually 1 Thess 5.17 yet for all that continuall disposition we have here certaine limitations or rather indeed preparations lest that which we call Prayer should not be so and these are foure For first it is but omnis sanctus every godly man shall pray for the prayer of the wicked turns to sinne And then the object of prayer to whom it must be directed is limited it is but ad te unto thee hee shall pray beyond him wee cannot goe and he that prayes short of him to any on this side of God falls short in his prayer And in a third consideration the subject the matter of his prayer is limited too It is but propter hoc for this shall hee pray that is for that which hath beene formerly expressed not whatsoever our desires or our anguish and vexation and impatience presents or suggests to us And lastly the time is limited too In tempore opportuno In a time when thou mayest be found In these foure we shall determine that first part the duty and in the second the reward the benefit which is deliverance Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh him wee shall see first that the world is diluvium aquarum a deluge of water floods that threaten all But yet though worldly calamities bee of that spreading and diffusive and overflowing nature non approximabit there are places that it cannot come to rocks that it cannot shake hills that it cannot overflow God hath so erected the godly man that hee is a non ultra a banke to this sea It shall not come neere him and this David establishes with that seale of infallibility Surely Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh him And these be the steps by which we shall leade you to the greatest happinesse that is deliverance from all afflictions and that by the noblest meanes and the fairest way that is familiar conversation with God by prayer Into our first part 1 Part. The duty of prayer wee shall make our entry with this consideration That our religious Duties in their precepts are for the most part accompanied with reasons to induce us to the performance thereof Hoc fac vives Doe this sayes God doe it because I command it at least doe it because if thou do it thou shalt live for ever And so Bee not forgetfull to entertaine strangers Heb. 13.2 for thereby some have entertained Angels unawares Here the reason of the precept is example others have prospered that way therefore walke thou in it God illustrates his precepts comments upon his owne Text much by examples First to raise us to the best height God makes himselfe our example Sicut Pater Be holy as your Father in heaven is holy Then because we cannot reach to that he makes men like our selves at least such as we should be our example Sicut Elias Elias was a man subject to like passions as wee are Iam. 5.27 and hee prayed that it might not raine and it rained not and that it might and it did If wee be not able to conforme our selves to the singularity of one particular and transcendent man hee sends as to the whole body of good men his servants Sicut Prophetae Take my brethren the Prophets ver 10. for an example of long patience And because he knowes our inclination to be a declination and that we cast those lookes which hee made upward towards him downward towards the creature he sends us to creatures of an ignobler nature Vade ad formicam Goe to the Ant doe as shee doth be as industrious in thy businesse as she is in hers And then as in inclining us to good so also for avoiding of sinfull courses he leades us by example too Non sicut quidam eorum Bee not idolaters as some of them nor fornicators 1 Cor. 10. nor tempters of Christ nor murmurers as some of them And as that Apostle begins that catalogue there so These are examples to us so hee ends it thus also ver 6. ver 11. These things came unto them for examples God suffers the wicked to proceed in their sin and he powres downe his judgements upon them for their sins not onely for their punishment but therefore that they might be examples to us Now if God raise a glory to himselfe in the destruction of the wicked if he make the wicked in their ruine even Ministers in his Church that is edifiers and instructers of others by their owne ruine if their ruine bee a sensible Catechisme and a visible Sermon for the edifying of others how much more doth it conduce to his glory that the righteousnesse and holy conversation of his Ministers and Prophets should bee a lanterne to the feet of his people This is all that David promises in thankfulnesse for that mercy which he asks of God This is that that hee asks Psal 51.2 Restore me to the joy of thy salvation Et confirma me spiritu principali Establish mee with thy free spirit Spiritu munisico sayes S. Hierom with thy liberall thy bountifull Spirit This is much that David asks and what will David doe for God This I will teach thy wayes unto the wicked and sinners shall be converted unto thee And this is that which S. Paul apprehended to have moved God to use his service in the Church 1 Tim. 1.16 For this cause was I received to mercy that Iesus Christ should first shew unto me all long suffering but that was not all But as it followes there Vnto the example of them which shall in time to come beleeve in him unto eternall life It is an unexpressible comfort
any other then God Christ Jesus was willing to give us a Rule for Prayer but if hee had intended that his Rule should have beene deflected and declined to Saints he would have taught us to say Frater noster qui es in Coelis and not only Pater noster to pray to our Brethren which are there too and not onely to our Father which is in Heaven If any man have tasted at Court what it is to be ever welcome to the King himselfe and what it is to speake to another to speake for him he will blesse that happinesse of having an immediate accesse to God himselfe in his prayers They that come so low downe the streame as wee said before to London Bridge they will go lower and lower to Gravesend too They that come to Saints they will come to the Images and Reliques of Saints too They come to a brackish water betweene salt and fresh and they come at last to be swallowed up in that sea which hath no limit no bottome that is to direct all their devotions to such Saints as have no certainty not onely not in their ability we know not what those Saints can doe but not in their history we know not that such as they pray to are Saints nay we know not whether they ever were at all So that this may be Idolatry in the strictest acceptation of the word Idol Idolum nihil est let that be true which they say and in their sense Our Images are not Idols for an Idol is nothing represents nothing but our Images are the Images of Men that once were upon the earth But that is not throughout true for they worship Images of those who never were Christophers and other symbolicall and emblematicall Saints which never lived here but were and are yet nothing But let them be true Saints how will they make it appeare to us that those Saints can heare us What surety can we have of it Let us rather pray to him who we are sure can heare that is first and then sure he can give that we pray for that is next The prayer here is forgivenesse of sins And can Saints give that The Hosannaes Qui dant and the Allelujahs and the Gloria in Excelsis Glory in heaven peace upon earth good will amongst men these are good and cheerfull Notes in which the Quire of heaven are exercised Cherubims and Seraphims Prophets and Apostles Saints and Angels blesse God and benefit men by these But the Remittuntur peccata Thy sinnes are forgiven thee is too high a note for any creature in earth or heaven to reach to except where it is set by Gods own hand as it is by his Commission to his Minister in his Church and there onely in the absolution given by his Ordinance to every penitent sinner We see that phrase Dimittuntur peccata Thy sinnes are forgiven thee was a suspicious word even in the mouth of Christ himselfe amongst the Scribes that would not beleeve his Divinity when Christ said to him that had the Palsie My sonne be of good cheare thy sinnes are forgiven thee the Scribes cryed out he blasphemed It strikes any man to heare of forgivenesse of sins from any but God It was not a harder thing to say Fiat lux then to say Dimittuntur peccata Not harder to bring light out of darknesse by Creation then to bring a cleane thing out of uncleannesse by Conversion for who can doe that Iob 14. And therefore when the King of Aram sent Naaman to the King of Israel to take order for the curing of his bodily Leprosie the King of Israel rent his Clothes and said Am I a God 2 King 5.7 to kill and to give life The power even of temporall life and death is proper to God for as Witches thinke sometimes that they kill when they doe not and are therefore as culpable as if they did So a tyrannous persecutor so a passionate Judge so a perjured witnesse so a revengefull quarreller thinks he takes away the life of his enemy and is guilty of that murder in the eye of God though the blow be truly from God whose judgements are ever just though not ever declared Let them never say that they aske not these things temporall or spirituall at the hands of those Saints for expresly literally as the words stand and sound they do aske even those very things and if the Church have any other meaning in those prayers the mischiefe is that they never teach the people by Preaching what that their reserved meaning is but leave them to the very letter of the prayer to aske those things which if they could heare yet the Saints could not give And when the prayer is made aright directed to God himselfe yet here in our Text it is limited Propter hoc For this this that was spoken of before every one that is godly shall pray unto thee Now what is this This for that is our third Consideration Si à quo petenda sed non quae petenda petis If thou come to the right Market Propter boc August but buy unwholesome hearbs there If thou come to the Apothecaries shop and aske for nothing but poysons If thou come to God in thy prayer and aske onely temporall blessings which are blessings onely in their use and may be and are ordinarily snares and encumbrances then is this direction of Davids Propter hoc for this shall he pray transgressed For This as appeares in the words immediately before the Text is The forgivenesse of the punishment and of the iniquity of our sinne which is so inexpressible a comfort to that soule that hath wrastled with the indignation of God and is now refreshed and released as whosoever should goe about to describe it should diminish it He hath it not that thinks he can utter it It is a blessed comfort to find my soule in that state as when I last received the Sacrament with a good conscience If I enjoy that peace now that is the peace of a religious and of a wise conscience for there is a wisedome of the conscience not to run into infinite scruples and doubts but Imponere finem litibus to levy a fine in bar of all scruples and diffidences and to rest in the peace and assurednesse of remission of sinnes after due means for the obtaining thereof and therefore if I be as well now as when I received this is a blessed degree of blessednesse But yet there is one cloud in this case Ab occultis my secret sins which even mine own narrowest inquisition extends not to If I consider my selfe to be as well as I was at my Baptisme when I brought no actuall sin and had the hand of Christ to wash away the foulnesse of Originall sin can I pray for a better state then that Even in that there was a cloud too and a cloud that hath thunder and lightning in it that Fomes peccati that fuell and
themselves Be glad Rejoyce and Shout for joy Which joy is first an inward love of the Law of God Glad Psal 119.111 Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever for they are the joy of my heart It is not Dant but Sunt not that they Bring joy but that they Are joy There is no other joy but the delight in the Law of the Lord For all other joy the Wise King said Eccles 2.2 Of laughter thou art mad and of joy what is this that thou dost True joy is the earnest which we have of heaven It is the treasure of the soule and therefore should be laid in a safe place and nothing in this world is safe to place it in And therefore with the Spouse we say Cant. 1.4 We will be glad in thee we will remember thy love more then wine Let others seek their joy in wine in society in conversation in musique for mee Thou hast put gladnesse into my heart more then in the time that their corne and their wine increased Rejoyce therefore in the Lord alwayes Rejoyce Phil. 4.4 and againe I say rejoyce Againe that is Rejoyce in the second manner of expressing it by externall declarations Goe chearfully and joyfully forward in the works of your callings Rejoyce in the blessings of God without murmuring or comparing with others And establish thy joy so in an honest and religious manner of getting that thy joy may descend to thine heire as well as thy land No land is so well fenced no house so well furnished as that which hath this joy this testimony of being well gotten Job 20.4 For This thou knowest of old since man was placed upon earth that the Triumphing of the wicked is short and the joy of the Hypocrite but for a moment And then the last degree is louder then this Iubilate Shout for joy Iubilate Declare thy joy in the eares of other men As the Angels said to the Shepheards Luke 2. I bring you tidings of great joy which shall be unto all people So be thou a chearfull occasion of glorifying God by thy joy Declare his loving kindnesse unto the sons of men Tell them what he hath done for thy soule thy body thy state Say With this staffe came I over Iordane Be content to tell whose Son thou wast and how small thy beginning Smother not Gods blessings by making thy selfe poore when he who is truly poore begges of thee for that Gods sake who gave thee all that thou hast Hold up a holy chearfulnesse in thy heart Goe on in a chearfull conversation and let the world see that all this growes out of a peace betwixt God and thee testified in the blessings of this world and then thou art that Person and then thou hast that Portion which growes out of this root in this Text Mercy shall compasse him about that trusteth in the Lord. SERM. LXIV Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 51.7 Purge me with Hyssope and I shall be cleane wash me and I shall bewhiter then snow IN the Records of the growth and propagation of the Christian Church The Ecclesiasticall Story we have a relation of one Pambo an unlearned but devout and humble Ermit who being informed of another man more learned then himselfe that professed the understanding and teaching of the Book of Psalmes sought him out and applied himselfe to him to be his Disciple And taking his first lesson casually at the first verse of the thirty ninth Psalme I will take heed to my wayes that I sin not with my tongue He went away with that lesson with a promise to returne againe when he was perfect in that And when he discontinued so long that his Master sometimes occasionally lighting upon him accused him of this slacknesse for almost twenty yeares together he made severall excuses but at last professed that at the end of those twenty yeares he was not yet perfect in his first lesson in that one verse I will take heed to my wayes that I sinne not with my tongue Now that which made this lesson hard unto him was that it employed all his diligence and his watchfulnesse upon future things to examine and debate all his actions and all his words for else he did not take heed to his wayes at least not so as that hee would not sin with his tongue But if he had begun with this lesson with this Psalme which is but a calling to our memory that which is past The sinfull employment of that time which is gone and shall not returne The sinfull heats of our youth which since we wanted remorsefull teares to quench them even the sin it selfe and the excesse thereof hath overcome and allayed in us sinfull omissions sinfull actions and habits and all those transitory passages in which the Apostle shewes us our prodigality our unthriftinesse our ill bargaine when he askes us that question of Confusion Rom. 6.21 What fruit had you then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed If he had begun his first lesson at this with the presenting of all his passed sins in the sight of the Father and in the Mediation and merit of the Sonne he would have been sonner perfect in that lesson and would have found himselfe even by laying open his disease so purged with Hyssop as that he should have been cleane and so washed as that he should have been whiter then snow For Repentance of sins past is nothing but an Audit a casting up of our accounts a consideration a survey how it stands between God and our soule And yet as many men run out of plentifull estates onely because they are loath to see a list of their debts to take knowledge how much they are behind hand or to contract their expenses so we run out of a whole and rich inheritance the Kingdome of heaven we profuse and poure out even our own soule rather then we will cast our eye upon that which is past rather then we will present a list of our spirituall debts to God or discover our disease to that Physician who onely can Purge us with hyssope that we may be cleane and wash us that wee may be whiter then snow In the words we shall consider the Person Divisio and the Action who petitions and what he asks Both are twofold for the persons are two the Physitian and the Patient God and David Doe thou purge me doe thou wash me and the Action is twofold Purgabis doe thou purge me and Lavabis doe thou wash me In which last part and in the first branch thereof wee shall see first the Action it selfe Purgabis Thou shalt purge mee and what that imports And then the meanes Purgabis hyssopo Thou shalt purge me with hyssope what that implies and then the effect Mundaber I shall bee made cleane and what that comprehends And in the other branch of that second part Lavabis Thou shalt wash me wee shall also looke
to call it Peace in the Church and peace in the State when Gods enemies though they be not rooted out though they be not disposed to a hearty Allegeance and just Obedience yet they must be subject they must submit themselves whether they wil or no and though they wil wish no good yet they shall be able to doe no harme For the Holy Ghost declares this to be an exercise of power of Gods power of the greatnesse of Gods power that his enemies submit themselves though with a fained obedience SERMONS Preached at COURT AND ELSE-VVHERE VPON Severall Occasions SERM. LXX Preached at VVhite-hall April 8. 1621. PROV 25.16 Hast thou found honey eat so much as is sufficient for thee lest thou be filled therewith and vomit it THere is a temporall unsatiablenesse of riches and there is a spirituall unsatiablenesse of sin The first Covetousnesse that of riches the Apostle cals The roote of all evill but the second Covetousnesse that of sin is the fruit of all evill for that is The treasure of Gods wrath as the Apostle speaks when he makes our former sins the mother of future sins and then our future sins the punishments of former As though this World were too little to satisfie man men are come to discover or imagine new worlds severall worlds in every Planet and as though our Fathers heretofore and we our selves too had beene but dull and ignorant sinners we thinke it belongs to us to perfect old inventions and to sin in another height and excellency then former times did as though sin had had but a minority and an infancy till now Though the pride of the Prince of Tyrus were ever in some Tyrans who sayes there I am a god and sit in the seat of God in the midst of the Seas Ezek. 28.2 and am wiser then Daniel Yet there is a Sea above these seas a power above this power a spirituall pride above this temporall pride one so much wiser then Daniel as that he is as wise as the Holy Ghost The world hath ever had levities and inconstancies Ecclus. 27.11 and the foole hath changed as the Moone the same men that have cryed Hosanna are ready to cry Crucifige but as in Iobs Wife in the same mouth the same word was ambiguous whether it were blesse God or curse God out of the word we cannot tell so are the actions of men so ambiguous as that we cannot conclude upon them men come to our Prayers here and pray in their hearts here in this place that God would induce another manner of Prayer into this place and so pray in the Congregation that God would not heare the prayers of the Congregation There hath alwaies beene ambiguity and equivocation in words but now in actions and almost every action will admit a diverse sense And it was the Prophets complaint of old You have multiplied your fornications Ezek. 16. and yet are not satisfied but we wonder why the Prophet should wonder at that for the more we multiplie temporally or spiritually the lesse we are satisfied Others have thought that our soules sinned before they came into the world and that therefore they are here as in a prison but they are rather here as in a Schoole for if they had studied sin in another world before they practise it here If they have practised it before they teach it now they lead and induce others into sin But this consideration of our insatiablenesse in sin in my purpose I seposed for the end of this houre But who knowes whether your patience that you will heare or who knowes whether yours or my life that you can heare shall last to the end of this houre and therefore it is an excusable anticipation to have begun with this spirituall covetousnesse of sin though our first paiment be to be made in the literall sense of the text A reprehension and in it a Counsaile against our generall insatiablenesse of the temporall things of this world Hast thou found honey eat so much as is sufficient for thee lest thou bee filled therewith and vomit it In which words Divisio there being first a particular Compellation Tu hast thou found it it remembers thee that there be a great many that have not found it but lack that which thou aboundest in And Invenisti thou hast not inherited it nor merited it thou hast but found it and for that which thou hast found it is Honey sweetness but it is but Honey which easily becomes choler and gall and bitternesse Such as it is Comede thou maist eat it and eat it safely it is not unwholesome but Comede sufficientiam eat no more then is sufficient And in that let not the servant measure himselfe by his Master nor the subject by the King nor the private man by the Magistrate but Comede sufficientiam tuam eat that which is sufficient for thee for more then that will fill thee over-fill thee perchance not so full as thou wouldst bee yet certainly so full as that there will bee no roome in thee for better things and then thou wilt vomit nay perchance thou must vomit the malice and plots of others shall give thee a vomit And such a vomit shall bee Evacuans an exinanition leave thee empty and Immundum an uncleannesse leave thee in scorne and contempt and Periculosum a danger breake a veine a veine at the heart breake thy heart it selfe that thou shalt never recover it Hast thou found honey eat so much as is sufficient for thee lest thou be filled therewith and vomit it First then Tu. for that Compellation Tu hast thou found it It is a word first of familiarity and then a word of particularity It is a degree of familiarity that God hath notified himselfe to us in severall Persons that hee hath come so neere to our comprehension as to be considered not onely as an universall and infinite God but as a Father and as a Sonne and opened himselfe unto us in these Notions Tu Pater Tu Fili Thou O Father and Thou O Sonne have mercy upon us A Constable or Beadle will not bee spoke to so to be thou'd and any Person in the Trinity the whole Trinity together is content with it Psal 92.8 Take God altogether and at highest Tu altissimus Thou Lord art most high for evermore Psal 93.2 Take him from before any beginning Tu à seculo Thy throue is established of old and thou art from everlasting Take him from beyond all ending Tu autem permanes Psal 102.27 Thou art the same and thy yeares shall have no end In which we goe not about to condemne or correct the civill manner of giving different titles to different ranks of men but to note the slipperiness of our times where titles flow into one another and lose their distinctions when as the Elements are condensed into one another ayre condensed into water and that into earth so an obsequious
for the Super-soveraigne in that Church their transcendent and hyperbolicall supreme Head they will pretend to deduce out of the Scriptures But because the Scriptures are constant and limited and determined there can be no more Scriptures And they should be shrewdly prejudiced and shrewdly disadvantaged if all emergent cases arising in the Christian world must be judged by a Law which others may know before-hand as well as they Therefore being wise in their own generation they choose rather to lay up their Rule in a Cupboard then upon a Shelfe rather in Scrinio pectoris in the breast and bosome of one man then upon every deske in a study where every man may lay or whence every man may take a Bible Therefore have so many sad and sober men amongst them repented that in the Councell of Trent they came to a finall resolution in so many particulars because how incommodious soever some of those particulars may prove to them yet they are bound to some necessity of a defence or to some aspersion if they forsake such things as have been solemnly resolved in that manner Therefore it was a prudent and discreet abstinence in them to forbeare the determination of some things which have then and since falne into agitation amongst them Be pleased to take one in the Councell and one after for all Long time it had and then it did and still it doth perplex the Consciences of penitents that come to Confession and the understandings of Confessors who are to give Absolution how far the secular Lawes of temporall Princes binde the Conscience of the Subject and when and in what cases he is bound to confesse it as a sin who hath violated and transgressed any of those Lawes And herein sayes an Author of theirs who hath written learnedly De legibus Carbo of the hand and obligation of Lawes The Pope was solicited and supplicated from the Councell in which it was debated that he would be pleased to come to a Determination but because he saw it was more advantage to him to hold it undetermined that so he might serve others turnes and his own especially it remains undetermined and no Confessor is able to un-entangle the Conscience of his penitent yet So also in another point of as great consequence at least for the peace of the Church if not for the profit which is those differences which have arisen between the Jesuits and the Dominicans about the concurrence of the Grace of God and the free will of man Though both sides have come to that vehemence that violence that virulency as to call one anothers opinion hereticall which is a word that cuts deepe and should not be passionately used yet he will not be brought to a decision to a determination in the point but onely forbids both sides to write at all in that point and in that inhibition of his we see how he suffers himselfe to be deluded for still they write with protestation that they write not to advance either opinion but onely to prepare the way against such time as the Pope shall be pleased to take off that inhibition and restore them to their liberty of writing for this way hath one of their last Authors Arriba taken to vent himselfe In a word if they should submit themselves to try all points and cases of Conscience by Scripture that were to governe by a knowne and constant Law but as they have imagined a Monarchy in their Church so have they a prerogative in their Monarchy a secret judgement in one breast however he who gives them all their power make this protestation Si quo minus If it were not thus and thus I would have told you so So then this proposition in our Text falls first upon them who doe not beleeve All things to be contained in the Scriptures And it falls also upon them who doe not beleeve All persons to be intended in the Scriptures who seeme to be concerned therein The first sort dishonor God in his Scriptures in that kinde That there is not enough in the Scriptures for any mans salvation And the other in this kinde That that that is is not intended as it is pretended not in that largenesse and generality as it is proposed but that God hath set a little Diamond in a great deale of gold a narrow purpose in large promises and thereupon they impute to God in their manner of expressing themselves Dolos bonos and Fraudes pias holy deceits holy falshoods holy illusions and circumventions and over-good husbands of Gods large and bountifull Grace contract his generall promises I dispute not but I am glad to heare the Apostle say Rom. 5.14 That as all were dead so one dyed for all and to put the force of his argument there in that That except we can say That one dyed for all we cannot say that all were dead I argue not but I am glad to heare another Apostle say 1 Joh. 2.2 That Christ is the propitiation for the sinnes of all the world for if any man had been left out how should I have come in I am not exercised nor would I exercise these Auditories with curiosities but I heare the Apostle say Rom. 14.11 1 Cor. 8.11 Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ dyed And I heare him say Through thy knowledge may thy weake brother perish for whom Christ dyed and me thinks he meanes That though they might be destroyed though they might perish yet Christ dyed for them Onely to deliver God from all aspersions and to defend particular Consciences from being scandalized with dangerous phrases and in a pious detestation of those impious Doli and Fraudes holy deceits holy falshoods I onely say God forbid that when our Saviour Christ called the Pharisee hypocrite that Pharisee should have been able to recriminate that upon Christ and to have said So are you for you pretend to offer salvation where you meane it not God forbid that when Christ had made that the mark of a true Israelite in the person of Nathaniel In quo non est dolus In whom there is no deceit Joh. 1.47 any man should have been able to have said to Christ Then Nathaniel is a better Israelite then you for you pretend to offer salvation where you meane it not Psal 35.3 David hath joyned those two words together The words of their mouth are Iniquity and Deceit If there be Deceit there is Iniquity too Our Saviour hath joyned all these together Mar. 7.22 Adulteries Murders Blasphemies and Deceit where there is Deceit all mischiefe is justly presumed The Apostle S. Paul discharges himselfe of nothing with more earnestnesse then that 2 Cor. 12.16 Acts 13.10 Have I deceived you have I circumvented you with fraud Neither doth he charge him whom he calls The childe of the Devill Elymas the sorcerer farther then so O plene omni dolo That he was full of all Deceit And therefore they that
his soule by Preservation and immortall in his body by Reparation in the Resurrection For though they be separated à Thoro Mensa from Bed and Board they are not divorced Though the soule be at the Table of the Lambe in Glory and the body but at the table of the Serpent in dust Though the soule be in lecto florido Cant. 1.16 in that bed which is alwayes green in an everlasting spring in Abrahams Bosome And the body but in that green-bed whose covering is but a yard and a halfe of Turfe and a Rugge of grasse and the sheet but a winding sheet yet they are not divorced they shall returne to one another againe in an inseparable re-union in the Resurrection To establish this assurance of a Resurrection in us God does sometimes in this life that which he hath promised for the next that is he gives a Resurrection to life after a bodily death here God hath made two Testaments two Wills And in both he hath declared his Power and his Will to give this new life after death in this world To the Widows sonne of Zarephtha 1. King 17. he bequeaths new life and to the Shunamites sonne he gives the same legacy 2 King 4. in the Old Testament In the New Testament to the widow of Naims sonne Luk. 7.8 he bequeaths new life And to Iairus daughter he gives the same legacy And out of the surplusage of his inexhaustible estate out of the overflowing of his Power he enables his Executors to doe as he did for Peter gives Dorcas this Resurrection too Act. 9.40 Divers examples hath he given us of the Resurrection of every particular man in particular Resurrections such as we have named And one of the generall Resurrection in the Resurrection of Christ himselfe for in him we all rose for he was All in All Con-vivificavit Ephes 2.5 sayes the Apostle and Considere nos fecit God hath quickned us all us not onely S. Paul and his Ephesians but all and God hath raised us and God hath made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Iesus They that are not faln yet by any actuall sinne children newly baptized are risen already in him And they that are not dead yet nay not alive yet not yet borne have a Resurrection in him who was not onely the Lambe slaine from the beginning but from before all beginnings was risen too and all that shall ever have part in the second Resurrection are risen with him from that time Now next to that great Propheticall action that type of the generall Resurrection in the Resurrection of Christ the most illustrious Evidence of the Resurrection of particular men is this Resuscitation of Lazarus whose sister Martha directed by faith and yet transported by passion seeks to entender and mollifie and supple him to impressions of mercy and compassion who was himselfe the Mold in which all mercy was cast nay the substance of which all mercy does consist Christ Jesus with this imperfect piece of Devotion which hath a tincture of Faith but is deeper dyed in Passion Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not dyed This Text which you Heare Martha's single words Divisio complicated with this Text which you See The dead body of this our Brother makes up between them this body of Instruction for the soule first That there is nothing in this world perfect And then That such as it is there is nothing constant nothing permanent We consider the first That there is nothing perfect in the best things in spirituall things Even Martha's devotion and faith hath imperfections in it And we consider the other That nothing is permanent in temporall things Riches prosperously multiplied Children honorably bestowed Additions of Honor and Titles fairly acquired Places of Command and Government justly received and duly executed All testimonies all evidences of worldly happinesse have a Dissolution a Determination in the death of this and of every such Man There is nothing no spirituall thing perfect in this world Nothing no temporall thing permanent and durable And these two Considerations shall be our two parts And then these the branches from these two roots First in the first we shall see in generall The weaknesse of Mans best actions And secondly more particularly The weaknesses in Martha's Action And yet in a third place the easinesse the propensnesse the largenesse of Gods goodnesse towards us in the acceptation of our imperfect Sacrifices for Christ does not refuse nor discourage Martha though her action have these imperfections And in this largenesse of his Mercy which is the end of all we shall end this part And in our second That as in spirituall things nothing is perfect so in tempoporall things nothing is permanent we shall by the same three steps as in the former looke first upon the generall consideration the fluidnesse the transitorinesse of all such temporall things And then consider it more particularly in Gods Master-piece amongst mortall things the body of man That even that flowes into putrefaction And then lastly returne to that in which we determined the former part The largenesse of Gods goodnesse to us in affording even to mans body so dissolved into putrefaction an incorruptible and a glorious state So have you the frame set up and the roomes divided The two parts and the three branches of each And to the furnishing of them with meditations fit for this Occasion we passe now In entring upon the first branch of our first part 1. Part. In spiritualibus nihil perfectum Scientia That in spirituall things nothing is perfect we may well afford a kinde of spirituall nature to knowledge And how imperfect is all our knowledge What one thing doe we know perfectly Whether wee consider Arts or Sciences the servant knows but according to the proportion of his Masters knowledge in that Art and the Scholar knows but according to the proportion of his Masters knowledge in that Science Young men mend not their sight by using old mens Spectacles and yet we looke upon Nature but with Aristotles Spectacles and upon the body of man but with Galens and upon the frame of the world but with Ptolomies Spectacles Almost all knowledge is rather like a child that is embalmed to make Mummy then that is nursed to make a Man rather conserved in the stature of the first age then growne to be greater And if there be any addition to knowledge it is rather a new knowledge then a greater knowledge rather a singularity in a desire of proposing something that was not knowne at all before then an emproving an advancing a multiplying of former inceptions and by that meanes no knowledge comes to be perfect One Philosopher thinks he is dived to the bottome when he sayes he knows nothing but this That he knows nothing and yet another thinks that he hath expressed more knowledge then he in saying That he knows not so much as
when the Gentiles had been long accustomed to make every power and attribute of God and to make every remarkable creature of God a severall God and so to worship God in a multiplicity of Gods it was a great work to limit and determine their superstitious and superfluous devotion in one God But when all these lines were brought into one center not to let that center rest but to draw lines out of that againe and bring more persons into that one centricall God-head this was hard forreason to digest But yet to have extended that from that unity to a duality was not so much as to a triplicity And thereupon though the Arians would never be brought to confesse an equality between the Son and the Father they were much farther from confessing it in the Holy Ghost They made sayes S. Augustine Filium creaturam Haeres 49. The Son they accounted to be but a creature but they made the Holy Ghost Creaturam Creaturae not onely a Creature and no God but not a Creature of Gods but a Creature a Messenger of the son who was himselfe with them but a Creature But these mysteries are not to be chawed by reason but to be swallowed by faith we professed three persons in one God in the simplicity of our infancy at our baptisme and we have sealed that contract in the other Sacrament often since and this is eternall life to die in that beliefe There are three that beare witnesse in heaven The Father the Word 1 John 5.7 and the Holy Ghost and these three are one And in that testimony we rest that there is a Holy Ghost and in the testimony of this text that this Holy Ghost falls down upon all that heare the word of God Now it is as wonderfull that this Holy Ghost should fall down from heaven Cecidit Esay 14.12 as that he should be in heaven Quomodo cecidisti How art thou fallen from heaven O Lucifer thou son of the morning was a question asked by the Propher of him who was so fallen as that he shall never returne againe But the Holy Ghost as mysterious in his actions as in his Essentiall or in his Personall beeing fell so from heaven as that he remained in heaven even then when he was fallen This Dove sent from heaven Gen 8.7 did more then that Dove which was sent out of the Arke That went and came but was not in both places at once Noah could not have shewed that Dove to his sons and daughters in the Arke then when the Dove was flowne out But now when this Dove the Holy Ghost fell upon these men at Peters Sermon Stephen who was then come up to heaven saw the same Dove the same Holy Ghost whom they whom he had left upon the earth felt upon the earth then As if the Holy Ghost fall upon any in this Congregation now now the Saints of God see that Holy Ghost in heaven whom they that are here feele falling upon them here In all his workings the Holy Ghost descends for there is nothing above him There is a third heaven but no such third heaven as is above the heaven of heavens above the seat and residence of the Holy Ghost so that whatsoever he doth is a descent a diminution a humiliation and an act of mercy because it is a Communication of himselfe to a person inferiour to himselfe But there is more in this Text then a descent When the Holy Ghost came upon Christ himselfe after his Baptisme there it is said He descended Though Christ as the Son of God were equall to him and so it was no descent for the Holy Ghost to come to him yet because Christ had a nature upon him in which he was not equall to the Holy Ghost here was a double descent in the Holy Ghost That he who dwells with the Father and the Son In luce inaccessibili In light inaccessible and too bright to be seene would descend in a visible form to be seene by men And that he descended and wrought upon a mortall man though that man were Christ Christ also had a double descending too He descended to be a man and he descended to be no man He descended to live amongst us and he descended to die amongst us He descended to the earth and he descended to hell Every operation of every person of the holy and blessed and glorious Trinity is a Descending But here the Holy Ghost is said to have fallen which denotes a more earnest communicating of himselfe a throwing a pouring out of himselfe upon those upon whom he falls He falls as a fall of waters that covers that it falls upon as a Hawk upon a prey it desires and it will possesse that it falls upon as an Army into a Countrey it Conquers and it Governes where it fals The Holy Ghost fals but farre otherwise Mat. 21.44 upon the ungodly Whosoever shall fall upon this stone shall be broken but upon whomsocver this stone shall fall it will grinde him to powder Indeed he fals upon him so as haile fals upon him he fals upon him so as he fals from him and leaves him in an obduration and impenitiblenesse and in an irrecoverable ruine of him that hath formorly despised and despighted the Holy Ghost But when the Holy Ghost fals not thus in the nature of a stone but puts on the nature of a Dove and a Dove with an Olive-branch and that in the Ark that is testimonies of our peace and reconciliation to God in his Church he fals as that kinde of lightning which melts swords and hurts not scabbards the Holy Ghost shall melt thy soule and not hurt thy body he shall give thee spirituall blessings and saving graces under the temporall seales of bodily health and prosperity in this world He shall let thee see that thou art the childe of God in the obedience of thy children to thee And that thou art the servant of God in the faithfulnesse of thy servants to thee And that thou standest in the favour of God bythe favor of thy superiours to thee he shall fall upon thy soul and not wound thy body give thee spirituall prosperity and yet not by worldly adversity and evermore over-shadow and refresh thy soul yet evermore keep thee in his Sunshine and the light of his countenance But there is more then this in this falling of the Holy Ghost in this Text. For it was not such a particular insinuation of the Holy Ghost as that he convaied himselfe into those particular men for their particular good and salvation and determined there but such a powerfull and diffusive falling as made his presence and his power in them to work upon others also So when he came upon Christ it was not to adde any thing to Christ but to informe others that that was Christ So when Christ breathed his spirit into the Apostles it was not meerly to infuse salvation into them but it was especially
to seale to them that Patent that Commission Quorum remiseritis That others might receive remission of sins by their power So the Holy Ghost fell upon these men here for the benefit of others that thereby a great doubt might be removed a great scruple devested a great disputation extinguished whether it were lawfull to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles Ver. 2. or no for as we see in the next Chapter Peter himselfe was reproved of the Jews for this that he had done and therefore God ratified and gave testimony to this service of his by this miraculous falling of the Holy Ghost as S. Augustine makes the reason of this falling very justly to have been so then this falling of the Holy Ghost was not properly or not meerly an infusing of justifying grace but an infusing of such gifts as might edifie others for S. Peter speaking of this very action in the next Chapter Ver. 15. fayes The Holy Ghost fell on them as on us in the beginning Which was when he fell upon them as this day This doth not imply Graduum aequalitatem an equall measure of the same gifts as the Apostles had who were to passe over the whole world and work upon all men But it implies Doni identitatem it was the same miraculous expressing of the presence and working of the Holy Ghost for the confirmation of Peter that the Gentiles might be preached unto and for the consolation of the Gentiles that they might be enabled to preach to one another for so it is expresly said in this Chapter Ver. 46. That they heard these men speake with divers tongues they that heard the Preacher were made partakers of the same gifts that the Preacher had A good hearer becomes a good Preacher that is able to edifie others It it true that these men were not to be literally Preachers as the Apostles upon whom the Holy Ghost fell as upon them were and therefore the gift of tongues may seeme not to have beene so necessary to them But it is not onely the Preacher that hath use of the tongue for the edification of Gods people but in all our discourses and conferences with one another we snould preach his glory his goodnesse his power that every man might speake one anothers language and preach to one anothers conscience that when I accuse my selfe and confesse mine infirmities to another man that man may understand that there is in that confession of mine a Sermon and a rebuke and a reprehension to him if he be guilty of the same sin Nay if he be guilty of a sin contrary to mine For as in that language in which God spoke the Hebrew the same roote will take in words of a contrary signification as the word of Iobs wife signifies blessing and cursing too so the covetous man that heares me confesse my prodigality should argue to himself If prodigality which howsoever it hurt a particular person yet spreads mony abroad which is the right and naturall use of money be so heavy a sin how heavy is my covetousnesse which besides that it keepes me all the way in as much penuriousnesse as the prodigall man brings himselfe to at last is also a publique sin because it emprisons that money which should be at liberty and employed in a free course abroad And so also when I declare to another the spirituall and temporall blessings which God hath bestowed upon me he may be raised to a thankfull remembrance that he hath received all that from God also This is not the use of having learnt divers tongues to be able to talke of the wars with Durch Captains or of trade with a French Merchant or of State with a Spanish Agent or of pleasure with an Italian Epicure It is not to entertaine discourse with strangers but to bring strangers to a better knowledge of God in that way wherein we by his Ordinance do worship and ferve him Now this place is ill detorted by the Roman Church for the confirmation of their Sacrament of Confirmation That because the Holy Ghost fell upon men at another time then at Baptisme therefore there is a lesse perfect giving of the Holy Ghost in Baptisme It is too forward a triumph in him who sayes of this place Pamclius Annot in Cypr. Epist 72. Locus insignis ad assertionem Sacramenti manus impositionis That is an evident place for Confirmation of the Sacrament of Confirmation It is true that S. Cyprian sayes there That a man is not truly sanctified Nisi utroque Sacramento nascatur Except he be regenerate by both Sacraments And he tels us what those two Sacraments are Aqua Spiritus Water and the Spirit That except a man have both these seales inward and outward he is not safe And S. Cyprian requires and usefully truly an outward declaration of this inward seale of this giving of the Holy Ghost For he instances expresly in this which was done in this Text That there was both Baptisme and a giving of the Holy Ghost Neither would S. Cyprian forbeare the use of Confirmation because it was also in use amongst some Heretiques Quia Novatianus facere audet non putabimus nos esse faciendum Cypr. Epist 72. Shall we give over a good custome because the Novatians doe the like Quia Novatianus extra Ecclesiam vendicat sibi veritatis imaginem relinquemus Ecclesiae veritatem Shall the Church forbeare any of those customes which were induced to good purposes because some Heretiques in a false Church have counterfaited them or corrupted them And therefore sayes that Father It was so in the Apostles time Et nunc quoque apud nos geritur We continue it so in our time That they who are Baptized Signaculo Dominico consummentur That they may have a ratification a consummation in this seale of the Holy Ghost Which was not in the Primitive Church as in the later Roman Church a confirmation of Baptisme so as that that Sacrament should be but a halfe-Sacrament but it was a Confirmation of Christians with an encrease of grace when they came to such yeares as they were naturally exposed to some tentations Our Church acknowledges the trueuse of this Confirmation for in the first Collect in the office of Confirmation it confesses that that child is already regenerated by water and the holy Ghost and prayes onely for farther strength And having like a good mother taught us the right use of it then our Church like a supreme Commander too enjoyns expresly that none be admitted to the Communion till they have received their Confirmation And though this injunction be not in rigour and exactnesse pursued and executed yet it is very necessary that the purpose thereof should be maintained That is that none should be received to the Communion till they had given an account of their faith and proficiencie For he is but an interpretative but a presumptive Christian who because he is so old ventures upon the Sacrament A
upon the Action on Gods part Lavabis Thou shalt wash mee and the Effect on our part Dealbabor I shall be white and the Degree the Extent the Exaltation of that Emundation that Dealbation that Cleansing supra nivem I shall be whiter then snow And then we shall conclude all with that consideration That though in the first part we finde two persons in action for God works but man prayes that God would worke yet in the other part the worke it selfe Though the worke bee divers a purging and then a washing of the soule the whole worke is Gods alone David doth not say no man can say Doe thou purge me and then I will wash my selfe nor doe thou make the Medicine and I will bring the Hyssope nor doe thou but wash mee begin the worke and I will goe forward with it and perfit it and make my selfe whiter then snow but the intire worke is his who onely can infuse the desire and onely accomplish that desire who onely gives the will and the ability to second and execute that will He He purges me or I am still a vessell of peccant humors His His is the hyssope or there is Mors in olla Death in the cup He He washes me or I am still in my blood He He exalts that cleannesse which his his washing hath indued or I returne againe to that red earth which I brought out of Adams bowels Therefore Doe thou purge mee with Hyssope and I shall be cleane Do thou wash me and I shal be whiter then snow First then 1. Part. for our first part wee consider the persons Of these God is the first Esay spoke boldly Deus saith the Apostle when hee said God is found by them that seeke him not But still we continue in that humble boldnesse Rom. 10.20 to say God is best found when we seeke him and observe him in his operation upon us God gives audiences and admits accesses in his solemne and publike and out-roomes in his Ordinances In his Cabinet in his Bed-chamber in his unrevealed purposes wee must not presse upon him It was ill taken in the Roman State when men enquired in Arcana Imperii the secrets of State by what wayes and meanes publike businesses were carried Private men were to rest in the generall effects peace and protection and Justice and the like and to enquire no more But to enquire in Arcana Domus what was done in the Bed-chamber was criminall capitall inexcusable We must abstaine from enquiring De modo how such or such things are done in many points in which it is necessary to us to know that such things are done As the maner of Christs presence in the Sacrament and the maner of Christs descent into Hell for these are Arcana Imperii secrets of State for the maner is secret though the thing bee evident in the Scriptures But the entring into Gods unrevealed and bosome-purposes are Arcana domus a man is as farre from a possibility of attaining the knowledge as from an excuse for offering at it That curiosity will bring a man to that blasphemy of Alfonsus King of Castile the great Astronomer who said That if hee had beene of Gods Counsell in the creation of the world hee could have directed him to have done many things better then he did They that looke too farre into Gods unrevealed purposes are seldome content with that that they thinke God hath done but stray either into an uncharitable condemning of other men or into a jealous a suspitious a desperate condemning of themselves Here in this first branch of this first part wee seeke God and because we seeke him where he hath promised to be we are sure to find him Because we joyne with David in an humble confession of our sins the Lord joyns us with David in a fruition of himselfe And more of that first Person God himselfe we say not but passe to the other to the petitioner to the penitent to the patient to David himselfe His example is so comprehensive so generall that as a well made David and well placed Picture in a Gallery looks upon all that stand in severall places of the Gallery in severall lines in severall angles so doth Davids history concerne and embrace all For his Person includes all states betweene a shepherd and a King and his sinne includes all sinne between first Omissions and complications of Habits of sin upon sin So that as S. Basil said hee needed no other Booke for all spirituall uses but the Psalmes so wee need no other Example to discover to us the slippery wayes into sin or the penitentiall wayes out of sin then the Author of that Booke David From his Example then we first deduce this That in the war-fare of this life there are no Emeriti milites none of that discipline that after certaine yeares spent in the warres a man should returne to ease and honour and security at home A man is not delivered from the tentation of Ambition by having overcome the heats and concupiscences of his youth nor from the tentation of Covetousnesse in his age by having escaped ambition and contented himselfe with a meane station in his middle yeares David whom neither a sudden growth into such degrees of greatnesse as could not have fallen into his thought or wish before nor the persecution of Saul which might have enraged him to a personall revenge considering how many advantages and occasions hee might have made shift to thinke that God had put into his hands to execute that revenge David whom neither the concourse and application of the people who tooke knowledge of him as of a rising Sun nor the interest and nearenesse in the love and heart of Ionathan the Kings Son which fals seldome upon a new and a popular man David whom not that highest place to which God had brought him in making him King nor that addition even to that highest place that he made him Successor to a King of whom the State was weary for as the Panegyrique sayes Onerosum est succedere bono principi It is a heavy thing and binds a Prince to a great diligence to come immediately after one whom his subjects loved So had David an ease in comming after one with whom the Kingdome was discontented David whom this sudden preferment and persecutions and popularity did not so shake but that wee may say of him as it is said of Iob That in all this height David did not sin nor in all these afflictions He did not charge God foolishly Though he had many victories he came not to a Triumph but him whom an Army and an armed Giant Goliah neare hand could not hurt a weaker person and naked and farre off overthrowes and ruines It is therefore but an imperfect comfort for any man to say I have overcome tentations to great sins and my sins have beene but of infirmity not of malice For herein more then in any other contemplation appeares the
greatnesse both of thy danger and of thy transgression For consider what a dangerous and slippery station thou art in if after a victory over Giants thou mayest be overcome by Pigmees If after thy soule hath beene Canon proofe against strong tentations she be slaine at last by a Pistoll And after she hath swom over a tempestuous Sea shee drowne at last in a shallow and standing ditch And as it showes the greatnesse of thy danger so it aggravates the greatnesse of thy fault That after thou hast had the experience that by a good husbanding of those degrees of grace which God hath afforded thee thou hast beene able to stand out the great batteries of strong tentations and seest by that that thou art much more able to withstand tentations to lesser sins if thou wilt yet by disarming thy selfe by devesting thy garisons by discontinuing thy watches meerely by inconsideration thou sellest thy soule for nothing for little pleasure little profit thou frustratest thy Saviour of that purchase which he bought with his precious blood and thou enrichest the Devils treasure as much with thy single money thy frequent small sins as another hath done with his talent for as God was well pleased with the widowes two farthings so is the Devill well pleased with the negligent mans lesser sins O who can be confident in his footing or in his hold when David that held out so long fell and if we consider but himselfe irrecoverably where the tempter was weake and afar off De longè vidit illam in qua captus est Berseba was far off Mulier longè libido prope August but Davids disposition was in his owne bosome Yet David came not up into the Teras with any purpose or inclination to that sin Here was no such plotting as in his son Hammons case to get his sister Tamar by dissembling himselfe to be sick to his lodging That man post-dates his sin and begins his reckning too late that dates his sin at that houre when he commits that sin You must not reckon in sin from the Nativity but the Conception when you conceived that sin in your purpose then you sinned that sin and in every letter in every discourse in every present in every wish in every dreame that conduces to that sin or rises from that sin you sin it over and over againe before you come to the committing of it and so your sin is an old an inveterate sin before it bee borne and that which you call the first is not the hundredth time that you have sinned that sinne It is not much that David contributed to this sin on his part He is onely noted in the Text to have beene negligent in the publique businesse and to have given himselfe too much ease in this particular 2 Sam. 11. that he lay in bed all day When it was evening David arose out of his bed and walked upon the Teras And it is true that the justice of God is subtile as searching as unsearchable and oftentimes punishes sins of Omission with other sins Actuall sins and makes their lazinesse who are slack in doing that they should an occasion of doing that they should not It was not much that Bathsheba contributed to this tentation on her part The Vulgat Edition of the Roman Church hath made her case somewhat the worse by a mis-translation Ex adverso super solarium suum as though she had beene washing her selfe upon her owne Teras and in the eye of the Court whereas indeed it is no more but that David saw her he upon his Teras not her upon hers For her washing it may well be collected out of the fourth verse that it was a Legall washing to which shee was bound by the Leviticall Law being a purification after her naturall infirmity and which it had beene a sin in her to have omitted But had it beene a washing of Refreshing or of Delicacy even that was never imputed to Susanna for a fault that she washed in a Garden and in the day and employed not onely sope but other ingredients and materials of more delicacy in that washing Certainly the limits of adorning and beautifying the body are not so narrow so strict as by some sowre men they are sometimes conceived to be Differences of Ranks of Ages of Nations of Customes make great differences in the enlarging or contracting of these limits in adorning the body and that may come neare sin at some time and in some places which is not so alwaies nor every where Amongst the women there the Jewish women it was so generall a thing to helpe themselves with aromaticall Oyles and liniments as that that which is said by the Prophets poore Widow to the Prophet Elisha 2 King 4 That she had nothing in the house but a pot of Oyle is very properly by some collected from the Originall word that it was not Oyle for meate but Oyle for unction aromaticall Oyle Oyle to make her looke better she was but poore but a Widow but a Prophets Widow and likely to be the poorer for that yet she left not that We see that even those women whom the Kings were to take for their Wives and not for Mistresses which is but a later name for Concubines had a certaine and a long time assigned to be prepared by these aromaticall unctions and liniments for beauty Neither do those that consider that when Abraham was afraid to lose his wife Sara in Egypt and that every man that saw her would fall in love with her Sara was then above threescore And when the King Abimelech did fall in love with her and take her from Abraham she was fourescore and ten they doe not assigne this preservation of her complexion and habitude to any other thing then the use of those unctions and liniments which were ordinary to that Nation But yet though the extent and limit of this adorning the body may be larger then some austere persons will allow yet it is not so large as that it should be limited onely by the intention and purpose of them that doe it So that if they that beautifie themselves meane no harme in it therefore there should be no harme in it for except they could as well provide that others should take no harme as that they should meane no harme they may participate of the fault And since we finde such an impossibility in rectifying and governing our owne senses we cannot take our owne eye nor stop our owne eare when we would it is an unnecessary and insupportable burden to put upon our score all the lascivious glances and the licentious wishes of other persons occasioned by us in over-adorning our selves And this may well have beene Bathshebaes fault That though she did not bathe with a purpose to be seene yet she did not enough to provide against the infirmity of others It had therefore been well if David had risen earlier to attend the affaires of the State And it
world is a Sea in many respects and assimilations It is a Sea Mundus Mare as it is subject to stormes and tempests Every man and every man is a world feels that And then it is never the shallower for the calmnesse The Sea is as deepe there is as much water in the Sea in a calme as in a storme we may be drowned in a calme and flattering fortune in prosperity as irrecoverably as in a wrought Sea in adversity So the world is a Sea It is a Sea as it is bottomlesse to any line which we can sound it with and endlesse to any discovery that we can make of it The purposes of the world the wayes of the world exceed our consideration But yet we are sure the Sea hath a bottome and sure that it hath limits that it cannot overpasse The power of the greatest in the world the life of the happiest in the world cannot exceed those bounds which God hath placed for them So the world is a Sea It is a Sea as it hath ebbs and floods and no man knowes the true reason of those floods and those ebbs All men have changes and vicissitudes in their bodies they fall sick And in their estates they grow poore And in their minds they become sad at which changes sicknesse poverty sadnesse themselves wonder and the cause is wrapped up in the purpose and judgement of God onely and hid even from them that have them and so the world is a Sea It is a Sea as the Sea affords water enough for all the world to drinke but such water as will not quench the thirst The world affords conveniences enow to satisfie Nature but these encrease our thirst with drinking and our desire growes and enlarges it selfe with our abundance and though we sayle in a full Sea yet we lacke water So the world is a Sea It is a Sea if we consider the Inhabitants In the Sea the greater fish devoure the lesse and so doe the men of this world too And as fish when they mud themselves have no hands to make themselves cleane but the current of the waters must worke that So have the men of this world no means to cleanse themselves from those sinnes which they have contracted in the world of themselves till a new flood waters of repentance drawne up and sanctified by the Holy Ghost worke that blessed effect in them All these wayes the world is a Sea but especially it is a Sea in this respect that the Sea is no place of habitation but a passage to our habitations So the Apostle expresses the world Here we have no continuing City but we seeke one to come we seeke it not here Heb. 13.14 but we seeke it whilest we are here els we shall never finde it Those are the two great works which we are to doe in this world first to know that this world is not our home and then to provide us another home whilest we are in this world Therefore the Prophet sayes Mic. 2.10 Luk. 12.19 Arise and depart for this is not your rest Worldly men that have no farther prospect promise themselves some rest in this world Soule thou hast much goods laid up for many yeares take thine ease eate drinke and be merry sayes the rich man but this is not your rest indeed no rest at least not yours You must depart depart by death before yee come to that rest but then you must arise before you depart for except yee have a resurrection to grace here before you depart you shall have no resurrection to glory in the life to come when you are departed Now Status navigantium in this Sea every ship that sayles must necessarily have some part of the ship under water Every man that lives in this world must necessarily have some of his life some of his thoughts some of his labours spent upon this world but that part of the ship by which he sayls is above water Those meditations and those endevours which must bring us to heaven are removed from this world and fixed entirely upon God And in this Sea are we made fishers of men Of men in generall not of rich men to profit by them nor of poore men to pierce them the more sharply because affliction hath opened a way into them Not of learned men to be over-glad of their approbation of our labours Nor of ignorant men to affect them with an astonishment or admiration of our gifts But we are fishers of men of all men of that which makes them men their soules And for this fishing in this Sea this Gospel is our net Eloquence is not our net Rete Euangelium Traditions of men are not our nets onely the Gospel is The Devill angles with hooks and bayts he deceives and he wounds in the catching for every sin hath his sting The Gospel of Christ Jesus is a net It hath leads and corks It hath leads that is the denouncing of Gods judgements and a power to sink down and lay flat any stubborne and rebellious heart And it hath corks that is the power of absolution and application of the mercies of God that swimme above all his works means to erect an humble and contrite spirit above all the waters of tribulation and affliction A net is Res nodosa Rete nodosum a knotty thing and so is the Scripture full of knots of scruple and perplexity and anxiety and vexation if thou wilt goe about to entangle thy selfe in those things which appertaine not to thy salvation but knots of a fast union and inseparable alliance of thy soule to God and to the fellowship of his Saints if thou take the Scriptures as they were intended for thee that is if thou beest content to rest in those places Rete diffusivum which are cleare and evident in things necessary A net is a large thing past thy fadoming if thou cast it from thee but if thou draw it to thee it will lie upon thine arme The Scriptures will be out of thy reach and out of thy use if thou cast and scatter them upon Reason upon Philosophy upon Morality to try how the Scriptures will fit all them and beleeve them but so far as they agree with thy reason But draw the Scripture to thine own heart and to thine own actions and thou shalt finde it made for that all the promises of the old Testament made and all accomplished in the new Testament for the salvation of thy soule hereafter and for thy consolation in the present application of them Now this that Christ promises here Non quia tanquam causa Rom. 6.23 is not here promised in the nature of wages due to our labour and our fishing There is no merit in all that we can doe The wages of sin is Death Death is due to sin the proper reward of sin but the Apostle does not say there That eternall life is the wages of any good
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