the Dead were Iudged out of those things which were written in the Books according to their works A Sight have you had as of the Prisoners to be Arraigned the Dead Small and Great of the Judge to pass sentence which though for the Judgement of Principal Authority it shall be every Person in the Trinity for which cause we finde this Day Signally stiled Gods Day 2 Pet. 3.12 Looking for saith he and hastening unto the Day of God yet for the Judgement of Promulging and Pronouncing of sentence it shall be the second Person in that Trinity and that in regard of his Humane Nature The Father saith our Apost. hath given Power to the Son to execute Iudgement because he is the Son of Man Iohn 5.27 So of the Evidence to be given in Recorded in Books and those three principals whereof the first is Gods Statute-Book made up of three Tomes in the first whereof is written the Law of Nature in the second the Law from Sinai in the third the Law from Sion the second his Day-book made up of two whereof the first is of that our own Conscience the second of Gods Remembrance the last his Book of Records and that you have seen to be of a two-fold nature the one that wherein the Church Registreth those for the Sons of God that by an outward Confession of their Faith are received into her Bosome notwithstanding that not a few of them prove afterward Impostours and Hypocrites the other that of his Eternal Fore-knowledge whereby from all Eternity he hath and beyond all Tract of time will acknowledge those for his whom he hath Predestinated to the Adoption of Sons and Ordained to be Heirs of Eternal Life The Equal Proceedings of the Court and the Infallible certainty of all remain only for the present to be discussed And first are we to examine the equal Proceedings of the Court whose impartial Judge shall Examine the whole World upon the works whether Good or Evil they have done And the Dead were Judged out of those things which were written in the Books according to their works It is the Lords own word to his People Isa. 55.8 My wayes are not as your wayes And this difference of wayes between him and them the same Lord no less justly then precisely may you hear Contesting with them in point of Equity Ezech. 18.29 Are not my wayes Equal saith he and yours Vnequal Betwixt Heaven and Earth there is not so great a Distance as there is Difference between God and more then a good many Men in the exercise of Judiciary Power The Law which the Civilians say is Sanctio Iusta Iubens Honesta Prohibensque Contraria a Just Constitution commanding things that are Honest and Forbidding the Contrary is in the Court of Heaven reputed the only straight Rule whereunto the subjects of that court are to conform their works ways for their Deviation and Declination from its Rectitude are only punishable For which cause our Evangelists description of sin is that it is the Transgression of the Law in the 1. of his Epistle the 3. Chapter and 4. V. And therefore that word of that other Apostle just reason that it obtain with us the Credit of an Oracle Rom. 4.15 where there is no Law there is no Transgression So that then that word of that other Apostle yet 2. Pet. 1.19 for the word of Prophesie our parts it shall be to conceive directed unto every one of us for the Law that we shall do well to take heed thereunto as unto a Light that shineth in a Dark Place No otherwise then you may observe some careful Mariner for the better guidance of his Ship in a Dark Night to heed a Light which from some Eminent watch-towr may discover it self The Conduct of which Light therefore whose Beams every one of us may clearly discern as the Pilot his Light from the Tower darting out from Heaven upon him for the better steering him a course through the surges of this world shall he not heed no marvel if Straying from the right Path of Justice he wander in Darkness and in the shadow of Death The Proceedings of too too many a Man that assumeth unto himself a Power to Execute Justice not seldome runneth a clean contrary Bias to this They say as those in the Wiseman Wisd. 2.11 Our will is the Law of Iustice And therefore take unto themselves a liberty of Proscribing Imprisoning Condemning yea Executing too whom they please though guiltless of the Transgression of any Law Nor shall the Law be the Rule whereby to examine the work of supposed Dilinquents but their causeles fears and Jealousies shall make Delinquents whomsoever they shall please Whilst themselves in the mean time notwithstanding that they are dipped in as deep a Dye of villany as the blackest Fiends of Hell must yet have Precedence of all the Apostles nay the Virgin Mary her self in Saintship as long as did Saul with an Image in stead of David 1 Sam. 19.13 they can impose upon the purblinde World with empty Shadows and semblances in stead of the true and real Body of Religion and what AEschines sometimes objected to Demosthenes {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} can New-dip Extortion Oppression Perjury Tyranny Sacriledge Murther yea very Atheisme with the fair and specious Names of Reformation Beloved As this Great Judge is far from being so Sophistical as to impose upon us with a Fallacy of Non causa pro Causa and so not so Rigid as to Condemn us without the least transgression of any of his Laws so neither may we conceive him to be so Facile and Easie as that he shall be wone to accept of a bare Shew and Profession of Saint-Ship for a perfect observation of this Law of his That Rule of this great Judge By their Fruits you shall know them Mat. 7.16 holdeth as true for all manner false Pretenders as Prophets They are the Fruits of good works only and not the Leaves or Blossoms of vain Ostentation or Profession that shall Acquit or condemn us at the last Day And the Dead were Iudged out of those things which were written in the Books according to their works But how The Dead to be Judged according to their works Durus est hic Sermo this is an hard saying and who may abide it What hope of Salvation then shall the most Righteous have to entertain Yea and then as is St. Peters passionate Quaere in the 1. of his Epistle Chapter 4.18 Where shall the Vngodly and the Sinners appear So that then well may David Holy David deprecate this manner of Trial before God Psal. 143.2 Enter not into Iudgement with thy Servant O Lord for in thy sight shall no Man living be Iustified He that hath found no stedfastness in his Servants but hath charged his very Angels with Folly how much more then Man which dwelleth in an House of Clay whose Foundation is in the Dust Alas As the Priest
Nature we shall content us with Melancthons definition thereof that it is a knowledge of certain principles and of conclusions thence naturally deduced agreeable to the Eternal Rule of truth directing him to live well and to worship his Creatour The very Oratour can say of this Law that it is Non scripta sed Nata quam non Didicimus Legimus Accepimus Verum ex Natura Arripuimus Hausimus Expressimus that it is not a written but an inbred Law and such as we have not learned or read or by Tradition received but such as we have derived and drawn and sucked out of the very Entrails of Nature Easie it were by a particular Induction to evince that not only the most eminent Divinity-Maximes as that Tithes are to be paid as may clearly appear in the History of Melchizedeck and Abraham Gen. 14. that some Places are above other sanctified by Gods special Presence as the Place of Iacobs repose in his journey to Haran where God appeareth to him Gen. 28. that some Persons are more then others dedicate to his service as the First-born of every Family Exod. 13. of which by the way you shall do well specially to take notice that they were every one {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Cohen Princes and Priests in one Person but that every particular Precept of the Moral Law hath from the beginning been and still is by this Laws meer instinct imprinted and engraven in the hearts of those that are meer strangers to the Israel of God and Aliens from the Covenant of promise St. Pauls word Rom. 2.14 you may safely take for the whole summe the Gentiles saith he having no Law i. e. no Law written as the Iews in Tables of stone do yet by nature the things contained in the Law and so are a Law unto themselves And the Maxume therefore Verse 12. he premiseth cannot but be entertained for irrefragable As many as have sinned without Law shall also perish without Law So that even of such as these just reason shall we have to say in this case what the same Apostle of the same Gentiles clearly convinced of a Godhead by those things that are seen from the creation of the world Rom. 16. that they are {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} without all manner of Excuse For the second the Law from Sinai you know by whom and how it was given By Moses yet God still dictating with lightning and Thunder and as is this judgement to be auspicated with the sound of the Trumpet yea and this seconded with a curse far more dreadful then either Lightning-flash or Thunder-clap Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the Book of the Law to do them Gal. 3.10 Nay to make sure that this Curse want not its proper matter of sin to work upon Lex subintravit ut abundaret delictum the Law was given that sin might abound Rom. 5.20 Not that the Law is sin as the Apostle glosseth himself in the 7. of the same Epistle and 8th but sin taking occasion by the Commandement is his own ingenuous confession of himself wrought in me all manner of concupiscence So that then such an occasion of and Incentive unto sin is the Law Sicut fraenum equo indomito saith Paraeus upon the words as is a Bridle of a young Horses fierceness which whilst we use as an Instrument for the taming him by accident it makes him the more untamed Sic ego Torrentem quâ nil obstabat eunti or as a Bank or Rock to a Torrent which whilst they strive to Bound they enrage the more and so occasion it to bear and break down all before it with the greater violence Nitimur in vetitum to long for things forbidden is the current we know our desires all naturally run which is the reason saith the Oratour why Solon would by no means be drawn to hear of a Law to be enacted against Parricide veritus ne si legem de eo tulisset magis incitaret Homines quam reprimeret fearing saith he lest such a Law might rather spur men on unto then restrain them from so unnatural and horrid an act So that then so little advantage God wot is this Law likely to afford us at our last standing up before this High-Court of Justice when we are at such a natural Antipathy against it that the more it laboureth to reclaim us the more we recoil and rebel against it that for any ground of comfort we can herein meet with too just reason shall we have as the Disciples to our Common-Master in the Gospel Luke 18.26 to cry out Domine quis Salvus erit Lord who can be saved Especially seeing that as St. Peter sometimes to the Jews Acts 15.10 we cannot but be tenderly sensible that this Law putteth such an heavy Yoak upon our Necks as neither we nor our Fathers are able to bear For the last the Law from Sion the Law of faith as Rom. 3.27 it is stiled as it is so far from being Contra-distinct to either of the former Laws but hath in it rather the summe and substance and Pith of either as hath the Intellective of the vegetative and sensitive souls so is Christ the main scope of all they all looking toward him as did the Cherubins towards the Mercy-seat Exod. 37.9 In either of the former he discovered himself but as through the Lattice as it is Cant. 2.9 In this latter he doth not only present him clearly to our views but so graciously and affectionately offer him to our embraces that we have now the happy opportunity and advantage of laying such fast hold of him as not to let him go as it is Cant. 3.4 The former either of them holdeth us to Hard-meat as we say making us a proffer of Heaven indeed but upon very unfeisable yea indeed impossible conditions Fac hoc vives as our Saviour to the Lawyer Luke 10.28 Do this and thou shalt live The latter tendereth us a Bargain in our apprehension at least much easier to compass Crede Salvus eris as Paul and Silas to the Jaylor Acts 16.31 and now little question to be made but that as the Jew of the Almighty Rom. 2.5 there is more then a good many amongst us will be present to make our Boast of this Law that having the advantage both of Jew and Gentile in times past to turn over a new Leaf from the Law of Nature the Law from Sinai unto this Law of Sion the Law of Faith we shall not need to distrust but that we shall be sped of an happy Acquital and Discharge when we come to stand up before this dreadful Tribunal Our Pulpits now for a long time have resounded with no other Doctrin but those revived Reliques of an old Heretical Maxime that we shall need to act nothing our selves in order to the accomplishment of the great work of our Salvation a bare naked Faith apprehending the free
as the time of Harvest to make a separation between them The one of them is as a Mass of Gold and Dross blended together the other as a Fire to distinguish and divide them asunder The Letter of the former may scarce be of a visible impression the Character of the latter is indeleble Be our names never so fairly written in the former they may yet afterwards be obliterated but once Recorded in the latter they can never possibly be Blotted out I cannot stand here at large to exagitate the Malepert Humours as of those Chymick Spirits that will needs be preproperously drawing the Elixir and Quintessence of a Church out of a Church whereinto none shall be received but Saints of their own Canonization Qui vult ante egressos Angelos c. saith St. Greg. They that will be separating the Reprobate from amongst the Righteous before it shall please the Lord to send forth his Angels to that purpose he neither understandeth the Scriptures nor his own Bounds or Limits so neither of those Finde or rather Make-faults that will needs be Quarrelling with the Paper of this Book as if it were not able to bear Ink certainly not to preserve the Letters of those Names fair that are therein Registred Exegi Monumentum AEre perennius No Monument of Brass so Retentive as the Paper no Characters therein engraven so Lasting as the Letters of this Book Which therefore that they be not Blurred or Sullyed by any bold or prophane Hand that may prematurely offer at the opening of this Book are to be kept close and Shut up until the Day of our Common standing up both Small and Great before God And yet this Book which this Great Judge hath designed not to be locked up within his Archives only but there laid up and that clasped yea Sealed yea and that with no less then seven Seals in the 5. of this Book and 1. for the Concealment of the Contents from the discovery of the most Curious piercing and Searching Eye there want not yet uncommissioned Inquisitors that will not only be breaking open but will be therein Impudently Enrolling and Cancelling what Names they please In the 12. of Daniel where the Prophet heareth of a Time and Times and half a Time for which the wonders foretold him shall â—ast he presently groweth Inquisitive O my Lord saith he what shall be the end of these things But the Answer he receiveth is no less Sharp then Short Go thy way Daniel for the words are closed and Sealed up until the time of the End When we hear of a Book wherein this Great Judge of Heaven and Earth hath Registred the Names of his chosen ones we presently with the Prophet have an Itch in our Fingers for the searching of the Records Yea and not only so but a restless pain in our Tongues They stretch forth their Mouth unto the Heavens saith the Kingly Prophet and their Tongue walketh through the Earth Psal. 73.9 until we have published and proclaimed yea not seldom fained and fabled the Contents We Saints of the last Edition and our own Canonization have our Names only written in this Book and have therefore exclusively Title not for the future only to Heaven but to Earth for the present Whereas all the men of the World besides are left out as Reprobates and so divested of all manner of Interest whether in Temporal or Eternal Inheritance Which distinction yet either for Number or Names of Persons much more may in no wise be expected shall come to any Mans Cognizance until the Dead Small and Great Arising to stand up before God this Book with the others come to be Opened Certainly this Book is yet so fast shut up and Sealed until the last Day that whoever he be that shall arrogate to himself a Faculty of the Knowledge of the Contents and in the mean time much more assume a Power of publishing the Names therein recorded of such an one and that with modesty shall I have reason to say that he speaketh without Book And now then how well will it become us in this Case {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} to bewise unto Sobriety Mollia sunt Parvis Prata terenda Rotis to be wary how we adventure upon the Plowing up of Deep Lands with slight and slender Carriages Certainly it will be wisdome as Charity enough in every one of us to look to one There is none so lawful none so useful a Scrutiny as leaving others to Stand or Fall to their own Master to make a diligent enquiry every one of us for our Particular Names whether they be Enrolled in this Book or no And in this Scrutiny this Enquiry in no wise can we better satisfie our selves then I say not by breaking open the Seals of this Book but by looking into the other books whereof each we are to look upon but as an Index to this See we that our Conversations be as far as Humane Frailty shall enable us with a Capacity composed unto the Dictates of the Law of Nature the Law from Sinai the Law from Sion being such in one word as in the word of the Apostle Phil. 1.27 may become the chief of these Books the Glorious Gospel of Christ See we every one that in the Book of our Conscience and the Book of Gods Remembrance the Blots of all our sins whatsoever may as in a Table-Book appear written Spunged out by the precious waters of unfained Repentance be now henceforth be all over written with the fair Characters of Righteousness and Holiness And then shall we not need to distrust but that we shall appear clear when we shall come to be Judged out of those things which shall appear written in these Books according to our works Which might fitly bring me to the survey of the two last remaining Particulars the Equal Proceedings of the Court and the Infallible certainty of all but for that their but Cursory view would take up more time then for the present can be well afforded leaving them for a competent Argument which may well take up our next Days entire Perusal beseech we the Almighty in the mean time to grant that the words we have this Day heard with our outward Ears c. The Third SERMON Apoc. 20.12 I saw the dead small and great c. Iohn 5.27 And shall come forth those that have done Good to the Resurrection of Life and those that have done Evil to the Resurrection of Damnation Justine Martyr Quemadmodum omnibus Corporibus à Deo procreatis hoc insitum est ut Vmbram habeant sic Deum quoque qui Iustitia praeditus est tum iis qui virtutem sibi colendam proposuernut tum iis qui vitium amplexari maluerint pro cujusque Merito Praemia Poenasque tribuere consentaneum est Apoc. 20.12 I saw the Dead Small and Great stand up before God and the Books were opened and then another Book was opened which was the Book of Life and
not God so much as a man like unto themselves speaking unto them in judgement and so as the Apostle in another case 2 Cor. 4. 7. shall have the Heavenly treasure of the final discharge and acquittance from the guilt of all their sins brought unto them in an earthen though now glorified vessel what darkness and blackness of horrour think we shall seize the souls of the wicked when they shall see him whom they have pierced as it is in the 1. of this Book 7. when as St. Hierom cerves manus Iudaee quas fixeras The Iew shall see the Head he hath wounded And the Roman the side he hath gored Nay if Iosephs brethren were not a little affrighted and afflicted at his presence when he told them that he was Ioseph whom they had sold into Egypt Gen. 45. how shall even the best of us sinful souls appear stricken with astonishment when we shall hear this our Brother but now judge semblably upbraiding us I am Jesus your Saviour whom from time to time you have sold for the vile price of sin And so upon the result shall desire the murtherous Barabbas of your sinful concupiscence to be given you and vote his delivery up a second time to be crucified when the Sun the Moon and the Stars shall in an awful reverence hide their heads when the Heavens shall be rolled up like a Scroule and the Elements melt with heat how shall the faces of sinners be abased and confounded The dreadful sound of the Trumpet that shall cleave the Rocks startle the dead out of their Graves yea shake the very Powers of Heaven how shall it thunderstrike the guilty conscience O Angustia saith holy Anselme Hic erunt Accusantia Peccata c. O the anguish of spirit we shall in that day be surprized with on the one side we shall hear our sins accusing us on the other Justice threatning us under Hell gaping for us above an angry Judge writing bitter things against us within the conscience galling without the world burning Quando latere erit impossibile as that Father goeth on when a Latitat shall be impossible and yet an Appearance intolerable our God shall come and shall not keep silence saith the Royal Prophet there shall go before him a consuming fire and a mighty tempest shall be stirred up round about him Psal. 50.3 Et sitalis terror futurus sit advenientis saith Eusebius Emissenus upon the words and if to the eye the appearance of his person shall be so horrid how hideously think we will the sound of his sentence ring in the ear Certainly Horror ubique animos plurima Nostris Imago Tribulation and Anguish must needs be on that Day in great extremity upon those souls that shall then appear with any of their unrepented sins about them when we shall all both small and great come to stand up before God But here me thinketh I hear as some with the Saints under the Altar in the 12. of this Book 10. crying out How long Lord holy and true doest thou not judge and avenge our blood on those that dwell on the earth So others as those in St. Peter in the 2. of his Epistle 3.4 scoffing where is the promise of his comming For all things continue as they were from the beginning of the Creation All as the Disciples Matthew 24.3 busily enquiring Quando ist haec erunt When shall these things be Learn a Parable of the Fig-Tree you know is our Saviour just answer to this their curious Quare Verse 32. of the above-praised Chapter And now from time to time we have seen no withered Fig-tree putting forth many a Prognostick Leaf how insensible shall we proclaim our selves if the sight of such a spectacle shall not induce us without the least Haesitation to conclude that this summer this scorching summer is very near at hand what the least abatement even amongst our new self-canonizing Saints of excess of wantonness of pride of sacriledge of perjury of all manner vanities nay an abominable grouth of al these do we find even now that Leves undae as S. Greg. speaketh those lesser waves of our long continued unnatural self-wasting Jars still tossing and turmoiling us nay of the abomination of desolation still laving and wasling away all the Religious endowments of our holy Places yea and now standing with as great confidence in them as if he were of Gods own placing as if their errand were expresly to tell us that it cannot be long ere the Lord in a dreadfull tempest of Fire as in Noahs days sometimes of water arise to judge the earth of which signs our Saviour himself in the above-praised Mat. 24 what palpable symbols of Antichrist unmasked doth our daily experience present us withal in the well-nigh universal exaltation we sadly see against all that is called God and in that late starting up of not a few withall deceivableness of unrighteousnes of which the Apostle 2 Thes. 2 what swarms of Apostats from the faith giving heed to the seducing spirits of false Prophets speaking lyes in Hypocrisie even such as would make the blackest Fiends of Hell to blush forbidding to marry at least the regular way by the Priests tying that sacred knot and substituting I know not what profane exotick hand to act in the place thereof of which the same Apostle 1 Tim. 4 what heards and troops of covetous proud boasters blasphemers truce-breakers false accusers despisers of those that are good Traitors heady high-minded having a show of godliness but denying the power thereof Creepers into houses leading captive silly women laden with sins and led away with diverse lusts of which the same Apostle 2 Tim. 3. what mockers even mockers of God sometimes by Mock-fasts in order or disorder rather to the smiting with the fist of wickedness and setting Naboth on high for the effusion of his Innocent blood and the seizure of his poor vineyard and Mock thanksgivings sometimes for deliverance from Poetick dangers which God in his good time may in justice make reall Nay as in our Chronicles we read of the Scotch that having invaded our Borders and having observed a great mortality in our English camp and upon a cessation of Arms enquiring of our Country men the reason and told that it came by Gods grace they daily prayed to be delivered from that foul disease and fra Gods grace what thanksgivings have been made for a deliverance from Gods choisest blessings the best established Government and ordered Religion the world ever heard of of which St. Iude the 18. of his Epistle what storms of persecution against the true Professours of Christs name by a war upon them and a victory over them of which our Divine Evangelist in the 11. of this Book and 7. Some of the Rabbins I meet with of whose fancies I shall have to just reason to say what St. Augustin sometimes of the School-mens arguments Dum lucent subtilitate franguntur vanitate that while