nothing to the Gospel and then Euangelium totum Preach the Gospel intirely defalke nothing forbeare nothing of that First then we are to preach you are to heare nothing but the Gospel And we may neither postdate our Commission nor interline it nothing is Gospel now which was not Gospel then when Christ gave his Apostles their Commission And no man can serve God and Mammon no man can preach those things which belong to the filling of Angels roomes in heaven and those things which belong to the filling of the Popes Coffers at Rome with Angels upon earth For that was not Gospel when Christ gave this commission And did Christ create his Apostles as the Bishop of Rome creates his Cardinals Cum clausura oris He makes them Cardinalls and shuts their mouths they have mouths but no tongues tongues but no voice they are Judges but must give no Judgement Cardinalls but have no interest in the passages of businesses till by a new favour he open their mouths againe Did Christ make his Apostles his Ambassadors and promise to send their instructions after them Did he give them a Commission and presently a Supersedeas upon it that they should not execute it Did he make a Testament a will and referre all to future Schedules and Codicills Did he send them to preach the Gospel and tell them You shall know the Gospel in the Epistles of the Popes and their Decretals hereafter You shall know the Gospel of deposing Princes in the Councell of Lateran hereafter and the Gospel in deluding Heretiques by safe conducts in the Gospel of Constance hereafter and the Gospel of creating new Articles of the Creed in the Councell of Trent hereafter If so then was some reason for Christs Disciples to thinke when Christ said Verily I say unto you there are some here who shall not taste death Mat. 16. ultim till they see the Sonne of man come in glory that he spake and meant to be understood literally that neither Iohn nor the rest of the Apostles should ever die if they must live to preach the Gospel and the Gospel could not be knowne by them till the end of the world And therefore it was wisely done in the Romane Church to give over preaching since the preaching of the Gospel that is nothing but the Gospel would have done them no good to their ends When all their preaching was come to be nothing but declamations of the vertue of such an Indulgence and then a better Indulgence then that to morrow and every day a new market of fuller Indulgences when all was but an extolling of the tendernesse and the bowells of compassion in that mother Church who was content to set a price and a small price upon every sinne So that if David were upon the earth againe and then when the persecuting Angel had drawne his sword would but send an appeale to Rome at that price he might have an inhibition against that Angel and have leave to number his people let God take it as he list Nay if Sodome were upon the earth againe and the Angel ready to set fire to that Towne if they could send to Rome they might purchase a Charter even for that sinne though perchance they would be loath to let that sinne passe over their hills But not to speake any thing which may savour of jeast or levity in so serious a matter and so deplorable a state as their preaching was come to with humble thankes to God that we are delivered from it and humble prayers to God that we never returne to it nor towards it let us chearfully and constantly continue this duty of preaching and hearing the Gospel that is first the Gospel onely and not Traditions of men And the next is of all the Gospel nothing but it and yet all it add nothing defalke nothing for as the Law is so the Gospel is Res integra a whole piece and as S. Iames sayes of the integrity of the Law Whosoever keeps the whole Law James 2.10 and offends in one point he is guilty of all So he that is afraid to preach all and he that is loath to heare all the Gospel he preaches none he heares none And therefore if that imputation which the Romane Church layes upon us were true That we preach no falshood but doe not teach all the truth we did lacke one of the true marks of the true Church that is the preaching of the Gospel for it is not that if it be not all that take therefore the Gospel as we take it from the Schoole that it is historia and usus the Gospel is the history of the Gospel the proposing to your understanding all that Christ did and it is the appropriation of the Gospel the proposing to your faith that all that he did he did for you and then if you hearken to them who will tell you that Christ did that which he never did that he came in when the doores were shut so that his body passed thorough the very body of the Tymber thereby to advance their doctrine of Transubstantiation or that Christ did that which he did to another end then he did it that when he whipt the buyers and sellers out of the Temple he exercised a secular power and soveraignty over the world and thereby established a soveraignty over Princes in his Vicar the Pope These men doe not preach the Gospel because the Gospel is Historia usus The truth of the History and of the application and this is not the truth of the History So also if you hearken to them who tell you that though the blood of Christ be sufficient in value for you and for all yet you have no meanes to be sure that he meant his blood to you but you must passe in this world and passe out of this world in doubt and that it is well if you come to Purgatory and be sure there of getting to heaven at last these men preach not the Gospel because the Gospel is the history and the use and this is not the true use And thus it is if wee take the Gospell from the Schoole but if we take it from the Schoole master from Christ himselfe the Gospell is repentance and remission of sinnes For he came That repentance and remission of sinnes should be preached in his Name Luk. 24.47 If then they will tell you that you need no such repentance for a sinne as amounts to a contrition to a sorrow for having offended God to a detestation of the sinne to a resolution to commit it no more but that it is enough to have an attrition as they will needs call it a servill feare and sorrow that you have incurred the torments of hell or if they will tell you that when you have had this attrition that the clouds of sadnesse and of dejection of spirit have met and beat in your conscience and that the allision of those clouds have brought forth a
these houres they may heare if they will and till they doe heare they are dead Sin is the root of death the body of death and then it is the fruit of death August S. Augustine confesses of himselfe that he was Allisus intra parietes in celebritate solemnitatum tuarum that in great meetings upon solemne dayes in the Church there within the walls of Gods house Egit negotium procurandi fructus mortis he was not buying and selling doves but buying and selling soules by wanton lookes cheapning and making the bargaine of the fruits of death as himselfe expresses it Sin is the root and the tree and the fruit of death The mother of death death it selfe and the daughter of death and from this death this threefold death death past in our past sins present death in our present in sensiblenesse of sin future death in those sins with which sins God will punish our former and present sins if he proceed meerly in justice God affords us this first resurrection How Resurrectio Thus. Death is the Divorce of body and soule Resurrection is the Re-union of body and soule And in this spirituall death and resurrection which we consider now and which is all determined in the soule it selfe Grace is the soule of the soule and so the departing of grace is the death and the returning of grace is the resurrection of this sinfull soule But how By what way what meanes Consider Adam Adam was made to enjoy an immortality in his body He induced death upon himselfe And then as God having made Marriage for a remedy against uncleannesse intemperate men make even Marriage it selfe an occasion of more uncleannesse then if they had never married so man having induced and created death by sin God takes death and makes it a means of the glorifying of his body in heaven God did not induce death death was not in his purpose Cyril Alex. but veluti medium opportunum quo vas confractum rursus fingeretur As a means whereby a broken vessell might be made up againe God tooke death and made it serve for that purpose That men by the grave might be translated to heaven So then to the resurrection of the body there is an ordinary way The grave To the resurrection of the soule there is an ordinary way too The Church In the grave the body that must be there prepared for the last resurrection hath wormes that eat upon it In the Church the soule that comes to this first resurrection must have wormes The worme the sting the remorse the compunction of Conscience In those that have no part in this first resurrection the worme of conscience shall never die but gnaw on to desperation but those that have not this worme of conscience this remorse this compunction shall never live In the grave which is the furnace which ripens the body for the last resurrection there is a putrefaction of the body and an ill savour In the Church the wombe where my soule must be mellowed for this first resurrection my soul which hath the savour of death in it as it is leavened throughout with sin must stink in my nostrils and I come to a detestation of all those sins which have putrified her And I must not be afraid to accuse my selfe to condemne my selfe to humble my selfe lest I become a scorne to men Augusâ— Nemo me derideat ab eo medico aegrum sanari à quo sibi praestitum est ne aegrotaret Let no man despise me or wonder at me that I am so humbled under the hand of God or that I fly to God as to my Physitian when I am sick since the same God that hath recovered me as my Physitian when I was sick hath been his Physitian too and kept him from being sick who but for that Physitian had been as ill as I was At least he must be his Physitian if ever he come to be sick and come to know that he is sick and come to a right desire to be well Spirituall death was before bodily sinne before the wages of sin God hath provided a resurrection for both deaths but first for the first This is the first resurrection Reconciliation to God and the returning of the soule of our soule Grace in his Church by his Word and his seales there Now every repentance is not a resurrection It is rather a waking out of a dreame then a rising to a new life Nay it is rather a startling in our sleep then any awaking at all Ephes 5.14 Esay â—0 1 to have a sudden remorse a sudden flash and no constant perseverance Awake thou that sleepest sayes the Apostle out of the Prophet First awake come to a sense of thy state and then arise from the dead sayes he from the practise of dead works and then Christ shall give thee light life and strength to walk in new wayes It is a long work and hath many steps Awake arise and walke and therefore set out betimes At the last day in those which shall be found alive upon the earth we say there shall be a sudden death and a sudden resurrection In raptu in transitu in ictu oculi In an instant in the twinckling of an eye but do not thou trust to have this first Resurrection In raptu in transitu in ictu oculi In thy last passage upon thy death-bed when the twinckling of the eye must be the closing of thine eyes But as we assign to glorified bodies after the last Resurrection certaine Dotes as we call them in the Schoole certaine Endowments so labour thou to finde those endowments in thy soule here if thou beest come to this first Resurrection Amongst those Endowments we assigne Subtilitatem Agilitatem The glorified bodie is become more subtile more nimble not encumbred not disable for any motion that it would make So hath that soule which is come to this first Resurrection by grace a spirituall agility a holy nimblenesse in it that it can slide by tentations and passe through tentations and never be polluted follow a calling without taking infection by the ordinary tentations of that calling So have those glorified bodies Claritatem a brightnesse upon them from the face of God and so have these soules which are come to this first resurrection a sun in themselves an inherent light by which they can presently distinguish betweene action and action what must what may what must not bee done But of all the endowments of the glorified body we consider most Impassibilitatem That that body shall suffer nothing and is sure that it shall suffer nothing And that which answers that endowment of the body most in this soule that is come to this first resurrection is as the Apostle speaks That neither persecution sicknesse nor death Rom. 8. shall separate her from Christ Iesus In Heaven we doe not say that our bodies shall devest their mortality so as that naturally they could not dye
Dominc Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name be all glory given They would have made him King He would not and Judge to divide the Inheritance and he would not He sent the Holy Ghost And yet he saies I will pray the Father to send him So the Holy Ghost was sent by them both Father and Son But not so as that he was subject to a joynt command of both or to a diverse command of either or that he came unwillingly or had not a hand even in his owne sending But howsoever he were perfect God and had alwales an absolute power in himselfe and had ever a desire to assist the salvation of man yet he submitted himselfe to the Order of the Decree He disordered nothing prevented nothing anticipated nothing but staid till all that which lay upon Christ from his Incarnation to his Ascension was executed and then in the due and appointed time issued his Mission It is a blessed Termination Mission It determines and ends many words in our Language Missio as Permission Commission Remission and others which may afford good instruction that as the Holy Ghost did for his so we may be content to stay Gods leasure for all those Missions A consideration which I presume S. Bernard who evermore embraced all occasions of exalting devotion from the melodious fall of words would not have let passe Nor S. Augustine for all his holy and reverend gravity would have thought Nimis juvenile Too light a consideration to have insisted upon And therefore I may have leave to stay your meditations a little upon this Termination these Missions You may have a Permission Many things are with some circumstances Permitted Permissio Mat. 19.8 which yet in discretion are better forborne Moses permitted divorces but that was for the hardnesse of their hearts and Christ withdrew that Permission S. Paul saies he had a Permission Liberty to forbeare working with his owne hands 1 Cor. 9.6 and so to live upon the Church but yet he did not What Permission soever thou have by which thou maist lawfully ease thy selfe yet forbeare till thou see that the glory of God and the good of other men may be more advanced by the use then by the forbearance of that indulgence and that Permission and afford not thy selfe all the liberty that is afforded thee but in such cases The Holy Ghost staid so for his Mission so stay thou for the exercise of thy Permission Thou maist have a Commission too In that of the Peace Commissio in that for Ecclesiasticall causes thou maist have part But be not hasty in the execution of these Commissions Come to an Inquisition upon another man so as thou wouldst wish God to enquire into thee Satan had a Commission upon Iob but he procured it so indirectly on his part by false suggestions against him and executed it so uncharitably as that he was as guilty of wrong and oppression as if he had had no Commission Thou canst not assist in the execution of those Commissions of which thou art till thou have taken the oathes of Supremacie and of Allegeance to thy Soveraigne Do it not till thou have sworne all that to thy Super-soveraigne to thy God That in all thy proceedings his glory and his will and not thine owne passion or their purposes upon whom thou dependest shall be thy rule The holy Ghost staid for his Mission stay thou for thy Commission till it be sealed over againe in thine owne bosome sealed on one side with a cleerenesse of understanding and on the other with a rectitude of conscience that thou know what thou shouldst doe and doe that There is also a Remission Remissio a Remission of sins It is an Article of Faith therefore beleeve it Beleeve it originally and meritoriously in Christ and beleeve it instrumentally and ministerially in the power constituted by Christ in the Church But beleeve it not too hastily in the execution and in the application thereof to thine owne case A transitory sin a sin that spent a few minutes in the doing thereof was by the penitentiall Canons which were the rule of the Primitive Church punished with many yeares penance And doest thou thinke to have Remission of thy seventy yeares sins for one sigh one groane then when that sigh and that groane may be more in contemplation of the torment due to that sin then for the sin it selfe Nay more that thou canst sinne that sin no longer then for that sin Hast thou sought thy Remission at the Church that is August in Gods Ordinances established in the Church In qua remittuntur extra quam non remittuntur peccata In which Ordinances there is an Infallibility of Remission upon true repentance and in a contempt or neglect of which Ordinances all Repentance is illusory and all Remission but imaginary Hieron For Quodammodo ante diem Iudicii judicant God refers causes to the Church to be prepared and mature there before the great Hearing and so hath given the Church a Power to judge before the day of Judgement And therefore August Nemo sibi dicat occultè ago apud Deum ago Let no man say I repent in secret God sees that I repent It was scarce in secret that thou didst sin and wilt thou repent but in secret At least let us know thy repentance by the amendment of thy life and wee shall not much presse the knowing of it any other way Onely remember that the holy Ghost staid for his Mission Presume not thou of thy Remission till thou have done not onely something towards it that might induce it from God that is Repentance but something by it that may testifie it to man that is amendment of life There is a Manumission also Manumission an emancipation an enfranchisement from the tyranny from the thraldome of sin That which some Saints of God particularly S. Paul have importuned at Gods hand so vehemently so impatiently as he did to be delivered from the messenger of Satan and from the provocations of the flesh exprest with that passion O wretched man that I am Rom. 7.22 who shall deliver me from the body of this death He comes immediately there to a thanksgiving I thanke God through Iesus Christ our Lord But his thanksgiving was not for a Manumission hee had not received a deliverance from the power and oppresssion of tentation But he had here as he had every where an intimation from the Spirit of God of that Gratia mea sufficit That God would be as watchfull over him with his grace as the Devill could be with his tentations And if thou come to no farther Manumission then this in this life that is to be delivered though not from tentations by his power yet in tentations by his grace or by his mercy after tentations have prevailed upon thee attend Gods leasure for thy farther Manumission for the holy Ghost staid for his
Semel mori that every man must dye once but for any Bis mori for twice dying for eternall death upon any man as man if God consider him not as an impotent sinner there is no such invariable Decree for that death being also the punishment for actuall sin if he take away the cause the sin he takes away that effect that death also for this death it selfe eternall death we all agree that it is taken away with the sin And then for other calamities in this life which we call Morticulas Little deaths the children the issue the off-spring the propagation of death if we would speak properly no Affliction no Judgement of God in this life hath in it exactly the nature of a punishment not onely not the nature of satisfaction but not the nature of a punishment We call not Coyn base Coyne till the Allay be more then the pure Metall Gods Judgements are not punishments except there be more anger then love more Justice then Mercy in them and that is never for Miserationes ejus super omnia opera His mercies are above all his works In his first work in the Creation his Spirit the Holy Ghost moved upon the face of the waters and still upon the face of all our waters as waters are emblemes of tribulation in all the Scriptures his Spirit the Spirit of comfort moves too and as the waters produced the first creatures in the Creation so tribulations offer us the first comforts sooner then prosperity does God executes no judgement upon man in this life but in mercy either in mercy to that person in his sense thereof if he be sensible or at least in mercy to his Church in the example thereof if he be not There is no person to whom we can say that Gods Corrections are Punishments any otherwise then Medicinall and such as he may receive amendment by that receives them Neither does it become us in any case to say God layes this upon him because he is so ill but because he may be better But here our consideration is onely upon the godly and such as by repentance stand upright in his favour and even in them our Adversaries say that after the remission of their sins there remaines a punishment and a punishment by way of Satisfaction to be borne for that sin which is remitted But since they themselves tell us that in Baptisme God proceeds otherwise and pardons there all sin and all punishment of sinne which should be inflicted in the next world for children newly baptized doe not suffer any thing in Purgatory And that this holds not onely in Baptismo fluminis in the Sacrament of Baptisme but in Baptismo sanguinis in the Baptisme of blood too for in Martyrdome as S. Augustine sayes Injuriam facit Martyri He wrongs a Martyr that praies for a Martyr as though he were not already in Heaven so he suspects a Martyr that thinkes that Martyr goes to Purgatory And since they say that he can doe so in the other Sacrament too and in Repentance which they call and justly Secundam post naufragium tabulam That whereas Baptisme hath once delivered us from shipwrack in Originall sin this Repentance delivers us after Baptisme from actuall sinne Since God can pardon without reserving any punishment since God does so in Baptisme and Martyrdome since out of Baptisme or Martyrdome it appeares often that De facto he hath done so for he enjoyned no penance to the man sicke of the Palsie when he said Mat 9. Son be of good comfort thy sins are forgiven thee Sins and punishments too He intimated no such after reckoning to her of whom he said Many sins are forgiven her Sins and punishments too Luke 17. He left no such future Satisfaction in that Parable upon the Publican Luke 18. that departed to his house justified Justified from sins and punishments too And when he declared Zacheus to be the son of Abraham and said This day is Salvation come unto thy house Luke 19. He did not charge this blessed inheritance with any such encumbrance that he should still be subject to old debts to make satisfaction by bodily afflictions for former sins since God can doe this and does so in Baptisme and Martyrdome and hath done this very often out of Baptisme or Martyrdome in Repentance we had need of clearer evidence then they have offered to preduce yet that God does otherwise at any time that at any time he pardons the sin and retaines the punishment by way of satisfaction If their Market should faile that no man would buy Indulgences as of late yeares it was brought low when they vented ten Indulgencies in America for one in Europe If the fire of Purgatory were quenched or slackned that men would not be so prodigall to buy out Fathers or friends soules from thence If commutation of penance were so moderated amongst them that those penances and satisfactions which they make so necessary were not commuted to money and brought them in no profit they would not be perhaps so vehement in maintenance of this Doctrine To leave such imaginations with their Authors We see David did enjoyne himself penance and impose upon himselfe heavy afflictions after he had asked and no doubt received assurance of the mercy of God in the remission of his sins Why did he so S. Augustine observes out of the words of this Text that because some of Davids afflictions are expressed in the Preter tense as things already past and some in the Future as things to come for it is Laboravi I have mourned and it is Natare faciam I will wash my bed with teares so that something David confesses he had done and something he professes that he will doe therefore David hath a speciall regard to his future state and he proceeds with God not onely by that way of holy worship by way of confession what he had done but by another religious worship of God too by way of vow what he would doe David understood his own conscience well and was willing to husband it to manure and cultivate it well He knew what ploughing what harrowing what weeding and watring and pruning it needed and so perhaps might be trusted with himselfe and hee his owne spirituall Physitian This is not every ones case Those that are not so perfect in the knowledge of their owne estate as it is certaine the most are not the Church ever tooke into her care and therefore it is true that in the Primitive Church there were heavy penitentiall Canons and there were publique penances enjoyned to sinners Either Ad explorationem when the Church had cause to be jealous and to suspect the hearty repentance of the party They made this triall of their obedience to submit them to that heavy penance Or else Ad aedificationem to satisfie the Church which was scandalized by their sins before Or Ad Exercitationem to keepe them in continuall practise the better to resist
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
E Citation of Scripture the words much more the Chapter and verse not alwayes observed in it 250. C. 325. D Complements of their abuse and use 176. A. B. C. 412. D Comforts how easily we mistake false Comforts for true 279. E. 382. D. 383. A. B 501. A Of the true Comfort of the Holy Ghost 353. D Of that Comfort and consolation which the Minister of the Gospell is to preach to all people 746. A. B C Confession to the Priest in some cases usefull and necessary 558. A 568. A. 589. B. C How necessary to Confesse 569. D. 586. E Confidence true Confidence proceeds onely from true goodnesse 171. E Confirmation whether a Sacrament 329. C The use and benefit of it ibid. D. E Continency that trial not made as should be whether young people can Conteine from marriage 217. B C Contrition Confession and Satisfaction three parts of true Repentance 568. A Conventicles against their private opinions 228. C Against them 455. A They are no Bodies 756. D Consideration of our selves and our insufficiencies how necessary 44. D. 45. A. c. Constitutions No sins to be layd and fathered upon them 90. A Corporations how they have no soules 99. A Covering of sinnes what good and what bad 569. E It is good to cover them from giving other men examples 570. A Counsell not to be given unlesse we love those to whom we give it 93. C How many miscarry in that poynt ibid. D Craft and that cunning and Craft which men affect in their severall Callings 411. D Creatures how farre we may love the Creatures and how farre not 398. E Curiosity against the excesse of it in matter of Knowledge 63. E. 64. A. 411. E. 563. B. 701. A Conscience obdurate and over-tender the effects of either 587. B. C. D Curses and Imprecations whether we may use them 401. C. D. 555. E D DAmned the consummation of their torment wherein it consisteth in the opinion of the Schoole 344. B More shall be saved than damned 765. C Of the torments of the damned 776. B. C The absence of God the greatest torment of the damned ibid. D Day of Judgement the manner of proceeding in it 140. B Fearefull even to the best 200. B. C The certainty and uncertainty of it 271. D To be had ever in remembrance and why 371. B. 389. C. 392. A Death how it may be desired of us and how not 38. A. B. C. D. 148. B. C. 531. D. E Against the ambition of it in the pseudomartyrs 142. C The word Fortasse hath place in all things but Death 147. C. D It is a law a tribute and a duty and how 147. E. 148. A We not to grudge if we dy soon or others live longer ibid. B Death how an enemy to mankinde and how not ibid E God made it not but maketh use of it 188. B Of undergoing Death for Christ 400. A B Not a banishment to good men but a visitation of their friends 463. C Death why so terrible to the good men of former times 532. D The often contemplation of Death takes much from the feare of it 473. E Debts of our Debts to God 87. C To our neighbours 93. E To our superiors 91. C To our selves 94. D Deceit and Deceiving the mischiefe of it 742. B The law will not suppose it either in a father or a master ibid. 42. Decrees of God to be considered only by the Execution 330. C None absolute considering man before a Sinner 675. C. D. E Departing from sinne to be generall 552. A We are not to retaine any one 568. D Deprecating of afflictions whether or no lawfull 504. B. C. D. E Desperation the sin of it greater and worse than that of presumption 398. C Severall sects there have been but never any of Despayring men 346. A Against it 360. D E God brings his servants to humiliation often but never to Desperation 464. Destroying whether man may lawfully destroy any one hurtfull species in the world 527. B 620. C De viâ the name of such as were Christians in the former times that is men of that way according to S. Chrysostome 426. B Devils capable of mercy according to many of the Fathers 66. A The Devils quoting of Scripture 338. C Devotion a serious sedulous and impatient thing 244. E It is good to accompany our selves to a generall Devotion 512 D It must be constant 586. B And not taken up by chance ibid. C Disciplining and mortifying Acts after God hath forgiven us our sinnes commended 546. E They inferre neither Purgatory nor Indulgences nor Satisfaction 547. A They are sharp arrows from a sweet hand ib. The necessity of them to make our Repentance entire 568. B Discretion the mother and nurse of all vertues 577. B What Discretion is to be used in telling people of their sinnes ibid. Division the fore-runner of destruction 138. D. E Not alwayes unlawfull to sow Division amongst men when they agree too well to ill purposes 493. D Doubting the way to know the truth 322. D Duels the inhumanity and sinne of them 5. E Duties of our calling not to be disputed but executed 41. A Of our generall weaknesse and impotency in spirituall Duties 513. C E EArly seeking of God what it is 245. C. D God is an Early God 809. A. B And we to seeke him Early ibid. D. E Eloquence required in the delivery of Gods Word 47. D Enemies profit to be made of them 98. A We come too soone to the name and then carry it too farre 98. C God and Religion both have Enemies 375 D 703. C How we may and how we may not hate our Enemies ibid. D. E Our Enemies are Gods Enemies 704. A Errours in the way almost as dangerous as Errours in the end 639. A. D Of the Errours of the Fathers of the Church 490. A About administring the Sacrament to children about the state of the soule after death c. 739. E Not good for the Church to play with small Errours and tolerate them when shee may as easily redresse them 782. B Esay rather an Evangelist than a Prophet 54. B Evill none from God 168. C. D Nothing is naturally Evill 171. A Example in all our actions and purposes wee to propose unto our selves some patterne or Example 667. D. Examples what power they have in matter of instruction 572. D. 593. A What care is to be taken in making the inordinate acts of some Holy men in Scripture our Examples 155. C. D. 488. D. E. 489. A. 526. E How farre Example works above precept or command 165. B Of giving good Examples to others 420. C God follows his own Examples 522. E Of giving bad Examples unto other men 570. A. 573. E Excommunication the use of it amongst the Druides and the Jewes 402. A Much tendernesse to be used in excommunicating any from the Church 667. A How many men excommunicare themselves without any Church-censure ib. B. C. 418.
those Seales I confirm those Miracles with my Blood and yet Quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved my report I doe Lord as thou biddest me sayes every one of us who as we have received mercy have received the Ministery I obey the inward calling of the Spirit I accept the outward calling of the Church furnished and established with both these I come into the world I preach absolution of sins to every repentant Soule I offer the seales of reconciliation to every contrite spirit and yet Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved my report Indeed it is a sad contemplation and must necessarily produce a serious and a vehement expostulation when the predictions of Gods future judgements so we shall finde the case to have been in the words in Esay when the execution of Gods present judgements so we shall finde the case to have been in the words in S. Iohn when the Ordinances of God for the reliefe of any soule in any judgement in his Church are not beleeved To say I beleeve you not amounts to a lye Not to beleeve Gods warnings before not to beleeve Gods present judgements not to beleeve that God hath established a way to come to him in all distresses this is to give God the lye and with this is the world charged in this Text Lord who hath beleeved our report First then 1 Part. Esay 53.1 where we finde these words first the Prophet reproaches their unbeleefe and hardnesse of heart in this that they did not beleeve future things future calamities future judgements for that is intended in that place For though this 53. of Esay be the continuation and the consummation of that doctrine which the Prophet began to propose in the Chapter immediatly preceding which is the comming of the Messiah in generall the comfortablest doctrine that could be proposed though this Chapter be especially that place upon which S. Hierome grounds that Eulogy of Esay that Esay was rather an Euangelist then a Prophet because of his particular declaration of Christ in this Chapter though upon this Chapter our Expositors sometimes say that as we cite the Gospell according to S. Matthew and the Gospell according to S. Iohn so here we may say the Gospell according to the Prophet Esay yet though this be a prophecy of the comming of Christ and so the comfortablest doctrine that can be proposed in the generall and in the end and fruit of that comming yet it is a prophecy of the exinanition of Christ of the evacuation of Christ of the inglorious and ignominious estate the calamitous and contumelious estate of Christ Their Messias they should have but that Messias should be reputed a Malefactor and as a Malefactor crucified Which miseries and calamities being to fall upon him for them they ought to have been as sensible and as much affected with those miseries to be endured for them as if they had been to have fallen upon themselves The later Jews and their Rabbins since the dispersion doe not will not beleeve this prophecy of miseries and calamities to belong to their Messias Ver. 2. They do not they wil not beleeve that that which is said That there is no form no beauty no comelinesse in him so that men should long for him before or desire to look upon him after should have any reference to their Messiah whom they expect in all outward splendor and glory Nor that that which is added there That he should be despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefes should belong to him in whose proceedings in this world they look for continuall Victories and Triumphs But they will needs understand these miseries and calamities prophecyed here to be those calamities and those miseries which have fallen and dwelt upon their Nation ever since their dispersion after Christs death Now let it be but such a prophecy as that take it either way The Christian way a prophecy of calamities upon the Messiah for them or the Jews way of calamities upon them for the Messiah still it is a prophecy of future calamities future judgements of which they ought to have been sensible and with which they ought to have been affected and were not And so that 's their charge they did not beleeve the Prophets report they were not moved with Gods judgments denounced upon them by those Prophets Now was this so hainous not to beleeve a Prophet The office and function of a Prophet Propheta in the time of the Law was not so evident nor so ordinary an office as the office of the Priest and Minister in the Gospel now is There was not a constant an ordinary a visible calling in the Church to the office of a Prophet Neither the high-priest nor the Ecclesiasticall Consistory the Synedrium did by any imposition of hands or other Collation or Declaration give Orders to any man so as that thereby that man was made a Prophet I know some men of much industry and perspicacy too in searching into those Scriptures the sense whereof is not obvious to every man have thought that the Prophets had an outward and a constant declaration of their Calling 1 Reg. 19.15 And they think it proved by that which is said to Eliah when God commands him to anoint Hazael K. of Syria to anoint Iehu K. of Israel to anoint Elisha Prophet in his own room Therefore say they the Prophet had as much evidence of his Calling as the Minister hath for that unction was as evident a thing as our Imposition of hands is And it is true it was so where it was actually and really executed But then nothing is more evident then that this word Meshiach which signifies Anointing is not restrained to that very action a real unction but frequently transferred communicated in a Scripture use to every kind of Declaration of any Election any Institution any Inauguration any Investiture of any person to any place And lesse then that of any appropriation any applicatiō of any thing to any particular use Any appointing was an anointing As in particular for many other places where S. Hierome reades Arripite clypeos buckle your shields Esay 21.5 To you which was an alarm to them to arm the originall hath it and so hath our translation Anoint your shields to apply them to their right use was called an Anointing And when God cals Cyrus the King of Persia Vnctum suum his Anointed it were weakly and improperly argued from that word that Cyrus King of Persia was literally actually anointed for that unction was peculiar to the Kings of Israel but Cyrus was the anointed of the Lord that is declared and avowed by the Lord to be his chosen Instrument Neither could Eliah literally execute this commandement for anointing Hasael King of Syria for Hasael the King of Syria could not be anointed by the Prophet of the Lord for such unction was peculiar to the Kings of Israel And for
no evill done in the City but I doe it we may be bold to say there is no good done in the world but hee does it The very calamities are from him the deliverance from those calamities much more All comes from Gods hand and from his hand by way of hand-writing by way of letter and instruction to us And therefore to ascribe things wholy to nature to fortune to power to second causes this is to mistake the hand not to know Gods hand But to acknowledge it to be Gods hand and not to read it to say that it is Gods doing and not to consider what God intends in it is as much a slighting of God as the other Now in every such letter in every judgement God writes to the King but it becomes not me to open the Kings letter nor to prescribe the King his interpretation of that judgement In every such letter in every judgement God writes to the State but I will not open their letter nor prescribe them their interpretation of that judgement God who of his goodnesse hath vouchsafed to write unto them in these letters of his abundant goodnesse interprets himselfe to their religious hearts But then in every such letter in every judgement God writes to me too and that letter I will open and read that letter I will take knowledge that it is Gods hand to me and I will study the will of God to me in that letter and I will write back again to my God and return him an answer in the amendment of my life and give him my reformation for his information Else I am fallen lower then under the Prophets increpation non credidi I have not beleeved comminations of future judgements under Christs increpation too non credidi I doe not beleeve judgements to be judgements or which is as dangerous an ignorance not to be instructive judgements medicinall and catechisticall judgements to me And this may well be the explication at least the application and accommodation of these words Lord who hath beleeved our report in those places the Prophet Esay and the Euangelist S. Iohn There remaines only the third place where we have these words in the Apostle S. Paul and in them there doe not consider a prophecy of a future Christ Rom. 10.16 as in Esay nor a history of a present Christ as in S. Iohn but we consider an application of all prophecy and history all that was foretold of Christ all that was done and suffered by Christ in this that there is a Church instituted by Christ endowed with meanes of reconciling us to God what judgements soever our sins have drawen God to threaten against us or to inflict upon us and yet for all these offers of all these helps the Minister is put to this sad expostulation Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved our report Here then the Apostles expostulation with God and increpation upon the people may usefully be conceived to be thus carried from the light and notification of God 3. Part. which we have in nature to a clearer light which we have in the Law and Prophets and then a clearer then that in the Gospell and a clearer at least a nearer then that in the Church First then even the naturall man is inexcusable sayes this Apostle if he doe not see the invisible God in the visible creature inexcusable if he doe not reade the law written in his own heart But then Quis credidit auditui suo who hath beleeved his own report who does reade the Law written in his own heart who does come home to Church to himself or hearken to the motions of his own spirit what he should doe or what will become of him if he doe still as he hath done or who reades the history of his own conscience what he hath done and the judgements that belong to those former actions Therefore we have a clearer light then this Firmiorem propheticum sermonem sayes S. Peter We have a more sure word of the Prophets that is 2 Pet. 1.19 as S. Augustine reades that place clariorem a more manifest a more evident declaration in the Prophets then in nature of the will of God towards man and his rewarding the obedient and rejecting the disobedient to that will But then Quis credidit auditui prophetico who hath beleeved the report of the Prophet so far as to be so moved and affected with a prophecy as to suspect himselfe and apply that prophecy to himselfe and to say this judgement of his belongs to this sin of mine Therefore we have a clearer light then this God Heb. 1.1 who at sundry times and in divers manners spake to the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last dayes spoke to us by his Son sayes the Apostle He spake personally and he spake aloud in the declaration of Miracles But Quis credidit auditui filii who beleeved even his report did they not call his preaching sedition and call his Miracles conjuring Therefore we have a clearer that is a nearer light then the written Gospell that is the Church For the principall intention in Christs Miracles even in the purpose of God was but thereby to create and constitute and establish an assurance that he that did those Miracles was the right man the true Messias that Son of God who was made man for the redemption and ransome of the whole world But then that which was to give them their best assistance that that was to supply all by that way to apply this generall redemption to every particular soule that was the establishing of a Church of a visible and constant and permanent meanes of salvation by his Ordinances there usque ad consummationem till the end of the world And this is done sayes this Apostle here Christ is come and gone and come again Born and dead and risen again Ascended and sate at the right hand of his Father in our nature and descended again in his Spirit the Holy Ghost that Holy Ghost hath sent us us the Apostles we have made Bishops they have made Priests and Deacons and so that body that family that houshold of the faithfull Ver. 14. by their Ministery is made up 'T is true sayes the Apostle here Men cannot be saved without calling upon God nor call upon him acceptably without Faith nor beleeve truly without Hearing nor heare profitably without Preaching nor preach avowably and with a blessing without sending All this is true sayes our Apostle in this place but all this is done such a sending such a preaching such a hearing is established For Ver. 19. I ask but this sayes he Have they not heard Yes verily their sound went into all the earth and their words unto the end of the world And for my selfe sayes he I have strived to preach the Gospell Rom. 15.20 where Christ was not named that is to carry the Church farther then the rest had carried it and now all
is done sayes the Apostle So that here is the case if the naturall man say alas they are but dark notions of God which I have in nature if the Jew say alas they are but remote and ambiguous things which I have of Christ in the Prophets If the slack and historicall Christian say alas they are but generall things done for the whole world indifferently and not applyed to me which I reade in the Gospell to this naturall man to this Jew to this slack Christian we present an established Church a Church endowed with a power to open the wounds of Christ Jesus to receive every wounded soule to spread the balme of his blood upon every bleeding heart A Church that makes this generall Christ particular to every Christian that makes the Saviour of the world thy Saviour and my Saviour that offers the originall sinner Baptisme for that and the actuall sinner the body and blood of Christ Jesus for that a Church that mollifies and entenders and shivers the presumptuous sinner with denouncing the judgements of God and then consolidates and establishes the diffident soule with the promises of his Gospell a Church in contemplation whereof God may say Quid potui Vineae what could I doe more for my people then I have done first to send mine only Son to die for the whole world and then to spread a Church over the whole world by which that death of his might be life to every soule This we preach this we propose according to that commission put into our hands Ite praedicate Goe and preach the Gospell to every creature and yet Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved our report In this then the Apostle and this Text places the inflexible the incorrigible stiffenesse of mans disobedience in this he seales up his inexcusablenesse his irrecoverablenesse first that he is not afraid of future judgements because they are remote then that he does not beleeve present judgements to be judgements because he can make shift to call them by a milder name accidents and not judgements and can assigne some naturall or morall or casuall reason for them But especially in this that he does not beleeve a perpetuall presence of Christ in his Church he does not beleeve an Ordinance of meanes by which all burdens of bodily infirmities of crosses in fortune of dejection of spirit and of the primary cause of all these that is sin it selfe may be taken off or made easie unto him he does not beleeve a Church Now as in our former part we were bound to know Gods hand and then bound to reade it to acknowledge a judgement to be a judgement and then to consider what God intended in that judgement so here we are bound to know the true Church and then to know what the true Church proposes to us The true Church is that where the word is truely preached and the Sacraments duly administred But it is the Word the Word inspired by the holy Ghost not Apocryphall not Decretall not Traditionall not Additionall supplements and it is the Sacraments Sacraments instituted by Christ himself and not those super-numerary sacraments those posthume post-nati sacramēts that have been multiplyed after and then that which the true Church proposes is all that is truly necessary to salvation and nothing but that in that quality as necessary So that Problematical points of which either side may be true in which neither side is fundamentally necessary to salvation those marginal interlineary notes that are not of the body of the text opinions raised out of singularity in some one man and then maintained out of partiality and affection to that man these problematicall things should not be called the Doctrine of the Church nor lay obligations upon mens consciences They should not disturb the general peace they should not extinguish particular charity towards one another The Act then that God requires of us is to beleeve so the words carry it in all the three places The Object the next the nearest Object of this Belief is made the Church that is to beleeve that God hath established means for the application of Christs death to all in all Christian Congregations All things are possible to him that beleeveth Mar. 9 23. saith our Saviour In the Word and Sacraments there is Salvation to every soule that beleeves there is so As on the other side we have from the same mouth and the same pen He that beleeveth not is damned Faith then being the root of all Mar. 16.16 and God having vouchsafed to plant this root this faith here in his terrestriall paradise and not in heaven in the manifest ministery of the Gospell and not in a secret and unrevealed purpose for faith comes by hearing and hearing by preaching which are things executed and transacted here in the Church be thou content with those meanes which God hath ordained and take thy faith in those meanes and beleeve it to be influxus suasorius that it is an influence from God but an influence that works in thee by way of perswasion and not of compulsion It convinces thee but it doth not constraine thee It is as S. Augustine sayes excellently Vocatio congrua it is the voice of God to thee but his voice then when thou art fit to heare and answer that voice not fitted by any exaltation of thine own naturall faculties before the cōming of grace nor fitted by a good husbanding of Gods former grace so as in rigor of justice to merit an increase of grace but fitted by his preventing his auxiliant his concomitant grace grace exhibited to thee at that time when he calls thee for so saies that Father Sic eum vocat quo modo seit ei congruere ut vocantē non respuat God calls him then when he knows he wil not resist his calling But he doth not say then when he cānot resist that needs not be said But as there is podus glcriae as the Apostle speaks an eternall weight of glory which mans understanding cannot cōprehend so there is Pondus gratiae a certain weight of grace that God layes upon that soule which shall be his under which that soule shall not easily bend it self any way from God This then is the summe of this whole Catechisme which these words in these three places doe constitute First that we be truely affected with Gods fore-warnings and say there Domine credo Lord I beleeve that report I beleeve that judgement to be denounced against my sin And then that we be duely affected with present changes and say there Domine credo Lord I beleeve that report I beleeve this judgement to come from thee and to be a letter of thy hand Lord enlighten others to interpret it aright for thy more publique glory and me for my particular reformation And then lastly to be sincerely and seriously affected with the Ordinances of his Church and to rest in them for the means of our salvation and to
he alone for the salvation of all men as it is expresly said for this word in our Text they hath no limitation I came I alone that they all they might be the better Some of the ancient Fathers delivering the mercies of God so Illis omnibus as the articles of our Church enjoyne them to bee delivered that is generally as they are delivered in the Scriptures have delivered them so over-generally that they have seemed loth to thinke the devill himselfe excluded from all benefit of Christs comming Some of the later Authors in the Roman Church who as pious as they pretend to be towards the Fathers are apter to discover the nakednesse of the Fathers then we are have noted in Iustin Martyr and in Epiphanius and in Clement of Alexandria and in Oecumenius and Oecumenius is no single Father but Pater patratus a manifold Father a complicated father a Father that collected Fathers and even in S. Ierome himselfe and S. Ambrose too some inclinations towards that opinion that the devill retaining still his faculty of free will is therefore capable of repentance and so of benefit by this comming of Christ And those Authors of the Roman Church that modifie the matter and excuse the Fathers herein excuse them no other way but this that though that opinion and doctrine of those Fathers bee not true in it selfe yet it was never condemned by any Councell nor by any ancient Father So very far did very many goe in enlarging the mercies of God in Christ to all But waiving this over-large extention and profusion thereof and directing it upon a more possible and a more credible object that is Man S. Cyril of Alexandria speaking of the possibility of the salvation of all men saies by way of objection to himselfe Omnes non credunt How can all be saved since all doe not beleeve but saies he Because actually they do not beleeve is it therefore impossible they should beleeve And for actuall beleefe saies he though all doe not yet so many doe utfacilè qui pereant superent that by Gods goodnesse more are saved then lost saies that Father of tender and large bowels Moses S. Cyril And howsoever he may seeme too tender and too large herein yet it is a good peece of counsaile which that Rabbi whom I named before gives Ne redarguas ca falsitatis de quorum contrariis nulla est demonstratio Be not aptto call any opinion false or hereticall or damnable the contrary whereof cannot be evidently proved And for this particular the generall possibility of salvation all agree that the merit of Christ Jesus is sufficient for all Whether this all-sufficiency grow ex intrinseca ratione formali out of the very nature of the merit the dignity of the person being considered or grow ex pacto acceptatione out of the acceptation of the Father and the contract betweene him and the Son for that let the Thomists and the Scotists in the Roman Church wrangle All agree that there is enough done for all And would God receive enough for all and then exclude some of himselfe without any relation any consideration of sinne God forbid Man is called by divers names names of lownesse enough in the Scriptures But by the name of Enosh Enosh that signifies meere misery Man is never called in the Scriptures till after the fall of Adam Onely sinne after and not any ill purpose in God before made man miserable The manner of expressing the mercy of God in the frame and course of Scriptures expresses evermore the largenesse of that mercy Very often in the Scriptures you shall finde the person suddenly changed and when God shall have said in the beginning of a sentence I will shew mercy unto them them as though he spoke of others presently in the same sentence he will say my loving kindnesse will I not draw from thee not from thee not from them not from any that so whensoever thou hearest of Gods mercy proposed to them to others thou mightest beleeve that mercy to bee meant to thee and whensoever they others heare that mercy proposed to thee they might beleeve it to be meant to them And so much may to good purpose be observed out of some other parts of this Chapter in another translation In the third verse it is said His sheepe heare his voice In the Arabique tranflation it is Oves audit His sheepe in the plurall does heare in the singular God is a plurall God and offers himselfe to all collectively God is a singular God and offers himselfe to every man distributively So also is it said there Nominibus suo He cals his sheepe by their names It is names in the plurall and theirs in the singular whatsoever God proposes to any he intends to all In which contemplation S. Augustine breaks out into that holy exclamation O bone omnipotens qui sic cur as unumquemque nostrûm tanquam solum cures sic omnes tamquam singulos O good and mighty God who art as loving to every man as to all mankind and meanest as well to all mankind as to any man Be pleased to make your use of this note for the better imprinting of this largenesse of Gods mercy Moses desires of God Exod. 33.13 V. 18. V. 19. that he would shew him Vias suas His waies his proceedings his dealings with men that which he calls after Gloriam suam His glory how he glorifies himselfe upon man God promises him in the next verse that he will shew him Omne bonum All his goodnesse Exod. 346. God hath no way towards man but goodnesse God glorifies himselfe in nothing upon man but in his owne goodnesse And therefore when God comes to the performance of this promise in the next Chapter he showes him his way and his glory and his goodnesse in shewing him that he is a mercifull God a gracious God a long-suffering God a God that forgives sins and iniquities and as the Hebrew Doctors note there are thirteen attributes thirteen denotations of God specified in that place and of all those thirteen there is but one that tasts of judgement That he will punish the sins of Fathers upon Children All the other twelve are meerly wholly mercy such a proportion hath his mercy above his justice such a proportion as that there is no cause in him if all men be not partakers of it Shall we say sayes S. Cyril Melius agriculturam non exerceri si quae nocent tolli non possunt It were better there were no tillage then that weeds should grow Melius non creasse better that God had made no men then that so many should be damned God made none to be damned And therefore though some would expunge out of our Litany that Rogation that Petition That thou wouldst have mercy upon all men as though it were contrary to Gods purpose to have mercy upon all men yet S. Augustine enlarges his charity too far Libera nos Domine
be delivered of a fever in my spirits and to have my spirit troubled with the guiltinesse of an adultery To be delivered of Cramps and Coliques and Convulsions in my joynts and sinewes and suffer in my soule all these from my oppressions and extortions by which I have ground the face of the poore It is but lost labour and cost to give a man a precious cordiall when he hath a thorne in his foote or an arrow in his flesh for as long as the sinne which is the cause of the sicknesse remaines Deterius sequetur A worse thing will follow we may be rid of a Fever and the Pestilence will follow rid of the Cramp and a Gout will follow rid of sicknesse and Death eternall death will follow That which our Saviour prescribes is Noli peccare ampliùs sinne no more first non ampliùs sinne no more sins take heed of gravid sins of pregnant sinnes of sins of concomitance and concatentation that chaine and induce more sins after as Davids idlenesse did adultery and that murder the losse of the Lords Army and Honor in the blaspheming of his name Noli ampliùs sin no more no such sin as induces more And Noli ampliùs sinne no more that is sin thy owne sin thy beloved sin no more times over And still Noli ampliùs sin not that sin which thou hast given over in thy practise in thy memory by a sinfull delight in remembring it And againe Noli ampliùs sin not over thy former sins by holding in thy possession such things as were corruptly gotten by any such former practises for Deterius sequetur a worse thing will follow A Tertian will be a Quartan and a Quartan a Hectique and a Hectique a Consumption and a Consumption without a consummation that shall never consume it selfe nor consume thee to an unsensiblenesse of torment And then after these three lessons in this Catechisme Sanitas spiritualis That God gives before we aske That he gives better then we aske That he informes us in the true cause of sicknesse sinne He involves a tacit nay he expresses an expresse rebuke and increpation and in beginning at the Dimittuntur peccata at the forgivenesse of sinnes tels him in his eare that his spirituall health should have beene prefer'd before his bodily and the cure of his soule before his Palsie that first the Priest should have beene and then the Physitian might bee consulted That which Christ does to his new adopted Sonne here the Wiseman saies to his Son Ecclus. 38.9 My Son in thy sicknesse be not negligent But wherein is his diligence required or to be expressed in that which followes Pray unto the Lord and he will make thee whole But upon what conditions or what preparations Leave off from sin order thy hands aright and cleanse thy heart from all wickednesse Is this all needs there no declaration no testimony of this Yes Give a sweet savour and a memoriall of fine floure and make a fat offering as not beeing that is as though thou wert dead Give and give that which thou givest in thy life time as not beeing And when all this is piously and religiously done thou hast repented restor'd amended and given to pious uses Then saies he there give place to the Physitian for the Lord hath created him For if we proceed otherwise if wee begin with the Physitian Physick is a curse He that sinneth before his Maker V. 15. let him fall into the hands of the Physitian saies the Wiseman there It is not Let him come into the hands of the Physitian as though that were a curse but let him fall let him cast and throw himselfe into his hands and rely upon naturall meanes and leave out all consideration of his other and worse disease and the supernaturall Physick for that 2. Chron. 16. Asa had had a great deliverance from God when the Prophet Hanani asked him Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubins a huge Host but because after this deliverance he relied upon the King of Syria and not upon God the Judgement is From henceforth thou shalt have wars That was a sicknesse upon the State then he fell sick in his own person and in that sicknesse saies that story He sought not to the Lord but to the Physitian and then he dyed To the Lord and then to the Physitian had beene the right way If to the Physitian and then to the Lord though this had beene out of the right way yet hee might have returned to it But it was to the Physitian and not to the Lord and then he died Omnipotenti medico nullus languor insanabilis saies S. Ambrose there is but one Almighty and none but the Almighty can cure all diseases because hee onely can cure diseases in the roote that is in the forgivenesse of sins We are almost at an end when we had thus Catechised his Convertite thus rectified his patient Scribae Pharisci hee turnes upon them who beheld all this and were scandaliz'd with his words the Scribes and Pharisees And because they were scandaliz'd onely in this that he being but man undertooke the office of God to forgive sins he declares himselfe to them to be God Christ would not leave even malice it selfe unsatisfied And therefore do not thou thinke thy selfe Christian enough for having an innocence in thy selfe but be content to descend to the infirmities and to the very malice of other men and to give the world satisfaction Nec paratum habeas illud ètrivio sayes S. Hierome do not arm thy self with that vulgar and triviall saying Sufficit mihi conscientia mea nec curo quid loquantur homines It suffices me that mine own conscience is cleare and I care not what all the world sayes thou must care what the world sayes and thinks Christ himself had that respect even towards the Scribes and Pharisees For first he declared himself to be God in that he took knowledge of their thoughts for they had said nothing and he sayes to them why reason you thus in your hearts and they themselves did not could not deny but that those words of Solomon appertained only to God 2 Chron. 6.30 Thou only knowest the hearts of the children of men And those of Ieremy The heart is deceitfull above all things Jer. 17.9 and desperately wicked who can know it I the Lord search the heart and I try the reines Let the Schoole dispute infinitely for he that will not content himself with means of salvation till all Schoole points be reconciled will come too late let Scotus and his Heard think That Angels and separate soules have a naturall power to understand thoughts though God for his particular glory restraine the exercise of that power in them as in the Romane Church Priests have a power to forgive all sins though the Pope restraine that power in reserved cases And the Cardinals by their Creation have a voice in the
in the warfare Mat. 26.38 so we have our example in our great Generall Christ Jesus Who though his soul were heavy and heavy unto death though he had a baptisme to be baptised with coarctabatur he was straightned and in paine till it were accomplished and though he had power to lay down his soul Iohn 10.18 and take it up againe and no man else could take it from him yet he sought it out to the last houre and till his houre came he would not prevent it nor lay downe his soule Vae desiderantibus woe unto them that desire any other end of Gods correction but what he hath ordained and appointed for ut quid vobis what shall you get by choosing your owne wayes Tenebrae non lux They shall passe out of this world in this inward darknesse of melancholy and dejection of spirit into the outward darknesse which is an everlasting exclusion from the Father of lights and from the Kingdome of joy their case is well expressed in the next verse to our Text they shall flie from a Lyon and a Beare shall meet them they shall leane on a wall and a Serpent shall bite them they shall end this life by a miserable and hasty death and out of that death shall grow an immortall life in torments which no wearinesse nor desire nor practice can ever bring to an end And here in this acceptation of these words this vae falls directly upon them who colouring and apparelling treason in martyrdome expose their lives to the danger of the Law Scribanius embrace death these of whom one of their own society saith that the Scevolaes the Caves the Porciaes the Cleopatraes of the old time were nothing to the Jesuites for saith he they could dye once but they lacked courage ad multas mortes perchance hee meanes that after those men were once in danger of the Law and forfeited their lives by one comming they could come again and again as often as the plentifull mercy of their King would send them away Rapiunt mortem spontanea irruptione sayes he to their glory they are voluntary and violent pursuers of their own death and as he expresses it Crederes morbo adesos Baron Martyrâ—â— 29. Decemb you would think that the desire of death is a disease in them A graver man then he mistakes their case and cause of death as much you are saith he incouraging those of our Nation to the pursuit of death in sacris septis ad martyrium saginati fed up and fatned here for martyrdome Sacramento sanguinem spospondistis they have taken an oath that they will be hanged but that he in whom as his great patterne God himselfe mercy is above all his works out of his abundant sweetnesse makes them perjured when they have so Tworne and vowed their owne ruine But those that send them give not the lives of these men so freely so cheaply as they pretend But as in dry Pumps men poure in a little water that they may pump up more so they are content to drop in a little blood of imaginary but traiterous Martyrs that by that at last they may draw up at last the royall blood of Princes and the loyall blood of Subjects vae desiderantibus woe to them that are made thus ambitious of their owne ruine ut quid vobis Tenebrae non lux you are kept in darknesse in this world and sent into darknesse from heaven into the next and so your ambition ad multas mortes shall be satisfied you dye more then one death morte moriemini this death delivers you to another from which you shall never be delivered We have now past through these three acceptations of these words Conclusion which have falne into the contemplation and meditation of the Ancients in their Expositions of this Text as this dark day of the Lord signifies his judgements upon Atheisticall scorners in this world as it signifies his last irrevocable and irremediable judgements upon hypocriticall relyers upon their own righteousnesse in the next world and between both as it signifies their uncomfortable passage out of this life who bring their death inordinately upon themselves and we shall shut up all with one signification more of the Lords day That that is the Lords day of which the whole Lent is the Vigil and the Eve All this time of mortification and our often meeting in this place to heare of our mortality and our immortality which are the two reall Texts and Subjects of all our Sermons All this time is the Eve of the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ That is the Lords day when all our mortification and dejection of spirit and humbling of our soules shall be abundantly exalted in his resurrection and when all our fasts and abstinence shall be abundantly recompenced in the participation of his body his bloud in the Sacrament Gods Chancery is alwayes open and his seale works alwaies at all times remission of sins may be sealed to a penitent soule in the Sacrament That clause which the Chancellors had in their Patents under the Romane Emperours Vt praerogativamgerat conscientiae nostrae is in our commission too for God hath put his conscience into his Church whose sins are remitted there are remitted in heaven at all times but yet dies Domini the Lords resurrection is as the full Terme a more generall application of this seale of reconciliation But vae desiderantibus woe unto them that desire that day only because they would have these dayes of preaching and prayer and fasting and trouble some preparation past and gone Vae desiderantibus woe unto them who desire that day onely that by receâ—â—ing the Sacrament day that they might delude the world as though they were not of a contrary religion in their heart vae desiderantibus woe unto them who present themselves that day without such a preparation as becomes so fearful and mystesious an action upon any carnall or collaterall respects Before that day of the Lord comes comes the day of his crucifying before you come to that day if you come not to a crucifying of your selves to the world and the world to you ut quid vobis what shall you get by that day you shall prophane that day and the Author of it as to make that day of Christs triumph the triumph of Satan and to make even that body and bloud of Christ Jesus Vehiculum Satanae his Chariot to enter into you as he did into Iudas That day of the Lord will be darknesse and not light and that darknesse will be that you shall not discerne the Lords body you shall scatter all your thoughts upon wrangling and controversies de modo how the Lords body can be there and you shall not discerne by the effects nor in your owne conscience that the Lords body is there at all But you shall take it to be onely an obedience to civill or Ecclesiasticall
the figurative exposition of those places of Scripture which require that way oft to be figuratively expounded that Expositor is not to be blamed who not destroying the literall sense proposes such a figurative sense as may exalt our devotion and advance our edification And as no one of those Expositors did ill in proposing one such sense so neither do those Expositors ill who with those limitations that it destroy not the literall sense that it violate not the analogy of faith that it advance devotion do propose another and another such sense So doth that preacher well also who to the same end and within the same limit makes his use of both of all those expositions because all may stand and it is not evident in such figurative speeches which is the literall that is the principall intention of the Holy Ghost Of these words of this first Resurrection which is not the last of the body but a spirituall Resurrection there are three expositions authorized by persons of good note in the Church Alcazar First that this first Resurrection is a Resurrection from that low estate to which persecution had brought the Church and so it belongs to this whole State and Church August nostri and Blessed are we who have our part in this first Resurrection Secondly that it is a Resurrection from the death of sin of actuall and habituall sin so it belongs to every particular penitent soul and Blessed art thou blessed am I if we have part in this first Resurrection And then thirdly because after this Resurrection it is said That we shall raign with Christ a thousand yeares Ribera which is a certain for an uncertain a limited for a long time it hath also been taken for the state of the soul in heaven after it is parted from the body by death for though the soul cannot be said properly to have a Resurrection because properly it cannot die yet to be thus delivered from the danger of a second death by future sin to be removed from the distance and latitude and possibility of tentations in this world is by very good Expositors called a Resurrection and so it belongs to all them who are departed in the Lord Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection And then the occasion of the day which we celebrate now being the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus invites me to propose a fourth sense or rather use of the words not indeed as an exposition of the words but as a convenient exaltation of our devotion which is that this first Resurrection should be the first fruits of the dead The first Rising is the first Riser Christ Jesus for as Christ sayes of himself that He is the Resurrection so he is the first Resurrection the root of the Resurrection He upon whom our Resurrection all ours all our kindes of Resurrections are founded and so it belongs to State and Church and particular persons alive and dead Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection And these foure considerations of the words A Resurrection from persecution by deliverance a Resurrection from sin by grace a Resurrection from tentation to sin by the way of death to the glory of heaven and all these in the first Resurrection in him that is the roote of all in Christ Jesus These foure steps these foure passages these foure transitions will be our quarter Clock for this houres exercise First then 1. Part. From persecution we consider this first Resurrection to be a Resurrection from a persecution for religion for the profession of the Gospell to a forward glorious passage of the Gospell And so a learned Expositor in the Romane Church carries the exposition of this whole place though not indeed the ordinary way yet truly not incommodiously not improperly upon that deliverance which God afforded his Church from those great persecutions which had otherwise supplanted her in her first planting in the primitive times Then sayes he and in part well towards the letter of the place The devill was chained for a thousand yeares and then we began to raign with Christ for a thousand yeares reckoning the time from that time when God destroyed Idolatry more fully and gave peace and rest and free exercise of the Christian religion under the Christian Emperours till Antichrist in the height of his rage shall come and let this thousand yeares prisoner Satan loose and so interrupt our thousand yeares raign with Christ with new persecutions In that persecution was the death of the Church in the eye of the world In that deliverance by Christian Emperours was the Resurrection of the Church And in Gods protecting her ever since is the chaining up of the devill and our raigning with Christ for those thousand yeares And truly beloved if we consider the low the very low estate of Christians in those persecutions tryed ten times in the fire ten severall and distinct persecutions in which ten persecutions God may seem to have had a minde to deale eavenly with the world and to lay as much upon his people whom he would try then as he had laid upon others for his people before and so to equall the ten plagues of Aegypt in ten persecutions in the primitive Church if we consider that low that very low estate we may justly call their deliverance a Resurrection For as God said to Jerusalem I found thee in thy blood and washed thee so Christ Jesus found the Church the Christian Church in her blood and washed her and wiped her washed her in his own blood which washes white and wiped her with the garments of his own righteousnesse that she might be acceptable in the sight of God and then wiped all teares from her eyes took away all occasions of complaint and lamentation that she might be glorious in the eyes of man and chearefull in her own such was her Resurrection We wonder and justly at the effusion at the pouring out of blood in the sacrifices of the old Law that that little countrey scarce bigger then some three of our Shires should spend more cattle in some few dayes sacrifice at some solemnities and every yeare in the sacrifices of the whole yeare then perchance this kingdome could give to any use Seas of blood and yet but brooks tuns of blood and yet but basons compared with the sacrifices the sacrifices of the blood of men in the persecutions of the Primitive Church For every Oxe of the Jew the Christian spent a man and for every Sheep and Lamb a Mother and her childe and for every heard of cattle sometimes a towne of Inhabitants sometimes a Legion of Souldiers all martyred at once so that they did not stand to fill their Martyrologies with names but with numbers they had not roome to say such a day such a Bishop such a day such a Generall but the day of 500. the day of 5000. Martyrs and the martyrdome of
were baptized were such as understood their case persons of discretion such as had spent many months many times many yeares in studying and in practising the Christian religion and then were baptized and if these men say those Fathers fell after this it was impossible to be renewed that way impossible that they should have a second baptisme And it is scarce mannerly scarce safe to depart from so many as meet in this interpretation of this impossibility for they all intend that which S. Chrysostome expresses most plainly Dixit impossibile ut in desperationem induceret The Apostle sayes it is impossible that he might bring us before hand into a kinde of desperation A desperation of this kinde That there was absolutely no hope of a possibility of renewing as they were renewed before that is by baptisme But because at this time when the Apostle writ that questioÌ„ which troubled the Church so much after in S. Cyprians time of Rebaptization was not moved at all neither doth it appeare nor is it likely that any that fell so put his hopes upon renewing by a second baptisme there is something else in this Impossibility then so And that in one word is That the falling intended here is not a falling à nardo nostra from the savour of our own Spikenard the good use of our owne faculties lost in Originall sin nor a falling Ab unguento Domini that though the perfume an Incense of the name of Christ and the offer of his merits be shed upon us here that doth not restrain us from falling into some sins But this falling is as it is expressed a falling away away from Christ in all his Ordinances an undervaluing a despising of those meanes which he hath established for the renewing of a broken soule which is the making a mock of the Son of God and the treading the blood of the Covenant under foot When Christ hath ordained but one way for the renewing of a soul The conveyance of his merits in preaching the word and the sealing thereof in applying the Sacraments to that man that is fallen so as to refuse that as it is impossible to live if a man refuse to eat Impossible to recover if a man refuse Physick so it is Impossible for him to be renewed because God hath notified to us but one way and he refuses that So this is a true Impossibility and yet limited too for though it be impossible to us by any meanes imparted to us or to our dispensing and stewardship yet shall any thing be impossible to God God forbid For even from this death and this depth there is a Resurrection As from the losse of our Spikenard Rosurrectio our naturall faculties in originall sin we have a resurrection in baptisine And from the losse of the oyntment of the Lord the offer of his Graces in these meetings and the falling into some actuall sins for all that assistance we have a resurrection in the other Sacrament So when we have lost the savour of the field those degrees of goodnesse and holinesse which we had and had declared before when we are falleÌ„ from all present sense of the means of a resurrection yet there may be a resurrection wrapped up in the good purposes of God upon that man which unlesse he will himselfe shall not be frustrated not evacuated not disappointed Though he have foetorem pro Odore Esay 3.24 as the Prophet speaks That in stead of the sweet savour which his former holy life exhaled and breathed up he be come now to stink in the sight of the Church and howsoever God may have a good savour from his own work from those holy purposes which he hath upon him which lie in Gods bosome yet from his present sins and from the present testimony and evidence that the Church gives against him as a present sinner he must necessarily stink in the nostrils of God too yet as in the Resurrection of the body it shall come when we shall not know of it So when this poore dead put rified soule hath no sense of it and perchance little or no disposition towards it the efficacy of Gods purpose shall break out and work in him a resurrection And this S. Chrysostome takes to be intended in that which is said in the same place to the Hebrews That that earth which drinketh in the rain Heb. 6. and bringeth forth nothing but Bryers is Maledicto proxima nearest to be accursed That man is nearest to be a Reprobate But yet sayes he Vides quantam habet consolationem We apprehend a blessed consolation in this That it is said neare a curse neare reprobation and no worse for Qui propè est procul esse potcrit sayes he That soule which is but neare destruction may weather that mischiefe and grow to be far from it and out of danger of it It is true this man hath lost his paratum cor meum he cannot say his heart is prepared Psal 57.7 that he hath lost in originall sin This man hath lost his Confirmatum cor meum Psal 112.7 he cannot say his heart is est ablished that hath been offered him in these exercises but it hath not prevailed upon him He hath lost his variis odoribus delectatum cor Prov. 27.9 the delight which his heart heretofore had in the savour of the field in those good actions in which formerly he exercised himself and now is falne from But yet there may be cor novum Psal 51.10 a new heart a heart which is yet in Gods bosome and shall be transplanted into his A dupliâ—ate an exemplification of Gods secret purpose to be manifested and revealed by the Spirit of God in his good time upon him And this may work Chrâ—sost In insigni vehementi mutatione in such an evidence and demonstration of it self as he shall know it to be that because it shall not work as a Circumcision but as an Excision not as a lopping off but as a rooting up not by mending him but by making him a new creature He shall not grow lesse riotous then before for so a sentence in the Star-Chamber or any other Criminall Court for a riot might be a resurrection to him nor lesse voluptuous for so poverty in his Fortune or insipidnesse and tastlesnesse in his palate might be a resurrection to him Nor lesse licentious for so age or sicknesse nor lesse quarrelsome for so blowes and oppression might be a resurrection to him But when in a rectified understanding he can but apprehend that such a resurrection there may be nay there is for him it shall grow up to a holy confidence established by the sensible effects thereof that he shall not onely discontinue his former acts and devest his former habits of sin but produce acts and build up habits contrary to his former habits and former acts for this is the resurrection from this second fall In dissolutionem into the dissolution
Hieromes instructions in those letters that by seaven yeares of age they should be able to say the Psalmes without book That as they grew in yeares they should proceed in the knowledge of Scriptures That they should love the Service of God at Church but not sine Matre not goe to Church when they would but when their Mother could goe with them Nec quaererent celebritatem Ecclesiarum They should not alwaies goe to the greatest Churches and where the most famous Preachers drew most company If women have submitted themselves to as good an education as men God forbid their sexe should prejudice them for being examples to others Their sexe no nor their sins neither for it is S. Hieromes note That of all those women that are named in Christs pedegree in the Gospell there is not one his onely Blessed Virgin-Mother excepted upon whom there is not some suspitious note of incontinency Of such women did Christ vouchsafe to come He came of woman so as that he came of nothing but woman of woman and not of man Neither doe we reade of any woman in the Gospel that assisted the persecutors of Christ or furthered his afflictions Even Pilats wife disswaded it Woman as well as man was made after the Image of God in the Creation and in the Resurrection when we shall rise such as we were here her sexe shall not diminish her glory Of which she receives one faire beame and inchoation in this Text that the purpose of God is even by the ministery of Angel s communicated to women But what women for their preparation their disposition is in this Text too such women as were not only devout but sedulous diligent constant perseverant in their devotion To such women God communicated himself which is another Consideration in these persons As our Saviour Christ was pleased that one of these women should be celebrated by name for another act upon him Mary Magdalen Maria. and that wheresoever his Gospell was preached her act should be remembred so the rest with her are worthy to be known and celebrated by their names Therfore we consider Quae and quales first who they were and then what they were their names first and then their conditions Bodin de repub l. 6. c. 4. There is an Historicall relation and observation That though there be divers Kingdomes in Europe in which the Crowns may fall upon women yet for some ages they did not and when they did it was much at one time and all upon women of one name Mary It was so with us in England and in Scotland it was so so in Denmark and in Hungary it was so too all foure Maries Though regularly women should not preach yet when these Legati à latere these Angels from heaven did give Orders to women and made them Apostles to the Apostles the Commission was to women of that name Mary for though our Expositors dispute whether the Blessed Virgin Mary were there then when this passed at the Sepulchre yet of Mary Magdalen and Mary the Mother of Iames there can be no doubt Indeed it is a Noble and a Comprehensive name Mary It is the name of woman in generall Gen. 2.23 For when Adam sayes of Eve She shall be called Woman in the Arabique Translation there is this name She shall be called Mary and the Arabique is perchance a dialect of the Hebrew But in pure and Originall Hebrew the word signifies Exaltation and whatsoever is best in the kinde thereof This is the name of that sister of Aaron Exod. 15.20 and Moses that with her Quire of women assisted at that Eucharisticall sacrifice that Triumphant song of Thanksgiving upon the destruction the subversion the submersion of Aegypt in the Red Sea Her name was Miriam and Miriam and Mary is the same name in women as Iosuah and Iesus is the same name to men The word denotes Greatnesse not only in Power but in Wisdome and Learning too and so signifies often Prophets and Doctors and so falls fitliest upon these blessed women who in that sense were all made Maries Messengers Apostles to the Apostles in which sense even those women were made Maries that is Messengers of the Resurrection who no doubt had other names of their own There was amongst them the wife of Chusa a great man in Herods Court Luke 8.3 24.10 his Steward and her name was Ioanna Ioane So that here was truly a Pope Ioane a woman of that name above the greatest men in the Church For the dignity of the Papacy they venture to say that whosoever was S. Peters Successor in the Bishoprick of Rome was above any of the Apostles that over-lived Peter as S. Iohn did Here was a woman a Pope Ioane Superiour to S. Peter himself and able to teach him But though we found just reason to celebrate these women by name we meant not to stay upon that circumstance we shut it up with this prayer That that blessing which God gave to these Maries which was to know more of Christ then their former teachers knew he will also be pleased to give to the greatest of that name amongst us That she may know more of Christ then her first teachers knew And we passe on from the Names to the Conditions of these women And first we consider their sedulity sedulity that admits no intermission no interruption no discontinuance Saeduls no tepidity no indifferency in religious offices Consider we therefore their sedulity if we can I say if we can because if a man should sit down at a Bee-hive or at an Ant-hill and determine to watch such an Ant or such a Bee in the working thereof he would finde that Bee or that Ant so sedulous so serious so various so concurrent with others so contributary to others as that he would quickly lose his marks and his sight of that Ant or that Bee So if we fixe our consideration upon these devout women and the sedulity of their devotion so as the severall Euangelists present it unto us we may easily lose our sight and hardly know which was which or at what time she or she came to the Sepulchre They came in the end of the Sabbath as it begun to dawne Mat. 28.1 towards the first day of the week sayes S. Mathew They came very early in the morning upon the first day of the week Mark 16.1 Luke 24.1 John 20.1 the Sun being then risen sayes S. Mark They prepared their Spices and rested the Sabbath and came early the next day sayes S. Luke They came the first day when it was yet dark sayes S. Iohn From Friday Evening till Sunday morning they were sedulous Athâ—nas busie upon this service so sedulous as that Athanasius thinks these women came foure severall times to the Sepulchre and that the foure Euangelists have relation to their foure commings Hierome and S. Hierome argues upon this seeming variety in the Euangelists thus Non
mendacii signum sed sedulae visitationis officium This variety argues no uncertainty in the Euangelists but testifies the sedulity of those women they speak of Dum crebrò abeunt recurrunt sayes he whilst they make many accesses and returnes Nec patiuntur à Sepulchro diu aut longiùs abesse and cannot indure to be farre distant or long absent from their devout exercise Beloved true devotion is a serious a sedulous an impatient thing He that said in the Gospell Luke 18.11 I fast twice a week was but a Pharisee He that can reckon his devout actions is no better He that can tell how often he hath thought upon God to day hath not thought upon him often enough It is S. Augustines holy Circle to pray that we may heare Sermons profitably and to heare Sermons that we learn to pray acceptably Devotion is no Marginall note no interlineary glosse no Parenthesis that may be left out It is no occasionall thing no conditionall thing I will goe if I like the Preacher if the place if the company if the weather but it is of the body of the Text and layes upon us an Obligation of fervour and of continuance This we have in this example of these not only Euangelicall but Euangelisticall preaching women And thus much more that as they were sedulous and diligent after so they were early and begun betimes for howsoever the Euangelists may seeme to vary in the point of time when they came they all agree they came early which is another exaltation of Devotion They were women of quality and meanes They came with Christ from Galilee Mant. and they came upon their owne charges and more then so for saies the text Luke 8.3 They ministred to Christ of their substance Women of quality may be up and ready early enough for Gods service if they will If they be not let them but seriously aske themselves that question whether upon no other occasion no entertainment no visit no letter to or from another they could have made more haste And if they finde they could I must say in that case as Tertullian said They have put God and that man into the balance and waighed them together and found God too light That Mighty that waighty that ponderous God that blasts a State with a breath that melts a Church with a looke that molders a world with a touch that God is waighed downe with that man That man whose errand if it be but conversation is vanity but if it be sin is nothing waighs downe God The world will needs thinke one of these Maries Magdalen to have been guilty of such entertainments as these of Incontinency and of that in the lowest that is the highest kinde Prostitution perchance she was But I would there were that necessity of thinking so that because she was a Woman and is called a sinner therefore that must be her sin as though they were capable of no other sin Alas it is not so There may be women whom even another sin the sin of Pride and over-valuation of themselves may have kept from that sin and yet may well be called sinners too There may be found women whom only their scorne of others hath kept honest and yet are sinners though not in that sin But yet even this woman Mary Magdalen be her sin what you will came early to Christ early as soone as he afforded her any light Christ saies in the person of Wisdome I love them that love me and they that seeke me early Prov. 8.17 shall finde me And a good soule will eccho back that returne of David O God thou art my God Psal 63.1 early will I seeke thee my soule thirsteth for thee my flesh longeth for thee and double that eccho with Esay With my soule have I desired thee in the night with my spirit with in me Esay 26.9 will I seeke thee early Now what is this early seeking of God First there is a generall rule given by Salomon Eccles 12.1 Remember thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth submit thy selfe to a religious discipline betimes But then in that there is a Now inserted into that rule of Solomons Remember Now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth there is an intimation that there is a youth in our age and an earlinesse acceptable to God in every action we seeke him early if we seeke him at the beginning of every undertaking If I awake at midnight and embrace God in mine armes that is receive God into my thoughts and pursue those meditations by such a having had God in my company I may have frustrated many tentations that would have attempted me and perchance prevailed upon me if I had beene alone for solitude is one of the devils scenes and I am afraid there are persons that sin oftner alone then in company but that man is not alone that hath God in his sight in his thought Thou preventedst me with the blessings of goodnesse saies David to God Psal 21.3 I come not early enough to God if I stay till his blessings in a prosperous fortune prevent me and lead me to God I should come before that The dayes of affliction have prevented me Iob 30.27 saies Iob. I come not early enough to God if I stay till his Judgements prevent me and whip me to him I should come before that But if I prevent the night watches Psal 119.147 and the dawning of the morning If in the morning my prayer prevent thee O God Psal 88.13 which is a high expression of Davids That I should wake before God wakes and even prevent his preventing grace before it be declared in any outward act that day If before blessing or crosse fall upon me I surrender my selfe intirely unto thee and say Lord here I lye make thou these sheets my sheets of penance in inflicting a long sicknesse or my winding sheete in delivering me over to present death Here I lye make thou this bed mine Altar and binde me to it in the cords of decrepitnesse and bedridnesse or throw me off of it into the grave and dust of expectation Here I lye doe thou choose whether I shall see any to morrow in this world or begin my eternall day this night Thy Kingdome come thy will be done when I seeke God meerely for love of him and his glory without relation to his benefits or to his corrections this is that early seeking which we consider in those blessed Women whose sedulity and earnestnesse when they were come and acceleration and earlinesse in their comming having already considered passe we now to the Ad quid to what purpose and with what intention they came for in that alone there are divers exaltations of their devotion In the first verse of this Chapter it is said Ad quid They came to see the Sepulchre Even to see the Sepulchre was an act of love and every act of
Cor. 4.13 Ier. 19.8 Even then when a man is no man he may be a Christian when I am a worme and no man when I am the off-scouring of the world when I am the reproach the proverb the hissing of men yet as my Saviour when he lay in the grave was the same Christ so in this grave of oppression and persecution I am the same Christian as in my Baptisme Let nothing therefore that can fall upon thee dispoyle thee of the dignity and constancy of a Christian howsoever thou be severed from those things which thou makest account do make thee up severed from a wife by divorce from a child by death from goods by fire or water from an office by just or by unjust displeasure which is the heavier but the happier case yet never think thy self severed from thy Head Christ Jesus nor from being a lively member of his body Iob 30.29 Though thou be a brother of Dragons and a companion of Owles Though thy Harpe be turned into mourning and thine Organ into the voyce of them that weepe nay Though the Lord kill thee yet trust in him Iob 13.15 Thy Saviour when he lay dead in the grave was still the same Lord Thou when thou art enwrapped and enterred in confusion art still the same Christian To this meditation the Angell carries us in keeping up Christs style at the highest then when he was at the lowest And to some other particulars he carries these Women in that which remaines Come and see the place It is not nothing certainly not meerely nothing Locus Sacer. that God does so often direct us to frequent his Sanctuary and his holy places Not nothing that Solomon into that Instrument which passed betweene God and him for the Consecration of the Temple inserted that Covenant That not onely they which came to that Temple but they 1 King 8. who being necessarily absent prayed towards the Temple might be heard which is not inconveniently assigned for a reason of Ezechias his turning to the wall to pray in his sick bed Esay 38.2 Dan. 6.12 and of Daniels opening of his windows when he prayed in his private chamber because in so doing they looked towards Jerusalem where the Temple was When Naaman being recovered from his bodily leprosie recovered from his spirituall leprosie too and resolved to worship none but the true God he was loath to worship the true God 2 King 5.17 in an unholy place and therefore desired some of that earth to build an Altar upon Pharaoh was come to be content that Moses and his people should sacrifice to their true God Exod. 8.25 so they would sacrifice in Egypt But Moses durst not accept of those conditions Pharaoh grew content that they should go out of Egypt to Sacrifice so they would not go far Ver. 28. but keepe within his limits but Moses durst not accept those conditions nor any conditions lesse then those in which God had determined him which was Exod. 3.18 To go three dayes iourney into the Wildernesse We know that God is alike in all places but he does not worke in all places alike God works otherwise in the Church then in an Army and diversly in his divers Ordinances in the Church God works otherwise in Prayer then in Preaching and otherwise in the Sacraments then in either and otherwise in the later then in the first Sacrament The power is the same and the end is the same but the way is not so Athanasius scarce three hundred yeares after Christ found the Church in possession of that Custome and he takes knowledge of it A hanas 9.37 as of a precept from the Apostles themselves That the Congregation should pray towards the East to testifie saies that Father their desire of returning to the Country which they had lost Paradise Places of prophane and secular use should not be made equall with holy places nor should holy actions and motions and gestures and positions of the body in divine service be submitted to scorne and derision They have their use either in a reall exaltation of Devotion or for a peaceable conservation of uniformity and decency or for a reverentiall obedience to lawfull Authority and any of these is enough to authorize things in their use which in themselves and in their owne nature are indifferent And though the principall purpose of the Angell in shewing these women the place were to assure them that Christ was risen yet may there also be an intimation of the helpe and assistance that we receive from holy places in this their Ecce locus Come and see the place But this is farre Perogrinationes very very far from that superstitious fixing of God to the free-hold which they have induced in the Roman Church and upon which they have super-induced their meritorious Pilgrimages to certaine places Consider a little the Pilgrimage of these Pilgrimages how they have gone on Innocent the third in the Lateran Councell about foure hundred yeares since gave free pardon of all sins to all men that went or contributed to the recovery of the holy land Now these expeditions were not with any hope of recovering that land but principally to carry the powerfullest persons and the activest spirits into those remote parts that so these parts might be left the more open to the Inundation of that Sea of Rome and the invasions of that Bishop After this these Indulgences were enlarged and communicated to all that went to Jerusalem not onely as Soldiers but as Pilgrims And after that by Boniface the eighths liberality the way was shortned and they had as much that came but to Rome as they that went to Jerusalem As a little before by Clement the sixt there was a power given to every man that went such a Pilgrimage to deliver foure soules out of Purgatory which he would and a commandment given to the Angels of Heaven to carry their soules that dyed in that Pilgrimage immediately to Heaven without touching upon Purgatory These abuses made that learned and devout Man Gerson Gerson the Chancelor of Paris in his time as let them deny it with what stifnesse they will nothing is more demonstrable nor more evidently demonstrated Then that in all times some great men amongst themselves have opposed their Superstitions This I say made Gerson say though he durst say no more Abnegare non possumus None of us all can deny but that many things are induced upon colour of Religion quorum sanctior esset omissio which he shall be more holy that forbeares then he that performes them In detestation of this locall and stationary salvation of these meritorious pilgrimages to certaine places some of the blessed Fathers spoke much long before they were come to that enormous abuse in which the later times exceeded S. Hierom had occasion to say much of it by a solicitation from Polinus Epist 13. and he saies this Quanti hodieportant funera
is risen indeed risen of himself as the word sounds yet that phrase and expression He is risen if there were no more in it but that expression and that phrase would not conclude Christs rising to have been in virtute propria in his own power For of Dorcas who was raised from the dead Aâ—â— 9 4◠〈◊〉 11. it is said Resedit she sate up and of Lazarus Prodiit he came forth and yet these actions thus ascribed to themselves were done in virtute aliena in the power of another Christs Resurrection was not so In virtute aliena in the power of another if you consider his whole person God and Man but it was aliena à filio Mariae Christ as the Son of Mary rose not by his own power It was by his own but his own because he was God as well as man Nor could all the Magick in the world have raised him sooner then by that his power his as God he that is that person God and man was pleased to rise So sits he now at the right hand of his Father in heaven nor can all the Consecrations of the Romane Priests either remove him from thence or multiply him to a bodily being any where else till his time of comming to Judgment come Then and not till then The Lord himself shall descend from heaven in clamore sayes the Text in a shout with the voyce of the Arch-angell and with the Trumpet of God which circumstances constitute our third and last Branch of this first Part The dead shall rise first They shall rise in the power of Christ therefore Christ is God for Christ himself rose in the power of God and that power shall be thus declared In a shout in the voyce of the Arch-Angell in the Trumpet of God The dead heare not Thunder nor feele they an Earth quake In clamore If the Canon batter that Church walls in which they lye buryed it wakes not them nor does it shake or affect them if that dust which they are be thrown out but yet there is a voyce which the dead shall heare The dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God Iohn 5.25 sayes the Son of God himself and they that heare shall live And that is the voyce of our Text. It is here called a clamour a vociferation a shout and varied by our Translators and Expositors according to the origination of the word to be clamor hortatorius and suasorius and jussorins A voyce that carries with it a penetration all shall heare it and a perswasion all shall beleeve it and be glad of it and a power a command all shall obey it Since that voyce at the Creation Fiat Let there be a world was never heard such a voyce as this Surgite mortui Arise ye dead That was spoken to that that was meerely nothing and this to them who in themselves shall have no cooperation no concurrence to the hearing or answering this voyce The power of this voyce is exalted in that it is said to be the voyce of the Archangel In voce Archangeli Though legions of Angels millions of Angels shall be employed about the Resurrection to recollect their scattered dust and recompact their ruined bodies yet those bodies so recompact shall not be able to heare a voyce They shall be then but such bodies as they were when they were laid downe in the grave when though they were intire bodies they could not heare the voice of the mourner But this voyce of the Archangel shall enable them to heare The Archangel shall re-infuse the severall soules into their bodies and so they shall heare that voyce Surgite mortui Arise ye that were dead and they shall arise And here we are eased of that disputation whether there be many Archangels or no for if there be but one yet this in our text is he for it is not said In the voyce of An Archangell but of The Archangell if not the Onely yet he who comprehends them all Colos 1.16 and in whom they all consist Christ Jesus And then the power of this voyce is exalted to the highest in the last word that it is Tuba Dei Tuba Dei The Trumpet of God For that is an Hebraisme and in that language it constitutes a superlative to adde the name of God to any thing As in Sauls case when David surprised him in his dead sleepe it is said that Sopor Domini 2 Sam. 26.12 The sleepe of the Lord was upon him that is the heaviest the deadest sleepe that could be imagined so here The Trumpet of God is the loudest voice that we conceive God to speake in All these pieces that it is In clamore In a cry in a shout that it is In the voyce of the Archangell that it is In the Trumpet of God make up this Conclusion That all Resurrections from the dead must be from the voice of God and from his loud voice In clamore It must be so even in thy first Resurrection thy resurrection from sin by grace here here thou needest the voice of God and his loud voyce And therefore though thou thinke thou heare sometimes Gods sibilations as the Prophet Zechary speaks Gods soft and whispering voyce in ward remorses of thine owne and motions of the Spirit of God to thy spirit yet thinke not thy spirituall resurrection accomplished till in this place thou heare his loud voyce Till thou heare Christ descending from Heaven as the text sayes that is working in his Church Till thou heare him In clamore in this cry in this shout in this voyce of Penetration of perswasion of power that is till thou feele in thy selfe in this place a liquefaction a colliquation a melting of thy bowels under the commination of the Judgements of God upon thy sin and the application of his mercy to thy Repentance And then In voce Archangeli this thou must heare In voce Archangeli In the voice of the Archangel S. Iohn in the beginning of the Revelation cals every Governour of a Church an Angel And much respect and reverence much faith and credit behoves it thee to give to thine Angell to the Pastour of that Church in which God hath given thee thy station for he is thine Angel Mal. 2.7 thy Tutelar thy guardian Angell Men should seeke the Law at the mouth of the Priest saies God in Malachi of that Priest that is set over him For the lips of the Priest of every Priest to whom the soules of others are committed should preserve knowledge should be able to instruct and rectifie his flock Quia Angelus Domini Exercituum because every such Priest is the Angell of the Lord of Hosts Hearken thou therefore to that Angel thine Angel But here thou art directed above thine Angell to the Archangell Acts 20.28 Ephes 5.23 Now not the governour of any particular Church but he Who hath purchased the whole Church with his blood
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
upon beauty in that face that misleads thee or upon honour in that place that possesses thee And let the opening of thine eyes be to look upon God in every object to represent to thy self the beauty of his holinesse and the honour of his service in every action And in this rapture and in this twinkling of an eye will thy Resurrection soon though not suddenly speedily though not instantly be accomplished And if God take thee out of the world before thou think it throughly accomplished yet he shall call thine inchoation consummation thine endeavour performance and thy desire effect For all Gods works are intire and done in him at once and perfect as soon as begun And this spirituall Resurrection is his work and therefore quickned even in the Conception and borne even in the quickning and grown up even in the birth that is perfected in the eyes of God as soone as it is seriously intended in our heart And farther we carry not your consideration upon those two Branches which constitute our second Part That some shall be alive at Christs comming That they that are alive shall receive such a change as shall be a true death and a true Resurrection And so shall be caught up into the Clouds to meet the Lord in the Aire and so be with the Lord for ever which are the Circumstances of our third and last Part. In this last part we proposed it for the first Consideration 3 Part. Resurrectio justorum that the Apostle determines the Consideration of the Resurrection in those two Them and Us They that slept in Christ and We that expect the comming of Christ Of any Resurrection of the wicked here is no mention Not that there is not one but that the resurrection of the wicked conduced not to the Apostles purpose which was to minister comfort in the losse of the dead because they were to come again and to meet the Lord and to be with him for ever whereas in the Resurrection of the wicked who are only to rise that they may fall lower there is no argument of comfort And therefore our Saviour Christ determines his Commission in that This is the Fathers will that sent me John 6.39 that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing but should raise it up again at the last day This was his not losing if it were raised again but he hath only them in charge to raise at the last day whom the Father had given him given him so as that they were to be with him for ever for others he never mentions And upon this much very much depends For Chiliasts this forbearing to mention the resurrection of the wicked with the righteous gave occasion to many in the Primitive Church to imagine a two-fold a former and a later Resurrection which was furthered by their mistaking of those words in S. Iohn Apoc. 20.6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection which words being intended of the Resurrection from sin by grace in this life the Chiliasts the Millenarians interpreted of this Resurrection in our Text That at Christs comming the righteous should rise and live a thousand yeares as S. Iohn sayes in all temporall abundances with Christ here in recompence of those temporall calamities and oppressions which here they had suffered and then after those thousand yeares so spent with Christ in temporall abundances should follow the resurrection of the wicked and then the wicked and the righteous should be disposed and distributed and setled in those Mansions in which they should remain for ever And of this errour as very many of the Fathers persisted in it to the end S. Augustine himself had a touch and a tincture at beginning And this errour S. Hierome also though truly I think S. Hierome was never touched with it himselfe out of a reverence to those many and great men that were Irenaeus Tertullian Lactantius and the rest would never call an Heresie nor an Errour nor by any sharper name then an opinion which is no word of heavy detestation And as those blessed Fathers of tender bowels Pagani enlarged themselves in this distribution and apportioning the mercy of God that it consisted best with the nature of his mercy that as his Saints had suffered temporall calamities in this world in this world they should be recompenced with temporall abundances so did they inlarge this mercy farther and carry it even to the Gentiles to the Pagans that had no knowledge of Christ in any established Church You shall not finde a Trumegistus a Numa Pompilius a Plato a Socrates for whose salvation you shall not finde some Father or some Ancient and Reverend Author an Advocate In which liberality of Gods mercy those tender Fathers proceed partly upon that rule That in Trismegistus and in the rest they finde evident impressions and testimonies that they knew the Son of God and knew the Trinity and then say they why should not these good men beleeving a Trinity be saved and partly they goe upon that rule which goes through so many of the Fathers Facienti quod in se est That to that man who does as much as he can by the light of nature God never denies grace and then say they why should not these men that doe so be saved And upon this ground S. Dionyse the Areopagite sayes That from the beginning of the world God hath called some men of all Nations and of all sorts by the ministry of Angels though not by the ministry of the Church To me to whom God hath revealed his Son in a Gospel by a Church there can be no way of salvation but by applying that Son of God by that Gospel in that Church Nor is there any other foundation for any nor other name by which any can be saved but the name of Jesus But how this foundation is presented and how this name of Jesus is notified to them amongst whom there is no Gospel preached no Church established I am not curious in inquiring I know God can be as mercifull as those tender Fathers present him to be and I would be as charitable as they are And therefore humbly imbracing that manifestation of his Son which he hath afforded me I leave God to his unsearchable waies of working upon others without farther inquisition Neither did those tender Fathers then Angeli lopsi in Coelis much lesse the School after consist in carying this overflowing and inexhaustible mercy of God upon his Saints after their Resurrection in temporall abundances nor upon the Gentiles who had no solemne nor cleare knowledge of Christ Psal 138.2 Psal 17.7 which is Magnificare misericordiam to magnifie to extend to stretch the mercy of God but Mirificant misericordiam as David also speaks they stretch this mercy miraculously for they carry this mercy even to hell it self For first for the Angels that fell in heaven from the time that they
committed their first sin to the time that they were cast down into hell they whom we call the more subtile part of the Schoole say That In illa moâ—â— la during that space between their falling into their sin and their expulsion from heaven the Angels might have repented and been restored for so long say they those Angels were but in statu viatorum in the state and condition of persons as yet upon their way as all men are as long as they are alive and not In termino in their last and determined station And that which is so often cited out of Damascen concerning the fall of Angels Quod hominibus mors est Angelis casus That as death works upon man and concludes him and makes him impenitible for ever so works the fall upon the Angels and concludes them for ever too they interpret to have been intended by Damascen not of the Angels fall in heaven but their fall from heaven for till then they were not say they Intermino in their last state and so not impenitible Apoc. 12.7 And those Ancients which expound that battle in heaven between Michael and the Dragon and their severall Angels to have been fought at that time after their fall and between Lucifers rebellion and his expulsion as the Ancients abound much in that sense of that place argue rationally That that battle what kinde of battle soever it were must necessarily have spent some time They conceive it to have been a battle of Disputation of Argumentation of Perswasion and that those good Angels which are so glad of our Conversion would have been infinitely glad to have reduced their rebellious brethren to their obedience And during that time which could not be a sudden instant they were not Inadeptivi gratiae Hiesolom incapable of repentance and of mercy S. Cyril comes towards it comes neare it nay if it be well observed goes beyond it Of Gods longanimity and patience toward man sayes he we have in part spoken Quanta ille Angelis condonaverit nescimus how great transgressions he hath forgiven in the Angels we know not only this we know sayes he Solus qui peccdre non possit Iesus est There is none impeccable none that cannot sin Man nor Angel but only Christ Jesus Nay after the expulsion of the Angels Angels lapsi in Infernum not onely after their fall in Heaven but their fall from Heaven many of the Ancients seeme loath to exclude all wayes of Gods mercy even from hell it selfe De statu moti sed non irremediabiliter moti saies Origen The Angels are fallen fallen even into hell but not so irrecoverably fallen Vt Institutionibus bonorum Angelorum non possint restitui But that by the counsaile and labour of the good Angels they may be restored againe Origen is thought to be single singular in this doctrine Eph. 3.10 but he is not Even S. Ambrose interpreting that place That S. Paul saies He was made a Minister of the Gospel Vt innotesceret to the intent that the wisdome of God might by the Church be made knowne to Powers and Principalities interprets it of fallen Angels That they the fallen Angels might receive benefit by the preaching of the Gospell in the Church Prudentius saies not so but this he does say That upon this day when our blessed Saviour arose from hell Poenarum celebres sub Styge feriae And Suppliciis mitibus Nee forvent solito flumina sulphure Some relaxation some ease in their torments at some time some very good men have imagined even in hell And more then that they have not absolutely cryed downe for so much it deserves that fable of Traian That after that Emperour had beene some time in hell yet upon the prayers of Pope Gregory he was removed to Heaven 〈…〉 Nay more then that for that was but of one man But an Author of our age and much esteemed in the Roman Church delivers as his owne opinion and thinks he hath the subtiler part of the Schoole on his side That that which is so often said from hell there is no redemption is only to be understood of them whom God sends to hell as to their last place to them certainely there is no redemption But saies he God may send soules of the heathen who had not the benefit of any Christian Church and yet were good morall men to burne out certaine errors or ignorances or sins in hell and then remove them to Heaven for for so long time they are but Viatores they are but in their way and not concluded Beloved that we might have something in the balance to weigh downe the curelty and the petulancy and the pertinacy of those men who in these later times have so attenuated the mercy of God as that they have almost brought it to nothing for there is no mercy where there is no misery and they place all mercy to have beene given at once and that before man was fallen into misery by sin or before man was made and have pronounced that God never meant to shew mercy to all them nor but to a very few of them to whom he pretended to offer it that we might have something in the balance to weigh against these unmercifull men I have staid thus long upon these over-mercifull men that have carried mercy upon the Saints of God in temporall abundances after the Resurrection and upon the Heathen who never heard Gospell preached and upon the Angels fallen in Heaven and upon those Angels fallen from Heaven into hell and upon the soules of men there not onely in the ease of their torments but in their translation from thence to Heaven That so our later men might see that the Ancients thought God so far from beginning at Hate That God should first for his glory hate some and then make them that he might execute his hate upon them as that they thought god implacable inexorable irreconciliable to none therfore to these unmercifull have we opposed these overmercifull men But yet to them wee must say Numquid Deus indiget mendacio vestro Iob 13.7 ut pro eo Ioquamini dolos Shall wee lye for God or speake deceitfully for him deceive your soules with over-extending his mercy wee may derive mercy from hell though wee carry not mercy to hell Gehenna non solum eorum qui puniendi causa facta Origen sed eorum qui salvandi Hell was not onely made for their sakes who were to suffer in it but for theirs who were to be warned by it and so there is mercy in hell Cooperatur regno saies S. Chrysostome elegantly Hell hath a co-operation with Heaven Chrysost It works upon us in the advancement of our Salvation as well as Heaven Nec saevitiaeres est sed misericordiae Hell is not a monument of Gods cruelty but of his mercy Et nisi fuisset intentata gehenna in gehennam omnes cecidissemus If we were not told of hell we
dignity First The Father shall send you another Comforter Another then my selfe For Ver. 16. howsoever Christ were the Fountain of comfort yet there were many drammes many ounces many talents of discomfort mingled in that their Comforter was first to depart from them by death and being restored to them again by a Resurrection was to depart againe by another Transmigration by an Ascension And therefore the second mark by which Christ dignifies this Comforter is That he shall abide with us for ever And in the performance of that promise he is here with you now And therefore as we begun with those words of Esay which our Saviour applyed to himselfe The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me Esay 61.1 to binde up the broken hearted and to comfort all them that mourne So the Spirit of the Lord is upon all us of his Ministery in that Commandement of his in the same Prophet Consolamini Esay 40.1 consolamini Comfort ye comfort yee my people and speak comfortably unto Ierusalem Receive the Holy Ghost all ye that are the Israel of the Lord in that Doctrine of comfort that God is so farre from having hated any of you before he made you as that he hates none of you now not for the sins of your Parents not for the sins of your persons not for the sins of your youth not for your yester-dayes not for your yester-nights sins not for that highest provocation of all your unworthy receiving his Son this day Onely consider that Comfort presumes Sadnesse Sin does not make you incapable of comfort but insensiblenesse of sin does In great buildings the Turrets are high in the Aire but the Foundations are deep in the Earth The Comforts of the Holy Ghost work so as that only that soule is exalted which was dejected As in this place where you stand there bodies lie in the earth whose soules are in heaven so from this place you carry away so much of the true comfort of the Holy Ghost as you have true sorrow and sadnesse for your sins here Almighty God erect this building upon this Foundation Such a Comfort as may not be Presumption upon such a Sorrow as may not be Diffidence in him And to him alone but in three Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour c. SERMON XXIX Preached at S. Pauls upon Whitsunday 1628. JOHN 14.26 But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name Hee shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you WE Eipasse from the Person to his working we come from his comming to his operation from his Mission and Commission to his Executing thereof from the Consideration who he is to what he does His Specification his Character his Title Paracletus The Comforter passes through all Therefore our first comfort is Docebimur we shall be Taught He shall teach you As we consider our selves The Disciples of the Holy Ghost so it is a meere teaching for we in our selves are meerly ignorant But wen we consider the things we are to bee taught so it is but a remembring a refreshing of those things which Christ in the time of his conversation in this world had taught before He shall bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you These two then The comfort in the Action we shall be Taught and the comfort in the Way and Manner we shall not be subject to new Doctrines but taught by remembring by establishing us in things formerly Fundamentally laid will be our two parts at this time And in each of these these our steps First in the first we shall consider the persons that is the Disciples who were to learne not onely they who were so when Christ spoke the words but we All who to the end of the world shall seek and receive knowledge from him Vos ye first Vos ignorantes you who are naturally ignorant and know nothing so as you should know it of your selves which is one Discomfort And yet Vos ye Vos appetentes you that by nature have a desire to know which is another Discomfort To have a desire and no meanes to performe it Vos docebimini ye ye that are ignorant and know nothing ye ye that are hungry of knowledge and have nothing to satisfie that hunger ye shall be fed ye shall be taught which is one comfort And then Ille docebit He shall teach you He who cannot onely infuse true and full knowledge in every capacity that he findes but dilate that capacity where he findes it yea create it where he findes none The Holy Ghost who is not onely A Comforter but The Comforter and not onely so but Comfort it selfe He shall teach you And in these we shall determine our first Part. In our second Part The Way and Manner of this Teaching By bringing to our remembrance all things whatsoever Christ had said unto us there is a great largenesse but yet there is a limitation of those things which we are to learne of the Holy Ghost for they are Omnia All things whatsoever Christ hath taught before But then Sola ea Only those things which Christ had taught before and not new Additaments in the name of the Holy Ghost Now this largenesse extending it self to the whole body of the Christian Religion for Christ taught all that all that being not reducible to that part of an houre which will be left for this exercise as fittest for the celebration of the day in which we arenow we shall binde our selves to that particular consideration what the Holy Ghost being come from the Father in Christs Name that is Pursuing Christs Doctrine hath taught us of Himselfe concerning Himselfe That so ye may first see some insolencies and injuries offered to the Holy Ghost by some ancient Heretiques and some of later times by the Church of Rome For truly it is hard to name or to imagine any one sin nearer to that emphaticall sin that superlative sin The sin against the Holy Ghost then some offers of Doctrines concerning the Holy Ghost that have been obtruded though not established and some that have beene absolutely established in that Church And when we shall have delivered the Holy Ghost out of their hands we shall also deliver him into yours so as that you may feele him to shed himselfe upon you all here and to accompany you all home with a holy peace and in a blessed calme in testifying to your soules that He that Comforter who is the holy Ghost whom the Father hath sent in his Sons name hath taught you all things that is awakened your memories to the consideration of all that is necessary to your present establishment And to these divers particulars which thus constitute our two generall parts in their order thus proposed we shall now proceed As when our Saviour Christ received that confession of
the Subject the holy Ghost and him moving and moving upon the waters in our regeneration Here as before our first Terme and Consideration is the name The Spirit of God 2. Part. Spiritus sanctus And here God knows we know too many even amongst the outward professors of the Christian religion that in this name The Spirit of God take knowledge only of a power of God and not of a person of God They say it is the working of God but not God working Mira profunditas eloquiorum tuorum The waters in the creation Aug. Confess 12. c. 14. were not so deep as the word of God that delivers that creation Ecce ante nos superficies blandiens pueris sayes that Father We we that are but babes in understanding as long as we are but naturall men see the superficies the top the face the outside of these waters Sed mira profunditas Deus meus mira profunditas But it is an infinite depth Lord my God an infinite depth to come to the bottome The bottome is to professe and to feele the distinct working of the three distinct persons of the Trinity Father Son and holy Ghost Rara anima quae cum de illa loquitur sciat quid loquatur Not one man C. 30. not one Christian amongst a thousand who when he speaks of the Trinity knows what he himself meanes Naturall men will write of lands of Pygmies and of lands of giants and write of Phoenixes and of Unicornes But yet advisedly they do not beleeve at least confidently they do not know that there are such Giants or such Pygmies such Unicorns or Phoenixes in the world Christians speak continually of the Trinity and the holy Ghost but alas advisedly they know not what they mean in those names The most know nothing for want of consideration They that have considered it enough and spent thoughts enough upon the Trinity to know as much as needs be knowen thereof Contendunt dimicant C. 11. nemo sine pace vidit istam visionem They dispute and they wrangle and they scratch and wound one anothers reputations and they assist the common enemy of Christianity by their uncharitable differences Et sine pace And without peace and mildnesse and love and charity no man comes to know the holy Ghost who is the God of peace Id. l. 11.2 22. and the God of love Da quod amo amo enim nam hoc tu dedisti I am loath to part from this father and he is loath to be parted from for he sayes this in more then one place Lord thou hast enamoured mee made me in love let me enjoy that that I love That is the holy Ghost That as I feele the power of God which sense is a gift of the holy Ghost I may without disputing rest in the beliefe of that person of the Trinity that that Spirit of God that moves upon these waters is not only the power but a person in the Godhead This is the person Ferebatur without whom there is no Father no Son of God to me the holy Ghost And his action his operation is expressed in this word Ferebatur The Spirit of God moved Which word as before is here also a comprehensive word and denotes both motion and rest beginnings and wayes and ends We may best consider the motion the stirring of the holy Ghost in zeale and the rest of the holy Ghost in moderation If we be without zeale we have not the motion If we be without moderation we have not the rest the peace of the holy Ghost The moving of the holy Ghost upon me is as the moving of the minde of an Artificer upon that piece of work that is then under his hand A Jeweller if he would make a jewell to answer the form of any flower or any other figure his minde goes along with his hand nay prevents his hand and he thinks in himself a Ruby will conduce best to the expressing of this and an Emeraud of this The holy Ghost undertakes every man amongst us and would make every man fit for Gods service in some way in some profession and the holy Ghost sees that one man profits most by one way another by another and moves their zeal to pursue those wayes and those meanes by which in a rectified conscience they finde most profit And except a man have this sense what doth him most good and a desire to pursue that the holy Ghost doth not move nor stir up a zeale in him But then if God do afford him the benefit of these his Ordinances in a competent measure for him and he will not be satisfied with Manna but will needs have Quailes that is cannot make one meale of Prayers except he have a Sermon nor satisfied with his Gomer of Manna with those Prayers which are appointed in the Church nor satisfied with those Quailes which God sends the preaching of solid and fundamentall doctrines but must have birds of Paradise unrevealed mysteries out of Gods own bosome preached unto him howsoever the holy Ghost may seem to have moved yet he doth not rest upon him and from the beginning the office and operation of the holy Ghost was double He moved and rested upon the waters in the creation he came and tarried still upon Christ in his Baptisme He moves us to a zeale of laying hold upon the meanes of salvation which God offers us in the Church and he settles us in a peacefull conscience that by having well used those meanes we are made his A holy hunger and thirst of the Word and Sacraments a remorse and compunction for former sins a zeale to promove the cause and glory of God by word and deed this is the motion of the holy Ghost And then to content my self with Gods measure of temporall blessings and for spirituall that I do serve God faithfully in that calling which I lawfully professe as far as that calling will admit for he upon whose hand-labour the sustentation of his family depends may offend God in running after many working dayes Sermons This peace of conscience this acquiescence of having done that that belongs to me this is the rest of the Spirit of God And this motion and this rest is said to be done Super faciem And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters which is our last consideration In the moving of the Spirit of God upon the waters Facies aquarum we told you before it was disputed whether the Holy Ghost did immediatly produce those creatures of himselfe or whether he did fecundate and inanimate and inable those substances the water and all contained under the waters to produce creatures in their divers specifications In this moving of the Spirit of God upon the waters in our regeneration it hath also been much disputed How the Holy Ghost works in producing mans supernaturall actions whether so immediately as that it be altogether without
said also That the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine Ver. 2. Sin is wine at first so farre as to allure to intoxicate It is water at last so farre as to suffocate to strangle Christ Jesus way is to change water into wine sorrow into joy The Devils way is to change wine into water pleasure and but false pleasure neither into true bitternesse The watrish wine which is spoken of there and called fornication is idolatry and the like And in such a respect Jer. 2.18 God sayes to his people What hast thou to doe in the way of Egypt In the way of Egypt we cannot chuse but have something to doe some conversation with men of an Idolatrous religion we must needs have But yet What hast thou to doe in the way of Egypt to drinke of the waters of Sihor Or what hast thou to doe in the wayes of Assyria to drink the waters of the River Though we be bound to a peaceable conversation with men of an Idolatrous perswasion we are not bound to take in to drink to taste their errours For this facility and this indifferency to accompany men of divers religions in the acts of their religion Ver. 13. this multiplicity will end in a nullity and we shall hew to our selves Cisternes broken Cisternes that can hold no water We shall scatter one religion into many and those many shall vanish into none Praise we God therefore that the Spirit of God hath so moved upon these waters these sinfull waters of superstition and idolatry wherein our fore-Fathers were overwhelmed that they have not swelled over us Ecclus. 43.20 For then the cold North-winde blowes and the water is congealed into Ice Affliction overtakes us damps us stupifies us and we finde no Religion to comfort us Affliction is as often expressed in this word Tribulatio Esay 43.2 Waters as sin When thou passest through waters I will be with thee and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee But then the Spirit of God moves upon these waters too and grace against sin and deliverance from affliction is as often expressed in waters as either Where God takes another Metaphore for judgement Ezek. 36.5 Ver. 25. yet he continues that of water for his mercy In the fire of my jealousie have I spoken against them speaking of enemies but then speaking of Israel I will sprinkle cleane water upon you and you shall be cleane This is his way and this is his measure He sprinkles enough at first to make us cleane even the sprinkling of Baptisme cleanses us from originall sin but then he sets open the windowes of heaven and he inlarges his Flood-gates Esay 44.3 I will poure out water upon the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground To them that thirst after him he gives grace for grace that is present grace for an earnest of future grace of subsequent grace and concomitant grace and auxiliant grace and effectuall grace grace in more formes more notions and in more operations then the Schoole it selfe can tell how to name Thus the Spirit of God moves upon our waters Mat. 14. By faith Peter walked upon the waters so we prevent occasions of tentation to sin and sinke not in them but walke above them By godly exercises we swim through waters so the Centurion commanded that they that could swim Acts 27.43 should cast themselves into the sea Men exercised in holinesse can meet a tentation or tribulation in the face and not be shaked with it weaker men men that cannot swim must be more wary of exposing themselves to dangers of tentation A Court does some man no harme when another finds tentation in a Hermitage By repentance we saile through waters by the assistance of Gods ordinances in his Church which Church is the Arke we attaine the harbour peace of conscience after a sin But this Arke this helpe of the Church we must have God can save from dangers though a man went to Sea without art Sine rate saies the Vulgat without a Ship Wisd 14.4 But God would not that the worke of his Wisedome should be idle God hath given man Prudentiam navifactivam saies our Holkot upon that place and he would have that wisdome exercised God can save without Preaching and Absolution and Sacraments but he would not have his Ordinance neglected To end all with the end of all Death comes to us in the name Mors. 2 Sam. 14.14 and notion of waters too in the Scriptures The Widow of Tekoah said to David in the behalfe of Absalon by the Counsaile of Ioab The water of death overslowes all We must needs dye saies she and are as water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up againe yet God devises meanes that his banished be not expelled from him So the Spirit of God moves upon the face of these waters the Spirit of life upon the danger of death Consider the love more then love the study more then study the diligence of God he devises meanes that his banished those whom sins or death had banished be not expelled from him I sinned upon the strength of my youth and God devised a meanes to reclaime me an enfeebling sicknesse I relapsed after my recovery and God devised a meanes an irrecoverable a helpless Consumption to reclaime me That affliction grew heavy upon me and weighed me down even to a diffidence in Gods mercy and God devised a meanes the comfort of the Angel of his Church his Minister The comfort of the Angel of the great Counsell the body and blood of his Son Christ Jesus at my transmigration Yet he lets his correction proceed to death I doe dye of that sicknesse and God devises a meanes that I though banished banished into the grave shall not be expelled from him a glorious Resurrection We must needs dye and be as water spilt upon the ground but yet God devises meanes that his banished shall not be expelled from him And this is the motion and this is the Rest of the Spirit of God upon those waters in this spirituall sense of these words He brings us to a desire of Baptisme he settles us in the sense of the obligation first and then of the benefits of Baptisme He suffers us to goe into the way of tentations for Coluber in via and every calling hath particular tentations and then he settles us by his preventing or his subsequent grace He moves in submitting us to tribulation he settles us in finding that our tribulations do best of all conforme us to his Son Christ Jesus He moves in removing us by the hand of Death and he settles us in an assurance That it is he that now lets his Servants depart in peace And he who as he doth presently lay our soules in that safe Cabinet the Bosome of Abraham so he keepes an eye upon every graine and atome of our dust whither soever it be blowne and keepes a
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
include S. Peters whole Sermon into one branch of one part of one of mine Only I refresh to your memories that which I presume you have often read in this Story and this Chapter that though S. Peter say That God is no such accepter of persons Ver. 35.36 but that in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousnesse is accepted with him yet it is upon this ground Christ Jesus is Lord of all And as it is ver 42. He hath commanded us to preach that is he hath established a Church and therein visible meanes of salvation And then this is our generall text the subject of all our Sermons That through his name Ver. 43 whosoever beleeveth in him shall have remission of sins So that this is all that we dare avow concerning salvation that howsoever God may afford salvation to some in all nations yet he hath manifested to us no way of conveying salvation to them but by the manifeltation of Christ Jesus in his Ordinance of preaching And such a manifestation of Christ had God here ordained for this Centurion Cornelius But why for him I doe not ask reasons of Gods mercy to particular men for if I would do so when should I finde a reason why he hath shewed mercy to me But yet Audite omnes Chrysoft qui in Militia estis Regibus assistitis All that serve in Wars or Courts may finde something to imitate in this Centurion He was a devout man A Souldier and yet devout God forbid they were so incompatible as that courage and devotion might not consist A man that feared God A Souldiers profession is fearlesnesse And only he that feares God feares nothing else He and all his house A Souldier yet kept a house and did not alwayes wander He kept his house in good order and with good meanes He gave much almes Though Armes be an expensive profession for outward splendor yet hereserved for almes much almes And he prayed to God alwayes Though Armes require much time for the duties thereof yet he could pray at those times In his Trenches at the Assault or at the defence of a Breach he could pray All this the holy Ghost testifies of him together ver 2. And this was his generall disposition and then those who came from him to Peter adde this That he had a good report amongst all the Nation of the Iews ver 22. And this to a stranger for the Jews loved not strangers and one that served the State in such a place as that he could not choose but be heavy to the Jews was hard to have And then himself when Peter comes to him addes thus much more That this first mercy of God in having sent his Angel and that farther mercy that that Angel named a man and then that man came was exhibited to him then when he was fasting Ver. 30 And then this man thus humbled and macerated by fasting thus soupled and entendered with the feare of God thus burnt up and calcined with zeal and devotion thus united to God by continuall prayer thus tributary to God by giving almes thus exemplar in himself at home to lead all his house and thus diffusive of himselfe to others abroad to gain the love of good men this man prostrates himselfe to Peter at his comming in such an over-reverentiall manner as Peter durst not accept but took him up Ver. 26. and said I my selfe am also a man Sudden devotion comes quickly neare superstition This is a misery which our time hath been well acquainted with and had much experience of and which grows upon us still That when men have been mellowed with the feare of God and by heavy corrections and calamities brought to a greater rendernesse of conscience then before in that distemper of melancholy and inordinate sadnesse they have been easiliest seduced and withdrawne to a superstitious and Idolatrous religion I speak this because from the highest to the lowest place there are Sentinels planted in every corner to watch all advantages and if a man lose his preferment at Court or lose his childe at home or lose any such thing as affects him much and imprints a deep sadnesse for the losse thereof they work upon that sadnesse to make him a Papist When men have lived long from God they never think they come neare enough to him except they go beyond him because they have never offered to come to him before now when they would come they imagine God to be so hard of accesse that there is no comming to him but by the intervention and intercession of Saints and they thinke that that Church in which they have lived ill cannot be a good Church whereas if they would accustome themselves in a daily performing of Christian duties to an ordinary presence of God Religion would not be such a stranger nor devotion such an Ague unto them But when Peter had rectified Cornelius in this mistaking in this over-valuing of any person and then saw Cornclius his disposition who had brought materials to erect a Church in his house by calling his kinsmen and his friends together to heare Peter Peter spoke those words Which whilest he yet spake the holy Ghost fell upon all them that heard the word And so we are fallen into our second part In this 2. Part. the first Consideration falls upon the person that fell And as the Trinity is the most mysterious piece of our Religion and hardest to be comprehended So in the Trinity the Holy Ghost is the most mysterious person and hardest to be expressed We are called the houshold of God and the family of the faithfull and therefore out of a contemplation and ordinary acquaintance with the parts of families we are apter to conceive any such thing in God himself as we see in a family We seeme not to goe so farre out of our way of reason to beleeve a father and a son because father and son are pieces of families nor in beleeving Christ and his Church because husband and wife are pieces of families We goe not so farre in beleeving Gods working upon us either by ministring spirits from above or by his spirituall ministers here upon earth for master and servants are pieces of families But does there arise any such thing out of any of these couples Father and Son Husband and Wife Master and Servant as should come from them and they be no whit before neither Is there any thing in naturall or civill families that should assist our understanding to apprehend this That in heaven there should be a Holy Spirit so as that the Father and the Son being all Spirit and all Holy and all Holinesse there should be another Holy Spirit which had all their Essentiall holinesse in him and another holinesse too Sanctitatem Sanctificantem a holinesse that should make us holy It was a hard work for the Apostles and their successors at first to draw the Godhead into one into an unity
Man as to calumniate him to blaspheme him was an inexcusable sin To say of him who had fasted forty dayes and forty nights Mat. 11.19 Mar. 12.14 Ecce homo vorax Behold a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber To say of him of whom themselves had said elsewhere Master we know that thou art true and carest for no man that he was a friend of Publicans and sinners That this man who was The Prince of Peace Heb. 12.3 should indure such contradiction This was an inexcusable sin If any man therefore have had his good intentions mis-construed his zeale to assist Gods bleeding and fainting cause called Innovation his proceeding by wayes good in themselves to ends good in themselves called Indiscretion let him be content to forgive them any Calumniator against himselfe who is but a worme and no man since God himselfe forgave them against Christ who was so Filius hominis The Son of Man as that he was the Son of God too There is then forgivenesse for sin for all sin even for blasphemy Infuturo for blasphemy against the Son but it is Infuturo remittetur It shall be forgiven It is not Remittebatur It was forgiven Let no man antidate his pardon and say His sins were forgiven in an Eternall Decree and that no man that hath his name in the book of life hath the addition sinner that if he were there from the beginning from the beginning he was no sinner It is not in such a sense Remittebatur It was forgiven nor it is not Remittitur that even then when the sin is committed it is forgiven whether the sinner think of it or no That God sees not the sins of his Children That God was no more affected with Davids adultery or his murder then an indulgent Father is to see his child do some witty waggish thing or some sportfull shrewd turne It is but Remittetur Any sin shall be that is may be forgiven if the meanes required by God and ordained by him be entertained If I take into my contemplation the Majesty of God and the uglinesse of sin If I devest my selfe of all that was sinfully got and invest my self in the righteousnesse of Christ Jesus for else I am ill suted and if I clothe myself in Mammon the righteousnesse of Christ is no Cloke for that doublet If I come to Gods Church for my absolution and the seale of that reconciliation the blessed Sacrament Remittetur by those meanes ordained by God any sin shall be forgiven me But if I relie upon the Remittebatur That I had my Quietus est before hand in the eternall Decree or in the Remittuntur and so shut mine eyes in an opinion that God hath shut his and sees not the sins of his children I change Gods Grammer and I induce a dangerous solecisme for it is not They were forgiven before they were committed nor They are forgiven in the committing but They shall be by using the meanes ordained by God they may be And so They shall be forgiven unto men saies the Text and that is first unto every man The Kings of the earth are faire and glorious resemblances of the King of heaven Omni homini they are beames of that Sun Tapers of that Torch they are like gods they are gods The Lord killeth and maketh alive He bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up 1 Sam. 2.6 This is the Lord of heaven The Lords anointed Kings of the earth do so too They have the dispensation of judgement and of mercy they execute and they pardon But yet with this difference amongst many other that Kings of the earth for the most part and the best most binde themselves with an oath not to pardon some offences The King of heaven sweares and sweares by himselfe That there is no sinner but he can and would pardon At first Illuminat omnem hominem He is the true light John 1.9 which lightneth every man that commeth into the world Let that light because many do interpret that place so let that be but that naturall light which only man and every man hath yet that light makes him capable of the super-naturall light of grace for if he had not that reasonable soule he could not have grace and even by this naturall light he is able to see the invisible God in the visible creature and is inexcusable if he do not so But because this light is though not put out brought to a dimnesse by mans first fall Therefore Iohn Baptist came to beare witnesse of that light that all men through him might beleeve Ver. 7. God raises up a Iohn Baptist in every man every man findes a testimony in himselfe that he draws curtaines between the light and him that he runs into corners from that light that he doth not make that use of those helpes which God hath afforded him as he might Thus God hath mercy upon all before by way of prevention thus he enlightneth every man that commeth into the world but because for all this men do stumble even at noon God hath given Collyrium an Eye-salve to all Apoc. 3.18 by which they may mend their eye-sight He hath opened a poole of Bethesda to all where not only he that comes at first but he that comes even at last he that comes washed with the water of Baptisme in his infancy and he that comes washed with the teares of Repentance in his age may receive health and cleannesse For the Font at first and the death-bed at last are Cisterns from this poole and all men and at all times may wash therein And from this power and this love of God is derived both that Catholique promise Quandocunque At what time soever a sinner repents And that Catholique and extensive Commission Quorum remiseritis Whose sins soever you remit shall be remitted All men were in Adam because the whole nature mankinde was in him and then can any be without sin All men were in Christ too because the whole nature mankinde was in him and then can any man be excluded from a possibility of mercy There were whole Sects whole bodies of Heretiques that denied the communication of Gods grace to others The Cathari denied that any man had it but themselves The Novatians denied that any man could have it again after he had once lost it by any deadly sin committed after Baptisme But there was never any Sect that denied it to themselves no Sect of despairing men We have some somewhere sprinkled One in the old Testament Cain and one in the new Iudas and one in the Ecclesiastique Story Iulian but no body no Sect of despairing men And therefore he that abandons himself to this sin of desperation sins with the least reason of any for he prefers his sin above Gods mercy and he sins with the fewest examples of any for God hath diffused this light with an evidence to all That all sins may be forgiven unto men that is
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
repentance and so is thereby irremissible yet there arise no markes by which I can say This man is such a sinner not though hee himselfe would sweare to me that he were so now and that he would continue so till death The other places that doe not so directly concerne this sin and yet are sometimes used in this affaire 1 Iohn 5.16 are one in S. Iohn and this text another That in S. Iohn is There is a sin unto death I doe not say that he shall pray for it It is true that the Master of the Sentences and from him many of the Schoole and many of our later Interpreters too doe understand this of the sin against the Holy Ghost because we are almost forbidden to pray for it but yet we are not absolutely forbidden in that we are not bidden And if we were forbidden when God sayes to Ieremy Pray not thou for this people neither lift up cry Ier. 7.16 nor prayer for them neither make intercession to me for I will not heare thee And againe Ier. 11.14 Pray not for them for I will not heare them Not them though they should come to pray for themselves God forbid that we should therefore say that all that people had committed the sin against the Holy Ghost And for this particular place of S. Iohn that answer may suffice which very good Divines have given Pray not for them is indeed pray not with them admit them to no part in the publique prayers of the Congregation but if they sin a sin unto death a notorious an inexcusable sin let them be persons excommunicated to thee For the words in this text which seeme to many appliable to that great sin it is not cleare it is not much probable that they can be so applied Take the words invested in their circumstance in the context and coherence and it will appeare evident Christ speaks this to the Pharisees upon occasion of that which they had said to him and of him before and he carries it intends it no farther That appeares by the first word of out text Propterea Therefore I say unto you Therefore that is Because you have used such words unto me And S. Marke makes it more cleare He said this to them because they said Marke 3.30 He had an uncleane spirit because they said he did his Miracles by the power of the Devill Now this was certainely a sin against the Holy Ghost so far as that it was distinguished from the sins against the Son of Man But it was not the sin against the Holy Ghost for Christ being a mixt person God and Man did some things in which his Divinity had nothing to doe but were onely actions of a meere naturall man and when they slandered him in these they blasphemed the Son of Man Some things he did in the power of his God head in which his humanity contributed nothing as all his Miracles and when they attributed these works to the Devill they blasphemed the Holy Ghost And therefore S. Augustine sayes That Christ in this place did not so much accuse the Pharisees that they had already incurred the sin of the Holy Ghost they might at last fall into The sin that impenitible and therfore irremissible sin But that sin this could not be because the Pharisees had not embraced the Gospel before and so this could not be a falling from the Gospel in them Neither does it appeare to have continued to a finall impenitence so far from it as that S. Chrysost makes no doubt but that some of these Pharisees did repent upon Christs admonition Now beloved since we see by this collation of places that it is not safe to say of any man he is this sinner nor very constantly agreed upon what is this sin but yet we are sure that such a sin there is that captivates even God himself and takes from him the exercise of his mercy and casts a dumnesse a speechlesnesse upon the Church it selfe that she may not pray for such a sinner and since we see that Christ with so much earnestnesse rebukes the Pharisees for this sin in the text because it was a limbe of that sin and conduced to it let us use all religious diligence to keep our selves in a safe distance from it To which purpose be pleased to cast a particular but short and transitory glaunce upon some such sins as therefore because they conduce to that are sometimes called sins against the holy Ghost Sins against Power that is the Fathers Attribute sins of infirmity are easily forgiven sins against Wisdome that is the Sons Attribute sins of Ignorance are easily forgiven but sins against Goodnesse that is the Holy Ghosts Attribute sins of an hard and ill nature are hardly forgiven Not at all when it comes to be The sin not easily when they are Those sins those that conduce to it and are branches of it For branches the Schoolemen have named three couples which they have called sins against the Holy Ghost because naturally they shut out those meanes by which the Holy Ghost might work upon us The first couple is presumption and desperation for presumption takes away the feare of God and desperation the love of God And then they name Impenitence and hardnesse of heart for Impenitence removes all sorrow for sins past and hardnesse of heart all tendernesse towards future tentations And lastly they name The resisting of a truth acknowledged before and the envying of other men who have made better use of Gods grace then we have done for this resisting of a Truth is a shutting up of our selves against it and this envying of others is a sorrow that that Truth should prevaile upon them And truly to reflect a very little upon these three couples again To presume upon God that God cannot damne me eternally in the next world for a few half-houres in this what is a fornication or what is an Idolatay to God what is a jest or a ballad or a libel to a King Or to despaire that God will not save me how well soever I live after a sin what is a teare what is a sigh what is a prayer to God what is a petition to a King To be impenitent senslesse of sins past I past yesterday in riot and yesternight in wantonnesse and yet I heare of some place some office some good fortune fallen to me to day To be hardned against future sins shall I forbeare some company because that company leads me into tentation Why that very tentation wil lead me to preferment To forsake the truth formerly professed because the times are changed and wiser men then I change with them To envy and hate another another State another Church another man because they stand out in defence of the truth for if they would change I might have the better colour the better excuse of changing too al these are shrewd and slippery approaches towards the sin against the Holy Ghost and therefore
the Schoolemen have called all these six not without just reason and good use by that heavy name And some of the Fathers have extended it farther then to these six S. Bernard in particular sayes Nolle obedire To resist lawfull Authority And another Simulata poenitentia To delude God with relapses counterfait repentances and another also Omne schisma All schismaticall renting of the peace of the Church All these they call in that sense Sins against the Holy Ghost Now all sins against the Holy Ghost are not irremissible Stephen told his persecutors Acts 7.51.60 They resisted the Holy Ghost and yet he prayed for them But because these sins may and ordinarily doe come to that sin stop betimes David was far from the murder of Vriah when he did but looke upon his Wife as she was bathing A man is far from defying the holy Ghost when he does but neglect him and yet David did come and he will come to the bottome quickly It may make some impression in you to tell and to apply a short story In a great Schisme at Rome Ladislaus tooke that occasion to debauch and corrupt some of the Nobility It was discerned and then to those seven Governors whom they had before whom they called Sapientes Wise men they added seven more and called them Bonos Good men honest men and relied and confided in them Goodnesse is the Attribute of the Holy Ghost If you have Greatness you may seeme to have some of the Father for Power is his If you have Wisdome you may seeme to have some of the Son for that is his If you have Goodnesse you have the Holy Ghost who shall lead you into all truth And Goodnesse is To be good and easie in receiving his impressions and good and constant in retaining them and good and diffusive in deriving them upon others To embrace the Gospel to hold fast the Gospel to propagate the Gospel this is the goodnesse of the Holy Ghost And to resist the entrance of the Gospel to abandon it after we have professed it to forsake them whom we should assist and succour in the maintenance of it This is to depart from the goodnesse of the Holy Ghost and by these sins against him to come too neare the sin the irremissible sin in which the calamities of this world shall enwrap us and deliver us over to the everlasting condemnation of the next This is as much as these words do justly occasion us to say of that sin and into a more curious search thereof it is not holy sobriety to pierce SERM. XXXVI Preached upon Whitsunday JOHN 16.8 9 10 11. And when he is come he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousnesse and of judgement Of sin because ye belceve not on me Of righteousnesse because I goe to my Father and ye see me no more Of judgement because the Prince of this world is judged OUr Panis quotidianus Our daily bread is that Iuge sacrificium That daily sacrifice of meditating upon God Our Panis hodiernus This dayes bread is to meditate upon the holy Ghost To day if ye will heare his voice to day ye are with him in Paradise For wheresoever the holy Ghost is Luk. 23.43 he creates a Paradise The day is not past yet As our Saviour said to Peter Hodie in nocte hac Mar. 14.10 This day even in this night thou shalt deny me so Hodie in nocte hac Even now though evening the day-spring from on high visits you Esay 38.8 God carries back the shadow of your Sun-dyall as to Hezechias And now God brings you to the beginning of this day if now you take knowledge that he is come who when he comes Reproves the world of sin c. The solemnity of the day requires Divisio and the method of the words offers for our first consideration the Person who is not named in our text but designed by a most emphaticall denotation Ille He He who is all and doth all But the word hath relation to a name proper to the holy Ghost for in the verse immediatly preceding our Saviour tels his disciples That he will send them the Comforter So forbearing all other mysterious considerations of the holy Ghost we receive him in that notion and function in which Christ sends him The Comforter And therefore in this capacity as The Comforter we must consider his action Arguet He shall reprove Reprove and yet Comfort nay therefore comfort because reprove And then the subject of his action Mundum The world the whole world no part left unreproved yet no part left without comfort And after that what he reproves the world of That multiplies Of sin of righteousnesse of judgement Can there be comfort in reproofe for sin Or can there lie a reproofe upon righteousnesse or upon judgement Very justly Though the evidence seem at first as strange as the crime for though that be good evidence against the sin of the world That they beleeve not in Christ Of sin because ye beleeve not on me yet to be Reproved of righteousnesse because Christ goes to his Father and they see him no more And to be Reproved of judgement because the Prince of this world is judged this seemes strange and yet this must be done and done to our comfort For this must be done Cum venerit Then when the holy Ghost and he in that function as the Comforter is come is present is working Beloved Reproofes upon others without charity rather to defame them then amend them Reproofes upon thy selfe without shewing mercy to thine own soule diffidences and jealousies and suspitions of God either that he hated thee before thy sin or hates thee irremediably irreconciliably irrecoverably irreparably for thy sin These are Reproofes but they are Absente spiritu In the absence of the holy Ghost before he comes or when he is gone When he comes and stayes He shall reprove and reprove all the world and all the world of those errours sin and righteousnesse and judgement and those errours upon those evidences Of sin because ye beleeve not on me c. But in all this proceeding he shall never devest the nature of a Comforter In that capacity he is sent in that he comes and works I doubt I shall see an end of my houre and your patience before I shall have passed those branches which appertaine most properly to the celebration of this day the Person the Comforter his action Reproofe the subject thereof the world and the Time Cum venerit When he comes The inditement of what the accusation is and the evidence how it is proved may exercise your devotion at other times Acts 2.2 This day the holy Ghost is said to have come suddenly and therefore in that pace we proceed and make haste to the consideration of the Person Ille When he He the holy Ghost the Comforter is come Ille Spiritus sanctus Gen. 3.15 Ille alone He is
is that he hath infused and imprinted in all their hearts whom hee hath called effectually to the participation of the meanes of salvation in the true Church a constant and infallible assurance that all the world that is all the rest of the world which hath not imbraced those helps lies unrecoverably by any other meanes then these which we have imbraced under sin under the waight the condemnation of sin So that the comfort of this reproofe as all the reproofes of the holy Ghost in this Text are given by him in that quality as he is The Comforter is not directly and simply and presently upon all the world indeed but upon those whom the holy Ghost hath taken out of this world to his world in this world that is to the Christian Church them he Reproves that is Convinces them establishes delivers them from all scruples that they have taken the right way that they and onely they are delivered and all the world beside are still under sin When the Holy Ghost hath brought us into the Ark from whence we may see all the world without sprawling and gasping in the flood the flood of sinfull courses in the world and of the anger of God when we can see this violent flood the anger of God break in at windowes and there devoure the licentious man in his sinfull embracements and make his bed of wantonnesse his death-bed when we can see this flood the anger of God swell as fast as the ambitious man swels and pursue him through all his titles and and at last suddenly and violently wash him away in his owne blood not alwayes in a vulgar but sometimes in an ignominious death when we shall see this flood the flood of the anger of God over-flow the valley of the voluptuous mans gardens and orchards and follow him into his Arbours and Mounts and Terasses and carry him from thence into a bottomlesse Sea which no Plummet can sound no heavy sadnesse relieve him no anchor take hold of no repentance stay his tempested and weather-beaten conscience when wee finde our selves in this Ark where we have first taken in the fresh water of Baptisme and then the Bread and Wine and Flesh of the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus Then are we reproved forbidden all scruple then are we convinced That as the twelve Apostles shall sit upon twelve seats and judge the twelve Tribes at the last day So doth the Holy Ghost make us Judges of all the world now and inables us to pronounce that sentence That all but they who have sincerely accepted the Christian Religion are still sub peccato under sin and without remedy For we must not waigh God with leaden or iron or stone waights how much land or metall or riches he gives one man more then another but how much grace in the use of these or how much patience in the want or in the losse of these we have above others When we come to say Hi in curribus Hi in equis Psal 20.7 nos autem in nomine Domini Dei nostri invocabimus Some trust in chariots and some in horses Ver. 8. but we will remember the name of the Lord our God Ipsi obligati sunt ceciderunt nos autem surreximus erecti sumus They are brought downe and fallen but we are risen and stand upright Obligati sunt ceciderunt They are pinion'd and falleâ— fettered and manacled and so fallen fallen and there must lie Nos autem erecti Wee are risen and enabled to stand now we are up When we need not feare the mighty nor envy the rich Quia signatum super nos lumen vultus tui Domine Because the light of thy countenance O Lord Ver. 7. is not onely shed but lifted up upon us Quia dedisti laetitiam in corde nostro Because thou hast put gladnesse in our heart more then in the time that their corne and their wine increased when we can thus compare the Christian Church with other States and spirituall blessings with temporall then hath the Holy Ghost throughly reproved us that is absolutely convinced us that there is no other foundation but Christ no other name for salvation but Jesus and that all the world but the true professors of that name are still under sin under the guiltinesse of sin And these be the three acceptations of this word Arguet He shall carry the Gospel to all before the end Arguit Hee does worke upon the faculties of the naturall man every minute and Arguit againe Hee hath manifested to us that that they who goe not the same way perish And so wee passe to the second Reproofe and Conviction He shall reprove the world De Iustitia Of Rightcousnesse This word 2 Part. Dejustitia Iustificare To justifie may be well considered three wayes First as it is verbum vulgare as it hath an ordinary and common use And then as it is verbum forense as it hath a civill and a legall use And lastly as it is verbum Ecclesiasticum as it hath a Church use as it hath been used amongst Divines The first way To justifie is to averre and maintaine any thing to be true as wee ordinarily say to that purpose I will justifie it Psal 19.9 and in that sense the Psalmist sayes Iustificata judicia Domini in semetipso The judgements of the Lord justifie themselves prove themselves to be just And in this sense men are said to justifie God Luke 7.29 The Pharisees and Lawyers rejected the counsell of God but all the people and the Publicans justified God that is testified for him In the second way as it is a judiciall word To justifie is only a verdict of Not guilty and a Judgement entred upon that That there is not evidence enough against him and therefore he is justified that is Prov. 17.14 acquited In this sense is the word in the Proverbs He that justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the just even they both are an abomination to the Lord. Now neither of these two wayes are we justified we cannot be averred to be just God himselfe cannot say so of us Exod. 23.7 of us as we are we Non justificabo impium I will not justifie the wicked God will not say it God cannot doe it A wicked man cannot be he cannot by God be said to be just they are incompatible contradictory things Nor the second way neither consider us standing in judgement before God no man can be acquited for want of evidence Psal 143.2 Enter not into Iudgement with thy servant for in thy sight shall none that liveth be justified For if we had another soule to give the Devill to bribe him to give no evidence against this if we had another iron to seare up our consciences against giving of evidence against our selves then yet who can take out of Gods hands those examinations and those evidences which he hath registred exactly as often as we have
thought or said or done any thing offensive to him It is therefore onely in the third sense of this word as it is Verbum Ecclesiasticum A word which S. Paul and the other Scriptures and the Church and Ecclesiasticall Writers have used to expresse our Righteousnesse our Justification by And that is onely by the way of pardon and remission of sins sealed to us in the blood of Christ Jesus that what kinde of sinners soever we were before yet that is applied to us Such and such you were before But ye are justified by the name of the Lord Iesus and by the Spirit of our God 1 Cor. 6 11. Now the reproofe of the World the convincing of the World the bringing of the World to the knowledg that as they are all sub peccato under sin by the sin of another so there is a righteousnesse of another that must prevaile for all their Pardons this reproof this convincing this instruction of the World is thus wrought That the whole World consisting of Jews and Gentiles when the Holy Ghost had done enough for the convincing of both these enough for the overthrowing of all arguments which could either be brought by the Jew for the righteousnesse of the Law or by the Gentile for the righteousnesse of Works all which is abundantly done by the Holy Ghost in the Epistles of S. Paul and other Scriptures when the Holy Ghost had possessed the Church of God of these all-sufficient Scriptures Then the promise of Christ was performed and then though all the world were not presently converted yet it was presently convinced by the Holy Ghost because the Holy Ghost had provided in those Scriptures of which he is the Author that nothing could be said in the Worlds behalfe for any other Righteousnesse then by way of pardon in the blood of Christ Thus much the Holy Ghost tels us And if we will search after more then hee is pleased to tell us that is to rack the Holy Ghost to over-labour him to examine him upon such Intergatories as belongs not to us to minister unto him Curious men are not content to know That our debt is paid by Christ but they will know farther whether Christ have paid it with his owne hands or given us money to pay it our selves whether his Righteousness before it do us any good be not first made ours by Imputation or by Inhesion They must know whose money and then what money Gold or Silver whether his active obedience in fulfilling the Law or his passive obedience in shedding his blood But all the Commission of the Holy Ghost here is To reprove the World of righteousnesse To convince all Sects in the World that shall constitute any other righteousnesse then a free pardon by the incorruptible and invaluable and inexhaustible blood of Christ Jesus By that pardon his Righteousnesse is ours How it is made so or by what name we shall call our title or estate or interest in his Righteousnesse let us not enquire The termes of satisfaction in Christ of acceptation in the Father of imputation to us or inhesion in us are all pious and religious phrases and something they expresse but yet none of these Satisfaction Acceptation Imputation Inhesion will reach home to satisfie them that will needs inquire Quo modo by what meanes Christs Righteousnesse is made ours This is as far as we need go Ad eundem modum justi sumus coram Deo quo cor am eo Christus fuit peccator So as God made Christ sin for us 2 Cor. 5.21 we are made the righteousnesse of God in him so but how was that He that can finde no comfort in this Doctrine till he finde How Christ was made sin and we righteousnesse till he can expresse Quo modo robs himself of a great deale of peacefull refreshing which his conscience might receive in tasting the thing it selfe in a holy and humble simplicity without vexing his owne or other mens consciences or troubling the peace of the Church with impertinent and inextricable curiosities Those questions are not so impertinent but they are in a great part unnecessary which are moved about the cause of our righteousnesse our justification Alas let us be content that God is the cause and seeke no other We must never slacken that protestation That good works are no cause of our justification But we must alwaies keepe up a right signification of that word Cause For Faith it selfe is no cause no such cause as that I can merit Heaven by faith What doe I merit of the King by beleeving that he is the undoubted Heire to all his Dominions or by beleeving that he governes well if I live not in obedience to his Laws If it were possible to beleeve aright and yet live ill my faith should doe me no good The best faith is not worth Heaven The value of it grows Ex pacto That God hath made that Covenant that Contract Crede vives onely beleeve and thou shalt be safe Faith is but one of those things which in severall senses are said to justifie us It is truly saîd of God Deus solus justificat God only justifies us Efficienter nothing can effect it nothing can worke towards it but onely the meere goodnesse of God And it is truly said of Christ Christus solus justificat Christ onely justifies us Materialiter nothing enters into the substance and body of the ransome for our sins but the obedience of Christ It is also truly said Sola fides justificat Onely faith justifies us Instrumentaliter nothing apprehends nothing applies the merit of Christ to thee but thy faith And lastly it is as truly said Sola opera justificant Onely our works justifie us Declaratoriè Only thy good life can assure thy conscience and the World that thou art justified As the efficient justification the gracious purpose of God had done us no good without the materiall satisfaction the death of Christ had followed And as that materiall satisfaction the death of Christ would do me no good without the instrumentall justification the apprehension by faith so neither would this profit without the declaratory justification by which all is pleaded and established God enters not into our materiall justification that is onely Christs Christ enters not into our instrumentall justification that is onely faiths Faith enters not into our declaratory justification for faith is secret and declaration belongs to workes Neither of these can be said to justifie us alone so as that we may take the chaine in pieces and thinke to be justified by any one link thereof by God without Christ by Christ without faith or by faith without works And yet every one of these justifies us alone so as that none of the rest enter into that way and that meanes by which any of these are said to justifie us Consider we then our selves as men fallen downe into a darke and deepe pit and justification as a chaine consisting of
these foure links to be let downe to us and let us take hold of that linke that is next us A good life and keepe a fast and inseparable hold upon that for though in that sense of which we spoke Fides justificat sola Only faith do justifie yet it is not true in any sense Fides est sola that there is any faith where there is nothing but faith God comes downeward to us but we must go upward to God not to get above him in his unrevealed Decrees but to go up towards him in laying hold upon that lowest linke that as the holy Ghost shall reprove that is convince the world that there is no other righteousnesse but that of Christ so he may enable you to passe a judgement upon your selves and to testifie to the world that you have apprehended that righteousness Which is that that is principally intended in the third and last part That the holy Ghost 3. Part. when he comes shall reprove the World as of sin of rightcousness so of judgment After those two convictions of the World that is Jew and Gentile first that they are all under sin and so in a state of condemnation And secondly that there is no righteousnesse no justification to be had to the Jew by the Law nor to the Gentile in Nature but that there is Righteousnesse and Justification enough for all the world Jew and Gentile in Christ In the third place the Holy Ghost is to reprove that is still to convince the world to acquaint the world with this mystery That there is a means settled to convey this Righteousnesse of Christ upon the World and then an account to be taken of them who do not lay hold upon this meanes for both these are intended in this word Iudgement He shall reprove them prove to them this double signification of judgement first that there is a judgement of order of rectitude of government to which purpose he hath established the Church And then a judgement of account and of sentence and beatification upon them who did and malediction upon them who did not apply themselves to the first judgement that is to those orderly wayes and meanes of embracing Christs righteousnesse Wiâ—d 11.20 which were offered them in the Church God hath ordered all things in measure 1 Cor. 14.42 and number and waight Let all things be done decently and in order for God is the God of order and not of confusion And this order is this judgement The Court the Tribunall the Judgment seat in which all mens consciences and actions must be regulated and ordered the Church The perfectest order was Innocency that first integrity in which God made all All was disordered by sin For in sin and the author of sin Satan there is no order no conformity nothing but disorder and confusion Though the Schoole doe generally acknowledge a distinction of orders in the ministring Spirits of Heaven now Angels and Archangels and others yet they dispute and doubt and in a great part deny that this distinction of orders was before the fall of those Angels for they confesse this distribution into orders to have been upon their submission and recognition of Gods government which recognition was their very confirmation and after that they could not fall And though those fallen Angels the Devils concurre in an unan me consent to ruin us Hiâ—ron for Bellum Daemonum summa pax hominum we should agree better if devils did fall out yet this is not such a peace such an unity as gives them any peace or relaxation or intermission of anguish but as they are the Authors of our confusion so they are in a continuall confusion themselves There is no order in the Author of sin and therfore the God of order cannot directly nor indirectly positively nor consecutively be the Author of sin There is no order in sin it selfe The nature the definition of sin is disorder Dectum factum August concupitum contra legem God hath ordered a law and sin is an act if we cannot do that it is a word if we dare not do that it is a desire against that law Forma peccati deformitas we can assigne sin no other form but deformity So that our affecting of any thing as our end which God hath not proposed for our end or our affecting of true ends by any other wayes then he hath proposed this is a disordering of Gods providence as much as we can and so a sin For the Schoole resolves conveniently probably that that first sin that ever was committed that peccatum praegnans peccatum prolificum That womb and matrice of all sins that have been committed since The sin of the Angels it was a disorder an obliquity a deformity not in not going to the right end for Illud quaesiverunt ad quod pervenissent si stetissent sayes Aquinas out of S. August They desired no more then they were made for and should have come to if they had stood but their sin was in affecting a right end a wrong way in desiring to come to their appointed perfection by themselves to subsist of themselves to be independent without any farther need of God for that was their desire To be like the most High To depend upon nothing but be all-sufficient to themselves So they disordered Gods purpose and when they had once broke that chaine when they had once put that harmony out of tune then came in disorder discord confusion and that is sin Gods work is perfect How appeares that For all his wayes are Iudgement Deut. 32.4 sayes Moses in his victorious song This is Perfection That he hath established an order a judgement Which is not only that order which S. Augustine defines Ordo est August per quem omnia aguntur quae Deus constituit The order and the judgement by which God governs the world according to his purpose which judgement is Providence But as the same Father sayes in the same book it is Ordo quem si tenueris in vita perdacet ad Deum It is an order and a judgement which he hath manifested to thee for the order and judgement of his providence he doth not alwayes manifest by obedience to which order and judgement thou maist be saved The same Father speaking of this order and judgement of providence sayes Nihil ordini contrarium Nothing can be contrary to that order He is in a holy rapture transported with that consideration That even disorders are within Gods order There is in the order and judgement of his providence an admission a permission of disorders This unsearchable proceeding of God carries him to that passionate exclamation O sipossem dicere quod vellem O that I were able to expresse my self Roge ubi ubi estis verba suecurrite Where where are those words which I had wont to have at command why do ye not serve me help me now Now when I would declare this Bona
mala sunt in ordine That even disorders are done in order that even our sins some way or other fall within the providence of God But that is not the order nor judgement which the holy Ghost is sent to manifest to the world The holy Ghost works best upon them which search least into Gods secret judgements and proceedings But the order and judgement we speak of is an order a judgement-seate established by which every man howsoever oppressed with the burden of sin may in the application of the promises of the Gospel by the Ordinance of preaching and in the seales thereof in the participation of the Sacraments be assured that he hath received his Absolution his Remission his Pardon and is restored to the innocency of his Baptisme nay to the integrity which Adam had before the fall nay to the righteousnesse of Christ Jesus himselfe In the creation God took red earth and then breathed a soule into it When Christ came to a second creation to make a Church he took earth men red earth men made partakers of his blood for Ecclesiam quaesivit acquisivit Bernard Hee desired a Church and he purchased a Church but by a blessed way of Simony Adde medium acquisitionis Sanguine acquisivit Acts 20.28 He purchased a Church with his own blood And when he had made this body in calling his Apostles then he breathed the soule into them his Spirit and that made up all Quod insufflavit Dominus Apostolis dixit August Accipite Spiritum sanctum Ecclesiae potestas collata est Then when Christ breathed that Spirit into them he constituted the Church And this power of Remission of sins is that order and that judgement which Christ himselfe calls by the name of the most orderly frame in this or the next world A Kingdome Dispono vobis regnum Luk. 22.29 I appoint unto you a Kingdome as my Father hath appointed unto me Now Faciunt favos vespa faciunt Ecclesias Marcionitae As Waspes make combs Tertul. but empty ones so do Heretiques Churches but frivolous ones ineffectuall ones And as we told you before That errors and disorders are as well in wayes as inends so may we deprive our selves of the benefit of this judgement The Church as well in circumstances as in substances as well in opposing discipline as doctrine The holy Ghost reprovcâ—thee convinces thee of judgement that is offers thee the knowledge that such a Church there is A Jordan to wash thine originall leprosie in Baptisme A City upon a mountaine to enlighten thee in the works of darknesse a continuall application of all that Christ Jesus said and did and suffered to thee Let no soule say she can have all this at Gods hands immediatly and never trouble the Church That she can passe her pardon between God and her without all these formalities by a secret repentance It is true beloved a true repentance is never frustrate But yet if thou wilt think thy selfe a little Church a Church to thy selfe because thou hast heard it said That thou art a little world a world in thy selfe that figurative that metaphoricall representation shall not save thee Though thou beest a world to thy self yet if thou have no more corn nor oyle nor milk then growes in thy self or flowes from thy self thou wilt starve Though thou be a Church in thy fancy if thou have no more seales of grace no more absolution of sin Grego then thou canst give thy self thou wilt perish Per solam Ecclesiam sacrificium libenter accipit Deus Thou maist be a Sacrifice in thy chamber but God receives a Sacrifice more cheerefully at Church Sola quae pro errantibus fiducialiter intercedit Only the Church hath the nature of a surety Howsoever God may take thine own word at home yet he accepts the Church in thy behalfe as better security Joyne therefore ever with the Communion of Saints August Et cum membrum sis ejus corporis quod loquitur omnibus linguis crede te omnibus linguis loqui Whilst thou art a member of that Congregation that speaks to God with a thousand tongues beleeve that thou speakest to God with all those tongues And though thou know thine own prayers unworthy to come up to God because thou liftest up to him an eye which is but now withdrawne from a licentious glancing and hands which are guilty yet of unrepented uncleannesses a tongue that hath but lately blasphemed God a heart which even now breaks the walls of this house of God and steps home or runs abroad upon the memory or upon the new plotting of pleasurable or profitable purposes though this make thee thinke thine own prayers uneffectuall yet beleeve that some honester man then thy selfe stands by thee and that when he prayes with thee he prayes for thee and that if there be one righteous man in the Congregation thou art made the more acceptable to God by his prayers and make that benefit of this reproofe this conviction of the holy Ghost That he convinces thee De judicio assures thee of an orderly Church established for thy reliefe and that the application of thy self to this judgement The Church shall enable thee to stand upright in that other judgement the last judgement which is also enwrapped in the signification of this word of our Text Iudgement and is the conclusion for this day As God begun all with judgement Iudicium finale Sap. 11. for he made all things in measure number and waight as he proceeded with judgement in erecting a judiciall seat for our direction and correction the Church so he shall end all with judgement The finall and generall judgement at the Resurrection which he that beleeves not beleeves nothing not God for Heb. 11.6 He that commeth to God that makes any step towards him must beleeve Deum remuner atorem God and God in that notion as he is a Rewarder Therefore there is judgement But was this work left for the Holy Ghost Did not the naturall man that knew no Holy Ghost know this Truly all their fabulous Divinity all their Mythology their Minos and their Rhadamanthus tasted of such a notion as a judgement And yet the first planters of the Christian Religion found it hardest to fixe this roote of all other articles That Christ should come againe to judgement Miserable and froward men They would beleeve it in their fables and would not beleeve it in the Scriptures They would beleeve it in the nine Muses and would not beleeve it in the twelve Apostles They would beleeve it by Apollo and they would not beleeve it by the Holy Ghost They would be saved Poetically and fantastically and would not reasonably and spiritually By Copies and not by Originals by counterfeit things at first deduced by their Authors out of our Scriptures Tertul. and yet not by the word of God himself Which Tertullian apprehends and reprehends in his time when he
tastlesse things Compare the Prophets with the Son and even the promises of God 2 King 4.34 in them are faint and dilute things Elishaes staffe in the hand of Gehazi his servant would not recover the Shunamites dead child but when Elisha himselfe came and put his mouth upon the childs mouth that did In the mouth of Christs former servants there was a preparation but effect and consummation in his owne mouth In the Old Testament at first God kissed man and so breathed the breath of life and made him a man In the New Testament Christ kissed man he breathed the breath of everlasting life the holy Ghost into his Apostles and so made the man a blessed man Love is as strong as death Cant. 8.6 As in death there is a transmigration of the soule so in this spirituall love and this expressing of it by this kisse there is a transfusion of the soule too And as we find in Gellius a Poëm of Platoes where he sayes he knew one so extremely passionate Vt parùm affuit quin moreretur in osculo much more is it true in this heavenly union expressed in this kisse as S. Ambrose delivers it Per osculum adhaeret anima Deo et transfunditur spiritus osculantis In this kisse where Righteousnesse and peace have kissed each other In this person where the Divine and the humane nature have kissed each other Psal 85.10 In this Christian Church where Grace and Sacraments visible and invisible meanes of salvation have kissed each other Love is as strong as death my soule is united to my Saviour now in my life as in death and I am already made one spirit with him and whatsoever death can doe this kisse this union can doe that is give me a present an immediate possession of the kingdome of heaven And as the most mountainous parts of this kingdome are as well within the kingdome as a garden so in the midst of the calamities and incommodities of this life I am still in the kingdome of heaven In the Old Testament it was but a contract but per verba de futuro Sponsabo I will marry thee Hos 2.19 Mat. 9.15 but now that Christ is come the Bride-groome is with us for ever and the children of the Bride-chamber cannot mourne Now by this we are slid into our fourth and last branch of our first part Exhortatic The perswasion to come to this holy kisse though defamed by treachery though depraved by licentiousnesse since God invites us to it by so many good uses thereof in his Word It is an imputation laid upon Nero That Neque adveniens neqùe profisciscens That whether comming or going he never kissed any And Christ himselfe imputes it to Simon as a neglect of him That when he came into his house he did not kisse him Luke 7.45 August This then was in use first among kinsfolks In illa simplicitate antiquorum propinqui propinquos osculabantur In those innocent and harmlesse times persons neare in bloud did kisse one another And in that right and not onely as a stranger Iacob kissed Rachel Gen. 29.12 and told her how near of kin he was to her There is no person so neare of kin to thee as Christ Jesus Christ Jesus thy Father as he created thee and thy brother as he took thy nature Thy Father as he provided an inheritance for thee and thy brother as he divided this inheritance with thee and as he dyed to give thee possession of that inheritance He that is Nutritius thy Foster-father who hath nursed thee in his house in the Christian Church and thy Twin-brother so like thee as that his Father and thine in him shall not know you from one another but mingle your conditions so as that he shall find thy sins in him and his righteousnesse in thee Osculamini Filium Kisse this Son as thy kinsman This kisse was also in use as Symbolum subjectionis A recognition of soveraignty or power Pharaoh sayes to Ioseph Thou shalt be over my house Gen. 41.40 and according to thy word shall all my people be ruled there the Originall is All my people shall kisse thy face This is the Lord Paramount the Soveraigne Lord of all The Lord Jesus Iesus Phil. 2.10 Mat. 28.18 at whose name every knee must bow in heaven in earth and in hell Iesus into whose hands all power in heaven and in earth is given Iesus who hath opened a way to our Appeal from all powers upon earth Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soule Iesus Mat. 10.28 who is the Lion and the Lambe too powerfull upon others accessible unto thee Osculamini Filium Kisse this Son as he is thy Soveraigne It was in use likewise In discessu friends parting kissed Gen. 31.15 Act. 20.37 Laban rose up early in the morning and kissed his sons and his daughters and departed And at Pauls departing they fell on his neck and wept and kissed him When thou departest to thy worldly businesses to thy six dayes labour kisse him take leave of him and remember that all that while thou art gone upon his errand and though thou worke for thy family and for thy posterity yet thou workest in his vineyard and dost his worke They kissed too In reditu Esau ran to meet his brother and fell on his neck and kissed him Gen. 33.4 When thou returnest to his house after thy six dayes labour to celebrate his Sabbath kisse him there and be able to give him some good account from Sabbath to Sabbath from week to week of thy stewardship and thou wilt never be bankrupt They kissed in reconciliation David kissed Absalon 2 Sam. 14.33 If thou have not discharged thy stewardship well Restore to man who is damnified therein Confesse to God who hath suffered in that sin Reconcile thy selfe to him and kisse him in the Sacrament in the seale of Reconciliation They kissed in a religious reverence even of false gods I have sayes God 2 King 19 18. seaven thousand knees that have not bowed unto Baal and mouths that have not kissed him Let every one of us kisse the true God in keeping his knees from bowing to a false his lips from assenting his hands from subscribing to an Idolatrous worship And as they kissed In Symbolum concordiae Rom. 16.16 which was another use thereof Salute one another with a holy kisse upon which custome Iustin Martyr sayes Osculum ante Eucharistiam before the Communion the Congregation kissed to testifie their unity in faith in him to whom they were then Sacramentally to be united as well as Spiritually And Tertullian calls it Osculum signaculum Orationis Because they ended their publique Prayers with that seale of unity and concord Let every Congregation kisse him so at every meeting to seale to him a new band a new vow that they will never break in departing from any part of his
baptized are of this houshold and should be relieved and received But certainly there is a race that have not this Contesseration not these testimoniall letters not this outward Baptisme Amongst those herds of vagabonds and incorrigible rogues that fill porches and barnes in the Countrey a very great part of them was never baptized people of a promiscuous generation and of a mischievous education ill brought into the world and never brought into the Church No man receives an Angel unawares for receiving or harbouring any of these neither have these any interest in the houshold of God for they have not their first Contesseration And as there are sins which we are not bid to pray for so there are beggers which we are not bid to give to God appeared by Angels in the Old Testament and he appeares by Angels in the New in his Messengers in his Ministers in his Servants And that Hospitality and those feasts which cannot receive such Angels those Ministers and Messengers of God where by reason of excesse and drunkennesse by reason of scurril and licentious discourse by reason of wanton and unchast provocations by reason of execrable and blasphemous oathes these Angels of God cannot be present but they must either offend the company by reprehension or prevaricate and betray the cause of God by their silence this is not Abrahams hospitality whose commendation was that he received Angels Those Angels came and stood before Abraham but till he lift up his eyes and ran forth to them they came not to him The Angels of the Gospel come within their distance but if you will not receive them they can break open no doores nor save you against your will The Angel does as he that sends him Stand at the doore and knock Revel 3.20 if the doore be opened he comes in and sups with him What gets he by that This He sups with me too sayes Christ there He brings his dish with him he feeds his Host more then his Host him This is true Hospitality and entertainment of Angels both when thou feedest Christ in his poore members abroad or when thou feedest thine owne soule at home with the company and conversation of true and religious Christians at thy table for these are Angels Abraham then took these three for men and no more when as they were Angels An Christus But were they all Angels and no more was not that one to whom more particularly Abraham addressed himselfe and called him Lord The Son of God Christ Jesus This very many very learned amongst the Ancients did not onely aske by way of Probleme and disputation but affirme Doctrinally by way of resolution Irenaeus thought it and expressed it so elegantly as it is almost pity if it be not true Inseminatus est ubique in Scriptur is Filius Dei sayes he The Son of God is sowed in every furrow in every place of the Scripture you may see him grow up and he gives an example out of this place Cum Abraham loquens cum Abraham comesurus Christ talked with Abraham and he dined with him And they will say that whereas it is said in that place to the Hebrewes That Abraham received Angels the word Angel must not be too precisely taken For sometimes Angel in the Scriptures signifies lesse then Angel as Iohn and Malachy are called Angels and sometimes Angel signifies more then Angel as Christ himselfe is called The Angel of the great Councell according to the Septuagint So therefore Esay 9. they will say That though Christ were there Christ himselfe might be called so An Angel Or it may be justly said by S. Paul That Abraham did receive Angels because there were two that were without question Angels This led Hilary to a direct and a present resolution that Abraham saw Christ and to exclaime gratulatorily in his behalfe Quanta fidei vis ut in indiscreta assistentium specie Christum internosceret What a perspicacy had Abrahams faith who where they were all alike could discerne one to be above them all Make this then the question whether Christ ever appeared to men upon earth before his Incarnation and the Scriptures not determining this question at all if the Fathers shall be called to judge it it will still be a perplexed case for they will be equall in number and in waight S. Augustine who is one of them that deny it sayes first for the generall the greatest worke of all the promulgation of the Law was done by Angels alone without concurrence of the Son and for this particular sayes he concerning Abraham they who thinke that Christ appeared to Abraham ground themselves but upon this reason That Abraham speakes to all in the singular number as to one person And then sayes that Father they may also observe that when this one Person whom they conclude to be Christ was departed from the other two and that the other two went up to Sodome Gen 19.18 there Lot speakes to those two in the singular number as to one person as Abraham did before From this argumentation of S. Augustines this may well be raised That when the Scriptures may be interpreted and Gods actions well understood by an ordinary way it is never necessary seldome safe to induce an extraordinary It was then an ordinary and familiar way for God to proceed with those his servants by Angels but by his Son so extraordinary as that it is not cleare that ever it was done and therefore it needs not be said nor admitted in this place In this place this falls properly to be noted that even in these three glorious Angels of God there was an eminent difference One of them seemed to Abraham to bee the principall man in the Commission and to that one he addressed himselfe Amongst the other Angels which are the Ministers in Gods Church one may have better abilities better faculties then another and it is no errour no weaknesse in a man to desire to conferre with one rather then with another or to heare one rather then another But Abraham did not so apply himselfe to one of the three that he neglected the other two No man must be so cherished so followed as that any other be thereby either defrauded of their due maintenance or dis-heartened for want of due incouragement Wee have not the greatest use of the greatest Starres but wee have more benefit of the Moone which is lesse then they because she is nearer to us It is not the depth nor the wit nor the eloquence of the Preacher that pierces us but his nearenesse that hee speaks to my conscience as though he had been behinde the hangings when I sinned and as though he had read the book of the day of Judgement already Something Abraham saw in this Angels above the rest which drew him which Moses does not expresse Something a man finds in one Preacher above another which he cannot expresse and he may very lawfully make his spirituall benefit
apace howsoever the slumbring of capitall laws and reasonof State may suffer such mistakers to flatter themselves yet God hath made this Angel of the East this Gospel of his to ascend so far now and to take so deep root as that now this one Angel is strong enough for the other foure that is The sincere preaching of the Gospel in our setled and well disciplined Church shall prevaile against those foure pestilent opposites Atheists and Papists and Sectaries and Carnall indifferent men who all would hinder the blowing of this wind the effect of this Gospel And to this purpose our Angel in the Text is said to have cryed with a loud voice He cryed with a loud voice to the foure Angels For our security therefore that this wind shall blow still Clamavit that this preaching of the Gospel which we enjoy shall be transferred upon our posterity in the same sincerity and the same integrity there is required an assiduity and an earnestnesse in us who are in that service now in which this Angel was then in our preaching Clamavit our Angel cryed it was his first act nothing must retard our preaching and voce magna he cryed with a loud voice he gave not over with one calling What is this crying aloud in our Angel Vocis modum audientium necessitas definit The voice must be so loud as they Basil to whom we speak are quick or thick of hearing Submissa quae ad susurrum propriè accedit damnanda A whispering voice was not the voice of this Angel nor must it be of those Angels that are figured in him for that is the voice of a Conventicle not a Church voice That is a loud voice that is heard by them whom it concernes So the catechizing of children though in a familiar manner is a loud voice though it be not a Sermon So writing in defence of our Religion is a loud voice though in the meane time a man intermit his preaching So the speaking by another when sicknesse or other services withhold him that should and would speak is a loud voice even from him And therefore though there be no evident no imminent danger of withholding these winds of inhibiting or scanting the liberty of the Gospel yet because it is wished by too many and because we can imagine no punishment too great for our neglecting the Gospel it becomes us the Ministers of God by all these loud voices of catechizing of preaching of writing to cry and to cry though not with vociferations or seditious jealousies and suspitions of the present government yet to cry so loud so assiduously so earnestly as all whom it concernes and it concernes all may heare it Hurt not the earth withhold not the winds be you no occasions by your neglecting the Gospel of Christ Jesus that he suffer it to be removed from you and know withall that you doe neglect this Gospel how often soever you heare it preached if you doe not practice it Nor is that a sufficient practice of hearing to desire to heare more except thy hearing bring thee to leave thy sinnes without that at the last day thou shalt meet thy Sermons amongst thy sinnes And when Christ Jesus shall charge thee with false weights and measures in thy shop all the week with prevarication in judgement with extortion in thy practice and in thine office he shall adde to that And besides this thou wast at Church twice that Sunday when he shall have told thee Thou didst not feed me thou didst not clothe me he shall aggravate all with that Yet thou heardst two Sermons that Sunday besides thine interlineary week Lectures The means to keep this wind awake to continue the liberty of the Gospel is this loud voice assiduous and pertinent preaching but Sermons unpractised are threepiled sins and God shall turne as their prayers so their preaching into sin For this injunction this inhibition which this Angel serves upon the four Angels That they should not hurt the world by withholding the winds that is not hinder the propagation passage of the Gospel was not perpetuall it was limited with a Donec Till something were done in the behalfe and favour of the world and that was Till the servants of God were sealed in their foreheads which is our last Consideration The servants of God being sealed in their foreheads in the Sacrament of Baptisme Donec signentur when they are received into the care of the Church all those meanes which God hath provided for his servants in his Church to refist afflictions and tentations are intended to be conferred upon them in that seale This sealing of them is a communicating to them all those assistances of the Christian Church Then they have a way of prevention of sin by hearing a way to Absolution by Confession a way to Reconciliation by a worthy receiving the body and bloud of Christ Jesus And these helps of the Christian Church thus conferred in Baptisme keep open still if these be rightly used that other seale the seale of the Spirit After ye heard the Gospel and beleeved Ephes 1.13 2 Cor. 1.22 ye were sealed with the holy spirit of promise and so also God hath anointed us and sealed us and given us the earnest of his Spirit in our hearts So that besides the seal in the forehead which is an interest and title to all the assistances and benefits of the Church publique prayer preaching Sacraments and sacramentall helps there is a seale of the Spirit of God that that Spirit beares witnesse with my spirit that I performe the conditions passed between God and me under the first seale my Baptisme But because this second seale the obsignation and testification of the inward Spirit depends upon the good use of the first seale the participation of the helps of the Church given me in Baptisme therefore the Donec in our Text Hurt them not till they be sealed reaches but to to the first seale the seale of Baptisme and in that of all Gods ordinary graces ordinarily exhibited in his Ordinances So then this Angel takes care of us till he have delivered us over to the sweet and powerfull helps of that Church which God hath purchased with his blood when hee hath placed us there he looks that we should doe something for our selves which before we were there and made partakers of Gods graces in his Church by Baptisme we could not doe for in this this Angels Commission determines That we be sealed in the fore-heads That we be taken from the Common into Gods inclosures impayled in his Park received into his Church where our salvation depends upon the good use of those meanes Use therefore those meanes well and put not God to save thee by a miracle without meanes Trust not to an irresistible grace that at one time or other God will have thee Bernar. whether thou wilt or no. Tolle voluntatem non est infernus If thou couldst quench thine
Life or that I should bee separated from Christ though all the world beside were to be blotted out and separated if I staid in The benefit that we are to make of the errors of holy men is not that That man did this therefore I may doe it but this God suffered that holy man to fall and yet loved that good soule well God hath not therefore cast me away though he have suffered me to fall too Bread is mans best sustenance yet there may be a dangerous surfet of bread Charity is the bread that the soule lives by yet there may be a surfet of charity I may mis-lead my selfe shrewdly if I say surely my Father is a good man my Master a good man my Pastor a good man men that have the testimony of Gods love by his manifold blessings upon them and therefore I may be bold to doe whatsoever I see them doe Be perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect Mat. 5.48 1 Cor. 11.1 is the example that Christ gives you Be yee followers of mee as I am of Christ is â—he example that the Apostle gives you Good Examples are good Assistances but no Example of man is sufficient to constitute a certaine and constant rule All the actions of the holiest man are not holy Hence appeares the vanity and impertinency of that calumny with which our adversaries of the Roman perswasion labour to oppresse us That those points in which we depart from them cannot be well established because therein we depart from the Fathers As though there were no condemnation to them that pretended a perpetuall adhering to the Fathers nor salvation to them who suspected any Father of any mistaking And they have thought that one thing enough to discredit and blast and annihilate that great and usefull labour which the Centuriators the Magdeburgenses tooke in compiling the Ecclesiasticall Story that in every age as they passe those Authors have laid out a particular section a particular Chapter De navis Patrum to note the mistakings of the Fathers in every age This they thinke a criminall and a hainous thing inough to discredit the whole worke As though there were ever in any age any Father that mistook nothing or that it were blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to note such a mistaking And yet if those blessed Fathers now in possession of heaven be well affected with our celebrating or ill with our neglecting their works certainly they finde much more cause to complaine of our adversaries then of us Never any in the Reformation hath spoken so lightly nay so heavily so negligently nay so diligently so studiously in diminution of the Fathers as they have done One of the first Jesuits proceeds with modesty and ingenuity and yet sayes Quaelibet aetas antiquitati detulit Salmeron Every age hath been apt to ascribe much to the Ancient Fathers Hoc autem asserimus sayes he Iuniores Doctores perspicaciores This we must necessarily acknowledge that our later Men have seen farther then the elder Fathers did His fellow Jesuit goes farther Hoc omnes dicunt Maldon sed non probant sayes he speaking of one person in the Genealogy of Christ This the Fathers say sayes he and later men too Catholiques and Heretiques All But none of them prove it He will not take their words not the whole Churches though they all agree But a Bishop of as much estimation and authority in the Council of Trent as any Cornel. Mussuâ— goes much farther Being pressed with S. Augustins opinion he sayes Nec nos tantillum moveat Augustinus Let it never trouble us which way S. Augustine goes Hoc enim illi peculiare sayes he ut alium errorem expugnans alteri ansam praebeat for this is inseparable from S. Augustine That out of an earnestnesse to destroy one error he will establish another Nor doth that Bishop impute that distemper onely to S. Augustine but to S. Hierome too Of him he sayes In medio positus certamine ar dore feriendi adversarios premit socios S. Hierome laies about him and rather then misse his enemy he wounds his friends also But all that might better be borne then this Turpiter errarunt Patres The Fathers fell foully into errors And this better then that Eorum opinio opinio Haereticorum The Fathers differ not from the Heretiques concurre with the Heretiques Who in the Reformation hath charged the Fathers so farre and yet Baronius hath If they did not oppresse us with this calumny of neglecting or undervaluing the Fathers we should not make our recourse to this way of recrimination for God knowes if it be modestly done and with the reverence in many respects due to them it is no fault to say the Fathers fell into some faults Yet it is rather our Adversaries observation then ours That all the Ancient Fathers were Chiliasts Millenarians and maintained that error of a thousand yeares temporall happinesse upon this earth betweene the Resurrection and our actuall and eternall possession of Heaven It is their observation rather then ours That all the Ancient Fathers denied the dead a fruition of the sight of God till the day of Judgement It is theirs rather then ours That all the Greek Fathers and some of the Latin assigned Gods foreknowledge of mans works to be the cause of his predestination It is their note That for the first six hundred yeares the generall opinion and generall practise of the Church was To give the Sacrament of the Lords Supper to Infants newly baptized as a thing necessary to their salvation They have noted That the opinion of the Ancient Fathers was contrary to the present opinion in the Church of Rome concerning the conception of the blessed Virgin without Originall sin These notes and imputations arise from their Authors and not from ours and they have told it us rather then we them Indeed neither we nor they can dissemble the mistakings of the Fathers The Fathers themselves would not have them dissembled Hieron De me sayes S. Hierom ubicunque de meo sensu loquor arguat me quilibet August For my part wheresoever I deliver but mine owne opinion every man hath his liberty to correct me It is true S. Augustine does call Iulian the Pelagian to the Fathers but it is to vindicate and redeeme the Fathers from those calumnies which Iulian had laid upon them that they were Multitudo caecorum a herd a swarme of blinde guides and followers of one another And that they were Conspiratio perditorum Damned Conspirators against the truth To set the Fathers in their true light and to restore them to their lustre and dignity and to make Iulian confesse what reverend persons they were S. Aug. cals him to the consideration of the Fathers but not to try matters of faith by them alone Lactant. For Sapientiam sibi adimit qui sine judicio majorum inventa probat That man devests himselfe of all discretion who
without examination captivates his understanding to the Fathers It is ingenuously said by one of their later Writers if hee would but give us leave to say so too Sequamur Patres Cajetan tanquam Duces non tanquam Dominos Let us follow the Fathers as Guides not as Lords over our understandings as Counsellors not as Commanders Nicephor Chrysost It is too much to say of any Father that which Nicephorus sayes of S. Chrysostome In illius perinde at que in Dei verbis quiesco I am as safe in Chrysostomes words as in the Word of God Sophron. Leo. That is too much It is too much to say of any Father that which Sophronius sayes of Leo That his Epistles were Divina Scriptura tanquam ex ore Petri prolata fundamentum fidei That he received the Epistles that Leo writ as holy writ as written by S. Peter himselfe and as the foundation of his faith that is too much It is too much to say of S. Peter himselfe that which Chrysologus sayes Chrysolog That he is Immobile fundamentum salutis The immoveable foundation of our salvation Mediator noster apud Deum The Mediator of man to God Azorius Their Jesuit Azorius gives us a good Caution herein Hee sayes it is a good and safe way in all emergent doubts to governe our selves Per communem opinionem by the the common opinion by that in which most Authors agree But sayes he how shall we know which is the common opinion Since not onely that is the common opinion in one Age that is not so in another The common opinion was in the Primitive Church that the blessed Virgin was conceived in Original sin The common opinion now is that she was not But if we confider the same Age that is the common opinion in one place in one countrey which is not so in another place at the same time That Jesuit puts his example in the worship of the Crosse of Christ and sayes That at this day in Germany and in France it is the common opinion and Catholique Divinity That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Divine worship is not due to the Crosse of Christ In Italy and in Spain it is the common opinion and Catholique Divinity that it is due Now how shall hee governe himselfe that is unlearned and not able to try which is the common opinion Or how shall the learnedest of all governe himselfe if he have occasion to travaile but to change his Divinity as often as he changes his Coine and when he turnes his Dutch Dollers into Pistolets to go out of Germany into Spain turn his Devotion and his religious worship according to the Clime To end this Consideration The holy Patriarchs in the Old Testament were holy men though they straid into some sinfull actions the holy Fathers in the Primitive Church were holy men though they straied into some erronious opinions But neither are the holiest mens actions alwaies holy nor the soundest Fathers opinions alwaies sound And therefore the question hath beene not impertinently moved whether this that S. Paul did here were justifiably done Who when he perceived that one part were Sadduces and the other Pharisees c. And so wee are come to our second part from the consideration of Actions in generall to this particular action of S. Paul In this second part we make three steps First we shall consider what Councell 2 Part. what Court this was before whom S. Paul was convented He cryed out in the Councell sayes the text whether they were his competent Judges and so he bound to a cleare and direct proceeding with them And secondly what his end and purpose was that he proposed to himselfe which was to divide the Judges and so to put off his tryall to another day for when he had said that sayes the text that that he had to say there arose a Dissention and the multitude All both Judges and spectators and witnesses were divided And then lastly by what way he went to this end which was by a double protestation first that Men and brethren I am a Pharisee And then that Of the hope and Resurrection of the dead I am called in question First then for the competency of his Judges Whether a man be examined before a competent Judge or no he may not lye we can put no case Iudex Competens in which it may be lawfull for any man to lye to any man not to a midnight nor to a noone thiefe that breaks my house or assaults my person I may not lye And though many have put names of disguise as Equivocations and Reservations yet they are all children of the same father the father of lies the devill and of the same brood of vipers they are lyes To an Incompetent Judge if I be interrogated I must speake truth if I speake but to a Competent Judge I must speak With the Incompetent I may not be false but with the Competent I may not be silent Certainely that standing mute at the Bar which of late times hath prevailed upon many distempered wretches is in it selfe so particularly a sin as that I should not venture to absolve any such person nor to administer the Sacrament to him how earnestly soever he desired it at his death how penitently soever he confessed all his other sins except he repented in particular that sin of having stood mute and refused a just triall and would be then content to submit himself to it if that favour might possibly at that time be afforded him To an incompetent Judge I must not lie but I may be silent to a competent I must answer Consider we then the competency of S. Pauls Judges what this Councel this Court was It was that Councel which is so often in the New Testament called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in our Translation the Councel The Jews speake much of their Lex Oralis their Oral their Traditionall Law that is That Exposition of the Law which say they Moses received from the mouth of God without writing in that forty dayes conversation which he had with God in the Mount for it is not probable say they that Moses should spend forty dayes in that which another man would have done in one or two that is in receiving onely that Law which is written But he received an exposition too and delivered that to Ioshuah and he to the principal men and according to that exposition they proceeded in Judgement in this Councel in this their Synedrion Which Councell having had the first institution thereof Numb 11.16 where God said to Moses Gather me seventy men of the Elders of Israel Officers over the people Numb 11.16 and I will take of the Spirit that is upon thee and put it upon them and they shall beare the burden that is I will impart to them that exposition of the Law which I have imparted to thee and by that they shall proceed in Judgement
Christ Ephes 2.12 for so S. Paul sayes to the Ephesians Absque Christo absque Deo If ye be without Christ ye are without God For as it is the same absurdity in nature to say There is no Sun and to say This that you call the Sun is not the Sun this that shines out upon you this that produces your fruits and distinguishes your seasons is not the Sun so is it the same Atheisme in these dayes of light to say There is no God and to say This Christ whom you call the Son of God is not God That he in whom God hath manifested himselfe He whom God hath made Head of the Church and Judge of the world is not God This then is our double Sadduce Davids Atheist that beleeves not God S. Pauls Atheist that beleeves not Christ And as our Sadduce is so is our Pharisee twofold also There is a Pharisee Duplex Pharisaeus that by following private expositions separates himselfe from our Church principally for matter of Government and Discipline and imagines a Church that shall be defective in nothing and does not onely think himself to be of that Church but sometimes to be that Church for none but himselfe is of that perswasion And there is a Pharisee that dreames of such an union such an identification with God in this life as that he understands all things not by benefit of the senses and impressions in the fancy and imagination or by discourse and ratiocination as we poore soules doe but by immediate and continuall infusions and inspirations from God himselfe That he loves God not by participation of his successive Grace more and more as he receives more and more grace but by a communication of God himselfe to him intirely and irrevocably That he shall be without any need and above all use of Scriptures and that the Scriptures shall be no more to him then a Catechisme to our greatest Doctors That all that God commands him to doe in this world is but as an easie walk downe a hill That he can doe all that easily and as much more as shall make God beholden to him and bring God into his debt and that he may assigne any man to whom God shall pay the arrerages due to him that is appoint God upon-what man he shall confer the benefit of his works of Supererogation For in such Propositions as these and in such Paradoxes as these doe the Authors in the Roman Church delight to expresse and celebrate their Pharisaicall purity as we find it frequently abundantly in them In a word some of our home-Pharisees will say That there are some who by benefit of a certaine Election cannot sin That the Adulteries and Blasphemies of the Elect are not sins But the Rome-Pharisee will say that some of them are not onely without sin in themselves but that they can save others from sin or the punishment of sin by their works of Supererogation and that they are so united so identified with God already as that they are in possession of the beatificall Vision of God and see him essentially and as he is in this life for that Ignatius the father of the Jesuits did so Sandaeus Theolog pâ—r 1. fo 760. some of his Disciples say it is at least probable if not certaine And that they have done all that they had to doe for their owne salvation long agoe and stay in the world now onely to gather treasure for others and to worke out their salvation So that these men are in better state in this life then the Saints are in heaven There the Saints may pray for others but they cannot merit for others These men here can merit for other men and work out the salvation of others Nay they may be said in some respect to exceed Christ himselfe for Christ did save no man here but by dying for him These men save other men with living well for them and working out their salvation These are our double Sadduces our double Pharisees now beloved Dissentio if we would goe so far in S. Pauls way as to set this two-fold Sadduce Davids Atheist without God and S. Pauls Atheist without Christ against our twofold Pharisee our home-Catharist and our Rome-Catharist If we would spend all our wit and all our time all our Inke and our gall in shewing them the deformities and iniquities of one another by our preaching and writing against them The truth and the true Church might as S. Paul did in our Text scape the better But when we we that differ in no such points tear and wound and mangle one another with opprobrious contumelies and odious names of sub-division in Religion our Home-Pharisee and our Rome-Pharisee maligners of our Discipline and maligners of our Doctrine gaine upon ns and make their advantages of our contentions and both the Sadduces Davids Atheist that denies God and S. Pauls Atheist that denies Christ joyne in a scornfull asking us Where is now your God Are not we as well that deny him absolutely as you that professe him with wrangling But stop we the floodgates of this consideration it would melt us into teares Sadducaei Pharisaei interni End we all with this That we have all all these Sadduces and Pharisees in our owne bosomes Sadduces that deny spirits carnall apprehensions that are apt to say Is your God all Spirit and hath bodily eyes to see sin All Spirit and hath bodily hands to strike for a sinne Is your soule all spirit and hath a fleshly heart to feare All spirit and hath sensible sinews to feele a materiall fire Was your God who is all Spirit wounded when you quarrelled or did your soule which is all spirit drink when you were drunk Sins of presumption and carnall confidence are our Sadduces and then our Pharisees are our sins of separation of division of diffidence and distrust in the mercies of our God when we are apt to say after a sin Cares God who is all Spirit for my eloquent prayers or for my passionate teares Is the giving of my goods to the poore or of my body to the fire any thing to God who is all Spirit My spirit and nothing but my spirit my soule and nothing but my soule must satisfie the justice the anger of God and be separated from him for ever My Sadduce my Presumption suggests that there is no spirit no soule to suffer for sin and my Pharisee my Desperation suggests That my soule must perish irremediably irrecoverably for every sinne that my body commits Now if I go S. Pauls way to put a dissention between these my Sadduces and my Pharisees Via Pauli to put a jealousie between my presumption my desperation to make my presumption see that my desperation lies in wait for her and to consider seriously that my presumption will end in desperation I may as S. Paul did in the Text scape the better for that But if without farther
to a particular consideration of the waight of his sins nor to a comparison betwixt his sin and the mercy of God yet he comes to a Miserere mei Domine To a sudden ejaculation O Lord be mercifull unto me how dare I doe this in the sight of my God It is much such an affection as is sometimes in a Felon taken in the manner or in a condemned person brought to execution One desires the Justice to be good to him and yet he sees not how he can Baile him the other desires the Sherife to be good to him and yet he knowes he must doe his Office A sinner desires God to have mercy upon him and yet he hath not descended to particular considerations requisite in that businesse But yet this spirituall Malefactor is in better case then the temporall are They desire them to be good to them who can doe them no good but God is still able and still ready to reprieve them and to put off the execution of his Judgements which execution were to take them out of this world under the guiltinesse and condemnation of unrepented sins And therefore as S. Basil sayes In scala prima ascensio est ab humo Basal He that makes but one step up a staire though he be not got much nearer to the top of the house yet he is got from the ground and delivered from the foulnesse and dampnesse of that so in this first step of prayer Miscrere mei O Lord be mercifull unto me though a man be not established in heaven yet he is stept from the world and the miserable comforters thereof He that committeth sin is of the Devill Yea he is of him in a direct line 1 Iohn 3.8 and in the nearest degree he is the Off-spring the son of the Devill Iohn 8.44 Ex patre vestro estis sayes Christ You are of your father the Devill Now Qui se à maligni patris affinitate submoverit He that withdraws himself from such a Fathers house though he be not presently come to meanes to live of himself Basil Quam feliciter patre suo orbatus How blessed how happy an Orphan is he become How much better shall he finde it to be fatherlesse in respect of such a father then masterlesse in respect of such a Lord as he turnes towards in this first ejaculation and generall application of the soule Miserere mei Have mercy upon me O Lord so much mercy as to looke graciously towards me And therefore as it was by infinite degrees a greater work to make earth of nothing then to make the best creatures of earth So in the regeneration of a sinner when he is to be made up a new creature his first beginning his first application of himselfe to God is the hardest matter But though he come not presently to looke God fully in the face nor conceive not presently an assurance of an established reconciliation a fulnesse of pardon a cancelling of all former debts in an instant Though hee dare not come to touch God and lay hold of himselfe by receiving his Body and Blood in the Sacrament yet the Euangelist calls thee to a contemplation of much comfort to thy soule in certaine preparatory accesses and approaches Behold sayes he that is Look up and consider thy patterne Behold Mat. 9.20 a woman diseased came behinde Christ and touched the hem of his garment for she said in her self If I may but touch the hem of his garment onely I shall be whole She knew there was vertue to come out of his Body and she came as neare that as she durst she had a desire to speake but she went no farther but to speak to her selfe she said to her selfe sayes that Gospel if I may but touch c. But Christ Jesus supplied all performed all on his part abundantly Presently he turned about sayes the Text And this was not a transitory glance but a full sight and exhibiting of himselfe to the fruition of her eye that she might see him He saw her sayes S. Matthew Her he did not direct himselfe upon others and leave out her And then hee spake to her to overcome her bashfulnesse he called her Daughter to overcome her diffidence He bids her be of comfort for she had met a more powerfull Physitian then those upon whom she had spent her time and her estate one that could cure her one that would one that had already for so he sayes presently Thy faith hath made thee whole From how little a spark how great a fire From how little a beginning how great a proceeding She desired but the hem of his garment and had all him Beloved in him his power and his goodnesse ended not in her Mat. 14.36 All that were sick were brought that they might but touch the hem of his garment and as many as touched it were made whole It was farre from a perfect faith that made them whole To have a desire to touch his garment seemes not was not much Neither was that desire that was alwayes in themselves but in them that brought them But yet come thou so farre Come or be content to be brought to be brought by example to be brought by a statute to be brought by curiosity come any way to touch the hem of his garment yea the hem of his servant of Aarons garment and thou shalt participate of the sweet ointment which flowes from the head to the hem of the garment Come to the house of God his Church Joyne with the Congregation of the Saints Love the body and love the garments too that is The Order the Discipline the Decency the Unity of the Church Love even the hem of the garment that that almost touches the ground that is Such Ceremonies as had a good use in their first institution for raising devotion and are freed and purged from that superstition which as a rust was growne upon them though they may seeme to touch the earth that is to have been induced by earthly men and not immediate institutions from God yet love that hem of that garment those outward assistances of devotion in the Church Bring with thee a disposition to incorporate thy selfe with Gods people here and though thou beest not yet come to a particular consideration of thy sins and of the remedies Though that spirit that possesses thee that sin that governes thee lie still a while and sleepe under all the thunders which wee denounce from this place so that for a while thou beest not moved nor affected with all that is said yet Appropinquas nescis as S. Augustine said when he came onely out of curiosity to heare S. Ambrose preach at Milan Thou doest come nearer and nearer to God though thou discerne it not and at one time or other this blessed exorcisme this holy Charme this Ordinance of God the word of God in the mouth of his servant shall provoke and awaken that spirit of security in
Begin with me againe as thou begunst with Adam in innocency and see if I shall husband and governe that innocency better then Adam did for for this heart which I have from him I have it in corruption and Job 4. who can bring a cleane thing out of uncleannesse Therefore Davids prayer goes farther in the same place Renew a constant spirit in me Present cleannesse cannot be had from my selfe but if I have that from God mine owne cloathes will make me foule againe and therefore doe not onely create a cleane spirit but renew a spirit of constancy and perseverance Therefore I have also another Prayer in the same Psalme Psal 51.12 Spiritu principali confirma me Sustaine me uphold me with thy free spirit thy large thy munificent spirit for thy ordinary graces will not defray me nor carry me through this valley of tentations not thy single money but thy Talents not as thou art thine owne Almoner but thine owne Treasurer It is not the dew but thy former and later raine that must water though it be thy hand that hath planted Not any of the Rivers though of Paradise but the Ocean it selfe that must bring me to thy Jerusalem Create a clean heart Thou didst so in Adam and in him I defiled it Renew that heart Thou didst so in Baptisme And thy upholding me with thy constant spirit is thy affording me means which are constant in thy Church But thy confirming me with thy principall spirit is thy making of those meanes instituted in thy Church effectuall upon me by the spirit of Application the spirit of Appropriation by which the merits of the Son deposited in the Church are delivered over unto me This then is the force of Davids reason in this Petition Ossa implentur vitiis Iob 20.11 as one of Iobs friends speaks My bones are full of the sins of my youth That is my best actions now in mine age have some taste some tincture from the habit or some sinfull memory of the acts of sin in my youth Adhaeret os meum carni as David also speaks Psal 102.5 Lam. 4.8 My bones cleave to my flesh my best actions taste of my worst And My skin cleaves to my bones as Ieremy laments That is My best actions call for a skin for something to cover them And Therefore not Therefore because I have brought my selfe into this state but because by thy grace I have power to bring this my state into thy sight by this humble confession Sana me Domine O Lord heale me Thou that art my Messias be my Moses Exod. 13.19 and carry these bones of thy Ioseph out of Egypt Deliver me in this consideration of mine actions from the terror of a self-accusing and a jealous and suspicious conscience 1 King 13.31 Bury my bones beside the bones of the man of God Beside the bones of the Son of God Look upon my bones as they are coffind and shrowded in that sheet the righteousnesse of Christ Jesus Accedant ossa ad ossa as in Ezekiels vision Let our bones come together Ezek. 37.7 bone to bone mine to his and looke upon them uno intuitu all together and there shall come sinews and flesh and skin upon them and breathe upon them and in Him in Christ Jesus I shall live My bones being laid by his though but gristles in themselves my actions being considered in his though imperfect in themselves shall bear me up in the sight of God And this may be the purpose of this prayer this sanation grounded upon this reason O Lord heale me for my bones are vexed c. But yet David must and doth stop upon this step he stayes Gods leisure and is put to his Vsquequo But thou O Lord how long David had cryed Miserere he had begged of God to look towards him Vsquequo and consider him He had revealed to him his weak and troublesome estate and he had entreated reliefe but yet God gave not that reliefe presently nor seemed to have heard his prayer nor to have accepted his reasons David comes to some degrees of expostulation with God but he dares not proceed far it is but usquequo Domine which if we consider it in the Originall and so also in our last Translation requires a serious consideration For it is not there as it is in the first Translation How long wilt thou delay David charges God with no delay But it is onely Et tu Domine usquequo But thou O Lord how long And there he ends in a holy abruptnesse as though he had taken himselfe in a fault to enterprise any expostulation with God He doth not say How long ere thou heare me If thou heare me how long ere thou regard me If thou regard me how long ere thou heale me How long shall my bones how long shall my soule be troubled He sayes not so but leaving all to his leisure he corrects his passion he breaks off his expostulation As long as I have that commission from God Dic animae tuae Salus tua sum Psal 35.3 Say unto thy soule I am thy salvation my soule shall keep silence unto God of whom commeth my salvation Silence from murmuring how long soever he be in recovering me not silence from prayer that he would come for that is our last Consideration David proposed his Desire Miserere and Sana Looke towards me and Heale me that was our first And then his Reasons Ossa Anima My bones my soule is troubled that was our second And then he grew sensible of Gods absence for all that which was our third Proposition for yet for all this he continues patient and solieites the same God in the same name The Lord But thou O Lord how long Need we then any other example of such a patience then God himselfe Domine who stayes so long in expectation of our conversion But we have Davids example too who having first made his Deprecation Ver. 1. That God would not reprove him in anger having prayed God to forbeare him he is also well content to forbeare God for those other things which he asks till it be his pleasure to give them But yet he neither gives over praying nor doth he encline to pray to any body else but still Domine miserere Have mercy upon me O Lord and Domine fana O Lord heale mee Industry in a lawfull calling favour of great persons a thankfull acknowledgement of the ministery and protection of Angels and of the prayers of the Saints in heaven for us all these concur to our assistance But the root of all all temporall all spirituall blessings is he to whom David leads us here Dominus The Lord Lord as he is Proprietary of all creatures He made All and therefore is Lord of All as he is Iehovah which is the name of Essence of Being as all things have all their being from him their very being and their well-being their Creation
colour of that exclude necessary things Howsoever you have delivered your selves to the mercy of God and he hath delivered a seale of his mercy to you inwardly in his Spirit outwardly in his Sacrament yet there are Amarae sagittae ex dulci manu Dei Nazian as Nazianzen calls afflictions after repentance Sharp arrowes out of the sweet hand of God Corrections by which God intends to establish us in that spirituall health to which our repentance by his grace hath brought us Remember still that this which David did for the present and that which he promised be would doe for the future both together made up the reason of his prayer to God by which he desired God in the former verses to returne to him to deliver his soule and to save him He had had no reason no ground of his prayer though he had done something already if he had not proposed to himselfe something more to be done There is a preparation before and there is a preservation after required at our hands if wee studie a perfect recovery and cure of our soules Gregor And as S. Gregory notes well there is a great deale of force in Davids Possessive in his word of appropriation Meus lectus meus and Oculus meus It is his bed that he washed and they are his eyes that washed it He bore the affliction himselfe and trusted not to that which others had suffered by way of Supererogation Sometimes when the children of great persons offend at Schoole another person is whipped for them and that affects them and works upon a good nature but if that person should take Physick for them in a sicknesse it would doe them no good Gods corrections upon others may worke by way of example upon thee but because thou art sick for physicke take it thy selfe Trust not to the treasure of the Church neither the imaginary treasure of the Church of Rome which pretends an inexhaustible mine of the works of other men to distribute and bestow No nor to the true treasure of the true Church that is Absolution upon Confession and Repentance No trust not to the merits of Christ himselfe in their application to thee without a Lectus tuus and an Oculus tuus except thou remember thy sins in thy bed and poure out thy teares from thine eyes and fulfill the sufferings of Christ in thy selfe Nothing can be added to Christs merits that is true but something must be added to thee a disposition in thee for the application of that which is his Not that thou canst begin this disposition in thy selfe till God offer it but that thou maist resist it now it is offered and reject it againe after it is received Trust not in others not in the Church nor in Christ himselfe so as to doe nothing for thy selfe Nor trust not in that which thou doest for thy selfe so as at any time to thinke thou hast done enough and needest do no more But when thou hast past the signet that thou hast found the signature of Gods hand and seale in a manifestation that the marks of his Grace are upon thee when thou hast past his privy Seale That his Spirit beares witnesse with thy spirit that thy repentance hath beene accepted by him When thou hast past the great Seale in the holy and blessed Sacrament publiquely administred doe not suspect the goodnesse of God as though all were not done that were necessary for thy salvation if thou wert to have thy transmigration out of this world this houre but yet as long as thou continuest in the vale of tentations continue in the vale of teares too and though thou have the seale of Reconciliation plead that seale to the Church which is Gods Tribunall and judgement seat upon earth in a holy life and works of example to others and looke daylie looke hourely upon the Ita quod of that pardon upon the Covenants and Conditions with which it is given That if by neglecting those medicinall helps those auxiliary forces those subsidies of the kingdome of Heaven those after-afflictions chuse whether you will call them by the name of Penance or no you relapse into former sins your present repentance and your present seale of that Repentance the Sacrament shall rise up against you at the last day and to that sentence you did not feed you did not cloathe you did not harbour me in the poore shall this be added as the aggravation of all you did Repent and you did receive the Seale but you did not pursue that repentance nor performe the conditions required at your hands But we are here met by Gods gracious goodnesse in a better disposition with a sincere repentance of all our former sinnes and with a deliberate purpose as those Israelites made their powring out of water a testimony of dissolving themselves into holy teares to make this fast from bodily sustenance an inchoation of a spirituall fast in abstinence from all that may exasperate our God against us That so though not for that yet thereby our prayers may be the more acceptable to our glorious God in our gracious Saviour To him that sits upon the throne and to the Lambe first that as he is the King of Kings he will establish and prosper that Crowne which he hath set upon the head of his Anointed over us here and hereafter Crowne that Crowne with another Crowne a better Crowne a Crowne of immarcescible glory in the Kingdome of Heaven and in the meane time make him his Bulwarke and his Rampart against all those powers which seeke to multiply Miters or Crownes to the disquiet and prejudice of Christendome And then That as he is the Lord of Lords he will inspire them to whom he hath given Lordship over others in this world with a due consideration that they also have a Lord over them even in this world and that he and they and we have one Lord over us all in the other world That as he is the Bishop and high Priest over our Souls he vouchsafe to continue in our Bishops a holy will and a competent power to super-intend faithfully over his Church that they for their parts when they depart from hence may deliver it back into his hands in the same forme and frame in which his blessed Spirit delivered it into their hands in their predecessors in the Primitive institution thereof That as he is the Angel of the great Counsayle he vouchsafe to direct the great Counsayle of this Kingdome to consider still that as he works in this world by meanes So it concernes his glory that they expedite the supply of such meanes as may doe his worke and may carry home the testimony of good Consciences now and in their posterity have the thanks of posterity for their behaviour in this Parliament That as he is the God of peace he will restore peace to Christendome That as he is the Lord of Hosts he will fight our battayls who have no other end
the principall arguments against Confessions by Letter which some went about to set up in the Romane Church that that took away one of the greatest evidences and testimonies of their repentance which is this Erubescence this blushing this shame after sin if they should not be put to speak it face to face but to write it that would remove the shame which is a part of the repentance But that soule that goes not to confession to it selfe that hath not an internall blushing after a sin committed is a pale soule even in the palenesse of death and senslesnesse and a red soule red in the defiance of God And that whitenesse to avoid approaches to sin and that rednesse to blush upon a sin which does attempt us is the complexion of the soule which God loves and which the Holy Ghost testifies when he sayes Cant. 5.12 My Beloved is white and ruddy And when these men that David speaks of here had lost that whitenesse their innocency for David to wish that they might come to a rednesse a shame a blushing a remorse a sense of sin may have been no such great malediction or imprecation in the mouth of David but that a man may wish it to his best friend which should be his own soule and say Erubescam not let mine enemies but let me be ashamed with such a shame In the second word Conturbentur Let them be sore vexed he wishes his enemies no worse then himselfe had been For he had used the same word of himselfe before Ossa turbata My bones are vexed Ver. 2. 3. and Anima turbata My soule is vexed and considering that David had found this vexation to be his way to God it was no malicious imprecation to wish that enemy the same Physick that he had taken who was more sick of the same disease then he was For this is like a troubled Sea after a tempest the danger is past but yet the billow is great still The danger was in the calme in the security or in the tempest by mis-interpreting Gods corrections to our obduration and to a remorselesse stupefaction but when a man is come to this holy vexation to be troubled to be shaken with a sense of the indignation of God the storme is past and the indignation of God is blowne over That soule is in a faire and neare way of being restored to a calmnesse and to reposed security of conscience that is come to this holy vexation In a flat Map there goes no more to make West East though they be distant in an extremity but to paste that flat Map upon a round body and then West and East are all one In a flat soule in a dejected conscience in a troubled spirit there goes no more to the making of that trouble peace then to apply that trouble to the body of the Merits to the body of the Gospel of Christ Jesus and conforme thee to him and thy West is East Zoch 6.12 thy Trouble of spirit is Tranquillity of spirit The name of Christ is Oriens The East Esay 14.12 And yet Lucifer himselfe is called Filius Orientis The Son of the East If thou beest fallen by Lucifer fallen to Lucifer and not fallen as Lucifer to a senslesnesse of thy fall and an impenitiblenesse therein but to a troubled spirit still thy Prospect is the East still thy Climate is heaven still thy Haven is Jerusalem for in our lowest dejection of all even in the dust of the grave we are so composed so layed down as that we look to the East If I could beleeve that Trajan or Tecla could look East-ward that is towards Christ in hell I could beleeve with them of Rome that Trajan and Tecla were redeemed by prayer out of hell God had accepted sacrifices before but no sacrifice is call Odor quiet is Gen. 8.21 It is not said That God smelt a savor of rest in any sacrifice but that which Noah offered after hee had beene variously tossed and tumbled in the long hulling of the Arke upon the waters A troublesome spirit and a quiet spirit are farre asunder But a troubled spirit and a quiet spirit are neare neighbours And therefore David meanes them no great harme when hee sayes Let them be troubled For Let the winde be as high as it will so I sayle before the winde Let the trouble of my soule be as great as it will so it direct me upon God and I have calme enough And this peace Convertantur this calme is implyed in the next word Convertantur which is not Let them be overthrowne but Let them returne let them be forced to returne he prayes that God would do something to crosse their purposes because as they are against God so they are against their owne soules In that way where they are he sees there is no remedy and therefore he desires that they might be Turned into another way What is that way This. Turne us O Lord and we shall be turned That is turned the right way Towards God And as there was a promise from God to heare his people not onely when they came to him in the Temple but when they turned towards that Temple in what distance soever they were so it is alwaies accompanied with a blessing occasionally to turne towards God But this prayer Turne us that we may be turned is that we may be that is remaine turned that we may continue fixed in that posture Lots Wife turned her selfe and remained an everlasting monument of Gods anger God so turne us alwaies into right wayes as that we be not able to turne our selves out of them For God hath Viam rectam bonam as himselfe speakes in the Prophet A right way and then a good way which yet is not the right way that is not the way which God of himselfe would go For his right way is that we should still keepe in his way His good way is to beat us into his right way againe by his medicinall corrections when we put our selves out of his right way And that and that onely David wishes and we wish That you may Turne and Be turned stand in that holy posture all the yeare all the yeares of your lives That your Christmas may be as holy as your Easter even your Recreations as innocent as your Devotions and every roome in the house as free free from prophanenesse as the Sanctuary And this he ends as he begun with another Erubescant Let them be ashamed and that Valde volociter Suddenly for David saw that if a sinner came not to a shame of sin quickly he would quickly come to a shamelesnesse to an impudence to a searednesse to an obduration in it Now beloved this is the worst curse that comes out of a holy mans mouth even towards his enemie that God would correct him to his amendment And this is the worst harme that we meane to you when we denounce the judgements of
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 the craft of the Serpent eyther the poyson of the Serpent in a self-despaire or the sting of the Serpent in an uncharitable prejudging and precondemning of others when a man comes to suspect Gods good purposes or contract Gods generall propositions for this forgiving of transgressions is Christs taking away the sins of all the world by taking all the sins of all men upon himselfe And this Guile this Deceit may also be in the second in the Covering of sins which is the particular application of this generall mercy by his Ordinances in his Church He then that without Guile will have benefit by this Covering must Discover Covering Qui tegi vult peccata detegat is S. Augustines way He that will have his sins covered let him uncover them He that would not have them known let him confesse them He that would have them forgotten let him remember them He that would bury them let him rake them up There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed and hid Mat. 10.26 that shall not be knowne It is not thy sending away a servant thy locking a doore thy blowing out a candle no not though thou blow out and extinguish the spirit as much as thou canst that hides a sin from God but since thou thinkest that thou hast hid it by the secret carriage thereof thou must reveale it by Confession If thou wilt not God will shew thee that he needed not thy Confession He will take knowledge of it to thy condemnation and he will publish it to the knowledge of all the world to thy confusion Tufecisti absconditè sayes God to David by Nathan Thou didst it secretly 2 Sam. 12.12 but I will doe this thing before all Israel and before the Sun Certainly it affects and stings many men more that God hath brought to light their particular sins and offences for which he does punish them then all the punishments that he inflicts upon them for then they cannot lay their ruine upon fortune upon vicissitudes and revolutions and changes of Court upon disaffections of Princes upon supplantations of Rivalls and Concurrents but God cleares all the world beside Perditio tua ex te God declares that the punishment is his Act and the Cause my sin This is Gods way and this he expresses vehemently against Jerusalem Behold I will gather all thy Lovers with whom thou hast taken pleasure Ezch. 16.37 and all them that thou hast loved with all them that thou hast hated and I will discover thy nakednesse to all them Those who loved us for pretended vertues shall see how much they were deceived in us Those that hated us because they were able to looke into us and to discerne our actions shall then say Triumphantly and publiquely to all Did not we tell you what would become of this man It was never likely to be better with him I will strip her naked and set her as in the day that she was borne Hos 2.3 Howsoever thou wert covered with the Covenant and taken into the Visible Church howsoever thou wert clothed by having put on Christ in Baptisme yet If thou sin against me sayes God and hide it from me I am against thee and I will shew the Nations thy nakednesse and the Kingdomes thy shame Nahum 3.5 To come to the covering of thy sins without guile first cover them not from thy self so as that thou canst not see yester-daies sin for to daies sin nor the sins of thy youth for thy present sins Cover not thy extortions with magnifique buildings and sumptuous furniture Dung not the fields that thou hast purchased with the bodies of those miserable wretches whom thou hast oppressed neither straw thine alleys and walks with the dust of Gods Saints whom thy hard dealing hath ground to powder There is but one good way of covering sins from our selves Si bona factamalis superponamus Gregor If we come to a habit of good actions contrary to those evils which we had accustomed our selves to and cover our sins so not that we forget the old but that we see no new There is a good covering of sins from our selves by such new habits and there is a good covering of them from other men for he that sins publiquely scandalously avowedly that teaches and encourages others to sin Esay 3.9 That declares his sin as Sodom and hides it not As in a mirror in a looking glasse that is compassed and set about with a hundred lesser glasses a man shall see his deformities in a hundred places at once so hee that hath sinned thus shall feele his torments in himselfe and in all those whom the not covering of his sins hath occasioned to commit the same sins Cover thy sins then from thy selfe so it be not by obduration cover them from others so it be not by hypocrisie But from God cover them not at all Prov. 28.13 He that covereth his sin shall not prosper but who so confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy Even in confessing without forsaking there is Dolus in spiritus Guile and deceit in that spirit Noluit agnoscere maluit ignoscere S. Augustine makes the case of a customary sinner He was ready to pardon himselfe alwaies without any confession But God shall invert it to his subversion Maluit agnoscere noluit ignoscere God shall manifest his sin and not pardon it Sin hath that pride that it is not content with one garment Adam covered first with fig-leaves then with whole trees He hid himselfe amongst the trees Then hee covered his sin with the woman she provoked him And then with Gods action Quam tu dedisti The Woman whom thou gavest me And this was Adams wardrobe David covers his first sin of uncleannesse with soft stuffe with deceit with falshood with soft perswasions to Vriah to go in to his Wife Then he covers it with rich stuffe with scarlet with the blood of Vriah and of the army of the Lord of Hosts And then he covers it with strong and durable stuffe with an impenitence and with an insensiblenesse a yeare together too long for a King too long for any man to weare such a garment And this was Davids wardrobe But beloved sin is a serpent and he that covers sin does but keepe it warme that it may sting the more fiercely and disperse the venome and malignity thereof the more effectually Adam had patched up an apron to cover him God tooke none of those leaves God wrought not upon his beginnings but he covered him all over with durable skins God saw that Davids severall coverings did rather load him then cover the sin and therefore Transtulit He tooke all away sin and covering for the coverings were as great sins as the radicall sin that was to be covered was yea greater as the armes and boughs of a tree are greater then the roote Now to this extension and growth and largenesse of
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
providence for family and posterity tells him plainly My name is Oppression and I am the spirit of covetousnesse Many times men fall into company and accompany others to houses of riot and uncleannesse and doe not so much as know their sinfull companions names nay they doe not so much as know the names of the sins that they commit nor those circumstances in those sinnes which vary the very name and nature of the sin But then Gregor Oculos quos culpa claudit poena aperit Those eyes which sinne shut this first beame of Grace opens when it comes and works effectually upon us Till this season of grace Ier. 2.29 this sinner is blind to the Sunne and deafe to Thunder A wild Asse that is used to the wildernesse and snuffeth up wind at her pleasure in her occasion who can turne her away An habituall sinner that doth not stumble but tumble as a mighty stone downe a hill in the wayes of his sin in his occasion who can turne him in his rage of sin what law can withhold him But sayes the Prophet there of that wild Asse All they that seeke her will not weary themselves Friends Magistrates Preachers doe but weary themselves and lose their labour in endeavouring to reclaime that sinner But in her Month they shall finde her sayes the Prophet That is say our Expositors when she is great and unweildy Some such Moneth God of his goodnesse brings upon this sinner Some sicknesse some judgement stops him and then we find him God by his Ordinance executed by us brings him to this Notum feci into company with himselfe into an acquaintance and conversation with himselfe and hee sees his sinnes looke with other faces and he heares his sins speake with other voyces and hee findes then to call one another by other names And when hee is thus come to that consideration Lord how have I mistaken my selfe Am I that thought my selfe and passed with others for a sociable a pleasurable man and good company am I a leprous Adulterer is that my name Am I that thought my selfe a frugall man and a good husband I whom fathers would recommend to their children and say Marke how hee spares how hee growes up how he gathers am I an oppressing Extortioner is that my name Blessed be thy name O Lord that hast brought me to this notum feci to know mine own name mine owne miserable condition he will also say may that blessing of thine enlarge it selfe farther that as I am come to this notum feci to know that I mistooke my selfe all this while so I may proceed to the non operui to a perfit sifting of my conscience in all corners which is Davids second motion in his act of preparation and our next consideration I acknowledged my sin and I hid none disguised none non operui Sometimes the Magistrate is informed of an abuse Non operni and yet proceeds to no farther search nor inquisition This word implies a sifting of the conscience He doth not onely take knowledge of his sins then when they discover themselves of his riot and voluptuousnesse then when he burnes in a fever occasioned by his surfets nor of his licentiousnesse then when he is under the anguish and smart of corrosives nor of his wastfulnesse and pride then when hee is laid in prison for debt Hee doth not seeke his sinnes in his Belly nor in his Bones nor in his Purse but in his Conscience and he unfolds that rips up that and enters into the privatest and most remote corners thereof And there is much more in this negative circumstance non operui I hid nothing then in the former acknowledgement notum feci I tooke knowledge of my sinnes When they sent to sift Iohn Baptist whether he were The Christ because he was willing to give them all satisfaction Ioh. 1.20 hee expressed himselfe so Hee confessed and denied not and said I am not the Christ So when Ioshuah pressed Achan to confesse his trespasse Iosh 7.19 he presses him with this negative addition Shew mee what thou hast done and hide it not that is disguise nothing that belongs to it For the better to imprint a confidence and to remove all suspition Men to to their Masters Wives to their Husbands will confesse something but yet operiunt they hide more Those words In multitudine virtutis tuae Psal 66.3 Through the greatnesse of thy power thine enemies shall submit S. Ierome and the Septuagint before and Tremellius after and all that binde themselves to the Hebrew letter reade it thus Mentientur tibi inimici tui when thy power is shewed upon them when thy hand lies upon them thine enemies will lie unto thee They will counterfait a confession they will acknowledge some sins but yet operiunt they hide they cover others 1 Sam. 15. Saul in the defeat of the Amalekites reserved some of the fattest of the spoile and being deprehended and reprehended hee said hee intended it for sacrifice Many times men in great place abuse their owne soules with that imagination or palliation That they doe God good service in some sinne and that they should more hurt the cause of God if they should proceed earnestly to the punishment of those that oppose it then if they let them alone and so leave lawes unexecuted and Gods truth endangered But Davids issue was non iniquitas non operui I left none iniquity unsearched I hid none But any thing serves us for a cover of sin even from a Net that every man sees thorow to such a cloud of darkenesse as none but the prince of darkenesse that cast that cloud upon us can see us in it nor we see our selves That wee should hide lesser sinnes with greater is not so strange That in an Adultery wee should forget the circumstances in it and the practises to come to it But we hide greater sins with lesser with a manifold and multiplied throng and cloud of lesser sins all comes to an indifferency and so wee see not great sins Easines of conversation in a woman seemes no great harme Adorning themselves to please those with whom they converse is not much more To heare them whom they are thus willing to please praise them and magnifie their perfections is little more then that To allow them to sue and solicit for the possession of that which they have so much praised is not much more neither Nor will it seeme much at last to give them possession of that they sue for nay it will seeme a kinde of injustice to deny it them We hide lesser sinnes with greater greater with lesser Nay we hide the devill with God wee hide all the weeks sins with a Sabbaths solemnity And as in the Romane Church they poysoned God when they had made their Bread-god they poysoned the Emperour with that bread so this is a Possessing of God a making the devill to enter into God when we hide our sins
why then doest thou set me up as a marke to shoot at But Iob never hopes for ease in any such allegation Thou hast made my soule a Cisterne and then powred tentations into it Thou hast enfeebled it with denying it thy Grace and then put a giant a necessitie of sinning upon it My sins are mine own The Sun is no cause of the shadow my body casts nor God of the sins I commit David confesses his sinnes that is he confesses them to be His And then he confesses His He meddles not with those that are other mens The Magistrate and the Minister are bound to consider the sins of others Non alienae for their sins become Qaodammodo nostra in some sort ours if we doe not reprove if the Magistrate doe not correct those sins All men are bound to confesse and lament the sins of the people It was then when Daniel was in that exercise of his Devotion Confessing his sinne Dan. 9.12 and the sinne of his people that he received that comfort from the Angel Gabriel And yet even then the first thing that fell under his Confession was his own sin My sin And then The sinne of my people When Iosephs brethren came to a sense of that sin in having sold him none of them transfers the sin from himselfe neither doth any of them discharge any of the rest of that sin Gen. 42.21 They all take all They said to one another sayes that Text we all we are verily guilty and therefore is this distresse come upon us upon us all Nationall calamities are induced by generall sins and where they fall we cannot so charge the Laity as to free the Clergy nor so charge the people as to free the Magistrate But as great summes are raysed by little personall Contributions so a little true sorrow from every soule would make a great sacrifice to God and a few teares from every eye a deeper and a safer Sea about this Iland then that that doth wall it Let us therefore never say that it is Aliena ambitio The immoderate ambition of a pretending Monarch that endangers us That it is Aliena perfidia The falshood of perfidious neighbours that hath disappointed us That it is Aliena fortuna The growth of others who have shot up under our shelter that may overtop us They are Peccata nostra our own pride our own wantonnesse our own drunkennesse that makes God shut and close his hand towards us withdraw his former blessings from us and then strike us with that shut and closed and heavy hand and multiply calamities upon us What a Parliament meets at this houre in this Kingdome How many such Committees as this how many such Congregations stand as we doe here in the presence of God at this houre And what a Subsidy should this State receive and what a sacrifice should God receive if every particular man would but depart with his own beloved sin We dispute what is our own as though we would but know what to give Alas our sins are our own let us give them Our sins are our own that we confesse And we confesse them according to Davids Method Domino to the Lord I will confesse my sinnes to the Lord. After he had deliberated Domino peecavi and resolved upon his course what he would doe he never stayed upon the person to whom His way being Confession he stayed not long in seeking his ghostly Father his Confessor Confitebor Domino And first Peccata Domino That his sins were sins against the Lord. For as every sin is a violation of a Law so every violation of a Law reflects upon the Law-maker It is the same offence to coyne a penny and a piece The same to counterfait the seale of a Subpoena as of a Pardon The second Table was writ by the hand of God as well as the first And the Majesty of God as he is the Law-giver is wounded in an adultery and a theft as well as in an Idolatry or a blasphemy It is not inough to consider the deformity and the foulnesse of an Action so as that an honest man would not have done it but so as it violates a law of God and his Majesty in that law The shame of men is one bridle that is cast upon us It is a morall obduration and in the suburbs next doore to a spirituall obduration to be Voyce-proofe Censure-proofe not to be afraid nor ashamed what the world sayes He that relyes upon his Plaudo domi Though the world hisse I give my selfe a Plaudite at home I have him at my Table and her in my bed whom I would have and I care not for rumor he that rests in such a Plaudite prepares for a Tragedy a Tragedy in the Amphitheater the double Theater this world and the next too Even the shame of the world should be one one bridle but the strongest is the other Peccata Domino To consider that every sin is a violation of the Majesty of God And then Confitebor Domino sayes David I will confesse my sinnes to the Lord Domino confitebor sinnes are not confessed if they be not confessed to him and if they be confessed to him in case of necessitie it will suffice though they be confessed to no other Indeed a confession is directed upon God though it be made to his Minister If God had appointed his Angels or his Saints to absolve me as he hath his Ministers I would confesse to them Ioshuah tooke not the jurisdiction out of Gods hands when he said to Achan Josh 7.19 Give glory unto the God of Israel in making thy confession to him And tell me now what thou hast done and hide it not from me Levit. 14.2 The law of the Leper is That he shall be brought unto the Priest Men come not willingly to this manifestation of themselves nor are they to be brought in chains as they doe in the Roman Church by a necessitie of an exact enumeration of all their sins But to be led with that sweetnesse with which our Church proceeds in appointing sicke persons if they seele their consciences troubled with any weighty matter to make a speciall confession and to receive absolution at the hands of the Priest And then to be remembred that every comming to the Communion is as serious a thing as our transmigration out of this world and we should doe as much here for the settling of our Conscience as upon our death-bed And to be remembred also that none of all the Reformed Churches have forbidden Confession though some practise it lesse then others If I submit a cause to the Arbitrement of any man to end it secundùm voluntatem sayes the Law How he will yet still Arbitrium est arbitrium boni viri his will must be regulated by the rules of common honesty and generall equity So when we lead men to this holy ease of discharging their heavy spirits by such private Confessions
to have beene Gods instrument for the conversion of others by the power of Preaching or by a holy and exemplar life in any calling And with this comfort David proceeds in the recommendation of this duty of Prayer Day and night I have felt thy hand upon me ver 4. I have acknowledged my sinne unto thee and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin thus it stood with me and by my example ver 5. For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou maiest be found First then the person that hath any accesse allowed him any title to pray Omnis sanctus is he that is Godly holy Now Omnis Sanctus est omnis Baptismate sanctificatus Those are the holy ones whom God will heare who are of the houshold of the faithfull of the Communion of Saints matriculated engraffed enrolled in the Church Hierom. by that initiatory Sacrament of Baptisme for the house of God into which we enter by Baptisme is the house of Prayer And as out of the Arke whosoever swam best was not saved by his swimming no more is any morall man out of the Church by his praying He that swomme in the flood swomme but into more and more water he that prayes out of the Church prayes but into more and more sin because he doth not establish his prayer in that Grant this for our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus sake It is true then that these holy ones whose prayer is acceptable are those of the Christian Church Onely they but is it all they are all their prayers acceptable There is a second concoction necessary too Not onely to have beene sanctified by the Church in Baptisme but a sanctification in a worthy receiving of the other Sacrament too A life that pleads the first seale Baptisme and claimes the other seale The body and blood of Christ Jesus We know the Wise mans counsaile Ecclus. 5.5 concerning propitiation Be not without feare Though thou have received the propitiatory Sacrament of Baptisme be afraid that thou hast not all Will the milke that thou suckedst from a wholesome Nurse keepe thee alive now Or canst thou dine upon last yeares meat to day Hee that hath that first holinesse The holinesse of the Covenant the holinesse of Baptisme let him pray for more For Omnis Sanctus is Quantumcumque Sanctus How holy soever he be that holinesse will not defray him all the way but that holinesse is a faire letter of credit and a bill of exchange for more When canst thou thinke thy selfe holy enough when thou hast washed thy selfe in snow water In penitent teares Iob 9.30 as the best purity of this life is expressed why even then Abominabuntur te vestimenta tua Thine owne cloathes shall make thee abominable Is all well when thou thinkest all well Prov. 16.2 why All the wayes of a man are cleane in his owne eyes but the Lord weigheth the spirit If thine owne spirit thine owne conscience accuse thee of nothing 1 Cor. 3.4 Iob 4.18 nothing unrepented is all well why I know nothing by my selfe yet am I not thereby justified It is God onely that is Surveyor of thy holinesse And Behold he found no stedfastnesse in his Servants and laid folly upon his Angels how much more in them that dwell in houses of clay Gregor whose foundation is in the dust Sordet in conspectu aeterni Iudieis When that eternall Judge comes to value our transitory or imaginary our hollow and rusty and rotten holinesse Sordet quod in intentione fulget operantis Even that which had a good lustre a good speciousnesse not onely in the eyes of men that saw it who might be deceived by my hypocrisie but in the purpose of him that did it becomes base more allay then pure metall more corruption then devotion Though Iacob Gen. 31.31 when he fled from his Father in law Laban were free enough himselfe from the theft of Labans Idols yet it was dangerously pronounced of him With whomsoever thou findest thy gods let him not live For his owne Wife Rachel had stollen them August And Caro conjux Thy Wife thy flesh thy weaker part may insinuate much sin into thine actions even when thy spirit is at strongest and thou in thy best confidence Onely thus these two cases may differ Rachel was able to cover those stollen Idols from her Fathers finding with that excuse The custome of Women is come upon me But thou shalt not be able to cover thy stollen sins with saying The infirmity of man is come upon me I do but as other men do Though thou have that degree towards sanctification that thou sin not out of presumption but out of infirmity though thou mayest in a modified sense fall within Davids word Omnis sanctus A holy man yet every holy and godly man must pray that even those infirmities may be removed too Qui sanctificatur sanctificetur adhuc Apoâ— 22.11 He that is holy let him be holy still not onely so holy still but still more and more holy For beloved As in the firmament of those stars which are reduced into Constellations and into a certainty of shapes of figures and images we observe some to be of one greatnesse some of another wee observe divers magnitudes in all them but to all those other Stars which are not reduced into those formes and figures we allow no magnitude at all no proportion at all no name no consideration So for those blessed soules which are collected into their eternall dwelling in Heaven which have their immoveable possession position at the right hand of God as one Star differs from another in glory so do these Saints which are in Heaven But whilst men are upon this earth though they be stars Saints of God though they be in the firmament established in the true Church of God yet they have no magnitude no proportion no certainty no holinesse in themselves nor in any thing formerly done by God in their behalfe and declared to us but their present degrees of godlinesse give them but that qualification that they may pray acceptably for more He must be so godly before he pray and his prayer must be for more godlinesse and all directed to the right object of prayer To God Vnto Thee shall every one that is godly pray which is our next the second of our foure Considerations in this first part Ad Te Ad Te. To God because he can heare And then Ad te to God because he can give Certainely it were a strange distemper a strange singularity a strange circularity in a man that dwelt at Windsor to fetch all his water at London Bridge So is it in him that lives in Gods presence as he does that lives religiously in his Church to goe for all his necessities by Invocation to Saints David was willing bee our example for Prayer but he gives no example of scattering our prayers upon
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
next Quid in via What is to be done in the way for that counsell of the Apostle See that ye walk circumspectly presumes a man to be in the way Eph. 5.15 else he would have cried to have stopped him or to have turned him and not bid him goe on how circumspectly soever But In my path sayes David Psal 140.5 not making any doubt but that he was in a right path in my path the proud have laid a snare for me and spread a net with cords Ad manum orbitae sayes the Originall even at the hand of the path That path which should as it were reach out a hand to lead me hath a snare in it And therefore sayes David with so much vehemence in the entrance of that Psalme Deliver me O Lord from the evill man who purposeth to overthrow my goings Though I goe in the right way the true Church yet purposes to overthrow mee there This Evill man workes upon us The man of sin in those instruments that still cast that snare in our way in our Church There is a minority an invisibility and a fallibility in your Church you begun but yesterday in Luther and you are fallen out already in Calvin So also works this Evill man amongst us in those Scismatiques who cast that snare in our way Your way though it be in part mended hath yet impressions of the steps of the Beast and it is a circular and giddy way that will bring us back againe to Rome And therefore beloved though you be in the way see ye walk circumspectly for the snares that both these have cast in the way the reproaches and defamations that both these have cast upon our Church But when thou hast scaped both these snares of Papist and Scismatique pray still to be delivered from that Evill man that is within thee Non tantùm potest hominem decipere Hieron quà m per Organum hominis The Devill hath not so powerfull an instrument nor so subtile an engine upon thee as thy selfe August Quis in hoc seculo non patitur hominem malum Who in this world or if he goe so farre out of this world as never to see man but himselfe is not troubled with this evill man When thou prayest with David to be delivered from this evill man if God aske thee whom thou meanest must thou not say thy selfe Canst thou shew God a worse Chrysost Qui non est malus nihil à malo mali patitur If a man were not evill in himself the worst thing in the world could not hurt him the Devil would not offer to give fire if there were no powder in thy heart What that evill man is that is in another I cannot know I cannot alwayes discerne anothers snare for What man knoweth the things of a man 1 Cor. 2.11 save the spirit of a man which is in him Thy spirit knowes what the evill man that is in thee is Deliver thy selfe of that evill man that ensnares thee in thy way though thou come to Church yea even when thou art there David repeats this word A viro malo from the evill man twice in that Psalme In one place A viro malo is in that name Meish which is a name of man proper onely to the stronger sexe and intimates snares and tentations of stronger power As when feare or favour tempts a man to come to a superstitious and idolatrous service In the other it is but Meadam and that is a name common to men and women and children and intimates that omissions negligences infirmities may encumber us ensnare us though we be in the way even in the true place of Gods service and the eye may be ensnared as dangerously and as damnably in this place as the eare or the tongue in the Chamber As S. Hierome sayes Nugae in ore Sacerdotis sunt sacrilegium An idle word in a Church-mans mouth is sacriledge so a wanton look in the Church is an Adultery Now when God hath thus taught us the way what it is that is brought us to the true Church for till then all is diversion all banishment and taught us In via what to doe in that way To resist tentations to superstition from other imaginary Churches tentations to particular sins from the evill men of the world and from the worst man in the world our selfe the Instruction in our Text is carried a step farther that is to proceed and goe forward in that way Qua gradieris I will teach thee to walk in that way When S. Augustine saith upon this place Qua gradieris It is via qua gradieris non cui haerebis A way to walke in not to sticke upon he doth not meane That wee should ever change this way or depart from it that any crosse in this should make us hearken after another religion It is not that we should not sticke to it but that we should not sticke in it nor loyter in the way Thou hast beene in this way in the true Church ever since thy Baptisme and yet if a man that hath lived morally well all his life and no more then so finde by Gods grace a doore opened into the Christian Church and a short turning into this right way at the end of his life hee by the benefit of those good Morall actions shall be before thee who hast lived lazily though in the right way at his first step For though those good Morall actions were not good workes when hee did them yet then that grace which he layes hold upon at last shall reflect a tincture upon them and make them good in the eyes of God ab initio If thou have not beene lazie in thy way in thy Christian profession hitherto yet except thou proceed still except thou goe from hence now better then thou camest better in thy purpose and come hither next day better then thou wentest better in thy practise thou hast not learned this lesson in this Instruction I will teach thee to walke in this way A Christian hath no Solstice no highest point where he may stand still and goe no farther much lesse hath hee any Aequator where dayes and nights are equall that is a liberty to spend as much time ill as well as many houres in sinfull pleasures August as in religious exercises Quicquid citra Deum est via est nec immorandum in ea Hee doth not say praeter Deum much lesse contra Deum For whatsoever is against God nay whatsoever is besides God is altogether out of the way But citra Deum on this side of God Till we come to God in heaven all our best is but our way to him All the zeale of gathering knowledge all the growth of faith all the practise of sanctification is but via the way and non immorandum in ea since wee have here a promise of Gods assistance in it in the way we are sure there is an obligation upon
sense of the word But as some of our Expositors have found reason to interpret them Ne approximent That they shall not come neare him not neare God in the service of his Church to do themselves any good his Corrections shall harden them and remove them farther from him and from all benefit by his Ordinances First then God armes him with a pre-increpation upon Descent Nolite fieri Descensus Goe no lesse be not made lower The first sin that ever was was an ascending a climing too high when the purest Understandings of all The Angels fell by their ascending when Lucifer was tumbled downe by his Similis ero Altissimo I will be like the most High Esay 14.14 then he tried upon them who were next to him in Dignity upon Man how that clambring would worke upon him He presents to man the same ladder He infuses into man the same Ambition and as he fell with a Similis ero Altissimo I will be like the most High So he overthrew man with an Eritis sicut Dii Ye shall be as Gods It seemes this fall hath broake the neck of Mans ambition and now we dare not be so like God as we should be Ever since this fall man is so far from affecting higher places then his nature is capable of that he is still groveling upon the ground and participates and imitates and expresses more of the nature of the Beast then of his owne There is no creature but man that degenerates willingly from his naturall Dignity Those degrees of goodnesse which God imprinted in them at first they preserve still As God saw they were good then so he may see they are good still They have kept their Talent They have not bought nor sold They have not gained nor lost They are not departed from their native and naturall dignity by any thing that they have done But of Man it seemes God was distrustfull from the beginning He did not pronounce upon Mans Creation as he did upon the other Creatures that He was good because his goodnesse was a contingent thing and consisted in the future use of his free will For that faculty and power of the will Dionys is Virtus transformativa by it we change our selves into that we love most and we are come to love those things most which are below us As God said to the Earth and it was enough to say so Germinet terra juxta genus suum Gen. 1. Let the Earth bring forth according to her kinde Ambro. So Vive juxta genus tuum sayes S. Ambrose to Man Live according to thy kinde Non adulteres genus tuum doe not abase doe not allay doe not betray do not abastardise that noble kinde that noble nature which God hath imparted to thee imprinted in thee Mundi moles liber est Basil This whole world is one Booke And is it not a barbarous thing when all the whole booke besides remains intire to deface that leafe in which the Authors picture the Image of God is expressed as it is in man God brought man into the world as the King goes in state Lords and Earles and persons of other ranks before him So God sent out light and Firmament and Earth and Sea and Sunne and Moone to give a dignity to mans procession and onely Man himselfe disorders all and that by displacing himselfe by losing his place The Heavens and Earth were finished Et omnis exercitus eorum Gen. 2.1 sayes Moses All the Host thereof and all this whole Army preserves that Discipline onely the Generall that should governe them mis-governs himselfe And whereas we see that Tygers and Wolves Beasts of annoyance doe still keepe their places and natures in the world and so doe Herbs and Plants even those which are in their nature offensive and deadly Ambrose for Alia esui alia usui Some herbs are made to eat some to adorne some to supply in Physick whilest we dispute in Schools whether if it were possible for Man to doe so it were lawfull for him to destroy any one species of Gods Creatures though it were but the species of Toads and Spiders because this were a taking away one linke of Gods chaine one Note of his harmony we have taken away that which is the Jewel at the chaine that which is the burden of the Song Man himselfe Partus sequitur ventrem We verifie the Law treacherously mischievously we all follow our Mother we grovell upon the earth whose children we are and being made like our Father Psal 8.4 in his Image we neglect him What is Man that thou art mindfull of him and the sonne of Man that thou visitest him David admires not so much mans littlenesse in that place as his greatnesse He is a little lower then Angels A little lower then God sayes our former Translation agreeably enough to the word and in a good sense too Gods Lievtenant his Vice-gerent over all Creatures Thou hast made him to have Dominion over the works of thy hands and Dominion is a great it is a supreme estate And thou hast put all things under his feet as it follows there And yet we have forfeited this Jurisdiction this Dominion and more our owne Essence we are not onely inferior to the Beasts and under their annoyance but we are our selves become Beasts Consider the dignitie of thy soule which onely of all other Creatures is capable susciptible of Grace If God would bestow grace any where els no creature could receive it but thou Thou art so necessary to God as that God had no utterance no exercise no employment for his grace and mercy but for thee And if thou make thy selfe incapable of this mercy and this grace of which nothing but thou is capable then thou destroyest thy nature And remember then that as in the Kingdome of Heaven in those orders which we conceive to be in those glorious Spirits there is no falling from a higher to a lower order a Cherubim or Seraphim does not fall and so become an Archangel or an Angel but those of that place that fell fell into the bottomlesse pit So if thou depart from thy nature from that susciptiblenesse that capacity of receiving Grace if thou degenerate so from a Man to a Beast thou shalt not rest there in the state and nature of a Beast whose soule breaths out to nothing and vanishes with the life thou shalt not be so happy but thy better nature will remain in despite of thee thine everlasting soule must suffer everlasting torment Now as many men when they see a greater piece of coyne then ordinary 2 Part. they doe not presently know the value of it though they know it to be silver but those lesser coyns which are in currant use and come to their hands every day they know at first sight so because this stamp this impression of the image of God in Man is not well and clearly understood by every Man
neither this descent and departing from the dignity thereof being delivered but in generall Nolite fieri Be yee made like nothing els Therefore the Holy Ghost brings us here to the consideration of some lesser pieces things which are alwayes within distance and apprehension alwayes in our eye Nolite fieri sicut Descend not to the qualities of the Horse and the Mule Though as God summed up his temporall blessings to the Jews in that totall Et profecisti in regnum Ezek. 16.13 Thou didst prosper into a Kingdome He may also summe up his spirituall blessings to us in this Et profecisti in Ecclesiam in Ecclesiam credentium for there is Ecclesia malignantium Odivi Ecclesiam malignantium sayes David Psal 26.5 I have hated the Congregation of evill doers I have brought thee first from the Nations from the Common into a visible Church And then from Babylon from that Church of confusion that makes the word of God and the word of Man equall into an Orthodox and sincere Church yet our sinnes have cast us Infra Gentes and Infra Babylonem Below all these againe For for the Gentils Rom. 2.14 The Gentils which have not the law doe by nature the things contained in the law wee that have the helpe of the Law and Gospel too doe not And for Rome the example of our Reformation and their own shame contracted thereby hath wrought upon the Church of Rome it selfe They are the better for the Reformation in frequent Catechizing and preaching and we are not Compare us with the Gentils and we shall fall under that increpation of the Apostle There is such fornication amongst you 1 Cor. 5.1 as is not once named amongst the Gentils We commit those things which they forbeare to speake of Compare us with Rome and I feare that will belong to us which God sayes and sweares in the Prophet As I live saith the Lord Sodome thy sister hath not done as thou hast done Ezek. 16.48 Where by the way be pleased to note that God calls eyen Samaria and Sodome sisters of Jerusalem there is a fraternity grounded in charity which nothing must devest If Sodome and Jerusalem were Sisters Babylon and we may be soâ—â— uterin sisters of one wombe for there is but one Baptisme though fornication it selfe and fornication in the spirituall sense of the Scriptures hath a heavy signification and reaches even to Idolatry have made that Church as some thinke scarce capable of the name of a Church yet Sodome is a sister But be shee as far degenerate as she can our sin hath made a descent below them that are below us It hath cast us below the Inhabitants of the Earth Beasts and below the Earth it selfe even to Hell for we make this life which is the place of repentance the place of obstinacy and obduration and obduration is Hell Yea it hath cast us below the Devill himselfe our state is in this worse then theirs They sinned before God had given them any expresse law and before God had made any examples or taken any revenge upon any sinners But we sin after a manifest law and after they and many others have been made our examples They were never restored we have been restored often They proceed in their obstinacy when God casts them from him we proceed even when God calls us to him They against God which turnes from them and is glorified in their destruction we against him that comes to us and emptied and humbled himselfe to the shame to the scorne to the paine to the death of the Crosse for us These be the lamentable descents of sinne But the particular descent to which this text doth purposely bend it selfe is That as God said at beginning in contempt and in derision Ecce Adam quasi unus ex nobis Behold Man is become as one of us So now Gen. 3.22 Bernard as S. Bernard makes the note the Horse and Mule may say Quasi unus ex nobis Behold Man is become as one of us and Nolite fieri sayes God in our text Be not as the Horse or the Mule According to the severall natures of these two Beasts Equus Mulus the Fathers and other Expositors have made severall interpretations at least severall Allusions They consider the Horse and the Mule to admit any Rider any burden without discretion or difference without debatement or consideration They never aske whether their rider be noble or base nor whether their load be gold for the treasure or roots for the market And those Expositors finde the same indifferency in an habituall sinner to any kinde of sinne whether he sin for pleasure or sin for profit or sin but for company still he sins They consider the Mule to be engendred of two kinds two species and yet to beget to produce neither but to be alwayes barren And they finde us to be composed of a double a heavenly and earthly nature and thereby bound to duties of both kinds towards God and towards men but to be defective and barren in both They consider in the Mule that one of his Parents being more ignoble then the other he is likest the worst He hath more of the Asse then of the Horse in him And they finde in us that all our actions and thoughts taste more of the ignobler part of earth then of heaven S. Hierome thinks fiercenesse and rashnesse to be presented in the Horse and sloth in the Mule And S. Augustine carries these two qualities farre He thinks that in this fiercenesse of the Horse the Gentiles are represented which ran farre from the knowledge of Christianity And by the lazinesse of the Mule the Jews who came nothing so fast as they were invited by their former helps to the imbracing thereof They have gone farre in these allusions and applications and they might have gone as farre farther as it had pleased them They have Sea-roome enough that will compare a Beast and a Sinner together and they shall finde many times in the way the Beast the better Man Here we may contract it best Gregor if we understand Pride by the Horse and Lust by the Mule for though both these pride and lust might have been represented in the horse which is as the Philosopher notes Animal post hominem salacissimum The most intemperate and lustful of all creatures but man still man for this infamous prerogative must be excepted and though the Scriptures present that sin Jer. 5.8 Lust by the horse They rose in the morning like fed horses and every man neighed after his neighbours wife and therefore S. Hierome delights himselfe with that curious note In Hos 3. Numb 5.12 That when a man brings his wife to that triall and conviction of jealousie the offering that the man brings is Barley Horse-provender in those parts sayes S. Hierome though both sins pride and lust might be taxed in the horse yet pride is proper to him and
of the state of the Christian Church There by the ordinary meanes exhibited there our Scarlet sins are made as white as Snow And the whitenesse of Snow is a whitenesse that no art of man can reach to So Christs garments in his Transfiguration are expressed to have beene as white as Snow Marke 9.3 so as no Fuller on earth could white them Nothing in this world can send me home in such a whitenesse no morall counsaile no morall comfort no morall constancy as Gods Absolution by his Minister as the profitable hearing of a Sermon the worthy receiving of the Sacrament do This is to be as white as snow In a good state for the present But David begs a whitenesse above Snow for Snow melts and then it is not white our present Sanctification withers and we lose that cheereful verdure the testimony of an upright conscience And Snow melted Snow water is the coldest water of all Devout men departed from their former fervor are the coldest and the most irreducible to true zeale true holinesse Therefore David who was metall tried seven times in the fire and desired to be such gold as might be laid up in Gods Treasury might consider that in transmutation of metals it is not enough to come to a calcination or a liquefaction of the metall that must be done nor to an Ablution to sever drosse from pure nor to a Transmutation to make it a better metall but there must be a Fixion a fettling thereof so that it shall not evaporate into nothing nor returne to his former nature Therefore he saw that he needed not only a liquefaction a melting into teares nor only an Ablution a Transmutation those he had by this purging and this washing this station in the Church of God and this present Sanctification there but he needed Fixionem an establishment which the comparison of Snow afforded not That as he had purged him with Hyssop and so cleansed him that is enwrapped him in the Covenant and made him a member of the true Church and there washed him so as that he was restored to a whitenesse that is made his Ordinances so effectuall upon him as that then he durst deliver his soule into his hands at that time So he would exalt that whitenesse above the whitenesse of Snow so as nothing might melt it nothing discolour it but that under the seale of his blessed Spirit he might ever dwell in that calme in that assurance in that acquiescence that as he is in a good state this minute he shall be in no worse whensoever God shall be pleased to translate him We end all the Psalmes in our service Conclusio those of Praise and those of Prayer too with a Gloria Patri Glory be to the Father c. For our conclusion of this Prayer in this Psalme we have reserved a Gloria Patri too This consideration for the glory of God that though in the first Part The Persons the persons were varied God and man yet in our second Part where we confider the worke the whole worke is put into Gods hand and received from Gods hand Let God be true and every man a liar Let God be strong and every man infirme Let God give and man but receive What man that hath no propriety therein can take a penny out of another mans house or a roote out of his Garden but the Law will take hold of him Hath any man a propriety in Grace what had he to give for it Nature Is Nature equivalent to Grace No man does refine and exalt Nature to the height it would beare but if naturall faculties were exalted to their highest is Nature a fit exchange for Grace and if it were is Nature our owne Why should we be loath to acknowledge to have all our ability of doing good freely from God and immediately by his grace when as even those faculties of Nature by which we pretend to do the offices of Grace we have from God himselfe too For that question of the Apostle involves all What hast thou that thou hast not received Thy naturall faculties are no more thine owne then the grace of God is thine owne I would not be beholden to God for Grace and I must be as much beholden to him for Nature if Nature do supply Grace Because he hath made thee to be a man he hath given thee naturall faculties because he hath vouchsafed thee to be a Christian he hath given thee meanes of Grace But as thy body conceived in thy Mothers wombe could not claime a soule at Gods hand nor wish a soule no nor know that there was a soule to be had So neither by being a man indued with naturall faculties canst thou claime grace or wish grace nay those naturall faculties if they be not pre-tincted with some infusion of Grace before cannot make thee know what Grace is or that Grace is To a child rightly disposed in the wombe God does give a soule To a naturall man rightly disposed in his naturall faculties God does give Grace But that Soule was not due to that child nor that grace to that man Therefore as we said at first David does not bring the Hyssop and pray God to make the potion but Doe thou purge me with Hyssop All is thine owne There was no pre-existent matter in the world when God made the world There is no pre-existent merit in man when God makes him his David does not say Do thou wash me and I will perfect thy worke Give me my portion of Grace and I will trouble thee for no more but deale upon that stocke But Qui sanctificatur sanctificetur adhuc Let him that is holy be more holy but accept his Sanctification from him of whom he had his Justification and except he can think to glorifie himself because he is sanctified let him not think to sanctifie himself because he is justified God does all Yet thus argues S. Augustin upon Davids words Tuus sum Domine Lord I am thine and therefore safer then they that thinke themselves their owne Every man can and must say I was thine Thine by Creation but few can say I am thine few that have not changed their Master But how was David his so especially sayes S. Augustine Quia quaesivi justificationes tuas as it followes there Because I sought thy Righteousnesse thy Justification But where did he seeke it Hee sought it and he found it in himselfe In himselfe as himselfe there was no good thing to be found how far soever he had sought But yet he found a Justification though of Gods whole making yet in himselfe So then this is our Act of Recognition we acknowledge God and God onely to doe all But we doe not so make him Soveraigne alone as that we leave his presence naked and empty Nor so make him King alone as that we depopulate his Country and leave him without Subjects Nor so leave all to Grace as that the naturall faculties
in a great measure very rich and very poore Prosperity or Adversity occasion most sinnes Though God call upon us in every leafe of the Scripture to pity the poore and relieve the poore and ground his last Judgement upon our works of mercy Mat. 25.34 Because you have fed and clothed the poore inherit the kingdome yet as the rich and the poore stand before us now as it were in Judgement as we inquire and heare evidence which statoâ—â— most obnoxious and open to most sinnes we embrace and apply to our selves that law Exod. 23.3 Levit. 19.15 Thou shalt not countenance a poore man in his cause And as it is repeated Thou shalt not respect the person of the poore in Iudgement There is then a poverty which without all question is the direct way to heaven but that is spirituall Mat. 5.3 Blessed are the poore in spirit This poverty is humility it is not beggary A rich man may have it and a beggar may be without it The Wiseman found not this poverty Ecclus 25.2 not humility in every poore man He found three sorts of men whom his soule hated And one of the three was a poore man that is proud And when the Prophet said of Jerusalem in her afflictions Esay 51.21 Paupercula es ebria Thou art poore and miserable and yet drunke though as he addes there it were not with wine which is now in our dayes an ordinary refuge of men of all sorts in all sadnesses and crosses to relieve themselves upon wine and strong drinke which are indeed strong illusions yet though Jerusalems drunkennesse were not with wine it was worse It was a staggering a vertiginousnesse an ignorance a blindnesse a not discerning the wayes to God which is the worst drunkennesse and fals often upon the poore and afflicted That their poverty and affliction staggers them and damps them in their recourse to God so far as that they know not That they are miserable and wretched and poore and blinde Revel 3.17 and raked The Holy Ghost alwaies makes the danger of the poore great as well as of the rich The rich mans wealth is his strong City There is his fault his confidence in that Pro. 10.15 But Pavor pauperum The destruction of the poore is his poverty There is his fault Desperation under it Solomon presents them as equally dangerous Give me neither poverty nor riches Pro. 30.8 Ruth 3.10 So does Booz to Ruth Blessed be thou of the Lord my daughter in as much as thou followedst not young men whether poore or rich That which Booz intended there Incontinency and all vices that arise immediately out of the corruption of nature and are not induced by other circumstances have as much inclination from poverty as from riches May we not say more I doubt we may He must be a very sanctified man whom extreame poverty and other afflictions doe not decline towards a jealousie and a suspicion and a distrusting of God And then the sins that bend towards desperation are so much more dangerous then those that bend towards presumption that he that presumes hath still mercy in his contemplation He does not thinke that he needs no mercy but that mercy is easily had He beleeves there is mercy he doubts not of that But the despairing man imagines a cruelty an unmercifulnesse in God and destroyes the very nature of God himselfe Riches is the Metaphor in which the Holy Ghost hath delighted to expresse God and Heaven to us Despise not the riches of his goodnesse sayes the Apostle And againe Rom. 2.4.11.33 Ephes 3.8 ver 16. O the depth of the riches of his wisdome And so after The unsearchable riches of Christ And for the consummation of all The riches of his Glory Gods goodnesse towards us in generall our Religion in the way his Grace here his Glory hereafter are all represented to us in Riches With poverty God ordinarily accompanies his comminations he threatens feeblenesse and warre and captivity and poverty every where but he never threatens men with riches Ordinary poverty that is a difficulty with all their labors and industry to sustaine their family and the necessary duties of their place is a shrewd and a slippery tentation But for that street-beggery which is become a Calling for Parents bring up their children to it nay they doe almost take prentises to it some expert beggers teach others what they shall say how they shall looke how they shall lie how they shall cry for these whom our lawes call Incorrigible I must say of them in a just accommodation of our Saviours words It is not meet to take the childrens bread Matt. 25.26 and to cast it to dogs It is not meet that this vermin should devoure any of that which belongs to them who are truely poore Neither is there any measure any proportion of riches that exposes man naturally to so much sin as this kinde of beggery doth Rich men forget or neglect the duties of their Baptisme but of these how many are there that were never baptized Rich men sleepe out Sermons but these never come to Church Rich men are negligent in the practise but these are ignorant in all knowledge It would require a longer disquisition then I can afford to it now whether Riches or Poverty considered in lesser proportions ordinary riches ordinary poverty open us to more and worse sins But consider them in the highest and in the lowest abundant riches beggerly poverty and it will scarce admit doubt but that the incorrigible vagabond is farther from all wayes of goodnesse then the corruptest rich man is And therefore labour wee all earnestly in the wayes of some lawfull calling that we may have our portion of this world by good meanes For first the advantages of doing good to others in a reall reliefe of their wants is in the rich onely whereas the best way of a good poore man to doe good to others is but an exemplary patience to catechize others by his suffering And then all degrees of poverty are dangerous and slippery even to a murmuring against God or an invading of the possessions and goods of other men but especially the lowest the desperate degree of beggery and then especially when we cannot say it is inflicted by the hand of God but contracted by our owne lazinesse or our owne wastfulnesse This is a problematicall a disputable case Whether riches or poverty occasion most sins And because on both sides there arise good doctrines of edification Men of low degree I have thus far willingly stopped upon that disputable consideration But now that which wee receive here upon Davids upon the Holy Ghosts security Surely it is thus It is surely so is this That we shall be deceived if we put our trust in men for what sort of men would we trust Surely men of low degree are vanity And this if it be taken of particular men needs no proving no
spirituall calamities being in our absence from Gods Church where onely the outward meanes of happinesse are ministred unto us certainely there is much tendernesse and deliberation to be used before the Church doores be shut against any man If I would not direct a prayer to God to excommunicate any man from the Triumphant Church which were to damne him I would not oyle the key I would not make the way too slippery for excommunications in the Militant Church For that is to endanger him I know how distastfull a sin to God contumacy and contempt and disobedience to Order and Authority is And I know and all men that choose not ignorance may know that our Excommunications though calumniators impute them to small things because many times the first complaint is of some small matter never issue but upon contumacies contempts disobediences to the Church But they are reall contumacies not interpretative apparant contumacies not presumptive that excommunicate a man in Heaven And much circumspection is required and I am far from doubting it exercised in those cases upon earth for though every Excommunication upon earth be not sealed in Heaven though it damne not the man yet it dammes up that mans way by shutting him out of that Church through which he must goe to the other which being so great a danger let every man take heed of Excommunicating himselfe The imperswasible Recusant does so The negligent Libertin does so The fantastique Separatist does so The halfe-present man he whose body is here and minde away does so And he whose body is but halfe here his limbes are here upon a cushion but his eyes his eares are not here does so All these are are selfe-Excommunicators and keepe themselves from hence Onely he enjoyes that blessing the want whereof David deplores that is here intirely and is glad he is here and glad to finde this kinde of service here that he does and wishes no other And so we have done with our first Part Davids aspect his present condition and his danger of falling into spirituall miseries because his persecution and banishment amounted to an Excommunication to an excluding of him from the service of God in the Church And we passe in our Order proposed at first to the second his retrospect the Consideration what God had done for him before Because thou hast beene my helpe Through this second part we shall passe by these three steps First 2 Part. That it behoves us in all our purposes and actions to propose to our selves a copy to write by a patterne to worke by a rule or an example to proceed by Because it hath beene thus heretofore sayes David I will resolve upon this course for the future And secondly That the copy the patterne the precedent which we are to propose to our selves is The observation of Gods former wayes and proceedings upon us Because God hath already gone this way this way I will awaite his going still And then thirdly and lastly in this second part The way that God had formerly gone with David which was That he had been his helpe Because thou hast beene my helpe First then from the meanest artificer through the wisest Philosopher to God himselfe Ideae all that is well done or wisely undertaken is undertaken and done according to pre-conceptions fore-imaginations designes and patterns proposed to our selves beforehand A Carpenter builds not a house but that he first sets up a frame in his owne minde what kinde of house he will build The little great Philosopher Epictetus would undertake no action but he would first propose to himselfe what Socrates or Plato what a wise man would do in that case and according to that he would proceed Of God himselfe it is safely resolved in the Schoole that he never did any thing in any part of time of which he had not an eternall pre-conception an eternall Idea in himselfe before Of which Ideaes that is pre-conceptions pre-determinations in God S. Augustine pronounces Tanta vis in Ideis constituitur There is so much truth August and so much power in these Ideaes as that without acknowledging them no man can acknowledge God for he does not allow God Counsaile and Wisdome and deliberation in his Actions but sets God on worke before he have thought what he will doe And therefore he and others of the Fathers read that place Ioh. 1.3 4. which we read otherwise Quod factum est in ipso vita erat that is in all their Expositions whatsoever is made in time was alive in God before it was made that is in that eternall Idea and patterne which was in him So also doe divers of those Fathers read those words to the Hebrews Heb. 11.3 which we read The things that are seene are not made of things that doe appeare Ex invisibilibus visibilia facta sunt Things formerly invisible were made visible that is we see them not till now till they are made but they had an invisible being in that Idea in that pre-notion in that purpose of God before for ever before Of all things in Heaven and earth but of himselfe God had an Idea a patterne in himselfe before he made it And therefore let him be our patterne for that to worke after patternes To propose to our selves Rules and Examples for all our actions and the more the more immediately the more directly our actions concerne the service of God If I aske God by what Idea he made me God produces his Faciamus hominem ad Imaginem nostram That there was a concurrence of the whole Trinity to make me in Adam according to that Image which they were and according to that Idea which they had pre-determined If I pretend to serve God and he aske me for my Idea How I meane to serve him shall I bee able to produce none If he aske me an Idea of my Religion and my opinions shall I not be able to say It is that which thy word and thy Catholique Church hath imprinted in me If he aske me an Idea of my prayers shall I not be able to say It is that which my particular necessities that which the forme prescribed by thy Son that which the care and piety of the Church in conceiving fit prayers hath imprinted in me If he aske me an Idea of my Sermons shall I not be able to say It is that which the Analogy of Faith the edification of the Congregation the zeale of thy worke the meditations of my heart have imprinted in me But if I come to pray or to preach without this kind of Idea if I come to extemporall prayer and extemporall preaching I shall come to an extemporall faith and extemporall religion and then I must looke for an extemporall Heaven a Heaven to be made for me for to that Heaven which belongs to the Catholique Church I shall never come except I go by the way of the Catholique Church by former Idea's former examples former
edification to consider in some particulars in the Christian Church And first consider we it in our manners and conversation Christ sayes In moribus Iohn 15.14 Mat. 22.12 Henceforth I call you not servants but friends But howsoever Christ called him friend that was come to the feast without the wedding garment he cast him out because he made no difference of that place from another First then remember by what terrible things God answers thee in the Christian Church when he comes to that round and peremptory issue Marke 16.16 Qui non credider it damnabitur He that beleeves not every Article of the Christian faith with so stedfast a belief as that he would dye for it Damnabitur no modification no mollification no going lesse He shal be damned Consider too the nature of Excōmunication That it teares a man from the body of Christ Jesus That that man withers that is torne off and Christ himselfe is wounded in it Consider the insupportable penances that were laid upon sinners by those penitentiall Canons that went through the Church in those Primitive times when for many sins which we passe through now without so much as taking knowledge that they are sins men were not admitted to the Communion all their lives no nor easily upon their death-beds Consider how dangerously an abuse of that great doctrine of Predestination may bring thee to thinke that God is bound to thee and thou not bound to him That thou maiest renounce him and he must embrace thee and so make thee too familiar with God and too homely with Religion upon presumption of a Decree Consider that when thou preparest any uncleane action in any sinfull nakednesse God is not onely present with thee in that roome then but then tels thee That at the day of Judgement thou must stand in his presence and in the presence of all the World not onely naked but in that foule and sinfull and uncleane action of nakednesse which thou committedst then Consider all this and confesse that for matter of manners and conversation The God of thy Salvation answers thee by terrible things And so it is also if we consider Prayer in the Church God House is the house of Prayer In oratione It is his Court of Requests There he receives petitions there he gives Order upon them And you come to God in his House as though you came to keepe him company to sit downe and talke with him halfe an houre or you come as Ambassadors covered in his presence as though ye came from as great a Prince as he You meet below and there make your bargaines for biting for devouring Usury and then you come up hither to prayers and so make God your Broker You rob and spoile and eat his people as bread by Extortion and bribery and deceitfull waights and measures and deluding oathes in buying and selling and then come hither and so make God your Receiver and his house a den of Thieves His house is Sanctum Sanctorum The holiest of holies and you make it onely Sanctuarium It should be a place sanctified by your devotions and you make it onely a Sanctuary to priviledge Malefactors A place that may redeeme you from the ill opinion of men who must in charity be bound to thinke well of you because they see you here Offer this to one of your Princes as God argues in the Prophet and see if he will suffer his house to be prophaned by such uncivill abuses Psal 47.3 And Terribilis Rex The Lord most high is terrible and a great King over all the earth Psal 96.4 and Terribilis super omnes Deos More terrible then all other Gods Let thy Master be thy god or thy Mistresse thy god thy Belly be thy god or thy Back be thy god thy fields be thy god or thy chests be thy god Terribilis super omnes Deos The Lord is terrible above all gods Psal 95.3 Deut. 28.58 A great God and a great King above all gods You come and call upon him by his name here But Magnū terribile Glorious and fearefull is the name of the Lord thy God And as if the Son of God were but the Son of some Lord that had beene your Schoole-fellow in your youth and so you continued a boldnesse to him ever after so because you have beene brought up with Christ from your cradle and catechized in his name Psal 111.4 his name becomes lesse reverend unto you And Sanctum terribile Holy and reverend Holy and terrible should his name be Consider the resolution that God hath taken upon the Hypocrite and his prayer What is the hope of the Hypocrite Iob 27.8 Hos 7.14 when God taketh away his soule Will God heare his cry They have not cryed unto me with their hearts when they have howled upon their beds Consider that error in the matter of our prayer frustrates the prayer and makes it ineffectuall Zebedees Sons would have beene placed at the right hand Mat. 20.21 and at the left hand of Christ and were not heard Error in the manner may frustrate our prayer and make it ineffectuall too Iam. 4.3 Ye ask and are not heard because ye ask amisse It is amisse if it be not referred to his will Luke 5.12 Iam. 1.6 Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean It is amisse if it be not asked in faith Let not him that wavereth thinke he shall receive any thing of the Lord. It is amisse if prayer be discontinued 1 Thes 5.17 Luke 22.44 Esay 1.15 intermitted done by fits Pray incessantly And it is so too if it be not vehement for Christ was in an Agony in his prayer and his sweat was as great drops of blood Of prayers without these conditions God sayes When you spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes when you make many prayers I will not heare you Their prayer shall not only be ineffectuall Prov. 28.9 Psal 129.7 but even their prayer shall be an abomination And not only an abomination to God but destruction upon themselves for Their prayer shall be turned to sin And when they shall not be heard for themselves no body else shall be heard for them Though these three men Ezek. 14.14 Noah Iob Daniel stood for them they should not deliver thē Though the whole Congregation consisted of Saints they shall not be heard for him nay they shall be forbidden to pray for him forbidden to mentiō or mean him in their prayers as Ieremy was When God leaves you no way of reconciliation but prayer and then layes these heavy and terrible conditions upon prayer Confesse that though he be the God of your salvation and do answer you yet By terrible things doth the God of your salvation answer you And consider this againe as in manners and in prayer so in his other Ordinance of Preaching Thinke with your selves what God lookes for from you In
in that Church had charged the Jewes That they had rased that clause out of the Hebrew Leo Castr and that it was in the Hebrew at first A learned and a laborious Jesuit for truely Lorinus Schooles may confesse the Jesuits to bee learned for they have assisted there and States and Councell-tables may confesse the Jesuits to be laborious for they have troubled them there hee I say after he hath chidden his fellow for saying That this word had ever been in the Hebrew or was razed out from thence by the Jewes concludes roundly Vndecunque advenerit Howsoever those Additions which are not in the Hebrew came into our Translation Authoritatem habent retineri debent Their very being there gives them Authentikenesse and Authority and there they must be That this in the Title of this Psalme be there wee are content as long as you know that this particular That this Psalme by the Title thereof concerns the Resurrection is not in the Originall but added by some Expositor of the Psalmes you may take knowledge too That that addition hath beene accepted and followed by many and ancient and reverend Expositors almost all of the Easterne and many of the Westerne Church too and therefore for our use and accommodation may well be accepted by us also We consider ordinarily three Resurrections A spirituall Resurrection a Resurrection from sinne by Grace in the Church A temporall Resurrection a Resurrection from trouble and calamity in the world And an eternall Resurrection a Resurrection after which no part of man shall die or suffer againe the Resurrection into Glory Of the first The Resurrection from sinne Esay 60.1 is that intended in Esay Arise and shine for thy light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee Of the later Resurrection is that harmonious straine of all the Apostles in their Creed intended I beleeve the Resurrection of the body And of the third Resurrection from oppressions and calamities which the servants of God suffer in this life Calvin Iob 19.26 Ezek. 37. some of our later men understand that place of Iob I know that my Redeemer liveth and that in my flesh I shall see God And that place of Ezekiel all understand of that Resurrection where God saith to the Prophet Sonne of man can these bones live Can these men thus ruined thus dispersed bee restored againe by a resurrection in this world And to this resurrection from the pressures and tribulations of this life doe those Interpreters who interpret this Psalme of a Resurrection refer this our Text Say unto God How terrible art thou in thy works Through the greatnesse of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee Consider how powerfully God hath and you cannot doubt but that God will give them a Resurrection in this world who rely upon him and use his meanes whensoever any calamity hath dejected them ruined them scattered them in the eyes of men Say unto the Lord That he hath done it and the Lord will say unto thee that he will doe it againe and againe for thee We call Noah Divisio Ianus because hee had two faces in this respect That hee looked into the former and into the later world he saw the times before and after the flood David in this Text is a Ianus too He looks two wayes he hath a Prospect and a Retrospect he looks backward and forward what God had done and what God would doe For as we have one great comfort in this That Prophecies are become Histories that whatsoever was said by the mouthes of the Prophets concerning our salvation in Christ is effected so prophecies are made histories so have wee another comfort in this Text That Histories are made Prophecies That whatsoever we reade that God had formerly done in the reliefe of his oppressed servants wee are thereby assured that he can that he will doe them againe and so Histories are made Prophecies And upon these two pillars A thankfull acknowledgement of that which God hath done And a faithfull assurance that God will doe so againe shall this present Exercise of your devotions be raysed And these are our two parts Dicite Deo Say unto God How terrible art thou in thy works that part is Historicall of things past In multitudine virtutis In the greatnesse of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee that part is Propheticall of things to come In the History wee are to turne many leafes and many in the Prophecy too to passe many steps to put out many branches in each In the first these Dicite say ye where we consider first The Person that enjoyns this publike acknowledgement and thanksgiving It is David and David as a King for to Him to the King the ordering of publike actions even in the service of God appertains David David the King speaks this by way of counsell and perswasion and concurrence to all the world for so in the beginning and in some other passages of the Psalme it is Omnis terra All yee lands Verse 1. and All the earth Verse 4. David doth what he can that all the world might concurre in one manner of serving God By way of Assistance he extends to all And by way of Injunction and commandement to all his to all that are under his government Dicite say you that is you shall say you shall serve God thus And as he gives counsell to all and gives lawes to all his subjects so he submits himselfe to the same law For as wee shall see in some parts of the Psalme to which the Text refers he professes in his particular that he will say and doe Iosh 24.15 whatsoever hee bids them doe and say My house shall serve the Lord sayes Ioshua But it is Ego domus mea I and my house himselfe would serve God aright too From such a consideration of the persons in the Historicall part wee shall passe to the commandement to the duty it selfe That is first Dicite say It is more then Cogitate to Consider Gods former goodnesse more then Admirari to Admire Gods former goodnesse speculations and extasies are not sufficient services of God Dicite Say unto God Declare manifest publish your zeale is more then Cogitate Consider it thinke of it but it is lesse then Facite To come to action wee must declare our thankfull zeale to Gods cause we must not modifie not disguise that But for the particular wayes of promoving and advancing that cause in matter of action we must refer that to them to whom God hath referred it The Duty is a Commemoration of Benefits Dicite Speake of it ascribe it attribute it to the right Author Who is that That is the next Consideration Dicite Deo Say unto God Non vobis Not to your owne Wisdome or Power Non Sanctis Not to the care and protection of Saints or Angels Sed nomini ejus da gloriam Onely unto his name be
all the glory ascribed And then that which fals within this commandement this Consideration is Opera ejus The works of God How terrible art thou in thy works It is not Decreta ejus Arcana ejus The secrets of his State the wayes of his government unrevealed Decrees but those things in which he hath manifested himselfe to man Opera his works Consider his works and consider them so as this commandement enjoynes that is How terrible God is in them Determine not your Consideration upon the worke it self for so you may think too lightly of it That it is but some naturall Accident or some imposture and false Miracle or illusion Or you may thinke of it with an amazement with a stupidity with a consternation when you consider not from whom the worke comes consider God in the worke And God so as that though he be terrible in that worke yet he is so terrible but so as the word of this Text expresses this terriblenesse which word is Norah and Norah is but Reverendus it is a terror of Reverence not a terror of Confusion that the Consideration of God in his works should possesse us withall And in those plaine and smooth paths wee shall walke through the first part The historicall part what God hath formerly done Say unto God how terrible art thou in thy works from thence we descend to the other The Propheticall part what upon our performance of this duty God will surely do in our behalfe he will subdue those enemies which because they are ours are his In multitudine virtutis In the greatnesse of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee Where we shall see first That even God himselfe hath enemies no man therefore can be free from them And then we shall see whom God cals enemies here Those who are enemies to his cause and to his friends All those if we will speake Davids language the Holy Ghosts language we must call Gods enemies And these enemies nothing can mollifie nothing can reduce but Power faire meanes and perswasion will not worke upon them Preaching Disputing will not doe it It must be Power and greatnesse of power and greatnesse of Gods Power The Law is Power and it is Gods Power All just Laws are from God One Act of this Power an occasionall executing of Laws at some few times against the enemies of Gods truth will not serve there must be a constant continuation of the execution thereof nor will that serve if that be done onely for worldly respects to raise money and not rather to draw them who are under those Laws to the right worship of God in the truth of his Religion And yet all that even all this This power this great power his power shall worke upon these his and our enemies is but this They shall submit themselves sayes the text but how Mentientur tibi as it is in the Originall and as you finde it in the Margin They shall dissemble they shall lie they shall yeeld a fained obedience they shall make as though they were good Subjects but not be so And yet even this Though their submission be but dissembled but counterfaited David puts amongst Gods blessings to a State and to a Church It is some blessing when Gods enemies dare not appeare and justifie themselves and their Cause as it is a heavy discouragement when they dare do that Though God doe not so far consummate their happinesse as that their enemies shall be truly reconciled or throughly rooted out yet he shall afford them so much happinesse as that they shall doe them no harme And Beloved this distribution of the text which I have given you is rather a Paraphrase then a Division and therefore the rest will rather be a Repetition then a Dilatation And I shall onely give some such note and marke upon every particular branch as may returne them and fix them in your memories and not enlarge my selfe far in any of them for I know the time will not admit it First then we remember you in the first branch of the first part that David 1 Part. Rex gubernat Ecclesiā in that Capacity as King institutes those Orders which the Church is to observe in the publique service of God For the King is King of men not of bodies onely but of soules too And of Christian men of us not onely as we worship one God but as we are to expresse that worship in the outward acts of Religion in the Church God hath called himselfe King and he hath called Kings Gods And when we looke upon the actions of Kings we determine not our selves in that person but in God working in that person As it is not I that doe any good 1 Cor. 15.10 but the grace of God in me So it is not the King that commands but the power of God in the King For as in a Commission from the King the King himselfe workes in his Commissioners and their just Act is the Kings Act So in the Kings lawfull working upon his Subjects God works the Kings acts are Gods acts That abstinence therefore and that forbearance which the Roman Church hath used from declaring whether the Laws of secular Magistrates do bind the Conscience or no that is whether a man sin in breaking a Temporall Law or no for though it have beene disputed in their books and though the Bishop of that Church were supplicated in the Trent Councell to declare it yet he would never be brought to it that abstinence I say of theirs though it give them one great advantage yet it gives us another For by keeping it still undetermined and undecided how far the Laws of temporall Princes doe binde us they keepe up that power which is so profitable to them that is To divide Kings and Subjects and maintaine jealousies betweene them because if the breach of any Law constitute a sin then enters the jurisdiction of Rome for that is the ground of their indirect power over Princes In ordine ad spiritualia that in any action which may conduce to sin they may meddle and direct and constraine temporall Princes That is their advantage in their forbearing to declare this doctrine And then our advantage is That this enervates and weakens nay destroyes and annibilates that ordinary argument That there must be alwayes a Visible Church in which every man may have cleare resolution and infallible satisfaction in all scruples that arise in him and that the Roman Church is that Seat and Throne of Infallibility For how does the Roman Church give any man infallible satisfaction whether these or these things grounded upon the temporall Laws of secular Princes be sins or no when as that Church hath not nor will not come to a determination in that point How shall they come to the Sacrament how shall they go out of the world with a cleare conscience when many things lye upon them which they know not nor can be informed
Son are appropriated to him and made his so intirely as if there were never a soule created but his To enrich this poore soule to comfort this sad soule so as that he shall beleeve and by beleeving finde all Christ to be his this is that Liberality which we speake of now in dispensing whereof The liberall man deviseth liberall things and by liberall things shall stand Now you may be pleased to remember that when wee considered this word Cogitabit in our former part he shall Devise we found this Devising Originally to signifie a studying a deliberation a concluding upon premisses upon which we inferred pregnantly and justly that as to support a mans expense he must Vivere de proprio Live upon his owne so to relieve others he must Dare de suo Be liberall of that which is his Now what is ours Ours that are Ministers of the Gospell As wee are Christs so Christ is ours Puer datus nobis filius natus nobis There is a Child given unto us a Son borne unto us Esay 9. Even in that sense Christ is given to us that we might give him to others So that in this kind of spirituall liberality we can be liberall of no more but our owne we can give nothing but Christ we can minister comfort to none farther then he is capable and willing to receive and embrace Christ Jesus When therefore some of the Fathers have said Ratio pro fide Graecis Barbaris Just Mar. Rectified reason was accepted at the hands of the Gentiles as faith is of the Christians Philosophia per se justificavit Graecos Philosophie alone without faith justified the Grecians Clemens Satis fuit Gentibus abstinuisse ab Idololatria It was enough for the Gentiles Chrysost if they did not worship false Gods though they knew not the true truly Andrad when we heare Andradius in the Roman Church poure out falvation to all the Gentiles that lived a good morall life and no more when we heare their Tostatus sweepe away Tostatus blow away Originall sin so easily from all the Gentiles In prima operatione bona in charitate In the first good Morall worke that they doe Originall sin is as much extinguished in them by that as by Baptisme in us When we see some Authors in the Reformation afford Heaven to persons that never professed Christ this is spirituall prodigality and beyond that liberality which we consider now for Christ is ours and where we can apply him we can give all comforts in him But none to others Not that we manacle the hands of God or say God can save no man without the profession of Christ But that God hath put nothing else into his Churches hands to save men by but Christ delivered in his Scripture applied in the preaching of the Gospell and sealed in the Sacraments And therefore if we should give this comfort to any but those that received him and received him so according to his Ordinance in his Church we should be over-liberall for we should give more then our owne But to all that would be comforted in Christ we devise liberall things that is wee spend our studies our lucubrations our meditations to bring Christ Jesus home to their case and their conscience And by these liberall things we shall stand In our former part in that Civill liberality Stabit wee did not content our selves with that narrow signification of the word which some gave That the liberall man would stand to it abide by it that is continue liberall still habitually but that he should stand by it and prosper the better for it If this Liberality which we consider now in this second Part were but that branch of Charity which is bodily reliefe by bountifull Almes and no more yet wee might be so liberall in Gods behalfe as to pronounce that the charitable man should stand by it prosper for it and have a plentifull harvest for any sowing in that kinde The Holy Ghost in the 112. Psalme and 9. verse hath taken a word which may almost seeme to taste of a little inconsideration in such a charitable person a little indiscretion in giving in flinging in casting away for it is He hath dispersed Dispersed A word that implies a carelesse scattering But that which followes justifies it He hath dispersed he hath given to the poore Let the manner or the measure be how it will so it be given to the poore it will not be without excuse not without thanks And therefore wee have this liberall charity expressed by S. Paul in the same word too 2 Cor. 9 9. He hath dispersed but dispersed as before Dispersed by giving to the poore For there is more negligence more inconsideration allowed us in giving of Almes then in any other expense Neither are we bound to examine the condition and worthinesse of the person to whom we give too narrowly too severely Hee that gives freely shall stand by doing so Prov. 17.19 for He that pitieth the poore lendeth to the Lord And the Lord is a good Debtor and never puts Creditor to sue And if that bee not comfort enough S. Hicrom gives more in his-translation of that place foeneratur Domino he that pitieth the poore puts his money to use to God and shall receive the debt and more But the liberality which we consider here in this part is more then that more then any charity how large soever that is determined or conversant about bodily reliefe for as you have heard it is consolation applied in Christ to a distressed soule to a disconsolate spirit And how a liberall man shall stand by this liberality by applying such consolation to such a distressed soule I better know in my selfe then I can tell any other that is not of mine owne profession for this knowledge lyes in the experience of it For the most part men are of one of these three sorts Either inconsiderate men and they that consider not themselves consider not us they aske not they expect not this liberality from us or else they are over-confident and presume too much upon God or diffident and distrust him too much And with these two wee meet often but truly with seven diffident and dejected for one presuming soule So that we have much exercise of this liberality of raising dejected spirits And by this liberality we stand For when I have given that man comfort that man hath given me a Sacrament hee hath given me a seale and evidence of Gods favour upon me I have received from him in his receiving from me I leave him comforted in Christ Jesus and I goe away comforted in my selfe that Christ Jesus hath made me an instrument of the dispensation of his mercy And I argue to my selfe and say Lord when I went I was sure that thou who hadst received me to mercy wouldst also receive him who could not be so great a sinner as I And now when I come
same thing againe I beleeve in the Holy Ghost but doe not finde him if I seeke him onely in private prayer But in Ecclesia when I goe to meet him in the Church when I seeke him where hee hath promised to bee found when I seeke him in the execution of that Commission which is proposed to our faith in this Text in his Ordinances and meanes of salvation in his Church instantly the savour of this Myrrhe is exalted and multiplied to me not a dew but a shower is powred out upon me and presently followes Communio Sanctorum The Communion of Saints the assistance of Militant and Triumphant Church in my behalfe And presently followes Remissio peceatorum The remission of sins the purifying of my conscience in that water which is his blood Baptisme and in that wine which is his blood the other Sacrament and presently followes Carnis resurrectio A resurrection of my body My body becomes no burthen to me my body is better now then my soule was before and even here I have Goshen in my Egypt incorruption in the midst of my dunghill spirit in the midst of my flesh heaven upon earth and presently followes Vita aeterna Life everlasting this life of my body shall not last ever nay the life of my soul in heaven is not such as it is at the first For that soule there even in heaven shall receive an addition and accesse of Joy and Glory in the resurrection of our bodies in the consummation When a winde brings the River to any low part of the banke instantly it overflowes the whole Meadow when that winde which blowes where he will The Holy Ghost leads an humble soule to the Article of the Church to lay hold upon God as God hath exhibited himselfe in his Ordinances instantly he is surrounded under the blood of Christ Jesus and all the benefits thereof The communion of Saints the remission of sins the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting are poured out upon him And therefore of this great worke which God hath done for man in applying himselfe to man in the Ordinances of his Church S. Augustine sayes Obscuriùs dixerunt Prophetae de Christo August quà m de Ecclesia The Prophets have not spoken so clearely of the person of Christ as they have of the Church of Christ Hieron for though S. Hierom interpret aright those words of Adam and Eve Erunt duo in carnem unam They two shall be one flesh to be applyable to the union which is betweene Christ and his Church Ephes 5. for so S. Paul himselfe applies them that Christ and his Church are all one as man and wife are all one yet the wife is or at least it had wont to be so easilier found at home then the husband wee can come to Christs Church but we cannot come to him The Church is a Hill and that is conspicuous naturally but the Church is such a Hill as may be seene every where August S. Augustine askes his Auditory in one of his Sermons doe any of you know the Hill Olympus and himselfe sayes in their behalfe none of you know it no more sayes he do those that dwell at Olympus know Giddabam vestram some Hill which was about them trouble not thy selfe to know the formes and fashions of forraine particular Churches neither of a Church in the lake nor a Church upon seven hils but since God hath planted thee in a Church where all things necessary for salvation are administred to thee and where no erronious doctrine even in the confession of our Adversaries is affirmed and held that is the Hill and that is the Catholique Church and there is this Commission in this text meanes of salvation sincerely executed So then such a Commission there is and it is in the Article of the Creed that is the ubi We are now come in our order to the third circumstantiall branch the Vnde Vnde from whence and when this Commission issued in which we consider that since we receive a deepe impression from the words which our friends spake at the time of their death much more would it worke upon us if they could come and speake to us after their death You know what Dives said Si quis ex mortuis Luke 16. If one from the dead might goe to my Brethren he might bring them to any thing Now Primitiae mortuorum The Lord of life and yet the first borne of the dead Christ Jesus returnes againe after his death to establish this Commission upon his Apostles It hath therefore all the formalities of a strong and valid Commission Christ gives it Ex mero motu meerely out of his owne goodnesse He foresaw no merit in us that moved him neither was he moved by any mans solicitations for could it ever have fallen into a mans heart to have prayed to the Father that his Son might take our Nature and dye and rise again and settle a course upon earth for our salvation if this had not first risen in the purpose of God himself Would any man ever have solicited or prayed him to proceed thus It was Ex mero motu out of his owne goodnesse and it was Ex certa scientia He was not deceived in his grant he knew what he did he knew this Commission should be executed in despight of all Heretiques and Tyrans that should oppose it And as it was out of his owne Will and with his owne knowledge so it was Ex plenitudine potestatis He exceeded not his Power for Christ made this Commission then Mat. 28.18 when as it is expressed in the other Euangelist he produced that evidence Data est mihi All power is given to me in Heaven and in earth where Christ speakes not of that Power which he had by his eternall generation though even that power were given him for he was Deus de Deo God of God nor he speakes not of that Power which was given him as Man which was great but all that he had in the first minute of his conception in the first union of the two Natures Divine and Humane together but that Power from which he derives this Commission is that which he had purchased by his blood and came to by conquest Ego vici mundum sayes Christ I have conquered the world and comming in by conquest I may establish what forme of Government I will and my will is to governe my Kingdome by this Commission and by these Commissioners to the Worlds end to establish these meanes upon earth for the salvation of the world And as it hath all these formalities of a due Commission made without suite made without error made without defect of power so had it this also that it was duely and authentically testified for though this Euangelist name but the eleven Apostles to have beene present and they in this case might be thought Testes domestici Witnesses that witnesse to their owne
years after Christ But as Tertullian shews us an early birth of it so he tells us enough to shew us that it should not have been long liv'd when he acknowledges that it had no ground in Scripture but was onely a custome popularly and vulgarly taken up But Tertullian speaks of more then Prayer he speaks of oblations and sacrifices for the dead It is true he does so but it is of oblations and sacrifices far from the propitiatory sacrifice of the Masse for Tertullian makes a woman the Priest in his sacrifice Offert uxor sayes he annuis diebus dormitionis mariti The wife offers every yeare upon the day of her husbands death that is every yeare upon that day she gives a dole and almes to the poore as the custome was to doe in memory of dead friends This being then but such a custome and but so induc'd why did none oppose it Aerius Epiphanius Why it was not sufficiently opposed I have intimated some reasons before The affection of those that did it who were though mistaken in the way piously affected in the action And then the harmlesnesse in the thing it self at first And then partly a loathnesse in the Fathers to deter the Gentiles from becomming Christians And partly a cloud and darknesse of the state of the soule after death Yet some did oppose it But some not early enough and some not earnestly enough And some not with much successe because they were not otherwise Integrae famae They were not thought sound in all things and therefore they were beleeved in nothing which was Aerius his case who did oppose it but because Aerius did not come home to all truths he was not hearkned unto in opposing any error Otherwise at that time Epiphanius had a faire occasion offered to have opposed this growing custome and to have rectified the Church in a good measure therein about an hundred years after Tertullian For then Aerius opposed it directly but because he proceeded upon false grounds That since it was come to that That the most vicious man the most enormous sinner might be saved after his death by the prayers and devotions of another man there remained no more for a Christian to doe but to provide such men in his life to doe those offices for him after his death and so he might deliver himselfe from all the disciplines and mortifications and from the anguishes and remorses and vexations of conscience which the Christian Religion induces and requires Epiphanius discerning the advantage that Aerius had given by imputing things not throughly true he places his glory and his triumph onely in overthrowing Aerius his ill grounded arguments and takes the question it selfe and the danger of the Church no farther to heart then so And therefore when Aerius asks Can prayers for the dead be of any use Epiphanius sayes Yes they may be of use to awaken and exercise the piety and charity of the living and never speaks to that which was principally intended whether they could be of any use to the dead So when Aerius asks Is it not absurd to say That all sins may be remitted after death Epiphanius sayes No man in the Church ever said That all sins may be remitted after death and never cleares the maine whether any sin might And yet with all advantages and modifications Epiphanius lodges it at last but upon custome Nec enim praeceptum Patris sed institutum matris habemus sayes he For this which we doe we have no commandment from God our Father but onely an Institution implyed in this Custome from the Church our Mother But then it grew to a farther height from a wild flower in the field Chrysost and a garden flower in private grounds to be more generally planted and to be not onely suffered by many Fathers but cherished and watered by some and not above forty years after Epiphanius to be so far advanced by S. Chrysostome as that he assignes though no Scripture for it yet that which is nearest to Scripture That it was an Apostolicall Constitution And truly if it did clearly appeare to have been so A thing practised and prescribed to the Church by the Apostles the holy Ghost were as well to be beleeved in the Apostles mouthes as in their pens An Apostolicall Tradition that is truly so is good evidence But because those things doe hardly lie in proofe for that which hath been given for a good Rule of Apostolicall Traditions is very defective that is That whatsoever hath been generally in use in the Church of which no Author is known is to be accepted for an Apostolicall Tradition for so that Ablutio pedum The washing of one anothers feet after Christs example was in so generall use that it had almost gained the dignity of being a Sacrament And so was also the giving of the Sacrament of the Body and Bloud to children newly baptized and yet these though in so generall use and without any certaine Author are not Apostolicall Traditions Therefore we must apply S. Augustines words to S. Chrysostome Lege ex Lege ex Prophetis ex Psalmis ex Euangelio ex Apostolicis literis credemus Read us any thing out of the Law or Prophets or Psalmes or Gospel or Epistles and we will beleeve it And we must have leave to return S. Augustines words upon S. Augustine himselfe who hath much assisted this custome of praying for the dead Lege ex Lege c. Read it out of the Scriptures and we will beleeve it for S. Augustine does not pretend any other place of Scripture then this of the Maccabees and not disputing now what credit that Book had with S. Augustine certainly it fell not within this enumeration of his The Maccabees are neither Law nor Prophets nor Psalms nor Gospel nor Epistle Beloved it is a wanton thing for any Church in spirituall matters to play with small errors to tolerate or wink at small abuses as though it should be alwayes in her power to extinguish them when she would It is Christs counsell to his Spouse that is the Church Capite vulpes parvulas Take us the little foxes for they destroy the Vine though they seeme but little and able to doe little harme yet they grow bigger and bigger every day and therefore stop errors before they become heresies and erroneous men before they become formall heretiques Capite sayes Christ Take them suffer them not to goe on but then it is Capite nobis Take us those foxes Take them for us The bargaine is betweene Christ and his Church For it is not Capite vobis Take them to your selves and make your selves Judges of such doctrinall matters as appertaine not to your cognizance Nor it is not Cape tibi Take him to thy selfe spy out a Recusant or a man otherwise not conformable and take him for thy labour beg him and spoile him and for his Religion leave him as you found him Neither is it Cape sibi Take
him for his ease that is compound with him easily and continue him in his estate and errors but Cape nobis Take him for us so detect him as he may thereby be reduced to Christ and his Church Neither onely this counsel of Christ to his Church but that commandment of God in Levit. Exod. 23.3 Lev. 19.15 is also applyable to this Non misereber is pauperis in judicio Thou shalt not countenance a poore man in his cause Thou shalt not pity a poore man in judgement Though a new opinion may seeme a poore opinion able to doe little harme though it may seem a pious and profitable opinion and of good use yet in judicio if it stand in judgement and pretend to be an article of faith and of that holy obligation matter necessary to salvation Non misereberis Thou shalt not spare thou shalt not countenance this opinion upon any collaterall respect but bring it to the onely tryall of Doctrines the Scriptures In the beginning of the Reformation in Germany there arose a sect whom they called Intermists and Adiaphorists who upon a good pretence were like to have done a great deale of mischiefe They said Since all the hope of a Reformation that we can promise our selves must come from a generall Councell and of such a Councel we can have no hope but by the Pope it were impertinent and dis-conducing to our owne ends to vexe or exasperate the Pope in this Interim till the Councel be setled and so the Reformation put into a way and in the Interim for this short time till the Councel these Adiaphora the indifferent things in which mild word they involved all the abuses and all the grievances that were complained of may be well enough continued But if they had continued so long they had continued yet If they had spared their little foxes then they had destroyed their vines If they had pitied the poore in judgement the cause had been judged against them If they had reprieved those abuses for a time they had got a pardon for ever And therefore blessed were they in taking those children and dashing them against the stones In taking those new-born opinions and bringing them to the true touch-stone of all Doctrines An ab initio whether they had been from the beginning or could consist with the Scriptures Neither doth this counsel of Christs Take us these little foxes nor this commandment of God Thou shalt not pity the poor in judgment determine it self in the Church or in the publique only but extends it self rather contracts it self to every particular soul and conscience Capite vulpeculas Take your litle foxes watch your first inclinatiōs to sins for if you give them suck at first if you feed them with the milke and hony of the mercy of God it shall not be in your power to weane them when you would but they will draw you from one to another extreme from a former presumption to a future desperation in Gods mercy So also Non misereberis Thou shalt not pity the poore in judgement now that thou callest thy selfe to judgement and thy conscience to an examination thou shalt not pity any sin because it pretends to be a poore sin either poore so that it cannot much endanger thee not much encumber thee or poore so as that it threatens thee with poverty with penury with disability to support thy state or maintaine thy family if thou entertaine it not Many times I have seene a suitor that comes in forma pauperis more trouble a Court and more importune a Judge then greater causes or greater persons And so may such sins as come in forma pauperis either way That they plead poverty That they can doe little harme or threaten poverty if they be not entertained Those sins are the most dangerous sins which pretend reason why they should be entertained for sinnes which are done meerely out of infirmity or out of the surprisall of a tentation are in comparison of others done as sins in our sleep but in sins upon deliberation upon counsell upon pretence of reason we doe see the wisdome of God but we set our wisdome above his we do see the law of God but we insert and interline non obstantes of our own into Gods Law If therefore thou wilt corruptly and vitiously and sinfully love another out of pity because they love thee so If thou wilt assist a poore man in a cause out of pretence of pity with thy countenance and the power of thy place that that poore man may have something and thou the rest that is recovered in his right If thou wilt embrace any particular sin out of pity lest thy Wife and Children should be left unprovided If thou have not taken these little foxes that is resisted these tentations at the beginning yet Nunc in judicio now that they appeare in judgement in examination of thy conscience Non misereberis Thou shalt not pity them but as Moses speakes of false Prophets Deut. 13. and by a faire accommodation of all bewitching sins with pleasure or profit If a Dreamer of Dreames have given thee a signe and that signe be come to passe If a sin have told thee it would make thee rich and it have made thee rich yet if this Dreamer draw thee to another God If this profit draw thee to an Idolatrous that is to an habituall love of that sin for Tot habemus recentes Deos quot vitiae sayes S. Hierom Hieron Every man hath so many Idols in him as he hath habituall sins yet Though this dreamer as God proceeds there be thy brother or thy son or thy friend which is as thine owne soule How neare how deare how necessary soever this sin be unto thee Non misereberis sayes Moses Thine eye shall not pity that Dreamer thou shalt not keepe him secret but thine owne hand shall be upon him to kill him And so of this pleasurable or profitable sin Non misereberis Thou shalt not hide it but poure it out in Confession Non misereberis Thou shalt not pardon it no nor reprieve it but destroy it for the practise presently Non misereberis Thou shalt not turne out the Mother and retaine the Daughter not leave the sin and retaine that which was sinfully got but devest all roote and body and fruits by confession to God by contrition in thy selfe by restitution to men damnified Elfe that will fall upon thee and thy soule which fell upon the Church That because they did not take their little foxes they endangered the whole vine Because they did pity the poore in judgement that is as S. Augustine sayes they were loath to wrastle with the people or force them from dangerous customes they came from that supine negligence in tolerating prayer for the Dead to establish a doctrinall point of Purgatory and for both prayer for the Dead and Purgatory they detort this text Else that is if no Purgatory why then are these men
dead as those Fathers did and as the Lutherans doe safely enough without assisting the doctrine of Purgatory if that were all that were to be said against such prayers Be then that thus settled The Fathers did not intend any such building upon that foundation not a Purgatory which should be a place of torment upon those prayers for the dead but then what did they meane by that Purgatory and that fire which is so frequent amongst them In the confession of our Adversaries the greatest part of the Fathers that mention a Purgatory fire intend it of the generall fire of conflagration at the last day They thought the soules of the Dead to have beene kept in Abditis and in Receptaculis till the day of Judgement and that then that fire which was to take hold of all creatures to the purifying of them should also take hold of all soules and burne out all that might be unacceptable to God in those soules and that this was their Purgatory Others of the Fathers have called that severe judgement and examination which every soule is to passe under from the hand of God at that time because it hath much of the nature of fire and many of the properties and qualities of fire in it a fire a purging fire and made that their Purgatory If others of the Fathers have spoken of a purging fire after this life so as it will not fall within these two acceptations of the fire of conflagration or of the fire of examination we must say in their behalfe as Sextus Senensis does That they are not the lesse holy Sext. Senens nor the lesse reverend for having straied into some of these mistakings because it is a fire without light In those sub-obscure times August S. Augustine might be excusable though he proceeded doubtfully and said Non incredibile It is not incredible that some such thing there may be and Quaeri potest It is not amisse to inquire where such things are to be inquired after that is in the Scriptures whether any such thing be or no and Vtrum latere an inveniri whether any such thing will be found there or no I cannot tell he may be excusable in his proceeding farther in his doubt Sive ibi tantum whether all our Purgatory be reserved for the next world Sive hic ibi or whether God divide our Purgatory some here and some there Sive hic ut non ibi or whether God exalt and multiply our Purgatory here that we may have none hereafter Of these things I say howsoever S. Augustine might be excusable for doubting in those darke times we should be inexcusable if we should not deny them in these times in which God hath afforded us so much light and clearenesse And rest in that acknowledgement that we have in this life Purgationem purgatorium A purging and a Purgatory A purging in this That Christ Jesus Whom God hath made the heire of all things by whom also he made the world Heb. 1.3 who was the brightnesse of his glory and the expresse image of his person That he by himselfe hath purged our sinnes There is our purging But then because after this generall purging which is wrapped up in the generall nature as Christ dyed for mankinde for all men and after that neerer application thereof as it is wrapped up in the Covenant as he dyed more effectually for all Christians still our own clothes defile us our own evill habits Iob our owne flesh pollutes us therefore God sends us a Purgatory too in this life Crosses Afflictions and Tribulations and to burne out these infectious staines and impressions in our flesh Ipse sedet tanquam ignis conflans God sits as a fire and with fullers soape to wash us Malac. 3.2 and to burne us cleane with afflictions from his own hand Let no man think himselfe sufficiently purified that hath not passed this Purgatory Irascaris mihi Domine saith S. Bernard Lord let me see that thou art angry with me Bernar. I know I have given thee just cause of anger and if thou smother that anger and declare it not by corrections here thou reservest thine anger to undeterminable times and to unsupportable proportions Propitius fuisti sayes David Thou wast a mercifull God to thy people for saith hee Thou didst punish all their Inventions In this consisted his mercy that he did punish for if he had been more mercifull he had been unmercifull If he had begun with no Judgements they had ended in Judgements without end Affliction is a Christians daily bread and therefore in that petition Da nobis hodie Give us this day our daily bread not onely patience in affliction but affliction it selfe so farre as it conduces to our mortification is asked at Gods hand It is an over-presumptuous confidence for which they glorifie one in the Romane Church that he was put often to his Decede à me Domine O Lord withdraw thy self and thy grace farther from me for by mine own sanctity or diligence I am able to wrastle with and to overcome all the tentations and tribulations of this life Decede à me withdraw thy selfe and thy grace and put not thy selfe to this trouble nor this cost with me but leave me to my selfe This was too much confidence but that was more which wee find in another That he begged of God by prayer that he might bee possessed with the Devill for some moneths because all the tentations of the flesh and all the crosses of the world were not enough for his victory and his triumph But it is an humble and a requisite prayer to ask such a measure of affliction as may ballast us and carry us steddily through all the storms and tempests of this life As hee that hath had no rubbe in his fortune in his temporall state is in most danger to fall to fall into murmuring at the first stumble he makes As hee that hath had no sicknesse till his age hardly recovers then So hee that hath not borne his yoake in his youth that hath not beene accustomed to crosses and afflictions hath a wanton soule all the way and a froward and impatient soule towards the end This is our true Purgatory And in this Purgatory we doe need the prayers of others and upon this Purgatory we may build Indulgences which are those testimonies of the remission of sinnes which God hath enabled his Church to imprint and conferre upon us in the absolution thereof which are nothing of kinne to those Indulgences of the Roman Church which are the children of this mother of Purgatory and to the maintenance of which they have also detorted our Text Else If there be no such Indulgences If the works of Supererogation done by other men may not be applied to the soules that are in Purgatory If there be no such use of Indulgences why are then these men baptized for the dead Against the popular opinion of the Spheare or
Element of Fire Indulgences some new Philosophers have made this an argument that it is improbable and impertinent to admit an Element that produceth no Creatures A matter more subtill then all the rest and yet work upon nothing in it A region more spacious then all the rest and yet have nothing in it to worke upon All the other three Elements Earth and Water and Ayre abound with inhabitants proper to each of them onely the Fire produces nothing Here is a fire that recompences that defect The fire of the Roman Purgatory hath produced Indulgences and Indulgences are multiplied to such a number as that no heards of Cattell upon earth can equall them when they meet by millions at a Jubile no shoales no spawne of fish at Sea can equall them when they are transported in whole Tuns to the West Indies where of late yeares their best Market hath beene No flocks no flights of birds in the Ayre can equall them when as they say of S. Francis at every prayer that he made a man might have seene the Ayre as full of soules flying out of Purgatory as sparkles from a Smiths Anvill beating a hot Iron The Apostle complains of them that made Mercaturam animarum Merchandise of mens soules but these men make Ludibrium animarum a Jest of mens soules For if that sad and serious consideration that this doctrine concernes that part of man which nothing but the incorruptible blood of the Sonne of God could redeeme the soul did not cast a devout and a religious bridle upon it it were impossible to speake of these Indulgences otherwise then merrily They do make merchandise of soules and yet they make a jest of them too These then these Indulgences are the children the generation of that Viper the Salamanders of that fire Pliny Purgatory And then Inter omnia venenata sayes Pliny Of all the venemous creatures in the world the Salamander is Maximi sceleris the most mischievous for whereas others singulos feriunt as the same Author sayes they sting but one at once the Salamander destroyes whole families whole Cities together for all that eat the fruit of any tree that hee hath touched perish We need not apply this Our fathers did and our neighbours doe feele the manifold mischiefes that these mercenary Indulgences work in the world and to what desperate and bloody actions men are induced and animated by them what knives these Indulgences have whet in Courts and what Armies they have payed in the open field A cheape discharge and easie Subsidy we have seene Copper coyned and we have read of leather coyned but here they coyne paper and in an Indulgence which require but as much paper as a Ballad they send a man more salvation then the whole Bible can give them Men that will not see light or not watch by the light will not see this Men that delight to wallow still in the mire can digest this Etiam Salamandra à suibus manditur sayes Pliny As venemous as a Salamander is a Sow will eat a Salamander As the citizens of the lowest fire of hell it selfe entred into the heard of swine so these children of this other fire of Purgatory these Indulgences enter into swinish men that consider not their owne foulnesse but think themselves cleane when they have eaten a Salamander that is bought an Indulgence But though they have had a spurious generation and yet have lasted longer then spurious generations use to doe for they have spread into three generations Prayer for the dead begot Purgatory and Purgatory Indulgences yet they have had a viperous generation too for they have eaten out the wombe of their owne Mother and these Salamanders these Indulgences retaine still the nature of Plinies Salamanders Non gignunt They beget no more they proceed no farther For in this enormous excesse of Indulgences the Roman Church tooke her deaths wound from this extreme abuse of Indulgences arose the occasion of the Reformation which God advanced and prospered so miraculously in the hands of Luther upon the indignation that the world took upon these Indulgences How they rose how they grew how they fell is a historicall knowledge and not much necessary to be insisted upon here though indeed our danger be greater from these Indulgences then either from prayer for the Dead or from Purgatory though all three be equally erronious in matter of doctrine yet for matter of fact and danger Indulgences are the most pernicious because that opinion of an immediate passing to Heaven thereupon animates men to any undertakings But as the Christians in abolishing the Idolatry of the Gentiles in some places some times left some of their Idols standing lest the Gentiles should come to deny that ever they had worshipped such monsters So it hath pleased the Holy Ghost to hover over the Authors and Writers in the Roman Church so as that they have left some impressions of the iniquity of these Indulgences in their bookes From them we are able to declare That Indulgencies in the Primitive Church were nothing but relaxations moderations of those severe penances which the Canons called Penitentiall inflicted upon particular sins which Canons were for the most part the Rule of the whole Church and which penances enjoyned by those Canons every Bishop in his owne Dioces might according to his holy discretion moderate according to the bodily infirmity or the spirituall amendment of the penitent sinner That in time the Bishops of Rome drew into their hands all this power of remitting penances reserving to themselves and shedding upon other Bishops as much and as little as they were pleased That after they had extended this overflowing power over this world they enlarged it farther to the next world too to Purgatory And this not long since Postquam aliquandiu ad Purgatorium trepidatum est coepere indulgentiae Roffens sayes a good Author of theirs of our Nation that Bishop of Rochester whose service they recompensed with a Cardinals Hat but somewhat late for his head was off before his hat came After the vapours of Purgatory had blinded mens eyes after men had beene made afraid of those fires for a good while sayes that Bishop then they began to set on foote their Indulgencies This beginning was not above three hundred yeares since and within one hundred they came to that height that though in their Schooles they make the paines of Purgatory to be so violent that they say no soule is likely to remaine there above ten yeares yet they give Indulgencies for infinite thousands of yeares They give one day Plenam and the next pleniorem and after plenissimam They forgive all to day and to morrow the rest and then they finde something beyond that which was beyond all So that as Seneca sayes of the excesse in Libraries in his time That they had Bibliothecas pro Supellectile No man thought his house well furnished if he had not a Library though he understood
never an Author So no man thought his house well furnished if he had not Indulgencies for every season if he bought not all that came to market if he had not Indulgence upon Indulgencies present and successive Indulgences possessory and reversionary Indulgences totall and supernumerary current and concurrent Indulgences to delude the justice of God withall Well to our true Purgatory which we spake of before Those crosses which God is pleased to lay upon us belong true Indulgencies The constant promises of our faithfull God that he will give us the issue with the tentation and that as the Apostle sayes No tentation shall befall us Si non humana but that which appertaines to man 1 Cor. 10.13 Now for this Humana tentatio tentation or affliction that appertaines to man it is not onely affliction that appertaines to man so as that other men doe inflict it when wicked men revile and calumniate and oppresse the godly it is not onely that Chrysost though so S. Chrysostome interprets it Nor is this affliction appertaining to man because man himselfe inflicts it upon himselfe our owne inherent corruption being become Spontaneus Daemon a Devill in our owne bosome it is not onely that though so S. Hierom interpret it Hieron nor is this affliction appertaining to man so called Humana as humanum is opposed Daemoniaco That all torments falling upon the Devill worke in him more and more obduration but the corrections inflicted by God upon man worke a reconciliation it is not onely this though so S. Gregory interpret it But this affliction appertaines so to a Christian man Gregory as the soule it selfe and as reason appertaines to a naturall man He is not a man that is without a reasonable soule he is not a Christian that is without correction It appertaines unto man so as that it is convenient more that it is expedient more then that that it is necessary and more then all that that it is essentiall to a Christian As when the spirit returnes to him that gave it there is a dissolution of the man So when God withdrawes his visitation there is a dissolution of a Christian for so God expresses the spirituall Death and the height of his anger in the Prophet I will make my wrath towards thee to rest Ezek. 15.42 and my jealousie shall depart from thee That is I will looke no more after thee I will study thy recovery and thine amendment no farther Have ye forgot the Consolation sayes the Apostle what is that Consolation Heb. 12.5 6. Is it that you shall have no affliction No This is the Consolation That whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth It is generall to all sons for If ye be without correction whereof all are partakers then are ye bastards and not sons Ver. 8. And then to shew us how this Purgatory and these Indulgencies accompany on another how Gods crosses and his deliverances doe ever concurre together wee see the Holy Ghost hath so ordered and disposed these two Mercy and Correction in this one verse Ver. 6. as that we cannot say which is first the Correction or the Mercy the Purgatory or the Indulgence For first the Indulgence is before the Purgatory The Mercy before the Correction in one place Whom he loveth he chasteneth first God loves and then he chastneth and then after The Purgatory is before the Indulgence the Correction is before Mercy He scourgeth every son whom he receiveth first he scourges him and then he receives him They are so disposed as that both are made first and both last wee cannot tell whether precede or succeed they are alwayes both together they are alwaies all one As long as his love lasts he corrects us and as long as he corrects us he loves us And so we have a justifiable prayer for the Dead that is for our soules dead in their sins Cor novum O Lord create a new heart in me And wee have a justifiable Purgatory Purgabit aream Luke 4.17 Esay 26.15 If we be Gods floore he hath his fanne in his hand and he will make us cleane And we have justifiable Indulgences Indulsisti genti Domine indulsisti genti Thou hast been indulgent to thy people O Lord thou hast been indulgent to us Wee cannot complaine Ier. 4.10 as they begin rather to murmur then to complaine Ah Lord God surely thou hast deceived thy people saying you shall have peace and the sword pierceth to the heart For when this sword of Gods corrections shall pierce to the heart that very sword shall be but as a Probe to search the wound nay that very wound shall be but as an issue to draine and preserve the whole body in health for his mercies are so above all his works as that the very works of his Justice are mercy And so not the Prayer for the Dead not the Purgatory not the Indulgences of the Roman Church but we who have them truely doe truely receive a benefit from this Text which Text is a proofe of the Resurrection Because wee feele a Resurrection by grace now because we beleeve a Resurrection to glory hereafter therefore we can give an account of this Baptisme for the dead in our Text The particular sense of which words will be the Exercise of another day This day wee end both with our humble thanks for all Indulgences which God hath given us in our Purgatories for former deliverances in former crosses and with humble prayer also that hee ever afford us such a proportion of his medicinall corrections as may ever testifie his presence and providence upon us in the way and bring us in the end to the Kingdome of his Son Christ Jesus Amen SERM. LXXVIII Preached at S. PAULS June 21. 1626. 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 WEE are now come at last Divisio to that which was first in our intention How these words have beene detorted and misapplied by our Adversaries of the Roman Church for the establishing of those heresies which we have formerly opposed And then the divers wayes which sounder and more Orthodoxall Divines have held in the Exposition thereof that so from the first Part wee may learne what to avoid and shun and from the second what to embrace and follow Of all the places of Scripture which Bellarmine brings for the maintenance of Purgatory excepting onely that one place of the Maccabees And of that place we must say as it was said of that jealous husband which set a watch and spie upon his Wife Quis custodit custodes Who shall watch them that watch her So when they prove matters of faith out of the Maccabees we say Quis probat probantem who shall prove that booke to be Scripture by which they prove that doctrine to be true But
proofe of the Resurrection of the body and the answer was easie and obvious We doe not baptize living men in the name and in the behalfe of the dead for any other respect then for the salvation of their soules and what is that to the resurrection of the body So that this sense of Tertullians of Baptisme by a Proxy by an Atturney seemes not to be the sense of this place and yet because it savours of charity to the dead though it were an heretical custome Bellarmine prefers this interpretation of Tertullian before any other but his owne which we handled before Theodoret interprets this Baptisme for the dead to be a baptisme of Representation Theodoret. That in baptisme by being put under the water and raised up againe we represent the death and resurrection of Christ for the dead is for Christ for the testimony of Christ And therefore that baptizing by immersion by covering the party with water was so exactly observed in those times as it came to be thought that no man was well baptized except he had received it so by Immersion as by many Treatises and many Consultations amongst the Fathers by way of Letters and the Acts of some Councels we perceive And of this representation of the death of Christ in our Baptisme administred in that manner by Immersion S. Paul is thought by some to have spoken when he sayes Know ye not that all we that have been baptized into Iesus Christ Rom. 6.3 have been baptized into his death That is say they by that representation of his death in Immersion Neither is any thing more evident then that Theodoret was so far in the right that our baptisme and the rather in that forme of Immersion is a representation of the death and buriall and resurrection of Christ but yet to call this Baptisme therefore because it was a representation of Christ who was dead a Baptisme for the dead is a phrase somewhat more hard and unusuall then may be easily admitted in such a matter of faith as this is And besides that Baptisme which is this Representation is a Baptisme common to all all that are baptized are baptized so But the Apostle in this place makes his argument from a particular kind of Baptisme which some did and some did not use Quid de illis sayes he what shall become of them and Quid illi what doe they meane that are baptized in this peculiar manner So that as not Tertullians baptisme by an Atturney so neither Theodorets baptisme by Representation seems to be the sense of this place S. Chrysostome much about the same time with Theodoret and long after them both Chrysost Theophylact. at least six hundred yeares Theophylact meet in a third sense That because at the taking of Baptisme they did usually rehearse the Creed which Creed concluded with those articles The resurrection of the body and life everlasting therefore this baptisme for the dead should onely signifie a baptisme for the hope of the Resurrection But since they rehearsed all the articles of the Christian beliefe as well as that at Baptisme it might as properly be said that they were baptized for Christ baptized for the holy Ghost baptized for the descent into hell as for the dead And besides that this was also a baptisme common to all all rehearsed the Articles of the Creed it was not such a peculiar baptisme as the Apostle hath respect to here in his Quid de illis and Quid illi what shall become of them and what doe they meane by this their Baptisme And therefore this seems not to be the sense That this Baptisme for the dead should onely be a profession of that article of the Resurrection of the dead though S. Chrysostome and Theophylact concur in or derive from or upon one other that interpretation To come lower and to a lower rank of witnesses from the Fathers to the Schoole Aquinas Aquinas hath another sense and certainly an usefull a devout and an appliable interpretation which is That Mortui here are peccata Those that are called Dead here are Dead works sins and so to be baptized for the dead is to be baptized for our sins for the washing away our sins in an acknowledgement That although we did contract a leprous sin even in our conception That we were subject to the wrath and indignation of God before we were able to conceive that there was a God That before our bones were hardned the canker and rust of Adams sin was in our bones That before we were a minute old we have a sin in us that is six thousand years old That though we be as blind after we come out of our mothers bellies as we were there Though we passe over our time without ever asking our owne consciences why we were sent hither Though our sins have hardned us against God and done a harder work then that in hardning God against us yet though we have turned God into a Rock there is water in that rock Num. 20. if we strike it if we solicite it affect it with our repentance As in the stone font in the Church there is water of Baptisme so in the Corner stone of the Church Christ Jesus whom we have hardned against us there is a tendernesse there is a Well of water springing up into everlasting life As we have changed this water into stone petrified Gods tendernesse towards us Psal 114.8 so convertit petram in stagna aquarum sayes David He hath turned that rock into a standing water water and water that stayes with us in his Church and the flint into a fountaine of waters that is sayes S. Augustine seipsum suam quandam duritiam liquefecit ad irrigandos fideles At the beames of his owne mercy God hath thawed that ice and dissolved that stone into which we had hardned him and he hath let in a River of Jordan into his Church the Sacrament of Baptisme in the present act and subsequent efficacy whereof we are washed from originall and from actuall sins All these sins are the fruits of death as they are opposed against the Lord of life and pro hisce mortuis baptizamur sayes Aquinas for the dead that is for these dead workes we are baptized And certainly for a second sense to exalt our devotion by I should prefer this before any other But the principall and literall sense of this place this cannot be because it is a figurative sense and though the figure be not in the word Baptisme where Bellarmine places it for Aquinas speaks literally of a Sacramentall Baptisme yet it is in the other word In mortuis Aquinas doth not speak literally but metaphorically of the Dead and that may as ill be admitted in a matter of faith of so great importance as the other And besides this seems to conclude nothing necessarily for the resurrection of the body that we are washed from our sins And lastly this is still a
naturall interpretation and that it doth not wound nor violate the purpose and intention of the Apostle as sayes he all the other interpretations which Beza produces doe And yet Beza himselfe as well as Piscator in their translatitions retaine the Super which is in Luther and make it so a baptisme upon the dead and not for the dead To be baptized then for the dead or upon the dead is in their understanding an expectation of a Resurrection for themselves together with them in sight of whose dead bodies they were baptized Here is no figurative speech but the words taken in their proper and present and first signification And this is not of a generall baptisme common to all but of a custome taken up by some in the Church of Corinth out of speciall devotion and testification of the Resurrection And lastly this had reference not onely to the immortality of the soule but to the resurrection of the body also which was then in their contemplation in which Circumstance most of the former interpretations of the Ancients were defective for still it might have been answered to S. Pauls question Quid illi Quid de illis What meane they and what becomes of them We doe all this for the salvation of soules though we doe not binde our selves to beleeve a resurrection of bodies So that all the particulars that S. Paul proposed to himselfe meet fully and strongly in this interpretation Nothing can be opposed against it if the history be true if the matter of fact be cleare and evident if it appeare fully that this was a custome in the Apostles time that those Christians did use to receive baptisme upon the graves of the dead I doubt not but Luther had ground for it I doubt not but Melancton had Authors for he sayes Aliqui scribunt some have written it They may have seene Authors whom I have not for my part I confesse I never found this Custome in the Ecclesiastique Story to my remembrance And when the Centuriators who gathered the Story of the Church with some diligence and who were of the perswasion whom the world calls Lutherans when they say Constat It is manifest that in the Church of Corinth Cent. 1. l. 2. c. 6. they did baptize in that manner upon the graves of the dead they never cite any testimony of History for their Constat nor for their evidence of this matter of fact but onely this very place of Scripture this text and the directer and the fuller way had been to have proved the text from the story then the story from the text The Exposition is very faire and very likely if the matter of fact be proved and the fact may be proved by some whom those reverend persons have read and I have not There is one Interpretation more which is open to no imputation spotted with no aspersion subject to no objection and therefore fittest to be embraced which is also grounded upon a Custome which came very early into the Church of God so early as that we can assigne no beginning and of which Custome for the matter of fact wee are sure it was in practise which was that upon an opinion that at the time of Baptisme there was an absolute washing away and a deliverance from all sinnes men did ordinarily or very often defer their baptisme till their death-bed that so they might have their transmigration and passage out of this world in that purity that baptisme restored them to without contracting any more sinnes after baptisme This we are too sure was in use for we see the Ecclesiasticall Story full of Examples of it in great persons great in power and authority for Constantine the Emperour deferred his baptisme long after his resolution to be a Christian And great in estimation and merit and knowledge for S. Augustine remembers it with much compunction That in an extreame sicknesse Conf. l. 1. c. 11. Flagitavi baptismum à Matre he begged at his Mothers hands that he might be baptized and obtained it not because he was a person in her observation like enough to fall into more sinnes after he had been delivered of those by baptisme He notes the generall disposition of his time Sonat undique It is every mans voyce every mans saying Sine eum faciat quid vult nondum baptizatus est Let him alone yet let him doe what he will yet for yet he is not baptized But sayes that blessed Father there would they say to a man that lay wounded and weltring in his blood Sine eum vulneretur ampliùs nondum enim sanatus est Let him lie or give him two or three wounds more for the Surgeon is not come yet to cure him And yet sayes he his and my case is all one Before his time which was after foure hundred yeares we may see that this custome of late baptizing was not onely tolerated but advised and counselled in the Church when Tertullian two hundred yeares before S. Augustine chides away young children from comming to Baptisme so soone before sayes he they need it Quid festinat innocens aetas ad remissionem peccatorum Why are they brought to the washing away of sinnes which as yet have committed no sinne And he makes Baptisme so occasionall a thing and subject to so many Circumstances that very many other occasions might put off Baptisme Innuptis procrastinandus baptismus sayes Tertullian quia eis praeparata tentatio He would not have them baptized that meant to marry soone after because they were to wrastle with a great tentation as long as their fancy and imagination was full of their future marriage So soone and so deeply was this opinion rooted that it was to little purpose to baptize till towards our death that S. Basil was faine to oppose it expresly in the Easterne Church And both the Gregories Nazianzen and Nyssen and then S. Ambrose and others in the Westerne all arguing against it as a custome long before in use and none assigning any beginning of it Upon this custome then S. Paul argues If men upon their death-bed when they are esteemed pro Mortuis as good as dead no better then dead for so the phrase is ordinarily used pro derelicto pro perdito when we esteeme a man forsaken or a thing lost If men desire baptisme when they are held pro mortuis no other then dead given over for dead and are to have no fellowship with themilitant Church here in this life doe they not in this care of this act to be done upon their bodies imply a confession of the Resurrection These were they whom those times called Clinicos Bed-baptists Bed-Christians which either deferred their baptisme upon the reasons mentioned before that they might be sure to have a pure transmigration presently after Baptisme Or els they were Catechumeni such Convertits to the Christian faith as the Church had undertaken to instruct and catechize but did not baptize till a certaine time Easter
disease both in Church and State that Occasionall things have diverted the principall and hindered them from being done 797. C Often contemplation of death takes much from the feare of it 473. E Old against growing old in sinne 543. C Opinion in a middle station between ignorance and knowledge 354. C Foolish and fantasticall Opinions should not so much as be disputed against ibid. D Of gayning a good Opinion amongst men 481. E Oppression against Oppression and Extortion 94. A Originall sin how full we are of it 2. E It is a Naturall poyson in us and how it workes 313. D The Gentiles how purged of Originall sin in the judgement of some Romanists 314. D How Originall sin is voluntarie in us 363. A Ostracisme amongst the Athenians what 479. C P PAinting and adorning of themselves how used how abused of men and women 196. B. C. 541. C. 714. A The limits of it not so narrow as some conceive them 643. C Parents the honour due unto them 217. D Patience in suffering of injuries the power and benefit of it 410. B Peace the consideration and the benefit of it 145. E. 146. A. B The lovelinesse and amiablenesse of it considered 753. B. C Of Peace and plenty ibid. Penance different Penances upon different sinnes yet practised in our Church 402. B Publick Penances in the Primitive Church and why 545. D No satisfaction to Gods justice in them 544 B. C. D How to understand the Fathers enclining that way 545. E Perplexities of the severall kinds of them 606. C Persecution of the Primitive Church described 185. B. C Perfect there is nothing in the world perfect no not in spirituall things 817. D. 818. A Of Persevering and not trusting to our former goodnes 165. C. D. 303. A. B. 331. A. 547. D. E Petalisme amongst the Syracusians what it was 479. C S. Peters being at Rome how believed and how not 404. E. 733. E. 744. D S. Peter and S. Paul how magnified by S. Chrysostome 462. B. C Philosophers what knowledge many of them had of Christ 68. E Pilgrimages how they begun and grew on in the Church of Rome 252. B The abuses of them taxed by the Romanists themselves ibid. C And by sundry Fathers ibid. D Places Consecrated of their honour use 251. D Against being over-homely and over-fellowly with God and them 691. C Place and Precedency the fond contentions about it 730. E Especially amongst the severall Orders of Friars who all pretend to the most humble Names that can be 731. D Against the sinne of night-Pollutions 129. C. D Popularity the sinne and danger of it 482. C The vanitie of it 660. A Poverty and Riches which occasioneth most sinnes 658. D. 659. D What kind of Poverty is a blessing 728. D. E Power of that Power that is in us to discerne our owne Actions and assist our selves in our own Salvation 118. B. C. D Prayer for the dead no precept no example of it in the Law or Gospel 780. A First used of the Gentiles and of them taken up by the Jewes ibid. B. C Then of the Christians and how ibid. D. E Why the Fathers did not oppose the practise of it 780. D. E. 781. B Turtullian the first that tooke knowledge of it 781. A Aerius did oppose it but not harkened to and why 781. C How farre allowed by Epiphanius ibid. D. What the Fathers meant by Praying for the dead out of Dennis the Areopagite 735. E which is allowed by the Apologie for the Confession of Auspourg 786. B Prayer A set forme of Prayer used of the Gentiles 689. A The Office of Conditor precum what it was ib. Their Prayers received every five yeares ibid. A. 771. E Prayer how wee may Pray earnestly and yet wait the Lords leisure 34. D Of Prayer at home and at Church 35. C. c 90. B. 264. E. 370. B. 688. E Unseasonable Prayers not accepted of God 50. E. 521. B Prayers to be said kneeling 72. E Prayer and Preaching 89. E Against ex tempore Prayers 90. C. 130. C. 668. B. C. And Praying to severall Saints for severall things 90. D What Prayer is properly called Ours 130. A The condition of pure Prayer 131. A Not alwayes heard of God and why 133. B. C. 553. C. Against fashionall and customary Prayer 512. E Of the importunity impudency and violence of Prayer 522. B Against incogitancy in Prayer 555. B Against irreverence in Gods House in the time of Prayer 692. A Of the severall errours that are easily committed and doe all frustrate our Prayers 692. D The duties and dignities of Prayer 804. B Repeating the same Prayer often no idle thing 812 B Of those distractions which the best of us have in Prayer 820. B. C. Of the abuses of Prayer in the Church of Rome ibid. We are to descend to particulars in our Prayers 822. A Of that fervency and importunity which is required in our Prayers ibid. B. C Praise and thanksgiving all our Religion is nothing else 88. C The necessity and benefit of it ibid. D Of such Praise as is due to the good actions of men 167 A. B. C. c. Praise what it is 679. D That it may be fought of good men ibid. Praise to be directed upon three Objects 680. C We may Praise and yet not flatter D. E Of Praying and Praising 804. C. 805. B Preaching and Praying the benefit and use of either 689. B. C. D Preaching more frequent in the Primitive Times than now and good reason why 324. C Preaching often ex tempore and Preaching of other mens Sermons ordinary ibid. D Against the sodaine extemporall Preaching of this time 325. A Some points of Divinity not fit to bee Preached 561. D. E In what sense it is good for a man to Preach himselfe 574. B. C. D Against popular Preaching 660. B Of Abuses offered to Preaching 693. A The severall Names of Preaching 758. D No resemblance of Preaching amongst the Gentiles 771. E Preisthood the honour and dignitie of it 32. D 391 D. E That the particular way of ennobling men amongst the Jewes ibid. 32. E The Priest to be sent for before the Physitian 110. C In extraordinary cases above the King but not otherwise 396. B The Egyptian Kings killed themselves when the Priest bid them 485. C Of the Pretences and coverings and excuses which we find out for our sinnes 570. B Against Pride 65. A Pride the first sin of the Angels 622. C All Pride is not forbidden Man ibid. D What is not Pride 623. B. 727. D How early a sin Pride is 726. D Nothing so contrary to God as Pride is 727. E 728. A Against Prodigalitie 94. C Of that Progresse which a man is to make be he never so learned or religious 427. B. C. D. 616. D Promises the difference betweene the Promises of the Messias and the Performance of them by Christs comming in the Flesh 68. B. 406. E Prophet no visible calling
Silence which is good 576. B. C Silence which is bad 577. D Good to be Silent sometimes even in good things and when 576. E Simple-men of this world why chosen for Christs Apostles 719. C Singular Gods speakes of things of grace in the Singular but of heavie things in the plurall number ever 711. A Single instances no safe concluding from them 460. E Neither in the case of the Thiefe on the Crosse nor S. Paul 461. B Singularity not ground enough to condemne every opinion 234. C Against Singularity 51. D. 177. C. 573. D. 722. B Of a Single testimony 234. B Sinne the cause of all sicknesses 109. C Little light and customarie Sinnes how dangerous 117. B. 164. C. D. 585. E All Sin is from our selves not from any thing in God 118. A. 330. D The Sin of the Heart the greatest of all Sin and why 140. D How well some Men husband their Sin 147. A That it is good for men to fall into some Sinnes 171. B. C Sinne is a fall and how 186. D. 187. C Whether it have rationem demeriti and may properly offend God 342. C Sinne not meerly nothing 342. E Not so much of any thing as of Sinne 343. C How soone Sinne is followed of Repentance 540. C How Sinne rises by little and little in us 585. C Against sitting in the time of Divine Service 72. D Socinians their monstrous opinions 317. C And nicknaming of Athanasius Sathanasius 654. D Against the growth of that pestilent Heresie of Socinianisme 821. B Sorrow for the dead how lawfull 157. C. D. E. 822. D Of the end lesse Sorrow of the wicked 632. B No communication of their Sorrow 634. D The Soule of the miseries of it in the body 190. A Of the lazinesse of the Soule in the disquisition of any Divine Truths 190. B C Of her excellency of knowledge in the next world ibid. C. D Of bending the Soule up to her proper height and putting of her home 483. D Soule and Spirit what the Fathers understand by them in Scripture 517. C Subjects how to looke upon the faults and errors of their Governors 13. C How reverent to be towards their Princes 92. D Supererogation against Workes of Supererogation and of the fondnesse of them 390. C 494. E. 495. A. 547. C. 732. E Superstition better than Prophanesse and why 69. A The danger of it to be prevented but how 485. E Supplications how they differ from Petitions or Prayers 553. E Synedrion the Originall and power of the Synedrion or Sanhedrim amongst the Jewes 491. E Herod called before it but not when hee was King 492. A T TEares against their inordinatenesse 155. A Never ascribed to God 156. D Well employed for the dead though they be at rest 157. A Of those whose constitution will afford no Teares 160. D Foure considerations that will enforce Teares 160. E. 161. A Of Teares shed for worldly losses ib. C. D. 162. A For sinne 539. B Of the effect of Teares 162. B How God is said in Scripture to heare Teares that make no sound 552. E Teares the humidum-radicale of the Soule 577. E Temporall blessings how seldome prayed for in Antiquitie 750. D. E They are blessings but blessings of the left hand 751. D Nothing permanent in them 823. D Tentations all men not alike enabled against them 310. E Whether it be lawfull to pray against all kind of Tentations 527. C One of the Divels greatest Tentations it is to make us think our selves above Tentations or Tentation-proofe that they cannot hurt us 603. E The use and necessity of them 789. C Thanksgiving the duty of thanksgiving better than that of Prayer 549. D How small it is if proportioned to the love of God unto us 550. B Thoughts of the greatnesse of sinnes of thought 140. D. 543. D Titles and bare empty Names how men are puffed up with them 734. D Torturing whether or no to be admitted in case of Religion 194. D Tongue how many it hath damned 344. B Tradition against the making of Traditions articles of Faith 779. D Transubstantiation the riddles and contradictions of it 36. E What true Transubstantiation in the Sacrament may be admitted 693. C Tribulations the benefit of them 563. B 604. A. B Spirituall Tribulations and afflictions heavier than Temporall 665. B. D. E Tribulation and affliction part of our daily bread which wee ought to pray for and how 787. B Tribute God never wrought miracle in the matter of money but onely for Tribute to Caesar 91. E Trinitie the knowledge of it not by naturall reason attained 301. B Not one of a thousand knows what himselfe meanes when he speakes of the Trinity 307. E Some obumbrations of the Trinity even in nature 379 What are illustrations of it to us Christians are no Arguments unto the Jewes 417. B Foure severall trinities 417. E. 418. A It is the onely rule of our Faith the Trinitie 426. E To be believed first of all but not last of all to be understood 428. C. D The opinions of severall Hereticks concerning it 429. D The severall wayes of expressing it by figures and letters 429. E Troubles five severall sorts of Troubles 518. D The universality and inevitablenesse of them 664. B Truth not alwaies to be spoken 576. E Turning of Gods Turning to us and of our Turning to God 524. B. C. D. 525. A. B. 526. A. B V VAgabonds and incorrigible rogues against receiving or harbouring of them 415. B. C Vaine things in themselves may be brought to a religious use 226. E Vbiquetaries 67. E Confuted by the Angels Argument 248. C Of that Vicissitude which is in all temporall things 823. D Vigils why discontinued in the Primitive Church 813. A Virginitie The dignity and prayse of it 17. C. D Three Heresies impeaching the Virginity of the blessed Lady 17. D Against vowed Virginitie 30. D Virgin Mary The errour of Tertullian about her 18. A Of the Manichees and Anabaptists 23. D Against appeales to her in heaven 46. A Borne in Originall sinne 314. A Called of the Fathers Deipara but not Christipara and why 400. D Threatned at a siege of Constantinople to bee drowned if shee did not drowne the enemy 418. E The Church onely in the Virgin Mary according to the Schoole 603. C Against Vncharitable objecting of repented sinnes 499. D Vnitie the Devils way to breake it 138. D The Vnsatiablenesse of sinne 709 C Vprightnesse what Vprightnesse is required of man in this world 677 B. C What it is to bee Vpright in heart ibid. 678. A. B. C Against Vsury 753. E. 754. A. Vulgate Edition of the Antiquity and Authority of it 542. E Not to be preferred before the originall ibid. W VVArre the miseries and incommodities of it 146. C. D Waters those of Baptisme sinne tribulation and death 309. C. c What is meant by Waters in Scripture 598. D Waiting upon Gods time how it consists with fervent Prayer 34. D Wings the severall acceptations of the Word in Scripture 671. B Winning upon God by prayer how well God likes it 513. E Wisdome of sinnes against it especially ignorance and curiosity 411. B Witnesse the credit of the Testimony dependeth much upon his credit that is the Witnesse 238. B Women our Saviour came from such as were dangerously suspected and noted in Scripture for their incontinence 24. A Never any good Angell appeared in the likenesse of a Woman 242. D Whether Women were created after Gods Image a question in S. Ambrose his Commentaries upon the Epistles that hath called those Commentaries in doubt 242. E Of Womens able in State affaires and matters of Government ibid. Powerfull in matters of Religion both on the right hand and on the left 243. A Wonder the difference between the Philosophers and the Fathers about wondering 194. A Word of God the very Angels of heaven referre themselves unto it 249. E Stronger than any reason to a Christian 394. B 815. A The onely rule of Doctrine 738. E The World is a sea and in how many respects 735. C Workes wee no enemies to good workes as the Adversarie doth traduce us 82. A. c No Faith without them 136. A We are to continue in them 554. B Workes good when to a good end 82. E To be done of what 83. A How they may be seene of men 141. B Sometimes there is good use in concealing our Workes of mortification 538. E Of those imperfections which are in the best of our Good Works 820 D. E Wounds of love how God doth so wound us that we kisse that hand that strikes us 463. A Z ZEale to be reconciled to discretion 10. A How the devill makes it his Instrument 42. B Of the Zeale we ought to have to Gods service 72. D Zeale distempered what it will doe 237. A Zeale and uncharitablenesse are two incompatible things 480. E Of Daniels Zeale in praying against the expresse Proclamation of the King 814. A. B. C Zoroastes he only laughed when he was born 21. A FINIS Errata Pag. line reade 22 39 waives 22 40 waives 22 50 waives 110 52 when he 116 40 may come 142 31 the Cato's 164 39 Manours 196 15 in indignifying 420 32 man 426 45 blown 534 35 Topicks 710 46 exorcised 751 43 or any people 782 63 Interimists In the life Pag. 15 line 12 for merit reade mercy Pag. 16. line 40. for friends reade friend
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
inducunt colores saies Origen in the same place Thy sinnes cover the Image of God with other Images Images of Beauty of Honour of Pleasure so that sometimes thou dost not discerne the Image of God in thy soule but yet there it is sometimes thou fillest this Well with other waters with teares of hypocrisie to deceive or teares of lamentation for worldly crosses but yet such a Well such a power to assist thine owne salvation there is in thee Mulier drachmam invenit non extrinsecus sed in dome The Woman who had lost her peece of silver found it not without doores but within It was In domo mundata when her house was made cleane but it was within the house and within her owne house Make cleane thy house by the assistances which Christ affords thee in his Church and thou shalt never faile finding of that within thee which shall save thee Not that it growes in thee naturally or that thou canst produce it of thy selfe but that God hath bound himselfe by his holy Covenant to perfect his work in every man that works with him So then in repenting of former sins in breaking off the practise of those sins in restoring whatsoever was gotten by those sins in precluding all relapses by a diligent survay and examination of particular actions this is this cleannesse this purity of heart which constitutes our first branch of this part And the second is the Purchase what we get by it which is Blessednesse Blessed are the pure in heart In this Beatue we make two steps Blessednesse and the present possession of this Blessednesse Now to this purpose it is a good Rule that S. Bernard gives and a good way that he goes Cui quaeque res sapiunt prout sunt is sapiens est saies he He that tasts and apprehends all things in their proper and naturall tast he that takes all things aright as they are Is sapiens est nothing distasts him nothing alters him he is wise If he take the riches of this world to be in their nature indifferent neither good nor bad in themselves but to receive their denomination in their use If he take long life to be naturally an effect of a good constitution and temperament of the body and a good husbanding of that temper by temperance If he take sicknesse to be a declination and disorder thereof and so other calamities to be the declination of their power or their favour in whose protection hee trusted then he takes all these things prout sunt as they are in their right tast and Is sapiens est he that takes things so is morally wise But thus far S. Bernard does but tell us Quis sapiens who is wise but then Cui ipsa sapientia sapit prout est is beatus He that tasts this Wisdome it selfe aright he onely is Blessed Now to taste this morall Wisedome aright to make the right use of that is to direct all that knowledge upon heavenly things To understand the wretchednesse of this world is to be wise but to make this wisedome apprehend a happinesse in the next world that is to be blessed If I can digest the want of Riches the want of Health the want of Reputation out of this consideration that good men want these as well as bad this is morall Wisedome and a naturall man may be as wise herein as I. But if I can make this Wisedome carry me to a higher contemplation That God hath cast these wants upon me to draw me the more easily to him and to see that in all likelihood my disposition being considered more wealth more health more preferment would have retarded me and slackned my pace in his service then this Wisdome that is this use of this morall Wisdome hath made me blessed and to this Blessednesse a naturall man cannot come This Blessednesse then is Congeries bonorum A concurrence a confluence an accumulation of all that is Good And he that is Mundus corde pure of heart safe in a rectified conscience hath that Not that every thing that hath Aliquam rationem boni any tincture or name of Good in it as Riches and Health and Honour must necessarily fall upon every man that is good and pure of heart for for the most part such men want these more then any other men But because even those things which have in them Aliquam rationem mali some tincture and name of ill as sicknesse of body or vexation of spirit shall be good to them because they shall advance them in their way to God therefore are they blessed as Blessednesse is Congeries bonorum the accumulation of all that is good because nothing can put on the nature of ill to them And though Blessednesse seeme to be but an expectative a reversion reserved to the next life yet so blessed are they in this testimony of a rectified conscience which is this purity of heart as that they have this blessednesse in a present possession Blessed are the pure in heart they are now they are already Blessed The farthest that any of the Philosophers went in the discovery of Blessednesse Nunc. was but to come to that Nemo ante obitum to pronounce that no man could be called Blessed before his death not that they had found what kind of better Blessednesse they went to after their death but that still till death they were shure every man was subject to new miseries and interruptions of any thing which they could have called Blessednesse The Christian Philosophy goes farther It showes us a perfecter Blessednesse then they conceived for the next life and it imparts that Blessednesse to this life also The pure in heart are blessed already not onely comparatively that they are in a better way of Blessednesse then others are but actually in a present possession of it for this world and the next world are not to the pure in heart two houses but two roomes a Gallery to passe thorough and a Lodging to rest in in the same House which are both under one roofe Christ Jesus The Militant and the Triumphant are not two Churches but this the Porch and that the Chancell of the same Church which are under one Head Christ Jesus so the Joy and the sense of Salvation which the pure in heart have here is not a joy severed from the Joy of Heaven but a Joy that begins in us here and continues and accompanies us thither and there flowes on and dilates it selfe to an infinite expansion so as if you should touch one corne of powder in a traine and that traine should carry fire into a whole City from the beginning it was one and the same fire though the fulness of the glory therof be reserved to that which is expressed in the last branch Videbunt Deum They shall see God for as S. Bernard notes when the Church is highliest extolled for her Beauty yet it is but Pulcherrima inter mulieres The fairest amongst women that is
a City or the Martyrdome of an Army This was not a red Sea such as the Jews passed a Sinus a Creek an Arm an Inlet a gut of a Sea but a red Ocean that overflowed and surrounded all parts and from the depth of this Sea God raised them and such was their Resurrection Such as that they which suffered lay and bled with more ease then the executioner stood and sweat and embraced the fire more fervently then he blew it and many times had this triumph in their death that even the executioner himself was in the act of execution converted to Christ and executed with them such was their Resurrection When the State of the Jews was in that depression in that conculcation in that consternation in that extermination in the captivity of Babylon as that God presents it to the Prophet in that Vision in the field of dry bones so Fili hominis Son of man as thou art a reasonable man dost thou think these bones can live that these men can ever be re-collected to make up a Nation The Prophet saith Domine tu scis Lord thou knowest which is not only thou knowest whether they can or no but thou knowest clearly they can thou canst make them up of bones again for thou madest those bones of earth before If God had called in the Angels to the making of man at first and as he said to the Prophet Fili hominis Son of man as thou art a reasonable man so he had said to them Filii Dei as you are the Sons of God illumined by his face do you think that this clod of red earth can make a man a man that shall be equall to you in one of his parts in his soul and yet then shall have such another part as that he whom all you worship my essentiall Son shall assume and invest that part himself can that man made of that body and that soul be made of this clod of earth Those Angels would have said Domine tu scis Lord thou must needs know how to make as good creatures as us of earth who madest us of that which is infinitely lesse then earth of nothing before To induce to facilitate these apprehensions there were some precedents some such thing had been done before But when the Church was newly conceived and then lay like the egge of a Dove and a Gyants foot over it like a worm like an ant and hill upon hill whelmed upon it nay like a grain of corn between the upper and lower Mill-stone ground to dust between Tyrans and Heretiques when as she bled in her Cradle in those children whom Herod slew so she bled upon her crutches in those decrepit men whom former persecutions and tortures had creepled before when East and West joyned hands to crush her and hands and brains joyned execution to consultation to annihilate her in this wane of the Moon God gave her an instant fulnesse in this exinanition instant glory in this grave an instant Resurrection But beloved the expressing the pressing of their depressions does but chafe the Wax the Printing of the seale is the reducing to your memory your own case and not that point in your case as you were for a few yeares under a sensible persecution of fire and prisons that was the least part of your persecution for it is a cheap purchase of heaven if we may have it for dying Mat. 13.44 To sell all we have to buy that field where we know the treasure is is not so hard as not to know it To part with all for the great Pearle not so hard a bargaine as not to know that such a Pearle there might have beene had we could not say heaven was kept from us when we might have it for a Fagot and when even our enemies helpt us to it but your greater affliction was as you were long before in an insensiblenesse you thought your selves well enough and yet were under a worse persecution of ignorance and of superstition when you in your Fathers were so farre from expecting a resurrection as that you did not know your low estate or that you needed a Resurrection And yet God gave you a Resurrection from it a reformation of it Now who have their parts in this first resurrection or upon what conditions have you it We see in the fourth verse They that are beheaded for the witnesse of Iesus that is that are ready to be so when the glory of Jesus shall require that testimony In the meane time as it followes there They that have not worshipped the Beast that is not applied the Honour and the Allegiance due to their Soveraign to any forraign State nor the Honor due to God that is infallibility to another Prelate That have not worshipped the Beast nor his Image sayes the Text that is that have not been transported with vain imaginations of his power and his growth upon us here which hath been so diligently Painted and Printed and Preached and set out in the promises and practises of his Instruments to delude slack and easie persons And then as it is added there That have not received his mark upon their foreheads That is not declared themselves Romanists apparently nor in their hands sayes the Text that is which have not under-hand sold their secret endeavours though not their publique profession to the advancement of his cause These men who are ready to be beheaded for Christ and have not worshipped the Beast nor the Image of the Beast nor received his mark upon their foreheads nor in their hands these have their parts in this first resurrection These are blessed and holy sayes our Text Blessed because they have meanes to be holy in this resurrection For the Lamb hath unclasped the book the Scriptures are open which way to holinesse our Fathers lacked And then our blessednesse is that we shall raigne a thousand yeares with Christ Now since this first resurrection since the reformation we have raigned so with Christ but 100. yeares But if we persist in a good use of it our posterity shall adde the Cypher and make that 100. 1000. even to the time when Christ Jesus shall come againe and as he hath given us the first so shall give us the last resurrection and to that come Lord Jesus come quickly and till that continue this This is the first resurrection 2 Part. Apeccato in the first acceptation a resurrection from persecution and a peaceable enjoying of the Gospell And in a second it is a resurrection from sin and so it hath a more particular appropriation to every person Aug. So S. Augustine takes this place and with him many of the Fathers and with them many of the sons of the Fathers better sons of the Fathers then the Romane Church will confesse them to be or then they are themselves The Expositors of the Reformed Church They for the most part with S. Augustine take this first resurrection to be a resurrection
from sin Inter abjectos abjectissimus peccator Grego No man falls lower then he that falls into a course of sin Sin is a fall It is not onely a deviation a turning out of the way upon the right or the left hand but it is a sinking a falling In the other case of going out of the way a man may stand upon the way and inquire and then proceed in the way if he be right or to the way if he be wrong But when he is fallen and lies still he proceeds no farther inquires no farther To be too apt to conceive scruples in matters of religion stops and retards a man in the way to mistake some points in the truth of religion puts a man for that time in a wrong way But to fall into a course of sin this makes him unsensible of any end that he hath to goe to of any way that he hath to goe by God hath not removed man not with-drawne man from this Earth he hath not given him the Aire to flie in as to Birds nor Spheares to move in as to Sun and Moone he hath left him upon the Earth and not onely to tread upon it as in contempt or in meere Dominion but to walk upon it in the discharge of the duties of his calling and so to be conversant with the Earth is not a falling But as when man was nothing but earth nothing but a body he lay flat upon the earth his mouth kissed the earth his hands embraced the earth his eyes respected the earth And then God breathed the breath of life into him and that raised him so farre from the earth as that onely one part of his body the soles of his feet touches it And yet man so raised by God by sin fell lower to the earth againe then before from the face of the earth to the womb to the bowels to the grave So God finding the whole man as low as he found Adams body then fallen in Originall sin yet erects us by a new breath of life in the Sacrament of Baptisme and yet we fall lower then before we were raised from Originall into Actuall into Habituall sins So low as that we think not that we need know not that there is a resurrection and that is the wonderfull that is the fearfull fall Though those words Quomodo cecidisti de Coelo Lucifer Esay 14.12 How art thou fallen from heaven O Lucifer the Son of the morning be ordinarily applied to the fall of the Angels yet it is evident that they are literally spoken of the fall of a man It deserves wonder more then pity that man whom God had raised to so Noble a heighth in him should fall so low from him Man was borne to love he was made in the love of God but then man falls in love when he growes in love with the creature he falls in love As we are bid to honour the Physitian and to use the Physitian but yet it is said in the same Chapter Ecclus. 38.1 V. 15. He that sinneth before his Maker let him fall into the hands of the Physitian It is a blessing to use him it is a curse to rely upon him so it is a blessing to glorifie God in the right use of his creatures but to grow in love with them is a fall For we love nothing that is so good as our selves Beauty Riches Honour is not so good as man Man capable of grace here of glory hereafter Nay as those things which we love in their nature are worse then we which love them so in our loving them we endeavour to make them worse then they in their own nature are by over-loving the beauty of the body we corrupt the soule by overloving honour and riches we deflect and detort these things which are not in their nature ill to ill uses and make them serve our ill purposes Man falls as a fall of waters that throwes downe and corrupts all that it embraces Nay beloved when a man hath used those wings which God hath given him and raised himselfe to some heighth in religious knowledge and religious practise Acts 29.9 as Eutichus out of a desire to hear Paul preach was got up into a Chamber and up into a window of that Chamber and yet falling asleep fell downe dead so we may fall into a security of our present state into a pride of our knowledge or of our purity and so fall lower then they who never came to our heighth So much need have we of a resurrection So sin is a fall and every man is affraid of falling even from his temporall station Mâ—rs Clem. Alex. more affraid of falling then of not beeing raised And Qui peccat quatenus peccat fit seipso deterior In every sin a man falls from that degree which himselfe had before In every sin he is dishonoured he is not so good a man as he was impoverished he hath not so great a portion of grace as hee had Infatuated hee hath not so much of the true wisedome of the feare of God as he had disarmed he hath not that interest and confidence in the love of God that he had and deformed he hath not so lively a representation of the Image of God as before In every sin we become prodigals but in the habit of sin we become bankrupts affraid to come to an account A fall is a fearfull thing that needs a raising a help but sin is a death and that needs a resurrection and a resurrection is as great a work as the very Creation it selfe It is death in semine in the roote it produces it brings forth death It is death in arbore in the body in it selfe death is a divorce and so is sin and it is death in fructu in the fruit thereof sin plants spirituall death and this death produces more sin Obduration Impenitence and the like Be pleased to returne and cast one halfe thought upon each of these Sin is the roote of death Death by sin entred and death passed upon all men for all men have sinned Rom. 5.12 It is death because we shall dye for it But it is death in it selfe We are dead already dead in it Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead was spoken to a whole Church Apoc. 3.1 It is not evidence enough to prove that thou art alive to say I saw thee at a Sermon that spirit that knowes thy spirit he that knowes whether thou wert moved by a Sermon melted by a Sermon mended by a Sermon he knows whether thou be alive or no. That which had wont to be said That dead men walked in Churches is too true Men walk out a Sermon or walk out after a Sermon as ill as they walked in they have a name that they live Iohn 5.25 and are dead But the houre is come and now is when the dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God That is at
glorified in those victories which we by his grace gaine over the Devill Nescit Diabolus quant a bona de illo fiunt etiam cum saevit August Little knowes the Devill how much good he does us when he tempts us for by that we are excited to have our present recourse to that God whom in our former security we neglected who gives us the issue with the tentation Ego novi quid apposuerim Idem I know what infirmities I I have submitted thee to and what I have laid and applied to thee Ego novi unde aegrotes ego novi unde saneris I know thy sicknesse and I know thy physick Sufficit tibi gratiamea Whatsoever the disease be my grace shall be sufficient to cure it For whether we understand that as S. Chrysostome does De gratia miraculorum That it is sufficient for any mans assurance in any tentation or tribulation to consider Gods miraculous deliverances of other men in the like cases or whether we understand it according to the generall voyce of the Interpreters that is Be content that there remaine in thy flesh Matter and Subject for me to produce glory from thy weaknesse and Matter and Subject for thee to exercise thy faith and allegeance to me still these words will carry an argument against the expedience of absolute praying against all tentations for still this Gratiamea sufficit will import this amount to this I have as many Antidotes as the Devill hath poisons I have as much mercy as the Devill hath malice There must be Scorpions in the world but the Scorpion shall cure the Scorpion there must be tentations but tentations shall adde to mine and to thy glory and Eripiam I will deliver thee This word is in the Originall Chalatz which signifies Eripere in such a sense as our language does not fully reach in any one word So there is some defectivenesse some slacknesse in this word of our Translation Delivering For it is such a Delivering as is a sudden catching hold and snatching at the soule of a man then when it is at the brink and edge of a sin So that if thy facility and that which thou wilt make shift to call Good Nature or Good Manners have put thee into the hands of that subtile woman that Solomon speaks of That is come forth to mect thee and seek thy face Prov. 7.10.15 If thou have followed her As an Oxe goeth to the slaughter and as a foole to the correction of the stocks Even then when the Axe is over thy head then when thou hast approacht so neare to destruction then is the season of this prayer Eripe me Domine Catch hold of me now O Lord Gen. 39.10 and Deliver my soule When Ioseph had resisted the tentations of his Masters Wife and resisted them the onely safe way not onely not to yeeld but as the Text sayes not to come in her company and yet she had found her opportunity when there was none in the house but they he came to an inward Eripe me Domine O Lord take hold of me now and she caught and God caught She caught his garment and God his soule She delivered him and God delivered him She to Prison and God from thence If thy curiosity or thy considence in thine owne spirituall strength carry thee into the house of Rimmon to Idolatry to a Masse trust not thou to Naamans request Ignoscat Dominus servo in bacre 2 Kings 5. That God will pardon thee as often as thou doest so but since thou hast done so now now come to this Eripe animam O Lord deliver my soule now from taking harme now and hereafter from exposing my selfe to the like harme For this is the purpose of Davids prayer in this signification of this word that howsoever infirmity or company or curiosity or confidence bring us within the distance and danger within the Spheare and Latitude of a tentation that though we be not lodged in Sodome yet we are in the Suburbs though we be not impailed in a sin yet we are within the purlues which is not safely done no more then it is in a State to trust alwaies to a Defensive Warre yet when we are ingaged and enthralled in such a tentation then though God be not delighted with our danger yet then is God most delighted to help us when we are in danger and then he comes not only to deliver us from that imminent and particular danger according to that signification of this word but according to that Interpretation of this word which the Septuagint have given it in the Prophet Esay Esay 58.11 Iachalitz Pinguefaciet He shall proceed in his worke and make fat thy soule That is Deliver thee now and preserve and establish thee after to the fulfilling of all that belongs to the last Petition of this prayer Salvum me fac O Lord save me Though he have been absent he shall Returne and being Returned shall not stand still nor stand Neutrall but deliver thee and having delivered thee shall not determine his love in that one act of mercy but shall Save thee that is Imprint in thee a holy confidence that his salvation is thine So then Salvum me fac Esay 19.20 in that manner is Gods Deliverance exprest They shall cry unto him till wee cry he takes no knowledge at all and then he sends to them there is his returning upon their cry and then He shall deliver them sayes that Prophet and so the two former Petitions of this prayer are answered but the Consummation and Establishment of all is in the third which followes in the same place He shall send them a Saviour and a great one Esay 62.11 But who is that what Saviour Doubtlesse he that is proclaimed by God in the same Prophet Behold the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world Behold thy salvation commeth For that word which that Prophet uses there and this word in which David presents this last Petition here is in both places Iashang and Iashang is the very word from which the name of Iesus is derived so that David desires here that salvation which Esay proclaimed there salvation in the Saviour of the world Christ Jesus and an interest in the assurance of his merits We finde this name of Saviour attributed to other men in the Scriptures then to Christ In particular distresses when God raised up men to deliver his people sometimes those men were so called Saviours And so S. Ierome interprets those words of the Prophet Ascendent salvatores Obad. 1.21 Saviours shall come up on Mount Sion of Prophets and Preachers and such other Instruments as God should raise for the salvation of soules Those whom in other places he calls Angels of the Church here he calls by that higher name Saviours But such a Saviour as is proclaimed to the ends of the world to all the world a Saviour in the Mountaines in the height
of presumptuous sins and a Saviour in the vallies in the dejection of inordinate melancholy too A Saviour of the East of rising and growing men and a Saviour of the West of withering declining languishing fortunes too A Saviour in the state of nature by having infused the knowledge of himselfe into some men then before the light and help of the Law was afforded to the world A Saviour in the state of the Law by having made to some men then even Types Accomplishments and Prophesies Histories And as himself Cals things that are not as though they were So he made those men see things that were not as though they were for so Abraham saw his day and rejoyced A Saviour in the state of the Gospel and so as that he saves some there for the fundamentall Gospels sake that is for standing fast in the fundamentall Articles thereof though they may have been darkned with some ignorances or may have strayed into some errors in some Circumstantiall points A Saviour of all the world of all the conditions in the world of all times through the world of all places of the world such a Saviour is no man called but Christ Jesus only For when it is said that Pharaoh called Ioseph Salvatorem mundi A Saviour of the world besides Gen. 41.45 that if it were so that which is called all the world can be referred but to that part of the world which was then under Pharaoh as when it is said that Augustus taxed the world that is intended De orbe Romano so much of the world as was under the Romanes there is a manifest error in that Translation which cals Ioseph so for that name which was given to Ioseph there in that language in which it was given doth truly signifie Revelatorem Secretorum and no more a Revealer a Discoverer a Decypherer of secret and mysterious things according to the occasion upon which that name was then given which was the Decyphering the Interpreting of Pharaohs Dreame Be this then thus establisht that David for our example considers and referres all salvation Psal 98.2 to salvation in Christ As he does also where he sayes after Notum fecit salutare tuum The Lord hath made known his salvation Quid est salutare tuum saies S. Basil Luke 2. What is the Lords salvation And he makes a safe answer out Simeons mouth Mine eyes have seene thy salvation when he had seen Christ Iesus This then is he which is not only Satvator populi sui The Saviour of his people the Jews to whom he hath betrothed himselfe In Pacto salis A Covenant of salt an everlasting Covenant Nor onely Salvator corporis sui The Saviour of his own body as the Apostle calls him of that body which he hath gathered from the Gentiles in the Christian Church Nor only Salvator mundi A Saviour of the world so as that which he did and suffered was sufficient in it selfe and was accepted by the Father for the salvation of the world but as Tertullian for the most part reads the word he was Salutificator not only a Saviour because God made him an instrument of salvation as though he had no interest in our salvation till in his flesh he died for us but he is Salutificator so the Author of this salvation as that from all eternity he was at the making of the Decree as well as in the fulnesse of time he was at the executing thereof In the work of our salvation if we consider the merit Christ was sole and alone no Father no Holy Ghost trod the Wine-presse with him And if in the work of our salvation we consider the mercy there though Christ were not sole and alone for that mercy in the Decree was the joynt-act of the whole Trinity yet even in that Christ was equall to the Father and the Holy Ghost So he is Salutificator the very Author of this salvation as that when it came to the act he and not they died for us and when it was in Councell he as well as they and as soone as they decreed it for us As therefore the Church of God scarce presents any petition any prayer to God but it is subscribed by Christ the Name of Christ is for the most part the end and the seale of all our Collects all our prayers in the Liturgy though they be but for temporall things for Plenty or Peace or Faire-weather are shut up so Grant this O Lord for our Lord and Saviour Christ Iesus sake So David for our example drives all his petitions in this Text to this Conclusion Salvum me fac O Lord save me that is apply that salvation Christ Jesus to me Now beloved you may know that your selves have a part in those means which God uses to that purpose your selves are instruments though not causes of your own salvation Salvus factus es pro nihilo non de nihilo tamen Bernard Thou bringest nothing for thy salvation yet something to thy salvation nothing worth it but yet somthing with it Thy new Creation by which thou art a new creature that is thy Regeneration is wrought as the first Creation was wrought God made heaven and earth of nothing but hee produced the other creatures out of that matter which he had made Thou hadst nothing to doe in the first work of thy Regeneration Thou couldst not so much as wish it But in all the rest thou art a fellow-worker with God because before that there are seeds of former grace shed in thee And therefore when thou commest to this last Petition Salvum me fac O Lord save me remember still that thou hast something to doe as well as to say that so thou maist have a comfortable answer in thy soule to the whole prayer Returne O Lord Deliver my soule and Save me And so we have done with our first Part which was the Prayer it selfe and the second which is the Reasons of the Prayer we must reserve for a second exercise SERM. LIII Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 6.4 5. Returne O Lord Deliver my soule O Lord save me for thy mercie sake For in Death there is no Remembrance of thee and in the Grave who shall give thee thanks WEE come now to the Reasons of these Petitions in Davids Prayer For as every Prayer must bee made with faith I must beleeve that God will grant my Prayer if it conduce to his glory and my good to doe so that is the limit of my faith so I must have reason to ground a likelyhood and a faire probability that that particular which I pray for doth conduce to his glory and my good and that therefore God is likely to grant it Davids first Reason here is grounded on God himselfe Propter misericordiam Doe it for thy mercy sake and in his second Reason though David himselfe and all men with him seeme to have a part yet at last we shall see the Reason it selfe to
by their Confessors whether they he sins or no And thus it is in divers other points besides this They pretend to give satisfaction and peace in all cases and pretend to be the onely true Church for that and yet leave the conscience in ignorance and in distemper and distresse and distraction in many particulars The Law of the Prince is rooted in the power of God The roote of all is Order and the orderer of all is the King And what the good Kings of Judah and the religious Kings of the Primitive Christian Church did every King may nay should do For both the Tables are committed to him as well the first that concernes our religious duties to God as the other that concernes our Civill duties to men So is the Arke where those Tables are kept and so is the Temple where that Arke is kept all committed to him and he oversees the manner of the religious service of God And therefore it is that in the Schooles we call Sedition and Rebellion Sacriledge for though the trespasse seeme to be directed but upon a man yet in that man whose office and consequently his person is sacred God is opposed and violated And it is impiously said of a Jesuit I may easily be beleeved of that Jesuit Gretzer if any other might be excepted Non est Regum etiam veram doctrinam confirmare The King hath nothing to doe with Religion neither doth it belong to him to establish any forme of Religion in his Kingdome though it bee the right Religion and though it be but by way of Confirmation This then David Omnibus persuadet David as a King takes to be in his care in his office To rectifie and settle Religion that is the outward worship of God And this he intimates this he conveyes by way of counsaile and perswasion to all the world he would faine have all agree in one service of God Ver. 1. Therefore he enters the Psalme so Iubilate omnes terrae Rejoyce all ye lands Ver. 4. and Adoret te omnis terrae All the earth shall worship thee and againe Venite audite omnes Ver. 16. Come and heare all ye that feare God For as S. Cyprian sayes of Bishops That every Bishop is an universall Bishop That is must take into his care and contemplation not onely his owne particular Dioces but the whole Catholique Church So every Christian King is a King of the whole Christian world that is must study and take into his care not onely his own kingdome but all others too For it is not onely the municipall law of that kingdome by which he is bound to see his own subjects in all cases righted but in the whole law of Nations every King hath an interest My soule may be King that is reside principally in my heart or in my braine but it neglects not the remoter parts of my body David maintains Religion at home but he assists as much as he can the establishing of that Religion abroad too David endevours that perswades that every where but he will be sure of it at home Suis imperat There he enjoyns it there he commands it Dicite sayes he Say that is This you shall say you shall serve God thus We cannot provide that there shall be no Wolves in the world but we have provided that there shall be no Wolves in this kingdome Idolatry will be but there needs be none amongst us Idolaters were round about the children of Israel in the land of promise They could not make all those Proselytes but yet they kept their own station When the Arian heresie had so surrounded the world as that Vniversa fere Orientalis Ecclesia Almost all the Eastern Church Nicephor Vinc. Lyra. And Cuncti pene Latini Episcopi aut vi aut fraude decepti Almost all the Bishops of the Westerne Church were deceived or threatned out of their Religion into Arianisme Insomuch Hilar. that S. Hilarie gives a note of an hundred and five Bishops of note noted with that heresie When that one Bishop who will needs be all alone the Bishop of Rome Liberius so far subscribed to that heresie Hieron De Roma pont l. 4. c. 9. as S. Hieroms expresse words are that Bellarmine himselfe does not onely not deny it but finds himselfe bound and finds it hard for him to prove That though Liberius did outwardly professe himselfe to be an Arian yet in his heart he was none yet for all this impetuousnesse of this flood of this heresie Athanasius as Bishop excommunicated the Arians in his Dioces And Constantine as Emperor banished them out of his Dominions Athanasius would have been glad if no other Church Constantine would have been glad if no other State would have received them When they could not prevaile so far yet they did that which was possible and most proper to them they preserved the true worship of the true God in their own Jurisdiction David could not have done that if he had not had a true zeale to Gods truth Ipse facit quod jubâ—â— in his own heart And therefore as we have an intimation of his desire to reduce the whole world and a testimony of his earnestnesse towards his own Subjects so we have an assurance that in his own particular he was constantly established in this truth He cals to all Come and see the works of God And more particularly to all his O blesse our God yee people but he proposes himselfe to their consideration too Ver. 5. Ver. 8. Ver. 16. Psal 145.3 I will declare what he hath done for my soule Great is the Lord and greatly to be feared sayes this religious King in another Psalme And that is a Proclamation a Remonstrance to all the world He addes One generation shall declare thy works to another Ver. 4. Ver. 6. And that is a propagation to the ends of the world But all this is rooted in that which is personall and follows after I will speake of the glorious honour of thy Majesly And that is a protestation for his own particular And to the same purpose is that which follows in the next verse Men shall speake of the might of thy terrible acts They shall that is They should and I would all men would sayes David But whether they doe or no I will declare thy greatnesse sayes he there I will not be defective in my particular And David was to be trusted with a pious endevour amongst his Neighbours and with a pious care over all his own subjects as long as he nourished and declared so pious a disposition in his own person And truly it is an injurious it is a disloyall suspition and jealousie it is an ungodly fascination of our own happinesse to doubt of good effects abroad and of a blessed assurance at home as long as the zeale of Gods truth remains so constantly in his heart and flowes out so declaratorily in his actions
B. C Expostulation with God how without sin 44. B. We may not excuse the inordinatenesse of all Expostulations of good men in the Scripture 132. C Nor come neere that excesse which we finde in some of them 155. C Of that in the widdow of Zareptha 218. A Against Extortion 94. A Against Extremities in matters of opinion 42. A. B. c. In Religion 326. D F FAith against implicite Faith 178. C. 411. C Faith and Reason how contiguous they are 178. B Faith how it is assisted by Reason 429. A. 612. A Of the imperfection that is in our Faith 818. D Faith and Works 78. E. 368. A. 567. D. E Our Workes more ours than our Faith 79. C. D. E. c. The Faith of others how profitable to us 105. D And how not 106. E Men not to deceive themselves with thinking that if they have Faith once they shall have it ever or have enough 819. B. C Fall sinne is a fall and how 186. D. 187. B. C. 462. D Against impossibility of falling from grace received 240. B. C Of Fame and getting a good name the necessity of it 680. A Fathers of the power of life and death which they had over their owne children 388. A How Jesuites slight the authority of the Fathers of the Church 489. C How they are to be followed 490. C Feare of the Feare of God 386. B The difference between fearefullnesse and Feare 387. B Servile and Filial Feare both good 386. D The Feare of God a blessed disease 466. B It constitutes the best assurance 694. C Not only a Feare but even a terror of God may fall upon the best men 70. A Festivalls the reason of their Institution in the Church 298. B Of applying particular Scriptures to particular Festivalls 423. D Filiation the markes of our spirituall Filiation lesse subject to errour than of our Temporall 338. E Fasting but thrice mentioned by David and he thrice derided for it 535. C The commendation and use of it ibid. D. E Finding of God the severall times of it 597. A Of Finding that which was lost 711. E The passage of the Usher in S. Augustine that found a bag of money and would not take so much as the tithe of it 712. A Fishers of men the Apostles why so called 734. E Flatterers how men may flatter the best men the very Angels yea and God himselfe 332. B Foliantes an Order in the Roman Church who only feed on roots and leaves 731. C Following Christ how we are to Follow in beleeving and in doing 731. E Against Forespeaking the Counsels or Actions of the State 535. E Foretelling of death the passage of the Monks of S. sidorus Monastery about it 473. C Forme of publike Prayer used amongst the very Gentiles 89. A And they had a particular Officer who made Prayers and Collects for them upon emergent occasions ibid. Which were received every five years ibid. Fortune and God how they consist together 711. C Freewill the obliquities of it from whence 283. D The power of it in our conversion 309. A. B Funerals of the duties belonging to them 196. A. 198. B Of the severall manner of them among severall nations 198. D Christian Funerals an evidence of Gods presence 826. B Fulnesse how in Christ and how in others of the Saints 3. C Three Fulnesses in Christ above others 4. A How Full all of us are of originall sin 2. E How Full God is of mercy 12. C Of Fulnesse without satisfaction and of satisfaction without Fulnesse 807. A Abraham why Full of yeares and yet not so old as Methusalem ibid. D Severall Fulnesses ibid. E G GEntiles and their salvation how prone the Fathers were in beleeving of it 261. D. 763. C Of the power of naturall reason in them and what many of the Fathers thought of it 314. C Of their multiplicity of Gods 378. B. 484. D. 502. E They durst not call their Tutelar Gods by their names 608. A Gentlenesse meeknesse and mildenesse the power of it both upon man and God 409. E. 410. A. B Glad God whether he be Glad that he is God 812. B Glorified bodies their Endowments applyed to the soule after her first resurrection 189. A. B. C Gloria Patri after every Psalme how ancient 88. C Glory against our feare of giving God too much Glory 58. E No Glory to God in destroying man only for his pleasure 85. B Glory what it is 88. A The light of Glory in heaven what 231. A All things we doe must be to the Glory of God 636. E Of the disparity and degrees of Glory in the Kingdome of heaven 742. D. 743. A. B. C Gluttony the effects and miseries of it 579. D God not to be loved in consideration of the Temporall Blessings he bestoweth upon us but for himselfe 750. C. D Foure wayes of knowing him 229. B God how present even in hell 226. D. E Seeing of God before us in our actions how necessary 169. E How we see him in a glasse 226. B How we are enemies to God 65. B All his wayes are goodnesse 66. E Severall positions motions and transitions ascribed to him 67. C How omnipresent with the Ubiquetary and the Stancarist 67. E Why he makes some poor others rich 84. E Glories not in destroying man till he finde cause 85. B Proposeth his glory to himselfe as the end of all his works 87. C. D. E All our wealth and honour to be ascribed to him 95. B Whether his Essence shall be seene in heaven 120. D. 230. D No evill from him 168. C Not the Author of sinne 368. E To be reverenced as a Father 388. C Of the reason of many Gods amongst the Gentiles 484. D God hates not any man but as a finner 628. C. D His mercy to all men 679. A. B The numberlesse number of Gods Benefits unto man 765. A Our Goods what care to be taken they be well gotten 83. A. 95. E They are abusively called Goods 168. D Goodnesse speciall in God 167. E. 168. A. B Golden Crowns of the Saints how forged in the Roman Church 743. D Gospell whether yet preached over all the world 363. D Why it is called in Scripture the Kingdome of God 472. A How compared to a net 736. C Grace against irresistible Grace 456. B Grace and Nature how they cooperate 649. D No consummative Grace in this life 735. B Graduall Psalmes which and why they are so called 653. E Great men not alwayes good and why 166. A But when good the more acceptable and their ill the more pardonable ibid. B. C The true end of Greatnesse 321. B. C. D Great men how dangerously obnoxious to their own servants 551 A Gretzer the Jesuite how injurious to the power of Kings in matters of Religion 698. D H AGainst making too much Haste either in Temporall or Spirituall Riches 520. D Hatred how it may consist with Charity 100 A Health Spirituall Health to