as our King but as our Maker as God himself and God in councel Faciamus And we applied thereunto the difference of our respect to a person of that honourable rank when we came before him at the councel-table and when we came to him at his own table and thereby advanced the seriousnesse of this consideration God in the Trinitie And farther we sailed not with our Eastern winde Our West we considered in the next word Hominem That though we were made by the whole Trinitie yet the whole Trinitie made us but men and men in this name of our text Adam and Adam is but earth and that is our West our declination our Sun-set We passed over the foure names by which man is ordinarily expressed in the scriptures and we found necessary miserie in three of them and possible nay likely miserie in the fourth in the best name We insisted upon the name of our text Adam earth and had some use of these notes first That if I were but earth God was pleased to be the potter If I but a sheep he a shepherd If I but a cottage he a builder So he work upon me let me be what he will We noted that God made us earth not aire not fire that man hath bodily and worldly duties to perform and is not all spirit in this life Devotion is his soul but he hath a bodie of discretion usefulnesse to invest in some calling We noted too that in being earth we are equall we tried that equalitie first in the root in Adam there if any man will be nobler earth then I he must have more originall sinne then I for that was all Adams patrimonie all that he could give And we tried this equalitie in another furnace in the grave where there is no means to distinguish royall from plebeian nor catholick from hereticall dust And lastly we noted that this our earth was red considered in what respect it was red even in Gods hands but found that in the bloud-rednesse of sinne God had no hand but sinne and destructions for sinne were wholly from our selves which consideration we ended with this that there was Macula alba a white spot of leprosie as well as a red and we found the overvaluation of our own puritie and the uncharitable condemnation of all that differ from us to be that white spot And so farre we sailed with that Western winde are come to our third point in this our compasse our North. In this point the North we place our first Part. III comfort The North is not alwayes the comfortablest Aquilo clime nor is the North alwayes a type of happinesse in the scriptures Many times God threatens storms from the North but even in those Northern storms we consider their action that they scatter they dissipate those clouds which were gathered and so induce a serenitie And so fair weather comes Job 37. 22. from the North. The consideration of our West our low estate that we are but earth but red earth died red by our selves and that imaginary white which appeares so to us is but a white of leprosie this West inwraps us in heavie clouds of murmuring in this life that we cannot live so freely as beasts do and in clouds of desperation for the next life that we cannot die so absolutely as beasts do We die all our lives and yet we live after our deaths These are our clouds then the North shakes these clouds The North-winde driveth away the Prov. 25. 13. rain sayes Solomon There is a North in our text that drives all these tears from our eyes Christ calls upon the North as well as the Cant. 4. 16. South to blow upon his garden and to diffuse the perfumes thereof Adversitie as well as prosperitie opens the bountie of God unto us and oftentimes better But that is not the benefit of the North in our present consideration but this is it that first our Sunne sets in the West The Eastern dignitie which we received in our first creation as we were the work of the whole Trinitie falls under a Western cloud that that Trinitie made us but earth And then blows our North and scatters this cloud that this earth hath a nobler form then any other part or limbe of the world for we are made by a fairer pattern by a nobler image by a higher likenesse Faciamus Though we make but a man Let us make him in our image after our likenesse The varietie which the holy Ghost uses here in the pen of Moses hath given occasion to divers to raise divers observations upon these words which seem divers Image and Likenesse as also in the varietie of the phrase for it is thus conceived and layed In our image and then After our likenesse I know it is a good rule that Damascen gives Parva non sunt parva ex quibus magna proveniunt Nothing is to be neglected as little from which great things may arise If the consequence may be great the thing must not be thought little No Jod in the scripture shall perish therefore no Jod is superfluous if it were superfluous it might perish Words and lesse particles then words have busied the whole Church In the Councel of Ephesus where Bishops in a great number excommunicated Bishops in a greater Bishop against Bishop and Patriarch against Patriarch in which case when both parties had made strong parties in Court and the Emperour forbore to declare himself on either side for a time he was told that he refused to assent to that which 6000 Bishops had agreed in the strife was but for a word whether the blessed Virgin might be called Deipara The mother of God for Christipara The mother of Christ which Christ all agree to be God Nestorius and all his partie agreed with Cyril that she might be In the Councel of Calcedon the difference was not so great as for a word composed of syllables It was but for a syllable whether Ex or In. The heretiques condemned then confessed Christ to be Ex duabus naturis to be composed of two natures at first but not to be In duabus naturis not to consist of two natures after And for that In they were thrust out In the Councel of Nice it was not so much as a syllable made of letters for it was but for one letter whether Homoousion or Homōusion was the issue Where the question hath not been of divers words nor syllables nor letters but onely of the place of words what tempestuous differences have risen How much hath sola fides and fides sola changed the case Nay where there hath been no quarrell for precedencie for transposing of words or syllables or letters where there hath not been so much as a letter in question how much doth an accent varie a sense An interrogation or no interrogation will make it directly contrarie All Christian expositours reade those words of Cain My sinne is greater then can
SIX SERMONS UPON SEVERALL OCCASIONS PREACHED before the King and elsewhere By that late learned reverend Divine JOHN DONNE Doctour in divinitie and Dean of S. Pauls LONDON ¶ Printed by the Printers to the Vniversitie of CAMBRIDGE And are to be sold by Nicholas Fussell and Humphrey Mosley at their shop in Pauls Church-yard 1634. TWO SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE KING CHARLES Upon the xxvi verse of the first Chapter of GENESIS By Dr. DONNE DEAN OF PAVLS ¶ Printed by the Printers to the Vniversitie of CAMBRIDGE MDCXXXIIII Genesis 1. 26. And God said Let us make man in our image after our likenesse NEver such a frame so soon set up as this in this chapter For for the thing it self there is no other thing to compare it with for it is all it is the whole world And for the time there was no other time to compare it with for this was the beginning of time In the beginning God created heaven and earth That earth which in some thousands of yeares men could not look over nor discern what form it had for neither Lactantius almost three hundred yeares after Christ nor S. Augustine more then a hundred yeares after him would beleeve the earth to be round That earth which no man in his person is ever said to have compassed till our age That earth which is too much for man yet for as yet a very great part of the earth is unpeopled That earth which if we will cast it all but into a Map costs many moneths labour to grave it nay if we will but cast a piece of an acre of it into a garden costs many yeares labour to fashion and furnish it all that earth And then that heaven which spreads so farre as that subtill men have with some appearance of probabilitie imagined that in that heaven in those manifold Spheres of the Planets and the Starres there are many earths many worlds as big as this which we inhabit That earth and that heaven which spent God himself Almightie God six dayes in finishing Moses sets up in a few syllables in one line In principio In the beginning God created heaven and earth If a Livie or a Guicciardine or such extensive and voluminous authours had had this story in hand God must have made another world to have made them a library to hold their books of the making of this world Into what wire would they have drawn out this earth Into what leaf-gold would they have beat out these heavens It may assist our conjecture herein to cōsider that amongst those men who proceed with a sober modestie and limitation in their writing make a conscience not to clog the world with unnecessary books yet the volumes which are written by them upon the beginning of Genesis are scarce lesse then infinite God did no more but say Let this this be done and Moses doth no more but say that upon Gods saying it was done God required not Nature to help him to do it Moses required not Reason to help him to beleeve The holy Ghost hovered upon the waters and so God wrought The holy Ghost hovered upon Moses too and so he wrote And we beleeve these things to be so by the same Spirit in the mouth of Moses by which they were made so in Gods hand Onely Beloved remember that a frame may be thrown down in much lesse time then it was set up A childe an ape can give fire to a cannon and a vapour can shake the earth and when Christ said Throw down this Temple and in three dayes I will raise it they never stood upon the consideration of throwing it down they knew that might be soon done but they wondered at the speedy raising of it Now if all this earth were made in that minute may not all come to the generall dissolution in this minute Or may not thy acres thy miles thy shires shrink into feet and so few feet as shall but make up thy grave when he who was a great lord must be but a cottager not so wel for a cottager must have so many acres to his cottage but in this case a little piece of an acre five foot is become the house it self the house and the land the grave is all lower then that the grave is the land and the tenement the tenant too He that lies in it becomes the same earth that he lies in they all make but one earth and but a little of it But then raise thy self to a higher hope again God hath made better land the land of promise a stronger citie the new Jerusalem inhabitants for that everlasting citie us whom he made not by saying Let there be men but by consultation by deliberation God said Let us make man c. We shall pursue our great examples God in Divisio doing Moses in saying and so make haste in applying the parts But first receive them and since we have the whole world in contemplation consider in these words the foure quarters of the world by application by fair and just accommodations of the words First in the first word that God speaks here Faciamus Let Vs in the plurall a denotation of divers persons in the Godhead we consider our East where we must begin at the knowledge and confession of the Trinity for though in the way to heaven we have travelled beyond the Gentiles when we come to confesse but one God the Gentiles could not do that yet we are still among the Jews if we think that one God to be but one person Christs name is Oriens Zech. 6. 12. the East if we will be named by him called Christians we must look to this East the confession of the Trinitie there is then our East in the Faciamus Let Vs Vs make man And then our West is in the next word Faciamus hominem Though we be thus made made by the councell made by the concurrence made by the hand of the whole Trinity yet we are made but men and man but in the appellation in this Text and man there is but Adam and Adam is but earth but red earth died red in bloud in bloud in soul the bloud of our own souls To that West we must all come to the earth The sunne knoweth his going down even Psal 104. 19. the sunne for all his glory and height hath a going down and he knows it The highest cannot devest mortality nor the discomfort of mortality When you see a cloud rise out of the Lue. 12. 54. west straightway you say There cometh a storm sayes Christ When out of the region of your West that is your latter dayes there comes a cloud a sicknesse you feel a storm even the best morall constancie is shaken But this cloud and this storm and this West there must be and that is our second consideration But then the next word designes a North a strong and powerfull NOrth to scatter and dissipate these
to heaven without discharging his duties to other men then without doing them to God himself Man liveth not by bread onely sayes Christ but Luke 4. 4. yet he liveth by bread too every man must do the duties every man must bear the encumbrances of some calling Pulvis es Thou art earth he whom thou treadest upon is no lesse and he that treads upon thee is no more Positively it is a low thing to be but earth and yet the low earth is the quiet center there may be rest acquiescence content in the lowest condition But comparatively earth is as high as the highest Challenge him that magnifies himself above thee to meet thee in Adam there bid him if he will have more nobilitie more greatnesse then thou take more originall sin then thou hast If God have submitted thee to as much sin and penalty of sin as him he hath afforded thee as much and as noble earth as him And if he will not trie it in the root in your equalitie in Adam yet in another test another furnace in the grave he must there all dusts are equall Except an epitaph tell me who lies there I cannot tell by the dust nor by the epitaph know which is the dust it speaks of if another have been layed there before or after in the same grave nor can any epitaph be confident in saying Here lies but Here was laid for so various so vicissitudinarie is all this world as that even the dust of the grave hath revolutions As the motions of an upper sphere imprint a motion in a lower sphere other then naturally it would have so the changes of the life work after death And as envie supplants and removes us alive a shovell removes us and throwes us out of our grave after death No limbeck no weights can tell you This is dust royall this plebeian dust no commission no inquisition can say This is catholick this is hereticall dust All lie alike and all shall rise alike alike that is at once and upon one command The saint cannot accelerate the reprobate cannot retard the resurrection And all that rise to the right hand shall be equally kings and all at the left equally what the worst name we can call them by or affect them with is devil and then they shall have bodies to be tormented in which devils have not Miserable unexpressible unimaginable macerable condition where the sufferer would be glad to be but a devil where it were some happinesse and some kinde of life to be able to die and a great preferment to be nothing He made us all of earth and all of red earth our earth was red even when it was in Gods hands a rednesse that amounts to a shamefastnesse to a blushing at our infirmities is imprinted in us by Gods hands for this rednesse is but a conscience a guiltinesse of needing a continuall supply and succession of more and more grace and we are all red red so even from the beginning and in our best state Adam had the angels had thus much of this infirmitie that though they had a great measure of grace they needed more The prodigall childe grew poore enough after he had received his portion and he may be wicked enough that trusts upon former or present grace and seeks not more This rednesse a blushing that is an acknowledgement that we could not subsist with any measure of faith except we pray for more faith nor of grace except we seek more grace we have from the hand of God and an other rednesse from his hand too the bloud of his Sonne for that bloud was effused by Christ in the vail of this ransome for us all and accepted by God in the vail thereof for us all and this rednesse is in the nature thereof as extensive as the rednesse derived from Adam is both reach to all so we were red earth in the hands of God as rednesse denotes our generall infirmities and as rednesse denotes the bloud of his Sonne our Saviour all have both But that rednesse which we have contracted from bloud shed by our selves the bloud of our own souls by sinne was not upon us when we were in the hands of God that rednesse is not his tincture not his complexion no decree of his is writ in any such red ink Our sins are our own our destruction is from our selves We are not as accessaries and God as principall in this soul-murder God forbid We are not as executioners of Gods sentence and God the malefactour in this soul-damnation God forbid Cain came not red in his brothers bloud out of Gods hands nor David red with Vriahs bloud nor Achitophel with his own nor Judas with Christs or his own That that Pilate did illusorily God can do truely wash his hands from the bloud of any of those men It were a weak plea to say I killed not that man but it is true I commanded one who was under my command to kill him It is rather a prevarication then a justification of God to say God is not the authour of sinne in any man but it is true God makes that mans sinne that sinne God is innocencie and the beams that flow from him are of the same nature and colour Christ when he appeared in heaven was not red but white his hand his head and hairs too he and that that grows from him he and we as we come from his hands are white too his angels that provoke us to the imitation of that pattern are so in white two men two angels stood by the apostles in white Acts 1. 10. apparell the imitation is laid upon us by precept too At all times let thy garments be Eccles 9. 8. white those actions in which thou appearest to the world innocent It is true that Christ is both My beloved is white and ruddy sayes the Cant. 5. 10. Spouse but the white was his own his rednesse is from us That which Zipporah said to her husband Moses in anger the Church may say to Christ in thankfulnesse Verè sponsus sanguinum Thou art truely a bloudy husband to me Damim sanguinum of blouds blouds in the plurall for all our blouds are upon him This was a mercie to the militant Church that even the triumphant Church wondred at it They knew not Christ when he came up into heaven in red Who is this that cometh in red garments Isa 63. 1. wherefore is thy apparell red like him that treadeth in the wine-presse They knew he went down in white in entire innocencie and they wondred to see him return in red but he satisfies them Calcavi You think I have troden the wine-presse and you mistake it not I have troden the wine-presse and Calcavi solus and that alone All the rednesse all the bloud of the whole world is upon me and as he addes Non vir de gentibus Of all people there was none with me with me so as to have any part
be pardoned Gen. 4. 13. positively and so they are evident words of desperation The Jews reade them with an interrogation Are my sinnes greater then can be pardoned and so they are words of compunction and repentance The prophet Micheas sayes that Mich. 5. 3. Bethlehem is a small place The Evangelist S. Matth. 2. 6. Matthew sayes No small place An interrogation in Micheas mouth reconciles it Art thou a small place amounts to that Thou art not Sounds voices words must not be neglected for Christs forerunner John Baptist qualified himself no otherwise he was but a voice and Christ himself is Verbum The Word is the name even of the Sonne of God No doubt but States-men Magistrates finde often the danger of having suffered small abuses to passe uncorrected We that see State-businesse but in the glasse of storie and cannot be shut out of chronicles see there upon what little objects the eye and the jealousie of the State is oftentimes forced to bend it self We know in whose times in Rome a man might not weep he might not sigh he might not look pale he might not be sick but it was informed against as a discontent as a murmuring against the present government and an inclination to change And truely many times upon Damascens true ground though not alwayes well applied Parva non sunt parva Nothing may be thought little when the consequence may prove great In our own sphere in the Church we are sure it is so great inconveniences grew upon small tolerations Therefore in that businesse which occasioned all that trouble which we mentioned before in the Councel of Ephesus when S. Cyril wrote to the Clergie of his diocesse about it at first he sayes Praestiterat abstinere It had been better these questions had not been raised but sayes he Si his nugis nos adoriantur If they vex us with these impertinences these trifles And yet these which were but trifles at first came to occasion Councels and then to divide Councel against Councel and then to force the Emperour to take away the power of both Councels and govern in Councel by his Vicar generall a secular Lord sent from Court And therefore did some of the Ancients particularly Philastrius crie down some opinions for heresies which were not matters of faith but of philosophie and even in philosophie truely held by them who were condemned for hereticks and mistaken by their Judges that condemned them Little things were called in question lest great things should passe unquestioned and some of these upon Damascens true ground still true in rule but not alwayes in the application Parva non sunt parva Nothing may be thought little where the consequence may prove great Descend we from those great spheres the State and the Church into a lesser that is the conscience of particular men and consider the danger of exposing those vines to Cant. 2. 15. little foxes of leaving small sinnes unconsidered unrepented uncorrected In that glistering circle in the firmament which we call the Galaxie the milkie-way there is not one starre of any of the six great magnitudes which Astronomers proceed upon belonging to that circle it is a glorious circle and possesseth a great part of heaven and yet is all of so little starres as have no name no knowledge taken of them So certainly are there many Saints in heaven that shine as starres and yet are not of those great magnitudes to have been Patriarchs or Prophets or Apostles or Martyrs or Doctours or Virgins but good blessed souls that have religiously performed the duties of inferiour callings and no more And as certainly are there many souls tormented in hell that never sinned sinne of any of the great magnitudes Idolatry Adultery Murder or the like but inconsiderately have slid and insensibly continued in the practise and habit of lesser sinnes But parva non sunt parva Nothing may be thought little where the consequence may prove great When our Saviour sayes That we Matth. 12. 36. shall give an account for every idle word in the day of judgement what great hills of little sands will oppresse us then And if substances of sinne were removed yet what circumstances of sinne would condemne us If idle words have this weight there can be no word thought idle in the Scriptures And therefore I blame not in any I decline not in mine own practise the making use of the varietie and copiousnesse of the holy Ghost who is ever abundant and yet never superfluous in expressing his purpose in change of words And so no doubt we might do now in observing a difference between these words in our text Image and Likenesse and between these two forms of expressing it In our image and After our likenesse This might be done But that that must be done will possesse all our time that is to declare taking the two for this time to be but a farther illustration of one another Image and Likenesse to our present purpose to be all one what this image and this likenesse imports and how this North scatters our former cloud what our advantage is that we are made to an image to a pattern and our obligation to set a pattern before us in all our actions God appointed Moses to make all that he made by a pattern God himself made all that he made according to a pattern God had deposited and laid up in himself certain forms patterns Ideas of every thing that he made He made nothing of which he had not preconceived the form and predetermined in himself I will make it thus And when he had made any thing he saw it was good Good because it answered the pattern the image Good because it was like to that And therefore though of other creatures God pronounced they were good because they were presently like their pattern that is like that form which was in him for them yet of man he forbore to say that he was good because his conformitie to his pattern was to appeare after in his subsequent actions Now as God made man after another pattern and therefore we have a dignitie above all that we had another manner of creation then the rest so have we a comfort above all that we have another manner of administration then the rest God exercises another manner of providence upon man then upon other creatures A sparrow falls not without God sayes Matth. 10. 29. Christ yet no doubt God works otherwise in the fall of eminent persons then in the fall of sparrows for ye are of more value then many sparrows sayes Christ there of every man some men single are of more value then many men God doth not thank the ant for her industrie and good husbandrie in providing for her self God doth not reward the foxes for concurring Judg. 15. 4. with Samson in his revenge God doth not fee the lion which was his executioner upon the 1. King 13. 24 Prophet
that so on both sides marriage should have such a degree of eternitie as to have had no beginning of marriage before marriage It should have this degree of eternitie too this qualitie of a circle to have no interruption no breaking in the way by unjust suspicions and jealousies Where there is spiritus immunditiei as S. Paul calls it A spirit of uncleannesse there will necessarily be spiritus zelotypiae as Moses calls it A spirit of jealousie But to raise the devil in the power of the devil to call up one spirit by another spirit by the spirit of jealousie and suspicion to induce the spirit of uncleannesse where it was not if a man conjure up a devil so God knows who shall conjure it down again As jealousie is a care and not a suspicion God is not ashamed to protest of himself that he is a jealous God God commands that no idolatrie be committed Thou shalt not bowe down to a graven image Exod. 20. 5 and before he accuses any man to have bowed down to a graven image before any idolatrie was committed he tells them that he is a jealous God God is jealous before there be any harm done And God presents it as a curse when he sayes My jealousie shall depart from thee and I will be Eze. 16. 42. quiet and no more angrie that is I will leave thee to thy self and take no more care of thee Jealousie that implies care and honour and counsel and tendernesse is rooted in God for God is a jealous God and his servants are jealous servants as S. Paul professes of himself I am jealous over 2. Cor. 11. 2 you with a godly jealousie But jealousie that implies diffidence and suspicion and accusation is rooted in the devil for he is The accuser of the brethren So then this secular marriage should be In aeternum eternall for ever as to have no beginning before and so too as to have no jealous interruption by the way for it is so eternall as that it can have no end in this life Those whom God hath joyned no man no devil can separate so as that it shall not remain a marriage so farre as that if those separated persons will live together again yet they shall not be new married so farre certainly the band of marriage continues still The devil makes no marriages he may have a hand in drawing conveyances in the temporall conditions there may be practise but the marriage is made by God in heaven The devil can break no marriages neither though he can by sinne break off all the good uses and take away all the comforts of marriage I pronounce not now whether adulterie dissolve marriage or no It is S. Augustines wisdome to say When the Scripture is silent let me be silent too and I may go lower then he and say Where the Church is silent let me be silent too and our Church is so farre silent in this as that it hath not said that adulterie dissolves marriage Perchance then it is not the death of marriage but surely it is a deadly wound We have authours in the Romane church that think Fornicationem non vagam that such an incontinent life as is limited to one certain person is no deadly sinne but there are none even amongst them that diminish the crime of adulterie Habere quasi non haberes is Christs counsel to have a wife as though thou hadst none that is for continencie and temperance and forbearance and abstinence upon some occasions But Non habere quasi haberes is not so not to have a wife and yet have her to have her that is anothers this is the devils counsel Of that salutation of the Angel to the blessed Virgin Mary Blessed art thou amongst women we may make ever this interpretation not onely that she was blessed amongst women that is above women but that she was Benedicta Blessed amongst women that all women blest her that no woman had occasion to curse her And this is the eternitie of this secular marriage as farre as this world admits any eternitie that it should have no beginning before no interruption of jealousie in the way no such approach towards dissolution as that incontinencie in all opinions and in all Churches is agreed to be And here also without any scruple of fear or of suspicion of the contrarie there is place for this benediction upon this couple Build O Lord upon thine own foundations in these two and establish thy former graces with future that no person ever complain of either of them nor either of them of one another and so he and she are married in aeternum for ever We are come now in our order proposed at Part. II first to our second part for all is said that I intended of the secular marriage And of this second the spirituall marriage much needs not to be said there is another priest that contracts that another preacher that celebrates that the Spirit of God to our spirit And for the third marriage the eternall marriage it is a boldnesse to offer to say any thing of a thing so inexpressible as the joyes of heaven it is a diminution of them to go about to heighten them it is a shadowing of them to go about to lay any colours or lights upon them But yet your patience may perchance last to a word of each of these three circumstances the persons the action the term both in this spirituall and in the eternall marriage First then as in the former part the secular marriage for the persons there we considered first Adam and Eve and after every man and woman and this couple in particular so in this spirituall marriage we consider first Christ and his Church for the persons but more particularly Christ and my soul And can these persons meet In such a distance and in such a disparagement can persons meet The Sonne of God and the sonne of man When I consider Christ to be Germen Jehovae the bud and blossome the fruit off-spring of Jehovah Jehovah himself and my self before he took me in hand to be not a potters vessel of earth but that earth of which the potter might make a vessel if he would and break it if he would when he had made it when I consider Christ to have been from before all beginnings and to be still the image of the Father the same stamp upon the same metall and my self a piece of rusty copper in which those lines of the image of God which were imprinted in me in my creation are defaced and worn and washed and burnt and ground away by my many and many and many sinnes when I consider Christ in his circle in glorie with his Father before he came into this world establishing a glorious Church when he was in this world and glorifying that Church with that glorie which himself had before when he went out of this world and then consider my self in my circle I
speaking of our state in the generall resurrection That Lambe who was brought to the slaughter and Isa 53. 7. opened not his mouth and I who have opened my mouth and poured out imprecations and curses upon men and execrations and blasphemies against God upon every occasion that Lambe which was slain from the beginning and I who was slain by him who was a murderer from the beginning that Lambe which took away the sinnes of the world and I who brought more sinnes into the world then any sacrifice but the bloud of this Lambe could take away this Lambe and I these are the persons shall meet and marrie there is the action This is not a clandestine marriage not the private seal of Christ in the obsignation of his Spirit and yet such a clandestine marriage is a good marriage nor is it such a parish-marriage as when Christ married me to himself at my baptisme in a Church here and yet that marriage of a Christian soul to Christ in that sacrament is a blessed marriage But this is a marriage in that great and glorious congregation where all my sinnes shall be laid open to the eyes of all the world where all the blessed Virgins shall see all my uncleannesses and all the Martyrs see all my tergiversations and all the Confessours see all my double dealings in Gods cause where Abraham shall see my faithlesnesse in Gods promises and Job my impatience in Gods corrections and Lazarus my hardnesse of heart in distributing Gods blessings to the poore and those Virgins and Martyrs and Confessours and Abraham and Job and Lazarus and all that congregation shall look upon the Lambe and upon me and upon one another as though they would all forbid those banes and say to one another Will this Lambe have any thing to do with this soul And yet there and then this Lambe shall marrie me and marrie me In aeternum For ever which is our last circumstance It is not well done to call it a circumstance for the eternitie is a great part of the essence of that marriage Consider then how poore and needie a thing all the riches of this world how flat and tastlesse a thing all the pleasures of this world how pallid and faint and dilute a thing all the honours of this world are when the very treasure and joy and glorie of heaven it self were unperfect if it were not eternall and my marriage shall be so In aeternum For ever The Angels were not married so they incurred an irreparable divorce from God and are separated for ever and I shall be married to him In aeternum For ever The Angels fell in love when there was no object presented before any thing was created when there was nothing but God and themselves they fell in love with themselves and neglected God and so fell In aeternum For ever I shall see all the beautie and all the glorie of all the Saints of God and love them all and know that the Lambe loves them too without jealousie on his part or theirs or mine and so be married In aeternum For ever without interruption or diminution or change of affections I shall see the sunne black as sackcloth Reve. 6. 12 13 14. of hair and the moon become as bloud and the starres fall as a fig-tree casts her untimely figs and the heavens rolled up together as a scrowl I shall see a divorce between princes and their prerogatives between nature and all her elements between the spheres and all their intelligences between matter it self and all her forms and my marriage shall be In aeternum For ever I shall see an end of faith nothing to be beleeved that I do not know and an end of hope nothing to be wished that I do not enjoy but no end of that love in which I am married to that Lambe for ever yea I shall see an end of some of the offices of the Lambe himself Christ himself shall be no longer a Mediatour an Intercessour an Advocate and yet shall continue a Husband to my soul for ever where I shall be rich enough without joynture for my Husband cannot die and wise enough without experience for no new thing can happen there and healthy enough without physick for no sicknesse can enter and which is by much the highest of all safe enough without grace for no temptation that needs particular grace can attempt me There where the Angels which cannot die could not live this very bodie which cannot choose but die shall live and live as long as that God of life that made it Lighten our darknesse we beseech thee O Lord that in thy light we may see light illustrate our understandings kindle our affections poure oyl to our zeal that we may come to the marriage of this Lambe and that this Lambe may come quickly to this marriage and in the mean time blesse these thy servants with making this secular marriage a type of the spirituall and the spirituall an earnest of that eternall which they and we by thy mercie shall have in that kingdome which thy Sonne our Saviour hath purchased with the inestimable price of his incorruptible bloud To whom c. FINIS A SERMON Upon the xliiii verse of the xxi Chapter of MATTHEW By Dr. DONNE DEAN OF PAVLS ¶ Printed by the Printers to the Vniversitie of CAMBRIDGE MDCXXXIIII Matth. 21. 44. VVhosoever shall fall on this stone he shall be broken but on whomsoever it shall fall it will dash him in pieces ALmightie God made us for his glorie and his glorie is not the glorie of a tyrant to destroy us but his glorie is our happinesse he put us in a fair way towards that happinesse in nature in creation that way would have brought us to heaven but there we fell and if we consider our selves irrevocably he put us after into another way through many hedges and plowed lands through the difficulties and encumbrances of all the ceremoniall Law there was no way to heaven but that after he brought us a crosse way by the crosse of Christ Jesus and the application of his Gospel and that is our way now and if we compare one way of nature and our way we went out of that way at the towns end assoon as we were in it Adam died assoon as he lived and fell assoon as he was set on foot if we compare the way of the Law and ours the Jews and the Christians their Synagogue was but as Gods farm our Church is as his dwelling house Locavit vineam He let out his vine to husbandmen and then Peregrè profectus He went into a farre countrey he promised a Messias but deferred his coming a long time But to us Dabitur regnum A kingdome is given here is a good improvement the lease changed into an absolute deed of gift here is a good enlargement of the term he gives therefore he will not take away again he gives a kingdome therefore there is a
no possible means of those means which God hath ordained in his Church to recompact them again no voice of Gods word shall draw them no threatning of Gods judgements shall drive them no censure of Gods Church shall fit them no sacrament shall cement and glue them to Christs bodie again in temporall blessings he shall be unthankfull in temporall afflictions he shall be obdurate and these two shall serve as the upper and neather milstone and so shall grinde the reprobate sinner to powder Lastly this is to be done by falling upon him and what is that I know some expositours take it to be but the falling of Gods judgements upon him in this world there is no grinding to powder All Gods judgements here for any thing we can know have the nature of physick in them and no man is here so absolutely broken in pieces but that he may be reunited We choose to follow the Ancients in this that the falling of the stone upon the reprobate is Christs last and irrevocable falling upon him in his last judgement that when he shall wish that the hills might fall and cover him this stone shall fall and grinde him to powder He shall be broken and be no more found sayes the Prophet Dan. 11. 19. Daniel yea he shall be broken and be no more sought no man shall consider him what he is now or what he was before for that stone which in Daniel was cut out without the hand which was a figure of Christ who came without ordinarie generation when that great image was to be overthrown broke not an arm or leg but the whole image in pieces and it wrought not onely upon the weak parts but it broke all the clay and the iron the brasse the silver the gold so when a stone falls thus when Christ comes to judgement he shall not onely condemne him for his clay his earthly covetous sinnes not for his iron his revengefull and oppressing and rustie sinnes nor for his brasse his shining and glistering sinnes which he hath filed and polished but he shall fall upon his silver his gold his religious his precious sinnes his hypocriticall hearing of sermons his Pharisaicall giving of alms and aswell his subtil counterfeting of religion as his Atheisticall opposing of religion this stone Christ himself shall fall upon him and a showre of other stones shall oppresse him Sicut pluit laqueos sayes David As God rained snares and springs upon them in this world abundance of temporall blessings to be occasions of sinne unto them so pluet grandinem he shall rain such hail-stones upon them as shall grinde them to powder there shall fall upon him the naturall law which was written in his heart and did rebuke him when he prepared for a sinne there shall fall upon him that written law which cried out from the mouthes of the Prophets in these places to avert them from sinne there shall fall upon him those sinnes that he hath done and those sinnes which he hath not done if nothing but want of opportunitie and means hinder him from doing them there shall fall upon him these sinnes which he hath done after anothers dehortation those which another hath done after his provocation there the stones of Nineve shall fall upon him and of as many cities as have repented with lesse proportions of mercie and grace then God afforded him there the rubbish of Sodom and Gomorrah shall fall upon him and as manie cities as their ruine might have been example to him all those stones shall fall upon him and to adde weight to these Christ Jesus himself shall fall upon his conscience with unanswerable questions and grinde his soul to powder but He that overcometh his soul Revel 2. 11 shall not be hurt by the second death He that comes to remorses early and earnestly after a sinne and seeks by ordinarie means his reconciliation to God in his Church is in the best estate that man can be in now for howsoever we can say now that repentance is as happie an estate as innocencie yet certainly every man feels more comfort and spirituall joy after a true repentance for a sinne then he had in that degree of innocencie which he had before he committed that sinne and therefore in this case also we may easily repeat those words of S. Augustine Audeo dicere I dare be bold to say that many a man hath been the better for some sinne Almightie God who hath given us civil wisdome to make use of our enemies give us also this heavenly wisdome to make that use of our particular sinnes that thereby our wretched condition in our selves and our means of reparation in Christ Jesus may be manifested unto us To whom c. FINIS A SERMON Upon the xxii verse of the v Chapter of JOHN By Dr. DONNE DEAN OF PAVLS ¶ Printed by the Printers to the Vniversitie of CAMBRIDGE MDCXXXIIII John 5. 22. The Father Judgeth no man but hath committed all Judgement to the Sonne WHen our Saviour Christ forbids us to cast pearls before swine we understand Matth. 7. 6. ordinarily in that place that by pearls are understood the Scriptures and when we consider the naturall generation and production of pearls that they grow bigger and bigger by a continuall succession and devolution of dew and other glutinous moisture that falls upon them and there condenses and hardens so that a pearl is but a bodie of many shells many crusts many films many coats enwrapped upon one another to this scripture that we have in hand doth that Metaphor of pearl very properly appertain because our Saviour Christ in this chapter undertaking to prove his own divinitie and godhead to the Jews who acknowledged and confessed the Father to be God but denied it of him he folds and wraps up reason upon reason argument upon argument that all things are common between the Father and him that whatsoever the Father does he does whatsoever the Father is the Sonne is for first he sayes he is a partner a copartner with the Father in the present administration and government of the world My Father worketh hitherto John 5. 17 and I work well if the Father ease himself upon instruments now yet was it so from the beginning had he a part in the creation yes What John 5. 19 things soever the Father doth those also doth the Sonne likewise But doth this extend to the works properly and naturally belonging to God to the remission of sinnes to the infusion of grace to the spirituall resurrection of them that are dead in their iniquities yes even to that too For as the John 5. 21. Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them even so the Sonne quickeneth whom he will But hath not this power a determination and expiration shall it end at the least when the world ends no not then for God hath given him authoritie to execute John 5. 27. judgement because he is the Sonne of