to be angry for this 4. 3. and after about the Gourd dost thou well to be angry for that he replies I do well to be angry even unto death How much worse a death then death is this life which so good men would so often change for death But if my case be St. Pauls case Quotidie morior 1 Cor. 15.31 that I die dayly that something heavier then death fall upon me every day If my case be Davids case Tota die mortificamur psa 44.22 all the day long we are killed that not only every day but every hour of the day something heavier then death fals upon me though that be true of me conceptus in peccatis I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me 51. 5. There I died one death though that be true of me natus filius irae I was born not only the child of sin but the child of the wrath of God for sin which is a heavier death yet Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis with God the Lord are the issues of death and after a Job and a Joseph and a Jeremy and a Daniel I cannot doubt of a deliverance and if no other deliverance conduce more to his glory and my good yet He hath the keyes of death Apo. 1.18 and he can let me out at that dore that is deliver me from the manifold deaths of this world the omni die and the tota die the every daies death and every hours death by that one death the final disolution of body and soul the end of all But then is that the end of all Exitus a morte Incinerationis is that dissolution of body and soul the last death that the body shall suffer for of spiritual deaths we speak not now it is not Though this be exitus a morte it is introitus in mortem though it be an issue from the manifold deaths of this world yet it is an entrance into the death of corruption and putrifaction and vermiculation and incineration and dispersion in and from the grave in which every dead man dies over again It was a prerogative peculiar to Christ not to die this death not to see corruption What gave him this privilege not Josephs great proportions of gums and spices that might have preserved his body from corruption and incineration longer then he needed it longer then three daies but yet would not have done it for ever What preserv'd him then did his exemption and freedome from original sin preserve him from this corruption and incineration 'T is true that original sin hath induc'd this corruption and incineration upon us 1 Câ—â— 15.33 If we had not sinn'd in Adam mortality had not put on immortality as the Apostle speaks nor corruption had not put on incorruption but we had had our transmigration from this to the other world without any mortality any corruption at all But yet since Christ took sin upon him so far as made him mortal he had it so far too as might have made him see this corruption and incineration though he had no original sin in himself What preserv'd him then did the hypostatical union of both natures God and man preserve his flesh from this corruption this incineration 't is true that this was a most powerful embalming To be embalm'd with the divine nature it self to be embalm'd with eternity was able to preserve him from corruption and incineration for ever And he was embalm'd so embalm'd with the divine nature even in his body as well as in his soul for the Godhead the divine nature did not depart but remain still united to his dead body in the grave But yet for all this powerful imbalming this hypostatical union of both natures we see Christ did die and for all this union which made him God and man he became no man for the union of body and soul makes the man and he whose soul and body are seperated by death as long as that state lasts is properly no man And therefore as in him the dissolution of body and soul was no dissolution of the hypostatical union so is there nothing that constrains us to say that though the flesh of Christ had seen corruption and incineration in the grave this had been any dissolving of the hypostatical union for the divine nature the Godhead might have remain'd with all the elements and principles of Christs body as well as it did with the two constitutive parts of his person his body and soul This incorruption then was not in Josephs gums and spices nor was it in Christs innocency and exemption from original sin nor was it that is it is not necessary to say it was in the Hypostatical union But this incorruptibleness of his flesh Psa 16 10. is most conveniently plac d in that non dabis Thou wilt not suffer thy holy one to see corruption We look no farther for causes or reasons in the mysteries of our religion but to the will and pleasure of God Mat. 11.26 Christ himself limited his inquisition in that Ita est even so father for so it seemed good in thy sight Christs body did not see corruption therefore because God had decreed that it should not The humble soul and only the humble soul is the religions soul rests himself upon Gods purposes and his decrees but then it is upon those purposes and decrees of God which he hath declared and manifested not such as are conceiv'd and imagin'd in our selves though upon some probability some verisimilitude So in our present case Act. 2.31.13.35 Peter proceeded in his sermon at Jerusalem and so Paul in his at Antioch they preached Christ to be risen without having seen corruption not only because God had decreed it but because he had manifested that decree in his Prophet Therefore does St. Paul cite by special number the second Psalme for that decree and therefore both St. Peter and St. Paul cite for that place in the 16. Psal for v. 10. when God declares his decree and purpose in the express word of his Prophet or when he declares it in the real execution of the decree then he makes it ours then he manifests it to us And therefore as the mysteries of our religion are not the objects of our reason but by faith we rest in Gods decree and purpose it is so O God because it is thy will it should be so so Gods decrees are ever to be considered in the manifestation thereof All manifestation is either in the word of God or in the execution of the decree and when these two concur and meet it is the strongest demonstration that can be when therefore I find those marks of Adoption and spiritual filiation which are delivered in the word of God to be upon me when I find that real execution of his good purpose upon me as that actually I do live under the obedience and under the conditions which are
only in the earth nature and naturall reason do not produce grace but yet grace can take root in no other thing but in the nature and reason of man whether we consider Gods subsequent graces which grow out of his first grace formerly given to us and well employed by us or his first grace which works upon our natural faculties and grows there still this salvation that is this grace is near us for it is within us then the third term believing is either quando credidistis primum when you began to believe either in an imputative belief of others in your baptism or a faint belief upon your first Catechisings and Instrustions or quando credidistis tantum when you only professed a belief or faith and did nothing in declaration of that faith to the edification of others Salus First then salvation in this second sense is the internal operation of the holy Ghost in infusing grace for therefore doth St. Basil call the holy Ghost verbum Dei the word of God which is the name properly peculiar to the Son quia interpres filii sicut filius patris that as the Father had revealed his will in the Prophets and then the Son comes and interprets all that actually this prophecy is meant of my coming this of my dying and so makes a real comment and an actual interpretation of all the prophecies for he does come and he does die accordingly so the holy Ghost comes and comments upon this comment interprets this interpretation and tels thy soul that all this that the Father had promised and the Son had performed was intended by them and by the working of their spirit is now appropriated to thy particular soul In the constitution and making of a natural man the body is not the man nor the soul is not the man but the union of these two makes up the man the spirits in a man which are the thin and active part of the blood and so are of a kind of middle nature between soul and body those spirits are able to doe and they doe the office to unite and apply the faculties of the soul to the organs of the body and so there is a man so in a regenerate man a Christian man his being born of Christian Parents that gives him a body that makes him of the body of the Covenant it gives him a title an interest in the Covenant which is jus ad rem thereby he may make his claim to the seal of the Covenant to baptism and it cannot be denied him and then in his baptism that Sacrament gives him a soul a spiritual seal jus in re an actual possession of Grace but yet as there are spirits in us which unite body and soul so there must be subsequent acts and works of the blessed spirit that must unite and confirm all and make up this spiritual man in the wayes of sanctification for without that his body that is his being born within the Covenant and his soul that is his having received Grace in baptism do not make him up This Grace is this Salvation and when this Grace works powerfully in thee in the wayes of sanctification then is this Salvation neer thee which is our second term in this second acceptation propè neer This neerness which is the effectuall working of Grace Prope Heb. 4.12 the Apostle expresses fully That it pierceth to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit for though properly the soul and spirit of a man be all one yet divers faculties and operations give them somtimes divers names in the Scriptures Anima quia animat sayes St. Ambrose and spiritus quia spirat The quickning of the body is the soul but the quickning of the soul is the spirit If this Salvation be brought to this neerness that is this grace to this powerfulness thou shalt find it in anima in thy soul in those organs wherein thy soul uses thy body in thy senses and in the sensible things ordain'd by God in his Church Sacraments and Ceremonies and thou shalt find it neerer in spiritu as the spirit of God hath seal'd it to thy spirit invisibly inexpressibly It shall be neer to thee so as that thy reason shall apprehend it and neerer then that thy faith shall establish it and neerer then all this it shall create in thee a modest and sober but yet an infallible assurance that thy salvation shall never depart from thee Magnificabit anima tua Dominum as the B. Virgin speaks Thy soul shall magnifie the Lord all thy natural faculties shall be employed upon an assent to the Gospel thou shalt be able to prove it to thy self and to prove it to others to be the Gospel of Salvation And then Exultabit spiritus Thy spirit shall rejoyce in God thy Saviour because by the farther seal of sanctification thy spirit shall receive testimony from the spirit that as Christ is Idem homo cum te the same man that thou art so thou art Idem spiritus cum Domino the same spirit that he is so far as that as a spirit cannot be separated in it self so neither canst thou be separated from God in Christ And this this exaltation of Grace when it thus growes up to this height of sanctification is that neerness which brings Salvation farther than our believing does and that 's the last term in this part Believing Credidistis Now neerer then Believing neerer than Faith a man might well think nothing can bring Salvation for Faith is the hand that reaches it and takes hold of it But yet as though our bodily hand reach to our temporal food yet the mouth and the stomach must do their office too and so that meat must be distributed into all parts of the body and assimilated to them so though our faith draw this salvation neer us yet when our mouth is imployed that we have a delight to glorifie God in our discourses and to declare his wonderfull works to the sons of men in our thankfulness And when this faith of ours is distributed over all the body that the body of Christs Church is edified and alienated by our good life and sanctification then is this Salvation neerer us that is safelier seal'd to us then when we believed only Either then this quando credidistis when you believed may be refer'd to Infants or to the first faith and the first degrees thereof in men In Infants when that seminall faith or potentiall faith which is by some conceived to be in the Infants of Christian parents at their baptism or that actuall faith which from their parents or from the Church is thought to be applyed to them accepted in their behalf in that Sacrament when this faith growes up after by this new comming of Christ in the power of his Grace and his Spirit to be a lively faith expressed in charity then Salus proprior then is Salvation neerer than when they believed whether this belief were their
his alleigance induces an addition of punishment upon the devil himself Consider a little further our wretchedness in this prodigality we think those Laws barbarous and inhumane which permit the sute of men in debt for the satisfaction of Creditors but we sell our selves and grow the farther in debt by being sold we are sold and to even rate our debts and to aggravate our condemnation We find in the history of the Muscovits that it is an ordinary detainder amongst them to sell themselves and their posterity into everlasting bondage for hot drink In one winter a wretched man will drink himself and his posterity into perpetual slavery But we sell our selves not for drink but for thirst we are sory when our appetite too soon decaies and we would fain sin more than we do At what a high rate did the blessed Martyrs sell their bodies They built up Gods Church with their blood They sowed his field and prepared his harvest with their blood they got heaven for their bodies and we give bodies souls for hell In a right inventary every man that ascends to a true value of himself considers it thus First His Soul then His life after his fame and good name And lastly his goods and estate for thus their own nature hath ranked them and thus they are as in nature so ordinarily in legal consideration preferred before one another But for our souls because we know not how they came into us we care not how they go out because if I aske a Philosopher whither my soul came in by propagation from my parents or by an immediate infusion from God perchance he cannot tell so I think a divine can no more tell me whither when my soul goes out of me it be likely to turn on the right or on the left hand if I continue in this course of sin And then for the second thing in this inventary Life the Devil himself said true skin for skin and all that a man hath will he give for his life Indeed we do not easily give away our lives expresly and at once but we do very easily suffer our selves to be cousened of our lives we pour in death in drink and we call that health we know our life to be but a span and yet we can wash away one inche in ryot we can burn away one inch in lust we can bleed away one inch in quarrels we have not an inch for every sin and if we do not pour out our lives yet we drop them away For the third peece of our self our fame and reputation who had not rather be thought an usurer then a beggar who had not rather be the object of envy by being great than of scorn and contempt by being poor upon any conditions And for the last of all which is our goods Seneca though our coveteousness appears most in the love of them in that lowest thing of all Adeo omnia homini cariora seipso so much does every man think every inferiour thing better than himself than his fame than his body than his soul which is a most perverse undervaluing of himself and a damnable humility yet even with these goods also as highly as he values them a man will past if to fuell and foment and maintain that sin that he delights in that which is the most precious our souls we undervalue most and that which we do esteem most though naturally it should be lowest our estate we are content to wast and dissipate for our sins And whereas the Heathens needed laws to restrain them from an expensive and wastful worship of their Gods every man was so apt to exceed in sacrifices and such other religious duties til that law Deus frugi Colunto Let men be thrifty moderate in religious expenses was enacted which law was a kind of mortmain and inhibition That every man might not bestow what he would upon the service of those Gods we have turned our prodigality the other way upon the devil whom we have made Haeredem in esse and our sole executor and sacrificed soul and life and fame and fortune all the gifts of God and God himself by making his religion and his Sacraments and the profession of his name in an hypocriticall use of them to be the devils instruments to draw us the easilyer and hold us the faster and what prodigality can be conceived to exceed this in which we do not onely mispend our selves Nihil but mispend our God The other point in this exprobration is that as we have prodigally sold our selves so we have inconsiderately sold our selves for nothing we have in our bargain diseases and we have poverty and we have unsensibleness of our miseries but diseases are but privations of health and poverty but a privation of wealth and unsensibleness but a privation of tenderness of Conscience all are privations and privations are nothing if a man had got nothing by a bargain but repentance he would think and justly he had got little but if thou hadst repentance in this bargain thy bargain were the better if thou couldst come to think thy bargain bad it were a good bargain but the height of the misery is in this that one of those nothings for which we have sold our selves is a stupidity an unsensibleness of our own wretchedness The Laws do annull and make void fraudulent conveyances and then the laws presume fraud in the conveyance if at least half the value of the thing be not given now if the whole world be not worth one soul who can say that he hath half his value it were not meerly nothing if considering that inventary which we spoke of before we had the worse for the better that were but an ill exchange but yet it were not nothing If we had bodies for our souls it were not meerly nothing but we finde that sin that sells our souls decays and withers our bodies our bodies grow incapable of that sin unable to commit that sin which we sold our souls for If we had fame and reputation for out bodies it were not nothing but we see that Heretiques that give their bodies to the fire are by the very law infamous and they are infamous in every mans apprehension If we had worldly goods for loss of fame and of our good name yet still it were not nothing but we see that witches who are infamous persons for the most part live in extreme beggery too So that the exprobration is just we have sold our selves for nothing and however the ordinary murmuring may be true in other things that all things are grown dearer our souls are still cheap enough which at first were all sold in gross for perchance an Apple and are now retailed every day for nothing Joseph was sold underfoot by his brethren but it is hard to say for how much some Copies have that he was sold for 20 pieces and some for 25 and some for 30 and S. Ambrose and S.
is without money that we are Redeemed for for that there is reason in Equity but for the Redemption itself there is no therfore no reason at all to be assigned but onley the Eternall goodness of God himself and the Eternall purpose of his will Of which will of God whosoever seeks a reason Aliquid majus Deo quaerit says S. Augustin he that seeks what perswaded or inclind the will of God seeks for somthing wiser and greater than God himself In this redemption then God pursues the devil in all those steps by which he had made his profit of a prodigality for first as we gave away our selves so he restores us to our selves again It is well expresed in the parable of the prodigall Luc. 15. and his case is ours The portion which he asked of his father was the use of his free-will God gave it him Adams first Immortality was posse non mori he needed not to have died It was in his own power whether he would keep a free-will or no and he spent that stock he lost that free-will He spent not his free-will so as Bellarmin understands this spending that that man may be sayd to spend his life ill that misimployes it but yet he hath this life in him still But the prodigall Adam spent is utterly he spent it so that he and we have no freewill at all left But yet even the prodigall sayd that he would return to his father and he came He had not only some sudden thoughts of Repentance but he put himself actually in the way cum longe abesset says that parable when he was a great way off yet because he was in the way his father met him and kissed him and put that Robe upon him which was not onely Dignitas quam perdidit Adam as S. Austin qualifies it a restitution to the same integrity which Adam had and had lost but that was Amictus sapientiae so S. Ambrose calls it it was an ability to preserve himself in that integrity to which he was restored It was a Robe that was put upon him it vvas none of his ovvn but vvhen it vvas put upon him it rectified and restored those faculties which were his own as the eye sees in a man restored to life though the soul enable the eye and not the eye it self so the faculty of free-will works in us as well as it did in Adam though onely the grace of God enable that faculty When God hath wrought that first cure which he does by incorporating us in the Church by baptisme that we are our selves again then as in the case of prodigals in the law as they had Tutors and Curators appointed them so he sends the Holy Ghost to be our Guardian our Curator and as the office of that person in that law was double first to reverse all contracts and bargains which that prodigal person in that state had made and secondly to inhibit and hinder him from making new contracts so this blessed Spirit of consolation by his sanctification seals to our consciences a Quietus est a discharge of all former spiritual debts he cancells all them he nails them to the cross of Christ and then he strengthens us against relapses into the same sins again He proceds farther than this beyond restering us beyond preserving us for he betters us he improves us to a better condition than we were in at first And this he does first by purging and purifying us and then by changing and transmuting us He purges us by his sun-shine by his temporal blessings for as the greatest globes of gold lye nearest the face and top of the earth where they have received the best concoction from the heat of the sun so certainly in reason they who have had Gods continual sun-shine upon them in a prosperous fortune should have received the best concoction the best digestion of the testimonies of his love and consequently be the purer and the more refined mettall If this purging prevail not then he comes to purge those whom he means to lay up in his treasure with tribulation he carries them from the sun-shine into the fire and therefore if those tribulations fall upon thee in a great and heavy measure think thy dross needed this vehemence and do not make afflictions Arguments of God neglecting thee for he that is presented to have suffered very much is also presented to have been very righteous that is Iob And he that was the most innocent of all suffered most of all Christ Iesus thy Saviour From this purifying comes our transmutation that we are changed in semen Dei made the seed of God for so God calls children that are derived from honest and godly parents Mal. 2. The seed of God in the Prophet but more fully in the Apostle whosoever is born of God sinneth not for his seed remaineth in him 1 Ioh. 3. for this generation is our regeneration Iacob 1. of his own will begat he us with the word of truth this grace makes us as properly the seed of God as sin makes us the seed of the Devill of the Serpent 3. and so we are expresly called in Gen. and so also in the Apostles you are of your father the devil Io. 8. and the lusts of your father you will do So we are changed in naturam Dei as S. Peter expresses 2.1 it By his precious promises we are made partakers of the divine nature not Ab anteriori nor a posteriori not that we are so derived from the nature and essence of God as that our souls should be of his very substance as the Manichees imagined nor as Origen mistook upon misinterpreting these words to the Corinthians ut Deus sit omnia in omnibus 1.15 That God should be all in all so as that at last the whole nature of mankind and indeed all other natures and substances if Origen have been rightly understood by some men near his own times should be swallowed up and drowned in the very substance of God himself But this transmutation is a glorious restoring of Gods image in us and it is our conformity to him and when either his temporal blessings or his afflictions his sun or his fire hath tried us up to that height to a conformity to him then come we to that transmutation which admits no re-transmutation which is a modest but infalible assurance of a final perseverance so to be joyned to the Lord as to be one spirit with him for as a spirit cannot be divided so they who are thus changed into him are so much His so much He as that nothing can separate them from him and this is the ladder by which we may try how far we are in the way to heaven And when we are come to this then we are able to see and to consider the poverty and the value of him who had before bought us for nothing and enthraled us 2 Cor. 4. The Devil is called the
faithfull word all this while When they send forth Bulls and Dispensations to take effect occasionally and upon emergencies That rebus sic stantibus If you finde matter in this State this shall be Catholique Divinity if not then it shall be Heresie where is this fidelis sermo this faithfull word amongst them If for the space of a 1500 yeers the twelve Articles of the Apostles Creed might have sav'd any man but since as many more Trent Articles must be as necessary still where is that fidelis sermo that faithfull word which we may rely upon God hath not bound himselfe and therefore neither hath he bound us to any word but his own In that only and in all that wee shall bee sure to finde him Fidelem Deum A faithfull God Now the Truth and Faithfulnesse of the Word Acceptatio consists not only in this quod verax that it is true in it selfe but in this also quod testificatus that it is established by good testimony to be so It is therefore faithfull because it is the word of God and therefore also because it may be proved to be the word of God by humane testimonies which is that which is especially intended in this clause Omni acceptatione dignus It is worthy of all acceptation worthy to bee received by our Faith and by our Reason too Our Reason tels us that Gods will is revealed to Man somewhere else man could not know how God would be worshipped and our Reason tells us that this is that Word in which that Will is revealed And therefore the greatest part of the Latine-Fathers particularly Ambrose and Augustine read these words otherwise not fideliter no but Humanus sermo and so many Greek Copies have it too That it is a speech which man not as he is a faithfull man but even as he is a reasonable man may comprehend not as Saint Hierom will needs understand those words Si Humanus non Divinus non esset omni acceptatione dignus for that 's undenyably true if it came meerly from man and not from God it were not worthy to be received by faith but as S. Augustine expresses that which himselfe and S. Ambrose meant sic Humanus Divinus quomodo Christus Deus homo as Christ is God too so as that he is Man too so the Scriptures are from God so as that they are from Man too the Gospel is a faithfull word essentially as it is the word of God derived from him and it is a faithfull word too declaratively as it is presented by such light and evidence of Reason and such testimonies of the Church as even the reason of Man cannot refuse it So that the reason of man accepts the Gospell first out of a generall notion That the will of God must be revealed somewhere and then he receives this for that Gospell rather then the Alcoran of the Turks rather then the Talmud of the Jewes out of those infinite and cleere arguments which even his reason presents to him for that And then as when he compares Scripture with the booke of Creatures and Nature he finds that evidence more forcible then the other and when he finds this Scripture compared with other pretended Scriptures Alcaron or Talmud he finds it to be of infinite power above them so when he comes to the true Scriptures and compares the new-Testament with the Old the Gospel with the Law he finds this to be a performance of those promises a fullfiling of those Prophecies a revelation of those Types and Figures and an accomplishment and a possession of those hopes and those reversions And when hee comes to that argument which works most forcibly and most worthily upon man's reason which is Antiquistrum That 's best in matter of Religion that was first there he sees the Gospell was before the Law Gal. 3.17 This I say sayes the Apostle that the Law which was four hundred thirty yeers after cannot disannull the Covenant which was confirmed of God in respect of Christ so shall alwaies in respect of faith and in respect of Reason It is worthy of acceptation for would thy Soule expatiate in that large contemplation of God in generall Rom. 1.1 It is Evangelium Dei the Gospell of God wouldst thou contract this God into a narrower more discernable station Mar. 1.1 It is Evangelium Jesu Christi the Gospell of Jesus Christ wouldst thou draw it neerer to the consideration of the effects It is Evangelium pacis Ephes 6.15 Mar. 1.14 Revel 14.6 the Gospell of peace wouldst thou consider it here Here it is Evangelium Regni the Gospell of the kingdom wouldst thou consider it hereafter It is Evangelium aternum the eternall Gospell Act. 20.24 wouldst thou see the way by it it is Evangelium Gratiae the Gospell of Grace wouldst thou see the end of it it is Evangelium gloriae 1 Tim. 1.11 the Gospel of glory It is worthy of all acceptation from thee Gal. 1. for the Angels of heaven can preach no other Gospel without being accursed themselves But the best and fullest acceptation is that which we called at first an Approbation to prove that thou hast accepted it by thy life and conversation That as thy faith makes no staggering at it Approbatio nor thy Reason no argument against it so thy actions may be arguments for it to others to convince them that doe not and confirme them that doe beleeve in it for this word which signifies in our ordinary use the Gospell Evangelium was verbum civile verbum forense a word of civill and secular use before it was made Ecclesiasticall and as it had before in civil use so it retaines still three significations First it signified Bonum nuntium a good and a gracious Message And so in spirituall use it is the Message of God who sent his Son and it is the message of the Son who sent the holy-Ghost Secondly it signified Donum offerenti datum the reward that was given to him that brought the good news and so in our spirituall use it is that spirituall tendernesse that Religious good nature of the Soule as we may have leave to call it that appliablenesse that Ductilenesse that holy credulity which your bring to the hearing of the word and that respect which you give to Christ in his Ministers who brings this Gospel unto you And then Thirdly it signifies Sacrificium Datori Immolatam the Sacrifice which was offered to that God who sent this good Message which in our spirituall use is that which the Apostle exhorts the Romans to with the most earnestnesse Rom. 1.12 and so doe I you I beseech you brethern by the mercies of God that yee give up your Bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable to God which is your reasonable serving of God Now a reasonable service is that which in reason we are bound to doe and which in reason we thinke would most glorifie him
affected not to be entendred to wear those things which God hath made objects and subjects of affections that which St. Paul places in the bottome and lees Rom. 1.30 and dregs of all the sins of the Jews to be without natural affections this distemper this ill complexion this ill nature of the soul is under the first part of this curse if any man love not for he that loves not knows not God for God is love But this curse determins not upon that neither is it principally directed upon that not loving for as we say in the schools Amor est primus actus voluntatis the first thing that the will of man does is to affect to choose to love something and it is scarce possible to find any mans will so idle so barren as that it hath produced no act at all and therefore the first act being love scarce any man can be found that doth not love something But the curses extends yea is principally intended upon him that loves not Christ Jesus though he love the creature and orderly enough yea though he love God as a great and incomprehensible power yet if he love not Christ Jesus if he acknowledg not that all that passes between God and him is in and for Christ Jesus let him be accursed for all his love Now there are but two that can be loved God and the Creature and of the creatures that must necessarily be best loved which is neerest us which we understand best and reflect most upon and that 's our selves for for the love of other creatures it is but a secondary love if we lâ—â—e God we love them for his sake if we love our selves we love them for our sakes Now to love our selves is only allowable only proper to God himself for this love is a desire that all honor and praise and glory should be attributed to ones self and it can be only proper to God to desire that To love our selves then is the greatest treason we can commit against God and all love of the creatures determines in the love of our selves for though sometimes we may say that we love them better than our selves and though we give so good that is indeed so ill testimony that we do so that we neglect our selves both our religion and our discretion for their sakes whom we pretend to love yet all this is but a secondary love and with relation still to our selves and our own contentments for is this love which we bear to other creatures within that definition of love Velle bonum amato to wish that which we love happy doth any ambitious man love honor or office therefore because he thinks that title or that place should receive a dignity by his having it or an excellency by his executing it doth any covetous man love a house or horse therefore because he thinks that house or horse should be happy in such a Master or such Rider doth any licentious man covet or solicite a woman therefore because he thinks it a happiness to her to have such a servant No it is only himself that is within the difinition vult bonum sibi he wishes well as he mistakes it to himself and he is content that the slavery and dishonor and ruin of others should contribute to make up his imaginary happiness August O dementiam nescientem amare homines humaniter what a perverse madness is it to love a creature and not as a creature that is with all the adjuncts and circumstances and qualities of a creature of which the principal is that that love raise us to the contemplation of the Creator for if it be so we may love our selves as we are the Images of God and so we may love other men as they are the Images of us and our nature yea as they are members of the same body for omnes homines una humanitas all men make up but one mankind and so we love other creatures as we all meet in our Creator in whom Princes and Subjects Angels and men and wormes are fellow servants Si malè amaveris tunc odisti If thou hast lov'd thy self August or any body else principally or so that when thou dost any act of love thou canst not say to thine own conscience I do this for Gods sake and for his glory if thou hast loved so thou hast hated thy self and him whom thou hast loved and God whom thou shouldest love Si bonè oderis saies the same Father If thou hast hated as thou shouldst hate if thou hast hated thine own internal tentations and the outward solicitations of others Amasti then thou hast expressed a manifold act of love of love to thy God and love to his Image thy self and love to thine Image that man whom thy virtue and thy example hath declined and kept from offending his and thy God And as this affection love doth belong to God principally that is rather then to any thing else so doth it also principally another way that is rather then any affection else for the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom but the love of God is the consummation that is the marriage and union of thy soul and thy Saviour But can we love God when we will do we not find that in the love of some other things or some courses of life of some waies in our actions and of some particular persons that we would fain love them cannot when we can object nothing against it when we can multiply arguments why we should love them yet we cannot but it is not so towards God every man may love him that will but can every man have this will this desire certainly we cannot begin this love except God love us first we cannot love him but God doth love us all so well from the beginning as that every man may see the fault was in the perversness of his own will that he did not love God better If we look for the root of this love it is in the Father for though the death of Christ be towards us as a root as a cause of our love and of the acceptableness of it yet Augst Meritum Christi est affectum amoris Dei erga nos the death of Christ was but an effect of the love of God towards us So God loved the world that he gave his Son if he had not lov'd us first we had never had his Son here is the root then the love of the Father and the tree the merit of the Son except there be fruit too love in us to them again both root and tree will wither in us howsoever they grew in God I have loved thee with an everlasting love Jer. 31.3 saies God therfore with mercy I have drawn thee if therefore we do not perceive that we are drawn to lov again by this lov 't is not an everlasting lov that shines upon us All the sunshine all the glory of this life
nobis esse hic as St. Peter said there It is good to dwell here in this consideration of his death and therefore transfer we our Tabernacle our devotion through some of these steps which God the Lord made to his issue of death that day Take in his whole day from the hour that Christ eat the passover upon Thursday to the hour in which he died the next day Make this present day Conformitas that day in thy devotion and consider what he did and remember what you have done Before he instituted and celebrated the sacrament which was after the eating of the passover he proceeded to the act of humility to wash his Disciples feet even Peters who for a while resisted him In thy preparation to the holy and blessed sacrament hast thou with a sincere humilty sought a reconciliation with all the world even with those who have been averse from it and refused that reconciliation from thee If so and not else thou hast spent that first part of this his last day in a conformity with him After the sacrament he spent the time til night in prayer in preaching in Psalms Hast thou considered that a worthy receiving of the sacrament consists in a continuation of holiness after as wel as in a preparation before If so thou hast therein also conformed thy self to him so Christ spent his time till night At night he went into the garden to pray and he prayed prolixius He spent much time in prayer Luc. 22.24 How much because it is literally expressed that he praied there three several times and that returning to his Disciples after his first prayer and finding them asleep said could ye not watch with me one hour Mat. 26.40 it is collected that he spent three houres in prayer I dare scarce ask thee whither thou wentst or how thou disposedst of thy self when it grew dark and after last night If that time were spent in a holy recommendation of thy self to God and a submission of thy will to his that it was spent in a conformity to him In that time and in those prayers was his agony and bloody sweat I will hope that thou didst pray but not every ordinary and customary prayer but prayer actually accompanied with shedding of tears and dispositively in a readiness to shed blood for his glory in necessary cases puts thee into a corformity with him About midnight he was taken and bound with a kiss Art thou not too conformable to him in that Is not that too literally too exactly thy case At midnight to have been taken and bound with a kiss from thence he was carried back to Jerusalem first to Annas then to Caiphas and as late as it was there he was examined and buffeted and delivered over to the custody of those officers from whom he received all those irrâ—sions and violences the covering of his face the spitting upon his face the blasphemies of words and the smartness of blows which that Gospel mentions In which compass fell that Gallicinium that crowing of the Cock which called up Peter to his repentance How thou passedst all that time last night thou knowest If thou didst any thing then that needed Peters tears and hast not shed them let me be thy Cock do it now now thy Master in the unworthyest of his servants looks back upon thee Do it now Betimes in the morning as soon as it was day the Jews held a Councel in the high Priests house and agreed upon their evidence against him then carried him to Pilate who was to be his Judg. Didst thou accuse thy self when thou wak'dst this morning wast thou content to admit even fals accusations that is rather to suspect actions to have been sin which were not then to smother justifie such as were truly sins then thou spendst that hour in conformity to him Pilat found no evidence against him therefore to ease himself to pass a complement upon Herod Tetrarch of Galilee who was at that time at Jerusalem because Christ being a Galilean was of Herods jurisdiction Pilat sent him to Herod rather as a mad man then a malefactor Herod remanded him with scorns to Pilat to proceed against him this was about 8 of the Clock Hast thou been content to come to this inquisition this examination this agitation this cribration this pursuit of thy conscience to sift it to follow it from the sins of thy youth to thy present sins from the sins of thy bed to the sins of thy board and from the substance to the circumstance of thy sins that 's time spent like thy Saviours Pilat would have sav'd Christ by using the priviledg of the day in his behalf because that day one prisoner was to be delivered but they chose Barrabas He would have sav'd him from death by satisfying their fury with inflicting other torments upon him scourging and crowning with thorns loading him with many scornful ignominious contumelies but this redeem'd him not they press'd a crucifying Hast thou gone about to redeem thy sin by fasting by alms by disciplines mortifications in the way of satisfaction to the justice of God that will not serve that 's not the right way We press an utter crucifying of that sin that governs thee and that conforms thee to Christ Towards noon Pilat gave Judgment and they made such hast to execution as that by noon he was upon the Cross There now hangs that sacred body upon the cross re-baptiz'd in his own tears sweat and embalm'd in his own blood alive There are those bowels of compassion which are so conspicuous so manifested as that you may see them through his wounds There those glorious eyes grew faint in their light so as the Sun asham'd to survive them departed with his light too And there that Son of God who was never from us yet had now come a new way unto us in assuming our nature delivers that soul which was never out of his Fathers hands into his Fathers hands by a new way a voluntary emission thereof for though to this God our Lord belong these issues of death so that considered in his own contract he must necessarily dy yet at no breach nor battery which they had made upon his sacred body issues his soul but emisit he gave up the Ghost as God breath'd a soul into the first Adam so this second Adam breath'd his soul into God into the hands of God There we leave you in that blessed dependancy to hang upon him that hangs upon the cross There bath in his tears there suck at his wounds lie down in peace in his grave till he vouchsafe you a Resurrection an ascension into that Kingdome which he hath purchas'd for you with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood Amen FINIS