tels the Corinthians that they should have no such feare for saith he whosoever you shall commend such as shall be fit men they should be appointed for the carriage of this money Indeed he must be a fit man that may be trusted with money as he saith in the Comedie if thou findest a man that is faithfull in money he may easily be beleeved on in any word of counsell for he that may bee trusted with the one may be trusted with the other and they are excellent men indeed that can bee faithfull in those things that are committed to their charge especially in money where the craft and subtiltie may be easily hidde and can hardly be boltted out Therefore he saith there shall be fit men chosen men of conscience men fearing God and hating covetousnesse as Moses father speakes of officers not such as were collectors afterward men that were carelesse that will spend the whole yeare in out-laying and will worke all that while out of the poore mens stocke they care not how much men that will come here with a Briefe and stay upon pleasure in the Citie and spend out their time that they care not when they returne to the poore men for whom they gather much lesse shall they bee such men as those that shall barter their Briefes and sell their Patent and take a certaine summe of money beforehand of some hide-bound fellows of such wretches that will extort and gather farre more then they could do these must be no such companions but they must be men fit faithfull men chosen of the Corinthians themselves for he saith those that you shall approve by your letters by them will I send the money So from hence wee understand first that there ought officers for the poore collectors for the poore alwayes to bee chosen among the parties with whom they live indeed some officers cannot bee chosen by the common people spirituall officers cannot be chosen by them for the people cannot chuse their Bishop they cannot chuse their Minister they must not they cannot meddle with it because it belongs not to them to be judges of gifts and abilities of the spirit wherein they have no insight But for temporall things the Lord hath given them power to elect and make Officers and the Civill Law gives them leave to chuse their Pleaders their Physitians and their Schoolmasters and Officers of the like kinde So that in this the Church hath authoritie and power as we see by the Apostles words And it is with great care and conscience to be left to them unlesse higher authority interpose which must be hearkened unto or else I say it is left to them therefore the Apostle saith They shall chuse because they were knowne to them they were not knowne to the Apostle except it were by revelation he knew not by a mans face whether he were honest or no. Therefore the Corinthians were to make choice of them and them that they chose he would not reject and put by but whom they should nominate he would allow and confirme them in their election and choise By this we learne that it is no small honour for a man to bee chosen a collector for the poore It is thought of men to be a poore and base office but it is that place that God puts a man into and that God and the Church trusts him withall It is a place that is gotten by the grace of God that shines in a man and therefore it is not to be balked and put off and rejected as a matter of basenesse but to be accounted a faire degree in the Church of God as the Apostle speaks of the Deacons office which is like unto this of collection for the poore 3. Motive Letters of commendation But now how shall these men be commended they must not onely be chosen but they must be commended by their letters and Epistles The Corinthians must write letters testimoniall to commend these as faithfull brethren to the Saints at Ierusalem The Church of God alwayes had a great care of letters testimoniall they would have no man go or travell without them they would have no man go into a strange place to receive the Sacrament but he must have a letter of testimony with him Letters of commendation have beene of ancient use in the Church of God which are still to be honoured and to be kept with much care Three sorts of letters These kinde of letters were of three sorts 1 Letters of peace They were either letters of peace which were such as a man must needs have with him if he came to the King or to the Bishop he had still a letter of peace that was to shew that such a man was in the peace of the Church that he was a member of Christ that he was a professour of the faith that he received the Sacrament duely that he was in the communion of the body if he had these letters he might come into the presence of the King or of the Bishop or else he might not 2 Letters of form And then there were letters of forme by which the Church used to commend a man to the Presbyter or to the people to whom they must come with these and by no meanes without them A man could not travell out of his countrey but he must have of these letters to commend him And then there were these letters testimoniall 3 Letters testimoniall which the Apostle here speaks of that these brethren that should be supposed faithfull that should administer the portion that God had vouchsafed them that they should deliver it to the full that they should not balke a peny nor spend of the Churches store any more then needs must nor stay by the way longer then need required but that they should in all parts be faithfull dispensers those that made conscience and those that would give an account and answer to God for the things they had beene trusted withall The Church had this care of letters because they would have no falsaries to go up and downe no idle vagabonds to pretend poverty and to collogue and cozen the world to whom they were to send for those that wanted And the Church was also carefull to see that undoubted seale from those whom the letters were sent that it were no counterfeit lest there should be any deceit any forged letters and lest there should be any cause of trouble in the Church by unnecessary letters that should be sent to no purpose as many now adayes that gad about upon their pleasure and men will send letters with a beggar to maintaine his gadding the Church of God could not endure this but had a speciall regard to the letters of the Saints and took them still as so many appendixes as so many seales as writings applyed to their faith they received them with as great reverence as an Angell from heaven this was the antiquitie of letters Now a dayes they
we in jeopardy and danger every day and every houre are an exposition of the former Wherein he translates the argument from the common passion of the Church to his owne personall sufferings and those that were the first and principall in persecutions and troubles and he concludes that they were mad men that would undergoe such misery except they hoped for something unlesse they had a certaine hope of reward and recompence in those bodies in which they suffered For it is the body that suffers here the soule cannot be martyred but the body Therefore the Apostle saith Every man shall receive in their bodies according as they have done in their bodies 2 Cor. 5.10 whether it be good or evill Now for a man to undertake such great hazard and danger to be alway in jeopardy to be every houre in perill it is as bad as to be utterly consumed A man were better to be utterly dispatched than to be alway hanging in suspence for men to be still in anxiety to leade their lives in extremity and trouble to have nothing to comfort them here nor to have any expectation in the world to come of the common resurrection there were no madnesse comparable to this But because in these things we must not be presumptuous but must take them as the spirit of God hath suggested and dictated them to other men therefore I will not build certainly upon this sence although I thinke it to be the most true and naturall consequent that can be But we will consider also what the spirit of God hath spoken otherwise This gift of interpretation is not acknowledged nor understood among simple men although it be the greatest gift of all other For a man cannot tell what to build on he cannot tell what to thinke he knowes not what to say or what to conclude on If he ground upon a false interpretation Ierome in Gal. 1. as Saint Ierome saith upon Galath 1. upon these words I mervaile that you are gone to another Gospell saith he what makes this another Gospell false glosses and interpretations by giving a false sence of the Scriptures that which in it selfe is the pure Gospell of Christ may be made the Gospell of man nay that which is worse the Gospell of the divell so Saint Ierome Chrysost And Saint Chrysostome discoursing upon the same argument saith he If Christ himselfe shall not interpret the word which is obscure and darke in it selfe I shall neither gather the doctrine nor settle the conclusion so that the gift of interpretation is of all others the chiefe and prime foundation of divinity Therefore observing the great variety of the ancient Fathers in the Church of God I must of necessity abandon all kinde of darke and obscure speech and all that savours of affected language or eloquence yea and speake plainely as Saint Austin saith It is a farre better thing that the Grammarian or that the Criticke should reprehend us then that the people should not understand us In the divers sences of this Text I touched some others remaine which I will conclude as briefly as I can and then come to the other argument taken from his particular Why doe we thus Why doe we live in danger and jeopardie every houre What shall they doe that are baptised for the dead The first opinion was that the Text is to be understood according to the letter to be baptised for dead men This opinion is followed by many great and learned men and by Musculus which I wonder at for he was a most rare instrument of light to the Church of God throughout all the Scriptures and yet he thinkes this to be a good and a true construction That as Christ Iesus commended the fact of the unrighteous and unjust Steward although he did not commend the fact yet his wisedome is commended so the Apostles purpose is to shew that though it were a vaine thing for them to baptise the dead in the person of the quicke to baptise them by a proxey yet it argued that which the Apostle would inferre that they had a hope of the resurrection or else they would never have done it But because this hath beene condemned by the Fathers as hereticall and foolish therefore I wave that opinion as not being the Apostles meaning A second opinion was concerning those that did put off their baptisme till their death as the fashion was in the first 4 or 500. yeares after Christ The third what shall they doe that are baptised for the dead that is that are baptised into a dead Christ This is followed by a great number of worthy Divines Chrysostome Theophilact Oecumenius Theodoret and Calvine Another opinion What shall they doe that are baptised for the dead that is from the dead so the word signifieth sometimes and so Luther Luther saith that in the primitive times they baptised their children in the Church yards where the dead bodies were buried and were wont to stand upon the grave of the dead man and say This man shall rise againe I beleeve it and I take the Sacrament upon it and here I am baptised If wee could finde such a custome in the Church this were a cleare evidence but there is no history that makes this appeare unto us Notwithstanding if there had beene such a custome as that it being something superstitious it could not greatly inferre the argument and there is no reason to thinke they should be baptised upon the graves of the dead seeing the custome seemed to be contrary to baptise them in their Baptisteria or Fonts which were in little houses neere their Churches in which there was no burying of the dead for divers hundred yeares after Christ that is not till the Fonts were brought into the Churches till when they buried in the Church yards and in the Cloysters below Yet notwithstanding this might be true in some places as in the Church of Asia and in the parts upon the Euxine sea where they never baptised any but at the time of Easter and Whitsuntide and then they baptised them upon the graves of the dead to assure them that the dead that were contained in those graves and turned to dust should rise againe which they would now verifie by taking the Sacrament of baptisme upon it Therefore I give this interpretation the authority it deserves and take it as a true glosse on the Text but yet it is not the fulnesse of the great things the Apostle here intended The next opinion was they that are baptised for the dead that is dead to the world civilly dead that betake themselves to the study of mortification and will not live in those pleasures and delights which the world accounts the onely life Those kinde of pleasures and epicurious delights which worldly men take to be the life of life the Saints of God detest and abhorre them and in baptisme they doe renounce them the pompes and vanities of the wicked world and make
breeds So there is no ague that alway holds a man except it quickly dispatch him but there is some kinde of intervall there is some interim and space betweene one fit and another there is seldome in the world such a plague that still lyes as a heavy burden upon mens shoulders But the children of God are sure to have it so not onely to have dangers but to have one upon another Psal 42.7 one deepe cals upon another because of the noyse of the water pipes as the Prophet speakes they shall have feares without and terrours within the end of one evill is but the beginning of another succeeding evill Behold then your calling that whereunto you are called saith Saint Chrysostome we are set out for the purpose not onely to be vexed in this world but to be vexed continually That we cannot eate our meate nor drinke our drinke without vexation The Lord mingles our bread with teares Psalm 80.5 and our drinke with weeping It is the property of the wicked to feed without feare but even in our feeding and repast we are possest with feares and terrours Iude 12. And saith Saint Bernard Know thy portion know thy portion Math. 10.25 Oh Christian in the Crosse of Christ it was his case and it must be thine it is enough for the servant to be as his Master it is no reason he should be above his Master This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every houre is that which God requires at our hands if we doe good for him we must doe it every houre if we suffer ill for his sake we must suffer every houre The Crowne of all our actions and of all our obedience is this perseverance and continuance Every houre It is not for an houre or for some few houres of a day but all the time of our life we must be under the Crosse and have the hand of God to pound and bray and beat upon us to get out those sweet smelling spices of patience and godlinesse which the holy Ghost hath infused into us This is the tryall of a Christian to be every houre in ieopardy and to be more constant in suffering than his adversaries can be in tormenting to be so compleat in that panoplia the Armour of the spirit of God that so long as the world can strike he can indure the stroke and be greater at length than all his temptations It is the miserable condition of all our services they be not lasting We are weary of well-doing Galat. 6.9 when we are in prayer we are weary before we can raise our selves to any kinde of zeale in our hearts we have done before we begin When we are in meditation it is a wearinesse to flesh and bloud When we are doing of good deeds to Christ in his poor members we are weary and say come no more I have done so much and so much for you already These are the cut-throats of obedience This noysomnesse and tediousnesse and faintnesse of ours deprives us of all hope of reward Therefore the Apostle saith Gal. 6. Be not weary of well-doing for we shall receive in time Galat. 6.9 if we faint not he that gives every houre and moment to the service of God shall have an eternall houre that is of blessednesse and continuance of felicity in the power of God Almighty But as I said it is with this condition If we faint not we shall receive Implying that if we faint we shall not receive all our precedent benefits all our good deeds that we have done in former time if we hold not on they have no place or acceptance with God Perseverance is the Crowne of the graces of God to be every houre every momēt of time addicted to the glory of God it is the glory of Gods servants It is to no purpose to give a poore creature a small piece of money or some little meanes to helpe him if afterward seeing him in the same case and being as able to helpe him we leave him For his life still continues and as long as life and occasion continues so long must our charity continue or else it is to no purpose It were in vaine for a woman to nurse a childe a quarter or halfe a yeare if she doe it not till it be brought to some reasonable age and strength that it be able to helpe it selfe It is better not to begin a thing than not to finish it after it is begun for a man to lay a foundation of a house and not to be able to build it up is to make himselfe a meere mockery to the common people Luke 14.30 to say This man began to build and was not able to finish it as our Saviour saith so in the matters of God whether we doe good or suffer ill for his name it must either be continually done or else it is not done at all Luke 9.62 To looke backe when we have laid our hand to the Plow is to loose our reward He is a bad debtor that payes his debts by halves he is a bad servant that will doe but halfe his service that will not give account for the whole time his Master hath conferred on him and put him in trust withall So they must needs be accounted base sufferers and runnagate Souldiers that when they have once put their hand to the action for feare of danger flye backe The Lord takes up no such Souldiers Therefore let us pay God his service with a full hand for so his gifts deserve The blessings of God are so infinite that they deserve not a perfunctory service a kinde of time-service to be now up and now downe but as the blessings of God be eternall upon the soule of man so the service and the affections of man should be eternall to God againe This little short life that we have is our eternitie the eternity which God hath is unspeakable without end As God hath promised us life eternall ioy eternall blessednesse eternall so let us labour that all that we doe may be as much as in us lies eternall Let our prayers be eternall our devotion eternall our patience eternall our charity eternall There is nothing tending to the praise of God that should be for a short time but as his blessings and promises are eternall so we should stretch and extend our selves as much as may be to make our services eternall The glory of a Christian is constancie and perseverance he hath constancy against the number of the dangers that come and perseverance against the continuance of them This was the glory of the Apostle when he saith that he was in ieopardy every houre we wrastle with great difficulties the dangers are great and many therein we shew our constancie Againe we know they be long and durable or else we might the better beare them Every moment we are oppressed every houre of our life it waites upon us as a heavy burthen upon our shoulders And
sinfull man had spoken this it had beene no newes but that it should come from a most sanctified vessell of the holy Ghost a chosen vessell one that for his life was unblameable and for all learning and the graces of the spirit incomparable that he should utter this it is a very strange mervaile Indeed a reprobate a man that followes his owne lusts that lives not to God but to himselfe he may truely say I dye daily For the Lord makes his life to be hanged before him as a perpetuall signe of death that as the children of God are said to have the earnest of the spirit and of the kingdome of heaven so the servants of sinne may be said to receive the earnest of hell So many passages of his life as there be they are as so many flakes of hell burning before him and doe assure him that at the last he shall be tumbled and divolved into the damnation of the divell and his Angels That gnawing worrne of conscience makes his life a continuall death But that the Saints of God should be thus troubled too it is this that moves the wonder And yet the Apostle here saith nay and sweares it too that not onely wicked men are troubled and galled with the conscience of sinne that they are alway in death because they are the sonnes of death and study that which tends to death but he that had the fruit of life he that had the spirit of God and of Christ in him Gal. 2.20 nay that had Christ himselfe as he saith It is no longer I that live but Christ liveth in me that he should he subject to this death and to this frequencie of death that there was never a day came over his head but a new death was presented to him It seemeth strange The reason of this we must fetch out of the rest of his writings for there he hath set downe the summe of every thing that we are to conceive of this mystery The first reason or meanes of this death it was that he carried the divell about him as Gregory Nazianzen saith in his 32. Nazianzen Orat. 32. Oration to the Bishops at Constantinople when he was to leave the place Saith he Even as it was with Paul 2 Cor. 12.7 so doe I carry the divell about me alluding to that place 2 Cor. 12. where the Apostle complaines of the messenger and instrument of Sathan that was sent to buffet him continually that he could not be at peace and quiet for him and he prayed to the Lord thrice against it but the Lord answered him My grace is sufficient for thee Rom. 7 23. This was it that made him to say I protest by the rejoycing that I have in our Lord Iesus Christ I dye daily For my life is such a kinde of condition as wherein the flesh and the spirit are continually conflicting together good and evill righteousnesse and sinne are alway countermanding one another A good conscience and an evill conscience sorrow and joy heaven and hell God and the divell are continually in an agony and combate This conflict that I sustaine betweene the flesh and the spirit is that which makes me dye daily and makes me cry out Oh wretched and miserable man that I am Rom. 7.24 who shall deliver me from this body of death that is from the sting of the law in my members whereby I am carryed in contradiction to the good spirit of God And so as Nazianzen saith he did carry Sathan about him nay within him also For the reliques of sinne which he cals the messenger of Sathan the instrument of the divell the remainders of corruption were in him yea and are in all the sonnes of God For there was none ever without them but that Sonne of God that came to take away the sinnes of the world The second reason why the Apostle said he dyed daily was because the divell bare him outwardly by envy and trouble and persecution he carried him on his shoulders he was the beast that he was set on And no marvell for if the divell could make our Lord sit on his backe Math. 4. Mat. 4. and that our Lord Iesus rode upon the divell as a man would ride upon a horse if he were so impudent as to set himselâ—fe under our Lord and carry him about to the pinacle of the Temple and to the mountaine then well may he come to the shoulders nay to the very bowels of his members If he did so to the head he will doe to the members much more Acts 17.4.12 Thus he still carried Paul wheresoever he came by the envy of the world by the malice of the Iewes and Gentiles as upon the occasion of those devout and religious womens beleeving whereupon they raised persecution against him and that wheresoever he came there was eyther stoning or fire and faggot or banishment some mischiefe intended Treason by false brethren treason by his opposers or treason of those that were best trusted of him every where he was inclosed with perill This was the divell without him as some of the Fathers imagine 2 Cor. 12 7. from that place 2 Cor. 12. that messenger of Sathan there sent to buffet him They say it was not so much any inward thing he speakes of But I yeeld not to this for I suppose it was somewhat inward Rom. 7.23 But the Fathers say he meanes another matter he speakes of men and of the malice of men that would not suffer the Gospell to passe in the world and that for this he saith he dyed daily by the perpetuall hand of those murtherers I cannot goe any where but the malice of men persecutes and followes me so that I cannot rest and if they could trap me once in their snare and make a prey of me I were surely theirs and then I were gone the feare of this makes me dye daily Thirdly another cause that made the Apostle dye daily was the opposition that hee had by Idolaters wheresoever he came Idolaters still laboured to put downe the Gospell As we see at Athens Acts 17. Acts 17.16 The Text saith His spirit was sore troubled when hee saw the City given to idolatry And so likewise when he came to Ephesus they cry Acts 19.28 Great is Diana of the Ephesians Diana the Idoll of Ephesus had like to have cost him his life Therefore the vexation of his spirit to see men fall down to stocks and stones and to forget that loyalty they ought to God Rom. 1.25 To worship the creature in stead of the Creator This made him teare his cloathes and ready to teare his flesh for the vexation of his spirit to see whole Cities so given over Fourthly another cause of this daily death of the Apostle it was the opposition that he had by Witches and Sorcerers wheresoever he came almost the divell would still set some Witch in the place so in Acts 16.17 Acts
16.17 when he comes to Lidia there Sathan had entred into a woman and she having the divell in her Verse 18. uttered these words of Paul and Silas These are the men that teach the way of truth but the Apostle understanding that the divell spake that for some cozening for the hinderance of the Gospell the Text saith he grew into vexation and trouble of spirit and commanded the divell to come out of her Another time he comes to Paulus house Acts 13.8 and there Elymas the sorcerer opposeth him whereupon being moved with griefe he growes to those high termes that he never spake the like language but onely there Verse 10. Thou full of all subtilty thou childe of the divell wâ—lt thou not cease to pervert the right wayes of God these things therefore occasioned him new pangs and brought his death on multiplied his sorrowes and made him say as he doth here in the vexation of his spirit I dye daily For these Idolaters for these opposers for the inward troubles from his own flesh for outward troubles from his own corrupt nation these things so every where beset him that hee could make no evasion or escape Therefore hee sweares By the rejoycing I have in Iesus Christ our Lord I dye daily But the chiefe and maine thing that made the Apostle dye daily to dye upon the nest as it were it was the care of the Churches 2 Cor. 11.28 29 2 Cor. 11. the great compassion he had that great Armado of cares and businesse and toyle that lay upon him As he saith The trouble and care of all the Churches lyes upon me Who is weake and I am not burthened who is offended and I burne not The griefe that he conceived to see men back-sliders to see how hardly men were brought to it and how ill they lived in their profession that they lived not answerable to their calling in Christ to see men fall from grace to this world as he saith of Demas He hath forsaken me 2 Tim. 4.10 and imbraced this present world these strange alterations and turnings in the Church of God did so vexe and trouble and grieve his spirit that he could take no rest or repose in any thing in the world but was as a dead man free among the dead and he cryes out here I protest by the reioycing I have in our Lord Iesus Christ I dye daily I dye daily This is a great aggravation of the miserie To dye is the bane of nature the horrible of horribles which none of us all can indure to heare of the least approach of it casts us into infinite feares and horrour but to dye daily to know no end of death no period to determine it but to be in the continuall act of dying here is the height of all the patience of the Saints As they dye so they dye daily there is no time that shines perfectly cleare to them but all is in cloudes and disasters and misfortunes here I dye daily Every day brings its burthen with it that as we begge our daily bread so there is a daily death and we have not such assurance of our daily bread as we have of our daily death Men often by fasting pull downe themselves and keepe downe their bodies that they eate not their bread but there is no day but a Christian tasts of death Though hee have no taste of bread or any rellish of victuals yet hee shall be sure to taste of death I dye daily as though my life were of steele and my bones of marble as though this short threed of mine were of Adamant so thy terrours worke upon me Like a moath that frets a garment and leaves nothing but flockes and dust and ruine of the goodliest garment so the terrors of God the terrours of conscience the terrours of the world the discontents and feares the malice of the divell the malice of some false brethren and the falling away of others these things did so worke upon him and so vexe him that they did even bring him to nothing that there was no houre but it was full of distraction and perturbation I protest by the rejoycing I have in Christ Iesus our Lord I dye daily This daily death is the generall condition of Gods Saints Saint Paul suffered it not alone but he left it also as our inheritance he dyed daily and we may say who doth not dye daily He that knowes Christ and hath a will to follow him he shall finde his life in this life to be a continuall death wrastling with him and tyrannizing over him as Iob saith My soule rather desires strangling Iob 7.15 than to live as I doe Saint Paul had his death and the ministers of the Gospell now have their death and though they live in a time of peace and plenty yet they want not their death to gnaw on them The envy of men the malice and slander and villanous reports whereby they defame and disgrace their brethren to the pit of hell the non-proficiencie of men their scorning of the word these are as death to a man that is sensible of God or of his government The Apostle seemes to make all the day being divided into two parts to be a continuall dying The day is either naturall or artificiall and both these are full of deaths the day naturall is that we worke in and sleepe in the day artificiall is that onely which we worke in in the common course of nature and in both these there were deaths to the blessed Apostle In the day time the time of worke I dye daily in all the passages of my life in all the practises and exercises of religion whether it be Prayer Meditation or Teaching and admonishing the people In all these exercises I dye daily In my prayers I dye with coldnesse and dulnesse I have not zeale to wing my affections to God In my preaching I dye with weakenesse and neglect I cannot set forth that glorious word as I ought to doe In my Meditations I dye with sluggishnesse and lazinesse that I cannot hold on my beginnings in that course In my Meate and drinke and other refreshings I dye I am eyther too excessive or else too superstitiously vaine and fearefull Nay in that very time of the day wherein nature brings rest and repose in the time of night when I should sleepe and rest I dye in my very sleepe That is full of startling dreames and fearefull phantasies and perturbations to vexe my soule so that every day I dye whether it be in that part of the day which is for worke or that which is for rest every where I dye When the Sunne shines it is as a blazing starre that opens the day to mischiefe and discomfort When the Moone appeares it is as a Commet or candle to waken me to distracted thoughts The Stars are as so many clouds that drowne me in darkenesse My houres are as Iobs messengers that bring mee sad reports
one after another Every minute is like the bodrags in the heart and braine of a man that are still accrewing fearefull shewes and signes of evill So that I protest by the rejoycing I have in the Lord Iesus I dye daily 2 Part. The Proofe Now I come to the second poynt which is the proofe of this For there is no man that would beleeve it because flesh and bloud cannot understand how a man should be dead and yet alive As the Poet saith As long as a man liveth whatsoever happen to him he is well breake a hand or a foot of him breake his bones and let him have life he is indifferent well But the children of God doe not judge so of these things For life is not to live meerely but to be in a good estate to be in a healthy condition therefore seeing the Apostle lived and had his being among men he being not now layd in his grave but conversing in our common element why then doth he say hee died daily Why even because of troubles and of cares It is true but because men would not beleeve how he should have such cares 1 By way of an Oath and how they should be the cut-throat of his life therefore now he interposeth his bond and it is a firme bond his oath which though it be but an imperfect argument yet is it taken of godly men for the strongest argument that is in Rebus humanis For things that are uncertaine are determined by the oath of an honest man and men take it for the most certaine truth that can be because an oath is a bond that gives testimony to the truth So the Apostle in this and in other places useth a strange kinde of reasoning drawn from the contrary and we are to beleeve him upon his Word It is true his friends and those that are sanctified will easily beleeve him but those that are without that are yet to bee wonne they are hardly to be perswaded Therefore for their infirmity and for the weakenesse of the Corinthians he puts his oath to it and sweares it is true I protest by the reioycing I have in Christ Iesus our Lord I dye daily Now you see the nature of the argument and if we consider it well it will appeare that the wisedome of God in the state of his children which is so farre above mans reach and reason that the Angels themselves can scarcely make a delivery of it For marke he had said before I dye daily and now he proves it by another thing cleane contrary by his rejoycing daily By the reioycing that I have in Christ Iesus continually by that reioycing that is alway with me by that reioycing I dye daily A strange thing that a man should have feare and care and yet be ioyfull too at the same time to dye and yet to reioyce or boast at the same instant for so the word signifieth to boast in the apprehension of a good thing to ioy in a singular measure for Ioy is the apprehension of a singular good in a singular measure that these two should be put together to say I reioyce daily and I dye daily this is a wonder which the Lord hath hid from flesh and bloud which he hath not manifested to the great ones of the world but to his little despicable ones even those that take delight in the kingdome of Christ By the reioycing I have in Christ Iesus our Lord I dye daily There is some variety in the reading of these words Some reade it by your reioycing and so that which I must honour our last translation hath it in the Margine by your reioycing some reade it or reioycing But there is no great difference for the sence comes all to one So Saint Ierome Saint Augustine Saint Chrysostome and Theophilact they read it by your reioycing But then on the other side there are a number of the Fathers that reade it our reioycing as Basile upon Psal 14. Athanasius and of later Writers Luther and Calvin Onely Beza holds with the Ancients and saith your reioycing making notwithstanding no difference in the Text or in the sence for saith he the Apostles meaning is by the reioycing that I have of you and by the reioycing that you have of me and saith Saint Chrysostome he calleth the proficiency of the Corinthians his reioycing as he saith 1 Thes 2. What is our crowne 1 Thes 2.19 and our reioycing and our glory are not ye And he answers his owne question and saith yes Ye are our crowne and our reioycing in the day of the Lord. This I take to be the more fitte and the more lively and fuller our reioycing rather than to reade it yours although it bee true it is the common Reioycing of Gods children they have all the same spirit and the same joyes yet a man may not lawfully sweare by that which is in another man but a man may sweare for himselfe Thus Saint Paul although he knew that the Corinthians were forward and full of the gifts of the holy Ghost and of ioy yet he had no reason to be so confident in them as to sweare by their reioycing Because a man knowes not what is in his neighbour he is not certaine he may iudge the best but he knowes nothing certainly and he were a mad man therefore that would sweare for that which he knowes not therefore the Apostle makes this oath not of the ioy or gloriation or boasting that was in the Corinthians but the boasting and gloriation of his owne spirit in the presence of Christ Iesus This I take to be the sence although it be true that the Apostle gloried much in his passions and sufferings at Corinth and he gloryed too for the preaching and successe of the Gospell this was matter of great gloriation and boasting yet it was the inward comfort and testimony of his conscience that made him sweare by his reioycing in Christ Others goe about to put it off with a kinde of Asseveration onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vide Bezae Annotat in locum that is another reading which Saint Ambrose followes and the vulgar Bibles and so the common translations at this day though they touch upon this and in a manner are weary of the other As if the Apostle should say for your glory sake But those that know the Greeke tongue they know that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being not written with letters but like a halfe circle it is easily brought to be like the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so the Scripture may be read promiscuously with eyther of them in this place But this is against the tenent of all the Fathers of the Church which have still thought this to be an oath As Saint Austin writing to Hillary in his 89. Aug ad Hilla ep 89. Et lib. 3. de Trin. Epistle he proves it lawfull for a Christian man to sweare because the Apostle writes by an oath And
in his third Booke of the Trinity he saith The Apostle did not feare to confirme the certainty of his salvation by swearing for saith he by the confidence that I have in Christ Iesus I dye daily Among the Greekes none doubted of it but those that were simple and unlearned Therefore I say this was an oath and so the strongest confirmation that can be 2 The thing he sweares by Esay 45.23 But how doth Saint Paul sweare by that which is not God It is not lawfull to sweare by any thing but the name of God as the Lord saith Every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confesse me and sweare by my name Heb. 6.13 It is true that when God sweares having no greater to sweare by he sweares by himselfe and when man sweares he must alway sweare by a greater For that is the end of an oath to protest an unknowne truth by the presence and countenance of a greater person then himselfe and one which cannot lye Therefore it is unlawfull for a Christian to sweare by any name but the name of God and that not often much lesse alway or in frivolous causes for this our Lord Christ condemnes when hee saith sweare not at all Math 5.34 that is not often nor out of passion But as an oath is a speciall service of God so it is to be taken upon speciall occasions but now we are bound to sweare by no name but the name of God and reioycing in Christ is not Christ himselfe Wherefore then doth the Apostle sweare by his reioycing in Christ We must understand that to sweare by any immediate fruit of the spirit of God by any thing that flowes immediately from God to us it is all one as to sweare by the name of God it selfe This is so individuall and inseparable a thing the comfort namely and the joy of Christ hath brought into the world that it is as inseparable from the spirit as the shadow from the body Therefore as a man may sweare by the shadow that there is a body and swearing the one he intimates the other and concludes the other so the Apostle here he sweares by this fruit of the holy Ghost which is ioy and peace even the peace of God which passeth all understanding which he found in his heart by the meanes of Christ Iesus who maketh our ioy to be full who is the fountaine of ioy swearing by this he sweares by the chiefe iewell of salvation which is the penny that Christ had given him as an earnest as a pawne and gage of his love Out of this that he saith Our reioycing observe I beseech you the wondrous temper of a Christian how he is composed of strange extreame contraries of death and life of sorrow and joy of peace and war There is nothing in the world that can be imagined so contrary as be the severall parts of a Christian mans constitution Upon this ground the holy Apostle goeth 2 Cor 4. 2 Cor. 4.8 c. where he makes the definition of a Christian after the same manner Saith he we are indeed oppressed and persecuted but yet not crushed altogether we are as men dead and yet behold we live poore and yet making many rich as having nothing and yet we possesse all things This is that marvellous mixture that God hath appointed his children to come to that they should be conformable to the sufferings of Christ and so be in death and yet that they should revive againe by the spirit of God and so no man be lesse in death being alway in life and having the certaine pledge and pawne of life eternall As for the men of this world the sonnes of flesh and bloud when they thinke themselves most lively then are they most deepely in death every thing worketh against them the stormes of Gods wrath attend them and worke upon their consciences at some time or other such fearefull deaths as out of which they can make no evasion or escape But with the children of God it is contrary when they are in the middest of death they are in the height of life 2 Cor. 4.16 As the Apostle saith Although our outward man dye daily and is corrupted yet the inward man is renewed and revived by the spirit of Christ So in all the passages of their life where death seemes to have the greatest sway and predominancie even there is life abundantly over death and the roote of life shall at length eate out the fruit of death And although death make a flourish for a time upon the Saints of God yet because there is a root of life it shall still grow and bud and bring forth at length that death may be swallowed up into victory 1 Cor. 15.54 In all things the children of God have full contentment in this life although they be in the middest of death This is the great miracle that God doth in the world Every holy man is a wonder every good man is a miracle like the children of Israel Exod. 14.22 that walked through the deepe where there was never way knowne before like the three children in the furnace Dan. 3.25 that walked in the middest of the fire as if they had beene in a pleasant Medow like the Israelites and all their cattell that passed over Iordan Acts 16.25 like Paul and Sylas singing at midnight in chaines and fetters in prison A miraculous spectacle to God and men which drawes the eyes of Angâ—â—s to the contemplation of it For in sicknesse a Christian is full of the saving health of God In persecution he is full of quiet and contentment of the holy Ghost In prison he is full of Psalmes and spirituall Songs as were Paul and Sylas When he is bound in shackles he is free and expedite and loose As the Apostle saith in another place though I be bound 2 Tim. 2.9 yet the word of God is not bound the Gospell of Christ is not bound In all things he is a breathing miracle of the power of God that sounds unto us as so many silver Trumpets the omnipotencie of God that makes such a correspondence and proportion betweene life and death that makes death and life dwell together in one body and yet hee will evacuate death by the power of life that life may surmount and death may be put under that at the last death may be debased and life may be advanced And in that he saith Our reioycing or your reioycing For it is not materiall whether way it is read for it is a common ioy If I reade it yours I have it if mine you have it for it is a common ioy in our common Saviour This is that which all of us confesse when we make our prayers to God we call him our Father and we call the Saviour of the world our Saviour and so we may call the spirit our comforter because this common veyne of joy it flowes and runnes
I have fought with beasts at Ephesus after the manner of men what avayleth it if the dead rise not Why should I cast my selfe into these dangers why should I indure them any longer why should I not at the first grapling with the troubles of this life betake my selfe to that more sure and easie condition But because the Church before mee hath done thus therefore I follow her steps I see what Iohn Baptist hath suffered I see what Iames the brother of Iohn hath indured I see what the Innocents have undergone I see what the blessed Martyr Stephen hath suffered All these in great tranquillity of spirit have yeelded their soules to God And the Prophets in former time I see they have suffered for the same profession that I now have taken upon me for their doctrine was the same they all poynted to Christ they all preached the doctrine of the Resurrection therfore as the Church in generall hath gone before and all the Colledge of Apostles in particular have traced after I also will personally insist in their steps 2 Tim. 1.12 and follow too I know whom I have beleeved I have laid up my trust in his hand that will not deceive me therefore I am assured there shall be a Resurrection of this flesh of this body that hath suffered so many torments for the cause of Christ it shall be againe invested with so many notes of glory and happinesse as it hath indured miseries and torments and that according to the multitude of my sorrowes so shall my consolations abound in Christ This I take to be the summe and sence of this Text. But it is intricate to consider the many sences that are given of it which notwithstanding we may not neglect any of them for then wee shall slight the grace of God which hath alway beene various in his Church We ought therefore to view every thing to prove all things as the Apostle saith 1 Thes 5.21 and keepe that which is best and most firme and sollid Augustne As Saint Austin saith God would have his Scriptures to bee hard and difficult and full of divers sences because hee would have no idle fellowes to come unto it because he would rouse up the diligence of his children The Lord doth not take away the proper sence of the Scriptures from them that are studious and diligent and carefull but onely hee shuts up the sence from negligent and carelesse men but he opens it againe to those that knocke as Christ saith Knocke and it shall be opened unto you Therefore first we are to consider the great and maine difficulty of the Text in the interpreting of those two words which are diversly taken Exposition of the words First what it is the Apostle meanes when he saith He fought with beasts Secondly what it is hee saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after men or after the manner of men And though the divers editions and translations have reconciled them to our hand yet there is nothing so authenticall but a man may give another exposition as good and as full of authority as that And then after the exposition we are to come to The description of this trouble Division 1 What it was and 2 Where it was What it was that it was such a kinde of trouble as was to death and to very destruction in the judgment of man as it appeares plainely by this and by that in 2 Cor. 1.8 where the Apostle makes a relation of it 2 Cor. 1.8 And then where it was at Ephesus the most ingenious place in the world where the divell had set his throne in the greatest triumph As it is said Rev. 2 I know thy dwelling Apoc. 2.13 where Sathans throne is there was Dyana's temple the most famous Idoll in the world the throne of Sathan Acts 19.35 was there more conspicuously then any where else therefore it was most likely that there should be the greatest persecution where men were most of all corrupted and infected with Idolatry And then lastly to gather the force of the argument if there be no Resurrection what doth it profit me that I have fought with beasts at Ephesus As if he should have said he is a mad man and a foole that will cast himselfe into danger without profit The great adventurers of the world they still propose to themselves ends of profit to what good to what end things may be it is that which sets all mens wits on worke it is that which commands the lives and labours of men to farre and forraine Countries and he that workes without an end without apparant profit he is of all men the most franticke therfore so must I be saith the Apostle if there be no Resurrection To what profit is it that I have fought with beasts If there be not some profit but that I have exposed my selfe to danger onely to get me a name I were of all others the most furious and mad but God forbid that the Church before me or the Apostles with me or I my selfe should bee thus deluded to throw our selves into hazard to have no profit to have no meanes to comfort our selves after our trouble to have nothing for our labour God forbid we should be so insensate Therefore because we doe thus and are assured of Gods promise that we shall have a reward and an abundant recompence therefore as sure as God liveth we shall not loose our labour there shall be a Resurrection for so the Apostles argument is framed If there be no Resurrection then why doe I take this paines and if I take this paines for no profit then I and the rest of the faithfull that suffer are mad and furious men but we are not mad nor furious but are indued with the spirit of God and we know what we doe wee know whom we have trusted 2 Tim. 1.12 and therefore wee are certaine of an abundant recompence This is the summe and ground of the argument and these are the branches of the Text. Of these in order as the spirit of God shall assist me And first for that the Apostle saith If I have fought with beasts A great many sound Divines hold it true in the letter that Saint Paul was obiected to beasts and was constrained to fight with them for the saving of his life You shall understand that among the severall torments the Church of God was subject unto by persecutors this was one kinde to make the people sport by setting two or three of the Saints of God upon a stage where there were so many Panthers Leopards Lyons or Beares and there they were to tugge for their lives We see in the Churches History this hath beene alway one kinde of their persecution We see it also of ancient time In the time of Daniel King Darius Dan. 6.16 upon the instigation of his Lords cast Daniel into the Denne and it is said the Lyons were famished a long time
cast among them to strive and struggle with them to see whether God would favour his cause or no whether he were of a magnanimous spirit or whether he would yeeld and shrinke when he saw the beast come neare him from his faith or no. We cannot imagine that Saint Paul did this seeking to please the people to make himselfe a barbarous spectacle to them or that he did it to tempt God by offering his life to the beasts but he was throwne unto them and compelled to it And it was no disgrace for him then to yeeld to it being forced by the superiour powers So Calvin Luther and Beza are indifferent But many of the Ancients directly expound it according to the letter as that these beasts must be understood to be some kinde of Tygers Leopards or Lyons such things Saint Paul was exposed unto to try the constancy of his faith to try his prowesse and valour to see whether God would deliver him or no. I confesse the number of the Authors are so great and their authority and gifts so excellent as that I cannot deny but that this may be the true sence of this place But yet I rather incline to the other which Saint Chrysostome Saint Augustine Saint Cyrill Tertullian and divers other Fathers doe warrant to us as the best and most proper sence Namely that Paul fought with beasts at Ephesus that is with beastly men men of beastly conditions And there is but one thing difficult in it that is that the Apostle should forget that lenity of spirit in which he useth to speake and that Christ teacheth all men that they should not give an ill or a rayling word Whereas there cannot be a worse word given to a man than to call him beast Our Lord and Saviour Christ saith that he that cals his brother Racha Math 5.22 he that cals his brother foole shall be in danger of hell fire Now he that cals a man foole speakes farre more moderately and modestly than he that cals a man a beast For to call a man foole is still to call him man for there is nothing can be a foole but man or woman for it fals not within the compasse of beasts to bee wise or foolish but still when one is called foole hee is kept in the condition of a man but when a man cals a man beast he is out of the element and latitude of men and compared to a more base and degenerate creature But for this we must understand that our Lord Christ speakes there of the common talke and discourse among Christians and not of that Apostolicall authority not of that magisteriall reproofe that is in the Church and must be to the worlds end For every man may not speake alike a private man must not speake as the Magistrate doth nor every man must not speake as the Minister may speake in reprooving sinne and revealing the will of God And here we must conceive that this that the Apostle speaks it was by Gods spirit dictating it unto him he was the Prophet of God put in that place he spake it not from himselfe but from a greater Therefore to pitch upon this exposition If I have fought with beasts at Ephesus That is with men that had the faces of men but the condition of beasts For this is the common phrase and language of people when a man transcends others in bruitishnesse and cruelty in a base conversation they say he hath put on the beast he hath left humanity and is turned beast For it is mens carriage and conditions that distinguisheth them from beasts So we see the Scripture hath this peculiar phrase when the Prophet speakes Isa 56.10 Isa 56. of Prophets that would not Preach or that preached for gaine he cals them dumb dogs Phil. 3.2 and the Apostle Paul saith Beware of dogges whereby is meant such kinde of men as are prophane as Esau those that returne to their vomit of sinne to their former concupiscence and contemne and scorne all holy things Math. 7.6 yea and our Lord Christ saith Give not holy things to dogges that is to doggish men so the Prophet David often prayes unto God to deliver his soule from the Lyon from the Vnicorne from the Dogge from the Wolfe And so Saint Paul calleth Nero 2 Tim. 4.17 Lyon 2 Tim. 4. The Lord hath delivered me from the mouth of the Lyon that is from the Emperour Nero Luke 13.32 so our Lord Christ called Herod Foxe Tell that Foxe saith he I worke to day and to morrow and the third day I shall be perfect There is nothing more usuall in the Scriptures than this therefore I will not insist to prove or illustrate it any further It is an excellent thing which Chrysologus Chrysologus saith The Scriptures of God make no more account of a man to be a man after he fals to bruitish conditions but reputes him in his ranke among beasts as he is a beast of the field a beast for the slaughter The Scripture cals them divels in the fashion and habite and outward forme of men so our Saviour Christ tels us Iohn 8. Ioh. 8. of a generation of Vipers of a genealogy of divels Ye are of your father the divell saith he which wee know is not to be understood according to the letter but is to be referred to the absurd conditions of men Of which also the Apostle speakes 2 Thes 3.2 2 Thes 3.2 Pray to God for us saith the Apostle for what purpose That we may be delivered from absurd men men that have no nature in them that have no common straine of humanity in them but are altogether degenerated and metamorphosed into beasts pray for us to be delivered from them So that place being compared with this it is cleere If I have fought with beasts at Ephesus that is with men of bruitish natures men that cannot be contampred with at all men of no society but are given over to their fury and madnesse that have no more mercy in them than bruit beasts and must be let goe to their fury as a beast that doth what mischiefe it can without any limitation or respect To passe from this poynt We see what base dejection sinne hath brought on us we that thought to be equall to God Vse as God saith Behold Adam is become as one of us Gen. 3.22 we are now become as the beasts that perish Psal 59.20 as the Prophet David saith Man being in honour understood it not but it become like the beasts that perish Gen. 3.21 And as man fell to bee like a beast so God clad him in the skinne of a beast Our first great grandfather Adam had the skinnes of beasts for his garments to signifie that as they were turned beasts so God gave them an outward habite and vesture to shew them what inwardly they were become This should teach us still to have our eye on that
I must labour to bring them in and call them home if they be bruitish already I must seeke to make them men to reduce them backe againe But especially I speake according to the custome of men for your sakes for your weakenesse for your better understanding that you may know the greatnesse of my trouble which I sustained at Ephesus I speake after the manner of men as they use to call wicked men beasts so give me leave also to call these who have made themselves so by their malice and persecution 2 Where the place was Concerning the place it was at Ephesus and when this persecution was there is great dissention among Writers some thinke it to be that persecution that Saint Luke mentions Acts 19.24 Acts 19. Paul being at Ephesus and preaching against Idolatry there riseth up Demetrius the silver Smith and all the trade comes with him he being as it were the Master of his Company he brings his livery after him a whole army of divellish beasts were raised against Paul Demetrius being the principall man that led all the heard after him and so the whole forrest was in a tumult and uproare Tertul. Beza So Tertullian and Beza after him with divers other of the Fathers But certainly this cannot be so for we reade that Saint Luke sets it downe directly that Saint Paul as soone as he had received that affront at Corinth that great danger when Sosthenes was beaten and that Gallio cared for none of these things Acts 18.17 he after a while quitted the Citie and went from Ephesus to Macedonia Acts 18.18.19 and it is certaine when Saint Paul wrote this he was at Ephesus and saith he will stay there till Pentecost 1 Cor. 16.8 as he saith Cap. 16.8 Therefore it cannot be that hee speakes of that sedition that Demetrius raysed against him that being the last period of his stay at Ephesus he went thence presently upon it he knew that Christ gave him a commission when they persecuted and beate him away Math. 10.14 to shake the dust off his feete against them Therefore this cannot be admitted Another Company expound it thus that it was the trouble that happened to him from the sonnes of Sceva Acts 19.16 Acts 19.16 And the sonnes of Sceva cast out divels in the name of Iesus whom Paul preached There were seven sonnes of Sceva and they tooke upon them to cast out divels and the manner of their conjuration was this We adiure you by IESVS Acts 19.13 whom Paul preacheth to come forth Verse 14. Now the divell replyed Iesus I know and Paul I know but who are ye and so he ranne upon them and prevailed against them and tare and rent them Hereupon some thinke the sons of Sceva raised persecution against him of envy because they suffered that great hurt by the divell But this is more uncertaine then the former It cannot be thus for we know that the sonnes of Sceva invocated the name of Christ and nominated Christ whom Paul preacheth wherein they shewed themselves rather friends and allies to Paul then enemies and so we have a direct rule and Canon of Christ Math. 10. Matth. 10. his Disciples tell him We saw one casting out divels in thy name and we forbade him saith Christ to them Forbid him not for he that is with mee is not against me Where Christ gave them to understand that as long as any man although hee were not of their company and Colledge yet as long as he profest the name of Christ and did their miracles in his name they were with him and not against him and though the sonnes of Sceva miscarried in their desire of lucre and that they did not their miracles for the good of the Church yet they pretended friendship to Saint Paul rather then any adverse disposition Therefore I say this cannot be But we must understand it of the totall troubles that hee found at Ephesus which hee expresseth 2 Cor. 1.8 2 Cor. 1.8 Brethren saith he I would not have you ignorant of the pressures and troubles that wee sustained in Asia how we were pressed and urged above strength that we even despaired of life in our owne selves This desperate life he was cast into by the malice of the men of Ephesus that studied Idolatry and for their Idoll Diana and would therefore have beate downe and destroyed Paul and the doctrine of Christ This sedition that they moved against him he cals fighting with beasts And so wee must take the sence to be this that seeing you know that at Ephesus I had such a world of adverse powers against me that I was pressed above measure urged and crushed even to death that I received the sentence of condemnation against my selfe 2 Cor. 1.9 that I thought there was no way for me but to bee devoured as with the teeth and fury of so many wilde beasts If you have heard of it or if you know it you may imagine that I have some reason to undergoe these troubles For I brought them upon mine owne head I might have avoyded them if I would but I would not doe it because of that abundant reward and consolation of Christ which shall raise this my body So that all the teeth of beasts shall not offer me more wrong and injury in tearing it then Christ shall give it honour and glory in saving it after it hath beene thus deformed and so he shall give honour to that part which most lacked which hath most suffered here 1 Cor. 12.24 For this cause I am thus ready to undergoe these dangers and to encounter againe with beast after beast as they shall bee singled out against me that drinking of that cup of affliction here I may receive that eternall cup of thanksgiving in the world to come This should teach us to conclude all in a word that we ought not to despise the passions of Gods children Vse It is a great misery that the world is usually blinded withall Whatsoever a man suffers they thinke he suffers it as a guilty person they take him as a malefactor and it is enough that hee is in misery to prove him also to bee in fault By this meanes there should no substantiall argument bee drawne from the martyrdome of Gods Saints for of all men to flesh and bloud and common sence they are most miserable and wretched and pronounced guilty at every tribunall and are accounted the malefactors of the world the plagues of the earth such as brought barrennesse upon the earth and other plagues from God because men were not enlightened by the spirit of grace therefore they fell to the condemnation of the righteous which is the greatest plague in the world to condemne the righteous for woe to them that call light darkenesse and darkenesse light Esay 5.20 Let us therefore have speciall regard when we see troubles fall upon men to keepe an upright heart to
renew reforme and regenerate our spirits it is impossible but that flesh should speake of flesh and should savour the things of the world and not the things of God that it may be carried with a full swing after its owne impieties grow worse and worse and never leave sinning till at last it sinke in sinne and the pit close her mouth upon it Let us therefore be warie in following the tract of our forefathers If they were naught we have no reason to insist in their steps except it be in good except it be according to the wayes of God according to the holy pathes of the Almighty For it followes not that because sinne hath beene predominant in all ages that therefore we should use it now It followes not that because women have prancked themselves in pride and made themselves the Idols of the world that therefore the daughters of Sarah should doe it now It followes not that because drunkennesse hath beene a common vice heretofore that therefore men should hunt and follow after it now We have no reason to follow our ancients in ill customes except wee will chuse to perish in those ill customes Therefore the Apostle bringeth an ancient stale sinne and useth the same sentence Let us eate and drinke for to morrow we shall dye To eate and drinke are the most essentiall necessaries of our nature the supporters of our being and there is no life but the Lord hath appointed it to be sustained by these two proppes Eating and Drinking Eating to supply the dryer and more sollid part of the body and drinking to moysten to bee a coach and conveyance for the meate that we eate to be a cooling and refrigeration of the heate of the body And in both of them God hath set his blessing that by eating and drinking the life of man should bee preserved and prolonged in some to forty in some to fifty in some longer by many yeares by the blessing of the Almighty Therefore to eate and drinke so farre as to recreate the body to refresh the spirits to strengthen us in our functions and callings to incourage us to give thankes to God who is our feeder eating and drinking be as necessary as living But the eating and drinking here intended and spoken of Let us eate to surfetting let us drinke to drunkennesse let us eate and drinke to excesse to study these things onely for satiety and gurmandizing and that fulnesse that may confound nature and drowne the spirits of men and not build them up in the feare of God and in thankfulnesse to him this is that they meane here Let us eate so as that we may over-eate let us drinke so as that we may drowne our understandings in drinke When men cannot tell how to use the gifts of God moderately they cannot eate as other men eate but as monsters they cannot drinke as moderate men drinke but as spunges that devoure all within their compasse that their bodies many times are so full of ballast that the whole ship is lost even in the harbour it is not able to hold all the water but sinkes under the burden and is made a spectacle of misery to God to Angels and to men to insult over This brutish eating and drinking savours of bestiality Eating and drinking it is the meere felicity of the beast in this world As Cornelius Tacitus saith well some men are like beasts and goe no further if you give them a little fodder they will lye slumbering and be idle and take no further care such are those people Psal 17.14 Tertul. whose belly God fils with his hid treasure those whose belly is their God as Tertullian rightly describes them Their stomacke is their Altar Their belly is their God Their Priest is their Cooke Their holy Ghost is the smell of their meate Their graces of the spirit are their sauces Their Kitchin is their Church and Temple And that Aculiculus the most filthy part of al the body is their great and admired Idoll As the same Father goeth on Thou saist thou hast faith hope and charity Thy faith is boyling in the kitchin Thy charity is in thy Caldron or pot Thy hope is in those divers dishes brought to thy table Thus Tertullian hath described the condition of these kinde of brutish men And we see that in ancient times before men had the knowledge of Almighty God they placed a great happinesse in this one poynt of eating and drinking to make themselves bruit beasts without understanding as Saint Peter cals them 2 Pet. 2.12 2 Pet. 2.12 unreasonable brutish beasts Insomuch as one great King among them when he dyed commanded this Epitaph to be set upon his tombe This I have that I have eaten and drunken all the rest is lost that I have all the rest is left and forsaken Tully Aristotle which as Tully saith well out of Aristotle what other thing then this could have beene set upon the tombe of an Oxe or bruit beast to say I have nothing else but that I have eaten but that I have consumed and driven into my paunch and so into the draught that I have and no possession else But Christians have another language those things we have that we have learned out of Gods word the wisedome that we have gotten of heaven and heavenly things these things we have left us when our life leaves us and nothing remaines but the portion of these Those that have read any thing of the Poets they know what was the common language of seduced nature When God left them to their owne dregges miserable poore creatures they had no further aymes and intents then these transitory and perishing things the filling of their bellies whose belly is their God whose end is damnation as the Apostle saith Phil. 3.18 Phil. 3.18 Whose glory is their shame and such was the glory of all the heathen Another of them said Eate drinke and play for after death there is no pleasure Ede bibe lude post mâ—rtem nulla voluptas Horacâ— there is nothing remains Another comes in with his vye and saith The Sun indeed may rise and set and rise againe but when our night comes once the night of death we sleepe for ever and there we lye and there is no more to be heard of us Another of them saith We must ease our youth and take the benefit of it as a flower because it runnes away with a swift foot And another saith use thy pleasures now for thou knowest not whether ever they will come againe thou knowest not whether ever after thou shalt have opportunity to enioy them Thus this beastly congregation of brutish swinish people they apprehended with the greatest industry that could be these vile pleasures of eating and drinking as though there were a necessity of pleasures in this life and that the greatest pleasure consisted in the palate in consuming of meate and drinke According as this wicked crew which the Apostle
that is we must use all meanes to keepe us from the contagion and infection of these kinde of discourses And then he gives a reason out of the Poet Menander For saith he all these speeches are evill words and all evill words corrupt good manners they take away the purity of life whereby humane society is maintained Wherein we are to consider First how it is that he citeth the verse of a Poet a prophane heathen man To signifie the lawfulnesse of that when time and occasion require Secondly what is the matter and substance of that verse Wherein he puts two great adversaries and Antagonists together Good manners and Evill words And he sheweth that there is a certaine action passeth betweene them and the one gets the victory and is prevalent over the other For although good manners be extreamely contrary to evill words yet by reason that we are borne weake by reason that we are borne in sinne and in naturall uncleanenesse and corruption it comes to passe therefore that evill words applying themselves to that evill leaven that is in us they bring in this monstrous effect of Corruption then the which there cannot be a greater deficiencie For corruption is the destruction of the state of the creature And herein we are to consider 1 What are manners and what are good manners 2 What is conference and what is bad conference 3 What is corruption and how it is rooted and wrought upon good manners and how good manners should be carefully maintained To speake of these in order as God shall give assistance 1 Part. The Purpose First we are to note the Purpose of the Apostle here which Saint Austin against the Donatists was faine to make a large exposition of For they thought where the Apostle saith Be not deceived be not seduced that he meant get you from your Country get you from your Citie and runne into some other Country for among them you shall be deceived have no conversation with them therefore And by this meanes they brought in that fantasticall novell of the world That every Church thought it selfe the onely Church and every nation thought it selfe better than another nation and every man thought himselfe better than his fellow The most luciferous pride that can be imagined for if that once be suffered there can be no charity there can be no kinde of conversing one with another nor there can be no form nor face of the Church of God being nothing but a meer body of a schismaticall cōpany being nothing but a lump of sand which the winde drives to fro whereas the Church should be as a rocke or as the solid earth which is not easily dissolved It must be a great storme a great earth-quake that must breake off a piece of a rocke or that can scatter the earth that is fast knit and compacted together Aug. Saint Austin therefore to take from them this weapon wherin they gloried he tels them the sence of the Apostle that his meaning is not that they should make an outward separation but a spirituall He doth not cease saith he to bid you separate in a spirituall manner for he bids you to take heed that your mindes be not wrought upon by these kinde of witchcrafts to beleeve and to give consent unto the things that they speake For the Apostle feares not your living together in one Citie or in one house but he feares your consent therefore he saith he would have you separate in your spirits that is to take heed that you be not deceived that you doe not misbeleeve for those that beleeved the Resurrection and those that did not beleeve it they were two great factions in Corinth and the Apostle would have them separate not in place but in manners Evill words corrupt good manners And you should labour to keepe the manners of your holy faith which is the Queene of manners keepe that unspotted Therefore the Apostles meaning is that men should separate themselves in manners one from another not in changing and altering their houses or their Cities but not to consent to a sinner to doe as he doth nor consent to an hereticke to thinke as he thinkes not to consent to any man that is mistaken Augustine to be erroneous as he is so Saint Austin truely expounds the Text. How be it Bernard Bernard writing to certaine Ladies and Virgins that were Nuns saith he it is true if you lived in the open plaine places of the world you ought not to leave your Country for the contagion of the company of wicked men but because God hath provided for you Cells and Nunneries and Monasteries to live alone therefore I wish you to make use of them for they are best secured that are within the walls secluded from the sinfull schismaticall company of the world Upon the authority of these Fathers therefore we ground this sence of the Text. The Apostle wisheth that whatsoever suspition there may be of opinions and doctrines in the world either already prevalent or else likely to prevaile to hold our selves upon our tenents assured us out of the Word not to suffer our selves to be carried out of the right way either to the right hand or to the left For the word is taken here from the errour of a man in his way Goe not out of the way be not deceived you know what the way of God is and therefore woe be to you if you follow your owne waies much more if you follow the divels wayes by-waies of errour that leade to nothing but destruction There is no man that would erre by his good will it is a great deale of lost labour a great deale of trouble and a great deale of danger a man must either come backe againe which he cannot doe without much sorrow and griefe or else he must goe forward and thrust himselfe into further danger As those that use to travell know a man were better creepe in the right way than to gallop in a by-way out of the way So it is here in the way of manners It is a way of the fairest tract and the best beaten of al others and the walking in it is of greatest consequence for either it ends in joy and happinesse and contentment to him that prosecutes it and holds on in it or to him that lagges in it eternall desertion and forsaking of God To teach us to walke in this way Vse untill such time as we come to the period and end of it which is the salvation of our soules for that is the maine intention of this way Therefore as there is a way so there is a quo and ad quem to be considered and the ad quem that is set forth unto us in the word of the Almighty God it is the happy end of our blessed travell when we shall attaine the promises and come from travellers to be comprehenders Therefore as the way of manners is the most considerable and
spirit but the body This is the great mercie and blessing of God that although the body be never so naked yet the promise of the Resurrection is made unto that For the spirit needs no Resurrection the spirit cannot rise for it never falleth And as Saint Chrysostome saith the Resurrection must be of that which fals but the spirit never fell otherwise then by sinne and it is not otherwise raised then by repentance a spirituall kinde of resurrection But the Apostle meddles not with that here but he cals it the resurrection of the body and he shews that this comfort the body hath that although it be never so poore and never so bare though it bee cast into the furrows of the earth never so forlorne and forsaken and be stripped of all the glorious weedes that it had before yet it hath a promise that it shall resume unto it its former glory nay a farre greater glory a glory that shall indure for ever Indeed the corne when it comes out of the earth againe it flourisheth for a time and then afterward is resolved into the old corne againe and becomes like it selfe all the greennesse and goodlines of it with two or three moneths drying Sunne fades away or with the blast of a tempest it perisheth But these bodies when they shall be raised againe God shall give them that singular beautie that he intends to bring them to hee shall give them that durability that duration that no winde shall weather-beat them no Sunne shall scorch them the Sunne shall not hurt them by day Psal 121.6 nor the Moone by night for the Lord is their protection and their candle for evermore 2. Part. Gods part I come now to the second part of the Text which is Gods part He denyes it to man and saith that he doth not sow that which shall be but he saith God gives it a body that is that body that God meanes to give it man doth not sowe actually How comes it then By the hand of him that guides and governs all things he gives to every seed a body as he pleaseth and to every seed his owne proper body Where first the Apostle would reduce the glory of all the action of this creation to God all the operation in this great worke it is of God And to make us to settle onely in that he useth a phrase that is most sweet and gentle when he saith God gives it a body He doth not say God creates and makes it a body for those are works of labour we understand and conceive alwayes by those works something that is painfull and hard to be gotten And although God take no paines in the worke of creation yet it is so propounded to us as a matter of great difficultie Therefore he tooke sixe dayes to make the world in to raise our intentions to understand the greatnesse of the worke and the order that God tooke it was not a confusion therefore hee did not all things at once as he might have done but in succession of time But I say those words when they are used in Scripture they are spoken still in the sence and notion of labour But the word giving is alway taken in another sence as a matter of facilitie and easinesse to shew both the quicknesse and facilitie and also the goodnesse of the giver So in this that hee saith that God gives it a body he shews that it is a customarie thing for him out of his hidden treasures still to draw forth and to poure downe his benefits upon mankinde with chearfulnesse and good will his minde is set to do it not onely to his friends but to his enemies Mat. 5.45 for he makes his Sunne to shine and his raine to fall upon the just and unjust and hee makes that corne to grow even the corne of Infidels as well as Christians So great is his goodnesse to mankinde Vse And withall in that he saith God gives it a body It should teach us alway to receive these creatures as gifts from God as earnests of Gods love unto us A man that useth these temporall things either hee must make them assurances of things eternall or else he must abuse them And being the gifts of God of whom we receive every thing therefore they must be used to the honour of God which is the donour Our bread and food and all the parts of our maintenance as they spring and issue from him so they should be returned to him with a retribution of thankfulnesse and a gracious conversation God gives it a body and to every seed his owne body This is the maine point with which the Apostle intends to comfort the present body that is afflicted in this world For there were certaine Heretiques that said there was one body that fel and another body that rose that there was one body that rotted and corrupted in the grave and instead of that God gave another body And so there was a kinde of mutation or substitution to let one body dye but another to be raised out of the ashes as the Phoenix is said to rise out of the ashes of her mother But it is not so saith the Apostle There is no substitution there is onely by the blessing of God a restitution of the same thing unto a higher and a better and a more beautifull estate There is not one body that dyes and another body that is raised for then there could be no resurrection For what kinde of victory can this be said to be over death if the same thing that was foyled and conquered be not conquerour againe by the powerfull hand of God Therefore Christ is so carefull to prove this point unto us that it was the same body of Christ that rose that suffered upon the crosse hee was so carefull I say that wee should know this that he ordained it so that Thomas should be so distrustfull that he should gage his wounds Joh. 20.27 and finde the print of the nayles that he might looke on them that he might touch them and handle them that he might see that it was the same identicall body that he had before he went to the grave For he foresaw that there would such a doctrine of devils arise in the latter end of the world to say that Christ both in his body personall and in his body mysticall that there was a mutation of bodies that one body should dye and another rise in the place of it But against this the Apostle saith He gives to every seed his owne body In the body of nature the corne doth oftentimes so degenerate that wheat will turne to barley and barley to oates the better corne will turne to worser by reason of the badnesse and hungrinesse of the ground or by reason of the weaknesse of the seed or the unseasonablenesse of the times or the indiligence of the husbandman These things oft times cause these mutations But in this seed our bodies
it is impossible for the body shall never grow worse and worse by degeneration but it shall bee brought by the power of God to that high perfection that it shall still be infinitely better and yet still it selfe it shall still be the selfe same in essence though not in qualities It shall be the same in substance and nature but not the same in eminencie of grace and glory It shall be the same in being but not the same in seeming or in circumstance And so Saint Chrysostome saith It is the same and not the same it is the same as touching the fundamentall essence of it and it is not the same concerning the augmentation and the rare qualities that God shall impose upon it and invest it withall And so I say it is that comfortable doctrine to this flesh of ours that there shall not be any other flesh glorified for it but that this flesh that hath suffered martyrdome this flesh that hath suffered hunger and thirst sicknesse and persecution in the world this flesh that hath suffered for Christ this flesh and no other but this shall receive the crowne of glory according to the manifold evils it hath indured Otherwise there could be no true consolation in this life seeing the spirit also shall have larger indowments The soule of man the wit shall be greater and the memory greater and all the parts and faculties shall be more excellent in the soule Now these being not visible parts therefore they are not that which shall rise For it is that which is visible which belongs to the Resurrection the glory of the soule cannot be manifest it is still hidden and inherent in the inner-man But this glory that shall be at the Resurrection it shall be manifest and there is no manifestation made but to the eye and the outward sences Therefore here comes the comfort to every poore distressed body that the same that suffers and is miserable afflicted and tormented in this world the very same body shall receive abundance of joy and comfort and glory and beautie in the day of the Lord. The poore creple that goes double that moves every mans heart to pittie to see him in the streets he shall rise with a glorious and goodly body being incorporate into Christ by faith he shall receive a body full of ample complements and blessed perfections To every seed his owne body If it be the same body how then is it a new body Ob. and how then in the Scripture is it called a glorious body which makes it different This I told you shall be by addition of certaine accidents of glory that shall acrew unto it Ans which cannot be separated as accidents may be from their subject but they indure with it continually And that consists 1. Partly in that goodly proportion that I spake of before wherein all men shall be raised in one size Not as they are now where there is great difference but all shall be of one stature and perfection And therein they shall more resemble the Image of God then if they should be made in greater variety 2. Secondly another qualitie wherewith they shall be indowed is the clearnesse and brightnesse of those bodies For although they shall not be transparent and translucent which is no property of a true body yet they shall be so full of light and gloriousnesse as the Lord Iesus his body were when he was transfigured in mount Tabor his garments did so shine that no Dyer or Fuller in the earth was able to make such a tincture or to give such a colour and glosse Mat. 17. as the garments of our Lord had Much more then was his countenance glorious and shining And if in the old Law Exod. 34.30.33 the glory of Moses face were so great that the Iewes could not endure to looke upon him but he was faine to take a veile and cover his face when hee read the Law that so they might heare what he spake without astonishment much more shall the glory of the bodies of the Saints be at that day They shall be all lightsome they shall shine like the starres in the firmament they being often compared in the Scriptures to the starres which cannot be numbred Thirdly another qualitie wherein they shall be like unto the corne The corne that seemed to bee a dead graine yet after comes to have an excellent greene colour and live so these bodies shall exceed in proportion of beauty There is great difference now some are faire and some are foule creatures and those that are the faire ones of the world they thinke themselves onely happie and those that are deformed they thinke they had better beene unborne then to live in the world Indeed it is a matter of great dejection and scorne to a naturall man to have a poore deformed body Therefore the Lord shall so alter all things in that day that every man shall have equall beauty The glorious Saints in heaven their perfection is one and the same perfection they shall have a common perfection like the Angels that waite before the Lord and the Seraphins that have the selfe same perfection and beautie shining upon them all although it be not sensible to us but is seene onely among themselves Fourthly all this glosse stature and goodlinesse that they shall have except it have also strength and vigour it is little worth Therefore God shall give them that too That as the corne riseth with an high stalke to a goodly stemme and hath knops to underproppe and support and keepe it up whereupon it is builded so the Lord saith Rev. 3.12 he that heares the word of God he will make him a pillar in the house of his Father that is he shall have the strength and glory and the fortitude of the great men of God that hee shall be able to do any thing that God shall assigne him to with great dexterity And all this with a further grace of incorruption for the seed that is sowne although it come up with a faire glosse for a time yet it presently corrupts and is brought unto a drie straw and stubble and that which is greene now to morrow it is cast into the fire But the Lord shall give unto this glorious glosse whereunto he shall bring the bodies of his Saints he shall give them an incorruptible crowne 1. Pet. 1.18 It is a crowne that is incorruptible an inheritance immortall that never hath any change The best beauty in this worldly glory a fit of an Ague will change it and long sicknesse will turne the fairest rose into an ashy coale there is nothing so subject to change and alteration as the glosse of beauty But that strength and beauty and goodlinesse of the creature after the resurrection shall be supported by that ever mighty power of Almighty God so that there shall bee no old age to draw wrinckles in the face of his Saints there shall be no sicknesse to
make them wither there shall be no griefe of heart no discontent of minde to make an alteration in the outward man there shall be nothing to make a change because God shall crowne them in heaven with incorruption And lastly the Lord shall give them another quality which shall be the rarest of all the rest And that is a strange agility and nimblenesse of body that they shall be able to move upward or downward as it shall please them While we are here in this life we have heavy bodies a man must walke upon his owne foundation hee must have the scaffold of the earth under him But if hee presume any further and offer to go any higher with Daedalus and with Icarus he shall be cast into the sea hee exposeth himselfe unto danger and his waxen wings will be fired by the beames of the Sunne But then at that day though our bodies in all things substantiall shall be like these and shall still bee true bodies yet the glory of them shall be so great and the strength and power that the spirit shall have over this flesh shall be so absolute as to command it which way it pleaseth When we move now either we go forward or backward or side-wayes or else downward but upward we cannot but then the Lord shall give us ability to move upward too And this is that the Apostle saith we shall be taken we shall bee snatched up to meete the Lord in the clouds 1. Thes 4.17 there shall bee such a mightie power and prevalencie in the spirit of man to rule and command the body The Lord hath given us instances of it in some things in the Gospell Mat. 14 26.29 Our Lord himselfe walked upon the water and not onely he himselfe but he gave Peter power to walke with him And this was a signe of that he meanes to do at the day of the Resurrection As their bodies then walked and were sustained by the power of God in the ayre and was able to make that which is fluent and soft and yeelding in it selfe to make it a sollid pavement like unto the stones to walke upon the same power shall also worke in our bodies that agilitie which is in the Eagle So the Prophet speaks yea our Lord compares us where he saith Where the body is Mat. 24.28 thither will the Eagles resort which is meant not onely of a spirituall flight by faith but also of the bodies assumption And this our Lord confirmed by the Ascention of his owne body Iob. 14.2 for he went before to prepare a place for us that beleeve in him Now we know that his body ascended to heaven it had the power to move upward as well as any other way We have examples of it also in Henoch and Elias which were both translated Elias carried in a fierie Car to heaven 2. King 2.11 And all this with eternitie and immortalitie that there shall not any thing of it passe away there shall be no expectation of death there shall be no feare of change This is the greatest thing of all when God shall give fulnesse of glory to have also full security For whatsoever glory men have in this world so long as they know that there is a worme â—hat can gnaw it or that it is possible for them to be outed this glory is nothing because it is glory that may be no glory Such is the state of these worldly things that there is nothing so great but it is subject to be brought from that greatnesse But the Lord shall give this glory for ever and ever as himselfe is he that is eternall in himselfe he is eternall to all those that he shall make his followers and companions in that blessed kingdome For they also shall receive that part of eternitie as farre as they are capable It is this safetie and securitie that makes this blessing amiable and for that the Lord hath given us an example for securitie in Scripture where for forty yeares together in the wildernesse the Lord so provided that there was no mans cloaths that were rent or worne not so much as the soale of his shoe impaired by that long and tedious travell We see also they had securitie of food continually it never ceased to follow them but in convenient time was still administred to them Therefore it follows that God that can do these things for garments for these ragges that we weare upon our bodies he meanes much more to do it to the bodies themselves As Christ saith Is not the body better then rayment Mat. 6.25 then garments Seeing therefore that he did it unto garments that are of farre lesse worth will hee not do it unto the bodies themselves He that kept their garments 40. yeares without wearing and yet what weares so soone as a garment he was able to have done it for eternity if it had pleased him But God gave them that for an instance to shew that these things belong in a higher nature and degree and measure to the setting forth of the lifâ—â—ternall and were to foreshew and to be an earnest of that infinite glory which God hath reposed for them that wait for the comming of his Sonne Which the Lord worke for us all c. 1 COR. 15.39 All flesh is not the same flesh but there is one flesh of man there is another flesh of beasts another of fishes and another of fowls THere is nothing more plain and easie then the sence of these words they are knowne to every man by experience And yet it is very hard to finde out the intent and reason why they were uttered Divers men have diversly commented upon them For some think as Tertullian Tertull. others that follow him that the Apostle speaks not as he seemeth to do of the flesh of beasts and of the flesh of men and of fishes and birds but by an allegorie comprehends some other thing concerning the diversitie and degrees of men And so he interprets The flesh of men that is of holy and just and good men There is one flesh of men that is of holy men for they are properly to be called men A man so farre forth as he is unholy so farre forth he comes short of a man and those are onely truly and really men that be good And then by the flesh of beasts he saith the Apostle meanes the flesh of beastly heathen men the flesh of Ethnicks of those that do not beleeve in God those that do not beleeve in Christ the Saviour of the world He saith such are beasts for they differ not world He saith such are beasts for they differ not from beasts neither in their sence nor in their conversation Then for the third there is another flesh of fishes he saith by fishes are meant those that are baptised and regenerate by water the fishes of our Lord Iesus Christ Mat. 4.19 whereof he said to his disciples I will make
the flesh is that which we beleeve the resurrection of this flesh that is of men and chiefly of them that beleeve in Iesus Christ how the Lord hath set his hand upon this flesh his workmanship appeares to be wonderfull How he hath laid the foundation of it in the bones How he hath brought the flesh over it to be a covering and veile for the soule How he hath inlivened it that wheresoever there is flesh there is life and hath put the soule in it to dwell in the cabinet of the flesh How he hath divided and distinguished the parts in their severall joynts in their severall uses and proportions How he hath watred it with bloud and veines and with juyce and moysture every where How he hath inflamed it with arteries How he hath made it sensible with sinews How he hath extended and stretched it out with muscles How he hath covered all with a faire and beautifull skinne How he hath fenced some parts with haire as in men and with divers other fences more thicke and solid as in the diversitie of beasts with feathers as in fowls with skales as in fishes and yet all to live after one manner that there is none of these can live but they have veines and arteries and sinews and a braine which is the place of sence and a heart which is the place of life and a liver which is the place of concoction and they have bloud whereby they live That the Lord I say should set such a wondrous hand upon flesh now it argues he will do greater matters for it hereafter For he would not be so liberall of his grace and providence upon it here except he intended further glory for it hereafter Indeed in the trees and plants and fruits that grow upon the earth there is a glorious and sweet lustre and great variety but being compared unto flesh it is nothing And therefore in the Scriptures the flesh is made the subject of the promises and manhood it selfe is tearmed by the name of flesh as being that habitation or house that God meanes to raise againe when it is fallen downe to rebuild it up better then ever it was before For the flesh must fall as the flower of the field although it continue longer then the flower of the field but the Lord shall raile it unto everlasting glory So then this must teach us in the generall Vse that as oft as we looke upon our flesh or upon the flesh of others we ought still to possesse our mindes with holy meditations of the glory that shall be revealed upon that flesh to thinke of the resurrection of that flesh As the Lord hath built it wondrously and beautified it to singular purpose in this world so when it is ruinated he shall rebuild it to a farre greater beauty that shall never fade away but shall have a constant being as he himselfe is for ever It should teach us also to have a care of this flesh Vse that God hath so graced and that we do not disgrace it and betray it to the divell that we do not subject it to damnable purposes that we do not swell it with drunkennesse that we do not spoyle it with filthinesse that we do not distract it with worldly cares that we do not any way abuse and imbezell that substance that God meanes to grace that he hath set his image and stampe upon here and that hereafter meanes to better this his workmanship let not us prophane that which God hath made holy So much for the first point that the Apostles argument goes greater and higher the further wee go in nature still the more insight we have in the worke of the Lord and in the certaintie of the promises Therefore the Apostle riseth from things that grow in the earth from vegetables to things that live and move and there hee shews the resurrection more clearly 2. Part. The fourefold diversity of flesh Then the second thing to bee considered is this that the Apostle saith that all flesh is not one flesh For there is dâ—versitie of it It is true all flesh agrees in the generall they all live with a soule all men and beasts and fishes and birds they all have a soule and live in one manner by their bloud and by digestion of meat which turnes into bloud and nourishment So in the generall all flesh is one but in their severall kindes they are so varied that there is scarce any proportion one with another when we go to the particular differences of them For saith hee although they be one in the maine yet they be different in their specialties The first and chiefest that he names is the flesh of men And then after that the flesh of beasts Thirdly the flesh of fishes Fourthly of birds and fowls of the heaven For indeed according to their different motion the diversitie of their flesh may be conceived That the motion of men should be upon the earth and yet by reason of an heavenly aspect his countenance should bee erected unto heaven where his thoughts ought to be continually That the beasts should have a prone dejected motion looking alway toward the earth and as it were groveling there That the fishes should glide in the watery element being as it were not of our world but of another countrey That the fowls should mount up in that spirit and vigour that God hath given them by reason of a wing and a feather whereby they leave the seat wherein we must live and betake themselves unto the upper region By this variety of their motion we may necessarily gather this that there is a great variety in their natures For there is nothing more argueth the varietie of a thing then the ordinary motion of it to observe how it is moved The Apostle puts no other difference that might be conceived as the flesh of serpents c. because that may be referred to some of these it may be referred unto beasts or unto fishes but he contents himselfe with these foure as comprehending in them all the world of flesh which God created And in the first ranke in the prime place he saith there is one flesh of men whereon the Lord hath stamped his own image and hath made it the goodliest of all flesh setting such an admirable beautie in it and indowing some flesh with such excellent wisedome and judgement and that which is the chiefe of all setting the stampe of holinesse upon it which is the onely ornament of the flesh and of the spirit also that there is nothing that can compare with man I meane no visible thing in the world can enter into any tearms of comparison with that glorious image of God Such a goodly aspect to heaven Such a majestie and power in behaviour Such an erect upright and tall stature Such a goodly complection and proportion in the parts of the body Such an admirable dexteritie in all his actions Such valour such wisedome such
wit and the best sence and judgement excels the naturall foole looke how farre the strongest man excels the weakest childe so farre the bodies that shall bee raised up in that glorious day shall excell the best and the brightest bodies that are here in this world For saith he as God hath made severall sorts of flesh now and hath given a bestnesse and a worstnesse in them that there is great difference and it is well knowne to us how they differ so in the Resurrection there shall be nothing there the worst shall be more glorious then the best and most noble perfections that are here And so I thinke it to bee true as the Fathers imagine that it is spoken of the difference that shall bee but it cannot bee directly prooved by Scripture as Peter Martyr Peter Mart. saith Although it be true that there shall be some inferiour unto others there yet we must not rest upon it nor make comparisons of it There is nothing that shall be so bad in that kingdome but it exceeds all the best things that are in this There is nothing that shall bee so meane in that life but it shall exceed the most glorious things in this life This I take to bee the purpose and meaning of the Apostle in bringing in this difference to shew that if there be a difference here much more shall there be there There is as much difference betweene the body that dyes here and the body that shall rise then being compared together as there is betweene fish and flesh as much difference as is betweene one part and member and another All of them are indeed flesh but yet there is one kinde of vigour and one kinde of use and life and motion in the one and another kind in the other and so it shall be at the Resurrection To conclude the summe of all is this Vse that wee prepare our selves in a continuall expectation with blessed Iob looking for our change Iob 14.14 to depend upon the Lord God to trust in him that is able to set his Image in a farre more glorious stampe then he did before that can renew his broad seale and out of one peece of elementarie dust can raise such wondrous matters as are here spoken of What is the most beautifull body in the world what is the goodliest flesh what is the fairest colour in comparison but a bag of dust and yet how marvellously hath God wrought upon this dust out of a poore meane ground to draw such a lively colour such an excellent picture upon nothing but dust It is a strange thing so to fortifie it with comely bones to fill it every where every concavitie of it with a faire beauty of flesh to adorne it with such a goodly glosse and colour like the flourishing flowers of the field to continue it thus for twenty or thirty yeares in this faire glosse and goodly composure this is the most wondrous act of God! Teaching us Vse that there is a further matter that remaines that he that hath wrought upon dust in this manner now his hand is not shortened but hee can worke upon the dust that shall be raised out of the grave againe hee can draw the lines upon it and breathe upon it as he saith by his holy Prophet Heare the word of the Lord ye dry bones Ezek. 37.4.8.10 and it is said the bones gathered together and the Lord breathed into them the breath of life and they stood up The Lord is able to do these things and certainly these colours and this flesh that we carry in this world they are as earnest penies of that glorious flesh that shall be collated and confirmed upon us when this life shall be ended Onely as we looke for these things so let us sanctifie our selves to the Lord God let us keepe our selves unblameable in the wayes of the Lord let us reconcile our selves by true and unfeigned repentance Iam. 1.27 let us keepe our selves unspotted of the world that this flesh may not be tainted with the pollutions of sinne but that it may be preserved for that use which it was appointed for even to be a temple and tabernacle for the Holy Ghost for so it shall be sure to have this blessed change put upon it There is as much difference betweene that which is now and that which shall be as there is difference betweene any parts of the body naturall as much difference as there is betweene unsensible and sensible creatures as there is betweene men and beasts as much difference as there is betweene the flyer and the swimmer betweene fish and fowls Yet still the same flesh shall be the same flesh shall rise that dyed but the Lord shall adde unto it Ambr. he shall ampliate it saith S. Ambrose he shall make it better he shall not destroy the substance but he shall adde a new qualitie a new glorious quality which shall indure for ever 1 COR. 40.41 And bodies heavenly and bodies earthly but one is the glory of the heavenly and another that of the earthly one glory of the Sunne another glory of the Moone and another glory of the Starres for one starre differeth from another in glory So also is the Resurrection of the body THis noble and divine order which the Apostle hath taken for the assurance of our faith in this grand point of the Resurrection is noted by all Interpreters to be the glory of that spirit within him that he could not possible shew a greater evidence of the holy Ghost then in this manner of proceeding Therefore Tertullian Tertull. saith that Saint Paul did with all the strength of the holy Ghost bend and imploy himselfe in this Argument His meaning is with all the strength of the holy Ghost that Saint Paul was capable of For otherwise it cannot be said of any man that he can use all the strength of the holy Ghost for the strength and power of the holy Ghost is more then any man can comprehend But the order I say is so excellent and divine that he leaves no part of nature unransacked and unpierced for the finding of some argument and some evidence of the Resurrection First he taught us to finde it in our gardens in our fields in the things that are sowne in those things that are under our feet Then afterward he riseth somewhat higher and teacheth us to finde it in our flesh that we carry about us in the flesh of men in the flesh of beasts in the flesh of birds in the flesh of fishes in which as there is great varietie so all this present variety serves to shew and portend a variety in the world to come in the bodies that shall rise And now hee riseth higher and teacheth us to finde the Resurrection and the varietie of the bodies that shall be in the Resurrection from a comparison that he takes from heaven and heavenly things that we may see it also above
of the Lord out of the prime materialls and beginnings It is raised never to fall downe againe It is raised not to relapse againe but to stand as a goodly monument for ever It is raised by the mighty hand of him that raiseth the poore out of the dust and mire Psal 113.7 8. and makes them equall to the Princes of his people Therefore in this word the Apostle would teach us also wherein our hope consists It is sowne that is a hopefull action but after it is sowne it must be raised againe that is a dependant action which is not in our selves but from the Lord. Therefore we must raise our hearts unto God and returne our devotion and best affections to him while we live here that he may raise these bodies of ours when they have no power to raise themselves but when they shall lie in the dust of confusion he shall raise them up that they may be living Temples for the holy Ghost for ever to inhabit It is necessary before hand to raise our spirits unto him that he may make a requitall unto us at the great day of his Visitation So much for the metaphors It is sowne in corruption Corruption is the worst change that can be It is a motion from a being to a not-being For as generation is a work of God whereby something which was not is brought to have a being so corruption is a work which God permits to be done whereby a thing is brought to fall from that being either to no-being at all to have no being in our sense or else to such a base and naughty being that a man can see no reason why it should ever have been so glorious and so goodly to come to such a foule disgracefull downfall Corruption therefore is the destruction of the thing that was made as in all things we see in the world In naturall artificiall things when a matter is corrupt once it grows fit for nothing and although there be some kind of liquors that when they are corrupted they serve for some use as wine when it is corrupt it turnes to vineger and although it be not fit to drink yet it serves to raise the appetite in sauce and so divers other things doe so corrupt that notwithstanding they serve for some use but yet the chiefest and greatest number of things when they come once to be corrupted they come as much as to say to nothing to a kind of dissolution for there is nothing that can be turned unto nothing simply but because the use and property and substance is so disgraced and a contrary thing succeeds a better it is as if the thing were not at all Now this corruption is done two waies It is effected either by separation of the matter Or by removing of the forme The matter and the form you know are the chief things of which every body consists and we see that in death these things hold exactly For the forme of man being his reasonable soule as long as that is in the body it is cōpact and free from corruption and it keeps the beauty in the forme and image of God in its proper frame and figure But when the soule is gone then corruption works and dissolves the matter to Now when the matter is dissolved or the element is dissolved and corrupted this is that corruption which the Apostle speaks of here when hee saith The body is sowne in corruption that is the principles of the body which consist of bloud and flesh and skin and bones and colour and complexion and proportion and figure and frame all these goe away presently after the soule is gone And though some hold longer then other as being of more sollid parts yet they continue not long even but a few yeares and in some grounds a few dayes destroy the whole man This corruption began when wee began God t is true made the body of man uncorrupt had he persisted in obedience but as soone as man by his prevarication by transgression of Gods command was drawne into sinne he brought upon him this worme of corruption which never ceaseth to work upon the powers and faculties of flesh and bloud and upon every part till at the last it work it to an utter nothing to a very desolation And this corruption if it could be contained it were well if it could consist within some termes For corruption is proper to the body but yet through the infection of sin the gangrene hath so poysoned and possessed the whole man that corruption by a metaphor is brought into the soule to which is the speciall part of man And when the best things are corrupted the corruption is most wofull of all Matth 6.23 If the light that is in thee be darknesse how great is that darknesse saith the Lord Iesus Men in this world are corrupt in body they are corrupt in soule they are corrupt in their understandings in their speeches they are corrupt in their wayes Psal 53.1 as the Prophet saith Corrupt they are and become abominable in their doings there is none that doth good no not one They are corrupt in their consciences the consciences of wicked men are defiled with hypocrisie that they stink in the nostrils of God and men And to this corruption every man is subject more or lesse But the chiefe corruption intended here is corruptibility that is the rottennes of the parts of the body when they are once dissolved and melted and fall from one another To conclude this point because we know it by experience and we beare about us these corrupt bodies and we are troubled with the signs of corruption every day if we understand any thing Vse 1 It should teach us therefore not to triumph in any of these worldly things that puffe up the flesh and fill the mind with vaine conceits of its owne sufficiency but rather let us study mortification such as becomes the children of God let us weep for our owne corruptions for they grow so fast upon us that they make us odious even unto our owne selves when wee come to have a sense of our selves Againe it teacheth us this to take heed how we Vse 2 patch over this corruptibility as we use to do What a deale of cost what a deal of painting and art and labour and time is spent now adaies to conceal this corruption Corrupt bodies will not seem to be corrupt but they will be immortall and eternall and those offensive things that be in nature and that grossenesse and loathsomnesse that lurks in these bodies we seek by perfumes and by orient colours and singular diet to suppresse them and obscure them that they may not appeare But now the Lord hath put a worm in this flesh see it and acknowledge it and waile over it make not thy selfe better then thou art deceive not thy selfe thou art nothing but dust and ashes a corrupt creature a masse of corruption Why then art thou
a spirituall body So it is also written the first Adam was made a living soul and the last Adam was made a quickning spirit It is sown in weaknesse it is raised in power THe earth is Gods store-house whereinto he commits his treasure even the bodies of his Saints the Temples of his holy Spirit saith Tertullian Tertull. God hath made the earth to be as a ware-house therein to lay his commodities and from thence to require fetch them forth againe The sowing of these earthly bodies is manifest to us all but the raising of the seed that is sowne and the comming in of the harvest that is locked up and hid in the chambers of eternity in the omnipotency of God And there is no way for us to have accesse and to look into it but by the eye of faith whereby while we live in this flesh wee have a little peeping as it were through the key-hole to see a glimmering of the happinesse and of the gracious promises consigned unto us in Iesus Christ The things that here are spoken of the sowing of the body are so commonly knowne as that there is no man that calls that in question It is sown in dishonour it is sown in weaknesse It is sown in misery and mortality and the Apostle concludes all It is sown a naturall body but it is raised againe a spirituall body And because hee might seeme to offend some eares that never heard of that distinction that there was such a thing as a spirituall body for if it be a spirit then it is no body and if it be a body then it is not spirituall these things imply a contradiction Therefore the Apostle proves that which he had said he makes good his distinction and tels them There is a naturall body and a spirituall body And this hee proves out of the heads of them both out of the two maine Fountaines of mankinde the two Adams The one working to misery to sinne and to corruption and destruction and the other working to grace to obedience and to eternall glory And hee saith The first of these was made a living soule but the second was made and ordained a quickning Spirit The first was made to live to have life himselfe but he could not give life to another yea and that life that hee had was but mortall and fraile But the second Adam was made to have another kind of life and to be all spirit intending spirituall things and he was not onely able to live in himselfe but to give life to all his followers to quicken all them that belong unto him Yea although they be dead in their graves although they be dead in sins or dead in the damps of conscience yet hee is made a quickning Spirit to rouse and to raise them to the happinesse of the children of God This is the summe of the words read unto you To proceed in order There needs no great distribution or division of the Text because the words are nothing else but the probate of that which the Apostle had spoken before He proves it by the Scriptures that there is such a difference as a naturall body and a spirituall body The Scripture he brings is in Gen. 2.7 Gen. 2 7. where it is said The Lord breathed into Adam the breath of life and so Adam or man became a living soule or a living substance In the order of the words there are two miserable properties that remain to be spoken of touching the bodies of the Saints Division into two miserable Properties That they are sown in weaknesse That they are sown meerly naturall But the glory that God shall put upon them shall be in the highest contrary They shall rise in great strength and they shall be raised in a spirituall nature in a spirituall quality and condition 1 Property Sowne in weaknesse Concerning the first that the body of man is sown in weaknesse every man seeth there is nothing more weak and despicable then that all the whole life of man being nothing but a world of weaknesse as it is the prerogative of God to be Almighty so it is the miserable quality of man to be all weaknesse When he comes first into the world there is nothing more weak then he when he growes in the world the least fitt of disease of an ague any kind of opposition whatsoever will defeat him and bring him on his knees to such a degree of weaknesse and infirmity that he shall scarce support and sustain himself And even those that are the strongest of men that are strong to poure in strong drink Esay 5.22 as the blessed Prophet I say saith that spend their time in ryot those men doe soonest bring upon them this fatall weaknesse and none end so foule as they because though they seeme to struggle with the infirmities of nature and to overcome and transcend them for a time yet that inherent weaknesse which is in the flesh rebounds upon them and works them at last to nothing to the foulest expiration that can be Nay those noble spirits which as Tiberius was wont to say that there were some spirits in the world that account their businesse to be their solace their businesse and labour they account it comfort and consolation to them yet these men pluck and call upon themselves a greater weaknesse then other men so that the life of man whether it be base and degenerous or whether it be noble and spritely is nothing else but weaknesse If a man will doe nothing but sleepe out his time hee shall be surprised at length with base weaknesse If hee be vigilant and use the time that God hath given him to the highest and best purpose he is still overtaken with weaknesse and especially when the conscience of sin works upon a man there is nothing so weakens him as that doth Psal 39.11 When thou chastisest man for sin thou makest him like a garment that is moth-eaten And as the Prophet David saith by reason of my sinnes my bones are rotten and corrupted and all my ulcers stink there is no health in my body Psal 22.14 15. by reason of the sinnes of my soule My heart within me is like melting waxe I am broken like a pitcher like a broken vessell I am like a bottle in the smoak The conscience that God hath left in man to be his factor brings a weaknesse incomparable there is nothing that can be equall unto it But chiefly when all these meet together as in some they doe and when old age begins to rivle the face and to draw the complexion into furrows which was largely extended unto beauty and when the tresles and powers of the body begin to faile and the last terme and period is at hand then there is a wofull spectacle of weaknesse Even when a man cannot goe nor stand upon his supporters but hee reeles and falls when hee cannot taste his food nor smell nor finde
the least relish of it when his eyes waxe dim when he can retaine nothing in his stomack but he casts it up againe when hee can hardly speak a word nor know his best friends but all the organs of life and sense are drowned in death This is that poore weaknesse which the Apostle speaks of It is sown in weaknesse When he is casheerd and deprived of all sense of all power and motion and nothing remaines but a base and desperate imbecility and such a kind of infirmity as that there is no hope in flesh and bloud that ever there shall be made any recovery This is the state of all men Vse And it must teach us beloved to weepe over our weaknesse to think of it in the degrees and parts of it The Lord hath given us many prognosticants of it every sicknesse and every qualme and every distresse of conscience and whatsoever troubleth us in this world they be nothing but so many Kalenders of that great weaknesse that once shall come and make an end of us And therefore as it is said Man hath not one death alone but a number of deaths and that which takes him away is called the last death for he hath many before that This is the state of sowing the body But now behold the promise of the great God! he will raise it up in power the weaker it is sown the stronger it shall rise and this weaknesse that we have it is no argument of discomfort nor a mean to make us distrust but it is a surer tye to binde God to performance and a sure evidence of our deliverance that as our weaknesse is great so our strength shall be much more infinite which shall be wrought by the mighty power of God whereby he is able to subdue all things to himselfe It is raised againe in power or in strength For it is raised by him that is the strong God by him that is El Eli Elohim the God of strength of might and of majesty By that God that loves to make his strength seen in our weaknesse and to make his glory perfect in our infirmity by that God that delights to work in contraries and to bring fire and water out of the same principle that God hath undertaken to raise up this weak body Therefore the Apostle saith It is raised speaking in the present tense as of a thing done not in the future tense It shall be To bring us acquainted with the truth before it be done and to make us assured of it as if it were performed already We are as sure indeed to be raised to that glorious strength which God hath promised as if the deed were done for it is in the counsell of the great God in which those things that hee hath promised be as if they were already performed because he is true that hath promised and because he is able to keep his promise he is able to keep his word for it is his onely prerogative to keep his word and his promise for ever And this is that wondrous comfort that he hath given unto us that if it were possible for the body to have more weaknesse then it hath if it were possible to be debased worse by infirmity then it is yet then we had a stronger argument to prove the strength to come to which the body shall be restored For the weaknesse which we have and carry about us the greater it is the stronger proofe it makes for Gods infinite mercy in the deliverance of us For as we see by experience that vessels and barrells of gunpowder laid up in vaults and cells the more waight is laid upon them the greater pyles and masse of building there is over them the more furiously and strongly they break forth at the touch and traine of the least fire So likewise it is certain that the bodies that are turned into powder to dust these powder-bodies of ours for at last they must all all come to pulverell to dust powder these bodies the more weight is upon them the more earth the more difficulty and the greater weaknesse they have whereby they are compassed and surrounded it makes way for the more strength to burst out when the fire of God shall light and touch upon it when there shall be a re-union of the spirit a deduction of the soule when that fire shall light upon it that comes from heaven then they shall rise in a glorious strength for the more they have beene held downe by weaknesse the more they shall be rescued and ransomed and restored to a greater vigour It is raised in power and strength and in a strength that is answerable to the weaknesse that where the weakness is the greatest there the strength shall transcend in greatnesse And what is this strength It is reduced by the Fathers into foure particulars First St. Austin and St. Chrysostom and generally all the Fathers think Aug. Chrysost that the strength that shall be most eminent in the body when it riseth shall be in the power of motion which because I have before spoken of I will but now touch it As the top of the flame that is in a dry reed it runs upon the reed and you know when such platts of ground are on fire they set all a fire about them so the body of man it shall be able to flye to run and to move as swiftly as the flame doth upon the top of any combustible matter And as the Sun and the Stars and the Angels and spirits of men doe never sleepe and yet are still in motion and are never weary of their motion so the body that shall be raised and fitted againe unto the soule shall be without labour and pain without weaknesse and wearinesse and shall never faile nor faint but shall be able to hold out in an everlasting motion as the Sunne and the Stars doe in the firmament In which sense as Luther Luther saith they shall be able to goe ten thousand furlongs in the twinkling of an eye I name that as a matter of recreation because his spirit was wondrous cheerfull and merry in the Notes that he gives tending to that purpose The second thing wherein this strength shall consist shall be in the efficacy and power of their working So that those that be the weakest things in the world now that one devill if he were permitted were able to wrythe the necks of ten thousand people about then at that day God shall give them that strength of body that they shall be able to encounter a whole legion of devils which shall then have no power over the bodies of men as now they have nor shall not be able to possesse them and to rule them at their pleasure nor to make monsters of them but the body of one Saint shall put to flight and fright a whole legion of sathans complices And this mighty power whereby they work that I may a little still proceed
that shall not sleepe that is they shall not die after the common maner of death And then for the second opinion the second sense that Reades it We shall all rise againe That is false for there are none that shall rise but those that were dead and because all shall not die therefore all shall not rise as I said before in the opening of the Text. So that this is the proper and true sense of the Text and it is that also which is in all the Greek Copies The other is onely in some old Latin Copies and is diversly taken and mistaken by the Fathers This therefore is the Apostles meaning We shall not all sleepe that is wee shall not all die after this order and maner of death but wee shall all bee changed Those that bee in their graves shall be changed to incorruption to immortality and life and they that never come to the grave shall bee changed another way which shall be semblable and answerable unto the death that wee have So that all shall be changed yea not onely the godly to glory but the reprobate and wicked shall bee changed to a dureability to indure the torment which the justice of God hath allotted to them for their deserts from all eternity This Reading therefore is that that we must rest in as being the most proper resolution of the Apostles mind who giving a reason of that hee had said before that flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdome of God No saith hee they shall not inherit it but by a kind of change and mutation not after the fashion as we doe God hath reserved for them another kind of translation by mutation not by buriall and putrefaction as our bodies doe Now I come to the words The first thing is this that he saith Behold I shew you a mystery Mystery is a word derived from the Hebrew Mister or Mistar and it signifieth a hidden thing or else from the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as some would have it of shutting or closing of the eye because that all eyes are shut up and closed to the mysteries of God and it lies not in the power of any eye to understand the secrets of the Almighty Secret things belong unto God Deut. 29 29. but revealed things belong unto us and to our children saith Moses The Gospel is full of these mysteries and there is nothing so mysticall and hard to bee understood as these things concerning the renewing and reparation of the world For the things that bee done in common experience be nothing mysticall but those that we looke to by faith those things that we apprehend by hope they are all full of mysteries But the blessed God hath revealed them to his Apostles to S. Paul and to the rest and to the Ministers of his Word By reading the Scriptures he hath revealed that which is farre remote from the sense and understanding of any mortall and carnall man The mysteries of the Kingdome must bee revealed Behold I tell you a mystery The Lord hath told it me and I must tell it to you againe it is a thing that I am acquainted with by the Spirit of God which hath revealed it to mee It was once as strange to me as it is to you but God hath delivered it to me that by my ministery it may come unto you Behold I shew you a mystery The word signifieth three things in the Scripture as Chrysostome noteth One is when by an outward visible thing some other invisible thing is signified and represented So in the Sacraments of Baptisme and the Lords Supper where the water in Baptisme signifieth the precious blood of Christ and the wine and bread in the Lords Supper signifieth the breaking of the body and the powring forth of the blood of that emmaculate Lamb that was offered up for us Thus the Sacraments bee called holy mysteries hidden and secret things which the world cannot understand because they deride them because they doe not affect them but they are onely knowne unto the chosen ones of God In that sense the word is not here used for the Apostle speaks not of a mystery here by any outward thing to signifie some inward matter as in the Sacrament Another way mystery is taken for a partiall or halfe esteeme or conceit of any thing we speake of So in 1 Cor. 13. the Apostle tels us 1 Cor. 13.12 We see in a dark mystery wee see in a cloude wee see in a riddle in a dreame Wee understand in part we know in part As if hee should say All that we see in the providence and guidance of God here in this world is full of mystery some part of it wee know and some part wee know not so that the partiall knowledge of man because it attaines not to fulnesse it is called seeing in a mystery seeing in a darke view But neither in that sense doth the Apostle use it here in this place The third sense is saith St. Chrysostome when a man speaks something against the common sense and reason which the wisedome of man cannot attaine unto and reach nor would never have dreamed of And this is it which the Apostle speaks of here Behold I shew you a mystery that is I shew you a matter which you would hardly have conceived with your selves or that you will scarcely believe when I tell it to you I tell you that there are many men that shall never die nor never rise againe and yet they shall have their part of glory and be accepted and come to happinesse as well as you This paradox which is contrary to common opinion contrary to common sense and which is above the common reach and apprehension of man the Apostle calls a mystery in this place And hee hath great reason to put an ecce before it behold I tell you c. Vse To teach us that where any thing is mysticall in the Gospel and in the Scripture we ought to double our files to double our attention and to raise our spirits to hearken to that which is so secret For it is all our desires and it is naturally ingraffed in us to heare of newes to heare newes of State newes of the greatest importance Wee seeke we labour we travaile and wee sharpen one another to know what reports there are in the greatest importments Much more should wee be thus affected in the matters of God and of our owne salvation Therefore the Apostle satisfieth us and saith I will tell you you seeke for it and you long to know this you make many doubts and scruples in your hearts behold I will resolve you in one word The condition of the world that shall bee when Christ shall come it shall be farre different from this It is a mystery to tell you but it is infallibly true It hath been revealed unto me by the Spirit of God and I will open it to you the people of God And the
there are but few that can come in the houre of death to make this insultation But all should aspire for it and looke after it and should desire God to inable them to doe thus as St. Paul speaketh and as many Saints and Martyrs have in their martyrdome insulted over death with these words For this was often the motto in their mouthes Oh death where is thy sting oh hell where is thy victory Division into five Parts Now that we may proceed in order First wee are to consider that which hee saith the word shall be fulfilled which was written And then where it is written And thirdly what it is that is written Death is swallowed up into victory And fourthly when this shall bee performed Then then when our bodies are changed and this corruptible hath put on incorruption 1. Cor. 15. and this mortall hath put on immortality then shall bee fulfilled this saying And lastly the use and ground of all that is to take heart and courage for these things are written for consolation A man that can take no comfort against death shall never have any comfort any time of his life if there were no joy in our death there could bee none in our life Therefore all this is to renew the spirits of Gods children and to make them undaunted when that great and common Adversary shall ceaze upon them The Insultation is in the 55. verse 1. Part. The fulfilling of the prophecy which is taken out of Hosea 13.14 Oh death where is thy sting oh hell where is thy victory Of these parts briefly and in order as it shall please God to give assistance And first concerning the fulfilling of the Prophesie The holy Apostle would raise up the Saints of God to applaud and to take delight and to gratulate one another to see the fulfilling of Prophesies come to an end For all Prophesies must bee fulfilled Matth. 24 35. and though heaven and earth should passe away yet no jote and tittle of the Law and the Prophets can passe till all bee fulfilled and accomplished Now the Apostle brings to their minde those sweet prophesies of former time whereby he concludes the certainty of these things which he now delivers to them For there is no greater contentment to any man that is a true judicious Reader of the Scriptures then this to see that the things promised in the Gospel are not yesterday matters they bee no new things no late devises but they be almost as ancient as the world they are drawne out of the treasures of God in former ages by the holy Prophets that spake in former times what should come to passe in the fulnesse of time And as St. Pauls manner is still hee confirmes his doctrine by the precedent doctrine of the Prophets so here in this saith St. Chrysostome speaking many infinite incredible things it was needfull for him to set to a seale and to conclude all with the authority of some Author that had gone before And he tells them this is a word written It is a book-case it is no new thing which he saith but that which God had inspired before into the holy Prophet Isay and the Prophet Hosea and divers others concerning the same doctrine that he reveales unto them Therefore to conclude this point Vse We should learne by this example to confirme our faith to incourage our selves by the constancy of Gods word the constant truth which hath beene from age to age And that is it which must settle and stablish if there were any thing which swerved from the common custome or any thing that were new then wee might doubt whether it were from God or no. But because in all things it is so consonant to it selfe and God is the same God of the Old Testament and of the New it is a great confirmation to us to keepe us from doubting and from many scruples which Satan the enemy of mankind suggests unto us 2. Part. Whore this is written But where this word is written or who is the Authour of it as I said Divines doe diversly interpret Some thinke it is from Isay some thinke it is from Hosea and some that it is a writing from them both that it is two testimonies It is not unlikely that his purpose was to cite both the Prophets two of them together Matth. 18.16 that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word might bee established Therefore the first part of the sentence is taken out of Isay the second part out of Hosea That in Isay is Isay 25.8 Isay 25.8 you shall see there the Lord makes a banquet to his Church and the conclusion of that heavenly banquet is this God shall destroy death for ever hee shall swallow up death into victory as it is here spoken His meaning and purpose is there to speake of the deliverance from the captivity of Babylon but because there is no use in these temporall blessings except wee referre them to spirituall for these outward things be but as earnests of greater graces which God hath reposed for us in a better world therefore the argument followes As the common Tenent of the Scriptures hold still that from things present wee may argue things to come and from things temporall wee may prove to our selves the assurance of things spirituall So the deliverance out of the captivity of Babylon did signifie to them and was an assurance of the deliverance from hell of the deliverance from the bondage of destruction of the deliverance from the bondage of sin and the bondage of death Therefore the Apostle translates that according to the meaning of the Prophet which raiseth Gods people to understand that they had greater enemies to encounter with then Babylon And if God should have stayed his hand there and have given them a meere deliverance out of Babylons countrey they should be no better then men of a few dayes continuance For they must die after that deliverance and they had greater enemies then Babylon was from whom they must desire to bee delivered and whom they stood in feare of which would draw a more dangerous consequence then all their enemies else besides For Babylon could but inthrall their bodies and that but for a time but hell would destroy both body and soule for ever Therefore God saith hee would destroy death hee would destroy the death of the body and the death of the soule the first death and the second death and he would swallow both into victory That is the death of Christ should get the mastery of them that they should never need to feare them afterward they should bee so couched in silence that they should have no power nor strength remaining in them but they shall bee as though they had never beene they shall be so obliterate Now for the other place Hosea 13.14 Hosea 13.14 where the Prophet discourseth strangely after a wondrous and hidden manner For I think there was
he had from God hee cast all men into the prison of death and he keepeth them there and will keep them there by the common calamity of sinne he keeps all mens bodies there to the time of the resurrection which the Lord shall cause in the fulnesse of time but therefore the Lord following the way of justice and not the way of power for God was able to take us from death otherwise by other meanes then by the death of Christ but then hee could not be just Now God would teach us that it is better to follow the way of justice then the way of power for every man can be powerfull the devils themselves have power but they have no justice therefore God then in justice would have the death of his Sonne satisfie the wrath of God and would have him to die for them that should have died that his death might be the life of many thousands that his death might be the destruction of the power of death which had a commission given for the time that at the last might have an end To conclude because I see the time past let us also learne to frame our selves to this high spirit of the Apostle to insult over death and then if wee can insult over death much more may wee insult over all the calamities of this life for what is so great a calamity as that why should poverty oppresse us why should infamy vexe us if sicknesse diseases and death it selfe cannot oppresse why should trouble of conscience for sinne oppresse us when the grand enemy himselfe is conquered and when we have a part of the conquest wee are souldiers to that great Captaine and hee communicates his victory unto us all Iohn 16. ult Aug. Be of good comfort saith Christ for I have overcome the world Saith St. Austin What dost thou meane by this Be of good comfort I have overcome the world What have we to doe to be of good comfort it belongs not to us be thou of good comfort it pertaines to thee what are we the better because thou hast overcome the world Yes saith hee oh death thou which hast been the devourer now thou art devoured thy self thou that hast swallowed up men now thou art swallowed up thy selfe by a more potent cause oh death he was wounded for me that made me and he that through his death hath swallowed up thee hee hath conquered thee for me therefore I rejoyce in him which is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone his victory is my victory therefore he saith Be of good comfort I have overcome the world And this the Lord hath taught us in many passages of his holy Booke that hee might prepare us once to this courage to this great valour For in this a man is seen more than in any thing else in the patient abiding of trouble and misery in the patient enduring of death in this present life All worldly passions are seperated as chaffe by the wind from the godly the wind blowes away the chaffe but so it cannot the good corn that falls still on the floore the chaffe is blowne away with every wind of temptation and persecution Let us therefore take notice of that singular comfort which God hath given us out of the Scripture which all resolves at last into this one point Oh death where is thy sting oh grave where is thy victory In Iosuah 10. Ioshuah 10.24 wee reade that Iosuah there the Prince and Captaine he brought out the five Kings that were closed in a Cave and a stone rolled to the mouth of it till hee should come back hee brings them forth and bade the Captaines tread upon the necks of the Kings and not feare for saith hee The Lord your God shall fight for you This was a figure of this glorious victory of the Sonne of God over death All the potentates of Hell are like to the five Kings of Canaan which oppresse all they meet as Adonibezek they thumb them hee cut off the thumbs and toes of men and set them under his Table as dogges The Lord signified this victory of Christ by the victory of Iosuah over those five Kings and Adonibezek that hee would give a spirituall conquest over death hell sinne and all the adversaries that could oppose him and he would tread upon the necks of all his opposers What is so base a part what is so base a thing as the foot of a man and what is so lofty a thing as the necke and yet the very foot of Gods children the basest part shall tread upon the necks of their enemies upon the necks of Kings themselves which are compassed and surrounded with jewels and ornaments yet they shall bee subjected to the basest parts even to the heeles of godly men so great is the comfort of Gods children And as it was done then in Iosuahs time so also the comfort remaines now So wee see again the Lord bids the people look back whē they were past the Red-sea look back upō the Egyptians and the People Miriam had a song Exod. 15.1 when they looked back saw the Egyptians floating above the water A strange thing but God would have it so because he would have his people to have Arms to have the Arms of the Egyptians to fight against Amalek It is said the people looked back and saw them those proud spirited people those braggadocioes which thought to have swallowed them up quick and followed them with their chariots and Army those which before could not bee resisted now the Lord brings them to a calme he so cooled the Nation that the least boy might insult over them Israel looked and saw them and tooke off their armour took off their rings and jewels and their costly apparrell and furnished themselves with it when they went into the wildernesse So shall the conquest of Gods children be over death although it have beene full of threatning full of terrour and blood before yet the Lord will bring it into the floud into the Red sea he will overwhelme it in the water of his Omnipotency and his children shall look back and shall see him and spoyle him that was the spoyler and destroy him that was the destroyer and they shall take his weapons from him and make use of them to their owne purposes and they shall say as the people might have said to the Egyptians Where is thy bragging that thou usedst before thou art inclosed now in thine owne net Where is thy sting oh death Oh hell where is thy victory The Lord shall turne the termes the Lord shall make the field to goe on his owne side and take away the conquest from the adverse party It hath beene an ancient Proverb That to pluck the beard of a dead Lion even for children themselves it is an easie matter a poore child that cannot indure the noise or the sight of a living Lion Chrysost as St. Chrysostome saith the boyes
when they see a Beare or a Lion or a Wolfe dead in the street they will pull off his haire and insult over him and deale with them as they please they will trample upon their bodies being dead which they durst not looke upon when they were alive Such a thing is death it is a furious Beast a rampant Lion a devouring Wolfe which consumes all the world The Lord hath laid him now at his length he hath laid him dead that he is unable ever to have life againe and so the very children saith St. Chrysostome are able to insult over him That wee have had Martyrs saith hee of 14. or 15. yeares old which have offred themselves to the fire and to the sword and to all the passions of this hungry beast they have offered themselves to the devourers with a willing imbrace and have played upon him which is the common swallower of all mankind as Theophylact saith well We doe still devour and swallow up death by the faith that wee have in the life of Christ for that faith makes us so constant as that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Iesus as the holy Apostle saith Rom. 8. Rom. 8.35 What shall separate us from the love of God shall tribulation or persecution or sword or hunger or cold or nakednesse shall Angels or life or death things present or to come life or death No none of these are able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Iesus our Lord But these things are easily spoken and as long as we be in Theories so long as we bee in Contemplation wee may easily subscribe to them but who is hee that is able to doe thus when the time serves That is in the hand of the great God to give the garland whensoever it shall please him It must be our ambition to seek for it to intreat the Lord to crowne us with that victory with that heavenly valour which himselfe hath promised to all that love him Apoc. 2.17 I will give him the crowne of life and blessed is hee that continueth to the end for hee shall eat of that hidden Mannah and shall flourish as a tree in the Paradice of God But it lies not in us to continue neither therefore he that gives the end must also give the meanes and the same prayer that sues for the one must also beg and intreat for the other all this comes from God from the true love that wee have to Christ from the hope that we have in him to partake of his victory from our beleeving and confessing that God hath raised up Christ from the dead For if thou beleeve with thy heart and confesse with thy mouth that God hath raised up Christ from the dead thou shalt bee saved If wee beleeve that this victory of Christ is for ever accomplished wee shall be saved If thou beleeve although thou must doe many other things which are conditionall to salvation yet this is the maine point beleeve in the Conquerour and the conquest is thine hee conquered not for himselfe but for thee to make the spirits of his Saints conquer in heaven and to make their bodies also to reigne with him there when he shall appeare Col. 3 4. for when the Lord Iesus shall appeare we shall also appeare with him in glory See the extent and latitude of his conquest When God takes a field hee takes it for all the world not for one countrey as earthly Princes doe but all commers from the East and West and North and South shall yeeld unto the Lord and rest under his shadow Even all Nations a tot quot The Dinner of the great King refuseth no guests and rather then they will want guests and the Feast shall be unfurnished he will send to the hedges and highwayes to bee searched to come and fill his Table whereunto hee calleth by the Gospel and whereunto he bring us for his Sonnes sake Amen FINIS SERMONS On 1 COR. 15. Of the Resurrection 1 COR. 15.56 The sting of death is sinne and the strength of sinne is the Law but God bee thanked that giveth us the victory through our Lord Iesus Christ TO bragge before the victory begotten before the field bee wonne it was ever held a most vaine presumption as the King of Israel said to the King of Syria Let not him that buckleth on his armour bragge as he that puts it off For there is nothing more uncertaine then the events of warre and oft times when mighty men promise to themselves the assurance of the victory they faile and come to be foiled Yet notwithstanding so great is the confidence of St. Pauls spirit and so great is the assurance that wee have in Christ Iesus our Lord that wee dare boldly insult over death and proclaime the victory although our selves must bee vanquished For this most noble and gracious Triumpher over death hee lies in the grave he lies in the dust as well as wee must doe and there is no difference to the sight of flesh and blood betweene the ashes of St. Paul and the ashes of another common man and yet notwithstanding the Spirit of God was so mighty and potent in him and the faith of the things to come did so represent unto him the things promised that as though the matter were now presently performed he insults over death and takes upon him the person of a man new risen again from the dead As St. Ierom well speaks hee supposeth that those times that bee long to come and God knowes how long he supposeth that they were come in his time and as it were in the person of a man newly risen newly raised from death he begins Oh death where is thy sting oh hell where is thy victory So the holy Father tells us that the words should bee then rise in every mans mouth when God shall raise them out of their graves to that incorruption and that immortality which this corruptible and this mortall must put on It shall be the speech in every mans mouth then as being triumphant over death Oh death whre is thy sting oh grave where is thy victory Thou hast had victory over my poore bones and body a long time but what is it now thou hast lost it for evermore In these victories in the world there is no certainty because that which they call fortune is so changeable as it seldome setteth up one man but anon it raiseth another to pull him downe againe So the victories are fading and passing away and he that is a Conqueror is conquered and made a slave to those that formerly were his inferiours Ignarius it is said had a great victory over the Cimbri and Tutons yet hee fell shortly after into the hands of Scilla that conquered him and Scilla that was once the Sunne-rising when Pompey once appeares he becomes the Sunne-setting And if Pompey were never so famous a Victor as there was none more glorious
to thousands and millions in the world that beleeve in him that although there be sinne now in our mortall bodies yet it doth not raigne it commands us not to every thing it finds us not as the Centurions servants to goe when it saith goe but it is in many things broken and dissipated and the Lord hath beat sathan under our feet that is the usuall work of sathan sinne and foule impressions in your soules and understandings Thus the Lord hath given us victory over sinne in himselfe fully in us it is begun but for that wee shall have occasion afterwards to discourse The Lord himselfe being free from all sinne hee was therefore a Conquerour over that pestilent viper that poyson of our nature and he gave his people the infusion of his Spirit to guide them by the which Originall sinne is weakned the sire is abated and allayed the edge of sin is lessened The last is over the Law That still is the greatest enemy that still layes before us the judgments of God Doe this and live Doe that and be damned Follow this course and thou shalt be damned for ever If thou be a drunkard if thou be lustfull if thou be covetous and worldly if thou be revengefull and malicious the sentence of damnation is passed upon thee that is all the comfort wee have by the Law but Christ hath given us victory over this enemy which followes us at the heeles when wee doe amisse and still puts us into qualmes of conscience for our misdeeds and curbes and bridles us by the checks of conscience that if a man could but see the end of these foule actions as hee seeth the beginning he would never doe them because there is no equality between the short time of sinning and the eternity of punishment But against all this Christ hath given us victory for he hath fulfilled the law of God he hath stopped the crimination he he hath stayed all those slanders and all those accusations that the devill would make by the law or that those that have been curious observers of the law would make and those accusations that an evill conscience would make by the power of the Law of God which hath enlightened it He hath silenced all these in this life but the consummation of this we must understand is to come when this corruptible shall put on incorruption and this mortall shall put on immortality They are now gone before in the head they shall then follow in the body Saith St. Austin Aug. Whatsoever Christ hath done in his owne body it shall follow in our mortall bodies When hee shall change them 1 Cor. 15. and make them like unto his owne glorious body according to his mighty power whereby he is able to subdue all things to himselfe This is that goodly victory in the which the Lord hath interested us all To conclude and refer the rest till the next time I beseech you beloved in the Lord let us consider what part we have in this victory wee ought not to insult and triumph in a vaine presumption in blessings that pertaine not to us but if we think we have the victory let us labour to finde it and so enter into judgement with our owne soules who it is that overcommeth Apoc. 3. To him that overcommeth will I give to eate of the tree of life in the middest of the paradice of God to him that overcommeth will I give a white stone c. And what must he overcome He must overcome himself and all his passions he must overcome the feare of death the power of sinne and the terrours of the Law A fearfull encounter and a great troop of enemies is laid open the Lord strengthen poore David that he may be able to encounter with this mighty Goliah for it seemes that hell it selfe is open upon him when therefore we doe give our selves that liberty as to doe what our selves list against the good will and command of God let us not thinke to have any part in this victory we are rather as so many conquered slaves and vassals that lie at the command of death that whereas wee should tread Satan under our feet Satan tramples us under his and makes us the most base and vile creatures in the world Thou that hast enough in this world and yet canst not tell when thou hast enough but still art distracted with envious desires and makest thy self great by other mens falls that raisest thy owne fortunes by other mens ruines that usest any meanes good or bad by hooke or by crooke to advance thine owne estate to make thy selfe rich and settest thy selfe onely to the study of the Idoll Mammon what kinde of victory or what hope of conquest canst thou have in that great and mighty victory which wee pretend the Lord Iesus hath given us surely none There is no such gally-slave in the world as a man that is given and addicted to his wealth and riches in this present life for it pierceth men through with many sorrowes as the Apostle saith They that will be rich 1 Tim. 6. pierce themselves thorow with many sorrowes Behold the sting of death is the sting that pierceth them the sting of death is sinne and this sting it pierceth through the heart and stabbs the soule of every covetous man in the world that they cannot claime any part of that victory which God communicates to his children but they are foyled base creatures that are made for slaughter and destruction And so againe for them that live in their pleasures in their voluptuous and filthy courses that will grow old in adultery that will make no end of their filthinesse and uncleannesse but with greedinesse seeke when one prey is enjoyed how to obtaine another these that make their vessells that should be Temples of God the brothell-houses of the Devill that are no sooner tempted but they yeeld these comming Creatures how or with what face with what confidence can they lay claime to the victory that we have in God through Iesus Christ our Lord being nothing else but bruits and are given over yeelding themselves they have taken the marke of the beast and follow Satans direction and command as if Christ had no power to be their Chieftaine but the Prince of darknesse must rule The like may bee said of all these malicious prowling spirits that be in the world that take delight to sting their brethren to doe mischiefe without cause to sow the seeds of dissention that will wrangle out their lives to trouble others to bring upon them endlesse suits and questions that shall never be decided to vexe the world with begging or buying of new found offfices to make their hands full out of every thing sacred and prophane to play the very roaring Lions in their dennes that no man can tell how hee should live or keepe himselfe quiet with them That these Creatures I say should come and claime any part in this
us that are the children of Abraham although wee must study holinesse Heb. 12.14 without which no man shall see God and we must abhor all the works of darknesse and come into the light yet we are so fraile in this flesh that we cannot doe the one nor the other But miserable wretches we have two lawes the law of our members and the law of God and so we must conclude with the Apostle Rom. 7.25 I serve the law of God in my minde and spirit but the law of sinne with my members and yet hee concludes in this place thankes bee to God that gives us victory in Christ Iesus our Lord. To conculde this point It is the faith that a man holds in God the faith he hath in Christ that makes us Conquerers and gives us the victory It was this that armed the thiefe upon the Crosse when hee had done nothing all his life time but plaied the thiefe and robbed and oppressed and played his tragicall part in the world yet hee shewed himselfe to have one mite of faith in the end of his life and for that he was accepted And Christ saith unto him Luke 23.43 This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise That whereas the Pharisees and Priests and Scribes thought Christ to be justly executed and put to death yet notwithstanding hee put his faith in him and beleeved that hee was a King and that he had a great portion of glory reserved for him and that hee was able to communicate it to his followers therefore he desires to partake of that glory Luke 23.42 Lord remember me when thou commest into thy kingdome Now I come to the last point of the precedent verse Thanks be to God since wee have the victory in Christ Iesus our Lord that is since wee have both received the fulnesse of the conquest imparted to us and also the first fruits of the Spirit by which we are able to overcome though not fully to overcome yet to overcome by the power of his victory and to be accounted conquerers though we bee but cowards Thanks be to God for this great gift and mercy of imputation The holy Apostle saith Theodoret Theodoret. hath concluded all his discourse with a necessary line with thanksgiving and praise to God For indeed as wee are bound to thanke God for every thing that wee receive so much more for the chiefe and principall things that wee take from his hands There is no thing so gracious as this to be victors to bee borne to be Conquerers and to be conquerers over such enemies too as have conquered all the world this many thousand yeares together that in sight that there was nothing that domineered nor nothing got the victory but death and sinne and hell and to conquer these miscreants that had over-run all the world this is the hand of God which is to be rejoyced in and if there bee any blessing for us to blesse our soules in it is this that we are conquerers in Christ saith St. Austin Aug. For saith hee If I must thanke God for every petty benefit what greater reason can I have then to give thanks for chiefe and maine benefits The grace of God in Iesus Christ our Lord is that which gives us this victory Thanke God saith St. Bernard thanke not thy selfe St. Bern. thank not Saints thanke not Angels thanke not preparatory works thanke not foreseene merits thanke nothing else but let the praise rest wholly and totally in God It is he that did all therefore to him be given all praise and glory for ever and ever FINIS SERMONS On 1 COR. 15. Of the Resurrection 1 COR. 15. ult Therefore beloved brethren be stedfast and unmoveable abounding in the worke of the Lord alway because you know your labour is not in vaine in the Lord. WEE are come now to the conclusion of this Chapter which followes most naturally as Chrysostome saith Therefore my beloved brethren be ye stedfast c. It is a true conclusion when a man hath fully proved the premises hee that concludes a thing before he hath argued well and proved the matter he discourseth of hee is either a foole or a falsarie for it must needs argue it is a lie when a man will ground upon uncertaine grounds It argueth also weaknesse in him when hee thinks hee hath perswaded without sufficient ground for there is no wise man will be perswaded without due confirmation and demonstration of those things that are argued Therefore now the Apostle comes in as an excellent Oratour to conclude not upon poore grounds nor upon weak evidences but upon strong perswasion and demonstration saith Tertullian Tertul. Hee useth all the strength of the holy Ghost to perswade to this powerfull article of the Resurrection his meaning is with all the power of the holy Ghost that he was capable of for else the power of the holy Ghost is as infinite as God himselfe is infinite But now when the Apostle had driven this doctrine home when he had so beat it into them as that there was no scruple left to any gainsayer or contradictor when he had shewed the cause of the Resurrection when he had shewed the maner of it when he had shewed the absurdities that would follow the contrary doctrine if men did doubt of it when hee had shewed the effects and consequents of it of that glorious incorruption and immortality when hee had proved it by force of holy Scriptures Oh death I will be thy death oh hell I will be thy destruction When he had set downe all these firme and maine presidents it is time for him now to bring in his conclusion He is a foolish builder that will set up the roofe of his house before the walls be built and he is an idle discourser that will offer to bring a thing into his Auditory upon any triviall reason but the Spirit of God teacheth us first to settle the understandings to perswade the minds of men by strong and puissant arguments and then to draw forth conclusions for hee must first move a mans senses and understanding and then draw his will for the will is alway plyable to the conclusion but the understanding is attentive to the demonstration All this while the Apostle had held the understanding giving demonstrative causes and such reasons as no man could contradict him in Now that being done he closeth with the will and that is easily brought if he can perswade the understanding therefore he saith Therefore my beloved brethren that is seeing these things are thus seeing I have told you the will of God in this point that Christ is risen himselfe and that he is risen so palpably that he was seene of more than five hundred brethren at once and that he is the Head of the body and that therefore all the members must be raised up at one time to come with their Head and be joyned unto him Seeing that
dammage and frustration But the Spirit of God doth not meane to set men a worke with a fooles errand to set men on worke without ensuing profit The blessed God that cannot lie to any man hee hath promised and assured that those that labour in him they shall not lose their reward The reason subdivided into 4. branches First then of the labour Secondly that it is not in vaine Your labour is not in vaine Thirdly why it is not in vaine Because it is in the Lord. Fourthly how we come to this You know this is so It is a thing that no man can make question of 1. The labour First of the labour It is true all the parts of religion are laborious and there is no man that takes such paines as a Christian doth When the great Conquerers of the world have subdued whole Nations yet the mastery was hard for them to atchieve over themselves that is the labour of the Lord but the labour that is spoken of here is chiefly to bee referred to three heads First to the Ministers of Corinth This labour is referred to 3. persons 1. Ministers you that preach the doctrine of the resurrection your labour is not lost therefore have a good confidence You preach that which is true you preach not lies and fancies but the doctrine that you preach that all men shall bee raised againe it is as true as God is true therefore you that are Preachers hold on be not dismaied whatsoever those Heretiques and adversaries goe about to cast against you and oppose you in your way Keepe the tenents of your profession hold on constantly for your labour is not lost the Lord shall make it good It is an idle thing for a man to stand in the Pulpit and tell nothing but lies to the people such a man deserves to be stoned to death for it to abuse the faith and to abuse the understandings of men to tell them things that God never meanes to doe And the Ministers of Corinth were men that were but Novices and there were so many hereticall fellows among them that they were not able to answer their sophismes and so they beganne to leave off their preaching of the doctrine of the resurrection because that was full of arguments and difficulties and they knew not how to evade out of it and answer their Opposers Therefore they began to give over that and take some other points but no saith the Apostle goe on with this doctrine let all the gates of hell open themselves they shall not prevaile against you It is the worke of the Lord and the Lords arme is higher and mightier then the powers of hell and that which you say the Lord will make it true in the time of the resurrection of the bodie whatsoever the gates and power of hell can make against it that is the first sense which Saint Basil S. Basil followes and indeed it is good and true Another sense is of the Brethren in Corinth that were of the common faith among them which were exercised in the Agonies of a christian life as if hee should say Brethren I understand you are by reason of this doctrine of the resurrection scoft at and laughed at they think you are fooles they imagine that such a thing as this is a meere dreame they account you creatures of another world and such as have a vaine beliefe and perswade your selves of these schismes which these new teachers have put into your heads and I see you have great troubles in your life and these troubles that you have by your persecution and troubles of conscience which are all sweetned by the Resurrection they are aggravated so that as I beseech my brethren that teach so also I intreat you that heare to abound in the worke of the Lord that as they preach and teach so that you may perceive this doctrine to be true although the world resist it never so much this is the agony of a christian life with Heretiques with Schismatiques with himselfe with the world This is the Agonie which a Christian is born unto which some of the Fathers take to be the labour here spoken of so St. Ierome Epiphanius S. Jerom. S. Epiphan and divers others follow that But that which I take to be the best is the sense which St. Austin and some others give S. Aug. which is this Your labour is not in vaine that is your labour of love Marke the Apostle there reciting all the Intellectuall graces of the Spirit of God 1 Thes 1.4 hee speakes there of the labour of love for there is nothing that hath so much labour in it as love although it be without paines if we regard the outward act and worke yet the imployment is great nothing is so laborious as love it is still doing good comforting those that are distressed bestowing somewhat to the poore out of that little it hath to spare it out of its owne mouth to give admonitions to the peevish to deale wisely with froward spirits A man were as good goe about to tame a wild Tigre as to tell men that are setled in evill courses of their faults yet a Christian must doe this so this is that labour of love the love of that blessed day the love to the time when a mans body shall be raised it makes him change his place remove his lodging it makes him spend his meanes it makes him doe all the good he can in this world because he hopes for the blessed resurrection of his body as the Apostle speaks Acts 20. For the hope of the Resurrection I am bound with this chaine This is that labour for wee doe not labour for nothing and indure all this toile and trouble but because wee looke for the resurrection of the dead This is that labour of love that wee must strive to finde in our selves that same unsatiable and unwearied labour that is still working still teaching without any intermission and although we be not called into the Vineyard of the Lord all at one time all at one houre but some at the third some at the sixth some at the ninth and some at the eleventh houre and though the worke of them be not all alike but some beare the burthen in the heat of the day and some are called at the evening yet we see all wrought untill the evening so long as they could worke So the labour of the Lord is never to be laid aside Luke 9.62 No man that puts his hand to the plough and looks back is meet And as our Saviour Christ saith Remember Lots wife Luke 17.32 But we must be constant as the greek word here signifieth a chopping labour a labour that cuts a man in pieces there is nothing that so divides betweene the sinewes and the joynts and the marrow as the labour that proceeds from true love and friendship And there is nothing that makes a man more settle himselfe
you must doe it much more as being more blessed of God As I have ordained in the Churches of Galatia so doe ye where we are to understand three things First the antiquity of the Church of Galatia Three things 1 The antiquity 2 Apostolicall authorâ—ty Secondly that the Apostle had ordained it hee commands it he counselleth them not to doe it but by his power Apostolicall he enjoynes them 3 The power of the Church Thirdly and lastly what is the force and power of this argument which is drawne from the authority of the Church what is the nature of it and how farre it must prevaile with all the followers of Christ For thus he argueth The Churches of Galatia doe this and if you doe it not you are in great fault and in danger of damnation for you must follow the example of elder Churches but they have done thus therefore you must doe so much more having greater meanes and better ability then they that is one motive Another incentive is this that he himselfe will come and that he will see to these things and that he will receive it at their hands and that hee will make a convoy for it to the place where it should be surely delivered which is a great argument for a man is very willing to part with his money if he be sure that it shall not be interverted that there shall be no falshood but that it may come to the hands of those for whom it is intended upon these termes it may be he will be reasonable willing to part with it Therefore for this he tels them that he will take an order and that order that shall be best liking to themselves for when he comes they shall appoint and choose certaine fit men that they may trust with money and indeed he that a man may trust with money he may trust him with any thing almost therefore they shall choose such men not as may be their owne carvers not such as shall seek to make themselves rich of other mens goods much lesse out of the poore mans stocke but such as shall be true and faithfull dispensers of that which is offered by them and these shall bee chosen by themselves because he was a stranger to them and they were strangers to him and not onely so but they shall commend them to the brethren at Ierusalem by their Epistle and if need were he himselfe would helpe to convoy it he would helpe to passe their blessing The last motive that he useth is this that he saith they shall carry your grace to Ierusalem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 calling that almes that they should give a grace as making them gracious before God and men as proceeding from the grace and good spirit of God as comming from meere grace not of constraint Every man desires to be gracious and to be reputed gracious the tythe of grace is the most honourable and the greatest thing that can be in the world especially of divine grace and such a thing is this almes deeds he calls it not almes he cals it not benevolence or a collection but he cals it grace They shall carry your grace to Ierusalem that is that gracious gift which the Spirit of God shall worke you to And the summe of all is this that he would have this done before he come lest they should be found too tardy if they should then fall a gathering when they should be a presenting and offering their gift for tardinesse and unreadinesse is a base fault in any man but most in Christians and in Christian duties most of all It was the fault of the foolish virgins which were tardy and lost the kingdome for it things must be done in season in due time so saith the Apostle lest it be to be made when I come I pray make it before as he saith in 2. Corinth 9. If the Macedonians that I shall bring with me when they come shall finde you making your collection you and I shall be both ashamed to see your unreadinesse in this point of Religion and devotion whereunto you should go with the formost I take this to be the summe and substance of the words read that upon the Lords day every man should repose and lay by himselfe of that which it had pleased God to give him and that he is pleased to give againe to the Church to lay by that he can spare and to do it upon consideration that other Churches have done it before him and that all the members of Christ are bound one to another and also because it was a precept and command upon the Church left by Apostolicall power and chiefly because the whole managing of the businesse was certaine to be conveyed by men of most knowne fame and experienced goodnesse and honesty Such as should be chosen by themselves such as should be confirmed by their letters commendatorie and all this the Apostle instances lest they themselves should not be found so ready and chearfull in the worke lest they should be lagging in their gift which should bee ready and willing to keep their credit especially in so good an action Of these things briefly and in order and but a word because I will not extend your patience beyond the time 1 The time of the collection First for the day the Apostle would have this done upon the first day of the weeke wee may take it for granted that it was the Lords day we will prove it afterward we will have it granted now The first day of the weeke the first of the Sabbath for all the dayes of the weeke were among the Iewes reckoned for Sabbaths so Sunday was the first and Munday the second and Tuesday the third Sabbath and so forth And according to this reckoning they all computed their time their moneths and their weeks among the Iews In which sence the Pharisee is to be understood when he saith I fast twice in the Sabbath that is twice in the weeke For the Sabbath being the great day and the principall of the seven it gives the denomination to all the rest and they be called the first and second and third according as they have their distance from that day So this first of the weeke it was the Iews Munday as it were it is our Lords day which immediately succeeded the day of the Passeover wherein our Lord Iesus lay in the grave and which was the first day of his resurrection and therefore is remembred throughout all Christian generations This was the time that the Apostle thought fittest for Christian men to lay aside their charitie to lay it up for the common treasure for the common stocke of the Saints for the poore Saints at Ierusalem It teacheth us that as all the works of mercie become the Lords day so especially this of almes giving it is a worke proper to the Lords day For therein we have both rest from labour representing unto us our eternall rest
by this that the Apostles purpose was that although hee went to Macedonia yet if newes were carried to him if there were any post sent to him as indeed he was but on the other side of the Sea in Asia if news I say were brought him that he must go with them he would dispence with the other action and intend this We see here the Spirit of God it tyes not a man to absolute necessities but it gives him libertie according to the circumstances to use his owne discretion for it seemeth that the collection which the Corinthians made although it were great yet it seemes that it was transported very quickly and finely or otherwise that Saint Paul did take it with him from Ephesus after the feast of Pentecost and so carried it for in these things no man can tell nor the particular place certainly from whence this Epistle was written Onely this is plaine and that I will insist on that when he should come to carry it he would not carry the money himselfe but he saith that those whom they should appoint should go with him And so hee puts from himselfe all suspition of double dealing S. Pauls care to avoid suspition hee would not have them thinke that he would intervert the money or that he would give it to some other purpose then they intended it or make himselfe rich of the poore mens stocke he is carefull of this this argued the sweetnesse and sinceritie of the Apostles minde and it makes a rule for all that come to Apostolicall place that deale with Apostolicall matters to take heed that the world have no ground to conceit that any thing in this kinde sticke to their fingers but that they may shake their hands and their garments and quit themselves in all causes wherein the world shall thinke they have too much interest or that they have beene unfaithfull and false stewards So Chrysostome and Saint Austin He doth not say saith Austin that if the collection come to a great summe I will carry it to Ierusalem my selfe for then some sycophants that were in Corinth some Adversaries that he had there would have objected and said that hee meant to make himselfe the better by it No saith he but those whom ye shall appoint and put in authoritie they shall go with me A man must wash his hands from all bribery and corruption that will be in any place of God that will be in the place of Paul or that hath any commission from God he must be like unto Samuel that he may say as he did Whose oxe have I taken or whose asse have I taken or who have I wronged or defrauded in judgement or any way in any intention let him speake And as Zacheus saith I will restore him foure fold Luk. 19 9. These men that meddle with holy things to make themselves somewhat the better or at the least to beare their charges upon Gods stocke and such a charge as perhaps the poore would be loath it should come to these are false brethren and no true Transporters of the heavenly treasure they should be such as do that which they do for the Lords sake and if they can disburthen and discharge the poore of all charges in the carriage they should take it upon themselves and do it for Religions sake Chrysostome it seemeth was troubled with such kinde of companions in his time for saith he the collection that we make for the poore and are alway calling upon you Give to the poore give to them that stand in need which saith hee I will never leave off but will speake it as long as God gives me my voyce This calling and crying for the poore it makes you thinke that we have a great stocke of treasure that we feed our selves in private with you thinke that the Priesthood lives upon this Nay saith he we defie all such cogitations we give you the Gospell freely without any charge And although we worke not as Saint Paul did with our hands yet you know that we have indowments to live upon of our owne We have so much Church-lands to maintaine us that we abound and we seeke not any thing from you for our owne selves but we seeke it for the indigent poore that are errant and go about the streets and for such as want upon casualtie by reason of fire by robbery or by drowning or by miscarriage in their trade or being captivated by Infidels or the like we labour onely to stirre up your bountie towards them This was the noble state of the Church in Saint Chrysostomes time We are content and satisfied with that which is our owne what is the Churches owne now adayes In those parts which I touched on before There is nothing left that the Church may call her owne except it be a poore rotten wall except it be an old Bible except it bee an handfull of thatch where that Bible lyes to save it that the raine come not upon it and so put them to new charges as for other things there is nothing that is her owne but the wilde Bore out of the forrest hath almost wasted and desolated the whole Congregation of God and hath made them as so many vagabonds in Israel that there is nothing but beggarly raggednesse both in the temporall and also in the spirituall body But it is to no purpose to complaine in a desperate condition Saint Chrysostome saith Whosoever thinks that there is any such men in the Church that make themselves rich or better themselves by the collections that are given to the poore let him come forth and shew it let him proove it and wee will confesse it and it shall appeare if these things can be proved and the man bee convinced of them that such a man is not onely worthy to be brought to shame but he is worthy that ten thousand thunderbolts should be shot against him he is not worthy to live and breathe in this common ayre which hath attempted such a monstrous robbery and invasion upon the people of God To conclude all in a word the Apostle saith concerning all for matter of giving to the poore for matter of doctrine for matter of manners he saith for all I will come And no doubt this word veniam it had a divers tone and sound a different tune to the Corinthians eares for Saint Paul had a great number of good friends in Corinth he had also a great number of pestilent enemies to the one this word sounded in a gentle and sweet harmonious tune it was certaine he came to them as friends he came as a Saint of God he came as an incomparable Iewell he came as one that brought the blessing of God where he came hee came as one whose feet were beautifull to bring the glad tydings of the Gospell of peace as one that came to the salvation of their soules as one that came to settle and to reare up the broken towers of David he
frozen there are many trades that cannot worke and likewise the aire may be so intolerable that no man can work in it and the mist and damp may be so thick that a man cannot work in them but the glorious Gospell of Christ is of a spirituall nature it works when all things doe oppose it when every thing is against it the Gospell works As the Apostle saith Although I be bound yet the Word of God is not bound 2 Tim. 2. 2 Tim. 2. Although I be bound yet the Gospell of Christ is free and it judges the judgers and condemnes the condemners and stands against the opposers and refutes the adversaries it is mighty and powerfull even in the chaines of darknesse there is nothing that can stop the light and glory of the passage of the word of God The Minister can work when no man can work and he can doe the parts of his calling when every man else is silent and is not able to proceed in that thing that hee makes profession of for the glorious Gospell of Christ it is the Midwife of the world the Midwife must rise at all houres in the night to attend and to bring forth babes into the world and such a Midwife spiritually is the preaching of the Gospell which is ready at all times and upon all occasions if God give strength at all houres of the day and all times in the night to bring forth new creatures unto Christ and to feed them with the spirituall and sincere milk of the Word I will harbour or winter with you I but at whose cost wilt thou winter At whose charges St. Paul wintered upon thy owne purse or at the charge of the Corinthians That is a great matter nowadayes a poore mans wintering it is a trouble to a whole city they can hardly beare his charges although in old time in the Primitive Church they were so free spirited that every man had a house for S. Paul every man had a bed a chamber for him and for his followers but now men are growne so hide-bound and so base that S. Paul himselfe might lie in the streets perhaps if he were here in person before he should be entertained unlesse he brought some great and strange miracle with him or some great demonstration of the Spirit he might lie upon the stalls or the shop-boards hee should hardly be entertained into their houses Therefore it is a matter of great moment to consider in that he saith hee will winter with them who shall beare his charges in his wintering You may think this to be a simple conceit but if you marke the writings of the Apostle Paul you shall see there is some consequence in it marke what he saith 1 Cor. 9. 1 Cor. 9. saith he there I was never troublesome to you I never tooke any thing of you nor was chargeable to you And againe hee saith more cleerely 1 Cor. 12.13 1 Cor. 12.13 I pray saith he wherein did I baffle you for so the word signifieth wherein did I baffle you above other Churches was it in this because I was not burthensome to you forgive me this injury It is an ironia where the Apostle saith hee was never burthensome to them or never tooke any thing of their purses and by way of ironia hee desires them to forgive him that wrong he nevertroubled them which he doth account not a wrong nor any man would account it a wrong for it was a singular courtesie for a man to abstaine from his owne right to quit and disclaime that which was due to him that which was his maintenance for God hath appointed that those that wait on the Altar should live on the Altar so those that preach the Gospel should live on the Gospel but the Apostle saith he did not this hee tooke nothing from them Now then observe seeing St. Paul was so carefull to proove that he gave the Corinthians a Gospel freely without charge and now he saith he will lodge with them all the winter it argueth that St. Paul lodged upon his owne cost and not at their cost and charge although perhaps there were many faithfull men in Corinth that would intreat him yet hee disbursed the charges his owne selfe But some will say Quest how could this come to passe how was this done Hee gives the reason in 2 Cor. 11. Answ I robbed saith he other Churches to doe you service When I came to Macedon I found such free 2 Cor. 11. such generous and high spirits that they denied mee nothing that I would have they furnished him with money in abundance that he saith he robbed them he took so much of them I robbed other Churches to doe you service he had therefore a stock with him whereby hee was able to maintaine himselfe at Corinth and not be chargeable to them So much of that point Now to make some Application of it It is certaine that the Messengers of Christ ought to bee maintained wheresoever they come if they can proove that they come in a good cause and upon necessity hee is no member of Christ that will not receive them but withall they must indeavour to come as Paul did not to trouble them nor bee chargeable to them If they see the place cannot brooke it if the disposition of men bee churlish they ought not to impose it upon them nor to work upon them too much but to take that thankfully that comes from them willingly and if nothing come they must sit downe content with nothing As St. Bernard S. Bern. speaks upon this place saith he St. Pauls wintering was a small matter he had a small retinue his company was few a meane lodging would content him a poore thin diet would suffice him but saith he if there should an Abbot goe to such a place he would bring a famine after him hee goes with such great equipage and with such pompous company that men could not possible without a great burthen entertaine such a creature But St. Paul was of another minde hee came with such a mediocrity that hee is content with a small matter a little thing served his turne hee served the Lord with fasting oft with much prayer he preached oft hee watched oft he was not one that sought varieties or dainties but a small matter for his Wintering would doe it therefore he saith considering that they knew his manner of fare and diet hee was so bold and presumed that they were willing to entertaine him as being one that was no devourer but was content with whatsoever came to hand 2. Part. The end of Pauls lodging at Corinth The next thing that followes in the Text is the end wherefore the Apostle saith hee would lodge with them or winter with them the end is because hee would bee led by them wheresoever hee should goe by their meanes he would be conducted on the way It is certaine this was not the prime cause that St.
what this Pentecost is it seemes not greatly materiall to enquire because every man thinks he hath the knowledge of it But if you should see the diversity of Writers and Interpreters you would wonder to see so much question about a thing that seemes so out of question For Erasmus and some others think that it signifies nothing but fifty dayes that S. Paul writ at a certaine time of the yeare not alluding to this that is that hee had no reference to this feast of Pentecost but onely that he purposed to stay fifty dayes at Ephesus and then to journey to Ierusalem But this cannot be for the Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 plainly proves that it was that feast that Pentecost that is that famous feast of the Iewes Others move the question whether it were the Christian Pentecost or the Iewish Pentecost for they will have the Christian Pentecost as soone as the holy Ghost came downe that it was kept ever after presently upon that day wherein I see many and great Writers and Interpreters doe much differ and I suppose indeed it is true that although the Apostles did keepe that Pentecost of the Iewes because that then the company met and assembled together and then it was the best time for them to worke yet I think the Apostles meaning in this place is not of any Iewish feast but of the Pentecost which the Christians used because it was coinsident happily with the Iewish Pentecost I shall intreat your patience a little in this point and although it bee somewhat troublesome yet it is good to know it You know the Pentecost of the Iewes was fifty dayes after the feast of Sweet bread or fifty dayes after the Passeover for the Passeover was then to be presented to God at the feast of Sweet bread when the corne was first ripe the first fruits of their corn The Iewes used to sprinkle their corne in the fire before it was ripe to broyle it in the fire and so to make a kinde of bread meale of that that was the beginning of their Harvest the time of first fruits was then come and that was that the Apostle alludes unto when he saith 1 Cor. 15. Our first fruits are raised from the dead and become the first fruits of them that sleepe because that hee was offered then at the feast of the Passeover now after that feast after the Passeover they were to number the feast of weekes that is they were to number 7. weeks or 50. dayes and then all their Harvest was come to be inned among the Iewes so that whereas before they offered sprinkled corne at Easter now they bring whole loaves at Whitsontide being made of the new corne of that yeare and so they presented it and an acknowledgement was made to God for the corne that hee had given them that yeare and this was the reason of it The word Pentecost signifieth 50. dayes called the feast of weekes Now it appeares in Acts 20. Act. 20. that the Apostle imbarked at Philippi presently after the Passeover after the day of Assum or the day of sweet bread that then hee tooke shipping at Philippi and sayled into Asia and that hee would not goe to Ephesus then for the reason before mentioned because of the treason of the Iewes This being a Iewish feast the feast of weekes or Pentecost which was 50. dayes after the Passeover when they offered of their new corne to the Lord Christ glorified it by sending downe the holy-Ghost upon that day as wee see Acts 2. Act. 2. when the Church was gathered together at the feast of Pentecost when the 50. dayes were ended after Easter there came a mighty noyse a mighty winde with cloven tongues and fire and sate upon the Apostles and gave them such evidence of the Spirit to speak in strange languages in strange tongues the great and wondrous things of God Now then I conclude that the Iewes Pentecost and the Christian Pentecost came altogether upon one day The Lord picking out that day that served most for his purpose for when there was most men gathered and assembled together a greater Harvest was like to be brought in to God when therefore they were met at the Iewish Pentecost which was now ended because the ceremoniall Law was abrogated yet the Lord so graced the time and the oportunity to work at that time as to send the holy Ghost upon that day Aug. And Austin gives the reason for saith he as the Law was given 50. dayes after the Passeover was eaten so 50. dayes after Christ our Passeover was offered the holy Ghost was given to write the Law of God in the hearts of all the faithfull people of God And I make no doubt but the Christians were possest with this that there was more glory in their Pentecost then in the Pentecost of the Iewes as being the summe of all things the sending of the holy Ghost And if the remembrance of their corne were so great a blessing that the feast of weekes must be celebrated for it the feast of Pentecost being a thing too which was given by Moses Law which is a killing letter Much more glorious must this feast be when God sent the holy Ghost into the hearts of men to inflame them well such heavenly qualities and such rare perfections as were never planted in the persons of any that were meere men so clearely as it was in them Quest But how could it be that the Iewes Pentecost and the Christians Pentecost could come both together to be observed upon one day Answ I beseech you observe a little About 190 yeares after Christ concerning the keeping of Easter there was great thundering and great excommunication Now observe 190 Yeares after Christ difference about keeping Easter I will tell you in a word how this came you know the feast of Whitsontide or Pentecost it is ruled according to the feast of Easter as Easter falls out so Pentecost falls out just 7. weekes after Now Easter it selfe was moveable also and came upon the 14. day of the first Moone after the Equinox after the Sunne hath bin in the Equinox of Aries the next full Moone of that new that came after was the day of the Passeover when the Passeover was offred As suppose I say that we should joyne March and April into one moneth as the computation of the Iewes is suppose it should be the 24. of March Now the Iewes whensoever it fell to be the 14th day of the Moone that is when it was full Moone for the course of the Moone is 28 dayes and it is full in 14. whensoever that day came it was kept precisely whether it were upon Tuesday or Wednesday after our calculation But now the Church of God thought fit to keepe it back till Sunday The Iewes and the Easterne Church that followed the Iewes they kept it upon the weeke day if so be that the 14. day fell
followes after in that Chapter Therefore of this wee are certaine that though St. Paul purposed to stay at Ephesus and to make his abode there yet the Lord would not suffer him so to do but he had purposed otherwise for him and he was not at his owne disposing but at the disposing of the will of God Now in these words read unto you in that hee saith there bee divers great and many enemies though a doore be open yet the enemies are great we are to consider Parts of the Text. First where these enemies were Secondly as a generall deduction that the Church of God can never want enemies and those that bee the Preachers of the Gospel they are evermore overwhelmed with enemies if the hand of the Lord interpose not Thirdly what kind of enemies they were the worst and most to be feared that is those that are most neare in the profession of the faith and the common religion those are the worst and most grievous enemies Fourthly the great alacrity of spirit that moved the Apostle to goe although there were so many enemies although there was so great and numerous a company that would dismay flesh and blood and would rather have made him have sought a corner and a cave to keep himselfe in a whole skinne but the spirit of the Apostle was otherwise hee would goe the rather because there was so many adversaries Fiftly that these although they were adversaries yet they were not to bee hated as direct enemies but onely they were enemies for the time for he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Part. Where these adversaries were Concerning the first point the place where these enemies were I see it is the common consent of all Interpreters for the most part not one or two excepted that these enemies were at Ephesus and it seemes indeed most agreeable because hee saith he would stay at Ephesus and hee gives the reason why because there is a great doore opened that is there is a great facility or opportunity to gaine soules which is compared to a doore and besides there bee many adversaries to bee resisted whose mouthes must be stopped that is as it seemes in the same place at Ephesus therefore hee would stay there because they needed his presence I am loth to contradict the current of so many great worthy learned men yet notwithstanding it is free in the Church of God for any man to speak his minde as long as he speaks in termes of modesty I say therefore let them enjoy their owne exposition I cannot imagine that the Apostle should think his enemies should bee at Ephesus but at Ierusalem and although he speake not here of Ierusalem but of Ephesus alone yet presuming that Paul had a great and earnest purpose to bee at Ierusalem at the Feast of Pentecost and in regard that hee did neglect his friends and those places that he should have gone unto he sailed by Ephesus hee would not come there beause he would goe to Ierusalem and hee takes the first hint of it hee goes from Philippi at the day of Sweet-bread at Easter and hee would not come at Corinth nor at Ephesus it followes by just consequence therefore that all his intention was to keep the Feast of Pentecost at Ierusalem and that there was the doore and there were the enemies for a man that hath his minde upon one thing especially upon one maine project when he speaks of by-matters he speaks oft times confusedly but you must take him according to the great streame according to the current of his minde His minde was still to bee at Ierusalem to confound the adversaries of the Gospel Now although he saith he would stay at Ephesus his meaning is not that there were the enemies but he will stay a while there till such time as God would give him a just number of dayes that hee might saile from thence to Ierusalem by Pentecost to encounter with the enemies that were there Reasons that the adversaries were at Ierusalem So the first reason I have for it is the constant words of St. Luke Luke saith that hee had still a minde hee had still a desire to bee at Ierusalem at Reas 1 the Feast of Pentecost and therefore it was not his purpose to stay at Ephesus but onely some few dayes neither was it his purpose to decipher to the Church that his enemies were at Ephesus but at some other place Reas 2 Secondly another reason for it is this that those that were at Ephesus were bruit beasts rather then men they were not adversaries but beasts rather If I have fought with beasts at Ephesus after the manner of men 1. Cor. 15. In the Chapter aforegoing there was no dealing with Demetrius there is no dealing with worldlings with a man that understands nothing there is no glory to bee gotten in disputing with a simple fellow all the credit and glory comes to the Gospel by confounding of them that are wise the Ephesians were Idolaters they were beasts rather then men therefore his adversaries were not there so much as at Ierusalem Reas 3 Thirdly it appeares that hee left them and would come no more at them by reason of the tumult that was in the time of Demetrius that hee raised but he sayled by them and would no more touch there but sent for the chiefe of them therefore it seemed hee reserved himselfe for enemies and adversaries in some other place greater than that Fourthly the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth those Reas 4 enemies that is those capitall enemies of the Gospell the Iewes the Ephesians were Idolaters and the Grecians and although they were adversaries too yet they were nothing like to the Iewes for the Iewes fought with weapons the Gentiles were like the Americans like the west Indians which are bare people without any weapons without any harnesse it is an easie matter to make a slaughter among them but the Iewes were armed at all points they had the Scriptures they had the Word of God against Christ they had the Law they had the promises they had the covenant of grace from Abraham they were the peculiar people of God there were no such adversaries as they therefore he sets them downe by a peculiar name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those adversaries that is those grand adversaries those adversaries that are sharp set against the word those dangerous men to be dealt with those are they that I would encounter with And lastly it appeares by the event for the event Reas 5 shewes that he singled them out for his adversaries that were at Ierusalem For whither went he did he stay at Ephesus did hee goe to Ephesus No the Text saith that he sayled by it And whither did he goe but to Ierusalem there to struggle and strive with the power of darknesse and to confound by his doctrine all the Iewes and all his opposers which although they took him
whose Name he makes profession Adversarii multi the adversaries bee many adversaries without any cause adversaries to them that bee their friends this is the case of the Gospel as our Lord Christ saith I am come to save you I come to heale you I come to redeeme you from all misery and you seeke to kill me a man that hath done good to you And St. Paul saith Am I therefore your enemy because I tell you the truth Such grosse and senslesse adversaries the Gospel must looke for absurd men 2. Thess 2. 2 Thess 2. I beseech you brethren pray to God for us that wee may bee delivered from absurd men senslesse men that will not know their owne good men that know not who comes to doe them service strange adversaries that will fight against their benefactors such are the adversaries of the Gospel I paid that which I never tooke they rewarded me evill for good saith David to the great discomfort of my heart but the servant is not above his Master if our Lord have beene served thus we must not thinke much to taste of the same cup of which he hath drunke before us Againe this must teach all men that travaile in the cause of Christ to have the world in no estimation but to account it as an inraged beast that speaks and doth and kicks as a child that hath no wit nor sense that scratcheth the Nurses duggs from which it receives milkc Wee must thinke to be in the middest of Lions as our Lord Iesus saith in the middest of Wolves Behold I send you forth as Lambs in the middest of Wolves be yee therefore wise as Serpents and simple as Doves And here there are two sorts of men greatly to be blamed First those of former times that could not indure opposition but when the adversaries began to rise they would fall into the Wildernesse and live like Hermits men of great gifts and of excellent perfections yet they could not indure opposition being tender hearted and of weake spirits they could not beare the malice of the multitude but would keepe themselves away and would leave the places wherein they might have done great good they left them to be invaded by Foxes and Wolves to destroy the vineyard of the Lord. This I say was culpable in them because they came short of the spirit of St. Paul that was not daunted with the multitude of adversaries but he would goe so much the rather by how much the adversaries were greater and more in number for there bee many things in the world in the aboundant company of the adversaries which are so far from affrighting as that they give greater incouragement As the Poet saith the Shepheard speaking there of the cold Winter and of the North-wind hee saith that hee feared them as little as the Wolfe feares a number of sheepe or as the Land-flood doth feare the banks in a river So it was in the high and gracious spirit of the Apostle and those that were like unto him for St. Paul was called comparatively the Wolfe of Benjamin and in a good sense because the sacrifices were offered in the Tribe of Benjamin the Temple being in the Tribe of Benjamin it was called a ravening Wolfe because it devoured the bodies of the beasts that were offered in sacrifice So St. Paul that was of the Tribe of Benjamin was compared to a Wolfe as Gregory Gregory Augustine and Austin give the reason because he did eate up the sacrifices of the Heathen people as St. Peter in the vision was bid to Arise kill and eate this was the power that the Apostle had in the Church to devoure the wickednesse of the people and to change and digest it into their owne stomacks Now as the Wolfe cares not how many sheepe there be in a fold for when hee comes to steale if the shepherd and his dog be away hee takes more comfort in a great many then to see a handfull of sheepe he knowes that if their were ten times so many they could doe him no harme being fearefull creatures therefore he rejoyceth So the children of God are compared to Wolves to Lions to creatures that are victorious and conquering they are so farre from a sheepish and fearefull and base and cowardly disposition for the faculties and abilities of their adversaries that they take the more delight to see the adversaries many And as the great floods when the snow is melted upon the mountaines or when there hath beene a great Land-flood when it fâ—lls from the hills it scornes to be compassed in within banks but it overflowes and over-runnes all and makes new conduits new sourses and new channels where there was never any before So the mighty streame of the Gospel by the Apostles it could not bee contained within the banks and common limits that the Philosophers and naturall men could afford but it over-ranne all with a mighty current and flood upon the world with the sacred influence of it the hearts and mindes of them were watered that were never possessed of it before That kind of Monasticall Heremiticall life it is nothing agreeable to the profession of St. Paul in this place that for feare of danger will convey themselves into woods into caves and cells and alienate themselves from their worke and labour because they are afraid of opposition the spirit of St. Paul riseth the greater As the Palme-tree the more weight is laid upon it so much the more it strives and heaves against it so the Spirit of God in this Apostle and in all true Christians it is never so frolick nor they are never so high-spirited as when they see the malice of their adversaries most pregnant and most furious against them Secondly it blames those men much more 2 Sort blamed that in the time of prosperity when there are many adversaries yet they will not shew themselves but lie on their pillowes of pleasure and seeke to bee quiet they will have no man speake against them they will incurre no mans hatred or ill-will but they will hold the truth of God to themselves in the bosome of their owne conscience and never open it or stand for it These men are farre worse then the former for indeed the former had some good pretence because there was way-laying lying in wait for their lives and conspiracy against them to take them away from the earth therefore they thought it fittest to yeeld to the time and to reserve themselves unto a better occasion But when men shall live in their prosperity and have peace round about them and shall see the adversaries come and creep in craftily and sow false doctrine hereticall doctrine and things that savour of the old dregs and reliques of Antichristianisme and they themselves have excellent gifts and meanes to refute and confound these things and yet because they will not abridge themselves of their pleasure they will set some young novice in the place that is able to
speake nothing to the purpose especially nothing to the combate nothing to the duel that ought to bee betweene the adversaries and the champions of Christ but leave all to such kinde of fresh-water-souldiers and themselves in the meane time taking their ease because they thinke it is not safe medling and perhaps because they thinke they shall bee discomfited and if they should chance to be overcome there would bee more shame to them by their overthrow then there could come glory by their conquest if they should offer to stand in the cause of Christ These kinde of men are exactly contrary to the Apostles spirit Where there are many adversaries there the Spirit of God should rise in men as it is said of Saul when Nahash the King of the Ammonites put that base and deadly condition upon the Gileadites that they should give him their right-eyes by way of compact The Text saith the Spirit of God came upon Saul when hee heard such a thing that although the Ammonits were a great and terrible and an infinite number and the case grew desperate for they were to deliver the Citie within eight dayes yet so much the more strong was the Spirit of God in Saul and he tooke a yoke of oxen and cut them in pieces and sent them to the quarters of Israel and told them that so their cattell should bee served whosoever would not follow him in this just quarrell So St. Paul although otherwise in Acts 17. Acts 17. when hee saw Athens full of Idols full of Devills that there was every where Temples set up the Text saith that his spirit was exasperated so moved he was in himselfe he was in a holy trance hee was without himselfe to see that horrible blasphemy against God So it is ever naturall to true spirits that are guided by the Holy Ghost not to bee daunted with perill nor to hang downe their heads for the opposition of the Devil but to gather strength and courage for as much as it is a signe that God is with them a signe that God hath sent them It was the lot of Christ to be beset about on every side that when he had done the most good to sustaine the greatest harme of those ungratefull monsters The adversaries are many therefore I will goe Adversarii multi contrary to the course of flesh and blood which because the adversaries are many and great therefore I will not goe I will keep within doores I will lie safe I cannot doe any good what can I doe against so many what can one man do against so many thousands No but the Spirit of God perswaded him that hee alone had the world in his breast and that he was able to conquer as Samson who with the Iaw-bone of an Asse slew a thousand men and he was stronger by the haires of his head which were but an excrement yet it made him stronger then all the adversaries that were against him so the least thing in the child of God which seems the excrement of the world the hairs of their head are able to confront and confound all adverse powers Mat. 10. As our Lord Iesus tels his Disciples in Mat. 10. They shall not be able to resist the Spirit whereby you speake Deut. 28. one of you shall scatter ten of them and an hundred of you shall scatter a thousand of them The enemies of God are set to be routed before the few handfulls of Gods children as in the Army of Gedeon 300. men put to the slaughter and wrought the confusion of a thousand thousand Midianites Let us therefore have this confidence in our spirits in the truth and cause of God and not be unsetled or moved with the speech or with the actions of men or with the disasters of the times nor with the conceits that flesh and bloud will suggest unto us for verily if we stand upon our own foundation we shall be able to undermine them and to keep our standing against them there is no counsell nor no power nor no hand that can come against the will of God for hee carries all abrest before him and his legions are able to drive the world into smoake and to make the mountains to tremble at the approach of him The adversaries are many Many because they are gathered from many Nations Devout men of the Iewes from all quarters under heaven Acts 2. Acts 2. And wheresoever these Iewes dwelt they were still as it were the chief Prelats they would looke to the state of the Church and make that the supreame object We see in Thessalonica a poore Colonie they sent as if they were the chiefe Magistrates after St. Paul to take him alive and to bring him to his answer when he was at Berea A strange spirit was in them to be adversaries to the cause of Christ they were great persecutors wheresoever they were whereas our Colonies and our Churches in other places of the world they take not half so much upon them a man may live as quietly and safe at Hamborough and such places in as much peace and quiet and more too sometimes than in his owne countrie because there is not that fulnesse of authority there as there is here But the Iewes were of that nature that still they would be the chiefe primates and the great men of the world wheresoever they were Therefore the Apostle having such a confluence of them from Greece from Asia from Scythia from India from Egypt from Cyrene from Rome and from all the parts of Italie from Germanie and from Spaine it selfe where the Iewes were dispersed and scattered he finding them in all places so exact and so purposely set to the maintaining of Moses law and to oppose any new opinion that should come in place he must needs complaine of adversaries There is a great number of adversaries from all parts of the world and they be all adversaries full of power and full of terrour every man thought himselfe a Prelate every man took himselfe to be a ruler and a governor therefore the match was so much the harder the combat was so much the more dangerous because he was in the middest of all the power of his adversaries and yet this daunted him not But now the holy Ghost gives us here to consider what kinde of adversaries these were that is they were the most potent and powerfull adversaries not only great in their number but great also in their affections great in their strength and great in their zeale for there is no adversarie so much to be feared as those that are nearest neighbours to us in the profession of the common religion In Micah 5. Micah 5. Let no man trust his servant nor his neighbour A mans owne houshold shall be his greatest enemies as the common proverb saith A man hath no worse friends than them hee brings from home with him so it was here the Iewes of all others should have maintained Christ
matter of this mystery follows We shall not all die but we shall all be changed The power and strength of death working unequally upon mankinde it seemes a great wonder and a mysterie indeed how that some should be happier than their fellowes to be exempted from this common law which is a Statute law Heb. 9 27. and It is appointed for all men once to die And how then are these become so happy to escape the common doome inflicted for the sin of Adam upon all mankinde surely to our common sense they are the happiest of all men even those that shall live in those dayes For we love our flesh so well that wee are loath to commit it to the ground wee are loath that dust should goe to dust and ashes to ashes but still wee would continue and be the last men upon the earth And this great ambition we have so truely and so radically in us that a man would give all that he had in this world not to be taken away till the world be taken away It is the greatest comfort of a mans life to be snatched and hurried away when the universality goes away It is a great comfort to have abundance of company in misery But for this the holy Ghost hath taught us Vse to settle our selves in patience the Lord hath appointed our severall times They are never a whit the more happy because they shall not die nor we never the more unhappy because wee shall die for life and death are all one to them that are planted in the Lord Iesus Christ For it is he that is our advantage he is our hope in death that wee shall attaine unto everlasting life And whether we shall come unto it by the way of resting and rottennesse in the grave or by a sudden and extemporarie change and mutation it ought to seeme all one unto us It is true if God should vouchsafe us that blessing to stand the last men upon the earth and to be the last generation it were a thing very plausible and that which we should desire but we ought not too much to settle upon it for the Lord hath made it a mysterie It is a mysterie when any man dies It is a mysterie in the generall and in the particular it is a mysterie when God calls any man unto him and wee must not wish contrary to the will of God but be content with that portion that he hath destinated unto us Our first parents because they were the authors of sin and transgression Adam and Eve the Lord hath given them the longest time of rotting they lie longest in their graves and they dwell in the pavillions and habitations of death the longest because they were the first authors of wrong to us In the later end of the world the Lord will incline in mercie because he hath been long in judgement in the judgement of death he will incline in the latter generations of the world and give them a taste of his mercy All things grow lesse by continuance and use as a raging plague and pestilence when it comes first into a Citie it takes away a number of people three or foure thousand in a weeke afterward the Lord allayes that rage and abates the disease that there are not so many this week as there were the week before nor so many the next week as there were this So in this common calamity as the world growes in yeares nearer the end of her time so her children that is the people of God which lie in their graves they have lesse time to lie The first authors of sinne when Gods anger was fierce and vehement they are condemned to lie longer in the dust to inhabit and dwell there At the last the plague of God shall begin to slacken and to abate it selfe and the anger of God shall be mitigated and mollified so that those that live in the last age they shall have the least time of sleeping in the dust But in these things we ought to make no difference for the patience that God indues his children with makes up this whether a man sleepe a thousand yeares or five thousand it is all one because God seasons their death with a meditation of the Resurrection and in the meane time inricheth the soule with the beatificall vision with the presence of his Majesty and with that joy that cannot be comprehended in the heart of man We shall not all sleepe Observe againe the Apostle speaks in the first person Wee he saith We shall not all sleepe and yet hee is asleep aswell as other men how then doth he say We shall not all sleep His meaning is to take upon him the person of the Church of God in generall and especially that part of the Church that shall survive when Christ shall come For St. Paul is done to dust as wee shall be and there is no difference in that part that went to the grave There is no difference but onely this that he sleeps in the Lord hee sleeps a glorious compasse and yet he saith We shall not al sleep Vnderstand that he speaks still of the â—ommon state of the Church and for that part of the Church which hee brings the argument for For now he brings his argument to answer an accusation or conclusion which might be made against his doctrine Some might aske him What shall become of those that shall be living at the comming of Christ Oh saith he I am of them although I die before that time yet I am of that number For the members of Christ are not distinguished by time but are all one Abel might have said Wee and Adam might have said Wee of the last end of the world This teacheth us how great the communion of Saints is that it is not broken by the entercourse of yeares time but that it still continues We shall not all sleep The blessing of God runs on still with perpetuity and that which is true to one generation is firme to another and that which belongs to one is common to all This is that communion of Saints in the strength of which the Apostle uttered this phrase We shall not all sleep as he doth oft times in his other Epistles We shall not doe this and wee shall not doe that Although the Apostle be dead and rotten 15. hundred years agoe yet he saith We shall not all sleep But we shall all be changed Still We as if he were one of the men Here he teacheth us another lesson that the Apostle was a man that still looked for the day of judgement He saith We shall all be changed It may be I shall be one of the men I know not it may be the trumpet shall blow while I live for the Lord hath reserved the time onely to himselfe the day of judgement is knowne to no man Nay the son of man as hee is man knowes not when Christ shall come to judgement Therefoâ—e I prepare my selfe