little Christian bloud in as much as Dioclesian plucked but out the bodily eyes of Saints and Martyrs the holes whereof the good Emperour Constantine kissed whereas Julian by shutting up all Christian schooles and bereaving them of the light of knowledge after a sort plucked out the eyes of their soules Which I speake not for that I conceive the Scriptures are not sufficient of themselves for our instruction to enlighten our understanding but because we are not sufficient for the opening of the meaning of them without the helps of arts and sciences the miraculous gifts of the holy Ghost ceasing long before our time The light of divers rapers in the same roome though united yet is not confounded as the opticks demonstrate by the distinct shadowes which they cast neither doth the light of divine knowledge confound that of humane in the soule but both concurre to the full illumination of the understanding And as the organe of the bodily eye cannot discerne any thing without a double light viz. 1. h Brierhood tractat de oculo M.S. Lumine innato an inward light in the christalline humour of the eye 2. Lumine illato an outward light in the aire and on the object so neither can the eye of the soule in this region of darknesse perfectly distinguish the colours of good and evill without a double light the in-bred light of nature and the outward light which is acquired by learning being Lumen not innatum but illatum not naturally resplendent in the soule and brought with it into the world but ab extrinseco brought into the soule by reading hearing discoursing contemplating or divine inspiration Solomon who best knew what belonged to wisedome sets his wise man to i Pro. 1.5 Aâ—â—se man will heare and will understand learning schoole and promiseth for him that he will take his k Pâ— 9.9 Give instruction to a wise man and he will he yet wiser teach a â—â—t man and he will in crease in learning learning and bee a good proficient in it And behold a wiser than Solomon l Mat. 13.52 Christ himselfe compareth every Scribe which is instructed unto the kingdome of heaven to a man that is an housholder who bringeth out of his treasury new things and old He likeneth him not to a pedler that hath nothing but inkle tape and such like trash in his pack which he openeth at every mans doore but to a rich ware-house man who out of his treasury or ware-house bringeth out precious things either new or old as they are called for Such a Scribe was Moses who m Acts 7.22 was learned in all the wisedome of the Aegyptians Such a Scribe was Daniel and the foure children that were bred up with him to whom God n Dan. 1.17 gave knowledge and skill in all learning Such a Scribe was S. Paul who was o Act. 22.3 brought up at the feet of Gamaliel and taught according to the perfect manner of the Law of the Fathers Neither was he conversant onely in the writings of the Rabbines but also expert in the heathen Philosophers Orators and Poets whom he after a sort defloureth of their choicest sentences observations incorporating them into his most learned and eloquent epistles Such a Scribe was Clemens Alexandrinus whose writings in regard of all variety of good literature in them are called stromata rare pieces of Arras or Tapestry Such a Scribe was S. Cyprian who by Rhetoricke Tertullian who by the civill Law Justin Martyr and Origen who by Philosophy S. Basil who by Physicke S. Austin who by Logicke Eusebius who by history Prudentius who by Poetry Gregory Nazianzen Jerome and many other of the ancient Doctors of the Church who by exquisite skill in the Arts and learned Languages exceedingly improved their sacred talent of Scripture-knowledge p Vid. Lyps Manuducti ad Stoicam Philosophiam Philo that accomplished Jew deviseth an elegant allegory upon Abrahams companying with Hagar before he could have issue by Sara Hagar the bond-woman is secular or humane learning with which we must have to doe before wee can promise our selves fruit by Sarah that is much profit by the study of divinity Neither doth this argue any imperfection in the Scriptures but in us the starres are most visible in themselves yet through the imbecillity of our sight without a perspective glasse we cannot exactly take their elevation or true magnitude What though God in the first plantation of the Gospell used the industry of illiterate men and made Fishermen fishers of men that our q 1 Cor. 2.5 faith should not stand in the wisedome of men but in the power of God yet after the miraculous gifts of the Spirit fayled in the Church wee shall read of no Rammes hornes but Silver Trumpets emploied in the throwing down of Sathans forts Since that the promise of dabitur in illa hora it shall bee given you in that houre is turned into the precept of attende lectioni give r 1 Tim. 4.13.15 attendance to reading to exhortation to doctrine meditate upon these things give thy selfe wholly unto them that thy profiting may appeare unto all men Since the dayes of the Apostles and their immediate Successors the learnedst men have proved the worthiest instruments of Gods glory in Church or Commonwealth Be learned therefore Yee Judges Religion commends learning and learning a Judge Å¿ Numb 11.17 The Lord tooke of the Spirit which was upon Moses and put it upon seventy Elders This Spirit it is which animateth a Judge whose briefest and yet fullest definition is Jus animatum enlived right or the living law For the law is a dead and mute Judge and the Judge is a living and speaking law As the Philosopher termeth t Arist Rhet. l. 3. Pictura muta poesis poesis loquens pictura painting silent Poetry and Poetry a speaking picture Now how can a Judge speake the law or the law speake by him if he know not the law It implyeth a kinde of contradiction for an Actor to bee without action or an Orator without words or a Labourer without worke or a Counsellor without advice or a Judge without judgement in the law Can an Artificer worke by his rule who holdeth it not in his hand or a Pilot steere by the compasse who hath not the compasse before his eye or understandeth it not no more can a Judge give sentence according to the law who is ignorant of the law Ignorance in a private man is a prejudice and some blemish to himselfe but u Aug. de civ Dei Ignorantia Judicis est calamitas innocentis ignorance in a Judge is the calamity of the innocent nay may prove the ruine of a State What greater mischiefe in any society than that the estates good name livelihood yea and lives too of men should lye in the breast of a Judge who out of ignorance is faine to aske Quid est justitia what is justice as Pilate
sound and their zealous fiery cloven tongues serve but to put fire and make a rent in the Church of God The organ pipes must bee filled with wind before the instrument give any sound our mouthes lips and tongues are the instruments and organs of God and before they are filled with the wind in my Text they cannot sound out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his wonderous workes whereof this is one as followeth And suddenly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every circumstance like graines in gold scales addeth to the weight e Oecumen in Act. c. 2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oecumenicus conceiveth that this sound came on the sudden to scare the Apostles and out of feare or amazement to draw them together And indeed this sudden noise in this upper roome the Apostles sitting still and there being no wind abroad stirring seemeth not lesse strange than the sudden calme after Christ rebuked the f Mat. 8.26 wind and the sea Windes are not raised to the height on the sudden but grow more and more blustering by degrees this became blustering on the sudden and which is more strange it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 privative and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appareo without any cause appearing To heare a thunder clap in summer when we see a blacke cloud overcasting the whole skie or a report where we know there is a canon mounted no way amazeth us but to heare thundering in a cleere sun-shine when there is no cloud to be seen in all the skie or the report like that of a canon where there is no peece of ordnance or a sudden light in a darke roome without lamp candle torch or fire somewhat affrighteth and amazeth us so it was here a noise is heard as of a mighty rushing wind yet no wind or if a wind a wind created of nothing without any cause or prejacent matter There is a great controversie among the Philosophers about the causes of winds Some as Democritus imagined that many atomes that is such small bodies and motes as wee see in the beames of the Sunne meeting together and striving for place stirred the aire and thereby made winds others as Agrippa that the evill spirits ruling in the aire as they raise tempests so also they cause winds Aristotle endeavoureth to demonstrate that the rising up of dry exhalations from the earth generateth the winds which so long rage as the matter continueth after that faileth the wind lies The Divines resolve with g Psal 135.7 David that God draweth them out of his hidden treasures To which our Saviour seemeth to have reference The h John 3.8 wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but knowest not whence it commeth that is originally There came a sound Some will have this sound to bee an eccho or a sound at second hand because so it will bee a fitter embleme of the Apostles preaching to the people and ours to you For first the sound of the Gospel comes from God to us and then it rebounds from us to you but the word in the originall is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an eccho but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sound besides the eccho comes by reverberation from below but this sound came from above From heaven Lorinus and other Commentatours are of opinion that heaven here as in many other Texts of Scripture is put for the aire as God is said to i Gen. 7.11 open the windowes of heaven and to raine fire and k Gen. 19.24 brimstone from heaven But I see no reason why 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here may not signifie the efficient cause and heaven bee taken properly For though the sense of hearing judged it that the sound began but in the aire yet it was there made without any apparent cause and why may not this sound be as well from heaven properly as we reade of a voice from heaven saying l Mat. 3.17 This is my well beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased and another voice from heaven saying m John 12.28 I have both glorified it my name and will glorifie it againe and yet a third voice from heaven saying Blessed are the n Rev. 14 13. dead which dye in the Lord But what manner of sound was this As of a rushing mighty wind or rather a rushing blast For in the originall it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ruentis flatus not venti As our breath differeth from our spirit and breathing parts so the spirit which the Apostles received was not the holy Ghost himselfe the third person but some extraordinary gifts and graces of the spirit Though Peter Lumbard the great Master of the sentences seemed to encline to that opinion that the Apostles received the very person of the holy Ghost yet this conceit of his is pricked through with an obelisque and à magistro hic non tenetur by the later Schoolmen who rightly distinguish between the substance of the spirit and the gifts The infinite substance neither is nor can bee imparted to any creature but the finite graces whereof they were only capable The Law the Gospel both came to the eares of men by a sound the one from Sinai the other from Sion that was delivered in thundering lightening with darknesse and an earth-quake this in a sound of a gale of wind and in the likenesse of shining tongues the Apostles sitting still the place being filled but not shooke with the blast As in lessons skilfully pricked the musicall notes answer to the matter of the ditty so the manner of the publishing of the Law and Gospel was correspondent to the matter contained in them that was proclaimed in a dreadfull manner this in a comfortable For the o Rom. 4.15 Law worketh wrath but the Gospel peace the Law feare the Gospel hope the Law an obscure the Gospel a more cleere and evident knowledge according to that sacred aphorisme of Saint Ambrose Umbra in Lege imago in Evangelio veritas in coelo there was a shadow in the Law an image in the Gospel the truth it selfe in heaven Moses himselfe quaked at the giving of the Law but we reade not that the Apostles were terrified but exceedingly comforted at the receiving of the Gospel as the roome was filled with the blast so their hearts with joy And it filled the place where they were sitting The Apostles expected the fulfilling of Christs promise and it is very likely that they were praying on their knees yet they might be truly said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our translators render sitting For the word in the originall importeth only a settled abode as it is taken in the verse following There appeared cloven tongues like fire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it sate upon each of them Sitting as the word is taken in our language is a kind of posture of mans body which cannot
of Martyrs spilt upon the ground is like spirituall seed from whence spring up new Martyrs and the graines of corne which fall one by one and die in the earth rise up again in great numbers Persecution serveth the Church in such stead as pruning doth the Vine whereby her branches shoot forth farther and beare more fruit Therefore S. Hierome excellently compareth the militant Church burning still in some part in the heat of persecution and yet flourishing to the bush in Exodus Exod 3.2 out of which Gods glory shined to Moses which burned yet consumed not 3. Wee are to distinguish between corporall and spirituall destruction Though the cane be crushed to peeces yet the aire in the hollow of it is not hurt though the tree be hewen the beame of the Sun shining upon it is not cut or parted in sunder Feare not them saith our Saviour Matth. 10.28 which can kill the body but are not able to kill the soule Could the Philosopher say tundis vasculum Anaxarchi non Anaxarchum Thou beatest the vessel or strikest the coffin of Anaxarchus not Anaxarchus himselfe O Tyrant Shall not a Christian with better reason say to his tormentors Yee breake the boxe ye spill not any of the oyntment ye violate the casket ye touch not the jewell neither have yee so much power as utterly and perpetually to destroy the casket viz. my body for though it be beat to dust and ground to powder yet shall it be set together againe and raised up at the last day Philip. 3.21 and made conformable to Christs glorious body by the power of God whereby he is able to subdue all things to himselfe 4. And lastly it is not here said simply the bruised reed shall not be broken but shall not be broken by him He shall not breake the bruised reed He shall not breake for hee came not to destroy but to save Luk 9.56 Esay 53.4 Mat. 27.30 And they took a reed and smote him on the head not to burthen but to ease not to lay load upon us but to carry all our sorrowes not to breake the bruised reed but rather to have reeds broken upon him wherewith he was smote a Plin. nat hist l. 11. Icti à scorbionibus nunquam postea à crabronibus vespis apibusve feriuntur Pliny observeth that those that are strucken by Scorpions are ever after priviledged from the stings of Waspes or Bees The beasts that were torne or hurt by any accident might not bee sacrificed or eaten It is more than enough to bee once or singly miserable whereupon he in the Greeke Poet passionately pleades against further molestation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For Gods sake disease not a diseased man presse not a dying man with more weight Which because the enemies of David had the hard hearts to doe he most bitterly cursed them Poure out thine indignation upon them Psal 69.24 25 26. and let thy wrathfull anger take hold of them let their habitation be desolate and let none dwell in their tents for they persecute him whom thou hast smitten and talke to the griefe of those whom thou hast wounded O how grievously doth S. Cyprian complaine against the inhumane cruelty of the persecutors of Christians in his time who laid stripes upon stripes Cypr. epist ad Mart. In servis Dei non torquebantur membra sed vulnera and inflicted wounds upon sores and tortured not so much the members of Gods servants as their bleeding wounds Verily for this cause alone God commanded that the name of * Exod. 17.14 Amaleck should be blotted out from under heaven because they met Israel by the way when they were faint and smote the feeble among them For not to comfort the afflicted not to help a man that is hurt not to seeke to hold life in one that is swouning is inhumanity but contrarily to afflict the afflicted to hurt the wounded to trouble the grieved in spirit Cic. pro Celio sua sponte cadentem maturiùs extinguere vulnere to strike the breath out of a mans body who is giving up the ghost to breake a reed already bruised to insult upon a condemned man to vexe him that is broken in heart and adde sorrow to sorrow Oh this is cruelty upon cruelty farre be it from any Christian to practise it and yet further from his thoughts to cast any such aspersion upon the Father of mercy How should the God of all consolation drive any poore soule to desperation hee that will not breake a bruised reed will he despise a broken heart He that will not quench the smoaking flaxe will he quench his Spirit and tread out the sparkes of his grace in our soules No no his Father sealed to him another commission Esay 61.1 to preach good tidings to the meeke Luk. 4.18 to binde up the broken hearted to set at liberty them that are bruised to give unto them that mourne in Sion beauty for ashes the oyle of joy for mourning the garment of praise for the spirit of heavinesse And accordingly hee sent by his Prophet a comfortable message to the daughter of Sion Matth. ex Zach. Tell her behold the King commeth unto thee meeke and riding upon an Asse a bruised reed he shall not breake hee did not breake and smoaking flaxe hee shall not quench hee did not quench Was not Peter a bruised reed when hee fell upon the rocke of offence and thrice denied his Master and went out and wept bitterly Was not Paul like smoaking flaxe in the worst sense when he breathed out threats against the Church and sought by all violent meanes to smother the new light of the Gospel yet we all see what a burning and shining lampe Christ hath made of this smoaking flaxe what a noble cane to write the everlasting mercies of God to all posterity he hath made of the other a bruised reed But what speake I of bruised reeds not broken the Jewes that crucified the Lord of life the Roman souldier that pierced his side were liker sharp pointed darts than bruised reeds yet some of these were saved from breaking Such is the vertue of the bloud of our Redeemer that it cleansed their hands that were imbrued in the effusion thereof if they afterward touch it by faith so infinite is the value of his death that it was a satisfaction even for them who were authors of it and saved some of the murtherers of their Saviour as St. a Cypr. epist Vivificatur Christi sanguine etiam qui effudit sanguinem Christi Cyprian most comfortably deduceth out of the second of the Acts They are quickned by Christs bloud who spilt it Well therefore might St. b Bern. Quid tam ad mortem quod non Christi morte sanetur Bernard demand What is so deadly which Christs death cannot heale Comfort then O comfort the fainting spirits and strengthen the feeble knees revive the spirit of the humble
terris the Earth trembled the Stones clave with indignation the vaile of the Temple rent it selfe the Heaven mourned in sables the Sunne that he might not behold such outrage done upon so sacred a person drew in his beams He who suffereth all this quatcheth not stirreth not nor discovereth his divine Majesty no not when death approached When all insensible creatures seemed to be sensible of the injury offered their Maker he who feeleth all seemeth to be insensible For hee maketh no resistance at all and though he were omnipotent yet his patience overcame his omnipotency and even to this day restraineth his justice from taking full revenge of them who were the authours of his death and of those who since crucifie againe the Lord of life and trample under their feet the bloud of the Covenant as a prophane thing Whose thoughts are not swallowed up in admiration at this that he who is adored in heaven is not yet revenged upon the earth You see meeknesse in his passions behold now this vertue expressed to the life in his life and actions Actions I say whether naturall or miraculous so indeed they are usually distinguished albeit Christs miraculous actions were naturall in him proceeding from his divine nature and most of his naturall actions as they are called proceeding from his humane nature were in him wonderfull and miraculous For instance to weep is a most naturall action but to weep in the midst of his triumph and that for their ruine who were the cause of all his woe to shed teares for them who thirsted after his bloud was after a sort miraculous Who ever did the like Indeed we reade that Marcellus wept over Syracuse and Scipio over Carthage and Titus over Jerusalem as our Saviour did but the cause was far different They shed teares for them whose bloud they were to shed but our Saviour for them who were ready to shed his Luke 19.41 His bowels earned for them who thought it long till they had pierced his heart with a launce When the high Priest commanded Paul to be smote on the face hee rebuked him saying The Lord shall smite thee thou painted wall Acts 23 3. but when the Lord himselfe was smitten by the high Priests servant he falls not foule upon him but returnes this milde answer If I have done evill John 18.23 beare witnesse of the evill but if I have done well why strikest thou me The servant thinketh much to endure that from the Master which the Master endures from the servant The Apostles on whom the Spirit descended in the likenesse of fiery tongues were often hot and inflamed with wrath against the enemies of God and brought downe fearfull judgements upon them but our Saviour on whom the Spirit descended in the likenesse of a Dove never hurt any by word or deed 2 Kin. 5.27 Matth. 8.2 Luke 4.27 17.12 Acts 13.11 Acts 5.5.10 Eliah inflicted leprosie upon Gehazi by miracle Christ by miracle cleansed divers lepers Saint Paul tooke away sight from Elymas Christ by miracle restored sight to many Saint Peter miraculously with a word strucke Ananias and Sapphira down dead Christ by miracle raised many from death insomuch that his very enemies gave this testimony of him Mark 7 37. Hee hath done all well giving to the lame feet to the maimed strength to the dumbe speech to the deafe eares to the blind sight to the sicke health to the dead life to the living everlasting joy and comfort I have proposed unto you a notable example shall I need to put to spurres of art to pricke on your desires to follow it the example is our Saviour and the vertue exemplified in him meeknesse How excellent must the picture be which is set in so rich a frame such a vertue were to be imitated in any person such a person to be imitated in any vertue how much more such a vertue in such a person It is hard to say whether ought to bee the stronger motive unto us to follow meeknesse either because it is the prince of vertues or the vertue of our Prince whose stile is Princeps pacis Where the prince is the Prince of peace and the kingdome the Kingdome of grace and the law the Law of love they must certainly be of a milde and loving disposition that are capable of preferment in it If the Spirit be an oyntment as S. a 1. John 2.20 But you have an oyntment from the Holy One and you know all things John calleth it it must needs supple If grace bee a dew it cannot but moisten and soften the heart and make it like Gedeons fleece Judges 6.37 which was full of moisture when all the ground about it was dry What can be said more in the commendation of any vertue than meeknesse and of it than this that God commandeth it in his Word Christ patterneth it in his life and death the holy Spirit produceth it in our hearts our very nature enclineth us to it and our condition requireth it of us No vertue so generally commended as meeknesse Follow after righteousnesse 1 Tim. 6.11 godlinesse faith love patience meeknesse bee no brawler Tit. 3.2 but gentle shewing all meeknesse to all men Walke worthy of the vocation whereunto you are called with all lowlinesse and meeknesse with long-suffering forbearing one another in love endeavouring to keep the unitie of the Spirit in the bond of peace James 3.17 18. The wisedome that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be entreated full of mercy and good fruits and the fruit of righteousnesse is sowne in peace of them that make peace No fruit of the spirit so sweet and pleasant as this as on the contrary no fruit of the flesh so tart and bitter as jealousie and wrath which God curseth by the mouth of b Genes 40.7 Cursed be their anger for it was fierce and their rage for it was cruell Jacob but blesseth meeknesse by the mouth of our Saviour Matth. 5.5 Blessed are the meeke for they shall inherit the earth The earth was cursed before it brought forth thornes and thistles and briars which are good for nothing but to bee burned Wherefore let us hearken to the counsell of St. c Cypr. de zelo bâ—â—ore Evellamus spinas de cordibus ut dâ—â—minicum semen nos fertili fruge locupletet Cyprian Let us weed out of our soules envie wrath and jealousie and other stinging and pricking passions And of the Apostle Let no root of d Heb. 12.15 Looking diligently lest any root of bitternesse springing up trouble you bitternesse remaine in us that we may receive with meeknesse the engraffed Word which is able to save our soules James 1.21 Our carnall lusts are like so many serpents and of all wrath is the most fiery which will set all in a combustion if it bee not either quenched by the teares of repentance or slacked by the infusion of divine
grace especially the grace of meeknesse which in the heart is tendernesse in the disposition softnesse in the affections temper in the minde calmenesse in the carriage sweetnesse Aristotle briefly defineth it Rhet. l. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Bridle of wrath which because it is a passion of all other most head-strong it requireth both a strong curb and a skilfull rider for whose direction the Spirit of God in holy Scripture hath set downe divers rules The first rule is not to be suddenly or easily provoked This is laid downe for us by the Apostle St. James Let every man bee swift to heare James 1.19 slow to speake slow to wrath To follow this rule it will be behoofull according to the advice of a Hyper. citat à Lips Comment in Sen. de clem l. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Hyperides to prevent the occasion of quarrels and stop the passages of wrongs to nip the seeds of discords because if anger take root like an inveterate disease it will hardly bee cured b Senec. l. 1. de clem In primis finibus hostis arcendus est nam cum portis se intulit modum à captivis non capit Seneca strikes the same note though on a different string Above all things saith hee keep the enemy from entring the City for if hee once thrust his head into the gate he will give thee the law and not take it from thee Ovid giveth it as a character of a gracious Prince to be tardus ad iram Slow to wrath Certainly it is no strong piece that will suddenly bee out of frame the bone was never well set that easily slips out of joynt A man full of juice and sap of grace is like green wood which is long before it be kindled they who easily take fire seem rather to be annointed with brimstone than the sweet oyntment of the spirit above mentioned The second rule is to tolerate some infirmities in others as likewise others tolerate us in many things for as St. Austin speaketh Toleramus toleramur we tolerate and are tolerated our selves James 3.2 Galat. 6.2 because all offend in many things and many in all This rule is laid downe by St. Paul Be are yee one anothers burthens and so fulfill the law of Christ in which words hee enjoyneth us not onely to beare light injuries but those that are grievous and burthensome and the more burthens we beare in this kinde the lesse we have upon our owne conscience How can we expect that Christ should put his shoulders to our crosses if wee withdraw our necke from his yoke The third rule is to consider the nature of our brothers temptation and accordingly to deale with him This is laid down by the Apostle Galat. 6.1 If any man be overtaken in a fault restore such an one in the spirit of meeknesse considering thy selfe lest thou also be tempted Abraham lyed to Abimelech Peter denied his Master Job uttereth speeches of impatience Paul answereth very smartly to Ananias The Lord smite thee thou painted wall Acts 23.3 but this they did either transported in passion or upon great provocation or out of feare to save their lives The greater the temptation is and the more forcible the assault of Sathan upon the frailty of our nature the lesse the sinne is or at least more pardonable This sole consideration moved Saint Cyprian to take pity on some of them that in time of persecution denied their Master and were therefore deservedly excommunicated whom hee thus bringeth in pleading for themselves not with teares but with drops of bloud falling from their tortured members * Câ—pr de lapsis Manabat proffetibâ—s sanguis pro lachrymis câ—â—ot semâ—â—stulatis viscetibâ—â— defluebâ—t stâ—tit mens stabilis fide fortis cum torqâ—entibus pâ—â—nis â—mmobilis dâ—â— anima lactata est sed cum duâ—â—ssimi Judicis recrudescente saevituâ â—am fatigatum corpus nunc flagella scinderent nunc contunderent fustes c. caro nos in colluctatione destruit For a long time say they our resolution remained firme and our faith strong and we held out the fight against our tormenting paines but when the malice and cruelty of the Judge was exasperated against us and our savage tormentors fell afresh upon our wearied and worne-out bodie sometimes tearing it with whips sometimes bruising it with clubs sometimes stretching it upon the racke sometimes scorching it with fire our flesh forsooke us in the conflict the weaknesse of our bowels gave place and our body not our soule was in the end overcome with the violence of paine Beloved you were never yet brought to the fiery tryall that you might know how farre the extremity of torment might worke and prevaile upon the infirmity of your flesh thanke God for it and judge charitably of them whose faith and constancy shone not so cleerly in the middest of the fire but that they might be compared to the smoaking flaxe in the Verse following my Text. The fourth rule is to admonish before we punish and give warning before wee strike This is laid downe by a Deut. 12.10 Moses When thou commest nigh to a City to besiege it first offer conditions of peace to it This course God hath most strictly kept sending Noah to the old World Moses and Aaron to Egypt Lot to Sodome Obadiah to Edom Jonah to Nineveh the old Prophets and Christ himselfe to Jerusalem that they might prevent Gods judgements by repenting them of their sinne as the Ninevites had the grace to doe who had certainly been destroyed if destruction had not been threatned them by the Prophet Whereat Saint Chrysostome standeth amazed and in the end breakes out into this passionate exclamation O new and admirable thing the denuntiation of death brought forth life the prophecy of the overthrow overthrew the prophecy the sentence of destruction made a nullity in the sentence And if Jerusalem had knowne the things that belonged to her peace even in that day in which our Saviour fore-shewed her fatall doome his prophecy had fell and the City had stood For therefore God and man threaten to inflict severe punishment that they may not inflict what they threaten as b Phil â—ct l. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philostrates and c Nazian epist 194. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazianzen observe The fifth rule is first to use faire and gentle meanes before wee take a more severe course This is laid downe by the Apostle 1 Corinth 4.21 What will you shall I come unto you with a rod or in love and the spirit of meeknesse You see the soft drops of raine pierce the hardest stones and the warme bloud of a Goat dissolveth the Adamant Nature seemeth to prescribe this method which alwayes sendeth a flash of lightening before we heare a clap of thunder Et afflatur omne priusquam percutitur And nothing is struck which is not blasted before And Art
with a head of gold armes of silver bellie and thighes of brasse and legs of Iron yet thou standest upon feet of clay And what is now become of the head of gold which represented the Assyrian and armes of silver which resembled the Persian and the thighes of brasse which set forth the Grecian and the legs of iron which signified the Roman Monarchy Are they not all broken together and become like chaffe of a summers flower dispersed with the winde How proudly doth Sennacherib insult over those Nations whom his Ancestors had destroyed u Esay 37.13 Where is the King of Hamath and the King of Arphad and the King of the Citie Sepharvaim Hena and Ivah Little did he then thinke of a bird from the East Cyrus by name that after a short time should chirpe the like note at the Court of the great King of Ashur Where is the King of Shinar and the King of Babylon and the King of Damascus and the King of Nineveh and the great Monarch of Assyria Whereas he should with Nebuchadnezzar have x Dan. 4.34.35 honoured for these victories him that liveth for ever whose Kingdome is from generation to generation And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing and he doth according to his will in the armie of heaven and among the Inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand or say unto him What dost thou x Horat. l. 1. car od 34. Valet ima summis mutare insignem attenuat Deus hinc apicem rapax fortuna sustulit hic posuisse gaudet If the state of Kingdomes and Monarchies is so fickle what follie or rather madnesse is it for any private man to dreame of perpetuities and certainties and indefeisable estates As if a man might be safe in a small cabbine under hatches when the whole Ship is drowned under the water or a Spider secure in his web when the whole window is pulled downe or a young bird out of danger in the nest when the whole arme of the tree is torne off All private mens estates are ventered in the bottome of the Common-wealth and all Common-wealthes in the great vessell of the earth which was once swallowed up with a deluge of Water and shall be ere it be long with a deluge of fire A house infected with some kinde of Leprosie by the Law was to be pulled downe and burnt to ashes and when iniquitie shall so abound on the earth that the whole world shall be infected with the Leprosie of monstrous and enormous sins this great house which hath beene long tottered shall be burned and fall downe about our eares And verily if all other signes be accomplished as many of the learned in their commentaries upon the Apocalyps contend I should thinke the world cannot long stand for y Juvenal sat 1. Quando ubâ—rior vitiorum copia quando Major avaritia patuit sinus c Horat. l. 1. car od 35. Eheu cicatricuÌ„ sceleris pudet fratrumque quid nos dura refugimus caetas quid intactum nefasti liquimus Omne in praecipiti vitium stetit Every sinne is growne to the height Atheisme to the height even in men of high calling prophanenesse to the height even on the Lords Sabbaths and in his holy Temple Impuritie and immodestie at the height even daring the consistory Iniquitie at the height possessing the place and seat of justice Drunkennesse at the height reeling at noone-day Idolatrie Heresie and Superstition at the height advancing their followers to the highest preferments in the Church and keeping under pure Religion and the sincere Professours thereof It will be said though plagues fall upon all Egypt yet Goshen shall be free though the whole world be destroyed all Israel shall be saved Israel is Gods first-borne who shall dis-inherit him Israel is the Vine which the right hand of God hath planted who shall root it up Israel is the Signet on his finger who shall plucke it off Nay Israel is the apple of his eye who shall pull it out Let heaven and earth passe away yet Gods covenant with Israel shall stand fast his seed shall endure for ever and his throne shall bee as the Sunne before God If these promises stand good unto Israel this Prophecie of Israels downefall must needs fall to the ground For how can the Kingdome of Jacob and the captivitie of Jacob Israels gathering out of all Nations and Israels scattering abroad into all Nations Israels perpetuall standing and Israels falling and utter subversion stand together To compose this seeming difference betweene Gods promises to Israel and his threats against Israel we must distinguish of divers kindes of promises made to Israel and of divers Israels to which the promises may appertaine Israel sometime signifieth 1. Properly 1. Either the whole posteritie of Jacob 2. Or the ten tribes which were rent from Roboam 2. Figuratively The spiritual kingdome of Christ over the Elect. Againe there is a threefold Israel 1. According to the flesh onely of which the a Rom. 9.6 Rom. 11.25 Apostle speaketh expressely They are not all Israel which are of Israel And obstinacie is come to Israel b 1 Cor. 10.18 Behold Israel after the flesh 2. Israel according to the Spirit onely c Heb. 8.10 This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those dayes I will put my Law into their mindes and write them in their hearts c. and so all d Rom. 11.26 Israel shal be saved for this is my covenant with them when I take away their sinnes 3. Israel according to the flesh and spirit which may rightly be called the Israel of Israel as Demosthenes termeth Athens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Greece of Greece to Israel in this third sense Christ had a speciall commission I am not sent saith he but to the lost e Math. 10.6 Gâ—â— to the lost sheepe of the house of Israel sheepe of the house of Israel Saint Paul pointeth to this Israel when the fulnesse of the Gentiles is come in all f Rom. 10.26 Israel shall be saved And Saint John g Apoc. 7 4. There were sealed an hundreth and fourty and foure thousand of all the Tribes of the children of Israel Retaine these distinctions of Israel and put a difference betweene the promises whereof Some are 1. Absolute 2. Conditionall Some are 1. Temporall 2. Spirituall and you shall easily reconcile those texts of Scriptures which seeme to overthrow this prophecie concerning the utter overthrow of the Kingdome of Israel by which we are here to understand the ten Tribes which fell out not long after this Prophecie in the daies of Hosea their last King As for Judah the h Gen. 49.10 Scepter according to Jacobs prophecy departed not from it untill Shilo came but after he came and was rejected of that Nation and the sacred twig of Jesse was nailed to an accursed tree God cut it off root
in Lambeth Chappell A.D. 1622. March 23. THE TENTH SERMON JOHN 20.22 And when hee had said this hee breathed on them and saith unto them receive yee the holy Ghost Most Reverend Right Honourable Right Reverend Right Worshipfull c. A Diamond is not cut but by the point of a Diamond nor the sunne-beame discerned but by the light of the beame nor the understanding faculty of the soule apprehended but by the faculty of understanding nor can the receiving of the holy Ghost bee conceived or delivered without receiving in some a Aug tract 16. in Joh. Adsit ipse spiritus ut sic eloqui possimus degree that holiest Spirit b Ciâ— de mat Qui eloquentiam laudat debet illam ipsam adhibere quam lâ—â—dat Hee that will blazon the armes of the Queen of affections Eloquence must borrow her own pencill and colours nor may any undertake to expound this text and declare the power of this gift here mentioned but by the gift of this power Wherefore as in the interpretation of other inspired Scriptures wee are humbly to intreat the assistance of the Inspirer so more especially in the explication and application of this which is not onely effectivè à spiritu but also objectivè de spiritu not onely indited and penned as all other by the spirit but also of the spirit This of all other is a most mysterious text which being rightly understood and pressed home will not only remove the weaker fence betweene us and the Greeke Church touching the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Sonne but also beat downe and demolish the strong and high partition wall betweene the reformed and the Romane Church built upon S. Peters supremacy For if Christ therefore used the Ceremony of breathing upon his Apostles with this forme of words Receive yee the Holy Ghost as it were of set purpose visibly to represent the proceeding of the holy Spirit from himselfe why should not the Greeke Church acknowledge with us the eternall emanation of the holy Ghost from the Sonne as well as the Father and acknowledging it joyne with us in the fellowship of the same spirit Our difference and contestation with the Church of Rome in point of S. Peters primacy is far greater I confesse For the head of all controversies between us and them is the controversie concerning the head of the Church Yet even this how involved soever they make it may be resolved by this text alone For if Christ sent all his Apostles as his Father sent him if he breathed indifferently upon all if he gave his spirit and with it full power of remittting and retaining sinnes to them all then is there no ground here for S. Peters jurisdiction over the rest much lesse the Popes and if none here none elsewhere as the sequell will shew For howsoever Cajetan and Hart and some few Papists by jingling Saint Peters c Mat. 16.19 Keyes and distinguishing of a key 1 Of knowledge 2 Of power and this 1 Of order 2 Of jurisdiction and that 1 In foro exteriori the outward court 2 Foro interiori the inward court of conscience goe about to confound the harmony of the Evangelists who set all the same tune but to a different key yet this is confessed on all sides by the Fathers Hilary Jerome Austine Anselme and by the Schoole-men Lumbard Aquinas Allensis and Scotus alledged by Cardinall d Bellar. de Rom. pont l. 1. c. 12. Bellarmine that what Christ promised to Peter e Mat. 16. he performed and made good to him here but here the whole f Hieronymus adver Lucifer Cuncti claves accipiunt super omnes ex aequô ecclesiae fortitudo solidatur bunch of keyes is offered to all the Apostles and all of them receive them all are joyned with S. Peter as well in the mission as my Father sent mee so I send you as in the Commission Lastly as this text containes a soveraigne Antidote against the infection of later heresies so also against the poyson of the more ancient and farther spread impieties of Arrius and Macedonius whereof the one denyed the divinity and eternity of the Sonne the other of the holy Ghost both whose damnable assertions are confuted by consequence from this text For if Christ by breathing giveth the holy Ghost and by giving the holy Ghost power of remitting sinne then must Christ needs bee God for who but God can give or send a divine person The holy Ghost also from hence is proved to be God for who can g Mar. 2.7 or Esay 43.25 forgive sinnes but God alone So much is our faith indebted to this Scripture yet our calling is much more for what can bee spoken more honourably of the sacred function of Bishops and Priests than that the investiture and admittance into it is the receiving of the holy Ghost * Primum in unoquoque genere est mensura regula caeterorum The first action in every kind of this nature is a president to all the rest as all the furniture of the Ceremoniall law was made according to the first patterne in the Mount such is this consecration in my text the originall and patterne of all other wherein these particulars invite your religious attention 1 The person consecrating Christ the chiefe Bishop of our soules 2 The persons consecrated The Apostles the prime Pastours of the Church 3 The holy action it selfe set forth 1 With a mysterious rite he breathed on them 2 A sanctified forme of words receive ye the holy Ghost 1 First for the person consecrating All Bishops are consecrated by him originally to whom they are consecrated all Priests are ordained by him to whom they are ordained Priests the power which they are to employ for him they receive from him to whom h Matth. 28.18 all power is given both in heaven and in earth By vertue of which deed of gift he maketh i Matth. 10.2 choice of his ministers and hee sendeth them with authority k Jâ—h 20.21 as my Father sent me so I send you And hee furnisheth them with gifts saying receive yee the holy Ghost and enableth them with a double power of order to l Matth. 28.19 Teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Sonne and of the holy Ghost 1 Cor. 11.24 This do in the remembrance of me preach and administer both the sacraments and of jurisdiction also Matth. 18.18 Verily I say unto you whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall bee bound in heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven And that this sacred order is to continue in the Church and this spirituall power in this order even till Christ resigneth up his keyes and kingdome to God his Father S. Paul assureth us Eph. 4.10.11.12 Hee that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill all things and he gave some
inferiour to the chiefe Apostles neither in preaching nor in working miracles nor in dignity but in time Saint Chrysostome acutely observeth that the Apostle redoubleth his forces and not content with that hee had said before in 2 Cor. 11.5 I suppose I was not a whit behinde the very chiefest Apostles he addeth in the Chapter following with more confidence and authority In nothing am I behinde the very chiefest Apostles though I be nothing What not inferiour to Saint Peter no not Saint Peter for so it followeth in Saint Chrysostome he sheweth himselfe to be equall in dignity to the rest and he m Chrys in Gal. 2. v. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 compareth himselfe not to other of the Apostles but to the chiefe shewing that he was of equall ranke with him See saith n Occumen in Gal. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oecumenius how he equalizeth himselfe to Peter or sets himselfe upon even ground with him These were Fathers of the Greeke Church what will our adversaries say if o Leo serm de laud. Petri Pauli De quorum meritis virtutibus quae omnem superāt dicendi facultatem nihil diversum sentire debemus nihil discretum quos electio pares labor similes mors fecit aequales Leo Bishop of Rome who extolled Peter above the skies and admitteth him after a sort into the fellowship of the individuall Trinity yet maketh Saint Paul his match saying Let no man cast a golden apple of contention betweene these glorious instruments of Christs Gospell Peter and Paul of whose merits and vertues which exceed all faculties of speech or can never bee sufficiently commended wee ought to thinke nothing divers or put no difference at all in any respect betweene them whose calling to the Apostleship made them equall and their travell in their office like and their martyrdome parallel Saint Paul then in Leo his judgement may goe everywhere hand in hand with Peter and in very deed hee hath the hand of him in the Popes seale which putteth Bellarmine to much trouble and great feare lest Saint Paul should bee taken to bee the better man of the two because in the Popes seale which confirmeth all his Buls and unerring Decrees ex cathedra Saint Paul hath the right hand and Saint Peter the left But hee may set his heart at rest for no Protestant goeth about to set Saint Peter below Saint Paul or any other Apostle all that wee contend for among the Apostles is but for a parity a parity there may bee in the Apostolicall power and function and yet Peter have some preheminency in respect of his yeeres or gifts such a primacy may be granted him without any power or jurisdiction over the rest some power hee might have over the rest and bee a kinde of President in the Apostles Colledge yet not Christs Vicar generall or Head of the whole Church Head hee might bee of the Church in some sense yet his Headship as his Apostleship dye with him and not descend upon his successors descend it might upon his successors to wit upon his undoubted successors in Antiochia not be appropriated to his questionable successors at Rome lastly it might be after a sort entayled to his successors at Rome yet with a qualification to all his lawfull successors not to usurpers to men as Linus not to women as Pope Joane to Catholickes as Saint Gregory and Damasus and all the Popes for 300. yeeres not Heretickes as Liberius and Honorius and many of the latter to such as entred canonically as Cornelius and Stephanus and the ancient Popes generally not such as thrust themselves into that See and purchased the Papacy either by art Magicke as Sylvester the second or by an imposture as Hildebrand or simony and faction as almost all since Lastly upon Apostolicall men in life and doctrine not apostaticall or apotacticall as those fifty Popes reckoned by Genebrard his Holinesses Chronicler one after another By all which particulars seriously considered Urban his supremacy derived from Saint Peter appeareth to be a rope of sand or a castle of Table-men piled one upon another without any thing to hold them together which fall allasunder with a fillep or an old ruinous paire of staires the ground-cell or foot whereof viz. Peters superiority to the rest of the Apostles is not sure and all the consequences deduced from thence like staires built upon it are all rotten and therefore I will stand no longer upon them but leape into my third and last part The manner of the Apostles consecration and first of the mysterious rite Hee breathed The truth and substance Christ himselfe who put an end to all legall shadowes commanding all to worship God in Spirit and truth ordained notwithstanding mysterious rites in the Sacraments of the new Testament and used visible and significant gestures in his miraculous cures he gave sight to the blinde not without touching the eye and hearing to the deafe not without thrusting his finger into the eare and speech to the dumb not without wetting the tongue he fetched not Lazarus breath back againe without fetching a deepe sigh nor inspired his Disciples with the holy Ghost without breathing upon them Gestures p Cic. de orat l. 3. Gestus est sermo quidam corporis in religious actions are as significant and more moving than words Decent Ceremonies in the substantiall worship of God are like shadowing in a picture which if it bee too much as we see in the Church of Rome it darkeneth the picture and obscureth the face of devotion but if convenient and in fit places it giveth grace and beauty to it Superstition may be and is as properly in such who put Religion in not using as in those who put Religion in using things in their owne nature meerely indifferent Christian liberty is indifferently abridged by both these errours about things indifferent And as a man may be proud even of the hatred of pride and contempt of greatnesse so he may be superstitious in a causlesse feare and heady declining of that which seemes but is not superstitious Which is the case of some refined Reformers as they would bee thought who according to their name of Precisians ungues ad vivum resecant pare the nailes of pretended Romish rites in our Church so neere that they make her fingers bleede For feare of monuments of Idolatry all ornaments of the Church if they might have their will should be taken away for feare of praying for the dead they will not allow any prayer to be said for the living at the buriall of the dead for feare of bread-worship they will not kneele at the Communion for feare of invocating the Saints deceased they will not brooke any speech of the deceased in a funerall Sermon for feare of making matrimony a Sacrament they will have it no sacred rite but a meere civill joyning the parties contracted in the congregation not by the hand of the
Ministers of God but by the hand of their laye Elders or Borgomasters for feare of overlaying the Queenes vesture with rich laces of ceremonies they rip them off all cut off the fringe and pare off the nappe also But because the Spouse of Christ as things now stand is more afraid of losing her coat than of her lace or fringe I leave these men as unworthy upon whom more breath should be spent and come to the particular rite or ceremony of breathing used by our Saviour Hee breathed on them Here every Interpreter aboundeth in his owne sense q Barrad in Evang Flatus domini potestatem quam dabat remittendi peccata adumbrabat ut enim flatu nubes toâ—o aere pelluntur sic flatu domini id est Spiritu sancto peccatorum nubes disperguntur juxta illud Esa 44. delevisti ut nubes iniquitates nostras Barradius his sense is that this breathing shadowed forth the ghostly power of remitting of sinnes which Christ gave to his Apostles For as by a blast of wind clouds are driven out of the aire so by the blast of God that is the holy Spirit the clouds of our sinnes are dispersed according to the words of the Prophet Esay cap. 44.22 I have blotted out as a thicke cloud thy transgressions r Maldonat in Johan Christus per insufflationem declarare voluitipsam Spiritus sancti naturam est enim veluti flatus patris filii Maldonate his sense is that Christ by this visible ceremony of breathing declared the nature of the holy Ghost who is the breath of the Father and the Sunne Å¿ Musculus in Johan Commodè Spiritum per flatum dedit cum illis muneris Apostolici potestatem daret pendebat enim illa a verbis oris ipsius Musculus his sense is that Christ fitly used the ceremony of breathing when he invested the Apostles into their function because it hath a dependance upon the words of his mouth because it is a power of the word it was therefore given by breathing on them t Calvin harm Cumarcana inspiratione posset Christus gratiam conferre Apostolis visibilem flatum addere voluit ad eos melins confirmandos symbolum autem sumpsit à vulgari S.S. more qui Spiritum confert vento Calvin his sense is that Christ added this ceremony of outward breathing upon them to confirme their faith in the inward inspiration the symbole or signe hee tooke from the common custome of the Scripture which compareth the spirit to winde u Athana in Joh. In sufflando dedit animam quae est principium vitae naturalis Spiritum qui est principium vitae spiritualis ut idem quicreator agnosceretur renovator Athanasius his sense is that as God in the creation of man breathed into him his soule which is the beginning or principle of the naturall life so Christ here breathed into the Disciples his spirit which is the beginning or principle of the spirituall life that wee might know that the same God who is the author of the naturall life is also the author of the life of grace and that hee who first created the spirit of man reneweth all the faithfull in the spirit of their mindes But the most naturall genuine and generally approved reason and interpretation of this rite and ceremony is that which is given by Saint Austine and Saint Cyrill viz. that Christ by breathing on his Apostles when he gave them the holy Ghost signified that the person of the holy Ghost proceeded from him as that breath came out of his mouth For although Theophylact infected with the present errour of the Greek Church jeareth at this interpretation yet neither doth hee nor can hee give so apt and fit a one and in this regard Cardinall Bellarmine justly taketh him up for sleighting the judgement of two of the greatest pillars of the Church Verely saith he Theophylact is to be jeared at by all of the Latine Church if hee flout at Saint Austine and of the Greeke Church also if hee flout at Saint Cyril for what interpretation so naturall what reason so proper can be given of coupling this ceremony with the words Receive yee the Holy Ghost that is giving the holy Ghost by breathing as this that the holy Spirit proceedeth from his person And so I passe from the mysterious rite of breathing to the sanctified forme of words Receive yee the holy Ghost Not the person nor the substance of the holy Ghost for that errour the Master of the sentences was long agoe whipt by his schollars Sanctified the Apostles were by receiving the Spirit but not deified What then received they at this time some gift of the holy Ghost that takes not away the doubt but makes it untieth not the knot but fasteneth it rather For as Pythagoras when the question of marriage was put to him in his flourishing age answered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not yet when in his decaying and withering age hee replyed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not now so if the question be of the ordinary gifts of the holy Ghost it may be said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Apostles were not now to receive them because at their first calling they were seasoned with that heavenly liquor But if the question be of the extraordinary gifts of the holy Ghost or a fuller measure of the ordinary it may be replied 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were not as yet to receive them For Christ * Joh. 16.7 must first ascend before he send the holy Ghost To take this pearle out of the eye of my text many medicines have beene applyed Theodoret thus offereth to remove it Our Saviour Joh. 16.7 said not that hee would not give the holy Ghost before his ascension but that he would not send him before at this time saith that Father Christ gave the holy Ghost secretly with grace but then he sent him in a visible shape with power x Calvin in Joh. Sic datus fuit Apostolis spiritus hoc loco ut respersi fuerint duntaxat ejus gratia non plena virtute imbuti Calvin helpeth it with a distinction of the receiving the holy Ghost in different degrees now the Spirit was but sprinkled as it were upon them but in the day of Pentecost it was powred out on them now they were gently breathed on and refreshed as it were with a small gale then they were all blowne upon as it were with a mighty winde y Chrys in Joh. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Saint Chrysostome thus expedites the difficulty some say that Christ gave not the holy Ghost at this time but that by his breathing on his Apostles he made them capable or fit to receive him but wee may safely goe farther and say that the Apostles at this time received some spirituall grace or power not of working wonders but of remitting sinne If you further aske why the power of forgiving sinnes or which comes all to one why remission
of sinnes is peculiarly attributed to the Spirit and by a metonymie termed the Holy Ghost Barradius bringeth us an answer out of the schooles that z Barrad in harmon Evang. remission of sinnes is a worke of Gods goodnesse and mercy now workes of goodnesse are peculiarly attributed to the holy Spirit who proceedeth as they determine from the will of the Father and the Sonne whose object is goodnesse as workes of wisedome are attributed to the Sonne because hee is the word proceeding by way of generation from the understanding of his Father This reason may goe for currant in their way neither have I any purpose at this time to crosse it but to haste to the period of this discourse in which that I may better discover the path of truth in stead of many little lights which others have brought I will set up one great taper made of the sweetest of their waxe The Holy Ghost is sometimes taken for the person of the Comforter which sealeth Gods chosen to salvation sometimes for the gifts effects or operations of the Holy Ghost as it were the prints of his scale left in the soule these are principally three 1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Grace 2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spirituall power or authority 3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vertue or ghostly ability to worke wonders and speake with divers languages 1 Is common to all them that are sanctified 2 Is peculiar to Christs Ministers 3 Restrayned to the Apostles themselves and some few others of their immediate successors z Joh. 3.5 Exceâ—t a man be borne of the water and of the spirit 1 Regenerating grace is termed the holyGhost 2 Spirituall order or ministeriall power is called the Spirit or holy Ghost in this place and Luk. 4.18 Esay 61.1 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach the Gospell c. 3 Miraculous vertue is called the holy Ghost Act. 2.4 And they were filled with the holy Ghost and spake with divers tongues 1 The Spirit of grace and regeneration the Apostles received at their first calling 2 The Spirit of ecclesiasticall government they received at this time c. 3 The Spirit of powerfull and extraordinary operation they received in the day of Pentecost 1 In their mindes by infallible inspiration 2 In their tongues by multiplicity of languages 3 In their hands by miraculous cures Receive then the Holy Ghost is 1 A ghostly function to ordaine Pastors and sanctifie congregations to God 2 Spirituall gifts to execute and discharge that function 3 Spirituall power or jurisdiction to countenance and support both your function and gifts Thus have I opened the treasury of this Scripture out of which I now offer to your religious thoughts and affections these ensuing observations And first in generall I commend to the fervour of your zeale and devotion the excessive heat of Christs love which absumed and spent him all for us flesh and spirit His flesh he offereth us in the Sacrament of his Supper his spirit hee conferreth in the sacred rite of consecration His body hee gave by those words Take eate this is my body his spirit hee gave by these Receive ye the holy Ghost a gift unestimable a treasure unvaluable for it was this spirit which quickned us when wee were dead in trespasses and sinnes it is this spirit which fetcheth us againe when wee swoune in despaire it is this spirit that refresheth and cooleth us in the extreme heat of all persecutions afflictions sorrowes and diseases to it we owe 1 Light in our mindes 2 Warmth in our desires 3 Temper in our affections 4 Grace in our wils 5 Peace in our consciences 6 Joy in our hearts and unspeakeable comfort in life and death This is the winde which bloweth a Cant. 4.16 Blow upon my garden that the spices thereof may flow out let my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruits upon the Spouse her garden that the spices thereof might flow out This is the breath which formeth the words in the cloven tongues this is the breath which bloweth and openeth all the flowers of Paradise This is the blast which diffuseth the savour of life through the whole Church This is the gale which carryeth us through all the troublesome waves of this world and bringeth us safe to the haven where we would be And as the Spouse of Christ which is his mysticall body is infinitely indebted to her head for this gift of the spirit whereby holy congregations are furnished with Pastors and they with gifts and the ministery of the Gospell continually propagated so wee above all nations in the world at this day are most bound to extoll and magnifie his goodnesse towards us herein among whom in a manner alone this holy seed of the Church remaineth unmixed and uncorrupt not onely as propagated but propagating also not children onely but Fathers Apostolicall doctrine other reformed Churches maintaine but doe they retaine also Apostolicall discipline laying of hands they have on Ministers and Pastors but consecration of Archbishops and Bishops they have not And because they want consecrated Bishops to ordaine Pastors their very ordination is not according to ancient order Because they want spirituall Fathers in Christ to beget children in their ministery their Ministers by the adversary are accounted no better than filii populi whereas will they nill they even in regard of our Hierarchy the most frontlesse Papists must confesse the children begot by our reverend Fathers in the ministery of the Gospell to be as legitimate as their owne For albeit they put the hereticke upon us as the Arrians did upon the Catholike Fathers calling them Athanasians c. yet this no way disableth either the consecration of our Bishops nor the ordination of our Priests not onely because we have proved the dogge lyeth at their doores and that they are a kinde of mungrils of divers sorts of heretickes but because it is the doctrine of their Church b See Croy in his third conformity Whitaker in fine resp ad demonstrat Sanderi Rivet procem de haeref q. 1. Cath. orthod that the character of order is indeleble and therefore Archbishop Cranmer and other of our Bishops ordained by them if they had afterwards as Papists most falsly suppose fallen into heresie could not lose their faculty of consecration and ordination The consecration of Catholicke Bishops by Arrians and baptisme of faithfull Christians children by Donatists though heretickes is made good as well by the decrees of ancient as later Councels determining that Sacraments administred even by heretickes so they observe the rite and forme of words prescribed in holy scripture bee of force and validity Praysed therefore for ever bee the good will of him that dwelt in the bush that the Rod of Aaron still flourisheth among us and planteth and propagateth it selfe like that Indian fig-tree so much admired by all Travellers from the utmost branch whereof issueth a gummy juyce which hangeth
most comfortable for g Gal. 6.14 God forbid saith hee that I should rejoice in any thing save in the crosse of Christ whereby the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world These points I shall cleare to your understanding and presse upon your devout affections Gods grace assisting your patience encouraging and the time permitting me I determined to know nothing among you c. No people under the cope of heaven were more desirous of knowledge or capable of a greater measure thereof than the Corinthians that were Pupilla Graeciae the apple of Greece the eye of the world and none more furnished with divine and humane knowledge than my Apostle whose portion especially of acquired learning was like to Benjamins of whose tribe hee was h Gen. 43.34 five times greater than his brethren 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eras Adag Yet this every way accomplisht Doctor of the Gentiles so inriched with all knowledge at Corinth the prime City of Greece the Royall Exchange if I may so speake of all arts and sciences whither men of ordinary ranke and quality might not easily have accesse among these who heard of Saint Paul that hee had beene i 2 Cor. 12.2 rapt up into the third heaven and expected that hee should utter unto them what hee saw and heard there hee will bee knowne to know nothing save Jesus Christ and him crucified All that hee tooke up at Gamaliels feet hee layed downe at Christs hee buried his jewels of Egypt which cost him so deare under the wood of the crosse as Jacob did Labans idolls k Gen. 35.4 under the oake at Sichem Hee not onely under-valueth them in respect but maketh no reckoning of them I esteeme nothing of any nor will bee esteemed for any knowledge save of Jesus Christ and him crucified The coherence Which words are spoken by the Apostle here by way of apology to certaine of the Corinthians who prepossessed with the false Apostles making great shew of learning and eloquence could not away with the Apostles plainer and simpler kinde of teaching without ostentation of art or mixture of secular learning To these hee addresseth himselfe after this manner ver 1. And I brethren when I came unto you came not with excellency of words or wisedome declaring unto you the testimony of God For I determined not to know any thing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of mans wisedome but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power that your faith might not stand in the wisedome of man but in the power of God In effect he confesseth that his words were not so pickt The sense his phrase so choice his composition so smooth his sentences so fluent his cadences so sweet his language so polite his stile so flourishing or his lines so strong as were those of the false Apostles who with their puffed up eloquence and word wisedome sought to bring into contempt the simplicity of the Gospell I seeke not saith hee in effect to approve my doctrine unto you by Tropes of Rhetorike or Syllogismes of Logicke or Axiomes of Philosophy but by the evidence of the Spirit I professe no science among you but the science of the crosse and surely the plainest and simplest method and manner of teaching best fitteth it Were it decent and agreeable thinke you to treat of God his emptying himselfe in swelling words to speake of Christ his abasing himselfe in a lofty stile to discourse sweetly upon gall and vinegar to beset nailes and thornes with flowers of Rhetoricke and to bring our Saviour in pompe of words and vaine-glorious pageants of art to his crosse Let them make ostentation of their learning and eloquence who preach themselves I that am a Minister of Christ and called to preach him make conscience to adde any thing of mine owne that may detract from him or any way obscure the doctrine of the Gospell Doct. 1 The Ministers of the word may esteeme of secular learning in it's ranke but they must not as if they were making merchandise thereof expose it to sale in their sermons they must not seek to value themselves chiefly by it or make any shew or ostentation thereof to the obscuring or any way disparaging the doctrine of the Gospell There are many simples goe to the making of a soveraigne Electuary which yet cannot bee discerned in it when it is made wee see not the honey-suckles and other sweet flowers which Kine feede upon in the spring l Virg Geor. 4. Attamen occultum referunt in lacte saporem yet wee have the taste of them in the milke The Prince of the Romane Oratours illustrateth the like observation by a similitude drawne from those that walke in the sunne m Cic. de orat l. 1 who though they walke not to that end to bee sunne-burnt yet if they walke long they will bee so in like manner though a man study not the arts to this end to gaine an opinion of learning or skill in them nay though hee conceale art which is a high point of art with all possible art yet by that which hee performeth in his pleading of causes it will appeare how hee hath profited in them I determine to know nothing c. The Apostle seemeth to bee very flat upon the negative and by a kinde of Ostracisme to banish all eminency of secular learning out of the schoole of Christ yet as Saint n Chrysin hunc â—â—cum Chrysostome well notes hee doth not absolutely condemne humane learning and eloquence wherein himselfe excelled for that had beene to slurre his owne perfections but the edge of his Apostolicall reprehension falleth upon the abuse ostentation or over-prising it to the prejudice of the knowledge of Christ crucified I know the ground I now tread upon is slippery and therefore I must carefully looke to my feete lest they slide on either side To derogate from the all-sufficiency of Scripture is sacriledge and blasphemy and on the other side to detract from the worth and credite of arts and sciences is anabaptisticall frenzie the truth in the middle may bee laid downe in this Aphorisme Scripture is of it selfe abundantly sufficient for us but we are not sufficient for it without the help of the arts or as we terme them liberall sciences Wee cannot sufficiently either conceive our selves or declare to our hearers the works of God without naturall Philosophy nor the law of God without morall nor the attributes of God without the Metaphysickes nor the dimensions of the Arke and Temple without the Mathematickes nor the songs of Sion without Musicke and Poetry Wee cannot interpret the text of Scripture without Grammar analyze it without Logicke presse and apply it without Rhetoricke Wherefore let Brownists and Separatists scoffe at University learning as the Foxe in the Greeke Epigram disparageth the faire and ripe grapes on a high tree because they were out of
where divers candles or torches in a roome concurre to enlighten the place the light of them remaineth impermixt as the Optickes demonstrate by their severall shadowes so all the divine graces conjoyne their lustre and vertue to adorne and beautifie the inward man yet their nature remaines distinct as their speciall effects make it evident to a single and sharp-sighted eye God was in the bush that burned and consumed not yet God was not the bush The holy Ghost was in the fiery cloven tongues yet the holy Ghost was not the tongues The spirits runne along in the arteries with the purer and refined blood yet the spirits are not the blood The fire insinuateth it selfe into all the parts of melted metall and to the eye nothing appeareth but a torrent of fire yet the fire is not the metall in like manner zeale shineth and flameth in devotion love godly jealousie indignation and other sanctified desires and affections it enflameth them as fire doth metall it stirreth and quickeneth them as the spirits doe the blood yet zeale is not those passions neither are all or any of them zeale howsoever the schooles rather out of zeale of knowledge than knowledge of zeale have determined the contrary 2 Secondly zeale is defined to bee not a morall vertue but a divine gift or grace of the Spirit the Spirit of God is the efficient cause and the Spirit of man is the subject which the Apostle intimates in that phrase i Rom. 12.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being fervent or zealous in Spirit This fire like that of the Vestals is kindled from heaven by the beames of the Sunne of righteousnesse not from any kitchen on earth much lesse from hell They therefore qui irae suae stimulum zelum putant they who imagine the flashes of naturall choler are flames of spirituall zeale toto coelo errant are as farre from the marke as heaven is distant from the earth No naturall or morall temper much lesse any unnaturall and vitious distemper can commend us or our best actions to God and men as zeale doth The fire of zeale like the fire that consumed Solomons sacrifice commeth downe from heaven and true zealots are not those Salamanders or Pyrausts that alwayes live in the fire of hatred and contention but Seraphims burning with the spirituall fire of divine love who as Saint Bernard well noteth kept their ranke and station in heaven when the other Angels of Lucifers band that have their names from light fell from theirs Lucifer cecidit Seraphim stant to teach us that zeale is a more excellent grace than knowledge even in Angels that excell in both Howbeit though zeale as farre surpasse knowledge as the sunne-beame doth a glow-worme yet zeale must not be without knowledge Wherefore God commandeth the Priest when hee k Exod. 30.8 lighteth the lamps to burne incense though the fire bee quicke and the incense sweet yet God accepteth not of the burning it to him in the darke The Jewes had a zeale as the l Rom. 10.2 Apostle acknowledgeth and the Apostle himselfe before his conversion yet because it wanted knowledge it did them and the Church of God great hurt No man can bee ignorant of the direfull effects of blind zeale when an unskilfull Phaeton takes upon him to drive the chariot of the sunne hee sets the whole world in a combustion What a mettled horse is without a bridle or a hot-spurred rider without an eye or a ship in a high winde and swelling saile without a rudder that is zeale without knowledge which is like the eye in the rider to choose the way or like the bridle in the hand to moderate the pace or like the rudder in the ship to steere safely the course thereof Saint m Inser 22. in Cant. Bernard hits full on this point Discretion without zeale is slow paced and zeale without discretion is heady let therefore zeale spurre on discretion and discretion reyne zeale fervor discretionem erigat discretio fervorem regat Discretion must guide zeale as it is guided by spirituall wisedome not worldly policy and therefore Thirdly I adde in the definition of zeale that it quickeneth and enflameth all our holy desires and affections according to the direction of spirituall wisdome For wisdome must prescribe zeale when and where and how far and in what order to proceede in reforming all abuses in Church and State and performing all duties of religious piety and eminent charity What Isocrates spake sometime of valour or strength is as true of zeale viz. n Isoc ad Dem. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that zeale and resolution with wisedome doth much good but without it doth much mischiefe to our selves and others like granadoes and other fire-works which if they be not well looked to and ordered when they breake do more hurt to them that cast them than to the enemie Yet that we be not deceived in mistaking worldly policy for wisdome I adde spirituall to difference it from carnall morall or civill wisedome for they are too great coolers they will never let zeale exceed the middle temper of that * Vibius Statesman in Tiberius Court who was noted to bee a wise and grave Counseller of a faire carriage and untainted reputation but hee would o Juven sat 4. Ille igitur nunquam direxit brachia contra torrentem never strike a stroake against the streame hee would never owne any mans quarrell hee would bee sure to save one Such is the worldly wise man hee will move no stone though never so needfull to bee removed if hee apprehend the least feare that any part of the wall will fall upon himselfe The p Cic. de orat l. 1. Tempus omne post consulatum objecimus iis fluctibus qui per nos à communi peste depulsi in nosmetipsos redundarunt Romane Consul and incomparable Oratour shall bee no president for him who imployed all his force and strength to keepe off those waves from the great vessel of the State which rebounded backe againe and had neere drowned the cocke-boate of his private fortune Hee will never ingage himselfe so farre in any hot service no not though Gods honour and the safety of the Church lye at stake but that he will be sure to come off without hazzard of his life or estate Hee hath his conscience in that awe that it shall not clamour against him for not stickling in any businesse that may peradventure reflect upon his state honour or security In a word peradventure he may bee brought with much adoe to doe something for God but never to suffer any thing for him This luke-warme Laodicean disposition the lesse offensive it is to men the more odious it is to God who is a jealous God and affecteth none but those that are zealous for his glory he loveth none but those that will bee content to expose themselves to the hatred of all men for his names sake Hee q
cursed persons To cleare the meaning of our Saviour it will bee requisite briefly to declare first how man is capable of blessednesse at all secondly how farre in this life truly termed by St. Austin the region of death Blessednesse is a soveraigne attribute of God and as p Nyss hom de â—â—at Nyssen teacheth primarily and absolutely and eternally belongeth to him onely Creatures are blessed but in part derivatively and at the most from the terme of their creation Beauty first shineth in the living face and countenance that which is resembled in the image or picture is but a secondary or relative beauty in like manner saith hee the primary blessednesse is in God or to speake more properly is God himselfe the blessednesse which is in man made after Gods image is but a secondary blessednesse For as the image is such is his beauty and blessednesse but the image of God in man since his fall is much soiled and defaced and consequently his blessednesse is very imperfect and obscure Yet they that rubbe off the dust of earthly cares and dirt of sinne and by spirituall exercises brighten the graces of God in their soule as they are truly though not perfectly beautifull within so they may be truly though not absolutely stiled blessed even in this life 1. First because they are assured of Gods love and they see his countenance shine upon them which putteth more q Psal 4.7 gladnesse into their heart than is or can be in the heart of them whose corne and wine is increased For if it bee deservedly accounted the greatest happinesse of a subject to bee in continuall grace with his Prince what is it to bee a Favourite of the King of kings 2. Secondly because they have an r 1 Pet. 1.4 inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in the heavens for them A great heire though hee may sometimes pinch for maintenance and bee driven to hard exigents yet hee still solaceth himselfe with this hope it will bee better with mee and I shall one day come to my lands and such comfort have all Gods Saints in their greatest perplexities and extremities 3. Thirdly because they enjoy the peace of a good conscience which Solomon calleth a continuall feast And Saint Paul a cause of t 2 Cor. 1.12 For our rejoycing is this the testimony of our conscience Rom. 8.28 triumph and joy 4. Fourthly because all things work together for their good and tend to their eternall happinesse The joyes of the wicked are grievous their pleasures are paine unto them but on the contrary the sorrowes of the righteous are joyous and the paines which they endure for Christ are pleasures unto them The gaines of the worldly are indeed losses unto them because they help on their damnation whereas the losses of the godly are gaine and advantage unto them because they further their salvation 5. Fifthly because they enjoy God wherein consisteth the happinesse of a man in some measure and degree even in this life For it cannot be denied but that devout Christians even whilest the soule resides in the body have a comfortable fruition of the Deity whose favour is better than life by faith in the heart by knowledge in the understanding by charity in the will by desire in the affections by sight in the creatures by hearing in the Word by taste in the Sacraments by feeling in the inward motions and operations of Gods Spirit which fill them with exceeding and unspeakable joy and comfort Saint u Apoc. 21. John setting forth the blessednesse of the triumphant Church and depainting the joyes of Heaven in golden colours describeth a City situate in Heaven whose temple is God and light the Lambe and walls Salvation and courts praise and streets gold and foundations gemmes and gates pearles twelve in number in a relation to the Lambes twelve Apostles Answerable to the gates in price though not in number are the steps up to them which our Saviour who is the way directeth us unto they are eight in number made of so many whole pearles that is divine Vertues 1. The first step is humility poore in spirit upon which when we stand we may easily get upon the next godly sorrow mourning for sinne none so apt to mourne for their sinnes and humble themselves under the mighty hand of God in sackcloth and ashes as the poore in spirit 2. When we are upon this step we readily get up upon the next which is tender compassion and meeknesse none so compassionate and meeke towards others when they slip into the mire of sinne as those who continually bewaile their fowle falls and wash their defiled soules with their teares 3. When we are upon this third step we may soone get up the fourth which is hungering and thirsting for righteousnesse for those who are most sensible of their owne wants and continually bewaile their corruptions and are compassionately affected towards others when they are overtaken with any temptation must needs hunger and thirst for righteousnesse both in themselves and others 4. When we are upon this fourth step we may soone climbe up to the other three Mercy the fifth Purity the sixth and Peace the seventh for they who eagerly pursue righteousnesse shall certainly meet with these three her companions Lastly they who have attained unto righteousnesse and are enamoured with her three companions Mercy Purity and Peace will suffer any thing for their sake and so ascend up the highest step of Christian perfection which is constant patience and zealous striving for the truth even unto bloud which is not only saved but cleansed also by being spilt for Christs sake The lowest greece or staire and the first step to Heaven is poverty in spirit that is as the Fathers generally interpret Humility which is the ground-colour of the soules beautifull images the graces of the spirit The ground-colours are darke and obscure yet except they be first laid the wooll or stuffe will not receive much lesse retaine the brighter and more beautifull Such is lowlinesse of minde of no great lustre and appearance in itselfe yet without it no grace or vertue will long keep colour and its beauty and therefore Christ first layes it saying Blessed are the Poore in spirit These poore in spirit are not to bee understood poore in spirituall graces such cannot come neere the price of the Kingdome of Heaven and therefore the spirit adviseth them under the type of the Church of * Apoc. 3.18 Laodicea to buy of him gold tryed in the fire that they may bee rich c. nor are they necessarily poore in state much lesse such as are poore in state onely for bare poverty yea though it bee voluntary is but a weake plea and giveth a man but a poore title to a Kingdome in Heaven Wee heare indeed in the Gospel of Lazarus the x Luke 16.22 Beggar in Heaven but wee finde him there in the bosome of rich Abraham to
Anthemes first single voices answering one the other and after the whole Quire joyning in one as it were tracing the same musicall steps hath not nature drawne with her pensill a perfect grasse green in the Emrald a skie colour in the Saphir the glowing of fire in the Carbuncle the sanguine complexion in the Ruby and the twinckling of the starres in the Diamond and all these together in the Opall which hath in it the lustre and beautifull colours of all these precious stones c Plin. nat hist l. 37 c 6. In Opale est Carbunculi tenuior ignis Amethysti fulgens purpura Smaragdi virens mare c. incredibili misturâ lucentes Such is this feast of all holy ones it is the Churches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Kalendars pandect as it were a constellation not of many but of all the starres in the skie in it as in the Opall shine the beautifull colours and resplendency of all those precious stones which are laid in the d Apoc. 21.19 foundation and shine in the gates and walls of the heavenly Jerusalem Upon it we celebrate the chastity of all Virgins the simplicity of all Innocents the zeale and courage of all Confessours the patience of all Martyrs the holinesse of all Saints Upon this day the Church militant religiously complementeth with the Church triumphant and all Saints on earth keep the feast and expresse the joy and acknowledge the happinesse and celebrate the memory and imbrace the love and set forth the vertues of all Saints in heaven Which are principally three shadowed by the allegory in my Text 1. Patience in tribulation They came out 2. Purity in conversation And washed their garments 3. Faith in Christs death and passion Made them white in c. The better to distinguish them you may if you please terme them three markes 1. A blacke or blewish marke made with the stroake or flaile Tribulation 2. A white made by washing their garments and whiting them 3. A red by dying them in the bloud of the Lambe 1. First of the blacke or blew marke They came out of great tribulation The beloved Apostle and divine Evangelist Saint John who lay in the bosome of our Saviour and pryed into the very secrets of his heart in the time of his exile in Pathmos had a glimpse of his and our country that is above and was there present in spirit at a solemne investiture or installation of many millions of Gods Saints into their state of glory and order of dignity about the Lambe in his celestiall court The rite and ceremony of it was thus The twelve e Ver. 5 6 7 8. Tribes of Israel were called in order and of every Tribe twelve thousand were sealed in the forehead by an Angel keeper of the broad Seale of the living God Ver. 2. After this signature Loe a great multitude which no man can number of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues stood before the Throne and before the Lambe and they had long white robes put upon them and palmes given them in their hands in token of victory and they marched on in triumph singing with a loud voice Salvation from or to our God that sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lambe at which words all the Angels that stood round about the Throne and the Elders and the foure living creatures full of eyes fell before the Throne on their faces and worshipped God saying Amen Praise and glory and wisedome and thankes and honour and power and might be unto our God for ever and ever Amen This glorious representation of the triumphant Church so overcame and tooke away the senses of the ravished Apostle that though he desired nothing more than to learne who they were that he had seen thus honourably installed yet he had not the power to aske the question of any that assisted in the action till one of the Elders rose from his seate to entertaine him and demanded that of him which hee knew the Apostle knew not but most of all desired to know and would have enquired after if his heart had served him viz. who they were and whence they came that were admitted into the order of the white robe in Heaven The answer of which question when the Apostle had modestly put from himselfe to the Elder saying Lord thou knowest the Elder courteously resolveth it and informeth him particularly concerning them saying These are they that are come out of great tribulation c. Thou mightest perhaps have thought that these who are so richly arrayed and highly advanced in Heaven had been some great Monarchs Emperours or Potentates upon earth that had conquered the better part of the world before them paving the way with the bodies and cementing it with the bloud of the slâ—ine and in token thereof bare these palmes of victories in their hands Nothing lesse they are poore miserable forlorne people that are newly come some out of houses of bondage some out of the gallies some out of prisons some out of dungeons some out of mynes some out of dens and caves of the earth all out of great tribulation They who weare now long white robes mourned formerly in blacke they who now beare palmes in their hands carried their crosses in this world they who shout and sing here sighed and mourned under the heavie burdens of manifold afflictions all the dayes of their pilgrimage on earth they whom thou seest the Lambe leading to the f Ver. 17. living fountaines of waters dranke before deep of the waters of Marah and full cups of teares in the extreme heate of bloudy persecutions and in consideration of the great tribulation which they have patiently endured for the love of their Redeemer he bestoweth upon them these glorious robes whited in his own bloud and hee taketh them neere to himselfe that they may stand before him for evermore g Mat. 5 11 12. Blessed thrice blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousnesse sake for great is their reward in heaven The heavier their crosse is the weightier their crowne shall bee their present sorrowes shall free them from all future sorrowes their troubles here shall save them from all trouble hereafter their temporall paines through his merits for whom they suffer shall acquit them from eternall torments and the death of their body through faith in his bloud shall redeeme them from death of body and soule and exempt them from all danger miserie and feare Which priviledges the spirit sealeth unto them in the verses following They h Rev. 7.15.16.17 are before the Throne of God and serve him day and night in his Temple and he that sitteth on the Throne shall dwell among them They shall hunger no more neither thirst any more neither shall the Sun light on them nor any heat For the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throne shall feed them and shall lead them into living fountaines of waters and God shall wipe away all
sed spe debemus indubitatâ praesumere Gregory impropriateth not this assurance to himselfe or some few to whom God extraordinarily revealeth their state hereafter but extendeth it to all making it a common duty not a speciall gift saying Being supported with this certainty wee ought nothing to doubt of the mercy of our Redeemer but bee confident thereof out of an assured hope By the coherence of the text in the eighth to the Romans we may infallibly gather that all that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit and have received the first fruits thereof and the testimony within themselves are the Sonnes of God know that all things worke together for their good Have wee not all received the spirit of adoption doe we not come to God as children to a most loving father doe wee not daily in confidence of his love cry Abba Father If so then the Apostle addeth farther that the Spirit testifieth to our spirit that we are the sonnes of God And lest any hereticall doubt cast in might trouble the spring of everlasting comfort as if we were indeed made sonnes for the present but might forfeit our adoption and thereby lose our inheritance the Apostle cleareth all in the words following v. 17. If sonnes then heires heires of God and joynt heires with Christ God adopteth no sonne whom he intendeth not to make his heire neither can any that is borne of him cease to be his sonne because the ſ 1 Pet. 1.23 Being borne againe not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible seed of which he is borne is incorruptible and this seed still remaineth in him 1 John 3.9 Whosoever is borne of God doth not commit sinne for his seed remaineth in him There are three means of assurance among men 1 Earnests 2 Seales 3 Witnesses In bargaines earnests in deeds seales in trialls witnesses First to secure summes of money or bargaines we take earnests of men or some pledge behold this security given us by God even the t 2 Cor. 1.22 earnest of his Spirit in our hearts On which words St. u Chrysost in secund ad Cor. hom l. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysostome thus plainely glosseth He saith not the Spirit but the earnest of the Spirit that thou mayst be every way confident for if he meant not to give thee the whole he would never have given this earnest in present For this had beene to lose his earnest and cast it away in vaine Secondly to confirme all grants licences bonds leases testaments and conveyances seales are required behold this confirmation also Ephes 1.13 In whom ye are sealed by that holy Spirit of promise and 4.30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed to the day of redemption Whether we speake of the seale sealing or the seale sealed we have both For we are sealed by the Spirit of grace as by the seale sealing and by the grace of the Spirit as the seale sealed that is printed upon us In reference to which place Daniel x Chamierus de fid l. 10. c. 13. Sigillorum varii sunt gradus alia simpliciter ad rei pertinent certitudinem indefinité sic Reges sigillis suis muniunt diplomata sic contrahentes sigillis schedam suam muniunt sed alia spectant personae certitudinem quae obsignari dicitur id est signo peculiari insigniri ut eo sciat se in numerum eorum ascriptum ad quos tale aliquod jus pertinet ut cum Rex Equitibus suis torques concedit ut procerto habeat se Equites esse Chamierus rightly noteth that there are seales put to things for their confirmation and certaine signes or badges answerable to seales given to persons at their investiture as a collar of S's and a blew ribbon with a George to the knights of the Garter c. We have both these seales sigillum rei by the Sacrament and sigillum personae by the Spirit which sealeth us to the day of our redemption Thirdly to prove any matter of fact in Courts of justice witnesses are produced behold this proofe of our right and title to a kingdome in heaven proofe I say by witnesses beyond exception the holy Spirit and our renewed consciences The Spirit it selfe beareth witnesse with our Spirit that wee are the children of God Rom. 8.16 On which words St. Chrysostome thus enlargeth himselfe y Chrysost in epist ad Rom. c. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If a man or an Angel or an Archangel had promised thee this honour to be the Sonne of God thou mightest peradventure have made some doubt of it but now when God himselfe giveth thee this title commanding thee to call him Abba Father who dare question thy title If the King himselfe pricke a Sheriffe or send him the Garter or the Seale what subject dare gainesay it Lastly as the Planets are knowne by their influence and the Diamond by his lustre and the Balsamum by his medicinall vertue and the soule by her vitall operations so the gift here promised is most sensibly knowne by the effects 1 Exceeding love 2 Secure peace 3 Unspeakable joy 4 Invincible courage He that is not certain that he hath or ever shall receive any benefit by another or comfort in him loveth but a little He that was condemned to die and cannot tell whether he hath a pardon for his life or no can be at no peace he that heareth glad tidings but giveth little credit to them rejoyceth but faintly he who hath no assurance of a better life will be advised how he parteth with this But the Saints of God and Martyrs of Jesus Christ are exceedingly enflamed with the love of their Redeemer in comparison whereof they esteeme all things as dung they enjoy peace that passeth all understanding they are ravished with spirituall joy they so little passe for this present life that they are ready not onely to be bound but to dye for the Lord Jesu they rejoyce in their sufferings they sing in the middest of the flames they lie as contentedly upon the racke as upon a bed of doune they prove masteries with all sorts of evill they weary both tortures and tormentors and in all are more than Conquerours therefore they know assuredly how they stand in the Court of heaven they feele within them what Christ hath done for them they have received already the first fruits of heavenly joyes and doubt not of the whole crop they haue received the earnest and doubt not of their full pay they have received the seales and doubt not of the deeds of their salvation they have received the testimonie of the Spirit and doubt not of their adoption they have received the white stone in my text and doubt not of their absolution from death and election to a kingdome in heaven What doe their dying speeches that ought to live in perpetuall memory import lesse First St. y 2 Tim. 4.6 7 8. Pauls I am now ready to be
And by o Luk. 1.68 69 74. Zachary in his Hymne Blessed be the Lord God of Israel which hath visited and redeemed his people And hath raised up an horne of salvation for us in the house of his servant David That we being delivered from the hands of our enemies might serve him without feare And by St. Paul p Rom. 8.15 Ye have not received the Spirit of bondage againe to feare And by q Luke 12.32 Christ himselfe Feare not little flocke for it is your Fathers pleasure to give you the kingdome This latter feare because it excludeth confidence in God is excluded it selfe but the former not onely standeth with certainty of perseverance in grace but mightily supporteth it For even for this end God promiseth to put that feare in the hearts of all true believers that r Jer. 32.40 they may not fall away from him Whereupon Tertullian acutely inferreth playing upon the double sense of the Latine word securus * De cult Jerâ—n Qui secutus est non est solicitus qui est solicitus potest esse secutus Hee that is secure that is carelesse of the meanes of his salvation is not solicitous or watchfull but hee that is solicitous or watchfull may bee secure that is free from all feare of unavoidable danger The last objection which our adversaries make against the doctrine delivered is taken out of the worme-eaten evidence of the ancient Pelagians as wee may see in Saint Å¿ Ep. ad August Dicunt lapsis curam resurgendi adunt sanctis occasionem teporis offerri eo quod electi nulla negligentiâ possint excidere Hage conference p. 12. c. Prosper They viz. the Pelagians upbraid that all care of rising out of sinne is taken away from those that are lapsed that to holy men is ministred an occasion of slacknesse in their devotion or lukewarmnesse inasmuch as the Elect according to our doctrine cannot fall away by any negligence howsoever they behave themselves that consequently this doctrine taketh away all praiers obsecrations obtestations exercise of mortification care of the means of renewing our covenant with God and watchfulnesse over all our wayes But wee answer with the ancient t Aug. de correp grat Prosp resp ad obâ—ect Vincent Fathers that the certainty of the end no way derogateth from the necessity of the means of salvation which on Gods part are admonitions threatnings promises commands counsels punishments and rewards on our part continuall prayer watchfulnesse progresse in godlinesse unfained desire of and earnest striving for perfection After Christ prayed for S. Peters faith that u Luk. 22.32 I have prayed for thee that thy faith faile not it might not faile Peter was assured of his perseverance yet Christ commandeth him with the rest * Mar. 14.37.38 Christ saith to Peter Simon sleepest thou couldst not thou watch with mee one houre watch pray lest yee enter into temptation to watch and pray lest they enter into temptation watchfulnesse therefore and assurance are not incompatible None ever had greater assurance of their salvation than the Apostles after Christ cheared their hearts x Luk. 10.20 In this rejoice not that spirits are subject unto you but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven yet our Saviour admonisheth them to y Luk. 12.35 stand with their loynes girt about and their lights burning and to take heed to themselves z Lâ—k 21.34 lest at any time their hearts be overcharged with surfetting and drunkennesse and cares of this life and so that day come upon them at unawares Questionlesse after Christ had given to Saint * Act. 27.24 Paul the life of all them that were in the ship with him hee was assured of their safe arrivall yet when the shipmen were about to flye out of the ship under colour as though they would have cast anchor Paul said to the Centurion and to the souldiers except these abide in the ship you cannot bee saved None may otherwise receive or apply to themselves the promises of grace and remission of sinnes than they are tendred to them in holy Scripture but in them they are propounded unto all upon condition of repentance faith holinesse of life new obedience and perseverance in it to the end To beleeve therefore the remission of sinnes and to bee assured of Gods favour notwithstanding wee hold on our sinfull courses is not spirituall confidence but carnall presumption Assurance of salvation is an effect of a lively faith which a Gal. 5.6 worketh by love and consequently all that have it the more they are assured of Gods love to them in Christ the more their hearts are enflamed with love towards God and their neighbour also for Gods sake the more zealous they will bee of his glory the more thankefull for his mercy the more desirous to please him the more fearfull to offend him the more carefull to obey him the more wounded with godly sorrow for their incurring his displeasure and the more ready to turne unto him by unfained repentance Admit what they so much clamour against us for that the adopted sonnes of God are in no feare or distrust that their heavenly Father will disinherite them yet neither may they nor can they presume hereupon wilfully to provoke him because they know that hee hath many sharpe roddes to chasten them with besides as temporall plagues painefull sicknesse irrecoverable losses terrours of conscience and spirituall desertion To conclude the certainty of our beliefe that wee shall undoubtedly arrive at the celestiall Canaan is no reason why we should flacke but rather mend our pace thither Thus having wiped out the spots and blots which the ancient and latter Pelagians have fast upon the white stone we shall more easily be able to discerne the characters engraven in it and read The new name Wee receive many new things from our Saviour 1 A b Mat. 26.28 new Testament signed with his blood 2 In this new Testament a new c Heb. 8.8 Covenant 3 In this new Covenant a new d Joh. 13.34 Commandement 4 To obey this new Commandement a new e Ezek. 36.26 heart 5 And answerable to this new Heart new f Mar. 16.17 Tongues 6 And consonant to these new Tongues new g Apoc. 14.3 Songs Behold h Apoc. 21.5 I make all things new a new i 2 Pet. 3.13 heaven and a new earth and a new k Apoc. 21.2 city and in it new l Eph. 4.24 inhabitants to whom the Spirit here promiseth a m 2 Cor. 5.17 new name upon which the Interpreters have many new conceits Alcazar the Jesuite whose profound head the Pope lately graced with a Cardinals hat in his prolixe commentaries upon the Apocalyps falling upon the words of my text will needs have this new name to be some derivative from Jesus as Jesuitae or Jesuati or the like For this name Jesus as out
similitudes of true things similitudines auri with studs or points of silver id est scintillis quibusdam spiritualis intelligentiae that is points spangles or sparkles of precious and spirituall meaning For example Aarons mitre and his breast-plate of judgement engraven with Urim and Thummim and his golden bells were similitudines auri similitudes of gold or golden similitudes and the studs or points of silver that is sparkles or rayes of spirituall truth in them were Christ his three offices His Priestly represented by the breast-plate His Princely by the mitre His Propheticall by the bells Againe in the breast-plate of Aaron there were set in rowes twelve precious stones here were similitudes of gold or golden similitudes and the studs of silver that is sparkles or rayes of spirituall meaning were the l Apoc. 21.14 twelve Apostles laid as precious stones in the foundation of the heavenly Jerusalem that is the Church Take yet a third example in the Arke there were the two m Heb. 9.4 Tables and the golden of Manna and the rod that had budded these were similitudines auri golden similitudes and the puncta argenti that is the cleere and evident points of spirituall truth in them are the three notes of the true Church 1 The Word or the Old and New Testament signified by the two Tables 2 The Sacraments prefigured in the golden pot of Manna 3 Ecclesiasticall discipline shadowed by Aarons Rod. Thus I might take off the cover of all the legall types and shew what lieth under them what liquor the golden vessell containeth what mysteries the precious robes involve what sacraments their figures what ablutions their washings what table their Altars what gifts their oblations what host their sacrifices pointed unto The Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrewes observeth such an admirable correspondency betweene these things that in this respect the whole Scripture may be likened to one long similitude the protasis whereof or first part is in the Old Testament the antapodosis or second part in the New For in the Old as the Apostle testifieth there were n Heb. 9.23.24 similitudes of true things but in the New we finde the truth of those similitudes Which if our new Sectaries of the precisian or rather o Mr. Whittall Bradburn and their followers circumcision cut had seriously thought upon they would not like Aesops dog let fall the substance by catching at the shadow they would not be so absurd as to goe about to bring the aged Spouse of Christ to her festraw againe and reduce all of us her children to her p Gal. 4.2.3 nonage under the law they would not be so mad as to keepe new moones and Jewish Sabbaths after the Sunne of righteousnesse is risen so long agoe and hath made us an everlasting Sabbath in heaven These silly Schismatickes doe but feed upon the scraps of the old Ebionites of whom q Hay hist sac l. 3. Ebionitae pauperes interpretantur verè sensu pauperes ceremonias adhuc legis custodientes Haymo out of Eusebius writeth thus The Ebionites according to the Hebrew Etymologie of their name are interpreted poore and silly and so indeed they are in understanding who as yet keepe the ceremonies of the old Law Nay rather they licke the Galathians vomit and therefore I thinke fit to minister unto them the purge prescribed by the r Gal. 3.1 2 3. Apostle O foolish Galathians who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath beene evidently set forth crucified among you This onely would I learne of you received yee the Spirit by the workes of the Law or by the hearing of faith Are yee so foolish having begun in the Spirit are ye now made perfect by the flesh Behold I ſ Gal. 5 2. Paul testifie unto you that if you be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing we may adde If you keepe the Jewish Sabbath or abstain from swines flesh out of conscience and in obedience to the ceremoniall Law Christs flesh shall profit you nothing if you abstaine from bloud in any such respect Christs bloud shall profit you nothing For I testifie againe saith St. Paul to every man that is circumcised that he is become a debter to the whole Law And will they not yet learne that Mosaicall rites and ceremonies were at severall times 1. Mortales or moriturae 2. Mortuae 3. Mortiferae They were mortales at their first constitution mortuae that is dead at Christs death and now mortiferae deadly to all that observe them Will they put off the long white robes washed in the bloud of the Lambe and shrowd themselves with the old rags or as St. Paul termeth them beggarly rudiments of the Law If they are so minded I leave them and fill up this Border with the words of Saint t Ser. 7. Antiqua observatio novo tollitur sacramento hostia in hostiam transiit sanguinem sanguis excludit legalis festivitas dum mutatur impletur Leo The ancient rite is taken away by a new Sacrament one host passeth into another bloud excludeth bloud and the Legall festivity is fulfilled in that it is changed The second exposition of this Scripture which understandeth the golden borders and silver studs of the glorious and pompous splendour of the Christian Church seemeth to come neerer unto the letter faciemus wee will make thee the verbe in the future tense evidently implyeth a promise or prophesie and the sense of the whole may be illustrated by this or the like Paraphrase O glorious Spouse of Christ and blessed Mother of us all who art compassed with a straight chaine about thy necke that suffereth thee not to breathe freely being confined to the narrow limits of Judea in the fulnesse of time the fulnesse of the Gentiles shall come in and in stead of a straight chaine of gold or small string of pearle we will make thee large borders we will environ thee with Christian auditories and congregations as it were borders of gold and these borders of gold shall be set out and supported with studs of silver that is enriched with temporall endowments and upheld by regall authority u Esay 49.23 King shall bee thy nursing fathers and Queenes shall be thy nursing mothers Nay such shall be thy honour and power that thou shalt binde Kings with x Psal 149.8 chaines and Nobles with linkes of iron who for their ransome shall offer unto thee store of gold to make thee borders and silver for studs Which prophesie seemed to have been fulfilled about the dayes of Constantine or a little after when such was the sumptuous statelinesse of Christian Churches and so rich the furniture thereof that it dazled the eyes of the Heathen Foelix the Emperours Treasurer blessing himselfe when hee beheld the Church vessels and vestments saying En qualibus vasis ministratur Mariae filio See what plate the sonne of Mary is served
1.5 messengers of Christ 3. The dwelling of Angels is in Heaven and there is or ought to be the a Phil. 3.20 Our conversation is in heaven conversation of the Ministers of the Gospel 4. The life of Angels is a continuall b Matth. 18.10 beholding the face of God and what is the life of a good Minister but a continuall contemplation of the divine nature attributes and workes 5. The Angels gather c Mat. 24.31 the Elect from the foure windes and the Ministers of the Gospel gather the Church from all corners of the earth 6. The Angels d Apoc. 16.1 poure out the vialls of the wrath of God upon the earth and the Ministers are appointed to denounce Gods judgements and plagues to the wicked world 7. The Angels e 1 Cor. 15 52. sound Trumpets at the last resurrection and the Ministers of the Gospel at the first 8. When Christ was in an agony f Luke 22.43 there appeared an Angel strengthening him and when Gods children are in greatest extremity God sendeth the Ministers of the Gospel to g Job 33.23 If there bee a messenger with him an interpreter one among a thousand to shew to man his uprightnesse c. comfort them 9. The Angels carry the soules of them that dye in the Lord into Abrahams bosome Luke 16.22 and the Ministers of the Gospel give them their passe and furnish them with their last viaticum Now if it bee demanded why God so highly advanceth the dignity of the Ministry I answer to advance his glory He lifteth up the silver Trumpets of Sion on high that the sound of his praise may be heard the further As the visible Sunne casteth a more radiant and bright beame upon Pearle and Glasse which reflecteth them againe than upon grosse and obscure bodies that dead the rayes thereof even so the Sunne of righteousnesse casteth the fairest lustre upon that calling which most of all illustrateth his glory To other vocations God calleth us but this calleth us unto God all other lawfull callings are of God but of this God himselfe was and if it bee a great honour to the noblest orders of Knighthood on earth to have Kings and Princes installed into them how can wee thinke too worthily of that sacred order into which the Sonne of God was solemnly invested by his h Psal 110.4 Father I speake nothing to impeach the dignity of any lawfull profession make much of the Physicians of your body yet not more than of the Physicians of your soule yeeld honour and due respect to those that are skilfull in the civill and municipall Lawes yet under-value them not who expound unto you the Lawes of God At least take not pride in disgracing them who are Gods instruments to conveigh grace into your soules grieve not them with your accursed speeches who daily blesse you load them not with slaunders and calumnies who by their absolution and ghostly comfort ease you of the heavie burden of your sinnes goe not about to thrust them out of their temporall estate who labour by their Ministery to procure you an eternall It is not desire of popular applause or a sinister respect to our owne profit but the zeale of Gods glory which extorteth from us these and the like complaints against you For if Religion might bee advanced by our fall and the Gospel gaine by our losses and God get glory by our dis-esteeme we should desire nothing rather than to be accounted the off-scouring of all things on the earth that so wee might shine hereafter like precious stones in the foundation of the celestiall Jerusalem But if the Preachers and the Gospel the Word and Sacraments and the Ministers thereof Religion and Priests the Church and Church-men are so neere allies that the dis-reputation of the one is a great prejudice to the other and the disgrace of the one the despising of the other if the truth wee professe if our Religion if the Gospel if Christ if God suffer in the disgraces that are put upon our calling and the manifold wrongs that are done to it we must adjure you for your owne good and deeply charge you in Gods cause that as you looke to receive any good from him so you take nothing sacrilegiously from the Church as you hope to be saved by the Ministery preserve the dignity and estimation thereof be not cursed Chams in discovering the nakednesse of your ghostly fathers Alexander thought that he could not lay too much cost upon the deske in which Homers Poems lay and we daily see how those who take delight in musicke beautifie and adorn the instrument they play upon with varnish purfle gilt painting and rich lace in like maner if you were so affected as you should be at the hearing of the Word if you were ravished with the sweet straines of the songs of Sion ye would make better reckoning of the Instruments and Organs of the holy Spirit by which God maketh melodie in your hearts yee would not staine with impure breath the silver trumpets of Sion blowne not with winde but with the breath of God himselfe yee would not trample under foot those Canes that yeeld you such store of Sugar or rather of Manna Yee will be apt enough upon these and the like texts to teach us our dutie that we ought as Messengers of God to deliver his message faithfully and as neere as we can in his owne words as Angels to give our selves to divine contemplation and endevour to frame our lives to a heavenly conversation Let it not then be offensive to you to heare your dutie which is as plaine to be read as ours in the stile here attributed to the Pastour of Laodicea the Angell It is that you entertaine your diligent and faithfull Pastours as the i Gal. 4.14 Ye received me as an Angel of God even as Christ Jesus Galathians did St. Paul and as Monica did St. Ambrose tanquam Angelos Dei as the Angels of God receive them as Abraham and Lot did the Angels sent from God unto them defend them according to your power from wrong and make them partakers of the best things wherewith God hath blessed you Angelo to the Angel in the singular number chiefe Pastour or Bishop of the Church All Ministers as I shewed you before may challenge the title of Angels but especially Bishops who watch over other Ministers as Angels over men who are to order the affaires of the Church and governe the Clergie as the Peripatetickes teach that Angels direct and governe the motions of the celestiall spheres therefore Epiphanius and St. Austine and most of the later Interpreters also paraphrase Angelo by Episcopo illic constituto and verily the manner of the superscription and the contents of the letter and the forme of governement settled in all Churches at this time make for this interpretation For supposing more Ministers in London of equall ranke and dignitie as there are who would indorse a
word of God as it is written which here I must change and say Hearken unto the word of God as it writeth For to the Angel of Thyatira the second Person which is the Word of God thus writeth Write It is a great honour to receive a letter from a noble Personage how much more from the Sonne of God St. d Eâ— 40. Quid est aliud Scripture sacra n â—i quaedam epistola Omnipotentis Dei ad creaturam suam Gregorie excellently amplifieth upon this point in his epistle to Theodorus the Physician If your excellencie saith he were from the Court and should receive a letter from the Emperour you would never be quiet till you had opened it you would never suffer your eyes to sleepe nor your eye lids to slumber nor the temples of your head to take any rest till you had read it over againe and againe Behold the Emperour of heaven the Lord of men and Angels hath sent you a letter for the good of your soule and will you neglect to peruse it Peruse it my son studie it I pray thee meditate upon it day and night Where letters passe one from another there is a kinde of correspondencie and societie and such honour have all Gods Saints they have fellowship with the Father and the Sonne O let us not sleighten such a societie whereby we hold intelligence with heaven let us with all reverence receive and with all diligence peruse and with all carefulnesse answer letters and messages sent from the Sonne of God by returning sighes and prayers backe to heaven and making our selves in the Apostles phrase commendatorie letters written not with inke but with the Spirit Thus saith the Son of God Not by spirituall regeneration as all the children of promise are the sonnes of God but by eternall generation not by grace of adoption but by nature Who hath eyes like a flame of fire and feet like fine brasse Eyes like a flame of fire piercing through the thickest darknesse feete like brasse to support his Chuch and stamp to pouder whatsoever riseth up against it like fine brasse pure and no way defiled by walking through the midst of the golden candlestickes Wheresoever he walkes he maketh it holy ground Quicquid calcaverit hic rosa fiet There are three sorts of members in holy Scripture attributed to our head Christ Jesus 1 Naturall 2 Mysticall 3 Metaphoricall Naturall hee hath as perfect man Mysticall as head of the Church Metaphoricall as God By these members wee may divide all the learned Commentatours expositions They who follow the naturall or literall construction of the words apply this description to the members of Christs glorified body in Heaven which shine like flaming fire or metall glowing in a furnace But Lyra and Carthusian have an eye to Christ his mysticall eyes viz. Bishops and Pastours who are the over-seers of Christ his flocke resembling fire in the heat of their zeale and light of their knowledge whereby they direct the feet of Christ that is in their understanding his inferiour members on earth likened to fine brasse to set forth the purity of their conversation and described burning in a furnace to expresse their fiery tryall by martyrdome Alcasar by the feet of fine brasse understandeth the Preachers of the Word whom Christ sendeth into all parts to carry the Gospel Those feet which e Esay 52.7 Rom. 10.15 How beautifull are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace Esay calleth beautifull Saint John here compareth to the finest brasse which f Beda in Apoc Pedes sunt Christiani in fine seculi qui similes erunt orichalcho quod est aes per ignem plura medicamina perductum ad auri colorem sic illi per acerbissimas persecutiones exercebuntur perducentur ad plenam charitatis fulgorem Beda and Haimo will have to bee copper rendring the Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the most resplendent brasse such as was digged out of Mount Libanus but Orichalchum that is copper and thus they worke it to their purpose As brasse the matter of copper by the force of fire and strong waters and powders receiveth the tincture of gold so say they the Christians that shall stand last upon the earth termed in that respect Christs feet shall by many exercises of their patience and fiery tryalls of their faith be purified and refined and changed into precious metall and become golden members of a golden head I doe not utterly reject this interpretation of the mysticall eyes and feet of Christ nor the former of the naturall members of his glorified body because they carry a faire shew and goodly lustre with them yet I more encline to the third opinion which referreth them to the attributes of God For me thinkes I see in the fiery eyes the perfection of Christ his knowledge to which nothing can bee darke or obscure as also his vigilant zeale over his Church and the fiercenesse of his wrath against the enemies thereof Bullenger conceiveth our Saviour to be pourtrayed by the Spirit with eyes like a flame of fire because hee enlighteneth the eyes of the godly but Meyerus because he suddenly consumeth the wicked both the knowne properties of fire for in flaming fire there is both cleare light and intensive heat The light is an embleme of his piercing sight the heat of his burning wrath Where the eye is lightsome and the object exposed to it the eye must needs apprehend it but the Sonne of Gods eyes are most lightsome nay rather light it selfe in which there is no darknesse and g Heb. 4 13. all things lye open and naked before him yea the h Apoc. 2.23 heart and the reines which he searcheth In Courts of humane justice thoughts and intentions and first motions to evill beare no actions because they come not within the walke of mans justice but it will not be so at Christs Tribunall where the secrets of all hearts shall be opened Let no man then hope by power or fraud or bribes to smother the truth or bleare the eyes of the Judge of all flesh For his eyes like flames of fire dispell all darknesse and carry a bright light before them Let not the adulterer watch for the twi-light and when hee hath met with his wanton Dalila carry her into the inmost roomes and locke doore upon doore and then take his fill of love saying The shadow of the night and the privacy of the roome shall conceale mee For though none else be by and all the lights be put out yet he is seen and the Sonne of God is by him with eyes like a flaming fire Let not the Projector pretend the publike good when he intends nothing but to robbe the rich and cheate the poore Let not the cunning Papist under colour of decent ornaments of the Church bring in Images and Idols under colour of commemoration of the deceased bring in invocation of Saints departed under colour
the Arke of the Lord within curtaines Is this decent or fitting that the King should bee better housed than his maker and advancer to his royall throne Yee would expect that hereupon he should have concluded upon building God an house but hee proposeth only the major his owne house the minor the Arke and leaveth the Prophet to inferre the conclusion because in a matter that so neerly concerned the honour and service of God he would not seem to lead the Prophet but rather be led by him from whence we may gather three speciall observations not unworthy our most serious thoughts 1. That in matters immediately appertaining to the service of God and advancement of religion the Prophets of God are to be called and their advice to be asked and taken even by Kings themselves 2. That it is a noble and princely worke to build Temples or Churches 3. That we are to set more by the glory of God than our own ease and safety and rather to desire the erecting of his house than the raising our owne fortunes After we have gathered these there be other which will fall of themselves from the branches of the Text as wee lightly passe over them And it came to passe when the King sate in his house and the Lord had given him rest round about from all his enemies that the King said unto Nathan Behold now c. The circumstance of time challengeth our due consideration in the first place It is not usuall for men sitting at ease and at rest to entertaine godly motions and resolve upon workes of pious bounty Otium pulvinar Satanae rest is oftentimes the Divels cushion but here it was not so but rather a chaire of state for God himselfe to rest in After David had been for a long time pursued by his enemies and driven from place to place as it were powred out of vessell into vessell when he now stood still he settled not upon his lees with Moab but breathed out these sweet and heavenly meditations and vowes Behold now I sit at rest and the Arke of the Lord tosseth and tumbleth from place to place I lye safely under a sure roofe able to beare off wind and weather and the Arke of God hath no better fence than a few curtaines spread over it the walls of my house are hung with rich arrasse and the sides of the Arke are covered but with skins is it fit that it should be so Nathan Speak thou on Gods behalfe who art his Prophet Is the Kings Cabinet more precious than the Lords Arke Shall the King have a palace and God have no house Shall I provide a safer place for my records and evidences than for the records of heaven and the tables of the testimony and the inspired Oracles of God This must not be so I protest it shall not be so I a Psa 132.3 4 5. sweare unto the Lord and vow a vow unto the mighty God of Jacob that I will not henceforth enter into the tabernacle of my house nor come upon my bed I will not suffer my eyes to sleep nor my eye-lids to slumber until I find out a place for the Lord an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob. Such holy vowes and religious oathes and protestations many of Gods children make in the depth of their misery but few as here David doth in the height of their prosperity and the midst of their triumphs The zeale of most men lieth in their heart like fire in a flint it must be strucke out with some violence their prayers and fervent meditations like hot spices are then most fragrant when their hearts are bruised in Gods mortar and broken with afflictions and troubles Some such thing befalleth the soule in prosperity as the husbandmen observe in a fat soyle and plentifull yeere Luxuriant b Ovid. l. 1. de art animi rebus plerunque secundis Prosperity breedeth a ranknesse in the desires and a dangerous riot of sinne whereof Moses maketh great complaint in his song But c Deut. 32.15 Jesurun waxed fat and kicked thou art waxed fat thou art growne thicke thou art covered with fatnesse then he forsooke God that made him and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation and God by the Prophet d Hos 13.6 Hosea According to their pastures so were they filled they were filled and their heart was exalted therefore have they forgotten mee O how great is our ingratitude when God most remembreth us we most forget him drinking our fill of the rivers of his pleasures and never thinking of the spring devouring greedily the good blessings of God as Swine doe acornes upon the ground never looking up to the tree from whence they fall David was farre from this brutish vice for as soone as God had destroyed his enemies round about him he thought of building a magnificent Temple When other Kings after so good successe and glorious victories obtained in war would have cast away all care or thought of Religion at least for the present to give the more scope to their licentious desires and lusts David confineth himselfe to his closet there recounteth the innumerable benefits God had heaped upon him and studieth how to expresse his gratefulnesse to him in fine he resolveth with himselfe to build a stately palace for the King of heaven and sendeth for the Prophet Nathan to advise with him about it The King said to Nathan the Prophet David a Prophet himselfe conferreth with the Prophet Nathan Saint Peter a prime Apostle is reproved by the Apostle Saint Paul John the elder is instructed by an Elder Whence we learn That Prophets need Prophets advice Apostles need Apostles admonitions Elders need Elders instructions As two tooles whet one the other and two Diamonds point each the other and two Torches mutually light one the other so it pleaseth the wisedome of God to divide the gifts of his Spirit severally among the Pastours of the Church in different kindes and degrees that they might be one bettered by the other In which consideration among many others not lesse important the Founders and Benefactors of Collegiate Churches and Universities have built so many houses for Prophets and Prophets children as you see to live together and by lectures conferences and disputations to whet and sharpen one the other And if one starre one eminent Doctor in the Church give so great a light in the darke of ignorance what a lustre what an ornament must a Colledge of such Doctors an University of such Colledges as it were a conjunction of many starres or rather a heaven of many such conjunctions and constellations uniting their light be If one aromaticall tree send forth such a savour of life as we smell in every particular congregation what shall we judge of a grove of such trees surely it can be no other than the Paradise of God upon earth But because David is not here stiled the Prophet but the King The King said to Nathan the
the bloud of your Redeemer from all spots of impurity will yee againe pollute and soile them It is folly eagerly to pursue that which will bring you no profit at all and greater to follow afresh those things whereof ye were not only ashamed in the enjoying them but also are now confounded at the very mention of them yet this is not the worst shame is but the beginning of your woe For the end is death yea death without end Will yee then forsake the waies of Gods Commandements leading to endlesse felicity and weary your selves in the by-pathes of wickednesse in the pursuit of worldly vanities without hope of gaine with certaine losse of your good name nay of your life will yee sell heaven for the mucke of the earth set yee so much by the transitory pleasures of sinne mixed with much anguish and bitternesse attended on with shame that for them yee will be content to be deprived of celestiall joyes the society of Archangels and Angels and the fruition of God himselfe for ever nay to be cast into the darke and hideous dungeon of hell to frie in eternall flames to be companions of ghastly fiends and damned ghosts howling and shreeking without ceasing complaining without hope lamenting without end living yet without life dying yet without death because living in the torments of everlasting death Divis explicat verb. Having taken a generall survey of the whole let us come to a more particular handling of the parts which are three forcible arguments to deterre all men from all vicious and sinfull courses 1. The first ab inutili What fruit had yee 2. The second ab infami Whereof yee are now ashamed 3. The third à pernicioso or mortifero The end of these things is death 1. Fruit. What fruit This word fruit is fruitfull in significations it is taken 1 Properly for the last issue of trees and so it is opposed to leaves or blossomes for nature adorneth trees with three sorts of hangings as it were the first leaves the second blossomes the third fruits in this sense the word is taken in the first of Genesis and in the parable of the figge-tree cursed by our Saviour because hee found no fruit thereon 2 Improperly either for inward habits which are the fruits either of the spirit whereof the Apostle speaketh The g Gal. 5.22 fruit of the spirit is love joy peace long-suffering gentlenesse goodnesse faith meeknesse temperance or of the flesh reckoned up by the same h Ver. 19 20. Apostle or for outward workes which are the fruits of the former habits whereof we reade Being i Phil. 1.11 filled with the fruits of righteousnesse and in the Epistle of S. k Jam. 3.15 James Full of mercy and good fruits Or for the reward of these works either inward as peace joy and contentment whereof those words of S. l Ver. 18. James are to be meant The fruit of righteousnes is sowne in peace of them that make peace and those of S. Paul No m Heb. 12.11 affliction for the time is joyous but grievous but in the end it bringeth the quiet fruit of righteousnesse to those that are exercised thereby Or lastly for outward blessings wherewith God even in this life recompenseth those who are fruitfull in good workes as the Prophet Esay and David assure them Surely it shall be n Esay 3.10 Psal 58.11 well with the just for they shall eate the fruits of their workes Utique est fructus justo Verily there is fruit for the righteous verily there is a God that judgeth the earth 2. Had. Had. It is written of the Lynx that he never looketh backe but Homer contrarily describeth a wise man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 looking both forward and backward forward to things to come and backward to things past for by remembring what is past and fore-casting things future he ordereth things present and in speciall what advantage a Christian maketh of the memory of his former sinnes and the sad farewell they have left in the conscience I shall speake more largely hereafter for the present in this cursory interpretation of the words it shall suffice to observe from the pretertense habuistis had ye not habetis have ye that sin like the trees of Sodome if it beare any fruit at all yet that it abideth not but assoone as it is touched falls to ashes Musonius the Philosopher out of his owne experience teacheth us and that truely that if we doe any good thing with paine the paine is soone over but the pleasure remaineth but on the contrarie if we doe any evill thing with pleasure the pleasure is soone over but the paine remaineth In those things whereof yee are now ashamed 3. Those things As after the wound is healed there remaines a scar in the flesh so after sinne is healed in the conscience there remaines as it were a scarre of infamie in our good name and of shame also in the inward man The act of sinne is transcunt yet shame the effect or rather proper passion of it is permanent sinne is more ancient than shame but shame out liveth sinne It is as impossible that fire should be without scorching heat or a blow without paine or a feaver without shaking as sinne especially heinous and grievous without a trembling in the minde and shame and confusion in the soule For as o In Saturnal Macrobius well observeth when the soule hath defiled her selfe with the turpitude of sinne pudore suffunditur sanguinem obtendit pro velamento she is ashamed of her selfe and sends forth bloud into the outward parts and spreadeth â—t like a vaile before her just as the Sepia or Cuttle fish when she is afraid to be taken p Plin. nat hist l. 9. c. 29. Sepiae ubi sensere se apprehendi offuso atramento quod illis pro sanguine est absconduntur sends from her bloud like inke whereby she so obscureth the water that the angler cannot see her If it be objected that some men as they are past grace so past shame also and some foreheads of that metall that will receive no tincture of modestie such as Zeno was in q L. 16. Si clam scelera perpetrasser obscurum minus gloriosum putabat sin publicitùs apertè in conspectu omnium absque pudore flegitiosus esset id dâ—mùm Principe Imperatore dignum putabat Nicephorus his story who held it a disparagement to himselfe to commit wickednesse in secret and cover his filthinesse with the darke shadow of the night for that it became not soveraigne majestie to feare any thing he thought he could not shew himselfe a Prince unlesse without feare or shame he committed outrages in the face of the sunne Such were those Jewes whom the Prophet Jeremie brands in the forehead with the marke of a Strumpet that cannot blush r Jer 8.12 Were they ashamed when they committed abominations nay Å¿ Jer.
to heale a time to breake downe and a time to build up A time to weep and a time to laugh a time to mourne and a time to dance c. In which distribution of time according to the severall affaires of our life all actions and accidents all intents and events all counsels and acts all words and workes all motions and cessations businesses and recreations beginnings and endings inchoations and perfections yea affections also as joy and griefe love and hatred have some part and portion of time laid out for them sinne only is exempted that is never in season As the Apostle spake to Simon b Acts 8.21 Magus Non est tibi pars neque sors it hath neither part nor lot in this partition and yet it intrudeth upon us and usurpeth upon either the whole or the greatest part of our demised time We heare of a time to build and a time to pull downe a time to spare and a time to spend but not in like manner a time to doe good and a time to doe ill a time to live godly and a time to sinne a time well to imploy and a time to mispend neither God nor Nature hath bequeathed any legacie of time to sinne Sinne should have no existence at all and therefore no time no estate and therefore neither terme Sinne is none of Gods creatures nor the issue of nature therefore hath no just claime or title to time the best of Natures temporall goods much lesse to happy eternity which is the purchase of the Sonne of God to the price whereof Nature cannot come neere Moreover sinne mis-spendeth spoyleth maketh havocke of our time abridgeth it and often cutteth it off and therefore deserveth that not a moment of time should be given to it Will you have yet more reasons ye have them in the Text drawne from all the differences of time sin hath been unfruitfull is shamefull and will prove pernicious and deadly therefore no portion or part of time is to be allowed to it against which all times give in evidence The time past brings in against it all sorts of dammages and losses sustained by it What fruit had yee The present time layeth open the shame filthinesse of sinne Whereof yee are now ashamed The future produceth the great and grievous penalties which the sinner by the breach of the eternall Law incurreth The end of those things is death A wise man holdeth intelligence with the time past by memory with the present by prudent circumspection with the time to come by providence by re-calling that which was fore-casting what will be he ordereth that which is and therefore he cannot but be sufficiently advertised of those hainous and grievous imputations laid upon sinne by the Spirit of God in my Text. It is altogether unfruitfull and unprofitable good for nothing What fruit had yee It is shamefull and infamous Whereof yee are now ashamed Nay it is pestilent and pernicious For the end of those things is death If this forcible interrogatory of the Apostle so full of spirit of perswasion worke not in us newnesse of life and a detestation of our former sinfull courses we are not only insensible of our profit prodigall of our credit and reputation but also altogether carelesse of our life Nihili est saith the c Plaut in Pers Certè nihili est qui nihil amat quid ei homini opus est vitâ Poet qui nihil amat he is of no account who makes account of nothing Non spirat qui non aspirat he breathes not who gaspeth not after something What then is that ye desire How bestow ye your affections What object hath the command of your thoughts and soveraignty over your wills and desires Is it gaine wealth and affluence of all things flye then sinne for it is altogether unfruitfull and unprofitable Is it glory honour and reputation eschue then vice for it bringeth shame and infamy upon you and your posterity Is it long life nay with Melchizedek to have no end of your dayes abandon all wicked courses for they have an end and that end is death and that death hath no end That sinne is unfruitfull not only formaliter but also effectivè not only negatively by bringing forth no fruit but also positively by bringing forth evill corrupt fruit by making the soule of man barren of the fruits of righteousnesse yea and the earth also and trees barren of the fruit which they would otherwise have brought forth to our great joy and comfort hath been the subject of our former discourses spent especially in the proofe of these particulars That sinne eclipseth the light of our understanding disordereth the desires of the will weakneth the faculties of the soule distempereth the organs of our body disturbeth the peace of our conscience choaketh the motions of the spirit in us killeth the fruits of grace inthralleth the soule to the body and the body and soule to Sathan lastly depriveth us of the comfortable fruition of all temporall and the fruition and possessions of all eternall blessings All which laid together will make a weighty argument bearing downe and forcing our assent to this conclusion That sinne is sterill and barren and consequently that every sinner is an unthrift and in the end will prove bank-rupt how gainfull a trade soever hee seeme to drive with Satan for as Christ cursed the figge-tree in the Gospell so God curseth all trees that beare the forbidden fruit of sinne and therefore the Apostle truly tearmeth the works of darknesse unfruitfull saying d Eph. 5.11 Have no fellowship with the unfruitfull works of darknesse but reprove them rather The godly man whose delight is in the law of the Lord is likened e Psal 1.3 4. to a tree planted by the rivers of waters which bringeth forth fruit in due season but the wicked to chaffe which the winde scattereth abroad For although they may sometimes build palaces upon the ruines of the Church and fill their houses with the treasures of wickednesse and their coffers with the Mammon of unrighteousnesse yet in the end they will appeare to bee no gainers no nor savers neither by their trafficke with the Devill For if they gain wealth they lose grace if they gaine glasse they lose pearle if they gaine earth they lose heaven if they gaine an estate for tearme of yeares among sinners they lose an eternall inheritance with the Saints in light if they gaine a small portion of the world they f Mar. 8.36 lose their whole soule and what advantageth it a man to gaine the whole world and to lose his owne soule Alas what gained g Josh 7.25 Achan by his Babylonish garment and wedge of gold nothing but a heape of stones wherewith hee was battered in pieces What gained Gehezi h 2 Kin. 5.27 by his great bribe a leprosie that cleaved to him and his posterity after him What gained i Judg. 8.27 Zeba and Zalmunna by
danger of the Councell but whosoever shall say thou Foole shall bee in danger of hell fire Here say they wee may see that there are two punishments lesse than hell fire and that hee onely is in danger of it who breaketh out into that outrage to raile at his brothet and call him foole not hee who is unadvisedly angry Whereupon they inferre that the last of the three sinnes mentioned by our Saviour is mortall not the two former Their second allegation is out of z Mat. 7.5 Moat out of thy brothers eye Matth. 7. and a Luk. 6.41 Luk. 6. and 1 Cor. 3. and such other texts of Scriptures in which some sinnes are compared to very light things as to b 1 Cor. 3.12 Hay and stubble hay to stubble to a moat to a * Mat. 5.26 The uttermost farthing farthing Surely say they they cannot bee grievous and weighty sinnes which are compared to such light or vile things of no value Their third allegation is out of Saint James c Jam. 1.15 Sinne when it is finished bringeth forth death Marke say they not every sinne nor sinne in every degree but when it is come to its perfection bringeth forth death whereby hee insinuateth that no sinnes are mortall but those which are consummate brought into act and committed with full consent of the will The fourth is out of d Mat. 12.36 Matth. 12. I say unto you yee shall give an account for every idle word at the day of judgement Hee saith not wee shall bee condemned for every idle word but onely that wee shall bee called to answere for it as wee shall be for all sinnes Sol. 1 To the first allegation wee answere That no doctrine of faith may bee grounded upon a meere parable as the Schooles rightly determine Theologia parabolica non est argumentativa Now that which our Saviour here speaketh of three severall punishments is spoken by allusion to the proceedings in the Civill Courts in Judaea and all that can bee gathered from thence is but this That as there are differences of sinnes so there shall bee differences of punishments hereafter Secondly hell fire is no more properly taken for the torment of the damned than the other two the danger of the Councell and of Judgement which all confesse to bee taken figuratively and analogically Thirdly Maldonate the Jesuite ingenuously confesseth that by Councell and Judgement the eternall death of the soule is understood yet with this difference that a lesse degree of torment in hell is understood by the word Judgement than Councell and a lesse by Councell than by gehenna ignis that is the fire in the valley of Hinnom Sol. 2 To the second allegation wee answere First that though some sinnes in comparison of others may bee said light and to have the like proportion to more grievous sinnes as a moat in the eye hath to a beame a farthing to a pound yet that no sinne committed against God may bee simply tearmed light but like the talent of lead mentioned Zech. 1.5 Whereupon Saint e Super Ezek. l. 2. Omne peccatum grave est Gregory inferreth Every sinne is heavie and ponderous and Saint f Jer. Epitaph Paulae Ita levia peccata deflebat ut gravissimotum scelerum diceres ream Et ep 14. Nescio an possemus leve aliquod peccatum dicere quod in Dei contemptum admittitur Jerome writeth of Paula That shee so bewailed light sinnes that is such as are commonly so esteemed that a man would have thought her guilty of grievous crimes and hee elsewhere yeeldeth a good reason for it Because saith he I know not how wee may say any thing is light whereby the divine Majesty is sleighted Secondly admitting that some sinnes are to bee accounted no bigger than moats yet as a moat it it bee not taken out of the eye hindereth the sight so the least sinne hindereth grace and if it bee not repented of or pardoned for Christs sake is sufficient to damne the soule of the sinner Thirdly neither Christ by the farthing in the fifth of Matthew understandeth sinne nor the Apostle by hay and stubble lesser or veniall sinnes but Christ by farthing understandeth the last payment of debt Saint Paul light and vaine doctrines which are to bee tryed by the fire of the Spirit For in that place the Apostle by fire cannot meane the fire of Purgatory because gold and silver are tryed that is precious doctrines or good workes by the fire Saint Paul there speaketh of whereas Purgatory fire is for mens persons to cleanse and purge them from their lesser sinnes as the Papists teach Sol. 3 To the third allegation we answer That the Apostle is so farre from denying in that place that all sinnes are mortall that on the contrary he there sheweth how all sinnes become mortall and in the end bring the sinner to eternall death What lesser sinne than lust or a desire in the mind yet this as Saint James affirmeth hath strength enough to conceive sinne and sinne when it is finished to bring forth death Sol. 4 To the fourth allegation we answer That the same phrase is used concerning all kindes of sinnes yea those that are greatest and most grievous as we reade in Athanasius Creed All men shall rise againe with their owne bodies and give an account of their owne workes and if their account be not the better that dreadfull sentence shall passe against them Goe ye cursed into everlasting fire Let us lay all these particulars together and the totall arising out of them will be this That though there be a great difference of sinnes whereof some are lighter compared to a fescu or moate others heavier compared to a beame some smaller likened to gnats others greater to g Mat. 23.24 camels some easier to account for resembled to mites or farthings others with more difficulty as talents and in like manner although there are divers degrees of punishments in hell fire as there were divers degrees of civill punishments among the Jewes yet that we are accountable for the least sinnes and that the weakest desire and suddenest motion to evill is concupiscence which if it be not killed in us by grace will conceive sinne and that sinne when it is consummate will bring forth death We need no more fightings the truth hath already gotten the victory by the weapons of her sworne enemies and Goliah is already slaine with his owne sword yet that yee may know how strong the doctrine of our Church is I will bring forth and muster some of her trained band First we have two uncontrollable testimonies out of the booke of Deuteronomy h Deut. 27.26 30.19 Cursed is hee that confirmeth not all the words of this Law to doe them and Behold I have set before you this day life and good death and evill blessing and cursing The former is cited by Saint Paul to prove that all that hoped to be justified by the
and all the ingredients of that bitter cup which our Saviour prayed thrice that it o Mat. 26.44 might passe from him We have viewed the root and the branches let us now gather some of the fruit of the tree of the crosse Christs passion may be considered two maner of wayes 1. Either as a story simply 2. Or as Gospel The former consideration cannot but breed in us griefe hatred griefe for Christ his sufferings and hatred of all that had their hand in his bloud the latter will produce contrary affâ—ctions joy for our salvation and love of our Saviour For to consider and meditate upon our Saviours passion as Gospel is to conceive and by a speciall faith to beleeve that his prayers and strong cries are intercessions for us his obedience our merit his sufferings our satisfactions that we are purged by his sweat quit by his taking clothed by his stripping healed by his stripes justified by his accusations absolved by his condemnation ransomed by his bloud and saved by his crosse These unspeakable benefits which ye have conceived by the Word ye are now to receive by the Sacrament if ye come prepared thereunto for they who come prepared to participate of these holy mysteries receive with them and by them though not in them the body and bloud of our Lord and Saviour and thereby shall I say they become flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone nay rather he becommeth flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone The spirit which raised him quickneth them and preserveth in them the life of grace and them to the life of glory Howbeit as the sweetest meats turne into p Cal. l. 4. instit c. 14. sec 40. Quemadmodum sacrum hunc panem coenae Domini spiritualem esse cibum videmus suavem delicatum non minus quà m salutiferum piis Dei cultoribus cujus gustu sentiunt Christum esse suam vitam quos ad gratiarum actionem erigit quibus ad mutuam inter se charitatem exhortatio est ita rursus in nocentissimum venenum omnibus vertitur quorum fidem non alit non aliter ac cibus corporalis ubi ventrem offendit vitiosis humoribus occupatum ipse quoque vitiosus corruptus nocet magis quà m nutrit choler in a distempered stomach so this heavenly Manna this food of Angels nay this food which Angels never tasted proves no better than poyson to them whose hearts are not purified by faith nor their consciences purged by true repentance and charity from uncleannesse worldlinesse envie malice ranckour and the like corrupt affections If a Noble man came to visit us how would we cleanse and perfume our houses what care would we take to have all the roomes swept hung and dressed up in the best manner Beloved Christians we are even now to receive and entertaine the Prince of Heaven and the Son of God let us therefore cleanse the inward roomes of our soules by examination of our whole life wash them with the water of our penitent teares dresse them up with divine graces which are the sweetest flowers of Paradise perfume them with most fragrant spices and aromaticall odours which are our servent prayers zealous meditations and elevated affectious tuned to that high straine of the sweet Singer of Israel Lift ye up ye gates and be ye q Psal 24.9 lift up ye everlasting doores and the King of glory shall come in Cui c. THE REWARD OF PATIENCE THE LII SERMON PHILIP 2.9 Wherefore God hath also highly exalted him Right Honourable c. THe drift of the blessed Apostle in the former part of this chapter to which my Text cohereth is to quench the fire-bals of contention cast among the Philippians by proud and ambitious spirits who preached the Gospel of truth not in truth and sincerity but in faction and through emulation Phil. 1.15 Some indeed preach Christ out of envie and strife This fire kindled more and more by the breath of contradiction and nourished by the ambition of the teachers and factious partaking of the hearers Saint Paul seeketh to lave out partly with his owne teares partly with Christs bloud both which he mingleth in a passionate exhortation at the entrance of this chapter If there be therefore any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the spirit if any bowels of mercies fulfill yee my joy bee yee like minded having the same love being of one accord of one mind Let nothing be done through strife or vaine glory Look not every man to his owne things but every man also to the things of others Let the same mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus who being in the forme of God thought it no robbery to be equall with God But made himselfe of no reputation c. In this context all other parts are curiously woven one in the other only there is a bracke at the fifth verse which seemes to have no connexion at all with the former for the former were part of a zealous admonition to brotherly love and christian reconciliation add this to voluntary obedience and humiliation in those he perswaded them to goe together as friends in this to give place one to the other in those he earnestly beseecheth them to be of one mind among themselves in this to be of the same mind with Christ Jesus Now peace and obedience love and humility seeme to have no great affinity one with the other for though their natures be not adverse yet they are very divers Howbeit if ye look neerer to the texture of this sacred discourse ye shall find it all closely wrought and that this exhortation to humility to which my Text belongeth hath good coherence with the former and is pertinent to the maine scope of the Apostle which was to re-unite the severed affections and reconcile the different opinions of the faithfull among the Philippians that they might all both agree in the love of the same truth and seeke that truth in love This his holy desire he could not effect nor bring about his godly purpose before he had beat down the partition wall that was betwixt them which because it was erected by pride could be no otherwise demolished than by humility The contentions among the people grew from emulation among the Pastors and that from vaine glory As sparkes are kindled by ascending of the smoake so all quarrels and contentions by ambitious spirits the a Judg. 5.16 divisions of Reuben are haughty thoughts of heart A high conceit of their owne and a low value and under rate of the gifts of others usually keep men from yeelding one to the other upon good termes of Christian charity Wherefore the Apostle like a wise Physician applyeth his spirituall remedy not so much parti laesae to the part where the malady brake forth as to the cause the vanitie of the Preachers and pride of the hearers after this manner Christ
in a dangerous warre with Croesus worketh upon this advantage rebels against Cyrus and maketh himselfe an absolute Prince But within a few dayes Cyrus having got the conquest of Croesus turnes his forces against this rebell taketh him his wife and children prisoners yet upon his submission above his hope and expectation both giveth him his life and his crown and putteth him in a better state than ever hee was Whereupon that proud captivated and humble restored Prince acknowledging his treachery and folly said O how doth the wisdome of heaven over-shadow the providence of mortall men how little are we aware of what may betide us how glassy are our scepters how brittle our estate The other day when I made full account to have made my selfe a free absolute Monarch I lost both liberty and crowne and this day when I gave my selfe for gone and looked every houre to have had my head strucke off I have gained both pardon liberty and my crowne better settled than ever before Such examples are so frequent not onely in the sacred Annals of the Church but also in profane stories that a Philosopher being asked what God did in the world answered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l Hesiod l. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. he abaseth noble things and ennobleth base hee turneth Scepters into Mattockes and Mattocks into Scepters hee maketh hovels of palaces and palaces of hovels pulleth downe high things and raiseth up low agreeably to the words of the Prophet Esay m Esa 40.4 Every valley shall bee exalted and every hill brought low Whence notwithstanding we are not to inferre That God is more the God of the vales than of the hills or that hee better esteemeth the low cottage of the beggar than the high turrets of Princes hee taketh no pleasure in the fall of any much lesse of his deare children It is not their broken estate but their contrite heart not their poverty in goods but in spirit not their lownesse of condition but their lowlinesse of minde which hee approveth and rewardeth giving honour to that vertue which ascribeth all honour to him The Apostle saith not because Christ was humbled and put to so cruell and shamefull a death therefore God highly exalted him but because hee humbled himselfe Which reason of the Apostle may bee confirmed or at least illustrated by other paralle'd texts of Scripture n Pro. 29 23. The pride of a man shall bring him low but the humble spirit shall enjoy glory o Pro. 18.12 Before destruction the heart of man is haughty but before glory goeth lowlinesse p Job 22.29 When others are cast downe thou shalt say I am lifted up and God shall save the humble and q Luk. 1.52 Hee hath put downe the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the lowly and meeke Yea to honour and exalt them hee humbleth himselfe and r Esa 57 15. commeth downe to dwell with them for thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity whose name is holy I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones When a Prince rideth in progresse how much are they graced at whose house hee lieth but for a night how far greater honour is done to the humble soul with whom God lodgeth not for a night or abideth for a few dayes but continually dwelleth what can there bee wanting where God is in whom are all things how will he furnish his house how will he set forth his rooms how gloriously will hee beautifie and decke his closet and cabinet I know not how God can raise the dwelling of the humble soule higher who by his dwelling in it hath made it equall to the highest heaven I dwell saith hee in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit There is no more difference betweene the seat of the blessed above the heavens and the caves of the poorest servants of God under the earth than between two royall palaces the one higher the other lower built but both equally honoured with the Court lying at them In the weighing of gold the light ſ Horat. car l. 1 Attollunt vacuum plus nimiò verticem pieces rise up but the weighty beare downe the scale and surely they are but light who are lifted up in a selfe-conceit but they who have true worth and weight in them are depressed in themselves and beare downe towards the earth Looke wee to the wisest of all the Philosophers hee was the modestest for his profession was Hoc scio quod nihil scio This I know that I know nothing Looke wee to the learnedest of all the Greeke Fathers Origen hee was the most ingenuous for his confession was Ignorantiam meam non ignoro I am not ignorant of mine owne ignorance Looke wee to the most judicious and industrious of all the Latine Saint t Aug. epist ad Hieron Austine he was the humblest for even in his heat of contention with Jerome hee acknowledgeth him his better Hieronymus Presbyter Augustino Episcopo major est though the dignity of a Bishop exceed that of a Priest yet Priest Jerome is a better or a greater man than Bishop Austine Looke wee to the best of Kings David hee was the freest from pride u Psal 131.1 2 Lord saith hee I am not high-minded I have no proud lookes I doe not exercise my selfe in great matters or in things too high for mee surely I have behaved and quieted my selfe as a child that is weaned of his mother my soul is even as a weaned child Look wee to the noblest of all the * Theodosius Romane Emperours his Motto was Malo membrum esse Ecclesiae quà m caput Imperii I account it a greater honour to bee a member of the Church than the head of the Empire Looke wee to him that was not inferiour to the chiefe Apostles surnamed Paulus as some of the Ancient ghesse quasi paululus because hee was least in his owne eyes not worthy to bee called an Apostle as himselfe freely * 1 Cor. 15.9 Eph. 3.8 confesseth Look we to the mirrour of all perfection Christ Jesus in whom are all the treasures of wisedome and grace he setteth out humility as his chiefest jewell x Mat. 11.29 Learn of mee saith he that I am meeke and humble in heart The raine falleth from the hils and settleth in the vales and Gods blessings in like manner if they fall upon the high-minded and proud yet they stay not with them but passe and slide from them downe to the meeke and humble where hee commandeth them to rest The reason is evident why the humblest men are best for grace alone maketh good and a greater measure thereof better now y Jam. 4.6 God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble and to
the Prophet should have made an end of his exhortation This Sermon the Prophet Ezechiel now maketh unto us all here present f Ezek. 33.11 18.30.31 As I live saith the Lord I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that he turne from his wayes and live turne ye turne ye from your evill wayes for why will yee die Repent and turne your selves from all your transgressions so iniquity shall not bee your destruction Cast away all your transgressions whereby yee have transgressed and make you a new heart and a new spirit for why will ye perish Shake off the shackles of your sinnes and quit the companie of the prisoners of death and gally-slaves of Satan put in sureties for your good behaviour hereafter turne to the Lord your God with all your heart and live yea live gloriously live happily live eternally which the Father of mercy grant for the merits of his Sonne through the grace of the Spirit To whom three persons and one God be ascribed all honour glorie praise and thankes now and for ever Amen THE DANGER OF RELAPSE THE LVI SERMON EZEK 18.24 But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousnesse and committeth iniquity and doth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doth shall hee live All his righteousnesse that hee hath done shall not bee mentioned in his trespasse that hee hath trespassed and in his sin that hee hath sinned in them shall hee dye Right Honourable c. SAint Jerome maketh a profitable use of the a Gen. 28.12 And hee dreamed behold a ladder set upon the earth and the top of it reached to heaven and behold the Angels of God ascending and descending on it Angels ascending and descending upon the ladder which Jacob saw in a dreame reaching from the earth to heaven The ladder hee will have to bee the whole frame of a godly life set upwards towards heaven whereupon the children of God who continually aspire to their inheritance that is above arise from the ground of humility and climbe by divine vertues as it were so many rounds one above another till Christ take them by the hand of their faith and receive them into heaven They are stiled Angels in regard of their b Phil. 3.20 heavenly conversation these Jacob saw continually ascending and descending upon that ladder viz. ascending by the motions of the spirit but descending through the weight of the flesh rising by the strength of grace but falling through the infirmity of nature and hereby saith that learned Father c Hieron ep 11. Videbat scalam per quam ascendebant Angeli descendebant ut nec peccator desperet salutem nec justus de suâ virtute securus sit wee are lessoned not to despaire of grace because Jacob saw Angels ascending as they fell so they rose nor yet presume of their owne strength for hee saw Angels descending also as they rose so they fell Presumption and desperation are two dangerous maladies not more opposite one to the other than to the health of the soule presumption overpriseth Gods mercy and undervalueth our sinnes and on the contrarie desperation overpriseth our sinnes and undervalueth Gods mercy both are most injurious to God the one derogateth from his mercy the other from his justice both band against hearty and speedy repentance the one opposing it as needlesse the other as bootlesse presumption saith thou maist repent at leasure gather the buds of sinfull pleasures before they wither repentance is not yet seasonable desperation saith the root of faith is withered it is now too late to repent The learned dispute whether of these two be the more pernicious and dangerous the answer is easie presumption is the more epidemicall desperation the more mortall disease Presumption like the Adder stingeth more but desperation like the Basiliske stings more deadly many meet with Adders which are almost found in all parts of the world but few with Basiliskes Presumption is more dangerous extensivè for it carrieth more to hell but desperation intensivè for those whom it seizeth upon it carrieth more forcibly and altogether irrecoverably thither and finall desperation never bringeth men to presumption but presumption bringeth men often to finall desperation To meete with these most pernicious evils God hath given us both the Law and the Gospel the Law to keepe us under in feare that wee rise not proudly and presumptuously against him and the Gospel to raise us up in hope that the weight of our sinnes sinke us not in despaire the threats of the one serve to draw and asswage the tumour of pride the promises of the other to heale the sores of wounded consciences and the Scripture as Saint Basil rightly calleth it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a common Apothecaries shop or physicke schoole wherein are remedies for all the diseases of the soule In these verses as in two boxes there are soveraigne recipes against both the maladies above named against the former to wit desperation vers 23. against the later viz. presumption v. 24. And it is not unworthy your observation that as in the beginning of the Spring when Serpents breed and peepe d Adrianus Chamierus in ep dedicat Eccles Gal. Pastor Sicut ineunte vere cùm primùm è terrae cuniculis prodeunt serpentes ad nocendum parati fraxinum adversus venenatos eorum morsus praesens remedium laturam educit out of their holes the Ash puts forth which is a present remedie against their stings and teeth so the holy Ghost in Scripture for the most part delivereth an antidote in or hard by those texts from whence libertines and carnall men sucke the poyson of presumption The texts are these God hath raised up an horne of salvation for us that we beeing delivered out of the hands of our enemies might serve him without feare f Rom. 5.20 Where sinne abounded grace did much more abound g Rom. 8.1 There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus * Gal. 5.13 We are called to liberty Now see an antidote in the verses following Lest any man should suck poyson from these words in the first text Serve him without feare it is added in the next words in holinesse and righteousnesse before him all the dayes of our life Lest any man should abuse the second the Apostle within a verse putteth in a caveat What shall we say then shall we continue in sinne that grace may abound e Luk. 1.69 72 74. God forbid how shall wee that are dead to sin live any longer therein vers 1 2. Lest any should gather too farre upon that generall speech of the Apostle There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus h Luk. 1.75 there followes a restriction in the same verse who walke not after the flesh but after the spirit Lest any should stumble at those words of the same Apostle Ye are called to libertie he reacheth them a
Athenian Priest answered to those that would have had her curse Alcibiades Priests saith shee are appointed to blesse not to curse to pray for people not against them Notwithstanding if the Church meet with a Simon Magus set in the gall of bitternesse and bond of iniquity or an Elymas that will not cease to pervert the right waies of God or an Alexander that mightily withstandeth the preaching of the Gospel shee may brandish the sword of the Spirit and cut such off from her visible assemblies for a time till they make their peace with God by repentance and with the Church by confession and humble submission to her sacred Canons 3. Men neither inspired by God nor authorized by the Church yet may and ought to pray against the kingdome of Sathan and members of Antichrist in generall and all whosoever stop the free passage of the Gospel or hinder the advancement of Christs Kingdome For we cannot love God but we must needs love them that love him and hate them that hate him even with a perfect hatred As wee must blesse them that blesse him so wee may and ought in generall to curse all that curse him In warre wee may aime at the Standard and shoot at the Flagge and Ensignes but it is against the law of armes to levell at any particular man in like manner we may shoot out of zeale fiery darts of execration at the Standard of Sathan and levell at the Flagge and Colours of Antichrist but wee may not curse or doome to the pit of hell such a nation city assembly or man in particular 1. Because God only knoweth who are his he that is now a great persecuter or a scoffer at the truth may be in time a zealous professor and it is a fearfull thing to curse the children of blessing 2. Because it is very difficult if not impossible for any in this kinde to curse but that malice and desire of revenge will mingle themselves with our zeale and thereby wee shall offer with Nadab and Abihu strange fire 3. Because we are commanded to pray for our enemies who the more they have wronged us the more they stand in need of our prayers For the greater injury they offer us the more they hurt themselves they wound us in body but themselves in soule they spoyle us of our goods but they deprive themselves of Gods grace they goe about to staine our good name but by detraction and false calumniation they worse staine their owne conscience they may worke us out of favour with Princes and great men but they put themselves out of favour with God thereby Yee heare how execrable a thing cursing and execration is and yet what so common I tremble to rehearse what wee heare upon every sleight occasion O remember from this Memento in my Text that unlesse yee were inspired as the people here were and knew that those whom yee curse were hated of God as these Edomites were by cursing others yee incurre a curse and by casting fire-brands of Hell at your brethren yee heape hot burning coales upon your heads And so I passe from the curse to the parties cursed The children of Edome The Edomites or Idumeans were of the race of Esau Jacobs elder brother who comming home hungry from hunting and finding his brother seething pottage grew so greedy of it that he bargained with him for a messe at the deare rate of his birth-right This red broth bought at such a price was ever after cast in Esau his dish and from it hee was called r Gen. 25.30 31 32 33. Edome and all his posterity Edomites or Idumeans as if yee would say red or bloudy ones Such was their name and such were they a bloudy generation of the right bloud of Esau For as he sought the life of his brother Jacob so they ever plotted the ruine and destruction of the Jewes their brethren and in the day of Jerusalems fearfull visitation when the Babylonians had taken the City and put all in it to the sword and robbed the Temple and ransacked all the houses and left nothing but the wall their unnaturall brethren the Idumeans in stead of quenching or at least allaying the fury of the Babylonians by their praiers and compassionate teares cast oyle into the flame and set them in a greater rage against them and instigated them to a further degree of cruelty even to pull down all the houses and sacke the walls saying Raze it raze it to the ground For which their inhumane and savage cruelty against the Church of God God remembred them in due time and rewarded them as they had served their brethren to fulfill the prophecies of Å¿ Jer. 49.7 8 9 10 11 12. Jeremy and Obadiah t Obad. ver 10 11 12 13 14 15 16. For thy cruelty against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee In the day that thou stoodest on the other side in the day that the stranger carried away captive his forces and forreiners entred into his gates cast lots upon Jerusalem even thou wast as one of them But thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger neither shouldest thou have rejoyced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction neither shouldest thou have spoken proudly in the day of their distresse Neither shouldest thou have stood in the crosse wayes to cut off those of his that did escape neither shouldest thou have delivered up those of his that did remaine in the day of distresse For the day of the Lord is neere upon all the heathen as thou hast done so it shall be done unto thee thy reward shall returne upon thine owne head Behold a notable example of divine justice in meting to the wicked their owne measure and punishing them with that where with they offended The Edomites proved false to the Jewes their brethren and their neerest friends prove false to them They received a wound ver 7. from the men of their confederacy even from them that ate their bread Non expectato vulnus ab hoste ferunt Remember O Lord the Edomites but destroy the Babylonians Though the Edomites dealt most cruelly with their brethren the Jewes yet the Jewes are not so farre transported with passion against them as not to put a difference between them and the Babylonians By the way wee may note the condition of Christs dearest Spouse in the world both Edomites and Babylonians forraine and domesticall enemies those that are neere and those that are farre off conspire against poore Jerusalem and bring her as you see upon her knees crying to heaven for revenge and by the spirit of prophesie promising Cyrus good successe in his enterprise against Babylon O daughter of Babylon that is City of Babylon by an elegant Hebraisme as tell the daughter of Sion that is tell Sion We reade of a twofold Babylon in sacred Scriptures of the one in the Old Testament the other in
complexa gremio jam reliquà naturà abdicatos tum maximé ut mater operiens nomen prorogat tiâ—ulis c. Pliny calleth the earth our tender mother which receiveth us into her bosome when wee are excluded as it were out of the world and covereth our nakednesse and shame and guardeth us from beasts and fowles that they offer no indignity to our carkasses Now because it is to small purpose to bestow the dead in roomes under ground if they may not keep them Abraham wisely provided for this for hee laid downe a valuable consideration for the field where the cave was Were laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a summe of money As Abraham here bought a field out-right and thereby assured the possession thereof to his posterity so by his example the Synagogue under the Law and the Catholike Church under the Gospel especially in dayes of peace secured certaine places for the buriall of the dead either purchased for money or received by deed of gift and after they were possessed of them sequestred them from all other and appropiated them to this use onely by which sequestration and appropriation all such parcells of ground became holy in such sort that none might otherwise use or imploy them than for the buriall of the dead without sacriledge or profanation As the holy oyle ran from Aarons head to his body and the skirts of his garments so holinesse stayeth not in the Chancell as the head but descendeth to the whole body of the Church and the Church-yard as the skirt thereof Mistake mee not brethren I say not that one clod of earth is holier than another or any one place or day absolutely but relatively only For as it is superstition to attribute formall or inherent holinesse to times places parcells of ground fruits of the earth vessell or vestments so it is profanenesse to deny them some kind of relative sanctity which the holy Ghost attributeth unto them in Scripture where wee reade expresly of holy ground holy daies holy oyle and the like To cleare the point wee are to distinguish of holinesse yet more particularly which belongeth 1. To God the Father Sonne and Spirit by essence 2. To Angels and men by participation of the divine nature or grace 3. To the Word and Oracles of God by inspiration 4. To types figures sacraments rites and ceremonies by divine institution 5. To places lands and fruits of the earth as also sacred utensils by use and dedication as 1. Temples with their furniture consecrated to the service of God 2. Tithes and glebe lands to the maintenance of the Priests 3. Church-yards to the buriall of the dead Others come off shorter and dichotomize holy things which say they are 1. Sanctified because they are holy as God his name and attributes c. 2. Holy because they are sanctified 1. Either by God to man as the Word and Sacraments 2. Or by man to God as Priests Temples Altars Tables c. Of this last kind of holy things by dedication some are dedicated to him 1. Immediately as all things used in his service 2. Mediately as all such things without which his service cannot be conveniently done and here come in Church-yards without which some religious workes of charity cannot be done with such conveniency or decency as they ought The Church is as Gods house and the yard is as the court before his doore how then dare any defile it or alienate it or imploy it to any secular use for profit or pleasure To conclude all Church-yards by the Ancients are termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dormitories or dortories wherein they lye that sleep in Jesus Now it is most uncivill to presse into or any way abuse the bed-chamber of the living and much more of the dead What are graves in this dormitory but sacred vestries wherein we lay up our old garments for a time and after take them out and resume them new dressed and trimmed and gloriously adorned and made shining and Å¿ Mar. 9.3 exceeding white as snow so as no Fuller on earth can white them These shining raiments God bestow upon us all at the last day for the merits of the death and buriall of our Lord and Saviour Cui c. THE FEAST OF PENTECOST A Sermon preached on Whitsunday THE LXIII SERMON ATCS 2.1 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come they were all together with one accord in one place SAint a Hom. in die ascens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysostome comparing the works of redemption with the works of creation observeth that as the Father finished the former so the Sonne the later in six dayes especially in memorie whereof his dearest Spouse the Catholique Church hath appointed six solemnities to be kept by all Christians with greatest fervour of devotion and highest elevation of religious affections These are Christ his 1. Virgin birth 2. Illustrious Epiphanie 3. Ignominious death 4. His powerfull resurrection 5. His glorious ascension 6. His gracious sending downe of the holy Ghost The day of 1. His incarnation by which he entred into the world 2. His manifestation on which he entred upon his office of Mediatour 3. His passion on which he expiated our sinnes 4. His resuscitation by which he conquered death the grave 5. His triumphant returne into heaven on which hee tooke seizin and possession of that kingdome for us 6. His visible mission of the holy Ghost in the similitude of fiery cloven tongues on which he sealed all his former benefits to us and us to the day of redemption This last festivall in order of time was yet the first and chiefest in order of dignity For on Christs birth day hee was made partaker of our nature but on this wee were made partakers after a sort of his in the Epiphany one starre onely stood over the house where hee lay on this twelve fiery tongues like so many celestiall lights appeared in the roome where the Apostles were assembled on the day of his passion he rendred his humane spirit to God his father on this hee sent downe his divine spirit upon us on the resurrection his spirit quickened his naturall body on this it quickened his mysticall the Catholique Church on the ascension he tooke a pledge from us viz. our flesh and carried it into heaven on this hee sent us his pledge viz. his spirit in the likenesse of fiery tongues with the sound of a mighty rushing wind After which the Spouse as Gorrhan conceiveth panted saying b Cant. 4.16 Awake O North wind and come thou South blow upon my garden that the spices therof may flow out let my Beloved come into his garden eat his pleasant fruits The wind she gasped for what was it but the spirit and what are the fragrant spices shee wishes may flow but the graces of the holy Ghost which David calleth gifts for men in the eighteenth verse of the 68. Psalme the former part whereof may furnish the feast we
lately celebrated with a fit antheme Thou hast ascended up on high thou hast led captivitie captive the later may supply this present thou hast received gifts for men yea for the rebellious also that the Lord God may dwell among them Blessed be the Lord who daily loadeth us with benefits even the God of our salvation for on this day Christ received gifts for his Church the gifts of faith hope and charitie the gift of prayer and supplication the gift of healing and miracles the gift of prophecie the gift of tongues and the interpretation thereof Verily so many and so great are the benefits which the anniversary returne of this day presenteth to us that as if all the tongues upon the earth had not beene sufficient to utter them a supply of new tongues was sent from heaven to declare them in all languages The new Testament was drawne before and signed with Christs bloud on good Friday but c Ephes 4.30 Grieve not the holy spirit of God whereby yee are sealed to the day of redemption sealed first on this day by the holy spirit of God Christ made his last Will upon the crosse and thereby bequeathed unto us many faire legacies but this Will was not d 1 Cor. 12.4 5 8. There are differences of administrations but the same Lord and diversitie of gifts but the same spirit For to one is given by the same spirit the word of wisdome unto another the word of knowledge by the same spirit administred till this day for the e And 2 Cor. 3.8 How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious ministration is of the spirit Yea but had not the Apostles the spirit before this day did not our Lord breathe on them John 20.22 the day he rose at evening being the first day of the weeke saying Receive yee the holy Ghost The learned answer that they had indeed the spirit before but not in such a measure the holy Ghost was given before according to some ghostly power and invisible grace but was never sent before in a visible manner before they received him in breath now in fire before hee was f Calv. in Act Anteà respersi erant nunc plenè imbuti sprinkled but now powred on them before they received 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before authority to discharge their function but now power to worke wonders before they had the smell now the substance g Aug. hom de Pent. Nunc ipsa substantia sacri defluxit unguenti cujus fragrantia totius orbis latitudo impleretur iterum adfuit hoc die fidelibus non per gratiam visitationis operationis sed per praesentiam majestatis of the celestiall oyntment was shed on them they heard of him before but now they saw and felt him 1. In their minds by infallible direction 2. In their tongues by the multiplicity of languages 3. In their hands by miraculous cures S. Austine truly observeth that before the Apostles on this day were indued with power from above they never strove for the Christian faith unto bloud when Satan winnowed them at Christs passion they all flew away like chaffe And though S. Peters faith failed not because it was supported by our Lords prayer Luke 22.32 yet his courage failed him in such sort that he was foyled by a silly damsell but after the holy Ghost descended upon him and the rest of the Apostles in the sound of a mightie rushing wind and in the likenesse of fierie cloven tongues they were filled with grace and enflamed with zeale and they mightily opposed all the enemies of the truth and made an open and noble profession thereof before the greatest Potentates of the world and sealed it with their bloud all of them save S. John who had that priviledge that hee should stay till Christ came glorifying the Lord of life by their valiant suffering of death for his names sake In regard of which manifold and powerfull effâ—cts of sending the spirit on this day which were no lesse seene in the flames of the Martyrs than in the fiery tongues that lighted on the Apostles the Church of Christ even from the beginning celebrated this festivity in most solemne manner and not so onely but within 300. yeares after Christs death the Fathers in the Councels of h Concil Elib c. 43. Cuncti diem Pentecostes celebrent qui non fecerit quasi novam heresem induxerit pumatur Eliberis mounted a canon thundring out the paine of heresie to all such as religiously kept it not If the Jewes celebrated an high feast in memory of the Law on this day first proclaimed on mount Sinai ought not we much more to solemnize it in memory of the Gospel now promulgated on mount Sion by new tongues sent from heaven If we dediâ—â—â— peculiar festivals to God the Father the Creatour and God the Sonne the Redeemer why should not God the holy Ghost the Sanctifier have a peculiar interest in our devotion S. i Serm. in die Pent. Si celebramus sanctorum solennia quanto magis ejus à quo habuerunt ut sancti essent quotquot fuerunt sancti si veneramur sanctificatos quanto magis sanctificatorem Bernard addeth another twist to this cord If we deservedly honour Saints with festivals how much more ought wee to honour him who maketh them Saints especially having so good a ground for it as is laid downe in this chapter and verse And when the day of Pentecost was come As a prologue to an act or an eeve to an holy day or the Parascheve to the Passeover or the beautifull gate to the Temple so is this preface to the ensuing narration it presenteth to our religious thoughts a three-fold concurrence 1. Of time 2. Of place 3. Of affections Upon one and the selfe same day when all the Apostles were met in one place and were of one minde the spirit of unity and love descendeth upon them Complementum legis Christus Evangelii spiritus As the descending of the Sonne was the complement of the Law so the sending of the spirit is the complement of the Gospel and as God sent his Sonne in the fulnesse of time so he sent the spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the fulnesse of the fiftieth day When the Apostles number was full and their desire and expectations full then the spirit came downe and filled their hearts with joy and their tongues with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Magnifica Dei facta the wonderfull works of God vers 11. That your thoughts rove not at uncertainties may it please you to pitch them upon foure circumstances 1. The time when 2. The persons who They. 3. The affection or disposition were with one accord 4. The place in one place 1. The time was solemne the day of Pentecost 2. The persons eminent the Apostles 3. Their disposition agreeable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4. The place convenient in an
setteth them r Aug. serm de Pent. Tanquam duodecim radii solis seu totidem lampades veritatis totum mundum illuminantes forth twelve beames of the sunne of righteousnesse or twelve great torches of the truth enlightening the whole world They were as the twelve Patriarks of the new Testament to be consecrated as oecumenicall Pastours throughout all the earth they were as the ſ Exod. 15.27 twelve Wels of water in Elim from whence the chrystall streames of the water of life were to be derived into all parts they were as the twelve t Apoc. 12.1 starres in the crowne of the woman which was cloathed with the sunne and the moone under her feet and as the twelve u Apoc. 21.14 pretious stones in the foundation of the celestiall Jerusalem The present assembly in this upper roome was no other than a sacred Synod and in truth there can be no Synod where the Apostles or their successours are not present and Presidents For all assemblies how great soever of Lay-persons called together about ordering ecclesiasticall affaires without Bishops and Pastours are like to Polyphemus his vast body without an eye Monstrum horrendum informe ingens cui lumen ademptum But when the Apostles and their successours Bishops and Prelates and Doctours of the Church are assembled and all are of one accord and bend their endevours one way to settle peace and define truth Christ will make good his promise to be in the * Matt. 18.20 When two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the middest of them And middest of them and by his spirit to lead them into x John 16.13 When the spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth all truth With one accord All the ancient and later Interpreters accord in their note upon the word accord that Animorum unio concordia est optima dispositio ad recipiendum Spiritum sanctum that Unitie and concord is the best disposition of the minde preparation for the receiving of the holy Ghost The bones in Ezekiel were y Ezek. 37.7 8. joyned one to another and tyed with sinewes before the wind blew upon them and revived them so the members of Christ must bee joyned in love and coupled with the sinewes of charitable affections one towards another before the holy Spirit will enlive them Marke saith S. z Serm. de Temp. Membrum amputatum non sequitur spiritus cùm in corpore erat vivebat precisum amittit spiritum Austine in the naturall body how if a member bee cut off the soule presently leaveth it while it was united to the rest of the members it lived but as soone as ever it was severed it became a dead peece of flesh so it is in the mysticall body of Christ those who sever themselves by schisme or faction from the body and their fellow-members deprive themselves of the influence of the holy Spirit Peruse the records of the Church and you shall finde for the most part that faction hath bred heresie When discontented Church-men of eminent parts sided against their Bishops and Superiours Gods spirit left them and they became authours of damnable heresies This was Novatus his case after hee made a faction against Cyprian Donatus after hee made a faction against Meltiades Aerius after hee made a schisme against Eustatius and doe we not see it daily in our Separatists who no sooner leave our Church but the spirit of God quite leaveth them and they fall from Brownisme to Anabaptisme from Anabaptisme to Familisme and into what not The Church and Common-wealth like the * Plin. l. 2. nat hist c. 105. Lapis Tyrrhenus grandis innatat comminutus mergitur Lapis Tyrrhenus while they are whole swimme in all waters but if they be broken into factions or crumbled into sects schismes they will soone sinke if not drowne And so I passe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from their unanimitie of affection to their concurrence in place In one place The last circumstance is the place which was an upper chamber in Jerusalem The Apostles and Disciples stayed at Jerusalem after the ascension of our Lord partly in obedience to his a Acts 1.4 command which was not to depart out of Jerusalem till they were indued with power from above partly to fulfill the prophecie the b Esay 2.3 Law shall goe out of Sion and the word of God out of Jerusalem They kept all together out of love and for more safetie and they tooke an upper chamber that they might bee more private and retired or because in regard of the great confluence of people at this feast they could not hire the whole house or as Bernardinus conceiveth to teach us that the spirit of c Com. in Act. Ut discamus quod datur spiritus iis qui se ab imis attollunt rerū sublimium contemplatione ut cibo se oblectant God is given to such as raise up themselves from the earth and give themselves to the contemplation of high and heavenly mysteries Now to descend from this higher chamber and to come neare to you by some application of this text It will be to little purpose to heare of the Apostles preparation this day if wee prepare not our selves accordingly to discourse of their entertainment and receiving the holy Spirit if wee receive him not into our hearts It is a mockerie as Fulgentius hath it Ejus diem celebrare cujus lucem oderimus To keepe the day of the Spirit if wee hate his light If wee desire to celebrate the feast of the Spirit and by his grace worthily receive the Sacrament of Christ his flesh wee must imitate the Apostles and Disciples in each circumstance 1. Rely upon Gods promises by a lively faith of sending the spirit of his Sonne into our hearts and patiently expect the accomplishment of it many dayes as they did 2. Ascend into an upper chamber that is remove our selves as farre as wee can from the earth and set our affections upon those things that are above 3. Meet in one place that is the Church to frequent the house of God and when we are bid not to make excuses but to present our selves at the Lords boord 4. Not onely meet in one place but as the Apostles did with one accord to reconcile all differences among our selves and to purge out all gall of malice and in an holy sympathy of devotion to joyne sighs with sighs and hearts with hearts and hands with hands and lifting up all together with one accord sing Come holy Ghost so as this day is Pentecost in like manner this place shall be as the upper roome where they were assembled and we as the Apostles and Disciples and the Word which hath now beene preached unto us as the sound of that mightie rushing wind which filled that roome and after wee have worthily celebrated the feast of the Spirit and administred the
Sacrament of our Lords body and bloud wee shall feele the effects of both in us viz. more light in our understanding more warmth in our affections more fervour in our devotions more comfort in our afflictions more strength in temptations more growth in grace more settled peace of conscience and unspeakable joy in the holy Ghost To whom with the Father and the Sonne bee ascribed c. THE SYMBOLE OF THE SPIRIT THE LXIV SERMON ACTS 2.2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting SAint Luke in the precedent verse giveth us the name in this the ground of the solemne feast we are now come to celebrate with such religious rites as our Church hath prescribed according to the presidents of the first and best ages The name is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the feast of the fiftieth day from Easter the ground thereof the miraculous apparition and if I may so speake the Epiphany of the holy Spirit in the sound of a mighty rushing wind the light of fiery cloven tongues shining on the heads of the Apostles who stayed at Jerusalem according to our Lords command in expectation of the promise of the holy Ghost which was fulfilled then in their eyes and now in our eares and I hope also in our hearts After God the Father had manifested himselfe by the worlds creation and the workes of nature and God the Sonne by his incarnation and the workes of grace it was most convenient that in the third place the third person should manifest himselfe as he did this day by visible descension and workes of wonder Before in the third of Matthew at the Epiphany of our Saviour the Spirit appeared in the likenesse of a dove but here as yee heare in the similitude of fiery cloven tongues to teach us that we ought to be like doves without gall in prosecution of injury done to our selves but like Seraphins all fire in vindicating Gods honour This morall interpretation Saint a Greg. tert pas Omnes quos implet columbae simplicitate mansuetos igne zeli ardentes exhibet Et ib. Intus arsit ignibus amoris foras accensus est zelo severitatis causam populi apud Deum lachrymis causam Dei apud populum gladiis allegabat c. Gregory makes of these mysticall apparitions All whom the spirit fills he maketh meeke by the simplicity of doves and yet burning with the fire of zeale Just of this temper was Moses who took somewhat of the dove from the spirit and somewhat of the fire For being warme within with the fire of love and kindling without with the zeale of severity he pleaded the cause of the people before God with teares but the cause of God before the people with swords Sed sufficit diei suum opus sufficient for the day will be the worke thereof sufficient for this audience will be the interpretation of the sound the mysticall exposition of the wind which filled the house where the Apostles sate will fill up this time And lest my meditations upon this wind should passe away like wind I will fasten upon two points of speciall observation 1. The object vehement the sound of a mighty rushing wind 2. The effect correspondent filled the whole house Each part is accompanied with circumstances 1. With the circumstance of 1. The manner suddenly 2. The sourse or terminus à quo from heaven 2. With the circumstance of 1. The place the house where 2. The persons they 3. Their posture were sitting 1. Hearken suddenly there came on the sudden 2. To what a sound 3. From whence from heaven 4. What manner of sound as of a mighty rushing wind 5. Where filling the roome where they were sitting That suddenly when they were all quiet there should come a sound or noise and that from heaven and that such a vehement sound as of a mighty rushing wind and that it should fill the whole roome where they were and no place else seemes to mee a kind of sequence of miracles Every word in this Text is like a cocke which being turned yeeldeth abundance of the water of life of which we shall taste hereafter I observe first in generall that the Spirit presented himselfe both to the eyes and to the eares of the Apostles to the eares in a noise like a trumpet to proclaime him to the eyes in the shape of tongues like lights to shew him Next I observe that as there were two sacred signes of Christs body 1. Bread 2. Wine so there are two symboles and if I may so speake sacraments of the Spirit 1. Wind 2. Fire Behold the correspondency between them the spirit is of a nobler and more celestiall nature than a body in like manner the elements of wind and fire come neerer the nature of heaven than bread and wine which are of a more materiall and earthly nature And as the elements sort with the mysteries they represent so also with our senses to which they are presented For the grosser and more materiall elements bread and wine are exhibited to our grosser and more carnall senses the taste and touch but the subtiler and lesse materiall wind and fire to our subtiler and more spirituall senses the eyes and eares Of the holy formes of bread and wine their significancie and efficacy I have heretofore discoursed at large at this present by the assistance of the holy Spirit I will spend my breath upon the sacred wind in my Text and hereafter when God shall touch my tongue with a fiery coale from his Altar explicate the mystery of the fiery cloven tongues After the nature and number of the symboles their order in the third place commeth to be considered first the Apostles heare a sound and then they see the fiery cloven tongues And answerable hereunto in the fourth verse we reade that they were filled with the holy Ghost and then they began to speake with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance For b Mat. 12.34 out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh With the c Rom. 10.10 heart man beleeveth unto righteousnesse and then with the tongue he confesseth unto salvation My d Psal 45.1 heart saith David is enditing a good matter and my tongue is the pen of a ready writer first the heart enditeth and then the tongue writeth They who stay not at Jerusalem till they are endued with power from above and receive the promise of the Father but presently will open their mouthes and try to loosen the strings of their fiery tongues I meane they who continue not in the schooles of the Prophets till they have learned the languages and arts and have used the ordinary meanes to obtaine the gifts and graces of the holy Spirit and yet will open their mouthes in the Pulpit and exercise the gift of their tongues doe but fill the eares of their auditors with a
contra religionem nostram dicuntur horrete sed etiam quae pro religione ipsi dicimus cum grandi metu dicere debeamus Salvianus professeth that hee wrote in defence of the true religion in feare and trembling To the end therefore that the Apostles who were appointed to be Pastores pastorum Pastors of pastors and Doctors of Divinity through the whole world might not speake of him who dwelleth in a light which none can approach unto without light the holy Ghost on this day cast his beames upon them shining in the fiery cloven tongues The tongues appeared cloven saith Saint c Bernard serm de Pent. Sunt dispertitae linguae propter multiplices cogitationes sed earum multiplicitas uno lumine veritatis uno charitatis fervore fit tanquam ignis Bernard to represent the multiplicity of thoughts yet the multiplicity of them shined in one light of truth and one fervour of charity as it were one fire There appeared new lightnings saith d Câ—rysol serm de Pent. Nova lucis fulgura coruscâ—runt micantium splendor linguaruÌ„ igneae ut scirent quod loquerentur linguae ut loquerentur quod scirent Chrysologus in the aire and the lustre of shining tongues shining to give them light that they might know what they spake and tongues to give them eloquence whereby they might utter what they knew This apparition as it was very strange so to outward appearance also most dreadfull for it was an apparition of a spirit and that in fire and this fire cast it selfe into the shape of tongues and these tongues were cloven Of all sights apparitions of spirits most affright us of all apparitions of spirits those in fire most dazle our eyes and never fire before seene in these shapes sitting upon the heads of any Yet was it a most comfortable apparition because it was the manifestation of the Comforter himselfe The Spirit was no evill spirit but the holy Ghost the fire was no consuming but only an enlightening flame the tongues proclaimed not warre but spake peace to the Apostles neither did the cleaving of them in sunder betoken the spirit of contradiction or division amongst them but the diversitie of languages wherewith they were furnished neither did the fire sitting on them singe their haire but rather crowne their heads with gifts and graces befitting the teachers of the whole world Let the seeming and outward terrour then of the signes serve to stirre up your attention to listen to what the tongues speake unto you and yee shall finde the fire of the spirit at your hearts to enlighten your thoughts and enflame your affections and purge out the drosse of your naturall corruptions Lo here 1. An apparition of tongues 2. Tongues of fire 3. Fire sitting 1. Tongues cloven and floating in the aire a strange sight 2. Tongues as of fire a strange matter 3. Fire sitting a strange posture Of which before I can freely discourse I must loosen three knots which I finde tyed upon the words of my text 1. By Grammarians 2. By Philosophers 3. By Divines The first is how doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sedit in the singular number agree with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or linguae in the plurall The second whether was the miracle in the tongues of the Apostles or in the eares of the hearers For either way it might come to passe that men of severall languages might heare them speake in their severall tongues the wonderfull works of God The third how was the holy Ghost united to these tongues hypostatically or sacramentally The first knot is thus untyed either that there is an errour in our copies vitio scriptoris writing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for α or that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to bee construed with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ignis not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it sate that is the fire upon each of them The second is thus dissolved the miracle was in the tongues of the Apostles for e Mark 16.17 Christ promised that they should speake with new tongues not that their hearers should heare with new eares Yee saith f Act. 1.5 Christ shall be baptized with the holy Ghost and with fire not many dayes hence and accordingly the Apostles saw fierie cloven togues not cloven eares and the fire g 1 Cor. 14.2 sate upon them it licked not the eares of their auditours Moreover it is evident out of the Epistle to the Corinthians that many who were endued with the gift of tongues might and did use it in the assembly of the faithfull when they that heard them understood them not which could not be if the miraculous gift had beene in their eares and not in their teachers tongues The third knot is thus loosened the holy Ghost was united to these tongues neither hypostatically nor sacramentally but symbolically only If hee had beene united to them hypostatically the Apostles might and ought to adore the Spirit in them and the fire might as truely have beene said the holy Ghost as the man Christ to be God Neither were the wind and fire Sacraments because no seales of the covenant no conduits of saving grace of no permanent or perpetuall use S. i Tract 99. in Johan Non magis ad unitatem personae spiritui sancto hic ignis fuit conjunctus ut ex illo Deo una persona constaret quam columba Matth. 3. ista enim facta sunt de creaturâ serviente non de ipsâ dominante naturà Austine thus resolveth This fire cut out as it were into severall portions like tongues was no otherwise united to the holy Ghost than the Dove Matth. 3. neither of which was so assumed as that of it and God one person consisted the Spirit in these apparitions useth the creature but united not himselfe unto it personally or substantially And there appeared In the originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there were seene for it was no delusion of sense but a true and reall apparition the Apostles with their eyes beheld them and with their tongues testified the truth of this apparition of tongues False religions such as the Pagan and Popish make use of false apparitions and lying wonders whereby they bleare the eyes and seduce the soules of the simple but the true religion as it disalloweth all sophisticall arguments and false shewes of reason so also it disavoweth all false apparitions and deceivable signes The witch at Endor raised up a man or rather a spirit in the likenesse of Samuel who never was seene after that day he communed with Saul but those whom our Saviour raised lived many dayes if not yeeres after Conjurers and Inchanters set before their guests daintie dishes in shew and appearance but their greater hunger after them is an evident demonstration that the Divell all the while fed their fancies with Idaeas and resemblances and not their stomacks with solid meats but our Lord when hee k
Priest Christ Jesus entred after his death and there appeareth for us the curing of all bodily diseases by the word of Christ the healing of all spirituall maladies by his word preached Now if other miracles were significant and enunciative how much more this of tongues Verily he hath little sight of celestiall mysteries who cannot discerne divine eloquence in these tongues diversitie of languages in the cleaving of them and knowledge and zeale in the fire As S. John Baptist was so all the dispensers of Gods mysteries ought to z Bernard in verb. Christi Ille erat lucerna ardens lucens lucere vanum est ardere parum lucere ardere perfectum bee burning and shining lamps shining in knowledge burning in zeale There are three reasons assigned by learned Commentators why the Spirit manifested himselfe in the likenesse of fierie tongues 1. To shew his affinitie with the Word such as is between fire and light the Word is the true light that enlighteneth everie one that commeth into the world and here the Spirit descended in the likenesse of fire 2. To shew that as by the tongue wee taste all corporall meats drinks and medicinall potions so by the Spirit wee have a taste of all spirituall things 3. To teach us that as by the tongue wee speake so by the Spirit wee are enabled to utter magnalia Dei the wonderfull works of God and the mysteries of his kingdome It is not yee that a Matt. 10.20 speake saith our Saviour but the Spirit which speaketh in you which Spirit spake by the month of the Prophets that have beene since the world began Our mouthes and tongues are but like organ-pipes the breath which maketh them sound out Gods praises is the Spirit And those that have their spirituall senses exercised can distinguish betweene the sound of the golden bels of Aaron and of the tinckling b 1 Cor. 13.1 Cymball S. Paul speaketh of for sacred eloquence consisteth not in the enticing words of mans wisdome but in demonstration of the Spirit and power The fire by which these tongues were enlightened was not earthly but heavenly and therefore it is said As of fire Christ three severall times powred out his spirit upon his Apostles first c Vers 1.16 Matthew the tenth at their election and first mission the second is d Vers 22. John the twentieth when he breathed on them and said Receive yee the holy Ghost and thirdly in this place At the first they received the spirit of wisdome and knowledge at the second the spirit of power and authority at the third the spirit of zeale and courage As many proprieties as the naturall Philosophers observe in fire so many vertues the Divines will have us note in the Spirit given to the faithfull they are specially eight Illuminandi of enlightening 2. Inflammandi of heating 3. Purgandi of purifying 4. Absumendi of consuming 5. Liquefaciendi of melting 6. Penetrandi of piercing 7. Elevandi of lifting up or causing to ascend 8. Convertendi of turning For darknesse is dispelled cold expelled hardnesse mollified metall purified combustible matter consumed the pores of solid bodies penetrated smoake raised up and all fuell turned into flame or coale by fire 1. Of enlightening this Leo applyeth to the Spirit 2. Of enflaming this Gregory worketh upon 3. Of purifying this Nazianzen noteth 4. Of consuming this Chrysostome reckons upon 5. Of melting this Calvin buildeth upon 6. Of penetrating this S. Paul e 1 Cor. 2.10 The Spirit searcheth all things pointeth to 7. Of elevating this Dionysius toucheth upon 8. Of converting and this Origen and many of our later writers run upon 1. Fire enlighteneth the aire the Spirit the heart 2. Fire heateth the body the Spirit the soule 3. Fire purgeth out drosse the Spirit our sinnes 4. Fire consumeth the stubble the Spirit our lusts 5. Fire melteth metals the Spirit the hardest heart 6. Fire pierceth into the bones the Spirit into the inmost thoughts 7. Fire elevateth water and fumes the Spirit carrieth up our meditations with our penitent teares also to heaven 8. Fire turneth all things into its owne nature the Spirit converteth all sorts of men and of carnall maketh them spirituall These operations of the Spirit God grant wee may feele in our soules so shall we be worthy partakers of Christ his body and by him be sanctified in body and soule here and glorified in both hereafter To whom c. CHRIST HIS LASTING MONUMENT A Sermon preached on Maundy Thursday THE LXVI SERMON 1 CORINTH 11.26 As often as yee eate of this bread and drinke of this cup yee doe shew the Lords death till he come WHen our Saviour was lifted up from the earth to draw all to him and his armes were stretched out at full length to compasse in and embrace all true beleevers after he had bowed his head as it were to take leave of the world and so given up the ghost a souldier with a a John 19.34 speare pierced his side and forthwith came there out water and bloud Which was done to fulfill two prophecies the one of b Exod. 12.46 Moses A bone of him shall not be broken the other of c Zech. 12.10 Zechary They shall looke on him whom they pierced as also to institute two d Chrysost Cyrillus Theophilact in hunc locum Damascenus lib. 4. de fid c. 10. Aug. l. 2. de Symb. c. 6. tract 9. in Johan Sacraments the one in the water the other in the bloud that ran from him the one to wash away the filth of originall sinne the other to purge the guilt of all actuall The hole in Christs side is the source and spring of both these Wells of salvation in the Church which are continually filled with that which then issued out of our Lords side For albeit he dyed but once actu yet he dyeth continually virtute and although his bloud was shed but once really on the crosse yet it is shed figuratively and mystically both at the font and at the Lords board when the dispenser of the sacred mysteries powreth water on the childe or wine into the chalice and by consecrating the bread apart from the wine severeth the bloud of Christ from his body In relation to which lively representation of his sufferings the Apostle affirmeth that as oft as we eate of that bread and drinke of that cup wee shew the Lords death till he come In the Tabernacle there was sanctum sanctum sanctorum a holy place a place most holy so in the Church Calendar there is a holy time all the time of Lent and the most holy this weeke wherein our blessed Saviour made sixe steps to the Crosse and having in sixe dayes accomplished the workes of mans redemption as his Father in the like number of dayes had finished the workes of creation the seventh day kept his e Bernard in dic Pasch Feria sexta redemit hominem ipso
state upon which premisses the Oratour inferreth this conclusion y Cic. pro Muren Cedat stylus gladio umbra soli sitque illa virtus in civitate prima per quam fit ipsa civitas omnium princeps Let therefore the pen give place to the sword arts to armes the shade to the sunne and let that vertue have the preheminency in the State by which the State it selfe getteth the precedency of all other let that rule in the city by which the city hath obtained the rule of the whole world The great Philosopher Aristotle seemeth to subscribe to this conclusion for in martialling morall vertues in their order hee giveth magnanimity the first place and hee yeeldeth this reason for it the more difficult and dreadfull the subject the more excellent the vertue which regulates the affection about it now death is the chiefe of all feares magnanimity therefore which conquereth this feare is the Prince of all vertues As the strength of a blade is tryed by the hardnesse of the matter which it cutteth bee it wood stone or metall so the excellency of vertue is seene in the difficulty of the object about which it is conversant and what so difficult as willingly to hazzard our life contemne death If reason can work this in a morall man shall not religion much more in a Christian If fame a garland of flowers and a small donative can produce noble thoughts resolutions in heathen shall not immortall glory and an incorruptible garland and hope of an immarcessible crowne breed more generous resolutions in those who have given their names to the Lord of Hosts to fight his battels especially considering that valour and courage as it is more honourable so it is safer than base feare For it strikes a terrour in the hearts of the enemies and often times winnes a victory without striking a blow And as our courage maketh the enemies fearefull so our timorousnesse maketh them valorous our trembling at danger bringeth more danger upon us by making us unable to resist For this cowardly affection worketh not onely upon the soule but upon the body also and as it dejecteth and dis-armeth the one so it dis-ableth and weakeneth the other But the strongest motive to fortitude and most effectuall incentive to courage and surest ground of confidence is that which now followeth in the last place The Lord thy God is with thee whither soever thou goest The Lord whose command is universall God whose power is invincible The Lord thy God whose mercies are incomprehensible is with thee whither soever thou goest If the Lord thy God bee with thee his wisedome is with thee to direct thee his power to protect thee his strength to support thee his goodnesse to maintaine thee his bounty to reward thee his word to encourage thee and if thou dye under his banner his Angels presently to carry thee into heaven Where the Israelites lamentably deplore their ill successe in war they attribute it to Gods absence z Psal 44 9. 60.10 Thou goest not forth say they with our armies And to the end that they might be more assured of Gods presence with them in their battels they carryed the Arke of God with them and were wont to aske counsell of him before hand touching the successe of their warre and in ancienter times the Priests gave answer from God by the Ephod but in the latter if we may believe a Joseph antiq Judaic Josephus they ghessed at the event by the glaring or duskinesse of the Diamond on the Priests breast-plate For if it shined brightly and cleerely it foreshewed certaine victory but if it changed the colour or lost any thing of the lustre it portended ill successe The Lacedaemonians being overtaken by the Persian horse and overwhelmed with great flights of arrowes did notwithstanding quietly sit still without making any resistance at all or defence till the sacrifices for victory were happily ended yea though many were sore hurt and some slaine out right before any good signe appeared in the entrailes but as soone as their Generall Pausanias had found good tokens of victory and perswaded his souldiers of the divine approbation of their warre they arose and with excellent courage first received the charge of the Barbarians and after charged them afresh and slew Mardonius the Persian Generall and many thousands of the rest and got the day If the conjecturall hope of the aide and assistance of a fained deity put such courage and resolution into the Lacedaemonians shall not faith in the true God and confidence in his helpe breede better blood and infuse nobler spirits into the hearts of Gods warriours and Christian souldiers God can save his and overcome the enemy as well with small forces as with great but all the forces in the world without him have no force at all Therefore though Captaines have many employments yet they must looke especially to hoc unum necessarium this one thing most needfull That they have God on their side that they make him sure for them You will say I know How may this bee done How may hee bee wrought and made thorough for us Hee sheweth at the 7. 8. verses Observe to doe according to all the Law which Moses my servant commanded thee turne not from it to the right hand or to the left that thou maist prosper whithersoever thou goest This booke of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shalt meditate therein day and night that thou maist observe to doe according to all that is written therein for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous and then thou shalt have good successe First the Lords Josuah's must looke strictly to their life and conversation so much the rather by how much in battell they are nearer death which points to them in every sword and speare and giveth them a summons at the report of every Cannon and discharging of every Piece Secondly they must looke to their companies and troupes and see that there bee never an Achan among them never a sacrilegious prophane or abominable person whose horrible crimes if they bee not discovered and punished may prove the losse of many a battell and the ruine of a whole army The Barbarians hands saith Saint b Barbari nostris vitiis fortes sunt Jerome are made strong against us by our grievous transgressions our infirmities are our enemies greatest strength our distractions their security our crying sinnes their thundering ordnance c Sal. l. 4. de provid Salvianus acknowledgeth that it was just with God to strengthen the armies of the Gothes and Vandals though they were heretickes against the right beleeving Romanes because those barbarous nations observed most strict discipline and lived more chastly and temperately than the Romane souldiers Lastly when you put on your corporall armour forget not to put on the spirituall laid out for you by the Apostle and gilt by his divine eloquence I meane d
Eph. 6.14 15 16 17. The breast-plate of righteousnesse the shooes of preparation the shield of faith the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit Learne of that fortunate Commander of the Gothes who like lightning in a moment appeared from one part of the earth to the other and nothing was able to withstand him This Emperour never put himselfe into the field to fight with his enemy before at home hee had made his peace with God Salvianus who lived at the same time and accurately observed his demeanour attributeth his miraculous victories to nothing more than to his extraordinary and admirable devotion e Sal. de prov l. 7. Ipse rex hostium usque ad diem pugnae stratus cilicio preces fundit ante bellum in oratione jacuit ad bellum de oratione surrexit The King that warreth against us to the very day in which hee draweth out his forces to fight lyeth on the ground at his devotion in sackcloth and ashes before hee goeth into the battell hee is at his prayer in private and never riseth but from his knees to fight Wrestle you in like manner with God that you may bee Israels keep his Law as strictly as your Martiall discipline and I will be bold to give you now at your parting the benediction of the Psalmist * Psal 45.3 4. Gird your swords upon your thighes O yee mighty with glory ride on with honour because of truth meeknesse and righteousnesse and your right hand shall teach you terrible things your arrowes shall bee sharpe in the heart of the Kings enemies whereby the people shall fall under you Hath not the Lord by his Vice-gerent commanded you to help and assist your brethren Bee strong therefore and of a good courage and the Lord God shall bee with you whithersoever you goe To whom c. THE CROWNE OF HUMILITY A Sermon preached in VVooll-Church Aprill 10. 1624. THE NINETEENTH SERMON MATTH 5.3 Blessed are the poore in spirit for theirs is the Kingdome of Heaven THey who desire to abide in the Tabernacle of the Almighty and rest upon his holy a Psal 15.1 Hill had need to get by heart and con without booke by continuall practice this Sermon of Christ upon the Mount which hath more ravishing straines of Eloquence more divine a phorismes of Wisedome more powerfull motives to Holinesse more certaine directions to Happinesse treasured up in it than are found in all the parenetiques of Oratours all the diatribes of Philosophers all the apophthegmes of Sages all the emblemes of Poets all the hieroglyphicks of Egyptian Priests all the tables of Lawes all the pandects of Constitutions all the digests of Imperiall Sanctions all the bodies and systemes of Canons all acts of Parliament all rules of Perfection ever published to the worlds view I dare confidently affirme that which all the ancient and later Commentatours upon it will make good that this one Sermon in Monte surmounts them all Ubi desinit Philosophus ibi incipit Medicus Where the Philosophers left and could goe no further the Physician of our soule goes on at the health and eternall salvation of our immortall spirit where they made an end of their discourses which yet came farre short of their marke there hee begins at blessednesse it selfe And doubtlesse if there be any happinesse in knowledge it is in the knowledge of happinesse which the proper owner thereof in himselfe and gracious doner to his creatures capable thereof bestoweth here as a dowry and shareth betweene eight divine vertues 1. Humility poore in spirit 2. Repentance mourning for sinne 3. Compassion ever meeke 4. Devotion hungring and thirsting for righteousnesse 5. Piety alwaies mercifull 6. Sincerity pure in heart 7. Brotherly love making peace 8. Patience enduring all for righteousnesse sake There are no straines in Musicke so delightfull as those in which discords are artificially bound in with concords nor dishes so dainty as those in which sweet things and tart or sowre are seasonably mingled nor pictures so beautifull as those in which bright colours with darke shadowes are curiously tempered nor sentences so rhetoricall as those in which contraries are fitly opposed and set one against the other Such are almost all the straines of this sweet Lesson pricked by our Saviour such are all the dishes placed in this heavenly Banquet such are the pictures set in this Gallery such are the sentences skilfully contrived into the Proeme of this Sermon wherein blessing is opposed to cursing laughing to weeping reward to punishments satisfaction to hungring and thirsting gaine to losses glory to shame and in my Text heavenly riches to earthly poverty 1. Blessed poverty because to be enriched 2. Blessed mourning because to be comforted 3. Blessed hungring because to be satisfied 4. Blessed enduring punishment because to be rewarded Blessed are the poore c. In these words our blessed Saviour the hope of our blessednesse here and blessednesse of our hope hereafter teacheth us 1. Whom we are to call blessed 2. Why. 1. Whom the humble in heart here tearmed poore in spirit 2. Why because their lowlinesse of mind entituleth them to the highest top of honour glory and happinesse a Kingdome and that in Heaven Blessed not in fruition but in hope are the poore not simply in estate but in spirit and these are also blessed not for any thing they have on earth but for that they shall have in heaven an incorruptible Crowne of glory 1. There are some to be held for blessed even in this life 2. These blessed are the poore 3. These poore are poore in spirit Or if you like better of a Logicall division than a Theologicall partition observe in this speech of our Saviour 1. An affirmation Blessed are the poore 2. A confirmation For theirs is the kingdome of Heaven The affirmation is strange and may be called a divine Paradoxe for the world accounteth blessednesse to consist in wealth and abundance not in poverty A good man in the language of the City is a wealthy man Poverty above all things is despised b Juv sat 3. Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se Quam quod ridiculos homines facit And of all poore men we have the meanest opinion of those that are poore in spirit we account not them worth the earth they tread upon yet for these Christ plats the Garland of blessednesse Because the affirmation is strange the confirmation ought to be strong and so indeed it is For saith hee theirs is the Kingdome of Heaven Whether wee take the Kingdome of Heaven for the Kingdome of grace or the Kingdome of glory they have best right to both For the Kingdome of grace is in them according to the words of our Saviour c Luk. 17.21 The Kingdome of God is with you and they shall be in the Kingdome of glory when they enter into their Masters joy therefore they are doubly happy 1. Re. 2. Spe. 1. Re in the present