serve God at home to Church they must come and there all their grasse was troden and all their water troubled What should they doe God never brings us to a perplexity so as that we must necessarily do one sinne to avoyd another Neverâ— It seemes that the Apostles had been traduced and insimulated of teaching this Doctrine That in some cases evill might be done that good might follow and therefore doth S. Paul with so much diligence discharge himself of it And yet long after this when those men who attempted the Reformation whom they called Pauperes de Lugduno taught that Doctrine That no lesse sinne might he done to escape a greater this was imputed to them then by the Roman Church for an Heresie That that was Orthodox in Saint Paul was Heresie in them that â—studyed a Reformation But the Doctrine stands like a rocke against all waves That nothing that is naturally ill intrinsecally sinne may upon any pretence be done not though our lifes nor the lifes of all the Princes in the world though the frame and beeing of the whole world though the salvation of our souls lay upon it no sinne naturally intrinsecally sinne might be done for any respect Christus peccatum factus est sed non fesit peccatum Though Christ pursued our redemption with hunger and thirst yet he would have left us unredeemed rather then have committed any sinne Of this kinde therefore naturally intrinsecally sinne and so known to be to them that did it certainely our Fathers coming to the superstitious service in the Church of Rome was not for had it been naturally sinne and so known to them when they did it they could not have been saved otherwise then by repentance after which we cannot presume in their behalfe for there are not testimonies of it If any of them had invested at any time a scruple a doubt whether they did well or no alasse how should they devest and overcome that scruple To whom durst they communicate that doubt They were under an invincible ignorance and sometimes under an indevestible scruple They had heard that Christ commanded to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadduces and so of the Herodians that is of the doctrines of those particular sects of affirming Fate and Destiny and Stoicall necessity with the Pharisees of denying Spirits and Resurrection with the Sadduces of mis-applying the prophesies concerning the Messias to the person of Herod or any earthly King But yet after all this he commands them to observe and performe the doctrine of the Pharisees because they sate in Moses chaire Though with much vehemence and bitternesse he call them Hypocrites though with many ingeminations upon every occasion he reiterate that name though he aggravate that name with other names of equall reproach Fools blinde guides painted tombes and the like yet he commands to obey them and which is most remarkable this is sayd not onely to the common sort but even to his own disciples too Christ had begunne his work of establishing a Church which should empty their Synagogues but because that worke was not yet perfected he would not withdraw the people from their Synagogues for there wrought Gods Ordinance though corrupted by the workmen which Ordinance was that the law should be publiquely expounded to the people and so it was there There God was present And though the Devill by their corruption were there too yet the Devill came in at the window God at the dore the Devill by stealth God by his declared Ordinance and Covenant And this was the case of our Fathers in the Roman Church They must know that all that hath passed between God and man hath passed Ex pacto by way of contact and covenant The best works of the best man have no proportion with the kingdome of heaven for I give God but his own But I have it Ex pacto God hath covenanted so Fac hoc vives Doe this and thou shalt live and at the last judgement Christ shall ground his Venite benedicti Come ye blessed and his Ite maledicti Goe ye accursed upon the Quia and upon the Quia non Because you have and Because you have not done this and this Faith that is of infinite value above works hath yet no proportion to the kingdome of heaven Faith saves mee as my hand feeds mee It reaches the food but it is not the food but faith saves Ex pacto by vertue of that Covenant which Christ hath made Tantummodo crede Onely beleeve To carry it to the highest the merit of Christ Iesus himselfe though it bee infinite so as that it might have redeemed infinite worlds yet the working thereof is safeliest considered in the School to be Ex pacto by vertue of that contract which had passed between the Father and him that all things should thus and thus be transacted by Christ and so man should be saved for if we shall place it meerely onely in the infinitenesse of the merit Christs death would not have needed for his first drops of bloud in his Circumcision nay his very Incarnation that God was made man and every act of his humiliation after being taken singly yet in that person God and man were of infinite merit and also if it wrought meerly by the infinitnesse of the merit it must have wrought not onely upon all men but to the salvation of the Devill for certainely there is more merit in Christ then there is sinne in the Devill But the proceeding was Ex pacto according to the contract made and to the conditions given Ipse conteret caput tuum That the Messias should bruise the Serpents head for us included our redemption That the Serpents head should be bruised excluded the Serpent himselfe This contract then between God and man as it was able to put the nature of a great fault in a small offence if we consider onely the eating of an apple and so to make even a Trespass High-Treason because it was so contracted so does this contract the Ordinance of God infuse a great vertue efficacie in the instruments of our reconciliation how mean in gifts or how corrupt in manners soever they be Circumcision in it self a low thing yea obscene subject to mis-interpretation yet by reason of the covenant He that is not circumcised that person shall be cut off from my people So also Baptism considered in it selfe a vulgar and a familiar thing yet except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of heaven The Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ a domestique a dayly thing if we consider onely the breaking of the bread and participation of the Cup but if we ascend up to the contract in the institution it is to every worthy receiver the seale and the Conduit of all the merits of Christ to his soule God threw down the walls of Jericho with
Fifty SERMONS PREACHED BY THAT LEARNED AND REVEREND DIVINE JOHN DONNE D r IN DIVINITY Late Deane of the Cathedrall Church of S. PAULS London The Second Volume LONDON Printed by Ia. Flesher for M. F. I. Marriot and R. Royston MDCXLIX TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE BASIL EARLE OF DENBY My very good Lord and Patron My Lord IN a season so tempestuous it is a great encouragement to see your Lordship called to the Helme who in your publique negociations having spent so many yeares in that so famed Common-wealth of Venice must of necessity have brought home such excellent Principles of Government that if our Fate doe not withstand your Directions we may reasonably at last expect to see our new Brittish Lady excell that ancient Adriatique Queene Neither can I offend much against the State in begging your Patronage and perusall of this Book knowing that your Lordship first mastered all the Learning of Padoa before you did adventure upon that wise Senate who amongst all her other greatnesses has ever had a principall care that Learning might not be diminished When these Sermons were preached they were terminated within the compasse of an houre but your acceptance may make them outlive the very Churches that they were preached in and give them such a perpetuity that Nec Jovis Ira nec Amor edacior multò poterit abolere For though a fiery zeale in succeeding ages hath often both ruined the Temples and casheired the gods that were worshipped in them Yet such sacrifices as these have beemy laies kept unburnt and we are suffered to know those religions that we are not allowed to practice Nor can I expect any greater advantage for the paines I have taken in publishing this Book then that posterity may know I did it when I had the favor and protection of your Lordship and was allowed to stile my selfe Your Lordships most humble Servant JO. DONNE FOR THE RIGHT HONOURABLE BOLSTRED WHITLOCK RICHARD KEEBLE 〈◊〉 JOHN LEILE Lords Commissioners of the Great Seale THe reward that many yeares since was proposed for the publishing these Sermons having been lately conferred upon me under the authority of the Great Seale I thought my selfe in gratitude bound to deliver them to the world under your Lordships protection both to show how carefull you are in dispensing that part of the Churches treasure that is committed to your disposing and to encourage all men to proceed in their industry when they are sure to find so just and equall Patrons whose fame and memory must certainely last longer then Bookes can find so noble Readers and whose present favors doe not onely keep the Living alive but the Dead from dying Your Lordships most humble Servant JO. DONNE A Table directing to the severall Texts of SCRIPTURE handled in this Book Sermons preached at Mariages Sermon I. Preached at the Earl of Bridgwaters house in London on MATTH 22. 30. For in the Resurrection they neither mary nor are given in Mariage but are as the Angels of God in heaven p. 1. Serm ' II. GEN. 2. 18. And the Lord God said It is not good that the man should be alone I will make him a Help meet for him p. 9. Serm. III. HOSEA 2. 19. And I will mary thee unto me for ever p. 15 Sermons preached at Christnings Serm. IV. REVEL 7. 17. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throne shall governe them and shall leade them unto the lively fountaines of waters and God shall wipe away all teares from their eyes p. 23 Serm. V. EPHES. 5. 25 26 27. Husbands love your wives even at Christ loved the Church and gave himselfe for it that he might sanctifie it and cleanse it by the washing of water through the Word That he might make it unto himselfe a glorious Church not having spot or wrinckle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blame p. 31 Serm. VI. 1 JOH 5. 7 8. For there are three which beare record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one And there are three which beare record in the Earth The Spirit and the water and the blood and these three agree in one p. 39 Serm. VII GAL. 3. 27. For all yee that are baptized into Christ have put on Christ. p. 50. Sermons preached at Churchings Serm. VIII CANT 5. 3. I have washed my feet how shall I defile them p. 59. Serm. IX MICAH 2. 10. Arise and depart for this is not your rest p. 67. Serm. X. A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 74. Sermons preached at Lincolns-Inne Serm. XI GEN. 28. 16 17. Then Iacob awoke out of his sleep and said Surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware And he was afraid and said How fearefull is this place This is none other but the House of God and this is the gate of Heaven p. 83 Serm. XII JOH 5. 22. The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgement to the Sonne p. 94. Serm. XIII JOH 8. 15. I judge no man p. 101. Serm. XIIII JOB 19. 26. And though after my skin wormes destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God p. 106. Serm. XV. 1 COR. 15. 50. Now this I say Brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God p. 118. Serm. XVI COLOS. 1. 24. Who now rejoyce in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his bodies sake which is the Church p. 128. Serm. XVII MAT. 18. 7. Wo unto the world because of offences p. 136. Serm. XVIII A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 142 Serm. XIX PSAL. 38. 2. For thine arrowes stick fast in me and thy hand presseth me sore p. 158. Serm. XX. PSA 38. 3. There is no soundnesse in my flesh because of thine anger neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sinne p. 162. Serm. XXI PSAL. 38. 4. For mine iniquities are gone over my head as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me p. 174. Serm. XXII A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 186. Serm. XXIII A third Serm. on the same Text. p. 192. Sermons preached at White-Hall Serm. XXIV EZEK 34. 19. And as for my flocke they eate that which ye have trodden with your feet and they drink that which yee have fouled with your feet 199. Serm. XXV A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 208. Serm. XXVI ESAI 65. 20. For the childe shall die a hundred yeers old but the sinner being a hundred yeers old shall be accursed p. 218 Serm. XXVII MARK 4. 24. Take heed what you hear p. 228 Serm. XXVIII GEN. 1. 26. And God said Let us make man in our own Image after our likenesse p. 239. Serm. XXIX A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 250 Sermons preached to the Nobility Serm. XXX JOB 13. 15. Loe though he slay me yet will I trust in him p. 262. Serm. XXXI JOB 36.
joyned to the element or to the Action then there is a true Sacrament are ill understood by two sorts of Menâ— first by them that say that it is not verbum Deprecatorium nor verbum Conciâ—natâ—riuâ— not the word of Prayer nor the word of preaching but verbum Consecratorium and verbum Sacramentale that very phrase and forme of words by which the water is sanctified and enabled of it selfe to cleanse our Soules and secondly these words are ill understood by them who had rather their children dyed unbaptized then have them baptized without a Sermon whereas the use of preaching at baptisme is to raise the whole Congregation to a consideration what they promised by others in their baptisme and to raise the Father and the Sureties to a consideration what they undertake for the childe whom they present then to be baptized for therefore says Saint Augustine Acoedaâ— verbum there is a necessity of the word Non quâ—a dicitur sed quia creditur not because the word is prâ—ached but because it is beleeved and That Beleese faith belongs not at all to the incapacity of the child but to the disposition of the rest A Sermon is usefull for the congregation not necessary for the child and the accomplishment of the Sacrament From hence then arises a convenience little lesse then necessary in a kind that this administration of the Sacrament be accompanied with preaching but yet they that would evict an absolute necessity of it out of these words force them too much for here the direct meaning of the Apostle is That the Church is cleansed by water through the word when the promises of God expressed in his word are sealed to us by this Sacrament of Baptisme for so Saint Augustine answers himselfe in that objection which he makes to himselfe Cum per Baptisâ—â—â— fundati sint quare sermoni tribuit radicem He answers In Sermone intelligendus Baptismusâ— Quia sine Sermone non perficitur It is rooted it is grounded in the word and therefore true Baptisme though it be administred without the word that is without the word preached yet it is never without the word because the whole Sacrament and the power thereof is rooted in the word in the Gospell And therefore since this Sacrament belongs to the Church as it is said here that Christ doth cleanse his Church by Baptisme as it is argued with a strong probability That because the Apostles did baptize whole families therefore they did baptize some children so we argue with an invincible certainty that because this Sacrament belongs generally to the Church as the initiatory Sacrament it belongs to children who are a part and for the most part the most innocent part of the Church To conclude As all those Virgins which were beautifull were brought into Susan Ad domum mulierum to be anointed and persumed and prepared there for Assuerus delight and pleasure though Assuerus tooke not delight and pleasure in them all so we admit all those children which are within the Covenant made by God to the elect and their seed In domum Sanctorum into the houshold of the faithfull into the communion of Saints whom he chooseth for his Mariage day that is for that Church which he will settle upon himselfe in heaven we know not but we know that he hath not promised to take any into that glory but those upon whom he hath first shed these fainter beames of glory and sanctification exhibited in this Sacrament Neither hath he threatned to exclude any but for sinne after And therefore when this blessed child derived from faithfull parents and presented by sureties within the obedience of the Church shall have been so cleansed by the washing of water through the word it is presently sealed to the possession of that part of Christs purchase for which he gave himselfe which are the meanes of preparing his Church in this life with a faithfull assurance I may say of it and to it Iam mundus es Now you are cleanâ— through the word which Christ hath spoken unto you The Seale of the promises of his Gospell hath sanctified and cleansed you but yet Mandatus mundandus says Saint Augustine upon that place It is so sanctified by the Sacrament here that it may be farther sanctified by the growth of his graces and be at last a member of that glorious Church which he shall settle upon himselfe without spot or wrinkle which was the principall and final purpose of that great love of his whereby he gave himselfe for us and made that love first a patterne of Mens loves to their wives here and then a meanes to bring Man and wife and child to the kingdome of heaven Amen SERMON VI. Preached at a Christning 1 JOHN 5. 7 8. For there are three which beare record in heaven The Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one And there are three which beare record in the Earth The Spirit and the water and the bloud and these three agree in one IN great and enormous offences we find that the law in a well governed State expressed the punishment upon such a delinquent in that form in that curse Igni aqua interdicitor let him have no use of fire and water that is no use of any thing necessary for the sustentation of life Beloved such is the miserable condition of wretched Man as that we come all into the world under the burden of that curse Aqua igni interdicimâ—r we have nothing to doe naturally with the spirituall water of life with the fiery beames of the holy Ghost till he that hath wrought our restitution from this banishment restore us to this water by powring out his owne bloud and to this lively fire by laying himselfe a cold and bloudlesse carcasse in the bowels of the Earth till he who haptized none with waâ—er direct his Church to doe that office towards us and he without whom none was baptized with fire perfect that Ministeriall worke of his Church with the effectuall seales of his grace for this is his testimony the witnesse of his love Yea that law in cases of such great offences expressed it selfe in another Malediction upon such offenders appliable also to us Intestabiles sunte let them be Intestable Now this was a sentence a Condemnation so pregnant so full of so many heavy afflictions as that he who by the law was made intestable was all these ways intestable First he was able to make no Testament of his owne he had lost all his interest in his owne estate and in his owne will Secondly he could receive no profit by any testament of any other Man he had lost all the effects of the love and good disposition of other Men to him Thirdly he was Intestable so as that he could not testifie he should not be beleeved in the behalfe of another and lastly the testimony of another could doe him no good no Man could be admitted to
was come and gone for so much as belonged to the accomplishing of the types of the old law then Christ came againe to us by water and bloud in that wound which he received upon his side from which there flowed out miraculously true water true bloud This wound Saint Augustine calls Ianuam utriusque Sacramenti the doore of both sacraments where we see he acknowledges but two and both presented in this water and bloud and so certainely doe most of the fathers make this wound if not the foundation yet at least a sacrament of both the sacraments And to this water and bloud doth the Apostle here without doubt aime principally which he onely of all the Evangelists hath recorded and with so great asseveration and assurednesse in the recording thereof He that saw it bare record and his record is true and he knoweth that he saith truth that yee might beleeve it Here then is the matter which these six witnesses must be beleeved in here is Integritas Iesu quae non solvenda the intirenesse of Christ Jesus which must not be broken That a Saviour which is Iesus appointed to that office that is Christ figured in the law by ablutions of water and sacrifices of bloud is come and hath perfected all those figures in water and bloud too and then that he remaines still with us in water and bloud by meanes instituted in his Church to wash away our uncleannesses and to purge away our iniquities and to apply his worke unto our Soules this is Integritas Iesu Iesus the sonne of God in heaven Jesus the Redeemer of man upon earth Jesus the head of a Church to apply that to the end this is Integritas Iesu all that is to be beleeved of him Take thus much more that when thou comest to hearken what these witnesses shall say to this purpose thou must finde something in their testimony to prove him to be come not onely into the world but into thee He is a mighty prince and hath a great traine millions of ministring spirits attend him and the whole army of Martyrs follow the Lambe wheresoever he goes Though the whole world be his Court thy soule is his bedchamber there thou maist contract him there thou maist lodge and entertaine Integrum Iesum thy whole Saviour And never trouble thy selfe how another shall have him if thou have him all leave him and his Church to that make thou sure thine owne salvation When he comes to thee he comes by water and by bloud If thy heart and bowels have not yet melted in compassion of his passion for thy soule if thine eyes have not yet melted in tears of repentancâ— and contrition he is not yet come by water into thee If thou have suffered nothing for sinne nor found in thy selfe a chearfull disposition to suffer if thou have found no wresting in thy selfe no resistance of Concupiscences he that comes not to set peace but to kindle this war is not yet come into thee by bloud Christ can come by land by purchases by Revenues by temporall blessings for so he did still convey himselfe to the Jewes by the blessing of the land of promise but here he comes by water by his owne passion by his sacraments by thy tears Christ can come in a mariage and in Musique for so he delivers himselfe to the spouse in the Canticles but here he comes in bloud which comming in water and bloud that is in meanes for the salvation of our soules here in the militant Church is the comming that he stands upon and which includes all the Christian Religion and therefore he proves that comming to them by these three great witnesses in heaven and three in earth For there are three which beare record in heaven The Father the word and the holy Ghost and these three are one And there are three which bear record in the earth The spirit and the water and the bloud and these three agree in one By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be confirmed says Christ out of the law That 's as much as can be required in any Civill or Criminall businesse and yet Christ gives more testimony of himselfe for here he produces not Duos testes but Duas Classes two rankes of witnesses and the fullest number of each not two but three in heaven and three in earth And such witnesses upon earth as are omni exceptione majores without all exception It is not the testimony of earthly men for when Saint Paul produces them in abundance The Patriarch the Iudges the Prophets the elders of the old times of whom he exhibits an exact Catalogue yet he calls all them but Nubes testium cloudes of witnesses for though they be cloudes in Saint Chrysostomes sense that they invest us and enwrap us and so defend us from all diffidence in God we have their witnesse what God did for them why should we doubt of the like though they be cloudes in Athanasius sense they being in heaven showre downe by their prayers the dew of Gods grace upon the Church Though they be cloudes they are but cloudes some darkenesse mingled in them some controversies arising from them but his witnesses here are Lux inaccessibilis that light that no eye can attaine to and Pater Luminum the father of lights from whom all these testimonies are derived When God imployed a man to be the witnesse of Christ because men might doubt of his testimony God was content to assigne him his Compurgators when Iohn Baptist must preach that the kingdome of God was at hand God fortifies the testimony of his witnesse then Hic enim est for this is he of whom that is spoken by the prophet Esay and lest one were not enough he multiplies them as it is written in the prophets Iohn Baptist might be thought to testifie as a man and therefore men must testifie for him but these witnesses are of a higher nature these of heaven are the Trinity and those of earth are the sacraments and seales of the Church The prophets were full of favor with God Abraham full of faith Stephen full of the Holy Ghost many full of grace and Iohn Baptist a prophet and more then a prophet yet never any prophet never any man how much soever interessed in the favor of Almighty God was such an instrument of grace as a sacrament or as Gods seales and institutions in his Church and the least of these six witnesses is of that nature and therefore might be beleeved without more witnesses To speake then first of the three first the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost it was but a poore plot of the devill to goe about to rob us of their testimony for as long as we have the three last the spirit the water and bloud we have testimony enough of Christ because God is involved in his ordinance and though he be not tyed to the worke of the
but every poore soule in the Church may heare all these three witnesses testifying to him Integrum Iesum suum that all which Christ Jesus hath done and suffered appertaines to him but yet to bring it nearer him in visible and sensible things There are tres de terra three upon earth too The first of these three upon earth is the Spirit which Saint Augustine understands of the spirit the soule of Christ for when Christ commended his spirit into the hands of his Father this was a testimony that he was Verus hemo that he had a soule and in that he laid downe his spirit his soule for no Man could take it from him and tooke it againe at his pleasure in his resurrection this was a testimony that he was Verus Deus true God And so says Saint Augustine Spiritus The spirit that is anima Christi the soule of Christ did testifie De integritate Iesu all that belonged to Jesus as he was God and as he was Man But this makes the witnesses in heaven and the witnesses in earth all one for the personall testimony of Christs preaching and living and dying the testimony which was given by these three Persons of the Trinity was all involv'd in the first rank of witnesses Those three which are in heaven Other later Men understand by the Spirit here the Spirit of every Regenerate Man and that in the other heavenly witnesses the spirit is Spiritus sanctus the spirit that is holy in it selfe the holy Ghost and here it is Spiritus sanctificatus that spirit of Man which is made holy by the holy Ghost according to that The same spirit beareth witnesse with our spirit that we are the children of God But in this sense it is too particular a witnesse too singular to be intended here for that speakes but to one Man at once The spirit therefore here is Spiritus oris the word of God the Gospell and the preaching and ministration thereof We are made Ministers of the New testament of the spirit that giveth life And if the ministration of death were glorious how shall not the ministration of the spirit be more glorious It is not therefore the Gospell meerly but the preaching of the Gospell that is this spirit Spiritus sacerdotis vehioulum Spiritus Dei The spirit of the Minister is not so pure as the spirit of God but it is the chariot the meanes by which God will enter into you The Gospell is the Gospell at home at your house and there you doe well to read it and reverence it as the Gospell but yet it is not Spiritus it is not this Spirit this first witnesse upon earth but onely there where God hath blessed it with his institution and ordinance that is in the preaching thereof The stewardship and the dispensation of the graces of God the directing of his threatnings against refractary and wilfull sinners the directing of his promises to simple and supple and conâ—rite penitents the breaking of the bread the applying of the Gospell according to their particular indigences in the preaching thereof this is the first witnesse The second witnesse here is The water and I know there are some Men which will not have this to be understood of the water of Baptisme but onely of the naturall effect of water that as the abtutions of the old law by water did purge us so we have an inward testimony that Christ doth likewise wash us cleane so the water here must not be so much as water but a metaphoricall and figurative water These men will not allow water in this place to have any relation to the sacrament and Saint Ambrose was so far from doubting that water in this place belonged to the sacrament that he applies all these three witnesses to the Sacrament of Baptisme Spiritus mentem renovat All this is done in Baptisme says he The Spirit renewes and disposes the mind Aqua perficit ad Lavacrum The water is applied to cleanse the body Sanguis Spectat ad preâ—lium and the bloud intimates the price and ransome which gives force and virtue to this sacrament And so also says he in another place In sanguine mors in the bloud there is a representation of death in the water of our buriall and in the spirit of our owne life Some will have none of these witnesses on earth to belong to baptisme not the water and Ambrose will have all spirit and water and bloud to belong to it Now both Saint Ambrose who applies all the three witnesses to Baptisme and those later men which deny any of the witnesses to belong to baptisme doe both depart from the generall acceptation of these words that water here and onely that signifies the Sacrament of baptisme For as in the first creation the first thing that the spirit of God is noted to have moved upon was the waters so the first creature that is sanctified by Christs institution to our Salvation is this element of water The first thing that produced any living sensible creature was the water Primus liquor qnod viveret edidit ne mirum sit quod in Baptismo aquae aâ—nimare noverunt water brought forth the first creatures says Tertullian That we should not wonder that water should bring forth Christians The first of Gods afficting miracles in Egypt was the changing of water into bloud and the first miracle of grace in the new Testament was the changing of water into wine at the mariage So that water hath still been a subject and instrument of Gods conversation with man So then Aqua janua ecclesiae we cannot come into the Church but by water by baptisme for though the Church have taken knowledge of other Baptismes Baptisma sanguinis which is Martyrdome and Baptisma Flaminis which is a religious desire to be baptized when no meanes can be got yet there is no other sacrament of Baptisme but Baptisma Fluminis the Baptisme of water for the rest Conveniunt in causando sed non in significando says the Schoole that is God doth afford a plentifull retribution to the other baptismes Flaminis and Sanguinis but God hath not ordained them to be outward seales and significations of his grace and to be witnesses of Iesus his comming upon earth as this water is And therefore they that provide not duly to bring their children to this water of life not to speake of the essentiall necessity thereof they take from them one of the witnesses that Iesus is come into them and as much as they can they shut the Church dore against them they leave them out of the Arke and for want of this water cast them into that generall water which overflowes all the rest of the world which are not brought within the Covenant by this water of baptisme For though in the first Translation of the new Testament into Syriaque that be said in the sixth verse that Jesus is come per manus
doe not meane in his intention that the virgin Mary is equall to the Trinity but onely an assistant this is not onely an impertinent but an impious addition to that God that needs no assistant And as in our baptisme we take no other name necessarily but the name of Christ So in our Christian life we accept no other distinctions of Iesuits or Franciscans but onely Christians for we are baptized into his name and the whole life of a regenerate man is a Baptisme For as in putting on Christ sanctification doth accompany faith so in baptisme the imitation of his death that is mortification and the application of his passion by fulfilling the sufferings of Christ in our flesh is that baptisme into his death Which doe so certainly follow one another that he that is truly baptized into the name of Christ is also baptized into his death as that Saint Paul couples them together Was Paul crucified for you or were you baptized into the name of Paâ—l If you were not baptized into his name then you have no interest no benefit by his death nor by any thing which he suffered that his merits or his works of supereragation should be applied to you And if he did not suffer for you if all that any Paul much lesse any Ignatins could doe were but enough and too little for himselfe then you are not baptized into his name nor to be denominate by him This is then to be Baptized into Christs death Habere reddere testimonium Christam pro me mortuum to be sure that Chirst dyed for me and to be ready to dye for him so that I may fulfill his sufferings and may think that all is not done which belongs to my Redemption except I finde a mortification in my selfe Not that any mortification of mine works any thing as a cause of my redemption but as an assurance and testimony of it 〈◊〉 sit pignus sigilluâ— redemptionis It is a pledge and it is a Seale of my redemption Christ calls his death a Baptisme So Saint Augustine calls our Baptisme a death Quod crux Christo Sepâ—lcrâ—m id nobis Baptisma Baptisme to us says he is our Croffe and our passion and our buriall that is in that we are conformed to Christ as he suffered dyed and was buried Because if we be so baptized into his Name and into his death we are thereby dead to sinne and have dyed the death of the righteous Since then Baptisme is the death of sinne and there cannot be this death this conquest this victory over sinne without faith there must necessarily faith concurre with this baptisme for if there be not faith none in the child none in the parents none in the sureties none in the Church then there is no baptisme performed Now in the Child there is none actually In the sureties we are not sure there is any for their infidelity cannot impeach the sacrament The child is well baptized though they should be misbeleevers for when the Minister shall aske them Doest thou beleeve in God dost thou renounce the Devill perchance they may ly in their owne behalfes perchance they doe not beleeve they doe not renounce but they speake truth in the behalfe of the child when they speake in the voyce of the Church who receives this child for her childe and binds her selfe to exhibit and reach out to that child her spirituall paps for her future nourishment thereof How comes it to passe says Saint Augustine that when a man presents another mans child at the font to be baptized if the Minister should aske him Shall this man child be a valiant man or a wise man shall this woman child be a chast and a continent woman the surety would answer I cannot tell and yet if he be ask'd of that child of so few dayes old Doth that child beleeve in God now will he renounce the Devill hereafter the surety answers confidently in his behalfe for the beleefe and for the renouncing How comes this to passe says Saint Augustine He answers to this that as Sacramentum Corporis Christi est secundum modum Corpus Christi so Sacramentum fidei est fides As the Sacrament of the body and bloud of Christ is in some sense and in a kinde the body and bloud of Christ says Augustine so in the sacrament of faith says he that is Baptisme there is some kinde of faith Here is a child borne of faithfull parents and there is the voyce of God who hath sealed a Covenant to them and their seed Here are sureties that live by Gods gratious spirit in the unity and in the bosome of the Church and so the parents present it to them they present it to the Church and the Church takes it into her care It is still the naturall child of her parents who begot it it is the spirituall child of the Sureties that present it but it is the Christian child of the Church who in the sacrament of Baptisme gives it a new inanimation and who if either parents or sureties should neglect their parts will have a care of it and breed it up to a perfection and full growth of that faith whereof it hath this day an inchoation and beginning As then we have said that Baptisme is a death a death of sinne and as we said before sinne dyes not without faith so also can there be no death of sinne without sorrow and contrition which onely washes away sinne as therefore we see the Church and Christs institution furnishes this child with faith which it hath not of it selfe so let us bring to this action that sorrow and that condoling that we produce into the world such miserable wretches as even by peccatum involuntarium by that sinne to which no act nay no will of theirs concurred that is Originall sinne are yet put into the state of damnation But let us also rejoyce in our owne and this childes behalfe that as we that have been baptized so this child that shall be have and shall put on Christ Jesus in Baptisme Both as a garment for Sacramenta sunt vestimenta As Christ is a garment so the Sacraments are Christs garment and as such a garment as Ornat militem and convincit desertores It gives him that continues in Gods battailes a dignity and discovers him that forsakes Gods tents to be a fugitive Baptisme is a garland in which two ends are brought together he begins aright and perseveres so Ornat militem It is an honour to him that fights out in Gods battaile but Convincit Desertorem Baptisme is our prest-money and if we forsake our colours after we have received that even that forfaits our lives our very having been baptized shall aggravate our condemnation Yea it is such a garment as those of the children of Israel in the wildernesse which are by some expositors thought to have growne all the forty yeares with their bodies for so by Gods blessed provision
there is ablutiâ— pedum a washing of our feet of our steps and walkes in this world and that 's by repentance sealed in the other Sacrament and properly that is for actuall sinnes Thirdly in this ablution there is an Ego lavi there is a washing and I my selfe doe something towards this cleansing of my selfe And fourthly it is Lavi it is I have washed not Lavabo it is not I will wash it is already done it is not put off to mine age nor to my death bed but Lavi I have washed And lastly it is Pedes meas I have washed mine owne feet for if by my teaching I cleanse others and remaine by my bad life in foule ways my selfe I am not within this text Lavi pedes meos I have not washed my feet But if we have sincerely performed the first part we shall performe the other too Quomodo we shall come into a religious detestation and indignation of falling into the same foulenesse againe To passe then through all these for of all these that 's true which Saint Basil says of all words in the Scriptures Habent minutissime particulae suae mysteria Every word hath force and use as in Pearle every seed Pearle is as medicinall as the greatest so there is a restorative nature in every word of the Scriptures and in every word the soule findes a rise and help for her devotion To begin with the first the necessity of washing consider us in our first beginning Concepti in peccatis our Mothers conceived us in sin and being wrapped up in uncleannesse there can any Man bring a cleane thing out of filthinesse There is not one for as we were planted in our Mothers wombe in conception so we were transplanted from thence into this world in our Baptisme Nascimur filii â—rae for we are by nature the children of wrath as well as others And as in the bringing forth and bringing up of the best and most precious and most delicate plants Men employ most dung so the greatest persons where the spirit and grace of God doth not allay that intemperance which naturally arises out of abundance and provocation and out of vanity and ambitious glory in outward oftentations there is more dung more uncleannesse more sinne in the conception and birth of their children then of meaner and poorer parents It is a degree of uncleannesse to fixe our thoughts too earnestly upon the uncleannesse of our conception and of our birth when wee call that a testimony of a right comming if we come into the world with our head forward in a head-long precipitation and when we take no other testimony of our being alive but that we were heard cry and for an earnest and a Prophecy that we shall be viri sanguinum et dâ—losi bloudy and deceitfull Men false and treacherous to the murdering of our owne soules we come into this world as the Egyptians went out of it swallowed and smothered in a red sea Pueri sanguinum infirmi weake and bloudy infants at our birth But to carry our thoughts from materiall to sptrituall uncleannesses In peccatâ— concepti we were conceived in sinne but who can tell us how That flesh in our mothers wombe which we are having no sinne in it selfe for that masse of flesh could not be damned if there never came a soule into it and that soule which comes into that flesh from Godâ— having no sinne in it neither for God creates nothing infected with sinne neither should that soule be damned if it came not into that body The body being without sinne and the soule being without sinne yet in the first minute that this body and soule meet and are united we become in that instant guilty of Adams sinne committed six thousand years before Such is our sinne and uncleannesse in Originall sinne as the subtillest Man in the Schooles is never able to tell us how or when we contracted that sinne but all have it And therefore if there be any any any-where of that generation that are pure in their owne eyes and yet are not washed from their filthinesse as Solomon speakes Erubesce vas stercorum says good Saint Bernard If it be a vessell of gold it is but a vessell of excrements if it be a bed of curious plants it is but a bed of dung as their tombes hereafter shall be but glorious covers of rotten carcasses so their bodies are now but pampered covers of rotten soules Erubescat vas stercorum let that vessell of uncleannesse that barrell of dung confesse a necessity of washing and seeke that and rejoyce in that for thus farre that is to the pollution of Originall sinne in peccato concepti and nasâ—imur filii iraâ— wee are conceived in sinne first and then we are borne the children of wrath But where 's our remedy Why for this for this originall uncleannesse is the water of Baptisme Opâ—rtet nos renasci we must be borne againe we must There is a necessity of Baptisme As we are the children of Christian parents we have Ius ad rem a right to the Covenant we may claime baptisme the Church cannot deny it us And as we are baptized in the Christian Church we have Ius in re a right in the Covenant and all the benefits thereof all the promises of the Gospell we are sure that we are conceived in sinne and sure that we are borne children of wrath but not sure that we are cleansed or reconciled to God by any other meanes then that which he hath ordained Baptisme The Spirit of God moved first upon the water and the spirit of life grew first in the water Primus liquor quod viveret edidit The first living creatures in the first creation were in the waters and the first breath of spirituall life came to us from the water of baptisme In the Temple there was Mare aeneum a brasen sea In the Church there is Mare aureum a golden sea which is Baptisterium the font in which we discharge our selves of all our first uncleannesses of all the guiltinesse of Originall sinne but because we contract new uncleannesses by our uncleane ways here therefore there must bee Ablutio pedum a washing of our feet of our ways of our actions which is our second branch Cecidimus in lutum super acervum lapidum says Saint Bernard we fell by Adams fall into the durt but from that we are washed in baptisme but we fell upon a heape of sharpe stones too and we feel those wounds and those bruises all our lives after Impingimus meridie we stumble at noone day In the brightest light of the Gospell in the brightest light of grace in the best strength of Repentance and our resolutions to the contrary yet we stumble and fall againe Duo nobis pedes says that Father Natura Consâ—eâ—â—do we stand says he upon two feet Nature and Custome and we are lame of one foot hereditarily
us First therefore let us find that we are in our bed that we are naturally unable to rise We are not born Noble Saint Paul considers himselfe and his birth and his Title to grace at best That he was a Iew and of the Tribe of Benjamin and of holy parents and within the Covenant yet all this rais'd him not out of his bed for sayes he we were by nature the Children of wrath as well as others But where then was the rising that is in the true receiving of Christ. To as many as received him he gave Potestatem praerogativae to be the sons of God yea power to become the sons of God as it is in our last Translation Christianus non de Christiano nascitur nec facit generatio sed regeneratio Christianum A Christian Mother does not conceive a Christian onely the Christian Church conceives Christian Children Iudaeus circumcisus generat filium incircumcisum A Jew is circumcised but his child is born uncircumcised The Parents may be up and ready but their issue abed and in their bloud till Baptisme have wash'd them and till the spirit of Regeneration have rais'd them from that bed which the sins of their first Parents have laid them in and their own continuing sins continued them in This rising is first from Originall sin by baptism and then from actuall sin best by withdrawing from the occasions of tentation to future sins after repentance of former But it is not Arise and stand still But Surgite ite arise and depart But whither Into actions contrary to those sinfull actions and habits contrary to those habits Let him that is righteous be righteous still and him that is holy be holy still and that cannot be without this for it is but a small degree of Convalescence and reparation of health to be able to rise out of our bed to be able to forbear sin Qui febri laborat post morbum infirmior est though the fever be off we are weake after it though we have left a sinne there is a weaknesse upon us that makes us reel and leane towards that bed at every turne decline towards that sinne upon every occasion And therefore according to that example and pattern of Gods proceeding at the creation who first made all and then digested and then perfected them Primò faciamus deinde venustemus says Saint Ambrose first let us make us up a good body a good habitude a good constitution by leaving our beds our occasions of tentations and then venustemus let us dresse our selves adorne our selves yea arme our selves with the whole armour of God which is faith in Christ Jesus and a holy and sanctified conversation Memento peregisse te aliquid restare aliquid Remember and do not deceive thy selfe to remember that which was never done but remember truely that thou hast done something towards making sure thy salvation already and that thou hast much more to doe Divertisse te ad Refectionem non ad defectionem that God hath given thee a bayting place a resting place peace in conscience for all thy past sinnes in thy present repentance but it is to refresh thy selfe with that peace it is not to take new courage and strength to sinne againe Let not the ease which thou hast found in the remission of sinnes now embolden thee to commit them againe not to trust to that strength which thou hast already recovered but arise and depart avoid old tentations and apply thy selfe to a new course in the world and in a calling for there may be as much sinne to leave the world as to cleave to the world and he may be as inexcusable at the last day that hath done Nothing in the world as hee that hath done some ill Now we noted it to be a particular degree of Gods mercy that he insisted upon it that he pressed it that he urged it with a reason doe thus says God for it stands thus with you It is always a boldnesse to aske a reason of those decrees of God which were founded and established onely in his owne gratious will and pleasure In those cases Exitiales vaculae our quomodo to aske why God elected some and how it can consist with his goodnesse to leave out others there the how and why are dangerous and deadly Monosyllables But of Gods particular purposes upon us and revealed to us which are so to be wrought and executed upon us as that we our selves have a fellow-working and co-operation with God of those it becomes us to aske and to know the reason When the Angell Gabriel promised such unexpected blessings to Zachary Zachary askes whereby shall I know this and the Angel does not leave him unsatisfied When that Angel promises a greater miracle to the blessed Virgin Mary she says also Quomodo how shall this be and the Angel settles and establishes the assurance in her Whatsoever we are bid to beleeve whatsoever we are bid to doe God affords us a reason for it and we may try it by reason but because that sinner whom in this text he speakes to to arise and depart is likely to stand upon false reasons against his rising to murmur and ask Cur or quomodo why should I arise since me thinkes I lye at my ease how shall I arise that am already at the top of my wishes God who is loath to lose any soule that he undertakes followes him with this reason Quia non requies Arise and depart for here is not your rest Now this rest is in it selfe so gratefull so acceptable a thing as all the service which David and Solomon could expresse towards God in the dedication of the Temple which was then in intention and project is described in that phrase Arise O Lord and come into thy rest thou and the Arke of thy strength God himselfe hath a Sabbath in our Sabbaths It is welcome to God and it is so welcome to Man as that Saint Augustine preaching upon those words Qui posuit fines tuos pacem He maneth peace in thy borders as we translate it he observed such a passion such an alteration in his auditory as that he tooke knowledge of it in his Sermon Nihil dixeram nihil exposuerans verbum pronunciavi exclamastis says he I have entred into no part of my text I have scarce read my text I did but name the word Rest and Peace of conscience and you are all transported affected with an exultation with an acclamation in the hunger and ambition of it That that the naturall that that the supernaturall Man affects is Rest Inquire pacem persequere eam it is not onely sequeâ—t but persequere seek peace ensue it follow this rest this peace so as if it fly from you if any interruption any heavinesse of heart any warfare of this world come between you and it yet you never give
kingdome here and there is a Communion in Armes as well as a communion in Triumph Leaving then that acceptation of flesh and bloud which many thinke to be intended in this text that is Animalis caro flesh and bloud that must be maintained by eating and drinking and preserved by propagation and generation that flesh and that bloud cannot inherit heaven where there is no marying nor giving in mariage but Erimus sicut Angeli we shall be as the Angels though such a heaven in part Mahomet hath proposed to his followers a heaven that should abound with worldly delights and such a heaven the Disciples of Origen and the Millenarians that look for one thousand years of all temporall felicity proposed to themselves And though amongst our latter men Cajetan doe thinke that the Apostle in this text bent himselfe upon that doctrine non caro non Animalis caro flesh and bloud that is no carnall no worldly delights are to be looked for in heaven leaving that sense as too narrow and too shallow for the holy Ghost in this place in which he hath a higher reach we shall determine our selves at this time in these too acceptations of this phrase of speech first non caro that is non caro corrupta flesh and bloud cannot sinfull flesh corrupt flesh flesh not discharged of sinfull corruption here by repentance and Sanctification and the operation of Gods spirit such flesh cannot inherit the kingdome of God here Secondly noncar◠is non car◠corruptibilis flesh and bloud cannot that is flesh that is yet subject to corruption and dissolution and naturall passions and impressions tending to defectivenesse flesh that is still subject to any punishment that God lays upon flesh for sinne such flesh cannot inherit the kingdome of God hereafter for our present possession of the kingdome of God here our corrupt flesh must be purged by Sanctification here for the future kingdome our naturall Corruptiblenesse must be purged by glorification there We will make the last part first as this flesh and this bloud by devesting the corruptiblenesse it suffers here by that glorification shall inherit that kingdome and not stay long upon it neither For of that we have spoken conveniently before of the resurrection it selfe Now we shall looke a little into the qualities of bodies in the resurrection and that not in the intricacies and subtilties of the Schoole but onely in that one patterne which hath been given us of that glory upon earth which is the Transfiguration of Christ for that Transfiguration of his was a representation of a glorified body in a glorified state And then in the second place we shall come to our first part what that flesh and bloud is that is denied to be capable of the inheritance of that kingdome here that is that earnest of heaven and that inchoation of heaven which may be had in this world and in that part we shall see what this inheritance what this title to heaven here and what this kingdome of God that heaven which is proposed to us here is First then for the first acceptation which is of the later resurrection no man denies that which Melancthon hath collected and established to be the summe of this text Statuit resurrectionem in corpore sed non quale jam corpus est The Apostle establishes a resurrection of the body but yet not such a body as this is It is the same body and yet not such a body which is a mysterious consideration that it is the same body and yet not such as it selfe nor like any other body of the same substance But what kind of body then We content ourselves with that Transfiguratio specimen appositissimum Resurrectionis the Transfiguration of Christ is the best glasse to see this resurrection and state of glory in But how was that transfiguration wrought We content our selves with Saint Hieromes expressing of it non pristinam amisit veritatem vel formam corporis Christ had still the same ture and reall body and he had the same forme and proportion and lineaments and dimensions of his body in it selfe Transfiguratio non faciem subtraxit sed splendorem ad didit sayes he It gave him not another face but it super-immitted such a light such an illustration upon him as by that irradiation that coruscation the beames of their eys were scattered and disgregated dissipated so as that they could not collect them as at other times nor constantly and confidently discerne him Moses had a measure a proportion of this but yet when Moses came down with his shining face though they were not able to looke long upon him they knew him to be Moses When Christ was transfigured in the presence of Peter Iames and Iohn yet they knew him to be Christ. Transfiguration did not so change him nor shall glorification so change us as that we shall not be known There is nothing to convince a man of error nothing in nature nothing in Scriptures if he beleeve that he shall know those persons in heaven whom he knew upon earth and if he conceive soberly that it were a lesse degree of blessednesse not to know them then to know them he is bound to beleeve that he shall know them for he is bound to beleeve that all that conduces to blessednes shall be given him The School resolves that at the Judgement all the sins of all shall be manifested to all even those secret sinfull thoughts that never came out of the heart And when any in the School differs or departs from this cōmon opinion they say onely that those sins which have been in particular repented shall not be manifested all others shall And therefore it is a deep uncharitablenes to reproach any man of sins formerly repented and a deep uncharitablenesse not to beleeve that he whom thou seest at the Communion hath repented his former sins Reproach no man after thou hast seen him receive with last years sins except thou have good evidence of his Hypocrisie then or of his Relapsing after For in those two cases a man remaines or becomes againe guilty of his former sinnes Now if in heaven they shall know the hearts of one another whose faces they never knew before there is lesse difficulty in knowing them whom we did know before From this transfiguration of Christ in which the mortall eye of the Apostles did see that representation of the glory of Christ the Schooles make a good argument that in heaven we shall doe it much more And though in this case of the Transfiguration in which the eyes of mortall men could have no proportion with that glory of heaven this may bee well said to have been done either Moderando lumen that God abated that light of glory or Confortando visum that God exalted their sense of seeing supernaturally no such distinctions or modifications will bee needfull in heaven because how highly soever the body of my
have born the image of the earthly so let us beare the Image of the heavenly there from Tertullian it must necessarily be referred to the first Resurrection the Resurrection by grace in this life for says he there Non refertur ad substantiam resurrectionis sed ad prâ—â—sentis temporis disciplinam the Apostle does not speak of our glorious resurrection at last but of our religious resurrection now Portemus non portabimus Let us bear his image says the Apostle Let us now not that we shall bear it at the last day Praeceptive dictum non promissive The Apostle delivers it as a duty that we must not as a reward that wee shall bear that image And therefore in Tertulliâ—â— construction it is not onely indifferent and probable but necessary to refer this Text to the first Resurrection in this life where it will be fittest to pursue that order which we proposed at first first to consider Quid regnum what Kingdome it is that is pretended to And then Quid haeredetas what estate and term is to be had in it It is an Inheritance And lastly Quid care sanguis what flesh and blood it is that is excluded out of this Kingdome Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God First for this kingdome of God in this world let us be glad that it is a kingdome that it is so much that the government is taken out of the hands of Saints and Angels and re-united re-annexed to the Crown restoted to God to whom we may come immediately and be accepted Let us be glad that it is a kingdome so much and let us be glad that it is but a kingdome and no more not a Tyranny That we come not to a God that will damâ—e us because he will damâ—e us but a God that proposes Conditions and enables us to performe those conditions in such a measure as he will vouchsafe to accept from us A God that governs us by his word for in his word is truth and by his law for in his law is clearnesse Will you aske what this kingdome of God is What did you take it to be or what did you mean by it when even now you said with me in the Lords prayer Thy kingdome come Did you deliberately and determinately pray for the day of Judgment and for his comming in the kingdome of glory then Were you all ready for that when you said so Purae conscientiae grandis audaciae est It is a very great confidence and if it be not grounded upon a very pure conscience it must have a worse name Regnum Dei postul are judicium non timeâ—â— To call upon God for the day of Judgment upon confidence of our own righteousnesse is a shrewd distemper To say Vâ—ni Domine Iesu come Lord Iesuâ— come and take us as thou findst us is a dangerous issue But Adveniat regnum and then veniat Rex let his kingdome of grace come upon us in this life and then let himselfe come too in his good time and when his good pleasure shall be in the kingdome of Glory Sive velimus sive nolimus regnum Dei utique veniet what need we hasten him provoke him says Saint Augustine whether we will or no his kingdome his Judgment will come Nay before we called for it even his kingdome of grace was come Christ said to the Scribe Non longè Thou art not far from the kingdome of God And to the Pharisees themselves he said Intra vos the kingdome of God is among you within you But where there is a whole Hospitall of three hundred blinde men together as there is at Paris there is as much light amongst them there as amongst us here and yet all they have no light so this kingdome of God is amongst us all and yet God knows whether we see it or no. And therefore Adveniat ut manifestetâ—r Deus says S. Augustine his kingdom come that we may discerne it is come that we may see that God offers it to us and Adveniat regnum ut manefestemur Deo his kingdome come so that he may discernus in our reception of that Kingdom and our obedience to it He comes when we see him and he comes again when we receive him Quid est Regnum ejus veniat quà m ut nos bonos inveniat Then his Kingdome comes when he finds us willing to be Subjects to that Kingdome God is a King in his own right By Creation by Redemption by many titles and many undoubted claimes But Aliud est Regem esse aliud regnare It is one thing to be a King another to have Subjects in obedience A King is not the lesse a King for a Rebellion But Verè justum regnum est says that Father quando Rex vult homines habere sub se cupiunt homines esse sub â—o when the King would wish no other Subjects nor the Subjects other King then is that Kingdom come come to a durable and happy state When God hath shewed himself in calling us and wee have shewed our willingnesse to come when God shewes his desire to preserve us and we adhere onely to him when there is a Dominus regnat Latetur terra When our whole Land is in possession of peace and plenty and the whole Church in possession of the Word and Sacraments when the Land rejoyces because the Lord reigns and when there is a Dominus regnat Laetentur Insulae Because the Lord reigneth every Island doth rejoice that is every man that every man that is encompassed within a Sea of calamities in his estate with a Sea of diseases in his body with a Sea of scruples in his understanding with a Sea of transgressions in his conscience with a Sea of sinking and swallowing in the sadnesse of spirit may yet open his eyes above water and find a place in the Arke above all these a recourse to God and joy in him in the Ordinances of a well established and well governed Church this is truly Regnum Dei the Kingdome of God here God is willing to be present with us that he declares in the preservation of his Church And we are sensible of his presence and residence with us and that wee declare in our frequent recourses to him hither and in our practise of those things which we have learnt here when we are gone hence This then is the blessed state that wee pretend to in the Kingdome of God in this life Peace in the State peace in the Church peace in our Conscience In this that wee answer the motions of his blessed Spirit here in his Ordinance and endevour a conformity to him in our life and conversation In this hee is our King and wee are his Subjects and this is this Kingdome of God the Kingdome of Grace Now the title by which we make claim to this Kingdome is in our text Inheritance Who can and who
people and gather them so So Christ tells us things in darknesse And so Christ speakes to us in our Ear And these low voices and holy whisperings and halfe-silences denote to us the inspirations of his Spirit as his Spirit beares witnesse with our spirit as the Holy Ghost insinuates himselfe into our soules and works upon us so by his private motions But this is not Gods ordinary way to be whispering of secrets The first thing that God made was light The last thing that he hath reserved to doe is the manifestation of the light of his Essence in our Glorification And for Publication of himselfe here by the way he hath constituted a Church in a Visibility in an eminency as a City upon a hill And in this Church his Ordinance is Ordinance indeed his Ordinance of preaching batters the soule and by that breach the Spirit enters His Ministers are an Earth-quake and shake an earthly soule They are the sonnes of thunder and scatter a cloudy conscience They are as the fall of waters and carry with them whole Congregations 3000 at a Sermon 5000 at a Sermon a whole City such a City as Niniveh at a Sermon and they are as the roaring of a Lion where the Lion of the tribe of Juda cries down the Lion that seekes whom he may devour that is Orthodoxall and fundamentall truths are established against clamorous and vociferant innovations Therefore what Christ tels us in the darke he bids us speake in the light and what he saies in our eare he bids us preach on the house top Nothing is Gospell not Evangelium good message if it be not put into a Messengers mouth and delivered by him nothing is conducible to his end nor available to our salvation except it be avowable doctrine doctrine that may be spoke alowd though it awake them that sleep in their sinne and make them the more froward for being so awaked God hath made all things in a Roundnesse from the round superficies of this earth which we tread here to the round convexity of those heavens w ch as long as they shal have any beeing shall be our footstool when we come to heaven God hath wrapped up all things in Circles and then a Circle hath no Angles there are no Corners in a Circle Corner Divinity clandestine Divinity are incompatible termes If it be Divinity it is avowable The heathens served their Gods in Temples sub dio without roofs or coverings in a free opennesse and where they could in Temples made of Specular stone that was transparent as glasse or crystall so as they which walked without in the streets might see all that was done within And even nature it self taught the naturall man to make that one argument of a man truly religious Aperto vivere voto That he durst pray aloud and let the world heare what he asked at Gods hand which duty is best performed when we joyne with the Congregation in publique prayer Saint Augustine hath made that note upon the Donatists That they were Clancularii clandestine Divines Divines in Corners And in Photius we have such a note almost upon all Heretiques as the Nestorian was called Coluber a snake because though he kept in the garden or in the meadow in the Church yet he lurked and lay hid to doe mischief And the Valentinian was called a Grashopper because he leaped and skipped from place to place and that creature the Grashopper you may hear as you passe but you shall hardly find him at his singing you may hear a Conventicle Schismatick heare him in his Pamphlets heare him in his Disciples but hardly surprize him at his exercise Publication is a fair argument of truth That tasts of Luthers holy animosity and zealous vehemency when he says Audemus gloriari Christum à nobis primo vulgatum other men had made some attempts at a Reformation and had felt the pulse of some persons and some Courts and some Churches how they would relish a Reformation But Luther rejoyces with a holy exultation That he first published it that he first put the world to it So the Apostles proceeded when they came in their peregrination to a new State to a new Court to Rome it selfe they did not enquire how stands the Emperour affected to Christ and to the preaching of his Gospel Is there not a Sister or a Wife that might be wrought upon to further the preaching of Christ Are there not some persons great in power and place that might be content to hold a party together by admitting the preaching of Christ This was not their way They only considered who sent them Christ Jesus And what they brough salvation to every soul that embraced Christ Jesus That they preached and still begunne with a Vae si non Never tell us of displeasure or disgrace or detriment or death for preaching of Christ. For woe be unto us if we preach him not And still they ended with a Qui non crediderit Damnabitur Never deceive your own souls He to whom Christ hath been preached and beleeves not shall be damned All Divinity that is bespoken and not ready made fitted to certaine turnes and not to generall ends And all Divines that have their soules and consciences so disposed as their Libraries may bee At that end stand Papists and at that end Protestants and he comes in in the middle as neare one as the other all these have a brackish taste as a River hath that comes near the Sea so have they in comming so neare the Sea of Rome In this the Prophet exalts our Consolation Though the Lord give us the bread of Adversity and the water of Affliction yes shall not our Teachers be removed into corners They shall not be silenced by others they shall not affect of themselves Corner Divinity But saies he there our eyes shall see our Teachers and our eares shall hear a word saying This is the way walke in it For so they shall declare that they have taken to heart this Commandement of him that sent them Christ Jesus All that you receive from me you must deliver to my people therefore Take heed what you hear forget none of it But then you must deliver no more then that and therefore in that respect also Take heed what you hear adde nothing to that and that is the other obligation which Christ laies here upon his Apostles That reading of those words of Saint Iohn Omnis spiritus qui solvit Iesum Every spirit that dissolves Jesus that takes him asunder in pieces and beleeves not all is a very ancient reading of that place And upon that Ancient reading the Ancients infer well That not onely that spirit that denies that Christ being God assumed our flesh not onely he that denies that Christ consists of two natures God and Mam but he also that affirmes this Christ thus consisting of two natures to consist also of two persons this man dissolves Iesus takes him asunder in
plurall too And againe in that declaration of his Justice in the confusion of the builders of Babel Descendamus confundamus Let us doe it And then lastly in that great worke of mingling mercy with justice which if we may so speake is Gods master-peece when he says Quis ex nobis who will goe for us and publish this In these places and these onely and not all these neither if we take it exactly according to the originall for in the Second the making of Eve though the Vulgat have it in the plurall it is indeed but singular in the Hebrew God speakes as a King in his royall plurall still And when it is but so Reverenter pensandum est says that Father it behoves us to hearken reverently to him for Kings are Images of God such Images of God as have eares and can heare and hands and can strike But I would aske no more premeditation at your hands when you come to speake to God in this place then if you sued to speake with the King no more fear of God here then if you went to the King under the conscience of a guiltinesse towards him and a knowledge that he knew it And that 's your case here Sinners and manifest sinners For even midnight is noone in the sight of God and when your candles are put out his Sunne shines still Nec quid absconditum à calcre ejus says David there is nothing hid from the heate thereof not onely no sinne hid from the light thereof from the sight of God but not from the heate therof not from the wrath indignation of God If God speak plurally onely in the Majesty of a soveraign Prince still Reverenter pensandum that calls for reverence What reverence There are nationall differences in outward worships and reverences Some worship Princes and Parents and Masters in one some in another fashion Children kneele to aske blessing of Parents in England but where else Servants attend not with the same reverence upon Masters in other nations as with us Accesses to their Princes are not with the same difficulty nor the same solemnity in France as in Turkey But this rule goes thorough all nations that in that disposition and posture and action of the body which in that place is esteemed most humble and reverend God is to be worshipped Doe so then here God is your Father aske blessing upon your knees pray in that posture God is your King worship him with that worship which is highest in our use and estimation We have no Grandees that stand covered to the King where there are such though they stand covered in the Kings presence they doe not speake to him for matters of Grace they doe not sue to him so ancient Canons make differences of Persons in the presence of God where and how these and these shall dispose of themselves in the Church dignity and age and infirmity will induce differences But for prayer there is no difference one humiliation is required of all As when the King comes in here howsoever they sate diversly before all returne to one manner of expressing their acknowledgement of his presence So at the Oremus Let us pray let us all fall down and worship and kneel before the Lord our maker So he speakes in our text not onely as the Lord our King intimating his providence and administration but as the Lord our maker and then a maker so as that he made us in a councell Faciamus Let us and that that he speakes as in councell is another argument for reverence For what interest or freedome soever I have by his favour with any Counseller of State yet I should surely use another manner of behaviour towards him at the Councell Table then at his owne Table So does there belong another manner of consideration to this plurality in God to this meeting in Councell to this intimation of a Trinity then to those other actions in which God is presented to us singly as one God for so he is presented to the naturall man as well as to us And here enters the necessity of this knowledge Oportet denuo nasci without a second birth no salvation And no second birth without Baptisme no Baptisme but in the name of Father Sonne and holy Ghost It was the entertainment of God himselfe his delight his contemplation for those infinite millions of generations when he was without a world without Creatures to joy in one another in the Trinity as Gregory Nazianz a Poet as well as a Father as most of the Fathers were expresses it ille suae splendorem cernere formae Gaudebat It was the Fathers delight to looke upon himselfe in the Sonne Numenque suum triplicique parique Luce nitens and to see the whole Godhead in a threefold and an equall glory It was Gods owne delight and it must be the delight of every Christian upon particular occasions to carry his thoughts upon the severall persons of the Trinity If I have a bar of Iron that bar in that forme will not naile a doore If a Sow of Lead that Lead in that forme will not stop a leake If a wedge of Gold that wedge will not buy my bread The generall notion of a mighty God may lesse fit my particular purposes But I coine my gold into currant money when I apprehend God in the severall notions of the Trinity That if I have been a prodigall Sonne I have a Father in heaven and can goe to him and say Father I have sinned and be received by him That if I be a decayed Father and need the sustentation of mine own children there is a Sonne in heaven that will doe more for me then mine own of what good meanes or what good nature so ever they be can or will doe If I be dejected in spirit there is a holy Spirit in heaven which shall beare witnesse to my spirit that I am the child of God And if the ghosts of those sinners whom I made sinners haunt me after their deaths in returning to my memory and reproaching to my conscience the heavy judgements that I have brought upon them If after the death of mine own sinne when my appetite is dead to some particular sinne the memory and sinfull delight of passed sinnes the ghosts of those sinnes haunt me againe yet there is a holy Ghost in heaven that shall exorcise these and shall overshadow me the God of all Comfort and Consolation God is the God of the whole world in the generall notion as he is so God but he is my God most especially and most applyably as he receives me in the severall notions of Father Sonne and holy Ghost This is our East here we see God God in all the persons consulting concurring to the making of us But then my West presents it selfe that is an occasion to humble me in the next words He makes but Man A man that is but Adam but Earth
of nature to behold him so as to fixe upon him in meditation God benights us or eclipses us or casts a cloud of medicinall afflictions and wholsome corrections upon us Naturally we dwell longer upon the consideration of God when we see the Sun eclipsed then when we see it rise we passe by that as an ordinary thing and so in our afflictions we stand and looke upon God and we behold him A man may see God and forget that ever he saw him When saw we thee hungry or naked or sick or in prison say those mercilesse men they forgot but Christ remembers that they did see him but not behold him see him and looke off see him so as aggravated their sin more then if they had never seene him But that man who through his owne red glasse can see Christ in that colour too through his own miseries can see Christ Jesus in his blood that through the calumnies that have been put upon himselfe can see the revilings that were multiplyed upon Christ that in his own imprisonment can see Christ in the grave and in his owne enlargement Christ in his resurrection this man this Enosh beholds God and he beholds him é longinquo which is another step in this branch he sees him afar off Now this seeing afar off is not a phrase of diminution a circumstance of extenuation as though it were lesse to see God afar off and more to see him neerer This far off is far from that it is a power of seeing him so as wheresoever I am or wheresoever God is I can see him at any distance Being established in my foundation upon God being built up by faith in that notion of God in which he hath manifested himselfe to me in his Sonne being mounted and raised by dwelling in his Church being made like unto him in suffering as he suffered I can see round about me even to the Horizon and beyond it I can see both Hemispheres at once God in this and God in the next world too I can see him in the Zenith in the highest point and see how he works upon Pharaoh on the Throne and I can see him in the Nadir in the lowest dejection and see how he workes upon Ioseph in the prison I can see him in the East see how mercifully he brought the Christian Religion amongst us and see him in the West see how justly he might remove that againe and leave us to our own inventions I can see him in the South in a warme and in the North in a frosty fortune I can see him in all angles in all postures Abraham saw God coming to him as he fate at the doore of his Tent and though as the Text sayes there God stood by him yet sayes the Text too Abraham ran to meet God I can see God in the visitation of his Spirit come to me and when he is so he is already in me but I must run out to meet him that is labour to hold him there and to advance that manifestation of himselfe in me Abraham saw God comming Moses saw God going his glory passing by he saw posteriora his hinder parts so I can see God in the memory of his blessings formerly conferred upon me And Moses saw him too in a burning bush in thornes and fire And had I no other light but the fire of a pile of faggots in that light I could see his light I could see himselfe Let me be the man of this Text this Enosh to say with Ieremy I am the man that hath seene affliction by the rod of his wrath Let me have had this third concoction that as I am Adam a man of earth wrought upon that wheele and as I am a Christian a vessell in his house a member of his Church wrought upon that wheele so let me be vir dolorum a man of affliction a vessell baked in that furnace fitted by Gods proportion and dosis of his corrections to make a right use of his corrections and I can see God E longinquo afar off I can see him writing downe my name in the booke of life before I was borne and I can see him giving his Angels The Angell of the great Counsell Christ Jesus himselfe and his spirit charge of my preservation all the way and of my transmigration upon my death-bed and that is E longinquo from before I was to after I shall be no more There remaines a word more 'T is scarce well said for there remaines not a word more There is not another word and yet there is another branch in the Text. This man not every man as before this Enosh not every Adam as before he sees not onely as before but he beholds afarre off and so farre we are gone but what beholds he afarre off That the Text tels us not Before there was an illud Every man may see that aske what is that and I can tell you I have told you out of the coherence of the Text It is Gods workes manifesting himselfe even to the naturall man But this man this Enosh raised by his dejection rectified by humiliation may behold what here is no illud no such word as that no object limited and therefore it is that which no eye hath seene nor eare heard nor heart of man conceived it is God in the glory and assembly of his immortall Saints in heaven How many times go we to Comedies to Masques to places of great and noble resort nay even to Church onely to see the company If I had no other errand to heaven but the communion of Saints the fellowship of the faithfull Lo see that flock of Lambs Innocent unbaptized children recompensed with the twice-baptized Martyrs baptized in water and baptized in their owne blood and that middle sort the children baptized in blood and not in the water that rescued Christ Jesus by their death under Herod to see the Prophets and the Evangelists and not know one from the other by their writings for they all write the same things for prophecy is but antidated Gospell and Gospell but postdated prophecy to see holy Matrons saved by the bearing and bringing up of children and holy Virgins saved by restoring their bodies in the integrity that they received them sit all upon one seate to see Princes and Subjects crowned all with one crowne and rich and poore inherit one portion to see this scene this Court this Church this Catholique Church not onely Easterne and Westerne but Militant and Triumphant Church all in one roome together to see this Communion of Saints this fellowship of the faithfull is worth all the paynes that that sight costs us in this world But then to see the head of this Church the Sunne that shed all these beames the God of glory face to face to see him sicuti est as he is to know him at cognitus as I am knowne what darke and inglorious fortune would I not passe thorow
to come to that light and that glory How then hath God doubled his mercies upon those persons to whom he hath afforded two great lights a Sunne to rule their day honour and prosperity and a Moone to rule their night humiliation and adversity to whom he hath given both Types in themselves to see this future glory by that is Titles and places of honour in this world and spectacles in themselves to see this glory by afflictions and crosses in this world And therefore since God gives both these no where so plentifully as in Courts the place of Honour and the place of Crosses too the place of rising and the place of falling too you you especially who by having your station there in the Court it selfe are in the Court exemplified and copied in your owne noble house you that have seen God characterized in his Types in titles of greatnesse you that have beheld God presented in his spectacle of Crosses and afflictions the daily bread of Courts Blesse ye the Lord praise him and magnifie him for ever and declare the wondrous workes that he hath done for the Sonnes of men for certainly many woes and invincible darknesse attend those to whom neither the hand of God in his works nor the hand of God upon themselves neither the greatnesse of this world nor the crâ—sses of this world can manifest God for what picture of God would they have that will neither have him in great nor litle SERMON XXXII Preached to the Earl of Exeter and his company in his Chappell at Saint Iohns 13. Iun. 1624. APOC. 7. 9. After this I beheld and loe a great Multitude which no man could number of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues stood before the Throne and before the Lambe clothed with white robes and Palmes in their hands WE shall have occasion by and by to say something of the danger of Curiosity and something of the danger of the broad way in which too many walk we will not therefore fall into either of these faults at first we will not be over curious nor we will not stray nor cast our selves into that broad and boundlesse way by entring into those various and manifold senses which Expositors have multiplyed in the handling of this place and this part of this book but we take the plainest way and that in which the best meet and concur that these words are spoken of the Ioyes and Glory reserved for them who overcome the fraud and the fury the allurements and the violences of Antichrist in whom in that name and person of Antichrist we consider all supplanters and all seducers all opposers of the kingdome of Christ in us for as every man hath spontaneum daemonem as S. Chrysostome speakes a devill of his own making which is some customary and habituall sin in him so every man hath spontaneuÌ„ Antichristum an Antichrist of his own making some objections in the weakness of his faith some oppositions in the perverseness of his manners against the kingdom of Christ in himself as if God would suspend the devill or slumber the devill a day I am afraid we should be as ill that day as if the devill were awake and in action so if those disputed problematical Antichrists Eastern Western Antichrist Antichrist of Rome and Antichrist of Constantinople Turk and Pope were removed out of the world we should not for all that be delivered of Antichrist that is of that opposition to the kingdome of Christ which is in our selvs This part of the book of the Revelation is literally and primarily the glorious victory of them who in the later end of the world having stood out the persecutions of the Antichrist enter into the triumph of heaven And it extends it self to all by way of fair accommodation who after a battel with their own Antichrists and victory over their owne enemies are also made partakers of those triumphs those joyes those glories of which S. Iohn in this propheticall glasse in this perspective of visions saw A great multitude which no man could number of all nations c. We are then upon the contemplation of the joyes of heaven which are everlasting must we wring them into the discourse of an houre of the glory of heaven which is intire and must we divide it into parts we must we will we doe into two parts first the number the great number of those that shall be saved And then the glorious qualities which shall be imprinted on them who are saved first that salvation is a more extensive thing more communicable then sullen cloystrall that have walled salvation in a monastery or in an ermitage take it to be or then the over-valuers of their own purity and righteousnesse which have determined salvation in themselves take it to be for It is a great multitude which no man can number of all nations c. And then in the second place salvation is the possession of such endowments as naturally invite all to the prosecution of that which is exposed and offered to all that we all labour here that we may all stand hereafter before the Throne and before the Lambe clothed in white robes c. In the first of these we shall passe by these steps first we shall consider the sociablenesse the communicablenesse of God himself who gives us the earth and offers us heaven and desires to have his kingdome well peopled he would have many he would have all he would have every one of them have all And then the first word of the text After this will carry us to the consideration of that which was done before which was first that they which were of this number were sealed and then they which were so sealed before were a great number one hundred forty four thousand but they who were made partakers of all this after were innumerable After this I beheld a great multitude which no man could number And therefore we shall shut up that first part with this consideration what sense what interpretation may belong unto those places where Christ says that the way to heaven is narrow and the gate straight of these peeces we shall make up our first part And for the particulars belonging to the second we shall fitliest open them then when we come to the handling of them Our first step then in this first part is the sociablenesse the communicablenesse of God He loves holy meetings he loves the communion of Saints the houshold of the faithfull Deliciae ejus says Solomon his delight is to be with the Sons of men and that the Sons of men should be with him Religion is not a melancholy the spirit of God is not a dampe the Church is not a grave it is a fold it is an Arke it is a net it is a city it is a kingdome not onely a house but a house that hath many mansions in it still it is a plurall thing consisting of
And at the judgement you shall stand but stand at the barre But when you stand before the Throne you stand as it is also added in this place before the Lamb who having not opened his mouth to save his owne fleece when he was in the shearers hand nor to save his own life when he was in the slaughterers hand will much lesse open his mouth to any repentant sinners condemnation or upbrayd you with your former crucifyings of him in this world after he hath nailed those sinnes to that crosse to which those sinnes nayled him You shall stand amicti stolis for so it follows covered with Robes that is covered all over not with Adams fragmentary raggs of fig-leafes nor with the halfe-garments of Davids servants Though you have often offered God halfe-confessions and halfe-repentances yet if you come at last to stand before the Lambe his fleece covers all hee shall not cover the sinnes of your youth and leave the sinnes of your age open to his justice nor cover your sinfull actions and leave your sinfull words and thoughts open to justice nor cover your own personall sinnes and leave the sinnes of your Fathers before you or the sinnes of others whose sins your tentations produced and begot open to justice but as he hath enwrapped the whole world in one garment the firmament so cloathed that part of the earth which is under our feet as gloriously as this which we live and build upon so those sinnes which we have hidden from the world and from our own consciences and utterly forgotten either his grace shall enable us to recollect and to repent in particular or we having used that holy diligence to examine our consciences so he shall wrap up even those sinnes which we have forgot and cover all with that garment of his own righteousnesse which leaves no foulnesse no nakednesse open You shall be covered with Robes All over and with white Robes That as the Angels wondred at Christ coming into heaven in his Ascension Wherefore art thou red in thine Apparell and thy garments like him that treadeth the wine fat They wondred how innocence it selfe should become red so shall those Angels wonder at thy coming thither and say Wherefore art thou white in thine apparell they shall wonder how sinne it selfe shall be clothed in innocence And in thy hand shall be a palm which is the last of the endowments specifyed here After the waters of bitternesse they came to seventy to innumerable palmes even the bitter waters were sweetned with another wood cast in The wood of the Crosse of Christ Jesus refreshes all teares and sweetnes all bitternesse even in this life but after these bitter waters which God shall wipe from all our eies we come to the seventy to the seventy thousand palms infinite seales infinite testimonies infinite extensions infinite durations of infinite glory Go in beloved and raise your own contemplations to a height worthy of this glory and chide me for so lame an expressing of so perfect a state and when the abundant spirit of God hath given you some measure of conceiving that glory here Almighty God give you and me and all a reall expressing of it by making us actuall possessors of that Kingdome which his Sonne our Saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood Amen SERMON XXXIII Preached at Denmark house some few days before the body of King Iames was removed from thence to his buriall Apr. 26. 1625. CANT 3. 11. Goe forth ye Daughters of Sion and behold King Solomon with the Crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals and in the day of the gladnesse of his heart IN the Creation of man in that one word Faciamus let Vs make man God gave such an intimation of the Trinity as that we may well enlarge and spread and paraphrase that one word so farre as to heare therein a councell of all the three Persons agreeing in this gracious designe upon Man faciamus let us make him make and him mend him and make him sure I the Father will make him by my power if he should fall Thou the Sonne shalt repayr him re-edify him redeem him if he should distrust that this Redemption belonged not to him Thou the Holy Ghost shalt apply to his particular soule and conscience this mercy of mine and this merit of the Sonnes and so let us make him In our Text there is an intimation of another Trinity The words are spoken but by one but the persons in the text are Three For first The speaker the Director of all is the Church the spouse of Christ she says Goe forth ye daughters of Sion And then the persons that are called up are as you see The Daughters of Sion the obedient children of the Church that hearken to her voice And then lastly the persons upon whom they are directed is Solomon crowned That is Christ invested with the royall dignity of being Head of the Church And in this especially is this applyable to the occasion of our present meeting All our meetings now are to confesse to the glory of God and the rectifying of our own consciences and manners the uncertainty of the prosperity and the assurednesse of the adversity of this world That this Crown of Solomons in the text will appear to be Christs crown of Thornes his Humiliation his Passion and so these words will dismisse us in this blessed consolation That then we are nearest to our crown of Glory when we are in tribulation in this world and then enter into full possession of it when we come to our dissolution and transmigration out of this world And these three persons The Church that calls The children that hearken and Christ in his Humiliation to whom they are sent will be the three parts in which we shall determine this Exercise First then the person that directs us is The Church no man hath seen God and lives but no man lives till he have heard God for God spake to him in his Baptisme and called him by his name then Now as it were a contempt in the Kings house for any servant to refuse any thing except he might heare the King in person command it when the King hath already so established the government of his house as that his commandements are to be signifyed by his great Officers so neither are we to look that God should speak to us mouth to mouth spirit to spirit by Inspiration by Revelation for it is a large mercy that he hath constituted an Office and established a Church in which we should heare him When Christ was baptized by Iohn it is sayd by all those three Evangelists that report that story in particular circumstances that there was a voice heard from heaven saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased and it is not added in any of those three
and may make thee doubt whether thou have it or no every day that is as often as thou canst heare more and more witnesses of this light and bless that God who for thy sake would submit himselfe to these Testimonia ab homine these Testimonies from men and being all light himselfe and having so many other Testimonies would yet require the Testimony of Man of Iohn which is our other branch of this first part Christ who is still the light of our Text That light the essentiall light had testimony enough without Iohn First he bore witness of himselfe And though he say of himself If I beare witnesse of my self my witnesse is not true yet that he might say either out of a legall and proverbiall opinion of theirs that ordinarily they thought That a witness testifying for himself was not to be beleeved whatsoever he said Or as Man which they then took him to be he might speake it of himselfe out of his own opinion that in Iudicature it is a good rule that a man should not be beleeved in his own case But after this and after he had done enough to make them see that he was more then man by multiplying of miracles then he said though I beare witnesse of my selfe my witnesse is true So the onely infallibility and unreproachable evidence of our election is in the inward word of God when his Spirit beares witnesse with our Spirit that we are the Sonnes of God for if the Spirit the Spirit of truth say he is in us he is in us But yet the Spirit of God is content to submit himselfe to an ordinary triall to be tried by God and the Countrey he allowes us to doubt and to be afraid of our regeneration except we have the testimony of sanctification Christ bound them not to his own testimony till it had the seale of workes of miracles nor must we build upon any testimony in our selves till other men that see our life testifie for us to the world He had also the testimony of his Father the Father himselfe which hath sent me beareth witnesse of me But where should they see the Father or heare the Father speak That was all which Philip asked at his hands Lord show us the Father and it sufficeth us He had the testimony of an Angel who came to the shepheards so as no where in all the Scriptures there is such an Apparition expressed the Angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them but where might a man talke with this Angel and know more of him As Saint Augustine says of Moses Scripsit abiit he hath written a little of the Creation and he is gone Si hîc esset tenerem rogarem if Moses were here says he I would hold him fast till I had got him to give me an exposition of that which he writ For beloved we must have such witnesses as we may consult farther with I can see no more by an Angel then by lightning A star testified of him at his birth But what was that star was it any of those stars that remaine yet Gregory Nissen thinkes it was and that it onely then changed the naturall course and motion for that service But almost all the other Fathers thinke that it was a light but then created and that it had onely the forme of a star and no more and some few that it was the holy Ghost in that forme And if it were one of the fixed stars and remaine yet yet it is not now in that office it testifies nothing of Christ now The wise men of the East testified of him too But what were they or who or how many or from whence were they for all these circumstances have put Antiquity it selfe into more distractions and more earnest disputations then circumstances should doe Simeon testified of him who had a revelation from the holy Ghost that he should not see death till he had seen Christ. And so did the Prophetess Anna who served God with fasting and prayer day and night Omnis sexus aetas both sexes and all ages testified of him and he gives examples of all as it was easie for him to doe Now after all these testimonies from himselfe from the Father from the Angel from the star from the wise men from Simeon from Anna from all what needed the testimony of Iohn All those witnesses had been thirty years before Iohn was cited for a witnesse to come from the wildernesse and preach And in thirty years by reason of his obscure and retired life in his father Iosephs house all those personall testimonies of Christ might be forgotten and for the most part those witnesses onely testified that he was borne that he was come into the world but for all their testimony he might have been gone out of the world long Before this he might have perished in the generall flood in that flood of innocent blood in which Herod drowned all the young children of that Countrey When therefore Christ came forth to preach when he came to call Apostles when he came to settle a Church to establish meanes for our ordinary salvation by which he is the light of our text the Essentiall light shining out in his Church by the supernaturall light of faith and grace then he admitted then he required Testimonium ab homine testimony from man And so for our conformity to him in using and applying those meanes which convay this light to us in the Church we must doe so too we must have the seale of faith and of the Spirit but this must be in the testimony of men still there must be that done by us which must make men testifie for us Every Christian is a state a common-wealth to himselfe and in him the Scripture is his law and the conscience is his Iudge And though the Scripture be inspired from God and the conscience be illumined and rectified by the holy Ghost immediately yet both the Scriptures and the Conscience admit humane arguments First the Scriptures doe in all these three respects first that there are certaine Scriptures that are the revealed will of God Secondly that these books which we call Canonicall are those Scriptures And lastly that this and this is the true sense and meaning of such and such a place of Scripture First that there is a manifestation of the will of God in certain Scriptures if we who have not power to infuse Faith into men for that is the work of the Holy Ghost onely but must deal upon the reason of men and satisfie that if we might not proceed per testimonia ab homine by humane Arguments and argue and infer thus That if God will save man for worshipping him and damne him for not worshipping him so as he will be worshipped certainly God hath revealed to man how he will be worshipped and
to the search of the Scriptures All they and they are no small number for there they are said to be ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands All they say there We are all made Kings and Priests unto our God Begin a Lambe and thou will become a Lion Reade the Scriptures modestly humbly and thou shalt understand them strongly powerfully for hence is it that Saint Chrysâ—stome more then once and Saint Gregory after him meet in that expression That the Scriptures are a Sea in which a Lambe may wade and an Elephant may swimme And this is the Gospell of those poore poore in understanding To those that are spiritually poore wrung in their souls stung in their Consciences fretted galled exulcerated viscerally even in the bowells of their Spirit insensible inapprehensive of the mercies of God in Christ the Lord and his Spirit hath sent me to preach the Gospell also That Gospell Blessed are the poore in Spirit for theirs it the Kingdome of Heaven and to recollect and redintegrate that broken and scattered heart by enabling him to expostulate and chide his owne soule with those words of comfort which the Holy Ghost offereth him once and again and again Why art thou cast downe O my soule and why art thou disquieted in me Hope thou in God and yet praise him for the light of his countenance Words of inexpresible comfort yet praise him for the light of his countenance Though thou sit in darknesse and in the shadow of death yet praise him for the light of his Countenance Whatsoever thy darknesse be put not out that candle The light of his Countenance Maintain that light discerne that light and whatsoever thy darknesse seemed it shall prove to be but an over shadowing of the Holy Ghost And so beloved if you have sufficiently considered first our generall easinesse of falling into the Passive scandall of being offended in others by misinterpreting their proceedings and then the generall scandals which the world tooke at Christ and his Gospell The Philosophers that it was an ignorant religion where you saw That the learneder the adversary is the sooner he is satisfied And the worldly and carnall man that it was a dishonourable an unpleasurable an unprofitable Religion where you saw that it were no Diminution to our Religion if it were all that but it is none of it If you have also considered the particular passive scandall that Christ deprehended in those two Disciples of Iohn That they would doe more then Christ practised or prescribed where you saw also the distemper of those that are derived from them both those that thinke there are some sinners whom Christ cannot save and those who thinke there are no sinners whom they cannot save by their Supererogations And considered lastly the way that Christ tooke to devest these men of this offence and passive scandall which was to call them to the consideration of good workes and of the best workes which he that doth them can doe where you have also seen that Christ makes that our best work To preach the Gospell to the poore both because the poore are destitute of other comforts and because their very poverty hath soupled them and mellowed them and macerated and matured and disposed them by corrections to instructions If you have received all this you have received all that we proposed for the first part the injunction the precept the way Be not sandalized be not offended in me And now that which I suspected at first is faln upon me that is to thrust our other part into a narrow conclusioÌ„ though it be blessednesse it selfe everlasting blessednesse so we must so we shall blessed is he there 's the remuneration the promise the end whosoever is not offended in me Blessed The Heathen who saw by the light of nature that they could have no Beeing if there were no God for it is from one of themselves that Saint Paul says in him we live and move and have our Beeing and Genus cjus suâ—us we are the off-spring of God saw also by the same light of nature that they could have no well-being if there were no Blessednesse And therefore as the Heathen multiplied Gods to themselves so did they also multiply blessednesse They brought their Iupiters to three hundred says Varro And from the same author from Varro does Saint Augustin collect almost three hundred severall opinions of Blessednesse But In multitudine nullitas says Tertullian excellently as where there are many Gods there is no God so where there are many blessednesses imagined there is no blessednesse possessed Not but that as the Sunne which moves onely in his owne Spheare in heaven does yet cast downe beames and influences into this world so that blessednesse which is truly onely in heaven does also cast downe beames and influences hither and gild and enamell yea inanimate the blessings of God here with the true name the true nature of blessednesse For though the vulgat edition doe read that place thus Beatum dixerant populum the world thought that people blessed that were so that is Temporally blessed as though that were but an imaginary and not a true blessednesse and howsoever it have seemed good to our Translators to insert into that verse a discretive particle a particle of difference Yea Blessed are the people that are so that is Temporally blessed Yea blessed are the people whose God is the Lord yet in truth in the Originall there is no such discretive particle no word of difference no yea in the text but both the clauses of that verse are carried in one and the same tenor Blessed are the people that are so Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord that is that people whom the Lord hath blessed so with Temporall blessings is bound to beleeve those temporall blessings to be seales and evidences to them that the Lord is their God So then there is a Viatory a preparatory an initiatory an inchoative blessednesse in this life What is that All agree in this definition that blessednesse is that in quo quiescit animus in which the minde the heart the desire of man hath settled and rested in which it found a Centricall reposednesse an acquiescence a contentment Not that which might satisfie any particular man for so the object would be infinitely various but that beyond which no man could propose any thing And is there such ablessednesse in this life There is Fecisti nos Domine ad te inquietum est Cor nostrum donec quiescat in te Lord thou hast made us for thy selfe and our heart cannot rest till it get to thee But can we come to God here We cannot Where 's then our viatory our preparatory our initiatory our in choative blessednesse Beloved though we cannot come to God here here God comes to us Here in the prayers of the Congregation God comes to us here in his Ordinance of Preaching God