necessity of being borne againe of Water and the Spirit The holy sense of our naturall wretchednesse is his For It is he that reproves the world of Sin of Righteousnesse of Iudgement The sense oftrue comfort is his Acts 9.31 The Churches were multiplied in the comforts of the Holy Ghost All from the Creation to the Resurrection and the Resurrection it selfe is his Rom. 8.11 The Spirit of him that raised Iesus from the dead shall quicken your mortall bodies by the same Spirit 2 Cor. 1.22 Eph. 1.13 Iohn 4.14 Mat. 3.11 Zach. 12.10 Heb. 1.9 Rom. 8.26 He is Arrha The earnest that God gives to them now to whom he will give all hereafter He is Sigillum that seale of our evidence You are sealed with that holy Spirit of promise He is the water which whosoever drinks shall never thirst when Christ hath given it And he is that fire with which Christ baptizes who baptizes with fire and with the Holy Ghost He is Spiritus precum The Spirit of grace and supplication And he is Oleum laetitiae The oyle of gladnesse that anoints us when we have prayed He is our Advocate He maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered And when our groanings under the calamities of this world are uttered without remedy he is that Paracletus Iohn 16.7 The Comforter who when Christ himselfe seemes to be gone from us comes to us who is as Tertullian expresses it elegantly enough but not largely enough Dei Villicus Vicaria vis Christi The Vice-gerent of Christ and the Steward of God but he is more much more infinitely more for he is God himselfe All that which S. Iohn intends in the seaven Spirits which are about the Throne is in this One in this onely Spirit August 1 Cor. 12.4 who is Vnicus septiformis solus multiplex One and yet seaven that is infinite for Though there be diversity of gifts yet there is but one Spirit He is God because the essentiall name of God is his Therefore let us call upon his name And because the Attributes of God are his Therefore let us attribute to him All Might Majesty Dominion Power and Glory And he is God because the Works of God are his 1 Cor. 6.17 Therefore let us co-operate and work with this Spirit and we shall be the same Spirit with him He is God Persona That was our first step and our second is that he is a distinct Person in the God-head He is not Virtus à Deo in homine exaltata Not the highest and powerfullest working of God in man Not Afflatus Divinus The breathing of God into the soule of man These are low expressions for they are all but Dona Charismata The gifts of the Holy Ghost not the Holy Ghost himselfe But he is a distinct person as the taking of the shape of a Dove and the shape of fiery tongues doe declare which are acts of a distinct person It is not the Power of the King that signes a pardon but his Person When the power of the Government was in two Persons in the two Consuls at Rome yet the severall acts were done by their severall Persons Wilt thou ask me What needs these three Persons Is there any thing in the three Persons that is not in the one God Yes The Father the Son the Holy Ghost fals not in the bare consideration of that one God Wilt thou say What if they doe not What lack we if we have one Almighty God Though that God had no Son nor they two no Holy Ghost We lacked our redemption we lacked all our direction wee lacked the revealed will of God the Scriptures we have not God if we have him not as he hath delivered himselfe and he hath done that in the Scriptures and we imbrace him as we finde him there and we finde him there to be one God in three Persons and the Holy Ghost to bee one of those three and in them we rest He is one Ex filio but one that proceeds from two from the Father and from the Son Some in the Greek Church in later times denied the proceeding of the Holy Ghost from the Son but this was especially a jealousie in termes They thought that to make him proceed from two were to make duo principia two roots two beginnings from whence the Holy Ghost should proceed and that might not be admitted for the Father and the Son are but one cause of the Holy Ghost if we may use that word Cause in this my stery And therefore it is as suspiciously and as dangerously said by the Master of the Sentences and by the later Schoole That the Holy Ghost proceeds Minùs Principaliter Not so radically from the Son as from the Father for in this action The Father and the Son are but one roote and the Holy Ghost equally from both In the generation of the Son the Father is in order before the Son but in the procession of the holy Ghost he is not so He is from both for where he is first named he is called Spiritus Elohim The Spirit of Gods in the plurall In this Chapter in the ninth verse Gen. 1.2 he is the Spirit of the Son If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his And so in the Apostle God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts God sent him and Christ sent him Gal. 4.6 Iohn 16.17 Iohn 20.22 If I depart I will send the Comforter unto you He sent him after he went and he gave him when he was here He breathed upon his Apostles and said Receive ye the holy Ghost So he is of both But by what manner comes he from them By proceeding Processio That is a very generall word for Creation is proceeding and so is Generation too Creatures proceed from God and so doth God the Son proceed from God the Father what is this proceeding of the holy Ghost that is not Creation nor Generation Nazianz. Exponant cur quomodo Spiritus pulsat in arteriis tum in processionem Spiritus sancti inquirant When they are able clearly and with full satisfaction to tell themselves how and from whence that spirit proceeds which beats in their pulse let them inquire how this Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Sonne And let them think till they be mad and speak till they behoarce and reade till they be blind and write till they be lame they must end with S. Augustine Distinguere inter Processioncm Generationem nescio non valeo non sufficio I cannot distinguish I cannot assigne a difference between this Generation and this Proceeding We use to say they differ principio That the Son is from the Father alone the holy Ghost from both but when this is said that must be said too That both Father and Son are but one beginning We use to say They differ ordine
it is truly all for our light is the light of good works and that light proceeds from all the other three and so is all those and then it goes beyond all three and so is none of them It proceeds from all for if we consider the first light the light of nature Ephes 2.10 in our creation We are sayes the Apostle his workmanship created in Christ Iesus unto good works So that we were all made for that for good works even the naturall man by that first light Consider it in the second light in baptisme there we dye in Christ and are buried in Christ and rise in Christ and in him we are new creatures and with him we make a covenant in baptisme for holinesse of life which is the body of good works Consider the third that of faith and as every thing in nature is so faith is perfected by working Jam. 2.26 for faith is dead without breath without spirit if it be without workes So this light is in all those lights we are created we are baptized we are adopted for good works and it is beyond them all even that of faith for though faith have a preheminence because works grow out of it and so faith as the root is first yet works have the preheminence thus both that they include faith in them and that they dilate and diffuse and spread themselves more declaratorily then faith doth Therefore as our Saviour said to some that asked him John 6.28 What shall we do that we might work the work of God you see their minde was upon works something they were sure was to be done This is the work of God that ye beleeve in him whom he hath sent and so refers them to faith so to another that asks him What shall I do that I may have eternall life Mat. 19.16 all goe upon that that something there must be done works there must be Christ sayes Keepe the Commandements and so refers him to works He hath shewed thee O man what is good Mic. 6.8 and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to shew mercy and to walk humbly with thy God This then is the light that lighteth every man that goes out of the world good works for their works follow them Their works they shall be theirs Apoc. 14.13 even after their death which is our second branch in this first part the propriety lux vestra let your light shine I cannot alwaies call the works that I do my works for sometimes God works them Proprietas vestra Esay 28.21 and sometimes the devill Sometimes God works his owne worke The Lord will do his worke his strange worke and bring to passe his act his strange act Sometimes he works my works Thou Lord hast wrought all our workes in us In us and in all things else Esay 26.12 1 Cor. 12.6 Ephes 1.11 Esay 43.13 Rom. 7.15 Operatur omnia in omnibus he worketh all in all And all this in all these Secundum consilium voluntatis suae After the counsaile of his owne will for I will worke and who shall let it But for all this his generall working his enemy works in us too That which I doe I allow not saies the Apostle nay I know it not for saies he what I hate that I doe And if I doe that I would not doe it is no more I that doe it but sin that dwelleth in me Yet ver 20. for all this diverse this contrary working as S. Augustine sayes of the faculty of the will Nihil tam nostrum quam voluntas there is nothing so much our owne as our will before we worke August so there is nothing so much our owne as our workes after they are done They stick to us they cleave to us whether as fomentations to nourish us or as corrasives to gnaw upon us that lyes in the nature of the worke but ours they are and upon us our works work Our good works are more ours then our faith is ôurs Our faith is ours as we have received it our worke is ours as we have done it Faith is ours as we are possessors of it the work ours as we are doers actors in it Faith is ours as our goods are ours works as our children are ours And therefore when the Prophet Habakkuk saies Fide sua Hab. 2.4 The just shall live by his faith that particle His is a word of possession not a word of Acquisition That God hath infused that faith into him and so it is his not that he hath produced that faith in himselfe His faith must save him his own and not anothers not his parents faith though he be the son of holy parents not the Churches faith if he be of yeares though he be within the covenant but his own personall faith yet not his so as that it grew in him or was produced in him by him by any plantation Rom. 1.17 Gal. 3.11 Heb. 10.36 or semination of his own And therefore S. Paul in citing that place of Habakkuk as he doth cite it three severall times in all those places leaves out that particle of propriety and acquisition his and still sayes The just shall live by faith and he sayes no more And when our blessed Saviour sayes to the woman with the bloody issue Fides tua Daughter Mar. 5.34 thy faith hath made thee whole it was said then when he had seen that woman come trembling and fall down at his feet he saw outward declarations of her faith he saw works And so in divers of those places where Christ repeats that fides tua thy faith we finde it added Iesus videns fidem Iesus seeing their faith With what eyes he looked upon them with his humane eyes not his divine he saw not that is considered not at that time their hearts but their outward declarations and proceeding as a good man would out of their good works concludes faith Velle nolle nostrum est to assent or to dis-assent is our own Hieron we may choose which we will doe Ipsumque quod nostrum est sine Dei miseratione nostrum non est But though this faculty be ours it is ours but because God hath imprinted it in us So that still to will as well as to doe to beleeve as well as to work is all from God but yet they are from God in a diverse manner and a diverse respect and certainly our works are more ours then our faith is and man concurres otherwise in the acting and perpetration of a good work then he doth in the reception and admission of faith Sed quae non fecimus ipsi sayes the Poet and he was Vates a Prophet in saying so Vix ea nostra voco nothing is ours but that which we have done our selves and all that is ours And though Christ refer us often to beliefe in this life because he would be sure to plant and fasten
care is of the man and the soule is the man first a hedge about him and then about his house and about all that he had on every side Job 1.10 So day after day we shall finde arguments to establish our hearts in hope that the Lord hath compassed us and nothing shall breake in so as to take us from him but God shall say to us as to his former people Leva in circuitu oculos tuos Lift up thine eyes round about Esay 49.18 and behold which is one great comfort that he enables us to see and to know our enemies to discerne a tentation to be a tentation Omnes isti congregati sunt All these gather themselves together and come to thee which is another assistance that when we see our enemies multiply and that there is none that fighteth for us but onely thou O God we make a more present recourse to him But Vivo ego dicit Dominus As I live saith the Lord Velut ornamento vestieris thou shalt surely cloathe thee with them all as with an ornament and binde them on thee as a Bride doth which is the fulnesse of the mercy That as in another place he promises his children Panis vester sunt your enemies shall be your Bread Numb 14.9 you shall feed upon your enemies So here hee makes our enemies even our spirituall enemies our Cloathes and more then that our Jewels our Ornaments wee shall bee the stronger the warmer the richer by tribulations and tentations having overcome them as we shall if the Lord compasse us if he continue his watchfulnesse over us And that David sayes here first in the Churches behalfe God from the beginning carried a wall about his Church in that assurance Primitiva Mat. 16.18 Portae inferi The gates of hell shall not prevaile against it The Gentiles the Philosophers that were without the Church found a party Traitors Conspirators within The Heretiques and all these led and maintained by potent Princes that persecuted the Church The gates of hell were all opened and issued all her forces but Non praevaluerunt they never prevailed The Arians were sometimes more then the true Christians in all the world The Martyrians a sect that affected the name of Martyrdome could name more Martyrs then the true Church could but Evanuerunt yet they vanished The Emperours of Rome persecuted the Bishops of Rome to death yet when we looke upon the reckoning the Emperors died faster then Bishops Thou hast compassed me sayes the Primitive Church and so sayes the Reformed too Princes that hated one another have joyned in leagues against the Religion Reformata Princes that needed their Subjects have spent their Subjects by thousands in Massacres to extinguish the Religion Personall Assasinates Clandestine plots by poyson by fire by water have been multiplied against Princes that favour the Religion Inquisitions Confiscations Banishments Dishonours have overflowne them that professe the true Religion and yet the Lord compassing his Church she enjoyes a holy certainty arising out of these testimonies of his care that she shall never be forsaken And this may every good soule have too God comes to us without any purpose of departing from us againe Anima For the Spirit of life that God breated into man that departs from man in death but when God had assumed the nature of man the God-head never parted from that nature no not in death When Christ lay dead in the grave the God-head remained united to that body and that soule which were dis-united in themselves God was so united to man as that he was with man when man was not man in the state of death So when the Spirit of God hath invested compassed thy soule and made it his by those testimonies that Spirit establishes it in a kinde of assurance that he will never leave it Old Rome had as every City amongst the Heathen had certaine gods which they called their Tutelar gods gods that were affected to the preservation of that place But they durst never call upon those gods by their proper names for feare of losing them lest if their names should bee knowne by their enemies their enemies should winne away their gods from them by bestowing more cost or more devotion towards them then they themselves used So also is it said of them that when they had brought to Rome a forraigne god which they had taken in a conquered place Victory they cut the wings of their new god Victory lest he should flie from them againe This was a misery that they were not sure of their gods when they had them We are If he once come to us he never goes from us out of any variablenesse in himselfe but in us onely That promise reaches to the whole Church Esay 30.20 and to every particular soule Thy Teachers shall not bee removed into a corner any more but thine eye shall see thy Teachers which in the Originall as is appliably to our present purpose noted by Rabbi Moses is Non erunt Doctores tui alati Thy Teachers shall have no wings They shall never flie from thee and so the great Translation reads it Non avolabunt As their great god Victory could not flie from Rome so after this victory which God hath given his Church in the Reformation none of her Teachers should flie to or towards Rome Every way that God comes to us he comes with a purpose to stay and would imprint in us an assurance that he doth so and that Impression is this Compassing of thy soule with songs of deliverance in the signification and use of which word we shall in one word conclude all God hath given us this certitude Songs this faire assurance of his perpetuall residence with us in a word of a double signification The word is Ranan which signifies Joy exultation singing Lament 2.14 Psal 17.1 But it hath another sense too Arise Cry out in the night And Attend unto my cry which are voyces far from singing This God meanes therein That though he give us that comfort to sit and sing of our Deliverance yet hee would not have us fall asleepe with that musique but as when we contemplate his everlasting goodnesse wee celebrate that with a constant Joy so when we looke upon our owne weaknesse and unworthinesse we cry out Wretched men that wee are who shall deliver us from this body of death For though we have the Spirit of life in us we have a body of death upon us How loving soever my soule be it will not stay in a diseased body How loving soever the Spirit of life be it will not stay in a diseased soule My soule is loath to goe from my body but sicknesse and paine will drive it out so will sinne the Spirit of life from my soule God compasses us with Songs of Deliverance we are sure he would not leave us But he compasses us with Cries too we are afraid we are sure that we
afflictionis Verse 16. Studied and premeditated plots and practises swallowe mee possesse me intirely In all these dayes I shall not onely have a Zoar to flie to if I can get out of Sodom joy if I can overcome my sorrow There shall not be a Goshen bordering upon my Egypt joy if I can passe beyond or besides my sorrow but I shall have a Goshen in my Egypt nay my very Egypt shall be my Goshen I shall not onely have joy though I have sorrow but therefore my very sorrow shall be the occasion of joy I shall not onely have a Sabbath after my six dayes labor but Omnibus diebus a Sabbath shall enlighten every day and inanimate every minute of every day And as my soule is as well in my foot as in my hand though all the waight and oppression lie upon the foot and all action upon the hand so these beames of joy shall appeare as well in my pillar of cloud as in theirs of fire in my adversity as well as in their prosperity And when their Sun shall set at Noone mine shall rise at midnight they shall have damps in their glory and I joyfull exaltions in my dejections And to end with the end of all In die mortis In the day of my death and that which is beyond the end of all and without end in it selfe The day of Judgement If I have the testimony of a rectified conscience that I have accustomed my selfe to that accesse to God by prayer and such prayer as though it have had a body of supplication and desire of future things yet the soule and spirit of that prayer that is my principall intention in that prayer hath been praise and thanksgiving If I be involved in S. Chrysostoms Patent Orantes non natura sed dispensatione Angeli fiunt That those who pray so that is pray by way of praise which is the most proper office of Angels as they shall be better then Angels in the next world for they shall be glorifying spirits as the Angels are but they shall also be glorified bodies which the Angels shall never bee so in this world they they shall be as Angels because they are employed in the office of Angels to pray by way of praise If as S. Basil reads those words of that Psalme not spiritus meus but respiratio mea laudet Dominum Not onely my spirit but my very breath not my heart onely but my tongue and my hands bee accustomed to glorifie God In die mortis in the day of my death when a mist of sorrow and of sighes shall fill my chamber and a cloude exhaled and condensed from teares shall bee the curtaines of my bed when those that love me shall be sorry to see mee die and the devill himselfe that hates me sorry to see me die so in the favour of God And In die Iudicii In the day of Judgement when as all Time shall cease so all measures shall cease The joy and the sorrow that shall be then shall be eternall no end and infinite no measure no limitation when every circumstance of sinne shall aggravate the condemnation of the unrepentant sinner and the very substance of my sinne shall bee washed away in the blood of my Saviour when I shall see them who sinned for my sake perish eternally because they proceeded in that sinne and I my selfe who occasioned their sin received into glory because God upon my prayer and repentance had satisfied me early with his mercy early that is before my transmigration In omnibus diebus In all these dayes the dayes of youth and the wantonnesses of that the dayes of age and the tastlesnesse of that the dayes of mirth and the sportfulnesse of that and of inordinate melancholy and the disconsolatenesse of that the days of such miseries as astonish us with their suddennesse and of such as aggravate their owne waight with a heavy expectation In the day of Death which pieces up that circle and in that day which enters another circle that hath no pieces but is one equall everlastingnesse the day of Judgement Either I shall rejoyce be able to declare my faith and zeale to the assistance of others or at least be glad in mine owne heart in a firme hope of mine owne salvation And therefore beloved as they whom lighter affections carry to Shewes and Masks and Comedies As you your selves whom better dispositions bring to these Exercises conceive some contentment and some kinde of Joy in that you are well and commodiously placed they to see the Shew you to heare the Sermon when the time comes though your greater Joy bee reserved to the comming of that time So though the fulnesse of Joy be reserved to the last times in heaven yet rejoyce and be glad that you are well and commodiously placed in the meane time and that you sit but in expectation of the fulnesse of those future Joyes Returne to God with a joyfull thankfulnesse that he hath placed you in a Church which withholds nothing from you that is necessary to salvation whereas in another Church they lack a great part of the Word and halfe the Sacrament And which obtrudes nothing to you that is not necessary to salvation whereas in another Church the Additionall things exceed the Fundamentall the Occasionall the Originall the Collaterall the Direct And the Traditions of men the Commandements of God Maintaine and hold up this holy alacrity this religious cheerfulnesse For inordinate sadnesse is a great degree and evidence of unthankfulnesse and the departing from Joy in this world is a departing with one piece of our Evidence for the Joyes of the world to come SERM. LXXX Preached at the funerals of Sir William Cokayne Knight Alderman of London December 12. 1626. JOH 11.21 Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not died GOd made the first Marriage and man made the first Divorce God married the Body and Soule in the Creation and man divorced the Body and Soule by death through sinne in his fall God doth not admit not justifie not authorize such Super-inductions upon such Divorces as some have imagined That the soule departing from one body should become the soule of another body in a perpetuall revolution and transmigration of soules through bodies which hath been the giddinesse of some Philosophers to think Or that the body of the dead should become the body of an evill spirit that that spirit might at his will and to his purposes informe and inanimate that dead body God allowes no such Super-inductions no such second Marriages upon such divorces by death no such disposition of soule or body after their dissolution by death But because God hath made the band of Marriage indissoluble but by death farther then man can die this divorce cannot fall upon man As farre as man is immortall man is a married man still still in possession of a soule and a body too And man is for ever immortall in both Immortall in
speaks yet so doth the zeale of Gods Saints and their last prayers though we heare them not God continues still and they pray in Heaven as the Martyrs under the Altar even till the Resurrection He is with him now too In funere Here in his Funerals Buriall and Christian Buriall and Solemne Buriall are all evidences and testimonies of Gods presence God forbid we should conclude or argue an absence of God from the want of Solemne Buriall or Christian Buriall or any Buriall But neither must we deny it to be an evidence of his favour and presence where he is pleased to afford these So God makes that the seale of all his blessings to Abraham Gen. 15. Gen. 46. Gen. 50. Esay 11.10 Matt. 26. That he should be buried in a good age God established Iacob with that promise That his Son Ioseph should have care of his Funerals And Ioseph does cause his servants The Physitians to embalme him when he was dead Of Christ it was Prophecied That he should have a glorious Buriall And therefore Christ interprets well that profuse and prodigall piety of the Woman that poured out the Oyntment upon him That she did it to Bury him And so shall Ioseph of Arimathea be ever celebrated for his care in celebrating Christs Funerals If we were to send a Son or a friend to take possession of any place in Court or forraine parts we would send him out in the best equipage Let us not grudge to set downe our friends in the Anti-chamber of Heaven the Grave in as good manner as without vaine-gloriousnesse and wastfulnesse we may And in inclining them to whom that care belongs to expresse that care as they doe this day The Lord is with him even in this Funerall And because The Lord is here our brother is not dead Not dead in the memories and estimation of men And lastly In resurrectione that we may have God present in all his Manifestations Hee that was and is and is to come was with him in his life and death and is with him in this holy Solemnity and shall bee with him againe in the Resurrection Gen. 46.4 God sayes to Iacob I will goe downe with thee into Egypt and I will also surely bring thee up againe God goes downe with a good man into the Grave and will surely bring him up againe When The Angel promised to returne to Abraham and Sarah Gen. 18.10 for the assurance of the birth of Isaac according to the time of life that is in such time as by nature a woman may have a childe God will returne to us in the Grave according to the time of life that is in such time as he by his gracious Decree hath fixed for the Resurrection And in the meane time no more then the God-head departed from the dead body of our Saviour in the grave doth his power and his presence depart from our dead bodies in that darknesse But that which Moses said to the whole Congregation I say to you all both to you that heare me Deut. 4.4 and to him that does not All ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day Even hee whom wee call dead is alive this day In the presence of God we lay him downe In the power of God he shall rise In the person of Christ he is risen already And so into the same hands that have received his soule we commend his body beseeching his blessed Spirit that as our charity enclines us to hope confidently of his good estate our faith may assure us of the same happinesse in our owne behalfe And that for all our sakes but especially for his own glory he will be pleased to hasten the consummation of all in that kingdome which that Son of God hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood Amen FINIS ⧠The Table of such places of SCRIPTURE as are illustrated and expounded in this BOOKE GENESIS 1.16 TWo great lights c. 81. A. 2.7 Man was a living soul 71. A. 18.10 According to the time of life 826. D. 26.18 Isaac digged the wells of water which 118. B. 29.12 Iacob kissed Rachel 407. C. 41.45 Pharaoh called Iosephs name 529. A. 51.20 You thought evill against me 171. B. EXODUS 4.22 Israel is his sonne 56. E. 14.14 The Lord shall fight for you 577. D. 23.3 Thou shalt not countenance 782. C. 33.13 Shew me now thy way 66. E. DEUTERONOMY 21.23 He that is hanged is accursed of God 8. A. 30.15 See I have set before thee life and death 70. A. 30.19 I have set before you life and death 148. D. JOSHUAH 10.12 Sunne stand thou still 700. A. JUDGES 2.5 They wept 539. B. RUTH 1.19 Call me not Naomi 479. B. 2 SAMUEL 14.14 We must needs die and are 311. A. 26.12 The sleepe of the Lord was upon him 257. D. 2 KINGS 9.3 None shall say This is Iezebel 148. B. 11.12 They put the crowne 336. D. 20.7 Take a lump of figs 514. E. JOB 4.18 His Angels he charged with folly 9. C. 5.7 Man is borne unto travatle as 538. B. 7.1 Mans life is a warfare 142. A. 603 E. 8.16 Woe unto me poor rush for c. 141. B. 10.20 Lord spare me a while 162. C. 19.25 I know my Redeemer liveth c. 150. A. 19.26 In my flesh c. 122. A. 20.11 My bones are full of the sins 519. B. PSALMES 2.2 They imagine a vaine thing 433. D. 2.8 Aske of me and I will give thee c. 26. E. 462. E. 2. ult Kisse the Son lest he be angry 541. D. 3.7 Thou hast broken the teeth 516. D. 6.5 In death there is no remembrance of thee 533. E. 15.2 Lord who shall ascend to thy Tabernacle 117. E. 19.9 The judgements of the Lord justifie themselves 366. D. 22.6 I am a worme 18. A. 45. C. 65. A. 25.15 Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord 618. A. 37.5 Cōmit thy wayes unto the Lord 686. B. 37.26 The righteous is mercifull 83. E. 45.7 God hath anointed thee with the oyle of gladnesse 396. C. 50.12 If I were hungry 101. B 55.19 Because they have no changes therefore they feare not God 57. D. 65.1 Praise waiteth for thee 64. A. 66.3 Through the greatnesse of thy power shall thine enemies submit 585. A. 72.18 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel which 394. D. 78.63 Their maidens were not given in marriage 679. C. 82.1 God standeth in the 72. D. 90.10 The dayes of our yeares c. 83. B. 101.1 I will sing of thy mercy and 12. A. 101.5 Him that hath a high looke 729. B. 102.5 My bones cleave to my flesh 519. B. 104.29 They die and they returne 255. D. 105.15 Touch not mine anointed 55. B. 106.20 They changed their glory 85. A. 111.10 A good understanding have 612. C. 113.5 He dwels in heaven 134. C. 119.57 The Lord is my portion 14. B.
sacrifice to his memory For whilst his conversation made me and many others happy below I know his humility and gentleness was eminent And I have heard Divines say those vertues that are but sparks on earth become great and glorious flames in heaven He was borne in LONDON of good and vertuous Parents And though his own learning and other multiplied merits may justly seeme sufficient to dignifie both himselfe and posteritie yet Reader be pleased to know that his Father was masculinely and lineally descended from a very ancient Family in Wales where many of his name now live that have and deserve great reputation in that Countrey By his Mother he was descended from the Family of the famous Sir Thomas More sometimes Lord Chancellor of England and also from that worthy and laborious Judge Rastall who left behind him the vast Statutes of the Lawes of this Kingdome most exactly abridged He had his first breeding in his Fathers house where a private Tutor had the care of him till he was nine yeares of age he was then sent to the Universitie of Oxford having at that time a command of the French and Latine Tongues when others can scarce speak their owne There he remained in Hart Hall having for the advancement of his studies Tutors in severall Sciences to instruct him till time made him capable and his learning exprest in many publique Exercises declared him fit to receive his first Degree in the Schooles which he forbore by advise from his friends who being of the Romish perswasion were conscionably averse to some parts of the Oath alwayes tendred and taken at those times About the fourteenth yeare of his age he was transplanted from Oxford to Cambridge where that he might receive nourishment from both soiles he staid till his seventeenth yeare All which time he was a most laborious Student often changing his studies but endeavouring to take no Degree for the reasons formerly mentioned About his seventeenth yeare he was removed to London and entred into Lincolnes Inne with an intent to study the Law where he gave great testimonies of wit learning and improvement in that profession which never served him for any use but onely for ornament His Father died before his admission into that Society and being a Merchant left him his Portion in money which was 3000. li. His Mother and those to whose care he was committed were watchful to improve his knowledge and to that end appointed him there also Tutors in severall Sciences as the Mathematicks and others to attend and instruct him But with these Arts they were advised to instill certaine particular principles of the Romish Church of which those Tutors though secretly profest themselves to be members They had almost obliged him to their faith having for their advantage besides their opportunity the example of his most deare and pious Parents which was a powerfull perswasion and did work upon him as he professeth in his PREFACE to his Pseudo-Martyr He was now entred into the nineteenth yeare of his age and being unresolved in his Religion though his youth and strength promised him a long life yet he thought it necessary to rectifie all scruples which concerned that And therefore waving the Law and betrothing himselfe to no art or profession that might justly denominate him he began to survey the body of Divinity controverted between the Reformed and Roman Church Preface to Pseudo-Martyr And as Gods blessed Spirit did then awaken him to the search and in that industry did never forsake him they be his owne words So he calls the same Spirit to witness to his Protestation that in that search and disquisition he proceeded with humility and diffidence in himselfe by the safest way of frequent Prayers and indifferent affection to both parties And indeed Truth had too much light about her to be hid from so sharp an Inquirer and he had too much ingenuity not to acknowledge he had seen her Being to undertake this search he beleeved the learned Cardinal Bellarmine to be the best defender of the Roman cause and therefore undertook the examination of his reasons The cause was waighty and wilfull delaies had been inexcusable towards God and his own conscience he therfore proceeded with all moderate haste And before he entred into the twentieth yeare of his age did shew the Deane of Gloucester all the Cardinalls Works marked with many waighty Observations under his own hand which Works were bequeathed by him at his death as a Legacy to a most deare friend About the twentieth yeare of his age he resolved to travell And the Earle of Essex going to Cales and after the Iland voyages he took the advantage of those opportunities waited upon his Lordship and saw the expeditions of those happy and unhappy imployments But he returned not into England till he had staid a convenient time first in Italy and then in Spaine where he made many usefull Observations of those Countries their Lawes and Government and returned into England perfect in their Languages Not long after his returne that exemplary pattern of gravity and wisdome the Lord Elsmore Lord Keeper of the great Seale and after Chancellor of England taking notice of his Learning Languages and other abilities and much affecting both his person and condition received him to be his chiefe Secretarie supposing it might be an Introduction to some more waighty imployment in the State for which his Lordship often protested he thought him very fit Nor did his Lordship account him so much to be his servant as to forget hee had beene his friend and to testifie it hee used him alwayes with much curtesie appointing him a place at his owne Table unto which he esteemed his company and discourse a great ornament He continued that employment with much love and approbation being daily usefull and not mercenary to his friends for the space of five yeares In which time he I dare not say unfortunately fell into such a liking as with her approbation increased into a love with a young Gentlewoman who lived in that Family Neece to the Lady Elsmore Daughter to Sir George More Chancellor of the Garter and Lieutenant of the Tower Sir George had some immation of their increasing love and the better to prevent it did remove his Daughter to his owne house but too late by reason of some faithfull promises interchangeably past and inviolably to be kept between them Their love a passion which of all other Mankind is least able to command and wherein most errors are committed was in them so powerfull that they resolved and did marry without the approbation of those friends that might justly claime an interest in the advising and disposing of them Being married the newes was in favour to M. Donne and with his allowance by the Right Honourable Henry then Earle of Northumberland secretly and certainly intimated to Sir George More to whom it was so immeasurably unwelcome that as though his passion of anger and inconsideration should
performe that sacred Work And when to the amazement of some beholders he appeared in the Pulpit many thought he presented himselfe not to preach mortification by a living voice but mortality by a decayed body and dying face And doubtlesse many did secretly ask that question in Ezekiel Doe these bones live Ezek. 37.3 Or can that soule organise that tongue to speak so long time as the sand in that glasse will move towards its center and measure out an houre of this dying mans unspent life Doubtlesse it cannot Yet after some faint pauses in his zealous Prayer his strong desires inabled his weak body to discharge his memory of his pre conceived Meditations which were of dying The Text being To God the Lord belong the issues from death Many that saw his teares and heard his hollow voice professing they thought the Text Prophetically chosen and that D. Donne had preacht his owne Funerall Sermon Being full of joy that God had inabled him to performe this desired duty he hastned to his house out of which he never moved untill like S. Stephen Acts 8. He was carried by devout men to his grave And the next day after his Sermon his spirits being much spent and he indisposed to discourse a friend asked him Why are you sad To whom he replyed after this manner I am not sad I am in a serious contemplation of the mercies of my God to me And now I plainly see it was his hand that prevented me from all temporall employment And I see it was his will that I should never settle nor thrive untill I entred into the Ministery in which I have now lived almost twenty yeares I hope to his glory and by which I most humbly thank him I have been enabled to requite most of those friends that shewed me kindnesse when my fortunes were low And as it hath occasioned the expression of my gratitude I thank God most of them have stood in need of my requitall I have been usefull and comfortable to my good Father in Law Sir George More whose patience God hath been pleased to exercise by many temporall crosses I have maintained my owne Mother whom it hath pleased God after a plentifull fortune in her former times to bring to a great decay in her very old age I have quieted the consciences of many that groaned under the burthen of a wounded spirit whose Prayers I hope are availeable for me I cannot plead innocencie of life especially of my youth but I am to be judged by a mercifull God who hath given me even at this time some testimonies by his holy Spirit that I am of the number of his Elect. I am ful of joy and shall die in peace Upon Munday following he took his last leave of his beloved Studie and being hourely sensible of his decay retired himselfe into his bed-chamber and that week sent at severall times for many of his most considerable friends of whom he tooke a solemne and deliberate Farewell commending to their considerations some sentences particularly usefull for the regulation of their lives and dismist them as * Gen. 49. Iacob did his sons with a spirituall benediction The Sunday following he appointed his servants that if there were any worldly businesse undone that concerned them or himselfe it should be prepared against Saturday next for after that day he would not mixe his thoughts with any thing that concerned the world Nor ever did Now he had nothing to doe but die To doe which he stood in need of no more time for he had long studied it and to such a perfection that in a former sicknesse he called God to witnesse Devot Prayer 23. he was that minute prepared to deliver his soule into his hands if that minute God would accept of his dissolution In that sicknesse he begged of his God the God of constancy to be preserved in that estate for ever And his patient expectation to have his immortall soule disrobed from her garment of mortality makes me confident he now had a modest assurance that his prayers were then heard and his petition granted He lay fifteene dayes earnestly expecting his hourely change And in the last houre of his last day as his body melted away and vapoured into spirit his soule having I verily beleeve some revelation of the Beatifical Vision he said I were miserable if I might not die And after those words closed many periods of his faint breath with these words Thy kingdome come Thy will be done His speech which had long been his faithfull servant remained with him till his last minute and then forsook him not to serve another master but died before him for that it was uselesse to him who now conversed with God on earth as Angels are said to doe in heaven onely by thoughts and looks Being speechlesse he did as S. Stephen look stedfastly towards heaven till he saw the Sonne of God standing at the right hand of his Father And being satisfied with this blessed sight as his soule ascended and his last breath departed from him he closed his owne eyes and then disposed his hands and body into such a posture as required no alteration by those that came to shroud him Thus variable thus vertuous was the life thus memorable thus exemplary was the death of this most excellent man He was buried in S. Pauls Church in that place which he had appointed for that use some yeares before his death and by which he passed daily to his devotions But not buried privately though he desired it For besides an unnumbred number of others many persons of Nobility and eminency who did love and honour him in his life did shew it at his Funerall by a voluntary and very sad attendance of his body to the grave To which after his buriall some mournfull friends repaired And as Alexander the Great did to the grave of the famous Achillis Plutarch so they strewed his with curious and costly flowers Which course they who were never yet knowne continued each morning and evening for divers dayes not ceasing till the stones that were taken up in that Church to give his body admission into the cold earth now his bed of rest were againe by the Masons art levelled and firmed as they had been formerly and his place of buriall undistinguishable to common view Nor was this though not usuall all the honour done to his reverend ashes for by some good body who t is like thought his memory ought to be perpetuated there was 100. marks sent to his two faithfull friends * D. Henry King D. Mountfort and Executors the person that sent it not yet known they look not for a reward on earth towards the making of a Monument for him which I think is as lively a representation as in dead marble can be made of him HE was of stature moderately tall of a straight and equally proportioned body to which all his words and actions gave an unexpressible
the sorenesse of Circumcision they slew them all Gods justice required bloud but that bloud is not spilt but poured from that head to our hearts into the veines and wounds of our owne soules There was bloud shed but no bloud lost Before the Law was thorowly established when Moses came downe from God and deprehended the people in that Idolatry to the Calfe before he would present himselfe as a Mediator betweene God and them Exod. 32.28 32. for that sinne he prepares a sacrifice of bloud in the execution of three thousand of those Idolaters and after that he came to his vehement prayer in their behalfe And in the strength of the Law Heb. 9 22. all things were purged with bloud and without bloud there is no remission Whether we place the reason of this in Gods Justice which required bloud or whether we place it in the conveniency that bloud being ordinarily received to be sedes animae the seat and residence of the soule The soule for which that expiation was to be could not be better represented nor purified then in the state and seat of the soule in bloud or whether we shut up our selves in an humble sobriety to inquire into the reasons of Gods actions thus we see it was no peace no remission but in bloud Nor is that so strange as that which followes in the next place per sanguinem ejus by his bloud Before Per sanguinem ejus Psal 50.10 under the Law it was in sanguine hircorum vitulorum In the bloud of Goats and Bullocks here it is in sanguine ejus in his bloud Not his as he claims all the beasts of the forrest all the cattle upon a thousand hils and all the fowles of the mountaines to be his not his as he sayes of Gold and Silver The Silver is mine and the Gold is mine Hag. 2.8 not his as he is Lord and proprietary of all by Creation so all bloud is his no nor his as the bloud of all the Martyrs was his bloud which is a neare relation and consanguinity but his so as it was the precious bloud of his body the seat of his soule the matter of his spirits the knot of his life This bloud he shed for me and I have bloud to shed for him too though he call me not to the tryall nor to the glory of Martyrdome Sanguis animae meae voluntas mea The bloud of my soule is my will Bern. Scindatur vena ferro compunctionis open a veine with that knife remorce compunction ut si non sensus certe consensus peccati effluat That though thou canst not bleed out all motions to sinne thou maist all consent thereunto Noli esse nimium justus noli sapere plus quam oportet St. Bernard makes this use of those Counsels Be not righteous overmuch nor be not overwise Ecces 7.16 Cui putas venae parcendum si justitia sapientia egent minutione what veine maist thou spare if thou must open those two veines righteousnesse and wisedome If they may be superfluously abundant if thou must bleed out some of thy Righteousnesse and some of thy wisedome cui venae parcendum at what veine must thou not bleed Tostat in Levit fo 45. D. Now in all sacrifices where bloud was to be offerd the fat was to be offerd to If thou wilt sacrifice the bloud of thy soule as St. Bernard cals the will sacrifice the fat too If thou give over thy purpose of continuing in thy sin give over the memory of it and give over all that thou possessest unjustly and corruptly got by that sinne else thou keepest the fat from God though thou give him the bloud If God had given over at his second daies work we had had no sunne no seasons If at his fift we had had no beeing If at the sixt no Sabbath but by proceeding to the seventh we are all and we have all Naaman 2 Reg. 5.14 who was out of the covenant yet by washing in Jordan seven times was cured of his leprosie seaven times did it even in him but lesse did not Tostat in Levit 4. q. 16. The Priest in the Law used a seven-fold sprinkling of bloud upon the Altar and we observe a seven-fold shedding of bloud in Christ In his Circumcision and in his Agony in his fulfilling of that Prophesie gen as vellicantibus I gave my cheeks to them that plucked off the haire and in his scourging Esay 50.6 in his crowning and in his nayling and lastly in the piercing of his side These seven channels hath the bloud of thy Saviour found Poure out the bloud of thy soule sacrifice thy stubborne and rebellious will seaven times too seaven times that is every day and seaven times every day for so often a just man falleth And then Prov. 24.16 how low must that man lie at last if he fall so often and never rise upon any fall and therefore raise thy self as often and as soone as thou fallest Iericho would not fall Jos 6. but by being compassed seaven dayes and seaven times in one day Compasse thy selfe comprehend thy selfe seaven times many times and thou shalt have thy losse of bloud supplied with better bloud with a true sense of that peace which he hath already made and made by bloud and by his owne bloud and by the bloud of his Crosse which is the last branch of this second part Greater love hath no man then to lay downe his life for his friend yet he that said so Crux Joh. 15.13 did more then so more then lay downe his life for he exposed it to violences and torments and all that for his enemies But doth not the necessity diminish the love where a testament is there must also of necessity be the death of the testator Heb. 9.16 was there then a necessity in Christs dying simply a necessity of coaction there was not such as is in the death of other men naturall or violent by the hand of Justice There was nothing more arbitrary more voluntary more spontaneous then all that Christ did for man And if you could consider a time before the contract between the Father and him had passed for the redemption of man by his death we might say that then there was no necessity upon Christ that he must dye But because that contract was from all eternity Luc. 24.26 supposing that contract that this peace was to be made by his death there entred the oportuit pati That Christ ought to suffer all these things and to enter into his glory And so as for his death so for the manner of his death by the Crosse it was not of absolute necessity and yet it was not by casualty neither not because he was to suffer in that Nation which did ordinarily punish such Malefactors such as he was accused to be seditious persons with that manner of death but all this proceeded ex
from the tyran to cancell the covenant betweene hell and them and restore them so far to their liberty as that they might come to their first Master if they would this was Redeeming But in his other worke which is Adoption and where the persons were more particular Adoptio not all but wee Christ hath taken us to him in a straiter and more peculiar title then Redeeming For A servando Servi men who were by another mans valour saved and redeemed from the enemy or from present death they became thereby servants to him that saved and redeemed them Redemption makes us who were but subjects before for all are so by creation servants but it is but servants but Adoption makes us who are thus made servants by Redemption sons 〈◊〉 for Adoption is verbum forense though it be a word which the Holy Ghost takes yet he takes it from a civill use and signification in which it expresses in divers circumstances our Adoption into the state of Gods children First he that adopted another must by that law be a man who had no children of his owne And this was Gods case towards us Hee had no children of his owne wee were all filii irae The children of wrath not one of us could be said to bee the child of God by nature if we had not had this Adoption in Christ Secondly he who Eph. ◠by that law might Adopt must be a Man who had had or naturally might have had children for an Infant under yeares or a man who by nature was disabled from having children could not Adopt another And this was Gods case towards us too for God had had children without Adoption for by our creation in Innocence we were the sons of God till we died all in one transgression and lost all right and all life and all meanes of regaining it but by this way of Adoption in Christ Jesus Againe no man might adopt an elder man then himselfe and so our Father by Adoption is not onely Antiquus dierum The ancient of Daies but Antiquior diebus ancienter then any Daies before Time was he is as Damascene forces himselfe to expresse it Super-principale principium the Beginning and the first Beginning and before the first beginning He is saies he aeternus and prae-aeternus Eternall and elder then any eternity that we can take into our imagination So likewise no man might adopt a man of better quality then himselfe and here we are so far from comparing as that we cannot comprehend his greatnesse and his goodnesse of whom and to whom S. Augustin saies well Quid mihi es If I shall goe about to declare thy goodnesse not to the world in generall but Quid mihi es how good thou art to me Miserere ut loquar saies he I must have more of thy goodnesse to be able to tell thy former goodnesse Be mercifull unto me againe that I may bee thereby able to declare how mercifull thou wast to me before except thou speake in me I cannot declare what thou hast done for me Lastly no man might be adopted into any other degree of kindred but into the name and right of a son he could not be an adopted Brother nor cosin nor nephew And this is especially our dignity wee have the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father So that as here is a fulnesse of time in the text so there is a fulnesse of persons All and a fulnesse of the worke belonging to them Redeeming Emancipation delivering from the chaines of Satan we were his by Creation we sold our selves for nothing and he redeemed us without money that is Esa 52. without any cost of ours but because for all this generall Redemption we may turne from him and submit our selves to other services therefore he hath Adopted us drawne into his family and into his more especiall care those who are chosen by him to be his Now that Redemption reached to all there was enough for all this dispensation of that Redemption this Adoption reaches onely to us all this is done That wee might receive the Adoption of Sonnes But who are this Wee why they are the elect of God But who are they Nos who are these elect Qui timidè rogat docet negare If a man aske me with a diffidence Can I be the adopted son of God that have rebelled against him in all my affections that have troden upon his Commandements in all mine actions that have divorced my selfe from him in preferring the love of his creatures before himselfe that have murmured at his corrections and thought them too much that have undervalued his benefits and thought them too little that have abandoned and prostituted my body his Temple to all uncleannesse and my spirit to indevotion and contempt of his Ordinances can I be the adopted son of God that have done this Ne timidè roges aske me not this with a diffidence and distrust in Gods mercy as if thou thoughtst with Cain thy iniquities were greater then could be forgiven But aske me with that holy confidence which belongs to a true convert Am not I who though I am never without sinne yet am never without hearty remorce and repentance for my sinnes though the weaknesse of my flesh sometimes betray mee the strength of his Spirit still recovers me though my body be under the paw of that lion that seekes whom hee may devoure yet the lion of Judah raises againe and upholds my soule though I wound my Saviour with many sinnes yet all these bee they never so many I strive against I lament confesse and forsake as farre as I am able Am not I the child of God and his adopted son in this state Roga fidenter aske me with a holy confidence in thine and my God doces affirmare thy very question gives me mine answer to thee thou teachest me to say thou art God himselfe teaches me to say so by his Apostle The foundation of God is sure and this is the Seale God knoweth who are his and let them that call upon his name depart from all iniquity He that departs so far as to repent former sinnes and shut up the wayes which he knows in his conscience doe lead him into tentations he is of this quorum one of us one of them who are adopted by Christ to be the sonnes of God I am of this quorum if I preach the Gospell sincerely and live thereafter for hee preaches twice a day that followes his owne doctrine and does as he saies And you are of this quorum if you preach over the Sermons which you heare to your owne soules in your meditation to your families in your relation to the world in your conversation If you come to this place to meet the Spirit of God and not to meet one another If you have sate in this place with a delight in the Word of God and not in the words of any speaker If you goe out of this
in our dayes and performe it upon our children but God will speake and strike together we shall heare him and feele him at once if wee be not seriously affected with his predictions The same way God goes in Ieremy Jer. 7.23 as in Esay and in Ezechiel I have sent unto you all my servants the Prophets sayes God there God hath no other servants to this purpose but his Prophets If your dangers have beene by Gods appointment preached to you God hath done You must not as Dives did in the behalfe of his brethren looke for Messengers from the state of the dead you must not stay for instruction nor for amendment till you be Pro mortuis 1 Cor. 15. as the Apostle speakes as good as dead ready to dye you must not stay till a Judgement fall and then presume of understanding by that vexation or of repentance by that affliction for this is to hearken after Messengers from the state of the dead to think of nothing till we be ready to joyne with them But as Abraham sayes there to Dives Thy brethren have the Law and the Prophets and that is enough that is all so God sayes here I have sent them all my servants the Prophets that is enough that is all especially when as God addes there He hath risen early and sent his Prophets that is given us warning time enough before the calamity come neare our owne gates But when they rejected and despised all his Prophesies and denunciations of future Judgements V. 29. then followes the sentence the finall and fearfull sentence The Lord hath forsaken and rejected them Them whom as it followes in the sentence The Lord hath forsaken and rejected the generation of his wrath The generation of his wrath There is more horrour more consternation in that manner of expressing that rejection then in the rejection it selfe There is an insupportable waight in that word His wrath but even that is infinitely aggravated in the other The generation of his wrath God hath forgot that Israel is his Son Exod. 4.22 and his first borne So he avowed him to be in Moses commission to Pharaoh God hath forgot that He rebuked Kings for his sake that he testifies to have done in his behalfe Psal 105.15 Gal. 3.29 in David God hath forgot that they were heires according to the promise that is their dignification in the Apostle forgot that they were the apple of his own eye Deut. 32.10 Agg. 2.23 Jer. 31.20 that they were as the signet upon his own hand forgot that Ephraim is his deare Son that he is a pleasing child a child for whom his bowels were troubled God hath forgot all these paternities all these filiations all these incorporatings all these inviscerations of Israel into his owne bosome and Israel is become the generation of his wrath Not the subject of his wrath A people upon whom God would exercise some one act of indignation in a temporall calamity as captivity or so or multiply acts of indignation in one kinde as adding of penury or sicknesse to their captivity nor is it onely a multiplying of the kinds of calamity as the aggravating of temporall calamities with spirituall oppression of body and state with sadnesse of heart and dejection of spirit for all these as many as they are are determined in this life but that which God threatens is that he will for their grievous sinnes multiply lifes upon them and make them immortall for immortall torments They shall bee a generation of his wrath they shall dye in this world in his displeasure and receive a new birth a new generation in the world to come in a new capacity of new miseries they shall dye in the next world every minute in the privation of the sight of God and every minute receive a new generation a new birth a new capacity of reall and sensible torments When God hath sent all his servants the Prophets and so done all that is necessary for premonition and risen early to send those Prophets warned them time enough to avoid the danger and they are not affected with the sense of these predictions God shall make them us any State any Church the generation of his wrath God shall forget his former paternities and our former filiations forget his mercies exhibited to us in the reformation of Religion in the preservation of our State in the augmenting and adorning of our Church and after all this make us the generation of his wrath And this may well be conceived to be the lamentable state deplored in this text as the words are considered in their first place the Prophet Esay Lord who hath beleeved our report But this is brought nearer to us in the second place as wee have the words in S. Iohn where we doe not consider things in a remote distance Iohn 12.38 but Christ was in a personall and actuall exercise of his works of power and soveraignty and yet the Evangelist comes to this Lord who hath beleeved this report That 's true in a great part which Irenaeus saies Prophetiae antequam effectum habent 2 Part. aenigmata sunt ambiguitates hominibus That prophecies till they come to be fulfilled are but clouds in the eyes and riddles in the understanding of men So many particulars concerning the calling of the Jews concerning the time and place and person and duration and actions of Antichrist concerning the generall Judgement and other things that lye yet as an Embryon as a child in the mothers wombe embowelled in the wombe of prophecie are yet but as clouds in the eyes as riddles in the understandings of the learnedst men Daniel himselfe found that which he found in the Prophet Ieremy concerning the deliverance of Israel from Babylon to be wrapped up in such a cloud as that it is fairely collected by some that Daniel himselfe at that time did not clearly understand the Prophet Ieremy But these clouds for the most part arise in us out of our curiosity that wee will needs know the time when these prophecies shall be fulfilled when the Jews shall be called when Antichrist shall be fully manifested when the day of Judgement shall be And so for such questions as these Christ enwraps not onely his Apostles but himselfe in a cloud for that cloud which he casts upon them Non est vestrum It belongs not to you to know times and seasons he spreads upon himselfe also Non est meum It belongs not to me not to me as the Son of man to know when the day of Judgment shall be But for that use of a prophecy that the prediction of a future Judgement should induce a present repentance that was never an enigmaticall a cloudy doctrine but manifest to all in all prophecies of that kinde But this this commination of future judgements for present repentance wrought not upon these men but Psal 55.19 Eccles 8.11 because they have no changes therefore they feare
not God And because sentence against an evill worke is not executed speedily therefore their hearts are fully set in them to do evill But now in the manifestation of Christ they saw evident changes changes and revolutions in the highest spheare they saw a new King and they heard strangers proclaime him forraigne Kings doe not send Ambassadors to congratulate but come in person to doe their homage and aske their audience in that style Where is he that is borne King of the Iews not an elective not an arbitrary not a conditionall a provisionall King but an hereditary a naturall King Borne King of the Iews They heare strangers proclaime him Mat. 2.2 and they proclaime him themselves in that act of Recognition in that acclamatory Hosanna in this Chapter Blessed is the King of Israel that commeth in the name of the Lord. v. 13. Mat. 2.3 They saw changes changes with which Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him And they saw sentence executed for as soone as Christ manifested himselfe Iohn Baptist saies Now Mat. 3.10 Mat. 3.12 now that Christ declares himselfe the axe is laid unto the roote of the tree and now saies he His fanne is in his hand and he will purge his floore And this sentence he executed this regall power he exercised not onely after that Recognition of his subjects in their Hosannaes in this chapter for upon that he did go into the Temple and cast out the buyers and sellers but some yeares before that at his first manifestation of himselfe and soone after Iohn Baptists Now Iohn 2.3 now is the axe laid to the roote of the Tree did Christ execute this sentence not onely to drive but to scourge them out that prophaned the Temple which was the second miracle that we ascribe to Christ Indeed all his miracles were so many acts not onely of his regall power over some men but of his absolute prerogative over the whole frame and body of nature Nor can we conceive how the beholders of those miracles could argue to themselves otherwise then thus The winds and seas obey this man for when he suffers them the winds roare and when hee whispers a silence to them they are silenced The Devils and uncleane spirits obey him for when he suffers it they preach his glory and when he refuses honour from so dishonourable mouths they are silent Death it selfe obeyes him for when he will death withholds his hand from closing that mans eye that lyes upon his last gaspe and the last stroke of his bell and hee does not die and when he will death withdraws his hand from him who had beene foure daies in his possession and redelivers Lazarus to a new life This they saw and could they choose but say the wind and the sea the devill and uncleane spirits and death it selfe obeyes this man how shall we stand before this man this King this God yet for all this voice this loud voice of miracles for when S. Chrysostome sayes Omni tuba clarior per opera demonstratio Every good worke hath the voyce of a trumpet every miracle hath the voice of thunder for all this loud voice as it is said in the verse before the text Though he had done so many miracles before them yet they beleeved not on him it is faine to come to that Quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved this report The first of those great names which were given to Christ Esay 9.6 in the Prophet Esay was Mirabilis The wonderfull The supernaturall man the man that workes miracles for of the Apostles it is said by them great miracles were wrought but God wrought those miracles by them Christ wrought his miracles himself And his Birth and his Life and Death and Refurrection and Ascension were all complicated and elemented of miracles If hee fasted himselfe he did that miraculously and it was with a miracle when he feasted others He healed many that were sick of divers diseases Mark 1.34 Mat. 9.35 and cast out many Devils saies S. Marke And S. Matthew carries it a great deale farther Hee went about all the Cities and villages healing every sicknesse and every disease among the people Therefore Christ makes that the evidence of his miracles the issue betweene them If these mighty works had beene done in Tyre and Sidon Mat. 11.21 Iohn 15.22 Tyre and Sidon would have repented And therefore he places their inexcusablenesse in that If I had not come and spoken to them they had had no sinne Nay if I had not spoken to them in this loud voyce the voyce of miracles they might have had some cloake for their finne but now they have none saies Christ in that place And beloved are not we inexcusable in that degree Have not wee seene changes and seene judgements executed and seene miraculous deliverances and yet Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved these reports I would wee could but take aright a mis-taken translation and make that use that is offered us in others error The vulgar Edition the translation of the Roman Church reads that place in the 77. Psalme and 11. verse thus Nunc caepi saies David Now I have taken out my lesson the right way now I have laid hold upon God by the right handle Nunc caepi Now I have all that I need to have what is it This Haec mutatio dextrae Dei this is to take out my lesson aright to understand God truly and to know acknowledge that this change which I see is an act of the right hand of God and that it is a judgement and not an accident O beloved that wee would not be afraid of giving God too much glory not afraid of putting God into too much heart or of making God too imperious over us by acknowledging that Haec mutatio dextrae Dei that all our changes are acts of the right hand of God and come from him But we are not onely subject to the Prophets increpation Quis credit that we doe not beleeve Gods warnings of future judgements but to the Euangelists increpation in the person of Christ Quis credidit we do not beleeve present judgements to be judgements An invincible navy hath beene sent against us and defeated and we sacrifice to a casuall storme for that wee say the winds delivered us A powder treason hath been plotted and discovered and we sacrifice to a casuall letter for that we say the letter delivered us A devouring plague hath raigned and gone out againe and we sacrifice to an early frost for that we say the cold weather delivered us Domestique encumbrances personall infirmities sadnesse of heart dejection of spirit oppresses us and then weares out and passes over and we sacrifice for that to wine and strong drinke to musique to Comedies to conversation and to all Iobs miserable comforters wee say it was but a melancholique fit and good company hath delivered us of it But when God himselfe saies There is
inducunt colores saies Origen in the same place Thy sinnes cover the Image of God with other Images Images of Beauty of Honour of Pleasure so that sometimes thou dost not discerne the Image of God in thy soule but yet there it is sometimes thou fillest this Well with other waters with teares of hypocrisie to deceive or teares of lamentation for worldly crosses but yet such a Well such a power to assist thine owne salvation there is in thee Mulier drachmam invenit non extrinsecus sed in dome The Woman who had lost her peece of silver found it not without doores but within It was In domo mundata when her house was made cleane but it was within the house and within her owne house Make cleane thy house by the assistances which Christ affords thee in his Church and thou shalt never faile finding of that within thee which shall save thee Not that it growes in thee naturally or that thou canst produce it of thy selfe but that God hath bound himselfe by his holy Covenant to perfect his work in every man that works with him So then in repenting of former sins in breaking off the practise of those sins in restoring whatsoever was gotten by those sins in precluding all relapses by a diligent survay and examination of particular actions this is this cleannesse this purity of heart which constitutes our first branch of this part And the second is the Purchase what we get by it which is Blessednesse Blessed are the pure in heart In this Beatue we make two steps Blessednesse and the present possession of this Blessednesse Now to this purpose it is a good Rule that S. Bernard gives and a good way that he goes Cui quaeque res sapiunt prout sunt is sapiens est saies he He that tasts and apprehends all things in their proper and naturall tast he that takes all things aright as they are Is sapiens est nothing distasts him nothing alters him he is wise If he take the riches of this world to be in their nature indifferent neither good nor bad in themselves but to receive their denomination in their use If he take long life to be naturally an effect of a good constitution and temperament of the body and a good husbanding of that temper by temperance If he take sicknesse to be a declination and disorder thereof and so other calamities to be the declination of their power or their favour in whose protection hee trusted then he takes all these things prout sunt as they are in their right tast and Is sapiens est he that takes things so is morally wise But thus far S. Bernard does but tell us Quis sapiens who is wise but then Cui ipsa sapientia sapit prout est is beatus He that tasts this Wisdome it selfe aright he onely is Blessed Now to taste this morall Wisedome aright to make the right use of that is to direct all that knowledge upon heavenly things To understand the wretchednesse of this world is to be wise but to make this wisedome apprehend a happinesse in the next world that is to be blessed If I can digest the want of Riches the want of Health the want of Reputation out of this consideration that good men want these as well as bad this is morall Wisedome and a naturall man may be as wise herein as I. But if I can make this Wisedome carry me to a higher contemplation That God hath cast these wants upon me to draw me the more easily to him and to see that in all likelihood my disposition being considered more wealth more health more preferment would have retarded me and slackned my pace in his service then this Wisdome that is this use of this morall Wisdome hath made me blessed and to this Blessednesse a naturall man cannot come This Blessednesse then is Congeries bonorum A concurrence a confluence an accumulation of all that is Good And he that is Mundus corde pure of heart safe in a rectified conscience hath that Not that every thing that hath Aliquam rationem boni any tincture or name of Good in it as Riches and Health and Honour must necessarily fall upon every man that is good and pure of heart for for the most part such men want these more then any other men But because even those things which have in them Aliquam rationem mali some tincture and name of ill as sicknesse of body or vexation of spirit shall be good to them because they shall advance them in their way to God therefore are they blessed as Blessednesse is Congeries bonorum the accumulation of all that is good because nothing can put on the nature of ill to them And though Blessednesse seeme to be but an expectative a reversion reserved to the next life yet so blessed are they in this testimony of a rectified conscience which is this purity of heart as that they have this blessednesse in a present possession Blessed are the pure in heart they are now they are already Blessed The farthest that any of the Philosophers went in the discovery of Blessednesse Nunc. was but to come to that Nemo ante obitum to pronounce that no man could be called Blessed before his death not that they had found what kind of better Blessednesse they went to after their death but that still till death they were shure every man was subject to new miseries and interruptions of any thing which they could have called Blessednesse The Christian Philosophy goes farther It showes us a perfecter Blessednesse then they conceived for the next life and it imparts that Blessednesse to this life also The pure in heart are blessed already not onely comparatively that they are in a better way of Blessednesse then others are but actually in a present possession of it for this world and the next world are not to the pure in heart two houses but two roomes a Gallery to passe thorough and a Lodging to rest in in the same House which are both under one roofe Christ Jesus The Militant and the Triumphant are not two Churches but this the Porch and that the Chancell of the same Church which are under one Head Christ Jesus so the Joy and the sense of Salvation which the pure in heart have here is not a joy severed from the Joy of Heaven but a Joy that begins in us here and continues and accompanies us thither and there flowes on and dilates it selfe to an infinite expansion so as if you should touch one corne of powder in a traine and that traine should carry fire into a whole City from the beginning it was one and the same fire though the fulness of the glory therof be reserved to that which is expressed in the last branch Videbunt Deum They shall see God for as S. Bernard notes when the Church is highliest extolled for her Beauty yet it is but Pulcherrima inter mulieres The fairest amongst women that is
under our senses non sensus nor with any thing which we can bring studiously or which can fall casually into our fancy or imagination non phantasia And upon the whole matter and all the evidence he joynes in this verdict with S. Hierome Tunc cernitur cum invisibilis creditur God is best seen by us when we confesse that he cannot be seen of us S. Augustine denies not That our eyes shall be spirituall eyes but in what proportion spirituall or to what particular use spirituall he will not pretend to know Vtrum in simplicitatem spiritus cedat it a ut totus homo jam sit spiritus whether the body of man shall be so attenuated and rarified as that the whole man shall become spirit Aut animam adjuvet corpus ad videndum whether the body shall contribute and assist the faculties of the soul as in this life it doth Fateor me non alicubi legisse quod existimarem sufficere ad docendum aut ad discendum sayes that blessed and sober Father I confesse I never read any thing that I thought sufficient to rectifie mine own judgement much lesse to change anothers But to all those places of Scripture which are to this purpose That the Angels see the face of God and that we shall be like the Angels and see God face to face he answers well Facies Dei ea est qua Deus innotescit nobis That is the face of God to us all by which God is known and manifested to us in which sense Reason is the face of God to the naturall man the Law to the Jew and the Gospell to us and such a sight of God doth no more put such a power of seeing in our bodily eyes then it puts a face upon God We shall see God face to face and yet God shall have no face to be seen nor we bodily eyes to see him by For Non legi That I have not read sayes he This sayes he I have read Regi incorruptibili invisibili Vnto the King eternall immortall invisible c. Neither dare I sayes S. Augustine 1 Tim. 1.17 sever those things which the Spirit of God hath joyned Vt dicam incorruptibilem quidem in saecula saeculorum invisibilem autem in hoc saeculo I dare not say that God is immortall in this world and in the next world too but invisible in this world only and visible in the next for the Holy Ghost hath pronounced him invisible as far as immortall Si rogas sayes he if you presse me Cannot God then be seen Yes I confesse he can If you ask me how Cum vult sicuti vult He may be seen when he will and how he will If you pursue it can he not be seen in his Essence yes he can If you proceed farther and ask me how again I can say no more sayes he then Christ sayes Erimus sicut Angeli we shall be like the Angels and we shall see God so as the Angels do but they see him not with bodily eyes nor as an object which is that that S. Ambrose and S. Hicrome and S. Chrysostome intend when they deny that the Angels see the Essence of God that is they see him not otherwise then by understanding him All agree in this resolution Solus Deus videt cor solum cor videt Deum Only God can see the heart of man and only the heart of man can see God For in this world our bodily eyes do not see bodies they see but colours and dimensions they see not bodies much lesse shall our eyes though spirituall see spirits in heaven least of all that Spirit in comparison of of whom Angels and our spirits are but grosse bodies So far the Fathers leade us towards a determination herein and thus far the School Nulla visio naturalis in terris Here in this life neither the eyes nor the minde of the most subtile and most sanctified man can see the Essence of God Nulla visio corporalis in coelis The bodily eyes of no man in the highest stare of glorification in heaven can see the Essence of God Nulla visio comprehensiva omnino That faculty of man which shall see the Essence of God in heaven yet shall not comprehend that Essence for to comprehend is not to know a thing as well as I can know it but to know it as well as that thing can be knowen and so only God himself can see and know that is comprehend God To end all in the whole body of the Scriptures we have no light that our bodily eyes shall be so enlightned in the Resurrection Job 19.26 as to see the Essence of God For when Iob sayes In carne mea In my flesh I shall see God and Oculi mei videbunt Mine eyes shall see God if these words must necessarily be understood of the last Resurrection which some Expositors deny and Calvin in particular understands them of a particular resurrection from that calamity which lay upon Iob at that time and of his confidence that God would raise him again even in this life yet howsoever and to which resurrection soever you refer them the words must be understood thus In my flesh that is when my soule shall re-assume this flesh in the Resurrection In that flesh I shall see God he doth not say That flesh shall but Hee in that flesh shall So when hee adds Oculi mei Mine eyes shall do it he intends Oculos internos of which the Apostle speaks The eyes of your understanding being enlightned Ephes 1.18 So then a faculty to see him so in his Essence with bodily eyes we finde not in Scripture But yet in the Scriptures we do finde that we shall see him so Sicuti est As he is in his Essence How It is a safe answer which S. Augustine gives in all such questions Meliùs affirmamus de quibus minimè dubitamus Only those things are safely affirmed and resolved which admit no doubt This hath never admitted any doubt but that our soule and her faculties shall be so exalted in that state of glory as that in those internall faculties of the soul so exalted we shall see the very Essence of God which no measure of the light of grace communicated to any the most fanctified man here doth effect but only the light of glory there shall And therefore this being cleare that in the faculties of our soules we shall see him Restat ut de illa visione secundum interiorem hominem certissimi simus sayes that blessed and sober Father As our reason is satisfied that the Saints in heaven shall see God so so let our consciences be satisfied that we have an interest in that state and that we in particular shall come to that sight of God Et cor mundum ad illam visionem praeparemus Let us not abuse our selves with false assurances nor rest in any other then this that we have made clean and pure our
constitutions or onely a testimony of outward conformity which should be signaculum viaticum a seale of pardon for past sins and a provision of grace against future But he that is well prepared for this strips himselfe of all these vae desiderantibus of all these comminations that belong to carnall desires and he shall be as Daniel was vir desideriorum a man of chast and heavenly desires onely hee shall desire that day of the Lord as that day signifies affliction here with David Psal 119.17 Bonum est mihi quòd humiliasti me I am mended by my sicknesse enriched by my poverty and strengthened by my weaknesse and with S. Bern. desire Irascar is mihi Domine O Lord be angry with me for if thou chidest me not thou considerest me not if I taste no bitternesse I have no Physick If thou correct me not I am not thy son And he shall desire that day of the Lord as that day signifies the last judgement with the desire of the Martyrs under the Altar Vsquequo Domine How long O Lord ere thou execute judgement And he shall desire this day of the Lord as this day is the day of his own death with S. Pauls desire Cupio dissolvi I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ And when this day of the Lord as it is the day of the Lords resurrection shall come his soule shall be satified as with marrow and with fatnesse in the body and bloud of his Saviour and in the participation of all his merits as intirely as if all that Christ Jesus hath said and done and suffered had beene said and done and suffered for his soule alone Enlarge our daies O Lord to that blessed day prepare us before that day seale to us at that day ratifie to us after that day all the daies of our life an assurance in that Kingdome which thy Son our Saviour hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible bloud To which glorious Son of God c. SERMON XV. Preached at VVhite-hall March 8. 1621. 1 COR. 15.26 The last Enemie that shall be destroyed is Death THis is a Text of the Resurrection and it is not Easter yet but it is Easter Eve All Lent is but the Vigill the Eve of Easter to so long a Festivall as never shall end the Resurrection wee may well begin the Eve betimes Forty yeares long was God grieved for that Generation which he loved let us be content to humble our selves forty daies to be fitter for that glory which we expect In the Booke of God there are many Songs there is but one Lamentation And that one Song of Solomon nay some one of Davids hundred and fiftie Psalmes is longer then the whole booke of Lamentations Make way to an everlasting Easter by a short Lent to an undeterminable glory by a temporary humiliation You must weepe these teares teares of contrition teares of mortification before God will wipe all teares from your eyes You must dye this death this death of the righteous the death to sin before this last enemy Death shal be destroyed in you and you made partakers of everlasting life in soule and body too Our division shall be but a short Divisio and our whole exercise but a larger paraphrase upon the words The words imply first That the Kingdome of Christ which must be perfected must be accomplished because all things must be subdued unto him is not yet perfected not accomplished yet Why what lacks it It lacks the bodies of Men which yet lie under the dominion of another When we shall also see by that Metaphor which the Holy Ghost chooseth to expresse that in which is that there is Hostis and so Militia an enemie and a warre and therefore that Kingdome is not perfected that he places perfect happinesse and perfect glory in perfect peace But then how far is any State consisting of many men how far the state and condition of any one man in particular from this perfect peace How truly a warfare is this life if the Kingdome of Heaven it selfe have not this peace in perfection And it hath it not Quia hostis because there is an enemy though that enemy shall not overthrow it yet because it plots and workes and machinates and would overthrow it this is a defect in that peace Who then is this enemy An enemy that may thus far thinke himselfe equall to God that as no man ever saw God and lived so no man ever saw this enemy and lived for it is Death And in this may thinke himselfe in number superiour to God that many men live who shall never see God But Quis homo is Davids question which was never answered Is there any man that lives and shall not see death An enemie that is so well victualled against man as that he cannot want as long as there are men for he feeds upon man himselfe And so well armed against Man as that he cannot want Munition while there are men for he fights with our weapons our owne faculties nay our calamities yea our owne pleasures are our death And therefore he is Novissimus hostis saith the Text The last enemy We have other Enemies Satan about us sin within us but the power of both those this enemie shall destroy but when they are destroyed he shall retaine a hostile and triumphant dominion over us But Vsque quo Domine How long O Lord for ever No Abolebitur wee see this Enemy all the way and all the way we feele him but we shall see him destroyed Abolebitur But how or when At and by the resurrection of our bodies for as upon my expiration my transmigration from hence as soone as my soule enters into Heaven I shall be able to say to the Angels I am of the same stuffe as you spirit and spirit and therefore let me stand with you and looke upon the face of your God and my God so at the Resurrection of this body I shall be able to say to the Angel of the great Councell the Son of God Christ Jesus himselfe I am of the same stuffe as you Body and body Flesh and flesh and therefore let me sit downe with you at the right hand of the Father in an everlasting security from this last enemie who is now destroyed death And in these seven steps we shall passe apace and yet cleerely through this paraphrase We begin with this Vestig 1. Quia desunt Corpora That the Kingdome of Heaven hath not all that it must have to a consummate perfection till it have bodies too In those infinite millions of millions of generations in which the holy blessed and glorious Trinity enjoyed themselves one another and no more they thought not their glory so perfect but that it might receive an addition from creatures and therefore they made a world a materiall world a corporeall world they would have bodies In that noble part of that world which Moses
Lord and thou only knowest Which is also the sense of those words Heb. 11.35 Others were tortured and accepted not a deliverance that they might obtain a better Resurrection A present deliverance had been a Resurrection but to be the more sure of a better hereafter they lesse respected that According to that of our Saviour Mat. 10.39 He that findes hi life shall lose it He that fixeth himself too earnestly upon this Resurrection shall lose a better This is then the propheticall Resurrection for the future but a future in this world That if Rulers take counsell against the Lord the Lord shall have their counsell in derision If they take armes against the Lord the Lord shall break their Bows and cut their Spears in sunder Psal 2.4 If they hisse and gnash their teeth and say we have swallowed him up If we be made their by-word their parable their proverb their libell the theame and burden of their songs as Iob complaines yet whatsoever fall upon me dmage distresse scorn or Hostis ultimus death it self that death which we consider here death of possessions death of estimation death of health death of contentment yet Abolebitur it sahll be destroyed in a Resurrection in the return of the light of Gods countenance upon me even in this world And this is the first Resurrection But this first Resurrection 2. Apeecatis which is but from temporall calamities doth so little concerne a true and established Christian whether it come or no for still Iobs Basis is his Basis and his Centre Etiamsi occiderit though he kill me kill me kill me in all these severall deaths and give me no Resurrection in this world yet I will trust in him as that as though this first resurrection were no resurrection not to be numbred among the rersurrections S. Iohn calls that which we call the second which is from sin the first resurrection Blessed and holy is be who hath part in the firstresurrection And this resurrection Christimplies Apoe 20.6 John 5.25 when he saies Verely verely I say unto you the houre is comming and now is when the dead shall heare the ovyce of the Son of God and they that heare it shall live That is by the voyce of the word of life the Gospell of repentance they shall have a spirituall resurrection to a new life S. Austine and Lactantius both were so hard in beleeving the roundnesse of the earth that they thought that those homines pensiles as they call them those men that hang upon the other cheek of the face of the earth those Antipodes whose feet are directly against ours must necessarily fall from the earth if the earth be round But whither should they fall If they fall they must fall upwards for heaven is above them too as it is to us So if the spirituall Antipodes of this world the Sons of God that walk with feet opposed in wayes contrary to the sons of men shall be said to fall when they fall to repentance to mortification to a religious negligence and contempt of the pleasures of this life truly their fall is up wards they fall towards heaven God gives breath unto the people upon the earth sayes the Prophet Et spiritum his qui calcant illam Esay 45.5 Our Translation carries that no farther but that God gives breath to people upon the earth and spirit to them that walk thereon But Irenaeus makes a usefull difference between afflatus and spiritus that God gives breath to all upon earth but his spirit onely to them who tread in a religious scorne upon earthly things Is it not a strange phrase of the Apostle Mortifie your members fornication uncleanenesse inordinate affections He does not say mortifie your members against those sins Col. 3.5 but he calls those very sins the members of our bodies as though we were elemented and compacted of nothing but sin till we come to this resurrection this mortification which is indeed our vivification Till we beare in our body the dying of our Lord Iesus that the life also of Iesus may be made manifest in our body 2 Cor. 4.10 God may give the other resurrection from worldly misery and not give this A widow may be rescued from the sorrow and solitarinesse of that state by having a plentifull fortune there she hath one resurrection but the widow that liveth in pleasure is dead while she lives 1 Tim. 5.6 shee hath no second resurrection and so in that sense even this Chappell may be a Church-yard men may stand and sit and kneele and yet be dead and any Chamber alone may be a Golgotha a place of dead mens bones of men not come to this resurrection which is the renunciation of their beloved sin It was inhumanely said by Vitellius upon the death of Otho when he walkedin the field of carcasses where the battle was fought O how sweet a perfume is a dead enemy But it is a divine saying to thy soule O what a savor of life unto life is the death of a beloved sin What an Angelicall comfort was that to Ioseph and Mary in Aegypt after the death of Herod Arise for they are dead that sought the childes life Mat. 2.20 And even that comfort is multiplied upon thy soul when the Spirit of God saies to thee Arise come to this resurrection for that Herod that sin that sought the life the everlasting life of this childe the childe of God thy soule is dead dead by repentance dead by mortification The highest cruelty that story relates or Poets imagine is when a persecutor will not afford a miserable man death not be so mercifull to him as to take his life Thou hast made thy sin thy soule thy life inanimated all thy actions all thy purposes with that sin Miserere animatuae be so mercifull to thy selfe as to take away that life by mortification by repentance and thou art come to this Resurrection and thugh a man may have the former resurrection and not this peace in his fortune and yet not peace in his conscience yet whosoever hath this second hath an infallible seale of the third resurrection too to a fulnesse of glory in body as well as in soule For Spiritus maturam efficit carnem capacem incorruptelae this resurrection by the spirit Irenaeus mellowes the body of man and makes that capable of everlasting glory which is the last weapon by which the last enemy death shall be destroyed A morte Upon that pious ground that all Scriptures were written for us as we are Christians that all Scriptures conduce to the proofe of Christ and of the Christian state 3. A morte it is the ordinary manner of the Fathers to make all that David speaks historically of himselfe and all that the Prophet speaks futurely of the Jews if those place may be referred to Christ to referre them to Christ primarily and but by reflection and in a second
trina immer sio that threefold dipping which was used in the Primitive Church in baptisme And in this baptisme thou takest a new Christian name thou who wast but a Christian art now a regenerate Christian and as Naaman the Leper came cleaner out of Jordan then he was before his leprosie for his flesh came as the flesh of a child so there shall be better evidence in this baptisme of thy repentance then in thy first baptisme better in thy self for then thou hadst no sense of thy own estate in this thou hast And thou shalt have better evidence from others too for howsoever some others will dispute whether all children which dye after Baptisme be certainly saved or no it never fell into doubt or disputation whether all that die truely repentant be saved or no. Weep these teares truly and God shall performe to thee first that promise which he makes in Esay The Lord shall wipe all teares from thy face Esay 25. all that are fallen by any occasion of calamity here in the militant Church and he shall performe that promise which he makes in the Revelation Revel 7.17 The Lord shall wipe all teares from thine eyes that is dry up the fountaine of teares remove all occasion of teares hereafter in the triumphant Church SERMON XVII Preached at VVhite-hall March 4. 1624. MAT. 19.17 And he said unto him Why callest thou me Good There is none Good but One that is God THat which God commanded by his Word to be done at some times that we should humble our soules by fasting the same God tommands by his Church to be done now In the Scriptures you have Praeceptum The thing it self What In the Church you have the Nunt The time When. The Scriptures are Gods Voyce The Church is his Eccho a redoubling a repeating of some particular syllables and accents of the same voice And as we harken with some earnestnesse and some admiration at an Eccho when perchance we doe not understand the voice that occasioned that Eccho so doe the obedient children of God apply themselves to the Eccho of his Church when perchance otherwise they would lesse understand the voice of God in his Scriptures if that voice were not so redoubled unto them This fasting then thus enjoyned by God for the generall in his Word and thus limited to this Time for the particular in his Church is indeed but a continuation of a great Feast Where the first course that which we begin to serve in now is Manna food of Angels plentifull frequent preaching but the second course is the very body and blood of Christ Jesus shed for us and given to us in that blessed Sacrament of which himselfe makes us worthy receivers at that time Now as the end of all bodily eating is Assimilation that after all other concoctions that meat may be made Idem corpus the same body that I am so the end of all spirituall eating is Assimilation too That after all Hearing and all Receiving I may be made Idem spiritus cum Domino the same spirit that my God is for though it be good to Heare good to Receive good to Meditate yet if we speake effectually and consummatively why call we these good there is nothing good but One that is Assimilation to God In which perfect and consummative sense Christ saies to this Man in this Text Why callest thou me good there is none good but one that is God The words are part of a Dialogue of a Conference betweene Christ Divisio and a man who proposed a question to him to whom Christ makes an answer by way of another question Why callest thou me good c. In the words and by occasion of them we consider the Text the Context and the Pretext Not as three equall parts of the Building but the Context as the situation and Prospect of the house The Pretext as the Accesse and entrance to the house And then the Text it selfe as the House it selfe as the body of the building In a word In the Text the Words In the Context the Occasion of the words In the Pretext the Pretence the purpose the disposition of him who gave the occasion We begin with the Context 1 Part. Context the situation the prospect how it stands how it is butted how it is bounded to what it relates with what it is connected And in that we are no farther curious but onely to note this that the Text stands in that Story where a man comes to Christ inquires the way to Heaven beleeves himselfe to be in that way already and when he heares of nothing but keeping the Commandements beleeves himselfe to be fargone in that way But when he is told also that there belongs to it a departing with his Riches his beloved Riches he breakes off the conference he separates himselfe from Christ for saies the Story This Man had great possessions And to this purpose to separate us from Christ the poorest amongst us hath great possessions He corners of the streets as well as he that sits upon carpets in the Region of perfumes he that is ground and trod to durt with obloquie and contempt as well as he that is built up every day a story and story higher with additions of Honour Every man hath some such possessions as possesse him some such affections as weigh downe Christ Jesus and separate him from Him rather then from those affections those possessions Scarce any sinner but comes sometimes to Christ in the language of the man in this Text Good Master what good thing shall I do that I may have eternall life And if Christ would go no farther with such men but to say to the Adulterer Do not thou give thy money to usury no more to the penurious Usurer but Do not thou wast thy selfe in superfluous and expensive feasting If Christ would proceed no farther but to say to the needy person that had no money Do not thou buy preferment or to the ambitious person that soares up after all Do not thou forsake thy selfe deject thy selfe undervalue thy selfe In all these cases the Adulterer and the Usurer The needy and the ambitious man would all say with the man in the Text All these things have we done from our youth But when Christ proceeds to a Vade vende to depart with their possessions that which they possesse that which possesses them this changes the case There are some sins so rooted so riveted in men so incorporated so consubstantiated in the soule by habituall custome as that those sins have contracted the nature of Ancient possessions As men call Manners by their names so sins have taken names from men and from places Simon Magus gave the name to a sin and so did gehazi and Sodom did so There are sins that run in Names in Families in Blood Hereditary sins entailed sins and men do almost prove their Gentry by those sins and are scarce beleeved to be rightly borne if
miser abilis casus saies he cui non sufficit una regeneratio Miserable man that I am and miserable condition that I am fallen into whom one regeneration will not serve So is it a miserable death that hath swallowed us whom one Resurrection will serve We need three but if we have not two we were as good be without one There is a Resurrection from worldly calamities a resurrection from sin and a resurrection from the grave First Exod. 10.17 1 Cor. 15.31 Psal 41.8 from calamities for as dangers are called death Pharaoh cals the plague of Locusts a death Intreat the Lord your God that he may take from me this death onely And so S. Paul saies in his dangers I dye daily So is the deliverance from danger called a Resurrection It is the hope of the wicked upon the godly Now that he lieth he shall rise no more that is Now that he is dead in misery he shall have no resurrection in this world Now this resurrection God does not alwaies give to his servants neither is this resurrection the measure of Gods love of man whether he do raise him from worldly calamities or no. The second is the resurrection from sin Apec 20.5 and therefore this S. Iohn calls The first Resurrection as though the other whether we rise from worldly calamities or no were not to be reckoned Anima spiritualiter cadit spiritualiter resurget saies S. Augustine Since we are sure there is a spirituall death of the soule let us make sure a spirituall resurrection too Audacter dicam saies S. Hierome I say confidently Cum omnia posset Deus suscitare Virginem post ruinam non potest Howsoever God can do all things he cannot restore a Virgin that is fallen from it to virginity againe He cannot do this in the body but God is a Spirit and hath reserved more power upon the spirit and soule then upon the body and therefore Audacter dicam I may say with the same assurance that S. Hierome does No soule hath so prostituted her selfe so multiplied her fornications but that God can make her a virgin againe and give her even the chastity of Christ himselfe Fulfill therefore that which Christ saies Iohn 5.25 The houre is comming and now is when the dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God and they that heare shall live Be this that houre be this thy first Resurrection Blesse Gods present goodnesse for this now and attend Gods leasure for the other Resurrection hereafter 1 Cor. 15.20 He that is the first fruits of them that slept Christ Jesus is awake he dyes no more he sleepes no more Sacrificium pro te fuit sed à te accepit August quod pro te obtulit He offered a Sacrifice for thee but he had that from thee that he offered for thee Primitiae fuit sed tuae primitiae He was the first fruits but the first fruits of thy Corne Spera in te futurum quod praecess it in primitiis tuis Doubt not of having that in the whole Croppe which thou hast already in thy first fruits that is to have that in thy self which thou hast in thy Saviour And what glory soever thou hast had in this world Glory inherited from noble Ancestors Glory acquired by merit and service Glory purchased by money and observation what glory of beauty and proportion what glory of health and strength soever thou hast had in this house of clay The glory of the later house Hag. 2.9 shall be greater then of the former To this glory the God of this glory by glorious or inglorious waies such as may most advance his own glory bring us in his time for his Son Christ Jesus sake Amen SERMON XIX Preached at S. Pauls upon Easter-day in the Evening 1624. APOC. 20.6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection IN the first book of the Scriptures that of Genesis there is danger in departing from the letter In this last book this of the Revelation there is as much danger in adhering too close to the letter The literall sense is alwayes to be preserved but the literall sense is not alwayes to be discerned for the literall sense is not alwayes that which the very Letter and Grammer of the place presents as where it is literally said That Christ is a Vine and literally That his flesh is bread and literally That the new Ierusalem is thus situated thus built thus furnished But the literall sense of every place is the principall intention of the Holy Ghost in that place And his principall intention in many places is to expresse things by allegories by figures so that in many places of Scripture a figurative sense is the literall sense and more in this book then in any other As then to depart from the literall sense that sense which the very letter presents in the book of Genesis is dangerous because if we do so there we have no history of the Creation of the world in any other place to stick to so to binde our selves to such a literall sense in this book will take from us the consolation of many spirituall happinesses and bury us in the carnall things of this world The first error of being too allegoricall in Genesis transported divers of the ancients beyond the certain evidence of truth and the second error of being too literall in this book fixed many very many very ancient very learned upon an evident falshood which was that because here is mention of a first Resurrection and of raigning with Christ a thousand years after that first Resurrection There should be to all the Saints of God a state of happinesse in this world after Christs comming for a thousand yeares In which happy state though some of them have limited themselves in spirituall things that they should enjoy a kinde of conversation with Christ and an impeccability and a quiet serving of God without any reluctations or cōcupiscences or persecutions yet others have dreamed on and enlarged their dreames to an enjoying of all these worldly happinesses which they being formerly persecuted did formerly want in this world and then should have them for a thousand yeares together in recompence And even this branch of that error of possessing the things of this world so long in this world did very many and very good and very great men whose names are in honour and justly in the Church of God in those first times stray into and flattered themselves with an imaginary intimation of some such thing in these words Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection Thus far then the text is literall Divisio That this Resurrection in the text is different from the generall Resurrection The first differs from the last And thus far it is figurative allegoricall mysticall that it is a spirituall Resurrection that is intended But wherein spirituall or of what spirituall Resurrection In
the Resurrection marvaile at nothing so much as at this nothing is so marvailous so wonderfull as this And secondly the approach of the Resurrection The houre is comming And thirdly The generality All that are in the graves And then the instrument of the resurrection The voice of Christ that shall be heard And lastly the diverse end of the resurrection They shall come forth they that have done good c. God hath a care of the Body of man that is first And he defers it not that is next And he extends it to all that is a third And a fourth is That he does that last act by him by whom he did the first The Creation and all betweene the Redemption that is by his Son by Christ And then the last is that this is an everlasting separation and divorce of the good and the bad The bad shall never be able to receive good from the Good nor to doe harme to the Good after that First then Christ saies Ne miremini Marvaile not at this Ne miremini not at your spirituall resurrection not that a Sermon should worke upon man not that a Sacrament should comfort a man make it not a miracle nor an extraordinary thing by hearing to come to repentance and so to such a resurrection For though S. Augustine say That to convert a man from sin is as great a miracle as Creation yet S. August speaks that of a mans first conversion in which the man himselfe does nothing but God all Then he is made of nothing but after God hath renewed him and proposed ordinary meanes in the Church still to worke upon him he must not looke for miraculous working but make Gods ordinary meanes ordinary to him This is Panis quotidianus The daily bread which God gives you as often as you meet here according to his Ordinances Ne miremini stand not to wonder as though you were not sure but come to enjoy Gods goodnesse in his ordinary way here But it is Hoc Ne miremini hoc Wonder not at this but yet there are things which we may wonder at Nil admirari is but the Philosophers wisdome He thinks it a weaknesse to wonder at any thing That any thing should be strange to him But Christian Philosophy that is rooted in humility tels us in the mouth of Clement of Alexand. Principium veritatis est res admirari The first step to faith is to wonder to stand and consider with a holy admiration the waies and proceedings of God with man for Admiration wonder stands as in the midst betweene knowledge and faith and hath an eye towards both If I know a thing or beleeve a thing I do no longer wonder but when I finde that I have reason to stop upon the consideration of a thing so as that I see enough to induce admiration to make me wonder I come by that step and God leads me by that hand to a knowledge if it be of a naturall or civill thing or to a faith if it be of a supernaturall and spirituall thing And therefore be content to wonder at this That God would have such a care to dignifie and to crown and to associate to his own everlasting presence the body of man God himself is a Spirit and heaven is his place my soul is a spirit and so proportioned to that place That God or Angels or our Soules which are all Spirits should be in heaven Ne miremini never wonder at that But since we wonder and justly that some late Philosophers have removed the whole earth from the Center and carried it up and placed it in one of the Spheares of heaven That this clod of earth this body of ours should be carried up to the highest heaven placed in the eye of God set down at the right hand of God Miremini hoc wonder at this That God all Spirit served with Spirits associated to Spirits should have such an affection such a love to this body this earthly body this deserves this wonder The Father was pleased to breathe into this body at first in the Creation The Son was pleased to assume this body himself after in the Redemption The Holy Ghost is pleased to consecrate this body and make it his Temple by his sanctisication In that Faciamus hominem Let us all us make man that consuitation of the whole Trinity in making man is exercised even upon this lower part of man the dignifying of his body So far as that amongst the ancient Fathers very many of them are very various and irresolved which way to pronounce and very many of them cleare in the negative in that point That the soule of man comes not to the presence of God but remaines in some out-places till the Resurrection of the body That observation that consideration of the love of God to the body of man withdrew them into that error That the soul it self should lack the glory of heaven till the body were become capable of that glory too They therefore oppose God in his purpose of dignifying the body of man first who violate and mangle this body which is the Organ in which God breathes And they also which pollute and defile this body in which Christ Jesus is apparelled and they likewise who prophane this body which the Holy Ghost as the high Priest inhabites and consecrates Trangressors in the first kinde that put Gods Organ out of tune that discompose and teare the body of man with violence are those inhumane persecutors who with racks and tortures and prisons and fires and exquisite inquisitions throw downe the bodies of the true Gods true servants to the Idolatrous worship of their imaginary Gods that torture men into hell and carry them through the inquisition into damnation S. Augustine moves a question and institutes a disputation and carries it somewhat problematically whether torture be to be admitted at all or no. That presents a faire probability which he sayes against it we presume sayes he that an innocent man should be able to hold his tongue in torture That is no part of our purpose in torture sayes he that hee that is innocent should accuse himselfe by confession in torture And if an innocent man be able to doe so why should we not thinke that a guilty man who shall save his life by holding his tongue in torture should be able to doe so And then where is the use of torture Res fragilis periculosa quaestio sayes that Lawyer who is esteemed the law alone Vlpian It is a slippery triall and uncertaine to convince by torture For many times sayes S. Augustine againe Innocens luit pro incerto scelere certissimas poenas He that is yet but questioned whether he be guilty or no before that be knowne is without all question miserably tortured And whereas many times the passion of the Judge and the covetousnesse of the Judge and the ambition of the Judge are calamities heavy enough upon a man that is
shall know that I am the Lord God shall restore them to life and more to strength and more to beauty and comelinesse acceptable to himselfe in Christ Jesus Your way is Recollecting gather your selves into the Congregation and Communion of Saints in these places gather your sins into your memory and poure them out in humble confessions to that God whom they have wounded Gather the crummes under his Table lay hold upon the gracious promises which by our Ministery he lets fall upon the Congregation now and gather the seales of those promises whensoever in a rectified conscience his Spirit beares witnesse with your spirit that you may be worthy receivers of him in his Sacrament and this recollecting shall be your resurrection Beatus qui habet partem Apâ—â— 20.6 sayes S. Iohn Blessed is he that hath part in the first Resurrection for on such the second death hath no power He that rises to this Judgement of recollecting and of judging himselfe shall rise with a chearfulnesse and stand with a confidence when Christ Jesus shall come in the second Auâ— And Quando exacturus est in secundo quod dedit in primo when Christ shall call for an account in that second judgement how he hath husbanded those graces which he gave him for the first he shall make his possession of this first resurrection his title and his evidence to the second When thy body which hath been subject to all kindes of destruction here to the destruction of a Flood in Catarrhs and Rheums and Dropsies and such distillations to the destruction of a fire in Feavers and Frenzies and such conflagrations shall be removed safely and gloriously above all such distempers and malignant impressions and body and soule so united as if both were one spirit in it selfe and God so united to both as that thou shalt be the same spirit with God God began the first World but upon two Adam and Eve The second world after the Flood he began upon a greater stock upon eight reserved in the Arke But when he establishes the last and everlasting world in the last Resurrection he shall admit such a number as that none of us who are here now none that is or hath or shall be upon the face of the earth shall be denied in that Resurrection if he have truly felt this for Grace accepted is the infallible earnest of Glory SERMON XXII Preached at S. Pauls upon Easter-day 1627. HEB. 11.35 Women received their dead raised to life againe And others were tortured not accepting a deliverance that they might obtaine a better Resurrection MErcy is Gods right hand with that God gives all Faith is mans right hand with that man takes all David Psal 136. opens and enlarges this right hand of God in pouring out his blessings plentifully abundantly manifoldly there And in this Chapter the Apostle opens and enlarges this right hand of man by laying hold upon those mercies of God plentifully abundantly manifoldly by faith here There David powres downe the mercies of God in repeating and re-repeating that phrase For his mercy endureth for ever And here S. Paul carries up man to heaven by repeating and re-repeating the blessings which man hath attained by faith By faith Abel sacrificed By faith Enoch walked with God By faith Noah built an Arke c. And as in that Psalme Gods mercies are exprest two waies First in the good that God did for his servants He remembred them in their low estate Ver 23. Ver. 24. for his mercy endureth for ever And then againe He redeemed them from their enemies for his mercy endureth for ever And then also in the evill that he brought upon their enemies He slew famous Kings for his mercy endureth for ever And then He gave their land for an heritage for his mercy endureth for ever So in this Chapter the Apostle declares the benefits of faith two wayes also First how faith enriches us and accommodates us in the wayes of prosperity By faith Abraham went to a place which he received for an inheritance And so By faith Sarah received strength to conceive seed Ver. 8. Ver. 11. Ver. 34. And then how faith sustaines and establishes us in the wayes of adversity By faith they stopt the mouthes of Lions by faith they quencht the violence of fire by faith they escaped the edge of the sword in the verse immediatly before the Text. And in this verse which is our Text the Apostle hath collected both The benefits which they received by faith Women received their dead raised to life againe And then the holy courage which was infused by Faith in their persecutions Others were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might receive a better Resurrection And because both these have relation evidently pregnantly to the Resurrection for their benefit was that the Women received their dead by a Resurrection And their courage in their persecution was That they should receive a better Resurrection therefore the whole meditation is proper to this day in which wee celebrate all Resurrections in the Root in the Resurrection of the First fruits of the dead our Lord and Saviour Christ Iesus Our Parts are two How plentifully God gives to the faithfull Divisio Women receive their dead raised to life againe And how patiently the faithfull suffer Gods corrections Others were tortured not accepting c. Though they be both large considerations Benefits by Faith Patience in the Faithfull yet we shall containe our selves in those particulars which are exprest or necessarily implyed in the Text it selfe And so in the first place we shall see first The extraordinary consolation in Gods extraordinary Mercies in his miraculous Deliverances such as this Women received their dead raised to life again And secondly we shall seethe examples to which the Apostle refers here What women had had their dead restored to life againe And then lastly in that part That this affection of joy in having their dead restored to life againe being put in the weaker sexe in women onely we may argue conveniently from thence That the strength of a true and just joy lies not in that but that our virility our holy manhood our religious strength consists in a faithfull assurance that we have already a blessed communion with these Saints of God though they be dead and we alive And that we shall have hereafter a glorious Association with them in the Resurrection though we never receive our dead raised to life again in this world And in those three considerations we shall determine that first part And then in the other The Patience of the Faithfull Others were tortured c. we shall first look into the examples which the Apostle refers to who they were that were thus tortured And secondly the heighth and exaltation of their patience They would not accept a deliverance And lastly the ground upon which their Anchor was cast what established their patience That they might obtaine a better Resurrection
it selfe retaine an Almighty power and an effectuall purpose to deliver his soule from death by a glorious a victorious and a Triumphant Resurrection So it is true Christ Josus dyed else none of us could live but yet hee dyed not so as is intended in this question Not by the necessity of any Law not by the violence of any Executioner not by the separation of his best soule if we may so call it the God-head nor by such a separation of his naturall and humane soule as that he would not or could not or did not resume it againe If then this question had beene asked of Angels at first Quis Angelus what Angel is that that stands and shall not fall though as many of those Angels as were disposed to that answer Erimus similes Altissimo We will be like God and stand of our selves without any dependance upon him did fall yet otherwise they might have answered the question fairly All we may stand if we will If this question had been asked of Adam in Paradise Quis homo though when he harkned to her who had harkned to that voyce Erit is sicut Dii You shall be as Gods he fell too yet otherwise he might have answered the question fairly so I may live and not dye if I will so if this question be asked of us now as the question implies the generall penalty as it considers us onely as the sons of Adam we have no other answer but that by Adam sin entred upon all and death by sin upon all as it implies the state of them onely whom Christ at his second comming shall finde upon earth wee have no other answer but a modest non liquet we are not sure whether we shall dye then or no wee are onely sure it shall be so as most conduces to our good and Gods glory but as the question implies us to be members of our Head Christ Jesus as it was a true answer in him it is true in every one of us adopted in him Here is a man that liveth and shall not see death Death and life are in the power of the tongue sayes Solomon in another sense Prov. 18.21 and in this sense too If my tongue suggested by my heart and by my heart rooted in faith can say Non moriar non moriar If I can say and my conscience doe not tell me that I belye mine owne state if I can say That the blood of my Saviour runs in my veines That the breath of his Spirit quickens all my purposes that all my deaths have their Resurrection all my sins their remorses all my rebellions their reconciliations I will harken no more after this question as it is intended de morte naturali of a naturall death I know I must die that death what care I nor de morte spirituali the death of sin I know I doe and shall die so why despaire I but I will finde out another death mortem raptus 2 Cor. 12. a death of rapture Acts 9. Greg. and of extasie that death which S. Paul died more then once The death which S. Gregory speaks of Divina contemplatio quoddam sepulchrum animae The contemplation of God and heaven is a kinde of buriall and Sepulchre and rest of the soule and in this death of rapture and extasie in this death of the Contemplation of my interest in my Saviour I shall finde my self and all my sins enterred and entombed in his wounds and like a Lily in Paradise out of red earth I shall see my soule rise out of his blade in a candor and in an innocence contracted there acceptable in the sight of his Father Though I have been dead 1 Tim. 5.6 in the delight of sin so that that of S. Paul That a Widow that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth be true of my soule that so viduatur gratiâ mortuâ when Christ is dead not for the soule but in the soule that the soule hath no sense of Christ Viduatur anima the soul is a Widow and no Dowager she hath lost her husband and hath nothing from him Esay 28.15 yea though I have made a Covenant with death and have been at an agreement with hell and in a vain confidence have said to my self that when the overflowing scourge shall passe through it shall not come to me yet God shall annull that covenant he shall bring that scourge that is some medicinall correction upon me and so give me a participation of all the stripes of his son he shall give me a sweat that is some horrour and religious feare and so give me a participation of his Agony he shall give me a diet perchance want and penury and so a participation of his fasting and if he draw blood if he kill me all this shall be but Mors raptus a death of rapture towards him into a heavenly and assured Contemplation that I have a part in all his passion yea such an intire interest in his whole passion as though all that he did or suffered had been done and suffered for my soul alone 2 Cor. 6.9 Quasi moriens ecce vivo some shew of death I shall have for I shall sin and some shew of death again for I shall have a dissolution of this Tabernacle Sed ecce vivo still the Lord of life will keep me alive and that with an Ecce Behold I live that is he will declare and manifest my blessed state to me I shall not sit in the shadow of death no nor I shall not sit in darknesse his gracious purpose shall evermore be upon me and I shall ever discerne that gracious purpose of his I shall not die nor I shall not doubt that I shall If I be dead within doores If I have sinned in my heart why Suscitavit in domo Mar. 9.23 Christ gave a Resurrection to the Rulers daughter within doores in the house If I be dead in the gate If I have sinned in the gates of my soule in mine Eies Luke 7.11 or Eares or Hands in actuall sins why Suscitavit in porta Christ gave a Resurrection to the young man at the gate of Naim If I be dead in the grave in customary and habituall sins why John 11. Suscitavit in Sepulchro Christ gave a Resurrection to Lazarus in the grave too If God give me mortem raptus a death of rapture of extasie of fervent Contemplation of Christ Jesus a Transfusion a Transplantation a Transmigration a Transmutation into him for good digestion brings alwaies assimilation certainly if I come to a true meditation upon Christ I come to a conformity with Christ this is principally that Pretiosa mors Sanctorum Psal 116.15 Pretious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints by which they are dead and buryed and risen again in Christ Jesus pretious is that death by which we apply that pretious blood to our selves and grow strong
soul and call the will ours we usurp the soul it self and call it ours and then deliver all to everlasting bondage Would the King suffer his picture to be used as we use the Image of God in our soules or his Hall to be used as we use the Temple of the Holy Ghost our Bodies We have nothing but that which we have received and when we come to think that our own we have not that For God will take all from that man that sacrifices to his own nets When thou commest to Church come in anothers name When thou givest an Almes give it in anothers name that is feele all thy devotion and all thy charity to come from God For if it be not in his name it will be in a worse Thy devotion will contract the name of hypocrisie and thine Almes the name of Vain-glory. The Holy Ghost came in anothers name in Christs name but not so as Montanus the Father of the Montanists came in the Holy Ghosts name Montanus said he was the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost did not pretend to be Christ There is a man the man of sin at Rome that pretends to be Christ to all uses And I would he would be content with that and stop there and not be a Hyper-Christus Above Christ more then Christ I would he would no more trouble the peace of Christendome no more occasion the assassinating of Christian Princes no more binde the Christian liberty in forbidding Meats and Marriage no more slacken and dissolve Christian bands by Dispensations and Indulgences then Christ did But if he will needs be more if he will needs have an addition to the name of Christ let him take heed of that addition which some are apt enough to give him however he deserve it that he is Antichrist Now in what sense the Holy Ghost is said to have come in the name of Christ S. Basil gives us one interpretation that is that one principall name of Christ belongs to the Holy Ghost For Christ is Verbum The Word and so is the Holy Ghost sayes that Father Quia interpres filii sicut filius patris Because as the Son manifested the Father so the Holy Ghost manifests the Son S. Augustine gives another sense Societas Patris Filii est Spiritus Sanctus The Holy Ghost is the union of the Father and the Son As the body is not the man nor the soul is not the man but the union of the soul and body by those spirits through which the soul exercises her faculties in the Organs of the body makes up the man so the union of the Father and Son to one another and of both to us by the Holy Ghost makes up the body of the Christian Religion And so this interpretation of S. Augustine comes neare to the fulnesse in what sense the Holy Ghost came in Christs name John 17.12 For when Christ sayes I am come in my Fathers name that was to execute his Decree to fulfill his Will for the salvation of man by dying so when Christ sayes here the Holy Ghost shall come in my name that is to perfect my work to collect and to govern that Church in which my salvation by way of satisfaction may be appropriated to particular soules by way of application And for this purpose to do this in Christs name his own name is Paracletus The Comforter which is our last circumstance The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost The Comforter is an Euangelicall name The Comforter Athanasius notes that the Holy Ghost is never called Paracletus The Comforter in the old Testament He is called Spiritus Dei The Spirit of God in the beginning of Genesis And he is called Spiritus sanctus The holy Spirit and Spiritus principalis The principall Spirit in divers places of the Psalmes but never Paracletus never the Comforter A reason of that may well be first that the state of the Law needed not comfort and then also that the Law it self afforded not comfort so there was no Comforter Their Law was not opposed by any enemies as enemies to their Law If they had not by that warrant which they had from God invaded the possession of their neighbours or grown too great to continue good neighbours their neighbours had not envyed them that Law So that in the state of the Law in that respect they were well enough and needed no Comforter Whereas the Gospell as it was sowed in our Saviours blood so it grew up in blood for divers hundreds of yeares and therefore needed the sustentation and the assurance of a Comforter And then for the substance of the Law it was Lex interficiens non perficiens sayes S. Augustine A Law that told them what was sin and punisht them if they did sin but could not conferre Remission for sin which was a discomfortable case Whereas the Gospel and the Dispensation of the Gospel in the Church by the Holy Ghost is Grace Mercy Comfort all the way and in the end Therefore Christ v. 17. cals the Holy Ghost Spiritum veritatis The Spirit of truth In which he opposes him and preferres him above all the remedies and all the comforts of the Law Not that the Holy Ghost in the Law did not speak truth but that he did not speak all the truth in the Law Origen expresses it well The Types and Figures of the Law were true Figures and true Types of Christ in the Gospel but Christ and his Gospel is the truth it self prefigured in those Types Therefore the Holy Ghost is Paracletus The Comforter in the Gospel which he was not in the Law In the Records and Stories and so in the Coynes and Medals of the Romane Emperours we see that even then when they had gotten the possession of the name of Emperours yet they forbore not to adde to their style the name of Consul and the name of Pontifex maximus still they would be called Consuls which was an acceptable name to the people and High-Priests which carried a reverence towards all the world Where Christ himselfe is called by a name appliable to none but Christ by a name implying the whole nature and merit of Christ that is The Propitiation of the sins of the whole world 1 John 2.2 yet there in that place he is called by the name of this Text too Paracletus the Comforter He would not forbeare that sweet that acceptable that appliable name that name that concernes us most and establishes us best Paracletus the Comforter And yet he does not take that name in that full and whole sense in which himselfe gives it to the Holy Ghost here For there it is said of Christ If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father There Paracletus though placed upon Christ is but an Advocate But here Christ sends Paracletum in a more intire and a more internall and more viscerall sense A Comforter Upon which Comforter Christ imprints these two marks of
to others in the plurall to many others But now it is Visum est mihi Spiritui Sancto It seemes good unto me to one man alone and when it does so it shall seeme good to the Holy Ghost too And of these two Hereticall violences to the Holy Ghost we complaine against that Church first that they put the Holy Ghost in a Rebellion against the Son of God from whom he proceeds And then as for the most part the end of them who pretend right to a Kingdome and cannot prove it is to lie in Prison That they have imprisoned the Holy Ghost in one mans breast and not suffered that winde to breathe where it will as Christ promised the Holy Ghost should doe For neither did the Holy Ghost bring any such thing to their remembrance as though Christ had taught any such Doctrine neither can they that teach it come nearer the sin The unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost then thus to make him a supplanter of Christ or supplanted by Antichrist But we hold you no longer in this ill Aire Charismata Spiritus blasphemous and irksome contumelies against the Holy Ghost we promised at first to dismisse you at last in a perfume with the breath of the Holy Ghost upon you and that is to excite you to a rectified sense and knowledge August that he offers himselfe unto you and is received by you Facies Dei est qua nobis innotescit That is alwaies the face of God to us by which God vouchsafes to manifest himselfe to us So his Ordinance in the Church is his face And Lux Dei qua nobis illucescit The light of God to us is that light by which he shines upon us Lex Dei Lux Dei his word in his Church And then the Evidence the Seale the Witnesse of all that this face which I see by this light is directed upon me for my comfort is The Testimony of the Holy Ghost when that Spirit beares witnesse with our spirit that he is in us And therefore in his blessed Name and in the participation of his power I say to you all Accipite Spiritum sanctum Receive ye the holy Ghost Not that I can give it you 2 Cor. 3.5 but I can tell you that he offers to give himselfe to you all Our sufficiency is of God sayes the Apostle Acknowledge you a sufficiency in us a sufficient power to be in the Ministery for as the Apostle addes He hath made us able Ministers of the New Testament Not able onely in faculties and gifts requisite for that function those faculties and gifts whether of nature or of acquisition be in as great measure in some that have not that function but able by his powerfull Ordinance as it is also added there to minister not the letter not the letter onely but The Spirit the Spirit of the New Testament that is the holy Ghost to you Therefore as God said to Moses I will come downe Numb 11.17 and talk with thee and I will take of the Spirit which is upon thee and put it upon them God in his Spirit does come downe to us in his Ministery and talke with us his Ministers at home that is assist us in our Meditations and lucubrations and preparations for this service here and then here in this place he takes of that Spirit from us and sheds upon you imparts the gifts of the holy Ghost to you also and makes the holy Ghost as much yours by your hearing as he made him ours by our study Be not deceived by the letter by the phrase of that place God does not say there that he will take of the Spirit from us and give it you that is fill you with it and leave us without it but he will take of that Spirit that is impart that Spirit so to you as that by us and our present Ministery he will give you that that shall be sufficient for you to day and yet call you to us againe in his Ordinance another day Learne as much as you can every day and never thinke that you have learnt so much as that you have no more need of a Teacher for though you need no more of that man you may be perchance as learned as he yet you need more of that Ordinance We give you the holy Ghost then when we open your eyes to see his offers Those words of the Apostle Our selves have the first fruits of the Spirit Rom. 8.23 S. Ambrose interprets so Our selves we the Ministers of God have the first fruits of the Spirit the pre-possession the pre-inhabitation but not the sole possession nor sole inhabitation of the Holy Ghost but we have grace for grace the Spirit therefore to shed the Spirit upon you that that precious Oyntment Psal 133.2 the Holy Ghost is this Unction which was poured upon the Head upon Christ may run downe upon Aarons beard and from those gray and grave and reverend haires of his Ministers may also go downe to the skirts of his garments to every one of you who doe not onely make up the garment that is the visible but the mysticall body it selfe of Christ Jesus Ver. 3. The dew of Hermon descends upon the mountaines of Sion But the waters that fall upon the mountaines fall into the valleyes too from thence The Holy Ghost fals through us upon you also so as that you may so as that you must finde it in your selves The Holy Ghost was the first Person that was declared in the Creation The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters Gen. 1.2 that was the first motion This is eternall life to know God and him whom he sent Christ Iesus But this you cannot doe but by him whom they both sent the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 12.3 No man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost Iohn Baptist who was to baptize Christ was filled with the holy Ghost from the wombe You who were baptized in Christ were filled in your measure with the holy Ghost from that wombe from the time that the Church conceived you in Baptisme And therefore as the Twelve said to the multitude Acts 6.3 Looke yee among ye seven men full of the holy Ghost So we say to the whole Congregation Looke every man to himselfe that he be one of the seven one of that infinite number which the holy Ghost offers to fall upon That as ye were baptized in the holy Ghost and as your bodies are Temples of the holy Ghost so your soules may be Priests of the holy Ghost and you altogether a lively and reasonable sacrifice to God in the holy Ghost Eph. 1.13 That as you have beene sealed with the holy Spirit of promise you may finde in your selves the performance of that promise finde the seale of that promise in your love to the Scriptures for as S. Chrysostome argues usefully Christ gave the Apostles no Scriptures but
roome at his owne right hand for that body when that shall be re-united in a blessed Resurrection And so The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters SERM. XXXII Preached upon Whitsunday 1 COR. 12.3 Also no man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost WE read that in the Tribe of Benjamin Iudg. 20.16 which is by interpretation Filius dextrae The Son of the right hand there were seven hundred left-handed Men that could sling stones at a haires breadth and not faile S. Paul was of that Tribe and though he were from the beginning in the purpose of God Filius dextrae A man ordained to be a dextrous Instrument of his glory yet he was for a time a left-handed man and tooke sinister wayes and in those wayes a good mark-man a laborious and exquisite persecutor of Gods Church And therefore it is that Tertullian sayes of him Paulum mihi etiam Genesis olim repromisit I had a promise of Paul in Moses Gen 49. Then when Moses said Iacob blessed Benjamin thus Benjamin shall ravin as a Wolfe In the morning he shall devoure the prey and at night he shall divide the spoilc that is At the beginning Paul shall scatter the flocke of Christ but at last he shall gather and re-unite the Nations to his service Acts 9.1 Chrysost As he had breathed threatnings and slaughter against the Disciples of the Lord so he became Os orbi sufficiens A mouth loud enough for all the world to heare And as he had drawne and sucked the blood of Christs mysticall body the Church so in that proportion that God enabled him to he recompensed that damage Colos 1.14 by effusion of his owne blood He fulfilled the sufferings of Christ in his flesh as himselfe saies to the Colossians And then he bequeathed to all posterity these Epistles which are as S. Augustine cals them Vbera Ecclesia The Paps the Breasts the Udders of the Church Numb 13.24 And which are as that cluster of Grapes of the Land of Canaan which was borne by two for here every couple every paire may have their load Jew and Gentile Learned and Ignorant Man and Wife Master and Servant Father and Children Prince and People Counsaile and Client how distinct soever they thinke their callings to be towards the world yet here every paire must equally submit their necks to this sweet and easie yoake of confessing Jesus to be the Lord and acknowledging that Confession to proceed from the working of the Holy Ghost for No man can say that Iesus is the Lord without the Holy Ghost In which words Divisio these shall be the three things that we will consider now first The generall impotency of man in spirituall duties Nemo potest no man can do this no man can doe any thing secondly How and what those spirituall duties are expressed to be It is a profession of Jesus to be the Lord to say it to declare it And thirdly the meanes of repairing this naturall impotency and rectifying this naturall obliquity in man That man by the Holy Ghost may be enabled to do this spirituall duty to professe sincerely Jesus to be the Lord. In the first we shall see first the universality of this flood the generality of our losse in Adam Nemo none not one hath any any power which notes their blasphemy that exempt any person from the infection of sin And secondly we shall see the impotency the infirmity where it lies It is in homine no man which notes their blasphemy that say Man may be saved by his naturall faculties as he is man And thirdly by just occasion of that word Potest he can he is able we shall see also the lazinesse of man which though he can doe nothing effectually and primarily yet he does not so much as he might doe And in those three we shall determine our first part In the second what this spirituall duty wherein we are all so impotent is It is first an outward act a profession not that an outward act is enough but that the inward affection alone is not enough neither To thinke it to beleeve it is not enough but we must say it professe it And what why first That Jesus is not only assent to the history and matter of fact that Jesus was and did all that is reported and recorded of him but that he is still that which he pretended to be Caesar is not Caesar still nor Alexander Alexander But Jesus is Jesus still and shall be for ever This we must professe That he is And then That he is the Lord He was not sent hither as the greatest of the Prophets nor as the greatest of the Priests His worke consists not only in having preached to us and instructed us nor in having sacrificed himselfe thereby to be an example to us to walk in those wayes after him but he is Lord he purchased a Dominion he bought us with his Blood He is Lord And lastly he is The Lord not only the Lord Paramount the highest Lord but The Lord the only Lord no other hath a Lordship in our soules no other hath any part in the saving of them but he And so far we must necessarily enlarge our second consideration And in the third part which is That this cannot be done but by the holy Ghost we shall see that in that But is first implyed an exclusion of all means but one And therefore that one must necessarily be hard to be compassed The knowledge and discerning of the holy Ghost is a difficult thing And yet as this But hath an exclusion of all meanes but one so it hath an inclusion an admission an allowance of that one It is a necessary duty nothing can effect it but the having of the holy Ghost and therefore the holy Ghost may be had And in those two points The hardnesse of it And the possibility of it will our last consideration be employed For the first branch of the first part The generality that reaches to us all 1. Part. Generalitas and to us all over to all our persons and to all our faculties Perdidimus per peccatum bonum possibilitatis sayes S. Augustine We have lost our possession and our possibility of recovering by Adams sin Adam at his best had but a possibility of standing we are fallen from that and from all possibility of rising by any power derived from him We have not only by this fall broke our armes or our legs but our necks not our selves not any other man can raise us Every thing hath in it as Physitians use to call it Naturale Balsamum A naturall Balsamum which if any wound or hurt which that creature hath received be kept clean from extrinsique putrefaction will heale of it self We are so far from that naturall Balsamum as that we have a naturall poyson in us Originall sin for that originall sin as it hath relation to God
Learning Plato never stopped at any knowledge till he came to consider the holy Ghost Vnum inveni quod cuncta operatur I have saies Plato found One who made all things Et unum per quod cuncta efficiuntur And I have found another by whom all things were made Tertium autem non potui invenire A Third besides those two I could never finde Though all the mysteries of the Trinity be things equally easie to faith when God infuses that yet to our reason even as reason serves faith and presents things to that things are not so equall but that S. Basil himselfe saw that the eternall generation of the Son was too hard for Reason but yet it is in the proceeding of the Holy Ghost that he clearely professes his ignorance Si cuncta putarem nostra cogitatione posse comprehendi vererer fortè ignorantiam profiteri If I thought that all things might bee knowne by man I should bee as much afraid and ashamed as another man to be ignorant but saies he since we all see that there are many things whereof we are ignorant Cur non de Spiritu sancto absque rubore ignorantiam faterer Why should I be ashamed to confesse mine ignorance in many things concerning the Holy Ghost There is then a difficulty no lesse then an impossibility Possibilitas in searching after the Holy Ghost but it is in those things which appertain not to us But in others there is a possibility a facility and easinesse For there are two processions of the holy Ghost Aeterna and Temporaria his proceeding from the Father and the Son and his proceeding into us The first we shall never understand if we reade all the books of the world The other we shall not choose but understand if we study our own consciences In the first the darknesse and difficulty is recompenced in this That though it be hard to finde any thing yet it is but little that we are to seek It is only to finde that there is a holy Ghost proceeding from Father and Son for in searching farther the danger is noted by S. Basil to be thus great Qui quomodo interrogas ubi ut in loco quando ut in tempore interrogabis If thou give thy curiosity the liberty to ask How the holy Ghost proceeded thou wilt ask where it was done as though there were severall roomes and distinct places in that which is infinite And thou wilt ask when it was done as though there were pieces of time in that which is eternall Et quaeres non ut fidem sed ut infidelitatem invenias which is excellently added by that Father The end of thy enquiring will not be that thou mightest finde any thing to establish thy beliefe but to finde something that might excuse thine unbeliefe All thy curious questions are not in hope that thou shalt receive satisfaction but in hope that the weaknesse of the answer may justifie thy infidelity Thus it is if we will be over curious in the first the eternall proceeding of the Holy Ghost In the other the proceeding of the holy Ghost into us we are to consider that as in our naturall persons the body and soul do not make a perfect man except they be united except our spirits which are the active part of the blood do fit this body and soule for one anothers working So though the body of our religion may seem to be determined in these two our Creation which is commonly attributed to the Father Tanquam fonti Deitatis As the fountaine of the Godhead for Christ is God of God And our Redemption which belongs to the Son yet for this body there is a spirit that is the holy Ghost that takes this man upon whom the Father hath wrought by Creation and the Son included within his Redemption and he works in him a Vocation a Justification and a sanctification and leads him from that Esse which the Father gave him in the Creation And that Bene esse which he hath in being admitted into the body of his Son the visible Church and Congregation to an Optimè esse to that perfection which is an assurance of the inhabitation of this Spirit in him and an inchoation of eternall blessednesse here by a heavenly and sanctified conversation without which Spirit No man can say that Iesus is the Lord because he is not otherwise in a perfect obedience to him if he embrace not the means ordained by him in his Church So that this Spirit disposes and dispenses distributes and disperses and orders all the power of the Father and all the wisdome of the Son and all the graces of God It is a Center to all So S. Bernard sayes upon those words of the Apostle We approve our selves as the Ministers of God But by what By watching by fasting by suffering by the holy Ghost by love unfained Vide tanquam omnia ordinantem quomodo in medio virtutum sicut cor in medio corporis constituit Spiritum Sanctum As the heart is in the midst of the body so between these vertues of fasting and suffering before and love unfained after the Apostle places the holy Ghost who only gives life and soule to all Morall and all Theologicall vertues And as S. Bernard observes that in particular men so doth S. Augustine of the whole Church Quod in corpore nostro anima id in corpore Christi Ecclesia Spiritus Sanctus That office which the soule performes to our body the holy Ghost performes in the body of Christ which is the Church And therefore since the holy Ghost is thus necessary and thus neare as at the Creation the whole Trinity was intimated in that plurall word Elohim creavit Dii but no person of the Trinity is distinctly named in the Creation but the holy Ghost The Spirit of God moved upon the waters As the holy Ghost was first conveyed to our knowledge in the Creation so in our Regeneration by which we are new creatures though our Creation and our Redemption be religious subjects of our continuall meditation yet let us be sure to hold this that is nearest us to keep a neare a familiar and daily acquaintance and conversation with the holy Ghost and to be watchfull to cherish his light and working in us Homines docent quaerere solus ipse qui docet invenire habere frui Bernard Men can teach us wayes how to finde somethings The Pilot how to finde a Land The Astronomer how to finde a Star Men can teach us wayes how to finde God The naturall man in the book of creatures The Morall man in an exemplar life The Jew in the Law The Christian in generall in the Gospell But Solus ipse qui docet invenire habere frui Only the holy Ghost enables us to finde God so as to make him ours and to enjoy him 1 Cor. 2.14 First you must get more light then nature gives for The naturall man perceiveth not the things
because the Son is the second and the holy Ghost the third person but the second was not before the third in time nor is above him in dignity There is processio corporalis such a bodily proceeding as that that which proceeds is utterly another thing then that from which it proceeds frogs proceed perchance of ayre and mise of dust and worms of carkasses and they resemble not that ayre that dust those carkasses that produced them There is also processio Metaphysica when thoughts proceed out of the minde but those thoughts remaine still in the mind within and have no separate subsistence in themselves And then there is processio Hyperphysica which is this which we seek and finde in our soules but not in our tongues a proceeding of the holy Ghost so from Father and Son as that he remaines a subsistence alone a distinct person of himselfe This is as far as the Schoole can reach Ortu qui relationis est non est à se Actu qui personae est per se subsistit Consider him in his proceeding so he must necessarily have a relation to another Consider him actually in his person so he subsists of himselfe And De modo for the manner of his proceeding we need we can say but this As the Son proceeds per modu intellectus so as the mind of man conceives a thought so the holy Ghost proceeds per modum voluntatis when the mind hath produced a thought that mind and that discourse and ratiocination produce a will first our understanding is setled and that understanding leads our will And nearer then this though God knows this be far off we cannot goe to the proceeding of the holy Ghost This then is The Spirit The third person in the Trinity but the first person in our Text Spiritus noster The other is our spirit The Spirit beareth witnesse with our spirit I told you before that amongst the manifold acceptations of the word spirit as it hath relation particularly to man it is either the soul it self or the vitall spirits the thin and active parts of the bloud or the superiour faculties of the soul in a regenerate man that is our spirit in this place So S. Paul distinguishes soul and spirit Heb. 4.12 The word of God pierces to the dividing asunder soule and spirit where The soule is that which inanimates the body and enables the organs of the senses to see and heare The spirit is that which enables the soule to see God and to heare his Gospel The samephrase hath the same use in another place 1 Thes 5.25 Calvin I pray God your spirit and soule and body may be preserved blamelesse Where it is not so absurdly said though a very great man call it an absurd exposition That the soule Anima is that qua animales homines as the Apostle calls them that by which men are men naturall men carnall men And the spirit is the spirit of Regeneration by which man is a new creature a spirituall man But that that Expositor himselfe hath said enough to our present purpose The soule is the seat of Affections The spirit is rectified Reason It is true this Reason is the Soveraigne these Affections are the Officers this Body is the Executioner Reason authorizes Affections command the Body executes And when we conceive in our mind desire in our heart performe in our body nothing that displeases God then have we had benefit of S. Pauls prayer That in body and soule and spirit we may be blamelesse In summe we need seek no farther for a word to expresse this spirit but that which is familiar to us The Conscience Rem 9.1 A rectified conscience is this spirit My conscience bearing me witnesse sayes the Apostle And so we have both the persons in this judiciall proceeding The Spirit is the holy Ghost Our spirit is our Conscience And now their office is to testifie to beare witnesse which is our second generall part The Spirit bears witnesse c. To be a witnesse 2 Part. is not an unworthy office for the holy Ghost himselfe Heretiques in their pestilent doctrines Tyrans in their bloody persecutions call God himselfe so often so far into question as that he needs strong and pregnant testimony to acquit him First against Heretiques we see the whole Scripture is but a Testament and Testamentum is Testatio ment is it is but an attestation a proofe what the will of God is And therefore when Tertullian deprehended himselfe to have slipped into another word and to have called the Bible Instrumentum he retracts and corrects himselfe thus Magìs usui est dicere Testamentum quà m Instrumentum It is more proper to call the Scripture a Testament then a Conveyance or Covenant All the Bible is Testament Attestation Declaration Proofe Apoc. 11.2 Evidence of the will of God to man And those two witnesses spoken of in the Revelation are very conveniently very probably interpreted to be the two Testaments And to the Scriptures Christ himselfe refers the Jews Iohn 5.39 Search them for they beare witnesse of me The word of God written by the holy Ghost is a witnesse and so the holy Ghost is a witnesse against Heretiques Against Tyrans and Persecuters the office of a witnesse is an honourable office too for that which we call more passionately and more gloriously Martyrdome is but Testimony A Martyr is nothing but a Witnesse He that pledges Christ in his own wine in his own cup in bloud He that washes away his sins in a second Baptisme and hath found a lawfull way of Re-baptizing even in bloud He that waters the Prophets ploughing and the Apostles sowing with bloud He that can be content to bleed as long as a Tyran can foame or an Executioner sweat He that is pickled nay embalmed in bloud salted with fire and preserved in his owne ashes He that to contract all nay to enlarge beyond all suffers in the Inquisition when his body is upon the rack when the rags are in his throat when the boots are upon his legs when the splinters are under his nailes if in those agonies he have the vigour to say I suffer this to shew what my Saviour suffered must yet make this difference He suffered as a Saviour I suffer but as a witnesse But yet to him that suffers as a Martyr as a witnesse a crowne is reserved It is a happy and a harmonious meeting in Stephens martyrdome Proto-martyr and Stephanus that the first Martyr for Christ should have a Crown in his name Such a blessed meeting there is in Ioash his Coronation Posuit super eum Diadema Testimonium 2 King 11.12 They put the Crowne upon his head and the Testimony that is The Law which testified That as he had the Crowne from God so he had it with a witnesse with an obligation that his Government his life and if need were his death should testifie his zeale to him
mala sunt in ordine That even disorders are done in order that even our sins some way or other fall within the providence of God But that is not the order nor judgement which the holy Ghost is sent to manifest to the world The holy Ghost works best upon them which search least into Gods secret judgements and proceedings But the order and judgement we speak of is an order a judgement-seate established by which every man howsoever oppressed with the burden of sin may in the application of the promises of the Gospel by the Ordinance of preaching and in the seales thereof in the participation of the Sacraments be assured that he hath received his Absolution his Remission his Pardon and is restored to the innocency of his Baptisme nay to the integrity which Adam had before the fall nay to the righteousnesse of Christ Jesus himselfe In the creation God took red earth and then breathed a soule into it When Christ came to a second creation to make a Church he took earth men red earth men made partakers of his blood for Ecclesiam quaesivit acquisivit Bernard Hee desired a Church and he purchased a Church but by a blessed way of Simony Adde medium acquisitionis Sanguine acquisivit Acts 20.28 He purchased a Church with his own blood And when he had made this body in calling his Apostles then he breathed the soule into them his Spirit and that made up all Quod insufflavit Dominus Apostolis dixit August Accipite Spiritum sanctum Ecclesiae potestas collata est Then when Christ breathed that Spirit into them he constituted the Church And this power of Remission of sins is that order and that judgement which Christ himselfe calls by the name of the most orderly frame in this or the next world A Kingdome Dispono vobis regnum Luk. 22.29 I appoint unto you a Kingdome as my Father hath appointed unto me Now Faciunt favos vespa faciunt Ecclesias Marcionitae As Waspes make combs Tertul. but empty ones so do Heretiques Churches but frivolous ones ineffectuall ones And as we told you before That errors and disorders are as well in wayes as inends so may we deprive our selves of the benefit of this judgement The Church as well in circumstances as in substances as well in opposing discipline as doctrine The holy Ghost reprovcâ—thee convinces thee of judgement that is offers thee the knowledge that such a Church there is A Jordan to wash thine originall leprosie in Baptisme A City upon a mountaine to enlighten thee in the works of darknesse a continuall application of all that Christ Jesus said and did and suffered to thee Let no soule say she can have all this at Gods hands immediatly and never trouble the Church That she can passe her pardon between God and her without all these formalities by a secret repentance It is true beloved a true repentance is never frustrate But yet if thou wilt think thy selfe a little Church a Church to thy selfe because thou hast heard it said That thou art a little world a world in thy selfe that figurative that metaphoricall representation shall not save thee Though thou beest a world to thy self yet if thou have no more corn nor oyle nor milk then growes in thy self or flowes from thy self thou wilt starve Though thou be a Church in thy fancy if thou have no more seales of grace no more absolution of sin Grego then thou canst give thy self thou wilt perish Per solam Ecclesiam sacrificium libenter accipit Deus Thou maist be a Sacrifice in thy chamber but God receives a Sacrifice more cheerefully at Church Sola quae pro errantibus fiducialiter intercedit Only the Church hath the nature of a surety Howsoever God may take thine own word at home yet he accepts the Church in thy behalfe as better security Joyne therefore ever with the Communion of Saints August Et cum membrum sis ejus corporis quod loquitur omnibus linguis crede te omnibus linguis loqui Whilst thou art a member of that Congregation that speaks to God with a thousand tongues beleeve that thou speakest to God with all those tongues And though thou know thine own prayers unworthy to come up to God because thou liftest up to him an eye which is but now withdrawne from a licentious glancing and hands which are guilty yet of unrepented uncleannesses a tongue that hath but lately blasphemed God a heart which even now breaks the walls of this house of God and steps home or runs abroad upon the memory or upon the new plotting of pleasurable or profitable purposes though this make thee thinke thine own prayers uneffectuall yet beleeve that some honester man then thy selfe stands by thee and that when he prayes with thee he prayes for thee and that if there be one righteous man in the Congregation thou art made the more acceptable to God by his prayers and make that benefit of this reproofe this conviction of the holy Ghost That he convinces thee De judicio assures thee of an orderly Church established for thy reliefe and that the application of thy self to this judgement The Church shall enable thee to stand upright in that other judgement the last judgement which is also enwrapped in the signification of this word of our Text Iudgement and is the conclusion for this day As God begun all with judgement Iudicium finale Sap. 11. for he made all things in measure number and waight as he proceeded with judgement in erecting a judiciall seat for our direction and correction the Church so he shall end all with judgement The finall and generall judgement at the Resurrection which he that beleeves not beleeves nothing not God for Heb. 11.6 He that commeth to God that makes any step towards him must beleeve Deum remuner atorem God and God in that notion as he is a Rewarder Therefore there is judgement But was this work left for the Holy Ghost Did not the naturall man that knew no Holy Ghost know this Truly all their fabulous Divinity all their Mythology their Minos and their Rhadamanthus tasted of such a notion as a judgement And yet the first planters of the Christian Religion found it hardest to fixe this roote of all other articles That Christ should come againe to judgement Miserable and froward men They would beleeve it in their fables and would not beleeve it in the Scriptures They would beleeve it in the nine Muses and would not beleeve it in the twelve Apostles They would beleeve it by Apollo and they would not beleeve it by the Holy Ghost They would be saved Poetically and fantastically and would not reasonably and spiritually By Copies and not by Originals by counterfeit things at first deduced by their Authors out of our Scriptures Tertul. and yet not by the word of God himself Which Tertullian apprehends and reprehends in his time when he
apace howsoever the slumbring of capitall laws and reasonof State may suffer such mistakers to flatter themselves yet God hath made this Angel of the East this Gospel of his to ascend so far now and to take so deep root as that now this one Angel is strong enough for the other foure that is The sincere preaching of the Gospel in our setled and well disciplined Church shall prevaile against those foure pestilent opposites Atheists and Papists and Sectaries and Carnall indifferent men who all would hinder the blowing of this wind the effect of this Gospel And to this purpose our Angel in the Text is said to have cryed with a loud voice He cryed with a loud voice to the foure Angels For our security therefore that this wind shall blow still Clamavit that this preaching of the Gospel which we enjoy shall be transferred upon our posterity in the same sincerity and the same integrity there is required an assiduity and an earnestnesse in us who are in that service now in which this Angel was then in our preaching Clamavit our Angel cryed it was his first act nothing must retard our preaching and voce magna he cryed with a loud voice he gave not over with one calling What is this crying aloud in our Angel Vocis modum audientium necessitas definit The voice must be so loud as they Basil to whom we speak are quick or thick of hearing Submissa quae ad susurrum propriè accedit damnanda A whispering voice was not the voice of this Angel nor must it be of those Angels that are figured in him for that is the voice of a Conventicle not a Church voice That is a loud voice that is heard by them whom it concernes So the catechizing of children though in a familiar manner is a loud voice though it be not a Sermon So writing in defence of our Religion is a loud voice though in the meane time a man intermit his preaching So the speaking by another when sicknesse or other services withhold him that should and would speak is a loud voice even from him And therefore though there be no evident no imminent danger of withholding these winds of inhibiting or scanting the liberty of the Gospel yet because it is wished by too many and because we can imagine no punishment too great for our neglecting the Gospel it becomes us the Ministers of God by all these loud voices of catechizing of preaching of writing to cry and to cry though not with vociferations or seditious jealousies and suspitions of the present government yet to cry so loud so assiduously so earnestly as all whom it concernes and it concernes all may heare it Hurt not the earth withhold not the winds be you no occasions by your neglecting the Gospel of Christ Jesus that he suffer it to be removed from you and know withall that you doe neglect this Gospel how often soever you heare it preached if you doe not practice it Nor is that a sufficient practice of hearing to desire to heare more except thy hearing bring thee to leave thy sinnes without that at the last day thou shalt meet thy Sermons amongst thy sinnes And when Christ Jesus shall charge thee with false weights and measures in thy shop all the week with prevarication in judgement with extortion in thy practice and in thine office he shall adde to that And besides this thou wast at Church twice that Sunday when he shall have told thee Thou didst not feed me thou didst not clothe me he shall aggravate all with that Yet thou heardst two Sermons that Sunday besides thine interlineary week Lectures The means to keep this wind awake to continue the liberty of the Gospel is this loud voice assiduous and pertinent preaching but Sermons unpractised are threepiled sins and God shall turne as their prayers so their preaching into sin For this injunction this inhibition which this Angel serves upon the four Angels That they should not hurt the world by withholding the winds that is not hinder the propagation passage of the Gospel was not perpetuall it was limited with a Donec Till something were done in the behalfe and favour of the world and that was Till the servants of God were sealed in their foreheads which is our last Consideration The servants of God being sealed in their foreheads in the Sacrament of Baptisme Donec signentur when they are received into the care of the Church all those meanes which God hath provided for his servants in his Church to refist afflictions and tentations are intended to be conferred upon them in that seale This sealing of them is a communicating to them all those assistances of the Christian Church Then they have a way of prevention of sin by hearing a way to Absolution by Confession a way to Reconciliation by a worthy receiving the body and bloud of Christ Jesus And these helps of the Christian Church thus conferred in Baptisme keep open still if these be rightly used that other seale the seale of the Spirit After ye heard the Gospel and beleeved Ephes 1.13 2 Cor. 1.22 ye were sealed with the holy spirit of promise and so also God hath anointed us and sealed us and given us the earnest of his Spirit in our hearts So that besides the seal in the forehead which is an interest and title to all the assistances and benefits of the Church publique prayer preaching Sacraments and sacramentall helps there is a seale of the Spirit of God that that Spirit beares witnesse with my spirit that I performe the conditions passed between God and me under the first seale my Baptisme But because this second seale the obsignation and testification of the inward Spirit depends upon the good use of the first seale the participation of the helps of the Church given me in Baptisme therefore the Donec in our Text Hurt them not till they be sealed reaches but to to the first seale the seale of Baptisme and in that of all Gods ordinary graces ordinarily exhibited in his Ordinances So then this Angel takes care of us till he have delivered us over to the sweet and powerfull helps of that Church which God hath purchased with his blood when hee hath placed us there he looks that we should doe something for our selves which before we were there and made partakers of Gods graces in his Church by Baptisme we could not doe for in this this Angels Commission determines That we be sealed in the fore-heads That we be taken from the Common into Gods inclosures impayled in his Park received into his Church where our salvation depends upon the good use of those meanes Use therefore those meanes well and put not God to save thee by a miracle without meanes Trust not to an irresistible grace that at one time or other God will have thee Bernar. whether thou wilt or no. Tolle voluntatem non est infernus If thou couldst quench thine
holinesse of life and fast and pray and submit my selfe to discreet and medicinall mortifications for the subduing of my body any man will say this is Papisticall Papists doe this it is a blessed Protestation and no man is the lesse a Protestant nor the worse a Protestant for making it Men and brethren I am a Papist that is I will fast and pray as much as any Papist and enable my selfe for the service of my God as seriously as sedulously as laboriously as any Papist So if when I startle and am affected at a blasphemous oath as at a wound upon my Saviour if when I avoyd the conversation of those men that prophane the Lords day any other will say to me This is Puritanicall Puritans do this It is a blessed Protestation and no man is the lesse a Protestant nor the worse a Protestant for making it Men and Brethren I am a Puritan that is I wil endeavour to be pure as my Father in heaven is pure as far as any Puritan Now of these Pharisees who were by these means so popular Sadducaei the numbers were very great The Sadduces who also were of an exemplary holinesse in some things but in many and important things of different opinions even in matter of Religion from all other men were not so many in number but they were men of better quality and place in the State then for the most part the Pharisees were And as they were more potent and able to do more mischiefe so had they more declared themselves to be bent against the Apostles then the Pharisees had done In the fourth Chapter of this Booke Ver. 1. The Priests and the Sadduces no mention of Pharisees came upon Peter and Iohn being grieved that they preached thorough Iesus the resurrection of the dead And so againe Act. 5.17 The high Priest rose up and all they that were with him which is sayes that Text expresly the sect of the Sadduces and were filled with indignation And some collect out of a place in Eusebius that this Ananias who was high Priest at this time and had declared his ill affection to S. Paul as you heard before was a Sadduce But I thinke those words of Eusebius will not beare at least not enforce that nor be well applied to this Ananias Howsoever S. Paul had just cause to come to this protestation I am a Pharisee and in so doing he can be obnoxious to nothing if he be as safe in his other protestation all is well for the hope and resurrection of the dead am I called in question consider we that It is true that he was not at this time called in question Resurrectio Act. 21.23 directly and expresly for the Resurrection you may see where he was apprehended that it was for teaching against that people and against that law and against that Temple So that he was endited upon pretense of sedition and prophanation of the Temple And therefore when S. Paul sayes here I am called in question for preaching the Resurrection he means this If I had not preached the Resurrection I should never have been called in question nor should be if I would forbeare preaching the Resurrection No man persecutes me no man appeares against me but onely they that deny the Resurrection The Sadduces did deny it The Pharisees did beleeve it and therefore this was a likely and a lawfull way to divide them and to gaine time with such a purpose so far as David had when he prayed O Lord Psal 55.9 divide their tongues For it is not alwayes unlawfull to sowe discord and to kindle dissention amongst men for men may agree too well to ill purposes So have yee then seen That though it be not safe to conclude S. Paul or any holy man did this therefore I may do it which was our first part yet in this which S. Paul did here there was nothing that may not be justified in him and imitated by us which was our second part Remains onely the third which is the accommodation of this to our present times and the appropriation thereof to our selves and making it our own case The world is full of Sadduces and Pharisees and the true Church of God arraigned by both The Sadduces were the greater men the Pharisees were the greater number 3 Part. Sadducaei so they are still The Sadduces denied the Resurrection and Angels and Spirits So they do still For those Sadduces whom we consider now in this part are meere carnall men men that have not onely no Spirit of God in them but no soule no spirit of their owne meere Atheists And this Carnality this Atheisme this Sadducisme is seene in some Countries to prevaile most upon great persons the Sadduces were great persons upon persons that abound in the possessions and offices and honours of this world for they that have most of this world for the most part think least of the next These are our present Sadduces Pharisaei and then the Pharisee hath his name from Pharas which is Division Separation But Calvin derives the name not inconveniently from Pharash which is Exposition Explication We embrace both extractions and acceptations of the word both Separation and Exposition for the Pharisee whom we consider now in this part is he that is separated from us there it is Pharas separation and separated by following private Expositions there it is Pharash Exposition with a contempt of all Antiquity and not only an undervaluation but a detestation of all opinions but his owne and his whom he hath set up for his Idol And as the Sadduce our great and worldly man is all carnall all body and beleeves no spirit so our Pharisee is so superspirituall as that he beleeves that is considers no body He imagines such a Purification such an Angelification such a Deification in this life as though the heavenly Jerusalem were descended already or that God had given man but that one commandement Love God above all and not a second too Love thy neighbour as thy selfe Our Sadduces will have all body our Pharisees all soule and God hath made us of both and given us offices proper to each Now of both these Duplex Sadducaus the present Sadduce the carnall Atheist and the present Pharisee the Separatist that overvalues himself and bids us stand farther off there are two kinds For for the Atheist there is Davids Atheist and S. Pauls Atheist Davids that ascribes all to nature Psal 14.2 and sayes in his heart There is no God That will call no sudden death nor extraordinary punishment upon any enormous sinner a judgement of God nor any such deliverance of his servants a miracle from God but all is Nature or all is Accident and would have been so though there had been no God This is Natures Sadduce Davids Atheist And then S. Pauls Atheist is he who though he doe beleeve in God yet doth not beleeve God in
Christ Ephes 2.12 for so S. Paul sayes to the Ephesians Absque Christo absque Deo If ye be without Christ ye are without God For as it is the same absurdity in nature to say There is no Sun and to say This that you call the Sun is not the Sun this that shines out upon you this that produces your fruits and distinguishes your seasons is not the Sun so is it the same Atheisme in these dayes of light to say There is no God and to say This Christ whom you call the Son of God is not God That he in whom God hath manifested himselfe He whom God hath made Head of the Church and Judge of the world is not God This then is our double Sadduce Davids Atheist that beleeves not God S. Pauls Atheist that beleeves not Christ And as our Sadduce is so is our Pharisee twofold also There is a Pharisee Duplex Pharisaeus that by following private expositions separates himselfe from our Church principally for matter of Government and Discipline and imagines a Church that shall be defective in nothing and does not onely think himself to be of that Church but sometimes to be that Church for none but himselfe is of that perswasion And there is a Pharisee that dreames of such an union such an identification with God in this life as that he understands all things not by benefit of the senses and impressions in the fancy and imagination or by discourse and ratiocination as we poore soules doe but by immediate and continuall infusions and inspirations from God himselfe That he loves God not by participation of his successive Grace more and more as he receives more and more grace but by a communication of God himselfe to him intirely and irrevocably That he shall be without any need and above all use of Scriptures and that the Scriptures shall be no more to him then a Catechisme to our greatest Doctors That all that God commands him to doe in this world is but as an easie walk downe a hill That he can doe all that easily and as much more as shall make God beholden to him and bring God into his debt and that he may assigne any man to whom God shall pay the arrerages due to him that is appoint God upon-what man he shall confer the benefit of his works of Supererogation For in such Propositions as these and in such Paradoxes as these doe the Authors in the Roman Church delight to expresse and celebrate their Pharisaicall purity as we find it frequently abundantly in them In a word some of our home-Pharisees will say That there are some who by benefit of a certaine Election cannot sin That the Adulteries and Blasphemies of the Elect are not sins But the Rome-Pharisee will say that some of them are not onely without sin in themselves but that they can save others from sin or the punishment of sin by their works of Supererogation and that they are so united so identified with God already as that they are in possession of the beatificall Vision of God and see him essentially and as he is in this life for that Ignatius the father of the Jesuits did so Sandaeus Theolog pâ—r 1. fo 760. some of his Disciples say it is at least probable if not certaine And that they have done all that they had to doe for their owne salvation long agoe and stay in the world now onely to gather treasure for others and to worke out their salvation So that these men are in better state in this life then the Saints are in heaven There the Saints may pray for others but they cannot merit for others These men here can merit for other men and work out the salvation of others Nay they may be said in some respect to exceed Christ himselfe for Christ did save no man here but by dying for him These men save other men with living well for them and working out their salvation These are our double Sadduces our double Pharisees now beloved Dissentio if we would goe so far in S. Pauls way as to set this two-fold Sadduce Davids Atheist without God and S. Pauls Atheist without Christ against our twofold Pharisee our home-Catharist and our Rome-Catharist If we would spend all our wit and all our time all our Inke and our gall in shewing them the deformities and iniquities of one another by our preaching and writing against them The truth and the true Church might as S. Paul did in our Text scape the better But when we we that differ in no such points tear and wound and mangle one another with opprobrious contumelies and odious names of sub-division in Religion our Home-Pharisee and our Rome-Pharisee maligners of our Discipline and maligners of our Doctrine gaine upon ns and make their advantages of our contentions and both the Sadduces Davids Atheist that denies God and S. Pauls Atheist that denies Christ joyne in a scornfull asking us Where is now your God Are not we as well that deny him absolutely as you that professe him with wrangling But stop we the floodgates of this consideration it would melt us into teares Sadducaei Pharisaei interni End we all with this That we have all all these Sadduces and Pharisees in our owne bosomes Sadduces that deny spirits carnall apprehensions that are apt to say Is your God all Spirit and hath bodily eyes to see sin All Spirit and hath bodily hands to strike for a sinne Is your soule all spirit and hath a fleshly heart to feare All spirit and hath sensible sinews to feele a materiall fire Was your God who is all Spirit wounded when you quarrelled or did your soule which is all spirit drink when you were drunk Sins of presumption and carnall confidence are our Sadduces and then our Pharisees are our sins of separation of division of diffidence and distrust in the mercies of our God when we are apt to say after a sin Cares God who is all Spirit for my eloquent prayers or for my passionate teares Is the giving of my goods to the poore or of my body to the fire any thing to God who is all Spirit My spirit and nothing but my spirit my soule and nothing but my soule must satisfie the justice the anger of God and be separated from him for ever My Sadduce my Presumption suggests that there is no spirit no soule to suffer for sin and my Pharisee my Desperation suggests That my soule must perish irremediably irrecoverably for every sinne that my body commits Now if I go S. Pauls way to put a dissention between these my Sadduces and my Pharisees Via Pauli to put a jealousie between my presumption my desperation to make my presumption see that my desperation lies in wait for her and to consider seriously that my presumption will end in desperation I may as S. Paul did in the Text scape the better for that But if without farther
came to put a war upon us The zeale of his glory and the course of this world fight against one another It is not against all warre nay it is not against all victory that David prayes He cannot hope that he should be overcome by no Tentations but against such a war and such a victory as should bring him to servility and bondage to sinne That sin entring by Conquest upon him should governe as a tyran over him against such a sicknesse as should induce a consumption it is that he directs this prayer Sana me Domine Not Lord make me impeccable but Lord make me penitent and then heale me And he comes not to take physick upon wantonnesse but because the disease is violent because the accidents are vehement so vehement so violent as that it hath pierced Ad ossa and Ad animam My bones are vexed and my soule is sore troubled Therefore heale me which is the Reason upon which he grounds this second petition Heale me because my bones are vexed c. We must necessarily insist a little upon these termes Ossa The Bones The Soule The Trouble or Vexation First Ossa Bones We know in the naturall and ordinary acceptation what they are They are these Beames and Timbers and Rafters of these Tabernacles these Temples of the Holy Ghost these bodies of ours But Immanebimus nativae significationi sayes S. Basil Shall we dwell upon the native and naturall signification of these Bones Et intelligentia passim obvia contenti erimus Shall we who have our conversation in heaven finde no more in these Bones then an earthly a worldly a naturall man would doe By S. Basils example we may boldly proceed farther Membra etiam animae sunt Esay 42. sayes he The soule hath her limbs as well as the body Surdi audite caeci aspicite sayes God in Esay If their soules had not eares and eyes the blinde could not see the deafe could not heare and yet God cals upon the deafe and blinde to heare and see As S. Paul sayes to the Ephesians The eyes of your understanding being enlightned so David sayes Psal 3.7 Dentes peccatorum contrivisti Thou hast broken the teeth That is the pride and the power the venom and malignity of the wicked Membra etiam animae sunt The soule hath her Bones too and here Davids Bones were the strongest powers and faculties of his soule and the best actions and operations of those faculties and yet they were shaken For this hereditary sicknesse Originall sinne prevayles so far upon us that upon our good dayes we have some grudgings of that Fever Even in our best actions we have some of the leaven of that sinne So that if we goe about to comfort our selves with some dispositions to Gods glory which we finde in our selves with some sparks of love to his precepts and his commandements with some good strength of faith with some measure of good works yea with having something for the Name and glory of Christ Jesus yet if we consider what humane and corrupt affections have been mingled in all these Conturbabuntur ossa our Bones will be troubled even those that appeared to be strong works and likely to hold out will need a reparation an exclamation Sana me Domine O Lord heale these too or els these are as weake as the worst Ossa non dolent The Bones themselves have no sense they feele no paine We need not say That those good works themselves which we doe have in their nature the nature of sinne That every good worke considered alone and in the substance of the act it selfe is sinne But membranae dolent Those little membrans those filmes those thin skins that cover and that line some bones are very sensible of paine and of any vexation Though in the nature of the worke it selfe the worke be not sinne yet in those circumstances that invest and involve the worke in those things which we mingle with the worke whether desire of glory towards men or opinion of merit towards God Whensoever those bones those best actions come to the examination of a tender and a diligent Conscience Si ossa non dolent membranae dolent If the worke be not sinfull the circumstances are and howsoever they may be conceived to be strong as they are Ossa Bones works in a morall consideration good yet as they are Ossa mea sayes David as they are My bones such good works as taste of my ill corruptions so long they are vexed and troubled and cannot stand upright nor appeare with any confidence in the sight of God Thus far then first David needed this sanation this health that he prayes for Anima that his best actions were corrupt But the corruption went farther to the very roote and fountaine of those actions Ad ipsam animam His very soule was sore vexed It is true that as this word Anima the soule is sometimes taken in the Scriptures this may seeme to goe no farther then the former no more that his soule was vexed then that his bones were so for Anima in many places is but Animalis Homo The soule signifies but the naturall man And so opponitur spiritui The soule is not onely said to be a diverse thing but a contrary thing to the Spirit When the Apostle sayes to the Thessalonians 1 Thes ult 23. Now the very God of peace sanctifie you throughout that your whole spirit and soule and body may be kept blamelesse unto the comming of our Lord Iesus Christ And where the same Apostle sayes to the Hebrews The word of God divideth asunder the soule and the spirit Heb. 4.12 here is a difference put between corrupt nature and the working of the Spirit of God the Holy Ghost in man for here the soule is taken for Animalis home The naturall man and the Spirit is taken for the Spirit of God But besides this these two words Soule and Spirit are sometimes used by the Fathers in a sense diverse from one another and as different things and yet still as parts of one and the same man Man is said by them not onely to have a body and a soule but to have a soule and a spirit not as Spirit is the Spirit of God and so an extrinsecall thing but as Spirit is a constitutive part of the naturall man So in particular amongst many Gregory Nyssen takes the Body to be spoken De nutribili The flesh and bloud of man And the soule De sensibili The operation of the senses And the Spirit De Intellectuali The Intellectuall the reasonable faculties of man That in the body Man is conformed to Plants that have no sense In the soule to Beasts that have no reason In the spirit to Angels But so The Spirit is but the same thing with that which now we doe ordinarily account the soule to be for we make account that the Image of God is imprinted in the soule and that gives him his
the principall arguments against Confessions by Letter which some went about to set up in the Romane Church that that took away one of the greatest evidences and testimonies of their repentance which is this Erubescence this blushing this shame after sin if they should not be put to speak it face to face but to write it that would remove the shame which is a part of the repentance But that soule that goes not to confession to it selfe that hath not an internall blushing after a sin committed is a pale soule even in the palenesse of death and senslesnesse and a red soule red in the defiance of God And that whitenesse to avoid approaches to sin and that rednesse to blush upon a sin which does attempt us is the complexion of the soule which God loves and which the Holy Ghost testifies when he sayes Cant. 5.12 My Beloved is white and ruddy And when these men that David speaks of here had lost that whitenesse their innocency for David to wish that they might come to a rednesse a shame a blushing a remorse a sense of sin may have been no such great malediction or imprecation in the mouth of David but that a man may wish it to his best friend which should be his own soule and say Erubescam not let mine enemies but let me be ashamed with such a shame In the second word Conturbentur Let them be sore vexed he wishes his enemies no worse then himselfe had been For he had used the same word of himselfe before Ossa turbata My bones are vexed Ver. 2. 3. and Anima turbata My soule is vexed and considering that David had found this vexation to be his way to God it was no malicious imprecation to wish that enemy the same Physick that he had taken who was more sick of the same disease then he was For this is like a troubled Sea after a tempest the danger is past but yet the billow is great still The danger was in the calme in the security or in the tempest by mis-interpreting Gods corrections to our obduration and to a remorselesse stupefaction but when a man is come to this holy vexation to be troubled to be shaken with a sense of the indignation of God the storme is past and the indignation of God is blowne over That soule is in a faire and neare way of being restored to a calmnesse and to reposed security of conscience that is come to this holy vexation In a flat Map there goes no more to make West East though they be distant in an extremity but to paste that flat Map upon a round body and then West and East are all one In a flat soule in a dejected conscience in a troubled spirit there goes no more to the making of that trouble peace then to apply that trouble to the body of the Merits to the body of the Gospel of Christ Jesus and conforme thee to him and thy West is East Zoch 6.12 thy Trouble of spirit is Tranquillity of spirit The name of Christ is Oriens The East Esay 14.12 And yet Lucifer himselfe is called Filius Orientis The Son of the East If thou beest fallen by Lucifer fallen to Lucifer and not fallen as Lucifer to a senslesnesse of thy fall and an impenitiblenesse therein but to a troubled spirit still thy Prospect is the East still thy Climate is heaven still thy Haven is Jerusalem for in our lowest dejection of all even in the dust of the grave we are so composed so layed down as that we look to the East If I could beleeve that Trajan or Tecla could look East-ward that is towards Christ in hell I could beleeve with them of Rome that Trajan and Tecla were redeemed by prayer out of hell God had accepted sacrifices before but no sacrifice is call Odor quiet is Gen. 8.21 It is not said That God smelt a savor of rest in any sacrifice but that which Noah offered after hee had beene variously tossed and tumbled in the long hulling of the Arke upon the waters A troublesome spirit and a quiet spirit are farre asunder But a troubled spirit and a quiet spirit are neare neighbours And therefore David meanes them no great harme when hee sayes Let them be troubled For Let the winde be as high as it will so I sayle before the winde Let the trouble of my soule be as great as it will so it direct me upon God and I have calme enough And this peace Convertantur this calme is implyed in the next word Convertantur which is not Let them be overthrowne but Let them returne let them be forced to returne he prayes that God would do something to crosse their purposes because as they are against God so they are against their owne soules In that way where they are he sees there is no remedy and therefore he desires that they might be Turned into another way What is that way This. Turne us O Lord and we shall be turned That is turned the right way Towards God And as there was a promise from God to heare his people not onely when they came to him in the Temple but when they turned towards that Temple in what distance soever they were so it is alwaies accompanied with a blessing occasionally to turne towards God But this prayer Turne us that we may be turned is that we may be that is remaine turned that we may continue fixed in that posture Lots Wife turned her selfe and remained an everlasting monument of Gods anger God so turne us alwaies into right wayes as that we be not able to turne our selves out of them For God hath Viam rectam bonam as himselfe speakes in the Prophet A right way and then a good way which yet is not the right way that is not the way which God of himselfe would go For his right way is that we should still keepe in his way His good way is to beat us into his right way againe by his medicinall corrections when we put our selves out of his right way And that and that onely David wishes and we wish That you may Turne and Be turned stand in that holy posture all the yeare all the yeares of your lives That your Christmas may be as holy as your Easter even your Recreations as innocent as your Devotions and every roome in the house as free free from prophanenesse as the Sanctuary And this he ends as he begun with another Erubescant Let them be ashamed and that Valde volociter Suddenly for David saw that if a sinner came not to a shame of sin quickly he would quickly come to a shamelesnesse to an impudence to a searednesse to an obduration in it Now beloved this is the worst curse that comes out of a holy mans mouth even towards his enemie that God would correct him to his amendment And this is the worst harme that we meane to you when we denounce the judgements of
all timorousnesse that my Transgressions are not forgiven or my sins not covered In the first Act we consider God the Father to have wrought He proposed he decreed he accepted too a sacrifice for all mankind in the death of Christ In the second The Covering of sinnes we consider God the Sonne to worke Incubare Ecclesiae He sits upon his Church as a Hen upon her Eggs He covers all our sinnes whom he hath gathered into that body with spreading himselfe and his merits upon us all there In this third The not Imputing of Iniquity we consider God the Holy Ghost to worke and as the Spirit of Consolation to blow away all scruples all diffidences and to establish an assurance in the Conscience The Lord imputes not that is the Spirit of the Lord The Lord the Spirit The Holy Ghost suffers not me to impute to my selfe those sinnes which I have truly repented The over-tendernesse of a bruised and a faint conscience may impute sinne to it selfe when it is discharged And a seared and obdurate Conscience may impute none when it abounds If the Holy Ghost work he rectifies both and if God doe inflict punishments according to the signification of this word Gnavah after our Repentance and the seals of our Reconciliation yet he suffers us not to impute those sinnes to our selves or to repute those corrections punishments as though he had not forgiven them or as though he came to an execution after a pardon but that they are laid upon us medicinally and by way of prevention and precaution against his future displeasure This is that Pax Conscientiae The peace of Conscience when there is not one sword drawne This is that Serenitas Conscientiae The Meridionall brightnesse of the Conscience when there is not one Cloud in our sky I shall not hope that Originall sin shall not be imputed but feare that Actuall sin may not hope that my dumbe sins shall not but my crying sins may not hope that my apparant sins which have therefore induced in me a particular sense of them shall not but my secret sins sins that I am not able to returne and represent to mine owne memory may for this Non Imputabit hath no limitation God shall suffer the Conscience thus rectified to terrifie it selfe with nothing which is also farther extended in the Originall where it is not Non Imputat but Non Imputabit Though after all this we doe fall into the same or other sins yet we shall know our way and evermore have our Consolation in this That as God hath forgiven our transgression in taking the sins of all mankinde upon himselfe for he hath redeemed us and left out Angels And as he hath covered our sin that is provided us the Word and Sacraments and cast off the Jews and left out the Heathen So he will never Impute mine Iniquity never suffer it to terrifie my Conscience Not now when his Judgements denounced by his Minister call me to him here Nor hereafter when the last bell shall call me to him into the grave Nor at last when the Angels Trumpets shall call me to him from the dust in the Resurrection But that as all mankinde hath a Blessednesse in Christs taking our sins which was the first Article in this Catechisme And all the Christian Church a Blessednesse in covering our sins which was the second So I may finde this Blessednesse in this worke of the Holy Ghost not to Impute that is not to suspect that God imputes any repented sin unto me or reserves any thing to lay to my charge at the last day which I have prayed may be and therefore hoped hath been forgiven before But then after these three parts which we have now in our Order proposed at first passed through That David applies himselfe to us in the most convenient way by the way of Catechisme and instruction in fundamentall things And then that he lays for his foundation of all Beatitude Blessednesse Happinesse which cannot be had in the consummation and perfection thereof but in the next world But yet in the third place gives us an inchoation an earnest an evidence of this future and consummate Blessednesse in bringing us faithfully to beleeve That Christ dyed sufficiently for all the world That Christ offers the application of all this to all the Christian Church That the Holy Ghost seals an assurance thereof to every particular Conscience well rectified After all this done thus largely on Gods part there remains something to be done on ours that may make all this effectuall upon us Vt non sit dolus in spiritu That there be no guile in our spirit which is our fourth part and Conclusion of all Of all these fruits of this Blessednesse there is no other root but the goodnesse of God himselfe but yet they grow in no other ground then in that man 4. Part. Dolus In cujus spiritu non est dolus The Comment and interpretation of S. Paul Rom. 4.5 hath made the sense and meaning of this place cleare To him that worketh the reward is of debt but to him that beleeveth and worketh not his faith is counted for righteousnesse Even as David describeth the blessednesse of Man sayes the Apostle there and so proceeds with the very words of this Text. Doth the Apostle then in this Text exclude the Co-operation of Man Differs this proposition That the man in whom God imprints these beames of Blessednesse must be without guile in his spirit from those other propositions Si vis ingredi Mat. 19.17 If thou wilt enter into life keepe the Commandements And Maledictus qui non Cursed is he that performes not all Grows not the Blessednesse of this Text from the same roote as the Blessednesse in the 119. Psal ver 1. Blessed are they who walke in the way of the Lord Or doth Saint Paul take David to speake of any other Blessednesse in our Text then himselfe speaks of If through the Spirit yee mortifie the deeds of the body yee shall live Rom. 8.13 Doth S. Paul require nothing nothing out of this Text to be done by man Surely he does And these propositions are truly all one Tantùm credideris Onely beleeve and you shall be saved And Fac hoc vives Doe this and you shall be saved As it is truly all one purpose to say If you live you may walke and to say If you stretch out your legges you may walke To say Eat of this Tree and you shall recover and to say Eat of this fruit and you shall recover is all one To attribute an action to the next Cause or to the Cause of that Cause is to this purpose all one And therefore as God gave a Reformation to his Church in prospering that Doctrine That Justification was by faith onely so God give an unity to his Church in this Doctrine That no man is justified that works not for without works how much soever he magnifie his faith
there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in his spirit As then the Prophet Davids principall purpose in this Text is according to the Interpretation of S. Paul to derive all the Blessednesse of man from God so is it also to put some conditions in man comprehended in this That there be no guile in his spirit For in this repentant sinner that shall be partaker of these degrees of Blessednesse of this Forgiving of this Covering of this Not Imputing there is required Integrapoenitentia A perfect and intire repentance And to the making up of that howsoever the words and termes may have been mis-used and defamed we acknowledge that there belongs a Contrition a Confession and a Satisfaction And all these howsoever our Adversaries slander us with a Doctrine of ease and a Religion of liberty we require with more exactnesse and severity then they doe For for Contrition we doe not we dare not say as some of them That Attrition is sufficient that it is sufficient to have such a sorrow for sin as a naturall sense and fear of torment doth imprint in us without any motion of the feare of God We know no measure of sorrow great enough for the violating of the infinite Majesty of God by our transgression And then for Confession we deny not a necessity to confesse to man There may be many cases of scruple of perplexity where it were an exposing our selves to farther occasions of sin not to confesse to man And in Confession we require a particular detestation of that sin which we confesse which they require not And lastly for Satisfaction we imbrace that Rule Condigna satisfactio malè facta corrigere Our best Satisfaction is to be better in the amendment of our lives And dispositions to particular sins we correct in our bodies by Discipline and Mortifications And we teach that no man hath done truly that part of Repentance which he is bound to doe if he have not given Satisfaction that is Restitution to every person damnified by him If that which we teach for this intirenesse of Repentance be practised in Contrition and Confession and Satisfaction they cannot calumniate our Doctrine nor our practise herein And if it be not practised there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in their spirit that pretend to any part of this Blessednesse Forgiving or Covering or Not imputing without this For he that is sorry for sin onely in Contemplation of hell and not of the joyes of heaven that would not give over his sin though there were no hell rather then he would lose heaven which is that which some of them call Attrition He that confesses his sin but hath no purpose to leave it He that does leave the sin but being growne rich by that sin retaines and enjoyes those riches this man is not intire in his Repentanne but there is guile in his spirit He that is slothfull in his work Prov. 18.9 is brother to him that is a great waster He that makes half-repentances makes none Men run out of their estates as well by a negligence and a not taking account of their Officers as by their own prodigality Our salvation is as much indangered if we call not our conscience to an examination as if we repent not those sins which offer themselves to our knowledge and memory And therefore David places the consummation of his victory in that Psal 18.37 I have pursued mine enemies and overtaken them neither did I turne againe till they were consumed We require a pursuing of the enemy a search for the sin and not to stay till an Officer that is a sicknesse or any other calamity light upon that sin and so bring it before us We require an overtaking of the enemy That we be not weary in the search of our consciences And we require a consuming of the enemy not a weakning only a dislodging a dispossessing of the sin and the profit of the sin All the profit and all the pleasure of all the body of sin for he that is sorry with a godly sorrow he that confesses with a deliberate detestation he that satisfies with a full restitution for all his sins but one Dolus in spiritu There is guile in his spirit he is in no better case Berna◠then if at Sea he should stop all leaks but one and perish by that Si vis solvi solve omnes catenas If thou wilt be discharged cancel all thy Bonds one chain till that be broke holds as fast as ten And therfore suffer your consideration to turn back a little upon this object that there may be Dolus in spiritu Guile in the spirit in our pretence to all those parts of Blessednesse which David recommends to us in this Catechisme In the Forgivenesse of transgrestions In the Covering of sin In the Not imputing of iniquity First then Forgiving in this Forgiving of transgressions which is our Saviour Christs taking away the sins of the world by taking them in the punishment due to them upon himselfe there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in that mans spirit that will so farre abridge the great Volumes of the mercy of God so farre contract his generall propositions as to restrain this salvation not only in the effect but in Gods own purpose to a few a very few soules When Subjects complaine of any Prince that he is too mercifull there is Dolus in spiritu Guile and deceit in this complaint They doe but think him too mercifull to other mens faults for where they need his mercy for their own they never think him too mercifull And which of us doe not need God for all sins If we did not in our selves yet it were a new sin in us not to desire that God should be as mercifull to every other sinner as to our selves As in heaven the joy of every soule shall be my joy so the mercy of God to every soule here is a mercy to my soule By the extension of his mercies to others I argue the application of his mercy to my selfe This contracting and abridging of the mercy of God will end in despaire of our selves that that mercy reaches not to us or if we become confident perchance presumptuous of our selves we shall despaire in the behalfe of other men and think they can receive no mercy And when men come to allow an impossibility of salvation in any they will come to assigne that impossibility nay to assigne those men and pronounce for this and this sin This man cannot be saved There is a sin against the Holy Ghost and to make us afraid of all approaches towards that sin Christ hath told us that that sin is irremissible unpardonable But since that sin includes impenitiblenesse in the way and actuall impenitence in the end we can never pronounce This is that sin or This is that sinner God is his Father that can say Our Father which art in heaven And his God that can say I beleeve in God And
sin no lesser covering serves then God in his Church It was the prayer against them Nehem. 4.5 August who hindered the building of the Temple Cover not their iniquity neither let their sin be put out in thy presence Our prayer is Peccata nostra non videat ut nos videat Lord looke not upon our sins that thou maist looke upon us And since amongst our selves 1 Pet. 4.8 Prov. 10.12 it is the effect of Love to cover Multitudinem peccatorum The multitude of sins yea to cover Vniversa delicta Lovè covereth all sins much more shall God who is Love it selfe cover our sins so as he covered the Egyptians in a red Sea in the application of his blood by visible meanes in his Church That therefore thou mayest be capable of this covering Psal 37.6 Commit thy wayes unto the Lord that is show unto him by way of confession what wrong wayes thou hast gone and inquire of him by prayer what wayes thou art to go and as it is in the same Psalme He shall bring forth thy righteousnesse as the light and thy judgement as the noone day And so there shall be no guile found in thy spirit which might hinder this covering of thy sin which is the application of Christs merits in the Ordinances of his Church nor the Not imputing of thine iniquity which is our last consideration and the conclusion of all This not imputing Imputing is that serenity and acquiescence which a rectified conscience enjoyes when the Spirit of God beares witnesse with my spirit that thus reconciled to my God I am now guilty of nothing S. Bernard defines the Conscience thus Inseparabilis gloria vel confusio uniuscujusque pro qualitate depositi It is that inseparable glory or that inseparable confusion which every soule hath according to that which is deposited and laid up in it Now what is deposited and laid up in it Naturally hereditarily patrimonially Con-reatus sayes that Father from our first Parents a fellow-guiltinesse of their sin and they have left us sons and heires of the wrath and indignation of God and that is the treasure they have laid up for us Against this God hath provided Baptisme and Baptisme washes away that sin for as we doe nothing to our selves in Baptisme but are therein meerely passive so neither did we any thing our selves in Originall sin but therein are meerely passive too and so the remedy Baptisme is proportioned to the disease Originall sin But originall sin being thus washed away we make a new stocke we take in a new depositum a new treasure Actuall and habituall sins and therein much being done by our selves against God into the remedy there must enter something to be done by our selves and something by God And therefore we bring water to his wine true teares of repentance to his true blood in the Sacrament and so receive the seales of our reconciliation and having done that we may boldly say unto God Doe not condemne me Iob 10.2 shew me wherefore thou contendest with me When we have said as he doth I have sinned Iob 7.20 what shall I doe to thee And have done that that he hath ordained we may say also as he doth O thou preserver of men why dost thou not pardon my transgression and take away mine iniquity Why doest thou suffer me to faint and pant under this sad apprehension that all is not yet well betweene my soule and thee We are far from encouraging any man to antidate his pardon to presume his pardon to be passed before it is But when it is truly passed the seales of Reconciliation there is Dolus in spiritu Guile and deceit in that spirit nay it is the spirit of falshood and deceit it selfe that will not suffer us to injoy that pardon which God hath sealed to us but still maintaine jealousies and suspition between God and us My heart is not opener to God then the bowels of his mercy are to me And to accuse my selfe of sin after God hath pardoned me were as great a contempt of God as to presume of that pardon before he had granted it and so much a greater as it is directed against his greatest attribute his Mercy Si apud Deum deponas injuriam Tertul. ipse ultor erit Lay all the injuries that thou sufferest at Gods feet and hee will revenge them Si damnum ipse restituet Lay all thy losses there and he will repaire them Si dolorem ipse medicus Lay downe all thy diseases there and he shall heale thee Si mortem ipse resuscitator Dye in his armes and he shall breath a new life into thee Add wee to Tertullian Si peccata ipse sepeliet lay thy sins in his wounds and he shall bury them so deepe that onely they shall never have resurrection The Sun shall set and have a to morrows resurrection Herbs shall have a winter death and a springs resurrection Thy body shall have a long winters night and then a resurrection Onely thy sins buried in the wounds of thy Saviour shall never have resurrection And therefore take heed of that deceit in the spirit of that spirit of deceit that makes thee impute sins to thy selfe when God imputes them not But rejoyce in Gods generall forgiving of Transgressions That Christ hath dyed for all multiply thy joy in the covering of thy sin That Christ hath instituted a Church in which that generall pardon is made thine in particular And exalt thy joy in the not imputing of iniquity in that serenity that tranquillity that God shall receive thee at thy last houre in thy last Bath the sweat of death as lovingly as acceptably as innocently as he received thee from thy first Bath the laver of Regeneration the font in Baptisme Amen SERM. LVII Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 32.3 4. When I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me my moysture is turned into the drought of Summer Selah ALL wayes of teaching are Rule and Example And though ordinarily the Rule be first placed yet the Rule it selfe is made of Examples And when a Rule would be of hard digestion to weake understandinge Example concocts it and makes it easie for Example in matter of Doctrine is as Assimilation in matter of Nourishment The Example makes that that is proposed for our learning and farther instruction like something which we knew before as Assimilation makes that meat which we have received and digested like those parts which are in our bodies before David was the sweet singer of Israel shall we say Gods Precentor His sonne Solomon was the powerfull Preacher of Israel shall we say Gods Chaplain Both of them excellent abundantly super-abundantly excellent in both those wayes of Teaching Poet and Preacher proceed in these wayes in both Rule and Example the body and soule of Instruction So this Psalme is qualified in the Title
it was the inchoation of his repentance which began diffidently and with fearefull vociferations Bellarm. And so some of our later men understand it That because David had continued long in his sin when the Ice brake it brake with the greater noyse when he returned to speake to God he spake with the more vehemence And truly the word Shaag Rugiit though it signifie properly the voyce of a Lyon yet David uses this word Roaring not onely of himselfe but of himselfe as he was a type of Christ for this very word is in the beginning of that Psalme which Christ repeated upon the Crosse Psal 22.1 or at least begun it My God my God why hast thou for saken me and why art thou so far from the voyce of my Roaring So that Roaring may admit a good sense and does not alwayes imply a distemper and inordinatenesse for in Christ it could not But does it not in our Text In our former Translation it might stand in a good sense where the two actions are distinguished in time thus When I held my tongue or when I roared whether I kept or broke silence all was one no more ease in one then the other But with the Originall and with our later Translation it cannot be so which is When I held my tongue through my roaring this and this fell upon me They were concomitant actions actions intermixt and at the same time when he was silent he roared too and therefore that that he calls Roaring is not a voyce of Repentance for if hee had beene come to that then hee had broke his former silence for that Silence was a not Confessing a not Repenting This is then that miserable condition which is expressed in Davids case though God delivered David from any deadly effect of it that he had occasion of Roaring of howling as the Scripture speaks often though he kept silence That he was at never the more ease for all his sins The eases that he laid hold on were new sins in themselves and yet they did not ease him of his other sins he kept silence and yet was put to exclamations And how many examples can we present to our selves in our owne memory where persons which have given themselves all liberty to forge writings to suborne witnesses to forsweare themselves to oppresse to murder others to make their wayes easier to their ends and yet have for all this though the hand of Justice have not fallen upon them seene their whole estates consume and moulder away When men out of their ill-grounded plots and perverse wisdome thinke themselves safe in the silence and secrecy of their sins God overtakes them and confounds them with those two fearefull blowes those two Thunderbolts He brings them to Exclamations to Vociferations upon Fortune upon Friends upon Servants upon Rivals and Competitors he brings them to a Roaring for their ruine Never man was thus dealt withall as I am never such a conspiracy as against me And this they do All day sayes David here Through my roaring all day Totadie It was long so with David A day as long as two of their dayes that have dayes of six months almost a yeare was David in this darke dead silence before he saw day or returned to speaking With those that continue their silence all day the roaring continues all day too All their lives they have new occasions of lamentations and yet all this reduces them not but they are benighted they end their life with fearefull voyces of desperation in a Roaring but still in a silence of their sins and transgressions And this is that that falls first under his Confession Roaring with Silence paine and shame and losse but all without Confession or sense of sin And then that which falls next under his acknowledgement is the vehement working the lamentable effect of this Silence and Roaring Inveteration of Bones incineration of his whole substance My Bones are waxen old and my moysture is turned into the drought of Summer Both these phrases in which David expresses his owne Humidum literale and prophecies of other such sinners misery have a literall and a spirituall a naturall and a morall sense For first this affliction of this silenced and impenitent finner though it proceed not from the sense of his sinne though it brought him not yet to a confession but to a roaring that is an impatient repining and murmuring yet it had so wrought upon his body and whole constitution as that it drunke up his naturall and vitall moysture Prov. 17.22 Psal 102.3.63.9 Spiritus tristis exsiccarat as Solomon speaks A broken spirit had dryed him up His dayes were consumed like smoake and his bones were burnt like a hearth and that Marrow and fatnesse in which hee sayes he had such sat is faction at other times was exhausted This is the misery of this impenitent sinner he is beggered but in the Devils service he is lamed but in the Devils wars his moysture his blood is dryed up but with licentiousnesse with his overwatchings either to deceive or to oppresse others for as the proverbe is true Plures gulae quà m gladius The Throate cuts more throates then the sword does and eating starves more men then fasting does because wastfulnesse induces penury at last so if all our Hospitals were well surveyed it would be found that the Devill sends more to Hospitals then God does and the Stewes more then the wars Thus his bodily moysture was wasted literally the sinner is sooner infirmed Humidum morale sooner deformed then another man But there is an Humidum radicale of the soulle too A tendernesse and a disposition to bewayle his sins with remorsefull teares When Peter had denied his Master and heard the Cocke crow he did not stay to make recantations he did not stay to satisfie them to whom he had denied Christ but hee looked into himselfe first Flevit amarè sayes the Holy Ghost He wept bitterly His soule was not withered his moysture was not dryed up like summer as long as he could weepe Horace The learned Poet hath given some character some expression of the desperate and irremediable state of the reprobate when he calls Plutonem illacrymabilem There is the marke of his incorrigiblenesse and so of his irrecoverablenesse That he cannot weepe A sinfull man an obdurate man a stony heart may weepe Marble and the hardest sorts of stones weepe most they have the most moysture the most drops upon them But this comes not out of them not from within them Extrinsecall occasions paine and shame and want may bring a sinner to sorrow enough but it is not a sorrow for his sins All this while the miserable sinner weeps not but the miserable man All this while though he have winter in his eyes his soule is turned into the drought of summer God destroyed the first world and all flesh with water Teares for the want or for the losse of friends
those embers of sin that are but raked up and not trod out and doe breake forth upon every tentation that is presented and if they be not effectually opposed shall aggravate my condemnation more then if I had never been baptized But David conceives such a forgivenesse here as carries up the soule to the contemplation of that state which it had before the fall of Adam It is not this present sin of a cold delivering and a drowsie hearing of the messages of God It is not my yesterdayes sin nor my sins since my last repentance that are forgiven me but my sin committed six thousand yeares before I was borne my sin in Adam before any promise nay before any apprehension of any need of a Messias I am so restored that now by the application of the merits of my Redeemer I am as well as I should have been though there had never been any use of a Redeemer no occasion given by me in Adam of the incarnation and passion of Christ Jesus The comfort of being presented to God as innocent as Adam then when God breathed a soule into him yea as innocent as Christ Jesus himselfe when he breathed out his soule to God oh how blessed is that soule that enjoyes it and how bold that tongue that goes about to expresse it This is the blessednesse which the godly attaine to by prayer but not by every sudden Lord Lord or every occasionall holy interjection but by serious prayer invested as with the former so with that other circumstance that remains In tempore opportuno In a time when thou mayest be found This time is not those Horae stativae Horae canonicae In tempore those sixed houres in the Romane Church where men are bound to certaine prayers at certaine houres Not that it is inconvenient for men to binde themselves to certaine fixed times of prayer in their private Exercises and though not by such a vow as that it shall be an impiety yet by so solemne a purpose as that it shall be a levity to breake it I have known the greatest Christian Prince in Style and Title even at the Audience of an Ambassador at the sound of a Bell kneele downe in our presence and pray and God forbid he should be blamed for doing so But to place a merit in observing those times as they doe is not a right understanding of this time of finding Nor is it those transitory and interlocutory prayers which out of custome and fashion we make and still proceed in our sin when we pretend to speake to God but like Comedians upon a stage turne over our shoulder and whisper to the Devill Esay 1.15 When you stretch out your hands I will hide mine eyes when you make many prayers I will not heare for your hands are full of blood And if they be full of blood they can take in no more If they be full of the blood of oppression they can lay no hold upon the blood of propitiation Isâ—â—â— Irrisor est non poenitens qui adhuc agit quod poeniter He mocks God that repents and sins over those sins every night that every day he repents The Apostle sayes so too He makes a mock of the Sonne of God and crucifies him againe This onely is true Repentance Ambro. He makes a mock of the Sonne of God and crucifies him againe This onely is true Repentance Plangere plangenda non committere To bewayle our sins and forbeare the sins we have bewayled Neither alone will serve which deludes many Many thinke they doe enough if they repent and yet proceed in their sin and many thinke they doe enough if they forbeare their sin now though they never repent that which is past August both are illusory both deceitfull distempers Laoessit Iudicem qui post-posita satisfactione quaerit praemiis honorari He doth but provoke and exasperate the Judge that solicites him for heaven before he hath appeased his anger by repentance for former sins for this is to call for costs before he be discharged These then are not the times of finding God but what are Gospel August Generally it is Manifestatio Euangelii The time of the Gospel is the time of finding God now when God hath vouchsafed Induere hominem to put on us in his Incarnation and enabled us Induere Deum to put on him in the Sacraments to stay with us here upon Earth and to carry us up with him in his Ascension to Heaven when he is made one body with us and hath made us one Spirit with him how can we doubt of a fit time to finde him Christs time was alwayes for even under the law God sayes Esay 49.8 I have heard thee in an accepted time and in the day of Salvation have I succoured thee But this doth the Holy Ghost apply to the time of the Gospel Behold now the accepted time behold now the day of salvation 2 Cor. 2.6 Calamitie Psal 116.4 The time then of the Gospel is the time of finding But now all times are not alike Calamities are a good time When I found trouble and sorrow then I called upon the name of the Lord saying I beseech thee O Lord deliver my soule This is a good time but it is somewhat a darke time the withdrawing of Gods countenance from us Exod. 14.25 The Egyptians when they deprehended their danger said We will fly from the face of Israel But whither The Seareturned and the Egyptians fled against it and perished We may be benighted benummed by calamities and they may as well deject us as raise us Ioab pursued Abner hotly vehemently Abner asks What Vsque ad internecionem 2 Sam. 2.25 Shall the sword devoure for ever Ioab answered as the Vulgat reads those words Vivit dominus si locutus fuisses mane As the Lord liveth if thou hadst spoken in the morning in the morning every man had departed If we turne to the Lord in the morning in the beginning of an affliction the Lord turnes his fierce wrath from us but if we stand out long and bend not under his corrections he pursues Ad internecionem even to destruction by obduration So then the manifestation of the Gospel that is the helpes which God offers us Prosperitus more then Jews or Gentils in the Ministery of the Gospel and the Ordinances of his Church is the time of finding God And woe unto us if we seeke him not whilest he affords us these helpes And then the time of affliction when God threatens to hide his face but hath not yet hidden it but awakens us by a calamity is a time of finding God But the best and the clearest time is in the Sun-shine then when he appeares to us in the warme and chearefull splendor of temporall blessings upon us Then when thou hast a good estate and good children to let it descend upon Then when thou hast good health and a good profession to exercise
uncleannesses from which if they neglected to cleanse themselves by those ceremonies which were appropriated to them then those uncleannesses became sins and they were put to their sacrifices before they could be discharged of them Many levities many omissions many acts of infirmity might be prevented by consideration before or cleansed by consideration now if we did truly value the present grace that is alwayes offered us in these the Ordinances of God What sin can I be guilty of that is without example of mercy in that Gospel which is preached to me here But if you will not accept it when God offers it you can never have it so good cheape because hereafter you shall have this present sin of refusing that offer of grace added to your burthen Ezek. 24.13 Because I have purged thee thou wast not purged thou shalt not be purged any more til I have caused my fury to light upon thee But shall we be purged then Then when his fury in any calamity hath lighted upon us Is not this donec this untill such a donec as donec faciam Till I make thine cnemies thy footstoole Such a donec as the donec peperit shee was a Virgin Till shee brought forth her first sonne Is it not an everlasting donec That we shall not be purged till Gods Judgements fall upon us nor then neither Physicke may be ministred too late to worke and Judgements may fall too late to souple or entender the soule For as wee may die with that Physick in our stomach so may we be carried to the last Judgement with that former Judgement upon our shoulders And therefore our later Translation hath expressed it more fully Not that that fury shall light but shall rest upon us This cleansing therefore is that disposition which God by his grace infuses into us That we stand in the congregation and Communion of Saints capable of those mercies which God hath by his Ordinance annexed to these meetings That we may so feele at all times when we come hither such a working of his Hyssop such a benefit of his Ordinance as that we beleeve all our former sins to be so forgiven as that if God should translate us now this minute to another life this Dosis of this purging Hyssop received now had so wrought as that we should be assuredly translated into the Kingdome of heaven This cleansing applies to us those words of our Saviour My sonne be of good cheare thy sinnes are forgiven thee But yet there is a farther degree of cleanenesse expressed in Christs following words Goe and sin no more And that grace against relapses the gift of sanctification and perseverance is that that David askes in his other Petition Lava me Wash me and I shall be whiter then snow Here we proposed first the action Lava Wash me This is more then a sprinkling Lava A totall and intire washing More then being an ordinary partaker of the outward meanes The Word and Sacraments more then a temporary feeling of the benefit thereof in a present sense for it is a building up of habits of religious actions visible to others and it is a holy and firme confidence created in us by the Spirit of God that we shall keepe that building in reparation and goe forward with it to our lives end It is a washing like Naamans in Jordan to be iterated seaven times seaventy seaven times daily hourly all our life A washing begun in Baptisme pursued in sweat in the industry of a lawfull calling continued in teares for our deficiencies in the workes of our calling and perchance to bee consummated in blood at our deaths Not such a washing as the Washes have which are those sands that are overflowed with the Sea at every Tide and then lie dry but such a washing as the bottome of the Sea hath that is alwayes equally wet It is not a stillicidium a spout a showre a bucket powred out upon us when we come to Church a Sabbath-sanctification and no more but a water that enters into every office of our house and washes every action proceeding from every faculty of the soule And this is the washing A continuall succession of Grace working effectually to present Habits of religious acts and constituting a holy purpose of persevering in them that induces the Whitenesse the Candor the Dealbation that David begs here Lava Dealbabor The purging with Hyssope which we spoke of before Dealbabor which is the benefit which we have by being bred in a true Church delivers us from that rednesse which is in the earth of which wee are made from that guiltinesse which is by our naturall derivation from our Parents imprinted in us Baptisme doth much upon that but that that is not Red is not therefore White But this is our case Our first colour was white God made man righteous Our rednesse is from Adam and the more that rednesse is washed off 2 Cor. 7.1 the more we returne to our first whitenesse And this which is petitioned here is a washing of such perfection as cleanses us Ab omni inquinamento from all filthinesse of flesh and spirit Those inquinamenta which are ordinary are first in the flesh Concupiscence and Carnality Gal. 5.19 and those other of which the Apostle sayes The works of the flesh are manifest And in the spirit they are Murmuring Diffidence in God and such others But besides these as an over-diligent cleansing of the Body and additionall beauty of the Body is inquinamentum carnis one of S. Pauls filthinesses upon the flesh so an over purifying of the spirit in an uncharitable undervaluing of other men and in a schismaticall departing from the unity of the Church is Inquinamentum spiritus False beauties are a foulnesse of the body false purity is a foulnesse of the spirit But the washing that wee seeke cleanses us Ab omni inquinamento from all foulnesse of flesh and spirit All waters will not cleanse us nor all fires dry us so as wee may be cleane smoaky fires will not doe that I will poure cleane water upon you Ezek. 36.25 and you shall be cleane The Sunne produces sweat upon us and it dries us too Zeale cleanses us but it must be zeale impermixt as the Sun not mingled with our smoaky sooty factious affections Some Grammarians have noted the word Washing here to be derived from a word that signifies a Lambe we must be washed in the blood of the Lambe and we must be brought to the whitenesse the candor the simplicity of the Lambe no man is pure that thinks no man pure but himselfe And this whitenesse which is Sanctification in our selves and charitable interpretation of other men is exalted here to that Superlative Super Nivem Wash me and I shall be whiter then Snow Though your sins be as Scarlet Super nivem Esay 1.18 they shall be as white as snow Esay was an Euangelicall Prophet a propheticall Euangelist and speaks still
his anchor Let him that hath any diffident jealousie or suspition of the free and full mercy of God apprehend God as God is his Salvation And him that walks in the ingloriousnesse and contempt of this world contemplate God as God is his Glory Any of these notions is enough to any man but God is all these and all else that all soules can thinke to every man Wee shut up both these Considerations man should not Mic. ult 5. that is not all God should be relied upon with that of the Prophet Trust ye not in a friend put not your confidence in a guide keepe the doores of thy mouth from her that lies in thy bosome there is the exclusion of trust in man and then he adds in the seventh verse because it stands thus betweene man and man I will looke unto the Lord I will looke to the God of my Salvation my God will heare me SERM. LXVI The second of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalmes Preached at S. Pauls Ianuary 29. 1625. PSAL. 63.7 Because thou hast been my helpe Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce THe Psalmes are the Manna of the Church Wisd 16.20 As Manna tasted to every man like that that he liked best so doe the Psalmes minister Instruction and satisfaction to every man in every emergency and occasion David was not onely a cleare Prophet of Christ himselfe but a Prophet of every particular Christian He foretels what I what any shall doe and suffer and say And as the whole booke of Psalmes is Oleum effusum Cant. 1.3 as the Spouse speaks of the name of Christ an Oyntment powred out upon all sorts of sores A Searcloth that souples all bruises A Balme that searches all wounds so are there some certaine Psalmes that are Imperiall Psalmes that command over all affections and spread themselves over all occasions Catholique universall Psalmes that apply themselves to all necessities This is one of those for of those Constitutions which are called Apostolicall Constitut Apostol one is That the Church should meet every day to sing this Psalme And accordingly S. Chrysostome testifies That it was decreed and ordained by the Primitive Fathers Chrysost that no day should passe without the publique singing of this Psalme Under both these obligations those ancient Constitutions called the Apostles and those ancient Decrees made by the primitive Fathers belongs to me who have my part in the service of Gods Church the especiall meditation and recommendation of this Psalme And under a third obligation too That it is one of those five psalmes the daily rehearsing whereof is injoyned to me by the Constitutions of this Church as five other are to every other person of our body As the whole booke is Manna so these five Psalmes are my Gomer which I am to fill and empty every day of this Manna Now as the spirit and soule of the whole booke of Psalmes is contracted into this psalme so is the spirit and soule of this whole psalme contracted into this verse Divisie The key of the psalme as S. Hierome calls the Titles of the psalmes tells us Hieron that David uttered this psalme when he was in the wildernesse of Iudab There we see the present occasion that moved him And we see what was passed between God and him before in the first clause of our Text Because thou hast been my helpe And then we see what was to come by the rest Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce So that we have here the whole compasse of Time Past Present and Future and these three parts of Time shall be at this time the three parts of this Exercise first what Davids distresse put him upon for the present and that lyes in the Context secondly how David built his assurance upon that which was past Because thou hast been my help And thirdly what he established to himselfe for the future Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce First His distresse in the Wildernesse his present estate carried him upon the memory of that which God had done for him before And the Remembrance of that carried him upon that of which he assured himselfe after Fixe upon God any where and you shall finde him a Circle He is with you now when you fix upon him He was with you before for he brought you to this fixation and he will be with you hereafter for He is yesterday Heb. 13.8 and to day and the same for ever For Davids present condition who was now in a banishment in a persecution in the Wildernesse of Judah which is our first part we shall onely insist upon that which is indeed spread over all the psalme to the Text and ratified in the Text That in all those temporall calamities David was onely sensible of his spirituall losse It grieved him not that he was kept from Sauls Court but that he was kept from Gods Church For when he sayes Ver. 1. by way of lamentation That he was in a dry and thirsty land where no water was he expresses what penury what barrennesse what drought and what thirst he meant To see thy power Ver. 2. Ver. 5. Ver. 3. and thy glory so as I have seene thee in the Sanctuary For there my soule shall be satisfied as with marrow and with satnesse and there my mouth shall praise thee with joyfull lips And in some few considerations conducing to this That spirituall losses are incomparably heavier then temporall and that therefore The Restitution to our spirituall happinesse or the continuation of it is rather to be made the subject of our prayers to God in all pressures and distresses then of temporall we shall determine that first part And for the particular branches of both the other parts The Remembring of Gods benefits past And the building of an assurance for the future upon that Remembrance it may be fitter to open them to you anon when we come to handle them then now Proceed we now to our first part The comparing of temporall and spirituall afflictions In the way of this Comparison 1 Part. Afflictio universalis 2 Cor. 4.17 falls first the Consideration of the universality of afflictions in generall and the inevitablenesse thereof It is a blessed Meraphore that the Holy Ghost hath put into the mouth of the Apostle Pondus Gloriae That our afflictions are but light because there is an exceeding and an eternall waight of glory attending them If it were not for that exceeding waight of glory no other waight in this world could turne the scale or waigh downe those infinite waights of afflictions that oppresse us here There is not onely Pestis valde gravis the pestilence grows heavy upon the Land but there is Musca valde gravis Exod. 9.3.8.24 God calls in but the fly to vexe Egypt and even the fly is a heavy burden unto them Job 7.20 2 Sam. 14.26 Lament
so pay my debts with my bones and recompence the wastfulnesse of my youth with the beggery of mine age Let me wither in a spittle under sharpe and foule and in famous diseases and so recompence the wantonnesse of my youth with that loath somnesse in mine age yet if God with draw not his spirituall blessings his Grace his Patience If I can call my suffering his Doing my passion his Action All this that is temporall is but a caterpiller got into one corner of my garden but a mill-dew fallen upon one acre of my Corne The body of all the substance of all is safe as long as the soule is safe But when I shall trust to that which wee call a good spirit and God shall deject and empoverish and evacuate that spirit when I shall rely upon a morall constancy and God shall shake and enfeeble and enervate destroy and demolish that constancy when I shall think to refresh my selfe in the serenity and sweet ayre of a good conscience and God shall call up the damps and vapours of hell it selfe and spread a cloud of diffidence and an impenetrable crust of desperation upon my conscience when health shall flie from me and I shall lay hold upon riches to succour me and comfort me in my sicknesse and riches shall flie from me and I shall snatch after favour and good opinion to comfort me in my poverty when even this good opinion-shall leave me and calumnies and misinformations shall prevaile against me when I shall need peace because there is none but thou O Lord that should stand for me and then shall finde that all the wounds that I have come from thy hand all the arrowes that stick in me from thy quiver when I shall see that because I have given my selfe to my corrupt nature thou hast changed thine and because I am all evill towards thee therefore thou hast given over being good towards me When it comes to this height that the fever is not in the humors but in the spirits that mine enemy is not an imaginary enemy fortune nor a transitory enemy malice in great persons but a reall and an irresistible and an inexorable and an everlasting enemy The Lord of Hosts himselfe The Almighty God himselfe the Almighty God himselfe onely knowes the waight of this affliction and except hee put in that pondus gloriae that exceeding waight of an eternall glory with his owne hand into the other scale we are waighed downe we are swallowed up irreparably irrevocably irrecoverably irremediably This is the fearefull depth this is spirituall misery to be thus fallen from God But was this Davids case was he fallen thus farre into a diffidence in God No. But the danger the precipice the slippery sliding into that bottomlesse depth is to be excluded from the meanes of comming to God or staying with God And this is that that David laments here That by being banished and driven into the wildernesse of Judah hee had not accesse to the Sanctuary of the Lord to sacrifice his part in the praise and to receive his part in the prayers of the Congregation for Angels passe not to ends but by wayes and meanes nor men to the glory of the triumphant Church but by participation of the Communion of the Militant To this note David sets his Harpe in many many Psalms Sometimes Psal 78.60 that God had suffered his enemies to possesse his Tabernacle Hee for sooke the Tabernacle of Shiloh Hee delivered his strength into captivity and his glory into the enemies hands But most commonly he complaines that God disabled him from comming to the Sanctuary In which one thing he had summed up all his desires all his prayers One thing have I desired of the Lord Psal 27.4 that will I looke after That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the dayes of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his Temple His vehement desire of this Psal 42.2 he expresses againe My soule thirsteth for God for the living God when shall I come and appeare before God He expresses a holy jealousie a religious envy Psal 84.3 even to the sparrows and swallows yea the sparrow hath found a house and the swallow a nest for her selfe and where she may lay her yong Even thine Altars O Lord of Host my King and my God Thou art my King and my God and yet excludest me from that Luk. 12.7 which thou affordest to sparrows And are not we of more value then many sparrows And as though David felt some false ease some half-tentation some whispering that way Psal 84.3 That God is in the wildernesse of Iudah in every place as well as in his Sanctuary there is in the Originall in that place a patheticall a vehement a broken expressing expressed O thine Altars It is true sayes David thou art here in the wildernesse and I may see thee here and serve thee here but O thine Altars O Lord of hosts my King and my God When David could not come in person to that place yet he bent towards the Temple Psal 5.7 In thy feare will I worship towards thy holy Temple Which was also Daniels devotion when he prayed Dan. 6.10 his Chamber windowes were open towards Ierusalem And so is Hezekias turning to the wall to weepe Esa 38.2 and to pray in his sick bed understood to be to that purpose to conforme and compose himselfe towards the Temple In the place consecrated for that use God by Moses fixes the service and fixes the Reward And towards that place Deut. 31.11 when they could not come to it doth Solomon direct their devotion in the Consecration of the Temple 1 King 8.44 when they are in the warres when they are in Captivity and pray towards this house doe thou heare them For as in private prayer when according to Christs command we are shut in our chamber there is exercised Modestia fidei The modesty and bashfulnesse of our faith not pressing upon God in his house so in the publique prayers of the Congregation there is exercised the fervor and holy courage of our faith Tertull. for Agmine facto obsidemus Deum It is a Mustering of our forces and a besieging of God Therefore does David so much magnifie their blessednesse that are in this house of God Blessed are they that dwell in thy house for they will be still praising thee Those that looke towards it may praise thee sometimes but those men who dwell in the Church and whose whole service lyes in the Church have certainly an advantage of all other men who are necessarily withdrawne by worldly businesses in making themselves acceptable to almighty God if they doe their duties and observe their Church-services aright Man being therefore thus subject naturally to manifold calamities Excommunicatio and spirituall calamities being incomparably heavier then temporall and the greatest danger of falling into such
Cooke The other is a Physitian and though by bitter things provides for thy future health And such is the hony of Flatterers and such is the wormewood of better Counsellors I will not shake a Proverbe not the Ad Corvos That wee were better admit the Crowes that picke out our eyes after we are dead then Flatterers that blinde us whilst we live I cast justly upon others I take willingly upon my selfe the name of wicked if I blesse the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth or any other whom he hath declared to be odious to him But making my object goodnesse in that man and taking that goodnesse in that man to be a Candle set up by God in that Candlesticke God having engaged himselfe that that good man shall be praised I will be a Subsidy man so far so far pay Gods debts as to celebrate with condigne praise the goodnesse of that man for in that I doe as I should desire to be done to And in that I pay a debt to that man And in that I succour their weaknesse who as S. Gregory sayes when they heare another praised Gregâ—r Si non amore virtutis at delectatione laudis accenduntur At first for the love of Praise but after for the love of goodnesse it selfe are drawne to bee good Phil. 4.8 For when the Apostle had directed the Philippians upon things that were True and honest and just and purc and lovely and of a good report he ends all thus If there be any vertue and if there be any praise thinke on these things In those two sayes S. Augustine he divides all Vertue and Praise Vertue in our selves that may deserve Praise Praise towards others that may advance and propagate Vertue This is the retribution which God promises to all the upright in heart Gloriabuntur Laudabuntur They shall Glory they shall have they shall give praise And then it is so far from diminishing this Glory as that it infinitely exalts our consolation that God places this Retribution in the future Gloriabuntur If they doe not yet yet certainly they shall glory And if they doe now that glory shall not goe out still they shall they shall for ever glory In the Hebrew there is no Present tense In that language wherein God spake Futurum it could not be said The upright in heart Are praised Many times they are not But God speaks in the future first that he may still keepe his Children in an expectation and dependance upon him you shall be though you be not yet And then to establish them in an infallibility because he hath said it I know you are not yet but comfort your selves I have said it and it shall be As the Hebrew hath no Superlatives because God would keepe his Children within compasse and in moderate desires to content themselves with his measures though they be not great and though they be not heaped so considering what pressures and contempts and terrors the upright in heart are subject to it is a blessed reliefe That they have a future proposed unto them That they shall be praised That they shall be redeemed out of contempt This makes even the Expectation it selfe as sweet to them as the fruition would be This makes them that when David sayes Expecta viriliter Waite upon the Lord with a good courage Waite I say Psal 27.14 upon the Lord they doe not answer with the impatience of the Martyrs under the Altar Vsquequo How long Lord wilt thou defer it Rev. 6.10 Psal 40.1 Psal 52.9 But they answer in Davids owne words Expectans expectavi I have waited long And Expectabo nomen tuum still I will waite upon thy Name I will waite till the Lord come His kingdome come in the mean time His kingdome of Grace and Patience and for his Ease and his Deliverance and his Praise and his Glory to me let that come when he may be most glorified in the comming thereof Nay not onely the Expectation that is that that is expected shall be comfortable because it shall be infallible but that very present state that he is in shall be comfortable according to the first of our three Translations They that are true of heart shall be glad thereof Glad of that Glad that they are true of heart though their future retribution were never so far removed Nay though there were no future retribution in the case yet they shall finde comfort enough in their present Integrity Nay not onely their present state of Integrity but their present state of misery shall be comfortable to them for this very word of our Text Halal that is here translated Ioy and Glory and Praise in divers places of Scripture as Hebrew words have often such a transplantation signifies Ingloriousnesse and contempt and dejection of spirit Psal 75.4 Esa 44.25 Job 12.17 So that Ingloriousnesse and contempt and dejection of spirit may be a part of the retribution God may make Ingloriousnesse and Contempt and Dejection of spirit a greater blessing and benefit then Joy and Glory and Praise would have been and so reserve all this Glory and Praising to that time that David intends Psal 112.6 The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance Though they live and die contemptibly they shall be in an honorable remembrance even amongst men as long as men last and even when time shall be no more and men no more they shall have it in futuro aeterno where there shall be an everlasting present and an everlasting future there the upright in heart shall be praised and that for ever which is our conclusion of all If this word of our Text Halal shall signifie Ioy as the Service Booke Aeternum and the Geneva translation render it that may be somewhat towards enough which we had occasion to say of the Joyes of heaven in our Exercise upon the precedent Psalme when we say-led thorough that Hemispheare of Heaven by the breath of the Holy Ghost in handling those words Vnder the shadow of thy wings I will rejoyce So that of this signification of the word Gaudebunt in aeterno They shall rejoyce for ever we adde nothing now If the word shall signifie Glory as our last translation renders it consider with me That when that Glory which I shall receive in Heaven shall be of that exaltation as that my body shall invest the glory of a soule my body shall be like a soule like a spirit like an Angel of light in all endowments that glory it selfe can make that body capable of that body remaining still a true body when my body shall be like a soule there will be nothing left for my soule to be like but God himselfe 2 Pet. 1.4 1 Cor. 6.17 I shall be partaker of the Divine nature and the same Spirit with him Since the glory that I shall receive in body and in soule shall be such so exalted what shall that glory of God be which I shall
see by the light of this glory shed upon me there In this place and at this time the glory of God is but we lack that light to see it by When my soule and body are glorified in heaven by that light of glory in me I shall see the glory of God But then what must that glory of the Essence of God be which I shall see thorough the light of Gods own glory I must have the light of glory upon me to see the glory of God and then by his glory I shall see his Essence Rom. 11.33 When S. Paul cryes out upon the bottomlesse depth of the riches of his Attributes O the depth of the riches both of the wisedome and knowledge of God! how glorious how bottomlesse is the riches of his Essence If I cannot look upon him in his glasse 1 Cor. 13.12 1 Joh. 3.2 in the body of the Sunne how shall I looke upon him face to face And if I be dazeled to see him as he works how shall I see him Sicutiest as he is and in his Essence But it may be some ease to our spirits which cannot endure the search of this glory of heaven which shall shew us the very Essence of God to take this word of our Text as our first translation of all tooke it for one beame of this glory that is Praise Consider we therefore this everlasting future onely so How the upright in heart shall be praised in heaven First The Militant Church shall transmit me to the Triumphant with her recommendation That I lived in the obedience of the Church of God That I dyed in the faith of the Sonne of God That I departed and went away from them in the company and conduct of the Spirit of God into whose hands they heard me they saw me recommend my spirit 1 Cor. 6.19 And that I left my body which was the Temple of the Holy Ghost to them and that they have placed it in Gods treasury in his consecrated earth to attend the Resurrection which they shall beseech him to hasten for my sake and to make it joyfull and glorious to me and them when it comes So the Militant Church shall transmit me to the Triumphant with this praise this testimony this recommendation And then if I have done any good to any of Gods servants or to any that hath not been Gods servant for Gods sake If I have but fed a hungry man If I have but clothed a naked childe If I have but comforted a sad soule or instructed an ignorant soule If I have but preached a Sermon and then printed that Sermon that is first preached it and then lived according to it for the subsequent life is the best printing and the most usefull and profitable publishing of a Sermon All those things that I have done for Gods glory shall follow me shall accompany me shall be in heaven before me and meet me with their testimony That as I did not serve God for nothing God gave me his blessings with a large hand and in overflowing measures so I did not nothing for the service of God Though it be as it ought to be nothing in mine own eyes nothing in respect of my duty yet to them who have received any good by it it must not seeme nothing for then they are unthankfull to God who gave it by whose hand soever This shall be my praise to Heaven my recommendation thither And then my praise in Heaven shall be my preferment in Heaven That those blessed Angels that rejoyced at my Conversion before shall praise my perseverance in that profession and admit me to a part in all their Hymns and Hosannaes and Hallelujahs which Hallelujah is a word produced from the very word of this Text Halal My Hallelujah shall be my Halal my praising of God shall be my praise And from this testimony I shall come to the accomplishment of all to receive from my Saviours own mouth that glorious that victorious that harmonious praise that Dissolving and that Recollecting testimony that shall melt my bowels and yet fix me powre me out and yet gather me into his bosome that Euge bone serve Mat. 25.21 Well done good and faithfull servant enter into thy Masters joy And when he hath sealed me with his Euge and accepted my service who shall stamp a Vae quod non upon me who shall say Woe be unto thee that thou didst not preach this or that day in this or that place When he shall have styled me Bone fidelis Good and faithfull servant who shall upbraid me with a late undertaking this Calling or a slack pursuing or a lazy intermitting the function thereof When he shall have entred me into my Masters joy what fortune what sin can cast any Cloud of sadnesse upon me This is that that makes Heaven Heaven That this Retribution which is future now shall be present then and when it is then present it shall be future againe and present and future for ever ever enjoyed and expected ever The upright in heart shall have whatsoever all Translations can enlarge and extend themselves unto They shall Rejoyce they shall Glory they shall Praise and they shall bee praised and all these in an everlasting future for ever Which everlastingnesse is such a Terme as God himselfe cannot enlarge As God cannot make himselfe a better God then he is because hee is infinitely good infinite goodnesse already so God himselfe cannot make our Terme in heaven longer then it is for it is infinite everlastingnesse infinite eternity That that wee are to beg of him is that as that state shall never end so he will be pleased to hasten the beginning thereof that so we may be numbred with his Saints in Glory everlasting Amen SERM. LXVIII The fourth of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalmes Preached at S. Pauls 28. Ianuary 1626. PSAL. 65.5 By terrible things in righteousnesse wilt thou answer us O God of our salvation who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth and of them that are a far off upon the Sea GOd makes nothing of nothing now God eased himselfe of that incomprehensible worke and ended it in the first Sabbath But God makes great things of little still And in that kinde hee works most upon the Sabbath 1 Cor. 1.21 when by the foolishnesse of Preaching hee infatuates the wisedome of the world and by the word in the mouth of a weake man he enfeebles the power of sinne and Satan in the world and by but so much breath as blows out an houre-glasse gathers three thousand soules at a Sermon and five thousand soules at a Sermon as upon Peters preaching in the second and in the fourth of the Acts. And this worke of his to make much of little and to doe much by little is most properly a Miracle For the Creation which was a production of all out of nothing was not properly a miracle A miracle is a thing done
say That whatsoever the world doth justly looke for at our hands wee may justly look for at Gods hands Those outward meanes which are requisite for the performance of the duties of your calling to the world arising from your birth or arising from your place you are to pray for you are to labour for For that is Sufficientia tua so much is sufficient for you and so much Honey you may eat but eat no more sayes the Text Ne satieris Lest you be filled Hee doth not say yet Ne satieris lest thou bee satisfied there is no great feare nay there is no hope of that that he will be satisfied We know the receipt the capacity of the ventricle the stomach of man how much it can hold and wee know the receipt of all the receptacles of blood how much blood the body can have so wee doe of all the other conduits and cisterns of the body But this infinite Hive of honey this insatiable whirlpoole of the covetous mind no Anatomy no dissection hath discovered to us When I looke into the larders and cellars and vaults into the vessels of our body for drink for blood for urine they are pottles and gallons when I looke into the furnaces of our spirits the ventricles of the heart and of the braine they are not thimbles for spirituall things the things of the next world we have no roome for temporall things the things of this world we have no bounds How then shall this over-eater bee filled with his honey So filled as that he can receive nothing else More of the same honey hee can Another Mannor and another Church is but another bit of meat with another sauce to him Another Office and another way of Extortion is but another garment and another lace to him But he is too full to receive any thing else Christ comes to this Bethlem Bethlem which is Domus panis this house of abundance and there is no roome for Christ in this Inne there are no crums for Christ under this table There comes Boanerges Boanerges that is filius Tonitrui the sonne of Thunder and he thunders out the Vae's the Comminations the Judgements of God upon such as hee but if the Thunder spoile not his drink he sees no harme in Thunder As long as a Sermon is not a Sentence in the Starre-chamber that a Sermon cannot fine and imprison him hee hath no roome for any good effect of a Sermon The Holy Ghost the Spirit of Comfort comes to him and offers him the consolation of the Gospel but hee will die in his old religion which is to sacrifice to his owne Nets by which his portion is plenteous he had rather have the God of the Old Testament that payes in this world with milke and honey then the God of the New Testament that cals him into his Vineyard in this World and payes him no wages till the next one Iupiter is worth all the three Elohims or the three Iehovahs if we may speake so to him Iupiter that can come in a showre of gold out waighs Iehova that comes but in a showre of water but in a sprinkling of water in Baptisme and sels that water so deare as that he will have showres of teares for it nay showres of blood for it when any Persecutor hath a mind to call for it The voyce of God whom he hath contemned and wounded The voyce of the Preacher whom he hath derided and impoverished The voyce of the poore of the Widow of the Orphans of the prisoner whom he hath oppressed knocke at his doore and would enter but there is no roome for them he is so full This is the great danger indeed that accompanies this fulnesse but the danger that affects him more is that which is more literally in the text Evomet he shall be so filled as that he shall vomit even that fulnesse those temporall things which he had he shall cast up It is not a vomiting for his ease that he would vomit but he shall vomit Evomas he shall bee forced to vomit He hath swallowed downe riches and he shall vomit them up againe Iob 20.15 God shall cast them out of his belly But by what hand whether by his right hand by the true way of justice or his left hand by malice under colour of justice his money shall be his Antimony his own riches shall be his vomit Solomon sayes he saw a sore evill under the Sun Eccles 5.22 but if he had lived as long as the Sun he might have seen it every course of the Sun Riches reserved to their owners for their own hurt Richmen perish that should not have perished or not so soone or not so absolutely if they had not beene rich Their confidence in their riches provokes them to some unjustifiable actions and their riches provoke others to a vehement persecution And in this vomit of theirs if we had time to doe so we would consider first The sordidnesse and the contempt and scorne that this evacuated Man comes to in the world when he hath had this vomit of all his honey That because there can be no vacuity he shall be filled againe but Saturabitur ignominia Habak 2.16 He shall be filled with shame for glory and shamefull spuing shall be upon his glory Ier. 48.26 He magnified himselfe against the Lord and therefore was made drunk and shall wallow in his vomit and be had in derision His honey was his soule and that being vomited he is now but a rotten and abhorred carkass At best he was but a bag of money and now he is but the bag it selfe which scarce any man will stoop to take up And as in a vomit in a bason the Physitian is able to shew the world what cold meat and what raw meat and what hard and indigestible meat he had eaten So when such a person comes by justice or malice to this vomit every man becomes a Physitian every man brings Inditements and evidence against him and can shew all his falshoods and all his extortions in particular In these particulars we would consider the scorne upon this vomit and then the danger of it in these That nothing weakens the eyes more then vomiting when this worldly man hath lost his honey he hath lost his sight he was dimme sighted at beginning when he could see nothing but worldly things things nearest to him but when he hath vomited thē he hath lost his spectacles through his riches he saw some glimmering some colour of comfort now he sees no comfort at all And a greater danger in vomiting is that often times it breakes a veine within and that is most commonly incurable This man that vomits without bleeds within his fortune is broke and his heart is broke and he bleeds better blood then his owne he bleeds out the blood of Christ Jesus himselfe the blood of Christ Jesus poured into him heretofore in the consolation of the Gospel
without recourse to God without acknowledging God in that action he is for that particular an Atheist he is without God in that and if hee doe so in most of his actions he is for the most part an Atheist If he be an Atheist every where but in his Catechisme if onely then he confesse a God when hee is asked Doest thou beleeve that there is a God and never confesse him never consider him in his actions it shall do him no good to say at the last day that he was no speculative Atheist he never thought in his heart that there was no God if hee lived a practique Atherst proceeded in all his actions without any consideration of him But accustome thy selfe to find the presence of God in all thy gettings in all thy preferments in all thy studies and he will be abundantly sufficient to thee for all Quantumlibet sis avarus saith S. Augustine sufficit tibi Deus Be as covetous as thou wilt bee as ambitious as thou canst the more the better God is treasure God is honour enough for thee Avaritia terram quaerit saith the same Father adde Coelum wouldst thou have all this world wouldst thou have all the next world too Plus est qui fecit coelum terram He that made heaven and earth is more then all that and thou mayest have all him And this appropriates him so neare to us Noster as that hee is thereby Deus noster For it is not enough to finde Deum a God a great and incomprehensible power that sits in luce in light but in luce inaccessibili in light that we cannot comprehend A God that enjoyes his owne eternity his owne peace his owne blessedness but respects not us reflects not upon us communicates nothing to us But it is a God that is Deus noster Ours as we are his creatures ours as we are like him made to his image ours as he is like us in assuming our nature ours as he hath descended to us in his Incarnation and ours as we are ascended with him in his glorification So that wee doe not consider God as our God except we come to the consideration of God in Christ God and man It is not enough to find Deum a God in generall nor to find Deum meum a God so particularly my God as that he is a God of my making That I should seeke God by any other motions or know God by any other notions or worship God in any other fashions then the true Church of God doth for there he is Deus noster as hee is received in the unanime consent of the Catholique Church Sects are not bodies they are but rotten boughes gangrened limmes fragmentary chips blowne off by their owne spirit of turbulency fallen off by the waight of their owne pride or hewen off by the Excommunications and censures of the Church Sects are no bodies for there is Nihil nostrum nothing in common amongst them nothing that goes through them all all is singular all is meum and tuum my spirit and thy spirit my opinion and thy opinion my God and thy God no such apprehension no such worship of God as the whole Church hath evermore been acquainted withall and contented with It is true that every man must appropriate God so narrowly as to find him to be Deum suum his God that all the promises of the Prophets and all the performances of the Gospell all that Christ Jesus said and did and suffered belongs to him and his soule but yet God is Deus meus as he is Deus noster my God as he is our God as I am a part of that Church with which he hath promised to be till the end of the world and as I am an obedient sonne of that Mother who is the Spouse of Christ Jesus For as S. Augustine saith of that Petition Give us this day our daily bread Vnde dicimus Da nostrum How come we to ask that which is ours Quomodo nostrum quomodo da if we be put to ask it why doe wee call it ours and then answers himselfe Tuum confitendo non eris ingratus It is a thankfull part to confesse that thou hast some that thou hast received some blessings and then Ab illo petendo non eris vacuus It is a wise and a provident part to ask more of him whose store is inexhaustible So if I feele God as hee is Deus meus as his Spirit works in me and thankfully acknowledge that Non sum ingratus But if I derive this Pipe from the Cistern this Deus meus from Deus noster my knowledge and sense of God from that knowledge which is communicated by his Church in the preaching of his Word in the administration of his Sacraments in those other meanes which he hath instituted in his Church for the assistance and reparation of my soule that way Non er o vacuus I shall have a fuller satisfaction a more abundant refection then if I rely upon my private inspirations for there he is Deus noster Now as we are thus to acknowledge a God and thus to appropriate that God Dominus so we must be sure to confer this honour upon the right God upon him who is the Lord. Now this name of God which is translated the Lord here is not the name of God which presents him with relation to his Creatures for so it is a problematicall a disputable thing Whether God could be called the Lord before there were any Creatures Tertullian denies absolutely that he could be called Lord till then S. Augustin is more modest he sayes Non audeo dicere I dare not say that he was not but he does not affirme that he was Howsoever the name here is not the name of Relation but it is the name of his Essence of his Eternity that name which of late hath beene ordinarily called Iebovah So that we are not to trust in those Lords Whose breath is in their nostrils Esay 2. ult as the Prophet sayes For wherein are they to be esteemed sayes he we are lesse to trust in them whose breath was never in their nostrils such imaginary Saints as are so far from hearing us in Heaven as that they are not there and so far from being there as that they were never here so farre from being Saints as that they were never men but are either fabulous illusions or at least but symbolicall and allegoricall allusions Our Lord is the Lord of life and being who gave us not onely a well-being in this life for that other Lords can pretend to doe and doe indeed by preferments here nor a beginning of a temporary being in this life for that our Parents pretend and pretend truly to have done nor onely an enlarging of our being in this life for that the King can doe by a Pardon and the Physitians by a Cordiall but he hath given us an immortall being which neither our Parents began in
be diffusive that the object of our affections be the Publique To depart with nothing which we call our owne Nothing in our goods nothing in our opinions nothing in the present exercise of our liberty is not to be liberall To presse too farre the advancing of one part to the depressing of another especially where that other is the Head is not liberall dealing Therefore said Christ to Iames and Iohn Mat. 20.23 August Non est meum dare vobis It is not mine to give to set you on my right and on my left hand Non vobis quia singuli separatim ab aliis rogatis not to you because you consider but your selves and petition for your selves to the prejudice and exclusion of others Joh. 4.16 Chrysost Therefore Christ bad the Samaritan woman call her husband too when shee desired the water of life Ne sola gratiam acciperet saith S. Chrysostome That he might so doe good to her as that others might have good by it too For Adpatriam quâitur August Which way think you to goe home to the heavenly Jerusalem Per ipsum mare sed in ligno You must passe thorow Seas of difficulties and therefore by ship and in a ship you are not safe except other passengers in the same ship be safe too Cant. 1.4 The Spouse saith Trahe me post te Draw me after thee When it is but a Me in the singular but one part considered there is a violence a difficulty a drawing But presently after when there is an uniting in a plurall there is an alacrity a concurrence a willingnesse Curremus post te We We will runne after thee If we would joyne in publique considerations we should runne together This is true Liberality in Gods people to depart with some things of their owne though in goods though in opinions though in present use of liberty for the publique safety These Liberall things these Liberall men King Magistrate and People shall devise and by Liberall things they shall stand The King shall devise Liberall things Cogitabit Rex that is study and propose Directions and commit the execution thereof to persons studious of the glory of God and the publique good Magistratus And that is his Devising of Liberall things The Princes Magistrates Officers shall study to execute aright those gracious Directions received from their royall Master and not retard his holy alacrity in the wayes of Justice by any slacknesse of theirs nor by casting a dampe or blasting a good man or a good cause in the eyes or eares of the King And that is their Devising of Liberall things The people shall devest all personall respects and ill affections towards other men and all private respects of their owne and spend all their faculties of mind of body of fortune upon the Publique And that is their Devising of Liberall things And by these Liberall things Stabit Rex Magistratus these Liberall men shall stand The King shall stand stand in safety at home and stand in triumph abroad The Magistrate shall stand stand in a due reverence of his place from below and in safe possession of his place from above neither be contemned by his Inferiours nor suspiciously and guiltily inquired into by his Superiours Populus neither feare petitions against him nor commissions upon him And the People shall stand stand upon their right Basis that is an inward feeling and an outward declaration that they are safe onely in the Publique safety And they shall all stand in the Sunshine and serenity of a cleere conscience which serenity of conscience is one faire beame even of the glory of God and of the joy of heaven upon that soule that enjoyes it This is Esays Prophecie of the times of an Hezekias of a Iosias the blessing of this civill and morall Liberality in all these persons And it is time to passe to our other generall part from the civill to the spirituall and from applying these words to the good times of a good King to that which is evidently the principall purpose of the Holy Ghost That in the time of Christ Jesus and the reigne of his Gospel this and all other vertues should bee in a higher exaltation then any civill or morall respect can carry them to As an Hezekias 2 Part. Liberalitas a Iosias is a Type of Christ but yet but a Type of Christ so this civill Liberality which we have hitherto spoken of is a Type but yet but a Type of our spirituall Liberality For here we doe not onely change termes the temporall to spirituall and to call that which we called Liberality in the former part Charity in this part nor do we onely make the difference in the proportion measure that that which was a Benefit in the other part should be an Almes in this But we invest the whole consideration in a meere spirituall nature and so that Liberality which was in the former acceptation but a relieving but a refreshing but a repairing of defects and dilapidations in the body or fortune is now in this second part in this spirituall acceptation the raising of a dejected spirit the redintegration of a broken heart the resuscitation of a buried soule the re-consolidation of a scattered conscience not with the glues and cements of this world mirth and inusique and comedies and conversation and wine and women miserable comforters are they all nor with that Meteor that hangs betweene two worlds that is Philosophy and morall constancy which is somewhat above the carnall man but yet far below the man truly Christian and religious But this is the Liberality of which the Holy Ghost himselfe is content to be the Steward of the holy blessed and glorious Trinity and to be notified and qualified by that distinctive notion and specification The Comforter To finde a languishing wretch in a sordid corner not onely in a penurious fortune but in an oppressed conscience His eyes under a diverse suffocation sinothered with smoake and smothered with teares His eares estranged from all salutations and visits and all sounds but his owne sighes and the stormes and thunders and earthquakes of his owne despaire To enable this man to open his eyes and see that Christ Jesus stands before him and sayes Behold and see if ever there were any sorrow like my sorrow and my sorrow is overcome why is not thine To open this mans eares and make him heare that voyce that sayes I was dead and am alive and behold I live for evermore Amen Revel 1.18 and so mayest thou To bow downe those Heavens and bring them into his sad Chamber To set Christ Jesus before him to out-sigh him out-weepe him out-bleed him out-dye him To transferre all the fasts all the scornes all the scourges all the nailes all the speares of Christ Jesus upon him and so making him the Crucified man in the sight of the Father because all the actions and passions of the
same thing againe I beleeve in the Holy Ghost but doe not finde him if I seeke him onely in private prayer But in Ecclesia when I goe to meet him in the Church when I seeke him where hee hath promised to bee found when I seeke him in the execution of that Commission which is proposed to our faith in this Text in his Ordinances and meanes of salvation in his Church instantly the savour of this Myrrhe is exalted and multiplied to me not a dew but a shower is powred out upon me and presently followes Communio Sanctorum The Communion of Saints the assistance of Militant and Triumphant Church in my behalfe And presently followes Remissio peceatorum The remission of sins the purifying of my conscience in that water which is his blood Baptisme and in that wine which is his blood the other Sacrament and presently followes Carnis resurrectio A resurrection of my body My body becomes no burthen to me my body is better now then my soule was before and even here I have Goshen in my Egypt incorruption in the midst of my dunghill spirit in the midst of my flesh heaven upon earth and presently followes Vita aeterna Life everlasting this life of my body shall not last ever nay the life of my soul in heaven is not such as it is at the first For that soule there even in heaven shall receive an addition and accesse of Joy and Glory in the resurrection of our bodies in the consummation When a winde brings the River to any low part of the banke instantly it overflowes the whole Meadow when that winde which blowes where he will The Holy Ghost leads an humble soule to the Article of the Church to lay hold upon God as God hath exhibited himselfe in his Ordinances instantly he is surrounded under the blood of Christ Jesus and all the benefits thereof The communion of Saints the remission of sins the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting are poured out upon him And therefore of this great worke which God hath done for man in applying himselfe to man in the Ordinances of his Church S. Augustine sayes Obscuriùs dixerunt Prophetae de Christo August quà m de Ecclesia The Prophets have not spoken so clearely of the person of Christ as they have of the Church of Christ Hieron for though S. Hierom interpret aright those words of Adam and Eve Erunt duo in carnem unam They two shall be one flesh to be applyable to the union which is betweene Christ and his Church Ephes 5. for so S. Paul himselfe applies them that Christ and his Church are all one as man and wife are all one yet the wife is or at least it had wont to be so easilier found at home then the husband wee can come to Christs Church but we cannot come to him The Church is a Hill and that is conspicuous naturally but the Church is such a Hill as may be seene every where August S. Augustine askes his Auditory in one of his Sermons doe any of you know the Hill Olympus and himselfe sayes in their behalfe none of you know it no more sayes he do those that dwell at Olympus know Giddabam vestram some Hill which was about them trouble not thy selfe to know the formes and fashions of forraine particular Churches neither of a Church in the lake nor a Church upon seven hils but since God hath planted thee in a Church where all things necessary for salvation are administred to thee and where no erronious doctrine even in the confession of our Adversaries is affirmed and held that is the Hill and that is the Catholique Church and there is this Commission in this text meanes of salvation sincerely executed So then such a Commission there is and it is in the Article of the Creed that is the ubi We are now come in our order to the third circumstantiall branch the Vnde Vnde from whence and when this Commission issued in which we consider that since we receive a deepe impression from the words which our friends spake at the time of their death much more would it worke upon us if they could come and speake to us after their death You know what Dives said Si quis ex mortuis Luke 16. If one from the dead might goe to my Brethren he might bring them to any thing Now Primitiae mortuorum The Lord of life and yet the first borne of the dead Christ Jesus returnes againe after his death to establish this Commission upon his Apostles It hath therefore all the formalities of a strong and valid Commission Christ gives it Ex mero motu meerely out of his owne goodnesse He foresaw no merit in us that moved him neither was he moved by any mans solicitations for could it ever have fallen into a mans heart to have prayed to the Father that his Son might take our Nature and dye and rise again and settle a course upon earth for our salvation if this had not first risen in the purpose of God himself Would any man ever have solicited or prayed him to proceed thus It was Ex mero motu out of his owne goodnesse and it was Ex certa scientia He was not deceived in his grant he knew what he did he knew this Commission should be executed in despight of all Heretiques and Tyrans that should oppose it And as it was out of his owne Will and with his owne knowledge so it was Ex plenitudine potestatis He exceeded not his Power for Christ made this Commission then Mat. 28.18 when as it is expressed in the other Euangelist he produced that evidence Data est mihi All power is given to me in Heaven and in earth where Christ speakes not of that Power which he had by his eternall generation though even that power were given him for he was Deus de Deo God of God nor he speakes not of that Power which was given him as Man which was great but all that he had in the first minute of his conception in the first union of the two Natures Divine and Humane together but that Power from which he derives this Commission is that which he had purchased by his blood and came to by conquest Ego vici mundum sayes Christ I have conquered the world and comming in by conquest I may establish what forme of Government I will and my will is to governe my Kingdome by this Commission and by these Commissioners to the Worlds end to establish these meanes upon earth for the salvation of the world And as it hath all these formalities of a due Commission made without suite made without error made without defect of power so had it this also that it was duely and authentically testified for though this Euangelist name but the eleven Apostles to have beene present and they in this case might be thought Testes domestici Witnesses that witnesse to their owne
unto our image let us consider our selves in him and make our case his and remember how lately he was as well as we and how soone we may be as ill as he and then Descendamus confundamus Let us us with all the power we have remove or slacken those calamities that lie upon them This onely is charity to doe all all that we can And something there is which every man may doe There are Armies in the levying whereof every man is an absolute Prince and needs no Commission there are Forces in which every man is his owne Muster-master The force which we spoke of before out of Tertullian the force of prayer In publique actions we obey God when we obey them to whom God hath committed the publique In those things which are in our own power the subfidies and contributions of prayer God looks that we should second his Faciamus with our Dicamus That since he must doe all we would pray him that he would doe it And his Descendamus with our Ascendamus That if we would have him come down and fight our battayls or remove our calamities we should first goe up to him in humble and fervent prayer That he would continue the Gospel where it is and restore it where it was and transfer it where it was never as yet heard Charity is to doe all to all and the poorest of us all can doe this to any I may then I must pray for this fulnesse and fulnesse is sufficiency And for this satisfaction Mane and satisfaction is contentment And that God would extend this and other his blessings upon others too And if God doe leave us in an Egypt in a Babylon without reliefe for sometime I may proceed to this holy importunity which David intimates here Satura nos mane O Lord make haste to helpe us Satisfie us early with thy mercy and God will doe so Weeping may endure for a night sayes David Psal 30.5 David does not say It must indure for a night that God will by no meanes shorten the time perchance God will wipe all teares from thine eyes at midnight if thou pray Try him that way then If he doe not If weeping doe indure for a night all night yet joy commeth in the morning faith David And then he doth not say Joy may come in the morning but it commeth certainly infallibly it comes and comes in the morning God is an early riser In the Marning-watch God laâ—ked upon the hâ—st of the Egyptians Exod. 14.24 Hee looked upon their counsels to see what they would doe and upon their forces to see what they could doe He is not early up and never the nearer His going forth is prepared as the Morning Hos 6.3 there is his generall Providence in which he visits every creature And hee shall come to us in the former and later raine upon the earth Hee makes haste to us in the former and seconds his former mercies to us in more mercies And as he makes hast to refresh his servants so goes he the same pace to the ruine of his enemies In matutina intersâ—oiam Psal 101.8 I will early destroy all the wicked of the land It is not a weakning of them It is a destruction It is not of a squadron or regiment It is all It is not onely upon the Land but the wicked of any band he will destroy upon the Sea too This is his promise this is his practise this is his pace Thus he did in Sennacheriâ—s Army When they arose early in the Morning 2 King 19.35 behold they were all dead carcasses They rose early that saw it but God had been up earlier that had done it And that story God seemes to have had care to have recorded almost in all the divisions of the Bible for it is in the Historicall part and it is in the Propheticall part too and because God foresaw that mens curiosities would carry them upon Apocryphal Books also it is repeated almost in every Book of that kinde in Ecclesiasticus in Tobit in the Maceabees in both Books That every where our eye might light upon that and every soule might make that Syllogisme and produce that conclusion to it selfe If God bee thus forward thus early in the wayes of Judgement much more is he so in the wayes of mercy with that he will satisfie us Mane early and as Tremellius reads this very Text unoquoque mane betimes in the morning and every morning Now if we looke for this early mercy from God we must rise betimes too and meet God early God hath promised to give Matutinam stellam the Morning-star Revel 2 28. but they must be up betimes in the morning that will take the Morning-star He himselfe who is it hath told us who is this Morning star I Iesus am the bright and Morning starre Revel 2â— â—â— God will give us Jesus Him and all his all his teares all his blood all his merits But to whom and upon what conditions That is expressed there Vincenti dabe To hinâ— that overcommeth I will give the Morning-star Our life is a warfare our whole life It is not onely with lusts in our youth and ambitions in our middle yeares and indevotions in our age but with agonies in our body and tentations in our spirit upon our death-bed that we are to fight and he cannot be said to overcome that fights not out the whole battell If he enter not the field in the morning that is apply not himselfe to Gods service in his youth If hee continue not to the Evening If hee faint in the way and grow remisse in Gods service for collaterall respects God will overcome his cause and his glory shall stand fast but that man can scarce be said to have overcome It is the counsell of the Wise man Prevent the Sunne to give thanks to God Wisd 16.28 and at the day-spring pray unto him You see still how these two duties are marshalled and disposed First Praise and then Prayer but both early And it is placed in the Lamentations as though it were a lamentable negligence to have omitted it It is good for a man Lament 3.27 that he beare his yoake in his youth Rise as early as you can you cannot be up before God no nor before God raise you Howsoever you prevent this Sunne the Sunne of the Firmament yet the Sonne of Heaven hath prevented you for without his preventing Grace you could not stirre Have any of you slept out their Morning resisted his private motions to private Prayer at home neglected his callings so Though a man doe sleepe out his forenoone the Sunne goes on his course and comes to his Meridionall splendor though that man have not looked towards it That Sonne which hath risen to you at home in those private motions hath gone on his course and hath shined out here in this house of God upon Wednesday and upon Friday and upon
August 1630. being with his daughter Mistris Harvy at Abrey-Hatch in Essex he fell into a Feaver which with the helpe of his constant infirmity vapours from the spleene hastened him into so visible a Consumption that his beholders might say as S. Paul of himselfe he dyes daily And he might say with Iob Job 30.15 Job 7.3 My welfare passeth away as a cloud The dayes of affliction have taken hold of me And weary nights are appointed for me This sicknesse continued long not onely weakning but wearing him so much that my desire is he may now take some rest And that thou judge it no impertinent digression before I speake of his death to looke backe with me upon some observations of his life which while a gentle slumber seises him may I hope fitly exercise thy Consideration His marriage was the remarkable error of his life which though he had a wit apt enough and very able to maintaine paradoxes And though his wives competent yeares and other reasons might be justly urged to moderate a severe censure yet he never seemed to justifie and doubtlesse had repented it if God had not blest them with a mutuall and so cordiall an affection as in the midst of their sufferings made their bread of sorrow taste more pleasantly then the banquet of fooles The recreations of his youth were Poetry in which he was so happy as if nature with all her varieties had been made to exercise his great wit and high fancy And in those pieces which were carelesly scattered in his younger daies most of them being written before the twentieth yeare of his age it may appeare by his choice Metaphors that all the Arts joyned to assist him with their utmost skill It is a truth that in his penitentiall yeares viewing some of those pieces loosely scattered in his youth he wisht they had been abortive or so short-liv'd that he had witnessed their funeralls But though he was no friend to them he was not so falne out with heavenly Poetry as to forsake it no not in his declining age witnessed then by many divine Sonnets and other high holy and harmonious composures yea even on his former sick bed he wrote this heavenly Hymne expressing the great joy he then had in the assurance of Gods mercy to him A Hymne to God the Father VVIlt thou forgive that sin where I begun Which was my sin though it were done before Wilt thou forgive that sin through which I run And doe run still though still I doe deplore When thou hast done thou hast not done For I have more Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won Others to sin and made my sin their dore Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun A yeare or two but wallowed in a score When thou hast done thou hast not done For I have more I have a sin of feare that when I have spun My last thred I shall perish on the shore But sweare by thy selfe that at my death thy Sonne Shall shine as he shines now and heretofore And having done that thou hast done I feare no more And on this which was his Death-bed writ another Hymne which bears this Title A Hymne to God my God in my sicknesse If these fall under the censure of a soule whose too much mixture with earth makes it unfit to judge of these high illuminations let him know that many devout and learned men have thought the soule of holy Prudentius was most refined when not many dayes before his death he charged it to present his God each morning with a new and spirituall Song justified by the examples of King David and the good King Hezekias who upon the renovation of his yeares payed his gratefull vowes to God in a royall hymne Esay 38. which he concludes in these words The Lord was ready to save therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the dayes of our life in the Temple of my God The later part of his life was a continued studie Saturdaies onely excepted which he usually spent in visiting friends and resting himselfe under the weary burthen of his weeks Meditations And he gave himselfe this rest that thereby he might be refresht and inabled to doe the work of the day following not negligently but with courage and cheerfulnesse Nor was his age onely so industrious but in his most unsetled youth he was being in health never knowne to be in bed after foure of the clock in the morning nor usually out of his chamber till ten and imployed that time constantly if not more in his Studie Which if it seeme strange may gain beliefe by the visible fruits of his labours some of which remaine to testifie what is here written for he left the resultance of 1400. Authors most of them analyzed with his owne hand He left sixscore Sermons also all writ with his owne hand A large and laborious Treatise concerning Self-murther called Biathanatose wherein all the Lawes violated by that act are diligently survayed and judiciously censured A Treatise written in his youth which alone might declare him then not onely perfect in the Civil and Canon Law but in many other such studies and arguments as enter not into the consideration of many profest Scholars that labour to be thought learned Clerks and to know all things Nor were these onely found in his Studie but all businesses that past of any publique consequence in this or any of our neighbour Kingdoms he abbreviated either in Latine or in the Language of the Nation and kept them by him for a memoriall So he did the Copies of divers Letters and Cases of Conscience that had concerned his friends with his solutions and divers other businesses of importance all particularly and methodically digested by himselfe He did prepare to leave the world before life left him making his Will when no facultie of his soule was dampt or defective by sicknesse or he surprized by sudden apprehension of death But with mature deliberation expressing himselfe an impartiall Father by making his Childrens Portions equall a constant lover of his friends by particular Legacies discreetly chosen and fitly bequeathed them And full of charity to the poore and many others who by his long continued bounty might entitle themselves His almes-people For all these he made provision so largely as having six children might to some appeare more then proportionable to his estate The Reader may think the particulars tedious but I hope not impertinent that I present him with the beginning and conclusion of his last Will. IN the name of the blessed and glorious Trinitie Amen I Iohn Donne by the mercy of Christ Iesus and the calling of the Church of England Priest being at this time in good and perfect understanding praised be God therefore doe hereby make my last Will and Testament in manner and forme following First I give my gracious God an intire sacrifice of body and soule with my most humble thanks for
that assurance which his blessed Spirit imprints in me now of the salvation of the one and of the resurrection of the other And for that constant and cheerfull resolution which the same Spirit established in me to live and die in the Religion now professed in the Church of England In expectation of that Resurrection I desire my body may be buried in the most private manner that may be in that place of S. Pauls Church London that the now Residentiaries have at my request assigned for that purpose c. And this my last Will and Testament made in the feare of God whose merit I humbly beg and constantly rely upon in Iesus Christ and in perfect love and charity with all the world whose pardon I aske from the lowest of my servants to the highest of my Superiours Written all with mine owne hand and my name subscribed to every Page being five in number Nor was his charity exprest onely at his death but in his life by a cheerfull and frequent visitation of friends whose minds were dejected or fortunes necessitous And he redeemed many out of Prison that lay for small debts or for their fees He was a continuall giver to poore Scholars both of this and forraigne Nations besides what he gave with his owne hand he usually sent a servant to all the Prisons in London to distribute his charity at all festivall times in the yeare He gave 100. l. at one time to a Gentleman that he had formerly knowne live plentifully and was then decayed in his estate He was a happy Reconciler of of differences in many Families of his friends and kindred who had such faith in his judgement and impartiality that he scarce ever advised them to any thing in vaine He was even to her death a most dutifull son to his Mother carefull to provide for her supportation of which she had been destitute but that God raised him up to prevent her necessities who having suckt in the Religion of the Romane Church with her mothers milk or presently after it spent her estate in forraigne Countries to enjoy a liberty in it and died in his house but three moneths before him And to the end it may appeare how just a Steward he was of his Lord and Masters Revenue I have thought fit to let the Reader know that after his entrance into his Deanry as he numbred his yeares and at the foot of a private account to which God and Angels onely were witnesses with him computed first his Revenue then his expences then what was given to the poore and pious uses lastly what rested for him and for his he blest each yeares poore remainder with a thankfull Prayer which for that they discover a more then common devotion the Reader shall partake some of them in his owne words 1624. So all is that remains of these two years 1625. So all is that remains of these two years Deo Opt. Max. benigno Largitori à me ab iis quibus haec à me reservantur gloria gratia in aeternum Amen 1626. So that this yeare God hath blessed me and mine with Multiplicatae sunt super nos misericordiae tuae Domine Da Domine ut quae ex immensa bonitate tua nobis elargiri dignatus sis in quorumcunque manus devenerint in tuam semper cedant gloriam Amen 1628. In fine horum sex annorum manet 1629. Quid habeo quod non accepi à Domino Largiatur etiam ut quae largitus est sua iterum fiant bono eorum usu ut quemadmodum nec officiis hujus mundi nec loci in quo me posuit dignitati nec servis nec egenis in toto hujus anni curriculo mihi conscius sum me defuisse ita ut libert quibus quae supersunt supersunt grato animo ea accipiant beneficum Authorem recognoscant Amen But I returne from my digression We left the Author sick in Essex where he was forced to spend most of that Winter by reason of his disability to remove from thence And having never during almost twenty yeares omitted his personall attendance on his Majestie in his monthly service Nor being ever left out of the number of Lent Preachers And in January following there being a generall report that he was dead that report occasioned this Letter to a familiar friend SIR THis advantage you and my other friends have by my frequent feavers that I am so much the oftner at the gates of heaven And this advantage by the solitude and close imprisonment that they reduce me to after that I am so much the oftner at my Prayers in which I shall never leave out your happinesse And I doubt not but amongst his other blessings God will adde some one to you for my Prayers A man would be almost content to die if there were no other benefit in death to heare of so much sorrow and so much good testimony from good men as I God be blessed for it did upon the report of my death Yet I perceive it went not through all For one writ to me that some and he said of my friends conceived I was not so ill as I pretended but withdrew my selfe to live at ease discharged of preaching It is an unfriendly and God knowes an ungrounded interpretation for I have alwayes been sorrier when I could not preach then any could be they could not hear me It hath been my desire and God may be pleased to grant it that I might die in the Pulpit If not that yet that I might take my death in the Pulpit that is die the sooner by occasion of those labours Sir I hope to see you presently after Candlemas about which time will fall my Lent Sermon at Court except my Lord Chamberlaine beleeve me to be dead and leave me out For as long as I live and am not speechlesse I would not willingly decline that service I have better leasure to write then you to reade yet I would not willingly oppresse you with too much Letter God blesse you and your son as I wish January 7. 1630. Your poore friend and servant in Christ Jesus Iohn Donne Before that month ended he was appointed to preach upon his old constant day the first Friday in Lent he had notice of it and having in his sicknesse prepared for the employment as he had long thirsted for it So resolving his weaknesse should not hinder his journey he came to London some few dayes before his day appointed Being come many of his friends who with sorrow saw his sicknesse had left him onely so much flesh as did cover his bones doubted his strength to performe that taske And therefore perswaded him from undertaking it assuring him however it was like to shorten his dayes But he passionately denyed their requests saying He would not doubt that God who in many weaknesses had assisted him with an unexpected strength would now withdraw it in his last employment professing a holy ambition to
of sinnes But with this man in our Text Christ goes farther and comes sooner to an end He exercises him with no disputation he leaves no roome for any diffidence but at first word establishes him and then builds upon him Now beloved which way soever of these two God have taken with thee whether the longer or the shorter way blesse thou the Lord praise him and magnifie him for that If God have setled and strengthned thy faith early early in thy youth heretofore early at the beginning of a Sermon now A day is as a thousand yeares with God a minute is as sixe thousand yeares with God that which God hath not done upon the Nations upon the Gentiles in six thousand yeares never since the Creation which is to reduce them to the knowlege and application of the Messias Christ Jesus that he hath done upon thee in an instant If he have carried thee about the longer way if he have exposed thee to scruples and perplexities and stormes in thine understanding or conscience yet in the midst of the tempest the soft ayre that he is said to come in shall breath into thee in the midst of those clouds his Son shall shine upon thee In the midst of that flood he shall put out his Rainbow his seale that thou shalt not drowne his Sacrament of faire weather to come and as it was to the Thiefe thy Crosse shall be thine Altar and thy Faith shall be thy Sacrifice Whether he accomplish his worke-upon thee soone or late he shall never leave thee all the way without this Confide fili a holy confidence that thou art his which shall carry thee to the Dimittuntur peccata to the peace of conscience in the remission of sins In which two words we noted unto you that Christ hath instituted a Catechisme an Instruction for this new Convertite and adopted Son of his in which the first lesson that is therein implyed is Antequam rogetur That God is more forward to give Antequam rogetur then man to aske It is not said that the sick man or his company in his behalfe said any thing to Christ but Christ speakes first to them If God have touched thee here didst thou aske that at his hands Didst thou pray before thou camest hither that he would touch thy heart here perchance thou didst But when thou wast brought to thy Baptisme didst thou ask any thing at Gods hands then But those that brought thee that presented thee did They did in thy Baptisme but at thine election then when God writing downe the names of all the Elect in the book of Life how camest thou in who brought thee in then Didst thou aske any thing at Gods hands then when thou thy selfe wast not at all Dat prius that 's the first lesson in this Catechisme God gives before we aske Meliora and then Dat meliora rogatis God gives better things then we aske They intended to aske but bodily health and Christ gave spirituall he gave Remission of sinnes And what gain'd he by that why Beati quorum remissae iniquitates Blessed are they whose sinnes are forgiven But what is Blessednesse Any more then a consident expectation of a good state in the next world Yes Blessednesse includes all that can be asked or conceived in the next world and in this too Christ in his Sermon of blessednesse saies first Blessed are they for theirs is the Kingdome of Heaven and after Blessed are they Mat. 5.3 5. for they shall in her it the earth Againe Blessed for they shall obtaine mercy and Blessed for they shall be filled Remission of sins is blessednesse and as Godlinesse hath the promise of this world and the next so blessednesse hath the performance of both He that hath peace in the remission of sinnes is blessed already and shall have those blessings infinitely multiplied in the world to come The farthest that Christ goes in the expressing of the affections of a naturall Father here is That if his Son aske bread he will not give him a stone Luk. 11.12 and if he aske a Fish he will not give him a Scorpion He will not give him worse then he ask'd But it is the peculiar bounty of this Father who adopted this Sonne to give more and better spirituall for temporall Another lesson which Christ was pleased to propose to this new Convertite Causa morborum in this Catechisme was to informe him That sins were the true causes of all bodily diseases Diseases and bodily afflictions are sometimes inflicted by God Ad poenam non ad purgationem Not to purge or purifie the soule of that man by that affliction but to bring him by the rack to the gallowes through temporary afflictions here to everlasting torments hereafter As Iudas his hanging and Herods being eaten with wormes Acts 12. was their entrance into that place where they are yet Sometimes diseases and afflictions are inflicted onely or principally to manifest the glory of God in the removing thereof So Christ saies of that man that was borne blinde that neither he himselfe had sinned John 5. nor bore the sinnes of his parents but he was borne blinde to present an occasion of doing a miracle Sometimes they are inflicted Ad humiliationem for our future humiliation So S. Paul saies of himselfe That least he should be exalted above measure 2 Cor. 12.7 by the abundance of Revelations he had that Stimulum carnis That vexation of the flesh that messenger of Satan to humble him And then sometimes they are inflicted for tryall and farther declaration of your conformity to Gods will as upon Iob. But howsoever there be divers particular causes for the diseases and afflictions of particular men the first cause of death and sicknesse and all infirmities upon mankinde in generall was sin and it would not be hard for every particular man almost to finde it in his owne case too to assigne his fever to such a surfet or his consumption to such an intemperance And therefore to breake that circle in which we compasse and immure and imprison our selves That as sinne begot diseases so diseases begot more sinnes impatience and murmuring at Gods corrections Christ begins to shake this circle in the right way to breake it in the right linke that is first to remove the sin which occasioned the disease for till that be done a man is in no better case then as the Prophet expresses it If he should flie from a Lion Amos 5.19 and a Beare met him or if he should leane upon a wall and a Serpent bit him What ease were it to be delivered of a palsie of slack and dissolv'd sinews and remaine under the tyranny of a lustfull heart of licentious eyes of slacke and dissolute speech and conversation What ease to be delivered of the putrefaction of a wound in my body and meet a murder in my conscience done or intended or desired upon my neighbour To
be delivered of a fever in my spirits and to have my spirit troubled with the guiltinesse of an adultery To be delivered of Cramps and Coliques and Convulsions in my joynts and sinewes and suffer in my soule all these from my oppressions and extortions by which I have ground the face of the poore It is but lost labour and cost to give a man a precious cordiall when he hath a thorne in his foote or an arrow in his flesh for as long as the sinne which is the cause of the sicknesse remaines Deterius sequetur A worse thing will follow we may be rid of a Fever and the Pestilence will follow rid of the Cramp and a Gout will follow rid of sicknesse and Death eternall death will follow That which our Saviour prescribes is Noli peccare ampliùs sinne no more first non ampliùs sinne no more sins take heed of gravid sins of pregnant sinnes of sins of concomitance and concatentation that chaine and induce more sins after as Davids idlenesse did adultery and that murder the losse of the Lords Army and Honor in the blaspheming of his name Noli ampliùs sin no more no such sin as induces more And Noli ampliùs sinne no more that is sin thy owne sin thy beloved sin no more times over And still Noli ampliùs sin not that sin which thou hast given over in thy practise in thy memory by a sinfull delight in remembring it And againe Noli ampliùs sin not over thy former sins by holding in thy possession such things as were corruptly gotten by any such former practises for Deterius sequetur a worse thing will follow A Tertian will be a Quartan and a Quartan a Hectique and a Hectique a Consumption and a Consumption without a consummation that shall never consume it selfe nor consume thee to an unsensiblenesse of torment And then after these three lessons in this Catechisme Sanitas spiritualis That God gives before we aske That he gives better then we aske That he informes us in the true cause of sicknesse sinne He involves a tacit nay he expresses an expresse rebuke and increpation and in beginning at the Dimittuntur peccata at the forgivenesse of sinnes tels him in his eare that his spirituall health should have beene prefer'd before his bodily and the cure of his soule before his Palsie that first the Priest should have beene and then the Physitian might bee consulted That which Christ does to his new adopted Sonne here the Wiseman saies to his Son Ecclus. 38.9 My Son in thy sicknesse be not negligent But wherein is his diligence required or to be expressed in that which followes Pray unto the Lord and he will make thee whole But upon what conditions or what preparations Leave off from sin order thy hands aright and cleanse thy heart from all wickednesse Is this all needs there no declaration no testimony of this Yes Give a sweet savour and a memoriall of fine floure and make a fat offering as not beeing that is as though thou wert dead Give and give that which thou givest in thy life time as not beeing And when all this is piously and religiously done thou hast repented restor'd amended and given to pious uses Then saies he there give place to the Physitian for the Lord hath created him For if we proceed otherwise if wee begin with the Physitian Physick is a curse He that sinneth before his Maker V. 15. let him fall into the hands of the Physitian saies the Wiseman there It is not Let him come into the hands of the Physitian as though that were a curse but let him fall let him cast and throw himselfe into his hands and rely upon naturall meanes and leave out all consideration of his other and worse disease and the supernaturall Physick for that 2. Chron. 16. Asa had had a great deliverance from God when the Prophet Hanani asked him Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubins a huge Host but because after this deliverance he relied upon the King of Syria and not upon God the Judgement is From henceforth thou shalt have wars That was a sicknesse upon the State then he fell sick in his own person and in that sicknesse saies that story He sought not to the Lord but to the Physitian and then he dyed To the Lord and then to the Physitian had beene the right way If to the Physitian and then to the Lord though this had beene out of the right way yet hee might have returned to it But it was to the Physitian and not to the Lord and then he died Omnipotenti medico nullus languor insanabilis saies S. Ambrose there is but one Almighty and none but the Almighty can cure all diseases because hee onely can cure diseases in the roote that is in the forgivenesse of sins We are almost at an end when we had thus Catechised his Convertite thus rectified his patient Scribae Pharisci hee turnes upon them who beheld all this and were scandaliz'd with his words the Scribes and Pharisees And because they were scandaliz'd onely in this that he being but man undertooke the office of God to forgive sins he declares himselfe to them to be God Christ would not leave even malice it selfe unsatisfied And therefore do not thou thinke thy selfe Christian enough for having an innocence in thy selfe but be content to descend to the infirmities and to the very malice of other men and to give the world satisfaction Nec paratum habeas illud ètrivio sayes S. Hierome do not arm thy self with that vulgar and triviall saying Sufficit mihi conscientia mea nec curo quid loquantur homines It suffices me that mine own conscience is cleare and I care not what all the world sayes thou must care what the world sayes and thinks Christ himself had that respect even towards the Scribes and Pharisees For first he declared himself to be God in that he took knowledge of their thoughts for they had said nothing and he sayes to them why reason you thus in your hearts and they themselves did not could not deny but that those words of Solomon appertained only to God 2 Chron. 6.30 Thou only knowest the hearts of the children of men And those of Ieremy The heart is deceitfull above all things Jer. 17.9 and desperately wicked who can know it I the Lord search the heart and I try the reines Let the Schoole dispute infinitely for he that will not content himself with means of salvation till all Schoole points be reconciled will come too late let Scotus and his Heard think That Angels and separate soules have a naturall power to understand thoughts though God for his particular glory restraine the exercise of that power in them as in the Romane Church Priests have a power to forgive all sins though the Pope restraine that power in reserved cases And the Cardinals by their Creation have a voice in the