shall grace grow with this infant to the lifes end And both we and it shall not onely put on Christ as a garment but we shall put on his person and we shall stand before his Father with the confidence and assurance of bearing his person and the dignity of his innocence SERMON VIII Preached at Essex house at the Churching of the Lady Doncaster CANT 5. 3. I have washed my feet how shall I defile them ALL things desire to goe to their owne place and that 's but the effect of Nature But if Man desires to goe the right way that 's an effect of grace and of Religion A stone will fall to the bottome naturally and a flame will goe upwards naturally but a stone cares not whether it fall through cleane water or through Mud a flame cares not whether it passe through pure aire or cloudy but a Christian whose end is heaven will put himselfe into a faire way towards it and according to this measure be pure as his father in heaven is pure That which is our end salvation we use to expresse in Schooles by these two termes we call it visionem Dei the sight of God and we call it unionem an union with God we shall see God and we shall be united to God for our seeing we shall see him Sicuti est as he is which we cannot expresse till we see him Cognoscam ut cognitus I shall know as I am known which is a knowledge reserved for that Schoole and a degree for that Commencement and not to be had before Moses obtained a sight of God here that he might see Posterior a Gods hinder parts and if we consider God in posterioribus in his later works in the fulfilling of all his Prophecies concerning our Redemption how he hath accomplished in novissimis in the later times all that which he spake ab initio by the mouth of his Prophets which have been since the world began if we see God in them it is a great beame of that visio beatifica that beautificall sight of God in heaven for herein we see the whole way of our salvation to be in Christ Iesus all promise all performance all prophecy all history concern us in and by him And then for that union with God which is also our salvation as this vision is when we shall be so united as that we shall follow the Lambe whither soever he goes though that union be unexpressible here yet here there is an union with God which represents that too Such an union as that the Church of which we are parts is his spouse and that 's Eadem care the same body with him and such an union as that the obedient children of the Church are Idem spiritus cum Dominâ— we are the same body and the same spirit So united as that by being sowed in the visible Church we are Semen Dei the seed of God and by growing up there in godlinesse and holinesse we are participes Divinae naturae partakers of the divine Nature it selfe Now these two unions which represent our eternall union with God that is the union of the Church to him and the union of every good soule in the Church to him is the subject of this Song of songs this heavenly Poeme of Solomons and our baptisme at our entrance into this world is a Seale of this union our mariage in the passage of this world is a Sacrament of this union and that which seems to be our dissolution our death is the strongest â—and of this union when we are so united as nothing can disunite us more Now for uniting things in this world we are always put to imploy baser and courser stuffe to unite them together then they themselves If we lay Marble upon Marble how well soever we polish the Marble yet we must unite them with morter If we unite riches to riches we temper a morter for the most part of our owne covetouâ—nesse and the losse and opressing of some other Men if we unite honours to honours titles to titles we temper a morter for the most part of our owne Ambition and the supplanting or excluding of some other Men But in the uniting of a Christian soule to Christ Jesus here is no morter all of one Nature Nothing but spirit and spirit and spirit the soule of Man to the Lord Jesus by the holy Ghost Worldly unions have some corrupt foulnesses in them but for this spirituall union Lavi pedes I have washed my feet how shall I defile them Which words though in the rigor of the coherence and connexion of this Scripture they imply a delay in the spouse of Christ and so in every soule too that when Christ called here the soule was not ready to come forth to him but made her excuses that she had put off her coate and was loath to rise to put it on that she had washed her feet and was loath to rise and foule them againe yet because the excuse it selfe if it were an excuse hath a piety and a Religious care in it the Fathers for the most part pretermit that weaknesse that produced an excuse and consider in their expositions the care that the soule had not to defile her selfe againe being once washed Saint Gregory says that the soule had laid off Omnia externa quae non tam ornant quà m â—nerant all outward ornaments which are rather encumbrances then ornaments And Saint Ambrose says Pedes lavi dum egrederer de corporis contubernio when I departed from the confederation of my body and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that I wash'd my feet Quomodâ— in tenebrâ—sum carcerem reverterer And 〈◊〉 I returne into that darke and durty prison againe the love of mine owne body◠〈◊〉 suing therefore their pious acceptation of these words we have in them two festivalls of the soule a Resurrection and an ascension of it This soule hath raised it selfe from the durt and Mud of this world Lavit pedes she hath washed her feet and then she hath ascended to a resolution of keeping herselfe in that state Quomâ—do inquinabâ—eos how shall I defile them Call these two parts a Gratulation of the soule and an Indignation first she congratulates with her good and gratious God that she is cleansed from worldly corruptions Lavi pedes I have washed my feetâ— and then she conceives a Religious scorne and indignation of setting her foot in the same foule way againe Quomâ—do how how is it possible that I should descend to so low a disposition as to foule them againe This Resurrection then of the soule and gratâ—lation this Ascension of the soul Indignation will be our two parts And in the first we shal stop a little upon every one of these five branches There is ablutiâ— necessaria There is a washing that is necessary to all for we enter in foulenesse and corruption into this world and that we have in Baptisme for Originall sinne Secondly
which is a true joy but common to all Christians is that assurance which they have in their tribulations that God will give them the issue with the temptation not that they pretend not to feel that calamity so the Philosophers did but that it shall not swallow them this is naturall to a Christian he is not a Christian without this Thinke it not strange says the Apostle as though some strange thing were come unto you for we must accustome our selves to the expectation of tribulation but rejoyce says he and when his glory shall appeare yee shall be made glad and rejoyce He bids us rejoyce and yet all that he promises is but rejoycing at last he bids us rejoyce all the way though the consummate aud determinable joy come not till the end yet God hath set bounds to our tribulations as to the sea and they shall not overflow us But this perfect joy to speake of such degrees of perfection as may be had in this life this third joy the joy of this text is not a collaterall joy that stands by us in the tribulation and sustaines us but it is a fundamentall joy a radicall joy a viscerall a gremiall joy that arises out of the bosome and wombe and bowels of the tribulation it selfe It is not that I rejoyce though I be afflicted but I rejoyce because I am afflicted It is not because I shall not sink in my calamity and be buried in that valley but because my calamity raises me and makes my valley a hill and gives me an eminency and brings God and me nearer to one another then without that calamity I should have been when I can depart rejoycing and that therefore because I am worthy to suffer rebuke for the name of Christ as the Apostles did when I can feel that pattern proposed to my joy and to my tribulation which Christ gives Rejoyce and be glad for so persecuted they the Prophets when I can find that seale printed upon me by my tribulation If ye be railed on for the name of Christ blessed are ye for the spirit of God and of glory resteth on you that is that affliction fixes the holy Ghost upon me which in prosperity falls upon me but as Sun-beames Briefly if my soule have had that conference that discourse with God that he hath declared to me his purpose in all my calamities as he told Ananias that he had done to Paul he is a chosen vessell unto me for I will shew him how many things he must suffer for my sake If the light of Gods Spirit shew us the number the force the intent of our tribulations then is our soule come to that highest joy which she is capable of in this life when as cold and dead water when it comes to the fire hath a motion and dilatation and a bubling and a kind of dancing in the vessell so my soule that lay asleep in prosperity hath by this fire of Tribulation a motion a joy an exaltation This is the highest degree of suffering but this suffering hath this condition here that it be passio mea And this too that it be mea and not pro me but pro aliis that it be mine and no bodies else by my occasion That it be mine without any fault of mine that I be no cause that it fell upon me and that I be no occasion that it fall upon others And first it is not mine if I borrow it I can have no joy in the sufferings of Martyrs and other Saints of God by way of applying their sufferings to me by way of imitation and example I may by way of application and satisfaction I cannot borrowed sufferings are not my sufferings They are not mine neither if I steale them if I force them If my intemperate and scandalous zeal or pretence of zeal extort a chastisement from the State if I exasperate the Magistrate and draw an affliction upon my self this stoln suffering this forced suffering is not passio mea it is not mine if it should not be mine Natura cujusque rei est quam Deus indidit That onely is the nature of every thing which God hath imprinted in it That affliction onely is mine which God hath appointed for me and what he hath appointed we may see by his exclusions Let none of you suffer as a murtherer or as a thief or as an evill doer or as a busie-body in other mens matters and that reaches far I am not possessâ—r bonae fidei I come not to this suffering by a good title I cannot call it mine I may finde joy in it that is in the middest of it I may finde comfort in the mercy of Christ though I suffer as a malefactor But there is no joy in the suffering it self for it is not mine it is not I but my sinne my breach of the law my disobedience that suffers It is not mine again if it be not mine in particular mine and limited in me To those sufferings that fall upon me for my conscience or for the discharge of my duty there belongs a joy but when the whole Church is in persecution and by my occasion especially or at all woe unto them by whom the first offence comes this is no joyfull matter and therefore vae illis per quos scandalum they who by their ambition of preferment or indulgence to their present case or indifferency how things fall out or presumptuous confidence in Gods care for looking well enough to his own how little soever they doe give way to the beginnings of superstition in the times of persecution when persecutions come either they shall have no sufferings that is God shall suffer them to fall away and refuse their testimony in his cause or they shall have no joy in their sufferings because they shall see this persecution is not theirs it is not limited in them but induced by their prevarication upon the whole Church And lastly this suffering is not mine if I stretch it too far if I over-value it it is not mine A man forfeits his priviledge by exceeding it There is no joy belongs to my suffering if I place a merit in it Meum non est cujus nomine nulla mihi superest actiâ— says the Law That 's none of mine for which I can bring no action and what actioâ— can I bring against God for a reward of my merit Have I given him any thing of mine Quid habeo quod non accepi what have I that I received not from him Have I given him all his own how came I to abound then and see him starve in the streets in his distressed members Hath he changed his blessings unto me in single mony Hath he made me rich by half pence and farthings and yet have I done so much as that for him Have I suffered for his glory Am not I vas figuli a potters vessell and that Potters vessel and whose hand soever he
childe should die a hundred years old yet the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed What can be certain in this world if even the mercy of God admit a variation what can be endlesse here if even the mercy of God receive a determination and sin doth vary the nature sin doth determine even the infinitenesse of the mercy of God himself for though The childe shall die a hundred yeares old yet the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed Disconsolate soul dejected spirit bruised and broken ground and trodden attenuated evaporated annihilated heart come back heare thy reprieve and sue for thy pardon God will not take thee away in thy sins thou shalt have time to repent The childe shall die a hundred years old But then lame and decrepit soul gray and inveterate sinner behold the full ears of corn blasted with a mildew behold this long day shutting up in such a night as shall never see light more the night of death in which the deadliest pang of thy Death will be thine Immortality In this especially shalt thou die that thou canst not die when thou art dead but must live dead for ever for The sinner being a hundred yeers old shall be accursed he shall be so for ever In this discovery from this Red Sea to this dead Sea from the mercy of God in the blood of his Son to the malediction of God in the blood of the sinner be pleased to make these the points of your Compasse and your Land-marks by the way in those the two parts of this exercise First in the first consider the precedencie and primogeniture of Mercy God begins at Mercy and not at Iudgement God's method here is not The sinner shall be accursed but The childe shall have long life but first the blessing and then the malediction And then secondly we shall see in what form the particular blessing is given here In long life The childe shall die a hundred years old And then also because we find it in the company of Mercies in the region of Mercies in this first part of the Text which is the Sphear of Mercy we shall look also how this very dying is a Mercy too The mercy is especially plac'd in the long life The childe shall live a hundred yeares but the Holy Ghost would not leave out that that he should die The childe shall die a hundred yeares old And in these three first the precedencie and primogeniture of God's mercy and then the specification of that mercy in long life and lastly the association of mercy that death as well as life is a blessing to the Righteous we shall determine that first part And in the second But the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed we shall see first that the malediction of God hath no object but a sinner God antidates no malediction Till there be a sinner there is no malediction nay not till there be an inveterate sinner A sinner of a hundred yeares at least such a sinner as would be so if God would spare him a hundred yeares here And upon such a sinner God thunders out this Prosternation this Consternation in this one word of our Text which involves and inwraps all kinds of miseries feeblenesse in body infatuation in mind evacuation of power dishonour in â—ame eclipses in favour ruine in fortune dejection in spirit He shall be accursed Where because in this second part we are in the Region and Sphear of maledictions we cannot consider this future He shall be as a future of favour a prorogation a deferring of the malediction He shall be is not he shall be hereafter but not yet but it is a future of continuation He shall be accursed that is he shall be so for ever And so have you the frame and partitions of this Bâ—thel this House of God in which he dwells which is both Iosuah's Beth-hagla the house of Joy and Iohn's Bethania his house of affliction too and we passe now to the furnishing of these roomes with such stuff as I can have laid together First in our first part we consider the precedency and primogeniture of Mercy It is a good thing to be descended of the eldest Brother To descend from God to depend upon God by his eldest Son the Son of his love the Sonne of his right hand Mercy and not to put God to his second way his sinister way his way of judgement David prophesies of God's exaltation of Solomon so Ponam in Primogenitum I will make him my first-born Though Solomon were not so God would make him so And in that Title the Wiseman makes his prayer for Israel Quem coaequasti Primogegenito whom thou hast nam'd thy first-born for so God had in Exod. Israel is my Sonne even my first-born and in Iob the fiercest terrour of death is exprest so Primogenitus mortis the first-born of Death shall devour his strength Still the exaltation the Superlative is called so The first-born And in such a sense if we could think of more degrees of goodnesse in God of an exaltation of God himself in God of more God in God of a Superlative in God we must necessarily turn upon his mercy for that Mercie must be the Superlative So is it too if we consider Gods first action or God's first thought towards Man Mercy was the first-born by every Mother by that Understanding by that Will by that Power which we conceive in God Mercy was the first-born and first-mover in all We consider a preventing Grace in God and that preventing Grace is before all for that prevents us so as to Visite us when we sit in darknesse And we consider an Antecedent-Will in God and that Antecedent Will is before all for by that Will God would have all men saved And when we call Gods Grace by other names then Preventing whether Assisting Grace that it stand by us and sustain us or Concomitant Grace that it work with us and inanimate our action when it is doing or his Subsequent Grace that rectifies or corrects an action when it is done when all is done still it is the Preventing Power and quality of that Grace that did all that in me If I stand by his Assisting Grace if I work with his Concomitant Grace if I rectifie my errour by his Subsequent Grace that that moves upon me in all these is still the preventing power of that Grace For as all my Naturall actions of life are done by the power of that Soul which was in me before so all the Supernaturall actions of that Soul are done by that power of that Grace that prevents and preinanimates that action and all my co-operation is but a post-operation a working by the Power of that All-preventing Grace I moved not at first by the Tide by the strength of naturall faculties nor do I move after by that windâ— which had formerly fill'd my sails I proceed not now by
people and gather them so So Christ tells us things in darknesse And so Christ speakes to us in our Ear And these low voices and holy whisperings and halfe-silences denote to us the inspirations of his Spirit as his Spirit beares witnesse with our spirit as the Holy Ghost insinuates himselfe into our soules and works upon us so by his private motions But this is not Gods ordinary way to be whispering of secrets The first thing that God made was light The last thing that he hath reserved to doe is the manifestation of the light of his Essence in our Glorification And for Publication of himselfe here by the way he hath constituted a Church in a Visibility in an eminency as a City upon a hill And in this Church his Ordinance is Ordinance indeed his Ordinance of preaching batters the soule and by that breach the Spirit enters His Ministers are an Earth-quake and shake an earthly soule They are the sonnes of thunder and scatter a cloudy conscience They are as the fall of waters and carry with them whole Congregations 3000 at a Sermon 5000 at a Sermon a whole City such a City as Niniveh at a Sermon and they are as the roaring of a Lion where the Lion of the tribe of Juda cries down the Lion that seekes whom he may devour that is Orthodoxall and fundamentall truths are established against clamorous and vociferant innovations Therefore what Christ tels us in the darke he bids us speake in the light and what he saies in our eare he bids us preach on the house top Nothing is Gospell not Evangelium good message if it be not put into a Messengers mouth and delivered by him nothing is conducible to his end nor available to our salvation except it be avowable doctrine doctrine that may be spoke alowd though it awake them that sleep in their sinne and make them the more froward for being so awaked God hath made all things in a Roundnesse from the round superficies of this earth which we tread here to the round convexity of those heavens w ch as long as they shal have any beeing shall be our footstool when we come to heaven God hath wrapped up all things in Circles and then a Circle hath no Angles there are no Corners in a Circle Corner Divinity clandestine Divinity are incompatible termes If it be Divinity it is avowable The heathens served their Gods in Temples sub dio without roofs or coverings in a free opennesse and where they could in Temples made of Specular stone that was transparent as glasse or crystall so as they which walked without in the streets might see all that was done within And even nature it self taught the naturall man to make that one argument of a man truly religious Aperto vivere voto That he durst pray aloud and let the world heare what he asked at Gods hand which duty is best performed when we joyne with the Congregation in publique prayer Saint Augustine hath made that note upon the Donatists That they were Clancularii clandestine Divines Divines in Corners And in Photius we have such a note almost upon all Heretiques as the Nestorian was called Coluber a snake because though he kept in the garden or in the meadow in the Church yet he lurked and lay hid to doe mischief And the Valentinian was called a Grashopper because he leaped and skipped from place to place and that creature the Grashopper you may hear as you passe but you shall hardly find him at his singing you may hear a Conventicle Schismatick heare him in his Pamphlets heare him in his Disciples but hardly surprize him at his exercise Publication is a fair argument of truth That tasts of Luthers holy animosity and zealous vehemency when he says Audemus gloriari Christum à nobis primo vulgatum other men had made some attempts at a Reformation and had felt the pulse of some persons and some Courts and some Churches how they would relish a Reformation But Luther rejoyces with a holy exultation That he first published it that he first put the world to it So the Apostles proceeded when they came in their peregrination to a new State to a new Court to Rome it selfe they did not enquire how stands the Emperour affected to Christ and to the preaching of his Gospel Is there not a Sister or a Wife that might be wrought upon to further the preaching of Christ Are there not some persons great in power and place that might be content to hold a party together by admitting the preaching of Christ This was not their way They only considered who sent them Christ Jesus And what they brough salvation to every soul that embraced Christ Jesus That they preached and still begunne with a Vae si non Never tell us of displeasure or disgrace or detriment or death for preaching of Christ. For woe be unto us if we preach him not And still they ended with a Qui non crediderit Damnabitur Never deceive your own souls He to whom Christ hath been preached and beleeves not shall be damned All Divinity that is bespoken and not ready made fitted to certaine turnes and not to generall ends And all Divines that have their soules and consciences so disposed as their Libraries may bee At that end stand Papists and at that end Protestants and he comes in in the middle as neare one as the other all these have a brackish taste as a River hath that comes near the Sea so have they in comming so neare the Sea of Rome In this the Prophet exalts our Consolation Though the Lord give us the bread of Adversity and the water of Affliction yes shall not our Teachers be removed into corners They shall not be silenced by others they shall not affect of themselves Corner Divinity But saies he there our eyes shall see our Teachers and our eares shall hear a word saying This is the way walke in it For so they shall declare that they have taken to heart this Commandement of him that sent them Christ Jesus All that you receive from me you must deliver to my people therefore Take heed what you hear forget none of it But then you must deliver no more then that and therefore in that respect also Take heed what you hear adde nothing to that and that is the other obligation which Christ laies here upon his Apostles That reading of those words of Saint Iohn Omnis spiritus qui solvit Iesum Every spirit that dissolves Jesus that takes him asunder in pieces and beleeves not all is a very ancient reading of that place And upon that Ancient reading the Ancients infer well That not onely that spirit that denies that Christ being God assumed our flesh not onely he that denies that Christ consists of two natures God and Mam but he also that affirmes this Christ thus consisting of two natures to consist also of two persons this man dissolves Iesus takes him asunder in
no Image no pattern to thy selfe to imitate and yet propose thy selfe for a pattern for an Image to be adored Thou wilt have singular opinions and singular ways differing from all other men and yet all that are not of thy opinion must be heretiques and all reprobates that goe not thy wayes Propose good patterns to thy selfe and thereby become a fit pattern for others God we see was the first that made Images and he was the first that forbad them He made them for imitation he forbad them in danger of adoration For Qualis dementiae est id colere quod melius est What a drowzinesse what a lazinesse what a cowardlinesse of the soule is it to worship that which does but represent a better thing then it selfe Worship belongs to the best know thou thy distance and thy period how far to goe and where to stop Dishonor not God by an Image in worshiping it and yet benefit thy selfe by it in following it There is no more danger out of a picture then out of a history if thou intend no more in either then example Though thou have a West a darke and a sad condition that thou art but earth a man of infirmities and ill counsailed in thy selfe yet thou hast herein a North that scatters and dispells these clouds that God proposes to thee in his Scriptures and otherwise Images patterns of good and holy men to goe by But beyond this North this assistance of good examples of men thou hast a South a Meridionall heighth by which thou seest thine Image they pattern to be no copy no other man but the originall it selfe God himselfe Faciamus ad nostram Let us make man in our Image after our likenesse Here we consider first where this Image is and then what it does first in what part of man God hath imprinted this his Image And then what this Image confers and derives upon man what it works in man And as when we seek God in his essence we are advised to proceed by negatives God is not mortall not passible so when we seek the Image of God in man we beginne with a negative This Image is not in his body Teriullian declined to thinke it was nay Tertullian inclined others to thinke so For he is the first that is noted to have been the author of that opinion that God had a body Yet Saint Augustine excuses Tertullian from heresie because says he Tertullian might meance that it was so sure that there is a God and that that God was a certaine though not a finite Essence that God was so far from being nothing as that he had rather a body Because it was possible to give a good interpretation of Tertullian that charitable Father Saint Augastine would excuse him of heresie I would Saint Augustines charity might prevaile with them that pretend to be Augustinianissimi and to adore him so much in the Roman Church not to cast the name of Heresie upon every probleme nor the name of Heretique upon every inquirer of Truth Saint Augustine would deliver Tertullian from heresie in a point concerning God and they will condemne us of heresie in every point that may be drawne to concerne not the Church but the Court of Rome not their doctrine but their profit Malo de Misericordia Deo rationem reddere quà m de crudelitate I shall better answer God for my mildenesse then for my severity And though anger towards a brother or a Raca or a foole will beare an action yet he shall recover lesse against me at that bar whom I have called weake or mislead as I must necessary call many in the Roman Church then he whom I have passionately and peremptorily called heretique For I dare call an opinion heresie for the matter a great while before I dare call the man that holds it an heretique For that consists much in the manner It must be matter of faith before the matter be heresie But there must be pertinacy after convenient instruction before that man be an heretique But how excusable so ever Tertullian be herein in Saint Augustines charity there was a whole sect of heretiques one hundred years after Tertullian the Audiani who over literally taking those places of Scripture where God is said to have hands and feet and eyes and eares beleeved God to have a body like ours and accordingly interpreted this text that in that Image and that likenesse a bodily likenesse consisted this Image of God in man And yet even these men these Audians Epiphanius who first takes knowledge of them calls but Schismatiques not Heretiques so loth is charity to say the worst of any Yet we must remember them of the Roman perswasion that they come too neare giving God a body in their pictures of God the Father And they bring the body of God that body which God the Sonne hath assumed the body of Christ too neare in their Transubstantiation not too near our faith for so it cannot be brought too near so it is as really there as we are there too neare to our sense not too neare in the Vbi for so it is there There that is in that place to which the Sacrament extends it selfe For the Sacrament extends as well to heaven from whence it fetches grace as to the table from whence it delivers Bread and Wine but too neare in modo For it comes not thither that way We must necessarily complaine that they make Religion too bodily a thing Our Saviour Christ corrected Mary Magdalens zeale where she flew to him in a personall devotion and he said Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father Fix your meditations upon Christ Jesus so as he is now at the right hand of his Father in heaven and entangle not your selves so with controversies about his body as to lose reall charity for imaginary zeale nor enlarge your selves so far in the pictures and Images of his body as to worship them more then him As Damdscen says of God that he is Super-principale principium a beginning before any beginning we can conceive and prae-aeterna aeternitas an eternity infinitely elder then any eternity we can imagine so he is Super-spiritualis Spiritus such a super-Super-spirit as that the soule of man and the substance of Angels is but a body compared to this Spirit God hath no body though Tertullian disputed it though the Audians preached it though the Papists paint it And therefore this Image of God is not in the body of man that way Nor that way neither which some others have assigned that God who hath no body as God yet in the creation did assume that forme which man hath now and so made man in his Image that is in that forme which he had then assumed Some of the Ancients thought so and some other men of great estimation in the Roman Church have thought so too In particular Oleaster a great officer in the
go because none stayes behinde so when the holy Spirit which had made himself as a common soule to their foure soules directed one of them to say any thing all are well understood to have said it And therefore when to that place in Matth. 27. 8. where that Evangelist cites the Prophet Ieremy for words spoken by Zachary many medicines are applyed by the Fathers as That many copies have no name That Ieremy might be binominous and have both names a thing frequent in the Bible That it might be the error of a transcriber That there was extant an Apocryph booke of Ieremy in which these words were and sometimes things of such books were vouched as Iannes and Iambres by Paul St. Augustine insists upon and teaches rather this That it is more wonderfull that all the Prophets spake by one Spirit and so agreed then if any one of them had spoken all those things And therefore he adds Singula sunt omnium omnia sunt singulorum All say what any of them say And in this sense most congruously is that of St. Hierome applyable that the foure Evangelists are Quadriga Divina That as the foure Chariot wheeles though they looke to the foure corners of the world yet they move to one end and one way so the Evangelists have both one scope and one way Yet not so precisely but that they differ in words For as their generall intention common to them all begat that consent so a private reason peculiar to each of them for the writing of their Histories at that time made those diversities which seem to be for Matthew after he had preached to the Jewes and was to be transplanted into another vineyard the Gentiles left them written in their owne tongue for permanency which he had preached transitorily by word Mark when the Gospell fructified in the West and the Church enlarged her self and grew a great body and therefore required more food out of Peters Dictates and by his approbation published his Evangile Not an Epitome of Matthewes as Saint Ierome I know why imagines but a just and intire History of our blessed Saviour And as Matthewes reason was to supply a want in the Eastern Church Markes in the Western so on the other side Lukes was to cut off an excesse and superfluitie for then many had undertaken this Story and dangerously inserted and mingled uncertainties and obnoxious improbabilities and he was more curious and more particular then the rest both because he was more learned and because he was so individuall a companion of the most learned Saint Paul and did so much write Pauls words that Eusebius thereupon mistaketh the words 2 Tim. 2. 1. Christ is raised according to my Gospell to prove that Paul was author of this Gospell attributed to Luke Iohn the Minion of Christ upon earth and survivor of the Apostles whose books rather seem fallen from Heaven and writ with the hand which ingraved the stone Tables then a mans work because the heresies of Ebion and Cerinthus were rooted who upon this true ground then evident aud fresh that Christ had spoke many things which none of the other three Evangelists had Recorded uttered many things as his which he never spoke Iohn I say more diligently then the rest handleth his Divinity and his Sermons things specially brought into question by them So therefore all writ one thing yet all have some things particular And Luke most for he writ last of three and largeliest for himselfe 1 Act. 1. saith I have made the former Treatise of all that Iesus began to doe and teach untill the Day that he was taken up which speech lest the words in the last of Iohn If all were written which Iesus did the world could not contain the Bookes should condemne Ambrose and Chrysostome interpret well out of the words themselves Scripsit de omnibus non omnia He writ of all but not all for it must have the same limitation which Paul giveth his words who saith Acts 20. in one verse I have kept nothing back but have shewed you all the counsell of God and in another I kept back nothing that was profitable It is another peculiar singularity of Lukes that he addresseth his History to one man Theophilus For it is but weakely surmised that he chose that name for all lovers of God because the interpretation of the word suffereth it since he addeth most noble Theophilus But the work doth not the lesse belong to the whole Church for that no more then his Masters Epistles doe though they be directed to particulars It is also a singularitie in him to write upon that reason because divers have written In humane knowledge to abridge or suck and then suppresse other Authors is not ever honest nor profitable We see after that vast enterprise of Iustinian who distilled all the Law into one vessell and made one Booke of 2000. suppressing all the rest Alciate wisheth he had let them alone and thinketh the Doctors of our times would better have drawn usefull things from those volumes then his Trebonian and Dorothee did And Aristotle after by the immense liberality of Alexander he had ingrossed all Authors is said to have defaced all that he might be in stead of all And therefore since they cannot rise against him he imputes to them errours which they held not vouches onely such objections from them as he is able to answer and propounds all good things in his own name which he ought to them But in this History of Lukes it is otherwise He had no authority to suppresse them nor doth he reprehend or calumniate them but writes the truth simply and leaves it to outweare falshood and so it hath Moses rod hath devoured the Conjurers rods and Lukes Story still retains the majestie of the maker and theirs are not Other singularities in Luke of form or matter I omit and end with one like this in our Text. As in the apprehending of our blessed Saviour all the Evangelists record that Peter cut off Malchus eare but onely Luke remembers the healing of it again I think because that act of curing was most present and obvious to his consideration who was a Physician so he was therefore most apt to remember this Prayer of Christ which is the Physick and Balsamum of our Soule and must be applied to us all for we doe all Crucifie him and we know not what we do And therefore Saint Hierome gave a right Character of him in his Epistle to Paulinus Fuit Medicus pariter omnia verba illius Animae languentis sunt Medicinae As he was a Physitian so all his words are Physick for a languishing soule Now let us dispatch the last consideration of the effect of this Prayer Did Christ intend the forgivenesse of the Jewes whose utter ruine God that is himselfe had fore-decreed And which he foresaw and bewaild even then hanging upon the Crosse For those Divines which reverently forbeare to interpret the words
exercise our feares and our jealousies they may raise rebellions and Treasons but they are not fixed and glorious bodies of heaven they are not stars Their non-communions for communions where there are no communicants are no communions when they admit no bread at all no wine at all all is transubstantiated are no communions their semi-communions when they admit the bread to be given but not the wine their sesqui-communions Bread and Wine to the taste and to all other trialls of bread and wine and yet that bread and wine the very body and the very bloud of Christ their quotidian miracles which destroy and contradict even the nature of the miracle to make miracles ordinary and fixed constant and certain for as that is not a miracle which nature does so that 's not a miracle which man can doe certainly constantly infallibly every day and every day every Priest can miraculously change bread into the body of Christ and besides they have certaine fixed shops and Marts of miracles in one place a shop of miracles for barrennesse in another a shop for the tooth-ache To contract this their occasionall Divinity doctrines to serve present occasions that in eighty eight an Hereticall Prince must necessarily be excommunicated and an Hereticall Prince excommunicated must necessarily be deposed but at another time it may be otherwise and conveniencies and dispensations may be admitted these and such as these traditionall occasionall Almanack Divinity they may bee Comets they may be Meteors they may raine bloud and raine fire and raine hailestones hailstones as big as Talents as it is in the Revelation milstones to grinde the world by their oppressions but they are not lux aeternorum corporum the light of the stars and other heavenly bodies for they were made at once and diminish not encrease not Fundamentall articles of faith are always the same And that 's our application of this lux aeternorum corporum the light of those heavenly bodies to the light of our Text Christ working in the Church Now for the consideration of the other light in this third couple which is lux incensionum the light of things which take and give light here upon earth if we reduce it to application and practise and contract it to one Instance it will appeare that the devotion and zeale of him that is best affected is for the most part in the disposition of a torch or a knife ordained to take fire and to give light If it have never been lightned it does not easily take light but it must be bruised and beaten first if it have been lighted and put out though it cannot take fire of it self yet it does easily conceive fire if it be presented within any convenient distance Such also is the soule of man towards the fires of the zeale of Gods glory and compassion of others misery If there be any that never tooke this fire that was never affected with either of these the glory of God the miseries of other men can I hope to kindle him It must be Gods worke to bruise and beat him with his rod of affliction before he will take fire Paulus revelatione compulsus ad fidem St. Paul was compelled to believe not the light which he saw but the power which he felt wrought upon him not because that light shined from heaven but because it strooke him to the earth Agnoscimus Christum in Paulo prius cogentem deinde docentem Christ begun not upon St. Paul with a catechisme but with a rod. If therefore here be any in Pauls case that were never kindled before Almighty God proceed the same way with them and come so neare to a friendship towards them as to be at enmity with them to be so mercifull to them as to seeme unmercifull to be so well pleased as to seeme angry that so by inflicting his medicinall afflictions he may give them comfort by discomfort and life by death and make them seeke his face by turning his face from them and not to suffer them to continue in a stupid inconsideration and lamentable senslesnesse of their miserable condition but bruise and breake them with his rod that they may take fire But for you who have taken this fire before that have been enlightned in both Sacraments and in the preaching of the word in the meanes and in some measure of practise of holinesse heretofore if in not supplying oyle to your Lamps which God by his ordinance had kindled in you you have let this light go out by negligence or inconsideration or that storms of worldly calamities have blowne it out do but now at this instant call to minde what sin of yesterday or t'other day or long ago begun and practised and prevailed upon you or what future sinne what purpose of doing a sinne to night or to morrow possesses you do but thinke seriously what sinne or what crosse hath blown out that light that grace which was formerly in you before that sinne or that crosse invaded you and turne your soul which hath been enlightned before towards this fire which Gods Spirit blowes this minute and you will conceive new fire new zeale new compassion As this Lux incensionum kindles easily when it hath been kindled before so the soule accustomed to the presence of God in holy meditations though it fall asleep in some darke corner in some sinne of infirmity a while yet upon every holy occasion it takes fire againe and the meanest Preacher in the Church shall worke more upon him then the foure Doctors of the Church should be able to do upon a person who had never been enlightned before that is never accustomed to the presence of God in his private meditations or in his outward acts of Religion And this is our third couple of lights that beares witnesse that is admit an application to the light of our Text and then the fourth and last couple which we consider is Lux Depuratarum Mixtionum the light and lustre of precious stones and then Lux Repercussionum the light of Repercussion and Reflexion when one body though it have no light in it self casts light upon other bodies In the application of the first of these lights Depuratarum Mixtionum precious stones we shall onely apply their making and their value Precious stones are first drops of the dew of heaven and then refined by the sunne of heaven When by long lying they have exhal'd and evaporated and breathed out all their grosse matter and received another concoction from the sunne then they become precious in the eye and estimation of men so those actions of ours that shall be precious or acceptable in the eye of God must at first have been conceived from heaven from the word of God and then receive another concoction by a holy deliberation before we bring those actions to execution lest we may have mistaken the roote thereof Actions precious or acceptable in Gods eye must be holy purposes
conscience and pinching the bowells by denouncing of Gods Judgements these beare witnesse of the light when otherwise men would sleep it out and so propter non intelligentes for those that lye in the suddes of nature and cannot or of negligence and will not come to heare sol lucernas this light requires testimony These testimonies Gods ordinances may have wakened a man yet he may winke and covet darknesse and grow weary of instruction and angry at increpation And as the eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight so the eare of this fastidious and impatient man longeth for the end of the Sermon or the end of that point in the Sermon which is a thorne to his conscience But as if a man wink in a cleare day he shall for all that discerne light thorough his eylids but not light enough to keep him from stumbling so the most perverse man that is either in faith or manners that winkes against the light of nature or light of the law or light of grace exhibited in the Christian Church the most determined Atheist that is discernes through all his stubbornnesse though not light enough to rectifie him to save him yet enough to condemne him though not enough to enable him to reade his owne name in the book of life yet so much as makes him afraid to read his own story by and to make up his owne Audit and account with God And doth not this light to this man need testimony That as he does see it is a light so he might see that there is warmth and nourishment in this light and so as well see the way to God by that light as to see by it that there is a God and this he may if he doe not sleep nor winke that is not forbeare comming hither nor resist the grace of God always offred here when he is here Propter incredulos for their sakes who though they doe heare heare not to beleeve sol lucernas this light requires testimony and it does so too propter infirmos for their sakes who though they doe heare and beleeue yet doe not Practise If he neither sleep nor wink neither forbeare nor resist yet how often may you surprise and deprehend a man whom you thinke directly to look upon such an object yet if you aske him the quality or colour of it he will tell you he saw it not That man sees as little with staring as the other with winking His eye hath seen but it hath returned nothing to the common sense We may pore upon books stare upon preachers yet if we reflect nothing nothing upon our conversation we shall still remaine under the increpation and malediction of Saint Paul out of Esay Seeing yee shall see and shall not perceive seeing and hearing shall but aggravate our condemnation and it shall be easier at the day of Judgement for the deaf and the blinde that never saw Sacrament never heard Sermon then for us who have frequented both propter infirmos for their sakes whose strength though it serve to bring them hither and to beleeve here doth not serve them to proceed to practise sol lucernas this light requires testimony Yet if we be neither dead nor asleep nor winke nor looke negligently but doe come to some degrees of holinesse in practise for a time yet if at any time we put our selves in such a position and distance from this light as that we suffer dark thick bodies to interpose and eclipse it that is sadnesse and dejection of spirit for worldly losses nay if we admit inordinate sadnesse for sinne it selfe to eclipse this light of comfort from us or if we suffer such other lights as by the corrupt estimation of the world have a greater splendour to come in As the light of Knowledge and Learning the light of Honour and Glory of popular Applause and Acclamation so that this light which we speake of the light of former Grace be darkned by the accesse of other lights worldly lights then also you shall finde that you need more and more Testimony of this light God is light in the Creature in nature yet the naturall Man stumbles and falls and lies in that ignorance Christ bears witnesse of this light in establishing a Chrishian Church yet many Christians fall into Idolatry and Superstition and lie and die in it The Holy Ghost hath born further witnesse of this light and if we may take so low a Metaphore in so high a Mystery hath snuffed this candle mended this light in the Reformation of Religion and yet there is a damp or a cloud of uncharitablenesse of neglecting of defaming one another we deprave even the fiery the claven tongues of the Holy Ghost Our tongues are fiery onely to the consuming of another and they are cloven onely in speaking things contrary to one another So that still there need more witnesses more testimonies of this light God the Father is Pater Luminum the Father of all Lights God the Sonne is Lumen de lumine Light of light of the Father God the Holy Ghost is Lumen de luminibus Light of lights proceeding both from the Father and the Sonne and this light the Holy Ghost kindles more lights in the Church and drops a coale from the Altar upon every lamp he lets fall beams of his Spirit upon every man that comes in the name of God into this place and he sends you one man to day which beareth witnesse of this light ad ignaros that bends his preaching to the convincing of the naturall man the ignorant soul and works upon him And another another day that bears witnesse ad incredulos that fixeth the promises of the Gospell and the merits of Christ Jesus upon that startling and timorous soul upon that jealous and suspicious soul that cannot beleeve that those promises or those merits appertain to him and so bends all the power of his Sermon to the binding up of such broken hearts and faint beleevers He sendeth another to bear witnesse ad infirmos to them who though they have shaked off their sicknesse yet are too weake to walke to them who though they doe beleeve are intercepted by tentations from preaching and his Sermon reduces them from their ill manners who thinke it enough to come to hear to beleeve And then he sendeth another ad Relapsos to bear witnesse of this light to them who have relapsed into former sinnes that the merits of Christ are inexhaustible and the mercies of God in him indefatigable As God cannot be deceived with a false repentance so he cannot resist a true nor be weary of multiplying his mercies in that case And therefore thinke not that thou hast heard witnesses enow of this light Sermons enow if thou have heard all the points preached upon which concerne thy salvation But because new Clouds of Ignorance of Incredulitie of Infirmitie of Relapsing rise every day and call this light in question
Circumcision in the flesh after the spirituall Circumcision in the heart is established by the Gospell their end is not Circumcision but Concision they pretend Reformation but they intend Destruction a tearing a renting a wounding the body and frame and peace of the Church and by all means and in all cases Videte Concisionem Beware of Concision First then we shall from these words consider the lothnesse of God to lose us For first he leaves us not without a Law he bids and he forbids and then he does not surprise us with obsolete laws he leaves not his laws without proclamations he refreshes to our memories and represents to us our duties with such commonefactions as these in our Text Videte Cavete this and this I have commanded you Videte see that ye do it this and this will hinder you Cavete beware ye do it not Beware of Concision And this thus derived and digested into these three branches first Gods lothnesse to lose us and then his way of drawing us to him by manifestation of his will in a law and lastly his way of holding us with him by making that law effectuall upon us by these his frequent commonefactions Videte Cavete looke to it beware of it this will be our first part And then our second will be the thing it self that falls under this inhibition and caution which is Concision that is a tearing a renting a shredding in peeces that which should be intire In which second part we shall also have as we had in the former three branches for we shall consider first Concisionem corporis the shredding of the body of Christ into fragments by unnecessary wrangling in Doctrinall points and then Concisionem vestis the shredding of the garment of Christ into rags by unnecessary wrangling in matter of Discipline and ceremoniall points and lastly Concisionem spiritus which will follow upon the former two the concision of thine owne spirit and heart and minde and soule and conscience into perplexities and into sandy and incoherent doubts and scruples and jealousies and suspitions of Gods purpose upon thee so as that thou shalt not be able to recollect thy self nor reconsolidate thy self upon any assurance and peace with God which is onely to be had in Christ and by his Church Videte Concisionem beware of tearing the body the Doctrine beware of tearing the Garment the Discipline beware of tearing thine owne spirit and conscience from her adhaesion her agglutination her cleaving to God in a holy tranquillity and acquiescence in his promise and mercy in the merits of his Sonne applyed by the holy Ghost in the Ministry of the Church For our first consideration of Gods lothnesse to lose us this is argument enoughâ— That we are here now now at the participation of that grace which God alwayes offers to al such Congregations as these gathered in his name For I pray God there stand any one amongst us here now that hath not done something since yesterday that made him unworthy of being here to day and who if he had been left under the damp and mist of yesterdayes sinne without the light of new grace would never have found way hither of himself If God be weary of me and would faine be rid of me he needs not repent that he wrapped me up in the Covenant and derived me of Christian parents though he gave me a great help in that nor repent that he bred me in a true Church though he afforded me a great assistance in that nor repent that he hath brought me hither now to the participation of his Ordinances though thereby also I have a great advantage for if God be weary of me and would be rid of me he may finde enough in me now and here to let me perish A present levity in me that speake a present formality in you that heare a present Hypocrisie spread over us all would justifie God if now and here he should forsake us When our blessed Saviour sayes When the Son of man comes shall he finde faith upon earth we need not limit that question so if he come to a Westminster to an Exchange to an Army to a Court shall he finde faith there but if he come to a Church if he come hither shall he finde faith here If as Christ speaks in another sense That Iudgement should begin at his owne house the great and generall judgement should begin now at this his house and that the first that should be taken up in the clouds to meet the Lord Jesus should be we that are met now in this his house would we be glad of that acceleration or would we thank him for that haste Men of little faith I feare we would not There was a day when the Sonnes of God presented themselves before the Lord and Satan came also amongst them one Satan amongst many Sonnes of God Blessed Lord is not our case far otherwise do not we we who as we are but we are all the Sonnes of Satan present our selves before thee and yet thou Lord art amongst us Is not the spirit of slumber and wearinesse upon one and the spirit of detraction and mis-interpretation upon another upon one the spirit of impenitence for former sinnes and the spirit of recidivation into old or of facility and opennesse to admit tentations into new upon another We as we are but we are all the Sonnes of Satan and thou Lord the onely Sonne of God onely amongst us If thou Lord wert weary of me and wouldest be rid of me may many a soule here say Lord thou knowest and I know many a midnight when thou mightest have been rid of me if thou hadst left me to my selfe then But vigilavit Doninus the Lord vouchsafed to watch over me and deliciae ejus the delight of the Lord was to be with me And what is there in me but his mercy but then what is there in his mercy that that may not reach to all as well as to me The Lord is loth to lose any the Lord would not the death of any not of any sinner much lesse if he do not see him nor consider him so the Lord would not lose him though a sinner much lesse make him a sinner that he might be lost Vult omnes the Lord would have all men come unto him and be saved which was our first consideration and we have done with that and our second is The way by which he leads us to him that he declares and manifests his will unto us in a Law he bids and he forbids The laborers in the Vine-yard took it ill at the Stewards hand and at his Masters too that those which came late to the labour were made equall with them who had borne the heate and the burden of the day But if the Steward or the Master had never meant or actually never had given any thing at all to them that had borne the heate and the
by a generall forbearance on all sides rather then victory by wrangling and uncharitablenesse And let our right hand forget her cunning let us never set pen to paper to write Let our tongue cleave to the roofe of our mouth let us never open our mouth to speake of those things in which Silence was an Act of Discretion and Charity before but now is also an Act of Obedience and of Allegiance and Loyaltie But that which David said to the Lord Psalme 65. 1. Let us also accommodate to the Lords anointed Tibi laus silentium our best sacrifice to both is to be silent in those things So then this is Concisio corporis that Concision of the body which you are to beware in Doctrinall things first non solvere Iesum not to dissolve not to break Jesus in pieces not to depart in any respect with any fundamentall Article of faith for that is a skin that covers the whole body an obligation that lies upon the whole Church and then for that particular Church in which you have your station first to conform your self to all that in which she had evidently declared herself and then not to impute to her not to call such articles hers as she never avowd And our next consideration is Concisio vestis the tearing of the garment matter of discipline and government To a Circumcision of the garment that is to a paâ—ing and taking away such Ceremonies as were superstitious or superfluous of an ill use or of no use our Church came in the beginning of the Reformation To a CircuÌ„cision we came but those Churches that came to a Concision of the garment to an absolute taking away of all ceremonies neither provided so safely for the Church it self in the substance thereof nor for the exaltation of Devotion in the Church Divide the law of the Iews into 2 halfs and the Ceremoniall will be the greater we cannot cal the Morall law the Iews law that was ours as wel as their peculiar to none but of that law w ch is peculiar to the Jews judicial Ceremonial the Ceremonial is far the greater part So great a care had God of those thing which though they be not of the revenue of Religion yet are of the subsidy of Religion and though they be not the soule of the Church yet are they those Spirits that unite soule and body together H's man did but shave the beards of Davids servants he did not cut off their heads He did not cut their clothes so as that he stripped them naked Yet for that that he did says that story he stanke in Davids sight which is a phrase of high indignation in that language and so much as that it cost him forty thousand of his horsemen in one battell And therefore as this Apostle enters this Caveat in another place If yee bite one another cavete take heed yee be not consumed of one another so cavete take heed of this concision of the garment lest if the garment be torne off the body wither and perish A shadow is nothing yet if the rising or falling Sunne shine out and there be no shadow I will pronounce there is no body in that place neither Ceremonies are nothing but where there are no Ceremonies order and uniformity and obedience and at last and quickely Religion it selfe will vanish And therefore videte concisionem beware of tearing the body or of tearing the garment which will induce the other and both will induce the third concisionem spiritus the tearing of thine owne spirit from that rest which it should receive in God for when thou hast lost thy hold of all those handles which God reaches out to thee in the Ministery of his Church and that thou hast no means to apply the promises of God in Christ to thy soule which are onely applied by Gods Ordinances in his Church when anything falls upon thee that overcomes thy morall constancy which morall constancy God knowes is soon spent if we have lost our recourse to God thou wilt soon sinke into an irrecoverable desperation which is the fearfullest concision of all and videte beware of this concision When God hath made himselfe one body with me by his assuming this nature and made me one spirit with himselfe and that by so high a way as making me partaker of the divine nature so that now in Christ Iesus he and I are one this were solutio Iesus a tearing in peeces a dissolving of Jesus in the worst kinde that could be imagined if I should teare my selfe from Jesus or by any jealousie or suspicion of his mercy or any horror in my own sinnes come to thinke my selfe to be none of his none of him Who ever comes into a Church to denounce an excommunication against himselfe And shall any sad soule come hither to gather arguments from our preaching to excommunicate it selfe or to pronounce an impossibility upon her owne salvation God did a new thing Says Moses a strange thing a thing never done before when the earth opened her mouth and Dathan and Abiram went downe quicke into the pit Wilt thou doe a stranger thing then that To teare open the jawes of Earth and Hell and cast thy self actually and really into it out of mis-imagination that God hath cast thee into it before Wilt thou force God to second thy irreligious melancholy and to condemne thee at last because thou hadst precondemned thy selfe and renounced his mercy Wilt thou say with Cain My sinne is greater then can be pardoned This is Concisio potestatis a cutting off the power of God and Treason against the Father whose Attribute is Power Wilt thou say God never meant to save me this is Concisio Sapientiae a cutting off the Wisdome of God to thinke that God intended himselfe glory in a kingdome and would not have that kingdome peopled and this is Treason against the Son whose Attribute is wisdoms Wilt thou say I shall never finde comfort in Praying in Preaching in Receiving This is Concisio consolationis the cutting off consolation and treason against the holy Ghost whose office is comfort No man violates the Power of the Father the Wisedome of the Sonne the Goodnesse of the holy Ghost so much as he who thinkes himselfe out of their reach or the latitude of their working Rachel wept for her children and would not be comforted but why Because they were not If her children had been but gone for a time from her or but sicke with her Rachel would have been comforted but they were not Is that thy case Is not thy soule a soule still It may have gone from thee in sins of inconsideration it may be sicke within thee in sins of habit and custome but is not thy soul a soul still And hath God made any species larger then himself is there more soul then there is God more sin then mercy Truly Origen was more excusable more pardonable if he
all the spirituall parts of the Indulgence be performed by the poore sinner yet if he give not that money though he be not worth that money though that Merchant of those Indulgencies doe out of his charity give him one of those Indulgencies yet all this doth that man no good in these cases they are indeed Rei suae Legati Ambassadours to serve their own turns and do their owne businesse When that Bishop sends out his Legatos à latere Ambassadours from his own chair and bosome into forain Nations to exhaust their treasures to alien their Subjects to infect their Religion these are Rei suae Legati Ambassadours that have businesses depending in those places and therefore come upon their own errand Nor can that Church excuse it self though it use to do so upon the mis-behaviour of those officers when they are imployed for they are imployed to that purpose And Tibi imputae quicquid pateris ab eo qui sine te nihil potest facere Since he might mend the fault it is his fault that it is done he cannot excuse himself if they be guilty and with his privity for as the same devout man saith to Eugenius then Pope Ne te dixeris sanum dolentem latera If thy sides ake if thy Legats à latere be corrupt call not thy self well nec bonum malis innitentem nor call thy self good if thou rely upon the counsell of those that are ill They those Legats à latere are as they use to expresse it incorporated in the Pope and therefore they are Rei sui Legati Ambassadours that ly to doe their own businesse But when we seek to raise no other warre in you but to arme the spirit against the flesh when we present to you no other holy water but the teares of Christ Jesus no other reliques but the commemoration of his Passion in the Sacrament no other Indulgencies and acquittances but the application of his Merits to your souls when we offer all this without silver and without gold when we offer you that Seal which he hath committed to us in Absolution without extortion or fees wherein are we Rei nostrae Legati Ambassadours in our own behalfs or advancers of our owne ends And as we are not so so neither are we in the second danger to come sine Principali Mandato without Commission from our Master Christ himselfe would not come of himselfe but acknowledged and testified his Mission The Father which sent me he gave me commandment what I should say and what I should speake Those whom he imployed produced their Commissions Neither received I it of man neither was I taught it but by the revelation of Iesus Christ. How should they preach except they be sent is a question which Saint Paul intended for a conclusive question that none could answer till in the Romane Church they excepted Cardinals Quibus sine literis creditur propter personarum solennitatem who for the dignity inherent in their persons must be received though they have no Commission When our adversaries do so violently so impetuously cry out that we have no Church no Sacrament no Priesthood because none are sent that is none have a right calling for Internall calling who are called by the Spirit of God they can be no Judges and for Externall calling we admit them for Judges and are content to be tried by their own Canons and their own evidences for our Mission and vocation or sending and our calling to the Ministery If they require a necessity of lawfull Ministers to the constitution of a Church we require it with as much earnestnesse as they Ecclesia non est quae now habet sacerdotem we professe with Saint Hierome It is no Church that hath no Priest If they require that this spirituall power be received from them who have the same power in themselves we professe it too Nemo dat quod non habet no man can confer other power upon another then he hath himself If they require Imposition of hands in conferring Orders we joyn hands with them If they will have it a Sacrament men may be content to let us be as liberall of that name of Sacrament as Calvin is and he says of it Institut l. 4. c. 14. § 20. Non invitus patior vocari Sacramentum it a inter ordinaria Sacramenta non numero I am not loth it should be called a Sacrament so it be not made an ordinary that is a generall Sacrament and how ill hath this been taken at some of our mens hands to speak of more such Sacraments when indeed they have learnt this manner of speech and difference of Sacraments not onely from the ancient Fathers but from Calvin himself who always spoke with a holy warinesse and discretion Whatsoever their own authors their own Schools their own Canons doe require to be essentially and necessarily requisite in this Mission in this function we for our parts and as much as concerns our Church of England admit it too and professe to have it And whatsoever they can say for their Church that from their first Conversion they have had an orderly derivation of power from one to another we can as justly and truly say of our Church that ever since her first being of such a Church to this day she hath conserved the same order and ever hath had and hath now those Ambassadours sent with the same Commission and by the same means that they pretend to have in their Church And being herein convinced by the evidence of undeniable Record which have been therefore shewed to some of their Priests not being able to deny that such a Succession and Ordination we have had from the hands of such as were made Bishops according to their Canons now they pursue their common beaten way That as in our Doctrine they confesse we affirm no Heresie but that we deny some Truths so in our Ordination and sending and Calling when they cannot deny but that from such a person who is by their own Canons able to confer Orders we in taking our Orders after their own manner receive the Holy Ghost and the power of binding and loosing yet say they we receive not the full power of Priests for we receive onely a power in Corpus mysticum upon the mysticall body of Christ that is the persons that constitute the visible Church but we should receive it in Corpus verum a power upon the very naturall body a power of Consecration by way of Transubstantiation They may be pleased to pardon this rather Modesty then Defect in us who so we may work fruitfully and effectually upon the mysticall body of Christ can be content that his reall and true body work upon us Not that we have no interest to work upon the reall body of Christ since he hath made us Dispensers even of that to the faithfull in the Sacrament but for such a power as exceeds the Holy Ghost who in the incarnation
to the search of the Scriptures All they and they are no small number for there they are said to be ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands All they say there We are all made Kings and Priests unto our God Begin a Lambe and thou will become a Lion Reade the Scriptures modestly humbly and thou shalt understand them strongly powerfully for hence is it that Saint Chrysâ—stome more then once and Saint Gregory after him meet in that expression That the Scriptures are a Sea in which a Lambe may wade and an Elephant may swimme And this is the Gospell of those poore poore in understanding To those that are spiritually poore wrung in their souls stung in their Consciences fretted galled exulcerated viscerally even in the bowells of their Spirit insensible inapprehensive of the mercies of God in Christ the Lord and his Spirit hath sent me to preach the Gospell also That Gospell Blessed are the poore in Spirit for theirs it the Kingdome of Heaven and to recollect and redintegrate that broken and scattered heart by enabling him to expostulate and chide his owne soule with those words of comfort which the Holy Ghost offereth him once and again and again Why art thou cast downe O my soule and why art thou disquieted in me Hope thou in God and yet praise him for the light of his countenance Words of inexpresible comfort yet praise him for the light of his countenance Though thou sit in darknesse and in the shadow of death yet praise him for the light of his Countenance Whatsoever thy darknesse be put not out that candle The light of his Countenance Maintain that light discerne that light and whatsoever thy darknesse seemed it shall prove to be but an over shadowing of the Holy Ghost And so beloved if you have sufficiently considered first our generall easinesse of falling into the Passive scandall of being offended in others by misinterpreting their proceedings and then the generall scandals which the world tooke at Christ and his Gospell The Philosophers that it was an ignorant religion where you saw That the learneder the adversary is the sooner he is satisfied And the worldly and carnall man that it was a dishonourable an unpleasurable an unprofitable Religion where you saw that it were no Diminution to our Religion if it were all that but it is none of it If you have also considered the particular passive scandall that Christ deprehended in those two Disciples of Iohn That they would doe more then Christ practised or prescribed where you saw also the distemper of those that are derived from them both those that thinke there are some sinners whom Christ cannot save and those who thinke there are no sinners whom they cannot save by their Supererogations And considered lastly the way that Christ tooke to devest these men of this offence and passive scandall which was to call them to the consideration of good workes and of the best workes which he that doth them can doe where you have also seen that Christ makes that our best work To preach the Gospell to the poore both because the poore are destitute of other comforts and because their very poverty hath soupled them and mellowed them and macerated and matured and disposed them by corrections to instructions If you have received all this you have received all that we proposed for the first part the injunction the precept the way Be not sandalized be not offended in me And now that which I suspected at first is faln upon me that is to thrust our other part into a narrow conclusioÌ„ though it be blessednesse it selfe everlasting blessednesse so we must so we shall blessed is he there 's the remuneration the promise the end whosoever is not offended in me Blessed The Heathen who saw by the light of nature that they could have no Beeing if there were no God for it is from one of themselves that Saint Paul says in him we live and move and have our Beeing and Genus cjus suâ—us we are the off-spring of God saw also by the same light of nature that they could have no well-being if there were no Blessednesse And therefore as the Heathen multiplied Gods to themselves so did they also multiply blessednesse They brought their Iupiters to three hundred says Varro And from the same author from Varro does Saint Augustin collect almost three hundred severall opinions of Blessednesse But In multitudine nullitas says Tertullian excellently as where there are many Gods there is no God so where there are many blessednesses imagined there is no blessednesse possessed Not but that as the Sunne which moves onely in his owne Spheare in heaven does yet cast downe beames and influences into this world so that blessednesse which is truly onely in heaven does also cast downe beames and influences hither and gild and enamell yea inanimate the blessings of God here with the true name the true nature of blessednesse For though the vulgat edition doe read that place thus Beatum dixerant populum the world thought that people blessed that were so that is Temporally blessed as though that were but an imaginary and not a true blessednesse and howsoever it have seemed good to our Translators to insert into that verse a discretive particle a particle of difference Yea Blessed are the people that are so that is Temporally blessed Yea blessed are the people whose God is the Lord yet in truth in the Originall there is no such discretive particle no word of difference no yea in the text but both the clauses of that verse are carried in one and the same tenor Blessed are the people that are so Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord that is that people whom the Lord hath blessed so with Temporall blessings is bound to beleeve those temporall blessings to be seales and evidences to them that the Lord is their God So then there is a Viatory a preparatory an initiatory an inchoative blessednesse in this life What is that All agree in this definition that blessednesse is that in quo quiescit animus in which the minde the heart the desire of man hath settled and rested in which it found a Centricall reposednesse an acquiescence a contentment Not that which might satisfie any particular man for so the object would be infinitely various but that beyond which no man could propose any thing And is there such ablessednesse in this life There is Fecisti nos Domine ad te inquietum est Cor nostrum donec quiescat in te Lord thou hast made us for thy selfe and our heart cannot rest till it get to thee But can we come to God here We cannot Where 's then our viatory our preparatory our initiatory our in choative blessednesse Beloved though we cannot come to God here here God comes to us Here in the prayers of the Congregation God comes to us here in his Ordinance of Preaching God
in families are therein truly learned fathers of the Church A good father at home is a S â—ugustin and a S. Ambrose in himself and such a Thomas may have governed a 〈◊〉 as shall by way of example teach children and childrens children more to this purpose then any Thomas Aquinas can Since therefore these noble persons have so good a glasse to dresse themselves in the usefull as the powerfull example of Parents I shall the lesse need to apply my selfe to them for their particular instructions but may have leave to extend my selfe upon considerations more general and such as may be applyable to all who have or shall embrace that honourable state or shall any way assist at the solemnizing thereof that they may all make this union of Mariage a Type or a remembrancer of their union with God in Heaven That as our Genesis is our Exodus our proceeding into the world is a step out of the world so every Gospell may be a Revelation unto us All good tydings which is the name of Gospel all that ministers any joy to us here may reveal and manifest to us an Interest in the joy and glory of heaven and that our admission to a Mariage here may be our invitation to the Mariage Supper of the Lamb there where in the Resurrection we shall neither mary nor be given in mariage but shall be as the Angels of God in heaven These words our blessed Saviour spake to the Sadduces who not believing the Resurrection of the Dead put him a Case that one woman hath had seven husbands and then whose wife of those seven should she be in the Resurrection they would needs suppose and prefume that there could be no Resurrection of the body but that there must be to all purposes a Bodily use of the Body too and then the question had been pertinent whose wife of the seven shall she be But Christ shews them their errour in the weaknesse of the foundation she shall be none of their wives for In the Resurrection they neither mary c. The words give us this latitude when Christ sayes In the Resurrection they mary not c. The words give us this latitude when Christ sayes In the Resurrection they mary not c. from thence flowes out this concession this proposition too Till the Resurrection they shall mary and be given in mariage no inhibition to be laid upon persons no imputation no aspersion upon the state of mariage And when Christ saies Then they are as the Angels of God in heaven from this flowes this concession this proposition also Till then we must not look for this Angelicall state but as in all other states and conditions of life so in all mariages there will be some encumbrances betwixt all maried persons there will arise some unkindnesses some mis-interpretations or some too quick interpretations may sometimes sprinkle a little sournesse and spread a little a thin a dilute and washy cloud upon them Then they mary not till then they may then their state shall be perfect as the Angels till then it shall not These are our branches and the fruits that grow upon them we shall pull in passing and present them as we gather them First then Christ establishes a Resurrection A Resurrection there shall be for that makes up Gods circle The Body of Man was the first point that the foot of Gods Compasse was upon First he created the body of Adam and then he carries his Compasse round and shuts up where he began he ends with the Body of man againe in the glorification thereof in the Resurrection God is Alpha and Omega first and last And his Alpha and Omega his first and last work is the Body of man too Of the Immortality of the soule there is not an expresse article of the Creed for that last article of The life everlasting is rather de proemio poena what the soule shall suffer or what the soule shall enjoy being presumed to be Immortall then that it is said to be Immortall in that article That article may and does presuppose an Immortality but it does not constitute an Immortality in our soule for there would be a life everlasting in heaven and we were bound to beleeve it as we were bound to beleeve a God in heaven though our soules were not immortall There are so many evidences of the immortality of the soule even to a naturall mans reason that it required not an Article of the Creed to fix this notion of the Immortality of the soule But the Resurrection of the Body is discernible by no other light but that of Faith nor could be fixed by any lesse assurance then an Article of the Creed Where be all the splinters of that Bone which a shot hath shivered and scattered in the Ayre Where be all the Atoms of that flesh which a Corrasive hath eat away or a Consumption hath breath'd and exhal'd away from our arms and other Limbs In what wrinkle in what furrow in what bowel of the earth ly all the graines of the ashes of a body burnt a thousand years since In what corner in what ventricle of the sea lies all the jelly of a Body drowned in the generall flood What cohaerence what sympathy what dependence maintaines any relation any correspondence between that arm that was lost in Europe and that legge that was lost in Afrique or Asia scores of yeers between One humour of our dead body produces worms and those worms suck and exhaust all other humour and then all dies and all dries and molders into dust and that dust is blowen into the River that puddled water tumbled into the sea and that ebs and flows in infinite revolutions and still still God knows in what Cabinet every seed-Pearle lies in what part of the world every graine of every mans dust lies and sibilat populum suum as his Prophet speaks in another case he whispers he hisses he beckens for the 〈◊〉 of his Saints and in the twinckling of an eye that body that was fcattered over all the elements is sate down at the right hand of God in a glorious resurrection A Dâ—opsie hath extended me to an enormous corpulency and unwieldinesse a Consumption hath attenuated me to a feeble macilency and leannesse and God raises me a body such as it should have been if these infirmities had not interven'd and deformed it David could goe no further in his book of Psalms but to that Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord ye saies he ye that have breath praise ye the Lord and that ends the book But that my Dead body should come to praise the Lord this is that New Song which I shall learne and sing in heaven when not onely my soule shall magnify the Lord and my Spirit rejoyce in God my Saviour but I shall have mine old eies and eares and tongue and knees and receive such glory in my body
may be equall as the Devill is a Spirit and a condemned soule a spirit yet that soule shall have a Body too to be tormented with it which the Devill shall not How little we know our selves which is the end of all knowledge But we hast to the next branch In the Resurrection we shall be like to the Angels of God in Heaven But in what lies this likenesse In how many other things soever this likenesse may ly yet in this Text and in our present purpose it lies onely in this Non nubent In the Resurrection they shall not mary But did Angels never mary or as good or at least as ill as mary How many of the ancients take those words That the sonnes of God saw the daughters of Men that they were faire and they tooke them wives of all which they chose to be intended of Angels They offer to tell us how many these maried Angels were Origen saies sixty or seventy They offer to tell us some of their names Aza was one of these maried Angels and Azael was another But then all those who doe understand these words The sonnes of God to be intended of Angels who being sent downe to protect Men fell in love with Women and maried them all I say agree that those Angels that did so never returned to God againe but fell with the first fallen under everlasting Condemnation So that still the Angels of God in Heaven those Angels to whom we shall be like in the Resurrection doe not mary not so much as in any such mistaking they doe not because they need not they need not because they need no second Eternity by the continuation of children for says S. Luke they cannot die Adams first immortality was but this Posse non mori that he needed not to have died he should not have died The Angels immortality and ours when we shall be like them in the Resurrection is Non posse mori that we cannot die for whosoever dies is Homicida sui sayes Tertullian he kills himselfe and sinne is his sword In heaven there shall no such sword be drawn we need not say that the Angels in heaven have that we when we shall be like them in the Resurrection shall so invest an immortality in our nature as that God could not inflict Death upon them or us there if we sinned But because no sinne shall enter there no Death shall enter there neither for Death is the wages of sinne Not that no sinne could enter there if we were left to our selves for in that place Angels did sinne And fatendum est Angelos natura mutabiles saies S. Augustine Howsoever Angels be changed in their Condition they retaine still the same nature and by nature they are mutable But that God hath added another prerogative by way of Confirmation to that state so as that that Grace which he gives us here which is that nothing shall put a necessity of sinning upon us or that we must needs sinne God multiplies upon us so there as that we can conceive no inclination to sinne Therein we shall be like the Angels that we cannot die And the nearer we come to that state in this life the liker we are to those Angels here Now beloved onely he that is Dead already cannot die He that in a holy mortification is Dead the Death of the righteous dead to sinne he lives shall we dare to say so yes we may he lives a blessed Death for such a Death is true life And by such a heavenly Death Death of the righteous Death to sinne he is in possession of a heavenly life here in an inchoation though the consummation and perfection be reserved for the next world which is our last circumstance and the Conclusion of all At the Resurrection we shall be like the Angels Till then we shall not and therefore must not looke for Angelicall perfections here but beare one anothers infirmities It is as yet but in Petition fiat voluntas Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven And as long as there is an Earth it will be but in Petition His will will not be done in Earth as it is in Heaven when all is Heaven to his Saints all will be well but not all till then In the meane time remember all especially you whose Sacramentall that is Mysterious and significative union now is a Type of your union with God in as neare and as fast a band as that of Angels for you shall be as the Angels of God in Heaven That the office of the Angels in this world is to Assist and to supply Defects You are both of noble extraction there 's no defect in that you need not supply one another with Honour you are both of religious Education there 's no defect in that you need not supply one another with fundamentall instructions Both have your parts in that testimony which S. Gregory gave of your Nation at Rome Angli Angeli you have a lovelinesse fit for one another But though I cannot Name no nor Thinke any thing wherein I should wish that Angelicall disposition of supporting or supplying defects yet when I consider that even he that said Ego pater unum sumus I and the Father are one yet had a time to say utquid dereliquisti My God my God why hast thou forsaken me I consider thereby that no two can be so made one in this world but that that unity may be though not Dissolved no nor Rent no nor Endangered yet shaked sometimes by domestique occasions by Matrimoniall encumbrances by perversnesse of servants by impertinencies of Children by private whisperings and calumnies of Strangers And therefore to speake not Prophetically that any such thing shall fall but Provisionally if any such thing should fall my love and my duty and my Text bids me tell you that perfect happinesse is to be staid for till you be as the Angels of God in heaven here it is a faire portion of that Angelicall happinesse if you be alwaies ready to support and supply one another in any such occasionall weaknesses The God of Heaven multiply the present joy of your parents by that way of making you joyfull parents also and recompense your obedience to parents by that way of giving you obedient Children too The God of heaven so joine you now as that you may be glad of one another all your life and when he who hath joined you shall separate you againe establish you with an assurance that he hath but borrowed one of you for a time to make both your joies the more perfect in the Resurrection The God of Heaven make you alwaies of one will and that will alwaies conformable to his conserve you in the sincere truth of his Religion feast you with the best feast Peace of conscience and carry you through the good opinion and love of his Saints in this world to the association of his Saints and Angels and one
and I who have opened my mouth and poured out imprecations and curses upon men and execrations and blasphemies against God upon every occasion That Lamb who was slain from the beginning and was slain by him who was a murderer from the beginning That Lamb which took away the sins of the world and I who brought more sins into the world then any sacrifice but the blood of this Lamb could take away This Lamb and I these are the Persons shall meet and mary there is the Action This is not a clandestine mariage not the private seal of Christ in the obsignation of his Spirit and yet such a clandestine mariage is a good mariage Nor it is not such a Parish mariage as when Christ maried me to himself at my Baptisme in a Church here â— and yet that mariage of a Christian soul to Christ in that Sacrament is a blessed mariage But this is a mariage in that great and glorious Congregation where all my fins shall be laid open to the eys of all the world where all the blessed Virgins shall see all my uncleannesse and all the Martyrs see all my tergiversations and all the Consessors see all my double dealings in Gods cause where Abraham shall see my faithlesnesse in Gods promises and Iob my impatience in Gods corrections and Lazarus my hardness of heart in distributing Gods blessings to the poore and those Virgins and Martyrs and Confessors and Abraham and Iob and Lazarus and all that Congregation shall look upon the Lamb and upon me and upon one another as though they would all forbid those banes and say to one another Will this Lamb have any thing to doe with this soule and yet there and then this Lamb shall mary me In aeternum for ever which is our last circumstance It is not well done to call it a circumstance for the eternity is a great part of the essence of that mariage Consider then how poore and needy a thing all the riches of this world how flat and tastlesse a thing all the pleasures of this world how pallid and faint and dilute a thing all the honours of this world are when the very Treasure and Joy and glory of heaven it self were unperfect if it were not eternall and my mariage shall be too In aeternum for ever The Angels were not maried so they incurr'd an irreparable Divorce from God and are separated for ever and I shall be maried to him in aeternum for ever The Angels fell in love when there was no object presented before any thing was created when there was nothing but God and themselves they fell in love with themselves and neglected God and so fell in aeternum for ever I shall see all the beauty and all the glory of all the Saints of God and love them all and know that the Lamb loves them too without jealousie on his part or theirs or mine and so be maried in aeternum for ever without interruption or diminution or change of affections I shall see the Sunne black as sackcloth of hair and the Moon become as blood and the Starres fall as a Figge-tree casts her untimely Figges and the heavens roll'd up together as a Scroll I shall see a divorce between Princes and their Prerogatives between nature and all her elements between the spheres and all their intelligences between matter it self and all her forms and my mariage shall be in aeternum for ever I shall see an end of faith nothing to be beleeved that I doe not know and an end of hope nothing to be wisht that I doe not enjoy but no end of that love in which I am maried to the Lamb for ever Yea I shall see an end of some of the offices of the Lamb himself Christ himself shall be no longer a Mediator an Intercessor an Advocate and yet shall continue a Husband to my soul for ever Where I shall be rich enough without Joynture for my Husband cannot die and wise enough without experience for no new thing can happen there and healthy enough without Physick for no sicknesse can enter and which is by much the highest of all safe enough without grace for no tentation that need particular grace can attempt me There where the Angels which cannot die could not live this very body which cannot choose but die shall live and live as long as that God of life that made it Lighten our darkness we beseech thee ô Lord that in thy light we may see light Illustrate our understandings kindle our affections pour oyle to our zeale that we may come to the mariage of this Lamb and that this Lamb may come quickly to this mariage And in the mean time bless these thy servants with making this secular mariage a type of the spirituall and the spirituall an earnest of that eternall which they and we by thy mercy shall have in the Kingdome which thy Son our Saviour hath purchased with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood To whom c. SERMON IV. Preached at a Christning REVEL 7. 17. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throns shalâ— gâ—vern them and shall leade them unto the lively furnteins of maters and God shall wipe away all teares from their eyes IF our conversation be in heaven as the Apostle says his was and if that conversation be as Testullian reads that place Municipatus noster our City our dwelling the place from whence onely we receive our Laws to which onely we direct our services in which onely we are capable of honours and offices where even the office of a doore-keeper was the subject of a great Kings ambition if our conversation be there even there there cannot be better company met then we may see and converse withall in this Chapter Upon those words doth the Eagle mount up at the Cominandement or make his nest on high S. Gregory says Videamus aquilam nidum sibi in arduis construentem Then we say an Eagle make his nest on high when we heard S. Petter say so Our conversation is in heaven and then doth an Eagle mount up at our commandement when our soul our devotion by such a conversation in heaven associates itself with all this blessed company that are met in this Chapter that our fellow ship may be with the Father and with his Son Iesus Christ and with all the Court and Quire of the Triumphant Church If you go to feasts if you goe to Comedies fometimes onely to meet company nay if you come to Church sometimes onely upon that errand to meet company as though the House of God were but as the presence of an earthly Prince which upon solemne Festivall days must be fill'd and furnished though they that come come to doe no service there command year Eagle to mount up and to build his nest on high command your souls to have their conversation in heaven by meditation of this Scripture and you shall meet
such a subjection as is a love and such a love as is upon a Reason for love is not alwayes so This is Quiauxor because our wife and that implies these three uses God hath given Man a wife Ad adjutorium ad sobolem ad medicinam for a Help for Children and for a Remedy and Physick Now the first Society and encrease we love naturally we would not be banish'd we would not be robb'd we would not be alone we would not be poor Society and encrease every Man loves but doth any Man love Physick he takes it for necessity but does he love it Husbands therefore are to love wives Ad Sobolem as the Mothers of their Children Ad adjutorium as the comforters of their lives but for that which is Ad medicinam for physick to avoid burning to avoid fornication that 's not the subject of our love our love is not to be placed upon that for so it is a love Quia mulier because she is a woman and not Quia uxor because she is my wife A Man may be a drunkard at home with his own wine and never goe out to Taverns A man may be an adulâ—erer in his wives bosome though he seek not strange women We come now to the other part the pattern of this love which is Christ Jesus we are commanded to be holy and pure as our Father is holy and pure but that 's a proportion of which we are incapable And therefore we have another Commandement from Christ Discite à me learn of me there is no more looked for but that we should still be Scholars and learners how to love we can never love so much as he hath lov'd It is still Discite still something to be learnt and added and this something is Quia mitis learn of me make me your pattern because I am meek and gentle not suspitious not forward not hard to be reconcil'd not apt to discomfort my spouse my Church not with a sullen silence for I speak to her alwayes in my Word not apt to leave her unprovided of apparell and decent ornaments for I have allow'd her such Ceremonies as conduce to edification not apt to pinch her in her diet she hath her two Courses the first and the second Sacrament And whensoever she comes to a spirituall hunger and thirst under the heat and weight of sin she knowes how and where there is plentifull refreshing and satisfaction to be had in the absolution of sinne Herein consists the substance of the Comparison Husbands love your wives as Christ did his Church that is expresse your loves in a gentle behaviour towards them and in a carefull providence of Conveniencies for them The comparison goes no farther but the love of Christ to his Church goes farther In which we consider first Quid factum what Christ did for his spouse for his Church It were pity to make too much hast in considering so delightfull a thing as the expressing of the love of Christ Jesus to his Church It were pity to ride away so fast from so pleasant so various a prospect where we may behold our Saviour in the Act of his liberality Giving in the matter of his liberality Giving himselfe and in the poor exchange that he took a few Contrite hearts a few broken spirits a few lame and blind and leprous sinners to make to himselfe and his Spirit a Church a house to dwell in no more but these and glad if he can get these First then Ille dedit He gave it was his own act as it was he that gave up the ghost he that laid down his soule and he that took it again for no power of Man had the power or disposition of his life It was an insolent and arrogant question in Pilate to Christ Nescis quia potestatem habcâ— Knowest not thou that I have power to Crucifie thee and have power to loose thee If Pilate thought that his power extended to Christ yet Tua damnaris sententia qui potestate latroneâ— absâ—lvis autorem vitae interficis His own words and actions condemned him when having power to condemn and absolve he would condemn the Innocent and absolve the guilty A good Judge does nothing sayes he Doâ—â—estice proposito voluntatis according to a resolution taken at home Nihil meditatum deme defert he brings not his judgement from his chamber to the bench but he takes it there according to the Evidence If pilate thought he had power his Conscience told him he misused that power but Christ tels him he could have none Nisi datum desuper Except it had been given him from above that is except Christ had given him power over himselfe for Christ speaks not in that place of Pilates generall power and Jurisdiction for so also all power is Desuper from above but for this particular power that Pilate boasts to have over him Christ tels him that he could have none over him except himselfe had submitted himselfe to it So before this passage with Pilat Iudâ—s had delivered Christ and there arose a sect of Heretiques Iudaists that magnified this act of Iudes and said that we were beholden to him for the hastning of our salvation because when he was come to the knowledge that God had decreed the Crucifying of Christ for Mankind Iudas took compassion of Mankind and hastned their Redemption by delivering up of Christ to the Iewes But Iudas had no such good purpose in his hast though our Iesus permitted Iudas to doe it and to doe it quickly when he said Quod facis fac citò For out of that ground in the Schooles Missia in divinis â—st movâ— operacio in Creatura When any person of the Trinity is said to be sent that onely denotes an extraordinary manner of working of that person Saint Augustine sayes truly that as Christ Misit seipsum he sent himself and Sanitificavit seipsum he sanctified himselfe so tradidit seipsum Iudas could not have given him if he had not given himselfe Pilate could not give him Iudas could not give him nay if we could consider severall wils in the severall Persons of the Trinity we might be bold to say That the Father could not have given him if he had not given himselfe We consider the unexpressible mercy of the Father in that he would accept any satisfaction at all for all our Sinnes We consider the unexpressible working of the Holy Ghost that brings this satisfaction and our soules together for without that without the application of the Holy Ghost we are as far from Christ's love now as we were from the Father 's before Christ suffered But the unexpressible and unconceiveable love of Christ is in this that there was in him a willingnesse a propensnesse a forwardnesse to give himselfe to make this great peace and reconciliation between God and Man It was himselfe that gave himselfe Nothing enclined him nothing wrought upon him but his own goodnesse
before his Gospell was written principally and purposely against the opposers of Christs humanity but occasionally also in defence of his divine nature too Because there is Solutio Iesu a dissolving of Jesus a taking of Jesus in peeces a dividing of his Natures or of his Offices which overthrowes all the testimonies of these six great witnesses when Christ said Solvite templum hoc destroy dissolve this temple and in three dayes I will raise it he spoke that but of his naturall body there was Solutio corporis Christs body and soule were parted but there was not Solutio Iesu the divine nature parted not from the humane no not in death but adhered to and accompanied the soule even in hell and accompanied the body in the grave And therefore says the Apostle Omnis spiritus qui solvit Iesum ex deo non est for so Irenaeus and Saint Augustine and Saint Cyrill with the Grecians read those words That spirit which receives not Jesus intirely which dissolves Jesus and breakes him in peeces that spirit is not of God All this then is the subject of this testimony first that Christ Jesus is come in the flesh there is a Recognition of his humane nature And then that this Jesus is the sonne of God there is a subscription to his divine nature he that separates these and thereby makes him not able or not willing to satisfie for Man he that separates his Nature or he that separates the worke of the Redemption and says Christ suffered for us onely as Man and not as God or he that separates the manner of the worke and says that the passive obedience of Christ onely redeemed us without any respect at all to his active obedience onely as he died and nothing as he died innocently or he that separates the perfection and consummation of the worke from his worke and findes something to be done by Man himselfe meritorious to salvation or he that separates the Prince and the Subject Christ and his members by nourishing Controversies in Religion when they might be well reconciled or he that separates himselfe from the body of the Church and from the communion of Saints for the fashion of the garments for the variety of indifferent Ceremonies all these do Solvere Iesum they slacken they dissolve that Jesus whose bones God provided for that they should not be broken whose flesh God provided for that it should not see Corruption and whose garments God provided that they should not bee divided There are other luxations other dislocations of Jesus when we displace him for any worldly respect and prefer preforment before him there are other woundings of Jesus in blasphemous oathes and exerations there are other maimings of Jesus in pretending to serve him intirely and yet retaine one particular beloved sinne still there are other rackings and extendings of Jesus when we delay him and his patience to our death-bed when we stretch the string so farre that it cracks there that is appoint him to come then and he comes not there are other dissolutions of Jesus when men will melt him and powre him out and mold him up in a waser Cake or a peece of bread there are other annihilations of Jesus when Men will make him and his Sacraments to be nothing but bare signes but all these will be avoided by us if we be gained by the testimony of these six witnesses to hold fast that integrity that intirensse of Jesus which is here delivered to us by this Apostle In which we beleeve first Iâ—sum a Saviour which implies his love and his will to save us and then we beleeve Christum the anointed that is God and man able and willing to doe this great worke and that he is anointed and sealed for that purpose and this implies the decree the contract and bargaine of acceptation by the Father that Pactum salis that eternall covenant which seasons all by which that which he meant to doe as he was Iesus should be done as he was Christ. And then as the intirenesse of Jesus is expressed in the verse before the text we beleeve Quod venit that as all this might be done if the Father and Sonne would agree as all this must be done because they had agreed it so all this was done Quâ—a venit because this Jesus is already come and that for the father intirenesse for the perfection and consummation and declaration of all venit per aquam sanguinem He came by water and bloud Which words Saint Bernard understands to imply but a difference between the comming of Christ and the comming of Moses who was drawen out of the water and therefore called by that name of Moses But before Moses came to be a leader of the people he passed through bloud too through the bloud of the Egyptian whom he slew and much more when he established all their bloudy sacrifices so that Mases came not onely by water Neither was the first Testament ordained without bloud Others understand the words onely to put a difference between Iohn Baptist and Christ because Iohn Baptist is still said to baptize with waterâ— Because he should be declared to Israel therefore am I come baptizing with water but yet Iohn Baptists baptisme had not onely a relation to bloud but a demonstration of it when still he pointed to the Lambe Ecce Agnus for that Lambe was slâ—ine from the beginning of the world So that Christ which was this Lambe came by water and bloud when he came in the risuall types and figures of Moses and when he came in the baptisme of Iohn for in the Law of Moses there was so frequent use of water as that we reckon above fifty severall Immunditi as uncleannesses which might receive their expiation by washing without being put to their bloudy sacrifies for them And then there was so frequent use of bloud that almost all things are by the Law purged with bloud and without shedding of bloud is no Remission But this was such water and such bloud as could not perfect the worke but therefore was to be renewed every day The water that Jesus comes by is such a water as he that arinketh of it shall thirst no more nay there shall spring up in him a well of water that is his example shall worke to the satisfaction of others we doe not say to a satisfaction for others And then this is that bloud that perfected the whole worke at once By his own bloud entred he once into the holy place and obtained eternall Redemption for us So that Christ came by water and bloud according to the old ablutions and old sacrifices when he wept when he sweat when he powred out bloud pretious incorruptible inestimable bloud at so many channels as he did all the while that he was upon the altar sacrificing himselfe in his passion But after the immolation of this sacrifice after his Consummatum est when Christ
was come and gone for so much as belonged to the accomplishing of the types of the old law then Christ came againe to us by water and bloud in that wound which he received upon his side from which there flowed out miraculously true water true bloud This wound Saint Augustine calls Ianuam utriusque Sacramenti the doore of both sacraments where we see he acknowledges but two and both presented in this water and bloud and so certainely doe most of the fathers make this wound if not the foundation yet at least a sacrament of both the sacraments And to this water and bloud doth the Apostle here without doubt aime principally which he onely of all the Evangelists hath recorded and with so great asseveration and assurednesse in the recording thereof He that saw it bare record and his record is true and he knoweth that he saith truth that yee might beleeve it Here then is the matter which these six witnesses must be beleeved in here is Integritas Iesu quae non solvenda the intirenesse of Christ Jesus which must not be broken That a Saviour which is Iesus appointed to that office that is Christ figured in the law by ablutions of water and sacrifices of bloud is come and hath perfected all those figures in water and bloud too and then that he remaines still with us in water and bloud by meanes instituted in his Church to wash away our uncleannesses and to purge away our iniquities and to apply his worke unto our Soules this is Integritas Iesu Iesus the sonne of God in heaven Jesus the Redeemer of man upon earth Jesus the head of a Church to apply that to the end this is Integritas Iesu all that is to be beleeved of him Take thus much more that when thou comest to hearken what these witnesses shall say to this purpose thou must finde something in their testimony to prove him to be come not onely into the world but into thee He is a mighty prince and hath a great traine millions of ministring spirits attend him and the whole army of Martyrs follow the Lambe wheresoever he goes Though the whole world be his Court thy soule is his bedchamber there thou maist contract him there thou maist lodge and entertaine Integrum Iesum thy whole Saviour And never trouble thy selfe how another shall have him if thou have him all leave him and his Church to that make thou sure thine owne salvation When he comes to thee he comes by water and by bloud If thy heart and bowels have not yet melted in compassion of his passion for thy soule if thine eyes have not yet melted in tears of repentancâ— and contrition he is not yet come by water into thee If thou have suffered nothing for sinne nor found in thy selfe a chearfull disposition to suffer if thou have found no wresting in thy selfe no resistance of Concupiscences he that comes not to set peace but to kindle this war is not yet come into thee by bloud Christ can come by land by purchases by Revenues by temporall blessings for so he did still convey himselfe to the Jewes by the blessing of the land of promise but here he comes by water by his owne passion by his sacraments by thy tears Christ can come in a mariage and in Musique for so he delivers himselfe to the spouse in the Canticles but here he comes in bloud which comming in water and bloud that is in meanes for the salvation of our soules here in the militant Church is the comming that he stands upon and which includes all the Christian Religion and therefore he proves that comming to them by these three great witnesses in heaven and three in earth For there are three which beare record in heaven The Father the word and the holy Ghost and these three are one And there are three which bear record in the earth The spirit and the water and the bloud and these three agree in one By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be confirmed says Christ out of the law That 's as much as can be required in any Civill or Criminall businesse and yet Christ gives more testimony of himselfe for here he produces not Duos testes but Duas Classes two rankes of witnesses and the fullest number of each not two but three in heaven and three in earth And such witnesses upon earth as are omni exceptione majores without all exception It is not the testimony of earthly men for when Saint Paul produces them in abundance The Patriarch the Iudges the Prophets the elders of the old times of whom he exhibits an exact Catalogue yet he calls all them but Nubes testium cloudes of witnesses for though they be cloudes in Saint Chrysostomes sense that they invest us and enwrap us and so defend us from all diffidence in God we have their witnesse what God did for them why should we doubt of the like though they be cloudes in Athanasius sense they being in heaven showre downe by their prayers the dew of Gods grace upon the Church Though they be cloudes they are but cloudes some darkenesse mingled in them some controversies arising from them but his witnesses here are Lux inaccessibilis that light that no eye can attaine to and Pater Luminum the father of lights from whom all these testimonies are derived When God imployed a man to be the witnesse of Christ because men might doubt of his testimony God was content to assigne him his Compurgators when Iohn Baptist must preach that the kingdome of God was at hand God fortifies the testimony of his witnesse then Hic enim est for this is he of whom that is spoken by the prophet Esay and lest one were not enough he multiplies them as it is written in the prophets Iohn Baptist might be thought to testifie as a man and therefore men must testifie for him but these witnesses are of a higher nature these of heaven are the Trinity and those of earth are the sacraments and seales of the Church The prophets were full of favor with God Abraham full of faith Stephen full of the Holy Ghost many full of grace and Iohn Baptist a prophet and more then a prophet yet never any prophet never any man how much soever interessed in the favor of Almighty God was such an instrument of grace as a sacrament or as Gods seales and institutions in his Church and the least of these six witnesses is of that nature and therefore might be beleeved without more witnesses To speake then first of the three first the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost it was but a poore plot of the devill to goe about to rob us of their testimony for as long as we have the three last the spirit the water and bloud we have testimony enough of Christ because God is involved in his ordinance and though he be not tyed to the worke of the
but every poore soule in the Church may heare all these three witnesses testifying to him Integrum Iesum suum that all which Christ Jesus hath done and suffered appertaines to him but yet to bring it nearer him in visible and sensible things There are tres de terra three upon earth too The first of these three upon earth is the Spirit which Saint Augustine understands of the spirit the soule of Christ for when Christ commended his spirit into the hands of his Father this was a testimony that he was Verus hemo that he had a soule and in that he laid downe his spirit his soule for no Man could take it from him and tooke it againe at his pleasure in his resurrection this was a testimony that he was Verus Deus true God And so says Saint Augustine Spiritus The spirit that is anima Christi the soule of Christ did testifie De integritate Iesu all that belonged to Jesus as he was God and as he was Man But this makes the witnesses in heaven and the witnesses in earth all one for the personall testimony of Christs preaching and living and dying the testimony which was given by these three Persons of the Trinity was all involv'd in the first rank of witnesses Those three which are in heaven Other later Men understand by the Spirit here the Spirit of every Regenerate Man and that in the other heavenly witnesses the spirit is Spiritus sanctus the spirit that is holy in it selfe the holy Ghost and here it is Spiritus sanctificatus that spirit of Man which is made holy by the holy Ghost according to that The same spirit beareth witnesse with our spirit that we are the children of God But in this sense it is too particular a witnesse too singular to be intended here for that speakes but to one Man at once The spirit therefore here is Spiritus oris the word of God the Gospell and the preaching and ministration thereof We are made Ministers of the New testament of the spirit that giveth life And if the ministration of death were glorious how shall not the ministration of the spirit be more glorious It is not therefore the Gospell meerly but the preaching of the Gospell that is this spirit Spiritus sacerdotis vehioulum Spiritus Dei The spirit of the Minister is not so pure as the spirit of God but it is the chariot the meanes by which God will enter into you The Gospell is the Gospell at home at your house and there you doe well to read it and reverence it as the Gospell but yet it is not Spiritus it is not this Spirit this first witnesse upon earth but onely there where God hath blessed it with his institution and ordinance that is in the preaching thereof The stewardship and the dispensation of the graces of God the directing of his threatnings against refractary and wilfull sinners the directing of his promises to simple and supple and conâ—rite penitents the breaking of the bread the applying of the Gospell according to their particular indigences in the preaching thereof this is the first witnesse The second witnesse here is The water and I know there are some Men which will not have this to be understood of the water of Baptisme but onely of the naturall effect of water that as the abtutions of the old law by water did purge us so we have an inward testimony that Christ doth likewise wash us cleane so the water here must not be so much as water but a metaphoricall and figurative water These men will not allow water in this place to have any relation to the sacrament and Saint Ambrose was so far from doubting that water in this place belonged to the sacrament that he applies all these three witnesses to the Sacrament of Baptisme Spiritus mentem renovat All this is done in Baptisme says he The Spirit renewes and disposes the mind Aqua perficit ad Lavacrum The water is applied to cleanse the body Sanguis Spectat ad preâ—lium and the bloud intimates the price and ransome which gives force and virtue to this sacrament And so also says he in another place In sanguine mors in the bloud there is a representation of death in the water of our buriall and in the spirit of our owne life Some will have none of these witnesses on earth to belong to baptisme not the water and Ambrose will have all spirit and water and bloud to belong to it Now both Saint Ambrose who applies all the three witnesses to Baptisme and those later men which deny any of the witnesses to belong to baptisme doe both depart from the generall acceptation of these words that water here and onely that signifies the Sacrament of baptisme For as in the first creation the first thing that the spirit of God is noted to have moved upon was the waters so the first creature that is sanctified by Christs institution to our Salvation is this element of water The first thing that produced any living sensible creature was the water Primus liquor qnod viveret edidit ne mirum sit quod in Baptismo aquae aâ—nimare noverunt water brought forth the first creatures says Tertullian That we should not wonder that water should bring forth Christians The first of Gods afficting miracles in Egypt was the changing of water into bloud and the first miracle of grace in the new Testament was the changing of water into wine at the mariage So that water hath still been a subject and instrument of Gods conversation with man So then Aqua janua ecclesiae we cannot come into the Church but by water by baptisme for though the Church have taken knowledge of other Baptismes Baptisma sanguinis which is Martyrdome and Baptisma Flaminis which is a religious desire to be baptized when no meanes can be got yet there is no other sacrament of Baptisme but Baptisma Fluminis the Baptisme of water for the rest Conveniunt in causando sed non in significando says the Schoole that is God doth afford a plentifull retribution to the other baptismes Flaminis and Sanguinis but God hath not ordained them to be outward seales and significations of his grace and to be witnesses of Iesus his comming upon earth as this water is And therefore they that provide not duly to bring their children to this water of life not to speake of the essentiall necessity thereof they take from them one of the witnesses that Iesus is come into them and as much as they can they shut the Church dore against them they leave them out of the Arke and for want of this water cast them into that generall water which overflowes all the rest of the world which are not brought within the Covenant by this water of baptisme For though in the first Translation of the new Testament into Syriaque that be said in the sixth verse that Jesus is come per manus
aquarum by the power of waters many waters and in this verse this witnesse is delivered in the plurall spirit and waters and so waters in that signification which signification they have often in the Scriptures that is affliction and tribulation be good testimonies that our Lord Jesus doth visit us though the waters of Coâ—trition and repentant teares be another good testimony of that too yet that water which testifies the presence of Jesus so as that it doth always infallibly bring Jesus with it for the Sacraments are never without Grace whether it be accepted or no there it is â— That water which is made equall with the preaching of the Word so farre as to be a fellow-witnesse with the Spirit that is onely the Sacrament of baptisme without which in the ordinary dispensation of God no soule can be surer that Jesus is come to him then if he had never heard the Word preached he mistakes the spirit the first witnesse if he refuse the water the second The third witnesse upon earth is bloud and that is briefly the Communion of the body and bloud of Iesus in the Lords Supper But how is that bloud upon earth I am not ashamed to confesse that I know not how but the bloud of Christ is a witnesse upon earth in the Sacrament and therefore upon the earth it is Now this Witnesse being made equall with the other two with preaching and with baptisme it is as necessary that he that will have an assuranceâ— that Iesus is come into him doe receive this Sacrament as that he doe heare Sermâ—nâ— and that he be baptized An over vehement urging of this necessity brought in an erroneous custome in the Primitive Church That they would give the Sacrament of the body of Christ to Children as soon as they were baptized yea and to dead man too But because this Sacrament is accompanied with precepts which can belong onely to Men of understanding for they must doe it in Remembrance and they must discerne the Lords body therefore the necessity lies onely upon such as are come to those graces and to that understanding For they that take it and doe not discerne it not know what they do they take it dangerously But else for them to whom this Sacrament belongs if they take it not their hearing of Sermons and their baptisme doth them no good for what good can they have done them if they have not prepared themselves for it And therefore as the Religion of the Church holds a stubborne Recusant at the table at the Communion bord as farre from her as a Recusant at the Pew that is a Non-communicant as ill as a not commer or a not hearer so I doubt not but the wisdome of the state weighs them in the same balance For these three agree in one says the text that is first they meet in one Man and then they testifie the same thing that is Integritatem Iesu that Iesus is come to him in outward Meanes to save his soule If his conscience find not this testimony all these availe him nothing If we remaine vessells of anger and of dishonour still we are under the Vae vâ—bis Hypocritis woe unto you Hypocrites that make cleane onely the outside of your cuppes and Platters That baptize and wash your owne and your childrens bodies but not their mindes with instructions When we shall come to say Docuisti in plateis we have heard thee preach in our streets we have continued our hearing of thy Word when we say Manducavimus coram te we have eate in thy presence at thy table yea Manducavimus tâ— we have eaten thee thy selfe yet for all this outward show of these three witnesses of Spirit and Water and bloud Preaching and Baptisme and Communion we shall heare that fearfull disclaiming from Christ Jesus Nescio vos I know not whence you are But these witnesses he will always heare if they testifie for us that Jesus is come unto us for the Gospell and the preaching thereof is as the deed that conveys Iesus unto us the water the baptisme is as the Seale that assures it and the bloud the Sacrament is the delivery of Christ into us and this is Integritas Iesu the entire and full possession of him To this purpose therefore as we have found a Trinity in heaven and a Trinity in earth so we must make it up a Trinity of Trinities and finde a third Trinity in our selves God created one Trinity in us the observation and the enumeration is Saint Bernards which are those three faculties of our soule the reason the memory the will That Trinity in us by another Trinity too by suggestion towards sin by delight in sinne by consent to sinne is fallen into a third Trinity The memory into a weaknesse that that comprehends not God it glorifies him not for benefits received The reasen to a blindnesse that that discernes not what is true and the will to a perversnesse that that wishes not what 's good But the goodnesse of God by these three witnesses on earth regenerates and reestablishes a new Trinity in us faith and hope and charity Thus farre that devout Man carries it And if this new Trinity faith and hope and charity witnesse to us Integritatem Christi all the worke of Christ If my faith testifie to me that Christ is sealed to my soule and my hope testifie that at the Resurection I shall have a perfect fruition in soule and body of that glory which he purchased for every beleever and my charity testifies to the world that I labour to make sure that salvation by a good life then there 's a Trinity of Trinities and the six are made nine witnesses There are three in heaven that testifie that this is done for all Mankinde Three in the Church that testifie this may be done for me and three in my soule that testifie that all this is applied to me and then the verdict and the Judgement must necessarily goe for me And beloved this Judgement will be grounded upon this intirenesse of Jesus and therefore let me dismisse you with this note That Integritas is in continuitate not in contignitate It is not the touching upon a thing nor the comming neare to a thing that makes it intire a fagot where the sticks touch a peece of cloth where the threds touch is not intire To come as neare Christ as we can conveniently to trie how neare we can bring two Religions together this is not to preserve Integritatem Iesu In a word Intirenesse excludes deficiency and redundancy and discontinuance we preserve not intirenesse if we preserve not the dignity of Christ in his Church and in his discipline and that excludes the defective Separatist we doe not preserve that entirenesse if we admit traditions and additions of Men in an equality to the word of God and that excludes the redundant Papist neither doe we preserve the entirenesse if we admit a discontinuance
conscience There is a washing then absolutely generally necessary the water of Baptisme and a washing occasionally necessary because we fall into actuall sinnes the bloud of our Saviour in the Sacrament and there is a washing between these preparatory to the last washing the water of Contrite and repentant teares in opening our selves to God and shutting up of our selves against future tentations of the two first the two Sacraments sons in Ecclesia the whole spring and river is in the Church there is no baptisme no bloud of Christ but in the Church And of this later which is most properly ablutio pedum the washing of the feet that is teares shed in repentance of our sinfull lives of this water there is Pelvis in Ecclesia the Bason is in the Church for our best repentance though this repentance be at home in our owne hearts doth yet receive a Seale from the absolution of Gods Ministers in the Church But yet though there be no cleansing but from the spirit of God no ordinary working of Gods spirit but in the Church and his ordinances there yet we our selves are not so left out in this work but that the spouse here and every carefull soule here says truly Ego lavi I my selfe have washed my feet which is our third branch It is said often in Philosophy Nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu till some sense apprehend a thing the Iudgment cannot debate it nor discourse it It may well be said in Divinity too Nihil in gratia quod non prius in natura there is nothing in grace that was not first in nature so farre as that grace always finds nature and naturall faculties to work on though that nature be not disposed to the receiving of grace when it comes yet that nature and those faculties which may be so disposed by grace are there before that grace comes And the grace of God doth not work this cleansing but where there is a sweet and souple and tractable and ductile disposition wrought in that soule This disposition is no cause why God gives his grace for there is no cause but his own meer and unmeasurable goodnesse But yet without such a disposition God would not give that and therefore let us cleanse our selves from all filthinesse says the Apostle There is something which we ourselves may doe A Man that had powred out himselfe in a vehement and corrupt solicitation of the chastity of any woman if he found himselfe surprized by the presence of a husband or a father he could give over in the midst of a protestation A Man that had set one foot into a house of dangerous provocations if he saw â— bill of the plague upon the doore he could goe backe A Man that had drawne his sword to rob a passenger if he saw a hue and cry come could give over that and all this is upon the Ego lavi I have washed without use of grace his owne naturall reason declines him from that sinne then How long shall we make this bad use of this true doctrine that because we cannot doe enough for our salvation therefore we will doe nothing Shall I see any Man shut out of heaven that did what he could upon earth Thou that canst mourne for any worldly losse mourne for thy sinne Thou that lovest meetings of company for society and conversation love the meeting of the Saints of God in the Congregation and communion of Saints Thou that lovest the Rhetorique the Musique the wit the sharpnesse the eloquence the elegancy of other authors love even those things in the Scriptures in the word of God where they abound more then in other authors Put but thy affections out of their ordinary sinfull way and then Lavasti pedes thou hast washed thy feet and God will take thy work in hand and raise a building farre beyond the compasse and comprehension of thy foundation that which the soule began but in good nature shall be perfected in grace But doe it quickly for the glory of this soule here was in the Lavi It is not Lavabo that she had already not that she would wash her feet since thou art come to know thy naturall uncleannesse and baptisme for that and thine actuall uncleannesse and that for that there is a River that brings thee into the maine Sea the water of repentance leads thee to the bottomelesse Sea of the bloud of thy Saviour in the Sacrament continue not in thy foulenesse in confidence that all shall be drowned in that at last whensoever thou wilt come to it It was a common but an erroneous practise even in the Primitive Church to defer their baptisme till they were old because an opinion prevailed upon them that baptisme discharged them of all sinnes they used to be baptized then when they were past sinning that so they might passe out of this world in that innocency which their baptisme imprinted in them And out of this custome Men grew to be the more carelesse all their lives because all was done at once in baptisme But says Saint Augustine in that case and it was his owne case It were uncharitably said Vulneretur amplius that if we saw a Man welter in his bloud and wounded in divers places it were uncharitably said Vulneretur amplius give him two or three wounds more for the Surgeon is not come yet It is uncharitably said to thine owne soule Vulneretur amplius take thy pleasure in sinne yet when I come to receive the Sacrament I will repent altogether doe not thinke to put off all to the washing weeke all thy sinnes all thy repentance to Easter and the Sacrament then There may be a washing then and no drying thou maist come to weep the teares of desperation to seek mercy with teares and not find it teares for worldly losses teares for sinne teares for bodily anguish may overflow thee then and whereas Gods goodnesse to those that are his is ut abstergat omnem Lachrymam to wipe all teares from their eyes absterget nullam Lachrymam he may leave all unwiped upon thee he may leave thy soule to sinke and to shipwracke under this tempest and inundation and current of divers tides teares of all kinds and ease of none for those of whom it is said Deus absterget omnem lachrymam God shall wipe all teares from their eyes are they Qui laverunt Stolas as we see there who have already washed their long robes and made them white in the bloud of the Lambe who have already by teares of repentance become worthy receivers of the seale of reconciliation in the Sacrament of his body and bloud To them God shall wipe all teares from their eyes but to the unrepentant sinner he shall multiply teares from teares for the losse of a horse or of a house to teares for the losse of a soule and wipe no teare from his eyes But yet though this Lavi exclude the Lavabo as it
acclamation which he received from his Royall servant Salomon at the Consecration of his great Temple when he said Is it true indeed that God will dwell on the earth Behold the heavens and the heaven of heavens are not able to contain thee how much more unable shall this house bee that we intend to build But have thou respect unto the prayer of thy servant and to his supplication O Lord my God to hear the cry the prayer that thy servant shall make before thee that day That thine eye may bee open towards that house night and day that thou mayst heare the supplications of thy servants and of thy people which shall pray in that place and that thou mayst hear them in the place of thy habitation even in heaven and when thou hearest mayst have mercy Amen SERMON XII Preached at Lincolns Inne JOHN 5. 22. The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgement to the Sonne When our Saviour forbids us to cast pearl before swine we understand ordinarily in that place that by pearl are understood the Scriptures and when we consider the naturall generation and production of Pearl that they grow bigger and bigger by a continuall succession and devolution of dew and other glutinous moysture that fals upon them and there condenses and hardens so that a pearl is but a body of many shels many crusts many films many coats enwrapped upon one another To this Scripture which we have in hand doth that Metaphor of pearl very properly appertain because our Saviour Christ in this Chapter undertaking to prove his own Divinity and God-head to the Jews who acknowledged and confessed the Father to be God but denyed it of him he folds and wraps up reason upon reason argument upon argument that all things are common between the Father and him That whatsoever the Father does he does whatsoever the Father is he is for first he says he is a partner a cooperator with the Father in the present administration and government of the world My Father worketh hitherto and I work well if the Father do ease himself upon instruments now yet was it so from the beginning had he a part in the Creation Yes What things soever the Father doth those also doth the Son likewise But doe those extend to the work properly and naturally belonging to God to the remission to the effusion of grace to the spirituall resurrection of them that are dead in their iniquities Yes even to that too For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickneth them even to the Son quickneth whom he will But hath not this power of his a determination or expiration shall it not end at least when the world ends no not then for God hath given him authority to execute judgment because he is the Son of man Is there then no Supersedeas upon this commission Is the Sonne equall with the Father in our eternall election in our creation in the meanes of our salvation in the last judgement in all In all Omne judicium God hath committed all judgement to the Son And here is a pearl made up the dew of Gods grace sprinkled upon your souls the beams of Gods Spirit shed upon your soules that effectuall and working knowledge That he who dyed for your salvation is perfect God as well as perfect man fit as willing to accomplish that salvation In handling then this Iudgement which is a word that embraces and comprehends all All from our Election where no merit or future actions of ours were considered by God to our fruition and possession of that election where all our actions shall be considered and recompensed by him we shall see first that Judgment belongs properly to God And secondly that God the Father whom we consider to be the root and foundation of the Deity can no more devest his Judgment then he can his Godhead and therefore in the third place we consider what that committing of Judgment which is mentioned here imports and then to whom it is committed To the Sonne and lastly the largnesse of that which is committed Omne all Judgment so that we cannot carry our thoughts so high or so farre backwards as to think of any Judgment given upon us in Gods purpose or decree without relation to Christ Nor so far forward as to think that there shall be a Judgment given upon us according to our good morall dispositions or actions but according to our apprehension and imitation of Christ. Judgment is a proper and inseparable Character of God that 's first the Father cannot devest himself of that that 's next The third is that he hath committed it to another And then the person that is his delegate is his onely Sonne and lastly his power is everlasting And that Judgment day that belongs to him hath and shall last from our first Election through the participation of the meanes prepared by him in his Church to our association and union with him in glory and so the whole circle of time and before time was and when time shall be no more makes up but one Judgment day to him to whom the Father who judgeth no man hath committed all Judgment First then Judgment appertaines to God It is his in Criminall causes â— Vindicta mihi Vengeance is mine I will repay saith the Lord It is so in civill things too for God himself is proprietary of all Domini est terra et plenitudo ejus The earth is the Lords and all that is in and on the earth Your silver is mine and your gold is mine says the Prophet and the beasts on a Thousand hills are mine says David you are usuâ—â—ructuaries of them but I am proprietary No attribute of God is so often iterated in the Scriptures no state of God so often incultated as this Judge and Judgment no word concerning God so often repeated but it is brought to the height where in that place of the Psalm where we read God judgeth among the Gods the Latine Church ever read it Deus dijudicat Deâ—s God judgeth the Gods themselves for though God say of Judges and Magistrats Ego dixi dii estis I have said ye are Gods and if God say it who shall gainsay it yet he says too Moriemini sicut homines The greatest Gods upon earth shall die like men And if that be not humiliation enough there is more threatned in that which follows yee shall fall like one of the Princes for the fall of a Prince involves the ruine of many others too and it fills the world with horror for the present and ominous discourse for the future but the farthest of all is Deus dijudicat Deos even these Judges must come to Judgment and therefore that Psalme which begins so is concluded thus Surge Domine arise ô God and judge the earth If he have power to judge the earth he is God and even in God himselfe it is expressed as a kind
say they so as that wee shall use them or so as that we might But this sight that Iob speaks of is onely the fruition of the presence of God in which consists eternall blessednesse Here in this world we see God per speculum says the Apostle by reflection upon a glasse we see a creature and from that there arises an assurance that there is a Creator we see him in aenigmate says he which is not ill rendred in the margin in a Riddle we see him in the Church but men have made it a riddle which is the Church we see him in the Sacrament but men have made it a riddle by what light and at what window Doe I see him at the window of bread and wine Is he in that or doe I see him by the window of faith and is he onely in that still it is in a riddle Doe I see him à Priore I see that I am elected and therefore I cannot sinne to death Or doe I see him à Posteriore because I see my selfe carefull not to sin to death therefore I am elected I shall see all problematicall things come to be dogmaticall I shall see all these rocks in Divinity come to bee smooth alleys I shall see Propheâ—ies untyed Riddles dissolved controversies reconciled but I shall never see that till I come to this sight which follows in out text Videbo Deum I shall see God No man ever saw God and liv'd and yet I shall not live till I see God and when I have seen him I shall never dye What have I ever seen in this world that hath been truly the same thing that it seemed to me I have seen marble buildings and a chip a crust a plaster a face of marble hath pilld off and I see brick-bowels within I have seen beauty and a strong breath from another tels me that that complexion is from without not from a sound constitution within I have seen the state of Princes and all that is but ceremony and I would be loath to put a Master of ceremonies to define ceremony and tell me what it is and to include so various a thing as ceremony in so constant a thing as a Definition I see a great Officer and I see a man of mine own profession of great revenues and I see not the interest of the money that was paid for it I see not the pensions nor the Annuities that are charged upon that Office or that Church As he that fears God fears nothing else so he that sees God sees every thing else when we shall see God Sicuti est as he is we shall see all things Sicuti sunt as they are for that 's their Essence as they conduce to his glory We shall be no more deluded with outward appearances for when this sight which we intend here comes there will be no delusory thing to be seen All that we have made as though we saw in this world will be vanished and I shall see nothing but God and what is in him and him I shall see in carne in the flesh which is another degree of Exaltation in mine Exinanition I shall see him In carâ—e suâ in his flesh And this was one branch in Saint Augustines great wish That he might have seen Rome in her state That he might have heard S. Paul preach That he might have seen Christ in the flesh Saint Augustine hath seen Christ in the flesh one thousand two hundred yeares in Christs glorifyed flesh but it is with the eyes of his understanding and in his soul. Our flesh even in the Resurrection cannot be a spectacle a perspective glasse to our soul. We shall see the Humanity of Christ with our bodily eyes then glorifyed but that flesh though glorifyed cannot make us see God better nor clearer then the soul alone hath done all the time from our death to our resurrection But as an indulgent Father or as a tender mother when they go to see the King in any Solemnity or any other thing of observation and curiosity delights to carry their child which is flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone with them and though the child cannot comprehend it as well as they they are as glad that the child sees it as that they see it themselves such a gladnesse shall my soul have that this flesh which she will no longer call her prison nor her tempter but her friend her companion her wife that this flesh that is I in in the re-union and redintegration of both parts shall see God for then one principall clause in her rejoycing and acclamation shall be that this flesh is her flesh In carne meâ in my flesh I shall see God It was the flesh of every wanton object here that would allure it in the petulancy of mine eye It was the flesh of every Satyricall Libeller and defamer and calumniator of other men that would call upon it and tickle mine ear with aspersions and slanders of persons in authority And in the grave it is the flesh of the worm the possession is transfer'd to him But in heaven it is Caro mea My flesh my souls flesh my Saviours flesh As my meat is assimilated to my flesh and made one flesh with it as my soul is assimilated to my God and made partaker of the divine nature and Idem Spiritus the same Spirit with it so there my flesh shall be assimilated to the flesh of my Saviour and made the same flesh with him too Verbum caro factum ut caro resurgeret Therefore the Word was made flesh therefore God was made man that that union might exalt the flesh of man to the right hand of God That 's spoken of the flesh of Christ and then to facilitate the passage for us Reformat ad immortalitatem suam participes sui those who are worthy receivers of his flesh here are the same flesh with him And God shall quicken your mortall bodies by his Spirit is that dwelleth in you But this is not in consummation in full accomplishment till this resurrection when it shall be Caro mea my flesh so as that nothing can draw it from the allegiance of my God and Caro mea My flesh so as that nothing can devest me of it Here a bullet will aske a man where 's your arme and a Wolf wil ask a woman where 's your breast A sentence in the Star-chamber will aske him where 's your ear and a mouths close prison will aske him where 's your flesh A fever will aske him where 's your Red and a morphew will aske him where 's your white But when after all this when after my skinne worms shall destroy my body I shall see God I shall see him in my flesh which shall be mine as inseparably in the effect though not in the manner as the Hypostaticall union of God and man in Christ makes our nature and the God-head
have born the image of the earthly so let us beare the Image of the heavenly there from Tertullian it must necessarily be referred to the first Resurrection the Resurrection by grace in this life for says he there Non refertur ad substantiam resurrectionis sed ad prâ—â—sentis temporis disciplinam the Apostle does not speak of our glorious resurrection at last but of our religious resurrection now Portemus non portabimus Let us bear his image says the Apostle Let us now not that we shall bear it at the last day Praeceptive dictum non promissive The Apostle delivers it as a duty that we must not as a reward that wee shall bear that image And therefore in Tertulliâ—â— construction it is not onely indifferent and probable but necessary to refer this Text to the first Resurrection in this life where it will be fittest to pursue that order which we proposed at first first to consider Quid regnum what Kingdome it is that is pretended to And then Quid haeredetas what estate and term is to be had in it It is an Inheritance And lastly Quid care sanguis what flesh and blood it is that is excluded out of this Kingdome Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God First for this kingdome of God in this world let us be glad that it is a kingdome that it is so much that the government is taken out of the hands of Saints and Angels and re-united re-annexed to the Crown restoted to God to whom we may come immediately and be accepted Let us be glad that it is a kingdome so much and let us be glad that it is but a kingdome and no more not a Tyranny That we come not to a God that will damâ—e us because he will damâ—e us but a God that proposes Conditions and enables us to performe those conditions in such a measure as he will vouchsafe to accept from us A God that governs us by his word for in his word is truth and by his law for in his law is clearnesse Will you aske what this kingdome of God is What did you take it to be or what did you mean by it when even now you said with me in the Lords prayer Thy kingdome come Did you deliberately and determinately pray for the day of Judgment and for his comming in the kingdome of glory then Were you all ready for that when you said so Purae conscientiae grandis audaciae est It is a very great confidence and if it be not grounded upon a very pure conscience it must have a worse name Regnum Dei postul are judicium non timeâ—â— To call upon God for the day of Judgment upon confidence of our own righteousnesse is a shrewd distemper To say Vâ—ni Domine Iesu come Lord Iesuâ— come and take us as thou findst us is a dangerous issue But Adveniat regnum and then veniat Rex let his kingdome of grace come upon us in this life and then let himselfe come too in his good time and when his good pleasure shall be in the kingdome of Glory Sive velimus sive nolimus regnum Dei utique veniet what need we hasten him provoke him says Saint Augustine whether we will or no his kingdome his Judgment will come Nay before we called for it even his kingdome of grace was come Christ said to the Scribe Non longè Thou art not far from the kingdome of God And to the Pharisees themselves he said Intra vos the kingdome of God is among you within you But where there is a whole Hospitall of three hundred blinde men together as there is at Paris there is as much light amongst them there as amongst us here and yet all they have no light so this kingdome of God is amongst us all and yet God knows whether we see it or no. And therefore Adveniat ut manifestetâ—r Deus says S. Augustine his kingdom come that we may discerne it is come that we may see that God offers it to us and Adveniat regnum ut manefestemur Deo his kingdome come so that he may discernus in our reception of that Kingdom and our obedience to it He comes when we see him and he comes again when we receive him Quid est Regnum ejus veniat quà m ut nos bonos inveniat Then his Kingdome comes when he finds us willing to be Subjects to that Kingdome God is a King in his own right By Creation by Redemption by many titles and many undoubted claimes But Aliud est Regem esse aliud regnare It is one thing to be a King another to have Subjects in obedience A King is not the lesse a King for a Rebellion But Verè justum regnum est says that Father quando Rex vult homines habere sub se cupiunt homines esse sub â—o when the King would wish no other Subjects nor the Subjects other King then is that Kingdom come come to a durable and happy state When God hath shewed himself in calling us and wee have shewed our willingnesse to come when God shewes his desire to preserve us and we adhere onely to him when there is a Dominus regnat Latetur terra When our whole Land is in possession of peace and plenty and the whole Church in possession of the Word and Sacraments when the Land rejoyces because the Lord reigns and when there is a Dominus regnat Laetentur Insulae Because the Lord reigneth every Island doth rejoice that is every man that every man that is encompassed within a Sea of calamities in his estate with a Sea of diseases in his body with a Sea of scruples in his understanding with a Sea of transgressions in his conscience with a Sea of sinking and swallowing in the sadnesse of spirit may yet open his eyes above water and find a place in the Arke above all these a recourse to God and joy in him in the Ordinances of a well established and well governed Church this is truly Regnum Dei the Kingdome of God here God is willing to be present with us that he declares in the preservation of his Church And we are sensible of his presence and residence with us and that wee declare in our frequent recourses to him hither and in our practise of those things which we have learnt here when we are gone hence This then is the blessed state that wee pretend to in the Kingdome of God in this life Peace in the State peace in the Church peace in our Conscience In this that wee answer the motions of his blessed Spirit here in his Ordinance and endevour a conformity to him in our life and conversation In this hee is our King and wee are his Subjects and this is this Kingdome of God the Kingdome of Grace Now the title by which we make claim to this Kingdome is in our text Inheritance Who can and who
those sins upon other persons But all Israel stones thee arrows flie from every corner and thy measure is not to thank God that thou art not as the Publican as some other man but thy measure is to be pure and holy as thy father in heaven is pure and holy and to conform thy self in some measure to thy pattern Christ Jesus Against him it is noted that the Jews took up stones twice to stone him Once wheÌ„ they did it He went away and hid himself Our way to scape these arrows these tentations is to goe out of the way to abandon all occasions and conversation that may lead into tentation In the other place Christ stands to it and disputes it out with them and puts them from it by the scriptum est and that 's our safe shield since we must necessarily live in the way of tentations for coluber in via there is a snake in every path tentation in every calling still to receive all these arrowes upon the shield of faith still to oppose the scriptum est the faithfull promises of God that he will give us the issue with the tentation when we cannot avoid the tentation it self Otherwise these arrows are so many as would tire and wear out all the diligence and all the constancy of the best morall man Wee finde many mentions in the Scriptures of filling of quivers and emptying of quivers and arrows and arrows still in the plurall many arrows But in all the Bible I think we finde not this word as it signifies tentation or tribulation in the singular one arrow any where but once where David cals it The arrow that flies by day And is seen that is known by every man for for that the Fathers and Ancients runne upon that Exposition that that one arrow common to all that day-arrow visible to all is the naturall death so the Chalde paraphrase calls it there expresly Sagitta mâ—rtis The arrow of death which every man knows to belong to every man for as clearly as he sees the Sunne set he sees his death before his eyes Therefore it is such an arrow as the Prophet does not say Thou shalt not feel but Thou shalt not feare the arrow that flies by day The arrow the singular arrow that flies by day is that arrow that fals upon every man death But every where in the Scriptures but this one place they are plurall many so many as that we know not whence nor what they are Nor ever does any man receive one arrow alone any one tentation but that he receives another tentation to hide that though with another and another sin And the use of arrows in the war was not so much to kill as to rout and disorder a battail and upon that routing followed execution Every tentation every tribulation is not deadly But their multiplicity disorders us discomposes us unseâ—â—les us and so hazards us Not onely every periodicall variation of our years youth and age but every day hath a divers arrow every houre of the day a divers tentation An old man wonders then how an arrow from an eye could wound him when he was young and how love could make him doe those things which hee did then And an arrow from the tongue of inferiour people that which we make shift to call honour wounds him deeper now and ambition makes him doe as strange things now as love did then A fair day shoots arrows of visits and comedies and conversation and so wee goe abroad and a foul day shoots arrows of gaming or chambering and wantonnesse and so we stay at home Nay the same sin shoots arrows of presumption in God before it be committed and of distrust and diffidence in God after we doe not fear before and we cannot hope after And this is that misery from this plurality and multiplacity of these arrows these manifold tentations which David intends here and as often as he speaks in the same phrase of plurality vituli multi many buls canes multi many dogs and bellantes multi many warlike enemies and aquaeâ— multae many deep waters compasse me For as it is said of the spirit of wisdome that it is unicus multiplex manifoldly one plurally singular so the spirit of tentation in every soul is unicus multiplex singularly plurall rooted in some one beloved sin but derived into infinite branches of tentation And then these arrows stick in us the raine fals but that cold sweat hangs not upon us Hail beats us but it leaves no pock-holes in our skin These arrows doe not so fall about us as that they misse us nor so hit us as they rebound back without hurting us But we complain with Ieremy The sons of his quiver are entred into our reins The Roman Translation reads that filias The daughters of his quiver If it were but so daughters we might limit these arrows in the signification of tentations by the many occasions of tentation arising from that sex But the Originall hath it filios the sons of his quiver and therefore we consider these arrows in a stronger signification tribulations as well as tentations They stick in us Consider it but in one kinde diseases sicknesses They stick to us so as that we are not sure that any old diseases mentioned in Physicians books are worn out but that every year produces new of which they have no mention we are sure We can scarce expresse the number scarce sound the names of the diseases of mans body 6000 year hath scarce taught us what they are how they affect us how they shall be cur'd in us nothing on this side the Resurrection can teach us They stick to us so as that they passe by inheritance and last more generations in families then the inheritance it self does and when no land no Manor when no title no honour descends upon the heir the stone or the gout descends upon him And as though our bodies had not naturally diseases and infirmities enow we contract more inflict more and that out of necessity too in mortifications and macerations and Disciplines of this rebellious flesh I must have this body with me to heaven or else salvation it self is not perfect And yet I cannot have this body thither except as S. Paul did his I beat down this body attenuate this body by mortification Wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death I have not body enough for my body and I have too much body for my soul not body enough not bloud enough not strength enough to sustain my self in health and yet body enough to destroy my soul and frustrate the grace of God in that miserable perplexed riddling condition of man sin makes the body of man miserable and the remedy of sin mortification makes it miserable too If we enjoy the good things of this world Duriorem carcerem praeparamus wee doe but carry an other wall about our
no persecutor could ever invent a sicknesse or a way to inflict a sicknesse upon a condemned man To a galley he can send him and to the gallows and command execution that hour but to a quartane fever or to a gâ—ut hee cannot condemn him In poverty I lack but other things In banishment I lack but other men But in sicknesse I lack my self And as the greatest misery of war is when our own Country is made the seat of the war so is it of affliction when mine own Body is made the subject thereof How shall I put a just value upon Gods great blessings of Wine and Oyle and Milke and Honey when my cast is gone or of Liberty when the gout fetters my feet The King may release me and say Let him goe whither he will but God says He shall not goe till I will God hath wrapped up all misery in that condemnation Morte morietur That the sinner shall die twice But if the second death did not follow the first death were an ease and a blessing in many sicknesses And no sicknesse can be worse then that which is intended here for it is all over Non sanitas no soundnesse no health in any part This consideration arises not onely from the Physicians Rule that the best state of Mans body is but a Neutrality neither well nor ill but Nulla sanitas a state of true and exquisit health say they no man hath But not onely out of this strictnesse of Art but out of an acknowledgment of Nature we must say sanitas hujus vitae bâ—ne intelligentibus sanitas non est It is but our mistaking when we call any thing Health But why so fames naturalis morbus est Hunger is a sicknesse And that 's naturally in us all Medicamentum famis cibus potus sitis fatigationis somnus when I eate I doe but take Physique for Hunger and for thirst when I drink and so is sleep my physique for wearinesse Detrahe medicamentum interficient for beare but these Physiques and these diseases Hunger and thirst and wearinesse will kill thee And as this sickness is upon us all and so non sanitas there is no Health in none of us so it is upon us all at all times and so Non sanitas there is never any soundness in us for saemper deficimus we are Borne in a Consumption and as little as we are then we grow less from that time Vita cursus ad mortem Before we can craule we runne to meet death urgemur ownes pari passu Though some are cast forward to death by the use which others have of their ruine and so throw them through Discontents into desperate enterprises and some are drawn forward to death by false Markes which they have set up to their own Ambitions and some are spurred forward to death by sharp Diseases contracted by their own intemperance and licentiousness and some are whip'd forward to death by the Miseries and penâ—ries of this life take away all these accidentall furtherances to death this drawing and driving and spurring and whipping pari paessu urgemur omnes we bring all with us into the world that which carries us out of the world a naturall unnaturall consuming of that radicall vertue which sustaines our life Non sanitas there is no health in any so universall is sickness nor at any time in any so universall and so universall too as that not in any part of any man at any time As the King was but sick in his feet and yet it killed him It was but in his fact yet it flew up into his head it affected his head as our former translation observed it in their margin that the disease did not onely grow to a great height in the disease but to the highest parts of the body It was at first but in the feet but it was presently all over Iosiah the King was shot with an arrow at the battail of Megiddo One book that reports the story says he was carried out of the field alive dyed at Ierusalem and another that he was carried out of the field dead Deadly wounds deadly sicknesses spread themselvs all over so fast as that the holy Ghost in relating it makes it all one to tell the beginning and the end thereof If a man doe but prick a finger and binde it above that part so that the Spirits or that which they call the Balsamum of the body cannot descend by reason of that ligature to that part it will gaâ—grene And which is an argument and an evidence that mischiefes are more operative more insinuating more penetrative more diligent then Remedies against mischâ—efes are when the Spirits and Balsamum of the body cannot passe by that ligature to that wound yet the Gangrene will passe from that wound by that ligature to the body to the Heart and destroy In every part of the body death can finde a door or make a breach Mortall diseases breed in every part But when every part at once is diseased death does not bsie ge him but inhabit him In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble and the strong men shall how themselves and the grinders cease because they are few and those that look out at the windows he darkned when age of Gods making age grown by many years or age of the Devills making age grown by many sinnes hath spred an universall debility upon me that all sicknesses are in me have all lost their names as all simples have in Triacle I am sick of sicknesse and not of a Fever or any particular distemper then is the misery of this Text fallen upon me Non sanitas no health none at any time none in any part non in Carne not in my flesh not in my whole substance which is also another circumstance of exaltation in humane misery Take flesh in the largest extent and signification that may be as Moses calls God The God of the spirits of all flesh that is of the Beeing of all Creatures and take all these Creatures to be ours in that Donation Subjicite dominamini subdue and rule all Creatures yet there is no soundnesse in our flesh for all these Creatures are corrupted and become worse then they were to us by the sinne of Adam Bring flesh to a nearer signification to our own there was Caro juxta naturam and there is Caro juxta culpam That flesh which was naturall to man that which God gave man at first that had health and soundnesse in it but yet not such a degree of soundnesse as that it needed no more then it then had That had been naturally enough if that had been preserved to carry that flesh it selfe to heaven but even that flesh if it had not sinned though it had an Immortality in it self yet must have received a glorification in heaven as well though in another measure
upon thee and true that God is angry vehemently angry But Expone juststiam irae Dei deal clearly with the world and clear God and confesse it is because of thy sinne When Cain says My sin is greater then can be forgiven that word Gnavon is ambiguous it may bee sinne it may bee punishment and wee know not whether his impatience grew out of the horrour of his sinne or the weight of his punishment But here wee are directed by a word that hath no ambiguity Kata signifies sin and nothing but sinne Here the holy Ghost hath fixed thee upon a word that will not suffer thee to consider the punishment nor the cause of the punishment the anger but the cause of that anger and all the sin Wee see that the bodily sicknesse and the death of many is attributed to one kind of sinne to the negligent receiving of the Sacrament For this cause many are weak and sick amongst you and many sleep Imaginem judicii ostenderat God had given a representation of the day of Judgement in that proceeding of his for then we shall see many men condemned for sinnes for which we never suspected them so wee thinke men dye of Fevers whom we met lately at the Sacrament and God hath cut them off perhaps for that sin of their unworthy receiving the Sacrament My miseries are the fruits of this Tree Gods anger is the arms that spreads it but the root is sin My sin which is another consideration We say of a Possession Transit cum onere It passes to me with the burthen that my Father laid upon it his debt is my debt so does it with the sin too his sin by which he got that possession is my sin if I know it and perchance the punishment mine though I know not the sin Adams sin 6000 years agoe is my sin and their sin that shall sinne by occasion of any wanton writings of mine will be my sin though they come after Wofull riddle sin is but a privation and yet there is not such another positive possession sin is nothing and yet there is nothing else I sinned in the first man that ever was and but for the mercy of God in something that I have said or done might sin that is occasion sin in the last man that ever shall be But that sin that is called my sinne in this text is that that is become mine by an habituall practise or mine by a wilfull relapse into it And so my sin may kindle the anger of God though it bee but a single sinne One sinne as it is delivered here in the singular and no farther Because of my sinne Every man may find in himself Peccatum complicatum sinne wrapped up in sinne a body of sin We bring Elements of our own earth of Covetousnesse water of unsteadfastnesse ayre of putrefaction and fire of licentiousnesse and of these elements we make a body of sinne as the Apostle says of the Naturall body There are many members but one body so we may say of our sin it hath a wanton eye a griping hand an itching ear an insatiable heart and feet swift to shed blood and yet it is but one body of sin It is all â—and yet it is but One But let it be simply and singularly but One which is a miracle in sin truly I think an impossibility in sin to be single to be but One for that unclean Spirit which possessed the man that dwelt amongst the tombs carryed it at first as though he had been a single Devill and he alone in that man I I adjure thee says he to Christ and torment not me not me so far in the singular but when Christ puts him to it he confesses we are many and my name is legion So though thy sinne slightly examined may seem but One yet if thou dare presse it it will confesse a plurality a legion if it be but One yet if that One be made thine by an habituall love to it as the plague needs not the help of a Consumption to kill thee so neither does Adultery need the help of Murder to damn thee For this making of any One sin thine thine by an habituall love thereof will grow up to the last and heaviest waight intimated in that phrase which is also in this clause of the Text In facie paccati that this sin will have a face that is a confidence and a devesting of all 〈◊〉 or disguises There cannot bee a heavier punishment laid upon any sinne then Christ lays upon scandall It were better for him a mil-stone were hanged about his neck and hee drowned in the Sea If something worse then such a death belong to him surely it is eternall Death And this this eternall death is interminated by Christ in cases where there is not always sinne in the action which wee doe but if we doe any action so as that it may scandalize another or occasion sin in him we are bound to study and favour the weaknesse of other men and not to doe such things as they may think sins We must prevent the mis-interpretation yea the malice of other men for though the fire be theirs the fewell or at least the â—ellows is ours The uncharitablenesse the malice is in them but the awaking and the stirring thereof is in our carelesnesse who were not watchfull upon our actions But when an action comes to be sin indeed and not onely occasionally sin because it scandalizes another but really sin in it selfe then even the Poet tels you Maxima debetur pueris reverentia si quid Tâ—rpe paras Take heed of doing any sinne in the sight of thy Child for if we break through that wall we shall come quickly to that faciâ—m Sacerdotis non erubuerunt they will not be afraid nor ashamed in the presence of the Priest they will look him in the face nay receive at his hands and yet sin their sinne that minute in their hearts and to that also faciem seniorum non erubuerunt they will not be afraid nor ashamed of the Office of the Magistrate but sin for nothing or sin at a price bear out or buy out all their sins They sin as Sodom and bide it not is the highest charge that the Holy Ghost could lay upon the sinner When they come to say Our lips are ours who is Lord ever us They will say so of their hands and of all their bodies They are ours who shall forbid us to doe what wee will with them And what lack these open sinners of the last judgement and the condemnation therof That judgement is that men shall stand naked in the sight of one another and all their sinnes shall be made manifest to all and this open sinner does so and chuses to doe so even in this world When David prays so devoutly to be cleansed from his secret sins and Saint Paul glories so devoutly in having renounced the
to morrow He that forgets what he hath done foresees not what he shall suffer so sin is a burden it crookens us it wearies us And those are the two first inconveniences And then a third is Retardat Though a man can stand under a burden that he doe not sink but be able to make some steps yet his burden slackens his pace and he goes not so fast as without that burden he could have gone So it is an habituall sinnes though we doe not sinke into desperation and stupefaction though we doe come to the participation of outward means and have some sense some feeling thereof yet as long as any one beloved and habituall sin hangs upon us it slackens our pace in all the ways of godlinesse And we come not to such an appropriation of the promises of the Gospel in hearing Sermons nor to such a re-incarnation and invisceration of Christ and his merits into our selves in the Sacrament as if wee were altogether devested of that sin and not onely at that time we should doe Quis ascendes says David who shall ascend unto the hill of the Lord It is a painfull clambring up a hill And Saint August makes use of the answer Innocens manibus He that hath clean hands first he must have hands as well as feet He must doe something for himself And then Innocent hands such as doe no harme to others such as hold and carry no hurtfull thing to himself Either he must have the first Innocence Abstinence from ill getting or the second Innocence Restitution of that which was ill gotten or he shall never get up that hill for it is a steep hill and there is no walking up but he must crawle hand and foot Therefore says the Apostle Deponamus pondus Let us lay aside every weight He does not say sin in generall but every weight every circumstance that may aggravate our sin every conversation that may occasion our sin And as hee addes particularly and emphatically The sin that does so easily beset us Easily because customarily habitually And then says that Apostle in that place Let us run when we have laid down the sin that does so easily beset us our beloved and habituall sinne and laid down every weight every circumstance that aggravates that sin then we may be able to run to proceed with a holy chearfulnesse and proficiency in the wayes of sanctification but till that we cannot how due observers soever we be of all outward means for sin is a burden in perverting us in tyring us in retarding us And last of all it is a burden quaetenus praecipitat as it gives him ever new occasion of stumbling He that hath not been accustomed to a sin but exercised in resisting it will finde many tentations but as a wash way that he can trot thorough and goe forward religiously in his Calling for all them for though there be coluber in via A snake in every way tentations in every calling yet In Christo omnia possumus In Christ we can doe all things and therefore in him we can bruise the Serpents head and spurn a tentation out of his way But he that hath been long under the custome of a sin evermore meets with stones to stumble at and bogges to plunge in It is S. Chrysâ—stomes application He that hath had fever though he have cast it off yet he walks weakly and he hath an inclination to the beds side or to a chaire at every turn that he makes about his chamber So hath he to relapses that hath been under the custome of an habituall sin though he have discontinued the practise of that sin And these be the inconveniences the mischiefs represented to us in this metaphore A burden Mine iniquities are as a burden too heavy for me Because they sink me down from the Creator to the creature Because they tire and weary me and yet I must bear them Because when they doe not absolutely tire me yet they slacken my pace and because though I could lay off that burden leave off that sin for the present practise yet the former habit hath so weakned me that I always apt to stumble and fall into relapses Thus have you the mischievous inconveniences of habituall sin laid open to you in these two elegancies of the holy Ghost supergressae Mine iniquities are gone over my head and the gravatae As a burden they are too heavy for me But as a good Emperour received that commendation that no man went ever out of his presence discontented so our gracious God never admits us to his presence in this his Ordinance but with a purpose to dismisse us in heart and in comfort for his Almoner he that distributeth his mercies to Congregations is the God of comfort of all comfort the holy Ghost himself Nay they whom he admits to his presence here goe not out of his presence when they goe from hence He is with them whilst they stay here and hee goes home with them when they goe home Princes out of their Royall care call Parliaments and graciously deliver themselves over to that Representative Body God out of his Fatherly love calls Congregations and does not onely deliver himself over in his ordinance to that Representative Body the whole Church there but when every man is become a private man again when the Congregation is dissolv'd and every man restored to his own house God in his Spirit is within the doores within the bosomes of every man that receiv'd him here Therefore we have reserved for the conclusion of all the application of this Text to our blessed Saviour for so our most ancient Expositors direct our meditations first historically and literally upon David and that we did at first Then morally and by just application to our selves and that we have most particularly insisted upon And lastly upon our Saviour Christ Iesus himself and that remains for our conclusion and consolation for even from him groaning under our burden we may hear these words Mine iniquities are gone over my head and c. First then that that lay upon Christ was sin properly sin Nothing could estrange God from man but sin and even from this Son of man though he were the Son of God too was God far estranged therefore God saw sin in him Non novit peccatum He knew no sin not by any experimentall knowledge not by any perpetration for Non fecit peccatum He did no sin be committed no sin What though we have sin upon us sin to condemnation Originall sin before we know sin before we have committed any sinne They esteemed him stricken and smitten of God and they mistook not in that He was stricken and smitten of God It pleased the Lord to bruile him and to put him to grief And the Lord proceeds not thus where he sees no sin Therefore the Apostle carries it to a very high expression God made him to be sin for
me my sinnes the sinnes of my youth and my present sinnes the sinne that my Parents cast upon me Originall sinne and the sinnes that I cast upon my children in an ill example Actuall sinnes sinnes which are manifest to all the world and sinnes which I have so laboured to hide from the world as that now they are hid from mine own conscience and mine own memory Forgive me my crying sins and my whispering sins sins of uncharitable hate and sinnes of unchaste love sinnes against Thee and Thee against thy Power O Almighty Father against thy Wisedome O glorious Sonne against thy Goodnesse O blessed Spirit of God and sinnes against Him and Him against Superiours and Equals and Inferiours and sinnes against Me and Me against mine own soul and against my body which I have loved better then my soul Forgive me O Lord O Lord in the merits of thy Christ and my Iesus thine Anointed and my Saviour Forgive me my sinnes all my sinnes and I will put Christ to no more cost nor thee to more trouble for any reprobation or malediction that lay upon me otherwise then as a sinner I ask but an application not an extention of that Benediction Blessed are they whose sinnes are forgiven Let me be but so blessed and I shall envy no mans Blessednesse say thou to my sad soul Sonne be of good comfort thy sinnes are forgiven thee and I shall never trouble thee with Petitions to take any other Bill off of the fyle or to reverse any other Decree by which I should be accurst before I was created or condemned by thee before thou saw'st me as a sinner For the object of malediction is but a sinner which was our first and an Inveterate sinner A sinner of a hundred yeares which is our next consideration First Quia centum annorum because he is so old so old in sinne He shall be accur sed And then Quamvis centum annorum though he be so old though God have spared him so long he shall be accursed God is not a Lion in his house nor frantick amongst his servants saith the Wiseman God doth not rore nor tear in pieces for every thing that displeaseth him But when God is prest under us as a cart is prest that is full of sheaves the Lord will grone under that burthen a while but he will cast it off at last That which is said by David is if it be well observed spoken of God himself Cum perverso pervertêris from our frowardnesse God will learn to be froward But he is not so of his own nature If you walk contrary unto me I will walk contrary unto you saith God But this is not said of one first wry step but it is a walking which implies a long and a considerate continuance And if man come to sinne so and will not walk with God God will walk with that man in his own pace and overthrow him in his own wayes Nay it is not onely in that place If you walk contrary to me In occursu as Calvin hath it ex adverso as the vulgate hath it which implies an Actuall Opposition against the wayes of God but the word is but Chevi and Chevi is but In accidente in contingente if you walk negligently inconsiderately if you leave out God pretermit and slight God if you come to call Gods Providence Fortune to call Gods Judgements Accidents or to call the Mercies of a God favours of great Persons if you walk in this neglect of God God shall proceed to a neglect of you and then though God be never the worse for your leaving him out for if it were in your power to annihilate this whole world God were no worse then before there was a World yet if God neglect you forget pretermit you it is a miserable annihilation a fearfull malediction But God begins not before sinne nor at the first sinne God did not curse Adam and Eve for their sinne it was there first and God foresaw they would not be sinners of a hundred yeares But him that was in the Serpent that inveterate sinner him who had sinned in Gods Court in Heaven before and being banished from thence fell into this transmarine treason in another land to seduce Gods other Subjects there him God accurs'd Who amongst us can say that he had a Fever upon his first excesse or a Consumption upon his first wantonnesse or a Commission put upon him for his first Briberie Till he be a sinner of a hundred yeares till he have brought age upon himself by his sinne before the time and thereby be a hundred yeares old at fourtie and so a sinner of a hundred yeares till he have a desire that he might and a hope that he shall be able to sinne to a hundred yeares and so be a sinner of a hundred yeares Till he sinne hungerly and thirstily and ambitiously and swiftly and commit the sinnes of a hundred yeares in ten and so be a sinner of a hundred yeares till he infect and poyson that age and spoile that time that he lives in by his exemplary sinnes till he be Pestis secularis the plague of that age peccator secularis the proverbiall sinner of that age and so be a sinner of a hundred yeares till in his actions he have been or in his desires be or in the fore-knowledge of God would be a sinner of a hundred yeares an inveterate an incorrigible an everlasting sinner God comes not to curse him But then Quamvis centum annorum though he have lived a hundred yeares though God have multiplied upon him Evidences and Seals and Witnesses and Possessions and Continuances and prescriptions of his favour all this hath not so riveted God to that man as that God must not depart from him God was crucified for him but will not be crucified to him still to hang upon this Crosse this perversnesse of this habituall sinner and never save himself and come down never deliver his own Honour by delivering that sinner to malediction It is true that we can have no better Title to Gods future Blessings then his Blessings formerly exhibited to us God former blessings are but his marks set up there that he may know that place and that man the better against another time when he shall be pleased to come thither again with a supply of more Blessings God gives not Blessings as payments but as obligations and becomes a debtor by giving If I can produce that Remember thy mercies of old I need ask no new for even that is a Specialty by which God hath bound himself to me for more But yet not so if I abuse his former Blessings and make them occasions of sinne How often would I have gathered you as a hen gathers her chickens saith Christ I know not how often surely very often for many hundreds of yeares But yet how often soever God left them open to the Eagle the Romane Eagle at last God gives
Halfe-pelagianisme to thinke grace once received to be sufficient Super-pelagianisme to thinke our actions can bring God in debt to us by merit and supererogation and Catarisme imaginary purity in Canonizing our selves as present Saints and condemning all that differ from us as reprobates All these are white spots and have the colour of goodnesse but are indications of leprosie So is that that God threatens Decorticatio ficus albi rami that the figtree shall be bark'd and the boughes thereof left white to be left white without barke was an indication of a speedy withering Ostensa candescunt arescunt says Saint Gregory of that place the bough that lies open without barke looks white but perishes the good works that are done openly to please men have their reward says Christ that is shall never have reward To pretend to doe good and not meane it To doe things good in themselves but not to good ends to goe towards good ends but not by good ways to make the deceiving of men thine end or the praise of men thine end all this may have a whiteness a colour of good but all this is a barking of the bough and an indication of a mischievous leprosie There is no good whiteness but a reflection from Christ Jesus in an humble acknowledgement that wee have none of our own and in a consident assurance that in our worst estate we may be made partakers of his We are all red earth In Adam we would not since Adam we could not avoid sinne and the Concomitants thereof miseries which we have called our West our cloud our darknesse But then we have a North that scatters these clouds in the next word Ad imaginem that we are made to another patterne in another likenesse then our own Faciamus hominem so far are we gone East and West which is halfe our Compasse and all this days voiage For we are strooke upon the sand and must stay another Tyde and another gale for our North and South SERMON XXIX Preached to the King at the Court. The second Sermon on GEN. 1. 26. And God said Let us make man in our Image after our likenesse BY fair occasion from these words we proposed to you the whole Compasse of mans voyage from his lanching forth in this world to his Anchoring in the next from his hoysing sayle here to his striking sayle there In which Compasse we designed to you his foure quarters first his East where he must beginne the fundamentall knowledge of the Trinity for that we found to be the specification and distinctive Character of a Christian where though that be so we shewed you also why we were not called Trinitarians but Christians and we shewed you the advantage that man hath in laying hold upon God in these severall notions that the Prodigall sonne hath an indulgent Father that the decayed Father hath an abundant Sonne that the dejected spirit hath a Spirit of comfort to fly to in heaven And as we shewed you from Saint Paul that it was an Atheisme to be no Christian without God says he as long as without Christ so we lamented the slacknesse of Christians that they did not seriously and particularly consider the persons of the Trinity and especially the holy Ghost in their particular actions And then we came to that consideration whether this doctrine were established or directly insinuated in this plurall word of our text Faciamus Let us us make man and we found that doctrine to be here and here first of any place in the Bible And finding God to speake in the plurall we accepted for a time that interpretation which some had made thereof that God spake in the Person of a Soveraigne Prince and therefore as they do in the plurall We. And thereby having established reverence to Princes we claim'd in Gods behalfe the same reverence to him That men would demeane themselves here when God is spoken to in prayer as reverently as when they speake to the King But after this we found God to speake here not onely as our King but as our maker as God himselfe and God in Counsell Faciamus and we applied thereunto the difference of our respect to a Person of that honorable rank when we came before him at the Counsell Table and when we came to him at his own Table and thereby advanced the seriousnesse of this consideration God in the Trinity And farther we failed not with that our Eastern winde Our West we considered in the next word Hominem that though we were made by the whole Trinity yet the whole Trinity made us but men and men in this name of our text Adam and Adam is but earth and that 's our West our declination our Sunset We passed over the foure names by which man is ordinarily expressed in the Scriptures and we found necessary misery in three of them and possible nay likely misery in the fourth in the best name We insisted upon the name of our text Adam earth and had some use of these notes First that if I were but earth God was pleased to be the Potter If I but a sheep he a shepheard If I but a cottage he a builder So he worke upon me let me be what he will We noted that God made us earth not ayre not fire That man hath bodily and worldly duties to performe and is not all Spirit in this life Devotion is his soule but he hath a body of discretion and usefulnesse to invest in some calling We noted too that in being earth we are equall We tryed that equality first in the root in Adam There if any man will be nobler earth then I he must have more originall sinne then I for that was all Adams patrimony all that he could give And we tryed this equality in another furnace in the grave where there is no meanes to distinguish Royall from Plebeian nor Catholique from Hereticall dust And lastly we noted that this our earth was red earth and considered in what respect it was red even in Gods hands but found that in the bloud-rednesse of sinne God had no hand but sinne and destruction for sinne was wholly from our selves which consideration we ended with this that there was Macula alba a white spot of leprosie as well as a red and we found the over-valuation of our own purity and the uncharitable condemnation of all that differ from us to be that white spot And so far we sayled with that Western winde And are come to our third point in this our Compasse our North. In this point the North we place our first comfort The North is not always the comfortablest clime nor is the North always a type of happines in the Scriptures Many times God threatens stormes from the North. But even in those Northern stormes we consider that action that they scatter they dissipate those clouds which were gathered and so induce a serenity And so fair weather comes from the North. And
expounded dilated by Orators The Father of Orators testifies Nihil tam perspicuum there is nothing so evident as that there is a soveraigne power that made and governes all Dost thou love learning as it is contracted brought to a quintessence wrought to a spirit by Philosophers the eldest of all them in that whole book Quod Deus latens simul patens est testifies all that and nothing but that that as there is nothing so dark so there is nothing so cleare nothing so remote nothing so neare us as God Dost thou love learning as it is sweetned and set to musique by Poets the King of the Poets testifies the same Mens agitat molem magno se corpore miscet that is a great an universall spirit that moves a generall soule that inanimates and agitates every peece of this world But Saint Paul is a more powerfull Orator then Cicero and he says The invisible things of God are seen by things which are made and thereby man is made inexcuseable Moses is an ancienter Philosopher then Trismegistus and his picture of God is the Creation of the world David is a better Poet then Virgil and with David Coeli enarrant the heavens declare the glory of God The power of oratory in the force of peâ—swasion the strength of conclusions in the pressing of Philosophy the harmony of Poetry in the sweetnesse of composition never met in any man so fully as in the Prophet Esay nor in the Prophet Esay more then where he says Levate Oculos Lift up your eyes on high and behold who hath created these things behold them therefore to know that they are created and to know who is their creator All other authors we distinguish by tomes by parts by volumes but who knowes the volumes of this Author how many volumes of Spheares involve one another how many tomes of Gods Creatures there are Hast thou not room hast thou not money hast thou not understanding hast thou not leasure for great volumes for the bookes of heaven for the Mathematiques nor for the books of Courts the Politiques take but the Georgiques the consideration of the Earth a farme a garden nay seven foot of earth a grave and that will be book enough Goel lower every worme in the grave lower every weed upon the grave is an abridgement of all nay lock up all doores and windowes see nothing but thy selfe nay let thy selfe be locked up in a close prison that thou canst not see thy selfe and doe but feel thy pulse let thy pulse be intermitted or stupefied that thou feel not that doe but thinke and a worme a weed thy selfe thy pulse thy thought are all testimonies that All this All and all the parts thereof are opus a work made and opus ejus his work made by God He that made a Clock or an Organ will be sure to ingrave his Me fecit such a man made me he that builds a faire house takes it ill if a passenger will not aske whose house is it he that bred up his Sonne to a capacity of noble employments looks that the world should say he had a wise and an honourable Father Can any man look upon the frame of this world and not say there is a powerfull upon the administration of this world and not say there is a wise and a just hand over it Thus is the object 't is but Illud the world but such a world as may well justifie Saint Hieromes translation who renders it Illum not onely that every man may see it the work the world but may see him God in that work That 's the object not onely the work but the workman God in the work and the meanes is that man may see it that is by that spectacle he may see God what of God how much of God Is it his essence For that the resolution of the School is sufficient Nulla visio naturalis in terris no man can see God in this world and live but no man can see God in the next world and dye there visio is beatitudo sight is salvation Yet Nulla visio corporalis in Coelis These bodily eyes even then when they are glorified shall not see the Essence of God our mortal eyes do not see bodies here they see no substance they see onely quantities and dimensions our glorified bodily eyes shall see the glory shed out of God but the very essence of God those glorified bodily eyes shall not see but the eyes of our soul shall be so enlightned as that they shal see God Sicuti est even in his essence which the best illumined most sanctified men are very far from in this life Now the sight of God in this text is the knowledge of God to see God is but to know that there is a God And can man as a naturall man doe that See God so as to know that there is a God Can hee doe it Nay can he chuse but doe it The question hath divided the School those two great and well known families of the School whom we call Thomists and Scotists the first say that this proposition Deus est is per se nota evident in it selfe and the others deny that But yet they differ but thus far that Thomas thinks that it is so evident that man cannot chuse but know it though he resist it The other thinks in it selfe it is but so evident as that a man may know it if he imploy his naturall faculties without going any farther thus much indeed thus little they differ Now the holy Ghost is the God of Peace and doth so far reconcile these two in this text as that first in our reading it is That man may see God and that Scotus does not deny but in the Originall in the Hebrew it is Casu and Casu is viderunt not every man may but every man hath seen God Though it goe not absolutely so far as Thomas every man must no man can chuse but see God yet it goes so far further then Scotus who ends in every man may as that it says every man hath seen God So that our labour never lies in this to prove to any man that he may see God but onely to remember him that he hath seen God not to make him beleeve that there is a God but to make him see that he does beleeve it Quid habes quod non accepisti And hast thou received any thing and not seen not known him that gave it Who hath infused comfort into thee into thy distresses Thine own Morall constancy Who infused that Who hath imprinted terrors in thee A dampe in thine owne heart Who imprinted it Sweare to me now that thou beleevest not in God and before midnight thou wilt tell God that thou dost Miserable distemper not to see God in the light and see him in the darke not to see him at noon and see him fearfully at
Evangelists that that voice added Hear him for after that Declaration that he who was visibly and personally come amongst them was the Sonne of God there was no reason to doubt of mens willingnesse to hear him who went forth in person to preach unto them in this world As long as he was to stay with them it was not likely that they should need provocation to hear him therefore that was not added at his Baptisme and entrance into his personall ministery But when Christ came to his Transfiguration which was a manifestation of his glory in the next world and an intimation of the approaching of the time of his going away to the possession of that glory out of this world there that voyce from heaven sayes This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased heare him When he was gone out of this world men needed a more particular solicitation to heare him for how and where and in whom should they heare him when he was gone In the Church for the same testimony that God gave of Christ to authorize and justifie his preaching hath Christ given of the Church to justifie her power The holy Ghost fell upon Christ at his Baptism and the holy Ghost fell upon the Apostles who were the representative Church at Whitsontide The holy Ghost tarried upon Christ then and the holy Ghost shall tarry with the Church usque ad consummationem till the end of the world And therefore as we have that institution from Christ Dic Ecclesiae when men are refractary and perverse to complaine to the Church so have they who are complained of to the Church that institution from Christ also Audi Ecclesiam Hearken to the voyce of God in the Church and they have from him that commination If you disobey them you disobey God in what fetters soever they binde you you shall rise bound in those fetters and as he who is excommunicated in one Diocese should not be received in another so let no man presume of a better state in the Triumphant Church then he holds in the Militant or hope for communion there that despises excommunication here That which the Scripture says God sayes says St. Augustine for the Scripture is his word and that which the Church says the Scriptures say for she is their word they speak in her they authorize her and she explicates them The Spirit of God inanimates the Scriptures and makes them his Scriptures the Church actuates the Scriptures and makes them our Scriptures Nihil salubrius says the same Father There is not so wholsome a thing no soule can live in so good an aire and in so good a diet Quà m ut Rationem praecedat authoritas Then still to submit a mans owne particular reason to the authority of the Church expressed in the Scriptures For certainly it is very truly as it is very usefully said by Calvin Semper nimia morositas est ambitiosa A frowardnesse and an aptnesse to quarrell at the proceedings of the Church and to be delivered from the obligations and constitutions of the Church is ever accompanied with an ambitious pride that they might enjoy a licentious liberty It is not because the Church doth truly take too much power but because they would be under none it is an ambition to have all government in their own hands and to be absolute Emperors of themselves that makes them refractary But if they will pretend to believe in God they must believe in God so as God hath manifested himself to them they must believe in Christ so if they will pretend to heare Christ they must heare him there where he hath promised to speake they must heare him in the Church The first reason then in this Trinity the person that directs is the Church the Trumpet in which God sounds his Iudgements and the Organ in which he delivers his mercy And then the persons of the second place the persons to whom the Church speakes here are Filiae Sion The daughters of Sion her owne daughters We are not called Filii Ecclesiae sonnes of the Church The name of sonnes may imply more virility more manhood more sense of our owne strength then becomes them who professe an obedience to the Church Therefore as by a name importing more facility more supplenesse more application more tractablenesse she calls her children Daughters But then being a mother and having the dignity of a Parent upon her she does not proceed supplicatorily she does not pray them nor intreat them she does not say I would you would go forth and I would you would looke out but it is Egredimini videte imperatively authoritatively Do it you must do it So that she showes what in important and necessary cases the power of the Church is though her ordinary proceedings by us and our Ministery be To pray you in Christs stead to be reconciled to God In your baptisme your soules became daughters of the Church and they must continue so as long as they continue in you you cannot devest your allegiance to the Church though you would no more then you can to the State to whom you cannot say ◠will be no subject A father may dis-inherit his son upon reasons but even that dis-inherited childe cannot renounce his father That Church which conceived thee in the Covenant of God made to Christians and their seed and brought thee forth in baptisme and brought thee up in catechizing and preaching may yet for thy misdemeanor to God in her separate thee à Mensa Toro from bed and board from that sanctuary of the soule the Communion Table and from that Sanctuary of the body Christian buriall and even that Christian buriall gives a man a good rise a good helpe a good advantage even at the last resurrection to be laid down in expectation of the Resurrection in holy ground and in a place accustomed to Gods presence and to have been found worthy of that Communion of Saints in the very body is some earnest and some kinde of first-fruits of the joyfull resurrection which we attend God can call our dead bodies from the sea and from the fire and from the ayre for every element is his but consecrated ground is our element And therefore you daughters of Sion holy and religious souls for to them onely this indulgent mother speaks here hearken ever to her voice quarrell not your mothers honor nor her discretion Despise not her person nor her apparell Doe not say she is not the same woman she was heretofore nor that she is not so well dressed as she was then Dispute not her Doctrine Despise not her Discipline that as you sucked her breasts in your Baptism in the other Sacrament when you entred and whilst you stayd in this life so you may lie in her bosome when you goe out of it Hear her a good part of that which you are to hear from her is envolv'd inwrapped in that w ch we have propos'd
too much for so I may presume Of Schoolmen some affirm Prayer to be an act of our will for we would have that which we aske Others of our understanding for by it we ascend to God and better our knowledge which is the proper aliment and food of our understanding so that is a perplexed case But all agree that it is an act of our Reason and therefore must be reasonable For onely reasonable things can pray for the beasts and Ravens Psalme 147. 9. are not said to pray for food but to cry Two things are required to make a Prayer 1. Pius affectus which was not in the Devills request Matth. 8. 31. Let us goe into the Swine nor Job 1. 2. Stretch out thy hand and touch all he hath and stretch out thy hand and touch his bones and therefore these were not Prayers And it must be Rerum decentium for our government in that point this may inform us Things absolutely good as Remission of sinnes we may absolutely beg and to escape things absolutely ill as sinne But mean and indifferent things qualified by the circumstances we must aske conditionally and referringly to the givers will For 2 Cor. 8. when Paul begged stimulum Carnis to be taken from him it was not granted but he had this answer My grace is sufficient for thee Let us now not in curiosity but for instruction consider the reason They know not what they doe First if Ignorance excuse And then if they were ignorant Hast thou O God filled all thy Scriptures both of thy Recorders and Notaries which have penned the History of thy love to thy People and of thy Secretaries the Prophets admitted to the foreknowledge of thy purposes and instructed in thy Cabinet hast thou filled these with prayses and perswasions of wisedome and knowledge and must these persecutors be pardoned for their ignorance Hast thou bid Esay to say 27. 11. It is a people of no understanding therefore he that made them shall not have compassion of them And Hosea 4. 6. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge and now dost thou say Forgive them because they know not Shall ignorance which is often the cause of sinne often a sinne it self often the punishment of sinne and ever an infirmity and disease contracted by the first great sinne advantage them Who can understand his faults saith the man according to thy heart Psalme 19. 12. Lord cleanse me from my secret faults He durst not make his ignorance the reason of his prayer but prayed against ignorance But thy Mercy is as the Sea both before it was the Sea for it overspreads the whole world and since it was called into limits for it is not the lesse infinite for that And as by the Sea the most remote and distant Nations enjoy one another by traffique and commerce East and West becoming neighbours so by mercy the most different things are united and reconciled Sinners have Heaven Traytors are in the Princes bosome and ignorant persons are in the spring of wisdome being forgiven not onely though they be ignorant but because they are ignorant But all ignorance is not excusable nor any lesse excusable then not to know what ignorance is not to be excused Therefore there is an ignorance which they call Nescientiam a not knowing of things not appertaining to us This we had had though Adam had stood and the Angels have it for they know not the latter day and therefore for this we are not chargeable They call the other privation which if it proceed meerly from our owne sluggishnesse in not searching the meanes made for our instruction is ever inexcusable If from God who for his owne just ends hath cast clouds over those lights which should guide us it is often excusable For 1 Tim. 1. 13. Paul saith I was ablasphemer and a persecutor and an oppressor but I was received to mercy for I did it ignorantly through unbelief So though we are all bound to believe and therefore faults done by unbeliefe cannot escape the name and nature of sinne yet since beliefe is the immediate gift of God faults done by unbeliefe without malicious concurrences and circumstances obtaine mercy and pardon from that abundant fountaine of grace Christ Jesus And therefore it was a just reason Forgive them for they know not If they knew not which is evident both by this speech from truth it self and by 2 Cor. 2. 8. Had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory and Acts 3. 17. I know that through ignorance ye did it And though after so many powerfull miracles this ignorance were vincible God having revealed enough to convert them yet there seemes to be enough on their parts to make it a perplexed case and to excuse though not a malitious persecuting yet a not consenting to his Doctrine For they had a Law Whosoever shall make himself the sonne of God let him dye And they spoke out of their Lawes when they said We have no other King but Caesar. There were therefore some among them reasonably and zealously ignorant And for those the Sonne ever-welcome and well-heard begged of his Father ever accessible and exorable a pardon ever ready and naturall We have now passed through all those roomes which we unlockt and opened at first And now may that point Why this prayer is remembred onely by one Evangelist and why by Luke be modestly inquired For we are all admitted and welcommed into the acquaintance of the Scriptures upon such conditions as travellers are into other Countries if we come as praisers and admirres of their Commodities and Government not as spies into the mysteries of their State nor searchers nor calumniators of their weaknesses For though the Scriptures like a strong rectified State be not endangered by such a curious malice of any yet he which brings that deserves no admittance When those great Commissioners which are called the Septuagint sent from Hierusalem to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into Greeke had perfected their work it was and is an argument of Divine assistance that writing severally they differed not The same may prove even to weake and faithlesse men that the holy Ghost super-intended the foure Evangelists because they differ not as they which have written their harmonies make it evident But to us faith teacheth the other way And we conclude not because they agree the holy Ghost directed for heathen Writers and Malefactors in examinations do so but because the holy Ghost directed we know they agree and differ not For as an honest man ever of the same thoughts differs not from himself though he do not ever say the same things if he say not contraries so the foure Evangelists observe the uniformity and samenesse of their guide though all did not say all the same things since none contradicts any And as when my soule which enables all my limbs to their functions disposes my legs to go my whole body is truly said to
in their beginning and then done in season the Dove must lay the egge and hatch the bird the holy Ghost must infuse the purpose and sit upon it and overshadow it and mature and ripen it if it shall be precious in Gods eye The reformation of abuses in State or Church is a holy purpose there is that drop of the dew of heaven in it but if it be unseasonably attempted and have not a farther concoction then the first motions of our owne zeale it becomes ineffectuall Stones precious in the estimation of men begin with the dew of Heaven and proceed with the sunne of Heaven Actions precious in the acceptation of God are purposes conceived by his Spirit and executed in his time to his Glory not conceived out of Ambition nor executed out of sedition And this is the application of this Lux depuratarum mixtionum of precious stones out of their making we proposed another out of their valuation which is this That whereas a Pearle or Diamond of such a bignesse of so many Carats is so much worth one that is twice as big is ten times as much worth So though God vouchsafe to value every good work thou dost yet as they grow greater he shall multiply his estimation of them infinitely When he hath prized at a high rate the chastitie and continency of thy youth if thou adde to this a moderation in thy middle age from Ambition and in thy latter age from covetousnesse and indevotion there shall be no price in Gods treasure not the last drop of the blood of his Sonne too deare for thee no roome no state in his Kingdome not a Iointenancie with his onely Sonne too glorious for thee This is one light in this Couple The lustre of precious stones the other the last is Lux Repercussionum The light of Repercussion of Reflexion This is when Gods light cast upon us reflecteth upon other men too from us when God doth not onely accept our works for our selves but imployes those works of ours upon other men And here is a true and a Divine Supererogation which the Devill as he doth all Gods Actions which fall into his compasse did mischievously counterfeit in the Romane Church when he induced their Doctrine of Supererogation that a man might do so much more then he was bound to do for God as that that superplusage might save whom he would and that if he did not direct them in his intention upon any particular person the Bishop of Rome was generall Administrator to all men and might bestow them where he would But here is a true supererogation not from Man or his Merit but from God when our good works shall not onely profit us that do them but others that see them done and when we by this light of Repercussion of Reflexion shall be made specula divinae gloriae quae accipiunt reddunt such looking glasses as receive Gods face upon our selves and cast it upon others by a holy life and exemplary conversation To end all we have no warmth in our selves it is true but Christ came even in the winter we have no light in our selves it is true but he came even in the night And now I appeall to your own Consciences and I aske you all not as a Iudge but as an Assistant to your Consciences and Amicus Curiae whether any man have made a good use of this light as he might have done Is there any man that in the compassing of his sinne hath not met this light by the way Thou shouldest not do this Any man that hath not onely as Balaam did met this light as an Angell that is met Heavenly inspirations to avert him but that hath not heard as Balaam did his own Asse that is those reasons that use to carry him or those very worldly respects that use to carry him dispute against that sinne and tell him not onely that there is more soule and more heaven and more salvation but more body and more health more honour and more reputation more cost and more money more labour and more danger spent upon such a sinne then would have carried him the right way They that sleep sleep in the night and they that are drunke are drunke in the night But to you the Day starre the Sunne of Righteousnesse the Sonne of God is risen this day The day is but a little longer now then at shortest but a little it is Be a little better now then when you came and mend a little at every coming and in lesse then seaven yeares appâ—entissage which your occupations cost you you shall learn not the Mysteries of your twelve companies but the Mysteries of the twelve Tribes of the twelve Apostles of their twelve Articles whatsoever belongeth to the promise to the performance to the Imitation of Christ Jesus He who is Luâ— una light and light alone and Lux tota light and all light shall also by that light which he sheddeth from himselfe upon all his the light of Grace give you all these Attestations all these witnesses of that his light he shall give you Lucem essentiae really and essentially to be incorporated into him to be made partakers of the Divine Nature and the same Spirit with the Lord by a Conversation in Heaven here and lucem gloriae a gladnesse to give him glory in a donudation of your souls and your sinnes by humble confession to him and a gladnesse to receive a denudation and manifestation of your selves to your selves by his messenger in his medicinall and musicall increpations and a gladnesse to receive an inchoation of future glory in the remission of those sinnes He shall give you lucem fidei faithfull and unremovable possession of future things in the present and make your hereafter now in the fruition of God And Lucem naturae a love of the outward beauty of his house and outward testimonies of this love in inclining your naturall faculties to religious duties He shall give you Lucem aeternorum Corporum a love to walk in the light of the stars of heaven that never change a love so perfect in the fundamentall articles of Religion without impertinent additions And Lucem incensionum an aptnesse to take holy fire by what hand or tongue or pen soever it be presented unto you according to Gods Ordinance though that light have formerly been suffered to go out in you He shall give you Lucem depuratarum Mixtionum the lustre of precious stones made of the dew of heaven and by the heat of heaven that is actions intended at first and produced at last for his glory and every day multiply their value in the sight of God because thou shalt every day grow up from grace to grace And Lucem Repercussionum he shall make you able to reflect and cast this light upon others to his glory and their establishment
to others to thy self And then by our Commission we cry out to you to make streight his paths In which we do not require that you should absolutely rectifie all the deformities and crookednesse which that Tortuositas Serpentis the winding of the old Serpent hath brought you to for now the streame of our corrupt nature is accustomed to that crooked channell and we cannot divert that we cannot come to an absolute directnesse and streightnesse and profession in this life and in this place the holy Ghost speaks but of a way a path not of our rest in the end but of our labour in the way Our Commission then is not to those sinlesse men that think they have nothing for God to forgive But when we bid you make streight his paths as before we directed you to take knowledge what his wayes towards others had been so here we intend that you should observe which is the Lords path into you by what way he comes oftnest into you who are his Temple and do not lock that doore do not pervert do not crosse do not deface that path The ordinary way even of the holy Ghost for the conveying of faith and supernaturall graces is as the way of worldly knowledge is by the senses where his way is by the care by hearing his word preached do not thou crosse that way of his by an inordinate delight in hearing the eloquence of the preacher for so thou hearest the man and not God and goest thy way and not his God hath divers wayes into divers men into some he comes at noone in the sunshine of prosperity to some in the dark and heavy clouds of adversity Some he affects with the musick of the Church some with some particular Collect or Prayer some with some passage in a Sermon which takes no hold of him that stands next him Watch the way of the Spirit of God into thee that way which he makes his path in which he comes oftnest to thee and by which thou findest thy self most affected and best disposed towards him and pervert not that path foule not that way Make streight his paths that is keepe them streight and when thou observest which is his path in thee by what means especially he workes upon thee meet him in that path embrace him in those meanes and alwayes bring a facile a fusil a ductile a tractable soule to the offers of his grace in his way Our Commission reaches to the exalting of your valleys Let every valley be exalted In which we bid you not to raise your selves in this world to such a spirituall heighth as to have no regard to this world to your bodies to your fortunes to your families Man is not all soule but a body too and as God hath married them together in thee so hath he commanded them mutuall duties towards one another and God allowes us large uses of temporall blessings and of recreations too To exalt valleyes is not to draw up flesh to the heighth of spirit that cannot be that should not be done But it is to draw you so much towards it as to consider and consider with an application that the very Law which was but the schoolmaster to the Gospell was given upon a mountaine That Moses could not so much as see the Land of promise till he was brought up into a mountaine That the inchoation of Christ glory which was his transfiguration was upon a mountaine That his conversation with God in prayer That his returne to his eternall Kingdom by his ascension was so too from a mountaine even his exinanition his evacuation his lowest humiliation his crucifying was upon a mountaine and he calls even that humiliation an exaltation Si exaltatus If I be exalted lifted up sayes Christ signifying what death he should die Now if our depressions our afflictions be exaltations so they were to Christ so they are to every good Christian how far doth God allow us an exalting of our vallies in a considering with a spirituall boldnesse the heighth and dignity of mankind and to what glory God hath created us Certainly man may avoid as many sinnes by this exalting his vallies this considering the heighth and dignity of his nature as by the humblest meditations in the world For upon those words of Iob Manus tuae fecerunt me Saint Gregory says Misericordiae judicis dignitatem suae conditionis opponit Iob presents the dignity of his creation by the hand of God as an inducement why God should regard him It is not his valley but his mountaines that he brings into Gods sight not that dust which God took into his hands when he made him but that person which the hands of God had made of that dust Man is an abridgement of all the world and as some Abridgements are greater then some other authors so is one man of more dignity then all the earth And therefore exalt thy vallies raise thy selfe above the pleasures that this earth can promise And above the sorrowes it can threaten too A painter can hardly diminish or contract an Elephant into so little a forme but that that Elephant when it is at the least will still be greater then an Ant at the life and the greatest Sinne hath diminished man shrowdly and brought him into a narrower compasse but yet his naturall immortality his soule cannot dye and his spirituall possibility even to the last gaspe of spending that immortality in the kingdome of glory and living for ever with God for otherwise our immortality were the heaviest part of our curse exalt this valley this cold of earth to a noble heighth How ill husbands then of this dignity are we by sinne to forfeit it by submitting our selves to inferior things either to gold then which every worme because a worme hath life and gold hath none is in nature more estimable and more precious Or to that which is lesse then gold to Beauty for there went neither labour nor study nor cost to the making of that the Father cannot diet himselfe so nor the mother so as to be sure of a faire child but it is a thing that hapned by chance wheresoever it is and as there are Diamonds of divers waters so men enthrall themselves in one clime to a black in another to a white beauty To that which is lesse then gold or Beauty voice opinion fame honour we sell our selves And though the good opinion of good men by good ways be worth our study yet popular applause and the voice of inconsiderate men is too cheape a price to set our selves at And yet it is hardly got too for as a ship that lies in harbour within land sometimes needs most of the points of the Compasse to bring her forth so if a man surrender himselfe wholly to the opinion of other men and have not his Criterium his touchstone within him he will need both North and South all the points of the
into shreds and fragments such as the Prophet speaks of The breaking of a Potters vessell that cannot be made up again Concision is at best Solutio Continui The severing of that which should be kept intire In the State the aliening of the head from the body or of the body from the head is Concision and videte it is a fearefull thing to be guilty of that In the Church which Church is not a Monarchy otherwise then as she is united in her head Christ Jesus to constitute a Monarchy an universall head of the Church to the dis-inherison and to the tearing of the Crownes of Princes who are heads of the Churches in their Dominions this is Concision and videte it is a fearefull thing to be guilty of that to advance a forein Prelate In the family where God hath made man and wife one to divide with others is Concision and videte it is a fearefull thing to be guilty of that Generally the tearing of that in peeces which God intended should be kept intire is this Concision and falls under this Commonefaction which implies an increpation videte beware But because thus Concision would receive a concision into infinite branches we determined this consideration at first into these three first Concisio Corporis the concision of the body dis-union in Doctrinall things and Concisio vestis the Concision of the garment dis-union in Ceremoniall things and then Concisio Spiritus the Concision of the Spirit dis-union irresolution unsetlednesse diffidence and distrust in thine owne minde and conscience First for this Concision of the body of the body of Divinity in Doctrinall things since still Concision is Solutio continui the breaking of that which should be intire consider we first what this Continuum this that should be kept intire is and it is sayes the Apostle Iesus himself Omnis spiritus qui solvit Iesum so the Antients reade that place Every spirit which dissolveth Iesus that breakes Jesus in peeces that makes Religion serve turnes that admits so much Gospell as may promove and advance present businesses every such spirit is not of God Not to professe the whole Gospell Totum Iesum not to beleeve all the Articles of faith this is Solutio continui a breaking of that which should be intire and this is truly concision Now with concision in this kinde our greatest adversaries they of the Romane heresie and mis-perswasion do not charge us They do not charge us that we deny any article of any antient Creed nor may they deny that there is not enough for salvation in those antient Creeds This is Continuitas universalis a continuity an intirenesse that goes through the whole Church a skin that covers the whole body the whole Church is bound to beleeve all the articles of faith But then there is Continuitas particularis Continuitas modi a continuity a harmony an intirenesse that does not go through the whole Church the whole Church does not alwaies agree in the manner of explication of all the articles of faith but this may be a skin that covers some particular limbe of the body and not another one Church may expound an article thus and some other some other way as in particular the Lutheran Church expounds the article of Christs descent into hell one way and the Calvinist another Now in cases where neither exposition destroyes the article in the substance thereof it is Concision that is Solutio continui a breaking of that which should be kept intire for any man to breake the peace of that Church in which he hath received his baptisme and hath his station by advancing the exposition of any other Church in that And as this is Concision Solutio continui a breaking of that which is intire to break the peace of the Church where we were baptized by teaching otherwise then that Church teaches in these things De modo of the manner of expounding such or such articles of faith so is there another dangerous Concision too For to inoculate a forein bud or to engraffe a forein bough is concision as well as the cutting off an arme from the tree to inoculate cleaves the rinde the bark and to engraffe cleaves the tree it severs that which should be entire So when a particular Church in a holy and discreet modesty hath abstained from declaring her self in the exposition of some particular Articles or of some Doctrines by faire consequence deducible from those Articles and contented her self with those generall things which are necessary to salvation As the Church of England hath in the Article of Christs descent into Hell it is Concision it is solution Continui a breaking of that which should be intire to inoculate a new sense or engraffe a new exposition which howsoever it may be true in it selfe it cannot be truly said to be the sense of that Church not perchance because that Church was not of that mind but because that Church finding the thing it self to be no fundamentall thing thought it unnecessary to descend to particular declarations when as in such declarations she must have departed from some other Church of the Reformation that thought otherwise and in keeping her self within those generall termes that were necessary and sufficient with a good conscience she conserved peace and unity with all David in the person of every member of the Church submits himself to that increpation Let my right hand forget her cunning and let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I prefer not Ierusalem before my chiefest joy Our chiefest joy is for the most part our own opinions especially when they concur with other learned and good men too But then Ierusalem is our love of the peace of the Church and in such things as do not violate foundations let us prefer Ierusalem before our chiefest Joy love of peace before our own opinions though concurrent with others For this is that that hath misled many men that the common opinion in the Church is necessarily the opinion of the Church It is not so not so in the Romane Church There the cōmon opinion is That the blessed Virgin Mary was conceived without originall sin But cannot be said to be the opinion of that Church nor may it be safely concluded in any Church Most Writers in the Church have declared themselves this way therefore the Church hath declared her self for the declarations of the Church are done publiquely orderly and at once And when a Church hath declared her self so in all things necessary and sufficient let us possess our souls in peace and not say that that Church hath or presse that that Church would proceed to further declarations in lesse necessary particulars When we are sure we have beleeved practised all that the Church hath recōmended to us in these generals then and not till then let us call for more declarations but in the mean time prefer Ierusalem before our chiefest joy love of peace
departs from that posture which God in nature gave him that is erect to look upward for his eye is always down upon them that lie in the dust under his feet Certainly he that seares up himselfe and makes himselfe insensible of the cries and curses of the poor here in this world does but prepare himselfe for the howlings gnashings of teeth in the world to come It is the Serpents taste the Serpents diet Dust shalt thou eate all the days of thy life and he feeds but on dust that oppresses the poor And as there is evidently more inhumanity more violation of nature in this oppression then in emulation so may there well seem to be more impiety and more violation of God himselfe by that word which the holy Ghost chooses in the next place which is Reproach He that oppresses the poor reproaches his Maker This word which we translate to Reproach Theodotion translates to Blaspheme And blasphemy is an odious thing even towards men For men may be blasphemed The servant of God Moses is blasphemed as well as God And Goliah blasphemed the Israel of God as well as the God of Israel and for the most part where we read Reviling the word is Blaspheming Our word here that we may still pursue our first way a reverent consideration of the elegancy of the Scriptures in the origination of the words is Charak and this word Iob uses as it is used in our text for reproach My heart shall not reproach me so long as I live And this this reproaching of the heart is in many cases a Blaspheming and a strange one a self-blaspheming When I have had by the goodnesse of Gods Spirit a true sense of my sinnes a true remorse and repentance of those sinnes true Absolution from those sinnes true seales of reconciliation after those sinnes true diligence and preclusion of occasions of relapsing into those sinnes still to suspect my state in Gods favour and my full redintegration with him still to deny my selfe that peace which his Spirit by these meanes offers me still to call my repentance imperfect and the Sacramentall seales ineffectuall still to accuse my selfe of sinnes thus devested thus repented this is to reproach this is to to blaspheme mine owne soule If I will say with Iob My heart shall reproach me of nothing this is not that I will accuse my selfe of no sinne or say the elect of God cannot sinne no nor that God sees not the sinnes of the elect nor that God is not affected or angry with those sinnes and those sinners as long as they remaine unrepented but after I have accused my selfe of those sinnes and brought them into Judgement by way of Confession and received my pardon under seale in the Sacrament and pleaded that pardon to the Church by a subsequent amendment of life then I reproach my selfe of nothing for this were a self-blaspheming and a reproaching of mine owne soule Now the word of our text in the root thereof Charak is manifestare prostituere It is to publish the fault or to prostitute the fame of any man extrajudicially not in a right forme of Judgement and amongst those men who are not to be his Judges So to fill itching eares with rumours and whisperings so to minister matter and fuell to fiery tongues so to lay imputations and aspersions upon men though that which we say of those men be true is a libelling is a calumny is a blaspheming and a reproach in the word of this text for it is manifestare prostituere to publish a mans faults and to prostitute a mans fame there where his faults can receive no remedy if they be true nor his fame Reparation if they be false It is properly to speake ill of a man and not before a competent Judge And in such a sense a man may reproach God himselfe But is there then a Judge between God and man Shall not the Iudge of all the earth doe right is Abrahams question but there that Judge of all the earth is God himself But is there a Judge of heaven too A Judge between God and man for Gods proceeding there There is The Scripture is a Judge by which God himself will be tryed As the Law is our Judge and the Judge does but declare what is Law so the Scripture is our Judge and God proceeds with us according to those promises and Judgements which he hath laid down in the Scripture When God says in Esay Iudge betweene me and my Vineyard certainly God means that there is something extant some contract some covenant something that hath the nature of a Law some visible some legible thing to judge by And Christ tels us what that is Search the Scriptures says hee for by them wee must bee tryed for our lives So then if I come to thinke that God will call me in question for my life for my eternall life by any way that hath not the Nature of a Law And by the way it is of the Nature and Essence of a Law before it come to bind that it be published if I think that God will condemn me by any unrevealed will any reserved purpose in himself this is to reproach God in the word of this Text for it is prostituere to prostitute to exhibit God otherwise then he hath exhibited himselfe and to charge God with a proceeding upon secret and unrevealed purposes and not rest in his Scriptures God will try us at last God himself will be tryed all the way by his Scriptures And to charge God with the damnation of men otherwise then by his Tantummodo Crede I have commanded thee to beleeve and thou hast not done that And by his Fac hoc vives I have commanded thee to live well and thou hast not done that which are conditions evidently laid downe in the Scriptures and not grounded upon any secret purpose is a reproaching of God in the word of this Text. This this Oppressor of the poor is said to doe here He reproaches the Maker God in that notion as he is the Creator Now this is the clearest notion and fastest apprehension and first handle that God puts out to man to lay hold upon him by as hee is The Creator For though God did elect mee before hee did actually create mee yet God did not mean to elect mee before hee meant to create mee when his purpose was upon me to elect me surely his purpose had passed upon me to create mee for when he elected me I was I. So that this is our first notion of God towards us as he is The Creator The School will receive a pregnant child from his parents and work upon him The Vniversity will receive a grounded Scholar from the School and work upon him The State or the Church will receive a qualified person from the University and worke by him But still the State and the Church and the University and the first School it self
man whom he hath not made him able to relieve So then no more being needfull to be said of the persons the poor nor of the Act showing of mercy to the poor there remaines no more in this last part but according to our way all the way to consider the origination and latitude of this last word Cahad this honouring of God The word does properly signifie Augere ampliare To enlarge God to amplifie to dilate God to make infinite God shall I dare to say more God certainely God to more then he was before O who can expresse this abundant this superabundant largenesse of Gods goodnesse to man that there is a power put into mans hands to enlarge God to dilate to propagate to amplifie God himselfe I will multiply this people says God and they shall not be few I will glorifie them and they shall not be small there 's the word of our text God enables me to glorifie him to amplifie him to encrease him by my mercy my almes For this is not onely that encrease that Saint Hierom intends that he that hath pity on the poor Foeneratur Domino he lends upon use to the Lord for this though it be an encrease is but an encrease to himselfe but he that showes mercy to the poore encreases God says our text dilates enlarges God How Corpus aptasti mihi when Christ comes into the world says Saint Paul he says to his Father Thou hast prepared and fitted a body for me That was his naturall body that body which he assumed in the bowels of the blessed Virgin They that pretend to enlarge this body by multiplication by making millions of these bodies in the Sacraments by the way of Transubstantiation they doe not honour this body whose honour is to sit in the same dimensions and circumscriptions at the right hand of God But then as at his comming into this world God had fitted him a body so in the world he had fitted himselfe another body a Mysticall body a Church purchased with his bloud Now this body this Mysticall body I feed I enlarge I dilate and amplifie by my mercy and my charity For as God says to Ierusalem Thou wast in thy bloud thou wast not salted nor swadled no eye pityed thee but thou wast cast out into the open field and I loved thee I washed thee I apparelled and adorned thee prosperataes in regnum I never gave thee over till I saw thee an established kingdome so may all those Saints of God say to God himselfe to the Sonne of God invested in this body this mysticall body the Church thou was cast out into the open field all the world persecuted thee and then we gave thee suck with our bloud we clothed thee with our bodies we built thee houses and adorned and endowed those houses to thine honour prosperatus es in regnum we never gave over spending and doing and suffering for thy glory till thou hadst an established kingdome over all the earth And so thou thy body thy mysticall body the Church is honoured that is amplified dilated enlarged by our mercy Magnificat Anima mea Dominum was the exultation of the blessed Virgin My soule doth magnifie the Lord. When the meditations of my heart digested into writing or preaching or any other declaration of Gods glory carry or advance the knowledge of God in other men then My soule doth magnifie the Lord enlarge dilate amplifie God But when I relieve any poor wretch of the houshold of the faithfull with mine almes then my mercy magnifies the Lord occasions him that receives to magnifie the Lord by this thanksgiving and them that see it to magnifie the Lord by their imitation in the like works of mercy And so far doe these two elegant words chosen here by the holy Ghost carry our meditation in the first Canan God makes the charitable man partaker of his own highest power mercy and in the other Cabad God enables us by this mercy to honour him so far as to dilate to enlarge to amplifie him that is that body which he in his Sonne hath invested by purchase his Church We have done If you will but claspe up all this in your owne bosomes if you will but lay it to your owne hearts you may goe A poorer thing is not in the world nor a sicker which you may remember to have been one signification of this word poore then thine own soule And therefore the Chalde paraphrase renders this text thus He that oppresses the poore reproaches his owne soule for his owne soule is as poore as any whom he can oppresse To a begger that needs and askes but bodily things thou wilt say Alasse poore soule and wilt thou never say Alasse poore soule to thy self that needest spirituall things If thy affections thy pleasures thy delights beg of thee and importune thee so farre to bestow upon them say unto them I have those that are nearer me then you Wife and Children and I must not empoverith them to give unto you I must not sterve my family to feed my pleasures But if this Wife and Children begge and importune so farre say unto them too I have one that is nearer me then all you a soule and I must not endanger that to satisfie you I must not provide Ioyntures and Portions with the damnifying with the damning of mine owne soule It is a miserable Alchimy and extracting of spirits that stills away the spirit the soule it selfe and a poore Philosophers Stone that is made with the coales of Hell-fire a lamentable purchase when the soule is payed for the land And therefore show mercy to this soule Doe not oppresse this soule not by Violence which was the first signification of this word Oppression Doe not violate doe not smother not strangle not suffocate the good motions of Gods Spirit in theeâ— for it is but a wofull victory to triumphe over thine owne conscience and but a servile greatnesse to be able to silence that Oppresse not thy soule by Fraud which was the second signification of this word Oppression Defraud not thy soul of the benefit of Gods Ordinances frequent these exercises come hither And be not here like Gideons fleece dry when all about it was wet parched in a remorselesnesse when all the Congregation about thee is melted into holy tears Be not as Gideons fleece dry when all else is wet nor as that fleece wet when all about it was dry Be not jealous of God stand not here as a person unconcerned disinteressed as though those gracious promises which God is pleased to shed down upon the whole Congregation from this place appertained not to thee but that all those Judgements denounced here over which they that stand by thee are able by a faithfull and cheerfull laying hold of Gods offers though they stand guilty of the same sinnes that thou doest to lift up their heads must still necessarily overflow and surround thee
a Lord meets a man that honours him makes him curtesie and curses him withall what hath his Lordship got by that Honour when popular acclamations cast him into insolent actions and into the net of the Law where is the ease the benefit the consolation of his Honour But especially if worldly Honour must be had upon those conditions here as shall hinder my eternall weight of Glory hereafter I should honour any dishonour glorifie any inglorious state embrace any Dunghill call any poverty Treasure rather then bring the Honours of this world into the Balance into competition into comparison with that eternall weight of Glory in heaven So that if the Christian Religion did oppose worldly Honour it were not to be opposed for that But it is farre from that for as no Religion imprints more honour more reverence more subjection in the hearts of men towards their Superiours of all sorts Naturall or Civill or Ecclesiasticall Parents or Magistrates or Prelates then the Christian Religion does for we binde even the conscience it self so never was there any form of Religion upon the face of the earth in which persons were capable of greater Titles and styles of dignity then in the Christian Church Never any Moscovite any Turk received such titles as the world hath and does give to the Bishop of Rome so great as that some of the greatest later Emperours have had an ambition of that dignity and endevoured to have been elected Popes too being Emperors If Religion opposed Honour that should not diminish it but it does not that nor Pleasure neither which was another thing in which the world was offended in Christ. As when we compared the Honour of this world with the Glory of Heaven we found it nothing so should we doe the Pleasures of this world if we compared them with the Joys of heaven And therefore if my religion did enwrap me in a continuall cloud damp me in a continuall vapour smoke me in a continuall sourenesse and joylesnesse in this life yet I have an abundant recompense in that Reversion which the Lord the righteous Judge hath laid up for me That I shall drink è torrente valuptatis of the Rivers of his pleasures pleasures His pleasures Rivers ever-flowing overflowing Rivers of his pleasures So that if my Religion denied me pleasure here I would not deny my Religion nor be displeased with my Religion for that But it does not that for what Christian is denied a care of his health or of a good habitude of body or the use of those things which may give a chearfulnesse to his heart or a chearfulnesse to his coâ—ntenance What Christian is denied such Garments or such Ornaments as his own rank and condition in particular requires or as the Nationall and generall custome of his times hath induced and authorised What Christian is denied Conversation or Recreation or honest Relaxation of Body or Spirit Excesse of these pleasures as well in the Heathen as in the Christian fals under Solomons Vanity and Vexation of spirit But with the right use of these pleasures the Christian hath that which none but hee hath That the Lord puts gladnesse into my heart That the Lord enables me to lay mee downe in peace and sleepe That the Lord assures mee that he will keep mee in safety If Religion excluded worldly pleasure that were no cause of scandall or offence but it does not that no nor Profit neither which is a third consideration What is a man profited says our Saviour he saw all the world was carried upon profit and he goes along with them that way What is a man profited if he gain the whole world and lose his own soule If a man have an answer to that question that question of Confusion and Consternation that Christ asks Cujue erunt foole this night they shall fetch away thy soule and then Cujuâ— erunt whose shall all those things be that thou hast provided if a man can answer Haeredis erunt They shall be mine heires mine heire shall have them Besides that though thy bell toll first his may ring out first though thou beest old and crasie and sickly Though they doe fetch away thy soule this night they may fetch away his before thine thine heir may die before thee and there 's that assurance disappointed If thine heir doe enjoy all this will all that distill one drop of cold water upon thy tongue in hell And so is he sayes Christ in the conclusion of that parable that layeth up riches for himself and is not rich towards God So that if Riches might not consist with Religion it would not hurt our cause but they may they doe Godliness hath the promise of this life and of the next of both but of this first The seed of the righteous shall be mighty upon earth and wealth and riches shall be in his house Many places of Scripture tell us that the wicked may be rich and that they are rich but in no place does God promise that they shall be rich So says Davids sonne Solomon too The Crown of the wise is their riches we all know what men Solomon means by wise men Godly men Religious men And their Crown is Riches Beloved there is an inward Ioy there is an outward dignity and reverence that accompanies Riches and the Godly the righteous man is not incapable of these Nay they belong rather to him then to the ungodly Non decent stultum divitiae as the Vulgat reades that place Riches doe not become a fool But because for all that though Riches doe not become a fool yet fools doe become rich our Translations read that place thus joy pleasure delight is not seemly for a fool Though the fool the ungodly man may bee rich yet a right joy a holy delight in riches belongs onely to the wise to the righteous The Patriarchs in the Old Testament many examples in the New are testimonies to us of the compatibility of riches and righteousnesse that they may that they have often met in one person For is fraud and circumvention so sure a way of attaining Gods blessings as industry and conscientiousnesse is Or is God so likely to concurre with the fraudulent the deceitfull man as with the laborious and religious Was not Ananias with his disguises more suddenly destroyed then Iob and more irrecoverably And cannot a Star-chamber or an Exchequer leave an ungodly man as poor as a storm at sea in a ship-wracke or a fire at land in a lightning can doe the godly Murmure not be not scandalized nor offended in him if God for reasons reserved to himselfe keep thee in poverty but know that God hath exposed the riches of this world as well rather to the godly then the wicked And so have you the second branch of this first part The scandals which for the most part were taken at Christ and his Gospel by the Philosophers that it was