pamphlets Schismatical and Seditious books find no where better welcome or entertainment then in this Town And wise men I hope will account it a work of charitie rather then of crueltie to take Rats-bane from children albeit they should long after it more greedily then after any wholsom meat Or if any be so stubborn as not to part with this poison by gentle perswasions the only Remedie must be to exclude them from communicating with others in the food of life For us Dearly beloved let us in the bowels of Christ Jesus I beseech you content our selves with the Reformation already established by Authority It is no time to sally out against the Adversary in single bands or scattered companies but rather with the joynt forces of our united affections of prayers and endeavours either to batter the Foundation of their Churches wals or manfully to defend our own keeping our selves within the bounds whereunto authoritie hath confined us The common Adversaries of the Truth which we professe want no strength of wit or weapons of Art to work upon all advantages which our ignorance negligence indiscretion or dissension may present unto them And this one great advantage they have of us that we for the most part fight as it were every man upon his own head without the advice or appointment of our chief Leaders and Commanders So do not our Adversaries they have the perfect Discipline of War And I cannot but approve his wish That either they had our vine or we their fence And it is a Rule to be observed aswell in spiritual warfare as in any others yea most especially in it Arma tenenti Omnia dat qui justa negat By denying that to our Adversaries whereto they have fair Title out of Gods Word or out of Venerable Orthodoxal Antiquitie we shall but betray the true Cause which we maintain against them in main and Fundamental Points which if we would wisely maintein them are most defensible Observe I beseech you what hath been said unto you and the God of wisdom and of peace give you understanding in all things profitable to your Salvation CHAP. XXXIX The Third Sermon upon this Text. ROMANS 2. 1. Therefore Thou art inexcusable O man c. A Romish Error breeding Doubt of Salvation charged upon its proper evident Ground viz Their making The Intention of A Bishop Essentially necessarie to the Consecration of A priest And the Intention of a Priest so necessary that no Sacrament can be without it The Error of The Contrarij Teaching a Preposterous immature Certaintie of Salvation The Right Mean betwixt or cure of these extremities prescribed unto us by our Reformers of Blessed memorie contained in the Publick Acts of The Church 1. ANother Doctrinal Point there was mainteined by the Romish Church when our Fathers departed from it which required Reformation And this Point contains all the several Tenets of that Church which did occasion or nurse Doubt of Salvation or Perplexity of Conscience in every private man so often as he should examine his Estate in Grace his hopes or Interest in Gods mercy or promises to all First then by Gods assistance Of the General Error or that branch of it which especially required Reformation Secondly Of the Contrary Error or Inconveniencies into which many by Curiositie of Reformation have run Thirdly Of the True Mean or Orthod oxal Doctrine which the Reformers of our Church did hold and maintain and have delivered unto us in the Publick Acts of the Church approved and ratified by the General Consent of this Kingdom The Error of the Romish Church was Doubt of Salvation with This Error that Church hath been often charged by all the best writers of Reformed Churches But sometimes or by some men in those Churches not upon so Evident Ground as it might be charged For some there be which charge this Error directly upon their Tenet concerning The Nature of Faith or Hope But for their Defence if we joyn issue with them upon those Terms they have more to say then they can have if we charge this Error upon their Doctrine concerning The Intention of the Priest in the Administration of the Sacraments By whose hidden vertue Faith and Hope are begotten and increased For how much soever they may seem to magnifie The Sacraments of the New Testament in respect of the Sacraments of the Law as that they conferre Grace upon the receivers of them Ex Opere operato by the very Sacramental action which the Sacraments of the Law did not Yet all this being granted no man can be more certain of his Estate in Grace then he is of the good Intention of the Priest which administred the Sacraments Now this Assurance or perswasion of the Priests Intention can be no sure Ground of Faith truly Christian 2. The Sacrament of Baptism they hold to be absolutely necessary unto Salvation and that All such infants as die without Baptisme are excluded from the Kingdom of Heaven And yet they hold withall that Unlesse the Priest when he comes to Baptize any Infant do intend to do what the Church appoints him to do the Baptisme is invalid or of none effect albeit he use the Formal Words of Baptisme and apply the Sacramental element to the body of the Infant presented by the solemn prayers of the Church or Congregation present Besides the solemn Pronunciation of the Words I Baptize thee in the Name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and the washing of the body in water there must be Interior mentis intentio the internal Intention of the Priests minde must joyntly concur with the Word and Sacrament or rather with the Holy Ghost for producing the Invisible Grace or Gift of the Spirit which is the proper Effect of the Sacrament So that how well soever the Parents the Friends and neighbours assembled demean themselves at or before the performance of this Sacred Act yet every Infant brought to the Sacred Laver may be Two Wayes remedilesly prejudiced by the Priest to the ruine of its soul or losse of salvation First It may be deprived of the fruit or benefit of this Sacrament which is by their Doctrine absolutely necessary to salvation by the meer negligence or carelesnesse of the Priest as in Case he forget in heart or mind to intend his dutie of doing that which the Church in like Case usually doth or appoints to be done whatsoever else he do or say all is nothing it is no Baptisme Secondly The Infant may be so far prejudiced as is said by the malice or impietie of the Priest As in Case he be so wickedly disposed as secretly to subtract or withdraw his Intention by any interposed condition or Limitation though not expressed the Baptisme is invalid or of no effect To give you One of their own Instances or Ruled Cases If one should come to one of their Priests and request him to baptize such a mans child naming his Parents and
place either expresly or implicitly to direct our prayers to God the Father that he would be pleased to forgive us our sins to be reconciled unto us and bestow such blessings upon us as he hath promised to such as shall be reconciled unto him In the Second place either expressly or implicitly we are to beseech him to forgive us our sins to be reconciled and blesse us for the merits of his only Son who hath made satisfaction for us This is a Point which every Christian is bound expressely to believe that God the Father doth neither forgive sins nor vouchsafe any Term or Plea of Reconciliation but only for the merits and satisfaction made by the sacrifice of the Son of God who by the eternal spirit offered himself in our humane nature upon the Crosse In the next place we are to believe and acknowledge that as God the Father doth neither forgive nor vouchsafe Reconciliation but for the merits and satisfaction of his only Son so neither will he vouchsafe to conveigh this or any other blessing unto us which his Son hath purchased for us but only through his Son not only through him as our Advocate or Intercessor but through him as our Mediator that is through His humanitie as the Organ or Conduit or as the only Bond by which we are united and reconciled unto the Divine Nature For although the Holy Spirit or Third Person in Trinitie doth immediately and by Personal Proprietie work faith and other spiritual Graces in our Souls yet doth he not by these Spiritual Graces unite our souls or Spirits immediately unto himself but unto Christs Humane Nature He doth as it were till the ground of our hearts and make it fit to receive the seed of life But this seed of righteousnesse immediately flows from the Sun of Righteousnesse whose sweet influence likewise it is which doth immediately season cherish and ripen it The Spirit of life whereby our Adoption and Election is sealed unto us is the real participation of Christs Bodie which was broken and of Christs Blood which was shed for us This is the true and punctual meaning of our Apostles speech 1 Cor. 15. 45. The first man Adam was made a living soul or as the Syriack hath it Animale Corpus an enlivened bodie but the second Adam was made a quickning spirit and immediately becometh such to all those which as truely bear his image by the Spirit of Regeneration which issues from him as they have born the Image of the first Adam by natural propagation And this again is the true and punctual meaning of our Saviours words John 6. 63. It is the Spirit that quickneth the flesh profiteth nothing the words that I speak unto you are spirit and life For so he had said in the verses before to such as were offended at his words what if you should see the Son of man ascend up where he was before The Implication conteined in the Connexion between these two verses and the precedent is this That Christs Virtual presence or the influence of life which his Humane Nature was to distil from his heavenly Throne should be more profitable to such as were capable of it then his Bodily presence then the bodily Eating of his flesh and blood could be although it had been convertible into their bodily substance This distillation of life and immortalitie from his glorified Humane Nature is that which the Ancient and Orthodoxal Church did mean in their Figurative and lofty speeches of Christs Real presence or of eating His very Flesh and drinking His very Blood in the Sacrament And the Sacramental Bread is called His Bodie and the Sacramental Wine His Blood as for other reasons so especially for This that the vertue or influence of his Bloody Sacrifice is most plentifully and most effectually distilled from heaven unto the worthy Receivers of the Eucharist And unto this Point and no further will most of the Testimonies reach which Bellarmin in his books of the Sacraments or Maldonat in his Comments upon the sixth of Saint John do quote out of the Fathers for Christs Real Presence by Transubstantiation or which Chemnitius that Learned Lutheran in his Books De duabus in Christo naturis and de Fundamentis sanae doctrinae doth avouch for Consubstantiation And if thus much had been as distinctly granted to the Ancient Lutherans as Calvin in some places doth the controversie between the Lutheran and other Reformed Churches had been at an end when it first begun Both Parties acknowledging Saint Cyrill to be the fittest Umpire in this Controversie The end of the Third Chapter A Transition of the Publisher's IT must not be dissembled that I had no Intimation much lesse Commission of the Author's to Insert the Two following Chapters herein this place Yet besides that I knew not of any fitter place where to dispose of them I had these Reasons so to do 1. I held it fit that His Powerful Disputes against the Church of Rome about The Lords Supper in the fourth Chapter and about another Point in the fifth should immediately follow his Learned Argument with the Lutheran 2. The sequence seems very Methodical The Subject of the first Chapter being partly About Christs Exaltation by becoming The Chief Corner-Stone cut out of the Rock or quarrey by his Resurrection from The New Scpulchre lifted up by his Ascension and placed at the Chief Corner by his Sitting at Gods Right-hand and partly about The Union of Christ with true Christians which Union is both a Considerable part of the fourth Chapter and was happily touched upon in the Close of the Third 3. In case any Restive soul should perhaps some faint Dejected Spirit having read Christs Great Exaltation may say Who shall ascend into Heaven that is to bring Christ down from above Such an one besides the quickenings he may hear from other Remembrancers Saint Peter telling us that we are pilgrims here and Saint Paul that we seek a Countrie and look for a Citie Jerusalem that is Free and that being Fellow-Citizens with the Saints and of Gods hous-hold our Conversation or Traffick is to be in heaven for those things which are above where Christ sitteth at Gods Right-hand c. may receive mightie encouragement by Experimenting the Contents of these two next Chapters The avowed neer approach and Intimacie of our Lord Jesus Christ with the Believing and Receiving Christian The word is nigh thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart When the holy Sacramental pledges be in the mouth and Faith in the heart The Word the Eternal Word that was made flesh is nigh indeed For Verily Verily He that eateth my Fesh and drinketh my Blood dwelleth in Me and I in Him CHAP. 1111. A Paraphrase upon the sixth of St. John In what sense Christ's flesh is said to be truly Meat c. What it is To eat Christs Flesh and drink his Blood Of eating and drinking Spiritual and Sacramental And whether of them is meant
grow unto an holy Temple in the Lord. 9. Christ as you heard before is not the Corner-stone or Foundation only but the Temple of God A Greater and more spacious Temple then all the building which is erected upon him which groweth up in him We must be living stones we must be Pillars in the house of God we must be Temples of God that is an habitation of God through the Spirit but no Foundations no chief corner-stones these are Christs prerogatives Behold I have graven thee to wit the Spiritual Sion saith the Prophet Isa 49. 16. upon the palms of my hands thy walls are continually before me that is as a late Interpreter of the Romish Church saith I have pitched thy foundations in my hands by the wounds which I received in them By whose diduction or rent a place was opened for this future edifice to be erected in him And for this cause Christ who is the Rock was every way digged into in his side in his hands in his feet The mysterie whereof is that he might exhibit a firm foundation out of which the fabrick of the Church should grow That we then become living stones in this edifice it is from our immediate Union with this chief corner-stone being united to him he is fashioned in us and by him fashioned in us we become living stones growing stones we grow from living stones to living pillars from living pillars to living Temples or habitations for our God That the children of God are not onely living stones but from living stones grow into pillars our Saviour himselfe hath taught us by S. John Rev. 3. 12. Him that overcometh will I make A Pillar in the temple of my God and he shall go no more out and if wee be pillars in the temple of God we must be as immediately placed on the foundation or chief corner-stone as S. Peter or Christs other Apostles were We must be as intire Temples as they were And for this reason our Saviour adds upon every one whom he makes a pillar the name of God and the name of the City of God the new Jerusalem which cometh out of Heaven Know ye not saith S. Paul 1 Cor. 6. 19. That your bodie is the temple of the Holy Ghost As wee say the Kings presence makes the Court So it is Gods Holy Spirits extraordinary presence in man which makes him his Temple And the Reason why Christ is called The Temple of God is because the Godhead dwelleth in him bodily And for the like reason every one in whom Christ dwelleth by faith is in a participated sense called The Temple of God And as visible Cities consist of severall houses and as the beautie of every Citie consists in the Uniformitie of houses well built and joyned together so the heavenly Jerusalem consists of several Temples whose beautie or Uniformitie consists in this that Christ Jesus is the life and light of every severall Temple and that his spirit is uniformely diffused through all 10. Christ as you have read before Communicates his Titles unto his Saints but not the Reall Prerogative of his Titles He is The Rock so was Peter a rock so are wee rocks but not The rock on which the Church is built He is the Chiefe Corner-stone we are living stones he is the temple and the Priest of the most high God and he makes us both temples and Priests unto his God So saith S. Peter 1. Ep. cap. 2. vers 5. Yee all as lively stones are built up a spirituall house an holy Priest-hood to offer up Spirituall sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ The Modell of this spirituall Temple and Priest-hood that is of the new Jerusalem and the service of God performed in it was exhibited by Moses Exod. 24. 4 5. at the making of the first covenant Moses wrote all the words of the Lord and rose up earely in the morning and builded an altar under the Hill and twelve pillars according to the 12. tribes of Israel And he sent yong-men of the Children of Israel which offered burnt offrings and sacrificed peace offerings of Oxen unto the Lord. Immediately after this Moses and Aaron Nadab and Abihu saw the God of Israel and there was under his feete as it were a paved work of a saphire stone and as it were the bodie of Heaven in his clearnesse ver 9. The yong men which he sent to offer sacrifices as the best interpreters observe were the first-born of their families For till that time and at that time which was before the consecration of Aaron and his sonnes it was Lawfull for the First born male of every family to execute the office of the Priest This was his dutie So that every family was as a little parish-Church and had his Priest to performe this service of God Now though all that are built upon the Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles are not admitted to be Architects or master-builders though all be not publick teachers or pastors yet all that are or hope to be parts of this building have the same Prerogative which the First-born males of Israel had before Aaron was consecrated All must be Priests to offer up Spiritual Sacrifices unto God But seeing wee must grow unto an holy temple and growth as was said before supposeth nutrition let us now see what is the nourishment by which we must grow from living stones to be living pillars from pillars to be living Temples yea Kings and Priests unto our God 11. The nature and qualitie of the Nutriment by which wee must grow cannot in fewer words be more pithily exprest than it is by S. Peter 1 Pet. 2. cap. vers 2. It is the sincere milk of the word But how good soever the nutriment be it doth not kindly nourish unlesse wee have an appetite to it Therefore the same Apostle addes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 desire or long after the sincere milk of the word We must then desire to have the word dwell in us plentifully and wee must desire to have it sincere that is pure and unmingled Now this milk may become unsincere or mingled sometimes by the default of the Pastor or teacher sometimes by the default of the hearers The dutie which concernes us teachers is that wee do not mingle the word with the Traditions of men how ancient soever they be This is the fault of the Romish Church which the Church our mother hath sufficiently prevented by publick edicts or decrees But many otherwise averse enough from Traditions of the Romish or other ancient Church ofttimes corrupt it with their own Conceits or Phansies which will easily mingle themselves with the word unlesse we speak out of premeditation and have both art and leasure to revise and examine aswell our own meditations as the meditations or expositions of others whose help wee use Since the ordinary Gifts of the Spirit did cease there is no facultie under the sun which more requires the help of art and study than the
accompts to be made or of the words works or thoughts for which we are to render account From this Notion or importance of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we may take a true Notion or scantling of the Attributes or Titles given to the Word of God by St. Paul Heb. 4. and how well they consort with the Word Written or Preached as it hath reference to this Eternal Word The Word of God Written or Preached although in it self it be more powerful then any two edged Sword yet as it is managed or weilded by us his weak Instruments is but as a good sword in an Infants hand but though as uttered by us it doth not exercise its strength upon our hearers yet doth it not utterly perish or lose its efficacy but every Word spoken in his Name though for the present it have no such success as we could wish yet it is not altogether spoken in vain it returns unto him whose Word it is and in his mouth or presence the Word preached by us becomes like Scanderbegs Sword in Scanderbegs hand and shall in the last day recover strength and force from the powerful appearance of this Eternal Word or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that all the glorious Attributes given by St. Paul unto The Word of God are primarily and principally true of the Eternal Word yet secondarily and less principally of the Word preached with reference unto him 14. The Word preached is not altogether dead but lively quick powerful in its operation and shall at the last day be more piercing then any two edged sword and divide between the spirit and the soul A two edged sword may cut the bones and divide the joynts and the marrow it may divide the soul from the body or at least send the soul out of the body before the time by the course of nature allotted But between the soul and the spirit no material sword can make division The most piercing sword though it hath as the Original imports two mouthes to devour yet eyes it hath none to distinguish between the parts which it divides but cuts as it fals or as it is direrected by the eyes and hands of him which weilds it But The Word of God here principally meant seeth all the particles betwixt which it makes division it is a discerner or Judge of the thoughts and intents of the heart how secret soever they be how inseparable soever they be from the soul or spirit though our inward parts be covered with skin with flesh and bones yet are they naked and as it were anatomized for so the Original imports unto the eyes of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to whom we are to render our account In the first creation he was not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the live Idea or patern unto whose Image men and Angels were created and of whose Excellency the whole world and all the creatures in it are but scattered and broken expressions but withal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the framer or maker of all things visible and invisible for God the Father made all things by this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without any instrumental help or service after a more excellent and expedite manner then should we suppose or could we imagine such a thing any Architect or skilful Artificer that could be supposed able to frame or make a material building or other work of his profession without any manual labour without any materials or instruments besides the patern or exemplar which he conceives in his mind or imagination In the dissolution of this world or in the erection of the world to come which shall take beginning from the day of our final accompts the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Eternal VVord of God shall manifest himself to be not only the live Idaea or patern of Gods moral or eternal Law by which all mankind shall be judged and our accompts either finally approved or disproved but to be withall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Law endued with Life with wisdom and power Nor such a Law only but a Living Wise Omnipotent Iudge All these Attributes or the things signified by them with all the rest that can be required in a Law a Rule or Iudge are in Him undivided and according to the Infinitie of perfection Yet that we may the better conceive the infiniteness of his perfection as Law and Judge it will not be amiss to consider these Attributes severally as they are found amongst us 15. Every good Law is a kind of silent Magistrate or Judge and every good and perfect Judge or Magistrate is a speaking Law So they ought to be But these Two Perfections seldom meet in the Government of any well ordered Common-weal or Church on earth In some Nations the written Laws be tolerably good or comparatively very good but the Magistrates for the most part either ignorant in the Laws or unexperienced in applying their true intent and meaning to meet with every transgression or so manacled with Golden Fetters that they have no great list or dexterity to put what they know in execution In other places the Magistrates or Judges are learned and sincere laws to themselves and fit Laws for others to be ruled by were not their good purposes restrained or pinyoned by harsh and obsolete Laws or not well consorting with the times wherein they live This Jargon between wise and wholsom Laws and unskilful or corrupt Magistrates or between religious wise and industrious Magistrates and imperfect partial or naughty Laws hath been in most Ages and Nations so common that many accurate Politicians or Observers of the course of Justice have brought the main Question concerning all State Government to this short issue and submitted it to the touch and tryal of learned dispute Whether it be better to be governed by a dead and silent or by a live and speaking Law That is whether were most expedient for all or most States that the written Law should be above the supream Magistrate or Majesty or the supream Magistrate or Majesty of every Nation above the written Laws But admitting that every Nation had Laws as perfect as the wit of man could devise such as would give contentment to every member that were to be governed by them and Magistrates to put such Laws in execution as sincere as wise as well experienced as industrious as couragious as any in former times have been or can in this life be expected yet the most perfect or absolute Law that can be made by man that can be written though made by God himself could not be able to put it self in execution or to recompence every transgression as it deserves Nor can the wisest the most sincere and industrious Magistrate possibly know every transgressor of the Law or every misdemeanor committed within a little Province or Corporation And albeit the Magistrate only can give life to the Law yet can no Magistrate give life to any Law or put it in
Wolves of Lyons or Tygers Such as had been given over to beastly pleasures were to take up their habitations in the bodies of Swine The souls of others less harmful yet stupid and dull had their transmigration allotted by this Philosopher into Sheep or Calves This Metempsychosis or flitting of mens souls into the bodies of beasts is described by Ovid in the 15. of his Metamorphosis seeking to give some countenance to his poetical fictions from Pythagoras his Philosophical opinion plausible in ancient times And from this conceit or opinion it was that Pythagoras and his followers did abstain from eating of any flesh whether of birds or beasts and laboured by all means to perswade others to like abstinence lest by killing or devouring them they might indeed kill or devour their dearest friends kinsfolks or neighbors Mandere vos vestros scite sentite colonos The souls of vertuous or good men or of better spirits did in this Philosophers opinion either go into some place of happiness or else return into some humane body again So as one and the same man might be often begotten born or die Thus Pythagoras himself thought that Euphorbus his soul was come into his body that he himself had been present at the siege of Troy in the shape and likeness of him that was called then Euphorbus whose body was turned to dust long before any part of this Pythagoras his body was framed And in the confidence of this opinion or imagination he laid claim unto Euphorbus his Shield as the Right Owner of it This Opinion or Imagination though gross and foolish doth yet include These Two Branches of Truth First That Animus cujusque est unusquisque The soul or mind of man is the man himself And Second That the Soul remains in Being after the Body or visible part which is but as the Case or Husk be dissolved Both These Tully had Collected as he professes in his Book De Senectute from the followers of Pythagoras of Socrates and Plato These Both he or the Person he makes Speaker there repeats in his piece De Somnio Scipionis Tu vero sic habeto Te non esse mortalem sed corpus hoc nec enim is es quem forma ista declarat sed mens cujusque is est quisque non ea figura quae digito monstrari potest Deum te igitur scito esse Yet were it possible or had God to whom all things are possible so appointed that one and the same immortal soul of man should have its habitation in two three or more distinct bodies they should not be so truly many men as one and the same man for the unity or Identity of mans person depends more immediately and necessarily upon the unity or Identity of the soul then upon the unity or Identity of the body This progress of one and the same soul through divers bodies was not in the opinion of such as first conceived or nurst it to continue for ever For Pythagoras did not deny an eternal Rest unto mens souls after this pilgrimage or progress were ended Now this progress or pilgrimage as some avouch was to endure but unto the production of the third or fourth Body 4. From Pythagoras and the Druides whom Pythagoras did rather follow then teach Plato did not much differ All of them in some Points hold good consort with Christianity In these especially First That the soul of man doth not perish with the body from which it is by death dissolved Secondly That it should go well with such as lived well and ill with such as lived amiss after the dissolution of soul and body But how often one and the same soul by Plato's opinion might become a widower how long it might so continue or with how many several bodies it might successively match we will not question In this and the like particulars Pythagoras and Plato might many wayes err without any gross inconsonancy to their general principles And one of Plato's general Principles was That the humane soul was in the body tanquam nauta in nave after such a manner as the Master Mariner is in the ship to direct and guide it And as a Mariner may without loss undertake the government of divers Ships successively so one and the same reasonable soul might guide or manage sundry bodies In the opinion of Pythagoras or Plato diversity of actions of manners of dispositions did no more argue diversity of human souls or spirits then variety of musical sounds in various wind-instruments as in the Sackbut Cornet Shalm or Trumpet doth argue diversity of breath or of Musicians One and the same musician may wind them all successively and yet the musick shall be much different because of the diversity of the instrument In all these opinions they did only err not knowing the Scriptures They did not err against at least their error includes no opposition unto the Power of God For if it had pleased him thus to place the soul in the body or to take it out of one body and put it into another as these Philosophers dreamed so it might have been so it must have been Nor did their error include any denial of the Power of God but rather an approach or step to the discovery or acknowledgement of it against modern Atheists Others there were who held a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is a Regeneration or new production of one and the same man again These were the Genethliaci or Nativitie-Casters of whom S. Augustine out of Varro speaks Lib. 22. De Civitate Dei Cap. 28. The time which as That Father there saies they prefixed for this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or re-production of the self-same men which formerly had been was 440. years Though as you will soon see other Authors make it far above that proportion This particular errour of theirs took its original from an errour common to most Philosophers whose generally affected custom it hath been to assign some External cause of every External or visible Effect And some modern Astrologers make the heavens such total causes of Sublunary Effects that if the position and conjunction of stars should possibly come to be the self same again as they formerly have been the self same bodies should be produced again which formerly had been And 16000 years I take it in the account of these ancient Astrologers did make up the full period or circuit of all celestial motions Now it is a general Maxim in Philosophie Idem secundum Idem semper producit Idem If the influence of the stars were the full and total cause of the Sublunary Effects it would follow directly that when the conjunction of Stars which 〈…〉 his influence returned the same again which it had been 〈…〉 years more or fewer the Sublunary Effects or events should be the same as they then had been and the same men which had formerly dyed should revive again 5. The Genethliaci did foully err in
seek to hide our souls from the view of others albeit we cannot discern the inward stain or filth of sin but are rather in love with her painted pleasures But when he shall appear that knew no sin in himself and yet knows all the secrets of mans heart it is no vail of flesh no die of nature no covering of the visage with bloud that will avail such as continue to do those things whereof they are or ought to be ashamed or which they are afraid that others should see or know They shall then desire the Hils for a vail and the Rocks and Mountains for a covering to their shame but in vain for perpetual darkness shall be their habitation and their present shame and confusion of face shall then appear to be the harbinger or fore-runner of death CHAP. XIX ROMANS 6. 21. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed c. We are many wayes ingaged to serve God rather then to serve sin though sin could afford us as much fruit and reward as God doth But there is no proportion no ground of Comparison betwixt the fruits of sin and the Gift of God The Case stated betwixt the voluptuous sensual life and the life truly Christian Satans method And Gods method A Complaint of the neglect of Grace 1. THe Scope of our Apostles whole discourse in this Chapter is to deter us from the service of sin and by the help of Super-abounding Grace and Hope of an exceeding great Reward both to encourage and engage our best Endeavors unto the service of God His Motion or Argument was reasonable albeit sin or he that is the Author of sin were able to afford us as much fruit or as full a recompence as the service of God doth There is no man amongst us of this Church I presume but doth abhor the Heresie of the Manichees which was in part this that we were beholding to another God for our bodies then unto Him which made our souls Yet if their abominable doctrine were for disputation sake supposed as true We could not be by any right so ingaged unto the service of this imaginary god as unto the service of the True God which made our souls and doth purifie them by his Word and Sacraments For we are not debters to the flesh but unto the God of the Spirits of all Flesh we are Debtors indeed unto the only God which made both our bodies and souls and spirits He may challenge our service by double right First by the right of Creation which we had shamefully violated by alienating our Allegeance unto his Enemy Secondly by right of Redemption for he that made us all hath redeemed us all and if we continue servants unto sin we do not only violate that antient or former Bond which we owed unto him by right of Creation but that second Bond whereby we stand bound unto him by right of redemption And transgressors we should be and most unthankful wretches if we did not cheerfully and sincerely betake our selves unto his service albeit the reward or recompence which he hath promised and will perform were but equal to the fruits or pleasures of sin But the truth is that so far they are from all equalitie that there is No Proportion between them The wages of sin are lesse then nothing compared to the reward of righteousnesse which is more then all things else that can befal us For not to Be at all never to have had any Being were better then to suffer the death here meant So that death and life especially everlasting death and everlasting life cannot come into any Ballance That which is worse then nothing or not Being so is everlasting death cannot be compared with any thing that is Good much less with the perfection of goodness such is everlasting life which containeth all goodness whereof we can imagine our nature to be capable 2. The only Comparison then must be between the service of sin and the service of righteousness in respect of our present estate or during the time of this mortal life And so if you mark it our Apostle hath Two Motives to withdraw us from the service of sin and Two to draw us to the service of righteousness The first Motive to withdraw us from the service of sin is that it is fruitless and shameful for the present The First Motive again to sway us unto the service of righteousness is the present fruit which we have unto Holiness and between these two there may be some Comparison if we sequester them from the other two to wit from life and death everlasting To sequester the service of righteousness altogether from the hope of everlasting life or the service of sin altogether from the fear of everlasting death is a thing if not impossible yet not warrantable as was shewed before in the tenth Chapter For those things which God hath conjoyned man may not sever Yet we may so far sever them as God permitted them to be severed in the wiser Heathen The very Heathens felt a kind of Compunction or sting of conscience upon the commission of grossers sins which did suggest a kind of tacit fear but of what evil to come they expresly knew not They had again a kind of joy or Grateful Testimonie or congratulation of spirit or conscience upon the practise of things honest and comely And this joy did kindle a secret hope or incouragement to go forwards in those courses but it burst not out into a flame it wanted the light or guidance of divine truth For both this fear and this hope they had without any express hope of everlasting life or express fear of everlasting death However the wiser or more moderate sort of them did prefer the practise of vertue or such pietie as they knew before the wonted pleasures of this life Yet this their greatest Philosophers did not do without the Contradiction of such as were given over to bodily pleasures And this opposition of sensual men may seem to have some Ground of Reason even from the Rule of Faith it self if we had no more express hopes of everlasting life or more distinct fear of everlasting death then they had For shall we not think that the estate of Dives was much better then the estate of Lazarus in this life wherein Dives received pleasure and Lazarus pain Now pleasure is much better then pain And if such a life as Dives here led afforded pleasure how was it Fruitless specially in respect of Lazarus his life which was full of pain Indeed in respect of a life so charged with pain as Lazarus's was or with such vexations and dangers as the life of Saint Paul and other more eminent Saints of God in the primitive Church were That Saying of our Apostle is most true 1 Cor. 15. 19. If in this life onely we have hope in Christ then are we of all men most miserable His meaning is That if bodily
the Port Towns in this Kingdom were noysom neighbors to one another by sea one Shire or Province ready to make inroads or invasion upon another or every mans hand in the same Town or Shire to be lift up against his neighbor or that a mans worst enemies were of his own house So many Servants Inmates or Sojourners so many Theeves the children ready to rob and spoil their parents without hope of redress by ordinary process of wholsome Laws Might still overcoming Right Besides all this imagine a forraign potent Enemie lying still in wait to take all advantages which these civil broils or intestine dissensions afford for subduing the whole State or Nation for bringing the Nobles into Captivity for putting such as made resistance unto the sword to put their children to death before their parents eyes and to abuse the bodies of the wives and daughters of such as put themselves upon their courtesie If unto a State or Kingdom in this distress or perplexitie through civil dissension and domestick broils any hope of Peace and unitie amongst themselves could be truly suggested how beautiful would the feet of such as brought these glad tydings be And if these hopes were seconded with answerable success I leave it to your mature consideration what publick joy and exultation would ensue Every man would be ready to bear his part in that song Nulla salus bello pacem te poscimus omnes Of Civil dissension there can no good come the very mention of warre would be as the rubbing of an unhealed wound or bleeding Scar Dulce nomen pacis the very name of Peace would ensweeten our thoughts season our cogitations and add strength and courage to our mutual endeavors for the establishment of it 5. Now though civil and intestine broyls are much worse then open war with a forraign Enemy yet the most perfect patern of misery which we can frame unto our selves as effects of civil dissensions within any City or Kingdom is but a Model or picture of that intestine war which every man if we take him in the state of nature or before he be reconciled to God through Christ may find within himself within his own soul and affections For Every Man is a little World or Common-wealth and the less the state or soveraignty is wherein civil dissension is bred and nourished the more grievous it is It is more dangerous when fire doth kindle in the same street or neighbor houses then when it it kindles afar off though in the same Town but when the house wherein we dwell is set on fire the danger is greatest But most bitter and grievous is that dissension or distraction which is bred and nourished in the same brest as either between the affections and passions which lodge in the sensitive part or between them and the reasonable soul or conscience or the perpetual conflict between the flesh and the spirit Now The affections and passions of every dissolute ill nurtured man as the Heathen Philosopher had observed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are in continual mutiny amongst themselves Immoderate desire or hope of gain sways the one way and the like desire of other carnal contentments which cannot be procured without cost or charge sways the contrary way The love of rest and ease inclines the soul one way and desire of credit and fame another hopes or opportunities of satisfying lust are still encountred with fear of shame Ambition hales the soul upwards and fear of loss or danger draws it downwards So that the soul of a man not yet reconciled to God is still as it were upon the Rack One while it takes pleasure in the good things which it self injoyes and the more it takes delight in these the more it is tortured with envy against others which injoy the same or like good things in a greater measure Or if it were possible for a natural man to compose or hush these mutinies between his several affections or to draw all his passions or desires unto one head or bent yet this Peace of the affections and passions among themselves uless the Conscience were included in it which it never can be in the natural man is but A Dishonorable Peace and that is much worse then an honorable warre Better it were that a mans desires or passions should band each against other then that all of them should with joynt force band against the spirit or Conscience This would be but as a conspiracie of common Souldiers against their Leaders or as a league or confederacie of Slaves against their Lords or of Subjects against their Soveraign and their Magistrates Or such a peace as the Roman Orator did disswade the Romans from Pax cum Antonio non est pax sed pactio servitutis To make peace with Mark Anthonie a turbulent and seditious Peer was but to condition for their Slavery 6. Whether then our affections our desires or passions be at enmity one with another or whether being at peace one with another they be not in subjection unto reason or conscience as they never are in a man not reconciled to God or in a man which follows not the wayes of righteousness Every branch of the one or other enmity within a mans self doth as it were make a Breach for the common enemy to enter at who wants no skill no industry no vigilancy to work upon all opportunities or advantages for bringing both body and soul both the reasonable and the affective part both the flesh and the spirit into everlasting slavery No foraign Enemy not the Turk or Mahumetan can harbor such cruel intentions against any Christian State or Kingdom no not in his passions or furious mood as this adversary Satan doth against us all Christians Jews or Turks even when he complies with us or seems to be at peace and promiseth the best contentments which he is permitted to bestow upon his followers It was his Catechism unto Judas to cover his murtherous intentions with a fawning kiss The Master knew this lesson much better then the Scholar did and can practise it with more Art and Skill upon Christs Scholars then his Scholar Judas did upon our Lord and Master Of this civil dissention or intestine war between the several affections of our souls or between them and our spirits and consciences and of the danger which by this dissention unless it be timely appeased may certainly accrew unto the whole nature from the common adversary Every man may have a sensible experiment in himself so he would in vacant and sequestred hours unpartially take the information of his own spirit and Conscience and the reflection or ruminating upon the inconveniences of these civil dissentions or intestine wars within our own souls will kindle in us a desire of spiritual Peace and a resolution to follow the wayes which lead unto it And these are the Works of Righteousnesse Such as are not yet at Peace with God many whose affections are not at Peace
one with another nor with their own Consciences which should command in chief may be safe or free from any present evil from any wound as yet given by this adversary But no man living can be secure from future danger or misery until he be thus far at least entred into the Kingdom of God as that he hath some impression or rellish of that Peace His soul and spirit must be brought in subjection to the Spirit of God so must his affections or desires be subject to his reasonable soul or spirit before he can know this Peace by experience or taste the fruit of it which is Ioy in the Holy Ghost 7. But Wherein doth this Ioy in the Holy Ghost consist Seeing it is the issue or fruit of Spiritual Peace The nature of it cannot be better exemplified specially to such as know it not by experience then by that known joy of heart or gladness which is the fruit of civil or temporal Peace And the fruits of this Peace are pithily described by the Prophet When every man may sit under his own Vine and under his own Fig-tree that is to give you the importance of this Proverbial speech in plain English When every man may reap the fruits of his own labors or imployments or of the labors imployments or increase of other Creatures which God hath put in subjection to him when he may so reap them without molestation without danger of annoyance It is not the Possession of Lands of Wares or other good things whatsoever we are lawfully entitled unto but the quiet Fruition or enjoying of them which fills our hearts with gladness To have a full Flock and to be deprived of the milk and of the increase of it to have a goodly Vineyard and to be debarred from gathering the grapes of it is matter of sorrow and grief A principal calamity of War But to enjoy these and the like commodities without danger or molestation is a special Comfort of temporal or civil Peace And in as much as no man can truly injoy those good things which he possesseth or hath right unto but in time of civil Peace Hence it is that under the name of this Peace all good things Temporal are contained for without Peace we cannot enjoy them And this is the Prerogative of man above all visible Creatures that the fruit which other such Creatures do bring forth they do not bring it forth unto themselves but unto man and for his use either mediately or immediately The Fields yearly bring forth grass or other wilde herbs for the food of other living Creatures but even those Creatures with their fruits or increase serve for the use of man Quicquid acquirunt acquirunt Domino The Sheep being nourished by the grass of the Field yields his yearly fleece not so much for his own use as for the use of Man The Bees in Summer gather honey but Man is principal partaker of the sweetness of it These and other like sensitive Creatures how much soever they multiply and increase are never their own but their owners that is some one or other Mans yet not their Owners unless it be in time of Civil Peace Contention whether it be by open Hostility of War or by course of Law always deprives men of the fruition or enjoyment of those good things which are their own though not always of the possession of them By Peace onely we enjoy those things which are our own by right of Title and Possession so that Civil or temporal Peace is the onely noursing Mother of civil or temporal joy or gladness 8. But albeit every one the meanest amongst us could not only quietly possesse but peaceably enjoy this whole visible world such as it is or another as great as this is and all the good things contained in them yet as our Saviour tels us Our life doth not consist in these And what gain or profit could there be in possessing the whole world in enjoying all the good things contained in it if we should lose the enjoyment or possession of our own souls To possesse and enjoy the fruit of all other creatures labours is the Prerogative of man the only remainder of that Dominion which the Lord gave him over all other creatures in his first creation But to enjoy himself is mans peculiar and is the effect of his reconciliation to his God and the well spring of true Joy Other creatures may by mans permission reap the fruits of their own labours as the Bee in winter may eat the honey which it makes in the Summer though perhaps not so sweet unto it self as it is unto man for whose use and service he unwittingly makes it But no visible creature besides man can possibly enjoy it self or its own soul and faculties Sense and feeling many other creatures besides man have Sed non sentiunt se sentire The fowls of the Air the fishes of the Sea the Beasts of the field and the Bee which best resembles man as he is A sociable creature do respectively at least hear and see feel and tast but yet have no true sense or estimate of their own senses as wherein they exceed Grasse Trees or vegetables or wherein they come short of man So that man only is capable of enjoying himself and his own soul and faculties and yet not qualified for injoying himself and his own faculties until the former Peace the peace of conscience be in some measure wrought in his heart His sensitive affections desires and passions must be first subjected to Reason and Conscience his reason his conscience and spirit must be subjected unto the spirit of God before he can possesse his soul in patience and he must possesse his soul with patience before he can Tast of that joy which is in the Holy Ghost before he can bring forth the fruit of holinesse whose End is everlasting Life The Tast of this fruit or Joy is the only pledge or assurance of that endless Joy which is prepared for such as love God in heaven 9. The Vine bringeth forth much pleasant fruit So do the trees of the Garden but they enjoy it not when it is ripe it falleth from them or their owners reap it But this Joy which amounts from the quiet or peaceable possession of our own souls it growes within us it ripeneth within us it multiplieth and it sweetneth within us no man can and God will not take this joy from us How fruitful soever we may be yet we are but unprofitable servants less profitable to our Lord and Owner then the Trees of the Garden or Forrest are to us yet how unprofitable soever we are to him he continues most gracious unto us and permits us to reap and enjoy the fruits of all these good things which he himself alone doth sow and plant doth water and cherish and give encrease unto within our hearts and souls Were it possible for the husbandman or Vine-dresser so to infuse the life
tast of it he shall be saved without addition of any other Grace besides that which it is supposed he hath Is it then apparent that a man may fall from that Grace or lose the Tast of that Grace in which if he did continue or not lose the Tast of it he should be saved Yes This is as clear as the day light For whosoever doth continue in the Participation of the Holy Ghost or doth not lose the Tast of the heavenly Gift or of the Powers of the World to come shall never perish shall be saved Impossible it is that any man should enter into the estate of death or of reprobation so long as he hath the Tast of the life to come implanted in his heart and spirit and this is for nature and quality saving Grace But some that have tasted of this Grace do utterly lose the tast of it and so fall from Grace in it self sufficient to save their souls For though all that lose this tast do not sin against the Holy Ghost yet no man can sin against the Holy Ghost until he lose this tast and yet no man can lose this tast but he that hath had it The Conclusion then is most pregnant that it is more possible or a shorter passage for a man to fall from seving Grace or to lose the tast of it then to sin against the Holy Ghost The most useful meditations then will be to discover the Means whereby such as once have had the tast of the heavenly Grace do come to lose it with their several degrees and these are divers 5. First It is to be supposed that God doth by his Spirit infuse this tast into mens souls not continually or uncessantly But as we say by Fits or Turns This tast of the powers of the Life to come is sometimes Transient we cannot have it when we list but must expect Gods providence and attend his pleasure for the renewing of it and crave the assistance of his Spirit for producing it by humble supplication and prayer Want of the due esteem of it whilst we have it negligence in the duty of prayer and other Godly exercises doth deprive us of it when we might have had it renewed in us God doth not promise that any shall injoy this pearl besides such as diligently seek after it And when they have found it or rather when it hath found them do duly prize it And as this Tast of eternal life is often for a time lost or much prejudiced by meer negligence in sacred duties so it may be choaked and stifled by errors or misperswasions which insinuate themselves into mens thoughts or phantasies after they have been partakers of it Many there be which will unfeignedly acknowledge that the pledge or Earnest of Eternal Life which they have received is of more worth and value then all the pleasures or contentments of this world which can oppose or countersway the desires of it And yet the same men through the sleights and subtilty of Satan play but the Sophisters with their own souls Thus Assuming or Resolving That albeit the tast of the heavenly Gift be more to be desired then all the temporal contentments which are incompatible with it yet the Tast of these heavenly joyes and the contentments of this life which may be enjoyed with it are better then it alone for One good how little soever being added to another how great soever makes some addition of goodness Thus many covetous men and oppressors will easily be perswaded that they may increase their temporal estate without any forfeiture of their estate in Gods spiritual blessings The ambitious or aspiring mind thinks he may glorifie God more by his high place or dignitie in Church or Common-wealth then by continuing a private and retired life As for the drunkard the glutton and the lascivious man they seldom are perswaded that they may continue their wonted courses and enjoy the Tast of the heavenly Gift And for this reason many that have been subject to these sins have been more easily won to the love of truth and of saving grace then the Proud the Covetous the Ambitious or Envious men are because the one in his sober thoughts fore-sees the danger and acknowledgeth his sins whereas the other rejoyceth continually in his courses without suspition of danger 6. Or if the covetous or ambitious mind sometimes suspects his wayes yet being ingaged to pursue them lest he might be thought to have varied in his course of life the best repentance which he usually attains unto is but like his in the Poet Id primum si facta mihi revocare liceret Non coepisse fuit caepta expugnare Secundum est If I were to begin the world again I should happily make choice of another kind of life but being ingaged the next point is to make the best of that course of life which I have chosen And yet the more he makes of it the worse he speeds in it in the main chance the more he prejudiceth the Habitual or Actual Tast of Eternal life for the more we are accustomed to any course of life the more we delight in it and are weaned from it with greater difficultie And yet we must be weaned even from the world it self before we can rightly Tast the sincere milk of the Gospel or be capable of that strong meat which is contained in this Article of Eternal Life and others concerning Christ by which The Tast of this Life must be fed and nourished So that of all sins pride covetousness and Ambition are the most dangerous both because they be of more credit or less infamie in the world and because they multiply their Acts the most and may work uncessantly But though it be for the most part as true of these times wherein we live as it was in the days of our Saviours conversation here on earth that Publicans and open sinners are oftentimes neerer to the Kingdom of heaven then many which live a more sober or civil life but yet are covetous vain-glorious or envious as the Scribes and Pharisees were yet there is no man that sets his heart to Tast of any unlawful pleasures though of those pleasures which in his sober thoughts he condemnes but doth hereby weaken or dead his Tast of the food of Life and make himself subject to former temptations whensoever they shall assault him However in the absence of temptations they may seem unto themselves and unto others to repent yet when fresh ones arise they usually come to the same vent at which the affections of that incestuous wanton in the Poet broke out when she said Denique non possum innoxia dici Quod superest multum est in vota in crimina parvum I am an offender already and if I shall go on but a little this may give greater satisfaction unto my desires then it can adde unto the measure of my sin But voluntarily to give satisfaction to
to me saith the Psalmist Psal 71. 3. my strong habitation whereto I may continually resort thou hast given commandement to save me for thou art my Rock and my Fortresse But that Christ is the Rock of our Salvation of our habitation in distresse is a point which needs no further proof no amplification Yet seeing he is our dwelling place the Rock of our Habitation in whom we dwell How can he be said to dwell in us An house may be said to be in the Citie but may we say that the Citie is in the house Men dwel in Houses or Tents but was it ever heard that Houses or Tents did dwell in men that are the Lords and owners of them The branch may abide in the Tree So may the Graft in the Stock but who would say That the Tree abideth in the Branch or the Stock in the Graft How then is it said That the Rock both of our Salvation and Habitation the Sanctuarie of our Souls in all distresse doth dwell in us How can He who is the Root of Jesse the Root of David Revel 5. 5. The True Vine which Gods own Right-Hand hath planted abide in us who are but wild slips lately ingrafted into the Stem from which the natural Branches were broken off 20. The Difficultie arising from this Doubled Comparison though really but One must be handled in Two First How Christ may be said to dwell in us and we in Him Secondly How He may be said to abide in us and not we in Him onely This mutual Inhabitation and Reciprocal abode or In-Being is very mystical and admirable Yet may our apprehension of it be facilitated by observing some resemblances thereof in other things far different To name that First which is worst That possession of the Bodie of man which evil Spirits did usurp in our Saviours time is in H. Scripture oft set down in terms denoting the Evil Spirits being in the man Matth. 12. 45. They enter in and dwell there and Ch. 8. 31. if thou cast us out suffer us to go into the Herd of swine And Acts. 19. 16. The man in whom the evil spirit was Yet doth S. Mark Chapt. 1. 23. and Chapt. 5. 2. expresse this in the Original as if the man was in an Evil Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Logick and Philosophie tell us that The whole is in the parts and the parts in the whole whether it be a Totum potentiale or Universale as Genus which is in the Species the Species likewise in the Genus or whether it be Totum Collectivum so the Citie is in the Several Families or Houshoulds and these again are in the Citie Some Good Divines have taken notice of That Speech or expression Enter thou into thy Masters Joy as importing the wondrous amplitude thereof it is such as cannot be comprehended or contained within him but he must enter into it Yet sure that Joy doth both Satiate the Soul and Replenish the Bodie of him that enters into it He is as if we could suppose a large Vessel of Chrystal or transparent Gold let down into a Sea of Nectar or living waters But the expressions of Scripture about God the Father his being in Christ and Christ in Him and in us and of our Being in Him and of Christ his Holy Spirit being in us is various Especially In S. John Chap. 14. verses 10 11 16 17 20 23. and perhaps more easie to be experimented by the Christian Union with God then to be explayned in words more easie then the texts themselves 21. To let these pass then The proposed Difficulties must have their proper Solutions the former from the explication of that Great Attribute of Christ to wit that He is the Chief-corner stone c. The other Difficultie referres to that Metaphor of the vine and the Branches or of the Stock and the Grafts Christ is compared unto A stone or Rock and wee unto living Stones built upon it in respect of the strength and firmness of the foundation and structure of Gods House or Temple He is again rightly compared to the vine to an Olive or other more fruitfull tree and we unto Branches or grafts not springing from the Root but ingrafted into it in respect of our growth in Him and of the Diffusion of His virtue into us and through us That we are built upon Christ as the Apostle saith Eph. 2. 20. this doth argue that we dwell in him that Hee is the Rock of our habitation In that we are built on him as on the Chief Corner-stone not under Him onely as He is Summus angularis lapis the Chief Stone at the Topp but upon Him as Lapis imus the First-Foundation-stone too and that a Living stone which was cut out of the Mountain without Hands and which was to grow into a Mountain filling the whole earth This inferres That he must dwell in us For the stone which Daniel speakes of did not become a great mountain so great a mountain as should fill all the earth by addition or by heaping or building one stone upon another but by the growth of life that is by increase or augmentation of the same stone Did this stone then increase or grow from small beginings unto a mountain overspreading the whole earth If this wee say the rock of our salvation or habitation must receive increase of life and become a greater habitation or dwelling place in this last Age than he had been in any former But how should this be true seeing he is and was the rock of ages the Rock on which the world it self is Founded the rock by which the earth it self which supporteth all other rocks is supported Heb. 1. 3. 22. Such a Rock he was from eternitie as he is God not as he is man As man he was first as a little stone yet a growing stone for he grew in wisdom and stature and favour with God and man Luke 2. 52. As God he could not be the corner-stone which God had promised to lay in Sion Yet was Christ who was both God and man That stone which was layd in Sion And as he which was both God and man did suffer for us was raysed again the third day from the dead not according to his Godhead but according to his manhood So was he the same Christ which was both God and man the stone layd in Sion not according to his Godhead but according to his manhood This gives us the ordinary interpretation of the Prophet Esay Chapt. 28. 16. But A late Interpreter of prophecies or visions hath observed an Hypallage or inversion in these words not infrequent in the Prophets familiar as he alledgeth to the Hebrew writers such an inversion as Grammarians observe in that of the Poet In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas Corpora That is Formes changed into new bodies for bodies changed into new formes Thus saith this late Interpreter when the Prophet saith
Or did he give us as the Church of Rome saith Evangelical Counsels as Additionals unto the Law In no wise Christ taught no other things then his Apostles after his resurrection did preach and his Apostles taught no other things then Moses and the Prophets had taught Acts 26. 22. But these they taught after another maner then the Scribes and Pharisees did then the ordinary Expositors of the Law and the Prophesies had done So that Gods will concerning man was more fully declared by Christ then it was by Moses or by the Prophets the very true meaning of Moses himself and of the Prophets was more fully revealed and clearly manifested unto mankinde in Christ then it was to Moses himself or to the Prophets Unto me saith our Apostle Ephes 3. 8 9 10. who am less then the least of all Saints is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mysterie which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God who created all things by Jesus Christ To the intent that now unto the Principalities and Powers in Heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God And by this more full declaration of Gods Will in Christ we Christians are tyed unto more strict observance of His Will known then men were tyed unto before Christ was declared to be the Lord Admitting the Services to be the very same yet the same services are now due under a double Title They are due to God the Father by right of Creation and due to Christ as he is Lord For God the Father is to be honored not onely in himself but in Christ 6. God when he gave the moral Law to Israel useth this Preface I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt This was his peculiar right or Title unto Israel and the Precept grounded upon this Title follows Thou shalt have no other Gods but me But you may remember how it was foretold by the Prophet Jeremie Jer. 23. 7 8. That it should no more be said the Lord liveth which brought the children of Israel out of Egypt But the Lord liveth which brought up the seed of the house of Israel out of the North Land Or according to the prime Grammatical sense of the word principally intended by the Holie Ghost out of the Land of darkness and This was fulfilled onely in Christ So that He who was the Lord of Israel by right of redemption from Egyptian bondage is now become the Lord of every Language of every Nation and Kindred by a more peculiar Title by right of redemption from the Powers of darkness and from Hell it self Hence saith our Apostle 1. Cor. 8. 5 6. Though there be that are called Gods whether in heaven or in earth as there are Gods many and Lords many But to us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him As the Israelites are forbid to have any other God besides the Lord which brought them out of the Land of Egypt so are we Christians forbid to have any Lords or Masters besides Christ So saith our Saviour Matth. 23. 8 9 10. Be not ye called Rabbi for one is your Master even Christ call no man your father upon the Earth for one is your Father which is in heaven And he repeats the former Caveat Neither be ye called Masters for one is your Master even Christ He that forbids them to be called Masters over others doth likewise forbid them to be servants to other Masters besides himself And this Duty is more fully exprest by our Apostle 1 Cor. 7. 23. Ye are bought with a price be not ye the servants of men He no way forbids bodily service but rather injoyns such as were servants properly so called that is slaves or bond-men to continue in their calling ver 20 21. as knowing bodily servitude not to be incompatible with Christian liberty no not with the Liberty of the Sons of God He that is called in the Lord being a servant is the Lords free-man likewise he that is called being a Free-man is Christs servant What service of men then doth Christ or his Apostles forbid The vassalage of our reason or understanding or the submission of our consciences to the pleasures or services of men or of the corrupt times wherein we live Thus to alienate our service from Christ to any mortal men is whether you list to call it a branch of Sacriledge or Idolatry if not more gross yet certainly more deadly in all such as confess Christ to be their Lord then the worshipping of stocks and stones was either in the Heathen or in the Israelites themselves before Christ was declared to be the Son of God and solemnly proclaimed to be the Lord. To give you another Instance how Gods Will is more exactly done by Real Confession of Christ to be THE LORD 7. This is the will of God saith the Apostle 1 Thess 4. 3. Even your sanctification that you should abstain from fornication that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor not in the lust of concupiscence even as the Gentiles which know not God To this duty the Israelites were as truly tyed as we Christians are It was as the Apostle intimates a necessary branch or fruit of the true knowledge of God a service due unto him as he was the Creator But unto this same duty the Israelites were not bound by so many ties as we Christians are It is required of us by a strict peculiar Title not onely by our knowledge of God as our Creator nor by our acknowledgement of Christ to be the Lord as this Title of Lord hath relation onely unto servants he may and doth exact this duty at our hands not onely by right of Redemption or by paying the ransom for our sins upon the Cross but by right of Espousals or by Title of Lord as he is the Head and Husband of his Spouse the Church No motive can be so forcible to deter men from transgressing this negative Commandment or for incouraging them to do Gods Will in the affirmative part of the former Commandment as that of our Apostle 1 Cor. 6. 13. 14 15. Now the body is not for fornication but for the Lord and the Lord for the body And God hath both raised up the Lord and will also raise up us by his own power Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot God forbid And again ver 20. Ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which are Gods 8. It was well observed long ago by Occolampadius that
seem a welcom Messenger and loss of life and external senses a gainfull exchange if by their loss we might be exempted or acquit from those fearfull Sights wherewith the eyes or from those hideous noyses wherewith the eares and hearts of all then living shall be filled But most men hope for or at least expect a dissolution of this sensitive life before the appearance of that great and terrible day And this very Imagination or conceipt that all our senses shall be locked up by death the eares utterly deprived of hearing the eyes of sight that the whole body even the heart if self being bestript of all feeling or motion shall put on a thick covering of sad earth doth for the most part benum our senses enfeeble our faith and dead our apprehensions either of the Terrours of that day or of the joyes that shall ensue unto all them that do escape them Whilst we think of death or of their estate which have been long dead and consumed in the grave we say in our hearts not as the Psalmist did Lord shall the dead praise thee but shall the dead fear thee O Lord shall such as descend into the pit are covered with dust and resolv'd into rotteness be affrighted with thy voice or stand amazed at thy appearance Thus then as there is no Article of Christian Faith more available to make men live a Christian life then this Article of the last general Judgement So is there no branch either of this general nor any other Article of Christian Faith in particular which requireth more fortification whether from the store-house of the book of Nature or from the book of Grace then this point of the Resurrection doth This is the Hold which Satan the sworn enemy of our Souls eternal peace and welfare seeks by all means to surprize and subvert and unto whose speedie surprizal or utter subversion flesh and blood have been in all Ages most prone to yeild their consent and furtherance As Christ Crucified was the main stumbling-block to the Iew So the preaching of his Resurrection and of our hopes of a joyful Resurrection by the power and virtue of His was the main rock of offence of Contradiction or gain-saying to the Infidels or irreligious Heathens When the Athenians saith S. Luke Act. 17. 32. these were the most civil and learned people amongst the Heathen heard of the Resurrection of the dead some mocked others said we will hear thee again of this thing The rest of his Learned and Philosophical discourse all of them heard with atention and would he have spoken more they would have been willing to have heard him longer upon any other Argument But their entertainment of this Treatise of the Resurection was generally so rude so unrespective on their parts and so unwelcome to him that he immediately departed from them Howbeit God did not leave the truth deliverd by him even in this point without competent Testimonie for Denys of Areopagus and a woman named Damaris with some others did believe Paul But these were but a few in respect of them that did not believe or did mock him Now it is a Rule undoubted that The same motives or temptations which drew the heathen to contradict or oppugn the truth will abate or weaken the Assent of Christians unto the same truth unless they be removed by discovery of their original error 2. The Errors concerning the Final Judgment in general or indefinitely considered are specially Three The First of such as denied the Divine Providence over men or did confine it to this transitory life without expectation of any account or reckoning to be made after death And these were but few among the ancient Heathens to wit the sect of Epicures whose opinion was refuted by the verdict of most other Heathens and by the contradiction which the denial of the Divine Providence did include unto the opinions of the Epicures themselves The Second gross Error or branch of infidelity concerning the Final Judgement was The denial of the Immortality of the human soul And this was accounted an Heresie or impious opinion by the most and hath been exquisitely refuted by the most learned amongst the Heathens The third Error or branch of infidelity concerning the Final Iudgment was The denial ignorance or doubt of the Resurrection of the body or of the whole man as consisting of body and soul And this Error in some degree or other was most general to all the heathen All such as denied either the Divine Providence or the Immortality of the Soul all such as doubted or were ignorant of either of these truths did likewise deny or were doubtful or ignorant of the Resurrection of the body But on the contrary neither all nor most of such as did deny or were ignorant or doubtful of the Resurrection of the body did either deny or were ignorant or doubtful of the immortality of the soul But no marvel if the heathens which did not doubt of the immortality of the soul were altogether or for the most part ignorant of the Resurrection of the body when as in this Church of Corinth which God had visibly graced with many excellent gifts of the Spirit there were some a great sort too many which said There was no Resurrection of the dead and the Thessalonians a people docile and apt to take the impression or most lively character of Christianity a people excelling other Christians in brotherly love were ignorant in part of this great Mystery and from their ignorance or scant measure of knowledge in it did mourn beyond measure for their dead 1 Thess 4. 13 c. Of these Corinthians and Thessalonians and of the Heathens that of our Saviour unto the Sadduces Matth. 22. 29. is most true They therefore erred because they knew not the Scriptures nor the Power of God We are then First To remove that Obstacle of Impossibility which is pretended from Nature and may seemingly be argued by natural and Philosophical Reasons Secondly To set down the manner of the Resurrection and the positive Proofs of it out of the Scriptures or Word of God 3. Albeit none of the heathens did expresly acknowledge such a Resurrection as we believe although the most of them were ready to deny it when it was proposed unto them yet many of them had divers Implicit Notions of it There were though not in any one Sect of their Philosophers yet in divers Sects such scattered Reliques or Fragments of this Eternal Truth as being skilfully put together will represent more then most Christians conceive of it The First Fragment or implicit Notion of it was That antient Opinion fathered upon Pythagoras That the soules of men after their departure from their proper bodies did according to their several demeanors enter into bruit Beasts or other creatures The souls of men which had been given to spoil and raven were in this Philosophers opinion to be imprisoned in the bodies of
motion in all the Interim between the day of their dissolution and the last day By the Resurrection they shall not only recover life sense and motion but the life which they get shall be indowed with Immortalitie the bodies shall be clothed with Glory This change of our mortal bodies into immortal is much greater then the most plentifull increase which any seed doth yield One seed or grain may in some soils bring forth thirty in others sixtie in others a hundred but immortality added to the life of the body is an increase in respect of this mortal life which now we lead inexpressible by any number The life of Methuselah is not comparable to it albeit the years which he lived on earth were multiplied by the dayes contained in them and both multiplied again by all the minutes and scruples conteined in the dayes and years which he lived And yet after this increase of life our bodies shall be the same they were for nature and essence but not the same for qualities or capacities whether of joyes or pains In these respects they shall differ far more then any corn growing doth from the seed from which it springs And this difference of qualities between the bodies which die and shall be raised again was all that our Apostle sought or intended to illustrate or set forth by that similitude which he useth Thou sowest not the corn which shall be that is not the same corn for quantitie for qualitie for vigour of life nor shall mens bodies be raised again to such a life only as they formerly had or to such a corruptible estate as that wherein death did apprehend them but to a life truly immortal 8. The second question proposed by the Corinthian Naturalist was with what bodies shall the dead come forth or appear And the direct Answer to this Question is included in the former similitude so much insisted on before as that it needs not to be repeated here the Effect of it is This That they shall come forth with bodies much more excellent then those with which they descended into the grave And of this general Answer included in the similitude of the Corn or Seed sown all the Exemplifications following unto verse 45. are native Branches 39. All flesh is not the same flesh but there is one kind of flesh of men another flesh of beasts another of fishes and another of birds 40. There are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial but the glory of the celestial is one and the glory of the terrestrial is another 41. There is one glory of the Sun another of the Moon and another glory of the Stars for one Star differeth from another in glory 42. So also is the resurrection of the dead it is sown in corruption it is raised in incorruption 43. It is sown in dishonor it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power 44. It is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body c. Thus much of the Positive Force of our Apostles Argument drawn from the similitude of the Corn which by the Law of Nature must die before it be quickned and receive increase 9. But of this similitude it is no native branch or part whether the corn which dies being sown do rise again the next year for vital substance or life the same which it was whilst it was contained in the blade or ear the year before certainly it is not the same for Corpulencie for matter or quantitie But whether the seeds of life or spirit of corn do not remain the same by continuation though in divers bodies or matter our Apostle disputes not nor do I dispute This is a curiositie which cannot be determined in the Pulpit without appeal unto the Schools The vital spirit or essence of the Corn may be so far the same in the corn which is sown and which is reaped that if we should for disputation sake suppose or imagine what some have dogmatically affirmed to wit That the corn sown were endowed with sense or feeling were capable of pleasure or pain the pleasure which it formerly enjoyed might be renewed increased or multiplied with increase or multiplication of its bodily substance so might the pain which it had felt before it was sown be renewed and increased after it were quickned again if any sort of corn were appointed as some men are to torture and punishment Now albeit we must believe that mens bodies after the Resurrection shall be the very same for substance which they were before death yet are we not bound to believe that they shall be any further the same then that every man which died in his sins may in his bodie feel an infinite increase of those miseries which he had deserved and in some sort felt whilst he lived on earth Or that every man at the last day may reap an infinite increase of those joyes and comforts of which in this life he had some tasts or pledges whilst he sowed unto the spirit For as the Apostle elsewhere speaks he that soweth unto the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption a full crop of all the miseries incident to mortalitie but miseries more then mortal miseries everlasting and never dying And he that in this life soweth unto the spirit shall at the Resurrection of the spirit reap life but a life immortal without end without annoyance or interruption of joy Again they extend the former similitude too far which from it would gather that as there is a natural force or previal disposition in the corn sown by which as by a secondary cause or instrumental mean it is quickned and increased So there be natural seeds of life in the putrified reliques of mens bodies or remnants of the matter dissolved out of which life immortal shall so spring as the blade doth out of the seed which is sown only by the sustentative or operative power of God by which all things are supported or enabled to produce their natural effects For although it be true that the works which we ascribe to nature are wrought by God or by continuation of the same power by which they were first created and set a working yet the Resurrection of mens bodies shall not be wrought by the mere continuation of This Power There must be more then a conservation of their matter more then an usual co-operation with the Elements out of which they are raised there must be even a new creation of their bodies yet not a Creation of them out of nothing but out of the scattered fragments of their matter such a creation as the works of the fifth and sixth day were when God commanded the sea or water to bring forth fishes in their kind and the earth to bring forth trees or plants in their kinde These were not effects of nature or of that power only by which the Sea and earth were from
wrath malice blasphemie silthy communication out of your mouth Lie not one to another seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds All of us have put off the old man by profession and Solemn Vow at our Baptism and a double Wo or Curse shall befal us unless we put him off in practise and resolution and labour to put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him The particular Limbs of this New man are set forth unto us by our Apostle verse 13 14. Forbearing one another and forgiving one another if any man have a quarel against any even as Christ forgave you so also do ye And above all these things put on Charity which is the bond of perfectnesse The particular Duties required of men and women according to their several conditions or states of life as of Wives to Husbands and of Husbands to Wives as of Children to Parents and of Parents to Children of Servants to Masters and of Masters to Servants are set down by the same Apostle in the verses following unto the end of the Chapter Now we must be altogether as certain that we do truely sincerely and constantly perform these duties which are by our Apostle in this place required whether as General to all Christians or such as concern particular estates of life as we are of This general That whosoever doth truly mortifie the deeds of the body and perform the other duties here required shall be undoubted partaker of the Resurrection unto Glory before we can be certain certitudine fidei by certaintie of faith of our salvation or Resurrection unto glory in particular 12. Doth any amongst us upon the examination required before the receiving of the Sacrament find himself extreamly negligent or generally defective in performance of these duties Let not such a one take his negligence past as any sign or undoubted mark of reprobation yet would I withall advise him not to approach the Lords Table without a wedding garment without a sincere and hearty sorrow for his negligences past without a sincere hearty desire of doing better hereafter If consciousness of former negligence in these duties or of practises contrary unto them be seasoned with sorrow and hearty desire of amendment the point whereon I would advise such a man for the present to pitch his faith shall not be his own Election nor the Certaintie of his present and future estate in Grace or Real and infallible Interest in Christ his Resurrection But upon that Character or description of our Saviour given by the Evangelical Prophet Esay 42. 3. and experienced upon Record by the Evangelist St. Matthew Matth. 12. 20. That he quencheth not smoaking flax that he will not shake the bruised Reed Remember that as the Second Resurrection unto glorie must be wrought by vertue of Christs Resurrection from the dead so the first Resurrection from the dead works of sin unto newness of life must be wrought by the participation of his Body which was given and of his Blood which was shed for us Remember that by his death and passion he became not only the Ransom but the Soveraign Medicine for all our sins A Medicine for our sins of wilfulness and commission to make us more wary not to offend A Medicine for our sins of negligence and omission to make us more diligent in the works of pietie And the time and place appointed for the receiving of the body and blood of Christ is the time and place appointed by Him for our cure Heal us then O Lord and we shall be healed Thou O Lord who hast abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel Enliven and enlighten our hearts by thy Spirit and in them thus enlightned kindle a love of doing thy Will bring good intentions to good desires and good desires to firm resolutions and confirm our Resolutions with constancie and perseverance in thy service Amen ALmighty God which hast given thine only Son to die for our Sins and to rise again for our Justification mercifully grant that we both follow the example of his patience and be made partakers of his Resurrection through the same Jesus Christ our Lord Amen Almighty God give us Grace so to cast away the works of Darknesse and put on the Armour of light now in the Time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humilitie that at the last day when he shall come again in his Glorious Majestie to judge both the Quick and the Dead we may rise to the life immortal through him who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holie Ghost now and ever Amen The End of the fourth Section SECTION V. Of the Article of Everlasting life A Transition of the Publishers VVE are now by the Good hand of God upon the Work arrived at The fifth Section A very Considerable Part of this Eleventh Book The Subject matter of this Section according to what was cut out by the Method proposed in the oft mentioned Ninth Chapter is The Final Doom Award or Sentence of Life and Death which The King of Glorie our most worthy Judge Eternal shall respectively pronounce and pass upon all at that Dreadful and yet Ioyful Day of Iudgment when he shall deal and distribute Palms and Prizes Crowns and a Kingdom to the little or in Comparison the less Flock or Sheep set at his Right hand for whom such good things were prepared from the Foundation of the world But utter Extermination to the goats on the Left hand whom he will send accursed into Everlasting Prisons there to be tormented in that fire which was first prepared not for them but for their Tempter and tormentors the Divel and his Angels I confess our Great Author closes not with the Point of Everlasting life till he come to the Twentieth Chapter But I thought my self bound here to insert the Three next Chapters viz. the 17 18 and 19 for these reasons following 1. Because they be Three and the First Three of Thirteen Excellent and most Elaborate Tracts all in order composed upon The sixth Chapter to the Romans and pity it was to sever them from the Other with which they so well consort and sure 2. If I had left out These Three I should not onely have done prejudice to the Author and his work but to the Reader and his Content or benefit who will find that these Three Chapters are as comely and as useful Introductions to his Rich Discourses about the Domus Aeternitatis the two several long Homes of all mankind as any Propylaea or Areae can possibly be to any two Houses of this Worlds Building 3. The Doctrine delivered in these Three Next Chapters is so promotive and incentive of Christian Pietie and some of it so Homogeneal to the ensuing Tracts that they could not be more fitly placed then before the Discourses about the Final Award or Sentence 4.
The imperfection of all Contentments incident to this life discovers it self these Two Wayes First The several capacities are too narrow and feeble in themselves to give entertainment to any portion of sincere and true joy the very best Contentments which here they find in any Object are mingled with dregs Secondly The satisfying of one capacitie defrauds another of that measure of contentment whereof in this life it was otherwayes capable And commonly the satisfying of the baser facultie or meanest capacitie doth deprive the more noble facultie of its due Men given to their bellies or solicitous in purveying for the grosser senses of taste or touch defraud the sense of sight which is the gate of knowledge and the ear which is the sense of discipline of their best Contentments For as the old saying is Venter non habet aures the Belly hath no ears And too much insight in the means which procure bodily pleasures doth blind or darken the Common sense Others not so solicitous to feed the belly with meat as the ear with pleasant sounds or the eye with delightful spectacles do by both means rob the reasonable soul of her best solace and as it were block up these ports and havens by which provision should come into her Every handy-craft or art of husbandry requires an ordinary capacitie not of the Common sense only but of the understanding And yet such as have their minds exercised in these and the like imployments are thereby dis-enabled for bearing Rule or Government over more civil and ingenuous men as may be collected from the wise Son of Sirach Ecclus. 38. from the 25. to the 33. Even amongst the capacities or faculties of the reasonable soul there is not that harmony or concord which were requisite for her better contentment Some men in a manner freed from the servitude of their outward senses and able to command their service for contemplation by too much contemplating upon one sort of objects make themselves uncapable of reaping that delight which other objects would more plentifully afford to these Contemplators Some by studying the Mathematicks too much do benum their apprehensive faculties or capacities of prudence or civil knowledge Others whiles they seek to give too much satisfaction to their desires or capacities of civil wisdom or humane Prudence do infeeble their capacities and starve their desires of divine Mysteries or spiritual understanding Quite contrary it is in the life to come First The Capacitie of every sense or facultie is improved to the uttermost and no object shall intrude or offer it self but such as are able to give severally full Contentment without satietie Secondly The Harmony or Consent between the several Capacities and desires of every Sense and Facultie is most exact the satisfying of one doth no way prejudice but rather further another Every one is apt to bear its part for making up of that full harmony which is required to true happiness And For those grosser Senses of Touch and Taste â—ith the Appetite of meat and drink All the pleasures in this life wherewith that are commonly overtaken are as we said before medicines of diseases rather than any true Contentments The first degree or step to happiness is To be freed from those diseases wherewith they now are pestered For though it be a miserie for a man to want food when he is an hungry or drink when he is thirstie or rayment when he is cold or needs it for ornament yet we all conceive it to be a far greater happiness to enjoy continual health and liveliness without either hunger or thirst or to have perfect comeliness without clothing or rayment And for this reason that branch of happiness which consists in satisfying the Capacities of these Senses is in Scripture described by Negatives As there shall be no hunger there no thirst no greif no pain These are the Symptomes of those grosser Senses in this life which in the life to come shall not enjoy the pleasures or Contentments which are contrary to these annoyances as we say in kind but by a happy Exchange by such an exchange as he that turns lead into silver doth forego a great deal of dross or baser metal but gains that which contains the full value of it in a small waight or compass Of all and every one of the bodily Contentments we can possibly imagine the very immortalitie of glorified Bodies is for qualitie more then the Quintessence or Extraction It containeth health and chearfulness of Spirit with all the pleasures that accompany them as we say Eminenter that is As one pound waight of Gold fully contains in its worth many hundreds of lead so one Moment of immortalitie the least waight of glory we can imagine is worth a full Age of all the health and happinesse that can be had on earth Instead of material food which perisheth with the use and whose fulness doth alwayes breed satietie the appetite of meat and drink shall be continually satisfied with the Tree of Life which or rather the Emblem or Type of which our First Parents were not admitted to touch in Paradise 6. When the Sadduces captiously demanded Which of those seven brethren should have that woman to his wife in the world to come which had been successively married to all the seven Our Saviour answers The children of this world marry and are given in marriage but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage neither can they die any more for they are equal to the Angels What then shall such as have enjoyed the comfort of wedlock be utterly deprived of that comfort in heaven which was allotted to Adam in Paradise even in the state of innocencie They shall not have it in kind for seeing flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven there shall not be there any Two in one flesh but in lieu of this comfort such as observe the Commandements of Christ shall be more neerly espoused and joyned in spirit unto Christ For as man and wife make one body so he that is joyned unto the Lord is one spirit 1 Cor. 6. 17. This is the consummation of that Great Mystery which is here begun on earth and whereof the first marriage in Paradise was but the visible sign or shadow This is the very perfection of all pure and chast love As for those other purer Senses of Sight and Hearing they shall enjoy their former Contentments both Eminenter and Formaliter both in kind and by happy exchange Though enabled they shall be to see far more glorious sights and to hear more heavenly sounds then in this life they could either hear or see Yet shall they not be disenabled to see the same sights or hear the same sounds which sometimes in this life they did But these they shall hear and see with infinite more delight and joy because the Capacitie of these senses shall
be improved as far as life it self is improved which of mortal becomes immortal The light was truly heavenly which did shine about Saint Paul and the voice was heavenly which spake unto him as he was journeying towards Damascus but the light did strike him blind and the voice astonished him What was the reason Being yet in the flesh his Senses were not capable of these celestial impressions But this you will say was a judgement upon Saint Paul because he was yet a Persecuter So was not Saint Peter when he saw our Saviours Transfiguration upon the Mount This was but a glimpse of that glory which shall be revealed and yet it so overcharged his senses that it put him in a manner besides himself besides his wit or understanding for he knew not what he said when he said Let us make here three tabernacles one for thee and one for Moses and another for Elias Only this he was sure of in the general That it was good being there or that if he should alwayes have been as for the present he was he should have been a most happy man specially if his capacitie to receive or entertain what he then heard or saw had been any way proportionable unto them Saint Paul likewise after his conversion was so Rapt in spirit with the Celestial words which he heard that it seemed he knew not whether he were in the body or out of the body when he heard them that is whether he were locally present in Paradise whence those words were spoken or whether his spirit were Elevated to hear them in such distance whether of the two it was certainly such words they were that they could not be uttered by him or be made known unto others 2 Cor. 12. 4. And as the words were unutterable so the joyes which then possessed him were unexpressible by any known similitude or resemblance O how great then shall those joyes be when the sense of hearing shall be as capable of these Celestial voyces as it now is of earthly when our sense of sight shall be as fitly proportioned to the spectacles of paradise as it is now unto the stars of the firmament when all our faculties shall be as capable of Celestial influences as they are now of sublunary impressions 7. Briefly all the joyes or contentments of The life to come even compleat happiness it self may be reduced to these Two First to joy or happiness Essential Secondly to joy or happiness concomitant or Accidental Of both in their order and how they are set forth unto us in Scripture Joy or happiness Essential consists in the fruition of Gods presence But seeing the Deitie or Divine nature is every where present is it not now present with us on earth sure it is but we are far from it A light or candle may be present to a blind man and yet he as far from enjoying any comfort of its presence as if it were put under a bushel at the Antipodes Such is the case of all whose sins have made a separation betwixt their God and them He is present with them present in them but they are further removed from the comfort of his presence then the Center of the earth is from the Highest Heavens The three children were in the fierie furnace but it made no impression upon them they felt no smart or pain from it because the heat of it did not enter into them Thus the Diuine Nature or essence doth incompass all good and bad more truly then the furnace did their bodies yet he that could withdraw the force or influence of heat from the fire can likewise withhold the joy or comfort of his presence from such as love him not But wheresoever it is it is the fountain of all joy and happiness and shall any man be in the fountain of joy and happiness and shall this fountain be in them and they not made happy by it Yes it is not enough that the fountain of happiness is in them they must enter into the joy of this Fountain before they become happy by it Now that servant which hath once entred into his masters joy needs no other external contentment or object to satisfie the particular capacities of sense or of any internal faculties For as the Being of every creature is contained in the Omnipotent nature in a more excellent manner then in it self so all the goodness or comfortable influence which the creatures can communicate unto others is contained in a manner far more excellent in Gods infinite goodness which is likewise more communicative then any finite goodness can be This infinite goodness dwelleth in Christ bodily the spirit of all joy and gladness is given unto him but without measure It pleased God that in him should all fulness dwell That as we in this life from his fulness receive grace for grace so in the better life or life to come we should receive jor for joy that is joy upon joy without ceasing without end even as much as we shall be capable of yea above all that we are able to desire or conceive 8. Our life saith the Apostle Coloss 3. 3. is hid with Christ in God when Christ who is our life shall appear then shall ye also appear with him in Glorie All as many as have their fruit unto Holiness in this life have the pledge the earnest or the Cocket of the next But the life it self whereof Holiness is the pledge or Cocket is treasured up in Christ and may not be delivered unto us untill we be changed untill he appear in glory unchangeable Whilest we see not him we see not our selves or that life which is treasured up for us in him This sight is deferred or reserved until his appearance Then this sight shall grow into a perfect tast So saith the same Apostle 1 Cor. 13. 12. Now we see through a glass that is indistinctly or as we see a truth lockt up in a Riddle But then When that which is perfect shall come then shall we see face to face Now saith the Apostle of himself I know in part but then shall I know even as I am known Saint John hath the like mysterie more fully 1 John 3. 2. beloved now are we the sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like to him for we shall see him as he is From all these places but chiefly from the last it is apparent That the fulness of our joyes and happiness is from the vision or sight of God in Christ And hence is this Sight by the learned and such as have insight in these mysteries called Visio Beatifica the Blessed vision or the vision which makes us happy yet happy it makes us in that by it we become like unto him who is most happie blessed yea blessedness it self This is Saint Johns inference we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is that
is not through a glass but in a glass Our understanding or intellective facultie is as a Glass wherein this vision is made Now the understanding as the Philosopher observed is as a glass apt to receive the impression of all things intelligible And as he imagined could not be perfected could never understand its own nature aright untill it were made all things until it had received the images or stamps of all things And hence it is that the more men know the more they desire to know The knowledge of many particulars doth but excite our imbred desire of knowing more and this desire can never be satisfied until we know all things Now to know all things successively or one after another is impossile It was the complaint of the father of the Physitians Ars longa vita breuis The true knowledge of any Art or science or the subject of it is long in getting whereas mans life is short There is no end saith Solomon of writing many books and much reading which is but the hunting after knowledge is a weariness unto the body 9. But it being taken as possible or as granted That we could come to know the nature of all things which we see hear or read of that we could be as prompt and perfect in this visible book of nature as we are in the first elements of the easiest book that can be printed for us that we knew the nature of Heaven of earth and of every creature in them as distinctly as children do one letter from another and the nature of mixt bodies as well as they know the just value of letters or Syllables put together yet could not such knowledge make us happie For these things how perfectly soever known could not infuse any new life into us could not make us partakers of any greater joy or goodness then is in themselves But in the life of glorie our souls become living polished glasses wherein the Divine nature wherein Christ God and Man may be seen as he is and he is truth it self life it self and goodness it self and we are transformed into the similitude of all these his Attributes There is no picture-maker that can express either the colour or proportion of a mans body or countenance so exactly as these do themselves in a true glass It receives the true image and similitude of any thing visible as more easily so more exactly then wax doth the stamp and character of the seal For That receives only the Mathematical Form or figure without the matter or any real qualitie As a golden seal leaves no tincture of gold nor a seal of brass any propertie of brass in the wax but only the figure Whereas a glass besides the figure or proportion receives the colour but no other real qualitie But the eye which is a kinde of living glass takes some tincture not of the shape or colour only but of other real qualities or properties of things seen By looking on Green or Azure the eye is much refreshed because the natural constitution of it resembles these most Yet finds it not the like contentment either in colours too sad or too bright because these have less affinitie with its native temper Nor is the effect or efficacy of colours seen terminated only in the eye though the eye sees them That reacheth unto other internal faculties unto the very Seat or Center of the Affections The impression which colors perfectly red as scarlet of the ancient die make upon the eyes of living creatures which abound in blood doth stir the blood and inrage their spirits to fight when as otherwise they would be quiet And to the end they might provoke the Elephants to fight they shewed them the blood of grapes and mulberies 1 Mac. 6. 34. And some good Philosphers have observed that Bears or others creatures which abound with Melancholick blood are more inraged at the sight of colours more dark then scarlet or perfect red So that the eyes of living creatures which see things as they are not through a glass but in themselves as in a perfect glass are apt to take others impressions besides the figure proportion or colour of those things which they stedfastly behold 10. There is no creature in the world more apt to receive the shape or figure of another then man in his first creation was to receive the image or likeness of his Creator who hath no figure or shape whereby he may be visibly represented as the seal is in the wax or as a mans face is in a glass He is infinite in all his Attributes and his infinity cannot be represented must be admired The similitude though of his goodness or of his righteousness wherein happiness consists was truly represented in the First man for he was created Just and holy and wanted nothing to his happiness save onely perseverance in that righteousness wherein he was created But he stained his soul with sin And so far as it was stained with sin it was more apt to take the image of Gods adversarie who was the Father of sin the author of all iniquitie which men commit And so we all are by nature more apt to take this image of the wicked one then the purest glass is to receive the image the proportion and colours of men that look upon it more apt to take the impression of his bad qualities then the eye of any living creature is to take the impression of any qualitie which shall be presented unto it But as the first Adam was made a living soul so the second Adam was made a quickning Spirit A spirit of life to revive the Reliques of Gods image in mens souls And by the reviving of them to expell or blot out the expressions of Satans image in them All this he doth in part even in this life in such as fear and love him And in These Two to wit in the Reviving of Gods image in us and in the Expunction and wiping out the stain of sin which is no other then the image of Satan doth our Regeneration consist And by the spirit of Regeneration we see in part we know God in part but after that which is perfect is come that is when Christ shall appear in glory and we shall be changed Then shall that which is imperfect be done away then shall our souls be as a glass clear and polished apt to receive the image of God wherein we were created in a far better manner then the soul of our first Progenitor in his integritie was 11. We know God by Hear-say in this life we see him not or if we see him in part in his word yet this is but like the sight of things a far off it makes too little impression upon our souls it works too small alteration in our affections Our sight is not effectual until it grow into a kinde of Tast Adam was indued with life with knowledge with righteousness but his life his knowledge and righteousness
or Title of being called the sons of God And under this style it is promised ver 9. Blessed are the peace-makers for they shall be called the sons of God 13. Yet all these qualifications were not sufficient unless they be accompanied with a firm and constant resolution to suffer persecution all the persecution that flesh and blood can in this life devise against them rather then they should forego their humilty their mourning their meekness their love of righteousness their mercifulness and puritie of heart towards God There must be a greater love of all these qualifications here mentioned then of our selves otherwise we shall be uncapable of the least portion of the Blessedness here so often promised This patience in suffering or constant resolution to endure persecution is the very girdle or tie of all other Christian vertues and for this reason it is twice repeated Blessed are they that suffer persecution for righteousness sake ver 10. And again ver 11. Blessed are you when men shall revile you c. 14. Many may be forward to suffer persecution yea to affect it but as he said Res ingeniosa est esse Christianum It is a matter of extraordinary wit to be a true Christian unto true Martyrdom there is required not only sobrietie of spirit but of Iudgement for none can be a Martyr but he that suffers for Righteousness sake or for Christs sake who is such a fountain of righteousness as the sun is of light Now to discern true righteousness from pretended or to sever Christs Cause from our own particular Interest or engagements is a point of extraordinary skill Whereas it is an easie matter to pawn our fame or credit our very lives in maintenance of that which we have boldly avouched to be true and just None were more forward to sacrifice themselves for their Religion then were the Jews which yet blasphemed the name of Christ and the wayes of truth after they had crucified the Lord of truth and of glory none more forward then they to raise up persecution against the Apostles and disciples in every City and albeit many of them were put to cruell and ignominious deaths for their stiff adherence to Moses Law as they imagined yet Martyrs they were not because they died not for Moses sake nor for his sake for whom Moses wrote but for maintenance of their own perverse opinions and affections For though they abhorred the Idols of the heathen yet they committed more abominable sacriledge then the Heathens did for of all kinds of Idolatry or Sacrilegious worship the most untoward and least to be pittied is when men are prone to sacrifice themselves to their own pride or head-strong ignorance 15. The truth is that no man can suffer persecution for righteousness sake but he that is a follower of righteousness and a son of peace No man can suffer persecution for Christs and the Gospels sake but he that hath learned of Christ to be humble and meek And for this reason haply it is that unto such as suffer persecution whether in their body or good name so they suffer it for Christs name the blessedness of the life to come is promised First under the same Style or Title that it was unto the poor in spirit He had said of these ver 3. That theirs is the Kingdom of heaven and of those ver 10. Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven As also secondly under the same Title that it is promised to the meek of whom he had said ver 5. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth And unto such as are reviled and persecuted falsely for his sake he addeth verse 12. Rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven 16. And thus hath our Saviour taught us the Use and application of all that hath been delivered concerning Eternal Life And the Use or application of it is as General and large as are the commandments of God There is no duty enjoyned whereunto the hope or belief of this Eternal Reward doth not enable and bind us This was the first Lesson our Saviour taught after he entred upon his Propheticall function and it is the last Article in our Creed It is as Christ himself is Imus angularis lapis et suminus It is both the foundation stone and that which bindeth all the building nor need we be afraid to do well Intuitu mercedis with respect to recompence or reward seeing Christ himself when he first begun to Preach the glad tydings of the Gospel did make no promise of reward save only to such as continue in weldoing or suffer evil with patience And his Apostle Saint Paul exhorting us to cheerfulness in weldoing and patience in suffering proposeth the like hope of reward making Christ Iesus himself a patern for us to follow Wherefore seeing we are also compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us Looking unto Jesus the Author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God Heb. 12. 1 2. Nor is it possible for flesh and blood to resist either their proper Enticements or the temptations of Satan much lesse to vanquish this tempter by any other means then by serious meditation upon the several Rewards proposed unto such as shall overcome and of the several punishments which are threatned and shall be awarded unto all such as forsake the field and neglect the service of God And though it be true that we must obtain this victorie by the spirit of God yet one special means by which the spirit of God obtaines this victory for us is by representing and imprinting such punishments or plagues as are dreadful and fearful even to flesh and blood so that the flesh must be affrighted and deterred from or forth of the wayes of sin by the wages of sin And the spirit of God which is in man must be daily animated and encouraged by the hope of heavenly joyes whose very nature and qualitie is spiritual The flesh or sensitive part cannot truly apprehend the joyes of the spirit nor is the spirit so capable or so apprehensive of deadly punishment or pain as the sensitive or animal part is 17. To branch this Use or Application which our Saviour makes of this point into his proper particulars Though it be true that all of us are the seed of rebellious parents and have gone astray from the womb as well by sins of omission as of commission yet that which the heathen Philosopher long since observed if it be candidly interpreted and with such charity as becometh Christians is likewise true Nemo sponte malus No man in his
of sense into the Vine as it might continually tast the sweetness of that fruit which it beareth and wherewith as the Scripture saith it cheereth the heart of man How full would it be of gladnesse both root and branch would be as full of mirth and gladness as they are of life and sap How much more graciously doth God deal with those that hearken to his Word and obey the motions of his Spirit We being by nature more dead unto the Fruit of holinesse and more destitute of spiritual Life then the Vine or Fig-tree is of the Life sensitive he infuseth a new sense or Tast into our souls and makes them more fruitful then the Fig-tree which is never without fruit either ripe or green and makes us withall sensible partakers of the sweetness of all the Fruit which his Spirit bringeth forth in us and from the Tast of this Fruit of Holinesse ariseth that Joy and Gladnesse of spirit which is the pledge and earnest of Eternal Life 10. But have we this Joy whilst we sojourn here on earth in our selves or in our own souls or in Christ only So we be fraught with the Fruit of Holinesse we have this Ioy as truly in our selves as we have the Fruit Though we have neither of our selves or from our selves We have Both in our selves in such a manner as the Vine branch hath both Life and sap in it self though both originally from the Root So long as the Vine branch continues in the Vine it is really partaker of the Life and sweetness of the Root The similitude is our Saviours John 15. 1. c. I am the true vine and my Father is the husbandman Every branch that beareth not fruit in me he taketh away and every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you for it is The Word which purgeth us and maketh us apt to bear fruit in our selves so long as we are in Christ For so he addeth ver 4. Abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit in it self except it abide in the vine no more can ye except ye abide in me For I am the vine ye are the branches he that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit ver 5. And where there is Much Fruit there is Plenty of Joy For contrary to the custome of other husbandmen or Vine dressers the sweetness of the Fruit redounds not to the Vine-dresser but to the branches that bear it The fruit is wholly Ours The glory is only Gods For so he adds ver 8. Herein is my Father glorified he doth not say profited that ye bear much fruit The more we bear the more we are benefited the more God is glorified by us for no man can truly glorifie God until his heart and spirit be cheered with that joy which is the fruit of peace and holiness God as the Apostle tels us did never leave himself without a witnesse All the good things which the Gentiles received even whilst they walked in their own wayes were so many witnesses of his Goodness though they perceived not it was he that did them good that gave them rain from heaven and fruitful seasons filling their hearts with food and gladnesse Acts 14. 16 17. He doth not say with Food and Ioy for Joy properly taken hath its seat in the mind and spirit of man nor is it there placed without the spirit of God whereas the gladnesse whereof the Apostle there speakes may harbour in the inferior or affective part This difference which we now observe between joy and gladnesse in our English The Greek writers curiously observe between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so do the Latines between Laetitia and Gaudium Every blessing of God though but a blessing temporal is matter of gladnesse even to such as know not or acknowledge not God to be the Author of such blessings but True Ioy alwayes presupposeth the knowledge of God in Christ and some acquaintance with the spirit 11. As it is said in this 22. verse that the End or issue of the fruits of Holinesse is Eternal life so our Savour tels us Iohn 17. 3. that the same Eternal Life is the effect or issue of the Knowledge of God and of Iesus Christ whom he hath sent These two then do reciprocate without the knowledge of God and of Christ there is no peace of Conscience no fruit of Holinesse no Joy in the Holy Ghost and yet the greater measure of such fruit we have the more we shall abound in the knowledge of God and of his Son Jesus Christ in the knowledge of whom this Ioy in the Holy Ghost which can be had in this world and Life Eternal in the world to come doth consist So that the only way to attain unto this Ioy wherein the Kingdom of God doth consist is to be rightly instructed in the knowledge of God whose the Kingdom and glory is and of Jesus Christ who is Our King even the King of glory There is a kind of secret Joy in the knowledge or contemplation of every truth or true principle though of secular and humane Arts. And no marvel for as God is Righteousness and Holinesse it self So He is Truth it self The truth of all sciences is as truly derived from that Truth which He is as that Righteousnesse and Holiness whereof his Saints are made partakers is from his Holiness and Righteousness Now that Ioy which some heathen Philosophers or Artists did reap from contemplation of some Truths and Principles in themselves but dry and barren did oft-times more then counterpoize that inbred delight or pleasure in other secular vanities which usually missway us Christians to folly and lewdnesse yea this Joy did sometimes bring their souls into a kind of Rapture or forgetfulness of life natural or sensitive with their contentments Many of them in hope to find out the Causes of the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea of the Eclipses of the Sun and Moon of other appearances in the heavens and the like have been more abstemious and moderate in their dyet and spent more time and hours in observing the motion of the Stars and in perusing Every leaf of the Book of Nature or of Gods visible creatures then we bestow in fasting and praying or in meditation upon The great Mystery of godliness God manifested in the Flesh and if they hapned to satisfie themselves in these points of truth which they most sought after the Expressions of their Joy and sometimes of their thankfulness to their Gods were oft-times more hearty and cheerful then most of us can give any just proof of for all the benefits which God hath bestowed upon us by his Gospel So * one of them having found out that Mathematical Principle concerning the equalitie between the Square of the base and of the sides
deep touch of Pity or Compassion would raise our spirits to an higher point of service unto Christ then any relief or supply of their bodily wants can amount unto You may if you will for Christs sake be pleased to do it distribute so unto their bodily necessities as you may lay a necessity upon their souls of coming to the ordinary knowledge of Christ and of Gods mercies in him towards man You may by authority put the Precept of our Apostle in execution Such as will not work let them not eat or such as will not work the ordinary works of God that will not labor to be instructed in his fear and in his Laws let them not be partakers of your Bounty and Pity To constrain the poor the halt and lame to enter into the Lords house were a matter easie if as the Law of God and man requires none were permitted to remain amongst us but such as were confined to some certain dwelling or abode where they might live under the inspection or cure as well of Civil as of Ecclesiastick Discipline And consider with your selves I beseech you how either the Civil or Ecclesiastick Magistrate will be able to answer the great King at the last day through whose default whether joyntly or severally many children have been by Baptism received into Christs Church and yet permitted after to live such a roving and wandring life that no Tie can be laid upon them to give an account of their Faith or Christian conversation to any Church or Embassador of Christ But as Bodies while they are in motion are in no place though they pass through many so these wandering Meteors are of no Church though they be in every Church If I should in private perswade You Magistrates to seek some Redress of this Enormitie and blemish to the Government of this place I doubt I should be put off with the Exception to which I could not easily replie That you have better experience then I or others of my opinion or profession have And out of that experience see greater difficulties then we can discern But now having express warrant from our Saviour's words and this Fair opportunitie of Time and Place You must give me leave to reply unto you as an ingenuous and learned Scholar once did to a Christian Emperour which pretended greater difficulties in a good work which he commended to his Princely care then you can do in this Yet a work not all together so necessary nor so acceptable unto God as this work would be In rebus pijs aggrediendis nefas est considerare quantum tu potes sed quantum Deo fidis qui omnia potest Think not when you are about works of Pietie so much of your own Abilitie or weakness but examine how much you relie and trust in Almightie God who is able to do exceeding abundantly above what we conceive or think CHAP. XXXI MATTH 25. 34. 41. Come ye Blessed of my Father FOR I was hungry and ye gave me meat I was thirstie Go ye Cursed FOR I was an hungred and ye gave me no meat I was thirstie Jansenius his observation and disputation About merit examined and convinced of contradiction to it self and to the Truth The definition of Merit The State of the Question concerning Merit Increase of Grace no more Meritable then the First Grace A Promise made Ex mero motu sine Ratione dati et accepti cannot found a Title to Merits Such are All Gods promises Issues of Meer Grace Mercy and Bountie The Romanists of kin to the Pharisee yet indeed more to be blamed then He. The objection from the Causal Particle FOR made and answered 1. AGainst such as denie the merit of humane works Thus much saith Jansenius an ingenuous and learned Bishop though a Papist is diligently to be observed That Christ in this place deputes this Kingdom to the righteous FOR their works sake hereby giving us to understand that Life Eternal is bestowed upon them FOR their works by which the righteous Merit Life Eternal even as the wicked by their evil works Merit everlasting punishment The only ground or reason of this Assertion is For that our Saviours Form of speech in both Sentences is the same and Causal in both As he saith unto the wicked Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire FOR I was an hungred and you gave me no meat c. ver 41 42. So he saith unto the righteous or them on his Right-hand v. 34. Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you FOR I was an hungred and you gave me meat c. Yet least any man should except against him as dissenting from the Doctrine of Christ elsewhere delivered and from the Apostolick and Catholick Church By which Our salvation is ascribed to Gods Grace and mercy he adds this salve to the wound which he had made Non tamen Sic merit is nostris putetur dari vita aeterna c. Let no man think that life eternal is So bestowed upon our merits as All may not be given to the mercie of God from which we have our good works or merits He grants withal That the salvation of the Righteous depends upon Gods Blessing and Predestination upon which likewise their Good works depend Lest any should glory in himself A sin forbidden by Gods Prophet Jer. 9. ver 23. That All then is to be attributed to Gods mercie that no man may glorie in himself or in his works is true Our enemies in this Point being Judges is confessed by our Adversaries even in this place from which they seek to establish Merits And This we may conclude is A Point of Catholick Doctrine taught by Christ Prophets and Apostles stedfastly imbraced by all Reformed Churches and expresly in words acknowledged by the Romish Church With this Point of Catholick Faith we mingle no Doctrine no Opinion which may but questionably pollute or defile it We avoid all occasions of incurring the least suspition of contradicting it and for this cause We abandon the very name of Merit as now it is used or rather abused by the Romish Church Although in some Ages of the Church it were an indifferent and harmlesse Term Mereri importing no more as was shewed Chapter 27. then to Get or Obtain But Merit in the language of the modern Romish Church Est actio cuijustum est ut aliquid detur is An action or work to which something or any thing is due by Rule of Justice Yet doth the Romish Church not only Enjoyn the Use or Familiarity of this Name in this Sense or signification but Require the Assent of Faith unto the Reality Expressed by it 2. The Points then which lie upon that Church to prove if she will acquit her self from polluting the holy Catholick Faith are Two The One That this Doctrine of meriting heaven by works doth not contradict the former part of Catholick doctrine acknowledged by her to wit that
he be hungry we should give him meat if thirstie drink as the Apostle commands In sum we must feed Him but seek to starve his Humor by substracting all occasions of exasperating his mind and seeking occasions to do him good so the heat of his malice having nothing to work upon will by little and little die as fire goes out when the fewel fails 16. For a Friends sake that has indeared us to him for many of whom we yet expect more kindnesses we think it good manners to tolerate many things which otherwise we would not And shall not Christian Faith and true Religion teach us much more to remit all for Gods sake of whom we have received our selves our very bodies and souls and all that we have of whom we yet expect much more then we have received even everlasting life and immortal bodies to be crowned with Glory What if our Enemies have sought to take away this miserable and mortal life God freely gave it us who likewise at his pleasure may justly challenge it And if we cannot justly complain if he should take it from us is it an hard Precept that he wills us not to revenge yea not to complain by way of revenge of such as would but could not take it from us The Lord may as justly command us to forbear all desire of revenge all complaint of such as would take away our Life as he himself can take it That they would so have done was their own That they could not do so unto us is the Lords doing to whom we owe all thankfulness for preserving it and this may be the best occasion of shewing our thankfulness if we for his sake forgive such as sought to take away our Lives Nay if we would but examine this Precept by exact Reason passion set aside in as much as God hath freely given us life he might most Justly command us not to murmur against such as should take it from us For who can appoint him his Time or who can refuse any for his Executioner whom the Supream Judge of Heaven and Earth shall permit But in as much as God hath preserved our lives which our Enemies sought he may justly command and we must obey him so commanding to do any good unto them that sought our evil God is a a more Absolute Lord over the lives of Kings and Princes then they are over their Lands or goods he hath a more absolute interest in all mens actions and affections then any man hath in his own goods or fruits of his ground Now what Lord or Master is there that would indure such a servant as would not bestow his goods or benevolence on whomsoever it pleased him to appoint albeit he were his servants enemie If this we refuse and yet acknowledge our selves to be Gods servants may not God justly say unto us Ex tuo ipsius ore judicaberis If any refuse to set his affections on whomsoever God shall appoint him to employ his actions for whose good it pleaseth him albeit he be our open enemie How much more ought we to do it if we consider the Hope of reward in the life to come 17. Thus you see The First ground of this precept drawn from The equalitie of all men by nature improved and fortified by the Doctrine of Faith that is by The acknowledgement of One Father and Creator and yet may it be further confirmed if we consider what Affinitie nay what Consanguinitie we all have in Christ and what he hath done for us We are saith the Apostle if we be Christs flesh of his Flesh and bone of his Bone Our conjunction with him if we be or would be conjoyned with Him although it be spiritual and mystical yet is it a True a real and lively conjunction He is a True and lively Head we are true and lively members of him and one of another And must have as true a fellow feeling one of anothers harms or sorrows as one part of our own body hath of the pain of another No body Politick ever on earth not the most united in place in Lawes customes or any other Bond of Civil Societie whatsoever had or can have the like union or so near conjunction as all that are members of Christs mystical Bodie truly have as all that professe themselves members thereof should in practise testifie that they have otherwise as the Lawyers say Protestatio non valet contra factum It is in vain to professe thou art a Christian in vain to protest thou art a true professor or Protestant if thy deeds and resolution if thy practice do not seal the truth of thy profession or Protestation for not doing this as the Apostle saith thou shalt confesse Christ and Christianitie with thy lips but deny both Him and it in thy deeds and in thy practise and so thou shalt be judged not according to thy sayings but according to thy works and resolution or omissions of working Would you know then what some of the Heathen have thought of the duties of every member in a body Politick Plato in his fifth Book De Republica hath a comparison to this purpose If a man receive a wound in any part as in his foot or hand or have but some pain or grief in his finger we will not say That his hand or foot is wounded or that his finger feels pain But The man himself hath suffered a wound in his hand or foot That he himself hath a great pain c. For albeit the pain or grief spring first from this or that part yet it overflowes and affects the whole bodie The branches of it spread throughout all parts and every part is worse because one part is so ill Yea every part forbears its natural function or recreation in some measure for the ease of this The head wants its sleep other parts their rest by reason of the spirits recourse thither as so many comforters sent from them to visit their sick friend or fellow member In like manner Plato thought it meet that in every City or Common-weal as often as any good or harm did happen to any Citizen or Free denizon thereof it should not be counted that mans good or harm only but the good or harm of the whole City and every member thereof should be alike affected If this the Heathens by meer light of nature could discern to be the dutie of the meer natural man what tongue of man or Angel can expresse in Terms befitting so high A mysterie what Brotherhood what fellowship what Sympathie and what affection should be between the members of Christs Body for no society like this no fellowship like to that in Him This union exceeds all other much more then the union of one part of our heart with another doth the union of the heart with the foot Doubtless our Saviour spake according to the duty if not according to the custome of honest hartie neighbours in the good old world in the Parable
good to him because it is from God His soul is good because he knows and as it were feels it to be created by God his health seems good because it springs from him who is The Fountain of Salvation He loves these because they are good But he loves God above all because he is better then all even then the best of all his Blessings These are only Good because they are seasoned with a spice or savor of Gods Goodness Now as it recreates an hungry man to smell meat but much more to tast it so is it a matter to be more desired to tast the Goodness of God as the Psalmist speaks then to enjoy the sweet Savor or Fragrance of him in his Creatures And we best tast the Goodness of God by doing His Will and pleasure as our Saviour saith John 4. 34. My meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work As we de desire our Spirit at the hour of death should return to God not only because he gave it but because also he is our Blisse so even in this life the sweetest joy that can be found is when we are lifted up in Spirit to behold and tast the Goodness of God when we can say with the Blessed Virgin My soul doth magnifie the Lord. We should never desire Him to do us any Good but with an instant Return of a more earnest desire to be inabled to do what he would have us do to love him above all and all other things for his sake Having our thoughts and desires thus composed although we have not the particular things we desire yet shall we have our Hearts desire because we delight in the Lord who alone can satisfie our hearts otherwise unsatiable Whereas the wicked albeit he get possession of what he most desired yet hath he not his hearts desire because the desire of it was like a good arm as we say cast awâ—â— being set upon a wrong Object not on the goodness of his God nor on his blessings for his sake but for themselves He setteth his eyes upon that which is nothing Prov. 23. 5. and so cannot satisfie This gives witness to the truth of what the Psalmist saith Psal 37. 16. A small thing that the righteous hath is better then great riches of the ungodly To the godly The loving kindness of the Lord is better not only then all the means of life but then life it self his soul is satisfied as it were which marrow and fatness and his mouth praiseth God with joyful lips As Saint John saith we cannot love God whom we have not seen unlesse we love our brother whom we have seen So neither can we delight in God who is a Spirit unless we first delight purely and aright in his blessings which are sensible and agreeable to nature For it is true in this sense First is that which is natural and then that which is spiritual And the more we delight in them so we duly consider they are his blessings and that as well the continuance of them as of our abilitie to delight in them depends upon His pleasure the more still we delight in Him 10. It is an excellent Rule which Solomon hath given in this case Remember thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth while the evil dayes come not nor the years approach wherein thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them Eccles 12. 1. To be a Creator in Solomons Language imports as much as to be the maker of our Bodies and souls the Sole giver of all things wherein we can delight and sole Author of all the abilities and faculties which make us apt to take delight therein sole disposer of all opportunities that bring about the matters wherein we most delight And To remember our Creator in his Language also is diligently and continually to ponder these things and to be affected or moved with them according to their weight and importance But why doth he charge us to remember God in the dayes of our youth Because in that age we are apt to take greatest delight in our selves or any thing truly delightfull our spirits being then most fresh and lively so that the measure of our delight whether in our selves or in things without us being then truly taken would impell us to a equal delight in Him that was Author and Creator of Both and to correspondent Gratulation whereas deferring of this Remembrance or notice of our Creator till old age come upon us wherein life growes to be a burden and the wonted delights of life either irksom or insipid unpleasant or without all tast or rellish our thankfulness for them will be but faint our gratulation worthless our devotion cold and lumpish The former due estimate of our Creators goodness being planted in youth our delight in him would grow as our bodily abilities for all natural performances did decay we might truely say with the Apostle when I am weak then I am strong and with the Psalmist They shall bring forth more fruit in their Age c. 11. Thus it was with Abraham he had feared God in his youth and obeyed him in his Mature age and though he obtained a son by miraculous means in his old age yet was he not more joyful at his Birth and growth then ready to give him Again to God in his best age He did unto God in this particular as God had done to him nay he did as he desired God should do to him and God did to him above what he could desire because he was so Ready to do what God commanded him He took and offered Isaac his son his only son in whom both he and all the nations of the earth as he hoped should be blessed and God in lieu of this his obedience and thankfulness promiseth and in the fulness of Time sendeth his only son in whom he was well pleased to assume Abrahams seed and to offer himself in sacrifice for the sins of the world a sacrifice for a blessing to all mankind Thus if we shew our selves truly thankful for blessings past God gives us over and above what we could desire do we but what he would have done by us he doth more then we could wish should be done for us As he offered Isaac his only Son whom he loved in hope to receive him again in a Joyful Resurrection so must we offer our dearest affections our chief desires yea our bodies and souls in sacrifice to him in hope to receive them glorified and crowned with immortalitie in the life to come This is to love God with all our heart withall our soul and with all our strength There should be the same mind in us which was in Christ Jesus He laid down his life for us and we should be willing to lay down ours for our Brethren which is the chief and most Transcendent part of the second Table but much more should we be willing to offer our
affraid of being censured as Puritanes for speaking against them though out of this place then would have blushed to have been spectators of their lewd unseasonable sportings in places not so well be fitting their Calling I will not take upon me to Censure this or any like Recreation as altogether unlawful But what time hath been for sundry years past would God this present did presage much better to come wherein the use of these or other more unquestionable recreations might not justly be censured for superfluous if not preposterous And with what indignitie that worthy Bishop did prosecute these unseasonable vanities of his Countrymen I refer you to his books De Gubernatione Providentia a fit Manual for the volume but in these times an excellent Cordial for the matter Ludicra ergo publica Trever pet is Art thou an inhabitant of the miserable more then thrice ransacked Tryers and seekest thou after such fruitlesse toyes as playes Ubi quoeso exercendae Where on Gods name wilt thou have them acted an super bustum Cineres super sanguinem ossa mortuorum upon the Graves upon the ashes upon the blood and bones of thy massacred brethren and fellow Citizens The continuance of this vainitie in the living did in his estimation surpass the misery and infelicitie which had befalne the deceased 13. Death and the destroying Angel which by their often soaring hovering over our heads had over-shadowed this Citie and for the solitariness of these and like assembles had somtimes almost turned our day into night have now Gods name be praised for it taken their flight another way Yet shall not these Admonitions seem altogether so unseasonable now as our sportings were then Though secured we be from present dread yet may we without offence as men that had passed great dangers in their night Distempers or sudden affrights look back by day in Calm and sober thoughts upon our former wayes And I beseech you take these following speeches that distilled from that sage and learned Bishops zealous Pen as preservatives against the like dangerous times to come not as censures or invectives of mine to gall any for what is past Suppose this Reverend Bishop had lived amongst us how would he have taxed the unseasonable Luxuries of late times Go to now Oye that are strong to pour in wine or ye that have verified the Proverb by your practise that Mans life is but a stage play wherein you know to act none but the mimickes part ye that make your selves mutual sport by grieving or abusing others Go to now ye that have quite inverted Solomons Counsel ye that have wholly consecrated your selves to the house of mirth and feasting and hold it a hell to be drawn into the house of mourning where do ye mean to celebrate your wonted sports where shall your meriments where shall your pleasant meetings be what in the City which the Lord so often hath smitten which so often hath groaned under his heavie hand what even then when the sore did run amongst your brethren O fools and slow of heart to believe the writings of the Prophets and frequent Admonitions of so many holy and Religious men might not nature which nurtereth the heathen which teacheth the beasts of the field and birds of the air to know their season have also taught you how unseasonable your mirth how prodigious your insolence hath been What foul indignitie had you offered though you had offered it to a private man to revell it in the room wherein his children wherein his wife had laid a dying What humane heart what civil though unregenerate ear could endure to hear of one and the same family some in the midst of bitterest Agonies praying others swearing or blaspheming some panting for faintness or ratling for want of breath others cackling or shrugging at the sight of wanton sporting And dare you account them for whom Christ Jesus shed his blood lesse dear to him then dearest children are to loving Parents or wives to most loving husbands And what is this City in respect of him would God you would permit it so to be But at the best could you imagine it any more then the Chamber of the great King whom neither the heaven nor the heaven of heavens can contain Shall not his ear who filleth all places with his presence be as able to discern each dissonant noise or disagreeing speech or carriage within the wals or suburbs of this City as the most accurate musicians ear is to distinguish contrary Notes or jarring sounds within the compasse of a narrow parlour And what musick think you will it make in his ears or how will it sound to those harmonical spirits which by his appointment Pitch about this place when they shall hear in one corner some in the Agonie of their souls sending out grievious screiks and bitter outcries others out of their abundant heat of mirth and pastimes filling the streets with profuse immoderate clamors Some again praying with deep sighes and grievous groanes others foaming out their shame in drunken scurrilous or lascivious songs some having their hearts ready to break for grief others to burst their lungs with laughter These beloved have been the abuses in former times which any Reverent and zealous spirit that had lived amongst us justly might and questionless would have taxt more sharply And yet of such reproofes the best of us might well in some measure have been sharers But these dangers are gone long since would God the guilt of our sins were as far removed from us If it remain like times may return again What then remains but that we repent of what is past and take heed of what is to come Lord never let the pensive sighs the mournful groanes or grievous out-cryes of dying men be mingled with our lavish mirth and sportings O let not the songs of pleasure and the voice of death ascend the heavens or appear at thy Tribunal seat together least This most unseasonable discord sound still in thy ear until the sound of the Angels Trumpet summon us to that fearful Judgement wherein they may laugh and we may cry wherein their comfortless sighes and dolorous groanes may be changed into everlasting Haleluiahs of joy and peace and all immoderate unlawful mirth all unseasonable and untimely pleasures be terminated with endless grief And as for such as seek to raise the spirit of unhallowed mirth and belch out their scurrilous Jests by powring in wine and strong drink even in the dayes wherein the Lord hath called them to fasting and mourning O that they could consider the time may come wherein they shall wish for one drop of that liquor for a whole day which now they pour in hourly without measure to cool their scorched tongues And yet unto their greater misery shall not be heard in so miserable a wish but in the continual want of this and all other comfort their pleasant songs shall be turned into bitter howlings Their
picture of that Great Shepheards death was a greater honour then if the shadow in the Dial of Ahaz had returned backward ten degrees in token of prolonging his dayes as long as Hezekiah's had been specially if we consider that the Saying fulfilled in the Great Prophet was verified in him Of them which thou gavest me have I lost none Though he were slain yet his Army returned home safe and he went to his grave in peace being buried in his own Sepulcher by his Servants 7. But alas Baruch lives in an Age super-annuated for any such Grace or Favour as Hezekiah or Iosias found in a City in which though Noah Iob and Daniel lived together yet as I live saith the Lord God they shall deliver neither son nor daughter they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness And shall not the Word of the Lord which Ieremy hath spoken unto Baruch be good For is it not good that when the Lord hath determined to send his four sore judgments upon Ierusalem the Sword and the Famine and the noysom Beast and the Pestilence to cut off from it man and beast yet his life shall be a prey not unto these but to himself Yes this is much better considering the season then if he had been sole heir to Hezekiah or Iosias Three or four of whose Successors all in their turns Kings of Judah he lived to see led bound in chains and their Nobles linkt in fetters of Iron For Baruch with reference unto these mens persons and present calamity to have such an ample safe Conduct as no Monarch living could have granted him License to travel whither he listed with full assurance of life was An Honour peculiar to Gods Saints A Reward wherein at this time my Prophet Ieremy and Ebedmelech which had received Ieremy in the name of a Prophet ministring bread and water c. unto his necessities were to be his only partners 8. But though they had liberty to travell whither they please will they be as careless passengers without all regard of their mothers sorrows wherewith the Lord had afflicted her in the day of his fierce anger Jeremie doubtless would have endured all the tortures cruel Babylon could have devised upon condition Jerusalem and Judah might still have dwelt in saftie The Galatians were not more affectionate towards Paul then Jeremy was to the meanest branch that sprang from good Josias willingly would he have pluckt out his own to have redeemed Zedekiah's eyes or to have prevented that lamentable Farewel which they were to take of sight the barbarous massacre of his dearest children And how then can this short prolongation of life be sweet to Jeremy the Aged or unto Baruch the Scribe being now to see such miserie fall upon their native Country King and people as they might justly wish their mothers wombs had been their graves rather then they should have been brought forth to behold it A thousand lives had been well spent upon condition such calamity had never been seen in Jury and yet the prorogation of Baruchs and Ieremies life though certain to see the execution of all the plagues here threatned these becoming now at length without any fault or negligence in them but rather by others neglect of their forewarnings altogether Fatal and inevitable is much better then a thousand years spent in mirth and jollity But would they not sorrow day and night for the slain of the daughter of their people The Book of the Lamentations will witness tears not sweet wine to have been the drink of him that wrote them And shall life though it have continuall sorrow for its sauce be sweet whose heart among us would not be sad even full of sorrow whose eyes would not overflow with tears at the Tragical representation of their disasters and calamities whose living persons we had alwayes honoured whose memory and never dying Fame we reverence And yet to minds deckt with more polite literature or mollified with the Muses songs the secret delight which in this Case ariseth from the Poets Art and contrivance much more from our Observation of the strange concurrence of real causes conspiring to work designes worthy of God whether for mercy or for vengeance is infinitely more sweet and pleasant then the profuse mirth of lascivious Comedies on any other positive delight whereof humane senses whether external on internal are capable And if with Reverence any may be thereto compared This secret placid delight which is thus accompanied with sighes and composed sadnesse most perfectly resembles the internal comfort of the spirit alwayes rejoycing in tribulation Such truly was the joy and comfort which Ieremy and Baruch found who had now been admitted spectators twentie years and more of a true unfained Tragedy whose Catastrophe was to contain the most doleful spectacle the great eye of the world since it first rolled in his sphere untill this time had ever beheld Had they lookt upon the several parts of this Tragedy the last Scene especially with natural eyes the gastly sight had doubtless inspired them with some desperate Romane Resolution to have acted the like crueltie upon themselves as the Babylonians had done upon their brethren to have set a full and Capital Period to all the woes which they had written against this people with their own blood spilt in the ruines of the Temple or mingled with the ashes of the Altar But now that The Lord hath enlightned their hearts to discern the sweet disposition of his all-seeing Providence still counterplotting the subtle Projects of man and making the Politicians which had accounted his Prophets silly fools unexperienced Idiots or raving Bedlames more curiously cunning then the spider to weave the net which he had ordained to spread upon them the more they sorrowed to see the desolation of their country the greater still was their solace in contemplating the justice power and wisdom of their God in accomplishing his indignation contrary to Prince and peoples expectation but agreeable to their predictions Finally as men compacted of flesh and blood they could not but sympathize with miserable men even their brethren their flesh and bones As faithfull men they could not but be in mind and affection conformable to The Lord their God by whose good spirit their hearts were toucht and their souls illuminated to fore-see the contrivance of his designes upon these his disobedient children which had so often refused the wayes of peace which he would have led them in but they would not follow 9. From this Double Aspect the One of Nature the other of Grace and this Twofold Sympathie thence arising the one with their Creator the other with their fellow-Creatures doth the Lord frame this Pathetical and forcible Charge vnto Baruch Behold that which I have built will I break down and that which I have planted will I pluck up even this whole Land and seekest thou great things for thy self Seek them not The Exegesis or Implication fully unfolded
he shall thus with himself resolve If this very child be brought unto me I intend to do to him as the Church enjoyns but if any other be presented unto me I have no Intention to baptize him however I use the words of Baptisme and wash him with water The Resolution of their Doctors is that in Case another child be brought unto the Font and not that Individual child for which he was first spoken unto he shall have no benefit by his Baptisme 3. For a Priest to make such secret Conditions limitations or reservations the Romish Doctors acknowledge to be a wicked and sacrilegious part But this is all the comfort which the Infant presumed to be baptized or his Parents can have if the Priest be disposed to be thus malitious That the Intention of the Priest is necessarily required not only by way of Precept or to the better administration of the Sacrament but Necessitate Medii as a meanes so necessary that without it there can be no Sacrament at all not their School-men or private Doctors only but some of their General Councils have declared For the Council of Florence makes this Intention of the Priest to be of the very Essence of the Sacrament Now Essentia non Suscipit magis minus If the Priests Intention be of the Essence of this Sacrament it must be as necessary as the Intention of the holy Ghost And yet their later Doctors are in this point more Rigid then the ancient were which lived not long after the Council of Florence For Thomas of Aquine the great Master of the modern Jesuites required only an habitual Intention his Scholars the Jesuites alwayes required a virtual Intention which is more then an habitual Again whereas some of their Doctors in Ages past did think it a Probable Opinion which might without Censure of impietie be believed that in Case ordinary Priests were negligent or otherwise defective in the administration of the Sacraments the High-Priest of our souls to wit Christ Jesus might or would supply their defect or negligence Zuares a late great Doctor in that Church censures the Author of this opinion for his zeal without discretion And Soto another great Doctor who was present at the Council of Trent peremptorily denies all relief or remedy from Christ to any Infant in Case the Priest will be so wicked as either not to Intend to do what the Church doth appoint or to withdraw his Intention or purpose to do him good by baptizing him If the Priest purpose to remit his sins by Baptism they are remitted by Christ if he purpose not to remit them but to retain them they are not remitted but retained by Christ 4. Besides the Sacrament of Baptism and the Sacrament of the Lords Supper which Two the Reformed Churches only acknowledge instituted by Christ as generally necessary to salvation the Romish Church presseth Three other upon all Lay-People as necessary unto their salvation Ex necessitate praecepti that is they are bound in duty to receive them and in Case they omit them when they may have them they forfeit their interest in Gods promises And those are the Sacrament of Confirmation the Sacrament of Absolution upon Confession and the Sacrament of Extreme Unction These make a plausible shew or pretence that the Romish Church hath greater store of means for salvation or for conferring Grace then Reformed Churches have But how well soever God by their doctrine hath provided for their Church in granting it such a multitude of Sacraments such an extraordinary manner by w ch their supposed Sacraments confer Grace upon such as receive them yet when all is done they grant a Negative voice to the Priest in the distribution of all Sacramental Grace And such a Negative as is not usual in other Cases For all other Governors of humane Societies whether Ecclesiastick or Civil have only a Negative voice which if they do not expresly use their silence is interpreted for a Grant or testification of their Consent unto the business proposed But albeit the Priest profess his Consent unto the Sacramental Act by pronouncing the Sacramental words yet if he be pleased by secret Condition or tacit Limitation to withdraw the Consent of mind or spirit from his external act or words pronounced by him the Spirit of God shall want his influence upon the souls of such as receive the Sacrament And as they grant a Negative unto every ordinary Priest in the distribution of Sacramental Grace unto the Laytie So they give the like Negative unto the Bishop or Prelate in the distribution of Sacramental Grace unto their Priests For the ordination of Priests is in their Doctrine a Sacrament of the new Law or Gospel and of this Sacrament the Intention of the Bishop or Prelate which administreth it is an Essential part If the Bishop either through negligence or malitiousness do not afford his secret Intention or consent the ordination of the Priest is invalid the words pronounced by him or imposition of hands doth imprint no Character upon his soul and without this character he is no Priest 5. And here by the way you may inform your selves why such as are contented in all points to believe as the Romish Church believeth have their own Priests or Prelates in such esteem or estimation as no other people besides have their lawful Governors The true Reason is not any extraordinary worth in their persons but this strange kind of Power or Authoritie which were it true or where it is acknowledged to be true might justly exact double honour more then humane even both parts of that honour which the heathens respectively gave unto their several gods Some gods the heathens honoured with Placatorie Sacrifices lest being neglected they should do them harm Other gods whom they conceived to be the Authors or distributers of things good and comfortable they adored or honoured with propitiatory Sacrifices Both kinds of sacrifices or services one and the same Romish Priest may wrest from the people committed to his charge The one to wit Placatorie Sacrifices he may exact and the people will be ready to perform lest he withdraw or alienate his Intention from them or their children whilest he administers the Sacrament unto them For his malitious or fraudulent withdrawing of his Intention from the Sacrament may procure them greater losse or harm then the Heathen could conceive their angry or wreakful gods could work them The other kind of Sacrifices to wit Propitiatorie the people committed to his charge will be willing to exhibit to the Romish Priest that he may be the more diligent circumspect and attentive whilest he administreth the Sacraments seeing upon supposal or presumption of his diligence or Intention in this business they hope for a greater blessing then the heathens expected from their good or favourable gods But to conclude this First Point If we put all these together First The Intention of the Prelate or the Bishop necessary by their doctrine
Meridian and runs away out of their Hemisphere And in his stead a Comet ariseth out of Egyptian exhalations which portends nothing but war and blood This is Jehoiakim whom Pharaoh Nechoh which slew his father hath now appointed to be King over this people for his purpose the successe of whose Raign in general the people might well prognosticate by his life and manners the Epitome of which Iosephus lib. 10. cap. 5. hath given very pithily in two words He was neither religious towards God nor just towards men And yet besides this his natural disposition was particularly incensed against this people for preferring his younger brother to the Crown and so more ready to wreak his spite by reason of his dependance upon the Egyptian out of whose Country he had the Prophet Uriah brought to satiate his thirst of blood Jer. 26. 23. which bloodie Fact of his and the like with their like successe is the train I have pursued in these present Meditations I will conclude them with that of Solomon Prov. 28. 2. For the transgressions of a Land many are the Princes thereof And of Iudah never a good one after Iosiah such they were as might serve to scourge this people until they were cast like Vagabonds and unprofitable Members out of that City and Land which had bred them 10. Thus you see Gods largest Promises have their limits greatest prosperity hath a period and mightiest Kingdomes have their fall You have likewise seen how for the uncircumcised hearts of this people is he slain by uncircumcised hands who had so throughly cleansed Ierusalem and Iudah from all the abominations of the Heathen The Heroical attempts of whose Princely resolution and zeal in restoring the true worship of God unto this people needs not mine it hath the commendations of Gods Spirit who hath been curious in calculating his particular good deeds throughout this Chapter to have been matchless in Davids Race and how then possible to be parallell'd in any other Princes Line And what If through the religious care and industrie of some one or two Princes whom the Lord in mercie had raised up as Lights unto this Land the foggie mists of Superstition Heresie and Idolatry be driven hence This is an Infallible testimonie of Gods former love unto our forefathers no sure Document of our continuance in his favour if yet this Land and People may be taken in the very manner of those capital Crimes which did condemn Iudah his first-born amongst the Nations in the dayes of good Iosiah even whilest it was acquitted from profession of Idolatrie and Superstition What shall it avail us that those forrain hungrie Hell-hounds which brought Commissions of Charter Warrant for hunting out the good things of this Land and made this people a prey for maintenance of the many-headed beast have been long time prohibited to continue their wanted raunge if the Princes which are left within her be as roaring Lions and her Judges as wolves in the evening which leave not the bones until the morrow What availes it that the secular Priests and Jesuite are would God they were transported out of this Land if her owne Prophets be light and wicked persons and her Priests pollute the Sanctuary and wrest the Law Or what shall it avail us that the Light of the Gospel doth shine amongst us if the just Lord be in the midst of us and every morning bring forth judgment unto light and fail not and yet the wicked will not learn to be ashamed Or what avails it that we have cast off all blind obedience to the Sea of Antichrist if we will not suffer Gods providence to be a Rule and Christs word a Light unto our paths but walk on still in the wayes of the heathens making secular observations our chief confidence and worldly policie our greatest trust Or what avails it to have purged our hearts from all conceit of merit if we pollute our hands with bribes Or what availes it to give God the glory in all good actions and yet daily dishonor his name with bad dealings I will speak more plainly What advantageth it us to object unto the Papists that they seek to merit heaven by their works and share with God in the honour of good deeds if they can truly reply upon us That the free Almes of Papists Founders have been by Protestants set on sale unto their brethren Or that secular Appendices and Alliance of Spiritual men devour a great part of that liberal maintenance which was allotted only for Prophets and Prophets children 11. Beloved in our Lord were we our selves without sin without these enormous sins which I have mentioned all of us might freely attempt to stone that filthy Whore and all her foul Adulterers unto death But such of us as seek most to purge the Land of them and seek not withal to cleanse our own hearts of those sins which have procured Gods wrath against it may justly dread lest we find no better success then good Josiah did to provoke the enemie to do more mischief then haply they meant Mistake me not I beseech you as though I misliked such as sollicite severitie against that Nation yet cannot I hope but some will be as jealous of me as these Iews of Iosiah's and Jehoiakim's dayes were alwayes of the Prophet Jeremy whose footsteps I have resolved to follow through good and bad report Give me leave to explain my meaning thus As from my heart I reverence their religious labors who have of late so effectually stirred up our Sovereignes heart to this purpose and earnestly request your heartie prayers unto Almighty God that his Holy Spirit may continually enflame his royal heart with those good motions which have been kindled in it of late so do I desire from the very centre of my soul both that men of place Authoritie Gravitie Learning and Integritie of life may prosecute it and that young Divines whether young in years or manners it skills not would oftentimes even for Sions sake hold their peace or at least be wary where and when they open their mouths in this argument For he that looks into the temper of this present people with a discreet religious not with a turbulent factious eye may easily discerne that many ill tempered and extravagant invectives against Papists made by men whose Persons wanting Authoritie as much as their speeches do Reason do nothing else but set an edge upon our Adversaries sword whilst the light behaviour and bad example of the Inveighers life infuseth courage to their hearts and addeth strength unto their armes In one word Many of our words in this place increase the wrath and many of our lives out of this place increase the number of that Faction 12. Though all of us by Profession are Christs Soldiers yet every Soldier is not fit for any service Albeit I discourage no man I only advise that every man that means to be a valiant Soldier in Christ and would do his