glory unto him that sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb for evermore Who now shall mourn who shall weep for such a Soul none can sorrow for her unless they envy her happiness foelix illa anima imitationem desiderat nâ—n planctum that blessed Soul is no subject of grief but a pattern for imitation And therefore if any weep in her death they must be tears of joy not of sorrow and if they be of sorrow they must not be for her but for our selves and our own loss This indeed is great and invaluable and when you think on it weep a Gods name Quis natum in funere matris flere vetat he were barbarous that would forbid it you yet you shall not have all to your selves we 'll bear you company for she was a publick loss Such a Wife such a Mother such a Friend such a Mistriss such a Neighbour such and so good a Woman and so great an example of Virtue cannot should not go to the grave with dry eyes in whose loss so many have interest I would praise her if I could to make you weep more but she is beyond my commendations A Woman of her Wisdom and Judgment of her Wit and discourse so free and liberal and yet so prudent and provident withal for she was so in her self though misfortunes befel her so sweet so kind so mild so loving and respective to all and withal so charitable to the poor a Chirurgeon to the hurt and a Physician to the sick she eat not her morsels alone and their loins were warmed with her wooll as Job speaks such a Woman so well born and bred and of such a strain beyond ordinary as she seemed with the blood to inherit too the virtues of all her Ancestors so upright and clear and innocent in her whole course that the eye of envy nay were all the malice of the world infused into one eye it could not find any just stain to fasten on her such a one so every way compleat surely no Man unless he had her own or the wit and tongue of an Angel can sufficiently commend neither can we if we regard our own loss sufficiently bewail But the truth is she is not lost non amissa sed praemissa sent before she is lost she is not And therefore you whom it most concerns though you mourn mourn not as those without hope It is but a short separation and the time will come when you shall see her again though not with these earthly affections Pay the due tribute unto nature but then shut up the sluces for graces sake And the God of all grace give you comfort the Holy Ghost the Comforter himself replenish your heart with consolations And the blood of Jesus Christ wash us all from all our sins and strengthen us with the power of his might that we may so live whilst we remain here in this Prison of the Body that when it shall be dissolved we may obtain mercy from him to lead forth our Souls To lead them with his grace and then as he hath done to this blessed Saint receive them unto glory There with her and all the company of righteous spirits that are gone before us to sing praise and honour unto his holy name for evermore To this God the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost c. Laus Deo in aeternum THE Second FUNERAL SERMON FOR THE DAUGHTER SERMON XIII Upon ROM viii 10. And if Christ be in you the Body is dead because of Sin but the Spirit is life because of Righteousness MAN of all Gods Creatures is the strangest compounded the most marvellous mixture that ever was a very fardel of contrarieties wonderfully united and wrapt up in one bundle Heaven and Earth light and darkness Christ and Belial may seem to dwell together and man the house of their habitation what can be more directly opposite than Flesh and Spirit Life and Death Sin and Righteousness and lo all of them united here in one verse nay in one man For the Text is but the Anatomy of man and must therefore be composed of and divided into the same parts man himself is As his body is composed of contrary Elements heat and cold fire and water So his person is composed of contrary Natures Corporal and Spiritual Body and Soul His Natures again of contrary qualities Life and Death the Body is dead the Soul lives and lastly these qualities issuing from contrary causes sin and righteousness death from sin and life from righteousness The Body c. And though the sin by which the body dies is our own yet that we may know that the righteousness whereby the Soul lives is not of our selves but received from our Saviour there is a caution given in the entrance of the verse If Christ be in you So then here are three couples a Body and a Soul Sin and Righteousness Life and Death The body with her two attendants sin and death the Soul with her two endowments righteousness and life The former is universal and common to all the Sons of Adam according to the flesh the latter particular and proper only to the Children of the second Adam begotten by the Spirit If Christ c. I begin with the first part which is a meditation of death and our chief Christian comforts against death But yet before the Apostle brings in his consolations he premises a conditon If Christ be in you To teach us that the comforts of God belong not indifferently to all men He that is a stranger from Christ hath nothing to do with them What hast thou to do to take my Covenant into thy mouth so long as thou hatest to be reformed saith God in the Psalm I. When our Saviour commanded his Disciples to proclaim peace unto every house they came to he foretold them it should rest only on the Sons of peace He forbad them in like manner to give those things which were holy unto doggs or to cast pearls before Swine This stands a perpetual Law to all his messengers that they presume not to proclaim peace to the impenitent and unbelieving but as Jehu said unto Jehoram's horsman what hast thou to do with peace so are we to tell the wicked who walk on still in their sins that they have nothing to do with the peace or promises or priviledges of the Gospel If Christ be in you c. Secondly if we compare the verse immediately precedent or that which is subsequent with this between both you shall easily perceive after what manner Christ dwells in his Children Sometimes we are said to be in Christ and sometimes Christ is said again to be in us and both in effect come to one we are in Christ by faith and Christ is in us by his Spirit For so it follows If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies It is
tryal of that fire which will prove whether they are Gold or Stubble or else dispure them so calmly as neither peace be disturbed nor charity destroyed according si non sententiis saltem animis if not in opinion yet in love and affection And for these regards and many more indeed any but that of imputation is justly termed his Righteousness the Righteousness of God It is that Image of the Father the chief lineaments of that similitude of God wherein we were at the first formed and whereunto we are still created Created unto good works that we might walk in them Eph. ii 10. It is the end and purpose of the Sons Redemption That we being delivered from the hands of our enemies might serve him in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our lives The intent and effect of the Spirits vocation for we are called not to uncleanness but to holiness and that not outwardly only by the word but inwardly by the power of the Holy Ghost cleansing from all filthiness of Flesh and Spirit that he may purge unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works yea it is I say not the form that doth justify in it self but the quality that only can qualifie for justification and entitle unto it as it is taken for remission of sins in Christ. Blessed are they that do his Commandments that they may have right unto the tree of life Revel xxii That tree of life is Christ in whom without Righteousness no Man hath any right who came by water and blood saith the same St. John elsewhere first cleansing and then pardoning For as he doth sanctifie as well as justifie so I take it he doth first sanctifie before he justifie and no longer justifie than he doth sanctifie Lastly it is the direct and unavoidable means though not merit of glorification without holiness no man shall see God nor any enter into the Kingdom of God So many ways is it the Righteousness of God and so many ways no less necessary for Man as being indeed All in All the fulness of the Law the full effect of the Gospel the substance of Gods revealed will in both This is the will of God even your sanctification But what then becomes of Faith for this seems to be altogether work Is that nothing unto the way that leads unto the Kingdome Surely yes much every way but yet without Righteousness not any thing For Faith is not opposite to Righteousness but a part of it the very fountain or root from whence it is immediately derived For true Faith is ever that of the Heart not of the Brain and with the heart man believeth unto righteousness It is neither Faith nor Works apart and severed that can do us good but Fides operans a working faith faith working by love and love is the fulfilling of the law saith the Apostle This is that active Faith so much magnified in the xi to the Hebrews by the power whereof those Worthies there of whom the world was nor worthy besides many other great things especially wrought righteousness and gained the promises v. 33. And to these and the like Worthies it is that that Angel points in the Revel Hi sunt These are they that keep the Commandments of God and the faith of Iesus To shew that none keep his faith as they should that do not keep his Commandments Revel xiv 12. Indeed it is the keeping not the believing of the Faith that is available I have kept the faith saith St. Paul henceforth is laid up for me Corona Justitiae a Crown of righteousness Faith kept is Righteousness and such faithful righteousness only it is that shall be crowned at last Righteousness therefore the only way unto the Kingdom and so by all those that would come thither of all things else and in all regards most especially to be sought for with their best strength and utmost endeavour For it is not quaerite but primum quaerite not seek only but seek ye first The last point but must be briefly handled though indeed it hath two points As First hath a double signification for it either respects time or earnestness of intention And in both regards for time and intention of travel we are to seek and first to seek the righteousness of God if we desire to enter the Kingdom of God The actions of Piety and Righteousness are the highest and noblest operations of the Soul and therefore of more worth They run cross and counter to the bent of our corrupt affections and so of more difficulty than may be lightly and easily archieved Indeed facilis descensus averni it is a descent down the hill the swing of our own corruptions can carry us headlong thither but the way of life is on high said King Solomon Virtue must upwards and hale the heavy body after it climb Hills and craggy Mountains hic labor hoc opus this is not without sweat and difficulty But notwithstanding all difficulties virtus aut inveniet aut faciet viam The spirit of God by the power of that almighty faith to which all things are possible will and must break through them all To do good and suffer evil to deny our selveâ— and take up the Cross to â—ubdue lusts and root out affections and the like till it come to that point these are justitiae culmina the heights and steps of righteousness and up we must though like Ionathan and his Armoâ—bearer we creep on all four hands and knees for it on the knees of humble and fervent prayer but using the hands too faithful and diligent endeavour And therefore it is not every cold and careless seeking that will be sufficient The way is narrow and the gate strait contendite intrare strive saith our Saviour for many shall seek seek negligently and shall not be able to enter Nay more than strive and struggle too I press hard saith the Apostle for the price of the high calling which is in Christ Iesus He well knew that though no Man be Crowned unless he strive for it yet that every striving doth not presently gain the Crown nisi legitimè certaverit unless he strive as he ought And therefore he fought not as those that beat the air but as he that means to conquer for even this Kingdom is not gained but by conquest The Kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force In this point we need not fear offending in excess Modus amandi Deum est sine modo amare the measure of loving God is to love him without measure In opinions indeed and disputes that have their extreams moderation may be good and commendable disputants in heat and passion supposing they are never far enough asunder till both be equally sundred from the truth and then in this case to halt as they say between two opinions may be to walk most uprightly but no such here to halt between two Masters between God and Mammon God and
not then a Carnal presence but a Spiritual that doth link and associate unto Christ. To make up our union with him it is not needful that his humane nature should be drawn down from Heaven or that his body should be every where present on Earth as the Ubiquitaries affirm or that the Bread in the Sacrament should be transubstantiate into his body as the Papists imagin His dwelling in us is by his Spirit and his union with us is spiritual So himself in the same place where he speaks of eating his flesh and drinking his blood doth interpret himself the flesh profiteth nothing the words that I speak are spirit and life And his Spirit it is not his body that shall give life unto the Spirit when the body shall perish If Christ c. This touch shall suffice for the condition I proceed to the substance of the Text. The Body is dead It contains as I said an admonition of our frailty corruption and death and comforts against death It is but the body that is dead the Spirit is life First of our corruption and frailry The body is dead That we all tend unto death we all know but the Apostle's speech is more remarkable he says not the body is subject to death but by a more significant phrase of speech he presseth it homer The body is dead There is a difference between a mortal body and a dead body Adams body before the fall was mortal in some sort that is subject to a possibility of dying but now after the fall our bodies are so mortal as they are subject to a necessity of dying yea if we'll here with the Apostle esteem of death by the beginning and seisure of it they are dead already The forerunners and harbingers of death dolours infirmities and heavy diseases have seised already on our bodies and marked them out as lodgings which shortly must be the habitation of their Master But how near this manner of speech draws unto true propriety they best conceive who best understand how that malediction of God and curse of the Law The day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death was fulfilled If God spared not the Angels when they waxed proud will he spare thee who art but a putrifying worm Ille intumuit in coelo erga in sterquilinio he was puft up in Heaven and therefore was cast down from the place of his habitation and if I wax proud lying on a dunghil shall I not be cast down into Hell So often therefore as corrupt nature stirreth up the heart to pride because of youth and health beauty and strength and the like perfections of the body let this consideration humble thee that though these are fair and beauti ful flowers yet they cannot but suddenly wither because the root from whence they sprung is corrupt and rotten and even dead already Neither is it more available to the cutting down of arrogance and pride than to teach us Temperance and sobriety What availeth it to pamper that Carcase of thine with excess of delicate feeding which is possessed by death already If Men took the tenth part of that care to present their spirit holy and without blame unto the Lord which they take to make their bodies fair and beautiful in the eyes of Men they might in short time make a greater improvement in Religion and Virtue than they have done But herein is their folly they make fat the flesh with precious things which within few days the worms shall devour but never care to beautify the Soul with holy and virtuous actions which shortly is to be presented to God Let us therefore refrain from the immoderate cherishing this proud and dead flesh meats are ordained for the belly and the belly for meats but God will destroy them both 1 Cor. vi 13. I might inlarge this point almost infinitely for the benefit of this consideration is not confined unto Humility Sobriety and Temperance or any particular virtues but it 's universal restraining from all evil and inciting powerfully unto all virtue and goodness Nihil sic revocat bominem à peccato quà m frequens mortis meditatio saith St. Aug. nothing can so recall a Man from his evil ways as the frequent meditation of death especially if he consider as the certainty of death so the uncertain time of his death and the unchangeable estate of everlasting misery if he die in his sins Would to God we were wise thoroughly to apprehend and apply this unto our own Souls It is strange that there is nothing so well known nothing of greater benefit and yet nothing so little regarded What a Prodigy is it that sinful Men should carry about their death in their bosoms and in every vein of their Bodies and yet scarce admit a thought of their mortality into their minds but live here as if they verily thought they should never die If we had no Religion yet reason would teach us that our strength is not the strength of stones and yet them even the drops of water weareth nor our sinews of Brass and Iron as Job speaks and yet these the rust and canker consumeth but a vapour but a smoak which the Sun soon drieth or the wind driveth away It was wittily said of Epictetus the Philosopher who going forth one day and seeing a Woman weeping that had broken her Pitcher and the next day meeting another Woman that had lost her Son Heri vidi fragilem frangi hodie video mortalem mori Yesterday saith he I saw a brittle thing broken and to day I see a mortal Man die And what difference of frailty between these two surely none unless Man be the frailer of the two For as St. Austin hath it Take the brittlest veslel of earth or glass and keep it safe from outward violence and it may last many thousand of years but take a Man of the most pure complexion of the strongest constitution and keep him as safe as thou canst he hath that within his own bowels and bones that will bring him to his end Nay I hear some say saith the same Father that such a one hath the Plague or the Pleurisie and therefore sure he will die but we may rather say such a one liveth and therefore sure he will die for diverse have had these Diseases and did not die of them but never any Man lived that did not die The Consumption of the Liver is the messenger of Death the Consumption of the Lungs the Minister of Death the Consumption of the marrow and moisture the very Mother of Death and yet many have had these Diseases and not died of them But there is another kind of Consumption which could never yet be cured it is the Consumption of the days the common Disease of all Mankind David saw it and spake of it when he said my days are consumed like smoke Psal. cii yea the Philosopher saw it and could say of it quicquid praeteritum est temporis mors
habet all our time that is past death hath seised on it and so much of our life is consumed Let me then warn you and stir up your meditations of your mortality in the words of Moses Deut. xxxii 29. O that men were wise then would they understand this then would they consider their latter end Sure we are unwise that we consider not the things past the evil we have committed the good we have omitted the benefits of God we have abused the time we have mispent and yet we grieve not because we think not yet whether we shall die More unwise are we not to consider the things present the deadness of our Body and uncertainty of our death the difficulty of Salvation and the small number of such as shall be saved and yet we shame not because we think we shall not yet die But most unwise are we that we consider not the things to come Death Judgment Hell all to come and yet we fear not because we think we shall never die But O that we were wise then should we understand then should we consider our latter end and considering it we should both prepare for it now and more cheerfully entertain it when it comes memorare novissims remember thy end saith the Wiseman in aeternum non peccabis and thou shalt never offend never do amiss Ecclus vii 36. So universal is the goodness of this consideration and therefore I have stayed the longer on it But now I pass from mortality to the cause of it from death to sin that first brought it into the world The body is dead because of sin Sin it is and only sin which is as the cause of all our dolours and calamities so of death it self that follows them without this there never had been there never could have been any death in the world Death were not death had it not a sting to kill but the sting of death is sin as the strength of sin is the law saith our Apostle The cursed apple of disobedience which our first Parents would needs eat sticks still in all our teeth it was poyson unto his nature and infected his blood and he hath derived the contagion to all his posterity who still continuing to feed on forbidden fruit as he did do perpetually strengthen the original Disease and draw death upon themselves more hastily and violently than either that sin procured or the prime corruption of nature for it doth inforce Hence then we may perceive first how foolish they are who living still in sin yet never consider that they are the Butchers and Murtherers of themselves according to that of the Psalmist The malice of the wicked shall slay themselves xxxiv 21 his own sin which he hath conceived brought forth and nourished shall be his destruction Every Man judgeth Saul miserable that died upon his own Sword but what better are other wretched Men whose sins and iniquities are the cruel instruments of death wherewith they slay themselves Souls and Bodies too Thus are they twice miserable first that they must die and secondly that they are guilty of their own death O the lamentable blindness of Men who albeit in their life they fear nothing more than death yet do they entertain nothing more willingly than sin which causeth their death In bodily diseases Men are content to abstain even from ordinary food when they are informed it will but nourish their sickness and this they do to eschew death only herein they are so ignorant that notwithstanding they abhor death yet they take pleasure in unrighteousness that brings it upon them And secondly which shall be the last use we will make of this point Since sin it is that did first bring and doth still hasten on death upon wicked Men what marvel is it if in these last and worst days the Lord strike the bodies of Men with sundry sorts of diseases and sundry kinds of death seeing Man by sundry sorts of sins doth not cease to provoke him unto anger He frameth his Judgments proportionable to our iniquities if ye walk stubbornly against me and will not obey me I will then bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins Levit. xxvi 25. He hath a famine to punish intemperance and the abuse of his creatures if the memory of our own corrupt and putrifying bodies cannot do it he hath a devouring sword to bring down the pride of our hearts If we have fiery and unclean affections he doth not need burning Fevers and loathsome diseases to punish them And now if the Lord after that he hath stricken us with such a dreadful pestilence shall renew his Plague amongst us or go on to finish that former destruction with the Sword of our enemies what shall we say but the despising of his former fatherly corrections or our stubborn walking against the Lord our God hath procured it justly unto our selves Quid mirum in poenas generis humani crescere ir am Dei cùm crescat quotidie quod puniatur what marvel that the wrath of God increase every day to punish Man when that doth daily increase which deserves that God should punish it But enough of this part it is now time to pass on to the second and most worthy part as of Man so of my Text from the Body to the Soul from the memory of death to the comforts against death for though the body be dead yet it is but the body the spirit which is the highest consolation of a Christian is yet alive Mans life it self But the spirit is life I cannot now stand to discourse of the excellent Nature of Mans Spirit and the wonderful union of it with flesh and blood for Man you see is no simple creature but compounded of both both a Body and a Spirit He is the abstract and brief compendium of all the creatures of God The world was corporeal the Angels spiritual and both were united in Man and made as it were into one creature A creature which hath being with the elements life with plants sense with beasts reason and spiritual existence with Angels that so the Almighty God first uniting all his creatures in Man and then uniting Man unto himself in the person of Christ might in some sort through Man communicate himself to all his creatures Worthily therefore did the Naturalists term him a little world and as worthily did St. Austin say of him that of all the miracles that were ever wrought amongst Men Man himself is the greatest miracle and that not only in regard of his two substances but especially in regard of their marvellous union that a mass of clay should be quickened by a spirit of life and both united into one person That as God himself hath diverse persons in one Nature so man hath diverse and those contrary natures in one person Commonly says Bernard the honourable agrees not with the ignoble the strong overgoes the weak the living and the dead dwell not together
Non sic in opere tuo domine non sic in commixtione tua not so in thy work O Lord not so in thy commixtion here the living and the dead dwell both together The body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life Here then are the high consolations of a Christian against death briefly comprised and they are three That his death is neither total nor final but his life is perpetual His death is not total it is only of the body for the spirit lives it is not final for the spirit is not said only to live but that it is life and that in two respects first because it shall give life again unto the body and that secondly an everlasting life and therefore it is not barely the spirit shall live but in the abstract the spirit is life So you may perceive the reason why the Apostle varies his manner of speech he said not the body is death as he says the spirit is life neither saith he the spirit is alive as he said the body is dead but the body is dead and the spirit is life the body is dead and not death because it shall live again and the spirit is not alive but life because by the virtue of the spirit it is that it shall live and live for ever The spirit c. So our life is perpetuate our death but short and not total Amidst these comforts what hath death in it that shall greatly trouble or distress the faithful Soul why should it not stand erect in the midst of all the panick terrors thereof so long as there is begun in us a life which no death shall ever be able to extinguish Albeit death invade the natural and vital powers of our bodies and suppress them one after another yea though at the length he break in upon this lodging of clay and demolish it to the ground yet the inner Man and spiritual that dwells in the body shall escape with his life The Tabernacle is cast down that 's the most our enemy can do but he who dwells in it removes unto a better The dissolving of the body to him is but the breaking up of the prison wherein he hath been so long detained that he may thenceforth be delivered into a glorious liberty For as the Bird escapes out of the snare of the Fowler so the Soul in death mounts up and flies away wiâ— joy into the rest of her Maker The Apostle knew this well and therefore desired to be dissolved that he might be with Christ. As in the battle between our Saviour and Satan Satans head was bruised but he did no more than tread on our Saviours heel so shall it be in the conflict of all his members with Satan by the power of our Lord Jesus we shall be more than conquerors For the God of peace shall tread him under our feet Rom. xvi While he is there let him nibble about the feet it is no great matter yet 't is all he can do and let him do it Manducet terram meam dentem carni infigat let him bite the dust saith Ambrose it was his original curse let him eat that part of me which is earth let him bruise my body all this is still but to tread upon my heel my comfort is there is a seed of immortal life in my Soul which no power of the enemy is able to approach much less to overcome and extinguish for the spirit doth not only live but is life life eternal The spirit is life c. But yet that we may more fully understand to whom these consolations belong and what spirits they are that can live in death and injoy the comforts of life when their bodies can live no longer it is added because of righteousness The spirit is life because of righteousness or for righteousness sake The righteous then these are they to whom it belongs these only are the holy Spirits that shall revive in the midst of life and live in death as they died while they lived whilst the body lived they died unto sin and when the body dies they shall live unto God For as the life of the Soul is the comfort of the heart so the spirit of righteousness is the life of the Soul And therefore deceive not thy self in a matter of such moment in the business of thine everlasting welfare but be most assured that so far forth thou dost live as thou art sanctified and no farther As health is to the body so is holiness to the spirit A body without health falls out of one pain into another till it die and a Soul without holiness is polluted with one lust after another till it perish eternally As the Moon hath light more or less as it is in aspect with the Sun so the Soul enjoys life less or more as it is turned or averted to or from the Lord of life whose righteousness only can give life as this life peace and joy unto the Soul Miserable are those wicked ones that want both they are as St. Jude speaks bis mortui twice dead that is dead both in body and Soul Their Souls indeed do live and shall live eternally a natural life but there is a life of Grace as well as of Nature by the one the Soul lives for ever by the other it lives for ever in happiness This life they do not they shall not ever live and as for the natural the Spirit of God accounts that but a death whilst they live in the body he saith they are dead in sins and when they go out of the body though they live yet he calls their life and justly an eternal death Immortality seems to be added rather to their sorrow than to their Souls Since their Souls are only kept immortal that their punishment might be everlasting It is true that so long as Men enjoy this natural life in health of body and prosperity of fortune the loss that comes by want of the spiritual life is not so safely discerned no more than the defects of a ruinous house are known in time of fair weather but when the storm of affliction when the tempest of death shall come pouring down upon him then the decaies and breaches will manifest themselves How woful then must his condition needs be that hath now no other life but a natural and must now part with that and he knows not whither In this estate he cannot but die either uncertain of comfort or rather most certain of Condemnation And therefore it is not much to be marvelled they are so loth to think or so much as to hear of that final and fatal time O death how bitter is thy remembrance unto such saith the Wiseman How doth the only apprehension thereof even chill the blood in his veins kill the very marrow in his bones Belshazzar's doom is no sooner written upon the wall but the joints of his loins are loosed and his knees smite one against
1 Cor. xi 28. But let a Man examine himself and so let him eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup. SERMON IX X XI On Christmass day fol. 268 295 324. I. on Luke ii 10 11. And the Angel said unto them Fear not for behold I bring you tydings of great joy which shall be to all people For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. II. on Gal. iv 4 5. When the fulness of time was come God sent forth his Son made of a Woman made under the Law That he might redeem them that are under the Law that we might receive the adoption of Sons III. on Esay liii 8. And who shall declare his Generation SERMON XII XIII Two Funeral Sermons fol. 356 384. I. For the Mother on Psal. cxlii verse ult Bring my Soul out of Prison that I may give thanks unto thy Name which thing if thou wilt grant me then shall the Righteous resort unto my Company II. For the Daughter on Rom viii 10. And if Christ be in you the Body is dead because of Sin but the Spirit is life because of Righteousness A DISCOURSE OF OATHS SERMON I. Upon JER iv 2. And thou shalt swear The Lord liveth in Truth in Judgment and in Righteousness THough all Sins be dangerous unto the Soul of man and none so small as may be neglected since a man may be choaked under a heap of Sand as well as crushed to death by the fall of a Tower yet the greater a sin is and the more general it is grown the greater danger and more inevitable destruction doth attend it And therefore it doth require our chief labour and diligence both to avoid such in our selves and to give the best notice we can unto others of the peril By negligence the least Leak may drown the Ship but the Pilot's special care is of the Rock on which if his Vessel fall it certainly splits Now of all the Sins whereunto the Corruption of man is subject I think there is scarce any so great and so common so great in it self and so common in the world so injurious unto the Majesty of God and so frequent amongst the Sons of men as the sin of Swearing The vain and irreverent using rather abusing of that Sacred Name in our ordinary speech which if well considered we should tremble but to think on A sin which the Wise man tells us will bring a Curse upon the house where it is used and it is no less likely to bring a Curse upon a whole Land and Nation where it is universal So that this impiety of all other as it brings with it a greater and more general danger so it calls for from all especially from all us whom it most concerns a great and universal care All endeavours should run forth to the quenching of a common fire It is indeed often galled and sharply taxed from such places as these obviously and by the way But the point contains much and will require a set discourse of that and nothing else for we cannot be too industrious against a publick mischief For which reason I have now made it the subject of my discourse as it is of this Verse Wherein you have the whole Nature and full doctrine of an Oath and how prepared it may be wholesome which otherwise used is deadly poison For an Oath is not simply and utterly unlawful my Text says Thou shalt swear but then it must be qualifyed with the due form and matter and manner The form must be As the Lord liveth that is in the Name of the living Lord The matter Truth and Righteousness the manner or modification Judgment Thou shalt c. But before you may fully apprehend the division of the Text it will be requisite that I shew you some divisions of an Oath for there are divers sorts There is a bare and simple Oath and there is an Oath mixt with a Curse and execration The bare and simple Oath is only a plain and naked contestation wherein we call God to witness of what we say The execratory is when we bind over and oblige either our selves or something dear unto us unto some notorious punishment if so be that be not true which we say as when one swears by his Life Soul Salvation and the like Again there is an Oath wherein there is a manifest and express assumption of the Name of God which needs no instance we know it too well by daily and fearful example And there is an Oath wherein God is called to record tacitly and implicitly under the Name of those Creatures wherein his Glory doth especially shine and appear So he that sweareth by heaven sweareth both by heaven and by him that dwelleth therein And lastly which is specially material There is an Oath Assertory and an Oath Obligatory Assertory when we affirm or deny any thing past or present Obligatory when we promise or threaten something to come Which being observed you may easily make a fit Application of the three terms in my Text Truth Judgment and Righteousness Truth unto an assertory Oath Righteousness unto a promissory Judgment and discretion unto both For which cause it is placed in the midst between both For an Assertory oath must be True lest we swear falsly A Promissory Righteous lest we swear to do unjustly and both with discretion and judgment lest we swear lightly and rashly Thou shalt swear c. So then we may in some case swear but the Oath must have the right form it must be made in the name of the Lord And the due matter in Truth if Assertory in Righteousness if Promissory And then in a discreet manner with premeditation and judgment in both Wherein you see how we may swear and how we may not swear In Truth Judgment and Righteousness we may swear but falsly unjustly and rashly and vainly we may not swear Of these points in their order beginning with the first The Lawfulness of an Oath and that in case a man may swear Thou shalt c. 1. There are not wanting some and those even amongst the Fathers themselves who have censured all Oaths though permitted by the Law yet as condemned by the Gospel which contains they say a Doctrine of more than legal perfection of this opinion were St. Basil and Theophylact and it is the error of the Anabaptist unto this day Others have thought that an Oath may be lawful under the Gospel but then only before a Magistrate and when it is required by such as have authority thereunto But the common and more general opinion both of the Antient Fathers and Modern Divines is that it is not simply unlawful for a private man to swear and in a private action when some urgent cause either the honour and Glory of God or some great good and benefit of our Neighbour doth call for it at our hands since it is not the use of an Oath but
be subject to the higher powers But however this Spiritual power be not collateral simply but subordinate unto the Royal yet is it in regard of its original and derivation clearly independent as being not derivable into the Priesthood from any Prince or Potentate upon earth but immediately from him who hath it written on his Garment and on his Thigh The Lord of Lords and King of Kings And being thus distinct without derivation it is not possible the censures of the one should come forth in the name of the other but only indeed in Christs name and in their own persons who in this are the Ministers not of the King but of Christ as exercising no part of the power belonging to the Sword but only of those Keys that properly are their own and underivable too from any upon earth but those of their own Order However therefore these powers are subordinate yet two distinct powers they are and both as was said immediately from God and both therefore to be feared of men And sure this latter though the lesser yet not a little to be feared neither for though the Kings Laws bind the Conscience yet his revenge for the breaches of them cannot reach home unto the Soul His Sword is material and can but lash the Body though so lash it as sometimes to divide it from the Soul but St. Pauls Sword is spiritual and reacheth directly to the spirit dividing the Soul not indeed from its own Body but from the Church the Body of Christ and so from Christ too the head of the Body a power therefore in it self no way contemptible it is Christs own and he the more careful to vindicate it from contempt yea not it only but the power and person too of the meanest Priest amongst us for that of his concerns all He that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me But yet all this were not that other Royal Power propitious upon earth I think would be of little force in these days to preserve them from contempt or confusion crushing confusion For did not the Sword of the Prince defend the Keys of the Priest they might well put them under their girdle if not under the door and be gone But blessed be God he that is the defender of the Faith and Doctrine of the Church in his Piety and Princely Goodness is pleased to be the Defender also of her Jurisdiction and Discipline Et defensoribus istis tempus eget for otherwise the Antihierarchical of these times and indeed Antimonarchical too as not well affecting any either Power or Prerogative but their own were it not for this would soon level all by their own Rule that is level with the ground lay all Power Ecclesiastick and Honour too like Davids in the dust if not rubbish even Monasterial But then they may do well to think of another dust too the dust of our heels which if but justly shaken there is one that assures us the sorrows of such Contemners will prove more insufferable than those of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of Judgment It is but right therefore and well too that the Regal Power is the Superior that so as it is the Moderator and Governour of the temporal it might be also the Protector of the spiritual causing that fear and reverence which is due unto both to be paid also respectively unto either Neither in requiring this unto them do we divert from the right object of fear in my Text for it is but fear God still For God himself hath in a sort Deified Authority He hath given them of his own power and imparted his very Name unto their Persons I have said ye are Gods and ye are all sons of the most high And Gods indeed not only by appellation but in effect also for the great and universal benefit which they bring unto mankind For were not Man thus made a God unto Man Men would soon become Wolves unto themselves and devour one another And therefore to fear such Men is not to fear Men but God since the fear is not so much exhibited unto their naked persons as unto those beams and participations of the Divinity wherewith they are clothed And in this sort it is not amiss to say that God and not any thing else is to be feared And indeed he that thus fears God he only fears nothing else though the waves of the Sea rage horribly and though the Hills of the Earth be carried into the midst of the Sea nay as the Poet Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidum ferient ruinae though the whole world should disjoint and fall he would be buried in the ruines of it without fear for he fears none but God and the offending of that God whom he fears That indeed he doth as desirous to obey him too as well as fear him and so we must all it is our Duty also for so it follows Fear God and keep his Commandments the second Part of our Conclusion keep his Commandments These two are inseparable ever and it is but just that they are not here only but so often joined together in Scripture The fear of the Lord saith David is the beginning of Wisdom and he subjoins but a good understanding have all they that do thereafter So God himself as Job testifies And unto man he said as if it were the product and total of all that is or may be said unto him the fear of the Lord that is wisdom and to depart from evil that is understanding The self same in substance with Solomon here Fear God and keep his Commandments Neither may it possibly be otherwise Nature hath linked them as close as Scripture for no man departs or can depart from the one the Law of God that doth not first depart from the other the Fear of God The soul and body of man have not a stricter union than these two the one the body the other the very soul of the new and interiour man And therefore the original hath it col ha adam for this is not the whole duty but the whole man the whole spiritual man indeed The outward works of the Law are wrought by the body and such righteousness of the body is but the body of righteousness but the fear of the Lord sanctifies the soul and the righteousness of the soul is the very soul of righteousness And the spiritual man created in holiness and true righteousness must have both these parts as well as the animal a soul and a body too Some mens righteousness indeed is all body do many things good and commanded but for ends upon by and vitious respects here is a Carcase of holiness but no soul to inform it only hypocrisy inhabits and gives it motion as the Devil sometimes they say doth the body of a dead man Others will be altogether Soul Fear God as much as you will every man likes it well and thinks he doth it
certain and ought to be acknowledged by either That the first Graces of God either confer'd in time upon Earth or prepared eternally by him who dwelleth in the Heavens are a free collation and absolute without any thing of reward otherwise Grace were not grace as the Apostle speaks Secondly The last punishments in Hell a meer reward in justice without any thing of free and undeserved collation otherwise Punishment were not punishment But the Kingdom of Heaven and the joyes of that place come to us after a mixed manner though originally and principally yet not altogether by grace neither yet altogether by merit not as a gift only nor yet wholly as a reward but is so a reward as it is still a gift so a gift as it is still a reward A reward because promised unto works a gift because that promise was of grace and these works no way deserve the reward And therefore the Scriptures apply themselves unto both terming it sometimes an Inheritance by Adoption sometimes a Crown of Righteousness sometimes a gift of Grace sometimes a Reward of our Works But that we mistake not we are most commonly careful not to mention the one respect without some intimation of the other In that very place where the Apostle affirms it a Crown of Righteousness yet that we may receive it as a Crown rather given than deserved it follows immediately which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me in that day On the other side in those places where it is called an Inheritance as it is in many yet in all we shall find it to be an Inheritance of the Saints and never conferred but on obedient Childeren My Sheep saith our Saviour hear my voice and follow me wheresoever I go do istis vitam eternam and I give them eternal life There it is a gift but yet to his sheep that hear and follow him dâ—num datâ—m non personae sed vitae a gift given not to the persons of men but to their lives and that is no other than a reward as St. Jerom rightly In the v. of St. Maâ—thew it is a reward merces vestra your reward is great in the Kingdom of Heaven yet it is merces coprosa a great and plenteous reward magnanâ—mis as God said unto Abraham I am thy exceeding great reward a reward with excess far exceeding indeed all the works and passions too of men that are to be rewarded So true is that rule of the Rabbins concerning the holy Scriptures In omni loco in quo invenis objectinoâ— pro haeretico ibi quoque invenis medicamentum in latere ejus Not a place that seems to favour an heresy but hath an Antidote or Medicine hanging at the side of it But on the other side most true it is Hell and eternal death are the wages and meer wages of wickedness That of the Prophet Vita â—ors a domino life and death are both of the Lord is right but yet must be rightly understood not both of him after one and the same manner but with St. Aâ—stins difference Vita scilicet à Donante mors à Vindicante which we may render in the words of the Apostle Life is the gift of God but death the wages of Sin To shew therefore that death is be to attributed not so properly to the Inâ—â—ctour as to the deserver the Wiseman is bold to say Deus mortem non fecit God hath not made death but men by the errours of their life have sought it out and drawn it down upon their own heads Let not any man therefore conceive the evil works oâ— wicked men as effects of a foredoomed destruction buâ— destruction rather wherever it lights to follow both iâ— design and execution as a just meede and recompence of evil doings for the merciful Lord that preserver of Souls as the same Author hath it cannot possibly hate any man as Davids enemies did him gratis without any cause but is ever as the Scriptures teach and the Fathers proverbially affirm Primus in amore ultimus in odio first in love and last in hatred And they that will needs think otherwise if they be not reckoned among the haters of God sure I am they will be found lyars at the last for the Lord is a just God and so is his reward that will look precisely on the work without respect unto any mans person be he what he will or may be for so it follows in the next place reddet unicuique he shall reward every man c. Great diversity there is among the Sons of men but the summons of this day is universal and will reach unto them all Be they rich or poor noble or ignoble none so mean as to escape unregarded none so mighty as to decline the Tribunal we must all appear saith the Apostle we and we all no remedy we all must make our appearance before the judgment-seat of Christ. And however here upon earth there doth indeed belong great respect and reverence unto the persons and dignities of great and honourable men yet these things are all now passed away and Christ the great Judge in this terrible day will have no regard unto any mans person or titles farther than these have had an influence into his actions and rendred them justly rewardable with greater honour or else with sorer punishment For the Virtue or Vice of such Men dies not at home in their own bosoms but as their persons are great so their works and ways in like manner eminent and every way more exemplar And therefore the Wise man saith but right Potentes potenter mighty Men that have done amiss shall be mightily tormented and for the same reason those that have done well as mightily rewarded There is nothing mean in them now nor shall be hereafter For these are they whom God hath made great upon Earth filled them with substance and honour that pouring out of their plenty upon the distressed and relieving the oppressed by their power they might become even as Gods unto their brethren These he hath placed tanquam majores venae as the greater veins in the body Politick to minister blood and spirits unto the rest of the members tanquam communes Patriae parentes as the common Fathers and Parents of their Country to whom all the weak and injured may fly as unto a refuge and sanctuary of protection yea tanquam planetae stellae majores as the greater Stars and Planets in the Firmament of power by sweet and propitious influence to cherish the Earth under them and all good things that are in it These now if clean contrary shall abuse this wealth and power push the weaker cattle with them as with horn and shoulder as the Scripture speaketh If the higher Potentates and Princes like so many mighty Nimrods molest and vex the world they should govern provoke Heaven and take peace from the earth embrue and embroil all to satisfy their own impotent and unlimited
thing else the Devil may for some have been so shameless to repair even thither for the ending of controversies adjuring and conjuring by Spells and Exorcisms Satan himself to give answer out of possessed bodies as out of his Prophetick Charms unto the truth of his disputed Articles A strange remedy and desperate as their cause that would establish truth in Religion by the Spirit of Errour and Father of Lies Neither these nor any thing else can prevail Authority may restrain wise Men may mollifie and perswade but neither the power of the Magistrate nor skill of the Learned are both able to effect it whatsoever remedies the Wit and Confidence of either dare or any Catholick Moderator else yea of the great Cassander himself may invent or propound until every Man seek to remedy one will be found too weak for the purpose they are all either dangerous or not fully profitable Plaisters if not malignant and hurtful yet at best too narrow for the Sore and unable to pierce unto the root of the Malady It is only the removing of those inordinate Lusts the causes of War that is able to give us a true and durable Peace For the bitterness of the streams must be cured at the Fountain and the fire quenched by subduction of the fuel otherwise effects will ever issue from their causes And therefore the wisdom which is from above saith my St. James is first pure then peaceable And our Saviour observes the same method in his benedictions first blessed are the pure in heart and then immediately blessed are the peace-makers for until the heart which is the Fountain be purged there is no expectation of Peace We may therefore cast up our Eyes towards Heaven and profess outwardly as much purity as we please but so long as we are contentious and at opposition still with the Church and her peace it is a manifest sign our Wisdom is not from above nor yet our selves so pure in Heart as we should be For were the Heart once well purged and purified from these earthly and sensual desires that disturb the Soul and darken the mind what peaceable and peace-making affections would succeed what calmness and serenity able to clear the eye of the Soul in discerning evident truth and to temper the passions of the Soul in such truths as are not easily discernable And so end most controversies and at least moderate all teaching us as St. Paul speaks sapere ad sobrietatem to be wise but unto sobriety or as St. James to shew forth our works in the meckness of wisdom For soberness meekness patience gentleness brotherly-kindness love and the like these are the high and proper effects of the Wisdom which is desuper from above but may not descend into a Soul filled already with those Lusts that are desubter from flesh and earthly things beneath Virtues and endowments these that seem to restore the Soul to her native beauty render it sweet and amiable and of all other makes her most like unto her Saviour Vertues therefore so peculiar unto his Gospel as it breaths almost no other language And were that Gospel a while obeyed rather than disputed obeyed in necessary duties rather than disputed in speculative difficulties it would soon be unto us what it is in it self Evangelium pacis a Gospel of Peace which the God of Peace vouchsafe unto us all to study even through Jesus Christ our Peace-maker to whom with the Holy Ghost three persons c. Amen Laus Deo in aeternum Amen A DISCOURSE OF ELECTION AND REPROBATION SERMON V. Upon HOSE A xiii 9. Oh Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but in Me is thine help AS there is nothing more necessary so is there not any thing of greater difficulty than to draw man unto a true thankfulness for Gods Mercies or a just acknowledgment of his own Errours It will not be easie for his Ministers to prevail in that here which could not be done in Paradise no not by God himself where although it were not the first Sin for it doth of necessity suppose a former yet it was the second in time and I think in greatness before the first The Woman she transfers the fault on the Serpent and Adam on the Woman which thou gavest me she delivered me of the fruit and I did eat And such as was then such or worse is still the corrupt and stubborn disposition of a Sinner who though his own guilty Conscience make him hide his head in a bush for shame yet thinks any Fig-leaves of excuse will serve turn to cover his nakedness from those Eyes unto which all things are transparent A crime we have received from our fore-Fathers that first used it the Teats of Eve gave no other milk than this perversness unto all her Children In good and laudable actions every man can readily teach his mouth to kiss his hand as Job speaks to commend and applaud the work and be content to receive the honour unto himself But if the question be of our Errours and misdeeds how do we labour and sweat to convey the burthen from our own shoulders How ingenious presently is the froward nature of most men to knit the Stoical Chain of destiny and be the action never so detestable and vile to fasten the first Link not to the foot of Jupiters Chair the Stars and Constellations of Heaven but which is a degree beyond the Stoicks to the very arm of the Almighty In this case we are all grown acute Philosophers and can climb the physical Scale of Causes as if it were Jacobs Ladder until by it we ascend into Heaven yea into the very closet of God where they will search the Book of hidden Counsels and eternal Decrees and from thence draw dark and blind consequences of inevitable and fatal necessity rather than flesh and blood should want wherewith to plead with its Maker That as the men of the Man of sin have devised a compendious way by one position to answer all objections against their Doctrin namely That their Church cannot err So these men have found out as brief a Tenent to stop the mouth of all reproof in the Errours and Heresies of their life to wit that they cannot chuse but err As if they had no means to decline the punishment unless they drew in God to be a Party in the offence But it were good that Man would plead with Man that the Potsheard would contend with the Potsheards of the Earth as Isaiah speaks and not with his Creator whose Scepter is a rod of Iron wherewith he can at his pleasure bruise the vessel of the Potter for he hath power over his clay A power notwithstanding which how unwilling he is to use and how justly at length he doth use and how mercifully he forbears to use we are in these few words by God himself given to understand that so we might cease to wrangle with the Divine Justice that is so loth to strike O
matter important The main parts but two A Precept The Precept seek A Promise The Promise All these things shall be added unto you A promise not as it sounds only of these things which shall be added but of those spiritual things also we are willed to seek for if those be added it implies these shall be given These given as the Reward of our search Those added ex Abundanti as an overplus or surplusage out of his Providence so the Promise is of all both spiritual things and secular of the one sort expresly implicitely of the other And so it should be for Righteousness hath the promise of this life and the life which is to come saith the Apostle The precept on which the accomplishment of this promise doth depend and wherein only I think I shall at this time proceed hath these particulars 1. The Action enjoyned and the manner and modification of that Action Seek and first seek 2. The object of our search proposed a double object prime and secondary The Kingdom of God and the Righteousness of God for both must be sought that intentionally as the end of our Travel this by prosecution as the way the only way that leads unto it Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his Rigeteousness c. But because the object as the Schools speak doth ever precede the Action that works upon it not ever indeed as really existent but yet always Ideally in the mind and contemplation of the worker whether it be God or man whether actions transient or immanent external Creation Decrees and prefinition internal Though they suppose nothing in being but their Author yet they presuppose all things as being understood and apprehended before they can be either wrought or willed 3. Therefore in the third place the right way thither is discovered Righteousness a way as clean as right unto happiness through the paths of holiness to the Kingdom of God by the righteousness of God But Righteousness is not so easily found or being found is not so easily kept and observed And therefore it is not a bare seeking that will serve the turn here he must seek and search knock and call with his best might and his utmost endeavour which will be the fourth and last point though first named First seek So have we all the direction and incitation too that may be desired The Port and Haven of our rest and happiness everlasting proposed the Kingdom of God Our duty and endeavour urged to weigh Anchor put to Sea for the search and discovery of it Seek Our course shaped and directed that we wander not in the Ocean by the Righteousness of God And lastly because the voyage is tedious and difficult unto flesh and blood and no less perilous than painful by reason of many Rocks and Shelves and Quick-sands that lie in the way at least about it our vigilance is farther admonished our best attention and industry again and more earnestly called upon with a primùm quaerite first that is chiefly and above all things most carefully seek For so seeking we shall be sure to find performing our part in the precept God will not fail to perform his part in the promise give both the Kingdom which we sought and add those other things which are unworthy of our search But I begin with the Precept and in it with that Kingdom that should quicken us to the practice of it The Kingdom of God Whereof yet at this time I shall speak but little because no Man can say enough or indeed any thing to purpose of that which neither eye hath seen nor ear heard nor possibly can enter into the heart of Man St. Peter saw but a weak beam of it in the transfiguration of Christ and he was so ravished with it as he spake presently he knew not what St. Paul heard but a little sound of it with his ear in an ecstasie and rapture into Paradise and he was himself he knew not what whether in the body or out of the body he could not tell only he heard words there which when he came to himself he could not utter neither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ineffable words words impossible and were they possible not lawful to be uttered The holy Spirit himself seeks not to express this happiness in it self but only to intimate it by similitudes and such feeble notions as we are capable of and acquainted withal And of all such this here this of a Kingdom is the best Kings and Kingdoms they are the most glorious things that are upon Earth and therefore fittest to resemble the glory of Heaven And yet they are but resemblances neither indeed shadows as the Author of the Hebrews rather than full resemblances of this Kingdom Regnum Dei the Kingdom of God A Kingdom fully accomplished with all Dignities and Prerogatives Royal and that in an eminent and excellent manner They seem principally to be but four 1. Dominion 2. Majesty 3. Wealth 4. Pleasure Dominion and Empire Majesty and Glory Wealth and Treasure Pleasure and Delights these are the dazling beams that give such lustre and brightness unto sublunary Monarchies and they are all here and all infinitely more illustrious in the celestial the Kingdom of Heaven For Empire and Dominion how full and absolute how large and spaciousâ— extending it self not only from Sea to Sea from the flood unto the lands end but from Land to Sea from Sea to Air from Air to Heaven from thence to the Heaven of Heavens which as they contain not his person so neither may they limit his Dominion and Power It is called the Kingdom of Heaven not that it is there â—onfined and bounded for it runs through Heaven and Earth the heaven is his throne and the earth is his footstool That indeed is the City of the great King the Metropolis and principal Province of the Kingdom the Heaven of Heavens Next unto it is the Ethereal Region wherein are the Celestial Orbs the Stars and wandering Planets all of them keeping the due course and order their King hath appointed them and not fainting in their watches as the Wise man speaketh From hence it passeth into the Aereal wherein are the strange and formidable Meteors lightning and thunder fire hail snow vapours winds and tempests and all of them fulfilling his word as the Psalmist hath it After this into the Aqueous the Region of Waters the great Sea and all that walk in the paths of the Sea all subject to his power that made them they and their raging Element He hath given them a law which they may not break he hath set this bound which it cannot pass hitherto shalt thou come and here shalt thou stay thy proud waves The earth follows as the Center and Foundation of all which yet hath no foundation it self but is hung out upon emptiness as Job speaks And this though a remote yet a principal Region it is of his Empire and furnished with the noblest
Inhabitants of all other not only with Minerals Plants and Beasts but as yet with rational Men though mortal to some of whom the Lord even in this life hath imparted of his own soveraignty a Lordship over the earth yet so as he retains the Supremacy and will be still Lord paramount himself for his is the earth and the fulness thereof And yet it stayeth not here but pierceth farther into the lowest of all the subterraneous Region a Region of death and darkness Arabia deserta a desert and doleful Region this that brings forth no good fruits but is appointed only for the habitation of wicked and apostate Angels and such of Men as they have seduced to the like wickedness All these Regions and Provinces are contained within the circuit of his Dominion and Kingdom for omnia serviunt tibi all things what soever serve thee Psal. cxix This is Gods Kingdom and the Kingdom of God it is that shall be imparted to the children of Men His it is his only by natural righteousness his servants it shall be by gracious communication Indeed the communication of the Kingdom is first and principally unto Christ who is Haeres universorum the Heir the immediate Heir of all things Heb. i. There is not an Inhabitant of the three grand Regions Heaven Earth and under the Earth but they are all put in subjection under his feet and must every one therefore bow the knee at the very name of Jesus as a reverence and homage unto their Lord. But yet in and through Christ it shall be communicated also unto all his that are truly Christians for these are heirs too heirs of God and coheirs with Christ Rom. viii As they partake of his name so they shall receive of the Royal Unction which it signifies He only is the anointed King but the oyntment resteth not only on him but from him as from the head runs down into the beard and drops on the very skirts of his Rayment by which they are all interessed in the same Kingdom And therefore qui vicerit dabo ei sedere in throno meo to him that overcometh will I give to sit with me on my throne even as I overcame and am sate down on my Fathers throne Revel iii. 21. So Gods throne is over all Christ sits on God's we on Christ's and therefore on God's and so have a communicated power from God through Christ over all that God and Christ have He will make him Ruler over all his goods Matth. xxiv 47. Justly then a Kingdom in respect of Dominion and no less rightly in regard of Majesty and Glory the second Prerogative of Kings and Kingdoms And sure they are no mean rays of Majesty and Majesty Divine that above all other persons do descend and settle on the heads of Princes crowning them more than that of Gold with Glory and Honour True it is every rational Man is engraven more or less with the image and similitude of God which all other creatures irrational do acknowledge by their fear the fear of Man is on them all But Kings bear this similitude with a difference of eminence and excellency and are stamped with a special character of the Divinity that commands reverence and dread from all their inferiours even those whom all things else do fear A great participation of honour than which there is not a greater unless in this Kingdom the Kingdom of Heaven that indeed infinitely surmounts it for there and there only is the fulness of Majesty Majesty Divine where is the Seat and Scepter the very Throne of the Divinity at the erection and presence whereof all other Thrones and Scepters though never so glorious must at length tumble to the Earth as that Image before the Ark utterly broken It was a goodly statue that Nebuchadnezzar beheld it had a head of pure Gold but when that mighty stone cut out of the Mountain without hands once fell upon it it ran instantly into powder so the same Prophet Daniel in a vision of his own doth assure us I beheld faith he till the thrones were cast down and the Antient of days did sit whose garment was white as snow and the hair of his head like pure wooll his throne was like the fiery flame and his wheels like burning fire A fiery stream came â—ssuing forth from before him thousand thousands ministred unto him and ten thousand times ten thousands stood before him the judgment was set and the books were opened Dan. vii 9 10. And this sure is a majestick Throne and even on this Throne about which so many blessed Angels stood and ministred men which is strange holy men and Saints shall sit as Assessors judging not only the Tribes of Israel but the whole world the world of the wicked both men and Angels 1 Cor. vi 2 3. And as their majesty is such is their glory a glorious Majesty and marvellous For the glory of the Lâ—rd shall shine upon his Servants and he shall shew himself marvellous in his Saints Their very bodies shall be glorified and shine as the Sun in the firmament but their Spirits much more glorious with them they shall see God as he is that is in his glory and by seeing be transformed into his Image that is made like unto him in glory 2 Cor. iii. ult And as of Glory so I think it will be found for Riches and Treasure the third thing of eminence in the Kingdoms of this world as being the sinews of their strength the support of their state dignity and magnificence 3. But as all power is but impotence all honour ignomity so all wealth but poverty respectively unto the Riches of this Kingdom This only hath veins and mines of Treasure indeficient Fountains of wealth inexhaustible when these below are quickly drawn dry and whilst they run cannot quench the thirst of those that drink them who therefore have no means to be truly rich by adding to their wealth but by withdrawing from their desire But this beggerly Philosophy the best yet that is in this Vale of misery is utterly banished the confines of this Kingdom whose Riches are of another nature and powerful not only to provoke but to satiate the appetite We need not make a vertue of necessity here be content with such things as we have because we may not have such as we would at best but a rich poverty but enlarge your selves to the uttermost open the mouth wide and it shall be filled and that is true wealth that doth fill the mind not that which doth restrain it that doth not curb the desires but feed them till there be nothing more to be desired And such are the riches of this Kingdom For what can he desire more that hath God and all that God hath all that he hath for omnia ejus nostra sunt All that he hath is ours all that he is is ours too Deus erit omnia in omnibus God shall be all in all 1 Cor. xiii Doubtless
it could be the intuition of no other Riches but these that could make King David a Prince of such mighty wealth as the Treasure he left behind can at this day hardly be calculated yet amidst them all to cry out Ego vero pauper egenus but I am poor and needy but the Lord careth for me See where his Riches lay in that God which may not be enjoyed but in this Kingdom 4. The last things of moment attending on the Kingdoms of this world are Pleasures and delights whereof indeed they afford great variety but wherein little satisfaction For as their Gold hath much dross so their little pleasure is mixed with travel and trouble not a little Only the Kingdom of God the Paradise of true delight is it that hath liquid pleasures and pure from all mixtures of sorrow Revelâ— iiiâ— 3. We that are immersed drowned in flesh and blood can hardly think there are any other pleasures but these of the body though our own Reason if consulted cannot but inform us that this corâ—â—ptible earth is not more inferiour unto the immortal Spirit that informs it than the delights of that Spirit are excellent and Divine above all the gross and brute pleasures of the perishing body Though here are all and all sorts of delights all that are immixed and pure from imperfection both for body and Soul The senses of the one the powers and faculties of the other shall be all satisfied to the full and satiated with their highest and diviness objectâ— with their 〈◊〉 and closest 〈◊〉 with them to the utmost of their enlarged and glorified 〈◊〉 cities It is the Feast of the great King wherein he means to set forth all his magnificence like Ahasuerus unto his Princes The marriage-feast of the Lamb and write saith the Angel Blessed are they that are invited to the supper of the Lambs Marriage Revel xix How blessed then are they that shall at that time be married themselves unto the Lamb The Body indeed is invited to the feast but the Soul is it that shall be married unto the great King as it is in the Prophet Hosea I will marry thee to my self in everlasting kindness Quales Thalami illius amplexus Who can possibly conceive the joys then of the Bride-chamber or the pleasures of the Bride-grooms embracement when God and the Soul shall be so closely knit and closed together as they become but one Spirit as by this marriage here two are made one flesh 1 Cor. vi 17. A strange and marvellous union that as the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father so all blessed Spirits shall be in both and all but one in both as both they are but one A true marriage this and a through on all sides Souls knit unto Souls and all unto God A union divine like the union of God the effect of it therefore a joy divine no less like the joy of God So like as in Scripture it is said to be the same Intra in gaudium Domini Enter into the joy of thy Lord even into that joy wherewith the Lord himself rejoyceth and is everlastingly blessed who perfectly apprehending his own infinite worth and goodness doth as perfectly enjoy it in himself And such shall be your joy who shall not only pierce the inmost verity of all other things and clearly know the truth of whatsoever is doubtfully disputed here but shall be enabled to behold and contemplate with open face all the excellence and beauty of the Divinity it self by the understanding and enjoy it too by embracing and cleaving unto it with the will and affections though not comprehensibly and commensurably as God doth yet fully every one according to his capacity and as a Creature may Totum Dei but not totaliter seeing and enjoying all of God though not in that alsufficient and supereminent manner as God doth This is intrare in gaudium Domini to enter into the joy of the Lord and that is to be filled as the Apostle speaks with all the fulness of God which since it is the most we can it shall be the last we will at this time say of it only adding thus much that though we may put an end to the speech of it there shall be no end of the joy At his right hand are pleasures for evermore A Kingdom then it is and in all respects the Kingdom of God In regard and so seeing be made like unto him and that is participation of the glory of God In regard of wealth and riches we shall be Rulers over all his goods and that is a full possession of the Treasures of God And lastly in regard of pleasures and delights we shall enter into the Lords joy and that is no other than the joy of God Joy Wealth Honour Dominion all Divine and a Kingdom of all and therefore the Kingdom of God that is an everlasting Kingdom for Regni ejus non erit finis of his Kingdom there shall be no end Luk. iii But we must end the point wherein if I have stayed the longer you may please to remember what St. Peter said when he saw but a shadow of it Bonum est esse hîc it is good to be here A subject so pleasing that once entred a man can hardly be drawn off with that Apostle from building Tabernacles there and dwelling on it for ever But yet we are not so to contemplate the happiness of this Kingdom as we forget to consider what we are to do that we may attain unto it for something is to be done though not much seek it we must at least if we mean to have it the second Point Seek the Kingdom of God 2. And sure it is little worth that is not worth the seeking not any thing not so much as our daily bread but must be sought and that in sudore vultûs in the sweat of thy brow And shall the Kingdom of Heaven so far above all things be valued at a lower rate than any thing else for there is not any thing but misery on earth and Hell beneath it the just reward of sloth that may be purchased without travel Those idle people in the Market-place whom our Saviour questions in the Parable with a quid hîc statis otiosi had yet some rational plea for their idleness no man hath hired us we have none such see a Kingdom even the everlasting Kingdom of God is your hire He that is now idle is idle without pretence and let him be miserable without pity And yet two sorts of Men there are that trespass in this particular The one seeks but without all respect of the Kingdom the other would gladly be invested in the Kingdom but will by no means seek it he scorns to work for hire this no hire can set a work that relies too much on divine attraction this aims too much at supposed perfection but seek the Kingdom of God convinceth both The first to touch first on
the third place unto the act whereby that preparation is made and these qualifications are best attained unto and that is a diligent search and examination of our selves and ways Let a Man examine himself For certainly the readiest way and directest unto due preparation is the true and faithful knowledge of the right temper and disposition of our own Souls And therefore next unto the book of God Man himself is the best book he can study since the knowledge of himself as the very heathen Philosophers could acknowledge is the beginning and fountain of all both Wisdom and Goodness of Wisdom because as himself is a microcosm and compendiary sum of all creatures so the knowledge of himself cannot but be the sum and brief abstract of all sciences and of goodness because he is evil without remedy that doth not understand how evil he is for of necessity he must know his own corruption before he can cleanse and purge it which is the reason that evil Men who though they love not evil as evil yet love the pleasure of it are so nice to enter into their own Souls and fearful to make too strict a search into the pollutions of their hearts lest they should be driven to abandon and forsake them when they cannot retain without too much trouble to their own Conscience Rightly therefore Seneca Mali ubique sunt praeterquam secum wicked Men are willingly every where else rather than at home they are still gadding abroad and the less they can abide to look on themselves the more they delight to be curious examiners of other men how securely will they pry into all their actions how narrowly can they observe every defect and imperfection the least mote in their Brothers eye that will not behold beams in their own within blinder than Moles without quicker sighted than Serpents And Plutarch though but a Philosopher can give you the reason of both for the guilty Soul saith he which in it self is but as an unclean cage a very sink of Sin and iniquity metuens ca quae intus sunt exibit foras fearing that foulness and ugliness which is within quickly flyes out of doors and like a Fly flutters up and down till it light on a gal'd back sucking and feeding upon other mens vices that he may the better lessen and excuse his own or dare to attempt greater himself It is happened unto such saith the same Author as unto those that have sooty houses or curst Wives they are never well longer than abroad Like Satan in Job their Souls compass the earth and walk through the world wandering stars they are to whom the blackness of darkness is reserved saith St. Jude at whose doors though our Saviour himself stand and knock never so long never so loud he cannot hope for admission there is no body within to answer or open and let him in their Spirits are gone forth and it is impossible they should hear what is done at home their cogitations are so deeply busied abroad or if peradventure they now and then hear him at their better leisure they consider it but little as supposing they have not much need of him They have been so long taken up in the view of other mens sins as they forget their own they have so constantly fixed their eyes on the crimes of their brethren as they begin to think themselves innocent In this case now is it possible they should duly prepare or deeply repent whilst they judge of their own goodness by others evil and suppose themselves well enough already because peradventure they are more wicked But could we observe the Apostles rule let other Men alone and examine our selves could we as diligently observe our own defects and imperfections to give them no worse name as we do other Mens and other Men do ours taking estimate of our selves by what we truly are in our selves not what we seem opposed to others we should quickly discover at least the corruption and hypocrisie of our own hearts we should soon find how rotten we are at the core how desperately sick and what great need we have of the Physician And still the longer we look the wickeder shall we appear the more narrowly we search and the deeper we dig into these impure vaults the more ever shall we abhorr our selves with Job till we cry out with the Prophet O that my head were full of water and mine eyes a fountain of tears that all the day long I might bewail my sins and iniquities in the bitterness of my Soul What else was it but this serious consideration of himself that made holy David so afflict his body with sackcloath and his head with ashes what was it that made his eyes so often to water his couch and his bed to swim with perpetual tears but that in the 51. Psalm I acknowledge my iniquity and my sin is ever before me And sure did we carefully look into our selves did we faithfully and frequently set our sins before us as that Prophet did we should soon acknowledge and bewail them with that true and hearty sorrow that he hath done So directly doth the contemplation and knowledge of our selves lead unto true repentance the sum of our preparation But this knowledge of our selves especially of our sins is not so easily attained as we imagine and it is not presently gained upon the first view every Man hath not such clear eyes as Adam at first sight to discover his own nakedness or if he have he can quickly find out fig-leaves subtle shifts and excuses to cover it as well as he And therefore it is not a slight view but a strict examination that must eye it Let a Man examine himself It is strange that himself should be driven to examine himself doth not the Soul understand the Soul cannot the spirit of man understand what is in man without searching it out by examination surely no the heart of man saith the Prophet is deceitful above all things and wicked who can know it and because wicked therefore deceitful and cunning not only to deceive others but even it self The understanding indeed hath eyes clear and bright enough to search into the dark corners of the Soul and discover the windings and turnings all the obscure Alleys and Labyrinths that are in it did not the heart send forth a thick fogg of gross and earthy affections to muffle up and blind them lest they pry too far into her secrets For the will wherein the affections reside hath taught the intellective power which is under her command being Mistris of the Soul either not to look at all or look very favourbly â—on that which she likes and instead of judging of the goodness which is the proper office of the understanding practick she diverts her imployment wholly to the seeking of cunning devices and finding out of false colours and disguises to cover the foulness of the evil which pleasure or profit moves her to affect And then how
that we may bound our discourse within certain lines and limits this generation of our Lord and Saviour is not simple and of one sort but various and manifold As his Person is compounded of divers things so hath he accordingly several generations In the blessed Trinity there are three Persons and but one Substance In Christ Jesus three Substances and but one Person he hath but two Natures indeed Divinity and Humanity but the Humanity again is compounded of two several Essences corporal and spiritual a body and a Soul so in all there are these three a body a Spirit and the Divinity whereunto both are united And according to these three we shall consider a threefold generation Divine Humane and Spiritual For Christ was born from all Eternity and still is in heaven without a Mother on earth he had in due time a humane birth without a Father and in the minds and Souls of men he is spiritually born without Father or Mother of a Mother without a Father he was born once without Father or Mother he is born often of a Father without a Mother he is born always and perpetually Lastly of his Father in Heaven he is born God of a Mother on Earth he was born man without Father or Mother in the Souls of men he is born God and man As there are three Substances therefore in our Lord and Saviour so hath he three births or generations which we shall consider in their order Divine Humane and Spiritual all three so hid and full of admiration inutterable as the Prophet and we with him may well say of them all Generationem c. To begin then with the First his Divine generation whereof we shall say but little because indeed we can say nothing worthily and as we should say For how shall frail man say what no man can possibly conceive since he cannot fully say and enunciate what he doth conceive That there are several persons in the God-head is the high yea highest Act of our faith no subject for our expression That God hath a Son we are bound to believe but how he begat him we are bound not to inquire because he hath not revealed nor will reveal peradventure may not but to the glorified eye Then indeed and then only when we shall see him as he is we shall see his generation and be happy in seeing it it is the eternal and everlasting blessedness of the Father to beget him for it is his inmost natural Act and essential and it shall be our perpetual happiness hereafter to behold it which we shall then but behold comprehend it we may not but know it we shall And this is life everlasting to know thee and him whom thou hast sent In the mean time till that life everlasting come whilest we are Pilgrims and lead a life temporary here upon earth wherein we know and prophesie but in part it is not our least wisdom to know such high mysteries are no part of our knowledge It is enough for us with holy Moses to see the back-parts of the Lord to see him in his effects his word and outward works to see him in his glory in his Essence and inmost operations we cannot and live And they who will attempt it with those Bethshemites that would needs pry into the Ark shall assuedly die Such aspiring Spirits that with the bold Schoolmen do pierce into the hidden secrets of Divinity what do they but like foolish flyes flutter about the light till they are at length singed with the flame For qui scrutatur majestatem opprimetur à gloria he that searcheth into the majesty of God shall assuredly be opprest with his glory And therefore it is docta ignorantia a learned ignorance as St. Austin hath it not to know what may not be understood and it were much better piously to profess it than rashly to arrogate science For that may deserve pardon but this shall never want punishment saith the same Father Serm. 15. For which reason well said the great St. Basil of this high Point when he came to treat of it mysterium hoc silentio potiùs quà m oratione colendum it is a mystery to be adored in silence not exprest by words Homil. de Nat. Domini The Prophet Esay himself was not able to do it and which is more he knew that none else could And therefore quis enarrabit who shall declare it for his Interrogation hath the force of a Negation who shall that is none can who shall declare c. There is indeed in it self nothing so light and clear and evident as this Divine generation wherein light of light and very God of very God is produced and begotten but withal unto us nothing more hidden secret and obscure Not that there is any obscurity in God in quo tenebrae non sunt ullae in whom there is no darkness saith the Scripture but that he dwells in unaccessible light and is cloathed with Majesty inapproachable as with a garment aciem oculorum vincens non solùm hominum sed etiam Angelorum darking and blinding the sight both of men and Angels And therefore how is it possible to behold the light of his generation who is the brightness and very splendor of his Fathers glory mens deficit vox silet non mea tantùm sed etiam Angelorum the eye of the mind fails and the tongue of every Creature becomes mute and dumb not mine alone saith St. Cyprian but of the bâ—lessed Angels also Therefore Quis enarrabit Before ever the world was or any foundation of it laid Ibi non tempus non seculum intercessit nemo spectator adsuit when as yet saith St. Basil neither time nor age was formed nor any spectator by to witness or report it but God alone injoying and embracing himself from all eternity in himself and of himself he begot his only Son who is none other but himself no other God though another person And who then shall declare Again the Father begets a Son and yet the Son is not younger than the Father nor the Father any antienter than the Son he begets him by communicating his Essence unto him and he communicates not any part for it is indivisible but his whole and intire Essence unto his Son and yet parts with none himself who hath heard or may conceive such things who therefore shall declare Yet once more the Son of God is perfect and compleat within himself and so hath been from everlasting intire and wanting nothing and yet which is strange as continually produced and begotten for not as in the beginning God made the Heavens so in the beginning he begot his Son who in the beginning both was and was begotten the Heaven was made once but the Son is begotten for ever and who c. Lastly to omit many things the eternal word is truly the Son of God and is truly born of him and yet notwithstanding hath no Mother that ever bare him but which hath
the collection of a Father Ubi voluptas partum non antecessit neque dolor subsecutus est She who felt no delight in the conception suffered rightly as little pain in the birth saith Greg. Nyss. orat de Christi resurrect Nec in conceptione sine pudore nec in parturitione cum dolore unstained in her conception and unpained in her parturition saith St. Austin Serm. 14 de Nativ and in my understanding rightly for what labour or sorrow could he bring in his birth that left her a perfect Virgin that bare him And therefore in this regard also who shall declare c. So many wonders are there in his birth and yet it is not a much less wonder he made choice of such a place to manifest all these wonders in In Bethlem an obscure and little Village in a poor and mean Inn of that Village in the meanest and basest place of that Inn the Stable This was the great Chamberâ— the stately Mansion hung with Arras weaved by Spiders and paved with the filth of other Beasts wherein this great Monarch the mighty King of Glory was pleased to be born and together with himself to produce so many miracles into the World The very place wherein he had only littier for a Bed a Manger for his Cradle an Oxe and an Ass for his attendants being as great a miracle as the rest And as the basest place so did he make choice of the obscurest time A time indeed famous for an universal peace spread upon the face of the Earth but in it he picked out the lowest and utmost extremities time hath the last age of the world the lowest period of the year the deepest and darkest point of the night And so in both regards verè recubuit in novissimo loco he truly sate him down in the nethermost room and at his first entrance into the world trod the world and all worldly pomp and glory under foot that his very birth might preach contempt both of it and all the vanities it hath unto sinful Man for whole sakes he vouchsafed not to abhor I say not now the Virgins womb but the durty cratch and filth of the Stable And in either respect who shall declare c. or who shall declare the infinite love he shewed in it unto miserable Men for whose advancement the King of Glory was pleased to abase himself so low Surely as the great Gregory in his Morals Deo tantò magìs homo debitor fuit quantò pro illo Deus etiam indigna suscepit The more unworthy things God undertook for us the more ever are we bound unto God and therefore let every Soul truly and effectually say with St. Bernard quantò pro me vilior tantò mihi charior by how much the viler he hath made himself for me the dearer ever shall he be unto me Thus every circumstance of his production is wonderful and cannot but declare how every way undeclarable his generation is But yet that we may more perfectly behold it we must â—aâ—e our conâ—â—â—eratâ—on â—igâ—er from the circumstances to the substance and effects of this mighty work And indeed in these regards who shall declare his generation For it is the best and greatest and wisest work the Almighty ever wrought and doth more fully manifest his infinite power wisdom and goodness yea and justice too than all the rest of his creatures or all the rest of his operations in them First then for the power and omnipotence of God how unutterably is it here shown more than in any or all other things else the Incarnation of God being a greater work than the Creation of the whole World He made indeed at the beginning Men and Beasts Plants and Elements Sun and Moon Heavens Stars and Angels excellent works and wonders of his power but yet when the word was made flesh he made and wrought a greater wonder than them all Much power was shown in knitting and combining jarring and discordant Elements peaceably in one body more in the conjunction personal of this material body with an immaterial spirit but incomparably most of all in the hypostatical union of created Body and Spirit with the uncreated divinity of the Godhead it self For howbeit to make Man of dust and dust of nothing argues an infinite power yet that infinite is much more conspicuous when this Man is made God and that God which made him made Man himself And the reason is because that in making of Man or any other creature the infinity of power is not manifested in the effect which cannot be but finite because created but in the manner of creating it of nothing and the ability every of creating it of some other greater and more excellent So God might have made a larger world than this and creatures of other kinds and in every kind of richer essence and higher perfections And when he had done so might do so again and again yea and after that might yet still and perpetually do so For an effect of finite and limited perfection may be infinitely multiplied by an omnipotent power but can never grow infinite in it self and because it cannot grow infinite is infinitely capable of further perfection But here the infinity of power is not only in the manner of working but discernable after a sort in the work it self And God hath now produced an effect even commensurable with his power and uncapable of farther perfection substantial an effect whereunto nothing can be added that may advance it higher or make it greater silly Man being made and become the great God whom all other both Men and Angels must worship for ever So here is in a manner an infinite effect and so the expression as firm as may be of an infinite power not that the humanity is infinite for then it should be the divinity but that both are so united as they make but one person which is infinite From whence it follows that as Christ the God is truly Man so Christ the Man is truly God and therefore to be adored both God and Man And what more infinite production of an infinite power is there imaginable than the making of a creature so one as he is and is to be adored as one with the Creator blessed for evermore For who then shall declare the power of his conception Secondly the wisdom of the Almighty which though like his mercy it be over all his works is yet more conspicuous here and shines brighter than in the Sun or any other operation of his hands had we eyes to discern or wisdom enough of our own to behold it For in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge saith the Apostle The treasures that is the wealth and riches the abundance of the Divine Wisdom are all in him but like veins and mines they are hid in him in him are hid all the treasures and we cannot fully discern them now yet unless we be stark blind we may discern enough for our
memorable and exemplary couple I may well join them in my speech they were so many ways joined in themselves They were joined in affinity and alliance they were joined in affection and love they were joined in the quality and nature of their Disease and would not be severed till death did it in the time of their sickness they were joined in the comforts of death and now they are joined in the glory of an everlasting life But the formers rites are passed yet they might not be now passed over I cannot but give her a touch she desired it from me and I am sure she deserved it For the latter here now in your sight I shall not speak much because I can hardly speak enough with her former times I have had no acquaintance and therefore can make no relation of it only I assure my self that she who was so patient and penitent in her sickness so devout and cheerful in her death could not but be well and religiously disposed in the course of her life But for the latter part of her days them I have known and in them been an eye-witness of the expression of more goodness than I have often seen or from a Woman of her quality could have expected The things of note which I especially observed in her and shall commend unto you are principally these her willingness to entertain death and her deadness unto the world and worldly affairs her joy in spiritual discourses and her frequency and fervency in devout prayer For the first if we consider the impediments it was much she should do it so cheerfully she was but young and entring upon the prime of her years She had small and tender Infants of her own that went near her she was well bestowed where she found both youth and love and means too wanted nothing nor was likely to want haec sunt quae faciunt homines invitos mori and these are the things that make Men unwilling to die could the Philosopher say Yet notwithstanding all these she gently submitted her self unto it she resolutely went forth to meet it and lest he should miss her she call'd it unto her Come gentle death and even held forth her arms to receive and embrace it For the second I was with her often yet never heard a word of worldly matter or secular affair so much as fall from her tongue Her heart was bent on Heaven which made it delight so much in heavenly contemplations they came down upon her as the Scripture speaks like rain into a fleece of wooll and as a shower upon a thirsty land With what an open and greedy ear did she suck in celestial comforts which she shortly after vented out again in devout supplications wherein the mercy of the Lord did not forsake her even to the last gasp And then at last when her hands forsook her tongue and her tongue had almost forsaken her heart yet her heart did still adhere unto God in uncessant prayer and therefore she intreated others to hold her fainting hands that her tongue failing they at least might testify that her Soul did commune with her Maker It calls to mind the story of Moses having Aaron and Hur to support his arms for whilst he prayed Amalek fled and Joshua conquered Sure I am whilst she did in like manner the true Joshua conquered all the spiritual Amalekites and enemies of her Soul who only could batter down the prison of her body that her spirit being loose and at liberty might freely clear the air and mount up to the desired place of everlasting rest where she now is and where may she still in peace remain till another day shall invest both Body and Soul with unspeakable glory Who can now mourn who can weep for such a Soul if ye do they must be tears of joy not of sorrow at least they must be for your selves not for her You may bewail your own loss you cannot grieve at her death unless you envy her happiness foelix iss a anima imitationem desiderat non planctum that happy Soul is no subject of sorrow but a pattern of imitation And therefore I now leave the dead and conclude to the living that their Spirits may live in death as hers hath shown them the example For this should be the chief endeavour this should be the principal care of a Christian in his whole life that when his life shall end yet the life of his Soul may not end with the death of his body It little matters how it fares with us in the rest of our time so it go well with us here when if wrath overtake us it shall eleave unto us for ever but if peace end our days our days afterwards of peace shall never end For as the tree falleth there it shall lie Wretched Men that can willingly think of any thing save this that infinitely concerns them above all things else that can wish with Balaam let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his but never endeavour themselves in the works of righteousness whereby they may procure it as if they might be like them in their death whom they refused to imitate in their actions But they may wish like Solomons fool till their tongue cleave to their gums for so long as they live the life of Balaam loving the wages of iniquity they shall never die the death of the righteous nor have their last end like his whom they are nothing like in conversation No if the Soul then live it must be as my Text hath it for righteousness sake Set thy self therefore to it seriously and speedily Wise Princes make many days preparation for a field that must be fought in one Beloved let us be wise too and lay up something every day for the last when we shall wrestle with death If we win that skirmish we have enough but where or when or how soon we shall be called to the conflict who can tell be not secure therefore and presume not on the last hour it may come suddenly upon thee flatter not thy self and thy sins and frame not delay unto thine own Soul Send not Religion before thee unto thine old age whither peradventure thou shalt never come or else come hardned through the deceitfulness of sin Give not thy youth and strength unto Satan and then when thou art low drawn and upon the lees think to present God with the dregs of thy life What a folly were it for thee to adventure thy surest thy everlasting weal or wo making or marring on so sandy and sinking a foundation how much better were it for thee to remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth before the evil day come and thou say I have no delight herein that thy Creator may not forget thee in thine old age when strength faileth and Man returneth to his long home Sure in these great water-floods we shall hardly come nigh him and therefore let