out of dust and bals of living fire fiâ—xt in our eye-brow what work makes this heavenly Potter even with that clay in white red blew after all his polishing forced to take it down and like China earth hiding some for many 1000 years will shew his Power in their raising far fairer then before and yet able to dispatch the same effect on others in a moment in the twinckling of an eye changed and not die by a suddain dissolution and a suddain re-union But far rarer Workmanship is the Recreation of our souls washt brighter in his blood and heightned by his Spirit We need but two things for our souls Grace Truth and both came by Jesus Christ from his fulness we receive both by whose service and Ministry we are made New Creatures invested in a Robe and admitted to an Order past the Fleece and Garter the Right Order of the holy Ghost Brag not vain man O run not up into some beastly figure if guilding like a snail or tracing the way of thy preferment by thy blood or match thou be mounted to a local state of Wealth and Honor for these can add no new substantial forms But this access of Spirit from this Lord is right enobling and superinduces a new soul which like fire devours and takes up all within thee and winding in one Coelestial flame and embracing Understanding Will Affections wings and lifts up all to Heaven 12. Lastly In this very house where we assemble for the Worship and Service of the Lord it is the Lord himself that does the Service to the whole Assembly So that a non nobis Domine is fixable upon the porch of this and every house of God For first he invites us hither Come I Call upon me Seek you my face The skie of Scripture hung round with provocations calling us to service and being entered who executes the parts of our Divine Service in this house of Prayer And is it not he that prays for us in us with us before us and teaches us to pray and say after him Our Father and as once by himself in Prayers and strong cries so here assists our dulness and deadness of Spirit by his own quickning Spirit inditing our Prayers and raising our Devotion with sighs and groans that cannot be exprest It is secondly a house of preaching and we indeed preach Jesus and our selves your servants for Jesus sake nay him a Servant for your sakes But if we speak him right it is he that speaks the word of the Lord heavenly Treasure from our earthen vessels that the excellency might be of God and not of us 'T is he that first did write the word which is his Power and Wisdom to our salvation and 't is he that spels the Gospel and reads and speaks to us in his Word and he that laies out and distributes sentences to several bosoms as every man hath need and he alone that follows the Sermon home and saies it all over again to our hearts Finally his House is a House of Communion for the Saints and Churches of God for the due receiving of his holy Sacraments And as in the Baptistery it is he that receives the Infants in his arms and washes their Souls in his blood and makes the water there a Laver of Regeneration So in the Supper of the Lord it is the same Lord who first shed those primordial purple drops at his Circumcision the first fruits of his all powerfull blood to begin the work of our Salvation and ever since at every holy Communion gives both body and blood the food of faithfull and repentant Spirits and makes those sad sweet drops fall again to the anguish first and then the healing of our souls For such a different office hath this blessed Sacrament that it serves both to discover our sins and to seal our Pardons Wherein while faithfully we receive him he really receives us into him and we him into us So all of us become one body and one Spirit and all by the service of one and the same for ever Jesus Christ to whom c. S. D. G. A SERMON Preached at YORK 1640. AT The Council of King and Lords EPHE 5.8 For you were once darkness but are now Light in the Lord. Walk as Children of Light IN the Skie of Scripture shines the Sun of Divinity And all Divinity all that Sun is shed in these thee Radii The Lapse the Restoring the Duty These are a perfect Catechism And a sum of these is the Epistle to the Romans injust Methode and this Text a methodical Brâ—â—iat of that Epistle indeed an Epitome of all the Book of God for here we have the Creation the World struck out of Chaos or what is more mysterious It could not chuse but please the Angels then to see the LIGHT rise out of darkness by a powerfull FIAT and the earth anon to emulate heaven by vertue of a Producat But this This Rare Work the Angels desire to prie into 1 Pet. 1.12 And if we pace along we shall find here Enoch walking with God Abraham called out of VR to another VR a purer Light The deliverance from Egypt the Red Sea the Rock the Mannae the Ark the Mercy-seat And here are all the Sacrifices the Life and Substance of them all with the Fulness and Light of all the Promises and Prophesies and here is the new Testament The Star appears Behold we bring you glad tidings Run Shepherds and see the great Shepherd of all our Souls whiles yet an Infant Loe He is wrapt here in the Swadling bands of this Text. He is the Word and this his Comment his Paraphrase and Explication You were once c. These words are a Tree laden with fruit most precious the very shell the rind is precious But if we open this Onyx this Pearl Cabinet it contains rare Food and Medicine and Wine and Balsam a Quintessence an Extraction beyond the Spirits of Oyl and Wine and Spices For what Chymist can draw Light Is not that that thing my sterious in Job 38. which way saith he is the Light parted yet here is more the Sun the Spring of Light here is that Sun of Righteousness and the Father of Light and the Spirit of Illuminations All All the holy blessed and glorious TRINITY unfolded here we may with Moses in a pious sense see him that is invisible Behold that rare workman tasking himself in his main project busie in dispatch of all his Miracles at once The Leper is cleansed the Lame walk the Blind receive their sight the dead are raised Nay Majus opus moveo The earth raised up to Heaven Flesh wrought up to Spirit Nature changed to Grace and dust advanced to he Partaker of Divine Nature For you were once Darkness c. A Comprehensive Text it is will take in all persons Speak I to a King or Lords Will they not all be glad at heart to be enlightned by this Dominus in the
know further of this Divine Method which is the Aquaeduct the Ventiduct the Luciduct which way still doth Christ in his Spirit conveigh this Holy water this gentle Air this blessed Light to our Spirits I confess this is one of the most necessary important and most usefull Queries we can make and which being clearly resolved will shame both Papists that hide away as much as they can and other Hereticks that blaspheme the Scriptures and pretend to a Spirit enthusiastick which is nothing but the Devil of delusion and spirit of Giddiness And therefore for our best Resolve upon this question Let us do as our Saviour in the point of marriage enquire how it was in the Beginning Look back then to the Creation consider how came Light at first At first the Spirit moves and broods over that which is in it self a confusion a depth and a darkness and then his mighty Word Fiat Lux. He spake and it was Light then Then when all was dark he made material Light and Christ Jesus is the WORD 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For as Speech is the Image of the mind so he the brightness of his Fathers Glory and the express Image of his person Heb. 1.3 The immaterial Light that was never made and the Spirit of the true God in declaring the true Way of his Worship and mans true way thereby to obtain eternal life as the very heathen trusted to the false gods fained Oracles which of necessity must be revealed before man could find or follow it goes that way still that is by the WORD His Word wherein is his Will revealed from Heaven both makes and is our Light This world is Gods Book wherein as in a Glass of wonders we discern him but that print being Dim to us that are sin-blind it pleased him by lively Oracles to make a Mirror far more clearly revealing his mind And as God engraved his form on his Son before all worlds so what that Son is and what the Father is to us in him the Spirit proceeding from both delivers in the Scriptures of both Testaments And as the Sun guilds and enamels clouds and streams and hill Tops with his raies but thrusts his own pure Light his own living sire through the bodies of the stars so other Authors can but yield a faint reflexion of that beam which is direct and native in his book where the very Law he stiles a flaming Light The Prophecies a more sure Word then any Eye-evidences of the Apostles to which we do well to look saith St. Peter himself as to a Light shining in a dark place till the day dawn the day-star rise in our hearts But then the Gospel written and spread by his Evangelists and held out by his spouse the Catholick Church is his marvellous Light He brought life and immortality to Light by the Gospel 2 Tim 1.10 and in Acts 26. 16. I have appeared to thee saith our Saviour to that choice vessel of his Grace and name to make thee a Minister and a witness c. And now behold I will send thee to the Gentiles to what end A glorious end to open their eyes and to turn them from Darkness to Light from the power of Satan unto God and accordingly we find it 2 Cor. 4.3 4. If our Gospel be hid it is hid in them that perish in whom the god of this world hath blinded their unfaithfull minds that the Light of the Gospel of the Glory of Christ who is the Image of God should not shine unto them And in the sixth verse he shews the Walk and Circuit of this Light God who commanded Light to shine out of Darkness hath shined in our hearts there first and then the casting of the beam to give light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ O then you have the means of Light and Grace among you Ministers you are the Light and Salt of the earth and who shall question that truth which the Truth himself hath testified And would it not be a very dark and desolate and a very flash and unsavory world without a publique Ministry of the Word and Sacraments The Clergie however despised are all out Spiritual Fathers Propter quos hanc suavissimam Lucem aspeximus But yet you and they both must know how they have it and the Apostle tells us that too in the next words We have this Treasure in our earthen vessels that the excellency of the Power might be of God and not of us You are not sent to a Means and Medicine of our preparing or any humane but to Gods Divine Ordinance that which is his Power and Wisdom to Salvation to every one that believes And therefore this may be enough to give all humble Christians satisfaction and acquiescence Speak then thy Word O Lord and thy servant shall be healed shall be undarkened and though like Bartimeus though sin-blind have my eyes opened with a word Mar. 10.12 St. Peter spake but words unto Cornelius but words whereby he and his house should be saved words so richly blest that the Text saith while Peter spake these words the holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word Did not our hearts burn within us said those Disciples Luke 24. to whom our Saviour opened the Scriptures And the Apostles hearers prickt at their Hearts cried Men and Brethren What shall we do to be saved And what a large field of the Fathers testimonies do I here forsake to break by your patience into an Inclosure or two of the very Papists our enemies and the enemies of the Scripture Yet see the excellency of Gods word even those enemies being Judges Cardinal Bellarmine himself is in his superlatives Certissima tutissima regula credendi lib. 1. de verb. Dei ca. 20. and need we any more after so full a witness I 'le name but another but one Instar omnium 'T is he that in a traiterous itch of wit took on him purposely the abuse of Scripture that by mis appliance and prophane wresting he might so abuse our Princes and our Church Mark yet what he is forc'd to say and sure 't is worth our observation if I diminish him not in my English There is in Scripture sayes he an invisible Majesty an hidden splendour a Glory unperishable a wisdom in-exhaustible The solace of humane and the beginning of a Divine life made by the holy Spirit making our spirits holy compat'd with which the Egyptian sages will look pale and poor the Chaldee impure the Grecians blockish Plato no body and Philosophy it self a fool 'T is the print of Heaven on earth and if any where the Joy of Paradise or at least a brave Resemblance of Divine Light be shewed 't is in Scripture containing all that is severed from the actual Vision of God himself Again The paper burns me not yet am I all inflamed in reading it 'T is no composure no artificial tread the Scripture uses
done in every body The Judge is of pure and fiery eyes sees down through darkness to our hearts and reins no casting of mists no deluding of this Judge and then no need of long proceedings frequent siftings and tedions Cribrations of the cause for all things are naked and bare in his sight all evident and clear before this Lord for this Lord is God The Lord God is his name 7. Now the names of God are referred to two heads 1. Simple and absolute or 2. In Relation to us Of the first sort Some respect his Essence or Nature as that name which we know not certainly how but we are taught to pronounce Jehovah Some respect that which we call but yet in tender sense dare scarce call it so his Personality as the names of Father Son and Spirit And some his Attributes Essential as Just Holy c. The second kind of relative names are such as King Governor Preserver and this of Dominus here the Lord 8. First for the Name and so the Nature of God it is an Ocean too immense and boundless for our discovery An Abyss for the sounding of our light and frail reason to propound And concerning this Title Lord I will not enter though my Text lie near the Creation into that curious dispute which yet amused Tertullian and St. Austin afterwards whether this stile then only and properly began in the worlds beginning and could not be attributed to God before Such speculation is but drie and useless stuff I will rather tell you what the School tells us of all Gods Names in relation that is such Names are not really in God but in the Creature So as God is called Summum Bonum not because God cannot admit a composition of those two or any pieces but because his Bonitas as comprehensive of all other and diffusive to all so supereminently above all And because all that retains the name of Good as derivative from him so in it self defective and to us deficient in compare with him saith Aquinas and yet even in affecting and accepting such names God delivers himself to us in a gracious way of endearment For where men aspire to Honor and ascend to titular additions therefore that the swelling vapor of a Longa Pagina as he calls it may lift them like a Pageant high in the air and hal'd from the community of baser earth God in a wonderfull descending still vouchsafes rather to honor his servants and Clients by sometimes assuming names of particular and individual reference as the God of Abrabam the fear of Isaac sometimes of general appliance to all the Israel of God as is the large extended and branching Tree the spreading Sun in an Expansion Dilatation Emanation Communication Consolation to all his servants in this full and chearfull name of Dominus the Lord. 9. Which name in the strict and proper acceptation they say can belong of right to none but God by reason it includes these two conditions First He that is exactly Dominus may at his pleasure use the thing whereof he is Lord enlarge diminish change annihilate that is as far as the nature of the thing will bear And who is so supream on earth Secondly The absolute Lord stands in need of nothing but is endued with a proper innate and self-sufficiency Aad who can boast himself to be so absolute Vnxi te in Regem in caput are notes of humane eminence in the Old and as plain is that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New One from Samuels testimony a Seer and a chief Prophet of God and the other from St. Peter a prime Apostle both instructed in the Will of the Lord here And yet no Saul nor Roman Emperor nor any supream Head and Governor on earth since those times can ever say and say truly so much as to the foot of his body Politick I have no need of you much less then can the feet or legs the sides or arms or bulk of the body though never so big say to the head mistaking it for a Perruke say We have no need of thee 10. It was as is imaginable for this Energie in the restrained sense of the word that the Septuagint everywhere render Jehovah by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord and some such reverence to the name made Augustus sure so respective and nice as not to endure it and Suetonius reproves Domitian of incredible arrogance for not disclaiming that usual acclamation in the Amphitheatre of Dominofoeliciter Well might his Poet then recant and repent his Inscription of Dominus Deusque noster And yet we know what he that sits in that Emperors Throne the triple miter'd man of sin or if not so yet surely sinfull man doth dully and damnably retain and blushes not to this day to wear and hear from his Poets and Parasites in Print of Dominus Deus noster our Lord God the Pope And yet for the term of Dominus alone as in our language t is cheap enough The words Lord and Sir being very near allied in sense so in the Latine now and all those crums and drops of Spanish French Italian Eloquence into which the Latine is broken and dissolved it signifies no more it confers no more in usual phrase And in the very Greek of the New Testament so near Augustus dayes it is evident enough that their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was but equivalent to our Sir for it is observed that Mary Magdaleus gives it there to our blessed Saviour and at the same time envies it not but affords her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sir to the very Gardiner 11. But a more usefull Note from both these Names together we may make out of St. Bernards rule Omne nomen Dei in Scripturis c. Every Name of God in Scripture sounds of Mercy or of Justice and both these are in this judicatorie to shew that Adam had now provoked not only a glorious God holy and just but his Lord Gracious and full of kindness to him This raises the wind into a foul storm swels a brook of disobedience to a Sea when man the master-piece the favorite turns against his God that had made him a kind of under-god given him dominion too For the Habendum enters with a Dominamini It was my Lord Adam from the beginning a Lord Lieutenant under the Lord of Hosts in three great Counties of the earth and air and Seas and of all things therein with power of life and death Ingratefull man to make offence against his maked the creature rise against his Creaâ—our that rais'd him from the dust sustain'd planted pleasur'd him with infinite varieties of sure and â—al favours This on the Remorse was it that cut David to the heart Against thee O Lord against thee have I â—inned and done this evill in thy sight No wonder if traiterous man on this recognition of the Judge offended hid himself and sought for shelter among the trees and even there remained startling
Let us then lift up our hearts together with our hands to Go◠in the Heavens 1. OUR first part is Vitis and that is Christ we way take his own word John 15. 1. I am the true Vine Poor hedge and harth wine you may wring from natural knowledge and from moral Books and dull muddy stuff the world affords mingled with Mandragoras whose effect is betwixt sleep and poison But would you that above the spirit of Cecub or Falernian wine The Vine which breeds a liquor potent and mighty in operation Quod cum spe divite manet in Venas A cup of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that fills with holy Raptures and Extasies and lifts your Spirit up to become Partaker of the divine Nature Then come to me saith he He all alone at this He and none but He can give this Grace Search the Vineyards the Scriptures They testifie of him Those Cherubins the Old and New Testament clap all their wings together for the enclosing him who is A. and Ω. the same Rock and Mannae Jesus Christ yesterday and to day and the same for ever The Book of God is Paradise everywhere Trees of knowledge bowing their eminent tops But Christ Jesus the Tree of Life in the midst of the Garden The Fruit and Kernel of which Fruit is here in Vitis Objection 1. 2. But in 1 Pet. 1.3 we find this made the Act of God the Father Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath begotten us again c. and ascribable to him as an Act of Power and Wonder first above that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And secondly As an Act of Love of which he is the Fountain While not as a Father alone but as a Mother too he conceives in the womb of Predestion brings forth in Vocation tenders and bears in arms and on his wings of Providence and hath Viscera misericordiarum in the plural And again this is made the work of the holy Ghost Tit. 3.8 By the washing of the new birth and renewing of the Holy Ghost c. And so much seems implied in that Commission Receive you the holy Ghost and then Whose sins you remit c. For answer hereto briefly we learn from the school that though in the sacred Trinity be order yet no Degree and in their Acts ad extra they all blessedly conspire as in this particular the Apostle informs us 1 Cor. 6. By the Grace of God the Father through the blood of his Son are we raised as so many Temples of the holy Ghost And as the Son is in at Creation by him were all things made he being the power and wisdom of the Father so the Spirit is called his Gift too whom I will send you from the Father and in the Galatians it is stild the Spirit of Christ All build then this holy frame But he lies down as the Foundation as that precious corner-stone on whom his Saints relie by vertue of their precious Faith and partake all these precious Promises in him Yea and Amen He that Olive of whose fatness and Vine from whose root live all the Branches which he performs in special too by a double distillation of his Grace and blood while the blood of that Vine is made ours and we through it and him made Sons of God and most properly in this Filiation here mentioned his Act who is in nature Filius He by generation to make us so by Regeneration Thus have we endeavoured to dig and discover this to the root indeed that root ineffable of three in one God the Father as Author and Fountain the Son as means and merit the Spirit forming cherishing and preserving the new Creature A Grace flowing from the Father by the Son in the Power and Operation of the holy Ghost Objection 2. 3. But where 's the Text then How do we receive it by Faith Our Saviour Answers it in the fifteenth of St. John This is done by insition as we by it receive him that is abide in him and that cannot be without assenting and obeying both By both which we begin to live and draw sap and conrinuating strength of spiritual Life The life I now live I live by the power of the Son of God 'T is his Act and Gift in the first Light and Influence and first Attraction and bowing our will to receive him and in obediential performaces too asubsequent and concurrent Grace yet a Nostrality too so far as a non fugere saith St. Austin nay as a Sequi too and an Agere a co-working with the work of him that works all in all and all our works in us And the manifest of this Insition by believing and so receiving him is a plain and easie Decision of that drie and tedious Jangle which infects the mysterie of Godliness For nor Faith nor works alone Nor they without their root Nor it without his fruits Poscit opem conjurat amice Faith working by Love Objection 3. 4. But which way How can these things be Which way is the Light parted saith Job c. Where comes our divine Light of Reason to clasp and Grace it self under that noble and ampler Lamp of Faith The Answer is prepard by St. Peter who tells us where it grows the immortal seed of his his Word called therefore the Word of Life and the Word of his Grace and this very Grace the Word of Faith to which is ever annext the use and blessing of those Sacraments of the one whereof our Saviour tells us Except a man be born again and of the other Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood no life is in you no kingdom of Heaven for you PARTICVLAR 2. 5. THus far of Vitis Our second Particular is Racemus The bunch of Grapes 'T is rendred here by Power but is understood in an Excellency Power cum Priviledgio This indeed intended as Caput Votorum For as he saith Quid voveat dulci alumno So what is it that thy soul desires Is it Beauty Belive there are no such Roses and Lilies in their Midsummer as Gods Sons in their early Spring That being true of every member which is spoken of the body in general Thou art all fair No deformity not that of sickness nor that of age nor spot nor wrinckle Free from all defilement of sin a brave and high victorious and insolent Beauty that pure fair white and red in his innocence and in the blood of the Lamb. Is it riches How faint and cold and poor a word to this that makes a man rich in God! And rich in faith is equivalent to that For by that is a poor wretch under all made Heir to God who is rich over all and enjoyes not these shadows of the world but those unsearchable riches of Christ not filthy lucre defiling in the acquist but fine Gold So that thy adoring Mammon is but a mockery to thy soul It cannot make thee it may marr it
and the winter house Solomons house in Jerusalem and that in the Green and that in the forest of Libanon 1 King 7. And if many houses for a man for a King What for the King oâ— Kings Why the Scripture besides this in the Text mentions very many houses of the Lord a multiplicity a Zodiack of houses for the Sun of Righteousness for our Lord and Master Christ Jesus both to receive our service and to do us service in them all c. 1. First Mundi machina the Universe the whole round world with many fair and goodly rooms 2. then that named Habitaculum ejus sacrum Heaven his dwelling place the new Jerusalem of miraculous Structure past Amphions or Apollo's fingring The work of thy fingers saith David yet he speaks it only of this rough cast out-building stuck with stars which though a glorious sight yet is but the cover or shell of this great hollow Egg wherein as in a perfect Vivary full of Cages and Parks and ponds he hath ark't and housed together us and all inferiour Creatures But of his higher Palace His Empyreal in most court imperial for his Saints and Angels the Apostle calls it an House not made with hands but as he is light and his robe is so cloaths himself with light so is the house Light inaccessible Domine bonum est Let us dwell here No more go down from this mount but 3. we must descend as he vouchsafed to do to the womb of the Virgin Sol in Virgine sometime it s one of his houses in the Zodiack and now the Son of Righteousness was there there was God hid and housed for a time nay Gemini in virgine not in a Nestorian but in a sober sence and to crie up the Miracle such as never was God and Man together though in two natures yet in one person remaining what he was yet taking and made what he was not There was a right vivary indeed when the Lord of Glory blessed for ever took lise blood of the blessed Virgin our Lady O what a Store-house Treasure house Jewel house was that that confined that reserved such a Rarity What a strange new earthly heaven for God to dwell and dress himself in and yet behold without breaking that house forth he comes and brings a fourth house on his back another new house of his own making still though assisted in the nchoation yet terminated in his person 4. he only of the blessed Trinity wearing that garment they all wrought upon which creando assumpsit sumendo creavit non extra sed in persona sua which rayment was a body real not phantastick as Marcion that eldest child of Satan so Polycarpus called him and the Marichees imagined For then is all our faith imaginary too if no true conception then nor birth nor death nor resurrection true then is our preaching and your believing vain This destroyes all but we have not so learned Christ if we have been taught as the Truth is in Jesus We have learned that our Lord here took our very nature and true flesh woven with sinews a clay-house moated round about like one of ours that is compast with all mans infirmities sin except but very man of the substance of his mother No substance out of God or new caelestial or sidereal or Elementary matter as Valentinus thought A body then like ours yet in this unlike that in ipso articulo in the very moment of Conception it was proved entire and perfect in all the parts and endued with a rational soul at once which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saâ—tb Damascen the very extract of all novelty when that invisible and incommunicable verity by the Spirit took a soul and by the soul a body saith both Damascen and St. Cyprian when not by any addition or aggregation of Parts by degrees and leisurely sed uno conâ—extu the whole figure and frame of the body set 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the mighty work of Gods holy Spirit faith St. Austin and the School into which though a flow of manifold Graces from the divine nature of Wisdom Power Glory yet in the two natures united we preserve those adverbs all of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that is without Mutation Confusion Division Separation as the Council of Chalcedon against Eutyches Corpus aptasti it is in the Psalm Never so fitted for an house For in this house dwels the fulness of the God-head bodily that is not by a simple Inhabitation nor Assistance or Habitude or Dignity or that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 willing consent or what they call Equality of honor or Nuncupation or Beneplacitum only None of all these will serve but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Union or Unition rather hypostatical In this house dwelt our Lord many years submitting to clouds and waves of Our Infirmities and in this house new-raised from ruine and made glorious this blessed Eagle flew Cage and all This holy Inhabiter of Eternity ascended house and all to his Holy Habitation in Heaven and is there enthroned on the right hand of his heavenly Father 5. But while he was an infant Lord in the hand of his blessed Virgin Mother here he dwelt a while in his Cradle-house the stable-cratch then the Palace of a great King at the sign of the Star in Bethlehem then the right house of Bread Panis Angelorum The true Bread-house and true Head-house though low and little of all his greater Houses his famous Churches after at those great Cities of Jerusalem Caesarea Antioch and in good time their sister Rome her self their little Sister earst that had no brests but since ovationed for Mater Domina as if Domus Cultus Dominus himself had been born and upbrought there ab Origine 6. But stay a while Let us observe Dominus Domus yet better and we shall find him returned from AEgypt abiding at Nazareth and Capernaum and Jerusalem but commonly in the dwelling houses and banqueting houses of his Converts 7. Let these then if I staied too long at the former serve briefly for two Removes of our Lord. And because the Sea of Tiberias is near at hand we may safely walk with him on the water or see him take ship or hear him preach from thence and then a Ship is more then Domus 't is Domus Domini the house of the Lord then indeed 8. From the Press of people he was fain to hide himself in that house But no house must hide or hold him long Over the brook Cedron there was a Garden and oft he resorted thither and thence betrayed was brought from house to house to Annas house and Caiphas to Pilats's Judgement-hall to Heroa's and back again to Pilate's so to his Cross and never rested till the noble Joseph laid him in his Garden-house in a new Sepulchre where never man lay yet that the common house and lodging of mankind the Grave 9. There Kings and Counsellors of the
who by his beams currents it out and delivers it over to all others 'T is in him universally and totally not now Light and now Darkness and exemplarily For all Light uniformly and causally prae-exists in him as in the simple and supernatural cause of all Lastly In him is Light in all the Powers of Light Expansion Renovation Nutrition Conciliation and in this power he vouchsafes it us though thus to make it ours it cost him more then making Light at first then he spake the Word only but here he suffered Multa tulit Sudavit alsit But blessed be the Lord God of Israel he hath raised a mighty Salvation for us in him Two ways as we are in Domino by Justification and then as Dominus in nobis by Sanctifications See already for our comfort Darkness of the first Adam taken off by a double Light in the Second Plus addidit medicina Christi ad salutem quam infirmitas detraxit sanitati saith St. Ambrose on the 12. cap. of the second of the Coriuthians And St. Paul agrees the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Gift of free Grace far to exceed the loss Rom. 5. and calls this dealing of our Saviour The exceeding Riches of his Grace Eph. 2.5 Call it the Miracle and the grand Mysterie no words will reach it Call it the Height it s above all the Depth there is no founding it nor Length nor Breadth imaginable by our weak spirits can span it Call it the Incomprehensibleness Numen the Deity of his Mercy to restore Light and Ability that we might have Life and have it more abundantly 1. A Sun and a Moon for day and night it is so Justification a Sun a prime a Spring original purity absolute in him and we in it and under the imputed Raies thereof our whole persons made bright and gâ—â—tious and acceptable Adam was brave in his native Integrity but this above humane perfection the Righteousness of God preserved too by him that it may never be lost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now that is nor man nor Devils able to take them out of his hands those that are thus made Lux in Domino that is justified by faith working by love This is that white Robe which as it hath no spot so it will admit no mixture in the Act and Energie of justifying Our merits wrought up with his are like Musk and Ambergreece in a Perfume faith Gomesius a Papist and thinks he makes a fine composition but is it not rather an odious comparison Yea we are to renounce all those devices of Congruity Configuration Conformity c. if supposed to contain any vertue in themselves toward the Act of Justification only that true Hercules sailing in the frail vessel of his flesh comes to unrivet us from the Caucasus of despair to which mankind was fastened by a knot inexplicable and inextricable God is just and man unrighteous a sinner and must die and for sin is in darkness and shall not see Light Christ Jesus stoops to untie this knot denies the Minor makes the sinner righteous justifies the ungodly makes Darkness Light in Domino and then there is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus 2. The second Light is Sanctification and that 's the striking the raies not upon us only but into us The first is in him only and ours by imputation God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself pleases himself in that but this second is inherent Righteousness in our hearts called Holiness without which we shall never see nor please God You will say these are high and glorious sounds and these Graces with their distinct or united natures and times have exercised the wits of men but since they are Donatives in the hand of our heavenly Father How are these things made over to us Clear that passage make this part of your discourse this Point of Divinity lightsom to our Capacities Tell us how shall these things be So said the blessed Virgin to the Angel when she was to conceive Christ in her body and for this Conception this Perception of the Lord in thy soul the same Answer must serve The holy Ghost shall come upon thee The Power of the most high can do this by his Spirit and how oft is that repeated Habitat he dwells in us by his Spirit and if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his that 's the surest mark and a man cannot say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Spirit which is therefore called the finger and hand of God the vertue and Power of Christ who tells us in Joh. 14. I will not leave you Orphans I will come to you there 's his visitation and abide with you there 's his Residence and erecting of a Court and adds I will be your Teacher Comforter Remembrancer and all these in his Spirit who is all these to us these are his Offices and operations And must not he needs have Heaven at hand that hath the God of Heaven in his heart John lean'd upon his bosom but Christ rests in thy bosom by his Spirit opening thy dim eyes and opening them twice saith St. Austin giving a double Light in the Lord First to see thy sin and guiltiness and blenching at the horror thereof opens them again to see thy Saviour in his blood and the Spirit of his Grace But all this I have said you will say still is meer speculation But tell us what heavenly Magick or Mastick can combine or which way shall these two spirits meet How Gods Spirit and mans comes thus to match and marry in Domino Quae ferramenta qui vectes said the curious Enquirers into the Creation And have not we some as curions in this Reparation States have their Arcana Imperii their Ragioni di stato which is Jus Dominationis and every Trade is called a Mysterie But God must shew us all the jointures and Inlay of his Work and Will Take heed of pressing into Light lest we be opprest with the Glory Poor man What discernest thou in the workings of those Spirits that are but Creatures and vassals to the Creator yet have their methods Eph. 6. Inventions Circumventions and are exalted above thy reach in high places have the vantage ground of Pigmee mankind Nay What seest thou of thy own spirit Who saw it come in or go forth In the Air we all breath in the wind that fans that air which are but a little kin to spirits what do we understand yet God is so indulgent to our nature and weakness as to take in for us auxiliary Light of comparison for the clearing of that which in the downright act is indeprehensible Here 's a stir indeed saith the poor blind-born man in Joh. 9. With what and how which way Well! I cannot tell you all but one thing I am sure of I was blind born blind and now I see And our Saviour John 3. Thou bearest the sound of wind and
knowest it is wind by that but knowest not whence nor whither So is every one that is born of the Spirit The cause and course is secret but the effect discernable As in Creation our soul and body meet by breathing so here the mystick work is Inspiration and infusion of manifold graces but those graces have activities and such whereby you shall easily perceive that you were once darkness but are now Light in the Lord. These Graces then will give us further Light whose excellencies are laid out in those expressions of Water Floods Fountains and Fire and Milk and Manna and Oyntment and their Efficacies in those names of Seal and Evidence and Earnest and Witness and Joy and Consolation And are there not fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5. Fruits that grow not up from the bitter Root of corrupted nature but from another Principle and which in their bloom and freshness render a man not like those Ethnick Graces only facile and sweet in conversation though they do that too but gracious in Gods aspect and glorious too shining as a Light in the midst of a crooked and perverse Generation If we shall taft a fruit or two in specialty I will only trie to do it in this notion here and under this Capacity of Light 1. Knowledge even that of nature is a Light and mans soul still is the Lamp of God saith Solomon and a Wisdom residing therein that Recedes as far from folly as Light ftom Darkness and this was all those great Philosophers Animalia Gloriae had which puft them up so For this hath some tincture of the Serpent and soon inflates yet alas Mans salvation is that Grove and Mysterie Nulli penetrabilis astro not pervious nor peirceable by the star-light of Reason There must come a supernatural Light from Heaven which as in the Giver it is called a Sun of Righteousness rising with healing in his wings the day-spring from on high and the True Light so in the Receiver it is called a great and marvellous Light of which Will you hear St. Paul I count all loss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the supereminence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord this indeed is all for in this is all This is Eternal life to know Thee and him whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ to know him for my Jesus to apprehend him for my Justifier by a second Grace by a true and lively Faith 2. Faith then is another Light of the sanctifying Spirit superinduced on the Light of Reason to raise and perfect it for it is not in stones or beasts God can from stones raise up Children unto Abraham but if so the work must first be done by Infusion of a rational soul and the golden Key of this Grace then fitted to the prepared wards of reasonable Nature It is not amiss to compare it to Sybillaes golden bough which grew to and upon the Trce and as he adds Auri per Ramos aura refulsit So this superstructure out-shines the utmost endeavours and perfections of Nature and Reason and resembled it is by some as the Seal to Wax It is not naked and meer reason as Air is Fire but Faith is rather printed reason and there joined Light if we wilfully exstinguish not their flames will yield the bearer fair Direction and Confidence and Consolation There may be there will be a coarctation a compression of this flame in the act of Faith a damp upon the alacrity thereof yet if there be not in us an evil heart desirous nay wilfully set to depart from the living God If you abide in me saith our Saviour then certainly as his Father and he with the sacred Spirit joyntly made Light at first and pin'd it to that Sun which was never wholly darkned since and as he the true Light breaking from the clouds of the blessed Virgins body and joyned to mans nature retains that nature still now glorified so the Spirit of this Grace possessing thy spirit loves never to part again but grieves when we offer to quench his coelestial fires O then learn not to despair of Mercy and Assistance Clouds and Eclipses obscure and wandring and wicked thoughts self-accusings and self-condemnings and Satans suggestions may trouble and affright us But if we abide in him and be strong in the Lord and in the Power of his Might and resist the Devill he will flie from us and our hope in Christ and the Power of his Resurrection like a rising Morn will scatter all the delusions and rebellions of the Night and remember his gracious Promise Hell-gates shall not prevail against a Faith of Adherence All the Powers of Darkness let loose upon St. Paul yet he was safe I know in whom I have believed I live saith he no not I but Ckrist lives in me and it is his Spirit only that can give assurance that whereas I was darkness my Faith in him makes me light in the Lord. 3. As for Love another Grace the Grace of Graces the bond of perfection and especially of that coelestial Armor and Ardor of the soul to God What might we say Whatdo they feel into whose breasts is shot this right coelestial flame and there shed abroad by the holy Ghost which is given them Away then with all wanton fires of earthly Love or ambition set them but by this and they will appear poor and wan discolour'd pale and drousie things and like meretritious females shewn with modest and noble Matrons dasht all out of countenance 4. Lastly for I am not too long to insist on these Graces so perceptible to the Possessors if we would have true and lasting joy Where shall we seek it Is it to be found among those Pangs and Convulsions and Palpitations of an earthly sensuall mind Mala mentis gaudia as the heathen Poet calls them and plac'd by him far within the Porch of hell Meteors of imperfect mixture Scansory and seeming to mine and aim at lightsomness and height of Spirit But having crackt awhile and blaz'd down they slide again and resolve into their first earth and drossiness But he that hath tasted of the heavenly gift the joy in the Holy Ghost wherein the Kingdom of Heaven on earth doth principally consist can tell you of a joy that is full a joy unspeakable and glorious consisting in a dispersion of all that is dark and desolate and a true Light that is Lux in Domine Light in the Lord. Thus have we trac'd this Oriens ex alto and thus far described that Method that Lucidus Ordo of Gods procedure in descent of his Spirit and defluence of his Graces Thus far we are come to meet with this great Bishop of all our souls this blessed Visitor and have observed his way of baptizing with the Holy Ghost and with enthean fire and confirming his People with the manifold Graces of his Spirit But yet since he is in Heaven and that Spirit is to descend on us we are not satisfied till we
Hosts in that Psalm we may first consider God in this Name as a Warriour and as the Lord Generalissimo of the War but not so as men receive that Name for their Command over one and their own Army but as Commander over all Armies and all wars Offensive or Defensive that have been are or shall be in the world For it is not only in spiritual Furn ture that Isay dresses God and arms him Cap à pee but the Prophets ost in the literal sense as if God took a special complacency in the stile and none more frequently then David so present him In Psalm 46.8 9. he calls us to behold his Mirabilia and addâ— a special proof of all by Gods not Warring but doing a greater work then that in making wars to cease in all the world O were it once so his great and gracious work in this our orbis Divisus our little world of great Britain He breaks the how and knaps the spear in sunder and burns the Chariots in the fire But when he will war and shew how dreadfully he can come on the Text tells us he looks but on the earth and it trembles but touches the mountains and they smoak And even Nebuchadnezzâ—r will in the end acknowledge as much to his glory that all the Inhabitants of the earth are reputed before him not only as Grashoppers but as meer nothing and he does what he will in the Army of Heaven and him that walks in pride he is able to abase And therefore an horse is counted but a vain thing to save a man from this God of Battails No King can be sase by the multitude of his Host 'T is this Lord incline the Victory as he pleases Secondly whereas other names of God in Scripture are less luminous in reference to his servants succour and protection such as shield and fortress and Desence like particular refulgent stars in the Firmament of his Power and Providence This as the Sun wherein he shines forth more Illustriously more diffusively more manifoldly This a whole Heaven a circling and enwrapping skye with all the Constellations and affluences of his own Essential and immediate with those of the Angels and other Creotures co-assistances So that a gracious and a glorious a full and clear and constant consolation is derivable from the fulness of this Name and every souldier and servant of his may sing and say with the Prophet and the Apostle The Lord is my light and my salvation the Lord of Hosts is with us And if that Lord be with us no matter how many Lords and earthly Kings be against us Diogenes could boast deride and chuse all Tragick fortune upon that conceit that he was a friend of Jupiters and the Jesuit Serarius sayes even the flames of Purgatory are not dreadful respecting the assistance of the Patients good Angel How much more and on what better ground may we build and raise a foot of comfort and erect a lively hope from the true Jupiter Opt. max. the God of those good spirits and whose Charriors are two hundred thousand even thousands of his victorious Angels What wars or rumors of wars what numbers of enemies can dismay the man of God when Eliahs boy can espy these battalias in the clouds of Heaven whereof one alone in one night without hoft or Cannon or sword or spear or noise is able to slaughter 180000 thousand of Assyrians And as great Chiefs are vigilant to take places of advantage and so to dispose their troopes as one may give Relief unto another so this Soveraign Commander for the succor of his poor Infantry here below hath lodg'd those Legions and bright squadrons of winged spirits above to be in readiness and in whose aid that man of God sayes he will be confident and so he may and so may every Dauid for God himself hath plac'd that Guard while himself is pleas'd to attend the watch and go the round and designs and emploies those flaming Ministers in their Ranks and Orders for the service of his Elect. Is it not so Art they not all ministring spirits sent out for the good of all them that shall be heirs of Salvation Thus far the Materials of comfort drawn from this Mine both in the radiant mixture and connexion and expansion of those diffusive joyes whose nature is to supple and sustain them in adversity and all this again complicated and arrested upon the contemplation and proof of their Lords being Dominus Exercituum And now lastly to keep promise I shall trie to superinduce a Roof and Crown of pure Gold over all these Materials which is the Consummation of the Saints Consolation as God becomes ours and we His in the only Mediator Christ Jesus which before we can well discern it is requisite we discover to the bottom of this Mine and find the first foundation of Gods people laid upon the only love of God in making choice of them at first for his Peculiar For to be his in general is the common lot of all his Creatures The Earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof Again His delight was ever with the sons of men Acts 17. and he made of one blood all mankind to dwell on all the face of the earth All live and move and are in Him and His Off-spring and Generation and he provides for all Light and Influences and showers of fatning rain to fill their hearts with food and gladness But in Exodus 19.5 where we find this very word in the Text denoting Singularity and Choiceness God tells his Israel whom he had derived from Abraham the father of the faithfull that if they would obey his words indeed and keep his Covenant then they should be a peculiar Treasure to him above all people For all the earth saith God is mine but not so mine as You for he goes on You shall be a kingdom of Priests and an holy Nation Only the Lord there laies down the Corner-stone of this building and discovers the bottom reason of his electing them which was not saith he your multitude for you were the fewest nor your inclination to my service for you were an obstinate and stiff-necked people but only he had a delight in their Fathers so we have it Deut. 10. to love them above all people Which love of God as it drew on his first calling them so it occasioned his preserving them from all the world when planting this Vine in Aegypt where it was pincht and straitned he made room for it and transplanted it to grow and flourish in the vast and barren Wilderness and on the sandy botome of the sea till removing Nations greater and mightier then they he made that people possess the gates of their enemies and his Blessings and Protections still eminent and imminent still over their heads even then when they provoke him to send them into captivity from whence yet he gathered them again and as that daughter of Sion that Church through the four
riding on his horse of wood over all the surges that devoured the world of the ungodly So in the time of Ahab and in the time of Queen Mary in our own land when the waves of persecution rouled high and raged horribly God reserved many Prophets in a cave by means of Obadiah and many thousands that bowed not the knee to Baal or were won to crouch to the Romish superstition or shrink from the Reformed Religion This is the mercy of God that when sometimes the wicked are swept away as the house of a Spider when the arrow flies by day and terror by night then comes out the Indulgence and Dispensation Touch not mine Anointed a thousand shall fall before thee and ten thousand at thy right hand Psalm 91.7 Or if God do not ever in publique calamity give his own a temporal deliverance for Cadit Ripheus yet he promises to redeem their soul from deceit and violence and precious shall their death be in his sight Psalm 72.14 Secondly The day of making up these Jewels is understood by some of the time of powerfull preaching of the Gospel principally when Christ himself and his fore-runner the Baptist entered on the office of converting the world so much also is intended here of that Sun of Rightcousness rising with healing in his wings his day-star coming in the Spirit of Eliah cap. 4.2 And we find indeed the time of our Saviour called the time of Reformation surely by that powerable Instrument of his Word it is that his Jewels are made up John prepared the Way and cleansed the people by baptism to repentance Christ wrought up many by himself more by his Apostles after St. Peter at one Sermon three thousand at another five thousand souls And in that time of our Saviour those Jewels were made bright and manifest even to their Despisers See Anna Elizabath Zachary Simeon whom the curious Pharisees reckoned among the base vulgar that knew not the Law but they then were known for Jewels and the other for a generation of Vipers Thus when the World in the Wisdom thereof knew not God it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe and to make what the world accounts weakness his Power to salvation For to this is ascribed first the birth and breeding of these Jewels For to which of the Angels said God at any time This day I have begotten thee But as that speech hath a natural Interpretation of Christ our elder Brother so applyed to us in a supernatural Of his own Will begat he us by the Word of Truth Jam. 1.18 which is therefore stil'd the uncorruptible seed 1 Pet. 2.12 God makes thee as he made this All a work of power but in recreating in producing Light of Christianity uses his Word and Wisdom to give thee form so in the New Testament his Word precedes his Miracles and the Donative to the Apostles first was Fieri Vehicula scientiae such as enliven the Receivers For man lives not by bread only and for this cause the Saints are called living stones built on the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Jesus Christ himself the chief Corner-stone Again The word as it breeds and gives life so Light Grace and Lustre We cannot with the waxen wings of sense or reason flie up to the Deity not as revealed in Christ and ripeness and perfection and rectifying of meer Reason gains us nothing It loses rather and builds downward disclosing the earthly Globe and shutting up Heaven Only God is able by the power of his word to take hold of our souls and like so many keyes apply the graces of Faith and Hope and Love to the wards of prepared rational Nature For the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is that which by original Purity and perfect obedience and satisfaction in his death he hath acquired to and for all his members But the noble Instrument to work that Grace a way into our souls is the declaration of his Gospel in use and Ministry of his Word Yea the Scripture informs us of Illumination by this same means in the very Angels Eph. 3. But the purest Saints are all in darkness till this flaming light be held from heaven no previous disposition in the soul no Platonick Recordation would ever bring us to the least glympse of salvation were it not for this dew of Grace which from the Word we drink into our understanding and thereby direct our Wills and even in their imaginations find it powerfull against all those starts and exorbitancies reducing and bringing into Carptivity every thought to the obedience of Christ Jesus For as health is the absence of sickness and serenity nothing but the avoidance of clouds and shadows so the Word where it comes hath an innate and genuine property to dispel sin like Davids harp driving out Sauls devil You are clean saith our Saviour propter Sermonem by reason of the Word therefore resembled to rain medicines fonntains Such an eager and piercing operation and opposition as it penetrates the closest sin and is a Discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart so Magdalens whoredom and nest of Devils dislodged Zacheus swoln to a Camels grosseness abated to the smalness of a thred fit to be drawn through the eye of a Needle fit to enter into the kingdom of Heaven with this was Lydia's heart opened all other appliances but charms or holy water This mighty word of stones able to raise up children unto Abraham this the double edged sword of the spirit this the fire and the hammer and file to frame and work out Gods Jewels from the rough till piece by piece God thereby hath removed those ruines which through Adams fall opprest all humane nature and hid away the primitive beauty and perfection of our souls Lastly 'T is this that transforms from Prophaness Rebellion Hypocrisie and purges the most dissolute Were with shall a young man reform of all other the most difficult by taking heed according to thy Word and then this Word it is which adorns and teaches how to hang about the neck and ears of Gods holy ones all those shinning graces of precious Faith and Hope and Charity and Meekndss and heavenly-Mindedness c. And therefore in our passage are we not to take notice of this I say we both Preachers and people we first as Jewellers to sever the precious from the vile if speak to speak as the words of God and yet to furnish themselves with all helps of learning the better to insinuate by Similes and riches of discourse and so to raise the imagination and fill the understandings of their hearers but above all it points directly at the curiosity of our pains and carefull industry to be work-men needing not to be ashamed They must be work-men indeed that dcal with Jewels specially with cuting them to the life and perfect beauty and fashioning them in all their points that the man of God may be
he remain in that mind still unappall'd insensible and therefore careless to prevent the wrath to come that he hath devested man or lost at least all excellency above beast though he be yet a seeming man and a seemly and an handsome man a proper valiant brave gentleman or a curious dainty man never so great so noble a man and take in all that can be in a man For wretched man his Ancestor is here cited in that nature and deprehended in that notion of a man Adam you see here though fouly bruised inwardy is still a man after his sin though now made of good evil and miserable of happy Sin destroyes not humane nature in the act or habit but in the harmony The Order and Beauty and Excellency of our nature like a Clock that 's broken is lost defac'd and ruin'd What a silliness is it then to argue sin as meerly nothing and make a mock of all reproof because it introduces no decay no sensible alteration in the body And yet some acts of some kind of wickedness are forcible even to thy corporal destruction and thou mayest come to mourn at the end when thou hast consumed thy flesh and thy body that very body of thine which thou lovest better then any body better then thy own immortal soul There is such a Text as applies it self to thee perhaps in a literal sense and if not to thee there be too many able to comment upon 't and he is blest that is not conscious now or whose body will not call upon him ere long and repeat this part of the Sermon in his own wosull experience But be it granted as it must that sin is an insensible aversion from God rather then a sensible apprehension of loss or pain or change in nature yet we know it is held a dangerous Symptom in a sick mans state if he be senseless and when he lies for dead perceives not his infirmity so it is to be heart-sick of sin a captive taken and no feeling of his sickness nor descerning of his own thraldom What is then to be done but to take up our book of conscience and read and find there our distemper especially by applying it and comparing it with the book of Gods declared Will find our Errata and labor to an amendment of life for to such is that sharp but sweet voice of the Spirit directed O consider you that forget God and your selves and again Arise thou that sleepest stand up from the dead And since sin and our humane nature are from the beginning so not only concorporaâ—e but friendly and familiar and so agreeable each with other learn not to rest content in our pure that is our impure Naturals for they are stil'd the Presse mony to Impiety by St. Ambrose even these which we stile commonly admirable natural parts if unsanctified lest that name of a Natural or what is worse of a meer carnal man stick so close unto us that great or rich or high shall only serve to skrew it faster or spread it further to our Reproach Labor to devest this old and earthly Adam the former Leven of corruption learn to purge away to cast from us in an holy scorn those rags for if our Righteousness be a stained Cloath what is our unrighteousness And learn and labor to give all diligence to enrobe our selves in the rayment of our elder brother the Second Adam whose odor may make us acceptable to our heavenly Father This is that Pia morositas that Sacra fames in the proper sense that holy hunger and honing and whyning that pure perversness of the soul when like earthly minds in point of food or garments or building they can never leave but take up dayly new desires We are displeased from time to time with our present weak condition and desirous to encrease in Grace and grow up from one measure of perfection to another cleansing our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit and perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord. 4. But this will never be done by any voyce of Reason any moral swasion or any perusing the History of the Bible say some what they please together with the best and ablest Expositor no nor by the Ordinance of God in the Ministry of man if we rely only upon that be the man never so wise never so eloquent learned mighty and which is the best mighty mighty in the Scriptores ' Paul was learned and laborious above them all and a wise-master-builder and Apollos had the striking and powerful way of Preaching textual Divinity yet we know it is not ascribable to the planting of the one or watering of the other No Magister intus docet is St Austins assertion and here it is the Lord God that speaks unto the heart So it is said The Lord opened the heart of Lydia to attend to those things which Paul preacht Isaiah may lift up a loud and shril voice like a Trumpet and John the Baptist may monrn and crie in the wilderness nay our Saviour himself in his Ministry and he spake so as never man spake was unbelieved by some and mockt by other It is only the inward voice of the holy Ghost which like a mighty rushing wind fals and fils and shakes the place and person where it comes and that voice can break the Cedars of Lebanus subdue all hearts and bring all high exalted thoughts down to the obedience of Christ Jesus our Lord. Against the power of Nature infecting God uses the secret instilment and inspiration of his Grace and against the calls of Satan and this present evil world man hath no sure help of himself or others but to hearken to and obey the call of God and thither we are come that 's our third part The Citation or the manner of Gods proceeding here with man by calling The Lord God called unto the man 5. Wherein our first care and disquisition must be to know what is meant For some have thought this was only some diffusion some scattering of the raies of Gods glory appearing in the Garden and others interpret this of the secret conviction of Adams conscience both which may be true but not warrantable nor to be fixed upon for expositions because these leave us unsatisfied For God appears where â—e calls not and for that of the Delinquents soul being troubled and affrighted it was doubtless so yet the holy Ghost would never we should think have delivered over to Posterity the first mans Plea in words had it only been a passage of his thoughts most probable therefore is their opinion of an humane shape certain assurance of an humane voice wherein the Lord God called unto Adam 6. This also we rather embrace for that in ver 8. where was a sound of his Voyce before but not so distinct Confusior primus sonus ut lex sed nunc instat Deus ad premendam conscientiam is Calvins Note The first sound was nor so distinct
our relict condition as also of the spreading venom and malignity of original corruption Nascimur morimur that 's bad enough comes up and is cut down like a flower but this is worse Nascimur inficimur we cannot come up like a flower which lifts his pure Crown into the air and rising through unclean earth is not sullied contracts retains nothing of the saeculency and dusty soil No flower in all the garden of mankind but Jesus of Nazareth but only that one Lilly among the Thorns one Rose of Sharon one flower of Jesse that was ever growing in God from all Eternity had a Proviso put in for him that nor in birth nor life nor death he should see or know or take any Corruption But upon all mankind that is meerly so the infection works the infection of sin as it is entred here in Adam so it went over all like a deluge in as much as in one all have sinned and all rise tainted with their Fathers leprosie which is by some supposed to be the meaning of that speech in St. Peter 1 Pet. 1.18 where he tels the Saints They are redeemed from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vain conversation received by tradition or by traducement from your Fathers and from this Great grand-father of all those Fathers from which taint nothing can purifie our souls but the precious incorruptible blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish But of this the Apostle plentifully in that fifth Chapter to the Romans By one mans disobedience many were made sinners but expresly verse 12. By one man sin entred and past over all These two contemplations are enough to break up the spring-head of our tears and with strong cries make us declare and deplore our misery But who believes our report or who spends his tears upon this subject We find a prophane Esau crying cut with a great and exceeding bitter crie for the loss of a blessing in the things of this life Corn and Wine and Lordship Gen. 27.34 And so I find even David werping and crying for a wicked son And the earth is full of such howling habitations for earthly grievances But who will follow the example of David Psa 51. Behold I was shapen in iniquity the warmth of my conception in the womb was sinfull O purge me wash me create in me a clean heart O God renew a right spirit in me who considers rightly the cursed radical contagion of our nature which strives even after the grafting into Christ and receipt of the Grace of sanctification in our spirit and struggles for Dominion That which we should hourly watch lest it prevail over us that shrub and bramble which would top or dwarf the Cedar of Gods Grace in us and hath force in our members to bring forth fruit unto death Rom. 7.5 Such forcible entry makes this inborn corruption that like the strong man keeping possession or as a Sheriffe that hath Posse comitatus and seises and outs the owner and bars him from the use of his goods Such rule this unruly wickedness keeps in our hearts and such a sway it bears so that it is no longer I that do it but sin saith the Apostle that raigns in me and makes me lose all power and all good even Bonum possibilitatis a loss irrecoverable irremediable and no cure for this wound in nature They talk of a natural Balsom in mans body for all bodily diseases But were it not for a spiritual bleeding balm from that anointed holy Saviour were it not for that double spring of Grace and Blood derivable to us and to be let in upon us for the reviving and refreshing of our fainting souls what would become of our salvation And though in that fountain set open for Judah for Jerusalem for sin and for transgression I may wash and be cleansed from this leprosie yet mark how that Gospel begins both in the language of the Baptist and his Master afterward Repent and then the Kingdom of heaven is at hand then the Kingdom of heaven is within you that sweet sorrow of a contrite sinner that usefull pulp of those tears we fall at the sight and feeling of our strong corruptions is best to make conserve and preserve of grace in our bearts which God and his holy Angels beholding as it is Vinum Angelorum making them rejoyce in Heaven so himself will renew his Miracle upon such souls and turn that water into the wine of consolation Thirdly After this mournfull lecture of bemoaning our loss and deprivation and depravation natural Let me speak a word in season against that solemn sin of Pride Look to the rock from whence thou art hewn Some boast of original descendings from famous Ancestors and yet too many sons are born in original debt and diseases of their Parents of whom they are so apt to brag But it is enough and more for ever to strip all sorts of men out of all vain and mad dressings and coverings of themselves under that mishapen and monstrous vice of Arrogance that here they find Illud quod dicere nolo Quod dici no lunt dici potuisse non potuisse refelli That which men cannot endure to hear or think upon we are all loth to turn and look upon our Fathers nakedness not out of modesty as Shem and Jophet but because in height and pomp and in the vaniry of high-soaring imaginations we strive to forget both God and him and our selves It is therefore that God in this Text comes still and calls after us and shews us both the Receipt and the Probatum two dusts brings Adam in his hand and presents every man to himself as in a general Glass of humane frailty And this Vbi tu is now no more a question but an Indicative and Demonstrative an Adverbial and a Proverbial a very radical Primitive and Affirmative of Egomet with Tute and Ille Ipse and brings all to Idem in Adam here and jumbles all the genders of mankind common and doubtfull or epicoene Sparrows and Eagles and all sexes and professions and degrees of mankind Princes and People and calls in that voice of the Psalm O ye sons of men How long will you love to belie your selves Quid superbis Why so goodly O thou earth and ashes Monstrons Incongruity to behold servants in the saddle saith Solomon and Princes to foot it by but an incomprehensible ugliness in the looks of a proud man when we look up to Heaven and contemplate him that came down from Heaven for us men came down indeed stript and empty of all his Glory An incarnate crucified and humble God Will neither his main Precept Learn of me learn this above all thy Learning Nor his Example Behold I have given you an example Will nothing swage the swelling of thy proud stomack Think yet there is no Grace but for the humble no sight of God and his Glory but for the meek And if thou resist that spirit of