speake against it so neither should wee doe any thing against it as wee are bound to receive it by acknowledgment so wee are bound to approve it by conforming our selves unto it our consent to it shewes our acceptation our life our approbation and so much is in the first Part the Roote This is a faithfull Word and worthy of all acceptation And in the Second the Tree the Body the substance of the Gospell That Jesus Christ is come into the World to save Sinners First here is an Advent a coming of a new Person into the World who was not here before venit in mundum hee came into the World And secondly hee that came is first Christ a mixt Person God and Man and thereby capable of that Office able to reconcile God and Man And Christus so to a person anoynted appointed and sent for that purpose to reconcile God and Man And then hee is Jesus one did actually and really doe the office of a Saviour hee did reconcile God and Man for there wee see also the Reason why hee came Hee came to Save and whom hee came to Save to save Sinners And these will bee the branches and lymbs of this Body And then lastly when wee come to consider the fruit which is indeede the seede and kernell and soul of all virtues Humility then wee shall meete the Apostle confessing himselfe to bee the greatest Sinner not only with a fui that hee was so whilest he was a Persecutor but with a present sum that even now after hee had received the faithfull Word the light of the Gospell yet hee was still the greatest Sinner of which Sinners I though an Apostle am am still the chiefest First then the Gospell is founded and rooted in sermone Part 1. in verbo in the Word it cannot deserve omnem acceptationem if it bee not Gospell and it is not Gospell if it be not in sermone rooted in the Word Christ himselfe as he hath an eternall Generation is verbum Dei Himselfe is the Word of God And as he hath a humane Generation he is subjectum verbi Dei the subject of the Word of God of all the Scriptures of all that was shadowed in the Types and figur'd in the Ceremonies and prepared in the preventions of the Law of all that was foretold by the Prophets of all that the Soule of man rejoyced in and congratulated with the Spirit of God in the Psalms and in the Canticles and in the cheerefull parts of spirituall joy and exultation which we have in the Scriptures Christ is the foundation of all those Scriptures Christ is the burden of all those Songs Christ was in sermone then then he was in the Word The joy of those holy Persons which are noted in the Scriptures to have expressed their joy at the byrth of Christ in such spirituall Hymns and Songs is expressed so as that we may see their joy was in this That that was now in actu that was performed that was done which was before in sermone in the Promise in the Word in the Covenant of God They rejoyced that Christ was borne but principally that all was done so sicut locutus as God had spoken before that all should be done done of the seede of a Woman as God had said in Paradice done by a Virgin as God had said by Esai done at Bethlehem as he had said by Micheas and done at that time as he had said by Daniel Sicut locutus est sayes Zacharie in his exultation All is performed as he hath spoke by the mouth of the Prophets which have beene since the World began There in the Word the Gospell begins and there and there only it shall continue for ever as long as there is any spirituall seed of Abraham any men willing to embrace it and apply it as the blessed Virgin expresses it when her Soul magnifies the Lord and her Spirit rejoyces in God her Saviour sicut locutus as God hath spoken to our Fathers to Abraham and his seed for ever so then there never was there never must be any other Gospel then is in sermone in the written word of God in the Scriptures The particular comfort that a Christian conceives as it is determined and contracted in himself is principally in this that Christ is come his comfort is in this that he is now saved by him and he might have this comfort though Christ had never been in sermone though he had never been prophesied never spoken of before But yet the proof and ground of this comfort to himself that is the assurance that he hath That this was that Christ that was to save us and then the munition and artillery by which he is to overthrow the forces of the enemy the arguments and objections of Jews Gentils and Hereticks who deny this Christ in whose salvation he trusts to have then any such Saviour And then the Band of the Church the Communion of Saints by which we should prove That the Patriarchs and the Apostles our Fathers in the old and new Testament doe belong all to one Church this assurance in our self this ability to prove it to others this joyning of these two walls to make up the houshold of the faithfull This is not only that that the summe of the Gospel is risen in that Christ is come but in this that he is come sicut locutus est as God had spoken of him and promised him by the mouth of his Prophets from the beginning as he was in sermone in the word In the first Creation when God made heaven and earth that making was not in sermone for that could not be prophesied before because there was no being before neither is it said that at that Creation God said any thing but only creavit God made heaven and earth and no men so that that which was made sine sermone without speaking was only matter without form heaven without light and earth without any productive virtue or disposition to bring forth and to nourish creatures But when God came to those specifique formes and to those creatures wherein he would be sensibly glorified after they were made in sermone by his word Dixit facta sunt God spake and so all things were made Light and Firmament Land and Sea Plants and Beasts and Fishes and Fowls were made all in sermone by his word But when God came to the best of his creatures to Man Man was not only made in verbo as the rest were by speaking a word but by a Consultation by a Conference by a Counsell faciamus hominem let us make Man there is a more expresse manifestation of divers persons speaking together of a concurrence of the Trinity and not of a saying only but a mutuall saying not of a Proposition only but of a Dialogue in the making of Man The making of matter alone was sine verbo without any word at all the making of lesser creatures was in verbo
by saying by speaking the making of Man was in in sermone in a consultation In this first Creation thus presented there is a shadow a representation of our second Creation our Regeneration in Christ and of the saving knowledge of God for first there is in Man a knowledge of God sine sermone without his word in the book of Creatures Non sunt loquelae sayes David Psal 19. They have no language they have no speech and yet they declare the glory of God The correspondence and relation of all parts of Nature to one Author the consinuity and dependance of every piece and joynt of this frame of the world the admirable order the immutable succession the lively and certain generation and birth of effects from their Parents the causes in all these though there be no sound no voice yet we may even see that it is an excellent song an admirable piece of musick and harmony and that God does as it were play upon this Organ in his administration and providence by naturall means and instruments and so there is some kind of creation in us some knowledge of God imprinted sine sermone without any relation to his word But this is a Creation as of heaven and earth which were dark and empty and without form till the Spirit of God moved and till God spoke Till there came the Spirit the breath of Gods mouth the word of God it is but a faint twilight it is but an uncertain glimmering which we have of God in the Creature But in sermone in his word when we come to him in his Scriptures we finde better and nobler Creatures produced in us clearer notions of God and more evident manifestations of his power and of his goodness towards us for if we consider him in his first word sicut locutus ab initio as he spoke from the beginning in the Old Testament from thence we cannot only see but feel and apply a Dixit fiat lux that God hath said let there be light and that there is a light produced in us by which we see that this world was not made by chance for then it could not consist in this order and regularity and we see that it was not eternall for if it were eternall as God and so no Creature then it must be God too we see it had a beginning a beginning of nothing and all from God So we find in our self a fiat lux that there is such a light produced And there we may find a fiat firmamentum that there is a kind of firmament produced in us a knowledge of a difference between Heaven and Earth and that there is in our constitutions an earthly part a body and a heavenly part a soul and an understanding as a firmament to separate distinguish and discern between these So also may we find a congregenter aquae that God hath said Let there be a sea a gathering a confluence of all such means as are necessary for the attaining of salvation that is that God from the beginning settled and established a Church in which he was alwayes carefull to minister to man means of eternall happiness The Church is that Sea and into that Sea we launched the water of Baptism To contract this sine sermone till God spake in his Creatures only we have but a faint and uncertain and generall knowledge of God in sermone when God comes to speak at first in the Old Testament though he come to more particulars yet it was in dark speeches and in vails and to them who understood best and saw clearest into Gods word still it was but de futuro by way of promise and of a future thing But when God comes to his last work to make Man to make up Man that is to make Man a Christian by the Gospel when he comes not to a fiat homo Let there be a Man as he proceeded in the rest but to a faciamus hominem Let us make Man Then he calls his Sonne to him and sends him into the world to suffer death the death of the Crosse for our salvation And he calls the Holy Ghost to him and sends him to teach us all truth and apply that which Christ suffered for our souls to our souls God leaves the Nations the Gentiles under the non locutus est he speaks not at all to them but in the speechless creatures He leaves the Jewes under the locutus est under the killing letter of the Law and their stubborn perverting thereof And he comes to us sicut locutus est in manifesting to us that our Messias Christ Jesus is come and come according to the promise of God and the foretelling of all his Prophets for that is our safe anchorage in all storms that our Gospel is in sermone that all things are done so as God had foretold they should be done that we have infallible marks given us before by which we may try all that is done after All the word of God then conduces to the Gospel the Old Testament is a preparation and a poedagogie to the New All the word belongs to the Gospell and all the Gospell is in the word nothing is to be obtruded to our faith as necessary to salvation except it be rooted in the Word And as the locutus est that is the promises that God hath made to us in the Old Testament and the sicut locutus est that is the accomplishing of those promises to us in the New-Testament are thus applyable to us so is this especially Quod adhuc loquitur that God continues his speech and speaks to us every day still we must hear Evangelium in sermone the Gospel in the Word in the Word so as we may hear it that is the Word preached for howsoever it be Gospel in it self it is not Gospel to us if it be not preached in the Congregation neither though it be preached to the Congregation is it Gospel to me except I find it work upon my understanding and my faith and my conscience A man may believe that there shall be a Redeemer and he may give an Historicall assent that there hath been a Redeemer that that Redeemer is come he may have heard utrumque sermonem both Gods wayes of speaking both his voices both his languages his promises in the Old Testament his performances in the New Testament and yet not hear him speak to his own soul Ferme Apostoli plus laborarunt says S. Chrys It cost the Apostles and their Successors the preachers of the Gospell more paines and more labour ut persuaderent hominibus dona Dei iis indulta To perswade men that this mercy of God and these merits of Christ Jesus were intended to them and directed upon them in particular then to perswade them that such things were done they can beleeve the promise and the performance in the generall but they cannot finde the application thereof in particular the voice that is neerest us we least
speaking so here is no express precept for Doing The Holy Ghost saw there would be Doing enough business enough in Court for as silence and halfe silence whispering may have a loud voice so even undoing may be a busie Doing and therefore here 's onely a Rule to regulate our Doings too Sic facite So do ye And lastly as there is speaking enough even in silence and Doing enough even in undoing in Court So the Court is alwayes under judgement enough Every discontented person that hath miss'd his preferment though he have not merited it every drunkard that is over-heat though not with his own wine every conjecturing person that is not within the distance to know the ends or the ways of great Actions will Judge the highest Counsels and Executions of those Councels The Court is under judgement enough and they take liberty enough and therefore here is a rule to regulate our liberty A law of liberty So speak ye and c. But though for the more benefit of the present congregation we fix the first point of this Circle that is the principal purpose of the Holy Ghost upon the Court yet our Text is an Amphitheater An Amphitheater consists of two Theaters Our Text hath two parts in which all men all may fit and see themselves acted first in the obligation that is laid upon us upon us all Sic loquimini sic facite And then in the Reason of this Holy diligence and religious cautelousness Quia judicandi Because you are all to be judged by c. which two general parts the Obligation and the Reason flowing into many sub-divided branches I shall I think do better service both to your understandings and to your memory and to your Affections and Consciences to present them as they shall arise anon in their order then to pour them out all at once now Part I. Loquimini First then in our first part we look to our Rule in the first Duty our speaking Sic loquimini So speak ye The Comique Poet gives us a good Caution Si servus semper consuescat silentio fiet nequam That servant that says nothing thinks ill As our Nullifidians Men that put all upon works and no faith and our Solisidians Men that put all upon faith and no works are both in the wrong So there is a danger in Multi loquio and another in Nulli loquio He that speaks over-freely to me may be a Man of dangerous conversation And the silent and reserv'd Man that makes no play but observes and says nothing may be more dangerous then he As the Romane Emperor professed to stand more in fear of one pale man and lean man then of twenty that studyed and pursued their pleasures and lov'd their ease because such would be glad to keep things in the state they then were but the other sort affected changes so for the most part he that will speak lies as open to me as I to him speech is the Balance of conversation Therefore as God is not Merx but pretium Gold is not ware but the price of all ware So speaking is not Doing but yet fair speaking prepares an acceptation before and puts a value after upon the best actions God hath made other Creatures Gregalia sociable besides man Sheep and Deer and Pigeons will flock and herd and troup and meet together but when they are met they are not able to tell one another why they meet Man onely can speak silence makes it but a Herding That that makes Conversation is speech Qui datum deserit respuit datorem says Tertullian He that uses not a benefit reproaches his Benefactor To declare Gods goodness that hath enabled us to speak we are bound to speak speech is the Glue the Cyment the soul of Conversation and of Religion too Now your conversation is in heaven and therefore loquimini Deo first speak to him that is in heaven speak to God Some of the Platonique Philosophers thought it a profanation of God to speak to God They thought that when our Thoughts were made Prayers and that the Heart flow'd into the Tongue and that we had invested and apparel'd our Meditations with words this was a kinde of Painting and Dressing and a superfluous diligence that rather tasted of humane affections then such a sincere service as was fit for the presence of God Onely the first conceptions the first ebullitions and emanations of the soul in the heart they thought to be a fit sacrifice to God and all verball prayer to be too homely for him But God himself who is all spirit hath yet put on bodily lineaments Head and Hands and Feet yea and Garments too in many places of Scripture to appear that is to manifest himself to us And when we appear to God though our Devotion be all spiritual as he is all spirit yet let us put on lineaments and apparel upon our Devotions and digest the Meditations of the heart into words of the mouth God came to us in verbo In the word for Christ is The word that was made flesh Let us that are Christians go to God so too That the words of our mouth as well as the Meditations of our heart may be acceptable to him Surely God loves the service of Prayer or he would never have built a house for Prayer And therefore we justly call Publique prayer the Liturgy Service Love that place and love that service in that place Prayer They will needs make us believe that S. Francis preached to Birds and Beasts and Stones but they will not go about to make us believe that those Birds and Beasts and Stones joyned with S. Francis in Prayer God can speak to all things that 's the office of Preaching to speak to others But of all onely Man can speak to God and that 's the office of Prayer It is a blessed conversation to spend time in Discourse in Communication with God God went his way as soon as he had left communing with Abraham Gen. 18. ult When we leave praying God leaves us But God left not Abraham as long as he had any thing to say to God And we have always something to say unto him He loves to hear us tell him even those things which he knew before his Benefits in our Thankfulness And our sins in our Confessions And our necessities in our Petitions And therefore having so many Occasions to speak to God and to speak of God David ingeminates that and his ingemination implies a wonder O that men would And it is strange if Men will not O that men would says he more then once or twice O that men would praise the Lord and tell the wondrous works that he hath done for the sons of Men for David determines not his precept in that Be thankful unto him for a Tnankfulness may pass in private Psal 100.4 But Be Thankful unto him and speak good of his name Glorifie him in speaking to him in speaking of him in
speaking for him Diis Loquimini Deo speak to God And loquimini Diis speak to them whom God hath call'd Gods As Religious Kings are bound to speak to God by way of prayer so those who have that sacred office and those that have that Honorable office to do so are bound to speak to Kings by way of Counsel God hath made all good men partakers of the Divine Nature They are the sons of God The seed of God But God hath made Kings partakers of his Office and Administration And as between man and himself God hath put a Mediator that consists of God and Man so between Princes and People God hath put Mediators too who consider'd in themselves retain the nature of the people so Christ did of man but consider'd in their places have fair and venerable beams of his power and influences of him upon them And as our Mediator Christ Jesus found always his Fathers ears open to him so do the Church and State enter blessedly and successfully by these Mediators into the ears of the King Of our Mediator Christ himself Heb. 5.7 it is said That he offered up prayers and strong cryes and Tears Even Christ was put to some difficulties in his Mediation for those that were his But he was heard says that text in that he feared Even in those things wherein in some emergent difficulties they may be afraid they shall not these Mediators are graciously and opportunely heard too in the due discharge of their offices That which was Davids prayer is our possession Psal 36.11 our happiness Let not the foot of Pride come against us we know there is no Pride in the Head and because there is no fault in the Hands neither that is in them into whose hands this blessed Mediatorship is committed by the great places of power and Councel which they worthily hold the foot of pride forraign or home-oppression does not shall not tread us down And for the continuation of this happiness let me have leave to say with Mordicai's humility and earnestness too to all such Mediators 4.14 that which he said to Esther Who knows whether thou beest not brought to this place for this purpose To speak that which his sacred and gracious ears to whom thou speakest will always be well pleased to hear when it is delivered by them to whom it belongs to speak it and in such humble and reserved manner as such soveraign persons as owe an account but to God should be spoke too Sic loquimini Deo So let Kings speak to God that was our first Sic loquimini Diis So let them whom Kings trust speak to Kings whom God hath called Gods that was our second And then a third branch in this rule of our first duty is Sic loquimini imaginibus Dei So speak you to Gods Images to Men of condition inferior to your selves for they also are Images of God as you are And this is truely Imaginibus Dei most literally the purpose of the Apostle here That you under-value no Man for his outward appearance Vers 2. That your over-value no man for his goodly apparel or Gold Rings That you say not to a poor man Stand thou there Vers 3. or if you admit him to sit Sit here under my footstool But it is a precept of Accessibleness and of Affability Affability that is A civility of the City of God and a Courtship of the Court of heaven to receive other Men the Images of God Apoc. 3.20 with the same easiness that God receives you God stands at the Door and knocks and stays our leisure to see if we will open and let him in Even at the door of his Beloved he stood and knocked till his head was filled with dew and his locks with the drops of the night Cant. 5.2 But God puts none of us to that to which he puts himself and his Christ But Knock says he and it shall be opened unto you Mat. 7.7 No staying at the door opened as soon as you knock The nearest that our Expositors can come to finde what it was that offended God in Moses striking of the Rock for water is that he strook it twice Num. 20.10 that he did not believe that God would answer his expectation at one striking God is no in-accessible God that he may not be come to nor inexorable that he will not be moved if he be spoken to nor dilatory that he does not that he does seasonably Daniel presents God Antiquum Dierum as an Old Man Ambro. but that is as a Reverend not as a froward person Mens in sermonibus nostris habitat gubernat verba The soul of man is incorporate in his word As he speaks we think he thinks Et bonus paterfamilias in illo primo vestibulo aestimatur says the same Father As we believe that to be a free house where there is an easie entrance so we doubt the less of a good heart if we finde charitable and courteous language But yet there is an excess in this too in this self-effusion this pouring of a mans self out in fair and promising language Inaccessibleness is the fault which the Apostle aims at here and truly the most inaccessible Man that is is the over-liberal and profuse promiser He is therefore the most inaccessible because he is absent when I am come to him and when I do speak with him To a retir'd to a reserv'd man we do not easily get but when we are there he is there too To an open and liberal promiser we get easily but when we are with him he is away because his heart his purpose is not there But sic loquimini Deo so speak ye to God that 's a remembrance to Kings Sic loquimini Diis so speak ye to them whom God hath call'd Gods that 's a remembrance to Mediators between Kings and Subjects Sic loquimini Imaginibus Dei so speak ye to Gods Image to all men that 's a remembrance to all that possess any superiority over others as that your loquimini may be accompanied with a facite your saying with Doing your good words with good actions for so our Apostle joyns them here So speak ye and so Do and so we are come to our second rule from the rule of our Words to the Rule of our Actions Facite John Baptist was all voice yet John Baptist was a fore-runner of Christ The best words are but words but they are the fore-runners of Deeds but Christ himself as he was God himself is Purus Actus all Action all Doing Comfortable words are good cordials They revive the spirits they have the nature of such occasional physick but Deeds are our food our dyet that that constantly nourishes us 1 John 3.18 Non verbo says the Apostle Let us not love in word nor in tongue but in Deed and in Truth Not that we may not love in words but
liberty in God that God is at liberty to give this Gospel when he will and at liberty so as that he hath exempted no man how well soever he love him nor put on such fetters or manacles upon himself but that he can and will punish those that transgress this law So it is a Law of liberty to God nothing determined upon any man nothing concluded in himself lies so in Gods way as to hinder him from proceeding in his last judgement according to the keeping or breaking of this law still God is at his liberty And it is a Law of liberty in respect of us of us who are Christians and considered so Nobis either with a respect to the naturall man or with a respect to the Jew For if we compare the Christian with the naturall man the law of Nature layes the same obligation upon the naturall man as the Gospel does upon the Christian for the morall part thereof The Christian is no more bound to love God nor his neighbour then the naturall man is therein the naturall man hath no more liberty then the Christian so far their law is equal And then all the law which the Christian hath and the natural man hath not is a law of liberty to the Christian that is a law that gives him an ease and a readier way to perform those duties which way the natural man hath not and yet is bound to the same duties The natural man if he transgress that law which he finds in his own heart findes a condemnation in himself as well as the Christian therein he is no freer then the Christian But he finds no Sanctuary no Altar no Sacrifice no Church no such Liberties as the Christian does in the Gospel So the Gospel is a law of Liberty to us in respect of the natural man that it sets us at liberty restores us to liberty after we are falne into prison for debt into Gods displeasure for sin by affording us means of reconciliation to God again It is so also in respect of the Law given by God to the Jewes Judaei The Jewes had liberties that is refuge and help of sacrifices for sin which the natural man had not for if the natural man were driven and followed from his own heart that he saw no comfort of an innocency there he had no other liberties to flie to no comfort in any other thing no law no promise annexed to any other action not to Sacrifice as the Jewes or to Sacrament as the Christians but must irremediably sink under the condemnation of his own heart The Jew had this liberty a Law and a Law that involv'd the Gospel but then the Gospel was to the Jew but as a letter seal'd and the Jew was but as a servant who was trusted to carry the letter as it was seal'd to another to carry it to the Christian Now the Christian hath received this letter at the Jews hand and he opens it he sees the Jewes Prophesie made History to him the Jewes hope and reversion made possession and inheritance to him he sees the Jewes faith made matter of fact he sees all that was promised and represented in the Law performed and recorded in the Gospel and applied in the Church John 15.15 There Christ sayes Henceforth call I you not servants but friends Wherein consists this enfranchisement In this The servant knoweth not what his master doth the Jewes knew not that but I have called you friends sayes Christ for all things that I heard of my Father Hebr. 7.19 I have made known unto you The Law made nothing perfect sayes the Apostle Where was the defect he tells us that the old Covenant that is Galat 4.24 the Law gendreth to bondage What bondage he tells us that too when he says The Law was a Schoolmaster The Jews were as School-boys always spelling and putting together Types and Figure which things typified and figured how this Lamb should signifie Christ how this fire should signifie a holy Ghost The Christian is come to the University from Grammar to Logick to him that is Logos it self the Word to apprehend apply Christ himself and so is at more liberty then when he had onely a dark law without any comment with the natural man or onely a dark comment that is the Law with a dimme light ill eys as the Jews had for though the Jew had the liberty of a Law yet they had not the law of Liberty So the Gospel is a law of Liberty to God who is still at his liberty to give and take and to condemn according to that law and a law of liberty to us as we are compared to the natural man or to the Jew But when we confine our selves in our selves positively without comparison it is not such a law of liberty to us as some men have come too near saying That the sins of Gods children do them no harm that God sees not the sins of his children that God was no further out with David in his Adultery then in his Repentance But as to be born within the Covenant that is of Christian Parents does not make us Christians Aug. for Non nascitur sed renascitur Christianus the Covenant gives us a title to the Sacrament of Baptisme and that Sacrament makes us Christians so this law of liberty gives us not a liberty to sin but a liberty from sin Noli libertate abuti ad libere peccandum sayes the same Father It is not a liberty 2 Cor. 3.17 but an impotency a slavery to sin Voluntas libera quae pia sayes he onely a holy soul is a free soul Where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty Leo. sayes the Apostle And Splendidissimum in se quisque habet speculum Every man hath a glasse a chrystal into which though he cannot call up this spirit for the Spirit of God breathes where it pleases him yet he can see this spirit if he be there in that glasse every man hath a glasse in himselfe where he may see himselfe and the Image of God sayes that Father and see how like he is to that To dare to reflect upon my selfe and to search all the corners of mine owne conscience whether I have rightly used this law of liberty and neither been bold before a sinne upon presumption of an easie nor diffident after upon suspicion of an impossible reconciliation to my God this is Evangelical liberty So then to end all though it be a law of Liberty because it gives us better meanes of prevention before and of restitution after then the natural man or the Jew had yet we consider that it is this law of Liberty this law that hath afforded us these good helps by which we shall be judged and so though our case be better then theirs because we have this law of Liberty which they wanted yet our case growes heavier then theirs if we use it not aright
The Jewes shall be under a heavier condemnation then the natural man because they had more liberty that is more means of avoyding sin then the natural man had and upon the same reason the Christian under a heavier condemnation then either because he shall be judged by this law of Liberty What judgement then gives this law This Qui non crediderit Mark 16.16 damnabitur and so sayes this Law in the Law-makers mouth He that believes not shall be damned And as no lesse light then Faith it selfe can shew you what Faith is what it is to believe so no lesse time then Damnation shall last can shew you what Damnation is for the very form of Damnation is the everlastingness of it and Qui non crediderit He that believeth not shall be damned there 's no commutation of penance nor beheading after a sentence of a more ignominious death in that court Dost thou believe that thou dost believe yet this law takes not that answer This law of Liberty takes the liberty to look farther Through faith into works for so sayes the Law in the mouth of the Law-maker To whom much is given of him much shall be required Luke 12.48 Hast thou considered every new title of Honour and every new addition of Office every new step into higher places to have laid new Duties and new obligations upon thee Hast thou doubled the hours of thy Prayers when thy Preferments are doubled and encreased thine Almes according as thy Revenues are encreased Hast thou done something done much in this kinde this law will not be answer'd so this law of Liberty takes the liberty to call upon thee for all Here also the Law sayes in the mouth of the Law-maker If thou have agreed with many adversaries sayes Christ Mat 5.25 let that be If thou have satisfied many duties for duties are adversaries that is temptations upon us yet as long as thou hast one adversary agree with that adversary quickly in the way leave no duty undischarged or unrepented in this life Beloved we have well delivered our selves of the feare of Purgatory none of us feare that but another mistaking hath overtaken us and we flatter our selves with another danger that is Compensation that by doing well in one place our ill doing in another is recompenced an ill Officer looks to be sav'd because he is a good husband to his wife a good father to his children a good master to his servants and he thinks he hath three to one for his salvation But as nature requires the qualities of every element which thou art composed of so this law of Liberty calls upon thee for the exercises of all those vertues that appertain to every particular place thou hold'st This liberty this law of Liberty takes It binds thee to believe Christ All Christ Gods Christ as he was the eternal Son of the Father God of God our Christ as he was made man for our salvation and thy Christ as his blessed Spirit in this his Ordinance applies him to thee and offers him into thine armes this minute And then to know that he looks for a retribution from thee in that measure in which he hath dealt with thee much for much and for several kinds of good according to those several good things which he hath done for thee And if thou be first defective in these and then defective in laying hold upon him who is the propitiation and satisfaction for thy defects in these this law of Liberty returnes to her liberty to pronounce and he Judge to his liberty to execute that sentence Damnaberis thou wilt be cast into that prison where thou must pay the last farthing thou must for Christ dyes not there and therefore there they must lie till there come such another ransome as Christ nay a greater ransome then Christ was for Christ paid no debts in that prison This then is the Christians case and this is the Abridgement of his Religion Sic loquimini sic facite to speak aright and to doe aright to profess the truth and not be afraid nor ashamed of that and to live according to that profession for no man can make God the author of sin but that man comes as near it as he can that makes Gods Religion a cloke for his sin To this God proceeds not meerly and onely by commadment but by perswasion too And though he be not bound to do so yet he does give a reason The reason is because he must give account of both both of Actions and of Words of both we shall be judged but judged by a Law a Law which excludes on Gods part any secret ill purpose upon us if we keep his Law a Law which excludes on our part all pretence of Ignorance for no man can plead ignorance of a Law And then a law of Liberty of liberty to God for God was not bound to save a man because he made him but of his own goodness he vouchsafed him a Law by which he may be saved a law of Liberty to us so that there is no Epicurism to doe what we list no such liberty as makes us Libertines for then there were no Law nor Stoicism nor fatality that constraines us to doe that we would not do for then there were no Liberty But the Gospel is such a law of Liberty as delivers us upon whom it works Serm. 4. from the necessity of falling into the bondage of sin before and from the impossibility of recovering after if we be falne into that bondage And this is liberty enough and of this liberty our blessed God give us the right use for his Son Christ Jesus sake by the operation of that Holy Ghost that proceeds from both Amen A Lent-SERMON Preached before the KING At WHITE-HALL February 16. 1620. SERMON IV. 1 Tim. 3.16 And without controversie great is the mystery of Godliness God was manifest in the Flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the world received up into Glory THis is no Text for an Houre-glasse if God would afford me Ezekiah's signe Ut revertatur umbra 2 Reg. 20.9 Josh 10.11 that the shadow might go backward upon the Dial or Joshuah's signe Ut sistat Sol That the Sun might stand still all the day this were text enough to employ all the day and all the dayes of our life The Lent which we begin now is a full Tythe of the year but the houre which we begin now is not a full tythe of this day and therefore we should not grudge all that But payment of Tythes is growne matter of controversie and we by our Text are directed onely upon matter without controversie And without controversie c. Here is the compass that the essential Word of God the Son of God Christ Jesus went He was God humbled in the flesh he was Man received into glory Here is the compasse that the written Word of God went the Bible
that thou sets thy love upon in this world He threads a string of the best stones of the best Jewels in this world knowledge in the first Chapter delicacies in the second long life in the third Ambition Riches Fame strength in the rest and then he shows you an Ice a flaw a cloud in all these stones he layes this infamy upon them all vanity and vexation of spirit Vanitas Which two words vanity and vexation because they go through all to every thing Solomon applies one of them they are the inseparable Laeven that sowers all and therefore are intended as well of this Text as of the other text we shall by the way make a little stop upon those two words first how could the wisedome of Solomon and of the Holy Ghost avile and abase this world more then by this annihilating of it in the name of vanity for what is that It is not enough to receive a definition it is so absolutely nothing as that we cannot tell you what it is Let Saint Bernard do it vanum est quod nec confert plenitudinem continenti for who amongst you hath not room for another bagg or amongst us for another benefice nec fulcimentum innitentï for who stands fast upon that which is not fast it self and the world passeth and the lusts thereof Nec fructum laboranti for you have sowen much and bring in little yee eat but have not enough yee drink but are not filled yee are cloth'd but wax not warm Agg. 1.16 and he that earneth wages puts it into a bagg with holes midsummer runs out at Michalmas and at years end he hath nothing And such a vanity is this world least it were not enough to call it vanity alone simply vanity though that language in which Solomon and the Holy Ghost spoke have no degrees of comparison no superlative they cannot say vanissimum the greatest vanity yet Solomon hath sound a way to expresse the height of it another way conformable to that language when he calls it vanitatem vanitatum for so doth it Canticum Canticorum The Song of Songs Deus Deorum the God of gods Dominus dominantium The Lord of Lords Coeli Coelorum The Heaven of Heavens alwaies signifie the superlative and highest degree of those things vanity of vanities is the deepest vanity the emptiest vanity the veriest vanity that can be conceived Saint Augustin apprehended somewhat more in it but upon a mistaking Aug. Retract for accustoming himself to a Latin copy of the Scriptures and so lighting upon copies that had been miswritten he reads that vanitas vani antum O the vanity of those men that delight in vanity he puts this lowness this annihilation not only in the thing but in the Men themselves too And so certainly he might safely do for though as he saies in his Retractations his Copies milled him yet that which he collected even by that errour was true they that trust in vain things are as vain as the things themselves If Saint Augustin had not his warrant to say so from Solomon here yet he had it from his Father before who did not stop at that when he had said Man is like to vanity Psal 144.4.39.5 but proceeeds farther surely that is without all contradiction every Man that is without all exception in his best state that is without any declination is altogether vanity Let no man grudge to acknowledge it of himself The second man that ever was begot and born into this world and then there was world enough before him to make him great and the first good man had his name from vanity Cain the first man had his name from possession but the second Habel had his name from vacuity from vanity from vanishing for it is the very word that Solomon uses here still for vanity Because his parents repose no confidence in Habel for they thought that Cain was the Messias they called him vanity Because God knew that Habel had no long term in this world he directed them he suffered them to call him vanity But therefore principally was he and so may we be content with the name of vanity that so acknowledging our selves to be but vanity we may turn for all our being and all our well being for our essence and existence and subsistence upon God in whom onely we live and move and have our being for take us at our best make every one an Abel and yet that is but Evanescentia in nihilum a vanishing an evapourating When the Prophets are said to speak the motions Jer. 23.16 and notions the visions of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord then because that was indeed nothing for a lye is nothing they are said in this very word to speak vanity And still 1 Cor. 8.4 where the Prophets have that phrase in the person of God provocaverunt me vanitatibus They have provoked God with their vanities the Chaldee Paraphrase ever expresseth it Idolis with their Idols and Idolum nihil est an Idol 1 Cor. 8.4 that is vanity is nothing Man therefore can have no deeper discouragement from enclining to the things of this world then to be taught that they are nothing nor higher encouragement to cleave to God for the next then to know that himself is nothing too This last of our selves is St. Pauls humility 2 Cor. 12.11 Esa 40.15 I am nothing The first of other Creatures is the Prophet Isaiahs instruction The nations are as a drop of the bucket as the dust of the ballance the Isles are as a little dust This was little enough but all nations are before him as nothing that was much less for the disproportion between the least thing and nothing is more infinite then between the least thing and the whole world But there is a diminution of that too they are all less then nothing and what 's that vanity in that place Nihilum in ane and that 's as low as Solomon carries them Vexatio Gen. 6.5 But because all the imaginations of the thoughts of mans heart are onely evil continually as Moses heightens the Corruption of man and therefore men are not so much affrighted with this returning to nothing for they could be content to vanish at last and turn to nothing there appears no harm to them in that that the world comes to nothing what care they when they have no more use of it and there appears an ease to them if their souls might come to nothing too therefore Solomon calls this world not onely nothing vanity but affliction and vexation of spirit Tell a natural voluptuous man of two sorts of torments in hell Poena damni and Poena sensus one of privation he shall not see God and the other of reall Torments he shall be actually tormented the loss of the sight of God will not so much affect him for he never saw him in his life not in the marking
dicas de loco tuo inutilis mihi est say not of thy place that it is good for nothing if thou must be put to doe the duties of the place in the place for it is good for this that when thou hast done that thou mayst sleepe Stephen's sleepe die in Peace Sis aliquid Be something that was our first and then hoc age doe truly the duties of that place without pretermitting thine own without intermedling with others which was our second and then our third consideration is Sis aliquis Be sombody be like sombody propose some good example in thy calling and profession to imitate Sis aliquis It was the counsell of that great little Philosopher Epictetus whensoever thou undertakest any action to consider what a Socrates or a Plato what a good and a wise man would doe in that Case and to doe conformably to that One great Orator Latinus Rufus proposed to himselfe Cicero for his example and Cicero propounded Demosthenes and hee Pericles and Pericles Pisistratus and so there was a concatenation a genealogie a pedegree of a good Orator Hieron Habet unumquodque propositum principes suos In every Calling in every Profession a man may finde some exemplar some leading men to follow The King hath a Josias and the beggar hath a Job and every man hath some But here wee must not pursue particulars but propose to all him whom our Text proposes Saint Stephen Stephanus and in him wee offer you first his name Stephen Stephen Stephanos is a leading an exemplar name a Significative a Propheticall a Sacramentall a Catechisticall name a Name that carries much instruction with it Our Countryman Bede takes it to be an Hebrew name and it signifies saith hee Normam vestram Your Rule Your Law To obey the Law to follow to embrace the Law is an acceptable service to God especially the invariable Law the Law of God himselfe But wee are sure that this name Stephen Stephanos signifies a Crowne to obey the Crowne to follow to serve the Crowne is an acceptable service to God especially the immarcessible Crown the Crown of Glory Nomen Omen scarce any man hath a name but that name is Legal and Historicall to him His very name remembers him of some rules and lawes of his actions So his name is legall and his name remembers him of some good men of the same name and so his name is historicall Nomina Debita In the old formularies of the Civill Law if a man left so many names to his Executors they were so many specialties for debts Our Names are Debts every man owes the world the signification of his name and of all his names every addition of honour or of office layes a new Debt a new Obligation upon him and his first name his Christian-Name above all For when new names are given to men in the Scriptures that doth not abolish or extinguish the old Jacob was called Jacob after God had called him Israel Gedeon Gedeon after he was called Jerubaal and Simon when he was Peter too was called Simon Changes of Office and additions of Honour must not extinguish our Christian Name The duties of our Christianity and our Religion must preponderate and weigh down the duties of all other places and for all together Saint Gregory presents us a good use of this diligence to answere our Names Quo quis timet magis ne quod dicitur non esset eo plus quam dicitur erit The more a man is afraid that hee is not worthy of the name hee beares whether the name of office or his Christian-Name the better Officer and the better Christian he will be for that feare and that solicitude and therefore it is an usefull and an applyable Prayer for great Persons which that Father makes in their behalfe Praesta quaesumus Domine ut quod in ore hominum sumus in conspectu tuo esse valeamus Grant O Lord that wee may alwayes be such in thine eyes as wee are in their tongues that depend upon us and justifie their acclamations with thy approbations And so far Stephens name as his name signifies the Law and as his name signifies the reward of fulfilling the Law a Crown hath carried us to the consideration of the duty of answering the signification of our names But then there are other passages in his History and Actions that carries us farther First then we receive Saint Stephen to have been Saint Paul's kinsman in the flesh and to have been his fellow pupill under Gamaliel Discipulus and to have been equall to him at least in the foundations in natural faculties and in the super-edifications too in learnings of acquisition and study And then to have had this great advantage above him That hee applied himselfe as a Disciple to Christ before Saint Paul did and in that profession became so eminent for all the Sects the Libertines themselves taking the liberty to dispute against him Act. 6.9 they were not able to resist the wisedome and the Spirit by which hee spake as that his Cosin Paul then but Saul envied him most and promov'd and assisted at his execution For upon those words but two verses before our Text That they that stoned Stephen laid down their clothes at Saul 's feet Saint Augustine sayes 7.58 In manu omnium eum lapidavit That it was Saul that stoned Stephen though by the hands of other executioners Men of the best extraction and families Men of the best parts and faculties Men of the best education and proficiencies owe themselves to God by most obligations Him that dyes to day God shall not only aske where is that Soule Is it as cleane as I made it at first No stayn of Sin or is it as clean as I wash'd it in Baptisme No sting No venome of original sinne in it Or is it as clean as I left it when wee met last at the Sacrament No guiltinesse of actuall sinne in it God shall not only aske this Where is that Soul Nor only aske where is that Body Is it come back in that Virginal integrity in which I made it Or is it no farther departed from that then Marriage which I made for it hath made it Are those Maritales ineptiae that we may put Luther's words into God's mouth the worst that is faln upon that body God shall not only ask for that Soul and that Body but aske also Where is that Wit that Learning those Arts those languages which by so good education I afforded thee Truly when a weake and ignorant man departs into any vicious way though in that case he doe adhere to the Enemy and doe serve the Devill against God yet he carries away but a single Man and serves but as a common Souldier But he that hath good parts and good education carries a Regiment in his person and Armies and munition for a thousand in himself Though then thy kinsmen in the flesh and
there would be speaking enough in Courts for though there may be a great sin in silence a great prevarication in not speaking in a good cause or for an oppress'd person yet the lowest voice in a Court wispering it self speaks aloud and reaches far and therefore hear is only a rule to regulate our speach Sic loquimini so speak ye And then as here is no express precept for speaking so here is no express precept for doing The holy Ghost saw there would be doing enough business enough in Court for as silence and half-silence whispering may have a loud voice so even undoing may be a busie doing and therefore here is only a rule to regulate our doing to Sic facite So do ye And lastly as there is speaking enough even in silence and doing enough even in undoing in Court so the Court is alwaies under Judgment enough Every discontented person that hath miss'd his preferment though he have not merited it every drunkard that is over-heat though not with his own wine every conjecturing person that is not within the distance to know the ends or the waies of great actions will Judg the highest counsels and execution of those counsels The Court is under Judgment enough and they take liberty enough and therefore here is a rule to regulate our liberty a law of liberty so speak ye and c. But though for the more benefit of the present Congregation we fix the first point of this Circle that is the principal purpose of the holy Ghost upon the Court yet our text is an Amphitheater an Amphitheater consists of two Theaters our text hath two parts in which all men all may sit and see themselves acted first in the obligation that is laid upon us upon us all Sic loquimini Sic facite and then in the reason of this holy diligence and religious cautelousness quia Judicandi because you are all to be Judged by c. which two general parts the obligation and the reason flowing into many sub-divided branches I shall I think do better service both to your understanding and to your memory and to your affections and consciences to present them as they shall arise anon in their order then to pour them out all at once now First then in our first part we look to our rule in the first duty First part Loquimini our speaking Sic loquimini so speak ye The Comick Poet gives us a good caution Si servus semper consuescat silentio fiat nequam that servant that saies nothing thinks ill As our nullifidians men that put all upon works and no faith and our solifidians men that put all upon faith no works are both in the wrong so there is a danger in multiloquio another in nulliloquio he that speaks over-freely to me may be a man of dangerous conversation and the silent and reserv'd man that makes no play but observes and saies nothing may be more dangerous then he As the Roman Emperor professed to stand more in fear of one pale man and lean man then of twenty that studied and pursued their pleasures and lov'd there ease because such would be glad to keep things in the state they then were but the other sort affected changes so for the most part he that will speak lies as open to me as I to him speech is the balance of conversation Therefore as gold is not merx but pretium Gold is not ware but the price of all ware so speaking is not doing but yet fair speaking prepares an acceptation before and puts a value after upon the best actions God hath made other creatutes Gregalia sociable besides man sheep and deer and pigeons will flock and heard and troop and meet together but when they are met they are not able to tell one another why they met Man only can speak silence makes it but a hearding that that makes conversation is speech Qui datum deserit respuit datorem saies Tertullian He that uses not a benefit reproaches his benefactor To declare Gods goodness that hath enabled us to speak we are bound to speak speech is the glue the ciment the soul of conversation and of religion too Now your conversation is in heaven and therefore loquimini Deo Deo first speak to him that is in heaven speak to God Some of the Platonick Philosophers thought it a prophanation of God to speak to God they thought that when our thoughts were made prayers and that the heart slow'd into the tongue and that we had invested and apparall'd our meditations with words this was a kind of painting and dressing and a superfluous diligence that rather tasted of humane affections then such a sincere service as was fit for the presence of God only the first conception the first ebullitions and emanations of the Soul in the heart they thought to be a fit sacrifice to God and all verball prayer to be too homely for him But God himself who is all spirit hath yet put on bodily lineaments head and hands and feet yea and garments too in many places of scripture to appear that is to manifest himself to us and when we appear to God though our devotion be all spiritual as he is all spirit yet let us put on lineaments and apparrel upon our devotions and digest the meditations of the heart into words of the mouth God came to us in verbo in the word for Christ is the word that was make flesh let us that are Christians goe to God so too that the words of our mouth as well as the meditations of our heart may be acceptable to him Surely God loves the service of prayer or he would never have built a house for prayer and therefore we justly call publique prayer the liturgy service love that place and love that service in that place prayer They will needs make us believe that St. Francis preached to birds and beasts and stones but they will not go about to make us believe that those birds and beasts and stones joyn'd with St. Francis in prayer God can speak to all things that 's the office of preaching to speak to others but of all only man can speak to God and that 's the office of prayer It is a blessed conversation to spend time in discourse in communication with God Gen. 18. ult God went his way assoon as he had left communing with Abraham When we leave praying God leaves us but God left not Abraham as long as he had any thing to say to God and we have alwayes something to say unto him he loves to hear us tel him even those things which he knew before His benefits in our thankfulness and our sins in our confessions and our necessities in our petitions And therefore having so many occasions to speak to God and to speak of God David ingeminates that and his ingemination implies a wonder O that men would and it is strange if men will not O that men would
himself is purus actus all action all doing comfortable words are good cordials they revive the spirits and they have the nature of such occasional physick but deeds are our food our dyet and that that constantly nourishes us 1 Jo. 3.18 Non verbo sayes the Apostle Let us not love in word nor in tongue but in deed and in truth Not that we may not love in words but that our deeds are the true seals of that love which was also love when it was in words Ambro. But Ne quod luxuriat in flore attenuetur habetetur in fructu Least that tree that blew early and plentifully blast before it knit Second your good words with actions too It is the husbandry and the harvest of the righteous man as it is gathered in David The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdome Ps 37.30 So we read it there it is in the tongue in words only the vulgar hath it Meditatur he meditates it so the heart is got in But the original Hagah is noted to signifie fructificavit he brings forth fruits thereof and so the hand is got in too And when that which is well spoken was well meant and hath been well expressed in action that 's the husbandry of the righteous man then his harvest is all in It is the way of God himself Philo Judaeus notes Exo 20.10 That the people are said to have seen the noise and the voice of God because whatsoever God sayes it determines in action If we may hear God we may see God what he sayes he does too Therefore from that example of God himself Saint Gregorie directs us we must sayes he shew our love Et vaneratione sermonis et ministerio largitatis with a fair respect in words and with a reall supply in deeds Nay when we look upon our pattern that is God Tertullian notes well That God prevented his own speaking by doing Benedicebat quae benefaciebat first he made all things good and then he blessed them that they might be better first he wrought and then he spoke And so Christs way and proceeding is presented to us too so far from not doing when he speaks as that he does before he speaks Christ began to doe and to teach Act. 1.1 Luk. ult 19. sayes St. Luke but first to do And he was mighty in deeds and in words but first in deeds We cannot write so well as our copy to begin alwayes at deeds as God and his Christ but yet let us labor to write so fair after it as first to afford comfortable words and though our deeds come after yet to have them from the beginning in our intention and that we doe them not because we promised but promise because we love to do good and love to lay upon our selves the obligation of a promise The instrument and organ of nature was the eye the natural man finds God in that he sees in the creature The organ of the Law which exalted and erectified nature was the hand Fac hoc et vives perform the law and thou shalt live So also the organ of the Gospel is the ear for faith comes by hearing but then the organ of faith it self is the hand too a hand that layes hold upon the merits of Christ for my self and a hand that delivers me over to the Church of God in a holy life and exemplary actions for the edification of others So that all all from nature to grace determines in action in doing good Sic facite Deo so do good to God in reall assisting his cause Sic facite Diis so do good to them whom God hath call'd Gods in reall seconding their religious purposes Sic facite imaginibus Dei So doe good to the images of God in real relieving his distressed members as that you doe all this upon that which is made the reason of all in the second part of this Text Because you are to be judged by the law of libertie Timor futuri judicii hujus vitae paedagogus 2. Part. Basil judicium Our School-master to teach us to stand upright in the last judgment is the meditation and the fear of that judgment in this life It is our school-master and school-master enough I said unto the fool thus and thus sayes David Ps 75.5 And I said unto the wicked thus and thus sayes he for sayes he God is the Judg He thought it enough to enlighten the understanding of the fool enough to rectifie the perversness of the wicked if he could set God before them in that notion as a Judg. For this is one great benefit from the present contemplation of the future Judgment that whosoever does truly and advisedly believe that ever he will come to that Judgment is at it now he that believes that God will judg him is Gods Commissioner Gods delegate and in his name Judges himself now Therefore it is a useful mistaking which the Roman translator is faln into in this text in reading it thus Sicut incepientes Judicari so speak ye and so do as they upon whom the Judgment were already begun for qui timet ante Christi tribunal praesentari August he that is afraid to be brought to the last Judgment hath but one refuge but one Sanctuary Ascendat tribunal mentis suae et constituat se ante seipsum let him cite himself before himself give evidence himself against himself and so guilty as he is found here so innocent he shall stand there Let him proceed upon himself 9.28 as Job did and he is safe I am afraid of all my sorrows saies he afraid that I have not said enough against my self nor repented enough afraid that my sorrows have not been sincere but mingled with circumstances of loss of health or honor or fortune occasioned by my sins and not only not principally for the sin it self I am afraid of all my sorrows saies he but how much more then of my mirths and pleasures to judg our selves by the Judgment of flatterers that depend upon us to judg our selves by the event and success of things I am enrich'd I am preferd by this course and therefore all 's well to judg our selves by example of others others do thus and why not I all these proceedings are Coram non Judice all these are literally praemunire cases for they are appellations into faraign Jurisdictions and foraign Judicatures Only our own conscience rectified is a competent Judg and they that have pass'd the tryal of that Judgment do not so much rise to Judgment at last as stand and continue in Judgment their Judgment that is their tryal is pass'd here and there they shall only receive sentence and that sentence shall be Euge bone serve well done good and faithful servant since thou didst enter into Judgment in the other world enter into thy Masters joy in this But howsoever we be prepared for that Judgment well or not well and howsoever the
to judg according to that law where he hath published that law But at liberty so as that it consists only in his good pleasure to what nation he will publish the gospel or in what nation he will continue the gospel or upon what persons he wil make this gospel effectual So Oecumenius who is no single witness nor speaks not alone but compiles the former Fathers places this liberty in God That God is at liberty to give this gospel where he will and at liberty so as that he hath exempted no man how well soever he love him nor put any such fetters or manicles upon himself but that he can and will punish those that transgresse this law So it is a law of liberty to God nothing determined upon any man nothing concluded in himself lies so in Gods way as to hinder him from proceeding in his last judgment according to the keeping or breaking of this law still God is at liberty And it is a law of liberty in respect of us Of us Nobis who are Christians and considered so either with a respect to the natural man or with a respect to the Jew for if we compare the Christian with the natural man the law of nature layes the same obligation upon the natural man as the gospel does upon the Christian for the moral part thereof The christian is no more bound to love God nor his neighbor than the natural man is therein the natural man hath no more liberty than the christian So far their law is equal And then all the law which the christian hath and the natural man hath not is a law of liberty to the christian that is a law that gives him an ease and a readier way to perform those duties which way the naturall man hath not and yet is bound to the same duties The natural man if he trangress that law which he finds in his own heart finds a condemnation in himself as well as the christian therein he is no freer than the christian But he finds no Sanctuary no Altar no Sacrifice no Church no such liberty as the Christian does in the Gospel So the Gospel is a law of liberty to us in respect of the natural man that it sets us at liberty restores us to liberty after we are fallen into prison for debt into Gods displeasure for sin by affording us means of reconciliation to God again It is so also in respect of the law given by God to the Jews Judaei The Jews had liberties that is refuge and help of sacrifices for sin which the natural man had not For if the natural man were driven and followed from his own heart that he saw no comfort of an innocency there he had no other liberties to fly to no comfort in any other thing no law no promise annexed to any other action not to Sacrifice as the Jew or to Sacrament as the Christian but must irremediably sink under the condemnation of his own heart The Jew had this liberty a law and a law that involv'd the Gospel But then the gospel was to the Jew but as a letter seal'd and the Jew was but as a servant who was trusted to carry the letter as it was seal'd to another to carry it to the Christian Now the Christian hath receiv'd this letter at the Jews hand and he opens it he sees the Jews prophecy made history to him The Jews hope and reversion made possession and inheritance to him he sees the Jews faith made matter of fact he sees all that was promised and represented in the law performed and recorded in the Gospel and applied in the Church there Christ sayes Jo. 15.15 Hence forth call I not you servants but friends wherein consists this enfranchisement In this The servant knoweth not what his master doth The Jews knew not that But I have called you friends sayes Christ For all things that I heard of my father I have made known unto you Heb. 7.17 The law made nothing perfect saies the Apostle Gal. 4.24 Where was the defect He tels us that The old covenant that is the law gendreth to bondage what bondage he tels us that too 3.23 when he sayes The law was a schoolmaster The Jews were as school-boys alwayes spelling and putting together types and figures with things typified and figured How this Lamb should signifie Christ how this fire should signifie a holy Ghost The Christian is come from school to the University from grammer to logick to him that is Logos it self the word to apprehend and apply Christ himself and so is at more liberty than when he had only a dark law without any comment with the natural man or only a dark comment that is the law with a dim light and ill eys as the Jews had for though the Jew had the liberty of alaw yet they had not the law of liberty So the gospel is a law of liberty to God who is still at his liberty to give and take and to condemn according to that law and a law of liberty to us as we are compared to the natural man or to the Jew But when we confine our selves in our selves positively without comparison it is not such a law of liberty to us as some men have come to a neer saying That the sins of Gods children do them no harm That God sees not the sins of his children that God was no farther out with David in his adultery than in his repentance but as to be born within the covenant that is of christian parents does not make us christians Aug. for Non nascitur sed renascitur Christianus The covenant gives us a title to the Sacrament of Baptism and that sacrament makes us christians so this law of liberty gives us not a liberty to sin but a liberty from sin Noli libertate abuti ad libere peccandum sayes the same Father It is not a liberty but an impotency a slavery to sin Voluntas libera quae pia sayes he only a holy soul 2 Cor. 3.17 is a free soul Where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty sayes the Apostle Leo. And Splendidissimum in se quisque habet speculum Every man hath a glass a crystal into which though he cannot cal up this spirit for the spirit of God breaths where it pleases him yet he can see this spirit if he be there in that glass Every man hath a glass in himself where he may see himself and the Image of God sayes that Father and see how like he is to that To dare to reflect upon my self and to search all the corners of mine own conscience whether I have rightly used this law of liberty and neither been bold before a sin upon presumption of an easie nor diffident after upon suspicion of an impossible reconciliation to my God this is Evangelical liberty So then to end all Though it be a law of liberty because it gives me
better means of prevention before and of restitution after than the natural man or Jew had yet we consider that it is the law of liberty this law that hath afforded us these good helps by which we shall be judged And so though our case be better than theirs because we have this law of liberty which they wanted yet our case grows heavier than theirs if we use it not aright The Jews shall be under a heavier condemnation than the natural man because they had more liberty that is more means of avoyding sin than the naturall man had and upon the same reason the christian under a heavier condemnation than either because he shall be judged by the law of liberty What Judgement then gives this law This Mar. 16.16 Qui non crediderit damnabitur So sayes this law in the law-makers mouth He that believes not shall be damned And as no lesse light than faith it self can shew you what faith is what it is to believe so no lesse time than damnation shall last can shew you what damnation is For the very form of damnation is the everlastingness of it And qui non crediderit he that believeth not shall be damned there is no commutation of penance nor beheading after a sentence of a more ignominious death in that Court Doest thou believe that thou doest believe yet this law takes not that answer This law of liberty takes the liberty to look farther through faith into works for so sayes the law in the mouth of the law-maker To whom much is given Luc. 12.48 of him much shall be required Hast thou considered every new title of honor and every new addition of office every new step into higher places to have laid new duties and new obligations upon thee hast thou doubled the hours of thy prayers when thy preferments are doubled and encreased thine alms according as thy revenues are encreased hast thou done something done much in this kind this law will not be answered so this law of liberty takes the liberty to call upon thee for all Here also the law saies in the mouth of the law-maker If thou have agreed with many adversaries sayes Christ Mat. 5.25 let that be if thou have satisfied many duties for duties are adversaries that is tentations upon us yet as long as thou hast one adversary agree with that adversary quickly in the way leave no duty undischarged nor unrepented in this life Beloved we have well delivered our selves of the fear of Purgatory None of us fear that but another mistaking hath overtaken us and we flatter our selves with another danger that is compensation That by doing well in one place our ill doing in another is recompensed An ill officer looks to be saved because he is a good husband to his wife a good father to his children a good master to his servants and he thinks he hath three to one for his salvatien But as nature requires the qualities of every element which thou art composed of so this law of liberty calls upon thee for the exercises of all those vertues that appertain to every particular place thou holdst This liberty this law of liberty takes It binds thee to believe Christ all Christ Gods Christ as he was the eternal Son of the Father God of God our Christ as he was made man for our salvation and thy Christ as his blessed spirit in this his ordinance applies him to thee and offers him into thine armes this minute And then to know that he looks for a retribution from thee in that measure in which he dealt with thee much for much and for several kinds of good according to those several good things which he hath done for thee And if thou be first defective in these and then defective in laying hold upon him who is the propitiation and satisfaction for thy defects in these This law of liberty returns to her liberty to pronounce and the Judg to his liberty to execute that sentence Damnaberis thou wilt be cast into prison where thou must pay the last farthing thou must for Christ dyes not there and therefore there thou must lie till there come such another ransome as Christ nay a greater ransome than Christ was for Christ paid no debts in that prison This then is the christians case and this is the abridgment of his Religion Sic loquimini Sic facite To speak aright and to do aright to professe the truth and not be afraid nor ashamed of that and to live according to that profession For no man can make God the author of sin but that man comes as neer it as he can that makes Gods religion a cloak for his sin To this God proceeds not meerly and onely by commandment but by perswasion too and though he be not bound to do so yethe does give a reason The reason is because we must give account of both both of actions and of words of both we shall be judged But judged by a law a law which excludes on Gods part any secret ill purpose upon us if we keep his law A law which excludes on our part all pretence of ignorance for no man can plead ignorance of a law And then a law of liberty of liberty to God for God was not bound to save a man because he made him but of his own goodness he vouchsafed him a law by which he may be saved A law of liberty to us so that there is no Epicurism to do what we list no such liberty as makes us libertins for then there were no law nor Stoicism nor fatality that constrains us to do that we would not do for then there were no liberty But the Gospel is such a law of liberty as delivers us upon whom it works from the necessity of falling into the bondage of sin before and from the impossibility of recovering after if we be fallen into that bondage And this is liberty enough And of this liberty our blessed God give us the right use for his son Christ Jesus sake by the operation of that holy Ghost that proceeds from both Amen A SERMON Preached to Queen Anne at Denmarke-house Serm. 18. December 14. 1617. SERMON XVIII Proverbs 8.17 I love them that love me and they that seek me early shall find me AS the Prophets and the other Secretaries of the holy Ghost in penning the books of Scriptures do for the most part retain and express in their writings some impressions and some air of their former professions those that had been bred in Courts and Cities those that had been Shepheards and Heardsmen those that had been Fishers and so of the rest ever inserting into their writings some phrases some metaphors some allusions taken from that profession which they had exercised before so that soul that hath been transported upon any particular worldly pleasure when it is intirely turn'd upon God and the contemplation of his all-sufficiency and abundance doth find in God fit subject and
by the King to wait upon my L. of Doncaster in his Embassage to Germany First Sermon as we went out June 16. 1619. SERMON XX. Rom. 13.11 For now is our Salvation nearer then when we believed THere is not a more comprehensive a more embracing word in all Religion then the first word of this Text Now for the word before that For is but a word of connexion and rather appertains to that which was said before the Text then to the Text it self The Text begins with that important and considerable particle Now Now is salvation nearer c. This present word Now denotes an Advent a new coming or a new operation otherwise then it was before And therefore doth the Church appropriate this Scripture to the celebration of the Advent before the Feast of the Birth of our Saviour It is an extensive word Now for though we dispute whether this Now that is whether an instant be any part of time or no yet in truth it is all time for whatsoever is past was and whatsoever is future shall be an instant and did and shall fall within this Now. We consider in the Church four Advents or Comings of Christ of every one of which we may say Now now it is otherwise then before For first there is verbum in carne the word came in the flesh in the Incarnation and then there is caro in verbo he that is made flesh comes in the word that is Christ comes in the preaching thereof and he comes again in carne saluta when at our dissolution and transmigration at our death he comes by his spirit and testifies to our spirit that we die the Children of God And lastly he comes in carne reddita when he shall come at the Resurrection to redeliver our bodies to our souls and to deliver everlasting glory to both The Ancients for the most part understand the word of our Text of Christs first coming in the flesh to us in this world the latter Exposition understand them rather of his coming in glory But the Apostle could not properly use this present word Now with relation to that which is not now that is to future glory otherwise then as that future glory hath a preparation and an inchoation in present grace for so even the future glory of heaven hath a Now now the elect Children of God have by his powerfull grace a present possession of glory So then it will not be impertinent to suffer this flowing and extensive word Now to spread it self into all three for the whole duty of Christianity consists in these three things first in pietate erga Deum in religion towards God in which the Apostle had enlarged himself from the beginning to the twelfth chapter of his Epistle And secondly in charitate erga proximum in our mutual duties of society towards our Equals and Inferiors and of Subjection towards our Superiours in which that twelfth chapter and this to the eitghth verse is especially conversant And then thirdly in sanctimonia propria in the works of sanctification and holiness in our selves And this Text the Apostle presents as a forcible reason to induce us to that to those works of sanctification because Now our salvation is nearer us then when we believed Take then this now the first way of the coming Christ in person in the flesh into this world and then the Apostle of directs himself principally to the Jews converted to the faith of Christ and he tels them That their salvation is nearer them now now they had seen him come then when they did only believe that he would come Take the words the second way of his coming in grace into our hearts and so the Apostle directs himself to all Christians now now that you have bin bred in the Christian Church now that you are grown from Grace to grace from faith to faith now that God by his spirit strengthens and confirms you now is your salvation nearer then when ye believed that is when you began to believe either by the faith of your Parents or the faith of the Church or the faith of your Sureties at your Baptism or when you began to have some notions and impressions and apprehensions of faith in your self when you came to some degrees of understanding and discretion Take the word of Christs coming to us at the hour of death or of his coming to us at the day of Judgment for those two are all one to our present purpose because God never reverses any particular judgement given at a mans death at the day of the general Judgment take the word so this is the Apostles argument you have believed and you have lived accordingly and that faith and that good life hath brought salvation nearer you that is given you a fair and modest infallibility of salvation in the nature of reversion but now now that you are come to the approches of death which shall make your reversion a possession Now is salvation nearer you then when you believed Summarily the Text is a reason why we ought to proceed in good and holy wayes and it works in all the three acceptations of the word for whether salvation be said to be near us because we are Christians and so have advantage of the Jews or near us because we have made some proficiency in holiness sanctimony or near us because we are near our end and thereby near a possession of our endless joy and glory Still from all these acceptations of the word arise religious provocations to perseverance in holiness of life and therefore we shall pursue the words in all three acceptations In all three acceptations we must consider three termes in the Text First Quid salus what this Salvation is that is intended here Part. 1. and then Quid prope what this Distance this nearness is and lastly Quid credere what Belief this is So then taking the words first the first way as spoken by the Apostles to the Jews newly converted to the Christian Faith salvation is the outward means of salvation which are more and more manifest to the Christians then they were to the Jews And then the second Term Nearness salvation is nearer is in this That salvation to the Christian is in things present or past in things already done and of which we are experimentally sure but to the Jews it was of future things of which howsoever they might assure themselves that they would be yet they had no assurance when And therefore in the third place their Believing was but a confident expectation and faithfull assenting to their Prophets quando credidistis when you believed that is when you did only believe and saw nothing First then the first Terme in the first acceptation Salvation Salus is the outward means of salvation Outward and visible means of knowing God God hath given to all Nations in the book of Creatures from the first leaf of that book the firmament above to
only in the earth nature and naturall reason do not produce grace but yet grace can take root in no other thing but in the nature and reason of man whether we consider Gods subsequent graces which grow out of his first grace formerly given to us and well employed by us or his first grace which works upon our natural faculties and grows there still this salvation that is this grace is near us for it is within us then the third term believing is either quando credidistis primum when you began to believe either in an imputative belief of others in your baptism or a faint belief upon your first Catechisings and Instrustions or quando credidistis tantum when you only professed a belief or faith and did nothing in declaration of that faith to the edification of others Salus First then salvation in this second sense is the internal operation of the holy Ghost in infusing grace for therefore doth St. Basil call the holy Ghost verbum Dei the word of God which is the name properly peculiar to the Son quia interpres filii sicut filius patris that as the Father had revealed his will in the Prophets and then the Son comes and interprets all that actually this prophecy is meant of my coming this of my dying and so makes a real comment and an actual interpretation of all the prophecies for he does come and he does die accordingly so the holy Ghost comes and comments upon this comment interprets this interpretation and tels thy soul that all this that the Father had promised and the Son had performed was intended by them and by the working of their spirit is now appropriated to thy particular soul In the constitution and making of a natural man the body is not the man nor the soul is not the man but the union of these two makes up the man the spirits in a man which are the thin and active part of the blood and so are of a kind of middle nature between soul and body those spirits are able to doe and they doe the office to unite and apply the faculties of the soul to the organs of the body and so there is a man so in a regenerate man a Christian man his being born of Christian Parents that gives him a body that makes him of the body of the Covenant it gives him a title an interest in the Covenant which is jus ad rem thereby he may make his claim to the seal of the Covenant to baptism and it cannot be denied him and then in his baptism that Sacrament gives him a soul a spiritual seal jus in re an actual possession of Grace but yet as there are spirits in us which unite body and soul so there must be subsequent acts and works of the blessed spirit that must unite and confirm all and make up this spiritual man in the wayes of sanctification for without that his body that is his being born within the Covenant and his soul that is his having received Grace in baptism do not make him up This Grace is this Salvation and when this Grace works powerfully in thee in the wayes of sanctification then is this Salvation neer thee which is our second term in this second acceptation propè neer This neerness which is the effectuall working of Grace Prope Heb. 4.12 the Apostle expresses fully That it pierceth to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit for though properly the soul and spirit of a man be all one yet divers faculties and operations give them somtimes divers names in the Scriptures Anima quia animat sayes St. Ambrose and spiritus quia spirat The quickning of the body is the soul but the quickning of the soul is the spirit If this Salvation be brought to this neerness that is this grace to this powerfulness thou shalt find it in anima in thy soul in those organs wherein thy soul uses thy body in thy senses and in the sensible things ordain'd by God in his Church Sacraments and Ceremonies and thou shalt find it neerer in spiritu as the spirit of God hath seal'd it to thy spirit invisibly inexpressibly It shall be neer to thee so as that thy reason shall apprehend it and neerer then that thy faith shall establish it and neerer then all this it shall create in thee a modest and sober but yet an infallible assurance that thy salvation shall never depart from thee Magnificabit anima tua Dominum as the B. Virgin speaks Thy soul shall magnifie the Lord all thy natural faculties shall be employed upon an assent to the Gospel thou shalt be able to prove it to thy self and to prove it to others to be the Gospel of Salvation And then Exultabit spiritus Thy spirit shall rejoyce in God thy Saviour because by the farther seal of sanctification thy spirit shall receive testimony from the spirit that as Christ is Idem homo cum te the same man that thou art so thou art Idem spiritus cum Domino the same spirit that he is so far as that as a spirit cannot be separated in it self so neither canst thou be separated from God in Christ And this this exaltation of Grace when it thus growes up to this height of sanctification is that neerness which brings Salvation farther than our believing does and that 's the last term in this part Believing Credidistis Now neerer then Believing neerer than Faith a man might well think nothing can bring Salvation for Faith is the hand that reaches it and takes hold of it But yet as though our bodily hand reach to our temporal food yet the mouth and the stomach must do their office too and so that meat must be distributed into all parts of the body and assimilated to them so though our faith draw this salvation neer us yet when our mouth is imployed that we have a delight to glorifie God in our discourses and to declare his wonderfull works to the sons of men in our thankfulness And when this faith of ours is distributed over all the body that the body of Christs Church is edified and alienated by our good life and sanctification then is this Salvation neerer us that is safelier seal'd to us then when we believed only Either then this quando credidistis when you believed may be refer'd to Infants or to the first faith and the first degrees thereof in men In Infants when that seminall faith or potentiall faith which is by some conceived to be in the Infants of Christian parents at their baptism or that actuall faith which from their parents or from the Church is thought to be applyed to them accepted in their behalf in that Sacrament when this faith growes up after by this new comming of Christ in the power of his Grace and his Spirit to be a lively faith expressed in charity then Salus proprior then is Salvation neerer than when they believed whether this belief were their
on put him not off again Christ is not only the Stuff but the Garment ready made he will not be translated and turn'd and put into new fashions nor laid up in a Wardrobe but put on all day all the days of our life though it rain and rain blood how foul soever any persecution make the day we must keep on that Garment the true profession of Christ Jesus follow not these men in their severity to exclude men from salvation in things that are not fundamental nor in their facility to disguise and prevaricate in things that are The second danger and our last Branch of this last Part is Enquire not after their gods c. Ignorance excuses no man What is curiosity Augustine Qui scire vult ut sciat He that desires knowledge only that he may know or be known by others to know he who makes not the end of his knowledge the glory of God he offends in curiosity says that Father But that is only in the end But in the way to knowledge there is curiosity too In seeking such things as man hath no faculty to compass unrevealed mysteries In seeking things which if they may be compassed yet it is done by indirect means by Invocation of Spirits by Sorcery In seeking things which may be found and by good means but appertain not to our profession all these ways men offend in curiosity It is so in us in Church-men si Iambos servemus metrorum silvam congerimus Hieron If we be over-vehemently affected or transported with Poetry or other secular Learning And therefore St. Hierom is reported himself to have been whipt by an Angel who found him over-studious in some of Cicero's Books This is curiosity in us and it is so in you if when you have sufficient means of salvation Preached to you in that Religion wherein you were Baptized you enquire too much too much trouble your self with the Religion of those from whose superstitions you are already by Gods goodness rescued remember that he who desired to fill himself with the husks was the Prodigal It was Prodigality and a dangerous expence of your constancy to open your self to temptation by an unnecessary enquiring into impertinent controversies We in our profession may embrace secular Learning so far as it may conduce to the better discharge of our duties in making the easier entrance and deeper impression of Divine things in you You may inform your selves occasionally when any scruple takes hold of you of any point of their Religion But let your study be rather to live according to that Religion which you have then to enquire into that from which God hath delivered you for that 's the looking back of Lots wife and the distemper and distaste of the children of Israel who remembred too much the Egyptian diet If you will enquire whether any of the Fathers of the Primitive Church did at any time pray for any of the dead you shall be told and truly that Augustine did that Ambrose did but you shall not so presently be told how they deprehended themselves in an infirmity and collected and corrected themselves ever when they were so praying If you enquire whether any of them speak of Purgatory you shall easily finde they do but not so easily in what sense when they call the calamities of this life or when they call the general Conflagration of the world Purgatory If you enquire after Indulgences you may finde the name frequent amongst them but not so easily finde when and how the Relaxations of Penances publickly enjoyned were called Indulgences nor how nor when Indulgences came to be applyed to souls departed If thou enquire without a Melius Inquirendum without a through Inquisition which is not easie for any man who makes it not his whole study and profession thou maist come to think holy men have pray'd for the dead why may not I Holy men speak of Purgatory and Indulgences why should I abhor the names or the things And so thou maist fall into the first snare it hath been done therefore it may be done and into another after It may be done therefore it must be done When thou art come to think that some men are saved that have done it thou wilt think that no man can be saved except he do it From making infirmities excusable necessary which is the bondage the Council of Trent hath laid upon the world to make Problematical things Dogmatical and matter of Disputation matter of Faith to bring the University into Smithfield and heaps of Arguments into Piles of Faggots If thou enquire further then thy capacity enables thee further then thy calling provokes thee How do those Nations serve their gods thou maist come to say as the Text says in the end Even so will I do also To end all embrace Fundamental Dogmatical evident Divinity That is express'd in Credendis in the things which we are to believe in the Creed And it begins with Credo in Deum Belief in God and not in man nor traditions of men And it is expressed in petendis in the things which we are to pray for in the Lords Prayer and that begins with Sanctificetur nomen tuum Hallowed be thy Name not the name of any And it is expressed in Agendis in the things which we are to do in the Commandments whereof the first Table begins with that Thou shalt have no other gods but me God is a Monarch alone not a Consul with a Colleague And the second Table begins with Honor to Parents that is to Magistrates to lawful Authority Be therefore always fat from disobeying lawful Authority resist it not calumniate it not suspect it not for there is a libelling in the ear and a libelling in the heart though it come not to the tongue or hands to words nor actions If it be possible saith the Apostle as much as in you lies have peace with all men with all kind of men Obedience is the first Commandment of the second Table and that never destroys the first Table of which the first Commandment is Keep thy self that is those that belong to thee and thy house intire and upright in the worship of the true God not only not to admit Idols for gods but not to admit Idolatry in the worship of the true God A SERMON Preached at Pauls Cross to the Lords of the Council and other Honorable Persons 24. Mart. 1616. It being the Anniversary of the Kings coming to the Crown and his Majesty being then gone into Scotland SERMON XXIIII Prov. 22.11 He that loveth Pureness of Heart for the grace of his Lipps the King shall be his friend THat Man that said it was possible to carve the faces of all good Kings that ever were in a Cherry-stone had a seditious and a trayterous meaning in his words And he that thought it a good description a good Character of good subjects that they were Populus natus ad servitutem A people disposed
Declaration of an inward purpose by execution of that purpose that his Dixit his saying R. Moses It is sufficiently expressed by Rab Moses In Creatione Dicta sunt voluntates In the act of Creation the Will of GOD was the Word of God his Will that it should be was his saying Let it be Of which it is a convenient example which is in the Prophet Jonah 2.10 The Lord spake unto the Fish and it vomited Jonah upon the dry Land that is God would have the Fish to do it and it did it God spake then in the Creation but he spake Ineffabiliter says St. Aug. August without uttering any sound He spake but he spake Intemporaliter says that Father too without spending any time in distinction of syllables But yet when he spoke Aliquis ad fuit as Athanasius presses it Athan. surely there was some body with him there was says he VVho Verbum ejus ad fuit ad fuit Spiritus ejus says he truly the second Person in the Trinity his Eternal VVord and the third Person the Holy Ghost were both there at the Creation and to them he spoke For By the Word of the Lord were the heavens framed and all the host of them Spiritu oris ejus Job 33.4 by that Spirit that proceeded from him says David The Spirit of God hath made me 26. 13. and By his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens So that in one word thou who wast nothing hast employed and set on work the heart and hand of all the three Perâ—ons in the blessed and glorious Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost to the making of thee and then what oughtest thou to be and to do in retribution and not to make thee that which thou art now a Christian but even to make thee that wherein 〈◊〉 wast equal to a worm to a grain of dust Hast thou put the whole Trinity to busie themselves upon thee and therefore what shouldst thou be towards them But here in this branch we consider not so much not his noblest Creature Man but his first Creature Light He commanded and he commanded Light And of Light we say no more in this place but this that in all the Scriptures in which the word Light is very often metaphorically applyed it is never applyed in an ill sence Christ is called a Lyon but there is an ill Lyon too that seeks whom he may devour Christ is the serpent that was exalted but there is an ill serpent that did devour us all at once But Christ is the light of the world and no ill thing is call'd light Light was Gods signature by which he set his hand to the Creation and therefore as Princes signe above the Letter and not below God made light first in that first Creature he declared his presence his Majesty the more in that he commanded light out of darkness There was Lumen de Lumine before light of light very God of very God an eternal Son of an eternal Father before But light out of darkness is Musick out of silence It was one distinct plague of Egypt darkness above and one distinct blessing that the children of Israel had light in their dwellings But for some spiritual Applications of light and darkness we shall have room again when after we shall have spoken of our second part our Vocation as God hath shin'd in our hearts positively we shall come to speak of that shining comparatively That God hath so shin'd in our hearts as he commanded light out of darkness And to those two Branches of our second part the positive and comparative Consideration of that shining we are in order come now In the first part we were made in this second we are mended Part II. in the first we were brought into this world in this second we are led through it in the first we are Creatures in this we are Christians God hath shin'd in our hearts In this part Divisio we shall have two Branches a positive and a comparative consideration of the words First the matter it self what this shining is and it is the conversion of Man to God by the ministry of the Gospel and secondly how this manner of expressing it answers the comparison As God commanded light out of darkness so he hath shin'd in our hearts And in the first the positive we shall pass by these few and short steps first Gods action Illuxit he shine it is evidence Manifestation And then the time when this day breaks when this Sun rises Illuxit he hath shin'd he hath done enough already Thirdly the place the sphere in which he shines the Orb which he hath illumin'd in Cordibus if he shine he shines in the heart And lastly the persons upon whom he casts his beams in Cordibus nostris in our hearts And having past these four in the positive part we shall descend to the comparative as God commanded light out of darkness so he hath shin'd in our hearts 1. Lucet First then for Gods action his working in the Christian Church which is our Vocation we consider man to be all to be all Creatures Mar. 16.15 according to that expression of our Saviour's Go preach the Gospel to every Creature and agreeable to that largeness in which he receiv'd it Colos 1.23 the Apostle delivers it The Gospel is preached to every Creature under heaven The properties the qualities of every Creature are in man the Essence the Existence of every Creature is for man so man is every Creature And therefore the Philosopher draws man into too narrow a table when he says he is Microcosmos an Abridgement of the world in little Nazianzen gives him but his due when he calls him Mundum Magnum a world to which all the rest of the world is but subordinate For all the world besides is but Gods Foot-stool Man sits down upon his right hand and howsoever God be in all the world yet how did God dwell in man in the assumption of that nature and what care did GOD take of that dwelling that when that house was demolished would yet dwell in the ruines thereof for the Godhead did not depart from the dead body of Christ Jesus in the Grave And then how much more gloriously then before did he re-edifie that house in raising it again to Glory Man therefore is Cura Divini ingenii Tertul. a creature upon whom not onely the greatness and the goodness but even the study and diligence of God is employed And being thus a greater world then the other he must be greater in all his parts and so in his lights and so he is for instead of this light which the world had at first Man hath a nobler light an immortal a discerning soul the light of reason Instead of the many stars which this world hath man hath had the light of the Law and the succession of the Prophets And instead of that Sun which
Serpent was wiser then any beast It is so still Satan is wiser then any man in natural and in Civil knowledge 'T is true he is a Lyon too but he was a Serpent first and did us more harm as a Serpent then as a Lyon But now as Christ Jesus hath nail'd his hand-writing which he had against us to the Cross and thereby cancelled his evidence so in his descent to hell and subsequent acts of his glorification he hath burnt his Library annihilated his wisdom in giving us a wisdome above his craft he hath shin'd in our hearts by the knowledge of his Gospel Measure not thou therefore the growth and forwardness of thy Child by how soon he could speak or go how soon he could contract with a man or discourse with a woman but how soon he became sensible of that great contract which he had made with Almighty God in his Baptism how soon he was able to discharge those sureties which undertook for him then by receiving his confirmation in the Church how soon he became to discern the Lords Spirit in the preaching of his Word and to discern the Lords body in the Administration of the Sacrament A Christian Child must grow as Christ when be was a Child in wisdom and in stature Luc. 2. first in wisdom then in stature Many have been taller at sixteen then ever Christ was but not any so learned at sixty as he when he disputed at twelve He grew in favour says that Text with God and man first with God then with man Bring up your children in the knowledge and love of God and good and great men will know and love them too It is a good definition of ill love that St. Chrysost gives that it is Animae vacantis passio a passion of an empty soul of an idle mind For fill a man with business and he hath no room for such love It will fit the love of God too so far as that that love must be in anima vocante at first when the soul is empty disencumbred from other studies disengaged in other affections then to take in the knowledge and the love of God for Amari nisi nota possunt says St. August truely however we may slumber our selves with an opinion of loving God certainly we do not we cannot love him till we know him and therefore hear and read and meditate and confer and use all means whereby thou mayst increase in knowledge If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them says Christ you are not happy till you do them that 's true but ye can never do them till ye know them Zeal furthers our salvation but it must be Secundum scientiam Zeal according to knowledge Works further our salvation but not works done in our sleep stupidly casually nor erroniously but upon such grounds as fall within our knowledge to be good Faith most of all furthers and advances our salvation but a man cannot believe that which he does not know Conscience includes science it is knowledge and more but it is that first It is as we express it in the School Syllogismus practicus I have a good Conscience in having done well but I did that upon a former knowledge that that ought to be done God hath shined in our hearts to give us the light of knowledge that was the first and then of the knowledge of the glory of God that is our second term in this first acceptation of the Word The light of the knowledge of the glory of this world Gloria Dei is a good and a great peece of learning To know that all the glory of man is as the flower of grass that even the glory 1 Pet. 1.24 and all the glory of man of all mankind is but a flower and but as a flower somewhat less then the Proto-type then the Original then the flower it self and all this but as the flower of grass neither no very beautiful flower to the eye no very fragrant flower to the smell To know that for the glory of Moab Auferetur Esai 16.24 it shall be contemned consumed and for the glory of Jacob it self Attenuabitur It shall be extenuated 17. â—4 that the glory of Gods enemies shall be brought to nothing and the glory of his servants shall be brought low in this word To know how near nothing how meer nothing all the glory of this world is is a good a great degree of learning It is a Book of an old Edition to put you upon the consideration what great and glorious men have lost their glory in this world Give me leave to present to you a new Book a new consideration not how others have lost but consider onely how you have got that glory which you have in this world consider advisedly and confess ingeniously whether you have not known many men more industrious then ever you were and yet never attained to the glory of your Wealth Many wiser then ever you were and yet never attained to your place in the Government of State and valianter then ever you were that never came to have your command in the Wars Consider then how poor a thing the glory of this world is not onely as it may be so lost as many have lost it but as it may be so got as you have got it Seneca Nullum indifferens gloriosum says that Moral man In that which is so obvious as that any man may compass it truly this can be no glory But this is not fully the knowledge of the glory of this Text though this Moral knowledge of the glory of this world conduce to the knowledge of this place which is the glory of God yet not of the Majestical and inaccessible glory of the Essence or Attributes of God of inscrutable points of Divinity for scrutator Majestatis opprimetur a gloria Prov. 25.27 as St. Hiero and all those three Rabbins whose Commentaries we have upon that Book read that place He that searches too far into the secrets of God shall be dazled confounded by that glory But here Gloria Dei is indeed Gloria Deo the glory of God is the glorifying of God it is as St. Ambro. expresses it Notitia cum laude the glory of God is the taking knowledge that all that comes comes from God and then the glorifying of God for whatsoever comes And this is a heavenly art a divine knowledge that if God send a pestilence amongst us we Come not to say it was a great fruit year and therefore there must follow a plague in reason That if God swallow up an invincible Navy we come to say There was a storm and there must follow a scattering in reason That if God discover a Mine we come not to say there was a false Brother that writ a Letter and there must follow a discovery in reason but remember still that though in Davids Psalms there be Psalms of Prayer and Psalms of Praise