sinfull man had spoken this it had beene no newes but that it should come from a most sanctified vessell of the holy Ghost a chosen vessell one that for his life was unblameable and for all learning and the graces of the spirit incomparable that he should utter this it is a very strange mervaile Indeed a reprobate a man that followes his owne lusts that lives not to God but to himselfe he may truely say I dye daily For the Lord makes his life to be hanged before him as a perpetuall signe of death that as the children of God are said to have the earnest of the spirit and of the kingdome of heaven so the servants of sinne may be said to receive the earnest of hell So many passages of his life as there be they are as so many flakes of hell burning before him and doe assure him that at the last he shall be tumbled and divolved into the damnation of the divell and his Angels That gnawing worrne of conscience makes his life a continuall death But that the Saints of God should be thus troubled too it is this that moves the wonder And yet the Apostle here saith nay and sweares it too that not onely wicked men are troubled and galled with the conscience of sinne that they are alway in death because they are the sonnes of death and study that which tends to death but he that had the fruit of life he that had the spirit of God and of Christ in him Gal. 2.20 nay that had Christ himselfe as he saith It is no longer I that live but Christ liveth in me that he should he subject to this death and to this frequencie of death that there was never a day came over his head but a new death was presented to him It seemeth strange The reason of this we must fetch out of the rest of his writings for there he hath set downe the summe of every thing that we are to conceive of this mystery The first reason or meanes of this death it was that he carried the divell about him as Gregory Nazianzen saith in his 32. Nazianzen Orat. 32. Oration to the Bishops at Constantinople when he was to leave the place Saith he Even as it was with Paul 2 Cor. 12.7 so doe I carry the divell about me alluding to that place 2 Cor. 12. where the Apostle complaines of the messenger and instrument of Sathan that was sent to buffet him continually that he could not be at peace and quiet for him and he prayed to the Lord thrice against it but the Lord answered him My grace is sufficient for thee Rom. 7 23. This was it that made him to say I protest by the rejoycing that I have in our Lord Iesus Christ I dye daily For my life is such a kinde of condition as wherein the flesh and the spirit are continually conflicting together good and evill righteousnesse and sinne are alway countermanding one another A good conscience and an evill conscience sorrow and joy heaven and hell God and the divell are continually in an agony and combate This conflict that I sustaine betweene the flesh and the spirit is that which makes me dye daily and makes me cry out Oh wretched and miserable man that I am Rom. 7.24 who shall deliver me from this body of death that is from the sting of the law in my members whereby I am carryed in contradiction to the good spirit of God And so as Nazianzen saith he did carry Sathan about him nay within him also For the reliques of sinne which he cals the messenger of Sathan the instrument of the divell the remainders of corruption were in him yea and are in all the sonnes of God For there was none ever without them but that Sonne of God that came to take away the sinnes of the world The second reason why the Apostle said he dyed daily was because the divell bare him outwardly by envy and trouble and persecution he carried him on his shoulders he was the beast that he was set on And no marvell for if the divell could make our Lord sit on his backe Math. 4. Mat. 4. and that our Lord Iesus rode upon the divell as a man would ride upon a horse if he were so impudent as to set himselâ—fe under our Lord and carry him about to the pinacle of the Temple and to the mountaine then well may he come to the shoulders nay to the very bowels of his members If he did so to the head he will doe to the members much more Acts 17.4.12 Thus he still carried Paul wheresoever he came by the envy of the world by the malice of the Iewes and Gentiles as upon the occasion of those devout and religious womens beleeving whereupon they raised persecution against him and that wheresoever he came there was eyther stoning or fire and faggot or banishment some mischiefe intended Treason by false brethren treason by his opposers or treason of those that were best trusted of him every where he was inclosed with perill This was the divell without him as some of the Fathers imagine 2 Cor. 12 7. from that place 2 Cor. 12. that messenger of Sathan there sent to buffet him They say it was not so much any inward thing he speakes of But I yeeld not to this for I suppose it was somewhat inward Rom. 7.23 But the Fathers say he meanes another matter he speakes of men and of the malice of men that would not suffer the Gospell to passe in the world and that for this he saith he dyed daily by the perpetuall hand of those murtherers I cannot goe any where but the malice of men persecutes and followes me so that I cannot rest and if they could trap me once in their snare and make a prey of me I were surely theirs and then I were gone the feare of this makes me dye daily Thirdly another cause that made the Apostle dye daily was the opposition that hee had by Idolaters wheresoever he came Idolaters still laboured to put downe the Gospell As we see at Athens Acts 17. Acts 17.16 The Text saith His spirit was sore troubled when hee saw the City given to idolatry And so likewise when he came to Ephesus they cry Acts 19.28 Great is Diana of the Ephesians Diana the Idoll of Ephesus had like to have cost him his life Therefore the vexation of his spirit to see men fall down to stocks and stones and to forget that loyalty they ought to God Rom. 1.25 To worship the creature in stead of the Creator This made him teare his cloathes and ready to teare his flesh for the vexation of his spirit to see whole Cities so given over Fourthly another cause of this daily death of the Apostle it was the opposition that he had by Witches and Sorcerers wheresoever he came almost the divell would still set some Witch in the place so in Acts 16.17 Acts
16.17 when he comes to Lidia there Sathan had entred into a woman and she having the divell in her Verse 18. uttered these words of Paul and Silas These are the men that teach the way of truth but the Apostle understanding that the divell spake that for some cozening for the hinderance of the Gospell the Text saith he grew into vexation and trouble of spirit and commanded the divell to come out of her Another time he comes to Paulus house Acts 13.8 and there Elymas the sorcerer opposeth him whereupon being moved with griefe he growes to those high termes that he never spake the like language but onely there Verse 10. Thou full of all subtilty thou childe of the divell wâ—lt thou not cease to pervert the right wayes of God these things therefore occasioned him new pangs and brought his death on multiplied his sorrowes and made him say as he doth here in the vexation of his spirit I dye daily For these Idolaters for these opposers for the inward troubles from his own flesh for outward troubles from his own corrupt nation these things so every where beset him that hee could make no evasion or escape Therefore hee sweares By the rejoycing I have in Iesus Christ our Lord I dye daily But the chiefe and maine thing that made the Apostle dye daily to dye upon the nest as it were it was the care of the Churches 2 Cor. 11.28 29 2 Cor. 11. the great compassion he had that great Armado of cares and businesse and toyle that lay upon him As he saith The trouble and care of all the Churches lyes upon me Who is weake and I am not burthened who is offended and I burne not The griefe that he conceived to see men back-sliders to see how hardly men were brought to it and how ill they lived in their profession that they lived not answerable to their calling in Christ to see men fall from grace to this world as he saith of Demas He hath forsaken me 2 Tim. 4.10 and imbraced this present world these strange alterations and turnings in the Church of God did so vexe and trouble and grieve his spirit that he could take no rest or repose in any thing in the world but was as a dead man free among the dead and he cryes out here I protest by the reioycing I have in our Lord Iesus Christ I dye daily I dye daily This is a great aggravation of the miserie To dye is the bane of nature the horrible of horribles which none of us all can indure to heare of the least approach of it casts us into infinite feares and horrour but to dye daily to know no end of death no period to determine it but to be in the continuall act of dying here is the height of all the patience of the Saints As they dye so they dye daily there is no time that shines perfectly cleare to them but all is in cloudes and disasters and misfortunes here I dye daily Every day brings its burthen with it that as we begge our daily bread so there is a daily death and we have not such assurance of our daily bread as we have of our daily death Men often by fasting pull downe themselves and keepe downe their bodies that they eate not their bread but there is no day but a Christian tasts of death Though hee have no taste of bread or any rellish of victuals yet hee shall be sure to taste of death I dye daily as though my life were of steele and my bones of marble as though this short threed of mine were of Adamant so thy terrours worke upon me Like a moath that frets a garment and leaves nothing but flockes and dust and ruine of the goodliest garment so the terrors of God the terrours of conscience the terrours of the world the discontents and feares the malice of the divell the malice of some false brethren and the falling away of others these things did so worke upon him and so vexe him that they did even bring him to nothing that there was no houre but it was full of distraction and perturbation I protest by the rejoycing I have in Christ Iesus our Lord I dye daily This daily death is the generall condition of Gods Saints Saint Paul suffered it not alone but he left it also as our inheritance he dyed daily and we may say who doth not dye daily He that knowes Christ and hath a will to follow him he shall finde his life in this life to be a continuall death wrastling with him and tyrannizing over him as Iob saith My soule rather desires strangling Iob 7.15 than to live as I doe Saint Paul had his death and the ministers of the Gospell now have their death and though they live in a time of peace and plenty yet they want not their death to gnaw on them The envy of men the malice and slander and villanous reports whereby they defame and disgrace their brethren to the pit of hell the non-proficiencie of men their scorning of the word these are as death to a man that is sensible of God or of his government The Apostle seemes to make all the day being divided into two parts to be a continuall dying The day is either naturall or artificiall and both these are full of deaths the day naturall is that we worke in and sleepe in the day artificiall is that onely which we worke in in the common course of nature and in both these there were deaths to the blessed Apostle In the day time the time of worke I dye daily in all the passages of my life in all the practises and exercises of religion whether it be Prayer Meditation or Teaching and admonishing the people In all these exercises I dye daily In my prayers I dye with coldnesse and dulnesse I have not zeale to wing my affections to God In my preaching I dye with weakenesse and neglect I cannot set forth that glorious word as I ought to doe In my Meditations I dye with sluggishnesse and lazinesse that I cannot hold on my beginnings in that course In my Meate and drinke and other refreshings I dye I am eyther too excessive or else too superstitiously vaine and fearefull Nay in that very time of the day wherein nature brings rest and repose in the time of night when I should sleepe and rest I dye in my very sleepe That is full of startling dreames and fearefull phantasies and perturbations to vexe my soule so that every day I dye whether it be in that part of the day which is for worke or that which is for rest every where I dye When the Sunne shines it is as a blazing starre that opens the day to mischiefe and discomfort When the Moone appeares it is as a Commet or candle to waken me to distracted thoughts The Stars are as so many clouds that drowne me in darkenesse My houres are as Iobs messengers that bring mee sad reports
renew reforme and regenerate our spirits it is impossible but that flesh should speake of flesh and should savour the things of the world and not the things of God that it may be carried with a full swing after its owne impieties grow worse and worse and never leave sinning till at last it sinke in sinne and the pit close her mouth upon it Let us therefore be warie in following the tract of our forefathers If they were naught we have no reason to insist in their steps except it be in good except it be according to the wayes of God according to the holy pathes of the Almighty For it followes not that because sinne hath beene predominant in all ages that therefore we should use it now It followes not that because women have prancked themselves in pride and made themselves the Idols of the world that therefore the daughters of Sarah should doe it now It followes not that because drunkennesse hath beene a common vice heretofore that therefore men should hunt and follow after it now We have no reason to follow our ancients in ill customes except wee will chuse to perish in those ill customes Therefore the Apostle bringeth an ancient stale sinne and useth the same sentence Let us eate and drinke for to morrow we shall dye To eate and drinke are the most essentiall necessaries of our nature the supporters of our being and there is no life but the Lord hath appointed it to be sustained by these two proppes Eating and Drinking Eating to supply the dryer and more sollid part of the body and drinking to moysten to bee a coach and conveyance for the meate that we eate to be a cooling and refrigeration of the heate of the body And in both of them God hath set his blessing that by eating and drinking the life of man should bee preserved and prolonged in some to forty in some to fifty in some longer by many yeares by the blessing of the Almighty Therefore to eate and drinke so farre as to recreate the body to refresh the spirits to strengthen us in our functions and callings to incourage us to give thankes to God who is our feeder eating and drinking be as necessary as living But the eating and drinking here intended and spoken of Let us eate to surfetting let us drinke to drunkennesse let us eate and drinke to excesse to study these things onely for satiety and gurmandizing and that fulnesse that may confound nature and drowne the spirits of men and not build them up in the feare of God and in thankfulnesse to him this is that they meane here Let us eate so as that we may over-eate let us drinke so as that we may drowne our understandings in drinke When men cannot tell how to use the gifts of God moderately they cannot eate as other men eate but as monsters they cannot drinke as moderate men drinke but as spunges that devoure all within their compasse that their bodies many times are so full of ballast that the whole ship is lost even in the harbour it is not able to hold all the water but sinkes under the burden and is made a spectacle of misery to God to Angels and to men to insult over This brutish eating and drinking savours of bestiality Eating and drinking it is the meere felicity of the beast in this world As Cornelius Tacitus saith well some men are like beasts and goe no further if you give them a little fodder they will lye slumbering and be idle and take no further care such are those people Psal 17.14 Tertul. whose belly God fils with his hid treasure those whose belly is their God as Tertullian rightly describes them Their stomacke is their Altar Their belly is their God Their Priest is their Cooke Their holy Ghost is the smell of their meate Their graces of the spirit are their sauces Their Kitchin is their Church and Temple And that Aculiculus the most filthy part of al the body is their great and admired Idoll As the same Father goeth on Thou saist thou hast faith hope and charity Thy faith is boyling in the kitchin Thy charity is in thy Caldron or pot Thy hope is in those divers dishes brought to thy table Thus Tertullian hath described the condition of these kinde of brutish men And we see that in ancient times before men had the knowledge of Almighty God they placed a great happinesse in this one poynt of eating and drinking to make themselves bruit beasts without understanding as Saint Peter cals them 2 Pet. 2.12 2 Pet. 2.12 unreasonable brutish beasts Insomuch as one great King among them when he dyed commanded this Epitaph to be set upon his tombe This I have that I have eaten and drunken all the rest is lost that I have all the rest is left and forsaken Tully Aristotle which as Tully saith well out of Aristotle what other thing then this could have beene set upon the tombe of an Oxe or bruit beast to say I have nothing else but that I have eaten but that I have consumed and driven into my paunch and so into the draught that I have and no possession else But Christians have another language those things we have that we have learned out of Gods word the wisedome that we have gotten of heaven and heavenly things these things we have left us when our life leaves us and nothing remaines but the portion of these Those that have read any thing of the Poets they know what was the common language of seduced nature When God left them to their owne dregges miserable poore creatures they had no further aymes and intents then these transitory and perishing things the filling of their bellies whose belly is their God whose end is damnation as the Apostle saith Phil. 3.18 Phil. 3.18 Whose glory is their shame and such was the glory of all the heathen Another of them said Eate drinke and play for after death there is no pleasure Ede bibe lude post mâ—rtem nulla voluptas Horacâ— there is nothing remains Another comes in with his vye and saith The Sun indeed may rise and set and rise againe but when our night comes once the night of death we sleepe for ever and there we lye and there is no more to be heard of us Another of them saith We must ease our youth and take the benefit of it as a flower because it runnes away with a swift foot And another saith use thy pleasures now for thou knowest not whether ever they will come againe thou knowest not whether ever after thou shalt have opportunity to enioy them Thus this beastly congregation of brutish swinish people they apprehended with the greatest industry that could be these vile pleasures of eating and drinking as though there were a necessity of pleasures in this life and that the greatest pleasure consisted in the palate in consuming of meate and drinke According as this wicked crew which the Apostle
way whereby God wakeneth sinners When he cannot do it with a still voyce then he useth jogging and pinching As those that will not be awaked with speaking or with calling easily on them we use to jogge them and to rubbe them and sometime to give them a pinch that by that meanes at least they may be brought unto watchfulnesse Thus God doth when he sends calamities and adversities when hee pincheth a man in his fortunes when he pincheth a man in his estate when he pincheth a man in his good name And these are stronger voyces then the former when he toucheth the body and flesh of a man as Sathan said concerning Iob Touch his flesh and thou shalt see what is in him Job 1.11 so God seeth especially what is in a man when he comes thus neere him then he begins to seeke the Lord then he begins to waken from that dulnesse and slumber that he hath contracted by his sinnes and he returnes with full strength of spirit and affection to God that he may not againe fall from him So that adversities are to be accounted as so many pinches and touches from the Lord and when adversities befall us in any part of our estate let us acknowledge This is because I am asleepe the Lord now sends this to rowse me Let me hearken to the voyce of him that calleth me and that will bring me out of this sleepie humour to my right sences againe Lastly another way whereby God awakeneth sinners is by strong cryes and clamours When adversities will not work then the Lord gives a man over to great and extreame persecutions of his own soule so that the conscience cryes out and the inward heart of a man misgives against himselfe that he is filled with feare and horrour that his bones waxe old with the disquiet of his heart Psal 32.3 and by reason of his roaring that he is troubled in soule and spirit as the Prophet David saith that he hath no part of sanitie or health in his members Psal 38.5 but all is turned to stench and corruption by reason of his foolishnesse This is that mighty clamour that God raiseth in the heart of a man and makes an allarum bell to sound to ring him home to God by force because gentle meanes will not serve the turne As for foolish men when they looke upon these pinches in the world they consider them as casuall matters a worldly man considers them as matters of fortune as accidentall things which he might have avoyded if he had beene carefull But now when the conscience of a man is troubled Prov. 18.14 a troubled spirit who can beare Then these inward clamours of the heart appeare outwardly in the countenance in the gestures and behaviours of a mans body As we see in Ahab himselfe the clamour of the murther of Naboth it so rung in his eares that it made him hang downe his head like a bulrush 1 King 21.27.29 and to go clad in sackcloth it made him so humble himselfe that God yeelded for that feigned repentance much pittie and commiseration in this life So much for the action Do you awake It is true it is Almighty God that must waken us and if we be not wakened by him we for ever slumber unto death For he that alway sleepes shall never rise againe it being the brother of death Therefore as that fellow said when he killed a sleeping man and came to answer the fact before the Emperour saith he I found him dead and I left him dead he thought it a sufficient satisfaction that hee was asleepe and therefore dead I say therefore although God must raise us by his owne power and it belongs to him onely to raise us yet when we have received the power of grace we can then heare the call of God and understand when he summons us and then we have power to rowse up our selves Not of our selves for all our power is from him yet wee have not received the grace of God so in vaine as that it should not worke For grace is of a working nature when it is once ingrafted and received Therefore let us take heed that we receive not the grace of God in vaine but let us cooperate with it 2. Cor. 6.1 and let us give that regiment and government to the graces of the spirit that we have received in the full extent and latitude of it By this meanes wee shall be capable of this instruction and exhortation when he saith Awake you A man must not say it lyes not in my power to awake it is God that must waken me let God worke it if he will and if he will not it is not my fault because I cannot do it This is absurd blasphemy For we have received a talent of God and if we will use it wee may bring it to his will and make it some way answerable to his command Therefore awake God hath done his part he hath called thee he hath pinched thee he hath raised clamours and cryes in thy conscience therefore hearken to his voyce resist it not hearken to him that calleth from on high and awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead and Christ shall give thee light Now follows the manner how wee must awake and the tearme whereto Awake sufficiently which I take to bee the best sence It is true as Saint Chrysostome and Beza Beza saith A man were better be asleepe still Chrysost then to watch to wickednesse therefore the Apostle bids them wake to righteousnesse or else to sleepe still As Cato Cato was wont to say to his servants Either do some thing some businesse or sleepe againe So it is in the house of God a man were better not to be awaked then to spend his time idlely or to spend his time in mischiefe and wickednesse there shall bee lesse condemnation to a slumbring sinner then to an active sinner that runnes on in the functions of wickednesse and toyles himselfe in the divels service there is none desperate as he Therefore as Beza saith Awake unto righteousnesse that is the true watching A man awakes indeed when he awakes to worke when hee wakes to do the actions of a living man and so you you shall bee truly raised from the sleepe of sinne when you do the worke of righteousnesse For this is the tearme whereto God hath called you not to drowsinesse to a slumbering lethargie but to nimblenesse of spirit to be active in your operations But I take it the most true and sensible exposition is that which Saint Basil Basil gives 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Awake worthily that is Awake sufficiently competently to wake so as a man never intends to returne to sleep againe As Saint Austin saith upon that place Aug. Awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead and Christ shall give thee light Behold saith he it is not enough for a man to wake but
neighbourhood of men we are to imagine that some know God and feare him though some do neither Therefore let us labour to make much of Vse and to keepe this admonition and reprehension that the children of God that do well may not bee discouraged and that others may not bee permitted to do evill nor suffered to go on in their foolishnesse But that there may be a difference made and yet no particular set down For here the Apostle doth not name them but he leaves it to their owne breasts to consider of He chargeth them not maliciously to make them scandalous to the world for that way hee might have made them desperate but he leaves them to God that knows them The Lord knows that all are not alike among you that there is a company among you that are of the same profession that are not equall to the rest in the knowledge and feare of God But he doth not name them because he would leave them to repentance to commune with their owne hearts Psal 4 4. that every one might examine his owne conscience whether he were the man or no. And lastly he concludes all with which I will consider I speake this to your shame That is I desire not any way to destroy you but to build you up whatsoever I can do or whatsoever I am appointed to do in the Lords worke it must be to edification and not to destruction There is a certaine shamefastnesse whereby a man is wonne to God It is an excellent beauty in a man or woman to be modestly shamefast to blush at that which is unseemely to be afraid of that which is unhonest The forehead being the seat of shame and the cheekes the testimony What is received from the Rainbow above appeares in colours beneath and is reflected on the lower clouds These testifie for God of the temper of the heart and affections God hath put a law of difference within men whereby they are able to discerne betweene good and evill And this shamefastnesse if it were well mannaged it would bring a man by the grace of God to loath sinne and to be circumspect of his wayes But wee take a course in the world to overwhelme this shamefastnesse and to make this modest shamefastnesse meere clownishnesse There is no man so farre from brave and Courtly behaviour as a blusher those that have shamefast affections those that have a divine touch and tincture of holinesse in their face there are none accounted so base as these And men now will prescribe certaine ages how long men may be ashamed and after that they thinke it is a shame to bee ashamed It is true that it is a shame for a man to do that which is shamefull but never to be ashamed for it for as long as there is shame in man there is hope of grace there is hope of conversion that he will turne it shewes that he cannot endure the burthen of that that is shamefull A man that blushes would faine be out of the roome where he is he would faine quit the company he would not heare such things as he he areth nor see such objects as he seeth for a man is loath to bee noted for one that is conscious in any kinde Therefore the grace of God seconding this naturall affection if wee bee carefull to maintaine it in our selves it would bring us to a happy condition to be one spirit with the Lord. For so we are when wee hate that which hee hates and when wee love that which he loves when we would not have that in our selves or in our friend or in our company which â—od likes not of It is a gracious complexion which is to be maintained and cherished the grace of God would bring it to this perfection if it were maintained in us But this impudent looke this base behaviour and such as the devill hath devised to take away shame from men it is this that hath brought men from all their glory and made them to fall as bruit beasts into all manner of sinne without shame or conscience I speake this to your shame And I hope there is shame and grace left in you that you will not despaire for I speake it to winne you not to destroy you Let this shamefastnesse put you in minde what you ought to have beene and make you ashamed of what you are in respect of what you should be and so let it be a meanes to reduce you As the wise man saith there is a certaine shame and confusion of face that brings a man to the grace of God Almighty namely when he is ashamed of himselfe and his courses and opens his wants and confesseth his sinnes unto God that he is not able to indure his wants There is another shame unto ruine when men do that which is evill and harden their foreheads and have sinnowie and steely necks such as are without feare or compunction As the Lord speakes of his people that they had made their faces of brasse Jsa 48.4 and their necks of steele When there is such a fearful conclusion as this it makes a man or woman the sonne or daughter of shame and confusion Therefore let us intreat the Lord God to worke these naturall affections in us and to sanctifie them to us and they will teach us many things These nâ—turall affections of feare and joy and sorrow and shame these naturall things being in us if God rule them if God sit on them and ride upon the asse they will carry him into Ierusalem by the mercy of God Let us take heed that we maintaine these things that we may have the knowledge of good and evill shining in our consciences that accordingly we may beare it in our countenance For when a sinner is ashamed he comes naked and confesseth his fault before God and his brethren and entreats the mercy of the one and the love of the other that God may take away his afflicting hand and that his shame here may keepe him from eternall shame in the world to come Which the Lord grant FINIS 1 COR. 15.35 But some man will say how are the dead raised with what kinde of bodies do they come Foole that which thou sowest is not made alive except it dye THis is the question of an idle and ignorant man to which the Apostle frames an answer Foole that which thou sowest c. Here begins that marvellous part of this Chapter Which containes a plaine declaration of the rising of the dead from naturall arguments So that all the body of nature doth preach a resurrection to us and there is no one change or vicissitude in the things of this world but it hath some steppe of this doctrine in it This is that which the Apostle declares throughout to the end of the Chapter And as Austin saith all the frame of nature doth make open proclamation of the certaintie of this doctrine Aug. if we attend to the voyce
written in expresse words yet by the Spirit of God and by the demonstration God gave unto the world of Christ the later part was written as well in the mindes of men by the finger of the Holy Ghost as the former part was written in Gen. 2. But I take it the best sense of it is this and so the later Divines hold that the meaning of the Apostle is to make a comparison that as it is written the first Adam was made a living soule so I averre that the last Adam was made a quickning spirit So that the word It is written is to be understood of the first part onely and not of the later but the other I averre by the Spirit of God and by the power of the Gospell So that there is no man that need doubt of it hereafter but that there is infinite difference between the first and the second Adam To come to the sense of the words because I have been too troublesome in this I will be briefe The first man was made a living soule As if he should say he was made in a mutable changeable manner of perfection and it was in his owne free will to have stood and kept close to God if he would have been constant For then he should never have died But because hee would be trying conclusions and fall from his Maker therefore hee was animal a living soule although God made him for another purpose if he would have kept the place God set him in Secondly he was made such an animal as stood in need of second causes hee stood in need of meat and drink of rest and labour and sleepe and such things as these Thirdly he was made a living soule not a life-making soule living in himselfe but not giving life unto others But the Sonne of God was made a quickning Spirit not onely to have life in himselfe but to give life unto all his followers So that Adam took life but he could not give it Christ took life as being man from the Deity and he gives it as being God not onely the life of nature but the life of grace and glory And so he became in every thing a quickning and glorious Spirit The first Adam was made a living soule That is worldly minding the world looking to the earth he was to dig the earth to delve in the garden he was made for that purpose and for other worldly purposes Toward the center was his aspect but Christ was of another making hee was all for spirit all for heaven and heavenly affaires for the businesse of his Father for the reclaiming of soules for the pardoning of sinnes for the working of miracles for the gracious concurrence of those sweet principall meetings of mercy and truth which meet together in him So that the difference by this time appeares manifestly It is said Adam was made a living soule that is to have life in himselfe but not to diffuse and extend it to any other Christ Iesus was made the author of life and of all that we all hope for and pray for of life eternall of happinesse and glory But here are divers questions to be resolved which I will but propound and name unto you and so passe them ouer Quest 1 First it may be demanded because it is said that Adam was made a living soule and that Christ was made a quickning spirit whether Christ were not a living soule as well as Adam and whether Adam were not a quickning spirit as well as Christ And certainely these things are true if we take them in their kinde they be both true For Christ was not onely made a quickning spirit but he had a body as Adam had and hee was a living soule as well as Adam And Adam was not onely made a dull and dumpish thing given unto worldly matters but he was made a quick although not a quickning spirit Therefore for the first we must understand that it is true that the Lord Christ was made a living soule as well as Adam For there is a grosse errour of Eunomius Eunomius which thought that Christ had no reasonable soule but that his Divinity was his soule that it was in stead of a soule and that hee had no other soul but that This is a monstrous abortion for if Christ had not taken our whole nature hee had not saved our whole nature Now the best and chief part of our nature is the soule and it was the soule chiefly and principally that Christ came to save Therefore it is certaine that he tooke our soule as well as hee tooke our flesh and so was made a living soule as well as Adam And it appears also by this in that he had two wills in him as he had two natures the nature of God and the nature of man united in one person So likewise he had two wills the will of God and the will of man yet he subjected alway the lower will unto the higher Not my will but thy will be fulfilled not as I will but as thou wilt But the will of his manhood appeared in this thas as he was a man he was afraid of death Mat. 26.42 he desired that the cup might passe from him he would not have died at that instant yet as he was alway obedient to God the Father he desires that the upper will might prevaile and saith Not my will but thine be fulfilled Let the will of God prevaile and let the will of man be ruled and over-ruled Therefore as Christ had two wills so he had two natures and by consequent the full nature of God and man Or else if hee had not taken the soule of man as well as the body hee could not have delivered the whole nature of man the principall part whereof is the Soule But here is the difference although Christ were made a living soule as Adam was yet hee was more than so hee was not made for that purpose as an ordinary living soule but he had an accession of the glory and grace and strength of the Deity to make this living soule sublimate to perfection to make it capable of unspeakable mysteries which Adam had but in a poore pittance in a low condition hee had a living soule indeed well qualified and adorned with innocencie and the power of originall justice and a power to have life and grace and immortalitie if hee had kept and continued in the commandement but he had no higher matters hee had nothing in him whereby of necessitie he might abstaine from sinne but that he might sinne and be damned for it But in Christ there was an absolute necessitie of holinesse and perfection and of all the parts in him which was not in Adam Quest 2 For the second Question whereas it is said Hee was a quickning spirit Apollinarius Apollinarius inferred upon this that he had a phantasticall body and not a true body This is as grosse as the former for if Christ must take
twinckle now for our good Perhaps they will alwayes stand hereafter and never any more looke upon us Let it bee our wisedome therefore to take our moment of time wee know not how our time is laid up in the hands of God we know not whether God will give us another moment after this Let us therefore apprehend this while we have it and let the grace of God worke while it appeares to us and while the motion of the Spirit offers it let us imbrace it because we know not our owne time Indeed in â—he twinckling of an eye the Lord receives a sinner but whether we shall have so much time as the twinckling of an eye to repent in wee know not Let us therefore take our moment for there may be a moment of sudden destruction come upon us and there may bee a time to plague us before our eye can twinckle There may come a time to dazle our eyes to corrupt our understandings and to infatuate our senses before we can twinckle our eye As a man that goes under a rotten house the house falls and destroyes him before hee have time to look So the judgement of God like a mighty mountaine it may fall upon the head of a man and crush his braines and work his sudden destruction before he be sensible of himselfe Therefore let us in the feare of God take all time and let us tell our moments The Lord tels our times hee observes our moments let us take our times and seasons And if we be thus prepared the Lord can work upon us in a moment for he requires no time to work his great works but he brings them to passe in a moment in the twinckling of an eye FINIS SERMONS On 1 COR. 15. Of the Resurrection 1 COR. 15.52 In the last trump for the trump shall blow and the dead shall rise incorruptible and we shall be changed for this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortall must put on immortality IT was a true senteÌ„ce of S. Ierom Ierome that God hath kept the greatest doctrines unto the last times and the chiefest and most marvailous things be reserved for the very last end of the world How the dead bodies should be raised How they should be raised in a moment in the twinkling of an eye How there should be such a mighty collection over all the world by the sound of a trumpet What the trumpet should be whether one or many Who should blow the trumpet who should sound it What should be the sense and signification which the sound of the trumpet should give And what should be the effects and operations that should follow after These are those wonderfull doctrines and strange mysteries which God hath reserved to the fulnesse of time to the very consummation of all things And although every one of us must be raised by the power of that trumpet yet until the time that we heare it with our eares we shall never be able to comprehend it in our senses it being one of those things that are hard of understanding and so hard as perhaps the very Angell himselfe that shall be set to blow the trump doth not yet know what it should be till he come to undertake his office Therefore I pray you that I may give you some more light to understand this darke and obscure Text let us consider some other places of Scripture which doe illustrate this In Mat. 24.25 26. Mat. 24.25 26. our Lord Iesus speaking of this same thing saith The sonne of man shall send forth his Angels with a trumpet with a great sound with a great noise and they shall gather all the elect from the foure windes from the one part of the heaven to the other part of it So that which the Apostle cals here the trumpet that shall blow and the last trump our Lord calls it the Angels trumpet for the Angels shall come in the mighty voice of a trumpet and shall make a collection of Gods people There is another place also that something sets forth this 1 Thes 4.16 1 Thes 4.16 where the Apostle saith The Lord shall come in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a great noise in the voice of the Arch-angell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the noise that sea-men make when they are weighing anchor or when they are doing any great matter about the ship they all give a noise together that their work and labour might meet in one This is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or like the noise that Souldiers make when they goe forth with their Army against the enemy they come with a mighty noise to terrifie the enemy In that noise the Lord shall come downe He shall come downe with the voice of the Arch-angell and with the trumpet of God shall he descend from heaven and the dead in Christ shall be raised first So that out of these two places wee have some light added to this present place For Christ tells us that the trumpet shall be sounded by the voice of an Angell St Paul saith there by an Arch-angell But the Scripture useth no great difference of those for the word is used promiscuously oft times in the Scripture St. Paul saith it is the last trump to shew the difference of that from some other But that shall be the last because there shall be no more newes there shall be no more message from God to men any more And the Apostle saith in 2 Thes 4.16 2 Thes 4 16. he tells us it shall be in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a certain generall navall acclamation and crying one to another to help forward the common work The generall salvation must be helped forward by the sides of men So the Lord expresseth it Although indeed he can doe it by himselfe hee can doe it by his word and there is no difficulty and hardnesse in the matter yet because the Lord would have us to conceive the mighty power and work of his right hand hee sets it downe by this As suppose a mighty army of men were setting forward and exhorting one another to break through the strong holds of the enemy or as those that are in a ship when they are about their necessarie affaires stirring up each other to shew themselves men In stopping of holes and leakes or in weighing of anchor or in hoysing up the sailes which is not the worke of one man to doe but of all Therefore the Apostle useth that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here now we begin to come to the manner how the Resurrection of the dead shall be made and how the persons shall be summoned And it shall be by the voice of a strange and wondrous trumpet that shall sound over all the world That as the Roman Emperors used to call their souldiers to fight by the sound of a trumpet and after by the drumme which succeeded the trumpet and is thought to be equall unto them so the Lord shall
in his time yet at last hee shall fall and be conquered by the hand of Caesar and by his prowesse be outed both of his honours and of his life And Caesar himselfe in the height of all that glory that can come upon a man in this world there was never any before him or the like shall bee after him yet hee could not hold his state but he falls into the hands of Conspirators a sort of bloody murtherers that shall kill him in his Counsell-chamber so uncertaine are the smiles of this world that there is no victory constant but still she flies moves and changes her tent and tabernacle from one side to another therefore there can bee no boasting or bragging in these earthly and worldly conquests which hath made the wisest Emperours of the world after they have had a good gale of fortune as they call it after they have prospered a while for feare of crosse blowes after they have left their honours and betaken them to a solitary life to live in Monasteries lest they should have a foule end after such goodly and faire proceedings But in this case in this victory that wee now speake of there is no uncertainty there is no inconstancy to be feared Ianus Temple is shut for ever They had a custome among the Romans they worshipped a certaine god which they thought was the Lord and Tutor of their City which they called Ianus which had in Rome a great Temple the doores whereof stood open all the while they were in warres and shut in all the time of peace and they were so cumbred with warre for 800. yeares together that in all that time the doores of Ianus Temple were but thrice shut they were alway open to shew that the warres were open and therefore they gave their god leave to goe out and in to succour them or else they thought his arme could not reach his power could not extend to their ayde See the ridiculous and foolish vanities of the Heathen when the warres were ceased they shut the doores to keepe in their god there was no use of him then Now this Temple I say for 800. yeares was in all that time but three times shut First in the time of Numa Pompilius Secondly in the time of Tytus Maneus as Tytus Livius saith after the Carthaginian warre And thirdly by Augustus Caesar But when the time shall come when God shall give to this corruption incorruption and to this mortall immortality then there shall be for ever a cessation of warre The Temple of Ianus shall never more be opened it shall be shut for everlasting there shall bee no cause of warre but the people of God shall bee in perfect peace with the Lord and shall live under the defence of his protection they shall live secure for ever Plutarch saith when Philip King of Macedon had gotten a great victory at Cheronia hee wrote to Archimedes and hee used lofty speeches in his letter as being proud and puffed up with his late victory Archimedes replies to him no more but this Sir saith hee you write stately to mee in high termes and I partly know the reason of it but if you will take the paines but to measure your owne shadow you shall find that it is no more that it is no greater nor no larger then it was before your victory You were as great a man then and as many inches about as you are now And it is true in worldly things Chance as they call it is so variable that no man can tell how hee shall begin or how he shall end but in this victory which the Lord vouchsafes us in Christ Iesus it holds not for the victory that we shall have there shall make our shadowes greater and it shall make our persons more honourable and fuller of power and majesty 1. Cor. 15.44 For it is sowen in dishonour it riseth againe in honour It is sowen in weaknesse it riseth again in power The victory therefore that we have in Christ it is not like the victory that Philip the King of Macedon got that his shadow was no bigger then before but this victory in Christ is a great enlarger of man and of all the parts and faculties in him that hee is not like himselfe as hee was before no more then an honourable thing is like a dishonourable or a strong thing is like unto a weake Now to come to the Order Oâ—der of the words read unto you here the holy Apostle explains that which he had said before when hee insulted over death A man might ask what is the reason thou takest upon thee so much seeing death shall conquer thee as well as other men and thou must die as well as the rest that have gone before thee To give a reason therefore of it he shewes that it was no presumption or idle imagination of himselfe but it was a thing conferred unto him by the power of Christ and his Gospel For saith hee I have good reason to insult as I did I know when that blessed time shall come wee shall have no enemies against us If there should be any enemy it should be either death or sinne or the law But there shall be none of these and therefore there shall bee no enemy but a perpetuall end and issue of man for ever There shall bee no death for why because there shall be no sinne for the sting of death is sin and death cannot come upon man but by the wrath of God which is conceived for sinne which being taken away death must needs cease for the worke ending the wages must needs end and the wages of sinne is death But how will you prove that there shall bee no sinne Because there shall be no law for the strength of sinne is the Law and the Lord shall give that glory to the bodies that shall rise that they shall not need any Law but they shall be a law to themselves and every man shall love God and please God not by constraint not by the terrours of the Law and Commandement but from the ducture of his owne free-free-spirit that shall leade and conjoyne and make him one spirit with the Lord. Therefore that which the holy Apostle said before is most constant and true that because there shall bee no enemies then left therefore we may boast in the Lord our God which hath given us perfect victory over all our enemies and there shall be no enemie left because there shall be neither sin which is the grand cause the Arch-enemy of mankind for that is taken away by the righteousnesse of Christ who knew no sinne he that knew no sinne God made him sinne for us that we might be made the righteousnesse of God Mark it saith the holy Apostle that we might be made the righteousnesse of God When was Christ made sinne for us In this miserable life and when shall we be made the righteousnesse of God In that blessed life Therefore
into all the parts of Christs mysticall body in all the parts of the world The communion of Saints is taught us here Christ is alike to every one Our reioycing mine in Asia yours in Europe mine in Ephesus yours in Corinth mine on this side the sea yours beyond the sea My reioycing or our reioycing in our common Lord and Saviour It is ours because Christ is ours because he is the Lilly of the field Cant. 2.1 and the Lilly of the valley he is the Lilly of the field not of the garden a garden is a private place reserved for the particular owner of it but he is the flowre of the field that all passengers may take him up and smell to his sweetnesse He is the Lilly of the valley who conveyes grace and sweetnesse and beauty and maiesty to all that approach him He rules in the midst of the seven golden Candlestickes because his vertue may be equally diffused as lines from the center to the circumference all concurring together in the center So all nations and people in the world have seene the salvation of God because they have met together in the center our Lord Iesus Christ By our reioycing in Christ Iesus our Lord. 3 The ground of this reioycing Here is the ground and foundation Christ Iesus our Lord. Christ is that fountaine from whence all streames If the old man worke death the new man shall worke life and we have put off the old man that we may put on the new that is that wee might be more invested with the one and lesse with the other By our reioycing in the Lord Iesus This common sunne which is the ioy of the world is sometimes ours and sometimes not ours When it riseth to us it sets in another place to another world of people The Antipodes have not the sunne when we have it and againe when they have it we want it because of day and night and intercourse of times For the sunne compassing the globe of the earth must of necessity by interposing the shadow make this difference so that the Sunne is not alway ours although it be the light of the world But the Sunne of righteousnesse is alway ours he is alway above our horizon alway beneath our horizon to the Antipodes as well as to us and to as many as the Lord shall call that Lord is the same he is the bright morning starre that was yesterday to day and for ever the same Heb. 13.8 Apoc. 1.8 He is Alpha and Omega By the reioycing that I have in Christ Iesus our Lord. And herein wee are to observe the causes of this joy for first he is Iesus and then he is Christ and then he is our Lord all this makes up the fulnesse of our joy If he were not Iesus he could not worke this miracle in our frayle tabernacles For as he is God he is called Iesus as he is man he is called Christ He is called Iesus because hee is a Saviour now man cannot save He is called Christ because he was annoynted and God cannot be annoynted It is the property of a man to receive annoynting from a higher thing This makes the fulnesse of our ioy for being Iesus he is able to conferre upon us streames of joy being the omnipotent fountaine of life all that we receive being from him from him we receive grace for grace as it is Ioh. 1. Ioh. 1.16 he being the fulnesse of joy from God the Father at whose birth the Angels sang Glory to God on high ioy on earth to men good will Luke 2.14 It followes therefore that hee is able to worke joy in the spirits of men that he can give light in darkenesse There is nothing difficult to him but his spirit can make all things lightsome he can make a man reioyce in tribulation and affliction as he is Iesus And then Christ that is annoynted Psal 45.7 for hee is annoynted with the oyle of gladnesse above his fellowes And what is that annoynting but the oyle of ioy and gladnesse that is that great fulnesse of ioy wherewith he is annoynted that it should not stay upon the head of Aaron or his beard Psal 133.2 but should runne downe to the skirts of his cloathing that all the body of the Priest should be filled with joy As our Saviour saith to his Disciples that when they came to a house Luke 10.5 they were to salute it and to say Peace be to this house When Christ comes once to a man hee brings joy he is that annoynted one he takes of that oyle of gladnesse and gives it to his fellowes that is to the followers of his salvation Lastly he is our Lord. Therefore he is a good Master and wisheth well to his servants he hath a horne of oyle and he poures it out that Amalthean horne of ioy and comfort and consolation for all the elect of God And hee is willing to doe it for us because we acknowledge him to be our Lord. Therefore we must examine our selves by this whom wee acknowledge to be our Lord. And we shall soone see the reason why we want this joy if a man be under the divell and acknowledge him to be his Lord he hath nothing to give him but misery and terrour and discomfort sorrow and distresse a man can receive nothing else there because he serves a bad Master but if thy Master be Christ the annoynted of God he shall bring thee ioy and peace of conscience and then certainly it will manifest it selfe It will appeare in thy countenance in thy words in thy patience in suffering with Gods Saints it will appeare in all the passages of a mans life that men may perceive that the oyle of grace is poured out upon him and is infused into him and it opens it selfe plainely and manifestly in every thing that passeth from him that is indued with the spirit of God Let us therefore labour which is the last poynt of the Text to preserve the force of this argument 4 The force of the Aâ—gument that we may be sure of our salvation and of our reioycing in Christ And if need be to protest and sweare it to lay it to pledge as a man doth his lands and estate When he would make a thing certaine he infeoffes a man in those things that are most neare and deare to him the best things that he hath So the best thing that the Apostle had it was his reioycing in Christ his comfort of conscience the peace of God which farre transcended his passions and sweetned his afflictions and made him reioyce in tribulation that comfort of Christ that hee had within in his spirit and from abroad by the proficiency of his Schollars to see them grow up in the feare of God in the knowledge of Christ in the profession of the faith this is the reioycing the Apostle speakes of I would that we all had this reioycing espeeially those that stand
in the Apostles place that they would Vse 1 follow his steps to have their reioycing in this one Lord and master to have no ioy in the world or in men in goods and profits in pleasures honours or in preferments which the world usually buyes and sels To have no reioycing in these but as they bee men that belong to God so let them reioyce onely in God And there is all the poynt of gloriation Therefore let not the rich man boast in his riches Ier. 9.23 or the strong man in his strength but let him that reioyceth reioyce in the Lord for it is he that executes iudgement and iustice and that sheweth mercy to those that reioyce in him as the Lord speakes Vse 2 Againe this must teach us to mingle these two together as the holy Apostle doth Reioycing and death we must labour by the study of pleasing Almighty God to keepe this sweet temper in us Wee are sure of the one but we must labour for the other I wonder not when I heare thee say as the Apostle doth here I dye daily for every man doth so there is not the most sensuall man but he hath a touch of death every day eyther by sensible misery or by the touch of conscience by bringing of his sinnes to his view That is incident to nature and a consequent of sinne to dye But what is thy reioycing what comfort hast thou in Christ This is that we should desire and call upon God continually for even to make this temper and mixture in us for the one is as necessarie as the other and God is as ready to give the one as our nature is ready to draw the other upon it selfe And this must be by this one meanes the making Iesus Christ thy Lord knowing no other Lord besides him no nor none against him nor none with him but that he may have the preheminence and be all in all as he is to his children in the world and shall be for ever in another world So thou must make him all thy ayme all that thou desirest all thy gloriation because thou must or canst desire nothing but it is seated in him To conclude with the time here is a modell of a christian mans estate death and life sorrow and ioy he is composed of such strange differences as the understanding of man cannot attaine unto But yet assuredly the Lord is never so heavy to him in iudgment but he is withall rich in mercy sorrow of heart shall never so surround him but he shall have the ioy of the holy Ghost to survive him As Saint Augustine Augustine saith upon that place of Paul Redeeme the time because the dayes are evill I saith he it is true the time in this world is evill but all the dayes that are in Christ are good dayes all the dayes of the Lord are good all the dayes of sinne are evill Let us sell them then he that redeemes parts with one thing to get another Let us sell these evill dayes in this world that we may get those good dayes in the grace of Christ And as Saint Gregory Gregory saith Good Iesus hee that hath thee looseth nothing and though he be in the midst of death yet he shall be recompenced with life although hee be in the midst and swallowed up with sorrow and deepe pangs of conscience yet thy spirit is there to remove that sorrow for though sorrow indureth for a night yet ioy commeth in the morning Psal 30. Psal 30.5 And in thy light wee shall see light thy wrath indures for the twinckling of an eye but in thy pleasure there is life for evermore This is the blessed state that every Christian is called unto and the Lord make it every one of our portions for Iesus Christs sake Amen FINIS 1 COR. 15.32 If I have fought with beasts at Ephesus after the manner of men what doth it availe me if there be no resurrection from the dead THis is now the conclusion of that argument which Saint Paul draws from his owne person For drawing his principall argument from the sufferings of the Church to prove the resurrection of the dead he begins first with the generall and then he descends to the particular and last of all he comes to the personall First the generall was verse 29. What shall they doe that are baptised for the dead Then in the next verse he comes to the Colledge of the Apostles and saith We also are in ieopardy every day And for his owne particular he protests he dyes daily in the verse before the Text. And now he comes to explaine this how it should be taken saith he If I have fought with beasts at Ephesus after the manner of men Because he had spoken of a thing unlikely and unusuall and unwonted and therefore it might be offensive to Atticke eares such as were at Corinth to say that he lived and yet was dead therefore now he tempers his speech and mitigates it by this exposition when he saith He received the sentence of death against himselfe for hee was cast to beasts to fight with them eyther indeed according to the letter as it was a kinde of punishment and torment that the Pagan persecutors assigned the Christians unto or by way of metaphore as many and most of the Fathers of the Church interpret it But how ever the force of the argument is all one For whether he were cast to beasts and suffered to take his weapons and to defend himselfe and so by the mercy of God to escape without hurt from them or whether he meane by fighting with beasts beastly minded men as the phrase of Scripture often insinuates the strength of the argument is all one For often times a man were better bee cast unto beasts then to men there being more mercy and lesse fury in the pawes of the very beasts than in the working braines of men and the malicious conveyances that they have in the world So whether wee take it for beasts literally or for men that were beasts metaphorically the force of the argument is equall For saith he if there were no hope of the Resurrection then I would doe as the world doth and I would say as they say I would accommodate my selfe to all mens humours I would be so farre from casting my selfe into such dangers as to sight with beasts or with beastly men as that I would seeke to recover my owne which I had once being a Pharisie I would live a quiet and peaceable life among my brethren as I did then when I was rather ready to doe others hurt than to suffer any I would much rather choose that state of life than thus to be plagued and plunged and drowned in misery if there were not a hope of a Resurrection but the vigour and life of that hope duls all the pangs in this world and sweetens the cup of affliction which else would eate out my very intrayles If
cast among them to strive and struggle with them to see whether God would favour his cause or no whether he were of a magnanimous spirit or whether he would yeeld and shrinke when he saw the beast come neare him from his faith or no. We cannot imagine that Saint Paul did this seeking to please the people to make himselfe a barbarous spectacle to them or that he did it to tempt God by offering his life to the beasts but he was throwne unto them and compelled to it And it was no disgrace for him then to yeeld to it being forced by the superiour powers So Calvin Luther and Beza are indifferent But many of the Ancients directly expound it according to the letter as that these beasts must be understood to be some kinde of Tygers Leopards or Lyons such things Saint Paul was exposed unto to try the constancy of his faith to try his prowesse and valour to see whether God would deliver him or no. I confesse the number of the Authors are so great and their authority and gifts so excellent as that I cannot deny but that this may be the true sence of this place But yet I rather incline to the other which Saint Chrysostome Saint Augustine Saint Cyrill Tertullian and divers other Fathers doe warrant to us as the best and most proper sence Namely that Paul fought with beasts at Ephesus that is with beastly men men of beastly conditions And there is but one thing difficult in it that is that the Apostle should forget that lenity of spirit in which he useth to speake and that Christ teacheth all men that they should not give an ill or a rayling word Whereas there cannot be a worse word given to a man than to call him beast Our Lord and Saviour Christ saith that he that cals his brother Racha Math 5.22 he that cals his brother foole shall be in danger of hell fire Now he that cals a man foole speakes farre more moderately and modestly than he that cals a man a beast For to call a man foole is still to call him man for there is nothing can be a foole but man or woman for it fals not within the compasse of beasts to bee wise or foolish but still when one is called foole hee is kept in the condition of a man but when a man cals a man beast he is out of the element and latitude of men and compared to a more base and degenerate creature But for this we must understand that our Lord Christ speakes there of the common talke and discourse among Christians and not of that Apostolicall authority not of that magisteriall reproofe that is in the Church and must be to the worlds end For every man may not speake alike a private man must not speake as the Magistrate doth nor every man must not speake as the Minister may speake in reprooving sinne and revealing the will of God And here we must conceive that this that the Apostle speaks it was by Gods spirit dictating it unto him he was the Prophet of God put in that place he spake it not from himselfe but from a greater Therefore to pitch upon this exposition If I have fought with beasts at Ephesus That is with men that had the faces of men but the condition of beasts For this is the common phrase and language of people when a man transcends others in bruitishnesse and cruelty in a base conversation they say he hath put on the beast he hath left humanity and is turned beast For it is mens carriage and conditions that distinguisheth them from beasts So we see the Scripture hath this peculiar phrase when the Prophet speakes Isa 56.10 Isa 56. of Prophets that would not Preach or that preached for gaine he cals them dumb dogs Phil. 3.2 and the Apostle Paul saith Beware of dogges whereby is meant such kinde of men as are prophane as Esau those that returne to their vomit of sinne to their former concupiscence and contemne and scorne all holy things Math. 7.6 yea and our Lord Christ saith Give not holy things to dogges that is to doggish men so the Prophet David often prayes unto God to deliver his soule from the Lyon from the Vnicorne from the Dogge from the Wolfe And so Saint Paul calleth Nero 2 Tim. 4.17 Lyon 2 Tim. 4. The Lord hath delivered me from the mouth of the Lyon that is from the Emperour Nero Luke 13.32 so our Lord Christ called Herod Foxe Tell that Foxe saith he I worke to day and to morrow and the third day I shall be perfect There is nothing more usuall in the Scriptures than this therefore I will not insist to prove or illustrate it any further It is an excellent thing which Chrysologus Chrysologus saith The Scriptures of God make no more account of a man to be a man after he fals to bruitish conditions but reputes him in his ranke among beasts as he is a beast of the field a beast for the slaughter The Scripture cals them divels in the fashion and habite and outward forme of men so our Saviour Christ tels us Iohn 8. Ioh. 8. of a generation of Vipers of a genealogy of divels Ye are of your father the divell saith he which wee know is not to be understood according to the letter but is to be referred to the absurd conditions of men Of which also the Apostle speakes 2 Thes 3.2 2 Thes 3.2 Pray to God for us saith the Apostle for what purpose That we may be delivered from absurd men men that have no nature in them that have no common straine of humanity in them but are altogether degenerated and metamorphosed into beasts pray for us to be delivered from them So that place being compared with this it is cleere If I have fought with beasts at Ephesus that is with men of bruitish natures men that cannot be contampred with at all men of no society but are given over to their fury and madnesse that have no more mercy in them than bruit beasts and must be let goe to their fury as a beast that doth what mischiefe it can without any limitation or respect To passe from this poynt We see what base dejection sinne hath brought on us we that thought to be equall to God Vse as God saith Behold Adam is become as one of us Gen. 3.22 we are now become as the beasts that perish Psal 59.20 as the Prophet David saith Man being in honour understood it not but it become like the beasts that perish Gen. 3.21 And as man fell to bee like a beast so God clad him in the skinne of a beast Our first great grandfather Adam had the skinnes of beasts for his garments to signifie that as they were turned beasts so God gave them an outward habite and vesture to shew them what inwardly they were become This should teach us still to have our eye on that
Have no fellowship with the unprofitable workes of darkenesse This language here this ill language Ephes 5.11 it is called Caba taken from a word used in warre Quaere The Greeke word here is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and indeâ—d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth fearefull cowardly sloaâ—hfull the Cabaly they are flying away still and running backe so in evill there is nothing but trembling and feare and running backe and want of security a man knowes not where to lurke safe therefore he turnes him this way and that way and runs before any man persecute him as the Prophet saith We see the quality now of these Adversaries Now we come a little to their fight how they meete together and who overcomes Corrupt good manners Good manners being well settled in us and comming to be a second nature Thiâ—d poynt the action betwixt Evill words and good manners they corrupt them as it were the spirit of God being our guardian they become impregnable against the divell But if they have a small and slacke guard and are intrenched onely within the bounds of reason and common religion or a perfunctory profession then Sathan is powerfull and the examples of the world are bewitching and a mans owne flesh his owne selfe is false to himselfe and in a moment or short time they make such a battery and assault upon him that all the whole Fort is yeelded to the divell and so evill words corrupt good manners If good words could amend evill manners it were excellent and so sometimes they doe by the blessing of God But on the other side there is a fearefull losse which is frequent and common for wheras once good manners mend evill a thousand times ill manners corrupt good for we have a divellish disposition in us till the Lord worke it out by his spirit and this divell is so false that if we want corruption rather then we will not be corrupted we will corrupt our selves and turne divels to our owne soules For what else are these common and daily fashions that are used in the world but a voluntary seeking after corruption Psal 4.2 as the Prophet saith Psalm 4. How long will ye seeke after lyes All these devices whereby we pamper this flesh of ours they are meer huntings after corruption that though corruption flee from us yet we runne after it and overtake it This pride and prancking of these poore tabernacles we carry about us which are nothing but dust and ashes These extraordinary eatings and drinkings These high surfettings These great and mighty spendings What are these but very voluntary running a whoring after our owne inventions and a seeking to be corrupted And because we thinke there is nothing without us to corrupt us therefore we will have it within us rather than we will want it Bern. 1 Tim. 6.9 Saint Bernard speaking of that place of the Apostle Those that will be rich fall into divers snares oh saith Bernard our rich men if they had heard him they would have wished they had had more snares and thinke themselves miserable because they have not So although they goe to hell they care not if they can but make themselves heavy laden with this thick clay Habac. 2.6 as the Prophet speakes They care for nothing else The like corruption is upon all men and especially in these dayes there was never more corruption of manners than in this last and sinfull age of the world of which the Lord foretold and we by lamentable experience finde it corruption growes so strongly every day The word Corruption signifieth in the best and most common notion to bring a thing to wormes to bring it to lice as the body of Herod by the stroke of the Angell for his proud speech was brought to Vermine and Lice in a moment So all things that are corrupted they grow to a mouldring out of which mouldering there growes wormes if the matter be vegetable or had any life in it corruption being in it selfe a meere alteration to a not being from a being As generation makes a thing to be that was not before so Salvianus Salvianus saith those things that be corrupted are not themselves any longer after they be corrupted So consequently in the manners of men when they be corrupted there is such an alteration and change that a man cannot say that this is the man We see by wofull experience how quicke corruption is that in a short time a man cannot know one to be the same A youth that hath beene educated in the feare of God for fourteene or fifteene yeares and is well grounded and settled in the schooles send him into another part of the world but one halfe yeare and many times all the frame and building of his former education will be utterly ruinate and the party so corrupted that a man would wonder at the beastlinesse and strangenesse of such a fatall change From hence come those frequent complaints every where in the Church of God there are so many blasts of adverse winde so many examples of filthinesse in the world that they change every thing and take away the glosse and beauty and perfection of it and instead of the Image of God they imbrace the picture of the divell and it is done before a man is aware so quickly are we deceived and so soone brought to destruction Bern. As Saint Bernard saith well of such What art thou come to now what a Saint hast thou beene in time past and what a divell art thou now turned too thou begunnest farre better than thou endest and the first time the first part of thy graces were more excellent than thy latter times are Oh what a great change there is how unlike is this man to that childe being a man to thy selfe now when thou wast a childe nothing is more fearfull then this Let our gold and silver corrupt let our garments corrupt let theeves breake through and steale them let all things without us corrupt But let us keepe our manners pure they are our best and choicest treasure that should sit in our mindes and keepe their residence in the Court of heaven in the soule and conscience God forbid that they should be corrupted or if they be let us labour to returne presently to grace wherby corruption may be amended and a reparation made by the Spirit of God Evill words corrupt good manners Where naturall corruption is it comes alway from a kinde of heat from a strange outward heat all corruption whether it be of fruits or the corruption of mens bodies or any other thing it comes with a certaine outward heat which frightens the naturall heat and overcomes it and so works all to a beastly and monstrous disease and so to a meere nothing at last Corruption is made in the tenderest things those that are more solid receive lesse corruption and endure longest As stones and trees because of the hardnesse and firmnesse of their
you you have an ignorance concerning God because you call in question his power in this mighty benefit the resurrection of our bodies And then lastly he concludeth with mildnesse and sharpnesse and mingleth both together I speake this to your shame As if he should have said partly I am ashamed that I have spent so much time and so much labour among you and yet still you are in such waverings as these and are no better perswaded in the omnipotent power of God But as I speake this to your shame so I would not have you despaire but onely to take shame of your fault and so be brought to Repentance I speake it not to bring you to a confusion eternall but to a healthy confusion a confusion that brings conversion that conversion may bring salvation by the mercy of God I speak it not to overthrow you but to waken you that have beene intoxicate in a deepe sleepe by the wicked communication of these men This I take to be the sence of the Text. To proceed in order There are three parts Division into 3. Parts First a counsell or exhortation Then a serious expostulation 1. An exhortation 2. An expostulation 3. An Increpation And lastly a forcible dealing by way of Increpation whereby he doth as it were by an holy violence compell them to enter into the wayes of God and to be reclaimed from their sinnes The first is contained in these words Awake to righteousnesse and sinne not 1 delivered And that First in figure and then In plaine speech The figure in these words Awake to righteousnesse The plaine words follow And sinne not The one interprets the other In the figure there are two things 1 There is an Act to awake out of wine awake out of drinke for so the word signifieth Then secondly there is the tearme and manner whereto they must wake Awake to justice awake to perfection not as men halfe asleep and halfe awake to turne on the other side and take a nappe but to wake fully and freely It is such a waking as a man may be expedite to worke in the function of his life whereunto all waking men are disposed Then in the plaine words or exposition hee shews likewise two things 1 First that sinne is the mother of all errour of all grosse and base communication 2 Secondly that by the grace of God if we work with the grace of God we shall not sinne that is we shall not sinne in that grosse manner as these creatures do Although all men be sinners yet if we will tender the grace of God that is in us we shall so live as that we shall not sinne according to that phrase of Scripture which is afterwards to be expounded namely not with a full consent not with a high hand not to continue in sinne not to despaire in sinne but we shall know that if we do sinne we have a Mediatour of our reconciliation we have a Mediator which is God and Man Christ Iesus 1. Tim. 2.5 1. Iob. 1.1 2. who is the propitiation for our sinnes Then in the second part in the exposition there are two things to be considered First he tels them of their fault 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a word that we cannot well utter in English nor in Latine it is hard to be exprest in both languages to be ignorant of God And then because he would not offend all the company for a fews sake he saith Some of you have not the knowledge of God And then lastly the Application of all to them he saith he speakes it to their shame that is either he was ashamed to spend so much time and labour to so little profit or he spake it to their shame as the common Text reades it I speake it to your shame But yet it is such a speech as is not uttered in a virulent manner to cast them away to make them despaire but to bring them home that they might know what they ought to do for the time to come These are the branches of the Text. Of every one of these as the Lord shall give assistance and but a word of every one because they are common obvious things First it is to be observed 1. Part. The Exhortation Awake c. that the Apostle invites them and cals upon them for waking and for such a waking as if he should speake to a sort of drunkards that were drowned in wine and drunkennesse which is as base a kinde of sleepe as can be For all sleepe naturall of it selfe is justly accounted a meere losse of time the brother of death the field of danger a thing that hath no profit in it that spends one part of our life to no purpose And yet we cannot live without it for the repairing and re-edifying and building up of our bodies againe that were consumed and wasted before with daily labour Now if the naturall sleepe be a loosing of time a loosing of our spirits and a subjecting of us to danger much more then is it in the sleepe of sinne that poysonous sleepe that comes by excesse and drunkennesse These of all other are most dangerous and most hard for a man to bee rouzed out of It is a common thing in Scripture to compare sinners to sleepers and sinne to sleepe There are divers sleepes related in the Scriptures The sleepe corporall of the body and spirituall of the soule The sleepe corporall of the body is either naturall or violent Naturall sleepe is that when the strength of man is weakened and abated and his spirits are againe renewed by a gracious mist and dew that is cast upon the body whereby the naturall spirits the vitall spirits and the animall spirits are refreshed and raised againe to their worke Violent sleepe is either by drunkennesse or disease When nature is overwhelmed by drunkennesse or by disease As by Lethargies or palsies which all worke unto death which is also called sleepe For our Lord Christ saith We go to Lazarus who sleepeth And those that dye in the Lord they sleepe This is naturall sleepe The spirituall sleepe the sleepe that fals upon the spirit of man it is of two sorts in Scripture The one is celestiall and good The other is infernall for hell and hellish purposes Cant. 2.7 The first is that sleepe of the Church I charge you oh daughters of Ierusalem by the roes and by the hyndes that ye wake not my beloved untill she please that is in the meditation of holy things It is a divine rapture whereby the Saints of God have communion and are made one spirit with the Lord. Cant. 5.1 This is called in Scripture a sleepe I sleepe but my heart waketh But that which the Apostle speaks of here is an infernall sleepe that tends to a sleepe of damnation As sleepie diseases nourish death in men and there is no more assured signe that a man shall dye then when he is continually sleeping that he
I have done and I see not how it can be amended and God will not forgive it and therefore they will go forward and make a bad cause desperate This is the height of sinne These things we see it lyes in the power of grace to keepe us from that we sinne not that is by the grace of God wee may so command our spirits as that we shall not study and hunt after sinne nor we shall not sinne with a high hand nor sinne to desperation but if we sinne we do not as the reprobates of the world that cast away all hope and resist and blaspheme God 1. Joh. 2.1 2. but wee have a Mediatour and propitiation for our sinnes the man Christ Iesus Now for that which he objects unto them he tels them They knew not God and hee speakes it to their shame It is a wondrous thing that the Corinthians that were so illuminated and had such knowledge as the Apostle saith Chap. 1. that they had all knowledge 1. Cor. 1.5 and all grace and all strength and yet now hee comes and begins at the very foundation and taxeth them that they knew not God himselfe But we must know in that he said before they had all knowledge and all faith and all grace it is spoken of the better part and the better part denominates the whole As when there is an heape of wheat and chaffe together wee call it an heape of wheat because the understanding of a man takes no notice of that which is the riffe raffe but of that which is good and commendable So Saint Paul because many of them were illuminated hee gives them a title exceeding and saith they had all knowledge and all learning and abundance of all grace In the meane time he meddles not with these that were the worst and the poorest that were fallen from their knowledge and had blinded themselves in sinfulnesse He saith therefore Some of you have not the knowledge of God Where we are to consider First that he that doth not yeeld unto God in all the parts of his Word he doth not know God he that knows not God as he would be knowne he knows him not at all A man were as good to make no profession of God as not to give him the full extent of his owne declaration Whatsoever it hath pleased God to promise to them that belong unto him he will certainly performe it 2 Cor. 1.20 he cannot lye all his promises are Yea and Amen in Christ Iesus Therefore those know God that know him to be al-sufficient and true of his promise and they that know him otherwise and know him not that way they know him no way So that it is not for any man to take to himselfe a singular dexteritie of knowledge except he yeeld unto the written word of God Many men take upon them to be the onely wittie men to be singular in all sciences and that the knowledge of all belongs to them and yet they know nothing Why because they doubt of the prime and chiefe things they make a doubt whether Christ be the Mediatour of intercession as he is of satisfaction or no they make a question whether we may pray to Saints and Angels or no they call in question how the body of Christ is determined in the Sacrament and this article of the Resurrection of the dead they make it a disputable case When men will thus dispute and jangle away their faith they corrupt their knowledge and when they thinke they know all things they are meere ignoramus that are not seene at all in these things And no marvell for God saith the things that hee hath laid up for his children they passe the mindes of these men They are such as eare hath not heard 1. Cor. 2.9 nor eye hath seene nor hath ever entred into the heart of man to conceive Flesh and bloud will speake of the things belonging to it selfe it cannot attaine further These earthly mansions can take in no more then is vouchsafed them and no more then they use well when they have received it But when men will blinde themselves they fall into absurdities from better to worse and from worse to worst of all Let us take heed how wee bragge of knowledge Vse In our Church by the blessing of God we have had as great light as any part of the world none comparable but when we begin by our base manners and evill lives to fall from the service of God to our pleasures there is nothing so blindes our understandings nothing casts such mists and vapours into the world as this and at last it resolves into a meere sencelesnesse That he that when he was an apprentise when he was a yong man understood the grounds of Religion and was able to give a reason of his faith now when he comes to be an old man he is growne a meere butterflie of a laborious silkworme Hee is growne a very bruit meerly sencelesse by reason of the cares and pleasures of this world For when a man fals into sinne it breeds an oblivion of God and from that it brings a man to a meere ignorance of him Therefore if we know God let us follow him as our guide It is to no purpose for us to have a guide and to know him if we go one way and he go another but herein is our wisedome to follow our guide to yeeld to his blessed word to hope and put confidence in his promises for our guidance and direction and to disclaime and forsake our selves and all things else Col. 3.11 that we may be onely his who is all in all Secondly observe when the Apostle layes this imputation upon them he restrains it and saith Some of you Vse Men should be carefull how they cast aspersions a Church especially upon a whole Church as Corinth was We must speake so that offence may not bee taken that we do not lay the fault of a few upon all A man must not be so base that because two or three of a profession live ill to say that therefore all do so because some few are ill neighbours that therefore all the street is so No but we must lay the fault to the right owner every person must answer for himselfe The Church is still to be presumed to know God In this Congregation although there were fewer understanding people then there are yet he that should say All this people were without the knowledge of God were blasphemie There is no Congregation of the people of God but they know God and they feare God and love God and though some do not so yet the better part do the select number that God hath where his word is preached they both know him and feare him Still therefore we are to comprehend the Church in this that she knows God and that she loves God And as the Church universall so in particular Churches in parishionall Churches in every company and
make them wither there shall be no griefe of heart no discontent of minde to make an alteration in the outward man there shall be nothing to make a change because God shall crowne them in heaven with incorruption And lastly the Lord shall give them another quality which shall be the rarest of all the rest And that is a strange agility and nimblenesse of body that they shall be able to move upward or downward as it shall please them While we are here in this life we have heavy bodies a man must walke upon his owne foundation hee must have the scaffold of the earth under him But if hee presume any further and offer to go any higher with Daedalus and with Icarus he shall be cast into the sea hee exposeth himselfe unto danger and his waxen wings will be fired by the beames of the Sunne But then at that day though our bodies in all things substantiall shall be like these and shall still bee true bodies yet the glory of them shall be so great and the strength and power that the spirit shall have over this flesh shall be so absolute as to command it which way it pleaseth When we move now either we go forward or backward or side-wayes or else downward but upward we cannot but then the Lord shall give us ability to move upward too And this is that the Apostle saith we shall be taken we shall bee snatched up to meete the Lord in the clouds 1. Thes 4.17 there shall bee such a mightie power and prevalencie in the spirit of man to rule and command the body The Lord hath given us instances of it in some things in the Gospell Mat. 14 26.29 Our Lord himselfe walked upon the water and not onely he himselfe but he gave Peter power to walke with him And this was a signe of that he meanes to do at the day of the Resurrection As their bodies then walked and were sustained by the power of God in the ayre and was able to make that which is fluent and soft and yeelding in it selfe to make it a sollid pavement like unto the stones to walke upon the same power shall also worke in our bodies that agilitie which is in the Eagle So the Prophet speaks yea our Lord compares us where he saith Where the body is Mat. 24.28 thither will the Eagles resort which is meant not onely of a spirituall flight by faith but also of the bodies assumption And this our Lord confirmed by the Ascention of his owne body Iob. 14.2 for he went before to prepare a place for us that beleeve in him Now we know that his body ascended to heaven it had the power to move upward as well as any other way We have examples of it also in Henoch and Elias which were both translated Elias carried in a fierie Car to heaven 2. King 2.11 And all this with eternitie and immortalitie that there shall not any thing of it passe away there shall be no expectation of death there shall be no feare of change This is the greatest thing of all when God shall give fulnesse of glory to have also full security For whatsoever glory men have in this world so long as they know that there is a worme â—hat can gnaw it or that it is possible for them to be outed this glory is nothing because it is glory that may be no glory Such is the state of these worldly things that there is nothing so great but it is subject to be brought from that greatnesse But the Lord shall give this glory for ever and ever as himselfe is he that is eternall in himselfe he is eternall to all those that he shall make his followers and companions in that blessed kingdome For they also shall receive that part of eternitie as farre as they are capable It is this safetie and securitie that makes this blessing amiable and for that the Lord hath given us an example for securitie in Scripture where for forty yeares together in the wildernesse the Lord so provided that there was no mans cloaths that were rent or worne not so much as the soale of his shoe impaired by that long and tedious travell We see also they had securitie of food continually it never ceased to follow them but in convenient time was still administred to them Therefore it follows that God that can do these things for garments for these ragges that we weare upon our bodies he meanes much more to do it to the bodies themselves As Christ saith Is not the body better then rayment Mat. 6.25 then garments Seeing therefore that he did it unto garments that are of farre lesse worth will hee not do it unto the bodies themselves He that kept their garments 40. yeares without wearing and yet what weares so soone as a garment he was able to have done it for eternity if it had pleased him But God gave them that for an instance to shew that these things belong in a higher nature and degree and measure to the setting forth of the lifâ—â—ternall and were to foreshew and to be an earnest of that infinite glory which God hath reposed for them that wait for the comming of his Sonne Which the Lord worke for us all c. 1 COR. 15.39 All flesh is not the same flesh but there is one flesh of man there is another flesh of beasts another of fishes and another of fowls THere is nothing more plain and easie then the sence of these words they are knowne to every man by experience And yet it is very hard to finde out the intent and reason why they were uttered Divers men have diversly commented upon them For some think as Tertullian Tertull. others that follow him that the Apostle speaks not as he seemeth to do of the flesh of beasts and of the flesh of men and of fishes and birds but by an allegorie comprehends some other thing concerning the diversitie and degrees of men And so he interprets The flesh of men that is of holy and just and good men There is one flesh of men that is of holy men for they are properly to be called men A man so farre forth as he is unholy so farre forth he comes short of a man and those are onely truly and really men that be good And then by the flesh of beasts he saith the Apostle meanes the flesh of beastly heathen men the flesh of Ethnicks of those that do not beleeve in God those that do not beleeve in Christ the Saviour of the world He saith such are beasts for they differ not world He saith such are beasts for they differ not from beasts neither in their sence nor in their conversation Then for the third there is another flesh of fishes he saith by fishes are meant those that are baptised and regenerate by water the fishes of our Lord Iesus Christ Mat. 4.19 whereof he said to his disciples I will make
deserved well in this world were turned into starres and so they imagined Hercules and Antonius and Arctophilax and a great number of toyes and trifles that they devised as though the starres were the bodies of men or that they were persons of a spirituall substance But the Lord teacheth us that they are no earthly bodies they are things that were created in the first beginning and they are bodies which notwithstanding seeme to be nothing lesse then bodies they seeme to be spirituall things to be spirits rather then bodies being of such a swiftnesse and of that rare operation and brightnesse Yet the Lord tels us that they are bodies that is that they have a kind of earthlinesse in them they have a kinde of matter in them For although they be farre different from these inferiour things from these inferiour bodies yet in respect of the first Creator they are but bodies For there is but one spirit there is but one pure Spirit which is God himselfe All things else have a kinde of dreggie matter in them which makes them bodies the bodies which are heavenly that is the starres are bodies because they are visible because they are circumscribed because they have figure and proportion and they are bodies because they are kept within a certaine compasse and limit Whence it follows that seeing they are bodies therefore they are not to be worshipped as the Heathens used to do and as the Indian people at this day worship them but hence we see they ought not to bee worshipped Why even because they are but bodies nay they are insensible bodies they have not sence to guide them So that for all their puritie and the use they are of to the world yet in the perfection of life they are not comparable unto the beasts of the field for the beasts of the field that have sence are more perfect in their kinde then the Sunne in the firmament Eatenus because to have life and sence is a better kinde of being then to be without it The starres are bodies without sence they are bodies without soules and they are over-ruled by other things or else as they bee bodies they could not possible rule themselves Now these goodly bodies how they should bee carried up and downe every 24. houres after what manner whether they flye as the birds in the ayre so they in their spheares and orbes or whether they swimme as the fishes in the sea as divers men have imagined a man would thinke that one of those wayes they must needs be moved but it is certaine they do neither of them For they have a mighty power that God hath given them and the Angels execute this power and they turne the whole globe over Psal 104.2 as the Psalmist saith where he cals it the curtaine of heaven which is bespangled with stars and the whole curtaine is turned over together as an Ancient or Flagge displayed that is imbossed with gold all the whole compasse and circumference is moved together or as a woman when she turnes the rimme of a wheele about both the circle and the center are moved together and so all the wheele moveth round together so the power of the Angels move the celestiall bodies by the appointment of God that in twenty foure houres they compasse the whole earth which is as much in effect as if a bird should flye fifty times the space of the world in halfe a quarter of an houre The rarenesse therefore of this motion and the strangenesse of it argueth that God hath set over them some spirituall mover which wee call their standings and their Intelligences which move them to and fro in an unspeakable manner And for the manner of it that it should be in such a contrary course that never a starre should rise to morrow in the same manner as it doth to day and that the Sunne should never rise at one and the same point twice in the yeare but still varie and by varying make the compasse of the yeare as the Moone makes the compasse of the moneth For the Sunne hath one motion whereby hee makes the day and the Moone another motion whereby shee makes the night Againe there is another motion of the Sunne whereby hee makes the yeare and the Moone hath another motion whereby she makes a moneth And so for the rest of these heavenly bodies some of them fulfill their course and period in twelve yeares some in five yeares some in thirty some in a hundred yeares the Lord having set such a rare guidance in these things that there is nothing but a man may know it before hand a man may tell fifty yeares yea an hundred yeares before hand when there shall be an eclipse and the presages of these things are certainly knowne This argues that these bodies celestiall are moved by spirits celestiall For of themselves being but bodies they could not possible do thus they could not keepe this exact and swift motion nor they could not rowle over of themselves it is impossible being but bodies that they should do these things Now I come to the second point 2. Part or comparison wherein the Apostle compares these bodies together in respect of their glory There is a great glory indeed in terrestriall bodies there is a great glory in gold and silver and many men esteeme them more then the starres of heaven There is a great glory and lustre in jewels and precious stones there is a goodly transparent beauty in them in the lustre that they give There is a great glory in the beauteous faces of Gods Saints and in the gorgeous and pompous out-settings of Kings and Princes in their Courts of state There is great glory in every part of humane felicitie but being compared to this glory of the heavenly bodies they are meere foyles to that For saith the Apostle there is one glory of the heavenly and another glory of the earthly That is there is a farre greater glory of the heavenly then can bee supposed to bee in the earthly For first of all the glory in the heavenly bodies is pure but the glory in the earthly is mixed the purer the glory is and the more it is separate the more singular and excellent it is Now the glory which is in the stars above is pure in comparison of these earthly things And although they bee speckled and spotted in respect of God and be full of dregges in comparison with the Angels yet in relation to earthly things they are most pure even puritie it selfe All these inferiour things in their glory they have a mixture They are mingled of foure things there is nothing so glorious but it is composed of the foure elements even of Earth Water Fire and Ayre and these elements are never so well glued together but they will worke themselves asunder iâ— time whereas that celestiall beauty is pure without mixture it is an Essence that is elaborate to the full God hath brought
there shall be one way for him that gives his goods to the poore and another way for him that gives his life for Christs sake These shall shine in a different manner And as Ambrose Ambrose againe Even as for the penies sake there is no man that shall bee driven out of Gods kingdome but he that can bring the peny and shew it unto God and say Here is thy Image here is thy superscription Cesar know thy owne and take me for thine owne for here I bring thee the penie As he that can bring the penie shall have heaven so there be some that have more then the penie and those shall have varietie of mansions and goodly places in the paradise of God they shall be the chiefe and principall To conclude all Let us desire the Lord Vse that we may have some place and if it be never so little it shall be full enough The Lord shall fill all those that follow him as with a river in the pleasures of his house and to be a doore-keeper in the house of God in that blessed kingdome is worth all the tents and riches in this world Let us not dispute much about these things but let us rest in that doctrine which is delivered in the Scriptures and let us know that if God admit us to heaven we can have no meane place any thing there is better then all the glory of this world even the least and poorest mansion that can be And that we may have the greatest and the best and principall place there there must be an holy ambition for heaven and for the greatest place in heaven As the sonnes of Zebede desired that one might sit on the right hand of Christ Mat. 20.211 and another on the left let us know how it is to be gotten that so we may be made capable for it For it is not attained without a high comprehension there being no meanes for these straite vessels to keepe and hold such a latitude of honour they are too great for us therefore God shall reward us according to our works and according to the service that we do him Not for any merit of ours for that were nothing at all but hell and confusion but for the merits of Christ upon whom wee layhold by faith By which means his merits are made ours and we make him ours and shall be sure to finde him ours at that day Which the Lord grant SERMONS On 1 COR. 15. Of the Resurrection 1 COR. 15.42 So also in the Resurrection of the dead It is sowne in corruption it is raised againe in incorruption It is sown in dishonour it is raised again in honour IN these words the holie Apostle describes unto us those rare supernaturall qualities which God will deck the bodies of the Saints withall in the great day of the Resurrection Hee hath shewed heretofore by certain parables and similies that such a thing is likely to be that it is possible but now he tells us indeed what it is And so after that pleasing doctrine that was uttered in similitudes he comes to a more sad and solemne and sentencious kinde of doctrine and sets it downe in materiall propositions concerning the future state of Gods children It is true that to prepare the minds of men by familiar similies and examples before their eies is a part of wondrous art and great oratorie for so our Saviour used in the Gospel still to draw men by those things that were before them to teach them by their owne trades and by their proper callings by that meanes growing familiar with their understandings making those things that were hidden plain and open by those things that they were most conversant in But that kind of doctrine is not alway to be followed because as they say similitudes illustrate indeed but they prove nothing there is a kind of deeper divinity then that which is from similitude which our Saviour Christ mingleth with his similitudes as the Apostle Paul doth here For now he comes to tell us of those things which we could not have beleeved except the similitudes before had prepared us and had shewed us that they are things possible that the body that is so corrupt that it should have a new quality that it should receive incorruption and never corrupt again that the dead body which is so deformed should have such a glory and beauty that there is no creature no visible creature which God hath made can compare with it that the body that is so weak and so full of infirmity that it should have such a supernaturall strength whereby it shall exceed a thousand Sampsons in strength and vigour that the body that is a lump a meere carnall masse that it should come to that nimblenesse and agility and swiftnesse that it should become rather a spirit then a bodie when it is raised That these things should so happen it were altogether incredible if the Lord had not made it probable before by the things that we familiarly use by the corn in our fields by the flowers in our gardens by the flesh of the creatures by the difference of coelestiall and terrestriall bodies and by the difference of heavenly bodies among themselves Now he comes to the generall hypothesis and makes the reduction of all those similies that went before So is it in the Resurrection of the dead So that is in all those 4. comparisons which I named before you may apply all these very well understand by them the nature and the qualities of the bodies that shall be raised up So is it in the Resurrection of the dead So as it is with the corne so as it is with those divers kinds of flesh as it is in the difference of the heavenly bodies cōpared with the earthly as the heavenly bodies are mutually different one from another In the corne as there is a strange variety in the growth of it from that which was sowne it comes to an admirable plenty so the glory that shall be revealed upon the bodies of the Saints out of a rotten thing which was nothing but as an eare of corne putrifyed and corrupted out of this there comes a glorious stalke of incorruption and beautie that shall remaine for ever And as it is in the flesh of beasts and in the flesh of men the flesh of fouls and of fishes as there is great variety and some are sweeter then other and some more sollid and compact then other so is it in the Resurrection of the dead in comparison of this flesh that we have here This flesh is like unto the flesh of fishes in respect of that which shall be there The Lord himselfe shall so perfume it with his glorious unction that it shall be for ever stedfast and strong and able unto all purposes that it shall be filled with all faculties and prepared unto all the functions that God shal appoint unto it So is the Resurrection of the dead So
a spirituall body So it is also written the first Adam was made a living soul and the last Adam was made a quickning spirit It is sown in weaknesse it is raised in power THe earth is Gods store-house whereinto he commits his treasure even the bodies of his Saints the Temples of his holy Spirit saith Tertullian Tertull. God hath made the earth to be as a ware-house therein to lay his commodities and from thence to require fetch them forth againe The sowing of these earthly bodies is manifest to us all but the raising of the seed that is sowne and the comming in of the harvest that is locked up and hid in the chambers of eternity in the omnipotency of God And there is no way for us to have accesse and to look into it but by the eye of faith whereby while we live in this flesh wee have a little peeping as it were through the key-hole to see a glimmering of the happinesse and of the gracious promises consigned unto us in Iesus Christ The things that here are spoken of the sowing of the body are so commonly knowne as that there is no man that calls that in question It is sown in dishonour it is sown in weaknesse It is sown in misery and mortality and the Apostle concludes all It is sown a naturall body but it is raised againe a spirituall body And because hee might seeme to offend some eares that never heard of that distinction that there was such a thing as a spirituall body for if it be a spirit then it is no body and if it be a body then it is not spirituall these things imply a contradiction Therefore the Apostle proves that which he had said he makes good his distinction and tels them There is a naturall body and a spirituall body And this hee proves out of the heads of them both out of the two maine Fountaines of mankinde the two Adams The one working to misery to sinne and to corruption and destruction and the other working to grace to obedience and to eternall glory And hee saith The first of these was made a living soule but the second was made and ordained a quickning Spirit The first was made to live to have life himselfe but he could not give life to another yea and that life that hee had was but mortall and fraile But the second Adam was made to have another kind of life and to be all spirit intending spirituall things and he was not onely able to live in himselfe but to give life to all his followers to quicken all them that belong unto him Yea although they be dead in their graves although they be dead in sins or dead in the damps of conscience yet hee is made a quickning Spirit to rouse and to raise them to the happinesse of the children of God This is the summe of the words read unto you To proceed in order There needs no great distribution or division of the Text because the words are nothing else but the probate of that which the Apostle had spoken before He proves it by the Scriptures that there is such a difference as a naturall body and a spirituall body The Scripture he brings is in Gen. 2.7 Gen. 2 7. where it is said The Lord breathed into Adam the breath of life and so Adam or man became a living soule or a living substance In the order of the words there are two miserable properties that remain to be spoken of touching the bodies of the Saints Division into two miserable Properties That they are sown in weaknesse That they are sown meerly naturall But the glory that God shall put upon them shall be in the highest contrary They shall rise in great strength and they shall be raised in a spirituall nature in a spirituall quality and condition 1 Property Sowne in weaknesse Concerning the first that the body of man is sown in weaknesse every man seeth there is nothing more weak and despicable then that all the whole life of man being nothing but a world of weaknesse as it is the prerogative of God to be Almighty so it is the miserable quality of man to be all weaknesse When he comes first into the world there is nothing more weak then he when he growes in the world the least fitt of disease of an ague any kind of opposition whatsoever will defeat him and bring him on his knees to such a degree of weaknesse and infirmity that he shall scarce support and sustain himself And even those that are the strongest of men that are strong to poure in strong drink Esay 5.22 as the blessed Prophet I say saith that spend their time in ryot those men doe soonest bring upon them this fatall weaknesse and none end so foule as they because though they seeme to struggle with the infirmities of nature and to overcome and transcend them for a time yet that inherent weaknesse which is in the flesh rebounds upon them and works them at last to nothing to the foulest expiration that can be Nay those noble spirits which as Tiberius was wont to say that there were some spirits in the world that account their businesse to be their solace their businesse and labour they account it comfort and consolation to them yet these men pluck and call upon themselves a greater weaknesse then other men so that the life of man whether it be base and degenerous or whether it be noble and spritely is nothing else but weaknesse If a man will doe nothing but sleepe out his time hee shall be surprised at length with base weaknesse If hee be vigilant and use the time that God hath given him to the highest and best purpose he is still overtaken with weaknesse and especially when the conscience of sin works upon a man there is nothing so weakens him as that doth Psal 39.11 When thou chastisest man for sin thou makest him like a garment that is moth-eaten And as the Prophet David saith by reason of my sinnes my bones are rotten and corrupted and all my ulcers stink there is no health in my body Psal 22.14 15. by reason of the sinnes of my soule My heart within me is like melting waxe I am broken like a pitcher like a broken vessell I am like a bottle in the smoak The conscience that God hath left in man to be his factor brings a weaknesse incomparable there is nothing that can be equall unto it But chiefly when all these meet together as in some they doe and when old age begins to rivle the face and to draw the complexion into furrows which was largely extended unto beauty and when the tresles and powers of the body begin to faile and the last terme and period is at hand then there is a wofull spectacle of weaknesse Even when a man cannot goe nor stand upon his supporters but hee reeles and falls when hee cannot taste his food nor smell nor finde
in Luthers explication Saith he the bodies of the Saints shall be so strong at that day that they shall be able to remove Churches out of their places with their finger they shall be able to play with mighty mountaines as children play with tennis-balls His meaning is that they shall have a mighty and infinite power to work upon any thing that God shall set them about or that shall be expedient for them But these kind of speeches and discourses are explanatorie and are rather for recreation then for men to subscribe unto and yet it is most sure that their working power shall be great and admirable and although it shall not be infinite yet it shall be as neare to infinite as can be devised For whatsoever it shall please God to put in their minds to effect they shall be able to doe it and nothing shall make resistance Thirdly some other of the Fathers and of the later Writers Beza Calvin as Beza and Calvin expound it thus It is raised againe in power that is it is freed from the necessities of nature which is weaknesse For the life of man here in this world must be sustained by mennes it must have meat and drink and sleep and rest and an intercourse and change of things there must be physick and medicines to cure his diseases Now at that day the Lord shall so temper the body that it shall be able to live without meat and drink and it shall alway watch without any necessity of sleepe As St. Austin saith in his 5. Tome the 13. Book Chap. 23. Although the bodies of the Saints shall have power to eate and drink in that world yet they shall not stand in need of it they may doe it if they will but they shall have no dependancie upon meat and drink as now they have in this world So it shall rise a strong body That little strength that men have now is maintained by meat and drink under God they have no way else to preserve it and if a man fast sixe or seaven daies he must needs die presently because nature can indure no further abstinence and besides that old age is comming upon him although his meat be most delicate yet notwithstanding the power of digestion so far failes him that he is notable to concoct it and transmit it into bloud and nature as he was wont to doe and especially if his meat grow coorse or his fare be abated then wee know that the best and most singular strength in the world must fade and failâ— For commonly according as the Commons are so is the strength so our life is a meere dependance upon second causes next under God God gives meat a power to nourish and meat by a secondarie meanes nourisheth whereby it comes to be assimilated and made like unto the body and so we live and as meat growes worse or is taken away so the body impaires and when for a long time it is not able to master the meat and to digest it into the substance of the body then likewise the life is impaired and falls But the strength that the bodies of the Saints shall then have it shall be without these dependances the children of God shall be able to live and to keep their strength and vigour and fulnesse and perfection without any of these helps of second causes and although they may stoop to them when they will for variety yet they shall have no necessity of them Aug. Lastly as St. Austin saith in his 3. Tome 13. Book Chap. 26. this strength saith he that the Apostle speaks of I take to be specially this that whereas now of these earthly bodies of ours Mat. 26.41 the Lord Iesus saith the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak and the Apostle saith Rom. 7.19 The good things that I would doe that I doe not and the evill things that I would not doe that doe I Saith the holy Father I take the meaning of that place of Scripture to be this That whereas now the strongest part of man the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak and as a dull asse the Lord shall then prepare it so that he shall proportion and fit the horse to his rider that to the soule which is the rider and commander of the body hee shall give a horse of metall that shall be able to carry it to all actions whereas now it jades and tires upon every good thing The spirit here is willing but the flesh is weak but there shall be so perfect a concord and subjection of the flesh to the spirit that it shall goe hand in hand and shall hold pace with the soule the flesh shall be as willing to doe God service as the spirit and there shall be that wondrous transmutation of qualities that it shall seem rather a flesh made of spirit then otherwise For so it followes in the Text It is sowne a naturall body it is raised a spirituall body It is sowne a naturall body 2. Property Sowne in weaknesse it is raised a spirituall body This is the last difference of the 4. and in this is comprehended the summe of all For hee comprehends in the first word naturall all defects and all weaknesses and infirmities and in the word spirituall he comprehends all perfection and augmentation that God shall give in that day Saint Austin saith Aug. Beza a naturall body is a mortall body Beza saith it is a body subject to mutation a changeable body A bodie it is compounded of elements by a soluble composition A bodie that bows to the earth that goes to the center according to its owne naturall inclination A bodie that must at last bee resolved into its principles and as it is made of Elements so it must goe to Elemenâ—s againe This is a naturall body and thus we know it is with every body in the world For though there must be a change of them that survive when the Lord shall come and that they shall not have this dissolution that our bodies must have yet that change that they shall have shall bee in stead of this dissolution and who knowes in what kinde it shall bee and with what paines it shall bee No doubt it shall bee no great prerogative above us and although they shall not die and goe unto the earth as we doe yet they shall be full of pangs and horrour as the deaths of common men are For it is the nature of this body being animal and having no better a principle whereby it lives then the soule to dissolve and come to its owne principles dust to dust to come to ashes and earth according to Gods decree working upon this flesh of ours It is sowne therefore a naturall body that is subject to change and corruption But now see the hand of God on the other side It is raised a spirituall body This is that wherein the Apostle comprehends all the rest to perswade that
for that which is changeable therefore he is said to be unconstant base and earthly that is a simple poore base creature which made himselfe according to his prime originall and studied and gaped after the things of the earth out of which he was extracted He had indeed better things if he would have used them but he was so stupefied and drawne back to his inferiour part that hee was made like unto his first materialls the earth But the other was from heaven not because he had not a body from the earth but because to that body was added a glorious divinity and that his body was not a person as Adams was For if the manhood of Christ had been a person he must have beene lyable as all persons that are borne to condemnation but his was not a person but a nature united to the second person in the Trinity so that although there be two natures in Christ yet there is not two but one person and the actions that come from any man they are the actions of his person of the subject and not the actions of his nature For it is a man that speaks and a man that works and not the body of a man that speaks or the soule of man So therefore it comes to passe that the actions that come from Christ they are the actions of his person not of his humane nature but of his person and so they be the actions of God and man That is of that person in the Godhead that took the manhood unto it and so they are made the actions of an infinite merit and possibility Herein then is the difference that although Adam had a soul as well as Christ yet he had onely a living soule that could enliven no body but himselfe but the Lord had a Spirit that is the Deity it selfe which is able to give life which is the fountaine of life to all the world And although Christ had a body from the earth yet that body was not left unto frailty but was governed and sanctified and glorified by the beatificall vision of God and by the presence of the incorporate union of the Sonne of God So by this comes the difference between them the one was a man and nothing else but from the earth the other was more then a man God and man and so he is the Lord from heaven 3. In respect of their qualities The third difference is in their quality and condition which is noted in this word hee was a Lord. Therefore Adam came not as a Lord he came as a servant he was to serve in all purposes he came to till the garden to till the earth he came to eate and drink to beget children to be the father of a family Hee came into the world to increase and multiply as God commanded him Gen. 1.28 to replenish the earth These although they be faire courses and God gave a blessing unto them yet they be carnall and fleshly there is no respect of excellencie in these things they are matters rather of necessity for the present solace in this world then of glory But Christ came not for this purpose He came not to eate and drink but his meat and drink was to doe the will of his Father Iohn 4 34. He had no generation all his generation is a spirituall regeneration he came to doe God service these were the things he was exercised in Therefore he was the Lord from heaven This is the high prerogative of Christ There were many Angels that came from heaven as well as Christ but they came not as Lords but as servants as fellow servants Rev. 22.9 as in Rev. 22. when Iohn would have worshipped the Angel See thou doe it not saith hee I am thy fellow servant Heb. 1.14 And in Heb. 1. they are ministring spirits that serve for the salvation of those that are elect and chosen for the inheritance Therefore they came not downe as Lords but as servants And although we reade in Scripture of those that came downe as Lords as in the apparition to Abraham Gen. 18. he called the Angell Lord. Gen. 18.3 And the Captaine of the Lords Army that appeared to Ioshua though these came in the glory Ioshuah 5.14 and might of the Lord yet they were not that Lord as here it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord that came from heaven For that Lord is but one Lord Heb. 1.2 which is the Sonne of God to whom the Father hath given the inheritance of all things Heb. 1.2 hee is the heyre of all things and the Iewes themselves confesse Come let us kill him this is the heyre Mark 12.7 and the inheritance shall be ours Hee then is the Lord from heaven Adam came not as a Lord nor yet from heaven but one onely part of him his soul without any conjunction of the divine nature there came a changeable soule into a fraile body but Christ the Lord from heaven that is the Sonne of God as being Lord of hell and heaven invested himself in a strange and wondrous manner into the body and wombe of a Virgin and tooke that masse and lump of blood whereof his blessed body should be compacted and united it to himselfe and exercised the power of miracles and of gracious wonders and all parts of perfection in that nature and therefore he hath exalted our nature high above the Angels nature for he took not upon him the nature of Angels Heb. 2.16 but he took the seed of Abraham Lastly in their qualities they differ that as the first man came from the earth and is a servant so he is earthly There are two parts of man as the Philosopher saith there is the mind and the understanding that is the subtile and divine and fiery part of man whereby he is appropincate and drawes neere unto God in the similitude of his Image There is another and that is the grosse and materiall part Chrysost as St. Chrysostom expounds it that this earthly man is one that is dull and grosse and nayled and tyed to these things that are present whereas the other 2 Cor. 4.18 is heavenly and altogether upon the things that are not seene for the things that are seene are temporall but them that are not seene are eternall So then the one by his condition was still looking downward the other was all spirit and full of vigour full of life alway looking upward still unto heaven his conversation was also heavenly having given all his followers power to have their conversations there Phil. 3.20 Phil. 3. But our conversation is in heaven from whence wee looke for the Lord Christ who shall change our vile bodies and make them like unto his glorious body So this is the Comparison of these two heads which that I may conclude this point wee must observe very strictly For by that meanes we may be both able to keep out all contrary
heresies and also to raise our selves to the imitation of our head to be conformable to him For this very Text of Scripture that Christ came downe the Lord from heaven hath given occasion to a great number of lying spirits to conclude that the Lord had no true naturall body that he had no true flesh but that he brought his body downe from heaven and that hee passed as through a pipe through the Virgin Mary Because say they if Adam and Christ be opposed together and that Adam brings his body from the earth then Christ brings his from heaven It followes therefore that they are not one kind of body and by consequent there must be a kind of celestiall body appointed for Christ because it must be directly opposite to Adams Now there is no consequence or sense in this For the Apostle opposeth not Christ unto Adam in regard of the substance of his flesh but in respect of the difference of his qualities The quality that Adam put upon his flesh was death and sicknesse misery and deformity but Christ hath put upon it another kind of quality another robe another garment and vestment of immortality of grace and perfection and beauty and strength and all kind of abilities another kind of quality Therefore hee saith not another substance of flesh for Christ came of David and David came of Adam they were all one flesh but because the one was the fountain of death and the other the fountaine of life they must needs work contrary effects Therefore according to the effects that they work the Apostle proceeds that the one works to basenesse and misery the other to glory to excellency to comfort and beauty But these heretiques will pretend a great number of places of Scripture and a great many arguments whereby they doe as the Apostle saith deceive 2 Pet. 2 14. and draw aside unstable people and make them at their wits end when they are not able to resolve the places they alledge As first they say this that the Lord Iesus did deny his Mother therefore he had no true flesh And they prove it out of St. Matthew 12. when hee was teaching the people they came and told him that his Mother and his brethren were without Mat. 12.47 48 49. desiring to speak with him and hee answers them who is my mother c. therefore say they Christ denies his mother This is false Christ no where denyed his mother But that place shewes that he had more care of the businesse he had in hand hee had more care of his Fathers commission of the Kingdome of the preaching of the Gospell of forgivenesse of sinnes of curing diseases and to doe the rest of the works of our redemption therefore he must not neglect them and be distracted from them to goe to inferiour things so that his mother must give way to those things he doth not deny his mother but onely prefers the practice of the other things Againe they say Christ cannot be adored if hee have true flesh or else he can be but halfe adored But now whole Christ must be adored therefore he had no true flesh For if we adore that which is flesh it is a creature and so it is idolatry for whatsoever is given to the creature that way is Idolatry Therefore Christs body was not created but was a super coelestiall thing above the order of mankinde Answ It is true the flesh of Christ was framed and wrought above the order of mankinde and yet so as that still it was true flesh And although wee ought to adore whole Christ yet in the adoring of Christ we doe it to the person Wee use not to disjoyne his natures but wee adore that God that was pleased to take upon him man we adore that blessed person in the Trinity that for our sake and for our salvation came downe from heaven and was incarnate by the holy Ghost in the womb of Mary It is that person we adore So that wee goe not about with the heretique Nestorius to make a division of the natures but we adore whole Christ God and man not man alone but God not God alone but man Many other shifts and sophismes they have but these are the chiefest and indeed they are scarce worth repeating but we must labour to furnish our selves because we know not what kinde of miscreant heresies are like to grow now in the latter end of the world Now the conformity follows in these words 3. Part. The conformity As the earthly is so are they that are earthly and as is the heavenly so are they that are heavenly It must needs be that as the principles are so the things that are made and framed of them must be All things in nature are a resemblance of their originall and it cannot possibly be that they should much swerve from them For every effect is in his cause a thing can draw no other inclination then that that is drawne from its cause Therefore as the earthly man is so must the earthly be As Adam for I will not meddle with other interpretations of the Fathers because they are not pertinent to this place therefore ruleth all in this present life hee makes all his followers earthly and mortall so Christ rules all in the blessed life to come and makes all things contrary that is immortall and glorious and powerfull For in Adam all the world is ruled according to the censure of God upon sinne as God doomed sinne Earth thou art Gen. 3.19 and to earth thou shalt returne which was the sentence upon Adam and upon all his posterity So we see daily this sentence fulfilled upon us and upon ours upon all our progenitors and successors It failes upon none and those that shall be changed at the latter day it shall be unto them as a kind of death for dust thou art and to dust thou shalt returne it is the common voice of God upon nature Therefore in this life wee must looke to be as Adam was to have no other inheritance then hee hath left us In the life which is to come wee shall have an inheritance from the Lord of heaven It is true by the grace of the Gospell and by the faith we have in Christ Iesus we have something more then Adam gave unto us but of that we are not put into possession to inherit untill the Lord shall appeare from heaven For when Christ our life shall appeare then wee also shall appeare with him in glorie Colos 3.4 Colos 3.4 As is the earthly so are they that are earthly Not in respect of their manners as some of the Fathers by way of digression have noted upon this place and St. Chrysostom assents unto it and St. Augustine also yeelds to it but to insist upon the strict tearmes for we can goe no further nor we cannot make any better sense of it that wee are like Adam in all things in this life In our birth In
never any man but out Saviour Christ was able to understand Hosea no nor shall doe till the worlds end To make a setled discourse and a plaine exposition of him it is almost impossible for hee seems upon purpose to write in parables and hard Enigmataes and riddles Therefore hee concludes his Prophesie Hosea 14.9 He that hath wisedome shall understand this For indeed he that hath not wisedome cannot possibly attaine the knowledge of it But this that St. Paul saith may be taken in divers kind of speeches that either I will be thy death oh death which is the best reading of all and followed by the best Divines or oh death where is thy sting as the Apostle reades it here The summe of the Prophet Hosea is this to teach that God was purposed and was willing to deliver his people out of the captivity of Babylon and to have brought them quickly home againe and to have stablished them in their owne country But because they were contumelious and rebellious against him therefore their wickednesse and obstinacy stayed his purpose and therefore he would be death to them and would not spare them as wee see in the sequell of the Text. But I will not trouble you with these thornie discourses It is certaine that that which is there written may be taken many wayes and for mee to shew you the variety of Readings were but to cast a stumbling block before your most holy faith Therefore I will resolve upon the authority of the Apostle which followes the Septuagint and reads it thus not I will be thy death but Oh death where is thy sting oh grave where is thy victory according to the Septuagint For St. Paul followes the Greek copie the translation of the Septuagint in all places almost where he citeth Scripture Howbeit to gather that cōclusion and proposition as Hosea saith by way of supposall If my people had been good if they had been wise death should not have had power over them but I would have been the death of death the Apostle brings it in the way of affirmation oh death where is thy sting Now the reason is this where God propounds things by way of condition there the Saints of God keep the condition alway and so the matter is true to them which is propounded As in Psal 81. If Israell would have kept my wayes Psal 81.13 16. I would have fed them with the finest flowre of wheat but because they did not keepe my wayes therefore they were famished and perished Out of this a man may gather that a childe of God that keeps his wayes shall be fed with the finest flowre of wheat with the best delicates that can be So Hosea speaks by way of supposition in the potentiall mood If my people had been wise if they had repented them of their sinnes I would have done this great miracle for them the Lord would have freed them from their captivity and brought them to Israel out of Babylon which he never did Indeed Iudah returned out of their captivity but Israel did never returne If they had been penitent God would have done this but because they were not and repented not of their rebellion therefore God determined death against them Vse Out of this where the promises of God are hindred by the malice of men the Saints of God can gather matter of comfort and consolation For they keepe the Covenant of the Lord they repent them of their sinnes they are wise when God strikes them and their vexation gives them understanding Therefore they conclude if God would have done this to them if they had beene better certainely he will doe it to mee which desires to be better if hee would have delivered them if they had repented he will deliver me which doe repent before him in sackcloth and ashes Those good things which the wicked cannot have because they keepe not the condition wee shall have them because we keepe the condition You understand then how these things are to bee reconciled Hosea speakes in the potentiall mood that God would doe this but St. Paul speaks it in the indicative mood by way of insultation God hath done it Hee will doe it because the Saints of God are found not truce-breakers but they keep covenant with the Lord as much as they can by the helpe and assistance of his holy Spirit This is all the difference for that which is in the moods and is uttered againe in the tenses it is of lesse moment In that it is said in Hosea the Lord shall doe it and St. Paul saith he hath done it as speaking of the time past This is the nature of faith to expound the promises of the Gospel as things done actually because they are as sure being once signed with the privy signet of God as if they were performed There being no difference with God betweene the things present and the things to come So in the hope of Gods children the promises of God are yea and amen For in Christ Iesus all the promises of God are yea 2. Cor. 1 2◠and amen 2 Cor. 1. So much concerning the Prophet where it is written Wherein because that is the greatest difficulty I thought onely to observe that the Apostle speaks in the confidence of faith that it is now done which the Prophet saith shall bee done And that which the Prophet Isay saith hee shall destroy death the Apostle saith he hath destroyed it that is then when these things shall bee done And Hosea saith I will bee thy death the Apostle saith Where is thy sting oh death These matters I say must be expounded as belonging onely to the faithfull of whose resurrection the Apostle speaks in this Chapter alone For the faithfull doe willingly keepe the condition with God they breake not peace with him but keepe their covenant Therefore that which the rebells should have had if they had kept their truce and covenant that the godly shall have because they doe keepe the condition of the covenant 3. Part. What is written Now I come to that which is written the sentence of Isay is Death is swallowed up into victory Here is first a strange and wondrous position that death should bee swallowed up but of this I have spoken before I will but touch it now And then for the maner of the phrase swallowed And then the terme whereto to victory And then the efficient cause whereby what it is that swallowes up death the death of Christ 1. Swallowed Concerning the first wee must understand that according to the common speech of men death is such a puissant and powerfull adversary that there is no Prince in the earth that can confront him He is indeed able to meet him but he is foyled by him Although indeed death bee nothing but the cessation of nature because a mans sight failes him therefore he is blind because the power of hearing ceaseth therefore a man is deafe because the
will of God It is true thou art alone the onely man that hath overcome mee by thy justice and righteousnesse But this justice and righteousnesse is in thy selfe Escape therefore with thine owne life goe with thine owne priviledge trouble me not and that which belongs unto mee enter not into my possession the Lord hath given mee these sinners as hee gave thee to be no sinner What is thy holinesse to them that are unholy what is thy righteousnesse to them that are ungodly and sinners what passage can there be betweene thee and them to bring them out of my hands Yes the plea is to contention as St. Ierom saith They shall contend who shall have their spoiles and the Lord shall answer that he came not as a private man and that his works were not done personally for himselfe but they were publique actions for the redemption of mankind Therefore whatsoever hee did hee communicates it to his followers whatsoever he did it was for his subjects and servants If he overcame death in his owne person he hath done it not so much for himselfe as for those that beleeve in him that they might partake of his victory and that they might rejoyce for his victory that hee hath had over the world the flesh and the devill So the contention as St. Ierom saith comes upon Christs side by all reason because he hath satisfied the justice of God the Father because hee was offered a sacrifice of a sweet smell which shall be ever in record before God because his suffering was of an infinite nature being the second Person in the Trinity and the actions are alway given to the subject and to the principall the actions of Christ are not attributed to his humane nature but to his person and so also his merits and although he suffered in his humane nature properly and not in his Divine yet the merit and the glory of that suffering reflexed upon the Divine nature For not onely the blood but the blood of God was spilt for the satisfaction of the wrath of God and for the reconciliation of the world Therefore the Lord Iesus shall answer again in the plea that whatsoever he did he did it for the good of all them that belong to him I had never tooke flesh but to make all flesh blessed by my Incarnation I had never entred within the verge and list of my mortall body but to make all their bodies immortall so great is the benefit that I avow to man-kind that not onely my friends but also my enemies have that benefit by mee to have their bodies immortall whatsoever I have done either by way of suffering by way of merit by my miracles by my death and passion by my Resurrection and ascension into heaven I have done it not to reside onely in my owne nature but to communicate it that it may reside in my followers for I have made all the world of beleevers to partake of it This shall be the contestation as St. Ierome saith as if the Lord should heare the just plea of Christ and also the unjust wrangling of the death of nature he shall heare the cause and judge the matter on the part of our blessed Saviour which hath deserved by his death and passion to open the booke and to unloose the seales and to make good the promises to indow himself and all his followers in eternall possessions in that holy and heavenly city which is the Mother of us all Death is swallowed up into victory Now it followes concerning the time when this must be expected then shall be fulfilled this saying for these things be in order to be discussed It is true these things are accomplished now in some degree but the full accomplishment shall be then when wee shall be consummate then when Christ shall be consummate Christ is never full till his body be full hee beares such love to his Church that he is said yet to have reliques of passion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Col. 1.24 the reliques of the passions of Christ The glory that Christ possesseth and is capable of which he is advanced unto in the highest perfection by his incarnation which the Lord stands now in possession of and he shall have no more glory conferred upon him then hee hath and hath had for these sixteene hundred yeares been possessed of but for the infinite love that hee beares to his children to those that are of his body he is said then to be compleat not before when all his members shall be completed then death shall be swallowed up into victory Death was swallowed up in victory when Christ rose againe when hee brought the spoyles of the grave away with him when the Lord raised him and when many bodies of the Saints which slept were carryed up with him to his Kingdome where he hath them now in heaven to converse with him and keepe him company then the Lord gave a gage and pawne of this that now shall be fulfilled but because those were but a few and because the fulnesse of the Church is that which Christ delights in the Apostle refers us to the hope and expectation of that time when we shall get the garment of immortality when we shall have that new coat of incorruption then we shall see that fulfilled and clearly accomplished which was spoken in former time Death is swallowed up into victory Not onely in the person of Christ but in thine and mine and all that have interest in Christ Death is swallowed up into victory that great swallower of all things in the world that consumes not onely the fraile bodies of men but the mighty monuments of marble and the greatest things that are most unlikely to be dissolved shaken asunder in the world the very earth it self the foundations of which we see oft stand trēbling and cast the firme continent into the great sea as it hath hapned to divers parts of the world Now this great swallower which was the destroyer and consumer of all things before and that never could meet with his match now he himselfe shall be swallowed up into compleat victory Therefore this must be our desire as souldiers after the victory we follow a master which is a victorious Captaine that was never foyled by any enemy but wheresoever hee goes he carries the field before him And souldiers wee know what great glory and glee they have what noysing of trumpets what erecting of spirits when they once come to be masters of their enemies there is not such a glorious sight under heaven as a victorious army returning from the spoile The Lord would teach us by this what wee should doe to lift up our spirits to prepare us for the insultation over this grisly enemy which is the devourer of all the voice of victory must be glorious as it is said of Lepanto when newes came to Venice that the Christians had the victory over the Turkes for three dayes together there was
when they see a Beare or a Lion or a Wolfe dead in the street they will pull off his haire and insult over him and deale with them as they please they will trample upon their bodies being dead which they durst not looke upon when they were alive Such a thing is death it is a furious Beast a rampant Lion a devouring Wolfe which consumes all the world The Lord hath laid him now at his length he hath laid him dead that he is unable ever to have life againe and so the very children saith St. Chrysostome are able to insult over him That wee have had Martyrs saith hee of 14. or 15. yeares old which have offred themselves to the fire and to the sword and to all the passions of this hungry beast they have offered themselves to the devourers with a willing imbrace and have played upon him which is the common swallower of all mankind as Theophylact saith well We doe still devour and swallow up death by the faith that wee have in the life of Christ for that faith makes us so constant as that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Iesus as the holy Apostle saith Rom. 8. Rom. 8.35 What shall separate us from the love of God shall tribulation or persecution or sword or hunger or cold or nakednesse shall Angels or life or death things present or to come life or death No none of these are able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Iesus our Lord But these things are easily spoken and as long as we be in Theories so long as we bee in Contemplation wee may easily subscribe to them but who is hee that is able to doe thus when the time serves That is in the hand of the great God to give the garland whensoever it shall please him It must be our ambition to seek for it to intreat the Lord to crowne us with that victory with that heavenly valour which himselfe hath promised to all that love him Apoc. 2.17 I will give him the crowne of life and blessed is hee that continueth to the end for hee shall eat of that hidden Mannah and shall flourish as a tree in the Paradice of God But it lies not in us to continue neither therefore he that gives the end must also give the meanes and the same prayer that sues for the one must also beg and intreat for the other all this comes from God from the true love that wee have to Christ from the hope that we have in him to partake of his victory from our beleeving and confessing that God hath raised up Christ from the dead For if thou beleeve with thy heart and confesse with thy mouth that God hath raised up Christ from the dead thou shalt bee saved If wee beleeve that this victory of Christ is for ever accomplished wee shall be saved If thou beleeve although thou must doe many other things which are conditionall to salvation yet this is the maine point beleeve in the Conquerour and the conquest is thine hee conquered not for himselfe but for thee to make the spirits of his Saints conquer in heaven and to make their bodies also to reigne with him there when he shall appeare Col. 3 4. for when the Lord Iesus shall appeare we shall also appeare with him in glory See the extent and latitude of his conquest When God takes a field hee takes it for all the world not for one countrey as earthly Princes doe but all commers from the East and West and North and South shall yeeld unto the Lord and rest under his shadow Even all Nations a tot quot The Dinner of the great King refuseth no guests and rather then they will want guests and the Feast shall be unfurnished he will send to the hedges and highwayes to bee searched to come and fill his Table whereunto hee calleth by the Gospel and whereunto he bring us for his Sonnes sake Amen FINIS SERMONS On 1 COR. 15. Of the Resurrection 1 COR. 15.56 The sting of death is sinne and the strength of sinne is the Law but God bee thanked that giveth us the victory through our Lord Iesus Christ TO bragge before the victory begotten before the field bee wonne it was ever held a most vaine presumption as the King of Israel said to the King of Syria Let not him that buckleth on his armour bragge as he that puts it off For there is nothing more uncertaine then the events of warre and oft times when mighty men promise to themselves the assurance of the victory they faile and come to be foiled Yet notwithstanding so great is the confidence of St. Pauls spirit and so great is the assurance that wee have in Christ Iesus our Lord that wee dare boldly insult over death and proclaime the victory although our selves must bee vanquished For this most noble and gracious Triumpher over death hee lies in the grave he lies in the dust as well as wee must doe and there is no difference to the sight of flesh and blood betweene the ashes of St. Paul and the ashes of another common man and yet notwithstanding the Spirit of God was so mighty and potent in him and the faith of the things to come did so represent unto him the things promised that as though the matter were now presently performed he insults over death and takes upon him the person of a man new risen again from the dead As St. Ierom well speaks hee supposeth that those times that bee long to come and God knowes how long he supposeth that they were come in his time and as it were in the person of a man newly risen newly raised from death he begins Oh death where is thy sting oh hell where is thy victory So the holy Father tells us that the words should bee then rise in every mans mouth when God shall raise them out of their graves to that incorruption and that immortality which this corruptible and this mortall must put on It shall be the speech in every mans mouth then as being triumphant over death Oh death whre is thy sting oh grave where is thy victory Thou hast had victory over my poore bones and body a long time but what is it now thou hast lost it for evermore In these victories in the world there is no certainty because that which they call fortune is so changeable as it seldome setteth up one man but anon it raiseth another to pull him downe againe So the victories are fading and passing away and he that is a Conqueror is conquered and made a slave to those that formerly were his inferiours Ignarius it is said had a great victory over the Cimbri and Tutons yet hee fell shortly after into the hands of Scilla that conquered him and Scilla that was once the Sunne-rising when Pompey once appeares he becomes the Sunne-setting And if Pompey were never so famous a Victor as there was none more glorious
us that are the children of Abraham although wee must study holinesse Heb. 12.14 without which no man shall see God and we must abhor all the works of darknesse and come into the light yet we are so fraile in this flesh that we cannot doe the one nor the other But miserable wretches we have two lawes the law of our members and the law of God and so we must conclude with the Apostle Rom. 7.25 I serve the law of God in my minde and spirit but the law of sinne with my members and yet hee concludes in this place thankes bee to God that gives us victory in Christ Iesus our Lord. To conculde this point It is the faith that a man holds in God the faith he hath in Christ that makes us Conquerers and gives us the victory It was this that armed the thiefe upon the Crosse when hee had done nothing all his life time but plaied the thiefe and robbed and oppressed and played his tragicall part in the world yet hee shewed himselfe to have one mite of faith in the end of his life and for that he was accepted And Christ saith unto him Luke 23.43 This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise That whereas the Pharisees and Priests and Scribes thought Christ to be justly executed and put to death yet notwithstanding hee put his faith in him and beleeved that hee was a King and that he had a great portion of glory reserved for him and that hee was able to communicate it to his followers therefore he desires to partake of that glory Luke 23.42 Lord remember me when thou commest into thy kingdome Now I come to the last point of the precedent verse Thanks be to God since wee have the victory in Christ Iesus our Lord that is since wee have both received the fulnesse of the conquest imparted to us and also the first fruits of the Spirit by which we are able to overcome though not fully to overcome yet to overcome by the power of his victory and to be accounted conquerers though we bee but cowards Thanks be to God for this great gift and mercy of imputation The holy Apostle saith Theodoret Theodoret. hath concluded all his discourse with a necessary line with thanksgiving and praise to God For indeed as wee are bound to thanke God for every thing that wee receive so much more for the chiefe and principall things that wee take from his hands There is no thing so gracious as this to be victors to bee borne to be Conquerers and to be conquerers over such enemies too as have conquered all the world this many thousand yeares together that in sight that there was nothing that domineered nor nothing got the victory but death and sinne and hell and to conquer these miscreants that had over-run all the world this is the hand of God which is to be rejoyced in and if there bee any blessing for us to blesse our soules in it is this that we are conquerers in Christ saith St. Austin Aug. For saith hee If I must thanke God for every petty benefit what greater reason can I have then to give thanks for chiefe and maine benefits The grace of God in Iesus Christ our Lord is that which gives us this victory Thanke God saith St. Bernard thanke not thy selfe St. Bern. thank not Saints thanke not Angels thanke not preparatory works thanke not foreseene merits thanke nothing else but let the praise rest wholly and totally in God It is he that did all therefore to him be given all praise and glory for ever and ever FINIS SERMONS On 1 COR. 15. Of the Resurrection 1 COR. 15. ult Therefore beloved brethren be stedfast and unmoveable abounding in the worke of the Lord alway because you know your labour is not in vaine in the Lord. WEE are come now to the conclusion of this Chapter which followes most naturally as Chrysostome saith Therefore my beloved brethren be ye stedfast c. It is a true conclusion when a man hath fully proved the premises hee that concludes a thing before he hath argued well and proved the matter he discourseth of hee is either a foole or a falsarie for it must needs argue it is a lie when a man will ground upon uncertaine grounds It argueth also weaknesse in him when hee thinks hee hath perswaded without sufficient ground for there is no wise man will be perswaded without due confirmation and demonstration of those things that are argued Therefore now the Apostle comes in as an excellent Oratour to conclude not upon poore grounds nor upon weak evidences but upon strong perswasion and demonstration saith Tertullian Tertul. Hee useth all the strength of the holy Ghost to perswade to this powerfull article of the Resurrection his meaning is with all the power of the holy Ghost that he was capable of for else the power of the holy Ghost is as infinite as God himselfe is infinite But now when the Apostle had driven this doctrine home when he had so beat it into them as that there was no scruple left to any gainsayer or contradictor when he had shewed the cause of the Resurrection when he had shewed the maner of it when he had shewed the absurdities that would follow the contrary doctrine if men did doubt of it when hee had shewed the effects and consequents of it of that glorious incorruption and immortality when hee had proved it by force of holy Scriptures Oh death I will be thy death oh hell I will be thy destruction When he had set downe all these firme and maine presidents it is time for him now to bring in his conclusion He is a foolish builder that will set up the roofe of his house before the walls be built and he is an idle discourser that will offer to bring a thing into his Auditory upon any triviall reason but the Spirit of God teacheth us first to settle the understandings to perswade the minds of men by strong and puissant arguments and then to draw forth conclusions for hee must first move a mans senses and understanding and then draw his will for the will is alway plyable to the conclusion but the understanding is attentive to the demonstration All this while the Apostle had held the understanding giving demonstrative causes and such reasons as no man could contradict him in Now that being done he closeth with the will and that is easily brought if he can perswade the understanding therefore he saith Therefore my beloved brethren that is seeing these things are thus seeing I have told you the will of God in this point that Christ is risen himselfe and that he is risen so palpably that he was seene of more than five hundred brethren at once and that he is the Head of the body and that therefore all the members must be raised up at one time to come with their Head and be joyned unto him Seeing that
dammage and frustration But the Spirit of God doth not meane to set men a worke with a fooles errand to set men on worke without ensuing profit The blessed God that cannot lie to any man hee hath promised and assured that those that labour in him they shall not lose their reward The reason subdivided into 4. branches First then of the labour Secondly that it is not in vaine Your labour is not in vaine Thirdly why it is not in vaine Because it is in the Lord. Fourthly how we come to this You know this is so It is a thing that no man can make question of 1. The labour First of the labour It is true all the parts of religion are laborious and there is no man that takes such paines as a Christian doth When the great Conquerers of the world have subdued whole Nations yet the mastery was hard for them to atchieve over themselves that is the labour of the Lord but the labour that is spoken of here is chiefly to bee referred to three heads First to the Ministers of Corinth This labour is referred to 3. persons 1. Ministers you that preach the doctrine of the resurrection your labour is not lost therefore have a good confidence You preach that which is true you preach not lies and fancies but the doctrine that you preach that all men shall bee raised againe it is as true as God is true therefore you that are Preachers hold on be not dismaied whatsoever those Heretiques and adversaries goe about to cast against you and oppose you in your way Keepe the tenents of your profession hold on constantly for your labour is not lost the Lord shall make it good It is an idle thing for a man to stand in the Pulpit and tell nothing but lies to the people such a man deserves to be stoned to death for it to abuse the faith and to abuse the understandings of men to tell them things that God never meanes to doe And the Ministers of Corinth were men that were but Novices and there were so many hereticall fellows among them that they were not able to answer their sophismes and so they beganne to leave off their preaching of the doctrine of the resurrection because that was full of arguments and difficulties and they knew not how to evade out of it and answer their Opposers Therefore they began to give over that and take some other points but no saith the Apostle goe on with this doctrine let all the gates of hell open themselves they shall not prevaile against you It is the worke of the Lord and the Lords arme is higher and mightier then the powers of hell and that which you say the Lord will make it true in the time of the resurrection of the bodie whatsoever the gates and power of hell can make against it that is the first sense which Saint Basil S. Basil followes and indeed it is good and true Another sense is of the Brethren in Corinth that were of the common faith among them which were exercised in the Agonies of a christian life as if hee should say Brethren I understand you are by reason of this doctrine of the resurrection scoft at and laughed at they think you are fooles they imagine that such a thing as this is a meere dreame they account you creatures of another world and such as have a vaine beliefe and perswade your selves of these schismes which these new teachers have put into your heads and I see you have great troubles in your life and these troubles that you have by your persecution and troubles of conscience which are all sweetned by the Resurrection they are aggravated so that as I beseech my brethren that teach so also I intreat you that heare to abound in the worke of the Lord that as they preach and teach so that you may perceive this doctrine to be true although the world resist it never so much this is the agony of a christian life with Heretiques with Schismatiques with himselfe with the world This is the Agonie which a Christian is born unto which some of the Fathers take to be the labour here spoken of so St. Ierome Epiphanius S. Jerom. S. Epiphan and divers others follow that But that which I take to be the best is the sense which St. Austin and some others give S. Aug. which is this Your labour is not in vaine that is your labour of love Marke the Apostle there reciting all the Intellectuall graces of the Spirit of God 1 Thes 1.4 hee speakes there of the labour of love for there is nothing that hath so much labour in it as love although it be without paines if we regard the outward act and worke yet the imployment is great nothing is so laborious as love it is still doing good comforting those that are distressed bestowing somewhat to the poore out of that little it hath to spare it out of its owne mouth to give admonitions to the peevish to deale wisely with froward spirits A man were as good goe about to tame a wild Tigre as to tell men that are setled in evill courses of their faults yet a Christian must doe this so this is that labour of love the love of that blessed day the love to the time when a mans body shall be raised it makes him change his place remove his lodging it makes him spend his meanes it makes him doe all the good he can in this world because he hopes for the blessed resurrection of his body as the Apostle speaks Acts 20. For the hope of the Resurrection I am bound with this chaine This is that labour for wee doe not labour for nothing and indure all this toile and trouble but because wee looke for the resurrection of the dead This is that labour of love that wee must strive to finde in our selves that same unsatiable and unwearied labour that is still working still teaching without any intermission and although we be not called into the Vineyard of the Lord all at one time all at one houre but some at the third some at the sixth some at the ninth and some at the eleventh houre and though the worke of them be not all alike but some beare the burthen in the heat of the day and some are called at the evening yet we see all wrought untill the evening so long as they could worke So the labour of the Lord is never to be laid aside Luke 9.62 No man that puts his hand to the plough and looks back is meet And as our Saviour Christ saith Remember Lots wife Luke 17.32 But we must be constant as the greek word here signifieth a chopping labour a labour that cuts a man in pieces there is nothing that so divides betweene the sinewes and the joynts and the marrow as the labour that proceeds from true love and friendship And there is nothing that makes a man more settle himselfe
Lord because it is to him and for his sake or else if it were in the quality of the worke it were in vaine for there is nothing in us that is good therefore it is not any thing that is inherent in that but it is in the power of God that can doe what pleaseth him and that will give liberally even for the least thing that we have done he will give a great recompence it is he that makes it fruitfull and copious and plentifull in the recompence it is the Lord that rewardeth all thus And he concludes it under scale you know that this is true you know your labour is not in vaine in the Lord. This is that great blessing of God that double grace when hee makes us know the thing that it is impregnable that it is a thing not to be resisted that it is such a thing as all the powers of hell and darknesse and contrary disputations cannot make you doubt of You know this To know is to know by reasons naturall that never faile that this shall be thus the promise of God is so therefore you know it by that you know it by the practice of the Saints you know it by the testimony of the Spirit of God you know it by the common tenent of the world so that whatsoever God hath spoken hee is willing to performe and it is done already as though it were acted at this present time It is the heavenly and blessed contentment of a Christian man that hee hath the priviledge to know his happinesse before hee hath it that man that is advanced to morrow that is a poore man to day hee may hope well and wish well but hee knoweth nothing a man that goes to the field to fight in the battaile hee knowes not whether ever he shall come againe as Ahab said He that puts on his armour let him not brag as he that puts it off When a man sets forth on a journey hee knowes not whether ever hee shall returne home or not When a man enters into traffique for viands and matters of life hee knowes not whether hee shall gaine or lose there is nothing that wee can tell in this world that it shall be thus for time will alter and change it In all the works of Philosophy there is no certainty of the time to come but in the booke of God there is a certaine knowledge blessed be God for that knowledge It is a thing without exception it is a thing without all doubt Iohn 4. Our Lord Christ said to the woman of Samaria Ye know not what ye worship we know what we worship The knowledge therefore of true religion was among the people of God so the knowledge of the promises was among them too wee know saith the Apostle 1. Cor 5.1 when this earthly Tabernacle shall be abolished we have a heavenly mansion So the Apostle saith I know whom I have believed I know whom I have trusted And in 1 Iohn 2.15 Wee know that we are translated from death to life because wee love the brethren This therefore is that excellent priviledge of a Christian that he hath above all the schollers in the world that as he is made to glorie so he knows it before he hath a taste of the Spirit the earnest of the Spirit before which makes him cry Abba Father that helps him to pray that comforts him in trouble that stands by him that leads him and guides him on that never forsakes him in the state of grace till it bring him to the state of glory To the which the Lord bring us for Christ his sake Amen FINIS CORINTHS COLLECTION FOR THE SAINTS AT IERUSALEM Seven Sermons on 1 Corinth 16. the first 9. Verses BY That Worthy and Learned Preacher of Gods Word MARTIN DAY Chaplaine in Ordinarie to his Majestie and late Rector of S. FAITHS London Heb. 13.16 To do good and communicate forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased LONDON Printed by T.H. for Nathanael Butter and are to be sold at the signe of the Pide Bull neere Saint Austins gate 1636. 1. Cor. 16.1.2 Now concerning the collection for the Saints as I have given order to the Churches of Galatia â—ven so do yâ— â—pon the first of the Weeke Let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him that there be no gatherings when I come THis is the last head or common place of this holy Epistle which the Apostle hath therefore reserved to the last because he would have it the better in printed in the memory of his schoollars For all the rest indeed have beene matters of great concernment but this most of all it being the common office of Christianitie and a generall duty that runnes through the whole body as the life doth For the poore you shall have alway with you saith our Lord Christ and therefore your mercie to the poore shall be alway exacted so S. Chrysostome Chrysost The Apostle now saith hee goes forward to the head and principle of all good things He hath touched upon it before in Chap. 13. Chap. 13.1 speaking of charitie Though I had the tongue of men and Angels yet if I had not charitie I were nothing But that charitie is of another kinde for that intends the use of spirituall gifts that a man should forget himselfe for the common good that hee should not labour so much to shew himselfe a scholler or a Linguist as to speake to common capacities that is the charitie meant in that place But now here he speakes of another kinde of charitie not in the collation of things spirituall but of temporall wherein a man is put to his proofe more then then in the other for the conferring of sprituall things commonly as they come freely so they come easily without much paine or trouble There is no man almost but he will communicate his learning and knowledge to another gratis but for these temporall goods that we have in this world they can hardly be drawne from us and a small quantitie a poore despicable portion is exacted when we are brought to the best Therefore now the Apostle comes to that point of charitie which doth most of all discerne a Christian whereby he is best knowne the parting from his owne goods the defrauding of his owne genius of his owne belly that he may be helpfull to others And so this is the ninth and last part of this Epistle for as I told you heretofore Divines have diversly distinguished the Epistle but the best and the most neere and likely division is into nine severall points of doctrine whereof this is the last The first was of taking away the schismes and divisions which was in the Church of Christ One was of Paul another of Apollo another of Cephas another of Christ In the first second third and fourth Chapters that is the first common place of this Epistle The second was concerning the power
never looks after the performance of it A man goeth by an Hospitall and saith he will give them somewhat when he comes backe againe and when he comes backe he thinkes not of it Imagine what you will although you forget it yet it stands on account in Gods booke hee will call you to a reckoning for it and if you sneake away and will not pay the shot the Lord will take it upon your bodies and soules in hell For you must not thinke to passe a vow to the Lord in a good mood for a good purpose but the Lord will take it and exact it at your hands Therefore let every man lay downe for himselfe God intrusts every mans selfe he trusts every mans honesty This should be a great comfort and a meanes to provoke us to be true to God Let every man lay by him in store For if every man should have brought it presently to the poore mans box it might have beene thought to have beene done out of a present passion and that he would have taken it out againe afterward after it was cast in if he might have had leave But for a man to be constant in it to let it stand by him a moneth or two moneths or a quarter of a yeare that hee saith and resolveth this they shall have whatsoever become of me I will not abate a penie of the stocke of God of the stocke of charitie when he saith Let every man lay up by him in store his meaning is that God will call every man to account if hee bee inconstant and forgetfull of his vow and promise the Lord will not let such a one escape As whatsoever God hath prospered him with 3 The measure First what is this that he must put apart whatsoever God hath prospered him with so we may turne it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quod ei bene successerit s placuerit but the word is a rare word and therefore it is diversly expressed by Interpreters some say that which is fit some say that which hee thinkes good and these are true for there is no man herein compelled to do any thing but what he doth out of his owne heart of his owne free-will The Lord loves a free-giver a chearfull giver and hee will have no constraint Yet Expositors come not neere the glory of the word for it is a metaphor taken from Merchant-venturers that cast their goods into a bottome it may be halfe their estate sometimes it may be sometimes all and if God give them a good voyage they are made if not then they are downe the winde undone So it signifies a good journey or a good voyage you have the word twice over in the Scripture both before and after this In Rom. 1.10 saith the Apostle I pray to God continually if God would give me a good journey to come to you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The same word is used here hodos a journey heodos a good journey As the Lord is pleased to blesse a man in his trade and course of life so the word is used in 3. Ioh. 2. Beloved brother I desire of God that thou mayest have a good journey that thou maiest prosper and be well and in good health as thy soule prospereth that thou shouldest have a good journey in all things So by these two places you understand what is the meaning of the word that whereas all the provision of the life present here is made upon casualties there is no man can tell when he sets up how the Lord will blesse him before the yeares end some runne bankrupt some againe get by the mercie of God the Lord sets up one and brings downe another Men in their trading here be as Merchant adventurers upon the Sea there is as great adventure on the Land as on the Sea and there is not greater danger there then here so when it pleaseth God that the ship comes well from the sea that it brooks all that it escapes all rocks and pyrats and comes home full fraught then all the neighbours rejoyce about it and shew their joy by shooting off peeces of ordnance for the great benefit they have received and give thanks to God by this merriment So when a Merchant man upon the Land drives out his Trade by his frugalitie and good husbandrie and by his just dealing keepes a good conscience to all men and the Lord raiseth him out of his 100. l. unto an hundred and twenty or more the Lord requires some custome to be payed some impost money there is some scot and allowance to be made Therefore I say we must pay this tribute it belongs it is due unto God For this good journey for this prosperous and good voyage he hath given thee out of this thou must lay up somewhat for the poore Saints Thou must reserve that which is fit for thy person what is fit for thy children and family God gives thee leave to doe this but thou must leave a remnant still for the poore according to the good iourney that the Lord hath given thee The Lord it may be hath multiplied thy hundreds to thousands thou must therefore remember the Lord thy God that hath given thee this great increase and abundance above all that thou couldest hope or conceit in former times for what was every yong beginner that now is growne rich let him say himselfe thou wouldest have beene glad of the tenth part of that that God hath enriched thee with and now the Lord hath multiplied and encreased thee oh let thy hand againe be inlarged toward God and abundant to him that hath so abounded in grace and mercy to thee and as the Lord hath given a man a good iourney a good way and passage a good trade and prospers him that he thrives in his calling so let him againe doe the workes of mercy for the God of mercy But these things that remaine are so full of matter and variety and I have beene so troublesome to your patience already that I must reserve the rest that remaines untill the next time The second Sermon 1 COR. 16.1.2.3 Now concerning the collection for the Saints according as I have ordained in the Churches of Galatia even so doe you In the first day of the Sabbath or of the weeke Let every one of you lay up by himselfe a treasure of whatsoever God hath prospered him c. THere is no point in all divinity that needs more cleare propoundiâ—g and more earnest prosecuting then this of Almes-deeds and brotherly benevolence For men are wondrously and by a strange motion of the spirit of God brought unto it against the current of nature every man thinking that that which is given is lost that it is cast away and there is scarse any man perswaded that he that gives to the poore lends to the Lord although it be a common speech in every mans mouth Therefore the Apostle being appointed by the Church of God to have a speciall
you must doe it much more as being more blessed of God As I have ordained in the Churches of Galatia so doe ye where we are to understand three things First the antiquity of the Church of Galatia Three things 1 The antiquity 2 Apostolicall authorâ—ty Secondly that the Apostle had ordained it hee commands it he counselleth them not to doe it but by his power Apostolicall he enjoynes them 3 The power of the Church Thirdly and lastly what is the force and power of this argument which is drawne from the authority of the Church what is the nature of it and how farre it must prevaile with all the followers of Christ For thus he argueth The Churches of Galatia doe this and if you doe it not you are in great fault and in danger of damnation for you must follow the example of elder Churches but they have done thus therefore you must doe so much more having greater meanes and better ability then they that is one motive Another incentive is this that he himselfe will come and that he will see to these things and that he will receive it at their hands and that hee will make a convoy for it to the place where it should be surely delivered which is a great argument for a man is very willing to part with his money if he be sure that it shall not be interverted that there shall be no falshood but that it may come to the hands of those for whom it is intended upon these termes it may be he will be reasonable willing to part with it Therefore for this he tels them that he will take an order and that order that shall be best liking to themselves for when he comes they shall appoint and choose certaine fit men that they may trust with money and indeed he that a man may trust with money he may trust him with any thing almost therefore they shall choose such men not as may be their owne carvers not such as shall seek to make themselves rich of other mens goods much lesse out of the poore mans stocke but such as shall be true and faithfull dispensers of that which is offered by them and these shall bee chosen by themselves because he was a stranger to them and they were strangers to him and not onely so but they shall commend them to the brethren at Ierusalem by their Epistle and if need were he himselfe would helpe to convoy it he would helpe to passe their blessing The last motive that he useth is this that he saith they shall carry your grace to Ierusalem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 calling that almes that they should give a grace as making them gracious before God and men as proceeding from the grace and good spirit of God as comming from meere grace not of constraint Every man desires to be gracious and to be reputed gracious the tythe of grace is the most honourable and the greatest thing that can be in the world especially of divine grace and such a thing is this almes deeds he calls it not almes he cals it not benevolence or a collection but he cals it grace They shall carry your grace to Ierusalem that is that gracious gift which the Spirit of God shall worke you to And the summe of all is this that he would have this done before he come lest they should be found too tardy if they should then fall a gathering when they should be a presenting and offering their gift for tardinesse and unreadinesse is a base fault in any man but most in Christians and in Christian duties most of all It was the fault of the foolish virgins which were tardy and lost the kingdome for it things must be done in season in due time so saith the Apostle lest it be to be made when I come I pray make it before as he saith in 2. Corinth 9. If the Macedonians that I shall bring with me when they come shall finde you making your collection you and I shall be both ashamed to see your unreadinesse in this point of Religion and devotion whereunto you should go with the formost I take this to be the summe and substance of the words read that upon the Lords day every man should repose and lay by himselfe of that which it had pleased God to give him and that he is pleased to give againe to the Church to lay by that he can spare and to do it upon consideration that other Churches have done it before him and that all the members of Christ are bound one to another and also because it was a precept and command upon the Church left by Apostolicall power and chiefly because the whole managing of the businesse was certaine to be conveyed by men of most knowne fame and experienced goodnesse and honesty Such as should be chosen by themselves such as should be confirmed by their letters commendatorie and all this the Apostle instances lest they themselves should not be found so ready and chearfull in the worke lest they should be lagging in their gift which should bee ready and willing to keep their credit especially in so good an action Of these things briefly and in order and but a word because I will not extend your patience beyond the time 1 The time of the collection First for the day the Apostle would have this done upon the first day of the weeke wee may take it for granted that it was the Lords day we will prove it afterward we will have it granted now The first day of the weeke the first of the Sabbath for all the dayes of the weeke were among the Iewes reckoned for Sabbaths so Sunday was the first and Munday the second and Tuesday the third Sabbath and so forth And according to this reckoning they all computed their time their moneths and their weeks among the Iews In which sence the Pharisee is to be understood when he saith I fast twice in the Sabbath that is twice in the weeke For the Sabbath being the great day and the principall of the seven it gives the denomination to all the rest and they be called the first and second and third according as they have their distance from that day So this first of the weeke it was the Iews Munday as it were it is our Lords day which immediately succeeded the day of the Passeover wherein our Lord Iesus lay in the grave and which was the first day of his resurrection and therefore is remembred throughout all Christian generations This was the time that the Apostle thought fittest for Christian men to lay aside their charitie to lay it up for the common treasure for the common stocke of the Saints for the poore Saints at Ierusalem It teacheth us that as all the works of mercie become the Lords day so especially this of almes giving it is a worke proper to the Lords day For therein we have both rest from labour representing unto us our eternall rest
shew that now he had given the Sabbath a perfect rest for ever that there should be no more ceremoniall worke he had then fulfilled all the ceremonies the sinne of man was payd for and all the troublesome ceremonies of the law were abrogate and to shew that the Sabbath was ended he celebrated it in his grave and then upon the Munday the Iewes Munday the day of his resurrection hee rose againe to shew that ours must be an active life not in idle circumstances to passe it away in ceremonies as in the law but to remaine as an eternall Sabbath for ever we keepe a publique Sabbath to God though not in the same time and in memory of the same thing yet in the remembrance of a farre greater benefit 6 From the apparitions of Christ To conclude the point our Lord graced this constitution of the Church by his own presence most of his apparitions were upon the eighth day as wee may see in the Gospell that day that he rose still he glorified it with his presence eight dayes after he rose he came and shewed himselfe to his Disciples and the next day to Thomas and the rest of the Disciples and so for the time of 40. dayes that he continued on earth after his resurrection look how many Mundayes of the Iewes there was which is our Lords day so many apparitions hee made upon that day whereby they gathered that it was the will of the Lord and that hee meant to make that day glorious by his comfortable apparitions for still as I said his apparitions were upon that day he was absent all the weeke before hee appeared to none except it were to some few persons as Peter and Iohn but he made no publique apparition but onely upon the Lords day And upon this the Church of God was induced to make this change and we see it acted Acts 20.10 Acts 20.10 1 Cor. 16. and this chapter is a publique testimony of it and likewise in Rev. 1. Rev. 1. Saint Iohn saith I was in the spirit upon the Lords day which is generally taken by the fathers of the Church and by the Interpreters of the Gospell for this that we hold instead of the Sabbath day But because these kinde of people will never be satisfied except wee can answer their reasons as well as they can heare ours give me leave a little to goe forward in this poynt and heare what they can object for this Arguments against the change of the Saâ—bâ—th which thinke the Iewish Sabbath still to remaine in force I have spent the time against my minde and purpose therefore I will but name the chiefe heads of their arguments and refute them They conclude therefore that there is no certaine warrant for the changing of the Iewish Sabbath to ours 1 There is no written word for it because there is no direct written Scripture to prove it we have no Text of Scripture to worke it into us But for that we are to answer them Answ The Apostles in this guided by the spirit of God whatsoever the Apostles did being guided by the spirit of God their practise is a sufficient direction to us it is warrant enough that they have done it before us For so we have in many other things the practise of the Apostles to be a rule of our faith Christ not determining many particular things in the Church but leaving it to the discretion of the wise those that should be well furnished with knowledge for the directing of things in their places where they were therefore that which the Apostles did it was the act of Christ for they did it not of themselves but from a higher person from him that sent them Another reason they have and that is this 2 It is a part of the decalogue the decalogue or tenne Commandements are a perpetuall law but this is a part of the decalogue therefore this is a perpetuall law and the precepts that be in the tenne Commandements are all morall they are precepts that belong to all men to all times and places in the world Thirdly God is pleased to call the Sabbath an everlasting covenant God cals the Sabbath an everlasting covenant Deut. 12.16 I have made an everlasting covnant saith the Lord Deuter. 12.16 and in divers other places hee cals it a perpetuall covenant betweene me and my people Israel therefore it follows it must last as long as the world lasts and consequently it cannot be changed for then we alter the covenant of God 4 It was aucienter then Moses A fourth objection is this all the laws that are ancienter then Moses are immutable but this was more ancient then Moses law for it was given to man in paradise the Lord there by resting upon the seventh day did consecrate the Sabbath to be kept although some of the Fathers say as Iustin Martyr Iustin Martyr that they did not keepe it before the Floud but yet there was the institutioÌ„ of it therfore seeing it was a law given before Moses and before the fall of man it follows it is immutable and unchangeable because if there be any change it must be for imperfection and if there be any imperfection it must be for sinne and there was no sinne before the fall Therefore whatsoever was commanded before the fall was so perfect that it could not be altered it had no respect of imperfection in it 5 The cause of it is perpetuall And lastly the perpetuall cause of a law makes the law continue if the cause of it remaine the law must also continue and therefore there are many lawes that are made and abrogate againe because there is no use of them they were made in such a time for such things and the cause failing the law ceaseth but where the law hath a perpetuall cause there the law is in force to continue alway but the cause of the Iewish Sabbath continueth the meditation and contemplation upon the works of God and the holy operation of his hands this is the cause of the Sabbath and this alwayes continueth therefore the Iewish sabbath must continue These are the prime and chiefe grounds of their arguments I will answer a word to these and so conclude First in that they say the decalogue or ten Commandements is a law perpetuall Ans to Ob. 2. The Iewish Sabbath partly ceremoniall and bindes the consciences of all men It is true as farre forth as it is morall it doth but those parts that bee ceremoniall as the Sabbath is partly morall and partly ceremoniall and as it is moral it binds but as it is ceremoniall it doth not For the moralitie of the Sabbath is this to worship God in a publique service that wee are bound unto that which is ceremoniall that we should serve him upon such a day upon the seventh day rather then any other that doth not binde there is no part of moralitie in that that
is a lively hope made over to all the branches that they shall rise againe with the root It was graced by the manifold apparitions of Christ and confirmed unto us according as the Apostles had receiued it from the will of Christ to grace that day the eighth day with his apparitions It was confirmed unto us by the Apostle Saint Iohn who maketh mention of the Lords day hee was rapt in the Spirit upon the Lords day And by these two places Act. 20.10 and this present place 1. Cor. 16.2 The time prevented me that I could not shew you the authoritie from age to age and the concurrence of these two things which was the gathering of collections upon that day for the Apostle includes both these both that the day should be changed to the first of the Sabbath that is to the first day of the weeke And secondly that upon this first day of the weeke it should be a particular appendix of the Sabbath dayes worke to lay up somewhat for the Saints because then there were no such officers appointed in the Church therefore every man waâ— his owne Treasurer every man was his owne overseer for the poore to lay up by himselfe as Chrysostome saith this priesthood thy charitie and thy love to thy brother hath bestowed upon thee that a man should provide and ordaine by his owne hands till such time as the Church should provide overseers and collectors for the poore and Deacons that they should be every where as they were then at Ierusalem Now it may seeme a matter not worth the labour to prove this point concerning the time of the Sabbath if it were not that some phanaticall spirits in these latter dayes had raised such a mist and vapour to cloud this truth and to bring backe the Iews ceremoniall Sabbath which saith Gregory if any go about to do he must bring in the Iews sacrifice and so he shall derogate and destroy the bloud and sacrifice of Christ which was offered once for all Give me leave therefore a little before I come to the residue of the Text for indeed it is full of matter to shew you how the Church of God in the first beginning acknowledged this day for the true Sabbath of the Lord. And upon these grounds out of Scripture I need not do it I know among you that are fully perswaded but there are some men that do infringe the glory and purpose of this Text and contradict the Fathers even some of our late Writers that are otherwise worthy Interpreters of the word of God yet here they hold that the Apostles meaning is where he saith One of the Sabbath that it is not to be understood upon the Lords day but they thinke it may be any one day in the week Wherein it is a wonder that they should give such a scandall to the Church of God in weakening the arguments and the faith of the Fathers that were before us and to make us uncertaine what to adhere and cleave unto I spare their names because they are worthy instruments of the Gospell Onely I go about to refute and cast down their opinion which I will do briefly and by the libertie and licence of the time that I may make the shorter worke The first of the Sabbath the Lords day Therefore that this first of the Sabbath is the Lords day it is manifest by other places of Scripture whose consent make an absolute verity every where for the rule of Scripture is to expound one place by another In Matth. 28.2 The woman came to the grave upon the first of the Sabbath when as it shined up when the light shined up upon the first of the Sabbath then came the woman to the grave the same word is used there as there is here The first of the Sabbath which was the day of the Lords resurrection and not every day in the weeke but the eight day from the creation So againe more clearly in Mark 16.2 and vers 9. it is said there verse 2. the women came very early in the morning upon the first of the Sabbath or of the weeke And in the 9. verse it is said Iesus did rise upon the first of the Sabbath in the morning that is upon the first day of the week This phrase in Scripture alludeth to that in Gen. 1.7 the morning and the evening were the one day that is the first day for one and first in the Hebrew tongue are promiscuously taken which is in every one day of the Sabbath that is in every Sabbath or upon the Lords day or in every first day of the weeke which is the Lords day Then the authoritie of the Acts of the Apostles and this place and that of Saint Iohn which saith he was rapt in the spirit upon the Lords day The judgement of the Fathers for the obâ—ervation of the Lords day All these things be firme and true establishers of the point we have declared Now for the Fathers that they were all also of the same minde you shall heare Iustin Martyr Iustin Martyr Apolog 1.2 that lived an hundred yeares after Christ within an hundred and foure yeares after he saith in the second of his Apollogeticks In the day saith he that we call Sunday the day which the Heathen men called Sunday which is now our Sabbath day for the other day before was called Saturne day of Saturne which was the Iews Sabbath in that day saith he the congregation come together and there are prayers offered up to God and after the Sacraments are received there is a collection made every man layes up as much as his own good will is according to his own election and it is given to the superintendent or to the chiefe Minister of the place and he seeth the poore provided for with it he seeth it be bestowed upon them Tertullian which lived two hundred and foure yeares after Christ in his booke called Tertull. in sould Crowne Apolog. ca. 16. The souldiers Crowne he saith Vpon the Lords day wee abhorre fasting for it is a time of feasting with us And in his Apolloget Chap. 16. saith he If we give one day in seven to merrinesse and joy to joyfulnesse in the holy Ghost it is but all one as the Iewes do which give yet superstitiously the day of Saturne to idlenesse and meere superstition so saith Tertullian there is a certaine little chest in the Church and every man puts into it what seemes good to him if he can and if he will for there is no man constrained and this is done once in a moneth For the place could not endure that it should be done every Sabbath as the Apostle saith here upon every first of the Sabbath but because of the povertie of the countrey it was but once in a moneth that they brought their charitie for the poore Clemens Alexandrinus in the fifth of his Stromata Clem. Alexan. Strom. 5. Pâ—ato he brings a prophesie out of
saith hee would have none to gather when he came because it would tend both to his and to their shame if they should be found unready Vnreadinesse is a fault in all the parts of Christianitie and there was no man that ought to be so forward as they therefore he prayes them to do it before hand These are the parcels of this Text. Of these things briefly and in order as it shall please God to give assistance 2 Motive from the Churches authority First concerning the motive from the Church It hath alway beene a strong argument that is taken from the Churches authority He that heares you heares me and he that scornes you scornes me saith our Lord Christ and tell it to the Church and if he will not heare the Church let him be to thee as a heathen and a publicane or sinner Hee that will not do as the Church doth he is out of the Church of God he is a banished man from heaven and a cast-away from all hope of salvation This argument therefore must be of speciall consideration with us what the ancient Church hath done before times we must follow their steps if we meane to partake of the reward that they and we both looke for We see that antiquitie is a great and a maine reason to induce any good understanding for if the Church of God have authoritie to perswade all her children and those that follow after certainly then the ancientest Churches are of the greatest authoritie Now the Church of Galatia was a more ancient Church then Corinth Therefore the Apostle alledgeth the authority of that Church to bring this on So we see also in persons not only in Churches but in particular persons Rom. 16.6 Salute Andronicus and Iunia that were before me in the Lord they were Christians before Saint Paul therefore Saint Paul gave them honour as his predecessors as his glorious and honourable Ancestors that were in the Lord before him Therefore hee saith honour them and salute them much So in this case Galatia was the more ancient Church therefore it was to be the rule of Churches afterward in all good things in all things belonging to the propagation of the Gospell to the maintenance of a good conscience The authoritie of the Church is the greatest argument one of them under heaven and it is certaine if our mother Church which was once the Church of Rome if it had not proved extreamly cruell and tyrannous in her proceedings there ought no Church to have fallen away from her communitie for by separation from her if she had continued a true mother they had separated from their father too the God of all comfort the God of heaven and earth for a man cannot have his fathers blessing if he go from his mothers bosome but now when all things were turned to pride to worldly covetousnesse to ambition and vaine glory and their own greatnesse without the true aime and without respect to the right end when all was turned to pride and selfe-love that they would depose Kings and Princes out of their seats and kingdomes it grew then to be a monster and ceased to be a mother and thence it is not lawfull to have any communion with them that are so blasphemous But else I say if they had continued in that modest humilitie which they were first bred in Rome a true Church 500 yeares after Christ continued in for the space of foure or five hundred yeares surely the authoritie of the Church had beene a rule for the whole world for where they do well the Apostle makes a law from their doings As the Churches of Galatia do so do ye 2 What the Church of Galatia was Secondly here is to bee observed what this Church of Galatia was it was a famous but yet it was but a poore Church it was so famous in zeale that the Apostle protests that they would have given him their eyes to have done him good wherein he signified their infinite ardor and fervencie to the Gospell of Christ at his first comming although afterwards by his absence they were seduced and drawne away by circumcision by some creeping Iewes that stole in among them But as it was famous for the greatnesse of the graces of the spirit so it was but meane in condition Therefore the Apostle might well draw an argument from it for the Corinthians could not object and say What do you tell us of Galatia Galatia is a potent kingdome a rich kingdome full of meanes and full of glory above our Citie but this they could not do for it appeared to all the world to be but a poore place a place of no trafficke except it were a little in the Euxine sea for it is a middle-land place And although the countries of Asia-minor whereof Galatia is one can maintaine themselves Galatia in Asia minor yet for any great superfluitie and abundance to send to others they cannot do it especially the Citie of Galatia which is excluded and kept from the Pamphilian Sea by the border of the South which lyeth betweene it and Pamphilia So we see here that according as God hath given Churches meanes and abilitie so they should exceed those that are poorer the richer sort must do after a rich manner and if the poore should at any time seeke to transcend them it were a shame to them that are greater and more able The Citie of Corinth it was the Mart of all the world Corinth the Mart of the world Hom. Iliad 2. therefore Homer in his time which was one of the ancientest Writers that ever was among the Heathen there is none like him in his second Iliad he saith three times over Rich Corinth The reason of it is because of the scituation which is betweene two seas from whence all the traffick of the world flocked flowed to it Therefore it followed that seeing the Church of Galatia had farre lesse meanes then Corinth and yet they had done thus Therefore Corinth must much more obey this precept And it is a lesson that I would that men of sence and reason would lay to their owne consciences both in the Church and in their private persons for we have a great number of poore Churches even in this Citie that are sessed oft times to pay farre more then richer places do and there are many poore persons that are truer pay-masters that pay scot and lot better then many greater men do which the Apostle intimates here to be a shame it is a shame that poore Churches should go before rich it is a shame that Galatia should go before Corinth and exceed them it is a thing that God will have a saying for and these great ones that have their thousands and their ten thousands about them and yet they will not pay that which belongs to their poore officers to their poore servants such as belong to them poore Church-men that will not pay that which belongs to them
tels the Corinthians that they should have no such feare for saith he whosoever you shall commend such as shall be fit men they should be appointed for the carriage of this money Indeed he must be a fit man that may be trusted with money as he saith in the Comedie if thou findest a man that is faithfull in money he may easily be beleeved on in any word of counsell for he that may bee trusted with the one may be trusted with the other and they are excellent men indeed that can bee faithfull in those things that are committed to their charge especially in money where the craft and subtiltie may be easily hidde and can hardly be boltted out Therefore he saith there shall be fit men chosen men of conscience men fearing God and hating covetousnesse as Moses father speakes of officers not such as were collectors afterward men that were carelesse that will spend the whole yeare in out-laying and will worke all that while out of the poore mens stocke they care not how much men that will come here with a Briefe and stay upon pleasure in the Citie and spend out their time that they care not when they returne to the poore men for whom they gather much lesse shall they bee such men as those that shall barter their Briefes and sell their Patent and take a certaine summe of money beforehand of some hide-bound fellows of such wretches that will extort and gather farre more then they could do these must be no such companions but they must be men fit faithfull men chosen of the Corinthians themselves for he saith those that you shall approve by your letters by them will I send the money So from hence wee understand first that there ought officers for the poore collectors for the poore alwayes to bee chosen among the parties with whom they live indeed some officers cannot bee chosen by the common people spirituall officers cannot be chosen by them for the people cannot chuse their Bishop they cannot chuse their Minister they must not they cannot meddle with it because it belongs not to them to be judges of gifts and abilities of the spirit wherein they have no insight But for temporall things the Lord hath given them power to elect and make Officers and the Civill Law gives them leave to chuse their Pleaders their Physitians and their Schoolmasters and Officers of the like kinde So that in this the Church hath authoritie and power as we see by the Apostles words And it is with great care and conscience to be left to them unlesse higher authority interpose which must be hearkened unto or else I say it is left to them therefore the Apostle saith They shall chuse because they were knowne to them they were not knowne to the Apostle except it were by revelation he knew not by a mans face whether he were honest or no. Therefore the Corinthians were to make choice of them and them that they chose he would not reject and put by but whom they should nominate he would allow and confirme them in their election and choise By this we learne that it is no small honour for a man to bee chosen a collector for the poore It is thought of men to be a poore and base office but it is that place that God puts a man into and that God and the Church trusts him withall It is a place that is gotten by the grace of God that shines in a man and therefore it is not to be balked and put off and rejected as a matter of basenesse but to be accounted a faire degree in the Church of God as the Apostle speaks of the Deacons office which is like unto this of collection for the poore 3. Motive Letters of commendation But now how shall these men be commended they must not onely be chosen but they must be commended by their letters and Epistles The Corinthians must write letters testimoniall to commend these as faithfull brethren to the Saints at Ierusalem The Church of God alwayes had a great care of letters testimoniall they would have no man go or travell without them they would have no man go into a strange place to receive the Sacrament but he must have a letter of testimony with him Letters of commendation have beene of ancient use in the Church of God which are still to be honoured and to be kept with much care Three sorts of letters These kinde of letters were of three sorts 1 Letters of peace They were either letters of peace which were such as a man must needs have with him if he came to the King or to the Bishop he had still a letter of peace that was to shew that such a man was in the peace of the Church that he was a member of Christ that he was a professour of the faith that he received the Sacrament duely that he was in the communion of the body if he had these letters he might come into the presence of the King or of the Bishop or else he might not 2 Letters of form And then there were letters of forme by which the Church used to commend a man to the Presbyter or to the people to whom they must come with these and by no meanes without them A man could not travell out of his countrey but he must have of these letters to commend him And then there were these letters testimoniall 3 Letters testimoniall which the Apostle here speaks of that these brethren that should be supposed faithfull that should administer the portion that God had vouchsafed them that they should deliver it to the full that they should not balke a peny nor spend of the Churches store any more then needs must nor stay by the way longer then need required but that they should in all parts be faithfull dispensers those that made conscience and those that would give an account and answer to God for the things they had beene trusted withall The Church had this care of letters because they would have no falsaries to go up and downe no idle vagabonds to pretend poverty and to collogue and cozen the world to whom they were to send for those that wanted And the Church was also carefull to see that undoubted seale from those whom the letters were sent that it were no counterfeit lest there should be any deceit any forged letters and lest there should be any cause of trouble in the Church by unnecessary letters that should be sent to no purpose as many now adayes that gad about upon their pleasure and men will send letters with a beggar to maintaine his gadding the Church of God could not endure this but had a speciall regard to the letters of the Saints and took them still as so many appendixes as so many seales as writings applyed to their faith they received them with as great reverence as an Angell from heaven this was the antiquitie of letters Now a dayes they
from both in the meane time we have our conscience to serve instead of a visitor Let it therefore do it for good for there will be a visitation if wee do not by timely repentance meet the Lord in the way and intreat for mercie and pardon if wee do not follow the counsell of Christ that saith a man that goeth forth against his enemy if he go forth with ten thousand he will sit downe and reckon whether he be able to go against him that hath 20000 or else he will send Ambassadors to intreat peace of him if he be not able to match him If we do not take the like course we shall fall into the visitation of the Lord. The Lord strengthen us and support us that whensoever that day comes wee may finde him come with comfort as one that comes to reward us with abundant recompence SERM. 5. 1 COR. 16.5 6. But I will come unto you when I shall passe through Macedonia for I passe through Macedonia and perhaps I will abide with you or else will winter with you that you may have me along to any place whither I shall goe for I will not see you now as I passe by A Man that reades these things would presently imagine that all this were true and that all had an issue according as it is here spoken but that is not certaine for that which St. Paul wished and desired it did not alway come to passe as he saith Rom. 15. Rom. 15. that he had a purpose to goe to Spaine but yet St. Paul never came there So the Prophets were uncertaine in these particulars how God would dispose of them for wee see in Acts 16. Acts 16. that when they were come to Bythinia and would have preached the Gospel the Holy Ghost would not suffer them to doe it and when they came unto Asia-Minor the same Spirit of God forbade them to preach the Gospel there and if the Spirit of God would interpose himselfe to forbid the preaching of the Gospel you may then conclude for other matters of lesse importance for this Towne or that place the Lord would much more disturbe and turne away their purpose For man purposeth but God disposeth But howsoever although St. Paul did not finish this journey according to his promise here yet the efficacy the vertue and power of it is all one for hee shewes what hee would have done if God had not turned his will by necessity in calling him another way Such things as these in the Scriptures wee oft times meet withall and whether a man should insist upon them or no it may bee a matter of disputation because the common people think that nothing is fit to bee spoken of but that which makes for morality that which tends to manners they call that onely edifying which buildeth up in matter of life whereas those that are seene in learning or that are men of sense they know that edification is as well in matters of knowledge and there is no part of the Booke of God that is written but it is written for our learning to build us up first out of our Ignorance and then secondly to build us from wickednesse to newnesse and holinesse of life for the second can never bee without the first Therefore wee must take the Scripture as it lies and although this Text afford no great matter for manners or conversation of life yet the schollers of Christ must heare his Word preached wheresoever it is and make profit by it and as long as they doe understand that either they know something which they knew not before or that they know it better and more soundly and perfectly then they did before they cannot but say they are edified by it The first thing then that wee are here to consider is this Parts of the Text. the maine bulke of the Text whether this thing was performed or no that hee saith hee would come to them when hee should passe through Macedonia Secondly wee are to come to the particulars of the Text What is Macedonia What Macedonia was and how hee made his passage thereout and how God furnished him and where he stayed him in his journey Thirdly the purpose that hee had in staying and Wintring with the Corinthians His purpose wherein wee are to consider that though the Apostles were sent to preach the Gospel of Christ yet the Lord tied them not to any ill way or to any ill weather but he gave them place of lodging when they had time and how and upon whose cost the Apostle should lodge there The fourth thing to be considered is the end of his lodgiâ—â— there The end that they might carry him along on his joâ—â—ney where there is another act in his journey which Christian common duty called them unto to bring him along on his way both to defend him and to shew him the way and also to carry him with a kinde of credite belonging to an Apostle And lastly the forme of all these things that hee knowes not whether these things shall bee so or so and therefore hee referres all to the will of God and saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by chance I will doe thus or by fortune or if the Lord permit I will doe thus Where hee shewes what hee would have done what his affection did stand to but whether the consequence of it should bee answerable or no hee leaves it to the will of God and indeed that which hee here promiseth by all likelihood it never fell out I know it is argued both wayes but I thinke they are in the better opinion that conclude that this purpose of the Apostle was never effected 1. Part. That the Apostle came not to Corinth Concerning the first part of the Text that you may the better understand it looke to 2 Cor. 1.16 17 18. And in this confidence I would have come unto you before that you might have had a second grace or benefit and I would have gone by you and passed into Macedonia and againe would have come from Macedonia to you and by you have been led along or sent along to Iudea Marke what his purpose was it was his intent to doe thus but hee could not doe this and therefore hee answers the Corinthians againe which might have said unto him What dost thou tell us that thou wilt come and dost thou faile of thy promise art thou so inconstant art thou so forgetfull of thy selfe and of us Therefore it followes in the next verse where he answers for himselfe saith he when I consulted of these things with my selfe when I purposed to doe thus did I use lightnesse did I use inconstancy or did I make it so that those things that I counsell did I counsell according to the flesh that with mee there should bee yea yea and nay nay that my yea should bee yea and my nay nay observe the meaning of this hee answers them that when hee purposed
these things hee was not then the master of his owne guidance in the Action but hee was to bee lead and directed by a Spirit that was higher then his owne by the Spirit of God And hee was not so resolute as fleshly men are as to say I will doe this or I will doe that His yea was not yea and his nay was not nay as if he should say I was not so peremptory as to come unto you till I knew the will of God as St. Iames Iames 5. saith Chap. 5. For this you ought to say if God will or if the Lord permit so the sense is this That whereas I purposed to come unto you and doe not now come you must pardon mee for I am not lead by my selfe but by a higher Spirit which hinders and intervents my purposes as it pleaseth him for I depend not upon my owne will but upon the will of God for if I had beene guided by my owne will I had been with you Then as it followes in the Text The Lord is faithfull for our speach to you hath not beene yea and nay for the Sonne of God Iesus Christ who was preached among you by us was not yea and nay but yea for all the promises of God in him are yea and in him are amen As if hee should have said You must make a difference betweene my Preaching of the Gospel and the promises that I make as I am a man as I am a weake man and know not the things that are to come I know not the things that are contingent so I tell you this and I tell you that which it may bee shall not bee performed and made good so that I will not say that my yea is yea or my nay nay but when I come to preach the Gospel I am sure of those things I know what I say I understand my selfe I know the foundation of truth is unmoveable I know that there it is not yea and nay in Christ but all the promises of God in him are yea and in him are Amen for ever Thus you partly understand this But that wee may make it a little more open the sense of the Apostle is this That whereas I promised you in my former Epistle to come unto you I was so in earnest affected to this journey that whereas I told you I would not passe by you but would first goe to Macedonia and then come backe to you yet my minde was so altered and my bowels againe were so earnest that I determined to bee better then my word I purposed to come to you first and so to passe from you to Macedonia but all this was not in my owne government but in the hand of God I know not whether I shall goe I know not how I shall be disposed of I know not how the Lord hath laid the way for mee I know not where hee will have mee imployed I went to preach unto all Nations the Gospel of Christ but the Lord hindered mee and would not suffer mee to preach to many of them but bade mee hold my tongue so I promise you now to come to Corinth but I know not whether ever I shall come or that this shall come to passe therefore I would have you distinguish and make a difference between the word of my preaching and the word of my Promise the word of my Preaching is alway certaine it is yea and amen but those words that I promise as a man they bee yea and nay as God shall dispose of them I have not power of my selfe to order them so this place is a plaine argument of that I said before that St. Paul never performed this which hee thought and desired that is to come to Corinth Now looke to another place that makes it a little more plaine 2. Cor. 2.1 where hee gives another reason for it I determined saith hee I disposed with my selfe that I would never come in sorow to you I would never come to you in heavinesse but if I come I will come in joy and cheerefulnesse Now I understand that yee are in heavinesse because of the letter that I wrote unto you I wrote a letter concerning the incestuous fellow that used his fathers wife and lived with her and I understand that you are in heavinesse for this and I would not therefore come unto you for this cause because you were in sorow although I bee glad for it that you are sorry for it was a godly sorrow which caused repentance but yet I would not come unto you in that state but when you have made your peace with God and with your selves when you may entertaine me with cheerefulnesse it is my purpose then to come So both the will of God and my will wrought together in this for Gods will it perfects my will it was Gods will that I should not come unto you and my will is agreeable to Gods will the Lord told mee that it was not fit for mee to come and take you in sorrow for the spirit of the Pastor and of his Schollers should alwayes meet in joy they should rejoice continually as the Apostle saith We see then it was not done Now let us see a little the cause why it was not done The cause why he came not how came it to passe that the Apostle Paul was thus disturbed and disappointed of his purpose For that you shall see Acts 20.3 Act. 20.3 St. Paul went to Macedonia and came through those parts and exhorted the brethren with much exhortation from thence he came into Grecia and staying there three moneths he heard say that there was treason plotted against him that there was a conspiracy against him in Asia by the Iewes or else in some part of Grecia the Iewes had laid wait for his life to intercept and hinder him Therefore hee was counselled by the company by the body of the Apostles those that were then companions with him to goe backe againe to Macedonia and from thence he came to the port Towne to Philippi and thence along and never touched at Ephesus as we shal have occasion to shew upon the next verse if God give permission he never touched there but went along upon the first day upon Easter Munday as wee call it and so passed on till Pentecost and never saw Ephesus nor Corinth more but went to Ierusalem and after hee was carried to Rome and there he continued till the time of his Martyrdome So out of this we gather that St. Paul was twice at Macedon once when hee planted the Church and another time when hee came to visite the Church The planting of the Church wee find Act. 16.9 Acts 1â— 9 It is said there that there was in the night time a vision made to Paul a certaine vision appeared to him for there was a man of Macedon that stood there and intreated him and said unto him Come over to Macedonia and help us And upon this
the Text saith that they went presently as soone as they saw the vision they went forward to goe to Macedon knowing by certaine arguments that the Lord had called them there to preach the Gospel So from Troas hee went to Samothracia and from thence hee went the same day to Neapolis from thence he passed to Philippos c. Now in this first journey to Macedon the Apostle was intercepted and hindred that he could not goe through as hee purposed to doe as we finde in the story from Philippos he passed to Appolonia which were a company of people that were strangers carried and planted in a strong place in the confines betweene Thrace and Macedon From thence he came to Amphipolis from thence to Thessalonica where he stayed three weeks untill the Iewes persecuted him thence for his life and then he came to Berea which were most noble minded men which examined the Scriptures tried daily whether those things that Paul spake were the Word of God as we see Acts 19. Act. 19. From Berea the Iewes hunted him they came from Thessalonica with permission to take him wheresoever they could find him therefore the brethren conveyed him from thence to Athens and then he came to Corinth where he stayed 18. Moneths that was the first time of his being at Corinth where he conversed I say a yeare and a halfe At Macedon he was twice for the second time he went he passed almost by Dalmatia and Illiricum as he speaks in the Epistle to the Romanes and then hee came backe and thought to have gone to Corinth but newes was brought him that the Iewes would take away his life therefore he returned and could not come but hee desired the money to bee sent to him to Philippi by Titus which they did and so it was carried to Ierusalem and bestowed on the brethren But here is some difficulty Object For how could it be that their benevolence should be put off for so long a time a poore man must have reliefe quickly or else he perisheth this money that was gathered at Corinth either it must be conveyed upon the sudden or else the brethren at Ierusalem for whom it was destinate are like to lose life and state and all Answ But for this we must understand that the want was not so great it was not so urgent but that they could stay some time and so it was almost a year indeed before he dispatched his journey in going to Macedon and returning from Philippos and if he receive their benevolence and it be sent from thence there will be time sufficient for it to relieve them at Ierusalem at the time of Pentecost These things are needfull to be knowne although the common people cannot brook them because they think they edifie not yet it is no great matter as long as I follow the Text I am carelesse of all censures 2 Part. Macedonia what Now I come to the particulars of the Text hee saith hee will come to them when he shall come from Macedonia Macedonia it is a great and large country in the North of Greece it is now called Ronnelli and Albania in old time it was called Emathia and Emonia it is that country which is intimated to us by the name of Kittim Macedonia Kittim Gen. 10.4 or Kethim Gen. 10.4 The sons of Iavan were Kethim and Dodanim of Dodanim came the inhabitants of Rhodes or Rodanim and of Kethim came the inhabitants of the Isles and especially the inhabitants of Macedonia And though Macedonia be no Isle but a Continent yet it is adjacent and they were the mother of it and this word Kethim I stand upon the more because the Scripture hath many ambiguities about it In Dan. 11. Dan. 11. The ships of Kethim shall come against them that is against the Assyrian Kingdome under the Antiochees In Isay 23.1 Isay 23.1 Houle ye ships of Tarshish for Kittim shall make good this word that is Alexander the great King of Macedon shall make good this word for that which Nebuchadnezzar had done before him he did in a short time after him againe that is to the Iland of Tyre which was seperate from the sea by the span of two miles or a mile and a halfe both Nebuchadnezzar with the strong and indefatigable labour of his men and Alexander after him by his infinite high spirit brought it of an Iland to be a Continent and made themselves Lords of the place so that where he saith Houle yee ships of Tarshish for Kittim shall make good this word that is that prophesie that I give of it There shall come a man out of Kittim that is Alexander Alexander the great King of Macedon hee shall make good this that I have prophesied this is a plaine demonstration that Kittim is this Macedon And in Ezek. 27. Ezek. 27. saith he speaking of the ships of Kittim although the Iews alway understand it of Ciprus yet better judgements have and doe take it for Macedon because there was a city built there which was called Ketiem or Ketium for Livie Livius saith that Perseus Perseus the last King of Macedon hee gathered his people together at Ketium and it is an easie translation of the word as Suidas Suidas a learned man notes that from Kethim comes Macedon by appendix of the syllable Ma Makethim Makedon or Makethia so the name is very natural and agreeable with the first Originall Kethim This I note onely to shew you the congruity of these words which we meet with oft in the Scriptures I know that Kethim is more than the City of Macedon I know that the Macedons possessed Italie and built a city there and called it Kittie but it was called Kittim of that city in Macedon the Macedons I say possessed great part of Italie as all the parts about Apulea and Brundis Brundusinm which were for a long time after called Magna Grecia Great Greece This is that Macedon saith Plinie Lib. 5. Cap. 11. that was once the mistresse of the world This is that which overcame Egypt Plinâ— l. 5. c. 11. that was Lord of Asia this is that which wandred as far as India namely by the prowesse and strength of Alexander the great King of Macedon but saith hee the same Macedon is fallen to a low ebbe and shee that was the mistresse of the world by one of our valiant men Paulus Aemilius Paulus Aemilius was in one day sacked and he did sell and mortgage 72. Cities of it See saith he what great difference there is in the luck and fortunes of two men Alexander the Great and Perseus the last King of Macedon Alexander the Great won and purchased all Perseus the last King of Macedon hee lost all that was won before This is that country therefore that the Apostle purposed to goe to it was fallen from the glory of the world and now it was come to receive the glory
what this Pentecost is it seemes not greatly materiall to enquire because every man thinks he hath the knowledge of it But if you should see the diversity of Writers and Interpreters you would wonder to see so much question about a thing that seemes so out of question For Erasmus and some others think that it signifies nothing but fifty dayes that S. Paul writ at a certaine time of the yeare not alluding to this that is that hee had no reference to this feast of Pentecost but onely that he purposed to stay fifty dayes at Ephesus and then to journey to Ierusalem But this cannot be for the Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 plainly proves that it was that feast that Pentecost that is that famous feast of the Iewes Others move the question whether it were the Christian Pentecost or the Iewish Pentecost for they will have the Christian Pentecost as soone as the holy Ghost came downe that it was kept ever after presently upon that day wherein I see many and great Writers and Interpreters doe much differ and I suppose indeed it is true that although the Apostles did keepe that Pentecost of the Iewes because that then the company met and assembled together and then it was the best time for them to worke yet I think the Apostles meaning in this place is not of any Iewish feast but of the Pentecost which the Christians used because it was coinsident happily with the Iewish Pentecost I shall intreat your patience a little in this point and although it bee somewhat troublesome yet it is good to know it You know the Pentecost of the Iewes was fifty dayes after the feast of Sweet bread or fifty dayes after the Passeover for the Passeover was then to be presented to God at the feast of Sweet bread when the corne was first ripe the first fruits of their corn The Iewes used to sprinkle their corne in the fire before it was ripe to broyle it in the fire and so to make a kinde of bread meale of that that was the beginning of their Harvest the time of first fruits was then come and that was that the Apostle alludes unto when he saith 1 Cor. 15. Our first fruits are raised from the dead and become the first fruits of them that sleepe because that hee was offered then at the feast of the Passeover now after that feast after the Passeover they were to number the feast of weekes that is they were to number 7. weeks or 50. dayes and then all their Harvest was come to be inned among the Iewes so that whereas before they offered sprinkled corne at Easter now they bring whole loaves at Whitsontide being made of the new corne of that yeare and so they presented it and an acknowledgement was made to God for the corne that hee had given them that yeare and this was the reason of it The word Pentecost signifieth 50. dayes called the feast of weekes Now it appeares in Acts 20. Act. 20. that the Apostle imbarked at Philippi presently after the Passeover after the day of Assum or the day of sweet bread that then hee tooke shipping at Philippi and sayled into Asia and that hee would not goe to Ephesus then for the reason before mentioned because of the treason of the Iewes This being a Iewish feast the feast of weekes or Pentecost which was 50. dayes after the Passeover when they offered of their new corne to the Lord Christ glorified it by sending downe the holy-Ghost upon that day as wee see Acts 2. Act. 2. when the Church was gathered together at the feast of Pentecost when the 50. dayes were ended after Easter there came a mighty noyse a mighty winde with cloven tongues and fire and sate upon the Apostles and gave them such evidence of the Spirit to speak in strange languages in strange tongues the great and wondrous things of God Now then I conclude that the Iewes Pentecost and the Christian Pentecost came altogether upon one day The Lord picking out that day that served most for his purpose for when there was most men gathered and assembled together a greater Harvest was like to be brought in to God when therefore they were met at the Iewish Pentecost which was now ended because the ceremoniall Law was abrogated yet the Lord so graced the time and the oportunity to work at that time as to send the holy Ghost upon that day Aug. And Austin gives the reason for saith he as the Law was given 50. dayes after the Passeover was eaten so 50. dayes after Christ our Passeover was offered the holy Ghost was given to write the Law of God in the hearts of all the faithfull people of God And I make no doubt but the Christians were possest with this that there was more glory in their Pentecost then in the Pentecost of the Iewes as being the summe of all things the sending of the holy Ghost And if the remembrance of their corne were so great a blessing that the feast of weekes must be celebrated for it the feast of Pentecost being a thing too which was given by Moses Law which is a killing letter Much more glorious must this feast be when God sent the holy Ghost into the hearts of men to inflame them well such heavenly qualities and such rare perfections as were never planted in the persons of any that were meere men so clearely as it was in them Quest But how could it be that the Iewes Pentecost and the Christians Pentecost could come both together to be observed upon one day Answ I beseech you observe a little About 190 yeares after Christ concerning the keeping of Easter there was great thundering and great excommunication Now observe 190 Yeares after Christ difference about keeping Easter I will tell you in a word how this came you know the feast of Whitsontide or Pentecost it is ruled according to the feast of Easter as Easter falls out so Pentecost falls out just 7. weekes after Now Easter it selfe was moveable also and came upon the 14. day of the first Moone after the Equinox after the Sunne hath bin in the Equinox of Aries the next full Moone of that new that came after was the day of the Passeover when the Passeover was offred As suppose I say that we should joyne March and April into one moneth as the computation of the Iewes is suppose it should be the 24. of March Now the Iewes whensoever it fell to be the 14th day of the Moone that is when it was full Moone for the course of the Moone is 28 dayes and it is full in 14. whensoever that day came it was kept precisely whether it were upon Tuesday or Wednesday after our calculation But now the Church of God thought fit to keepe it back till Sunday The Iewes and the Easterne Church that followed the Iewes they kept it upon the weeke day if so be that the 14. day fell
whose Name he makes profession Adversarii multi the adversaries bee many adversaries without any cause adversaries to them that bee their friends this is the case of the Gospel as our Lord Christ saith I am come to save you I come to heale you I come to redeeme you from all misery and you seeke to kill me a man that hath done good to you And St. Paul saith Am I therefore your enemy because I tell you the truth Such grosse and senslesse adversaries the Gospel must looke for absurd men 2. Thess 2. 2 Thess 2. I beseech you brethren pray to God for us that wee may bee delivered from absurd men senslesse men that will not know their owne good men that know not who comes to doe them service strange adversaries that will fight against their benefactors such are the adversaries of the Gospel I paid that which I never tooke they rewarded me evill for good saith David to the great discomfort of my heart but the servant is not above his Master if our Lord have beene served thus we must not thinke much to taste of the same cup of which he hath drunke before us Againe this must teach all men that travaile in the cause of Christ to have the world in no estimation but to account it as an inraged beast that speaks and doth and kicks as a child that hath no wit nor sense that scratcheth the Nurses duggs from which it receives milkc Wee must thinke to be in the middest of Lions as our Lord Iesus saith in the middest of Wolves Behold I send you forth as Lambs in the middest of Wolves be yee therefore wise as Serpents and simple as Doves And here there are two sorts of men greatly to be blamed First those of former times that could not indure opposition but when the adversaries began to rise they would fall into the Wildernesse and live like Hermits men of great gifts and of excellent perfections yet they could not indure opposition being tender hearted and of weake spirits they could not beare the malice of the multitude but would keepe themselves away and would leave the places wherein they might have done great good they left them to be invaded by Foxes and Wolves to destroy the vineyard of the Lord. This I say was culpable in them because they came short of the spirit of St. Paul that was not daunted with the multitude of adversaries but he would goe so much the rather by how much the adversaries were greater and more in number for there bee many things in the world in the aboundant company of the adversaries which are so far from affrighting as that they give greater incouragement As the Poet saith the Shepheard speaking there of the cold Winter and of the North-wind hee saith that hee feared them as little as the Wolfe feares a number of sheepe or as the Land-flood doth feare the banks in a river So it was in the high and gracious spirit of the Apostle and those that were like unto him for St. Paul was called comparatively the Wolfe of Benjamin and in a good sense because the sacrifices were offered in the Tribe of Benjamin the Temple being in the Tribe of Benjamin it was called a ravening Wolfe because it devoured the bodies of the beasts that were offered in sacrifice So St. Paul that was of the Tribe of Benjamin was compared to a Wolfe as Gregory Gregory Augustine and Austin give the reason because he did eate up the sacrifices of the Heathen people as St. Peter in the vision was bid to Arise kill and eate this was the power that the Apostle had in the Church to devoure the wickednesse of the people and to change and digest it into their owne stomacks Now as the Wolfe cares not how many sheepe there be in a fold for when hee comes to steale if the shepherd and his dog be away hee takes more comfort in a great many then to see a handfull of sheepe he knowes that if their were ten times so many they could doe him no harme being fearefull creatures therefore he rejoyceth So the children of God are compared to Wolves to Lions to creatures that are victorious and conquering they are so farre from a sheepish and fearefull and base and cowardly disposition for the faculties and abilities of their adversaries that they take the more delight to see the adversaries many And as the great floods when the snow is melted upon the mountaines or when there hath beene a great Land-flood when it fâ—lls from the hills it scornes to be compassed in within banks but it overflowes and over-runnes all and makes new conduits new sourses and new channels where there was never any before So the mighty streame of the Gospel by the Apostles it could not bee contained within the banks and common limits that the Philosophers and naturall men could afford but it over-ranne all with a mighty current and flood upon the world with the sacred influence of it the hearts and mindes of them were watered that were never possessed of it before That kind of Monasticall Heremiticall life it is nothing agreeable to the profession of St. Paul in this place that for feare of danger will convey themselves into woods into caves and cells and alienate themselves from their worke and labour because they are afraid of opposition the spirit of St. Paul riseth the greater As the Palme-tree the more weight is laid upon it so much the more it strives and heaves against it so the Spirit of God in this Apostle and in all true Christians it is never so frolick nor they are never so high-spirited as when they see the malice of their adversaries most pregnant and most furious against them Secondly it blames those men much more 2 Sort blamed that in the time of prosperity when there are many adversaries yet they will not shew themselves but lie on their pillowes of pleasure and seeke to bee quiet they will have no man speake against them they will incurre no mans hatred or ill-will but they will hold the truth of God to themselves in the bosome of their owne conscience and never open it or stand for it These men are farre worse then the former for indeed the former had some good pretence because there was way-laying lying in wait for their lives and conspiracy against them to take them away from the earth therefore they thought it fittest to yeeld to the time and to reserve themselves unto a better occasion But when men shall live in their prosperity and have peace round about them and shall see the adversaries come and creep in craftily and sow false doctrine hereticall doctrine and things that savour of the old dregs and reliques of Antichristianisme and they themselves have excellent gifts and meanes to refute and confound these things and yet because they will not abridge themselves of their pleasure they will set some young novice in the place that is able to