tastlesse things Compare the Prophets with the Son and even the promises of God 2 King 4.34 in them are faint and dilute things Elishaes staffe in the hand of Gehazi his servant would not recover the Shunamites dead child but when Elisha himselfe came and put his mouth upon the childs mouth that did In the mouth of Christs former servants there was a preparation but effect and consummation in his owne mouth In the Old Testament at first God kissed man and so breathed the breath of life and made him a man In the New Testament Christ kissed man he breathed the breath of everlasting life the holy Ghost into his Apostles and so made the man a blessed man Love is as strong as death Cant. 8.6 As in death there is a transmigration of the soule so in this spirituall love and this expressing of it by this kisse there is a transfusion of the soule too And as we find in Gellius a Poëm of Platoes where he sayes he knew one so extremely passionate Vt parùm affuit quin moreretur in osculo much more is it true in this heavenly union expressed in this kisse as S. Ambrose delivers it Per osculum adhaeret anima Deo et transfunditur spiritus osculantis In this kisse where Righteousnesse and peace have kissed each other In this person where the Divine and the humane nature have kissed each other Psal 85.10 In this Christian Church where Grace and Sacraments visible and invisible meanes of salvation have kissed each other Love is as strong as death my soule is united to my Saviour now in my life as in death and I am already made one spirit with him and whatsoever death can doe this kisse this union can doe that is give me a present an immediate possession of the kingdome of heaven And as the most mountainous parts of this kingdome are as well within the kingdome as a garden so in the midst of the calamities and incommodities of this life I am still in the kingdome of heaven In the Old Testament it was but a contract but per verba de futuro Sponsabo I will marry thee Hos 2.19 Mat. 9.15 but now that Christ is come the Bride-groome is with us for ever and the children of the Bride-chamber cannot mourne Now by this we are slid into our fourth and last branch of our first part Exhortatic The perswasion to come to this holy kisse though defamed by treachery though depraved by licentiousnesse since God invites us to it by so many good uses thereof in his Word It is an imputation laid upon Nero That Neque adveniens neqùe profisciscens That whether comming or going he never kissed any And Christ himselfe imputes it to Simon as a neglect of him That when he came into his house he did not kisse him Luke 7.45 August This then was in use first among kinsfolks In illa simplicitate antiquorum propinqui propinquos osculabantur In those innocent and harmlesse times persons neare in bloud did kisse one another And in that right and not onely as a stranger Iacob kissed Rachel Gen. 29.12 and told her how near of kin he was to her There is no person so neare of kin to thee as Christ Jesus Christ Jesus thy Father as he created thee and thy brother as he took thy nature Thy Father as he provided an inheritance for thee and thy brother as he divided this inheritance with thee and as he dyed to give thee possession of that inheritance He that is Nutritius thy Foster-father who hath nursed thee in his house in the Christian Church and thy Twin-brother so like thee as that his Father and thine in him shall not know you from one another but mingle your conditions so as that he shall find thy sins in him and his righteousnesse in thee Osculamini Filium Kisse this Son as thy kinsman This kisse was also in use as Symbolum subjectionis A recognition of soveraignty or power Pharaoh sayes to Ioseph Thou shalt be over my house Gen. 41.40 and according to thy word shall all my people be ruled there the Originall is All my people shall kisse thy face This is the Lord Paramount the Soveraigne Lord of all The Lord Jesus Iesus Phil. 2.10 Mat. 28.18 at whose name every knee must bow in heaven in earth and in hell Iesus into whose hands all power in heaven and in earth is given Iesus who hath opened a way to our Appeal from all powers upon earth Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soule Iesus Mat. 10.28 who is the Lion and the Lambe too powerfull upon others accessible unto thee Osculamini Filium Kisse this Son as he is thy Soveraigne It was in use likewise In discessu friends parting kissed Gen. 31.15 Act. 20.37 Laban rose up early in the morning and kissed his sons and his daughters and departed And at Pauls departing they fell on his neck and wept and kissed him When thou departest to thy worldly businesses to thy six dayes labour kisse him take leave of him and remember that all that while thou art gone upon his errand and though thou worke for thy family and for thy posterity yet thou workest in his vineyard and dost his worke They kissed too In reditu Esau ran to meet his brother and fell on his neck and kissed him Gen. 33.4 When thou returnest to his house after thy six dayes labour to celebrate his Sabbath kisse him there and be able to give him some good account from Sabbath to Sabbath from week to week of thy stewardship and thou wilt never be bankrupt They kissed in reconciliation David kissed Absalon 2 Sam. 14.33 If thou have not discharged thy stewardship well Restore to man who is damnified therein Confesse to God who hath suffered in that sin Reconcile thy selfe to him and kisse him in the Sacrament in the seale of Reconciliation They kissed in a religious reverence even of false gods I have sayes God 2 King 19 18. seaven thousand knees that have not bowed unto Baal and mouths that have not kissed him Let every one of us kisse the true God in keeping his knees from bowing to a false his lips from assenting his hands from subscribing to an Idolatrous worship And as they kissed In Symbolum concordiae Rom. 16.16 which was another use thereof Salute one another with a holy kisse upon which custome Iustin Martyr sayes Osculum ante Eucharistiam before the Communion the Congregation kissed to testifie their unity in faith in him to whom they were then Sacramentally to be united as well as Spiritually And Tertullian calls it Osculum signaculum Orationis Because they ended their publique Prayers with that seale of unity and concord Let every Congregation kisse him so at every meeting to seale to him a new band a new vow that they will never break in departing from any part of his
soul and call the will ours we usurp the soul it self and call it ours and then deliver all to everlasting bondage Would the King suffer his picture to be used as we use the Image of God in our soules or his Hall to be used as we use the Temple of the Holy Ghost our Bodies We have nothing but that which we have received and when we come to think that our own we have not that For God will take all from that man that sacrifices to his own nets When thou commest to Church come in anothers name When thou givest an Almes give it in anothers name that is feele all thy devotion and all thy charity to come from God For if it be not in his name it will be in a worse Thy devotion will contract the name of hypocrisie and thine Almes the name of Vain-glory. The Holy Ghost came in anothers name in Christs name but not so as Montanus the Father of the Montanists came in the Holy Ghosts name Montanus said he was the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost did not pretend to be Christ There is a man the man of sin at Rome that pretends to be Christ to all uses And I would he would be content with that and stop there and not be a Hyper-Christus Above Christ more then Christ I would he would no more trouble the peace of Christendome no more occasion the assassinating of Christian Princes no more binde the Christian liberty in forbidding Meats and Marriage no more slacken and dissolve Christian bands by Dispensations and Indulgences then Christ did But if he will needs be more if he will needs have an addition to the name of Christ let him take heed of that addition which some are apt enough to give him however he deserve it that he is Antichrist Now in what sense the Holy Ghost is said to have come in the name of Christ S. Basil gives us one interpretation that is that one principall name of Christ belongs to the Holy Ghost For Christ is Verbum The Word and so is the Holy Ghost sayes that Father Quia interpres filii sicut filius patris Because as the Son manifested the Father so the Holy Ghost manifests the Son S. Augustine gives another sense Societas Patris Filii est Spiritus Sanctus The Holy Ghost is the union of the Father and the Son As the body is not the man nor the soul is not the man but the union of the soul and body by those spirits through which the soul exercises her faculties in the Organs of the body makes up the man so the union of the Father and Son to one another and of both to us by the Holy Ghost makes up the body of the Christian Religion And so this interpretation of S. Augustine comes neare to the fulnesse in what sense the Holy Ghost came in Christs name John 17.12 For when Christ sayes I am come in my Fathers name that was to execute his Decree to fulfill his Will for the salvation of man by dying so when Christ sayes here the Holy Ghost shall come in my name that is to perfect my work to collect and to govern that Church in which my salvation by way of satisfaction may be appropriated to particular soules by way of application And for this purpose to do this in Christs name his own name is Paracletus The Comforter which is our last circumstance The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost The Comforter is an Euangelicall name The Comforter Athanasius notes that the Holy Ghost is never called Paracletus The Comforter in the old Testament He is called Spiritus Dei The Spirit of God in the beginning of Genesis And he is called Spiritus sanctus The holy Spirit and Spiritus principalis The principall Spirit in divers places of the Psalmes but never Paracletus never the Comforter A reason of that may well be first that the state of the Law needed not comfort and then also that the Law it self afforded not comfort so there was no Comforter Their Law was not opposed by any enemies as enemies to their Law If they had not by that warrant which they had from God invaded the possession of their neighbours or grown too great to continue good neighbours their neighbours had not envyed them that Law So that in the state of the Law in that respect they were well enough and needed no Comforter Whereas the Gospell as it was sowed in our Saviours blood so it grew up in blood for divers hundreds of yeares and therefore needed the sustentation and the assurance of a Comforter And then for the substance of the Law it was Lex interficiens non perficiens sayes S. Augustine A Law that told them what was sin and punisht them if they did sin but could not conferre Remission for sin which was a discomfortable case Whereas the Gospel and the Dispensation of the Gospel in the Church by the Holy Ghost is Grace Mercy Comfort all the way and in the end Therefore Christ v. 17. cals the Holy Ghost Spiritum veritatis The Spirit of truth In which he opposes him and preferres him above all the remedies and all the comforts of the Law Not that the Holy Ghost in the Law did not speak truth but that he did not speak all the truth in the Law Origen expresses it well The Types and Figures of the Law were true Figures and true Types of Christ in the Gospel but Christ and his Gospel is the truth it self prefigured in those Types Therefore the Holy Ghost is Paracletus The Comforter in the Gospel which he was not in the Law In the Records and Stories and so in the Coynes and Medals of the Romane Emperours we see that even then when they had gotten the possession of the name of Emperours yet they forbore not to adde to their style the name of Consul and the name of Pontifex maximus still they would be called Consuls which was an acceptable name to the people and High-Priests which carried a reverence towards all the world Where Christ himselfe is called by a name appliable to none but Christ by a name implying the whole nature and merit of Christ that is The Propitiation of the sins of the whole world 1 John 2.2 yet there in that place he is called by the name of this Text too Paracletus the Comforter He would not forbeare that sweet that acceptable that appliable name that name that concernes us most and establishes us best Paracletus the Comforter And yet he does not take that name in that full and whole sense in which himselfe gives it to the Holy Ghost here For there it is said of Christ If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father There Paracletus though placed upon Christ is but an Advocate But here Christ sends Paracletum in a more intire and a more internall and more viscerall sense A Comforter Upon which Comforter Christ imprints these two marks of
dependance or relation to any faculty in man or man himselfe have some concurrence and co-operation therein There we found that in the first creation God wrought otherwise for the production of creatures then he does now At first he did it immediatly intirely by himselfe Now he hath delegated and substituted nature and imprinted a naturall power in every thing to produce the like So in the first act of mans Conversion God may be conceived to work otherwise then in his subsequent holy actions for in the first man cannot be conceived to doe any thing in the rest he may not that in the rest God does not all but that God findes a better disposition and souplenesse and maturity and mellowing to concurre with his motion in that man who hath formerly been accustomed to a sense and good use of his former graces then in him who in his first conversion receives but then the first motions of his grace But yet even in the first creation the Spirit of God did not move upon that nothing which was before God made heaven and earth But he moved upon the waters though those waters had nothing in themselves to answer his motion yet he had waters to move upon Though our faculties have nothing in themselves to answer the motions of the Spirit of God yet upon our faculties the Spirit of God works And as out of those waters those creatures did proceed though not from those waters so out of our faculties though not from our faculties doe our good actions proceed too All in all is from the love of God but there is something for God to love There is a man there is a soul in that man there is a will in that soul and God is in love with this man and this soul and this will Aug. would have it Non amor ita egenus indigus ut rebus quas diligit subjiciatur sayes S. Aug. excellently The love of God to us is not so poore a love as our love to one another that his love to us should make him subject to us as ours does to them whom we love but Superfertur sayes that Father and our Text he moves above us He loves us but with a Powerfull a Majesticall an Imperiall a Commanding love He offers those whom he makes his his grace but so as he sometimes will not be denyed So the Spirit moves spiritually upon the waters He comes to the waters to our naturall faculties but he moves above those waters He inclines he governes he commands those faculties And this his motion upon those waters we may usefully consider in some divers applications and assimilations of water to man and the divers uses thereof towards man We will name but a few Baptisme and Sin and Tribulation and Death are called in the Scripture by that name Waters and we shall onely illustrate that consideration how this Spirit of God moves upon these Waters Baptisme Sin Tribulation and Death and we have done The water of Baptisme is the water that runs through all the Fathers Baptismus All the Fathers that had occasion to dive or dip in these waters to say any thing of them make these first waters in the Creation the figure of baptisme Tertul. There Tertullian makes the water Primam sedem Spiritus Sancti The progresse and the setled house The voyage and the harbour The circumference and the centre of the Holy Ghost And therefore S. Hierome calls these waters Matrem Mundi The Mother of the World Hieron and this in the figure of Baptisme Nascentem Mundum in figura Baptismi parturiebat The waters brought forth the whole World were delivered of the whole World as a Mother is delivered of a childe and this In figura Baptismi To fore-shew that the waters also should bring forth the Church That the Church of God should be borne of the Sacrament of Baptisme So sayes Damascen Damase Basil And he establishes it with better authority then his owne Hoc Divinus asseruit Basilius sayes he This Divine Basil said Hoc factum quia per Spiritum Sanctum aquam voluit renovare hominem The Spirit of God wrought upon the waters in the Creation because he meant to doe so after in the regeneration of man And therefore Pristinam sedem recognoscens conquiescit Terrul Till the Holy Ghost have moved upon our children in Baptisme let us not think all done that belongs to those children And when the Holy Ghost hath moved upon those waters so in Baptisme let us not doubt of his power and effect upon all those children that dye so We know no meanes how those waters could have produced a Menow a Shrimp without the Spirit of God had moved upon them and by this motion of the Spirit of God we know they produce Whales and Leviathans We know no ordinary meanes of any saving grace for a child but Baptisme neither are we to doubt of the fulnesse of salvation in them that have received it And for our selves Mergimur emergimus Aug. In Baptisme we are sunk under water and then raised above the water againe which was the manner of baptizing in the Christian Church by immersion and not by aspersion till of late times Affectus ameres sayes he our corrupt affections Idem and our inordinate love of this world is that that is to be drowned in us Amor securitatis A love of peace and holy assurance and acquiescence in Gods Ordinance is that that lifts us above water Therefore that Father puts all upon the due consideration of our Baptisme And as S. Hierome sayes Hier. Certainly he that thinks upon the last Judgement advisedly cannot sin then Aug. So he that sayes with S. Augustine Procede in confessionc fides mea Let me make every day to God this confession Domine Deus meus Sancte Sancte Sancte Domine Deus meus O Lord my God O Holy Holy Holy Lord my God In nomine tuo Baptizatus sum I consider that I was baptized in thy name and what thou promisedst me and what I promised thee then and can I sin this sin can this sin stand with those conditions those stipulations which passed between us then The Spirit of God is motion the Spirit of God is rest too And in the due consideration of Baptisme a true Christian is moved and setled too moved to a sense of the breach of his conditions setled in the sense of the Mercy of his God in the Merits of his Christ upon his godly sorrow So these waters are the waters of Baptisme Sin also is called by that name in the Scriptures Aquae peccatum Water The great whore sitteth upon many waters she sits upon them as upon Egges and hatches Cockatrices venomous and stinging sins Apoc. 17. Aqum and yet pleasing though venomous which is the worst of sin that it destroyes and yet delights for though they be called waters yet that is
that gave him that Crowne Thus the holy Ghost himselfe is a witnesse against Heretiques in the word and those men who are full of the holy Ghost as Stephen was are witnesses against persecution in action in passion At this time and by occasion of these words we consider principally the first The testification of the holy Ghost himselfe and therein we consider thus much more That a witnesse ever testifies of some matter of fact of something done before The holy Ghost the Spirit here as we shall see anon witnesses that we are the children of God Now if a Witnesse prove that I am a Tenant to such Land or Lord of it I doe not become Lord nor Tenant by this Witnesse but his testimony proves that I was so before I have therefore a former right to be the child of God that is The eternall Election of God in Christ Jesus Christ Jesus could as well have disobeyed his Father and said I will not goe or disappointed his Father and said I will not goe yet as he could have dis-furnished his Father and said He would not redeem me The holy Ghost bears witnesse that is he pleads he produces that eternall Decree for my Election And upon such Evidence shall I give sentence against my selfe Chrysost Si testaretur Angelus vel Archangelus posset quisquam addubitare I should not doubt the testimony of an Angel or Archangel and yet Angels and Archangels all sorts of Angels were deceivers in the Serpent And therefore the Apostle presents it though impossible in it selfe as a thing that might fall into our mis-apprehension Gal. 1.8 If we that is the Apostles or if an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel Anathema sit let him be accursed But Quando Deus testatur quis locus relinquitur dubitationi when God testifies to me it is a rebellious sin to doubt And therefore how hyperbolically soever S. Paul argue there If Apostles If Angels teach the contrary teach false Doctrine it never entred into his argument though an argument ab Impossibili to say If God should teach or testifie false doctrine Though then there be a former evidence for my being the child of God a Decree in heaven yet it is not enough that there is such a Record but it must be produced it must be pleaded it must be testified to be that it must have the witnesse of the Spirit and by that Innotescit though it doe not become my Election then it makes my election appeare then and though it be not Introductory it is Declaratory The Root is in the Decree the first fruits are in the testimony of the Spirit but even that spirit will not be testis singularis he will not be heard alone and single but it is Cum spiritu nostro The Spirit testifies with our spirit c. The holy Ghost will fulfill his owne law In ore duorum In the mouth of two witnesses Cum spiriou nostro Sometimes our spirit bears witnesse of somethings appertaining to the next world without the testimony of the holy Ghost Tertullian in that excellent Book of his De testimonio Animae Of the testimony which the soule of man gives of it selfe to it selfe where he speaks of the soule of a naturall an unregenerate man gives us just occasion to stop a little upon that consideration If sayes he we for our Religion produce your own Authors against you he speaks to naturall men secular Philosophers and shew you out of them what Passions what Vices even they impute to those whom you have made your Gods then you say they were but Poetae vani Those Authors were but vaine and frivolous Poets But when those Authors speake any thing which sound against our Religion then they are Philosophers and reverend and classique Authors And therefore sayes he I will draw no witnesse from them Perversae foelicitatis quibus in falso potiùs creditur quà m in vero Because they have this perverse this left-handed happinesse to be beleeved when they lye better then when they say true Novum testimonium adduco saies he I wayve all them and I call upon a new witnesse A witnesse Omni literaturi notius More legible then any Character then any text hand for it is the intimation of mine owne soule and conscience and Omni Editione vulgatius More publique more conspicuous then any Edition any impression of any Author for Editions may be called in but who can call in the testimony of his owne soule He proceeds Te simplicem Idioticum compello I require but a simple an unlearned soule Qualem te habent qui te solam habent Such a soule as that man hath who hath nothing but a soule no learning Imperitia tua mibiopus est quoniam aliquantulae peritiae tuae nemo credit I shall have the more use of thy testimony the more ignorant thou art for in such cases Art is suspicious and from them who are able to prove any thing we beleeve nothing And therefore saies he Nolo Academiis bibliothecis instructam I call not a soule made in an University or nursed in a Library but let this soule come now as it came to me in my Mothers wombe an inartificiall an unexperienced soule And then to contract Tertullians Contemplation he proceeds to shew the notions of the Christian Religion which are in such a soule naturally and which his spirit that is his rectified reason rectified but by nature is able to infuse into him And certainly some of that which is proved by the testimony mentioned in this text is proved by the testimony of our owne naturall soule in that Poet whom the Apostle cites that said Genus ejus We are the off-spring of God Acts 17.28 So then our spirit beares witnesse sometimes when the Spirit does not that is Nature testifies some things without addition of particular grace And then the Spirit the Holy Ghost oftentimes testifies when ours does not How often stands he at the doore and knocks How often spreads he his wings to gather us as a Hen her chickens How often presents he to us the power of God in the mouth of the Preacher and we beare witnesse to one another of the wit and of the eloquence of the Preacher and no more How often he bears witnesse that such an action is odious in the sight of God and our spirit beares witnesse that it is acceptable profitable honourable in the sight of man How often he beares witnesse for Gods Judgements and our spirit deposes for mercy by presumption and how often he testifies for mercy and our spirit sweares for Judgement in desperation But when the Spirit and our spirit agree in their testimony That he hath spoke comfortably to my soule and my soule hath apprehended comfort by that speech That to use Christs similitude He hath piped and we have danced He hath shewed me my Saviour and my Spirit hath rejoyced in God my Saviour He deposes for the Decree
performe that sacred Work And when to the amazement of some beholders he appeared in the Pulpit many thought he presented himselfe not to preach mortification by a living voice but mortality by a decayed body and dying face And doubtlesse many did secretly ask that question in Ezekiel Doe these bones live Ezek. 37.3 Or can that soule organise that tongue to speak so long time as the sand in that glasse will move towards its center and measure out an houre of this dying mans unspent life Doubtlesse it cannot Yet after some faint pauses in his zealous Prayer his strong desires inabled his weak body to discharge his memory of his pre conceived Meditations which were of dying The Text being To God the Lord belong the issues from death Many that saw his teares and heard his hollow voice professing they thought the Text Prophetically chosen and that D. Donne had preacht his owne Funerall Sermon Being full of joy that God had inabled him to performe this desired duty he hastned to his house out of which he never moved untill like S. Stephen Acts 8. He was carried by devout men to his grave And the next day after his Sermon his spirits being much spent and he indisposed to discourse a friend asked him Why are you sad To whom he replyed after this manner I am not sad I am in a serious contemplation of the mercies of my God to me And now I plainly see it was his hand that prevented me from all temporall employment And I see it was his will that I should never settle nor thrive untill I entred into the Ministery in which I have now lived almost twenty yeares I hope to his glory and by which I most humbly thank him I have been enabled to requite most of those friends that shewed me kindnesse when my fortunes were low And as it hath occasioned the expression of my gratitude I thank God most of them have stood in need of my requitall I have been usefull and comfortable to my good Father in Law Sir George More whose patience God hath been pleased to exercise by many temporall crosses I have maintained my owne Mother whom it hath pleased God after a plentifull fortune in her former times to bring to a great decay in her very old age I have quieted the consciences of many that groaned under the burthen of a wounded spirit whose Prayers I hope are availeable for me I cannot plead innocencie of life especially of my youth but I am to be judged by a mercifull God who hath given me even at this time some testimonies by his holy Spirit that I am of the number of his Elect. I am ful of joy and shall die in peace Upon Munday following he took his last leave of his beloved Studie and being hourely sensible of his decay retired himselfe into his bed-chamber and that week sent at severall times for many of his most considerable friends of whom he tooke a solemne and deliberate Farewell commending to their considerations some sentences particularly usefull for the regulation of their lives and dismist them as * Gen. 49. Iacob did his sons with a spirituall benediction The Sunday following he appointed his servants that if there were any worldly businesse undone that concerned them or himselfe it should be prepared against Saturday next for after that day he would not mixe his thoughts with any thing that concerned the world Nor ever did Now he had nothing to doe but die To doe which he stood in need of no more time for he had long studied it and to such a perfection that in a former sicknesse he called God to witnesse Devot Prayer 23. he was that minute prepared to deliver his soule into his hands if that minute God would accept of his dissolution In that sicknesse he begged of his God the God of constancy to be preserved in that estate for ever And his patient expectation to have his immortall soule disrobed from her garment of mortality makes me confident he now had a modest assurance that his prayers were then heard and his petition granted He lay fifteene dayes earnestly expecting his hourely change And in the last houre of his last day as his body melted away and vapoured into spirit his soule having I verily beleeve some revelation of the Beatifical Vision he said I were miserable if I might not die And after those words closed many periods of his faint breath with these words Thy kingdome come Thy will be done His speech which had long been his faithfull servant remained with him till his last minute and then forsook him not to serve another master but died before him for that it was uselesse to him who now conversed with God on earth as Angels are said to doe in heaven onely by thoughts and looks Being speechlesse he did as S. Stephen look stedfastly towards heaven till he saw the Sonne of God standing at the right hand of his Father And being satisfied with this blessed sight as his soule ascended and his last breath departed from him he closed his owne eyes and then disposed his hands and body into such a posture as required no alteration by those that came to shroud him Thus variable thus vertuous was the life thus memorable thus exemplary was the death of this most excellent man He was buried in S. Pauls Church in that place which he had appointed for that use some yeares before his death and by which he passed daily to his devotions But not buried privately though he desired it For besides an unnumbred number of others many persons of Nobility and eminency who did love and honour him in his life did shew it at his Funerall by a voluntary and very sad attendance of his body to the grave To which after his buriall some mournfull friends repaired And as Alexander the Great did to the grave of the famous Achillis Plutarch so they strewed his with curious and costly flowers Which course they who were never yet knowne continued each morning and evening for divers dayes not ceasing till the stones that were taken up in that Church to give his body admission into the cold earth now his bed of rest were againe by the Masons art levelled and firmed as they had been formerly and his place of buriall undistinguishable to common view Nor was this though not usuall all the honour done to his reverend ashes for by some good body who t is like thought his memory ought to be perpetuated there was 100. marks sent to his two faithfull friends * D. Henry King D. Mountfort and Executors the person that sent it not yet known they look not for a reward on earth towards the making of a Monument for him which I think is as lively a representation as in dead marble can be made of him HE was of stature moderately tall of a straight and equally proportioned body to which all his words and actions gave an unexpressible
addition of comelinesse His aspect was cheerfull and such as gave a silent testimony of a cleere knowing soule and of a conscience at peace with it selfe His melting eye shewed he had a soft heart full of noble pity of too brave a spirit to offer injuries and too much a Christian not to pardon them in others His fancie was un-imitable high equalled by his great wit both being made usefull by a commanding judgement His mind was liberall and unwearied in the search of knowledge with which his vigorous soule is now satisfied and employed in a continuall praise of that God that first breathed it into his active body which once was a Temple of the holy Ghost and is now become a small quantity of Christian dust But I shall see it re-inanimated Iz Wa IOHANNES DONNE SAC THEOL PROFESSOR POST VARIA STUDIA QVIBUS AB ANNIS TENERRIMIS FIDELITER NEC INFELICITER INCUBUIT INSTINCTU ET IMPULSU SPIR S ti MONITU ET HORTATU REGIS IACOBI ORDINES SACROS AMPLEXUS Aº SUI JESU 1614. ET SUAE AETATIS 42. DECANATU HUJUS ECCLESIAE INDUTUS XXVII NOVEMBRIS 1621. EXUTUS MORTE ULTIMO DIE MARTII 1631. Hic licet in Occiduo Cinere Aspicit Eum Cujus Nomen est ORIENS A Table directing to the severall Texts of SCRIPTURE handled by the Author in this BOOK SERM. I. COLOS. 1.19 20. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulnesse dwell And having made peace through the bloud of his Crosse by Him to reconcile all things to himselfe by Him whether they be things in earth or things in heaven page 1 SERM. II. ESAIAH 7.14 Therefore the Lord shall give you a signe Behold a Virgin shall conceive and beare a Son and shall call his name Immanuel pa. 11 SERM. III. GALAT. 4.4 5. But when the fulnesse of time was come God sent forth his Sonne made of a woman made under the Law to redeeme them that were under the Law that we might receive the adoption of Sons pa. 20 SERM. IV. LUKE 2.29 30. Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word For mine eyes have seene thy salvation pa. 29. SERM. V. EXOD. 4.13 O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send pa. 39 SERM. VI. Lord who hath beleeved our report pa. 52 SERM. VII JOHN 10.10 I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly pa. 62 SERM. VIII MAT. 5.16 Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven pa. 77 SERM. IX ROM 13.7 Render therefore to all men their dues pa. 86 SERM. X. ROM 12.20 Therefore if thine enemie hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head pa. 96 SERM. XI MAT. 9.2 And Iesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsie My son be of good chear thy sins be forgiven thee pa. 102 SERM. XII MAT. 5.2 Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God pa. 112 SERM. XIII JOB 16. ver 17 18 19. Not for any injustice in my hands Also my prayer is pure O earth cover thou not my bloud and let my cry have no place Also now behold my Witnesse is in heaven and my Record is on high pa. 127 SERM. XIV AMOS 5.18 Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord what have ye to doe with it the day of the Lord is darknesse and not light pa. 136 SERM. XV. 1 COR 15.26 The last Enemie that shall be destroyed is Death pa. 144 SERM. XVI JOHN 11.35 Iesus wept pa. 153 SERM. XVII MAT. 19.17 And he said unto him Why callest thou me Good There is none Good but One that is God pa. 163 SERM. XVIII ACTS 2.36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly That God hath made that same Iesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ pa. 175 SERM. XIX APOC. 20.6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection pa. 183 SERM. XX. JOHN 5.28 29. Marvell not at this for the houre is comming in the which all that are in the graves shall heare his voice And shall come forth they that have done good unto the Resurrection of life And they that have done evill unto the Resurrection of damnation pa. 192 SERM. XXI 1 COR. 15.29 Else what shall they do that are baptized for dead If the dead rise not at all why are they then baptized for dead pa. 120 SERM. XXII HEB. 11.35 Women received their dead raised to life againe And others were tortured not accepting a deliverance that they might obtaine a better Resurrection pa. 213 SERM. XXIII 1 COR. 13.12 For now we see through a glasse darkly But then face to face Now I know in part But then I shall know even as also I am knowne pa. 224 SERM. XXIV JOB 4.18 Behold he put no trust in his Servants and his Angels he charged with folly pa. 233 SERM. XXV MAT. 28.6 He is not here for he is risen as he said Come See the place where the Lord lay pa. 242 SERM. XXVI 1 THES 4.17 Then we which are alive and remaine shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the ayre and so shall we be ever with the Lord. pa. 254 SERM. XXVII PSAL. 89.47 What man is he that liveth and shall not see death pa. 267 SERM. XXVIII XXIX JOHN 14.26 But the Comforter which is the holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you pa. 277. 286 SERM. XXX JOHN 14.20 At that day shall ye know That I am in my Father and you in me and I in you pa. 294 SERM. XXXI GEN. 1.2 And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters pa. 303 SERM. XXXII 1 COR. 12.3 Also no man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost p. 312 SERM. XXXIII ACTS 10.44 While Peter yet spake these words the holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the Word pa. 321 SERM. XXXIV ROM 8.16 The Spirit it selfe beareth witnesse with our spirit that we are the children of God pa. 332 SERM. XXXV MAT. 12.31 Wherefore I say unto you All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men But the Blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men pa. 341 SERM. XXXVI XXXVII JOHN 16.8 9 10 11. And when he is come he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousnesse and of judgement Of sin because ye beleeve not on me Of righteousnesse because I goe to my Father and ye see me no more Of judgement because the Prince of this world is judged pa. 351. 361 SERM. XXXVIII 2 COR. 1.3 Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ
the sorenesse of Circumcision they slew them all Gods justice required bloud but that bloud is not spilt but poured from that head to our hearts into the veines and wounds of our owne soules There was bloud shed but no bloud lost Before the Law was thorowly established when Moses came downe from God and deprehended the people in that Idolatry to the Calfe before he would present himselfe as a Mediator betweene God and them Exod. 32.28 32. for that sinne he prepares a sacrifice of bloud in the execution of three thousand of those Idolaters and after that he came to his vehement prayer in their behalfe And in the strength of the Law Heb. 9 22. all things were purged with bloud and without bloud there is no remission Whether we place the reason of this in Gods Justice which required bloud or whether we place it in the conveniency that bloud being ordinarily received to be sedes animae the seat and residence of the soule The soule for which that expiation was to be could not be better represented nor purified then in the state and seat of the soule in bloud or whether we shut up our selves in an humble sobriety to inquire into the reasons of Gods actions thus we see it was no peace no remission but in bloud Nor is that so strange as that which followes in the next place per sanguinem ejus by his bloud Before Per sanguinem ejus Psal 50.10 under the Law it was in sanguine hircorum vitulorum In the bloud of Goats and Bullocks here it is in sanguine ejus in his bloud Not his as he claims all the beasts of the forrest all the cattle upon a thousand hils and all the fowles of the mountaines to be his not his as he sayes of Gold and Silver The Silver is mine and the Gold is mine Hag. 2.8 not his as he is Lord and proprietary of all by Creation so all bloud is his no nor his as the bloud of all the Martyrs was his bloud which is a neare relation and consanguinity but his so as it was the precious bloud of his body the seat of his soule the matter of his spirits the knot of his life This bloud he shed for me and I have bloud to shed for him too though he call me not to the tryall nor to the glory of Martyrdome Sanguis animae meae voluntas mea The bloud of my soule is my will Bern. Scindatur vena ferro compunctionis open a veine with that knife remorce compunction ut si non sensus certe consensus peccati effluat That though thou canst not bleed out all motions to sinne thou maist all consent thereunto Noli esse nimium justus noli sapere plus quam oportet St. Bernard makes this use of those Counsels Be not righteous overmuch nor be not overwise Ecces 7.16 Cui putas venae parcendum si justitia sapientia egent minutione what veine maist thou spare if thou must open those two veines righteousnesse and wisedome If they may be superfluously abundant if thou must bleed out some of thy Righteousnesse and some of thy wisedome cui venae parcendum at what veine must thou not bleed Tostat in Levit fo 45. D. Now in all sacrifices where bloud was to be offerd the fat was to be offerd to If thou wilt sacrifice the bloud of thy soule as St. Bernard cals the will sacrifice the fat too If thou give over thy purpose of continuing in thy sin give over the memory of it and give over all that thou possessest unjustly and corruptly got by that sinne else thou keepest the fat from God though thou give him the bloud If God had given over at his second daies work we had had no sunne no seasons If at his fift we had had no beeing If at the sixt no Sabbath but by proceeding to the seventh we are all and we have all Naaman 2 Reg. 5.14 who was out of the covenant yet by washing in Jordan seven times was cured of his leprosie seaven times did it even in him but lesse did not Tostat in Levit 4. q. 16. The Priest in the Law used a seven-fold sprinkling of bloud upon the Altar and we observe a seven-fold shedding of bloud in Christ In his Circumcision and in his Agony in his fulfilling of that Prophesie gen as vellicantibus I gave my cheeks to them that plucked off the haire and in his scourging Esay 50.6 in his crowning and in his nayling and lastly in the piercing of his side These seven channels hath the bloud of thy Saviour found Poure out the bloud of thy soule sacrifice thy stubborne and rebellious will seaven times too seaven times that is every day and seaven times every day for so often a just man falleth And then Prov. 24.16 how low must that man lie at last if he fall so often and never rise upon any fall and therefore raise thy self as often and as soone as thou fallest Iericho would not fall Jos 6. but by being compassed seaven dayes and seaven times in one day Compasse thy selfe comprehend thy selfe seaven times many times and thou shalt have thy losse of bloud supplied with better bloud with a true sense of that peace which he hath already made and made by bloud and by his owne bloud and by the bloud of his Crosse which is the last branch of this second part Greater love hath no man then to lay downe his life for his friend yet he that said so Crux Joh. 15.13 did more then so more then lay downe his life for he exposed it to violences and torments and all that for his enemies But doth not the necessity diminish the love where a testament is there must also of necessity be the death of the testator Heb. 9.16 was there then a necessity in Christs dying simply a necessity of coaction there was not such as is in the death of other men naturall or violent by the hand of Justice There was nothing more arbitrary more voluntary more spontaneous then all that Christ did for man And if you could consider a time before the contract between the Father and him had passed for the redemption of man by his death we might say that then there was no necessity upon Christ that he must dye But because that contract was from all eternity Luc. 24.26 supposing that contract that this peace was to be made by his death there entred the oportuit pati That Christ ought to suffer all these things and to enter into his glory And so as for his death so for the manner of his death by the Crosse it was not of absolute necessity and yet it was not by casualty neither not because he was to suffer in that Nation which did ordinarily punish such Malefactors such as he was accused to be seditious persons with that manner of death but all this proceeded ex
if we consider those who are in heaven and have been so from the first minute of their creation Angels why have they or how have they any reconciliation How needed they any and then how is this of Christ applyed unto them They needed a confirmation for the Angels were created in blessednesse but not in perfect blessednesse They might fall they did fall To those that fell can appertaine no reconciliation no more then to those that die in their sins for Quod homini mors Angelis casus August The fall of the Angels wrought upon them as the death of a man does upon him They are both equally incapable of change to better But to those Angels that stood their standing being of grace and their confirmation being not one transient act in God done at once but a continuall succession and emanation of daily grace belongs this reconciliation by Christ because all matter of grace and where any deficiency is to be supplyed whether by way of reparation as in man or by way of confirmation as in Angels proceeds from the Crosse from the Merits of Christ They are so reconciled then as that they are extra lapsus periculum out of the danger of falling but yet this stability this infallibility is not yet indelibly imprinted in their natures yet the Angels might fall if this reconciler did not sustain them for if those words reperit in Angelis iniquitatem that God found folly Job 4.18 weaknesse infirmity in his Angels be to be understood of the good Angels that stand confirmed as procul dubio de diabolo intelligi non potest Calvin without all doubt they cannot be understood of the ill Angels the best service of the best Angels devested of that successive grace that supports them if God should exacta rigorous account of it could not be acceptable in the sight of God So the Angels have a pacification and a reconciliation lest they should fall Thus things in heaven are reconciled to God by Christ and things on earth too In terra First the creature as S. Paul speakes that is other creatures then men For at the generall resurrection which is rooted in the resurrection of Christ and so hath relation to him the creature shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption Rom. 8.21 into the glorious liberty of the children of God for which the whole creation groanes and travailes in paine yet This deliverance then from this bondage the whole creature hath by Christ and that is their reconciliation And then are we reconciled by the blood of his Crosse when having crucified our selves by a true repentance we receive the seale of reconciliation in his blood in the Sacrament But the most proper and most litterall sense of these words is that all things in heaven and earth be reconciled to God that is to his glory to a fitter disposition to glorifie him by being reconciled to another in Christ that in him as head of the Church they in heaven and we upon earth be united together as one body in the Communion of Saints For this text hath a conformity and a harmony with that to the Ephesians and in sense as well as in words is the same Ephes 1.10 That God might gather together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are on earth even in him where the word which we translate to gather doth properly signifie recapitulare to bring all things to their first head to Gods first purpose which was that Angels and men united in Christ Jesus might glorifie him eternally in the Kingdome of heaven Then are things in heaven restored and reconciled sayes S. Augustine Cum quod ex Angelis lapsum est ex hominibus redditur when good men have repaired the ruine of the bad Angels and filled their places And then are things on earth restored and reconciled Cum praedestinati à corruptionis vetustate renovantur when Gods elect children are delivered from the corruptions of this world to which even they are subject here Gregor Cum humiliati homines redeunt unde Apostatae superbiendo ceciderunt when men by humility are exalted to those places from which Angels fell by pride then are all things in heaven and earth reconciled in Christ The blood of the sacrifices was brought by the high priest Tostat in Levit 16. in sanctum sanctorum into the place of greatest holinesse but it was brought but once in festo expiationis in the feast of expiation but in the other parts of the Temple it was sprinkled every day The blood of the Crosse of Christ Jesus hath had his effect in sancto sanctorum even in the highest heavens in supplying their places that fell in confirming them that stood and in uniting us and them in himselfe as Head of all In the other parts of the Temple it is to be sprinkled daily Here in the militant Church upon earth there is still a reconciliation to be made not only toward one another in the band of charity but in our selves In our selves we may finde things in heaven and things on earth to reconcile There is a heavenly zeale but if it be not reconciled to discretion there is a heavenly purity but if it be not reconciled to the bearing of one anothers infirmities there is a heavenly liberty but if it be not reconciled to a care for the prevention of scandall All things in our heaven and our earth are not reconciled in Christ In a word till the flesh and the spirit be reconciled this reconciliation is not accomplished For neither spirit nor flesh must be destroyed in us a spirituall man is not all spirit he is a man still But then is flesh and spirit reconciled in Christ when in all the faculties of the soule and all the organs of the body we glorifie him in this world for then in the next world wee shall be glorified by him and with him in soule and in body too where we shall bee thoroughly reconciled to one another no suits no controversies and thoroughly to the Angels Mat. 22.30 Luc. 20.36 when we shall not only be sieut Angeli as the Angels in some one property but aequales Angelis equall to the Angels in all for Non erunt duae societates Angelorum hominum Men and Angels shall not make two companies sed omnium beatitudo erit uni adhaerere Deo August this shall be the blessednesse of them both to be united in one head Christ Jesus And these reconcilings are reconcilings enow for these are all that are in heaven and earth If you will reconcile things in heaven and earth with things in hell that is a reconciling out of this Text. If you will mingle the service of God and the service of this world there is no reconciling of God and Mammon in this Text. If you will mingle a true religion and a false religion there is no reconciling of God and
child is borne unto us a Son is given He was not given he was not borne in six hundred yeares after that but such is the clearenesse of a Prophets sight such is the infallibility of Gods declared purpose So then if the Prophet could have made the King beleeve with such an assurednesse as if he had seene it done that God would give a deliverance to all mankinde by a Messias that had beene signe enough evidence enough to have argued thereupon That God who had done so much a greater worke would also give him a deliverance from that enemy that pressed him then If I can fixe my selfe with the strength of faith upon that which God hath done for man I cannot doubt of his mercy in any distresse If I lacke a signe I seeke no other but this That God was made man for me which the Church and Church-writers have well expressed by the word Incarnation for that acknowledges and denotes that God was made my flesh It were not so strange that he who is spirit should be made my spirit my soule but he was made my flesh Therefore have the Fathers delighted themselves in the variation of that word so far as that Hilarie cals it Corporationem That God assumed my Body And Damascen cals it Inhumanationem That God became this man soule and body And Irenaeus cals it Adunationem and Nysen Contemperationem A mingling says one an uniting saies the other of two of God and man in one person Shall I aske what needs all this what needed God to have put himselfe to this I may say with S. Augustine Alio modo poterat Deus nos liberare sed si aliter faceret similiter vestrae stultitiae displiceret What other way soever God had taken for our salvation our curiosity would no more have beene satisfied in that way than in this But God having chosen the way of Redemption which was the way of Justice God could do no otherwise Si homo non vicisset inimicum hominis non justè victus esset inimicus saies Irenaeus As if a man should get a battaile by the power of the Devill without fighting this were not a just victory so if God in mans behalfe had conquered the devill without man without dying it had not beene a just conquest I must not aske why God tooke this way to Incarnate his Son And shall I aske how this was done I doe not aske how Rheubarb or how Aloes came by this or this vertue to purge this or this humour in my body In talibus rebus tota ratio facti est potentia facientis Even in naturall things all the reason of all that is done August is the power and the will of him who infused that vertue into that creature And therefore much more when we come to these supernaturall points such as this birth of Christ we embrace S. Basils modesty and abstinence Nativitas ista silentio honoretur This mysterie is not so well celebrated with our words and discourse as with a holy silence and meditation Immo potius ne cogitationibus permittatur Nay saies that Father there may be danger in giving our selves leave to thinke or study too much of it Ne dixer is quando saies he praeteri hanc interrogationem Aske not thy selfe overcuriously when this mystery was accomplished be not over-vehement over-peremptory so far as to the perplexing of thine owne reason and understanding or so far as to the despising of the reasons of other men in calculating the time the day or houre of this nativity Praeteri hanc interrogationem passe over this question in good time and with convenient satisfaction Quando when Christ was borne But noli inquirere Quomodo saies S. Basil still never come to that question how it was done cum ad hoc nihil sit quod responderi possit for God hath given us no faculties to comprehend it no way to answer it That 's enough which we have in S. Iohn Every spirit that confesses that Iesus is come in the flesh is of God 1 Ioh. 4.2 for since it was a comming of Iesus Iesus was before so he was God and since he came in the flesh hee is now made man And that God and Man are so met is a signe to mee that God and I shall never bee parted This is the signe in generall That God hath had such a care of all men Virgo is a signe to me That he hath a care of me But then there are signes of this signe Divers All these A Virgin shall conceive A Virgin shall bring forth Bring forth a Son And whatsoever have been prophesied before she shall call his name Immanuel First a Virgin shall be a mother which is a very particular signe and was seene but once That which Gellius and Plinie say that a Virgin had a child almost 200. yeares before Christ that which Genebrard saies that the like fell out in France in his time are not within our faith and they are without our reason our faith stoopes not downe to them and our Reason reaches not up to them of this Virgin in our text If that be true which Aquinas cites out of the Roman story that in the times of Constantine and Irene upon a dead body found in a sepulchre there was found this inscription in a plate of gold Christus nascetur ex Virgine ego credo in eum Christ shall be borne of a Virgin and I beleeve in that Christ with this addition in that inscription O Sol sub Irenae Constantini temporibus iterum me videbis Though I be now buried from the sight of the sun yet in Constantines time the sun shall see me againe If this be true yet our ground is not upon such testimonie If God had not said it I would never have beleeved it And therefore I must have leave to doubt of that which some of the Roman Casuists have delivered That a Virgin may continue a virgin upon earth and receive the particular dignity of a Virgin in Heaven and yet have a child by the insinuation and practise of the Devill so that there shall be a father and a mother and yet both they Virgins That this Mother in our text was a Virgin is a peculiar a singular signe given as such by God never done but then and it is a singular testimony how acceptable to God that state of virginity is Hee does not dishonour physick that magnifies health nor does hee dishonour marriage that praises Virginity let them embrace that state that can and certainly many more might doe it then do if they would try whether they could or no and if they would follow S. Cyprians way Virgo non tantum esse sed intelligi esse debet credi It is not enough for a virgin to bee a virgin in her owne knowledge but she must governe her selfe so as that others may see that she is one and see that shee hath a desire and a
fornications and goes very farre in carnall And yet for all this we are capable of this Conception Christ may be borne in us for all this As God said unto the Prophet Take thee a wife of fornications and children of fornications so is Christ Jesus content to take our soules though too often mothers of fornications As long as we are united and incorporated in his beloved Spouse the Church conforme our selves to her grow up in her hearken to his word in her feed upon his Sacraments in her acknowledge a seale of reconciliation by the absolution of the Minister in her so long how unclean soever we have bin if wee abhorre and forsake our uncleannesse now wee participate of the chastity of that Spouse of his the Church and in her are made capable of this conception of Christ Jesus and so it is as true this houre of us as it was when the Apostle spoke these words This is the fulnesse of time when God sent his Son c. Now you remember Sub lege that in this second part the manner of Christs comming we proposed two degrees of humiliation One which we have handled in a double respect as he is made filius mulieris non Dei the son of a woman and not the Son of God the other as he is filius mulieris non Virginis The son of a woman and not called the son of a Virgin The second remaines that he was sub lege under the law now this phrase to be under the law is not alwayes so narrowly limited in the Scriptures as to signifie onely the law of Moses for so onely the Jews were under the law and so Christs comming for them who were under the law his Death and Merits should belong onely to the Jews But St. Augustine observes that when Christ sent the message of his birth to the wise men in the East by a starre and to the shepheards about Bethlem by an Angel In pastoribus Iudaei in magis Gentes vocatae The Jews had their calling in that manifestation to the shepheards and the Gentiles in that to the wise men in the East But besides that Christ did submit himselfe to all the waight even of the Ceremoniall law of Moses he was under a heavyer law then that under that lex decreti the contract and covenant with God the Father under that oportuit pati This he ought to suffer before he could enter into glory So that his being under the law may be accounted not a part of his Humiliation as his being made of a woman was but rather the whole history and frame of his humiliation All that concernes his obedience even to that law which the Father had laid upon him for the life and death of Christ from the Ave Maria to the consummatum est from his comming into this World in his Conception to his transmigration upon the Crosse was all under this law heavier then any law that any man is under the law of the contract and covenant between the Father and him Though therefore we may think judging by the law of reason that since Christ came to gather a Church and to draw the world to him it would more have advanced that purpose of his to have been borne at Rome where the seat of the Empire and the confluence of all Nations was then in Iury and if he would offer the Gospel first to the Jews better to have been borne at Ierusalem where all the outward publique solemne worship of the Jews was then at obscure Bethlem and in Bethlem in some better place then in an Inne in a Stable in a Manger though we may think thus in the law of reason yet non cogitationes meae cogitationes vestrae sayes God in the Prophet Esay 55. My thoughts are not your thoughts nor my lawes your lawes for I am sub lege decreti under another manner of law then falls within your reading under an obedience to that covenant which hath passed betweene my Father and me and by those Degrees and no other way was my humiliation for your Redemption to be expressed Though we may thinke in the law of Reason that his work of propagating the Gospel would have gone better forward if he had taken for his Apostles some Tullies or Hortensii or Senecaes great and perswading Orators in stead of his Peter and Iohn and Matthew and those Fishermen and tent-makers and toll-gatherers Though we might think in reason and in piety too that when he would humble himselfe to take our salvation into his care it had beene enough to have beene under the law of Moses to live innocently and righteously without shedding of his bloud If he would shed bloud it might have beene enough to have done so in the Circumcision and scourging without dying If he would die it might have been enough to have dyed some lesse accursed and lesse ignominious death then the death of the Crosse though we might reasonably enough and piously enough think thus yet non cogitationes vestrae cogitationes meae sayes the Lord your way is not my way your law is not my law for Christ was sub lege decreti and thus as he did and no other way it became him to fulfill all righteousnesse that is all that Decree of God which he had accepted and acknowledged as Righteous He was so much under Moses law as he would be so much under that law as that he suffered that law to be wrested against him and to bee pretended to be broken by him and to be endited and condemned by that law The Jews pressed that law non sines veneficuÌ vivere Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live Exod. 22. when they attributed all his glorious miracles to the power of the devil and the Romans were incensed against him for treason and sedition as though he aliened and withdrew the people from Caesar But he was under a heavyer law then Jews or Romanes the Law of his Father and his owne eternall Decree so farre as that he came to that sense of the waight thereof Eli Eli My God My God why hast thou forsaken me and was never delivered from the burden of this law till he pleaded the performance of all conditions between his Father and him and delivered up all the evidence thereof in those words In manus tuas Into thy hands O Lord I give my spirit and so presented both the righteousnesse of his soule which had fulfilled the law and the soule it selfe which was under the law He dyed in Execution and so discharged all And so we have done with our second part The manner of his comming We are come now in our Order to our third part The purpose of Christs comming 3. Part. and in that we consider two objects that Christ had and two subjects to work upon two kindes of work and two kindes of persons First to Redeeme and then to Adopt Those are his works his objects And then To redeeme
from the tyran to cancell the covenant betweene hell and them and restore them so far to their liberty as that they might come to their first Master if they would this was Redeeming But in his other worke which is Adoption and where the persons were more particular Adoptio not all but wee Christ hath taken us to him in a straiter and more peculiar title then Redeeming For A servando Servi men who were by another mans valour saved and redeemed from the enemy or from present death they became thereby servants to him that saved and redeemed them Redemption makes us who were but subjects before for all are so by creation servants but it is but servants but Adoption makes us who are thus made servants by Redemption sons ãâã for Adoption is verbum forense though it be a word which the Holy Ghost takes yet he takes it from a civill use and signification in which it expresses in divers circumstances our Adoption into the state of Gods children First he that adopted another must by that law be a man who had no children of his owne And this was Gods case towards us Hee had no children of his owne wee were all filii irae The children of wrath not one of us could be said to bee the child of God by nature if we had not had this Adoption in Christ Secondly he who Eph. â by that law might Adopt must be a Man who had had or naturally might have had children for an Infant under yeares or a man who by nature was disabled from having children could not Adopt another And this was Gods case towards us too for God had had children without Adoption for by our creation in Innocence we were the sons of God till we died all in one transgression and lost all right and all life and all meanes of regaining it but by this way of Adoption in Christ Jesus Againe no man might adopt an elder man then himselfe and so our Father by Adoption is not onely Antiquus dierum The ancient of Daies but Antiquior diebus ancienter then any Daies before Time was he is as Damascene forces himselfe to expresse it Super-principale principium the Beginning and the first Beginning and before the first beginning He is saies he aeternus and prae-aeternus Eternall and elder then any eternity that we can take into our imagination So likewise no man might adopt a man of better quality then himselfe and here we are so far from comparing as that we cannot comprehend his greatnesse and his goodnesse of whom and to whom S. Augustin saies well Quid mihi es If I shall goe about to declare thy goodnesse not to the world in generall but Quid mihi es how good thou art to me Miserere ut loquar saies he I must have more of thy goodnesse to be able to tell thy former goodnesse Be mercifull unto me againe that I may bee thereby able to declare how mercifull thou wast to me before except thou speake in me I cannot declare what thou hast done for me Lastly no man might be adopted into any other degree of kindred but into the name and right of a son he could not be an adopted Brother nor cosin nor nephew And this is especially our dignity wee have the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father So that as here is a fulnesse of time in the text so there is a fulnesse of persons All and a fulnesse of the worke belonging to them Redeeming Emancipation delivering from the chaines of Satan we were his by Creation we sold our selves for nothing and he redeemed us without money that is Esa 52. without any cost of ours but because for all this generall Redemption we may turne from him and submit our selves to other services therefore he hath Adopted us drawne into his family and into his more especiall care those who are chosen by him to be his Now that Redemption reached to all there was enough for all this dispensation of that Redemption this Adoption reaches onely to us all this is done That wee might receive the Adoption of Sonnes But who are this Wee why they are the elect of God But who are they Nos who are these elect Qui timidè rogat docet negare If a man aske me with a diffidence Can I be the adopted son of God that have rebelled against him in all my affections that have troden upon his Commandements in all mine actions that have divorced my selfe from him in preferring the love of his creatures before himselfe that have murmured at his corrections and thought them too much that have undervalued his benefits and thought them too little that have abandoned and prostituted my body his Temple to all uncleannesse and my spirit to indevotion and contempt of his Ordinances can I be the adopted son of God that have done this Ne timidè roges aske me not this with a diffidence and distrust in Gods mercy as if thou thoughtst with Cain thy iniquities were greater then could be forgiven But aske me with that holy confidence which belongs to a true convert Am not I who though I am never without sinne yet am never without hearty remorce and repentance for my sinnes though the weaknesse of my flesh sometimes betray mee the strength of his Spirit still recovers me though my body be under the paw of that lion that seekes whom hee may devoure yet the lion of Judah raises againe and upholds my soule though I wound my Saviour with many sinnes yet all these bee they never so many I strive against I lament confesse and forsake as farre as I am able Am not I the child of God and his adopted son in this state Roga fidenter aske me with a holy confidence in thine and my God doces affirmare thy very question gives me mine answer to thee thou teachest me to say thou art God himselfe teaches me to say so by his Apostle The foundation of God is sure and this is the Seale God knoweth who are his and let them that call upon his name depart from all iniquity He that departs so far as to repent former sinnes and shut up the wayes which he knows in his conscience doe lead him into tentations he is of this quorum one of us one of them who are adopted by Christ to be the sonnes of God I am of this quorum if I preach the Gospell sincerely and live thereafter for hee preaches twice a day that followes his owne doctrine and does as he saies And you are of this quorum if you preach over the Sermons which you heare to your owne soules in your meditation to your families in your relation to the world in your conversation If you come to this place to meet the Spirit of God and not to meet one another If you have sate in this place with a delight in the Word of God and not in the words of any speaker If you goe out of this
faine reduce it to a narrower compasse of time Hâdie si vocem ejus audieritis that you would heare his voyce to day and not harden your hearts to day And to a narrower compasse then that Dabitur in illa hora sayes Christ Luk. 12.12 The holy Ghost shall teach you in that houre In this houre the holy Ghost offers himselfe unto you And to a narrower compasse then an houre Beati qui nunc esuritis qui nunc fletis Luk. 6.21 Blessed are ye that hunger now and that mourn now that put not off years nor dayes nor hours but come to a sense of your sins and of the meanes of reconciliation to God now this minute And therefore when ye reade Iusta pondera just weights and Just balances Levit. 19.36 and just measures a just Hin and a just Ephah shall ye have I am the Lord your God Do not you say so I will hereafter I will come to just weights and measures and to deale uprightly in the world as soon as I have made a fortune established a state raised a competency for wife and children but yet I must doe as other men doe Levit. 23. when you reade Remember that you keep holy the Sabbath day and by the way remember that God hath called his other holy dayes and holy convocations Sabbaths too remember that you celebrate his Sabbaths by your presence here doe not you say so I will if I can rise time enough if I can dine soon enough when you reade sweare not at all doe not you say Matt. 5.34 no more I would but that I live amongst men that will not beleeve me without swearing and laugh at me if I did not sweare for duties of this kinde permanent and constant duties arising out of the evidence of Gods word such as just and true dealing with men such as keeping Gods Sabbaths such as not blaspheming his name have no latitude about them no conditions in them they have no circumstance but are all substance no apparell but are all body no body but are all soule no matter but are all forme They are not in Genere deliberativo they admit no deliberation but require an immediate and an exact execution But then for extraordinary things things that have not their evidence in the word of God formerly revealed unto us whether we consider matters of Doctrine Extraordinary and new opinions or matter of Practise and new commands from what depth of learning soever that new opinion seeme to us to rise or from heighth of Power soever that new-Command seeme to fall it is still in genere deliberativo still we are allowed nay still wee are commanded to deliberate Melch. Canus to doubt to consider before we execute As a good Author in the Roman Church sayes Perniciosius est Ecclesiae It is more dangerous to the Church to accept an Apocryphall book for Canonicall then to reject a Canonicall booke for Apocryphall so may it be more dangerous to doe some things which to a distempered man may seeme to be commanded by God then to forbeare some things which are truely commanded by him God had rather that himselfe should be suspected then that a false god should be admitted The easinesse of admitting Revelations and Visions and Apparitions of spirits and Purgatory souls in the Roman Church And then the overbending and super-exaltation of zeale and the captivity to the private spirit which some have fallen into that have not beene content to consist in moderate and middle wayes in the Reformed Church this easinesse of admitting imaginary apparitions of spirits in the Papist and this easinesse of submitting to the private spirit in the Schismatike hath produced effects equally mischievous Melancholy being made the seat of Religion on the one side Basil by the Papist and Phrenzy on the other side by the Schismatick Multi prae studio immoderato intendi in contrarium aberrarunt à medio was the observation and the complaint of that Father in his time and his prophecy of ours That many times an over-vehement bending into some way of our owne choosing does not onely withdraw us from the left hand way the way of superstition and Idolatry from which wee should all draw but from the middle way too in which we should stand and walk And then Leo. the danger is thus great facile in omnia flagitia impulit quos religione decepit diabolus As God doth the devill also doth make Zeal and Religion his instrument And in other tentations the devill is but a serpent but in this when he makes zeale and religion his instrument he is a Lyon As long as the devill doth but say Doe this or thou wilt live a foole and dye a begger Doe this or thou canst not live in this world the devill is but a devill he playes but a devils part a lyer a seducer But when the devill comes to say Doe this or thou canst not live in the next world thou canst not be saved here the devill pretends to be God here he acts Gods part and so prevails the more powerfully upon us And then when men are so mis-transported either in opinions or in actions with this private spirit and inordinate zeale Quibus non potest auferre fidem aufert charitatem sayes the same Father Though the devill hath not quenched faith in that man himselfe yet he hath quenched that mans charity towards other men Though that man might be saved in that opinion which he holds because perchance that opinion destroyes no fundamentall point yet his salvation is shrewdly shaked and endangered in his uncharitable thinking that no body can be saved that thinks otherwise And as it works thus to an uncharitablenesse in private so doth it to turbulency and sedition in the publique Of which Eusebius we have a pregnant and an aplyable example in the life of Constantine the Emperour In his time there arose some new questions and new opinions in some points of Religion the Emperor writ alike to both parties thus De rebus ejusmodi nec omnino rogetis nec rogati respondeatis Doe you move no questions in such things your selves and if any other doe yet be not you too forward to write so much as against them What questions doth he meane That is expressed Quas nulla lex Canonve Ecclesiasticus necessario praescribit Such questions as are not evidently declared and more then evidently declared necessarily enjoyned by some law some rule some Canon of the Church Disturbe not the peace of the Church upon Inferences and Consequences but deale onely upon those things which are evidently declared in the Articles and necessarily enjoyned by the Church And yet though that Emperor declared himselfe on neither side nor did any act in favour of either side yet because he did not declare himselfe on their side those promovers of these new opinions Eo pervenere sayes that Author ut imagines Imperatoris violarint They
send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send tasts of most vehemence and as it may seem of some passion in Moses He sayes first Quis ego I am not worthy of this employment That 's true but thou art able to qualifie me for it and that objection is taken away Quod nomen I know not thy name how thou wilt be called and how thou wilt be called upon by men I have not studied that But thou hast revealed unto me the knowledge of fundamentall doctrines necessary for salvation and that objection is removed Non facundus I am not eloquent not of ready speech defective in those naturall faculties But the spirit of eloquence and the irresistiblenesse of perswasion is in that mouth in which thou speakest and that excuse is taken away too Non credent I know their stubbornnesse to whom I goe they will not beleeve me But thou hast put the power of Miracles into my hands as well as knowledge into my heart God makes sometimes a plaine and simple mans good life as powerfull as the eloquentest Sermon All this I acknowledge sayes Moses But yet O Lord when thou shalt have done all this in me and in them made me worthy by thy power taught me thy Name by thy grace infused a perswasibility into them and a perswasivenesse into me by thy Spirit yet there is One who is to be sent One whom I know thou wilt send One whom pursuing thine owne Decree thou shouldst send One whose shooe-latchet I shall not be worthy to untie then when thou shalt have multiplyed all these qualifications upon me and therefore O my Lord send I pray thee by his hand send him send Christ now So then with the ancient Fathers with Iustin Martyr with S. Basil with Tertullian with more many very many more we may safely take this to be a supplication That God would be pleased to hasten the comming of the Messias Of our later writers Calvin departs from the Ancients herein so farre as to say nimis coacta it seemes somewhat a forced somewhat an unnaturall sense to interpret these words of the comming of Christ but he proceeds no farther But another of the same sub-division is as he uses to be more assured more confident and he saies Piscator est omnimoda praecisa recusatio It is an absolute refusall in Moses to obey the commandement of God And that truly needed not to have beene said Now when wee consider the exposition in the Roman Church Tostat when their great Bishop I mean their great writing Bishop departs from the Ancients does not understand these words of the comming of Christ Pererius a Jesuit is so bold with that Bishop their order forbids them to be Bishops but not to be Controllers over Bishops as to tell him levis objectio that he departs from a good foundation Eugubinus the Fathers and that upon a light reason And when another Author in that Church proceeds farther to so much vehemence so much violence as to say that it is not only an incommodious but a superstitious sense to interpret these words of the comming of Christ Peterius Cornelius two Jesuits correct him almost in the same words for in the waies of contumely and defamation they agree well and say audacter obstrepit he does but sawcily bark and kick against the ancient Fathers quibus ipse saies Pererius to whom himselfe is not to be compared neither for learning in himselfe nor for place and dignity in the Church nor for sanctity and holinesse of life in the world They may bee as bold with one another as they please Indeed they are so used to uncharitable phrases towards all others as sometimes they cannot spare one another For our part wee lay no such imputations upon any of our later men that accept not that sense of these words but yet we cannot doubt of leave to accompany the Fathers in that Exposition that these words O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send are a petition and not a reluctation against God And that not as Lyra takes them Lyra takes them to be a petition and not a reluctation but a petition of Moses that hee would send Aaron That if he would send any he should send a man of better parts and abilities then himselfe and this is a rare modesty when a man is named for any place to become suter for another to that place Moses was the meekest man upon earth but this was not his meaning here Nor as Rabbi Solomon takes it hee takes it for a Petition and no reluctation but a Petition that God would send Iosuah For sayes that Rabbi Moses had had a Revelation that Iosuah and not he should be the man that should bring that People into the Land of Promise and therefore since Iosuah was to have the honour of the action Moses would have laid the burden upon him too but this makes Moses a more fashionall a more particular a more selfe-considering man for his owne estimation then he was But with the Ancients and later devout men wee piously beleeve Moses in these words to have extended his Devotion towards his Nation and the whole world together Ferus as farre as one of them hath extended the Exposition quid prodest ex Egypto exire in peccatis manere saies he what shall they bee the better for comming out of the pressures of Egypt if they must remaine still under the oppression of a sinfull conscience And that must be their case if thou send but a Moses and not a Christ to their succour Quid Pharaonem essugere non Diabolum saies he what shall they get in being delivered from Pharaoh if they be not delivered from the Devill Intrare in terram promissam non in coelum What preferment is it to dwell in a good Land and to bee banished out of heaven And this will be their case if thou send but a Moses and not a Christ for their deliverance He carries it from them to God himselfe Quid unum populum è servitute temporali liberare totum genus humanum relinquere sub potestate Diaboli What glory will it bee to thee O God who studiest thine owne glory to deliver one Nation from a temporall bondage and leave all Mankinde under everlasting condemnation And that must be the case of all if thou send but a Moses and not a Christ Moses may by thine abundant goodnesse doe some good but there is one one appointed to be sent that will doe all which Moses should doe better then Moses and infinitely more then Moses can doe or of himselfe so much as wish to bee done and therefore send him send him now to doe all together And so these words are a Petition and no Reluctation though some men have taken them so and a Petition for the sending of Christ and no Aaron no Iosuah no other man
those Seales I confirm those Miracles with my Blood and yet Quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved my report I doe Lord as thou biddest me sayes every one of us who as we have received mercy have received the Ministery I obey the inward calling of the Spirit I accept the outward calling of the Church furnished and established with both these I come into the world I preach absolution of sins to every repentant Soule I offer the seales of reconciliation to every contrite spirit and yet Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved my report Indeed it is a sad contemplation and must necessarily produce a serious and a vehement expostulation when the predictions of Gods future judgements so we shall finde the case to have been in the words in Esay when the execution of Gods present judgements so we shall finde the case to have been in the words in S. Iohn when the Ordinances of God for the reliefe of any soule in any judgement in his Church are not beleeved To say I beleeve you not amounts to a lye Not to beleeve Gods warnings before not to beleeve Gods present judgements not to beleeve that God hath established a way to come to him in all distresses this is to give God the lye and with this is the world charged in this Text Lord who hath beleeved our report First then 1 Part. Esay 53.1 where we finde these words first the Prophet reproaches their unbeleefe and hardnesse of heart in this that they did not beleeve future things future calamities future judgements for that is intended in that place For though this 53. of Esay be the continuation and the consummation of that doctrine which the Prophet began to propose in the Chapter immediatly preceding which is the comming of the Messiah in generall the comfortablest doctrine that could be proposed though this Chapter be especially that place upon which S. Hierome grounds that Eulogy of Esay that Esay was rather an Euangelist then a Prophet because of his particular declaration of Christ in this Chapter though upon this Chapter our Expositors sometimes say that as we cite the Gospell according to S. Matthew and the Gospell according to S. Iohn so here we may say the Gospell according to the Prophet Esay yet though this be a prophecy of the comming of Christ and so the comfortablest doctrine that can be proposed in the generall and in the end and fruit of that comming yet it is a prophecy of the exinanition of Christ of the evacuation of Christ of the inglorious and ignominious estate the calamitous and contumelious estate of Christ Their Messias they should have but that Messias should be reputed a Malefactor and as a Malefactor crucified Which miseries and calamities being to fall upon him for them they ought to have been as sensible and as much affected with those miseries to be endured for them as if they had been to have fallen upon themselves The later Jews and their Rabbins since the dispersion doe not will not beleeve this prophecy of miseries and calamities to belong to their Messias Ver. 2. They do not they wil not beleeve that that which is said That there is no form no beauty no comelinesse in him so that men should long for him before or desire to look upon him after should have any reference to their Messiah whom they expect in all outward splendor and glory Nor that that which is added there That he should be despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefes should belong to him in whose proceedings in this world they look for continuall Victories and Triumphs But they will needs understand these miseries and calamities prophecyed here to be those calamities and those miseries which have fallen and dwelt upon their Nation ever since their dispersion after Christs death Now let it be but such a prophecy as that take it either way The Christian way a prophecy of calamities upon the Messiah for them or the Jews way of calamities upon them for the Messiah still it is a prophecy of future calamities future judgements of which they ought to have been sensible and with which they ought to have been affected and were not And so that 's their charge they did not beleeve the Prophets report they were not moved with Gods judgments denounced upon them by those Prophets Now was this so hainous not to beleeve a Prophet The office and function of a Prophet Propheta in the time of the Law was not so evident nor so ordinary an office as the office of the Priest and Minister in the Gospel now is There was not a constant an ordinary a visible calling in the Church to the office of a Prophet Neither the high-priest nor the Ecclesiasticall Consistory the Synedrium did by any imposition of hands or other Collation or Declaration give Orders to any man so as that thereby that man was made a Prophet I know some men of much industry and perspicacy too in searching into those Scriptures the sense whereof is not obvious to every man have thought that the Prophets had an outward and a constant declaration of their Calling 1 Reg. 19.15 And they think it proved by that which is said to Eliah when God commands him to anoint Hazael K. of Syria to anoint Iehu K. of Israel to anoint Elisha Prophet in his own room Therefore say they the Prophet had as much evidence of his Calling as the Minister hath for that unction was as evident a thing as our Imposition of hands is And it is true it was so where it was actually and really executed But then nothing is more evident then that this word Meshiach which signifies Anointing is not restrained to that very action a real unction but frequently transferred communicated in a Scripture use to every kind of Declaration of any Election any Institution any Inauguration any Investiture of any person to any place And lesse then that of any appropriation any applicatioÌ of any thing to any particular use Any appointing was an anointing As in particular for many other places where S. Hierome reades Arripite clypeos buckle your shields Esay 21.5 To you which was an alarm to them to arm the originall hath it and so hath our translation Anoint your shields to apply them to their right use was called an Anointing And when God cals Cyrus the King of Persia Vnctum suum his Anointed it were weakly and improperly argued from that word that Cyrus King of Persia was literally actually anointed for that unction was peculiar to the Kings of Israel but Cyrus was the anointed of the Lord that is declared and avowed by the Lord to be his chosen Instrument Neither could Eliah literally execute this commandement for anointing Hasael King of Syria for Hasael the King of Syria could not be anointed by the Prophet of the Lord for such unction was peculiar to the Kings of Israel And for
whole parishes whom thou hast depopulated thy soule may goe confidently home too if thou bribe God then with an Hospitall or a Fellowship in a Colledge or a Legacy to any pious use in apparance and in the eye of the world Pay thy selfe therefore this debt that is make up thine account all the way for when that voyce comes Luk. 16.2 Redde rationem Give up an account of thy Stewardship it is not goe home now and make up thy account perfect but now now deliver up thine account if it be perfect it is well if it be not here is no longer day for Iam non poteris villicare now thou canst be no lenger Steward Esay 38.1 now thou hast no more to doe with thy selfe Here the voyce is not in the word to Ezekiah Dispone domui put thy house in order for morieris thou shalt die For there God had a gracious purpose to give him a longer terme but here it is foole this night repetunt not they shall but they doe fetch away thy soule and then what is become of that To morrow which thou hadst imagined and promised to thy selfe for the paiment of this debt of this repentance Be just therefore to thy selfe all the way pay thy selfe and take acquittances of thy selfe all the way which is onely done under the seale and in the testimony of a rectified conscience Let thine owne conscience be thine evidence and thy Rolls and not the opinion of others Non tutum planè sed stultum ibi thesaurum tuum recondere ubi non vales resumere cum volueris sayes Saint Bernard It is not providently done to lock thy treasure in a chest of which thou hast no key and to which thou hast no accesse Si ponis in os meum jam non in tua sed mea potestate est ut te laudare vel tibi derogare possim If thou build thy reputation upon my report it is now in my power not in thine whether thou shalt be good or bad honourable or infamous Sanum vas inconcussum conscientia a good conscience is a sweet vessell and a strong Quicquid in ea reposueris servabit vivo defuncto restituet Whatsoever thou laiest up in that shall serve thee all thy life and after and that shall be thine acquittance and discharge atthy last paiment in manustuas when thou returnest thy spirit into his hands that gave it And then reddidisti debita omnibus thou shalt have rendred to all their dues when thou hast given the King Honour the poore almes thy selfe peace and God thy soule SERMON X. Preached upon Candlemas Day ROM 12.20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink for in so doing thou shalt heap coales of fire on his head IT falls out I know not how but I take it from the instinct of the Holy Ghost and from the Propheticall spirit residing in the Church of God that those Scriptures which are appointed to be read in the Church all these dayes for I take no other this Terme doe evermore afford and offer us Texts that direct us to patience as though these times had especial need of those instructions And truly so they have for though God have so farre spared us as yet as to give us no exercise of patience in any afflictions inflicted upon our selves yet as the heart akes if the head doe nay if the foote ake the heart akes too so all that professe the name of Christ Jesus aright making up but one body we are but dead members of that body if we be not affected with the distempers of the most remote parts thereof That man sayes but faintly that he is heart-whole that is macerated with the Gout or lacerated with the Stone It is not a heart but a stone growne into that forme that feeles no paine till the paine seize the very substance thereof How much and how often S. Paul delights himselfe with that sociable syllable Syn Con Conregnare and Convificare and Consedere of Raigning together 2 Tim. 2.12 Eph. 2.1 6. and living and quickning together As much also doth God delight in it from us when we expresse it in a Conformity and Compunction and Compassion and Condolency and as it is but a little before the Text in weeping with them that weepe Our patience therefore being actually exercised in the miseries of our brethren round about us and probably threatned in the aimes and plots of our adversaries upon us though I hunt not after them yet I decline not such Texts as may direct our thoughts upon duties of that kinde This Text does so for the circle of this Epistle of S. Paul this precious ring being made of that golden Doctrine That Justification is by faith and being enameled with that beautifull Doctrine of good works too in which enameled Ring as a precious stone in the midst thereof there is set the glorious Doctrine of our Election by Gods eternall Predestination our Text falls in that part which concernes obedience holy life good works which when both the Doctrines that of Justification by faith and that of Predestination have suffered controversie hath been by all sides embraced and accepted that there is no faith which the Angels in heaven or the Church upon earth or our own consciences can take knowledge of without good works Of which good works and the degrees of obedience of patience it is a great one and a hard one that is enjoyned in this Text for whereas S. Augustine observes sixe degrees sixe steps in our behaviour towards our enemies whereof the first is nolle laedere to be loth to hurt any man by way of provocation not to begin And a second nolle amplius quam laesus laedere That if another provoke him yet what power soever he have he would returne no more upon his enemy then his enemy had cast upon him he would not exceed in his revenge And a third velle minus not to doe so much as he suffered but in a lesse proportion onely to shew some sense of the injury And then another is nolle laedere licet laesus to returne no revenge at all though he have been provoked by an injury And a higher then that par atum se exhibere ut amplius laedatur to turne the other cheeke when he is smitten and open himselfe to farther injuries That which is in this Text is the sixt step and the highest of all laedenti benefacere to doe good to him of whom we have received evill If thine enemy hunger to feed him if he thirst to give him drinke for in so c. The Text is a building of stone and that bound in with barres of Iron Divisio fundamentall Doctrine in point of manners in it selfe and yet buttressed and established with reasons too therefore and for Therefore feed thine enemy For in so doing thou shalt heape coales This therefore confirmes the precedent Doctrine and this For confirmes
be delivered of a fever in my spirits and to have my spirit troubled with the guiltinesse of an adultery To be delivered of Cramps and Coliques and Convulsions in my joynts and sinewes and suffer in my soule all these from my oppressions and extortions by which I have ground the face of the poore It is but lost labour and cost to give a man a precious cordiall when he hath a thorne in his foote or an arrow in his flesh for as long as the sinne which is the cause of the sicknesse remaines Deterius sequetur A worse thing will follow we may be rid of a Fever and the Pestilence will follow rid of the Cramp and a Gout will follow rid of sicknesse and Death eternall death will follow That which our Saviour prescribes is Noli peccare ampliùs sinne no more first non ampliùs sinne no more sins take heed of gravid sins of pregnant sinnes of sins of concomitance and concatentation that chaine and induce more sins after as Davids idlenesse did adultery and that murder the losse of the Lords Army and Honor in the blaspheming of his name Noli ampliùs sin no more no such sin as induces more And Noli ampliùs sinne no more that is sin thy owne sin thy beloved sin no more times over And still Noli ampliùs sin not that sin which thou hast given over in thy practise in thy memory by a sinfull delight in remembring it And againe Noli ampliùs sin not over thy former sins by holding in thy possession such things as were corruptly gotten by any such former practises for Deterius sequetur a worse thing will follow A Tertian will be a Quartan and a Quartan a Hectique and a Hectique a Consumption and a Consumption without a consummation that shall never consume it selfe nor consume thee to an unsensiblenesse of torment And then after these three lessons in this Catechisme Sanitas spiritualis That God gives before we aske That he gives better then we aske That he informes us in the true cause of sicknesse sinne He involves a tacit nay he expresses an expresse rebuke and increpation and in beginning at the Dimittuntur peccata at the forgivenesse of sinnes tels him in his eare that his spirituall health should have beene prefer'd before his bodily and the cure of his soule before his Palsie that first the Priest should have beene and then the Physitian might bee consulted That which Christ does to his new adopted Sonne here the Wiseman saies to his Son Ecclus. 38.9 My Son in thy sicknesse be not negligent But wherein is his diligence required or to be expressed in that which followes Pray unto the Lord and he will make thee whole But upon what conditions or what preparations Leave off from sin order thy hands aright and cleanse thy heart from all wickednesse Is this all needs there no declaration no testimony of this Yes Give a sweet savour and a memoriall of fine floure and make a fat offering as not beeing that is as though thou wert dead Give and give that which thou givest in thy life time as not beeing And when all this is piously and religiously done thou hast repented restor'd amended and given to pious uses Then saies he there give place to the Physitian for the Lord hath created him For if we proceed otherwise if wee begin with the Physitian Physick is a curse He that sinneth before his Maker V. 15. let him fall into the hands of the Physitian saies the Wiseman there It is not Let him come into the hands of the Physitian as though that were a curse but let him fall let him cast and throw himselfe into his hands and rely upon naturall meanes and leave out all consideration of his other and worse disease and the supernaturall Physick for that 2. Chron. 16. Asa had had a great deliverance from God when the Prophet Hanani asked him Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubins a huge Host but because after this deliverance he relied upon the King of Syria and not upon God the Judgement is From henceforth thou shalt have wars That was a sicknesse upon the State then he fell sick in his own person and in that sicknesse saies that story He sought not to the Lord but to the Physitian and then he dyed To the Lord and then to the Physitian had beene the right way If to the Physitian and then to the Lord though this had beene out of the right way yet hee might have returned to it But it was to the Physitian and not to the Lord and then he died Omnipotenti medico nullus languor insanabilis saies S. Ambrose there is but one Almighty and none but the Almighty can cure all diseases because hee onely can cure diseases in the roote that is in the forgivenesse of sins We are almost at an end when we had thus Catechised his Convertite thus rectified his patient Scribae Pharisci hee turnes upon them who beheld all this and were scandaliz'd with his words the Scribes and Pharisees And because they were scandaliz'd onely in this that he being but man undertooke the office of God to forgive sins he declares himselfe to them to be God Christ would not leave even malice it selfe unsatisfied And therefore do not thou thinke thy selfe Christian enough for having an innocence in thy selfe but be content to descend to the infirmities and to the very malice of other men and to give the world satisfaction Nec paratum habeas illud ètrivio sayes S. Hierome do not arm thy self with that vulgar and triviall saying Sufficit mihi conscientia mea nec curo quid loquantur homines It suffices me that mine own conscience is cleare and I care not what all the world sayes thou must care what the world sayes and thinks Christ himself had that respect even towards the Scribes and Pharisees For first he declared himself to be God in that he took knowledge of their thoughts for they had said nothing and he sayes to them why reason you thus in your hearts and they themselves did not could not deny but that those words of Solomon appertained only to God 2 Chron. 6.30 Thou only knowest the hearts of the children of men And those of Ieremy The heart is deceitfull above all things Jer. 17.9 and desperately wicked who can know it I the Lord search the heart and I try the reines Let the Schoole dispute infinitely for he that will not content himself with means of salvation till all Schoole points be reconciled will come too late let Scotus and his Heard think That Angels and separate soules have a naturall power to understand thoughts though God for his particular glory restraine the exercise of that power in them as in the Romane Church Priests have a power to forgive all sins though the Pope restraine that power in reserved cases And the Cardinals by their Creation have a voice in the
under our senses non sensus nor with any thing which we can bring studiously or which can fall casually into our fancy or imagination non phantasia And upon the whole matter and all the evidence he joynes in this verdict with S. Hierome Tunc cernitur cum invisibilis creditur God is best seen by us when we confesse that he cannot be seen of us S. Augustine denies not That our eyes shall be spirituall eyes but in what proportion spirituall or to what particular use spirituall he will not pretend to know Vtrum in simplicitatem spiritus cedat it a ut totus homo jam sit spiritus whether the body of man shall be so attenuated and rarified as that the whole man shall become spirit Aut animam adjuvet corpus ad videndum whether the body shall contribute and assist the faculties of the soul as in this life it doth Fateor me non alicubi legisse quod existimarem sufficere ad docendum aut ad discendum sayes that blessed and sober Father I confesse I never read any thing that I thought sufficient to rectifie mine own judgement much lesse to change anothers But to all those places of Scripture which are to this purpose That the Angels see the face of God and that we shall be like the Angels and see God face to face he answers well Facies Dei ea est qua Deus innotescit nobis That is the face of God to us all by which God is known and manifested to us in which sense Reason is the face of God to the naturall man the Law to the Jew and the Gospell to us and such a sight of God doth no more put such a power of seeing in our bodily eyes then it puts a face upon God We shall see God face to face and yet God shall have no face to be seen nor we bodily eyes to see him by For Non legi That I have not read sayes he This sayes he I have read Regi incorruptibili invisibili Vnto the King eternall immortall invisible c. Neither dare I sayes S. Augustine 1 Tim. 1.17 sever those things which the Spirit of God hath joyned Vt dicam incorruptibilem quidem in saecula saeculorum invisibilem autem in hoc saeculo I dare not say that God is immortall in this world and in the next world too but invisible in this world only and visible in the next for the Holy Ghost hath pronounced him invisible as far as immortall Si rogas sayes he if you presse me Cannot God then be seen Yes I confesse he can If you ask me how Cum vult sicuti vult He may be seen when he will and how he will If you pursue it can he not be seen in his Essence yes he can If you proceed farther and ask me how again I can say no more sayes he then Christ sayes Erimus sicut Angeli we shall be like the Angels and we shall see God so as the Angels do but they see him not with bodily eyes nor as an object which is that that S. Ambrose and S. Hicrome and S. Chrysostome intend when they deny that the Angels see the Essence of God that is they see him not otherwise then by understanding him All agree in this resolution Solus Deus videt cor solum cor videt Deum Only God can see the heart of man and only the heart of man can see God For in this world our bodily eyes do not see bodies they see but colours and dimensions they see not bodies much lesse shall our eyes though spirituall see spirits in heaven least of all that Spirit in comparison of of whom Angels and our spirits are but grosse bodies So far the Fathers leade us towards a determination herein and thus far the School Nulla visio naturalis in terris Here in this life neither the eyes nor the minde of the most subtile and most sanctified man can see the Essence of God Nulla visio corporalis in coelis The bodily eyes of no man in the highest stare of glorification in heaven can see the Essence of God Nulla visio comprehensiva omnino That faculty of man which shall see the Essence of God in heaven yet shall not comprehend that Essence for to comprehend is not to know a thing as well as I can know it but to know it as well as that thing can be knowen and so only God himself can see and know that is comprehend God To end all in the whole body of the Scriptures we have no light that our bodily eyes shall be so enlightned in the Resurrection Job 19.26 as to see the Essence of God For when Iob sayes In carne mea In my flesh I shall see God and Oculi mei videbunt Mine eyes shall see God if these words must necessarily be understood of the last Resurrection which some Expositors deny and Calvin in particular understands them of a particular resurrection from that calamity which lay upon Iob at that time and of his confidence that God would raise him again even in this life yet howsoever and to which resurrection soever you refer them the words must be understood thus In my flesh that is when my soule shall re-assume this flesh in the Resurrection In that flesh I shall see God he doth not say That flesh shall but Hee in that flesh shall So when hee adds Oculi mei Mine eyes shall do it he intends Oculos internos of which the Apostle speaks The eyes of your understanding being enlightned Ephes 1.18 So then a faculty to see him so in his Essence with bodily eyes we finde not in Scripture But yet in the Scriptures we do finde that we shall see him so Sicuti est As he is in his Essence How It is a safe answer which S. Augustine gives in all such questions Meliùs affirmamus de quibus minimè dubitamus Only those things are safely affirmed and resolved which admit no doubt This hath never admitted any doubt but that our soule and her faculties shall be so exalted in that state of glory as that in those internall faculties of the soul so exalted we shall see the very Essence of God which no measure of the light of grace communicated to any the most fanctified man here doth effect but only the light of glory there shall And therefore this being cleare that in the faculties of our soules we shall see him Restat ut de illa visione secundum interiorem hominem certissimi simus sayes that blessed and sober Father As our reason is satisfied that the Saints in heaven shall see God so so let our consciences be satisfied that we have an interest in that state and that we in particular shall come to that sight of God Et cor mundum ad illam visionem praeparemus Let us not abuse our selves with false assurances nor rest in any other then this that we have made clean and pure our
in the warfare Mat. 26.38 so we have our example in our great Generall Christ Jesus Who though his soul were heavy and heavy unto death though he had a baptisme to be baptised with coarctabatur he was straightned and in paine till it were accomplished and though he had power to lay down his soul Iohn 10.18 and take it up againe and no man else could take it from him yet he sought it out to the last houre and till his houre came he would not prevent it nor lay downe his soule Vae desiderantibus woe unto them that desire any other end of Gods correction but what he hath ordained and appointed for ut quid vobis what shall you get by choosing your owne wayes Tenebrae non lux They shall passe out of this world in this inward darknesse of melancholy and dejection of spirit into the outward darknesse which is an everlasting exclusion from the Father of lights and from the Kingdome of joy their case is well expressed in the next verse to our Text they shall flie from a Lyon and a Beare shall meet them they shall leane on a wall and a Serpent shall bite them they shall end this life by a miserable and hasty death and out of that death shall grow an immortall life in torments which no wearinesse nor desire nor practice can ever bring to an end And here in this acceptation of these words this vae falls directly upon them who colouring and apparelling treason in martyrdome expose their lives to the danger of the Law Scribanius embrace death these of whom one of their own society saith that the Scevolaes the Caves the Porciaes the Cleopatraes of the old time were nothing to the Jesuites for saith he they could dye once but they lacked courage ad multas mortes perchance hee meanes that after those men were once in danger of the Law and forfeited their lives by one comming they could come again and again as often as the plentifull mercy of their King would send them away Rapiunt mortem spontanea irruptione sayes he to their glory they are voluntary and violent pursuers of their own death and as he expresses it Crederes morbo adesos Baron Martyrââ 29. Decemb you would think that the desire of death is a disease in them A graver man then he mistakes their case and cause of death as much you are saith he incouraging those of our Nation to the pursuit of death in sacris septis ad martyrium saginati fed up and fatned here for martyrdome Sacramento sanguinem spospondistis they have taken an oath that they will be hanged but that he in whom as his great patterne God himselfe mercy is above all his works out of his abundant sweetnesse makes them perjured when they have so Tworne and vowed their owne ruine But those that send them give not the lives of these men so freely so cheaply as they pretend But as in dry Pumps men poure in a little water that they may pump up more so they are content to drop in a little blood of imaginary but traiterous Martyrs that by that at last they may draw up at last the royall blood of Princes and the loyall blood of Subjects vae desiderantibus woe to them that are made thus ambitious of their owne ruine ut quid vobis Tenebrae non lux you are kept in darknesse in this world and sent into darknesse from heaven into the next and so your ambition ad multas mortes shall be satisfied you dye more then one death morte moriemini this death delivers you to another from which you shall never be delivered We have now past through these three acceptations of these words Conclusion which have falne into the contemplation and meditation of the Ancients in their Expositions of this Text as this dark day of the Lord signifies his judgements upon Atheisticall scorners in this world as it signifies his last irrevocable and irremediable judgements upon hypocriticall relyers upon their own righteousnesse in the next world and between both as it signifies their uncomfortable passage out of this life who bring their death inordinately upon themselves and we shall shut up all with one signification more of the Lords day That that is the Lords day of which the whole Lent is the Vigil and the Eve All this time of mortification and our often meeting in this place to heare of our mortality and our immortality which are the two reall Texts and Subjects of all our Sermons All this time is the Eve of the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ That is the Lords day when all our mortification and dejection of spirit and humbling of our soules shall be abundantly exalted in his resurrection and when all our fasts and abstinence shall be abundantly recompenced in the participation of his body his bloud in the Sacrament Gods Chancery is alwayes open and his seale works alwaies at all times remission of sins may be sealed to a penitent soule in the Sacrament That clause which the Chancellors had in their Patents under the Romane Emperours Vt praerogativamgerat conscientiae nostrae is in our commission too for God hath put his conscience into his Church whose sins are remitted there are remitted in heaven at all times but yet dies Domini the Lords resurrection is as the full Terme a more generall application of this seale of reconciliation But vae desiderantibus woe unto them that desire that day only because they would have these dayes of preaching and prayer and fasting and trouble some preparation past and gone Vae desiderantibus woe unto them who desire that day onely that by receââing the Sacrament day that they might delude the world as though they were not of a contrary religion in their heart vae desiderantibus woe unto them who present themselves that day without such a preparation as becomes so fearful and mystesious an action upon any carnall or collaterall respects Before that day of the Lord comes comes the day of his crucifying before you come to that day if you come not to a crucifying of your selves to the world and the world to you ut quid vobis what shall you get by that day you shall prophane that day and the Author of it as to make that day of Christs triumph the triumph of Satan and to make even that body and bloud of Christ Jesus Vehiculum Satanae his Chariot to enter into you as he did into Iudas That day of the Lord will be darknesse and not light and that darknesse will be that you shall not discerne the Lords body you shall scatter all your thoughts upon wrangling and controversies de modo how the Lords body can be there and you shall not discerne by the effects nor in your owne conscience that the Lords body is there at all But you shall take it to be onely an obedience to civill or Ecclesiasticall
Lord and thou only knowest Which is also the sense of those words Heb. 11.35 Others were tortured and accepted not a deliverance that they might obtain a better Resurrection A present deliverance had been a Resurrection but to be the more sure of a better hereafter they lesse respected that According to that of our Saviour Mat. 10.39 He that findes hi life shall lose it He that fixeth himself too earnestly upon this Resurrection shall lose a better This is then the propheticall Resurrection for the future but a future in this world That if Rulers take counsell against the Lord the Lord shall have their counsell in derision If they take armes against the Lord the Lord shall break their Bows and cut their Spears in sunder Psal 2.4 If they hisse and gnash their teeth and say we have swallowed him up If we be made their by-word their parable their proverb their libell the theame and burden of their songs as Iob complaines yet whatsoever fall upon me dmage distresse scorn or Hostis ultimus death it self that death which we consider here death of possessions death of estimation death of health death of contentment yet Abolebitur it sahll be destroyed in a Resurrection in the return of the light of Gods countenance upon me even in this world And this is the first Resurrection But this first Resurrection 2. Apeecatis which is but from temporall calamities doth so little concerne a true and established Christian whether it come or no for still Iobs Basis is his Basis and his Centre Etiamsi occiderit though he kill me kill me kill me in all these severall deaths and give me no Resurrection in this world yet I will trust in him as that as though this first resurrection were no resurrection not to be numbred among the rersurrections S. Iohn calls that which we call the second which is from sin the first resurrection Blessed and holy is be who hath part in the firstresurrection And this resurrection Christimplies Apoe 20.6 John 5.25 when he saies Verely verely I say unto you the houre is comming and now is when the dead shall heare the ovyce of the Son of God and they that heare it shall live That is by the voyce of the word of life the Gospell of repentance they shall have a spirituall resurrection to a new life S. Austine and Lactantius both were so hard in beleeving the roundnesse of the earth that they thought that those homines pensiles as they call them those men that hang upon the other cheek of the face of the earth those Antipodes whose feet are directly against ours must necessarily fall from the earth if the earth be round But whither should they fall If they fall they must fall upwards for heaven is above them too as it is to us So if the spirituall Antipodes of this world the Sons of God that walk with feet opposed in wayes contrary to the sons of men shall be said to fall when they fall to repentance to mortification to a religious negligence and contempt of the pleasures of this life truly their fall is up wards they fall towards heaven God gives breath unto the people upon the earth sayes the Prophet Et spiritum his qui calcant illam Esay 45.5 Our Translation carries that no farther but that God gives breath to people upon the earth and spirit to them that walk thereon But Irenaeus makes a usefull difference between afflatus and spiritus that God gives breath to all upon earth but his spirit onely to them who tread in a religious scorne upon earthly things Is it not a strange phrase of the Apostle Mortifie your members fornication uncleanenesse inordinate affections He does not say mortifie your members against those sins Col. 3.5 but he calls those very sins the members of our bodies as though we were elemented and compacted of nothing but sin till we come to this resurrection this mortification which is indeed our vivification Till we beare in our body the dying of our Lord Iesus that the life also of Iesus may be made manifest in our body 2 Cor. 4.10 God may give the other resurrection from worldly misery and not give this A widow may be rescued from the sorrow and solitarinesse of that state by having a plentifull fortune there she hath one resurrection but the widow that liveth in pleasure is dead while she lives 1 Tim. 5.6 shee hath no second resurrection and so in that sense even this Chappell may be a Church-yard men may stand and sit and kneele and yet be dead and any Chamber alone may be a Golgotha a place of dead mens bones of men not come to this resurrection which is the renunciation of their beloved sin It was inhumanely said by Vitellius upon the death of Otho when he walkedin the field of carcasses where the battle was fought O how sweet a perfume is a dead enemy But it is a divine saying to thy soule O what a savor of life unto life is the death of a beloved sin What an Angelicall comfort was that to Ioseph and Mary in Aegypt after the death of Herod Arise for they are dead that sought the childes life Mat. 2.20 And even that comfort is multiplied upon thy soul when the Spirit of God saies to thee Arise come to this resurrection for that Herod that sin that sought the life the everlasting life of this childe the childe of God thy soule is dead dead by repentance dead by mortification The highest cruelty that story relates or Poets imagine is when a persecutor will not afford a miserable man death not be so mercifull to him as to take his life Thou hast made thy sin thy soule thy life inanimated all thy actions all thy purposes with that sin Miserere animatuae be so mercifull to thy selfe as to take away that life by mortification by repentance and thou art come to this Resurrection and thugh a man may have the former resurrection and not this peace in his fortune and yet not peace in his conscience yet whosoever hath this second hath an infallible seale of the third resurrection too to a fulnesse of glory in body as well as in soule For Spiritus maturam efficit carnem capacem incorruptelae this resurrection by the spirit Irenaeus mellowes the body of man and makes that capable of everlasting glory which is the last weapon by which the last enemy death shall be destroyed A morte Upon that pious ground that all Scriptures were written for us as we are Christians that all Scriptures conduce to the proofe of Christ and of the Christian state 3. A morte it is the ordinary manner of the Fathers to make all that David speaks historically of himselfe and all that the Prophet speaks futurely of the Jews if those place may be referred to Christ to referre them to Christ primarily and but by reflection and in a second
yet his third teares his pontificall teares which accompany his sacrifice Those teares we called the Sea but a Sea which must now be bounded with a very little sand To saile apace through this Sea 3. Part. these teares the teares of his Crosse were expressed by that inestimable waight the sinnes of all the world If all the body were eye argues the Apostle in another place why here all the body was eye every pore of his body made an eye by teares of blood and every inch of his body made an eye by their bloody scourges And if Christs looking upon Peter made Peter weep shall not his looking upon us here with teares in his eyes such teares in such eyes springs of teares rivers of teares seas of teares make us weep too Peter who wept under the waight of his particular sin wept bitterly how bitterly wept Christ under the waight of all the sins of all the world In the first teares Christ humane teares those we called a spring we fetched water at one house we condoled a private calamity in another Lazarus was dead In his second teares his Propheticall teares wee went to the condoling of a whole Nation and those we called a River In these third teares his pontificall teares teares for sin for all sins those we call a Sea here is Mare liberum a Sea free and open to all Every man may saile home home to himselfe and lament his own sins there I am farre ftom concluding all to be impenitent that doe not actually weep and shed teares I know there are constitutions complexions that doe not afford them And yet the worst Epithet which the best Poet could fixe upon Pluto himselfe was to call him Illachrymabilis a person that could not weep But to weep for other things and not to weep for sin or if not to teares yet not to come to that tendernesse to that melting to that thawing that resolving of the bowels which good soules feele this is a spunge I said before every man is a spunge this is a spunge dried up into a Pumice stone the lightnesse the hollownesse of a spunge is there still but as the Pumice is dried the Aetnaes of lust of ambition of other flames in this world I have but three words to say of these teares of this weeping What it is what it is for what it does the nature the use the benefit of these teares is all And in the first I forbeare to insist upon S. Basils Metaphor Lachrymae sudor animi male sani Sin is my sicknesse the blood of Christ Jesus is my Bezar teares is the sweat that that produceth I forbeare Greg. Nyssens metaphor too Lachryma sanguis cordis defoecatus Teares are out best blood so agitated so ventilated so purified so rarified into spirits as that thereby I become Idem spiritus one spirit with my God That is large enough and imbraces all which S. Gregory sayes That man weeps truly that soul sheds true teares that considers seriously first ubi fuit in innocentia the blessed state which man was in in his integrity at first ubifuit and then considers ubi est in tentationibus the weak estate that man is in now in the midst of tentations where if he had no more himself were tentation too much ubi est and yet considers farther ubi erit in gehenna the insupportable and for all that the inevitable theirreparable and for all that undeterminable torments of hell ubi erit and lastly ubi non erit in coelis the unexpressible joy and glory which he loses in heaven ubi non erit where he shall never be These foure to consider seriously where man was where he is where he shall be where he shall never be are foure such Rivers as constitute a Paradise And as a ground may be a weeping ground though it have no running River no constant spring no gathering of waters in it so a soule that can poure out it self into these religious considerations may be a weeping soule though it have a dry eye This weeping then is but a true sorrow that was our first and then what this true sorrow is given us for and that is our next Consideration As water is in nature a thing indifferent in may give life Ad quid so the first livin things that were were in the water and it may destroy life so all things living upon the earth were destroyed in the water but yet though water may though it have done good and bad yet water does now one good office which no ill quality that is in it can equall it washes our soules in Bap isme so though there be good teares and bad teares teares that wash away sin and teares that are sin yet all teares have this degree of good in them that they are all some kinde of argument of good nature of a tender heart and the Holy Ghost loves to work in Waxe and not in Marble I hope that is but meerly Poeticall which the Poet saies Discunt lachrymare decenter that some study to weep with a good grace Quoque volunt plorant empore quoquemode they make use and advantage of their teares and weep when they will But of those who weep not when they would but when they would not do half imploy their teares upon thatfor which God hath given them that sacrifice upon sin God made the Firmament which he called Heaven after it had divided the waters After we have distinguished our teares naturall from spirituall worldly from heavenly then there is a Firmament established in us then there is a heaven opened to us and truly to cast Pearles before Swine will scarce be better resembled then to shed teares which resemble pearles for worldly losses Are there examples of menopassionately enamored upon age or if upon age upon deformity If there be example of that are they not examples of scorn too doe not all others laugh at their teares and yet such is our passionate doting upon this world Mundi facies sayes S. Augustine and even S. Augustine himselfe hath scarce said any thing more pathetically tanta rerani labe contrita ut etiam speciem seductionis amiserit The face of the whold world is so defaced so wrinkled so ruined so deformed as that man might be trusted with this world and there is no jealousie no suspition that this world should be able to minister any occasion of tentation to man Speciem seductionis amisit And yet Qui in seipso aruit in nobis floret sayes S. Gregory as wittily as S. Augustine as it is easie to be witty easie to extend an Epigram to a Satyre and a Satyre to an Invective in declaiming against this world that world which findes it selfe truly in an Autumne in it selfe findes it selfe in a spring in our imaginations Labenti haeremus sayes that Father Et cum labentem sistere non possumus cum ipso labimur The world passes away and yet wee cleave to it and
when wee cannot stay it from passing away wee passe away with it To mourne passionately for the love of this world which is decrepit and upon the deathbed or imoderately for the death of any that is passed out of this world is not the right use of teares That hath good use which Chrysologus notes that when Christ was told of Lazarus death he said he was glad when he came to raise him to life then hee wept for though his Disciples gained by it they were confirmed by a Miracle though the family gained by it they had their Lazarus againe yet Lazarus himselfe lost by it by being re-imprisoned re-committed re-submitted to the manifold incommodities of this world When our Saviour Christ forbad the women to weepe for him it was becausethere was nothing in him for teares to worke upon no sin Ordinem flendi docuit saies S. Bernard Christ did not absolutely forbid teares but regulate and order their teares that they might weepe in the right place first for sin David wept for Absolon He might imagine that he died in sin he wept not for the Child by Bathsheba he could not suspect so much danger in that Exitus aquarum saies David Rivers of waters ran downe from mine eyes why Quia illi Because they who are they not other men Psal 119.136 as it is ordinarily taken but Quia illi Because mine owne eyes so Hilary and Ambrose and August take it have not kept thy Lawes As the calamities of others so the sins of others may but our owne sins must be the object of our sorrow Thou shalt offer to me saies God Exod. 22.19 the first of thy ripe fruits and of thy liquors as our Translation hath it The word in the Originall ginall is Vedingnacha lachrymarum and of thy teares Thy first teares must be to God for sin The second and third may be to nature and civility and such secular offices But Liquore ad lippitudinem apto quisquamne ad pedes lavandos abutetur It is S. Chrysostomes exclamation and admiration will and wash his feet in water for sore eyes will any man embalme the Carcasse of the world which he treads under foote with those teares which should embalme his soule Did Ioseph of Arimathea bestow any of his perfumes though he brought a superfluous quantity a hundred pound waight for one body yet did he bestow any upon the body of either of the Thieves Teares are true sorrow that you heard before True sorrow is for sin that you have heard now All that remaines is how this sorrow works what is does The Fathers have infinitely delighted themselves in this descant the blessed effect of holy teares Quid operantur He amongst them that reemembers us that in the old Law all Sacrifices were washed he meanes That our best sacrifice even prayer it selfe receives an improvement a dignity by being washed in teares He that remembers us that if any roome of out house be on fire we run for water meanes that in all tentations we should have recourse to teares He that tels us that money being put into a bason is seene at a farther distance if there be water in the bason then if it be emptie meanes also that our most pretious devotions receive an addition a multiplication by holy teares S. Bernard meanes all that they all meane in that Cor lachrymas nesciens durum impurum A hard heart is a foule heart Would you shut up the devill in his owne channell his channell of brimstone and make that worse S. hierom tels the way Plus tua lachryma c. Thy teares torment him more then the fires of hell will you needs have holy water truly true teares are the holiest water Mend eza in 1. Sam. And for Purgatory it is liberally confessed by a Jesuit Non minùs efficax c. One teare will doe thee as much good as all the flames of Purgatory We have said more then once that man is a spunge And in Codice scripta all our sins are written in Gods Booke saies S. ChrysOstome If there I can fill my spunge with teares and so wipe out all my sins out of that Book it is a blessed use of the Spunge I might stand upon this the manifold benefits of godly teares long so long as till you wept and wept for sin and that might be very long I contract all to this one which is all To how many blessednesses must these teares this godly sorrow reach by the way when as it reaches to the very extreme to that which is opposed to it to Joy for godlie sorrow is Joy Iob 10.20 The words in Iob are in the Vulgat Dimitte meut plang am dolorem meum Lord spare me a while that I may lament my lamentable estate and so ordinarily the Expositors that follow that Translation make their use of them But yet it is in the Originall Lord spare me a while that I may take comfort That which one cals lamenting the other calls rejoycing To conceive true sorrow and true joy are things not onely contiguous but continuall they doe not onely touch and follow one another in a certaine succession Joy assuredly after sorrow but they consist together they are all one Joy and Sorrow My teares have beene my meat day and night Psal 42.3 saies David not that he had no other meate but that none relisht so well Mendoza It is a Grammaticall note of a Jesuit I doe not tell you it is true I have almost tole you that it is not true by telling you whose it is but that it is but a Grammaticall note That when it is said Tempus cantus The time offinging is come it might as well be rendred out of the Hebrew Cant. 2.12 Tempus plorationis The time of weeping is come 2 Sam. 22.50 And when it is said Nomini tuo cantabo Lord I will sing unto thy Name it might be as well rendred out of the Hebrew Plorabo I will weepe I will sacrifice my teares unto thy Name So equall so indifferent a thing is it when we come to godly sorrow whether we call it sorrow or joy weeping or singing To end all to weep for sin is not a damp of melancholy to sigh for sin is not a vapour of the spleene but as Monicaes Confessor said still unto her in the behalfe of her Son S. Augustine filius istarum lachrymarum the son of these teares cnnot perish so wash thy selfe in these three examplar bathes of Christs teares in his humane teares and be tenderly affected with humane accidents in his Propheticall teares and avert as much as in thee lieth the calamities imminent upon others but especially in his pontificall teares teares for sin and I am thy Confessor non ego sed Dominus not I but the spirit of God himself is thy Confessor and he absolves thee filius istarum lachrymarum the soule bathed in these teares cannot perish for this is
miser abilis casus saies he cui non sufficit una regeneratio Miserable man that I am and miserable condition that I am fallen into whom one regeneration will not serve So is it a miserable death that hath swallowed us whom one Resurrection will serve We need three but if we have not two we were as good be without one There is a Resurrection from worldly calamities a resurrection from sin and a resurrection from the grave First Exod. 10.17 1 Cor. 15.31 Psal 41.8 from calamities for as dangers are called death Pharaoh cals the plague of Locusts a death Intreat the Lord your God that he may take from me this death onely And so S. Paul saies in his dangers I dye daily So is the deliverance from danger called a Resurrection It is the hope of the wicked upon the godly Now that he lieth he shall rise no more that is Now that he is dead in misery he shall have no resurrection in this world Now this resurrection God does not alwaies give to his servants neither is this resurrection the measure of Gods love of man whether he do raise him from worldly calamities or no. The second is the resurrection from sin Apec 20.5 and therefore this S. Iohn calls The first Resurrection as though the other whether we rise from worldly calamities or no were not to be reckoned Anima spiritualiter cadit spiritualiter resurget saies S. Augustine Since we are sure there is a spirituall death of the soule let us make sure a spirituall resurrection too Audacter dicam saies S. Hierome I say confidently Cum omnia posset Deus suscitare Virginem post ruinam non potest Howsoever God can do all things he cannot restore a Virgin that is fallen from it to virginity againe He cannot do this in the body but God is a Spirit and hath reserved more power upon the spirit and soule then upon the body and therefore Audacter dicam I may say with the same assurance that S. Hierome does No soule hath so prostituted her selfe so multiplied her fornications but that God can make her a virgin againe and give her even the chastity of Christ himselfe Fulfill therefore that which Christ saies Iohn 5.25 The houre is comming and now is when the dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God and they that heare shall live Be this that houre be this thy first Resurrection Blesse Gods present goodnesse for this now and attend Gods leasure for the other Resurrection hereafter 1 Cor. 15.20 He that is the first fruits of them that slept Christ Jesus is awake he dyes no more he sleepes no more Sacrificium pro te fuit sed à te accepit August quod pro te obtulit He offered a Sacrifice for thee but he had that from thee that he offered for thee Primitiae fuit sed tuae primitiae He was the first fruits but the first fruits of thy Corne Spera in te futurum quod praecess it in primitiis tuis Doubt not of having that in the whole Croppe which thou hast already in thy first fruits that is to have that in thy self which thou hast in thy Saviour And what glory soever thou hast had in this world Glory inherited from noble Ancestors Glory acquired by merit and service Glory purchased by money and observation what glory of beauty and proportion what glory of health and strength soever thou hast had in this house of clay The glory of the later house Hag. 2.9 shall be greater then of the former To this glory the God of this glory by glorious or inglorious waies such as may most advance his own glory bring us in his time for his Son Christ Jesus sake Amen SERMON XIX Preached at S. Pauls upon Easter-day in the Evening 1624. APOC. 20.6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection IN the first book of the Scriptures that of Genesis there is danger in departing from the letter In this last book this of the Revelation there is as much danger in adhering too close to the letter The literall sense is alwayes to be preserved but the literall sense is not alwayes to be discerned for the literall sense is not alwayes that which the very Letter and Grammer of the place presents as where it is literally said That Christ is a Vine and literally That his flesh is bread and literally That the new Ierusalem is thus situated thus built thus furnished But the literall sense of every place is the principall intention of the Holy Ghost in that place And his principall intention in many places is to expresse things by allegories by figures so that in many places of Scripture a figurative sense is the literall sense and more in this book then in any other As then to depart from the literall sense that sense which the very letter presents in the book of Genesis is dangerous because if we do so there we have no history of the Creation of the world in any other place to stick to so to binde our selves to such a literall sense in this book will take from us the consolation of many spirituall happinesses and bury us in the carnall things of this world The first error of being too allegoricall in Genesis transported divers of the ancients beyond the certain evidence of truth and the second error of being too literall in this book fixed many very many very ancient very learned upon an evident falshood which was that because here is mention of a first Resurrection and of raigning with Christ a thousand years after that first Resurrection There should be to all the Saints of God a state of happinesse in this world after Christs comming for a thousand yeares In which happy state though some of them have limited themselves in spirituall things that they should enjoy a kinde of conversation with Christ and an impeccability and a quiet serving of God without any reluctations or coÌcupiscences or persecutions yet others have dreamed on and enlarged their dreames to an enjoying of all these worldly happinesses which they being formerly persecuted did formerly want in this world and then should have them for a thousand yeares together in recompence And even this branch of that error of possessing the things of this world so long in this world did very many and very good and very great men whose names are in honour and justly in the Church of God in those first times stray into and flattered themselves with an imaginary intimation of some such thing in these words Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection Thus far then the text is literall Divisio That this Resurrection in the text is different from the generall Resurrection The first differs from the last And thus far it is figurative allegoricall mysticall that it is a spirituall Resurrection that is intended But wherein spirituall or of what spirituall Resurrection In
for they shall have a composition still and every compounded thing may perish but they shal be so assured and with such a preservation as they shall alwaies know they shall never dye S. Augustine saies well Aug. Assit motio absit fatigatio assit potestas vescendi absit necessitas esuriendi They have in their nature a mortality and yet be immortall a possibility and an impossibility of dying with those two divers relations one to nature the other to preservation will consist together So in this soule that hath this first Resurrection from sin by grace a conscience of her owne infirmity that she may relapse and yet a testimony of the powerfulnesse of Gods Spirit that easily she shall not relapse may consist well together But the last seale of this holy confidence is reserved for that which is the third acceptation of this first Resurrection not from persecutions in this world nor from sin in this world but from all possibility of falling back into sin in the world to come and to this have divers Expositors referred these words this first resurrection Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection Now a Resurrection of the soule seemes an improper an impertinent an improbable 3 Part. an impossible forme of speech for Resurrection implies death and the soule does not dye in her passage to Heaven And therefore Damascen makes account De ortho sid l. 4. c. ult that he hath sufficiently proved the Resurrection of the body which seems so incredible if he could prove any Resurrection if there be any Resurrection at all saies he it must be of the body for the soule cannot dye therefore not rise Yet have not those Fathers nor those Expositors who have in this text acknowledged a Resurrection of the soule mistaken nor miscalled the matter Take Damascens owne definition of Resurrection Resurrectio est ejus quod cecidit secunda surrectio A Resurrection is a second rising to that state from which any thing is formerly fallen Now though by death the soule do not fall into any such state as that it can complaine for what can that lack which God fils yet by death the soule fals from that for which it was infused and poured into man at first that is to be the forme of that body the King of that Kingdome and therefore when in the generall Resurrection the soule returnes to that state for which it was created and to which it hath had an affection and a desire even in the fulnesse of the Joyes of Heaven then when the soule returnes to her office to make up the man because the whole man hath therefore the soule hath a Resurrection not from death but from a deprivation of her former state that state which she was made for and is ever enclined to But that is the last Resurrection and so the soule hath part even in that last Resurrection But we are in hand with the first Resurrection of the soule and that is when that soule which was at first breath'd from God and hath long suffered a banishment a close imprisonment in this body returnes to God againe The returning of the soule to him from whom it proceeded at first is a Resurrection of the soule Here then especially I feele the straitnesse of time two considerations open themselves together of such a largenesse as all the time from Moses his In principio when time began to the Angels Affidavit in this booke That shall say and sweare that time shall be no more were too narrow to contemplate these two Hemispheares of Man this Evening and Morning of Mans everlasting day The miseries of man in this banishment in this emprisonment in this grave of the soule the body And the glory and exaltation of that soule in her Resurrection to Heaven That soule which being borne free is made a slave to this body by comming to it It must act but what this body will give it leave to act according to the Organs which this body affords it and if the body be lame in any limme the soule must be lame in her operation in that limme too It must doe but what the body will have it doe and then it must suffer whatsoever that body puts it to or whatsoever any others will put that body to If the body oppresse it selfe with Melancholy the soule must be sad and if other men oppresse the body with injury the soule must be sad too Consider it is too immense a thing to consider it reflect but one thought but upon this one thing in the soule here and hereafter In her grave the body and in her Resurrection in Heaven That is the knowledge of the soule Here saies S. Augustine when the soule considers the things of this world Non veritate certior sed consuetudine securior She rests upon such things as she is not sure are true but such as she sees are ordinarily received and accepted for truths so that the end of her knowledge is not Truth but opinion and the way not Inquisition but ease But saies he when she proceeds in this life to search into heavenly things Verberatur luce veritatis The beames of that light are too strong for her and they sink her and cast her downe Et ad familiaritatem tenebrarum suarum non electione sed fatigatione convertitur and so she returnes to her owne darknesse because she is most familiar and best acquainted with it Non electione not because she loves ignorance but because she is weary of the trouble of seeking out the truth and so swallowes even any Religion to escape the paine of debating and disputing and in this lazinesse she sleeps out her lease her terme of life in this death in this grave in this body But then in her Resurrection her measure is enlarged and filled at once There she reads without spelling and knowes without thinking and concludes without arguing she is at the end of her race without running In her triumph without fighting In her Haven without sayling A free-man without any prentiship at full yeares without any wardship and a Doctor without any proceeding She knowes truly and easily and immediately and entirely and everlastingly Nothing left out at first nothing worne out at last that conduces to her happinesse What a death is this life what a resurrection is this death For though this world be a sea yet which is most strange our Harbour is larger then the sea Heaven infinitely larger then this world For though that be not true which Origen is said to say That at last all shall be saved nor that evident which Cyril of Alexandria saies That without doubt the number of them that are saved is far greater then of them that perish yet surely the number of them with whom we shall have communion in Heaven is greater then ever lived at once upon the face of the earth And of those who lived in our time how few did we
the Resurrection marvaile at nothing so much as at this nothing is so marvailous so wonderfull as this And secondly the approach of the Resurrection The houre is comming And thirdly The generality All that are in the graves And then the instrument of the resurrection The voice of Christ that shall be heard And lastly the diverse end of the resurrection They shall come forth they that have done good c. God hath a care of the Body of man that is first And he defers it not that is next And he extends it to all that is a third And a fourth is That he does that last act by him by whom he did the first The Creation and all betweene the Redemption that is by his Son by Christ And then the last is that this is an everlasting separation and divorce of the good and the bad The bad shall never be able to receive good from the Good nor to doe harme to the Good after that First then Christ saies Ne miremini Marvaile not at this Ne miremini not at your spirituall resurrection not that a Sermon should worke upon man not that a Sacrament should comfort a man make it not a miracle nor an extraordinary thing by hearing to come to repentance and so to such a resurrection For though S. Augustine say That to convert a man from sin is as great a miracle as Creation yet S. August speaks that of a mans first conversion in which the man himselfe does nothing but God all Then he is made of nothing but after God hath renewed him and proposed ordinary meanes in the Church still to worke upon him he must not looke for miraculous working but make Gods ordinary meanes ordinary to him This is Panis quotidianus The daily bread which God gives you as often as you meet here according to his Ordinances Ne miremini stand not to wonder as though you were not sure but come to enjoy Gods goodnesse in his ordinary way here But it is Hoc Ne miremini hoc Wonder not at this but yet there are things which we may wonder at Nil admirari is but the Philosophers wisdome He thinks it a weaknesse to wonder at any thing That any thing should be strange to him But Christian Philosophy that is rooted in humility tels us in the mouth of Clement of Alexand. Principium veritatis est res admirari The first step to faith is to wonder to stand and consider with a holy admiration the waies and proceedings of God with man for Admiration wonder stands as in the midst betweene knowledge and faith and hath an eye towards both If I know a thing or beleeve a thing I do no longer wonder but when I finde that I have reason to stop upon the consideration of a thing so as that I see enough to induce admiration to make me wonder I come by that step and God leads me by that hand to a knowledge if it be of a naturall or civill thing or to a faith if it be of a supernaturall and spirituall thing And therefore be content to wonder at this That God would have such a care to dignifie and to crown and to associate to his own everlasting presence the body of man God himself is a Spirit and heaven is his place my soul is a spirit and so proportioned to that place That God or Angels or our Soules which are all Spirits should be in heaven Ne miremini never wonder at that But since we wonder and justly that some late Philosophers have removed the whole earth from the Center and carried it up and placed it in one of the Spheares of heaven That this clod of earth this body of ours should be carried up to the highest heaven placed in the eye of God set down at the right hand of God Miremini hoc wonder at this That God all Spirit served with Spirits associated to Spirits should have such an affection such a love to this body this earthly body this deserves this wonder The Father was pleased to breathe into this body at first in the Creation The Son was pleased to assume this body himself after in the Redemption The Holy Ghost is pleased to consecrate this body and make it his Temple by his sanctisication In that Faciamus hominem Let us all us make man that consuitation of the whole Trinity in making man is exercised even upon this lower part of man the dignifying of his body So far as that amongst the ancient Fathers very many of them are very various and irresolved which way to pronounce and very many of them cleare in the negative in that point That the soule of man comes not to the presence of God but remaines in some out-places till the Resurrection of the body That observation that consideration of the love of God to the body of man withdrew them into that error That the soul it self should lack the glory of heaven till the body were become capable of that glory too They therefore oppose God in his purpose of dignifying the body of man first who violate and mangle this body which is the Organ in which God breathes And they also which pollute and defile this body in which Christ Jesus is apparelled and they likewise who prophane this body which the Holy Ghost as the high Priest inhabites and consecrates Trangressors in the first kinde that put Gods Organ out of tune that discompose and teare the body of man with violence are those inhumane persecutors who with racks and tortures and prisons and fires and exquisite inquisitions throw downe the bodies of the true Gods true servants to the Idolatrous worship of their imaginary Gods that torture men into hell and carry them through the inquisition into damnation S. Augustine moves a question and institutes a disputation and carries it somewhat problematically whether torture be to be admitted at all or no. That presents a faire probability which he sayes against it we presume sayes he that an innocent man should be able to hold his tongue in torture That is no part of our purpose in torture sayes he that hee that is innocent should accuse himselfe by confession in torture And if an innocent man be able to doe so why should we not thinke that a guilty man who shall save his life by holding his tongue in torture should be able to doe so And then where is the use of torture Res fragilis periculosa quaestio sayes that Lawyer who is esteemed the law alone Vlpian It is a slippery triall and uncertaine to convince by torture For many times sayes S. Augustine againe Innocens luit pro incerto scelere certissimas poenas He that is yet but questioned whether he be guilty or no before that be knowne is without all question miserably tortured And whereas many times the passion of the Judge and the covetousnesse of the Judge and the ambition of the Judge are calamities heavy enough upon a man that is
is risen indeed risen of himself as the word sounds yet that phrase and expression He is risen if there were no more in it but that expression and that phrase would not conclude Christs rising to have been in virtute propria in his own power For of Dorcas who was raised from the dead Aââ 9 4â ãâã 11. it is said Resedit she sate up and of Lazarus Prodiit he came forth and yet these actions thus ascribed to themselves were done in virtute aliena in the power of another Christs Resurrection was not so In virtute aliena in the power of another if you consider his whole person God and Man but it was aliena à filio Mariae Christ as the Son of Mary rose not by his own power It was by his own but his own because he was God as well as man Nor could all the Magick in the world have raised him sooner then by that his power his as God he that is that person God and man was pleased to rise So sits he now at the right hand of his Father in heaven nor can all the Consecrations of the Romane Priests either remove him from thence or multiply him to a bodily being any where else till his time of comming to Judgment come Then and not till then The Lord himself shall descend from heaven in clamore sayes the Text in a shout with the voyce of the Arch-angell and with the Trumpet of God which circumstances constitute our third and last Branch of this first Part The dead shall rise first They shall rise in the power of Christ therefore Christ is God for Christ himself rose in the power of God and that power shall be thus declared In a shout in the voyce of the Arch-Angell in the Trumpet of God The dead heare not Thunder nor feele they an Earth quake In clamore If the Canon batter that Church walls in which they lye buryed it wakes not them nor does it shake or affect them if that dust which they are be thrown out but yet there is a voyce which the dead shall heare The dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God Iohn 5.25 sayes the Son of God himself and they that heare shall live And that is the voyce of our Text. It is here called a clamour a vociferation a shout and varied by our Translators and Expositors according to the origination of the word to be clamor hortatorius and suasorius and jussorins A voyce that carries with it a penetration all shall heare it and a perswasion all shall beleeve it and be glad of it and a power a command all shall obey it Since that voyce at the Creation Fiat Let there be a world was never heard such a voyce as this Surgite mortui Arise ye dead That was spoken to that that was meerely nothing and this to them who in themselves shall have no cooperation no concurrence to the hearing or answering this voyce The power of this voyce is exalted in that it is said to be the voyce of the Archangel In voce Archangeli Though legions of Angels millions of Angels shall be employed about the Resurrection to recollect their scattered dust and recompact their ruined bodies yet those bodies so recompact shall not be able to heare a voyce They shall be then but such bodies as they were when they were laid downe in the grave when though they were intire bodies they could not heare the voice of the mourner But this voyce of the Archangel shall enable them to heare The Archangel shall re-infuse the severall soules into their bodies and so they shall heare that voyce Surgite mortui Arise ye that were dead and they shall arise And here we are eased of that disputation whether there be many Archangels or no for if there be but one yet this in our text is he for it is not said In the voyce of An Archangell but of The Archangell if not the Onely yet he who comprehends them all Colos 1.16 and in whom they all consist Christ Jesus And then the power of this voyce is exalted to the highest in the last word that it is Tuba Dei Tuba Dei The Trumpet of God For that is an Hebraisme and in that language it constitutes a superlative to adde the name of God to any thing As in Sauls case when David surprised him in his dead sleepe it is said that Sopor Domini 2 Sam. 26.12 The sleepe of the Lord was upon him that is the heaviest the deadest sleepe that could be imagined so here The Trumpet of God is the loudest voice that we conceive God to speake in All these pieces that it is In clamore In a cry in a shout that it is In the voyce of the Archangell that it is In the Trumpet of God make up this Conclusion That all Resurrections from the dead must be from the voice of God and from his loud voice In clamore It must be so even in thy first Resurrection thy resurrection from sin by grace here here thou needest the voice of God and his loud voyce And therefore though thou thinke thou heare sometimes Gods sibilations as the Prophet Zechary speaks Gods soft and whispering voyce in ward remorses of thine owne and motions of the Spirit of God to thy spirit yet thinke not thy spirituall resurrection accomplished till in this place thou heare his loud voyce Till thou heare Christ descending from Heaven as the text sayes that is working in his Church Till thou heare him In clamore in this cry in this shout in this voyce of Penetration of perswasion of power that is till thou feele in thy selfe in this place a liquefaction a colliquation a melting of thy bowels under the commination of the Judgements of God upon thy sin and the application of his mercy to thy Repentance And then In voce Archangeli this thou must heare In voce Archangeli In the voice of the Archangel S. Iohn in the beginning of the Revelation cals every Governour of a Church an Angel And much respect and reverence much faith and credit behoves it thee to give to thine Angell to the Pastour of that Church in which God hath given thee thy station for he is thine Angel Mal. 2.7 thy Tutelar thy guardian Angell Men should seeke the Law at the mouth of the Priest saies God in Malachi of that Priest that is set over him For the lips of the Priest of every Priest to whom the soules of others are committed should preserve knowledge should be able to instruct and rectifie his flock Quia Angelus Domini Exercituum because every such Priest is the Angell of the Lord of Hosts Hearken thou therefore to that Angel thine Angel But here thou art directed above thine Angell to the Archangell Acts 20.28 Ephes 5.23 Now not the governour of any particular Church but he Who hath purchased the whole Church with his blood
should all fall into hell and so there is mercy in hell And therefore saies the same Father Out of an unspeakeable wisdome and Fatherly care as Fathers will speak loudest to their Children and looke angerliest and make the greatest rods when they intend not the severest correction Christus saepius gehennam comminatus est quam regnum pollicitus Christ in his Gospell hath oftner threatned us with hell then promised us Heaven We are bound to praise God saies he as much for driving Adam out of Paradise as for placing him there Et agere gratias tam progehenna quam pro regno And to give him thanks as well for hell as for Heaven For whether he cauterise or foment whether he draw blood or apply Cordials he is the same Physitian and seekes but one end our spirituall health by his divers wayes For us who by this notification of hell escape hell Psal 118.17 We shall not dye but live that is not dye so but that we shall live againe Therefore is death called a sleepe Lazarus sleepeth saies Christ And Coemiteria are Dormitoria Iohn 11.11 Churchyards are our beds And in those beds and in all other beds of death for the dead have their beds in the Sea too and sleepe even in the restlesse motion thereof the voyce of the Archangel and the Trumpet of God shall awake them that slept in Christ before and they and we shall be united in one body for as our Apostle sayes here Heb. 11.39 We shall not prevent them so he sayes also That they shall not be made perfect without us Though we live to see Christ we shall not prevent them though they have attended Christ five thousand yeares in the grave they shall not prevent us but united in one body Rapiemur They and we shall be caught c. Rapiemur We shall be caught up This is a true Rapture Rapiemur in which we doe nothing our selves Our last act towards Christ is as our first In the first act of our Conversion we do nothing nothing in this last act our Resurrection but Rapimur we are caught In everything the more there is left to our selves the worse it is done that that God does intirely is intirely good S. Paul had a Rapture too He was caught up into Paradise 2 Cor. 12.4 but whether in the body or out of the body he cannot tell We can tell that this Rapture of ours shall be in body and soule in the whole man Man is but a vapour but a glorious and a blessed vapour when he is attracted and caught up by this Sun the Son of Man the Son of God O what a blessed alleviation possesses that man and to what a blessed levity if without levity we may so speake to what a cheerefull lightnesse of spirit is he come that comes newly from Confession and with the seale of Absolution upon him Then when nothing troubles his conscience then when he hath disburdened his soule of all that lay heavy upon it then when if his Confessor should unjustly reveale it to any other yet God will never speake of it more to his conscience not upbraid him with it not reproach him for it what a blessed alleviation what a holy cheerefulnesse of spirit is that man come to How much more in the endowments which we shall receive in the Rapture of this text where we do not onely devest all sins past as in Confession but all possibility of future sins and put on not onely incorruption but incorruptiblenesse not onely impeccancy but impeccability And to be invested with this endowment Rapiemur Wee shall be caught up and Rapiemur in Nubibus Wee shall be caught up in the Clouds We take a Sar to be the thickest In Nubibus and so the impurest and ignoblest part of that sphear and yet by the illustration of the Sun it becomes a glorious star Clouds are but the beds and wombs of distempered and malignant impressions of vapours and exhalations and the furnaces of Lightnings and of Thunder yet by the presence of Christ and his employment these clouds are made glorious Chariots to bring him and his Saints together Psal 135.7 Those Vapours and Clouds which David speaks of S. Augustin interprets of the Ministers of the Church that they are those Clouds Those Ministers may have clouds in their understanding and knowledge some may be lesse learned then others and clouds in their elocution utterance some may have an unacceptable deliverance and clouds in their aspect and countenance some may have an unpleasing presence and clouds in their respect and maintenance some may be oppressed in their fortunes but still they are such clouds as are sent by Christ to bring thee up to him And as the Children of Israel received direction and benefit Exod. 13.21 as well by the Pillar of Cloud as by the Pillar of Fire so do the Children of God in the Church as well by Preachers of inferiour gifts as by higher In Nubibus Christ does not come in a Chariot and send Carts for us Acts 1.11 He comes as he went This same Iesus which is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seene him goe into Heaven say the Angels at his Ascension Luk. 24.50 In what manner did they see him go He was taken up and a Cloud received him out of their sight So he went so he shall returne so we shall be taken up In the Clouds to meete him in the Ayre The Transfiguration of Christ was not acted upon so high a Scene In aëra as this our accesse to Christ shall be That hill was not so high nor so neare to the Heaven of Heavens as this region of the ayre shall be Nor was the Transfiguration so eminent a manifestation of the glory of Christ as this his comming in the ayre to Judgement shall be And yet Peter that saw but that Mat. 17.14 desired no more but thought it happinesse enough to be there and there to fixe their Tabernacles But in this our meeting of Christ in the ayre we shall see more then they saw in the Transfiguration and yet be but in the way of seeing more then we see in the ayre then we shall be presently well and yet improving The Kings presence makes a Village the Court but he that hath service to do at Court would be glad to finde it in a lodgeable and convenient place I can build a Church in my bosome I can serve God in my heart and never cloath my prayer in words God is often said to heare and answer in the Scriptures when they to whom he speaks have said nothing I can build a Church at my beds side when I prostrate my selfe in humble prayer there I do so I can praise God cheerefully in my Chappell cheerefully in my parish Church as David saies Psal 26.12 In Ecclesiis plurally In the Congregations In every
all the Disciples 1 Part. in the mouth of S. Peter Thou art Christ the Son of the living God Christ replied thereunto some things Mat. 16.18 which had a more speciall and a more personall respect to Peter then to the rest yet were intended of the rest too so when Christ in this text promises the Comforter he does that most immediately and most personally to them to whom he then spoke but he intends it to us also and the holy Ghost shall teach us us that are in our selves Ignorant Ignorantes which is our first Discomfort The Schooles have made so many Divisions and sub-divisions and re-devisions and post-divisions of Ignorance that there goes as much learning to understand ignorance as knowleg One much elder then al they elder as some will have it then any but some of the first Secretaries of the Holy Ghost in the Bible that is Trismegistus hath said as much as all Nequitia animae Ignorantia Ignorance is not onely the drousinesse the sillinesse but the wickednesse of the soule Not onely dis-estimation in this world and damnification here but damnation in the next world proceeds from ignorance And yet here in this world knowledge is but as the earth and ignorance as the Sea there is more sea then earth more ignorance then knowledge and as if the sea do gaine in one place it loses in another so is it with knowledge too if new things be found out as many and as good that were knowne before are forgotten and lost What Anatomist knowes the body of man thorowly or what Casuist the soule What Politician knowes the distemper of the State thorowly or what Master the disorders of his owne family Princes glory in Arcanis that they have secrets which no man shall know and God knowes they have hearts which they know not themselves Thoughts and purposes indigested fall upon them and surprise them It is so in naturall in morall in civill things we are ignorant of more things then we know And it is so in divine and supernaturall things too for for them the Scripture is our onely light and of the Scripture S. Augustine professes Plur a se nescire quam scire That there are more places of Scripture that he does not then that he does understand Hell is darknesse the way to it is the cloud of Ignorance hell it self is but condensed Ignorance multiplied Ignorance To that David ascribes all the distempers of the world They doe not know neither will they understand they walke on in darknesse and therefore Psal 82.5 as he adds there All the foundations of all the earth are out of course He that had made the most absolute conquest of Ignorance in this world Solomon is the best Judge of it the best Counsellor against it and he saies As thou knowest not how thy bones grew in thy Mother Eccles 11.5 even so thou knowest not the works of God who worketh all We are all equally Ignorant of all of naturall of spirituall things What though This That man knoweth not his time Eccles 9.12 but is snared in an evill time If he knew his time no time would be evill unto him Yet though he know not the present time but let that passe inconsiderately yet if he consider the future he may recover But he does not that he cannot doe that Eccles 10.14 Man cannot tell what shall be saies Solomon But may he not learne No. For who can tell him saies he there For he knowes not how to goe to the City In vulgar in triviall things he is ignorant of his end and ignorant of his way Bene facere nesciverunt saies the Prophet Ier. 4.22 They have no knowledge to doe good and what followes Erubescere nescierunt They are not ashamed when they have done evill Nesciunt cujus spiritus sunt Luke 9.15 It was Christs increpation upon his owne Disciples They knew not of what spirit they were They discerned not betweene a zealous and a vindicative spirit Nescitis quid petatis was Christs increpation upon his Disciples too You know not what you aske And yet this Nequitia animae Mat. 20.22 this wickednesse of the soule this pestilence of the soule Ignorance have men ventured to call The mother of devotion But miserable Comforters are they in respect of the Comforter the Holy Ghost for as that Cum perver so perverteris is spoken of God Psal 18.27 That God will learne of the froward to be froward so God will learne of the ignorant to be ignorant ignorant of us and to those that doe not study him here he will say hereafter Nescio vos I know not you This then is our first discomfort of our selves we are ignorant and yet there is a greater vexation then this that naturally we have a desire of knowledge and naturally no meanes to attaine to it Ignorance may be said to worke Appetentes as an in-appetency in the stomach and as an insipidnesse a tastlesnesse in the palate But the desire of knowledge without meanes to attaine to it is as a hunger in a dearth or in a wildernesse Ignorance is a kinde of slumbering or stupidity but this desire without meanes is a continuall racking a continuall pressing a far greater vexation and torment ignorance may work as a Lethargy but this desire as a phrensie Esay 37.3 This is the day of trouble saies Ezechias in the bitternesse and passion of his soule and of rebuke and of blasphemy for the Children are come to the birth and there is not strength to bring them forth To a barrennesse that is never to have conceived there belonged amongst that people a kind of shame and contempt and that is our case in ignonorance which is the barrenness of the soule But to come to the throwes of Childbirth and then not to have strength or not to have helpe to be delivered that is the dangerous that is the deadly torment and that represents our soule in this desire of knowledge without means to attain to it And yet this vexation no man can devest It is an hereditary a naturall impression in man every man naturally sayes the Philosopher desires to know to learne And yet nature that imprinted that desire in every man hath not given every man not any man in nature meanes to satisfie that desire for even by nature man hath a desire to know supernaturall things Solomon was extended with this desire of knowledge 1 King 3.11 but he found no satisfaction till upon petition and contracting all his desires into that One Dan. 9.23 he obtained it of God Daniel was Vir desideriorum A man composed of desires Dan. 10.2 and of solicitude He professes that he mourned three full weekes He eate no pleasant bread Ver. 8. neither came flesh or wine into his mouth nor oyle upon his body His comlinesse was turned into corruption and he retained no strength till God
by his Angel satisfied his desire of knowledge Consider the anxiety and torture under which that Eunuch was in the Chariot Acts 8. till he was taught the meaning of the Prophet Esay And consider the way that God tooke God sent an Angel and that Angel sent Philip to him Instruction is from God but yet by the Ministery of man Philip askes him Doest thou understand He would have a confession of his impotency from himselfe Alas How can I sayes he except some man shouldguide me And Philip guides him and then how soone he comes to that holy cheerefulnesse Ver. 36. and dilatation of the soule I beleeve that Iesus is the Son of God Hieron and See here is water what doth hinder me that I be baptized Nec sanctior sum hoc Eunucho nec studiosior saies S. Hierom of himselfe I cannot have more desire to learne then he had yet in my self I have no more meanes neither and therefore must be under the same paine till the same hand the hand of God relieve me The soule of man cannot bee considered under a thicker cloud then Ignorance nor under a heavier weight then desire of knowledge And therefore for our deliverance in both our Saviour Christ here comforts us with The Comforter you you that are in the darknesse of Ignorance you you that are under the oppression of a hunger of knowledge you shall be satisfied for He that comes from my Father in my name He shall teach you That which the Vulgat reads Doeebit Eccles 6.9 Desider are quod nescias To desire to know that which thou knowest not yet our Translation cals The wandring of the desire and in the Originall it is The walking the pilgrimage of the Soule the rest lesnesse and irresolution of the Soule And when man is taught that which he desired to know then the Soule is brought home and laid to rest Desire is the travaile knowledge is the Inne desire is the wheele knowledge is the bed of the Soule Therefore we affect society and conversation to know present things Therefore wee assist our selves with History to know things past and with Astrology and sometimes with worse Arts to know future things The name of Master of Teacher that passes through the Scripture is Rabbi and Rabbi in the roote thereof signifies Magnum and Multum It is a word that denotes Greatnesse And truly no man should be greater in our eyes nor be thought to have laid greater obligations upon us Esay 19.20 then he that hath taught us When Christ is promised thus The Lord shall send them a Saviour and a Great one there is this word Rabbi The Lord shall send them a Saviour which shall be Rabbi a great Teacher Christ was a Saviour as he paid God a ransome for all As he made man capable of this Salvation he was this Rabbi this Teacher and in this capacity did those two Disciples of Iohn Baptist who first applied themselves to Christ apply themselves Magister ubi habitas Master John 1.38 where dwellest thou where may we come to School to thee where may we be taught by thee S. Paul hath shewed us the duty of all true disciples in the practise of the Galatians You received me as an Angel of God even as Christ Iesus and I beare you record Gal. 4.14 that if it had been possible you would have plucked out your own eyes and have given them to me I thank him that brings me a candle when it grows dark and him that assists me with a spectacle when my sight grows old But to him that hath given the eyes of my soul light and spectacles how much a greater debtor am I I will not dispute against nature nor naturall affections nor dispute against Allegeance nor civill obligations nor dispute against gratitude nor retribution of Benefits But I willingly pronounce that I cannot owe more to any Benefactor to my Father to my Prince then I do to them that have taught me nor can there be a deeper ingratitude then to turn thy face from that man or from his children that hath taught thee This Christ presents for the first Comfort Doccbimini You are ignorant but that cloud shall be dispersed you would learne but have no help but that defect shall be supplyed you shall be taught And then this comfort shall be exalted to you in the person of the Teacher Ille docebit He whom the Father will send in my name He shall teach you Quintilian requires no more of a School-master but that either he be learned Ille or doe not think himself to be so if he be not Because if he over-value himself he will admit no Usher no assistant Here we have a master that is both absolute in himself and yet undertaken for by others too The Father sends him and in the Sons name that is to perfect the Sons work Tertullian a man of adventurous language calls him Tertium numen divinitatis tertium nomen majestatis The Holy Ghost hath but a third place but the same God-head but a third name yet the same Majesty as the first The Father or the second The Son Porphyry that denied the Trinity is convinced by S. Cyril to have established a Trinity because he acknowledged first Deum summum and then Conditorem omnium and after them Animam mundi One that is a supream God One that was the Creator of all things and One that quickens and inanimates all and is the soul of the whole world And this soul of the world is the Holy Ghost who doth that office to the soule of every Christian which the soul it self doth to every naturall man informes him directs him instructs him makes him be that he is and do that he doth And therefore as Tertullian cals Christ by the Holy Ghosts name for he calls Christ Spiritum Dei because as the office of our spirits is to unite the body and the soul so Christ hath united God and man in one Emanuel S. Basil gives the Holy Ghost Christs name for he calls the Holy Ghost Verbum Dei The word of God because he undertakes the Pedagogy of the soul to be the soules School-master and to teach it as much of God as concernes it that is Christ crucified Therefore when the Holy Ghost was first sent he was sent but to testifie of Christ At Christs Baptisme which was his first sending he was sent but to establish an assurance and a beliefe that that Christ was the Son of God in whom he was well pleased And this he did but as a witnesse not as a Teacher for the voice that wrought this and taught this came not from the Dove not from the Holy Ghost but from above The Holy Ghost said nothing then But when the Holy Ghost in performance of Christs promise in this Text was sent as a Teacher then he came in the form of Tongues and they that received him were thereby presently enabled
to others in the plurall to many others But now it is Visum est mihi Spiritui Sancto It seemes good unto me to one man alone and when it does so it shall seeme good to the Holy Ghost too And of these two Hereticall violences to the Holy Ghost we complaine against that Church first that they put the Holy Ghost in a Rebellion against the Son of God from whom he proceeds And then as for the most part the end of them who pretend right to a Kingdome and cannot prove it is to lie in Prison That they have imprisoned the Holy Ghost in one mans breast and not suffered that winde to breathe where it will as Christ promised the Holy Ghost should doe For neither did the Holy Ghost bring any such thing to their remembrance as though Christ had taught any such Doctrine neither can they that teach it come nearer the sin The unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost then thus to make him a supplanter of Christ or supplanted by Antichrist But we hold you no longer in this ill Aire Charismata Spiritus blasphemous and irksome contumelies against the Holy Ghost we promised at first to dismisse you at last in a perfume with the breath of the Holy Ghost upon you and that is to excite you to a rectified sense and knowledge August that he offers himselfe unto you and is received by you Facies Dei est qua nobis innotescit That is alwaies the face of God to us by which God vouchsafes to manifest himselfe to us So his Ordinance in the Church is his face And Lux Dei qua nobis illucescit The light of God to us is that light by which he shines upon us Lex Dei Lux Dei his word in his Church And then the Evidence the Seale the Witnesse of all that this face which I see by this light is directed upon me for my comfort is The Testimony of the Holy Ghost when that Spirit beares witnesse with our spirit that he is in us And therefore in his blessed Name and in the participation of his power I say to you all Accipite Spiritum sanctum Receive ye the holy Ghost Not that I can give it you 2 Cor. 3.5 but I can tell you that he offers to give himselfe to you all Our sufficiency is of God sayes the Apostle Acknowledge you a sufficiency in us a sufficient power to be in the Ministery for as the Apostle addes He hath made us able Ministers of the New Testament Not able onely in faculties and gifts requisite for that function those faculties and gifts whether of nature or of acquisition be in as great measure in some that have not that function but able by his powerfull Ordinance as it is also added there to minister not the letter not the letter onely but The Spirit the Spirit of the New Testament that is the holy Ghost to you Therefore as God said to Moses I will come downe Numb 11.17 and talk with thee and I will take of the Spirit which is upon thee and put it upon them God in his Spirit does come downe to us in his Ministery and talke with us his Ministers at home that is assist us in our Meditations and lucubrations and preparations for this service here and then here in this place he takes of that Spirit from us and sheds upon you imparts the gifts of the holy Ghost to you also and makes the holy Ghost as much yours by your hearing as he made him ours by our study Be not deceived by the letter by the phrase of that place God does not say there that he will take of the Spirit from us and give it you that is fill you with it and leave us without it but he will take of that Spirit that is impart that Spirit so to you as that by us and our present Ministery he will give you that that shall be sufficient for you to day and yet call you to us againe in his Ordinance another day Learne as much as you can every day and never thinke that you have learnt so much as that you have no more need of a Teacher for though you need no more of that man you may be perchance as learned as he yet you need more of that Ordinance We give you the holy Ghost then when we open your eyes to see his offers Those words of the Apostle Our selves have the first fruits of the Spirit Rom. 8.23 S. Ambrose interprets so Our selves we the Ministers of God have the first fruits of the Spirit the pre-possession the pre-inhabitation but not the sole possession nor sole inhabitation of the Holy Ghost but we have grace for grace the Spirit therefore to shed the Spirit upon you that that precious Oyntment Psal 133.2 the Holy Ghost is this Unction which was poured upon the Head upon Christ may run downe upon Aarons beard and from those gray and grave and reverend haires of his Ministers may also go downe to the skirts of his garments to every one of you who doe not onely make up the garment that is the visible but the mysticall body it selfe of Christ Jesus Ver. 3. The dew of Hermon descends upon the mountaines of Sion But the waters that fall upon the mountaines fall into the valleyes too from thence The Holy Ghost fals through us upon you also so as that you may so as that you must finde it in your selves The Holy Ghost was the first Person that was declared in the Creation The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters Gen. 1.2 that was the first motion This is eternall life to know God and him whom he sent Christ Iesus But this you cannot doe but by him whom they both sent the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 12.3 No man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost Iohn Baptist who was to baptize Christ was filled with the holy Ghost from the wombe You who were baptized in Christ were filled in your measure with the holy Ghost from that wombe from the time that the Church conceived you in Baptisme And therefore as the Twelve said to the multitude Acts 6.3 Looke yee among ye seven men full of the holy Ghost So we say to the whole Congregation Looke every man to himselfe that he be one of the seven one of that infinite number which the holy Ghost offers to fall upon That as ye were baptized in the holy Ghost and as your bodies are Temples of the holy Ghost so your soules may be Priests of the holy Ghost and you altogether a lively and reasonable sacrifice to God in the holy Ghost Eph. 1.13 That as you have beene sealed with the holy Spirit of promise you may finde in your selves the performance of that promise finde the seale of that promise in your love to the Scriptures for as S. Chrysostome argues usefully Christ gave the Apostles no Scriptures but
by emission of beames from within And yet no man doubts whether he see or no. The holy Ghost shall tell you when he tels you the most that ever he shall tell you in that behalf That the Son is in the Father but he will not tell you how Our second portion in this Legacy of knowledge Incarnatio is That we are in Christ And this is the mystery of the Incarnation For since the devill had so surprized us all as to take mankinde all in one lump in a corner in Adams loynes and poysoned us all there in the fountain in the roote Christ to deliver us as intirely took all mankinde upon him and so took every one of us and the nature and the infirmities and the sins and the punishment of every singular man So that the same pretence which the devill hath against every one of us you are mine for you sinned in Adam we have also for our discharge we are delivered for we paid our debt in Christ Jesus In all his tentations send him to look upon the Records of that processe of Christs passion and he shall finde there the names of all the faithfull recorded That such a day that day when Christ dyed I and you and all that shall be saved suffered dyed and were crucified and in Christ Jesus satisfied God the Father for those infinite sins which we had committed And now Second death which is damnation hath no more title to any of the true members of his mysticall body then corruption upon naturall or violent death could have upon the members of his naturall body The assurance of this grows from the third part of this knowledge Redemptio That Christ is in us for that is such a knowledge of Christs generall Redemption of mankinde as that it is also an application of it to us in particular For for his Incarnation by which we are in him Cyril that may have given a dignity to our humane nature But Quae beneficiorum magnitudo fuisset erganos si hominem solummodo quem assumpserat salvaret What great benefit how ever the dignity had been great to all mankinde had mankinde had if Christ had saved no more then that one person whom he assumed The largenesse and bounty of Christ is to give us of his best treasure knowledge and to give us most at last To know Christ in me For to know that he is in his Father this may serve me to convince another that denies the Trinity To know that we are in Christ so as that he took our nature this may shew me an honour done to us more then the Angels But what gets a lame wretch at the poole how soveraign soever the water be if no body put him in What gets a naked beggar by knowing that a dead man hath left much to pious uses if the Executors take no knowledge of him What get I by my knowledge of Christ in the Father and of us in Christ so if I finde not Christ in me How then is Christ in us Here the question De modo How it is is lawfull for he hath revealed it to us It is by our obedience to his inspiration and by our reverent use of those visible meanes which he hath ordained in his Church his Word and Sacraments As our flesh is in him by his participation thereof so his flesh is in us by our communication thereof And so is his divinity in us by making us partakers of his divine nature and by making us one spirit with himself which he doth at this Pentecost that is whensoever the holy Ghost visits us with his effectuall grace for this is an union in which Christ in his purpose hath married himself to our souls inseparably and Sine solutione vinculi Without any intention of divorce on his part But if we will separate him à mensa toro If either we take the bed of licentiousnesse or the board of voluptuousnesse or if when we eat or drink or sleep or wake we do not all to the glory of God if we separate he will divorce If then we be thus come to this knowledge let us make Ex scientia conscientiam Enlarge science into conscience for Conscientia est Syllogismus practicus Conscience is a Syllogisme that comes to a conclusion Then only hath a man true knowledge when he can conclude in his own conscience that his practise and conversation hath expressed it Who will beleeve that we know there is a ditch and know the danger of falling into it and drowning in it if he see us run headlong towards it and fall into it and continue in it Who can beleeve that he that separates himself from Christ by continuing in his sin hath any knowledge or sense or evidence or testimony of Christs being in him As Christ proceeds by enlarging thy knowledge and making thee wiser and wiser so enlarge thy testimony of it by growing better and better and let him that is holy bee more holy If thou have passed over the first heats of the day the wantonnesses of youth and the second heat the fire of ambition if these be quenched in thee by preventing venting grace or by repenting grace be more and more holy for thine age will meet another sin of covetousnesse or of indevotion that needs as much resistance God staid not in any lesse degree of knowledge towards thee then in bringing himselfe to thee Doe not thou stay by the way neither not in the consideration of God alone for that Coeli enarrant all creatures declare it stay not at the Trinity Every comming to Church nay thy first being brought to Church at thy Baptisme is and was a profession of that stay not at the Incarnation That the Devill knowes and testifies But come to know that Christ is in thee and expresse that knowledge in a sanctified life For though he be in us all in the work of his Redemption so as that he hath poured out balme enough in his blood to spread over all mankinde yet onely he can enjoy the chearfulnesse of this unction and the inseparablenesse of this union who as S. Augustine pursues this contemplation Habet in memoria servat in vita who alwayes remembers that he stands in the presence of Christ and behaves himselfe worthy of that glorious presence Qui habet in Sermonibus servat in operibus That hath Christ alwaies at his tongues end and alwaies at his fingers ends that loves to discourse of him and to act his discourses Que habet audiendo servat faciendo That heares Gods will here in his house and does his will at home in his owne house Qui habet faciendo servat perseverando who having done well from the beginning persevers in well doing to the end he and he onely shall finde Christ in him SERMON XXXI Preached at S. Pauls upon Whitsunday 1629. GEN. 1.2 And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters THe
use the Law lawfully Let us use our liberty of reading Scriptures according to the Law of liberty that is charitably to leave others to their liberty if they but differ from us and not differ from Fundamentall Truths Si quis quaerat ex me quid horum Moses senserit If any man ask me which of these which may be all true Moses meant Non sum sermones istiââonfessiones Lord sayes hee Ibid. This that I say is not said by way of Confession as I intend it should if I doe not freely confesse that I cannot tell which Moses meant But yet I can tell that this that I take to be his meaning is true and that is enough Let him that findes a true sense of any place rejoyce in it Let him that does not beg it of thee Vtquid mihi molest us est Why should any man presse me to give him the true sense of Moses here or of the holy Ghost in any darke place of Scripture Ego illuminem ullum hominen venientem in mundum 1.13 C. 10. saies he Is that said of me that I am the light that enlightned every man any man Iohn 1.9 that comes into this world So far I will goe saies he so far will we in his modesty and humility accompany him as still to propose Quod luce veritatis quod fruge utilitatis excellit such a sense as agrees with other Truths that are evident in other places of Scripture and such a sense as may conduce most to edisication For to those two does that heavenly Father reduce the foure Elements that make up a right exposition of Scripture which are first the glory of God such a sense as may most advance it secondly the analogie of faith such a sense as may violate no confessed Article of Religion and thirdly exaltation of devotion such a sense as may carry us most powerfully upon the apprehension of the next life and lastly extension of charity such a sense as may best hold us in peace or reconcile us if we differ from one another And within these limits wee shall containe our selves The glory of God the analogie of faith the exaltation of devotion the extension of charity In all the rest that belongs to the explication or application to the literall or spirituall sense of these words And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters to which having stopped a little upon this generall consideration the exposition of darke places we passe now Within these rules we proceed to enquire who this Spirit of God is or what it is Spiritus whether a Power or a Person The Jews who are afraid of the Truth lest they should meete evidences of the doctrine of the Trinity and so of the Messias the Son of God if they should admit any spirituall sense admit none but cleave so close to the letter as that to them the Scripture becomes Liter a occidens A killing Letter and the savour of death unto death They therefore in this Spirit of God are so far from admitting any Person that is God as they admit no extraordinary operation or vertue proceeding from God in this place but they take the word here as in many other places of Scripture it does to signifie onely a winde and then that that addition of the name of God The Spirit of God which is in their Language a denotation of a vehemency of a high degree of a superlative as when it is said of Saul Sopor Domini A sleepe of God was upon him it is intended of a deepe a dead sleepe inforces induces no more but that a very strong winde blew upon the face of the waters and so in a great part dryed them up And this opinion I should let flye away with the winde if onely the Jews had said it But Theodoret hath said it too and therefore we afford it so much answer That it is a strange anticipation that Winde which is a mixt Meteor to the making whereof divers occasions concurre with exhalations should be thus imagined before any of these causes of Winds were created or produced and that there should be an effect before a cause is somewhat irregular In Lapland the Witches are said to sell winds to all passengers but that is but to turne those windes that Nature does produce which way they will but in our case the Jews and they that follow them dreame winds before any winds or cause of winds was created The Spirit of God here cannot be the Wind. It cannot be that neither which some great men in the Christian Church have imagined it to be Operatio Dei The power of God working upon the waters so some or Efficientia Dei A power by God infused into the waters so others August And to that S. Augustine comes so neare as to say once in the negative Spiritus Dei hic res dei est sed non ipse Deut est The Spirit of God in this place is something proceeding from God but it is not God himselfe And once in the affirmative Posse esse vitalem creaturam quâ universus mundus movetur That this Spirit of God may be that universall power which sustaines and inanimates the whole world which the Platoniques have called the Soule of the world and others intend by the name of Nature and we doe well if we call The providence of God Spiritus Sanctus But there is more of God in this Action then the Instrument of God Nature or the Vice-roy of God Providence for as the person of God the Son was in the Incarnation so the person of God the Holy Ghost was in this Action though far from that manner of becomming one and the same thing with the waters which was done in the Incarnation of Christ who became therein perfect man That this word the Spirit of God is intended of the Person of the Holy Ghost in other places of Scripture is evident undeniable unquestionable and that therefore it may be so taken here Where it is said The Spirit of God shall rest upon him Esay 11.2 upon the Messiah where it is said by himselfe The Lord and his Spirit is upon me And the Lord and his Spirit hath anointed me there it is certainly and therefore here it may be probably spoken of the Holy Ghost personally It is no impossible sense it implies no contradiction It is no inconvenient sense it offends no other article it is no new sense nor can we assigne any time when it was a new sense Basil The eldest Fathers adhere to it as the ancientest interpretation Saint Basil saies not onely Constantissimè asseverandum est We must constantly maintaine that interpretation for all that might be his owne opinion not onely therefore Quia verius est for that might be but because he found it to be the common opinion of those times but Quia à majoribus nostris approbatum because it is accepted for the true
said also That the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine Ver. 2. Sin is wine at first so farre as to allure to intoxicate It is water at last so farre as to suffocate to strangle Christ Jesus way is to change water into wine sorrow into joy The Devils way is to change wine into water pleasure and but false pleasure neither into true bitternesse The watrish wine which is spoken of there and called fornication is idolatry and the like And in such a respect Jer. 2.18 God sayes to his people What hast thou to doe in the way of Egypt In the way of Egypt we cannot chuse but have something to doe some conversation with men of an Idolatrous religion we must needs have But yet What hast thou to doe in the way of Egypt to drinke of the waters of Sihor Or what hast thou to doe in the wayes of Assyria to drink the waters of the River Though we be bound to a peaceable conversation with men of an Idolatrous perswasion we are not bound to take in to drink to taste their errours For this facility and this indifferency to accompany men of divers religions in the acts of their religion Ver. 13. this multiplicity will end in a nullity and we shall hew to our selves Cisternes broken Cisternes that can hold no water We shall scatter one religion into many and those many shall vanish into none Praise we God therefore that the Spirit of God hath so moved upon these waters these sinfull waters of superstition and idolatry wherein our fore-Fathers were overwhelmed that they have not swelled over us Ecclus. 43.20 For then the cold North-winde blowes and the water is congealed into Ice Affliction overtakes us damps us stupifies us and we finde no Religion to comfort us Affliction is as often expressed in this word Tribulatio Esay 43.2 Waters as sin When thou passest through waters I will be with thee and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee But then the Spirit of God moves upon these waters too and grace against sin and deliverance from affliction is as often expressed in waters as either Where God takes another Metaphore for judgement Ezek. 36.5 Ver. 25. yet he continues that of water for his mercy In the fire of my jealousie have I spoken against them speaking of enemies but then speaking of Israel I will sprinkle cleane water upon you and you shall be cleane This is his way and this is his measure He sprinkles enough at first to make us cleane even the sprinkling of Baptisme cleanses us from originall sin but then he sets open the windowes of heaven and he inlarges his Flood-gates Esay 44.3 I will poure out water upon the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground To them that thirst after him he gives grace for grace that is present grace for an earnest of future grace of subsequent grace and concomitant grace and auxiliant grace and effectuall grace grace in more formes more notions and in more operations then the Schoole it selfe can tell how to name Thus the Spirit of God moves upon our waters Mat. 14. By faith Peter walked upon the waters so we prevent occasions of tentation to sin and sinke not in them but walke above them By godly exercises we swim through waters so the Centurion commanded that they that could swim Acts 27.43 should cast themselves into the sea Men exercised in holinesse can meet a tentation or tribulation in the face and not be shaked with it weaker men men that cannot swim must be more wary of exposing themselves to dangers of tentation A Court does some man no harme when another finds tentation in a Hermitage By repentance we saile through waters by the assistance of Gods ordinances in his Church which Church is the Arke we attaine the harbour peace of conscience after a sin But this Arke this helpe of the Church we must have God can save from dangers though a man went to Sea without art Sine rate saies the Vulgat without a Ship Wisd 14.4 But God would not that the worke of his Wisedome should be idle God hath given man Prudentiam navifactivam saies our Holkot upon that place and he would have that wisdome exercised God can save without Preaching and Absolution and Sacraments but he would not have his Ordinance neglected To end all with the end of all Death comes to us in the name Mors. 2 Sam. 14.14 and notion of waters too in the Scriptures The Widow of Tekoah said to David in the behalfe of Absalon by the Counsaile of Ioab The water of death overslowes all We must needs dye saies she and are as water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up againe yet God devises meanes that his banished be not expelled from him So the Spirit of God moves upon the face of these waters the Spirit of life upon the danger of death Consider the love more then love the study more then study the diligence of God he devises meanes that his banished those whom sins or death had banished be not expelled from him I sinned upon the strength of my youth and God devised a meanes to reclaime me an enfeebling sicknesse I relapsed after my recovery and God devised a meanes an irrecoverable a helpless Consumption to reclaime me That affliction grew heavy upon me and weighed me down even to a diffidence in Gods mercy and God devised a meanes the comfort of the Angel of his Church his Minister The comfort of the Angel of the great Counsell the body and blood of his Son Christ Jesus at my transmigration Yet he lets his correction proceed to death I doe dye of that sicknesse and God devises a meanes that I though banished banished into the grave shall not be expelled from him a glorious Resurrection We must needs dye and be as water spilt upon the ground but yet God devises meanes that his banished shall not be expelled from him And this is the motion and this is the Rest of the Spirit of God upon those waters in this spirituall sense of these words He brings us to a desire of Baptisme he settles us in the sense of the obligation first and then of the benefits of Baptisme He suffers us to goe into the way of tentations for Coluber in via and every calling hath particular tentations and then he settles us by his preventing or his subsequent grace He moves in submitting us to tribulation he settles us in finding that our tribulations do best of all conforme us to his Son Christ Jesus He moves in removing us by the hand of Death and he settles us in an assurance That it is he that now lets his Servants depart in peace And he who as he doth presently lay our soules in that safe Cabinet the Bosome of Abraham so he keepes an eye upon every graine and atome of our dust whither soever it be blowne and keepes a
Learning Plato never stopped at any knowledge till he came to consider the holy Ghost Vnum inveni quod cuncta operatur I have saies Plato found One who made all things Et unum per quod cuncta efficiuntur And I have found another by whom all things were made Tertium autem non potui invenire A Third besides those two I could never finde Though all the mysteries of the Trinity be things equally easie to faith when God infuses that yet to our reason even as reason serves faith and presents things to that things are not so equall but that S. Basil himselfe saw that the eternall generation of the Son was too hard for Reason but yet it is in the proceeding of the Holy Ghost that he clearely professes his ignorance Si cuncta putarem nostra cogitatione posse comprehendi vererer fortè ignorantiam profiteri If I thought that all things might bee knowne by man I should bee as much afraid and ashamed as another man to be ignorant but saies he since we all see that there are many things whereof we are ignorant Cur non de Spiritu sancto absque rubore ignorantiam faterer Why should I be ashamed to confesse mine ignorance in many things concerning the Holy Ghost There is then a difficulty no lesse then an impossibility Possibilitas in searching after the Holy Ghost but it is in those things which appertain not to us But in others there is a possibility a facility and easinesse For there are two processions of the holy Ghost Aeterna and Temporaria his proceeding from the Father and the Son and his proceeding into us The first we shall never understand if we reade all the books of the world The other we shall not choose but understand if we study our own consciences In the first the darknesse and difficulty is recompenced in this That though it be hard to finde any thing yet it is but little that we are to seek It is only to finde that there is a holy Ghost proceeding from Father and Son for in searching farther the danger is noted by S. Basil to be thus great Qui quomodo interrogas ubi ut in loco quando ut in tempore interrogabis If thou give thy curiosity the liberty to ask How the holy Ghost proceeded thou wilt ask where it was done as though there were severall roomes and distinct places in that which is infinite And thou wilt ask when it was done as though there were pieces of time in that which is eternall Et quaeres non ut fidem sed ut infidelitatem invenias which is excellently added by that Father The end of thy enquiring will not be that thou mightest finde any thing to establish thy beliefe but to finde something that might excuse thine unbeliefe All thy curious questions are not in hope that thou shalt receive satisfaction but in hope that the weaknesse of the answer may justifie thy infidelity Thus it is if we will be over curious in the first the eternall proceeding of the Holy Ghost In the other the proceeding of the holy Ghost into us we are to consider that as in our naturall persons the body and soul do not make a perfect man except they be united except our spirits which are the active part of the blood do fit this body and soule for one anothers working So though the body of our religion may seem to be determined in these two our Creation which is commonly attributed to the Father Tanquam fonti Deitatis As the fountaine of the Godhead for Christ is God of God And our Redemption which belongs to the Son yet for this body there is a spirit that is the holy Ghost that takes this man upon whom the Father hath wrought by Creation and the Son included within his Redemption and he works in him a Vocation a Justification and a sanctification and leads him from that Esse which the Father gave him in the Creation And that Bene esse which he hath in being admitted into the body of his Son the visible Church and Congregation to an Optimè esse to that perfection which is an assurance of the inhabitation of this Spirit in him and an inchoation of eternall blessednesse here by a heavenly and sanctified conversation without which Spirit No man can say that Iesus is the Lord because he is not otherwise in a perfect obedience to him if he embrace not the means ordained by him in his Church So that this Spirit disposes and dispenses distributes and disperses and orders all the power of the Father and all the wisdome of the Son and all the graces of God It is a Center to all So S. Bernard sayes upon those words of the Apostle We approve our selves as the Ministers of God But by what By watching by fasting by suffering by the holy Ghost by love unfained Vide tanquam omnia ordinantem quomodo in medio virtutum sicut cor in medio corporis constituit Spiritum Sanctum As the heart is in the midst of the body so between these vertues of fasting and suffering before and love unfained after the Apostle places the holy Ghost who only gives life and soule to all Morall and all Theologicall vertues And as S. Bernard observes that in particular men so doth S. Augustine of the whole Church Quod in corpore nostro anima id in corpore Christi Ecclesia Spiritus Sanctus That office which the soule performes to our body the holy Ghost performes in the body of Christ which is the Church And therefore since the holy Ghost is thus necessary and thus neare as at the Creation the whole Trinity was intimated in that plurall word Elohim creavit Dii but no person of the Trinity is distinctly named in the Creation but the holy Ghost The Spirit of God moved upon the waters As the holy Ghost was first conveyed to our knowledge in the Creation so in our Regeneration by which we are new creatures though our Creation and our Redemption be religious subjects of our continuall meditation yet let us be sure to hold this that is nearest us to keep a neare a familiar and daily acquaintance and conversation with the holy Ghost and to be watchfull to cherish his light and working in us Homines docent quaerere solus ipse qui docet invenire habere frui Bernard Men can teach us wayes how to finde somethings The Pilot how to finde a Land The Astronomer how to finde a Star Men can teach us wayes how to finde God The naturall man in the book of creatures The Morall man in an exemplar life The Jew in the Law The Christian in generall in the Gospell But Solus ipse qui docet invenire habere frui Only the holy Ghost enables us to finde God so as to make him ours and to enjoy him 1 Cor. 2.14 First you must get more light then nature gives for The naturall man perceiveth not the things
Father in the Son by the Holy Ghost The verdict is That we are the children of God The Spirit beareth c. First then 1 Part. a slacknesse a supinenesse in consideration of the divers significations of this word Spirit hath occasioned divers errours when the word hath been intended in one sense and taken in another All the significations will fall into these foure for these foure are very large It is spoken of God or of Angels or of men or of inferiour creatures And first of God it is spoken sometimes Essentially sometimes Personally God is a Spirit Iohn 4.24 Esay 31.3 and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth So also The Aegyptians are men and not God and their horses flesh and not spirit For if they were God they were Spirit So God altogether and considered in his Essence is a Spirit but when the word Spir it is spoken not essentially of all but personally of one then that word designeth Spiritum sonctum The holy Ghost Goe and baptize Mar. 28.19 In the name of the Father and Sonne Spiritus sancti and the holy Ghost And as of God so of Angels also it is spoken in two respects of good Angels Sent farth to minister for them Heb. 1.14 1 King 22.22 Hosea 4.12 Esay 19.3 that shall be heires of salvation And evill Angels The lying Spirit that would deceive the King by the Prophet The Spirit of Whoredome spirituall whoredome when the people ask counsell of their stocks And Spiritus vertiginis The spirit of giddinesse of perversities as we translate it which the Lord doth mingle amongst the people in his judgement Of man also is this word Spirit spoken two wayes The Spirit is sometimes the soule Psal 31.5 Into thy hands I commend my Spirit sometimes it signifies those animall spirits which conserve us in strength and vigour The poyson of Gods arrowes drinketh up my spirit And also Job 6.4 Luke 1.47 the superiour faculties of the soule in a regenerate man as there My soule doth magnifie the Lord and my spirit rejoyceth in God my Saviour And then lastly of inferiour creatures it is taken two wayes too of living creatures The God of the spirits of all flesh Numb 16.22 Ezek. 1.21 and of creatures without life other then a metaphoricall life as of the winde often and of Ezckiels wheeles The Spirit of life was in the wheeles Now in this first Branch of this first Part of our Text it is not of Angels nor of men nor of other creatures but of God and not of God Essentially but Personally that is of the Holy Ghost Origen sayes Antecessores nostri The Ancients before him had made this note That where we finde the word Spirit without any addition it is alwayes intended of the Holy Ghost Before him and after him they stuck much to that note for S. Hierome makes it too and produces many examples thereof but yet it will not hold in all Didymus of Alexandria though borne blinde in this light saw light and writ so of the Holy Ghost as S. Hierome thought that work worthy of his Translation And hee gives this note That wheresoever the Apostles intend the Holy Ghost they adde to the word Spirit Sanctus Holy Spirit or at least the Article The The Spirit And this note hath good use too but yet it is not universally true If we supply these notes with this That whensoever any such thing is said of the Spirit as cannot consist with the Divine nature there it is not meant of the Holy Ghost but of his gifts or of his working as when it is said The Holy Ghost was not yet for his person was alwayes And where it is said Iohn 7.39 1 The fl 5.19 Quench not the Holy Ghost for the Holy Ghost himselfe cannot be quenched we have enough for our present purpose Here it is Spirit without any addition and therefore fittest to bee taken for the Holy Ghost And it is Spirit with that emphaticall article The The Spirit and in that respect also fittest to be so taken And though it be fittest to understand the Holy Ghost here not of his person but his operation yet it gives just occasion to looke piously and to consider modestly who and what this person is that doth thus worke upon us And to that purpose we shall touch upon foure things First His Universality He is All He is God Secondly His Singularity He is One One Person Thirdly His roote from whence he proceeded Father and Son And fourthly His growth his emanation his manner of proceeding for our order proposed at first leading us now to speak of this third person of the Trinity it will be almost necessary to stop a little upon each of these First then the Spirit mentioned here the Holy Ghost is God and if so Deus equall to Father and Son and all that is God He is God because the Essentiall name of God is attributed to him He is called Jehovah Iebovah sayes to Esay Goe and tell this people Esay 6.9 Acts 28.29 c. And S. Paul making use of these words in the Acts he sayes Well spake the Holy Ghost by the Prophet Esay The Essentiall name of God is attributed to him and the Essentiall Attributes of God He is Eternall so is none but God where we heare of the making of every thing else in the generall Creation we heare that the Spirit of God moved Gen. 1.2 but never that the Spirit was made He is every where so is none but God Psal 139.7 1 Cor. 2.10 whither shall Igoe from thy Spirit He knowes all things so doth none but God The Spirit searcheth all things yca the deep things of God He hath the name of God the Attributes of God and he does the works of God Is our Creator our Maker God Iob 33.4 The Spirit of God hath mademe Is he that can change the whole Creation and frame of nature in doing miracles God The Spirit lead the Israelites miraculously through the wildernesse Esay 63.14 Esay 48.16 Will the calling and the sending of the Prophets shew him to be God The Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me Is it argument enough for his God-head Esay 61.1 Luke 4.18 that he sent Christ himselfe Christ himselfe applies to himselfe that The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and hath anointed me to preach Acts 1.16 Iohn 16.13 He foretold future things The Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spoke before sayes S. Peter He establishes present things The Spirit of truth guides into all truth And he does this by wayes proper onely to God for our illumination is his He shall receive of me Ver. 14. 1 Cor. 6.11 Iohn 3.5 Iohn 16.8 sayes Christ and shew it you Our Justification is his Ye are justified in the name of the Lord Iesus by the Spirit of God Our regeneration is his There is a
because the Son is the second and the holy Ghost the third person but the second was not before the third in time nor is above him in dignity There is processio corporalis such a bodily proceeding as that that which proceeds is utterly another thing then that from which it proceeds frogs proceed perchance of ayre and mise of dust and worms of carkasses and they resemble not that ayre that dust those carkasses that produced them There is also processio Metaphysica when thoughts proceed out of the minde but those thoughts remaine still in the mind within and have no separate subsistence in themselves And then there is processio Hyperphysica which is this which we seek and finde in our soules but not in our tongues a proceeding of the holy Ghost so from Father and Son as that he remaines a subsistence alone a distinct person of himselfe This is as far as the Schoole can reach Ortu qui relationis est non est à se Actu qui personae est per se subsistit Consider him in his proceeding so he must necessarily have a relation to another Consider him actually in his person so he subsists of himselfe And De modo for the manner of his proceeding we need we can say but this As the Son proceeds per modu intellectus so as the mind of man conceives a thought so the holy Ghost proceeds per modum voluntatis when the mind hath produced a thought that mind and that discourse and ratiocination produce a will first our understanding is setled and that understanding leads our will And nearer then this though God knows this be far off we cannot goe to the proceeding of the holy Ghost This then is The Spirit The third person in the Trinity but the first person in our Text Spiritus noster The other is our spirit The Spirit beareth witnesse with our spirit I told you before that amongst the manifold acceptations of the word spirit as it hath relation particularly to man it is either the soul it self or the vitall spirits the thin and active parts of the bloud or the superiour faculties of the soul in a regenerate man that is our spirit in this place So S. Paul distinguishes soul and spirit Heb. 4.12 The word of God pierces to the dividing asunder soule and spirit where The soule is that which inanimates the body and enables the organs of the senses to see and heare The spirit is that which enables the soule to see God and to heare his Gospel The samephrase hath the same use in another place 1 Thes 5.25 Calvin I pray God your spirit and soule and body may be preserved blamelesse Where it is not so absurdly said though a very great man call it an absurd exposition That the soule Anima is that qua animales homines as the Apostle calls them that by which men are men naturall men carnall men And the spirit is the spirit of Regeneration by which man is a new creature a spirituall man But that that Expositor himselfe hath said enough to our present purpose The soule is the seat of Affections The spirit is rectified Reason It is true this Reason is the Soveraigne these Affections are the Officers this Body is the Executioner Reason authorizes Affections command the Body executes And when we conceive in our mind desire in our heart performe in our body nothing that displeases God then have we had benefit of S. Pauls prayer That in body and soule and spirit we may be blamelesse In summe we need seek no farther for a word to expresse this spirit but that which is familiar to us The Conscience Rem 9.1 A rectified conscience is this spirit My conscience bearing me witnesse sayes the Apostle And so we have both the persons in this judiciall proceeding The Spirit is the holy Ghost Our spirit is our Conscience And now their office is to testifie to beare witnesse which is our second generall part The Spirit bears witnesse c. To be a witnesse 2 Part. is not an unworthy office for the holy Ghost himselfe Heretiques in their pestilent doctrines Tyrans in their bloody persecutions call God himselfe so often so far into question as that he needs strong and pregnant testimony to acquit him First against Heretiques we see the whole Scripture is but a Testament and Testamentum is Testatio ment is it is but an attestation a proofe what the will of God is And therefore when Tertullian deprehended himselfe to have slipped into another word and to have called the Bible Instrumentum he retracts and corrects himselfe thus Magìs usui est dicere Testamentum quà m Instrumentum It is more proper to call the Scripture a Testament then a Conveyance or Covenant All the Bible is Testament Attestation Declaration Proofe Apoc. 11.2 Evidence of the will of God to man And those two witnesses spoken of in the Revelation are very conveniently very probably interpreted to be the two Testaments And to the Scriptures Christ himselfe refers the Jews Iohn 5.39 Search them for they beare witnesse of me The word of God written by the holy Ghost is a witnesse and so the holy Ghost is a witnesse against Heretiques Against Tyrans and Persecuters the office of a witnesse is an honourable office too for that which we call more passionately and more gloriously Martyrdome is but Testimony A Martyr is nothing but a Witnesse He that pledges Christ in his own wine in his own cup in bloud He that washes away his sins in a second Baptisme and hath found a lawfull way of Re-baptizing even in bloud He that waters the Prophets ploughing and the Apostles sowing with bloud He that can be content to bleed as long as a Tyran can foame or an Executioner sweat He that is pickled nay embalmed in bloud salted with fire and preserved in his owne ashes He that to contract all nay to enlarge beyond all suffers in the Inquisition when his body is upon the rack when the rags are in his throat when the boots are upon his legs when the splinters are under his nailes if in those agonies he have the vigour to say I suffer this to shew what my Saviour suffered must yet make this difference He suffered as a Saviour I suffer but as a witnesse But yet to him that suffers as a Martyr as a witnesse a crowne is reserved It is a happy and a harmonious meeting in Stephens martyrdome Proto-martyr and Stephanus that the first Martyr for Christ should have a Crown in his name Such a blessed meeting there is in Ioash his Coronation Posuit super eum Diadema Testimonium 2 King 11.12 They put the Crowne upon his head and the Testimony that is The Law which testified That as he had the Crowne from God so he had it with a witnesse with an obligation that his Government his life and if need were his death should testifie his zeale to him
so there should be Diluvium Spiritus A flowing out of the holy Ghost upon all Joel 2.28 Esay 2.2 Joh. 3.8 as he promises Effundam I will poure it out upon all and Diluvium gentium That all nations should flow up unto him For this Spirit Spirat ubi vult Breathes where it pleases him and though a naturall winde cannot blow East and West North and South together this Spirit at once breathes upon the most contrary dispositions upon the presuming and upon the despairing sinner and in an instant can denizen and naturalize that soule that was an alien to the Covenant Empale and inlay that soule that was bred upon the Common amongst the Gentiles transform that soul which was a Goate into a Sheep unite that soul which was a lost sheep to the fold again shine upon that soul that sits in darknesse and in the shadow of death and so melt and poure out that soul that yet understands nothing of the Divine nature nor of the Spirit of God that it shall become partaker of the Divine nature 2 Pet. 1.4 1 Cor. 6.17 and be the same Spirit with the Lord. When Christ took our flesh he had not all his Ancestors of the Covenant he was pleased to come of Ruth a Moabite a poore stranger As he came so will the holy Ghost go to strangers also Shall any man murmur or draw into disputation why this Spirit doth not breath in all nations at once or why not sooner then it doth in some Doth this Spirit fall and rest upon every soul in this Congregation now May not one man finde that he receives him now and suffer him to go away again May not another who felt no motion of him now recollect himself at home and remember something then which hath been said now to the quickning of this Spirit in him there Since the holy Ghost visits us so successively not all at once not all with an equall establishment we may safely imbrace that acceptation of this word Arguet He shall he will Antequam abierit Before the end come Reprove convince the whole world of sin by this his way the way of comfort the preaching of the Gospell And that is the first acceptation thereof The second acceptation of the word is in the present Arguit not Arguet He shall but Arguit He doth now he doth reprove all the world As when the Devill confessed Christ in the Gospel as when Judas who was the Devils Devill for he had sold Christ to the Chiefe-Priests Mat. 26.14 before Satan entred into him after the Sop Iohn 13.27 professed this Gospel this was not Sine omni impulsu Spiritus Sancti Altogether without the motion of the Holy Ghost who had his ends and his purposes therein to draw testimonies for Christ out of the mouths of his adversaries so when a naturall man comes to be displeased with his owne actions and to discerne sin in them though his naturall faculties be the Instruments in these actions yet the Holy Ghost sets this Instrument in tune and makes all that is musique and harmony in the faculties of this naturall man At Ephesus S. Paul found certaine Disciples which were baptized and when he asked them Whether they had received the Holy Ghost Acts 19.2 they said That they had not so much as heard that there was a Holy Ghost So certainly infinite numbers of men in those unconverted Nations have the Holy Ghost working in them though they have never so much as heard that there is a Holy Ghost When we see any man doe any work well that belongs to the hand to write to carve to play to doe any mechanique office well doe we determine mine our consideration onely upon the Instrument the hand doe we onely say he hath a good a fit a well disposed hand for such a work or doe we not rather raise our contemplation to the soule and her faculties which enable that hand to do that work So certainly when a morall man hath any reproofe any sense of sin in himselfe the holy Ghost is the intelligence that moves in that spheare and becomes the soule of his soule and works that in him primarily of which naturall faculties or philosophicall instructions are but ministeriall instruments and suppletory assistances after And not only in the beginning of good actions but in the prosecution of some evill the holy Ghost hath an interest though we discern him not In the disposing of our sins the holy Ghost hath a working thus That when we intended some mischievous sin to morrow a lesse sin some sin of pleasure meets us and takes hold of us and diverts us from our first purpose and so the holy Ghost rescues us from one sin by suffering us to fall into another What action soever hath any degree of good what action soever hath any lesse evill in it then otherwise it would have had hath received a working of the holy Ghost though that man upon whom he hath wrought knew not his working nor his name As we thinke that we have the differences of seasons of Winter and Summer by the naturall motion of the Sun but yet it is not truly by that naturall motion but by a contrary motion of a higher spheare which drawes the Sun against his naturall course for if the Sun were left to himselfe we should not have these seasons so if the soul and conscience of a meere naturall man have any of these reproofes and remorses though perchance fear or shame or sicknesse or penalties of law yea though a wearinesse and excesse of the sin it selfe may seem to him to be the thing that reproves him and that occasions this remorse because it is the most immediate and therefore most discernible yet there is Digitus Dei The hand of God and spiritus Spiritus sancti The breath of the holy Ghost in all this who as a liberall almes-giver sends to persons that never know who sends works upon persons who never know who works So the holy Ghost reproves all the world of sin that is all the reproofe which even the naturall man hath and every man hath some at sometimes is from the holy Ghost and as in the former sense the Cum venerit When he eomes was Antequam abierit before he goes so here the Cum venerit is Quia adest because he is alwayes present and alwayes working And then there is a third acceptation where the Arguet is not in the future Operatus est That he shall do it nor in the present Arguit That he doth it now in every naturall man but it is in the time past Arguit He hath done it done it already And here in this sense it is not that the holy Ghost shall bring the Gospell before the end to all Nations that is Antequam abierit Nor that the holy Ghost doth exalt the naturall faculties of every man in all his good actions that is Quia semper adest but it
so but it is also to declare that there is none just and righteous Jerem. 5.1 Run to and fro through the streets of Ierusalem sayes God in the Prophet and seeke in the broad places If yee can finde a man if there be any that executeth Iudgement that seeketh Truth and I will pardon it Where God does not intimate that he were unjust if he did not spare those that were unjust but he declares the generall flood and inundation of unrighteousnesse upon Earth That upon Earth there is not a righteous man to be found If God had gone no farther in his promise to man then that if there were one righteous man he would save all this in effect had been nothing for there was never any man righteous in that sense and acceptation He promised and sent one who was absolutely righteous and for his sake hath saved us To collect all Conclusio and bind up all in one bundle and bring it home to your own bosomes remember That though he appeared in men it was God that appeared to Abraham Though men preach though men remit sins though men absolve God himself speakes and God works and God seales in those men Remember that nothing appeared to Abrahams apprehension but men yet Angels were in his presence Though we binde you not to a necessity of beleeving that every man hath a particular Angel to assist him enjoy your Christian liberty in that and think in that point so as you shall find your devotion most exalted by thinking that it is or is not so yet know that you do all that you doe in the presence of Gods Angels And though it be in it selfe and should be so to us a stronger bridle to consider that we doe all in the presence of God who sees clearer then they for he sees secret thoughts and can strike immediately which they cannot do without commission from him yet since the presence of a Magistrate or a Preacher or a father or a husband keeps men often from ill actions let this prevaile something with thee to that purpose That the Angels of God are alwayes present though thou discerne them not Remember that though Christ himself were not amongst the three Angels yet Abraham apprehended a greater dignity and gave a greater respect to one then to the rest but yet without neglecting the rest too Apply thy selfe to such Ministers of God and such Physitians of thy soule as thine owne conscience tels thee doe most good upon thee but yet let no particular affection to one defraud another in his duties nor empaire another in his estimation And remember too That though Gods appearing thus in three persons be no irrefragable argument to prove the Trinity against the Jews yet it is a convenient illustration of the Trinity to thee that art a Christian And therefore be not too curious in searching reasons and demonstrations of the Trinity but yet accustome thy selfe to meditations upon the Trinity in all occasions and finde impressions of the Trinity in the three faculties of thine owne soule Thy Reason thy Will and thy Memory and seeke a reparation of that thy Trinity by a new Trinity by faith in Christ Jesus by hope of him and by a charitable delivering him to others in a holy and exemplar life Descend thou into thy selfe as Abraham ascended to God and admit thine owne expostulations as God did his Let thine own conscience tell thee not onely thy open and evident rebellions against God but even the immoralities and incivilities that thou dost towards men in scandalizing them by thy sins And the absurdities that thou committest against thy selfe in sinning against thine owne reason And the uncleannesses and consequently the treachery that thou committest against thine owne body and thou shalt see that thou hadst been not onely in better peace but in better state and better health and in better reputation a better friend and better company if thou hadst finned lesse because some of thy sins have been such as have violated the band of friendship and some such as have made thy company and conversation dangerous either for tentation or at least for defamation Tell thy selfe that thou art the Judge as Abraham told God that he was and that if thou wilt judge thy selfe thou shalt scape a severer judgement He told God that he was Judge of all the earth Judge all that earth that thou art Judge both thy kingdomes thy soule and thy body Judge all the Provinces of both kingdomes all the senses of thy body and all the faculties of thy soule and thou shalt leave nothing for the last Judgement Mingle not the just and the unjust together God did not so Doe not thinke good and bad all one Doe not think alike of thy sins and of thy good deeds as though when Gods grace had quickned them still thy good works were nothing thy prayers nothing thine almes nothing in the sight and acceptation of God But yet spare not the wicked for the just continue not in thy beloved sin because thou makest God amends some other way And when all is done as in God towards Abraham his mercy was above all so after all Miserere animae tuae Be inercifull to thine owne soule And when the effectuall Spirit of God hath spoken peace and comfort and sealed a reconciliation to God to thy soule rest in that blessed peace and enter into no such new judgement with thy selfe againe as should overcome thine own Mercy with new distractions or new suspitions that thy Repentance was not accepted or God not fully reconciled unto thee God because he judges all the earth cannot doe wrong If thou judge thy earth and earthly affections so as that thou examine clearly and judge truly thou dost not doe right if thou extend not Mercy to thy selfe if thou receive not and apply not cheerfully and confidently to thy soul that pardon and remission of all thy sins which the holy Ghost in that blessed state hath given thee commission to pronounce to thine owne soul and to seale with his seale SERM. XLIII Preached at S. Dunstans upon Trinity-Sunday 1624. MAT. 3.17 And lo A voyce came from heaven saying This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased IT hath been the custome of the Christian Church to appropriate certaine Scriptures to certaine Dayes for the celebrating of certaine Mysteries of God or the commemorating of certaine benefits from God They who consider the age of the Christian Church too high or too low too soone or too late either in the cradle as it is exhibited in the Acts of the Apostles or bed-rid in the corruptions of Rome either before it was come to any growth when Persecutions nipped it or when it was so over-growne as that prosperity and outward splendor swelled it They that consider the Church so will never finde a good measure to direct our religious worship of God by for the outward Liturgies and Ceremonies of the Church But as
This is my beloved Son this day have I begotten him And with such Copies it seemes both Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus met for they reade these words so and interpret them accordingly But these words are misplaced and mis-transferred out of the second Psalme where they are And as they change the words and in stead of In quo complacui In whom I am well pleased reade This day have I begotten thee S. Cyprian addes other words to the end of these which are Hunc audite Heare him Which words when these words were repeated at the Transfiguration were spoken but here at the Baptisme they were not what Copy soever misled S. Cyprian or whether it were the failing of his own memory But S. Chrysostome gives an expresse reason why those words were spoken at the Transfiguration and not here Because saies he Here was onely a purpose of a Manifestation of the Trinity so farre as to declare their persons who they were and no more At the Trans-figuration where Moses and Elias appeared with Christ there God had a purpose to preferre the Gospel above the Law and the Prophets and therefore in that place he addes that Hunc audite Heare him who first fulfills all the Law and the Prophets and then preaches the Gospel He was so well pleased in him as that he was content to give all them that received him Eph. 1.6 power to become the Sons of God too as the Apostle sayes By his grace he hath made us accepted in his beloved Beloved That you may be so Come up from your Baptisme as it is said that Christ did Rise and ascend to that growth which your Baptisme prepared you to And the heavens shall open as then even Cataractae coeli All the windowes of heaven shall open and raine downe blessings of all kindes in abundance And the Holy Ghost shall descend upon you as a Dove in his peacefull comming in your simple and sincere receiving him And he shall rest upon you to effect and accomplish his purposes in you If he rebuke you as Christ when he promises the Holy Ghost though he call him a Comforter John 16.7 sayes That he shall rebuke the world of divers things yet he shall dwell upon you as a Dove Quae si mordet osculando mordet sayes S. Augustine If the Dove bite it bites with kissing if the Holy Ghost rebuke he rebukes with comforting And so baptized and so pursuing the contract of your Baptisme and so crowned with the residence of his blessed Spirit in your holy conversation hee shall breathe a soule into your soule by that voyce of eternall life You are my beloved Sonnes in whom I am well pleased SERM. XLIV Preached at S. Dunstanes upon Trinity-Sunday 1627. REV. 4.8 And the foure Beasts had each of them sixe wings about him and they were full of eyes within And they rest not day and night saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come THese words are part of that Scripture which our Church hath appointed to be read for the Epistle of this day This day which besides that it is the Lords day the Sabbath day is also especially consecrated to the memory and honour of the whole Trinity The Feast of the Nativity of Christ Christmas day which S. Chrysostome calls Metropolin omnium festorum The Metropolitane festivall of the Church is intended principally to the honour of the Father who was glorified in that humiliation of that Son that day because in that was laid the foundation and first stone of that house and Kingdome in which God intended to glorifie himselfe in this world that is the Christian Church The Feast of Easter is intended principally to the honour of the Son himselfe who upon that day began to lift up his head above all those waters which had surrounded him and to shake off the chaines of death and the grave and hell in a glorious Reserrection And then the Feast of Pentecost was appropriated to the honour of the Holy Ghost who by a personall falling upon the Apostles that day inabled them to propagate this Glory of the Father and this death and Resurrection of the Son to the ends of the world to the ends in Extention to all places to the ends in Duration to all times Now as S. Augustine sayes Nullus eorum extra quemlibet eorum est Every Person of the Trinity is so in every other person as that you cannot think of a Father as a Father but that there falls a Son into the same thought nor think of a person that proceeds from others but that they from whom he whom ye think of proceeds falls into the same thought as every person is in every person And as these three persons are contracted in their essence into one God-head so the Church hath also contracted the honour belonging to them in this kinde of Worship to one day in which the Father and Son and Holy Ghost as they are severally in those three severall dayes might bee celebrated joyntly and altogether It was long before the Church did institute a particular Festivall to this purpose For before they made account that that verse which was upon so many occasions repeated in the Liturgy and Church Service Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost had a convenient sufficiency in it to keep men in a continuall remembrance of the Trinity But when by that extreame inundation and increase of Arians these notions of distinct Persons in the Trinity came to be obliterated and discontinued the Church began to refresh her selfe in admitting into to the formes of Common Prayer some more particular notifications and remembrances of the Trnity And at last though it were very long first for this Festivall of this Trinity-Sunday was not instituted above foure hundred yeares since they came to ordaine this day Which day our Church according to that peacefull wisedome wherewithall the God of Peace of Unity and Concord had inspired her did in the Reformation retaine and continue out of her generall religious tendernesse and holy loathnesse to innovate any thing in those matters which might bee safely and without superstition continued and entertained For our Church in the Reformation proposed not that for her end how shee might goe from Rome but how she might come to the Truth nor to cast away all such things as Rome had depraved but to purge away those depravations and conserve the things themselves so restored to their first good use For this day then were these words appointed by our Church Divisic And therefore we are sure that in the notion and apprehension and construction of our Church these words appertaine to the Trinity In them therefore we shall consider first what these foure creatures were which are notified and designed to us in the names and figures of foure Beasts And then what these foure creatures did Their Persons and their Action will be our two
to need most Pleni for their wings are limited but their eyes are not Six wings but full of eies sayes our Text. They must have eyes in their tongues They must see that they apply not blindly and inconsiderately Gods gracious promises to the presumptuous nor his heavy judgements to the broken hearted They must have eyes in their eares They must see that they harken neither to a superstitious sense from Rome nor to a seditious sense of Scriptures from the Separation They must have eyes in their hands They must see that they touch not upon any such benefits or rewards as might bind them to any other master then to God himselfe They must have eyes in their eyes spirituall eyes in their bodily eyes They must see that they make a charitable construction of such things as they see other men do and this is that fulnesse of eyes which our Text speaks of But then especially Intus sayes our Text They were full of eyes Within The fulnesse the abundance of eyes that is of providence and discretion in the Ministers of God was intimated before In the 6. verse it was said That they were full of eyes before and behind that is circumspect and provident for all that were about them and committed to them But all is determined and summed up in this that They were full of eyes within For as there is no profit at all none to me none to God if I get all the world and lose mine own soul so there is no profit to me if I win other mens soules to God and lose mine owne All my wings shall doe me no good all mine eyes before and behind shall doe me no good if I have no prospect inward no eyes within no care of my particular and personall safety And so we have done with our first generall part the Persons denoted in these foure creatures and the duties of their ministery in which we have therefore insisted thus long that having so declared and notified to you our duties you also might be the more willing to heare of your owne duties as well as ours and to joyne with us in this Open and Incessant and Totall profession of your Religion which is the celebration of the Trinity in this acclamation Holy holy holy Lord God Almighty which is which was and which is to come To come therefore now to the second Part 2 Part. and taking the foure Euangelists to be principally intended here but secundarily the Preachers of the Gospel too and not onely they but in a faire extension and accommodation the whole Church of God first we noted their Ingenuitie and opennesse in the profession of their Religion they did it Dicentes Saying declaring publishing manifesting their devotion without any disguise any modification In that song of the three Children in the Fornace Dicentes O all ye works of the Lord c. there is nothing presented speechlesse To every thing that is there there is given a tongue Not onely all those creatures which have all a Beeing but even Privations Privations that have no Beeing that are nothing in themselves as the Night and Darknesse are there called upon to blesse the Lord to praise him and magnifie him for ever But towards the end of that song you may see that service drawne into a narrower compasse You may see to whom this speech and declaration doth principally appertaine For after he had called upon Sun and Moone and Earth and Sea and Fowles and Fishes and Plants and Night and Darknesse to praise the Lord to blesse him and magnifie him for ever Then he comes to O ye children of men Primogeniti Dei Gods beloved creatures his eldest sons and first-borne in his intention And then Domus Israel O ye house of Israel you whom God hath not onely made men but Christian men not onely planted in the World but in the Church not onely indued with Reason but inspired with Religion And then again O ye Priests of the Lord O ye Servants of the Lord those of Gods portion not onely in the Church but of the Church and appointed by him to deale between him and other men And then also O ye spirits and soules of the righteous those whom those instruments of God had powerfully and effectually wrought upon upon those especially those men those Christian men those Priests those sanctified men upon those he calls to blesse the Lord to praise him and magnifie him for ever This obligation the holy Ghost laies upon us all that the more God does for us the more we should declare it to other men God would have us tell him our sins God would have us tell other men his mercies It was no excuse for Moses that he was of uncircumcised lips Exod. 5.12 Ier. 1.6 No excuse for Ieremy to say O Lord God behold I cannot speak for I am a child Credidi propterea locutus sum is Davids forme of argument I beleeved and therefore I spake If thou dost not love to speak of God and of his benefits thou dost not beleeve in God nor that those benefits came from him Remember that when thou wast a child and presented to God in Baptisme God gave thee a tongue in other mens mouthes and inabled thee by them to establish a covenant a contract between thy soule and him then And therefore since God spake to thee when thou couldst not heare him in the faith of the Church since God heard thee when thou couldst not speak to him in the mouth of thy sureties Since that God that created thee was Verbum The Word for Dixit facta sunt God spake and all things were made Since that God that redeemed thee was Verbum The Word for The Word was made flesh Since that God that sanctified thee is Verbum The Word for therefore S. Basil calls the holy Ghost Verbum Dei quia interpres Filii He calls the holy Ghost the Word of God because as the Son is the Word because he manifests the Father unto us so the holy Ghost is the Word because he manifests the Son unto us and enables us to apprehend and apply to our selves the promises of God in him since God in all the three Persons is Verbum The Word to thee all of them working upon thee by speaking to thee Be thou Verbum too A Word as God was A Speaking and a Doing Word to his glory and the edification of others If the Lord open thy lips and except the Lord open them it were better they were luted with the clay of the grave let it be to shew forth his praise and not in blasphemous not in scurrile not in prophane language If the Lord open thy hand and if the Lord open it not better it were manacled with thy winding sheet let it be as well to distribute his blessings as to receive them Let thy mouth let thy hand let all the Organs of thy body all the faculties of thy soule concurre
in the height of his fury Christ laid hold upon him It was for the most part Christs method of curing Then when the Sea was in a tempestuous rage Mat. 8.24 when the waters covered the ship and the storme shaked even that which could remove mountaines the faith of the Disciples then Christ rebukes the winde and commands a calme Then when the Sun was gone out to run his race as a Giant as David speaks then God by the mouth of another of Ioshuah bids the Sun stand still Then when that uncleane spirit foam'd and fum'd and tore and rent the possessed persons then Christ commanded them to go out Let the fever alone say our Physitians till some fits be passed and then we shall see farther and discerne better The note is S. Chrysostomes and he applies it to Christs proceeding with Saul Non expectavit ut fatigatus debacchando mansuesceret sayes he Christ staid not till Saul being made drunke with blood were cast into a slumber as satisfied with the blood of Christians Sed in media insania superavit but in the midst of his fit he gave him physick in the midst of his madnesse he reclaimes him So is it also part of the evidence that the Holy Ghost gives against him Quod petiit Epistolas that he sued to the State for a Commission to persecute Christians When the State will put men to some kinde of necessity of concurring to the endamaging or endangering of the cause of Christ and will be displeased with them if they doe not men make to themselves and to their consciences some faint colour of excuse But when they themselves set actions on foote which are not required at their hands where is their evasion Then when Saul sued out this Commission That if he found any of that way that is Christians for he had so scattered them before that he was not sure to finde any They did not appeare in any whole body dangerous or suspicious to the State but If hee found any Any man or woman That he might have the Power of the State so as that he need not feare men That hee might have the impartiality and the inflexibility of the State so as that he need not pity women Then when his glory was to bring them bound to Ierusalem that he might magnifie his triumph and greatnesse in the eye of the world Then then sayes Christ to this tempest Be calme to this uncleane spirit Come out to this Sun in his own estimation Go no farther Thus much evidence the Holy Ghost gives against him and thus much more himselfe Act. 22.4 I persecuted this way unto the death I bound and delivered into prison both men and women Act. 26.11 And after more then this I punished them and that oft and in every Synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme and was exceedingly mad against them and persecuted them even unto strange Cities What could he say more against himselfe And then sayes Christ to this tempest Quiesce Be still to this glaring Sunne Siste stand still to this uncleane spirit 1 Cor. 15.2 Veni foras come forth In this sense especially doth S. Paul call himselfe Abertivum a person borne out of season That whereas Christs other Disciples and Apostles had a breeding under him and came first ad Discipulatum and then ad Apostolatum first to be Disciples and after to be Apostles S. Paul was borne a man an Apostle not carved out as the rest in time but a fusil Apostle an Apostle powred out and cast in a Mold As Adam was a perfect man in an instant so was S. Paul an Apostle as soone as Christ tooke him in hand Now Beloved wilt thou make this perverse use of this proceeding God is rich in Mercy Therefore I cannot misse Mercy Wouldest thou say and not be thought mad for saying so God hath created a West Indies therefore I cannot want Gold Wilt thou be so ill a Logician to thy selfe and to thine own damnation as to conclude so God is alwayes the same in himselfe therefore he must be alwayes the same to me So ill a Musician as to say God is all Concord therefore He and I can never disagree So ill a Historian as to say God hath called Saul a Persecutor then when he breathed threatnings and slaughter then when he sued to the State for a Commission to persecute Christ God hath called a theife then when he was at the last gaspe And therefore if he have a minde to me he will deale so with me too and if he have no such minde no man can imprint or infuse a new minde in God God forbid It is not safe concluding out of single Instances It is true that if a soure and heavy and severe man will adde to the discomforts of a disconsolate soule and in that souls sadnesse and dejection of spirit will heap up examples that God hath still suffered high-minded sinners to proceed and to perish in their irreligious wayes and tell that poore soule as Iobs company did him It is true you take God aright God never pardons such as you in these cases these singular these individuall examples That God hath done otherwise once have their use One instance to the contrary destroys any peremptory Rule no man must say God never doth it He did it to Saul here He did it to the Theife upon the Crosse But to that presumptuous sinner who sins on because God shewed mercy to One at last we must say a miserable Comforter is that Rule that affords but one example Nay is there one example The Conversion of Saul a Persecutor and of the Theife upon the Crosse is become Proverbium peccatorum The sinners proverb and serves him Gregor and satisfies him in all cases But is there any such thing Such a story there is and it is as true as Gospel it is the truth of Gospel it selfe But was this a late Repentance Answer S. Cyril Rogo te frater Tell me Beloved Thou that deferrest thy Repentance doest thou do it upon confidence of these examples Non in fine sed in principio conversus latro Thou deludest thine own soule The Theife was not converted at last but at first As soone as God afforded him any Call he came And at how many lights hast thou winked And to how many Cals hast thou stopped thine eares that deferrest thy repentance Christ said to him Hodie mecum eris This day thou shalt be with me in paradise when thou canst finde such another day looke for such another mercy A day that cleft the grave-stones of dead men A day that cleft the Temple it selfe A day that the Sunne durst not see A day that saw the soule of God may we not say so since that Man was God too depart from Man There shall be no more such dayes and therefore presume not of that voyce Hodie This day thou shalt be with me if thou make thy last minute that day though
any subject a falling for for our bodies we say a man is falne sick And for his state falne poore And for his mind falne mad And for his conscience falne desperate we are borne low and yet we fall every way lower so universall is our falling sicknesse Sin it selfe is but a falling The irremediable sin of the Angels The undeterminable sinne of Adam is called but so The fall of Adam The fall of Angels And therefore the effectuall visitation of the holy Ghost to man is called a falling too we are fallen so low as that when the holy Ghost is pleased to fetch us againe and to infuse his grace he is still said to fall upon us But the fall which we consider in the Text is not a figurative falling not into a decay of estate nor decay of health nor a spirituall falling into sin a decay of grace but it is a medicinall falling a falling under Gods hand but such a falling under his hand as that he takes not off his hand from him that is falne but throwes him downe therefore that he may raise him To this posture he brings Paul now when he was to re-inanimate him with his spirit rather to pre-inanimate him for indeed no man hath a soule till he have grace Christ who in his humane nature hath received from the Father all Judgement and power and dominion over this world hath received all this upon that condition that he shall governe in this manner Psal 2.8 Aske of me and I shall give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance sayes the Father How is he to use them when he hath them Thus Thou shalt breake them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potters vessell Now God meant well to the Nations in this bruising and breaking of them God intended not an annihilation of the Nations but a reformarion for Christ askes the Nations for an Inheritance not for a triumph therefore it is intended of his way of governing them and his way is to bruise and beat them that is first to cast them downe before he can raise them up first to breake them before he can make them in his fashion August Novit Dominus vulnerare ad amorem The Lord and onely the Lord knowes how to wound us out of love more then that how to wound us into love more then all that to wound us into love not onely with him that wounds us but into love with the wound it selfe with the very affliction that he inflicts upon us The Lord knowes how to strike us so as that we shall lay hold upon that hand that strikes us and kisse that hand that wounds us Ad vitam interficit ad exaltationem prosternit sayes the same Father No man kills his enemy therefore that his enemy might have a better life in heaven that is not his end in killing him It is Gods end Therefore he brings us to death that by that gate he might lead us into life everlasting And he hath not discovered but made that Northerne passage to passe by the frozen Sea of calamity and tribulation to Paradise to the heavenly Jerusalem There are fruits that ripen not but by frost There are natures there are scarce any other that dispose not themselves to God but by affliction And as Nature lookes for the season for ripening and does not all before so Grace lookes for the assent of the soule and does not perfect the whole worke till that come It is Nature that brings the season and it is Grace that brings the assent but till the season for the fruit till the assent of the soule come all is not done Therefore God begun in this way with Saul and in this way he led him all his life Tot pertulit mortes quot vixit dies He dyed as many deaths as he lived dayes Chrysost for so himselfe sayes Quotidie morior I die daily God gave him sucke in blood and his owne blood was his daily drink He catechized him with calamities at first and calamities were his daily Sermons and meditations after and to authorize the hands of others upon him and to accustome him to submit himself to the hands of others without murmuring Christ himself strikes the first blow and with that Cecidit he fell which was our first consideration in his humiliation and then Cecidit in terram He fell to the ground which is our next I take no farther occasion from this Circumstance but to arme you with consolation In terram how low soever God be pleased to cast you Though it be to the earth yet he does not so much cast you downe in doing that as bring you home Death is not a banishing of you out of this world but it is a visitation of your kindred that lie in the earth neither are any nearer of kin to you then the earth it selfe and the wormes of the earth You heap earth upon your soules and encumber them with more and more flesh by a superfluous and luxuriant diet You adde earth to earth in new purchases and measure not by Acres but by Manors nor by Manors but by Shires And there is a little Quillet a little Close worth all these A quiet Grave And therefore when thou readest That God makes thy bed in thy sicknesse rejoyce in this not onely that he makes that bed where thou dost lie but that bed where thou shalt lie That that God that made the whole earth is now making thy bed in the earth a quiet grave where thou shalt sleep in peace till the Angels Trumpet wake thee at the Resurrection to that Judgement where thy peace shall be made before thou commest and writ and sealed in the blood of the Lamb. Saul falls to the earth So farre But he falls no lower God brings his servants to a great lownesse here but he brings upon no man a perverse sense or a distrustfull suspition of falling lower hereafter His hand strikes us to the earth by way of humiliation But it is not his hand that strikes us into hell by way of desperation Will you tell me that you have observed and studied Gods way upon you all your life and out of that can conclude what God meanes to doe with you after this life That God took away your Parents in your infancy and left you Orphanes then That he hath crossed you in all your labours in your calling ever since That he hath opened you to dishonours and calumnies and mis-interpretations in things well intended by you That he hath multiplied ficknesses upon you and given you thereby an assurance of a miserable and a short life of few and evill dayes nay That he hath suffered you to fall into sins that you your selves have hated To continue in sins that you your selves have been weary of To relapse into sins that you your selves have repented And will you conclude out of this that God had no good purpose upon you that if ever
ever after he bends his eye the same way and observes the working of God especially upon himselfe As at the beginning so in the way too particularly there By the grace of God I am that I am 1 Cor. 15. and then His grace was bestowed on me And not in vaine and againe I have laboured more abundantly then all And after all still he considers himselfe and findes himselfe to be the greatest sinner Quorum ego maximus It is called a greatnesse of spirit or constancy but it is indeed an incorrigible height of pride when a man will not beleeve that he is meant in a libel if he be not named in that libel It is a fearfull obduration to be Sermon-proofe or not to take knowledge that a judgement is denounced against him because he is not named in the denouncing of that judgement Is not thy name Simon Magus if thou buy and sell spirituall things thy selfe and is not thy servants name Gehazi if he exact after Is not thy name Cain if thou rise up against thy brother And is not thy name Zacheus if thou multiply thy wealth by oppression Is not thy name Dinah if thou gad abroad to see who will solicite thee And is not the name of Putiphars Wife upon thee if thou stay at home and solicite thy servants Post-date the whole Bible and whatsoever thou hearest spoken of such as thou art before beleeve all that to be spoken but now and spoken to thee This was one happinesse here that Saul found this voyce to be directed to him And another which is our last Consideration is what this voyce said it said Saul Saul why persecutest thou me Here Saul to make sure of him God cals him by his name that hee should not be able to transfer the summons upon any other or say it was not he They say that our Noctambulones men that walke in their sleepe will wake if they be called by their names To wake Saul out of this dreame for to thinke to oppose Christ and his cause is in the highest person of the world of what power or of what counsel soever but a vertiginous dreame and a giddy vapour to wake him he cals him by his name to let him know he meanes him and to wake him throughly he cals him twice Saul and Saul againe Saul Saul Ier. 22.29 The great desolation which was to fall upon that land God intimates God interminates God intonates with such a vehemency Terra terra terra Earth earth earth heare the word of the Lord. God should be heard at first beleeved at first but such is his abundant goodnesse as that he ingeminates multiplies his warnings And to this whole land he hath said Terra terra terra Earth earth earth heare the Word of the Lord Once in an Invasion once in a Powder-treason and againe and againe in pestilentiall contagions And to every one of us he hath said oftner then so Dust dust dust why doest thou lift up thy self against thy Maker Saul Saul why persecutest thou mee Here Christ cals the afflictions of those that are his in his purpose his afflictions Me. Christ will not absolutely verifie his owne words to his owne ease He had said before this upon the Crosse Consummatum est All is finished But though all were finished in his Person he hath a daily passion in his Saints still This language which the Apostle learnt of Christ here himselfe practised and spake after Who is weake and I am not weake 2 Cor. 11.29 who is offended and I burne not Since Christ does suffer in our sufferings be this our consolation Till he be weary we should not be weary nor faint nor murmur under our burdens and this too That when he is weary he will deliver us even for his owne sake for he though he cannot suffer paine may suffer dishonour in our sufferings therefore attend his leisure We end all in this Cur tu me Why doest Thou persecute Me Why Saul Christ Tume Put it upon a Nation what is any Saul any one man to a Nation Put it upon all the Nations of the World and you shall heare God aske with an indignation Quare fremuerunt Gentes Why doe the heathen rage why do the people imagine a vaine thing Psal 2.1 Ver. 4. why will they doe it what can they get He that sitteth in the Heavens shall laugh The Lord shall have them in derision Christ came into the Temple and disputed with the Doctors but hee did not despise them he did not laugh at them When all the Midianites and all the Amalekites and all the Children of the East were in a body against Israel Iudg. 6.33 God did not laugh at them Gideon his Generall mustered two and thirty thousand against them God would not imploy so many in the day of Battaile yet he did not laugh at them hee did not whip them out of the field he made the face of an Army though it were but three hundred But when God can chuse his way Hee can call in Nation against Nation he can cast a dampe upon any Nation and make them afraid of one another He can doe an execution upon them by themselves I presume you remember those stories in the Bible where God did proceed by such wayes or he can sit still in a scorne and let them melt away of themselves when he can cast downe Saul to the earth and never appeare in the cause benight his noone frustrate his purposes evacuate his hopes annihilate him in the height of his glory Cur tu me why will any Saul any Nation any World of Sauls persecute Christ any sinner tempt him who is so much too hard for him Cur me Why doest thou offer this to me who being thus much too hard for thee would yet faine be friends with thee and therefore came to a parley to a treaty for verba haec non tam arguentis quam defendentis sayes S. Chrysostome These are not so much offensive as defensive words He would not confound Saul but he would not betray his own honour To many Nations God hath never spoken To the Jews he spoke but suffered them to mistake him To some whole Christian Churches he speaks but he lets them speake too he lets them make their word equall to his To many of us he hath spoken and chidden but given over before we are cured As he sayes of Israel in a manner That she is not worth his anger not worth his punishing Esay 1.4 A people laden with sinnes why should they any more be smitten Why should I go about to recover them But if God speake to thee still and speake in a mixt voyce of Correction and Consolation too Saul Saul why persecutest thou me Him that receives so little benefit by thee and yet is so loath to lose thee Him that can so easily spare thee and yet makes thy soule more precious then his own life Him that
holinesse of life and fast and pray and submit my selfe to discreet and medicinall mortifications for the subduing of my body any man will say this is Papisticall Papists doe this it is a blessed Protestation and no man is the lesse a Protestant nor the worse a Protestant for making it Men and brethren I am a Papist that is I will fast and pray as much as any Papist and enable my selfe for the service of my God as seriously as sedulously as laboriously as any Papist So if when I startle and am affected at a blasphemous oath as at a wound upon my Saviour if when I avoyd the conversation of those men that prophane the Lords day any other will say to me This is Puritanicall Puritans do this It is a blessed Protestation and no man is the lesse a Protestant nor the worse a Protestant for making it Men and Brethren I am a Puritan that is I wil endeavour to be pure as my Father in heaven is pure as far as any Puritan Now of these Pharisees who were by these means so popular Sadducaei the numbers were very great The Sadduces who also were of an exemplary holinesse in some things but in many and important things of different opinions even in matter of Religion from all other men were not so many in number but they were men of better quality and place in the State then for the most part the Pharisees were And as they were more potent and able to do more mischiefe so had they more declared themselves to be bent against the Apostles then the Pharisees had done In the fourth Chapter of this Booke Ver. 1. The Priests and the Sadduces no mention of Pharisees came upon Peter and Iohn being grieved that they preached thorough Iesus the resurrection of the dead And so againe Act. 5.17 The high Priest rose up and all they that were with him which is sayes that Text expresly the sect of the Sadduces and were filled with indignation And some collect out of a place in Eusebius that this Ananias who was high Priest at this time and had declared his ill affection to S. Paul as you heard before was a Sadduce But I thinke those words of Eusebius will not beare at least not enforce that nor be well applied to this Ananias Howsoever S. Paul had just cause to come to this protestation I am a Pharisee and in so doing he can be obnoxious to nothing if he be as safe in his other protestation all is well for the hope and resurrection of the dead am I called in question consider we that It is true that he was not at this time called in question Resurrectio Act. 21.23 directly and expresly for the Resurrection you may see where he was apprehended that it was for teaching against that people and against that law and against that Temple So that he was endited upon pretense of sedition and prophanation of the Temple And therefore when S. Paul sayes here I am called in question for preaching the Resurrection he means this If I had not preached the Resurrection I should never have been called in question nor should be if I would forbeare preaching the Resurrection No man persecutes me no man appeares against me but onely they that deny the Resurrection The Sadduces did deny it The Pharisees did beleeve it and therefore this was a likely and a lawfull way to divide them and to gaine time with such a purpose so far as David had when he prayed O Lord Psal 55.9 divide their tongues For it is not alwayes unlawfull to sowe discord and to kindle dissention amongst men for men may agree too well to ill purposes So have yee then seen That though it be not safe to conclude S. Paul or any holy man did this therefore I may do it which was our first part yet in this which S. Paul did here there was nothing that may not be justified in him and imitated by us which was our second part Remains onely the third which is the accommodation of this to our present times and the appropriation thereof to our selves and making it our own case The world is full of Sadduces and Pharisees and the true Church of God arraigned by both The Sadduces were the greater men the Pharisees were the greater number 3 Part. Sadducaei so they are still The Sadduces denied the Resurrection and Angels and Spirits So they do still For those Sadduces whom we consider now in this part are meere carnall men men that have not onely no Spirit of God in them but no soule no spirit of their owne meere Atheists And this Carnality this Atheisme this Sadducisme is seene in some Countries to prevaile most upon great persons the Sadduces were great persons upon persons that abound in the possessions and offices and honours of this world for they that have most of this world for the most part think least of the next These are our present Sadduces Pharisaei and then the Pharisee hath his name from Pharas which is Division Separation But Calvin derives the name not inconveniently from Pharash which is Exposition Explication We embrace both extractions and acceptations of the word both Separation and Exposition for the Pharisee whom we consider now in this part is he that is separated from us there it is Pharas separation and separated by following private Expositions there it is Pharash Exposition with a contempt of all Antiquity and not only an undervaluation but a detestation of all opinions but his owne and his whom he hath set up for his Idol And as the Sadduce our great and worldly man is all carnall all body and beleeves no spirit so our Pharisee is so superspirituall as that he beleeves that is considers no body He imagines such a Purification such an Angelification such a Deification in this life as though the heavenly Jerusalem were descended already or that God had given man but that one commandement Love God above all and not a second too Love thy neighbour as thy selfe Our Sadduces will have all body our Pharisees all soule and God hath made us of both and given us offices proper to each Now of both these Duplex Sadducaus the present Sadduce the carnall Atheist and the present Pharisee the Separatist that overvalues himself and bids us stand farther off there are two kinds For for the Atheist there is Davids Atheist and S. Pauls Atheist Davids that ascribes all to nature Psal 14.2 and sayes in his heart There is no God That will call no sudden death nor extraordinary punishment upon any enormous sinner a judgement of God nor any such deliverance of his servants a miracle from God but all is Nature or all is Accident and would have been so though there had been no God This is Natures Sadduce Davids Atheist And then S. Pauls Atheist is he who though he doe beleeve in God yet doth not beleeve God in
Christ Ephes 2.12 for so S. Paul sayes to the Ephesians Absque Christo absque Deo If ye be without Christ ye are without God For as it is the same absurdity in nature to say There is no Sun and to say This that you call the Sun is not the Sun this that shines out upon you this that produces your fruits and distinguishes your seasons is not the Sun so is it the same Atheisme in these dayes of light to say There is no God and to say This Christ whom you call the Son of God is not God That he in whom God hath manifested himselfe He whom God hath made Head of the Church and Judge of the world is not God This then is our double Sadduce Davids Atheist that beleeves not God S. Pauls Atheist that beleeves not Christ And as our Sadduce is so is our Pharisee twofold also There is a Pharisee Duplex Pharisaeus that by following private expositions separates himselfe from our Church principally for matter of Government and Discipline and imagines a Church that shall be defective in nothing and does not onely think himself to be of that Church but sometimes to be that Church for none but himselfe is of that perswasion And there is a Pharisee that dreames of such an union such an identification with God in this life as that he understands all things not by benefit of the senses and impressions in the fancy and imagination or by discourse and ratiocination as we poore soules doe but by immediate and continuall infusions and inspirations from God himselfe That he loves God not by participation of his successive Grace more and more as he receives more and more grace but by a communication of God himselfe to him intirely and irrevocably That he shall be without any need and above all use of Scriptures and that the Scriptures shall be no more to him then a Catechisme to our greatest Doctors That all that God commands him to doe in this world is but as an easie walk downe a hill That he can doe all that easily and as much more as shall make God beholden to him and bring God into his debt and that he may assigne any man to whom God shall pay the arrerages due to him that is appoint God upon-what man he shall confer the benefit of his works of Supererogation For in such Propositions as these and in such Paradoxes as these doe the Authors in the Roman Church delight to expresse and celebrate their Pharisaicall purity as we find it frequently abundantly in them In a word some of our home-Pharisees will say That there are some who by benefit of a certaine Election cannot sin That the Adulteries and Blasphemies of the Elect are not sins But the Rome-Pharisee will say that some of them are not onely without sin in themselves but that they can save others from sin or the punishment of sin by their works of Supererogation and that they are so united so identified with God already as that they are in possession of the beatificall Vision of God and see him essentially and as he is in this life for that Ignatius the father of the Jesuits did so Sandaeus Theolog pâr 1. fo 760. some of his Disciples say it is at least probable if not certaine And that they have done all that they had to doe for their owne salvation long agoe and stay in the world now onely to gather treasure for others and to worke out their salvation So that these men are in better state in this life then the Saints are in heaven There the Saints may pray for others but they cannot merit for others These men here can merit for other men and work out the salvation of others Nay they may be said in some respect to exceed Christ himselfe for Christ did save no man here but by dying for him These men save other men with living well for them and working out their salvation These are our double Sadduces our double Pharisees now beloved Dissentio if we would goe so far in S. Pauls way as to set this two-fold Sadduce Davids Atheist without God and S. Pauls Atheist without Christ against our twofold Pharisee our home-Catharist and our Rome-Catharist If we would spend all our wit and all our time all our Inke and our gall in shewing them the deformities and iniquities of one another by our preaching and writing against them The truth and the true Church might as S. Paul did in our Text scape the better But when we we that differ in no such points tear and wound and mangle one another with opprobrious contumelies and odious names of sub-division in Religion our Home-Pharisee and our Rome-Pharisee maligners of our Discipline and maligners of our Doctrine gaine upon ns and make their advantages of our contentions and both the Sadduces Davids Atheist that denies God and S. Pauls Atheist that denies Christ joyne in a scornfull asking us Where is now your God Are not we as well that deny him absolutely as you that professe him with wrangling But stop we the floodgates of this consideration it would melt us into teares Sadducaei Pharisaei interni End we all with this That we have all all these Sadduces and Pharisees in our owne bosomes Sadduces that deny spirits carnall apprehensions that are apt to say Is your God all Spirit and hath bodily eyes to see sin All Spirit and hath bodily hands to strike for a sinne Is your soule all spirit and hath a fleshly heart to feare All spirit and hath sensible sinews to feele a materiall fire Was your God who is all Spirit wounded when you quarrelled or did your soule which is all spirit drink when you were drunk Sins of presumption and carnall confidence are our Sadduces and then our Pharisees are our sins of separation of division of diffidence and distrust in the mercies of our God when we are apt to say after a sin Cares God who is all Spirit for my eloquent prayers or for my passionate teares Is the giving of my goods to the poore or of my body to the fire any thing to God who is all Spirit My spirit and nothing but my spirit my soule and nothing but my soule must satisfie the justice the anger of God and be separated from him for ever My Sadduce my Presumption suggests that there is no spirit no soule to suffer for sin and my Pharisee my Desperation suggests That my soule must perish irremediably irrecoverably for every sinne that my body commits Now if I go S. Pauls way to put a dissention between these my Sadduces and my Pharisees Via Pauli to put a jealousie between my presumption my desperation to make my presumption see that my desperation lies in wait for her and to consider seriously that my presumption will end in desperation I may as S. Paul did in the Text scape the better for that But if without farther
and is all the first part of Davids prayer and all his prayer which falls into our Text is but Deprecatory he does but pray that God would forbeare him He pretends no error he enterprises no Reversing of Judgement no at first he dares not sue for pardon he onely desires a Reprieve a respit of execution and that not absolutely neither but he would not be executed in hot blood Ne in ira ne in furore not in Gods anger not in his hot displeasure First then Deprecation Deprecari is not Refragari to Deprecate is not to Contend against a Judge nor to defend ones selfe against an Officer but it is onely in the quality and in the humility of a Petitioner and Suppliant to begge a forbearance The Martyrs in the Primitive Church would not doe that Nihil de causa sua deprecatur qui nihil de conditione sua miratur sayes Tertullian and in that he describes a patience of Steele and an invincible temper He meanes that the Christians in those times of Persecution did never intreat the Judge for favour because it was not strange to them to see themselves whose conversation was in heaven despised and contemned and condemned upon earth Nihil mirantur de conditione They wondred not at their misery they thought it a part of their Profession a part of the Christian Religion to suffer and therefore Nihil deprecati de causa They never solicited the Judge for favour They had learnt by experience of daily tribulation the Apostles Lesson Think it not strange when tentations and tribulations fall That is make that your daily bread and you shall never sterve use your selves to suffering at least to the expectation the contemplation of suffering acquaint your selves with that accustome your selves to that before it come and it will not be a stranger to you when it comes Tertullians Method may be right and it may work that effect in very great afflictions a man may be so used to them as that he will not descend to any low deprecation or sute to be delivered of them But Davids affliction was spirituall and howsoever as a naturall man nay as a devout and religious man for even in rectified men there are affections of a middle nature that participate of nature and of grace too and in which the Spirit of God moves and naturall affections move too for nature and grace doe not so destroy one another as that we should conclude Hee hath strong naturall affections therefore he hath no grace David I say that might justly wonder at his own condition and think it strange that he that put his trust so intirely in God should so intirely be delivered over to such afflictions might also justly deprecate and boldly say Ne facias O Lord deale not thus with thy servant Our Saviour Christs Transeat calix Let this cup passe from me was a deprecation in his owne behalfe And his Pater dimitte illis Father forgivethem they know not what they doe was a deprecation in the behalfe of his enemies And so was Stephens Ne statuas illis O Lord lay not this sin to their charge A deprecation in the behalfe of his Executioners And these Deprecations for others for our selves are proposed for our imitation But for Moses his Dele me Pardon this people or blot my name out of thy Booke and for S. Pauls Anathema rather then his brethren should not be saved let himselfe be condemned for such Deprecations for others as were upon the matter Imprecations upon themselves those may not well be drawne into consequence or practise for in Moses and S. Paul themselves there was if not an irregularity and an inordinatenesse at least an inconsideration not to be imitated by us now not to be excused in them then but for the Prayer that is meerly deprecatory though some have thought it lesse lawfull then the postulatory prayer because when God is come to the act of afflicting us he hath then revealed and declared and manifested his will to be such and against the revealed and manifested will of God we may not pray yet because his afflictions are not peremptory but we have ever day to shew cause why that affliction should be taken off and because all his judgements are conditionall and the condition of every particular judgement is not alwaies revealed to us and this is alwaies revealed to us Miserationes ejus super omnia opera ejus That his mercy is above all his judgements therefore we may come to that Deprecation that God will make his hand lighter upon us and his corrections easier unto us As the Saints in heaven have their Vsqucquo How long Lord holy and true before thou begin to execute judgement So the Saints on earth have their Vsquequo How long Lord before thou take off the execution of this judgement upon us For our Deprecatory prayers are not Mandatory they are not Directory they appoint not God his waies nor his times but as our Postulatory prayers are they also are submitted to the will of God and have all in them that ingredient that herb of grace which Christ put into his owne prayer that Veruntamen Yet not my will but thy will be fulfilled And they have that ingredient which Christ put into our prayer Fiat volunt as Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven In heaven there is no resisting of his will yet in heaven there is asoliciting a hastning an accelerating of the judgement and the glory of the Resurrection So though we resist not his corrections here upon earth we may humbly present to God the sense which we have of his displeasure for this sense and apprehension of his corrections is one of the principall reasons why he sends them he corrects us therefore that we might be sensible of his corrections that when we being humbled under his hand have said with his Prophet I will beare the wrath of the Lord Micah 7.9 because I have sinned against him He may be pleased to say to his Correcting Angell as he did to his Destroying Angell This is enough and so burne his rod now as he put up his sword then For though David doe well for himselfe and well for our example deprecate the anger of God exprest in those Judgements yet we see he spends but one verse of the Psalme in that Deprecation In all the rest he leaves God wholly to his pleasure how farre he will extend or aggravate that Judgement and he turns wholly upon the Postulatory part That God would have mercy upon him and save him and deliver his soule And in that one verse hee does not deprecate all afflictions all corrections David knowes what moves God to correct us It is not onely our ilnesse that moves him for he corrects us when we are not ill in his sight but made good by his pardon But his goodnesse as well as our ilnesse moves him to correct us If he were not good not only good
the five petitions of the Prayer and two of the five The Miserere Have mercy upon me and the Sana O Lord heale me are in these two verses And then the Reasons of the prayer arising partly out of himselfe and partly out of God and some being mixt and growing out of both roots together some of the Reasons of the first nature that is of those that arise out of himselfe are also in this Text. Therefore in this Text we shall consider first the extent of those two petitions that are in it Quid miserere what David intends by this prayer Have mercy upon me And then Quid sana me what he intends by that O Lord heale me And secondly we shall consider the strength of those Reasons which are in our text Quia infirmus why God should be moved to mercy with that Because David was weake And then Quia turbata ossa why Because his bones were vexed And againe Quia turbata anima valde Because his soule was sore vexed And in a third Consideration we shall also see that for all our petitions for mercy and for spirituall health and for all our Reasons weaknesse vexation of bones And sore vexation of the soule it selfe God doth not alwayes come to a speedy remedy but puts us to our Vsquequò But thou O Lord how long How long wilt thou delay And then lastly That how long soever that be yet we are still to attend his time still to rely upon him which is intimated in this That David changes not his Master but still applies himselfe to the Lord with that Name that he begun with in the first verse he proceeds and thrice in these few words he calls upon him by this name of Essence Iehova O Lord have mercy upon me O Lord heale me O Lord how long wilt thou delay He is not weary of attending the Lord he is not inclinable to turn upon any other then the Lord Have mercy upon me O Lord c. First then in our first part 1 Part. Quid misereri that part of Davids postulatory prayer in this Text Have mercy upon me This mercy that David begs here is not that mercy of God which is above all his works for those works which follow it are above it To heale him in this Text To returne to him To deliver his soule To save him in the next verses are greater works then this which he calls here in that generall name of Mercy For this word Chanan used in this place is not Dele iniquitates Have mercy upon me so as to blot out all mine iniquities It is not Dimitte debita Have mercy upon me so as to forgive all my sins but it is onely Des mihi gratiam Lord shed some drops of grace upon me or as Tremellius hath it Gratiosus sis mihi Be a gracious Lord unto me For this word is used where Noah is said to have found grace in the eyes of the Lord Gen. 6.8 which grace was that God had provided for his bodily preservation in the Arke And this word is used not onely of God towards men Psal 102.14 but also of men towards God when they expresse their zeale towards Gods house and the compassion and holy indignation which they had of the ruines thereof they expresse it in this word Thy servants delight in the stones of Sion miserti sunt pulveris ejus They had mercy they had compassion upon the dust and rubbish thereof So that here this Miserere mei which is the first grone of a sick soule the first glance of the soule directed towards God imports onely this Lord turne thy countenance towards me Lord bring me to a sense that thou art turned towards me Lord bring me within such a distance as my soule may feele warmth and comfort in the rising of that Sunne Miserere mei Look graciously upon me At the first meeting of Isaac and Rebecca Gen. 24.63 he was gone out to meditate in the fields and she came riding that way with his fathers man who was imployed in making that mariage and when upon asking she knew that it was he who was to be her husband she tooke a vaile and covered her face sayes that story What freedome and nearnesse soever they were to come to after yet there was a modesty and a bashfulnesse and a reservednesse required before and her first kindnesse should be but to be seen A man would be glad of a good countenance from her that shall be his before he asked her whether shee will be his or no A man would be glad of a good countenance from his Prince before he intend to presse him with any particular suit And a sinner may be come to this Miserere mei Domine to desire that the Lord would think upon him that the Lord would look graciously towards him that the Lord would refresh him with the beams of his favour before he have digested his devotion into a formall prayer or entred into a particular consideration what his necessities are Upon those words of the Apostle 1 Tim. 2.1 Bern. De 4. modis orandi I exhort you that supplications and prayers and Intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men S. Bernard makes certaine gradations and steps and ascensions of the soule in prayer and intimates thus much That by the grace of Gods Spirit inanimating and quickning him without which grace he can have no motion at all a sinner may come Ad supplicationes which is S. Pauls first step To supplications which are à suppliciis That out of a sense of some Judgement some punishment he may make his recourse to God And then by a farther growth in that grace he may come Adorationes which are Oris rationes The particular expressing of his necessities with his mouth and a faithfull assurance of obtaining them in his prayer And after he may come farther Ad Intercessiones to an Intercession to such an interest in Gods favour as that he durst put himselfe betwixt God and other men as Abraham in the behalfe of Sodome to intercede for them with a holy confidence that God would doe good to them for his sake And to a farther step then these which the Apostle may intend in that last Ad gratiarum actiones to a continuall Thanksgiving That by reason of Gods benefits multiplyed upon him he finde nothing to aske but his Thanksgivings and his acknowledgements for former blessings possesse and fill all his prayers Though he be growne up to this strength of devotion To Supplications to Prayers to Intercessions to Thanksgivings yet sayes S. Bernard at first when he comes first to deprehend himselfe in a particular sin or in a course of sin he comes Verecunde affectu Bashfully shamefastly tremblingly he knows not what to aske he dares ask no particular thing at Gods hand But though he be not come yet to particular requests for pardon of past sins nor for strength against future not
came to put a war upon us The zeale of his glory and the course of this world fight against one another It is not against all warre nay it is not against all victory that David prayes He cannot hope that he should be overcome by no Tentations but against such a war and such a victory as should bring him to servility and bondage to sinne That sin entring by Conquest upon him should governe as a tyran over him against such a sicknesse as should induce a consumption it is that he directs this prayer Sana me Domine Not Lord make me impeccable but Lord make me penitent and then heale me And he comes not to take physick upon wantonnesse but because the disease is violent because the accidents are vehement so vehement so violent as that it hath pierced Ad ossa and Ad animam My bones are vexed and my soule is sore troubled Therefore heale me which is the Reason upon which he grounds this second petition Heale me because my bones are vexed c. We must necessarily insist a little upon these termes Ossa The Bones The Soule The Trouble or Vexation First Ossa Bones We know in the naturall and ordinary acceptation what they are They are these Beames and Timbers and Rafters of these Tabernacles these Temples of the Holy Ghost these bodies of ours But Immanebimus nativae significationi sayes S. Basil Shall we dwell upon the native and naturall signification of these Bones Et intelligentia passim obvia contenti erimus Shall we who have our conversation in heaven finde no more in these Bones then an earthly a worldly a naturall man would doe By S. Basils example we may boldly proceed farther Membra etiam animae sunt Esay 42. sayes he The soule hath her limbs as well as the body Surdi audite caeci aspicite sayes God in Esay If their soules had not eares and eyes the blinde could not see the deafe could not heare and yet God cals upon the deafe and blinde to heare and see As S. Paul sayes to the Ephesians The eyes of your understanding being enlightned so David sayes Psal 3.7 Dentes peccatorum contrivisti Thou hast broken the teeth That is the pride and the power the venom and malignity of the wicked Membra etiam animae sunt The soule hath her Bones too and here Davids Bones were the strongest powers and faculties of his soule and the best actions and operations of those faculties and yet they were shaken For this hereditary sicknesse Originall sinne prevayles so far upon us that upon our good dayes we have some grudgings of that Fever Even in our best actions we have some of the leaven of that sinne So that if we goe about to comfort our selves with some dispositions to Gods glory which we finde in our selves with some sparks of love to his precepts and his commandements with some good strength of faith with some measure of good works yea with having something for the Name and glory of Christ Jesus yet if we consider what humane and corrupt affections have been mingled in all these Conturbabuntur ossa our Bones will be troubled even those that appeared to be strong works and likely to hold out will need a reparation an exclamation Sana me Domine O Lord heale these too or els these are as weake as the worst Ossa non dolent The Bones themselves have no sense they feele no paine We need not say That those good works themselves which we doe have in their nature the nature of sinne That every good worke considered alone and in the substance of the act it selfe is sinne But membranae dolent Those little membrans those filmes those thin skins that cover and that line some bones are very sensible of paine and of any vexation Though in the nature of the worke it selfe the worke be not sinne yet in those circumstances that invest and involve the worke in those things which we mingle with the worke whether desire of glory towards men or opinion of merit towards God Whensoever those bones those best actions come to the examination of a tender and a diligent Conscience Si ossa non dolent membranae dolent If the worke be not sinfull the circumstances are and howsoever they may be conceived to be strong as they are Ossa Bones works in a morall consideration good yet as they are Ossa mea sayes David as they are My bones such good works as taste of my ill corruptions so long they are vexed and troubled and cannot stand upright nor appeare with any confidence in the sight of God Thus far then first David needed this sanation this health that he prayes for Anima that his best actions were corrupt But the corruption went farther to the very roote and fountaine of those actions Ad ipsam animam His very soule was sore vexed It is true that as this word Anima the soule is sometimes taken in the Scriptures this may seeme to goe no farther then the former no more that his soule was vexed then that his bones were so for Anima in many places is but Animalis Homo The soule signifies but the naturall man And so opponitur spiritui The soule is not onely said to be a diverse thing but a contrary thing to the Spirit When the Apostle sayes to the Thessalonians 1 Thes ult 23. Now the very God of peace sanctifie you throughout that your whole spirit and soule and body may be kept blamelesse unto the comming of our Lord Iesus Christ And where the same Apostle sayes to the Hebrews The word of God divideth asunder the soule and the spirit Heb. 4.12 here is a difference put between corrupt nature and the working of the Spirit of God the Holy Ghost in man for here the soule is taken for Animalis home The naturall man and the Spirit is taken for the Spirit of God But besides this these two words Soule and Spirit are sometimes used by the Fathers in a sense diverse from one another and as different things and yet still as parts of one and the same man Man is said by them not onely to have a body and a soule but to have a soule and a spirit not as Spirit is the Spirit of God and so an extrinsecall thing but as Spirit is a constitutive part of the naturall man So in particular amongst many Gregory Nyssen takes the Body to be spoken De nutribili The flesh and bloud of man And the soule De sensibili The operation of the senses And the Spirit De Intellectuali The Intellectuall the reasonable faculties of man That in the body Man is conformed to Plants that have no sense In the soule to Beasts that have no reason In the spirit to Angels But so The Spirit is but the same thing with that which now we doe ordinarily account the soule to be for we make account that the Image of God is imprinted in the soule and that gives him his
conformity to Angels But divers others of the Ancients have taken Soule and Spirit for different things even in the Intellectuall part of man somewhat obscurely I confesse and as some venture to say unnecessarily if not dangerously It troubled S. Hierome sometimes Ad Hedibiam l. 12. Epist 150 how to understand the word Spirit in man but he takes the easiest way he dispatches himselfe of it as fast as he could that is to speake of it onely as it was used in the Scriptures Famosa quaestio sayes he sed brevi sermone tractanda It is a question often disputed but may be shortly determined Idem spiritus hic ac in iis verbis Nolite extinguere spiritum When we heare of the Spirit in a Man in Scriptures we must understand it of the gifts of the Spirit for so fully to the same purpose sayes S. Chrysostome Spiritus est charisma spiritus The Spirit is the working of the Spirit The gifts of the Spirit and so when we heare The Spirit was vexed The Spirit was quenched still it is to be understood The gifts of the Spirit And so as they restraine the signification of Spirit to those gifts onely though the word do indeed in many places require a larger extension so do many restraine this word in our text The Soule onely Ad sensum to the sensitive faculties of the soule that is onely to the paine and anguish that his body suffered But so far at least David had gone in that which he said before My bones are vexed Now Ingravescit morbus The disease festers beyond the bone even into the marrow it selfe His Bones were those best actions that he had produced and he saw in that Contemplation that for all that he had done he was still at best but an unprofitable servant if not a rebellious enemy But then when he considers his whole soule and all that ever it can do he sees all the rest will be no better The poyson he sees is in the fountaine the Canker in the roote the rancor the venom in the soule it selfe Corpus instrumentum anima ars ipsa sayes S. Basil The body and the senses are but the tooles and instruments that the soule works with But the soule is the art the science that directs those Instruments The faculties of the soule are the boughs that produce the fruits and the operations and particular acts of those faculties are the fruits but the soule is the roote of all And David sees that this art this science this soule can direct him or establish him in no good way That not onely the fruits his particular acts nor onely the boughs and armes his severall faculties but the roote it selfe the soule it selfe was infected His bones are shaken he dares not stand upon the good he hath done his soule is so too he cannot hope for any good he shall do He hath no merit for the past he hath no free-will for the future that is his case This troubles his bones Turbata this troubles his soule this vexes them both for the word is all one in both places as our last Translators have observed and rendred it aright not vexed in one place and troubled in the other as our former Translators had it But in both places it is Bahal and Bahal imports a vehemence both in the intensnesse of it and in the suddennesse and inevitablenesse of it And therefore it signifies often Praecipitantiam A headlong downfall and irrecoverablenesse And often Evanescentiam an utter vanishing away and annihilation David whom we alwayes consider in the Psalmes not onely to speake literally of those miseries which were actually upon himselfe but prophetically too of such measures and exaltations of those miseries as would certainly fall upon them as did not seeke their sanation their recovery from the God of all health looking into all his actions they are the fruits and into all his faculties they are the boughs and into the root of all the soule it selfe considering what he had done what he could do he sees that as yet he had done no good he sees he should never be able to doe any His bones are troubled He hath no comfort in that which is growne up and past And his soule is sore troubled for to the trouble of the soule there is added in the Text that particle Valde It is a sore trouble that falls upon the soule A troubled spirit who can beare because he hath no hope in the future He was no surer for that which was to come then for that which was past But he that is all considered in that case which he proposes he comes as the word signifies ad praecipitantiam That all his strength can scarce keepe him from precipitation into despaire And he comes as the word signifies too ad Evanescentiam to an evaporating and a vanishing of his soule that is even to a renouncing and a detestation of his immortality and to a willingnesse to a desire that he might die the death of other Creatures which perish altogether and goe out as a Candle This is the trouble the sore trouble of his soule who is brought to an apprehension of Gods indignation for not performing Conditions required at his hands and of his inability to performe them and is not come to the contemplation of his mercy in supply thereof There is Turbatio Timoris Mat. 2.3 Psal 107.27 A trouble out of feare of danger in this world Herods trouble When the Magi brought word of another King Herod was troubled and all Ierusalem with him There is Turbatio confusionis The Mariners trouble in a tempest Their soule melteth for trouble Luk. 10.41 Luk. 1.29 sayes David There is Turbatio occupationis Martha's trouble Martha thou art troubled about many things sayes Christ There is Turbatio admirationis The blessed Virgins trouble When she saw the Angel she was troubled at his saying To contract this John 11.33 There is Turbatio compassionis Christs own trouble When he saw Mary weepe for her brother Lazarus he groaned in the spirit and was troubled in himselfe But in all these troubles Herods feare The Mariners irresolution Martha's multiplicity of businesse The blessed Virgins sudden amazement Our Saviours compassionate sorrow as they are in us worldly troubles so the world administers some means to extemiate and alleviate these troubles for feares are overcome and stormes are appeased and businesses are ended and wonders are understood and sorrows weare out But in this trouble of the bones and the soule in so deepe and sensible impressions of the anger of God looking at once upon the pravity the obliquity the malignity of all that I have done of all that I shall doe Man hath but one step between that state and despaire to stop upon to turne to the Author of all temporall and all spirituall health the Lord of life with Davids prayer Psal 51.10 Cor mundum crea Create a cleane heart within me
appliablenesse of Gods mercy that yeelds almost to any forme of words any words seeme to fit it But then the comfort of Gods returning to us comes nearest us in the third signification of this word Shubah not so much in Gods returning to us nor in his anger returning from us Psal 80.3 as in our returning to him Turne us againe O Lord sayes David Et salvi erimus and we shall be saved There goes no more to salvation but such a Turning So that this Returning of the Lord is an Operative an Effectuall returning that turnes our hearts and eyes and hands and feet to the wayes of God and produces in us Repentance and Obedience For these be the two legges which our conversion to God stands upon Deut. 32.2 For so Moses uses this very word Returne unto the Lord and heare his voyce There is no returning without hearing nor hearing without beleeving nor beleeving to be beleeved Mat. 11.21 without doing Returning is all these Therefore where Christ saies That if those works had been done in Tyre and Sidon Tyre and Sidon would have repented in sackcloth and ashes In the Syriack Translation of S. Matthew we have this very word Shubah They would have Returned in sack-cloth and ashes So that the word which David receives from the Holy Ghost in this Text being onely Returned and no more applies it selfe to all three senses Returne thy selfe that is Bring backe thy Mercy Returne thy Wrath that is Call backe thy Judgements or Returne us to thee that is make thy meanes and offers of grace in thine Ordinance powerfull and effectuall upon us Now when the Lord comes to us by any way though he come in corrections in chastisements not to turne to him is an irreverent and unrespective negligence If a Pursevant if a Serjeant come to thee from the King in any Court of Justice though hee come to put thee in trouble to call thee to an account yet thou receivest him thou entertainest him thou paiest him fees If any Messenger of the Lord come to attach thee whether sicknesse in thy body by thine own disorder decay in thy estate by the oppression of others or terrour in thy Conscience by the preaching of his Ministers turne thou to the Lord in the last sense of the word and his mercy shall returne to thee and his anger shall returne from thee and thou shalt have fulnesse of Consolation in all the three significations of the word If a Worme be trodden upon it turnes againe We may thinke that is done in anger and to revenge But we know not The Worme hath no sting and it may seeme as well to embrace and licke his foote that treads upon him When God treads upon thee in any calamity spirituall or temporall if thou turne with murmuring this is the turning of a Serpent to sting God to blaspheme him This is a turning upon him not a turning to him But if thou turne like a Worme then thou turnest humbly to kisse the rod to licke and embrace his foot that treads upon thee that is to love his Ministers which denounce his judgements upon thy sinnes yea to love them from whom thou receivest defamation in thy credit or detriment in thy state We see how it was imputed to Asa when God trod upon him that is 2 Chro. 16.12 diseased him in his feete and exalted his disease into extremity Yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord but to the Physitians He turned a by-way at least though a right way too soone to the Physitian before the Lord. This is that that exasperated God so vehemently Esay 9.13 Because the people turneth not to him that smiteth them neither do they seeke the Lord of Hosts when the Lord of Hosts lies with a heavy Army upon them Therefore sayes the Prophet there The Lord will cut off from Israel head and tayle branch and rush in one day God is not so vehement when they neglected him in their prosperity as when though he afflicted them yet they turned not to him Measure God by earthly Princes for we may measure the world by a Barly corne If the King come to thy house thou wilt professe to take it for an honour and thou wilt entertaine him and yet his comming cannot be without removes and troubles and charges to thee So when God comes to thee in his word or in his actions in a Sermon or in a sicknesse though his comming dislodge thee remove thee put thee to some inconvenience in leaving thy bed of sinne where thou didst sleepe securely before yet here is the progresse of the Holy Ghost intended to thy soule that first he comes thus to thee and then if thou turne to him he returnes to thee and settles himselfe and dwels in thee This is too lovely a Prospect to depart so soone from therefore looke we by S. Augustines glasse upon Gods comming and returning to man God hath imprinted his Image in our soules and God comes sayes that Father Vt videat imaginem Where I have given my Picture I would see how it is respected God comes to see in what case his Image is in us If we shut doores if we draw Curtaines between him and his Image that is cover our soules and disguise and palliate our sinnes he goes away and returnes in none of those former senses But if we lay them open by our free confessions he returnes againe that so in how ill case soever he finde his Image he may wash it over with our teares and renew it with his own bloud and Vt resculpat imaginem that he may refresh and re-engrave his Image in us againe and put it in a richer and safer Tablet And as the Angel which came to Abraham at the promise and conception of Isaac Gen. 18.10 gave Abraham a farther assurance of his Returne at Isaaes birth I will certainly returne unto thee and thy wife shall have a Sonne So the Lord which was with thee in the first conception of any good purpose Returnes to thee againe to give thee a quickning of that blessed childe of his and againe and againe to bring it forth and to bring it up to accomplish and perfect those good intentions which his Spirit by over-shadowing thy soule hath formerly begotten in it So then he comes in Nature and he returnes in Grace He comes in preventing and returnes in subsequent graces He comes in thine understanding and returnes in thy will He comes in rectifying thine actions and returns in establishing habits He comes to thee in zeale and returnes in discretion He comes to thee in fervour and returnes in perseverance He comes to thee in thy peregrination all the way and he returns in thy transmigration at thy last gaspe So God comes and so God returnes Yet I am loath to depart my selfe loath to dismisse you from this ayre of Paradise of Gods comming and returning to us Therefore we consider againe that as God
colour of that exclude necessary things Howsoever you have delivered your selves to the mercy of God and he hath delivered a seale of his mercy to you inwardly in his Spirit outwardly in his Sacrament yet there are Amarae sagittae ex dulci manu Dei Nazian as Nazianzen calls afflictions after repentance Sharp arrowes out of the sweet hand of God Corrections by which God intends to establish us in that spirituall health to which our repentance by his grace hath brought us Remember still that this which David did for the present and that which he promised be would doe for the future both together made up the reason of his prayer to God by which he desired God in the former verses to returne to him to deliver his soule and to save him He had had no reason no ground of his prayer though he had done something already if he had not proposed to himselfe something more to be done There is a preparation before and there is a preservation after required at our hands if wee studie a perfect recovery and cure of our soules Gregor And as S. Gregory notes well there is a great deale of force in Davids Possessive in his word of appropriation Meus lectus meus and Oculus meus It is his bed that he washed and they are his eyes that washed it He bore the affliction himselfe and trusted not to that which others had suffered by way of Supererogation Sometimes when the children of great persons offend at Schoole another person is whipped for them and that affects them and works upon a good nature but if that person should take Physick for them in a sicknesse it would doe them no good Gods corrections upon others may worke by way of example upon thee but because thou art sick for physicke take it thy selfe Trust not to the treasure of the Church neither the imaginary treasure of the Church of Rome which pretends an inexhaustible mine of the works of other men to distribute and bestow No nor to the true treasure of the true Church that is Absolution upon Confession and Repentance No trust not to the merits of Christ himselfe in their application to thee without a Lectus tuus and an Oculus tuus except thou remember thy sins in thy bed and poure out thy teares from thine eyes and fulfill the sufferings of Christ in thy selfe Nothing can be added to Christs merits that is true but something must be added to thee a disposition in thee for the application of that which is his Not that thou canst begin this disposition in thy selfe till God offer it but that thou maist resist it now it is offered and reject it againe after it is received Trust not in others not in the Church nor in Christ himselfe so as to doe nothing for thy selfe Nor trust not in that which thou doest for thy selfe so as at any time to thinke thou hast done enough and needest do no more But when thou hast past the signet that thou hast found the signature of Gods hand and seale in a manifestation that the marks of his Grace are upon thee when thou hast past his privy Seale That his Spirit beares witnesse with thy spirit that thy repentance hath beene accepted by him When thou hast past the great Seale in the holy and blessed Sacrament publiquely administred doe not suspect the goodnesse of God as though all were not done that were necessary for thy salvation if thou wert to have thy transmigration out of this world this houre but yet as long as thou continuest in the vale of tentations continue in the vale of teares too and though thou have the seale of Reconciliation plead that seale to the Church which is Gods Tribunall and judgement seat upon earth in a holy life and works of example to others and looke daylie looke hourely upon the Ita quod of that pardon upon the Covenants and Conditions with which it is given That if by neglecting those medicinall helps those auxiliary forces those subsidies of the kingdome of Heaven those after-afflictions chuse whether you will call them by the name of Penance or no you relapse into former sins your present repentance and your present seale of that Repentance the Sacrament shall rise up against you at the last day and to that sentence you did not feed you did not cloathe you did not harbour me in the poore shall this be added as the aggravation of all you did Repent and you did receive the Seale but you did not pursue that repentance nor performe the conditions required at your hands But we are here met by Gods gracious goodnesse in a better disposition with a sincere repentance of all our former sinnes and with a deliberate purpose as those Israelites made their powring out of water a testimony of dissolving themselves into holy teares to make this fast from bodily sustenance an inchoation of a spirituall fast in abstinence from all that may exasperate our God against us That so though not for that yet thereby our prayers may be the more acceptable to our glorious God in our gracious Saviour To him that sits upon the throne and to the Lambe first that as he is the King of Kings he will establish and prosper that Crowne which he hath set upon the head of his Anointed over us here and hereafter Crowne that Crowne with another Crowne a better Crowne a Crowne of immarcescible glory in the Kingdome of Heaven and in the meane time make him his Bulwarke and his Rampart against all those powers which seeke to multiply Miters or Crownes to the disquiet and prejudice of Christendome And then That as he is the Lord of Lords he will inspire them to whom he hath given Lordship over others in this world with a due consideration that they also have a Lord over them even in this world and that he and they and we have one Lord over us all in the other world That as he is the Bishop and high Priest over our Souls he vouchsafe to continue in our Bishops a holy will and a competent power to super-intend faithfully over his Church that they for their parts when they depart from hence may deliver it back into his hands in the same forme and frame in which his blessed Spirit delivered it into their hands in their predecessors in the Primitive institution thereof That as he is the Angel of the great Counsayle he vouchsafe to direct the great Counsayle of this Kingdome to consider still that as he works in this world by meanes So it concernes his glory that they expedite the supply of such meanes as may doe his worke and may carry home the testimony of good Consciences now and in their posterity have the thanks of posterity for their behaviour in this Parliament That as he is the God of peace he will restore peace to Christendome That as he is the Lord of Hosts he will fight our battayls who have no other end
the principall arguments against Confessions by Letter which some went about to set up in the Romane Church that that took away one of the greatest evidences and testimonies of their repentance which is this Erubescence this blushing this shame after sin if they should not be put to speak it face to face but to write it that would remove the shame which is a part of the repentance But that soule that goes not to confession to it selfe that hath not an internall blushing after a sin committed is a pale soule even in the palenesse of death and senslesnesse and a red soule red in the defiance of God And that whitenesse to avoid approaches to sin and that rednesse to blush upon a sin which does attempt us is the complexion of the soule which God loves and which the Holy Ghost testifies when he sayes Cant. 5.12 My Beloved is white and ruddy And when these men that David speaks of here had lost that whitenesse their innocency for David to wish that they might come to a rednesse a shame a blushing a remorse a sense of sin may have been no such great malediction or imprecation in the mouth of David but that a man may wish it to his best friend which should be his own soule and say Erubescam not let mine enemies but let me be ashamed with such a shame In the second word Conturbentur Let them be sore vexed he wishes his enemies no worse then himselfe had been For he had used the same word of himselfe before Ossa turbata My bones are vexed Ver. 2. 3. and Anima turbata My soule is vexed and considering that David had found this vexation to be his way to God it was no malicious imprecation to wish that enemy the same Physick that he had taken who was more sick of the same disease then he was For this is like a troubled Sea after a tempest the danger is past but yet the billow is great still The danger was in the calme in the security or in the tempest by mis-interpreting Gods corrections to our obduration and to a remorselesse stupefaction but when a man is come to this holy vexation to be troubled to be shaken with a sense of the indignation of God the storme is past and the indignation of God is blowne over That soule is in a faire and neare way of being restored to a calmnesse and to reposed security of conscience that is come to this holy vexation In a flat Map there goes no more to make West East though they be distant in an extremity but to paste that flat Map upon a round body and then West and East are all one In a flat soule in a dejected conscience in a troubled spirit there goes no more to the making of that trouble peace then to apply that trouble to the body of the Merits to the body of the Gospel of Christ Jesus and conforme thee to him and thy West is East Zoch 6.12 thy Trouble of spirit is Tranquillity of spirit The name of Christ is Oriens The East Esay 14.12 And yet Lucifer himselfe is called Filius Orientis The Son of the East If thou beest fallen by Lucifer fallen to Lucifer and not fallen as Lucifer to a senslesnesse of thy fall and an impenitiblenesse therein but to a troubled spirit still thy Prospect is the East still thy Climate is heaven still thy Haven is Jerusalem for in our lowest dejection of all even in the dust of the grave we are so composed so layed down as that we look to the East If I could beleeve that Trajan or Tecla could look East-ward that is towards Christ in hell I could beleeve with them of Rome that Trajan and Tecla were redeemed by prayer out of hell God had accepted sacrifices before but no sacrifice is call Odor quiet is Gen. 8.21 It is not said That God smelt a savor of rest in any sacrifice but that which Noah offered after hee had beene variously tossed and tumbled in the long hulling of the Arke upon the waters A troublesome spirit and a quiet spirit are farre asunder But a troubled spirit and a quiet spirit are neare neighbours And therefore David meanes them no great harme when hee sayes Let them be troubled For Let the winde be as high as it will so I sayle before the winde Let the trouble of my soule be as great as it will so it direct me upon God and I have calme enough And this peace Convertantur this calme is implyed in the next word Convertantur which is not Let them be overthrowne but Let them returne let them be forced to returne he prayes that God would do something to crosse their purposes because as they are against God so they are against their owne soules In that way where they are he sees there is no remedy and therefore he desires that they might be Turned into another way What is that way This. Turne us O Lord and we shall be turned That is turned the right way Towards God And as there was a promise from God to heare his people not onely when they came to him in the Temple but when they turned towards that Temple in what distance soever they were so it is alwaies accompanied with a blessing occasionally to turne towards God But this prayer Turne us that we may be turned is that we may be that is remaine turned that we may continue fixed in that posture Lots Wife turned her selfe and remained an everlasting monument of Gods anger God so turne us alwaies into right wayes as that we be not able to turne our selves out of them For God hath Viam rectam bonam as himselfe speakes in the Prophet A right way and then a good way which yet is not the right way that is not the way which God of himselfe would go For his right way is that we should still keepe in his way His good way is to beat us into his right way againe by his medicinall corrections when we put our selves out of his right way And that and that onely David wishes and we wish That you may Turne and Be turned stand in that holy posture all the yeare all the yeares of your lives That your Christmas may be as holy as your Easter even your Recreations as innocent as your Devotions and every roome in the house as free free from prophanenesse as the Sanctuary And this he ends as he begun with another Erubescant Let them be ashamed and that Valde volociter Suddenly for David saw that if a sinner came not to a shame of sin quickly he would quickly come to a shamelesnesse to an impudence to a searednesse to an obduration in it Now beloved this is the worst curse that comes out of a holy mans mouth even towards his enemie that God would correct him to his amendment And this is the worst harme that we meane to you when we denounce the judgements of
thereof does not wholly extinguish Grace nor grieve the Spirit of God in us And such sinnes God covers saies David here Now what is his way of covering these sins As Sin in this notion is not so deepe a wound upon God as Transgression in the other Covering so Covering here extends not so far as Forgiving did there There forgiving was a taking away of sin by taking that way That Christ should beare all our sins it was a suffering a dying it was a penall part and a part of Gods justice executed upon his one and onely Son here it is a part of Gods mercy in spreading and applying the merits and satisfaction of Christ upon all them whom God by the Holy Ghost hath gathered in the profession of Christ and so called to the apprehending and embracing of this mantle this garment this covering the righteousnesse of Christ in the Christian Christ In which Church and by his visible Ordinances therein the Word and Sacraments God covers hides conceales even from the inquisition of his owne justice those smaller sins which his servants commit and does not turne them out of his service for those sins So the word the word is Casah which we translate Covering is used Prov. 12.23 A wise man concealeth knowledge that is Does not pretend to know so much as indeed he does So our mercifull God when he sees us under this mantle this covering Christ spread upon his Church conceales his knowledge of our sins and suffers them not to reflect upon our consciences in a consternation thereof So then as the Forgiving was Auferre ferendo a taking away of sin by taking all sin upon his owne person So this Covering is Tegere attingendo To cover sin by comming to it by applying himselfe to our sinfull consciences in the meanes instituted by him in his Church for they have in that language another word Sacac which signifies Tegere obumbrando To cover by overshadowing by refreshing This is Tegere obumbrando To cover by shadowing when I defend mine eye from the offence of the Sun by interposing my hand betweene the Sun and mine eye at this distance a far off But Tegere attingendo is when thus I lay my hand upon mine eye and cover it close by that touching In the knowledge that Christ hath taken all the sins of all the world upon himselfe that there is enough done for the salvation of all mankinde I have a shadowing a refreshing But because I can have no testimony that this generall redemption belongs to me who am still a sinner except there passe some act betweene God and me some seale some investiture some acquittance of my debts my sins therefore this second beame of Davids Blessednesse in this his Catechisme shines upon me in this That God hath not onely sowed and planted herbs and Simples in the world medicinall for all diseases of the world but God hath gathered and prepared those Simples and presented them so prepared to me for my recovery from my disease God hath not onely received a full satisfaction for all sinne in Christ but Christ in his Ordinances in his Church offers me an application of all that for my selfe and covers my sin from the eye of his Father not onely obumbrando as hee hath spread himselfe as a Cloud refreshing the whole World in the value of the satisfaction but Attingendo by comming to me by spreading himself upon me as the Prophet did upon the dead Child Mouth to mouth Hand to hand In the mouth of his Minister he speaks to me In the hand of the Minister he delivers himselfe to me and so by these visible acts and seales of my Reconciliation Tegit attingendo He covers me by touching me He touches my conscience with a sense and remorse of my sins in his Word and he touches my soule with a faith of having received him and all the benefit of his Death in the Sacrament And so he covers sin that is keepes our sins of infirmity and all such sins as do not in their nature quench the light of his grace from comming into his Fathers presence or calling for vengeance there Forgiving of transgressions is the generall satisfaction for all the world and restoring the world to a possibility of salvation in the Death of Christ Covering of sin is the benefit of discharging and easing the conscience by those blessed helps which God hath afforded to those whom he hath gathered in the bosome and quickned in the wombe of the Christian Church And this is the second beame of Blessedness cast out by David here and then the third is The not imputing of iniquity Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity In this also Impute as in the two former we did we consider this Imputing and then this Iniquity in the roote and Original signification of the two words When in this place the Lord is said not to impute sinne it is meant That the Lord shall not suffer me to impute sinne to my selfe The word is Cashab and Cashab imports such a thinking such a surmising as may be subject to error and mistaking To that purpose we finde the word where Hannah was praying 1 Sam. 1.12 and Eli the Priest who saw her lips move and heard no prayer come from her thought she had been drunke Imputed drunkennesse unto her and said How long wilt thou be drunke put away thy wine So that this Imputing is such an Imputing of ours as may be erronious that is an Imputing from our selves in a diffidence and jealousie and suspition of Gods goodnesse towards us To which purpose we consider also that this word which we translate here Iniquity Gnavah is oftentimes in the Scripture used for punishment as well as for sinne and so indifferently for both as that if we will compare Translation with Translation and Exposition with Exposition it will be hard for us to say Gen. 4.13 whether Cain said Mine iniquity is greater then can be pardoned or My punishment is greater then I can beare and our last Translation which seems to have been most carefull of the Originall takes it rather so My punishment in the Text and lays the other My sinne aside in the Margin So then this Imputing being an Imputing which arises from our selves and so may be accompanied with error and mistaking that we Impute that to our selves which God doth not impute And this mis-imputing of Gods anger to our selves arising out of his punishments and his corrections inflicted upon us That because we have crosses in the world we cannot beleeve that we stand well in the sight of God or that the forgiving of Transgressions or Covering of sinnes appertains unto us we justly conceive that this not Imputing of Iniquity is that Serenitas Conscientiae That brightnesse that clearnesse that peace and tranquillity that calme and serenity that acquiescence and security of the Conscience in which I am delivered from all scruples and
there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in his spirit As then the Prophet Davids principall purpose in this Text is according to the Interpretation of S. Paul to derive all the Blessednesse of man from God so is it also to put some conditions in man comprehended in this That there be no guile in his spirit For in this repentant sinner that shall be partaker of these degrees of Blessednesse of this Forgiving of this Covering of this Not Imputing there is required Integrapoenitentia A perfect and intire repentance And to the making up of that howsoever the words and termes may have been mis-used and defamed we acknowledge that there belongs a Contrition a Confession and a Satisfaction And all these howsoever our Adversaries slander us with a Doctrine of ease and a Religion of liberty we require with more exactnesse and severity then they doe For for Contrition we doe not we dare not say as some of them That Attrition is sufficient that it is sufficient to have such a sorrow for sin as a naturall sense and fear of torment doth imprint in us without any motion of the feare of God We know no measure of sorrow great enough for the violating of the infinite Majesty of God by our transgression And then for Confession we deny not a necessity to confesse to man There may be many cases of scruple of perplexity where it were an exposing our selves to farther occasions of sin not to confesse to man And in Confession we require a particular detestation of that sin which we confesse which they require not And lastly for Satisfaction we imbrace that Rule Condigna satisfactio malè facta corrigere Our best Satisfaction is to be better in the amendment of our lives And dispositions to particular sins we correct in our bodies by Discipline and Mortifications And we teach that no man hath done truly that part of Repentance which he is bound to doe if he have not given Satisfaction that is Restitution to every person damnified by him If that which we teach for this intirenesse of Repentance be practised in Contrition and Confession and Satisfaction they cannot calumniate our Doctrine nor our practise herein And if it be not practised there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in their spirit that pretend to any part of this Blessednesse Forgiving or Covering or Not imputing without this For he that is sorry for sin onely in Contemplation of hell and not of the joyes of heaven that would not give over his sin though there were no hell rather then he would lose heaven which is that which some of them call Attrition He that confesses his sin but hath no purpose to leave it He that does leave the sin but being growne rich by that sin retaines and enjoyes those riches this man is not intire in his Repentanne but there is guile in his spirit He that is slothfull in his work Prov. 18.9 is brother to him that is a great waster He that makes half-repentances makes none Men run out of their estates as well by a negligence and a not taking account of their Officers as by their own prodigality Our salvation is as much indangered if we call not our conscience to an examination as if we repent not those sins which offer themselves to our knowledge and memory And therefore David places the consummation of his victory in that Psal 18.37 I have pursued mine enemies and overtaken them neither did I turne againe till they were consumed We require a pursuing of the enemy a search for the sin and not to stay till an Officer that is a sicknesse or any other calamity light upon that sin and so bring it before us We require an overtaking of the enemy That we be not weary in the search of our consciences And we require a consuming of the enemy not a weakning only a dislodging a dispossessing of the sin and the profit of the sin All the profit and all the pleasure of all the body of sin for he that is sorry with a godly sorrow he that confesses with a deliberate detestation he that satisfies with a full restitution for all his sins but one Dolus in spiritu There is guile in his spirit he is in no better case Bernaâ then if at Sea he should stop all leaks but one and perish by that Si vis solvi solve omnes catenas If thou wilt be discharged cancel all thy Bonds one chain till that be broke holds as fast as ten And therfore suffer your consideration to turn back a little upon this object that there may be Dolus in spiritu Guile in the spirit in our pretence to all those parts of Blessednesse which David recommends to us in this Catechisme In the Forgivenesse of transgrestions In the Covering of sin In the Not imputing of iniquity First then Forgiving in this Forgiving of transgressions which is our Saviour Christs taking away the sins of the world by taking them in the punishment due to them upon himselfe there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in that mans spirit that will so farre abridge the great Volumes of the mercy of God so farre contract his generall propositions as to restrain this salvation not only in the effect but in Gods own purpose to a few a very few soules When Subjects complaine of any Prince that he is too mercifull there is Dolus in spiritu Guile and deceit in this complaint They doe but think him too mercifull to other mens faults for where they need his mercy for their own they never think him too mercifull And which of us doe not need God for all sins If we did not in our selves yet it were a new sin in us not to desire that God should be as mercifull to every other sinner as to our selves As in heaven the joy of every soule shall be my joy so the mercy of God to every soule here is a mercy to my soule By the extension of his mercies to others I argue the application of his mercy to my selfe This contracting and abridging of the mercy of God will end in despaire of our selves that that mercy reaches not to us or if we become confident perchance presumptuous of our selves we shall despaire in the behalfe of other men and think they can receive no mercy And when men come to allow an impossibility of salvation in any they will come to assigne that impossibility nay to assigne those men and pronounce for this and this sin This man cannot be saved There is a sin against the Holy Ghost and to make us afraid of all approaches towards that sin Christ hath told us that that sin is irremissible unpardonable But since that sin includes impenitiblenesse in the way and actuall impenitence in the end we can never pronounce This is that sin or This is that sinner God is his Father that can say Our Father which art in heaven And his God that can say I beleeve in God And
sin no lesser covering serves then God in his Church It was the prayer against them Nehem. 4.5 August who hindered the building of the Temple Cover not their iniquity neither let their sin be put out in thy presence Our prayer is Peccata nostra non videat ut nos videat Lord looke not upon our sins that thou maist looke upon us And since amongst our selves 1 Pet. 4.8 Prov. 10.12 it is the effect of Love to cover Multitudinem peccatorum The multitude of sins yea to cover Vniversa delicta Lovè covereth all sins much more shall God who is Love it selfe cover our sins so as he covered the Egyptians in a red Sea in the application of his blood by visible meanes in his Church That therefore thou mayest be capable of this covering Psal 37.6 Commit thy wayes unto the Lord that is show unto him by way of confession what wrong wayes thou hast gone and inquire of him by prayer what wayes thou art to go and as it is in the same Psalme He shall bring forth thy righteousnesse as the light and thy judgement as the noone day And so there shall be no guile found in thy spirit which might hinder this covering of thy sin which is the application of Christs merits in the Ordinances of his Church nor the Not imputing of thine iniquity which is our last consideration and the conclusion of all This not imputing Imputing is that serenity and acquiescence which a rectified conscience enjoyes when the Spirit of God beares witnesse with my spirit that thus reconciled to my God I am now guilty of nothing S. Bernard defines the Conscience thus Inseparabilis gloria vel confusio uniuscujusque pro qualitate depositi It is that inseparable glory or that inseparable confusion which every soule hath according to that which is deposited and laid up in it Now what is deposited and laid up in it Naturally hereditarily patrimonially Con-reatus sayes that Father from our first Parents a fellow-guiltinesse of their sin and they have left us sons and heires of the wrath and indignation of God and that is the treasure they have laid up for us Against this God hath provided Baptisme and Baptisme washes away that sin for as we doe nothing to our selves in Baptisme but are therein meerely passive so neither did we any thing our selves in Originall sin but therein are meerely passive too and so the remedy Baptisme is proportioned to the disease Originall sin But originall sin being thus washed away we make a new stocke we take in a new depositum a new treasure Actuall and habituall sins and therein much being done by our selves against God into the remedy there must enter something to be done by our selves and something by God And therefore we bring water to his wine true teares of repentance to his true blood in the Sacrament and so receive the seales of our reconciliation and having done that we may boldly say unto God Doe not condemne me Iob 10.2 shew me wherefore thou contendest with me When we have said as he doth I have sinned Iob 7.20 what shall I doe to thee And have done that that he hath ordained we may say also as he doth O thou preserver of men why dost thou not pardon my transgression and take away mine iniquity Why doest thou suffer me to faint and pant under this sad apprehension that all is not yet well betweene my soule and thee We are far from encouraging any man to antidate his pardon to presume his pardon to be passed before it is But when it is truly passed the seales of Reconciliation there is Dolus in spiritu Guile and deceit in that spirit nay it is the spirit of falshood and deceit it selfe that will not suffer us to injoy that pardon which God hath sealed to us but still maintaine jealousies and suspition between God and us My heart is not opener to God then the bowels of his mercy are to me And to accuse my selfe of sin after God hath pardoned me were as great a contempt of God as to presume of that pardon before he had granted it and so much a greater as it is directed against his greatest attribute his Mercy Si apud Deum deponas injuriam Tertul. ipse ultor erit Lay all the injuries that thou sufferest at Gods feet and hee will revenge them Si damnum ipse restituet Lay all thy losses there and he will repaire them Si dolorem ipse medicus Lay downe all thy diseases there and he shall heale thee Si mortem ipse resuscitator Dye in his armes and he shall breath a new life into thee Add wee to Tertullian Si peccata ipse sepeliet lay thy sins in his wounds and he shall bury them so deepe that onely they shall never have resurrection The Sun shall set and have a to morrows resurrection Herbs shall have a winter death and a springs resurrection Thy body shall have a long winters night and then a resurrection Onely thy sins buried in the wounds of thy Saviour shall never have resurrection And therefore take heed of that deceit in the spirit of that spirit of deceit that makes thee impute sins to thy selfe when God imputes them not But rejoyce in Gods generall forgiving of Transgressions That Christ hath dyed for all multiply thy joy in the covering of thy sin That Christ hath instituted a Church in which that generall pardon is made thine in particular And exalt thy joy in the not imputing of iniquity in that serenity that tranquillity that God shall receive thee at thy last houre in thy last Bath the sweat of death as lovingly as acceptably as innocently as he received thee from thy first Bath the laver of Regeneration the font in Baptisme Amen SERM. LVII Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 32.3 4. When I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me my moysture is turned into the drought of Summer Selah ALL wayes of teaching are Rule and Example And though ordinarily the Rule be first placed yet the Rule it selfe is made of Examples And when a Rule would be of hard digestion to weake understandinge Example concocts it and makes it easie for Example in matter of Doctrine is as Assimilation in matter of Nourishment The Example makes that that is proposed for our learning and farther instruction like something which we knew before as Assimilation makes that meat which we have received and digested like those parts which are in our bodies before David was the sweet singer of Israel shall we say Gods Precentor His sonne Solomon was the powerfull Preacher of Israel shall we say Gods Chaplain Both of them excellent abundantly super-abundantly excellent in both those wayes of Teaching Poet and Preacher proceed in these wayes in both Rule and Example the body and soule of Instruction So this Psalme is qualified in the Title
but Himselfe so as if they be lost he is lost How long will a Medall a piece of Coine lie in the water before the stampe be washed off and yet how soone is the Image of God of his patience his longanimity defaced in us by every billow every affliction But for the Saints of God it shall not be so Surely it shall not They shall stand against the waters Psal 11 43. And the Sea shall see it and fly and Iordan shall be turned backe And the world shall say What ayled thee O Sea that thou fleddest O Iordan that thou turnedst back For they that know not the power of the Almighty though they envy yet shall wonder and stand amazed at the deliverance of the righteous Sto pulso sayes God of himselfe I stand at the doore and knocke Rev. 3.22 God will not breake open doores to give thee a blessing as well as he loves thee and as well as he loves it but will have thee open to him much more will he keepe Tentations at the doore They shall not breake in upon thee except thou open This then was that which David elsewhere apprehended with feare The sorrowes of the grave compassed me about Psal 1â 5. and the snares of death overtooke mee Here they were neare him but no worse Psal 69 15. This is that that hee prayes deliverance from Let not the water flood drowne mee neither let the deepe swallow me up And this is that God assures us all that are his Isây 43.2 When thou passest through the waters I will bee with thee and through the floods that they doe not overflow thee Maintaine therefore a holy patience in all Gods visitations Accept your waters though they come in teares for hee that sends them Christ Jesus had his flood his inundation in Blood and whatsoever thou sufferest from him thou sufferest for him and glorifiest him in that constancy Upon those words Tres sunt There are three that beare witnesse That Spirit and water and blood Bernard S. Bernard taking water there by way of allusion for affliction saith Though the Spirit were witnesse enough without water or blood yet Vix aut nunquam inveniri arbitror Spiritum sine aqua sanguine we lack one of the seales of the Spirit if we lack Gods corrections We consider three waters in our blessed Saviour He wept over Jerusalem Doe thou so over thy finfull soule He sweat in the garden Doe thou so too in eating thy bread in the sweat of thy browes in labouring fincerely in thy Calling And then hee sent water and blood out of his side Argust being dead which was fons utriusque Sacramenti the spring head of both Sacraments Doe thou also refresh in thy soule the dignity which thou receivedst in the first Sacrament of Baptisme and thereby come worthily to the participation of the second and therein the holy Ghost shall give thee the seale of that security which he tenders to thee in this Text Non approximabunt How great water floods soever come they shall not come nigh thee not nigh that which is Thou that is thy faith thy soule and though it may swallow that by which thou art a man thy life it shall not shake that by which thou art a Christian thy Religion Amen SERM. LX. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 32.7 Thou art my hiding place Thou shalt preserve mee from trouble Thou shalt compasse me about with songs of deliverance AS Rhetorique is said to bee a fist extended and displayed into an open Hand And Logique a Hand recollected and contracted into a fist So the Church of God may be said to be a soule dilated and diffused into many Congregations and a soule may be said to be the Church contracted and condensed into one bosome So not onely the Canticle of Solomon is taken indifferently by the ancient and later Expositors by some for an Epithalamion and marriage Song betweene Christ and his Church by others for the celebration of the same union between every Christian soule and him but also many other places of Scripture have received such an indifferent interpretation and are left in suspence whether they be to be understood of the Church in generall or of particular soules And of this nature and number is this Text Thou art my hiding place c. For S. Hierom takes these words and the whole Psalme to be spoken collectively others distributively He in the person of the Church Hieron They of every or at least of some particular soules To examine their reasons is unnecessary and would bee tedious It will aske lesse time and afford more profit to consider the words both wayes In them therefore considered twice over wee shall see a threefold state of the Christian Church and a threefold mercy exhibited by God to every Christian soule First we shall see the Church under the clouds in her low estate in her obscurity in her inglorious state of contempt and persecution and yet then supported by an assurance that God overshadowed her Tu absconsio Tu latibulum Thou art my hiding place And in that first part wee shall consider the state of a timorous soule a soule that for feare of tentations dares scarce looke into the world or embrace a profession Secondly we shall see the Church emancipated enfranchised unfettered unmanacled delivered from her obscure and inglorious state and brought to splendor and beauty and peace blessing God in that acknowledgement Thou shalt preserveme from trouble And in that part wee shall consider the state of that soule exalted to a holy confidence and assurance that though she come into the world and partake of the dangers thereof in opening herselfe to such tentations as do necessarily and inseparably accompany every calling yet the Lord will preserve her from trouble And thirdly and lastly we shall see a kinde of Triumphant state in the Church in this world a holy exultation God shall compasse her with songs of deliverance In which part we shall also see the blessed state of that soule which is come not to a presumptuous security but to modest certainty of continuing in the same state still And these will bee our three parts in these words as they receive a publike accommodation to the Church and a more particular application to our selves Wee enter into these considerations with this observation 1 Part. That as God himselfe is eternall and cannot bee considered in the distinction of times so hath that language in which God hath spoken in his written word the Hebrew the least consideration of Time of any other language Evermore in expressing the mercies of God to man it is an indifferent thing to the holy Ghost whether he speak in the present or in the future or in the time that is past what mercies soever he hath given us he will give us over againe And whatsoever he hath done and will doe hee is alwayes ready to doe at
care is of the man and the soule is the man first a hedge about him and then about his house and about all that he had on every side Job 1.10 So day after day we shall finde arguments to establish our hearts in hope that the Lord hath compassed us and nothing shall breake in so as to take us from him but God shall say to us as to his former people Leva in circuitu oculos tuos Lift up thine eyes round about Esay 49.18 and behold which is one great comfort that he enables us to see and to know our enemies to discerne a tentation to be a tentation Omnes isti congregati sunt All these gather themselves together and come to thee which is another assistance that when we see our enemies multiply and that there is none that fighteth for us but onely thou O God we make a more present recourse to him But Vivo ego dicit Dominus As I live saith the Lord Velut ornamento vestieris thou shalt surely cloathe thee with them all as with an ornament and binde them on thee as a Bride doth which is the fulnesse of the mercy That as in another place he promises his children Panis vester sunt your enemies shall be your Bread Numb 14.9 you shall feed upon your enemies So here hee makes our enemies even our spirituall enemies our Cloathes and more then that our Jewels our Ornaments wee shall bee the stronger the warmer the richer by tribulations and tentations having overcome them as we shall if the Lord compasse us if he continue his watchfulnesse over us And that David sayes here first in the Churches behalfe God from the beginning carried a wall about his Church in that assurance Primitiva Mat. 16.18 Portae inferi The gates of hell shall not prevaile against it The Gentiles the Philosophers that were without the Church found a party Traitors Conspirators within The Heretiques and all these led and maintained by potent Princes that persecuted the Church The gates of hell were all opened and issued all her forces but Non praevaluerunt they never prevailed The Arians were sometimes more then the true Christians in all the world The Martyrians a sect that affected the name of Martyrdome could name more Martyrs then the true Church could but Evanuerunt yet they vanished The Emperours of Rome persecuted the Bishops of Rome to death yet when we looke upon the reckoning the Emperors died faster then Bishops Thou hast compassed me sayes the Primitive Church and so sayes the Reformed too Princes that hated one another have joyned in leagues against the Religion Reformata Princes that needed their Subjects have spent their Subjects by thousands in Massacres to extinguish the Religion Personall Assasinates Clandestine plots by poyson by fire by water have been multiplied against Princes that favour the Religion Inquisitions Confiscations Banishments Dishonours have overflowne them that professe the true Religion and yet the Lord compassing his Church she enjoyes a holy certainty arising out of these testimonies of his care that she shall never be forsaken And this may every good soule have too God comes to us without any purpose of departing from us againe Anima For the Spirit of life that God breated into man that departs from man in death but when God had assumed the nature of man the God-head never parted from that nature no not in death When Christ lay dead in the grave the God-head remained united to that body and that soule which were dis-united in themselves God was so united to man as that he was with man when man was not man in the state of death So when the Spirit of God hath invested compassed thy soule and made it his by those testimonies that Spirit establishes it in a kinde of assurance that he will never leave it Old Rome had as every City amongst the Heathen had certaine gods which they called their Tutelar gods gods that were affected to the preservation of that place But they durst never call upon those gods by their proper names for feare of losing them lest if their names should bee knowne by their enemies their enemies should winne away their gods from them by bestowing more cost or more devotion towards them then they themselves used So also is it said of them that when they had brought to Rome a forraigne god which they had taken in a conquered place Victory they cut the wings of their new god Victory lest he should flie from them againe This was a misery that they were not sure of their gods when they had them We are If he once come to us he never goes from us out of any variablenesse in himselfe but in us onely That promise reaches to the whole Church Esay 30.20 and to every particular soule Thy Teachers shall not bee removed into a corner any more but thine eye shall see thy Teachers which in the Originall as is appliably to our present purpose noted by Rabbi Moses is Non erunt Doctores tui alati Thy Teachers shall have no wings They shall never flie from thee and so the great Translation reads it Non avolabunt As their great god Victory could not flie from Rome so after this victory which God hath given his Church in the Reformation none of her Teachers should flie to or towards Rome Every way that God comes to us he comes with a purpose to stay and would imprint in us an assurance that he doth so and that Impression is this Compassing of thy soule with songs of deliverance in the signification and use of which word we shall in one word conclude all God hath given us this certitude Songs this faire assurance of his perpetuall residence with us in a word of a double signification The word is Ranan which signifies Joy exultation singing Lament 2.14 Psal 17.1 But it hath another sense too Arise Cry out in the night And Attend unto my cry which are voyces far from singing This God meanes therein That though he give us that comfort to sit and sing of our Deliverance yet hee would not have us fall asleepe with that musique but as when we contemplate his everlasting goodnesse wee celebrate that with a constant Joy so when we looke upon our owne weaknesse and unworthinesse we cry out Wretched men that wee are who shall deliver us from this body of death For though we have the Spirit of life in us we have a body of death upon us How loving soever my soule be it will not stay in a diseased body How loving soever the Spirit of life be it will not stay in a diseased soule My soule is loath to goe from my body but sicknesse and paine will drive it out so will sinne the Spirit of life from my soule God compasses us with Songs of Deliverance we are sure he would not leave us But he compasses us with Cries too we are afraid we are sure that we
it as upon a duty in this way humbly and patiently and laboriously to walke towards him without stopping upon any thing in this world either preferments on the right or disgraces on the left hand for a Cart may stop us as well as a Coach low things as well as high with as much trouble and more anoyance Which is more especially intended in the last words of the Text Firmabo super te oculos meos I will settle my providence fixe mine eye upon thee I will guide thee with mine eye Thus farre hath our blessed Lord assured us That he will make us understand 3 Part. which is his Instruction de credendis what to Beleeve And that he will teach us to walke in his way which is his Instruction de agendis what to Doe how to avoide tentations This last is That hee will guide us with his eye which is his Instruction de sperandis what wee are to Hope for at his hand if in this way we doe stumble or fall into some sinnes of infirmities But it is but de sperandis not de praesumendis when by infirmity thou art fallen thy Hope must begin then but if the Hope begun before so as thou fellest upon hope that God would raise thee then it was presumption and there the Lords eye shuts in and guides thee no longer Otherwise he directs thee with his eye that is with his gracious and powerfull looking upon thee to the meanes of thy recovery Wee heare of no blowes wee heare of no chiding from him towards Peter but all that is said is Luke 22.65 The Lord turned back and looked upon Peter and then he remembred his case The eye of the Lord lightned his darknesse The eye of the Lord thawed those three crusts of Ice which were growne over his heart in his three denials of his Master A Candle wakes some men as well as a noyse The eye of the Lord works upon a good soule as much as his hand and hee is as much affected with this consideration The Lord sees me as with this The Lord strikes me Wee reade in Naturall story of some creatures Qui solo oculorum aspectu fovent ova Plin. l. 10. c. 9. which hatch their egges onely by looking upon them What cannot the eye of God produce and hatch in us Plus est quod probatur aspectu quà m quod sermone Ambrose A man may seeme to commend in words and yet his countenance shall dispraise His word infuses good purposes into us but if God continue his eye upon us it is a farther approbation for He is a God of pure eyes and will not looke upon the wicked Deut. 11.12 This land doth the Lord thy God care for and the eyes of the Lord are alwayes upon it from the beginning of the yeare even to the end thereof What a cheerefull spring what a fruitfull Autumne hath that soule that hath the eye of the Lord alwayes upon her The eye of the Lord upon mee makes midnight noone and S. Lucies day S. Barnabies It makes Capricorne Cancer and the Winters the Summers Solstice The eye of the Lord sanctifies nay more then sanctifies glorifies all the Eclipses of dishonour makes Melancholy cheerefulnesse diffidence assurance and turnes the jealousie of the sad soule into infallibility Upon his people his eye shined in the wildernesse his eye singled them in Egypt and in Babylon they were sustained by his eye They were and we are Ezra 5.5 Psal 33.18 The eye of their God was upon the Elders of Israel And Behold the eye of the Lord is upon all them that feare him The Proverb is not onely as old as Aristotle Oculus domini and Pes domini The eye of the Master fattens the horse and the foot of the Master marles the ground but it is as old as the Creation God saw all that he had made and so it was very good It was visio approbationis Hieron and his approbation was the exaltation thereof This guiding then with the eye we consider to be his particular care and his personall providence upon us in his Church For a man may be in the Kings presence and yet not in his eye and so he may in Gods Gods whole Ordinance in his Church is Gods face For that is the face of God by which God is manifested to us But then August that eye in that face by which he promises to guide us in this Text is that blessed Spirit of his by whose operation he makes that grace which does evermore accompany his Ordinances effectuall upon us The whole Congregation sees God face to face in the Service in the Sermon in the Sacrament but there is an eye in that face an eye in that Service an eye in that Sermon an eye in that Sacrament a piercing and an operating Spirit that lookes upon that soule and foments and cherishes that soule who by a good use of Gods former grace is become fitter for his present And this guiding us with his eye manifests it selfe in these two great effects Convertit conversion to him and union with him First his eye works upon ours His eye turnes ours to looke upon him Still it is so expressed with an Ecce Behold Psal 33.18 the eye of the Lord is upon all them that feare him His eye cals ours to behold that And then our eye cals upon his to observe our cheerefull readinesse Behold Psal 123.2 as the eye of a servant lookes to the hand of his Master so our eyes waite upon the Lord our God till he have mercy upon us Where the Donec Vntill is an everlasting Donec as the blessed Virgins was A Virgin Donec till she brought forth her first Son and a Virgin ever after So our eyes waite upon God till hee have mercy that is while he hath it and that he may continue his mercy for it was his mercifull eye that turned ours to him and it is the same mercy that we waite upon him And then when as a well made Picture doth alwaies looke upon him that lookes upon it this Image of God in our soule is turned to him by his turning to it it is impossible we should doe any foule any uncomely thing in his presence Will any man solicite a Wife or a Daughter and call the Father or Husband to looke on Will any man breake open thy house in the night and first wake thee and call thee up Can any man give his body to uncleannesse his tongue to prophanenesse his heart to covetousnesse and at the same time consider that his pure and his holy and his bountifull God hath his eye upon him Can he looke upon God in that line in that Angle upon God looking upon him and dishonour him Psal 25.15 August Upon those words of David Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord Quasi diceretur quid agitur depedibus as though it were objected Is all thy care of thine
sense of the word But as some of our Expositors have found reason to interpret them Ne approximent That they shall not come neare him not neare God in the service of his Church to do themselves any good his Corrections shall harden them and remove them farther from him and from all benefit by his Ordinances First then God armes him with a pre-increpation upon Descent Nolite fieri Descensus Goe no lesse be not made lower The first sin that ever was was an ascending a climing too high when the purest Understandings of all The Angels fell by their ascending when Lucifer was tumbled downe by his Similis ero Altissimo I will be like the most High Esay 14.14 then he tried upon them who were next to him in Dignity upon Man how that clambring would worke upon him He presents to man the same ladder He infuses into man the same Ambition and as he fell with a Similis ero Altissimo I will be like the most High So he overthrew man with an Eritis sicut Dii Ye shall be as Gods It seemes this fall hath broake the neck of Mans ambition and now we dare not be so like God as we should be Ever since this fall man is so far from affecting higher places then his nature is capable of that he is still groveling upon the ground and participates and imitates and expresses more of the nature of the Beast then of his owne There is no creature but man that degenerates willingly from his naturall Dignity Those degrees of goodnesse which God imprinted in them at first they preserve still As God saw they were good then so he may see they are good still They have kept their Talent They have not bought nor sold They have not gained nor lost They are not departed from their native and naturall dignity by any thing that they have done But of Man it seemes God was distrustfull from the beginning He did not pronounce upon Mans Creation as he did upon the other Creatures that He was good because his goodnesse was a contingent thing and consisted in the future use of his free will For that faculty and power of the will Dionys is Virtus transformativa by it we change our selves into that we love most and we are come to love those things most which are below us As God said to the Earth and it was enough to say so Germinet terra juxta genus suum Gen. 1. Let the Earth bring forth according to her kinde Ambro. So Vive juxta genus tuum sayes S. Ambrose to Man Live according to thy kinde Non adulteres genus tuum doe not abase doe not allay doe not betray do not abastardise that noble kinde that noble nature which God hath imparted to thee imprinted in thee Mundi moles liber est Basil This whole world is one Booke And is it not a barbarous thing when all the whole booke besides remains intire to deface that leafe in which the Authors picture the Image of God is expressed as it is in man God brought man into the world as the King goes in state Lords and Earles and persons of other ranks before him So God sent out light and Firmament and Earth and Sea and Sunne and Moone to give a dignity to mans procession and onely Man himselfe disorders all and that by displacing himselfe by losing his place The Heavens and Earth were finished Et omnis exercitus eorum Gen. 2.1 sayes Moses All the Host thereof and all this whole Army preserves that Discipline onely the Generall that should governe them mis-governs himselfe And whereas we see that Tygers and Wolves Beasts of annoyance doe still keepe their places and natures in the world and so doe Herbs and Plants even those which are in their nature offensive and deadly Ambrose for Alia esui alia usui Some herbs are made to eat some to adorne some to supply in Physick whilest we dispute in Schools whether if it were possible for Man to doe so it were lawfull for him to destroy any one species of Gods Creatures though it were but the species of Toads and Spiders because this were a taking away one linke of Gods chaine one Note of his harmony we have taken away that which is the Jewel at the chaine that which is the burden of the Song Man himselfe Partus sequitur ventrem We verifie the Law treacherously mischievously we all follow our Mother we grovell upon the earth whose children we are and being made like our Father Psal 8.4 in his Image we neglect him What is Man that thou art mindfull of him and the sonne of Man that thou visitest him David admires not so much mans littlenesse in that place as his greatnesse He is a little lower then Angels A little lower then God sayes our former Translation agreeably enough to the word and in a good sense too Gods Lievtenant his Vice-gerent over all Creatures Thou hast made him to have Dominion over the works of thy hands and Dominion is a great it is a supreme estate And thou hast put all things under his feet as it follows there And yet we have forfeited this Jurisdiction this Dominion and more our owne Essence we are not onely inferior to the Beasts and under their annoyance but we are our selves become Beasts Consider the dignitie of thy soule which onely of all other Creatures is capable susciptible of Grace If God would bestow grace any where els no creature could receive it but thou Thou art so necessary to God as that God had no utterance no exercise no employment for his grace and mercy but for thee And if thou make thy selfe incapable of this mercy and this grace of which nothing but thou is capable then thou destroyest thy nature And remember then that as in the Kingdome of Heaven in those orders which we conceive to be in those glorious Spirits there is no falling from a higher to a lower order a Cherubim or Seraphim does not fall and so become an Archangel or an Angel but those of that place that fell fell into the bottomlesse pit So if thou depart from thy nature from that susciptiblenesse that capacity of receiving Grace if thou degenerate so from a Man to a Beast thou shalt not rest there in the state and nature of a Beast whose soule breaths out to nothing and vanishes with the life thou shalt not be so happy but thy better nature will remain in despite of thee thine everlasting soule must suffer everlasting torment Now as many men when they see a greater piece of coyne then ordinary 2 Part. they doe not presently know the value of it though they know it to be silver but those lesser coyns which are in currant use and come to their hands every day they know at first sight so because this stamp this impression of the image of God in Man is not well and clearly understood by every Man
in thine honor wounds in thy conscience yet we may heare David reply Josh 24.16 Tu Domine As the people said to Ioshuah God forbid we should forsake the Lord we will serve the Lord And when Ioshuah said You cannot serve the Lord for he is a jealous God and if yee turne from him he will turne and doe you hurt and consame you after he hath done you good The people replyed Nay but we will serve the Lord so whatsoever God threatens David of afflictions and tribulations and purgings in fire we may heare David reply Nay but Lord doe Thou doe it do it how Thou wilt but doe Thou do it Thy corrosives are better then others somentations Thy bitternesses sweeter then others honey Thy fires are but lukewarme fires nay they have nothing of fire in them but light to direct me in my way And thy very frowns are but as trenches cut out as lanes that leade me to thy grave or Rivers or Channels that lead me to the sea of thy bloud Let me go upon Crouches so I go to Heaven Lay what waight thou wilt even upon my foule that that be heavy and heavy unto death so I may have a cheerfull transmigration then Domine Tu Lord doe thou doe it and I shall not wish it mended And then when we heare David say Domine Me Lord purge Me wash Me and returne foure times in this short Text to that personall appropriation of Gods worke upon himselfe Purge Me that I may be cleane wash Me that I may be whiter then snow if we heare God say as the language of his mercy is for the most part generall As the Sea is above the Earth so is the blood of my Son above all sin Congregations of three thousand and of five thousand were purged and washed converted and baptized at particular Sermons of S. Peter whole legions of Souldiers that consisted of thousands were purged in their owne blood and became Martyrs in one day There is enough done to worke upon all Examples enow given to guide all we may heare David reply Domine Me Nay but Lord I doe not heare Peter preach I live not in a time or in a place where Crownes of Martyrdome are distributed nor am I sure my Constancy would make me capable of it if I did Lord I know that a thousand of these worlds were not worth one drop of thy blood and yet I know that if there had been but one some distressed and that soule distressed but with one sin thou wouldest have spent the last drop of that blood for that soule Blessed be thy Name for having wrapped me up in thy generall Covenants and made me partaker of thy generall Ordinances but yet Lord looke more particularly upon me and appropriate thy selfe to me to me not onely as thy Creature as a man as a Christian but as I am I as I am this sinner that confesses now and as I am this penitent that begs thy mercy now And now Beloved we have said so much towards enough of the persons God and David The accesse of David to God and the appropriation of God to David as that we may well passe to our other generall part the petitions which David in his own and our behalfe makes to God Purge me with Hyssop and I shall be cleane wash me and I shall be whiter then snow In this 2 Part. Purgabis the first is a great worke That which we translate Purge me And yet how soone David is come to it It is his first period The passage of a Spirit is very quick but it is not immediate Not from extreame to extreame but by passing the way between The Evill spirit passes not so no good soule was ever made very ill in an instant no nor so soone as some ill have been made good No man can give me Examples of men so soone perverted as I can of men converted It is not in the power of the Devill to doe so much harme as God can doe good Nay we may be bold to say it is not in the will not in the desire of the Devill to doe so much harme as God would doe good for illnesse is not in the nature of the Devill The Devill was naturally good made created good His first illnesse was but a defection from that goodnesse and his present illnesse is but a punishment for that defection but God is good goodnesse in his nature essentially eternally good and therefore the good motions of the Spirit of God worke otherwise upon us then the tentations of the evill Spirit doe How soone and to what a height came David here He makes his Petition his first Petition with that confidence as that it hath scarce the nature of a Petition for it is in the Originall Thou wilt purge me Thou wilt wash me Thou hadst a gracious will and purpose to doe it before thou didst infuse the will and the desire in me to petition it Nay this word may well be translated not onely Thou wilt but by the other denotation of the future Thou shalt Thou shalt purge me Thou shalt wash me Lord I doe but remember thee of thy debt of that which thy gracious promise hath made thy debt to shew mercy to every penitent sinner And then as the word implies confidence and acceleration infallibility and expedition too That as soone as I can aske I am sure to be heard so does it imply a totality an intirenesse a fulnesse in the worke for the roote of the word is Peccare to sin for purging is a purging of peccant humors but in this Conjugation in that language it hath a privative signification and literally signifies Expeccabis and if in our language that were a word in use it might be translated Thou shalt un-sin me that is look upon me as a man that had never sinned as a man invested in the innocency of thy Sonne who knew no sin David gives no man rule nor example of other assurance in God then in the remission of sins Not that any precontract or Election makes our sins no sins or makes our sins no hindrances in our way to salvation or that we are in Gods favour at that time when we sin nor returned to his favour before we repent our sin It is onely this expeccation this unsinning this taking away of sins formerly committed that restores me And that is not done with nothing David assignes proposes a meanes by which he looks for it Hyssop Thou shalt purge me with Hyssop The Fathers taking the words as they found them and fastning with a spirituall delight Hyssopo as their devout custome was their Meditations upon the figurative and Metaphoricall phrase of purging by Hyssop have found purgative vertues in that plant and made usefull and spirituall applications thereof for the purging of our soules from sin In this doe S. Ambrose and Augustine and Hierome agree that Hyssop hath vertue in it proper for the lungs in
are more vexed with that Father then with any other and call him for Athanasius Sathanasius As he cals that Sermon a Sermon against all Heresies so he presents this Psalme against all Tentations and Tribulations Not that therein David puts himselfe to waigh particular tentations and tribulations but that he puts every man in every triall to put himselfe wholly upon God and to know that if man cannot helpe him in this world nothing can And for man Surely men of low degree are vanity and men of high degree are a lie To be laid in the balance they are altogether lighter then vanity We consider in the words Divisie The maner and the matter How it is spoken And what is said For the first the maner this is not absolutely spoken but comparatively not peremptorily but respectively not simply but with relation The Holy Ghost in Davids mouth doth not say That man can give no assistance to man That man may looke for no helpe from man But that God is alwayes so present and so all-sufficient that wee need not doubt of him nor rely upon any other otherwise then as an instrument of his For that which he had spread over all the verses of the Psalme before he summes up in the verse immediatly before the Text Trust in God at all times for hee is a refuge for us and then hee strengthens that with this What would yee prefer before God or joyne with God man what man Surely men of low degree are vanity and men of high degree are a lie To be laid in the balance they are altogether lighter then vanity Which words being our second part open to us these steps First that other Doctrins morall or civill Instructions may be delivered to us possibly and probably and likely and credibly and under the like termes and modifications but this in our Text is Assuredly undoubtedly undeniably irrefragably Surely men of low degree c. For howsoever when they two are compared together with one another it may admit discourse and disputation whether men of high degree or of low degree doe most violate the lawes of God that is whether prosperity or adversity make men most obnoxious to sin yet when they come to bee compared not with one another but both with God this asseveration this surely reaches to both Surely The man of low degree is vanity and as Surely The man of high degree is a lie And though this may seeme to leave some roome for men of middle ranks and fortunes and places That there is a mediocrity that might give an assurance and an establishment yet there is no such thing in this case for as surely still to be laid in the balance they are all not all of low and all of high degree all rich and all poore but All of all conditions altogether lighter then vanity Now all this doth not destroy not extinguish not annihilate that affection in man of hope and trust and confidence in any thing but it rectifies that hope and trust and confidence and directs it upon the right object Trust not in flesh but in spirituall things That wee neither bend our hopes downeward to infernall spirits to seeke help in Witches nor mis-carry it upward to seeke it in Saints or Angels but fix it in him who is nearer us then our owne soules our blessed and gracious and powerfull God who in this one Psalme is presented unto us by so many names of assurance and confidence My expectation my salvation my rocke my defence my glory my strength my refuge and the rest First then these words Surely men of low degree and men of high degree are vanity 1 Part. Quid home erga Deum are not absolutely simple unconditionally spoken Man is not nothing Nay it is so farre from that as that there is nothing but man As though there may bee many other creatures living which were not derived from Eve and yet Eve is called Mater viventium Gen. 3.20 The Mother of all that live because the life of none but man is considered so there bee so many other Creatures and Christ sends his Apostles to preach Omni Creaturae Marke 16.15 to every creature yet he meanes none but Man All that God did in making all other creatures in all the other dayes was but a laying in of Materials The setting up of the work was in the making of Man God had a picture of himselfe from all eternity from all eternity the Sonne of God was the Image of the invisible God Colos 1.15 But then God would have one picture which should bee the picture of Father Sonne and Holy Ghost too and so made man to the Image of the whole Trinity As the Apostle argues Cui dixit To whom did God ever say This day have I begotten thee but to Christ so we say Heb. 1.5 for the dignity of man Cui dixit of what creature did God ever say Faciamus Let us us make it All all the Persons together and to imploy and exercise not onely Power but Counsaile in the making of that Creature Nay when man was at worst he was at a high price man being fallen yet then in that undervalue he cost God his own and onely Son before he could have him Neither became the Son of God capable of redeeming man by any lesse or any other way then by becomming man The Redeemer must be better then he whom he is to redeeme and yet he must abase himselfe to as low a nature as his to his nature else he could not redeeme him God was aliened from man and yet God must become man to recover man God joyned man in Commission with himselfe upon his Creation Gen. 1.28 in the Replete and Dominamini when he gave Man power to possesse the Earth and subdue the Creature And God hath made man so equall to himselfe as not onely to have a soule endlesse and immortall as God himselfe though not endlesse and immortall as himselfe yet endlesse and immortall as himselfe too though not immortall the same way for Gods immortality is of himselfe yet as certainly and as infallibly Immortall as he but God hath not onely given man such an immortall soule but a body that shall put on Incorruption and Immortality too which he hath given to none of the Angels In so much that howsoever it be whether an Angel may wish it selfe an Archangel or an Archangel wish it selfe a Cherubin yet man cannot deliberately wish himselfe an Angel because he should lose by that wish and lacke that glory which he shall have in his body We shall be like the Angels sayes Christ In that wherein we can be like them Marke 12.25 we shall be like them in the exalting and refining of the faculties of our soules But they shall never attaine to be like us in our glorified bodies Neither hath God onely reserved this treasure and dignity of man to the next world but even here he
in a great measure very rich and very poore Prosperity or Adversity occasion most sinnes Though God call upon us in every leafe of the Scripture to pity the poore and relieve the poore and ground his last Judgement upon our works of mercy Mat. 25.34 Because you have fed and clothed the poore inherit the kingdome yet as the rich and the poore stand before us now as it were in Judgement as we inquire and heare evidence which statoââ most obnoxious and open to most sinnes we embrace and apply to our selves that law Exod. 23.3 Levit. 19.15 Thou shalt not countenance a poore man in his cause And as it is repeated Thou shalt not respect the person of the poore in Iudgement There is then a poverty which without all question is the direct way to heaven but that is spirituall Mat. 5.3 Blessed are the poore in spirit This poverty is humility it is not beggary A rich man may have it and a beggar may be without it The Wiseman found not this poverty Ecclus 25.2 not humility in every poore man He found three sorts of men whom his soule hated And one of the three was a poore man that is proud And when the Prophet said of Jerusalem in her afflictions Esay 51.21 Paupercula es ebria Thou art poore and miserable and yet drunke though as he addes there it were not with wine which is now in our dayes an ordinary refuge of men of all sorts in all sadnesses and crosses to relieve themselves upon wine and strong drinke which are indeed strong illusions yet though Jerusalems drunkennesse were not with wine it was worse It was a staggering a vertiginousnesse an ignorance a blindnesse a not discerning the wayes to God which is the worst drunkennesse and fals often upon the poore and afflicted That their poverty and affliction staggers them and damps them in their recourse to God so far as that they know not That they are miserable and wretched and poore and blinde Revel 3.17 and raked The Holy Ghost alwaies makes the danger of the poore great as well as of the rich The rich mans wealth is his strong City There is his fault his confidence in that Pro. 10.15 But Pavor pauperum The destruction of the poore is his poverty There is his fault Desperation under it Solomon presents them as equally dangerous Give me neither poverty nor riches Pro. 30.8 Ruth 3.10 So does Booz to Ruth Blessed be thou of the Lord my daughter in as much as thou followedst not young men whether poore or rich That which Booz intended there Incontinency and all vices that arise immediately out of the corruption of nature and are not induced by other circumstances have as much inclination from poverty as from riches May we not say more I doubt we may He must be a very sanctified man whom extreame poverty and other afflictions doe not decline towards a jealousie and a suspicion and a distrusting of God And then the sins that bend towards desperation are so much more dangerous then those that bend towards presumption that he that presumes hath still mercy in his contemplation He does not thinke that he needs no mercy but that mercy is easily had He beleeves there is mercy he doubts not of that But the despairing man imagines a cruelty an unmercifulnesse in God and destroyes the very nature of God himselfe Riches is the Metaphor in which the Holy Ghost hath delighted to expresse God and Heaven to us Despise not the riches of his goodnesse sayes the Apostle And againe Rom. 2.4.11.33 Ephes 3.8 ver 16. O the depth of the riches of his wisdome And so after The unsearchable riches of Christ And for the consummation of all The riches of his Glory Gods goodnesse towards us in generall our Religion in the way his Grace here his Glory hereafter are all represented to us in Riches With poverty God ordinarily accompanies his comminations he threatens feeblenesse and warre and captivity and poverty every where but he never threatens men with riches Ordinary poverty that is a difficulty with all their labors and industry to sustaine their family and the necessary duties of their place is a shrewd and a slippery tentation But for that street-beggery which is become a Calling for Parents bring up their children to it nay they doe almost take prentises to it some expert beggers teach others what they shall say how they shall looke how they shall lie how they shall cry for these whom our lawes call Incorrigible I must say of them in a just accommodation of our Saviours words It is not meet to take the childrens bread Matt. 25.26 and to cast it to dogs It is not meet that this vermin should devoure any of that which belongs to them who are truely poore Neither is there any measure any proportion of riches that exposes man naturally to so much sin as this kinde of beggery doth Rich men forget or neglect the duties of their Baptisme but of these how many are there that were never baptized Rich men sleepe out Sermons but these never come to Church Rich men are negligent in the practise but these are ignorant in all knowledge It would require a longer disquisition then I can afford to it now whether Riches or Poverty considered in lesser proportions ordinary riches ordinary poverty open us to more and worse sins But consider them in the highest and in the lowest abundant riches beggerly poverty and it will scarce admit doubt but that the incorrigible vagabond is farther from all wayes of goodnesse then the corruptest rich man is And therefore labour wee all earnestly in the wayes of some lawfull calling that we may have our portion of this world by good meanes For first the advantages of doing good to others in a reall reliefe of their wants is in the rich onely whereas the best way of a good poore man to doe good to others is but an exemplary patience to catechize others by his suffering And then all degrees of poverty are dangerous and slippery even to a murmuring against God or an invading of the possessions and goods of other men but especially the lowest the desperate degree of beggery and then especially when we cannot say it is inflicted by the hand of God but contracted by our owne lazinesse or our owne wastfulnesse This is a problematicall a disputable case Whether riches or poverty occasion most sins And because on both sides there arise good doctrines of edification Men of low degree I have thus far willingly stopped upon that disputable consideration But now that which wee receive here upon Davids upon the Holy Ghosts security Surely it is thus It is surely so is this That we shall be deceived if we put our trust in men for what sort of men would we trust Surely men of low degree are vanity And this if it be taken of particular men needs no proving no
his anchor Let him that hath any diffident jealousie or suspition of the free and full mercy of God apprehend God as God is his Salvation And him that walks in the ingloriousnesse and contempt of this world contemplate God as God is his Glory Any of these notions is enough to any man but God is all these and all else that all soules can thinke to every man Wee shut up both these Considerations man should not Mic. ult 5. that is not all God should be relied upon with that of the Prophet Trust ye not in a friend put not your confidence in a guide keepe the doores of thy mouth from her that lies in thy bosome there is the exclusion of trust in man and then he adds in the seventh verse because it stands thus betweene man and man I will looke unto the Lord I will looke to the God of my Salvation my God will heare me SERM. LXVI The second of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalmes Preached at S. Pauls Ianuary 29. 1625. PSAL. 63.7 Because thou hast been my helpe Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce THe Psalmes are the Manna of the Church Wisd 16.20 As Manna tasted to every man like that that he liked best so doe the Psalmes minister Instruction and satisfaction to every man in every emergency and occasion David was not onely a cleare Prophet of Christ himselfe but a Prophet of every particular Christian He foretels what I what any shall doe and suffer and say And as the whole booke of Psalmes is Oleum effusum Cant. 1.3 as the Spouse speaks of the name of Christ an Oyntment powred out upon all sorts of sores A Searcloth that souples all bruises A Balme that searches all wounds so are there some certaine Psalmes that are Imperiall Psalmes that command over all affections and spread themselves over all occasions Catholique universall Psalmes that apply themselves to all necessities This is one of those for of those Constitutions which are called Apostolicall Constitut Apostol one is That the Church should meet every day to sing this Psalme And accordingly S. Chrysostome testifies That it was decreed and ordained by the Primitive Fathers Chrysost that no day should passe without the publique singing of this Psalme Under both these obligations those ancient Constitutions called the Apostles and those ancient Decrees made by the primitive Fathers belongs to me who have my part in the service of Gods Church the especiall meditation and recommendation of this Psalme And under a third obligation too That it is one of those five psalmes the daily rehearsing whereof is injoyned to me by the Constitutions of this Church as five other are to every other person of our body As the whole booke is Manna so these five Psalmes are my Gomer which I am to fill and empty every day of this Manna Now as the spirit and soule of the whole booke of Psalmes is contracted into this psalme so is the spirit and soule of this whole psalme contracted into this verse Divisie The key of the psalme as S. Hierome calls the Titles of the psalmes tells us Hieron that David uttered this psalme when he was in the wildernesse of Iudab There we see the present occasion that moved him And we see what was passed between God and him before in the first clause of our Text Because thou hast been my helpe And then we see what was to come by the rest Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce So that we have here the whole compasse of Time Past Present and Future and these three parts of Time shall be at this time the three parts of this Exercise first what Davids distresse put him upon for the present and that lyes in the Context secondly how David built his assurance upon that which was past Because thou hast been my help And thirdly what he established to himselfe for the future Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce First His distresse in the Wildernesse his present estate carried him upon the memory of that which God had done for him before And the Remembrance of that carried him upon that of which he assured himselfe after Fixe upon God any where and you shall finde him a Circle He is with you now when you fix upon him He was with you before for he brought you to this fixation and he will be with you hereafter for He is yesterday Heb. 13.8 and to day and the same for ever For Davids present condition who was now in a banishment in a persecution in the Wildernesse of Judah which is our first part we shall onely insist upon that which is indeed spread over all the psalme to the Text and ratified in the Text That in all those temporall calamities David was onely sensible of his spirituall losse It grieved him not that he was kept from Sauls Court but that he was kept from Gods Church For when he sayes Ver. 1. by way of lamentation That he was in a dry and thirsty land where no water was he expresses what penury what barrennesse what drought and what thirst he meant To see thy power Ver. 2. Ver. 5. Ver. 3. and thy glory so as I have seene thee in the Sanctuary For there my soule shall be satisfied as with marrow and with satnesse and there my mouth shall praise thee with joyfull lips And in some few considerations conducing to this That spirituall losses are incomparably heavier then temporall and that therefore The Restitution to our spirituall happinesse or the continuation of it is rather to be made the subject of our prayers to God in all pressures and distresses then of temporall we shall determine that first part And for the particular branches of both the other parts The Remembring of Gods benefits past And the building of an assurance for the future upon that Remembrance it may be fitter to open them to you anon when we come to handle them then now Proceed we now to our first part The comparing of temporall and spirituall afflictions In the way of this Comparison 1 Part. Afflictio universalis 2 Cor. 4.17 falls first the Consideration of the universality of afflictions in generall and the inevitablenesse thereof It is a blessed Meraphore that the Holy Ghost hath put into the mouth of the Apostle Pondus Gloriae That our afflictions are but light because there is an exceeding and an eternall waight of glory attending them If it were not for that exceeding waight of glory no other waight in this world could turne the scale or waigh downe those infinite waights of afflictions that oppresse us here There is not onely Pestis valde gravis the pestilence grows heavy upon the Land but there is Musca valde gravis Exod. 9.3.8.24 God calls in but the fly to vexe Egypt and even the fly is a heavy burden unto them Job 7.20 2 Sam. 14.26 Lament
Cooke The other is a Physitian and though by bitter things provides for thy future health And such is the hony of Flatterers and such is the wormewood of better Counsellors I will not shake a Proverbe not the Ad Corvos That wee were better admit the Crowes that picke out our eyes after we are dead then Flatterers that blinde us whilst we live I cast justly upon others I take willingly upon my selfe the name of wicked if I blesse the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth or any other whom he hath declared to be odious to him But making my object goodnesse in that man and taking that goodnesse in that man to be a Candle set up by God in that Candlesticke God having engaged himselfe that that good man shall be praised I will be a Subsidy man so far so far pay Gods debts as to celebrate with condigne praise the goodnesse of that man for in that I doe as I should desire to be done to And in that I pay a debt to that man And in that I succour their weaknesse who as S. Gregory sayes when they heare another praised Gregâr Si non amore virtutis at delectatione laudis accenduntur At first for the love of Praise but after for the love of goodnesse it selfe are drawne to bee good Phil. 4.8 For when the Apostle had directed the Philippians upon things that were True and honest and just and purc and lovely and of a good report he ends all thus If there be any vertue and if there be any praise thinke on these things In those two sayes S. Augustine he divides all Vertue and Praise Vertue in our selves that may deserve Praise Praise towards others that may advance and propagate Vertue This is the retribution which God promises to all the upright in heart Gloriabuntur Laudabuntur They shall Glory they shall have they shall give praise And then it is so far from diminishing this Glory as that it infinitely exalts our consolation that God places this Retribution in the future Gloriabuntur If they doe not yet yet certainly they shall glory And if they doe now that glory shall not goe out still they shall they shall for ever glory In the Hebrew there is no Present tense In that language wherein God spake Futurum it could not be said The upright in heart Are praised Many times they are not But God speaks in the future first that he may still keepe his Children in an expectation and dependance upon him you shall be though you be not yet And then to establish them in an infallibility because he hath said it I know you are not yet but comfort your selves I have said it and it shall be As the Hebrew hath no Superlatives because God would keepe his Children within compasse and in moderate desires to content themselves with his measures though they be not great and though they be not heaped so considering what pressures and contempts and terrors the upright in heart are subject to it is a blessed reliefe That they have a future proposed unto them That they shall be praised That they shall be redeemed out of contempt This makes even the Expectation it selfe as sweet to them as the fruition would be This makes them that when David sayes Expecta viriliter Waite upon the Lord with a good courage Waite I say Psal 27.14 upon the Lord they doe not answer with the impatience of the Martyrs under the Altar Vsquequo How long Lord wilt thou defer it Rev. 6.10 Psal 40.1 Psal 52.9 But they answer in Davids owne words Expectans expectavi I have waited long And Expectabo nomen tuum still I will waite upon thy Name I will waite till the Lord come His kingdome come in the mean time His kingdome of Grace and Patience and for his Ease and his Deliverance and his Praise and his Glory to me let that come when he may be most glorified in the comming thereof Nay not onely the Expectation that is that that is expected shall be comfortable because it shall be infallible but that very present state that he is in shall be comfortable according to the first of our three Translations They that are true of heart shall be glad thereof Glad of that Glad that they are true of heart though their future retribution were never so far removed Nay though there were no future retribution in the case yet they shall finde comfort enough in their present Integrity Nay not onely their present state of Integrity but their present state of misery shall be comfortable to them for this very word of our Text Halal that is here translated Ioy and Glory and Praise in divers places of Scripture as Hebrew words have often such a transplantation signifies Ingloriousnesse and contempt and dejection of spirit Psal 75.4 Esa 44.25 Job 12.17 So that Ingloriousnesse and contempt and dejection of spirit may be a part of the retribution God may make Ingloriousnesse and Contempt and Dejection of spirit a greater blessing and benefit then Joy and Glory and Praise would have been and so reserve all this Glory and Praising to that time that David intends Psal 112.6 The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance Though they live and die contemptibly they shall be in an honorable remembrance even amongst men as long as men last and even when time shall be no more and men no more they shall have it in futuro aeterno where there shall be an everlasting present and an everlasting future there the upright in heart shall be praised and that for ever which is our conclusion of all If this word of our Text Halal shall signifie Ioy as the Service Booke Aeternum and the Geneva translation render it that may be somewhat towards enough which we had occasion to say of the Joyes of heaven in our Exercise upon the precedent Psalme when we say-led thorough that Hemispheare of Heaven by the breath of the Holy Ghost in handling those words Vnder the shadow of thy wings I will rejoyce So that of this signification of the word Gaudebunt in aeterno They shall rejoyce for ever we adde nothing now If the word shall signifie Glory as our last translation renders it consider with me That when that Glory which I shall receive in Heaven shall be of that exaltation as that my body shall invest the glory of a soule my body shall be like a soule like a spirit like an Angel of light in all endowments that glory it selfe can make that body capable of that body remaining still a true body when my body shall be like a soule there will be nothing left for my soule to be like but God himselfe 2 Pet. 1.4 1 Cor. 6.17 I shall be partaker of the Divine nature and the same Spirit with him Since the glory that I shall receive in body and in soule shall be such so exalted what shall that glory of God be which I shall
it a Mysterie and a great mysterie yet he cals it a mysterie without controversie Without controversie great is the mysterie of God manifested in the flesh justified in the Spirit preached to the Gentiles beleeved in the world received into glory When he presents matter of consolation he would have it without controversie To establish a disconsolate soule there is alwaies Divinity enough that was never drawne into Controversie I would pray I finde the Spirit of God to dispose my heart and my tongue and mine eyes and hands and knees to pray Doe I doubt to whom I should pray To God or to the Saints That prayer to God alone was sufficient was never drawne into controversie I would have something to rely and settle and establish my assurance upon Doe I doubt whether upon Christ or mine owne or others merits That to rely upon Christ alone was sufficient was never drawne into Controversie At this time Christ disposed himselfe to comfort his Disciples in that wherein they needed comfort now their discomfort and their feare lay not in this whether there were different degrees of glory in Heaven but their feare was that Christ being gone and having taken Peter and none but him there should be no roome for them and thereupon Christ sayes Let not that trouble you for In my Fathers house are many mansions And so we have done with the former branch of this last part That it is piously done to beleeve these degrees of glory in Heaven That they have inconsiderately extended this probleme in the Roman Church That no Scriptures are so evident as to induce a necessity in it That this Scripture conduces not at all to it and therefore we passe to our last Consideration The right use of the right sense of these words First then Christ proposes in these words Consolation A worke Consolatio then which none is more divine nor more proper to God nor to those instruments whom he sends to worke upon the soules and consciences of others Who but my selfe can conceive the sweetnesse of that salutation when the Spirit of God sayes to me in a morning Go forth to day and preach and preach consolation preach peace preach mercy And spare my people spare that people whom I have redeemed with my precious Blood and be not angry with them for ever Do not wound them doe not grinde them do not astonish them with the bitternesse with the heavinesse with the sharpnesse with the consternation of my judgements David proposes to himselfe that he would Sing of mercy Psal 101.1 and of judgement but it is of mercy first and not of judgement at all otherwise then it will come into a song as joy and consolation is compatible with it It hath falne into disputation and admitted argument whether ever God inflicted punishments by his good Angels But that the good Angels the ministeriall Angels of the Church are properly his instruments for conveying mercy peace consolation never fell into question never admitted opposition How heartily God seemes to utter and how delightfully to insist upon that which he sayes in Esay Consolamini consolamini populum meum Comfort ye comfort ye my people Esay 40.1 And Loquimini ad cor Speake to the heart of Ierusalem and tell her Thine iniquities are pardoned How glad Christ seemes that he had it for him when he gives the sick man that comfort Fili confide My son be of good comfort thy sins are forgiven thee What a Coronation is our taking of Orders by which God makes us a Royall Priesthood And what an inthronization is the comming up into a Pulpit where God invests his servants with his Ordinance as with a Cloud and then presses that Cloud with a Vaesi non woe be unto thee if thou doe not preach and then enables him to preach peace mercy consolation to the whole Congregation That God should appeare in a Cloud upon the Mercy Seat as he promises Moses he will doe That from so poore a man as stands here Levit. 16.2 wrapped up in clouds of infirmity and in clouds of iniquity God should drop raine poure downe his dew and sweeten that dew with his honey and crust that honied dew into Manna and multiply that Manna into Gomers and fill those Gomers every day and give every particular man his Gomer give every soule in the Congregation consolation by me That when I call to God for grace here God should give me grace for grace Grace in a power to derive grace upon others and that this Oyle this Balsamum should flow to the hem of the garment even upon them that stand under me That when mine eyes looke up to Heaven the eyes of all should looke up upon me and God should open my mouth to give them meat in due season That I should not onely be able to say as Christ said to that poore soule Confide fili My son be of good comfort but Fratres Patres mei My Brethren and my Fathers nay Domini mei and Rex meus My Lords and my King be of good comfort your sins are forgiven you That God should seale to me that Patent Ite praedicate omni Creaturae Goe and preach the Gospell to every Creature be that creature what he will That if God lead me into a Congregation as into his Arke where there are but eight soules but a few disposed to a sense of his mercies and all the rest as in the Arke ignobler creatures and of brutall natures and affections That if I finde a licentious Goat a supplanting Fox an usurious Wolfe an ambitious Lion yet to that creature to every creature I should preach the Gospel of peace and consolation and offer these creatures a Metamorphosis a transformation a new Creation in Christ Jesus and thereby make my Goat and my Fox and my Wolfe and my Lion to become Semen Dei The seed of God and Filium Dei The child of God and Participem Divinae Naturae Partaker of the Divine Nature it selfe This is that which Christ is essentially in himselfe This is that which ministerially and instrumentally he hath committed to me to shed his consolation upon you upon you all Not as his Almoner to drop his consolation upon one soule nor as his Treasurer to issue his consolation to a whole Congregation but as his Ophir as his Indies to derive his gold his precious consolation upon the King himselfe What would a good Judge a good natured Judge give in his Circuit what would you in whose breasts the Judgements of the Star-chamber or other criminall Courts are give that you had a warrant from the King to change the sentence of blood into a pardon where you found a Delinquent penitent How rufully do we heare the Prophets groane under that Onus visionis which they repeat so often O the burden of my vision upon Judah or upon Moab or Damascus or Babylon or any place Which is not only that that judgement would be a
heavy burden upon that place but that it was a heavy burden to them to denounce that judgement even upon Gods enemies Our errand our joy our Crowne is Consolation for if we consider the three Persons of the holy blessed and glorious Trinity and their working upon us a third part of their worke if we may so speake is consolation the Father is Power the Son Wisdome and the Holy Ghost Consolation for the Holy Ghost is not in a Vulture that hovers over Armies and infected Cities and feeds upon carcasses But the Holy Ghost is in a Dove that would not make a Congregation a slaughter-house but feeds upon corne corne that hath in nature a disposition to a reviviscence and a repullulation and would imprint in you al the consolation and sense of a possibility of returning to a new and a better life God found me nothing and of that nothing made me Adam left me worse then God found me worse then nothing the child of wrath corrupted with the leaven of Originall sin Christ Jesus found me worse then Adam left me not onely sowred with Originall but spotted and gangrened and dead and buried and putrified in actual and habitual sins and yet in that state redeemed me And I make my selfe worse then Christ found me and in an inordinate dejection of spirit conceive a jealousie and suspition that his merit concernes not me that his blood extends not to my sin And in this last and worst state the Holy Ghost finds me the Spirit of Consolation And he sends a Barnabas a son of Consolation unto me A Barnabas to my sick bed side A Physitian that comforts with hopes and meanes of health A Barnabas to my broken fortune A potent and a loving friend that assists the reparation and the establishing of my state A Barnabas into the Pulpit that restores and rectifies my conscience and scatters and dispels all those clouds that invested it and infested it before That un-imaginable worke of the Creation were not ready for a Sabbath though I be a Creature and a man I could have no Sabbath no rest no peace of conscience That un-expressible worke of the Redemption were not ready for that Seale which our Saviour set to it upon the Crosse in the Consummatum est All were not finished that concerned me if the Holy Ghost were not ready to deliver that which Christ sealed and to witnesse that which were so delivered that that Spirit might ever testifie to my spirit That all that Christ Jesus said and did and suffered was said and done and suffered for my soule Consolation is not all if we consider God but if I consider my selfe and my state Consolation is all Christs meaning then in this place was to establish in his Disciples this Consolation Consolatio vera but thus Si quo minus If it were not thus I would tell you If this were not true consolation I would not delude you I would not entertaine you with false for he is Deus omnium miserationum The God of all mercies and yet he will not shew mercy to them who sin upon presumption So he is Deus omnium Consolationum The God of all Comforts and yet will not comfort them who rely upon the false and miserable comforts of this world How many how very many of us doe otherwise Otherwise to others otherwise to our own Consciences Delude all with false Comforts They would not suffer Christ himselfe to sleepe upon a pillow in a storme but they waked him with that Master carest not thou though we perish When will we wake any Master Mar. 4.38 any upon whom we depend and say Master carest not thou though thou perish We suffer others whom we should instruct and we suffer our selves to passe on to the last gaspe and we never rebuke our Consciences till our Consciences rebuke us at last Alas it is otherwise and you never told us Christ comforts then he disputes not that is not his way He ministers true comfort Domus he flatters not that is not his way And in this true comfort the first beame is That that state which he promises them is a House In my Fathers House c. God hath a progresse house a removing house here upon earth His house of prayer At this houre God enters into as many of these houses as are opened for his service at this houre But his standing house his house of glory is that in Heaven and that he promises them God himselfe dwelt in Tents in this world and he gives them a House in Heaven A House in the designe and survay whereof the Holy Ghost himselfe is figurative the Fathers wanton and the School-men wilde The Holy Ghost in describing this House Rev. 21. fills our contemplation with foundations and walls and gates of gold of precious stones and all materialls that we can call precious The Holy Ghost is figurative And the Fathers are wanton in their spirituall elegancies such as that of S. Augustins if that booke be his Hiems horrens Aestas torrens And Virent prata vernant sata and such other harmonious and melodious and mellifluous cadences of these waters of life But the School-men are wild for as one Author who is afraid of admitting too great a hollownesse in the Earth Munster lest then the Earth might not be said to be solid pronounces that Hell cannot possibly be above three thousand miles in compasse and then one of the torments of Hell will be the throng for their bodies must be there in their dimensions as well as their soules so when the School-men come to measure this house in heaven as they will measure it and the Master God and all his Attributes and tell us how Allmighty and how Infinite he is they pronounce that every soule in that house shall have more roome to it selfe then all this world is We know not that nor see we that the consolation lyes in that we rest in this that it is a House It hath a foundation no Earth-quake shall shake it It hath walls no Artillery shall batter it It hath a roofe no tempest shall pierce it It is a house that affords security and that is one beame And it is Domus patris His Fathers house a house in which he hath interest and that is another beame of his Consolation It was his Fathers and so his And his and so ours Patris for we are not joynt purchasers of Heaven with the Saints but we are co-heires with Christ Jesus We have not a place there because they have done more then enough for themselves but because he hath done enough for them and us too By death we are gathered to our Fathers in nature and by death through his mercy gathered to his Father also Where we shall have a full satisfaction in that wherein S. Philip placed all satisfaction Ostende nobis patrem Lord shew us thy Father and it is enough We shall see his
be diffusive that the object of our affections be the Publique To depart with nothing which we call our owne Nothing in our goods nothing in our opinions nothing in the present exercise of our liberty is not to be liberall To presse too farre the advancing of one part to the depressing of another especially where that other is the Head is not liberall dealing Therefore said Christ to Iames and Iohn Mat. 20.23 August Non est meum dare vobis It is not mine to give to set you on my right and on my left hand Non vobis quia singuli separatim ab aliis rogatis not to you because you consider but your selves and petition for your selves to the prejudice and exclusion of others Joh. 4.16 Chrysost Therefore Christ bad the Samaritan woman call her husband too when shee desired the water of life Ne sola gratiam acciperet saith S. Chrysostome That he might so doe good to her as that others might have good by it too For Adpatriam quâitur August Which way think you to goe home to the heavenly Jerusalem Per ipsum mare sed in ligno You must passe thorow Seas of difficulties and therefore by ship and in a ship you are not safe except other passengers in the same ship be safe too Cant. 1.4 The Spouse saith Trahe me post te Draw me after thee When it is but a Me in the singular but one part considered there is a violence a difficulty a drawing But presently after when there is an uniting in a plurall there is an alacrity a concurrence a willingnesse Curremus post te We We will runne after thee If we would joyne in publique considerations we should runne together This is true Liberality in Gods people to depart with some things of their owne though in goods though in opinions though in present use of liberty for the publique safety These Liberall things these Liberall men King Magistrate and People shall devise and by Liberall things they shall stand The King shall devise Liberall things Cogitabit Rex that is study and propose Directions and commit the execution thereof to persons studious of the glory of God and the publique good Magistratus And that is his Devising of Liberall things The Princes Magistrates Officers shall study to execute aright those gracious Directions received from their royall Master and not retard his holy alacrity in the wayes of Justice by any slacknesse of theirs nor by casting a dampe or blasting a good man or a good cause in the eyes or eares of the King And that is their Devising of Liberall things The people shall devest all personall respects and ill affections towards other men and all private respects of their owne and spend all their faculties of mind of body of fortune upon the Publique And that is their Devising of Liberall things And by these Liberall things Stabit Rex Magistratus these Liberall men shall stand The King shall stand stand in safety at home and stand in triumph abroad The Magistrate shall stand stand in a due reverence of his place from below and in safe possession of his place from above neither be contemned by his Inferiours nor suspiciously and guiltily inquired into by his Superiours Populus neither feare petitions against him nor commissions upon him And the People shall stand stand upon their right Basis that is an inward feeling and an outward declaration that they are safe onely in the Publique safety And they shall all stand in the Sunshine and serenity of a cleere conscience which serenity of conscience is one faire beame even of the glory of God and of the joy of heaven upon that soule that enjoyes it This is Esays Prophecie of the times of an Hezekias of a Iosias the blessing of this civill and morall Liberality in all these persons And it is time to passe to our other generall part from the civill to the spirituall and from applying these words to the good times of a good King to that which is evidently the principall purpose of the Holy Ghost That in the time of Christ Jesus and the reigne of his Gospel this and all other vertues should bee in a higher exaltation then any civill or morall respect can carry them to As an Hezekias 2 Part. Liberalitas a Iosias is a Type of Christ but yet but a Type of Christ so this civill Liberality which we have hitherto spoken of is a Type but yet but a Type of our spirituall Liberality For here we doe not onely change termes the temporall to spirituall and to call that which we called Liberality in the former part Charity in this part nor do we onely make the difference in the proportion measure that that which was a Benefit in the other part should be an Almes in this But we invest the whole consideration in a meere spirituall nature and so that Liberality which was in the former acceptation but a relieving but a refreshing but a repairing of defects and dilapidations in the body or fortune is now in this second part in this spirituall acceptation the raising of a dejected spirit the redintegration of a broken heart the resuscitation of a buried soule the re-consolidation of a scattered conscience not with the glues and cements of this world mirth and inusique and comedies and conversation and wine and women miserable comforters are they all nor with that Meteor that hangs betweene two worlds that is Philosophy and morall constancy which is somewhat above the carnall man but yet far below the man truly Christian and religious But this is the Liberality of which the Holy Ghost himselfe is content to be the Steward of the holy blessed and glorious Trinity and to be notified and qualified by that distinctive notion and specification The Comforter To finde a languishing wretch in a sordid corner not onely in a penurious fortune but in an oppressed conscience His eyes under a diverse suffocation sinothered with smoake and smothered with teares His eares estranged from all salutations and visits and all sounds but his owne sighes and the stormes and thunders and earthquakes of his owne despaire To enable this man to open his eyes and see that Christ Jesus stands before him and sayes Behold and see if ever there were any sorrow like my sorrow and my sorrow is overcome why is not thine To open this mans eares and make him heare that voyce that sayes I was dead and am alive and behold I live for evermore Amen Revel 1.18 and so mayest thou To bow downe those Heavens and bring them into his sad Chamber To set Christ Jesus before him to out-sigh him out-weepe him out-bleed him out-dye him To transferre all the fasts all the scornes all the scourges all the nailes all the speares of Christ Jesus upon him and so making him the Crucified man in the sight of the Father because all the actions and passions of the
Son are appropriated to him and made his so intirely as if there were never a soule created but his To enrich this poore soule to comfort this sad soule so as that he shall beleeve and by beleeving finde all Christ to be his this is that Liberality which we speake of now in dispensing whereof The liberall man deviseth liberall things and by liberall things shall stand Now you may be pleased to remember that when wee considered this word Cogitabit in our former part he shall Devise we found this Devising Originally to signifie a studying a deliberation a concluding upon premisses upon which we inferred pregnantly and justly that as to support a mans expense he must Vivere de proprio Live upon his owne so to relieve others he must Dare de suo Be liberall of that which is his Now what is ours Ours that are Ministers of the Gospell As wee are Christs so Christ is ours Puer datus nobis filius natus nobis There is a Child given unto us a Son borne unto us Esay 9. Even in that sense Christ is given to us that we might give him to others So that in this kind of spirituall liberality we can be liberall of no more but our owne we can give nothing but Christ we can minister comfort to none farther then he is capable and willing to receive and embrace Christ Jesus When therefore some of the Fathers have said Ratio pro fide Graecis Barbaris Just Mar. Rectified reason was accepted at the hands of the Gentiles as faith is of the Christians Philosophia per se justificavit Graecos Philosophie alone without faith justified the Grecians Clemens Satis fuit Gentibus abstinuisse ab Idololatria It was enough for the Gentiles Chrysost if they did not worship false Gods though they knew not the true truly Andrad when we heare Andradius in the Roman Church poure out falvation to all the Gentiles that lived a good morall life and no more when we heare their Tostatus sweepe away Tostatus blow away Originall sin so easily from all the Gentiles In prima operatione bona in charitate In the first good Morall worke that they doe Originall sin is as much extinguished in them by that as by Baptisme in us When we see some Authors in the Reformation afford Heaven to persons that never professed Christ this is spirituall prodigality and beyond that liberality which we consider now for Christ is ours and where we can apply him we can give all comforts in him But none to others Not that we manacle the hands of God or say God can save no man without the profession of Christ But that God hath put nothing else into his Churches hands to save men by but Christ delivered in his Scripture applied in the preaching of the Gospell and sealed in the Sacraments And therefore if we should give this comfort to any but those that received him and received him so according to his Ordinance in his Church we should be over-liberall for we should give more then our owne But to all that would be comforted in Christ we devise liberall things that is wee spend our studies our lucubrations our meditations to bring Christ Jesus home to their case and their conscience And by these liberall things we shall stand In our former part in that Civill liberality Stabit wee did not content our selves with that narrow signification of the word which some gave That the liberall man would stand to it abide by it that is continue liberall still habitually but that he should stand by it and prosper the better for it If this Liberality which we consider now in this second Part were but that branch of Charity which is bodily reliefe by bountifull Almes and no more yet wee might be so liberall in Gods behalfe as to pronounce that the charitable man should stand by it prosper for it and have a plentifull harvest for any sowing in that kinde The Holy Ghost in the 112. Psalme and 9. verse hath taken a word which may almost seeme to taste of a little inconsideration in such a charitable person a little indiscretion in giving in flinging in casting away for it is He hath dispersed Dispersed A word that implies a carelesse scattering But that which followes justifies it He hath dispersed he hath given to the poore Let the manner or the measure be how it will so it be given to the poore it will not be without excuse not without thanks And therefore wee have this liberall charity expressed by S. Paul in the same word too 2 Cor. 9 9. He hath dispersed but dispersed as before Dispersed by giving to the poore For there is more negligence more inconsideration allowed us in giving of Almes then in any other expense Neither are we bound to examine the condition and worthinesse of the person to whom we give too narrowly too severely Hee that gives freely shall stand by doing so Prov. 17.19 for He that pitieth the poore lendeth to the Lord And the Lord is a good Debtor and never puts Creditor to sue And if that bee not comfort enough S. Hicrom gives more in his-translation of that place foeneratur Domino he that pitieth the poore puts his money to use to God and shall receive the debt and more But the liberality which we consider here in this part is more then that more then any charity how large soever that is determined or conversant about bodily reliefe for as you have heard it is consolation applied in Christ to a distressed soule to a disconsolate spirit And how a liberall man shall stand by this liberality by applying such consolation to such a distressed soule I better know in my selfe then I can tell any other that is not of mine owne profession for this knowledge lyes in the experience of it For the most part men are of one of these three sorts Either inconsiderate men and they that consider not themselves consider not us they aske not they expect not this liberality from us or else they are over-confident and presume too much upon God or diffident and distrust him too much And with these two wee meet often but truly with seven diffident and dejected for one presuming soule So that we have much exercise of this liberality of raising dejected spirits And by this liberality we stand For when I have given that man comfort that man hath given me a Sacrament hee hath given me a seale and evidence of Gods favour upon me I have received from him in his receiving from me I leave him comforted in Christ Jesus and I goe away comforted in my selfe that Christ Jesus hath made me an instrument of the dispensation of his mercy And I argue to my selfe and say Lord when I went I was sure that thou who hadst received me to mercy wouldst also receive him who could not be so great a sinner as I And now when I come
same thing againe I beleeve in the Holy Ghost but doe not finde him if I seeke him onely in private prayer But in Ecclesia when I goe to meet him in the Church when I seeke him where hee hath promised to bee found when I seeke him in the execution of that Commission which is proposed to our faith in this Text in his Ordinances and meanes of salvation in his Church instantly the savour of this Myrrhe is exalted and multiplied to me not a dew but a shower is powred out upon me and presently followes Communio Sanctorum The Communion of Saints the assistance of Militant and Triumphant Church in my behalfe And presently followes Remissio peceatorum The remission of sins the purifying of my conscience in that water which is his blood Baptisme and in that wine which is his blood the other Sacrament and presently followes Carnis resurrectio A resurrection of my body My body becomes no burthen to me my body is better now then my soule was before and even here I have Goshen in my Egypt incorruption in the midst of my dunghill spirit in the midst of my flesh heaven upon earth and presently followes Vita aeterna Life everlasting this life of my body shall not last ever nay the life of my soul in heaven is not such as it is at the first For that soule there even in heaven shall receive an addition and accesse of Joy and Glory in the resurrection of our bodies in the consummation When a winde brings the River to any low part of the banke instantly it overflowes the whole Meadow when that winde which blowes where he will The Holy Ghost leads an humble soule to the Article of the Church to lay hold upon God as God hath exhibited himselfe in his Ordinances instantly he is surrounded under the blood of Christ Jesus and all the benefits thereof The communion of Saints the remission of sins the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting are poured out upon him And therefore of this great worke which God hath done for man in applying himselfe to man in the Ordinances of his Church S. Augustine sayes Obscuriùs dixerunt Prophetae de Christo August quà m de Ecclesia The Prophets have not spoken so clearely of the person of Christ as they have of the Church of Christ Hieron for though S. Hierom interpret aright those words of Adam and Eve Erunt duo in carnem unam They two shall be one flesh to be applyable to the union which is betweene Christ and his Church Ephes 5. for so S. Paul himselfe applies them that Christ and his Church are all one as man and wife are all one yet the wife is or at least it had wont to be so easilier found at home then the husband wee can come to Christs Church but we cannot come to him The Church is a Hill and that is conspicuous naturally but the Church is such a Hill as may be seene every where August S. Augustine askes his Auditory in one of his Sermons doe any of you know the Hill Olympus and himselfe sayes in their behalfe none of you know it no more sayes he do those that dwell at Olympus know Giddabam vestram some Hill which was about them trouble not thy selfe to know the formes and fashions of forraine particular Churches neither of a Church in the lake nor a Church upon seven hils but since God hath planted thee in a Church where all things necessary for salvation are administred to thee and where no erronious doctrine even in the confession of our Adversaries is affirmed and held that is the Hill and that is the Catholique Church and there is this Commission in this text meanes of salvation sincerely executed So then such a Commission there is and it is in the Article of the Creed that is the ubi We are now come in our order to the third circumstantiall branch the Vnde Vnde from whence and when this Commission issued in which we consider that since we receive a deepe impression from the words which our friends spake at the time of their death much more would it worke upon us if they could come and speake to us after their death You know what Dives said Si quis ex mortuis Luke 16. If one from the dead might goe to my Brethren he might bring them to any thing Now Primitiae mortuorum The Lord of life and yet the first borne of the dead Christ Jesus returnes againe after his death to establish this Commission upon his Apostles It hath therefore all the formalities of a strong and valid Commission Christ gives it Ex mero motu meerely out of his owne goodnesse He foresaw no merit in us that moved him neither was he moved by any mans solicitations for could it ever have fallen into a mans heart to have prayed to the Father that his Son might take our Nature and dye and rise again and settle a course upon earth for our salvation if this had not first risen in the purpose of God himself Would any man ever have solicited or prayed him to proceed thus It was Ex mero motu out of his owne goodnesse and it was Ex certa scientia He was not deceived in his grant he knew what he did he knew this Commission should be executed in despight of all Heretiques and Tyrans that should oppose it And as it was out of his owne Will and with his owne knowledge so it was Ex plenitudine potestatis He exceeded not his Power for Christ made this Commission then Mat. 28.18 when as it is expressed in the other Euangelist he produced that evidence Data est mihi All power is given to me in Heaven and in earth where Christ speakes not of that Power which he had by his eternall generation though even that power were given him for he was Deus de Deo God of God nor he speakes not of that Power which was given him as Man which was great but all that he had in the first minute of his conception in the first union of the two Natures Divine and Humane together but that Power from which he derives this Commission is that which he had purchased by his blood and came to by conquest Ego vici mundum sayes Christ I have conquered the world and comming in by conquest I may establish what forme of Government I will and my will is to governe my Kingdome by this Commission and by these Commissioners to the Worlds end to establish these meanes upon earth for the salvation of the world And as it hath all these formalities of a due Commission made without suite made without error made without defect of power so had it this also that it was duely and authentically testified for though this Euangelist name but the eleven Apostles to have beene present and they in this case might be thought Testes domestici Witnesses that witnesse to their owne
certaine dayes Daniel would not onely not be bound by this Proclamation and so continue his set and stationary houres of private prayer in his chamber but he would declare it to all the world He would set open his chamber windows that he might be seen to pray for though some determine that act of Daniel in setting open his windows at prayer in this That because the Jewes were bound by their law wheresoever they were in war in captivity upon the way or in their sick beds to turne towards Jerusalem and so towards the Temple whensoever they prayed according to that stipulation which had passed between God and Solomon at the Dedication of the Temple When thy servants pray towards this house heare them in it Therefore as Hezekias in his sicke bed when he turned towards the wall to pray is justly thought to have done so therefore that he might pray towards the Temple which stood that way so Daniel is thought to have opened his windows to that purpose too that he might have the more free prospect towards Jerusalem from Babylon though some I say determine Daniels act in that yet it is by more and more usefully extended to an expressing of such a zeale as in so apparant a dishonor to his God could not be suffocated nor extinguished with a Proclamation In which act of his which was a direct and evident opposing and affronting of the State though I dare not joyne with them who absolutely and peremptorily condemne this act of Daniel because Gods subsequent act in a miraculous deliverance of Daniel seems to imply some former particular revelation from God to Daniel that he should proceed in that confident manner yet dare I much lesse draw this act of Daniels into consequence and propose it for an Example and precedent to private men least of all to animate seditious men who upon pretence of a necessity that God must be served in this and this and no other manner provoke and exasperate the Magistrate with their schismaticall conventicles and separations But howsoever that may stand and howsoever there may be Circumstances which may prevaile either upon humane infirmity or upon a rectified Conscience or howsoever God in his Judgements may cast a cloud upon his own Sunne and darken the glory of the Gospel in some place for some time yet though we lose our Ranan our publique Rejoycing we shall never lose our Shamach our inward gladnesse that God is our God and we his servants for all this God will never leave his servants without this internall joy which shall preserve them from suspicions of Gods power that he cannot maintaine or not restore his cause and from jealousies that he hath abandoned or deserted them in particular God shall never give them over to an indifferency nor to a stupidity nor to an absence of tendernesse and holy affections that it shall become all one to them how Gods cause prospers or suffers But if I continue that way prayer and prayer so qualified if I lose my Ranan my outward declarations of Rejoycing If I be tyed to a death-bed in a Consumption and cannot rejoyce in comming to these publique Congregations to participate of their prayers and to impart to them my Meditations If I be ruined in my fortune and cannot rejoyce in an open distribution to the reliefe of the poore and a preaching to others in that way by example of doing good works If at my last minute I be not able to edifie my friends nor Catechize my children with any thing that I can doe or say if I be not able so much as with hand or eye to make a signe though I have lost my Ranan all the Eloquence of outward declaration yet God shall never take from me my Shamach my internall gladnesse and consolation in his undeceivable and undeceiving Spirit that he is mine and I am his And this joy this gladnesse in my way and in my end shall establish me for that is that which is intended in the next and last word Omnibus diebus we shall Rejoyce and be Glad all our dayes Nothing but this testimony Omnibus diebus That the Spirit beares witnesse with my spirit that upon my prayer so conditioned of praise and prayer I shall still prevaile with God could imprint in me this joy all my dayes The seales of his favour in outward blessings fayle me in the dayes of shipwracke in the dayes of fire in the dayes of displacing my potent friends or raysing mine adversaries In such dayes I cannot rejoyce and be glad The seales of his favour in inward blessings and holy cheerfulnesse fayle me in a present remorse after a sinne newly committed But yet in the strength of a Christian hope as I can pronounce out of the grounds of Nature in an Eclipse of the Sunne that the Sunne shall returne to his splendor againe I can pronounce out of the grounds of Gods Word and Gods Word is much better assurance then the grounds of Nature for God can and does shake the grounds of Nature by Miracles but no Jod of his Word shall ever perish that I shall returne againe on my hearty penitence if I delay it not and rejoyce and be glad all my dayes that is what kinde of day soever overtake me In the dayes of our youth when the joyes of this world take up all the roome there shall be roome for this holy Joy that my recreations were harmelesse and my conversation innocent and certainly to be able to say that in my recreations in my conversation I neither ministred occasion of tentation to another nor exposed my selfe to tentations from another is a faire beame of this rejoycing in the dayes of my youth In the dayes of our Age when we become incapable insensible of the joyes of this world yet this holy joy shall season us not with a sinfull delight in the memory of our former sinnes but with a re-juveniscence a new and a fresh youth in being come so neere to another to an immortall life In the dayes of our mirth and of laughter this holy joy shall enter And as the Sunne may say to the starres at Noone How frivoulous and impertinent a thing is your light now So this joy shall say unto laughter Thou art mad and unto mirth Eccles 2.2 what dost thou And in the mid-night of sadnesse and dejection of spirit this joy shall shine out and chide away that sadnesse with Davids holy charme My soule why art thou cast downe why art thou disquieted within me In those dayes which Iob speaks of Iob 30.27 Praevenerunt me dies afflictionis meae Miseries are come upon me before their time My intemperances have hastned age my riotousnesse hath hastned poverty my neglecting of due officiousnesse and respect towards great persons hath hastned contempt upon me Afflictions which I suspected not thought not of have prevented my feares and then in those dayes which Iob speaks of againe Possident me dies
afflictionis Verse 16. Studied and premeditated plots and practises swallowe mee possesse me intirely In all these dayes I shall not onely have a Zoar to flie to if I can get out of Sodom joy if I can overcome my sorrow There shall not be a Goshen bordering upon my Egypt joy if I can passe beyond or besides my sorrow but I shall have a Goshen in my Egypt nay my very Egypt shall be my Goshen I shall not onely have joy though I have sorrow but therefore my very sorrow shall be the occasion of joy I shall not onely have a Sabbath after my six dayes labor but Omnibus diebus a Sabbath shall enlighten every day and inanimate every minute of every day And as my soule is as well in my foot as in my hand though all the waight and oppression lie upon the foot and all action upon the hand so these beames of joy shall appeare as well in my pillar of cloud as in theirs of fire in my adversity as well as in their prosperity And when their Sun shall set at Noone mine shall rise at midnight they shall have damps in their glory and I joyfull exaltions in my dejections And to end with the end of all In die mortis In the day of my death and that which is beyond the end of all and without end in it selfe The day of Judgement If I have the testimony of a rectified conscience that I have accustomed my selfe to that accesse to God by prayer and such prayer as though it have had a body of supplication and desire of future things yet the soule and spirit of that prayer that is my principall intention in that prayer hath been praise and thanksgiving If I be involved in S. Chrysostoms Patent Orantes non natura sed dispensatione Angeli fiunt That those who pray so that is pray by way of praise which is the most proper office of Angels as they shall be better then Angels in the next world for they shall be glorifying spirits as the Angels are but they shall also be glorified bodies which the Angels shall never bee so in this world they they shall be as Angels because they are employed in the office of Angels to pray by way of praise If as S. Basil reads those words of that Psalme not spiritus meus but respiratio mea laudet Dominum Not onely my spirit but my very breath not my heart onely but my tongue and my hands bee accustomed to glorifie God In die mortis in the day of my death when a mist of sorrow and of sighes shall fill my chamber and a cloude exhaled and condensed from teares shall bee the curtaines of my bed when those that love me shall be sorry to see mee die and the devill himselfe that hates me sorry to see me die so in the favour of God And In die Iudicii In the day of Judgement when as all Time shall cease so all measures shall cease The joy and the sorrow that shall be then shall be eternall no end and infinite no measure no limitation when every circumstance of sinne shall aggravate the condemnation of the unrepentant sinner and the very substance of my sinne shall bee washed away in the blood of my Saviour when I shall see them who sinned for my sake perish eternally because they proceeded in that sinne and I my selfe who occasioned their sin received into glory because God upon my prayer and repentance had satisfied me early with his mercy early that is before my transmigration In omnibus diebus In all these dayes the dayes of youth and the wantonnesses of that the dayes of age and the tastlesnesse of that the dayes of mirth and the sportfulnesse of that and of inordinate melancholy and the disconsolatenesse of that the days of such miseries as astonish us with their suddennesse and of such as aggravate their owne waight with a heavy expectation In the day of Death which pieces up that circle and in that day which enters another circle that hath no pieces but is one equall everlastingnesse the day of Judgement Either I shall rejoyce be able to declare my faith and zeale to the assistance of others or at least be glad in mine owne heart in a firme hope of mine owne salvation And therefore beloved as they whom lighter affections carry to Shewes and Masks and Comedies As you your selves whom better dispositions bring to these Exercises conceive some contentment and some kinde of Joy in that you are well and commodiously placed they to see the Shew you to heare the Sermon when the time comes though your greater Joy bee reserved to the comming of that time So though the fulnesse of Joy be reserved to the last times in heaven yet rejoyce and be glad that you are well and commodiously placed in the meane time and that you sit but in expectation of the fulnesse of those future Joyes Returne to God with a joyfull thankfulnesse that he hath placed you in a Church which withholds nothing from you that is necessary to salvation whereas in another Church they lack a great part of the Word and halfe the Sacrament And which obtrudes nothing to you that is not necessary to salvation whereas in another Church the Additionall things exceed the Fundamentall the Occasionall the Originall the Collaterall the Direct And the Traditions of men the Commandements of God Maintaine and hold up this holy alacrity this religious cheerfulnesse For inordinate sadnesse is a great degree and evidence of unthankfulnesse and the departing from Joy in this world is a departing with one piece of our Evidence for the Joyes of the world to come SERM. LXXX Preached at the funerals of Sir William Cokayne Knight Alderman of London December 12. 1626. JOH 11.21 Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not died GOd made the first Marriage and man made the first Divorce God married the Body and Soule in the Creation and man divorced the Body and Soule by death through sinne in his fall God doth not admit not justifie not authorize such Super-inductions upon such Divorces as some have imagined That the soule departing from one body should become the soule of another body in a perpetuall revolution and transmigration of soules through bodies which hath been the giddinesse of some Philosophers to think Or that the body of the dead should become the body of an evill spirit that that spirit might at his will and to his purposes informe and inanimate that dead body God allowes no such Super-inductions no such second Marriages upon such divorces by death no such disposition of soule or body after their dissolution by death But because God hath made the band of Marriage indissoluble but by death farther then man can die this divorce cannot fall upon man As farre as man is immortall man is a married man still still in possession of a soule and a body too And man is for ever immortall in both Immortall in
he gave them the holy Ghost in stead of Scriptures But to us who are weaker hee hath given both The holy Ghost in the Scriptures and if we neglect either we have neither If we trust to a private spirit and call that the holy Ghost without Scripture or to the Scriptures without the holy Ghost that is without him there where he hath promised to be in his Ordinance in his Church we have not the seale of that Promise the holy Ghost Finde then that promise in your holy love and sober studie of the Scriptures and finde the performance the fruits thereof in your conversation and then you have an Autumne better then any worldly Spring A vintage a gathering of those blessed fruits Gal. 5.22 The fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace long-suffering gentlenesse goodnesse faith meckenesse temperance where by the way these are not called severally the fruits of the Spirit as though they were so many severall fruits which might be had one without another but collectively all together they are called the fruit It is not Love alone nor Joy alone no nor Faith alone that is the fruit of the holy Ghost Love but not love alone but that love when betweene the holy Ghost and you you can joy in that love and not repent it Joy but not joy alone but that joy when betweene the holy Ghost and you you can finde peace in that joy that you be not the sadder after for having beene so merry before this these these and all the rest together are the fruit of the holy Ghost and therefore labour to have them all or you lacke all And then lastly as we pursuing Gods Ordinance have beene able to say to you Accipite Spiritum sanctum Behold the holy Ghost in your selves behold he appeared to you when he moved you to come hither behold he appeared to you as often as he hath opened the window of the Arke your hearts to take in this Dove this houre so we may say unto you as we say in the Schoole There is an infusion of the holy Ghost liquor is infused into a vessell if that vessell hold it though it doe but cover the bottome and no more The holy Ghost is infused into you if he have made any entry if he cover any part if he have taken hold of any corrupt affection There is also a diffusion of the holy Ghost Liquor is diffused into a vessell when it fils all the parts of the vessell and leaves no emptinesse no driness The holy Ghost is diffused into you if he overspread you and possesse you all and rectifie all your perversnesses But then in the Schoole we have also an effusion of the holy Ghost And liquor is effused then when it so fils the vessell as that that overflowes to the benefit of them who will participate thereof Receive therefore the holy Ghost so as that the holy Ghost may overflow flow from your example to the edification of others That you may go home and say to your children receive ye the holy Ghost in the Spirit of contentment and acquiescence and thankfulnesse to God and me in that portion that I can leave you And say to your servants receive ye the holy Ghost in the spirit of obedience and fidelity And say to your neigh bours receive ye the holy Ghost in the spirit of peace and quiemesse And say to your Creditors receive ye the holy Ghost in the spirit of patience and tendernesse and compassion and for bearing And to your debtors receive ye the holy Ghost in the spirit of industry and labour in your calling You see Preaching it selfe even the Preaching of Christ himselfe had beene lost if the holy Ghost had not brought all those things to their remembrance And if the holy Ghost do bring these things which we preach to your remembrance you are also made fishers of men and Apostles and as the Prophet speaks Salvatores mundi Obad. 1.21 men that assist the salvation of the world by the best way of preaching an exemplar life and holy convesation Amen SERMON XXX Preached upon Whitsunday Part of the Gospell of the Day JOHN 14.20 At that day shall ye know That I am in my Father and you in me and I in you THe two Volumes of the Scriptures are justly and properly called two Testaments for they are Testatio Mentis The attestation the declaration of the will and pleasure of God how it pleased him to be served under the Law and how in the state of the Gospell But to speake according to the ordinary acceptation of the word the Testament that is The last Will of Christ Jesus is this speech this declaration of his to his Apostles of which this text is a part For it was spoken as at his Death-bed his last Supper And it was before his Agony in the garden so that if we should consider him as a meere man there was no inordinatenesse no irregularity in his affection It was testified with sufficient witnesses and it was sealed in blood in the Institution of the Sacrament By this Wil then as a rich and abundant Ver. 3. and liberall Testator having given them so great a Legacy as a place in the kingdome of heaven yet he adds a codicill he gives more he gives them the evidence by which they should maintain their right to that kingdome that is the testimony of the Spirit The Comforter the Holy Ghost whom he promises to send to them Ver. 16. And still more and more abundant he promises them that that assurance of their right shall not be taken from them till he himself return again to give them an everlasting possession That he may receive us unto himself and that where he is we may also be The main Legacy Ver. 3. the body of the gift is before That which is given in this Text is part of that evidence by which it appeares to us that we have right and by which that right is maintained and that is knowledge that knowledge which we have of our interest in God and his kingdome here At that day ye shall know c. And in the giving of this we shall consider first the Legacy it self this knowledge Cognoscetis Ye shall know And secondly the time when this Legacy grows due to us In illo die At that day ye shall know And thirdly how much of this treasure is devised to us what portion of this heavenly knowledge is bequeathed to us and that is in three great summes in three great mysteries First ye shall know the mystery of the Trinity of distinct persons in the Godhead Ego in patre That I am in my Father And then the mystery of the Incarnation of God who took our flesh Vos in me That you are in me And lastly the mystery and working of our Redemption in our Sanctification Ego in vobis That Christ by his Spirit the Holy Ghost is in us Nequitia animae ignoratio
sayes Trismegistus 1. Part. Cognoscetis He doth not say it is the infirmity of the soule or the impotency of the soule but the iniquity the wickednesse of the soule consists in this that we are ignorant of those wayes and those ends upon which we should direct and by which we should govern our purposes And if ignorance be the corruption and dissolution certainly knowledge is the redintegration and consolidation of the soule From this corruption from this ignorance God delivered his people at first in some measure by the Law that is he gave them thereby a way to get out of this ignorance he put them to Schoole Lex Paedagogus sayes the Apostle The Law was their School-master But in the state of the Gospell in the shedding of the beames of the streames of his grace in the blood of Christ Jesus we are graduats and have proceeded so far as to a manifestation of things already done and so our faith is brought in a great part to consist in matter of fact and that which was but matter of prophecy to them in the old Testament they knew not when it should be done to us in the New is matter of History and we know when it was done In the old times God led his people sometimes with clouds sometimes with fire some lights they had but some hidings some withdrawings of those lights too the mysteries of their salvation were not fully revealed unto them To us all is holy fire all is evident light all is in the Epiphany in the manifestation of Christ and in the presence of the Holy Ghost who is delivered over to us to remain with us Vsque ad consummationem Till the end of the world God hath buried hidden from us the body of Moses he hath removed that cloud that vaile the ceremony the letter of the Law Yea he hath hidden that which benighted us more and kept us in more ignorance of him our infinite sins which are clouds of witnesses to our Consciences he hath hidden them in the wounds of his Son our Saviour so that there remaines nothing but clearnesse evident clearnesse The Gospell being brought to us all in that Christ is actually and really come and Christ being brought to me in that he is appliable in the Church to every particular soule so that this Legacy that is given in this text is not only in a possibility and in a probability and in a verisimilitude but in an assurance and in an infallibility in a knowledge we know it is thus and thus We shall therefore consider this knowledge first as it is opposed to ignorance secondly as it is opposed to inconsideration and thirdly as it is opposed to conclealing to smothering First we must have it and then we must know that we have it and after that we must publish it and declare it so that others may know that we know it Now Ignorantia as there is a profitable a wholesome a learned ignorance which is a modest and a reverent abstinence from searching into those secrets which God hath not revealed in his word whereupon S. Augustine sayes usefully Libenter ignoremus quae ignorare nos vult Deus Let not us desire to know that which God hath no will to reveale So also there is an unprofitable an infectious indeed an ignorant knowledge which puffes and swels us up that of which the Prophet sayes Stultus factus est omnis homo à scientia Jer. 12. Every mans knowledge makes him a foole when it makes him undervalue and despise another And this is one strange and incurable effect of this opinion of wit and knowledge that whereas every man murmurs and sayes to himself such a man hath more land then I more money then I more custome more practise then I when perchance in truth it is not so yet every man thinks that he hath more wit more knowledge then all the world beside when God knows it is very far from being so When the Prophet in that place cals this confident beleever in his own wisdome Foole he hath therein fastned upon him a name of the greatest reproach to man which the Holy Ghost in the mouth of a Prophet could choose As it appeares best in those gradations which Christ makes Mat. 5.22 where Whosoever is angry is made culpable of judgement whosoever sayes Racha that is expresses his anger in any contumelious speech is subject to a Councell but whosoever shall say Foole shall be worthy to be punished in hell fire For by calling him Foole sayes S. Chrysostome there he takes from him that understanding by which he is a man and so sayes he despoiles him of all interest in the creature in this life and all interest in God in the life to come It is the deepest indignation the highest abomination that Iob in his anguish conceived Iob 19. Stulti despiciebant me They that are but fooles themselves despised me And after that again They are the children of fooles and yet I am their song and their talk And in that comparison which God himself instituted and proposed in Deuteronomie They have moved me to jealousie Deut. 30. with that which is not God and I will move them to jealousie with those who are no people I will provoke them to anger with a foolish Nation God intimates so much That a Foole is no more a man then an Idoll is a God Now this foolishnesse which we speak of against which God gives us this Legacy of knowledge is not that bluntnesse that dulnesse that narrownesse of understanding which is opposed to sharpnesse of wit or readinesse of expressing and delivering any matter for very many very devout and godly men lack that sharpnesse and that readinesse and yet have a good portion of spirituall wisdome and knowledge Neither is this foolishnesse that weaknesse or inability to amasse and gather together particulars as they have fallen out in former times and in our times and thereby to judge of future occurrences by former precedents which is the wisdome of States-men and of civill contemplation to build up a body of knowledge from reading stories or observing actions for this wisdome Solomon cals vanity and vexation Nor is this foolishnesse that precipitation that over-earnestnesse that animosity that heat which some men have and which is opposed to discretion for sometimes zeale it self hath such a heat and such a precipitation in it and yet that zeale may not be absolutely condemned but may be sometimes of some use The dull man the weak man the hasty man is not this foole Prov. 28. but as the Wiseman who knew best hath told us The foole is he that trusteth in his own heart And therefore against this foolishnesse of trusting in our own hearts of confiding and relying upon our own plots and devices and from sacrificing to our own nets as the Prophet Habakkuk speaks from this attributing of all to our own industry from this
nothing to the Gospel and then Euangelium totum Preach the Gospel intirely defalke nothing forbeare nothing of that First then we are to preach you are to heare nothing but the Gospel And we may neither postdate our Commission nor interline it nothing is Gospel now which was not Gospel then when Christ gave his Apostles their Commission And no man can serve God and Mammon no man can preach those things which belong to the filling of Angels roomes in heaven and those things which belong to the filling of the Popes Coffers at Rome with Angels upon earth For that was not Gospel when Christ gave this commission And did Christ create his Apostles as the Bishop of Rome creates his Cardinals Cum clausura oris He makes them Cardinalls and shuts their mouths they have mouths but no tongues tongues but no voice they are Judges but must give no Judgement Cardinalls but have no interest in the passages of businesses till by a new favour he open their mouths againe Did Christ make his Apostles his Ambassadors and promise to send their instructions after them Did he give them a Commission and presently a Supersedeas upon it that they should not execute it Did he make a Testament a will and referre all to future Schedules and Codicills Did he send them to preach the Gospel and tell them You shall know the Gospel in the Epistles of the Popes and their Decretals hereafter You shall know the Gospel of deposing Princes in the Councell of Lateran hereafter and the Gospel in deluding Heretiques by safe conducts in the Gospel of Constance hereafter and the Gospel of creating new Articles of the Creed in the Councell of Trent hereafter If so then was some reason for Christs Disciples to thinke when Christ said Verily I say unto you there are some here who shall not taste death Mat. 16. ultim till they see the Sonne of man come in glory that he spake and meant to be understood literally that neither Iohn nor the rest of the Apostles should ever die if they must live to preach the Gospel and the Gospel could not be knowne by them till the end of the world And therefore it was wisely done in the Romane Church to give over preaching since the preaching of the Gospel that is nothing but the Gospel would have done them no good to their ends When all their preaching was come to be nothing but declamations of the vertue of such an Indulgence and then a better Indulgence then that to morrow and every day a new market of fuller Indulgences when all was but an extolling of the tendernesse and the bowells of compassion in that mother Church who was content to set a price and a small price upon every sinne So that if David were upon the earth againe and then when the persecuting Angel had drawne his sword would but send an appeale to Rome at that price he might have an inhibition against that Angel and have leave to number his people let God take it as he list Nay if Sodome were upon the earth againe and the Angel ready to set fire to that Towne if they could send to Rome they might purchase a Charter even for that sinne though perchance they would be loath to let that sinne passe over their hills But not to speake any thing which may savour of jeast or levity in so serious a matter and so deplorable a state as their preaching was come to with humble thankes to God that we are delivered from it and humble prayers to God that we never returne to it nor towards it let us chearfully and constantly continue this duty of preaching and hearing the Gospel that is first the Gospel onely and not Traditions of men And the next is of all the Gospel nothing but it and yet all it add nothing defalke nothing for as the Law is so the Gospel is Res integra a whole piece and as S. Iames sayes of the integrity of the Law Whosoever keeps the whole Law James 2.10 and offends in one point he is guilty of all So he that is afraid to preach all and he that is loath to heare all the Gospel he preaches none he heares none And therefore if that imputation which the Romane Church layes upon us were true That we preach no falshood but doe not teach all the truth we did lacke one of the true marks of the true Church that is the preaching of the Gospel for it is not that if it be not all that take therefore the Gospel as we take it from the Schoole that it is historia and usus the Gospel is the history of the Gospel the proposing to your understanding all that Christ did and it is the appropriation of the Gospel the proposing to your faith that all that he did he did for you and then if you hearken to them who will tell you that Christ did that which he never did that he came in when the doores were shut so that his body passed thorough the very body of the Tymber thereby to advance their doctrine of Transubstantiation or that Christ did that which he did to another end then he did it that when he whipt the buyers and sellers out of the Temple he exercised a secular power and soveraignty over the world and thereby established a soveraignty over Princes in his Vicar the Pope These men doe not preach the Gospel because the Gospel is Historia usus The truth of the History and of the application and this is not the truth of the History So also if you hearken to them who tell you that though the blood of Christ be sufficient in value for you and for all yet you have no meanes to be sure that he meant his blood to you but you must passe in this world and passe out of this world in doubt and that it is well if you come to Purgatory and be sure there of getting to heaven at last these men preach not the Gospel because the Gospel is the history and the use and this is not the true use And thus it is if wee take the Gospell from the Schoole but if we take it from the Schoole master from Christ himselfe the Gospell is repentance and remission of sinnes For he came That repentance and remission of sinnes should be preached in his Name Luk. 24.47 If then they will tell you that you need no such repentance for a sinne as amounts to a contrition to a sorrow for having offended God to a detestation of the sinne to a resolution to commit it no more but that it is enough to have an attrition as they will needs call it a servill feare and sorrow that you have incurred the torments of hell or if they will tell you that when you have had this attrition that the clouds of sadnesse and of dejection of spirit have met and beat in your conscience and that the allision of those clouds have brought forth a
thunder a fearefull apprehension of Gods Judgements upon you And when you have had your contrition too that you have purged your soule in an humble confession and have let your soule blood with a true and sharpe remorse and compunction for all sinnes past and put that bleeding soule into a bath of repentant teares and into a bath of blood the blood of Christ Jesus in the Sacrament and feele it faint and languish there and receive no assurance of remission of sinnes so as that it can levy no fine that can conclude God but still are afraid that God will still incumber you with yesterdayes sinnes againe to morrow If this be their way they doe not preach the Gospell because they doe not preach all the Gospell for the Gospell is repentance and remission of sinnes that is the necessity of repentance and then the assurednesse of remission goe together Thus farre then the Crediderit is carried Baptizate wee must beleeve that there is a way upon earth to salvation and that Preaching is that way that is the manner and the matter is the Gospell onely the Gospell and all the Gospell and then the seale is the administration of the Sacraments as we said at first of both Sacraments of the Sacrament of Baptisme there can be no question for that is literally and directly within the Commission Goe and Baptize and then Qui non crediderit Hee that beleeves not not onely he that beleeves not when it is done but he that beleeves not that this ought to be done shall bee damned wee doe not joyne Baptisme to faith tanquam dimidiam solatii causam as though Baptisme were equall to faith in the matter of salvation for salvation may bee had in divers cases by faith without Baptisme but in no case by Baptisme without faith neither doe wee say that in this Commission to the Apostles the administration of Baptisme is of equall obligation upon the Minister as preaching that he may be as well excusable if hee never preach as if hee never Baptize Wee know S. Peter commanded Cornelius and his family to be Baptized Acts 10. ult wee doe not know if hee Baptized any of them with his owne hand So S. Paul sayes of himselfe that Baptizing was not his principall function 1 Cor. 1.17 Christ sent not me to Baptize but to preach the Gospell saith he In such a sense as God said by Ieremy Jer. 7.22 I spake not unto your fathers nor commanded them concerning burnt offerings but I said obey my voyce so S. Paul saith hee was not sent to Baptize God commanded our fathers obedience rather then sacrifice but yet sacrifice too and hee commands us preaching rather then Baptizing but yet Baptizing too For as that is true Hiero. In adultis in persons which are come to yeares of discretion which S. Hierome sayes Fieri non potest It is impossible to receive the Sacrament of Baptisme except the soule have received Sacramentum fidei the Sacrament of faith that is the Word preached except he have been instructed and chatechized before so there is a necessity of Baptisme after for any other ordinary meanes of salvation that God hath manifested to his Church and therefore Quos Deus conjunxit those things which God hath joyned in this Commission Ioh. 3.5 let no man separate Except a man bee borne againe of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of heaven Let no man reade that place disjunctively Of Water or the Spirit for there must bee both S. Peter himselfe knew not how to separate them Acts 2. Repent and bee baptized every one of you saith he for for any one that might have beene and was not Baptized S. Peter had not that seale to plead for his salvation The Sacrament of Baptisme then Eucharistia is within this Crediderit it must necessarily be beleeved to be necessary for salvation But is the other Sacrament of the Lords Supper so too Is that within this Commission Certainly it is or at least within the equity if not within the letter pregnantly implyed if not literally expressed For thus it stands they are commanded Matt. 28. ult 1 Cor. 11.23 To teach all things that Christ had commanded them And then S. Paul sayes I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you That the Lord Iesus tooke bread c. and so hee proceeds with the Institution of the Sacrament and then he addes that Christ said Doe this in remembrance of mee which is not onely remember me when you doe it but doe it that you may remember me As well the receiving of the Sacrament as the worthy receiving of it is upon commandment In the Primitive Church there was an erronious opinion of such an absolute necessity in taking this Sacrament as that they gave it to persons when they were dead a custome which was growne so common as that it needed a Canon of a Councell Carthag 3. c. 6. to restraine it But the giving of this Sacrament to children newly baptized was so generall even in pure times as that we see so great men as Cyprian and Augustine scarce lesse then vehement for the use of it Musculus and some learned men in the Reformed Church have not so far declined it but that they call it Catholicam consuetudinem a Catholique an universall custome of the Church But there is a farre greater strength both of naturall and spirituall faculties required for the receiving of this Sacrament of the Lords Supper then the other of Baptisme But for those who have those faculties that they are now or now should be able to discerne the Lords body and their owne soules besides that inestimable and inexpressible comfort which a worthy receiver receives as often as he receives that seale of his reconciliation to God since as Baptisme is Tessera Christianorum I know a Christian from a Turke by that Sacrament so this Sacrament is Tessera orthodoxoruÌ I know a Protestant from a Papist by this Sacrament it is a service to God and to his Church to come frequently to this Communion for truly not to shake or afright any tender conscience I scarce see how any man can satisfie himselfe that he hath said the Lords Prayer with a good conscience if at the same time he were not in such a disposition as that he might have received the Sacrament too for if he be in charity he might receive and if he be not he mocked Almighty God and deluded the Congregation in saying the Lords Prayer There remaines one branch of that part Docete servare Preach the Gospell Docete servare administer the Sacraments and teach them to practise and doe all this how comes matter of fact to be matter of faith Thus Qui non crediderit he that does not beleeve that he is bound to live aright is within the penalty of this text It is so with us and it is so