invest us with a Light yet inaccessible will also place another Crown of Glory inaccessible And so in the allusion the contemplation of those joyes that go before the entrance into our Masters Joy and those that follow after in fruition will easily stir and fire our souls to cry or sing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to this son of David Blessed be he that comes thus in the name of the Lord and is the Lord that comes thus from the Father and God Totius of all consolation anointed to his great Office and Design of binding up the broken hearted by the Holy Ghost the Comforter Luke 1. and is himself by way of Excellency stil'd the consolation of Israel And thus this first glad priviledge of Gods fearful and faithful servant is refin'd and wrought up to perfection from this Mine in Malachy the last of the Prophets to that Mine of St. John the last and liveliest of the Evangelists or rather that Mine of our Lords own discovery in Iohn 17.10 Thine they are and all mine are thine and thine are mine Mine But who is he All our comfort even now was complicated and conserv'd in Dominus Exercituum And is he so That stile indeed wears out in the New Testament but is abundantly recompenc'd in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The only Potentate the Lord of Life and Glory Most of all in that name above all names which all tongues must confess and at which all knees should bow that sweet and powerful that gracious and glorious Name of Jesus a Saviour and able to save to the utmost in whom all fulness dwels and in whose hand is all power in heaven and earth And had not their eyes been held down and the Jews hearts vaild over they would have perceived and received him for the true Messiah in this very notion and nature of a Lord of Hosts For in him were all their Moses's Joshuales all their Captains and Saviours their Baraks and Gideons and Sampsons and Davids and Macchabees all reviv'd and restor'd to the world But they knew not the manner of their King and to mistake a King may be a world of misery nor of his Kingdom nor the force of his Artillery in the dreadful Canon and Ordinance of his Word Spirit Nor that the Scepter of his new Law should prove the Iron Rod to break and subdue both men and Devils They considered not his stupendious Miracles proving him the Lord of Hosts in commanding over the whole frame of Heaven and Earth and Seas and all the host of them and bowing whole created nature to his obedience To rebuke tempestuous winds roaring waves as a Nurse her child with Peace and be still nay suspend and silence and deprive Devils of their possessions with a word To lay his command on Death it self and force him to let go his hold after four dayes seisure in the grave Will Iews or Jewish hearts attend my voice that would not hear the thunder of those Miracles But for support of the true Catholick faith and for the consummation of all our consolation King and people Christ Jesus is become our Dominus Exercituum Christo auspice regno regnabo too and his bloody Cross a braver badge then that of Castor and Pollux This is polleus lux ipsa For is it not he alone destroyes our raging lusts and nails them to his cross and he alone that ' gainst a world of opposition and all the opposition of this evil world cryes to his host be of good comfort I have overcome the world He alone that came to dissolve destroy the works the strong holds of Satan and to vanquish powers and Principalities in high places that had the vantage ground over us He that breaks in on death and sin and hell and like a Conquerer in the triumphal Chariot of his Cross made a shew of them openly and as Triumphers us'd to do when he ascended up on high and led captivity captive he gave gifts unto men But yet more to prove him the Lord of Hosts by being more then that name can imply for this Name is observed to be too yong for the ancient of Dayes that is a Name taken up since and from the Creation A Name indeed that draws and scatters on us all we can look for from our Maker and Preserver But all his powers and mercies are resolved and melted into this Name of Christ Jesus Without Christ without God sayes the Apostle in the world we are but meer pieces of the masse nay far worse is our condition born children of wrath and in state of enimies and so the Lord of Hosts is against us and all the hosts of Heaven and spirits of Hell and all the creatures and our selves against our selves And when there was no Name under heaven to save and deliver us from present and wrath to come then came this Prince of peace and became our Peace pledg'd himself for us gave his life a Ransome so making peace So prevailing over the Lord of Hosts binding his Almighty hands and God content to accept terms of peace may we not say so Came not that Voyce from Heaven This is my beloved Son in quo acquiesco in whom I am at peace with all the world If all this prove him not a Lord of Hosts he will one day to the further consolation of all that love his appearing appear to the consternation of all his Despisers in flaming fire to render vengeance And as in the dayes of his flesh then unglorified and compast about with all mans infirmities he could have been encompast with more then twelve Legions of Angels so then he will meet those two Hosts those droves and flocks of sheep and goats with another Army of his Saints and Angels from Heaven with whom we shall be caught up to meet that Lord in the ayr and so shall be ever with the Lord. If we desire yet higher to raise this Crown of consummate consolation in Christ I will come to Visions and Revelations I will open that of St. Steven Acts 7.56 I see heaven opened and the son of man set on the right hand of God which place being further opened by St. John makes us see him on a Throne of Glory covered with light as with a garment under his feet Deaths pale head and a red Dragon and all his enemies about him stand the Armies of his Angels and of mankind a greater number then any man can number of all Nations Languages On his thigh that Name written Rex Regum Dominus Dominorum The Elders casting down their Crowns adore him that has many Crowns upon his head And we may safely add this Title to those Crowns of Dominus Exercituum and rejoyce to think how those Crowns are encinctur'd and enchas'd with precious stones for the twelve Tribes of Israel and with manifold unions of God and man of grace and glory for the consolation of the Gentiles also thereby fully made perfect
From motions regular about his Poles Shall even deadly sins in disaray Keep off our minds from his Diurnal sway Under the Law made he his resting place And chose the cutse to leave us under Grace But still to morals tied our hearts and hands Scorn not his easie yoak nor break his bands Without those Grates all fire of vertue cools None lawless thus but Devils Popes and Fools An Hymn on Trinity Sunday 1625. Tuned according to S. Bernards Cur mundus militat c. SIDesideria cordium satias Aeternas volumus agere gratias O pater Luminum pater illius Qui pater noster est tibi filius Per quem Coelestia singula feceris Quicum fundamina terrae conjeceris Quorum mens agitat molem mirabilis Atque operarius est ineffabilis OTRINE rejici quanquam sim meritus Me tamen refici dignare spiritus Re visas obsecro sol semper oriens In Lutum recidens Cor meum moriens Vt quae refulserit exinde Puritas Sit illi salus sancta securitas Heu sines animam hac in putredine Mundani pulveris omni dulcedine Supernae Gratiae privatam degere Quam nutu facili possis protegere Si Desideria cordium satias Aeternas volumus reddere gratias Ad Iesum Redemptorem Tu qui Serpentis caput contuderis Qui Preces Lachrymas sanguinem fuderis Orcum post tumulum qui penetraveris Et mortis Dominum morte prostraveris Et super nubium tractus ascenderis Ac modis milites mille defenderis Labimur labimur Heu dicto citiùs Jesu suavissime ni sis propitius Menteis irradians faveris lumine Ac labes diluens cruoris flumine Et sancti spiritus accendens flamine Nos incredibili leves solamine Si Desideria cordium satias Aeternas volumus habere gratias On the Holy SACRAMENT LOrd to thy flesh and blood when I repair Where dreadfull joyes and pleasing tremblings are Then most I relish most it doth me good When my soul faints and pines and dies for food Did my sins murder thee To make that plain Thy pierc'd-dead-living body bleeds again Flow sad sweet drops what diffring things you do Reveal my sins and seal my pardon too A Psalm for Christmass day morning 1 FAirest of morning Lights appear Thou blest and gaudy day On whom was born our Saviour dear Make haste and csme away 2 See See our pensive breasts do pant Like gasping Land we lie Thy holy Dews our souls do want We faint we pine we die 3 Let from the skies a joyfull Rain Like Mel or Manna fall Whose searching drops our sins may drain And quench our sorrows all 4 This day prevents his day of Doom His mercy now is nigh The mighty God of love is come The day-spring from on high 5. Behold the great Creator makes Himself an house of clay A Robe of Virgin flesh he takes Which he will wear for ay 6 Heark heark the wise Eternal Word Like a weak Infant cries In form of servant is the Lord And God in Cradle lies 7 This wonder struck the world amaz'd It shook the stary frame Squadrons of spirits stood and gaz'd Then down in Troops they came 8 Glad Shepherds ran to view this sight A quire of Angels sings And Eastern Sages with delight Adore this King of Kings 9 Bis. Joyn then all hearts that are not stone And all our voices prove To celebrate this holy One The God of Peace and Love PRAYER and PRAISE TO work strong lines and wreath a Crown of Baies For Jesus Brows Take servent Prayer and Praise 1. That runs and flows and bears a deeper sense Then winding Verse or ratling Eloquence It rises first and breaks through hearts of stone But not till Aarons rod be struck thereon Cleft with Remorse then climbs through weeping eyes With silver feet transcending far the skies To wash his feet whose purple drops divine Will turn this water into Angels wine 2. This made of words which are but vapor pent In forge of flesh by panting bellows sent To mix with mother Air yet this to me Shall both a blessing and an honor be Saith God who cals those things as if they were Which are not so or do not so appear To us And look how sweet it strikes the sense When vernal winds inspire their Influence On flowery Meads so thanks like Incense rise And Heavan takes praise as perfum'd sacrifice A Psalm for Sunday Nights 1 COme Ravisht souls with high Delight In sweet immortal Verse To crown the day and welcome night Jehovahs praise Reherse 2 O sing the Glories of our Lord His Grace and Truth resound And his stupendious acts Record Whose mercies have no bound 3 He made the All informing Light And hosts of Angles fair 'T is he with shadows cloaths the night He clouds or clears the Air. 4 Those restless skies with stars enchaste He on firm hindges set The wave embraced earth he plac'd His hanging Cabinet 5 Wherein for us all things comply Which he hath so decreed That each in order faithfully Shall evermore proceed 6 We in his Sommer sun-shine stand And by his favour grow We gather what his bounteous hand Is pleased to bestow 7 When he contracts his brow we mourn And all our strength is vain To former dust in death we turn Till he inspire again 8. Then to this mighty Lord give praise And all our voices prove The Glory of his name to raise The God of Peace and Love The Christians Reply to Christs Venite POssum good Lord by thee inclinal Volo sometimes with ease I find Nolo yet runs so in mind Male still makes me lag behind PRIDE will fall but Grace to the Humble 1. THis fall Fell Lucifer first tries Who endlong fell never to rise Woman the next then man and all Proud flesh from them have caught the fall 2. From this foul falling sickness shall The fall of one recover all Mankind that medcin'd by his Spirit His best of Graces shall inherit Whereby he still in it doth fall Upon his humble servants all His conjugal Prayer Domestick GOD infinitely Great and Good Purge all our sins by Jesus blood From serpentine three deadly foes The Gardens of our souls enclose That Spirit which Grace and Truth affords Rule all our actions thoughts and words Our hearts into his Temples raise Our tongues loud Organs of his praise Lord make our selves and Race throughout Pure humble sober chast devout Loyal and gratefull wise and just On thee and industrie to trust Blest with a low but glad estate In food and Rayment moderate Nor rich of poor to be en ied Nor poor to be by rich supplied Give freedom Order Health and Peace Then in thy favour to decease When Nature here by Grace prepar'd May look for Glory afterward Vpon a Bible presented to a young Lady the Lady Kath. C. 1624. THE world is Gods large Book wherein we learn Him in his glass of wonders to discern But
since the print was dark and we sin-blind His Word became the mirror of his mind And as the Eternal Father on the Son His form engrav'd before all worlds begun So what he is what God in him to us The spirit of both doth in this Book discuss Clear spring of wisdom Truths eternal mine The whole a Temple and each leaf a shrine And as on clouds on mountains and on streams The Sun lets beauties fall in golden beams But with his own pure Light the stars inspires And through their bodies thrusts his living fires So other holy books can but reflect Those Raies which here are native and direct Which apt to dazle and confound the wise Are yet a gentle light to Childrens eyes And you bright Maid whose name if I reherse I shall a Rubrique make and not a Verse And were such gold found in Italian Mines They would have twenty new St. Katharines As little ones in Gardens take delight Here gather fruits for tast and flowrs for sight The flower of Jesse that fresh and lasting Rose The fruit of knowledge and of life here grows On babes as tender Virgins love to look Behold that blessed babe within this book Pure fair adorn'd with perfect white and red A Crown of Radiant stars about his head If you be sick if head or heart do ake On Jesus name call and the pain will slake Read it when first you rise and goe to bed Under your Pillow let it bear your head All books in one all Learning lies in this This your first A B C and best Primer is Whence having throughly learnt the Christ-cross Row You may with comfort to our Father go Who will you to that highest lesson bring Which Seraphims instruct his Saints to sing A SERMON Preached to the KING AT OATLANDS 1638. JOHN 1.12 But as many as received him to them gave he Power to become the Sons of God even to them that believe on his Name WE Country Ministers preaching at Court are first confined to matter finishable in one hour being like the Virgins in the Court of Ahasuerus She that came once must come no more except she pleas'd the King and were call'd for by name For which I shall chuse to insist on few particulars And then we are fearfull to displease Such are the winds of Information One breaths that good wise Caveat of King James of ever blessed memory Not to soar aloft or muster up our own readings Another whispers Touch not State nor Discipline nor Controversies At length I threw down all fear of displeasing by choice of this Text which plainly preaches Christ Jesus but Christ in Excellency excellent things are here spoken of him and of his powerfull Grace and excellent things said to be done to us by him and his gracious Power And if wondrous things will take it is a Text replete with wonders and yet no wonder containing him who wears that title among and above all those in Isaiah of a Prince peaceable and wonderfull No wonder if an earthly King be and by his own neglected when the King of Kings that came down from Heaven in triple light and evidence of his own stupendious Miracles his Fathers acknowledgment and the fiends own confessing to see how hardly the beams of Truth are let in on envy-poisond souls came thus furnisht among his own and yet his own received him not No longer wonder that a gracious King retains a sweet and mercifull disposition even to disaffected Subjects taught by this King here the Messiah who as anointed with Grace above all so sheds Grace and Mercy over all offers it to all even to those that would none These Builders here that threw him by he would have built them upon himself as on a stone elect and precious and so have raised them up into a new Jerusalem Miracle of Mercy To urge and press the gift of his Grace yea of his blood on those that despis'd it counted it an unholy thing and to remember them for his Cross in his prayer and for his death in that Commission after Go preach the Gospel to them Let them have glad tidings of Peace and Salvation Go take in them that would not take in me Receive them to Mercy that received me not And go first to them first to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and beginning at Jerusalem Nor cease these wonders here for now not the Jewish Church alone not she his only beloved though even in this sense nor Rome nor Antioch but Jerusalem is the mother Church the mother of us all But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle The diminution of the Jew is become the riches of the Gentiles and in the place where it was said They are no people of mine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there they shall be called the Sons of God And that there is Here The Church of England a Church of Gentiles and this place the Represent and Lantskep of that If we will receive Christ What then I cannot tell you what Some mighty thing it is certain 'T is bundled up in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here which is a Right and Interest or Priviledge and Prerogative and a Dignity and Power no less then to become the Sons of God As many as received him c. Three parts I shall make of the Text First Vitis The Vine therein discoveting the root on which this fruit grows that is so copious clearing to us the Prime and other branching causes of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est Racemus The bunch of Grapes that hangs upon this vine which who so puls and presses by a lively faith shall extract an Honor and Preheminence and Power quodcuunque velis A large trail of blessing unexpressable Our last part is Torcular The Wine-press whereby I shall first attempt to draw from Vitis and Raecemus a cup of Consolation as Calpar and Inferius but being so the too lushious issues of the Grape must a while be set by till we have tasted of a second cup of consideration for a cooler and then a third of Conformity and Concordance with Christ And then is that first to be resum'd and brew'd with some ingredients that may make it relish upon the Palate of the meekest Christians That done it will remain to urge the health of all three so mingled both for conveniency and necessity absolute and respective Last of all to make tryal by your patience of our receiving Christ in receiving his Receivers Those that are deputed to receive our homage and take our regard in his stead I shall name but three and reckon them upwards The Poor the Priest the Prince of his People Of these plainly and honestly And first of Vitis that is Christ Jesus to him we would but none can find that way till drawn and no way to be drawn up but our laying hold on the chain of Grace let down◠and nothing will do that but Prayer
Let us then lift up our hearts together with our hands to Go◠in the Heavens 1. OUR first part is Vitis and that is Christ we way take his own word John 15. 1. I am the true Vine Poor hedge and harth wine you may wring from natural knowledge and from moral Books and dull muddy stuff the world affords mingled with Mandragoras whose effect is betwixt sleep and poison But would you that above the spirit of Cecub or Falernian wine The Vine which breeds a liquor potent and mighty in operation Quod cum spe divite manet in Venas A cup of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that fills with holy Raptures and Extasies and lifts your Spirit up to become Partaker of the divine Nature Then come to me saith he He all alone at this He and none but He can give this Grace Search the Vineyards the Scriptures They testifie of him Those Cherubins the Old and New Testament clap all their wings together for the enclosing him who is A. and Ω. the same Rock and Mannae Jesus Christ yesterday and to day and the same for ever The Book of God is Paradise everywhere Trees of knowledge bowing their eminent tops But Christ Jesus the Tree of Life in the midst of the Garden The Fruit and Kernel of which Fruit is here in Vitis Objection 1. 2. But in 1 Pet. 1.3 we find this made the Act of God the Father Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath begotten us again c. and ascribable to him as an Act of Power and Wonder first above that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And secondly As an Act of Love of which he is the Fountain While not as a Father alone but as a Mother too he conceives in the womb of Predestion brings forth in Vocation tenders and bears in arms and on his wings of Providence and hath Viscera misericordiarum in the plural And again this is made the work of the holy Ghost Tit. 3.8 By the washing of the new birth and renewing of the Holy Ghost c. And so much seems implied in that Commission Receive you the holy Ghost and then Whose sins you remit c. For answer hereto briefly we learn from the school that though in the sacred Trinity be order yet no Degree and in their Acts ad extra they all blessedly conspire as in this particular the Apostle informs us 1 Cor. 6. By the Grace of God the Father through the blood of his Son are we raised as so many Temples of the holy Ghost And as the Son is in at Creation by him were all things made he being the power and wisdom of the Father so the Spirit is called his Gift too whom I will send you from the Father and in the Galatians it is stild the Spirit of Christ All build then this holy frame But he lies down as the Foundation as that precious corner-stone on whom his Saints relie by vertue of their precious Faith and partake all these precious Promises in him Yea and Amen He that Olive of whose fatness and Vine from whose root live all the Branches which he performs in special too by a double distillation of his Grace and blood while the blood of that Vine is made ours and we through it and him made Sons of God and most properly in this Filiation here mentioned his Act who is in nature Filius He by generation to make us so by Regeneration Thus have we endeavoured to dig and discover this to the root indeed that root ineffable of three in one God the Father as Author and Fountain the Son as means and merit the Spirit forming cherishing and preserving the new Creature A Grace flowing from the Father by the Son in the Power and Operation of the holy Ghost Objection 2. 3. But where 's the Text then How do we receive it by Faith Our Saviour Answers it in the fifteenth of St. John This is done by insition as we by it receive him that is abide in him and that cannot be without assenting and obeying both By both which we begin to live and draw sap and conrinuating strength of spiritual Life The life I now live I live by the power of the Son of God 'T is his Act and Gift in the first Light and Influence and first Attraction and bowing our will to receive him and in obediential performaces too asubsequent and concurrent Grace yet a Nostrality too so far as a non fugere saith St. Austin nay as a Sequi too and an Agere a co-working with the work of him that works all in all and all our works in us And the manifest of this Insition by believing and so receiving him is a plain and easie Decision of that drie and tedious Jangle which infects the mysterie of Godliness For nor Faith nor works alone Nor they without their root Nor it without his fruits Poscit opem conjurat amice Faith working by Love Objection 3. 4. But which way How can these things be Which way is the Light parted saith Job c. Where comes our divine Light of Reason to clasp and Grace it self under that noble and ampler Lamp of Faith The Answer is prepard by St. Peter who tells us where it grows the immortal seed of his his Word called therefore the Word of Life and the Word of his Grace and this very Grace the Word of Faith to which is ever annext the use and blessing of those Sacraments of the one whereof our Saviour tells us Except a man be born again and of the other Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood no life is in you no kingdom of Heaven for you PARTICVLAR 2. 5. THus far of Vitis Our second Particular is Racemus The bunch of Grapes 'T is rendred here by Power but is understood in an Excellency Power cum Priviledgio This indeed intended as Caput Votorum For as he saith Quid voveat dulci alumno So what is it that thy soul desires Is it Beauty Belive there are no such Roses and Lilies in their Midsummer as Gods Sons in their early Spring That being true of every member which is spoken of the body in general Thou art all fair No deformity not that of sickness nor that of age nor spot nor wrinckle Free from all defilement of sin a brave and high victorious and insolent Beauty that pure fair white and red in his innocence and in the blood of the Lamb. Is it riches How faint and cold and poor a word to this that makes a man rich in God! And rich in faith is equivalent to that For by that is a poor wretch under all made Heir to God who is rich over all and enjoyes not these shadows of the world but those unsearchable riches of Christ not filthy lucre defiling in the acquist but fine Gold So that thy adoring Mammon is but a mockery to thy soul It cannot make thee it may marr it
in due season to such souls as are weary And first to clear up that misty Objection of ignorance Know for a certain that salvation's no matter of wit but as St. Austin in that known speech of his The faithful soul is safe in the sim plicity of his believing and not in the vivacity of understanding and as Nazâ—anzene hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Nothing could be more unequal then that our faith and so the way to salvation should be a thing only incident to learned bra ns Remember thy belief is like thy love he that commanâ—'s both gives both and having given a first spark blows it to a flame and if smal and weak yet if right and hearty good enough The best schollar of them all hath no better a Receipt then thou and God will firm thy Reed to support thee all the way to Heaven and as for dejection and aptness to despair I will take again that Cup of consolation in hand and strive to brew it so as it may relish on the palate of the weakest Christian and afford him a complacency at least an allay to all thought of impossibity or difficulty wont to prevail with such as taste themselves and consider not the puâ—ssance of Vitis and Racemus the power of God For our errour proceeds both wayes not knowing the Scriptures or not observing the power of God My Ingredients shall be but two and taken from two Comparisons 1. First compare this act of Regeneration with the worlds Creation there for the consolation of the darker and weaker spirit we find it vain to enquire what was before the frame so it is not clear what shall be after the dissolution so in Recreation what goes before of the destinating is a Depth and what the state of glory shall be is not clear it appears not yet what we shal be 1 Joh. 3. But this appears the Grace of God appears and his free act is evident in both The creature can contribute nothing at first and then though a double cover on the earth of darkness and the deep yet that released by his power infinite and then having removed the waters also by virtue of his Producat he made the land appear and suddenly disappear invested in a robe of numerous plants and flowers Just so in this work of thy new birth Darkness is first all over thee and t is Gods method first darkness and then light Our imaginations dark and our foolish heart full of darkness and all that men can do in that state of nature deeds and works of darkness But then comes oriens ex alto with his marvellous Light till the day dawn and Day-star rise in our hearts Those hearts that were all dark before all was a Chaos till light pin'd to the Sun stream'd to remotest angles And so it was with that Apostle St. Thomas deepsy cover'd in infidelity till the powerful light let in through his sense upon his soul Then see how soon he sees and startles up and fervently rises in that cry of Domine Deus my Lord and my God! and the spirit speaks the same comfort evidently to all Arise thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead and Christ shall give thee Light for he hath it and he is it He is the true Light in both those main properties of Light First Light makes things discernable in night great stones and blocks So to blind nature gross sins lie undiscovered till Light of Grace infuse a tenderness and scrupulosity and a discretion and ability both to observe the surprizes of and ask pardon for the least offences Then secondly The other Property of Light Irradiation it not shews alone but beautifies and gnilds and enamels where it lights so doth that Grace of Gratum faciens His embracing Grace upon thy soul rendring it gracious and precious in the eyes of thy heavenly Father Lastly I forget not that second Cover of the deep That inland Gulf of Corruption inborn and bred up with us respecting which we all must crie with David de profundis Out of the deeps But then remember one deep calls upon another There is a deep of Mercy answers the depth of all our misery and to top this Consolation if the waves of ungodliness make us afraid and roar horribly or after a sense of Mercy and Forgiveness we fear the reflux and revalescency of our prevailing sins upon us Remember his bow is in the clouds his gracious promise in his holy Word to make his Power perfect in weakness and he hath given to the Sea a Law and said to wickedness Hitherto shalt thou come and no further and here stay thy proud waves 2. Our secondingredient is from Resemblance of our Saviours incarnation First In Virgo his birth of a pure Virgin Mary so is thine of a pure heavenly Grace distilled from God without mans contribution or assistance When the Angel came to salute her when Christ came to Nicodemus one with tidings of her conceiving the Son of God the other with strange news of a man being born again and so become the Son of God both wondred alike both ask in effect the self same question How can these things be How can a man be born again and take notice the answer is the same to both for there is no other The holy Ghost shall come upon thee the Power of the most High shall do this in an act of as great freed om as the blowing of the wind so is every one that is born of the Spirit A second considerable comfort is that of infinite distance God the simplest essence to stoop and marry with mans body of all other the most compounded substance This hindred not the day-spring from on high to visit us why then dismaid to look down upon our own spirit wherein is summamalitia when we know in his sacred spirit there is summa bonitas and for all the distance and for all the deadness of our souls womb to conceive a thought that is holy of our selves yet he descends that Spirit which is the Comforter and applies unto us in an union so high and heavenly as all words forsake us in the expression Thirdly Another Consolation yet in plenè administravit when God descended to us but staid at her Full of Grace not abhorring to be there enclosed who yet fills and even then filled Heaven and earth wherein then and before and since he fully hath the administrations so it must be no dismay to thy own soul that God descends and shines into many others having abundance of spirit and of such a diffusive Power as the Sun which though received whole in the light and graces here yet shines elsewhere and think if a word spoken by us can pass to a whole audience and if our discursive Spirit can so suddainly shoot and subtilly pass to things distant and manifold What Energie is in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Power in his Spirit differenced from ours both
he most delights to shew and shine forth in perfect beauty and majesty and of the Temple he saith Mine eyes and my heart shall be there continually This is my rest for ever Here I will dwell The place where his honor dwels which he owns My house and gives it a name An house of Prayer and our Saviour confirms it in the New Testament too it shall be so My Fathers house shall be so called and therefore I pray you in Gods name let him have it so The house of the Lord let it be Let him rest and dwell in this house for ever but a thousand pities he should dwell alone no body to attend him What! The Courts of the Lords house and no Courtiers Are there no Places no Pensions no Offices in this Court where are then the servants of his Majesty I hope they be even here even all the true and loyal and faithfull servants of the earthly majesty will rejoyce and be glad by the benign Influence of a royal example to become faithful and obedient Worshippers of the Majesty in Heaven PART 3. THis comes in right and puts us on Cultus our next particular Service 't is no domineering word an humble expression this and must be co nomine therefore exalted for it is indeed the word in the Text most predominant in a sense above Dominus and all for take out Dominus and what becomes of Domus Domus and Rus may then be likewise used that is as Rustically as Rudely as you will Well! Take out Cultus and I am sure Dominus will never abide it All staies or goes with this Cultus the main and mainly to be insisted on and Cultus absolute is due to Dominus first In Equiparence to his other houses and service in them all why this house far worse then all the rest as many as we called at in all Gods houses before I told you they might do us more service yet 1. First In the Maorocosm all things serve this their Lord up at Matins of Prayer seeking their meat at God at Vespers of Laws with the Anthem 1. It is He that hath made us and not We our selves 2. In Heaven his Angels ministring Spirits with Holy Holy Holy and a great voice of much people Rev. 19. saying Hâ—lelujahs Salvation and Glory and Honor and Power unto the Lord. 3. And in the womb of the blessed Virgin the house is aired and consecrated for his Conception by the holy Ghost And when he first brings in his first begotten Son into the world and Let all the Angels of of God worship him The Baptist did him service then unborn springing in the womb for joy and his own blessed mother Mary sings her service to to him while yet in her body My soul doth magnifie the Lord my Spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour In one and the same little house and Chappel royal of her great and mighty Lord the first St. Maries that ever was at once conceiving and containing him and her Devotion 4. And as for the house of flesh and Bethlems manger put them both together not all those clouds and swadling clouts of obscurity could dim the Light of the world nor hide this glorious Lord from the attendance of an host of Heavenly Courtiers and Souldiers running down the hill of Heaven to salute him Imperator with an Hymn of Gloria Deo in excelsis nor conceal him from those Kings some say wise men we are sure that came from the East to worship this Oriens who fell down before him opened their Treasures and presented him They could not hide him from old Simeons eyes after in the Temple for he then saw clearly the presence of the Lord in him that was there presented to the Lord even the Lords Christ whom he served with gladness and carolled out a blessing on him in his arms 5. Nor was this worship wanting in the very dwelling and banqueting houses of his servants 6. Simeon entertains him Levi makes him a great Feast and even there was Wisdom justified of her children One example above all in the house of that Simon the Pharisee that which went beyond his banquet and all the service there was the poor sinners service from her box of precious oyntment and her more precious tears serving to wash his feet 7. Next apply to him on shipboard and behold him not only heard with reverence by the shore-audience but St. Peter down at his knees with his Depart from me for I am a sinful man O Lord. 8. But in or at his grave no service That house so ill and low situate that none obliged to pay or tender service there 9. That 's the desolate house even of Kings saith Job the train forsakes them there Yet behold even in that house as Joseph and Nicodemus spare no coft of linnen cloaths and spices with a mixture of Myrrhe and Aloes of an hundred weight so the two Maries faild not with their oyntment and early visitation at the Sepulchre But as it was Johns eager spirit that out-ran Peter so Magdalen her loving spirit out-went them all in a constant service and devotion for when left alone she stood she wept she stoopt she lookt into the Sepulchre and there at length she lights on other fellow-servants of her Lord even two Angels in white sitting at the head and feet that is where those blessed head and feet of their Lord where the body of Jesus had layn John 20.12 10. As for service in his next house the Catholick Church we know as in the Jewish he was the only Lord of Israel and Moses and David wear that name of his servants So in the Christian Church What stile take Peter and Paul but servants of Jesus Christ and even the weaker sex behold the lowliness of his hand-maid an humblâ— Maid-servant at 16. and a blessed woddow-servant Anna in her great Climackterick Luke 2. That departed not from the Temple but served the Lord with fasting and prayer night and day 11. Lastly Our own souls and bodies what are they if rightly used but Organs and living Oratories and when here assembled a Box or Nest of little temples in His Temple which houses all his Saints and servants are carefull to possess in honor and keep them clean not for Bacchus or Venus but the pure and sacred Spirit of the Lord to keep out the Tempter to escape the pollutions of the world For if God be well served in these inner Temples the service of this house of the Lord would be the better set in order and that 's the last in our Zodiack There we are now again at service in this very place proper to Divine service this very place inclining as the cell to study the grove to Contemplation a Church or Chappel to Devotion ever this the house of the Lord both by way of excellency and propriety But remember I am upon Cultus absolute due to Dominus upon another double ground first Qua
Lastly As it is implyed that our Saviours victory on the Cross was his purchase of the Gentiles Rev. 2.26 27. and Phil. 2. His stooping even to the Cross precedes his exaltation and then a Genuflexion and universal Acclamation All tongues to confess him c. So the mission of his Apostles to the Gentiles was after his passion and a little before it we find in John 12.24 some Greeks desired to see him and he answers in a Riddle If the grain of wheat die it will bring forth much fruit which was meant of himself saith St. Austin He was to die by the unbelief of the Jews and then to be multiplyed in the faith of all Nations as we see it come to pass But that faith saith St. Paul Rom. 10. it grows not in nature comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God And this hath brought us a little on our way in the understanding of our second part which we now pursue Lux in Domino Light That 's the matter here and the manner is in Domino or the other way for the matter indeed is in Domino and the manner by way of Illumination For what is meant surely that great work of God Mans restoring is meant included in a second great work Illumination of our minds and that in a third great work The light of the Sun in our eyes How rare and choice a fruit must that be which hath such curious Coverings The very Metaphor or rather Box and Nest of Metaphors is observable Is God a Metaphorical God saith one D. D. And he answers himself In a pious and humble meaning respecting the Scriptures heights and Excellencies in Allegories not only sinews in the Milk of Gods Word and things in his Words but spreadings and strange Rhetorical passages and curtains of figures flowing into figures Where are those Sophisters and Grand Seniors and grave Rabbies with their old dissembled Ensigns of Ignorance the Beard the Habit and the Title that will allow men no use of humane Learning in disclosing Divine Mysteries Is the Grape therefore harsh because such Strainers cannot reach it Theology shall remain the crowned Queen of Sciences but will admit her Hand-maids to carry keys to her Cabinets But ere we look in here be pleased to arrest your consideration on the covering of this Ark that is the Light of Heaven And as before in Darkness so here again we are blind with dazling How many are the opinions of those rowling Torches of Heaven the Sun and Moon St. Austin and in his old age too for it is in his Euchir ad Lauren. knew not whether he might account them to the Angels And for the Light Who shall tell us what it is When it comes to our doors and beats upon our eves we know not whether it have a real Being in the Air or an Intentional The first the second both and neither of both are defended Look into the Microcosm and Fiat Lux else all invisible no form no distinction and all inglorious nor use nor beauty 'T is Plenitudo the filling of all the Creatures and gives them Cognition Life Motion View the Microcosm the Light of the Body is the eye and not the Organ so much as the visive Power the light within that sits behind those Glass-windows with a balance and a file and weighs and works upon the shapes of things that enter But both these Lights are Darkness if the Medium be not illuminated if the Air be dark and searching the Scripture though we find not what it is yet we find a world of wonders in it Five things imparted yet remain entire Knowledge Vertue Happiness Joy and Light and this the Embleme of them all No good thing but Light takes it in by comparison all good things but never any ill Wisdom Health Beauty Food Joy and Reputation All the Graces of God Knowledge Faith Love Hope Joy Consolation yea the very Glory to come all our Joy and endless Bliss in that vision of Light And if God should ask us What house we would make him or to what compare him Should we offend in saying LIGHT though nothing resemble God exactly yet something better shews how far he is beyond all resmblance and by that Light his Creatures afford our admiration of his Incomprehensibleness may be raised higher and higher and with it so raised our longing after him enlarged And sure as in the works of Grace none liker God then LOVE So in the works of Nature Light as it is the eldest so the amiablest and the likest to the Father and what the Fathers affection is to it we may see by his first giving Light to the Chaos It could yield him no delight who was the double Parent so long as it lay in Night and Darkness and so deep in too that nothing yet was day What stood thus blindly could not be pleasing in his eye who is all eye But when it saw the Text saith God saw that all was good Doth he not dwell in Light and cover himself with Light as with a Garment May we not say his House and Robe and Eternal Essence are all one boundless christal Globe of Light Doth not he say so God is Light the Father the Father of Lights and the Son is God of God and Light of Light and the Holy Spirit as in this wide Engine of the world it is an inward eye which moves and rowls Spiritus in us alit So in our Souls it is the Spirit of Illuminations directing us to that place where in his Light we shall see Light even see God face to face and know him even as we are known I had not staid so long on this this cover here but that I conceived it might be in our way to discover what remains remembring my Promise to pass this part in explanation so demonstrating in an Orb where every part gives Light unto one another Here by the way might be inferred the usefulness of our sight and how we are bound to bless God that enjoy that Comfort And secondly How to compassionate the blind that sit in darkness considering there is no perfect joy on earth without it no nor in Heaven it being one of the torments in hell Darkness and contrary to the Inheritance of the Saints in Light And thirdly Applying to such times as these Rejoyce in this favour of Heaven that earthly men cannot restrain or excise the comforts of the Air and Light c. But we pass to our fruit it self the meaning of this Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in our restoring veil'd here under this God-like Creature of Light That illumination which we receive from him by his Spirit relieving us from our state of corruption and bondage of darkness and translating us into his marvelous Light and glorious liberty of the Sons of God For you were c. In Domino In Domino For he is Light in the abstract others by participation He the true Light the cause efficient
know further of this Divine Method which is the Aquaeduct the Ventiduct the Luciduct which way still doth Christ in his Spirit conveigh this Holy water this gentle Air this blessed Light to our Spirits I confess this is one of the most necessary important and most usefull Queries we can make and which being clearly resolved will shame both Papists that hide away as much as they can and other Hereticks that blaspheme the Scriptures and pretend to a Spirit enthusiastick which is nothing but the Devil of delusion and spirit of Giddiness And therefore for our best Resolve upon this question Let us do as our Saviour in the point of marriage enquire how it was in the Beginning Look back then to the Creation consider how came Light at first At first the Spirit moves and broods over that which is in it self a confusion a depth and a darkness and then his mighty Word Fiat Lux. He spake and it was Light then Then when all was dark he made material Light and Christ Jesus is the WORD 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For as Speech is the Image of the mind so he the brightness of his Fathers Glory and the express Image of his person Heb. 1.3 The immaterial Light that was never made and the Spirit of the true God in declaring the true Way of his Worship and mans true way thereby to obtain eternal life as the very heathen trusted to the false gods fained Oracles which of necessity must be revealed before man could find or follow it goes that way still that is by the WORD His Word wherein is his Will revealed from Heaven both makes and is our Light This world is Gods Book wherein as in a Glass of wonders we discern him but that print being Dim to us that are sin-blind it pleased him by lively Oracles to make a Mirror far more clearly revealing his mind And as God engraved his form on his Son before all worlds so what that Son is and what the Father is to us in him the Spirit proceeding from both delivers in the Scriptures of both Testaments And as the Sun guilds and enamels clouds and streams and hill Tops with his raies but thrusts his own pure Light his own living sire through the bodies of the stars so other Authors can but yield a faint reflexion of that beam which is direct and native in his book where the very Law he stiles a flaming Light The Prophecies a more sure Word then any Eye-evidences of the Apostles to which we do well to look saith St. Peter himself as to a Light shining in a dark place till the day dawn the day-star rise in our hearts But then the Gospel written and spread by his Evangelists and held out by his spouse the Catholick Church is his marvellous Light He brought life and immortality to Light by the Gospel 2 Tim 1.10 and in Acts 26. 16. I have appeared to thee saith our Saviour to that choice vessel of his Grace and name to make thee a Minister and a witness c. And now behold I will send thee to the Gentiles to what end A glorious end to open their eyes and to turn them from Darkness to Light from the power of Satan unto God and accordingly we find it 2 Cor. 4.3 4. If our Gospel be hid it is hid in them that perish in whom the god of this world hath blinded their unfaithfull minds that the Light of the Gospel of the Glory of Christ who is the Image of God should not shine unto them And in the sixth verse he shews the Walk and Circuit of this Light God who commanded Light to shine out of Darkness hath shined in our hearts there first and then the casting of the beam to give light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ O then you have the means of Light and Grace among you Ministers you are the Light and Salt of the earth and who shall question that truth which the Truth himself hath testified And would it not be a very dark and desolate and a very flash and unsavory world without a publique Ministry of the Word and Sacraments The Clergie however despised are all out Spiritual Fathers Propter quos hanc suavissimam Lucem aspeximus But yet you and they both must know how they have it and the Apostle tells us that too in the next words We have this Treasure in our earthen vessels that the excellency of the Power might be of God and not of us You are not sent to a Means and Medicine of our preparing or any humane but to Gods Divine Ordinance that which is his Power and Wisdom to Salvation to every one that believes And therefore this may be enough to give all humble Christians satisfaction and acquiescence Speak then thy Word O Lord and thy servant shall be healed shall be undarkened and though like Bartimeus though sin-blind have my eyes opened with a word Mar. 10.12 St. Peter spake but words unto Cornelius but words whereby he and his house should be saved words so richly blest that the Text saith while Peter spake these words the holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word Did not our hearts burn within us said those Disciples Luke 24. to whom our Saviour opened the Scriptures And the Apostles hearers prickt at their Hearts cried Men and Brethren What shall we do to be saved And what a large field of the Fathers testimonies do I here forsake to break by your patience into an Inclosure or two of the very Papists our enemies and the enemies of the Scripture Yet see the excellency of Gods word even those enemies being Judges Cardinal Bellarmine himself is in his superlatives Certissima tutissima regula credendi lib. 1. de verb. Dei ca. 20. and need we any more after so full a witness I 'le name but another but one Instar omnium 'T is he that in a traiterous itch of wit took on him purposely the abuse of Scripture that by mis appliance and prophane wresting he might so abuse our Princes and our Church Mark yet what he is forc'd to say and sure 't is worth our observation if I diminish him not in my English There is in Scripture sayes he an invisible Majesty an hidden splendour a Glory unperishable a wisdom in-exhaustible The solace of humane and the beginning of a Divine life made by the holy Spirit making our spirits holy compat'd with which the Egyptian sages will look pale and poor the Chaldee impure the Grecians blockish Plato no body and Philosophy it self a fool 'T is the print of Heaven on earth and if any where the Joy of Paradise or at least a brave Resemblance of Divine Light be shewed 't is in Scripture containing all that is severed from the actual Vision of God himself Again The paper burns me not yet am I all inflamed in reading it 'T is no composure no artificial tread the Scripture uses
yet am I drawn and rapt to follow her and she lifts me up beyond and above my nature so that I am no more mine own but with a secret violence and new fire I am consum'd and compell'd to acknowledge the voyce of God that speaks therein Thus far that Papist But I speak I hope to men enlightened such as prove and find in their own souls the power and Energy of the Divine Word both when t is read when it is sincerely preacht for I have in my Discourse mingled both those wayes of Gods delivering it And I would know of you beloved in our Blessed Jesus did you never in the preaching and hearing the Scriptures read feel the Gale the sweet and gentle assistance of Gods Spirit pass into your souls Did the Preacher never come with darkness and disconsolation with Isaiahs anxious and perplexing thoughts All the day long have I stretcht out my hands c. And didst thou never meet him in the vanity of thy mind to mock or else to catch and betray And yet you both discern'd before you parted a blessing of a good God upon you both Both that he was sent of God and that the power of God was there to heal thee Luke 5.17 And if thou hast sound it so Take heed of quenching the Spirit nec in te nec in alio saith Aquinas in thy self by despising in the Preacher by discouraging or disparaging which is all injuries in one to an ingenuous spirit Rbet 2. For the Philosopher reduces them all to parvi-pension I mean not a small pension or salazy for our recompence but dis-esteeming under valuing those that are the Ambassadours of Christ and Secretaries in the great affairs of his Spirit Bethink your selves could any Angel in Heaven have said to man as our Lord to Peter Feed my Lambs my sheep Go preach baptize whose sins you retain they are retained c. Are these sayes one terrestrial sounds or are they uttered from the clouds above But look not so high descend into your own bosoms were not you once darkness are you now made light in the Lord Which way came that Influence was it not by the work of the Ministery That 's our part and that 's the end of our second part which brings us to the third part of our Catechism Gratitudo or mans duty in these last words of the Text Walk as children of light SERMON 2. PAssing the former part of the Text I past you through the cloud through Darkness the Lapse the fall of man the first part of the Catechism And I brought you thence to the second The Pillar of Fire which gives Light in the night of Ignorance Lux in Domino the workmanship of God in Christ Jesus The Restauration Now remains only Gratitudo Our duty Mans obedience due to Dominus here for our Redemption from the bondage of corruption and restoring us to the glorious liberty of the sons of God brought from darkness to be light in the Lord. Which Duty is here called A Walking Walk as children of Light which is the third and last part of our Catechism And it would afford a walk of many hours I shall strive to reduce it into one The Stations the Pauses I shall keep are these First there is a Bivium figured in the Pythagorean Y two wayes and but two There have been can be shall be but two wayes from the beginning to the end and after the end of the world for all shall walk in light or darkness and both are in the verse You were darkness but are light there is the Bivium But our way is the way of Light and even this is of comfort by the way that the way of Gods servants is a lightsome and a delight some way a clear and open passage Secondly this way may be gone For the words are the only wise Gods own Exhortation and then it must be gone for the words are his own commandment and our duty Thirdly Here are Pullies Evidences Inducements three 1. Quia Filii because Children 2. Etiamsi though but Children 3. Ω's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Children of Light taking the Light for our example direction and that will be double first the Light of Heaven the Sun and then he that is our Heaven of Light the true Light the Way the Truth and the Life Christ Jesus Thus far the explication then a word of application will finish this walk set us onward and encourage us in the way and cause us to walk as Children of Light First then there is a Bivium and both here but the Darkness is past the worst is over then For this is a way foul and deep and dangerous The way the vilest way that ever man went Will you hear them both briefly described in language the best that ever man heard What! mine God forbid I should mean so No not my rusty iron No nor any glittering tin-soild enticing words of humane wisdom but the clear fiery tryed and seven times purified silver of the Word of God dictated by the holy Ghost In that language we find this way and walk called Tenebrae abstract and plural Darkness and termed elsewhere the way of the Gentiles their own way after their own imaginations in the vanity of their mind inordinately walking as men i. e as meer men according to the course of this world in crastiness in the hidden thing of dishonesty after the flesh in lasciviousness lusts uncleanness excess riot revellings c. according to the prince of the power of the Air the spirit that works in the Children of disobedience till the paths of their ways saith Job come to nothing and perish till they arrive at the issues of death saith Solomon and all their Foundations Plots Projects Hopes Aims be out of course saith David going on so long and departing from God till he be forced to say Depart for ever Go ye cursed and so ends that walk O no! well were it for them if it might end but it never ends for this dark and slippery way slips them into Hell and that Gulf enlarges her self that horrible pit opens her mouth wide upon them from whence there is no Redemption but they shut out from the Father of Lights reserved in endless chains of Darkness to abide eternal eternal Damnation Methinks I hear you now upon that Respond in the Litany From thy wrath and from everlasting damnation good Lord deliver us The good Lord hath and doth and will deliver us if we will be delivered If we will but walk the other the better way the way of Light which elsewhere is called the good old way Jer. 8. The way of old Enoch Noah Abraham a walking with and before and after God in his Laws Statutes Ordinances cleaving to the Lord with all the soul A walking in liberty and safety over Lions Dragons through Darkness through the valley of the shadow of death A people walking humbly with their God and
for secresie You shall swear never to reveal what I payed and I will be drawn in pieces ere I tell how many score how many huudred pieces But my Patron when gone aside he boasteth and cannot chuse but tell his Lady perchance what fine things these presentations are sell my land and it never comes again that cruel word Ses heires But the Dunce or drunkard that bought may be forced to sell again or else resign or chop or be put out or dye and then there 's more money Thy money perish with thee Thou what shall I call thee Be what thou wilt and quarter what coats thou canst thy great Ancestors name was Simon Magus Well is that the worst No Remember what St. Peser said to Ananias why hath Sa'an filled thy heart and who it was that entered into the heart of Judas when he went to betray and sell his Mafter thou sellest thy Master and thy Masters Patrimony Patrimonium crucifixi The Patrimony of Christ crucified so it is called Tush caveat emptor You of the Clergy are the Magus's t is true and where 's the Purchaser too going to swear a dreadful swearing And hast thou done it What Neque per te nec per alium And canst thou again look God in the face in his beauty of holiness and take his word into thy mouth Hast thou any Lot any true clergy any Portion in our Ministry But quis talis fando quis tam ferreus hec dici potuisse non potuisse refelli Secondly Oppression is a work of Darkness though practised openly in extorting Ossicers and such men as greedy of Gain intrench and enclose themselves from others and hurl out the poor members of Christ turn them a walking to enlarge their sheep-walks Do these men walk honestly and as children of light And is there not a Brood and flutter of Prodigals that tend to oppression too Countrey Gull-Gallants that like NERO at first lap up horses houses and Lands into Balls and throw them away in Dole and Lottery till they come to a Dysentery So long mis-demeaning themselves in lavishing and flying out till it come to a cruel missing of their Demesnes in the end and then are forced to skrew and rack and grind the saces and bowels of the poor with Neroes resolution too Hoc agamus ne quis quicquam habeat Thirdly Drunkenness had wont to be a work of Darkness But now it defies the harbour of duil night and dares look day in the face But the Apofile meets them terribly both the Extortioner and the Drunkard Neither of them shall inberite the Kingdom of Heaven Fourthly and laftly That desperate and indesensible sin of swearing when the soul is let go for nothing No profit no pleasure unless hell and everlasting darkness dwell in mens desires But I forgee the time and I hope for better things of you and snch as accompany salvation And I trust I shall fitly and sully apply the Text to all that are here and in the Repetition of these words take in all the Congregation postremo meipsum Beloved we wers once darkness are now light in the Lord. Let us then walk as children of light Which that we may do let us pray to the Father of Lights Almighty God give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and put on the Armour of Light c S.D.G. A SERMON AT COVRT July 1640. MALAC. 3.17 And they shall be mine said the Lord of Hosts in that day when I make up my Jewels WHich words afford a double Priviledge of Gods servants be the times what they will in Reference to their owner described by his high and stately stile of Dominus Exercituum First his own they are his peculiar Secondly esteem'd of him at a high rate for they are his Jewels The first priviledge is laid out in this plain conclusion They that in a Deluge of corruption such as covered all in time of this Prophesie are yet emergent and bear up against the stream They that in desperate and desolate times dare yet make proof that they fear this Lord of Hofts and think upon his Name they are Gods own his peculiar For so the Rabbins interpret this word Segullah by peculium peculiare proprium speciale praecipuum singulare God hath a propriety a specialty in them I conceive your thoughts and expectations have by this time call'd me off from this seeming dry tree for what fruit shall you or I gather hence in being Gods own and of his peculiar people But I am even for this Imaginations sake desirous to insist and so far to intreat your patience too that I may yet be resident that I may spend the hour wholly incumbent on this little thing as it may seem of mine which yet in opening will appear I doubt not a rich and an inexhaustible Mine of Treasure and such as will prove useful and appliable to every Hearer You may then mistake you may prejudice me you cannot tell what work God may be pleased to enable me to make of this Text before and when I come to resresh the honour and comfort of my lise in preaching again in this Audience Now I mean not to part with this my first part in the Royalty the Priesthood and peculiarity of Gods people capable of that former Description which is compriz'd in this claim and promise and assurance for it is all those And they shall be mine sayes the Lord c. To every Text belongs but explication and application I intend both In the explication first that is now the opening that is the working of this Mine I shall present you with the riches of the Ore and then the refined Gold or draw first some materials from the Mine wherewith to build our comfort and then super-induce a roof and crown of pure Gold in precious things in Christ under the New Testament which was under the old too but not so clear so compleat Where God in Christ reconciling the world to himself weares the crown of Mercy manifold and enwraps us in a Robe of Totius total consolation by uniting us with the bonds of his Love by a plenteous Redemption made not with corruptible things as silver and gold but with the blood of Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world The first material from this Mine may be the very strowing of some grains of Golden comfort in our enterance on the consideration of Gods Word and work with man T is a special hightning of the spirit a mighty complacency and satisfaction to a servant of God to believe that God is and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him Heb 11. for even Moses is said to have had this in his aym he had an eye to the recompence of Reward David begins his first Psalm where he describes Gods service with Beatus Blessedness is a blessed pully to Devotion and therefore both the Day-star and the Sun take this
and partakers of the divine Nature and all these Unions contracted in the blood red shining Summit of his cross by the power whereof that Throne and Robe and all those Crowns are become ours and we become one with him in an union most high and holy even as he and his Father are one and higher we need not we cannot go nor well so high for that it should be thus we scarce dare ask but how it should be thus is above all that we are able to ask or think Thus far the first priviledge of Gods servants in being his Peculiar The second now should follow of being his Jewels with the usefull application of them both together with the Assignation of those several Dayes wherein these Jewels are to be made up all which I believe will make up a second and a third Exercise For this time I proceed no further but to beg the Blessing of God upon what we now have heard P.R. S.D.G. THE SECOND SERMON September 1643. MALAC. 3.17 And they shall be mine said the Lord of Hosts in that day when I make up my Jewels THE Word of God saith St Paul is not bound nor we that preach it bound to Formalities and courtly Decencies or much to care whether our Hearers be in good humor or no t is true nor are we to be Time-servers as we have been charged nor Men-pleasers in any ill sense yet since we are at liberty throughout the Garden of the Scripture to cull a Posie such as seemes best to us affording us a pleasure why may we not be thought therein also to preserve our just Devotion to God together with an intention for the complacency of good men too For which cause I blush not to acknowledge my respective choice or rather my recollection of this Text whereon I have preacht in royal audience before because though it look back upon vicious times and most ungodly men yet it will allow us for the present a Prospect as I verily belive upon some choice spirits and Gods gracious servants yet by his Reserve and special Mercy left alive while they are yet alive and I alive to apply this Scripture to them in special which in general suits with the condition of this time As men the sons of Time so Times themselves have their Parallels As the days of Noah were saith our Saviour Mat. 24. so shall also the coming of the son of man be eating drinking marrying till the day that Noah entered into the Ark and knew not till the flood came and tooke them all away so it shall be in the last times and so it is And we have no livelier proof that these are the last times then such our usages and in them such our security The Scripture foretels a soul and dangerous Sea of corruption that should prove rough and swell run high and the waves thereof rage horribly toward the end of the world when men should be more then imbrutished void of natural affection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implacable traiterous heady high minded lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God pretending the Spirit but being sensual and bringing in damnable Heresies having a show of godliness but denying the power thereof pretending to Piety and Law and Order but reviling Dignities which God hath ordained with Balaam greedily loving the wages of unrighteousness and perishing in the contradiction of Core But alas We have undone both Prophesie and Description put down both History and Poetry Examples and Imagination too even those Gyants before the flood are now not monstrous for we have defiled and made the earth more corrupt filled it with a bloodier cruelty and violence provoking the holy one of heaven to hurle down hils of miseries on our heads and hearts and to let in Torrents of his fierce wrath mingled wiih Christian blood in every street and a surrounding universal Scourge and Deluge to overwhelm three whole flourishing Kingdoms at once from end to end and burie them in endless desolation while senseless sinners we seem to contemn the Power of Gods wrath by letting loose the reins to all licenciousness when he is pouring down the vials of his anger and tumbling delightfully in our own tear up the wounds of our Saviour betrampling the sacred Blood that redeemed us and counting the blood of his Covenant a Covenant of Mercy and Peace an unholy thing crucifying again to our selves the Lord of Life and Glory and making a mock of him by grieving quenching and doing despight to the Spirit of his Grace So that our condition is worse then of this people here in this Prophet though in very many things resembling us for in the first chapter we read of their Unkindness Irreligiousness Profaness snuffing at the Table of the Lord and holding it contemptible In the second we find their Idolatry Adultery Infidelity In this third Sorcery false Swearing Oppression Sacriledge and at last it breaks into open rebellion and defiance of God voting down all divine service and decreeing it vain and no profit to walk longer in his Ordinances and then this was a brave time it must needs be so for proud and wicked people which were lift up like a skum over the face of clear and wholsom waters only such saith our Prophet were built to Wealth and Honor. And yet for all this sorrow there is a comfort comes up close at the sixteenth verse of use and advantage now for us Gods people still remained though secret not altogether silent they spake one to another admonished exhorted comforted one another mutually and these their Colloquies and Consultations were frequent and succesfull God came into their Assembly sate President in this Council and a book of Remembrance was written before him for all them that â—eared before him and thought upon his name and after all comes out his gracious Proclamation of Peace and Love The Patent under seal Teste meiâ—so and they shall be mine saith the Lord of Hosts in that day when I make up my Jewels Which words afford a double priviledge of Gods servants be the times what they will in reference to their Owner described by his high and stately stile of Dominus Exercituum First His own they are his peculiar Secondly Esteemed of him at a high rate for they are his Jewels There is a third part The day or time set for the making up of these Jewels admitting a four-fold Interpretation 1. Either the day of punishing the ungodly or 2. The day of powerfull preaching the Word 3. The day of death and 4. The last day the day of final Judgement In all these days God will manifest his Mercy and his Power both enwrapt in Dominus exercituum here and then the Specification the Verification the real and actual spreading of both in this that God in his holiness hath spoken it It shall certainly be so for so saith the Lord of Hosts The first priviledge is laid down in this plain conclusion They that in a
the Sun in his strength so when his time was fully come the day that this Jewel must be made up First his Body is glorified on earth and then assum'd into Heaven and a place for this precious Gem at his own right Hand above Principalities and Powers and a Name given him above all names And now that blessed Face wherein the Jews saw no beauty yet was fairer then the sons of men which they defiled and spit upon is ador'd by Seraphims and both Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of his Glory Now God observes the self-same method in all the rest finds them out among the refuse of the world amongst flocks and herds of Nations from the first rude quarrie of the Chaos from utter vacuity and nothing assembles their attoms and smallest dust breaths in a lively spirit exalts purifies it grafts on it Knowledge Faith Love Holiness and having begun a good work of Grace never leaves it till he bring it to perfection filing away their dross and grinding out their grains and Ices and clouds of corruption till he hath refin'd them to a brightness as in St. Paul a rough stony-hearted persecutor wrought by certain scales and barks pull'd away to become a chosen vessel to bear his name among the Gentiles Act 9. A bright star on earth and now a glorious Saint in Heaven 3. Jewels then thirdly they are for that care and love which God affords them men prize their Jewels Reserve them curiously take a glory and perplacency in possessing and wearing them So God having bought them at a price inestimable purchased not with corruptible things as silver and gold but with the blood of Jesus Christ as of a Lamb undefiled and without spot then he sets his heart upon them all his delight is in the Saints that excel Those he tenders as the Apple of his eye sets them as Josiah for a seal and a Signet on his right hand hides them under the shadow of his wings and so also God glories in them and holds them out to the amazement and confusion of the world of gross and earthly souls which are as foils to their perfections and commands them to do him grace and to be an Ornament to him Let your light shine c. Again The Comparison would hold for the task is easie to pursue an Allegory for Rarity Rari quippe boni apparent rari in gurgite Vasto in a sea of froth and foam and for the place and manner of breeding and growth But I forsake the rest and chuse to insist only on Properties respecting which Righteous men are justly term'd Jewels and chiefly two of clearness and lustre first and then of firmness and solidity which are the Vrim and Thummim of a Christian 1. In the first precious stones excel being compact of the finest Atoms and this holds well for as while we admire the pure Orient Pearls the radiant and sparkling Carbuncle the serene bright Saphir the green Emerald and the like we may raise our contemplation to the beauty and clearness of the stars and Sun and so ascend to him that struck light out of darkness at the first that dwels in perfect Beauty and in light inaccessible and covers himself with Light as with a garment so in a spiritual manner that Light of Grace in his servants attracts others also to behold in them Him who is Pater Luminum the Father of all Illuminations and so that fair and pure soul which gives Light in the darkness of the Body and night of Ignorance returns with advantage to him that gave it with the gain of other souls wonne by beholding their chast and illustrious conversation They tell of Diamonds belonging to some of the house of Luxembourge and Theophrastus has it of other stones propagating their Species by turning first the circumstant ayr into water and then contracting that water into a more earthy substance like themselves But it is true of these precious and living stones who born of Gods immortal seed by a new Light shot from Heaven do likewise in Reflection and by aggregation assimilation and an ardent sympathetical combination and communion work others to the same conformity of the godly Nature inspire illumine and propagate others with a kind of Divine Generation And as that Godlike creature the child of Heaven and Gods first born Light when delivered from the womb and jaws of Darkness is able to deliver over it self without ceasing without Annibilation Fraction o◠Diminution and as Love in moral minds and true Charity in Coelestial souls not leaving its own habitation will walk the round to those spirits which are capable of its Society And as God the Son is of the Father God of God and Light of Light and Love of Love For God is Love as he is Light so are his Regenerate and Adopted children also all from him and one enlightened from another Secondly Solidity firmness constancy the Christians is a standing Credo it was wont to be so Lord I believe without distrust whether my understanding comprehend it or no without curiosity to be further confirm'd by Miracles Lastly Credo Audacter without dissembling or fear to acknowledge it This is stere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Col. 2.2 that firm and full assurance of Faith I mean in Resolution not to alter or shrink as was in couragious Joshuah I will serve the Lord and hearty David that endured much and long yet he recedes not from his Vow no I have sworn and am stedfastly purposed And Job though he dyed for 't yet it should prove no this way dissolution And for this cause God allows the Name calls it the most precious faith of his Elect and chides those Recreants that Recoil so easily O ye of little faith Those are no right Jewels of his they are but Glow-worms and Hypocrites or as glass and Sophisticate shels and vitious stones which have an inconstant and languishing shine or whose splendor is only in a morning or under a clear sky and lasts not in gusts and storms of persecution or which in age decrease in Grace and Vertues and come to lose their abilities No t is said of Gods Palms and Cedars that they flourish on and bring forth more fruit in their age And for this firmness even moral men have made strange approaches and profest the conquest of it resolv'd to retain their vertue and honour untainted maugre all the rage of bloody tyrants and either allurements or encombrances of a base and vitious world How much more Christians to endure the torture the Rack the fire that which is the Crasis of all these The Inquisition to despise that tryal of cruel mockings and resist even to blood and ready to lay down our lives rather then betray or prevaricate and shuffle in the cause and quarrel of Christ Jesus and his holy Church As no sin shall tear me from that Root of Gods Love so I am perswaded sayes the Apostle no affliction Rom. 8.
riding on his horse of wood over all the surges that devoured the world of the ungodly So in the time of Ahab and in the time of Queen Mary in our own land when the waves of persecution rouled high and raged horribly God reserved many Prophets in a cave by means of Obadiah and many thousands that bowed not the knee to Baal or were won to crouch to the Romish superstition or shrink from the Reformed Religion This is the mercy of God that when sometimes the wicked are swept away as the house of a Spider when the arrow flies by day and terror by night then comes out the Indulgence and Dispensation Touch not mine Anointed a thousand shall fall before thee and ten thousand at thy right hand Psalm 91.7 Or if God do not ever in publique calamity give his own a temporal deliverance for Cadit Ripheus yet he promises to redeem their soul from deceit and violence and precious shall their death be in his sight Psalm 72.14 Secondly The day of making up these Jewels is understood by some of the time of powerfull preaching of the Gospel principally when Christ himself and his fore-runner the Baptist entered on the office of converting the world so much also is intended here of that Sun of Rightcousness rising with healing in his wings his day-star coming in the Spirit of Eliah cap. 4.2 And we find indeed the time of our Saviour called the time of Reformation surely by that powerable Instrument of his Word it is that his Jewels are made up John prepared the Way and cleansed the people by baptism to repentance Christ wrought up many by himself more by his Apostles after St. Peter at one Sermon three thousand at another five thousand souls And in that time of our Saviour those Jewels were made bright and manifest even to their Despisers See Anna Elizabath Zachary Simeon whom the curious Pharisees reckoned among the base vulgar that knew not the Law but they then were known for Jewels and the other for a generation of Vipers Thus when the World in the Wisdom thereof knew not God it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe and to make what the world accounts weakness his Power to salvation For to this is ascribed first the birth and breeding of these Jewels For to which of the Angels said God at any time This day I have begotten thee But as that speech hath a natural Interpretation of Christ our elder Brother so applyed to us in a supernatural Of his own Will begat he us by the Word of Truth Jam. 1.18 which is therefore stil'd the uncorruptible seed 1 Pet. 2.12 God makes thee as he made this All a work of power but in recreating in producing Light of Christianity uses his Word and Wisdom to give thee form so in the New Testament his Word precedes his Miracles and the Donative to the Apostles first was Fieri Vehicula scientiae such as enliven the Receivers For man lives not by bread only and for this cause the Saints are called living stones built on the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Jesus Christ himself the chief Corner-stone Again The word as it breeds and gives life so Light Grace and Lustre We cannot with the waxen wings of sense or reason flie up to the Deity not as revealed in Christ and ripeness and perfection and rectifying of meer Reason gains us nothing It loses rather and builds downward disclosing the earthly Globe and shutting up Heaven Only God is able by the power of his word to take hold of our souls and like so many keyes apply the graces of Faith and Hope and Love to the wards of prepared rational Nature For the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is that which by original Purity and perfect obedience and satisfaction in his death he hath acquired to and for all his members But the noble Instrument to work that Grace a way into our souls is the declaration of his Gospel in use and Ministry of his Word Yea the Scripture informs us of Illumination by this same means in the very Angels Eph. 3. But the purest Saints are all in darkness till this flaming light be held from heaven no previous disposition in the soul no Platonick Recordation would ever bring us to the least glympse of salvation were it not for this dew of Grace which from the Word we drink into our understanding and thereby direct our Wills and even in their imaginations find it powerfull against all those starts and exorbitancies reducing and bringing into Carptivity every thought to the obedience of Christ Jesus For as health is the absence of sickness and serenity nothing but the avoidance of clouds and shadows so the Word where it comes hath an innate and genuine property to dispel sin like Davids harp driving out Sauls devil You are clean saith our Saviour propter Sermonem by reason of the Word therefore resembled to rain medicines fonntains Such an eager and piercing operation and opposition as it penetrates the closest sin and is a Discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart so Magdalens whoredom and nest of Devils dislodged Zacheus swoln to a Camels grosseness abated to the smalness of a thred fit to be drawn through the eye of a Needle fit to enter into the kingdom of Heaven with this was Lydia's heart opened all other appliances but charms or holy water This mighty word of stones able to raise up children unto Abraham this the double edged sword of the spirit this the fire and the hammer and file to frame and work out Gods Jewels from the rough till piece by piece God thereby hath removed those ruines which through Adams fall opprest all humane nature and hid away the primitive beauty and perfection of our souls Lastly 'T is this that transforms from Prophaness Rebellion Hypocrisie and purges the most dissolute Were with shall a young man reform of all other the most difficult by taking heed according to thy Word and then this Word it is which adorns and teaches how to hang about the neck and ears of Gods holy ones all those shinning graces of precious Faith and Hope and Charity and Meekndss and heavenly-Mindedness c. And therefore in our passage are we not to take notice of this I say we both Preachers and people we first as Jewellers to sever the precious from the vile if speak to speak as the words of God and yet to furnish themselves with all helps of learning the better to insinuate by Similes and riches of discourse and so to raise the imagination and fill the understandings of their hearers but above all it points directly at the curiosity of our pains and carefull industry to be work-men needing not to be ashamed They must be work-men indeed that dcal with Jewels specially with cuting them to the life and perfect beauty and fashioning them in all their points that the man of God may be
perfect lacking nothing Alas if the unprofitable servant be cast out what shall become of the Malignant the Covetous the Proud the Luxurious How are we then to think of that triple charge of Pasce of Jacobs enduring frost and heat of the shepheards keeping watch by night and then of Leo Rugiens to devour both Pastor and Flock And how are they able to resist if we assist not unless we exhort rebuke exhort and minister a word of consolation to every soul that is weary and then the people to be swift to hear How precious is the treasure we bring though in earthen vessels Is it not the Word of God we bring and offer you To mens words we owe temporary belief if they speak wisely and a Resignation of our Judgements till we hear them out But to the Word of God which is diffused into a Sermon or else woe to him that makes it we owe an absolute Resignation and perpetual captivity Take heed then of contempt or wanton ranging after an heap of such Teachers as are after our own lusts lest we cause God to withold this bread from Heaven and endanger the famishing of our souls Let England remember the error of the Jewish Church once the Jewel and peculiar of the Lord of Hosts the defection of the Romish the Degeneration and then the demolition and abolition of Antioch Ephesus Corinth and many others O think in time for we draw very near it of this peoples sin here at the twelfth and thirteenth verses They held the Table of the Lord contemptible and snuffed at it perchance respecting the gorgeous Idols of the Gentiles In the same corrupt affection as many carnal Gospellers not ashamed to let men hear their wishes for the stately and triumphant shews again of Masse Dirges Processions Pilgrimages God hath blest the Land and Church even to the stupor and envy of our Neighbours with abundance of the Gospel of peace and the blessing of God in his Ordinance and with many curious and exact work-men Jewelers of souls and will we not bless the Lord praise him and magnifie him for ever Will we not prize this unsearchable Riches of Christ Shall we rather strive to quench and do despite to the Spirit of his Grace by despising Prophecying and like Swine and Dogs trample upon and turning again rend and tear such as pour these precious Pearls before us stoning them that are sent unto us with hard and bitter censures If the ministration of the Law was glorious what is that of the Gospel Examine it Is it not the Power and Wisdom of God and in the Administration of the Sacrament is not the bread we break the communion of the body and the cup we reach out into you from God the communion of the blood of Jesus Are not the offices of the Church such as distinguish us from Dogs and Infidels Let me then first creep a little into mount Ebal and bitterly curse all those thas have evil will at Sion and then flie into Gerizim and cheerfully bless with blessings of the right band Praise and Honor and Salvation upon the heads of all those Christian Kings Princes and people of all conditions who in their several places seek the advancement of the Truth of God and the encouragement of his faithfull servants while their own hearts strike them with the conscience and guilt of maliciousness and propenseness to Idolatry or schismatick Innovations that dare not say Amen 3. We come briefly to the third day to which we must all come the day of death when Gods own having past the fervor of youth and clean escaped the flesh and worlds contagions and the fiery darts of Satan having in short done what they came for they descend into the grave with their bodies like a rick of corn into the Barn in due season and their spirits return to God that gave them when even death is to them precious as well for rest and security as for that new Newness of life which then begins in death clearing to them that whereof Euripides doubted whether to die were indeed to live and contrary for so St. Paul determines it Christ is to me life and death is to me advantage and therefore desired he this day of his dissolution wherein he might be more perfectly united to his Jesus For these his holy Jewels are never so well set as when inset in the joy and Glory of their Lord and Master which makes that in such souls even the approaching towards death fils and purifies with high and heavenly apprehensions as it is in natural motions nearer still to the center or as in Diggers in a Myne who work most earnestly when near the Treasure But if it happen that any of these Jewels be so far dignified as his Lord accepts his life in sacrifice by Martyrdome consummate in sealing the Truth of Jesus with his blood how doth this add fresh ornament and addition of honor to these Servants of God as came to pass with that Protomartyr St. Stephen first made up a Jewel after his Master those stones the Persecutors threw surrounding his head as a precious Crown of Glory However they are all that die in the Lord enfranchised from those chains of corruption which abide the best alive for we dare not boast our Saints as Bellarmine doth Gouraga or his Fellow doth Phil. Nerius who was fain to pray God to depart from him and draw back his mind from heavenly things No we have learnt another way of humble acknowledgement from St. Paul I know that in me that is in my flesh dwels no good thing and St. James In many things we sin all and the day of absolute absolution from sin is not till this day of dissolution wherein these Jewels by death come to take possession of everlasting life 4. The last is the last of dayes Novissimus and the day of Renovation which none but the ancient of days can know and of which also there is a mixt mention in the beginning of this fourth chapter The day of the Lord comes as a furnace and Rev. 6. The great day of his wrath called the day of the Lord Jesus and the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ Rom. 16. The first day we spake on the day of affliction and the last we spake on the day of death do roule up sometime all together It befals alike saith the Preacher to the clean and unclean to him that swears and to him that fears an oath and for the second the day of powerfull preaching the word Hypocrites elude it The devil can transform himself into an Angil of Light and his zanies may make a fair shew in the flesh saith the Scripture But at this great day shall be a real Partition of Sheep and Goats of Wheat and Tares which yet flock and grow together then he will gather his elect from the four winds and declare his mighty Power in glorifying both their souls and
Romans and God himself confined his own people and pinned them down with Laws and still controules the rising of their cruelty by remembrance of their own condition in Egypt and for that very end the Holy Ghost proceeds here with a double Argument against such Insolency which Tremelius cals Elegantissimam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first Argument drawn saith he a Judicio Dei 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Judgement of our common Lord and Master respectless of any mans person and therefore the despising either of his person or of his cause yea of such a cause as wherein he dares contend with me that am his Master even this God will not bear I must answer for this nay I shall not be able to answer it if I be guilty but of this And the second argument is taken a jure naturali in the fifteenth verse Is my mold or mettle better then my mans Is a Lords flesh and blood of a purer composition then his Grooms or his Foot-mans Did not he that made me in the womb make him And did not one fashion us in the womb or fashion us in one womb that is the common womb of our mother earth What is then the lesson hence but meekness for all to practise but specially those in upper place since none is more superior then a Master over his slave And for this purpose the Scripture presents us with two strange examples Moses so chosen to advancement by God himself So known of God as his friend Dignified by his miraculous Power in the eyes of his enemies and by the conduct of his people that never man more prompted to take state upon him and yet it is said this Moses was the meekest man alive The other is David when he danced before the Ark and Michal reprooving him he told her he would be more vile since so she called his humility and confesses the bottom of his heart Psal 131. I have behaved my self and quieted my soul even as a weaned child We find this was at least they said so in the intent of those Philosophers both Sceptique and Epicurean to arrive at Mansuetudo Tranquillus animus to clear the soul like a fair and unclouded Heaven and this was brought us by the Doctor of Heaven Christ Jesus both in precept Learn of me to be humble and meek and in patience possess your souls and in practice stooping himself not to a survey of our miseries but clad enclosed compassed with all mans infirmities sin only accepted and as unashamed as glorying in his humility he cries out tell the daughter of Sion not her Servant but her Soveraign her King the King of Kings comes nnto her meek And is it not then a miserable consideration a wretched spectacle to see a proud man and a humble God an angry impatient and a merciless man and yet a God of Love and long-suffering I look to Heaven and thence I find descending the Saviour of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is his Description in Hebrews 1.3 the brightness of his Fathers Glory and the express image of his person in shape not only of a man but of a servant He that commands Legions of Angels and whose attendants they were in the wilderness and proud of the office to serve him as his Cooks and Butlers And shall not this example work on me that am but dust and worms and keep me from insulting over Inferiors who though my servants and my meaneft Hines and Drudges are yet respecting him our Lord and Father both my fellow servants and my fellow brethren Observe the provocations to this Vertue He scorns the Scorner resists the proud but gives Grace to the humble The Meek he will guide in Judgement in his Judgement he will teach them his way Psalm 25. When he shares the world he tels us The Meek shall inberit the earth and delight themselves in abundance of peace Psalm 39 7. which he ratifieth in his blessing Mat. 5.5 â—ut this is earthly blessing is it not so in heavenly things too Hear him in his Prophet Isa 61.1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings and we know what that means To whom to the Meek His first coming was for the Meek in the same Prophet Isa 11.4 And to meet again with the Text When God shall visit when this Son of God shall stand up to judge and to cast all proud and barbarous and cruel dispositions into Hell so he will then lift up the Meek and never leave these polisht Jewels till he hath inset them in heavenly Glory For the Lord takes pleasure in his people and will beautifie the Meek with salvation Psalm 149.4 Aud therefore who is a wise man saith St. James Jam. 3.13 let him shew out of a good conversation his works in meekness of wisdom for such is heavenly wisdom at verse 17. first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be entreated full of mercy c. If we preach it must be in love and the spirit of Meekness 1 Cor. 4. ult If you hear Receive with meekness the Word Jam. 1.21 If we will both Preacher and Hearers walk worthy our Vocation it must be with all lowliness and meekness c. Ephe. 4.2 For as if in this one grace all the rest were lock'd and infolded so doth the Apostle speak there and reckoning up the several gifts of the Spirit in Gal. 5. they seem all to be but Meekness diversified to several names To end I beseech you brethren by the meekness and gentleness of Christ Be ye cloathed with humility and upon that reason which is here in my Text God visits for rigor he resists the proud but gives Grace to the humble 1 Pet. 5.5 Furthermore If cruelty exclude from Paradise and disable from standing in the day of visitation Use this for terror against all the terrible Ones upon earth all exalted and crnel Oppressors They must hear of the wrath of this Supervisor in Heaven who sees them from thence and from thence they shall in that day see him come to visite for this sin Though they can over-soar and escape all power on earth yet see what a day the Lord threatens to make in Amos 8. and joyn to that the Prophesie of Isaiah 10.1 2 3. c. and Jeremy 6.6 c. Lastly Extend this for Consolation Regum timendorum in proprios greges saith he the highest power on earth can stretch but to their Vassals but over Princes themselves is his Perogative and Dominion that here stands up in my Text and of whom Solomon saith hc is higher then they In the cause and quarrel of Christ Jesus then we must put on the resolution of those three valiant Children The God whom we serve is able to deliver us Dan. 3. but if not we will not disobey his Command for any countercommand on earth And in this all those poor Saints of God that groan under the Turkish
to himself And when I hear his servants Job and David put that Query What is man they both put it to God himself to answer and in those very answers which they make by Gods own inspirations we find and know still that man cannot be found and known and that there are corners and Incognita's in this Microcosm that are not laid out fully in any Chart but left only to the discovery of him that is the searcher of hearts But yet for our present purpose and suddain apprehension of man I will turn you but to two books if I do that for there is much reason I 'le be brief if for nothing else yet a little to quit and recompence my former being too long And the first book shall be this of the Creation this very book of Genesis and but one place in the book Chapter 2. verse 7. The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into him into his Nostrils the breath of life and man became a living foul Soire we say is per causas and here they are at least here we may ground our selves upon the ground-work of all that is in our bodies All that gentle noble royal blood in mens veins and all the matter of the Merchants of the Divines of the Councellors or Courtiers or States-mens very brains all our pride and honor if we be proud of any materials in blood or brain or face or hand or foot we may soon find all our pride and honor in the dust with a double mention and Inculcatiou of Dust and dust upon all mankind God at first beats down all Supremacies still amongst men in compare with God all right or wrong Honorable and so all right or wrong Reverend too Here we have ventured at this instant to make an Assembly of our selves in the presence of God and in the Courts of his own house male and female with differing faces differing out-sides too or cloathed in Purple and fine linnen with hanging on of Gold or costly Array or clad in skins of beasts over our own hides and with girdles of skins as John the Baptist but yet with far more differing insides full of youthfull or wanton fires some and some with fierce and cruel or treacherous and bloody thoughts some perchance willing Hearers and some glad only to be here at this time if for nothing else yet out of an hope to catch something from the Preacher if he should be so silly as to flow into distempered and partial Invectives and anon sad to find their malice deluded Nay we may well suppose that some Papist may drop in upon us now or Separatist at other times afford his company and sneak into the Church to hear what News and then hit his very heart against this supposition But I will enlarge my self in a comprehensive Note for all this Audience whatsoere we are what use soever ye mean to make of the Preacher and the Sermon being both plain homely stuff and will serve perchance at dinner to fill out discourse and help to hold comparisons However God deprehend us now or apply himself to us here or we to him and his Vicegerent in our affections or intentions good or bad Once however we differ yet one primordial and finall sentence is past upon us all one Law gone out and over all mankind that arrests and enwraps takes in all Prince and people and layes up all together Dust thou art be sure and as sure to dust thou shalt return Every son of man like the first from the earth earthy A good touch this is by the way to humble us even in our most exalted imaginations 16. And though we hearken to the rest of mans Description with more alacrity which tells us so man became a living soul yet if thou do not become that soul but spoil'd it in the wearing nay if that soul serve thee only for salt to keep thy flesh from putrefaction if that soul become not a new soul though man be a living soul yet better he had had neither soul nor life unless the new man the second Adam the Lord from heaven heavenly become the life of thy soul and thou lead a new life by the power of the Son of God if the quickening Grace of his mighty Spirit if the same hand of the Lord God here that formed do not reform thee We talk of Reformation and Reformation in State and Church I am not able to look to those things of my self but I am able by Gods gracious assistance to look to this reformation of my self And certainly as families make towns and they make Common-wealths and Churches so private and particular persons are the roots and springs of all and their several Reformations are the roots and springs of all Reformation too But yet as in Reforming States I doubt not but Statesmen and the most stately of them had need to be instant in prayer to God or else without his blessing all may prove but a shock and conflict of wits nay worse for Bella horrida Bella may ensue except he bless unless the Lord God keep us Builders and Watchmen shall do all in vain So is it manifest in the reforming of our souls for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to good works Eph. 2.10 And this discerning the work of God in his own brest is that other book to which I would refer man for discovery of himself The book of conscience it is which lies open and layes man open to himself if he read there and find digitum Dei the Hand-writing of God both of Law and Gospel in his heart ingrav'd in that Table then it is another a second book of Genesis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a new beginning of new Light struck up and a new Birth of a new world of Beauty and harmony struck from his old chaos of corrupt Nature and a new Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The book of his Regeneration Gods spirit bearing witness with his spirit that he is the child of God and a Volume a tome a piece of Gods works nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eph. 2 10. A Poem a masterpiece of Gods own workmanship in Christ Jesus Reformed review'd view'd and corrected by the Author and purged from infinite errors is in Lucem editus Reprinted and comes forth into the Light multò auctior locupletior that is Emendatior in this new and second Edition But how shall I know this Indeed that Question is turned into a tormenting scruple by some evil Informers but the knowledge is easie to them that will observe the alteration Even as we know an A B C from a Testament by the contents and augmentation And even as certainly and as sensibly as I find my self past Genesis when I am in Exodus For this Genesis doth ever resolve into an Exodus that is a going out of Aegypt in a Deliverance evidenced to his soul from the thraldom of sin and tyranny
meekness which he shews thee in himself and in his anointed who if ever any mortal man is exhibted by God himself to all his people as a Pattern of Patience and Humility thou shalt find a manifold sense in that sentence already pronounced against thee God resists the proud that is justles him in and out of his own way of Pride Renders him in the very acts and Elevations in the hoisting and spreading of all his sails and wings base and contemptible and ridiculous God permitting many proud men by way of punishment to debauch themselves with other vices which yet do spring from thence Resisting them in those very things wherein they please themselves and hope to purchase Reverence while by a most unseemly superciliousness by their haughty eye-lids stiff necks loud speeches oaths Cloaths Buildings they occasion the storks bill behind their backs and expose themselves oft-times to open affronts and derisions and so are a kind of masculine brood of new Muses to the smal Poets and Wits of the time and are many times justly made the songs of drunkards And lastly by approof of that in the Psalmists Aphorism Doubtless every man living in his best state is altogether vanity making their most stately and best Establisht their most hopeful and high-erected fortunes like Turnus his persidus ensis or like blown glass Cum splendet frangitur in the stretch and wresting broken in their very acme and exaltation ruinous and as smoak when most supream then to nearest vanishing with a Sic transit which is no new experiment every age affording such Coments and Meteors exhaled and past their bounds when they have crackt a while and blaz'd fall or shoot or are hurled down to their first original drossiness so becoming like the Historians Sword-chariots to the World at first a terror and afterwards a Scorn Men we see literally fulfilling that conclusive prediction Man cannot abide in honor which fatal frequent Event is enough to make us imagine a Favorite to be an unlawfull Calling but that we find exceptions to the contrary in Gods own book where we have example of his own rich friend Abraham and of Moses whom he honoured as his familiar and John the Favorite of our gracious Saviour And in the Chronicles of former and for the Chronicles of succeeding times we find and look upon some e meliore luto whose ardent and ethereal vertue preserves them in the love and preservation and protection of the Almighty as so many streight and noble Palms under a royal Cedar still fresh and unblasted as far from self-wickedness as others envie which is a rare complexion in felicity There is a fourth use or extraction to be had out of this by teaching us all to turn upon our common adversary I mean sin that thus first threw the ball of wild-fire to the ruine of our Fathers house and state and race this is truly the noble science of defence and the only bravery of resistance Here then learn to shew mettle courage and spirit and resolution Alas What a wretched feable and squib valor is it for a man to contend in blood with him that gives him then the lie when he most deserves it or speaks disgraceingly of her to him who in his own conscience knows he first and most hath made her liable to that reproach and dishonour and yet this same man so rank a coward as he dare not enter the lifts nor stand the Combat and conflict with this Adversary No no my brother of the sword is fouly mistaken in judging of true courage and must know that he is the poor unworthy the only base and bafled fellow that scorns not to be a fellow that weakly yields to be a servant and a Prisoner and a voluntary slave to sin his mortal enemy and content to be taken captive of the devil to do his will So in the point of Wisdom and true prudential policy which we all affect doth it shew vilely of May it not stand with the temper of a right English constitution to submit to Covenants and Articles with that pernitious foe who by invasion seeks to enthral and trample on and bereave us both of state and liberty What is it then to strike an everlasting league with sin and so with death and hell for sin is their Agent their leiger Embassadour and not rather conspire to draw up all our Auxiliary forces of rectified Reason and moral Precepts but specially confiding in coelestial aids of Angels and Influences of divine Grace and Assistance to root out the body of sin and death root and branch or as it is in Rom. 6. with a Saltem That at least sin may no longer raign and have Dominion Here every Christian Souldier marching under the Ensign of the Cross of Jesus is to bid Defiance and to run ad Arma those especially of Preces Lachrymae The weapons of this War-fare are spiritual but yet able through God to beat down the strongest holds of Satan And for this cause we should be watchfull over sins advantages of which I will make my conclusion and present a few and such as I find here in this story and in this example 1. First The serpentine nature of sin is discovered And all sins may say Documenta damus qua simus origine from the devil in the Serpent they draw their property of Insinuation And yet to see as the same Devil prevailed even at Rome to be worshipt in form of a Serpent you know the story of Aesculapius and the notice of that too in the Apocrypha The Dragon worshipt at Babylon So Epiphanius reckons up among his Hereticks those that worshipt that very Serpent in Paradise as the Author for sooth of Science But as we must all be cautelous of any such serpentine perswasions in the case of any sin and as all great ones are to eschew the danger of Flatterers the worst of all tame beasts so a Caveat here will not be unseasonable against the Romish Synagogue of a serpentine brood Stillant in aure venenum creep into houses and seduce silly women Against such Serpents bless God for Ibides Birds that can destroy that crawling generation by confounding Arguments from the Truth of God And learn even for that very cause to think well of such at least as either in the former Age of Reformation or in this present time from Cathedral Prelacy or other rule have stood up next under God and a gracious Soveraign the Pen-champions and Defenders of the Faith as well against that brood as the other dangerous extream of Sectaries 2 A second observation is the advantage gained by the Tempter in that way as we should think of disadvantage in the harsh unplesant hissing of the Serpent We wonder at the She-wolves affecting the most ill favoured Male and bless our selves to think as well we may that Witches should indent in blood and endure those horrid approaches which thrill our souls to imagine And yet we take no
notice that in every gross sin we are as gross and foul as they For instance Do but weigh the madness of whoredom He follows her as an Ox to the slaughter and as a fool to the stocks for correction As a Bird hastes to the snare till a dart strike through his liver the seat of his lust Is not this man bewitcht drawn by the devil down to hell so saith Solomon Her feet go down to death and her steps take hold on hell And that the hiss of such a Serpent should be acceptable musick is it not as strange as Eves tentation here Doth not the Wisdom of God lead men to find this true in wofull trial confessed so Prov. 5.12 He wonders how he was so bewitcht How have I hated Instruction and then mourning bewails the shame and lasting brand of Infamy upon that sin I was almost brought into what into all evil And where In the midst of the Congregation in the face of the world But above all is that of the Apostle which makes it more horrible then Witchcraft or their Converse with foul spirits for he tels us it is in mystick sense an Abasing a corrupting of the flesh and bones of Christ Shall I take the members of Christ and make them the members of an Harlot Is not he or she worse then a Devil would draw me to do that Thirdly Sins advantage was on the womans easiness to sleight Gods prohibition where Satans deadliest dart as ever since we find it was thrown upon the fear of God which being in all good souls the beginning of all Wisdom he therefore strives to rob us of that Jewel first to put out that eye and then Polyphemus-like we rome about in Darkness and Distemper Let the fear of the Lord then be the Levite in every private family in every bosom not to be parted from it all the dayes of our lives Believe the Lord and love not to trie conclusions The ambitious man knows by a thousand Trials in others how hard his condition is upon the wheel how unsafe to tarry and how difficult to dislodge from his mountain-situation and yet this Pill is swallowed This shirt of the soul must not off till skin and all go with it So every lying Gthazi every corrupt and bribing Courtier knows how uncurable a plague will pursue him and yet ventures for two talents and two change of Rayment So to the Sacrilegious may we not say as the Prophet of Oppression Do not these Oppressors that suck the blood of Orphans and rifle widdows houses and they that like Bels Prists eate up the house of God and all his provision and yet jeast it away with the Apothegme of the wise Silver-smith Sirs you know that by this Craft we have our livings our livings indeed of which some one man may be qualified and dispenced with all in his own safe conscience to hold twenty marry they are impropriations or rather Sequestrations And do not all these several Oppressors know the sentence of God gone out against them Do not they against their own conscience with-hold the truth of God in unrighteousness and yet they would have us say nothing as if we were bound to this immodest forbearance of pronouncing and denouncing Gods Judgements But the Word of God is not bound saith our Apostle So let me apply in a word to the Blasphemer and the false Swearer He hears indeed a rumor from a Prophet a great while ago in another Country far of of a roul of plagues flying in the air and entering into the Swearers house and destroying foundations but he rowls in wealth and ease and believes it not And these startlers at oaths whose stomacks are so queasie he hath markt it he can tell you that commonly they die Beggars I have but one advantage more of sin in one word more to note unto you of which we yet may make our best advantage it is not in but will fairly comply with the Text It is Despair which many times the Tempter begets upon presumption He makes them first presumptuous and then desperate sinners At first it is Rejoyce O young man What needst thou fear at last there is no repenting now perscelera The safest way is to go through But then against this charm remember thou the voice of thy Creator As I live and the voice of thy Redeemer As I was content to die I would not have the death of a sinner Think of that second Adam the Restorer of all our losses and in the lowest of thy declination to a desperate sadness use this question here Where art thou man Why art thou so heavy O my soul so disquiet within me Put thy trust in God I know in whom I believe there is all I can hope for wish for above all that I am able to ask or think His blood shall wash away all my sins though scarlet bloody sins His Robe is pure and large and odorous I will put it on I will put him on and then my soul Where art thou to what an height of bravery to what illustrious Enobling to what a Royalty to what a Crown and Dignity art thou advanet and if our rising thoughts shall mount from hence and take their flight into the presence and before the Throne of Grace and Glory there how might this consolation be up-heaped and yet run over and exceed all humane apprehension â— to which Glory let us therefore pray him to bring us that hath so dearly purchased the same for us even Jesus Christ the Righteous to whom c. S. D. G. A Collection of several mens Discourses and Opinions concerning Duels On t of the Spanish History transtated into French by Mayerne this Discourse following was excerpted and thus englished IF of two evils we must make choice of one as some men say in this case of Duels is necessary the fashion of single Combats practised by our Ancestors will easily appear more tolerable then that in use at this day For by the former was discovered a kind of proof in things ambiguous and in them the Princes Pleasure or his lawfull Delegates was requisite who first of all took notice whether the cause deserved to put two persons of honor or quality in danger of life who might better serve the publique under their Soveraign or be usefull in their proper families If after mature deliberation they judged the matter must come to that trial and issue it was with very great caution and manifold Ceremonies to testifie how carefull men were in that age of mens lives There was Order taken for the equaling of the Combatants to see that no advantage was given in arms or in the strength or furniture of their horses or otherwise They were both deposed concerning wrong accusation of each other and that they came both freely for a good and just quarrel and only for the maintenance of their honor The point and substance of which honor in those days was placed in the worship of