the zeale love constancy knowledge of those noble Patriarches and those constant Martyrs in the Primitive times every drop of whose bloud bred and sprung up a new Saint if thou wert glorious as an Angell thy meat as Manna thy garments as Aarons Ephod thy breath as sweete as the perfume of the Tabernacle from the life of Nature to the life of Grace and so to the life of Glory all is from this Fountaine which is God Nay even that thou art not wicked as the most debauched creature in the world it is from the supporting and restrayning grace of God upon whom thou leanest in the wildernesse of this world as the Spouse upon her beloved Cant. 8. Or as Moses hands were supported by Aaron and Hur Exod. 17. 12. Or as the Altar of the Sanctuarie at the base thereof had Lyons for supporters so thou the Lyon of the Tribe of Iudah else how is it in man to direct his wayes aright without this Though Peter à Petra a Rocke surnamed Cephas for his stedfastnesse yet fell into a fearefull Apostacie Godly David moulded in the mint of Regeneration into Adultery and Murther these and much more hadst thou committed if God had not prevented Marshall then all thy guifts and graces together let them face one another as the Cherubins upon the Mercy-seate and all looke upon God For of him and through him and for him are all things Rom. 11. 36. Because it is a great part of Gods worship and even the most of that service which he requires at the hands of silly Men David in his Quaere makes it the summe of all Psal 116. 12. What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me but onely this I will take the cuppe of thanksgiving and call upon the name of the Lord. For this purpose it is called a sacrifice of praise Heb. 13. 15. The calves of our lippes and the first fruite of faith Acts 2. 46. It is his honour and that hee will not give to another Sing unto the Lord a new song and his praise from the end of the earth c. Esay 42. 10. To teach us not onely to condemne in ourpractise that ingratitude which is a monster in nature As we call the gratefull man a kind man so the ingratefull an unnaturall an absurd soloecisme in manners consisting of two foule vices falshood in not acknowledging iniustice in not requiting a benefit Alexander the Great and Iulius Caesar both renowned the one for liberality the other for patience the one would not give nor the other forgive an ingratefull person Not onely this but forasmuch as every one arrogates a due performance of this duty To teach us how to tread right in the steps of his service And to this purpose consider that God is praised 1. vocally as sing to the Lord 2. Chordally praise him upon the Harpe 3. Pneumatically with Trumpets Shawmes Cimbals c. when our breath is the bellowes 4. Allegorically in our actions contemplations words works life death being not only temples 1 Cor. 3. 16. but also timbrels of the Holy Ghost Know then that thy right praising magnifying of God is thy obedience to his voyce his law his Gospell c. Never boast saith Augustine that thou blessest with thy mouth when thou cursest with thy life and conversation It is not only thy breath but thy breast thy song but thy soule thy voyce but thy life that must be this Davidicall trump of praise thanksgiving 1 Pet. 2. 12. Have your conversation honest among the Gentiles and by this meanes they which are yet without and strangers from God shall have occasion to glorifie God in the day of their visitation Math. 5. 16. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good workes and glorifie your Father which is in heaven Our praise is our obedience and our obedience is nothing else but a subiecting of our will to God So that it is with every disobedient person though he can marshall his words adorne his phrase that they be like apples of gold with pictures of Silver Prov. 25 11. as with a secretly disloyall traytor who in the chamber of Presence is highly extolling and commending the King the State Government but being without the Court gate is opening his poysonous jawes and casting whole Seas of contumelious reproches and outragious slanders against the same who will take this for a true subject and who will account a wicked man the servant of God though with his tongue he praise God when he speaks nothing but contradiction in his life and conversation This false and pseudo-christianity makes the Gospell and sincere professors thereof and even God himselfe to be traduced and as Iacob was accounted with the Sichemites Ye have troubled me speaking to his cruell sonnes to make me stincke among the inhabitants of the land Gen. 34. 30. For this cause Rom. 2. 24. The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you professing to knowe God but in workes denying him being abhominable disobedient and to euery good worke reprobate Tit. 1 16. And hence wee see plainely the reason and ground-worke of those foule aspersions daily slanders and Ismaelitish songes of Turkes Iewes Infidels and Papists which are daily cast as dirt into the face of Christianity to be onely our dissolute lives disobedient carriages and disordered conversation Christiani hoc ipso deteriores quo meliores esse deberent Christians are so much the worse as they ought to be better Either then be as thou seemest or seeme as thou art else thou art but like the little bird with the great voyce which the Fowler onely hearing and thinking her to be some great fowle took paines to take her and seeing her little body ill able to countervaile his paines he said Thou art a voice an Eccho an empty outward sound and nothing else Know then that all thine orall profession superficiall adoration and Pharisaicall sepulcher-like guilded outside is in Gods account without the inward subjection of the heart to his holy lawes no better than to cut off a dogges necke to offer swines flesh or to blesse an Idoll Esay 66. 3. so long as thy heart is unsanctified wanting the salt of Grace and remaining unwholesome as the poysonous waters of Bethel Christ reiecteth thy lip-praises and outward service as the sacrifice of fooles Psal 50. 16. Vnto the wicked saith God Why doest thou preach my lawes and takest my covenant into thy mouth wheras thou hatest to be reformed and hast cast my wordes behinde thee Christ will not suffer the Devill the father of lies to beare witnesse of his truth Mar. 1. 24. and Paul will not suffer the Pythonesse to proclaime the truth Acts 16. 18. O then the rottennesse of our times how is our obedience if we have any cut short and wee are become like that
Countrey they are Christened by a new name called Ignatiani in Spaine Theatin◠in Italy Iesuini Campania Scosiotti in Ferrara Presbyteri in St. Luciae in Bononia reformati Sacerdotis in Mutina with many more And as in their names so in their natures ambiguous for being asked what a Iesuite is they answere Every Man they have two Soules in one body as is confessed in their Catechisme besides all these and their severall projects in themselves and their darke Disciples what tortuous Leviathans are they in their amphibolous amphibious enigmaticall ennuciations and mungerill propositions like so many Colour-changing Camelions as doubtfull as Proteus or Vertumnus Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo In what strong Chaine can any tie this Changelings face to know him by Wee may well say of their Labyrinth-like windings and crooked Heterogenials as Ierome sometime spake of the darke abstruse riddles of Iovinian No man can reade these Letters except the Prophetesse Sybill or as Martiall in the like case None but some learned Apollo can vnfold these Mysteries these Maeanders or as Plautus in the like case Has equidem pol credo nisi Sybilla legerit interpretari alium possi neminem which hollow equivocating hath translated vpon them the ancient infamie of the Spartanes called by Andromache Kings of Lyers and that which Apuleius layes vpon the Scicilians triple-tongued these be the Gibeonites the Iebusites the Iesuites onely in Hypocrisie bearing the name of IESVS though often shadowed under the winges and shrowded as poysonous Vipers in the bosome of Kings have shewed themselves to bee the onely underminers of States and Kingdomes advancing themselves by perverting the Truth against the God of truth who will smite them for whited Walls and painted Sepulchers but leaving them to themselves let us which are the children of Light love the Truth and when all Lyers and dissemblers shall have their portion with the Father of lyes the Truth which maketh not ashamed shall translate us and carry us upon his unconquered wings from these dirty and dusty Cottages of clay into everlasting habitations to the innumerable company of holy Angels and hie Saints for ever Now followes the object of Gods unutterable Mercy and uncontroleable Truth Toward vs which though David seeme to speake in the person of the Iewish Church and Nation the Patriarkes and Fathers of that time who had already and did continually taste of his favours though not so fully as we doe they having in promise wee in full performance that great mystery God manifested in the Flesh the matriculation and incarnation of our blessed Saviour IESVS CHRSIT yet no doubt hee had an eye vnto all succeeding Generations both of Iew and Gentile which were Gods elect and chosen and in time to bee brought into his Chambers Cant. 1. 4. To be made partakers of his Mercy and Truth as when hee stood arraigned hee stood not in his owne place but in ours making his personall appearance on our behalfe so in his resurrection the whole Church arose in him Ephes 2. 6. hee hath raised us up together and made us fit together in the heavenly places in CHRIST IESVS where we plainely see the Mercies and promises of God especially this concerning the promised seede called The truth of the Father were performed to the fathers before and after the flood in the worke of redemption and salvation and now confirmed in the same title unto us who live after the incarnating of that immortall word from which we gather this truth There is but one way of Salvation and Happinesse to the Fathers and also to us and that by the same IESVS CHRIST For confirmation of this we see the unchangeable purpose of almighty God in gathering his Church Hebr. 13. 8. IESVS CHRIST yesterday to day and the same forever Rom. 15. 8. Now I say that IESVS CHRIST was a Minister of the circumcision for the truth of God to confirme the promises made unto the Fathers c. Rev. 13 8. The Lambe slaine from the beginning of the world which though manifested in the latter times and afternoone of the world like a Roe or young Hart comming skipping over the Mountaines of Bether Cant. 2 vlt. yet all the holy Men and women from Adam inclusively were saved by his blood many of which as Noah Isaac Ioseph c. were tipes and shadowes of him the Ceremonies and Leviticall sacrifices tending to little other purpose but to nourish them in hope of the Messiah the slaughter and death of which beasts was to acquaint them with the mysterie of redemption which stood as under a vaile shadowed in the auncient complement of the Law Iohn 8. 56. Abraham saw my day and rejoyced Luke 1. 47. that hee might shew mercy towards our Fathers Acts 26. 6. the Apostle Pauls religion was concerning the hope of the promise made unto the Fathers Cephas the Pillar of truth Acts 15. 10. joyneth the Fathers faith with ours wee beleeve even as they so to them that lived before his Incarnation hee was crucified in the sacrifices and to us hee was likewise crucified in the word and Sacraments Galath 3. 1. CHRIST IESVS evidently set forth and crucified among you not in Roods Masses and Crucifixes but in his Holy and Sacred Ordinances To confirme and teach us in the first place that no length of time is able to disanull abrogate or make voyde the counsels of the Ancient of dayes or extenuate and make lesse the worth efficiacie and powerfull enargie of CHRISTS sacrifice the same which was Preached to Adam in Paradise Gen. 3. 15. promised to Abraham and David and the Church of the Iewes foretold by all the Prophers concerning CHRIST belōgs to us by faith they looked upon CHRIST as up to the Serpent in the wildernesse Iohn the 3. 14 as he was to bee crucified by faith wee looke upon him as he is crucified like the two Cherubins at the two ends of the Mercie-seate having their faces one toward another and both upon the Arke Exod. 25. 18. So the age primitive which is past and all our after-gatherings of all-measuring Time looke either on either and both upon CHRIST there is no other way nor hath or can be Salvation in any other Acts 4. 12. Secondly it serves to comfort every true beleever though never so base dejected rejected dispised and dispited though he lye among the pots Psal 68. 13. or behind the Ewes with young Psal 78. 72. though hee be Lord and Master of few or none of these outward things as Lazarus Luke 16 yet is he by CHRIST called to the same Salvation admitted into the same fellowship made partaker of the same Heaven with those auncient worthies Mat 8 11. sitting downe with Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdome of happinesse The contrary whereof viz. a deprivation and losse of that Heavenly Vision called by the Schoolemen
as it hath served to comfort us so now it serves to confute and confound that uncomfortable Antichristian principle bred in Popery strongly affirmed confirmed cannonized and ratified by the counsell of Trent prop and pillar of that cursed Idolatrie of the Beast agreed upon by those Italianated Machiavels viz. that A man must doubt of his Salvation so long as he lives as much as if one should say wee must doubt of what God hath promised in his mercy or ratified in his truth confirmed by oath and sealed unto us in the blood of his Son by the witnesse of the Spirit Rom 8. 16. 1 Iohn 5 10. Eph. 4. 30. making them all of none effect what is this but to beleive the father of lyes before the three witnesses in Heaven and the three in earth 1 Iohn 5. 7. What is this but to teach the sinne of Infidelity which above the rest is like the fourth beast Dan. 7. 7. dreadfull terrible excedding strong and had great Iron teeth this even pushed against the truth of God with the hornes of blaspemie What is this but to set a mans conscience upon the racke and to give into the hands of a desperate man swords Pistols halters the engines of his owne destruction and even to cause the hands in this distraction of minde in this deepe poynt of Salvation to imbrue themselves in their owne blood as never being sure of Gods mercy and truth towards him in the pardoning and forgiving his sinnes when he can never by the doctrine of his Religion say with David I put my trust in the Lords mercy nor with Thomas my Lord and my God nor with the faithfull Isa 25. 9. Loe this is our God wee have waited for him but his soule perplexedly hangeth tottering betwixt hope and dispaire Consider with Augustine that the name of IESVS is a name under which wee must not dispaire hee spreads his armes on the Crosse to imbrace both Iewe and Gentile Deus tibi de hoc mundo recedenti promisit immortalitem tu dubitas hoc est Deum omnino non nosse Christum credentium Magistrum peccato incredulitatis offendere God hath promised thee immortality when thou goest out of the world and doest thou doubt What is this but not to know God and to offend CHRIST the Master of the faithfull with the sinne of Infidelity the mercifull God hath shed abroad his love in our hearts that hee might beget and bring forth our love to him againe from the reflection of his owne non credit in deum qui non in eo solo collocat totius suae foelicitatis fiduciam he beleeves not in God who puts not the trust of his whole felicity for this life and a better onely in him What a comfortlesse doctrine is this which strives to blinde the eyes of faith CHRIST came to preach no such hee was preached by the Angels to be a Gospell and glad tydings of great Ioy to all people Luke 2. 10. and Zach. 6. 12 Reioyce O daughter Sion for thy King commeth unto thee c. wee must reioyce in him as men doe in harvest Isa 7. which wee cannot doe so long as the doctrine of our religion teacheth us to doubt of Gods mercy and truth cheare up thy selfe then performing thine obedience not from the spirit of meere bondage but with David Psal 119 chearefully runne the wayes of Gods commandements make thine election peace and reconciliation sure in CHRIST and being iustified thou hast peace with God by faith Rom. 5. 1. The fourth and last thing considerable in the reason is the conclusion of the Psalme the first last string of this well tuned Harpe beginning and ending in the same cadence of an holy and heavenly duety Praise yee the Lord. Which are considered two wayes 1 As they are repeated 2 As a duty enjoyned First wee see here not an idle Crambe bis cocta but a necessary repetition warranted by the Spirit which indited it and David that writ it where obserue that repetitions are used in the Scriptures in divers respects Sometime in prayer for the better stirring up of our zeale and fervency thus used by CHRIST himselfe Math 26 39. 42. and chap. 27. 46. My God my God and Psal 143. 1. Sometime in matters of Prophec◠and that most usually in the Coetaneall and Prophets of the same time as in Amos Isa and Hosea the same vices the same false Prophets and the same Idolatry is taxed Mich 1. 3. the same vices in the same words with Isa 26. 21. and the same concerning the mountaine of the Lord Isa 2. 2. hath Mich 4. 1. And not onely among them of the same time but also of many ages and generations distant as Iacobs Prophecy Gen. 49. 10. repeated many hundred yeares after Hag. 2. 8. Zach. 2. 8. borrowes that from Psal 17. 8. and the like Zach 9. 9 from Isa 62 11. so Zach 9. 10. from Psal 72. 8 and Zach. 11. 9. from Ierem. 15. 2. The promise concerning the powring out of the Spirit of grace Zach. 12. 10. from Ioel. 2. 28 the destruction of the Idols which is threatned Zach. 13. 2. from Ezech 30. 13. All these to settle our faith in the certainty of the Scriptures in this united concordance and harmony of the writers thereof all agreeing in the Analogy of faith like Pharaohs dreame repeated Gen 41 32. to make him know it was established with God and hee will surely bring it to passe Sometime they are used in simple narrations to assure the beleever of the certainty of them as 1 Iohn 〈…〉 that which wee have heard from the beginning which wee have seene and handled c. To this end the God of nature hath given unto man two hands two eares two eyes that if the one faile in the object the other should not or to put us in minde with an earnest desire to performe our duties which brings us to the doctrine viz. Repititions are not alway vaine Battalogies and superfluous Tantologies but often times lawfull and warrantable for the better stirring men up to their duties The Prophet Isa desires for the teaching of knowledge to them that are wayned from the milke and drawne from the breasts Chap. 28. 10. Precept upon precept precept upon precept line upon line line upon line here a little and there a little Phil 3. 1. It greiveth not the Apostle to write the same things unto them and Iude 5. I will put you in remembrance though you once knewe this c. There is no newe thing under the Sunne saith the Preacher nothing spoken which hath not formerly bin upon the Stage what are the Prophets but Expositors of Moses the great Prophet the new Testament of the olde and our Sermons Comments upon both Men under the Gospell must be like the cleane beasts under the law of Ceremonies to chew the cud in in an holy
comming a plaine testification of their calling which afterward increased as the sand of the Sea the daughter of Aegypt forgot her fathers house and the prophane barren Gentile bore children unto God The wise men come here among the Iewes as Apostles and teachers of their Rabbinicall Doctors that so long had held the chaire of Moses blind fat-bellyes that could not see so farre as the auncient Sybils or those strangers that so oft had tossed over those divine Oracles of this starre of Iacob and the mighty volumes of their Master Moses but Thou O God hidest those things from the wise and prudent of the world and revealest them to babes and sucklings even so it is thy will Thou pullest downe the mighty from their seate and exaltest the humble and meeke Luke 2. revealing that mystery that was hid from ages and generations Testified likewise Iohn 4. 27. he is found talking with a Gentle-woman shewing himselfe to be a Iesus a Saviour to her vers 10. If thou knewest the gift of God that is mee which am given of my Father 2 Cor. 9. 15. so called by the Apostle Thankes be unto God for his unspeakeable gift And if thou knewest mee which am the true immortall Ambrosia Nectar and aqua vitae of the Soule-sicke sinners The fountaine of living waters Ier. 2. 13. The fountaine of Israel Psal 68. 26. all this he is even to the Gentile Iohn 4. 26. I that speake unto thee am hee I am the expectation of you Gentiles The sides of the North which Satan challenged for his owne seate and Pontificiall throne Esay 14. 13 are become the Citie of the great King Iesus Christ Psa 48. 3. so that even as a stone though malleable is hardly brought to frame and square to his fit place in a building yet being laboriously hammered is durable and of long continuance so the Gentiles were a most crabbed wilde stocke to plant in a most crooked timber to hewe for Gods building yet being planted and brought to the faith they are most permanent gathered into the inclosed garden of Gods Church Reason 1. That they might shewe forth the wonderfull riches of Gods mercy the greater the sinner the richer the mercy that saves him as Gods mercy appeared more in calling one covetous Publican one incontinent Magdalene one Saul as bloody as Nero or Iulian one lost sheepe to be brought home Luk. 15. one prophane Gentile than in a multitude that needed no repentance It is a greater worke of Gods divine majestie to change a wicked man to a godly than of nothing to erect the glorious arches of thewhole world as Paul said of himselfe Where sin abounded there grace more abounded 1 Tim. 1. 16. For this cause I obtayned mercy that in me first Christ Iesus might shew forth all long suffering for a patterne to them which should hereafter beleeve on him to life everlasting As the Orator spake He that exalts his dejected adversary to his auncient place and dignities and not onely thus but amplifies his honours I not onely comparatively equall him with the best of men but judge him most like to God himselfe It is the glory of a King to passe by offences saith Eccles so is Gods mercy made great in pardoning the innumerable sinnes of the East the abhominations of the Gentiles In the East was the fall of our first Parents the unbeleefe of Eva the disobedience of Adam Gen. 3. the fratricide of Cain Gen. 4. Nimrods rebellion first Idolatry Magicke delivered and taught by those Phantasticke divels Incubus and Succubus with many more so that here is the magnifying of his mercy also of his glory As it is a great glory to a King to have strangers from remote parts of the world to bring presents and submit themselves to his scepter and governement So is it to have the raging Gentiles that so long had bandied themselves against the Lord and his annoynted to yeeld their necks under his yoake and those lands which like Ezechiels bloudy pots had nought but theyr scum in them full of Mephyticall stinckes like the five Cities or like the pot among the children of the Prophets in which was nought but death and the entoxicating poyson of abhominable villaines should at the last like Noahs sacrifice be a favour of rest in the nosthrils of Almighty God pots of holinesse like those in Zach. 13. last And so here is the mercy love and glory of God manifested in the calling of those long-loathed Gentiles Thus wee see Christs Kingdome according to his promises and prophecyes reaching from sea to sea and from the great river to the ends of the World as the Angell said Of his Kingdome shall be no end not onely in regard of the stability and durance but also of the boundlesse interminable amplitude thereof The Ocean shall not bound his regiment His fame shall flie above the firmament Else where had beene those huge Nations which have bin converted to the faith some by Apostles c. to omit the rest our selves which long lay in the darknesse of superstitious Gentilisme and of late times by those famous Colonies in Virginia brought from worshipping of Divils mirabile dictu to worship the true God in spirit and truth the instruments of whose happy calling were our famous English If the mercy of God had not appeared how had wee and the most part of the world still remained in horrible blindnesse slaves to Satan and heires of eternall perdition Come unto us then miserably blinded Turkes Infidels and Pagans and we will tell you what God hath done for our soules we have tasted how true how gracious the Lord is the Sea of knowledge which Esay spake of is accomplished among the Churches of the Gentiles Ieremie said They should come unto God from the ends of the earth and it is fullfilled the concourse to the preaching of the Word foretold by Micah and Zacharie is verified Mic. 4. 1. Zach. 8. 20. This day are these Scriptures fulfilled in our eares Thus much for confirmation of the Doctrine the uses follow First to teach us to magnifie the glorious name of God who hath called us out of darknesse into the marveilous light of the saving knowledge of Christ If we should make a quare with David concerning the generall estate of man What is man that thou art so mindfull of him or of himselfe What am I and what is my Fathers house Why we were even a refused people in whom there was neither favour nor beauty without hope without God in the World children even whose profession was disobedience drowned in the sinke of abhominations Our religion if we had any was mere idolatry Quicquid humus pelagus coelum mirabile gignit Id dixere Deos colles freta flumina flammas What'ere the God of nature hath made strange In Sea in earth in hill floud fire
come when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth sometime for sincerity in our conversation Ioh. 3. 21. hee that doth truth commeth to the light an Israelite in whom is no guile Ioh. 1. 47. Sometime for the rule of Gods law Rom. 2. 8. Disobeying the truth and obeying vnrighteousnesse and 1. Pet. 1. 22. Your selves are purified by obeying the truth Sometime for the sincere doctrine of the Gospell Gal. 2. 5. that the truth of the Gospell might continue with you Sometime for Iustice Prov. 20. 28. Mercy and truth preserves the King Sometime for such a truth as depends not vpon Opinion which may erre but for that Metaphysicall truth which is affectio Entis and such I take it to be here and so in God it cannot faile so taken Rom. 3. 7. If the verity or truth of God hath more abounded through my lye and so vpon the premisses this doctrine builds it selfe There is nothing more certaine to come to passe in a due and true performance then the truth of all Gods promises Wee neede not stand to prop the truth of this truth vpon any weake foundation of mans building for his truth is himselfe Exod. 34. 6. aboundant in goodnesse and truth Man may be said to be true mercifull just but God is truth mercie and justice it selfe in the abstract so the Prophet here brings his truth in the second place as the sure performer of his mercifull kindnesse whatsoever saith Calvyn He doth promise by his mercy he doth faithfully performe because his mercy and truth are vndissolubly knit together they goe hand in hand and cannot be seperated and as he cannot lye nor deny himselfe Tit. 1. 2. No more can his truth faile Num. 23. 19. God is not as man that he should lye or the sonne of man to repent his truth is confirmed strengthened veryfied and so corroborated toward us for so the word translated great in the Originall signifieth that if we would we cannot put it from us but it will overcome us to acknowledge it if the Lord speake it even to the miraculous continuing of the Meale in the barrell and the Oyle in the Cruse 1. King 17. 14. Even in the preservation and maintenance of the Patriarch Iacob Gen. 32. 10. I am not worthy the least of thy mercies and of all the truth which thou hast shewed vnto thy servant heere is finem non habitura fides his truth is even decked and clothed with constancy and firmnesse we cannot obiect against him as the Poet against Iason and in him against vnstable Man Mobilis AEsonide vernaque incertior aura Cur tua polliciti pondere verba earent Inconstant sonne of AEson fickle wight and more vnconstant then the wind in spring How is it that thy words are growne so light to want that weight should be in promising He deserves not with Antigonus to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who promised much and performed little neither with Thaeaginus to be called smoake who promised much being very poore neither with Hermodorus will he sell his words he doth not will not cannot equivocate with man in the truth of his promises as he that promised centum oves and performed centum ova he hath given us an hand-writing and obligation of promises made himselfe our debter not by owing but promising sayth the great Bishop of little Hippo the heavenly Augustine that we cannot say vnto him give that thou owest but we must pray vnto him for what he promiseth his promises are not like the golden shewes nor showers of the World who like Sathan Mat. 4. 9. promise what they cannot perform inverting the words of the wise Phocion who would have great matters performed not promised as Stobaeus witnesseth but they promise golden mountaines the opulency of Lidian Craesus which in performance prove but moale-hills Among the sonnes of the earth some indeed performe that which after ward they repent as Ioshua did to the Gibeonites Ios 9. 23. some promise what they can doe but meane it not as Iacobs sonnes to the Sichemits Gen 34. 26. Some promise willingly but give vnwillingly as Herod Iohn Baptists head to Herodias Mar. 6. 16. Some promise but after deny it as Laban dealt with Iacob Gen. 29. 23. as is complained Cap. 31. 41. Thou hast changed my wages tenne times but the promises of God are to the faithfull in hope without hope above hope and against hope the father of the faithfull proved all this to be true Rom. 4. 18. Who against hope beleeved in hope that he might be the Father of many Nations the ground of whose Faith was the promise according to that which was spoken so shall thy seede bee Gen. 15. 5. This was accompted vnto Abraham for righteousnesse saith Ambrese because he beleeved and required no reason so the truth of the Lord endureth for ever Because he hath made his truth as strong as the brazen pillers of eternitie to encourage his servants wholly to relye vpon him expecting the performance of his promises he made them before the foundation of the World inact them in the great Parliament of Heaven before all time Ephe. 1. 5. they were and are firme stable great and precious to make us partakers of the divine nature 2. Pet. 1 4. performed in time when the time of promise came which God had sworne to Abraham given a word of prmoise Rom. 9. 7 in Isaac shall thy seede be blessed purposed salvation for us before the world began 2. Tim. 1. 9. Purchased inheritance of promise Heb. 6. 12. be not sloathfull but followers of them which through Faith and patience inherit the promises adopted as children of promise Gal. 4. 28. Now we brethren as Isaac are the children of promise drawne Covenants of promise Ephes 2. 12. The spirit of truth the Scrivener of them Ephes 1. 13. And sealed with the spirit of promise having set not onely his hand but the signet of his right hand the character ingraven image of his own person Amen The truth of the father 2. Cor 10. 10. All the promises of God are yea Amen in CHRIST which is the truth it selfe Reu. 3. 14. These things saith the Amen the true and faithfull witnesse the new convenant drawne Ier. 31. 31. And the counterpane thereof Heb. 8. 8. Are of more force and vertue then all the bills bonds and obligations be they never so curiously and cunningly framed in the winding Mâ—ander of a Ploydons braine Heaven and Earth shall passe ereone jot or title of these can perish nay if there were neither booke record inke or paper in the world they are written more surely then with a pen of Iron ingraven more firmely then with the point of a Diamond by the spirit of Gods grace and adoption in the heart of every beleever and further we have not onely his bond
6. and to the Spirit which is the spirit of truth 1 Iohn 5. 6. What shall wee say then of these spurious brats of Sathan which beare his image and superscription in their lying dissembling false swearing undermining ledgier-dumaine c. which have the deepenesse of craft in the center of their hearts whose sinne of lying goes not alone like the Raile but like the Partridge in covies coupled and yoaked with the Theefe as his fittest copesmate Zach. 5. 4. Let our Saviour CHRIST bee the Herald to derive theyr base pedigree and lyneall discent Iohn 8. 44. You are of your father the Devill he was a lyer from the beginning so are yee as like as one apple to another and how many of these Cratians Tit. 1. 12. which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alwayes lyers Irijahs and false accusers Iere. 37. 13. bearing in his tongue the image of his patron which is called an Accuser Rev. 12. 20. How many covetous lying Gehezies which beare the marke of their infamous leprosies to their graves 2 Kings 5. 25. how many dissembling Ziba's 2 Sam. 16. 2. undermining the honest hearted Mephibosheth how many like the false and perjured Elders against the innocent Susanna in whose gray beards and grave heads should have shined the lustre and splendor of truth and honestie yet filled with in continency and perjury How many of such false witnesses as were suborned against our Saviour CHRIST Math. 26. And those perjured wretches which out of their venemous hearts and mouths belched out those false accusations and foule aspersions upon the sincere Narcissus sometime Byshop of Ierusalem Al which three were shortly after rewarded with the due desert of perjury how many of those monsters of men who in the dayes of that Virag the mirror of Fame of more than famous memory have not onely multiplyed and variated strange and hell-bred plots and Iesuiticall more than Italianated complots against her Sacred person crowne and Kingdome like those monsters in Affrica every day a new conspiracy but even after her death to cast the venome of their more then malicious spite upon her immaculate Virgin soule that rests with her God Nec mors mihi finiet iras Saeva sed in manes manibus arma dabo It is not death can end my endlesse wrath But Spite shall rake her ashes Envie saith Hence then thou sublimated malice among the infernall Spirits her incorruptible part is gone to God that gave it how many of those dogged Doegs 1 Sam. 22. How many Ananiasses and Saphyraes Acts 5. with thousands more which like locusts cover the surface of the Earth is not the Starre Wormewood fallen into the glassie Sea of this world and hath poysoned it the whole world lyes in wickednesse 1 Iohn 5. 19. There is none that doth good no not one Psal 14. 3. Truth is parted from the Sonnes of Men Psal 12. 1. Every man is a lyer Rom. 3. 4. the abstruse Hypocrite thinkes all simplicity faulty and truth scarce warrantable Learne then beloved from aged Eleazer 2 Macchab. 6 24. who going to his death because he would not eate Swines flesh unlawfull to the Iewes profession was counselled for the saving of his life to dissemble faine the eating thereof but he considering his age his gray haires his Godly education c. answered It becommeth not our age in any wise to dissemble So a Christian bearing in his crest the Armes of Heaven being a Knight of the conquering order of Saint Vincent and of the red Crosse must not defraud his brother in any matter for God is the avenger of all such things 1 Thes 4. 6. neither dissembling in matters of Religion which is a capitall lye nor in civill affaires as being pernicious nor in the least kinde which may be officious for none of these are justifiable being layd in the ballance of Gods truth Quisquis esse aliquid genus mendatij quod peccatum non sit putarit seipsum decipit Hee that thinkes any the least kinde of lye to be no sinne deceives himselfe for No lye is of the truth 1 Iohn 2. 21. for the severall kindes of lying and dissembling reade at large Augustine de mendacio ad consentium Further that wee may be drawne to love the Truth let us consider the Iudgements of the true God against the enemies of his truth Psal 5. 6. He will destroy them that speake lyes him that in the one closet of his heart sees a dissembling lye and in the other Cabinet conceives the Embryo of truth Psal 55 23 Bloody and deceitfull Men shall not live out halfe their dayes Wisd 1. 11. The mouth that belyeth sleyeth the Soule Iohn makes it a marke of Reprobation Revel 21. last Whose portion is the flying Booke of Iudgements Zach. 5 4. and Revel 22. 15. Lyers are the blacke guests entertained in the same ranke with Murtherers Adulterers Witches Dogs and the Divels Machivistians which must be without and have their portion in vtter darknesse Nec artificioso mendatio nec simplici verbo opertet quenquam decipere quia quomodo libet mentitur quis occidet animam suam We must not deceive eyther by artificiall Lying or by pretended Simplicity for by what meanes soever a Man doth lye hee destroyes his owne soule Turpis est omnis fraus etiam in rebus vilibus Dissimulation in the least things is abominable See the all-just God justly punishing Vladislaus a Christian King of Poland and Hungarie because hee broke a Truce dissembling with Amurath the 6. an irreligious Turke with a great overthrow of 30000. at Berna a just revenge for perfidious dissembling The like may be seene upon equivocating Arrius who being called to the Councell of Constantinople that there hee might renounce his Heresie deceives those Fathers by a paper in his bosome in which he had written his Heresie swearing hee beleeved as he had written meaning in a divelish mentall reservation his hereticall position which hee kept in secret but see the justice of God following him at the heeles for presently after by the loosnesse of his Belly in the sodaine terrour of his Conscience sinne lying now at the doore hee empties his very bowels into the draught so taking his last farewell of the world a just judgement upon perfidious Equivocators and enemies of the Truth And I would to God that the maintayners of mentall reservation cunningly contriving their mixt propositions partly mentall partly vocall seeking hereby to delude the truth would looke upon and consider these Examples upholding that Monster which no doubt was first bred and brought to light from the darke Cells of the State-undermining Iesuits these Assassionates as they have severall and sundry many and manifold policies especially in the Elders and Fathers of that Order as hath beene discovered in their subterranious vaults in their severall Colledges so have they likewise severall Names in every new Christened