Father in the Son by the Holy Ghost The verdict is That we are the children of God The Spirit beareth c. First then 1 Part. a slacknesse a supinenesse in consideration of the divers significations of this word Spirit hath occasioned divers errours when the word hath been intended in one sense and taken in another All the significations will fall into these foure for these foure are very large It is spoken of God or of Angels or of men or of inferiour creatures And first of God it is spoken sometimes Essentially sometimes Personally God is a Spirit Iohn 4.24 Esay 31.3 and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth So also The Aegyptians are men and not God and their horses flesh and not spirit For if they were God they were Spirit So God altogether and considered in his Essence is a Spirit but when the word Spir it is spoken not essentially of all but personally of one then that word designeth Spiritum sonctum The holy Ghost Goe and baptize Mar. 28.19 In the name of the Father and Sonne Spiritus sancti and the holy Ghost And as of God so of Angels also it is spoken in two respects of good Angels Sent farth to minister for them Heb. 1.14 1 King 22.22 Hosea 4.12 Esay 19.3 that shall be heires of salvation And evill Angels The lying Spirit that would deceive the King by the Prophet The Spirit of Whoredome spirituall whoredome when the people ask counsell of their stocks And Spiritus vertiginis The spirit of giddinesse of perversities as we translate it which the Lord doth mingle amongst the people in his judgement Of man also is this word Spirit spoken two wayes The Spirit is sometimes the soule Psal 31.5 Into thy hands I commend my Spirit sometimes it signifies those animall spirits which conserve us in strength and vigour The poyson of Gods arrowes drinketh up my spirit And also Job 6.4 Luke 1.47 the superiour faculties of the soule in a regenerate man as there My soule doth magnifie the Lord and my spirit rejoyceth in God my Saviour And then lastly of inferiour creatures it is taken two wayes too of living creatures The God of the spirits of all flesh Numb 16.22 Ezek. 1.21 and of creatures without life other then a metaphoricall life as of the winde often and of Ezckiels wheeles The Spirit of life was in the wheeles Now in this first Branch of this first Part of our Text it is not of Angels nor of men nor of other creatures but of God and not of God Essentially but Personally that is of the Holy Ghost Origen sayes Antecessores nostri The Ancients before him had made this note That where we finde the word Spirit without any addition it is alwayes intended of the Holy Ghost Before him and after him they stuck much to that note for S. Hierome makes it too and produces many examples thereof but yet it will not hold in all Didymus of Alexandria though borne blinde in this light saw light and writ so of the Holy Ghost as S. Hierome thought that work worthy of his Translation And hee gives this note That wheresoever the Apostles intend the Holy Ghost they adde to the word Spirit Sanctus Holy Spirit or at least the Article The The Spirit And this note hath good use too but yet it is not universally true If we supply these notes with this That whensoever any such thing is said of the Spirit as cannot consist with the Divine nature there it is not meant of the Holy Ghost but of his gifts or of his working as when it is said The Holy Ghost was not yet for his person was alwayes And where it is said Iohn 7.39 1 The fl 5.19 Quench not the Holy Ghost for the Holy Ghost himselfe cannot be quenched we have enough for our present purpose Here it is Spirit without any addition and therefore fittest to bee taken for the Holy Ghost And it is Spirit with that emphaticall article The The Spirit and in that respect also fittest to be so taken And though it be fittest to understand the Holy Ghost here not of his person but his operation yet it gives just occasion to looke piously and to consider modestly who and what this person is that doth thus worke upon us And to that purpose we shall touch upon foure things First His Universality He is All He is God Secondly His Singularity He is One One Person Thirdly His roote from whence he proceeded Father and Son And fourthly His growth his emanation his manner of proceeding for our order proposed at first leading us now to speak of this third person of the Trinity it will be almost necessary to stop a little upon each of these First then the Spirit mentioned here the Holy Ghost is God and if so Deus equall to Father and Son and all that is God He is God because the Essentiall name of God is attributed to him He is called Jehovah Iebovah sayes to Esay Goe and tell this people Esay 6.9 Acts 28.29 c. And S. Paul making use of these words in the Acts he sayes Well spake the Holy Ghost by the Prophet Esay The Essentiall name of God is attributed to him and the Essentiall Attributes of God He is Eternall so is none but God where we heare of the making of every thing else in the generall Creation we heare that the Spirit of God moved Gen. 1.2 but never that the Spirit was made He is every where so is none but God Psal 139.7 1 Cor. 2.10 whither shall Igoe from thy Spirit He knowes all things so doth none but God The Spirit searcheth all things yca the deep things of God He hath the name of God the Attributes of God and he does the works of God Is our Creator our Maker God Iob 33.4 The Spirit of God hath mademe Is he that can change the whole Creation and frame of nature in doing miracles God The Spirit lead the Israelites miraculously through the wildernesse Esay 63.14 Esay 48.16 Will the calling and the sending of the Prophets shew him to be God The Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me Is it argument enough for his God-head Esay 61.1 Luke 4.18 that he sent Christ himselfe Christ himselfe applies to himselfe that The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and hath anointed me to preach Acts 1.16 Iohn 16.13 He foretold future things The Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spoke before sayes S. Peter He establishes present things The Spirit of truth guides into all truth And he does this by wayes proper onely to God for our illumination is his He shall receive of me Ver. 14. 1 Cor. 6.11 Iohn 3.5 Iohn 16.8 sayes Christ and shew it you Our Justification is his Ye are justified in the name of the Lord Iesus by the Spirit of God Our regeneration is his There is a
to speak to others This therefore is the comming and this is the teaching of the Holy Ghost Acts 2.3 promised and intended in this Text and performed upon this Day that he by his power enables and authorises other men to teach thee That he establishes a Church and Ordinances and a Ministery by which thou maist be taught how to apply Christs Merits to thy soul He needed not to have invested and taken the form of a Tongue if he would have had thee think it enough to heare the Spirit at home alone but to let thee see that his way of teaching should be the ministery of men he came in that organ of speech the Tongue And therefore learn thou by hearing what he sayes And that that he sayes he sayes here here in his Ordinance And therefore heare what he hath declared inquire not what he hath decreed Heare what he hath said there where he hath spoken ask not what he meant in his unrevealed will of things whereof he hath said nothing For they that do so mistake Gods minde often God protests It never came into my minde that they should sin thus God never did it God never meant it that any should sin necessarily Ier. 32.35 without a willing concurrence in themselves or be damned necessarily without relation to sin willingly committed Therefore is S. Augustine vehement in that expostulation Quis tam stultè curiosus est qui filium suum mittat in scholam ut quid magister cogitat discat Doth any man put his son to schoole to learn what his Master thinks The Holy Ghost is sent to Teach he teaches by speaking he speaks by his Ordinance and Institution in his Church All knowledge and all zeale that is not kindled by him by the Holy Ghost and kindled here at first is all smoke and then all flame Zeale without the Holy Ghost is at first cloudy ignorance all smoke and after all crackling and clambering flame Schismaticall rage and distemper Here we we that are naturally ignorant we we that are naturally hungry of knowledge are taught a free Schoole is opened unto us and taught by him by the Holy Ghost speaking in his Delegates in his Ministers which were the pieces that constituted our first part And the second to which we are now come is the manner of the Holy Ghosts comming and teaching in his Ordinance that is by remembring He shall bring to your remembrance c. They had wont to call Pictures in the Church 2 Part. Reminiscentia the lay-mans book because in them he that could not reade at all might reade much The ignorantest man that is even he that cannot reade a Picture even a blinde man hath a better book in himself In his own memory he may reade many a history of Gods goodnesse to him Quid ab initio How it was in the beginning is Christs Method To determine things according to former precedents And truly the Memory is oftner the Holy Ghosts Pulpit that he preaches in then the Understanding How many here would not understand me or not rest in that which they heard if I should spend the rest of this houre in repeating and reconciling that which divers authors have spoken diversly of the manner of Christs presence in the Sacrament or the manner of Christs descent into Hell or the manner of the concurrence and joynt-working of the grace of God and the free-will of man in mens actions But is there any man amongst us that is not capable of this Catechisme Remember to morrow but those good thoughts which you have had within this houre since you came hither now Remember at your last houre to be but as good as you are this minute I would scarce ask more in any mans behalf then that he would alwayes be as good as at some times he is If he would never sink below himself I would lesse care though he did not exceed himself If he would remember his own holy purposes at best he would never forget God If he would remember the comfort he had in having overcome such a tentation yesterday he would not be overcome by that tentation to day The Memory is as the conclusion of a Syllogisme which being inferred upon true propositions cannot be denied He that remembers Gods former blessings concludes infallibly upon his future Therefore Christ places the comfort of this Comforter the Holy Ghost in this that he shall work upon that pregnant faculty the Memory He shall bring things to your remembrance And then Omnia All those things which I have said unto you Christ gave the Holy Ghost to the Apostles Omnia Mat. 18.18 John 20.22 John 15.15 when he gave them the power of absolution in his life time He gave them the Holy Ghost more powerfully when after his Resurrection He breathed on them and said Receive ye the Holy Ghost He opened himself to them in a large fulnesse when he said All things that I have heard of my Father I have made knowen unto you But in a greater largenesse then that when upon this day according to the promise of this Text the holy Ghost was sent unto them for this was in the behalf of others And upon this fulnesse out of Tertullian it is argued Nihilignorarunt crgo nihil non docuerunt As the Apostles were taught all things by Christ so they taught the Church all things There is then the spheare and the compasse and the date of our knowledge not what was thought or taught in the tenth or fourteenth Century but what was taught in Christ and in the Apostles time Christ taught all things to his Apostles and the Holy Ghost brought all things to their remembrance that he had taught them that they might teach them to others and so it is derived to us But it is Omnia Sola Sola John 15.26 It is All but it is Only those things He shall testifie of me saith Christ concerning the Holy Ghost Now the office of him that testifies of a witnesse is to say all the truth but nothing but the truth When the Romane Church charges us not that all is not truth which we teach but that we do not teach all the truth And we charge them not that they do not teach all the truth but that all is not truth that they teach so that they charge us with a defective we them with a superfluous religion our case is the safer because all that we affirm is by confession of all parts true but that which they have added requires proofe and the proofe lies on their side and it rests yet unproved And certainly many an Indian who is begun to be catechized and dies is saved before he come to beleeve all that we beleeve But whether any be saved that beleeve more then we beleeve and beleeve it as equally fundamentall and equally necessary to salvation with that which we from the expresse word of God do beleeve is a Probleme not easily
had need be so for he found our measure full of sin towards God and Gods measure full of anger towards us for our parts as when a River swels at first it will finde out all the channels or lower parts of the bank and enter there but after a while it covers and overflowes the whole field and all is water without distinction so though we be naturally channels of concupiscencies for there sin begins and as water runs naturally in the veines and bowels of the earth Gen. 6.5 so run concupiscencies naturally in our bowels yet when every imagination of the thoughts of our heart is onely evill continually Then as it did there it induces a flood a deluge our concupiscence swells above all channels and actually overflowes all It hath found an issue at the eare we delight in the defamation of others and an issue at the eye Psal 50.18 Psal 12.4 If we see a thiefe we run with him we concurre in the plots of supplanting and destroying other men It hath found an issue in the tongue Our lips are our owne who is Lord over us We speak freely seditious speeches against superiours obscene and scurrile speeches against one another prophane and blasphemous speeches against God himselfe are growne to be good jests and marks of wit and arguments of spirit It findes an issue at our hands they give way to oppression by giving bribes and an issue at our feet They are swift to shed bloud and so by custome sin overflowes all Omnia pontus all our wayes are sea all our works are sin This is our fulnesse originall sin filled us actuall sin presses down the measure and habituall sins heap it up And then Gods measure of anger was full too from the beginning he was a jealous God and that should have made us carefull of our behaviour that a jealous eye watched over us But because wee see in the world that jealous persons are oftnest deceived because that distemper disorders them so as that they see nothing clearely and it puts the greater desire in the other to deceive because it is some kinde of Victory and Triumph to deceive a jealous and watchfull person therefore we have hoped to goe beyond God too and his jealousie But he is jealous of his honour jealous of his jealousie he will not have his jealousie despised nor forgotten for therefore he visits upon the children to the third and fourth generation when therefore the spirit of jealousie was come upon him Numb 5.14 and that he had prepared that water of bitternesse which was to rot our bowels that is when God had bent all his bowes drawne forth and whetted all his swords when he was justly provoked to execute all the Judgements denounced in all the Prophets upon all mankinde when mans measure was full of sin and Gods measure full of wrath then was the fulnesse of time and yet then Complacuit It pleased the Father that there should be another fulnesse to overflow all these in Christ Jesus But what fulnesse is that Omnis plenitudo all fulnesse And this was onely in Christ Omnis plenitudo 2 Reg. 2.9 Acts 6.5 Acts 9.36 Elias had a great portion of the spirit but but a portion Elizaeus sees that that portion will not serve him and therefore he asks a double portion of that spirit but still but portions Stephen is full of faith a blessed fulnesse where there is no corner for Infidelity nor for doubt for scruple nor irresolution Dorcas is full of good works a fulnesse above faith for there must be faith before there can be good works so that they are above faith as the tree is above the roote and as the fruit is above the tree The Virgin Mary is full of Grace and Grace is a fulnesse above both above faith and works too for that is the meanes to preserve both That we fall not from our faith Eccles 10.1 and that dead flyes corrupt not our ointment that worldly mixtures doe not vitiate our best works and the memory of past sins dead sins doe not beget new sins in us is the operation of Grace The seaven Deacons were full of the Holy Ghost and of Wisedome Acts 6.3 full of Religion towards God and full of such wisedome as might advance it towards men full of zeale and full of knowledge full of truth and full of discretion too And these were plenitudines fulnesses but they were not all Omnis plenitudo all fulnesse I shall bee as full as St. Paul in heaven I shall have as full a vessell but not so full a Cellar I shall be as full but I shall not have so much to fill Christ onely hath an infinite content and capacity an infinite roome and receipt and then an infinite fulnesse omnem capacitatem and omnem plenitudinem He would receive as much as could be infused and there was as much infused as he could receive But what shall we say Deus adimplendus was Christ God before and are these accessory supplementary additionall fulnesses to be put to him A fulnesse to be added to God To make him a competent person to redeeme man something was to be added to Christ though he were God wherein we see to our inexpressible confusion of face and consternation of spirit the incomprehensiblenesse of mans sin that even to God himselfe there was required something else then God before we could be redeemed there was a fulnesse to be added to God for this work to make it omnem plenitudinem for Christ was God before there was that fulnesse but God was not Christ before there lacked that fulnesse Not disputing therefore what other wayes God might have taken for our redemption but giving him all possible thanks for that way which his goodnesse hath chosen by the way of satisfying his justice for howsoever I would be glad to be discharged of my debts any way yet certainly I should think my selfe more beholden to that man who would be content to pay my debt for me then to him that should entreat my creditor to forgive me my debt for this work to make Christ able to pay this debt there was something to be added to him First he must pay it in such money as was lent in the nature and flesh of man for man had sinned and man must pay And then it was lent in such money as was coyned even with the Image of God man was made according to his Image That Image being defaced in a new Mint in the wombe of the Blessed Virgin there was new money coyned The Image of the invisible God the second person in the Trinity was imprinted into the humane nature And then that there might bee omnis plenitudo all fulnesse as God for the paiment of this debt sent downe the Bullion and the stamp that is God to be conceived in man and as he provided the Mint the womb of the Blessed Virgin so hath he provided an Exchequer where this
your Master hath dealt thus mercifully with you all that to you all all he sends a message Sciant omnes Let all the house of Israel know this Needs the house of Israel know any thing Needs there any learning in persons of Honour We know this characterizes this distinguishes some whole Nations In one Nation it is almost a scorn for a gentleman to be learned in another almost every gentleman is conveniently and in some measure learned But I enlarge not my self I pretend not to comprehend Nationall vertues or Nationall vices For this knowledge which is proclaimed here which is the knowledge that the true Messias is come and that there is no other to bee expected is such a knowledge as that even the house of Israel it self is without a Foundation if it be without this knowledge Is there any house that needs no reparations Is there a house of Israel let it be the Library the depositary of the Oracles of God a true Church that hath the true word of the true God let it be the house fed with Manna that hath the true administration of the true Sacraments of Christ Jesus is there any such house that needs not a farther knowledge that there are alwaies thieves about that house that would rob us of that Word and of those Sacraments The Holy Ghost is a Dove and the Dove couples paires is not alone Take heed of singular of schismatical opinions what is more singular more schismaticall then when all Religion is confined in one mans breast The Dove is animal sociale a sociable creature and not singular and the Holy Ghost is that And Christ is a Sheep animal gregale they flock together Embrace thou those truths which the whole flock of Christ Jesus the whole Christian Church hath from the beginning acknowledged to be truths and truths necessary to salvation for for other Traditionall and Conditionall and Occasionall and Collaterall and Circumstantiall points for Almanack Divinity that changes with the season with the time and Meridionall Divinity calculated to the heighth of such a place and Lunary Divinity that ebbes and flowes and State Divinity that obeyes affections of persons Domus Israel the true Church of God had need of a continuall succession of light a contiuall assistance of the Spirit of God and of her own industry to know those things that belong to her peace And therefore let no Church no man think that he hath done enough or knowes enough If the Devill thought so too we might the better think so but since we see that he is in continuall practise against us let us be in a continuall diligence and watchfulnesse to countermine him We are domus Israel the house of Israel and it is a great measure of knowledge that God hath afforded us but if every Pastor look into his Parish and every Master into his own Family and see what is practising there sciat domus Israel let all our Israel know that there is more knowledge and more wisdome necessary Be every man farre from calumniating his Superiours for that mercy which is used towards them that are fallen but be every man as far from remitting or slackning his diligence for the preserving of them that are not fallen The wisest must know more though you be domus Israel the house of Israel already Crucifixistis and then Etsi Crucifixistis though you have crucified the Lord Jesus you may know it sciant omnes let all know it S. Paul saies once If they had known it they would not have crucified the Lord of life but he never saies if they have crucified the Lord of life 1 Cor. 2.8 they are excluded from knowledge I meane no more but that the mercy of God in manifesting and applying himself to us is above all our sins No man knowes enough what measure of tentations soever he have now he may have tentations through which this knowledge and this grace will not carry him and therefore he must proceed from grace to grace So no man hath sinned so deeply but that God offers himself to him yet Sciant omnes the wisest man hath ever something to learn he must not presume the sinfullest man hath God ever ready to teach him he must not despaire Now the universality of this mercy Sciant hath God enlarged and extended very farre in that he proposes it even to our knowledge Sciant let all know it It is not only credant let all beleeve it for the infusing of faith is not in our power but God hath put it in our power to satisfie their reason and to chafe that waxe to which he himself vouchsafes to set to the great seale of faith And that S. Hierome takes to be most properly his Commission Tentemus animas quae deficiunt a fide natur alibus rationibus adjuvare Let us indevour to assist them who are weak in faith with the strength of reason And truly it is very well worthy of a serious consideration that whereas all the Articles of our Creed are objects of faith so as that we are bound to receive them de fide as matters of faith yet God hath left that out of which all these Articles are to be deduced and proved that is the Scripture to humane arguments It is not an Article of the Creed to beleeve these and these Books to be or not to be Canonicall Scripture but our arguments for the Scripture are humane arguments proportioned to the reason of a naturall man God does not seale in water in the fluid and transitory imaginations and opinions of men we never set the seale of faith to them But in Waxe in the rectified reason of man that reason that is ductile and flexible and pliant to the impressions that are naturally proportioned unto it God sets to his seale of faith They are not continuall but they are contiguous they flow not from one another but they touch one another they are not both of a peece but they enwrap one another Faith and Reason Faith it self by the Prophet Esay is called knowledge Esay 53.11 By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justifie many sayes God of Christ that is by that knowledge that men shall have of him So Zechary expresses it at the Circumcision of Iohn Baptist That hee was to give knowledge of salvation Luke 1.77 for the remission of sins As therefore it is not enough for us in our profession to tell you Qui non crediderit damnabitur Except you beleeve all this you shall be damned without we execute that Commission before Ite praedicate go and preach work upon their affections satisfie their reason so it is not enough for you to rest in an imaginary faith and easinesse in beleeving except you know also what and why and how you come to that beliefe Implicite beleevers ignorant beleevers the adversary may swallow but the understanding beleever he must chaw and pick bones before he come to assimilate him
that Wealth that Honour that is in God that is God himselfe The other blinde man that importuned Christ Mark 10.46 Iesus thou Son of David have mercy on me when Christ asked him What wilt thou that I shall doe unto thee Had presently that answer Lord that I may receive my sight And we may easily think that if Christ had asked him a second question What wouldst thou see when thou hast received thy sight he would have answered Lord I would see thee For when he had his sight and Christ said to him Goe thy way he had no way to goe from Christ but as the Text sayes there He followed him All that he cared for was seeing all that he cared to see was Christ Whether he would see a Peace or a Warre may be a States-mans Probleme whether he would see plenty or scarcity of some commodity may be a Merchants Probleme whether he would see Rome or Spaine grow in greatnesse may be a Jesuits Probleme But whether I had not rather see God then any thing is no Problematicall matter All sight is blindnesse that was our first all knowledge is Ignorance till we come to God that is our next Consideration The first act of the will is love sayes the Schoole for till the will love till it would have something it is not a will But then Amare nisi nota non possumus Scientia Aug. It is impossible to love any thing till we know it First our Understanding must present it as Verum as a Knowne truth and then our Will imbraces it as Bonum as Good and worthy to be loved Therefore the Philosopher concludes easily as a thing that admits no contradiction That naturally all men desire to know that they may love But then as the addition of an honest man varies the signification with the profession and calling of the man for he is a honest man at Court that oppresses no man with his power and at the Exchange he is the honest man that keeps his word and in an Army the Valiant man is the honest man so the Addition of learned and understanding varies with the man The Divine the Physitian the Lawyer are not qualified nor denominated by the same kinde of learning But yet as it is for honesty there is no honest man at Court or Exchange or Army if he beleeve not in God so there is no knowledge in the Physitian nor Lawyer if he know not God Neither does any man know God except he know him so as God hath made himselfe known that is In Christ Therefore as S. Paul desires to know nothing else so let no man pretend to know any thing but Christ Crucified that is Crucified for him made his In the eighth verse of this Chapt. he sayes Prophesie shall faile and Tongues shall faile and Knowledge shall vanish but this knowledge of God in Christ made mine by being Crucified for me shall dwell with me for ever And so from this generall consideration All sight is blindnesse all knowledge is ignorance but of God we passe to the particular Consideration of that twofold sight and knowledge of God expressed in this Text Now we see through a glasse c. First then we consider 2. Part. Visio before we come to our knowledge of God our sight of God in this world and that is sayes our Apostle In speculo we see as in a glasse But how doe we see in a glasse Truly that is not easily determined The old Writers in the Optiques said That when we see a thing in a glasse we see not the thing it selfe but a representation onely All the later men say we doe see the thing it selfe but not by direct but by reflected beames It is a uselesse labour for the present to reconcile them This may well consist with both That as that which we see in a glasse assures us that such a thing there is for we cannot see a dreame in a glasse nor a fancy nor a Chimera so this sight of God which our Apostle sayes we have in a glasse is enough to assure us that a God there is This glasse is better then the water The water gives a crookednesse and false dimensions to things that it shewes as we see by an Oare when we row a Boat and as the Poet describes a wry and distorted face Qui faciem sub aqua Phoebe natant is habes That he looked like a man that swomme under water But in the glasse which the Apostle intends we may see God directly that is see directly that there is a God And therefore S. Cyrils addition in this Text is a Diminution Videmus quasi in fumo sayes he we see God as in a smoak we see him better then so for it is a true sight of God though it be not a perfect sight which we have this way This way our Theatre where we sit to see God is the whole frame of nature our medium our glasse in which we see him is the Creature and our light by which we see him is Naturall Reason Aquinas calls this Theatre Theatrum Mundus where we sit and see God the whole world And David compasses the world and findes God every where and sayes at last Whither shall I flie from thy presence Psal 138.8 If I ascend up into heaven thou art there At Babel they thought to build to heaven but did any men ever pretend to get above heaven above the power of winds or the impression of other malignant Meteors some high hils are got But can any man get above the power of God If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the Sea there thy right hand shall hold me and lead me If we saile to the waters above the Firmament it is so too Nay take a place which God never made a place which grew out of our sins that is Hell yet If we make our bed in hell God is there too It is a wofull Inne to make our bed in Hell and so much the more wofull as it is more then an Inne an everlasting dwelling But even there God is and so much more strangely then in any other place because he is there without any emanation of any beame of comfort from him who is the God of all consolation or any beame of light from him who is the Father of all lights In a word whether we be in the Easterne parts of the world from whom the truth of Religion is passed or in the Westerne to which it is not yet come whether we be in the darknesse of ignorance or darknesse of the works of darknesse or darknesse of oppression of spirit in sadnesse The world is the Theatre that represents God and every where every man may nay must see him The whole frame of the world is the Theatre Medium Creatura and every creature the stage the medium the glasse in which we may see God Moses made
richer yet neither am I poorer then I was for that But if I have no comfort from the Holy Ghost I am worse then if all mankinde had been left in the Putrifaction of Adams loynes and in the condemnation of Adams sin For then I should have had but my equall part in the common misery But now having had that extraordinary favour of an offer of the Holy Ghost if I feele no comfort in that I must have an extraordinary condemnation The Father came neare me when he breathed the breath of life into me and gave me my flesh The Son came neare me when he took my flesh upon him and laid downe his life for me The Holy Ghost is alwaies neare me alwaies with me with me now if now I shed any drops of his dew his Manna upon you With me anon if anon I turne any thing that I say to you now to good nourishment in my selfe then and doe then as I say now With me when I eate or drink to say Grace at my meale and to blesse Gods Blessings to me With me in my sleep to keep out the Tempter from the fancy and imagination which is his proper Sceane and Spheare That he triumph not in that in such dreames as may be effects of sin or causes of sin or sins themselves The Father is a Propitious Person The Son is a Meritorious Person The Holy Ghost is a Familiar Person The Heavens must open to shew me the Son of Man at the right hand of the Father as they did to Steven But if I doe but open my heart to my selfe I may see the Holy Ghost there and in him all that the Father hath Thought and Decreed all that the Son hath Said and Done and Suffered for the whole World made mine Accustome your selves therefore to the Contemplation to the Meditation of this Blessed Person of the glorious Trinity Keep up that holy cheerefulnesse which Christ makes the Ballast of a Christian and his Fraight too to give him a rich Returne in the Heavenly Jerusalem Be alwayes comforted and alwayes determine your comfort in the Holy Ghost For that is Christs promise here in this first Branch A Comforter which is the Holy Ghost And Him sayes our second Branch the Father shall send There was a Mission of the Son Missio God sent his Son There was a Mission of the Holy Ghost This day God sent the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost But betweene these two Missions that of the Son and this of the holy Ghost we consider this difference that the first the sending of the Son was without any merit preceding There could be nothing but the meere mercy of God to move God to send his Son Man was so far from meriting that that as we said before he could not nor might if he could have wisht it But for this second Mission the sending of the holy Ghost there was a preceding merit Christ by his dying had merited that mankinde who by the fall of Adam had lost as S. August speaks Possibilitatem boni All possibilitie of Redintegration should not only be restored to a possibility of Salvation but that actually that that was done should be pursued farther and that by this Mission and Operation of the holy Ghost actually really effectually men should be saved So that as the work of our Redemption fals under our consideration that is not in the Decree but in the execution of the Decree in this Mission of the holy Ghost into the World Man hath so far an interest not any particular man but Man as all Mankind was in Christ as that we may truly say The holy Ghost was due to us Luâ—â— 24. And as Christ said of himselfe Nonne haec oportuit pati Ought not Christ to suffer all this Was not Christ bound to all this by the Contract betweene him and his Father to which Contract himselfe had a Privity it was his owne Act He signed it He sealed it so we may say Nonne hunc oportuit mitti Ought not the holy Ghost to be sent Had not Christ merited that the holy Ghost should be sent to perfect the worke of the Redemption So that in such a respect and in such a holy and devout sense we may say that the holy Ghost is more ours then either of the other Persons of the Trinity Because though Christ be so ours as that he is our selves the same nature and flesh and blood The holy Ghost is so ours as that we we in Christ Christ in our nature merited the holy Ghost purchased the holy Ghost bought the holy Ghost Which is a sanctified Simony and hath a faire and a pious truth in it We we in Christ Christ in our nature bought the holy Ghost that is merited the holy Ghost Christ then was so sent A Patre as that till we consider the Contract which was his owne Act there was no Oportuit pati no obligation upon him that he must have been sent The Holy Ghost was so sent as that the Merit of Christ of Christ who was Man as well as God which was the Act of another required and deserved that he should bee sent Therefore he was sent A Patre By the Father Now not so by the Father as not by the Son too For there is an Ego mittam If I depart I will send him unto you But Iohn 16.7 cleane thorough Christs History in all his proceedings still you may observe that he ascribes all that he does as to his Superiour to his Father though in one Capacity as he was God he were equall to the Father yet to declare the meekenesse and the humility of his Soule still he makes his recourse to his inferiour state and to his lower nature and still ascribes all to his Father Thouh he might say and doe say there I will send him yet every where the Father enters I will send him saies he Whom Luke 24.49 I will send the Promise of my Father Still the Father hath all the glory and Christ sinks downe to his inferiour state and lower nature In the World it is far otherwise Here men for the most part doe all things according to their greatest capacity If they be Bishops if they be Counsellors if they be Justices nay if they be but Constables they will doe every thing according to that capacity As though that authority confined to certaine places limited in certaine persons and determined in certaine times gave them alwaies the same power in all actions And because to some purposes hee may be my superiour he will be my equall no where in nothing Christ still withdrew himselfe to his lower capacity And howsoever worldly men engrosse the thanks of the world to themselves Christ cast all the honour of all the benefits that he bestowed upon others upon his Father And in his Veruntamen Yet not my will but thine O Father be done He humbled himselfe as low as David in his Non nobis
soul and call the will ours we usurp the soul it self and call it ours and then deliver all to everlasting bondage Would the King suffer his picture to be used as we use the Image of God in our soules or his Hall to be used as we use the Temple of the Holy Ghost our Bodies We have nothing but that which we have received and when we come to think that our own we have not that For God will take all from that man that sacrifices to his own nets When thou commest to Church come in anothers name When thou givest an Almes give it in anothers name that is feele all thy devotion and all thy charity to come from God For if it be not in his name it will be in a worse Thy devotion will contract the name of hypocrisie and thine Almes the name of Vain-glory. The Holy Ghost came in anothers name in Christs name but not so as Montanus the Father of the Montanists came in the Holy Ghosts name Montanus said he was the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost did not pretend to be Christ There is a man the man of sin at Rome that pretends to be Christ to all uses And I would he would be content with that and stop there and not be a Hyper-Christus Above Christ more then Christ I would he would no more trouble the peace of Christendome no more occasion the assassinating of Christian Princes no more binde the Christian liberty in forbidding Meats and Marriage no more slacken and dissolve Christian bands by Dispensations and Indulgences then Christ did But if he will needs be more if he will needs have an addition to the name of Christ let him take heed of that addition which some are apt enough to give him however he deserve it that he is Antichrist Now in what sense the Holy Ghost is said to have come in the name of Christ S. Basil gives us one interpretation that is that one principall name of Christ belongs to the Holy Ghost For Christ is Verbum The Word and so is the Holy Ghost sayes that Father Quia interpres filii sicut filius patris Because as the Son manifested the Father so the Holy Ghost manifests the Son S. Augustine gives another sense Societas Patris Filii est Spiritus Sanctus The Holy Ghost is the union of the Father and the Son As the body is not the man nor the soul is not the man but the union of the soul and body by those spirits through which the soul exercises her faculties in the Organs of the body makes up the man so the union of the Father and Son to one another and of both to us by the Holy Ghost makes up the body of the Christian Religion And so this interpretation of S. Augustine comes neare to the fulnesse in what sense the Holy Ghost came in Christs name John 17.12 For when Christ sayes I am come in my Fathers name that was to execute his Decree to fulfill his Will for the salvation of man by dying so when Christ sayes here the Holy Ghost shall come in my name that is to perfect my work to collect and to govern that Church in which my salvation by way of satisfaction may be appropriated to particular soules by way of application And for this purpose to do this in Christs name his own name is Paracletus The Comforter which is our last circumstance The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost The Comforter is an Euangelicall name The Comforter Athanasius notes that the Holy Ghost is never called Paracletus The Comforter in the old Testament He is called Spiritus Dei The Spirit of God in the beginning of Genesis And he is called Spiritus sanctus The holy Spirit and Spiritus principalis The principall Spirit in divers places of the Psalmes but never Paracletus never the Comforter A reason of that may well be first that the state of the Law needed not comfort and then also that the Law it self afforded not comfort so there was no Comforter Their Law was not opposed by any enemies as enemies to their Law If they had not by that warrant which they had from God invaded the possession of their neighbours or grown too great to continue good neighbours their neighbours had not envyed them that Law So that in the state of the Law in that respect they were well enough and needed no Comforter Whereas the Gospell as it was sowed in our Saviours blood so it grew up in blood for divers hundreds of yeares and therefore needed the sustentation and the assurance of a Comforter And then for the substance of the Law it was Lex interficiens non perficiens sayes S. Augustine A Law that told them what was sin and punisht them if they did sin but could not conferre Remission for sin which was a discomfortable case Whereas the Gospel and the Dispensation of the Gospel in the Church by the Holy Ghost is Grace Mercy Comfort all the way and in the end Therefore Christ v. 17. cals the Holy Ghost Spiritum veritatis The Spirit of truth In which he opposes him and preferres him above all the remedies and all the comforts of the Law Not that the Holy Ghost in the Law did not speak truth but that he did not speak all the truth in the Law Origen expresses it well The Types and Figures of the Law were true Figures and true Types of Christ in the Gospel but Christ and his Gospel is the truth it self prefigured in those Types Therefore the Holy Ghost is Paracletus The Comforter in the Gospel which he was not in the Law In the Records and Stories and so in the Coynes and Medals of the Romane Emperours we see that even then when they had gotten the possession of the name of Emperours yet they forbore not to adde to their style the name of Consul and the name of Pontifex maximus still they would be called Consuls which was an acceptable name to the people and High-Priests which carried a reverence towards all the world Where Christ himselfe is called by a name appliable to none but Christ by a name implying the whole nature and merit of Christ that is The Propitiation of the sins of the whole world 1 John 2.2 yet there in that place he is called by the name of this Text too Paracletus the Comforter He would not forbeare that sweet that acceptable that appliable name that name that concernes us most and establishes us best Paracletus the Comforter And yet he does not take that name in that full and whole sense in which himselfe gives it to the Holy Ghost here For there it is said of Christ If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father There Paracletus though placed upon Christ is but an Advocate But here Christ sends Paracletum in a more intire and a more internall and more viscerall sense A Comforter Upon which Comforter Christ imprints these two marks of
answered not safely affirmed Truly I had rather put my salvation upon some of those ancient Creeds which want some of the Articles of our Creed as the Nicene Creed doth and so doth Athanasius then upon the Trent Creed that hath as many more Articles as ours hath The office of the Holy Ghost himself the Spirit of all comfort is but to bring those things to remembrance which Christ taught and no more They are many too many for many revolutions of an houre-glasse Spiritus Sanctus Therefore wee proposed at first That when we should come to this Branch for the proper celebration of the day we would only touch some things which the Holy Ghost had taught of himself that so we might detect and detest such things as some ancient and some later Heretiques had said of the Holy Ghost Now those things which the ancient Heretiques have said are sufficiently gain-said by the ancient Fathers The Montanists said the Holy Ghost was in Christ and in the Apostles but in a farre higher exaltation in Montanus then in either but Tertullian opposed that Manes was more insolent then the Montanist for he avowed himselfe to be the Holy Ghost and S. Augustine overthrew that Hierarchas was more modest then so and did but say That Melchisedech was the Holy Ghost and S. Cyprian would not indure that The Arrians said the Holy Ghost was but Creatura Creaturae made by the Son which Son himselfe was but made in time and not eternally begotten by the Father but Liberius and many of the Fathers opposed that as a whole generall Councell did Macedonius when he refreshed many Errours formerly condemned concerning the Holy Ghost and few of these have had any Resurrection any repulullation or appeared again in these later daies But in these later times two new Herefies have arisen concerning the Holy Ghost About foure hundred yeares since Euangelium Spiritus Sancti came out that famous infamous Booke in the Roman Church which they called Euangelium Spiritus Sancti The Gospel of the Holy Ghost in which was pretended That as God the Father had had his time in the government of the Church in the Law And God the Son his time in the Gospel so the Holy Ghost was to have his time and his time was to begin within fifty yeares after the publishing of that Gospel and to last to the end of the world and therefore it was called Euangelium aeternum The everlasting Gospel By this Gospel the Gospel of Christ was absolutely abrogated and the power of governing the Church according to the Gospel of Christ utterly evacuated for it was therein taught that onely the literall sense of the Gospel had been committed to them who had thus long governed in the name of the Church but the spirituall and mysticall sense was reserved to the Holy Ghost and that now the Holy Ghost would set that on foot And so which was the principall intention in that plot they would have brought all Doctrine and all Discipline all Government into the Cloyster into their religious Orders and overthrown the Hierarchy of the Church of Bishops and Priests and Deacons and Cathedrall and Collegiate Churches and brought all into Monasteries He that first opposed this Book was Waldo hee that gave the name to that great Body that great power of Men who attempted the Reformation of the Church and were called the Waldenses who were especially defamed and especially persecuted for this that they put themselves in the gap and made themselves a Bank against this torrent this inundation this impetuousnesse this multiplicy of Fryars and Monks that surrounded the world in those times And when this Book could not be dissembled and being full of blasphemy against Christ was necessarily brought into agitation yet all that was done by them who had the government of the Church in their hands then was but this That this Book this Gospel of the Holy Ghost should be suppressed and smothered but without any noyse or discredit and the Booke which was writ against it should be solemnly publiquely infamously burnt And so they kindled a Warre in Heaven greater then that in the Revelation Rev. 12.7 where Michael and his Angels fought against the Dragon and his Angels For here they brought God the Son into the field against God the Holy Ghost and made the Holy Ghost devest dethrone disseise and dispossesse the Sonne of his Government Now when they could not advance that Heresie Scrinium pectoris when they could not bring the Holy Ghost to that greatnesse when they could not make him King to their purposes that is King over Christ They are come to an Heresie cleane contrary to that Heresie that is to imprison the Holy Ghost And since they could not make him King over Christ himselfe they have made him a Prisoner and a flave to Christs Vicar and shut him up there In scrinio pectoris as they call it in that close imprisonment in the breast and bosome of one man that Bishop And so the Holy Ghost is no longer a Dove a Dove in the Ark a Dove with an Olive-Branch a Messenger of peace but now the Holy Ghost is in a Bull in Buls worse then Phalaris his Bull Buls of Excommunication Buls of Rebellion and Deposition and Assassinates of Christian Princes The Holy Ghost is no longer Omni-present Psal 139.7 as in Davids time Whither shall I goefrom thy Spirit but he is onely there whither he shall be sent from Rome in a Cloak-bagge and upon a Post-horse as it was often complained in the Councell of Trent The Holy Ghost is no longer Omniscient to know all at once 1 Cor. 2.10 .. as in S. Pauls time when the Spirit of God searched all things yea the deep things of God but as a Sea-Captaine receives a Ticket to be opened when he comes to such a height and thereby to direct his future course so the Holy Ghost is appointed to aske the Popes Nuntio his Legate what he shall declare to be truth So the Holy Ghost was sent into this Kingdome by Leo the tenth with his Legate that brought the Bull of Declaration for Hcnry the eights Divorce but the Holy Ghost might not know of it that is not take knowledge of it not declare it to be a Divorce till some other conditions were performed by the King which being never performed the Holy Ghost remained in the case of a new created Cardinall Ore clauso he had novoyce and so the Divorce though past all debatements and all consents and all determinations at Rome was no Divorce because he that sent the Holy Ghost from Rome forbad him to publish and declare it So that the style of the Court is altered from the Apostles time Acts 15.28 Then it was Visum est Spiritui Sancto nobis It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us First to the Holy Ghost before others and when it is brought to others it is to us
vehementi Spiritu semper habet diem Pentecostes He that-loves the exercise of prayer so earnestly as that in prayer he feeles this vehemence of the Holy Ghost that man dwels in an everlasting Whitsunday for so he does he hath it alwayes that ever had it aright Oditeos Deus qui unam putant diem festum Domini God hates that man saies Origen also that celebrates any Holy-day of his but one day that never thinks of the Incarnation of Christ but upon Christmas-day nor upon his Passion and Resurrection but upon Easter and Good-friday If you deale so with your soules as with your bodies and as you cloath your selves with your best habits to day but returne againe to your ordinary apparell to morrow so for this day or this houre you devest the thought of your sins but returne after to your vomit you have not celebrated this day of Pentecost you have not beene truly in this place for your hearts have beene visiting your profits or pleasures you have not beene here with one accord you have not truly and sincerely joyned with the Communion of Saints Christ hath sent no Comforter to you this day neither will he send any till you be better prepared for him But if you have brought your sins hither in your memory and leave them here in the blood of your Saviour alwaies flowing in his Church and ready to receive them if you be come to that heavenly knowledge that there is no comfort but in him and in him abundant consolation then you are this day capable of this great Legacy this knowledge which is all the Christian Religion That Christ is in the Father and you in him and he in you We are now come to our third part Our portion in this Legacy 3 Part. the measure of the knowledge of these mysteries which we are to receive of which S. Chrysostome sayes well Scientiae magnum argumentum est nolle omnia scire It is a good argument that that man knowes much who desires not to know all In pursuing true knowledge he is gone a good way that knowes where to give over When that great Manichean Felix would needs prove to S. Augustine that Manes was the holy Ghost because it was said that the holy Ghost should teach all truths and that Manes did so because he taught many things that they were ignorant of before concerning the frame and motion and nature of the heavens and their stars S. Augustine answered Spiritus sanctus facit Christianos non Mathematicos The Holy Ghost makes us Christians not Mathematicians If any man thinke by having his station at Court that it is enough for him to have studied that one booke and that if in that booke The knowledge of the Court he be come to an apprehension by what meanes and persons businesses are likeliest to be carried If he by his foresight have provided perspective glasses to see objects a far off and can make Almanacks for next yeare and tell how matters will fall out then and thinke that so he hath received his portion as much knowledge as he needs Spiritus sanctus facit Christianos non Politicos He must remember that the Holy Ghost makes Christians and not Politians So if a man have a good foundation of a fortune from his Parents and thinke that all his study must be to proceed in that and still to adde a Cyphar more to his accounts to make tens hundreds and hundreds thousands Spiritus sanctus facit Christianos non Arithmeticos The Holy Ghost makes Christians and not such Arithmeticians If men who desire a change in Religion and yet thinke it a great wisdome to disguise that desire and to temporise lest they should be made lesse able to effect their purposes if they should manifest themselves but yet hope to see that transmutation of Religion from that copper which they esteeme ours to be to that gold which perchance for the venality thereof they esteeme theirs If others who are also working in the fire though not in the fire of envy and of powder yet in the fire of an indiscreet zeale and though they pretend not to change the substance of the metall the body of our Religion yet they labour to blow away much of the ceremony and circumstances which are Vehicula and Adminicula if not Habitacula Religionis They are though not the very fuell yet the bellowes of Religion If these men I say of either kinde They who call all differing from themselves Error and all error damnable or they who as Tertullian expresses their humour and indisposition prophetically Qui vocant prostrationem Disciplinae simplicitatem which call the abolishing and extermination of all Discipline and Ceremony purenesse and holinesse If they thinke they have received their portion of this legacie their measure of true knowledge in labouring onely to accuse and reforme and refine others Spiritus sanctus facit Christianos non Chymistas The holy Ghost makes men Christians and not Alchymists To contract this If a man know wayes enow to disguise all his sins If no Exchequer take hold of his usurious contracts no High Commission of his licentiousnesse no Star-chamber of his misdemeanors If he will not to sleepe till he can hold up his eyes no longer for feare his sins should meet him in his bed and vexe his conscience there If he will not come to the Sacrament but at that time of the yeare when Laws compel him or good company invite him or other civill respects and reasons provoke him If he have avoydances to hide his sins from others and from himself too by such disguisings This is all but Deceptio visus a blinding of his owne internall eyes and Spirtus sanctus facit Christianos non Circulatores The Holy Ghost makes men Christians and not Jugglers This knowledge then which we speake of is to know the end and the way Heaven and Christ The Kingdome to which he is gone and the meanes which he hath taught us to follow Now in all our wayes in all our journies a moderate pace brings a man most surely to his journies end and so doth a sober knowledge in matters of Divinity and in the mysteries of Religion And therefore the Fathers say that this comming of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles this day though it were a vehement comming did not give them all kinde of knowledge a knowledge of particular Arts and Sciences But he gave them knowledge enough for their present worke and withall a faithfull confidence that if at any time they should have to doe with learned Heathens with Philosophers the Holy Ghost would either instantly furnish them with such knowledge as they had not before as wee see in many relations in the Ecclesiasticall Story That men spoke upon the sudden in divers cases otherwise then in any reason their education could promise or afford or else he would blunt the sharpnesse of the Adversaries weapons and cast a damp upon their understandings as wee
see he did in the Councell of Nice when after many disputations amongst the great Men of great estimation the weakest Man in the Councell rose up and he o◠whom his owne party were afraid lest his discourse should disadvantage the cause overthrew and converted that great Advocate and defender of Arius whom all the rest could never shake for though this man said no more then other men had said yet God at this time disposed the understanding and the abilities of the Adversaries otherwise then before sometimes God will have glory in arming his friends sometimes in disarming his enemies sometimes in exalting our abilities and sometimes in evacuating or enfeebling theirs And so as the Apostles were as many of us as celebrate this day as they did are filled with the Holy Ghost that is with so much knowledge as is necessary to Gods purpose in us Enough for our selves if we be private men and enough for others if wee have charge of others private men shall have knowledge enough where to seeke for more and the Priest shall have enough to communicate his knowledge to others And though this knowledge were delivered to the Apostles as from a print from a stampe all at once and to us but as by writing letter after letter syllable after syllable by Catechismes chismes and Sermons yet both are such knowledges as are sufficient for each As the glory of heaven shall fall upon us all and though we be not all of equall measure and capacity yet we shall be equally full of that glory so the way to that glory this knowledge shall be manifest to us all and infallible to us all though we do not all know alike The simplest soul that heares me shall know the way of his salvation as well as the greatest of those Fathers whom he heares me cite And upon us all so disposed the holy Ghost shall fall as he did here in fire and In tongues In fire to inflame us in a religious zeal and in Tongues to utter that in confession and in profession that is to glorifie God both in our words and in our actions This then is our portion in this Legacy A sober seeking after those points of knowledge which are necessary for our salvation and these in this text Christ derived into these three That I am in my Father That you are in me That I am in you The first of these is the knowledge of distinction of persons and so of the Trinity Ego in Paetre Trinitas Principale munus scientiae est cognoscere Trinitatem saith Origen The principall use and office of my knowledge is to know the Trinity for to know an unity in the Godhead that there is but one God naturall reason serves our turn to know a creation of the world of nothing reason serves us too we know by reason that either neither of them is infinite if there be two Gods and then neither of them can be God or if both be infinite which is an impossibility one of them is superfluous because whatsoever is infinite can alone extend to all So also we can collect infallibly that if the world were not made of nothing yet that of which the world shall be pretended to have been made of must have been made of nothing or else it must be something eternall and untreated whatsoever is so must necessarily be God it self To be sure of those two an unity in the Godhead and a creation of the world I need no Scriptures but to know this distinction of Persons That the Son is in the Father I need the Scriptures and I need more then the Scriptures I need this Pentecost this comming this illustration of the holy Ghost to inspire a right understanding of these Scriptures into me For if this knowledge might be had without Scriptures why should not the heathen beleeve the Trinity as well as I since they lack no naturall faculties which Christians have And if the Scriptures themselves without the operation of the holy Ghost should bring this clearnesse why should not the Jews and the Arians conform themselves to this doctrine of the Trinity as well as I since they accept those Scriptures out of which I provethe Trinity to mine own cōscience We must then attend his working in us we must not admit such a vexation of spirit as either to vex our spirit or the Spirit of God by inquiring farther then he hath been pleased to reveale If you consider that Christ sayes here You shall know That I am in the Father and doth not say You shall know How I am in the Father and this to his Apostles themselves and to the Apostles after they were to be filled with the holy Ghost which should teach them all truth it will out off many perplexing questions and impertinent answers which have been produced for the expressing of the manner of this generation and of the distinction of the persons in the Trinity you shall know That it is you shall not ask How it is It is enough for a happy subject to enjoy the sweetnesse of a peaceable government though he know not Arcana Imperii The wayes by which the Prince governes So is it for a Christian to enjoy the working of Gods grace in a faithfull beleeving the mysteries of Religion though he inquire not into Gods bed-chamber nor seek into his unrevealed Decrees It is Odiosa exitialis vocula Quomodo sayes Luther A hatefull a damnable Monosyllable How How God doth this or that for if a man come to the boldnesse of proposing such a question to himself he will not give over till he finde some answer and then others will not be content with his answer but every man will have a severall one When the Church fell upon the Quomodo in the Sacrament How in what manner the body of Christ was there we see what an inconvenient answer it fell upon That it was done by Transubstantiation That satisfied not as there was no reason it should And then they fell upon others In Sub and Cum and none could none can give satisfaction And so also have our times by asking Quomodo How Christ descended into Hell produced so many answers as that some have thought it no Article at all some have thought that it is all one thing to have descended into hell and to have ascended into heaven and that it amounts to no more then a departing into the state of the dead But Servate depositum Make much of that knowledge which the holy Ghost hath trusted you withall and beleeve the rest No man knows how his soul came into him whether ther by infusion from God or by generation from Parents no man knows so but that strong arguments will be produced on the other side And yet no man doubts but he hath a soul No man knows so as that strong arguments may not be brought on the other side how he sees whether by reception of species from without or
the Schoolemen have called all these six not without just reason and good use by that heavy name And some of the Fathers have extended it farther then to these six S. Bernard in particular sayes Nolle obedire To resist lawfull Authority And another Simulata poenitentia To delude God with relapses counterfait repentances and another also Omne schisma All schismaticall renting of the peace of the Church All these they call in that sense Sins against the Holy Ghost Now all sins against the Holy Ghost are not irremissible Stephen told his persecutors Acts 7.51.60 They resisted the Holy Ghost and yet he prayed for them But because these sins may and ordinarily doe come to that sin stop betimes David was far from the murder of Vriah when he did but looke upon his Wife as she was bathing A man is far from defying the holy Ghost when he does but neglect him and yet David did come and he will come to the bottome quickly It may make some impression in you to tell and to apply a short story In a great Schisme at Rome Ladislaus tooke that occasion to debauch and corrupt some of the Nobility It was discerned and then to those seven Governors whom they had before whom they called Sapientes Wise men they added seven more and called them Bonos Good men honest men and relied and confided in them Goodnesse is the Attribute of the Holy Ghost If you have Greatness you may seeme to have some of the Father for Power is his If you have Wisdome you may seeme to have some of the Son for that is his If you have Goodnesse you have the Holy Ghost who shall lead you into all truth And Goodnesse is To be good and easie in receiving his impressions and good and constant in retaining them and good and diffusive in deriving them upon others To embrace the Gospel to hold fast the Gospel to propagate the Gospel this is the goodnesse of the Holy Ghost And to resist the entrance of the Gospel to abandon it after we have professed it to forsake them whom we should assist and succour in the maintenance of it This is to depart from the goodnesse of the Holy Ghost and by these sins against him to come too neare the sin the irremissible sin in which the calamities of this world shall enwrap us and deliver us over to the everlasting condemnation of the next This is as much as these words do justly occasion us to say of that sin and into a more curious search thereof it is not holy sobriety to pierce SERM. XXXVI Preached upon Whitsunday JOHN 16.8 9 10 11. And when he is come he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousnesse and of judgement Of sin because ye belceve not on me Of righteousnesse because I goe to my Father and ye see me no more Of judgement because the Prince of this world is judged OUr Panis quotidianus Our daily bread is that Iuge sacrificium That daily sacrifice of meditating upon God Our Panis hodiernus This dayes bread is to meditate upon the holy Ghost To day if ye will heare his voice to day ye are with him in Paradise For wheresoever the holy Ghost is Luk. 23.43 he creates a Paradise The day is not past yet As our Saviour said to Peter Hodie in nocte hac Mar. 14.10 This day even in this night thou shalt deny me so Hodie in nocte hac Even now though evening the day-spring from on high visits you Esay 38.8 God carries back the shadow of your Sun-dyall as to Hezechias And now God brings you to the beginning of this day if now you take knowledge that he is come who when he comes Reproves the world of sin c. The solemnity of the day requires Divisio and the method of the words offers for our first consideration the Person who is not named in our text but designed by a most emphaticall denotation Ille He He who is all and doth all But the word hath relation to a name proper to the holy Ghost for in the verse immediatly preceding our Saviour tels his disciples That he will send them the Comforter So forbearing all other mysterious considerations of the holy Ghost we receive him in that notion and function in which Christ sends him The Comforter And therefore in this capacity as The Comforter we must consider his action Arguet He shall reprove Reprove and yet Comfort nay therefore comfort because reprove And then the subject of his action Mundum The world the whole world no part left unreproved yet no part left without comfort And after that what he reproves the world of That multiplies Of sin of righteousnesse of judgement Can there be comfort in reproofe for sin Or can there lie a reproofe upon righteousnesse or upon judgement Very justly Though the evidence seem at first as strange as the crime for though that be good evidence against the sin of the world That they beleeve not in Christ Of sin because ye beleeve not on me yet to be Reproved of righteousnesse because Christ goes to his Father and they see him no more And to be Reproved of judgement because the Prince of this world is judged this seemes strange and yet this must be done and done to our comfort For this must be done Cum venerit Then when the holy Ghost and he in that function as the Comforter is come is present is working Beloved Reproofes upon others without charity rather to defame them then amend them Reproofes upon thy selfe without shewing mercy to thine own soule diffidences and jealousies and suspitions of God either that he hated thee before thy sin or hates thee irremediably irreconciliably irrecoverably irreparably for thy sin These are Reproofes but they are Absente spiritu In the absence of the holy Ghost before he comes or when he is gone When he comes and stayes He shall reprove and reprove all the world and all the world of those errours sin and righteousnesse and judgement and those errours upon those evidences Of sin because ye beleeve not on me c. But in all this proceeding he shall never devest the nature of a Comforter In that capacity he is sent in that he comes and works I doubt I shall see an end of my houre and your patience before I shall have passed those branches which appertaine most properly to the celebration of this day the Person the Comforter his action Reproofe the subject thereof the world and the Time Cum venerit When he comes The inditement of what the accusation is and the evidence how it is proved may exercise your devotion at other times Acts 2.2 This day the holy Ghost is said to have come suddenly and therefore in that pace we proceed and make haste to the consideration of the Person Ille When he He the holy Ghost the Comforter is come Ille Spiritus sanctus Gen. 3.15 Ille alone He is
of mercy to the poore and breaking off his sinnes And after all this hee had a yeares space to consider himselfe Dan 26. before the judgement was executed upon him But now beloved Voluntas perversa all that we have said or can be said to this purpose conduces but to this That though this reproof which the Holy Ghost leads us to be rather in convincing the understanding by argument and other perswasions then by extending our power to the destruction of the person yet this hath a modification how it must be and a determination where it must end for there are cases in which we may we must go farther For for the understanding we know how to worke upon that we know what arguments have prevayled upon us with what arguments we have prevailed upon others and those we can use so far Vt nihil habeant contra si non assentiantur That though they will not be of our minde yet they shall have nothing to say against it So far we can go upon that faculty the understanding But the will of man is so irregular so unlimited a thing as that no man hath a bridle upon anothers will no man can undertake nor promise for that no Creature hath that faculty but man yet no man understands that faculty It hath beene the exercise of a thousand wits it hath beene the subject yea the knot and perplexity of a thousand disputations to find out what it is that determines that concludes the will of man so as that it assents thereunto For if that were absolutely true which some have said and yet perchance that is as far as any have gone that Vltimus actus intellectus est voluntas That the last act of the Understanding is the Will then all our labour were still to worke upon the Understanding and when that were rectified the Will must follow But it is not so As we feele in our selves that we doe many sins which our understanding and the soule of our understanding our conscience tels us we should not doe so we see many others persist in errors after manifest convincing after all reproofe which can be directed upon the understanding When therefore those errors which are to be reproved are in that faculty which is not subject to this reproofe by argument in a perverted will because this wilfull stubbornnesse is alwaies accompanied with pride with singularity with faction with schisme with sedition we must remember the way which the Holy Ghost hath directed us in Eccles 10.16 If the iron be blunt we must either put to more strength or whet the edge Now when the fault is in the perversenesse of the will we can put to no more strength no argument serves to overcome that And therefore the holy Ghost hath admitted another way To whet the iron Gal. 5.12 And in that way does the Apostle say Vtinam abscindantur I would they were even cut off which trouble you There is an incorrigibility in which when the reproofe cannot lead the will it must draw blood which is where pretences of Religion are made and Treasons and Rebellions and Invasions and Massacres of people and Assasinates of Princes practised And this is a reproofe which as we shall see of the rest in the following branches is from the Holy Ghost in his function in this text as he is a Comforter This therefore is our comfort That our Church was never negligent in reproving the Adversary but hath from time to time strenuously and confidently maintained her truths against all oppositions to the satisfying of any understanding though not to the reducing of some perverse wils So Gregor de Valentia professes of our arguments I confesse these reasons would conclude my understanding Nisi didicissem captivare intellectum meum ad intellectum Ecclesiae But that I have learnt to captivate my understanding to the understanding of the Church and say what they will to beleeve as the Church of Rome beleeves which is Maldonats profession too upon divers of Calvins arguments This argument would prevaile upon me but that he was an Heretique that found it So that here is our comfort we have gone so far in this way of Reproofe Vt nihil habeant contra etsi nobiscum non sentiant This is our comfort that as some of the greatest Divines in forraine parts so also in our Church at home some of the greatest Prelates who have beene traduced to favour Rome have written the most solidly and effectually against the heresies of Rome of any other But it must be a comfort upon them that are reproved And this is their comfort that the State never drew drop of blood for Religion But then this is our comfort still that where their perversnesse shall endanger either Church or State both the State and Church may by the holy Ghosts direction and will return to those means which God allows them for their preservation that is To whet the edge of the Iron in execution of the laws And so we passe from our second consideration The Action Reproofe to the subject of Reproofe The world He shall reprove the world It is no wonder that this word Mundus should have a larger signification then other words for it containes all embraces comprehends all But there is no word in Scripture Mundus that hath not only not so large but so diverse a signification for it signifies things contrary to one another It signifies commonly and primarily the whole frame of the world and more particularly all mankinde and oftentimes only wicked men and sometimes only good men As Dilexit mundum God loved the world John 3.16 John 4.42 Rom. 11.15 And Hic est verè salvator mundi This is the Christ the Saviour of the world And Reconciliatio mundi The casting away of the Iews is the reconciliation of the world The Jews were a part of the world but not of this world Now in every sense the world may well be said to bee subject to the reproofe of God as reproof is a rebuke for He rebuked the winde Luk. 8.14 Psal 106.17 Gen. 3.17 Psal 105.14 and it was quiet And He rebuked the red Sea and it was dryed up He rebuked the earth bitterly in that Maledicta terra for Adams punishment Cursed be the ground for thy sake And for the noblest part of earth man and the noblest part of men Kings He rebuked even Kings for their sakes and said Touch not mine anointed But this is not the rebuke of our Text for ours is a rebuke of comfort even to them that are rebuked Whereas the angry rebuke of God carries heavy effects with it Increpat fugiunt Esay 17.13 God shall rebuke them and they shall flie far off He shall chide them out of his presence and they shall never return to it Increpasti superbos maledicti isti Thou hast rebuked the proud Psal 119.21 and thy rebuke hath wrought upon them as a
parts of this text and to all that the Holy Ghost is to do upon the world for howsoever he may rebuke the world of sin he cannot be said to rebuke it of righteousnesse and of judgement according to S. Augustines later interpretation of these words for in one place of his workes he takes this word Reproofe in the harder sense for rebuke but in another in the milder we have and must pursue the second signification of the word That the Holy Ghost shall reprove the world of sin of righteousnesse of judgement by convincing the world by making the world confesse and acknowledge all that that the Holy Ghost intends in all these And this manifestation and this conviction in these three will be our parts In the first of which That the Holy Ghost shall Reprove that is convince the world of sin we shall first looke how all the world is under sin and then whether the Holy Ghost being come have convinced all the world made all the world see that it is so and in these two inquisitions we shall determine that first branch For the first for of the other two we shall reach you the boughes anon 1 Part. Mundus sub peccato when you come to gather the fruit and lay open the particulars then when we come to handle them That all the world is under sin and knowes it not for this Reproofe Elenchus is sayes the Philosopher Syllogismus contra contraria opinantem An argument against him that is of a contrary opinion we condole first the misery of this Ignorance for August Quid miserius misero non miser ante seipsum What misery can be so great as to be ignorant insensible of our owne misery Every act done in such an ignorance as we might overcome is a new sin And it is not onely a new practise from the Devill but it is a new punishment from God August Iussisti Domine sic est ut poena sit sibi omnis inordinatus animus Every sinner is an Executioner upon himselfe and he is so by Gods appointment who punishes former sins with future This then is the miserable state of the world It might know and does not that it is wholly under an inundation a deluge of sin For sin is a transgression of some Law which he that sins may know himselfe to be bound by For if any man could be exempt from all Law he were impeccable he could not sin And if he could not possibly have any knowledge of the Law it were no Law to him Now under the transgression of what Law lyes all the World Lex Humana For the positive Laws of the States in which we live a man may keepe them according to the intention of them that made those Laws which is all that is required in any humane Law to keepe it if not according to the letter yet according to the intention of the Law-maker Nay it is not onely possible Seneca but easie to do so Angusta innocentia ad legem bonum esse sayes the morall mans holy Ghost Seneca It is but a narrow and a shallow honesty to be no honester then the Law forces him to be Thus then in violating the Laws of the State all the World is not under sin If we passe from Laws meerely humane Ceremonialia though in truth scarce any just Law is so meerely humane for God that commands obedience to humane Laws hath a hand in the making of them to those ceremoniall and judiciall Laws which the Jews received immediately from God in which respect they may be called divine Laws though they were but locall and but temporary which were in such a number as that though penall Laws in some States be so many and so heavy as that they serve onely for snares and springes upon the people yet they are no where equall to the ceremoniall and judiciall Laws Psal â— 6 which lay upon the Jews yet even for these Laws S. Paul sayes of himselfe That touching that righteousnesse which is in the Law he was blamelesse Thus therefore in violating ceremoniall or judiciall Laws all the World is not under sin both because all the World was not bound by that Law and some in the World did keepe it But in two other respects it is Lex Naturae first That there is a Law of Nature that passes through all the World a Law in the heart and of the breach of this no man can be alwayes ignorant As every man hath a devill in himselfe Chrysost Spontaneum Daemonem A Devill of his owne making some particular sin that transports him so every man hath a kinde of God in himselfe such a conscience as sometimes reproves him Carry we this consideration a little higher and we may see herein some verification at least some usefull application of Origens extreme error Origen He thought that at last after infinite revolutions as all other substances should be even the Devill himselfe should be as it were sucked and swallowed into God and there should remaine nothing at last as there was nothing else at first but onely God not by an annihilation of the Creature that any thing should come to nothing but by this absorption by a transmigration of all Creatures into God that God should be all and all should be God So in our case That which is the sinners devill becomes his God That very sin which hath possessed him by the excesse of that sin or by some losse or paine or shame following that sin occasions that reproofe and remorse that withdraws him from that sin So all the world is under sin because they have a Law in themselves and a light in themselves And it is so in a second respect Originale peecatum Esay 1.4 Wisd 2.23 That all being derived from Adam Adams sin is derived upon all Onely that one man that was not naturally deduced from Adam Christ Jesus was guilty of no sin All others are subject to that malediction Vae genti peccatrici Wo to this sinfull World God made man Inexterminabilem sayes the Wiseman undisseisible unexpellible such as he could not be thrust out of his Immortality whether he would or no August for that was mans first immortality Posse non mori That he needed not have dyed When man killed himselfe and threw upon all his posterity the morte morieris that we must dye and that Death is Stipendium peccati The wages of sin and that Anima quae peccaverit Ezech. 18.4 ipsa morietur that That soule and onely that soule that sins shall dye Since we see the punishment fall upon all we are sure the fault cleaves to all too all do dye therefore all do sin And though this Originall sin that over-flowes us all may in some sense be called peccatum involuntarium a sin without any elicite act of the Will for so it must needs be in Children and so properly no sin yet as
of excommunication That others should esteem them so and avoid them as such persons is sometimes debated amongst us in our books If the Apostle say it by way of Imprecation if it sound so you are to remember first That many things are spoken by the Prophets in the Scriptures which sound as imprecations as execrations which are indeed but prophesies They seeme to be spoken in the spirit of anger when they are in truth but in the spirit of prophesie So in very many places of the Psalmes David seemes to wish heavy calamities upon his and Gods enemies when it is but a declaration of those judgements of God which hee prophetically foresees to be imminent upon them They seeme Imprecations and are but Prophesies and such wee who have not this Spirit of Prophesie nor foresight of Gods wayes may not venture upon If they be truly Imprecations you are to remember also that the Prophets and Apostles had in them a power extraordinary and in execution of that power might doe that which every private man may not doe So the Prophets rebuked so they punished Kings So a 2 King 2.24 Elizeus called in the Beares to devoure the boyes And so b 2 Kings 1. Elias called downe fire to devoure the Captaines So S. Peter killed c Acts 5. Ananias and Sapphira with his word And d Acts 13.8 so S. Paul stroke Elymas the Sorcerer with blindnesse But upon Imprecations of this kinde wee as private men or as publique persons but limited by our Commission may not adventure neither But take the Prophets or the Apostles in their highest Authority yet in an over-vehement zeale they may have done some things some times not warrantable in themselves many times many things not to be imitated by us In Moses his passionate vehemency Dele me Exod. 32.32 If thou wilt not forgive them blot me out of thy booke And in the Apostles inconfiderate zeale to his brethren Optabam Anathema esse I could wish that my selfe were accursed from Christ Rom. 9.3 In Iames and Iohns impatience of their Masters being neglected by the Samaritans when they drew from Christ that rebuke You know not of what spirit you are In these Luke 9.55 and such as these there may be something wherein even these men cannot be excused but very much wherein we may not follow them nor doe as they did nor say as they said Since there is a possibility a facility a proclivity of erring herein and so many conditions and circumstances required to make an Imprecation just and lawfull the best way is to forbeare them or to be very sparing in them But we rather take this in the Text Excommunicatio to be an Excommunication denounced by the Apostle then an Imprecation So Christ himselfe If he will not heare the Chruch let him be to thee as a Heathen or a Publican That is Have no conversation with him So sayes the Apostle speaking of an Angel Anathema If any man if we our selves Gal. 1.9 if an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel let him be accursed Now the Excommunication is in the Anathema and the aggravating thereof in the other words Maranatha The word Anathema had two significations They are expressed thus Quod Deo dicatum Just Mart. Quod à Deo per vitium alienatum That which for some excellency in it was separated from the use of man to the service of God or that which for some great fault in it was separated from God and man too Ab illo abstinebant tanquam Deo dicatum Ab hoc recedebant Chrysost tanquam à Deo abalienatum From the first kinde men abstained because they were consecrated to God and from the other because they were aliened from God and in that last sense irreligious men such as love not the Lord Jesus Christ are Anathema aliened from God Amongst the Druides with the Heathen they excommunicated Malefactors and no man might relieve him in any necessity no man might answer him in any action And so amongst the Jews the Esseni who were in speciall estimation for sanctity excommunicated irreligious persons and the persons so excommunicated starved in the streets and fields By the light of nature by the light of grace we should separate our selves from irreligious and from idolatrous persons and that with that earnestnesse which the Apostle expresses in the last words Maran Atha In the practise of the Primitive Church Maran Atha by those Canons which we call The Apostles Canons and those which we call The penitentiall Canons we see there were different penances inflicted upon different faults and there were very early relaxations of penances Indulgences and there were reservations of cases in some any Priest in some a Bishop onely might dispense It is so in our Church still Impugners of the Supremacy are excommunicated and not restored but by the Archbishop Impugners of the Common prayer Booke excommunicated too but may bee restored by the Bishop of the place Impugners of our Religion declared in the Articles reserved to the Archbishop Impugners of Ceremonies restored when they repent and no Bishop named Authors of Schisme reserved to the Archbishop maintainers of Schismatiques referred but to repentance And so maintainers of Conventicles to the Archbishop maintainers of Constitutions made in Conventicles to their repentance There was ever there is yet a reserving of certaine cases and a relaxation or aggravating of Ecclesiasticall censures for their waight and for their time and because Not to love the Lord Iesus Christ was the greatest the Apostle inflicts this heaviest Excommunication Maran Atha The word seemes to be a Proverbiall word amongst the Jews after their returne and vulgarly spoken by them and so the Apostle takes it out of common use of speech Maran is Dominus The Lord and Athan is Venit He comes Not so truly in the very exactnesse of Hebrew rules and terminations but so amongst them then when their language was much depraved Dan. 4.16 Deut. 33.2 but in ancienter times we have the word Mara for Dominus and the word Atha for Venit And so Anathema Maran Atha will be Let him that loveth not the Lord Iesus Christ be as an accursed person to you even till the Lord come S. Hierom seems to understand this Dominus venit That the Lord is come come already come in the flesh Superfluum sayes he odiis pertinacibus contendere adversus eum qui jam venit It is superabundant perversnesse to resist Christ now Now that he hath appeared already and established to himselfe a Kingdome in this world And so S. Chrysostome seemes to take it too Christ is come already sayes he Et jam nulla potest excusatio non diligentibus eum If any excuse could be pretended before yet since Christ is come none can be Si opertum sayes the Apostle If our Gospel be hid now it is hid from them who are lost that is they are lost from
not onely out of Custome but as it may seeme out of decree For if there belong any credit to that Councell which the Apostles are said to have held at Antioch I â—â—nus in Act 11.20 of which Councell there was a Copy whether true or false in Origens Library within two hundred yeares after Christ one Canon in that Councell is Vt credentes in Iesum quos tunc vocabant Galilaeos vocarentur Christiani That the followers of Christ who till then were called Galileans should then be called Christians There in generall we were all called Christians but in particular I am called a Christian because I have put on Christ in Baptisme Now in considering the infinite treasure which we receive in Baptisme insinuated before the text That the Heavens opened that is The mysteries of Religion are made accessible to us we may attaine to them And then The Holy Ghost descends And he is a Comforter whilest we are in Ignorance and he is a Schoolemaster to teach us all truths And he comes as a Dove that is Brings peace of conscience with him and he rests upon us as a Dove that is Requires simplicity and an humble disposition in us That not onely as Elias opened and shut Heaven Vt pluviam aut emitteret aut teneret That he might poure out or withhold the raine but as that Father S. Chrysostome pursues it Ita apertum ut ipse conscendas alios si velles tecum levares Heaven is so opened to us in baptisme as that we our selves may enter into it and by our good life lead others into it too As we consider I say what we have received in Baptisme so if we be not onely Dealbati Christiani as S. Augustine speaks White-lim'd Christians Christians on the out-side we must consider what we are to doe upon all this We are baptized In plena adulta Trinitate sayes S. Cyprian not in a Father without a Son nor in either or both without a Holy Ghost but in the fulnesse of the Trinity And this mystery of the Trinity is Regula fidei sayes S. Hierom It is the Rule of our faith this onely regulates our faith That we beleeve aright of the Trinity It is Dogma nostrae Religionis sayes S. Basil As though there were but this one Article It is sayes he the foundation the summe it is all the Christian Religion to beleeve aright of the Trinity By this wee are distinguished from the Jews who accept no plurality of Persons And by this we are distinguished from the Gentiles who make as many severall persons as there are severall powers and attributes belonging to God Our Religion our holy Philosophy our learning as it is rooted in Christ so it is not limited not determined in Christ alone wee are not baptized in his name alone but our study must be the whole Trinity for he that beleeves not in the Holy Ghost as well as in Christ is no Christian And as that is true which S. Augustine sayes Nec laboriosius aliquid quaeritur nec periculosius alicubi erratur As there is not so steepy a place to clamber up nor so slippery a place to fall upon as the doctrine of the Trinity so is that also true which he addes Nec fructuosius invenitur There is not so fulfilling so accomplishing so abundant an Article as that of the Trinity for it is all Christianity And therefore let us keepe our selves to that way of the manifestation of the Trinity which is revealed in this text and that way is our second part We must necessarily passe faster through the branches of this part 2 Part. then the Dignity of the subject or the fecundity of the words will well admit but the clearenesse of the order must recompence the speed and dispatch First then in this way here is an Ecce An awaking an Alarum a calling us up Ecce Behold First an Ecce correctionis Ecce Correctionis A voyce of chiding of rebuking If thou lye still in thy first bed as thou art meerely a Creature and thinkest with thy selfe that since the Lilly labours not nor spins and yet is gloriously cloathed since the Fowles of the Heavens sow not nor reape and yet are plentifully fed thou mayest do so and thou shalt bee so Ecce animam Behold thou hast an immortall soule which must have spirituall food the Bread of life and a more durable garment the garment of righteousnesse and cannot be emprisoned and captivated to the comparison of a Lilly that spins not or of a Bird that sowes not If thou thinke thy soule sufficiently fed and sufficiently cloathed at first in thy baptisme That that Manna and those cloathes shall last thee all thy pilgrimage all thy life That since thou art once Baptized thou art well enough Ecce fermentum take heed of that leaven of the Pharisees Take heed of them that put their confidence in the very act and character of the Sacrament and trust to that for there is a Confirmation belongs to every mans Baptisme not any such Confirmation as should intimate an impotency or insufficiency in the Sacrament but out of an obligation that that Sacrament layes upon thee That thou art bound to live according to that stipulation and contract made in thy behalfe at thy receiving of that Sacrament there belongs a Confirmation to that Sacrament a holy life to make sure that salvation sealed to thee at first So also if thou thinke thy selfe safe because thou hast left that leaven that is Traditions of men and livest in a Reformed and Orthodox Church yet Ecce Paradisum Behold Paradise it selfe even in Paradise the bed of all ease yet there was labour required so is there required diligence and a laborious holinesse in the right Church and in the true Religion If thou thinke thou knowest all because thou understandest all the Articles of faith already and all the duties of a Christian life already yet Ecce scalam Behold the life of a Christian is a Iacobs Ladder and till we come up to God still there are more steps to be made more way to bee gone Briefly to the most learned to him that knowes most To the most sanctified to him that lives best here is an Ecce correctionis there is a farther degree of knowledge a farther degree of goodnesse proposed to him then he is yet attained unto So it is an Ecce correctionis an Ecce instar stimuli God by calling us up to Behold rebukes us because wee did not so and provokes us to doe so now It is also an Ecce directionis an Ecce instar lucernae God by calling us up to Behold gives us a light whereby wee may doe so and may discerne our way whomsoever God cals to him hee affords so much light as that if he proceed not by that light hee himselfe hath winked at that light or blow out that light or suffered that light to wast and goe out by his long negligence God
This is my beloved Son this day have I begotten him And with such Copies it seemes both Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus met for they reade these words so and interpret them accordingly But these words are misplaced and mis-transferred out of the second Psalme where they are And as they change the words and in stead of In quo complacui In whom I am well pleased reade This day have I begotten thee S. Cyprian addes other words to the end of these which are Hunc audite Heare him Which words when these words were repeated at the Transfiguration were spoken but here at the Baptisme they were not what Copy soever misled S. Cyprian or whether it were the failing of his own memory But S. Chrysostome gives an expresse reason why those words were spoken at the Transfiguration and not here Because saies he Here was onely a purpose of a Manifestation of the Trinity so farre as to declare their persons who they were and no more At the Trans-figuration where Moses and Elias appeared with Christ there God had a purpose to preferre the Gospel above the Law and the Prophets and therefore in that place he addes that Hunc audite Heare him who first fulfills all the Law and the Prophets and then preaches the Gospel He was so well pleased in him as that he was content to give all them that received him Eph. 1.6 power to become the Sons of God too as the Apostle sayes By his grace he hath made us accepted in his beloved Beloved That you may be so Come up from your Baptisme as it is said that Christ did Rise and ascend to that growth which your Baptisme prepared you to And the heavens shall open as then even Cataractae coeli All the windowes of heaven shall open and raine downe blessings of all kindes in abundance And the Holy Ghost shall descend upon you as a Dove in his peacefull comming in your simple and sincere receiving him And he shall rest upon you to effect and accomplish his purposes in you If he rebuke you as Christ when he promises the Holy Ghost though he call him a Comforter John 16.7 sayes That he shall rebuke the world of divers things yet he shall dwell upon you as a Dove Quae si mordet osculando mordet sayes S. Augustine If the Dove bite it bites with kissing if the Holy Ghost rebuke he rebukes with comforting And so baptized and so pursuing the contract of your Baptisme and so crowned with the residence of his blessed Spirit in your holy conversation hee shall breathe a soule into your soule by that voyce of eternall life You are my beloved Sonnes in whom I am well pleased SERM. XLIV Preached at S. Dunstanes upon Trinity-Sunday 1627. REV. 4.8 And the foure Beasts had each of them sixe wings about him and they were full of eyes within And they rest not day and night saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come THese words are part of that Scripture which our Church hath appointed to be read for the Epistle of this day This day which besides that it is the Lords day the Sabbath day is also especially consecrated to the memory and honour of the whole Trinity The Feast of the Nativity of Christ Christmas day which S. Chrysostome calls Metropolin omnium festorum The Metropolitane festivall of the Church is intended principally to the honour of the Father who was glorified in that humiliation of that Son that day because in that was laid the foundation and first stone of that house and Kingdome in which God intended to glorifie himselfe in this world that is the Christian Church The Feast of Easter is intended principally to the honour of the Son himselfe who upon that day began to lift up his head above all those waters which had surrounded him and to shake off the chaines of death and the grave and hell in a glorious Reserrection And then the Feast of Pentecost was appropriated to the honour of the Holy Ghost who by a personall falling upon the Apostles that day inabled them to propagate this Glory of the Father and this death and Resurrection of the Son to the ends of the world to the ends in Extention to all places to the ends in Duration to all times Now as S. Augustine sayes Nullus eorum extra quemlibet eorum est Every Person of the Trinity is so in every other person as that you cannot think of a Father as a Father but that there falls a Son into the same thought nor think of a person that proceeds from others but that they from whom he whom ye think of proceeds falls into the same thought as every person is in every person And as these three persons are contracted in their essence into one God-head so the Church hath also contracted the honour belonging to them in this kinde of Worship to one day in which the Father and Son and Holy Ghost as they are severally in those three severall dayes might bee celebrated joyntly and altogether It was long before the Church did institute a particular Festivall to this purpose For before they made account that that verse which was upon so many occasions repeated in the Liturgy and Church Service Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost had a convenient sufficiency in it to keep men in a continuall remembrance of the Trinity But when by that extreame inundation and increase of Arians these notions of distinct Persons in the Trinity came to be obliterated and discontinued the Church began to refresh her selfe in admitting into to the formes of Common Prayer some more particular notifications and remembrances of the Trnity And at last though it were very long first for this Festivall of this Trinity-Sunday was not instituted above foure hundred yeares since they came to ordaine this day Which day our Church according to that peacefull wisedome wherewithall the God of Peace of Unity and Concord had inspired her did in the Reformation retaine and continue out of her generall religious tendernesse and holy loathnesse to innovate any thing in those matters which might bee safely and without superstition continued and entertained For our Church in the Reformation proposed not that for her end how shee might goe from Rome but how she might come to the Truth nor to cast away all such things as Rome had depraved but to purge away those depravations and conserve the things themselves so restored to their first good use For this day then were these words appointed by our Church Divisic And therefore we are sure that in the notion and apprehension and construction of our Church these words appertaine to the Trinity In them therefore we shall consider first what these foure creatures were which are notified and designed to us in the names and figures of foure Beasts And then what these foure creatures did Their Persons and their Action will be our two
godly men have declared this lothnesse to dye Beloved waigh Life and Death one against another and the balance will be even Throw the glory of God into either balance and that turnes the scale S. Paul could not tell which to wish Life or Death There the balance was even Then comes in the glory of God the addition of his soule to that Quire that spend all their time eternity it selfe only in glorifying God and that turnes the scale and then he comes to his Cupio dissolvi To desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ But then he puts in more of the same waight in the other scale he sees that it advances Gods glory more for him to stay and labour in the building of Gods Kingdome here and so adde more soules then his owne to that state then only to enjoy that Kingdome in himself and that turnes the scale againe and so he is content to live These Saints of God then when they deprecate death and complain of the approaches of death they are at that time in a charitable extasie abstracted and withdrawne from the consideration of that particular happinesse which they in themselves might haye in heaven and they are transported and swallowed up with this sorrow that the Church here and gods kingdome upon earth should lack those meanes of advancement or assistance which God by their service was pleased to afford to his Church Whether they were good Kings good Priests or good Prophets the Church lost by their death and therefore they deprecated that death Esay 38.18 and desired to live The grave cannot praise thee death cannot celebrate thee But the living the living he shall praise thee as I doe this day sayes Hezekias He was affected with an apprehension of a future barrennesse after his death and a want of propagation of Gods truth I shall not see the Lord even the Lord sayes he He had assurance that he should see the Lord in Heaven when by death he was come thither But sayes he I shall not see him in the land of the living Well even in the land of the living even in the land of life it selfe he was to see him if by death he were to see him in Heaven But this is the losse that he laments this is the misery that he deplores with so much holy passion I shall behold man no more with the Inhabitants of the world Howsoever I shall enjoy God my selfe yet I shall be no longer a meanes an instrument of the propagation of Gods truth amongst others And till we come to that joy which the heart cannot conceive it is I thinke the greatest joy that the soule of man is capable of in this life especially where a man hath been any occasion of sinne to others to assist the salvation of others And even that consideration that he shall be able to doe Gods cause no more good here may make a good man loath to die Quid facies magno nomini tuo Jos 7.9 sayes Ioshuah in his prayer to God if the Canaanites come in and destroy us and blaspheme thee What wilt thou do unto thy mighty Name What wilt thou doe unto thy glorious Church said the Saints of God in those Deprecations if thou take those men out of the world whom thou hadst chosen enabled qualified for the edification sustentation propagation of that Church In a word David considers not here what men doe or doe not in the next world but he considers onely that in this world he was bound to propagate Gods Truth and that that he could not doe if God tooke him away by death Consider then this horrour and detestation and deprecation of death in those Saints of the old Testament with relation to their particular and then it must be Quia promissiones obscurae Because Moses had conveyed to those men all Gods future blessings all the joy and glory of Heaven onely in the types of earthly things and said little of the state of the soule after this life And therefore the promises belonging to the godly after this life were not so cleere then not so well manifested to them not so well fixt in them as that they could in contemplation of them step easily or deliver themselves confidently into the jawes of death he that is not fully satisfied of the next world makes shift to be content with this and he that cannot reach or does not feele that will be glad to keepe his hold upon this Consider their horrour and â—etestation and deprecation of death not with relation to themselves but to Gods Church and then it will be Quia operarii pauci Because God had a great harvest in hand and few labourers in it they were loath to be taken from the worke And these Reasons might at least by way of excuse and extenuation in those times of darknesse prevaile somewhat in their behalfe They saw not whither they went and therefore were loath to goe and they were loath to goe because they saw not how Gods Church would subsist when they were gone But in these times of ours when Almighty God hath given an abundant remedy to both these their excuses will not be appliable to us We have a full cleernesse of the state of the soule after this life not onely above those of the old Law but above those of the Primitive Christian Church which in some hundreds of yeares came not to a cleere understanding in that point whether the soule were immortall by nature or but by preservation whether the soule could not die or onely should not die Or because that perchance may be without any constant cleernesse yet that was not cleere to them which concernes our case neerer whether the soule came to a present fruition of the sight of God after death or no. But God having afforded us cleernesse in that and then blest our times with an established Church and plenty of able work-men for the present and plenty of Schooles and competency of endowments in Universities for the establishing of our hopes and assurances for the future since we have both the promise of Heaven after and the promise that the gates of Hell shall not prevaile against the Church here Since we can neither say Promissiones obseurae That Heaven hangs in a Cloud nor say Operarii pauci That dangers hang over the Church it is much more inexcusable in us now then it was in any of them then to be loath to die or to be too passionate in that reason of the deprecation Quia non in morte Because in death there is no remembrance of thee c. Which words being taken literally may fill our meditation and exalt our devotion thus If in death there be no remembrance of God if this remembrance perish in death certainly it decayes in the neernesse to death If there be a possession in death there is an approach in age And therefore Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth
may easily make Purgatory of a Dreame and of Apparitions and imaginary visions of sick or melancholike men It may then be of use to insist upon the survey of this building of theirs Divisio in these three considerations First to looke upon the foundation upon what they raise it and that is Prayer for the Dead and that is the Grand-mother Error And then upon the Building it selfe Purgatory it selfe and that is the Mother And lastly upon the out-houses or the furniture of this Building and that is Indulgences which are the children the issue of this mother and not such children as draw their parents dry but support and maintaine their parents for but for these Indulgences their prayer for the Dead and their Purgatory would starve And starve they must all if they can draw their maintenance from no other place but this Why are these men baptized for the dead First then for the first of these three parts The foundation the Grand-mother 1 Part. Oratio pro mortuis Prayer for the Dead The most tender Mother the most officious Nurse cannot have a more particular care how a new-borne child shall be washed or swathed or fed when they consider every drop of water every clout every pin that belongs to it then God had of his Infant Church when he delivered it over to her foster-fathers her nursing-fathers her god-fathers Moses and Aaron and bound them by his instructions in every particular as he prescribed them How many directions he gave what they should eate what they should weare how often they should wash what they should doe in every religious in every civill action and yet never never any mention any intimation never any approach any inclination never any light no nor any shadow never any colour any colourablenesse of any command of prayer for the Dead In all the Law no precept for it And this might imply a weaknesse in Gods government in so particular a law no precept of so important a duty In all the History no example And this might imply ill luck at least in so large a story no Precedent of an Office so necessary In all the Gospell no promise annexed to it And this doth not imply but manifest a conclusion against it an exclusion of it There being then no precept no precedent no promise for it how came it into use and practise amongst the Jewes After the Jewes had been a long time conversant amongst the Gentiles Iudaei and that as fresh water approaching the Sea contracts a saltish a brackish tast so the Jewes received impressions of the customes of the Gentiles who were ever naturally enclined to this mis-devotion and left-handed piety of praying for the Dead In the faintnesse and languishing of their Religion when they were much declined from the exact observation thereof then in the time of the Maccabees entred that one example which hath raised such a dust and blinded so many eyes We have mention of many funeralls before that and after that of many too even in the time when Christ was upon the earth and yet never mention of prayer for the dead but in this one place of this booke I doe not say in this one story for in this story reported by Iosephus there is no mention of it but in this one booke That is true that I have read that after Christs time the Rabbins laid hold upon it and brought it into custome And that is true which I have seene that the Jewes at this day continue it in practise For when one dies for some certaine time after appointed by them his sonne or some other neere in blood or alliance comes to the Altar and there saith and doth some thing in the behalfe of his dead father or grandfather respectively But all this they have drawne into practise from this one place from this booke from which booke the same Rabbins draw a justification of a mans killing himselfe because in this booke they find an example of that in Razis 2 Macc. 14.37 The Rabbins tooke no better a ground for their prayer for the dead then for selfe-homicide onely matter of fact out of a Historicall booke which themselves did not beleeve to be Canonicall But how took this hold of Christians That which wrought upon the Jewes Christiani prevailed upon the new Christians too for the greatest part of them by much being Gentiles for few amongst the Jewes in comparison were converted to the Christian religion they which came from Gentilisme retained still many impressions of such things as they had been formerly accustomed unto And as the Fathers of the Church then out of an indulgence to these new Convertits did suffer and tolerate the practise of many things which these Gentiles brought with them as indeed a great part of the ceremonies of the Christian Church are of that nature and of such an admission Things which rather then avert their new Convertits from comming to them by an utter abolishing of all parts of their former religion and worship of their gods those blessed Fathers thought fitter to retaine and turne to some good use then altogether to take them away As in other things so also in this prayer for the dead to which they as Gentiles had been formerly accustomed the Fathers did not oppose it with any peremptory earnestnesse with any vehement diligence partly because the thing it selfe argued and testified a good and tender and pious affection and though God doe not ground his Decrees upon any disposition in mans nature yet in the execution of his Decrees God as hee works in his Church loves to work upon a good natur'd man and partly also because this practise being but a practise onely and no Dogmaticall constitution might be as it was in the first practise thereof without shaking any foundation or wounding any Article of the Christian Religion And lastly that wee may speake truth with that holy boldnesse which belongs to the truth because it was a long time before the Fathers came to a cleere understanding of the state of the soule departed out of this life for though they never doubted of the certaine performance of Gods promises That all that die in him do rest in him yet where and how this rest was communicated to them admitted more clouds then they could at all times dispell and scatter some arising from Philosophers some from Heretiques some from ignorance some from heat of Disputation So then Tertul. at first it was a weed that grew wild in the open field amongst the Gentiles Then because it bore a pretty flower the testimony of a good nature it was transplanted into some Gardens and so became a private opinion or at least a practise amongst some Christians And then it spred it selfe so far as that Tertullian and he first of any takes knowledge of it as of a custome of the Church And truly this of Tertullian is very early within little more then two hundred
Baptisme common to all all that are baptized are baptized from their sins And therefore this of Aquinas not reaching to S. Pauls Quid de illis and Quid illi to these men thus baptized is not that sense neither which we seek But the time will not permit us to pursue the severall interpretations of those Moderni whom directly or comparatively we call Ancients Neither truly though there be many other Interpreters then we have named are there many other interpretations then we have touched upon or then may be reduced to them And therefore to end here this consideration of the Fathers and those whom they esteem Pillars of their Church we are thus much at our liberty for all them That first there is no unanime consent in the interpretation of this place and that which they binde themselves to follow is the unanime consent of the Fathers And then though the Fathers had unanimely consented in one and that one had been the exposition which Bellarmine pursues yet we might by their example have departed from it for in the Roman Church Fathers and Fathers Fathers Popes themselves And howsoever the Fathers may be Fathers in respect of us yet in respect of the Pope who is S. Peter himselfe and alwayes sits in his person the Fathers are but children sayes Bellarmine were of opinion That the Sacrament of the Lords Supper was absolutely necessary for children to their salvation and this opinion lasted in force and in use for divers hundreds of yeares neither was it ever repressed by Authority till the other day in the Councel of Trent but wore out of it selfe long before because it had no foundation So the opinion of the Millenarians That Christ with his Saints should have a thousand years of a temporall raign here upon earth after his second comming had possessed the Fathers in a very great partie The Fathers in a great partie denied that the soules of good men departed were to enjoy the sight of God till the Resurrection And the Fathers affirmed That the cause of Gods election was the foresight of the faith and obedience of the Elect. These errors are so noted even by the Authors of the Roman Church for I depart not herein from their own words and observations as that they still present them so Omnes plurimi All the Fathers Most of the Fathers were of this and this opinion And yet for all these Fathers no man in the Roman Church is so childish now as to give his child that Sacrament or to accompany those Fathers in those other mistakings This hath been done in fact they have departed from the Fathers And then for a Rule Cardinall Cajetan tels us That if a new sense of any place of Scripture agreeable to other places and to the analogy of faith arise to us it is not to be refused Quia torrens patrum because the streame of the Fathers is against it For they themselves have told us why we may suspect the Fathers and by what means the Fathers have falne into many mis-interpretations First they say Quia glaciem sciderunt because the Fathers broke the Ice and undertook the interpretation of many places in which they had no light no assistance from others and so might easily turne into a sinister way And then Rhetoricati sunt say they The Fathers often applyed themselves in figurative and Hyberbolicall speeches to exalt the devotions and stir up the affections of their auditory and therefore must not be called to too severe and literall an account for all that they uttered in that manner And againe Plebi indulserunt as S. Augustine sayes of himselfe sometimes out of a loathnesse to offend the ignorant and sometimes the holy and devout and that he might hold his auditory together and avert none from comming to him he was unwilling to come to such an exact truth in the explication and application of some places as that for the sharpnesse and bitternesse thereof weaker stomachs might forbeare So also they confesse too that ex vehementia declinarunt In heat of disputation and argument and to make things straight they bent them too much on the other hand and to oppose one Heresie they endangered the inducing of another as in S. Augustines disputations against the Pelagians who over-advanced the free will of man and the Manicheans who by admitting Duo principia two Caufes an extrinsique cause of our evill actions as well as of our good annihilated the free will of man we shall find sometimes occasions to doubt whether S. Augustine were constant in his owne opinion and not transported sometimes with vehemency against his present adversary whether Pelagian or Manichean Which is a disease that even some great Councels in the Church and Church-affaires have felt that for collaterall and occasionall and personall respects which were risen after they were met the maine doctrinall points and such as have principally concerned the glory of God and the salvation of soules and were indeed the principall and onely cause of their then meeting there have beene neglected Men that came thither with a fervent zeale to the glory of God have taken in a new fire of displeasure against particular Heretiques or Schismatiques and discontinued their holy zeale towards God till their occasionall displeasure towards those persons might be satisfied and so those Heresies and Heretiques against whom they met have got advantage by that passion which hath overtaken and overswayed them after they were met And whatsoever hath fallen into Councels of that kinde Ecclesiasticall Councels may possibly be imagined or justly be feared or at least without offence be pre-disswaded and deprecated in all Civill Consultations and Councels of State That Occasionall things may not divert the Principall for as in the Naturall body the spleene may suffocate the heart and yet the spleen is but the sewar of the body and the heart is the strength and the Palais thereof so in politique bodies and Councels of State an immature and indigested an intempestive and unseasonable pressing of present remedies against all inconveniencies may suffocate the heart of the businesse and frustrate and evacuate the blessed and glorious purpose of the whole Councell The Basiliske is very sharpe-sighted but he sees therefore and to that end that he may kill So is so does passion Who would wish to be sharper sighted then the Eagle And his strength of sight is in this that he lookes to the Sun To looke to things that are evident The evident danger of the State and the Church The evident malice and power of the enemy The evident storme upon our peace and Religion To looke that God be not tempted by us nor his Lieutenant and Vicegerent wearied and hardened towards us This is the object of the Eagles eye and this is wisdome high enough Where men see a great foundation laid they will thinke that all that is not onely to raise a Spittle to cure or a Church-yard to bury a few diseased
persons Great Councels are great foundations and the super-edifications fit for them are the safety of the State and the good of the Church And as in comming to such Councels every man puts off his owne person and leaves himselfe at home so neither when he is there should he so seeke out or hunt after any particular person as that that should retard publique businesse God forbid that my praying that things may not be so should be interpreted for a suspicion in me that things are so God forbid that invocation upon God should imply a crimination upon men The Spirit of God in sense of whom and in whose presence I speake knowes that my prayer is but a prayer and not an Increpation not an Insimulation And therefore may God bee pleased to heare and good men be pleased to joyne in this prayer That God will so be satisfied with having laid his owne hand upon us in the late pestilence as neither to make any forraine hand nor one anothers hand his instrument to destroy or farther to punish us And so having beene invited by this Consideration that Fathers and Councels have deflected into error to say so much of Civill Councels too wee depart from this Point thus that though the Fathers had consented in Bellarmines Exposition that had laid no obligation upon us how much lesse when we finde scarce any of them to agree with one another nor any one of them to agree with him and therefore we passe to the Consideration of the later men And amongst the later men we will give the first place to a Jesuit because they love Primos accubitus as our Saviour sayes of the Pharisees To be placed highest and they love to be called if not Rabbi Master yet Abba Father for that is a name which the youngest Jesuit will challenge to himsellfe to be called Father and amongst us I am afraid they come to that name the name of Father a little too literally they are fathers indeed where they should not bee so Next to the true Fathers wee place then a imaginary Father Maldonat the Jesuit Maldonate who interprets this place thus That to be baptized for the dead when the Apostle spake was to suffer Martyrdome or affliction for the testimony of the resurrection of the Dead for we see that the doctrine of the Resurrection especially was inquired upon and given in charge and made criminall and odious Acts 23.6 by that which the Apostle sayes in the Acts Of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question Now I will not say of Maldonat as Maldonat does of us who when sometimes he cites the interpretation of our Authors will say This is the likeliest and the probablest sense and I should beleeve it to be the true sense but that an Heretique said it I will not say I would admit Maldonats sense but that a Jesuit sayes it for for all that I would receive it so far as it may stand but yet not for the primary and principall sense for so we cannot receive it because it is grounded upon a figure for he takes not Baptisme for the Sacrament of Baptisme but for the Metaphoricall Baptisme the Baptisme of blood And then Bellarmine will not accept his sense because though they agree in the figure that Baptisme signifies affliction yet they differ in these two important poynts That first Bellarmin takes it for affliction voluntarily sustained for that only constitutes Supererogation which is necessary to Bellarmines sense and Maldonate takes it for affliction inflicted by a Persecutor for a testimony of his faith in which case to decline the penalty were to deny the faith and therefore is no more then being so called by God he is bound to suffer And then Bellarmine takes it for affliction sustained in the behalfe and for the benefit of another dead friend and Maldonat determines it in him that does it for an outward testimony of his constancy in the faith of the Resurrection So that this Jesuit hath brought no stone to Bellarmines building from this place he workes not in his harvest he conduces not to his end he goes not his way But to contract our selves in this last Part we finde amongst our owne men Expositors since the Reformation two senses of these words of which either may be taken for both come home to the purpose and intention of the Apostle which is to prove the Resurrection and to all the other circumstances in which we have observed the other Interpretations to be deficient The first is that this was a Baptisme of those men Qui ad testandam certissiman spem de Resurrectione which for a more especiall testimony of their faith in the Resurrection did according to the use of many in those first times administer or receive Baptisme upon the tombs and graves of other Christians formerly departed this life and thereby declared both their charitable opinion that those who were there buried should receive a resurrection And that themselves were baptized into the same faith and so made up the Communion of Saints And in this sense is the Originall best preserved which seemes not to be so properly translated Pro mortuis as Super mortuos not for the Dead but upon the Dead upon the graves of the Dead If there be no resurrection of the Dead why do some of you chuse to be baptized upon the Dead upon the graves of the Dead rather then in other places And this is the Exposition of him Luther Melancton who is evermore powerfull in the Exposition of those Scriptures which he undertakes Luther And Melancton a man of more learning and temperance then perchance have met in any one in our perverse and froward times followes the same Interpretation and adds That hee that was to be Baptized was brought to the bones of them that were buried there and that there he was asked whether he did beleeve that that body which lay so scattered there should be restored again and made capable of a glorious Resurrection and upon confession of that faith he received his Baptisme And this sayes Melancton a man freest of any from contention is Interpretatio simplex nativa vera The plaine the naturall and the true signification of the place Neither is this Interpretation subject to that calumny which our Adversaries use to object that in any Interpretation of Luthers or Melanctons the rest who professe them their Disciples follow as Sheepe but others though of the Reformation too doe not so for we have another esteemed in his Division Piscator a learned and narrow searcher into the literall sense of Scripture who though he be very far from communion in opinion with them whom for distinction the world calls Lutherans though he be none of those sheepe which run after Luther yet out of a holy ingenuity and inclination to truth he professes this interpretation of the place to be Omnium simplicissimam the most sincere and
or departing with some parts of our Religion at such a deare price we may be helped but these are not his helps and this is a prayer of manifestation that all the way to our end hee will bee pleased to let us see that the meanes are from him Satura nos tua Satisfie us with that which is thine and comes from thee and so directs us to thee All this may be done too and yet not that done which we pray for here God may send that which is his and yet without present comfort therein God may multiply corrections and judgements and tribulations upon us and intend to helpe us that way by whipping and beating us into the way and this is his way but this is a Prayer of limitation even upon God himselfe That our way may be his and that his way may be the way of mercy Satisfie us early with thy mercy First then Saturae the first word Satura implies a fulnesse and it implies a satisfaction A quietnesse a contentednesse an acquiescence in that fulnesse Satisfie is let us bee full and let us feele it and rest in that fulnesse These two make up all Heaven all the joy and all the glory of Heaven fulnesse and satisfaction in it And therefore S. Hierom refers this Prayer of our Text to the Resurrection and to that fulnesse and that satisfaction which we shall have then and not till then For though we shall have a fulnesse in Heaven as soone as we come thither yet that is not fully a satisfaction because we shall desire and expect a fuller satisfaction in the reunion of body and soule And when Heaven it selfe cannot give us this full satisfaction till then in what can wee looke for it in this world where there is no true fulnesse nor any satisfaction in that kind of fulnesse which wee seeme to have Pleasure and sensuality and the giving to our selves all that we desire Ezek. 16. cannot give this you heare God reproaches Israel so You have multiplied your fornications yet are not satisfied Labor for profit or for preferment cannot doe it Hagg. 1. you see God reproaches Israel for that too Ye have sowne much and bring in little ye eat but have not enough ye drinke but are not filled ye cloath you but are not warme and he that earneth wages putteth it into a broken bag that is it runs out as fast as it comes in he finds nothing at the yeares end his Midsommer will scarce fetch up Michaelmas and if he have brought about his yeare and made up his Circle yet he hath raised up nothing nothing appeares in his circle If these things could fill us yet they could not satisfie us Iob 20. because they cannot stay with us or not we with them He hath devoured substance and he shall vomit it He devoured it by bribery and he shall vomit it by a fine He devoured it by extortion and he shall vomit it by confiscation He devoured it in other Courts and shall vomit it in a Star-chamber If it stay some time it shall be with an anguish and vexation When he shall be filled with abundance it shall be a paine to him as it is in the same place Still his riches shall have the nature of a vomit hard to get downe and hard to keep in the stomach when it is there hardly got hardly kept when they are got Luke 6. If all these could be overcome yet it is clogged with a heavy curse Wo be unto you that are full for ye shall be hungry Where if the curse were onely from them who are poore by their owne sloth or wastfulnesse who for the most part delight to curse and maligne the rich the curse might be contemned by us and would be throwne back by God into their owne bosomes but Os Domini locutum The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it Christ himselfe hath denounced this curse upon worldly men That they shall be hungry not onely suffer impairement and diminution but be reduced to hunger There is a spirituall fulnesse in this life of which S. Hierom speakes Ebrietas foelix satietas salutaris A happy excesse and a wholesome surfet quae quanto copiosiùs sumitur majorem donat sobrietatem In which the more we eate the more temperate we are and the more we drinke the more sober In which as S. Bernard also expresses it in his mellifluence Mutuâ interminabili inexplicabili generatione By a mutuall and reciprocall by an undeterminable and unexpressible generation of one another Desiderium generat satietatem satietas parit desiderium The desire of spirituall graces begets a satiety if I would be I am full of them And then this satiety begets a farther desire still we have a new appetite to those spirituall graces This is a holy ambition a sacred covetousnesse Deut. 32.23 and a wholsome Dropsie Napthalies blessing O Napthali satisfied with favour and full with the blessing of the Lord S. Stephens blessing Act. 6.5 Full of faith and of the Holy Ghost The blessed Virgins blessing Full of Grace Dorcas blessing Act. 9.37 Full of good works and of Almes-deeds The blessing of him who is blessed above all and who blesseth all Christ Jesus a Luk. 2.4 Full of wisedome b Luk. 4.1 Full of the Holy Ghost c Joh. 1.14 Full of grace and truth But so far are all temporall things from giving this fulnesse or satisfaction as that even in spirituall things there may be there is often an error or mistaking Even in spirituall things there may be a fulnesse and no satisfaction And there may be a satisfaction and no fulnesse I may have as much knowledge as is presently necessary for my salvation and yet have a restlesse and unsatisfied desire to search into unprofitable curiosities unrevealed mysteries and inextricable perplexities And on the other side a man may be satisfied and thinke he knowes all when God knowes he knowes nothing at all for I know nothing if I know not Christ crucified And I know not that if I know not how to apply him to my selfe Nor doe I know that if I embrace him not in those meanes which he hath afforded me in his Church in his Word and Sacraments If I neglect this meanes this place these exercises howsoever I may satisfie my selfe with an over-valuing mine own knowledge at home I am so far from fulnesse as that vanity it selfe is not more empty In the Wildernesse every man had one and the same measure of Manna The same Gomer went through all for Manna was a Meat that would melt in their mouths and of easie digestion But then for their Quailes birds of a higher flight meat of a stronger digestion it is not said that every man had an equall number some might have more some lesse and yet all their fulnesse Catechisticall divinity and instructions in fundamentall things is our Manna Every man is bound to take in
Silence which is good 576. B. C Silence which is bad 577. D Good to be Silent sometimes even in good things and when 576. E Simple-men of this world why chosen for Christs Apostles 719. C Singular Gods speakes of things of grace in the Singular but of heavie things in the plurall number ever 711. A Single instances no safe concluding from them 460. E Neither in the case of the Thiefe on the Crosse nor S. Paul 461. B Singularity not ground enough to condemne every opinion 234. C Against Singularity 51. D. 177. C. 573. D. 722. B Of a Single testimony 234. B Sinne the cause of all sicknesses 109. C Little light and customarie Sinnes how dangerous 117. B. 164. C. D. 585. E All Sin is from our selves not from any thing in God 118. A. 330. D The Sin of the Heart the greatest of all Sin and why 140. D How well some Men husband their Sin 147. A That it is good for men to fall into some Sinnes 171. B. C Sinne is a fall and how 186. D. 187. C Whether it have rationem demeriti and may properly offend God 342. C Sinne not meerly nothing 342. E Not so much of any thing as of Sinne 343. C How soone Sinne is followed of Repentance 540. C How Sinne rises by little and little in us 585. C Against sitting in the time of Divine Service 72. D Socinians their monstrous opinions 317. C And nicknaming of Athanasius Sathanasius 654. D Against the growth of that pestilent Heresie of Socinianisme 821. B Sorrow for the dead how lawfull 157. C. D. E. 822. D Of the end lesse Sorrow of the wicked 632. B No communication of their Sorrow 634. D The Soule of the miseries of it in the body 190. A Of the lazinesse of the Soule in the disquisition of any Divine Truths 190. B C Of her excellency of knowledge in the next world ibid. C. D Of bending the Soule up to her proper height and putting of her home 483. D Soule and Spirit what the Fathers understand by them in Scripture 517. C Subjects how to looke upon the faults and errors of their Governors 13. C How reverent to be towards their Princes 92. D Supererogation against Workes of Supererogation and of the fondnesse of them 390. C 494. E. 495. A. 547. C. 732. E Superstition better than Prophanesse and why 69. A The danger of it to be prevented but how 485. E Supplications how they differ from Petitions or Prayers 553. E Synedrion the Originall and power of the Synedrion or Sanhedrim amongst the Jewes 491. E Herod called before it but not when hee was King 492. A T TEares against their inordinatenesse 155. A Never ascribed to God 156. D Well employed for the dead though they be at rest 157. A Of those whose constitution will afford no Teares 160. D Foure considerations that will enforce Teares 160. E. 161. A Of Teares shed for worldly losses ib. C. D. 162. A For sinne 539. B Of the effect of Teares 162. B How God is said in Scripture to heare Teares that make no sound 552. E Teares the humidum-radicale of the Soule 577. E Temporall blessings how seldome prayed for in Antiquitie 750. D. E They are blessings but blessings of the left hand 751. D Nothing permanent in them 823. D Tentations all men not alike enabled against them 310. E Whether it be lawfull to pray against all kind of Tentations 527. C One of the Divels greatest Tentations it is to make us think our selves above Tentations or Tentation-proofe that they cannot hurt us 603. E The use and necessity of them 789. C Thanksgiving the duty of thanksgiving better than that of Prayer 549. D How small it is if proportioned to the love of God unto us 550. B Thoughts of the greatnesse of sinnes of thought 140. D. 543. D Titles and bare empty Names how men are puffed up with them 734. D Torturing whether or no to be admitted in case of Religion 194. D Tongue how many it hath damned 344. B Tradition against the making of Traditions articles of Faith 779. D Transubstantiation the riddles and contradictions of it 36. E What true Transubstantiation in the Sacrament may be admitted 693. C Tribulations the benefit of them 563. B 604. A. B Spirituall Tribulations and afflictions heavier than Temporall 665. B. D. E Tribulation and affliction part of our daily bread which wee ought to pray for and how 787. B Tribute God never wrought miracle in the matter of money but onely for Tribute to Caesar 91. E Trinitie the knowledge of it not by naturall reason attained 301. B Not one of a thousand knows what himselfe meanes when he speakes of the Trinity 307. E Some obumbrations of the Trinity even in nature 379 What are illustrations of it to us Christians are no Arguments unto the Jewes 417. B Foure severall trinities 417. E. 418. A It is the onely rule of our Faith the Trinitie 426. E To be believed first of all but not last of all to be understood 428. C. D The opinions of severall Hereticks concerning it 429. D The severall wayes of expressing it by figures and letters 429. E Troubles five severall sorts of Troubles 518. D The universality and inevitablenesse of them 664. B Truth not alwaies to be spoken 576. E Turning of Gods Turning to us and of our Turning to God 524. B. C. D. 525. A. B. 526. A. B V VAgabonds and incorrigible rogues against receiving or harbouring of them 415. B. C Vaine things in themselves may be brought to a religious use 226. E Vbiquetaries 67. E Confuted by the Angels Argument 248. C Of that Vicissitude which is in all temporall things 823. D Vigils why discontinued in the Primitive Church 813. A Virginitie The dignity and prayse of it 17. C. D Three Heresies impeaching the Virginity of the blessed Lady 17. D Against vowed Virginitie 30. D Virgin Mary The errour of Tertullian about her 18. A Of the Manichees and Anabaptists 23. D Against appeales to her in heaven 46. A Borne in Originall sinne 314. A Called of the Fathers Deipara but not Christipara and why 400. D Threatned at a siege of Constantinople to bee drowned if shee did not drowne the enemy 418. E The Church onely in the Virgin Mary according to the Schoole 603. C Against Vncharitable objecting of repented sinnes 499. D Vnitie the Devils way to breake it 138. D The Vnsatiablenesse of sinne 709 C Vprightnesse what Vprightnesse is required of man in this world 677 B. C What it is to bee Vpright in heart ibid. 678. A. B. C Against Vsury 753. E. 754. A. Vulgate Edition of the Antiquity and Authority of it 542. E Not to be preferred before the originall ibid. W VVArre the miseries and incommodities of it 146. C. D Waters those of Baptisme sinne tribulation and death 309. C. c What is meant by Waters in Scripture 598. D Waiting upon Gods time how it consists with fervent Prayer 34. D Wings the severall acceptations of the Word in Scripture 671. B Winning upon God by prayer how well God likes it 513. E Wisdome of sinnes against it especially ignorance and curiosity 411. B Witnesse the credit of the Testimony dependeth much upon his credit that is the Witnesse 238. B Women our Saviour came from such as were dangerously suspected and noted in Scripture for their incontinence 24. A Never any good Angell appeared in the likenesse of a Woman 242. D Whether Women were created after Gods Image a question in S. Ambrose his Commentaries upon the Epistles that hath called those Commentaries in doubt 242. E Of Womens able in State affaires and matters of Government ibid. Powerfull in matters of Religion both on the right hand and on the left 243. A Wonder the difference between the Philosophers and the Fathers about wondering 194. A Word of God the very Angels of heaven referre themselves unto it 249. E Stronger than any reason to a Christian 394. B 815. A The onely rule of Doctrine 738. E The World is a sea and in how many respects 735. C Workes wee no enemies to good workes as the Adversarie doth traduce us 82. A. c No Faith without them 136. A We are to continue in them 554. B Workes good when to a good end 82. E To be done of what 83. A How they may be seene of men 141. B Sometimes there is good use in concealing our Workes of mortification 538. E Of those imperfections which are in the best of our Good Works 820 D. E Wounds of love how God doth so wound us that we kisse that hand that strikes us 463. A Z ZEale to be reconciled to discretion 10. A How the devill makes it his Instrument 42. B Of the Zeale we ought to have to Gods service 72. D Zeale distempered what it will doe 237. A Zeale and uncharitablenesse are two incompatible things 480. E Of Daniels Zeale in praying against the expresse Proclamation of the King 814. A. B. C Zoroastes he only laughed when he was born 21. A FINIS Errata Pag. line reade 22 39 waives 22 40 waives 22 50 waives 110 52 when he 116 40 may come 142 31 the Cato's 164 39 Manours 196 15 in indignifying 420 32 man 426 45 blown 534 35 Topicks 710 46 exorcised 751 43 or any people 782 63 Interimists In the life Pag. 15 line 12 for merit reade mercy Pag. 16. line 40. for friends reade friend