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
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
and in the Cup of Salvation in the Sacrament for so much as concernes him is but spilt upon the ground as though his honey his worldly greamesse were his Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Prince and friends and all when that is lost by this vomit he mournes for all in a sad and everlasting mourning in such a disconsolate dejection of spirit as ends either in an utter inconsideration of God or in a desperation of his mercies This is that Incipiamte evomere as the Vulgat reads it in this vomit of worldly things Revel 3.16 God does begin to vomit him out of his mouth and then God does not returne to his vomit but leaves this impatient patient to his impenitiblenesse But we must not lanch into these wide Seas now to consider the scorne or the danger of this vomit but rather draw into the harbor and but repeat the text transferred from this world to the text from temporall to spirituall things Thus far we have beene In melle In honey upon honey but now Super mel Conclusio above honey Psal 19.10 The judgements of the Lord are Dulcia prae melle Sweeter then honey and the honey combe And the judgements of the Lord are that by which the Lord will judge us and this world it is his word His word the sincerity of the Gospel the truth of his Religion is our honey and honey combe our honey and our waxe our Covenant and our Seale we have him not if we have not his truth if we require other honey and wee trust him not if we require any other Seale if we thinke the word of God needs the traditions of men And Invenisti tu Hath God manifested to thee the truth of his Gospell Blesse thou the Lord praise him and magnifie him for ever whose day-spring from an high hath visited thee and left so many Nations in darknesse who shall never heare of Christ till they heare himselfe nor heare other voyce from him then then the Ite maledicti Pity them that have not this honey and confesse for thy selfe that though thou have it thou hast but found it couldst thou bespeake Christian Parents beforehand and say I will be borne of such Parents as shall give me a title to the Covenant to Baptisme or couldst thou procure Sureties that should bind themselves for thee at the entring into the Covenant in Baptisme Thou foundest thy selfe in the Christian Church and thou foundest meanes of salvation there thou broughtest none hither thou boughtest none here the Title of S. Andrew the first of the Apostles that came to Christ was but that Invenimus Mesiam We have found the Mesias It is onely Christ himselfe that sayes of himselfe Cant. 5.1 Comedi mel meum I have eat my honey his owne honey We have no grace no Gospel of our owne we find it here But since thou hast found it Comede Eat it do not drinke the cup of Babylon lest thou drink the cup of Gods wrath too but make this Honey Christs true Religion thy meate digest that assimilate that incorporate that and let Christ himself and his merit be as thy soul let the cleere and outward profession of his truth Religion be as thy body If thou give away that body be flattered out of thy Religion or threatned out of thy Religion If thou sell this body be bought and bribed out of thy Religion If thou lend this body discontinue thy Religion for a yeare or two to see how things will fall out if thou have no body thou shalt have no Resurrection and the cleere and undisguised profession of the truth is the body Eat therefore this honey Ad sufficientiam so much as is enough To beleeve implicitly as the Church beleeves and know nothing is not enough know thy foundations and who laid them Other foundations can no man lay then are laid Christ Jesus neither can other men lay those foundations otherwise then they are laid by the Apostles but eat Ad sufficientiam tuam that which is enough for thee for so much knowledge is not required in thee in those things as in them whose profession it is to teach them be content to leave a roome stil for the Apostles Aemulamini charismata meliora desire better gifts and ever think it a title of dignity which the Angel gave Daniel to be Vir desideriorum To have still some farther object of thy desires Do not thinke thou wantest all because thou hast not all for at the great last day we shall see more plead Catechismes for their salvation then the great volumes of Controversies more plead their pockets then their Libraries If S. Paul so great an Argosie held no more but Christum crucifixum what can thy Pinnace hold Let humility be thy ballast and necessary knowledge thy fraight for there is an over-fulnesse of knowledge which forces a vomit a vomit of opprobrious and contumelious speeches a belching and spitting of the name of Heretique and Schismatique and a losse of charity for matters that are not of faith and from this vomiting comes emptiness The more disputing Psal 90.14 the lesse beleeving but Saturasti nos benignitate tua Domine Thou hast satisfied us early with thy mercy Thou gavest us Christianity early and thou gavest us the Reformation early and therefore since in thee we have found this honey let us so eat it Levit. 18.25 and so hold it That the land do not vomit her Inhabitants nor spew us out as it spewed out the Nations that were before us Levit. 18.29 but that our dayes may be long in this land which the Lord our God hath given us and that with the Ancient of dayes we may have a day without any night in that land which his Son our Saviour hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood To which glorious Son of God c. SERM. LXXI At the Haghe Decemb. 19. 1619. I Preached upon this Text. Since in my sicknesse at Abrey-hatche in Essex 1630. revising my short notes of that Sermon I digested them into these two MAT. 4.18 19 20. And Iesus walking by the Sea of Galile saw two brethren Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother casting a net into the Sea for they were fishers And he saith unto them Follow me and I will make you fishers of men And they straightway left their nets and followed him SOLOMON presenting our Saviour Christ in the name and person of Wisdome in the booke of Proverbs puts by instinct of the Holy Ghost these words into his mouth Prov. 8.30 Deliciae meae esse cum filiis hominum Christs delight is to be with the children of men And in satisfaction of that delight he sayes in the same verse in the person of Christ That he rejoyced to be in the habitable parts of the Earth that is where he might converse with men Ludens in orbe terrarum so the Vulgat reads
sacrifice to his memory For whilst his conversation made me and many others happy below I know his humility and gentleness was eminent And I have heard Divines say those vertues that are but sparks on earth become great and glorious flames in heaven He was borne in LONDON of good and vertuous Parents And though his own learning and other multiplied merits may justly seeme sufficient to dignifie both himselfe and posteritie yet Reader be pleased to know that his Father was masculinely and lineally descended from a very ancient Family in Wales where many of his name now live that have and deserve great reputation in that Countrey By his Mother he was descended from the Family of the famous Sir Thomas More sometimes Lord Chancellor of England and also from that worthy and laborious Judge Rastall who left behind him the vast Statutes of the Lawes of this Kingdome most exactly abridged He had his first breeding in his Fathers house where a private Tutor had the care of him till he was nine yeares of age he was then sent to the Universitie of Oxford having at that time a command of the French and Latine Tongues when others can scarce speak their owne There he remained in Hart Hall having for the advancement of his studies Tutors in severall Sciences to instruct him till time made him capable and his learning exprest in many publique Exercises declared him fit to receive his first Degree in the Schooles which he forbore by advise from his friends who being of the Romish perswasion were conscionably averse to some parts of the Oath alwayes tendred and taken at those times About the fourteenth yeare of his age he was transplanted from Oxford to Cambridge where that he might receive nourishment from both soiles he staid till his seventeenth yeare All which time he was a most laborious Student often changing his studies but endeavouring to take no Degree for the reasons formerly mentioned About his seventeenth yeare he was removed to London and entred into Lincolnes Inne with an intent to study the Law where he gave great testimonies of wit learning and improvement in that profession which never served him for any use but onely for ornament His Father died before his admission into that Society and being a Merchant left him his Portion in money which was 3000. li. His Mother and those to whose care he was committed were watchful to improve his knowledge and to that end appointed him there also Tutors in severall Sciences as the Mathematicks and others to attend and instruct him But with these Arts they were advised to instill certaine particular principles of the Romish Church of which those Tutors though secretly profest themselves to be members They had almost obliged him to their faith having for their advantage besides their opportunity the example of his most deare and pious Parents which was a powerfull perswasion and did work upon him as he professeth in his PREFACE to his Pseudo-Martyr He was now entred into the nineteenth yeare of his age and being unresolved in his Religion though his youth and strength promised him a long life yet he thought it necessary to rectifie all scruples which concerned that And therefore waving the Law and betrothing himselfe to no art or profession that might justly denominate him he began to survey the body of Divinity controverted between the Reformed and Roman Church Preface to Pseudo-Martyr And as Gods blessed Spirit did then awaken him to the search and in that industry did never forsake him they be his owne words So he calls the same Spirit to witness to his Protestation that in that search and disquisition he proceeded with humility and diffidence in himselfe by the safest way of frequent Prayers and indifferent affection to both parties And indeed Truth had too much light about her to be hid from so sharp an Inquirer and he had too much ingenuity not to acknowledge he had seen her Being to undertake this search he beleeved the learned Cardinal Bellarmine to be the best defender of the Roman cause and therefore undertook the examination of his reasons The cause was waighty and wilfull delaies had been inexcusable towards God and his own conscience he therfore proceeded with all moderate haste And before he entred into the twentieth yeare of his age did shew the Deane of Gloucester all the Cardinalls Works marked with many waighty Observations under his own hand which Works were bequeathed by him at his death as a Legacy to a most deare friend About the twentieth yeare of his age he resolved to travell And the Earle of Essex going to Cales and after the Iland voyages he took the advantage of those opportunities waited upon his Lordship and saw the expeditions of those happy and unhappy imployments But he returned not into England till he had staid a convenient time first in Italy and then in Spaine where he made many usefull Observations of those Countries their Lawes and Government and returned into England perfect in their Languages Not long after his returne that exemplary pattern of gravity and wisdome the Lord Elsmore Lord Keeper of the great Seale and after Chancellor of England taking notice of his Learning Languages and other abilities and much affecting both his person and condition received him to be his chiefe Secretarie supposing it might be an Introduction to some more waighty imployment in the State for which his Lordship often protested he thought him very fit Nor did his Lordship account him so much to be his servant as to forget hee had beene his friend and to testifie it hee used him alwayes with much curtesie appointing him a place at his owne Table unto which he esteemed his company and discourse a great ornament He continued that employment with much love and approbation being daily usefull and not mercenary to his friends for the space of five yeares In which time he I dare not say unfortunately fell into such a liking as with her approbation increased into a love with a young Gentlewoman who lived in that Family Neece to the Lady Elsmore Daughter to Sir George More Chancellor of the Garter and Lieutenant of the Tower Sir George had some immation of their increasing love and the better to prevent it did remove his Daughter to his owne house but too late by reason of some faithfull promises interchangeably past and inviolably to be kept between them Their love a passion which of all other Mankind is least able to command and wherein most errors are committed was in them so powerfull that they resolved and did marry without the approbation of those friends that might justly claime an interest in the advising and disposing of them Being married the newes was in favour to M. Donne and with his allowance by the Right Honourable Henry then Earle of Northumberland secretly and certainly intimated to Sir George More to whom it was so immeasurably unwelcome that as though his passion of anger and inconsideration should
and make him like himself The implicite beleever stands in an open field and the enemy will ride over him easily the understanding beleever is in a fenced town and he hath out-works to lose before the town be pressed that is reasons to be answered before his faith be shaked and he will sell himself deare and lose himself by inches if he be sold or lost at last and therefore sciant omnes let all men know that is endeavour to informe themselves to understand That particular Iesum that generall particular if we may so say for it includes all which all were to know is that the same Jesus whom they Crucified was exalted above them all Suppose an impossibility S. Paul does so when he sayes to the Galatians If an Angell from heaven should preach any other Gospell for that is impossible If we could have been in Paradise and seen God take a clod of red earth and make that wretched clod of contemptible earth such a body as should be fit to receive his breath an immortall soule fit to be the house of the second person in the Trinity for God the Son to dwel in bodily fit to be the Temple for the third person for the Holy Ghost should we not have wondred more then at the production of all other creatures It is more that the same Jesus whom they had crucified is exalted thus to sit in that despised flesh at the right hand of our glorious God that all their spitting should but macerate him and dissolve him to a better mold a better plaister that all their buffetings should but knead him and presse him into a better forme that all their scoffes and contumelies should be prophesies that that Ecce Rex Behold your King and that Rex Iudaeorum This is the King of the Iews which words they who spoke them thought to be lies in their own mouthes should become truths and he be truly the King not of the Jews only but of all Nations too that their nayling him upon the Crosse should be a setling of him upon an everlasting Throne and their lifting him up upon the Crosse a waiting upon him so farre upon his way to heaven that this Jesus whom they had thus evacuated thus crucified should bee thus exalted was a subject of infinite admiration but mixt with infinite confusion too Wretched Blasphemer of the name of Jesus that Jesus whom thou crucifiest and treadest under thy feet in that oath is thus exalted Uncleane Adulterer that Jesus whom thou crucifiest in stretching out those forbidden armes in a strange bed thou that beheadest thy self castest off thy Head Christ Jesus that thou mightst make thy body the body of a Harlot that Jesus whom thou defilest there is exalted Let severall sinners passe this through their severall sins and remember with wonder but with confusion too that that Jesus whom they haue crucified is exalted above all How farre exalted Three steps which carry him above S. Pauls third heaven Factus He is Lord and he is Christ and he is made so by God God hath made him both Lord and Christ We return up these steps as they lie and take the lowest first Fecit Deus God made him so Nature did not make him so no not if we consider him in that Nature wherein he consists of two Natures God and Man We place in the Schoole for the most part the infinite Merit of Christ Jesus that his one act of dying once should be a sufficient satisfaction to God in his Justice for all the sins of all men we place it I say rather in pacto then in persona rather that this contract was thus made between the Father and the Son then that whatsoever that person thus consisting of God and Man should doe should onely in respect of the person bee of an infinite value and extention to that purpose for then any act of his his Incarnation his Circumcision any had been sufficient for our Redemption without his death But fecit Deus God made him that that he is The contract between the Father and him that all that he did should be done so and to that purpose that way and to that end this is that that hath exalted him and us in him If then not the subtilty and curiosity but the wisedome of the Schoole and of the Church of God have justly found it most commodious to place all the mysteries of our Religion in pacto rather then in persona in the Covenant rather then in the person though a person of incomprehensible value let us also in applying to our selves those mysteries of our Religion still adhaerere pactis and not personis still rely upon the Covenant of God with man revealed in his word and not upon the person of any man Not upon the persons of Martyrs as if they had done more then they needed for themselves and might relieve us with their supererogations for if they may work for us they may beleeve for us and Iustus fide sua vivet sayes the Prophet Habak 2.4 The righteous shall live by his owne faith Not upon that person who hath made himself supernumerary and a Controller upon the three persons in the Trinity the Bishop of Rome not upon the consideration of accidents upon persons when God suffers some to fall who would have advanced his cause and some to be advanced who would have throwne downe his cause but let us ever dwell in pacto and in the fecit Deus this Covenant God hath made in his word and in this we rest It is God then not nature not his nature that made him And what Christ Christus Christ is anointed And then Mary Magdalen made him Christ for she anointed him before his death And Ioseph of Arimathea made him Christ for he anointed him and embalmed him after his death But her anointing before kept him not from death nor his anointing after would not have kept him from putrefaction in the grave if God had not in a farre other manner made him Christ anointed him praeconsortibus above his fellows God hath anointed him embalmed him enwrapped him in the leaves of the Prophets That his flesh should not see corruption in the grave That the flames of hell should not take hold of him nor sindge him there so anointed him as that in his Humane nature He is ascended into heaven and set downe at the right hand of God For de eo quod ex Maria est Petrus loquitur sayes S. Basil That making of him Christ that is that anointing which S. Peter speakes of in this place is the dignifying of his humane nature that was anointed that was consecrated that was glorified in heaven But he had a higher step then that God made this Iesus Christ and he made him Lord Dominus He brought him to heaven in his own person in his humane nature so he shall all us but when we shall be all there he onely shall be Lord
in seriousnesse he sayes plainly enough Non damno Bigamos imo nec Trigamos nec si dici potest octogamos I condemne no man for marrying two or three or if he have a minde to it eight wives And so also in his former Epistle Abjicimus de Ecclesia Digamos absit God forbid we should deny any Church assistance to any for twice marrying but yet sayes that blessed Father Monogamos ad continentiam provocamus Let me have leave to perswade them who have been married and are at liberty to continency now at last Those Fathers departed not from the Apostles Nubat in Domino Let them marry in the Lord but they would fain bring the Lord to the making of every marriage and not only the world and worldly respects For the Lord himself who honoured marriage even with the first fruits of his miracles yet perswades continency Mat. 19.22 He that is able to receive it let him receive it The fault which those Fathers did and we may reprehend is that men do not try whether they be able to receive it or no In all Treaties of marriage in all Contracts for Portion and Joynture who ever ask their children who ever aske themselves whether they can live continently or no Or what triall what experiment can have been made of this in Cradle-marriages Marriage was given for a remedy but not before any apparance of a danger And given for Physick but not before any apparance of a disease And do any Parents lay up a medicine against the falling sicknesse for their new-born children because those children may have the falling sicknesse The peace of neighbouring States the uniting of great Families for good ends may present just occasions of departing from severe rules I only intend as I take most of those Fathers to have done to leave all persons to their Christian liberty as the Lord hath done and yet as the Lord hath done too to perswade them to consider themselves and those who are theirs how far they need the use of that Liberty and not to exceed that And thus much Aquinas Expositors who would needs understand the Women in this Text to be Wives have occasioned us to say in this point In our order proposed we passe now to the other consideration who these women were whom the Apostle makes his Examples for they are but two and may soon be considered The first is the Widow of Zareptha in whose house Elias the Prophet sojourned 1 King 17. She was a Widow and a poore Widow and might need the labour or the providence of a husband in that respect Yet she solicites not nor Elias endeavours not the raising of her dead husband to life againe A Widow that is A Widow indeed 1 Tim. 5.3 as the Apostle speaks may have in that state of such a Widowhood more assistances towards the next world then she should have for this by taking another husband For for that Widow Quae in tumulo mariti sepeliit voluptates Who hath buried all her affections towards this world in her husbands grave the Apostle in that place ordaines honour Hieron Honour Widows that are Widows indeed And when he sayes Honour and speaks of poore Widows he speaks not of such honour as such poore soules are incapable of but of that Honour which that word signifies ordinarily in the Scriptures Qui non tam in salutationibus quam in elecmosynis sayes S. Chrysostome which rather consists in Almes and Reliefe then in Salutations and Reverences or such respects For so as S. Ierome notes in particular when we are commanded to honour our Parents it is intended wee should relieve and maintain our Parents if they be decayed And such honour the Apostle perswades to be given and such honour God will provide that is Peace in the possession of their estate if they have any estate and reliefe from others if they have none for Widows that are Widows indeed In which qualification of theirs that they be Widows indeed Ver. 9. we may well take in that addition which the Apostle makes That she have been the wise of one man For though we make not that an only or an essentiall Character of a Widow indeed to have had but one husband yet we note as Calvin doth that the Church received Widows in yeares therefore Quia timendum er at ne ad novas nuptias aspirarent because the Church feared that they would marry again And certainly if the Church feared they would the Church had rather they would not It is as Calvin adds there Pignus continentiae pudoris though Calvin were no man to be suspected to countenance the perversnesse of the Romane Church in defaming or undervaluing marriage yet he sayes so it is a good Pawne and Evidence of Continency to have rested in one husband This Widow of Zareptha then importunes not the Prophet to restore her dead husband Shee beares her widows estate well enough but for her dead Son she doth importune him in the agony and vehemence of a Passion she sayes at her first encounter with the Prophet V. 18. Quid mihi tibi What have I to do with thee Shee doth almost renounce the means In irregular passion a disconsolate soule comes to say what have I to do with Prayers with Sermons with Sacraments I see that God hath forsaken me but yet shee collects her self What have I to do with thee O thou man of God When she confesses him to be the man of God she doth not renounce him When we consider the meanes to be means ordained by God we finde comfort in them Yet she cannot contain the bitternesse of her passion Art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance and to kill my Son She implyes thus much Shall my soule never be at peace Shall no repentance from my heart no absolution from thy mouth make me sure that God hath forgiven and forgotten my sins But when I have received all Seales of Reconciliation will God still punish those sins which he pretends to have forgiven and punish them with so high a hand as the taking away of my only Childe And we may see an exaltation of this womans passion not only in the losse but in the recovery of her childe too For when she had received her childe alive she comes to that passionate acclamation Now by this I know that thou art a man of God and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth V. 14. As though if this had not been done she would not have beleeved that How then sayes our Apostle in this Text That this woman received her dead Son by faith when she declares this inordinatenesse this dis-composednesse and fluctuation of passion This question made S. Chrysostome refer this faith that the Apostle speakes of to the Prophet that raised the childe and not to the mother For she seemes to him to have had none And so the Syriack translates this place
judgements did God shew Adam Iudicia pessimorum spirituum sayes he the better to containe Adam in his duty God declared to him the judgement that he had executed upon those disobedient Angels So that as Adam if he had made a right use of Gods grace had been immortall in his body and yet not immortall then by nature as our bodies in the state of glory in the resurrection shall be immortall and yet not immortall then by nature so no Angell after this Confirmation that is the mediation of Christ applied to him shall fall For Quis Catholicus ignorat Aug. nullum novum Diabolum ex bonis Angelis futurum Who can pretend to be a Catholique and beleeve that ever there shall be any new Devill from amongst the good Angels And yet by the way many of the Ancient Fathers thought that those words That the sons of God saw the daughters of men to be faire and fell in love with them were meant of good Angels who fell in love with those women that were committed to their charge and that they sinned in so doing and that they never returned to heaven but fell to the first fallen Angels So that those Fathers have more then implied a possibility of falling into sin and punishment for sin in the good Angels But this none sayes now nor with any probability ever did It is enough that they stand confirmed confirmed by the grace of God in Christ Jesus so that now being in possession of the sight of God and the light of Gâ—ry their understanding is perfectly illustrated so that they can apprehend nothing erroneously and therefore their will is perfectly rectified so that they can desire nothing irregularly and therefore they cannot sin and therefore they cannot die for all sin is from the perversenesse of the will and all disorder in the will from errour in the understanding In heaven they are and we by our assimilation to them shall be free from both and impeccable and impassible by the continuall grace of God Though if they or we were left to our selves even there God could put no trust in his servants nor leave his Angels uncharged with folly And so we have done with the pieces which constitute our first part De quibus of whom these words are spoken First that they were spoken of Angels rejecting that single Capuccin who only denies it and then of good Angels accepting Calvins interpretation because though he be singular in applying this Text to that Doctrine yet in the Doctrine it self he hath authority enough and faire reasons for the Text it selfe and lastly how that which we call Confirmation in those Angels accrewes to them and how it works in them And so we passe to our second Part what is inferred upon these premisses what concluded upon these propositions what by our assimilation to Angels reflects upon us And here 2. Part. Testis Eliphaz because the matter is of much consideration we proposed first to be considered the waight and validity of the testimony in the person of him that gives it for many times the credit of the restimony depends much upon the credit of the witnesse And here it is not Iob himself it is but Eliphaz Eliphaz the Temanite an Alien a stranger to the Covenant and Church of God But surely no greater a stranger then those secular Poets whose sentences S. Paul cites not only in his Epistles but in his Sermons too Certainly not so great a stranger as the Devill and yet in how many places of Scripture are words spoken by the Devill himself inserted into the Scriptures and thereby so farre made the word of God as that the word of God the Bible were not perfect norintire to us if we had not those words of those Poets those words of the Devill himself in it How can I doubt but that God can draw good out of ill and make even some sin of mine some occasion of my salvation when the God of truth can make the word of the father of lies his word There is but one place in all this Book of Iob cited in the New Testament Job 5.13 that is He taketh the wise in their owne craft and those words are not spoken by Iob himself but by this very friend of Iob this Eliphaz that speaks in our Text 1 Cor. 3.19 and yet they are cited in the phrase and manner in which holy Scripture is ordinarily cited It is written sayes the Apostle there and so the Holy Ghost that spoke in S. Paul hath canonized the words spoken by Eliphaz But besides the credit which these words have Visio à posteriori that they are after inserted into the word of God which is another manner of credit and authentiquenesse then that which the Canonists speak of that when any sentence of a Father is cited and inserted into a Decretall Epistle of a Pope or any part of the Canon Law that sentence is thereby made authenticall and canonicall these words have their credit à priori for before be spake them to Iob he received them in a vision from God I had a vision in the night Ver. 12. sayes he and feare and trembling came upon me and a spirit stood before me and I heard this voyce Neither is there any necessity no nor reason to charge Eliphaz with a false relation or counterfaiting a revelation from God which he had not had as some Expositors have done For howsoever in some argumentations and applyings of things to Iobs particular case we may finde some errors in Eliphaz in modo probandi in the manner of his proceeding yet we shall not finde him to proceed upon false grounds and therefore we beleeve Eliphaz to have received this that he sayes from God in a vision and for the instruction of a man more in Gods favour then himself of Iob. Balaam had the reputation of a great Wizard and yet God made his Asse wiser then he and able to instruct and catechize him Generally we are to receive our instructions from Gods established Ordinances from his ordinary meanes afforded to us in his Church And where those meanes sufficient in themselves are duly exhibited to us we are not to hearken after revelations nor to beleeve every thing that may have some such apparance to be a revelation But yet we are not so to conclude God in his Law as that he should have no Prerogative nor so to binde him up in his Ordinances as that he never can or never does work by an extraordinary way of revelation Neither must the profusion of miracles the prodigality and prostitution of miracles in the Romane Church where miracles for every naturall disease may be had at some Shrine or miracle-shop better cheap then a Medicine a Drugge a Simple at an Apothecaries bring us to deny or distrust all miracles done by God upon extraordinary causes and to important purposes Eliphaz was a prophane person and yet received a Vision from
Church of God celebrates this day the third Person of the Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity The Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost is the God the Spirit of Comfort A Comforter not one amongst others but the Comforter not the principall but the intire the onely Comforter and more then all that The Comfort it selfe That is an attribute of the Holy Ghost Comfort And then the office of the Holy Ghost is to gather to establish to illumine to governe that Church which the Son of God from whom together with the Father the Holy Ghost proceeds hath purchased with his blood So that as the Holy Ghost is the Comforter so is this Comfort exhibited by him to us and exercised by him upon us in this especially that he hath gathered us established us illumined us and does governe us as members of that body of which Christ Jesus is the Head that he hath brought us and bred us and fed us with the meanes of salvation in his application of the merits of Christ to our soules in the Ordinances of the Church In this Text is the first mention of this Third Person of the Trinity And it is the first mention of any distinct Person in the God-head In the first verse there is an intimation of the Trinity in that Bara Elohim That Gods Gods in the plurall are said to have made heaven and earth And then as the Church after having celebrated the memory of All Saints together in that one day which we call All Saints day begins in the celebration of particular Saints first with Saint Andrew who first of any applied himself to Christ out of Saint Iohn Baptists Schoole after Christs Baptisme so Moses having given us an intimation of God and the three Persons altogether in that Bara Eloim before gives us first notice of this Person the Holy Ghost in particular because he applies to us the Mercies of the Father and the Merits of the Son and moves upon the face of the waters and actuates and fecundates our soules and generates that knowledge and that comfort which we have in the knowledge of God Now the moving of the Holy Ghost upon the face of the waters in this Text cannot be literally understood of his working upon man for man was not yet made but when man is made that is made the man of God in Christ there in that new Creation the Holy Ghost begins again with a new moving upon the face of the waters in the Sacrament of Baptisme which is the Conception of a Christian in the wombe of the Church Therefore we shall consider these words And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters first literally in the first and then spiritually in the second Creation first how the Holy Ghost moved upon the face of the Waters in making this world for us And then how he moves upon the face of the Waters againe in making us for the other world In which two severall parts we shall consider these three termes in our Text both in the Macrocosme and Microcosme the Great and the Lesser world man extended in the world and the world contracted and abridged into man first Quid Spiritus Dei what this Power or this Person which is here called the Spirit of God is for whether it be a Power or a Person hath been diversly disputed And secondly Quid ferebatur what this Action which is here called a Moving was for whether a Motion or a Rest an Agitation or an Incubation of that Power or that Person hath been disputed too And lastly Quid super faciem aquarum what the subject of this Action the face of the waters was for whether it were a stirring and an awakening of a power that was naturally in those waters to produce creatures or whether it were an infusing a new power which till then those waters had not hath likewise beene disputed And in these three the Person the Action the Subject considered twice over in the Creation first and in our regeneration in the Christian Church after we shall determine all that is necessary for the literall and for the spirituall sense of these words And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters First then 1 Part. Aug Con. 11.2 undertaking the consideration of the literall sense and after of the spirituall we joyne with S. Augustine Sint castae deliciae meae Scripturae tuae Lord I love to be conversant in thy Scriptures let my conversation with thy Scriptures be a chast conversation that I discover no nakednesse therein offer not to touch any thing in thy Scriptures but that that thou hast vouchsafed to unmask and manifest unto me Nec fallar in eis nec fallam ex eis Lord let not me mistake the meaning of thy Scriptures nor mis-lead others Ibid. by imputing a false sense to them Non frustra scribuntur sayes he Lord thou hast writ nothing to no purpose thou wouldst be understood in all But not in all by all men at all times Confiteor tibi quicquid invenero in libris tuis Lord I acknowledge that I receive from thee whatsoever I understand in thy word for else I doe not understand it This that blessed Father meditates upon the word of God he speakes of this beginning of the Book of Genesis and he speaks lamenting Scripsit Moses abiit a little Moses hath said C. 3. and alas he is gone Si hic esset tonerem eum per te rogarem If Moses were here I would hold him here and begge of him for thy sake to tell me thy meaning in his words of this Creation But sayes he since I cannot speake with Moses Te quo plenus vera dixit Veritas rogo I begge of thee who art Truth it selfe as thou enabledst him to utter it enable me to understand what he hath said So difficult a thing seemed it to that intelligent Father to understand this history this mystery of the Creation But yet though he found that divers senses offered themselves he did not doubt of finding the Truth C. 18. For Deus meus lumen oculorum meorum in occulto sayes he O my God the light of mine eyes in this dark inquisition since divers senses arise out of these words and all true Quid mihi obest si alindego sensero quam sensit alius eum sensisse qui scripsit What hurt followes though I follow another sense then some other man takes to be Moses sense for his may be a true fense and so may mine and neither be Moses his C. 30. Hee passes from prayer and protestation to counsell and direction In diversitate sententiarum verarum concordiam pariat ipsa veritas Where divers senses arise and all true that is that none of them oppose the truth let truth agree them But what is Truth God And what is God Charity Therefore let Charity reconcile such differences 1.12 C. 30. Legitimè lege ut amur sayes he let us
the father of Musique And so Horace calls Ennius the father of one kind of Poeme how absolutely is God our Father who may I say invented us made us found us out in the depth and darknesse of nothing at all He is Pater and Pater luminum Father and Father of lights of all kinds of lights Lux lucifica Iam. 1.17 as S. Augustine expresses it The light from which all the lights which we have whether of nature or grace or glory have their emanation Take these Lights of which God is said to be the Father to be the Angels so some of the Fathers take it and so S. Paul calls them Angels of light And so Nazianzen calls them Secundos splendores primi splendoris administros 2 Cor. 11.14 second lights that serve the first light Or take these Lights of which God is said to be the Father to be the Ministers of the Gospel the Angels of the Church so some Fathers take them too and so Christ sayes to them in the Apostles Mat. 5.14 You are the light of the world Or take these Lights to be those faithfull servants of God who have received an illustration in themselves and a coruscation towards others who by having lived in the presence of God in the houshold of his faithfull in the true Church are become as Iohn Baptist was burning and shining lamps as S. Paul sayes of the faithfull Phil. 2.15 You shine as lights in this world And as Moses had contracted a glorious shining in his face by his conversation with God Or take this light to be a fainter light then that and yet that which S. Iames doth most literally intend in that place The light of naturall understanding That which Plinie calls serenitatem animi when the mind of man dis-encumbred of all Eclipses and all clouds of passion or inordinate love of earthly things is enlightned so far as to discerne God in nature Or take this light to be but the light of a shadow for umbrae non sunt tenebrae sed densior lux shadows are not darknesses shadows are but a grosser kind of light Take it to be that shadow that designe that delineation that obumbration of God which the creatures of God exhibit to us that which Plinie calls Coelilaetitiam when the heavens and all that they imbrace in an opennesse and cheerefulnesse of countenance manifest God unto us Take these Lights of which S. Iames speaks in any apprehension any way Angels of heaven who are ministring spirits Angels of the Church who are spirituall Ministers Take it for the light of faith from hearing the light of reason from discoursing or the light flowing from the creature to us by contemplation and observation of nature Every way by every light we see that he is Pater luminum the Father of lights all these lights are from him and by all these lights we see that he is A Father and Our Father So that as the Apostle uses this phrase in another place Si opertum Euangelium 2 Cor. 4.3 If the Gospel be hid with wonder and admiration Is it possible can it be that this Gospel should be hid So it is here Si invocatis If ye call God Father that is as it is certaine you doe as it is impossible but you should because you cannot ascribe to any but him your Being your preservation in that Being your exaltation in that Being to a well-Being in the possession of all temporall and spirituall conveniencies And then there is thus much more force in this particle Si If which is as you have seene Si concessionis non dubitationis an If that implyes a confession and acknowledgement not a hesitation or a doubt That it is also Si progressionis Si conclusionis an If that carryes you farther and that concludes you at last If you doe it that is Since you do it Since you do call God Father since you have passed that act of Recognition since not onely by having been produced by nature but by having beene regenerated by the Gospel you confesse God to bee your Father and your Father in his Son in Christ Jesus Since you make that profession Of his owne will begate he us Iames 1.18 with the word of Truth If you call him Father since you call him Father thus goe on farther Timete Feare him If yee call him Father feare him c. Now Timete for this feare of God which is the beginning of wisedome and the end of wisedome too we are a little too wise at least too subtile sometimes in distinguishing too narrowly between a filiall feare and a servile feare as though this filiall feare were nothing but a reverend love of God as he is good and not a doubt and suspition of incurring those evils Prov. 8.13 that are punishments or that produce punishments The feare of the Lord is to hate evill It is a holy detestation of that evill which is Malum culpae The evill of sin and it is a holy trembling under a tender apprehension of that other evill which we call Malum poenae The evill of punishment for sin God presents to us the joyes of heaven often to draw us Origen and as often the torments of hell to avert us Origen sayes aright As Abraham had two sons one of a Bond-woman another of a Free but yet both sons of Abraham so God is served by two feares and the later feare the feare of future torment is not the perfect feare but yet even that feare is the servant and instrument of God too Quis tam insensatus Chrysost Who can so absolutely devest all sense Qui non fluctuante Civitate imminente naufragio But that when the whole City is in a combustion and commotion or when the Ship that he is in strikes desperately and irrecoverably upon a rock hee is otherwise affected toward God then then when every day in a quietnesse and calme of holy affections he heares a Sermon Gehennae timor sayes the same Father regni nos affert coronam Gen. 15.12 Exod. 3.6 Even the feare of hell gets us heaven Upon Abraham there fell A horrour of great darknesse And Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look upon God And that way towards that dejected look does God bend his countenance Vpon this man will I look Esay 66.12 even to him that is poore and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my word As there are both impressions in security vitious and vertuous good and bad so there are both in feare also There is a wicked security in the wicked by which they make shift to put off all Providence in God and to think God like themselves indifferent what becomes of this world There is an ill security in the godly when for the time in their prosperity they grow ill husbands of Gods graces and negligent of his mercies In my prosperity sayes David himself Psal 30.6 of
occasion to prove the Deity of Christ this text hath been cited and therefore I take it now when in my course proposed I am to speak of the second Person in the Trinity but as I said of the first Person the Father not as in the Schoole but in the Church not in a Chaire but in a Pulpit not to a Congregation that required proofe in a thing doubted but edification upon a foundation received not as though any of us would dispute whether Jesus Christ were the Lord but that all of us would joyne in that Excommunication If any man love not the Lord Iesus Christ let him be c. Let this then be the frame that this exercise shall stand upon We have three parts The person upon whom our Religious worship is to be directed The Lord Iesus Christ And secondly we have the expression and the limitation of that worship as farre as it is expressed here Love the Lord Iesus Christ And lastly we have the imprecation upon them that doe not If any man doe not let him be Anathema Maranatha In the first we have Verbum naturale verbum innatum As he is the essentiall word The Lord a name proper only to God And then Verbum conceptum verbum illatum Gods Decree upon consideration of mans misery that Christ should be a Redeemer for to that intent he is Christus Anointed to that purpose And lastly Verbum prolatum verbum manifestatum That this Christ becomes Iesus That this Decree is executed that this person thus anointed for this office is become an actuall Saviour So the Lord is made Christ and Christ is made Iesus In the second Part we shall finde another argument for his Deity for there is such a love required towards the Lord Iesus Christ as appertaines to God onely And lastly we shall have the indeterminable and indispensable excommunication of them who though they pretend to love the Lord God in an universall notion yet doe not love the Lord Iesus Christ God in this apprehension of a Saviour and If any man love not c. First then in the first branch of the first part in that name of our Saviour The Lord 1 Part. Dominus we apprehend the eternall Word of God the Son of God the second Person in the Trinity for He is Persona producta Begotten by another and therefore cannot be the first And he is Persona spirans a Person out of whom with the Father another Person that is the Holy Ghost proceeds and therefore cannot be the last Person and there are but three Nazian and so he necessarily the second Shall we hope to comprehend this by reason Quid magni haberet Dei generatio si angusti is intellectus tui comprehenderetur How small a thing were this mystery of Heaven if it could be shut in in so narrow a piece of the earth Idem as thy heart Qui tuam ipsius generationē vel in totum nescis vel dicere sit pudor Thou that knowest nothing of thine owne begetting or art ashamed to speake that little that thou doest know of it wilt not thou be ashamed to offer to expresse the eternall generation of the Son of God It is true De modo How it was done our reason cannot but De facto that it was done our reason may be satisfied We beleeve nothing with a morall faith till something have wrought upon our reason and vanquished that and made it assent and subscribe Our divine faith requires evidence too and hath it abundantly for the works of God are not so good evidence to my reason as the Word of God is to my faith The Sun shining is not so good a proofe that it is day as the Word of God the Scripture is that that which is commanded there is a duty The roote of our beliefe that Christ is God is in the Scriptures but wee consider it spread into three branches 1 The evident Word it selfe that Christ is God 2 The reall declaration thereof in his manifold Miracles 3 The conclusions that arise to our understanding thus illumined by the Scriptures thus established by his miracles In every mouth Ex Scripturis in every pen of the Scriptures that delivers any truth the Holy Ghost speaks and therefore whatsoever is said by any there is the testimony of the Holy Ghost for the Deity of Christ And from the Father we have this testimony that he is his Son Mat. 3. ult Heb. 1.8 This is my beloved Son And this testimony that his Son is God Vnto his Son he saith Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever The Holy Ghost testifies and his Father and himselfe Apoc. 1.8 and his testimony is true I am Alpha and Omega the beginning and the ending saith the Lord which is which was and which is to come the Almighty Hee testifies with his Father Apoc. 22.16 and then their Angels and his Apostles testifie with him I Iesus have sent mine Angels to testifie unto you these things in the Church That I am the Roote and the Off-spring of David not the off-spring onely but the roote too and therefore was before David God and his Angels in Heaven testifie it And visible Angels upon earth his Apostles Acts 20.28 God hath purchased his Church with his owne blood sayes S. Paul He who shed his blood for his Church was God and no false God no mortall God as the gods of the Nations were 1 Iohn 5.20 Tit. 2.13 but This is the true God and cternall life and then no small God no particular God as the Gods of the Nations were too but We looke for the glorious appearing of our great God our Saviour Christ Iesus God that is God in all the Persons Angels that is Angels in all their acceptations Angels of Heaven Angels of the Church Angels excommunicate from both the fallen Angels Devils themselves testifie his Godhead Mar. 3.11 Vncleane Spirits fell downe before him and cryed Thou art the Sonne of God This is the testimony of his Word Miracula the testimony of his Works are his Miracles That his Apostles did Miracles in his name Acts 3.16 was a testimony of his Deity His name through faith in his Name hath made this man strong sayes S. Peter at the raysing of the Creeple But that he did Miracles in his own Name by his own Power is a nearer testimony Belssed be the Lord God of Israel Psal 72.18 sayes David Qui facit Mirabilia solus Which doth his Miracles alone without deriving power from any other or without using an other instrument for his Power Epipha For Mutare naturam nisi qui Dominus naturae est non potest Whosoever is able to change the course of nature is the Lord of nature And he that is so made it he that made it Tertul. that created it is God Nay Plus est it is more to change the course of Nature
power Via miraculorum Miracles no man may ground his beliefe upon that which seems a Miracle to him Moses wrought Miracles and Pharaohs instruments wrought the like we know theirs were no true Miracles and we know Moses were but how do we know this By another voyce by the Word of God who cannot lie for for those upon whom those Miracles were to worke on both sides Moses and they too seemed to the beholders diversly disposed to do Miracles One Rule in discerning and judging a Miracle is to consider whether it be done in confirmation of a necessary Truth otherwise it is rather to be suspected for an Illusion then accepted for a Miracle The Rule is intimated in Deuteronomy where Deut. 13. though a Prophets prophecy do come to passe yet if his end be to draw to other gods he must be slaine What Miracles soever are pretended in confirmation of the inventions of Men are to be neglected God hath not carried us so low for our knowledge as to Creatures to Nature nor so high as to Miracles but by a middle way By a voyce But it is Vox de Coelis A voyce from heaven S. Basil applying indeed with some wresting and derorting those words in the 29 Psalme vers 3. De Coelis The voyce of the Lord is upon the waters the God of glory maketh it to thunder to this Baptisme of Christ he sayes Vox super aquas Ioannes The words of Iohn at Christs Baptisme were this voyce that David intends And then that manifestation which God gave of the Trinity whatsoever it were altogether that was the Thunder of his Majesty so this Thunder then was vox de Coelis A voyce from heaven And in this voyce the person of the Father was manifested as he was in the same voyce at his Transfiguration Since this voyce then is from Heaven and is the Fathers voyce we must looke for all our knowledge of the Trinity from thence For to speake of one of those persons Mat. 11.27 of Christ no man knoweth the Sonne but the Father Who then but he can make us know him If any knew it yet it is an unexpressible mystery no man could reveale it Mat. 16.17 Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in heaven If any could reveale it to us yet none could draw us to beleeve it No man can come to me except the Father draw him Iohn 6.44 So that all our voyce of Direction must be from thence De Coelis from Heaven We have had Voces de Inferis voyces from Hell in the blasphemies of Heretiques De Inferis That the Trinity was but Cera extensa but as a Rolle of Wax spread or a Dough Cake rolled out and so divided unto persons That the Trinity was but a nest of Boxes a lesser in a greater and not equall to one another And then that the Trinity was not onely three persons but three Gods too So far from the truth and so far from one another have Heretiques gone in the matter of the Trinity and Cerinthus so far in that one person in Christ as to say That Jesus and Christ were two distinct persons and that into Jesus who sayes he was the sonne of Ioseph Christ who was the Spirit of God descended here at his Baptisme and was not in him before and withdrew himselfe from him againe at the time of his Passion and was not in him then so that he was not borne Christ nor suffered not being Christ but was onely Christ in his preaching and in his Miracles and in all the rest he was but Jesus sayes Cerinthus We have had Voces de Inferis de profundis from the depth of hell De Medio in the malice of Heretiques And we have had Voces de medio voyces from amongst us Inventions of men to expresse and to make us understand the Trinity in pictures and in Comparisons All which to contract this point are apt to fall into that abuse which we will onely note in one At first they used ordinarily to expresse the Trinity in foure letters which had no ill purpose in it at first but was a religious ease for their memories in Catechismes The letters were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the two last belonged to the last person for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so there was Father Sonne and Holy Ghost as if we should expresse it in F and S and H and G. But this came quickly thus far into abuse as that they thought there could belong but three letters in that picture to the three persons and therefore allowing so many to Father Sonne and Holy Ghost they tooke the last letter P for Petrus and so made Peter head of the Church and equall to the Trinity So that for our knowledge in this mysterious doctrine of the Trinity let us evermore rest in voce de coelis in that voice which came from heaven But yet it is Vox dicens Dicens A voice saying speaking A voice that man is capable of and may be benefited by It is not such a voice as that was which came from heaven too when Christ prayed to God to glorifie his name Iohn 12.28 That the people should say some that it was a Thunder some that it was an Angel that spake They are the sons of Thunder and they are the Ministeriall Angels of the Church from whom we must heare this voice of heaven Nothing can speak but man No voice is understood by man but the voice of man It is not Vox dicens That voyce sayes nothing to me that speaks not And therefore howsoever the voice in the Text were miraculously formed by God to give this glory and dignity to this first manifestation of the Trinity in the person of Christ yet because he hath left it for a permanent Doctrine necessary to Salvation he hath left ordinary means for the conveying of it that is The same voice from heaven the same word of God but speaking in the ministery of man And therefore for our measure of this knowledge which is our third and last Part we are to see how Christian men whose office it hath been to interpret Scriptures that is how the Catholike Church hath understood these words Hic est Filius This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased How we are to receive the knowledge of the Trinity 3 Part. Athanasius hath expressed as far as we can goe Whosoever will be saved hee must beleeve it but the manner of it is not exposed so far as to his beliefe That question of the Prophet Quis
without examination captivates his understanding to the Fathers It is ingenuously said by one of their later Writers if hee would but give us leave to say so too Sequamur Patres Cajetan tanquam Duces non tanquam Dominos Let us follow the Fathers as Guides not as Lords over our understandings as Counsellors not as Commanders Nicephor Chrysost It is too much to say of any Father that which Nicephorus sayes of S. Chrysostome In illius perinde at que in Dei verbis quiesco I am as safe in Chrysostomes words as in the Word of God Sophron. Leo. That is too much It is too much to say of any Father that which Sophronius sayes of Leo That his Epistles were Divina Scriptura tanquam ex ore Petri prolata fundamentum fidei That he received the Epistles that Leo writ as holy writ as written by S. Peter himselfe and as the foundation of his faith that is too much It is too much to say of S. Peter himselfe that which Chrysologus sayes Chrysolog That he is Immobile fundamentum salutis The immoveable foundation of our salvation Mediator noster apud Deum The Mediator of man to God Azorius Their Jesuit Azorius gives us a good Caution herein Hee sayes it is a good and safe way in all emergent doubts to governe our selves Per communem opinionem by the the common opinion by that in which most Authors agree But sayes he how shall we know which is the common opinion Since not onely that is the common opinion in one Age that is not so in another The common opinion was in the Primitive Church that the blessed Virgin was conceived in Original sin The common opinion now is that she was not But if we confider the same Age that is the common opinion in one place in one countrey which is not so in another place at the same time That Jesuit puts his example in the worship of the Crosse of Christ and sayes That at this day in Germany and in France it is the common opinion and Catholique Divinity That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Divine worship is not due to the Crosse of Christ In Italy and in Spain it is the common opinion and Catholique Divinity that it is due Now how shall hee governe himselfe that is unlearned and not able to try which is the common opinion Or how shall the learnedest of all governe himselfe if he have occasion to travaile but to change his Divinity as often as he changes his Coine and when he turnes his Dutch Dollers into Pistolets to go out of Germany into Spain turn his Devotion and his religious worship according to the Clime To end this Consideration The holy Patriarchs in the Old Testament were holy men though they straid into some sinfull actions the holy Fathers in the Primitive Church were holy men though they straied into some erronious opinions But neither are the holiest mens actions alwaies holy nor the soundest Fathers opinions alwaies sound And therefore the question hath beene not impertinently moved whether this that S. Paul did here were justifiably done Who when he perceived that one part were Sadduces and the other Pharisees c. And so wee are come to our second part from the consideration of Actions in generall to this particular action of S. Paul In this second part we make three steps First we shall consider what Councell 2 Part. what Court this was before whom S. Paul was convented He cryed out in the Councell sayes the text whether they were his competent Judges and so he bound to a cleare and direct proceeding with them And secondly what his end and purpose was that he proposed to himselfe which was to divide the Judges and so to put off his tryall to another day for when he had said that sayes the text that that he had to say there arose a Dissention and the multitude All both Judges and spectators and witnesses were divided And then lastly by what way he went to this end which was by a double protestation first that Men and brethren I am a Pharisee And then that Of the hope and Resurrection of the dead I am called in question First then for the competency of his Judges Whether a man be examined before a competent Judge or no he may not lye we can put no case Iudex Competens in which it may be lawfull for any man to lye to any man not to a midnight nor to a noone thiefe that breaks my house or assaults my person I may not lye And though many have put names of disguise as Equivocations and Reservations yet they are all children of the same father the father of lies the devill and of the same brood of vipers they are lyes To an Incompetent Judge if I be interrogated I must speake truth if I speake but to a Competent Judge I must speak With the Incompetent I may not be false but with the Competent I may not be silent Certainely that standing mute at the Bar which of late times hath prevailed upon many distempered wretches is in it selfe so particularly a sin as that I should not venture to absolve any such person nor to administer the Sacrament to him how earnestly soever he desired it at his death how penitently soever he confessed all his other sins except he repented in particular that sin of having stood mute and refused a just triall and would be then content to submit himself to it if that favour might possibly at that time be afforded him To an incompetent Judge I must not lie but I may be silent to a competent I must answer Consider we then the competency of S. Pauls Judges what this Councel this Court was It was that Councel which is so often in the New Testament called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in our Translation the Councel The Jews speake much of their Lex Oralis their Oral their Traditionall Law that is That Exposition of the Law which say they Moses received from the mouth of God without writing in that forty dayes conversation which he had with God in the Mount for it is not probable say they that Moses should spend forty dayes in that which another man would have done in one or two that is in receiving onely that Law which is written But he received an exposition too and delivered that to Ioshuah and he to the principal men and according to that exposition they proceeded in Judgement in this Councel in this their Synedrion Which Councell having had the first institution thereof Numb 11.16 where God said to Moses Gather me seventy men of the Elders of Israel Officers over the people Numb 11.16 and I will take of the Spirit that is upon thee and put it upon them and they shall beare the burden that is I will impart to them that exposition of the Law which I have imparted to thee and by that they shall proceed in Judgement
shall seeke his face yea when God shall kill him yet he will trust in God and seeke him And as the Prophet carries it farther Cum ingreditur putredo when Rottennesse enters into their Bones yet they shall rest even in that day of trouble of dissolution of putrefaction God shall call upon them as he did upon Judah Tritura mea filius are ae O my threshing place and the sonne of my floore Esay 21.10 Thou whom I have beaten and bruised with my flayls when I have threshed and winnowed and sifted thee by these afflictions and by this heavy hand still thou shalt fix thy faithfull eyes in heaven and see a roome reserved there for thee amongst those Apoc. 7 14.17 which come out of great tribulations and have made their long robes white in the bloud of the Lambe who shall therefore dwell in the midst of them and governe them and lead them to the lively fountains of waters and wipe away all teares from their eyes Even upon his own Children his hand shall grow heavy but that heavinesse that waight shall awake them and that hand shall guide them to and in the wayes of peace and reconciliation And this both day and night as our Text sayes That is Die ac nocte both in the day of their prosperity and the night of their adversitie Even in prosperity the childe of God shall feele the hand of God grow heavy upon him He shall finde a guiltinesse of not having employed those temporall benefits to their right use He shall finde the Pluit laqueos Psal 11.6 a showre of snares to have been powred downe upon him occasions of sinne occasions of falling into sinnes himselfe occasions of drawing others and of buying those soules with his money which Christ Jesus had a pre-emption of and had bought them before with his bloud He shall finde the hand of God in adversity and love it because it shall deliver him He shall finde his hand in prosperity and be afraid of it because that prosperity hath before and may againe lead him into tentations To end all all this the Holy Ghost by the pen of David Selah seales with the last word of this Text Selah A word of uncertain sense and signification for the Jews themselves do not know exactly and certainly what it signifies but deriving this Selah from Selal which signifies Attollere To lift up they think it to be but a Musicall note for the raising of the voyce at that part of the Psalme where that word is used as indeed the word is never used in the Bible but in the Psalmes and twice in one Chapter in the Prophet Habakkuk which is a Musicall a Metricall Chapter In the Latine Translation Hab. 3.3 9. and in the Arabique Translation of the Psalmes it is cleane left out because they were not sure how to translate it aright But to speak upon the best grounds in the Grammar of that language and upon best Authority too the word signifies a Vehement a Patheticall a Hyperbolicall asseveration and attestation and ratification of something said before Such in a proportion as our Saviours Amen Amen is Verily verily I say unto you Such as S. Pauls fidelis Sermo with which he seales so many truths is This is a faithfull saying Such as that Apostles Coram Domino is with which he ratifies many things Before the Lord I speak it and such as Moses his Vivo ego and Vivit Dominus As I live saith the Lord and As the Lord liveth And therefore though God be in all his words Yea and Amen no word of his can perish in it selfe nor should perish in us that is passe without observation yet in setting this seale of Selah to this Doctrine he hath testified his will that he would have all these things the better understood and the deeplier imprinted That if a man conceale and smother his sins Selah Assuredly God will open that mans mouth and it shall not shew forth his praise but God will bring him Ad rugitum to fearfull exclamations out of the sense of the affliction if not of the sin Selah Assuredly God wil shiver his bones shake his best actions and discover their impurity Selah assuredly God will suffer to be dried up all his moysture all possibility of repentant teares and all interest in the blood of Christ Jesus Selah Assuredly Gods hand shall be heavy upon him and he shall not discerne it to be his hand but shall attribute all to false causes and so place all his comfort in false remedies Hee shall leave out God all day and God shall leave out him all night all his everlasting night in which he shall never see day more Selah Assuredly Verily Amen Fidelis Sermo This is a faithfull an infallible Truth Coram Domino Before the Lotd Vivit Dominus as the Lord liveth as Moses as Christ as S. Paul testifie their David testifies his Doctrine All between God and man is conditionall and where man will not be bound God will not be bound neither If man invest a habit and purpose of sinning God will study a judgement against that man 1. Sam 3.11 and doe that even in Israel which shall make all our eares to tingle and all our hearts to ake Till that man repent God will not and when he does God will repent too For though God be not Man that he can repent yet that God who for Mans sake became Man for our sakes and his owne glory will so farre become Man againe as upon Mans true repentance to repent the Judgements intended against that Man SERM. LVIII Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 32.5 I acknowledged my sin unte thee and mine iniquity have I not hid I said I will confesse my transgressions unto the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin THis is the Sacrament of Confession So we may call it in a safe meaning That is The mystery of Confession for true Confession is a mysterious Art 2. Thess 2.7 Mat. 22.1 As there is a Mystery of iniquity so there is a Mystery of the Kingdome of heaven And the mystery of the Kingdome of heaven is this That no man comes thither but in a sort as he is a notorious sinner One mystery of iniquity is that in this world though I multiply sins yet the Judge cannot punish me if I can hide them from other men though he know them but if I confesse them he can he will he must The mystery of the Kingdome of heaven is That onely the Declaring the Publishing the Notifying and Confessing of my sins possesses me of the Kingdome of heaven There is a case in which the notoriety of my sins does harme when my open sinning or my publishing of my sin by way of glory in that sin casts a scandall upon others and leads them into tentation for so my sin becomes theirs because they sin my sin by example And their sin becomes
temporall blessings to men upon whom he hath not set his heart And then in the 27. Verse he sayes Therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee If he had onely found it in the Liturgy and in the manner of the Service of that Church to which hee came with an ill will and against his heart he would not have prayed that prayer nay he would not have come to that Church Psal 35.11 40.10 For though David place a great joy in that That he can come to praise God in the Congregation and in the great Congregation And though David seeme even to determine Gods presence in the Church for he multiplies that expostulation that adprecation many times When shall I come in conspectum tuum into thy presence And Restore me O Lord conspectui tuo to thy presence Hee was not right not in the right way if he came not to Church yet there is a case in which David glories in though as hee saith there In corde meo abscondi eloquium tuum Psal 119.11 Thy word have I hidden locked up in my heart Though in another in many other places he rejoyce in that I have not hid thy righteousnesse in my heart Psal 40.10 I have not concealed thy truth from the great Congregation yet here he glories in his Abscondi I have hid it Which as both S. Hilary and S. Ambrose referre it to a discreet and seasonable suppressing of the mysteries of Religion and not to cast pearles before swine may also inferre this Instruction That a man were better serve God at home though not in so right a way if he thinke it right then to come hither against his heart and conscience Not but that there is better meanes of receiving good here then at home in private prayer though made the right way But his end in comming is not to make this meanes his way to that good And therefore his very being here though hee be thereby in the right way because it comes not from an upright heart as it is a greater danger to us who are deluded by their hypocriticall conformity so is it a greater sinne to them who come so against their conscience David prayes thus Psal 119.19 Incola sum ne abscondas I am a stranger hide not thy commandements from mee Let me not be a stranger at Church at thy Service And so it behooves us to pray too That those Doores and those Books may alwayes bee open unto us But yet I will say with David too Abscondam eloquium where I am a stranger and in a place of strange and superstitious worship I will hide my religion so farre as not to communicate with others in a service against my heart It is not safe for us to trust our selves at a superstitious Service though curiosity or company or dependency upon others draw us thither neither is it safe to trust all that come hither if their hearts be not here For the Retribution of our Text that is Thanks and Praise belongs onely to them who are Right and Right of heart and to them it is made due and infallible by this promise from God and made universall Omnes All the upright in heart shall glory How often God admits into his owne Name Omnes this addition of Universality Omne All as though he would be knowne by that especially He is Omnipotent There he can doe All He is Omniscient There he can know All Hee is Omnipresent There he can direct All. Neither doth God extend himselfe to all that he may gather from all but that he may gather all and all might meet in him and enjoy him So God is all Center as that hee looks to all and so all circumference as that hee embraces all The Sunne works upon things that he sees not as Mynes in the wombe of the earth and so works the lesse perfectly God sees all and works upon all and desires perfection in all There is no one word so often in the Bible as this Omne All. Neither hath God spread the word more liberally upon all the lines of this Booke then he hath his gracious purposes upon all the soules of men And therefore to withdraw Gods generall goodnesse out of his generall propositions That he would have all repent That he came to save all is to contract and abridge God himselfe in his most extensive Attribute or Denotation that is his Mercy And as there is a curse laid upon them that take away any part any proposition out of this Booke so may there be a curse or an ill affection and countenance and suspicion from God that presses any of his generall propositions to a narrower and lesse gracious sense then God meant in it It were as easily beleeved that God lookes towards no man as that there should be any man in whom he sees that is considers no sin that he lookes not towards I could as easily doubt of the universall providence of God as of the universall mercy of God if man continued not in rebellion and in opposition If I can say by way of confession and accusing my selfe Lord my wayes have not beene right nor my heart right there is yet mercy for mee But to them who have studied and accustomed themselves to this uprightnesse of heart there is mercy in that exaltation mercy in the nature of a Reward of a Retribution And this Retribution expressed here in this word Glory constitutes our second Part All the upright in heart shall Glory This Retribution is expressed in the Originall in the word Halal And Halal 2 Part. Laus to those Translators that made up our Booke of Common Prayer presented the signification of Gladnesse for so it is there They shall be glad So it did to the Translators that came after for there it is They shall rejoyce And to our last Translators it seemed to signifie Glory They shall Glory say they But the first Translation of all into our Language which was long before any of these three cals it Praise and puts it in the Passive All men of rightfull heart shall be praised He followed S. Hierom who reads it so and interprets it so in the Passive Laudabuntur They shall be praised And so truly Iithhalelu in the Original beares it nay requires it which is not of a praise that they shall give to God but of a praise that they shall receive for having served God with an upright heart not that they shall praise God in doing so but that godly men shall praise them for having done so All this will grow naturally out of the roote for the roote of this word is Lucere Splendere To shine out in the eyes of men and to create in them a holy and a reverentiall admiration as it was Iohn Baptists praise That he was A burning and a shining Lampe Properly it is by a good and a holy exemplary life to occasion others to set
Father and see him made ours in him And then a third beame of this Consolation is That in this house of his Fathers Mansiones thus by him made ours there are Mansions In which word the Consolation is not placed I doe not say that there is not truth in it but the Consolation is not placed in this That some of these Mansions are below some above staires some better seated better lighted better vaulted better fretted better furnished then others but onely in this That they are Mansions which word in the Originall and Latin and our Language signifies a Remaining and denotes the perpetuity the everlastingnesse of that state A state but of one Day because no Night shall over-take or determine it but such a Day as is not of a thousand yeares which is the longest measure in the Scriptures but of a thousand millions of millions of generations August Qui nec praeceditur hesterno nec excluditur crastino A day that hath no pridie nor postridie yesterday doth not usher it in nor to morrow shall not drive it out Methusalem with all his hundreds of yeares was but a Mushrome of a nights growth to this day And all the foure Monarchies with all their thousands of yeares And all the powerfull Kings and all the beautifull Queenes of this world were but as a bed of flowers some gathered at six some at seaven some at eight All in one Morning in respect of this Day In all the two thousand yeares of Nature before the Law given by Moses And the two thousand yeares of Law before the Gospel given by Christ And the two thousand of Grace which are running now of which last houre we have heard three quarters strike more then fifteen hundred of this last two thousand spent In all this six thousand and in all those which God may be pleased to adde In domo patris In this House of his Fathers there was never heard quarter clock to strike never seen minute glasse to turne No time lesse then it selfe would serve to expresse this time which is intended in this word Mansions which is also exalted with another beame that they are Multa In my Fathers House there are many Mansions In this Circumstance Multa an Essentiall a Substantiall Circumstance we would consider the joy of our society and conversation in heaven since society and conversation is one great element and ingredient into the joy which we have in this world We shall have an association with Christ himselfe for where he is it is his promise that we also shall be We shall have an association with the Angels and such a one as we shall be such as they We shall have an association with the Saints and not onely so to be such as they but to be they Mat. 8.11 And with all who come from the East and from the West and from the North and from the South and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Iacob in the kingdome of heaven Where we shall be so far from being enemies to one another as that we shall not be strangers to one another And so far from envying one another as that all that every one hath shall be every others possession where all soules shall be so intirely knit together as if all were but one soule and God so intirely knit to every soule as if there were as many Gods as soules Be comforted then sayes Christ to them for This which is a House and not a Ship not subject to stormes by the way nor wrecks in the end My Fathers House not a strangers in whom I had no interest A House of Mansions a dwelling not a sojourning And of many Mansions not an Abridgement a Modell of a House not a Monastery of many Cells but an extension of many Houses into the City of the living God This house shall be yours though I depart from you Christ is nearer us when we behold him with the eyes of faith in Heaven then when we seeke him in a piece of bread or in a sacramentall box here Drive him not away from thee by wrangling and disputing how he is present with thee unnecessary doubts of his presence may induce fearfull assurances of his absence The best determination of the Reall presence is to be sure that thou be really present with him by an ascending faith Make sure thine own Reall presence and doubt not of his Thou art not the farther from him by his being gone thither before thee No nor though Peter be gone thither before thee neither which was the other point in which the Apostles needed consolation They were troubled that Christ would goe and none of them and troubled that Peter might goe and none but he What men soever God take into heaven before thee though thy Father that should give thee thy education though thy Pastor that should give thee thy instruction though these men may be such in the state and such in the Church as thou mayest thinke the Church and state cannot subsist without them Discourage not thy selfe neither admit a jealousie or suspition of the providence and good purpose of God for as God hath his panier full of Manna and of Quailes and can powre out to morrow though he have powred them out plentifully upon his friends before so God hath his Quiver full of arrows and can shoot as powerfully as heretofore upon his Enemies I forbid thee not S. Pauls wish Cupio dissolvi To desire to be dissolved therefore that thou mayest be with Christ I forbid thee not Davids sigh Hei mihi Woe is me that I must dwell so long with them that love not peace I onely enjoyne thee thy Saviours Veruntamen Yet not mine but thy will O Father be done That all thy wishes may have relation to his purposes and all thy prayers may be inanimated with that Lord manifest thy will unto me and conforme my will unto thine So shalt thou not be afrighted as though God aymed at thee when he shoots about the marke and thou seest a thousand fall at thy right hand and ten thousand at thy left Nor discouraged as though God had left out thee when thou seest him take others into garrison and leave thee in the field assume others to Triumph and leave thee in the Battell still For as Christ Jesus would have come down from heaven to have dyed for thee though there had been no soule to have been saved but thine So is he gone up to heaven to prepare a place for thee though all the soules in this world were to be saved as well as thine Trouble not thy selfe with dignity and priority and precedency in Heaven for Consolation and Devotion consist not in that and thou wilt be the lesse troubled with dignity and priority and precedency in this world for Rest and Quietnesse consist not in that SERM. LXXIV Preached at VVhite-hall the 30. Aprill 1620 PSAL. 144.15 Being the first Psalme for the day Blessed
baptized for the Dead As in the Old Testament there is no precept no precedent 2 Part no promise for prayer for the Dead So in the Old Testament they confesse there was no Purgatory no such place as could purifie a soule to that cleannesse as to deliver it up to Heaven For thither to Heaven no soule say they had accesse till after Christs ascension But as the first mention of prayer for the dead was in time of the Maccabees so much about the same time was the first stone of Purgatory laid and laid by the hands of Plato For Plato Tertul. Hareticorum Patriarchae Philosophi sayes Tertullian The Philosophers were the Patriarchs of Heretiques evermore they had recourse to them And then Plato being the Author of Purgatory we cannot deny but that the Greeke Church did acknowledge Purgatory that is that Greeke Church of which Plato is a Patriarch for for the Christian Greeke Church that never acknowledged Purgatory so as the Roman that is A place of torment from which our prayers here might deliver soules there But yet Platoes invention or his manner of expressing it Eusebius Anno 326. tooke such roote and such hold as that Eusebius when he comes to speake of Purgatory delivers it in the very words of Plato and makes Platoes words his words and Plato his Patriarch for the Greeke Church The Latin Church had Patriarchs too for this Doctrine though not Philosophers yet Poets for of that which Virgil sayes of Purgatory Virgil. Lactantius Anno 290. Lactantius sayes propemodum vera Virgil was very neere the truth Virgil was almost a Catholique but then later men say Haec prorsus vera This is absolutely true that Virgil sayes and Virgil is a perfect a downe-right Catholique for an upright Catholique in the point of Purgatory were hard to finde These then are the first Patriarchs of the Greek and Latin Church Philosophers and Poets And when it came farther to Christians it gained not much at first for the first mention of Purgatory amongst Christians hath this double ill lucke that first it is in a Booke which no side beleeves the Booke called Pastor whose Author is said to bee Hermes Hermes and he fancied to be S. Pauls Disciple And then that which is said of Purgatory in that Booke is put into an old womans mouth and so made an old wives tale she tels that she had a vision of stones fallen from a towre and then mended after they were fallen and laid in the building againe And this Towre must be the Church and these fallen stones must be soules in Purgatory and then they must be made fit to be placed in the uppermost part of the building in the Triumphant Church But to consider this plant in better grounds then Philosophers or Poets or old wives tales Clem. Alexan. or supposititious books amongst men of more waight and gravity Clement of Alexandria within little more then two hundred yeares after Christ spake doubtfully uncertainly suspiciously disputably of Purgatory And within twenty yeares after him Origen Origen who was evermore transported beyond the letter upon mysteries somewhat directly But yet when all is done Origens Purgatory is a purgatory that would do them no good for it would bring them in no money and they could be as well content that there were none as that it were nothing worth except they may have the letting and setting of Purgatory at their price they care not though it were pulled downe And Origens Purgatory is such a purgatory as the best men must come into it even Martyrs themselves that are re-baptized in their owne blood and will this purgatory serve their turnes And it is such a purgatory as the worst of all even the Devill himselfe may and shall get out of it And will this purgatory serve their turnes Neither is this an error peculiar to Origen That all soules must passe through Purgatory but common with others of the Fathers too Sive Paulus sive Petrus sayes Origen whether it be S. Paul or S. Peter Ambrose thither he must come And sive Petrus sive Iohannes sayes S. Ambrose whether it be the Disciple that loved Christ S. Peter or the Disciple whom Christ loved S. Iohn thither he must come And S. Hilary extends it farther he drawes in the blessed Virgin Mary her selfe into purgatory And that we may see cleerely that that Purgatory which the Fathers intended is not the Purgatory now erected in the Roman Church S. Ambrose consigns to his Purgatory even the Patriarchs and Prophets of the Old Testaments Igne filii Levi igne Ezekiel igne Daniel The holiest generation the Sons of Levi and the greatest of the Prophets must passe through this fire And will such a purgatory serve their turnes as was kindled in the Old Testament Well Interrogant nos They are very loath to be put to their speciall plea very loath to answer what Purgatory of the Fathers they will stand to They would not be put to answer They chuse rather to interrogate us and they ask us Since the Fathers are so pregnant so frequent in the name of Purgatory one Purgatory or other will you beleeve none None upon the strength of that argument that the Fathers mention Purgatory except they will assigne us a Purgatory in which those Fathers agree and agree it to be matter of faith to beleeve it for from how many things which passe through the Fathers by way of opinion and of discourse are they in the Romane Church departed onely upon that That the Fathers said it but said it not Dogmatically but by way of discourse or opinion But then they aske us againe Since it is cleare that they did use prayer for the dead what could they meane by those prayers but a Purgatory a place of torment where those soules needed helpe and from whence those prayers might helpe them What could they meane els Certainly we cannot tell them what they meant If they should aske them who made those prayers they could hardly tell them If a man should have surprized S. Ambrose at his prayers and stood behinde him and heard him say Non dubitamus Ambrose etiam Angelorum testimoniis credimus Lord I cannot doubt it for thou by thine Angels hast revealed it unto me Fide ablutum aeterna voluptate perfrui That my dead Master the Emperour was baptized in his faith and is now in possession of all the joyes of heaven and yet have heard S. Ambrose say sometimes to God sometimes to his dead Master Si quid preces if my prayers may prevaile with thee O God and then Oblationibus vos frequentabo I will waite upon you daily with my Oblations I will accompany you daily with my Sacrifices And for what Vt des Domine requiem That thou O Lord wouldest afford rest and peace and salvation to that soule And if this man after all this should have asked S. Ambrose What he meant to pray