no husband such a superiority no father such a soverainty but that there lies a burden upon them too to consider with a compassionate sensiblenesse the grievances that oppresse the other part which is coupled to them For if the servant the wife the sonne be oppressed worne out annihilated there is no such thing left as a Master or a husband or a father They depend upon one another and therefore he that hath not care of his fellow destroys himselfe The wife is to submit herselfe and so is the husband too They have a burden both There is a greater subjection lies upon her then upon the Man in respect of her transgression towards her husband at first Eyen before there was any Man in the world to sollicite or tempt her chastity she could sinde another way to be salfe and treacherous to her husband both the husband and the wife offended against God but the husband offended not towards his wife but rather eate the Apple Ne contristaretur delicias suas as S. Hierome assignes the cause left by refusing to cate when she had done so he should deject her into a desperate sense of her sinne And for this fault of hers her Subjection was so much aggravated Thy desire shall be subject to thy husband and he shall rule over thee But if she had not committed that fault yet there would have been a mutuall subjection between them as there is even in Nature between both the other couples for if Man had continued in innocency yet it is most probably thought that as there would certainly have been Mariage and so children so also there would have been Magistracy and propriety and authority and so a mutuall submitting a mutuall assisting of one another in all these three relations Now that submitting of which the Apostle speakes of here is a submitting to one another a bearing of one anothers burthens what this submission is on the wives part is expressed in the two former verses And I forbeare that because husbands at home are likely enough to remember them of it but in the duty in the submitting of the husband we shall consider first what that submitting is and that is love Husbands love your wives Even the love of the husband to the wife is a burthen a submitting a descent and secondly the patterne and example of this love Even as Christ loved his Church In which second part as sometimes the accessory is greater then the principall the Symptome the accident is greater then the disease so that from which the comparison is drawn in this place is greater then that which is illustrated by it the love of Christ to his Church requires more consideration then the love of the husband to the wife and therefore it will become us to spend most of our thoughts upon that and to consider in that Quod factum and Quis sinis what Christ did for his Church and that was a bounty which could not be exceeded seipsum tradidit he gave he delivered himselfe for it And then secondly what he intended that should worke and that was first that he might make it to himselfe a glorious Church and without spot and wrinkle in the Triumphant state of the Church at last And then that whilst it continues in a Militant state upon Earth it might have preparations to that glory by being sanctified and cleansed by the washing of water through his Word he provides the Church meanes of sanctification here by his Word and Sacraments First then De Amoremaritali of this contracting a Mans love to the person of a wife of one woman as we find an often exclamation in the Prophets Onus visionis The burden of my prophecy upon Nineveh and Onus verbi Domini The burden of the word of God upon Israel so there is Onus amoris a burden of love when a Man is appointed whom he shall love When Onan was appointed by his father Iudah to goe in to his brothers widow and to doe the office of a kinsman to her he conceived such an unwillingnesse to doe so when he was bid as that he came to that detestable act for which God slew him And therefore the Panegyrique that raised his wit as high as he could to praise the Emperour Constantine and would expresse it in praising his continence and chastity he expressed it by saying that he waried young that as soon as his years endangered him formavit animum maritalem nihil de concessu atati voluptatibus admittens he was content to be a husband and accepted not that freedome of pleasure which his years might have excused He concludes it thus Novum jam tum miraculum Iuvenis â—xorius Behold a miracle such a young Man limiting his affections in a wife At first the heates and lusts of youth overflow all as the waters overflowed all at the beginning and when they did so the Earth was not onely barren there were no Creatures no herbs produced in that but even the waters themselves that did overflow all were barren too there were no fishes no fowls produced out of that as long as a Mans affections are scattered there is nothing but accursed barrennesse but when God says and is heard and obeyed in it Let the waters be gathered into one place let all thy affections be setled upon one wife then the earth and the waters became fruitfull then God gives us a type and figure of the eternity of the joyes of heaven in the succession and propagation of children here upon the earth It is true this contracting of our affections is a burden it is a submitting of our selves All States that made Lawes and proposed rewards for maried Men conceived it so that naturally they would be loth to doe it God maried his first couple as soone as he made them he dignified the state of Mariage by so many Allegories and figures to which he compares the uniting of Christ to his Church and the uniting of our soules to Christ and by directing the first Miracle of Christ to be done at a Mariage Many things must concurre to the dignifying of Mariage because in our corrupt nature the apprehension is generall that it is burdenous and a submitting and a descending thing to mary And therefore Saint Hierome argues truly out of these words Husbands love your Wifes Audiant Episcopi audiant presbyteri audiant doctores subjectis suis se esse subjectos let Bishops and Priests and Doctors learne in this that when they have maried themselves to a charge They are become subject to their Subjects For by being a husband I become subject to that sex which is naturally subject to Man though this subjection be no more in this place but to love that one woman Love then when it is limited by a law is a subjection but it is a subjection commanded by God Nihil majus à te subjecti animo factum est quam quod imper are coepistiâ— A Prince
in families are therein truly learned fathers of the Church A good father at home is a S â—ugustin and a S. Ambrose in himself and such a Thomas may have governed a 〈◊〉 as shall by way of example teach children and childrens children more to this purpose then any Thomas Aquinas can Since therefore these noble persons have so good a glasse to dresse themselves in the usefull as the powerfull example of Parents I shall the lesse need to apply my selfe to them for their particular instructions but may have leave to extend my selfe upon considerations more general and such as may be applyable to all who have or shall embrace that honourable state or shall any way assist at the solemnizing thereof that they may all make this union of Mariage a Type or a remembrancer of their union with God in Heaven That as our Genesis is our Exodus our proceeding into the world is a step out of the world so every Gospell may be a Revelation unto us All good tydings which is the name of Gospel all that ministers any joy to us here may reveal and manifest to us an Interest in the joy and glory of heaven and that our admission to a Mariage here may be our invitation to the Mariage Supper of the Lamb there where in the Resurrection we shall neither mary nor be given in mariage but shall be as the Angels of God in heaven These words our blessed Saviour spake to the Sadduces who not believing the Resurrection of the Dead put him a Case that one woman hath had seven husbands and then whose wife of those seven should she be in the Resurrection they would needs suppose and prefume that there could be no Resurrection of the body but that there must be to all purposes a Bodily use of the Body too and then the question had been pertinent whose wife of the seven shall she be But Christ shews them their errour in the weaknesse of the foundation she shall be none of their wives for In the Resurrection they neither mary c. The words give us this latitude when Christ sayes In the Resurrection they mary not c. The words give us this latitude when Christ sayes In the Resurrection they mary not c. from thence flowes out this concession this proposition too Till the Resurrection they shall mary and be given in mariage no inhibition to be laid upon persons no imputation no aspersion upon the state of mariage And when Christ saies Then they are as the Angels of God in heaven from this flowes this concession this proposition also Till then we must not look for this Angelicall state but as in all other states and conditions of life so in all mariages there will be some encumbrances betwixt all maried persons there will arise some unkindnesses some mis-interpretations or some too quick interpretations may sometimes sprinkle a little sournesse and spread a little a thin a dilute and washy cloud upon them Then they mary not till then they may then their state shall be perfect as the Angels till then it shall not These are our branches and the fruits that grow upon them we shall pull in passing and present them as we gather them First then Christ establishes a Resurrection A Resurrection there shall be for that makes up Gods circle The Body of Man was the first point that the foot of Gods Compasse was upon First he created the body of Adam and then he carries his Compasse round and shuts up where he began he ends with the Body of man againe in the glorification thereof in the Resurrection God is Alpha and Omega first and last And his Alpha and Omega his first and last work is the Body of man too Of the Immortality of the soule there is not an expresse article of the Creed for that last article of The life everlasting is rather de proemio poena what the soule shall suffer or what the soule shall enjoy being presumed to be Immortall then that it is said to be Immortall in that article That article may and does presuppose an Immortality but it does not constitute an Immortality in our soule for there would be a life everlasting in heaven and we were bound to beleeve it as we were bound to beleeve a God in heaven though our soules were not immortall There are so many evidences of the immortality of the soule even to a naturall mans reason that it required not an Article of the Creed to fix this notion of the Immortality of the soule But the Resurrection of the Body is discernible by no other light but that of Faith nor could be fixed by any lesse assurance then an Article of the Creed Where be all the splinters of that Bone which a shot hath shivered and scattered in the Ayre Where be all the Atoms of that flesh which a Corrasive hath eat away or a Consumption hath breath'd and exhal'd away from our arms and other Limbs In what wrinkle in what furrow in what bowel of the earth ly all the graines of the ashes of a body burnt a thousand years since In what corner in what ventricle of the sea lies all the jelly of a Body drowned in the generall flood What cohaerence what sympathy what dependence maintaines any relation any correspondence between that arm that was lost in Europe and that legge that was lost in Afrique or Asia scores of yeers between One humour of our dead body produces worms and those worms suck and exhaust all other humour and then all dies and all dries and molders into dust and that dust is blowen into the River that puddled water tumbled into the sea and that ebs and flows in infinite revolutions and still still God knows in what Cabinet every seed-Pearle lies in what part of the world every graine of every mans dust lies and sibilat populum suum as his Prophet speaks in another case he whispers he hisses he beckens for the 〈◊〉 of his Saints and in the twinckling of an eye that body that was fcattered over all the elements is sate down at the right hand of God in a glorious resurrection A Dâ—opsie hath extended me to an enormous corpulency and unwieldinesse a Consumption hath attenuated me to a feeble macilency and leannesse and God raises me a body such as it should have been if these infirmities had not interven'd and deformed it David could goe no further in his book of Psalms but to that Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord ye saies he ye that have breath praise ye the Lord and that ends the book But that my Dead body should come to praise the Lord this is that New Song which I shall learne and sing in heaven when not onely my soule shall magnify the Lord and my Spirit rejoyce in God my Saviour but I shall have mine old eies and eares and tongue and knees and receive such glory in my body
we draw a corrupt Nature from our parents and we have lamed the other foot by crooked and perverse customes Now as God provided a liquor in his Church for Originall sinne the water of Baptisme so hath he provided another for those actuall sinnes that is the bloud of his owne body in the other Sacrament In which Sacrament besides the naturall union that Christ hath taken our Nature and the Mysticall union that Christ hath taken us into the body of his Church by a spirituall union when we apply faithfully his Merits to our soules and by a Sacramentall union when we receive the visible seales thereof worthily we are so washed in his bloud as that we stand in the sight of his Father as cleane and innocent as himselfe both because he and we are thereby become one body and because the garment of his righteousnesse covers us all But for a preparation of this washing in the bloud of Christ in that Sacrament Christ commended to his Apostles and in them to all the world by his practise and by his precept too ablutionem pedam a washing of their feet before they came to that Sacrament he washed their feet And in that exemplary action of his his washing of their feet he powred water into a Bason says the text Aqua spiritus sanctus pelvis Ecclesia These preparatory waters are the gift of the holy Ghost the working of his grace in repentance but pelvis Ecclesia the bason is the Church that is these graces are distributed and dispensed to us in his institution and ordinance in the Church No Man can wash himselfe at first by Baptisme no Man can baptize himselfe no Man can wash in the second liquor no Man that is but a Man can administer the other Sacrament to himselfe Pelvis ecclesia the Church is the bason and Gods Minister in the Church washes in both these cases And in this ablutione pedum in the preparatory washing of our feet by a survey of all our sinfull actions and repentance of them no Man can absolve himselfe but pelvis ecclesia the bason of this water of absolution is in the Church and in the Minister thereof First then this washing of the feet which prepares us for the great washing in the bloud of Christ requires a stripping of them a laying of them naked covering of the feet in the Scriptures is a phrase that denotes a foule and an uncleane action Saul was said to cover his feet in the Cave and Eglon was said to cover his feet in his Parler and we know the uncleane action that is intended here but for this cleane action for washing our feet we must discover all our sinfull steps in a free and open confession to almighty God This may be that which Solomon calls sound wisdome My sonne keep sound wisdome and discretion There is not a more silly folly then to thinke to hide any sinfull action from God Nor sounder wisdome then to discover them to him by an humble and penitent confession This is sound wisdome and then discretion is to wash and discerne and debate and examine all our future actions and all the circumstances that by this spirit of discretion we may see where the sting and venome of every particular action lies My sonne keep sound wisdome and discretion says he And then shalt thou walke in thy way safely and thy foot shall not stumble If thy discretion be not strong enough if thou canst not always discerne what is and what is not sinne he shall give his Angells charge over thee that thou dash not thy foot against a stone and that 's good security and if all these faile though thou doe fall thou shalt not be utterly cast downe for the Lord shall uphold thee with his hand says David God shall give that Man that loves this found wisdome humble confession of sinnes past this spirituall discretion the spirit of discerning spirits that is power to discerne a tentation and to overcome it confesse that which is past with true sorrow that is sound wisdome and God shall enlighten thee for the future and that 's holy discretion The washing of our feet then being a cleane and pure and sincere examination of all our actions we are to wash all the instruments of our actions in repentance Lavanda facies we are to wash our face as Ioseph did after he had wept before he looked upon his brethren againe If we have murmured and mourned for any crosse that God hath laid upon us we must returne to a cheerfull countenance towards him in embracing whatsoever he found best for us we must wash our Intestina our bowels as it is after commanded in the law when our bowels which should melt at the relation and contemplation and application of the passion of our Saviour doe melt at the apprehension or expectation or fruition of any sinfull delight Lavanda intestina we must wash those bowells Lavanda vestimenta we must wash our clothes when we apparell and palliate our sinnes with excuses of our owne infirmity or of the example of greater Men these clothes must be washed these excuses Lavanda currus arma as Ahabs chariot and armour were washed If the power of our birth or of our place or of our favour have armed us against the power of the law or against the clamour of Men justly incensed Lavandi currus these chariots and armes this greatnesse must be washed Lavanda retia what Nets soever we have fished with by what meanes soever we raise or sustaine our fortune Lavanda retia These nets must be washed Saint Bernard hath drawn a great deale of this heavenly water together for the washing of all when he presents as he cals it Martyrium sine sanguine triplex a threefold Martyrdome all without bloud and that is Largitas in paupertate a bountifull disposition even in a low fortune parcitas in ubertate a frugall disposition in a full fortune and Castitas in Iuventute a pure and chaste disposition in the years and places of tentation These are Martyrdomes without bloud but not without the water that washes our feet This is sound wisdome and discretion to strip and lay open our feet our sinfull actions by Confession To cover them and wrap them up by precaution from new uncleannesse and then to tye and bind up all safe by participation of the bloud of Christ Jesus in the Sacrament for that 's the seale of all And Christ in the washing of his disciples feet tooke a towell to dry them as well as water to wash them so when he hath brought us to this washing of our feet to a serious consideration of our actions and to repentant teares for them Absterget omnem lachrymam he will wipe all teares from our eyes all teares of confusion towards Men or of diffidence towards him Absterget omnem lachrymam and deliver us over to a setled peace of
is in the midst he is in the midst of the throne though al his great glorious company be round about him one hundred and forty foure thousand Israelites innumerable multitudes of all Nations Angels and Elders yet it is the Lambe that is in the midst of them and not they that are about him that sheds down these blessings upon us And it is the Lambe that is there still in the midst of the throne not kneaded into an Agnus Dei of wax or wafer here not called down from heaven to an Altar by every Priests charme to be a witnesse of secrecy in the Sacrament for every bloudy and feditious enterprise that they undertake It is Agnus qui est in medio Throni the Lambe that is there and shall be so till he come at last as a Lion also to devoure them who have made false opinions of him to serve their mischievous purposes here This is the person then that gives the assurance that all these blessings belong to them who are ordained to be so sealed and so washed this is he that assures us and approves to us that all this shall be first Quia reget because he shall govern them secondly Quia deducet because he shall lead them to the fountaines of waters thirdly Quia absterget because he shall wipe all teares from their eyes First he shall govern them he shall establish a spiritual Kingdome for them in this world for to govern which is the word of the first translation and to feed which is in the second is all one in Scriptures Dominabitur gentium he shall be Lord of the Gentiles but Rex Israelis he shall governe his people Israel as a King by a certain and a cleare law So that as we shal have interest in the Covenant as well as the Israclites so we shal have interest in that glorious acclamation of theirs Unto what nation are their Gods come so neare unto them as the Lord our God is come near unto us what nation hath Laws and ordinances so righteous as we have for in that Paul Barnabas express the heaviest indignation of God upon the Gentiles that God suffered the Gentiles to walke in their own ways he shewed them not his ways he setled no church no kingdome amongst them he did not govern them Except one of those Eight persons whom God preserved in the Arke were here to tell us the unexpressible comfort that he conceived in his safety when he saw that flood wash away Princes from their thrones misers from their bagges lovers from their embracements Courtiers from their wardrobes no man is able to expresse that true comfort which a Christian is to take even in this That God hath taken him into his Church and not left him in that desperate and irremediable inundation of Idolatry and paganisace that overflowes all the world beside For beloved who can expresse who can conceive that strange confusion which shall overtake and oppresse those infinite multitudes of Soules which shall be changed at the last day and shall meet Christ Jesus in the clouds and shall receive an irrevocable judgment of everlasting condemnation dut of his mouth whose name they never heard of before that must be condemned by a Judge of whom they knew nothing before and who never had before any apprehension of torments of Hell till by that lamentable experience they began to learn it What blessed meanes of preparation against that fearfull day doth he afford us even in this that he governes us by his law delivered in his Church The first thing that the housholder in the parable is noted to have done for his Vineyard was Sepe circumdedit he hedged it in That God hath done for us in making us his Church he hath inlaid us he hath hedged us in But he that breaketh the hedge a Serpent shall bite him he that breaketh this hedge the peace of the Church by his Schisme the old Serpent hath bitten and poysoned him and shall bite worse hereafter and if God having thus severed us and hedged us in have expected grapes and we bring none though we breake no hedge here amongst our selves that is no Papist breaks in upon us no Separatist breakes out from us we enjoy security enough yet even for our own barrennes Godwill take away the hedge and it shall be eaten up he will breake the wall and it shall be troden down Surely says the Prohet there The Vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel and the Men of Indah are his pleasant plans Surely we are the Church which God hath hedged in but yet if we answer not his expectation certainly the confusion of the Gentiles at the last day when they shal say to themselves of Christ Nescivi te dost thou condemne us and we know thee not shall not be so great as out confusion shall be when we shall hear Christ say to us whom he bred in his Church Nesiciovos I know not whence you are Even this that the ill use of this mercy of having been bred in his Church shall aggravate our condemnation then shewes the great benefit which we may receive now by this Quod regit nos that he takes care of us in his Church for how many in the world would have lived ten times more christianly then we do if they had but halfe that knowledge of Christ which we have When he hath then brought us into his kingdome that we are his subjects for all the heathen are in the condition of slaves he brings us nearer into his service he gives us outward distinctions liveries badges names visible markes in Baptisme yea he incorporates us more inseparably to himself then that which they imagine to be done in the Church of Rome where their Canonists say that a Cardinall is to incorporated in the Pope he is so made one flesh and bloud with him as that he may not let bloud without his leave because he bleeds not his own but the Popes bloud But of us it is true that by this Sacramēs we are so incorporated into Christ that in all our afflictions after we fulfill the sufferings of Christ in our flesh and in all afflictions which we lay upon any of our Christian brethren our consciences hear Christ crying to us Quid me persequerts why persecutest thou me Christs body is wounded in us when we suffer Christs body is wounded by us when we violate the peace of the Church or offend the particular members thereof First then deducet he shall lead them it is not he shall force them he shall thrust them he shall compell them it implies a gentle and yet an effectuall way he shall lead them Those which come to Christianity from Iudaisme or Gentisme when they are of years of discreation he shall lead them by instruction by Catechisme by preaching of his word before they be baptized for they that are of years are baptized without the
word that is without understanding or considering the institution vertue of baptisime expressed in Gods word and so receive baptisme onely for temporall and naturall respects they are not led to the waters but they fall into them and so as a Man may be drowned in a wholsome bath so such a Man may perish eternally in baptisme if he take it for satisfaction of the State or any other by respect to which that Sacrament is not ordained in the word of God He shall lead Men of years by Instruction and he shall lead young children in good company and with a strong guard he shall lead them by the faith of his Church by the faith of their Parents by the faith of their sureties and undertakers He shall lead them and then when he hath taken them into his government for first it is Reget he shall govern them and then Deducet that is he shall lead them in his Church and therefore they that are led to baptisme any other way then by the Church they are misled nay they are miscarried misdriven Spiritu vertiginis with the spirit of giddinesse They that joyne any in commission with the Trinity though but as an asstsant for so they say in the Church of Rome baptisme may be administred in the name of the Father Sonne and holy Ghost and the virgin Mary they follow not as Christ led in his Church Non fuit sic ab initio it was not so from the beginning for quod extra hos tres est totum Conservum est though much dignity belong to the memory of the Saints of God yet whosoever is none of the three Persons Conservus est he is our fellow-servant though his service lie above staires and ours below his in the triumphant ours in the militant Church Conservus est yet he or she is in that respect but our fellow-servant and not Christs fellow-redeemer So also if we be led to Marah to the waters of bitternesse that we bring a bitter taste of those institutions of the Church for the decency and signification in Sacramentall things things belonging to Baptisme if we bring a misinterpretation of them an indisposition to them an aversnesse from them and so nourish a bitternes and uncharitablenesse towards one another for these Ceremonies if we had rather crosse one another and crosse the Church then crosse the child as God shewed Moses a tree which made those waters in the wildernesse sweet when it was cast in so remember that there is the tree of life the crosse of Christ Iesus and his Merits in this water of baptisme when we all agree in that that all the vertue proceeds from the crosse of Christ the God of unity and peace and concord let us admit any representation of Christs crosse rather then admit the true crosse of the devill which is a bitter and schismaticall crossing of Christ in his Church for it is there in his Church that he leads us to these waters Well then they to whom these waters belong have Christ in his Church to lead them and therefore they need not stay till they can come alone till they be of age and years of discretion as the Anabaptists say for it is Deducet and Deducet cos generally universally all that are of this government all that are appointed for the Seal all the one hundred and forty foure thousand all the Innumerable multitudes of all Nations Christ leads them all Be Baptized every one of you in the name of Iesus Christ for the remission of sinnes for the promise is made unto you and your children Now all promises of God are sealed in the holy Ghost To whom soever any promise of God belongs he hath the holy Ghost and therefore Nunquid aquam quis prohibere potest Can any Man forbid water that these should not be baptized which havereceived the holy Ghost as well as we says S. Peter And therfore the Children of the Covenant which have the promise have the holy Ghost all they are in this Regiment Deducet cos Christ shall lead them all But whither unto the lively says our first edition unto the living says our last edition fountaines of waters In the originall unto the fountaines of the water of life now in the Scriptures nothing is more ordianry then by the name of waters to designe and meane tribulations so amongst many other God says of the City of Tyre that he would make it a desolate City and bring the deep upon it and great waters should cover it But then there is some such addition as leads to that sense either they are called Aqua multae great waters or Profunda aquarum deep waters or Absorbebit aqua whirlepooles of waters or Tempestas aquae tempestuous waters or Aqua Fellis bitter water God bath mingled gall in our water but we shall never read fontes aquarum fountaines of waters but it hath a gratious sense and presents Gods benefits So they have forsaken me the fountaine of living waters So the water that I shall give shall be in him a well of water springing up unto everlasting life and so every where else when we are brought to the fountaines to this water in the fountaine in the institution howsover we puddle it with impertinent questions in disputation however we soule it with our finnes and all conversation the fountaine is pure Baptisme presents and offers grace and remission of sinnes to all Nay not onely this fountaine of water but the greatest water of all the flood it selfe Saint Basil understands and applies to Baptisme as the Apostle himselfe does Baptisme was a figure of the flood and the Arke for upon that place The Lord sitseth upon the flood and the Lord doth remaine King for ever he says Baptismi gratiam Diluvium nominat nam deles purgat David calls Baptisme the flood because it destroyes all that was sinfull in us and so also he referrs to Baptisme those words when David had confessed his sinnes I thought I would confesse against my selfe my wickednesse unto the Lord and when it is added Surely in the flood of great waters they shall not come near him peccato non appropinquabunt says he originall sinne shall not come neare him that is truly baptized nay all the actuall sinnes in his future life shall be drowned in this baptisme as often as he doth religiously and repentantly consider that in Baptisme when the merit of Christ was communicated to him he received an Antidote against all poyson against all sinne if he applied them together sinne and the merit of Christ for so also he says of that place God will subdue all our iniquities and cast our sinnes into the bottome of the Sea Hoc est in mare Baptismi says Basil into the Sea of Baptisme There was a Brasen Sea in the Temple and there is a golden Sea in the Church of