a widow Nubat in Domino saith the Apostle In Gods name let her marry But the former husband must be dead The husbands absence makes not the wife a widow nor doth the necessary and lawfull absence of the Pastor make the Church vacant The sicknesse of the husband makes not a widow The bodily weaknesse nay the spirituall weaknes of the Pastor in case that his parts and abilities and faculties be grown but weak do not make his Church vacant If the Pastor be suspended or otherwise censured this is but as a separation or as a divorce and as the wife is not a widow upon a divorce so neither is the Church vacant upon such censures And therefore for them that take advantages upon the weaknesses or upon the disgrace or upon the povertie of any such incumbent and so insinuate themselves into his Church this is intrusion this is spirituall adultery for the husband is not dead though he be sick Nay if they would remove him by way of preferment yet that is a supplantation when Iacob had Esau by the heel whether he kept him in till he might be strong enough to goe out before him or whether he pushed him out before he would have gone Iacob was a supplanter Some few cases are put when a wife becomes as a widow her husband living but regularly it is by death In some few cases Churches may otherwise be vacant but regularly it is by death And then Esto vidua in Domâ— Patris saith Iudah to Thamar Remain a widow at thy fathers house Then the Church remaineth in the house in the hands of her Father the Bishop of that Diâ—ces till a new husband be lawfully tendred unto her And till that time as our Saviour Christ recommended his most blessed Mother to Saint Iohn but not as a wife so that Bishop delivers that Church to the care and administration of some other during her widowhood till by due course she become the wife of another Thus our calling is a mariage It should have honour It must have labour and it is a lawfull mariage upon a just and equitable vacancy of the place without any supplantation upon death And then it is upon death of a brother If brethren dwell together and one of them die and have no childe the wife c. Aswell Saint Gregory as Saint Augustine before interpret this of our elder our eldest brother Christ Iesus That hee being dead we mary his wife the Church and become husbands to her But Christ in that capacity as he is head of the Church cannot die That to which the application of this law leads us is That predecessor and successor bee brethren of the same faith and the same profession of faith The Sadduces put a case to Christ of a woman maried successively to seven men let seven signifie infinite still those seven were brethren How often soever any wife change her husband any Church her Pastor God sends us still a succession of brethren sincere and unfeigned Preachers of the same truth sonnes of the same father Who is that father God is our Father Have we not all one Father says the Prophet Yes we have and so a worme and we are brethren by the same father and mother the same God the same Earth Hath not the raine a father The raine hath and the same that wee have More narrowly and yet very largely Christ is our father One of his names is The everlasting Father And then after these after God after Christ the King is our father See my father the skirt of thy robe in my hand says David to his King Saul Now if any husband should be offered to any widow any Pastor to any vacant Church who were not our brother by all these fathers in a right beliefe in God the Father of all men in a right profession of Christ Iesus the Father of all Christians in a right affection and allegiance to the King the Father of all Subjects Any that should incline to a forain father an imaginary universall father he of whom his Vice-fathers his Junior fathers the Iesuites for all the Jesuits are Fathers says That the Fathers of the Church are but sons and not fathers to him They that say to a stock to the Image of the beast Thou art my father who not in a sense of humiliation as Iob speaks the words but of pride say to corruption Thou art my father that is that prostrate themselves to all the corruptions of a prostitute Church If any so inclined of himself or so inclinable if occasion should invite him or rather tempt him be offered for husband to any widow for a Pastor to any vacant Church he is not within the accommodation of this law hee is not our brother by the whole bloud who hath not a brotherhood rooted in the same religion and in the allegiance to the same Soveraign He must be a brother and Frater Cohabitans a brother dwelling with the former brother As he is a brother we consider the unity of faith As he dwels in the same house we consider the unity of discipline That as he beleeves and professes the same articles of faith so by his own obedience and by his instructing of others hee establish the same government A Schismatique is no more a brother to this purpose then an Heretique If we look well we shall see that Christ provided better for his garments then for his flesh he suffered his flesh to be torn but not his seamlesse garment There may bee in many cases more mischief in disobeying the uniformity of the discipline of the Church then in mistaking in opinion some doctrine of the Church Wee see in Gods institution of his first Church whom he called brethren Those who were instructed and cunning in the songs of the Church they are called brethren To oppose the orders of the Church solemnly ordained or customarily admitted for the advancement of Gods glory and the devotion of the Congregation forfeits this brotherhood or at least discontinues the purpose and use of it for howsoever they may bee in a kinde brothers if they succeed in the profession of the same faith yet wee see where the blessednesse is settled Blessed are they that dwell in thy house And we see where the goodnesse and the pleasantnesse is settled Behold how good and how pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity So that if they be not brothers in the same faith and brothers in the same houshold of the faithfull and brothers in the same allegiance If they advance not the truth of the Church and the peace of the Church and the head of the Church fomentors of Error and of Schisme and Sedition are not husbands for these widows Pastors for these Churches Hee must bee a brother A brother dwelling in the same house of Christ and then brother to one
those Canons enjoyn is a debt which they can call for but the Pastor himself hath another Court another Barre in himselfe by which hee tries himselfe and must condemne himselfe if hee pay not this debt performe not this duty as often as himself knowes himselfe to bee fit and able to doe it It is a duty and it is the duty of an husbands brother Now the husband hath power and authority over the wife The head of the woman is the Man and when the office of this spirituall husband is particularly expressed thus Reprove Rebuke Exhort you see for one word of familiarity that is Exhort there are two of authority Reprove and Rebuke But yet all the authority of the husband secular or ecclesiasticall temporall or spirituall husband is grounded rooted in love for the Apostle seemes to delight himself in the repeating of that Commandement to the Ephesians and to the Colossians Husbands love your wives Moses extends himselfe no farther in expressing all the happinesses that Isaak and Rebecca enjoyed in one another but this shee become his wife and he loved her If shee had not beene his wife Moses would never have proposed that love for an example for so it is also betweene Elkanah and his wife Hannah 1 Sam. 1. 5. Vnto Hannah he gave a double portion for sayes the Text hee loved Hannah If the Pastor love there will bee a double labour if the People love there will bee double respect But being so hee thought hee said all when he said they loved one another For where the Congregation loves the Pastor hee will forbeare bitter reproofes and wounding increpations and where the Pastor loves his Congregation his Rebukes because they proceed our of love will bee acceptable and well interpreted by them It is a duty and personall and perpetuall a duty of a husband and lastly of a husband that is brother to the former husband In which last circumstance we have time to mark but this one note that the reason of that law which drew the brother to this mariage was the preservation of the temporall inheritance in that family Even in our spirituall mariages to widow Churches we must have a care to preserve the temporall rights of all persons That the Parish be not oppressed with heavy extortions nor the Pastor defrauded with unjust substraction nor the Patron damnified by usurpations nor the Ordinary neglected by disobediences but that people and Pastor and Patron and Ordinary continuing in possession of their severall rights love being the root of all the fruit of all may be peace love being the soul of all the body of all may be unity which the Lord of unity and concord grant to us all for his Sonne Christ Jesus sake Amen SERMON XLVI The second Sermon Preached by the Author after he came to St. Dunstanes 25 Apr. 1624. PSAL. 34. 11. Come ye children Hearken unto me I will teach you the fear of the Lord. THE Text does not call children simply literally but such men and women as are willing to come in the simplicity of children such children as Christ spoke of Except ye become as little children ye shall not enter into the Kingdome of heaven Come ye children come such children Nor does the Text call such as come and would fain be gone again it is Come and Hearken not such as wish themselves away nor such as wish another man here but such as value Gods ordinance of Preaching though it be as the Apostle says but the foolishnesse of Preaching and such as consider the office and not the person how meane soever Come ye children And when ye are come Hearken And though it be but I Hearken unto me And I will teach you the feare of the Lord the most noble the most couragious the most magnanimous not affection but vertue in the world Come ye children Hearken unto me and I will teach you the feare of the Lord. To every Minister and Dispenser of the word of God and to every Congregation belong these words Divisio And therefore we will divide the Text between us To you one to us appertains the other part You must come and you must hearken we must teach and teach to edification There is the Meum Tuum your part and our part From each Part these branches flow out naturally In yours first the capacity as children Then the action you Come Then your Disposition here you hearken And lastly your submission to Gods Ordinance you hearken even unto me unto any Minister of his sending In our Part there is first a Teaching for else why should you come or hearken unto me or any It is a Teaching it is not onely a Praying And then there is a Catholique doctrine a circular doctrine that walks the round and goes the compasse of our whole lives from our first to our last childhood when age hath made us children again and it is the Art of Arts the root and fruit of all true wisdome The true feare of the Lord. Come ye children hearken unto mee and I will teach you the feare of the Lord. First then the word in which in the first branch of the first part your capacity is expressed filii pueri children is from the Originall which is Banim often accepted in three notions and so rendred Three ways men are called children out of that word Banâ—m in the Scriptures Either it is servi servants for they are filiâ— familiares as the Master is Pater familias Father of the family and that he is though there be no naturall children in the family the servants are children of the family and are very often in Scriptures called so Pueri children Or it is Alumni Nurse-children foster-children filii mâ—mmillares children of the breasts whether wee minister to them temporall or spirituall nourishment they are children Or else it is filii viscerales children of our bowels our naturall children And in all these three capacities as servants as sucking children as sons are you called upon in this appellation in this compellation children First as you are servants you are children for without distinction of age servants are called so frequently ordinarily in the Scriptures Pueri The Priest asks David before he would give him the holy bread An vasa puerorum sancta Whether those children speaking of Davids followers were clean from women Here were children that were able to get children Nay Davids Soldiers are often called so pueri children In the first of the Kings he takes a Muster recenset pueros Here were children that were able to kill men You are his children of what age soever as you are his servants and in that capacity he cals you You are unprofitable servants but it is not an unprofitable service to serve God He can get nothing by you but you can have nothing without him The Centurions servants came when he said Come and was their wages like yours Had
a fair latitude Between the opinion of the Manichean hereticks that thought women to be made by the Devil and your Colliridian hereticks that sacrificed to a women as to God there is a fair distance Between the denying of them souls which S. Ambrose is charged to have done and giving them such souls as that they may be Priests as your Pepution hereticks did is a faire way for a moderate man to walk in To make them Gods is ungodly and to make them Devils is devillish To make them Mistresses is unmanly and to make them servants is unnoble To make them as God made them wives is godly and manly too When in your Roman Church they dissolved mariage in naturall kindred in degrees where God forbids it not when they dissolve mariage upon spitituall kindred because my Grandfather Christned that womans Father when they dissolve mariage upon legall kindred because my Grandfather adopted that womans Father they separate those whom God hath joyned so as to give leave to joyn in lawfull mariage When men have made vows to abstain from mariage I would they would they would be content to try a little longer then they doe whether they could keep that vow or no And when men have consecrated themselves to the service of God in his Church I would they would be content to try a little farther then they doe whether they could abstain or no But to dissolve mariage made after such a Vow or after Orders is still to separate those whom God hath not separated The Persons are he and she man and woman they must be so much he must be a man she must be a woman And they must be no more not a brother and a sister not an unckle and aneece Adduxit od eum was the cause between Adam and Eve God brought them together God will not bring me a precontracted person he will not have me defraud another nor God will not bring me a mis-beleeving a superstitious person he will not have me drawn from himself But let them be persons that God hath made man and woman and persons that God hath brought together that is not put asounder by any Law of his and all such persons are capable of this first this secular mariage In which our second Consideration is the Action Sponsabe where the Active is a kinde of Passive I will mary thee is I will be maried unto thee for we mary not our selves They are somewhat hard driven in the Roman Church when making mariage a Sacrament and being prest by us with this question If it be a Sacrament who administers it who is the Priest They are fain to answer the Bridegroom and the Bride he and she are the Priest in that Sacrament As mariage is a civill Contract it must be done so in publick as that it may have the testimony of men As mariage is a religious Contract it must be so done as that it may have the benediction of the Priest In a mariage without testimony of men they cannot claim any benefit of the Law In a mariage without the benediction of the Priest they cannot claim any benefit of the Church for how Matrimonially foever such persons as have maried themselves may pretend to love and live together yet all that love and all that life is but a regulated Adultery it is not mariage Now this institution of mariage had three objects first In ustionem it was given for a remedy against burning And then In prolem for propagation for children And lastly In adjutorium for mutuall help As we consider it the first way In ustionem every heating is not a burning every naturall concupiscence does not require a mariage may every flaming is not a burning though a man continue under the flame of carnall tentation as long as S. Paul did yet it needs not come presently to a Sponsabo I will mary God gave S. Paul other Physick Gratia mea sufficit grace to stand under that tentation And S. Paul gave himself other Physick Contundo corpus convenient disciplines to tame his body These will keepa man from burning for Vriest desideriis vinci desideria pati illustris est perfecti To be overcome by our concupiscences that is to burn but to quench the fire by religious ways that is a noble that is a perfect work When God at the first institution of mariage had this first use of mariage in his contemplation that it should be a remedy against burning God gave man the remedy before he had the disease for mariage was instituted in the state of innocency when there was no inordinatenesse in the affections of man and so no burning But as God created Reubarb in the world whose quality is to purge choler before there was any choler to purge so God according to his abundant forwardnesse to doe us good created a remedy before the disease which he foresaw comming was come upon us Let him then that takes a wife in this first and lowest sense In medicinam but as his Physick yet make her his cordiall Physick take her to his heart and fill his heart with her let her dwell there and dwell there alone and so they will be mutuall Antidotes and Preservatives one to another against all forein tentations And with this blessing blesse thou ô Lord these whom thou hast brought hither for this blessing make all the days of their life like this day unto them and as thy mercies are new every morning make them so to one another And if they may not die together sustain thou the survivor of them in that sad hour with this comfort That he that died for them both will bring them together again in his everlastingnesse The second use of mariage was In prolificationem for children And therefore as S. August puts the case To contract before that they will have no children makes it no mariage but an adultery To deny themselves to another is as much against mariage as to give themselves to another To hinder it by Physick or any other practise nay to hinder it so far as by a deliberate wish or prayer against children consists not well with this second use of mariage And yet in this second use we dòe not so much consider generation as regeneration not so much procreation as education nor propagation as transportation of children For this world might be filled full enough of children though there were no mariage but heaven could not be filled nor the places of the fallen Angels supplied without that care of childrens religious education which from Parents in lawfull mariage they are likeliest to receive How infinite and how miserable a circle of sin doe we make if as we sinned in our Parents loins before we were born so we sin in our childrens actions when we are dead by having given them either example or liberty of sinning We have a fearfull commination from God upon a good man upon Eli