This is my beloved Son this day have I begotten him And with such Copies it seemes both Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus met for they reade these words so and interpret them accordingly But these words are misplaced and mis-transferred out of the second Psalme where they are And as they change the words and in stead of In quo complacui In whom I am well pleased reade This day have I begotten thee S. Cyprian addes other words to the end of these which are Hunc audite Heare him Which words when these words were repeated at the Transfiguration were spoken but here at the Baptisme they were not what Copy soever misled S. Cyprian or whether it were the failing of his own memory But S. Chrysostome gives an expresse reason why those words were spoken at the Transfiguration and not here Because saies he Here was onely a purpose of a Manifestation of the Trinity so farre as to declare their persons who they were and no more At the Trans-figuration where Moses and Elias appeared with Christ there God had a purpose to preferre the Gospel above the Law and the Prophets and therefore in that place he addes that Hunc audite Heare him who first fulfills all the Law and the Prophets and then preaches the Gospel He was so well pleased in him as that he was content to give all them that received him Eph. 1.6 power to become the Sons of God too as the Apostle sayes By his grace he hath made us accepted in his beloved Beloved That you may be so Come up from your Baptisme as it is said that Christ did Rise and ascend to that growth which your Baptisme prepared you to And the heavens shall open as then even Cataractae coeli All the windowes of heaven shall open and raine downe blessings of all kindes in abundance And the Holy Ghost shall descend upon you as a Dove in his peacefull comming in your simple and sincere receiving him And he shall rest upon you to effect and accomplish his purposes in you If he rebuke you as Christ when he promises the Holy Ghost though he call him a Comforter John 16.7 sayes That he shall rebuke the world of divers things yet he shall dwell upon you as a Dove Quae si mordet osculando mordet sayes S. Augustine If the Dove bite it bites with kissing if the Holy Ghost rebuke he rebukes with comforting And so baptized and so pursuing the contract of your Baptisme and so crowned with the residence of his blessed Spirit in your holy conversation hee shall breathe a soule into your soule by that voyce of eternall life You are my beloved Sonnes in whom I am well pleased SERM. XLIV Preached at S. Dunstanes upon Trinity-Sunday 1627. REV. 4.8 And the foure Beasts had each of them sixe wings about him and they were full of eyes within And they rest not day and night saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come THese words are part of that Scripture which our Church hath appointed to be read for the Epistle of this day This day which besides that it is the Lords day the Sabbath day is also especially consecrated to the memory and honour of the whole Trinity The Feast of the Nativity of Christ Christmas day which S. Chrysostome calls Metropolin omnium festorum The Metropolitane festivall of the Church is intended principally to the honour of the Father who was glorified in that humiliation of that Son that day because in that was laid the foundation and first stone of that house and Kingdome in which God intended to glorifie himselfe in this world that is the Christian Church The Feast of Easter is intended principally to the honour of the Son himselfe who upon that day began to lift up his head above all those waters which had surrounded him and to shake off the chaines of death and the grave and hell in a glorious Reserrection And then the Feast of Pentecost was appropriated to the honour of the Holy Ghost who by a personall falling upon the Apostles that day inabled them to propagate this Glory of the Father and this death and Resurrection of the Son to the ends of the world to the ends in Extention to all places to the ends in Duration to all times Now as S. Augustine sayes Nullus eorum extra quemlibet eorum est Every Person of the Trinity is so in every other person as that you cannot think of a Father as a Father but that there falls a Son into the same thought nor think of a person that proceeds from others but that they from whom he whom ye think of proceeds falls into the same thought as every person is in every person And as these three persons are contracted in their essence into one God-head so the Church hath also contracted the honour belonging to them in this kinde of Worship to one day in which the Father and Son and Holy Ghost as they are severally in those three severall dayes might bee celebrated joyntly and altogether It was long before the Church did institute a particular Festivall to this purpose For before they made account that that verse which was upon so many occasions repeated in the Liturgy and Church Service Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost had a convenient sufficiency in it to keep men in a continuall remembrance of the Trinity But when by that extreame inundation and increase of Arians these notions of distinct Persons in the Trinity came to be obliterated and discontinued the Church began to refresh her selfe in admitting into to the formes of Common Prayer some more particular notifications and remembrances of the Trnity And at last though it were very long first for this Festivall of this Trinity-Sunday was not instituted above foure hundred yeares since they came to ordaine this day Which day our Church according to that peacefull wisedome wherewithall the God of Peace of Unity and Concord had inspired her did in the Reformation retaine and continue out of her generall religious tendernesse and holy loathnesse to innovate any thing in those matters which might bee safely and without superstition continued and entertained For our Church in the Reformation proposed not that for her end how shee might goe from Rome but how she might come to the Truth nor to cast away all such things as Rome had depraved but to purge away those depravations and conserve the things themselves so restored to their first good use For this day then were these words appointed by our Church Divisic And therefore we are sure that in the notion and apprehension and construction of our Church these words appertaine to the Trinity In them therefore we shall consider first what these foure creatures were which are notified and designed to us in the names and figures of foure Beasts And then what these foure creatures did Their Persons and their Action will be our two
in the performance of this duty intimated here and required of all Gods Saints Vt dicant That they speak utter declare publish the glory of God For this is that Ingenuity that Alacrity which constitutes our first Branch And then the second is the Assiduity the constancy the incessantnesse They rest not day nor night But have the Saints of God no Vacation Assiduitas doe they never cease nay as the word imports Requiem non habent They have no Rest Beloved God himselfe rested not till the seventh day be thou content to stay for thy Sabbath till thou maist have an eternall one If we understand this of rest meerly of bodily rest the Saints of God are least likely to have it in this life For this life is to them especially above others a businesse and a perplext businesse a warfare and a bloody warfare a voyage and a tempestuous voyage If we understand this rest to be Cessation Intermission the Saints in heaven have none of that in this service It is a labour that never wearies to serve God there As the Sun is no wearier now then when he first set out six thousand yeares since As that Angel which God hath given to protect thee is not weary of his office for all thy perversenesses so howsoever God deale with thee be not thou weary of bearing thy part in his Quire here in the Militant Church God will have low voyces as well as high God will be glorified De profundis as well as In excelsis God will have his tribute of praise out of our adversity as well as out of our prosperity And that is it which is intimated and especially intended in the phrase which followes Day and night For it is not onely that those Saints of God who have their Heaven upon earth doe praise him in the night according to that of S. Ierome Sanctis ipse somnus oratio and that of S. Basil Etiam somnia Sanctorum preces sunt That holy men doe praise God and pray to God in their sleep and in their dreames nor only that which David speaks of of rising in the night and fixing stationary houres for prayer But even in the depth of any spirituall night in the shadow of death in the midnight of afflictions and tribulations God brings light out of darknesse and gives his Saints occasion of glorifying him not only in the dark though it be dark but from the dark because it is dark This is a way unconceiveable by any unexpressible to any but those that have felt that manner of Gods proceeding in themselves That be the night what night it will be the oppression of what Extention or of what Duration it can all this retards not their zeal to Gods service Nay they see God better in the dark then they did in the light Their tribulation hath brought them to a nearer distance to God and God to a clearer manifestation to them And so to their Ingenuity that they professe God and their Religion openly is added an Assiduity that they do it incessantly And then also an Integrity a Totality that they doe not depart with nor modifie in any Article of their Religion which is intirely and totally enwrapt in this acclamation of the Trinity which is our third and last Branch in this last Part Holy holy holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come For the Trinity it self Trinitas it is Lux but Lux inaccessibilis It is light for a child at Baptisme professes to see it but then it is so inaccessible a light as that if we will make naturall reason our Medium Psal 18.11 to discerne it by it will fall within that of David Posuit tenebras latibulum suum God hath made darknesse his secret places God as God will be seen in the creature There in the creature he is light light accessible to our reason but God in the Trinity is open to no other light then the light of faith To make representations of men or of other creatures we finde two wayes Statuaries have one way and Painters have another Statuaries doe it by Substraction They take away they pare off some parts of that stone or that timber which they work upon and then that which they leave becomes like that man whom they would represent Painters doe it by Addition Whereas the cloth or table presented nothing before they adde colours and lights and shadowes and so there arises a representation Sometimes we represent God by Substraction by Negation by saying God is that which is not mortall not passible not moveable Sometimes we present him by Addition by adding our bodily lineaments to him and saying that God hath hands and feet and eares and eyes and adding our affections and passions to him and saying that God is glad or sorry angry or reconciled as we are Some such things may be done towards the representing of God as God But towards the expressing of the distinction of the Persons in the Trinity nothing Then when Abraham went up to the great sacrifice of his son he left his servants Gen. 22.5 and his Asse below Though our naturall reason and humane Arts serve to carry us to the hill to the entrance of the mysteries of Religion yet to possesse us of the hill it selfe and to come to such a knowledge of the mysteries of Religion as must save us we must leave our naturall reason and humane Arts at the bottome of the hill and climb up only by the light and strength of faith Dimitte me quia lucescit Gen. 32.26 sayes that Angel that wrastled with Iacob Let me go for it growes light If thou think to see me by day-light sayes that Angel thou wilt be deceived If we think to see this mystery of the Trinity by the light of reason Dimittemus we shall lose that hold which we had before our naturall faculties our reason will be perplext and infeebled and our supernaturall our faith not strengthened that way Those testimonies and proofes of the Trinity which are in the old Testament are many and powerfull in their direct line But they are truly for the most part of that nature as that they are rather Illustrations and Confirmations to him that believed the Trinity before then Arguments of themselves able to convince him that hath no such Preconception We that have been catechized and brought up in the knowledge of the Trinity finde much strength and much comfort in that we finde in the first line of the Bible that Bara Elohim Creavit Dii Gods created heaven and earth In this that there is the name of God in the plurall joyned to a Verb of the singular number we apprehend an intimation of divers persons in one God We that believe the Trinity before finde this in that phrase and form of speech The Jews which believe not the Trinity find no such thing So when we finde that plurall phrase Faciamus hominem That God
remembred of Death Why are these men thus baptized for the Dead And then here is Sanctum Sanctorum The innermost part of the Church The Holy of Holyes that is the manifestation of all the mysterious salvation belonging to soule and body in the Resurrection Why are these men thus baptized for the dead if there be no Resurrection Our first dayes worke in handling these words was to accept and then to apply that in which all agreed that these words were an argument for the Resurrection And we did both those offices we did accept it and so shew you how the assurance of the Resurrection accrues to us and what is the office of Reason and what is the office of Faith in that affayre And then we did apply it and so shew you divers resemblances and conformities between naturall Death and spirituall Death and between the Resurrection of the body to glory at last and the Resurrection of the soule by grace in the way and wherein they induced and assisted and illustrated one another And those two miles made up that Sabbath dayes journey When we shall returne to the handling of them the next day which will be the last we shall consider how these words have been misapplyed by our Adversaries of the Romane Church and then the severall Expositions which they have received from sound and Orthodoxall men that thence we may draw a conclusion and determination for our selves And in those two miles wee shall also make up that Sabbath Dayes journey when God shall be pleased to bring us to it This dayes Exercise shall be to consider that very point for the establishment whereof they have so detorted and mis-applyed these words which is their Purgatory That this Baptisme for the Dead must necessarily prove Purgatory and their Purgatory So then this Dayes Exercise will bee meerely Polemicall the handling of a Controversie which though it be not alwayes pertinent yet neither is it alwayes unseasonable There was a time but lately when he who was in his desire and intension the Peace-maker of all the Christian world as he had a desire to have slumbred all Field-drums so had he also to have slumbred all Pulpit-drums so far as to passe over all impertinent handling of Controversies meerly and professedly as Controversies though never by way of positive maintenance of Orthodoxall and fundamentall Truths That so there might be no slackning in the defence of the truth of our Religion and yet there might bee a discreet and temperate forbearing of personall and especially of Nationall exasperations And as this way had piety and peace in the worke it selfe so was it then occasionally exalted by a great necessity He who was then our hope and is now the breath of our nostrils and the Anointed of the Lord being then taken in their pits and in that great respect such exasperations the fitter to be forborne especially since that course might well bee held without any prevarication or cooling the zeale of the positive maintenance of the religion of our Church But things standing now in another state and all peace both Ecclesiasticall and Civill with these men being by themselves removed and taken away and hee whom we feared returned in all kinde of safety safe in body and safe in soule too whom though their Church could not their Court hath chatechised in their religion that is brought him to a cleere understanding of their Ambition for Ambition is their Religion and S. Peters Ship must saile in their Fleets and with their winds or it must sink and the Catholique and Militant Church must march in their Armies though those Armies march against Rome it selfe as heretofore they have done to the sacking of that Towne to the holding of the Pope himselfe in so sordid a prison for sixe moneths as that some of his nearest servants about him died of the plague to the treading under foot Priests and Bishops and Cardinals to the dishonouring of Matrons and the ravishing of professed Virgins and committing such insolencies Catholiques upon Catholiques as they would call us Heretiques for beleeving them but that they are their owne Catholique Authors that have written them Things being now I say in this state with these men since wee heare that Drums beat in every field abroad it becomes us also to returne to the brasing and beating of our Drums in the Pulpit too that so as Adam did not onely dresse Paradise but keepe Paradise and as the children of God did not onely build but build with one hand and fight with another so wee also may employ some of our Meditations upon supplanting and subverting of error as well as upon the planting and watering of the Truth To which purpose I shall prepare this day for the vindicating and redeeming of these words from the Adversary which will bee the worke of the next day by handling to day that point for which they have misapplied them which is Purgatory and the mother and the off-spring of that for what can that generation of vipers suck from this Text which is not If there be no such Purgatory but If there be no such Resurrection why then are these men baptized for the dead Heaven and earth shall passe away saith Christ but my word shall not passe away Matt 24.35 But rather then Purgatory shall passe away his word must admit such an Interpretation as shall passe away and evacuate the intention and purpose of the Holy Ghost therein How much of the earth is passed away from them wee know who acknowledge the mercy and might and miracle of Gods working in withdrawing so many Kingdomes so many Nations of the earth in so short time from the obedience and superstition of Rome as that if Controversies had been to have been tried by number they would have found as many against them as with them so much of the earth is passed from them How much of heaven is passed from them that is how much lesse interest and claime to heaven they can have now when God hath afforded them so much light and they have resisted it then when they were in so great a part under invincible ignorance God onely who is the onely Judge in such causes knowes and he of his goodnesse enlarge their title to that place by their conversion towards it But how much soever of earth or heaven passe away they will not lose an acre an inch of Purgatory For as men are most delighted with things of their owne making their owne planting their owne purchasing their owne building so are these men therefore inamoured of Purgatory Men that can make Articles of faith of their owne Traditions And as men to elude the law against new Buildings first build sheds or stables and after erect houses there as upon old foundations so these men first put forth Traditions of their owne and then erect those Traditions into Articles of faith as ancient foundations of Religion Men that make God himselfe of a piece of bread
employment to which his education had apted him yet the King denied their requests and having a discerning spirit replyed I know M. Donne is a learned man an excellent Divine and will prove a powerfull Preacher After that as he professeth * In his Devotions Expost 8. the King descended almost to a solicitation of him to enter into sacred Orders which though he denied not he deferred for the space of three yeares All which time he applyed himselfe to an incessant study of Textuall Divinity and attained a greater perfection in the learned Languages Greek and Hebrew Forwardnesse and inconsideration could not in him as in many others argue an insufficiencie for he considered long and had many strifes within himselfe concerning the strictnesse of life and competencie of learning required in such as enter into sacred Orders And doubtlesse considering his owne demerits did with meek Moses humbly aske God Who am I And if he had consulted with flesh and bloud he had not put his hand to that holy plough But God who is able to prevaile wrastled with him as the Angel did with Iacob Gen. 32. and marked him for his owne marked him with a blessing a blessing of obedience to the motions of his blessed Spirit And then as he had formerly asked God humbly with Moses Who am I So now being inspired with the apprehension of Gods mercies he did ask King Davids thankfull question Lord who am I that thou art so mindfull of me So mindfull of me as to lead me for more then forty years through a wildernesse of the many temptations and various turnings of a dangerous life So mindfull as to move the learnedst of Kings to descend to move me to serve at thine Altar So merciful to me as to move my heart to embrace this holy motion Thy motions I will embrace take the cup of salvation call upon thy Name and preach thy Gospell Such strifes as these S. Augustine had when S. Ambrose indeavoured his conversion to Christianity with which he confesseth he acquainted his deare friend Alippius Our learned Author a man fit to write after no meane Copy did the like and declaring his intentions to his deare friend D. King the then worthy Bishop of London who was Chaplaine to the Lord Chancellor in the time of his being his Lordships Secretary That Reverend Bishop most gladly received the newes and with all convenient speed ordained him Deacon and Priest Now the English Church had gained a second S. Augustine for I think none was so like him before his conversion none so like S. Ambrose after it And if his youth had the infirmities of the one Father his age had the excellencies of the other the learning and holinesse of both Now all his studies which were occasionally diffused were concentred in Divinity Now he had a new calling new thoughts new imployment for his wit and eloquence Now all his earthly affections were changed into divine love and all the faculties of his soule were ingaged in the conversion of others in preaching glad tidings remission to repenting sinners and peace to each troubled soule To this he applyed himselfe with all care and diligence and such a change was wrought in him Psal 84. that he was gladder to be a doore-keeper in the house of God then to enjoy any temporall employment Presently after he entred into his holy Profession the King made him his Chaplaine in Ordinary and gave him other incouragements promising to take a particular care of him And though his long familiarity with persons of greatest quality was such as might have given some men boldnesse enough to have preached to any eminent Auditory yet his modesty was such that he could not be perswaded to it but went usually to preach in some private Churches in Villages neere London till his Majestie appointed him a day to preach to him And though his Majestie and others expected much from him yet he was so happy which few are as to satisfie and exceed their expectations preaching the Word so as shewed he was possest with those joyes that he laboured to distill into others A Preacher in earnest weeping sometimes for his Auditory sometimes with them alwayes preaching to himselfe like an Angel from a cloud though in none carrying some as S. Paul was to heaven in holy raptures enticing others by a sacred art and courtship to amend their lives and all this with a most particular grace and un-imitable fashion of speaking That Summer the same month in which he was ordained Priest and made the Kings Chaplaine his Majestie going his Progresse was intreated to receive an entertainment in the University of Cambridge and M. Donne attending his Majestie there his Majestie was pleased to recommend him to be made Doctor in Divinity Doctor Harsnet after Archbishop of York being then their Vice-Chancellour who knowing him to be the Author of the Pseudo-Martyr did propose it to the University and they presently granted it expressing a gladnesse they had an occasion to entitle and write him Theits His abilities and industry in his profession were so eminent and he so much loved by many persons of quality that within one yeare after his entrance into Sacred Orders he had fourteen Advowsons of severall Benefices sent unto him but they being in the Countrey could not draw him from his long loved friends and London to which he had a naturall inclination having received his birth and breeding in it desiring rather some preferment that might fixe him to an employment in that place Immediately after his returne from Cambridge his wife died leaving him a man of an unsetled estate And having buried five the carefull father of seven children then living to whom he made a voluntary promise being then but forty two years of age never to bring them under the subjection of a Step-mother which promise he most faithfully kept burying with his teares all his sublunary joyes in his most deare and deserving Wives grave living a most retired and solitary life In this retirednesse he was importuned by the grave Benchers of Lincolns Inne once the friends of his youth to accept of their Lecture which by reason of M. Gatakers removall was then void of which he accepted being glad to renew his intermitted friendship with them whom he so much loved and where he had been a Saul not so far as to persecute Christianity yet in his irregular youth to neglect the practise of it to become a Paul and preach salvation to his brethren Nor did he preach onely but as S. Paul advised his Corinthians to be followers of him as he was of Christ so he also was an ocular direction to them by a holy and harmlesse conversation Their love to him was exprest many wayes for besides the faire lodgings that were provided and furnisht for him other curtesies were daily accumulated so many and so freely as though they meant their gratitude if possible should exceed or at least equall his merit In
performe that sacred Work And when to the amazement of some beholders he appeared in the Pulpit many thought he presented himselfe not to preach mortification by a living voice but mortality by a decayed body and dying face And doubtlesse many did secretly ask that question in Ezekiel Doe these bones live Ezek. 37.3 Or can that soule organise that tongue to speak so long time as the sand in that glasse will move towards its center and measure out an houre of this dying mans unspent life Doubtlesse it cannot Yet after some faint pauses in his zealous Prayer his strong desires inabled his weak body to discharge his memory of his pre conceived Meditations which were of dying The Text being To God the Lord belong the issues from death Many that saw his teares and heard his hollow voice professing they thought the Text Prophetically chosen and that D. Donne had preacht his owne Funerall Sermon Being full of joy that God had inabled him to performe this desired duty he hastned to his house out of which he never moved untill like S. Stephen Acts 8. He was carried by devout men to his grave And the next day after his Sermon his spirits being much spent and he indisposed to discourse a friend asked him Why are you sad To whom he replyed after this manner I am not sad I am in a serious contemplation of the mercies of my God to me And now I plainly see it was his hand that prevented me from all temporall employment And I see it was his will that I should never settle nor thrive untill I entred into the Ministery in which I have now lived almost twenty yeares I hope to his glory and by which I most humbly thank him I have been enabled to requite most of those friends that shewed me kindnesse when my fortunes were low And as it hath occasioned the expression of my gratitude I thank God most of them have stood in need of my requitall I have been usefull and comfortable to my good Father in Law Sir George More whose patience God hath been pleased to exercise by many temporall crosses I have maintained my owne Mother whom it hath pleased God after a plentifull fortune in her former times to bring to a great decay in her very old age I have quieted the consciences of many that groaned under the burthen of a wounded spirit whose Prayers I hope are availeable for me I cannot plead innocencie of life especially of my youth but I am to be judged by a mercifull God who hath given me even at this time some testimonies by his holy Spirit that I am of the number of his Elect. I am ful of joy and shall die in peace Upon Munday following he took his last leave of his beloved Studie and being hourely sensible of his decay retired himselfe into his bed-chamber and that week sent at severall times for many of his most considerable friends of whom he tooke a solemne and deliberate Farewell commending to their considerations some sentences particularly usefull for the regulation of their lives and dismist them as * Gen. 49. Iacob did his sons with a spirituall benediction The Sunday following he appointed his servants that if there were any worldly businesse undone that concerned them or himselfe it should be prepared against Saturday next for after that day he would not mixe his thoughts with any thing that concerned the world Nor ever did Now he had nothing to doe but die To doe which he stood in need of no more time for he had long studied it and to such a perfection that in a former sicknesse he called God to witnesse Devot Prayer 23. he was that minute prepared to deliver his soule into his hands if that minute God would accept of his dissolution In that sicknesse he begged of his God the God of constancy to be preserved in that estate for ever And his patient expectation to have his immortall soule disrobed from her garment of mortality makes me confident he now had a modest assurance that his prayers were then heard and his petition granted He lay fifteene dayes earnestly expecting his hourely change And in the last houre of his last day as his body melted away and vapoured into spirit his soule having I verily beleeve some revelation of the Beatifical Vision he said I were miserable if I might not die And after those words closed many periods of his faint breath with these words Thy kingdome come Thy will be done His speech which had long been his faithfull servant remained with him till his last minute and then forsook him not to serve another master but died before him for that it was uselesse to him who now conversed with God on earth as Angels are said to doe in heaven onely by thoughts and looks Being speechlesse he did as S. Stephen look stedfastly towards heaven till he saw the Sonne of God standing at the right hand of his Father And being satisfied with this blessed sight as his soule ascended and his last breath departed from him he closed his owne eyes and then disposed his hands and body into such a posture as required no alteration by those that came to shroud him Thus variable thus vertuous was the life thus memorable thus exemplary was the death of this most excellent man He was buried in S. Pauls Church in that place which he had appointed for that use some yeares before his death and by which he passed daily to his devotions But not buried privately though he desired it For besides an unnumbred number of others many persons of Nobility and eminency who did love and honour him in his life did shew it at his Funerall by a voluntary and very sad attendance of his body to the grave To which after his buriall some mournfull friends repaired And as Alexander the Great did to the grave of the famous Achillis Plutarch so they strewed his with curious and costly flowers Which course they who were never yet knowne continued each morning and evening for divers dayes not ceasing till the stones that were taken up in that Church to give his body admission into the cold earth now his bed of rest were againe by the Masons art levelled and firmed as they had been formerly and his place of buriall undistinguishable to common view Nor was this though not usuall all the honour done to his reverend ashes for by some good body who t is like thought his memory ought to be perpetuated there was 100. marks sent to his two faithfull friends * D. Henry King D. Mountfort and Executors the person that sent it not yet known they look not for a reward on earth towards the making of a Monument for him which I think is as lively a representation as in dead marble can be made of him HE was of stature moderately tall of a straight and equally proportioned body to which all his words and actions gave an unexpressible
much much is due to her and this amongst the rest That she had so cleare notions above all others what kind of person her Son was that as Adam gave names according to natures so the Prophet here leaves it to her to name her Son according to his office She shall call his name Immanuel Wee told you at first Immanuel that both Ioseph and Mary were told by the Angel that his name was to be Jesus and we told you also that others besides him had beene called by that name of Jesus but as though others were called Jesus for Iosuah is called so Heb. 4.8 If Iesus had given them rest that is If Iosuah had c. And the son of Iosedech is called so throughout the Prophet Aggai yet there is observed a difference in the pointing and founding of those names from this our Jesus so though other women were called Mary as well as the blessed Virgin yet the Euangelists evermore make a difference betweene her name and the other Maries for Her they call Mariam and the rest Maria. Now this Jesus in this person is a reall an actuall Saviour he that hath already really and actually accomplished our salvation But the blessed Virgin had a clearer illustration then all that for she onely knew or she knew best the capacity in which he could be a Saviour that is as he is Immanuel God with us for she and she onely knew that he was the Sonne of God and not of naturall generation by man How much is enwrapped in this name Immanuel and how little time to unfold it I am afraid none at all A minute will serve to repeate that which S. Bernard saies and a day a life will not serve to comprehend it for to comprehend is not to know a thing as far as I can know it but to know it as far as that thing can be knowne and so onely God can comprehend God Immanuel est verbuminfans saies the Father He is the ancient of daies and yet in minority he is the Word it selfe and yet speechlesse he that is All that all the Prophets spoke of cannot speake He addes more He is Puer sapiens but a child and yet wiser then the elders wiser in the Cradle then they in the Chaire Hee is more Deus lactens God at whose breasts all creatures suck sucking at his Mothers breast and such a Mother as is a maid Immanuel is God with us it is not we with God God seeks us comes to us before wee to him And it is God with us in that notion in that termination El which is Deus fortis The powerfull God not onely iâ— infirmity as when hee died in our nature but as he is Deus fortis able and ready to assist and deliver us in all encumbrances so he is with us And with us usque ad consummationem till the end of the world in his Word and in the Sacraments for though I may not say as some have said That by the word of Consecration Cornelius in the administration of the Sacrament Christ is so infallibly produced as that if Christ had never been incarnate before yet at the pronouncing of those words of consecration he must necessarily be incarnate then yet I may say that God is as effectually present with every worthy receiver as that hee is not more effectually present with the Saints in Heaven And this is that which is intimated in that word which we seposed at first Ecce for the last of all Ecce Behold Behold a Virgin shall conceive c. God does not furnish a roome and leave it darke he sets up lights in it his first care was that his benefits should be seene he made light first and then creatures to be seene by that light He sheds himselfe from my mouth upon the whole auditory here he powres himselfe from my hand to all the Communicants at the table I can say to you all here The grace of our Lord Iesus Christ be with you and remaine with you all I can say to them all there The Body of our Lord Iesus Christ which was given for you preserve you to everlasting life I can bring it so neare but onely the worthy hearer and the worthy receiver can call this Lord this Jesus this Christ Immanuel God with us onely that Virgin soule devirginated in the blood of Adam but restored in the blood of the Lambe hath this Ecce this testimony this assurance that God is with him they that have this Ecce this testimony in a rectified conscience are Godfathers to this child Jesus and may call him Immanuel God with us for as no man can deceive God so God can deceive no man God cannot live in the darke himselfe neither can he leave those who are his in the darke If he be with thee he will make thee see that he is with thee and never goe out of thy sight till he have brought thee where thou canst never goe out of his SERMON III. Preached upon Christmas day at S. Pauls 1625. GALAT. 4.4 5. But when the fulnesse of time was come God sent forth his Son made of a woman made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law that we might receive the adoption of Sonnes WEE are met here to celebrate the generation of Christ Jesus Esay 53.8 but Generationem ejus quis enarrabit sayes the Prophet who shall declare his generation his age For for his essentiall generation be which he is the Son of God the Angels who are almost 6000. yeares elder then we are no nearer to that generation of his then if they had been made but yesterday Eternity hath no such distinctions no limits no periods no seasons no moneths no yeares no dayes Methusalem who was so long lived was no elder in respect of eternity then Davids son by Berseba that dyed the first week The first Fiat in the Creation of Adam and the last note of the blowing of the Trumpets to judgement though there be between these as it is ordinarily received 2000. yeares of nature between the Creation and the giving of the Law by Moses and 2000. yeares of the Law between that and the comming of Christ and 2000. yeares of Grace and Gospell between Christ first and his second comming yet this Creation and this Judgement are not a minute asunder in respect of eternity which hath no minutes Whence then arises all our vexation and labour all our anxieties and anguishes all our suits and pleadings for long leases for many lives for many yeares purchase in this world when if we be in our way to the eternall King of the eternall kingdome Christ Jesus all we are not yet all the world shall never be a minute old Generationem ejus quis enarrabit what tongue can declare what heart can conceive his generation which was so long before any heart or tongue was made But we come not now to consider that eternall generation
place in such a disposition as that if you should meet the last Trumpets at the gates and Christ Jesus in the clouds you would not intreat him to goe back and stay another yeare To enwrap all in one if you have a religious and sober assurance that you are his and walke according to your beleefe you are his and as the fulnesse of time so the fulnesse of grace is come upon you and you are not onely within the first commission of those who were under the Law and so Redeemed but of this quorum who are selected out of them the adopted sons of that God who never disinherits those that forsake not him SERMON IV. Preached at S. Pauls upon Christmas day 1626. LUKE 2.29 30. Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word For mine eyes have seen thy salvation THe whole life of Christ was a continuall Passion others die Martyrs but Christ was born a Martyr He found a Golgatha where he was crucified even in Bethlem where he was born For to his tendernesse then the strawes were almost as sharp as the thornes after and the Manger as uneasie at first as his Crosse at last His birth and his death were but one continuall act and his Christmas-day and his Good Friday are but the evening and morning of one and the same day And as even his birth is his death so every action and passage that manifests Christ to us is his birth for Epiphany is manifestation And therefore though the Church doe now call Twelf-day Epiphany because upon that day Christ was manifested to the Gentiles in those Wise men who came then to worship him yet the Ancient Church called this day the day of Christs birth the Epiphany because this day Christ was manifested to the world by being born this day Every manifestation of Christ to the world to the Church to a particular soule is an Epiphany a christmas-Christmas-day Now there is no where a more evident manifestation of Christ then in that which induced this text Lord now lettest thou thy servant c. It had been revealed to Simeon whose words these are that he should see Christ before he dyed And actually and really substantially essentially bodily presentially personally he does see him so it is Simeons Epiphany Simeons Christmas-day So also this day in which we commemorate and celebrate the generall Epiphany the manifestation of Christ to the whole world in his birth all we we who besides our interest in the universall Epiphany and manifestation implyed in the very day have this day received the Body and Blood of Christ in his holy and blessed Sacrament have had another Epiphany another Christmas-day another manifestation and application of Christ to our selves And as the Church prepares our devotion before Christmas-day with foure Sundayes in Advent which brings Christ nearer and nearer unto us and remembers us that he is comming and then continues that remembrance again with the celebration of other festivals with it and after it as S. Stephen S. Iohn and the rest that follow so for this birth of Christ in your particular soules for this Epiphany this Christmas-day this manifestation of Christ which you have had in the most blessed Sacrament this day as you were prepared before by that which was said before so it belongs to the through celebration of the day and to the dignity of that mysterious act and to the blessednesse of worthy and the danger of unworthy Receivers to presse that evidence in your behalf and to enable you by a farther examination of your selves to depart in peace because your eyes have seen his salvation To be able to conclude to you selves that because you have had a Christmas-day a manifestation of Christs birth in your soules by the Sacrament you shall have a whole Good-Friday a crucifying and a consummatum est a measure of corrections and joy in those corrections tentations and the issue with the tentation And that you shall have a Resurrection and an Ascension an inchoation and an unremoveable possession of heaven it self in this world Make good your Christmas day that Christ by a worthy receiving of the Sacrament be born in you and he that dyed for you will live with you all the yeare and all the yeares of your lives and inspire into you and receive from you at the last gasp this blessed acclamation Lord now lettest thou thy servant c. The end of all digestions Divisio and concoctions is assimilation that that meate may become our body The end of all consideration of all the actions of such leading and exemplar men as Simeon was is assimilation too That we may be like that man Therefore we shall make it a first part to take a picture to give a character of this man to consider how Simeon was qualified and prepared matured and disposed to that confidence that he could desire to depart in peace intimated in that first word Now now that all that I look for is accomplished And farther expressed in the first word of the other clause For for mine eyes have seen thy salvation Now now the time is fulfilled For for mine eyes have seen And then enters the second part what is the greatest happinesse that can be well wished in this world by a man well prepared is that he may depart in peace Lord now lettest thou c. And all the way in every step that we make in his light in Simeons light we shall see light we shall consider that that preparation and disposition and acquiescence which Simeon had in his Epiphany in his visible seeing of Christ then is offered to us in this Epiphany in this manifestation and application of Christ in the Sacrament And that therefore every penitent and devout and reverent and worthy receiver hath had in that holy action his Now there are all things accomplished to him and his For for his eyes have seen his salvation and so may be content nay glad to depart in peace In the first part then 1 Part. in which we collect some marks and qualities in Simeon which prepared him to a quiet death qualities appliable to us in that capacity as we are â—â—tred for the Sacrament Praesentatio for in that way only we shall walk throughout this exercise wee consider first the action it self what was done at this time At this time our Saviour Christ according to the Law by which all the first born were to be presented to God in the Temple at a certain time after their birth was presented to God in the Temple and there acknowledged to be his And then bought of him again by his parents at a certain price prescribed in the Law A Lord could not exhibite his Son to his Tenants and say this is your Land-lord nor a King his Son to his Subjects and say this is your Prince but first he was to be tendred to God his they were all He that is not
faine reduce it to a narrower compasse of time Hâ—die si vocem ejus audieritis that you would heare his voyce to day and not harden your hearts to day And to a narrower compasse then that Dabitur in illa hora sayes Christ Luk. 12.12 The holy Ghost shall teach you in that houre In this houre the holy Ghost offers himselfe unto you And to a narrower compasse then an houre Beati qui nunc esuritis qui nunc fletis Luk. 6.21 Blessed are ye that hunger now and that mourn now that put not off years nor dayes nor hours but come to a sense of your sins and of the meanes of reconciliation to God now this minute And therefore when ye reade Iusta pondera just weights and Just balances Levit. 19.36 and just measures a just Hin and a just Ephah shall ye have I am the Lord your God Do not you say so I will hereafter I will come to just weights and measures and to deale uprightly in the world as soon as I have made a fortune established a state raised a competency for wife and children but yet I must doe as other men doe Levit. 23. when you reade Remember that you keep holy the Sabbath day and by the way remember that God hath called his other holy dayes and holy convocations Sabbaths too remember that you celebrate his Sabbaths by your presence here doe not you say so I will if I can rise time enough if I can dine soon enough when you reade sweare not at all doe not you say Matt. 5.34 no more I would but that I live amongst men that will not beleeve me without swearing and laugh at me if I did not sweare for duties of this kinde permanent and constant duties arising out of the evidence of Gods word such as just and true dealing with men such as keeping Gods Sabbaths such as not blaspheming his name have no latitude about them no conditions in them they have no circumstance but are all substance no apparell but are all body no body but are all soule no matter but are all forme They are not in Genere deliberativo they admit no deliberation but require an immediate and an exact execution But then for extraordinary things things that have not their evidence in the word of God formerly revealed unto us whether we consider matters of Doctrine Extraordinary and new opinions or matter of Practise and new commands from what depth of learning soever that new opinion seeme to us to rise or from heighth of Power soever that new-Command seeme to fall it is still in genere deliberativo still we are allowed nay still wee are commanded to deliberate Melch. Canus to doubt to consider before we execute As a good Author in the Roman Church sayes Perniciosius est Ecclesiae It is more dangerous to the Church to accept an Apocryphall book for Canonicall then to reject a Canonicall booke for Apocryphall so may it be more dangerous to doe some things which to a distempered man may seeme to be commanded by God then to forbeare some things which are truely commanded by him God had rather that himselfe should be suspected then that a false god should be admitted The easinesse of admitting Revelations and Visions and Apparitions of spirits and Purgatory souls in the Roman Church And then the overbending and super-exaltation of zeale and the captivity to the private spirit which some have fallen into that have not beene content to consist in moderate and middle wayes in the Reformed Church this easinesse of admitting imaginary apparitions of spirits in the Papist and this easinesse of submitting to the private spirit in the Schismatike hath produced effects equally mischievous Melancholy being made the seat of Religion on the one side Basil by the Papist and Phrenzy on the other side by the Schismatick Multi prae studio immoderato intendi in contrarium aberrarunt à medio was the observation and the complaint of that Father in his time and his prophecy of ours That many times an over-vehement bending into some way of our owne choosing does not onely withdraw us from the left hand way the way of superstition and Idolatry from which wee should all draw but from the middle way too in which we should stand and walk And then Leo. the danger is thus great facile in omnia flagitia impulit quos religione decepit diabolus As God doth the devill also doth make Zeal and Religion his instrument And in other tentations the devill is but a serpent but in this when he makes zeale and religion his instrument he is a Lyon As long as the devill doth but say Doe this or thou wilt live a foole and dye a begger Doe this or thou canst not live in this world the devill is but a devill he playes but a devils part a lyer a seducer But when the devill comes to say Doe this or thou canst not live in the next world thou canst not be saved here the devill pretends to be God here he acts Gods part and so prevails the more powerfully upon us And then when men are so mis-transported either in opinions or in actions with this private spirit and inordinate zeale Quibus non potest auferre fidem aufert charitatem sayes the same Father Though the devill hath not quenched faith in that man himselfe yet he hath quenched that mans charity towards other men Though that man might be saved in that opinion which he holds because perchance that opinion destroyes no fundamentall point yet his salvation is shrewdly shaked and endangered in his uncharitable thinking that no body can be saved that thinks otherwise And as it works thus to an uncharitablenesse in private so doth it to turbulency and sedition in the publique Of which Eusebius we have a pregnant and an aplyable example in the life of Constantine the Emperour In his time there arose some new questions and new opinions in some points of Religion the Emperor writ alike to both parties thus De rebus ejusmodi nec omnino rogetis nec rogati respondeatis Doe you move no questions in such things your selves and if any other doe yet be not you too forward to write so much as against them What questions doth he meane That is expressed Quas nulla lex Canonve Ecclesiasticus necessario praescribit Such questions as are not evidently declared and more then evidently declared necessarily enjoyned by some law some rule some Canon of the Church Disturbe not the peace of the Church upon Inferences and Consequences but deale onely upon those things which are evidently declared in the Articles and necessarily enjoyned by the Church And yet though that Emperor declared himselfe on neither side nor did any act in favour of either side yet because he did not declare himselfe on their side those promovers of these new opinions Eo pervenere sayes that Author ut imagines Imperatoris violarint They
bee new every morning too and all that he did in eighty eight in the last Centutry he shall doe if we need it in twenty eight in this Century And though he may be angry with our prayers as they are but verball prayers and not accompanied with actions of obedience yet he will not be angry with us for ever but re-establish at home zeale to our present Religion and good correspondence and affections of all parts to one another and our power and our honour in forraign Nations Amen SERMON VI. Preached at S. Pauls upon Christmas Day 1628. Lord who hath beleeved our report Domine quis credidit auditui nostro I Have named to you no booke no chapter no verse where these words are written But I forbore not out of forgetfulnesse nor out of singularity but out of perplexity rather because these words are written in more then one in more then two places of the Bible In your ordinary conversation and communication with other men I am sure you have all observed that many men have certaine formes of speech certaine interjections certaine suppletory phrases which fall often upon their tongue and which they repeat almost in every sentence and for the most part impertinently and then when that phrase conduces nothing to that which they would say but rather disorders and discomposes the sentence and confounds or troubles the hearer And this which some doe out of slacknesse and in-observance and infirmity many men God knowes do out of impiety many men have certaine suppletory Oathes with which they fill up their Discourse then when they are not onely not the better beleeved but the worse understood for those blasphemous interjections Now this which you may thus observe in men sometimes out of infirmity sometimes out of impiety out of an accommodation and communicablenesse of himselfe to man out of desire and a study to shed himselfe the more familiarly and to infuse himselfe the more powerfully into man you may observe even in the holy Ghost in himselfe in the Scriptures which are the discourse and communication of God with man There are certaine idioms certaine formes of speech certaine propositions which the holy Ghost repeats severall times upon severall occasions in the Scriptures It is so in the instrumentall Authors of the particular Bookes of the Bible There are certaine formes of speech certaine characters upon which I would pronounce That 's Moses and not David that 's Iob and not Solomon that 's Esay and not Ieremy How often does Moses repeat his Vivit Dominus and Ego vivo As the Lord liveth and As I live saith the Lord How often does Solomon repeat his vanitas vanitatum All is vanity How often does our blessed Saviour repeat his Amen Amen and in another sense then others had used that word before him so often as that you may reckon it thirtie times in one Evangelist so often as that that may not inconveniently be thought some reason why S. Iohn called Christ by that name Amen Rev. 3.14 Thus saith Amen He whose name is Amen How often does S. Paul especiallly in his Epistles to Timothy and to Titus repeat that phrase Fidelis Sermo This is a true and faithfull saying And how often his juratory caution Coram Domino before the Lord As God is my witnesse And as it is thus for particular persons and particular phrases that they are often repeated so are there certaine whole sentences certaine intire propositions which the holy Ghost does often repeat in the Scripture And except we except that proposition of which S. Peick makes his use That God is no accepter of persons Act. 10.34 for that is repeated in very many places that every where upō every occasiō every man might be remembred of that that God is no accepter of persons Take heed how you presume upon your own knowledge or your actions for God is no accepter of persons Take heed how you condemne another man for an Heretique because he beleeves not just as you beleeve or for a Reprobate because he lives not just as you live for God is no accepter of persons Take heed how you relie wholly upon the outward means that you are wrapped in the covenant that you are bred in a reformed Church for God is no accepter of persons except you will except this proposition I scarce remember any other that is so often repeated in the Scriptures as this which is our Text Lord who hath beleeved our report For it is first in the Prophet Esay There the Prophet is in holy throws and pangs Esay 53.1 and agonies till he be delivered of that prophecy the comming of the Messiah the incarnation of Christ Jesus and yet is put to this exclamation Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved our report And then you have these words in the Gospell of S. Iohn John 12.38 where we are not put upon the consideration of a future Christ in prophecy but the Evangelist exhibits Christ in person actually really visibly evidently doing great works executing great judgements multiplying great Miracles and yet put to the application of this exclamation Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved this report And then you have these words also in S. Paul Rom. 10.16 where we doe not consider a prophecy of a future Christ nor a history of a present Christ but an application of that whole Christ to every soule in the fetling of a Church in that concatenation of meanes for the infusion of faith expressed in that Chapter sending and preaching and hearing and yet for all these powerfull and familiar assistances Domine quis crodidit Lord who hath beleeved that report So that now beloved you cannot say that you have a Text without a place for you have three places for this Text you have it in the great Prophet in Esay in the great Evangelist in S. Iohn and in the great Apostle in S. Paul And because in all three places the words minister usefull doctrine of edification we shall by yours and the times leave consider the words in all three places In all three the words are a sad and a serious expostulation of the Minister of God with God himselfe that his Meanes and his Ordinances powerfully committed to him being faithfully transmitted by him to the people were neverthelesse fruitlesse and ineffectuall I doe Lord as thou biddest me sayes the Prophet Esay I prophecy I foretell the comming of the Messiah the incarnation of thy Son for the salvation of the world and I know that none of them that heare me can imagine or conceive any other way for the redemption of the world by fatisfaction to thy Justice but this and yet Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved my report I doe Lord as thou biddest me sayes Christ himselfe in S. Iohn I come in person I glorifie thy name I doe thy will I preach thy Gospell I confirm my doctrine with evident Miracles and I seale
the Kings of Israel themselves their owne Rabbins tell us that they were not ordinarily anointed but onely in those cases where there arose some question and difference about the succession as in Solomons case there because Adoniah pretended to the succession 1 Reg. 1. to make all the more sure David proceeded with a solemnity and appointed an anointing of Solomon which otherwise say their Rabbins had not been done But howsoever it may have been for their Kings there seemes to be a plaine distinction betweene them and the Prophets in the Psalme for this evidence of unction Touch not mine Anointed sayes God there Ps 105.15 They they that were Anointed constitute one rank one classis and then followes And doe my Prophets no harme They they who were not Anointed the Prophets constitute another classis another rank So that then an internall a spirituall unction the Prophets had that is an application an appropriation to that office from God but a constant an evident calling to that function by any externall act of the Church they had not but it was an extraordinary office and imposed immediatly by God and therfore the people might seem the more excusable if they did not beleeve a Prophet presently because the office of the Prophet did not carry with it such a manifestation by any thing evidently done upon him and visible to them that by that that man must be a Prophet But as God clothes himselfe with light as with a garment so God clothes and apparells his works with light too for frustra fecisset sayes S. Ambrose God had made creatures to no purpose if he had not made light to see them by Therefore when God does any extraordinary worke he accompanies that work with anextraordinary light by which he for whose instruction God does that work may know that work to be his So when he sent his Prophets to his people he accompanied their mission with an effectuall light and evidence by which that people did acknowledge in their owne hearts that that man was sent by God to them Therefore they called that man at first Roeh videntem a Seer one whom they acknowledged to have beene admitted to the sight of God in the declaration of his will to them for so we have it in Samuel He that is now called a Prophet 1 Sam. 9.9 was before time called a Seer And then that addition of the name of a Prophet gave them a farther qualification for Nabi which is a Prophet is from Niba and Niba is venire facio to cause to make a thing to come to passe So that a Prophet was not onely praefator but praefactor He did not only presage but preordain that is there was such an infallibility such an inevitablenesse in that which he had said as that his very saying of it seemed to them some kind of cause of the accomplishing thereof For hence it is that we have that phrase so often in the new Testament This and this was thus and thus done that such and such a Prophecy might be fulfilled They never went to that heighth that such or such a secret purpose or unrevealed Decree of God might be fulfilled but they rested in the Declaration which God had made in his Church and were satisfied in the execution of his Decrees in his visible Ordinances Therefore the increpation which the Prophet layes upon the people here Lord who hath beleeved our report is not that they did not beleeve those Prophets to be Prophets for though that were an extraordinary office yet it was accompanied with an extraordinary light neither was it that they did not beleeve that those things which were prophecyed by them should come to passe for they beleeved that man to be Roeh a Seer one that had seen the Counsels of God concerning them And they beleeved him to be Nabi venire facientem one upon whose word they might as infallibly rely as upon a cause for an effect But this was the sinne of this people this was the sorrow of this Prophet that they did not beleeve these predictions to belong to them they did not beleeve that these judgements would fall out in their time In one word present security was their sinne And was that so hainous So hainous as that that is it with which God was so highly incensed Esay 28.14 and with which he meant so deeply to affect his people in that considerable passage in that remarkeable and vehement place where he expostulates thus with them Heare ye scornfull men yee that make a jest a scorn of future judgements Heare ye scornfull men that rule this people sayes God there you that have a power over the affections of the people in the Pulpit and can perswade what you will or a power over the wils of the people in your place and can command what you will you that tell them sayes the Prophet there we have made a covenant with death and are at an agreement with hell feare you nothing let us alone ambitious Princes shall turn their forces another way antichristian plots shall be practised in other nations you that tell them sayes he when the overflowing scourge shall passe through it shall not come to you howsoever superstition be established in other places howsoever prevailing armies be multiplied else-where yet you shal have your religion your peace still for we have made a covenant with death with hell we are at an agreement Heare ye scornfull men sayes God you that put this scorn upon my predictions your covenant with death shall be disanulled Esay 28.18 and your agreement with death shall not stand the faire promises of others to you your own promises to your selves shall deceive you and the overflowing scourge shall passe thorough Esay 28.19 thorough you all for you you scornfull men shall be trodden down by it and as it followes there in an elegant and a vehement expression it shall be a vexation onely to understand the report You that would not beleeve the report of the Prophet that for these and these sins such and such Judgements should fall upon you shall be confounded even with the report the noyse the newes how this overslowing scourge hath passed thorough your neighbours round about you how much more with the sense when you your selves shall be trodden down by it There is scarce any of the Prophets in which God does not drive home this increpation of their security Ezek. 12.22 and insensiblenesse of future calamities As in Esay so in Ezechiel God sayes what is that Proverb which ye have in the Land of Israel it was it seemes in every mans mouth proverbially spoken by all what was it This The dayes are prolonged and every vision failes V. 27. The vision which he sayes is for many dayes to come and he prophesieth of the times afarre off But sayes God there In your dayes O rebellious house will I say the word and performe it Not say it
say there Domine credo Lord I beleeve this report I beleeve that I cannot be saved without beleeving nor beleeve without hearing And therefore whatsoever thou hast decreed to thy selfe above in heaven give me a holy assiduity of indevor and peace of conscience in the execution of thy Decrees here And let thy Spirit beare witnesse with my spirit that I am of the number of thine elect because I love the beauty of thy house because I captivate mine understanding to thine Ordinances because I subdue my wil to obey thine because I find thy Son Christ Jesus made mine in the preaching of thy word and my selfe made his in the administration of his Sacraments And keep me ever in the armes and bosome of that Church which without any tincture any mixture any leaven of superstition or Idolatry affords me all that is necessary to salvation and obtrudes nothing enforces nothing to be beleeved by any Determination or Article of hers that is not so And be this enough for the Explication and Application and Complication of these words in all these three places SERMON VII Preached upon Christmas day JOHN 10.10 I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly THe Church celebrates this day the Birth of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus blessed for ever And though it fall amongst the shortest dayes in the yeere yet of all the Festivals in the yeere it is the longest It is a day that consists of twelve dayes A day not measured by the naturall and ordinary motion of the Sun but by a supernaturall and extraordinary Star which appeared to the Wisemen of the East this day and brought them to Christ at Bethlem upon Twelfe day That day Twelfe day the Church now calls the Epiphany The ancient Church called this day Christmas day the Epiphany Both dayes together and all the dayes betweene This day when Christ was manifested to the Jews in the Shepheards by the Angels and Twelfe day when Christ was manifested to the Gentiles in those Wisemen of the East make up the Epiphany that is the manifestation of God to man And as this day is in such a respect a longer day then others so if we make longer houres in this day then in other dayes if I extend this Sermon if you extend your Devotion or your Patience beyond the ordinary time it is but a due and a just celebration of the Day and some accommodation to the Text for I am come as he in whose Name and Power I came came and he tels you that He came that you might have life and might have it more abundantly God who vouchsafed to be made Man for man for man vouchsafes also to doe all the offices of man toward man Mal. 2.10 He is our Father for he made us Of what Of clay So God is Figulus Esay 45.9 Rom. 9.21 Gen. 1.27 Gen. 3.21 Gen. 1.29 so in the Prophet so in the Apostle God is our Potter God stamped his Image upon us and so God is Statuarius our Minter our Statuary God clothed us and so is vestiarius he hath opened his wardrobe unto us God gave us all the fruits of the earth to eate and so is oeconomus our Steward God poures his oyle and his wine into our wounds Luke 10. 1 Cor. 3.6 Acts 20.32 Psal 127.1 Mat. 4.19 and so is Medicus and Vicinus that Physitian that Neighbour that Samaritan intended in the Parable God plants us and waters and weeds us and gives the increase and so God is Hortulanus our Gardiner God builds us up into a Church and so God is Architectus our Architect our Builder God watches the City when it is built and so God is Speculator our Sentinell God fishes for men for all his Iohns and his Andrews and his Peters are but the nets that he fishes withall God is the fisher of men And here in this Chapter God in Christ is our Shepheard The book of Iob is a representation of God in a Tragique-Comedy lamentable beginnings comfortably ended The book of the Canticles is a representation of God in Christ as a Bridegroom in a Marriage-song in an Epithalamion God in Christ is represented to us in divers formes in divers places and this Chapter is his Pastorall The Lord is our Shepheard and so called in more places then by any other name and in this Chapter exhibits some of the offices of a good Shepheard Be pleased to taste a few of them First he sayes The good Shepheard comes in at the doore Joh. 10.1 the right way If he come in at the window that is alwayes clamber after preferment If he come in at vaults and cellars that is by clandestin and secret contracts with his Patron he comes not the right way When he is in the right way Ver. 3. His sheep heare his voyce first there is a voyce He is heard Ignorance doth not silence him nor lazinesse nor abundance of preferment nor indiscreet and distempered zeale does not silence him for to induce or occasion a silencing upon our selves is as ill as the ignorant or the lazie silence There is a voyce and sayes that Text is is his voyce not alwayes another in his roome for as it is added in the next verse The sheep know his voyce which they could not doe if they heard it not often V. 4. if they were not used to it And then for the best testimony and consummation of all he sayes The good Shepheard gives his life for his sheep Every good Shepheard gives his life V. 11. that is spends his life weares out his life for his sheep of which this may be one good argument That there are not so many crazie so many sickly men men that so soon grow old in any profession as in ours But in this Christ is our Shepheard in a more peculiar and more incommunicable way that he is Pastor humani generis esca first Maxinus that he feeds not one Parish nor one Diocesse but humanum genus all Mankinde the whole world and then feeds us so as that he is both our Pastor and our Pasture he feeds us and feeds us with himselfe for His flesh is meat indeed and his bloud is drink indeed Joh. 6. Lro. And therefore Honor telebratur totius gregis per annua festa pastoris As often as wecome to celebrate the comming of this Shepheard in giving that honour we receive an honour because that is a declaration that we are the sheepe of that pasture and the body of that head And so much being not impertinently said for the connexion of the words and their complication with the day passe we now to the more particular distribution and explication thereof I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly In these words our parts will be three for first we must consider the Persons Divisie The Shepheard and the
a determined purpose to doe some good works and yet this light not shine out No man can more properly be said to hide his light under a bushell which because Christ sayes in the verse before our Text no man does certainly no man should doe then he who hath disposed some part of his estate to pious uses but hides it in his will and locks up that will in his cabinet For in this case though there be light yet it does not shine out Your gold and your silver is cankered sayes S. Iames and the rust of them shall be a witnesse James 5.3 and shall eate your flesh as it were fire He does not say the gold and the silver it self as reproving the ill getting of it but the rust the hiding the concealing thereof shall be this witnesse against thee this executioner upon thee That man dyes in an ill state of whose faith we have had no evidence till after his death his executors meet and open his Will and then publish some Legacies to pious uses And we had no evidence before if he had done no good before For shew me thy faith without thy works James 2.18 sayes the Apostle and he proposes it as an impossible thing impossible to shew it impossible to have it And therefore as good works are our owne so are they never so properly our owne as when they are done with our owne hands for this is the true shining of our light the emanation from us upon others And so have you the three peeces which constitute our first part the precept Let your light shine before men The light it selfe not the light of nature nor of Baptisme nor of Adoption but the light of good works And then the Appropriation of this light how these workes are ours though the goodnesse thereof be onely from God And lastly the emanation of this light upon others which cannot well be said to be an emanation of our light of light from us except it be whilst we are we that is alive And so we passe to those many particulars which frame our second part the reason and the end of this That men may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven In this end our beginning is ut videant that men may see it The apparitions in old times were evermore accompanied with lights but they were private lights 2. Part. Vt videant such an old woman or such a child saw a light but non videbant homines it did not shine out so that men might see this light We have a story delivered by a very pious man Cantiprat l. 1. c. 9. and of the truth whereof he seemes to be very well assured that one Conradus a devout Priest had such an illustration such an irradiation such a coruscation such a light at the tops of those fingers which he used in the consecration of the Sacrament as that by that light of his fingers ends he could have reade in the night as well as by so many Candles But this was but a private light non viderunt homines It did not shine out Epist 205. ad Cyrill Jerosolym so that men might see it Blessed S. Augustine reports if that Epistle be S. Augustines that when himselfe was writing to S. Hierome to know his opinion of the measure and quality of the Joy and Glory of Heaven suddenly in his Chamber there appeared ineffabile lumen sayes he an unspeakable an unexpressible light nostr is invisum temporibus such a light as our times never saw and out of that light issued this voyce Hieronymi anima sum I am the soule of that Hierome to whom thou art writing who this houre dyed at Bethlem and am come from thence to thee c. But this was but a private light and whatsoever S. Augustine saw who was not easily deceived nor would deceive others non videbant homines this light did not shine so as that men might see it Here in our Text there is a light required that men may see Those lights of their apparitions we cannot see There is a light of ours which our adversaries may see and will not which is truly the light of this Text the light of good works Though our zeale to good works shine out assiduously day by day in our Sermons and shine out powerfully in the Homilies of our Church composed expresly to that purpose and shine out actually in our many sumptuous buildings and rich endowments in which works we of this Kingdome in this last Century since the Reformation of Religion have perhaps exceeded our Fathers in any one hundred of yeares whilst they lived under the Romane perswasion yet still they cry out we are enemies of this light and abhorre good works As I have heard them in some obscure places abroad Preach that here in England we had not onely no true Church no true Priesthood no true Sacraments but that we have no materiall Churches no holy Convocations no observing of Sundayes or Holy dayes no places to serve God in so I have heard them Preach that we doe not onely not advance but that we cry downe and discredit and disswade and discountenance the doctrine of good works It is enough to say to them as the Angel said to the Devill Increpet te Dominus The Lord rebuke thee Iude 9. And the Lord does rebuke them in enabling us to proceed in these pious works which with so notorious falshood they deny And we doe rebuke them Heb. 10.24 the best and most powerfull way in that as the Apostle sayes we consider one another consider the necessities of others and provoke one another to love and good workes But then if this be Gods end in our good works ut videant homines that men may see them Mat. 6.1 why is Christ so earnest in this very sermon as to say Take heed you do not your almes before men to be seene of them Is there no contradiction in these far from it The intent of both precepts together make up this doctrine That we doe them not therefore not to that end that men may see them So far we must come that men must see them but we must not rest there for it is but Sic luceat Let your light shine out so it is not let it shine out therefore Our doing of good workes must have a farther end then the knowledge of men as we shall see towards our end anon Men must see them then Opera and see them to be workes Vt videant opera That they may see your works which is a word that implies difficulty and paine and labour and is accompanied with some loathnesse with some colluctation Doe such workes for Gods sake as are hard for thee to doe In such a word does God deliver his Commandement of the Sabbath not that word which in that language signifies ordinary and eafie works but servile and laborious workes toylesome and
first end of letting our light to shine before men is that they may know Gods proceedings but the last end to which all conduces is that God may have glory Whatsoever God did first in his own bosome in his own decree what that was contentious men will needs wrangle whatsoever that first act was Gods last end in that first act of his was his own glory And therefore to impute any inglorious or ignoble thing to God comes too neare blasphemy And be any man who hath any sense or taste of noblenesse or honour judge whether there be any glory in the destruction of those creatures whom they have raised till those persons have deserved ill at their hands and in some way have damnified them or dishonoured them Nor can God propose that for glory to destroy man till he finde cause in man Now this glory to which Christ bends all in this Text that men by seeing your good works might glorifie your Father consists especially in these two declarations Commemoration and Imitation a due celebration of former founders and benefactors and a pious proceeding according to such precedents is this glorifying of God When God calls himself so often The God of Abraham of Isaac and of Iacob Gloria ex Commemoratione Ezech. 14.14 God would have the world remember that Abraham Isaac and Iacob were extraordinary men memorable men When God sayes Though these three men Noah Daniel and Iob were here they should not deliver this people God would have it knowne that Noah Daniel and Iob were memorable men and able to doe much with him When the Holy Ghost is so carefull to give men their additions Gen. 4.20 That Iabal was the father of such as dwell in Tents keep Cattell Iubal the father of Harpers and Organists and Tubal-Cain of all Gravers in Brasse and Iron And when he presents with so many particularities every peece of worke that Hiram of Tyre wrought in Brasse for the furnishing of Solomons Temple 1 Reg. 7.13 God certainly is not afraid that his honour will be diminished in the honourable mentioning of such men as have benefited the world by publique good works The wise man seemes to settle himselfe upon that meditation let us now praise famous men sayes he Ecclus. 44.1 and our fathers that begot us and so he institutes a solemne commemoration and gives a catalogue of Enoch and Abraham and Moses and Aaron and so many more as possesse six Chapters nor doth he ever end the meditation till he end his booke so was he fixt upon the commemoration of good men Heb. 11. as S. Paul likewise feeds and delights himselfe in the like meditation even from Abel It is therefore a wretched impotency not to endure the commemoration and honourable mentioning of our Founders and Benefactors God hath delivered us and our Church from those straights in which some Churches of the Reformation have thought themselves to be when they have made Canons That there should be no Bell rung no dole given no mention made of the dead at any Funerall lest that should savour of superstition The Holy Ghost hath taught us the difference between praising the dead and praying for the dead betweene commemorating of Saints and invocating of Saints We understand what David meanes when he sayes This honour have all his Saints and what S. Paul meanes Psal 149.9 1 Tim. 1.17 when he sayes Vnto the only wise God be honour and glory for ever and ever God is honoured in due honour given to his Saints and glorified in the commemoration of those good men whose light hath so shined out before men that they have seen their good workes But then he is glorified more in our imitation then in our commemoration Herein is my Father glorified sayes Christ that ye beare much fruit Gloria ex Imitatione Iohn 15.8 Mar. 4.20 The seed sowed in good ground bore some an hundred fold the least thirty The seed in this case is the example that is before you of those good men whose light hath shined out so that you have seene their good workes Let this seed these good examples bring forth hundreds and sixties and thirties in you much fruit for herein is your Father glorified that you beare much fruit Of which plentifull encrease I am afraid there is one great hinderance that passes through many of you that is that when your Will lyes by you in which some little lamp of this light is set up something given to God in pious uses if a Ship miscarry if a Debtor break if your state be any way empaired the first that suffers the first that is blotted out of the Will is God and his Legacy and if your estates encrease portions encrease and perchance other legacies but Gods portion and legacy stands at a stay Christ left two uses of his passion application and imitation He suffered for us 1 Pet. 2.22 sayes the Apostle for us that is that we might make his death ours apply his death and then as it follows there he left us an example So Christ gives us two uses of the Reformation of Religion first the doctrine how to doe good works without relying upon them as meritorious and then example many very many men and more by much in some kindes of charity since the Reformation of Religion then before even in this City whose light hath shined out before you and you have seen their good works That as this noble City hath justly acquired the reputation and the testimony of all who have had occasion to consider their dealings in that kinde that they deale most faithfully most justly most providently in all things which are committed to their trust for pious uses from others not only in a full employment of that which was given but in an improvement thereof and then an employment of that emprovement to the same pious use so every man in his particular may propose to himselfe some of those blessed examples which have risen amongst your selves and follow that and exceed that That as your lights are Torches and not petty Candles and your Torches better then others Torches so he also may be a larger example to others then others have been to him for Herein is your Father glorified if you beare much fruit and that is the end of all that we all doe That men seeing it may glorifie our Father which is in heaven SERMON IX Preached upon Candlemas day ROM 13.7 Render therefore to all men their dues The Text being part of the Epistle of that day that yeare THe largenesse of this short Text consists in that word Therefore therefore because you have been so particularly taught your particular duties therefore perform them therefore practise them Reddite omnibus debita Render therefore to every man his due The Philosopher might seem to have contracted as large a law into a few words in his suum cuique as the Holy Ghost had done in his Reddite
be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost yet we see out of the formes of the Heretiques themselves still so farre as they conceived the Godhead to extend so farre they extended Glory in that holy acclamation those who beleeved not the Son to be God or the Holy Ghost not to be God left out Glory when they came to their Persons but to him that is God in all confessions Glory appertains Now Glory is Clara cum laude notitia sayes S. Ambrose It is an evident knowledge and acknowledgement of God by which others come to know him too which acknowledgement is well called a recognition for it is a second a ruminated a reflected knowledge Beasts doe remember but they doe not remember that they remember they doe not reflect upon it which is that that constitutes memory Every carnall and naturall man knowes God but the acknowledgement the recognition the manifestation of the greatnesse and goodnesse of God accompanied with praise of him for that this appertaines to the godly man and this constitutes glory If God have delivered me from a sicknesse and I doe not glorifie him for that that is make others know his goodnesse to me my sicknesse is but changed to a spirituall apoplexy to a lethargy to a stupefaction If God have delivered us from destruction in the bowels of the Sea in an Invasion and from destruction in the bowels of the earth in the Powder-treason and we grow faint in the publication of our thanks for this deliverance our punishment is but aggravated for we shall be destroyed both for those old sins which induced those attempts of those destructions and for this later and greater sin of forgetting those deliverances God requires nothing else but he requires that Glory and Praise And that booke of the Scriptures of which S. Basil sayes That if all the other parts of Scripture could perish yet out of that booke alone we might have enough for all uses for Catechizing for Preaching for Disputing That whole Booke which containes all subjects that appertaine to Religion is called altogether Sepher Tehillim The Booke of praises for all our Religion is Praise And of that Book every particular Psalme is appointed by the Church and continued at least for a thousand and two hundred yeares to be shut up with that humble and glorious acclamation Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost O that men would therefore praise the Lord and declare the wonderfull works that he doth for the sons of men Nil quisquam debet nisi quod turpe est non reddere sayes the Law It is Turpe an infamous and ignominious thing not to pay debt And infamous and ignominious are heavy and reproachfull words in the Law and the Gospell would adde to that Turpe Impium It is not onely an infamous but an impious an irreligious thing not to pay debts As in debts the State and the Judge is my security they undertake I shall be paid or they execute Judgement so consider our selves as Christians God is my security and he will punish where I am defrauded Either thou owest God nothing And then if thou owe him nothing from whom or from what hath shestollen that face that is faire or he that estate that is rich or that office that commands others or that learning and those orders and commission that preaches to others or they their soules that understand me now If you owe nothing from whom had you all these all this Or if thou dost owe Turpe est Impium est It is an unworthy it is an unhonest it is an irreligious thing not to pay him in that money which his owne Spirit mints and coynes in thee and of his owne bullion too praise and thanksgiving Not to pay him then when he himselfe gives thee the money that must pay him the Spirit of Thankfulnesse falls under all the reproaches that Law or Gospell can inflict in any names How many men have we seene molder and crumble away great estates and yet pay no debts It is all our cases What Poems and what Orations we make how industrious and witty we are to over-praise men and never give God his due praise Nay how often is the Pulpit it selfe made the shop and the Theatre of praise upon present men and God left out How often is that called a Sermon that speakes more of Great men Psal 148.2 then of our great God Laudate eum omnes Augeli ejus laudate eum omnes virtutes ejus David calls upon the Angels and all the Host of Heaven to praise God and in the Romane Church they will employ willingly all their praise upon the Angels and the Host of Heaven it selfe and this is not reddere debitum here is mony enough spent but no debt paid praise enough given but not to the true God Ver. 10. Laudate eum ligna fructifera universa pecora volucres pennatae sayes David there David calls upon fruits and fowle and cattle to praise God and we praise and set forth our lands and fruits and fowle and cattle with all Hyperbolicall praises and this is not reddere debitum no paiment of a debt where it is due Laudate eum juvenes senes virgines sayes David too He calls upon old men and young men and virgins to praise the Lord and we spend all our praises upon young men which are growing up in favour or upon old men who have the government in their hands or upon maidens towards whom our affections have transported us and all this is no paiment of the debt of praise Laudate eum Reges terrae Principes omnes Iudices V. 11. He calls upon Kings and Judges and Magistrates to praise God and we employ all our praise upon the actions of those persons themselves Beloved God cannot be flattered he cannot be over-praised we can speake nothing Hyperbolically of God But he cannot be mocked neither He will not be told I have praised thee in praising thy creature which is thine Image would that discharge any of my debt to a Merchant to tell him that I had bestowed as much or more mony then my debt upon his picture Though Princes and Judges and Magistrates be pictures and Images of God though beauty and riches and honour and power and favour be in a proportion so too yet as I bought not that Merchants picture because it was his or for love of him but because it was a good peece and of a good Masters hand and a good house-ornament so though I spend my nights and dayes and thoughts and spirits and words and preaching and writing upon Princes and Judges and Magistrates and persons of estimation and their praise yet my intention determines in that use which I have of their favour and respects not the glory of God in them and when I have spent my selfe to the last farthing my lungs to the last breath my wit
whole parishes whom thou hast depopulated thy soule may goe confidently home too if thou bribe God then with an Hospitall or a Fellowship in a Colledge or a Legacy to any pious use in apparance and in the eye of the world Pay thy selfe therefore this debt that is make up thine account all the way for when that voyce comes Luk. 16.2 Redde rationem Give up an account of thy Stewardship it is not goe home now and make up thy account perfect but now now deliver up thine account if it be perfect it is well if it be not here is no longer day for Iam non poteris villicare now thou canst be no lenger Steward Esay 38.1 now thou hast no more to doe with thy selfe Here the voyce is not in the word to Ezekiah Dispone domui put thy house in order for morieris thou shalt die For there God had a gracious purpose to give him a longer terme but here it is foole this night repetunt not they shall but they doe fetch away thy soule and then what is become of that To morrow which thou hadst imagined and promised to thy selfe for the paiment of this debt of this repentance Be just therefore to thy selfe all the way pay thy selfe and take acquittances of thy selfe all the way which is onely done under the seale and in the testimony of a rectified conscience Let thine owne conscience be thine evidence and thy Rolls and not the opinion of others Non tutum planè sed stultum ibi thesaurum tuum recondere ubi non vales resumere cum volueris sayes Saint Bernard It is not providently done to lock thy treasure in a chest of which thou hast no key and to which thou hast no accesse Si ponis in os meum jam non in tua sed mea potestate est ut te laudare vel tibi derogare possim If thou build thy reputation upon my report it is now in my power not in thine whether thou shalt be good or bad honourable or infamous Sanum vas inconcussum conscientia a good conscience is a sweet vessell and a strong Quicquid in ea reposueris servabit vivo defuncto restituet Whatsoever thou laiest up in that shall serve thee all thy life and after and that shall be thine acquittance and discharge atthy last paiment in manustuas when thou returnest thy spirit into his hands that gave it And then reddidisti debita omnibus thou shalt have rendred to all their dues when thou hast given the King Honour the poore almes thy selfe peace and God thy soule SERMON X. Preached upon Candlemas Day ROM 12.20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink for in so doing thou shalt heap coales of fire on his head IT falls out I know not how but I take it from the instinct of the Holy Ghost and from the Propheticall spirit residing in the Church of God that those Scriptures which are appointed to be read in the Church all these dayes for I take no other this Terme doe evermore afford and offer us Texts that direct us to patience as though these times had especial need of those instructions And truly so they have for though God have so farre spared us as yet as to give us no exercise of patience in any afflictions inflicted upon our selves yet as the heart akes if the head doe nay if the foote ake the heart akes too so all that professe the name of Christ Jesus aright making up but one body we are but dead members of that body if we be not affected with the distempers of the most remote parts thereof That man sayes but faintly that he is heart-whole that is macerated with the Gout or lacerated with the Stone It is not a heart but a stone growne into that forme that feeles no paine till the paine seize the very substance thereof How much and how often S. Paul delights himselfe with that sociable syllable Syn Con Conregnare and Convificare and Consedere of Raigning together 2 Tim. 2.12 Eph. 2.1 6. and living and quickning together As much also doth God delight in it from us when we expresse it in a Conformity and Compunction and Compassion and Condolency and as it is but a little before the Text in weeping with them that weepe Our patience therefore being actually exercised in the miseries of our brethren round about us and probably threatned in the aimes and plots of our adversaries upon us though I hunt not after them yet I decline not such Texts as may direct our thoughts upon duties of that kinde This Text does so for the circle of this Epistle of S. Paul this precious ring being made of that golden Doctrine That Justification is by faith and being enameled with that beautifull Doctrine of good works too in which enameled Ring as a precious stone in the midst thereof there is set the glorious Doctrine of our Election by Gods eternall Predestination our Text falls in that part which concernes obedience holy life good works which when both the Doctrines that of Justification by faith and that of Predestination have suffered controversie hath been by all sides embraced and accepted that there is no faith which the Angels in heaven or the Church upon earth or our own consciences can take knowledge of without good works Of which good works and the degrees of obedience of patience it is a great one and a hard one that is enjoyned in this Text for whereas S. Augustine observes sixe degrees sixe steps in our behaviour towards our enemies whereof the first is nolle laedere to be loth to hurt any man by way of provocation not to begin And a second nolle amplius quam laesus laedere That if another provoke him yet what power soever he have he would returne no more upon his enemy then his enemy had cast upon him he would not exceed in his revenge And a third velle minus not to doe so much as he suffered but in a lesse proportion onely to shew some sense of the injury And then another is nolle laedere licet laesus to returne no revenge at all though he have been provoked by an injury And a higher then that par atum se exhibere ut amplius laedatur to turne the other cheeke when he is smitten and open himselfe to farther injuries That which is in this Text is the sixt step and the highest of all laedenti benefacere to doe good to him of whom we have received evill If thine enemy hunger to feed him if he thirst to give him drinke for in so c. The Text is a building of stone and that bound in with barres of Iron Divisio fundamentall Doctrine in point of manners in it selfe and yet buttressed and established with reasons too therefore and for Therefore feed thine enemy For in so doing thou shalt heape coales This therefore confirmes the precedent Doctrine and this For confirmes
because he may have roome in an Hospitall or reliefe by a pension when he comes home lame but because he may get something by going into a fat country and against a rich enemy Though honour may seeme to feed upon blowes and dangers men goe cheerefully against an enemy from whom something is to be got for profit is a good salve to knocks a good Cere-cloth to bruises and a good Balsamum to wounds God therefore here raises the reward out of the enemy feed him and thou shalt gaine by it But yet the profit that God promises by the enemy here is rather that we shall gaine a soule then any temporall gaine rather that we shall make that enemy a better man then that we shall make him a weaker enemy God respects his spirituall good as we shall see in that phrase which is our last branch Congeres carbones Thou shalt heape coales of fire upon his head It is true that S. Chrysostome and not he alone takes this phrase to imply a Revenge Carbones that Gods judgements shall be the more vehement upon such ungratefull persons Et terrebuntur beneficiis the good turnes that thou hast done to them shall be a scourge and a terror to their consciences This sense is not inconvenient but it is too narrow The Holy Ghost hath taken so large a Metaphor as implyes more then that It implyes the divers offices and effects of fire all this That if he have any gold any pure metall in him this fire of this kindnesse will purge out the drosse there is a friend made If he be nothing but straw and stubble combustible still still ready to take fire against thee this fire which Gods breath shall blow will consume him and burn him out and there is an enemy marred If he have any tendernesse any way this fire will mollifie him towards thee Nimis durus animus sayes S. Augustine he is a very hard hearted man Qui si ultro dilectionem non vult impendere etiam nolit rependere Who though he will not requite thy love yet will not acknowledge it If he be waxe he melts with this fire and if he be clay he hardens with it and then thou wilt arme thy selfe against that pellet Thus much good Origen God intends to the enemy in this phrase that it is pia vindicta si resipiscant we have taken a blessed revenge upon our enemies if our charitable applying of our selves to them may bring them to apply themselves to God and to glorifie him si benefaciendo cicuremus sayes S. Hierome if we can tame a wilde beast by sitting up with him and reduce an enemy by offices of friendship it is well 〈◊〉 much good God intends him in this phrase and so much good he intends us that si non incendant if these coales do not purge him Aben Ezra Levi Gherson si non injiciant pudorem if they do not kindle a shame in him to have offended one that hath deserved so well yet this fire gives thee light to see him clearely and to run away from him and to assure thee that he whom so many benefits cannot reconcile is irreconcileable SERMON XI Preached upon Candlemas day MAT. 9.2 And Iesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsie My son be of good cheare thy sins be forgiven thee IN these words Divisio and by occasion of them we shall present to you these two generall considerations first upon what occasion Christ did that which he did and then what it was that he did And in the first we shall see first some occasions that were remote but yet conduce to the Miracle it selfe some circumstances of time and place and some such dispositions and then the more immediate occasion the disposition of those persons who presented this sick man to Christ and there we shall see first that Faith was the occasion of all for without faith it is impossible to please God and without pleasing of God it is impossible to have remission of sins It was fides and fides illorum their faith all their faith for though in the faith of others there be an assistance yet without a personall faith in himselfe no man of ripe age comes so far as to the forgivenesse of sins And then this faith of them all was fides visa a faith that was seen Christ saw their faith and he saw it as man it was a faith expressed and declared in actions And yet when all was done it is but cum vidit it is not quia vidit Christ did it When he saw not Because he saw their faith that was not the principle and primary cause of his mercy for the mercy of God is all and above all it is the effect and it is the cause too there is no cause of his mercy but his mercy And when we come in the second part to consider what in his mercy he did we shall see first that he establishes him and comforts him with a gracious acceptation with that gracious appellation Fili Son He doth not disavow him he doth not disinherite him and then he doth not wound him whom God had striken he doth not flea him whom God had scourged he doth not salt him whom God had flead he doth not adde affliction to affliction he doth not shake but settle that faith which he had with more Confide fili My son be of good cheare and then he seales all with that assurance Dimittuntur peccata Thy sins are forgiven thee In which first he catechises this patient and gives him all these lessons first that he gives before we ask for he that was brought they who brought him had asked nothing in his behalfe when Christ unasked enlarged himself towards them Dat prius God gives before we ask that is first And then Dat meliora God gives better things then we ask All that all they meant to ask was but bodily health and Christ gave him spirituall and the third lesson was that sin was the cause of bodily sicknesse and that therefore he ought to have sought his spirituall recovery before his bodily health and then after he had thus rectified him by this Catechisme implyed in those few words Thy sins are forgiven thee he takes occasion by this act to rectifie the by-standers too which were the Pharisees who did not beleeve Christ to be God For for proofe of that first he takes knowledge of their inward thoughts not expressed by any act or word which none but God could doe And then he restores the patient to bodily health onely by his word without any naturall meanes applyed which none but God could doe neither And into fewer particulars then these this pregnant and abundant Text is not easily contracted First then to begin with the Branches of the first part of which the first was 1 Part. to consider some somewhat more remote circumstances and occasions conducing to this miracle we cannot avoid the making
Consistory but that the Pope for a certain time inhibites them to give voice And let Aquinas present his arguments to the contrary That those spirits have no naturall power to know thoughts we seek no farther but that Christ Jesus himselfe thought it argument enough to convince the Scribes and Pharisees and prove himselfe God by knowing their thoughts Eadem Majestate potentia sayes S. Hierome Since you see I proceed as God in knowing your thoughts why beleeve you not that I may forgive his sins as God too And then in the last act he joynes both together he satisfies the patient Dat sanitatem and he satisfies the beholders too he gives him his first desire bodily health He bids him take up his bed and walk and he doth it and he shewes them that he is God by doing that which as it appears in the Story was harder in their opinion then remission of sins which was to cure and recover a diseased man only by his word without any naturall or second means And therefore since all the world shakes in a palsie of wars and rumors of wars since we are sure that Christs Vicar in this case will come to his Dimitmittuntur peccata to send his Buls and Indulgences and Crociatars for the maintenance of his part in that cause let us also who are to do the duties of private men to obey and not to direct by presenting our diseased and paralytique souls to Christ Jesus now when he in the Ministery of his unworthiest servant is preaching unto you by untiling the house by removing all disguises and palliations of our former sins by true confession and hearty detestation let us endeavour to bring him to his Dimittuntur peccata to forgive us all those sins which are the true causes of all our palsies and slacknesses in his service and so without limiting him or his great Vicegerents and Lieutenants the way or the time to beg of him that he will imprint in them such counsels and such resolutions as his wisdome knows best to conduce to his glory and the maintenance of his Gospell Amen SERMON XII Preached upon Candlemas day MAT. 5.2 Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God THe Church which is the Daughter of God and Spouse of Christ celebrates this day the Purification of the blessed Virgin the Mother of God And she celebrates this day by the name vulgarly of Candlemas day It is dies luminarium the day of lights The Church took the occasion of doing so from the Gentiles At this time of the yeare about the beginning of February they celebrated the feast of Februus which is their Pluto And because that was the God of darknesse they solemnized it with a multiplicity of Lights The Church of God in the outward and ceremoniall part of his worship did not disdain the ceremonies of the Gentiles Men who are so severe as to condemne and to remove from the Church whatsoever was in use amongst the Gentiles before may before they are aware become Surveyors and Controllers upon Christ himself in the institution of his greatest seales for Baptisme which is the Sacrament of purification by washing in water and the very Sacrament of the Supper it self religious eating and drinking in the Temple were in use amongst the Gentiles too It is a perverse way rather to abolish Things and Names for vehement zeale will work upon Names as well as Things because they have been abused then to reduce them to their right use We dealt in the reformation of Religion as Christ did in the institution thereof He found ceremonies amongst the Gentiles and he took them in not because he found them there but because the Gentiles had received them from the Jews as they had their washings and their religious meetings to eat and drink in the Temple from the Jews Passeover Christ borrowed nothing of the Gentiles but he took his own where he found it Those ceremonies which himself had instituted in the first Church of the Jews and the Gentiles had purloined and prophaned and corrupted after he returned to a good use againe And so did we in the Reformation in some ceremonies which had been of use in the Primitive Church and depraved and corrupted in the Romane For the solemnizing of this Day Candlemas-day when the Church did admit Candles into the Church as the Gentiles did it was not upon the reason of the Gentiles who worshipped therein the God of darknesse Februus Pluto but because he who was the light of the world was this day presented and brought into the Temple the Church admitted lights The Church would signifie that as we are to walk in the light so we are to receive our light from the Church and to receive Christ and our knowledge of him so as Christ hath notified himself to us So it is a day of purification to us and a day of lights and so our Text fits the Day Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God In these words we shall consider first Divisie Qui sint who they are that are brought into consideration that are put into the balance and they are mundi corde such as are pure of heart And secondly Quid sint what they come to be and it is Beati blessed are the pure in heart And lastly Vnde from whence this blessednesse accrews and arises unto them and in what it consists and that is Videbunt Deum blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God Gen. 6.5 Ask me wherein these men differ from other men and it is in this main difference Mundi corde that whereas every imagination of the thought of mans heart is only evill continually They are pure of heart Ask me what they get by that They get this main purchase Beati That which all the books of all the Philosophers could never teach them so much as what it was that is true Blessednesse That their pocket book their Manuall their bosome book their conscience doth not only shew them but give them not only declare it to them but possesse them of it Ask me how long this Blessednesse shall last because all those Blessednesses which Philosophers have imagined as honour and health and profit and pleasure and the like have evaporated and vanished away this shall last for ever Videbunt Deum they shall see God and they shall no more see an end of their seeing God then an end of his being God Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God These then are our three parts first the Price mundities cordis cleannesse and cleannesse of heart Secondly the Purchase Beati Blessednesse and present possession of blessednesse Blessed are they And then thirdly the Habendum the term Everlastingnesse because it consists in the enjoying of him who is everlasting They shall see God These arise out of the Text but from whence arises the Text it selfe The Text it self is a piece of a Sermon of
vae habitantibus terram Apoc. 8.13 a woe of desolation upon the whole world for God loves this world as the worke of his owne hands as the subject of his providence as the Scene of his glory as the Garden-plot that is watered by the Blood of his Son Since the Woe in this Text is not Esaies wo Vae genti peccatrici Esay 1.4 an increpation and commination upon our whole Nation for God hath not come so neare to any Nation and dealt so well with any Nation as with ours Since the Woe in this Text is not Ezekiels Woe Ezek. 24â— Vae Civitati sanguinum an imputation of injustice or oppression and consequently of a malediction laid upon the whole City for God hath carried his woes upon other Cities Vae Chorasin vae Bethsaida God hath laid his heavy hand of warre and other calamities upon other Cities that this City might see her selfe and her calamities long before in that glasse and so avoid them Since the Woe in this Text is not the Prophets other woe Ezek. 44.6 Ios 24.15 Vae domui not a woe upon any family for when any man in his family comes to Ioshua's protestation Ego domus mea As for me and my house we will serve the Lord the Lord comes to his protestation In mille generationes Esay 28.1 I will shew mercy to thee and thy house for a thousand generations Since the Woe in this Text is not Esaies woe againe Vae Coronae for the same Prophet tels us of what affection they are that they are Idolaters persons inclin'd to an idolatrous and superstitious Religion and fret themselves Esay 8 2â— and curse the King and their God we know that the Prophets Vae Coronae in that place is Vae Coronae superbiae and the crowne and heighth of Pride is in him who hath set himselfe above all that is called God Christian Princes know that if their Crownes were but so as they seeme all gold they should bee but so much the heavier for being all gold but they are but Crownes of thornes gilded specious cares glorious troubles and therefore no subject of pride To contract this since the Woe in this Text is no State woe nor Church woe for it is not Ezechiels Vae Pastoribus insipientibus which cannot feed their flock Ezek. 23.3 Ier. 23.1 nor Ieremies Vae Pastoribus disperdentibus Woe unto those lazie Shepheards which doe not feed their flock but suffer them to scatter Snce the Woe in this Text is not a woe upon the whole World nor upon the whole Nation nor upon the whole City nor upon any whole Family nor upon any whole ranke or calling of men when I have asked with Solomon Cui vae to whom belongs this woe I must answer with S. Paul Vae mihi Prov. 23.19 1 Cor. 9.16 woe unto me if I doe not tell them to whom it belongs And therefore since in spirituall things especially charity begins with it selfe I shall transferre this Vae from my selfe by laying it upon them whom your owne conscience shall find it to belong unto Vae desiderantibus diem Domini Woe be unto them that desire the day of the Lord c. But yet if these words can be narrow in respect of persons it is strange for in respect of the sins that they are directed upon they have a great compasse they reach from that high fin of Presumption and contempt and deriding the day of the Lord the judgements of God and they passe through the sin of Hypocrisie when we make shift to make the world and to make our selves beleeve that we are in good case towards God and would be glad that the day of the Lord the day of judgement would come now and then they come downe to the deepest sin the sin of Desperation of an unnaturall valuing of this life when overwhelmed with the burden of other sins or with Gods punishment for them men grow to a murmuring wearinesse of this life and to an impatient desire and perchance to a practise of their owne ends In the first acceptation the day of the Lord is the day of his Judgements and afflictions in this life In the second the day of the Lord is the day of the generall judgement And in the third the day of the Lord is that Crepusculum that twilight betweene the two lives or rather that Meridies noctis as the Poet cals it that noone of night the houre of our death and transmigration out of this world And if any desire any of these daies of the Lord out of any of these indispositions out of presumption out of hypocrisie out of desperation he fals within the compasse of this Text and from him we cannot take off this Vae desiderantibus First then the Prophet directs himself most literally upon the first sin of Presumption They were come to say 1 Part. that in truth whatsoever the Prophet declaimed in the streets there was no such thing as Dies Domini any purpose in God to bring such heavy judgements upon them to the Prophets themselves they were come to say You your selves live parched and macerated in a starved and penurious fortune and therefore you cry out that all we must die of famine too you your selves have not a foot of land a mong all the Tribes therfore you cry out that all the Tribes must be carried into another Land in Captivity That which you call the Day of the Lord is come upon you beggery and nakednesse and hunger contempt and affliction and imprisonment is come upon you and therefore you will needs extend this day upon the whole State but desideramus we would fain see any such thing come to passe we would fain see God goe about to do any such thing as that the State should not be wise enough to prevent him To see a Prophet neglected because he will not flatter to see him despised below because he is neglected above to see him injured insulted upon and really damnified because he is despised All this is dies mundi and not dies Domini it is the ordinary course of the world and no extraordinary day of the Lord but that there should be such a stupor and consternation of minde and conscience as you talk of and that that should be so expressed in the countenance Lam. 4.7 that they which had been purer then snow whiter then milk redder then Rubies smoother then Saphirs should not only be as in other cases pale with a sudden feare but blacker in face then a coale as the Prophet sayes there that they should not be able to set a good face upon their miseries nor disguise them with a confident countenance that there should be such a consternation of countenance and conscience and then such an excommunication of Church and State as that the whole body of the children of Israel should be without King Hos 3.4 without Sacrifice without Ephod without
Terafim Desideramus We would fain see such a time we would fain see such a God as were so much too hard for us They had seen such a God before they had known that that God had formerly brought all the people upon the face of the earth so neare to an annihilation so neare to a new creation as to be but eight persons in the generall flood they had seen that God to have brought their own numerous and multitudinous Nation their 600000. men that came out of Aegypt to that paucity as that but two of them are recorded to enter into the land of promise And could they doubt what that God could do or would do upon them Or as Ieremy saith Jer. 12. Could they belie the Lord and say it is not he neither shall evill come upon us or shall we see sword and famine God expressed his anger thrice upon this people in their State in their form of government First he exprest it in giving them a King for though that be the best form of government in it self yet for that people at that time God saw it not to be the fittest and so it was extorted from him and he gave them their King in anger Secondly he expressed his anger in giving them two Kings in the desection of the ten Tribes and division of the two Kingdomes Thirdly he exprest his anger in leaving them without any King after this Captivity which was prophesied here Now of those 6000. yeares which are vulgarly esteemed to be the age and terme of this world 3000. were past before the division of the Kingdome and presently upon the division they argued à divisibili ad corruptibile whatsoever may be broken and divided may come to nothing It is the devils way to come to destruction by breaking of unions There was a contract between God and Iob because Iob loved and feared him and there the devill attempts to draw away the head from the union God from Iob with that suggestion Doth Iob serve thee for nothing Doest thou get any thing by this union or doth not Iob serve himself upon thee There was a naturall an essentiall an eternall union between the Father and the Son in the Trinity and the devill sought to break that If he could break the union in the Godhead he saw not why he might not destroy the Godhead The devill was Logician good enough Omne divisibile corruptibile whatsoever may be broken may be annihilated And the devill was Papist good enough Schisma aequipollet haeresi Whosoever is a Schismatick departed from the obedience of the Romane Church is easily brought within compasse of heresie too because it is a matter of faith to affirm a necessity of such an obedience And therefore the devil attempts to make that Schisme in the Trinity with that Si filius Deies Make these stones bread If thou beest the Son of God cast thy self down from this Pinnacle that is do something of thy self exceed thy commission and never attend so punctually all thy directions from thy Father In Iobs case he would draw the head from the union In Christs case he would alienate the Son from the Father because division is the fore runner and alas but a little way the fore-runner of destruction And therefore assoon as that Kingdome was come to a division between ten and two Tribes between a King of Judah and a King of Israel presently upon it and in the compasse of a very short time arose all those Prophets that prophesied of a destruction assoon as they saw a division they foresaw a destruction And therefore when God had shewed before what he could doe and declared by his Prophets then what he would doe Vae desiderantibus Woe unto them that say Esay 5.18 Let him make speed and hasten his work that we may see it That is that are yet confident that no such thing shall fall upon us and confident with a scorn 2 Pet. 3.4 and fulfill that which the Apostle saith There shall come in the latter daies scoffers saying Where is the promise of his comming for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning at the Creation But God shall answer their scorn with scorn as in Ezekiel Son of man Ezek. 12.22 What is that Proverb which you have in the Land of Israel saying The dayes are prolonged and every vision failes That is the Prophets talk of great calamities but we are safe enough Tell them sayes the Lord I will make their proverb to cease I will speak and it shall come to passe in your dayes O rebellious house will I say the word and per-form it And therefore ut quid vobis what should you pretend to desire that day what can ye get by that day Because you have made a covenant with death and are at an agreement with hell when that Invadens flagellum as the Prophet with an elegant horror if they can consist expresses it when that over-flowing scourge shall passe through shall it not come to you Why Esay 20.15 who are you have you thought of it before hand considered it digested it and resolved that in the worst that can fall your vocall constancy and your humane valour shall sustaine you from all dejection of spirit what judgement of God soever shall fall upon you whensoever this dies Domini shall break out upon you you have light in your selves and by that light you shall see light and passe through all incommodities Be not deceived this day of the Lord is darknesse and not light the first blast the first breath of his indignation blowes out thy candle extinguishes all thy Wisedome all thy Counsells all thy Philosophicall sentences disorders thy Seneca thy Plutarch thy Tacitus and all thy premeditations for the sword of the Lord is a two-edged sword it cuts bodily and it cuts ghostly it cuts temporally and it cuts spiritually it cuts off all worldly reliefe from others and it cuts off all Christian patience and good interpretation of Gods correction in thine owne heart Vt quid vobis what can you get by that day can you imagine that though you have beene benighted under your owne obduration and security before yet when this day of the Lord the day of affliction shall come afflictio dabit intellectum the day will bring light of it selfe the affliction will give understanding and it will be time enough to see the danger and the remedy both at once and to turne to God by that light which that affliction shall give Be not deceived dies Domini tenebrae this day of the Lord will be darknesse and not light God hath made two great lights for man the Sun and the Moone God doth manifest himselfe two waies to man by prosperity and adversity but if there were no Sun there would be no light in the Moone neither If there be no sense of God in thy greatnesse in thy abundance it is a dark
1 Thes 5.16 I may have leave to speake here hereafter more seasonably in a more Festivall time by my ordinary service This is the season of generall Compunction of generall Mortification and no man priviledged for Iesus wept In that Letter which Lentulus in said to have written to the Senate of Rome Divisiâ— in which he gives some Characters of Christ he saies That Christ was never seene to laugh but to weepe often Now in what number he limits his often or upon what testimony he grounds him number we know not We take knowledgethat he wept thrice Hee wept here when he mourned with them that mourned for Lazarus He wept againe when he drew neare to Jerusalem and looked upon that City And he wept a third time in his Passion There is but one Euangelist but this S. Iohn that tells us of these first teares the rest say nothing of them There is but one Euangelist S. Luke Luke 19.41 Hcb. 5.7 that tells us of his second teares the rest speake not of those There is no Euangelist but there is an Apostle that tells us of his third teares S. Paul saies That in the daies of his flesh be offered up prayers with strong cries and teares And those teares Expositors of all sides referre to his Passion though some to his Agony in the Garden some to his Passion on the Corsse and these in my opinion most fitly because those words of S. Paul belong to the declaration of the Priesthood and of the Sacrifice of Christ and for that function of his the Crosse was the Altar and therefore to the Crosse we fixe those third teares The first were Humane teares the second were Propheticall the third were Pontificall appertaining to the Sarifice The first were shed in a Condolency of a humane and naturall calamity fallen upon one family Lazarus was dead The second were shed in Contemplation of future calamitie upon a Nation Jerusalem was to be destroyed The third in Contemplation of sin and the everlasting punishments due to sin and to such sinners as would make no benefit of that Sacrifice which he offered in offering himselfe His friend was dead and then Jesus wept He justified naturail affectins and such offices of piety Jerusalem was tobe destroyed and then Jesus wept He commiserated publique and nationall calamities though a private person His very giving of himselfe for sin was to become to a great many ineffectuall and then Jsus wept He declared how indelible the naturall staine of sin is that not such sweat as hi such teares such blood as his could absolutely wash it out of mans nature The teares of the text are as a Spring a Well belonging to onehoushold the Sisters of Lazarus The teares over Jerusalem are as a River belonging to a whole Country The teares upon the Crosse are as the Sea belonging to all the world and though literally there fall no more into our text then the Spring yet because the Spring flowes into the River and the River into the Sea and that wheresoever we find that Jesus wept we find our Text for our Text is but that Iisus wept therefore by the leave and light of his blessed Spirit we shall looke upon those lovely those heavenly eye through this glasse of his owne teares in all these three lines as he wept here over Lazarus as he wept there over Jerusalem as he wept upon the Crosse over all us For so often Jesus wept Fitst then 1 Part. Humanitus Jesus wept Humâ—nitus he tooke a necessary occasion to shew that he was true Man He was now in hand with the greatest Miracle that ever he did the raising of Lazarus so long dead Could we but do so in our spirituall raising what a blessed harvest were that What a comfort to finde one man here to day raised from his spirituall death this day twelve-month Christ did it every yeare and every yeare he improved his Miracle Mat. 9.25 In the first yeare he raised the Governours Daughter se was newly dead and as yetin the house In the beginning of sin and whilst in the house in the house of God in the Church in a glad obedience to Gods Ordinances and Institutions there for the reparation and resuscitation of dead soules the worke is not so hard In his second yeare Luke 7.15 Christ raised the Widows Son and him he found without ready to be buried In a man growne cold and stiffe in sin impenetrable inflexible by denouncing the Judgements of God almost buried in a stupidity and insensiblenesse of his being dead there is more difficultie But in his third yeare Christ raised this Lazarus he had been long dead and buried and in probability puttrified after foure daies This Miracle Christ meant to make a pregnant proofe of the Resurrection which was his principall intention therein For the greatest arguments against the Resurrection being for the most part of this kinde when a Fish eates a man and another man eates that fish or when one man eates another how shall both these men rise againe when a body is resolv'd in the grave to the first principles or is passed into other substances the case is somewhat neere the same and therefore Christ would worke upon a body neare that state abody putrified And truly in our srirituall raising of the dead to raise a sinner putrified in his owne earth resolv'd in his owne dung especially that hath passed many transformations from shape to shape from sin to sin hi hath beene a Salamander and lived in the fire in the fire successvely in the fire of lust in his youth and in his age in the fire of Ambition and then he hath beene a Serpent a Fish and lived in the waters in the water successively in the troubled water of sedition in his youth and in his age in the cold waters of indevotion how shall we raise this Salamander and this Serpent when this Serpent and this Salamander is all one person and must have contrary musique to charme him contrary physick to cure him To raise a man resolv'd into diverse substances scattered into diverse formes of severall sinnes is the greatest worke And there fore this Miracle which implied that S. Basil calls Miraculum in Miraculo a pregnant a double Miracle For here is Mortuus redivivus A dead man lives that had been done before but Alligatus ambulat saies Basil he that is settered and manacled and tyed with many difficulties he walks And therfore as this Miracle raised him most estmation so for they ever accompany one another it raised him most envy Envy that extended beyond him to Lazarus himselfe who had done nothing Iohn 12.10 and yet The chiefe Priests consulted how they might put Lizarus to death because by reason of him many beleeved in Iesus A disease a distemper a danger which no time shall ever be free from that whereforer there is a coldnesse a disaffection to Gods Cause those who are any way
into the Manichees error to make an Evill God So farre doth the Schoole follow this as that there one Archbishop of Canterbury out of another that is Bradwardin out of Anselme pronounces it Haereticum esse dicere Malum esse aliquid To say that any thing is naturally evill is an heresie But if I cannot finde a foundation for my comfort in this subtilty of the Schoole That sin is nothing no such thing as was created or induced by God much lesse forced upon me by him in any coactive Decree yet I can raise a second step for my consolation in this that be sin what it will in the nature thereof yet my sin shall conduce and cooperate to my good So Ioseph saies to his Brethren You thought evill against me Gen. 51.20 but God meant it unto good which is not onely good to Ioseph who was no partaker in the evill but good even to them who meant nothing but evill And therefore as Origen said Etsi novum Though it be strangely said yet I say it That Gods anger is good so saies S. Augustine Audeo dicere Though it be boldly said yet I must say it Vtile esse cadere in aliquod manifestum peccatum Many sinners would never have beene saved if they had not committed some greater sin at last then before for the punishment of that sin hath brought them to a remorse of all their other sins formerly neglected If neither of these will serve my turne neither that sin is nothing in it selfe and therefore not put upon me by God nor that my sin having occasioned my repentance hath done me good and established me in a better state with God then I was in before that sin yet this shall fully rectifie me and assure my consolation that in a pious sense I may say Christ Jesus is the sinner and not I. For though in the two and twentieth Session of the Councell of Basil that proposition were condemned as scandalous in the mouth of a Bishop of Nazareth Augustinus de Roma Christus quotidie peccat That Christ does sin every day yet Gregory Nazianzen expresses the same intention in equivalent termes when he saies Quamdiu inobediens ego tamdiu quantum ad me attinet inobediens Christus As long as I sin for so much as concernes me me who am incorporated in Christ me who by my true repentance have discharged my selfe upon Christ Christ is the sinner even in the sight and justice of his Father and not I. And as this consideration That the goodnesse of God in Christ is thus spread upon all persons and all actions takes me off from my aptnesse to mis-interpret other mens actions not to be hasty to call indifferent things sins not to call hardnesse of accesse in great Persons pride not to call sociablenesse of conversation in women prostitution not to call accommodation of Civill businesses in States prevarication or dereliction and abandoning of God and toleration of Religion as it takes me off from this mis-interpreting of others so for my selfe it puts me upon an ability to chide and yet to cheare my soule with those words of David O my Soule why art thou so sad why art thou so disquieted within me Since sin is nothing no such thing as is forced upon thee by God by which thy damnation should be inevitable or thy reconciliation impossible since of what nature soever sin be in it selfe thy sins being truly repented have advanced and emproved thy state in the favour of God since thy sin being by that repentance discharged upon Christ Christ is now the sinner and not thou O my Soule why art thou so sad why art thou disquieted within me And this consideration of Gods goodnesse thus derived upon me and made mine in Christ ratifies and establishes such a holy confidence in me as that all the morall constancy in the world is but a bulrush to this bulwark and therefore we end all with that historicall but yet usefull note That that Duke of Burgundy who was sirnamed Carolus Audax Charles the Bold was Son to that Duke who was sirnamed Bonus The Good Duke A Good one produced a Bold one True confidence proceeds onely out of true Goodnesse for The wicked shall flye Prov. 28.1 when no man pursueth but the righteous are bold as a Lion This constancy and this confidence and upon this ground Holy courage in a holy feare of him Almighty God infuse and imprint in you all for his Son Christ Jesus sake And to this glorious Son of God c. SERMONS Preached upon EASTER-DAY SERMON XVIII Preached at S. Pauls in the Evening upon easter-Easter-day 1623. ACTS 2.36 Part of the second Lesson of that Evening Prayer Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly That God hath made that same Iesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ THe first word of the Text must be the last part of the Sermon Divisio Therefore Therefore let all know it Here is something necessary to be knowne And the Meanes by which we are to know it And these will be our two parts Scientia Modus Knowledge and the way to it For Qui testatur de scientia testatur de modo scientiae is a good rule in all Laws He that will testifie any thing upon his knowledge must declare how he came by that knowledge So then what we must conclude and upon what premisses what we must resolve and what must lead us to that resolution are our two stages our two resting places And to those two our severall steps are these In the first Let all the house of Israel know c. we shall consider first The Manner of S. Peter for the Text is part of a Sermon of S. Peters in imprinting this Knowledge in his Auditory which is first in that Compellation of love and honour Domus Israel The house of Israel But yet when hee hath raised them to a sense of their dignity in that attribute he doth not pamper them with an over-value of them he lets them know their worst as well as their best Though you be the house of Israel yet it is you that have crucified Christ Jesus That Iesus whom ye have crucified And from this his Manner of preparing them we shall passe to the Matter that he proposes to them When he had remembred them what God had done for them You are the house of Israel and what they had done against God You have crucified that Iesus He imparts a blessed message to them all Let all know it Let them know it and know it assuredly He exhibits it to their reason to their naturall understanding And what The greatest mystery the entire mystery of our salvation That that Iesus is both Lord and Christ But he is made so Made so by God Made both Made Christ that is anointed embalmed preserved from corruption even in the grave And made Lord by his triumph and by being made Head of the Church in the
Resurrection and in the Ascension And so that which is the last step of our first stage That that Iesus is made Lord as well as he is made Christ enters us upon our second stage The meanes by which we are to know and prove all this to our selves Therefore sayes the Text let all know it wherefore why because God hath raised him after you had crucified him Because God hath loosed the bands of death Ver. 23 24 25 26 27. because it was impossible that he should be holden by death Because Davids prophecy of a deliverance from the grave is fulfilled in him Therefore let all know this to be thus So that the Resurrection of Christ is argument enough to prove that Christ is made Lord of all And if he be Lord he hath Subjects that do as he does And so his Resurrection is become an argument and an assurance of our Resurrection too and that is as far as we shall go in our second part That first Christs Resurrection is proofe enough to us of his Dominion if he be risen he is Lord and then his Dominion is proofe enough to us of our Resurrection if he be Lord Lord of us we shall rise too And when we have paced and passed through all these steps we shall in some measure have solemnized this day of the Resurrection of Christ and in some measure have made it the day of our Resurrection too First then 1. Part. Domus Israel the Apostle applies himself to his Auditory in a faire in a gentle manner he gives them their Titles Domus Israel The house of Israel We have a word now denizened and brought into familiar use amongst us Complement and for the most part in an ill sense so it is when the heart of the speaker doth not answer his tongue but God forbid but a true heart and a faire tongue might very well consist together As vertue it self receives an addition by being in a faire body so do good intentions of the heart by being expressed in faire language That man aggravates his condemnation that gives me good words and meanes ill but he gives me a rich Jewell and in a faire Cabinet he gives me precious wine and in a clean glasse that intends well and expresses his good intentions well too If I beleeve a faire speaker I have comfort a little while though he deceive me but a froward and peremptory refuser unsaddles me at first I remember a vulgar Spanish Author who writes the Iosephina the life of Ioseph the husband of the blessed Virgin Mary who moving that question why that Virgin is never called by any style of Majesty or Honour in the Scriptures he sayes That if after the declaring of her to be the Mother of God he had added any other Title the Holy Ghost had not been a good Courtier as his very word is nor exercised in good language and he thinks that had been a defect in the Holy Ghost in himself He meanes surely the same that Epiphanius doth That in naming the Saints of God and especially the blessed Virgin we should alwayes give them the best Titles that are applyable to them Epiphan Haeres 78. Quis unquam ausus saies he proferre nomen Mariae non statim addidit virgo Who ever durst utter the name of that Mary without that addition of incomparable honour The Virgin Mary That Spanish Author need not be suspitious of the Holy Ghost in that kinde that he is no good Courtier so for in all the books of the world you shall never reade so civill language nor so faire expressions of themselves to one another as in the Bible When Abraham shall call himself dust and ashes and indeed if the Son of God were a worme and no man what was Abraham If God shall call this Abraham this Dust this Worme of the dust The friend of God and all friendship implyes a parity an equality in something when David shall call himself a flea and a dead dog even in respect of Saul and God shall call David A man according to his own heart when God shall call us The Apple of his own eye The Seale upon his own right hand who would go farther for an Example or farther then that example for a Rule of faire accesses of civill approaches of sweet and honourable entrances into the affections of them with whom they were to deale Especially is this manner necessary in men of our profession Not to break a bruised reed nor to quench smoaking flaxe not to avert any from a will to heare by any frowardnesse any morosity any defrauding them of their due praise and due titles but to accompany this blessed Apostle in this way of his discreet and religious insinuation to call them Men of Iudea ver 14. and Men of Israel ver 22. and Men and Brethren ver 29. and here Domus Israel the ancientest house the honourablest house the lastingest house in the world The house of Israel He takes from them nothing that is due Accusat tamen that would but exasperate He is civill but his civility doth not amount to a flattery as though the cause of God needed them or God must be beholding to them or God must pay for it or smart for it if they were not pleased And therefore though he do give them their titles Apertè illis imputat crucifixionem Christi sayes S. Chrysostome Plainly and without disguise he imputes and puts home to them the crucifying of Christ how honourably soever they were descended he layes that murder close to their Consciences You you house of Israel have crucified the Lord Iesus There is a great deale of difference between Shimeis vociferations against David 2 Sam. 16.5 Thou man of blood thou man of Belial And Nathans proceeding with David and yet Nathan forbore not to tell him 2 Sam. 12.7 Thou art the man Thou hast despised the Lord Thou hast killed Vriah Thou hast taken his wife It is one thing to sow pillows under the elbows of Kings flatterers do so another thing to pull the chaire from under the King and popular and seditious men do so Where Inferiours insult over their Superiours we tell them Christi Domini they are the Lords anointed and the Lord hath said Touch not mine anointed And when such Superiours insult over the Lord himselfe and think themselves Gods without limitation as the God of heaven is when they doe so we must tell them they doe so Etsi Christi Domini though you be the Lords anointed yet you crucifie the anointed Lord for this was S. Peters method though his successor will not be bound by it When he hath carried the matter thus evenly betweene them I doe not deny Omnes but you are the House of Israel you cannot deny but you have crucified the Lord Jesus you are heires of a great deale of honour but you are guilty of a shrewd fault too stand or fall to your Master
incorruptionem sicut anima per fidem Because our bodie shall be regenerated by glory there as our soules are by faith here Therefore Tertul. cals the Resurrection Exemplum spei nostrae The Originall out of which we copy out our hope and Clavem sepulchrorū nostrorum How hard soever my grave be locked yet with that key with the application of the Resurrection of Christ Jesus it will open And they are all names which expresse this well which Tertullian gives Christ Vadem obsidem fidejussorem resurrectionis nostrae That he is the pledge the hostage the surety of our Resurrection So doth that also which is said in the Schoole Sicut Adam forma morientium Theoph. it a Christus forma resurgentium Without Adam there had beene no such thing as death without Christ no such thing as a Resurrection But ascendit ille effractor as the Prophet speaks The breaker is gone up before and they have passed through the gate that is assuredly Mich. 2.13 infallibly they shall passe But what needs all this heat all this animosity all this vehemence about the Resurrection May not man be happy enough in heaven though his body never come thither upon what will ye ground the Resurrection upon the Omnipotence of God Asylum haereticorum est Omnipotentia Dei which was well said and often repeated amongst the Ancients The Omnipotence of God hath alwaies been the Sanctuary of Heretiques that is alwaies their refuge in all their incredible doctrines God is able to do it can do it You confesse the Resurrection is a miracle And miracles are not to be multiplied nor imagined without necessity and what necessity of bodies in Heaven Beloved we make the ground and foundation of the Resurrection to be not meerely the Omnipotency of God for God will not doe all that he can doe but the ground is Omnipotens voluntas Dei revelata The Almighty will of God revealed by him to us And therefore Christ joynes both these together Erratis Ye erre Mat. 22.29 not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God that is not considering the power of God as it is revealed in the Scriptures for there is our foundation of this Doctrine we know out of the Omnipotence of God it may be and we know out of the Scriptures it must be That works upon our faith this upon our reason That it is man that must be saved man that must be damned and to constitute a man there must be a body as well as a soule Nay the Immortality of the soule will not so well lie in proofe without a resuming of the body For upon those words of the Apostle If there were no Resurrection we were the miserablest of all men the Schoole reasons reasonably Naturally the soule and body are united when they are separated by Death it is contrary to nature which nature still affects this union and consequently the soule is the lesse perfect for this separation and it is not likely that the perfect naturall state of the soule which is to be united to the body should last but three or foure score yeares and in most much lesse and the unperfect state that in the separation should last eternally for ever so that either the body must be beleeved to live againe or the soule beleeved to die Never therefore dispute against thine own happinesse never say God asks the heart that is the soule and therefore rewards the soule or punishes the soule and hath no respect to the body Nec auferamus cogitationes a collegio carnis saies Tertullian Never go about to separate the thoughts of the heart from the colledge from the fellowship of the body Siquidem in carne cum carne per carnem agitur quicquid ab anima agitur All that the soule does it does in and with and by the body And therefore saies he also Caro abluitur ut anima emaculetur The body is washed in baptisme but it is that the soule might be made cleane Caro ungitur ut anima consecretur In all unctions whether that which was then in use in Baptisme or that which was in use at our transmigration and passage out of this world the body was anointed that the soule might be consecrated Caro signatur saies Tertullian still ut anima muniatur The body is signed with the Crosse that the soule might be armed against tentations And againe Caro de Corpore Christi vescitur ut anima de Deo saginetur My body received the body of Christ that my soule might partake of his merits He extends it into many particulars and summes up all thus Non possunt in mercede separari quae opera conjungunt These two Body and Soule cannot be separated for ever which whilst they are together concurre in all that either of them doe Never thinke it presumption saies S. Gregory Sperare in te quod in se exhibuit Deus homo To hope for that in thy selfe which God admitted when he tooke thy nature upon him And God hath made it saies he more easie then so for thee to beleeve it because not onely Christ himselfe but such men as thou art did rise at the Resurrection of Christ And therefore when our bodies are dissolved and liquefied in the Sea putrified in the earth resolv'd to ashes in the fire macerated in the ayre Velut in vasa sua transfunditur caro nostra Tertul. make account that all the world is Gods cabinet and water and earth and fire and ayre are the proper boxes in which God laies up our bodies for the Resurrection Curiously to dispute against our owne Resurrection is seditiously to dispute against the dominion of Jesus who is not made Lord by the Resurrection if he have no subjects to follow him in the same way Wee beleeve him to be Lord therefore let us beleeve his and our Resurrection This blessed day Ille Iohn 2.19 Iohn 10.17 which we celebrate now he rose he rose so as none before did none after ever shall rise He rose others are but raised Destroy this Temple saies he and I will raise it I without imploying any other Architect I lay downe my life saies he the Jewes could not have killed him when he was alive If he were alive here now the Jesuits could not kill him here now except his being made Christ and Lord an anointed King have made him more open to them I have a power to lay it downe saies he and I have a power to take it up againe This day Nos Iohn 2.3 we celebrate his Resurrection this day let us celebrate our owne Our own not our one Resurrection for we need many Upon those words of our Saviour to Nicodemus Oportet denuo nasci speaking of the necessity of Baptisme Non solum denuo sed tertiò nasci oportet saies S. Bernard He must be born againe and againe againe by baptisme for Originall sin and for actuall sin againe by repentance Infoelix homo ego
the figurative exposition of those places of Scripture which require that way oft to be figuratively expounded that Expositor is not to be blamed who not destroying the literall sense proposes such a figurative sense as may exalt our devotion and advance our edification And as no one of those Expositors did ill in proposing one such sense so neither do those Expositors ill who with those limitations that it destroy not the literall sense that it violate not the analogy of faith that it advance devotion do propose another and another such sense So doth that preacher well also who to the same end and within the same limit makes his use of both of all those expositions because all may stand and it is not evident in such figurative speeches which is the literall that is the principall intention of the Holy Ghost Of these words of this first Resurrection which is not the last of the body but a spirituall Resurrection there are three expositions authorized by persons of good note in the Church Alcazar First that this first Resurrection is a Resurrection from that low estate to which persecution had brought the Church and so it belongs to this whole State and Church August nostri and Blessed are we who have our part in this first Resurrection Secondly that it is a Resurrection from the death of sin of actuall and habituall sin so it belongs to every particular penitent soul and Blessed art thou blessed am I if we have part in this first Resurrection And then thirdly because after this Resurrection it is said That we shall raign with Christ a thousand yeares Ribera which is a certain for an uncertain a limited for a long time it hath also been taken for the state of the soul in heaven after it is parted from the body by death for though the soul cannot be said properly to have a Resurrection because properly it cannot die yet to be thus delivered from the danger of a second death by future sin to be removed from the distance and latitude and possibility of tentations in this world is by very good Expositors called a Resurrection and so it belongs to all them who are departed in the Lord Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection And then the occasion of the day which we celebrate now being the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus invites me to propose a fourth sense or rather use of the words not indeed as an exposition of the words but as a convenient exaltation of our devotion which is that this first Resurrection should be the first fruits of the dead The first Rising is the first Riser Christ Jesus for as Christ sayes of himself that He is the Resurrection so he is the first Resurrection the root of the Resurrection He upon whom our Resurrection all ours all our kindes of Resurrections are founded and so it belongs to State and Church and particular persons alive and dead Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection And these foure considerations of the words A Resurrection from persecution by deliverance a Resurrection from sin by grace a Resurrection from tentation to sin by the way of death to the glory of heaven and all these in the first Resurrection in him that is the roote of all in Christ Jesus These foure steps these foure passages these foure transitions will be our quarter Clock for this houres exercise First then 1. Part. From persecution we consider this first Resurrection to be a Resurrection from a persecution for religion for the profession of the Gospell to a forward glorious passage of the Gospell And so a learned Expositor in the Romane Church carries the exposition of this whole place though not indeed the ordinary way yet truly not incommodiously not improperly upon that deliverance which God afforded his Church from those great persecutions which had otherwise supplanted her in her first planting in the primitive times Then sayes he and in part well towards the letter of the place The devill was chained for a thousand yeares and then we began to raign with Christ for a thousand yeares reckoning the time from that time when God destroyed Idolatry more fully and gave peace and rest and free exercise of the Christian religion under the Christian Emperours till Antichrist in the height of his rage shall come and let this thousand yeares prisoner Satan loose and so interrupt our thousand yeares raign with Christ with new persecutions In that persecution was the death of the Church in the eye of the world In that deliverance by Christian Emperours was the Resurrection of the Church And in Gods protecting her ever since is the chaining up of the devill and our raigning with Christ for those thousand yeares And truly beloved if we consider the low the very low estate of Christians in those persecutions tryed ten times in the fire ten severall and distinct persecutions in which ten persecutions God may seem to have had a minde to deale eavenly with the world and to lay as much upon his people whom he would try then as he had laid upon others for his people before and so to equall the ten plagues of Aegypt in ten persecutions in the primitive Church if we consider that low that very low estate we may justly call their deliverance a Resurrection For as God said to Jerusalem I found thee in thy blood and washed thee so Christ Jesus found the Church the Christian Church in her blood and washed her and wiped her washed her in his own blood which washes white and wiped her with the garments of his own righteousnesse that she might be acceptable in the sight of God and then wiped all teares from her eyes took away all occasions of complaint and lamentation that she might be glorious in the eyes of man and chearefull in her own such was her Resurrection We wonder and justly at the effusion at the pouring out of blood in the sacrifices of the old Law that that little countrey scarce bigger then some three of our Shires should spend more cattle in some few dayes sacrifice at some solemnities and every yeare in the sacrifices of the whole yeare then perchance this kingdome could give to any use Seas of blood and yet but brooks tuns of blood and yet but basons compared with the sacrifices the sacrifices of the blood of men in the persecutions of the Primitive Church For every Oxe of the Jew the Christian spent a man and for every Sheep and Lamb a Mother and her childe and for every heard of cattle sometimes a towne of Inhabitants sometimes a Legion of Souldiers all martyred at once so that they did not stand to fill their Martyrologies with names but with numbers they had not roome to say such a day such a Bishop such a day such a Generall but the day of 500. the day of 5000. Martyrs and the martyrdome of
no such power of thine own soul and life not for the time not for the means of comming to this first Resurrection by death Stay therefore patiently stay chearfully Gods leasure till he call but not so over-chearfully as to be loath to go when he cals Reliefe in persecution by power reconciliation in sin by grace dissolution and transmigration to heaven by death are all within this first Resurrection But that which is before them all is Christ Jesus And therefore as all that the naturall man promises himself without God is impious so all that we promise our selves though by God without Christ is frivolous God who hath spoken to us by his Son works upon us by his Son too He was our Creation he was our Redemption he is our Resurrection And that man trades in the world without money and goes out of the world without recommendation that leaves out Christ Jesus To be a good Morall man and refer all to the law of Nature in our hearts is but Diluculum The dawning of the day To be a godly man and refer all to God is but Crepusculum A twylight But the Meridionall brightnesse the glorious noon and heighth is to be a Christian to pretend to no spirituall no temporall blessing but for and by and through and in our only Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus for he is this first Resurrection and Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection SERMON XX. Preached at S. Pauls in the Evening upon Easter-day 1625. JOHN 5.28 29. Marvell not at this for the houre is comming in the which all that are in the graves shall heare his voice And shall come forth They that have done good unto the Resurrection of Life And they that have done evill unto the Resurrection of Damnation AS the Sun works diversly according to the diverse disposition of the subject for the Sun melts wax and it hardens clay so do the good actions of good men upon good men they work a vertuous emulation a noble and a holy desire to imitate upon bad men they work a vicious and impotent envy a desire to disgrace and calumniate And the more the good is that is done and the more it works upon good men the more it disaffects the bad for so the Pharisees expresse their rancor and malignity against Christ Jâ—â—n 11.48 in this Gospel If we let him thus alone all men will beleeve in him And that they foresaw would destroy them in their reputation And therefore they enlarged their malice beyond Christ himselfe to him upon whom Christ had wrought a Miracle John 12.10 to Lazarus They consulted to put him to death because by reason of him many beleeved in Iesus Our Text leads us to another example of this impotency in envious men Christ in this Chapter had by his only word cured a man that had been eight and thirty yeares infirm and he had done this work upon the Sabbath They envyed the work in the substance but they quarrell the circumstance And they envy Christ but they turn upon the man who was more obnoxious to them and they tell him John 5. â—â— That it was not lawfull for him to carry his bed that day He discharges himself upon Christ I dispute not with you concerning the Law This satisfies me He that made me whole Veâ— â— bad me take up my bed and walk Thereupon they put him to finde out Jesus And when he could not finde Jesus Jesus found him and in his behalf offers himself to the Pharisees Then they direct themselves upon him and as the Gospell sayes They sought to slay him because he had done this upon the Sabbath And V. 16. as the patient had discharged himself upon Christ Christ discharges himself upon his Father doth it displease you that I work upon the Sabbath be angry with God be angry with the Father for the Father works when I work V. 17. V. 18. And then this they take worse then his working of Miracles or his working upon the Sabbath That he would say that God was his Father And therfore in the averring of that that so important point That God was his Father Christ grows into a holy vehemence and earnestnesse and he repeats his usuall oath Verily verily three severall times First ver 19. That whatsoever the Father doth He the Son doth also And then ver 24. He that beleeveth on me and him that sent me hath life everlasting And then again ver 25. The houre is comming and now is when the dead shall heare the voice of the Son of God and they that heare it shall live At this that the dead should live they marvelled But because he knew that they were men more affected with things concerning the body then spirituall things as in another story when they wondered that he would pretend to forgive sins because he knew that they thought it a greater matter to bid that man that had the Palsie take up his bed and walk then to forgive him his sins therefore he took that way which was hardest in their opinion he did bid him take up his bed and walk So here when they wondred at his speaking of a spirituall Resurrection to heare him say that at his preaching the dead that is men spiritually dead in their sins should rise again to them who more respected the body and did lesse beleeve a reall Resurrection of the body then a figurative Resurrection of the soul he proceeds to that which was in their apprehension the more difficult Marvell not at this sayes he here in our Text not at that spirituall Resurrection by preaching for the houre is comming in the which all that are in the graves c. and so he establishes the Resurrection of the body That then which Christ affirmes and avows is That he is the Son of God Divisio and that is the first thing that ever was done in Heaven The eternall generation of the Son that by which he proves this to these men is That by him there shall be a resurrection of the body and that is the last thing that shall be done in Heaven for after that there is nothing but an even continuance in equall glory Before that saies he that is before the resurrection of the body there shall be another resurrection a spirituall resurrection of the soule from sin but that shall be by ordinary meanes by Preaching and Sacraments and it shall be accomplished every day but fix not upon that determin not your thoughts upon that marvaile not at that make that no cause of extraordinary wonder but make it ordinary to you feele it and finde the effect thereof in your soules as often as you heare as often as you receive and thereby provide for another resurrection For the houre is comming in which all that are in their graves c. Where we must necessarily make thus many steps though but short ones First the dignity of
is impossible to separate the consideration of the Resurrection from the consideration of the Judgement and the terrors of that may abate the joy of the other Sive comedoâ—sive bibo saies S. Hierom Whether I eate or drink still me thinks I heare this sound Surgite mortui venite ad Iudicium Arise you dead and come to Judgement When it cals me up from death I am glad when it cals me to Judgement that impaires my joy Can I thinke that God will not take a strict account or can I be without feare if I thinke he will Non expavescere requisiturum est dicere non requiret is excellently said by S. Bernard If I can put off all feare of that Judgement I have put off all imagination that any such Judgement shall be But when I begin this feare in this life here I end this feare in my death and passe away cheerefully But the wicked begin this feare when the Trumpet sounds to the Resurrection and then shall never end it but as a man condemned to be halfe hang'd and then quartered hath a fearfull addition in his quartering after and yet had no ease in his hanging before so they that have done ill when they have had their hanging when they have suffered in soule the torments of Hell from the day of their death to the day of Judgement shall come to that day with feare as to an addition to that which yet was insinite before And therefore the vulgat Edition hath rendred this well Procedent They shall proceed they shall go farther and farther in torment But this is not the object of our speculation Conâ—lusio the subject of our meditation now we proposed this Text for the Contemplation of Gods love to man and therefore we rather comfort our selves with that branch and refresh our selves with the shadow of that That they who have done good shall come forth unto the Resurrection of life Alas the others shall live as long as they Lucifer is as immortall as Michael and Iudas as immortall as S. Peter August But Vita damnatorum mors est That which we call immortality in the damned is but a continuall dying howsoever it must be called life it hath all the qualities of death saving the ease and the end which death hath and damnation hath not They must come forth they that have done evill must do so too Neither can stay in their house their grave for their house though that house should be the sea shall be burnt downe all the world dissolv'd with fire But then They who have done evill shall passe from that fire into a farther heat without light They who have done good into a farther light without heat But fix upon the Conditions and performe them They must have done Good To have knowne Good to have beleeved it to have intended it nay to have preached it to others will not serve They must have done good They must be rooted in faith and then bring forth fruit and fruit in season and then is the season of doing good when another needs that good at thy hands God gives the evening raine but he gave the morning rain before A good man gives at his death but he gives in his life time too To them belongs this Resurrection of the body to life upon which since our Text inclines us to marvell rather then to discourse I will not venture to say with David Narrabo omnia mirabilia tua I will shew all thy wondrous works Psal 9.2 Psal 105.5 Psal 119 18. an Angels tongue could not shew them but I will say with him Mementote mirabilium Remember the marvellous works he hath done And by that God will open your eyes that you may behold the wondrous things that he will do Remember with thankfulnesse the severall resurrections that he hath given you from superstition and ignorance in which you in your Fathers lay dead from sin and a love of sin in which you in the dayes of your youth lay dead from sadnesse and dejection of spirit in which you in your worldly crosses or spirituall tentations lay dead And assure your self that that God that loves to perfect his own works when you shall lye dead in your graves will give you that Resurrection to life which he hath promised to all them that do good and will extend to all them who having done evill do yet truly repent the evill they have done SERMON XXI The first Sermon upon this Text Preached at S. Pauls in the Evening upon Easter-day 1626. 1 COR. 15.29 Else what shall they do that are baptized for dead If the dead rise not at all why are they then baptized for dead O Dit Dominus qui festum Domini unum putat diem sayes Origen God hates that man that thinks any of his Holy dayes last but one day That is that never thinks of a Resurrection but upon easter-Easter-day I have therefore proposed words unto you which will not be determined this day That so when at any other time we return to the handling of then we may also return to the meditation of the Resurrection To which we may best give a beginning this day in which we celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus Aâ—d in his one Resurrection all those severall kinds of Resurrections which appertain unto us because howsoever these words have received divers good expositions from divers good Expositors and received one perverse exposition from our adversaries in the Romane Church who have detorted and deflected them to the maintenance of their Purgatory yet all agree that these words are an argument for the Resurrection and therefore proper to this day And yet this day we shall not so much inquire wherein and in what sense the words are an argument of the Resurrection as enjoy the assurance that they are so not so much distribute the Text into an explication of the particular words which is as the Mintage and Coyning of gold into severall lesser pieces as to lay up the whole wedge and ingot of Gold all at once in you that is the precious assurance of your glorious Resurrection In establishing whereof we shall this day make but this short passage Divisio by these two steps Glory in the end And Grace in the way The Glory of our bodies in the last Resurrection then And the Grace upon our souls in their present Resurrection now For as we do not dig for gold meerly and only for treasure but to dispense and issue it also for present provision and use not only for the future but for the present too So we doe not gather the doctrine of the Resurrection only for that dignity which the body shall receive in the Triumphant but also for the consolation which thereby our soules may receive in the Militant Church And therefore as in our first part which will be By what meanes the knowledge and assurance of the Resurrection of the body
accrues to us we shall see that though it be presented by Reason before and illustrated by Reason after yet the roote and foundation thereof is in Faith though Reason may chafe the wax yet Faith imprints the seale for the Resurrection is not a conclusion out of naturall Reason but it is an article of supernaturall Faith and though you assent to me now speaking of the Resurrection yet that is not out of my Logick nor out of my Rhetorique but out of that Character and Ordinance which God hath imprinted in me in the power and efficacy whereof I speak unto you as often as I speak out of this place As I say we determine our first part in this How the assurance of this Resurrection accrues to us so when we descend to our second part That is the consolation which we receive whilest we are In via here upon our way in this world out of the contemplation of that Resurrection to glory which we shall have In patria at home in heaven and how these two Resurrections are arguments and evidences of one another we shall look upon some correspondencies and resemblances between naturall death and spirituall death by sin and between the glorious Resurrection of the body and the gracious Resurrection of the soule that so having brought bodily death and bodily Resurrection and spirituall death and spirituall Resurrection by their comparison into your consideration you may anon depart somewhat the better edified in both and so enjoy your present Resurrection of the soule by Grace with more certainty and expect the future Resurrection of the body to glory with the more alacrity and chearfulnesse Though therefore we may hereafter take just occasion of entring into a war 1. Part. in vindicating and redeeming these words seased and seduced by our adversaries to testifie for their Purgatory yet this day being a day of peace and reconciliation with God and man we begin with peace with that wherein all agree That these words Else what shall they do that are baptized for dead If the dead rise not at all why are they baptized for dead must necessarily receive such an Exposition as must be an argument for the Resurrection This baptisme pro mortuis for dead must be such a baptisme as must prove that the Resurrection For that the Apostle repeats twice in these few words Else sayes he that is if there be no Resurrection why are men thus baptized And again if the dead rise not why are men thus baptized Indeed the whole Chapter is a continuall argument for the Resurrection from the beginning thereof to the 35. ver he handles the An sit whether there be a Resurrection or no For if that be denyed or doubted in the roote in the person of Christ whether he be risen or no the whole frame of our religion fals and every man will be apt and justly apt to ask that question which the Indian King asked when he had been catechized so far in the articles of our Christian religion as to come to the suffered and crucified and dead and buried impatient of proceeding any farther and so losing the consolation of the Resurrection he asked only Is your God dead and buried then let me return to the worship of the Sun for I am sure the Sun will not die If Christ be dead and buried that is continue in the state of death and of the grave without a Resurrection where shall a Christian look for life Therefore the Apostle handles and establishes that first that assurance A Resurrection there is From thence he raises and pursues a second question De modo But some man will say sayes he How are the dead raised up and with what body come they forth And in these questions De modo there is more exercise of reason and of discourse for many times The matter is matter of faith when the manner is not so but considerable and triable by reason Many times for the matter we are all bound and bound upon salvation to think alike But for the manner we may think diversly without forfeiture of salvation or impeachment of discretion For he is not presently an indiscreet man that differs in opinion from another man that is discreet in things that fall under opinion Absit superstito Geâ—son hoc est superflua religio sayes a moderate man of the Romane Church This is truly superstition to bring more under the necessity of being beleeved then God hath brought in his Scriptures superfluous religion sayes he is superstition Remove that and then as he addes there Contradictoria quorum utrumque probabile credi possunt Where two contrary opinions are both probable they may be embraced and beleeved by two men and those two be both learned and discreet and pious and zealous men And this consideration should keep men from that precipitation of imprinting the odious and scandalous names of Sects or Sectaries upon other men who may differ from them and from others with them in some opinions Probability leads me in my assent and I think thus Let me allow another man his probability too and let him think his way in things that are not fundamentall They that do not beleeve alike in all circumstances of the manner of the Resurrection may all by Gods goodnesse meet there and have their parts in the glory thereof if their own uncharitablenesse do not hinder them And he that may have been in the right opinion may sooner misse heaven then he that was in the wrong if he come uncharitably to condemne or contemne the other for in such cases humility and love of peace may in the sight of God excuse and recompence many errours and mistakings And after these of the Matter of the Manner of the Resurrection the Apostle proceeds to a third question of their state and condition whom Christ shall finde alive upon Earth at his second comming and of them he sayes onely this Ecce mysterium vobis dico Behold I tell you a mystery a secret we shall not all sleep that is not dye so as that we shall rest any time in the grave but we shall all be changed that is receive such an immutation as that we shall have a sudden dissolution of body and soul which is a true death and a sudden re-union of body and soule which is a true resurrection in an instant in the twinkling of an eye Thus carefull and thus particular is the Apostle that the knowledge of the resurrection might be derived unto us Now of these three questions which he raises and pursues first whether there be a Resurrection then what manner of Resurrection and then what kinde of Resu rrection they shall have that live to the day of Judgement our Text enters into the first For for the first That a resurrection there is the Apostle opens severall Topiques to prove it One is from our Head and Patterne and Example Christ Jesus For so he argues first If the dead be not raised
thirteenth Homily upon S. Luke And as evident that S. Hierom himselfe upon the first verse of the sixt Chapter of Micheas thought and taught That those good Angels whom God appoints for the tuition of certaine men and certaine places in this world shall give an account at the day of Judgement of the execution of their office whether the men committed to them have not fallen sometimes by their fault and their dereliction for so does he and not he only understand that place That we shall judge the Angels 1 Cor. 6.3 As also those words in the beginning of the Revelation which S. Iohn is commanded by Christ to write to the Angels of certaine Churches that Father S. Hierom interprets not only of figurative and Metaphoricall Angels the Bishops of those Churches but literally of the Angels of Heaven So then Calvin is from any singularity in that That the good Angels considered in themselves may be defective but because he may be singular in interpreting this Text of good Angels as for ought I have observed he is this singularity of his may be a just reason of suspending our assent but not a just reason presently to condemne his exposition The Church must beas just to him as it was to S. Augustine that is to examine his grounds And truly his ground is faire his ground is firme It is this that though this seeme to derogato from the honour of Angels that being confirmed they should be subject to weaknesse yet saies he we must not pervert nor force any place of Scripture for the honour of the Angels For indeed the perverting and forcing of Scriptures for the over-honouring of Saints hath induced a chain of Heresies in the Romane Church And that this is a forcing of Scripture to understand this Text of fallen Angels Calvin argues rationally That those Angels which are spoken of here are called the servants of God And devils are but his slaves not his servants They execute his will but against their will Good Angels are the servants of God Nor shall we easily finde that Title The servant of God applyed to ill persons in the Scriptures Therefore as he notes usefully God doth not charge Angels in this Text with rebellion or obstination or any haynous crime but only with folly weaknesse infirmity from which in all degrees none but God himself can be free Though therefore there be no such necessity of accepting this exposition as should produce that confident asseveration which he comes to Dubium non est It can admit no doubt but this place must be thus understood for by his favour it may admit a doubt yet neither is there any such newnesse in it because it is grounded upon Truth and all Truth is ancient but that it may very well be received And therefore as the sense that is most fit to advance his purpose that speakes it which is one principall thing to be considered in every place as the sense that most conduces to Eliphaz his end and to prove that which he intends to Iob without laying obligation upon any to think so or imputation upon any that doth not think so we accept this interpretation of these words that they are spoken of Angels which was our first and of good Angels which was our second disquifition and now proceed to our third what their confirmation is and how it works if for all that God put no trust in those servants but charged those Angels with folly That Moses did speak nothing of the fall or of the confirmation of Angels Confirmatiâ— may justly seem a convenient reason to think that he meant to speak nothing of the creation of Angels neither If Moses had intended to have told us of the creation of Angels he would have told us of their fall and confirmation too as having told us so particularly of the making of man he tells us as particularly of the fall of man and the restitution of man by the promise of a Messiah in Paradise And therefore that the Angels are wrapped up in that word of Moses The Heavens and that they were made when the heavens were made or that they are wrapped up in that word of Moses The Light and that they were made when Light was made is all but conjecturall cloudy Neither doth any article of that Creed which we call the Apostles direct us upon any consideration of Angels That they were created long before this world all the Greek Fathers of the Eastern Church did constandy think And in the Westerne Church amongst the Latine Fathers S. Ierome himself was so cleare in it as to say Sex millia nostri orbis nondum implentur anni Our world is not yet six thousand yeares old Et quantas aternitates quantas saeculorum origines sayes that Father what infinite revolutions of ages what infinite eternities did the Powers and Principalities and Thrones and Angels of God serve God in before Theodoret that thinkes not so thinks it not against any article of Faith to think that it was so Aquinas that thinkes not so will not call it an errour to think so out of a reverence to Athanasius and Nazianzen who did think so for that is an indelible character which S. Ierome hath imprinted printed upon those two Fathers That no man ever durst impute errour to Athanasius or Nazianzen Therefore S. Augustine sayes moderately and with that discreet and charitable temper which becomes every man in matters that are not fundamentall Vt volet unusquisq accipiat I forbid no man sayes he either opinion That the Angels were made before the world or with it Dum non Deo coaeternos de vera foelicitate securos non ambigat Only this I forbid him that he do not beleeve the Angels to be coeternall with God For if they were never made but subsist of themselves then they are God If they be not creatures they are Creators And then this I forbid him too sayes he That he do not think the Angels now in any danger of falling So that S. Augustine makes this matter of faith That the Angels cannot fall Nor hath S. Augustine any adversary in that point we only inquire how they acquired this Infallibility and assurance in their station For if they were made so long before this world and fell when this world was made since they that had stood so long fell then why may not they that stand yet fall now They are supported and established by a confirmation sayes the Schoole And that is our present and ordinary answer and it is enough But how or when was this confirmation sealed upon them or how doth it work in them if God doe not yet trust these servants but charge these Angels with folly That the Angels were created Viatores Viatores and not Beati in a possibility of everlasting blessednesse but not in actuall possession of it admits no doubt because some of them did actually fall Of whom S. Augustine sayes
straite may say to those gates Psal 24.7 Elevamini portae aeternales Be ye lifted up ye eternall gates and be ye enlarged that as the King of glory himself is entred into you for the farther glory of the King of glory not only that hundred and foure and forty thousand of the Tribes of the children of Israel but that multitude which is spoken or in that place which no man can number of all Nations and Kindreds Apoc. 7.19 and People and friends may enter with that acclamation Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lamb for ever And unto this City of the living God Heb. 12.22 23 24. the heavenly Ierusalem and to the innumerable company of Angels to the generall assembly and Church of the first bâ—â—n which are written in heaven and to God the Iudge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Iesus the Mediator of the new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things then that of Abel Blessed God bring us all for thy Sons sake and by the operation of thy Spirit Amen SERMON XXV Preached at S. Pauls upon easter-Easter-day 1630. MAT. 28.6 He is not here for he is risen as he said Come See the place where the Lord lay THese are words spoken by an Angel of heaven to certain devout Women who not yet considering the Resurrection of Christ came with a pious intention to do an office of respect and civill honour to the body of their Master which they meant to embalme in the Monument where they thought to finde it How great a compasse God went in this act of the Resurrection Here was God the God of life dead in a grave And here was man a dead man risen out of the grave Here are Angels of heaven imployed in so low an office as to catechize Women and Women imployed in so high an office as to catechize the Apostles I chose this verse out of the body of the Story of the Resurrection because in this verse the act of Christs rising which we celebrate this day is expresly mentioned Surrexit enim for he is risen Which word stands as a Candle that shews it self and all about it and will minister occasion of illustrating your understanding of establishing your faith of exalting your devotion in some other things about the Resurrection then fall literally within the words of this verse For from this verse we must necessarily reflect both upon the persons they to whom and they by whom the words were spoken and upon the occasion given I shall not therefore now stand to divide the words into their parts and branches at my first entring into them but handle them as I shall meet them again anon springing out and growing up from the body of the Story for the Context is our Text and the whole Resurrection is the work of the day though it be virtually implicitely contracted into this verse He is not here for he is risen as he said Come and see the place where the Lord lay Our first consideration is upon the persons Mulieres and those we finde to be Angelicall women and Euangelicall Angels Angels made Euangelists to preach the Gospell of the Resurrection Mal. 3.1 Apoc. 1.20 and Women made Angels so as Iohn Baptist is called an Angel and so as the seven Bishops are called Angels that is Instructers of the Church And to recompence that observation that never good Angel appeared in the likenesse of woman here are good women made Angels that is Messengers publishers of the greatest mysteries of our Religion For howsoever some men out of a petulancy and wantonnesse of wit and out of the extravagancy of Paradoxes and such singularities have called the faculties and abilities of women in question even in the roote thereof in the reasonable and immortall soul yet that one thing alone hath been enough to create a doubt almost an assurance in the negative whether S. Ambroses Commentaries upon the Epistles of S. Paul be truly his or no that in that book there is a doubt made whether the woman were created according to Gods Image Therefore because that doubt is made in that book the book it self is suspected not to have had so great so grave so constant an author as S. Ambrose was No author of gravity of piety of conversation in the Scriptures could admit that doubt whether woman were created in the Image of God that is in possession of a reasonable and an immortall soul The faculties and abilities of the soul appeare best in affaires of State and in Ecclesiasticall affaires in matter of government and in matter of religion and in neither of these are we without examples of able women For for State affaires and matter of government our age hath given us such a Queen as scarce any former King hath equalled And in the Venetian Story I remember that certain Matrons of that City were sent by Commission in quality of Ambassadours to an Empresse with whom that State had occasion to treate And in the Stories of the Eastern parts of the World it is said to be in ordinary practise to send women for Ambassadours And then in matters of Religion women have evermore had a great hand though sometimes on the left as well as on the right hand Sometimes their abundant wealth sometimes their personall affections to some Church-men sometimes their irregular and indiscreet zeale hath made them great assistants of great Heretiques as S. Hierome tels us of Helena to Simon Magus Hieror and so was Lucilia to Donatus so another to Mahomet and others to others But so have they been also great instruments for the advancing of true Religion as S. Paul testifies in their behalf at Thessolonica Of the chiefe women not a few Great and Many For Acts 17.4 many times women have the proxies of greater persons then themselves in their bosomes many times women have voices where they should have none many times the voices of great men in the greatest of Civill or Ecclesiasticall Assemblies have been in the power and disposition of women Hence is it that in the old Epistles of the Bishops of Rome when they needed the Court as at first they needed Courts as much as they brought Courts to need them at last we finde as many letters of those Popes to the Emperours Wives and the Emperours Mothers and Sisters and women of other names and interests in the Emperours favours and affections as to the Emperours themselves S. Hierome writ many letters to divers holy Ladies for the most part all of one stocke and kindred and a stock and kindred so religious as that I remember the good old man saies That if Iupiter were their Cousin of their kindred he beleeves Iupiter would be a Christian he would leave being such a God as he was to be their fellow-servant to the true God Now if women were brought up according to S.
his Sermon at Antioch Now what is written in that Psalme which S. Paul cites there to our present purpose This Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee But is not this Hodie genui This this dayes begetting intended rather of the eternall filiation generation of the Son of God then of this daies work the Resurrection Those words of that Psalm may well admit that interpretation Hilar. and so many have taken them But with S. Hilary most of the ancients have applied them to the Resurrection as the application of S. Paul himself directly binds us to do That the Hodie genui This dayes generation is this dayes manifestation that Christ was the Son of God Calvin Calvin enlarges it farther That every declaration of the Son by the Father is a generation of the Son So his baptisme and the voice then so his Transfiguration and the voice then Mat. 3.17 Mat. 17.3 were each of them a Hodie genui a generation of the Son that day But especially sayes Calvin do those words of the Psalm belong to this day because the Resurrection was the most evident actuall declaration that Christ was the Son of God Rom. 1.4 for He was declared to be the Son of God by the Resurrection from the dead saies the Apostle expresly But how wherein was he declared There were others that were raised from the dead by Prophets in the old Testament by Christ and his Apostles in the new and yet not thereby declared to be such Sons of God Essentiall Sons no nor any Sons of God not Sons by adoption for we are not sure that all those that were miraculously raised from the dead were effectually saved at last Therefore the comfort in our case is in that word of the Angel Surrexit He is risen For so all our Translators and Expositors do constantly carry it not in a Suscitatus as all the rest are That he was raised but in this Surrexit He is risen risen of himself For so he testifies of himself Destroy this Temple and in three dayes Ego suscitabo I will raise it up again John 2.19 Not that the Father should but that he would so also Ego pono and Ego sumo sayes Christ I lay down and I take again my soul Not that it is given or taken by another John 10.17 Nyssen And therefore Gregory Nyssen suspects that for the infirmity of the then hearers the Apostles thought it scarce safe to expresse it often in that phrase He rose or He raised himself and therefore for the most part return to the Suscitatus est that He was raised lest weak hearers might be scandalized with that that a dead man had raised himself of his own power And therefore the Angel in this place enlarges the comfort to these devout women in a full measure when he opens himselfe in that word Surrexit He is risen risen of himselfe This then is one piece of our evidence and the foundation of all Nos that we cannot be deceived because he in whom we trust is by this his own rising declared to be the Son of God And another and a powerfull comfort is this Rom. 4.25 2 Cor. 4.14 That he being risen for our justification we are also risen in him He that raised the Lord Iesus shall raise us up also by the same Iesus He shall there is our assurance but that is not all for there is a con-resuscitavit Ephes 2.6 He hath quickned us together and raised us together and made us to sit together in heavenly places not together with one another but together with Christ There is our comfort collected from this surrexit He is risen equivalent to the discomfort of the non est hîc he is not here That this his rising declares him to be the Son of God who therefore can and will and to be that Jesus an actuall Redeemer and therefore hath already raised us To what To that renovation to that new creation which is so excellently expressed by Severianus as makes us sorry we have no more of his Mutatur ordorerum Severianus The whole frame and course of nature is changed Sepulchrum non mortuum sed mortem devorat The grave now since Christs Resurrection and ours in him does not bury the dead man but death himself My Bell tolls for death and my Bell rings out for death and not for me that dye for I live even in death but death dies in me and hath no more power over me I was crucified with Christ upon Friday saies Chrysologus Et hodiè resurgo Chrysologus to day I rose with him again Et gloria resurrection is sepelivit injuriam morientis The ingloriousnesse of having been buried in the dust is recompenced in the glory I rise to Liber inter mortuos that which David sayes and by S. Augustines application of Christ Psal 88.5 August is true of me too Christ was and I am Liber inter mortuos free amongst the dead undetainable in the state of death For sayes S. Peter It was not possible he should be holden of it Acts 2.24 Not possible for Christ because of the prediction of so many Prophets whose words had an infallibility in them not possible especially because of the Union of the Divine Nature Not possible for me neither because God hath afforded me the marks of his Election and thereby made me partaker of the Divine Nature too 2 Pet. 1.4 But yet these things might perchance not fall into the consideration of these women They did not but they might they should have done for as the Angell tels them here Christ had told them of this before Sicut dixit he is risen as he said Even the Angell himself referres himself to the word Sicut dixit Sicut dixit The Angell himself desires not to be beleeved but as he grounds himself upon the word sicut dixit Let therefore no Angell of the Church not that super-Arch-angell of the Romane Church proceed upon an ipse dixit upon his own pectorall word and determination for the Angell here referres us to the sicut dixit the former word God will be content that we doubt and suspend our assent to any revelation if it doe not concerne some duty delivered in Scripture before And to any miracle if it doe not conduce to the proofe of some thing commanded in Scripture before Sicut dixit is an Angelicall issue As he said But how often soever Christ had spoken of this Resurrection to others Vobie these women might be ignorant of it For all that is said even by Christ himself is not said to all nor is all written for all that is written by the Holy Ghost No man must suspect that he knowes not enough for salvation if he understand not all places of Scripture But yet these women could not well be ignorant of this because being Disciples and followers of Christ though Christ had
never spoken of the Resurrection to them they were likely to have heard of it from them to whom Christ had spoken of it It was Cleophas his question to Christ though he knew him not then to be so when they went together to Emaus Art thou onely a stranger in Ierusalem that is hast thou been at Jerusalem and is this Luke 24.16 The death of Christ strange to thee So may we say to any that professes Christianity Art thou in the Christian Church and is this The Resurrection of Christ strange to thee Are there any amongst us that thrust to Fore-noones and After-noones Sermons that pant after high and un-understandable Doctrines of the secret purposes of God and know not this the fundamentall points of Doctrine Even these womens ignorance though they were in the number of the Disciples of Christ makes us affraid that some such there may be and therefore blessed be they that have set on foote that blessed way of Catechizing that after great professions we may not be ignorant of small things These things these women might have learnt of others who were to instruct them Luke 24. â—â— But for their better assurance the Angell tells them here that Christ himself had told them of this before Remember sayes he how Christ spoke to you whilst he was with you in Galile We observe that Christ spoke to his Disciples of his Resurrection five times in the Gospell Now these women could not be present at any of the five but one which was the third Mat. 17.22 And before that it is evident that they had applied themselves to Christ and ministred unto him The Angell then remembers them what Christ said to them there Luke 24.6 It was this The Sonne of man must be delivered into the hands of sinfull men and Crucified and the third day rise againe And they remembred his words sayes the Text there Then they remembred them when they heard of them again but not till then Which gives me just occasion to note first the perverse tendernesse and the supercilious and fastidious delicacy of those men that can abide no repetitions nor indure to heare any thing which they have heard before when as even these things which Christ himself had preached to these women in Galile had been lost if this Angel had not preached them over again to them at Jerusalem Remember how he spake to you sayes he to them And why shouldst thou be loath to heare those things which thou hast heard before when till thou heardst them again thou didst not know that is not consider that ever thou hadst heard them So have we here also just occasion to note their impertinent curiosity who though the sense be never so well observed call every thing a salfification if the place be not rightly cyphard or the word exactly cited and magnifie one another for great Text men though they understand no Text because they cite Book and Chapter and Verse and Words aright whereas in this place the Angel referres the women to Christs words and they remember that Christ spake those words and yet if we compare the places Mat. 17.22 Luke 24.6 that where Christ speaks the words and that where the Angell repeats them though the sense be intirely the same yet the words are not altogether so Thus the Angell erects them in the consternation Remember what was promised that in three dayes he would rise The third day is come and he is risen as he said and that your senses may be exercised as well as your faith Come and see the place where the Lord lay Even the Angell calls Christ Lord Dominus Angeli Heb. 1.6 and his Lord for the Lord and the Angell calls him so is Lord of all of men and Angels When God brings his Soninto the world sayes the Apostle he sayes let all the Angels of God worship him And when God caries his Son out of the world by the way of the Crosse they have just cause to worship him too Colâ—â—â— 1.20 for By the blood of his Crosse are all things reconciled to God both things in earth and things in heaven Men and Angels Therefore did an Angel minister to Christ before he was Luke 1. Mat. 1. Luke 2. Mat. 4. Luke 22. Acts 1.10 in the Annunciation to his blessed Mother that he should be And an Angel to his imaginary Father Ioseph before he was born And a Quire of Angels to the Shepheards at his birth An Angel after his tentation And in his Agony and Bloody-sweat more Angels Angels at his last step at his Ascension and here at his Resurrection Angels minister unto him The Angels of heaven acknowledged Christ to be their Lord. In the beginning some of the Angels would be Similes Altissimo like to the most High But what a transcendent what a super-diabolicall what a prae-Luciferian pride is his that will be supra Altissimum 2 Thes 2.4 superiour to God That not only exalteth himselfe above all that is called God Kings are called Gods and this Arch-Monarch exalts himselfe above all Kings but above God literally and in that wherein God hath especially manifested himself to be God to us that is in prescribing us a Law how he will be obeyed for in dispensing with this Law and adding to and withdrawing from this law he exalts himself above God as our Law-giver And as it is also said there He exalteth himself and opposeth himselfe against God There is no trusting of such neighbours as are got above us in power This man of sin hath made himselfe superiour to God and then an enemy to God for God is Truth and he opposes him in that for he is heresie and falshood and God is Love and he opposes him in that for he is envy and hatred and malice and sedition and invasion and rebellion The Angell confesses Christ to be The Lord his Lord Dominus mortuus and he confesses him to be so then when he lay dead in the grave Come seethe place where the Lord lay A West Indian King having beene well wrought upon for his Conversion to the Christian Religion and having digested the former Articles when he came to that He was crucified dead and buried had no longer patience but said If your God be dead and buried leave me to my old god the Sunne for the Sunne will not dye But if he would have proceeded to the Article of the Resurrection hee should have seene that even then when hee lay dead hee was GOD still Then when hee was no Man hee was GOD still Nay then when hee was no man hee was God and Man in this true sense That though the body and soule were divorced from one another and that during that divorce he were no man for it is the union of body and soule that makes a man yet the Godhead was not divided from either of these constitutive parts of man body or soule Psal 22.7 1
concealing which were the pieces that constitute our first Part in the second Part which is the time when this Legacy accrues to us is to be given us In die illo at that day At that day shall yee know c. It is the illumination the illustration of our hearts and therefore well referred to the Day The word it selfe affords cheerefulnesse For when God inflicted that great plague to kill all the first-borne in Aegypt Exod. 12. Luke 20. that was done at Midnight And when God would intimate both deaths at once spirituall and temporall he sayes O foole this night they will fetch away thy soule Against all supply of knowledge he cals him foole and against all sense of comfort in the day he threatens night It was In die Illo and In die illo in the day and at a certaine day and at a short day For after Christ had made his Will at this supper given strength to his Will by his death and proved his Will by his Resurrection and left the Church possest of his estate by his Ascension within ten dayes after that he poured out this Legacy of knowledge For though some take this day mentioned in the Text Calvin to be Tanqnam unius diei tenor à dato Spiritu ad Resurrectionem from the first giving of the Holy Ghost to the Resurrection And others take this day Osiand to bee from his Resurrection to the end of his second Conversation upon earth till his Ascension and S. Augustine referre it Ad perfectam visionem in Coelis to the perfect fruition of the sight of God in Heaven yet the most usefull and best followed acceptation is This Day of the comming of the Holy Ghost That day we celebrate this day and we can never finde the Christian Church so farre as we can judge by the evidence of Story to have been without this festivall day The reason of all Festivals in the Church was and is Ne volumine temporum ingrata subrepat oblivio August Lest after many ages involved and wrapped up in one another Gods particular benefits should bee involved and wrapped up in unthankfulnesse And the benefits received this day were such as should never be forgotten for without this day all the rest had been evacuated and uneffectuall If the Apostles by the comming of the Holy Ghost had not been established in an infallibility in themselves and in an ability to deale with all Nations by the benefit of tongues the benefit of Christs passion had not been derived upon all Nations And therefore to This day and to Easter-day all publike Baptismes in the Primitive Church were reserved None were baptized except in cases of necessity but upon one of these two dayes for as there is an Exaltation a Resurrection given us in Baptisme represented by Easter so there belongs to us a confirmation an establishing of grace and the increase thereof represented in Pentecost in the comming of the Holy Ghost As the Jews had an Easter in the memory of their deliverance from Aegypt and a Pentecost in the memory of the Law given at Mout Sinai So at Easter we celebrate the memory of that glorious Passeover when Christ passed from the grave and hell in his Resurrection and at this Feast of Pentecost we celebrate his giving of the Law to all Nations and his investing and possessing himselfe of his Kingdome the Church for this is Festum Adoptionis as S. Chrysostome cals it The cheerefull feast of our Adoption in which the Holy Ghost convaying the Son of God to us enables us to be the Sons of God and to cry Abba Father This then is that day Acts 2. when the Apostles being with one accord and in one place that is in one faith and in one profession of that faith not onely without Heresie but without Schisme too the Holy Ghost as a mighty winde filled them all and gave them utterance As a winde to note a powerfull working And he filled them to note the abundance And he gave them utterance to inferre that which we spoke of before The Communication of that knowledge which they had received to others This was that Spirit whom it concerned the Apostles so much to have as that Christ himselfe must goe from them to send him to them If I goe not away sayes Christ the Comforter will not come to you How great a comfort must this necessarily be which must so abundantly recompence the losse of such a comfort as the presence of Christ was This is that Spirit who though hee were to be sent by the Father and sent by the Son yet he comes not as a Messenger from a Superiour for hee was alwaies equall to Father and Son But the Father sent him and the Son sent him as a tree sends forth blossomes and as those blossomes send forth a sweet smell and as the Sun sends forth beames by an emanation from it selfe He is Spiritus quem nemo interpretari potest sayes S. Chrysostome hee hath him not that doth not see he hath him nor is any man without him who in a rectified conscience thinks he hath him Illo Prophetae illustrantur Illo idiotae condiuntur sayes the same Father The Prophets as high as their calling was saw nothing without this Spirit and with this Spirit a simple man understands the Prophets And therefore doth S. Basil attribute that to the Holy Ghost which seemes to be peculiar to the Son he cals him Verbum Dei because sayes he Spiritus interpres Filii sicut Filius Patris As the Son hath revealed to us the will of the Father and so is the Word of God to us so the Holy Ghost applies the promises and the merits of the Son to us and so is the Word of God to us too and enables us to come to God in that voyce of his blessed Servant S. Augustine O Deus secretissime patentissime Though nothing be more mysterious then the knowledge of God in the Trinity yet nothing is more manifest unto us then by the light of this person the Holy Ghost so much of both the other Persons as is necessary for our Salvation is Now it is not onely to the Apostles that the Holy Ghost is descended this day but as S. Chrysostom saies of the Annunciation Non ad unam tantùm animam It is not onely to one Person that the Angel said then The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and overshadow thee but sayes he that Holy Ghost hath said Super omnem Ioel 2. I will poure out my selfe upon all men so I say of this day This day if you be all in this place concentred united here in one Faith and one Religion If you be of one accord that is in perfect charity The Holy Ghost shall fill you all according to your measure and his purpose and give you utterance in your lives and conversations Qui ita vacat orationibus Origen ut dignus fiat illo
the Schoolemen have called all these six not without just reason and good use by that heavy name And some of the Fathers have extended it farther then to these six S. Bernard in particular sayes Nolle obedire To resist lawfull Authority And another Simulata poenitentia To delude God with relapses counterfait repentances and another also Omne schisma All schismaticall renting of the peace of the Church All these they call in that sense Sins against the Holy Ghost Now all sins against the Holy Ghost are not irremissible Stephen told his persecutors Acts 7.51.60 They resisted the Holy Ghost and yet he prayed for them But because these sins may and ordinarily doe come to that sin stop betimes David was far from the murder of Vriah when he did but looke upon his Wife as she was bathing A man is far from defying the holy Ghost when he does but neglect him and yet David did come and he will come to the bottome quickly It may make some impression in you to tell and to apply a short story In a great Schisme at Rome Ladislaus tooke that occasion to debauch and corrupt some of the Nobility It was discerned and then to those seven Governors whom they had before whom they called Sapientes Wise men they added seven more and called them Bonos Good men honest men and relied and confided in them Goodnesse is the Attribute of the Holy Ghost If you have Greatness you may seeme to have some of the Father for Power is his If you have Wisdome you may seeme to have some of the Son for that is his If you have Goodnesse you have the Holy Ghost who shall lead you into all truth And Goodnesse is To be good and easie in receiving his impressions and good and constant in retaining them and good and diffusive in deriving them upon others To embrace the Gospel to hold fast the Gospel to propagate the Gospel this is the goodnesse of the Holy Ghost And to resist the entrance of the Gospel to abandon it after we have professed it to forsake them whom we should assist and succour in the maintenance of it This is to depart from the goodnesse of the Holy Ghost and by these sins against him to come too neare the sin the irremissible sin in which the calamities of this world shall enwrap us and deliver us over to the everlasting condemnation of the next This is as much as these words do justly occasion us to say of that sin and into a more curious search thereof it is not holy sobriety to pierce SERM. XXXVI Preached upon Whitsunday JOHN 16.8 9 10 11. And when he is come he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousnesse and of judgement Of sin because ye belceve not on me Of righteousnesse because I goe to my Father and ye see me no more Of judgement because the Prince of this world is judged OUr Panis quotidianus Our daily bread is that Iuge sacrificium That daily sacrifice of meditating upon God Our Panis hodiernus This dayes bread is to meditate upon the holy Ghost To day if ye will heare his voice to day ye are with him in Paradise For wheresoever the holy Ghost is Luk. 23.43 he creates a Paradise The day is not past yet As our Saviour said to Peter Hodie in nocte hac Mar. 14.10 This day even in this night thou shalt deny me so Hodie in nocte hac Even now though evening the day-spring from on high visits you Esay 38.8 God carries back the shadow of your Sun-dyall as to Hezechias And now God brings you to the beginning of this day if now you take knowledge that he is come who when he comes Reproves the world of sin c. The solemnity of the day requires Divisio and the method of the words offers for our first consideration the Person who is not named in our text but designed by a most emphaticall denotation Ille He He who is all and doth all But the word hath relation to a name proper to the holy Ghost for in the verse immediatly preceding our Saviour tels his disciples That he will send them the Comforter So forbearing all other mysterious considerations of the holy Ghost we receive him in that notion and function in which Christ sends him The Comforter And therefore in this capacity as The Comforter we must consider his action Arguet He shall reprove Reprove and yet Comfort nay therefore comfort because reprove And then the subject of his action Mundum The world the whole world no part left unreproved yet no part left without comfort And after that what he reproves the world of That multiplies Of sin of righteousnesse of judgement Can there be comfort in reproofe for sin Or can there lie a reproofe upon righteousnesse or upon judgement Very justly Though the evidence seem at first as strange as the crime for though that be good evidence against the sin of the world That they beleeve not in Christ Of sin because ye beleeve not on me yet to be Reproved of righteousnesse because Christ goes to his Father and they see him no more And to be Reproved of judgement because the Prince of this world is judged this seemes strange and yet this must be done and done to our comfort For this must be done Cum venerit Then when the holy Ghost and he in that function as the Comforter is come is present is working Beloved Reproofes upon others without charity rather to defame them then amend them Reproofes upon thy selfe without shewing mercy to thine own soule diffidences and jealousies and suspitions of God either that he hated thee before thy sin or hates thee irremediably irreconciliably irrecoverably irreparably for thy sin These are Reproofes but they are Absente spiritu In the absence of the holy Ghost before he comes or when he is gone When he comes and stayes He shall reprove and reprove all the world and all the world of those errours sin and righteousnesse and judgement and those errours upon those evidences Of sin because ye beleeve not on me c. But in all this proceeding he shall never devest the nature of a Comforter In that capacity he is sent in that he comes and works I doubt I shall see an end of my houre and your patience before I shall have passed those branches which appertaine most properly to the celebration of this day the Person the Comforter his action Reproofe the subject thereof the world and the Time Cum venerit When he comes The inditement of what the accusation is and the evidence how it is proved may exercise your devotion at other times Acts 2.2 This day the holy Ghost is said to have come suddenly and therefore in that pace we proceed and make haste to the consideration of the Person Ille When he He the holy Ghost the Comforter is come Ille Spiritus sanctus Gen. 3.15 Ille alone He is
envy God that glory We reade of divers great actors in the first persecutions of the Christians who being fearefully tormented in body and soule at their deaths took care only that the Christians might not know what they suffered lest they should receive comfort and their God glory therein Certainly Herod would have been more affected if he had thought that we should have knowne how his pride was punished with those sudden wormes Acts 12.23 then with the punishment it selfe This is a self-reproofe even in this though he will not suffer it to break out to the edification of others there is some kinde of chiding himself for some thing mis-done But is there any comfort in this reproofe Consolatio Truly beloved I can hardly speak comfortably of such a man after he is dead that dyes in such a dis-affection loath that God should receive glory or his servants edification by these judgements But even with such a man if I assisted at his death-bed I would proceed with a hope to infuse comfort even from that dis-affection of his As long as I saw him in any acknowledgement though a negligent nay though a malignant a despitefull acknowledgement of God as long as I found him loath that God should receive glory even from that loathnesse from that reproofe from that acknowledgement That there is a God to whom glory is due I would hope to draw him to glorifie that God before his last gasp My zeale should last as long as his wives officiousnesse or his childrens or friends or servants obsequiousnesse or the solicitude of his Physitians should as long as there were breath they would minister some help as long as there were any sense of God I would hope to do some good And so much comfort may arise even out of this reproofe of the world as the world is only the wicked world In the last sense the world signifies the Saints the Elect the good men of the world Mundus sancti John 14.31 John 17.21 beleeving and persevering men Of those Christ sayes The world shall know that I love the Father And That the world may beleeve that thou hast sent me And this world that is the godliest of this world have many reproofes many corrections upon them That outwardly they are the prey of the wicked and inwardly have that Stimulum carnis which is the devils Solicitor and round about them they see nothing but profanation of his word mis-imployment of his works his creatures mis-constructions of his actions his judgements blasphemy of his name negligence and under-valuation of his Sacraments violation of his Sabbaths and holy convocations O what a bitter reproofe what a manifest evidence of the infirmity nay of the malignity of man is this if it be put home and throughly considered That even the goodnesse of man gets to no higher a degree but to have been the occasion of the greatest ill the greatest cruelty that ever was done the crucifying of the Lord of life The better a man is the more he concurred towards being the cause of Christs death which is a strange but a true and a pious consideration Dilexit mundum He loved the world and he came to save the world That is most especially and effectually those that should beleeve in him in the world and live according to that beliefe and die according to that life If there had been no such Christ had not died never been crucified So that impenitent men mis-beleeving men have not put Christ to death but it is we we whom he loves we that love him that have crucified him In what rank then of opposition against Christ shall we place our sins since even our faith and good works have been so farre the cause why Christ died that but for the salvation of such men Beleevers Workers Perseverers Christ had not died This then is the reproofe of the world that is of the Saints of God in the world Psal 84.10 that though I had rather be a doore-keeper in the house of my God I must dwell in the tents of wickednesse That though my zeale consume me because mine enemies have forgotten thy words Psal 119.138 I must stay amongst them that have forgotten thy words But this and all other reproofes that arise in the godly that we may still keep up that consideration that he that reproves us is The Comforter have this comfort in them that these faults that I indure in others God hath either pardoned in me or kept from me and that though this world be wicked yet when I shall come to the next world I shall finde Noah that had been drunk and Lot Gen. 9.21 Gen. 19.33 Numb 11.11 that had been incestuous and Moses that murmured at Gods proceedings and Iob and Ieremy and Ionas impatient even to imprecations against themselves Christs owne Disciples ambitious of worldly preferment his Apostles forsaking him his great Apostle forswearing him And Mary Magdalen that had been I know not what sinner and David that had been all I leave none so ill in this world but I may carry one that was or finde some that had been as ill as they in heaven and that blood of Christ Jesus which hath brought them thither is offered to them that are here who may be successors in their repentance as they are in their sins And so have you all intended for the Person the Comforter and the Action Reproofe and the Subject the World remaines only that for which there remaines but a little time the Time Cum venerit When the Comforter comes he will proceed thus We use to note three Advents three commings of Christ Cum venerit An Advent of Humiliation when he came in the flesh an Advent of glory when he shall come to judgement and between these an Advent of grace in his gracious working in us in this life and this middlemost Advent of Christ is the Advent of the Holy Ghost in this text when Christ works in us the Holy Ghost comes to us And so powerfull is his comming that whereas he that sent him Christ Jesus himself Came unto his own and his own received him not John 1.11 The Holy Ghost never comes to his owne but they receive him for onely by receiving him they are his owne for besides his title of Creation by which we are all his with the Father and the Son as there is a particular title accrewed to the Son by Redemption so is there to the Holy Ghost of certaine persons upon whom he sheds the comfort of his application The Holy Ghost picks out and chooses whom he will Spirat ubi vult perchance me that speake perchance him that heares perchance him that shut his eyes yester-night and opened them this morning in the guiltinesse of sin and repents it now perchance him that hath been in the meditation of an usurious contract of an ambitious supplantation of a licentious solicitation since he came hither into Gods
The nature of the worke and according to Thy worke The propriety of the worke Thee who art a Protestant he shall judge by thine owne worke and not by S. Stephens or S. Peters and thee who art a Papist he shall judge by thine owne worke and not by S. Campians or S. Garnets as meritorious as thou thinkest them And therefore if God be thy Father and in that title have soveraigne power over thee A power spirituall as High-priest of thy soule that discernes thy sacrifices A power Civill and drawes the sword of Justice against thee when he will A power judiciary and judges without accepting persons and without error in apprehending thy works If he be a Father thus feare him for these are the reasons of feare on his part and then feare him for this reason on thy part That this time which thou art to stay here first is But a sojourning it is no more but yet it is a sojourning it is no lesse Passe the time of your sojourning here c. When there is a long time to the Assises Incolatus there may be some hope of taking off or of smothering Evidence or working upon the Judge or preparing for a pardon Or if it were a great booty a great possession which we had gotten even that might buy out our peace But this world is no such thing neither for the extent that we have in it It is but little that the greatest hath nor for the time that we have in it In both respects it is but a sojourning Gen. 47.6 Heb. 13.14 it is but a pilgrimage sayes Iacob And But the dayes of my pilgrimage Every one of them quickly at an end and all of them quickly reckoned Here we have no continuing City first no City no such large being and then no continuing at all it is but a sojourning The word in the Text is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we have but a parish we are but parishioners in this world and they that labour to purchase whole shires usurp more then their portion and yet what is a great Shire in a little Map Here we are but Viatores Passengers way-faring men This life is but the high-way and thou canst not build thy hopes here Nay to be buried in the high way is no good marke and therefore bury not thy selfe thy labours thy affections upon this world What the Prophet sayes to thy Saviour O the hope of Israel 〈◊〉 14.7 the Saviour thereof in time of trouble why shouldest thou be a stranger in the land and as a wayfaring man that turnes aside to tarry for a night say thou to thy soule Sincethou art a stranger in the land a wayfaring man turned aside to tarry for a night since the night is past Arise and depart for here is not thy rest Mic. 2.10 prepare for another place and feare him whom thou callest Father and who is shortly to be thy Iudge for here thou art no more then a sojourner but yet remember withall that thou art so much Thou art a sojourner This life is not a Parenthesis a Parenthesis that belongs not to the sense Incolatus a Parenthesis that might be left out as well as put in More depends upon this life then so upon every minute of this life depend millions of yeares in the next and I shall be glorified eternally or eternally lost for my good or ill use of Gods grace offered to me this houre Therefore where the Apostle sayes of this life Peregrinamur à Domino 2 Cor. 5.6 We are absent from the Lord yet he sayes We are at home in the body This world is so much our home as that he that is not at home now he that hath not his conversation in heaven here shall never get home And therefore even in this Text our former Translation calls it Dwelling That which we reade now passe the time of your sojourning we did reade then passe the time of your dwelling for this where we are now is the suburb of the great City the porch of the triumphant Church and the Grange or Country house of the same Landlord belonging to his heavenly Palace in the heavenly Jerusalem Be it but a sojourning yet thou must pay God something for thy sojourning pay God his rent of praise and prayer And be it but a sojourning yet thou art bound to it for a time Though thou sigh with David Heu mihi quia prolongatus incolatus Psal 120.5 woe is me that I sojourne so long here Though the miseries of thy life make thy life seeme long yet thou must stay out that time which he who tooke thee in appointed and by no practice no not so much as by a deliberate wish or unconditioned prayer seeke to be delivered of it Because thy time here is such a sojourning as is quickly atan end and yet such a sojourning as is never at an end for our endlesse state depends upon this fear him who shall so certainly and so soone be a just Judge of it feare him in abstaining from those sinnes which are directed upon his power which are principally as we intimated at the beginning and with which we shall make an end first The negligence of his power upon thee And then the abuse of his power communicated to thee over others First then the sin directed against the Father Negligentia whom wee consider to be the roote and center of all power is when as some men have thought the soule of man to be nothing but a resultance of the temperament and constitution of the body of man and no infusion from God so they thinke that power by which the world is governed is but a resultance of the consent and the tacite voice of the people who are content for their ease to bee so governed and no particular Ordinance of God It is an undervaluing a false conception a mis-apprehension of those beames of power which God from himself sheds upon those whom himselfe cals Gods in this World We sin then against the Father when we undervalue God in his Priest God hath made no step in that perverse way of the Roman Church to prefer so as they doe the Priest before the King yet speaking in two severall places of the dignity of his people first as Jews then as Christians he sayes in one place They shall be a Kingdome and a Kingdome of Priests and he sayes in the other Esay 19.6 1 Pet. 2.9 They shall be Sacerdotium and Regale Sacerdotium Priests and royall Priests In one place the King in the other the Priest mentioned first and in both places both involved in one another The blessings from both are so great as that the Holy Ghost expresses them by one another mutually Num. 1. Oleaster When God commands his people to bee numbred in every Tribe one moves this question Why in all other Tribes he numbred but from twenty yeares upward and in the Tribe of
Levi from a moneth upward Agnosce sacerdos sayes he quanti te Deus tuus fecerit Take knowledge thou who art the Priest of the high God what a value God hath set upon thee that whereas he takes other servants for other affaires when they are men fit to doe him service he took thee to the Priesthood in thy cradle in thine infancie How much more then when the Priest is not Sacerdos infans A Priest that cannot or does not speake but continues watchfull in meditating and assiduous in uttering powerfully and yet modestly the things that concerne your salvation ought you to abstaine from violating the power of God the Father in dis-esteeming his power thus planted in the Priest So also doe we sin against the Father the roote of power Civilis in conceiving amisse of the power of the Civill Magistrate Whether where God is pleased to represent his unity in one Person in a King or to expresse it in a plurality of persons in divers Governours When God sayes Per me Reges regnant By me Kings raigne There the Per is not a Permission but a Commission It is not That they raigne by my Sufferance but they raigne by mine Ordinance A King is not a King because he is a good King nor leaves being a King Rom. 13.5 as soone as he leaves being good All is well summed by the Apostle You must needs be subject not only for wrath but also for conscience sake But then the greatest danger of sinning against the Father Iudiciaria in this notion of power is if you conceive not aright of his Judiciary power of that judgement which he executes not by Priests nor by Kings upon earth but by his owne Son Christ Jesus in heaven For not to be astonished at the Contemplation of that judgement where there shall be Information Examination Publication Hearing Judgement and Execution in a minute where they that never beleeved till they heard me may be taken in and I that Preached and wrought their salvation may be left out where those wounds which my Saviour received upon earth for me shall be shut up against me and those wounds which my blasphemies have made in his glorified body shall bleed out indignation upon sight of me the murtherer not to think upon not to tremble at this judgement is the highest sin against the Father and his power in the undervaluing of it But there is a sin against this power too Abusus in abusing that portion of that power which God hath deposited in thee Art thou a Priest and expectest the reverence due to that holy calling Ambr Ep. 6. ad Iren. Be holy in in that calling Quomodo potest observari à populo qui nihil habet secretum à populo How can the people reverence him whom they see to be but just one of them Quid in te miretur si sua in te recognoscit If they finde no more in thee then in one another what should they admire in thee Si quae in se erubescit in te quem reverendum arbitratur offendit If they discerne those infirmities in thee which they are ashamed of in themselves where is there any object any subject any exercise of their reverence psal 52.1 Art thou great in Civill Power Quid gloriaris in malo quiae potens es Why boastest thou thy selfe in mischiefe O mighty man Hast thou a great body therefore because thou shouldest stand heavy upon thine own feet and make them ake Or a great power therefore because thou shouldest oppresse them that are under thee use thy power justly Jes 1. ◠and call it the voyce of allegeance when the people say to thee as to Iosua All that thou commandest us we will doc and whither soever thou sendest us we will goe Abuse that power to oppression and thou canst not call that the voyce of sedition in which Peter and the other Apostles joyned together Acts 5.29 We ought to obey God rather then man Hast thou any judiciall place in this world here there belongs more feare then in the rest Some things God hath done in Christ as a Priest in this world some things as a King But when Christ should have been a Judge in civill causes he declined that he would not divide the Inheritance and in criminall causes he did so too he would not condemne the Adulteresse So that for thy example in judgement thou art referred to that which is not come yet to that to which thou must come The last the everlasting judgement Waigh thine affections there and then and think there stands before thee now a prisoner so affected as thou shalt be then Waigh the mercy of thy Judge then and think there is such mercy required in thy judgement now Be but able to say God be such to me at the last day as I am to his people this day and for that dayes justice in thy publique calling God may be pleased to cover many sins of infirmity And so you have all that we intended in this exercise to present unto you The first person of the Trinity God the Father in his Attribute of power Almighty and those sins which as farre as this Text leads us are directed upon him in that notion of Father The next day the Son will rise SERM. XL. Preached upon Trinity-Sunday 1 COR. 16.22 If any man love not the Lord Iesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha CHrist is not defined not designed by any name by any word so often as by that very word The Word Sermo Speech In man there are three kinds of speech Sermo innatus That inward speech which the thought of man reflecting upon it selfe produces within He thinks something And then Sermo illatus A speech of inference that speech which is occasioned in him by outward things from which he drawes conclusions and determins And lastly Sermo prolatus That speech by which he manifests himselfe to other men We consider also three kindes of speech in God and Christ is all three There is Sermo innatus His eternall his naturall word which God produced out of himselfe which is the generatiof the second Person in the Trinity And then there is Sermo illatus His word occasioned by the fall of Adam which is his Decree of sending Christ as a Redeemer And there is also Sermo prolatus His speech of manifestation and application of Christ which are his Scriptures The first word is Christ the second the Decree is for Christ the third the Scripture is of Christ Let the word be Christ so he is God Let the word be for Christ for his comming hither so he is man Let the word be of Christ so the Scriptures make this God and man ours Now If in all these if in any of these apprehensions any man love not the Lord Iesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha By most of those who from the perversenesse of Heretiques Divisio have taken
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
soon as the Christian Church had a constant establishment under Christian Emperours and before the Church had her tympany of worldly prosperity under usurping Bishops in this outward service of God there were particular Scriptures appropriated to particular dayes Particular men have not liked this that it should be so And yet that Church which they use to take for their patterne I meane Geneva as soone as it came to have any convenient establishment by the labours of that Reverend man who did so much in the rectifying thereof admitted this custome of celebrating certaine times by the reading of certaine Scriptures So that in the pure times of the Church without any question and in the corrupter times of the Church without any infection and in the Reformed times of the Church without any suspition of back-sliding this custome hath beene retained which our Church hath retained and according to which custome these words have been appropriated to this day for the celebrating thereof And lo A voice came c. In which words we have pregnant and just occasion to consider first Divisio the necessity of the Doctrine of the Trinity Secondly the way and meanes by which we are to receive our knowledge and understannding of this mystery And thirdly the measure of this knowledge How much we are to know or to inquire in that unsearchable mystery The Quid what it is the Quomodo How we are to learne it and the Quantum How farre we are to search into it will be our three Parts We consider the first of these the necessity of that knowledge to a Christian by occasion of the first Particle in the Text And A Particle of Connexion and Dependance and we see by this Connexion and Dependance that this revealing this manifestation of the Trinity in the text was made presently after the Baptisme of Christ and that intimates and inferres That the first and principall duty of him who hath ingrafted himself into the body of the Christian Church by Baptisme is to informe himselfe of the Trinity in whose name he is Baptized Secondly in the meanes by which this knowledge of the Trinity is to be derived to us in those words Lo a voyce came from heaven saying we note the first word to be a word of Correction and of Direction Ecce Behold leave your blindnesse look up shake off your stupidity look one way or other A Christian must not goe on implicitely inconsiderately indifferently he must look up he must intend a calling And then Ecce againe Behold that is Behold the true way A Christian must not thinke he hath done enough if he have been studious and diligent in finding the mysteries of Religion if he have not sought them the right way First there is an Ecce corrigentis we are chidden if we be lazy And then there is an Ecce dirigentis we are guided if we be doubtfull And from this we fall into the way it selfe which is first A voyce There must be something heard for take the largest Spheare and compasse of all other kinds of proofes for the mysteries of Religion which can be proposed Take it first at the first and weakest kinde of proofe at the book of creatures which is but a faint knowledge of God in respect of that knowledge with which we must know him And then continue this first way of knowledge to the last and powerfullest proofe of all which is the power of miracles not this weake beginning not this powerfull end not this Alpha of Creatures not this Omega of miracles can imprint in us that knowledge which is our saving knowledge nor any other meanes then a voyce for this knowing is beleeving And how should they beleeve except they heare sayes the Apostle It must be Vox A voyce And Vox de coelis A voyce from heaven For we have have had voces de terra voyces of men who have indeed but diminished the dignity of the Doctrine of the Trinity by going about to prove it by humane reason or to illustrate it by weak and low comparisons And we have had voces de Inferis voyces from the Devill himselfe in the mouthes of many Heretiques blasphemously impugning this Doctrine Wee have had voces de profundis voyces fetched from the depth of the malice of the Devill Heretiques And voces de medio voyces taken from the ordinary strength of Morall men Philosophers But this is vox de Excelsis onely that voyce that comes from Heaven belongs to us in this mystery And then lastly it is vox dicens a voyce saying speaking which is proper to man for nothing speaks but man It is Gods voyce but presented to us in the ministery of man And this is our way To behold that is to depart from our own blindnesse and to behold a way that is shewed us but shewed us in the word and in the word of God and in that word of God preached by man And after all this we shall consider the measure of this knowledge in those last words This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased For in that word Meus My there is the Person of the Father In the Filius there is the Person of the Son and in the Hic est This is there is the Person of the Holy Ghost for that is the action of the Holy Ghost in that word He is pointed at who was newly baptized and upon whom the Holy Ghost in the Dove was descended and had tarried But we shall take those words in their order when we come to them First then 1 Part. we noted the necessity of knowing the Trinity to be pregnantly intimated in the first word Et And This connects it to the former part of the history which is Christs Baptisme and presently upon that Baptisme this manifestation of the holy Trinity Consider a man as a Christian his first Element is Baptisme and his next is Catechisme and in his Catechisme the first is to beleeve a Father Son and holy Ghost There are in this man this Christian Tres nativitates sayes S. Gregory three births one Per generationem so we are borne of our naturall mother one Per regenerationem so we are borne of our spirituall Mother the Church by Baptisme and a third Per Resurrectionem and so we are borne of the generall Mother of us all when the earth shall be delivered not of twins but of millions when she shall empty her selfe of all her children in the Resurrection And these three Nativities our Saviour Christ Jesus had Of which three Hodie alter salvator is natalis sayes S. Augustine This day is the day of Christs second birth that is of his Baptisme Not that Christ needed any Regeneration but that it was his abundant goodnesse to sanctifie in his person and in his exemplar action that Element which should be an instrument of our Regeneration in Baptisme the water for ever Even in Christ himselfe Honoratior secunda sayes
lesse Idolum Aeternitatis Perpetuity is but an Idol compared to eternity And an Idol is nothing sayes the Apostle Our soules have a blessed perpetuity our soules shall no more see an end then God that hath no Beginning and yet our soules are very far from being eternal But those gods are so far from being eternall as that considered as Gods that is celebrated with Divine worship they are not perpetual Psal 48.14 Psal 102.11 But God is our God for ever and ever ever without beginning and ever without end My dayes are like a shadow that fadeth and I am withered like grasse but thou O Lord dost remaine for ever and thy remembrance from generation to generation It is a remaining and it is a remembrance which words denote a former being So that God our God and onely he is eternall To conclude all with that which must be the conclusion of all at last this Eternity of our God is expressed here in a phrase which designes and presents the last Judgement that is which was and is and is to come For though it be Qui fuit Which was and Qui est Which is yet it is not Qui futurus Which is to be but Qui venturus Which is to come that is to come to Judgement as it is in divers other places of this Book Qui venturus Which is to come For though the last judiciary Power the finall Judgement of the World be to be executed by Christ as he is the Son of Man visibly apparantly in that nature yet Christ is therein as a Delegate of the Trinity It is in the vertue and power of that Commission Data est mihi omnis potestas He hath all Power but that Power that he hath as the Son of man is given him For as the Creation of the World was so the Judgement of the World shal be the Act of the whole Trinity For if we consider the second Person in the Trinity in both his Natures as he redeemed us God and Man so it cannot be said of him that He was that is that he was eternally for there was a time when that God was not that man when that Person Christ was not constituted And therefore this word in our Text which was which is also true of the rest is not appropriated to Christ but intended of the whole Trinity So that it is the whole Trinity that is to come To come to Judgement And therefore let us reverently embrace such provisions and such assistances as the Church of God hath ordained for retaining and celebrating the Trinity in this particular contemplation as they are to come to Judgement And let us at least provide so far to stand upright in that Judgement as not to deny nor to dispute the Power or the Persons of those Judges A man may make a pety larceny high treason so If being called in question for that lesser offence he will deny that there is any such Power any such Soveraigne any such King as can call him in question for it he may turne his whipping into a quartering At that last Judgement we shall be arraigned for not cloathing not visiting not harbouring the poore For our not giving is a taking away our withholding is a withdrawing our keeping to our selves is a stealing from them But yet all this is but a pety larceny in respect of that high treason of infidelity of denying or doubting of the distinct Persons of the holy blessed and glorious Trinity To beleeve in God one great one universall one infinite power does but distinguish us from beasts For there are no men that do not acknowledge such a Power or that do not believe in it if they acknowledge it Even they that acknowledge the devill to be God beleeve in the devill But that which distinguishes man from man that which onely makes his Immortality a blessing for even Immortality is part of their damnation that are damned because it were an ease it were a kind of pardon to them to be mortall to be capable of death though after millions of generations is to conceive aright of the Power of the Father of the Wisdome of the Son of the Goodnesse of the Holy Ghost Of the Mercie of the Father of the Merits of the Son of the Application of the Holy Ghost Of the Creation of the Father of the Redemption of the Son of the Sanctification of the Holy Ghost Without this all notions of God are but confused all worship of God is but Idolatry all confession of God is but Atheisme For so the Apostle argues When you were without Christ you were without God Without this all morall vertues are but diseases Liberality is but a popular baite and not a benefit not an almes Chastity is but a castration and an impotency not a temperance not mortification Active valour is but a fury whatsoever we do and passive valour is but a stupidity whatsoever we suffer Naturall apprehensions of God though those naturall apprehensions may have much subtilty Voluntary elections of a Religion though those voluntary elections may have much singularity Morall directions for life though those morall directions may have much severity are all frivolous and lost if all determine not in Christianity in the Notion of God so as God hath manifested and conveyed himself to us in God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost whom this day we celebrate in the Ingenuity and in the Assiduity and in the Totality recommended in this text and in this acclamation of the text Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come SERM. XLV PREACHED VPON ALL-SAINTS DAY APOC. 7.2 3. And I saw another Angel ascending from the East which had the seale of the living God and he cryed with a loud voyce to the foure Angels to whom power was given to hurt the Earth and the Sea saying Hurt yee not the Earth neither the Sea neither the Trees till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads THe solemnity and festivall with which the sonnes of the Catholique Church of God celebrate this day is much mistaken even by them who thinke themselves the onely Catholiques and celebrate this day with a devotion at least near to superstition in the Church of Rome For they take it for the most part to be a festivall instituted by the Church in contemplation of the Saints in heaven onely and so carry and employ all their devotions this day upon consideration of those Saints and invocation of them onely But the institution of this day had this occasion The heathen Romans who could not possibly house all their gods in severall Temples they were so over-many according to their Law Deos frugi colunto to serve God as cheape as they could made one Temple for them all which they called Pantheon To all the Gods This Temple Boniface the Pope begd of the Emperour Phocas And yet by the way this was some hundreds of
years after the Donation of the Emperour Constantine by which the Bishops of Rome pretend all that to be theirs surely they could not finde this Patent this Record this Donation of Constantine then when Boniface begd this Temple in Rome this Pantheon of the Emperour And this Temple formerly the Temple of all their gods that Bishop consecrated to the honour of all the Martyrs of all the Saints of that kinde But after him another Bishop of the same sea enlarged the consecration and accompanied it with this festivall which we celebrate to day in honour of the Trinity and Angels and Apostles and Martyrs and Confessors and Saints and all the elect children of God So that it is truly a festivall grounded upon that Article of the Creed The Communion of Saints and unites in our devout contemplation The Head of the Church God himselfe and those two noble constitutive parts thereof The Triumphant and the Militant And accordingly hath the Church applied this part of Scripture to be read for the Epistle of this day to shew that All-Saints day hath relation to all Saints both living and dead for those servants of God which are here in this text sealed in their foreheads are such without all question as receive that Seale here here in the militant Church And therefore as these words so this festivall in their intendiment that applied these words to this festivall is also of Saints upon Earth This day being then the day of the Communion of Saints and this Scripture being received for the Epistle of this universall day that exposition will best befit it which makes it most universall And therefore with very good authority such as the expositions of this booke of the Revelation can receive of which booke no man will undertake to the Church that he hath found the certaine and the literall sense as yet nor is sure to do it Irenaeus till the prophecies of this booke be accomplished for prophetiae ingenium ut in obscuro delitescat donec impleatur It is the nature of prophecy to be secret till it be fulfilled Dan. 12.4 And therefore Daniel was bid to shut up the words and to seale the booke even to the time of the end that is to the end of the prophecy with good authority I say we take that number of the servants of God which are said to be sealed in the fourth verse of this Chapter which is one hundred forty foure thousand and that multitude which none could number of all Nations which are mentioned in the ninth verse to be intended of one and the same company both these expressions denote the same persons In the fourth verse of the fourteenth Chapter this number of one hundred forty foure thousand is applied to Virgins but is intended of all Gods Saints for every holy soule is a virgin And then this name of Israel which is mentioned in the fourth verse of this Chapter That there were so many sealed of the house of Israel is often in Scriptures applied to spirituall Israelites to Beleevers for every faithfull soule is an Israelite so that this number of one hundred forty foure thousand Virgins and one hundred forty foure thousand Israelites which is not a certaine number but a number expressing a numberlesse multitude this number and that numberlesse multitude spoken of after of all Nations which none could number is all one and both making up the great and glorious body of all Saints import and present thus much in generall That howsoever God inflict great and heavy calamities in this world to the shaking of the best morall and Christianly constancies and consciences yet all his Saints being eternally knowne by him shall be sealed by him that is so assured of his assistance by a good using of those helps which he shall afford them in the Christian Church intended in this sealing on the forehead that those afflictions shall never separate them from him nor frustrate his determination nor disappoint his gracious purpose upon them all them this multitude which no man could number To come then to the words themselves Divisio we see the safety and protection of the Saints of God and his children in the person and proceeding of our Protector in that it is in the hands of an Angel I saw another Angel And an Angel of that place that came from the East The East that is the fountaine of all light and glory I saw another Angel come from the East And as the Word doth naturally signifie and is so rendred in this last Translation Ascending from the East that is growing and encreasing in strength After that we shall consider our assurance in the commission and power of this Angel He had the seaele of the living God And then in the execution of this Commission In which we shall see first who our enemies were They were also Angels This Angel cryed to other Angels able to do much by nature because Angels Then we shall see their number they were foure Angels made stronger by joyning This Angel cryed to those foure Angels And besides their malignant nature and united concord two shrewd disadvantages mischievous and many They had a power a particular an extraordinary power given them at that time to do hurt foure Angels to whom power was given to hurt And to do generall universall hurt power to hurt the Earth and the Sea After all this we shall see this Protector against these enemies and their Commission execute his first by declaring and publishing it He cryed with a loud voyce And then lastly what his Commission was It was to stay those foure Angels for all their Commission from hurting the Earth and the Sea and the Trees But yet this is not for ever It is but till the servants of God were sealed in the forehead that is till God had afforded them such helpes as that by a good use of them they might subsist which if they did not for all their sealing in the forehead this Angel will deliver them over to the other foure destroying Angels Of which sealing that is conferring of Grace and helps against those spirituall enemies there is a pregnant intimation that it is done by the benefit of the Church in the power of the Church which is no singular person in that upon the sudden the person and the number is varied in our text and this Angel which when he is said to ascend from the East and to cry with a loud voyce is still a singular Angel one Angel yet when he comes to the act of sealing in the forehead to the dispensing of Sacraments and sacramentall assistances he does that as a plurall person he represents more the whole Church and therefore sayes here Stay hurt nothing Till we we have sealed the servants of our our God in their foreheads And by all these steps must we passe through this garden of flowers this orchard of fruits this abundant Text. First then Man being compassed with
owne will thou hadst quenched hell If thou couldst be content willing to be in hell hell were not hell So if God save a man against his will heaven is not heaven If he be loath to come thither sorry that he shall be there he hath not the joy of heaven and then heaven is not heaven Put not God to save thee by miracle God can save an Image by miracle by miracle he can make an Image a man If man can make God of bread certainly God can make a man of an Image and so save him but God hath made thee his own Image and afforded thee meanes of salvation Use them God compels no man Luke 14.23 The Master of the feast invited many solemnly before hand they came not He sent his servants to call in the poore upon the sudden and they came so he receives late commers And there is a Compelle intrare He sends a servant to compell some to come in But that was but a servants work The Master onely invited he compelled none We the servants of God have certaine compulsories to bring men hither The denouncing of Gods Judgements the censures of the Church Excommunications and the rest are compulsories The State hath compulsories too in the penall Laws But all this is but to bring them into the house to Church Compelle intrare We can compell them to come to the first seale to Baptisme we can compell men to bring their children to that Sacrament But to salvation onely the Master brings and in that Parable the Master does onely invite he compells none Though his corrections may seeme to be compulsories yet even his corrections are sweet invitations His corrections are so farre from compelling men to come to heaven as that they put many men farther out of their way and worke an obduration rather then an obsequiousnesse With those therefore that neglect the meanes that he hath brought them to in sealing them in the fore-head this Angel hath no more to doe but gives them over to the power of the foure destroying Angels With those that attend those meanns he proceeds and in their behalfe his Donec Spare them till I have sealed them becomes the blessed Virgins Donec Mat. 1.25 Psal 110.1 she was a Virgin till she had her Child and a Virgin after too And it becomes our blessed Saviours Donec He sits at his Fathers right hand till his enemies bee made his foot-stoole and after too So these destroying Angels that had no power over them till they were sealed shall have no power over them after they are sealed but they shall passe from seale to seale after that seale on the fore-head Ne erubeseant Euangelium Rom. 1.16 We signe him with the signe of the Crosse in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confesse the faith of Christ Crucified He shall come also to those seales which our Saviour recommends to his Spouse Cant. 8.6 Set me as a seale on thy heart and as a seale on thine arme S. Ambrose collects them and connects them together Signaculum Christi in corde ut diligamus in fronte ut confiteamur in brachio ut operemur God seales us in the heart that we might love him and in the fore-head that we might professe it and in the hand that we might declare and practise it and then the whole purpose of this blessed Angel in our Text is perfected in us and we our selves are made partakers of the solemnity of this day which we celebrate for we our selves enter in the Communion of Saints by these three seales Of Beliefe Of Profession Of Works and Practise SERMONS Preached upon THE CONVERSION OF S. PAVL SERM. XLVI Preached at S. Pauls The Sunday after the Conversion of S. PAUL 1624. ACTS 9.4 And he fell to the earth and heard a voyce saying Saul Saul why persecutest thou me LEt us now praise famous Men and our Fathers that begat us Ecclus. 44.1 saies the Wiseman that is that assisted our second generation our spirituall Regeneration Let us praise them commemorate them The Lord hath wrought great glory by them Ver. 2. through his power from the beginning saies he there that is It hath alwaies beene the Lords way to glorifie himselfe in the conversion of Men by the ministery of Men. For he adds Ver. 4. They were leaders of the people by their counsaile and by their knowledge and learning meet for the people wise and eloquent men in their instructions and that is That God who gives these gifts for this purpose looks for the employment of these gifts to the edification of others to his glory There be of them that have left a name behinde them Ver. 8. as it is also added in that place that is That though God can amply reward his servants in the next world yet he does it sometimes in this world and though not with temporall happinesses in their life yet with honor and commemorations and celebrations of them after they are gone out of this life they leave a name behind them And amongst them in a high place shines our blessed and glorious Apostle S. Paul whose Conversion the Church celebrates now and for the celebration thereof hath appointed this part of Scripture from whence this text arises to be the Epistle of the Day And he fell to the earth and heard a voyce saying Saul Saul why persccutest thou me There are words in the text that will reach to all the Story of S. Pauls Conversion Divisio embrace all involve and enwrap all we must contract them into lesse then three parts we cannot well those will be these first The Person Saul He He fell to the earth and then his humiliation his exinanition of himselfe his devesting putting off of himselfe He fell to the earth and lastly his investing of Christ his putting on of Christ his rising againe by the power of a new inanimation a new soule breathed into him from Christ He heard a voyce saying Saul Saul why persecutest thou me Now a re-distribution a sub-division of these parts into their branches we shall present to you anon more opportunely as we shall come in due order to the handling of the parts themselves In the first the branches will be but these Sauls indisposition when Christ tooke him in hand and Christs worke upon him what he found him what he left him will determine our first part The person First then what he was at that time 1. Part. Quid ante the Holy Ghost gives evidence enough against him and he gives enough against himselfe Of that which the Holy Ghost gives you may see a great many heavy pieces a great many appliable circumstances if at any time at home you do but paraphrase and spread to your selves the former part of this Chapter to this text Take a little preparation from me Adhuc spirans saies the first verse Saul yet breathing threatnings and slaughter Then when he was
Christ to magnifie his mercy and his glory and to take away all occasion of absolute desperation did here under so many disadvantages call and draw S. Paul to him But we say no more of that of the danger of sinning by precedent Quid factus and presuming of mercy by example we passe from our first Consideration From what to the other To what Christ brought this persecutor this Saul He brought him to that remarkable height as that the Church celebrates the Conversion of no man but this Many bloody Executioners were converted to Christ even in the act of that bloody Execution Then when they tooke a delight in tearing the bowels of Christians they were received into the bowels of Christ Jesus and became Christians Man that road to Market and saw an Execution upon the way Men that opened a window to take ayre and saw an Execution in the street The Ecclesiasticall Story abounds with examples of occasionall Convertits and upon strange occasions but yet the Church celebrates no Conversion but this The Church doth not consider the Martyrs as borne till they die till the world see how they persevered to the end shee takes no knowledge of them Therefore shee cals the dayes of their deaths Natalitia their birth-dayes Then she makes account they are borne when they die But of S. Paul the Church makes her selfe assured the first minute and therefore celebrates his Conversion and none but his Here was a true Transubstantiation and a new Sacrament These few words Saul Saul why persecutest thou me are words of Consecration After these words Saul was no longer Saul but he was Christ Vivit in me Christus sayes he It is not I that live not I that do any thing but Christ in me It is but a little way that S. Chrysostome goes when he speaks of an inferior Transubstantiation of a change of affections and sayes Agnus ex Lupo that here is another manner of Lycanthropy then when a man is made a Wolfe for here a Wolfe is made a Lambe Ex lupo Agnus Ex vepribus racemus sayes that Father A bramble is made a vine Ex zizaniis frumentum Cockle and tares become wheat Ex pirata gubernator A Pirat becomes a safe Pilot Ex novissimo primus The lees are come to swim on the top and the last is growne first and ex abortivo perfectus He that was borne out of time hath not onely the perfection but the excellency of all his lineaments S. Chrysostome goes farther then this Ex blasphemo Os Christi lyraspiritus He that was the mouth of blasphemy is become the mouth of Christ He that was the instrument of Satan is now the organ of the Holy Ghost He goes very far when he sayes In Coelis homo in terris Angelus Being yet but upon earth he is an Angel and being yet but a man he is already in Heaven Yet S. Paul was another manner of Sacrament and had another manner of Transubstantiation then all this As he was made Idem spiritus cum Domino Gal. 6.17 The same spirit with the Lord so in his very body he had Stigmata the very marks of the Lord Jesus From such a lownesse raysed to such a height as that Origen sayes many did beleeve that S. Paul had been that Holy Ghost which Christ had promised to the world after his departing from it It is but a little way that S. Ierome hath carried his commendation neither when he cals him Rugitum leonis The roaring of a Lion if we consider in how little a forest the roaring of a Lion is determined but that he calls him Rugitum Leonis nostri The roaring of our Lion of the Lion of the Tribe of Iuda That as far as Christ is heard S. Paul is heard too Quem quoties lego Idem non verba mihi videor audire sed tonitrua Wheresoever I open S. Pauls Epistles I meet not words but thunder and universall thunder thunder that passes through all the world Theoder For Ejus excaecatio totius or bis illuminatio That that was done upon him wrought upon all the world he was struck blind and all the world saw the better for that So universall a Priest sayes S. Chrysostome who loves to be speaking of S. Paul as that he sacrificed not sheep and goats sed seipsum but himselfe and not onely that sed totum mundum He prepared the whole world as a sacrifice to God He built an Arke that is established a Church and to this day receives not eight but all into that Arke And whereas in Noahs Ark Quem corvum recepit corvum emisit If he came in a Raven he went out a Raven S. Paul in his Arke Ex milvis facit columbas as himself was so he transubstantiates all them and makes them Doves of Ravens Nay so overabsolutely did he sacrifice himselfe and his state in this world for this world as that he sacrificed his reversion his future state the glory and joy of heaven for his brethren and chose rather to be Anathema separated from Christ then they should I love thee sayes S. Chrysostome to Rome for many excellencies many greatnesses But I love thee so well sayes he therefore because S. Paul loved thee so well Qualem Rosam Roma Christo as he pursues this contemplation What a fragrant rose shall Rome present Christ with when he comes to Judgement in re-delivering to him the body of S. Paul And though he joyne them both together Iugati boves Ecclesiae That S. Peter and S. Paul were that yoak of oxen that ploughed the whole Church Though he say of both Quot carceres sanctificastis How many Prisons have you two consecrated and made Prisons Churches Quot catenas illustrastis How many fetters and chains of iron have you two changed into chaines of gold Yet we may observe a difference in S. Chrysostomes expressing of persons so equall to one another Quid Petro majus sayes he But Quid Paulo par fuit What can exceed Peter or what can equall Paul Still be all this far from occasioning any man to presume upon God because he afforded so abundant mercy to a Persecuter but still from this let every faint soule establish it selfe in a confidence in God God that would find nothing to except nothing to quarrell at in S. Paul will not lie heavy upon thy soule though thou must say as he did Quorum ego maximus That thou art a greater sinner then thou knowest any other man to be We are 2 Part. in our order proposed at first devolved now to our second Part from the person and in that what he was found A vehement persecuter And then what he was made A laborious Apostle To the Manner to his Humiliation Cecidit super terram He fell and he fell to the ground and he fell blind as by the history and context appeares We use to call every declination of any kind and in
can resolve thee scatter thee annihilate thee with a word and yet afford so many words so many houres conferences so many Sermons to reclaime thee why persecutest Thou Him Answer this question with Sauls answer to this question by another question Domine quid me vis facere Lord what wilt thou have me do Deliver thy selfe over to the will of God and God shall deliver thee over as he did Saul to Ananias provide thee by his Ministery in his Ordinance means to rectifie thee in all dejection of spirit light to cleare thee in all perplexities of conscience in the wayes of thy pilgrimage and more and more effectuall seals thereof at the houre of thy transmigration into his joy and thine eternall rest SERM. XLVII Preached at S. Pauls The Sunday after the Conversion of S. PAUL 27. Ian. 1627. ACT. 20.25 And now Behold I know that all yee among whom I have gone preaching the kingdome of God shall see my face no more WHen S. Chrysostome calls Christmas day Metropolin omnium festorum The Metropolitan Holyday the principall festivall of the Church he is likely to intend onely those festivalls which were of the Churches later institution and means not to enwrap the Sabbath in that comparison As S. Augustine sayes of the Sacrament of Baptisme that it is Limen Ecclesiae The threshold over which we step into the Church so is Christmas day Limen festorum The threshold over which we step into the festivall celebration of some other of Christs actions and passions and victorious overcommings of all the Acts of his Passion such as his Resurrection and Ascension for but for Christmas day we could celebrate none of these dayes And so that day is Limen festorum The threshold over which we passe to the rest But the Sabbath is not onely Limen or Ianua Ecclesiae The doore by which we enter into the Church and into the consideration what the Church hath done but Limen mundi The doore by which we enter into the consideration of the World how and when the World was made of nothing at the Creation without which we had been so far from knowing that there had been a Church or that there had been a God as that we our selves had had no being at all And therefore as our very being is before all degrees of well-being so is the Sabbath which remembers us of our being before all other festivalls that present and refresh to us the memory of our well-being Especially to us to whom it is not onely a Sabbath as the Sabbath is a day of Rest in respect of the Creation but Dies Dominicus The Lords day in respect of the Redemption of the world because the consummation of that worke of Redemption for all that was to be done in this world which was the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus was accomplished upon that day Levit. 23. which is our Sabbath But yet as it did please God to accompany the Great day the Sabbath with other solemne dayes too The Passeover and Pentecost Trumpets and Tabernacles and others and to call those other dayes Sabbaths as well as the Sabbath it selfe so since he is pleased that in the Christian Church other dayes of Holy Convocations should also be instituted I make account that in some measure I do both offices both for observing those particular festivalls that fall in the weeke and also for the making of those particular festivalls to serve the Sabbath when upon the Sabbath ensuing or preceding such or such a festivall in the weeke I take occasion to speake of that festivall which fell into the compasse of that weeke for by this course that festivall is not pretermitted nor neglected the particular festivall is remembred And then as God receives honour in the honour of his Saints so the Sabbath hath an honour when the festivalls and commemorations of those Saints are reserved to waite upon the Sabbath Hence is it that as elsewhere I often do so that is Celebrate some festivall that fals in the weeke upon the Sabbath so in this place upon this very day I have done the like and returne now to do so againe that is to celebrate the memory of our Apostle S. Paul to day though there be a day past since his day was in the ordinary course to have been celebrated The last time that I did so I did it in handling those words And he fell to the earth and heard a voyce saying Saul Saul why persecutest thou me which was the very act of his Conversion A period and a passage which the Church celebrates in none but in S. Paul though many others were strangely converted too she celebrates none but his In the words chosen for this day And now behold I know c. wee shall reduce to your memories first His proceeding in the Church after he was called I have gone preaching the kingdome of God among you And then the ease the reposednes the acquiescence that he had in that knowledge which God by his Spirit had given him of the approach of his dissolution and departure out of this life I know that all you shall see my face no more As those things which we see in a glasse for the most part must be behinde us so that that makes our transmigration in death comfortable unto us must be behinde us in the testimony of a good Conscience for things formerly done Now behold I know that all yee among whom I have gone c. In handling of which words our Method shall be this Our generall parts Divisio being as we have already intimated these two His way and his End His painfull course and his cheerfull finishing of his course His laborious battaile and his victorious triumph In the first I have gone preaching the kingdome of God among you wee shall see first That there is a Transivi as well as a Requievi acceptable to God A discharge of a Duty as well in going from one place to another as in a perpetuall Residence upon one Transivi sayes our Apostle I have gone among you But then in a second consideration in that first part That that makes his going acceptable to God is because he goes to preach Transivi praedicans I have gone preaching And then lastly in that first part That that that makes his Preaching acceptable is that he preached the kingdome of God Transivi praedicans regnum Dei I have gone amongst you preaching the kingdome of God And in these three characters of S. Pauls Ministery first Labour and Assiduity And then Labour bestowed upon the right means Preaching And lastly Preaching to the right end to edification advancing the kingdome of God we shall determine our first part In our second part we passe from his Transition to his Transmigration from his going up and downe in the world to his departing out of the world And now behold I know that yee shall see my face no more In which we
in a peacefull unity of affections by the love and goodnesse of the holy Ghost Amen SERM. XLIX Preached on the Conversion of S. PAUL 1629. ACTS 23.6 7. But when Paul perceived that one part were Sadduces and the other Pharisees he cryed out in the Councel Men and Brethren I am a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee Of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question And when he had so said there arose a dissention between the Pharisees and the Sadduces and the multitude was divided WE consider ordinarily in the old Testament God the Father And in the Gospels God the Son And in this Book the Acts and in the Epistles and the rest God the Holy Ghost that is God in the Government and Administration of his Church as well in the ordinary Ministery and constant callings therein as in the extraordinary use of generall Councells of which we have the Modell and Platforme and precedent in the fifteenth Chapter of this Booke The Book is noted to have above twenty Sermons of the Apostles and yet the Book is not called The Sermons The Preaching of the Apostles but the Practise the Acts of the Apostles Our actions if they be good speak louder then our Sermons Our preaching is our speech our good life is our eloquence Preaching celebrates the Sabbath but a good life makes the whole week a Sabbath that is A savor of rest in the nostrils of God Gen. 8. Chrysost Hieron as it is said of Noahs Sacrifice when he came out of the Ark. The Book is called The Acts of the Apostles But sayes S. Chrysostome and S. Hierome too it might be called the Acts of S. Paul so much more is it conversant about him then all the rest In which respect at this time of the yeare and in these dayes when the Church commemorates the Conversion of S. Paul I have for divers yeares successively in this place determined my selfe upon this Book Once upon the very act of his Conversion in those words Acts 9.4 Acts 20.25 Saul Saul why persecutest thou me Once upon his valediction to his Ephesians at Miletus in those words Now I know that all ye shall see my face no more And once upon the escape from the Vipers teeth and the viperous tongues of those inconstant and clamorous beholders Acts 28.6 who first rashly cried out He is a murderer and then changed their mindes and said He is a God And now for the service of your devotions and the advancement of your edification I have laid my meditations upon this his Stratagem and just avoiding of an unjust Judgement When Paul percived that one part were Sadduces and the other Pharisees c. In handling of which words Divisio because they have occasioned a Disputation and a Probleme whether this that Paul did were well done To raise a dissention amongst his Judges we shall stop first upon that Consideration That all the actions of holy men of Apostles in the new Testament of Patriarchs in the old are not to be drawne into example and consequence for others no nor alwayes to be excused and justified in them that did them All actions of holy men are not holy that is first And secondly we shall consider this action of S. Paul in some circumstances that invest it and in some effects that it produced in our Text as dissention amongst his Judges and so a reprieving or rather a putting off of the triall for that time and these will determine our second Consideration And in a third we shall lodge all these in our selves and make it our owne case and finde that we have all Sadduces and Pharisees in our own bosomes contrary affections in our own hearts and finde an advantage in putting these home Sadduces and home Pharisees these contrary affections in our owne bosomes in colluctation and opposition against one another that they doe not combine and unite themselves to our farther disadvantage A Civill warre is in this case our way to peace when one sinfull affection crosses another we scape better then when all joyne without any resistance And in these three first the Generall How wee are to estimate all actions And then the Particular what wee are to thinke of S. Pauls Action And lastly the Individuall How wee are to direct and regulate our owne Actions wee shall determine all First then 1. Part. though it be a safer way to suspect an action to be sin that is not then to presome an action to be no sin that is so yet that rule holds better in our selves then in other men for in judging the actions of other men our suspition may soone stray into an uncharitable mis-interpretation and wee may sin in condemning that in another which was no sin in him that did it But in truth Transilire lineam To depart from the direct and straight line is sin as well on the right hand as on the left And the Devill makes his advantages upon the over-tender and scrupulous conscience as well as upon the over-confident and obdurate and many men have erred as much in justifying some actions of holy men as in calumniating or mis-condemning of others If we had not evidence in Scripture that Abraham received that Commandement from God who could justifie Abrahams proceeding with his son Isaac And therefore who shall be afraid to call Noahs Drunkennesse and his undecent lying in his Tent Or Lots Drunkennesse and his iterated Incest with his Daughters or his inconsiderate offer to prostitute his Daughters to the Sodomites Or to call Davids complicated and multiplied sin a sin When the Church celebrates Samsons death though he killed himself it is upon a tender holy supposition that he might do this not without some instinct and inspiration from the Spirit of God But howsoever the Church interprets such actions it is a dangerous and a fallacious way for any private man to argue so The Spirit of God directed this man in many actions therefore in all And dangerous to conclude an action to be good either because he that did it had a good purpose in doing it or because some good effects proceeded from it Bonum bene are the two horses that must carry us to heaven To do good things and to doe them well To propose good ends and to goe by good waies to those good ends The Mid-wives lie in the behalfe of the Israelites children was a lie and a sin howsoever God out of his own goodnesse found something in their piety to reward I should not venture to say as he said nor to say that hee said well when Moses said Dele me Forgive their finne or blot mee out of thy Booke Exod. 32.32 Rom. 9 3. Nor when S. Paul said Anathema pro fratribus I could wish that my selfe were separated from Christ for my Brethren I would not I could not without sin be content that my name should be blotted out of the Booke of
consider us study us And that with his eye which is the sharpest and most sensible organ and instrument soonest feeles if any thing be amisse and so inclines him quickly to rectifie us And so this third part is an Instruction De sperandis it hath evermore a relation to the future to the constancy and perseverance of Gods goodnesse towards us to the end and in the end he will guide us with his eye Except the eye of God can be put out we cannot be put out of his sight and his care So that both our fraight which we are to take in that is what we are to beleeve concerning God And the voyage which we are to make how we are to steere and governe our course that is our behaviour and conversation in the houshold of the faithfull And then the Haven to which we must goe that is our assurance of arriving at the heavenly Jerusalem are expressed in this Chart in this Map in this Instruction in this Text I will Instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt goe I will guide thee with mine eye And when you have done all this Beleeved aright and lived according to that beliefe and died according to that life in the last voyce Surgite you shall finde a Venite as soone as you are called from the dust of the grave you shall Enter into your Masters joy and be no more called servants but friends no more friends but sons no more sons but heires no more heires but coheires with the only Son of God no more coheires but Idem Spiritus The same Spirit with the Lord. First then 1. Part. Instruit the office which God by his blessed Spirit through us in his Church undertakes is to Instruct And this being done so by God himselfe God sending his Spirit his Spirit working in his Ministers his Ministers labouring in his Church it is strange that S. Paul speaking so in the name of God and his Spirit and his Ministers and his Church should be put to intreat his hearers To suffer a word of exhortation Yet he is Heb. 13.22 I besech yee brethren suffer a word of Exhortation And the strangenesse of the case is exalted in this that the word there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Solatii and so the Vulgat reads it and justly Vt sufferatis verbum solatii I bescech yee to suffer a word of Comfort What will yee heare willingly if yee doe not willingly heare words of Comfort With what shall we exercise your holy joy and chearfulnesse if even words of Comfort must exercise your patience And yet we must beseech you to suffer even our words of comfort for we can propose no true comfort unto you but such as carries some irkesomenesse some bitternesse with it we can create no true joy no true acquiescence in you without some exercise of your patience too We cannot promise you peace with God without a war in your selves nor reconciliation to him without falling out with your selves nor eternall joy in the next world without a solemne remorse for the sinfull abuses of this We cannot promise you a good to morrow without sending ye backe to the consideration of an ill yesterday for your hearing to day is not enough except ye repent yesterday But yet though with S. Paul we be put to beseech you Vt sufferatis That ye would suffer Instruction though we must sometimes exercise your patience yet it is but verbum instructionis a word of Instruction and though Instruction be Increpation for as the word is Solatium Comfort so we have told you it is it is Increpation too for all true comfort hath Increpation in it yet it may easily be suffered because it is but verbum but a word a word and away We would not dwell upon increpations and chidings and bitternesses we would pierce but so deepe as might make you search your wounds when you come home to your Chamber to bring you to a tendernesse there not to a palenesse or blushing here Wee never stay so long upon denouncing the judgements of God but that we would as faine as you be at an end of that Paragraph of that period of that point that we might come into a calme and into a Lee-shore and tell you of the mercies of God in Christ Jesus You may suffer Instruction though Instruction be increpation for it is but a word of instruction we have soone done and you may suffer them because they are but Verba not Verbera They are but words and not blowes It is not Traditio Satanae a delivering you up to Satan it is not the confusion of face nor consternation of spirit nor a jealousie and suspition of Gods good purpose upon you that we would induce by our Instruction though it be Increpation but onely a sense of your sins and of the Majesty of God violated by them and so to a better capacity of this Instruction which the Holy Ghost here presents In credendis in those things which you are bound to beleeve of which his first degree is Intelligere te faciam He will make ye understand he will worke upon your understanding for so much as we noted to you at first doth that word which we Translate here I will Instruct thee comprehend Oportet accedentem credere The Apostle seemes to make that our first step In intellectu Heb. 11.6 Hee that comes to God must beleeve So it is our first step to God To beleeve but there is a step towards God before it come to faith which is to understand God works first upon the understanding God proceeds in our conversion and regeneration as he did in our first Creation There man was nothing but God breathed not a soule into that nothing but of a clod of earth he made a body and into that body infused a soule Man in his Conversion is nothing does nothing His bodie is not verier dust in the grave till a Resurrection then his soule is dust in his body till a resuscitation by grace But then this grace does not worke upon this nothingnesse that is in man upon this meere privation but Grace finds out mans naturall faculties and exalts them to a capacity and a susciptiblenesse of the working thereof and so by the understanding infuses faith Therefore God begins his Instruction here at the understanding and he does not say at first Faciam te credere I will make thee to beleeve but Faciam te intelligere I will make thee understand That then being Gods Method To make us understand certainely those things which belong to our Salvation are not In-intelligibilia not In-intelligible un-understandable Tertul. un-conceiveavable things but the Articles of faith are discernible by Reason For though Reason cannot apprehend that a Virgin should have a Son or that God should be made Man and dye if we put our Reason primarily and immediately upon the Article single for so it is the object of faith
which part as it is the furnace of breath they place the seat of pride and opposition against the Truth making their use of that which is said of Saul Acts 9. That he breathed out threatnings and slaughter against the Disciples of the Lord. And by this interpretation Davids disease that he must be purged of should be pride But except as the Schoolemen when they have tyred themselves in seeking out the name of the sin of the Angels are content at last for their ease to call it Pride both because they thought they need goe no farther for where pride is other sins will certainly accompany it and because they extended the name of Pride to all refusals and resistances of the will of God and so pride in effect includes all sin Except I say the Fathers take Pride in so large a sense as that they would not prescribe Hyssop to purge Davids lungs for his disease lay not properly there They must have purged his liver the seate of blood the seat of concupiscence They must have purged his whole substance for the distemper was gone over all And to this rectifying of his blood by the application of better blood and David relation in this place All the sacrifices of Expiation of sin in the old Law were done by blood and that blood was sprinckled upon the people by an instrument made of a certain plant which because the word in Hebrew is Ezob for the nearnesse of the sound and for the indifferency of the matter for it imports us nothing to know of what plant that Aspergillum that Blood-sprinckler was made the Interpreters have ever used in all languages to call this word Hyssop And though we know no proper word for Hyssop in Hebrew for when they finde not a word in the Bible the Hebrew Rabbins will acknowledge no Hebrew word for any thing yet the other languages deduced from the Hebrew Syriaque and Arabique have clearly another word for Hyssop Zus And the Hebrew Rabbins think this word of our text Ezob to signifie any of three or foure plants rather then our Hyssop But be the plant what it will the forme and the use of that Blood-sprinkler is manifest Exod. 12. Levit. 14. In the institution of the Passeover Take a bunch of Hyssop and dip it in blood In the cleansing of the Leper there was to be the blood of a sparrow and then Cedar wood and scarlet lace and Hyssop And about that Cedar stick they bound this Hyssop with this lace and so made this instrument to sprinkle blood And so the name of the Hyssop because it did the principall office was after given to the whole Instrument all the sprinkler was called an Hyssop As we see when they reached up a sponge of vinegar to Christ upon the Crosse Ioh. 19.29 They put it sayes the text upon Hyssop that is upon an Hyssop not upon an Hyssop stalke as the old translation had it for no Hyssop hath such a stalke but they called such sticks of Cedar as ordinarily served for the sprinkling of blood Hyssops And whether this were such a Cedar stick or some other such thing Mat. 27.48 fit to reach up that spunge to Christ we cannot say For S. Matthew calls that that S. Iohn calls an Hyssop a Reed This then was Davids petition here first That hee might have the blood of Christ Jesus applied and sprinkled upon him David thought of no election hee looked for no sanctification but in the blood of Christ Jesus And then he desired this blood to be applied to him by that Hyssope by that Blood-sprinkler which was ordained by God for the use of the Church Home-infusions and inward inspirations of grace are powerfull seales of Gods love but all this is but the Privy seale David desired to bring it to the Great seale the publike Ordinance of the Church In a case of necessity God gave his children Manna and Quailes Iosh 5. In cases of necessity God allowes Sermons and Sacraments at home But as soone as ever they came to the Land of promise the same day both Manna and Quailes ceased God hath given us a free and publike passage of his Word and Sacraments the diet and the ordinary food of our souls and he purges us with that Hyssope with the application of his promises with the absolution of our sins with a redintegration into his mysticall body by the seales of reconciliation And this reconciliation to God by the blood of Christ applied in the Ordinances of the Church is that which David begs for his cleansing and is the last circumstance of this branch Purge me with Hyssope and I shall be cleane This Cleansing then implies that Cleansing which wee commonly call the enwrapping in the Covenant the breeding in the visible Church when God takes a Nation out of the Common and encloses it empailes it for his more peculiar use when God withdrawes us from the impossibility under which the Gentiles sterve who heare not Christ preached to live within the sound of his voyce and within the reach of our spirituall food the Word and Sacraments It is that state which the holy Ghost so elegantly expresses and enlarges Ezek. 16. That God found Jerusalem Her father an Amorite and her mother an Hittite none of the seed of the faithfull in her that he found her in Canaan not so much as in a place of true profession that he found her in her blood and her navell uncut still incorporated in her former stock And The time was a time of love sayes God and I covered thy nakednesse and sware unto thee and entred into a covenant with thee and thou becamest mine Will you say this could not be the subject of Davids petition this could not bee the cleansing that he begged at Gods hand to bee brought into that Covenant to bee a member of that Church for hee was in possession of that before Beloved how many are borne in this Covenant and baptized and catechized in it and yet fall away How many have taught and wrought and thought in their owne conscience that they did well in defence of the Covenant and yet fell away And from how many places which gave light to others hath God removed the Candlestick and left themselves in darknesse Psal 84.8 Though David say A day in thy Courts is better then a thousand then a thousand any where else yet he expresses his desire That hee might continue in that happinesse all the dayes of his life It is as fearefull a thing to be removed from the meanes of salvation as never to have had them This then is Cleansing To be continued in the distance and working of the meanes of cleansing that he may alwayes grow under the dew and breath in the ayre of Gods grace exhibited in his Ordinance Amongst the Jewes there were many uncleannesses which did not amount to sin They reckon in the Ceremoniall law at least fifty kinds of
If thou desire revenge upon thine enemies as they are Gods enemies That God would bee pleased to remove and root out all such as oppose him that Affection appertaines to Glory Let that alone till thou come to the Hemisphear of Glory There joyne with those Martyrs under the Altar Revel 6.10 Vsquequo Domine How long O Lord dost thou deferre Judgement and thou shalt have thine answere there for that Whilst thou art here here joyne with David and the other Saints of God in that holy increpation of a dangerous sadnesse Why art thou cast downe O my soule why art thou disquieted in mee That soule that is dissected and anatomized to God Psal 42.5 in a sincere confession washed in the teares of true contrition embalmed in the blood of reconciliation the blood of Christ Jesus can assigne no reason can give no just answer to that Interrogatory Why art thou cast downe O my soule why art thou disquieted in me No man is so little as that he can be lost under these wings no man so great as that they cannot reach to him Semper ille major est August quantumcumque creverimus To what temporall to what spirituall greatnesse soever wee grow still pray wee him to shadow us under his Wings for the poore need those wings against oppression and the rich against envy The Holy Ghost who is a Dove shadowed the whole world under his wings Incubabat aquis He hovered over the waters he sate upon the waters and he hatched all that was produced and all that was produced so was good Be thou a Mother where the Holy Ghost would be a Father Conceive by him and be content that he produce joy in thy heart here First thinke that as a man must have some land or els he cannot be in wardship so a man must have some of the love of God or els he could not fall under Gods correction God would not give him his physick God would not study his cure if he cared not for him And then thinke also that if God afford thee the shadow of his wings that is Consolation respiration refreshing though not a present and plenary deliverance in thy afflictions not to thanke God is a murmuring and not to rejoyce in Gods wayes is an unthankfulnesse Howling is the noyse of hell singing the voyce of heaven Sadnesse the damp of Hell Rejoycing the serenity of Heaven And he that hath not this joy here lacks one of the best pieces of his evidence for the joyes of heaven and hath neglected or refused that Earnest by which God uses to binde his bargaine that true joy in this world shall flow into the joy of Heaven as a River flowes into the Sea This joy shall not be put out in death and a new joy kindled in me in Heaven But as my soule as soone as it is out of my body is in Heaven and does not stay for the possession of Heaven nor for the fruition of the sight of God till it be ascended through ayre and fire and Moone and Sun and Planets and Firmament to that place which we conceive to be Heaven but without the thousandth part of a minutes stop as soone as it issues is in a glorious light which is Heaven for all the way to Heaven is Heaven And as those Angels which came from Heaven hither bring Heaven with them and are in Heaven here So that soule that goes to Heaven meets Heaven here and as those Angels doe not devest Heaven by comming so these soules invest Heaven in their going As my soule shall not goe towards Heaven but goe by Heaven to Heaven to the Heaven of Heavens So the true joy of a good soule in this world is the very joy of Heaven and we goe thither not that being without joy we might have joy infused into us but that as Christ sayes Iohn 16.24.22 Our joy might be full perfected sealed with an everlastingnesse for as he promises That no man shall take our joy from us so neither shall Death it selfe take it away nor so much as interrupt it or discontinue it But as in the face of Death when he layes hold upon me and in the face of the Devill when he attempts me I shall see the face of God for every thing shall be a glasse to reflect God upon me so in the agonies of Death in the anguish of that dissolution in the sorrowes of that valediction in the irreversiblenesse of that transmigration I shall have a joy which shall no more evaporate then my soule shall evaporate A joy that shall passe up and put on a more glorious garment above and be joy super-invested in glory Amen SERM. LXVII The third of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalmes Preached at S. Pauls November 5. 1626. In Vesperis PSAL. 64.10 And all the upright in heart shall glory I Have had occasion to tell you more then once before that our Predecessors in the institution of the Service of this Church have declared such a reverence and such a devotion to this particular Booke of Scripture The Psalmes as that by distributing the hundred and fifty Psalmes of which number the body of this booke consists into thirty portions of which number the body of our Church consists and assigning to every one of those thirty persons his five Psalmes to bee said by him every day every day God receives from us howsoever wee be divided from one another in place the Sacrifice of Praise in the whole Booke of Psalmes And though we may be absent from this Quire yet wheresoever dispersed we make up a Quire in this Service of saying over all the Psalmes every day This sixty fourth Psalme is the third of my five And when according to the obligation which I had laid upon my selfe to handle in this place some portion of every one of these my five Psalmes in handling of those words of the Psalme immediately before this in the seventh verse Because thou hast beene my helpe therefore in the shadow of thy Wings I will rejoyce I told you that the next world Heaven was as this world is divided into two Hemispheares and that the two Hemispheares of Heaven were Joy and Glory for in those two notions of Joy and Glory is Heaven often represented unto us as in those words which we handled then wee sailed about the first Hemispheare That of Joy In the shadow of thy Wings will I rejoyce So in these which I have read to you now our voyage lies about the Hemispheare of Glory for All the upright in heart shall Glory As we said then of Joy we say of Glory now There is an inchoative joy here though the consummative joy be reserved for Heaven so is there also such a taste such an inchoation of glory in this life And as no man shall come to the joyes of Heaven that hath no joy in this world for there is no peace of conscience without this joy so no man
a right value upon Holinesse and to give a due respect to holy men For so where we read Psal 78.63 Their Maidens were not given in Marriage we finde this word of our Text Their Maidens were not praised that is there was not a due respect held of them nor a just value set upon them So that this retribution intended for the upright in heart as in the growth and extension of the word it reaches to Joy and Glory and Eminency and Respect so in the roote it signifies Praise And it is given them by God as a Reward That they shall be Praised now Praise sayes the Philosopher is Sermo elucidans magnitudinem virtutis It is the good word of good men a good testimony given by good men of good actions And this difference we use to assigne betweene Praise and Honour Laus est in ordine ad finem Honor eorum qui jam in fine Praise is an encouragement to them that are in the way and so far a Reward a Reward of good beginnings Honour is reserved to the end to crowne their constancy and perseverance And therefore where men are rewarded with great honours at the beginning in hope they will deserve it they are paid beforehand Thanks and Grace and good countenance and Praise are interlocutory encouragements Honours are finall Rewards But since Praise is a part of Gods retribution a part of his promise in our text They shall be praised we are thereby not onely allowed but bound to seeke this praise from good men and to give this praise to good men for in this Coine God hath promised that the upright in heart shall be paid They shall be praised To seeke praise from good men by good meanes Laus à bonis quaerenda Prov. 22.1 Bernar. is but the same thing which is recommended to us by Solomon A good name is rather to be chosen then great riches and loving favour then silver and Gold For Habent mores colores suos habent odores Our good works have a colour and they have a savor we see their Candor their sincerity in our owne consciences there is their colour for in our owne consciences our works appeare in their true colours no man can be an hypocrite to himselfe nor seriously deliberately deceive himselfe And when others give allowance of our works and are edified by them there is their savour their odor their perfume their fragrancy And therefore S. Hierom and S. Augustin differ little in their manner of expressing this Hieron Non paratum habeas illud è trivio Serve not thy selfe with that triviall and vulgar saying As long as my conscience testifies well to me I care not what men say of me August And so sayes that other Father They that rest in the testimony of their owne consciences and contemne the opinion of other men Imprudenter agunt crudeliter They deale weakly and improvidently for themselves in that they assist not their consciences with more witnesses And they deale cruelly towards others in that they provide not for their edification by the knowledge and manifestation of their good works For as he adds well there Qui à criminibus vitam custodit bene facit He that is innocent in his owne heart does well for himselfe but Qui famam custodit in alios misericors est He that is known to live well he that hath the praise of good men to bee a good man is mercifull in an exemplary life to others and promoves their salvation For when that Father gives a measure how much praise a man may receive and a rule how he may receive it when he hath first said Nec totum nec nihil accipiatur Receive not all but yet refuse not all praise he adds this That that which is to be received is not to be received for our owne sakes sed propter illos quibus consulere non potest si nimia dejectione vilescat but for their sakes who would undervalue goodnesse it selfe if good men did too much undervalue themselves or thought themselves never the better for their goodnesse And therefore S. Bernard applies that in the Proverbs to this case Prov. 25.16 Hast thou found Honey eate that which is sufficient Mellis nomine favor humanae laudis sayes he By Honey favour and praise and thankfulnesse is meant Meritóque non ab omni sed ab immoderato edulio prohibemur We are not forbid to taste nor to eate but to surfet of this Honey of this praise of men S. Augustine found this love of praise in himselfe and could forbid it no man Laudari à bene viventibus si dicam nolo mentior If I should say that I desired not the praise of good men I should belie my selfe He carries it higher then thus He does not doubt but that the Apostles themselves had a holy joy and complacency when their Preaching was acceptable and thereby effectuall upon the Congregation Such a love of praise is rooted in Nature and Grace destroyes not Nature Grace extinguishes not but moderates this love of praise in us nor takes away the matter but onely exhibits the measure Certainly he that hath not some desire of praise will bee negligent in doing praise-worthy things and negligent in another duty intended here too that is To praise good men which is also another particular branch in this Part. The hundred forty fift Psalme is Laus danda aliis in the Title thereof called A Psalme of Praise And the Rabbins call him Filium futuri Seculi A child of the next World that sayes that Psalme thrice a day We will interpret it by way of Accommodation thus that he is a child of the next World that directs his Praise every day upon three objects upon God upon himselfe upon other men Of God there can be no question And for our selves it is truly the most proper and most literall signification of this word in our Text Iithhalelu That they shall praise themselves that is They shall have the testimony of a rectified conscience that they have deserved the praise of good men in having done laudible service to God And then for others That which God promises to Israel in their restauration Zephan 3.19 belongs to all the Israel of the Lord to all the faithfull I will get thee praise and fame in every land and I will make thee a name and a praise amongst all the people of the earth This God will doe procure them a name a glory By whom When God bindes himselfe he takes us into the band with him and when God makes himselfe the debtor he makes us stewards when he promises them praise he meanes that we should give them that praise Be all waies of flatterings and humourings of great persons precluded with a Protestation with a detestation Be Philo Iudaeus his comparison received His Coquus and his Medicus One provides sweetnesse for the present taste but he is but a
torments is the everlasting absence of God and the everlasting impossibility of returning to his presenâ—â— Horrendum est sayes the Apostle It is a fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God Heb. 10.31 Yet there was a case in which David found an ease to fall into the hands of God to scape the hands of men Horrendum est when Gods hand is bent to strike it is a fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God but to fall out of the hands of the living God is a horror beyond our expression beyond our imagination That God should let my soule fall out of his hand into a bottomlesse pit and roll an unremoveable stone upon it and leave it to that which it finds there and it shall finde that there which it never imagined till it came thither and never thinke more of that soule never have more to doe with it That of that providence of God that studies the life of every weed and worme and ant and spider and toad and viper there should never never any beame flow out upon me that that God who looked upon me when I was nothing and called me when I was not as though I had been out of the womb and depth of darknesse will not looke upon me now when though a miserable and a banished and a damned creature yet I am his creature still and contribute something to his glory even in my damnation that that God who hath often looked upon me in my foulest uncleannesse and when I had shut out the eye of the day the Sunne and the eye of the night the Taper and the eyes of all the world with curtaines and windowes and doores did yet see me and see me in mercy by making me see that he saw me and sometimes brought me to a present remorse and for that time to a forbearing of that sinne should so turne himselfe from me to his glorious Saints and Angels as that no Saint nor Angel nor Christ Jesus himselfe should ever pray him to looke towards me never remember him that such a soule there is that that God who hath so often said to my soule Quare morier is Why wilt thou die and so often sworne to my soule Vivit Dominus As the Lord liveth I would not have thee dye but live will nether let me dye nor let me live but dye an everlasting life and live an everlasting death that that God who when he could not get into me by standing and knocking by his ordinary meanes of entring by his Word his mercies hath applied his judgements and hath shaked the house this body with agues and palsies and set this house on fire with fevers and calentures and frighted the Master of the house my soule with horrors and heavy apprehensions and so made an entrance into me That that God should frustrate all his owne purposes and practises upon me and leave me and cast me away as though I had cost him nothing that this God at last should let this soule goe away as a smoake as a vapour as a bubble and that then this soule cannot be a smoake a vapour nor a bubble but must lie in darknesse as long as the Lord of light is light it selfe and never sparke of that light reach to my soule What Tophet is not Paradise what Brimstone is not Amber what gnashing is not a comfort what gnawing of the worme is not a tickling what torment is not a marriage bed to this damnation to be secluded eternally eternally eternally from the sight of God Especially to us for as the perpetuall losse of that is most heavy with which we have been best acquainted and to which wee have been most accustomed so shall this damnation which consists in the losse of the sight and presence of God be heavier to us then others because God hath so graciously and so evidently and so diversly appeared to us in his pillar of fire in the light of prosperity and in the pillar of the Cloud in hiding himselfe for a while from us we that have seene him in all the parts of this Commission in his Word in his Sacraments and in good example and not beleeved shall be further removed from his sight in the next world then they to whom he never appeared in this But Vincenti credenti to him that beleeves aright and overcomes all tentations to a wrong beliefe God shall give the accomplishment of fulnesse and fulnesse of joy and joy rooted in glory and glory established in eternity and this eternity is God To him that beleeves and overcomes God shall give himselfe in an everlasting presence and fruition Amen SERM. LXXVII Preached at S. PAULS May 21. 1626. 1 COR. 15.29 Else what shall they doe which are baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all why are they then baptized for the dead I Entred into the handling of these words upon Easter day for though the words have received divers Expositions good and pervers yet all agreed that the words were an argument for the Resurrection and that invited me to apply them to that Day At that Day I entred into them with Origens protestation Odit Dominus qui festum ejus unum putat diem God hates that man that thinks any holy-day of his lasts but one day that never thinks of the Resurrection but upon Easter day And therefore I engaged my selfe willingly according to the invitation and almost the necessity of the words which could not conveniently scarce possibly be determined in one day to returne againe and againe to the handling thereof For they are words of a great extent a great compasse The whole Circle of a Christian is designed and accomplished in them for here is first the first point in that Circle our Birth our spirituall birth that is Baptisme Why are these men thus baptized sayes the Text And then here is the point directly and diametrally opposed to that first point our Birth that is Death Why are these men thus baptized for the dead sayes the Text And then the Circle is carried up to the first point againe to our Birth in another Birth in the Resurrection Why are these men thus baptized for the dead if there be no Resurrection So that if we consider the Militant and the Triumphant Church to be as they are all one House and under one roofe here is first Limen Ecclesiae as S. Augustine calls Baptisme The Threshold of the Church we are put over the Threshold into the Body of the Church by Baptisme and here we are remembred of Baptisme Why are these men thus baptized And then here is Chorus Ecclesiae The Quire the Chancell of the Church in which all the service of God is officiated and executed for we are made not onely hearers and spectators but actors in the service of God when we come to beare a part in the Hymnes and Anthems of the Saints by our Death and here we are
a phrase very remarkeable by David He bringeth the winde out of his Treasuries And then follow in that place Psal 135.7 all the Plagues of Egypt stormes and tempests ruines and devastations are not onely in Gods Armories but they are in his Treasuries as hee is the Lord of Hosts hee fetches his judgements from his Armories and casts confusion upon his enemies but as he is the God of mercy and of plentifull redemption he fetches these judgements these corrections out of his treasuries and they are the Money the Jewels by which he redeemes and buyes us againe God does nothing God can doe nothing no not in the way of ruine and destruction but there is mercy in it he cannot open a doore in his Armory but a window into his Treasury opens too and he must looke into that But then Gods corrections are his Acts as the Physitian is his Creature God created him for necessity When God made man his first intention was not that man should fall and so need a Messias nor that man should fall sick and so need a Physitian nor that man should fall into rebellion by sin and so need his rod his staffe his scourge of afflictions to whip him into the way againe But yet sayes the Wiseman Ecclus. 38.1 Honour the Physitian for the use you may have of him slight him not because thou hast no need of him yet So though Gods corrections were not from a primary but a secondary intention yet when you see those corrections fall upon another give a good interpretation of them and beleeve Gods purpose to be not to destroy but to recover that man Do not thou make Gods Rheubarbe thy Ratsbane and poyson thine owne soule with an uncharitable misinterpretation of that correction which God hath sent to cure his And then in thine owne afflictions flie evermore to this Prayer Satisfie us with thy mercy first Satisfie us make it appeare to us that thine intention is mercy though thou enwrap it in temporall afflictions in this darke cloud let us discerne thy Son and though in an act of displeasure see that thou art well pleased with us Satisfie us that there is mercy in thy judgements and then satisfie us that thy mercy is mercy for such is the stupidity of sinfull man That as in temporall blessings we discerne them best by wanting them so do we the mercies of God too we call it not a mercy to have the same blessings still but as every man conceives a greater degree of joy in recovering from a sicknesse then in his former established health so without doubt our Ancestors who indured many yeares Civill and forraine wars were more affected with their first peace then we are with our continuall enjoying thereof And our Fathers more thankfull for the beginning of Reformation of Religion then we for so long enjoying the continuance thereof Satisfie us with thy mercie Let us still be able to see mercy in thy judgements lest they deject us and confound us Satisfie us with thy mercie let us be able to see that our deliverance is a mercy and not a naturall thing that might have hapned so or a necessary thing that must have hapned so though there had beene no God in Heaven nor providence upon earth But especially since the way that thou choosest is to goe all by mercy and not to be put to this way of correction so dispose so compose our minds and so transpose all our affections that we may live upon thy food and not put thee to thy physick that we may embrace thee in the light and not be put to seeke thee in the darke that wee come to thee in thy Mercy and not be whipped to thee by thy Corrections And so we have done also with our second Part The pieces and petitions that constitute this Prayer as it is a Prayer for Fulnesse and Satisfaction a Prayer of Extent and Dilatation a Prayer of Dispatch and Expedition and then a Prayer of Evidence and Declaration and lastly a Prayer of Limitation even upon God himselfe Satisfie and satisfie us and us early with that which we may discerne to be thine and let that way be mercy There remaines yet a third Part 3 Part. Gaudium what this Prayer produces and it is joy and continual joy That we may rejoyce and be glad all our dayes The words are the Parts and we invert not we trouble not the Order the Holy Ghost hath laid them fitliest for our use in the Text it selfe and so we take them First then the gaine is joy Joy is Gods owne Seale and his keeper is the Holy Ghost wee have many sudden ejaculations in the forme of Prayer sometimes inconsiderately made and they vanish so but if I can reflect upon my prayer ruminate and returne againe with joy to the same prayer I have Gods Seale upon it And therefore it is not so very an idle thing as some have mis-imagined it to repeat often the same prayer in the same words Our Saviour did so he prayed a third time and in the same words This reflecting upon a former prayer is that that sets to this Seale this joy and if I have joy in my prayer it is granted so far as concernes my good and Gods glory It hath beene disputed by many both of the Gentiles with whom the Fathers disputed and of the Schoolemen who dispute with one another An sit gaudium in Deo de semet Whether God rejoyce in himselfe in contemplation of himselfe whether God be glad that he is God But it is disputed by them onely to establish it and to illustrate it for I doe not remember that any one of them denyes it It is true that Plato dislikes and justly that salutation of Dionysius the Tyran to God Gaude servato vitam Tyranni jucundam that he should say to God Live merrily as merrily as a King as merrily as I doe and then you are God enough to imagine such a joy in God as is onely a transitory delight in deceivable things is an impious conceit But when as another Platonique sayes Plotinus Deus est quod ipse semper voluit God is that which hee would be If there be something that God would be and he be that If Plato should deny that God joyed in himselfe we must say of Plato as Lactantius does Deum potius somniaver at quà m cognoverat Plato had rather dreamed that there was a God then understood what that God was Bonum simplex sayes S. Augustine To be sincere Goodnesse Goodnesse it selfe Ipsa est delectatio Dei This is the joy that God hath in himselfe of himselfe And therefore sayes Philo Iudaeus Hoc necessarium Philosophiae sodalibus This is the tenent of all Philosophers And by that title of Philosophers Philo alwaies meanes them that know and study God Solum Deum verè festum agere That only God can be truly said to keepe holy day and to rejoyce This
to the Office of a Prophet 54. D. The promises of God in the Prophets how different from those in the Gospel 40. E. A This a seditious inference the Prophets did thus and thus in the Law therefore the Ministers of the Gospel should doe so likewise and why 734. A Psalmes The Booke of Psalmes the dignity and vertue of it 653. D. E They are the Manna of the Church 663. B Such forbid to bee made Priests that were not perfect in the Psalmes 813. B Singing of the Psalmes how generall and commendable in S. Hieromes times ibid. B. C Purgatorie none in the old Testament and why 783. E How derived from Poets and Philosophers to Fathers 784. A. B. C How suspitiously and doubtfully the Fathers speak of it bid specially S Augustine 786. E Bellarmine refuted about it 792.793 Q QVestions arising taken away by Silencing of both parties 42. D Against curiosity in seeking after them 57. D There is alwaies Divinity enough to save a soule that was never called into Question 745. A How peevish some Romish Authors doe detoâ—t the Scripture when they fall upon any Question or Controversie though otherwise they content themselves with the true meaning and sense of the same words 790. E. 791. A Quomodo to Question how God doth this or that dangerous 301. E. 367. C R REason not to be enquired after in all points of Faith 23. B Reasons not convincing never to be proffered for to prove Articles of Faith 205. D God useth to accompany those Duties which hee commands with Reasons to enduce us to the performance of them 593. A Reconciliation how little amongst the Papists 10. D All Nations under heaven have acknowledged some meanes of Reconciliation to their offended gods in the remission of their sinnes 564. C Religion against such as damnifie Religion by their outward profession more than if they did forsake it 757. D Every Religion had her mysteries her Reservations and in-intelligiblenesse which were not easily understood of all men 690. D And therefore Religion not to be made too homely and course a thing ibid. C Christian Religion an easie yoke a short and contracted burden 71. D All points of Religion not to bee divulged to the people 87. D Defects in Religion safer than superfluities 291. A Of peaceable conversation with men of divers Religions 310. C Wee charged to have but a negative Religion 636. A Religion how farre we may proceed in the outward declaration of our Religion 814. A Resurrection of three sorts 149. E Of that from persecution 185. B. C. D Of that from Sinne 186. D. E. c Of that from Death 189. D How a Resurrection of the soule being the soule cannot die 189. D Christ how the First Resurrection 191. B Our Resurrection a mystery 204. C Resurrection All Religions amongst the Heathens had some Impressions of it 800. E Retrospection or looking upon time past the best rule to judge of the future 668. D Reverence how much due to men of old Age 31. D What Required in Gods House 43. D Revelations wee are not to hearken after them 238 E Nor yet to binde God from them 239. A Rewards against bribery or receiving of Rewards 389. E God first proposes to himselfe persons to be Rewarded or condemned before he thinks of their condemnation or their Reward 674. B. 675. B. C Riches the cause of lesse sinne than poverty 658. D Especially considered in the highest degree and in the lowest that is abundant Riches and extreme beggerly poverty 659. D Against the perverse desire of Riches 728. C Riches S. Chrysostome calls the parents of absurdities and why 729. A The Remane Church a true Church as the Pest house is a house 606. A. 621. C Rome the Church of Rome the better for reformamation 621. B They doe charge us that we have but a negative Religion 636. A Why they so much under-value the Scripture and yet endevour to bring bookes of other Authors into that ranke as the Macchabees and such like 738. E Rome it selfe how it hath beene handled ever by Catholikes in their bloody warres 779. A Almost all the Controversies between Rome and the Christian world are matters of profit 791. A Rule and Example the two onely wayes of Teaching 571. E. 668. B The onely Rule of doctrine the Scripture and Word of God 738. E S THe Sabbath a Ceremoniall Law 92. C Sacrament how effectually Christ is present in it 19. C Of preparing our selves to the worthy receiving of it 32. A. c 33. A. c Against Superstition and Prophanesse too in the comming to it 34. A Of Christs reall presence in it 36. D. 37. B. C That which we receive in the Sacrament to bee Adored 693. B Against unworthy receiving of it 693. D. E Of both extremes about Chrsts presence in the Sacrament 821. E Saints against praying to them 90. D. 378. D. 595. A. 744. A. 757. B The Saints in heaven pray for us 106. B Why they must not pray to Saints in the Church of Rome upon good Friday Easter and Whitsunday 485. D Whether they enjoy degrees of Glory in heaven 742. E Salvation of the generall possibility of Salvation for all men 66. B. 330. A. B. 742. B. C. D. Not to be ascribed to our Workes 107. D Nor to our Faith ibid. E More that are Saved than that are damned 241. A. 259. C The impossibility of Salvation to any man before hee was a man a discomfortable doctrine 278. B Of that certaintie of Salvation which is taught of some in the Roman Church and how farre we are from it 339. D. E. 340. A. 608. C Salvation offered to all men and in earnest 742. A. B Saviour the name of Saviour attributed to others beside Christ 528. D Scriptures the most eloquent Books that are 47. E 556. E. 557. C foure Elements of the right exposition and sense of Scripture 305. B Moderation in reading of them 323. C Scripures the only rule of Doctrine 738. E Secrecy in Confession commended but in case of disloyaltie 92. E. 575. E Seeing of God in our Actions how necessary 169. E Against Selfe-Subsistence or standing of our selves 240. A. B Against Selfe-Love 156. A Sermons how loth the Fathers were to lacke company at them 48. C Of preaching the same Sermons twice 114. C 250. C The danger of hearing Sermons without practising 455. C. D Sighing for sinne the benefit of it 537. D Sight the noblest of the sences and all the sences 225. B Signe of the Crosse wherefore used in the Primative times 538. A And why by us in baptisme ibid. Signes how they may be sought after and how not 15. B. C. D Shame for sinne a good signe 557. D To be voice-proofe not afraid nor Ashamed of what the World sayes of a Man an ill signe of a Spirituall obduration in sinne 589. A Silence the severall sorts of it Silence of Reverence 575. C Silence of subjection ibid. D
gainefull workes those workes thou maist not doe upon the Sabbath But those workes in the vertue of the precept of this text thou must doe in the sight of men those that are hard for thee to doe David would not consecrate nor offer unto God 2. Sam. 24.24 that which cost him nothing first he would buy Araunahs threshing floare at a valuable price and then he would dedicate it to God To give old cloathes past wearing to the poore is not so good a worke as to make new for them Mar. 12.42 To give a little of your superfluities not so acceptable as the widows gift that gave all To give a poore soule a farthing at that doore where you give a Player a shilling is not equall dealing Amos 8.6 for this is to give God quisquilias frumenti The refuse of the wheat But doe thou some such things as are truly works in our sense such as are against the nature and ordinary practice of worldly men to doe some things by which they may see that thou dost prefer God before honour and wife and children and hadst rather build and endow some place for Gods service then poure out money to multiply titles of honour upon thy selfe or enlarge joyntures and portions to an unnecessary and unmeasurable proportion when there is enough done before Let men see that that thou doest Opera Bona. to be a worke qualified with some difficulty in the doing and then those workes to be good workes Videant opera bona that they may see your good works They are not good works how magnificent soever if they be not directed to good ends A superstitious end or a seditious end vitiates the best worke Great contributions have beene raised and great summes given to build and endow Seminaries and schooles and Colledges in forraine parts but that hath a superstitious end Great contributions have beene raised and great summes given at home for the maintenance of such refractary persons as by opposing the government and discipline of the Church have drawne upon themselves silencings and suspensions and deprivations but that hath a seditious end But give so as in a rectified conscience and not a distempered zeale a rectified conscience is that that hath the restimony and approbation of most good men in a succession of times and not to rely occasionally upon one or a few men of the separation for the present give so as thou maist sincerely say God gave me this to give thus and so it is a good worke So it must be A worke something of some importance and a good worke not depraved with an ill end and then your worke Vt videant opera vestra That they may see your good works They are not your works if that that you give be not your owne Nor is it your own Opera bona vâ—stra if it were ill gotten at first How long soever it have beene possessed or how often soever it have beene transformed from money to ware from ware to land from land to office from office to honour the money the ware the land the office the honour is none of thine if in thy knowlege it were ill gotten at first Zacheus in S. Luke Luke 19.8 gives halfe his goods to the poore but it is halfe of his his owne for there might be goods in his house which were none of his Therefore in the same instrument he passes that scrutiny If I have taken any thing unjustly I restore him foure-fold First let that that was ill gotten be deducted and restored and then of the rest which is truly thine owne give cheerefully When Moses saies that our yeares are three score and ten Psal 90.20 if we deduct from that terme all the houres of our unnecessary sleep of superfluous sittings at feasts of curiosity in dressing of largenesse in recreations of plotting and compassing of vanities or sinnes scarce any man of chreescore and ten would be ten years old when he dyes If we should deale so with worldly mens estates defalse unjust gettings it would abridge and attenuate many a swelling Inventory Till this defalcation this scrutiny be made that you know what 's your owne what 's other mens as your Tombe shall be but a monument of your rotten bones how much gold or marble soever be bestowed upon it so that Hospitall that free-schoole that Colledge that you shall build and endow will bee but a monument of your bribery your extortion your oppression and God who will not be in debt though he owe you nothing that built it may be pleased to give the reward of all that to them from whom that which was spent upon it was unjustly taken for Prov. 13.22 The wealth of the sinner is laid up for the righteous saies Solomon The sinner may doe pious works and the righteous may be rewarded for them the world may thinke of one founder and God knowes another That which is enjoyn'd in the name of light here is works not trifles and good works made good by the good ends they are directed to and then your workes done out of that which is truly your owne and by seeing this light men will be mov'd to glorifie your Father which is in Heaven which is the true end of all that men may see them but see them therefore To glorisie your Father which is in Heaven He does not say that by seeing your good works Patrem non Filios men shall glorifie your sonnes upon earth And yet truly even that part of the reward and retribution is worth a great deale of your cost and your almes that God shall establish your posterity in the world and in the good opinion of good men As you have your estates you have your children from God too As it is Davids recognition Dominus pars haereditatis meae Psal 16.5 Gen. 4.1 The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance so the Possedi virum à Domino was Eves Recognition upon the birth of her first son Cain I have gotten I possesse a man from the Lord. Now that that man that thou possessest from the Lord thy son may possesse that land that thou possessest from the Lord it behooves thee to be righteous for so by that righteousnesse thou becomest a foundation for posterity Prov. 10.25 Prov. 13.9 Prov. 14.23 The righteous is an everlasting foundation his light his good workes shall be a chearefull light unto him for The light of the righteous reioyceth him They shall be so in this life and He shall have hope in his death saith Solomon that is hope for himself in another world hope of his posterity in this world for saies he He leaveth an inheritance to his childrens children that is an inheritance Prov. 23.22 out of which hee hath taken and restored all that was unjustly got from men and taken a bountifull part which he hath offered to God in pious uses that the rest may descend free from