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
faithfull of whom as the Apostle sayes that he hoped beyond hope we may say that he beleeved beyond faith for as he sayes he followed God not knowing whither he led him Abraham came to another manner of expostulation with God Gen. 18.22 in the behalfe of Sodome He sayes to God wilt thou destroy the righteous with the wicked Absit be that farre from thee and he repeats it Absit be that farre from thee and he pleads it with God Shall not the Iudge of all the earth doe right Now as St. Paul sayes of Esay Esay was bold when he said thus and thus so we may say of Abraham Abraham was bold when he could conceive such an imagination that God would destroy the righteous with the wicked or that the Judge of all the earth should not doe right yet Abraham is not blamed for this Consider St. Peters proceeding with Christ Mat. 16.23 he comes to a rebuking of Christ and to a more vehement absit Lord be this far from thee this shall not be unto thee speaking of his going up to Jerusalem upon which journey dependeth the whole work of our redemption And though S. Peter incurred an increpation from Christ yet that which he did was rooted in love and piety though it were mixt with inconsideration S. Peter went farther then Abraham but Abraham farthen then Moses As therefore that first Revelation which Moses may seeme to have received when he was forty yeares before this in Egypt did not so binde him to a present prosecution of that work of their deliverance but that upon occasion he did withdraw himselfe from Egypt and continue from thence in a forty yeares absence so neither did this intimation which he received from God now so binde him up but that hee might piously present his owne unfitnesse for that emploiment for it does not so much imply a deniall to undertake the service as a petition that God would super-endow him with parts and faculties fit for that service It is farre from that stubborne sonnes non ibo I will not goe to work in that Vineyard But it is onely this except God doe somewhat for me before Lgoe I shall be very unfit to goe And that any Ambassadour may say to his Prince any Minister of State to his Master any Messenger of God to God himselfe And therefore good occasion of doctrines of edification offering it selfe from that consideration wee shall insist a little upon each of his excuses though they be foure His first prospect that he looks upon in himself Quis ego his first object that by way of objection he makes to God is himself and his owne unworthinesse To consider others is but to travaile to be at home is to consider our selves upon others we can looke but in oblique lines onely upon our selves in direct Man is but earth T is true but earth is the center That man who dwels upon himself who is alwaies conversant in himself rests in his true center Man is a celestiall creature too a heavenly creature and that man that dwels upon himselfe that hath his conversation in himselfe hath his conversation in heaven If you weigh any thing in a scale the greater it is the lower it sinkes as you grow greater and greater in the eyes of the world sinke lower and lower in your owne If thou ask thy self Quis ego what am I and beest able to answer thy selfe why now I am a man of title of honour of place of power of possessions a man fit for a Chronicle a man considerable in the Heralds Office goe to the Heralds Office the spheare and element of Honour and thou shalt finde those men as busie there about the consideration of Funerals as about the consideration of Creations thou shalt finde that office to be as well the Grave as the Cradle of Honour And thou shalt finde in that Office as many Records of attainted families and escheated families and empoverished and forgotten and obliterate families as of families newly erected and presently celebrated In what heighth soever any of you that sit here stand at home there is some other in some higher station then yours that weighs you downe And he that stands in the highest of subordinate heighths nay in the highest supreme heighth in this world is weighed downe by that which is nothing for what is any Monarch to the whole world and the whole world is but that but what but nothing What man amongst us lookes Moses way first upon himselfe perchance enow doe so but who lookes Moses way and by Moses light first upon himselfe and in himselfe first upon his owne insufficiencies what man amongst us that is named to any place by the good opinion of others or that cals upon others and begs and buyes their good opinion for that place begins at Moses Quis ego What am I where have I studied and practised sufficiently before that I should fill such or such a place of Judicature Quis ego What am I where have I served and laboured and preached in inferiour places of the Church that I should fill fuch or a such a place of Dignity or prelacy there Quis ego What am I where have I seene and encountred and discomfited the enemy that I should fill such or such a place of Command in an army There is not an Abraham left to say Pulvis Cinis O my Lord I am but dust and ashes not a Iacob left to say Non sum dignus O my Lord I am not worthy of the least of these preferments not a David left to say Canis mortuies pulex O my Lord I am but a dead dog and a flea But every man is vapor'd up into ayre and as the ayre can hee thinkes he can fill any place Every man is under that complicated disease and that ridling distemper not to be content with the most and yet to be proud of the least thing hee hath that when he lookes upon men he dispises them because he is some kind of Officer and when he looks upon God hee murmures at him because he made him not a King But if man will not come to his Quis ego who am I to a due consideration of himselfe God will come to his Quis tu who art thou and to his Amice quomodo intrasti friend how came you in To every man that comes in by undue meanes God shall say as first to us in our profession what hadst thou to doe to take my word into thy mouth so to others in theirs what hadst thou to doe to take my sword into thy hand Onely to those who are little in their owne eyes shall God say as Christ said to his Church Noli timere feare not little flock for it is your Fathers good pleasure to give you the Kingdome It is not called a Kingdome but the Kingdome that Kingdome which alone Luk. 12.32 is worth all the kingdomes that the devill shewed Christ
came as far as they could to violate the person of the Emperour for they violated and defac'd his statues his images his pictures the ensigns of his power and honour And in this insolency they continued sayes that Author even after the Emperour had silenced both parties when he by his expresse Edict had forbidden both sides to write the promovers of the new opinions would write Still such men think that whatsoeuer they think is not onely true in it selfe but necessary for salvation to every man whereas new opinions that may vary from the Scriptures new commands that may vary from the Church are still in Genere deliberativo they admit they require Deliberation Blinde and implicite faith shall not save us in matter of Doctrine nor blinde and implicite obedience in matter of practice neither is there any faith so blinde and implicite as to beleeve those imaginary apparitions of spirits nor any obedience so blinde and implicite as to obey our owne private spirit and distempered zeale Truly I should hope better of their salvation who in the first darker times doubted of the Revelations of St. Iohn then of theirs who in these cleare and evident times accept and enjoyne and magnifie so much as they doe in the Romane Church the Revelations of St. Brigid And I should rather accompany them who out of their charitable moderation doe beleeve that some Christians though possessed with some errours may be saved then them who out of their passionate severity first call every difference from themselves an errour and then every errour damnable and doe not onely pronounce that none that holds any such errour can bee saved but that no man though he hold none of those errours himselfe can be saved if he think any man can be saved that holds them And so we have done with those two propofitions which are the walls upon which our whole frame is to be laid That ordinary duties require a present execution that was our first but extraordinary admit deliberation that was our second Consideration And now our third is to confider Moses case in particular as it was an example of both As Moses was an example of the present performance of an evident duty Moses case we carry you back to the former chapter where this roote this Text is first laid that is this employment first begun to be notified There ver 4. God calls Moses and he calls him by name V. 4. and by name twice Moses Moses Of this Moses could not be ignorant and therefore he comes to a present discharge of this duty to a present answer ecce adsum Lord here I am This is the advantage of innocence above guiltinesse God called Adam in Paradise and he called him by name and with a particular inquisition Adam ubies Adam where art thou And Adam hid himselfe God calls Moses and Moses answers Hee that is used to heare God at home in his conscience and in his eares at Church and used to answer God in both places at home in his private meditations and in publique devotions at Church he that is used to heare and used to answer God thus shall be glad to heare him in his last voice in his Angels Trumpets and to that voice Surgite qui dormitis Arise thou that sleepest in the dust and stand up to Judgement as he shall have invested the righteousnesse of Christ Jesus he shall answer in the very words of Christ Jesus I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore Amen Apoc. 1.18 In this evident duty then Moses permitted himselfe no liberty God called and he answered instantly He answered in action as well as in words and indeed that is our loudest and most musicall answer to answer God in deed in action So Moses did He came V. 5. he hastned to the place where God spake It is one good argument of piety to love the place where God speakes the house of his presence But yet Moses received an inhibition from God there a ne appropies Come not too neare too close to this place God loves that we should come to him here in his house but God would not have us presse too close upon him here we must not be too familiar too fellowly too homely with God here at home in his house nor loath to uncover our head or bow our knee at his name When God proceeded farther with Moses and comes to say descendi ut liberem V. 8. I am come downe to deliver Israel from Egypt which was the first intimation that God gave of that purpose Moses likes that well enough opposes nothing to that that God would be pleased to thinke of some course for delivering of Israel and enable some Instrument for that worke for that is for the most part Gods descending and his comming down to put his power instrumentally ministerially into the hand of another Generall things and remote things doe not much affect us Moses sayes nothing to Gods generall proposition That he was come downe to deliver Israel but when God comes to that particular veni ergâ— ut mittamte Come therefore that I may send thee him into Egypt V. 9 10. Moses to Pharaoh this was a Rock in his Sea and a Remora upon his Ship a Hill in his way and a Snake in his path Some light that this was about the time when Israel should be delivered there was before Moses takes knowledge Gen. 15.16 that God had promised Abraham that after foure generations they should come back and the foure generations were come about Some light that Moses should be the man by whom they should bee delivered it seemes there was before for upon that history which is in the second chapter of this booke that Moses flew an Egyptian who oppressed one of his Countrymen Exod. 2.13 St. Stephen Acts 7.25 in his owne Funerall Sermon sayes That Moses in that act supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them but they understood it not So that it seemes some such thing had gone out in voyce some revelation some intimation some emanation of some kinde of light there had beene by which they might have understood it though they did not But when Moses remembers now that that succeeded not that they apprehended not the offer of his service then and that he was now growne to be eighty yeares old and that forty of that eighty had been spent in an obscure in a Shepherds life and that he must now be sent not onely to worke upon that people who shewed no forwardnesse towards him then and might absolutely have forgotten him now but upon Pharaoh himselfe this created in Moses this haesitation this deliberation perchance not without some tincture of infirmity but farre from any degree of impiety perchance not without some expostulation with God but farre from any reluctation against God Consider Abraham Abraham the Father of the
sheep God and Man Him and Them Them indefinitely all them all men I came sayes Christ I alone that they all they might have life And secondly we consider the action it self as it is wrapped up in this word veni I came for that is first that he who was alwaies omnipresent every where before did yet study a new way of comming communicating himself with man veni I came that is novo modo veni I came by a new way And then that he who fed his former stock but with Prophesies and promises that he would come feeds us now with actuall performances with his reall presence and the exhibition of himself And lastly we shall consider the end the purpose the benefit of his comming which is life And first ut daret that he might give life bring life offer life to the world which is one mercy and then ut haberent that we might have it embrace it possesse it which is another and after both a greater then both that we might have this life abundantiùs more abundantly which is first abundantiùs illis more abundantly then other men of this world and then abundantiùs ipsis more abundantly then we our selves had it in this world in the world to come for therefore he came that we might have life and might have it more abundantly First then in our first part we consider the Persons The Shepheard and the Sheepe 1 Part. Persone Him and Them God and Man of which Persons the one for his Greatnesse God the other for his littlenesse man can scarce fall under any consideration What eye can fixe it self upon East and West at once And he must see more then East and West that sees God for God spreads infinitely beyond both God alone is all not onely all that is but all that is not all that might be if he would have it be God is too large too immense and then man is too narrow too little to be considered for who can fixe his eye upon an Atome and he must see a lesse thing then an Atome that sees man for man is nothing First for the incomprehensiblenesse of God the understanding of man Deus hath a limited a determined latitude it is an intelligence able to move that Spheare which it is fixed to but could not move a greater I can comprehend naturam naturatam created nature but for that natura naturans God himselfe the understanding of man cannot comprehend I can see the Sun in a looking-glasse but the nature and the whole working of the Sun I cannot see in that glasse I can see God in the creature but the nature the essence the secret purposes of God I cannot see there There is defatigatio in intellectualibus sayes the saddest and soundest of the Hebrew Rabbins R. Moses the soule may be tired as well as the body and the understanding dazeled as well as the eye It is a good note of the same Rabbi upon those words of Solomon fill not thy selfe with hony lest thou vomit it that it is not said that if thou beest cloyd with it thou maist be distasted Pro. 25.16 disaffected towards it after but thou maist vomit it and a vomit works so as that it does not onely bring up that which was then but that also which was formerly taken Curious men busie themselves so much upon speculative subtilties as that they desert and abandon the solid foundations of Religion and that is a dangerous vomit To search so farre into the nature and unrevealed purposes of God as to forget the nature and duties of man this is a shrewd surfet though of hony and a dangerous vomit It is not needfull for thee to see the things that are in secret sayes the wife man nonindiges Ecclus. 3.23 thou needest not that knowledge Thou maist doe well enough in this world and bee Gods good servant and doe well enough in the next world and bee a glorious Saint and yet never search into Gods secrets Ps 65.1 Te decet Hymnus so the vulgar reades that place To thee O Lord belong our Hymnes our Psalmes our Prayses our cheerefull acclamations and conformably to that we translate it Praise waiteth for thee O God in Sion But if we will take it according to the Originall it must be Tibi silentium laus est Thy praise O Lord consists in silence That that man praises God best that sayes least of him of him that is of his nature of his essence of his unrevealed will and secret purposes O that men would praise the Lord is Davids provocation to us all but how O that men would praise the Lord and declare his wondrous works to the sons of men but not to goe about to declare his unrevealed Decrees or secret purposes is as good a way of praising him as the other And therefore O that men would praise the Lord so forbeare his Majesty when he is retired into himselfe in his Decrees and magnifie his Majesty as he manifests himselfe to us in the execution of those Decrees of which this in our Text is a great one that he that is infinitely more then all descended to him that is infinitely lesse then nothing which is the other person whom we are to consider in this part ille illis I to them God to us The Hebrew Doctors almost every where repeat that adage of theirs lex loquitur linguam filiorum hominum Illis God speakes mens language that is the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures descends to the capacity and understanding of man and so presents God in the faculties of the minde of man and in the lineaments of the body of man But yet say they there is never braine nor liver nor spleene nor any other inward part ascribed to God but onely the heart God is all heart and that whole heart that inexhaustible fountaine of love is directed wholly upon man And then though in the Scriptures those bodily lineaments head and feet and hands and eyes and eares be ascribed to God God is never said to have shoulders for say they shoulders are the subjects of burdens and therein the figures of patience and so God is all shoulder all patience he heares patiently he sees patiently he speakes patiently he dyes patiently And is there a patience beyond that In Christ there is he suffers patiently a quotidian Crucifying we kill the Lord of Life every day every day we make a mock of Christ Jesus and tread the blood of the Covenant under our feet every day And as though all his passion and blood and wounds and heart were spent by our former oathes and blasphemies we crucifie him dayly by our dayly sins that we might have new blood and heart and wounds to sweare by and all this hee suffers patiently and after all this ille illis to this man this God comes He to us God to man all to nothing for upon that we insist first as the first
these foure links to be let downe to us and let us take hold of that linke that is next us A good life and keepe a fast and inseparable hold upon that for though in that sense of which we spoke Fides justificat sola Only faith do justifie yet it is not true in any sense Fides est sola that there is any faith where there is nothing but faith God comes downeward to us but we must go upward to God not to get above him in his unrevealed Decrees but to go up towards him in laying hold upon that lowest linke that as the holy Ghost shall reprove that is convince the world that there is no other righteousnesse but that of Christ so he may enable you to passe a judgement upon your selves and to testifie to the world that you have apprehended that righteousness Which is that that is principally intended in the third and last part That the holy Ghost 3. Part. when he comes shall reprove the World as of sin of rightcousness so of judgment After those two convictions of the World that is Jew and Gentile first that they are all under sin and so in a state of condemnation And secondly that there is no righteousnesse no justification to be had to the Jew by the Law nor to the Gentile in Nature but that there is Righteousnesse and Justification enough for all the world Jew and Gentile in Christ In the third place the Holy Ghost is to reprove that is still to convince the world to acquaint the world with this mystery That there is a means settled to convey this Righteousnesse of Christ upon the World and then an account to be taken of them who do not lay hold upon this meanes for both these are intended in this word Iudgement He shall reprove them prove to them this double signification of judgement first that there is a judgement of order of rectitude of government to which purpose he hath established the Church And then a judgement of account and of sentence and beatification upon them who did and malediction upon them who did not apply themselves to the first judgement that is to those orderly wayes and meanes of embracing Christs righteousnesse Wiâ—d 11.20 which were offered them in the Church God hath ordered all things in measure 1 Cor. 14.42 and number and waight Let all things be done decently and in order for God is the God of order and not of confusion And this order is this judgement The Court the Tribunall the Judgment seat in which all mens consciences and actions must be regulated and ordered the Church The perfectest order was Innocency that first integrity in which God made all All was disordered by sin For in sin and the author of sin Satan there is no order no conformity nothing but disorder and confusion Though the Schoole doe generally acknowledge a distinction of orders in the ministring Spirits of Heaven now Angels and Archangels and others yet they dispute and doubt and in a great part deny that this distinction of orders was before the fall of those Angels for they confesse this distribution into orders to have been upon their submission and recognition of Gods government which recognition was their very confirmation and after that they could not fall And though those fallen Angels the Devils concurre in an unan me consent to ruin us Hiâ—ron for Bellum Daemonum summa pax hominum we should agree better if devils did fall out yet this is not such a peace such an unity as gives them any peace or relaxation or intermission of anguish but as they are the Authors of our confusion so they are in a continuall confusion themselves There is no order in the Author of sin and therfore the God of order cannot directly nor indirectly positively nor consecutively be the Author of sin There is no order in sin it selfe The nature the definition of sin is disorder Dectum factum August concupitum contra legem God hath ordered a law and sin is an act if we cannot do that it is a word if we dare not do that it is a desire against that law Forma peccati deformitas we can assigne sin no other form but deformity So that our affecting of any thing as our end which God hath not proposed for our end or our affecting of true ends by any other wayes then he hath proposed this is a disordering of Gods providence as much as we can and so a sin For the Schoole resolves conveniently probably that that first sin that ever was committed that peccatum praegnans peccatum prolificum That womb and matrice of all sins that have been committed since The sin of the Angels it was a disorder an obliquity a deformity not in not going to the right end for Illud quaesiverunt ad quod pervenissent si stetissent sayes Aquinas out of S. August They desired no more then they were made for and should have come to if they had stood but their sin was in affecting a right end a wrong way in desiring to come to their appointed perfection by themselves to subsist of themselves to be independent without any farther need of God for that was their desire To be like the most High To depend upon nothing but be all-sufficient to themselves So they disordered Gods purpose and when they had once broke that chaine when they had once put that harmony out of tune then came in disorder discord confusion and that is sin Gods work is perfect How appeares that For all his wayes are Iudgement Deut. 32.4 sayes Moses in his victorious song This is Perfection That he hath established an order a judgement Which is not only that order which S. Augustine defines Ordo est August per quem omnia aguntur quae Deus constituit The order and the judgement by which God governs the world according to his purpose which judgement is Providence But as the same Father sayes in the same book it is Ordo quem si tenueris in vita perdacet ad Deum It is an order and a judgement which he hath manifested to thee for the order and judgement of his providence he doth not alwayes manifest by obedience to which order and judgement thou maist be saved The same Father speaking of this order and judgement of providence sayes Nihil ordini contrarium Nothing can be contrary to that order He is in a holy rapture transported with that consideration That even disorders are within Gods order There is in the order and judgement of his providence an admission a permission of disorders This unsearchable proceeding of God carries him to that passionate exclamation O sipossem dicere quod vellem O that I were able to expresse my self Roge ubi ubi estis verba suecurrite Where where are those words which I had wont to have at command why do ye not serve me help me now Now when I would declare this Bona
to execution Thou hast sinned thy selfe and hast repented and hast had thy pardon sealed in the Sacrament but thy pardon was clogged with an Ita quòd se bene gerat Thou wast bound to the peace by that pardon and hast broken that peace since in a relapse and so fallest under execution for thine old sins God cuts off men by unsearchable wayes and meanes and therefore feare this Father as a Soveraigne as a Magistrate for that use this word in S. Iohn may have In Malachie we consider him in his supreme spirituall power Iudiciaria and in S. Iohn in his supreme temporall power And in this Text this Father is presented in a power which includes both in a judiciary power as a Judge as our Judge our Judge at the last day beyond all Appeale And as this Apostle S. Peter is said by Clement who is said to have beene his successor at Rome to have said Quis peccare poterit c. Who could commit any sin at any time if at all times he had his eye fixed upon this last Judgement We have seene purses cut at the Sessions and at Executions but the Cutpurse did not see the Judge looke upon him we see men sin over those sins to day for which Judgement was inflicted but yesterday but surely they doe not see then that the Judge sees them Rom. 2.5 Thou treasurest up wrath sayes the Apostle against the day of wrath and revelation of the judgement of God There is no Revelation of the day of Judgement no sense of any such day till the very day it selfe overtake him and swallow him Represent God to thy selfe as such a Judge as S. Chrysostome sayes That whosoever considers him so as that Judge and that day as a day of irrevocable judgement Gehennae poenam tolerare malit quà m adverso Deo stare He will even think it an ease to be thrown down into hell out of the presence of God rather then to stand long in the presence and stand under the indignation of that incensed Judge The Ite maledicti will be lesse then the Surgite qui dormitis And there is the miserable perplexity Latere impossibils Apparere intolerabile Bernard To be hid from this Judge is impossible and to appeare before him intolerable for he comes invested with those two flames of confusion which are our two next branches in the Text first He respects no persons Then He judges according to workes Without respect of persons c. Nine or ten severall times it is repeated in the Scriptures and I thinke Acceptor personarum no one intire proposition so often That God is no accepter of persons It is spoken by Moses that they who are conversant in the Law might see it and spoken in the Chronicles that they might see it who are conversant in State-affaires and spoken in Iob that men in afflictions might not mis-imagine a partiality in God It is spoken to the Gentiles by the Apostle of the Gentiles S. Paul severally To the Romanes to the Galatians to the Ephesians to the Colossians And spoken by the chiefe Apostle S. Peter both in a private Sermon in Cornelius his house and now in this Catholique Epistle written to all the world that all the world and all the inhabitants thereof might know That God is no accepter of persons And lest all this should not be all it is spoken twice in the Apocryphall books and though we know not assuredly by whom yet we know to whom To all that exercise any judiciary power under God it belongs to know That God is no accepter of persons In divers of those places this also is added Nor receiver of Rewards whether that be added as an equall thing That it is as great a sin to accept persons as to accept rewards Or as a concomitancy they goe together He that will accept persons will accept rewards Or as an Identity It is the same thing to accept persons and to accept rewards because the preferment which I looke for from a person in place is as much a reward as money from a person rich in treasure whether of these it be I dispute not Clearly there is a Bribery in my love to another and in my feare of another there is a Bribery too There is a bribery in a poore mans teares if that decline me from justice as well as in the rich mans Plate and Hangings and Coach and Horses Let no man therefore think to present his complexion to God for an excuse and say My choler with which my constitution abounded and which I could not remedy enclined me to wrath and so to bloud My Melancholy enclined me to sadnesse and so to Desperation as though thy sins were medicinall sins sins to vent humors Let no man say I am continent enough all the yeare but the spring works upon me and inflames my concupiscencies as though thy sins were seasonable and anniversary sins Make not thy Calling the occasion of thy sin as though thy sin were a Mysterie and an Occupation Nor thy place thy station thy office the occasion of thy sin as though thy sin were an Heir-loome or furniture or fixed to the freehold of that place for this one proposition God is no accepter of persons is so often repeated that all circumstances of Dispositions and Callings Ambros and time and place might be involved in it Nulla descretio personarum sed morum God discernes not that is distinguishes not Persons but Actions for He judgeth according to every mans works which is our next Branch Now this judging according to works Opera excludes not the heart nor the heart of the heart the soule of the soule Faith God requires the heart My sonne give me thy heart He will have it but he will have it by gift and those Deeds of Gift must be testified and the testimony of the heart is in the hand the testimony of faith is in works If one give me a timber tree for my house I know not whether the root be mine or no whether I may stub it by that gift but if he give me a fruit tree for mine Orchard he intends me the root too for else I cannot transplant it nor receive fruit by it God judges according to the worke that is Root and fruit faith and worke That is the worke And then he judges according unto Thy worke The works of Other men the Actions and the Passions of the blessed Martyrs and Saints in the Primitive Church works of Supererogation are not thy works It were a strange pretence to health that when thy Physitian had prescribed thee a bitter potion and came for an account how it had wrought upon thee thou shouldst say My brother hath taken twice as much as you prescribed for me but I tooke none Or if he ordained sixe ounces of bloud to be taken from thee to say My Grandfather bled twelve God shall judge according to The worke that is
In thy Treasury in thine Ordinance in thy Church Thou hast it to derive it to convey it upon us Here then is the first step of Sauls cure and of ours That there was not onely a word the Word Christ himselfe a Son of God in heaven but a Voyce the word uttered and preached Christ manifested in his Ordinance He heard a voyce He heard it How often does God speake and no body heares the voyce Audivit He speaks in his Canon in Thunder and he speaks in our Canon in the rumour of warres He speaks in his musique in the harmonious promises of the Gospel and in our musique in the temporall blessings of peace and plenty And we heare a noyse in his Judgements and wee heare a sound in his mercies but we heare no voyce we doe not discern that this noyse or this sound comes from any certain person we do not feele them to be mercies nor to be judgements uttered from God but naturall accidents casuall occurrencies emergent contingencies which as an Atheist might think would fall out though there were no God or no commerce no dealing no speaking between God and Man Though Saul came not instantly to a perfect discerning who spoke yet he saw instantly it was a Person above nature and therefore speakes to him in that phrase of submission Quis es Domine Lord who art thou And after with trembling and astonishment as the Text sayes Domine quid me vis facere Lord what wilt thou have me to do Then we are truliest said to hear when we know from whence the voyce comes Princes are Gods Trumpet and the Church is Gods Organ but Christ Jesus is his voyce When he speaks in the Prince when he speaks in the Church there we are bound to heare and happy if we doe hear Man hath a natural way to come to God by the eie by the creature Rom 2. So Visible things shew the Invisible God But then God hath super-induced a supernaturall way by the eare For though hearing be naturall yet that faith in God should come by hearing a man preach is supernatural God shut up the naturall way in Saul Seeing He struck him blind But he opened the super-naturall way he inabled him to heare and to heare him God would have us beholden to grace and not to nature and to come for our salvation to his Ordinances to the preaching of his Word and not to any other meanes Though hee were blinde even that blindnesse as it was a humiliation and a diverting of his former glaring lights was a degree of mercy of preparative mercy yet there was a voyce which was another degree And a voyce that he heard which was a degree above that and so farre we are gone And he heard it saying that is distinctly and intelligibly which is our next Circumstance He heares him saying that is He heares him so as that he knowes what he sayes so Dicentem as that he understands him for he that heares the word and understands it not is subject to that which Christ sayes That the wicked one comes Mat. 13.19 and catches away that that was sowne S. Augustine puts himselfe earnestly upon the contemplation of the Creation as Moses hath delivered it he findes it hard to conceive and he sayes Si esset ante me Moses Confes l. 1. c. 3. If Moses who writ this were here Tenerem eum per te obsecrarem I would hold him fast and beg of him for thy sake O my God that he would declare this worke of the Creation more plainly unto me But then sayes that blessed Father Si Hebraea voce loqueretur If Moses should speake Hebrew to mee mine eares might heare the sound but my minde would not heare the voyce I might heare him but I should not heare what he said This was that that distinguished betweene S. Paul and those who were in his company at this time Ver. 7. Acts 22.9 S. Luke sayes in this Chapter That they heard the voyce and S. Paul relating the story againe after sayes They heard not the voyce of him that spoke to me they heard a confused sound but they distinguished it not to be the voyce of God nor discerned Gods purpose in it Ver. 28. In the twelfth of Iohn there came a voyce from Heaven from God himselfe and the people said It thundred So apt is naturall man to ascribe even Gods immediate and miraculous actions to naturall causes apt to rest and determine in Nature and leave out God The Poet chides that weaknesse as he cals it to be afraid of Gods judgements or to call naturall accidents judgements Quo morbo mentem concusse timore Deorum sayes he he sayes The Conscience may be over-tender and that such timerous men are sick of the feare of God But it is a blessed disease The feare of God and the true way to true health And though there be a morall constancy that becomes a Christian well not to bee easily shaked with the variations and revolutions of this world yet it becomes him to establish his constancy in this That God hath a good purpose in that action not that God hath no hand in that action That God will produce good out of it not that God hath nothing to doe in it The Magicians themselves were forced to confesse Digitum Dei Exod. 6.16 The finger of God in a small matter Never thinke it a weakenesse to call that a judgement of God which others determine in Nature Doe so so far as works to thy edification who seest that judgement though not so far as to argue and conclude the finall condemnation of that man upon whom that judgement is fallen Certainely we were better call twenty naturall accidents judgements of God then frustrate Gods purpose in any of his powerfull deliverances by calling it a naturall accident and suffer the thing to vanish so and God be left unglorified in it or his Church unedified by it Then we heare God when we understand what he sayes And therefore as we are bound to blesse God that he speakes to us and heares us speake to him in a language which wee understand and not in such a strange language as that a stranger who should come in and heare it 1 Cor. 14.23 would thinke the Congregation mad So also let us blesse him for that holy tendernesse to be apt to feele his hand in every accident and to discerne his presence in every thing that befals us Saul heard the voyce saying He understood what it said and by that found that it was directed to him which is also another step in this last part This is an impropriation without sacriledge Sibi and an enclosure of a Common without damage to make God mine owne to finde that all that God sayes is spoken to me and all that Christ suffered was suffered for me And as Saul found this voyce at first to be directed to him so
him but his hinder parts Exod. 33.23 Let that be his Decrees then when in his due time they came to execution for then and not till then they are works And God would not suffer Moses his body to be seene when it was dead Deut. 34.6 because then it could not speake to them it could not instruct them it could not direct them in any duty if they transgressed from any God himselfe would not be spoken to by us but as hee speaks of himselfe and he speaks in his works And as among men some may Build and some may Write and wee call both by one name wee call his Buildings and wee call his Books his Works so if wee will speake of God this World which he hath built and these Scriptures which he hath written are his Works and we speak of God in his Works which is the commandement of this Text when we speak of him so as he hath manifested himselfe in his miracles and as hee hath declared himselfe in his Scriptures for both these are his Works There are Decrees in God but we can take out no Copies of them till God himselfe exemplifie them in the execution of them The accomplishing of the Decree is the best publishing the best notifying of the Decree But of his Works we can take Copies for his Scriptures are his Works and we have them by Translations and Illustrations made appliable to every understanding All the promises of his Scriptures belong to all And for his Miracles his Miracles are also his Works we have an assurance That whatsoever God hath done for any he will doe againe for us It is then his Works upon which we fix this Commemoration Deutipse in operibus illis considerandus and this glorifying of God but so as that wee determine not upon the Work it selfe but God in the Work Say unto God to Him how terrible art thou that God in thy Works It may bee of use to you to receive this note Then when it is said in this Psalme Come and see the Works of God and after Come and heare all yee that feare God in both places it is not Psal 66.5 Verse 16. Venite but Ite It is Lechu not Come but Goe Goe out Goe forth abroad to consider God in his Works Goe as farre as you can stop not in your selves nor stop not in any other till you come to God himselfe If you consider the Scriptures to be his Works make not Scriptures of your owne which you doe if you make them subject to your private interpretation My soule speaks in my tongue else I could make no sound My tongue speaks in English else I should not be understood by the Congregation So God speaks by his Sonne in the Gospel but then the Gospel speaks in the Church that every man may heare Ite goe forth stay not in your selves if you will heare him And so for matter of Action and Protection come not home to your selves stay not in your selves not in a considence in your owne power and wisedome but Ite goe forth goe forth into Aegypt goe forth into Babylon and look who delivered your Predecessors predecessors in Affliction predecessors in Mercy and that God who is Yesterday Heb. 13.8 and to day and the same for ever shall doe the same things which he did yesterday to day and for ever Turne alwayes to the Commemoration of Works but not your owne Ite goe forth goe farther then that Then your selves farther then the Angels and Saints in heaven That when you commemorate your deliverance from an Invasion and your deliverance from the Vault you doe not ascribe these deliverances to those Saints upon whose dayes they were wrought In all your Commemorations and commemorations are prayers and God receives that which wee offer for a Thanksgiving for former Benefits as a prayer for future Ite goe forth by the river to the spring by the branch to the root by the worke to God himselfe and Dicite say unto him say of him Quam terribilis Tu in Tuis which sets us upon another step in this part To consider what this Terriblenesse is that God expresses in his works Though there be a difference between timer and terror Terribilis feare and terror yet the difference is not so great but that both may fall upon a good man Not onely a feare of God must but a terror of God may fall upon the Best When God talked with Abraham a horror of great darknesse fell upon him Gen. 15.12 sayes that Text. The Father of lights and the God of all comfort present and present in an action of Mercy and yet a horror of great darknesse fell upon Abraham When God talked personally and presentially with Moses Exod. 13.6 Moses hid his face for sayes that Text he was afraid to looke upon God When I look upon God as I am bid to doe in this Text in those terrible Judgements which he hath executed upon some men and see that there is nothing between mee and the same Judgement for I have sinned the same sinnes and God is the same God I am not able of my selfe to dye that glasse that spectacle thorow which I looke upon this God in what colour I will whether this glasse shall be black through my despaire and so I shall see God in the cloud of my sinnes or red in the blood of Christ Jesus and I shall see God in a Bath of the blood of his Sonne whether I shall see God as a Dove with an Olive branch peace to my soule or as an Eagle a vulture to prey and to prey everlastingly upon mee whether in the deepe floods of Tribulation spirituall or temporall I shall see God as an Arke to take mee in or as a Whale to swallow mee and if his Whale doe swallow mee the Tribulation devour me whether his purpose bee to restore mee or to consume me I I of my selfe cannot tell I cannot look upon God in what line I will nor take hold of God by what handle I will Hee is a terrible God I take him so And then I cannot discontinue I cannot breake off this terriblenesse and say Hee hath beene terrible to that man and there is an end of his terror it reaches not to me Why not to me In me there is no merit nor shadow of merit In God there is no change nor shadow of change I am the same sinner he is the same God still the same desperate sinner still the same terrible God But terrible in his works Reverendus sayes our Text Terrible so as hee hath declared himselfe to be in his works His Works are as we said before his Actions and his Scriptures In his Actions we see him Terrible upon disobedient Resisters of his Graces and Despisers of the meanes thereof not upon others wee have no examples of that In his word we accept this word in which he hath beene pleased to