had need be so for he found our measure full of sin towards God and Gods measure full of anger towards us for our parts as when a River swels at first it will finde out all the channels or lower parts of the bank and enter there but after a while it covers and overflowes the whole field and all is water without distinction so though we be naturally channels of concupiscencies for there sin begins and as water runs naturally in the veines and bowels of the earth Gen. 6.5 so run concupiscencies naturally in our bowels yet when every imagination of the thoughts of our heart is onely evill continually Then as it did there it induces a flood a deluge our concupiscence swells above all channels and actually overflowes all It hath found an issue at the eare we delight in the defamation of others and an issue at the eye Psal 50.18 Psal 12.4 If we see a thiefe we run with him we concurre in the plots of supplanting and destroying other men It hath found an issue in the tongue Our lips are our owne who is Lord over us We speak freely seditious speeches against superiours obscene and scurrile speeches against one another prophane and blasphemous speeches against God himselfe are growne to be good jests and marks of wit and arguments of spirit It findes an issue at our hands they give way to oppression by giving bribes and an issue at our feet They are swift to shed bloud and so by custome sin overflowes all Omnia pontus all our wayes are sea all our works are sin This is our fulnesse originall sin filled us actuall sin presses down the measure and habituall sins heap it up And then Gods measure of anger was full too from the beginning he was a jealous God and that should have made us carefull of our behaviour that a jealous eye watched over us But because wee see in the world that jealous persons are oftnest deceived because that distemper disorders them so as that they see nothing clearely and it puts the greater desire in the other to deceive because it is some kinde of Victory and Triumph to deceive a jealous and watchfull person therefore we have hoped to goe beyond God too and his jealousie But he is jealous of his honour jealous of his jealousie he will not have his jealousie despised nor forgotten for therefore he visits upon the children to the third and fourth generation when therefore the spirit of jealousie was come upon him Numb 5.14 and that he had prepared that water of bitternesse which was to rot our bowels that is when God had bent all his bowes drawne forth and whetted all his swords when he was justly provoked to execute all the Judgements denounced in all the Prophets upon all mankinde when mans measure was full of sin and Gods measure full of wrath then was the fulnesse of time and yet then Complacuit It pleased the Father that there should be another fulnesse to overflow all these in Christ Jesus But what fulnesse is that Omnis plenitudo all fulnesse And this was onely in Christ Omnis plenitudo 2 Reg. 2.9 Acts 6.5 Acts 9.36 Elias had a great portion of the spirit but but a portion Elizaeus sees that that portion will not serve him and therefore he asks a double portion of that spirit but still but portions Stephen is full of faith a blessed fulnesse where there is no corner for Infidelity nor for doubt for scruple nor irresolution Dorcas is full of good works a fulnesse above faith for there must be faith before there can be good works so that they are above faith as the tree is above the roote and as the fruit is above the tree The Virgin Mary is full of Grace and Grace is a fulnesse above both above faith and works too for that is the meanes to preserve both That we fall not from our faith Eccles 10.1 and that dead flyes corrupt not our ointment that worldly mixtures doe not vitiate our best works and the memory of past sins dead sins doe not beget new sins in us is the operation of Grace The seaven Deacons were full of the Holy Ghost and of Wisedome Acts 6.3 full of Religion towards God and full of such wisedome as might advance it towards men full of zeale and full of knowledge full of truth and full of discretion too And these were plenitudines fulnesses but they were not all Omnis plenitudo all fulnesse I shall bee as full as St. Paul in heaven I shall have as full a vessell but not so full a Cellar I shall be as full but I shall not have so much to fill Christ onely hath an infinite content and capacity an infinite roome and receipt and then an infinite fulnesse omnem capacitatem and omnem plenitudinem He would receive as much as could be infused and there was as much infused as he could receive But what shall we say Deus adimplendus was Christ God before and are these accessory supplementary additionall fulnesses to be put to him A fulnesse to be added to God To make him a competent person to redeeme man something was to be added to Christ though he were God wherein we see to our inexpressible confusion of face and consternation of spirit the incomprehensiblenesse of mans sin that even to God himselfe there was required something else then God before we could be redeemed there was a fulnesse to be added to God for this work to make it omnem plenitudinem for Christ was God before there was that fulnesse but God was not Christ before there lacked that fulnesse Not disputing therefore what other wayes God might have taken for our redemption but giving him all possible thanks for that way which his goodnesse hath chosen by the way of satisfying his justice for howsoever I would be glad to be discharged of my debts any way yet certainly I should think my selfe more beholden to that man who would be content to pay my debt for me then to him that should entreat my creditor to forgive me my debt for this work to make Christ able to pay this debt there was something to be added to him First he must pay it in such money as was lent in the nature and flesh of man for man had sinned and man must pay And then it was lent in such money as was coyned even with the Image of God man was made according to his Image That Image being defaced in a new Mint in the wombe of the Blessed Virgin there was new money coyned The Image of the invisible God the second person in the Trinity was imprinted into the humane nature And then that there might bee omnis plenitudo all fulnesse as God for the paiment of this debt sent downe the Bullion and the stamp that is God to be conceived in man and as he provided the Mint the womb of the Blessed Virgin so hath he provided an Exchequer where this
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
the places of the earth Divisie doe the Scriptures of God exceed Paradise In the midst of Paradise grew the Tree of knowledge and the tree of life In this Paradise the Scripture every word is both those Trees there is Life and Knowledge in every word of the Word of God That Germen Iehovae as the Prophet Esay calls Christ that Off-spring of Jehova that Bud that Blossome that fruit of God himselfe the Son of God the Messiah the Redeemer Christ Jesus growes upon every tree in this Paradise the Scripture for Christ was the occasion before and is the consummation after 1 Iohn 5.13 of all Scripture This have I written sayes S. Iohn and so say all the Pen-men of the holy Ghost in all that they have written This have we written that ye may know that ye have eternall life Knowledge and life growes upon every tree in this Paradise upon every word in this Booke because upon every Tree here upon every word grows Christ himselfe in some relation From this Branch this Text O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send we shall not so much stand to gather here and there an Apple that is to consider some particular words of the Text it selfe as endeavour to shake the whole tree that is the Context and coherence and dependance of the words for since all that passed between God and Moses in this affaire and negotiation Gods employing of Moses and Moses presenting his excuses to God and Gods taking of all those excuses determines in our Text in our Text is the whole story virtually and radically implyed And therefore by just occasion thereof we shall consider first That though for the ordinary duties of our callings arising out of the evidence of expresse Scriptures we are allowed no haesitation no disputation whether we will doe them or no but they require a present and an exact execution thereof yet in extraordinary cases and in such actions as are not laid upon us by any former and permanent notification thereof in Scripture such as was Moses case here to undertake the deliverance of Israel from Egypt in such cases not onely some haesitation some deliberation some consultation in our selves but some expostulation with God himselfe may be excusable in us We shall therefore see that Moses did excuse himself four wayes And how God was pleased to joyn issue with him in all foure and to cast him and overcome him in them all And when we come to consider his fift which is rather a Diversion upon another then an Excuse in himselfe and yet is that which is most literally in our Text O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send because this was a thing which God had reserved wholly to himselfe The sending of Christ we shall see that God would not have been pressed for that but as it followes immediately and is also a bough of this tree that is grows out of this Text God was angry But yet as we shall see in the due place it was but such an anger as ended in an Instruction rather then in an Increpation and in an Encouragement rather then in a Desertion for he established Moses in a resolution to undertake the worke by joyning his brother Aaron in commission with him So then wee have shak'd the tree that is resolv'd and analyz'd the Context of all which the Text it selfe is the root and the seale And as we have presented to your sight we shall farther offer to your tast and digestion and rumination these particular fruits First that ordinary Duties require a present execution Secondly that in Extraordinary God allowes a Deliberation and requires not an implicite a blind obedience And in a third place wee shall give you those foure circumstances that accompanied or constituted Moses deliberation and Gods removing of those foure impediments And in a fourth â—oome that Consultation or Diversion The sending of Christ And in that How God was affected with it He was angry angry that Moses would offer to looke into those things which he had lockt up in his secret counsels such as that sending of Christ which he intended But yet not angry so as that he left Moses unsatisfied or un-accommodated for the maine businesse but setled him in a holy and chearfull readinesse to obey his commandement And through all these particulars we shall passe with as much clearnesse as the waight and as much shortnesse as the number will permit First then our first Consideration constitutes that Proposition Ordinary Duties Ordinary Duties arising out of the Evidence of Gods Word require a present Execution There are Duties that binde us semper and Adsemper as our Casuists speak we are Alwayes bound to doe them and bound to doe them Alwayes that is Alwayes to produce Actus elicitos Determinate acts Successive and Consecutive acts conformable to those Duties whereas in some other Duties we are onely bound to an Habituall disposition to doe them in such and such necessary cases And those Actions of the later sort fall in Genere Deliberativo we may consider Circumstances before we fall under a necessity of doing them that is of doing them Then or doing them Thus Of which kind even those great duties of Praying and Fasting are for we are alwayes bound to Pray and alwayes bound to Fast but not bound to fast alwayes nor alwayes to pray But for Actions of the first kind such as are the worshipping of God and the not worshipping of Images such as are the sanctifying of Gods Sabbaths and the not blaspheming of his Name which arise out of cleare and evident commands of God they admit no Deliberation but require a present Execution Therefore as S. Stephen saw Christ standing at the right hand of his Father a posture that denotes first a readinesse to survay and take knowledge of our distresses and then a readinesse to proceed and come forth to our assistance so in our Liturgie in our Service in the Congregation we stand up at the profession of the Creed at the rehearsing the Articles of our Faith thereby to declare to God and his Church our readinesse to stand to and our readinesse to proceed in that Profession The commendation which is given of Andrew and Peter for obeying Christs call Mark 1.18 lyes not so much in the Reliquerunt retia that they left their nets as in the Protinus reliquerunt that forthwith immediately without farther deliberation they left their nets the meanes of their livelyhood and followed Christ The Lord and his Spirit hath anointed us to preach Esay 61.1 sayes the Prophet Esay To preach what Acceptabilem annum to preach the acceptable yeare of the Lord. All the yeare long the Lord stands with his armes open to embrace you and all the yeare long we pray you in Christs stead that you would be reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5.20 Psal 95.8 But yet God would
nor reconcile after he shall have made up that account with his Son and told him These be all you dyed for these be all you purchased these be all whom I am bound to save for your sake for the rest their portion is everlasting destruction Under this law under this evidence under this sentence vae desiderantibus woe to them that pretend to desire this day of the Lord as though by their owne outward righteousnesse they could stand upright in this judgement Woe to them that say Let God come when he will it shall goe hard but he shall finde me at Church I heare three or foure Sermons a week he shall finde me in my Discipline and Mortification I fast twice a week he shall finde me in my Stewardship and Dispensation I give tithes of all that I possesse When Ezechias shewed the Ambassadors of Babylon all his Treasure and his Armour the malediction of the Prophet fell upon it that all that Treasure and Armour which he had so gloriously shewed should be transported to them to whom he had shewed it into Babylon He that publishes his good works to the world they are carried into the world and that is his reward Not that there is not a good use of letting our light shine before men too for when S. Paul sayes If I yet please men Gal. 1.10 I should not be the servant of Christ and when he saith I doe please all men in all things S. Austine found no difficulty in reconciling those two Navem quaero sayes he sed patriam When I goe to the Haven to hire a Ship it is for the love I have to my Country When I declare my faith by my works to men it is for the love I beare to the glory of God but if I desire the Lords day upon confidence in these works vae scirpo as Iob expresses it woe unto me poore rush Job 8.16 for sayes he the rush is greene till the Sun come that is sayes Gregory upon that place donec divina districtio in judicio candeat till the fire of the judgement examine our works they may have some verdure some colour but vae desiderantibus wo unto them that put themselves unto that judgement for their works sake For ut quid vobis to what end is it for you If your hypocriticall security could hold out to the last if you could delude the world at the last gasp if those that stand about you then could be brought to say he went away like a Lambe alas the Lambe of God went not away so the Lamb of God had his colluctations disputations expostulations apprehensions of Gods indignation upon him then This security call it by a worse name stupidity is not a lying down like a Lamb but a lying down like Issachers Asse between two burdens for two greater burdens cannot be then sin and the senslesnesse of sin Vt quid vobis what will ye doe at that day which shall be darknesse and not light God dwels in luce inaccessibili 1 Tim. 6.16 in such light as no man by the light of nature can comprehend here but when that light of grace which was shed upon thee here should have brought thee at last to that inaccessible light then thou must be cast in tenebras exteriores Mat. 8.12 into darknesse and darknesse without the Kingdome of heaven And if the darknesse of this world which was but a darknesse of our making could not comprehend the light when Christ in his person brought the light and offered repentance certainly in that outward darknesse of the next world the darknesse which God hath made for punishment they shall see nothing neither intramittendo nor extramittendo neither by receiving offer of grace from heaven nor in the disposition to pray for grace in hell For as at our inanimation in our Mothers womb our immortall soule when it comes swallowes up the other soules of vegetation and of sense which were in us before so at this our regeneration in the next world the light of glory shall swallow up the light of grace To as many as shall be within there will need no grace to supply defects nor eschew dangers because there we shall have neither defects nor dangers There shall be no night no need of candle Apoc. 22.5 nor of Sun for the Lord shall give them light and they shall raigne for ever and ever There shall be no such light of grace as shall work repentance to them that are in the light of glory neither could they that are in outward darknesse comprehend the light of grace if it could flow out upon them First you did the works of darknesse sayes the Apostle Rom. 13.12 and then that custome that practice brought you to love darknesse better then light and then as the Prince of darknesse delights to transforme himselfe into an Angell of light Iohn 3. so by your hypocrisie you pretend a light of grace when you are darknesse it selfe and therefore at quid vobis what will you get by that day which is darknesse and not light Now as this Woe and commination of our Prophet had one aime 3. Part. to beat down their scorne which derided the judgements of God in this world and a second aime to beat downe their confidence that thought themselves of themselves able to stand in Gods judgements in the next world so it hath a third mark better then these two it hath an aime upon them in whom a wearinesse of this life when Gods corrections are upon them or some other mistaking of their owne estate and case works an over-hasty and impatient desire of death and in this sense and acceptation the day of the Lord is the day of our death and transmigration out of this world and the darknesse is still everlasting darknesse Now for this we take our lesson in Iob Iob. 7.1 Vita militia mans life is a warfare man might have lived at peace Greg. he himselfe chose a rebellious warre and now quod volens expetiit nolens portat that warre which he willingly embarked himselfe in at first though it be against his will now he must goe through with In Iob we have our lesson and in S. Paul we have our Law Eph 63. Take ye the whole armour of God that ye may be able having done all to stand that is that having overcome one temptation you may stand in battle against the next for it is not adoloscentia militia but vita that we should think to triumph if we had overcome the heat and intemperance of youth but we must fight it out to our lives end And then we have the reward of this lesson and of this law limited nemo coronatur no man is crowned except he fight according to this law that is 2 Tim. 2.5 he persever to the end And as we have our lesson in Iob our rule and reward in the Apostle who were both great Commanders
walk by faith and not by sight we are absent from the Lord. 2 Cor. 5.6 Faith is a blessed presence but compared with heavenly vision it is but an absence though it create and constitute in us a possibility a probability a kinde of certainty of salvation yet that faith which the best Christian hath is not so far beyond that sight of God which the naturall man hath as that sight of God which I shall have in heaven is above that faith which we have now in the highest exaltation Therefore there belongs a consideration to that which is added by our Apostle here That the knowledge which I have of God here even by faith through the ordinances of the Church is but a knowledge in part Now I know in part That which we call in part the Syriack translates Modicum ex multis Ex parte Though we know by faith yet for all that faith it is but a little of a great deale that we know yet because though faith be good evidence yet faith is but the evidence of things not seen Heb. 11.1 And there is better evidence of them when they are seen For if we consider the object we cannot beleeve so much of God nor of our happinesse in him as we shall see then For when it is said that the heart comprehends it not certainly faith comprehends it not neither And if we consider the manner faith it self is but darknesse in respect of the vision of God in heaven For those words of the Prophet I will search Ierusalem with Candles are spoken of the times of the Christian Church Zeph. 1.12 and of the best men in the Christian Church yet they shall be searched with Candles some darknesse shall be found in them To the Galatians well instructed and well established Gal. 4.9 the Apostle sayes Now after ye have knowen God or rather are knowen of God The best knowledge that we have of God here even by faith is rather that he knows us then that we know him And in this Text it is in his own person that the Apostle puts the instance Now I I an Apostle taught by Christ himselfe know but in part And therefore as S. Augustine saith Sunt quasi cunabula charitatis Dei quibus diligimus proximum The love which we beare to our neighbour is but as the Infancy but as the Cradle of that love which we beare to God so that sight of God which we have In speculo in the Glasse that is in nature is but Cunabula fidei but the infancy but the cradle of that knowledge which we have in faith and yet that knowledge which we have in faith is but Cunabula visionis the infancy and cradle of that knowledge which we shall have when we come to see God face to face Faith is infinitely above nature infinitely above works even above those works which faith it self produces as parents are to children the tree to the fruit But yet faith is as much below vision and seeing God face to face And therefore though we ascribe willingly to faith more then we can expresse yet let no man think himself so infallibly safe because he finds that he beleeves in God as he shall be when he sees God The faithfullest man in the Church must say Domine adauge Lord increase my faith He that is least in the kingdome of heaven shal never be put to that All the world is but Speculum a glasse in which we see God The Church it self and that which the Ordinance of the Church begets in us faith it self is but aenigma a dark representation of God to us till we come to that state To see God face to face and to know as also we are knowen Now Calum Sphaera as for the sight of God here our Theatre was the world our Medium and glasse was the creature and our light was reason And then for our knowledge of God here our Academy was the Church our Medium the Ordinances of the Church and our Light the light of faith so we consider the same Termes first for the sight of God and then for the knowledge of God in the next life First the Sphear the place where we shall see him is heaven He that asks me what heaven is meanes not to heare me but to silence me He knows I cannot tell him When I meet him there I shall be able to tell him and then he will be as able to tell me yet then we shall be but able to tell one another This this that we enjoy is heaven but the tongues of Angels the tongues of glorified Saints shall not be able to expresse what that heaven is for even in heaven our faculties shall be finite Heaven is not a place that was created for all place that was created shall be dissolved God did not plant a Paradise for himself and remove to that as he planted a Paradise for Adam and removed him to that But God is still where he was before the world was made And in that place where there are more Suns then there are Stars in the Firmament for all the Saints are Suns And more light in another Sun The Sun of righteousnesse the Son of Glory the Son of God then in all them in that illustration that emanation that effusion of beams of glory which began not to shine 6000. yeares ago but 6000. millions of millions ago had been 6000. millions of millions before that in those eternall in those uncreated heavens shall we see God This is our Spheare Medium Revelatio sui and that which we are fain to call our place and then our Medium our way to see him is Patefactio sui Gods laying himself open his manifestation his revelation his evisceration and embowelling of himselfe to us there Doth God never afford this patefaction this manifestation of himself in his Essence to any in this life We cannot answer yea nor no without offending a great part in the Schoole so many affirm so many deny that God hath been seen in his Essence in this life There are that say That it is fere de fide little lesse then an article of faith that it hath been done And Aquinas denies it so absolutely as that his Followers interpret him de absoluta potentia That God by his absolute power cannot make a man remaining a mortall man and under the definition of a mortall man capable of seeing his Essence as we may truly say that God cannot make a beast remaining in that nature capable of grace or glory S. Augustine speaking of discourses that passed between his mother and him not long before her death sayes Perambulavimus cuncta mortalia ipsum coelum We talked our selves above this earth and above all the heavens Venimus in mentes nostras transcendimus eas We came to the consideration of our owne mindes and our owne soules and we got above our own soules that is to
Father in the Son by the Holy Ghost The verdict is That we are the children of God The Spirit beareth c. First then 1 Part. a slacknesse a supinenesse in consideration of the divers significations of this word Spirit hath occasioned divers errours when the word hath been intended in one sense and taken in another All the significations will fall into these foure for these foure are very large It is spoken of God or of Angels or of men or of inferiour creatures And first of God it is spoken sometimes Essentially sometimes Personally God is a Spirit Iohn 4.24 Esay 31.3 and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth So also The Aegyptians are men and not God and their horses flesh and not spirit For if they were God they were Spirit So God altogether and considered in his Essence is a Spirit but when the word Spir it is spoken not essentially of all but personally of one then that word designeth Spiritum sonctum The holy Ghost Goe and baptize Mar. 28.19 In the name of the Father and Sonne Spiritus sancti and the holy Ghost And as of God so of Angels also it is spoken in two respects of good Angels Sent farth to minister for them Heb. 1.14 1 King 22.22 Hosea 4.12 Esay 19.3 that shall be heires of salvation And evill Angels The lying Spirit that would deceive the King by the Prophet The Spirit of Whoredome spirituall whoredome when the people ask counsell of their stocks And Spiritus vertiginis The spirit of giddinesse of perversities as we translate it which the Lord doth mingle amongst the people in his judgement Of man also is this word Spirit spoken two wayes The Spirit is sometimes the soule Psal 31.5 Into thy hands I commend my Spirit sometimes it signifies those animall spirits which conserve us in strength and vigour The poyson of Gods arrowes drinketh up my spirit And also Job 6.4 Luke 1.47 the superiour faculties of the soule in a regenerate man as there My soule doth magnifie the Lord and my spirit rejoyceth in God my Saviour And then lastly of inferiour creatures it is taken two wayes too of living creatures The God of the spirits of all flesh Numb 16.22 Ezek. 1.21 and of creatures without life other then a metaphoricall life as of the winde often and of Ezckiels wheeles The Spirit of life was in the wheeles Now in this first Branch of this first Part of our Text it is not of Angels nor of men nor of other creatures but of God and not of God Essentially but Personally that is of the Holy Ghost Origen sayes Antecessores nostri The Ancients before him had made this note That where we finde the word Spirit without any addition it is alwayes intended of the Holy Ghost Before him and after him they stuck much to that note for S. Hierome makes it too and produces many examples thereof but yet it will not hold in all Didymus of Alexandria though borne blinde in this light saw light and writ so of the Holy Ghost as S. Hierome thought that work worthy of his Translation And hee gives this note That wheresoever the Apostles intend the Holy Ghost they adde to the word Spirit Sanctus Holy Spirit or at least the Article The The Spirit And this note hath good use too but yet it is not universally true If we supply these notes with this That whensoever any such thing is said of the Spirit as cannot consist with the Divine nature there it is not meant of the Holy Ghost but of his gifts or of his working as when it is said The Holy Ghost was not yet for his person was alwayes And where it is said Iohn 7.39 1 The fl 5.19 Quench not the Holy Ghost for the Holy Ghost himselfe cannot be quenched we have enough for our present purpose Here it is Spirit without any addition and therefore fittest to bee taken for the Holy Ghost And it is Spirit with that emphaticall article The The Spirit and in that respect also fittest to be so taken And though it be fittest to understand the Holy Ghost here not of his person but his operation yet it gives just occasion to looke piously and to consider modestly who and what this person is that doth thus worke upon us And to that purpose we shall touch upon foure things First His Universality He is All He is God Secondly His Singularity He is One One Person Thirdly His roote from whence he proceeded Father and Son And fourthly His growth his emanation his manner of proceeding for our order proposed at first leading us now to speak of this third person of the Trinity it will be almost necessary to stop a little upon each of these First then the Spirit mentioned here the Holy Ghost is God and if so Deus equall to Father and Son and all that is God He is God because the Essentiall name of God is attributed to him He is called Jehovah Iebovah sayes to Esay Goe and tell this people Esay 6.9 Acts 28.29 c. And S. Paul making use of these words in the Acts he sayes Well spake the Holy Ghost by the Prophet Esay The Essentiall name of God is attributed to him and the Essentiall Attributes of God He is Eternall so is none but God where we heare of the making of every thing else in the generall Creation we heare that the Spirit of God moved Gen. 1.2 but never that the Spirit was made He is every where so is none but God Psal 139.7 1 Cor. 2.10 whither shall Igoe from thy Spirit He knowes all things so doth none but God The Spirit searcheth all things yca the deep things of God He hath the name of God the Attributes of God and he does the works of God Is our Creator our Maker God Iob 33.4 The Spirit of God hath mademe Is he that can change the whole Creation and frame of nature in doing miracles God The Spirit lead the Israelites miraculously through the wildernesse Esay 63.14 Esay 48.16 Will the calling and the sending of the Prophets shew him to be God The Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me Is it argument enough for his God-head Esay 61.1 Luke 4.18 that he sent Christ himselfe Christ himselfe applies to himselfe that The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and hath anointed me to preach Acts 1.16 Iohn 16.13 He foretold future things The Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spoke before sayes S. Peter He establishes present things The Spirit of truth guides into all truth And he does this by wayes proper onely to God for our illumination is his He shall receive of me Ver. 14. 1 Cor. 6.11 Iohn 3.5 Iohn 16.8 sayes Christ and shew it you Our Justification is his Ye are justified in the name of the Lord Iesus by the Spirit of God Our regeneration is his There is a
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
does not call man with an Ecce To behold him and then hide himselfe from him he does not bid him looke and then strike him blinde We are all borne blinde at first In Baptisme God gives us that Collyrium that eye-salve by which we may see and actually by the power of that medicine we do all see Mat. 7. â— more then the Gentiles do But yet Ecce trabs in oculis sayes Christ Behold there is a beame in our eye that is Naturall infirmities But for all this beame when Christ bids us behold we are able to see by Christs light our owne imperfections though we have that beame yet we are able to see that we have it And when this light which Christ gives us which is his first grace brings us to that then Christ proceeds so that which followes there Projice trabem Cast out the beame that is in thine eye and so we become able by that succeeding grace to overcome our former impediments If Christ bid us behold he gives us light if he bid us cast out the beame he gives us strength There is an Ecce neutus cast upon Zachary Behold thou shalt be dumbe Luke 1.20 God punished Zacharies incredulity with dumbnesse But there is never an Ecce caecus Behold thou shalt be blinde That God should call man to see and then blow out the candle or not shew him a candle if he were in utter darknesse for this is an Ecce directionis an Ecce lucernae God cals and he directs and lightens our paths never reproach God so impiously as to suspect that when he cals he does not meane that we should come Well then Vox with what doth he enlighten thee Why Ecce vox Behold a voyce saying Now for this voyce in the Text by whom it was heard as also by whom the Dove that descended was seen is sometimes disputed and with some perplexity amongst the Fathers Some thinke it was to Christ alone because two of the Euangelists Mark and Luke record the words in that phrase Tu es filius not as we reade it in our Text This is but Thou art my beloved Sonne But so there had been no use neither of the Dove nor of the voyce for Christ himselfe lacked no testimony that he was that Sonne Some thinke it was to Christ and Iohn Baptist and not to the company Because say they The mysterie of the Trinity was not to be presented to them till a farther and maturer preparation And therefore they observe that the next manifestation of Christ and so of the Trinity Mat. 17. by a like voyce was almost three years after this in his Transfiguration after he had manifested this doctrine by a long preaching amongst them And yet even then it was but to his Apostles and but to a few of them neither and those few forbidden to publish too and how long Till his resurrection when by that resurrection he had confirmed them then it was time to acquaint them with the Doctrine of the Trinity But for the Doctrine of the Trinity as mysterious as it is it is insinuated and conveyed unto us even in the first verse of the Bible in that extraordinary phrase Creavit Dii Gods Gods in the plurall created heaven and earth There is an unity in the action it is but Creavit in the singular and yet there is a plurality in the persons it is not Deus God but Dij Gods The Doctrine of the Trinity is the first foundation of our Religion and no time is too early for our faith The simplest may beleeve it and all time is too early for our reason The wisest cannot understand it And therefore as Chrysostome is well followed in his opinion so he is well worthy to be followed That both the Dove was seen and the voyce was heard by all the company for neither was necessary to Christ himselfe And the voyce was not necessary to Iohn Baptist because the signe which was to governe him was the Dove He that sent me said upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit come down and tarry still it is he that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost But to the company both voyce and Dove were necessary for if the voyce had come alone they might have thought that that testimony had been given of Iohn of whom they had as yet a far more reverend opinion then of Christ And therefore God first points out the person and by the Dove declares him to all which was He and then by that voyce declares farther to them all what He was This benefit they had by being in that company they saw and they heard things conducing to their salvation for though God worke more effectually upon those particular persons in the Congregation who by a good use of his former graces are better disposed then others yet to the most gracelesse man that is if he be in the Congregation God vouchsafes to speake and would be heard They that differ in the persons Via Creaturae who heard it agree in the Reason All they heard it in all their opinions to whom it was necessary to heare it And it is necessary to all us to have this meanes of understanding and beleeving to heare Therefore God gives to all that shall be saved vocem his voyce We consider two other wayes of imprinting the knowledge of God in man first in a darke and weake way the way of Nature and the book of Creatures and secondly in that powerfull way the way of Miracles But these and all between these are uneffectuall without the Word When David sayes of the Creatures Psal 19.3 Rom. 10.17 There is no speech nor language where their voyce is not heard the voyce of the Creature is heard over all S. Paul commenting upon those words says They have heard All the world hath heard but what The voyce of the Creature now that is true so much all the world had heard then and does heare still But the hearing that S. Paul intends there is such a hearing as begets faith and that the voyce of Creature reaches not to The voyce of the Creature alone is but a faint voyce a low voyce nor any voyce till the voyce of the Word inanimate it for then when the Word of God hath taught us any mystery of our Religion then the booke of Creatures illustrates and establishes and cherishes that which we have received by faith in hearing the Word As a stick bears up and succours a vine or any plant more precious then it selfe but yet gave it not life at first nor gives any nourishment to the root now so the assistance of reason and the voyce of the Creature in the preaching of Nature works upon our faith but the roote and the life is in the faith it selfe The light of nature gives a glimmering before and it gives a reflexion after faith but the meridianall noone is in faith Now if we consider the other way the way of
colour of that exclude necessary things Howsoever you have delivered your selves to the mercy of God and he hath delivered a seale of his mercy to you inwardly in his Spirit outwardly in his Sacrament yet there are Amarae sagittae ex dulci manu Dei Nazian as Nazianzen calls afflictions after repentance Sharp arrowes out of the sweet hand of God Corrections by which God intends to establish us in that spirituall health to which our repentance by his grace hath brought us Remember still that this which David did for the present and that which he promised be would doe for the future both together made up the reason of his prayer to God by which he desired God in the former verses to returne to him to deliver his soule and to save him He had had no reason no ground of his prayer though he had done something already if he had not proposed to himselfe something more to be done There is a preparation before and there is a preservation after required at our hands if wee studie a perfect recovery and cure of our soules Gregor And as S. Gregory notes well there is a great deale of force in Davids Possessive in his word of appropriation Meus lectus meus and Oculus meus It is his bed that he washed and they are his eyes that washed it He bore the affliction himselfe and trusted not to that which others had suffered by way of Supererogation Sometimes when the children of great persons offend at Schoole another person is whipped for them and that affects them and works upon a good nature but if that person should take Physick for them in a sicknesse it would doe them no good Gods corrections upon others may worke by way of example upon thee but because thou art sick for physicke take it thy selfe Trust not to the treasure of the Church neither the imaginary treasure of the Church of Rome which pretends an inexhaustible mine of the works of other men to distribute and bestow No nor to the true treasure of the true Church that is Absolution upon Confession and Repentance No trust not to the merits of Christ himselfe in their application to thee without a Lectus tuus and an Oculus tuus except thou remember thy sins in thy bed and poure out thy teares from thine eyes and fulfill the sufferings of Christ in thy selfe Nothing can be added to Christs merits that is true but something must be added to thee a disposition in thee for the application of that which is his Not that thou canst begin this disposition in thy selfe till God offer it but that thou maist resist it now it is offered and reject it againe after it is received Trust not in others not in the Church nor in Christ himselfe so as to doe nothing for thy selfe Nor trust not in that which thou doest for thy selfe so as at any time to thinke thou hast done enough and needest do no more But when thou hast past the signet that thou hast found the signature of Gods hand and seale in a manifestation that the marks of his Grace are upon thee when thou hast past his privy Seale That his Spirit beares witnesse with thy spirit that thy repentance hath beene accepted by him When thou hast past the great Seale in the holy and blessed Sacrament publiquely administred doe not suspect the goodnesse of God as though all were not done that were necessary for thy salvation if thou wert to have thy transmigration out of this world this houre but yet as long as thou continuest in the vale of tentations continue in the vale of teares too and though thou have the seale of Reconciliation plead that seale to the Church which is Gods Tribunall and judgement seat upon earth in a holy life and works of example to others and looke daylie looke hourely upon the Ita quod of that pardon upon the Covenants and Conditions with which it is given That if by neglecting those medicinall helps those auxiliary forces those subsidies of the kingdome of Heaven those after-afflictions chuse whether you will call them by the name of Penance or no you relapse into former sins your present repentance and your present seale of that Repentance the Sacrament shall rise up against you at the last day and to that sentence you did not feed you did not cloathe you did not harbour me in the poore shall this be added as the aggravation of all you did Repent and you did receive the Seale but you did not pursue that repentance nor performe the conditions required at your hands But we are here met by Gods gracious goodnesse in a better disposition with a sincere repentance of all our former sinnes and with a deliberate purpose as those Israelites made their powring out of water a testimony of dissolving themselves into holy teares to make this fast from bodily sustenance an inchoation of a spirituall fast in abstinence from all that may exasperate our God against us That so though not for that yet thereby our prayers may be the more acceptable to our glorious God in our gracious Saviour To him that sits upon the throne and to the Lambe first that as he is the King of Kings he will establish and prosper that Crowne which he hath set upon the head of his Anointed over us here and hereafter Crowne that Crowne with another Crowne a better Crowne a Crowne of immarcescible glory in the Kingdome of Heaven and in the meane time make him his Bulwarke and his Rampart against all those powers which seeke to multiply Miters or Crownes to the disquiet and prejudice of Christendome And then That as he is the Lord of Lords he will inspire them to whom he hath given Lordship over others in this world with a due consideration that they also have a Lord over them even in this world and that he and they and we have one Lord over us all in the other world That as he is the Bishop and high Priest over our Souls he vouchsafe to continue in our Bishops a holy will and a competent power to super-intend faithfully over his Church that they for their parts when they depart from hence may deliver it back into his hands in the same forme and frame in which his blessed Spirit delivered it into their hands in their predecessors in the Primitive institution thereof That as he is the Angel of the great Counsayle he vouchsafe to direct the great Counsayle of this Kingdome to consider still that as he works in this world by meanes So it concernes his glory that they expedite the supply of such meanes as may doe his worke and may carry home the testimony of good Consciences now and in their posterity have the thanks of posterity for their behaviour in this Parliament That as he is the God of peace he will restore peace to Christendome That as he is the Lord of Hosts he will fight our battayls who have no other end