can resolve thee scatter thee annihilate thee with a word and yet afford so many words so many houres conferences so many Sermons to reclaime thee why persecutest Thou Him Answer this question with Sauls answer to this question by another question Domine quid me vis facere Lord what wilt thou have me do Deliver thy selfe over to the will of God and God shall deliver thee over as he did Saul to Ananias provide thee by his Ministery in his Ordinance means to rectifie thee in all dejection of spirit light to cleare thee in all perplexities of conscience in the wayes of thy pilgrimage and more and more effectuall seals thereof at the houre of thy transmigration into his joy and thine eternall rest SERM. XLVII Preached at S. Pauls The Sunday after the Conversion of S. PAUL 27. Ian. 1627. ACT. 20.25 And now Behold I know that all yee among whom I have gone preaching the kingdome of God shall see my face no more WHen S. Chrysostome calls Christmas day Metropolin omnium festorum The Metropolitan Holyday the principall festivall of the Church he is likely to intend onely those festivalls which were of the Churches later institution and means not to enwrap the Sabbath in that comparison As S. Augustine sayes of the Sacrament of Baptisme that it is Limen Ecclesiae The threshold over which we step into the Church so is Christmas day Limen festorum The threshold over which we step into the festivall celebration of some other of Christs actions and passions and victorious overcommings of all the Acts of his Passion such as his Resurrection and Ascension for but for Christmas day we could celebrate none of these dayes And so that day is Limen festorum The threshold over which we passe to the rest But the Sabbath is not onely Limen or Ianua Ecclesiae The doore by which we enter into the Church and into the consideration what the Church hath done but Limen mundi The doore by which we enter into the consideration of the World how and when the World was made of nothing at the Creation without which we had been so far from knowing that there had been a Church or that there had been a God as that we our selves had had no being at all And therefore as our very being is before all degrees of well-being so is the Sabbath which remembers us of our being before all other festivalls that present and refresh to us the memory of our well-being Especially to us to whom it is not onely a Sabbath as the Sabbath is a day of Rest in respect of the Creation but Dies Dominicus The Lords day in respect of the Redemption of the world because the consummation of that worke of Redemption for all that was to be done in this world which was the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus was accomplished upon that day Levit. 23. which is our Sabbath But yet as it did please God to accompany the Great day the Sabbath with other solemne dayes too The Passeover and Pentecost Trumpets and Tabernacles and others and to call those other dayes Sabbaths as well as the Sabbath it selfe so since he is pleased that in the Christian Church other dayes of Holy Convocations should also be instituted I make account that in some measure I do both offices both for observing those particular festivalls that fall in the weeke and also for the making of those particular festivalls to serve the Sabbath when upon the Sabbath ensuing or preceding such or such a festivall in the weeke I take occasion to speake of that festivall which fell into the compasse of that weeke for by this course that festivall is not pretermitted nor neglected the particular festivall is remembred And then as God receives honour in the honour of his Saints so the Sabbath hath an honour when the festivalls and commemorations of those Saints are reserved to waite upon the Sabbath Hence is it that as elsewhere I often do so that is Celebrate some festivall that fals in the weeke upon the Sabbath so in this place upon this very day I have done the like and returne now to do so againe that is to celebrate the memory of our Apostle S. Paul to day though there be a day past since his day was in the ordinary course to have been celebrated The last time that I did so I did it in handling those words And he fell to the earth and heard a voyce saying Saul Saul why persecutest thou me which was the very act of his Conversion A period and a passage which the Church celebrates in none but in S. Paul though many others were strangely converted too she celebrates none but his In the words chosen for this day And now behold I know c. wee shall reduce to your memories first His proceeding in the Church after he was called I have gone preaching the kingdome of God among you And then the ease the reposednes the acquiescence that he had in that knowledge which God by his Spirit had given him of the approach of his dissolution and departure out of this life I know that all you shall see my face no more As those things which we see in a glasse for the most part must be behinde us so that that makes our transmigration in death comfortable unto us must be behinde us in the testimony of a good Conscience for things formerly done Now behold I know that all yee among whom I have gone c. In handling of which words our Method shall be this Our generall parts Divisio being as we have already intimated these two His way and his End His painfull course and his cheerfull finishing of his course His laborious battaile and his victorious triumph In the first I have gone preaching the kingdome of God among you wee shall see first That there is a Transivi as well as a Requievi acceptable to God A discharge of a Duty as well in going from one place to another as in a perpetuall Residence upon one Transivi sayes our Apostle I have gone among you But then in a second consideration in that first part That that makes his going acceptable to God is because he goes to preach Transivi praedicans I have gone preaching And then lastly in that first part That that that makes his Preaching acceptable is that he preached the kingdome of God Transivi praedicans regnum Dei I have gone amongst you preaching the kingdome of God And in these three characters of S. Pauls Ministery first Labour and Assiduity And then Labour bestowed upon the right means Preaching And lastly Preaching to the right end to edification advancing the kingdome of God we shall determine our first part In our second part we passe from his Transition to his Transmigration from his going up and downe in the world to his departing out of the world And now behold I know that yee shall see my face no more In which we
the sorenesse of Circumcision they slew them all Gods justice required bloud but that bloud is not spilt but poured from that head to our hearts into the veines and wounds of our owne soules There was bloud shed but no bloud lost Before the Law was thorowly established when Moses came downe from God and deprehended the people in that Idolatry to the Calfe before he would present himselfe as a Mediator betweene God and them Exod. 32.28 32. for that sinne he prepares a sacrifice of bloud in the execution of three thousand of those Idolaters and after that he came to his vehement prayer in their behalfe And in the strength of the Law Heb. 9 22. all things were purged with bloud and without bloud there is no remission Whether we place the reason of this in Gods Justice which required bloud or whether we place it in the conveniency that bloud being ordinarily received to be sedes animae the seat and residence of the soule The soule for which that expiation was to be could not be better represented nor purified then in the state and seat of the soule in bloud or whether we shut up our selves in an humble sobriety to inquire into the reasons of Gods actions thus we see it was no peace no remission but in bloud Nor is that so strange as that which followes in the next place per sanguinem ejus by his bloud Before Per sanguinem ejus Psal 50.10 under the Law it was in sanguine hircorum vitulorum In the bloud of Goats and Bullocks here it is in sanguine ejus in his bloud Not his as he claims all the beasts of the forrest all the cattle upon a thousand hils and all the fowles of the mountaines to be his not his as he sayes of Gold and Silver The Silver is mine and the Gold is mine Hag. 2.8 not his as he is Lord and proprietary of all by Creation so all bloud is his no nor his as the bloud of all the Martyrs was his bloud which is a neare relation and consanguinity but his so as it was the precious bloud of his body the seat of his soule the matter of his spirits the knot of his life This bloud he shed for me and I have bloud to shed for him too though he call me not to the tryall nor to the glory of Martyrdome Sanguis animae meae voluntas mea The bloud of my soule is my will Bern. Scindatur vena ferro compunctionis open a veine with that knife remorce compunction ut si non sensus certe consensus peccati effluat That though thou canst not bleed out all motions to sinne thou maist all consent thereunto Noli esse nimium justus noli sapere plus quam oportet St. Bernard makes this use of those Counsels Be not righteous overmuch nor be not overwise Ecces 7.16 Cui putas venae parcendum si justitia sapientia egent minutione what veine maist thou spare if thou must open those two veines righteousnesse and wisedome If they may be superfluously abundant if thou must bleed out some of thy Righteousnesse and some of thy wisedome cui venae parcendum at what veine must thou not bleed Tostat in Levit fo 45. D. Now in all sacrifices where bloud was to be offerd the fat was to be offerd to If thou wilt sacrifice the bloud of thy soule as St. Bernard cals the will sacrifice the fat too If thou give over thy purpose of continuing in thy sin give over the memory of it and give over all that thou possessest unjustly and corruptly got by that sinne else thou keepest the fat from God though thou give him the bloud If God had given over at his second daies work we had had no sunne no seasons If at his fift we had had no beeing If at the sixt no Sabbath but by proceeding to the seventh we are all and we have all Naaman 2 Reg. 5.14 who was out of the covenant yet by washing in Jordan seven times was cured of his leprosie seaven times did it even in him but lesse did not Tostat in Levit 4. q. 16. The Priest in the Law used a seven-fold sprinkling of bloud upon the Altar and we observe a seven-fold shedding of bloud in Christ In his Circumcision and in his Agony in his fulfilling of that Prophesie gen as vellicantibus I gave my cheeks to them that plucked off the haire and in his scourging Esay 50.6 in his crowning and in his nayling and lastly in the piercing of his side These seven channels hath the bloud of thy Saviour found Poure out the bloud of thy soule sacrifice thy stubborne and rebellious will seaven times too seaven times that is every day and seaven times every day for so often a just man falleth And then Prov. 24.16 how low must that man lie at last if he fall so often and never rise upon any fall and therefore raise thy self as often and as soone as thou fallest Iericho would not fall Jos 6. but by being compassed seaven dayes and seaven times in one day Compasse thy selfe comprehend thy selfe seaven times many times and thou shalt have thy losse of bloud supplied with better bloud with a true sense of that peace which he hath already made and made by bloud and by his owne bloud and by the bloud of his Crosse which is the last branch of this second part Greater love hath no man then to lay downe his life for his friend yet he that said so Crux Joh. 15.13 did more then so more then lay downe his life for he exposed it to violences and torments and all that for his enemies But doth not the necessity diminish the love where a testament is there must also of necessity be the death of the testator Heb. 9.16 was there then a necessity in Christs dying simply a necessity of coaction there was not such as is in the death of other men naturall or violent by the hand of Justice There was nothing more arbitrary more voluntary more spontaneous then all that Christ did for man And if you could consider a time before the contract between the Father and him had passed for the redemption of man by his death we might say that then there was no necessity upon Christ that he must dye But because that contract was from all eternity Luc. 24.26 supposing that contract that this peace was to be made by his death there entred the oportuit pati That Christ ought to suffer all these things and to enter into his glory And so as for his death so for the manner of his death by the Crosse it was not of absolute necessity and yet it was not by casualty neither not because he was to suffer in that Nation which did ordinarily punish such Malefactors such as he was accused to be seditious persons with that manner of death but all this proceeded ex
a determined purpose to doe some good works and yet this light not shine out No man can more properly be said to hide his light under a bushell which because Christ sayes in the verse before our Text no man does certainly no man should doe then he who hath disposed some part of his estate to pious uses but hides it in his will and locks up that will in his cabinet For in this case though there be light yet it does not shine out Your gold and your silver is cankered sayes S. Iames and the rust of them shall be a witnesse James 5.3 and shall eate your flesh as it were fire He does not say the gold and the silver it self as reproving the ill getting of it but the rust the hiding the concealing thereof shall be this witnesse against thee this executioner upon thee That man dyes in an ill state of whose faith we have had no evidence till after his death his executors meet and open his Will and then publish some Legacies to pious uses And we had no evidence before if he had done no good before For shew me thy faith without thy works James 2.18 sayes the Apostle and he proposes it as an impossible thing impossible to shew it impossible to have it And therefore as good works are our owne so are they never so properly our owne as when they are done with our owne hands for this is the true shining of our light the emanation from us upon others And so have you the three peeces which constitute our first part the precept Let your light shine before men The light it selfe not the light of nature nor of Baptisme nor of Adoption but the light of good works And then the Appropriation of this light how these workes are ours though the goodnesse thereof be onely from God And lastly the emanation of this light upon others which cannot well be said to be an emanation of our light of light from us except it be whilst we are we that is alive And so we passe to those many particulars which frame our second part the reason and the end of this That men may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven In this end our beginning is ut videant that men may see it The apparitions in old times were evermore accompanied with lights but they were private lights 2. Part. Vt videant such an old woman or such a child saw a light but non videbant homines it did not shine out so that men might see this light We have a story delivered by a very pious man Cantiprat l. 1. c. 9. and of the truth whereof he seemes to be very well assured that one Conradus a devout Priest had such an illustration such an irradiation such a coruscation such a light at the tops of those fingers which he used in the consecration of the Sacrament as that by that light of his fingers ends he could have reade in the night as well as by so many Candles But this was but a private light non viderunt homines It did not shine out Epist 205. ad Cyrill Jerosolym so that men might see it Blessed S. Augustine reports if that Epistle be S. Augustines that when himselfe was writing to S. Hierome to know his opinion of the measure and quality of the Joy and Glory of Heaven suddenly in his Chamber there appeared ineffabile lumen sayes he an unspeakable an unexpressible light nostr is invisum temporibus such a light as our times never saw and out of that light issued this voyce Hieronymi anima sum I am the soule of that Hierome to whom thou art writing who this houre dyed at Bethlem and am come from thence to thee c. But this was but a private light and whatsoever S. Augustine saw who was not easily deceived nor would deceive others non videbant homines this light did not shine so as that men might see it Here in our Text there is a light required that men may see Those lights of their apparitions we cannot see There is a light of ours which our adversaries may see and will not which is truly the light of this Text the light of good works Though our zeale to good works shine out assiduously day by day in our Sermons and shine out powerfully in the Homilies of our Church composed expresly to that purpose and shine out actually in our many sumptuous buildings and rich endowments in which works we of this Kingdome in this last Century since the Reformation of Religion have perhaps exceeded our Fathers in any one hundred of yeares whilst they lived under the Romane perswasion yet still they cry out we are enemies of this light and abhorre good works As I have heard them in some obscure places abroad Preach that here in England we had not onely no true Church no true Priesthood no true Sacraments but that we have no materiall Churches no holy Convocations no observing of Sundayes or Holy dayes no places to serve God in so I have heard them Preach that we doe not onely not advance but that we cry downe and discredit and disswade and discountenance the doctrine of good works It is enough to say to them as the Angel said to the Devill Increpet te Dominus The Lord rebuke thee Iude 9. And the Lord does rebuke them in enabling us to proceed in these pious works which with so notorious falshood they deny And we doe rebuke them Heb. 10.24 the best and most powerfull way in that as the Apostle sayes we consider one another consider the necessities of others and provoke one another to love and good workes But then if this be Gods end in our good works ut videant homines that men may see them Mat. 6.1 why is Christ so earnest in this very sermon as to say Take heed you do not your almes before men to be seene of them Is there no contradiction in these far from it The intent of both precepts together make up this doctrine That we doe them not therefore not to that end that men may see them So far we must come that men must see them but we must not rest there for it is but Sic luceat Let your light shine out so it is not let it shine out therefore Our doing of good workes must have a farther end then the knowledge of men as we shall see towards our end anon Men must see them then Opera and see them to be workes Vt videant opera That they may see your works which is a word that implies difficulty and paine and labour and is accompanied with some loathnesse with some colluctation Doe such workes for Gods sake as are hard for thee to doe In such a word does God deliver his Commandement of the Sabbath not that word which in that language signifies ordinary and eafie works but servile and laborious workes toylesome and
Reddiderunt not Acceperunt By faith They that is the Prophets restored the dead not By faith They that is the mothers received their dead But God forbid that naturall affections even in an exaltation and vehement expressing thereof should be thought to destroy faith God forbid that I should conclude an extermination of faith in Moses Dele me Pardon this people or blot my name out of thy Book or in S. Pauls Anathema pro fratribus That he desired to be separated from Christ rather then his brethren should or in Iob or in Ieremy or in Ionas when they expostulate and chide with God himself out of a wearinesse of their lives or in the Lord of Life himself Christ Jesus when he came to an Vt quid dereliquisti To an apprehension that God had forsaken him upon the Crosse God that could restore her cold childe could keep his childe her faith alive in those hot embers of Passion So God did But he did it thus The childe was taken from the mothers warm and soft bosome and carried to the Prophets hard and cold bed Beloved we die in our delicacies and revive not but in afflictions In abundancies the blow of death meets us and the breath of life in misery and tribulation God puts himself to the cost of one of his greatest Miracles for her Faith He raises her childe to life And then he makes up his own work he continues with that childe and makes him a good man There are men whom even Miracles will not improve but this childe we will not dispute it Proâ—â—m in Ionam but accept it from S. Ierome who relates it became a Prophet It was that very Ionas whom God imployed to Ninive in which Service he gave some signes whose Son he was and how much of his mothers passion he inherited in his vehement expostulations with God Be this then our doctrinall instruction for this first example the Widow of Zareptha first that God thinks nothing too deare for his faithfull Children not his great Treasure not his Miracles And then God preserves this faith of theirs in contemplation of which only he bestows this Treasure this Miracle in the midst of the stormes of naturall affections and the tempest of distempered passions and then lastly that he proceeds and goes on in his own goodnesse Here he makes a Carkasse a Man and then that man a Prophet Every day he makes a dead soul a soul again and then that soul a Saint The other example in this point is that Shunamite 2 Reg. 4. whose dead son Elisha restored to life In the beginning of that Chapter you heare of another Widow A certaine woman of the wives of the sons of the Prophets cryed unto Elisha Thy servant my husband is dead And truly a Widow of one of the sons of the Prophets a Church-mans Widow was like enough to be poore enough And yet the Prophet doth not turne upon that way either to restore her dead husband or to provide her another husband but onely enquires how she was left and finding her in poore estate and in debt provides her meanes to pay her debts and to bring up her children and to that purpose procures a miracle from God in the abundant increase of her oyle but he troubles not God for her old or for a new husband But our example to which the Apostle in our Text referres himselfe is not this Widow in the beginning but that Mother in the body of the Chapter who having by Elisha's prayers obtained a Son of God after she was past hope and that Son being dead in her lap in her also as in the former example we may consider how Passion and Faith may consist together She asks her husband leave V. 22. That she might run to the Prophet her zeale her passionate zeale hastned her she would run but not without her husbands leave As S. Ierome forbids a Lady to suffer her daughter to goe to what Churches she would so may there be indiscretion at least to suffer wives to goe to what meetings though holy Convocations they will she does not harbour in her house a person dangerous to the Publike State or to her husbands private state nor a person likely to solicite her chastity though in a Prophets name We may finde women that may have occasion of going to Confession for something that their Confessors may have done to them In this womans case there was no disguise She would faine goe and run but not without her husbands knowledge and allowance Her husband asks her Why she would goe to the Prophet then being neither Sabbath V. 23. nor new Moone He acknowledges that God is likelier to conferre blessings upon Sabbaths and new Moones upon some dayes rather then other That all dayes are not alike with God then when he by his ordinance hath put a difference between them And he acknowledges too that though the Sabbath be the principall of those dayes which God hath seposed for his especiall working yet there are new Moones too there are other Holy-dayes for holy Convocations and for his Divine and Publique Worship besides the Sabbath But this was neither Sabbath nor new Moone neither Sunday nor Holy-day Why would she goe upon that day Beloved though for publique meetings in publique places the Sabbaths and Holy-dayes be the proper dayes yet for conference and counsell and other assistances from the Prophets and Ministers of God all times are seasonable all dayes are Sabbaths She goes to the Prophet she presses with so much passion and so much faith too and so good successe for she had her dead son restored unto her that as from the other so from this example arises this That in a heart absolutely surrendred to God vehement expostulation with God and yet full submission to God and a quiet acquiescence in God A storme of affections in nature and yet a setled calme and a fast anchorage in grace a suspition and a jealousie and yet an assurance and a confidence in God may well consist together In the same instant that Christ said Si possibile he said Veruntamen too though he desired that that cup might passe yet he desired not that his desire should be satisfied In the same instant that the Martyrs under the Altar say Vsque quò Domine How long Lord before thou execute judgement they see that he does execute judgement every day in their behalfe All jealousie in God does not destroy our assurance in him nor all diffidence our confidence nor all feare our faith These women had these naturall weaknesses that is this strength of affections and passions and yet by this faith these women received their dead raised to life againe But yet which is a last consideration Foeminile and our conclusion of this part this being thus put onely in women in the weaker sexe that they desired that they rejoyced in this resuscitation of the dead may well intimate thus much unto us that
God and for the instruction of Iob himselfe What was it we see ver 17. Shall mortall man be more just then God Quid. shall a man be more pure then his Maker Why Did this Doctrine need this solemnity this preparation that Eliphaz gives it v. 8. That it was a thing told him in secret and such a secret that he was able to comprehend but a little at once of it Is there any such incomprehensiblenesse any such difficulty in this Doctrine That no mortall man is more just then God no man more pure then his Maker but that the shallowest capacity may receive it and the shortest memory retaine it Needs this a Revelation an extraordinary conveyance For the generall knowledge it does not Every man will say he knowes mortall man cannot be more just then God nor any man purer then his Maker But for the particular consideration it does Every justifying a sin is a making mortall man more just then God when I come to say With what justice can God punish a nights or an houres sin with everlasting torments Every murmuring at Gods corrections is a making man purer then God when I come to say Does not God depart farther from the purity of his nature when he is an angry and a vindicative God then I from mine when I am an amorous or wanton man We that are but mortall men must not think sayes Eliphaz to make our selves purer then our Maker for they who in their nature are much purer then we the Angels are farre short of that for God put no trust in those servants and those Angells he charged with folly So then though Eliphaz his premisses reach to the Angels and their state his inference and his last purpose fals upon us who by Gods goodnesse become capable of succession into the place of the Angels that are fallen and of an association and assimilation to those Angels that stand And our assimilation is this That as they have in their station we also shall have in ours a faithfull certitude that we shall never fall out of the armes and bosome of our gracious God But then there arises to us a sweeter rellish in considering this stability this perpetuity this infallibility to consist in the continuall succession and supply of grace then in any one act which God hath done for them or us I conceive a more effectual delight when I consider God to have so wrought the confirmation of Angels that he hath taken them into a state of glory and a fruition of his sight and to perpetuate that state unto them perpetually superinfuses upon them more and more beames of that glory then if I should consider God to have confirmed them with such a measure of grace at once as that he could not withdraw or they could forfeit that grace For as there is no doubt made by the Fathers nor by the Schoole but that that light which the Apostles saw at the Transfiguration of Christ was that very light of glory which they see now in Heaven and yet they lost the sight of that light againe so is there no violation of any Article of our Faith if we concurre in opinion with them who say That S. Paul in his extasie in his rapture into the third heaven did see that very light of glory which constitutes the Beatificall Vision and yet did lose that light againe Truly to me this consideration That as his mercy is new every morning so his grace is renewed to me every minute That it is not by yesterdaies grace that I live now but that I have Panem quotidianum and Panem horarium My daily bread my hourely bread in a continuall succession of his grace That the eye of God is open upon me though I winke at his light and watches over me though I sleep That God makes these returnes to my soule and so studies me in every change this consideration infuses a sweeter verdure and imprints a more cheerefull tincture upon my soule then any taste of any one Act done at once can minister unto me God made the Angels all of one naturall condition in nature all alike and God gave them all such grace as that thereby they might have stood and to them that used that grace aright he gave a farther a continuall succession of grace and that is their Confirmation Not that they cannot but that they shall not fall not that they are safe in themselves but by Gods preservation safe for otherwise He puts no trust in those Servants and those Angels he charges with folly This is our case too ours that are under the blessed Election and good purpose of God upon us if we do not fall from him it is not of our selves for left to our selves we should For Iohn 5. so S. Augustine interprets those words of our Saviour Pater operatur My Father worketh still God hath not accomplished his worke upon us in one Act though an Election but he works in our Vocation and he works in our Justification and in our Sanctification he works still And if God himselfe be not so come to his Sabbath and his rest in us but that he works upon us still for all that Election shall any man thinke to have such a Sabbath such a rest in that Election as shall slacken our endeavour to make sure our Salvation and not worke as God works to his ends in us Hence then we banish all self-subsistence all attributing of any power to any faculty of our own either by preoperation in any naturall or morall disposing of our selves before Gods preventing grace dispose us or by such a cooperation as should put God and man in Commission together or make grace and nature Collegues in the worke or that God should do one halfe and man the other or any such post-operation That I should thinke to proceed in the waies of godlinesse by vertue of Gods former grace without imploring and obtaining more in a continuall succession of his concomitant grace for every particular action In Christ I can do all things I need no more but him without Christ I can doe nothing not onely not have him but not know that I need him for I am not better then those Angels of whom it is said He put no trust in those Servants and those Angels hee charged with folly And as we banish from hence all self-subsistence all opinion of standing by our selves so doe we also all impeccability and all impossibility of falling in our selves or in any thing that God hath already done for us if he should discontinue his future grace and leave us to our former stock They that were raised from death to life againe Dorcas Lazarus and the rest were subject to sin in that new life which was given them They that are quickned by the soule of the soule Election it selfe are subject to sin for all that God sees the sins of the Elect and sees their sins to be sins and in his
tastlesse things Compare the Prophets with the Son and even the promises of God 2 King 4.34 in them are faint and dilute things Elishaes staffe in the hand of Gehazi his servant would not recover the Shunamites dead child but when Elisha himselfe came and put his mouth upon the childs mouth that did In the mouth of Christs former servants there was a preparation but effect and consummation in his owne mouth In the Old Testament at first God kissed man and so breathed the breath of life and made him a man In the New Testament Christ kissed man he breathed the breath of everlasting life the holy Ghost into his Apostles and so made the man a blessed man Love is as strong as death Cant. 8.6 As in death there is a transmigration of the soule so in this spirituall love and this expressing of it by this kisse there is a transfusion of the soule too And as we find in Gellius a Poëm of Platoes where he sayes he knew one so extremely passionate Vt parùm affuit quin moreretur in osculo much more is it true in this heavenly union expressed in this kisse as S. Ambrose delivers it Per osculum adhaeret anima Deo et transfunditur spiritus osculantis In this kisse where Righteousnesse and peace have kissed each other In this person where the Divine and the humane nature have kissed each other Psal 85.10 In this Christian Church where Grace and Sacraments visible and invisible meanes of salvation have kissed each other Love is as strong as death my soule is united to my Saviour now in my life as in death and I am already made one spirit with him and whatsoever death can doe this kisse this union can doe that is give me a present an immediate possession of the kingdome of heaven And as the most mountainous parts of this kingdome are as well within the kingdome as a garden so in the midst of the calamities and incommodities of this life I am still in the kingdome of heaven In the Old Testament it was but a contract but per verba de futuro Sponsabo I will marry thee Hos 2.19 Mat. 9.15 but now that Christ is come the Bride-groome is with us for ever and the children of the Bride-chamber cannot mourne Now by this we are slid into our fourth and last branch of our first part Exhortatic The perswasion to come to this holy kisse though defamed by treachery though depraved by licentiousnesse since God invites us to it by so many good uses thereof in his Word It is an imputation laid upon Nero That Neque adveniens neqùe profisciscens That whether comming or going he never kissed any And Christ himselfe imputes it to Simon as a neglect of him That when he came into his house he did not kisse him Luke 7.45 August This then was in use first among kinsfolks In illa simplicitate antiquorum propinqui propinquos osculabantur In those innocent and harmlesse times persons neare in bloud did kisse one another And in that right and not onely as a stranger Iacob kissed Rachel Gen. 29.12 and told her how near of kin he was to her There is no person so neare of kin to thee as Christ Jesus Christ Jesus thy Father as he created thee and thy brother as he took thy nature Thy Father as he provided an inheritance for thee and thy brother as he divided this inheritance with thee and as he dyed to give thee possession of that inheritance He that is Nutritius thy Foster-father who hath nursed thee in his house in the Christian Church and thy Twin-brother so like thee as that his Father and thine in him shall not know you from one another but mingle your conditions so as that he shall find thy sins in him and his righteousnesse in thee Osculamini Filium Kisse this Son as thy kinsman This kisse was also in use as Symbolum subjectionis A recognition of soveraignty or power Pharaoh sayes to Ioseph Thou shalt be over my house Gen. 41.40 and according to thy word shall all my people be ruled there the Originall is All my people shall kisse thy face This is the Lord Paramount the Soveraigne Lord of all The Lord Jesus Iesus Phil. 2.10 Mat. 28.18 at whose name every knee must bow in heaven in earth and in hell Iesus into whose hands all power in heaven and in earth is given Iesus who hath opened a way to our Appeal from all powers upon earth Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soule Iesus Mat. 10.28 who is the Lion and the Lambe too powerfull upon others accessible unto thee Osculamini Filium Kisse this Son as he is thy Soveraigne It was in use likewise In discessu friends parting kissed Gen. 31.15 Act. 20.37 Laban rose up early in the morning and kissed his sons and his daughters and departed And at Pauls departing they fell on his neck and wept and kissed him When thou departest to thy worldly businesses to thy six dayes labour kisse him take leave of him and remember that all that while thou art gone upon his errand and though thou worke for thy family and for thy posterity yet thou workest in his vineyard and dost his worke They kissed too In reditu Esau ran to meet his brother and fell on his neck and kissed him Gen. 33.4 When thou returnest to his house after thy six dayes labour to celebrate his Sabbath kisse him there and be able to give him some good account from Sabbath to Sabbath from week to week of thy stewardship and thou wilt never be bankrupt They kissed in reconciliation David kissed Absalon 2 Sam. 14.33 If thou have not discharged thy stewardship well Restore to man who is damnified therein Confesse to God who hath suffered in that sin Reconcile thy selfe to him and kisse him in the Sacrament in the seale of Reconciliation They kissed in a religious reverence even of false gods I have sayes God 2 King 19 18. seaven thousand knees that have not bowed unto Baal and mouths that have not kissed him Let every one of us kisse the true God in keeping his knees from bowing to a false his lips from assenting his hands from subscribing to an Idolatrous worship And as they kissed In Symbolum concordiae Rom. 16.16 which was another use thereof Salute one another with a holy kisse upon which custome Iustin Martyr sayes Osculum ante Eucharistiam before the Communion the Congregation kissed to testifie their unity in faith in him to whom they were then Sacramentally to be united as well as Spiritually And Tertullian calls it Osculum signaculum Orationis Because they ended their publique Prayers with that seale of unity and concord Let every Congregation kisse him so at every meeting to seale to him a new band a new vow that they will never break in departing from any part of his
heavy burden upon that place but that it was a heavy burden to them to denounce that judgement even upon Gods enemies Our errand our joy our Crowne is Consolation for if we consider the three Persons of the holy blessed and glorious Trinity and their working upon us a third part of their worke if we may so speake is consolation the Father is Power the Son Wisdome and the Holy Ghost Consolation for the Holy Ghost is not in a Vulture that hovers over Armies and infected Cities and feeds upon carcasses But the Holy Ghost is in a Dove that would not make a Congregation a slaughter-house but feeds upon corne corne that hath in nature a disposition to a reviviscence and a repullulation and would imprint in you al the consolation and sense of a possibility of returning to a new and a better life God found me nothing and of that nothing made me Adam left me worse then God found me worse then nothing the child of wrath corrupted with the leaven of Originall sin Christ Jesus found me worse then Adam left me not onely sowred with Originall but spotted and gangrened and dead and buried and putrified in actual and habitual sins and yet in that state redeemed me And I make my selfe worse then Christ found me and in an inordinate dejection of spirit conceive a jealousie and suspition that his merit concernes not me that his blood extends not to my sin And in this last and worst state the Holy Ghost finds me the Spirit of Consolation And he sends a Barnabas a son of Consolation unto me A Barnabas to my sick bed side A Physitian that comforts with hopes and meanes of health A Barnabas to my broken fortune A potent and a loving friend that assists the reparation and the establishing of my state A Barnabas into the Pulpit that restores and rectifies my conscience and scatters and dispels all those clouds that invested it and infested it before That un-imaginable worke of the Creation were not ready for a Sabbath though I be a Creature and a man I could have no Sabbath no rest no peace of conscience That un-expressible worke of the Redemption were not ready for that Seale which our Saviour set to it upon the Crosse in the Consummatum est All were not finished that concerned me if the Holy Ghost were not ready to deliver that which Christ sealed and to witnesse that which were so delivered that that Spirit might ever testifie to my spirit That all that Christ Jesus said and did and suffered was said and done and suffered for my soule Consolation is not all if we consider God but if I consider my selfe and my state Consolation is all Christs meaning then in this place was to establish in his Disciples this Consolation Consolatio vera but thus Si quo minus If it were not thus I would tell you If this were not true consolation I would not delude you I would not entertaine you with false for he is Deus omnium miserationum The God of all mercies and yet he will not shew mercy to them who sin upon presumption So he is Deus omnium Consolationum The God of all Comforts and yet will not comfort them who rely upon the false and miserable comforts of this world How many how very many of us doe otherwise Otherwise to others otherwise to our own Consciences Delude all with false Comforts They would not suffer Christ himselfe to sleepe upon a pillow in a storme but they waked him with that Master carest not thou though we perish When will we wake any Master Mar. 4.38 any upon whom we depend and say Master carest not thou though thou perish We suffer others whom we should instruct and we suffer our selves to passe on to the last gaspe and we never rebuke our Consciences till our Consciences rebuke us at last Alas it is otherwise and you never told us Christ comforts then he disputes not that is not his way He ministers true comfort Domus he flatters not that is not his way And in this true comfort the first beame is That that state which he promises them is a House In my Fathers House c. God hath a progresse house a removing house here upon earth His house of prayer At this houre God enters into as many of these houses as are opened for his service at this houre But his standing house his house of glory is that in Heaven and that he promises them God himselfe dwelt in Tents in this world and he gives them a House in Heaven A House in the designe and survay whereof the Holy Ghost himselfe is figurative the Fathers wanton and the School-men wilde The Holy Ghost in describing this House Rev. 21. fills our contemplation with foundations and walls and gates of gold of precious stones and all materialls that we can call precious The Holy Ghost is figurative And the Fathers are wanton in their spirituall elegancies such as that of S. Augustins if that booke be his Hiems horrens Aestas torrens And Virent prata vernant sata and such other harmonious and melodious and mellifluous cadences of these waters of life But the School-men are wild for as one Author who is afraid of admitting too great a hollownesse in the Earth Munster lest then the Earth might not be said to be solid pronounces that Hell cannot possibly be above three thousand miles in compasse and then one of the torments of Hell will be the throng for their bodies must be there in their dimensions as well as their soules so when the School-men come to measure this house in heaven as they will measure it and the Master God and all his Attributes and tell us how Allmighty and how Infinite he is they pronounce that every soule in that house shall have more roome to it selfe then all this world is We know not that nor see we that the consolation lyes in that we rest in this that it is a House It hath a foundation no Earth-quake shall shake it It hath walls no Artillery shall batter it It hath a roofe no tempest shall pierce it It is a house that affords security and that is one beame And it is Domus patris His Fathers house a house in which he hath interest and that is another beame of his Consolation It was his Fathers and so his And his and so ours Patris for we are not joynt purchasers of Heaven with the Saints but we are co-heires with Christ Jesus We have not a place there because they have done more then enough for themselves but because he hath done enough for them and us too By death we are gathered to our Fathers in nature and by death through his mercy gathered to his Father also Where we shall have a full satisfaction in that wherein S. Philip placed all satisfaction Ostende nobis patrem Lord shew us thy Father and it is enough We shall see his
pacto thus the contract led it to this he was obedient obedient unto death and unto the death of the Crosse Phil. 2.8 By bloud and not onely by comming into this world and assuming our nature which humiliation was an act of infinite value and not by the bloud of his Circumcision or Agony but bloud to death and by no gentler nor nobler death then the death of the Crosse was this peace to be made by him Though then one drop of his bloud had beene enough to have redeemed infinite worlds if it had beene so contracted and so applyed yet he gave us a morning showre of his bloud in his Circumcision and an evening showre at his passion and a showre after Sunset in the piercing of his side And though any death had beene an incomprehensible ransome for the Lord of life to have given for the children of death yet he refused not the death of the Crosse The Crosse to which a bitter curse was nayled by Moses Deut. 21 23. from the beginning he that is hanged is not onely accursed of God as our Translation hath it but he is the curse of God as it is in the Originall not accursed but a curse not a simple curse but the curse of God And by the Crosse which besides the Infamy was so painfull a death as that many men languished many dayes upon it before they dyed And by his bloud of this torture and this shame this painfull and this ignominious death was this peace made In our great work of crucifying our selves to the world too it is not enough to bleed the drops of a Circumcision that is to cut off some excessive and notorious practice of sin nor to bleed the drops of an Agony to enter into a conflict and colluctation of the flesh and the spirit whether we were not better trust in Gods mercy for our continuance in that sin then lose all that pleasure and profit which that sin brings us nor enough to bleed the drops of scourging to be lashed with viperous and venemous tongues by contumelies and slanders nor to bleed the drops of Thornes to have Thornes and scruples enter into our consciences with spirituall afflictions but we must be content to bleed the streames of naylings to those Crosses to continue in them all our lives if God see that necessary for our confirmation and if men will pierce and wound us after our deaths in our good name yea if they will slander our Resurrection as they did Christs if they will say that it is impossible God should have mercy upon such a man impossible that a man of so bad life and so sad and comfortlesse a death should have a joyfull Resurrection here is our comfort as that piercing of Christs side was after the Consummatum est after his passion ended and therefore put him to no paine as that slander of his Resurrection was after that glorious triumph He was risen and had shewed himselfe before and therefore it diminished not his power so all these posthume wounds and slanders after my death after my God and my Soule shall have passed that Dialogue Veni Domine Iesu and euge bone serve That I shall have said upon my death-bed Come Lord Jesu come quickly and he shall have said Well done good and faithfull servant enter into thy Masters joy when I shall have said to him In manus tuas Domine Into thy hands O Lord I commend my spirit And he to me Hodie mecum eris in paradiso This day this minute thou shalt be now thou art with me in Paradise when this shall be my state God shall heare their slanders and maledictions and write them all downe but not in my booke but in theirs and there they shall meet them at Judgement amongst their owne sinnes to their everlasting confusion and finde me in possession of that peace made by bloud made by his bloud made by the bloud of his Crosse which were all the peeces laid out for this second part with which we have done and passe from the qualification of the person It pleased the Father that in him all fulnesse should dwell which was our first part and the Pacification and the way thereof by the bloud of his Crosse to make peace which was our second to the Reconciliation it selfe and the Application thereof to all to whom that Reconciliation appertaines That all things whether they be things in earth or things in heaven might be reconciled unto him All this was done 3. Part. He in whom it pleased the Father that this fulnesse should dwell had made this peace by the bloud of his Crosse and yet after all this the Apostle comes upon that Ambassage 2 Cor. 5.20 We pray ye in Christs stead that ye be reconciled to God So that this Reconciliation in the Text is a subsequent thing to this peace The generall peace is made by Christs death as a generall pardon is given at the Kings comming The Application of this peace is in the Church as the suing out of the pardon is in the Office Ioab made Absaloms peace with his Father Bring the young man againe sayes David to Ioab 2 Sam. 14.22.2.28.24.16 but yet he was not reconciled to him so as that he saw his face in two yeare God hath sounded a Retreat to the Battle As I live saith the Lord I would not the death of a sinner He hath said to the destroyer It is enough stay now thy hand He is pacified in Christ and he hath bound the enemy in chaines Now let us labour for our Reconciliation for all things are reconciled to him in Christ that is offered a way of reconciliation All things in heaven and earth sayes the Apostle And that is so large as that Origen needed not to have extended it to Hell too Origen and conceive out of this place a possibility that the Devils themselves shall come to a Reconciliation with God But to all in Heaven and Earth it appertaines Consider we how First then there is a reconciliation of them in heaven to God In coelis and then of them on earth to God and then of them in heaven and them in earth to one another by the blood of his Crosse If we consider them in heaven to be those who are gone up to heaven from this world by death they had the same reconciliation as we Animae either by reaching the hand of faith forward to lay hold upon Christ before he came which was the case of all under the Law or by reaching back that hand to lay hold upon all that hee had done and suffered when he was come which is the case of those that are dead before us in the profession of the Gospell All that are in heaven and were upon earth are reconciled one way by application of Christ in the Church so that though they be now in heaven yet they had their reconciliation here upon earth But
not Christ meerly as the Son of God but the Son of Mary too And that generation the Holy Ghost hath told us was in the fulnesse of time When the fulnesse of time was come God sent forth c. In which words Divisio we have these three considerations First the time of Christs comming and that was the fulnesse of time And then the maner of his comming which is expressed in two degrees of humiliation one that he was made of a woman the other that he was made under the Law And then the third part is the purpose of his comming which also was twofold for first he came to redeem them who were under the Law All And secondly he came that we we the elect of God in him might receive adoption When the fulnesse of time was come c. For the full consideration of this fulnesse of time 〈◊〉 we shall first consider this fulnesse in respect of the Jews and then in respect of all Nations and lastly in respect of our selves The Jews might have seen the fulnesse of time the Gentiles did in some measure see it and we must if we will have any benefit by it see it too It is an observation of S. Cyril That none of the Saints of God nor such as were noted to be exemplarily religious and sanctified men did ever celebrate with any festivall solemnity their own birth-day Pharaoh celebrated his own Nativity 〈◊〉 40.22 but who would make Pharaoh his example and besides he polluted that festivall with the bloud of one of his servants Herod celebrated his Nativity but who would think it an honor to be like Herod and besides he polluted that festivall with the blood of Iohn Baptist But the just contemplation of the miseries and calamities of this life into which our birth-day is the doore and the entrance is so far from giving any just occasion of a festivall as it hath often transported the best disposed Saints and servants of God to a distemper to a malediction and cursing of their birth-day 〈…〉 Cursed be the day wherein I was born and let not that day wherein my mother bare me be blessed Let the day perish wherein I was born let that day be darknesse Job 3. and let not God regard it from above How much misery is presaged to us when we come so generally weeping into the world that perchance in the whole body of history we reade but of one childe Zoroaster that laughed at his birth What miserable revolutions and changes what downfals what break-necks and precipitations may we justly think our selves ordained to if we consider that in our comming into this world out of our mothers womb we doe not make account that a childe comes right except it come with the head forward and thereby prefigure that headlong falling into calamities which it must suffer after Though therefore the dayes of the Martyrs which are for our example celebrated in the Christian Church be ordinarily called natalitia Martyrum the birth-day of the Martyrs yet that is not intended of their birth in this world but of their birth in the next when by death their soules were new delivered of their prisons here and they newly born into the kingdome of heaven that day upon that reason the day of their death was called their birth-day and celebrated in the Church by that name Onely to Christ Jesus the fulnesse of time was at his birth not because he also had not a painfull life to passe through but because the work of our redemption was an intire work and all that Christ said or did or suffered concurred to our salvation as well his mothers swathing him in little clouts as Iosephs shrowding him in a funerall sheete as well his cold lying in the Manger as his cold dying upon the Crosse as well the puer natus as the consummatum est as well his birth as his death is said to have been the fulnesse of time First we consider it to have been so to the Jews for this was that fulnesse Indeic in which all the prophecies concerning the Messias were exactly fulfilled Dan. 2. Hagg. 2. Mich. 5. Esay 7. That he must come whilest the Monarchy of Rome flourished And before the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed That he must be born in Bethlem That he must be born of a Virgin His person his actions his passion so distinctly prophecyed so exactly accomplished as no word being left unfulfilled this must necessarily be a fulnesse of time So fully was the time of the Messias comming come that though some of the Jews say now that there is no certain time revealed in the Scriptures when the Messias shall come and others of them say that there was a time determined and revealed and that this time was the time but by reason of their great sins he did not come at his time yet when they examine their own supputations they are so convinced with that evidence that this was that fulnesse of time that now they expresse a kinde of conditionall acknowledgement of it by this barbarous and inhumane custome of theirs that they alwayes keep in readinesse the blood of some Christian with which they anoint the body of any that dyes amongst them with these words if Jesus Christ were the Messias then may the blood of this Christian availe thee to salvation So that by their doubt and their implyed consent in this action this was the fulnesse of time when Christ Jesus did come that the Messias should come It was so to the Jews and it was so to the Gentiles too Gontibus It filled those wise men which dwelt so far in the East that they followed the star from thence to Jerusalem Herod was so full of it that he filled the Countrey with streames of innocent bloud and lest he should spare that one innocent childe killed all The two Emperours of Rome Vespasian and Domitian were so full of it that in jealousie of a Messias to come then from that race they took speciall care for the destruction of all of the posterity of David All the whole people were so full of it that divers false-Messiahs Barcocab and Moses of Crete and others rose up and drew and deceived the people as if they had been the Messiah because that was ordinarily knowne and received to be the time of his comming And the Devill himself was so full of it as that in his Oracles he gave that answer That an Hebrew childe should be God over all gods and brought the Emperour to erect an Altar to this Messiah Christ Jesus though he knew not what he did This was the fulnesse that filled Jew and Gentile Kings and Philosophers strangers and inhabitants counterfaits and devils to the expectation of a Messiah and when comes this fulnesse of time to us that we feele this Messiah born in our selves In this fulnesse in this comming of our Saviour into us Nobis we should
grace in this world I shall have that more abundantly in Heaven for there my terme shall bee a terme for three lives for those three that as long as the Father and the Son and the holy Ghost live I shall not dye And to this glorious Son of God and the most almighty Father c. SERMONS Preached upon candlemas-Candlemas-day SERMON VIII Preached upon Candlemas Day MAT. 5.16 Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven EIther of the names of this day were Text enough for a Sermon Purification or Candlemas Joyne we them together and raise we only this one note from both that all true purification is in the light corner purity clandestine purity conventicle purity is not purity Christ gave himself for us Tit. 2.14 sayes the Apostle that he might purifie to himself a peculiar people How shall this purification appeare It follows They shall be zealous of good works They shall not wrangle about faith and works but be actually zealous of goods works For purification was accompanied with an oblation something was to be given A Lamb a Dove Levit. 12.6 a Turtle All emblemes of mildnesse true purity is milde meek humble and to despise and undervalue others is an inseparable mark of false purity The oblation of this dayes purification is light so the day names it Candlemas-day so your custome celebrates it with many lights Now when God received lights into his Tabernacle hee received none of Tallow the Oxe hath hornes he received none of Waxe the Bee hath his sting but he received only lampes of oyle And though from many fruits and berries they pressed oyle yet God admitted no oyle into the service of the Church but only of the Olive the Olive the embleme of peace Our purification is with an oblation our oblation is light our light is good works our peace is rather to exhort you to them then to institute any solemne or other then occasionall comparison between faith and them Every good work hath faith for the roote but every faith hath not good works for the fruit thereof And it is observable that in all this great Sermon of our Saviours in the Mount which possesseth this and the two next Chapters there is no mention of faith by way of perswasion or exhortation thereunto but the whole Sermon is spent upon good works For good works presuppose faith Mat. 6.30 and therefore he concludes that they had but little faith because they were so solicitous about the things of this world O ye of little faith And as Christ concludes an unstedfastnesse in their faith out of their solicitude for this world so may the world justly conclude an establishment in their faith if they see them exercise themselves in the works of mercy and so let their light shine before men that they may see their good works and glorifie their Father which is in heaven These are words spoken by our Saviour to his Disciples in the Mount Divisio a treasure deposited in those disciples but in those disciples as depositaries for us an Oracle uttered to those disciples but through those disciples to us Paradise convayed to those disciples but to those disciples as feoffees in trust for us to every one of us in them from him that rides with his hundreds of Torches to him that crawles with his rush-candle our Saviour sayes Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works c. The words have two parts so must our explication of them first a precept Sic luceat Let your light so shine before men and then the reason the purpose the end the effect ut videant that men may see your good works and c. From the first bough will divers branches spring and divers from the other all of good taste and nourishment if wee might stay to presse the fruits thereof We cannot yet in the first we shall insist a while upon each of these three First the light it self what that is Sic luceat lux Let your light so shine And then secondly what this propriety is lux vestra let your light shine yours And lastly what this emanation of this light upon others is coram hominibus let your light shine before men The second part which is the reason or the effect of this precept ut videant that men may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven abounds in particular considerations and I should weary you if I should make you stand all the while under so heavy a load as to charge your memories with all those particulars so long before I come to handle them Reserving them therefore to their due time anon proceed we now to the three branches of our first part first the light in it self then the propriety in us lastly the emanation upon others Let your light so shine before men First 1 Part. Lux. John 1.9 for the light it self There is a light that lightneth every man that commeth into the world And even this universall light is Christ sayes S. Iohn He was that light that lighteth every man that commeth into the world And this universall enunciation He lightneth every man moved S. Cyril to take this light for the light of nature and naturall reason John 1.3 Colos 1.16 For even nature and naturall reason is from Christ All things were made by him sayes S. Iohn even nature it self And By him and for him all things visible and invisible were created sayes the Apostle And therefore our latter men of the Reformation are not to be blamed who for the most part pursuing S. Cyrils interpretation interpret this universall light that lightneth every man to be the light of nature Divers others of the Fathers take this universall light because Christ is said to be this light to be Baptisme For in the primitive Church as the Nativity of Christ was called the Epiphany Manifestation so Baptisme was called Illumination And so Christ lightens every man that comes into the world that is into the Christian world by that Sacrament of Illumination Baptisme S. Augustine brought the exposition of that universall proposition into a narrow roome That he enlightned all that came into the world that is all that were enlightned in the world were enlightned by him there was no other light and so he makes this light to be the light of faith and the light of effectuall grace which all have not but they that have have it from Christ Now which of these lights is intended in our Text Let you light shine out is it of the light of nature at our comming into the world or the light of Baptisme and that generall grace that accompanies all Gods Ordinances at our comming into the Church or the light of faith and particular grace sealing our adoption and spirituall filiation there Properly our light is none of these three and yet
safely that which is the only true root of all that is faith yet when he comes to Judgement in the next life all his proceeding is grounded upon workes and he judges us by our fruits So then God gives us faith immediatly from himselfe and out of that faith he produces good works instrumentally by us so as that those works are otherwise ours then that faith is And this the propriety lux vestra let your light shine which we proposed for the second branch in this first part that God vouchsafes to afford us an interest in the working of our salvation And then our third branch is the emanation of this light from us to others Coram hominibus let your light shine before men There was a particular Holy-day amongst the heathen Luceat Emanatio that bore the name of this day Accensio luminum Candlemas day A superstitious multiplying of Lamps and Torches in Divine Service Lactant. This superstition Lactantius reproves elegantly and bitterly Num mentis suae compos putandus est can we think that man in his wits that offers to God the Father and Fountaine the Author and Giver of all light a Candle for an Oblation for a Sacrifice for a New-yeares gift Solem contempletur sayes he Let that man but consider seriously the Sun and he will see that that God who could spare him so glorious a light as the Sun Tertul. needs not his Candle And therefore sayes Tertullian reprehending the same superstition Lucernis diem non infringimus we doe not cut off we doe not shorten our dayes by setting up lights at noone nor induce nor force nor make night before it comes I would not be understood to condemne all use of candles by day in Divine Service nor all Churches that have or doe use them For so I might condemne even the Primitive Church in her pure and innocent estate And therefore that which Lactantius almost three hundred yeares after Christ sayes of those Lights and that which Tertullian almost a hundred yeares before Lactantius sayes in reprehension thereof must necessarily be understood of the abuse and imitation of the Gentiles therein for that the thing it selfe was in use before eyther of their times I thinke admits little question About Lactantius time fell the Eliberitan Councell and then the use and the abuse was evident For in the thirty fourth Canon of that Councell it is forbidden to set up Candles in the Church-yard And the reason that is added declares the abuse Non sunt enim inquietandi spiritus sidelium That the soules of the Saints departed should not be troubled Now the setting up of lights could not trouble them but these lights were accompanied with superstitious Invocations with magicall Incantations and with howlings and ejulations which they had learnt from the Gentiles and with these the soules of the dead were in those times thought to be affected and disquieted It is in this Ceremony of lights as it is in other Ceremonies They may be good in their Institution and grow ill in their practise So did many things which the Christian Church received from the Gentiles in a harmlesse innocency degenerate after into as pestilent superstition there as amongst the Gentiles themselves For ceremonies which were received but for the instruction and edification of the weaker sort of people were made reall parts of the service of God and meritorious sacrifices To those ceremonies which were received as signa commonefacientia helps to excite and awaken devotion was attributed an operation and an effectuall power even to the ceremony it selfe and they were not practised as they should significativè but effectivè not as things which should signifie to the people higher mysteries but as things as powerfull and effectuall in themselves as the greatest Mysteries of all the Sacraments themselves So lights were received in the Primitive Church to signifie to the people that God the Father of lights was otherwise present in that place then in any other and then men came to offer lights by way of sacrifice to God And so that which was providently intended for man who indeed needed such helps was turned upon God as though he were to be supplied by us But what then Because things good in their institution may be depraved in their practise Ergonè nihil ceremoniarum rudioribus dabitur Calv. Instit l. 4. c. 10. § 14. ad juvandam eorum imperitiam Shall therefore the people be denyed all ceremonies for the assistance of their weaknesse Id ego non dico I say not so sayes he Omnino illis utile esse sentio hoc genus adminiculi I think these kinds of helps to be very behoovefull for them Tantum hîc contendo all that I strive for is but Moderation and that Moderation he places very discreetly in this That these ceremonies may be few in number That they may be easie for observation That they may be clearely understood in their signification wee must not therefore be hasty in condemning particular ceremonies For in so doing in this ceremony of lights we may condemne the Primitive Church that did use them and wee condemne a great and Noble part of the reformed Church which doth use them at this day These superstitious lights are not the lights we call for here sic luceat let your light shine out but lux vestra your light the light of good works let that shine out Truly this carrying and diffusing of light to others is so blessed a thing as that though Lucifer whose name signifies the carrying of light be now an odious name an infamous name applyed onely to the Devill yet a great Bishop in the Primitive Church abstained not from that name forbore not that name Lucifer Talaritanus that he might carry about him in his name a remembrancer ferre lucem to carry light to others he was content with that name Lucifer God had made light the first day and yet he made many lights after One light of thine shines out in our eyes thy profession of Christ let us see more lights works worthy of that profession God calls the Sun and the Moone too Gen. 1.16 Great lights because though there be greater in the Firmament they appeare greatest to us those works of ours are greatest in the sight of God that are greatest in the sight of men that are most beneficiall most exemplary and conduce most to the promoving of others to glorifie God To such rich men as produce no light at all August no works that of S. Angustine is appliable cimices sunt they are as these wormes or flies the cimices qui vivi mordent mortui foetent They bite and suck a man whilst they live and they stink pestilently and offend so when they are dead The actions of such rich men are mischievous whilst they live and their memory odious when they are dead But all rich men are not such to be absolutely without all light But then they may have light
gainefull workes those workes thou maist not doe upon the Sabbath But those workes in the vertue of the precept of this text thou must doe in the sight of men those that are hard for thee to doe David would not consecrate nor offer unto God 2. Sam. 24.24 that which cost him nothing first he would buy Araunahs threshing floare at a valuable price and then he would dedicate it to God To give old cloathes past wearing to the poore is not so good a worke as to make new for them Mar. 12.42 To give a little of your superfluities not so acceptable as the widows gift that gave all To give a poore soule a farthing at that doore where you give a Player a shilling is not equall dealing Amos 8.6 for this is to give God quisquilias frumenti The refuse of the wheat But doe thou some such things as are truly works in our sense such as are against the nature and ordinary practice of worldly men to doe some things by which they may see that thou dost prefer God before honour and wife and children and hadst rather build and endow some place for Gods service then poure out money to multiply titles of honour upon thy selfe or enlarge joyntures and portions to an unnecessary and unmeasurable proportion when there is enough done before Let men see that that thou doest Opera Bona. to be a worke qualified with some difficulty in the doing and then those workes to be good workes Videant opera bona that they may see your good works They are not good works how magnificent soever if they be not directed to good ends A superstitious end or a seditious end vitiates the best worke Great contributions have beene raised and great summes given to build and endow Seminaries and schooles and Colledges in forraine parts but that hath a superstitious end Great contributions have beene raised and great summes given at home for the maintenance of such refractary persons as by opposing the government and discipline of the Church have drawne upon themselves silencings and suspensions and deprivations but that hath a seditious end But give so as in a rectified conscience and not a distempered zeale a rectified conscience is that that hath the restimony and approbation of most good men in a succession of times and not to rely occasionally upon one or a few men of the separation for the present give so as thou maist sincerely say God gave me this to give thus and so it is a good worke So it must be A worke something of some importance and a good worke not depraved with an ill end and then your worke Vt videant opera vestra That they may see your good works They are not your works if that that you give be not your owne Nor is it your own Opera bona vâ—stra if it were ill gotten at first How long soever it have beene possessed or how often soever it have beene transformed from money to ware from ware to land from land to office from office to honour the money the ware the land the office the honour is none of thine if in thy knowlege it were ill gotten at first Zacheus in S. Luke Luke 19.8 gives halfe his goods to the poore but it is halfe of his his owne for there might be goods in his house which were none of his Therefore in the same instrument he passes that scrutiny If I have taken any thing unjustly I restore him foure-fold First let that that was ill gotten be deducted and restored and then of the rest which is truly thine owne give cheerefully When Moses saies that our yeares are three score and ten Psal 90.20 if we deduct from that terme all the houres of our unnecessary sleep of superfluous sittings at feasts of curiosity in dressing of largenesse in recreations of plotting and compassing of vanities or sinnes scarce any man of chreescore and ten would be ten years old when he dyes If we should deale so with worldly mens estates defalse unjust gettings it would abridge and attenuate many a swelling Inventory Till this defalcation this scrutiny be made that you know what 's your owne what 's other mens as your Tombe shall be but a monument of your rotten bones how much gold or marble soever be bestowed upon it so that Hospitall that free-schoole that Colledge that you shall build and endow will bee but a monument of your bribery your extortion your oppression and God who will not be in debt though he owe you nothing that built it may be pleased to give the reward of all that to them from whom that which was spent upon it was unjustly taken for Prov. 13.22 The wealth of the sinner is laid up for the righteous saies Solomon The sinner may doe pious works and the righteous may be rewarded for them the world may thinke of one founder and God knowes another That which is enjoyn'd in the name of light here is works not trifles and good works made good by the good ends they are directed to and then your workes done out of that which is truly your owne and by seeing this light men will be mov'd to glorifie your Father which is in Heaven which is the true end of all that men may see them but see them therefore To glorisie your Father which is in Heaven He does not say that by seeing your good works Patrem non Filios men shall glorifie your sonnes upon earth And yet truly even that part of the reward and retribution is worth a great deale of your cost and your almes that God shall establish your posterity in the world and in the good opinion of good men As you have your estates you have your children from God too As it is Davids recognition Dominus pars haereditatis meae Psal 16.5 Gen. 4.1 The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance so the Possedi virum à Domino was Eves Recognition upon the birth of her first son Cain I have gotten I possesse a man from the Lord. Now that that man that thou possessest from the Lord thy son may possesse that land that thou possessest from the Lord it behooves thee to be righteous for so by that righteousnesse thou becomest a foundation for posterity Prov. 10.25 Prov. 13.9 Prov. 14.23 The righteous is an everlasting foundation his light his good workes shall be a chearefull light unto him for The light of the righteous reioyceth him They shall be so in this life and He shall have hope in his death saith Solomon that is hope for himself in another world hope of his posterity in this world for saies he He leaveth an inheritance to his childrens children that is an inheritance Prov. 23.22 out of which hee hath taken and restored all that was unjustly got from men and taken a bountifull part which he hath offered to God in pious uses that the rest may descend free from
all claimes and encumbrances upon his childrens children Psal 37.26 The righteous is mercifull and lendeth saies David Mercifull as his Father in Heaven is mercifull that is in perpetuall not transitory endowments for God did not set up his lights his Sun and his Moone for a day but for ever and such should our light or good works be too Hee is mercifull and he lendeth to whom for to the poore he giveth he looks for no returne from them for they are the waters upon which he casts his bread Yet he lendeth Eccles 11.1 Prov. 19.17 He that hath pity on the poore lendeth to the Lord. The righteous is mercifull and lendeth and then as David addes there His seed is blessed Blessed in this which followes there that he shall inherit the land Psal 37.29 Psal 112.4 and dwell therein for ever which he ratifies againe Surely he shall not be moved for ever that is he shall never be moved in his posterity And as he is blessed that way blessed in the establishment of his possession upon his childrens children so is he blessed in this that his honour and good name shall bee poured out as a fragrant oyle upon his posterity Ibid. The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance Their memory shall be alwaies alive Prov. 10.7 Prov. 11.30 and alwaies fresh in their posterity when The name of the wicked shall rot So then the fruit of the righteous is the tree of life saies Solomon that is the righteous shall produce plants that shall grow up and flourish so his posterity shall be a tree of life to many generations Prov. 17.6 and then The glory of children are their Fathers saies that wise King As Fathers receive comfort from good children so children receive glory from good parents in this are children glorified that they had righteous Fathers that lent unto the Lord. So that to recollect these peeces it is no small reward that God affords you if men seeing your good workes glorifie that is esteeme and respect and love and honour your children upon earth But it is not onely that your good workes shall bee an occasion of carrying glory upon the right object They shall glorifie your Father which is in heaven It is not the Father which is in Heaven Non Patrem that they should glorifie God as the common Father of all by creation For for that they need not your light your good works The Heavens declare the glory of God Psal 19.1 saies David that is glorifie him in an acknowledgement that he is the Father of them Deut. 32.6 and of all other things by creation Is not hee thy Father hath he not made thee is an interrogatory ministred by Moses to which all things must answer with the Prophet Malachie Malac. 2.10 yes He is our Father for he hath made us But that 's not the paternity of this text as God is Father of us all by creation Nor as he is a Father of some in a more particular consideration in giving them large portions great patrimonies in this world for thus he may be my Father and yet disinherit me hee may give me plenty of temporall blessings and withhold from me spirituall and eternall blessings Now to see this men need not your light your good workes for they see dayly That he maketh his sun to shine on the evill Mat. 5.45 and on the good and causeth it to raine on the just and the unjust He feeds Goates as well as Sheepe he gives the wicked temporall blessings as well as the righteous These then are not the paternities of our text that men by this occasion glorifie God as the Father of all men by creation nor as the Father of all rich men by their large patrimonies not as he is the Father not as he is a Father but as he is your Father as he is made yours as he is become yours by that particular grace of using the temporall blessings which he hath given you to his glory in letting your light shine before men For it were better God disinherited us so as to give us nothing then that he gave us not the grace to use that that he gave us well without this all his bread were stone Mat. 7.9 and all his fishes serpents all his temporall liberality malediction How much happier had that man beene that hath wasted thousands in play in riot in wantonnesse in sinfull excesses if his parents had left him no more at first then he hath left himselfe at last How much nearer to a kingdome in Heaven had hee beene if he had beene borne a begger here Nay though he have done no ill of such excessive kinds how much happier had he beene if he had had nothing left him if hee have done no good There cannot be a more fearfull commination upon man nor a more dangerous dereliction from God Ps 50.8 12. then when God saies I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices Though thou offer none I care not I le never tell thee of it nor reprove thee for it I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices And when he saies as he does there If I bee hungry I will not tell thee I will not awake thy charity I will not excite thee not provoke thee with any occasion of feeding me in feeding the poore When God shall say to me I care not whether you come to Church or no whether you pray or no repent or no confesse receive or no this is a fearfull dereliction so is it when he saies to a rich man I care not whether your light shine out or no whether men see your good works or no I can provide for my glory other waies For certainly God hath not determined his purpose and his glory so much in that to make some men rich that the poore might be relieved for that ends in bodily reliefe as in this that he hath made some men poore whereby the rich might have occasion to exercise their charity for that reaches to spirituall happinesse for which use the poore doe not so much need the rich as the rich need the poore the poore may better be saved without the rich then the rich without the poore But when men shall see that that God who is the Father of us all by creating us and the father of all the rich by enriching them is also become your father yours by adoption yours by infusion of that particular grace to doe good with your goods then are you made blessed instruments of that which God seeks here his glory They shall glorifie your father which is in heaven Glory is so inseparable to God as that God himself is called Glory They changed their Glory into the similitude of an Oxe Their glory their true God into an inglorious Idol Gloria Psal 106.20 Psal 85.10 That glory may dwell in our land sayes he that is that God may dwell therein The
in a disease very little capable of cure then when he had so farre resolved and slackned his sinewes that he could endure no posture but his bed he suffered himselfe to be put to so many incommodities It was good evidence of a strength of faith in them that they could beleeve that Christ would not reject them for that importunity of troubling him and the congregation in the midst of a Sermon That when they saw that they who came onely to heare could not get neare the doore they should thinke to get in with that load that offensive spectacle That they should ever conceive or goe about to execute or be suffered to execute such a plot as without the leave of Christ if Christ preached this Sermon in his owne house as some take it to have been done or without the Masters leave in whose house soever it was they should first untile or open and then break through the floore and so let downe their miserable burden That they should have an apprehension that it was not fit for them to stay till the Sermon were done and the company parted but that it was likeliest to conduce to the glory of God that Preaching and working might goe together this was evidence this was argument of strength of faith in them Take therefore their example not to defer that assistance which thou art able to give to another Ne dic as assistam cr as sayes S. Gregory doe not say I will help thee to morrow Ne quid inter propositum beneficium intercedat Perchance that poore soule may not need thee to morrow perchance thou maist have nothing to give to morrow perchance there shall be no such day as to morrow and so thou hast lost that opportunity of thy charity which God offered thee to day Vnica beneficentia est quae moram non admittit onely that is charity that is given presently But yet when all was done when there was faith and faith in them all Cum non quiae and faith declared in their outward works yet Christ is not said to have done this miracle quia sides but cum fides not Because he saw but onely When he saw their faith Let us transferre none of that which belongs to God to our selves when we doe our duties but when doe we goe about to begin to doe any part of any of them we are unprofitable servants When God does work in us are we saved by that work as by the cause when there is another cause of the work it selfe When the ground brings forth good corne yet that ground becomes not fit for our food When a man hath brought forth good fruits yet that man is not thereby made worthy of heaven Not faith it selfe and yet faith is of somewhat a deeper dye and tincture then any works is any such cause of our salvation A beggars beleeving that I will give him an almes is no cause of my charity My beleeving that Christ will have mercy upon me is no cause of Christs mercy for what proportion hath my temporary faith with my everlasting salvation But yet though it work not as a cause though it be not qui a vidit because he saw it yet cum videt when Christ findes this faith according to that gracious Covenant and Contract which he hath made with us that wheresoever and whensoever he findes faith he will enlarge his mercy finding that in this patient he expressed his mercy in that which constitutes our second part Fili confide my son be of good cheare thy sins are forgiven thee Where we see first 2 Part. our Saviour Christ opening the bowels of compassion to him and receiving him so as if he had issued out of his bowels and from his loynes in that gracious appellation Fili my Son He does not call him brother for greater enmity can be no where then is often expressed to have beene betweene brethren for in that degree and distance enmity amongst men began in Cain and Abel and was pursued in many paires of brethren after in Sacred and in secular story Hee does not call him friend that name even in Christs owne mouth is not alwaies accompanied with good entertainment Amice Mat. 22.12 quomodo intrasti saies he Friend how came you in and he bound him hand and foote and cast him into outer darknesse He does not call him son of Abraham which might give him an interest in all the promises but he gives him a present Adoption and so a present fruition of all Fili my Son His Son and not his Son in law he loads him not with the encumbrances and halfe-impossibilities of the Law but he seales to him the whole Gospell in the remission of sinnes His Son and not his dis-inherited son as the Jewes were but his Son upon whom he setled his ancient Inheritance his eternall election and his new purchase which he came now into the world to make with his blood His Son and not his prodigall son to whom Christ imputes no wastfulnesse of his former graces but gives him a generall release and Quietus est in the forgivenesse of sinnes All that Christ asks of his Sons is Fili da mihi cor My Son give me thy heart and till God give us that we cannot give it him and therefore in this Son he creates a new heart he infuses a new courage he establishes a new confidence in the next word Fili confide My Son be of good cheere Christ then does not stay so long wrastling with this mans faith Confide and shaking it and trying whether it were fast rooted as he did with that Woman in the Gospell who came after him Mat. 15.22 in her daughters behalfe crying Have mercy upon me O Lord thou Son of David for Christ gave not that woman one word when her importunity made his Disciples speake to him he said no more but that he was not sent to such as she This was far very far from a Confide filia Daughter be of good cheere But yet this put her not oft but as it followes She followed and worshipped him and said O Lord helpe me And all this prevailed no farther with him but to give such an answer as was more discomfortable then a silence It is not fit to take the childrens bread and cast it unto dogs She denies not that she contradicts him not she saies Truth Lord It is not fit to take the childrens bread and to cast it unto dogs and Truth Lord I am one of those dogs but yet she persevers in her holy importunity and in her good ill-manners and saies Yet the Dogs eate of the crums which fall from the Masters table And then and not till then comes Jesus to that O Woman great is thy faith be it unto thee even as thou wilt and her Daughter was healed But all this at last was but a bodily restitution here was no Dimittuntur peccata in the case no declaration of forgivenesse
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
no such power of thine own soul and life not for the time not for the means of comming to this first Resurrection by death Stay therefore patiently stay chearfully Gods leasure till he call but not so over-chearfully as to be loath to go when he cals Reliefe in persecution by power reconciliation in sin by grace dissolution and transmigration to heaven by death are all within this first Resurrection But that which is before them all is Christ Jesus And therefore as all that the naturall man promises himself without God is impious so all that we promise our selves though by God without Christ is frivolous God who hath spoken to us by his Son works upon us by his Son too He was our Creation he was our Redemption he is our Resurrection And that man trades in the world without money and goes out of the world without recommendation that leaves out Christ Jesus To be a good Morall man and refer all to the law of Nature in our hearts is but Diluculum The dawning of the day To be a godly man and refer all to God is but Crepusculum A twylight But the Meridionall brightnesse the glorious noon and heighth is to be a Christian to pretend to no spirituall no temporall blessing but for and by and through and in our only Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus for he is this first Resurrection and Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection SERMON XX. Preached at S. Pauls in the Evening upon Easter-day 1625. JOHN 5.28 29. Marvell not at this for the houre is comming in the which all that are in the graves shall heare his voice And shall come forth They that have done good unto the Resurrection of Life And they that have done evill unto the Resurrection of Damnation AS the Sun works diversly according to the diverse disposition of the subject for the Sun melts wax and it hardens clay so do the good actions of good men upon good men they work a vertuous emulation a noble and a holy desire to imitate upon bad men they work a vicious and impotent envy a desire to disgrace and calumniate And the more the good is that is done and the more it works upon good men the more it disaffects the bad for so the Pharisees expresse their rancor and malignity against Christ Jâ—â—n 11.48 in this Gospel If we let him thus alone all men will beleeve in him And that they foresaw would destroy them in their reputation And therefore they enlarged their malice beyond Christ himselfe to him upon whom Christ had wrought a Miracle John 12.10 to Lazarus They consulted to put him to death because by reason of him many beleeved in Iesus Our Text leads us to another example of this impotency in envious men Christ in this Chapter had by his only word cured a man that had been eight and thirty yeares infirm and he had done this work upon the Sabbath They envyed the work in the substance but they quarrell the circumstance And they envy Christ but they turn upon the man who was more obnoxious to them and they tell him John 5. â—â— That it was not lawfull for him to carry his bed that day He discharges himself upon Christ I dispute not with you concerning the Law This satisfies me He that made me whole Veâ— â— bad me take up my bed and walk Thereupon they put him to finde out Jesus And when he could not finde Jesus Jesus found him and in his behalf offers himself to the Pharisees Then they direct themselves upon him and as the Gospell sayes They sought to slay him because he had done this upon the Sabbath And V. 16. as the patient had discharged himself upon Christ Christ discharges himself upon his Father doth it displease you that I work upon the Sabbath be angry with God be angry with the Father for the Father works when I work V. 17. V. 18. And then this they take worse then his working of Miracles or his working upon the Sabbath That he would say that God was his Father And therfore in the averring of that that so important point That God was his Father Christ grows into a holy vehemence and earnestnesse and he repeats his usuall oath Verily verily three severall times First ver 19. That whatsoever the Father doth He the Son doth also And then ver 24. He that beleeveth on me and him that sent me hath life everlasting And then again ver 25. The houre is comming and now is when the dead shall heare the voice of the Son of God and they that heare it shall live At this that the dead should live they marvelled But because he knew that they were men more affected with things concerning the body then spirituall things as in another story when they wondered that he would pretend to forgive sins because he knew that they thought it a greater matter to bid that man that had the Palsie take up his bed and walk then to forgive him his sins therefore he took that way which was hardest in their opinion he did bid him take up his bed and walk So here when they wondred at his speaking of a spirituall Resurrection to heare him say that at his preaching the dead that is men spiritually dead in their sins should rise again to them who more respected the body and did lesse beleeve a reall Resurrection of the body then a figurative Resurrection of the soul he proceeds to that which was in their apprehension the more difficult Marvell not at this sayes he here in our Text not at that spirituall Resurrection by preaching for the houre is comming in the which all that are in the graves c. and so he establishes the Resurrection of the body That then which Christ affirmes and avows is That he is the Son of God Divisio and that is the first thing that ever was done in Heaven The eternall generation of the Son that by which he proves this to these men is That by him there shall be a resurrection of the body and that is the last thing that shall be done in Heaven for after that there is nothing but an even continuance in equall glory Before that saies he that is before the resurrection of the body there shall be another resurrection a spirituall resurrection of the soule from sin but that shall be by ordinary meanes by Preaching and Sacraments and it shall be accomplished every day but fix not upon that determin not your thoughts upon that marvaile not at that make that no cause of extraordinary wonder but make it ordinary to you feele it and finde the effect thereof in your soules as often as you heare as often as you receive and thereby provide for another resurrection For the houre is comming in which all that are in their graves c. Where we must necessarily make thus many steps though but short ones First the dignity of
is impossible to separate the consideration of the Resurrection from the consideration of the Judgement and the terrors of that may abate the joy of the other Sive comedoâ—sive bibo saies S. Hierom Whether I eate or drink still me thinks I heare this sound Surgite mortui venite ad Iudicium Arise you dead and come to Judgement When it cals me up from death I am glad when it cals me to Judgement that impaires my joy Can I thinke that God will not take a strict account or can I be without feare if I thinke he will Non expavescere requisiturum est dicere non requiret is excellently said by S. Bernard If I can put off all feare of that Judgement I have put off all imagination that any such Judgement shall be But when I begin this feare in this life here I end this feare in my death and passe away cheerefully But the wicked begin this feare when the Trumpet sounds to the Resurrection and then shall never end it but as a man condemned to be halfe hang'd and then quartered hath a fearfull addition in his quartering after and yet had no ease in his hanging before so they that have done ill when they have had their hanging when they have suffered in soule the torments of Hell from the day of their death to the day of Judgement shall come to that day with feare as to an addition to that which yet was insinite before And therefore the vulgat Edition hath rendred this well Procedent They shall proceed they shall go farther and farther in torment But this is not the object of our speculation Conâ—lusio the subject of our meditation now we proposed this Text for the Contemplation of Gods love to man and therefore we rather comfort our selves with that branch and refresh our selves with the shadow of that That they who have done good shall come forth unto the Resurrection of life Alas the others shall live as long as they Lucifer is as immortall as Michael and Iudas as immortall as S. Peter August But Vita damnatorum mors est That which we call immortality in the damned is but a continuall dying howsoever it must be called life it hath all the qualities of death saving the ease and the end which death hath and damnation hath not They must come forth they that have done evill must do so too Neither can stay in their house their grave for their house though that house should be the sea shall be burnt downe all the world dissolv'd with fire But then They who have done evill shall passe from that fire into a farther heat without light They who have done good into a farther light without heat But fix upon the Conditions and performe them They must have done Good To have knowne Good to have beleeved it to have intended it nay to have preached it to others will not serve They must have done good They must be rooted in faith and then bring forth fruit and fruit in season and then is the season of doing good when another needs that good at thy hands God gives the evening raine but he gave the morning rain before A good man gives at his death but he gives in his life time too To them belongs this Resurrection of the body to life upon which since our Text inclines us to marvell rather then to discourse I will not venture to say with David Narrabo omnia mirabilia tua I will shew all thy wondrous works Psal 9.2 Psal 105.5 Psal 119 18. an Angels tongue could not shew them but I will say with him Mementote mirabilium Remember the marvellous works he hath done And by that God will open your eyes that you may behold the wondrous things that he will do Remember with thankfulnesse the severall resurrections that he hath given you from superstition and ignorance in which you in your Fathers lay dead from sin and a love of sin in which you in the dayes of your youth lay dead from sadnesse and dejection of spirit in which you in your worldly crosses or spirituall tentations lay dead And assure your self that that God that loves to perfect his own works when you shall lye dead in your graves will give you that Resurrection to life which he hath promised to all them that do good and will extend to all them who having done evill do yet truly repent the evill they have done SERMON XXI The first Sermon upon this Text Preached at S. Pauls in the Evening upon Easter-day 1626. 1 COR. 15.29 Else what shall they do that are baptized for dead If the dead rise not at all why are they then baptized for dead O Dit Dominus qui festum Domini unum putat diem sayes Origen God hates that man that thinks any of his Holy dayes last but one day That is that never thinks of a Resurrection but upon Easter-day I have therefore proposed words unto you which will not be determined this day That so when at any other time we return to the handling of then we may also return to the meditation of the Resurrection To which we may best give a beginning this day in which we celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus Aâ—d in his one Resurrection all those severall kinds of Resurrections which appertain unto us because howsoever these words have received divers good expositions from divers good Expositors and received one perverse exposition from our adversaries in the Romane Church who have detorted and deflected them to the maintenance of their Purgatory yet all agree that these words are an argument for the Resurrection and therefore proper to this day And yet this day we shall not so much inquire wherein and in what sense the words are an argument of the Resurrection as enjoy the assurance that they are so not so much distribute the Text into an explication of the particular words which is as the Mintage and Coyning of gold into severall lesser pieces as to lay up the whole wedge and ingot of Gold all at once in you that is the precious assurance of your glorious Resurrection In establishing whereof we shall this day make but this short passage Divisio by these two steps Glory in the end And Grace in the way The Glory of our bodies in the last Resurrection then And the Grace upon our souls in their present Resurrection now For as we do not dig for gold meerly and only for treasure but to dispense and issue it also for present provision and use not only for the future but for the present too So we doe not gather the doctrine of the Resurrection only for that dignity which the body shall receive in the Triumphant but also for the consolation which thereby our soules may receive in the Militant Church And therefore as in our first part which will be By what meanes the knowledge and assurance of the Resurrection of the body
his Sermon at Antioch Now what is written in that Psalme which S. Paul cites there to our present purpose This Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee But is not this Hodie genui This this dayes begetting intended rather of the eternall filiation generation of the Son of God then of this daies work the Resurrection Those words of that Psalm may well admit that interpretation Hilar. and so many have taken them But with S. Hilary most of the ancients have applied them to the Resurrection as the application of S. Paul himself directly binds us to do That the Hodie genui This dayes generation is this dayes manifestation that Christ was the Son of God Calvin Calvin enlarges it farther That every declaration of the Son by the Father is a generation of the Son So his baptisme and the voice then so his Transfiguration and the voice then Mat. 3.17 Mat. 17.3 were each of them a Hodie genui a generation of the Son that day But especially sayes Calvin do those words of the Psalm belong to this day because the Resurrection was the most evident actuall declaration that Christ was the Son of God Rom. 1.4 for He was declared to be the Son of God by the Resurrection from the dead saies the Apostle expresly But how wherein was he declared There were others that were raised from the dead by Prophets in the old Testament by Christ and his Apostles in the new and yet not thereby declared to be such Sons of God Essentiall Sons no nor any Sons of God not Sons by adoption for we are not sure that all those that were miraculously raised from the dead were effectually saved at last Therefore the comfort in our case is in that word of the Angel Surrexit He is risen For so all our Translators and Expositors do constantly carry it not in a Suscitatus as all the rest are That he was raised but in this Surrexit He is risen risen of himself For so he testifies of himself Destroy this Temple and in three dayes Ego suscitabo I will raise it up again John 2.19 Not that the Father should but that he would so also Ego pono and Ego sumo sayes Christ I lay down and I take again my soul Not that it is given or taken by another John 10.17 Nyssen And therefore Gregory Nyssen suspects that for the infirmity of the then hearers the Apostles thought it scarce safe to expresse it often in that phrase He rose or He raised himself and therefore for the most part return to the Suscitatus est that He was raised lest weak hearers might be scandalized with that that a dead man had raised himself of his own power And therefore the Angel in this place enlarges the comfort to these devout women in a full measure when he opens himselfe in that word Surrexit He is risen risen of himselfe This then is one piece of our evidence and the foundation of all Nos that we cannot be deceived because he in whom we trust is by this his own rising declared to be the Son of God And another and a powerfull comfort is this Rom. 4.25 2 Cor. 4.14 That he being risen for our justification we are also risen in him He that raised the Lord Iesus shall raise us up also by the same Iesus He shall there is our assurance but that is not all for there is a con-resuscitavit Ephes 2.6 He hath quickned us together and raised us together and made us to sit together in heavenly places not together with one another but together with Christ There is our comfort collected from this surrexit He is risen equivalent to the discomfort of the non est hîc he is not here That this his rising declares him to be the Son of God who therefore can and will and to be that Jesus an actuall Redeemer and therefore hath already raised us To what To that renovation to that new creation which is so excellently expressed by Severianus as makes us sorry we have no more of his Mutatur ordorerum Severianus The whole frame and course of nature is changed Sepulchrum non mortuum sed mortem devorat The grave now since Christs Resurrection and ours in him does not bury the dead man but death himself My Bell tolls for death and my Bell rings out for death and not for me that dye for I live even in death but death dies in me and hath no more power over me I was crucified with Christ upon Friday saies Chrysologus Et hodiè resurgo Chrysologus to day I rose with him again Et gloria resurrection is sepelivit injuriam morientis The ingloriousnesse of having been buried in the dust is recompenced in the glory I rise to Liber inter mortuos that which David sayes and by S. Augustines application of Christ Psal 88.5 August is true of me too Christ was and I am Liber inter mortuos free amongst the dead undetainable in the state of death For sayes S. Peter It was not possible he should be holden of it Acts 2.24 Not possible for Christ because of the prediction of so many Prophets whose words had an infallibility in them not possible especially because of the Union of the Divine Nature Not possible for me neither because God hath afforded me the marks of his Election and thereby made me partaker of the Divine Nature too 2 Pet. 1.4 But yet these things might perchance not fall into the consideration of these women They did not but they might they should have done for as the Angell tels them here Christ had told them of this before Sicut dixit he is risen as he said Even the Angell himself referres himself to the word Sicut dixit Sicut dixit The Angell himself desires not to be beleeved but as he grounds himself upon the word sicut dixit Let therefore no Angell of the Church not that super-Arch-angell of the Romane Church proceed upon an ipse dixit upon his own pectorall word and determination for the Angell here referres us to the sicut dixit the former word God will be content that we doubt and suspend our assent to any revelation if it doe not concerne some duty delivered in Scripture before And to any miracle if it doe not conduce to the proofe of some thing commanded in Scripture before Sicut dixit is an Angelicall issue As he said But how often soever Christ had spoken of this Resurrection to others Vobie these women might be ignorant of it For all that is said even by Christ himself is not said to all nor is all written for all that is written by the Holy Ghost No man must suspect that he knowes not enough for salvation if he understand not all places of Scripture But yet these women could not well be ignorant of this because being Disciples and followers of Christ though Christ had
ignorance that all blessings spirituall and temporall too proceed from God and from God only and from God manifested in Christ and from Christ explicated in the Scriptures and from the Scriptures applyed in the Church which is the summe of all religion God hath given us this Legacy of knowledge Cognoscetis At that day you shall know as knowledge is opposed to ignorance As it is opposed to inconsideration Inconsideratio it is a great work that it doth too for as God hath made himself like man in many things in taking upon him in Scriptures our lineaments and proportion our affections and passions our apparell and garments so hath God made himself like man in this also that as man doth so he also takes it worse to be neglected then to be really injured Some of our sins do not offend God so much as our inconsideration a stupid passing him over as though that we did that which we had that which we were appertained not to him had no emanation from him no dependance upon him As God sayes in the Prophet of lame and blemished and unperfect Sacrifices Offer it unto any of your Princes and see if they will accept it at your hands So I say to them that passe their lives thus inconsiderately Offer that to any of your Princes any of your Superiours Dares an officer that receives instructions from his Prince when he leaves his commandements unperformed say I never thought of it Dares a Subject a Servant a Son say so Now beloved this knowledge as it is opposed to inconsideration is in this that God by breeding us in the visible Church multiplies unto us so many helps and assistances in the word preached in the Sacraments in other Sacramentall and Rituall and Ceremoniall things which are auxiliary subsidiary reliefes and refreshings to our consideration as that it is almost impossible to fall into this inconsideration Here God shewes this inconsiderate man his book of creatures which he may run and reade that is he may go forward in his vocation and yet see that every creature calls him to a consideration of God Every Ant that he sees askes him Where had I this providence and industry Every flowre that he sees asks him Where had I this beauty this fragrancy this medicinall vertue in me Every creature calls him to consider what great things God hath done in little subjects But God opens to him also here in his Church his Booke of Scriptures and in that Book every word cries out to him every mercifull promise cries to him Why am I here to meet thee to wait upon thee to performe Gods purpose towards thee if thou never consider me never apply me to thy selfe Every judgement of his anger cryes out Why am I here if thou respect me not if thou make not thy profit of performing those conditions which are annexed to those judgements and which thou mightest performe if thou wouldest consider it Yea here God opens another book to him his manuall his bosome his pocket book his Vade Mecum the Abridgement of all Nature and all Law his owne heart and conscience And this booke though he shut it up and clasp it never so hard yet it will sometimes burst open of it selfe though he interline it with other studies and knowledges yet the Text it selfe in the book it selfe the testimonies of the conscience will shine through and appeare Though he load it and choak it with Commentaries and questions that is perplexe it with Circumstances and Disputations yet the matter it selfe which is imprinted there will present it selfe yea though he teare some leaves out of the Book that is wilfully yea studiously forget some sins that he hath done and discontinue the reading of this book the survay and consideration of his conscience for some time yet he cannot lose he cannot cast away this book that is so in him as that it is himselfe and evermore calls upon him to deliver him from this inconsideration by this open and plentifull Library which he carries about him Consider beloved the great danger of this inconsideration by remembring That even that onely perfect man Christ Jesus who had that great way of making him a perfect man as that he was perfect God too even in that act of deepest devotion in his prayer in the garden by permitting himselfe out of that humane infirmity which he was pleased to admit in himselfe though farre from sin to passe one petition in that prayer without a debated and considered will in his Transeat Calix If it be possible let this Cup passe hee was put to a re-consideration and to correct his Prayer Veruntamen Yet not my will but thine bee done And if then our best acts of praying and hearing need such an exact consideration consider the richnesse and benefit of this Legacy knowledge as this knowledge is opposed to inconsideration It is also opposed to concealing and smothering Occultatio It must be published to the benefit of others Paulùm sepultae distat inertiae celata virtus sayes the Poet Vertue that is never produced into action is scarce worthy of that name For that is it which the Apostle in his Epistle to that Church which was in Philemons house Philem. 6. doth so much praise God for That the fellowship of thy faith may be made fruitfull and that whatsoever good thing is in you through Iesus Christ may be knowne That according to the nature of goodnesse and to the roote of goodnesse God himselfe this knowledge of God may be communicated and transfused and shed and spred and derived and digested upon others And therefore certainly as the Philosopher said of civill actions Etiam simulare Philosophiam Philosophia est That it was some degree of wisedome to be able to seeme wise so though it be no degree of religion to seeme religious yet even that may be a way of reducing others and perchance themselves when a man makes a publique an outward shew of being religious by comming ordinarily to Church and doing those outward duties though this be hypocrisie in him yet sometimes other men receive profit by his example and are religious in earnest and sometimes Appropinquat nescit as S. Augustine confesses that it was his case when he came out of curiosity and not out of devotion to heare S. Ambrose preach what respect soever brought that man hither yet when God findes him here in his house he takes hold of his conscience and shewes himselfe to him though he came not to see him And if God doe thus produce good out of the hypocrite and work good in him much more will he provide a plentifull harvest by their labours who having received this knowledge from God assist their weaker brethren both by the Example of their lives and the comfort of their Doctrine This knowledge then 2. Part. In die which to work the intended effect in us is thus opposed to ignorance and to inconsideration and to
vehementi Spiritu semper habet diem Pentecostes He that-loves the exercise of prayer so earnestly as that in prayer he feeles this vehemence of the Holy Ghost that man dwels in an everlasting Whitsunday for so he does he hath it alwayes that ever had it aright Oditeos Deus qui unam putant diem festum Domini God hates that man saies Origen also that celebrates any Holy-day of his but one day that never thinks of the Incarnation of Christ but upon Christmas-day nor upon his Passion and Resurrection but upon Easter and Good-friday If you deale so with your soules as with your bodies and as you cloath your selves with your best habits to day but returne againe to your ordinary apparell to morrow so for this day or this houre you devest the thought of your sins but returne after to your vomit you have not celebrated this day of Pentecost you have not beene truly in this place for your hearts have beene visiting your profits or pleasures you have not beene here with one accord you have not truly and sincerely joyned with the Communion of Saints Christ hath sent no Comforter to you this day neither will he send any till you be better prepared for him But if you have brought your sins hither in your memory and leave them here in the blood of your Saviour alwaies flowing in his Church and ready to receive them if you be come to that heavenly knowledge that there is no comfort but in him and in him abundant consolation then you are this day capable of this great Legacy this knowledge which is all the Christian Religion That Christ is in the Father and you in him and he in you We are now come to our third part Our portion in this Legacy 3 Part. the measure of the knowledge of these mysteries which we are to receive of which S. Chrysostome sayes well Scientiae magnum argumentum est nolle omnia scire It is a good argument that that man knowes much who desires not to know all In pursuing true knowledge he is gone a good way that knowes where to give over When that great Manichean Felix would needs prove to S. Augustine that Manes was the holy Ghost because it was said that the holy Ghost should teach all truths and that Manes did so because he taught many things that they were ignorant of before concerning the frame and motion and nature of the heavens and their stars S. Augustine answered Spiritus sanctus facit Christianos non Mathematicos The Holy Ghost makes us Christians not Mathematicians If any man thinke by having his station at Court that it is enough for him to have studied that one booke and that if in that booke The knowledge of the Court he be come to an apprehension by what meanes and persons businesses are likeliest to be carried If he by his foresight have provided perspective glasses to see objects a far off and can make Almanacks for next yeare and tell how matters will fall out then and thinke that so he hath received his portion as much knowledge as he needs Spiritus sanctus facit Christianos non Politicos He must remember that the Holy Ghost makes Christians and not Politians So if a man have a good foundation of a fortune from his Parents and thinke that all his study must be to proceed in that and still to adde a Cyphar more to his accounts to make tens hundreds and hundreds thousands Spiritus sanctus facit Christianos non Arithmeticos The Holy Ghost makes Christians and not such Arithmeticians If men who desire a change in Religion and yet thinke it a great wisdome to disguise that desire and to temporise lest they should be made lesse able to effect their purposes if they should manifest themselves but yet hope to see that transmutation of Religion from that copper which they esteeme ours to be to that gold which perchance for the venality thereof they esteeme theirs If others who are also working in the fire though not in the fire of envy and of powder yet in the fire of an indiscreet zeale and though they pretend not to change the substance of the metall the body of our Religion yet they labour to blow away much of the ceremony and circumstances which are Vehicula and Adminicula if not Habitacula Religionis They are though not the very fuell yet the bellowes of Religion If these men I say of either kinde They who call all differing from themselves Error and all error damnable or they who as Tertullian expresses their humour and indisposition prophetically Qui vocant prostrationem Disciplinae simplicitatem which call the abolishing and extermination of all Discipline and Ceremony purenesse and holinesse If they thinke they have received their portion of this legacie their measure of true knowledge in labouring onely to accuse and reforme and refine others Spiritus sanctus facit Christianos non Chymistas The holy Ghost makes men Christians and not Alchymists To contract this If a man know wayes enow to disguise all his sins If no Exchequer take hold of his usurious contracts no High Commission of his licentiousnesse no Star-chamber of his misdemeanors If he will not to sleepe till he can hold up his eyes no longer for feare his sins should meet him in his bed and vexe his conscience there If he will not come to the Sacrament but at that time of the yeare when Laws compel him or good company invite him or other civill respects and reasons provoke him If he have avoydances to hide his sins from others and from himself too by such disguisings This is all but Deceptio visus a blinding of his owne internall eyes and Spirtus sanctus facit Christianos non Circulatores The Holy Ghost makes men Christians and not Jugglers This knowledge then which we speake of is to know the end and the way Heaven and Christ The Kingdome to which he is gone and the meanes which he hath taught us to follow Now in all our wayes in all our journies a moderate pace brings a man most surely to his journies end and so doth a sober knowledge in matters of Divinity and in the mysteries of Religion And therefore the Fathers say that this comming of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles this day though it were a vehement comming did not give them all kinde of knowledge a knowledge of particular Arts and Sciences But he gave them knowledge enough for their present worke and withall a faithfull confidence that if at any time they should have to doe with learned Heathens with Philosophers the Holy Ghost would either instantly furnish them with such knowledge as they had not before as wee see in many relations in the Ecclesiasticall Story That men spoke upon the sudden in divers cases otherwise then in any reason their education could promise or afford or else he would blunt the sharpnesse of the Adversaries weapons and cast a damp upon their understandings as wee
meditation he had Though in such a person as S. Peter so filled with all gifts necessary for his function and to such persons as Cornelius was who needed but Catechizing in the rudiments of the Gospell much preparation needed not The case was often of the same sort after in the Primitive Church The persons were very able and the people very ignorant and therefore it is easie to observe a far greater frequency of Preaching amongst the Ancient Fathers then ordinarily men that love ease will apprehend We see evidently in S. Augustines hundred forty fourth Sermon De Tempore And in S. Ambroses forty fourth Sermon De sancto Latrone And in S. Bernards twelve Sermons upon one Psalme that all these blessed and Reverend Fathers preached more then one day divers dayes together without intermission And we may see in S. Basils second Homilie upon the six dayes worke that he preached in the after-noone And so by occasion of his often preaching it seemes by his second Homilie De Baptismo that he preached sometimes extemporally But of all this the reason is as evident as the fact The Preachers were able to say much The people were capable but of little And where it was not so the Clergy often assisted themselves with one anothers labours as S. Cyrils Sermons were studied without book and preached over againe to their severall Congregations by almost all the Bishops of the Easterne Church Sometimes we may see Texts extended to very many Sermons and sometimes Texts taken of that extent and largenesse as onely a paraphrase upon the Text would make the Sermon for we may see by S. Augustines tenth Sermon De verbis Apostoli that they tooke sometimes the Epistle and Gospell of the day and the Psalme before the Sermon for their text But in these our times when the curiosity allow it a better name for truly God be blessed for it it deserves a better name when the capacity of the people requires matter of more labour as there is not the same necessity so there is not the same possibility of that assiduous and that sudden preaching No man will think that we have abler Preachers then the Primitive Church had no man will doubt but that we have learneder and more capable auditories and congregations then their were The Apostles were not negligent when they mended their nets A preacher is not negligent if he prepare for another Sermon after he hath made one nor a hearer is not negligent if he meditate upon one Sermon though he heare not another within three houres after S. Peters Sermon was not extemporall neither if it had his person and the quality of the hearers being compared with our times had that been any precedent or patterne for our times to do the like But yet Beloved since our times are such as are overtaken with another necessity that our adversaries dare come Cum locutus est As soon as the Preacher hath done and meet the people comming out of the Church and deride the Preacher and offer an answer to any thing that hath been said since they are come to come to Church with us and Dum locutus est Then when the Preacher is speaking to say to him that sits next him That is false that is heretical since they are come to joyn with us at the Communion so that it is hard to finde out the Iudas and if you do finde him he dares answer Your Minister is no Priest and so your Bread and Wine no Sacrament and therefore I care not how much of it I take since they are come to boast that with all our assiduity of preaching we cannot keep men from them since it is thus as we were alwayes bound by Christs example To gather you as a hen gathers her chickens to call you often to this assembling of your selves so are we now much more bound to hide and cover you as a hen doth her chickens and because there is a Kite hovering in every corner a seducer lurking in every company to defend and arme you with more and more instructions against their insinuations And if they deride us for often preaching and call us fooles for that as David said He would be more vile he would Dance more So let us be more fooles in this foolishnesse of preaching and preach more If they think us mad since we are mad for our soules as the Apostle speakes let us be more mad Let him that hath preached once do it twice and him that hath preached twice do it thrice But yet not this by comming to a negligent and extemporall manner of preaching but we will bee content to take so many hours from our rest that we with you may rest the safelyer in Abrahams bosome and so many more houres from our meat that we with you may the more surely eat and drink with the Lamb in the kingdome of heaven Christ hath undertaken that his word shall not passe away but he hath not undertaken that it shall not passe from us There is a Ne exeas munaum served upon the world The Gospell cannot goe nor be driven out of the world till the end of the world but there is not a Ne exeas regnum The Gospell may go out of this or any Kingdome if they flacken in the doing of those things which God hath ordained for the meanes of keeping it that is a zealous and yet a discreet a sober and yet a learned assiduity in preaching Thus far then we have been justly carried in consideration of this circumstance in the manner of his preaching his preparation In descending to the next which is the matter of his Sermon we see much of that in his Text. S. Peter tooke his Text here Res. ver 34. out of Deuteronomy of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons Where Deut. 10.17 because the words are not precisely the same in Deuteronomy as they are in this Text we finde just occasion to note That neither Christ in his preaching nor the holy Ghost in penning the Scriptures of the new Testament were so curious as our times in citing Chapters and Verses or such distinctions no nor in citing the very very words of the places Heb. 4.4 There is a sentence cited thus indefinitely It is written in a certaine place without more particular note And to passe over many conducing to that purpose if we consider that one place in the Prophet Esay Make the heart of this people fat Esay 6.20 make their eyes heavy and shut them lest they see with their eyes and heare with their eares and understand with their hearts and convert and be healed and consider the same place as it is cited six severall times in the new Testament we shall see that they stood not upon such exact quotations and citing of the very words But to that purpose for which S. Peter had taken that text he follows his text Now Beloved I doe not goe about to
envy God that glory We reade of divers great actors in the first persecutions of the Christians who being fearefully tormented in body and soule at their deaths took care only that the Christians might not know what they suffered lest they should receive comfort and their God glory therein Certainly Herod would have been more affected if he had thought that we should have knowne how his pride was punished with those sudden wormes Acts 12.23 then with the punishment it selfe This is a self-reproofe even in this though he will not suffer it to break out to the edification of others there is some kinde of chiding himself for some thing mis-done But is there any comfort in this reproofe Consolatio Truly beloved I can hardly speak comfortably of such a man after he is dead that dyes in such a dis-affection loath that God should receive glory or his servants edification by these judgements But even with such a man if I assisted at his death-bed I would proceed with a hope to infuse comfort even from that dis-affection of his As long as I saw him in any acknowledgement though a negligent nay though a malignant a despitefull acknowledgement of God as long as I found him loath that God should receive glory even from that loathnesse from that reproofe from that acknowledgement That there is a God to whom glory is due I would hope to draw him to glorifie that God before his last gasp My zeale should last as long as his wives officiousnesse or his childrens or friends or servants obsequiousnesse or the solicitude of his Physitians should as long as there were breath they would minister some help as long as there were any sense of God I would hope to do some good And so much comfort may arise even out of this reproofe of the world as the world is only the wicked world In the last sense the world signifies the Saints the Elect the good men of the world Mundus sancti John 14.31 John 17.21 beleeving and persevering men Of those Christ sayes The world shall know that I love the Father And That the world may beleeve that thou hast sent me And this world that is the godliest of this world have many reproofes many corrections upon them That outwardly they are the prey of the wicked and inwardly have that Stimulum carnis which is the devils Solicitor and round about them they see nothing but profanation of his word mis-imployment of his works his creatures mis-constructions of his actions his judgements blasphemy of his name negligence and under-valuation of his Sacraments violation of his Sabbaths and holy convocations O what a bitter reproofe what a manifest evidence of the infirmity nay of the malignity of man is this if it be put home and throughly considered That even the goodnesse of man gets to no higher a degree but to have been the occasion of the greatest ill the greatest cruelty that ever was done the crucifying of the Lord of life The better a man is the more he concurred towards being the cause of Christs death which is a strange but a true and a pious consideration Dilexit mundum He loved the world and he came to save the world That is most especially and effectually those that should beleeve in him in the world and live according to that beliefe and die according to that life If there had been no such Christ had not died never been crucified So that impenitent men mis-beleeving men have not put Christ to death but it is we we whom he loves we that love him that have crucified him In what rank then of opposition against Christ shall we place our sins since even our faith and good works have been so farre the cause why Christ died that but for the salvation of such men Beleevers Workers Perseverers Christ had not died This then is the reproofe of the world that is of the Saints of God in the world Psal 84.10 that though I had rather be a doore-keeper in the house of my God I must dwell in the tents of wickednesse That though my zeale consume me because mine enemies have forgotten thy words Psal 119.138 I must stay amongst them that have forgotten thy words But this and all other reproofes that arise in the godly that we may still keep up that consideration that he that reproves us is The Comforter have this comfort in them that these faults that I indure in others God hath either pardoned in me or kept from me and that though this world be wicked yet when I shall come to the next world I shall finde Noah that had been drunk and Lot Gen. 9.21 Gen. 19.33 Numb 11.11 that had been incestuous and Moses that murmured at Gods proceedings and Iob and Ieremy and Ionas impatient even to imprecations against themselves Christs owne Disciples ambitious of worldly preferment his Apostles forsaking him his great Apostle forswearing him And Mary Magdalen that had been I know not what sinner and David that had been all I leave none so ill in this world but I may carry one that was or finde some that had been as ill as they in heaven and that blood of Christ Jesus which hath brought them thither is offered to them that are here who may be successors in their repentance as they are in their sins And so have you all intended for the Person the Comforter and the Action Reproofe and the Subject the World remaines only that for which there remaines but a little time the Time Cum venerit When the Comforter comes he will proceed thus We use to note three Advents three commings of Christ Cum venerit An Advent of Humiliation when he came in the flesh an Advent of glory when he shall come to judgement and between these an Advent of grace in his gracious working in us in this life and this middlemost Advent of Christ is the Advent of the Holy Ghost in this text when Christ works in us the Holy Ghost comes to us And so powerfull is his comming that whereas he that sent him Christ Jesus himself Came unto his own and his own received him not John 1.11 The Holy Ghost never comes to his owne but they receive him for onely by receiving him they are his owne for besides his title of Creation by which we are all his with the Father and the Son as there is a particular title accrewed to the Son by Redemption so is there to the Holy Ghost of certaine persons upon whom he sheds the comfort of his application The Holy Ghost picks out and chooses whom he will Spirat ubi vult perchance me that speake perchance him that heares perchance him that shut his eyes yester-night and opened them this morning in the guiltinesse of sin and repents it now perchance him that hath been in the meditation of an usurious contract of an ambitious supplantation of a licentious solicitation since he came hither into Gods
owne will thou hadst quenched hell If thou couldst be content willing to be in hell hell were not hell So if God save a man against his will heaven is not heaven If he be loath to come thither sorry that he shall be there he hath not the joy of heaven and then heaven is not heaven Put not God to save thee by miracle God can save an Image by miracle by miracle he can make an Image a man If man can make God of bread certainly God can make a man of an Image and so save him but God hath made thee his own Image and afforded thee meanes of salvation Use them God compels no man Luke 14.23 The Master of the feast invited many solemnly before hand they came not He sent his servants to call in the poore upon the sudden and they came so he receives late commers And there is a Compelle intrare He sends a servant to compell some to come in But that was but a servants work The Master onely invited he compelled none We the servants of God have certaine compulsories to bring men hither The denouncing of Gods Judgements the censures of the Church Excommunications and the rest are compulsories The State hath compulsories too in the penall Laws But all this is but to bring them into the house to Church Compelle intrare We can compell them to come to the first seale to Baptisme we can compell men to bring their children to that Sacrament But to salvation onely the Master brings and in that Parable the Master does onely invite he compells none Though his corrections may seeme to be compulsories yet even his corrections are sweet invitations His corrections are so farre from compelling men to come to heaven as that they put many men farther out of their way and worke an obduration rather then an obsequiousnesse With those therefore that neglect the meanes that he hath brought them to in sealing them in the fore-head this Angel hath no more to doe but gives them over to the power of the foure destroying Angels With those that attend those meanns he proceeds and in their behalfe his Donec Spare them till I have sealed them becomes the blessed Virgins Donec Mat. 1.25 Psal 110.1 she was a Virgin till she had her Child and a Virgin after too And it becomes our blessed Saviours Donec He sits at his Fathers right hand till his enemies bee made his foot-stoole and after too So these destroying Angels that had no power over them till they were sealed shall have no power over them after they are sealed but they shall passe from seale to seale after that seale on the fore-head Ne erubeseant Euangelium Rom. 1.16 We signe him with the signe of the Crosse in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confesse the faith of Christ Crucified He shall come also to those seales which our Saviour recommends to his Spouse Cant. 8.6 Set me as a seale on thy heart and as a seale on thine arme S. Ambrose collects them and connects them together Signaculum Christi in corde ut diligamus in fronte ut confiteamur in brachio ut operemur God seales us in the heart that we might love him and in the fore-head that we might professe it and in the hand that we might declare and practise it and then the whole purpose of this blessed Angel in our Text is perfected in us and we our selves are made partakers of the solemnity of this day which we celebrate for we our selves enter in the Communion of Saints by these three seales Of Beliefe Of Profession Of Works and Practise SERMONS Preached upon THE CONVERSION OF S. PAVL SERM. XLVI Preached at S. Pauls The Sunday after the Conversion of S. PAUL 1624. ACTS 9.4 And he fell to the earth and heard a voyce saying Saul Saul why persecutest thou me LEt us now praise famous Men and our Fathers that begat us Ecclus. 44.1 saies the Wiseman that is that assisted our second generation our spirituall Regeneration Let us praise them commemorate them The Lord hath wrought great glory by them Ver. 2. through his power from the beginning saies he there that is It hath alwaies beene the Lords way to glorifie himselfe in the conversion of Men by the ministery of Men. For he adds Ver. 4. They were leaders of the people by their counsaile and by their knowledge and learning meet for the people wise and eloquent men in their instructions and that is That God who gives these gifts for this purpose looks for the employment of these gifts to the edification of others to his glory There be of them that have left a name behinde them Ver. 8. as it is also added in that place that is That though God can amply reward his servants in the next world yet he does it sometimes in this world and though not with temporall happinesses in their life yet with honor and commemorations and celebrations of them after they are gone out of this life they leave a name behind them And amongst them in a high place shines our blessed and glorious Apostle S. Paul whose Conversion the Church celebrates now and for the celebration thereof hath appointed this part of Scripture from whence this text arises to be the Epistle of the Day And he fell to the earth and heard a voyce saying Saul Saul why persccutest thou me There are words in the text that will reach to all the Story of S. Pauls Conversion Divisio embrace all involve and enwrap all we must contract them into lesse then three parts we cannot well those will be these first The Person Saul He He fell to the earth and then his humiliation his exinanition of himselfe his devesting putting off of himselfe He fell to the earth and lastly his investing of Christ his putting on of Christ his rising againe by the power of a new inanimation a new soule breathed into him from Christ He heard a voyce saying Saul Saul why persecutest thou me Now a re-distribution a sub-division of these parts into their branches we shall present to you anon more opportunely as we shall come in due order to the handling of the parts themselves In the first the branches will be but these Sauls indisposition when Christ tooke him in hand and Christs worke upon him what he found him what he left him will determine our first part The person First then what he was at that time 1. Part. Quid ante the Holy Ghost gives evidence enough against him and he gives enough against himselfe Of that which the Holy Ghost gives you may see a great many heavy pieces a great many appliable circumstances if at any time at home you do but paraphrase and spread to your selves the former part of this Chapter to this text Take a little preparation from me Adhuc spirans saies the first verse Saul yet breathing threatnings and slaughter Then when he was
Life or that I should bee separated from Christ though all the world beside were to be blotted out and separated if I staid in The benefit that we are to make of the errors of holy men is not that That man did this therefore I may doe it but this God suffered that holy man to fall and yet loved that good soule well God hath not therefore cast me away though he have suffered me to fall too Bread is mans best sustenance yet there may be a dangerous surfet of bread Charity is the bread that the soule lives by yet there may be a surfet of charity I may mis-lead my selfe shrewdly if I say surely my Father is a good man my Master a good man my Pastor a good man men that have the testimony of Gods love by his manifold blessings upon them and therefore I may be bold to doe whatsoever I see them doe Be perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect Mat. 5.48 1 Cor. 11.1 is the example that Christ gives you Be yee followers of mee as I am of Christ is â—he example that the Apostle gives you Good Examples are good Assistances but no Example of man is sufficient to constitute a certaine and constant rule All the actions of the holiest man are not holy Hence appeares the vanity and impertinency of that calumny with which our adversaries of the Roman perswasion labour to oppresse us That those points in which we depart from them cannot be well established because therein we depart from the Fathers As though there were no condemnation to them that pretended a perpetuall adhering to the Fathers nor salvation to them who suspected any Father of any mistaking And they have thought that one thing enough to discredit and blast and annihilate that great and usefull labour which the Centuriators the Magdeburgenses tooke in compiling the Ecclesiasticall Story that in every age as they passe those Authors have laid out a particular section a particular Chapter De navis Patrum to note the mistakings of the Fathers in every age This they thinke a criminall and a hainous thing inough to discredit the whole worke As though there were ever in any age any Father that mistook nothing or that it were blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to note such a mistaking And yet if those blessed Fathers now in possession of heaven be well affected with our celebrating or ill with our neglecting their works certainly they finde much more cause to complaine of our adversaries then of us Never any in the Reformation hath spoken so lightly nay so heavily so negligently nay so diligently so studiously in diminution of the Fathers as they have done One of the first Jesuits proceeds with modesty and ingenuity and yet sayes Quaelibet aetas antiquitati detulit Salmeron Every age hath been apt to ascribe much to the Ancient Fathers Hoc autem asserimus sayes he Iuniores Doctores perspicaciores This we must necessarily acknowledge that our later Men have seen farther then the elder Fathers did His fellow Jesuit goes farther Hoc omnes dicunt Maldon sed non probant sayes he speaking of one person in the Genealogy of Christ This the Fathers say sayes he and later men too Catholiques and Heretiques All But none of them prove it He will not take their words not the whole Churches though they all agree But a Bishop of as much estimation and authority in the Council of Trent as any Cornel. Mussuâ— goes much farther Being pressed with S. Augustins opinion he sayes Nec nos tantillum moveat Augustinus Let it never trouble us which way S. Augustine goes Hoc enim illi peculiare sayes he ut alium errorem expugnans alteri ansam praebeat for this is inseparable from S. Augustine That out of an earnestnesse to destroy one error he will establish another Nor doth that Bishop impute that distemper onely to S. Augustine but to S. Hierome too Of him he sayes In medio positus certamine ar dore feriendi adversarios premit socios S. Hierome laies about him and rather then misse his enemy he wounds his friends also But all that might better be borne then this Turpiter errarunt Patres The Fathers fell foully into errors And this better then that Eorum opinio opinio Haereticorum The Fathers differ not from the Heretiques concurre with the Heretiques Who in the Reformation hath charged the Fathers so farre and yet Baronius hath If they did not oppresse us with this calumny of neglecting or undervaluing the Fathers we should not make our recourse to this way of recrimination for God knowes if it be modestly done and with the reverence in many respects due to them it is no fault to say the Fathers fell into some faults Yet it is rather our Adversaries observation then ours That all the Ancient Fathers were Chiliasts Millenarians and maintained that error of a thousand yeares temporall happinesse upon this earth betweene the Resurrection and our actuall and eternall possession of Heaven It is their observation rather then ours That all the Ancient Fathers denied the dead a fruition of the sight of God till the day of Judgement It is theirs rather then ours That all the Greek Fathers and some of the Latin assigned Gods foreknowledge of mans works to be the cause of his predestination It is their note That for the first six hundred yeares the generall opinion and generall practise of the Church was To give the Sacrament of the Lords Supper to Infants newly baptized as a thing necessary to their salvation They have noted That the opinion of the Ancient Fathers was contrary to the present opinion in the Church of Rome concerning the conception of the blessed Virgin without Originall sin These notes and imputations arise from their Authors and not from ours and they have told it us rather then we them Indeed neither we nor they can dissemble the mistakings of the Fathers The Fathers themselves would not have them dissembled Hieron De me sayes S. Hierom ubicunque de meo sensu loquor arguat me quilibet August For my part wheresoever I deliver but mine owne opinion every man hath his liberty to correct me It is true S. Augustine does call Iulian the Pelagian to the Fathers but it is to vindicate and redeeme the Fathers from those calumnies which Iulian had laid upon them that they were Multitudo caecorum a herd a swarme of blinde guides and followers of one another And that they were Conspiratio perditorum Damned Conspirators against the truth To set the Fathers in their true light and to restore them to their lustre and dignity and to make Iulian confesse what reverend persons they were S. Aug. cals him to the consideration of the Fathers but not to try matters of faith by them alone Lactant. For Sapientiam sibi adimit qui sine judicio majorum inventa probat That man devests himselfe of all discretion who
are more vexed with that Father then with any other and call him for Athanasius Sathanasius As he cals that Sermon a Sermon against all Heresies so he presents this Psalme against all Tentations and Tribulations Not that therein David puts himselfe to waigh particular tentations and tribulations but that he puts every man in every triall to put himselfe wholly upon God and to know that if man cannot helpe him in this world nothing can And for man Surely men of low degree are vanity and men of high degree are a lie To be laid in the balance they are altogether lighter then vanity We consider in the words Divisie The maner and the matter How it is spoken And what is said For the first the maner this is not absolutely spoken but comparatively not peremptorily but respectively not simply but with relation The Holy Ghost in Davids mouth doth not say That man can give no assistance to man That man may looke for no helpe from man But that God is alwayes so present and so all-sufficient that wee need not doubt of him nor rely upon any other otherwise then as an instrument of his For that which he had spread over all the verses of the Psalme before he summes up in the verse immediatly before the Text Trust in God at all times for hee is a refuge for us and then hee strengthens that with this What would yee prefer before God or joyne with God man what man Surely men of low degree are vanity and men of high degree are a lie To be laid in the balance they are altogether lighter then vanity Which words being our second part open to us these steps First that other Doctrins morall or civill Instructions may be delivered to us possibly and probably and likely and credibly and under the like termes and modifications but this in our Text is Assuredly undoubtedly undeniably irrefragably Surely men of low degree c. For howsoever when they two are compared together with one another it may admit discourse and disputation whether men of high degree or of low degree doe most violate the lawes of God that is whether prosperity or adversity make men most obnoxious to sin yet when they come to bee compared not with one another but both with God this asseveration this surely reaches to both Surely The man of low degree is vanity and as Surely The man of high degree is a lie And though this may seeme to leave some roome for men of middle ranks and fortunes and places That there is a mediocrity that might give an assurance and an establishment yet there is no such thing in this case for as surely still to be laid in the balance they are all not all of low and all of high degree all rich and all poore but All of all conditions altogether lighter then vanity Now all this doth not destroy not extinguish not annihilate that affection in man of hope and trust and confidence in any thing but it rectifies that hope and trust and confidence and directs it upon the right object Trust not in flesh but in spirituall things That wee neither bend our hopes downeward to infernall spirits to seeke help in Witches nor mis-carry it upward to seeke it in Saints or Angels but fix it in him who is nearer us then our owne soules our blessed and gracious and powerfull God who in this one Psalme is presented unto us by so many names of assurance and confidence My expectation my salvation my rocke my defence my glory my strength my refuge and the rest First then these words Surely men of low degree and men of high degree are vanity 1 Part. Quid home erga Deum are not absolutely simple unconditionally spoken Man is not nothing Nay it is so farre from that as that there is nothing but man As though there may bee many other creatures living which were not derived from Eve and yet Eve is called Mater viventium Gen. 3.20 The Mother of all that live because the life of none but man is considered so there bee so many other Creatures and Christ sends his Apostles to preach Omni Creaturae Marke 16.15 to every creature yet he meanes none but Man All that God did in making all other creatures in all the other dayes was but a laying in of Materials The setting up of the work was in the making of Man God had a picture of himselfe from all eternity from all eternity the Sonne of God was the Image of the invisible God Colos 1.15 But then God would have one picture which should bee the picture of Father Sonne and Holy Ghost too and so made man to the Image of the whole Trinity As the Apostle argues Cui dixit To whom did God ever say This day have I begotten thee but to Christ so we say Heb. 1.5 for the dignity of man Cui dixit of what creature did God ever say Faciamus Let us us make it All all the Persons together and to imploy and exercise not onely Power but Counsaile in the making of that Creature Nay when man was at worst he was at a high price man being fallen yet then in that undervalue he cost God his own and onely Son before he could have him Neither became the Son of God capable of redeeming man by any lesse or any other way then by becomming man The Redeemer must be better then he whom he is to redeeme and yet he must abase himselfe to as low a nature as his to his nature else he could not redeeme him God was aliened from man and yet God must become man to recover man God joyned man in Commission with himselfe upon his Creation Gen. 1.28 in the Replete and Dominamini when he gave Man power to possesse the Earth and subdue the Creature And God hath made man so equall to himselfe as not onely to have a soule endlesse and immortall as God himselfe though not endlesse and immortall as himselfe yet endlesse and immortall as himselfe too though not immortall the same way for Gods immortality is of himselfe yet as certainly and as infallibly Immortall as he but God hath not onely given man such an immortall soule but a body that shall put on Incorruption and Immortality too which he hath given to none of the Angels In so much that howsoever it be whether an Angel may wish it selfe an Archangel or an Archangel wish it selfe a Cherubin yet man cannot deliberately wish himselfe an Angel because he should lose by that wish and lacke that glory which he shall have in his body We shall be like the Angels sayes Christ In that wherein we can be like them Marke 12.25 we shall be like them in the exalting and refining of the faculties of our soules But they shall never attaine to be like us in our glorified bodies Neither hath God onely reserved this treasure and dignity of man to the next world but even here he
see by the light of this glory shed upon me there In this place and at this time the glory of God is but we lack that light to see it by When my soule and body are glorified in heaven by that light of glory in me I shall see the glory of God But then what must that glory of the Essence of God be which I shall see thorough the light of Gods own glory I must have the light of glory upon me to see the glory of God and then by his glory I shall see his Essence Rom. 11.33 When S. Paul cryes out upon the bottomlesse depth of the riches of his Attributes O the depth of the riches both of the wisedome and knowledge of God! how glorious how bottomlesse is the riches of his Essence If I cannot look upon him in his glasse 1 Cor. 13.12 1 Joh. 3.2 in the body of the Sunne how shall I looke upon him face to face And if I be dazeled to see him as he works how shall I see him Sicutiest as he is and in his Essence But it may be some ease to our spirits which cannot endure the search of this glory of heaven which shall shew us the very Essence of God to take this word of our Text as our first translation of all tooke it for one beame of this glory that is Praise Consider we therefore this everlasting future onely so How the upright in heart shall be praised in heaven First The Militant Church shall transmit me to the Triumphant with her recommendation That I lived in the obedience of the Church of God That I dyed in the faith of the Sonne of God That I departed and went away from them in the company and conduct of the Spirit of God into whose hands they heard me they saw me recommend my spirit 1 Cor. 6.19 And that I left my body which was the Temple of the Holy Ghost to them and that they have placed it in Gods treasury in his consecrated earth to attend the Resurrection which they shall beseech him to hasten for my sake and to make it joyfull and glorious to me and them when it comes So the Militant Church shall transmit me to the Triumphant with this praise this testimony this recommendation And then if I have done any good to any of Gods servants or to any that hath not been Gods servant for Gods sake If I have but fed a hungry man If I have but clothed a naked childe If I have but comforted a sad soule or instructed an ignorant soule If I have but preached a Sermon and then printed that Sermon that is first preached it and then lived according to it for the subsequent life is the best printing and the most usefull and profitable publishing of a Sermon All those things that I have done for Gods glory shall follow me shall accompany me shall be in heaven before me and meet me with their testimony That as I did not serve God for nothing God gave me his blessings with a large hand and in overflowing measures so I did not nothing for the service of God Though it be as it ought to be nothing in mine own eyes nothing in respect of my duty yet to them who have received any good by it it must not seeme nothing for then they are unthankfull to God who gave it by whose hand soever This shall be my praise to Heaven my recommendation thither And then my praise in Heaven shall be my preferment in Heaven That those blessed Angels that rejoyced at my Conversion before shall praise my perseverance in that profession and admit me to a part in all their Hymns and Hosannaes and Hallelujahs which Hallelujah is a word produced from the very word of this Text Halal My Hallelujah shall be my Halal my praising of God shall be my praise And from this testimony I shall come to the accomplishment of all to receive from my Saviours own mouth that glorious that victorious that harmonious praise that Dissolving and that Recollecting testimony that shall melt my bowels and yet fix me powre me out and yet gather me into his bosome that Euge bone serve Mat. 25.21 Well done good and faithfull servant enter into thy Masters joy And when he hath sealed me with his Euge and accepted my service who shall stamp a Vae quod non upon me who shall say Woe be unto thee that thou didst not preach this or that day in this or that place When he shall have styled me Bone fidelis Good and faithfull servant who shall upbraid me with a late undertaking this Calling or a slack pursuing or a lazy intermitting the function thereof When he shall have entred me into my Masters joy what fortune what sin can cast any Cloud of sadnesse upon me This is that that makes Heaven Heaven That this Retribution which is future now shall be present then and when it is then present it shall be future againe and present and future for ever ever enjoyed and expected ever The upright in heart shall have whatsoever all Translations can enlarge and extend themselves unto They shall Rejoyce they shall Glory they shall Praise and they shall bee praised and all these in an everlasting future for ever Which everlastingnesse is such a Terme as God himselfe cannot enlarge As God cannot make himselfe a better God then he is because hee is infinitely good infinite goodnesse already so God himselfe cannot make our Terme in heaven longer then it is for it is infinite everlastingnesse infinite eternity That that wee are to beg of him is that as that state shall never end so he will be pleased to hasten the beginning thereof that so we may be numbred with his Saints in Glory everlasting Amen SERM. LXVIII The fourth of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalmes Preached at S. Pauls 28. Ianuary 1626. PSAL. 65.5 By terrible things in righteousnesse wilt thou answer us O God of our salvation who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth and of them that are a far off upon the Sea GOd makes nothing of nothing now God eased himselfe of that incomprehensible worke and ended it in the first Sabbath But God makes great things of little still And in that kinde hee works most upon the Sabbath 1 Cor. 1.21 when by the foolishnesse of Preaching hee infatuates the wisedome of the world and by the word in the mouth of a weake man he enfeebles the power of sinne and Satan in the world and by but so much breath as blows out an houre-glasse gathers three thousand soules at a Sermon and five thousand soules at a Sermon as upon Peters preaching in the second and in the fourth of the Acts. And this worke of his to make much of little and to doe much by little is most properly a Miracle For the Creation which was a production of all out of nothing was not properly a miracle A miracle is a thing done
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
remembred of Death Why are these men thus baptized for the Dead And then here is Sanctum Sanctorum The innermost part of the Church The Holy of Holyes that is the manifestation of all the mysterious salvation belonging to soule and body in the Resurrection Why are these men thus baptized for the dead if there be no Resurrection Our first dayes worke in handling these words was to accept and then to apply that in which all agreed that these words were an argument for the Resurrection And we did both those offices we did accept it and so shew you how the assurance of the Resurrection accrues to us and what is the office of Reason and what is the office of Faith in that affayre And then we did apply it and so shew you divers resemblances and conformities between naturall Death and spirituall Death and between the Resurrection of the body to glory at last and the Resurrection of the soule by grace in the way and wherein they induced and assisted and illustrated one another And those two miles made up that Sabbath dayes journey When we shall returne to the handling of them the next day which will be the last we shall consider how these words have been misapplyed by our Adversaries of the Romane Church and then the severall Expositions which they have received from sound and Orthodoxall men that thence we may draw a conclusion and determination for our selves And in those two miles wee shall also make up that Sabbath Dayes journey when God shall be pleased to bring us to it This dayes Exercise shall be to consider that very point for the establishment whereof they have so detorted and mis-applyed these words which is their Purgatory That this Baptisme for the Dead must necessarily prove Purgatory and their Purgatory So then this Dayes Exercise will bee meerely Polemicall the handling of a Controversie which though it be not alwayes pertinent yet neither is it alwayes unseasonable There was a time but lately when he who was in his desire and intension the Peace-maker of all the Christian world as he had a desire to have slumbred all Field-drums so had he also to have slumbred all Pulpit-drums so far as to passe over all impertinent handling of Controversies meerly and professedly as Controversies though never by way of positive maintenance of Orthodoxall and fundamentall Truths That so there might be no slackning in the defence of the truth of our Religion and yet there might bee a discreet and temperate forbearing of personall and especially of Nationall exasperations And as this way had piety and peace in the worke it selfe so was it then occasionally exalted by a great necessity He who was then our hope and is now the breath of our nostrils and the Anointed of the Lord being then taken in their pits and in that great respect such exasperations the fitter to be forborne especially since that course might well bee held without any prevarication or cooling the zeale of the positive maintenance of the religion of our Church But things standing now in another state and all peace both Ecclesiasticall and Civill with these men being by themselves removed and taken away and hee whom we feared returned in all kinde of safety safe in body and safe in soule too whom though their Church could not their Court hath chatechised in their religion that is brought him to a cleere understanding of their Ambition for Ambition is their Religion and S. Peters Ship must saile in their Fleets and with their winds or it must sink and the Catholique and Militant Church must march in their Armies though those Armies march against Rome it selfe as heretofore they have done to the sacking of that Towne to the holding of the Pope himselfe in so sordid a prison for sixe moneths as that some of his nearest servants about him died of the plague to the treading under foot Priests and Bishops and Cardinals to the dishonouring of Matrons and the ravishing of professed Virgins and committing such insolencies Catholiques upon Catholiques as they would call us Heretiques for beleeving them but that they are their owne Catholique Authors that have written them Things being now I say in this state with these men since wee heare that Drums beat in every field abroad it becomes us also to returne to the brasing and beating of our Drums in the Pulpit too that so as Adam did not onely dresse Paradise but keepe Paradise and as the children of God did not onely build but build with one hand and fight with another so wee also may employ some of our Meditations upon supplanting and subverting of error as well as upon the planting and watering of the Truth To which purpose I shall prepare this day for the vindicating and redeeming of these words from the Adversary which will bee the worke of the next day by handling to day that point for which they have misapplied them which is Purgatory and the mother and the off-spring of that for what can that generation of vipers suck from this Text which is not If there be no such Purgatory but If there be no such Resurrection why then are these men baptized for the dead Heaven and earth shall passe away saith Christ but my word shall not passe away Matt 24.35 But rather then Purgatory shall passe away his word must admit such an Interpretation as shall passe away and evacuate the intention and purpose of the Holy Ghost therein How much of the earth is passed away from them wee know who acknowledge the mercy and might and miracle of Gods working in withdrawing so many Kingdomes so many Nations of the earth in so short time from the obedience and superstition of Rome as that if Controversies had been to have been tried by number they would have found as many against them as with them so much of the earth is passed from them How much of heaven is passed from them that is how much lesse interest and claime to heaven they can have now when God hath afforded them so much light and they have resisted it then when they were in so great a part under invincible ignorance God onely who is the onely Judge in such causes knowes and he of his goodnesse enlarge their title to that place by their conversion towards it But how much soever of earth or heaven passe away they will not lose an acre an inch of Purgatory For as men are most delighted with things of their owne making their owne planting their owne purchasing their owne building so are these men therefore inamoured of Purgatory Men that can make Articles of faith of their owne Traditions And as men to elude the law against new Buildings first build sheds or stables and after erect houses there as upon old foundations so these men first put forth Traditions of their owne and then erect those Traditions into Articles of faith as ancient foundations of Religion Men that make God himselfe of a piece of bread
that assurance which his blessed Spirit imprints in me now of the salvation of the one and of the resurrection of the other And for that constant and cheerfull resolution which the same Spirit established in me to live and die in the Religion now professed in the Church of England In expectation of that Resurrection I desire my body may be buried in the most private manner that may be in that place of S. Pauls Church London that the now Residentiaries have at my request assigned for that purpose c. And this my last Will and Testament made in the feare of God whose merit I humbly beg and constantly rely upon in Iesus Christ and in perfect love and charity with all the world whose pardon I aske from the lowest of my servants to the highest of my Superiours Written all with mine owne hand and my name subscribed to every Page being five in number Nor was his charity exprest onely at his death but in his life by a cheerfull and frequent visitation of friends whose minds were dejected or fortunes necessitous And he redeemed many out of Prison that lay for small debts or for their fees He was a continuall giver to poore Scholars both of this and forraigne Nations besides what he gave with his owne hand he usually sent a servant to all the Prisons in London to distribute his charity at all festivall times in the yeare He gave 100. l. at one time to a Gentleman that he had formerly knowne live plentifully and was then decayed in his estate He was a happy Reconciler of of differences in many Families of his friends and kindred who had such faith in his judgement and impartiality that he scarce ever advised them to any thing in vaine He was even to her death a most dutifull son to his Mother carefull to provide for her supportation of which she had been destitute but that God raised him up to prevent her necessities who having suckt in the Religion of the Romane Church with her mothers milk or presently after it spent her estate in forraigne Countries to enjoy a liberty in it and died in his house but three moneths before him And to the end it may appeare how just a Steward he was of his Lord and Masters Revenue I have thought fit to let the Reader know that after his entrance into his Deanry as he numbred his yeares and at the foot of a private account to which God and Angels onely were witnesses with him computed first his Revenue then his expences then what was given to the poore and pious uses lastly what rested for him and for his he blest each yeares poore remainder with a thankfull Prayer which for that they discover a more then common devotion the Reader shall partake some of them in his owne words 1624. So all is that remains of these two years 1625. So all is that remains of these two years Deo Opt. Max. benigno Largitori à me ab iis quibus haec à me reservantur gloria gratia in aeternum Amen 1626. So that this yeare God hath blessed me and mine with Multiplicatae sunt super nos misericordiae tuae Domine Da Domine ut quae ex immensa bonitate tua nobis elargiri dignatus sis in quorumcunque manus devenerint in tuam semper cedant gloriam Amen 1628. In fine horum sex annorum manet 1629. Quid habeo quod non accepi à Domino Largiatur etiam ut quae largitus est sua iterum fiant bono eorum usu ut quemadmodum nec officiis hujus mundi nec loci in quo me posuit dignitati nec servis nec egenis in toto hujus anni curriculo mihi conscius sum me defuisse ita ut libert quibus quae supersunt supersunt grato animo ea accipiant beneficum Authorem recognoscant Amen But I returne from my digression We left the Author sick in Essex where he was forced to spend most of that Winter by reason of his disability to remove from thence And having never during almost twenty yeares omitted his personall attendance on his Majestie in his monthly service Nor being ever left out of the number of Lent Preachers And in January following there being a generall report that he was dead that report occasioned this Letter to a familiar friend SIR THis advantage you and my other friends have by my frequent feavers that I am so much the oftner at the gates of heaven And this advantage by the solitude and close imprisonment that they reduce me to after that I am so much the oftner at my Prayers in which I shall never leave out your happinesse And I doubt not but amongst his other blessings God will adde some one to you for my Prayers A man would be almost content to die if there were no other benefit in death to heare of so much sorrow and so much good testimony from good men as I God be blessed for it did upon the report of my death Yet I perceive it went not through all For one writ to me that some and he said of my friends conceived I was not so ill as I pretended but withdrew my selfe to live at ease discharged of preaching It is an unfriendly and God knowes an ungrounded interpretation for I have alwayes been sorrier when I could not preach then any could be they could not hear me It hath been my desire and God may be pleased to grant it that I might die in the Pulpit If not that yet that I might take my death in the Pulpit that is die the sooner by occasion of those labours Sir I hope to see you presently after Candlemas about which time will fall my Lent Sermon at Court except my Lord Chamberlaine beleeve me to be dead and leave me out For as long as I live and am not speechlesse I would not willingly decline that service I have better leasure to write then you to reade yet I would not willingly oppresse you with too much Letter God blesse you and your son as I wish January 7. 1630. Your poore friend and servant in Christ Jesus Iohn Donne Before that month ended he was appointed to preach upon his old constant day the first Friday in Lent he had notice of it and having in his sicknesse prepared for the employment as he had long thirsted for it So resolving his weaknesse should not hinder his journey he came to London some few dayes before his day appointed Being come many of his friends who with sorrow saw his sicknesse had left him onely so much flesh as did cover his bones doubted his strength to performe that taske And therefore perswaded him from undertaking it assuring him however it was like to shorten his dayes But he passionately denyed their requests saying He would not doubt that God who in many weaknesses had assisted him with an unexpected strength would now withdraw it in his last employment professing a holy ambition to
performe that sacred Work And when to the amazement of some beholders he appeared in the Pulpit many thought he presented himselfe not to preach mortification by a living voice but mortality by a decayed body and dying face And doubtlesse many did secretly ask that question in Ezekiel Doe these bones live Ezek. 37.3 Or can that soule organise that tongue to speak so long time as the sand in that glasse will move towards its center and measure out an houre of this dying mans unspent life Doubtlesse it cannot Yet after some faint pauses in his zealous Prayer his strong desires inabled his weak body to discharge his memory of his pre conceived Meditations which were of dying The Text being To God the Lord belong the issues from death Many that saw his teares and heard his hollow voice professing they thought the Text Prophetically chosen and that D. Donne had preacht his owne Funerall Sermon Being full of joy that God had inabled him to performe this desired duty he hastned to his house out of which he never moved untill like S. Stephen Acts 8. He was carried by devout men to his grave And the next day after his Sermon his spirits being much spent and he indisposed to discourse a friend asked him Why are you sad To whom he replyed after this manner I am not sad I am in a serious contemplation of the mercies of my God to me And now I plainly see it was his hand that prevented me from all temporall employment And I see it was his will that I should never settle nor thrive untill I entred into the Ministery in which I have now lived almost twenty yeares I hope to his glory and by which I most humbly thank him I have been enabled to requite most of those friends that shewed me kindnesse when my fortunes were low And as it hath occasioned the expression of my gratitude I thank God most of them have stood in need of my requitall I have been usefull and comfortable to my good Father in Law Sir George More whose patience God hath been pleased to exercise by many temporall crosses I have maintained my owne Mother whom it hath pleased God after a plentifull fortune in her former times to bring to a great decay in her very old age I have quieted the consciences of many that groaned under the burthen of a wounded spirit whose Prayers I hope are availeable for me I cannot plead innocencie of life especially of my youth but I am to be judged by a mercifull God who hath given me even at this time some testimonies by his holy Spirit that I am of the number of his Elect. I am ful of joy and shall die in peace Upon Munday following he took his last leave of his beloved Studie and being hourely sensible of his decay retired himselfe into his bed-chamber and that week sent at severall times for many of his most considerable friends of whom he tooke a solemne and deliberate Farewell commending to their considerations some sentences particularly usefull for the regulation of their lives and dismist them as * Gen. 49. Iacob did his sons with a spirituall benediction The Sunday following he appointed his servants that if there were any worldly businesse undone that concerned them or himselfe it should be prepared against Saturday next for after that day he would not mixe his thoughts with any thing that concerned the world Nor ever did Now he had nothing to doe but die To doe which he stood in need of no more time for he had long studied it and to such a perfection that in a former sicknesse he called God to witnesse Devot Prayer 23. he was that minute prepared to deliver his soule into his hands if that minute God would accept of his dissolution In that sicknesse he begged of his God the God of constancy to be preserved in that estate for ever And his patient expectation to have his immortall soule disrobed from her garment of mortality makes me confident he now had a modest assurance that his prayers were then heard and his petition granted He lay fifteene dayes earnestly expecting his hourely change And in the last houre of his last day as his body melted away and vapoured into spirit his soule having I verily beleeve some revelation of the Beatifical Vision he said I were miserable if I might not die And after those words closed many periods of his faint breath with these words Thy kingdome come Thy will be done His speech which had long been his faithfull servant remained with him till his last minute and then forsook him not to serve another master but died before him for that it was uselesse to him who now conversed with God on earth as Angels are said to doe in heaven onely by thoughts and looks Being speechlesse he did as S. Stephen look stedfastly towards heaven till he saw the Sonne of God standing at the right hand of his Father And being satisfied with this blessed sight as his soule ascended and his last breath departed from him he closed his owne eyes and then disposed his hands and body into such a posture as required no alteration by those that came to shroud him Thus variable thus vertuous was the life thus memorable thus exemplary was the death of this most excellent man He was buried in S. Pauls Church in that place which he had appointed for that use some yeares before his death and by which he passed daily to his devotions But not buried privately though he desired it For besides an unnumbred number of others many persons of Nobility and eminency who did love and honour him in his life did shew it at his Funerall by a voluntary and very sad attendance of his body to the grave To which after his buriall some mournfull friends repaired And as Alexander the Great did to the grave of the famous Achillis Plutarch so they strewed his with curious and costly flowers Which course they who were never yet knowne continued each morning and evening for divers dayes not ceasing till the stones that were taken up in that Church to give his body admission into the cold earth now his bed of rest were againe by the Masons art levelled and firmed as they had been formerly and his place of buriall undistinguishable to common view Nor was this though not usuall all the honour done to his reverend ashes for by some good body who t is like thought his memory ought to be perpetuated there was 100. marks sent to his two faithfull friends * D. Henry King D. Mountfort and Executors the person that sent it not yet known they look not for a reward on earth towards the making of a Monument for him which I think is as lively a representation as in dead marble can be made of him HE was of stature moderately tall of a straight and equally proportioned body to which all his words and actions gave an unexpressible