the Spirit of God is expressely named so that we do but exercise reason and nature in directing our selves upon God we exercise not Faith and without faith it is impossible to please God till we come to that which is above nature till we apprehend a Trinitie we know God we beleeve in the Trinitie The Gentiles multiplied gods there were almost as many gods as men that beleeved in them and I am got out of that throng and out of that noise when I am come into the knowledge of one God but I am got above stairs got into the bed-chamber when I am come to see the Trinitie and to apprehend not onely that I am in the care of a great powerfull God but that there is a Father that made me a Sonne that redeemed me a holy Ghost that applies this good purpose of the Father and Sonne upon me to me The root of all is God But it is not the way to receive fruits to dig to the root but to reach to the boughs I reach for my creation to the Father for my redemption to the Sonne for my sanctification to the holy Ghost and so I make the knowledge of God a tree of life unto me and not otherwise Truely it is a sad contemplation to see Christians scratch and wound and teare one another with the ignominious invectives and uncharitable names of Heretick and Schismatick about ceremoniall and problematicall and indeed but criticall verball controversies and in the mean time the foundation of all the Trinitie undermined by those numerous those multitudinous ant-hills of Socinians that overflow some parts of the Christian world and multiply every where And therefore the adversaries of the Reformation were wise in their generation when to supplant the credit of both those great assistants of the Reformation Luther Calvin they impute to Calvin fundamentall errour in the divinitie of the second person of the Trinitie the Sonne And they impute to Luther a detestation of the word Trinitie and an expunction thereof in all places of the Liturgie where the Church had received that word They knew well if that slander could prevail against those persons nothing that they could say could prevail upon any good Christians But though in our Doctrine we keep up the Trinitie aright yet God knows in our Practise we do not I hope it cannot be said of any of us that he beleeves not the Trinitie but who amongst us thinks of the Trinitie considers of the Trinitie Father and Sonne do naturally imply and induce one another therefore they fall oftener into our consideration but for the holy Ghost who feels him when he feels him who takes knowledge of his working when he works Indeed our Fathers provided not well enough for the worship of the whole Trinitie nor of the holy Ghost in particular in the endowments of the Church and consecrations of the Churches and possessions in their names what a spirituall dominion in the Prayers worship of the people what a temporall dominion in the possessions of the world had the Virgin Marie Queen of heaven and Queen of earth too She was made joynt-purchaser of the Church with the Sonne and had asmuch of the worship thereof as he though she paid her Fine in milk and he in bloud And till a new sect came in her Sonnes name and in his name the name of Jesus took the Regencie so farre out of that Queen-mothers hands and sued out her sonnes liverie so farre as that though her name be used the Virgin Marie is but a Feofee in trust for them all was hers And if God oppose not these new usurpers of the world posteritie will soon see S. Ignatius worth all the Trinitie in possessions and endowments and that sumptuous and splendid foundation of his first Temple at Rome may well create a conjecture and suspicion Travell no farther Survey but this Citie and of their not one hundred Churches the Virgin Marie hath a dozen The Trinitie hath but one Christ hath but one the holy Ghost hath none But not to go into the Citie nor out of our selves which of us doth truely considerately ascribe the comforts that he receives in dangers or in distresses to that God of all comfort the Comforter the holy Ghost We know who procured us our presentation and our dispensation you know who procured you your offices and your honours Shall I ever forget who gave me my comfort in sicknesse who gave me my comfort in the troubles and perplexities and diffidencies of my conscience The holy Ghost the holy Ghost brought you hither The holy Ghost opens your eares and your hearts here Till in all your distresses you say Veni Creator Spiritus Come holy Ghost and that you feel a comfort in his coming you can never say Veni Domine Jesu Come Lord Jesus come to judgement Never to consider the day of judgement is a fearfull thing but to consider the day of judgement without the holy Ghost is a thousand times more fearfull This seal then this impression this notion of the Trinitie being set upon us in this first plurall word of our Text Faciamus Let us for Father Sonne and holy Ghost made man and this seal being reimprinted upon us in our second Creation or Regeneration in Baptisme man is baptized in the name of the Father and of the Sonne and of the holy Ghost this notion of the Trinitie being our distinctive character from Jew and Gentile this being our specificall form why doth not this our form this soul of our Religion denominate us why are we not called Trinitarians a name that would embrace the profession of all the persons but onely Christians which limits and determines us upon one The first Christians amongst whose manifold persecutions scorn and contempt was not the least in contempt and scorn were called Nazaraei Nazarites in the mouth of the vulgar and Galilaei Galileans in the mouth of Julian Judaei Jews in the mouth of Nero when he imputed the burning of Rome his own art to them and Christiani Christians so that as Tertullian sayes they could accuse Christians of nothing but the name of Christians and yet they could not call them by their right name of Christians which was gentle quiet easie patient men made to be troden upon but they gave them divers names in scorn yet never called them Trinitarians Christians themselves amongst themselves were called by divers names in the Primitive Church for distinction Fideles the Faithfull and Fratres the Brethren and Discipuli Disciples after by common custome at Antioch Christians and after that they say by a councell which the Apostles held at the same Citie at Antioch there passed an expresse Canon of the Church that they should be called so Christians And before they had this name at Antioch first by common usage after by a determinate Canon to be called Christians from Christ at Alexandria they were called most likely from the name of Jesus
clouds Ad imaginem similitudinem that we are made according to a pattern to an image to a likenesse which God proposed to himself for the making of man This consideration that God did not rest in that preexistent matter out of which he made all other creatures and produced their forms out of their matter for the making of man but took a form a pattern a modell for that work This is the North-winde that is called upon to carrie Cant. 4. 16. out the perfumes of the garden to spread the goodnesse of God abroad this is that which is intended in Job Fair weather cometh out of the Job 37. 22. North. Our West our declination is in this that we are but earth our North our dissipation of that darknesse is in this that we are not all earth though we be of that matter we have on another form another image another likenesse And then whose image and likenesse it is is our Meridionall height our Noon our South-point our highest elevation In imagine nostra Let us make man in our image Though our sunne set at noon as the prophet Amos Amos 8. 9. speaks though we die in our youth or fall in our height yet even in that sunne-set we shall have a noon for this image of God shall never depart from our soul no not when that soul departs from our bodie And that is our South our Meridionall height and glory And when we have thus seen this East in the Faciamus that I am the workmanship and care of the whole Trinitie and this West in the Hominem that for all this my matter my substance is but earth But then a North a power of overcoming that law and miserable state In imagine that though in my matter the earth I must die yet in my form in that image which I am made by I cannot die And after all a South a knowledge that this image is not the image of angels themselves to whom we shall be like but it is by the same life by which those angels themselves were made the image of God himself when I have gone over this East and West and North South here in this world I should be sorie as Alexander was if there were no more worlds But there is another world which these considerations will discover and leade us to in which our joy and our glorie shall be to see that God essentially and face to face after whose image and likenesse we were made before But as that Pilot which hath harboured his ship so farre within land as that he must have change of windes in all the points of the compasse to bring her out cannot hope to bring her out in one day so being to transport you by occasion of these words from this world to the next and in this world through all the compasse all the foure quarters thereof I cannot hope to make all this voyage to day To day we shall consider our longitude our East and West and our North and South at another tide and another gale First then we look towards our East the fountain Part. 1 of light and life There this world began Oriens The creation was in the East and there our next world began too there the gates of heaven opened to us and opened to us in the gates of death for our heaven is the death of our Saviour and there he lived and died there and there he looked into our West from the East from his terrasse from his pinacle from his exaltation as himself calls it the Crosse The light which arises to us in this East the knowledge which we receive in this first word of our text Faciamus Let us where God speaking of himself speaks in the plurall is the manifestation of the Trinitie The Trinitie which is the first letter in his Alphabet that ever thinks to reade his name in the Book of life the first note in his Gammut that ever thinks to sing his part in the Triumphant Church Let him have done as much as all the worthies and suffer as much as all natures martyrs the penurious Philosophers let him have known as much as they pretend to know Omne scibile all that can be known nay and In-intelligibilia In-investigabilia as Tertullian speaks un-understandable things unrevealed decrees of God let him have writ as much as Aristotle writ or as is written upon Aristotle which is multiplication enough yet he hath not learned to spell that hath not learned the Trinitie he hath not learned to pronounce the first word that cannot bring three persons into one God The subject of naturall Philosophers are the foure elements which God made the subject of supernaturall Philosophie Divinitie are the three elements which God is and if we may so speak which make God that is constitute God notifie God to us Father Sonne and holy Ghost The naturall man that hearkens to his own heart and the law written there may produce actions that are good good in the nature and matter and substance of the work he may relieve the poore he may defend the oppressed but yet he is but as an open field and though he be not absolutely barren he bears but grasse The godly man he that hath taken in the knowledge of a great and powerfull God and inclosed and hedged in himself with the fear of God may produce actions better then the meer nature of man because he referres his actions to the glorie of an imagined God but yet this man though he be more fruitfull then the former more then a grassie field is but a ploughed field and bears but corn and corn God knows choked with weeds But the man that hath taken hold of God by those handles by which God hath delivered and manifested himself in the notions of Father Sonne and holy Ghost he is no field but a garden a garden of Gods planting paradise in which grow all things good to eat and good to see spirituall refection and spirituall recreation too and all things good to cure he hath his being and his diet and his physick there in the knowledge of the Trinitie his being in the mercie of the Father his physick in the merits of his Sonne his diet his daily bread in the daily visitations of the holy Ghost God is not pleased not satisfied with our bare knowledge that there is a God for it is impossible to please God without faith and Hebr. 11. 6. there is no such exercise of faith in the knowledge of a God but that reason and nature will bring a man to it When we professe God in the Creed by way of belief Credo in Deum I beleeve in God in the same article we professe him to be a Father too I beleeve in God the Father Almightie and that notion the Father necessarily implies a second person a Sonne And then we professe him to be maker of heaven and earth and in the creation the holy Ghost
as our King but as our Maker as God himself and God in councel Faciamus And we applied thereunto the difference of our respect to a person of that honourable rank when we came before him at the councel-table and when we came to him at his own table and thereby advanced the seriousnesse of this consideration God in the Trinitie And farther we sailed not with our Eastern winde Our West we considered in the next word Hominem That though we were made by the whole Trinitie yet the whole Trinitie made us but men and men in this name of our text Adam and Adam is but earth and that is our West our declination our Sun-set We passed over the foure names by which man is ordinarily expressed in the scriptures and we found necessary miserie in three of them and possible nay likely miserie in the fourth in the best name We insisted upon the name of our text Adam earth and had some use of these notes first That if I were but earth God was pleased to be the potter If I but a sheep he a shepherd If I but a cottage he a builder So he work upon me let me be what he will We noted that God made us earth not aire not fire that man hath bodily and worldly duties to perform and is not all spirit in this life Devotion is his soul but he hath a bodie of discretion usefulnesse to invest in some calling We noted too that in being earth we are equall we tried that equalitie first in the root in Adam there if any man will be nobler earth then I he must have more originall sinne then I for that was all Adams patrimonie all that he could give And we tried this equalitie in another furnace in the grave where there is no means to distinguish royall from plebeian nor catholick from hereticall dust And lastly we noted that this our earth was red considered in what respect it was red even in Gods hands but found that in the bloud-rednesse of sinne God had no hand but sinne and destructions for sinne were wholly from our selves which consideration we ended with this that there was Macula alba a white spot of leprosie as well as a red and we found the overvaluation of our own puritie and the uncharitable condemnation of all that differ from us to be that white spot And so farre we sailed with that Western winde are come to our third point in this our compasse our North. In this point the North we place our first Part. III comfort The North is not alwayes the comfortablest Aquilo clime nor is the North alwayes a type of happinesse in the scriptures Many times God threatens storms from the North but even in those Northern storms we consider their action that they scatter they dissipate those clouds which were gathered and so induce a serenitie And so fair weather comes Job 37. 22. from the North. The consideration of our West our low estate that we are but earth but red earth died red by our selves and that imaginary white which appeares so to us is but a white of leprosie this West inwraps us in heavie clouds of murmuring in this life that we cannot live so freely as beasts do and in clouds of desperation for the next life that we cannot die so absolutely as beasts do We die all our lives and yet we live after our deaths These are our clouds then the North shakes these clouds The North-winde driveth away the Prov. 25. 13. rain sayes Solomon There is a North in our text that drives all these tears from our eyes Christ calls upon the North as well as the Cant. 4. 16. South to blow upon his garden and to diffuse the perfumes thereof Adversitie as well as prosperitie opens the bountie of God unto us and oftentimes better But that is not the benefit of the North in our present consideration but this is it that first our Sunne sets in the West The Eastern dignitie which we received in our first creation as we were the work of the whole Trinitie falls under a Western cloud that that Trinitie made us but earth And then blows our North and scatters this cloud that this earth hath a nobler form then any other part or limbe of the world for we are made by a fairer pattern by a nobler image by a higher likenesse Faciamus Though we make but a man Let us make him in our image after our likenesse The varietie which the holy Ghost uses here in the pen of Moses hath given occasion to divers to raise divers observations upon these words which seem divers Image and Likenesse as also in the varietie of the phrase for it is thus conceived and layed In our image and then After our likenesse I know it is a good rule that Damascen gives Parva non sunt parva ex quibus magna proveniunt Nothing is to be neglected as little from which great things may arise If the consequence may be great the thing must not be thought little No Jod in the scripture shall perish therefore no Jod is superfluous if it were superfluous it might perish Words and lesse particles then words have busied the whole Church In the Councel of Ephesus where Bishops in a great number excommunicated Bishops in a greater Bishop against Bishop and Patriarch against Patriarch in which case when both parties had made strong parties in Court and the Emperour forbore to declare himself on either side for a time he was told that he refused to assent to that which 6000 Bishops had agreed in the strife was but for a word whether the blessed Virgin might be called Deipara The mother of God for Christipara The mother of Christ which Christ all agree to be God Nestorius and all his partie agreed with Cyril that she might be In the Councel of Calcedon the difference was not so great as for a word composed of syllables It was but for a syllable whether Ex or In. The heretiques condemned then confessed Christ to be Ex duabus naturis to be composed of two natures at first but not to be In duabus naturis not to consist of two natures after And for that In they were thrust out In the Councel of Nice it was not so much as a syllable made of letters for it was but for one letter whether Homoousion or Homōusion was the issue Where the question hath not been of divers words nor syllables nor letters but onely of the place of words what tempestuous differences have risen How much hath sola fides and fides sola changed the case Nay where there hath been no quarrell for precedencie for transposing of words or syllables or letters where there hath not been so much as a letter in question how much doth an accent varie a sense An interrogation or no interrogation will make it directly contrarie All Christian expositours reade those words of Cain My sinne is greater then can
continuall succession of Prophets till the Messias should come And now that he is come and gone still God pursues the same way How should they beleeve except they heare And therefore God evermore supplies his Church with visible and sensible means and knowing that the naturall inclination of man who when he cannot have or cannot comprehend the originall and prototype desires to satisfie and refresh himself with a picture and representation so though God hath forbidden us that slipperie frivolous and dangerous use of graven images yet he hath afforded us his Sonne who is the image of the invisible God and so more proportionall to us more apprehensible by us and so this committing is no more but that God in another form then that of God hath manifested his power of judging And this committing this manifesting is In Filio In his Sonne But in our entrance into the handling of this we ask onely this question Cui Filio To which Sonne of God is this commission given not that God hath more sonnes then one but because that one Sonne is his Sonne by a twofold filiation by an internall and expressible generation and by a temporarie and miraculous incarnation in which of these rights is this commission derived upon him doth he judge as he is the Sonne of God or as he is the sonne of man I am not ordinarily bold in determining points especially if they were fundamentall wherein I finde the Fathers among themselves and the School in it self and reverend Divines of the Reformation amongst themselves to differ But yet neither am I willing to raise doubts and leave the auditorie unsatisfied and unsettled We are not upon a lecture but upon a sermon and therefore we will not multiply varietie of opinions Summe up the Fathers upon one side in S. Ambrose mouth and they will say with him Deditutique generando non largiendo God gave his Sonne this commission then and when was that then then when he begat him and then he must have it by his eternall generation as the Sonne of God Summe up the Fathers now on the other side in S. Augustines mouth and there they will say with him that it is so cleare and so certain that whatsoever is said in the Scripture to be committed or given to Christ belongs to Christ as the sonne of man and not as the Sonne of God as that the other opinion cannot be maintained and at this distance we shall never bring them to meet but take in this rule Judicium convenit ei ut homo causa ut Deus God hath given this commission to Christ as man but Christ had not been capable of this commission if he had not been God too and so it is easily to be reconciled If we shall hold simply to the letter of the text Pater dedit then it will seem to be committed unto him in his eternall generation because that was a work of the Father onely and in that generation the holy Ghost had no part but since in this judgement which is now committed to him the holy Ghost hath a part for as we said before the judgement is an act of the whole Trinitie and that is as he is man for Tota Trinitas univit August humanitatem the hypostaticall union of God and man in the person of Christ was a work of the whole Trinitie Taking it then so settled that the capacitie of this judgement and if we may say so the future title to it was given to him as God by his essence in his eternall generation by which Non vitae particeps sed vita naturaliter est We cannot say that Christ hath life but that he is Life and the Life for whatsover the Father is He is excepting onely the name and relation of Father the capacitie the abilitie is in him eternally before any imaginable any possible consideration of time But the power of the actuall execution of this judgement which is given and is committed is in him as man because as the same father sayes Ad hominem dicitur Quid habes quod non accepisti when S. Paul sayes What hast thou that thou hast not received he asks that question of man that which is received is received as man For Bellarmine in a place where he disposes himself to quarrell at some form of words of Calvins though he confesse the matter to be true and as he calls it there Catholick sayes Essentiam genitam negamus We confesse that Christ hath not his essence from his Father by generation The relation and filiation he hath from his Father he hath the name of Sonne but he hath not the execution of this judgement by that relation by that filiation still as he is the Sonne of God he hath that capacitie as the sonne of man he hath the execution And therefore Prosper that follows S. Augustine limits it perchance too narrowly to the flesh to the humanitie Ipsa non ipse erit Judex quae sub judice stetit ipsa judicabit quae judicata est where he places not this judgement upon the mixt person which is the safest way of God and man but upon man alone God hath appointed a day in which Act. 17. 31. he will judge the world in righteousnesse but by whom By that man whom he hath ordained God will judge still but still in Christ and therefore sayes S. Augustine upon those words Arise O God Psal 82. 8. and judge the earth Cui Deo dicitur Surge nisi ei qui dormivit What God doth David call upon to arise but that God who lay down to sleep in the grave as though he should say sayes S. Augustine Dormivisti judicatus à terra surge judica terram so that to collect all though judgement be such a character of God as God cannot divest yet the Father hath committed such a judgement to the Sonne as none but he can execute And what is that Omne judicium All judgement that is Omne imperium omnem potestatem It is presented in the name of judgement but it involves all It is literally and particularly judgement in S. John The Father hath given him authoritie to John 5. 27. execute judgement it is extended into power in S. Matthew All power is given to me in heaven and Matt. 28. 18 in earth and it is enlarged as farre further as can be expressed in another place of S. Matthew All Matt. 11. 27 things are delivered me of my Father Now all this our Saviour Christ Jesus exercises either Per carnem or at the least In carne whatsoever the Father does the Sonne does also In carne because now there is an inseparable union between God and humane nature the Father creates new souls every day in the inanimation of children and the Sonne creates them with him The Father concurres with all second causes as the first moving cause of all in naturall things And all this the Sonne doth too but this is