deeds to him But the Lord was there and Iacob knew it not As he takes knowledge by the first light of Gods presence so he acknowledges that he had none of this light of himself Ego nesciebam Iacob a Patriarch and dearly beloved of God knew not that God was so near him How much lesse shall a sinfull man that multiples sinnes like clouds between God and him know that God is near him As Saint Augustine said when hee came out of curiousty to hear Saint Ambrose preach at Milaâ— without any desire of profiting thereby Appropinquavi vesciebam I came 〈◊〉 God but knew it not So the customary and habituall sinners may say Eloâ—gavi nisciebam I have â—loyn'd my selfe I have gone farther and farther from my God and was never sensible of it It is a desperate Ignorance not to bee sensible of Gods absence but to acknowledge with Iacob that we cannot see light but by that light that we cannot know Gods presence but by his revealing of himself is a religious and a Christian humility To know it by Reason by Philosophy is a dimme and a faint knowledge but onely by the testimony of his own spirit and his own revealing we come to that confidence Verè Domine Surely the Lord is in this place Est apud 〈◊〉 sed deâ—â—â—â—lans God is with the wicked but he dissembles his beeing there that is conceals it he will not be known of it Et 〈◊〉 malâ—rum dissiâ—â—â—latio quodammodo Veritas non est when God winks at mens sinnes when he dissembles or disguises his knowledge we may almost say says Saint Bernard Veritas non est Here is not direct dealing here is not intire truth his presence is scarce a true presence And therefore as the same Father proceeds Si dicere licet if we may be bold to expresse it so Apud impios est sed in dissimulatione he is with the wicked but yet he dissembles he disguises his presence he is there to no purpose to no profit of theirs but Est apud justos in veritate with the righteous he is in truth and in clearnesse Est apud Angelâ—s in foelicitate with the Angels and Saints in heaven he is in an established happinesse Est apud inferos in feritate he is in Hell in his â—ury in an irrevocable and undeterminable execution of his severity God was surely and truly with Iacob and with all them who are sensible of his approaches and of his gracious manifestation of himself Verè non erat apud eos quibus dixit quid vocatiâ—â— me Dominum non facitis qua dixi vobis God is not truly with them whom he rebukes for saying Why call ye 〈◊〉 Lord and do not my Commandements but ubi in ejus nomive Angeli simul homines congregantur When Angels and men Priest and people the Preacher and the congregation labour together upon this Ladder study the advancing of his Church as by the working of Gods gratious Spirit we doe at this time 〈◊〉 verè est ibi verè Dominus est surely he is in this place and surely he is Lord in this place he possesses he fills us all he governs us all and as though we say to him Our Father which art in heaven yet we beleeve that he is within these walls so though we say Adveniat regnum tuum thy kingdome come we beleeve that his kingdome is come and is amongst us in grace now as it shall be in glory hereafter When he was now throughly awake when he was come to an open profession when he acknowledged himselfe to stand in the sight of God when he confessed his owne ignorance of Gods presence and when after all he was come to a setled confidence Verè Dominus surely the Lord is here yet it is added Et timuit and he was afraid No man may thinke himselfe to bee come to that familiar acquaintance with God as that it should take away that reverentiall feare which belongs to so high and supreme a Majesty When the Angell appeared to the wife of Manoah foretelling Samsons birth she says to her husband the fashion of him was like the fashion of the Angell of God what 's that Exceeding fearfull When God appears to thy soule even in mercy in the forgivenes of thy sins yet there belongs a fear even to this apprehension of mercy Not a fearfull diffidence not a distrust but a fearfull consideration of that height and depth what a high Majesty thou hast offended what a desperate depth thou wast falling into what a fearfull thing it had been to have fallen into the hands of the living God and what an irrecoverable wretch thou hadst been if God had not manifested himselfe to have been in that place with thee And therefore though he have appeared unto thee in mercy yet be afraid lest he goe away againe As Manoab prayed and said I beseech thee my Lord let the Man of God whom thou sentest come againe unto us and teach us what we shall doe with the child when he is born so when God hath once appeared to thy soul in mercy pray him to come again and tell thee what thou shouldest doe with that mercy how thou shouldest husband those first degrees of grace and of comfort to the farther benefit of thy soule and the farther glory of his name and be afraid that thy dead flyes may putrefie his ointment those reliques of sinne though the body of sinne be crucified in thee which are left in thee may overcome his graces for upon those words Pavor tenuit me tremor emniâ—â—ssa mea perterrita sunt feare came upon me and trembling which made all my bones to shake Saint Gregory says well Quid per â—ssa nisi fortia act a designantur our good deeds our strongest works and those which were done in the best strength of grace are meant by our bones and yet ossa perterrita our strongest works tremble at the presence and examination of God And therefore to the like purpose upon those words of the Psalme the same Father says Omnia ossa mea dicent Domine quis similis tibi all my bones say Lord who is like unto thee Carnes meae verba non habent my fleshly parts my carnall affections Infirma mea funditus silent my sinnes or my infirmities dare not speak at all not appear at all Sed ossa mea quae fortia credidi sua consideratione tremiscunt my very bones shake there is no degree no state neither of innocence nor of repentance nor of faith nor of sanctification above that fear of God and he is least acquainted with God who things that he is so familiar that he need not stand in feare of him But this fear hath no ill effect It brings him to a second profession Et dixit and he spoke againe He waked and then he spoke as soon as he came out of ignorance
cannot inherit this Kingdome of God I cannot have it by purchase by mine own merits and good works It is neither my former good disposition nor Gods fore-sight of my future cooperation with him that is the cause of his giving mee his grace I cannot have this by Covenant or by the gift or bequeathing of another by works of Supererogation that a Martyr of the primitive Church should send mee a violl of his blood a splinter of his bone a Collop of his flesh wrapped up in a halfe sheet of paper in an imaginary six-penny Indulgence from Rome and bid mee receive grace and peace of Conscience in that I cannot have it by purchase I cannot have it by gift I cannot have it by Curtesie in the right of my wife That if I will let her live in the obedience of the Roman Church and let her bring up my children so for my selfe I may have leave to try a Court or a worldly fortune and bee secure in that that I have a Catholique wife or a Catholique child to pray and merit for mee I have no title to this Kingdome of God but Inheritance whence growes mine Inheritance Ex semine Dei because I am propagated of the seed of God I inherit this peace Whosoever is born of God doth not commit finne for his seed remaineth in him and hee cannot sinne because hee is born of God That is hee cannot desire to sinne Hee cannot antidate a sinne by delighting in the hope of a future sin and sin in a praefruition of his sinne before the act Hee cannot post-date a sinne delight in the memory of a pastsinne and sin it over againe in a post-fruition of that sinne Hee cannot boast himself of sinne much lesse bely himself in glorying in sinnes never done Hee cannot take sinnes dyet therefore that hee may bee able to sinne againe next Spring Hee cannot hunger and thirst and then digest and sleepe quietly after a sinne and to this purpose and in this sense Saint Bernard says Praedestinati non possunt peccare That the Elect cannot sinne And in this also That when the sinnes of the Elect are brought to tryall and to judgement there their sinnes are no sinnes not because they are none in themselves but because the blood of Jesus covering them they are none in the eyes of God I am Heir then as I am the Son of God born of the seed of God But what is that seed Verbum Dei the seed is the word of God Of his own will beg at he us says that Apostle with the word of truth And our Saviour himselfe speaks very clearly in expounding the Parable The seed is the word of God We have this Kingdome of God as we have an inheritance as we are Heirs we are Heirs as we are Sons we are Sons as we have the seed and the seed is the Word So that all ends in this We inherit not this Kingdome if we possesse not the preaching of the Word if we professe not the true â—ligion still for the word of this text which we translate to inherit for the most part in the translation of the Septuagint answers the Hebrew word Nachal and Nachal is Haereditas cum possessione not an inheritance in reversion but in possession Take us O Lord for thine inheritance says Moses Et possideas nos as Saint Hâ—erome translates that very place Inherit us and Possesse us Et erimus tibi whatsoever we are we will bee thine says the Septuagint You see then how much goes to the making up of this Inheritance of the Kingdome of God in this world First Vt habeamus verbum That we have this seed of God his word In the Roman Church they have it not not that that Church hath it not not that it is not there but they the people that have it not and then Vt possideamus That we possesse it or rather that it possesse us that we make the Word the onely rule of our faith and of our actions In the Roman Church they do not so they have not pure wheat but mestlin other things joyned with this good seed the word of God and lastly Vt simus Deo That we be his that we be so still that we doe not begin with God and give over but that this seed of God of which we are born may as Saint Peter says be incorruptible and abide for ever that wee may be his so entirely and so constantly as that we had rather have no beeing then for any time of suspension or for any part of his fundamentall truth be without it and this the Roman Church cannot be said to do that expunges and interlines articles of faith upon Reason of State and emergent occasions God hath made you one says the Prophet who bee the parties whom God hath maryed together and made One in that place you and your religion as our expositors interpret that place And why One says the Prophet there That God might have a godly seed says he that is a continuation a propagation a race a posterity of the same religion Therefore says he Let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth Let none divorce himself from that religion and that worship of God which God put into his armes and which he embraced in his Baptism Except there be errour in fundamentall points such as make that Church no Church let no man depart from that Church and that religion in which he delivered himself to the service of God at first Wo be unto us if we deliver not over our religion to our posterity in the same sincerity and the same totality in which our Fathers have delivered it us for that that continuation is that that makes it an inheritance for to conclude this every man hath an inheritance in the Law and yet if he be hanged he is hanged by the Law in which hee had his inheritance so wee have our inheritance in the Word of God and yet if wee bee damned we are damned by that Word If thy heart turn away so as that thou worship other Gods I denounce unto you this day that you shall surely perish So then wee have an inheritance in this Kingdome if we preserve it and we incurre a forfeiture of it if wee have not this seed The Word the truth of Religion so as that we possesse it that is conform our selves to him whose Word it is by it and possesse it so as that we persevere in the true profession of it to our end for Perseverance as well as Possession enters into our title and inheritance to this Kingdome You see then what this Kingdome of God is It is when he comes and his welcome when he comes in his Sacraments and speaks in his Word when he speaks and is answered knocks and is received he knocks in his Ordinances and is received in our Obedience to them he knocks in his example and most holy
the strength of that Grace which God gave me heretofore But as God infuseth a Soul into every man and that Soul elicites a new Act in it self before that man produce any action so God infuses a particular Grace into every good work of mine and so prevents me before I co-operate with him For as Nature in her highest exaltation in the best Morall man that is cannot flow into Grace Nature cannot become Grace so neither doth former Grace flow into future Grace but I need a distinct influence of God a particular Grace for every good work I do for every good word I speak for every good thought I conceive When God gives me accesse into his Library leave to consider his proceedings with man I find the first book of Gods making to be the Book of Life The Book where all their names are written that are elect to Glory But I find no such Book of Death All that are not written in the Book of Life are certainly the sonnes of Death To be pretermitted there there to be left out wraps them up at least leaves them wrapt up in death But God hath not wrought so positively nor in so primary a consideration in a book of Death as in the Book of Life As the aftertimes made a Book of Wisdome out of the Proverbs of Salomon and out of his Ecclesiastes but yet it is not the same Book nor of the same certainty so there is a Book of Life â—ere but that is not the same book that is in Heaven nor of the same certainty For in this Book of Life which is the Declaration and Testimony which the Church gives of our Election by those marks of the Elect which she seeth in the Scriptures and believeth that she seeth in us a man may be Blotted out of the Book of the living as David speaketh and as it is added there Not written with the Righteous Intimating that in some cases and in some Book of Life a man may have been written in and blotted out and written in again The Book of Life in the Church The Testimony of our Election here admits such expunctions and such redintegrations but Gods first Book his Book of Mercy for this Book in the Church is but his Book of Evidence is inviolable in it self and all the names of that Book indelible In Gods first Book the Book of Life Mercy hath so much a precedency and primogeniture as that there is nothing in it but Mercy In Gods other Book his Book of Scripture in which he is put often to denounce judgements as well as to exhibite mercies still the Tide sets that way still the Biass leads on that hand still his method directs us ad Primogenitum to his first-born to his Mercy So he began in that Book He made man to his Image and then he blest him Here is no malediction no intermination mingled in Gods first Act in Gods first purpose upon man In Paradise there is That if he eat the forbidden fruit if he will not forbear that that one Tree He shall die But God begins not there before that he had said of every tree in the Garden thou maist freely eat neither is there more vehemency in the punishment then in the libertie For as in the punishment there is an ingemination Morte morieris Dying thou shalt die that is thou shalt surely die so in the liberty there was an ingemination too Comedendo comedes Eating thou shalt eat that is thou maist freely eat In Deut. we have a fearfull Chapter of Maledictions but all the former parts of that Chapter are blessings in the same kind And he that reads that Chapter will beginne at the beginning and meet Gods first-born his Mercy first And in those very many places of that Book where God divides the condition If you obey you shall live if you rebell you shall die still the better Act and the better condition and the better reward is placed in the first place that God might give us possession In jure Primogeniti in the right of his first-born his mercy And where God pursues the same method and first dilates himself and expatiates in the way of mercy I will beat down his foes before his face and plague them that hate him when after that he is brought to say If his children forsake my Law I will visit their transgression with the rod where first he puts it off for one Generation from himself to his Children which was one Mercy And then he puts it upon a forsaking an Apostasie and not upon every sinne of infirmity which was another Mercy when it comes to a correction it is but a milde correction with the râ—d And in that he promises to visite them to manifest himself and his purpose to them in the correction all which are higher and higher degrees of Mercy yet because there is a spark of anger a tincture of judgement mingled in it God remembers his first-born his Mercy and returns where he begun Neverthelesse my Covenant will I not break nor alter the things that is gone out of my lips once have I sworn by my Holinesse that I will not lie unto David There are elder pictures in the world of Water then there are any of oyl but those of oyl have got above them and shall outlive them Water is a frequent embleme of Affliction in the Scriptures and so is oyl of Mercy If at any time in any place of Scripture God seemed to begin with water with a judgement yet the oyl will get to the top in that very judgement you may see that God had first a mercifull purpose in inflicting that medicinall judgement for his mercy is his first-born His Mercy is new every morning saith the Prophet not onely every day but as soon as it is day Trace God in thy self and thou shalt find it so If thou beest drowzie now and unattentive curious or contentious or quarrelsome now now God leaves thee in that indisposition and that is a judgement But it was his Mercy that brought thee hither before In every sinne thou hast some remorse some reluctation before thou do that sinne and that pre-reluctation and pre-remorse was Mercy If thou hadst no such remorse in thy last sinne before the sinne and hast it now this is the effect of Gods former mercy and former good purpose upon thee to let thee see that thou needest the assistance of his Minister and of his Ordinance to enable thee to lay hold on Mercy when it is offered thee Can any calamity fall upon thee in which thou shalt not be bound to say I have had blessings in a greater measure then this If thou have had losses yet thou hast more out of which God took that If all be lost perchance thou art but where thou begunst at first at nothing If thou begunst upon a good heighth and beest fallen from that and fallen low yet as God
Conscientiâ scrupulosâ when the conscience hath received any single scruple or suspicion to the contrary and so too in conscientiâ opinante in a conscience that hath conceived but an opinion which is far from a debated and deliberate determination yea in conscientiâ errante though the conscience be in an error yet it is sin to do aright against the conscience but then as it is a sin to do against the conscience labouring under any of these infirmities so is it a greater sin not to labour to recover the conscience and devest it of those scruples by their advise whom God hath indued with knowledg and power for that purpose For as it is in civill Iudicature God refers causes to them and according to their reports Gods ordinary way is to decree the cause to loose where they loose to binde where they binde Their imperfections or their corruptions God knowes how to punish in them but thou shalt have the recompense of thy humility and thy obedience to his ordinance in hearkning to them whom he hath set over thee for the rectifying of thy conscience Neither is this to erect a parochiall popacy to make every minister a Pope in his own parish or to re-enthrall you to a necessity of communicating all your sinnes or all your doubtfull actions to him God forbid God of his goodnesse hath delivered us from that bondage and butchery of the conscience which our Fathers suffered from Rome and Anathema and Anathema Maran-atha cursed be he till the Lord comes and cursed when the Lord comes that should go about to bring us in a relapse in an eddy in a whirlepoole into that disconsolate estate or into any of the pestilent errors of that Church But since you think it no diminution to you to consult with a Physician for the state of your body or with a Lawyer for your Lands since you are not borne nor grown good Physicians and good Lawyers why should you think your selves born or grown so good Divines that you need no counsell in doubtfull cases from other men And therefore as for the Law that governs us that is the Scripture we go the way that Christ did to receive the testimony of man both for the body that Scriptures there are and for the limbs of that body that these books make up those Scriptures and for the soule of this body that this is the sense of the holy Ghost in that place so for our Iudge which is the conscience let that be directed before hand by their advise whom God hath set over us and setled and quieted in us by their testimony who are the witnesses of our conversation And so we have done with our Problematicall part we have asked and answered both these questions Why this light requires any testimony and that is because exhalations and damps and vapours arise first from our ignorance then from our incredulity after from our negligence in practising and lastly from our slipperinesse in relapsing and therefore we need more and more attestations and remembrances of this light and the other question Why after so many other testimonies from himself from his Father from the Angell from the Star from the Magi from Simeon from Anna from many many very many more he required this testimony of Iohn and that is because all those other witnesses had testified long before and because God in all matters belonging to Religion here or to salvation hereafter refers us to man but to man sent and ordained by God for our direction that we may do well and to the testimony of good men that we have done well And so we passe to our dogmaticall part what his testimony was what Iohn Baptist and his successors in preaching and preparing the ways of Christ are sent to do he was sent to beare witnesse of that light Princes which send Ambassadors use to give them a Commission containing the generall scope of the businesse committed to them and then Instructions for the fittest way to bring that businesse to effect And upon due contemplation of both these his Commission and his Instructions arises the use of the Ambassadors judgement and discretion in making his Commission and his Instructions which do not always agree in all points but are often various and perplext serve most advantagiously towards the ends of his negotiation Iohn Baptist had both therefore they minister three considerations unto us first his Commission what that was and then his Instructions what they were and lastly the execution how he proceeded therein His Commission was drawn up and written in Esa◠and recorded and entred into Gods Rolls by the Evangelists It was To prepare the way of the Lord to make streight his paths that therefore every valley should be exalted every mountaine made law and all this he was to cry out to make them inexcusable who contemne the outward Ministery and relie upon private inspirations This Commission lasts during Gods pleasure and Gods pleasure is that it should last to the end of the world Therefore are we also joyned in Commission with Iohn and we cry out still to you to all those purposes First that you prepare the way of the Lord. But when we bid you do so we do not meane that this preparing or pre-disposing of your selves is in your selves that you can prevent Gods preventing grace or mellow or supple or fit your selves for the entrance of that grace by any naturall faculty in your selves When we speak of a co-operation a joint working with the grace of God or of a post-operation an after working upon the virtue of a former grace this co-operation this post-operation must be mollified with a good concurrent cause with that grace So there is a good sense of co-operation and post-operation but praeoperation that we should work before God work upon us can admit no good interpretation I could as soon beleeve that I had a being before God was as that I had a will to good before God moved it But then God having made his way into you by his preventing grace prepare that way not your way but his way sayes our Commission that is that way that he hath made in you prepare that by forbearing and avoiding to cast new hinderances in that way In sadnesse and dejections of spirit seek not your comfort in drinke in musique in comedies in conversation for this is but a preparing a way of your owne To prepare the Lords way is to look and consider what way the Lord hath taken in the like cases in the like distresses with other servants of his and to prepare that way in thy self and to assure thy selfe that God hath but practised upon others that he might be perfect when he comes to thee and that he intends to thee in these thy tribulations all that he hath promised to all all that he hath already performed to any one Prepare his way apply that way in which he hath gone
large Commission Behold this day I have set thee over the Nations and over the Kingdomes to pluck up and to rout out to destroy and to throw down and though many of the Prophets had their Commissions drawn by that precedent we claime not that we distinguish between the extraordinary Commission of the Prophet and the ordinary Commission of the Priest we admit a great difference between them and are farre from taking upon us all that the Prophet might have done which is an errour of which the Church of Rome and some other over-zealous Congregations have been equally guilty and equally opposed Monarchy and Soveraignty by assuming to themselves in an ordinary power whatsoever God upon extraordinary occasions was pleased to give for the present to his extraordinary Instruments the Prophets our Commission is toâ— pray and to intreat you Though upon those words Ascendunt salvatores in Montem Sion there shall arise Saviours in Mount Sion in the Church of God Saint Hierom saith That as Christ being the light of the world called his Apostles the light of the world too so Ipse Salvator Apostolas voluit esse Salvatores The Saviour of the world communicates to us the name of Saviours of the world too yet howsoever instrumentally and ministerially that glorious name of Saviour may be afforded to us though to a high hill though to that Mount Sion we are led by a low way by the example of our blessed Saviour himself and since there was an Oportuit pati laid upon him there may well be an Opâ—rteâ— Obsecrare laid upon us since his way was to be dumb ours may well be to utter no other voyce but Prayers since he bled we may well sweat in his service for the salvaâ—ion of your souls If therefore our selves who are sent be under contempt or under persecution if the sword of the Tongue or the sword of the Tyrant be drawn against us against all these Arma nostra preces fletus we defend with no other shield we return with no other sword but Tears and Prayers and blessing of them that curse us Yea if he that sent us suffer in us if we see you denounce a warre against him nay triumph over him and provoke him to anger and because he showes no anger conclude our of his patience an impotency that because he doth not he cannot when you scourge him and scoffe him and spit in his face and crucifie him and practise every day all the Jews did to him once as though that were your pattern and your businesse were to exceed your pattern and crucifie your Saviour worse then they did by tearing mangling his body now glorified by your blasphemous oaths and execrable imprecations when we see all this Arma nostra preces fletus we can defend our selves nor him no other way we present to you our tears and our prayers his tears and his prayers that sent us and if you will not be reduced with these our Commission is at an end I bring not a Star-chamber with me up into the Pulpit to punish a forgery if you counterfeit a zeale in coming hither now nor an Exchequer to punish usurious contracts though made in the Church nor a high Commission to punish incontinencies if they be promoted by wanton interchange of looks in this place Onely by my prayers which he hath promised to accompany and prosper in his service I can diffuse his overshadowing Spirit over all the corners of this Congregation and pray that Publican that stands below afar off and dares not lift up his eyes to heaven to receive a chearfull confidence that his sinnes are forgiven him and pray that Pharisee that stands above and onely thanks God that he is not like other men to believe himselfe to be if not a rebellious yet an unprofitable servant I can onely tell them that neither of them is in the right way of reconciliation to God Nec qui impugnant gratiam nec qui superbè gratias agunt neither he who by a diffidence hinders the working of Gods grace nor he that thanks God in such a fashion as though all that he had received were not of meer mercy but between a debt and a benefit and that he had either merited before or paid God after in pious works for all and for more then he hath received at Gods hand Scarce any where hath the Holy Ghost taken a word of larger signification then here for as though it were hard even to him to expresse the humility which we are to use rather then lose any soul for which Christ hath dyed he hath taught us this obsecration this praying this intreating in our Text in a word by which the Septuagint the first Translators into Greek expresse divers affections and all within the compasse of this Obsecramus We pray you Some of them we shall present to you Those Translators use that word for Napal Napal is Ruere Postrare to throw down to deject our selves to admit any undervalue any exinanition any evacuation of our selves so we may advance this great work I fell down before the Lord says Moses of himself and Abraham fell upon his face says Moses of him and in no sense is this word oftner used by them then in this humiliation But yet as it signifies to need the favour of another so does it also to be favourable and mercifull to another for so also the same Translators use this word for Chanan which is to oblige and binde a man by benefits or to have compassion upon him Have pity upon me have pity upon me O ye my friends for the hand of God hath touched me there is our word repeated So that whether we professe to you that as Physicians must consider excrements so we must consider sin the leprosie the pestilence the ordure of the soule there is our dejection of our selves or make you see your poverty and indigence and that that can be no way supplied but by those means which God conveys by us both ways we are within our word Obsecramus we pray you we intreat you They use this word also for Calah and Calah is Dolere to grieve within our selves for the affliction of another But it signifies also vulnerare to wound and afflict another for so it is said in this word Saul was sore wounded So that whether we expresse our grief in the behalf of Christ that you will not be reconciled to God or whether we wound your consciences with a sense of your sins and his judgements we are still what in the word of our Commission Obsecramus we pray we intreat To contract this consideration they use this word for Cruciare to vex and for Placare too to appease to restore to rest and quiet Therefore will I make thee sick in smiting thee there it is vexation And then They sent unto the House of the Lord Placare Dominum to appease the Lord as we translate
another in the Resurrection and everlasting possession of that kingdome which his Sonne our Saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible Blood Amen SERMON II. Preached at a Mariage GEN. 2. 18. And the Lord God said It is not good that the man should be alone I will make him a Helpe meet for him IN the Creation of the world when God stocked the Earth and the Sea with those creatures which were to be the seminary and foundation and roote of all that should ever be propagated in either of those elements and when he had made man to rule over them he â—â—oke to man and to other creatures in one and the same phrase and forme of speech Crescite Multiplicamini Be fruitfull and multiply and thereby imprinted in man and in other creatures a naturall desire to conserve and propagate their kinde by way of Generation But after God had thus imprinted in man the same naturall desire of propagation which he had infused into other creatures too after he had communicated to him that blessing for so it is said God blessed them and said Be fruitfull and multiply till an ability and a desire of propagating their kinde was infused into the creature there is no mention of any blessing in the creation after God had made men partakers of that blessing that naturall desire of propagation he takes a farther care of man in giving him a proper and peculiar blessing in contracting and limiting that naturall desire of his He leaves all other creatures to theâ— generall use and execution of that Commission Crescite et multiplicamini the Male was to take the Female when and where their naturall desire provoked them but for man Addâ—xit Deus ad Adam God left not them to goe to one another but God brought the woman to the man and so this conjunction this desire of propagation though it be naturall in man as in other creatures by his creation yet it is limited by God himselfe to be exercised onely between such persons as God hath brought together in mariage according to his Institution and Ordinance Though then societies of men doe grow up and spread themselves into Townes and into Cities and into Kingdomes yet the root of all societies is in families in the relation between man and wife parents and children masters and servants so though the state of the children of God in this world be dignified by the name of a Kingdome for so we pray by Christs owne institution Thy kingdome come and so Christ saies Ecce Regnum The kingdome of God is amongst you and though the state of Gods children here be called a City a new Ierusalem comming downe from heaven and in David Glorious things are spoken of thee O City of God yet for all these glorious titles of City and Kingdome we must remember that it is called a family tooâ— The Houshold of the faithfull And so the Apostle says in preferring Christ before Moses That Christ as the sonne was over Gods house whose house we are So that both of Civill and of Spirituall societies the first roote is a family and of families the first roote is Mariage and of mariage the first roote that growes out into words is in this Text And the Lord God said It is not good c. If we should employ this exercise onely upon these two generall considerations first that God puts even his care and his study to finde out what is good for man and secondly that God doth provide and furnish whatsoever he findes to be necessary faciam I will make him a Helper though they be common places we are bound to thanke God that they are so that it is a common place to good that he ever does it towards us that it is a common place to us that we ever acknowledge it in him But you may be pleased to admit a more particular distribution For upon the first will be grounded this consideration that in regard of the publique good God pretermits private and particular respects for God doth not say Non bonum homini it is not good for man to be alone man might have done well enough so nor God does not say non bonum hunc hominem it is not good for this or that particular man to be alone but non bonum Hominem it is not good in the generall for the whole frame of the world that man should be alone because then both Gods purposes had been frustrated of being glorified by man here in this world and of glorifying man in the world to come for neither of these could have been done without a succession and propagation of man and therefore non bonum hominem it was not good that man should be alone And then upon the second consideration will arise these branches first that whatsoever the defect be there is no remedy but from God for it is faciam I will doe it Secondly that even the workes of God are not equally excellent this is but faciam it is not faciamus in the creation â—f man there is intimated a Consultation a Deliberation of the whole Trinity in the making of women it is not expressed so it is but faciam And then that that is made here is but Adjutorium but an accessory not a principall but a Helperâ— First the wife must be so much she must Helpe and then she must be no more she must not Governe But she cannot be that except she have that quality which God intended in the first woman Adjutoriam simile sibi a helper fit for him for otherwise he will ever returne to the bonum esse solum it had been better for him to have been alone then in the likenesse of a Helper to have had a wife unfit for him First then that in regard of the publique good God pretermits private respects if we take examples upon that stage upon that scene the face of Nature we see that for the conservation of the whole God hath imprinted in the particulars a disposition to depart from their owne nature water will clamber up hills and ayre will sinke down into vaults rather then admit Vacuity But take the example nearer in Gods bosome and there we see that for the publique for the redemption of the whole world God hath shall we say pretermitted derelicted forsaken abandoned his own and onely Sonne Do you so too Regnum Dei intra nos the kingdome of God is within you planted in your election watred in your Baptisme fatned with the blood of Christ Jesus ploughed up with many calamities and tribulations weeded with often repentances of particular sins The kingdome of God is within you and will ye not depart from private affections from Ambition and Covetousnesse from Excesse and voluptuousnesse from chambring and wantonnesse in which the kingdome of God doth not consist for the conservation of this kingdome will ye not pray for this kigdome
which God made of all that he had made still he gives the testimony that he saw all was good excepting onely in his Second dayes worke and in his making of Man He forbore it in the making of the firmament because the firmament was to divide between waters and waters it was an embleme of division of disunion He forbore it also in the making of man because though man was to be an embleme of Gods union to his Church yet because this embleme and this representation could not be in man alone till the woman were made too God does not pronounce upon the making of man that the work was good but upon Gods contemplation that it was not good that man should be alone there arose a goodnesse in having a companion And from that time if we seeke bonum quia licitum if we will call that good which is lawfull mariage is that If thou takest a wife thou sinnest not sayes God by the Apostle If we seeke bonum quia bonus autor if we call that good whose author is good mariage is that Adduxit ad Adam God brought her to man If we seek such a goodnesse as hath good witness good testimony mariage is that Christ was present at a mariage and honoured it with his first miracle If we seek such a goodnesse as is a constant and not a temporary an occasionall goodnesse Christ hath put such a cement upon mariage What God hath joined let no man put as under If we seek such a goodnesse as no man that is no sort nor degree of men is the worse for having accepted we see the holiecst of all the High Priest in the old Testament is onely limited what woman he shall not mary but not that he shall not mary and the Bishop in the new Testament what kinde of husband he must have been but not that he must have been no husband To contract this as mariage in good in having the best author God the best witnesse Christ the logest terme Life the largest extent even to the highest persons Priests and Bishops as it is all these wayes Positively good so it is good in Comparison of that which justly seemes the best state that is Virginity in S. Augustines opinion Non impar meritum Iohannis Abrahae If we could consider merit in man the merit of Abraham the father of nations and the merit of Iohn who was no father at all is equall But that wherein we consider the goodnesse of it here is that God proposed this way to receive glory from the sonnes of men here upon earth and to give glory to the sonnes of men in heaven But what glory can God receive from man that he should be so carefull of his propagation what glory more from man then from the Sunne and Moon and Stars which have no propagation why this that S. Augustine observes Musca Soli praeferenda quia vivit A Fly is a nobler creature then the Sunne because a fly hath life and the Sunne hath not for the degrees of dignity in the creature are esse vivere and intelligere to have a beeing to have life and to have understanding and therefore man who hath all three is much more able to glorify God then any other creature is because he onely can chuse whether he will glorify God or no the glory that the others give they must give but man is able to offer to God a reasonable sacrifice When ye were Gentiles saies the Apostle ye were caryed away unto dumb Idols even as ye were led This is reasonable service out of Reason to understand and out of our willingnesse to doe God service Now when God had spent infinite millions of millions of generations from all un-imaginable eternity in contemplating one another in the Trinity and then to speake humanly of God which God in his Scriptures abhors not out of a satiety in that contemplation would create a world for his glory and when he had wrought the first day and created all the matter and substance of the future creatures and wrought foure dayes after and a great part of the sixth and yet nothing produced which could give him any glory for glory is rationabile obsequium reasonable service and nothing could give that but a creature that understood it and would give it at last as the knot of all created man then to perpetuate his glory he must perpetuate man and to that purpose non bonum it was not good for man to be alone as without man God could not have been glorified so without woman man could not have been propagated But as there is a place cited by S. Paul out of David which hath some perplexity in it we cannot tell whether Christ be said to have received gifts from men or for men or to have given gifts to men for so S. Paul hath it so it is not easse for us to discern whether God had a care to propagate man that he might receive glory from man or that he might give glory to man When God had taken it into his purpose to people heaven again depopulated in the fall of Angels by the substitution of man in their places when God had a purpose to spend as much time with man in heaven after as he had done with himself before for our perpetuity after the Resurrection shall no more have an end then his Eternity before the Creation had a beginning And when God to prevent that time of the Resurrection as it were to make sure of man before would send down his own Son to assume our nature here and as not sure enough so would take us up to him and set us in his Son at his own right hand whereas he never did nor shall say to any of the Angels Sit thou there That God might not be frustrated of this great and gracious and glorious purpose of his non bonum it was not good that man should be alone for without man God could not give this glory and without woman there could be no propagation of man And so though it might have been Bonum homini man might have done well enough alone and Bonum hunc hominem some men may doe better alone yet God who ever for our example prefers the publique before the private because it conduced not to his generall end of Having and of Giving glory saw and said Non bonum hominem it was not good that man should be alone And so we have done with the branches of our first part We are come now to our second generall part In which as we saw in the former that God studies man and all things necessary for man we shall also see that wherein soever man is defective his onely supply and reparation is from God Faciam I will doe it Saul wanted counsell he was in a perplexity and he sought to the Witch of Endor and not to God and what is the issue he Hears of his
for his not restraining the licentiousnesse of his sons I will doe a thing in Israel says God there at which every mans eares that heares it shall single And it was executed Eli fell down and broke his neck We have also a consolation to women for children She shall be saved in Child-bearing says the Apostle but as Chrysostome and others of the Ancients observe and interpret that place which interpretation arises out of the very letter it is Si permanserint not if she but if they if the children continue in faith in charity in holinesse and sobriety The salvation of the Parents hath so much relation to the childrens goodnesse as that if they be ill by the Parents example or indulgence the Parents are as guilty as the children Art thou afraid thy childe should be stung with a Snake and wilt thou let him play with the old Serpent in opening himself to all tentations Art thou afraid to let him walk in an ill aire and art thou content to let him stand in that pestilent aire that is made of nothing but oaths and execrations of blasphemous mouths round about him It is S. Chrysostomes complaint Perditionem magno pretio emunt Salutem nec done accipere volunt we pay dear for our childrens damnation by paying at first for all their childish vanities and then for their sinfull insolencies at any rate and we might have them saved and our selves to the bargain which were a frugall way and a debt well hedg'd in for much lesse then ours and their damnation stands us in If you have a desire says that blessed Father to leave them certainly rich Deumiis relinque Debitorem Doe some such thing for Gods service as you may leave God in their debt He cannot break his estate is inexhaustible he will not break promise nor break day He will shew mercy unto thousands in them that love him and keep his Commandements And here also may another showre of his benedictions fall upon them whom he hath prepared and presented here Let the wife be as a fruitfull Vine and their children like Olive plants To thy glory let the Parents expresse the love of Parents and the children to thy glory the obedience of children till they both loose that secular name of Parents and Children and meet all alike in one new name all Saints in thy Kingdome and fellow servants there The third and last use in this institution of secular mariage was In adjutorium for mutuall help There is no state no man in any state that needs not the help of others Subjects need Kings and if Kings doe not need their Subjects they need alliances abroad and they need Counsell at home Even in Paradise where the earth produced all things for life without labour and the beasts submitted themselves to man so that he had no outward enemy And in the state of innocency in Paradise where in man all the affections submitted themselves to reason so that he had no inward enemy yet God in this abundant Paradise and in this secure innocency of Paradise even in the survey of his own work saw that though all that he had made was good yet he had not made all good he found thus much defect in his own work that man lacked a helper Every body needs the help of others and every good body does give some kinde of help to others Even into the Ark it self where God blessed them all with a powerfull and an immediate protection God admitted onely such as were fitted to help one another couples In the Ark which was the Type of our best condition in this life there was not a single person Christ saved once one theef at the last gasp to shew that there may be late repentances but in the Ark he saved none but maried persons to shew that he eases himself in making them helpers to one another And therefore when we come to the Pâ—sui Deum adjutorium meum to rely upon God primarily for our Help God comes to the faciam tibi adjutorium I will make thee a help like thy self not always like in complexion nor like in years nor like in fortune nor like in birth but like in minde like in disposition like in the love of God and of one another or else there is no helper It was no kinde of help that Davids wife gave him when she spoke by way of counsell but in truth in scorn and derision to draw him from a religious act as the dancing before the Ark at that time was It is no help for any respect to slacken the husband in his Religion It was but a poor help that Nabals wife was fain to give him by telling David Al as my husband is but a foole like his name and what will you look for at a fools hand It is the worst help of all to raise a husband by dejecting her self to help her husband forward in this world by forfeiting sinfully and dishonourably her own interest in the next The husband in the Helper in the nature of a foundation to sustain and uphold all The wife in the nature of the roof to cover imperfections and weaknesses The husband in the nature of the head from whom all the sinews flow The wife in the nature of the hands into which those sinews flow and enable them to doe their offices The husband helps as legges to her she moves by his motion The wife helps as a staffe to him he moves the better by her assistance And let this mutuall help be a part of our present benediction too In all the ways of fortune let his industry help her and in all the crosses of fortune let her patience help him and in all emergent occasions and dangers spirituall or temporall O God make speed to save them O Lord make haste to help them We have spoken of the persons man and woman him and her And of the action first as it is Physick but cordiall Physick and then for children but children to be made the children of God and lastly for help but true help and mutuall help There remains yet in this secular mariage the Term how long for ever I will mary thee for ever Now though there be properly no eternity in this secular mariage nor in any thing in this world for eternity is that onely which never had â—eginning nor ever shall have end yet we may consider a kind of eternity a kind of circle without beginning without end even in this secular mariage for first mariage should have no beginning before mariage no half-mariage no lending away of the minde in conditionall precontracts before no lending away of the body in unchaste wantonnesse before The body is the temple of the Holy Ghost and when two bodies by mariage are to be made one temple the wife is not as the Chancell reserv'd and shut up and the man as the walks below indifferent and at liberty for every passenger God in
all that belonged to our faithâ— All consists in this that he was Iesus capable in his nature to be a Saviour that he was Christus ordained and sent for that office and then Quod venit that be was come and come in aqus sanguine in water and bloud in sacraments which might apply him to us That he was Iesus a person capable his miracles testified aloud and frequently that he was Christ anointed and sent for that his reference of all his actions to his Father testified both these were enwrapped in that that he was the Sonne of God and that he professed himselfe upon the earth to be so for so it appeares plainely that he had plainely done We have a law say the Jews to Pilate and by our law he ought to die because he made himselfe the Sonne of God And for the last part that he came In aqua sanguine in water and bloud in such meanes as were to continue in the Church for our spirituall reparation and sustentation he testified that in preaching so piercing Sermons in instituting so powerfull Sacraments in assuring us that the love of God expressed to mankind in him extended to all persons and all times God so loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Sonne that whoseever beleeveth in him should not perish but have life everlasting And so the words beare record De Integritate of this Intirenesse of the whole worke of our Redemption and therefore Christ is not onely truely called a Martyr in that sense as Martyr signifies a witnesse but he is truly called a Martyr in that sense as we use the word ordinarily for he testified this truth and suffered for the testimony of it and therefore he is called Jesus Christ Martyr a faithfull witnesse And there is Martyrium a Martyrdome attributed to him where it is said Jesus Christ under Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession so he was a speaking and a doing and a suffering witnesse Now for the third witnesse in heaven which is the holy Ghost we may contract our selves in that for the whole work was his Before Ioseph and Mary came together she was found with Child of the holy Ghost which if we take it as Saint Basil and divers others of the Fathers doe that Ioseph found it by the holy Ghost that is the holy Ghost informed him of it then here the holy Ghost was a witnesse to Ioseph of this Conception but we rather take it as it is most ordinarily taken that the Angell intimated this to Ioseph That that which was conceived in her was of the holy Ghost and then the holy Ghost did so primarily testifie this decree of God to send a Iesus and a Christ for our Redemption that himselfe was a blessed and bountifull actor in that Conception he was conceived by him by his overshadowing So that the holy Ghost did not onely testifie his comming but he brought him And then for his comming in Aqua sanguine in water and bloud that is in Sacraments in meanes by which he might be able to make his comming usefull and appliable to us first the holy Ghost was a pregnant witnesse of that at his Baptisme for the holy Ghost had told Iohn Baptist before-hand That upon whomsoever he should descend and tarry still that should be he that should baptize with the holy Ghost and then according to those Markes he did descend and tarry still upon Christ Iesus in his baptisme And after this falling upon him and tarrying upon him which testified his power in all his life expressed in his doctrine and in his Sermons after his death and Resurrection and Ascension the holy Ghost gave a new testimony when he fell upon the Apostles in Cloventongues and made them spirituall channells in which this water and bloud the meanes of applying Christ to us should be convey'd to all Nations and thus also the third witnesse in heaven testified De integritate of this intirenesse of Iesus Of these three witnesses then which are of heaven we shall need to adde no more but that which the text addes that is That these three are one that is not onely one in Consent they all testifie of one point they all speake to one Intergatory Ad integritatem Christi to prove this intirenesse of Christ but they are Vnum Essentia The Father the Sonne and the holy Ghost are all one Godhead and so meant and intended to be in this place And therefore as Saint Hierome complained when some Copies were without this seventh verse that thereby we had lost a good argument for the unity of the three Persons because this verse said plainely that the three witnesses were all one so I am sorry when I see any of our later expositors deny that in this place there is any proofe of such an unity but that this Vnum sunt They are one is onely an unity of consent and not of essence It is an unthrifty prodigality howsoever we be abundantly provided with arguments from other places of Scriptures to prove this Vnity in Trinity to cast away so strong an argument against Iew and Turke as is in these words for that and for the consubstantiality of Christ which was the Tempest and the Earthquake of the Primitive Church raised by Arius and his followers then and God knowes not extinguished yet Thus much I adde of these three witnesses that though they be in heaven their testimony is upon the earth for they need not to testifie to one another this matter of Jesus The Father heares of it every day by the continuall intercession of Christ Jesus The Sonne feeles it every day in his new crucifying by our sinnes and in the perfecution of his Mysticall body here The holy Ghost hath a bitter sense of it in our sinnes against the holy Ghost and he hath a loving sense of it in those abundant seas of graces which flow continually from him upon us They need no witnesses in heaven but these three witnesses testifie all this to our Consciences And therefore the first author that is observed to have read and made use of this seventh verse which was one of the first Bishops of Rome he reads the words thus Tres in nobis there are three in us which beare witnesse in heaven they testifie for our sakes and to establish our assurance De Integritate Iesu that Jesus is come and come with meanes to save the world and to save us And therefore upon these words Saint Bernard collects thus much more that there are other witnesses in heaven which restifie this worke of our Redemption Angels and Saints all the Court all the Quire of heaven testifie it but catera nobis occults says he what all they doe we know not but according to the best dispositions here in this world we acquaint our selves and we choose to keep company with the best and so not onely the poore Church s the earth
aquarum by the power of waters many waters and in this verse this witnesse is delivered in the plurall spirit and waters and so waters in that signification which signification they have often in the Scriptures that is affliction and tribulation be good testimonies that our Lord Jesus doth visit us though the waters of Coâ—trition and repentant teares be another good testimony of that too yet that water which testifies the presence of Jesus so as that it doth always infallibly bring Jesus with it for the Sacraments are never without Grace whether it be accepted or no there it is â— That water which is made equall with the preaching of the Word so farre as to be a fellow-witnesse with the Spirit that is onely the Sacrament of baptisme without which in the ordinary dispensation of God no soule can be surer that Jesus is come to him then if he had never heard the Word preached he mistakes the spirit the first witnesse if he refuse the water the second The third witnesse upon earth is bloud and that is briefly the Communion of the body and bloud of Iesus in the Lords Supper But how is that bloud upon earth I am not ashamed to confesse that I know not how but the bloud of Christ is a witnesse upon earth in the Sacrament and therefore upon the earth it is Now this Witnesse being made equall with the other two with preaching and with baptisme it is as necessary that he that will have an assuranceâ— that Iesus is come into him doe receive this Sacrament as that he doe heare Sermâ—nâ— and that he be baptized An over vehement urging of this necessity brought in an erroneous custome in the Primitive Church That they would give the Sacrament of the body of Christ to Children as soon as they were baptized yea and to dead man too But because this Sacrament is accompanied with precepts which can belong onely to Men of understanding for they must doe it in Remembrance and they must discerne the Lords body therefore the necessity lies onely upon such as are come to those graces and to that understanding For they that take it and doe not discerne it not know what they do they take it dangerously But else for them to whom this Sacrament belongs if they take it not their hearing of Sermons and their baptisme doth them no good for what good can they have done them if they have not prepared themselves for it And therefore as the Religion of the Church holds a stubborne Recusant at the table at the Communion bord as farre from her as a Recusant at the Pew that is a Non-communicant as ill as a not commer or a not hearer so I doubt not but the wisdome of the state weighs them in the same balance For these three agree in one says the text that is first they meet in one Man and then they testifie the same thing that is Integritatem Iesu that Iesus is come to him in outward Meanes to save his soule If his conscience find not this testimony all these availe him nothing If we remaine vessells of anger and of dishonour still we are under the Vae vâ—bis Hypocritis woe unto you Hypocrites that make cleane onely the outside of your cuppes and Platters That baptize and wash your owne and your childrens bodies but not their mindes with instructions When we shall come to say Docuisti in plateis we have heard thee preach in our streets we have continued our hearing of thy Word when we say Manducavimus coram te we have eate in thy presence at thy table yea Manducavimus tâ— we have eaten thee thy selfe yet for all this outward show of these three witnesses of Spirit and Water and bloud Preaching and Baptisme and Communion we shall heare that fearfull disclaiming from Christ Jesus Nescio vos I know not whence you are But these witnesses he will always heare if they testifie for us that Jesus is come unto us for the Gospell and the preaching thereof is as the deed that conveys Iesus unto us the water the baptisme is as the Seale that assures it and the bloud the Sacrament is the delivery of Christ into us and this is Integritas Iesu the entire and full possession of him To this purpose therefore as we have found a Trinity in heaven and a Trinity in earth so we must make it up a Trinity of Trinities and finde a third Trinity in our selves God created one Trinity in us the observation and the enumeration is Saint Bernards which are those three faculties of our soule the reason the memory the will That Trinity in us by another Trinity too by suggestion towards sin by delight in sinne by consent to sinne is fallen into a third Trinity The memory into a weaknesse that that comprehends not God it glorifies him not for benefits received The reasen to a blindnesse that that discernes not what is true and the will to a perversnesse that that wishes not what 's good But the goodnesse of God by these three witnesses on earth regenerates and reestablishes a new Trinity in us faith and hope and charity Thus farre that devout Man carries it And if this new Trinity faith and hope and charity witnesse to us Integritatem Christi all the worke of Christ If my faith testifie to me that Christ is sealed to my soule and my hope testifie that at the Resurection I shall have a perfect fruition in soule and body of that glory which he purchased for every beleever and my charity testifies to the world that I labour to make sure that salvation by a good life then there 's a Trinity of Trinities and the six are made nine witnesses There are three in heaven that testifie that this is done for all Mankinde Three in the Church that testifie this may be done for me and three in my soule that testifie that all this is applied to me and then the verdict and the Judgement must necessarily goe for me And beloved this Judgement will be grounded upon this intirenesse of Jesus and therefore let me dismisse you with this note That Integritas is in continuitate not in contignitate It is not the touching upon a thing nor the comming neare to a thing that makes it intire a fagot where the sticks touch a peece of cloth where the threds touch is not intire To come as neare Christ as we can conveniently to trie how neare we can bring two Religions together this is not to preserve Integritatem Iesu In a word Intirenesse excludes deficiency and redundancy and discontinuance we preserve not intirenesse if we preserve not the dignity of Christ in his Church and in his discipline and that excludes the defective Separatist we doe not preserve that entirenesse if we admit traditions and additions of Men in an equality to the word of God and that excludes the redundant Papist neither doe we preserve the entirenesse if we admit a discontinuance
and fetch it againe And then it was rotten and good for nothing for says he as the girdle cleaveth to the loines so have I tyed to me the house of Israel and Iudah that they might be my people that they might have a name and a praise and a glory but they would not heare Therefore say unto them Every bottle shall be filled with wine Here was a promise of plenty and they shall say unto thee Doe not we know that every bottle shall be filled with wineâ— that God is bound to give us this plenty because he hath tyed himselfe by oath and covenunt and promise But behold I fill all the inhabitants with drunkennesse since they trust in their plenty that shall be an occasion of sinne to them and I will dash them against one another even the father and sonnes together I will not spare I will not pity I will not have compassion but destroy them God could not promise more then he did in this place at first he could not depart farther from that promise then by their occasion he came to at last Gods promise goes no farther with Moses himselfe My presence shall goe with thee and I will give thee rest If we will steale out of Gods presence into darke and sinfull corners there is no rest promised Receive my words says Solomon and the years of thy life shall be many Trust in the Lord says David and doe good performe both stand upon those two leggs faith and works not that they are alike there is a right and a left legge but stand upon both upon one in the sight of God upon the other in the sight of Man Trust in the Lord and doe good and then shall dwell in the land and be fed assuredly That paradise that peace of Conscience which God establishes in thee by faith hath a condition of growth and encrease from faith to faith heaven it selfe in which the Angells were had a condition they might they did fall from thence The land of Canaan was their own land and the rest of that land their Rest by Gods oath and covenant and yet here was not their rest not here nor for any thing expressed or intimated in the word any where else Here was a Nunc dimittis but not in pace The Lord lets them depart and makes them depart but not in peace for their eyes saw no salvation they were sent away to a heavy captivity Beloved we may have had a Canaan an inheritance a comfortable assurance in our bosomes in our consciences and yet heare that voice after that here is not our rest except as Gods goodnesse at first moved him to make one oath unto us of a conditionall rest as our sins have put God to his second oath that he sware we should not have his rest so our repentance bring him to a third oath as I live I would not the death of a sinner that so he doe not onely make a new contract with us but give us withall an ability to performe the conditions which he requires SERMON X. Preached at the Churching of the Countesse of Bridgewater MICAH 2â— 10. second Sermon THus far we have proceeded in the first acceptation of these words according to their principall and literall sense as they appertain'd to the Iewes and their staâ—e so they were a Commination As they appertain to all succeeding Ages and to us so they are a Commonition an alarm to raise us from the sleep and death of sin And then in a third acceptation they are a Consolation that at last we shall have a rising and a departing into such a state in the Resurrection as we shall no more need this voice Arise and depart because we shall be no more in danger of falling no more in danger of departing from the presence and contemplation and service and fruition of God And in both these latter senses the words admit a just accommodation to this present occasion God having rais'd his honorable servant and hand-maid here present to a sense of the Curse that lyes upon women for the transgression of the first woman which is painfull and dangerous Child-birth and given her also a sense of the last glorious resurrection in having rais'd her from that Bed of weaknesse to the ability of coming into his presence here in his house First then to consider them in the first of these two latter senses as a Commonition to them that are in the state of sin first there is an increpation implied in this word Arise when we are bid arise we are told that we are faln sin is an unworthy descent and an ignoble fall Secondly we are bid to doe something and therefore we are able to doe something God commands nothing impossible so as that that degree of performance which he will accept should be impossible to the man whom his grace hath affected That which God will accept is possible to the godly And thirdly that which he commands here is deriv'd into two branches We are bidden to riseâ— that is to leave our bed our habit of sin and then not to be idle when we are up but to depart not onely to depart from the Customâ— but from tentations of Recidiâ—ation and not onely that but to depart into another way a habit of Actions contrary to our former Sins And then all this is press'd and urged upon us by a Reason The Holy Ghost appears not like a ghost in one sodain glance or glimmering but he testifies his presence and he presses the businesse that he comes for And the reason that he uses here is Quia non requies because otherwise we lose the Pondus animae the weight the ballast of our soule rest and peace of Conscience for howâ—ever there may be some rest some such shew of Rest as may serve a carnall man a little while yet sayes our Text it is not your Rest it conduces not to that Rest which God hath ordained for you whom he would direct to a better Rest. That Rest your Rest is not here not in that which is spoken of here not in your lying still you must rise from it not in your standing still you must depart from it your Rest is not here but yet since God sends us away because our Rest is not here he does tacitly direct â—s thereby where there is Rest And that will be the third acceptation of these words to which we shall come anone For that then which rises first the increpation of our fall implied in the word Arise there is nothing in which that which is the mother of all vertues discretion is more tryed then in the conveying and imprinting profitably a rebuke an increpation a knowledge and sense of sinne in the conscience of another The rebuke of sin is like the fishing of Whales the Marke is great enough one can scarse misse hitting but if there be not sea room and line enough a dexterity in
God and divided from the storms and distractions of this world enjoys in it selfe That peace which made the blessed Martyrs of Christ Jesus sleep upon the rack upon the burning coales upon the points of swords when the persecutors were more troubled to invent torments then the Christians to suffer That sleep from which ambition not danger no nor when their own house is on fire that is their own concupiscences cannot awaken them not so awaken them that it can put them out of their own constancy and peacefull confidence in God That sleep which is the sleep of the spouse Ego dormio sed cor meum vigilâ—t I sleep but my heart is awake It was no dead sleep when shee was able to speak advisedly in it and say she was asleep and what sleep it was It was no stupid sleep when her heart was awake This is the sleep of the Saints of God which Saint Gregory describes Sancti non tâ—rpore sed virtue sâ—piuntur It is not sluggishnesse but innocence and a good conscience that casts them asleep Laboriosiâ—s dormium they are busier in their sleep nay Vigitaâ—â—ius dorâ—â—iunt they are more awake in their sleep then the watchfull men of this world for when they close their eyes in meditation of God even their dreames are services to him Sâ—mniant se dicere Psalmos says Saint Ambrose they dream that they sing psalmes and they doe more then dream it they do sing But yet even from this holy and religious sleep which is a departing from the allurements of the world and a retiring to the onely contemplation of heaven and heavenly things Iacob may be conceived to have awaked and we must awake It is note enough to shut our selves in a cloister in a Monastery to sleep out the tentations of the world but since the ladder is placed the Church established since God and the Angels are awake in this businesse in advancing the Church we also must labour in our severall vocations and not content our selves with our own spirituall sleep the peace of conscience in our selves for we cannot have that long if we doe not some good to others When the storm had almost drown'd the ship Christ was at his ease in that storm asleep upon a pillow Now Christ was in no danger himself All the water of Noahs flood multiplyed over again by every drop could not have drown'd him All the swords of an Army could not have killed him till the houre was come when hee was pleased to lay down his soul. But though he were safe yet they awaked him and said Master car'st thou not though we perish So though a man may be in a good state in a good peace of conscience and sleep confidently in it yet other mens necessities must awaken him and though perchance he might passe more safely if he might live a retired life yet upon this ladder some Angels ascended some descended but none stood still but God himself Till we come to him to sleep an eternall Sabbath in heaven though this religious sleep of enjoying or retiring and contemplation of God be a heavenly thing yet we must awake even out of this sleep and contribute our paines to the building or furnishing or serving of God in his Church Out of a sleep conceive it what sleep soever Iacob awaked and then Quid ille what did he Dixit he spoke he entred presently into an open profession of his thoughts he smother'd nothing he disguised nothing God is light and loves cleernesse thunder and wind and tempests and chariots and roaring of Lyons and falling of waters are the ordinary emblems of his messages and his messengers in the Scriptures Christ who is Sapientia Dei the wisdome of God is Verbâ—â— Sermâ— Dei the word of God he is the wisdome and the uttering of the wisdome of God as Christ is express'd to be the word so a Christians duty is to speak dearly and professe his religion With how much scorn and reproach Saint Cyprian fastens the name of Libellatices upon them who in time of persecution durst not say they were Christians but under-hand compounded with the State that they might live unquestioned undiscovered for though they kept their religion in their heart yet Christ was defrauded of his honour And such a reproach and scorn belongs to them who for fear of losing wordly preferments and titles and dignities and rooms at great Tables dare not say of what religion they are Beloved it is not enough to awake out of an ill sleep of sinne or of ignorance or out of a good sleep out of a retirednesse and take some profession if you winke or hide your selves when you are awake you shall not see the Ladder not discern Christ nor the working of his Angels that is the Ministery of the Church and the comforts therein you shall not hear that Harmony of the quire of heaven if you will bear no part in it an inward acknowledgment of Christ is not enough if you forbear to professe him where your testimony might glorify him Si sufficeret fides cordis non creasset tibi Deus â—s If the heart were enough God would never have made a mouth And to that we may adde Si sufficeret os non creasset manus if the mouth were enough God would never have made hands for as the same Father says Omni tuba clarior est per opera 〈◊〉 no voice more audible none more credible then when thy hands speak as well as thy heart or thy tongue Thou art then perfectly awaked out of thy sleep when thy words and works declare and manifest it The next is Quid dixit be spake but what said he â— first he assented to that light which was given him The Lord is in his place He resisted not this light he went not about to blow it out by admitting reason or disputation against it He imputed it not to witchcraft to illusion of the Devill but Dominus est in loco isto The Lord is in this place O how many heavy sinnes how many condemnations might we avoid if wee would but take knowledge of this Dominus in loco isto That the Lord is present and sees us now and shall judge hereafter all that we doe or think It keeps a man sometimes from corrupting or solliciting a woman to say Peter Maritus in loco the Father or the Husband is present it keeps a man from an usurious contract to say Lex in loco the Law will take knowledge of it it keeps a man from slandering or calummating another to say Testis in loco here is a witnesse by but this is Catholica Medicina and Omni morbia an universall medicine for all to say Dominus in loco The Lord is in this place and sees and heaâ—es and therefore I will say and think and do as if I were now summon'd by the lastâ— Trumpet to give an account of my thoughts and words and
He was afraid and then he spoke againe that he might have an increase of grace The earth stands still and earthly Men may be content to doe so but he whose conversation is in heaven is as the heavens are in continuall progresse For Inter profectum defectum defectum medium in hac vita non datur A Christian is always in a proficiency or deficiency If he goe not forward he goes backward Nemo dicat satis est sic manere volâ— Let no man say I have done enough I have made my profession already I have been catechiz'd I have been thought fit to receive the Communion sufficit mihi esse sicut heri nudiustertius though he be in the way in the Church yet he sleeps in the way he is got no farther in the way then his godfathers carried him in their armes to engraffe him in the Church by Baptisme for this man says he In via residet in scala subsistit quod nemo angelorum fecit he stands still upon the ladder and so did none of the Angels Christ himself increased in wildome and in stature and in favour with God and Man so must a Christian also labour to grow and to encrease by speaking and speaking again by asking more and more questions and by farther and farther informing his understanding and enlightening his faith per transiit benefaciendo sanavit omnes says Saint Peter of Christ He went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the Devill and it was prophesied of him Exultavit ut Gigas ad currendam vim He went forth as a Gyant to run a race If it be Christs pace it must be a Christians pace too Currentem non apprehendit nisi qui pariter currit There is no overtaking of him that runnes without running too Quid prodest Christum sequi si non consequamur and to what purpose do we follow Christ if not to overtake him and lay hold upon him Sic currite ut comprehendatis fige Christiane cursus profectus metam ubi Christus suum runne so as ye may obtain and if thou beest a Christian propose the same end of thy course as Christ did factus est obediens usque ad mortem and the end of his course was to be obedient unto death Speak then and talke continually of the name and the goodnesse of God speak again and again It is no tautology no babling to speak and â—terate his prayses Who accuses Saint Paul for repeating the sweet name of Jesus so very many times in his Epistles Who accuses David for repeating the same phrase the same sentence for his mercy endureth for ever so many times as he doth in his Psalms nay the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm is scarce any thing else then an often repetition of the same thing Thou spokest assoon as thou wast awake as soon as thou wast born thou spokest in Baptism So proceed to the farther knowledge of Religion and the mysteries of Gods service in his house and conceive a fearfull reverence of them in their institution and speak again enquire what they mean what they signify what they exhibit to thee Conceive a reverence of them first out of the authority that hath instituted them and then speak and inform thy self of them God spent a whole week in speaking for thy good Dixit Deus God spake that there might be light Dixit Deus God spâ—ke that there might be a firmament for immediately upon Gods speaking the work follow'd Dixit factum he spake the word and the world was created As God did a godly man shall do If he delight to talk of God to mention often upon all occasions the greatnesse and goodnesse of God to prefer that discourse before obscene and scurrile and licentious and profane and defamatory and ridiculous and frivolous talke If he delight in professing God with his tongue out of the abundance of his heart his works shall follow his words he will do as he says If God had given over when he had spake of Light and a Firmament and Earth and Sea and had not continued speaking till the last day when he made thee what hadst thou got by all that what hadst thou been at all for all that If thou canst speak when thou awakest when thou beginnest to have an apprehension of Gods presence in a remorse if then that presence and Majesty of God make thee afraid with the horrour and greatnesse of thy sinnes if thou canst not speak again then not goe forward with thy repentance thy former speech is forgotten by God and unprofitable to thee Iacob at first speaking confessed God to be in that place but so he might be every where but he conceived a reverentiall fear at his presence and then he came to speak the second time to professe that that was none other but the house of God and the gate of heaven that there was an entrance for him in particular a fit place for him to testifie and exercise his Devotion he came to see what it was fit for him to doe towards the advancing of Gods house Now whensoever a man is proceeded so far with Iacob first to sleep to be at peace with God and then to wake to doe something for the good of others and then to speak to make profession to publish his sense of Gods presence and then to attribute all this onely to the Light of God himself by which light he grows from faith to faith and from grace to grace whosoever is in this disposition he may say in all places and in all his actions This is none other but the house of God and this is the gate of heaven He shall see heaven open and dwell with him in all his undertakings and particularly and principally in his expressing of a care and respect both to Christs Mysticall and to his materiall body both to the sustentation of the poor and to the building up of Gods house In both which kinds of Piety and Devotion non nobis Domine non nobis sed nomini tuo da gloriam Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name be given the glory As to the confusion of those shamelesse slanderers who place their salvation in works and accuse us to avert men from good works there have been in this Kingdome since the blessed reformation of Religion more publick charitable works perform'd more Hospitals and Celleges erected and endowed in threescore then in some hundreds of years of superstition before so may God be pleased to adde one example more amongst us that here in this place we may have some occasion to say of a house erected and dedicated to his service This is none other but the house of God and this is the gate of heaven and may he vouchsafe to accept at our hands in our intention and in our endevour to consummate that purpose of ours that thanksgiving that
to interpret it so for can a mans own hand or foot or eye be said to injure him And yet in this place they are often said to scandalize him to offend him The interpretation that Maldonat departs from himselfe acknowledges to be the interpretation of Saint Chrysostome of Euthymius of Theophylact of others of the Fathers and by the councell of Trent he is bound to interpret Scriptures according to the Fathers and he is angry with us if at any time we doe not so and here he departs from them where not onely his reverence to them but the frame and the evidence of the place should have kept them to him for here Christ utters his vae as it is vae Dolentis as he laments their miseries and as it is vae Minantis as he threatens his judgements not onely upon them that offend and scandalize others but upon them also that are easily scandalized by others and put from their religion and Christian constancy with every rumour Parâ—m distat scandalizare scandalizari It is almost as great a sin to be shaked by a scandall given as to give it Christ intends both in this Text the Active and the Passive scandall but the latter meliùs quadrat says a later Divine worthy to be compared to the Ancients for the exposition of Scriptures it fits the scope and purpose of Christ best to accept and interpret this vae Woe be unto the world of the Pasâ—ive scandall the scandall taken In that we consider the working of this Vae three ways first vae quia illusiones fortes woe unto the world because these scandals and offences tentations and tribulations are so strong in their nature and then vae quia infirmi vas woe because you are so weak in your nature and again vae quia Pravaricatores woe because wee prevaricate in our own case and make our selves weaker then we are and are scandalized with things which are not in their nature scandalous nor were scandalously intended The two first are woe because we shall be scandalized for scandals are truly strong and you are truly weak The other is woe because ye will bee scandalized when and where you might easily unentangle the snare and devest the â—scruple First for the vehemence the violence the unavoydablenesse and impetuousnesse of these scandals tentations and tribulations under which wee all suffer in this world it may bee enough to consider that one saying of our Saviours They shall seduce Si possibile even the elect where by the way it is not meerly not altogether as we have translated it If it were possible for that sounds as if Christ had positively and dogmatically determined that it is not possible for the elect to be seduced but Christ says onely Si possibile if it be possible as being willing to leave it in doubt and in suspense how farre in so great scandals so very great tentations even the elect might bee seduced Ista Dominici sermonis dubitatto trepidationem mentis in electis relinquit this doubtfulnesse in Christs speech makes the very elect stand in fear of falling in the midst of such tentations for howsoever the elect shall rise again the elect may fall by these scandals and though they may be reduced they may be seduced We are to consider men as they are delivered in the approbation and testimony of the Church that judges sâ—cundum allegata probata according to the evidence that she sees and heares and not as they are wrapped up in the infallible knowledge of God and so our election admits an outward tryall that is Sanctification so S. Peter writes to the strangers elect through sanctification They were strangers strangers to the Covenant and yet Elect for as all of the houshold all within the Covenant all children of the faithfull are not elect for to be born of Christian parents within the Covenant gives us a title to the Sacrament of Baptism so as that we may claim it and the Church cannot deny it us but this birth doth not give us that title to heaven which Baptisin it self does so all strangers all that are without the Covenant are not excluded in the election S. Peter admits stragers to election but yet no otherwise then through sanctification when we are come to that hill to sanctification we have a fair prospect to see our election in so God hath elected you to salvation says S. Paul to the Thes. but how To salvation through sanctification that 's your hill there opens your prospect Agreeably to these two great Astles says the beloved Apostle the Elder unto the elect Lady and her children but still how elect as he tels you elect if she walk in the Commandements of God elect if she lose not her former good works that she may receive a full reward elect if she abide in the doctrine of Christ. Always from that mount of sanctification arises our prospect to election and sanctification were glorification if it were impossible to fall from it If a tentation of mony made Iudas an Apostle fall from his Master how easily will such a tentation make men fall with their Master that is run into dangerous and ruinous actions with them How easily will our children our servants our tenants fall form the truth of God if they have both the example of their superiors to countenance them and their purse to reward them for it That scandal that tentation is a Giant and an armed Gyant a Goliah and a Goliah with a speare like a weavers beame that marches upon those two leggs Example to doe it and Preferment for doing it This is the vae in the consideration of the passive scandal as it arises out of the vehemence of the scandal and tentation Quia illusiones fortes because they are so strong in themselves It arises also out of our weaknesse Quia infirmi nos because we are so weak even the strongest of us And for this it may also be enough to consider those words of our Saviour That a man may receive the word and receive it with joy and yet Temporalis est says Christ it may bee but for a while hee may be but a time-server for assoon as persecution comes Illico continuò scandalizatur by and by instantly forthwith hee is scandalized and shaked Hee stays not to give God his leasure whether God will succour his cause to morrow though not to day Hee stays not to give men their Law to give Princes and States time to consider whether it may not be fit for them to come to leagues and alliances and declarations for the assistance of the Cause of Religion next year though not this But continuò scandalizatur as soon as a Catholique army hath given a blow and got a victory of any of our forces or friends or as soon as a crafty Iesuit hath forged a Relation that that Army hath given such a blow or that such
it is made can have nothing no syllable taken from it nor added to it Therefore is Gods will delivered to us in Psalms that we might have it the more cheerfully and that we might have it the more certainly because where all the words are numbred and measured and weighed the whole work is the lesse subject to falsification either by substraction or addition God speaks to us in or atione strictâ in a limited in a diligent form Let us speak to him in or atione solutâ not pray not preach not hear flackly suddenly unadvisedly extemporally occasionally indiligently but let all our speech to him be weighed and measured in the weights of the Sanctuary let us be content to preach and to hear within the compasse of our Articles and content to pray in those formes which the Church hath meditated for us and recommended to us This whole Psalm is a Prayer and recommended by David to the Church And a Prayer grounded upon Reasons The Reasons are multiplyed and dilated from the second to the 20. verse But as the Prayer is made to him that is Alpha and Omega first and last so the Prayer is the Alpha and Omega of the Psalme the Prayer possesses the first and the last verse thereof and though the Reasons be not left out Christ himself settles that Prayer which he recommended to our daily use upon a Reason Quia tuum est Regnum for thine is the Kingdome yet David makes up his Circle he begins and ends in prayer But our text fals within his Reasons He prays in the first verse that God would forbear him upon the Reasons that follow of which some are extrinsecall some arising out of the power some out of the malice some out of the scorn of other men And some are intrinsecall arising out of himself and of his sense of Gods Judgements upon him and our Text begins the Reasons of that last kind which because David enters with that particle not onely of Connexion but of Argumentation too For Rebuke me not O Lord for it stands thus and thus with me we shall make it a first short part to consider how it may become a godly man to limit God so far as to present and oppose Reasons against his declared purpose and proceedings And then in those calamities which he presents for his Reasons in this Text For thine arrows stick fast in me and thy hand presseth me sore we shall passe by these steps first we shall see in what respect in what allusion in what notification he cals them arrows And therein first that they are alienae they are shot from others they are not in his own power a man shoots not an arrow at himselfe And then that they are Veloces swift in coming he cannot give them their time And again they are Vix visibiles though they bee not altogether invisible in their coming yet there is required a quick eye and an expresse diligence and watchfulnesse to discern and avoid them so they are arrows in the hand of another not his own and swift as they come and invisible before they come And secondly they are many arrows The victory lies not in scaping one or two And thirdly they stick in him they finde not David so good proof as to rebound back again and imprint no sense And they stick fast Though the blow be felt and the wound discerned yet there is not a present cure he cannot shake them off Infixae sunt And then with all this they stick fast in him that is in all him in his body and soul in him in his thoughts and actions in him in his sins and in his good works too Infixae mihi there is no part of him no faculty in him in which they stick not for which may well bee another consideration That hand which shot them presses him follows the blow and presses him sore that is vehemently But yet which will be our conclusion Sagittaetuae and manus tua These arrows that are shot and this hand that presses them so sore are the arrows and is the hand of God and therefore first they must have their Effect they cannot be dis-appointed But yet they bring their comfort with them because they are his because no arrows from him no pressing with his hand comes without that Balsamum of mercy to heal as fast as he wounds and of so many pieces will this exercise consist this exercise of your Devotion and perchance Patience First then this particle of connexion and argumentation For which begins our text occasions us in a first part to consider that such an impatience in affliction as brings us toward a murmuring at Gods proceedings and almost to a calling of God to an account in inordinate expostulations is a leaven so kneaded into the nature of man so innate a tartar so inherent a sting so inseparable a venim in man as that the holyest of men have scarce avoided it in all degrees thereof Iob had Gods testimony of being an upright man and yet Iob bent that way O that I might have my request says Iob and that God would grant me the thing that I long for Well if God would what would Iob aske That God would destroy me and cut me off Had it not been as easie and as ready and as usefull a prayer That God would deliver him Is my strength the strength of stones or is my flesh of brasse says hee in his impatience What though it bee not Not stones not brasse is there no remedy but to wish it dust Moses had Gods testimonies of a remarkable and exemplar man for meeknesse But did God always finde it so was it a meek behaviour towards God to say Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant Have I conceived all this people have I begotten them that thou shouldest say unto me Carry them in thy bosome Elias had had testimonies of Gods care and providence in his behalf and God was not weary of preserving him and he was weary of being preserved He desired that he might dye and said Sufficit Domine It is enough O Lord now take my soul. Ioâ—as even then when God was expressing an act of mercy takes occasion to be angry and to bee angry at God and to be angry at the mercy of God we may see his fluctuation and distemper and irresolution in that case and his transportation He was aâ—gry says the text very angry And yet the text says He prayed but he prayed angerly O Lord take I beseech thee my life from me for it is better for me to dye then to live Better for him that was all he considered not what was best for the service and glory of God but best for him God asks him If he doe well to be angry And he will not tell him there God gives him time to vent his passion and he askes him again â—after Doest thou well to bee angry And he answers more angerly I doe
And then lastly by way of condoling and of instructing we shall make it appear to our weak brethren that our departing from Rome can be no example no justification of their departing from us Our branches then from whence we are to gather our fruit being thus many it is time to lay hold upon the first which is Manebant Though these sheep were thus ill fed yet they did stay Optimis ovibus pedes breves The best sheep have-shortest leggs Their commendation is not to make hast in straying away He that hasteth with his feet sinneth that is from the station in which God hath placed him Si innumera bona fecerimus If we have abounded in good works and done God never so good service Non minores Poenas dabimus quà m qui Christi corpus proscindebant si integritatem Ecclesiarum discerpserimus we are as guilty in the eies of God as they that crucifyed the Lord of life himselfe if we violate his spouse or rent the intirenesse of his Church Vir quidam sanctus dixit says the same father of another Chrysostome of Cyprian A certaine holy man hath ventured to say Quod audaciùs sapere videtur attamen dixit That which perchance may seem bodily sayd but yet he sayd it what was it This peccatum istud nec martyrio deleri That this sin of schisme of renting the unity of the Church cannot be expiated no not by Martyrdome it self When God had made but a hedge about Iob yet that hedge was such a â—ence as the Devill could not break in when God hath carryed Murum aeneum a wall of brasse nay Murum igneum a wall of fire about his Church wilt thou break out through that wall that brasse that fire Paradise was not walled nor hedged and there were serpents in Paradise too yet Adam offered not to goe out of Paradise till God drove him out and God saw that he would have come in againe if the Cherubims and the flaming sword had not been placed by God to hinder him Charme the Charmer never so wisely as David speaks he cannot utter a sweeter nor a more powerfull charme â—hen that Ego te baptizo I baptize thee in the name of the Father and of the Sonne and of the Holy Ghost And Nos admittimus we receive this child into the congregation of Christs slock There is a sweet and a powerfull charm in the Ego te absolvo I absolve thee from all thy sins But this blessed charm I may heare from another if I stray into another Church But the Ego te baptizo I can heare but once and to depart from that Church in which I have received my baptism and in which I have made my Contracts and my stipulations with God and pledged and engaged my sureties there deserve a mature consideration for I may mistake the reasons upon which I goe and I may finde after that there are more true errours in the Church I goe to then there were imaginary in that that I left Truly I have been sorry to see some persons converted from the Roman Church to ours because I have known that onely temporall respects have moved them and they have lived after rather in a nullity or indifferency to either religion then in a true and established zeale Of which kinde I cannot forbeare to report to you so much of the story of a French gentleman who though he were of good parts and learned yet were not worthy to be mentioned in this place but that he soar'd so high as to write against the learnedst King that any age hath produc'd our incomparable King Iames. This man who was turned from the Reformed to the Roman religion being asked halfe in jest Sir which is the best religion you must needs know that have been of both answered Certainely the religion I left the reformed religion must needs be the best religion for when I changed I had this religion the Romans religion for it and three hundred Crowns a year to boot which was a pension given him upon his conversion Neither truely doth any thing more loosen a mans footing nor slacken his hold upon that Church in which he was baptized nor open him more to an undervaluation of all Churches then when he gives himselfe leave to thinke irreverently slightly negligently of the Sacraments as of things at best indifferent and many times impertinent I should thinke I had no bowels if they had not earn'd and melted when I heard a Lady whose child of five or sixe daies being ready to die every minute she being mov'd often that the child might be christened answered That if it were Gods will that the child should live to the Sabbath that it might be baptized in the Congregation she should be content otherwise Gods will be done upon it for God needs no Sacrament With what sorrow with what holy indignation did I heare the Sonne of my friend who brought me to that place to minister the Sacrament to him then upon his death-bed and almost at his last gaspe when my service was offered him in that kinde answer his Father Father I thanke God I have not lived so in the sight of my God as that I need a Sacrament I name a few of these because our times abound with such persons as undervalue not onely all rituall and ceremoniall assistances of devotion which the wisdome and the piety of the Church hath induced but even the Sacraments themselves of Christs owne immediate institution and are alwaies open to solicitations to passe to another Church upon their own surmises of errours in their own Whereas there belongs much consideration and a well grounded assurance of fundamentall errours in one Church and that those errours are repayred and no other as great as those admitted in the other Church before upon any collaterall pretences we abandon that Church in which God hath sealed us to himselfe in Baptisme Our Fathers stayd in Rome Manebant They stayd and Edebant they eat that grasse and they drunke that water which was troden and troubled Alasse what should they have eaten what should they have drunke should a man strangle himselse rather then take in an ill ayre Or forbear a good table because his stomach cannot digest every dish We doe not call money base money till the Allay exceed the pure metall and if it doe so yet it may be currant and serve to many offices Those that are skilfull in that art know how to sever the base from the pure the good parts of the religion from the bad and those that are not will not cast it away for all the corrupt mixture It is true they had been better to have stayd at home and served God in private then to have communicated in a superstitious service Domum vestram Christi Ecclesian deputamus I shall never doubt to call your House the Church of Christ. But this was not permitted to our Fathers to
and our North and South at another tyde and another gale First then we looke towards our East the fountaine of light and of life There this world beganne the Creation was in the east And there our next world beganne 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 dyed there and there he looked into our west from the east from his Terasse from his Pinacle from his exaltation as himselfe 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 himselfe speakes in the Plurall is the manifestation of the Trinity the Trinity which is the first letter in his Alphabet that ever thinks to read his name in the book of life The first note in his Gammut that ever thinks to sing his part in the Quire of the Triumphant Church Let him him have done as much as all the Worthies and suffered as much as all Natures Martyrs the penurious Philosophers let him have known as much as they that pretend to know Omne scibile all that can be known nay and in-intelligibilia In-investigabilia as Turtullian speakes 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 learnt to spel that hath not learnt the Trinity not learnt to pronounce the first word that cannot bring three Persons into one God The subject of naturall philosophy are the foure elements which God made the Subject of supernaturall philosophy Divinity are the three elements which God is and if we may so speake which make God that is constitute God notifie God to us Father Sonne and holy Ghost The naturall man that hearkens to his owne heart and the law written there may produce Actions that are good good in the nature and matter and substance of the worke 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 a powerfull God and enclosed and hedged in himselfe with the feare of God may produce actions better then the meere naturall man because he referres his actions to the glory of his imagined God But yet this man though he be more fruitfull then the former more then a grassy field yet he is but a ploughed field and he bears but corne and corne God knowes choaked with weeds But that man who hath taken hold of God by those handles by which God hath delivered and manifested himselfe in the notions of Father Sonne and holy Ghost he is no field but a garden a Garden of Gods planting a Paradise in which grow all things good to eate and good to see spirituall resection and spirituall recreation too and all things good to cure He hath his beeing and his diet and his physique there in the knowledge of the Trinity his beeing in the mercy of the Father his physique in the merits of the 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 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 beleefe 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 Almighty 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 the Spirit of God is expresly named So that we doe 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 Trinity We know God we beleeve in the Trinity The Gentiles multiplyed Gods There were almost as many Gods as men that beleeved in them And I am got out of that thrust and out of that noise when I am come into the knowledge of one God But I am got above staires got in the Bedchamber when I am come to see the Trinity and to apprehend not onely that I am in the care of a great and a 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 Truly it is a sad Contemplation to see Christians scratch and wound teare one another with the ignominious invectives and uncharitable names of of Heretique and Schismatique about Ceremoniall and Problematicall and indeed but Criticall verball controversies and in the meane time the foundation of all the Trinity undermined by those numerous those multitudinous Anthills 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 and Calvin they impute to Calvin fundamentall error in the Divinity of the second Person of the Trinity the Sonne And they impute to Luther a detestation of the very word Trinity and an expunction thereof in all places of the Liturgy where the Church had received that word They knew well if that slander could prevaile against those persons nothing that they could say could prevaile upon any good Christians But though in our doctrine we keep up the Trinity aright yet God knowes in our practice we doe not I hope it cannot be said of any of us that he beleeves not the Trinity but who amongst us thinkes of the Trinity considers the Trinity Father and Sonne doe naturally imply and induce one another and therefore they fall oftner 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 Trinity nor of the holy Ghost in particular in the endowments of the Church and Consecrations of Churches and possessions in their names What a spirituall dominion in the prayers and worship of
Halfe-pelagianisme to thinke grace once received to be sufficient Super-pelagianisme to thinke our actions can bring God in debt to us by merit and supererogation and Catarisme imaginary purity in Canonizing our selves as present Saints and condemning all that differ from us as reprobates All these are white spots and have the colour of goodnesse but are indications of leprosie So is that that God threatens Decorticatio ficus albi rami that the figtree shall be bark'd and the boughes thereof left white to be left white without barke was an indication of a speedy withering Ostensa candescunt arescunt says Saint Gregory of that place the bough that lies open without barke looks white but perishes the good works that are done openly to please men have their reward says Christ that is shall never have reward To pretend to doe good and not meane it To doe things good in themselves but not to good ends to goe towards good ends but not by good ways to make the deceiving of men thine end or the praise of men thine end all this may have a whiteness a colour of good but all this is a barking of the bough and an indication of a mischievous leprosie There is no good whiteness but a reflection from Christ Jesus in an humble acknowledgement that wee have none of our own and in a consident assurance that in our worst estate we may be made partakers of his We are all red earth In Adam we would not since Adam we could not avoid sinne and the Concomitants thereof miseries which we have called our West our cloud our darknesse But then we have a North that scatters these clouds in the next word Ad imaginem that we are made to another patterne in another likenesse then our own Faciamus hominem so far are we gone East and West which is halfe our Compasse and all this days voiage For we are strooke upon the sand and must stay another Tyde and another gale for our North and South SERMON XXIX Preached to the King at the Court. The second Sermon on GEN. 1. 26. And God said Let us make man in our Image after our likenesse BY fair occasion from these words we proposed to you the whole Compasse of mans voyage from his lanching forth in this world to his Anchoring in the next from his hoysing sayle here to his striking sayle there In which Compasse we designed to you his foure quarters first his East where he must beginne the fundamentall knowledge of the Trinity for that we found to be the specification and distinctive Character of a Christian where though that be so we shewed you also why we were not called Trinitarians but Christians and we shewed you the advantage that man hath in laying hold upon God in these severall notions that the Prodigall sonne hath an indulgent Father that the decayed Father hath an abundant Sonne that the dejected spirit hath a Spirit of comfort to fly to in heaven And as we shewed you from Saint Paul that it was an Atheisme to be no Christian without God says he as long as without Christ so we lamented the slacknesse of Christians that they did not seriously and particularly consider the persons of the Trinity and especially the holy Ghost in their particular actions And then we came to that consideration whether this doctrine were established or directly insinuated in this plurall word of our text Faciamus Let us us make man and we found that doctrine to be here and here first of any place in the Bible And finding God to speake in the plurall we accepted for a time that interpretation which some had made thereof that God spake in the Person of a Soveraigne Prince and therefore as they do in the plurall We. And thereby having established reverence to Princes we claim'd in Gods behalfe the same reverence to him That men would demeane themselves here when God is spoken to in prayer as reverently as when they speake to the King But after this we found God to speake here not onely as our King but as our maker as God himselfe and God in Counsell Faciamus and we applied thereunto the difference of our respect to a Person of that honorable rank when we came before him at the Counsell Table and when we came to him at his own Table and thereby advanced the seriousnesse of this consideration God in the Trinity And farther we failed not with that our Eastern winde Our West we considered in the next word Hominem that though we were made by the whole Trinity yet the whole Trinity made us but men and men in this name of our text Adam and Adam is but earth and that 's our West our declination our Sunset We passed over the foure names by which man is ordinarily expressed in the Scriptures and we found necessary misery in three of them and possible nay likely misery 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 shepheard If I but a cottage he a builder So he worke upon me let me be what he will We noted that God made us earth not ayre not fire That man hath bodily and worldly duties to performe and is not all Spirit in this life Devotion is his soule but he hath a body of discretion and usefulnesse to invest in some calling We noted too that in being earth we are equall We tryed that equality 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 patrimony all that he could give And we tryed this equality in another furnace in the grave where there is no meanes to distinguish Royall from Plebeian nor Catholique from Hereticall dust And lastly we noted that this our earth was red earth and 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 destruction for sinne was 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 over-valuation of our own purity and the uncharitable condemnation of all that differ from us to be that white spot And so far we sayled with that Western winde And are come to our third point in this our Compasse our North. In this point the North we place our first comfort The North is not always the comfortablest clime nor is the North always a type of happines in the Scriptures Many times God threatens stormes from the North. But even in those Northern stormes we consider that action that they scatter they dissipate those clouds which were gathered and so induce a serenity And so fair weather comes from the North. And
how much more may we conceive an unexpressible association that 's too far off an assimilation that 's not neare enough an identification the Schoole would venture to say so with God in that state of glory Where as the Sunne by shining upon the Moone makes the Moone a Planet a Star as well as it selfe which otherwise would be but the thickest and darkest part of that Spheare so those beames of Glory which shall issue from my God and fall upon me shall make me otherwise a clod of earth and worse a darke Soule a Spirit of darkenesse an Angell of Light a Star of Glory a something that I cannot name now not imagine now nor to morrow nor next yeare but even in that particular I shall be like God that as he that asked a day to give a definition of God the next day asked a week and then a moneth and then a yeare so undeterminable would my imaginations be if I should goe about to thinke now what I shall be there I shall be so like God as that the Devill himselfe shall not know me from God so far as to finde any more place to fasten a tentation upon me then upon God nor to conceive any more hope of my falling from that kingdome then of Gods being driven out of it for though I shal not be immortall as God yet I shall be as immortall as God And there 's my Image of God of God considered altogether and in his unity in the state of Glory I shall have also then the Image of all the three Persons of the Trinity Power is the Fathers and a greater Power then he exercises here I shall have there here he overcomes enemies but yet here he hath enemies there there are none here they cannot prevaile there they shall not be So Wisedome is the Image of the Sonne And there I shall have better Wisdome then spirituall Wisdome it selfe is here for here our best Wisedome is but to goe towards our end there it is rest in our end here it is to seek to bee Glorified by God there it is that God may be everlastingly glorified by mee The Image of the holy Ghost is Goodnesse here our goodnesse is mixt with some ill faith mixt with scruples and good workes mixt with a love of praise and hope of better mixt with feare of worse There I shall have sincere goodnesse goodnesse impermixt intemerate and indeterminate goodnesse so good a place as no ill accident shall annoy it so good company as no impertinent no importune person shall disorder it so full a goodnesse as no evill of sinne no evill of punishment for former sinnes can enter so good a God as shall no more keep us in fear of his anger nor in need of his mercy but shall fill us first and establish us in that fulnesse in the same instant and give us a satiety that we can with no more and an infallibility that we can lose none of that and both at once Where as the Cabalists expresse our nearenesse to God in that state in that note that the name of man and the name of God Adam and Iehovah in their numerall letters are alike and equall so I would have leave to expresse that inexpressible state so far as to say that if there can be other world imagined besides this that is under our Moone and if there could be other Gods imagined of those worlds besides this God to whose Image we are thus made in Nature in Grace in Glory I had rather be one of these Saints in this heaven then of those Gods in those other worlds I shall be like the Angels in a glorified Soul and the Angels shall not be like me in a glorified body The holy noblenesse and the religious ambition that I would imprint in you for attaining of this Glory makes me medismiss you with this note for the feare of missing that Glory that as we have taken just occasion to magnifie the goodnesse of God towards us in that he speakes plurally Faciamus Let us All us do this and so powers out the blessings of the whole Trinity upon us in this Image of himselfe in every Person of the three and in all these wayes which we have considered so when the anger of God is justly kindled against us God collects himselfe summons himself assembles himselfe musters himselfe and threatens plurally too for of those foure places in Scripture in which onely as we noted before God speakes of himselfe in a Royall plurall God speakes in anger and in a preparation to destruction in one of those foure intirely as intirely he speakes of mercy but in one of them in this text here he says meerly out of mercy Faciamus Let us us all us make man and in the same plurality the same universality he says after Descendamus confundamus Let us us all us goe downe to them and confound them as meerly out of indignation and anger as here out of mercy And in the other two places where God speakes plurally he speakes not meerly in mercy nor meerly in justice in neither but in both he mingles both So that God carries himselfe so equally herein as that no Soul no Church no State may any more promise it selfe patience in God if it provoke him then suspect anger in God if we conforme our selves to him For from them that set themselves against him God shall withdraw his Image in all the Persons and all the Attributes the Father shall withdraw his Power and we shall be enfeebled in our forces the Sonne his Wisdome and we shall be infatuated in our counsailes the holy Ghost his Goodnesse and we shall be corrupted in our manners and corrupted in our Religion and be a prey to temporall and spirituall enemies and change the Image of God into the Image of the Beast and as God loves nothing more then the Image of himselfe in his Sonne and then the Image of his Sonne Christ Jesus in us so he hates nothing more then the Image of Antichrist in them in whom he had imprinted his Sonnes Image that is declinations towards Antichrist or concurrencies with Antichrist in them who were borne and baptized and catechised and blessed in that profession of his truth That God who hath hitherto delivered us from all cause or colour of jealousies or suspitions thereof in them whom he hath placed over us to conforme us to his Image in a holy life that sinnes continued and multiplyed by us against him doe not so provoke him against us that those two great helps the assiduity of Preaching and the personall and exemplary piety and constancy in our Princes be not by our sinnes made unprofitable to us For that 's the heighth of Gods malediction upon a Nation when the assiduity of preaching and the example of a Religious Prince does them no good but aggravates their fault SERMON XXX Preached to the Countesse of Bedford then at Harrington house
God into the eyes of man that every man may see it men may behold it afar off there must necessarily arise many particulars to your consideration I threaten you but with two parts no farther tediousnesse but I aske roome for divers branches I can promise no more shortnesse The first part is a discovery a manifestation of God to man though that be undeniably true Posuit tenebra s latibulum God hath made darknesse his secret place yet it is as true which proceeds from the same mouth and the same pen Amictus tanquam pallio God covers himselfe with light as with a garment he will be seene through his works As we shall stand naked to one another and not be ashamed of our scars or morphews in the sight of God so God stands naked to the eyes of man and is not ashamed of that humiliation Every man may see it man may behold it afar off This proposition this discovery will be the first part and the other will be a tacite answer to a likely objection is not God far off and can man see at that distance yes he may Man may behold that afar off Every man may see it man may behold it afar off God is the subject of both parts God alone one God But in both parts there is a Trinity too three branches in each part for in each there is an object something to be apprehended there is a meanes of apprehending it it is to be seene there is a person enabled to see it Every man may see it man may behold it afar off But these three are not alike in each part for in the first that object is determined limited it is illud it God in his works In the second there is no object limited for it is not illud but there is more left to be seene not onely God in his works as here below but God in his glory above Man may behold but he does not offer to tell us what there is an object but another object In the second there is a difference too in the meanes of apprehending It is but Casah in the first it is Nibbat in the second in that every man may see in the other man may behold And in the third there is also a difference the man that may see God is Adam Adam is a man made of earth the weakest man even in nature may see God but the man that must behold afar off is Enoch and Enoch is homo aeger a miserable man a man that hath tasted affliction and calamity for that man lookes after God in the next world and as he feeles God with a rod in his hand here so he beholds God with a crown in his hand there And of those sticks of sweet wood of those drops of sweet gums shall we make up this present sacrifice In our first part the manifestation of God to man the first branch is the object the limited object illud Every man may see it what is that That which was proposed in the verse immediately before Remember that thou magnifie his worke which men behold First it is a worke and therefore it is made it hath an author a creator and then it is his worke the worke of God and therefore manifests him It is a worke a deliberate not a casuall matter this frame this world It is a worke it was begun and made up not an eternall matter this frame this world Epiphanius sayes well Omnis error à caecitate ad vanitatem that 's the progresse of error every error begins in blindnesse and ignorance but proceeds and ends in absurdity in frivolousnesse If men had not put out the light of nature they might discerne a creation in the world that that was made it is a worke but when they do put out that light and deny a creation into what frivolous opinions they scatter themselves what contradictory things men that seeme constant say what childish what ridiculous things men that seeme grave and sober fathers in Philosophy say of this world when they have said all this one thing will destroy all if the world be eternall it is God for whatsoever had no beginning whatsoever needed nothing to give it a beeing whatsoever was always of it selfe is God So that to build up their opinions in one part they destroy it in another and to overthrow our Hall they build up our Chappell by denying that the world was made they imply they confesse a God for if it had no Creator it is no Creature it is God so that they lose more then they gaine and they seek damnation unthriftily and perish prodigally they deny the Creation left by the Creation we should prove God and their very deniall of a Creation their making of the world eternall constitutes it to be God They deny any God and then make a worse God This world then is a work a limited a determined a circumscribed work and it is Opus ejus his work says Elihu there But whose Will you lay hold upon that upon that that Elihu onely says Remember his work but names none But two verses before with which this verse hath connexion he does name God But let the work be whose it will whosoever be this He this He must be God whosoever gave the first beeing to Creatures must be the Creator If you will thinke that Chance did it and fortune then fortune must be your God and destiny must be your God if you thinke destiny did it and therefore you were as good attribute it to the right God for a God it must have if it be a work it was made if it be a Creature there is a Creator and if it be his work that He must be God and there are no more Gods but one Every man hath a delight and complacency in knowledge and is ashamed of ignorance even in booklearning a man would have a Library pro supellectile even for a part of furniture a man would read for Ornament His house is not well furnished he is not well furnished without bookes Many a man who lets the Bible dust and rust because the Bible hath a kinde of majesty and prerogative and command over a man it will not be jested withall it will not be disputed against a man can very hardly devest the reverence that appertaines to that book and therefore he had rather deale with his fellowes more humane Authors that will hear reason and not binde his faith many a man can let the Fathers stand because they write out of a pious credulity and such anticipations and preconceptions as the Bible hath submitted them under and captivated them to But if thou let the Bible and Fathers alone and yet love bookes what book what kinde of book canst thou take into thy hand that proves not this world to be Opus a work made and opus ejus his work made by him by God Dost thou love learning as it is
more then that too if we come to that inebriabo me lacrymis if we overflow and make our selves drunke with teares in a true sense and sorrow for those sinnes still it is more And more then all this if we can expostulate with God in an Vsque quo Domine How long O Lord shall I take counsell in my self having wearinesse in my heart These steps these gradations towards God do well warre is a degree of peace as it is the way of peace and these colluctations and wrestlings with God bring a man to peace with him But then is a man upon this stone of Iacob when in a faire and even and constant religious course of life he enters into his sheets every night as though his neighbours next day were to shrowd and wind him in those sheets he shuts up his eyes every night as though his Executors had closed them and lies downe every night not as though his man were to call him up next morning or to the next dayes sport or businesse but as though the Angels were to call him to the resurrection And this is our third benefit as Christ is a stone we have security and peace of conscience in him The next is That he is Lapis David the stone with which David slew Goliah and with which we may overcome all our enemies Sicut baculus crucis ita lapis Christi habuit typum Davids sling was a type of the Crosse and the stone was a type of Christ we will chuse to insist upon spirituall enemies sinnes And this is that stone that enables the weakest man to overthrow the strongest sinne if he proceed as David did David sayes to Goliah Thou comest to me with a speare and a shield but I come to thee in the name of the God of the hosts of Israel whom thou hast railed upon if thou watch the approach of any sinne any giant sinne that transports thee most if thou apprehend it to rayle against the Lord of Hosts that is that there is a loud and active blasphemy against God in every sinne if thou discerne it to come with a sword or a speare that is perswasions of advancement if thou do it or threatings of dishonour if thou do it not if it come with a shield that is with promises to cover and palliate it though thou do it If then this David thy attempted soule can put his hand into his bag as David did for quid cor hominis nisi sacculus Dei a mans heart is that bag in which God layes up all good directions if he can but take into his consideration his Jesus his Christ and sling one of his works his words his commandments his merits This Goliah this Giant sinne will fall to the ground and then as it is said of David that he slew him when he had no sword in his hand and yet in the next verse that he tooke his sword and slew him with that so even by the consideration of what my Lord hath done for me I shall give that sinne the first deaths wound and then I shall kill him with his owne sword that is his owne abomination his owne foulenesse shall make me detest him If I dare but looke my sinne in the face if I dare tell him I come in the name of the Lord if I consider my sinne I shall triumph over it Et dabit certanâ—â— victoriam qui dedit certandi audaciam That God that gave me courage to fight will give me strength to overcome The last benefit which we consider in Christ as he is a stone is That he is Petra a Rock The Rock gave water to the Israelites in the wildernesse and he gave them honey out of the stone and oyle out of the hard Rock Now when Saint Paul sayes That our Fathers dranke of the same Rock as we he adds that the same Rock was Christ So that all Temporall and all Spirituall blessings to us and to the Fathers were all conferred upon us in Christ but we consider not now any miraculous production from the Rock but that which is naturall to the Rock that it is a firme defence to us in all tempests in all afflictions in all tribulations and therefore Laâ—date Dominum habitatores petrae sayes the Prophet You that are inhabitants of this Rock you that dwell in Christ and Christ in you you that dwell in this Rock Prayse ye the Lord blesse him and magnifie him for ever If a sonne should aske bread of his father will he give him a stone was Christs question Yes O blessed Father we aske no other answer to our petition no better satisfaction to our necessity then when we say Da nobis panem Give us this day our daily bread that thou give us this Stone this Rock thy self in thy Church for our direction thy self in the Sacrament for our refection what hardnesse soever we finde there what corrections soever we receive there all shall be easie of digestion and good nourishment to usâ— Thy holy spirit of patience shall command That these stones be made bread And we shall finde more juice more marrow in these stones in these afflictions then worldly men shall do in the softnesse of their oyle in the sweetnesse of their honey in the cheerefulnesse of their wine for as Christ is our foundation we beleeve in him and as he is our corner-stone we are at peace with the world in him as he is Iacobs stone giving us peace in our selves and Davids stone giving us victory over our enemies so he is a Rock of stone no affliction no tribulation shal shake us And so we have passed through all the benefits proposed to be considered in this first part As Christ is a stone It is some degree of thankfulnesse to stand long in the contemplation of the benefit which we have received and therefore we have insisted thus long upon the first part But it is a degree of spirituall wisdome too to make haste to the consideration of our dangers and therefore we come now to them Wee may fall upon this stone and be broken This stone may fall upon us and grinde us to powder and in the first of these we may consider Quid cadere what the falling upon this stone is and secondly Quid frangi what it is to broken upon it and then thirdly the latitude of this unusquisque that whosoever fals so is so broken first then because Christ loves us to the end therefore will we never put him to it never trouble him till then as the wiseman sayd of Manna that it had abundance of all pleasure in it and was meat for all tasts that is as Expositors interpret it that Manna tasted to every one like that which every one liked best so this stone Christ Jesus hath abundance of all qualities of stone in it and is all the way such a stone to every man as he desires
shrewd acts towards it to the prejudice of the contrary opinion yet none of these were so light as they were nothing but light Moses himselfe who received and delivered the law was not so and to intimate so much there was an illustration and irradiation upon his face but not so of all his body Nay Christ Iesus himselfe who fulfilled the law as man was not so which he also intimated in the greatest degree of glorification which he accepted upon earth which was his transfiguration for though it be said in that That the fashion of his Countenance was changed and his garment was white and glistered yet lineamenta Petro agnoscibilia servavit hee kept that former proportion of body that Peter could know him by it So that this was not a glorifying of the body and making it thorough light but hee suffered his Divine nature to appeare and shine thorough his flesh and not to swallow or annihilate that flesh All other men by occasion of this flesh have darke clouds yea nights yea long and frozen winter nights of sinne and of the works of darknesse Christ was incapable of any such nights or any such clouds any approaches towards sinne but yet Christ admitted some shadowes some such degrees of humane infirmity as by them he was willing to show that the nature of man in the best perfection thereof is not vera lux tota lux true light all light which he declared in that Si possible and that Transeat calix If it hee possible let this cup passe words to which himselfe was pleased to allow so much of a retractation and a correction Veruntamen yet Father whatsoever the sadnesse of my soule have made mee say yet not my will but thine be done not mine but thine so that they were not altogether all one humane infirmity made some difference So that no one man not Christ considered but so as man was tota lux all light no cloud No not mankinde consider it collectively can bee light so as that there shall bee no darknesse It was not so when all mankind was in one person in Adam It is said sometimes in School that no man can keep the commandements yet man collectively may keep them They intend no more herein but that some one man may abstaine from doing any act against worshipping of Images another from stealing another from adultery and others from others But if it were possible to compose a man of such elements as that the principallest vertues and eminencies of all other men should enter into his composition and if there could bee found a man as perfect in all particular vertues as Moses was in meeknesse who was a meeke man above all the men that were upon the earth yet this man would not bee vera lux tota lux true light all light Moses was not so meeke but that hee slew the Egyptian nor so meek but that hee disputed and expostulated with God many times passionately Every man is so far from beeing tota lux all light as that he hath still within him a darke vapor of orginall sinne and the cloud of humane flesh without him Nay not onely no man for so we may consider him in the whole course of his life but noone act of the most perfect and religious man in the world though that act employ but halfe a minute in the doing thereof can bee vera lux true light all light so perfect light as that it may serve another or thy selfe for a lanthorne to his or thy feet or a light to his or thy steps so that hee or thou may thinke it enough to doe so still For another man may doe so good works as it may justly work to thy shame and confusion and to the aggravating of thy condemnation that thou livest not as well as hee yet it would not perchance serve thy turne to live but so well for to whom God gives more of him he requires more No man hath veram lucem true light thorough light no man hath meridiem Augem that high point that casts no shadow because besides originall sinne that ever smoakes up and creates a foote in the soule and besides naturall infirmities which become sinnes when wee consider Grace no man does carry his good actions to that heighth as by that grace which God affords him hee might doe Slacker men have a declination even in their mornings a West even in their East coolings and faintnesses and after-noones as soon as they have any dawnings any breake of day any inchoation of any spirituall action or purpose Others have some farther growth and increasing and are more diligent in the observation of spirituall duties but yet they have not their meridiem their Augem their noon their south point no such heighth as that they might not have a higher by that grace which they have received In the best degree of our best actions particularly in this service which wee doe to God at this houre if we brought with us hither a religious purpose to sanctifie this festivall if wee answer to the callings of his most blessed Spirit whilest wee are here if wee carry away a detestation of our sinnes and a holy purpose of amendment of life this is a good degree of proficiency and God bee blessed if any of us all arrive to that degree but yet this is not vera lux true light all light for who amongst us can avoid the testimony of his conscience that since he begun this present service to God his thoughts have not strayed upon pleasures and vanities or profit and leapt the walls of this Church yea perchance within the walls of this flesh which should bee the Temple of the holy Ghost Besides to become vera lux tota lux true light thorough light requires persebrrance to the end So that till our naturall light goe out wee cannot say that wee have this light for as the darknesse of hell fire is so this light of this heavenly fire must bee everlasting If ever it go cleane out it was never throughly kindled but kindled to our farther damnation it was never vera lux true light for as one office of the law is but to show sinne so all the light of grace may end in this to show me my desperate estate from the abuse of grace In all Philosophy there is not so darke a thing as light As the sunne which is fons lucis naturalis the beginning of naturall light is the most evident thing to bee seen and yet the hardest to be looked upon so is naturall light to our reason and understanding Nothing clearer for it is clearnesse it selfe nothing darker it is enwrapped in so many scruples Nothing nearer for it is round about us nothing more remote for wee know neither entrance nor limits of it Nothing more easie for a child discerns it nothing more hard for no man understands it It is apprehensible by sense and not comprehensible by reason
in their beginning and then done in season the Dove must lay the egge and hatch the bird the holy Ghost must infuse the purpose and sit upon it and overshadow it and mature and ripen it if it shall be precious in Gods eye The reformation of abuses in State or Church is a holy purpose there is that drop of the dew of heaven in it but if it be unseasonably attempted and have not a farther concoction then the first motions of our owne zeale it becomes ineffectuall Stones precious in the estimation of men begin with the dew of Heaven and proceed with the sunne of Heaven Actions precious in the acceptation of God are purposes conceived by his Spirit and executed in his time to his Glory not conceived out of Ambition nor executed out of sedition And this is the application of this Lux depuratarum mixtionum of precious stones out of their making we proposed another out of their valuation which is this That whereas a Pearle or Diamond of such a bignesse of so many Carats is so much worth one that is twice as big is ten times as much worth So though God vouchsafe to value every good work thou dost yet as they grow greater he shall multiply his estimation of them infinitely When he hath prized at a high rate the chastitie and continency of thy youth if thou adde to this a moderation in thy middle age from Ambition and in thy latter age from covetousnesse and indevotion there shall be no price in Gods treasure not the last drop of the blood of his Sonne too deare for thee no roome no state in his Kingdome not a Iointenancie with his onely Sonne too glorious for thee This is one light in this Couple The lustre of precious stones the other the last is Lux Repercussionum The light of Repercussion of Reflexion This is when Gods light cast upon us reflecteth upon other men too from us when God doth not onely accept our works for our selves but imployes those works of ours upon other men And here is a true and a Divine Supererogation which the Devill as he doth all Gods Actions which fall into his compasse did mischievously counterfeit in the Romane Church when he induced their Doctrine of Supererogation that a man might do so much more then he was bound to do for God as that that superplusage might save whom he would and that if he did not direct them in his intention upon any particular person the Bishop of Rome was generall Administrator to all men and might bestow them where he would But here is a true supererogation not from Man or his Merit but from God when our good works shall not onely profit us that do them but others that see them done and when we by this light of Repercussion of Reflexion shall be made specula divinae gloriae quae accipiunt reddunt such looking glasses as receive Gods face upon our selves and cast it upon others by a holy life and exemplary conversation To end all we have no warmth in our selves it is true but Christ came even in the winter we have no light in our selves it is true but he came even in the night And now I appeall to your own Consciences and I aske you all not as a Iudge but as an Assistant to your Consciences and Amicus Curiae whether any man have made a good use of this light as he might have done Is there any man that in the compassing of his sinne hath not met this light by the way Thou shouldest not do this Any man that hath not onely as Balaam did met this light as an Angell that is met Heavenly inspirations to avert him but that hath not heard as Balaam did his own Asse that is those reasons that use to carry him or those very worldly respects that use to carry him dispute against that sinne and tell him not onely that there is more soule and more heaven and more salvation but more body and more health more honour and more reputation more cost and more money more labour and more danger spent upon such a sinne then would have carried him the right way They that sleep sleep in the night and they that are drunke are drunke in the night But to you the Day starre the Sunne of Righteousnesse the Sonne of God is risen this day The day is but a little longer now then at shortest but a little it is Be a little better now then when you came and mend a little at every coming and in lesse then seaven yeares appâ—entissage which your occupations cost you you shall learn not the Mysteries of your twelve companies but the Mysteries of the twelve Tribes of the twelve Apostles of their twelve Articles whatsoever belongeth to the promise to the performance to the Imitation of Christ Jesus He who is Luâ— una light and light alone and Lux tota light and all light shall also by that light which he sheddeth from himselfe upon all his the light of Grace give you all these Attestations all these witnesses of that his light he shall give you Lucem essentiae really and essentially to be incorporated into him to be made partakers of the Divine Nature and the same Spirit with the Lord by a Conversation in Heaven here and lucem gloriae a gladnesse to give him glory in a donudation of your souls and your sinnes by humble confession to him and a gladnesse to receive a denudation and manifestation of your selves to your selves by his messenger in his medicinall and musicall increpations and a gladnesse to receive an inchoation of future glory in the remission of those sinnes He shall give you lucem fidei faithfull and unremovable possession of future things in the present and make your hereafter now in the fruition of God And Lucem naturae a love of the outward beauty of his house and outward testimonies of this love in inclining your naturall faculties to religious duties He shall give you Lucem aeternorum Corporum a love to walk in the light of the stars of heaven that never change a love so perfect in the fundamentall articles of Religion without impertinent additions And Lucem incensionum an aptnesse to take holy fire by what hand or tongue or pen soever it be presented unto you according to Gods Ordinance though that light have formerly been suffered to go out in you He shall give you Lucem depuratarum Mixtionum the lustre of precious stones made of the dew of heaven and by the heat of heaven that is actions intended at first and produced at last for his glory and every day multiply their value in the sight of God because thou shalt every day grow up from grace to grace And Lucem Repercussionum he shall make you able to reflect and cast this light upon others to his glory and their establishment
then other men The souldiers likewise came to him and said What shall we doe This his working upon all sorts of men the blessing that accompanied his labours was a subsequent argument of his Mission that he was sent by God God himself argues against them that were not sent so They were not sent for they have done no good I have not sent those Prophets saith the Lord yet they ran I have not spoken to them and yet they prophecied but if they had stood in my counsell then they should have turned the people from their evill wayes and from the wickednesse of their inventions This note God layes upon them to whom he affords this vocation of his internall Spirit that though others which come without any calling may gather men in corners and in Conventicles and work upon their affections and passions to singularity to schisme to sedition and though others which come with an outward and ordinary calling onely may advance their own Fortunes and increate their estimation and draw their Auditory to an outward reverence of their Persons and to a delight in hearing them rather then other men yet those onely who have a true inward Calling from the Spirit shall turn the people from their evill wayes and from the wickednesse of their inventions To such mens planting and watering God gives an increase when as others which come to declame and not to preach and to vent their own gifts or the purposes of great men for their gifts have onely a proportionable reward winde for winde Acclamation for Declamation popular praise for popular eloquence for if they doe not truly beleeve themselves why should they looke that others should believe them Qui loquitur ad cor loquatur ex corde he that will speake to the heart of another must finde that that he saith in his own heart first Whether the Mission of the Church of Rome of Priests and Jesuites hither be sufficient to satisfie their consciences who are so sent and sent in intendment of the Law to inevitable losse of life here hath been laboriously enough debated and safely enough concluded that such a Mission cannot satisfie a rectified conscience What are they sent for To defend the Immunities of the Church that is to take away the inherent right of the Crown the supremacy of the King What seconds them what assures them That which is their generall Tenent that into what place so ever the Pope may send Priests he may send Armies for the security of those Priests and as another expresses it in all Cases where the Pope may injoyne any thing he may lawfully proceed by way of Warre against any that hinder the execution thereof That these Missions from the Bishop of Rome are unlawfull is safely enough concluded A priori in the very nature of the commandement and Mission For it is to a place in which he that sends hath no power for it is into the Dominions of another absolute King and it is of Persons in whom he hath no interest for they are the subjects of another Prince and my neighbours setting his mark upon my sheep doth not make my sheep his Now beloved if that which they cannot make lawfull A priori in the Nature of the thing you will make lawfull in their behalf A posteriori in the effect and working thereof that is if when these men are thus sent hither you will run after them to their Masses though you pretend it be but to meet company and to see who comes and to hear a Church-Comedy if though you abstain your self you will lend them a wife or a childe or a servant to be present there A posteriori by this effect by this their working upon you you justifie their unjust Mission and make them thinke their sending and coming lawfull So also to return to our former consideration If you depart not from your evill wayes and from the wickednesse of your own inventions If for all our preaching you proceed in your sinnes you will make us afraid that our Mission our Calling is not warrantable for thereby you take away that consolation which is one seale of our Mission when we see a good effect of our preaching in your lives It lyes much in you to convince them and to establish us by that way which is Gods own way of arguing à posteriori by the effect by our working upon you If you say God is God we are sent if you say Baal is God you justifie their sending Missus est Iohn Baptist was sent it appeared by the effect of his preaching but it appeares too by a divers and manifold citation which he had received upon some of which there may be good use to insist a little First he was cited called before he was at all and called againe before he was borne called a third time out of the desert into the world and called lastly out of this world into the next and by all these callings these citations these missions he was a competent witnesse His first citation was before he was any thing before his conception Out of the dead embers of Zacharies aged loins and Elizabeths double obstacle age and barrennesse when it was almost as great a worke as a creation to produce a childe out of the corners and inwardest bowels of all possibility and with so many degrees of improbability as that Zachary who is said to have been just before God and to have walked in all his commandments without reproofe and had without doubt often considered the like promise of such a childe made and performed to Abraham was yet incredulous of it and asked how he should know it Out of this nothing or nothing naturally disposed to be such a thing a childe did God excite and cite this Io. Baptist to beare witnesse of this light and so made the sonne of him who for his incredulity was strooke with dumbnesse all voyce And beloved such a citation as this when thou wast meerly nothing hast thou had too to beare witnesse of this light that is to do something for the glory of God When thy free will is as impotent and as dead as Zacharies loins when thou art under Elizabeths double obstacle of age and barrennesse barrennesse in good works age in ill then when thou thinkest not of God then when thou art walking for ayre or sitting at a feast or slumbring in a bed God opens these doors he rings a bell he showes thee an example in the concourse of people hither and here he sets up a man to present the prayer of the Congregation to him and to deliver his messages to them and whether curiosity or custome or company or a loathnesse to incurre the penalties of Lawes or the censures and observations of neighbours bring thee hither though thou hadst nothing to do with God in comming hither God hath something to do with thee now thou art here even this is a citation a
fruitfull Land but then he who is the Spirit of the Lord he who is the breath of our nostrills Incubat aquis as it is said there in the Creation he moves upon the waters by his royall and warlike Navy at Sea in which he hath expressed a speciall and particular care And by the breath and influence of his providence throughout the Land he preserves he applies he makes usefull those blessings unto us If this breath that is this power be at any time sourd in the passage and contract an il savor by the pipes that convay it so as that his good intentions are ill executed by inferiour Ministers this must not be imputed to him That breath that comes from the East the bed and the garden of spices when it is breathed out there is a persume but by passing over the beds of Serpents and puâ—refied Lakes it may be a breath of poyson in the West Princes purpose some things for ease to the people and as such they are sometimes presented to them and if they prove grievances they tooke their putrefaction in the way that is their corruption from corrupt executors of good and wholesome intentions The thing was good in the roote and the ill cannot be removed in an instant But then we carry not this word Ruach Spirit so high though since God hath said that Kings are Gods the Attribute of the Holy Ghost and his Office which is to apply to man the goodnesse of God belongs to Kings also for God gives but they apply all blessings to us But here we take the word literally as it is in the Text Ruach spirit is the Breath that we breathe the Life that we live The King is that Breath that Life and therefore that belongs to him First our Breath that is serme our speech belongs to him Be faithfull unto him and speake good of his Name is commanded by David of God To Gods Anointed we are not faithfull if we doe not speake good of his Name First there is an internall speech in the heart and God lookes to that the foole hath said in his heart there is no God though he say it but in his heart yet he is a foole for as wise as a Politician would thinke him for saying it in his heart and comming no further yet even that is an overt act with God for God seeth the heart It is the foole that saith in his heart there is no God and it is the foole that saith in his heart I would there were no King That enormous that infamous Tragedy of the Levites Concubins and her murder of which it is said there There was no such thing seen nor done before and many things are done which are never seen with that emphaticall addition Consider of it advise and say your minde hath this addition too In those dayes there was no King in Israel If there had beene any King but a Zedekiah it could not have been so Curse not the King not in thy thoughts for they are sinnes that tread upon the heels of one another and that induce one another to conceive ill of Gods Lievtenant and of God himselfe for so the Prophet joyneth them They shall fret themselves and curse their King and their God He that beginneth with the one will proceed to the other Thus then he is our Breath our Breath is his our speech must be contained not expressed in his dishonour not in misinterpretations of his Actions jealousies have often made women ill incredulitie suspiciousnesse jealousie in the Subject hath wrought ill effects upon Princes otherwise not ill We must not speake ill but our duty is not accomplished in that abstinence we must speake well And in those things which will not admit a good interpretation we must be apt to remove the perversenesse and obliquity of the act from him who is the first mover to those who are inferiour instruments In these divers opinions which are ventilated in the Schoole how God concurreth to the working of second and subordinate causes that opinion is I think the most antient that denies that God workes in the second cause but hath onely communicated to it a power of working and rest himselfe This is not true God does work in every Organ and in every particular action but yet though he doe work in all yet hee is no cause of the obliquity of the perversenesse of any action Now earthly Princes are not equall to God They doe not so much as work in particular actions of instruments many times they communicate power to others and rest wholly themselves and then the power is from them but the perversenesse of the action is not God does work in ill actions and yet is not guilty but Princes doe not so much as worke therein and so may bee excusable at least for any cooperation in the evill of the action though not for countenancing and authorising an evill instrument but that is another case They are our breath then Our breath is theirs in good interpretations of their actions and it is theirs especially in our prayers to Almighty God for them The Apostle exhorts us to pray for whom first for all men in generall but in the first particular that hee descends to for Kings And both Theodoret and Theophylact make that the onely reason why the Apostle did not name Kings first Vt non videatur adulari lest hee should seeme to flatter Kings Whether mankinde it selfe or Kings by whom mankinde is happy here be to be preferred in prayer you see both Theodoret and Theophylact make it a probleme And those prayers there enjoyned were for Infidel Kings and for persecuting Kings for even such Kings were the breath of their nostrils their breath their speech their prayers were due to them But then beloved a man may convey a Satir into a Prayer a man may make a prayer a Libell If the intention of the prayer be not so much to incline God to give those graces to the King as to tell the world that the King wants those graces it is a Libell We say sometimes in scorn to a man God help you and God send you wit and therein though it have the sound of a prayer wee call him foole So wee have seen of late some in obscure Conventicles institute certain prayers That God would keep the King and the Prince in the true Religion The prayer is always good always usefull but when that prayer is accompanied with circumstances as though the King and the Prince were declining from that Religion then even the prayer it selfe is libellous and seditious Saint Paul in that former place apparels a Subjects prayer well when hee sayes Let prayers bee given with thanks Let our prayers bee for continuance of the blessings which wee have and let our acknowledgement of present blessings bee an inducement for future pray and praise together pray thankfully pray not suspiciously for beloved in the bowels of Christ
these three being the Triangle within our circle the three corners into which Satan that compasses the world leads us all is Honour or Pleasure or Profit because the Christian Religion seemed to the world to withdraw mens affections from these the world was scandalized offended in Christ. But then in a third consideration wee shall see that Christ discerned in these two persons these Disciples of Iohn a Passive scandall of another kinde Not that Christs Gospel and the Religion that he induced was too low too base too contemptible as the world thought but that it was not low enough not humble enough and therefore Iohns Disciples would doe more then Christs Disciples and bind themselves to a greater strictness and austerity of life then Christ in his Gospel required In which third branch wee shall take knowledge of some Disciples of Iohns Disciples in the world yet and as for the most part it fals out in Sectaries of divers kinds and ways for wee shall finde some who in an over-valuation of their owne purity condemne and contemne other men as unpardonable Reprobates And these are scandalized and offended in Christ that is not satisfied with his Gospel in that they will not see that it is as well a part of the Gospel of Christ to rely upon his Mercy if I have departed from that purity which his Gospel enjoyned mee as it is to have endevoured to have preserved that purity And a part of his Gospel as well to assist with my prayers and my counsell and with all mildeness that poore soul that hath strayed from that purity as it is to love the Communion of those Saints that have in a better measure preserved it Not to beleeve the Mercy of God in Christ after a sinne to be a part of the Gospel as well as the Grace of God for prevention before not to give favourable constructions and conceive charitable hopes of him who is falne into some sinne which I may have escaped this is to bee scandalized to bee offended in Christ not to bee satisfied with his Gospel And this is one Sect of the off-spring of Iohns Disciples And the other is this that other men thinking the Gospel of Christ to be too large a Gospel a Religion of too much liberty will needs undertake to doe more then Christ or his Disciples practised or his Gospel prescribed for this is to be offended in Christ not to beleeve the meanes of salvation ordained by him to bee sufficient for that end which they were ordained to that is salvation And then after all this in a fourth branch we shall see the way which our Saviour takes to reclaime them and to devest them of this Passive scandall which hindred their Blessednesse which was to call them to the contemplation of his good works and of good works in the highest kind his Miracles for in the verse immediately before the text which verse induces the Text hee sayes to them you see the blinde receive their sight the lame goe the leapers are cleansed the deafe heare the dead are raised to life Christ does not propose at least hee does not put all upon that externall purity and aâ—sterity of life in which these Disciples of Iohn pretended to exceed all others but upon doing good to others the blinde see the deaf heare the lame walk Which miracles and great works of his our blessed Saviour summes up with that which therefore seemes the greatest of all Pauperes Evangelizantur The poore have the Gospell preached unto them Beloved the greatest good that we we to whom the dispensation of the word of reconciliation is committed can do is to preach the Gospell to the poore to assist the poore to apply our selves by all wayes to them whether they be poore in estate and fortune or poore in understanding and capacity or poore in their accounts and dis-estimation of themselves poore and dejected in spirit And all these considerations which as you see are many and important first our generall easinesse to fall into the passive scandall to be offended in others to mis-interpret others And then the generall passive scandall and offence that the world took at Christ That he induced a Religion incapable of the honours or the pleasures or profits of this world And thirdly the particular passive scandall that dis-affected these Disciples of Iohn towards Christ which was That his Gospell enjoyned not enough and therefore they would do more in which kinde we finde two sects in the world yet the off-spring and Disciples of those Disciples And then lastly the way that Christ tooke to reclaime and satisfie them which was by good works and the best works that they that did them could do for in himself it was by doing miracles for the good of others and preferring in his good and great works the assisting of the poor All these considerations I say will fall into our first part As you love blessednesse be not scandalized be not offended in me which is the injunction the precept the way And when in our due order we shall come to our second part The remuneration the promise the end Blessednesse everlasting blessednesse I may be glad that the time will give me some colour some excuse of saying little of that as I can foresee already by this distribution that we shall be forced to thrust that part into a narrow conclusion For if I had Methusalems yeers and his yeers multiplyed by the minutes of his yeers which were a faire terme if I could speak till the Angels Trumpets blew and you had the patience of Martyrs and could be content to heare me till you heard the Surgite Mâ—rtui till you were called to meet the Lord Iesus in the clouds all that time would not make up one minute all those words would not make up one syllable towards this Eternity the period of this blessednesse Reserving our selves therefore for that to those few minutes which may be left or borrowed when we come to the handling thereof pursue we first those conâ—iderations which fall more naturally into our comprehension the severall branches of our first part As you love blessednesse Be not scandalized be not offended in me First then our Saviours answer to these Disciples of Iohn gives us occasion to consider our inclination our propensenesse to the passive scandall to be offended in others to mis-interpret the words and actions of others and to lament that our infirmity or perversenesse in the words of our Saviour Vae Mundo à scandalis Wo to the world by reason of scandals of offences For that is both a Vae Dolentis The voyce of our Saviour lamenting that perversenesse of ours and Vae Minantis his voyce threatning punishments for that perversenesse For Parum distat scandalizare scandalizari sayes St. Hierome excellently It is almost all one to be scandalized by another as to scandalize another almost as great a sin to be shaked in our constancy in
scandall which Christ found in these Disciples of Iohn and which wee have noted in their progeny and off-spring but goe on to the fourth The way that Christ took to devest them thereof by calling them to the contemplation of his works Consider what you have seen done The blinde see The lame goe The deafe hear and then you will not endanger your blessednesse by being offended in me The evidence that Christ produces and presses is good works for if a man offer me the roote of a tree to taste I cannot say this is such a Pear or Apple or Plum but if I see the fruit I can If a man pretend Faith to me I must say to him with Saint Iames Can his Faith save him such a Faith as that the Apostle declares himself to mean A dead Faith as all Faith is that is inoperative and workes not But if I see his workes I proceed the right way in Judicature I judge secundum allegata probata according to my evidence And if any man will say those workes may be hypocriticall I may say of any witnesse He may be perjured but as long as I have no particular cause to think so it is good evidence to me as to hear that mans Oath so to see this mans workes Cum in Coelis sedentem in Crucem agere non possum Though I cannot crucifie Christ being now set at the right hand of his Father in Heaven yet there is Odium impietatis saith that Father A crucifying by ungodlinesse An ungodly life in them that professe Christ is a daily crucifying of Christ. Therefore here Christ refers to good works And there is more in this then so It is not onely good works but good works in the highest proportion The best works that he that doth them can doe Therefore in his own case he appeals to Miracles For if fasting were all or wearing of Camells haire all or to have done some good to some men by Baptizing them were all these Disciples and their Master might have had as much to plead as Christ. Therefore he calls them to the consideration of works of a higher nature of Miracles for God never subscribes nor testifies a forged Deed God never seals a falshood with a Miracle Therefore when the Jewes say of Christ He hath a Devill and is mad why heare ye him some of the other Jewes said These are not the words of one that hath a Devil But though by that it appear that some evidence some argument may be raised in a mans behalfe from his words from that he saith from his Preaching yet Christs friends who spoke in his favour doe not rest in that That those are not the words of one that hath a Devill but proceed to that Can the Devill open the eyes of the blinde He doth more then the Devill can doe They appeal to his works to his good workes to his great works to his Miracles But doth he put us to doe miracles no Though in truth those sumptuous and magnificent buildings and endowments which some have given for the sustentation of the poore are almost Miracles half Miracles in respect of those penurious proportions that Myut and Cumin and those half-ounces of broken bread which some as rich as they have dropped and crumbled out Truely he that doth as much as he can is almost a Miracle And when Christ appeals to his Miracles he calls us therein to the best works we can doe God will be loved with the whole heart and God will have that love declared with our whole substance I must not thinke I have done enough if I have built an Almes-house As long as I am able to doe more I have done nothing This Christ intimates in producing his greatest works Miracles which Miracles he closeth up with that as with the greatest Pauperes evangelizantur The poore have the Gospell preached unto them In this our Blessed Saviour doth not onely give an instruction to Iohns Disciples but therein also derives and conveyes a precept upon us upon us who as we have received mercy have received the Ministery and indeed upon all you whom he hath made Regale Sacerdotium A royall Priesthood and Reges Sacerdotes Kings and Priests unto your God and bound you therby as well as us to preach the Gospell to the poore you by an exemplar life and a Catechizing conversation as well as us by our words and meditations Now beloved there are Poore that are literally poore poore in estate and fortune and poore that are naturally poore poore in capacity and understanding and poore that are spiritually poore dejected in spirit and insensible of the comforts which the Holy Ghost offers unto them and to all these poore are we all bound to preach the Gospell First then for them which are literally poore poore in estate how much doe they want of this means of salvation Preaching which the rich have They cannot maintain Chaplains in their houses They cannot forbear the necessary labours of their calling to hear extraordinary Sermons They cannot have seats in Churches whensoever they come They must stay they must stand they must thrust they must overcome that difficulty which Saint Augustine makes an impossibility that is for any man to receive benefit by that Sermon that he hears with pain They must take pains to hear To these poore therefore the Lord and his Spirit hath sent me to preach the Gospell That Gospell The Lord knoweth thy povertie but thou art rich That Gospell Be content with such things as thou hast for the Lord hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee And that Gospell God hath chosen the poore of this world rich in faith heires of that Kingdome which he hath promised to them that love him And this is the Gospell of those poore literally poore poore in estate To those that are naturally poore poore in understanding the Lord and his Spirit hath sent me to preach the Gospell too That Gospell If any man lacke wisedome let him aske it of God Solomon himselfe had none till he asked it there And that Gospell where Iohn went bitterly because there was a Booke preseated but no man could open it It were a sad consideration if now when the Booke of God the Scripture is afforded to us we could not open that Booke not understand those Scriptures But there is the Gospell of those poore That Lambe which is spoken of there That Lambe which in the same place is called a Lion too That Lambe-Lion hath opened the Booke for us The humility of the Lambe gathereth the strength of the Lion come humbly to the reading and hearing of the Scriptures and thou shalt have strength of understanding The Scriptures were not written for a few nor are to be reserved for a few All they that were present at this LambLions opening of the Book that is All they that come with modesty and humility
to the search of the Scriptures All they and they are no small number for there they are said to be ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands All they say there We are all made Kings and Priests unto our God Begin a Lambe and thou will become a Lion Reade the Scriptures modestly humbly and thou shalt understand them strongly powerfully for hence is it that Saint Chrysâ—stome more then once and Saint Gregory after him meet in that expression That the Scriptures are a Sea in which a Lambe may wade and an Elephant may swimme And this is the Gospell of those poore poore in understanding To those that are spiritually poore wrung in their souls stung in their Consciences fretted galled exulcerated viscerally even in the bowells of their Spirit insensible inapprehensive of the mercies of God in Christ the Lord and his Spirit hath sent me to preach the Gospell also That Gospell Blessed are the poore in Spirit for theirs it the Kingdome of Heaven and to recollect and redintegrate that broken and scattered heart by enabling him to expostulate and chide his owne soule with those words of comfort which the Holy Ghost offereth him once and again and again Why art thou cast downe O my soule and why art thou disquieted in me Hope thou in God and yet praise him for the light of his countenance Words of inexpresible comfort yet praise him for the light of his countenance Though thou sit in darknesse and in the shadow of death yet praise him for the light of his Countenance Whatsoever thy darknesse be put not out that candle The light of his Countenance Maintain that light discerne that light and whatsoever thy darknesse seemed it shall prove to be but an over shadowing of the Holy Ghost And so beloved if you have sufficiently considered first our generall easinesse of falling into the Passive scandall of being offended in others by misinterpreting their proceedings and then the generall scandals which the world tooke at Christ and his Gospell The Philosophers that it was an ignorant religion where you saw That the learneder the adversary is the sooner he is satisfied And the worldly and carnall man that it was a dishonourable an unpleasurable an unprofitable Religion where you saw that it were no Diminution to our Religion if it were all that but it is none of it If you have also considered the particular passive scandall that Christ deprehended in those two Disciples of Iohn That they would doe more then Christ practised or prescribed where you saw also the distemper of those that are derived from them both those that thinke there are some sinners whom Christ cannot save and those who thinke there are no sinners whom they cannot save by their Supererogations And considered lastly the way that Christ tooke to devest these men of this offence and passive scandall which was to call them to the consideration of good workes and of the best workes which he that doth them can doe where you have also seen that Christ makes that our best work To preach the Gospell to the poore both because the poore are destitute of other comforts and because their very poverty hath soupled them and mellowed them and macerated and matured and disposed them by corrections to instructions If you have received all this you have received all that we proposed for the first part the injunction the precept the way Be not sandalized be not offended in me And now that which I suspected at first is faln upon me that is to thrust our other part into a narrow conclusioÌ„ though it be blessednesse it selfe everlasting blessednesse so we must so we shall blessed is he there 's the remuneration the promise the end whosoever is not offended in me Blessed The Heathen who saw by the light of nature that they could have no Beeing if there were no God for it is from one of themselves that Saint Paul says in him we live and move and have our Beeing and Genus cjus suâ—us we are the off-spring of God saw also by the same light of nature that they could have no well-being if there were no Blessednesse And therefore as the Heathen multiplied Gods to themselves so did they also multiply blessednesse They brought their Iupiters to three hundred says Varro And from the same author from Varro does Saint Augustin collect almost three hundred severall opinions of Blessednesse But In multitudine nullitas says Tertullian excellently as where there are many Gods there is no God so where there are many blessednesses imagined there is no blessednesse possessed Not but that as the Sunne which moves onely in his owne Spheare in heaven does yet cast downe beames and influences into this world so that blessednesse which is truly onely in heaven does also cast downe beames and influences hither and gild and enamell yea inanimate the blessings of God here with the true name the true nature of blessednesse For though the vulgat edition doe read that place thus Beatum dixerant populum the world thought that people blessed that were so that is Temporally blessed as though that were but an imaginary and not a true blessednesse and howsoever it have seemed good to our Translators to insert into that verse a discretive particle a particle of difference Yea Blessed are the people that are so that is Temporally blessed Yea blessed are the people whose God is the Lord yet in truth in the Originall there is no such discretive particle no word of difference no yea in the text but both the clauses of that verse are carried in one and the same tenor Blessed are the people that are so Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord that is that people whom the Lord hath blessed so with Temporall blessings is bound to beleeve those temporall blessings to be seales and evidences to them that the Lord is their God So then there is a Viatory a preparatory an initiatory an inchoative blessednesse in this life What is that All agree in this definition that blessednesse is that in quo quiescit animus in which the minde the heart the desire of man hath settled and rested in which it found a Centricall reposednesse an acquiescence a contentment Not that which might satisfie any particular man for so the object would be infinitely various but that beyond which no man could propose any thing And is there such ablessednesse in this life There is Fecisti nos Domine ad te inquietum est Cor nostrum donec quiescat in te Lord thou hast made us for thy selfe and our heart cannot rest till it get to thee But can we come to God here We cannot Where 's then our viatory our preparatory our initiatory our in choative blessednesse Beloved though we cannot come to God here here God comes to us Here in the prayers of the Congregation God comes to us here in his Ordinance of Preaching God
nor over-mourne for that which as we have induced it upon our selves so God shall deliver us from at last that is both death and corruption after death and captivity in that comfortlesse state but for the resurection For so long we are to be dust and so long lasts the Serpents life Satans power over man dust must he eate all the days of his life In the meane time for our comfort in the way when this Serpent becomes a Lyon yet there is a Lyon of the Tribe of Iudah that is too strong for him so if he who is Serpens serpens humi the Serpent condemned to creep upon the ground doe transforme himselfe into a flying Serpent and attempt our nobler faculties there is Serpens exaltatus a Serpent lifted up in the wildernesse to recover all them that are stung and feel that they are stung with this Serpent this flying Serpent that is these high and continued sinnes The creeping Serpent the groveling Serpent is Craft the exalted Serpent the crucified Serpent is Wisdome All you worldly cares all your crafty bargaines all your subtill matches all your diggings into other means estates all your hedgings in of debts all your planting of children in great allyances all these diggings and hedgings and plantings savour of the earth and of the craft of that Serpent that creeps upon the earth But crucifie this craft of yours bring all your worldly subtilty under the Crosse of Christ Jesus husband your farmes so as you may give a good account to him presse your debts so as you would be pressed by him market and bargaine so as that you would give all to buy that field in which his treasure and his pearle is hid and then you have changed the Serpent from the Serpent of perdition creeping upon the earth to the Serpent of salvation exalted in the wildernesse Creeping wisedome that still looks downward is but craft Crucified wisedome that looks upward is truly wisedome Between you and that ground Serpent God hath kindled a war and the nearer you come to a peace with him the farther ye go from God and the more ye exaspetate the Lord of Hosts and you whet his sword against your own souls A truce with that Serpent is too near a peace to condition with your conscience for a time that you may continue in such a sin till you have paid for such a purchase married such a daughter bought such an annuity undermined and eaten out such an unthrift this truce though you mean to end it before you die is too near a peace with that Serpent between whom and you God hath kindled an everlasting war A cessation of Arms that is not to watch all his attempts and tentations not to examine all your particular actions A Treaty of Peace that is to dispute and debate in the behalf and favour of a sin to palliate to disguise to extenuate that sin this is too near a peace with this Serpent this creeping Serpent But in the other Serpent the crucified Serpent God hath reconciled to himself all things in heaven and earth and hell You have peace in the assistance of the Angels of heaven Peace in the contribution of the powerfull prayers and of the holy examples of the Saints upon earth peace in the victory and triumph over the power of hell peace from sins towards men peace of affections in your selves peace of conscience towards God From your childhood you have been called upon to hold your peace To be content is to hold your peace murmure not at God in any corrections of his and you doe hold this peace That creeping Serpent Satan is war and should be so The crucified Serpent Christ Jesus is peace and shall be so for ever The creeping Serpent eats our dust the strength of our bodies in sicknesses and our glory in the dust of the grave The crucified Serpent hath taken our flesh and our blood and given us his flesh and his blood for it And therefore as David when he was thought base for his holy freedome in dancing before the Ark said he would be more base so since we are all made of red earth let him that is red be more red Let him that is red with the blood of his own soul be red again in blushing for that rednesse and more red in the Communion of the blood of Christ Jesus whom we shall eat all the days of our life and be mystically and mysteriously and spiritually and Sacramentally united to him in this life and gloriously in the next In this state of dust and so in the territory of the Serpent the Tyrant of the dead lies this dead brother of ours and hath lien some years who occasions our meeting now and yearly upon this day and whose soul we doubt not is in the hands of God who is the God of the living And having gathered a good Gomer of Manna a good measure of temporall blessings in this life and derived a fair measure thereof upon them whom nature and law directed it upon and in whom we beseech God to blesse it hath also distributed something to the poor of this Parish yearly this day and something to a meeting for the conserving of neighbourly love and something for this exercise In which no doubt his intention was not so much to be yearly remembred himself as that his posterity and his neighbours might be yearly remembred to doe as he had done For this is truly to glorifie God in his Saints to sanctifie our selves in their examples To celebrate them is to imitate them For as it is probably conceived and agreeably to Gods Justice that they that write wanton books or make wanton pictures have additions of torment as often as other men are corrupted with their books or their pictures so may they who have left permanent examples of good works well be beleeved to receive additions of glory and joy when others are led by that to do the like And so they who are extracted and derived from him and they who dwelt about him may assist their own happiness and enlarge his by following his good example in good proportions Amen SERMON XLVIII Preached at St. Dunstans LAMENT 3. 1. I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath YOU remember in the history of the Passion of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus there was an Ecce homo a shewing an exhibiting of that man in whom we are all blessed Pilat presented him to the Jews so with that Ecce homo Behold the man That man upon whom the wormwood and the gall of all the ancient Prophecies and the venome and malignity of all the cruell instruments thereof was now poured out That man who was left as a tender plant and as a roote out of a dry ground without forme or beauty or comelinesse that wee should desire to see him as the Prophet Esay exhibits him That man who upon the brightnesse of
question because I can have no certaine answer and it is an infectious question too for here is one coale of the Devils fire of his pride kindled in me as the Devil said Similis ere Altissimo I will be like the Highest and see whether I may not stand by my selfe without any Influence from God without any Dependance upon God so in our case I will be so farre equall to God as that I will measure his actions by my reason and nor doe his Commandements till I know why he commanded them And then when the infection is got into a House who can say it shall end here in this Person and kill no more or it shall end this weeke and last no longer So if that infectious inquisition that Quare Why should God command this or this perticular be entred into me all my Humilitie is presently infected and I shall looke for a reason why God made a world or why he made a world no sooner then 6000. yeares agoe and why he sayes some and why but some and I shall examine God upon all the Interrogatories that I can frame upon the Creed why I should believe a Sonne of a Virgin without a Man or believe the Sonne of God to descend into Hell Or frame upon the Pater Noster why I should worship such a God that must be prayed to not to leade me into tentation Or frame upon the Ten Commandements why after all is done and heapt for any sinfull action yet I should be guilty of all for covering in my heart another mans horse or house And therfore Luther pursues it farther with words of more vehemence Odiosa exitialis vocule Quare It is an Execrable and Damnable Monasillable Why it exasperates God it ruines us For when we come to aske a reason of his actions either we doubt of the goodnesse of God that he is not so carefull of us as we would be or of his power that he cannot provide for us so well as we could doe or of his wisdome that he hath not grounded his Commandements so well as we could have advised him whereas Saint Augustine saies justly Qui rationem quaerit voluntatis Dei aliquid majus Deo quaerit He that seekes a reason of the will of God seekes for something greater then God It was the Devill that opened our eies in Paradise it is our parts to shut them so farre as not to gaze upon Gods secret purposes God guided his Children as well by a Pillar of Cloud as by a Pillar of Fire and both Cloud and Fire were equally Pillars There is as much strength in and as safe relying upon some ignorances as some knowledges for God provided for his people as well in this that he did Moses body from them as that he revealed other Mysteries to them by him All is well summ'd and collected by Saint Augustine Dominus cur jusserit viderit faciendum est à serviente quod jusserit Why God commands any thing God himselfe knowes our part is not to enquire why by to doe what he commands This is the Rule 'T is true there should not be but yet is there not sometimes in the minds and mouths of good and godly men a Quare a reasoning a disputing against that which God hath commanded or done The murmuring of the Children in the Desert had still this Quare Quare eduxisti Wherefore have you brought us hither to die here in this miserable place where there is no Seed no Figges no Vines no Pomegrantes no Water Saul had this Quare this rebellious inquisition upon that Commandement of God against the Amalekites Slay both Man and Woman Infant and Suckling Oxe and Sheepe Camell and Asse And from this Quare from this disputation of his arose that conclusion That it were better to spare some for Sacrifice then to destroy all But though his pretence had a religious colour that would not justifie a slacknesse in obeying the manifested will of God for for this God repented that he made him King and told him that he had more pleasure in Obedience then in Sacrifice But to come to better men then the Israelites in the Wildernesse or Saul in his Government Iob though he and his Friends held out long They sate upon the ground even daies and seven nights and none spoke a word yet at last fell into these Quares Why did I not die in the birth or why sucked I the breast Peter himselfe had this reluctation and though that were out of piety yet he was chidden for it Quare lavas saies he Lord doest thou wash my feet thou shalt never wash my feet till Christ was faine to say If I wash thee not thou shalt have no part with me Upon this common infirmitie inherent in the best men that may and not unlikely be that when God commanded Abraham at that great age to circumcise himselfe there might arise such Quares such scruples and doubts as there in Abrahams minde for as Saint Paul saies of himselfe If any man thinke he hath whereof to trust in the flesh much more I Circumcised an Hebrew an Israelite a Pharisee a Zealous Servant in the persecution and in righteousnesse unblameable So if any man might have taken this libertie to have disputed with God upon his precepts Abraham might have done it for when God called him out to number the Starres which was even to Art impossible and promised him that his seed should equall them which was in Nature incredible for all this Incredibilitie and Impossibilitie Abraham believed and this was accounted to him for Righteousnesse And Abraham had declared his easie and forward and implicit faith in God when God called him and he went out not knowing whither he went And therefore when God offered him a new seale Circumcision Abraham might have said Quare sigillum What needs a seale betweene thee and me I have used to take thy word before and thou hast tried me before But Abraham knew that Obedience was better then wit or disputation for though Obedience and good works do not beget faith yet they nurse it Per ea augescit fidei pinguescit saies Luther Our faith grows into a better state and into a better liking by our good works Againe when Abraham considered that it was Mandatum in re turpi That this Circumcision in it selfe was too frivolous a thing and in that part of the Bodie too obscene a thing to be brought into the fancy of so many Women so many young Men so many Strangers to other Nations as might bring the Promise and Covenant it selfe into scorne and into suspicion that should require such a seale to it as that was he might have come to this Quare tam turpe quare tam sordidum why does God command me so base and uncleane a thing so scornfull and mis-interpretable a thing as Circumcision and Circumcision in that part Againe when he considered that to Circumcise all
in your private and publique devotions will ye not fast for this kingdome in cutting off superfluities will ye not fight for this kingdome in resisting suggestions will ye not take Counsaile for this kingdome in consulting with religious friends will ye not give subsidies for this kingdome in relieving their necessities for whom God hath made you his stewards weigh and measure your selves and spend that be negligent of that which is least and worst in you Is your soule lesse then your body because it is in it How easily lies a letter in a Boxe which if it were unfolded would cover that Boxe unfold your soule and you shall see that it reaches to heaven from thence it came and thither it should pretend whereas the body is but from that earth and for that earth upon which it is now which is but a short and an inglorious progresse To contract this the soule is larger then the body and the glory and the joyes of heaven larger then the honours and the pleasures of this world what are seventy years to that latitude of continuing as long as the Ancient of dayes what is it to have spent our time with the great ones of this time when when the Angels shall come and say that Time shall be no more we shall have no beeing with him who is yesterday and to day and the same for ever we see how ordinarily ships goe many leagues out of their direct way to fetch the winde Spiritus spirat ubi vult sayes Christ the spirit blowes where he will and as the Angel took Habakkâ—k by the haire and placed him where he would this winde the spirit of God can take thee at last by thy gray haires and place thee in a good station then Spirat ubi vult he blowes where he will and spirat ubi vis he blowes where thou wilt too if thou beest appliable to his inspirations They are but hollow places that returne Ecchoes last syllables It is but a hollownesse of heart to answer God at last Be but as liberall of thy body in thy mortifications as in thy excesse and licentiousnesse and thou shalt in some measure have followed Gods example for the publique to pretermit the private for the larger and better to leave the narrower and worser respects To proceed when we made that observation that God pretermitted the private for the publique we noted that God did not say non bonum Homini It was not good for man to be alone man might have done well enough in that state so as his solitarinesse might have been supplied with a farther creation of more men In making the inventaries of those goods which man possesseth in the world we see a great Author says In possessionibus sunt amici inimici not onely our friends but even our enemies are part of our goods and we may raise as much profit from these as from those It may be as good a lesson to a mans sonne Study that enemy as Observe that friend As David says propitius fuisti ulciscens Thou heardst them ô Lord our God and wast favour able unto them and didst punish all their inventions it was part of his mercy part of his favour that he did correct them So we may say to our enemy I owe you my watchfulnesse upon my selfe and you have given me all the goodnesse that I have for you have calumniated all my indifferent actions and that kept me from committing enormous ill ones And if then our enemies be in possessionibus to be inventaried amongst our goods might not man have been abundantly rich in friends without this addition of a woman Quanto congruentius says S. Augustine how much more conveniently might two friends live together then a man and a woman God doth not then say non bonum homini man got not so much by the bargaine especially if we consider how that wife carried her selfe towards him but that for his particular he had been better aloneâ— nor he does not say now non bonum hunc hominem esse solum It is not good for any man to be alone for Qui potest capere capiat says Christ he that is able to receive it let him receive it What That some make themselves Eunuchs for the kingdome of heaven that is the better to un-entangle themselves from those impediments which hinder them in the way to heaven they abstaine from mariage and let them that can receive it receive it Now certainly few try whether they can receive this or no. Few strive few fast few pray for the gift of continency few are content with that incontinency which they have but are sorry they can expresse no more incontinency There is a use of mariage now which God never thought of in the first institution of mariage that it is a remedy against burning The two maine uses of mariage which are propagation of Children and mutuall assistance were intended by God at the present at first but the third is a remedy against that which was not then for then there was no inordinatenesse no irregularity in the affections of man And experience hath taught us now that those climates which are in reputation hottest are not uninhabitable they may be dwelt in for all their heat Even now in the corruption of our nature the clime is not so hot as that every one must of necessity mary There may be fire in the house and yet the house not on fire there may be a distemper of heate and yet no necessity to let blood The Roman Church injures us when they say that we prefer mariage before virginity and they injure the whole state of Christianity when they oppose mariage and chastity as though they were incompatible and might not consist together They may for mariage is honourable and the bed undefiled and therefore it may be so S. Augustine observes in mariage Bonuam fidei a triall of one anothers truth and that 's good And bonum prolis a lawfull meanes of propagation and that 's good and bonum Sacramenti a mysticall representation of that union of two natures in Christ and of him to us and to his Church and that 's good too So that there are divers degrees of good in mariage But yet for all these goodnesses God does not say non bonum it is not good for any man to be alone but Qui capere potest capiat according to Christs comment upon his Fathers text He that can containe and continue alone let him doe so But though God do not say non homini It is not good for the man that he be alone nor quemvis hominem it is not good for every man to be alone yet considering his generall purpose upon all the world by man he sayes non bonum for that end it is not good that man should be alone because those purposes of God could not consist with that solitude of man In that production and in that survay
have born the image of the earthly so let us beare the Image of the heavenly there from Tertullian it must necessarily be referred to the first Resurrection the Resurrection by grace in this life for says he there Non refertur ad substantiam resurrectionis sed ad prâ—â—sentis temporis disciplinam the Apostle does not speak of our glorious resurrection at last but of our religious resurrection now Portemus non portabimus Let us bear his image says the Apostle Let us now not that we shall bear it at the last day Praeceptive dictum non promissive The Apostle delivers it as a duty that we must not as a reward that wee shall bear that image And therefore in Tertulliâ—â— construction it is not onely indifferent and probable but necessary to refer this Text to the first Resurrection in this life where it will be fittest to pursue that order which we proposed at first first to consider Quid regnum what Kingdome it is that is pretended to And then Quid haeredetas what estate and term is to be had in it It is an Inheritance And lastly Quid care sanguis what flesh and blood it is that is excluded out of this Kingdome Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God First for this kingdome of God in this world let us be glad that it is a kingdome that it is so much that the government is taken out of the hands of Saints and Angels and re-united re-annexed to the Crown restoted to God to whom we may come immediately and be accepted Let us be glad that it is a kingdome so much and let us be glad that it is but a kingdome and no more not a Tyranny That we come not to a God that will damâ—e us because he will damâ—e us but a God that proposes Conditions and enables us to performe those conditions in such a measure as he will vouchsafe to accept from us A God that governs us by his word for in his word is truth and by his law for in his law is clearnesse Will you aske what this kingdome of God is What did you take it to be or what did you mean by it when even now you said with me in the Lords prayer Thy kingdome come Did you deliberately and determinately pray for the day of Judgment and for his comming in the kingdome of glory then Were you all ready for that when you said so Purae conscientiae grandis audaciae est It is a very great confidence and if it be not grounded upon a very pure conscience it must have a worse name Regnum Dei postul are judicium non timeâ—â— To call upon God for the day of Judgment upon confidence of our own righteousnesse is a shrewd distemper To say Vâ—ni Domine Iesu come Lord Iesuâ— come and take us as thou findst us is a dangerous issue But Adveniat regnum and then veniat Rex let his kingdome of grace come upon us in this life and then let himselfe come too in his good time and when his good pleasure shall be in the kingdome of Glory Sive velimus sive nolimus regnum Dei utique veniet what need we hasten him provoke him says Saint Augustine whether we will or no his kingdome his Judgment will come Nay before we called for it even his kingdome of grace was come Christ said to the Scribe Non longè Thou art not far from the kingdome of God And to the Pharisees themselves he said Intra vos the kingdome of God is among you within you But where there is a whole Hospitall of three hundred blinde men together as there is at Paris there is as much light amongst them there as amongst us here and yet all they have no light so this kingdome of God is amongst us all and yet God knows whether we see it or no. And therefore Adveniat ut manifestetâ—r Deus says S. Augustine his kingdom come that we may discerne it is come that we may see that God offers it to us and Adveniat regnum ut manefestemur Deo his kingdome come so that he may discernus in our reception of that Kingdom and our obedience to it He comes when we see him and he comes again when we receive him Quid est Regnum ejus veniat quà m ut nos bonos inveniat Then his Kingdome comes when he finds us willing to be Subjects to that Kingdome God is a King in his own right By Creation by Redemption by many titles and many undoubted claimes But Aliud est Regem esse aliud regnare It is one thing to be a King another to have Subjects in obedience A King is not the lesse a King for a Rebellion But Verè justum regnum est says that Father quando Rex vult homines habere sub se cupiunt homines esse sub â—o when the King would wish no other Subjects nor the Subjects other King then is that Kingdom come come to a durable and happy state When God hath shewed himself in calling us and wee have shewed our willingnesse to come when God shewes his desire to preserve us and we adhere onely to him when there is a Dominus regnat Latetur terra When our whole Land is in possession of peace and plenty and the whole Church in possession of the Word and Sacraments when the Land rejoyces because the Lord reigns and when there is a Dominus regnat Laetentur Insulae Because the Lord reigneth every Island doth rejoice that is every man that every man that is encompassed within a Sea of calamities in his estate with a Sea of diseases in his body with a Sea of scruples in his understanding with a Sea of transgressions in his conscience with a Sea of sinking and swallowing in the sadnesse of spirit may yet open his eyes above water and find a place in the Arke above all these a recourse to God and joy in him in the Ordinances of a well established and well governed Church this is truly Regnum Dei the Kingdome of God here God is willing to be present with us that he declares in the preservation of his Church And we are sensible of his presence and residence with us and that wee declare in our frequent recourses to him hither and in our practise of those things which we have learnt here when we are gone hence This then is the blessed state that wee pretend to in the Kingdome of God in this life Peace in the State peace in the Church peace in our Conscience In this that wee answer the motions of his blessed Spirit here in his Ordinance and endevour a conformity to him in our life and conversation In this hee is our King and wee are his Subjects and this is this Kingdome of God the Kingdome of Grace Now the title by which we make claim to this Kingdome is in our text Inheritance Who can and who