Selected quad for the lemma: world_n
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A29923
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The unspotted high-court of justice erected and discovered in three sermons preached in London and other places by Thomas Baker.
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Baker, Thomas, 1624 or 5-1690.
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1657
(1657)
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Wing B523; ESTC R25262
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34,477
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158
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they shine with subtlety they appear shattered through their vanity that upon those words of St. Peter 2 Peter 3.8 One day with the Lord is as a thousand years a thousand years sa one day have dogmatically concluded that as the world was created in six dayes and then followed the Sabbath so was the world to continue for six thousands years Whereof two thousand before the Law two thousand under the Law two thousand six hundred fifty six since the Law being fully elapsed as soon as the remainder of three hundred forty four foure shall be run out the Day of Judgement shall immediately auspicate the worlds rest whose solemnity yet wherein will we hear our Cock-brained Millenaries our Saviour shall reign in all manner glorious Pomp and State upon earth shall continue for a thousand years no otherwise then the first Sabbath was a Day of equal length with any other of the Days of the Creation And now were it proper to fly out into Tropological excursions how present and easie were it for me to give you an account of signs not so much immediately preceding as actually accompanying this Days Advent as our Sun turned into Blood our Moon not giving her Light our Stars faln from Heaven and shut up in black Abysses of obscurity But this judge himself seemeth advisedly to labour the stay of our bold adventures for the fathoming of this depth by whatever whether Literal or Metaphorical signs Of that Day and Hour knoweth no man no not the Angels in Heaven nay not the Son man himself Mark 13.32 Non novit i. e. non notificavit saith Damascene he is said not to know it for that he is not pleased to make it known A gloss yet should we smoothly swallow the light of this knowledge we might upon the same ground as justly deny the Father as him for that the one is no more pleased to make it known then the other Much better therefore St. Gregory in Humanitate novit non ex Humanitate In his Divinity as God though made man in no wise may he be charged with the guilt of any ignorance but in his Humanity in the mean time as meer man justly may he disavow all such manner of knowledge And shall we then poor worms and no men be curiously inquisitive nay positively Definitive where the Son of man himself is deliberately content to be ignorant The Prophet Isaiah 6. his Prophesie And the 2. seeth God on his Throne and the Seraphins above it with two wings covering his Face and his Feet with two His face with two saith St. Hierome thereby shutting up from our Eyes the secrets of his Predestination from the beginning and his Feet with two thereby concealing the certain time of his comming to Judgement at the last day And then as the Egyptian in Plutarch to him that would needs be prying into his covered Basket Gum vides velatam quid inquiris in rem absconditam Since we finde the precise time of this Judges comming deliberately shut up in secrecy from us how can we without the gross forfeiture of I say not all Christian onely but even Natural modesty adventure upon a bold enquiry thereinto much more a Positive Definition thereof And as Antigonus sometimes to his son Demetrius demanding of him when the Camp should move Num te solum metuis Art thou afraid that thou only shalt not hear the sound of the Trumpet how can we without even a profession of steely forheads be prying into this recluse Mystery whereof the sound of the last Trumpet is the only certain signal to be expected And of the designation of the certain time of this Days advent from the search much more discovery of any mortal Eye St. Augustin seemeth to give a pregnant reason Latet Dies ultimus ut omnes Dies observemus no certain notice have we given us of the time of this last days comming to caution us to expect and prepare for its comming every Day And the contemplation of this Dayes so near and uncertain approach the son of Sirach before we enterprize any thing would still have us to propose to the Eyes of our Minde as the best Line and Square whereby to regulate the whole course of our lives Whatsoever saith he thou takest in hand remember thine end this thy last end and thou shalt never do amiss Eccles. 7.36 For as a Ship is best guided by the Stern so is the course of our life best ordered by having a continual recourse unto this our last end And as he shooteth best that still eyeth the Mark so that man in semblance best levelleth the Shafts of all his actions that hath the mark of this his last end still in his eye And then as is the old Philosophy Rule Primum in intentione Vltimum in Executione Since this last end of ours is the last thing to put in Execution how can we but conclude it highly reasonable and seasonable that it precede and go before every act of ours in intention and consideration O! that Men were therefore so wise saith Moses as still to remember this their last End Deut. 32.19 And with St. Hierom to be so sagely fanciful as still to conceive they heard the sound of this last Trumpet still ringing in their ears The serious recognition whereof could not but make the most Heathenish Felix to tremble when as Bias sometimes on Ship-board that there was but an Inch between him and Death we shall come duly to consider that there may not be a Days yea perhaps not an Hours nay possibly not a Moments distance between my present Speaking your Hearing and this Judges Appearing to Judge the World Iob in that his excellent description of a War-horse amongst many other eminent properties of his reckoneth this for one most highly remarkable that he doth Procul odorari Bellum Smell the Battle afar off in the 39th of his Book and 25th And what just reason then that we be sentenced for worse then Horse or Mule that have no understanding shall we not with the Nostrils I know not whether to say of Faith or Fear sent that bloody day we know not how near at hand wherein he whom by our sins from time to time we have been still provoking every day more and more to become our Adversary shall yet come to sit in judgment upon us And shall not therefore send out our Ambassadours Preces Lachrymas Cordis Legatos saith St. Cyprian our Prayers and our Tears the Ambassadours of our souls for the making of our Peace and Atonement with him whilst he is yet upon the way and may still be at some distance from us Certainly with Habakkuk in the 2. of his Prophsie 1. It shall stand us in hand at all Essays to stand upon our watch-tower and see what we shall answer him when he shall come to reprove us for these our whatever Enormities and as himself speaketh Psal. 50.21 shall set in order Sicut solet in
Nature we shall content us with Melancthons definition thereof that it is a knowledge of certain principles and of conclusions thence naturally deduced agreeable to the Eternal Rule of truth directing him to live well and to worship his Creatour The very Oratour can say of this Law that it is Non scripta sed Nata quam non Didicimus Legimus Accepimus Verum ex Natura Arripuimus Hausimus Expressimus that it is not a written but an inbred Law and such as we have not learned or read or by Tradition received but such as we have derived and drawn and sucked out of the very Entrails of Nature Easie it were by a particular Induction to evince that not only the most eminent Divinity-Maximes as that Tithes are to be paid as may clearly appear in the History of Melchizedeck and Abraham Gen. 14. that some Places are above other sanctified by Gods special Presence as the Place of Iacobs repose in his journey to Haran where God appeareth to him Gen. 28. that some Persons are more then others dedicate to his service as the First-born of every Family Exod. 13. of which by the way you shall do well specially to take notice that they were every one {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Cohen Princes and Priests in one Person but that every particular Precept of the Moral Law hath from the beginning been and still is by this Laws meer instinct imprinted and engraven in the hearts of those that are meer strangers to the Israel of God and Aliens from the Covenant of promise St. Pauls word Rom. 2.14 you may safely take for the whole summe the Gentiles saith he having no Law i. e. no Law written as the Iews in Tables of stone do yet by nature the things contained in the Law and so are a Law unto themselves And the Maxume therefore Verse 12. he premiseth cannot but be entertained for irrefragable As many as have sinned without Law shall also perish without Law So that even of such as these just reason shall we have to say in this case what the same Apostle of the same Gentiles clearly convinced of a Godhead by those things that are seen from the creation of the world Rom. 16. that they are {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} without all manner of Excuse For the second the Law from Sinai you know by whom and how it was given By Moses yet God still dictating with lightning and Thunder and as is this judgement to be auspicated with the sound of the Trumpet yea and this seconded with a curse far more dreadful then either Lightning-flash or Thunder-clap Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the Book of the Law to do them Gal. 3.10 Nay to make sure that this Curse want not its proper matter of sin to work upon Lex subintravit ut abundaret delictum the Law was given that sin might abound Rom. 5.20 Not that the Law is sin as the Apostle glosseth himself in the 7. of the same Epistle and 8th but sin taking occasion by the Commandement is his own ingenuous confession of himself wrought in me all manner of concupiscence So that then such an occasion of and Incentive unto sin is the Law Sicut fraenum equo indomito saith Paraeus upon the words as is a Bridle of a young Horses fierceness which whilst we use as an Instrument for the taming him by accident it makes him the more untamed Sic ego Torrentem quâ nil obstabat eunti or as a Bank or Rock to a Torrent which whilst they strive to Bound they enrage the more and so occasion it to bear and break down all before it with the greater violence Nitimur in vetitum to long for things forbidden is the current we know our desires all naturally run which is the reason saith the Oratour why Solon would by no means be drawn to hear of a Law to be enacted against Parricide veritus ne si legem de eo tulisset magis incitaret Homines quam reprimeret fearing saith he lest such a Law might rather spur men on unto then restrain them from so unnatural and horrid an act So that then so little advantage God wot is this Law likely to afford us at our last standing up before this High-Court of Justice when we are at such a natural Antipathy against it that the more it laboureth to reclaim us the more we recoil and rebel against it that for any ground of comfort we can herein meet with too just reason shall we have as the Disciples to our Common-Master in the Gospel Luke 18.26 to cry out Domine quis Salvus erit Lord who can be saved Especially seeing that as St. Peter sometimes to the Jews Acts 15.10 we cannot but be tenderly sensible that this Law putteth such an heavy Yoak upon our Necks as neither we nor our Fathers are able to bear For the last the Law from Sion the Law of faith as Rom. 3.27 it is stiled as it is so far from being Contra-distinct to either of the former Laws but hath in it rather the summe and substance and Pith of either as hath the Intellective of the vegetative and sensitive souls so is Christ the main scope of all they all looking toward him as did the Cherubins towards the Mercy-seat Exod. 37.9 In either of the former he discovered himself but as through the Lattice as it is Cant. 2.9 In this latter he doth not only present him clearly to our views but so graciously and affectionately offer him to our embraces that we have now the happy opportunity and advantage of laying such fast hold of him as not to let him go as it is Cant. 3.4 The former either of them holdeth us to Hard-meat as we say making us a proffer of Heaven indeed but upon very unfeisable yea indeed impossible conditions Fac hoc vives as our Saviour to the Lawyer Luke 10.28 Do this and thou shalt live The latter tendereth us a Bargain in our apprehension at least much easier to compass Crede Salvus eris as Paul and Silas to the Jaylor Acts 16.31 and now little question to be made but that as the Jew of the Almighty Rom. 2.5 there is more then a good many amongst us will be present to make our Boast of this Law that having the advantage both of Jew and Gentile in times past to turn over a new Leaf from the Law of Nature the Law from Sinai unto this Law of Sion the Law of Faith we shall not need to distrust but that we shall be sped of an happy Acquital and Discharge when we come to stand up before this dreadful Tribunal Our Pulpits now for a long time have resounded with no other Doctrin but those revived Reliques of an old Heretical Maxime that we shall need to act nothing our selves in order to the accomplishment of the great work of our Salvation a bare naked Faith apprehending the free