Nature and in that Morall Law which is written in the heart of man That such dayes there must be is Morall and this is Morall too that all things in the seruice of God bee done in order and this also that obedience be giuen to Superiours in those things wherein they are Superiors And therfore it was to the Iewes as well Morall to obserue the certaine dayes which God had determined as to obserue any at all Not that Gods commandement limitting the dayes infused a Moralitie into those particular dayes for Moralitie is perpetuall and if that had been Morall it must haue been so before and it must bee so still Gods determining the dayes did not infuse not induce a Moralitie there but it awakened a former Moralitie that is an obedience to the commandement for that time which God had appoynted that for them for this Obedience and Order is perpetuall and so Morall We depart therfore from that error which those ancient Heretiques the Ebionites begun and some laboured to refresh in Saint Gregories time and which continues in practise in some places of the world still To obserue both the Iewes Sabbath and the Christians Satterday and Sunday too because the Sabboth is called Pactum sempiternum for to that any of Saint Augustines Answeres will serue either that it is called euerlasting because it signified an euerlasting rest where be pleased to note by the way that Holy dayes Sabbaths are not onely instituted for Order but they haue their Mystery and their Signification for Holy dayes as the Text calls them there and New Moones and the Sabboth were but shadowes of things to come or else the Sabboth was called euerlasting to them because it bound them euerlastingly and they might neuer intermit it as some other ceremonies they might But their Sabboths bind not vs we depart from them who thinke so and so we doe from them who think we are bound to no Festiualls at all or at least to none but the Sabboth For God requires as much seruice from vs as from the Iewes and to them hee enlarged his Sabboths and made them diuers But those were of Gods immediat institution but all that the Iewes obserued were not so and that 's our next consideration Festiualls instituted by the Church At first when God was alone it is but Faciamus let vs vs the Trinity make man This was when God was as we may say in Coelibatu But after God hath taken his spouse maried the Church then it is Capite nobis vulpes doe you take the little Foxes you the Church for our vines haue grapes the vines are ours yours and mine sayes Christ to the Church and therfore do you looke to them as well as I. The Tables of the law God himselfe writ and gaue them written to Moses he left none of that to him not a power to make other Lawes like those lawes but for the Tabernacle which concern'd the outward worship of God that was to be made by Moses Iuxta similitudinem according to the paterne which God had shewed him God hath giuen the Church a paterne of Holy dayes in those Sabboths which hee himselfe instituted and according to the paterne the Church hath instituted more and Recte festa Ecclesiae colunt quise Ecclesiae filios recognoscunt They who disdaine not the name of sonnes of the Church refuse not to celebrate the daies which are of the Churches institution There was no immediate commandement of God for that Holy day which Mor dechai by his letters establish'd but yet the Iewes vndertooke to do as Mordechai had written to them There was no such commandement for this Holy day in the Text and yet that was obferued as long as they had any beeing And where the reason remaines the practise may The Iewes did we may institute new Holy dayes And not onely transitory daies for a present thanks giuing for a present benefit but Anniuersaries perpetuall memorials of Gods deliuerances And that 's our next step Both the Holy dayes which we named before which were instituted with out speciall Commaundement from God were so That of Mordechai he commanded to be kept euery yeare for two dayes and this in the Text Iudas Maccabeus commanded to be kept yearely for eight dayes which was more then was appoynted to any of the Holy dayes instituted by God himselfe for the Festiuall alone According to which paterne one Bishop of Rome ordained that the Festiuals of the Dedication of Churches should bee yearely celebrated in those places and another extended the Festiuall to eight dayes at least at the first dedication thereof if not euery yeare that God might not onely be put into the possession of the place but setled in it God by Moses made the children of Israel a Song because as hee sayes howsoeuer they did by the Law they would neuer forget that Song that Song should be his witnesse against them Therefore would God haue vs institute solemne memorialls of his great deliuerances that if when those dayes come about we doe not glorifie him that might aggrauate our condemnation Euery fift of August the Lord rises vp to hearken whether we meet to glorifie him for his great deliuerance of his Maiesty before the blest vs with his presence in this Kingdome and when he finds vs zealous in our thankes for that he giues vs farther blessings Certainly he is vp as early euery fift of Nouember to hearken if we meet to glorifie him for that deliuerance still and if hee should finde our zeale lesse then heretofore hee would wonder why Gods principall his radicall Holy day the Sabbath had a weekly returne his other Sabbaths instituted by himselfe and those which were instituted by those paternes that of Mordechai that of the Maccabees those of the Christian Church They all return once a yeare God would keepe his Courts once a yeare and see whether wee make our apparances as heeretofore that if not hee may know it Feastes in generall Feastes instituted by the Church alone Feasts in their yearely returne and obseruation haue their vse and particularly those Feasts of the Dedication of Churches which was properly and literally the Feast of this Text. It was the Feast of Dedication As it diminishes not preiudices not Gods Eternitie that wee giue him his Quando certaine times of Inuocation God is not the lesse yesterday and to day and the same for euer because wee meet here to day and not yesterday so it diminishes not preiudices not Gods Vbiquitie and Omnipresence that wee giue him his Vbi certaine places for Inuocation That 's not the lesse true that the most High dwells not in Temples made with handes though God accept at our hands our dedication of certaine places to his seruice manifest his working more effectually more energetically in those places then in any other for when we pray Our Father which art in
in and out at these Windowes and let a full pot of thy Manna a good measure of thy Word and an effectuall preaching thereof bee euermore preserued and euermore bee distributed in this place Let the Leprosie of Superstition neuer enter within these Walles nor the hand of Sacriledge euer fall vpon them And in these walles to them that loue Profit and Gaine manifest thou thy selfe as a Treasure and fill them so To them that loue Pleasure manifest thy selfe as Marrow and Fatnesse and fill them so And to them that loue Preferment manifest thy selfe as a Kingdome and fill them so that so thou mayest bee all vnto all giue thy selfe wholly to vs all and make vs all wholly thine Accept our humble thanks for all c. IOHN 10. 22. And it was at Ierusalem the Feast of the Dedication and it was Winter and Iesus walked in the Temple in Salomons Porch SAint Basill in a Sermon vpon the 114. Psalme vpon the like occasion as drawes vs together now The consecration of a Church makes this the reason and the excuse of his late comming thither to doe that Seruice that he stayd by the way to consecrate another Church I hope euery person heere hath done so consecrated himselfe who is a Temple of the Holy Ghost before hee came to assist or to testifie the consecration of this place of the Seruice of God Nostra festiuitas hec est quia de Ecclesia nostra sayes Saint Bernard This Festiuall belongs to vs because it is the consecration of that place which is ours Magis autem nostra quia de nobis ipsis But it is more properly our Festiuall because it is the consecration of our selues to Gods seruice For Sanctae Animae propter inhabitantem Spiritum your Soules are holy by the inhabitation of Gods holy spirit who dwells in them Sancta corpor a propter inhabitantem animam Your Bodies are holy by the inhabitation of those sanctified Soules Sancti parietes propter Corpora Sanctorum These walles are holy because the Saints of God meet here within these walls to glorifie him But yet these places are not onely consecrated sanctified by your comming but to bee sanctified also for your comming that so as the Congregation sanctifies the place the place may sanctifie the Congregation too They must accompany one another holy persons and holy places If men would wash sheep in the Baptisterie in the Font those sheep were not christned If prophane men or idolatrous men pray here after their way their prayers are not sanctified by the place Neither if it be after polluted doth the place retain that sanctitie which is this day to be deriued vpon it and to bee imprinted in it Our Text settles vs vpon both these considerations The holy place and the holy person It was the Feast of the Dedication there 's the holinesse of the place And the holy person was holinesse it selfe in the person of Christ Iesus who walked in the Temple in Salomons Porch These two will bee our two parts And the first of these wee shall make vp of these pieces First we shall see a lawfull vse of Feasts of Festiuall dayes And then of other Feasts then were instituted by God himselfe diuers were so this was not And thirdly not only a festiuall solemnizing of some one thing at some one time for the present but an Anniuersary returning to that folemnitie euery yeare And lastly in that first part this Festiuall in particular The Feast of the Dedication of the Temple that fanctified the place that shall determine that part In the second part The holinesse of the person we shall carry your thoughts no farther but vpon this That euen this holy person Iesus himselfe would haue recourse to this place thus dedicated thus sanctified And vpon this that hee would doe that especially at such times as hee might countenance and authorise the Ordinances and Institutions of the Church which had appointed this Festiuall And this sayes the Text he did in the Winter First Etsi Hiems though it were Winter hee came and walked in the Porch a little inconuenience kept him not off And Quia Hiems because it was Winter he walked in the Porch which was couered not in the Temple which was open So that heere with modestie and without scandall he condemned not the fauouring of a mans health euen in the Temple And it was at Ierusalem the Feast of the Dedication and it was Winter and Iesus walked in the Temple in Salomons Porch In our first part Holy places wee looke first vpon the times of our meeting there Holy dayes The root of all those is the Sabboth that God planted himselfe euen in himselfe in his owne rest from the Creation But the root and those branches which grow from that root are of the same nature and the same name And therefore as well of the flower as of the root of a Rose or of a Violet we would say This is a Violet this is a Rose so as well to other Feasts of Gods institution as to the first Sabboth God giues that name hee cals those seuerall Feasts which he instituted Sabboths enioynes the same things to be done vpon them inflicts the same punishments vpon them that breake them So that there is one Moralitie that is the soule of all Sabboths of all Festiualls howsoeuer all Sabboths haue a ceremoniall part in them yet there is a Morall part that inanimates them all they are elemented of Ceremonie but they animated with Moralitie And that Moralitie is in them all Rest for if Adam could name creatures according to their nature God could name his Sabboth according to the nature of it and Sabboth is Rest. It is a Rest of two kindes our rest and Gods rest Our rest is the cessation from labour on those dayes Gods rest is our sanctifying of the day for so in the religious sacrifice of Noah when hee was come out of the Arke God is said to haue smelt Odorem quietis the sauour of rest vpon those dayes we rest from seruing the world and God rests in our seruing of him And as God takes a tenth part of our goods in Tythes but yet he takes more too he takes Sacrifices so though he take a seuenth part of our time in the Sabboth yet he takes more too he appoints other Sabboths other Festiualls that he may haue more glory and we more Rest for all wherin those two concurre are Sabboths Vacate videte quoniam ego sum Dominus sayes God First vacate rest from your bodily labours distinguish the day and then videte come hither into the Lords presence and worship the Lord your God sanctifie the day And in all the Sabboths there is still a Cessate and a Humiliate animas bodily rest and spirituall sanctifying of the day Holy dayes then that is dayes seposed for holy vses and for the outward publike seruice of God are in
THREE SERMONS VPON SPECIALL OCCASIONS Preached by IOHN DONNE Deane of St. Pauls London LONDON Printed for THOMAS IONES and are to sold at his Shop in the Strand at the Blacke Rauen neere St. Clements Church 1623. A SERMON VPON THE XV. VERSE OF THE XX. CHAPTER OF THE BOOKE OF IVDGES Wherein occasion was iustly taken for the Publication of some Reasons which his Sacred MAIESTIE had beene pleased to giue of those Directions for PREACHERS which he had formerly sent forth Preached at the CROSSE the 15 th of September 1622. By IOHN DONNE Doctor of Diuinitie and Deane of Saint PAVLS London And now by commandement of his Majestie published as it was then preached LONDON Printed by William Stansby for Thomas Iones and are to be sold at his shop in the Strand at the blacke Rauen neere vnto Saint Clements Church 1622. TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE GEORGE Marquesse of Buckingham High ADMIRALL of ENGLAND c. WHen I would speake to the KING by your LORDSHIPS Meanes I doe Now when I would speake to the Kingdom I would do that by your Lordshippes Meanes to and therefore I am bold to transfer this Sermon to the World through your Lordships hands and vnder your Name For the first part of the Sermon the Explication of the Text my profession and my Conscience is warant enough that I haue spoken as the Holy Ghost intended For the second part the Application of the Text it wil be warrant enough that I haue spoken as his Maiestie intended that your Lordship admits it to issue in your Name It is because Kings fauour the Church that the Prophet sayes they are her Foster-Fathers and then those persons who haue also interest in the fauor of Kings are her Foster-Brothers and such vse to loue well By that Title as by many other also your Lordship loues the Church as you are her Foster-Brother loued of him who loues her And by that Title you loue all them in the Church who endeuour to aduance both the vnity of our Church in it self and the vnity of the Church with the godly designes of our religious King To which Seruice I shall euer sacrifice all the labors of Your Lordships humblest and thankefullest Seruant in Christ Iesus IOHN DONNE IVDGES 5. 20. De coelo dimicatum est contra eos stellae manentes in Ordine cursu suo aduersus Siseram pugnauerunt They fought from Heauen The stars in their courses fought against Sisera ALl the words of God are alwayes sweete in themselues sayes Dauid but sweeter in the mouth and in the pen of some of the Prophets and some of the Apostles then of others as they differed in their naturall gifts or in their education but sweetest of all where the Holy Ghost hath beene pleased to set the word of God to Musique and to conuay it into a Song and this Text is of that kind part of the Song which Deborah Barak sung after their great victory vpon Sisera Sisera who was Iabin the King of Canaans Generall against Israel God himselfe made Moses a Song and expressed his reason why The children of Israel sayes God will forget my Law but this song they will not forget and whensoeuer they sing this song this song shall testifie against them what I haue done for them how they haue forsaken me And to such a purpose hath God left this Song of Deborah and Barak in the Scriptures that all Murmurers and all that stray into a diffidence of Gods power or of his purpose to sustaine his owne cause and destroy his owne Enemies might run and read might read and sing the wonderfull deliuerances that God hath giuen to his people by weake and vnexpected meanes This world begun with a Song if the Chalde Paraphrasts vpon Salomons Song of Songs haue taken a true tradition That assoone as Adams sinne was forgiuen him he expressed as he cals it in that Song Sabbatum suum his Sabboth his peace of conscience in a Song of which we haue the entrance in that Paraphrase This world begun so and so did the next world too if wee count the beginning of that as it is a good computation to doe so from the comming of Christ Iesus for that was expressed on Earth in diuers Songs in the blessed Virgins Magnificat My soule doth magnifie the Lord In Zacharies Benedictus Blessed be the Lord God of Israel and in Simeons Nunc dimittis Lord now lettest thou thy seruant depart in peace This world began so and the other and when both shall ioyne and make vp one world without end it shall continue so in heauen in that Song of the Lamb Great and marueilous are thy workes Lord God Almighty iust and true are thy wayes thou King of Saints And to Tune vs to Compose and giue vs a Harmonie and Concord of affections in all perturbations and passions and discords in the passages of this life if we had no more of the same Musique in the Scriptures as we haue the Song of Moses at the Red Sea and many Psalmes of Dauid to the same purpose this Song of Deborah were enough abundantly enough to slumber any storme to becalme any tempest to rectifie any scruple of Gods slacknesse in the defence of his cause when in the History and occasion of this Song expressed in the Chapter before this we see That Israel had done euill in the fight of the Lord againe and yet againe God came to them That God himselfe had sold Israel into the hands of Iabin King of Canaan and yet he repented the bargaine and came to them That in twenty yeeres oppression he came not and yet he came That When Sisera came against them with nine hundred Chariots of Iron and all preparations proportionable to that and God cald vp a woman a Prophetesse a Deborah against him because Deborah had a zeale to the cause and consequently an enmity to the enemie God would effect his purpose by so weake an instrument by a woman but by a woman which had no such interest nor zeale to the cause by Iael And in Iaels hand by such an instrument as with that scarce any man could doe it if it were to be done againe with a hammer she driues a nayle through his temples and nayles him to the ground as he lay sleeping in her tent And then the end of all was the end of all not one man of his army left aliue O my Soule why art thou so sad why art thou so disquieted within me Sing vnto the Lord an old song the song of Deborah and Barak That God by weake meanes doth might workes That all Gods creatures fight in his behalfe They fought from beanen the starres in their Order fought against Sisera You shal haue but two parts out of these words And to make these two parts I consider the Text as the two Hemispheres of the world laid open in a flat in a plaine Map All those parts of the world which the
Ancients haue vsed to consider are in one of those Hemispheres All Europe is in that and in that is all Asia and Afrike too So that when we haue seene that Hemisphere done with that we might seeme to haue seene all done with all the world but yet the other Hemisphere that of America is as big as it though but by occasion of new and late discoueries we had had nothing to say of America So the first part of our Text will bee as that first Hemisphere all which the ancient Expositors found occasion to note out of these words will be in that but by the new discoueries of some humors of men and rumors of men we shall haue occasion to say somewhat of a second part to The parts are first the Literall the Historicall sense of the words And then an emergent a collaterall an occasionall sense of them The explication of the wordes and the Application Quid tunc Quid nunc How the words were spoken then How they may be applied now will be our two parts And in passing through our first wee shall make these steps First God can and sometimes doth effect his purposes by himselfe intirely immediatly extraordinarily miraculously by himselfe But yet in a second place we shall see by this story That he lookes for assistance for concurrence of second causes and subordinate meanes And that therefore God in this Song of Deborah hath prouided an honourable commemoration of them who did assist his cause for the Princes haue their place The Princes of Issachar were with her And then the Gouernours The great Persons the great Officers of the State haue their place in this honour That they offered themselues willingly to that seruice And after them the Merchants for those who are said there to ride vpon white Asses to be well mounted according to the manner of those Nations are by Peter Martyr amongst our Expositors and by Serarius the Iesuite amongst the others fitly vnderstood to be intended of Merchants And in the same verse the Iudges are honorably remembred Those that fit in Iudgement And a farre vnlikelier sort of people then any of these in the same verse too Those that walked by the way Idle and discoursing men that were not much affected how businesse went so they might talke of them And lastly the whole people in generall how poore soeuer they haue euidence from this record That they offered themselues and what will they denie that offer themselues and willingly to this imploiment And then God hauing here afforded this honourable mention of them who did assist him he layes also a heauy note vpon such who for collaterall respects preuaricated or withdraw themselues from his seruice perticularly vpon Ruben who was diuided by greatnesse of heart And vpon Dan who remained in his ships And therefore to the encouragement of those who did assist him in any proportion though their assistance were no wayes competent against so potent an enemy God fought for himselfe too They sought from Heauen The starres in their order fought against Sisera And these will be the branches or circumstances of our first part for the particulars of the second we shall open them more commodiously for your memory and vse then when we come to handle them then now Now we proceed to those of the first part And into those I passe with this protestation That in all which I shall say this day beeing to speake often of God in that Notion as he is Lord of Hostes and fights his owne battailes I am farre from giuing fire to them that desire warre Peace in this world is a pretious Earnest and a faire and louely Type of the euerlasting peace of the world to come And warre in this world is a shrewd and fearefull Embleme of the euerlasting discord and tumult and torment of the world to come And therefore our Blessed God blesse vs with this externall and this internall and make that lead vs to an eternall peace But I speake of this subiect especially to establish and settle them that suspect Gods power or Gods purpose to succour those who in forraine parts grone vnder heauie pressures in matter of Religion or to restore those who in forraine parts are deuested of their lawfull possessions and inheritance and because God hath not done these great workes yet nor yet raised vp meanes in apparance and in their apprehension likely to effect it That therefore God likes not the cause and therefore they begin to bee shaked in their owne Religion at home since they thinke that God neglects it abroad But beloued since God made all this world of nothing cannot hee recouer any one peece thereof or restore any one peece with a little In the Creation his production of specifique formes and seuerall Creatures in the seuerall dayes was much very much but not very much compared with that which he had done immediatly before when he made Heauen and Earth of nothing For for the particular Creatures God had then Praeiacentem Materiam he had stuffe before him enough to cut out Creatures of the largest sise his Elephants of the Earth his Whales and Leuiathans in the Sea In that matter there was Semen Creaturarum The Seed of all Creatures in that stuffe But for the stuffe it selfe the Heauen and Earth God had not Semen Coeli any such seed of Heauen as that he could say to it doe thou hatch a Heauen he had not any such Semen terrae as that hee could bid that grow vp into an Earth There was nothing at all and all that is was produced from that and then who shall doubt of his proceeding if by a little he will doe much He suffered his greater works to be paraleld or to be counterfeit by Pharaohs Magicians but in his least in the making of Lice hee brought them to confesse Digitum Dei the finger of God and that was enough The arme of God the hand of God needs not where he will worke his finger is enough It was not that imagination that dreame of the Rabbins that hindered the Magicians who say that the Deuill cannot make any Creature lesse then a Barley corne As it is with men they misconceiue it to be with the Deuill too harder to make a little clocke a little picture any thing in a little then in a larger forme That was no part of the reason in that case but since man ordinarily esteemes it so and ordinarily admires great workes in little forme why will he not be content to glorifie God that way in a faithfull confidence that hee can and will doe great workes by weake meanes Should God haue stayd to leuie and arme and traine and muster and present men enow to discomfit Sennacherib Hee tooke a neerer way he slew almost two hundreth thousand of them in one night by an Angell Should God haue troubled an Angell to satisfie Elisha his seruant Onely by apparition in the cloudes