may be equall as the Devill is a Spirit and a condemned soule a spirit yet that soule shall have a Body too to be tormented with it which the Devill shall not How little we know our selves which is the end of all knowledge But we hast to the next branch In the Resurrection we shall be like to the Angels of God in Heaven But in what lies this likenesse In how many other things soever this likenesse may ly yet in this Text and in our present purpose it lies onely in this Non nubent In the Resurrection they shall not mary But did Angels never mary or as good or at least as ill as mary How many of the ancients take those words That the sonnes of God saw the daughters of Men that they were faire and they tooke them wives of all which they chose to be intended of Angels They offer to tell us how many these maried Angels were Origen saies sixty or seventy They offer to tell us some of their names Aza was one of these maried Angels and Azael was another But then all those who doe understand these words The sonnes of God to be intended of Angels who being sent downe to protect Men fell in love with Women and maried them all I say agree that those Angels that did so never returned to God againe but fell with the first fallen under everlasting Condemnation So that still the Angels of God in Heaven those Angels to whom we shall be like in the Resurrection doe not mary not so much as in any such mistaking they doe not because they need not they need not because they need no second Eternity by the continuation of children for says S. Luke they cannot die Adams first immortality was but this Posse non mori that he needed not to have died he should not have died The Angels immortality and ours when we shall be like them in the Resurrection is Non posse mori that we cannot die for whosoever dies is Homicida sui sayes Tertullian he kills himselfe and sinne is his sword In heaven there shall no such sword be drawn we need not say that the Angels in heaven have that we when we shall be like them in the Resurrection shall so invest an immortality in our nature as that God could not inflict Death upon them or us there if we sinned But because no sinne shall enter there no Death shall enter there neither for Death is the wages of sinne Not that no sinne could enter there if we were left to our selves for in that place Angels did sinne And fatendum est Angelos natura mutabiles saies S. Augustine Howsoever Angels be changed in their Condition they retaine still the same nature and by nature they are mutable But that God hath added another prerogative by way of Confirmation to that state so as that that Grace which he gives us here which is that nothing shall put a necessity of sinning upon us or that we must needs sinne God multiplies upon us so there as that we can conceive no inclination to sinne Therein we shall be like the Angels that we cannot die And the nearer we come to that state in this life the liker we are to those Angels here Now beloved onely he that is Dead already cannot die He that in a holy mortification is Dead the Death of the righteous dead to sinne he lives shall we dare to say so yes we may he lives a blessed Death for such a Death is true life And by such a heavenly Death Death of the righteous Death to sinne he is in possession of a heavenly life here in an inchoation though the consummation and perfection be reserved for the next world which is our last circumstance and the Conclusion of all At the Resurrection we shall be like the Angels Till then we shall not and therefore must not looke for Angelicall perfections here but beare one anothers infirmities It is as yet but in Petition fiat voluntas Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven And as long as there is an Earth it will be but in Petition His will will not be done in Earth as it is in Heaven when all is Heaven to his Saints all will be well but not all till then In the meane time remember all especially you whose Sacramentall that is Mysterious and significative union now is a Type of your union with God in as neare and as fast a band as that of Angels for you shall be as the Angels of God in Heaven That the office of the Angels in this world is to Assist and to supply Defects You are both of noble extraction there 's no defect in that you need not supply one another with Honour you are both of religious Education there 's no defect in that you need not supply one another with fundamentall instructions Both have your parts in that testimony which S. Gregory gave of your Nation at Rome Angli Angeli you have a lovelinesse fit for one another But though I cannot Name no nor Thinke any thing wherein I should wish that Angelicall disposition of supporting or supplying defects yet when I consider that even he that said Ego pater unum sumus I and the Father are one yet had a time to say utquid dereliquisti My God my God why hast thou forsaken me I consider thereby that no two can be so made one in this world but that that unity may be though not Dissolved no nor Rent no nor Endangered yet shaked sometimes by domestique occasions by Matrimoniall encumbrances by perversnesse of servants by impertinencies of Children by private whisperings and calumnies of Strangers And therefore to speake not Prophetically that any such thing shall fall but Provisionally if any such thing should fall my love and my duty and my Text bids me tell you that perfect happinesse is to be staid for till you be as the Angels of God in heaven here it is a faire portion of that Angelicall happinesse if you be alwaies ready to support and supply one another in any such occasionall weaknesses The God of Heaven multiply the present joy of your parents by that way of making you joyfull parents also and recompense your obedience to parents by that way of giving you obedient Children too The God of heaven so joine you now as that you may be glad of one another all your life and when he who hath joined you shall separate you againe establish you with an assurance that he hath but borrowed one of you for a time to make both your joies the more perfect in the Resurrection The God of Heaven make you alwaies of one will and that will alwaies conformable to his conserve you in the sincere truth of his Religion feast you with the best feast Peace of conscience and carry you through the good opinion and love of his Saints in this world to the association of his Saints and Angels and one
doe not meane in his intention that the virgin Mary is equall to the Trinity but onely an assistant this is not onely an impertinent but an impious addition to that God that needs no assistant And as in our baptisme we take no other name necessarily but the name of Christ So in our Christian life we accept no other distinctions of Iesuits or Franciscans but onely Christians for we are baptized into his name and the whole life of a regenerate man is a Baptisme For as in putting on Christ sanctification doth accompany faith so in baptisme the imitation of his death that is mortification and the application of his passion by fulfilling the sufferings of Christ in our flesh is that baptisme into his death Which doe so certainly follow one another that he that is truly baptized into the name of Christ is also baptized into his death as that Saint Paul couples them together Was Paul crucified for you or were you baptized into the name of Paâ—l If you were not baptized into his name then you have no interest no benefit by his death nor by any thing which he suffered that his merits or his works of supereragation should be applied to you And if he did not suffer for you if all that any Paul much lesse any Ignatins could doe were but enough and too little for himselfe then you are not baptized into his name nor to be denominate by him This is then to be Baptized into Christs death Habere reddere testimonium Christam pro me mortuum to be sure that Chirst dyed for me and to be ready to dye for him so that I may fulfill his sufferings and may think that all is not done which belongs to my Redemption except I finde a mortification in my selfe Not that any mortification of mine works any thing as a cause of my redemption but as an assurance and testimony of it 〈◊〉 sit pignus sigilluâ— redemptionis It is a pledge and it is a Seale of my redemption Christ calls his death a Baptisme So Saint Augustine calls our Baptisme a death Quod crux Christo Sepâ—lcrâ—m id nobis Baptisma Baptisme to us says he is our Croffe and our passion and our buriall that is in that we are conformed to Christ as he suffered dyed and was buried Because if we be so baptized into his Name and into his death we are thereby dead to sinne and have dyed the death of the righteous Since then Baptisme is the death of sinne and there cannot be this death this conquest this victory over sinne without faith there must necessarily faith concurre with this baptisme for if there be not faith none in the child none in the parents none in the sureties none in the Church then there is no baptisme performed Now in the Child there is none actually In the sureties we are not sure there is any for their infidelity cannot impeach the sacrament The child is well baptized though they should be misbeleevers for when the Minister shall aske them Doest thou beleeve in God dost thou renounce the Devill perchance they may ly in their owne behalfes perchance they doe not beleeve they doe not renounce but they speake truth in the behalfe of the child when they speake in the voyce of the Church who receives this child for her childe and binds her selfe to exhibit and reach out to that child her spirituall paps for her future nourishment thereof How comes it to passe says Saint Augustine that when a man presents another mans child at the font to be baptized if the Minister should aske him Shall this man child be a valiant man or a wise man shall this woman child be a chast and a continent woman the surety would answer I cannot tell and yet if he be ask'd of that child of so few dayes old Doth that child beleeve in God now will he renounce the Devill hereafter the surety answers confidently in his behalfe for the beleefe and for the renouncing How comes this to passe says Saint Augustine He answers to this that as Sacramentum Corporis Christi est secundum modum Corpus Christi so Sacramentum fidei est fides As the Sacrament of the body and bloud of Christ is in some sense and in a kinde the body and bloud of Christ says Augustine so in the sacrament of faith says he that is Baptisme there is some kinde of faith Here is a child borne of faithfull parents and there is the voyce of God who hath sealed a Covenant to them and their seed Here are sureties that live by Gods gratious spirit in the unity and in the bosome of the Church and so the parents present it to them they present it to the Church and the Church takes it into her care It is still the naturall child of her parents who begot it it is the spirituall child of the Sureties that present it but it is the Christian child of the Church who in the sacrament of Baptisme gives it a new inanimation and who if either parents or sureties should neglect their parts will have a care of it and breed it up to a perfection and full growth of that faith whereof it hath this day an inchoation and beginning As then we have said that Baptisme is a death a death of sinne and as we said before sinne dyes not without faith so also can there be no death of sinne without sorrow and contrition which onely washes away sinne as therefore we see the Church and Christs institution furnishes this child with faith which it hath not of it selfe so let us bring to this action that sorrow and that condoling that we produce into the world such miserable wretches as even by peccatum involuntarium by that sinne to which no act nay no will of theirs concurred that is Originall sinne are yet put into the state of damnation But let us also rejoyce in our owne and this childes behalfe that as we that have been baptized so this child that shall be have and shall put on Christ Jesus in Baptisme Both as a garment for Sacramenta sunt vestimenta As Christ is a garment so the Sacraments are Christs garment and as such a garment as Ornat militem and convincit desertores It gives him that continues in Gods battailes a dignity and discovers him that forsakes Gods tents to be a fugitive Baptisme is a garland in which two ends are brought together he begins aright and perseveres so Ornat militem It is an honour to him that fights out in Gods battaile but Convincit Desertorem Baptisme is our prest-money and if we forsake our colours after we have received that even that forfaits our lives our very having been baptized shall aggravate our condemnation Yea it is such a garment as those of the children of Israel in the wildernesse which are by some expositors thought to have growne all the forty yeares with their bodies for so by Gods blessed provision
our sakes not onely sinfull but sin it self And as one cruell Emperour wished all mankinde in one man that hee might have beheaded mankinde at one blow so God gathered the whole nature of sinne into one Christ that by one action one passion sin all sin the whole nature of sinne might bee overcome It was sin that was upon Christ else God could not have been angry with him nor pleased with us It was sin and his own sin Mine iniquities says Christ in his Type and figure David and in his body the Church and we may be bold to adde in his very person Mine iniquities Many Heretiques denied his body to be his Body they said it was but an airy an imaginary an illusory Body and denied his Soul to be his Soul they said he had no humane soul but that his divine nature supplied that and wrought all the operations of the soul. But we that have learnt Christ better know that hee could not have redeemed man by that way that was contracted betweene him and his Father that is by way of satisfaction except he had taken the very body and the very soul of man And as verily as his humane nature his body and soul were his his sins were his too As my mortality and my hunger and thirst and wearinesse and all my naturall infirmities are his so my sins are his sins And now when my sins are by him thus made his sins no Hell-Devill not Satan no Earth-Devill no Calumniator can any more make those sins my sins then he can make his divinity mine As by the spirit of Adoption I am made the childe of God the seed of God the same Spirit with God but yet I am not made God so by Christs taking my sins I am made a servant of my God a Beads-man of my God a vassall a Tributary debtor to God but I am no sinner in the sight of God no sinner so as that man or the Devill can impute that sin unto me then when my Saviour hath made my sins his As a Soldier would not part with his scars Christ would not They were sins that lay upon him part with our sins And his sins and as it follows in his Type David sins in a plurality many sins I know nothing in the world so manifold so plurall so numerous as my sins And my Saviour had all those But if every other man have not so many sins as I he owes that to Gods grace and not to the Devils forbearance for the Devill saw no such parts nor no such power in me to advance or hinder his kingdome no such birth no such education no such place in the State or Church as that he should be gladder of me then of other men He ministers tentations to all and all are overcome by his tentations And all these sins in all men were upon Christ at once All twice over In the root and in the fruit too In the bullein and in the coin too In grosse and in retail In Originall and in Actuall sin And howsoever the sins of former ages the sins of all men for 4000 years before which were all upon him when he was upon the Crosse might possibly be numbred as things that are past may easilier fall within a possibility of such an imagination yet all those sinnes which were to come after he himself could not number for hee as the Sonne of man though hee know how long the world hath lasted knowes not how long this sinfull world shall last and when the day of Judgement shall be And all those future sins were his sins before they were committed They were his before they were theirs that doe them And lest this world should not afford him sins enow he took upon him the sins of heaven it self not their sins who were fallen from heaven and fallen into an absolute incapacity of reconciliation but their sins which remained in heaven Those sins which the Angels that stand would fall into if they had not received a confirmation given them in contemplation of the death and merits of Christ Christ took upon him for all things in Earth and Heaven too were reconciled to God by him for if there had been as many worlds as there are men in this which is a large multiplication or as many worlds as there are sins in this which is an infinite multiplication his merit had been sufficient to all They were sins his sins many sinnes the sinnes of the world and then as in his Type David Supergressae his sins these sins were got above him And not as Davids or ours by an insensible growth and swelling of a Tide in Course of time but this inundation of all the sins of all places and times and persons was upon him in an instant in a minute in such a point as admits and requires a subtile and a serious consideration for it is eternity which though it doe infinitely exceed all time yet is in this consideration lesse then any part of time that it is indivisible eternity is so and though it last for ever is all at once eternity is so And from this point this timelesse time time that is all time time that is no time from all eternity all the sins of the world were gone over him And in that consideration supergressae caput they were gone over his head Let his head bee his Divine nature yet they were gone over his head for though there bee nothing more voluntary then the love of God to man for he loves us not onely for his own sake or for his own glories sake but he loves us for his loves sake he loves us and loves his love of us and had rather want some of his glory then wee should not have nay then he should not have so much love towards us though this love of his be an act simply voluntary yet in that act of expressing this love in the sending a Saviour there was a kinde of necessity contracted on Christs part such a contract had passed between him and his Father that as himself says there was an oportuit pati a necessity that he should suffer all that he suffered and so enter into glory when he was come so there was an oportuit venire a necessity a necessity induced by that contract that he should come in that humiliation and smother and suppresse the glory of the divine nature under a cloud of humane of passible of inglorious flesh So be his divine nature this head his sins all our sins made his were gone above his head And over his head all those ways that we considered before in our selves Sicut tectum sicut fornix as a roof as an arch that had separated between God and him in that he prayed and was not heard when in that Transeat Calix Father if it be possible let this cup passe from me the Cup was not onely not taken out of his hands but filled up
into this life I would not wish to have come into this world And now that God hath made this life a Bridge to Heaven it is but a giddy and a vertiginous thing to stand long gazing upon so narrow a bridge and over so deep and roaring waters and desperate whirlpools as this world abounds with So teach us to number our dayes saith David that we may apply our hearts unto wisedome Not to number them so as that we place our happinesse in the increase of their number What is this wisedome he tells us there He asked life of thee and thou gavest it him But was that this life It was Length of dayes for ever and ever the dayes of Heaven As houses that stand in two Shires trouble the execution of Justice the house of death that stands in two worlds may trouble a good mans resolution As death is a sordid Postern by which I must be thrown out of this world I would decline it But as death is the gate by which I must enter into Heaven would I never come to it certainly now now that Sinne hath made life so miserable if God should deny us death he multiplied our misery We are in this Text upon blessings appropriated to the Christian Church and so to these times And in theseTimes we have not so long life as the Patriarchs had before They were to multiply children for replenishing the world and to that purpose had long life We multiply sinnes and the children and off-spring of sinnes miseries and therefore may be glad to get from this generation of Vipers God gave his Children Manna and Quails in the Wildernesse where nothing else was to be had but when they came to the Land of Promise that Provision ceas'd God gave them long life in the times of Nature and long though shorter then before in the times of the Law because in nature especially but in the Law also it was hard to discern hard to attain the wayes to Heaven But the wayes to Heaven are made so manifest to us in the Gospel as that for that use we need not long life and that is all the use of our life here He that is ready for Heaven hath lived to a blessed age and to such an intendment a childe newly baptized may be elder then his Grandfather Therefore we receive long life for a blessing when God is pleased to give it though Christ entered it into no Petition of his Prayer that God would give it and so though we enter it into no Petition nor Prayer we receive it as a blessing too when God will afford us a deliverance a manumission an emancipation from the miseries of this life Truely I would not change that joy and consolation which I proposed to my hopes upon my Death-bed at my passage out of this world for all the joy that I have had in this world over again And so very a part of the Joy of Heaven is a joyfull transmigration from hence as that if there were no more reward no more recompence but that I would put my self to all that belongs to the duty of an honest Christian in the world onely for a joyfull a cheerfull passage out of it And farther we shall not exercise your patience or your devotion upon these three pieces which constitute our first part The Primogeniture of Gods Mercy which is first in all The specification of Gods Mercy long Life as it is a figure of and a way to eternity and then the association of Gods Mercy that Death as well as Life is a blessing to the Righteous So then we have brought our Sunne to his Meridianall height to a full Noon in which all shadows are removed for even the shadow of death death it self is a blessing and in the number of his Mercies But the Afternoon shadows break out upon us in our second part of the Text. And as afternoon shadowes do these in our Text do also they grow greater and greater upon us till they end in night in everlasting night The sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed Now of shadowes it is appliably said Vmbrae non sunt tenebrae sed densior lux shadowes are not utter darknesse but a thicker light shadowes are thus much nearer to the nature of light then darknesse is that shadowes presume light which darknesse doth not shadowes could not be except there were light The first shadowes in this dark part of our Text have thus much light in them that it is but the sinner onely the sinner that is accursed The Object of Gods malediction is not man but sinfull man If God make a man sinne God curses the man but if sinne make God curse God curses but the sinne Non talem Deum tuum putes qualis nec tu debes esse Never propose to thy self such a God as thou wert not bound to imitate Thou mistakest God if thou make him to be any such thing or make him to do any such thing as thou in thy proportion shouldst not be or shouldst not do And shouldst thou curse any man that had never offended never transgrest never trespast thee Can God have done so Imagine God as the Poet saith Ludere in humanis to play but a game at Chesse with this world to sport himself with making little things great and great things nothing Imagine God to be but at play with us but a gamester yet will a gamester curse before he be in danger of losing any thing Will God curse man before man have sinned In the Law there are denuntiations of curses enjoyned and multiplied There is maledictus upon maledictus but it is maledictus homo cursed be the man He was not curst by God before he was a man nor curst by God because he was a man but if that man commit Idolatry Adultery Incest Beastiality Bribery Calumny as the sinnes are reckoned there there he meets a particular curse upon his particular sinne The book of Life is but names written in Heaven all the Book of Death that is is but that in the Prophet when names are written in the Earth But whose names are written in the Earth there They that depart from thee shall be written in the Earth They shall be when they depart from thee For saith he They have forsaken the Lord the Fountain of Living water They did not that because their names were written in the Earth but they were written there because they did that Our Saviour Christ came hither to do all his Fathers will and he returned cheerfully to his Father again as though he had done all when he had taken away the sinnes of the world by dying for all sinnes and all sinners But if there were an Hospitall of miserable men that lay under the reprobation and malediction of Gods decree and not for sinne the blood of that Lamb is not sprinkled upon the Postills of that doore Forgive me O Lord O Lord forgive
bed that he in the name of the dead man might answer to all the questions usually asked in administring of Baptisme But this was a corrupt effect of pure and sincere doctrine which doctrine is That Baptisme is so necessary as that God hath placed no other ordinary scale nor conveyance of his graces in his Church to them that have not received that then buptisme And they who doe not provide duly for the Baptisme of their children if their children die have a heavier accompt to make to God for that child then if they had not provided a Nurse and suffered the child to starve God can preserve the child without Milke and he can save the child without a sacrament but as that mother that throwes out and forsakes her child in the field or wood is guilty before God of the Temporall murder of that child though the child die not so are those parents of a spirituall murder if their children by their fault die unbaptized though God preserve that child out of his abundant and miraculous mercy from spirituall destruction When the custome of the Christian Church was to baptize but twice in the year at Easter and Whiâ—sontide for the greater solemnity of that action yea when that ill custome was grown as it was even in the Primitive Church that upon an opinion that all sins were absolutely forgiven in Baptisme Men did defer their Baptisme till their death-bed as we see the Ecclesiasticall histories full of such examples even in some of the Christian Emperors and according to this ill custome we see Tertullian chides away young children for comming so soon to Baptisme quid festinat innocens aetas ad remâ—ssionem peccatorum why should this child that as yet hath done no sinne make such hast to be washed from sinnce which opinion had got so much strength that Saint Basil was faine to oppose it in the Easterne Church and both the Gregories Nazianzen and Nissen and Saint Ambrose in the Western yet in the height of both their customes of seldome baptizing and of late baptizing the case of insants that might be in danger of dying without baptisme was ever excepted So that none of those old customes though some of them were extreamly ill went ever so farre as to an opinion that it were all one whether the child were baptized or no. I speake not this as though the state of children that died without baptisme were desperate God forbid for who shall shorten the Arme of the Lord God is able to raine downe Manna and Quailes into the soules of these children though negligent parents turne them out into the wildernesse and put God to that extraordinary work They may have Manna and Quailes but they have not the Milke and Hony of the Land of promise They may have salvation from God but they have not those graces so sealed and so testified to them as God hath promised they should be in his Sacraments When God in spirituall offences makes Inquisition of bloud he proceeds not as Man proceeds for we till there appear a Man to be dead never inquire who killed him but in the spirituall Murder of an unbaptized child though there be no child spiritually dead though Gods mercy have preserved the child from that yet God imputes this as such a murder to them who endangered the child as farre as they could by neglecting his ordinance of baptisme This is then the necessity of this Sacrament not absolutely necessary but necessary by Gods ordinary institution and as it is always necessary so is it always certaine whosoever is baptized according to Christs institution receives the Sacrament of baptisme and the truth is always infallibly annexed with the signe Nec fieri potest visio hominis ut non sit Sacramentum quod figurat Though the wicked may feele no working by the Sacrament yet the Sacrament doth offer and present grace as well to the unworthy as to the worthy Receiver Nec fallaciter promittit The wicked may be a cause that the Sacrament shall doe them no good but that the Sacrament become no Sacrament or that God should be false in his promises and offer no grace where he pretends to offer it this the wicked cannot doe baptisme doth truly and without collusion offer grace to all and nothing but baptisme by an ordinary institution and as an ordinary meanes doth so for when baptisme is called a figure yet both that figure is said there to save us The figure that now saveth us baptisme and it is a figure of the Arke it hath relation to it to that Arke which did save the world when it is called a figure So it may be a figure but if we speake of reall salvation by it baptisme is more then a figure Now as our putting on of Christ was double by faith and by sanctification so by this Sacrament also we are baptized in Nomen Christi into the Name of Christ and in mortem Christi into the death of Christ we are not therefore baptized into his Name because names are imposed upon us in our baptisme for that was not always permanently accustomed in the Christian Church to give a name at baptisme To men who were of years and well known in the world already by their nameâ— if they were converted to the Christian faith the Church did not use to give new names at their baptisme neither to Children alwayes but sometimes as an indifferent thing they left them to the custome of that country or of that family from which they were derived When Saint Augustine sayes that he came to Milan to S. Ambrose at that time quâ— dari nomina oportuit when Names were to be given it is true that he speaks of a time when Baptisme was to be administred but that phrase of Giving of Names was not a receiving of Names at Baptisme for neither Ambrose nor Augustine received any new name at their Baptisme but it was a giving up of their Names a Registring a Matriculating of their Names in the book of the profession of the Christian Religion and a publique declaration of that profession To be baptized therefore into the name of Christ is to be translated into his Family by this spirituall adoption in which adoption when it was legall as they that were adopted had also the name of the family into which they were adopted as of octavius Octavianus and the rest so are we so baptized into his name that we are of Christus Christiani and therefore to become truly Christians to live Christianly this is truly to be baptized into his name No other name is given under heaven whereby we can be saved nor must any other name accompany the name of God in our Baptisme When therefore they teach in the Romane Church that it is a good Baptisme which is administred in this forme I baptize thee in the name of the Father and Sonne and holy Ghost and the virgin Mary if he which baptizes so
shall grace grow with this infant to the lifes end And both we and it shall not onely put on Christ as a garment but we shall put on his person and we shall stand before his Father with the confidence and assurance of bearing his person and the dignity of his innocence SERMON VIII Preached at Essex house at the Churching of the Lady Doncaster CANT 5. 3. I have washed my feet how shall I defile them ALL things desire to goe to their owne place and that 's but the effect of Nature But if Man desires to goe the right way that 's an effect of grace and of Religion A stone will fall to the bottome naturally and a flame will goe upwards naturally but a stone cares not whether it fall through cleane water or through Mud a flame cares not whether it passe through pure aire or cloudy but a Christian whose end is heaven will put himselfe into a faire way towards it and according to this measure be pure as his father in heaven is pure That which is our end salvation we use to expresse in Schooles by these two termes we call it visionem Dei the sight of God and we call it unionem an union with God we shall see God and we shall be united to God for our seeing we shall see him Sicuti est as he is which we cannot expresse till we see him Cognoscam ut cognitus I shall know as I am known which is a knowledge reserved for that Schoole and a degree for that Commencement and not to be had before Moses obtained a sight of God here that he might see Posterior a Gods hinder parts and if we consider God in posterioribus in his later works in the fulfilling of all his Prophecies concerning our Redemption how he hath accomplished in novissimis in the later times all that which he spake ab initio by the mouth of his Prophets which have been since the world began if we see God in them it is a great beame of that visio beatifica that beautificall sight of God in heaven for herein we see the whole way of our salvation to be in Christ Iesus all promise all performance all prophecy all history concern us in and by him And then for that union with God which is also our salvation as this vision is when we shall be so united as that we shall follow the Lambe whither soever he goes though that union be unexpressible here yet here there is an union with God which represents that too Such an union as that the Church of which we are parts is his spouse and that 's Eadem care the same body with him and such an union as that the obedient children of the Church are Idem spiritus cum Dominâ— we are the same body and the same spirit So united as that by being sowed in the visible Church we are Semen Dei the seed of God and by growing up there in godlinesse and holinesse we are participes Divinae naturae partakers of the divine Nature it selfe Now these two unions which represent our eternall union with God that is the union of the Church to him and the union of every good soule in the Church to him is the subject of this Song of songs this heavenly Poeme of Solomons and our baptisme at our entrance into this world is a Seale of this union our mariage in the passage of this world is a Sacrament of this union and that which seems to be our dissolution our death is the strongest â—and of this union when we are so united as nothing can disunite us more Now for uniting things in this world we are always put to imploy baser and courser stuffe to unite them together then they themselves If we lay Marble upon Marble how well soever we polish the Marble yet we must unite them with morter If we unite riches to riches we temper a morter for the most part of our owne covetouâ—nesse and the losse and opressing of some other Men if we unite honours to honours titles to titles we temper a morter for the most part of our owne Ambition and the supplanting or excluding of some other Men But in the uniting of a Christian soule to Christ Jesus here is no morter all of one Nature Nothing but spirit and spirit and spirit the soule of Man to the Lord Jesus by the holy Ghost Worldly unions have some corrupt foulnesses in them but for this spirituall union Lavi pedes I have washed my feet how shall I defile them Which words though in the rigor of the coherence and connexion of this Scripture they imply a delay in the spouse of Christ and so in every soule too that when Christ called here the soule was not ready to come forth to him but made her excuses that she had put off her coate and was loath to rise to put it on that she had washed her feet and was loath to rise and foule them againe yet because the excuse it selfe if it were an excuse hath a piety and a Religious care in it the Fathers for the most part pretermit that weaknesse that produced an excuse and consider in their expositions the care that the soule had not to defile her selfe againe being once washed Saint Gregory says that the soule had laid off Omnia externa quae non tam ornant quà m â—nerant all outward ornaments which are rather encumbrances then ornaments And Saint Ambrose says Pedes lavi dum egrederer de corporis contubernio when I departed from the confederation of my body and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that I wash'd my feet Quomodâ— in tenebrâ—sum carcerem reverterer And 〈◊〉 I returne into that darke and durty prison againe the love of mine owne body◠〈◊〉 suing therefore their pious acceptation of these words we have in them two festivalls of the soule a Resurrection and an ascension of it This soule hath raised it selfe from the durt and Mud of this world Lavit pedes she hath washed her feet and then she hath ascended to a resolution of keeping herselfe in that state Quomâ—do inquinabâ—eos how shall I defile them Call these two parts a Gratulation of the soule and an Indignation first she congratulates with her good and gratious God that she is cleansed from worldly corruptions Lavi pedes I have washed my feetâ— and then she conceives a Religious scorne and indignation of setting her foot in the same foule way againe Quomâ—do how how is it possible that I should descend to so low a disposition as to foule them againe This Resurrection then of the soule and gratâ—lation this Ascension of the soul Indignation will be our two parts And in the first we shal stop a little upon every one of these five branches There is ablutiâ— necessaria There is a washing that is necessary to all for we enter in foulenesse and corruption into this world and that we have in Baptisme for Originall sinne Secondly
reuniting of body and soule in a blessed Resurrection Ite Surgite depart so as you may desire to rise Depart with an In manus tuas and with a Veni Domiâ—e Iesu with a willing surrendring of your soules and a cheerfull meeting of the Lord Jesus For else all hope of profit and permanent Rest is lost for as Saint Hierome interprets these very words Here we are taught that there is no rest in this life Sed quasiâ—â—â— mortuis resurgentes ad sublime tendere ambulare post Daminum Iesum we depart when we depart from sin and we rise when we raise our selves to a conformity with Christ And not onely after his example but after his person that is to hasten thither whither he is gone to prepare us a Room For this Rest in the Text though it may be understood of the Land of Promise and of the Church and of the Arke and of the Sabbath for if we had time to pursue them we might make good use of all these acceptations yet we accept Chrysostâ—me's acceptation best Requies est ipse Christus our rest is Christ himselfe Not onely that rest that is in Christ peace of conscience in him but that Rest that Christ is in eternall rest in his kingdome There remaineth a Rest to the people of God besides that inchoation of Rest which the godly have here there remains a fuller Rest. Iesus is entred into his Rest sayes the Apostle there his Rest was not here in this world and Let us study to enter into thatâ— Rest sayes he for no other can accomplish our peace It is righteousnesse with God is recompence tribulation to them that trouble you and to you which are troubled Rest but when in this world no when the Lord Iesus shall sheâ— himselfe from heaven with his mighty Angels then comes your Rest for for the grave the body lies still but it is not a Rest because it is not sensible of that lying still In heaven the body shall rest rest in the sense of that glory This Rest then is not here Not onely not Here at this Here was taken in the first interpretation Here in the Earth but not Here in the second interpretation not in Repentance it selfe for all the Rest of this life even the spirituall Rest is rather a Truce then a peace rather a Cessation then an end of the war For when these words I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians Every one shall fight against his brother and every one against his neighbour City against City and Kingdome against Kingdome may be interpreted and are so interpreted of the time of the Gospell of Christ Jesus when Christ himselfe says Nolite putare quod venerim mittere pacem in terrâ Never think that I came to settle peace or Rest in this world Nay when Christ sayes None of them that were bidden shall come to his supper and that may be verified of any Congregation none of us that are call'd now shall come to that Rest a Man may be at a security in an opinion of Rest and be far from it A man may be neerer Rest in a troubled Conscience then in a secure Here we have often Resurrections that is purposes to depart from sin but they are such Resurrections as were at the time of Christs Resurrection when as the strongest opinion is Resurrexerunt iterum morituri Many of the dead rose but they died again we rise from our sins here but here we fall again Monumenta aperta sunt it is Saint Hierome's note The graves were opened presently upon Christs death but yet the bodies did not arise till Christs Resurrection The godly have an opening of their graves they see some light some of their weight some of their Earth is taken from them but a Resurrection to enter into the City to follow the Lamb to come into an established security that they have not till they be united to Christ in heaven Here we are still subject to relapses and to looking back Memento uxoris Lâ—t Ipsa in loco manet transeuntes monet Shee is fixed to a place that she might settle those that are not fix'd Vt quid in statuam salis conversa si non homines ut sapiant condiat to teach us the danger of looking back till we be fix'd she is fix'd When the Prophetâ— Eliahâ— was at the dore of Desperation an Angell touch'd him and said Vp and eat and there was bread and water provided and he did eat but he slept again and we have some of these excitations and we come and eat and drink even the body and bloud of Christ but we sleep again we doe not perfect the work Our Rest Here then is never without a fear of losing it This is our best state To fear leâ—t at any time by forsaking the promise of entring into his rest we should seem to be depriv'd The Apostle disputes not neither doe I whether we can be depriv'd or no but he assures us that we may fall back so far as that to the Church and to our own Consciences we may seem to be depriv'd and that 's argument enough that here is no Rest. To end all though there be no Rest in all this world no not in our sanctification here yet this being a Consolation there must be rest some where And it is In superna Civitate unde amicus non exit quâ inimicus non intrat In that City in that Hierusalem where there shall never enter any man whom we doe not love nor any goe from us whom we doe love Which though we have not yet yet we shall have for upon those words because I live ye shall live also Saint Augustine sayes that because his Resurrection was to follow so soon Christ takes the present word because I doe live But because their life was not to be had here he says Vivetis you shall live in heaven not Vivitis for here we doe not live So as in Adam we all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive says the Apostle All our deaths are here present now now we dy our quickning is reserv'd for heaven that 's future And therefore let us attend that Rest as patiently as we doe the things of this world and not doubt of it therefore because we see it not yet even in this world we consider invisible things more then visible Vidimus pelagus non autem mercedem The Merchant sees the tempestuous Sea when he does not see the commodities which he goes for Videmus terram non autem messem The Husbandman sees the Earth and his labour when he sees no harvest and for these hopes that there will be a gain to the Merchant and a harvest to the Labourer Naturae fidimus we rely upon Creatures for our Resurrection fide usâ—orem habemus Coranatum Not Nature not Sea
there is but one place of this booke of Iob cited at all To the Corinthians the Apostle makes use of those words in Iob God taketh the wise in their owne craft And more then this one place is not I thinke cited out of this booke of Iob in the new Testament But the authority of Iob is established in another place you have heard of the patience of Iob and you have seen the end of the Lord says Saint Iames. As you have seen this so you have heard that seen and heard one way out of the Scripture you have hard that out of the booke of Iob you have seen this out of the Gospell And further then this there is no naming of Iobs person or his booke in the new Testament Saint Hierome confesses that both the Greeke and Latine Copies of this booke were so defective in his time that seven or eight hundred verses of the originall were wanting in the booke And for the originall it selfe he says Obliquus totus liber fertur lubricus it is an uncertaine and slippery book But this is onely for the sense of some places of the book And that made the authority of this book to be longer suspended in the Church and oftner called into question by particular men then any other book of the Bible But in those who have for many ages received this book for Canonicall there is an unanime acknowledgement at least tacitely that this peece of it this text When after my skin wormes shall destroy my body yet in my flesh I shall see God does establish the Resurrection Divide the expositors into three branches for so the world will needs divide them The first the Roman Church will call theirs though they have no other title to them but that they received the same translation that they doe And all they use this text for the resurrection Verba viri in gentilitate positi erubescamus It is a shame for us who have the word of God it selfe which Iob had not and have had such a commentary such an exposition upon al the former word of God as the reall and actuall and visible resurrection of Christ himselfe Erubescamus verba viri in gentilitate positi let us be ashamed and confounded if Iob a person that lived not within the light of the covenant saw the resurrection more clearly and professed it more constantly then we doe And as this Gregory of Rome so Gregory Nyssen understood Iob too For he considers Iobs case thus God promised Iob twofold of all that he had lost And in his sheep and camels and oxen and asses which were utterly destroyed and brought to nothing God performes it punctually he had all in a double proportion But Iob had seven sonnes and three daughters before and God gives him but seven sonnes and three daughters againe And yet Iob had twofold of these too for Postnati cum prioribus numerantur quia omnes deo vivunt Those which were gone and those which were new given lived all one life because they lived all in God Necquicquam aliud est mors nisi viti ositatis expiatio Death is nothing else but a devesting of those defects which made us lesse fit for God And therefore agreeably to this purpose says Saint Cyprian Scimus non amitti sed praemitti thy dead are not lost but lent Non recedere sed praecedere They are not gone into any other wombe then we shall follow them into nec acquirendae atrae vestes pro iis qui albis induuntur neither should we put on blacks for them that are clothed in white nor mourne for them that are entred into their Masters joy We can enlarge our selfes no farther in this consideration of the first branch of expositors but that all the ancients tooke occasion from this text to argue for the resurrection Take into your Consideration the other two branches of moderne expositors whom others sometimes contumeliously and themselves sometimes perversly have call'd Lutherans and Calvinists and you may know that in the first ranke Osiander and with him all his interpret these words so And in the other ranke Tremellius and Pellicanus heretofore Polanus lately and Piscator for the present All these and all the Translators into the vulgar tongues of all our neighbours of Europe do all establish the doctrine of the Resurrection by these words this place of Iob. And therefore though one and truly for any thing I know but one though one to whom we all owe much for the interpretation of the Scriptures do think that Iob intends no other resurrection in this place but that when he shall be reduc'd to the miserablest estate that can bee in this life still he will look upon God and trust in him for his restitution and reparation in this life let us with the whole Christian Church embrace and magnifie this Holy and Heroicall Spirit of Iob Scio says he I know it which is more in him then the Credo is in us more to know it then in that state then to believe it now after it hath been so evidently declar'd not onely to be a certain truth but to be an article of faith Scio Redemptorem says he I know not onely a Creator but a Redeemer And Redemptorem meum My Redeemer which implies a confidence and a personall application of that Redemption to himself Scio vivere says he I know that he lives I know that hee begunne not in his Incarnation I know he ended not in his death but it always was and is now and shall for ever be true Vivit that he lives still And then Scio venturum says he too I know hee shall stand at the last day to Judge me and all the world And after that and after my skinne and body is destroyed by worms yet in my flesh I shall see God And so have you as much as we proposed for our first part That the Jews do now that they always did believe a Resurrection That as naturall men and by naturall reason they might know it both in the possibility of the thing and in the purpose of God that they had better helpes then naturall reason for they had divers places of their Scripture and that this place of Scripture which is our text hath evermore been received for a proof of the Resurrection Proceed we now to those particulars which constitute our second part such instructions concerning the Resurrection as arise out of these words Though after my skinne worms destroy my body yet in my flesh I shall see God In this second part the first thing that was propos'd was That the Saints of God are not priviledg'd from this which fell upon Iob This Death this dissolution after death Upon the Morte morieris that double death interminated by God upon Adam there is a Non obstante Revertere turn to God and thou shalt not dy the death not the second
death But upon that part of the sentence In pulverem reverteris To dust thou shalt return there is no Non obstante though thou turn to God thou must turn into the grave for hee that redeem'd thee from the other death redeem'd not himself from this Carry this consideration to the last minute of the world when we that remain shall bee caught up in the clouds yet even that last fire may be our fever those clouds our winding sheets that rapture our dissolution and so with Saint Augustine most of the ancients most of the latter men think that there shall be a sudden dissolution of body and soul which is death and a sudden re-uniting of both which is resurrection in that instant Quis Homeo is Davids question What man is he that liveth and shall not see death Let us adde Quis Deoram What god is he amongst the Gentiles that hath not seen death Which of their three hundred Iupiters which of their thousands of other gods have not seen death Mortibus morjuntur we may adde to that double death in Gods mouth another death The gods of the Gentiles have dyed thrice In body in soul and in fame for though they have been glorified with a Deification nor one of all those old gods is at this day worshipt in any part of the world but all those temporary and transitory Gods are worn out and dead in all senses Those gods who were but men fall under Davids question Quis Home And that man who was truly God fals under it too Christ Jesus He saw death though he saw not the death of this text Corruption And if we consider the effusion of his precious blood the contusion of his sacred flesh the extention of those sinews and ligaments which tyed heaven and earth together in a reconciliation the departing of that Intelligence from that sphear of that high Priest from that Temple of that Dove from that Arke of that soul from that body that dissolution which as an ordinary man he should have had in the grave but that the decree of God declar'd in the infallibility of the manifold prophesies preserv'd him from it had been but a slumber in respect of these tortures which he did suffer The Godhead staid with him in the grave and so he did not corrupt but though our souls be gone up to God our bodies shall Corruption in the skin says Iob In the outward beauty These be the Records of velim these be the parchmins the endictments and the evidences that shall condemn many of us at the last day our own skins we have the book of God the Law written in our own hearts we have the image of God imprinted in our own souls wee have the character and seal of God stamped in us in our baptism and all this is bound up in this velim in this parchmin in this skin of ours and we neglect book and image and character and feal and all for the covering It is not a clear case if we consider the originall words properly That Iesabel did paint and yet all translators and expositors have taken a just occasion out of the ambiguity of those words to cry down that abomination of painting It is not a clear case if we consider the propriety of the words That Absolon was hanged by the hair of the head and yet the Fathers and others have made use of that indifferency and verisimilitude to explode that abomination of cherishing and curling haire to the enveagling and ensnaring and entangling of others Iudicium patietur aeternum says Saint Hierome Thou art guilty of a murder though no body die Quia vinum attulisti si faisset qui bibisset Thou hast poyson'd a cup if any would drink thou hast prepar'd a tentation if any would swallow it Tertullian thought he had done enough when he had writ his book De Habitu muliâ—bri against the excesse of women in clothes but he was fain to adde another with more vehemence De cultu foeminarum that went beyond their clothes to their skin And he concludes Illud ambitionis crimen there 's vain-glory in their excesse of clothes but Hoc prostitutionis there 's prostitution in drawing the eye to the skin Pliny says that when their thin silke stuffes were first invented at Rome Excogitatum ad faeminas denudandas It was but an invention that women might go naked in clothes for their skins might bee seen through those clothes those thinne stuffes Our women are not so carefull but they expose their nakednesse professedly and paint it to cast bird-lime for the passengers eye Beloved good dyet makes the best Complexion and a good Conscience is a continuall feast A cheerfull heart makes the best blood and peace with God is the true cheerfulnesse of heart Thy Saviour neglected his skin so much as that at last hee scarse had any all was torn with the whips and scourges and thy skin shall come to that absolute corruption as that though a hundred years after thou art buryed one may find thy bones and say this was a tall man this was a strong man yet we shall soon be past saying upon any relique of thy skinne This was a fair man Corruption seises the skinne all outward beauty quickly and so it does the body the whole frame and constitution which is another consideration After my skinne my Body If the whole body were an eye or an ear where were the body says Saint Paul but when of the whole body there is neither eye nor ear nor any member left where is the body And what should an eye do there where there is nothing to be seen but loathsomnesse or a nose there where there is nothing to be smelt but putrefaction or an ear where in the grave they doe not praise God Doth not that body that boasted but yesterday of that priviledge above all creatures that it onely could goe upright lie to day as flat upon the earth as the body of a horse or of a dogge And doth it not to morrow lose his other priviledge of looking up to heaven Is it not farther remov'd from the eye of heaven the Sunne then any dogge or horse by being cover'd with the earth which they are not Painters have presented to us with some horrour the sâ—cleton the frame of the bones of a mans body but the state of a body in the dissolution of the grave no pencil can present to us Between that excrementall jelly that thy body is made of at first and that jelly which thy body dissolves to at last there is not so noysome so putrid a thing in nature This skinne this outward beauty this body this whole constitution must be destroy'd says Iobâ— in the next place The word is well chosen by which all this is expressed in this text Nakaph which is a word of as heavy a signification to expresse an utter abolition and annihilation as perchance can be
nor that melancholy that dampes me in a jealousie and suspicion a diffidence and distrust in God The Devill had no hand in composing me in my constitution But the Devill knows which of these govern and prevail in me and ministers such tentations as are most acceptable to me and this is Scandalum amoris the scandall of Love So have ye then the Name and Nature and extent of the Active Scandall against which the inhibition given in this Text is generall wee are forbidden to scandalize any person by any of these ways The scandall of Example or the scandall of Perswasion The scandall of Fear or the scandall of Love For there is scarce any so free to himselfe so entirely his own so independent upon others but that Example or Perswasion or Fear or Love may scandalize him that is Lead him into tentation and make him doe some things against his own mind Our Saviour Christ had spoken De pusillis of little children of weak persons easie to be scandalized before this Text and he returns ad pusillos to the consideration of little children persons easie to bee scandalized again this Text is not of them or not of them onely but of all say not thou of any man aetatem habet he is old enough let him look to himselfe he hath reason as other men have he hath had a learned and a religious education ill example can doe him no harm but give no ill example to any study the setling and the establishing of all for scarce is there any so strong but may bee shaked by some of these scandals Example Perswasion Fear or Love And hee that employs his gift of wit and Counsell to seduce and mislead men or his gift of Power and Authority to intimidate and affright men or his gift of other graces lovelinesse of person agreeablenesse of Conversation powerfulnesse of speech to ensnare and entangle men by any of these scandals may draw others into perdition but he falls also with them and shall not be left out by God in the punishments inflicted upon them that fall by his occasion The Commandement is generall scandalize none scarce any but may bee overthrown by some of these ways And then the Apostles practise was generall too we give no occasion of offence in any thing As he requires that wee should eat and drinke to the glory of God so hee would have us study to avoid scandalizing of others even in our eating and drinking If meat make my brother to offend offend either in eating against his own conscience or offend in an uncharitable mis-interpretation of my eating In aeternum says the Apostle there I will eat no flesh while the world standeth Nor destroy my brother with my meat for whom Christ dyed That 's the Apostles tendernesse in things He would give no occasion of offence in any thing And it is as generall in contemplation of persons he would have no offence given neither to the Iew nor to the Grecian nor to the Church of God He was as carefull not to scandalize not to give just occasion of offence to Jew not Gentile as not to the Church of God so must we be towards them of a superstitions religion amongst us as carefull as towards one another not to give any scandall any just cause of offence But what is to be called a just cause of offence towards those men Good ends and good ways plain and direct and manifest proceedings these can be called no scandall no just cause of offence to Jew nor Gentile to Turk nor Papist nor does Saint Paul intend that we should forbear essentiall and necessary things for fear of displeasing perverse and peevish men To maintain the doctrinall truths of our religion by conferences by disputations by writing by preaching to avow and to prove our religion to be the same that Christ Jesus and his Apostles proposed at beginning the same that the generall Councels established after the same that the blessed Fathers of those times unanimely and dogmatically delivered the same that those glorious Martyrs quickned by their death and carryed over all the world in the rivers in the seas of their blood to avow our religion by writing and preaching to be the same religion an then to preserve and protect that religion which God hath put into our hearts by all such meanes as hee hath put into our hands in the due execution of just Laws this is no scandall no just cause of offence to Jew not Gentile Turke nor Papists But when leaving fundamentall things and necessary truths we wrangle uncharitably about Collaterall impertinencies when wee will refuse to doe such things as conduce to the exaltation of Devotion or to the order and peace of the Church not for any harme in the things but onely therefore because the Papists doe them when because they kneel in the worship of the bread in the Sacrament wee will not kneel in Thanksgiving to God for the Sacrament when because they pray to Saints we will reproach the Saints or not name the Saints when because they abuse the Crosse we will abhor the Crosse This is that that Saint Paul protests against and in that protestation Catechizes us that as he would give no just occasion of offence to the true Church of God so neither would hee doe it to a false or infirme Church He would not scandalize the true Church of God by any modifications any inclinations towards the false nor hee would not scandalize the false and infirme Church by refusing to communicate with them in the practise of such things as might exalt our Devotion and did not endanger nor shake any foundation of religion which was the wisdome of our Church in the beginning of the Reformation when the Injuctions of our Princes forbad us to call one another by the odious names of Papist or Papisticall Heretique or Schismatique or Sacramentary or such convitions as the word of the Injunction is and reprâ—achfull names but cleaving always intirely and inseparably to the fundamentall truths of our own religion as farre as it is possible we should live peaceably with all men Saint Paul would give no offence to the true Church of God he would not prevaricate nor to the Jew nor Gentile neither he would not exasperate And this may bee enough to have been said of the active scandallâ— and passe we now in our order to the Passive It is no wonder to see them who put all the world into differences the Jesuits to differ sometimes amongst themselves And therefore though the Jesuit Maldonat say of this Text That Christ did not here intend to warne or to arm his Disciples against scandals as scandals occasions of sin but onely from offering injury to one another That scandall in this text is nothing but wrong yet another Jesuit Vincemius Rhegius is not onely of another opinion himselfe but thinks that opinion as he calls it absurd It is absurd says he
is his word in his servants mouth come to that Conscience now nor make him mis-interpret that which he does hear or call that passion in the Preacher in which the Preacher is but sagittarius Dei the deliverer of Gods arrows for Gods arrows are sagitta Compunctionis arrows that draw bloud from the eyes Tears of repentance from Mary Magdalen and from Peter And when from thee There is a probatum est in S. Aug. Sagittaveras cor meum Thou hast shot at my heart and how wrought that To the withdrawing of his tongue à nundinis loquacitatis from that market in which I sold my self for S. Aug. at that time taught Rhetorique to turn the stream of his eloquence and all his other good parts upon the service of God in his Church You may have read or heard that answer of a Generall who was threatned with that danger that his enemies arrows were so many as that they would cover the Sun from him In umbra pugnabimus All the better says he for then we shall fight in the shadow Consider all the arrows of tribulation even of tentation to be directed by the hand of God and never doubt to fight it out with God to lay violent hands upon heaven to wrastle with God for a blessing to charge and presse God upon his contracts and promises for in umbra pugnabis though the clouds of these arrows may hide all suns of worldly comforts from thee yet thou art still under the shadow of his wings Nay thou art still for all this shadow in the light of his countenance To which purpose there is an excellent use of this Metaphor of arrows Hâ—bak 3. 11. where it is said that Gods servants shall have the light of his arrows and the â—â—ining of his glittering spear that is the light of his presence in all the instruments and actions of his corrections To end all and to dismisse you with such a re-collection as you may carry away with you literally primarily this text concerns David He by tentations to sin by tribulations for sin by comminations and increpations upon sin was bodily and ghostly become a quiver of arrows of all sorts they stook and stook fast and stook full in him in all him The Psalm hath a retrospect too it looks back to Adam and to every particular man in his loines and so Davids case is our case and all these arrowes stick in all us But the Psalm and the text hath also a prospect and hath a propheticall relation from David to our Saviour Christ Jesus And of him and of the multiplicity of these arrows upon him in the exinanition and evacuation of himself in this world for us have many of the Ancients interpreted these words literally and as in their first and primary signification Turne we therefore to him before we goe and he shall return home with us How our first part of this text is applyable to him that our prayers to God for ease in afflictions may be grounded upon reasons out of the sense of those afflictions Saint Basil tels us that Christ therefore prays to his Father now in heaven to spare mankinde because man had suffered so much and drunk so deep of the bitter cup of his anger in his person and passion before It is an avoidable plea from Christ in heaven for us Spare them O Lord in themselves since thou didst not spare them in me And how far he was from sparing thee we see in all those severall weights which have aggravated his hand and these arrowes upon us If they be heavy upon us much more was their weight upon thee every dram upon us was a Talent upon thee Non delâ—r sicut dolor tuus take Rachel weeping for her children Mary weeping for her brother Lazarus Hezekiah for his health Peter for his sins Non est delor sicut dolor â—uus The arrows that were shot at thee were Alienae Afflictions that belonged to others and did not onely come from others as ours doe but they were alienae so as that they should have fallen upon others And all that should have fallen upon all others were shot at thee and lighted upon thee Lord though we be not capable of sustaining that part this passion for others give us that which we may receive Compassion with others They were veloces these arrows met swiftly upon thee from the sin of Adam that induced death to the sin of the last man that shall not sleep but be changed when thy hour came they came all upon thee in that hour Lord put this swiftnesse into our fins that in this one minute in which our eyes are open towards thee and thine eares towards us our sins all our sins even from the impertinent frowardnesse of our childhood to the unsufferable frowardnesse of our age may meet in our present confessions and repentances and never appear more They were as ours are too Invisibiles Those arrows which fell upon thee were so invisible so undiscernible as that to this day thy Church thy School cannot see what kinde of arrow thou tookest into thy soul what kinde of affliction it was that made thy soul heavy unto death or dissolved thee into a gelly of blood in thine agony Be thou O Lord a Father of Lights unto us in all our ways and works of darkenes manifest unto us whatsoever is necessary for us to know be a light of understanding and grace before and a light of comfort and mercy after any â—in hath benighted us These arrows were as ours are also plures plurall many infinite they were the sins of some that shall never thank thee never know that thou borest their sins never know that they had any such sins to bee horn Lord teach us to number thy corrections upon us so as still to see thy torments suffered for us and our own sins to be infinitely more that occasioned those torments then those corrections that thou layst upon us Thine arrows stook and stook fast in thee the weight of thy torments thou wouldest not cast off nor lessen when at thy execution they offered thee that stupesying drink which was the civil charity of those times to condemned persons to give them an easier passage in the agonies of death thou wouldest not tast of that cup of ease Deliver us O Lord in all our tribulations from turning to the miserable comforters of this world or from wishing or accepting any other deliverance then may improve and make better our Resurrection These arrows were in thee in all thee from thy Head torn with thorns to thy feet pierced with nayls and in thy soul so as we know not how so as to extorta Si possibile If it be possible let this cup passe and an Vt quid dereliquisti My God my God why half thou forsaken me Lord whilest we remain entire here in body and soul make us and receive us an entire sacrifice to
no persecutor could ever invent a sicknesse or a way to inflict a sicknesse upon a condemned man To a galley he can send him and to the gallows and command execution that hour but to a quartane fever or to a gâ—ut hee cannot condemn him In poverty I lack but other things In banishment I lack but other men But in sicknesse I lack my self And as the greatest misery of war is when our own Country is made the seat of the war so is it of affliction when mine own Body is made the subject thereof How shall I put a just value upon Gods great blessings of Wine and Oyle and Milke and Honey when my cast is gone or of Liberty when the gout fetters my feet The King may release me and say Let him goe whither he will but God says He shall not goe till I will God hath wrapped up all misery in that condemnation Morte morietur That the sinner shall die twice But if the second death did not follow the first death were an ease and a blessing in many sicknesses And no sicknesse can be worse then that which is intended here for it is all over Non sanitas no soundnesse no health in any part This consideration arises not onely from the Physicians Rule that the best state of Mans body is but a Neutrality neither well nor ill but Nulla sanitas a state of true and exquisit health say they no man hath But not onely out of this strictnesse of Art but out of an acknowledgment of Nature we must say sanitas hujus vitae bâ—ne intelligentibus sanitas non est It is but our mistaking when we call any thing Health But why so fames naturalis morbus est Hunger is a sicknesse And that 's naturally in us all Medicamentum famis cibus potus sitis fatigationis somnus when I eate I doe but take Physique for Hunger and for thirst when I drink and so is sleep my physique for wearinesse Detrahe medicamentum interficient for beare but these Physiques and these diseases Hunger and thirst and wearinesse will kill thee And as this sickness is upon us all and so non sanitas there is no Health in none of us so it is upon us all at all times and so Non sanitas there is never any soundness in us for saemper deficimus we are Borne in a Consumption and as little as we are then we grow less from that time Vita cursus ad mortem Before we can craule we runne to meet death urgemur ownes pari passu Though some are cast forward to death by the use which others have of their ruine and so throw them through Discontents into desperate enterprises and some are drawn forward to death by false Markes which they have set up to their own Ambitions and some are spurred forward to death by sharp Diseases contracted by their own intemperance and licentiousness and some are whip'd forward to death by the Miseries and penâ—ries of this life take away all these accidentall furtherances to death this drawing and driving and spurring and whipping pari paessu urgemur omnes we bring all with us into the world that which carries us out of the world a naturall unnaturall consuming of that radicall vertue which sustaines our life Non sanitas there is no health in any so universall is sickness nor at any time in any so universall and so universall too as that not in any part of any man at any time As the King was but sick in his feet and yet it killed him It was but in his fact yet it flew up into his head it affected his head as our former translation observed it in their margin that the disease did not onely grow to a great height in the disease but to the highest parts of the body It was at first but in the feet but it was presently all over Iosiah the King was shot with an arrow at the battail of Megiddo One book that reports the story says he was carried out of the field alive dyed at Ierusalem and another that he was carried out of the field dead Deadly wounds deadly sicknesses spread themselvs all over so fast as that the holy Ghost in relating it makes it all one to tell the beginning and the end thereof If a man doe but prick a finger and binde it above that part so that the Spirits or that which they call the Balsamum of the body cannot descend by reason of that ligature to that part it will gaâ—grene And which is an argument and an evidence that mischiefes are more operative more insinuating more penetrative more diligent then Remedies against mischâ—efes are when the Spirits and Balsamum of the body cannot passe by that ligature to that wound yet the Gangrene will passe from that wound by that ligature to the body to the Heart and destroy In every part of the body death can finde a door or make a breach Mortall diseases breed in every part But when every part at once is diseased death does not bsie ge him but inhabit him In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble and the strong men shall how themselves and the grinders cease because they are few and those that look out at the windows he darkned when age of Gods making age grown by many years or age of the Devills making age grown by many sinnes hath spred an universall debility upon me that all sicknesses are in me have all lost their names as all simples have in Triacle I am sick of sicknesse and not of a Fever or any particular distemper then is the misery of this Text fallen upon me Non sanitas no health none at any time none in any part non in Carne not in my flesh not in my whole substance which is also another circumstance of exaltation in humane misery Take flesh in the largest extent and signification that may be as Moses calls God The God of the spirits of all flesh that is of the Beeing of all Creatures and take all these Creatures to be ours in that Donation Subjicite dominamini subdue and rule all Creatures yet there is no soundnesse in our flesh for all these Creatures are corrupted and become worse then they were to us by the sinne of Adam Bring flesh to a nearer signification to our own there was Caro juxta naturam and there is Caro juxta culpam That flesh which was naturall to man that which God gave man at first that had health and soundnesse in it but yet not such a degree of soundnesse as that it needed no more then it then had That had been naturally enough if that had been preserved to carry that flesh it selfe to heaven but even that flesh if it had not sinned though it had an Immortality in it self yet must have received a glorification in heaven as well though in another measure
24. Take heed what you heare WHether that which is recorded by this Evangelist in and about this Chapter be one intire Sermon of our Saviours preached at once or Notes taken and erected from severall Sermons of his we are no further curious to inquire then may serve to ground this Note that if it were one intire Sermon our Saviour preached methodically and eased his hearers with certain landmarks by the way with certain divisions certain transitions and callings upon them to observe the points as they arose For as he beginneth so Hearken Behold so he returneth to that refreshing of their considerations Et dixit illis He said unto them and Again he said unto them seaven or eight times in this Chapter so many times he calleth upon them to observe his passing from one point to another If they be but Notes of severall Sermons we onely note this from that That though a man understand not a whole Sermon or remember not a whole Sermon yet he doth well that layeth hold upon such Notes therein as may be appliable to his own case and his own conscience and conduce to his own edification The widow of Sarepta had no Palaces to build and therefore she went not out to survay Timber she had onely a poore cake to bake to save her own and her childs life and she went out to gather a few sticks two sticks as she told the Prophet Elias to do that work Every man that cometh to heare here every man that cometh to speak here cometh not to build Churches nor to build Common-wealths to speak onely of the duties of Kings and of Prelates and of Magistrates but that poore soul that gathers a stick or two for the baking of her own cake that layeth hold upon any Note for the rectifying of her own perverseness hath performed the commandment of this Text Take heed what ye heare He that is drowning will take hold of a bulrush and even that bulrush may stay him till stronger means of succour come If you would but feel that you are drowning in the whirlepooles of sinne and Gods judgements for sin and would lay hold upon the shallowest man be that man dignified with Gods Character the Character of Orders and lay hold upon the meanest part of his speach be that speach dignified with Gods Ordinance be it a Sermon even I and any thing that I say here and say thus spoken by a Minister of God in the house of God by the Ordinance of God might stop you till you heard better and you might be the fitter for more if you would but take heed now what you heard Take heed what you heare These words were spoken by Christ to his Apostles upon this occasion He had told them before That since there was a candle lighted in the world it must not be put under a bushell nor under a bed verse 21. That all that is hid should be made manifest That all that was kept secret should come abroad verse 22. That if any man had ears to heare he might heare verse 23. That is that the Mystery of salvation which had been hid from the world till now was now to be published to the world by their Preaching their Ministery their Apostleship And that therefore since he was now giving them their Commission and their instructions since all that they had in charge for the salvation of the whole world was onely that that he delivered unto them that which they heard from him they should take heed what they heard Take heed what you heare In which he layeth a double obligation upon them First All that you hear from me you are to preach to the world and therefore Take heed what you heare forget none of that And then you are to preach no more then you heare from me and therefore Take heed what you heare adde nothing to that Be not over-timorous so to prevaricate and forbear to preach that which you have truely heard from me But be not over-venturous neither to pretend a Commission when you have none and to preach that for my word which is your own passion or their purpose that set you up And when we shall have considered these words in this their first acceptation as they were spoken literally and personally to the Apostles we shall see also that by reflexion they are spoken to us the Ministers of the Gospell and not onely to us of the Reformation but to our Adversaries of the Romane perswasion too and therefore in that part we shall institute a short comparison whether they or we do best observe this commandment Take heed what you heare Preach all that preach nothing but that which you have received from me And having passed through these words in both those acceptations literally to the Apostles and by reflexion to all the Ministers of the Gospell the Apostles being at this time when these words were spoken but Hearers they are also by a fair accommodation appliable to you that are Hearers now Take heed what you heare And since God hath extended upon you that glorification that beatification as that he hath made you regale Sacerdotium a royall Priesthood since you have a Regality and a Priesthood imprinted upon you since by the prerogative which you have in the Gospell of the Kingdome of Christ Jesus and the co-inheritance which you have in that Kingdome with Christ Jesus himself you are Regum genus and Sacerdotum genus of kin to Kings and of kin to Priests be carefull of the honour of both those of whose honour you have the honour to participate and take heed what you heare of Kings take heed what you heare of Priests take heed of hearkning to seditious rumours which may violate the dignity of the State or of schismaticall rumours which may cast a cloud or aspersion upon the government of the Church Take heed what you hear First then as the words are spoken in their first acceptation literally to the Apostles the first obligation that Christ layes upon them is the publication of the whole Gospell Take heed what you heare for all that which you hear from me the world must heare from you for for all my death and resurrection the world lies still surrounded under sinne and Condemnation if this death and resurrection be not preached by you unto them Therefore the last words that ever our Saviour spoke unto them were a ratification of this Commission You shall be my witnesses both in Ierusalem and in Iudea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth God proceeds legally Publication before Judgement God shall condemn no man for not beleeving in Christ to whom Christ was never manifested 'T is true that God is said to have come to Eliah in that still small voice and not in the strong wind not in the Earth-quake not in the fire So God says Sibilabâ— populum meum I will but kisse I will but whisper for my
against us but yet with our ten thousand we may meet their twenty thousand if we have put on Christ and be armed with him and his holy patience and constancy but from whom may we derive an assurance that we shall have that armor that patience that constancy First a Christian must purpose to Doe and then in cases of necessity to suffer And give me leave to make this short note by the way no man shall suffer like a Christian that hath done nothing like a Christian God shall thanke no man for dying for him and his glory that contributed nothing to his glory in the actions of his life very hardly shall that man be a Martyr in a persecution that did not what he could to keep off persecution Thus then Iob comes first to the Si occiderit If he should kill me If Gods anger should proceed so far as so far it may proceed Let no man say in a sicknesse or in any temporall calamity this is the worst for a worse thing then that may fall five and thirty years sicknesse may fall upon thee and as it is in that Gospell a worse thing then that Distraction and desperation may fall upon thee let no Church no State in any distress say this is the worst for onely God knowes what is the worst that God can doe to us Iob does not deny here but that this Si occiderit if it come to a matter of life it were another manner of triall then either the si irruerent Sabaei if the Sabaeans should come and drive his Cattell and slay his servants more then the si ignis caderet if the fire of God should fall from heaven and devoute all more then the si ventus concuteret if the winde of the wildernesse should shake downe his house and kill and all his children The Devill in his malice saw that if it came to matter of life Iob was like enough to be shaked in his faith Skin for skin and all that ever a man hath will he give for his life God foresaw that in his gracious providence too and therefore he took that clause out of Satans Commission and inserted his veruntamen animam ejus servae medle not with his life The love of this life which is naturall to us and imprinted by God in us is not sinfull Few and evill have the days of my pilgrimage been says lacob to Pharaeoh though they had been evill which makes our days seem long and though he were no young man when he said so yet the days which he had past he thought few and desired more When Eliah was fled into the wildernesse and that in passion and vehemence he said to God Sufficit Domine tolle animam meam It is enough O Lord now take away my life if he had been heartily thoroughly weary of his life he needed not to have fled from Iesabel for he fled but to save his life The Apostle had a Cupie dissolvi a desire to be dissolved but yet a love to his brethren corrected that desire and made him finde that it was far better for him to live Our Saviour himselfe when it came to the pinch and to the agony had a Transeat Calix a naturall declining of death The naturall love of our naturall life is not ill It is ill in many cases not to love this life to expose it to unnecessary dangers is alwayes ill and there are overtures to as great sinnes in hating this life as in loving it and therefore Iobs first consideration is si occideret if he should kill me if I thought he would kill me this were enough to put me from trusting in any But Iobs consideration went farther then to the si occideret Though he should kill me for it comes to an absolute assurance that God will kill him for so it is in the Originall Ecce occidet Behold I see he will kill me I have I can have no hope of life at his hands T is all our cases Adam might have liv'd if he would but I cannot God hath placed an Ecce a marke of my death upon every thing living that I can set mine eye upon every thing is a remembrancer every thing is a Judge upon me and pronounces I must dye The whole frame of the world is mortall Heaven and Earth passe away and upon us all there is an irrecoverable Decree past statutum est It is appointed to all men that they shall once dye But when quickly If thou looke up into the aire remember that thy life is but a winde If thou see a cloud in the aire aske St. Iames his question what is your life and give St. Iames his answer It is a vapour that appeareth and vanisheth away If thou behold a Tree then Iob gives thee a comparison of thy selfe A Tree is an embleme of thy selfe nay a Tree is the originall thou art but the copy thou art not so good as it for There is hope of a tree as you reade there if the roote wax old if the stock be dead if it be cut down yet by the sent of the waters it will bud but man is sick and dyeth and where is he he shall not wake againe till heaven be no more Looke upon the water and we are as that and as that spilt upon the ground Looke to the earth and we are not like that but we are earth it self At our Tables we feed upon the dead and in the Temple we tread upon the dead and when we meet in a Church God hath made many echoes many testimonies of our death in the walls and in the windowes and he onely knowes whether he will not make another testimony of our mortality of the youngest amongst us before we part and make the very place of our buriall our deathbed Iobs contemplation went so far not onely to a Si occideret to a possibility that he might dye but to an Ecce occidet to an assurance that he must dye I know there is an infalliblenesse in the Decree an inevitablenesse in nature an inexorablenesse in God I must dye And the word beares a third interpretation beyond this for si occiderit is not onely if he should kill me as he maâ— if he will and it may be he will nor onely that I am sure he will kill me I know I must dye but the word may very well be also though he have killed me So that Iobs resolution that he will trust in God is grounded upon all these considerations That there is exercise of our hope in God before death in the agony of death and after death First in our good dayes and in the time of health Memorare novissima sayes the wise man we must remember our end our death But that we cannot forget every thing presents that to us But his counsell there is in omnibus operibus In all thine undertakings in all thine actions remember thine end when thou art in any worldly
to you for our third part Goe forth behold Solomon c. Here are two duties enjoyn'd at least two steps two degrees Egredimini Go forth and then Videte Behold contemplate And after the duty or wrap'd in the duty we have the Object which we are to look upon in that divers things to be considered as we shall see in their order First when we are bid to Go forth it is not to go so far as out of that Church in which God hath given us our station for as Moses says That the word of God is not beyond Sea so the Church of God is not so beyond Sea as that we must needs seek it there either in a painted Church on one side or in a naked Church on another a Church in a Dropsie overflowne with Ceremonies or a Church in a Consumption for want of such Ceremonies as the primitive Church found usefull and beneficiall for the advancing of the glory of God and the devotion of the Congregation That which Christ says to the Church it selfe the Church says to every soule in the Church Goe thy way forth by the footsteps of the flocke Associate thy selfe to the true shepheard and true sheep of Christ Jesus and stray not towards Idolatrous Chappels nor towards schismaticall Conventicles but goe by the footsteps of the flock there must be footsteps some must have gone that way before take heed of Opinions that begin in thy selfe and the whole flock must have gone that way take heed of opinions vented by a few new men which have not had the establishment of a Church And truly the best way to discerne footsteps is Daniels way Daniels way was to straw ashes and so their footsteps that had been there were easily discerned Walke in thine own ashes in the meditation of thine own death or in the ashes of Gods Saints who are dead before thee in the contemplation of their example and thou wilt see some footsteps of the flock some impressions some directions how they went and how thou art to follow to the heavenly Jerusalem In conversing evermore with them which tread upon Carpets or upon Marbles thou shalt see no footsteps Carpets and Marbles receive no impressions Amongst them that tread in ashes in the ways of holy sorrow and religious humiliation thou shalt have the way best marked out unto thee Goe forth that is goe farther then thy selfe out of thy selfe at least out of the love of thy self for that is but a short a giddy a vertiginous walk how little a thing is the greatest man If thou have many rooms in thy selfe many capacities to contemplate thy selfe in if thou walke over the consideration of thy selfe as thou hast such a title of Honour such an Office of Command such an Inheritance such a pedegree such a posterity such an Allyance if this be not a short walke yet it is a round walke a giddy a vertiginous proceeding Get beyond thine own circle consider thy selfe at thine end at thy death and then Egredere Goe further then that Go forth and see what thou shalt be after thy death Still that which we are to look upon is especially our selves but it is our selves enlarg'd extended into the next world for till we see what we shall be then we are but short-sighted Wouldst thou say thou knew'st a man because thou hadst seen him in his Cradle no more canst thou be said to have known thy self because thou knowest the titles and additions which thou hast received in this world for all those things w ch we have here are but swadling clouts all our motions preferments from place to place are but the rocking of a cradle The first thing that Christ says to his spouse in the Canticles is If thou know not thy selfe for so all the Ancients read it and so the Originall beares it If thou know not thy selfe O thou fairest of women she might know that she was the fairest of women and yet not know her selfe Thou mayst know that thou art the happyest of men in this world and yet not know thy self All this life is but a Preface or but an Index and Repertory to the book of life There at that book beginnes thy study To grow perfect in that book to be dayly conversant in that book to find what be the marks of them whose names are written in that book and to finde those marks ingenuously and in a rectified conscience in thy selfe To finde that no murmuring at Gods corrections no disappointing of thy hopes no interrupting of thy expectations no frustrating of thy possibilities in the way no impatience in sicknesse and in the agony of death can deface those marks this is to goe forth and see thy self beyond thy self to see what thou shalt be in the next world Now we cannot see our own face without a glasse and therefore in the old Temple In or about that laver of brasse where the water for the uses of the Church was reserved Moses appointed looking-glasses to be placed that so at the entring into the Temple men might see themselves and make use of that water if they had contracted any foulnesse in any part about them Here at your coming hither now you have two glasses wherein you may see your selves from head to foot One in the Text your Head Christ Iesus represented unto you in the name and person of Solomon Behold King Solomon crowned c. And another under your feet in the dissolution of this great Monarch our Royall Master now layd lower by death then any of us his Subjects and servants First then behold your selves in that first glasse Behold King Solomon Solomon the sonne of David but not the Son of Bathsheba but of a better mother the most blessed Virgin Mary For Solomon in this text is not a proper Name but an Appellative a significative word Solomon is pacificus the Peacemaker and our peace is made in and by Christ Jesus and he is that Solomon whom we are called upon to see here Now as Saint Paul says that he would know nothing but Christ that 's his first abridgement and then he would know nothing of Christ but him crucifyed and that 's the re-abridgement so we seek no other glasse to see our selves in but Christ nor any other thing in this glasse but his Humiliation What need we Even that his lowest humiliation his death is expressed here in three words of exaltation It is a Crown it is a Mariage it is the gladnesse of heart Behold King Salomon crowned c. The Crown which we are called to see him crowned with his mother put upon him The Crown which his Father gave him was that glory wherewith he was glorifyed with the Father from all eternity in his divine nature And the Crown wherewith his Father crowned his Humane nature was the glory given to that in his Ascension His Mother could give him no such Crown she
calling by being personally here at these exercises of Religion thou art some kinde of witnesse of this light For in how many places of the world hath Christ yet never opened such doors for his ordinary service in all these 1600. yeers And in how many places hath he shut up these doors of his true worship within these three or foure yeers Quod citaris huc That thou art brought hither within distance of his voyce within reach of his food intra sphaeram Activitatis within the spheare and latitude of his ordinary working that is into his house into his Church this is a citation a calling answerable to Iohn Baptists first calling from his fathers dead loins and his mothers barren wombe and his second citation was before he was borne in his mothers wombe When Mary came to visit Elizabeth the childe sprang in her belly as soone as Maries voice sounded in her eares And though naturally upon excesse of joy in the mother the childe may spring in her yet the Evangelist meanes to tell an extraordinary and supernaturall thing and whether it were an anticipation of reason in the childe some of the Fathers think so though St. Augustine do not that the childe understood what he did or that this were a fulfilling of that prophecy That he should be filled with the holy Ghost from his mothers wombe all agree that this was an exciting of him to this attestation of his Saviours presence whether he had any sense of it or no. Exultatio significat sayes St. Augustine This springing declared that his mother whose forerunner that childe should be was come And so both Origen and St. Cyrill refer that commendation which our Saviour gives him Inter natos Mulierum Among those that were born of women there was not a greater Prophet that is none that prophecyed before he was borne but he And such a citation beloved thou mayest have in this place and at this time A man may upon the hearing of something that strikes him that affects him feel this springing this exultation this melting and colliquation of the inwardest bowels of his soule a new affection a new passion beyond the joy ordinarily conceived upon earthly happinesses which though no naturall Philosopher can call it by a name no Anatomist assigne the place where it lyes yet I doubt not through Christ jesus but that many of you who are here now feele it and understand it this minute Citaris huc thou wast cited to come hither whether by a collaterall and oblique and occasionall motion or otherwise hither God hath brought thee and Citaris hîc here thou art cited to come neerer to him Now both these citations were before Iohn Baptist was borne both these affections to come to this place and to be affected with a delight here may be before thy regeneration which is thy spirituall birth a man is not borne not borne againe because he is at Church nor because he likes the Sermon Iohn Baptist had and thou must have a third citation which was in him from the desert into the publique into the world from contemplation to practice This was that mission that citation which most properly belongs to this Text when the word came to the voyce The word of God came to Iohn in the wildernesse and he came into all the Countrey preaching the Baptisme of repentance To that we must come to practise For in this respect an Vniversity is but a wildernesse though we gather our learning there our private meditation is but a wildernesse though we contemplate God there nay our being here is but a wildernesse though we serve God here if our service end so if we do not proceed to action and glorifie God in the publique And therefore Citaris huc thou art cited hither here thou must be and Citaris hîc thou art cited here to lay hold upon that grace which God offers in his Ordinance and Citaris hinc thou art cited from hence to embrace a calling in the world He that undertakes no course no vocation he is no part no member no limbe of the body of this world no eye to give light to others no eare to receive profit by others If he think it enough to be excrementall nayles to scratch and gripe others by his lazy usury and extortion or excrementall hayre made onely for ornament or delight of others by his wit or mirth or delightfull conversation these men have not yet felt this third citation by which they are called to glorifie God and so to witnesse for him in such publique actions as Gods cause for the present requires and comports with their calling And then Iohn Baptist had a fourth citation to bear witnesse for Christ by laying down his life for the Truth and this was that that made him a witnesse in the highest sense a Martyr God hath not served this citation upon us nor doth he threaten us with any approches towards it in the feare of persecution for religion But remember that Iohn Baptists Martyrdome was not for the fundamentall rock the body of the Christian religion but for a morall truth for matter of manners A man may be bound to suffer much for a lesse matter then the utter overthrow of the whole frame and body of religion But leaving this consideration for what causes a man is bound to lay downe his life consider we now but this that a man lays downe his life for Christ and beares witnesse of him even in death when he prefers Christ before this world when he desires to be dissolved and be with him and obeyes cheerefully that citation by the hand of death whensoever it comes and that citation must certainly be served upon you all whether this night in your beds or this houre at the doore no man knowes You who were cited hither to heare and cited here to consider and cited hence to worke in a calling in the world must be cited from thence too from the face to the bosome of the earth from treading upon other mens to a lying downe in your owne graves And yet that is not your last citation there is fifth In the grave Iohn Baptist does and we must attend a fifth citation from the grave to a Iudgement The first citation hither to Church was served by Example of other men you saw them come and came The second citation here in the Church was served by the Preacher you heard him and beleeved The third from hence is served by the law and by the Magistrate they binde you to embrace a profession and a calling and you do so The fourth which is from thence from this to the next world is served by nature in death he touches you and you sinke This fifth to Iudgement shall be by an Angell by an Archangell by the Lord himself The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voyce of the Archangell and with
shall feare the Lord and his goodnesse in the later dayes And beyond this land there is no more Sea beyond this mercy no more Judgement for with this mercy the Chapter ends Consider our text then as a whole Globe as an intire Spheare and then our two Hemispheares of this Globe our two parts of this text will bee First that no perversnesse of ours no rebellion no disobedience puts God beyond his mercy nor extinguishes his love still hee calls Israel rebellious Israel his Children nay his owne anger his owne Judgements then when hee is in the exercise thereof in the execution thereof puts him not beyond his mercy extinguishes not his love hee hides not his face from them then hee leaves them not then in the darke hee accompanies their calamity with a light hee makes that time though cloudy though overcast yet a day unto them the Children of Israel shall abide many days in this case But then as no disobedience removes God from himself for he is love and mercy so no interest of ours in God doth so priviledge us but that hee will execute his Judgements upon his Children too even the Children of Israel shall fall into these Calamities And from this first part wee shall passe to the second from these generall considerations That no punishments should make us desperate that no favours should make us secure we shall passe to the particular commination and judgements upon the children of Israel in this text without King without Prince c. In our first part we stop first upon this declaration of his mercy in this fatherly appellation Children the children of Israel He does not call them children of Israel as though hee disavowed them and put them off to another Father but therefore because they are the Children of Israel they are his Children for hee had maried Israel and maried her to himselfe for ever Many of us are Fathers and from God here may learne tendernesse towards children All of us are children of some parents and therefore should hearken after the name of Father which is nomen pietatis potestatis a name that argues their power over us and our piety towards them and so concernes many of us in a double capacity as we are children and parents too but all of us in one capacity as we are children derived from other parents God is the Father of man otherwise then he is of other creatures He is the Father of all Creatures so Philo calls all Creatures sorâ—res suas his sisters but then all those sisters of man all those daughters of God are not alike maried God hath placed his Creatures in divers rankes and in divers conditions neither must any man thinke that he hath not done the duty of a Father if he have not placed all his Sonnes or not matched all his daughters in a condition equall to himselfe or not equall to one another God hath placed creatures in the heavens and creatures in the earth and creatures in the sea and yet all these creatures are his children and when he looked upon them all in their divers stations he saw omnia valde bora that all was very well And that Father that imploies one Sonne in learning another to husbandry another to Merchandise pursues Gods example in disposing his children his creatures diversly and all well Such creatures as the Raine though it may seem but an imperfect and ignoble creature fallen from the wombe of a cloud have God for their Father God is the Father of the Raine And such creatures as light have but God for their Father God is Pater lâ—minum the Father of lights Whether we take lights there to be the Angels created with the light some take it so or to be the severall lights set up in the heavens Sun and Moon and Stars some take it so or to be the light of Grace in infusion by the Spirit or the light of the Church in manifestation by the word for all these acceptations have convenient Authors and worthy to be followed God is the Father of lights of all lights but so he is of raine and clouds too And God is the Father of glory as Saint Paul styles him of all glory whether of those beames of glory which he sheds upon us here in the blessings and preferments of this life or that waight of glory which he reserves for us in the life to come From that inglorious drop of raine that falls into the dust and rises no more to those glorious Saints who shall rise from the dust and fall no more but as they arise at once to the fulnesse of Essentiall joy so arise daily in accidentiall joyes all are the children of God and all alike of kin to us And therefore let us not measure our avowing or our countenancing of our kindred by their measure of honour or place or riches in the world but let us looke how fast they grow in the root that is in the same worship of the same God who is ours and their Father too He is nearest of kin to me that is of the same religion with me as they are creatures they are of kin to me by the Father but as they are of the same Church and religion by Father and mother too Philo calls all creatures his sisters but all men are his brothers God is the Father of man in a stronger and more peculiar and more masculine sense then of other Creatures Filius particeps con-dominus cum patre as the law calls the Sonne the partner of the Father and fellow-Lord joint-Lord with the Father of all the possession that is to descend so God hath made man his partner and fellow-Lord of all his other creatures in Moses his Dominamini when he gives man a power to rule over them and in Davids Omnia subjecisti when he imprints there a naturall disposition in the creature to the obedience of man So high so very high a filiation hath God given man as that having another Sonne by another filiation a higher filiation then this by an eternall generation yet he was content that that Sonne should become this Sonne that the Sonne of God should become the Sonne of Man God is the Father of all of man otherwise then of all the rest but then of the children of Israel otherwise then of all other men For he bought them and is not be thy Father that hath bought thee says God by Moses Not to speake of that purchase which he made by the death of his Sonne for that belongs to all the world he bought the Jews in particular at such a price such silver and such gold such temporall and such spirituall benefits such a Land and such a Church such a Law and such a Religion as certainly he might have had all the world at that price If God would have manifested himselfe poured out himselfe to the Nations as hee did to
them To sever the King and the Kingdome and pretend the weale of the one without the other is to shake and discompose Gods building Historically this was the Jewes case when Ieremy lamented here if he lamented the declination of the State in the death of the King Iosiah And if he lamented the transportation of Zedekiah and that that crosse were not yet come upon them Or if he lamented the future devastation of that Nation occasioned by the death of the King of Kings Christ Jesus when he came into the world this was their case prophetically Either way historically or prophetically Ieremy looks upon the Kingdome but yet through that glasse through the King The duty of the Day and the order of the Text invites us to an application of this branch too Our adversaries did not come to say to themselves Nolumus Regnum hoc we will not have this Kingdome stand the materiall Kingdome the plenty of the Land they would have been content to have but the formall Kingdome that is This forme of Government by a Soveraigne King that depends upon none but God they would not have So that they came implicitely 〈◊〉 Nolumus Regnum hoc we will not have this Kingdome governed thus and they came explicitely to a Nolumus Regem hunc as the Jewes were resolved of Christ We will not have this King to governe at all Non hunc Will you not have him you were at your Nolumus hanc long before Her whom God had set over you before him you would not have Your not Anniversary but Hebdomadary Treasons cast upon her a necessity of drawing blood often and so your Nolumus hâ—nc your desire that she were gone might have some kinde of ground or colour But for your Nolumus hunc for this King who had made no Inquisition for blood who had forborne your very pecuniary penalties who had as himself witnesses of himself made you partakers with his Subjects of his own Religion in matters of grace and in reall benefits and in Titles of Honour Quare fremuerant Why did these men rage and imagine a vaine thing What they did historically we know They made that house which is the hive of the Kingdome from whence all her honey comes that house where Iustice her self is conceived in their preparing of Laws and inanimated and quickned and borne by the Royall Assent there given they made that whole house one Murdring peece and charged that peece with Peers with People with Princes with the King and meant to discharge it upward at the face of heaven to shoot God at the face of God Him of whom God hath said Dii estis You are Gods at the face of God that had said so as though they would have reproached the God of heaven and not have been beholden to him for such a King but shoot him up to him and bid him take his King again with a nolumus hunc regnare we will not have this King to reign over us This was our case Historically and what it is Prophetically as long as that remains to bee their doctrine which he against whom that attempt was principally made found by their examination to be their doctrine That they and no Sect in the world but they did make Treason an article of Religion That their Religion bound them to those attempts so long they are never at an end Till they dis-avow those Doctrines that conduce to that prophetically they wish prophetically they hope for better successe in as ill attempts It is then the kingdome that Ieremy laments but his nearest object is the King Hee laments him First let it be as with S. Hierome many of the Ancients and with them many of the later Rabbins will have it for Josiah for a good King in whose death the honour and the strength of the kingdome took that deadly wound to become tributary to a forain Prince for to this lamentation they refer those words of the Prophet which describe a great sorrow In that day shall there be a great mourning in Ierusalem as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon which was the place where Iosiah was slain There shall be such a lamentation says the Prophet in this interpretation as was for the death of Iosiah This then was for him for a good King Wherein have we his goodnesse expressed Abundantly Hee did that which was right in Gods fight And whose Eye need he fear that is right in the Eye of God But how long did he so To the end for Nero who had his Quinquennium and was a good Emperour for his first five years was one of the worst of all Hee that is ill all the way is but a Tyran Hee that is good at first and after ill an Angels face and a Serpents taile make him a Monster Iosiah began well and persevered so He turned not aside to the right â—and nor to the left That is if we apply it to the Iosiah of our times neither to the fugitive that leaves our Church and goes to the Roman nor to the Separatist that leaves our Church and goes to none In the eighteenth year of his reign Iosiah undertook the reparation of Gods house If we apply this to the Iosiah of our times I think in that year of his reign he visited this Church and these wals and meditated and perswaded the reparation thereof In one word Like unto Iosiah there was no King before nor after And therefore there was just cause of lamentation for this King for Iosiah historically for the very loss of his person prophetically for the misery of the State after his death Our errand is to day to apply all these branches to the day Those men who intended us this cause of lamentation this day in the destruction of our Iosiah spared him not because he was so because so because he was a Iosiah because he was good no not because he was good to them his benefits to them had not mollified them towards him for that is not their way Both the French Henries were their own and good to them but did that rescue either of them from the knife And was not that Emperour whom they poisoned in the Sacrament their own and good to them and yet was that any Antidote against their poison To so reprobate a sense hath God given them over herein as that though in their Books they ly heaviest upon Princes of our Religion yet truly they have destroyed more of their own then of ours Thus it is Historically in their proceedings past And Prophetically it can be but thus since no King is good in their sense if he agree not to all points of Doctrine with them And when that is done not good yet except he agree in all points of Iurisdiction too and that no King can doe that will not be their Farmer of his Kingdome Their Authours have disputed Auferibilitatem Papae whether the Church of God might not be
we shall also see that all those particular that did aggravate the affliction in the former part That they were from the Lord from his Rod from the Rod of his wrath doe all exalt our comfort in this That it is a particular comfort that our afflictions are from the Lord Another that they are from his Rod and another also that they are from the Rod of his wrath First then in our first art and the first branch thereof The Generality of affliction considered in the nature thereof We met all generally in the first Treason against our selves without exception all In Adams rebellion who was not in his loins And in a second Treason we met all too in the Treason against Christ Iesus we met all All our sins were upon his shoulders In those two Treasons we have had no exception no exemption The penalty for our first Treason in Adam in a great part we doe all undergoe we doe all die though not without a lothnesse and colluctation at the time yet without a deliberate desire to live in this world for ever How loth soever any man be to die when death comes yet I thinke there is no man that ever formed a deliberate Prayer or wish that he might never die That penalty for our first Treason in Adam we do bear And would any be excepted from bearing any thing deduced from his second Treason his conspiracy against Christ from imitation of his Passion and fulfilling his sufferings in his body in bearing cheerfully the afflictions and tribulations of this life Omnis caro corruper at and thou art within that generall Indictment all flesh had corrupted his way upon Earth Statutum est omnibus mori and thou art within that generall Statute It is appointed unto all men once to die Anima quae peccaverit ipsa morietur and thou art within that generall Sentence and Judgement Every soul that sinneth shall die The death of the soul. Out of these generall Propositions thou canst not get And when in the same universality there commeth a generall pardon Deus vult omnes slavos God will have all men to be saved Because that Pardon hath in it that Ita quod that condition Omnem filium Hee scâ—urgeth every sonne whom he receiveth wouldst thou lose the benefit of that Adoption that Filiation that Patrimony and Inheritance rather then admit patiently his Fatherly chastisements in the afflictions and tribulations in this life Beloved the death of Christ is given to us as a Hand-writing for when Christ naild that Chirographum that first hand-writing that had passed between the Devill and us to his Crosse he did not leave us out of debt nor absolutely discharged but he laid another Chirographum upon us another Obligation arising out of his death His death is delivered to us as a writing but not a writing onely in the nature of a peece of Evidence to plead our inheritance by but a writing in the nature of a Copy to learne by It is not onely given us to reade but to write over and practise Not onely to tell us what he did but how we should do so too All the evills and mischiefes that light upon us in this world come for the most part from this Quia fruimur utendis because we thinke to injoy those things which God hath given us onely to use God hath given us a use of things and we set our hearts upon them And this hath a proportion an assimilation an accommodation in the death of Christ. God hath proposed that for our use in this world and we think to enjoy it God would have us doe it over again and we think it enough to know that Christ hath done it already God would have us write it and we doe onely read it God would have us practise the death of Christ and we do but understand it The fruition the enjoying of the death of Christ is reserved for the next life To this life belongs the use of it that use of it to fulfill his sufferings in our bodies by bearing the afflictions and tribulations of this life For Priùs Trophaeum Crucis erexit deinde Martyribus tradidit erigendum first Christ set up the victorious Trophee of his Crosse himself and then he delivered it over to his Martyrs to do as he had done Nor are they onely his Martyrs that have actually died for him but into the signification of that name which signifies a Witnesse fall all those who have glorified him in a patient and constant bearing the afflictions and tribulations of this life All being guilty of Christs death there lies an obligation upon us all to fulfill his sufferings And this is the generality of afflictions as we consider them in their own nature Now this generality is next expressed in this word of exaltation Gheber Ego vir I am the man It was that man that is denoted and signified in that name that hath lien under affliction and therefore no kinde of man was likely to scape There are in the Originall Scriptures four words by which man is called four names of man and any of the others if we consider the origination of the words might better admit afflictions to insult upon him then this Gheber vir I am the man At first man is called Ishe a word which their Grammarians derive à sonitu from a sound from a voice Whether mans excellency be in that that he can speak which no other creature can doe or whether mans impotency be in that that he comes into the world Crying in this denomination in this word man is but a sound but a voyce and that is no great matter Another name of man is Adam and Adam is no more but earth and red earth aud the word is often used for blushing When the name of man imports no more but so no more but the frailty of the earth and the bashfull acknowledgement and confession of that frailty in infinite infirmities there is no great hope of scaping afflictions in this name Adam Lesse in his third name Enosh for Enosh signifies aegrum calamitosum a person naturally subject to and actually possest with all kindes of infirmities So that this name of man Enosh is so farre from exempting him as that it involves him it overflows him in afflictions He hath a miserable name as well as a miserable nature Put them in fear O Lord says David that they may know they are but men but such men as are denoted in that name of man Enosh for there that name is expressed weak and miserable men Now to collect these as man is nothing but a frivolous an empty a transitory sound or but a sad and lamentable voice he is no more in his first name Ishe As man is nothing but red earth a moldring clod of infirmities and then blushing that is guilty sensible and ashamed of his own miserable condition and man is
reads those words speaking of the Christian Church here It is the house of all them who do as it were rejoyce who come nearest to true joy And so when the Lord turned againe the Captivity of Sion Facti sumus sicut consolati We were as it were comforted Quare sicut sayes that Father Why is it so modified with that diminution as it were Quia hic etiam in Sanctis non perfecta consolatio Because sayes he in this world even the Saints themselves have no perfect joy Where the Apostle compares the sorrow and the joy of this world then the Quasi lyes upon the sorrows side it is but a halfe sorrow Quasi tristes We are as it were sorrowfull but indeed rejoycing but compare the best ioy of this world with the next and the Quasi will fall upon the ioy of the world For though we be sealed with the holy Spirit of promise which is the earnest of our inheritance and this is the Tropique of Joy the farthest that Spirituall Joy goes in this Zodique in this world yet this carries us no farther but Vt ex arrabone aestimetur haereditas That by the proportion of the earnest we might value the whole bargaine For what a bargaine would we presume that man to have that would give 20000 l. for earnest what is the Joy of heaven hereafter if the earnest of it here be the Seale of the holy Ghost God proceeds with us as we do with other men Operariis in Saeculo cibus in opere merces in fine datur In this world we give labourers meat and drink by the way but wages at the end of their work God affords us refreshing here but joy hereafter The best Seale is the holy Ghost and the best matter that the holy Ghost seales in is in blood in the dignity of Martyrdome and even for that for Martyrdome we have a rule in the Apostle Rejoyce in as much as ye are partakers of Christs sufferings That as he suffered for you so you suffer for him but in what contemplation That when his glory shall be revealed ye may be made glad with exceeding Joy not with exceeding Joy till then For till then the Joyes of Heaven may be exceeded in the addition of the body There is the rule and the example is Christ himself Who for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse in contemplation of the Propterea exaltatus that therefore he should be exalted above all in heaven Rejoyce and be glad why for great is your reward but where in heaven And therefore Ask and you shall receive Pray and you shall have answer but what answer but what answer That your joy shall be full It shall be in heaven For Quis sic delectat quam ille qui fecit omnia quae delectant In whom can we fully rejoyce but him who made all things in which we rejoyce by the way In thy Name shall we rejoyce all the day says David Si in nomine suo non tota die St. Augustine says not that to any particular person nor any particular calling but to any man to every man Any Prince any Counsellor any Prelate any Generall any Discoverer any that goes in any way of joy and glory Si nomine suo non tota die If they rejoyce in their own names their own wisdome their own strength they shall not rejoyce all the day but they shall be benighted with darke sadnesse before their dayes end And their sunne shall set at noon too as the Prophet Amos speaks And therefore that shall be Christs expressing of that joy at the last day Enter into thy Master Ioy and leave the joy of Servants though of good Servants behind thee for thou shalt have a better Joy then that Thy Masters Ioy. It is time to end but as long as the glasse hath a gaspe as long as I have one I would breathe in this ayre in this perfume in this breath of heaven the contemplation of this Joy Blessed is that man qui scit jubilationem says David that knowes the joyfull sound For Nullo modo beatus nisi scias unde gaudeas For though we be bound to rejoyce alwayes it is not a blessed joy if we do not know upon what it be grounded or if it be not upon everlasting blessednesse Comedite amici says Christ bibite inebriamini Eat and drink and be filled Joy in this life Vbi in sudore vescimur where grief is mingled with joy is called meat says Saint Bernard and Christ cals his friends to eat in the first word Potus in future says he Joy in the next life where it passes down without any difficulty without any opposition is called drink and Christ calls his friends to drink but the overflowing the Ebriet as animae that is reserved to the last time when our bodies as well as our souls shall enter into the participation of it Where when wee shall love every one as well as our selves and so have that Joy of our owne salvation multiplied by that number wee shall have that Joy so many times over as there shall bee soules saved because wee love them as our selves how infinitely shall this Joy be enlarged in loving God so far above our selves and all them Wee have but this to add Heaven is called by many pretious names Lifeâ— Simply and absolutely there is no life but that And Kingdome Simply absolutely there is no Kingdom that is not subordinate to that And Sabbaâ—uÌ„ex Sabbate A Sabbath flowing into a Sabbath a perpetuall Sabbath but the Name that should enamour us most is that that it is Satietas gaudâ—orum fulnesse of Joy Fulnesse that needeth no addition Fulnesse that admitteth no leake And then though in the Schoole we place Blessednesse in visione in the sight of God yet the first thing that this sight of God shall produce in us for that shall produce the Reformation of the Image of God in us and it shall produce our glorifying of God but the first thing that the seeing of God shall produce in us is Joy The measure of our seeing of God is the measure of Joy See him here in his Blessings and you shall ioy in those blessings here and when you come to see him Sicuti est in his Essence then you shall have this Joy in Essence and in fulnesse of which God of his goodnesse give us such an earnest here as may binde to us that inheritance hereafter which his Sonne our Saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood Amen FINIS 51. 1. Psal. 128. 3. ◠〈◊〉 Egerton 〈◊〉 Chancellor grandfatheâ— to the Bridâ— Divisio 1 Part. Resurrectio Zech. 10. 8. Psal. 150. 6. Non nubent Luke 20. 35. Gen. 2. 23. Mat. 17. 3. Luke 7. 15. Acts 9. 41. Gen. 15. 1â— Deut. 32. 50. Luke 1. 41. Luke 16. 23.
well to be angry even unto death Ieremy was under this tentation too Ionas was angry because his Prophesie was not performed because God would not second his Prophesie in the destruction of Nineveh Ieremy was angry because his Prophesie was like to be performed he preached heavy Doctrin and therfore his Auditory hated him Woe is me my Mother says he that thou hast born me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth I preach but the messages of God and vae mihi si non wo be unto me if I preach not them I preach but the sense of Gods indignation upon mine own soul in a conscience of mine own sins I impute nothing to another that I confesse not of my selfe I call none of you to confession to me I doe but confesse my self to God and you I rack no mans memory what he did last year last week last night I onely gather into my memory and powr out in the presence of my God and his Church the sinfull history of mine own youth and yet I am a contentious man says Ieremy a worm and a burthen to every tender conscience says he and I strive with the whole earth I am a bitter and satyricall preacher This is that that wearies mee says hee I have neither lent on usury nor men have lent me on usury yet as though I were an oppressing lender or a fraudulent borrower every one of them doth curse me This is a naturall infirmity which the strongest men being but men cannot devest that if their purposes prosper not they are weary of their industry weary of their lifes But this is Summa ingratitude in Deum mâ—lle non esse quà m miserum esse There cannot be a greater unthankfulnesse to God then to desire to be Nothing at all rather then to be that that God would have thee to be To desire to be out of the world rather then to glorifie him by thy patience in it But when this infirmity overtakes Gods children Patiuntur ut homtines sustinent ut Dei amici They are under calamities as they are râ—en but yet they come to recollect themselves and to beat those calamities as the valiant Souldiers as the faithfull servants as the bosome friends of almighty God Si vis discere qualis esse debiâ—s disce post gratiam says the same Father Learn patience not from the stupidity of Philosophers who are but their own statues men of stone without sense without affections and who placed all their glory in a Non facies ut te dicam analum that no pain should make them say they were in pain nor from the perâ—iâ—acy of Heretiques how to bear a calamity who gave their bodies to the fire for the establishing of their Disciples but take out a new lesson in the times of Grace Consider the Apostles there Gaudentes Gloriantes They departed from the Councell rejoycing that they were counted worthy to suffer rebuke for his name It was Ioy and all Ioy says S. Iames It was Glory and all Glory says S. Paul Absit mihi God forbid that I should glory save in the Crosse of our Lord Iesus Christ And if I can glory in that to glory in that is to have a conscience testifying to me that God receives glory by my use of his correction I may come to God reason with God plead with God wrastle with God and be received and sustained by him This was Davids case in our Text therefore he doth not stray into the infirmities of these great and good Men Moses Iob Elias Ieremy and Ionah whose errours it is labour better bestowed carefully to avoid then absolutely to excuse for that cannot be done But David presents onely to God the sense of his corrections and implies in that that since the cure is wrought since Gods purpose which is by corrections to bring a sinner to himself and so to God is effected in him God would now be pleased to remember all his other gracious promises too and to admit such a zealous prayer as as he doth from Esay after Be not angry O Lord above measure that is above the measure of thy promises to repentant souls or the measure of the strength of our bodies Neither remember iniquities for ever But loe wee beseech thee Behold we are thy people To end this first part because the other extends it self in many branches Then when we are come to a sense of Gods purpose by his corrections it is a seasonable time to flie to his mercy and to pray that he would remove them from us and to present our Reasons to spare us for thy corrections have wrought upon us Give us this day our daily bread for thou hast given us stones and scorpions tribulations and afflictions and we have fed upon them found nourishment even in those tribulations and afflictions and said thee grace for them blessed and glorified thy name for those tribulations and afflictions Give us our Cordials now and our Restoratives for thy physick hath evacuated all the peccant humour and all our naturall strength shine out in the light of thy countenance now for this long cold night hath benum'd us since the drâ—sse is now evaporated now withdraw thy fire since thy hand hath anew cast us now imprint in us anew thine Image since we have not disputed against thy corrections all this while O Lord open thou our lips now and accept our remembring of thee that we have not done so Accept our Petition and the Reason of our Petition for thine Arrows stick fast in us and thy hand presseth us sore David in a rectified conscience findes that he may be admitted to present reasons against farther corrections And that this may be received as a reason That Gods Arrows are upon him for this is phrase or a Metaphore in which Gods indignation is often expressed in the Scripture He sent out his Arrows and scattered them sayes David magnifying Gods goodness in his behalf against his enemies And so again God will ordaine his Arrrowes for them that persecute me Complebo sagittas says God I will heap mischiefs upon them and I will spend mine arrows upon them yea Inebriabo sanguine I will make mine Arrows drunk in their bloud It is Idiotismus Spiritus sancti a peculiar character of the holy Ghosts expressing Gods anger in that Metaphore of shooting Arrows In this place some understand by these Arrows foul and infectious diseases in his body derived by his incontinence Others the sting of Conscience and that fearfull choice which the Prophet offered him war famine and pestilence Others his passionate sorrow in the death of Bethsheba's first childe or in the Incest of Amnon upon his sister or in the murder upon Amnon by Absolon or in the death of Absolen by Ioab or in many other occasions of sorrow that surrounded David and his family more perchance then any such family in the
body of story But these Psalmes were made not onely to vent Davids present holy passion but to serve the Church of God to the worlds end And therefore change the person and wee shall finde a whole quiver of arrows Extend this Man to all Mankind carry Davids History up to Adams History and consider us in that state which wee inherit from him and we shall see arrows fly about our ears A Deo prosequente the anger of God hanging over our heads in a cloud of arrows and à conscientia remordente our own consciences shooting poisoned arrows of desperation into our souls and ab Homine Contemnente Men multiplying arrows of Detraction and Calumny and Contumely upon our good name and estimation Briefly in that wound as wee were all shot in Adam we bled out Impassibilitatem and we sucked in Impossibilitatem There we lost our Immortality our Impassibility our assurance of Paradise and then we lost Possibilitatem boni says S. August all possibility of recovering any of this by our selves So that these arrows which are lamented here are all those miseries which sinne hath cast upon us Labor and the childe of that Sicknesse and the off-spring of that Death And the security of conscience and the terrour of conscience the searing of the conscience and the over-tendernesse of the conscience Gods quiver and the Devils quiver and our own quiver and our neighbours quiver afford and furnish arrows to gall and wound us These arrows then in our Text proceeding from sin and sin proceeding from tentations and inducing tribulations it shall advance your spirituall edification most to fixe your consideration upon those fiery darts as they are tentations and as they are tribulations Origen says he would wish no more for the recovery of any soul but that she were able to see Cicatrices suas those scars which these fiery darts have left in her the deformity which every sinne imprints upon the soul and Contritiones suas the attenuating and wearing out and consumption of the soul by a continuall succession of more and men wound â— upon the same place An ugly thing in a Consumption were a fearfull spectacle And such Origen imagins a soul to be if she could see Cicatrices and Contritiones her ill-favourednesse and her leannesse in the deformity and consumption of sin How provident how diligent a patience did our blessed Saviour bring to his Passion who foreseeing that that would be our case our sicknesse to be first wounded with single tentations and then to have even the wounds of our soul wounded again by a daily reiterating of tentations in the same kinde would provide us physick agreeable to our Disease Chyrurgery conformable to our wound first to be scourged so as that his holy body was torn with wounds and then to have those wounded again and often with more violatings So then these arrows are those tentations and those tribulations which are accompanied with these qualities of arrows shot at us that they are alienae shot from others not in our power And veloces swift and sudden soon upon us And vix visibiles not discernible in their coming but by an exact diligence First then these tentations are dangerous arrows as they are alienae shot from others and not in our own power It was the Embleme and Inscription which Darius took for his coin Insculpere sagittarium to shew his greatnesse that he could wound afar off as an Archer does And it was the way by which God declared the deliverance of Israel from Syria Elisha bids the King open the window East-ward and shoot an arrow out The King does shoot And the Prophet says Sagitta salutis Domini The arrow of the Lords deliverance He would deliver Israel by shooting vengeance into Syria One danger in our arrows as they are tentations is that they come unsuspectedly they come we know not from whence from others that 's a danger But in our tentations there is a greater danger then that for a man cannot shoot an arrow at himself but we can direct tentations upon our selves If we were in a wildernesse we could sin and where we are we tempt temptations and wake the Devil when for any thing that appears he would sleep A certain man drew a bow at a venture says that story He had no determinate mark no expresse aime upon any one man He drew his bow at a venture and he hit and he flew the King Ahab A woman of tentation Tendit areum in incertum as that story speaks shee paints she curls she sings she gazes and is gazed upon There 's an arrow shot at randon shee aim'd at no particular mark And thou puttest thy self within shot and meetest the arrow Thou soughtest the tentation the tentation sought not thee A man is able to oppresse others Et glâ—riatur in malâ— quia potens He boasts himselfe because he is able to doe mischief and tendit arcum in incertum he shoots his arrow at randon he lets it be known that he can prefer them that second his purposes and thou putt'st thy self within shot and meet'st the arrow and mak'st thy self his instrument Thou sought'st the tentation the tentation sought not thee when we expose our selves to tentations tentations hit us that were not expresly directed nor meant to us And even then when we begin to flie from tentations the arrow overtakes us Iehoram fled from Iehu and Iehu shot after him and shot him through the heart But this was after Iehoram had talk'd with him After wee have parâ—ed with a tentation debated whether we should embrace it or no and entertain'd some discourse with it though some tendernesse some remorse make us turn our back upon it and depart a little from it yet the arrow overtakes us some reclinations some retrospects we have a little of Lots wife is in us a little sociablenesse and conversation a little point of honour not to be false to former promises a little false gratitude and thankfulnesse in respect of former obligations a little of the compassion and charity of Hell that another should not be miserable for want of us a little of this which is but the good nature of the Devill arrests us stops us fixes us till the arrow the tentation shoot us in the back even when wee had a purpose of departing from that sin and kils us over again Thus it is when we meet a tentation and put our selves in the arrows way And thus it is when we fly not fast enough nor farre enough from a tentation But when we doe all that and provide as safely as we can to get and doe get quickly out of distance yet The wicked bend their bowes that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart In occulto It is a work of Darknesse Detraction and they can shoot in the dark they can wound and not be known They can whisper Thunder and passe an arrow through another mans eare into mine