celestial dialect and not as some of late have been ready to make it the language of the Whore of Babylon as if Faith onely did make a Protestant and Good works were the mark of a Papist What mention we Papist or Protestant The Christian is the member of this Body and Common-wealth this is his language Zeph. 3.9 the pure language When Hand and Tongue Faith and Good works a full Persuasion and a sincere Obedience are joyned together then we shall speak this language plainly and men will understand us and glorifie God the Angels will understand and applaud us and the Lord will understand and crown us We shall speak it not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faintly and feignedly ready upon any allurement or terrour to eat our words but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we shall make it plain by an Ocular demonstration And this is truly to say JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. This is the Lesson our first Part. And thus far we are gone And we see it is no easie matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak but these three words JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. For we must comprehend Eph. 3.18 saith the Apostle the breadth and length and depth and height of this Divine mystery the breadth saith S. Augustine in the expansion and dilatation of my Charity the length by my continued perseverance unto the end the height in the exaltation of my hope to reach at things above and the depth in the contemplation of the bottomless sea of God's mercies These are the dimensions And if we will learn these Mathematicks because we see the Lesson is difficult we must have a skilful Master And behold my next Part bringeth him forth bringeth us news of one who is higher then heaven broader then the sea and longer then the earth as Job speaketh It is the holy Ghost For no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost And indeed good reason that he should be our Teacher For as the Lesson is such should the Master be The Lesson is spiritual the Teacher a Spirit The Lecture is a lecture of piety and the Spirit is an holy Spirit The Lesson proposeth a method to joyn Heaven and Earth God and Man Mortality and Immortality Misery and Happiness in one to draw us near unto God and make us one with him and the holy Ghost is that consubstantial and coeternal Friendship of the Father and the Son nexus amorosus as the Schools speak the essential Love and Love-knot of the undivided Trinity Flesh and blood cannot reveal this great mystery it must be a Spirit And the Spirit of this world bringeth no news from Heaven we may be sure It must be SPIRITUS SANCTUS the holy Ghost SPIRITUS SANCTUS for JESUS DOMINUS the holy Ghost for Jesus the Lord that by the grace of the holy Spirit we may learn the Power of the Son and by the inspiration of his Holiness learn the mystery of Holiness For it is not sharpness of wit or quickness of apprehension or force of eloquence that can raise us to this Truth but the Spirit of God must lead us to this tree of Knowledge Therefore Tertullian calleth Christian Religion commentum Divinitatis the invention of the Divine Spirit as Faith is called the gift of God not onely because it is given to every believer but because the Spirit first found out the way to save us by so weak a means as Faith O qualis artifex Spiritus sanctus What a skilful Artificer what an excellent Master is the blessed Spirit who found out a way to lift up Dust it self as high as Heaven and clothe it with eternity whose least beam is more glorious then the Sun and maketh it day unto us whose every whisper is as thunder to awake us cujus tetigisse docuisse est whose every touch and breathing is an instruction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene For this Spirit is wise and can he is loving and will teach us if we will learn He inspireth an Herdsman and he straight becometh a Prophet He calleth a Fisherman and maketh him an Apostle Et non opus est morâ Spiritui Sancto He standeth not in need of any help from delay Without him Miracles are sluggish and of no efficacy but upon his breathing our Saviour shall appear glorious in his ignominy and the Thief shall worship him on his cross as if he had been in his Kingdom in whom he wrought such an alteration that in S. Hierom's phrase mutavit homicidii poenam in martyrium he was so changed that he died not a thief or murtherer but a Martyr And such a powerful Teacher we stood in need of to raise our Nature and that corrupt unto so high a pitch as the participation of the Divine Nature For no act and so no act of holiness or spiritual knowledge can be produced by any power which is not connatural to it and as it were a principle of that act So that as there is a natural light by which we are brought to the apprehension of natural principles whether speculative or practick by which light many of the Heathen proceeded so far as to leave most of them behind them who have the Sun of righteousness ever shining upon them so there must be a supernatural light by which we may be guided to attain unto truths of a higher nature Which the Heathen wanting did run uncertainly as S. Paul speaketh and beat the air and all those glorious acts by which they did out shine many of us were but as the Rainbow before the Floud for shew but for no use at all The Power must ever be connatural to the Act. Nature may move in her own sphere and turn us about in that compass to do those things which Nature is capable of but Nature could not make a Saint or a member of Christ To spiritualize a man to make him Christi-formem to bring him to a conformity and uniformity with Christ is the work alone of the Spirit of Christ Which he doth sweetly and secretly powerfully characterizing our hearts and so taking possession of them The Apostle telleth us that Christ dwelleth in us by his Spirit by his power and efficacy Rom. 8.11 which worketh like fire enlightning warming and purging our hearts Matth. 3.11 which are the effects of Fire First by sanctifying our knowledge of him by shewing us the riches of his Gospel and the beauty and majesty of Christ's Dominion and Kingdom with that evidence that we are forced to fall down and worship by filling the soul with the glory of it as God filled the Tabernacle with his Exod. 30. that all the powers and faculties of our soul are ravished at the sight that we come willingly and fall down willingly before this Lord in a word by bringing on that Truth which our heart assenteth to with that clearness and fulness of demonstration that it passeth through all the
Ye Angels that do his will They are but finite agents and so not able to make good an infinite loss They are in their own nature mutable and so not fit to settle them who were more mutable more subject to change then themselves not able to change our vile bodies much less to change our souls which are as immortal as they yet lodged in tabernacles of flesh which will fall of themselves and cannot be raised again but by his power whom the Angels worship In prison we were and CVI ANGELORVM written on the door miserable captives so deplorably lost that the whole Hierarchie of Angels could not help us And if not the Angels not Moses sure though he were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nearest to God and saw as much of his Majesty as Mortality was able to bear Heb. 3.5 6. The Apostle tells us he was faithful in all his house 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a servant but Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Son Smite he did the Aegyptians and led the people like sheep through the wilderness But he who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Captain of our salvation as he is stiled v. 10. was to cope with one more terrible then Pharaoh and all his host to put a hook into the nostrils of that great Leviathan to lead not the people alone but Moses also through darkness and death it self able to uphold and settle an Angel in his glorious estate and to rayse Moses from the dead Not Moses then but one greater then Moses Not the Angels but one whom the Angels worship who could command a whole Legion of them Not a Prophet Or if a Prophet the great Prophet which was to come If an Angel the Angel of the Covenant Certè hic Deus est even God himself Now Athanasius's Creed will teach us that there is but one God yet three Persons the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost We must then find out to which of the Persons this oeconomie belongeth Not to the Father That great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is his He bringeth his first begotten into the world ch 1.6 that he may declare his name unto his brethren ch 2. Not the Holy Ghost We hear him ch 3. as an Herald calling to us To day if yee will hear his voyce And he is Vicarius Christi Christs Vicar on earth supplyeth his place in his absence and comforteth his children It must needs then be media Persona the second and middle Person the Son of God Matth. 8.29 Luke 4.41 The office will best fit him to be a Mediatour Ask the Divels themselves when he lived they roared it out Ask the Centurion and them that watched him at his death they speak it with fear and trembling Matth. 27.54 Truly this was the Son of God Christ then our Captain is the Son of God But God hath divers Sons some by Adoption and they are made so some by Nuncupation and they are but called so and some by Creation and they are created so They who rob and devest Christ of his Essence yet yeild him his Title and though they deny him to be God yet call him God's Son We must follow then the Philosophers method in his description of moral Happiness proceed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of negation and to establish Christ in his right of Filiation tell you 1. he is not a Son not adoptivus filius God's adopted Son who by some great merit of his could so dignifie himself as to deserve that title This was the dream or rather invention of Photinus A very dream indeed For then this Similation were not of God to Man but of Man to God the Text inverted quite No Imitatur adoptio prolem Adoption is but a supply a grafting of a strange branch into another stock But he whose name is The Branch grows up of himself of the same stock and root God of God very God of very God made manifest in the flesh 1 Tim. 3.16 2. not Filius nuncupativus God's Son by nuncupation his nominal Son Such a one Sabellius and the Patro-passiani phansied as if the Father had been assimilated and so called the Son impiously making the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost not three Persons but three Names 3. Lastly not Filius creatus God's created Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a mere Creature and of a distinct essence from his Father as the more rigid Arians nor the most excellent Creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in substance like unto the Father but not consubstantial with him as the more moderate whom the Fathers called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 half-Arians conceived To these Hereticks we reply Non est Filius Dei He is not thus the Son of God And as Aristotle tells us that his Moral Happiness is the chief Good but not that Good which the Voluptuary phansieth the Epicures Good nor that which Ambition flyes to the Politicians Good nor that which the Contemplative man abstracteth an universal notion and Idea of Good So may the Christian by the same method consider his Saviour his chief bliss and happiness and by way of negation draw him out of those foggs and mists where the wanton and unsanctified wits of men have placed him and bring him into the bosome of his Father and fall down and worship God and man Christ Jesus Behold a voyce from heaven spake it Matth. 3.17 17.5 This is my beloved Son We may suspect that voice when Photinus is the Echo An Angel from heaven said He shall be called the Son of the most High Luke 1.32 Our Faith starts back and will not receive it if Sabellius make the Glosse Our Saviour himself speaks it I and my Father are one John 10.30 The Truth it self will be corrupted if Arius be the Commentator To these we say He is not thus the Son of God Naz. Orat. 39. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To contract the Personality with Sabellius or to divide the Deity with Arius are blasphemies in themselves diametrally opposed but equally to the truth The Captain of our salvation is the true Son of God begotten not made the Brightness of his Father streaming from him as Light from Light his Image not according to his humane Nature as Osiander but according to his Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Image and Character not of any qualities in God but of his Person the true stamp of his substance begotten as Brightness from the Light as the Character from the Type as the Word from the Mind Which yet do not fully declare him Quis enarrabit saith the Prophet Who shall declare his generation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isa 53.8 Thy faith is thy honour a great favour it is that thou art taught to believe that he is the eternal begotten Son of God The manner is known only to the Father who begat and to the Son who is begotten If thy busy curiosity lead thee further 〈◊〉
is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Micah 6.8 He hath shewed thee O man what is good c. Micah 6.8 What doth the Lord require of thee c. Micah 6.8 But to do justly c. Micah 6.8 To love Mercy c. Micah 6.8 And to walk humbly with thy God Gal. 4.29 But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit even so is it now 1 Thes 4.11 And that yee study to be quiet and to do your own business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you 1 Thes 4 11. And to do your own business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you Matth. 24.42 Watch therefore for yee know not what hour your Lord doth come Matth. 24.42 Yee know not what hour your Lord doth come Matth. 24.42 Watch therefore c. Jam. 1.27 Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the World 1 Sam. 3.18 And Samuel told him every whit and hid nothing from him And he said It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good John 6.56 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud dwelleth in me and I in him Ezek. 33.11 As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked Turn yee turn ye from your evil wayes For why will ye dye O house of Israel Ezek. 33.11 Turn ye turn ye c. Ezek. 33.11 From your evil wayes c. Ezek. 33.11 From your evil wayes c. Ezek. 33.11 Why will ye dye c. Ezek. 33.11 Why will ye dye O house of Israel Ezek. 33.11 Why will ye dye O house of Israel Ezek. 33.11 Why will ye dye c. A Preparation to the holy Communion 1 Cor. 11.25 This do ye as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me 1 Cor. 11.26 For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do shew or shew ye the Lord's death till he come 1 Cor. 11.28 But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. Gal. 1.10 the last part of the ver For do I now perswade men or God or do I seek to please men For if I yet pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ Coloss 2.6 As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk ye in him A Sermon preached at the Funeral of Sir George Whitmore Knight Psal 119.19 I am a stranger in the earth hide not thy commandments from me A SERMON Preached on Christmas-Day HEBR. II. 17. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren THis high Feast of the Nativity of our blessed Saviour is called by S. Chysostome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Metropolitane Feast For as to the chief City the whole Countrey resorts Thither the Tribes go up saith David even the tribes of the Lord Psal 122. so all the Feast-dayes of the whole year all the passages and periods of the blessed oeconomy of that great work of our Redemption all the solemn commemorations of the Saints and Martyrs meet and are concentred in the joy of this Feast If we will draw them into a perfect circle we must set the foot of the compass upon this Deus homini similis factus God was made like unto Man But if we remove the compass and deny this Assimilation the Incarnation of Christ there will be no room then for the glorious company of the Apostles for the goodly fellowship of the Prophets for the noble army of Martyrs the Circumcision is cut off the Epiphany disappears our Easter is buried and the Feast of the holy Ghosts Advent is past and gone from us as that mighty wind which brought it in Blot out these two words PVER NATVS A Child is born The Son of God is made like unto us and you have wip'd the Saints all out of the Kalendar at once We will not now urge the solemn celebration of the Day That hath been done already by many who have thought it a duty not only of the closet but the Church and a fit subject for publick devotion And upon this account Antiquity lookt upon it with joy and gratitude as upon a day which the Lord had made And S. Augustine commends this anniversary Solemnity as either delivered to after-ages by the Apostles themselves Vel ab ipsis Apostolis vel plenariis Conciliis instituta c. Aug. p. 118. or decreed by Councels and devoutly retained in all the Churches of the world But we do not now urge it For when Power speaks every mouth must be stopped Logick hath no sinews an Argument no strength Antiquity no authority Councels may erre the Fathers were but children all Churches must yeild to one and the first age be taught by the last Job 12.20 Speech is taken away from the trusty and understanding from the aged But yesterday that monstre was discovered which the Churches for so many centuries of years heard not of and so made much of it and embraced it but they must have run from it or abolisht it if their eye had been as clear and quick as theirs of after-times I do not stand up against Power I say I should then forget him whose memory we so much desire to celebrate who was the best teacher and greatest example of obedience What cannot be done cannot oblige And where the Church is shut up every mans chamber every mans breast may be a Temple and every day a Holy-day and we may offer up in it the sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving to the blessed Son of God who came and dwelt amongst us and was made like unto us which is the only end of the celebration of this Feast Christ is made like unto us is as true when every man tells himself so and makes melody in his heart as when it is preached in the great congregation But it is heard further and soundeth better and is the sweeter Musick when all the people say Amen when with one heart and soul and in one place they give glory to their Saviour who that he might be so factus est similis was made like unto them My Text is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a principle in Divinity and is laid down unto us in the form of a Modell proposition Which as we are taught in Logick consists of two parts the Dictum and the Modus Here is 1. the Proposition CHRISTVS FACTVS SIMILIS Christ is made like us 2. the Modification or Qualification of it with an OPORTVIT or DEBVIT It dehoved him so to be In the Proposition our meditations are directed to Christ and to his Brethren And we consider Quid Christus Quid nos What Christ is and What we we were God he was
Augustine though the Head phansieth the Finger toucheth sonum sola chorda excutit there must be a string before there be musick So the Father and the holy Ghost did work in this mystery but incarnationis terminus Christus the Incarnation rested on the Son alone The Son is the Instrument by which was conveyed that melos salutare that heavenly Antheme which the Types did set and prefigure the Prophets descant upon and the Angels chant forth in a full Quire that Musick which hath filled heaven and earth with its sound It behoved his Power to restore us his Wisdome to reform us his Mercy to relieve us DEBVIT taketh them all in It ought it was convenient so to be Lastly DEBVIT reacheth the Assimilation it self and layeth hold on that too Made like he was and he ought to be so to satisfie in the same nature which had offended carnem gestare propter meam carnem Gregor to take flesh for my flesh and a soul for my soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to purge and refine me in my own to wash and cleanse the corruption of my flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the immense Ocean of his Divinity and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all things to be made like unto his brethren Debuit looks on all on his Godhead on his Person on his Assimilation God no Man or Angel The second Person in Trinity not the Father or the holy Spirit Made like unto his Brethren 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his naked Divinity though it might have saved us yet it was not so fit being at too great a distance from us Debuit slumbreth every storm answereth every doubt scattreth our fears removeth our jealousies and buildeth us up in our most holy faith Though he be God the Wisdome of God the Son of God yet he ought to be made like unto us to restore his Creature to exalt our Nature and in our shape and likeness in our flesh to pay down the price of our Redemption So then here is an Aptness and Conveniency But the words it behoved him imply also a kind of Necessity That God could be made like morâ—â—l man is a strange contemplation that he would is a rise and exaltatâ—on of that that he ought superexalteth and sets it at a higher pitch but that he must be so that Necessity in a manner should bring him down were not his Love infinite as well as his Power would stagger and amaze the strongest faith Who would believe such a report But he speaketh it himself Matth. 26.54 Mark 8.31 and it was the fire of his Love that kindled in him and then he spake it with his tongue He must die and if die be born He not onely is but would not onely would but ought not onely ought but of necessity must be made like unto his brethren I say a strange contemplation it is For there needed no such forcible tye no such chain of necessity to hold him Liberè egit what he did he did freely Nothing more free and voluntary more spontaneous then this his Assimilation For at his birth as if he had slacked his pace and delayed his Fathers expectation and not come at the appointed period of time he suddenly cryeth Lo I come in the volume of thy book it is written of me that I should do thy will O God Psal 40.7 8. He calleth it his desire and he had it written in his heart His Passion he calleth a baptisme as if he had been to be the better for it And in this Chapter as if there had been some defect some thing wanting to him before God is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 10. to make him perfect bâ— sufferings He was not whole and consummate before not what he should be Now he is T is true This condescension of his this assimilation was free and voluntary with more chearfulness and earnestness undertaken by him then received now by us It is our shame and sin that we dare not compare them that he should be so willing to be like us and we so unwilling to be like him but if we look back upon the precontract which past between his Father and him we shall then see a Debuit a kind of Necessity laid upon him Our Saviour himself speaketh it to his blessed mother 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I must go about my Fathers business Luke 2.49 We may measure his love by the decree that is we cannot measure it for the decree is eternal Before the foundation of the world was laid was this foundation laid an everlasting foundation to lay gold and silver upon all the rich and precious promises of the Gospel to lay our obedience and conformity to him upon and upon them both upon his love and our obedience to raise our selves up to that eternity which he hath purchased and promised to all his Brethren that are made like unto him Infinite love eternal love That which the eye of Flesh may count a dishonour was his joy his perfection His Love put a Debuit upon him a Necessity and brought him after a manner under the strict and peremptory terms of an Obligation under a Necessity of being born a Necessity of obedience a Necessity of dying Debuit taketh in all presenteth them to our admiration our joy our love our obedience gratitude 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every way and in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren We have run the full compass of the Text and find our Saviour in every point of it like in all things And now to apply it If Christ be like unto us then we also ought to be like unto him and to have our Assimilation our Nativity by analogy and rules of proportion answerable unto his He was made like unto us you will say that he might save us Yea that he may present us to his Father by the virtue of his assimilation made like unto him for without this he cannot save us Behold here am I Hebr. 2.13 and the children which thou hast given me holy as I am holy just as I am just humble as I was humble A man conformable to Christ is the glory of this Feast Father John 17.24 I will that they whom thou hast given me and he gives him none but those who are like him be where I am Heaven hath received him And it will receive none but those who are like him Not those that name him Not those who set his name to their fraud to their malice to their perjury to their oppression Not those many Antichrists whose whole life is a contradiction to him All that he requireth at our hands all our gratitude all our duty is drawn together and consisteth in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be like unto him To be like unto him Why who would not be like unto him who would not be drawn after his similitude Like him we all would be in
and leave the rod of the stubborn Impenitent to fall upon him The death of Christ is not applyed to all say some It is not for all say others The virtue of Christ's meritorious passion is not made use of by all say some It was never intended that it should say others And the event is the same for if it be not made use of and applyed it is as if it were not as if it had never been obtained Only the unbeliever is left under the greater condemnation who turned away from Christ who spake unto him not only from heaven but from his cross and refused that grace which was offered him Which could not befall him if there had never been any such overture made For how can one refuse that which never concerned him how can he forfeit that pardon which was never sealed how can he despise that Spirit of grace which never breathed towards him They who are so tender and jealous of Christ's blood that no drop must fall but where they direct it do but veritatem veritate concutere undermine and shake one truth with another set up the particular love of God to Believers to overthrow his general love to Mankind confound the virtue of Christs passion with its effect and draw them together within the same narrow compass bring it under a Decree that it can save no more then it doth because it hath its bounds set Hitherto it shall go and no further and was ordained to quicken some but to withdraw it self from others as shut out and hid from the light and force of it from having any title to it long before ever they saw the sun Thus they shorten the hand of God when it is stretched out to all bound his love which is profered to all stint the blood of Christ which gusheth out upon all and circumcise his mercy which is a large cloak saith Bernard large enough to cover all And the reason is no better then the position Quod vis esse charum effice ut sit rarum To make salvation more precious and estimable it must be rare Then it is most glorious when it is a peculiar and entailed on a few Why should the Love of God be a common thing I answer Why should it not be common since he is pleased to have it so Why should he cast away so many to endear a few Can there be any glory in that Priviledge which is writ with the blood of so many millions Why should not Gods Love be common since he would have it not only common but communicated to all and expresseth himself as one grieved and troubled and angry because it is not so Why should we fear God's love should be cast away by being profered to many His love of Friendship and Complacency to those whom he calleth his Friends cannot be lost but is as eternal as himself it assisteth and upholdeth them and will crown them everlastingly Nor is his general love of Good will and Affection lost though it be lost for it is ever with him even when the wicked are in hell Plus est bonitas Dei quà m beneficentia Christs blood is ever in the flow though there be but few that take the tide and are carried along with it Gods Goodness is larger then his Beneficence He doth not do what good he can or rather he doth not do what good he would because we fall back and will not receive it We will not suffer him to be good we will not suffer him to be merciful we will not suffer him to save us John 3.19 This is the condemnation of the world that light came into the world and men loved darkness more then light Apul. Flor. 1. The Philosopher will tell us that the Indians ad nascentem solem siti sunt tamen in corpore color noctis est they live at the very rising of the sun yet their bodies are black and swarthy and resemble the night So many there be who live in the very region of light where the beams fall upon them hot and pure and are darted at their very eyes and yet they remain the children of darkness Facit infidelitas multorum ut Christus non pro omnibus moriatur qui pro omnibus mortuus est saith S. Ambrose Christ was delivered for all is a true proposition it is Infidelity alone that can make it Heretical And yet it is true still though to him that believeth not it is of no more use then if it were false He was delivered for thee but thou wilt not receive him His passion is absolute but thou art impenitent He dyed for Judas who betrayed him but will not save Judas that despaired and hanged himself Infidelity and Impenitency are the worst Restrictives that limit and draw down to particulars a proposition so profitably general and bound so saving an Universal that contract and sink all into a few To conclude this Christ hanging on the cross looketh upon all but all do not cast an eye and look up in faith upon him He was delivered to deliver all but all will not be delivered Omnis natura nostra in Christi hypostasi Our whole nature is united in Christ's person not the persons of a few but our whole nature And our whole nature is of compass large enough to take in all And in that common nature of man he offered up himself on the cross for the sin of all John 1.29 that he might take away the sin of the world destroy the very species and being of it Which though it be not done cannot be imputed to any scantness or deficiency of virtue in his bloud which is of power to purge out sin wheresoere it is if the heart that fostereth sin be ready and willing to receive and apply it And in this common nature of Man not from Abraham or David onely as S. Matthew but even from the first man Adam himself as S. Luke carryeth up his Genealogy did Christ offer up himself upon the cross And in this common nature he presenteth himself before his Father And now God looketh upon Christ and Mankind as our eye doth upon Light and Colours which cannot be seen without light Before this Light came into the world we were covered over with darkness and deformity and God could not look upon us but in anger but through this common Light we may be seen and be beloved we may be seen with pleasure For as God is delighted in his Son so in him he is well pleased in those Sons which he shall bring with him to glory But if we will fully withdraw our selves from this Light then doth his soul hate us Hebr. 1.3 Christ is the brightness of his glory light enough for God to look through upon a thousand worlds multiplyed a thousand times And if we do not hide our selves from it hide our selves in the caverns of the earth in the world if we do not drown our selves in the bottome of
Christ in his shame in his sorrow in his agony take him hanging on the cross take him and take a pattern by him that as he was so we may be troubled for our sins that we may mingle our tears with his blood drag Sin to the bar accuse and condemn it revile and spit in its face at the fairest presentment it can make and then nail it to the cross that it may languish and faint by degrees till it give up the ghost and die in us Then lye we down in peace in the grave and expect a glorious resurrection when we shall receive Christ not in humility but in Majesty and with him all his riches and abundance all his promises even Glory and Immortality and Eternal life A SERMON Preached on Easter-Day REV. I. 18. I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore Amen and have the keyes of Hell and of Death WE do not ask Of whom speaketh S. John this or Who is he that speaketh it For we have his character drawn out in lively colours in the verses going before my Text. The Divine calls him a voyce ver 12. when he meaneth the man who spake it I turned to see the voyce that spoke with me and in the next verse telleth us he was like to the Son of man in the midst of the seven golden Candlesticks governing his Church Lev. 26.11 12. setting his Tabernacle amongst men not abhorring to walk amongst them and to be their God that they might be his people Will you see his robes and attire Clothed he was with a garment down to the foot v. 13. which was the garment of the High Priest Hebr. 7.24 And his was an unchangeable Priesthood He had also a golden girdle or belt as a King For he is a King for ever and of his kingdome there shall be no end Luk. 1.33 Righteousness shall be the girdle of his loyns and faithfulness the girdle of his reins Isa 11.5 His head and his hairs were white as woll and as white as snow v. 14. his Judgment pure and uncorrupt not byassed by outward respects not tainted or corrupted by any turbulent affection but smooth and even as waters are when no wind troubleth them His eyes as a flame of fire piercing the inward man searching the secrets of the heart nor is there any action word or thought which is not manifest in his sight His feet like unto fine brass v. 15. sincere and constant like unto himself in all his proceedings in every part of his Oeconomy His voyce as the sound of many waters declaring his Fathers will with power and authority sounding out the Gospel of peace to all the world And last of all out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword v. 16. not onely dividing asunder the soul and the spirit Hebr. 4.12 but discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart and taking vengeance on those who persecute his Church His Majesty dazled every mortal eye his countenance was as the Sun shineth in his strength And now of him who walketh in the midst of his Church whose Mercy is a large robe reaching down to the feet who is girt with Power and clothed with Justice whose Wisdome pierceth even into darkness it self whose Word is heard from one end of the world to the other whose Majesty displayeth its beams through every corner of it we cannot but confess with Peter This is Christ Matth. 16.16 John 6.69 Hagg. 2.7 the Son of the living God And can the Saviour of the world the Desire of all nations the Glory of his Father Beauty it self appear in such a shape of terrour Shall we draw out a merciful Redeemer with a warriours belt with eyes of fire with feet of brass with a voyce of terrour with a sharp two-edged sword in his mouth Yes Such a High Priest became us Hebr. 7.26 who is not onely merciful but just not onely meek but powerful not only fair but terrible not onely clothed with the darkness of Humility but with the shining robes of Majesty who can dye and can live again and live for evermore who suffered himself to be judged and condemned and shall judge and condemn the world it self S. John indeed was troubled at this sight and fell down as dead but Christ rouzeth him up and biddeth him shake of that fear For he is terrible to none but those who make him so to Hereticks and Hypocrites and Persecutors of his Church to those who would have him neither wise nor just nor powerful Non accepimus iratum sed fecimus He is not angry till we force him It is rather our sins that run back again upon us as Furies than his wrath These make him clothe himself with vengeance and draw his sword To S. John to those that bow before him he is all sweetness all grace all salvation and upon these as upon S. John he layeth his right hand quickneth and rouzeth them up Fear not v. 17. neither my girdle of Justice nor my eyes of fire nor my feet of brass nor my mighty voyce nor my two-edged sword for my Wisdom shall guide you my Power shall defend you my Majesty shall uphold you and my Mercy shall crown you Fear not I am the first and the last more humble than any more powerful than any scorned whipped crucified and now highly exalted and Lord of all the world I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore c. These words I may call as Tertullian doth the Lord's Prayer breviarium Evangelii the Breviary or Sum of the whole Gospel or with Augustine Symbolum abbreviatum the Epitome or Abridgement of our Creed And such a short Creed we find in Tertullian which he calls Regulam veram immobilem irreformabilem the sole immutable and unalterable rule of Faith And then the Articles or parts will be 1. The Death of Christ I was dead 2. The Resurrection of Christ with the effect and power of it I am he that liveth 3. The Duration and continuance of his life It is to all eternity I am alive for evermore 4. The Power of Christ which he purchased by his death the Power of the keyes I have the keyes of Hell and of Death And all these are 1. ushered in with an ECCE Behold that we may consider it and 2. sealed and ratified with an AMEN that we may believe it that there be not in any of us as the Apostle speaketh an unbelieving heart to depart from the living God Hebr. 3.11 I am he that liveth and was dead Of the Death of Christ we spake the last day Par. 1. We shall onely now look upon it in reference to the Resurrection and consider it as past For it is FVI MORTVVS I was dead And in this we may see the method and proceeding of our Saviour which he drew out in his blood which must sprinkle those who are to be
We have also the testimony of Martyrs who took their death on 't and when they could not live to publish it laid down their life and sealed it with their Blood And therefore we on whom the ends of the world are come have no reason to complain of distance and that we are removed so many ages from the time wherein it was done For now Christ risen is become a more obvious object than before the diversity of mediums have increased and multiplyed it We see him in his Word we see him through the Blood of Martyrs and we see him with the eye of faith Christ is risen and alive 1 Cor. 15.3 4. secundum scripturas saith S. Paul and he repeateth it twice in the same chapter Offenderunt Judaei in Christum lapidem it is S. Augustines and let it pass for his sake When the Jew stumbled at him he presented but the bigness of a stone but our Infidelity will find no excuse if we see him not now when he appeareth as visible as a mountain There is more in this VIVO than a bare rising to life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He liveth in as much as He giveth life There is vertue and power in his Resurrection a power to abolish Death 2 Tim. 1.10 and to bring life and immortality to light a power to raise our vile bodies and a power to raise our viler souls He will raise them nay he hath done it already Col. 2.12 3.1 We are risen together with him and we live with him We cannot think that he that made such haste out of his own grave can be willing to see us rotting in ours From this VIVO it is that though we dye yet we shall live again Christ's Living breatheth life into us In his Resurrection he cast the modell of ours Idea est eorum quae fiunt exemplar aeternum saith Seneca And this is such a one an eternal pattern Plato 's Idea or common Form by which he thought all things have their existence is but a dream to this This is a true and real an efficacious and working pattern For as an Artificer hath not lost his art when he hath finished one piece no more did Christ lose his power when he had raised himself but as he is so it is everlasting and worketh still to the end of the world Perfectum est exemplar minùs perfecti That which Christ wrought upon himself is most exact and perfect a fit pattern of that which he meaneth to work on us which will be like to his indeed but not so glorious And now VIVO I live is as loud to raise our Hope as the last trump will be to raise our Bodies And how shall they be able to hear the sound of the trump who will not hear the voice of their Saviour Christ's life derives its vertue and influence on both Soul and Body on the Body with that power which is requisite to raise a body now putrified and incinerated and well near annihilated and on the Soul with such a power as is fitted to a soul which hath both Understanding and Will though drawn and carried away from their proper operations for which they were made We do not read of any precept to bind us or any counsel â—o perswade us to contribute any thing or put a hand to the resurrection of our bodies nor can there be it will be done whether we will or no But to Awake from the pleasant sleep of sin to be Renewed and raised in the inward man to Die to sin and Live to righteousness we have line upon line and precept upon precept And though this Life of Christ work in us both the will and the deed Phil. 2.12 Phil. 2.13 yet a necessity and a law lieth upon us and wo will be unto us if we work not out our salvation By his power we are raised in both but not working after the same manner There will be a change in both As the flesh at the second so the soul at the first resurrection must be reformata Angelificata spiritualized refined and angelified or rather Christificata If I may so speak Christified drawing in no breath but Christs Phil. 2.5 Job 17.13 14 having the same mind which was in Christ Jesus Whilst our bed is in the darkness whilst Corruption is our father and the Worm our mother and sister we cannot be said to be risen and whilest all the alliance we have is with the World and it is both Father and Mother and Sister to us whilest we mind earthly things we are still in our graves nay in hell it self Death hath dominion over us For let us call the World what we please our Habitation our Delight our Kingdome where we would dwell for ever yet indeed it is but our Grave If we receive any influence from Christ's life we shall rise fairly not with a mouth which is a sepulchre but with a tongue which is our glory not with a withred hand but with a hand stretched out to the needy not with a gadding eye but an eye shut up by covenant not with an itching but with an obedient ear not with a heart of stone but with a heart after Gods own heart Our Life Col. 3.3 saith the Apostle is hid with Christ in God and whilest we leave it thereby a continual meditation of his meritorious suffering by a serious and practical application of his glorious resurrection we hide it in the bosome of Majesty and no dart of Satan can reach it When we hide it in the minerals of the earth in the love of the world the Devil who is the Prince of the world is there to seize on it when we hide it in malicious and wanton thoughts they are his baits to catch it when we hide it in sloth and idleness we hide it in a grave which he digged for us we entomb our selves alive and as much as in us lies bury the Resurrection it self But when we hide it in Christ we hide it in him who carrieth healing and life in his wings Mal. 4.2 When we worship God through Jesus Christ our Lord and put our life in his hands 2 Cor. 4.11 then the life of Jesus is made manifest in our mortal flesh then we have put off the old man yea in a manner put off our mortality we are candidati aeternitatis as Tertullian speaketh Candidates for eternity and stand for a place with Abraham and Isaac for we have the same God and he is not the God of the dead Matth. 21.32 but of the living We see now what virtue and power there is in this VIVO in the Life of Christ But we must rise yet higher even as high as Eternity it self Hebr. 6.20 Hebr. 7.16 For as he liveth so behold he is alive for evermore a Priest for ever and a King for ever being made not after the law of a carnal commandment after that law which was given to
men that one should succeed another but after the power of an endless life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a life that cannot be dissolved that cannot part from the body And thus as he liveth for evermore so whatsoever issueth from him is like himself everlasting the beams as lasting as the light His Word endureth for ever his Law is eternal his Intercession eternal his Punishments eternal and his Reward eternal Not a Word which can fall to the ground like ours who fall after it and within a while breathe out our souls as we do our words and speak no more Not Laws which are framed and set to the times and alter and change as they do and at last end with them but which shall stand fast for ever Psal 62.11 aeternae ab aeterno eternal as he is eternal He hath spoken once and he will speak no more Not an Intercession which may be silenced with power but imprinted in him and inseparable from him and so never ceasing an Intercession which Omnipotency it self cannot withstand Not a a transitory Punishment which time may mitigate or take away but an everlasting Worm Not a Reward which may be snatched out of our hands but lasting as the heavens nay as Christ himself And they who would contract and shrink it up into one and so make a temporary perishing everlastingness that shall last as long as it lasteth do stretch beyond their line which may reach the Right hand as well as the Left and do put an end to the Reward as they would do to the Punishment For of the one as well as of the other it is said that it shall be everlasting All that floweth from Christ is like himself yesterday Hebr. 13.8 Hebr. 7.26 and to day and the same for ever And such an High Priest became us who was to live for ever For what should we do with a mortal Saviour or what could a mortal Saviour do for us What could an arm of flesh a withering dying arm avail us Shadow us to day and leave us to morrow raise us up now and within a while let us fall into the dust and at last fall down and perish with us Man is weak Job 14.10 and dieth man giveth up the ghost and where is he Where is I will not say Alexander or Caesar but where is Moses that led his people through the Red-Sea where are his lawes Where is David S. Peter speaketh it freely that he is both dead and buried Acts 2.29 and that his Sepulchre was with them unto that day But the son of David is ascended into heaven is our Priest for ever and liveth for evermore And this title of Eternity is wrought in his Girdle and Garment may be seen in his Head and Eyes of fire adorneth his burning Feet is engraven on his Sword may be read in his Countenance and platted in his Crown and doth well become his Power his Wisdome his Justice his Goodness For that which is not eternal is next to nothing What Power is that which sinketh What Wisdome is that which faileth What Riches are they that perish What Mercy is that which is as the morning dew which soon falleth and is as soon exhaled and dryed up again Virtue were nothing Religion were nothing Faith it self were nothing but in reference to Eternity Heaven were nothing if it were not eternal Eternity is that which maketh every thing something maketh every thing better than it is and addeth lustre to Light it self I live evermore giveth life unto all things Eternity is a fathomless Ocean and carrieth with it Power and Wisdome and Goodness an efficacious Activity a gracious and benevolent Power a wise and provident Goodness If Christ live for evermore then is he independent if independent then most powerful if most powerful then blessed and if blessed then good He is powerful but good good but wise And these Goodness and Power and Wisdome and a diligent Care for us meet in him who liveth for evermore and worketh on us for our eternal salvation And first as he liveth for evermore so he intercedeth for us for evermore and he can no more leave to entercede for us than he can to be Christ His Priesthood must fail before his Intercession because this power of helping us is everlastingly and inseparably inherent in him St. Paul joyneth them together his Sitting at the right of God and his interceding for us Rom. 8.34 So that to leave interceding were to leave the right hand of God where he looketh down upon us is present with us and prepareth a place for us His wounds are still open his merits are still vocal his sufferings are still importunate his everlasting presenting of himself before his Father is an everlasting prayer Jesus at the right hand of the Father is more powerful than the full vials the incense the prayers the groans the sighs the roarings of all the Saints that have been or shall be to the end of the world If he sate not there if he interceded not they were but noise nay they were sins but his Intercession sanctifieth them and offereth them up and by him they are powerful By his power the sighs and breathings and desires of mortal men ascend the highest heavens and draw down eternity And this is a part of Christ's Priestly office which he began here on earth and continueth for us maketh it compleat holdeth it up to the the end of the world Again this title of Eternity is annexed to his Regality and is a flower of his Crown not set in any but his Thou art a King for ever cannot be said to any mortal Did he not live for evermore he could not threaten eternal death Nor promise everlasting life For no mortal power can rage for ever but passeth as lands do from one Lord to another lyeth heavy on them and at last sinketh to the ground with them all Nor can the hand that must wither and fall off reach forth a never-failing reward Infinitude cannot be the issue and product of that which is finite and bounded vvithin a determined period And this might open a vvide and effectual door unto Sin and but leave a sad and disconsolate entrance for Virtue and Piety vvhich is so unsatisfying to flesh and blood that the perseverance in it requireth no less a povver than that vvhich Eternity bringeth along with it to draw it on How bold and daring would men be before the Sun and the People What joy and delight vvould fill them did not the thought of a future endless estate pierce sometimes through them and so make some vent to let it out When the evil that hangeth over is but a cloud vvhich vvill soon vanish few men are so serious as to look about and seek for shelter Post mortem nihil est ipsáque mors nihil est There is nothing after death and Death it self is nothing setteth up a chair for the Atheist to set at ease in
of those profitable and honourable evils which we have set up as our mark but cannot so fairly reach to if we stand in open defiance to all Religion And therefore when that will not joyn with us but looketh a contrary way to that which we are pressing toward with so much eagerness we content our selves with some part of it with the weakest and poorest and beggerlyest part of it and make use of it to go along with us and countenance and secure us in the doing of that which is opposit to it and with which it cannot subsist And so well and feelingly we act our parts that we take our selves to be great favourites and in high grace with him whose laws we break and so procure some rest and ease from those continual clamours which our guiltiness would otherwise raise within us and walk on with delight and boasting and through this seeming and feigned paradise post on securely to the gates of Death In what triumphant measures doth a Pharisee go from the Altar What a harmless thing is a cheat after a Sermon What a sweet morsel is a widows house after long Prayers What a piece of justice is Oppression after a fast After so much Ceremony the blood of Abel himself of the justest man alive hath no voice For 3. These outward performances and this formality in Religion have the same spring and motive with our greatest and foulest sins The same cause produceth them the same considerations promote them and they are carried to their end on the same wings of our carnal desires Do you not wonder that I should say The formality and outward presentments of our Devotion may have the same beginnings with our sins may have their birth from the same womb that they draw the same breasts and like twins James 3.11 are born and nurst and grow up together Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter No it cannot But both these are salt and brinish our Sacrifice as ill smelling as our Oppression our Fast as displeasing as our Sacrilege and our Hearing and Prayers cry as loud for vengeance as our Oppression We sacrifice that we may oppress we fast that we may spoil our God and we pray that we may devour our brethren Ezek. 16.44 Like mother like daughter saith the Prophet They have the same evil beginning and they are both evil Ambition was the cause of Absaloms Rebellion 2 Sam. 15. 1 Kings 21. Gen. 34. and Ambition sent him to Hebron to pay his vow Covetousness made Ahab and Jezebel murderers and Covetousness proclaimed their fast Lust made Shechem the Son of Hamor a ravisher and Lust made him a Proselyte and circumcised him Covetousness made the Pharisee a ravening Wolf and Covetousness clothed him in a Lambs skin Covetousness made his Corban and Covetousness did disfigure his face and placed him praying in the Synagogues and in the corners of the streets Ex his causam accipiunt quibus probantur saith Tertullian They have both the same cause for the same motives arise and shew them both The same reason maketh the same man both devout and wicked both abstemious and greedy both meek and bloody a seeming Saint and a raging Devil a Lamb to the eye and a roaring Lion Scit enim diabolus alios continentiâ alios libidine occidere saith the same Father The Devil hath an art to destroy us with the appearance of virtue assoon as with the poyson of sin For 4. This formality in Religion standeth in no opposition with him or his designs but rather advanceth his kingdome and enlargeth his dominion For how many Sacrificers how many attentive Hearers how many Beadsmen how many Professours are his vassals How many call upon God Abba Father who are the Devils Children How many openly renounce him Ex malitia ingenium habet Tertull. de Idololat and yet love his wiles delight in his craft which is his Malice How many never think themselves at liberty but when they are in his snare And doth not a fair pretense make the fact fouler Doth not Sacrifice raise the voice of our Oppression that it cryeth louder Doth not a form of Godliness make Sin yet more sinful When we talk of heaven and love the world are we not then most earthly most sensual most devilish Is the Devil ever more Devil then when he is transformed into an angel of light And therefore the Devil himself is a great promoter of this art of pargetting and painting and maketh use of that which we call Religion to make men more wicked loveth this foul and monstrous mixture of a Sacrificer and an Oppressor of a Christian and a Deceiver of a Faster and a Blood thirsty man And as he was most enraged and impatient as Tertullian telleth us to see the works of God brought into subjection under Man who was made according to Gods image so is it his pride and glory to see Man and Religion it self brought under these transitory things and even made servants and slaves unto them Oh to this hater of God and Man it is a kind of heaven in hell it self and in the midst of all his torment to see this Man whom God created and redeemed do him the greatest service in Christs livery to see him promote his interest in the name of Christ and Religion to see him under his power and dominion most when he waiteh most diligently and officiously at the altar of God The Pharisee was his beloved disciple when he was on his knees with a disfigured face These Jews here were his disciples who did run to the Altar but not from their evil waies who offered up the blood of beasts to God and of the innocent to him He that fasteth and oppresseth is his disciple for he giveth God his body and the Devil his soul He that prayeth much and cozeneth more is his disciple for he flattreth God but serveth the enemy speaketh to the God of truth with his lips but hearkneth to the Father of lyes and deceit I may say the Devil is the great Alchymist of the world he transelementeth the worst things to make them more passable and to add a kind of esteem and glory to them We do not meet with counterfeit Iron or Copper but Gold and Pretious stones these we sophisticate and when we cannot dig them out of the mine or take them from the rock we strive to work them by art out of Iron or Copper or Glass and call them Gold and Diamonds Thus doth the Devil raise and sublime the greatest Impiety and gild it over with a Sacrifice with a Fast with Devotion that it may appear in glory and deceive if it were possible the very elect We see too many deceived with it who having no Religion themselves are yet ready to bow down to its Image wheresoever they see it and so fix their eye and devotion upon it that they see not the Thief the Oppressour the
spiritual wisdome which is that Salt which every Teacher should have in himself Matth. 5.13 Mark 9.50 to urge and press it to the multitude who are too ready to make an idol of that Serpent which is lifted up to cure them For how many weak hands and feeble knees and cowardly hearts hath this made How willing are we to hear of weakness and impossibilities because we would not keep the Law How oft do we lye down with this thought and do nothing or rather run away with it even against the Law it self and break it What polluted blind impotent cripled wretches are we ready to call our selves which were indeed a glorious confession were it made out of hatred to sin But most commonly these words are sent forth not from a broken but a hollow heart and comfort us rather than accuse us are rather flatteries then aggravation the oyl of sinners to break their heads and to infatuate them not to supple their limbs but benum them And they beget no other Resolution in us but this Not to gird up our loins because we are weak To sin more and more because we cannot but sin Not to do what God requireth because we have already concluded within our selves that it is impossible To conclude this The question is not Whether we can exactly keep a Law so as not to fail sometimes as men for I know no reason why this question should be put up but Whether we can keep it so far forth as God requireth and in his goodness will accept Whether we can be just and merciful and humble men And if this be impossible then will follow as sad an impossibility of being saved For the not doing what God requireth is that alone which shutteth the gates of Heauen against us and cutteth off all hope of eternal happiness And this were to unpeople Heaven this were a Dragons tail to draw down all the stars and cast them into hell But the Saints are sealed and have this seal That they did what God required And it is a thing so far from being impossible that the Prophet maketh but a But of it It is not impossible it is but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God Secondly it is so far from being impossible that it is but an easie duty My yoke is easie Matth. 11.30 saith our Saviour and my burden light For it is fitted to our necks and shoulders and is so far from taking from our nature or pressing it with violence that it exalteth and perfecteth it All is in putting it about our necks Prov 1.9 and then this yoke is an ornament of grace as Solomon's chain about them And when this burden is layd on then it is not a burden but our Form to quicken us and our Angel to guide us with delight in all our waies And this the beloved Disciple suckt from his Master's bosome 1 John 5.3 This is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous For here is Love and Hope to sweeten them and make them easie and pleasant Nor doth he speak this as an Oratour to take men by craft by telling them that that which he exhorted them to was neither impossible nor difficult and so give force to his exhortation and make a way for it to enter and work a full perswasion in them to be obedient to those commands but as a Logician he backeth and establisheth his affirmation with an undeniable reason in the next verse For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world and so his commandments are not grievous to those who have the true knowledge of God He that is born of God must needs have strength enough to pass through all hindrances whatsoever to tread down all Principalities and Powers to demolish all imaginations which set up and oppose themselves and so make these commands more grievous then they are in their own nature And this he strengthneth with another reason in the next verse For he that is born of God hath the help and advantage of Faith and full perswasion of the power of Jesus Christ which is that victory which overcometh the world So that whosoever saith the commandments are grievous with the same breath excommunicateth himself from the Church of Christ and maketh himself an hypocrite and professeth he is that which he is not a Christian when Christ's words are irksome and tedious unto him that he is born of God when he hath neither the language nor the motion of a child of God doth not what God requireth but doth the works of another father the Devil When men therefore pretend they cannot do what God requireth they should change their language for the truth is they will not If they would there were more for them then against them Salvian Totum durum est quicquid imperatur invitis To an unwilling mind every command carrieth with it the fearful shew of difficulty Mavult execrari legem quà m emendari mentem praecepta odisse quà m vitia A wicked man mavult emendare Deos quà m seipsum saith Seneca had rather condemn the Law then reform his life rather hate the precept then his sin Continence is a hard lesson but to the wanton Liberality to a Miser Temperance to a Glutton Obedience to a Factious and Rebellious spirit All these things are hard to him that loveth not Christ But where there is will there is strength enough Cant. 8 6. and Love is stronger then Death What was sweeter then Manna Isid Pelus 2. ep 67. what sooner gathered yet the children of Israel murmured at it What more bitter then Hunger and Imprisonment yet S. Paul rejoyced in them Nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wickedness in its own nature is a troublesome and vexations thing Vitia magno coluntur saith Seneca Scarce any sin we commit but costeth us dear What more painful then Anger what more perplext and tormenting then Revenge what more intangled then Lust what can more disquiet us then Ambition what more fearful then Cruelty what sooner disturbed then Pride Nay further yet How doth one sin incroch and trespass upon another I fling off my Pleasure and Honour to make way to my Revenge I deny my Lust to further my Ambition and rob my Covetousness to satisfie my Lust and forbear one sin to commit another and so do but versuram facere borrow of one sin to lay it out on another binding and loosing my self as my corruption leadeth me but never at ease Tell me Which is easier saith the Father to search for wealth in the bowels of the earth nay in the bowels of the poor by oppression then to sit down content with thy own night and day to study the world or to embrace Frugality to oppress every man or to relieve the oppressed to be busie in the Market or to be quiet at home to take other mens goods or to give my own to be
shipwrack of a good conscience 1 Tim. 1.19 and then with the swelling sails of Impudence hasten to that point and haven which their boundless lusts have made choice of as we should do to eternal happiness per calcatum patrem as S. Hierome speaketh over father and mother over all relations and Religion it self forsake all these not for Christs sake and the Gospel but for Mammon and the world What foul pollutions what grinding and cruel oppressions and what open profaneness have there been in the world And we may ask with the Prophet Jeremiah Were they ashamed when they committed abomination Jer. 8.12 Eph. 4.18 Nay they were not at all ashamed neither could they have any shame 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the hardness and blindness of their heart For in sin and by sin they at last grow familiar in sin clothe themselves with it as with a robe of honour bring it forth into open view like Agrippa and Bernice in the Acts Acts 25.23 Dan. 3.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with great state and pomp They set it up as Nebuchadnezzar did his image of gold threescore cubits high to be seen of all They boast of their Atheism and look down upon them with a contemptuous pity as shallow and weak men who go about to perswade such men as they of quick and searching wits â—hat there is a God who both seeth and heareth them and they take it very ill if we do but wish them well Thus it is in every bold presumptuous sinner even as it was with the Devil Depuduit No sooner do they cast themselves down from Heaven but they cast away all shame and their Modesty flyeth from them in the very fall and their Motto is Tush God doth not see And this sure is not to walk with God Psal 94.7 but to walk and strut as Nebuchadnezzar did in his palace Dan. 4.30 This is the palace which I have built Thus thus have I done and who dareth fling a stone at it to walk as Goliath did in a coat of brass and defie the host of Israel 1 Sam. 17. and God himself Golias in fronte c. saith Augustine Goliath was smitten in the forehead and so are they The disease indeed is in the heart but it hath made an impression and left a mark in the forehead He that hath forgot to blush doth not well remember that there is a God who looketh upon him Secondly the Dissembling sinner the Hypocrite walketh not with God For he is but a Player of Religion and being but a Slave cometh forth a King and then treadeth his measures putteth it to the trial whether God hath an eye whether he will take dross for silver the superficies for the substance a Fast for Repentance a Picture for the New creature Archidamus said well of an old man that had died and discoloured his hair It is not likely he should speak truth qui mendacium in capite circumfert who carrieth about with him a lye on his head Nor can he walk as with his God whose very speach and gesture whose very look is a lye Where there are false lights there the ware is not warrantable where there are privy doors there the Priests will practise collusion Bell Dr. v. 21. and eat up the Idoles meat If you see a Labyrinth it is either to conceal a Strumpet or a Minotaur That is true of the Hypocrite which the Rabbies conceived of their Priests He is like an Angel visible or invisible as he please Now this is not to walk with God but to walk with our Lusts with our Malice and Covetousness to look upon them as we should do upon our God to be careful that they be pleased and satisfied to reverence them to follow their behests and commands to provide that these Horse-leaches be fed our Lust with Pleasure and our Covetousness with Gold for these are the Hypocrites Gods As for the true God they leave him behind them and walk with nothing but his Name Thirdly the Apologizing sinner walketh not with God but runneth himself into the thicket of excuses Covereth his transgressions as Adam Job 31.33 and hideth his iniquity in his bosome covereth himself over with those leaves which have no heat nor solidity in them but will wither and dye when the Sun sheweth it self and be scattered before the wind and leave him naked and miserable He hath learnt an art and he may quickly learn that of his Sin which needeth and teacheth it pavimentare peccata it is S. Augustine's phrase to smooth and plaster and parget over his deformities He excuseth the breach of one commandment with his zeal to another his breach of Charity by his love to Faith He exexcuseth his Sacrilege by his hatred of Idolatry his Malice by his Zeal He pleadeth Ignorance where there is light enough Weakness when he might be strong Infirmity where he presumeth and Willingness when he had no will and will not consider that the Devil speaketh by all these as he did to our first Parents by the Serpent For Gen. 3.4 This is no sin at all and You shall not dye at all are all one He speaketh saith S. Augustine by the Mathematician That he sinneth not but his Star He speaketh by the Manachee That he sinneth not but the Prince of darkness I may add he speaketh by the Anabaptist It is not he sinneth but the Ass his Body By the Libertine That God sinneth in him and by the Many That the Devil onely is in fault If we look upon it well and send our eye abroad into the world we may peradventure be tempted to think that the World and all that therein is were onely made to yield matter out of which to forge and fashion an excuse For what is there almost in the world which we do not lay hold on for that end Adam the first man is the first excuse and we drew it out of his loins Original sin and after that the Law the Flesh the Will the Understanding Sin Obedience the Devils and God himself are forced in to speak for us What was made the matter of Virtue and Obedience is by us made the matter of excuse We may be bold to say This is not to walk with God as if he had an all-seeing eye Gen. 8.7 but to flutter up and down as the Raven did upon the waters from excuse to excuse but far from God and the Ark so to walk as if we were quite out of Gods reach and fight Last of all the speculative sinner doth not walk with God I mean the man that breaketh not out into action but yet perfecteth his work in his mind Here the sinner doth that which he never doth joyneth with that object which he shall never touch committeth adultery and yet may be an eunuch plotteth revenge and yet never striketh a stroke graspeth the wealth which he will not labour for marryeth that Beauty which he saw
3. as Virgil describeth his Horse Stare loco nescit they could not be quiet they could not stand still and keep their place Job 39.22 24. or as Job charactereth out his they swallowed up the ground for rage and fierceness they mockt at fear and turned not back from the sword like those wild Horses which set the world on fire and threw Phaethon out of the chairs when they were weak and low upon their knees tendring supplications but when their strength increased reaching forth their demands on the point of their sword These Pageants the world sheweth every day but this is not to be quiet in S. Pauls sense For nemo pius qui pietatem cavet no man is good or quiet who cannot or dare not for some danger that is near him and hangeth over his head be otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil We commend those men and call them good and quiet men who are so by choice and election and not by necessity Rom. 2.28 29 For as he is not a Jew who is one outwardly so is not he a peaceable man who is so outwardly and for a time nor is that Quietness which is outward in the flesh but he is quiet who is so inwardly and Quietness is that of the heart in the spirit whose praise is not of men but of God For if the love of Peace be in the heart the lips will be sealed and the hands bound up for ever So that to be quiet consisteth in a sweet composure of mind in a calm and contented conversation in a mind ever equal and like unto it self And he is a quiet and peaceable man who is not moved when all things else are who standeth upon his own basis when all about him is out of frame when the world passeth by him and inverteth its scene and changeth its fashion every day now shining anone lowring now flattering and anone striking now gliding by us in a smooth and delightful stream and anone raising up its billows against us who in every change is still the same the same when the sword hangeth over him and when peace shadoweth him the same when Riches increase and when poverty cometh towards him as an armed man the same when Religion flourisheth and when the Commonwealth hath nothing praeter obsessum Jovem Camillos exules but God dishonoured and good men oppressed the same when the world runneth cross to his desires and when he can say So so thus would I have it cui in rebus novis nihil novum To whom nothing cometh as new and unexpected Who standeth as a rock and keepeth his own place and station not swelling at an Errour not angry with Contempt not secure in Peace not afraid of Persecution not shaken with Fear not giddied with Suspicion not bowed down with Covetousness nor lifted above himself with Pride Who walketh and is carried on in every motion by the same rule In cujus decretis nulla litura whose decrees and resolutions admit no blot who doth not blot out this daies quietness with to morrows turbulency In Photii Biblioth as Aristides spake of Pericles Who is not unquiet or troubled for any rub or interposition for any affront in his way but keepeth himself in an even and constant course as constant in his actions as his knowledge as if you should ask him a question of Numbers he will give you the same answer to day which he did yesterday or to morrow which he did to day and many years before Who by his patience possesseth his soul and will not yield or surrender it up to any temptation or provocation whatsoever there to be swallowed up and lost Whom another mans evil doth not make evil another mans riches do not make pale another mans honour doth not degrade from himself another mans noise doth not disquiet another mans riot doth not discompose anothers mans fury doth not distract another mans schisme doth not divide from the Church in a word who changeth not colour with the world nor is altered with that confused variety and contradiction of so many humours of so many men but applyeth himself to every one of them as a Physician to supple and cure not to enrage them This man is quiet hath gained this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this quietness of mind this man cannot but be at peace with himself and all the world And to this Christianity and the Religion we profess doth bind us This is a plant which our heavenly Father alone doth plant in our hearts Which when it is planted will shoot forth and grow up and raise it self far above the Love of the world above Covetousness and Envy and Malice and Fraud which first disquiet and rack that breast in which they are and then breathe forth that venom which blasteth the world and troubleth and provoketh those which are near us sometimes gnashing the teeth which eat and consume us sometimes breathing forth hailstones and coals of fire which fly back in our faces and destroy us sometimes laying of snares in which our selves are caught Prov. 14.30 For Envy is the rottenness of the bones saith Solomon and Anger killeth the foolish Job 5.2 and Bread of deceit though it be sweet at first yet it shall fill the mouth with gravel Prov. 20.17 Nemo non in seipsum priùs peccat saith Augustine No man disturbeth the peace of another but he breaketh his own first No man repineth at his brothers good but he maketh it his own evil and his Vice is his executioner No man breatheth forth malice but it echoeth back upon him No man goeth beyond his brother but hath outstript himself The Psalmist telleth us that evil shall hunt the violent man to destruction Psal 140.11 But when this plant this Peace is deeply rooted in us it spreadeth its branches abroad over all over all cross events over all injuries over all errours and miscarriages over Envy Malice Deceit and Violence and shadoweth them that they are not seen or not seen in that horrour which may shake it spreadeth it self over the poor and relieveth them over the malicious and melteth him over the injurious man and forgiveth him over the violent man and overcometh him by standing the shock keepeth it self to its root is fixt and fastned there and when the wind bloweth and the rain falleth and all beat upon it when the tempest is loudest is ever the same is Peace still And this is the work of the Gospel the sum of all the end of all that it teacheth to work this Quietness in us that we may raise it up in others that this Peace may beget and propogate it self in those who are enemies to it that the Kid may feed with the Wolf and the Lamb with the Leopard so long as the Moon endureth that there may be no deceit no envy no violence no invasion no going out no complaining in our streets This is the Evangelical virtue This is
vipers honourable Murderers of their Father the Devil John 8.44 who was so from the beginning ambitious humourous covetous discontent forlorn and desperate persons Quósque suae rapiunt sceleratae in praelia causae These are the Grandees and the honourable persons of this world But in the Court and Heraldry of Heaven we find no such Titles of Honour No Jer. 22.30 Write these men desolate who shall not prosper though they do prosper Rom. 1.30 31. Write them down Haters of God Despiteful Proud Boasters Inventers of evil things Fools without understanding But the man who is quiet and peaceable he is the honourable man though he lye on a dunghil though he sit amongst the dogs of the flock Job 30.1 like unto the Angels nay like unto God 2 Cor. 3.18 and holding resemblance with him transformed from glory to glory the same though the fashion of the world change every day Not stealing into honour as those great Thieves of the world Alexander and Hanibal and Marius and Sylla errore hominum by the error and mistake of men who call fools Politicians and Madmen valiant but judicio Dei by the judgment and sentence of God himself made proprietary of it being his Souldier who hath fought against none but himself being his Priest who hath sacrificed himself all his lusts and desires and animosities being his King too who hath awed and commanded and governed himself in peace and subdued every thing that might disquiet either himself or others and so made a Royal Priesthood unto the Lord. Thus thus shall it be done to the man whom the King of Kings will honour Esâ—h 6.9 11. Psal 149.9 This honour have all his Saints in this life and in the next everlasting glory 1 Thess 4.7 You see then Brethren your calling You are called to holiness and you are called to peace and quietness You see the study you are imployed in by the blessed Apostle as a hard so an honourable study And in the wayes of Honour who would not move We must therefore make one step further and learn the Method which is prescribed or the Means to keep us at peace with our selves and others We must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do our own business and labour with our hands as he hath commanded But of this in the next The Ninth SERMON PART II. 1 THESS IV. 11. And to do your own business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you OUr progress in our studies and endeavours is commonly answerable to our method and to the rules we observe If they be proper and connatural to the end we have set up omnia breviora fiunt our labour and pains are the less and our profit and improvement the more Every man would be quiet in his own place and pretendeth he is so when he is busie and tumultuous abroad The Covetous man is in his place when he joyneth house to house and layeth field to field till there be no place The Ambitious is in his place when he flyeth out of it never at rest till he reach that height where he cannot rest The Revenger is in his place when he is digging in the bowels of his brother The Parasite the Calumniatour the Tale-bearer the Libeller the Seditious all desire peace and quietness when they move as a tempest drive down all before them and are at last lost themselves in the ruine which they make The Flatterer is poysoned with his own oyl the Calumniatour is wounded with his own lye and it returneth back upon him into his own bowels the Tale-bearer is consumed in the fire which he kindleth The wit which the Libeller scattereth flyeth back upon him and many times is writ in his forehead the Seditious are oft struck down with the noise which they make they divide the Common-wealth and are distracted themselves And though their craft or violence their hypocrisie and perjury bring them home to that which their overdaring Hope first looked upon yet there they find no rest but move uneasily in the midst of those cares and fears which came not near them when their thoughts were at home For they have never more business to do then when they do not their own neither have they their end when they have their end because they went not that way nor trod those paths those plain and easie paths which did lead unto it Now there cannot be a truer Method in our study and endeavour to be quiet then this which our Apostle hath here laid down and which 1 Cor. 7.20 he calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to abide in our calling 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to abide patiently Grot to abide there as in our own proper place and sphere as in our castle as in our Sanctuary where we are safe safe from those incursions and affronts which will meet together and multiply about us to shake and disturb us when we are out of it The surest way to be quiet is to abide in our calling in that state and condition in which the hand of Providence hath placed us and not to be drawn out of it by the splendour or glory the benefit and fairer appearance and shew of anothers man Not to swell 2 Cor. 12.20 For when we swell we svvell over and out of our place and so nearer and nearer to danger to that opposition which will beat against us to shrink us into our own measure and compass and either in ordinem redigere as the phrase is either drive us back to our own place or leave us none to move in Again not to stretch beyond our line 2 Cor. 10.14 For God in confining us unto our calling hath given us as it were our measure hath drawn out a line which we must not pass Peccare est tanquam lineas transilire Partit 16. saith Tully Every action of ours hath its limits and boundaries and if we pass them we sin If we stretch beyond these if we break through our bounds 1 Pet. 4.15 and are busie-bodies in other mens matters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alieni speculatores as Tertullian rendreth it we take off our eye and care from our own and send them abroad as spyes and observers of that which concerneth us not we hold our Visitations and exercise our jurisdiction there where we have no power Our Eye wandreth our Ear is itching our Tongue is walking through the earth our Hand is reaching at every forbidden tree our Feet are in every mans house our Heart is the forge where we fashion out every mans business but our own a Praetorium or place of State where we appoint out every mans Commission set other men tasks and neglect our own and as it is in the Proverb aedilitatem gerimus sine populi suffragio we invest our selves with a power which was never given us and usurp authority which we were never voted to and are neither quiet our selves nor suffer others to be so The
Goods which are of no value whilst they are in our hands and never estimable but in his whose they truly are all ill materials to make a pillow to rest on In a word in this our irregular motion we look tovvard the rising Sun and travel tovvards the West vve run from the shade into a tempest vve seek for ease and rest and have thrust our selves into the region of Noise and Thunder and Darkness Ask those boysterous and contentious spirits which delight in war ask the Tyrants of the earth those publick and priviledged Thieves ask those who wade to their unwarranted desires through the fortunes and bloud of others and see how they are filled with horrour and anxiety how the riches which they so greedily desired have eaten them up Behold them afraid of their fortunes of their friends of themselves even fainting and panting on the pinnacle of State ready to be blown down with every puff of wind as busie to secure their estate as they were to raise it and yet forced to that unhappy prudence which must needs endanger it Behold one slain by his friends another by his sons a third by his servants and some by their very souldiers who helpt to raise them to this formidable height Look over all the Tragedies which have been written scarce any but of these Ad generum Cereris sine caede vulnere pauci Descendunt Juven sat 10. Few of them have brought their gray hairs unbloudy to their grave And if this be to be quiet we may in time be induced to believe that Rest and Peace may be found even in Hell it self This then is not the way If we will reach home to the end we must choose that path which leadeth unto it This is not the Apostle's method No saith S. Paul Rom. 12.4 We have many members in one body and all members have not the same office Having therefore different callings and different gifts and different places to move in let every man wait upon and move in his own for there he may be quiet and no where else Let the Lawyer plead and the Divine preach let the Husbandman plough the earth and the Merchant the sea let the Tradesman follow his trade let the Magistrate governe and let all the people say Amen Let all men make good their place and every man do his own business and so rejoyce together in the publick order and peace And as Cuiacius that famous Lawyer in France Papyrius Massonâ—us in Elog. illust Viror in vita Cuiacii when he was askt his opinion in points of Divinity was wont to give no other answer but this Nihil hoc ad edictum Praetoris This which you ask me hath no relation to the edict of the Praetor so when any temptation shall take us and invite and flatter us ire in opus alienum to put our hands to another mans work let us drive it back and vanquish it with this considerate resolution That it is not amongst the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it is none of our business no more pertaining to our calling then Divinity doth to the Edict of the Praetor And then as we confine our selves to our own calling so let us be active and constant in our motion in it and as it followeth in the Apostles method let us shake off Sloth and work with our hands Which is next to be considered For indeed Idleness is the mother and nurse of this pragmatical Curiosity Mostell Haec mihi verecundiam virtutis modum deturbavit saith he in Plautus This taketh off our blush and maketh us bold adventurers to engage our selves in other mens actions When the mind of man is loose not taken up and busied in adorning of it self then Dinah-like it must gadd abroad to see the daughters of the countrey Gen. 34.1 and mingle it self with those contemplations which are as it were of another tribe and nation meer strangers unto her It is the character of the strange woman That she is garrula vaga Prov 7.11 loud and ever stragling devium scortum as Horace calleth her her feet abide not in her house Lib. 2. od 11. For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Polit. 7. c. 3. saith Aristotle He that will be idle will be evil and he that will do nothing will do that he should not And the reason is given by the Stoick Mobilis inquieta mens homini data est The mind of man is full of activity ever in motion and restless now carried to this object and anon to that It walketh through the world and out of the world and is not at rest when the body sleepeth And if it do not follow that which is good it will soon fasten to that which is evil For it is not as a wedge of Lead but of the nature of an Angel which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. 8. Polit. c. 6. cannot sleep As Aristotle spake of Children 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it cannot rest and be quiet And therefore the same Philosopher much commendeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Archytas his rattle as a profitable invention for being put into the hands of children it keepeth them from breaking vessels of use So this restless humour is made less hurtful by diversion And such a course God and Nature may seem to have taken with us not to dull this activity in us but to limit and confine it As God hath distributed to every man a gift so he hath allotted to every man a calling answerable to that gift that every man being bound to one may have the less scope and liberty to rove and make an incursion upon another mans calling This is a primordial Law of as great antiquity as the first man Adam That we must work with our hands For God will not every day work miracles for us and send us as he did the Israelites 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Basil speaketh food without the labour of plowing and sowing Every Dew will not bring us Manna nor every Rock yield us water No In the sweat of thy brows thou shalt eat thy bread was a command as well as a curse and God hath so ordained it that by fulfilling the command we may turn the curse into a blessing We are not now in Paradise but as our first Father after he had forfeited it mundo dati quasi metallo De pallio Psal 24.1 115.16 as Tertullian speaketh condemned to the World as to the mines to labour and dig and so find that treasure we seek for As Heaven so the Earth is the Lords and he hath given them both to the sons of men The food of our souls and the food of our bodies are his gift and he giveth them when he revealeth and prescribeth the means how we shall procure them For the one he hath given us Faculty and Will for the other Strength and Appetite Neither will the Heavens bow themselves down to take
each other the civil Power to exalt Religion and Religion to guard and fence the civil Power and both should concur in this 1 Tim. 2.2 that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty Our commission is from Heaven and we need no other power then his that sealed it And the virtue and divinity of it shall then be made manifest when all earthly Power shall cease and even Kings and they who did what they list shall tremble before it We see that Power which is exercised here on earth though the glory of it dazle an eye of flesh yet sitteth heavy upon them who wear it we see it tortureth them that delight in it eateth up them that feed on it eateth up it self driving all before it at last falleth it self to the ground and falleth as a milstone upon him that hath it and bruiseth him to pieces It is not such a power But I may be bold to say though it be lookt upon and laught at and despised by the men of this world yet is it a greater power than that which sometimes setteth it upon high and sometimes maketh it nothing and hath its end when it hath not its end For to publish our Master's will to command in his name is all And though the command prove to some the savour of death unto death yet the Power is still the same and doth never fail And if men were what they profess themselves Christians Heb. 6.5 if they had any tast of the powers of the world to come they would more tremble at this then at the other be more afraid of a just Reproof then of a Whip of an Excommunication then of a Sword of the wrath of God which is yet scarce visible then of that which cometh in fire and tempest to devour us For Gods favour or his wrath ever accompanieth this power which draweth his love nearer to them that obey it and poureth forth his vengeance on them that resist it To conclude then Look upon the command and honour the Apostle that bringeth it for the commands sake for his sake whose power and command it is A Power there is proper and peculiar to them who are called to it And if the name of Power may move envy for we see men fret at that which was ordained for their good and so wast and exhale all their Religion till it be nothing if the name of Power bear so harsh a sound we will give you leave to think it is not much material whether you call it so or no vvhether vve speak in the Imparative mood HOC FAC Do this upon your peril or onely positively point as vvith the finger This is to be done We vvill be any thing do any thing be as lovv as you please so vve may raise you above the Vanities of the vvorld above that Wantonness vvhich stormeth at that vvhich vvas ordained for no other end but to lift you out of ruine into the highest heavens Our Povver and the Command of Christ differ not so much but the one includeth and upholdeth the other And if you did but once love the command you vvould never boggle at the name of Power but bless and honour him that bringeth it Oh that men vvere vvise but so vvise as not to be vviser then God as not to choose and fall in love vvith their own wayes as more certain and direct unto the end then Gods as not to prefer their own mazes and labyrinths and uncertain gyrations drawn out by Lust and Phansie before those even and unerring paths found out by an infinite Wisdome and discovered to us by a Mercy as infinite Oh that we could once work out and conquer the hardship of a command and then see the beauty of it and to what glory it leadeth us We should then receive an Apostle in the name of an Apostle Matth. 10.40 look upon the command though brought in an earthen vessel as upon Heaven it self Oh that we were once spiritual Then those precepts which concern our conversation on earth would be laid hold on and embraced as from Heaven heavenly then should we be as quiet as the Heavens which are ever moving and ever at rest because ever in their own place then should we be as the Angels of heaven who envy not one another malice not one another trouble not one another but every Angel knoweth his office and moveth in his own order and our assiduous labour in our calling would be a resemblance of the readiness of those blessed Spirits who at the beck of Majesty have wings and hast to their duty who are ever moving and then in their highest exaltation when they are in their ministery in a word then should we every one sit under his own vine and figtree and no evil eye should look towards him no malice blast him no injury assault him no bold intrusion unsettle him but we should all rejoyce together the poor with the rich the weak with the strong the low with the high all bless one another help one another guard one another and so in the name of the Prince of Peace walk peaceably together every one moving in his own place till we reach that Peace which yet we do not understand but shall then fully enjoy to all eternity The Tenth SERMON PART I. MATTH XXIV 42. Watch therefere For yee know not what hour your Lord doth come THese are the words of our blessed Saviour and a part of the answer he returned to that question which was put up by his Disciples vers 3. Tell us When shall these things be and what shall be the signe of thy coming and of the end of the world Where we may observe that he doth not satisfy their curiosity which was measuring of Time even to the last point and moment of it when it shall be no more but he resolveth them in that which was fit for them to know and passeth by in silence and untoucht the other as a thing laid up and reserved in the bosome of his Father The time he telleth them not but foretelleth those fearful signes which should be the forerunners of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the end of the world Which two are so interwoven in the prediction that Interpreters scarce know how to distinguish them We need not take any pains to disintangle or put them asunder At the thirtieth verse our Saviour presents himself in the clouds with power and great glory The Angels sound the Trumpet at the next The two men in the Field and the two women grinding at the mill in the verses immediately going before my Text the one taken the other left are a fair evidence and seem to point out to the end of the world which will be a time of discrimination of separating the Goats from the Sheep And then these words will concern us as much as the Apostles In which He who is our Lord and King to rule
and govern us He that was and that is and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to come telleth us of his coming openeth his will Rev. 1.4 and manifesteth his power and as he hath given us Laws telleth us he will come to require them at our hands He that is the Wisdome of his Father He that neither slumbreth nor sleepeth calleth upon us maketh this stir and noise about us and the alarum is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be watchful Call it what we please an Admonition or an Exhortation it hath the necessitating and compulsive force of a Law and Christ is his own Herald and proclaimeth it as it were by the sound of the trumpet For this VIGILATE ERGO Watch therefore is tuba ante tubam is as a trumpet before the last trumpet and thus it soundeth To you it is commanded to fling your selves off from the bed of security to set a court of guard upon your selves to rowze up your selves to stand as it were on a watch-tower looking for and expecting the coming of the Lord. I may call it a Law but it is not as the laws of men which are many times the result of mens wills and are guided and determined by their lusts and affections and so Ambition maketh laws and Covetousness maketh laws and private Interest maketh laws with this false Inscription BONO PVBLICO For the publick good But it is prefaced and ushered in with Reason which concerneth not so much the Head as the Members not the Lord as his Servants not the King as his Subjects for us men and for our salvation For him that is in the field and him that is in the house for him that sitteth on the throne and her that grindeth at the mill for the whole Church is this warning given is this law promulged And every word is a reason 1. That he is our Lord that is to come 2. That he will come 3. That the time of his coming is uncertain A Lord to seal and ratifie his laws with our blood which we would not subscribe to nor make good by our obedience Matth. 25.14 and a Lord gone as it were into a far Countrey Luk. 19.12 13. and leaving us to traffick till he come but after a while to come and reckon with us and last of all at an uncertain time at an hour we know not that every hour may be unto us as the hour of his coming for he that prefixeth no hour may come the next Every one of these is a reason strong enough to enforce this Conclusion Watch therefore A Lord he is and shall we not fear him To come and shall we not expect him To come at an hour we know not and shall we not watch These are the Premisses and the Conclusion is Logically and formally deduced primae necessitatis the most necessary Conclusion that a servant or subject can draw So that in these words we have these things considerable first the Person coming your Lord secondly his Advent He will come thirdly the Uncertainty of the hour We know not when it will be Out of which will naturally follow this Conclusion which may startle and awake us out of sleep Watch therefore We will follow that method which we have laid down and begin with the premisses First it will concern us to look upon the Person For as the person is such is our expectation And could we take the Idea of him in our hearts and behold him in the full compass and extent of his power we should unfold our arms and look about us veternum excutere shake off our sloth and drowsiness and prepare for his coming For it is Christ our Lord. Ask of me Psal 2.8 and I shall give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance saith God to Christ John 10.30 And Christ saith I and the Father are one We believe he shall judge the world John 5.22 and we read that the Father hath committed all judgement to the Son Take him as God or take him as Man he is our Lord. Cùm Dominus dicitur unus agnoscitur for there is but one faith Eph. 4 5. and but one Lord. So that Christ may well say John 13.13 You call me Lord and Master and so I am A Lord as in many other respects so jure redemtionis by redemption having bought us with a price 1 Cor. 6.20 and jure belli by way of conquest by treading our enemies under our feet and taking us out of slavery and bondage And that we may not think that Christ laid down his power with his life or that he is gone from us never to come again we will a little consider the nature of his Dominion and behold him there from whence he must come to judge the quick and the dead And the Prophet David hath pointed out to him sitting at the right hand of God where we should ever behold him and fix our thoughts and our eye of faith upon him in this our watch Psal 110.1 The Lord said unto my Lord Sit thou at my right hand till I make thy enemies thy footstool Which speech is metaphorical and we cannot draw it to any other sense then that on which the intent of the speaker did level it which reacht no further then this To shew that his own Kingdom was nothing in comparison of Christs which was of another and higher nature Non ex parabolis materias commentimur sed ex materiis parabola◠interpretamur Tertull De Pudicit c 8. As Tertulian spake of Parables We do not draw conclusions and doctrines out of Metaphors but we expound the Metaphor by the doctrine which is taught and the scope of the teacher nor must we admit of any interpretation which notwithstanding the Metaphor might yield that is not consonant and agreeable to the doctrine and analogie of faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Philosopher We can neither bring a Metaphor into a definition nor can we build an argument upon it We may say of Metaphors as Christ spake of the voice from heaven They are used in Scripture for our sakes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist 5. Top. c. 2. for likeness and proportions sake and serve to present intellectual objects to the eye and make that light which we have of things familiar to us a help and medium by which we may more clearly see those which are removed and stand at greater distance For he cannot be said to sit there at the right hand of God from the position and site of his body We cannot entertain so gross an imagination Acts 7.56 And S. Stephen telleth us he saw him standing at the right hand of God But it may declare his victory his triumph and his rest as it were from his labour Secundùm consuetudiuem nostram illi consessus offertur qui victor adveniens honoris gratiâ promeretur ut sedeat It is borrowed saith S. Ambrose from our customary speech by
which we offer him a place and seat for honours sake who hath done some notable and meritorions service And so Christ having spoiled the adversary by his death having led captivity captive and put the Prince of darkness in chains at his return with these spoils heareth from his Father Sit now down at my right hand Nor doth God's right hand point out to any fixt or determined place where he sitteth For Christ himself telleth the high Priest that they shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of God and coming in the clouds of heaven Mark 14.62 which if literally understood we must needs conceive him coming and sitting at the same time All agree it is a Metaphor and some interpret it of that Supremacy Christ hath above the Creature For so he is described sitting at the right hand of God in heavenly places Eph. 1.20 21. far above all principality and power and every name that is named not onely in this world but in the world to come Some have conceived that by this honour of sitting at the right hand of God not onely an Equality with God is implyed but something more Equal to the Father as touching his God head Atha Nas Cr. Not that the Son hath any thing more then the Father for they are equal in all things but because in respect of the exercise and execution of his Royal office he hath as it were this dignity to sit in his Royal seat as Lord and Governour of his Church For the Father is said as I told you to commit all judgement to the Son But we may say with Tertullian Malo in scripturis fortè minùs sapere quà m contrá De Pudicit c. 9 We had rather understand less in Scripture then amiss rather be wary then venture too far and wade till we sink And that will prove the best interpretation of Scripture which we draw out of Scripture it self And then S. Paul hath interpreted it to our hands For whereas the Prophet David telleth us The Lord said unto my Lord Sit thou at my right hand the Apostle speaketh more expresly 1 Cor. 15.25 He must reign till he hath put down all enemies under his feet and in the Epistle to the Hebrews Heb. 8.1 We have such an high Priest who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens that is We have such an high Priest who is also a Lord and King of majesty and power to command and govern us who hath absolute authority over things in heaven and things in earth over all the souls and bodies of men and may prescribe them Laws reward the obedient and punish offenders either in this world or the next or in both For though he were a Lord and King even in his cratch and on his cross yet now his dominion and Kingly power was most manifest and he commandeth his Disciples to publish the Gospel of peace and those precepts of Christian conversation to all the world and speaketh not as a Prophet but as a Prince in his own name enjoyneth repentance and amendment of life to all the nations of the earth which were now all under his dominion Thus saith Christ himself Luke 24.46 47. it is writen and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in his name among all nations And his Dominion is not subordinate Matth. 8.9 but absolute He commandeth not as the Centurion in the Gospel who had divers under him yet himself was under authority but Prov. 30.31 as Solomon's King he is Rex ALKVM a King against whom there is no rising up And now that it may appear that he is not for ever thus to sit at the right hand of God but there sitteth to rule and govern us to behold and observe us in every motion and in every thought and will nay must come again with a reward for those who bow to his sceptre and with vengeance to be poured forth upon their heads who contemn his laws and think neither of him nor the right hand of God and will not have him reign over them though they call him their King let us a little further consider the nature and quality of his Dominion that our fear and reverence our care and caution may draw him yet a little nearer to us and we may not onely conceive of him as sitting at the right hand of God but so live as if he were now coming in the clouds Tell ye the daughter of Sion Matth. 2.51 Behold thy King cometh to thee meek and sitting on an ass and a colt the foal of an ass This was his first coming in great humility Philip. 2.8 9. And this and his retinue shew that his Kigdom was not of this world He humbled himself saith S. Paul wherefore God hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name given him power dignity and honour and made him our Lord and King For his Prophetical office which he exercised in the land of Judea was in a manner an act and effect of his Kingly office by which he sitteth as Lord in the throne of Mejesty For by it he declared his Fathers will and promulged his Laws throughout the world As a King and Lord he maketh his Laws and as a Prophet he publisheth them a Prophet and a Priest and a Lord for ever For he teacheth his Church he mediateth and intercedeth for his Church and governeth his Church to the end of the world Take then the Laws by which he governeth us the virtue and power the compass and duration of his Dominion and we shall find it to be of a higher and more excellent nature then that which the eye of flesh so dazleth at Rev. 19.16 that he is The LORD of Lords and KING of Kings And first the difference between his Dominion and the Kingdomes of the world is seen not onely in the Authours but the Laws themselves The Laws of men are enacted many times nec quid nec quare and no reason can be given why they are enacted good reason there is why there should be Laws made against them and they abolished Some written in blood too rigid and cruel some in water ready to vanish many of them but the results and dictates of mens lusts and wild affections made not so safeguard any State but their own But Christs are pure and undefiled exact and perfect such as tend to perfection to the good of his Subjects and will make them like unto this Lord heirs together with him of eternity of bliss And as the reward is eternal so are they unchangeable the same to day and to the end of the world not like the Laws of the Heathen which were raised with one breath and pulled down by another which were fixed by one hand and torn down by a
and help himself out of them and take himself off from that amazement Marcion ran dangerously upon the greatest blasphemy Duos Ponticus Deos tanquam duaâ— Symplegadas naufragit sui adfert quem negare non potuit i. e. creatorem i. e. nostrum quem probare non poterit i. e. suum Tertull. 1. adv Marcion c. 1. and brought in two Principles one of Good and another of Evil that is two Gods But when the Lord shall come and lay judgment to the line all things will be even and equal and the Heretick shall see that there is but one Now all is jarring discord and confusion but the Lord when he cometh will make an everlasting harmony He will draw every thing to its right and proper end restore order and beauty to his work fill up those breaches which Sin hath made and manifest his Wisdome and Providence which here are lookt upon as hidden mysteries in a word he will make his glory shine out of darkness as he did Light when the earth was without form 1 Cor. 15.28 That the Lord may be all in all Here in this world all lyeth as in a night in darkness in a Chaos or confusion and we see neither what our selves nor others are We see indeed as we are seen see others as they see us with no other eyes but those which the Prince of this world hath blinded Our Judgment is not the result of our Reason but is raised from by and vile respects If it be a friend we are friends to his vice and study apologies for it If it be an enemy we are angry with his virtue and abuse our wits to disgrace it If he be in power our eyes dâ—zle and we see a God come down to us in the shape of a man and worship this Meteor though exhaled and raised from the dung with as great reverence and ceremony as the Persians did the Sun What he speaketh is an oracle and what he doth is an example and the Coward the Mammonist or the Beast giveth sentence in stead of the Man which is lost and buried in these If he be small and of no repute in the world he is condemned already though he have reason enough to see the folly of his Judges and with pitty can null the censure which they pass If he be of our faction we call him as the Manichees did the chiefest of their sect one of the Elect But if his Charity will not suffer him to be of any we cast him out and count him a Reprobate The whole world is a theatre or rather a Court of corrupt Judges which judge themselves and one another but never judge righteous judgment For as we judge of others so we do of our selves Judicio favor officit our Self love putteth out the eye of our Reason or rather diverteth it from that which is good and imployeth it in finding out many inventions to set up evil in its place as the Prophet speaketh We feed on ashes Isa 44.20 a deceived heart hath turned us aside that we cannot deliver our soul nor say Is there not a lye in our right hand Thus he that soweth but sparingly is Liberal he that loveth the world is not covetous he whose eyes are full of the adulteress is chast he that setteth up an image and falleth down before it is not an Idolater he that drinketh down bloud as an ox doth water is not a Murderer he that doth the works of his father the Devil is a Saint Many things we see in the world most unjustly done Multa injustè fieri possunt quae nemo possit reprehendere Cic. de Finibus Mic. 6.16 which we call Righteousness because no man can commence a suit against us or call us into question and we doubt not of Heaven if we fall not from our cause or be cast as they speak in Westminster-hall If Omri's statutes be kept we soon perswade our selves that the power of this Lord will not reach us and if our names hold fair amongst men we are too ready to tell our selves that they are written also in the book of life This is the judgment of the world Thus we judge others and thus we judge our selves so byassed with the Flesh that for the most we pass wide of the Truth Others are not to us nor are we to our selves what we are but the work of our own hands made up in the world and with the help of the world For the Wisdome of this world is our Spirit and Genius that rayseth every thought dictateth all our words begetteth all our actions and by it as by our God we live and move and have our being And now since Judgment is thus corrupted in the world even Justice requireth it Et veniet Dominus qui malè judicata rejudicabit the Lord will come and give judgment against all these crooked and perverse judgements and shall lay Righteousness to the plummet Isa 28.17 and with his breath sweep away the refuge of lyes and shall judge and pass another manner of sentence upon us and others then we do in this world Then shall we be told what we would never believe though we have had some grudgings and whisperings and half-informations within us which the love of this world did soon silence and suppress Then shall he speak to us in his displeasure and Aliud est judicium Christi aliud anguli su surrorum Hier. though we have talked of him all the day long tell us we forgot him If we set up a golden image he shall call us Idolaters though we intended it not and when we build up the sepulchres of the Prophets and flatter our selves and accuse our forefathers tell us we are as great murderers as they and thus find us guilty of that which we protest against and haters of that which we think we love and lovers of that which we think we detest and take us from behind the bush from every lurking hole from all shelter of excuse take us from our rock our rock of ayr on which we were built and dash our presumptuous assurance to nothing Nor can a sigh or a grone or a loud profession or a fast or long prayers corrupt this Lord or alter his sentence but he shall judge as he knoweth who knoweth more of us then we are willing to take notice of and is greater then our Conscience which we shrink and dilate at pleasure 1 John 3.20 and fit to every purpose and knoweth all things and shall judge us not by our pretense Rom. 2.16 our intent or forced imagination but according to his Gospel VENIET He shall come when all is thus out of Order to set all right and straight again And this is the end of his Coming And now being well assured that he will come we are yet to seek and are ready with the Disciples to ask Matth. 24.3 When will these things be and What hour will he
Faith so is Faith the foundation of an holy Conversation In this we edifie our selves and in this we sustain and uphold others In this we stand and in this we raise up others From Faith are the issues of life from Faith as from a fountain flow those waters of comfort which refresh the widow and the fatherless and that water of separation which purifieth us Numb 31.23 and keepeth us unspotted and white as snow But our Apostle mentioneth none of these and I will give you some reason at least a fair conjecture why he doth not First here where S. James telleth us what pure Religion is he doth not so much as name Faith For indeed Faith is the ground of the whole draught and portrayture of Religion and as we observe in it in pictures it is in shadow not exprest but yet seen It is supposed by the Apostle writing not to Infidels but to those who had already given up their names to Christ Faith is like those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Mathematicks which Tully calleth initia Mathematicorum beginnings and principles which if we grant not we can make no progress in that science S. Paul calleth Faith a principle of the doctrine of Christ Heb. 6.1 And what necessity was there for my Apostle to commend that unto Christians which they had already embraced to direct them in that wherein they were perfect to urge that which they could not deny not deny nay of which they made their boast all the day long No S. James is for Ostende mihi He doth not once doubt of their faith but is very earnest to force it out that it may shew it self by works Then Faith is a star when it streameth out light and its beams are the works of charity Then Faith is a ship when pure Religion is the rudder to steer and guide it 1 Tim 1 19. that it dash not on a rock and be split Then Faith is the soul of the soul when by its quickning and enlivening power we run the wayes of Christs commandments Purè credunt pure ergo vivant pure ergo loquantur saith the Father Their belief is right therefore let their conversation be sincere No other conclusion can naturally be deduced from Faith and of it self it can yield no other And this it will yield if you do not in a manner destroy it and spoil it of its power and efficacy For what an inconsequence is this I believe that Christ hath taught me to be merciful Luk. 6 36. 1 Tim. 4.8 as my heavenly Father is merciful that Charity hath the promise of the world to come Therefore I will shut up my bowels This I am sure is one part of our belief if it be not our Creed is most imperfect and yet such practical conclusions do our Avarice and Luxury draw Our Faith is spread about the world but our Charity is a candle under a bushel O the great errour and folly of this our age which can shew us multitudes of men and women who as the Apostle speaketh are ever learning 2 Tim. 3.7 and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth who have conned their Creed by heart but have little skill or forgot the skill they have in the royal Law who cry up Faith as the Jews did the Temple of the Lord Jer. 4.7 Ch. 2. v. 17 20 26. and are very zealous for it yet suffer it to decay and waste till it be dead as my Apostle speaketh eat out the very heart of it by a careless and profane conversation as the Jews with their own hands did set fire on that Temple which they so much adored And this may be a second reason why S. James mentioneth not Faith in his character of Religion The power and efficacy of Faith having been every where preached-up men carnally minded did so fill their thoughts with the contemplation of that fundamental virtue that they left no room for other virtues not so efficacious indeed to justifie a sinner yet as necessary as Faith it self they did commend and extoll the power of Faith when it had no power at all in them nay which is the most fatal miscarriage of all they did make Faith an occasion through which sin revived which should have destroyed in them the whole body of sin Rom. 6.6 it being common to men at last to fix and settle their minds upon that object which hath been most often presented to them as the countrey peasant having heard much talk of the City of Rome began at last to think there was no other city but that If we look forward to the second chapter of this Epistle we shall think this more then a conjecture For there the Apostle seemeth to take away from Faith its attribute of saving Can faith save a man What an Heretick what a Papist would he be that should but put up this question in these our dayes wherein the SOLA JVSTIFICAT hath left Faith alone in the work of our salvation and yet the Question may be put up and the Resolve on the negative may be true Faith cannot save him certainly that saith he hath faith and hath not works Thus though S. James dispute indeed against Simon the Sorcerer and others as we may gather out of Irenaeus yet in appearance he levelleth his discourse against Paul the Apostle For Not by works but by faith saith S. Paul Not by faith but by works saith S. James and yet both are true the one speaking to the Jews who were all for the Law the other to those Christians who were all for Faith To these who had buried all thought of Good works in the pleasing but deceitful contemplation of Faith our Apostle speaketh no other language but Do this and exalteth Charity to the higher place that their vain boasting of Faith might not be heard For Faith saith he hath no tongue nay nor life without her And thus in appearrance he taketh from the one to establish the other and setteth up a throne for Charity not without some shew and semblance of prejudice to Faith For last of all to give you one reason more Faith indeed is naturally productive of Good works For what madness is it to see the way to eternity of bliss and not to walk in it Each article of our Creed pointeth as with a finger to some virtue to be wrought in the mind and published in the outward man If I believe that Christ is God it will follow I must worship him If he died for sin the consequenee is plain enough We must die to it If he so loved us the Apostle concludeth We must love one another Charity is the proper effect of Faith and upon Faith and Charity we build up our Hope If we believe the promises and perform the conditions if we believe him that loved us and love him and keep his commandments we are in heaven already But yet we may observe that the
any great pains might be brought to fast and pray and perform all parts of religion which were not chargeable but could not be won with the most powerful eloquence or strongest reason to any part of it which did cost them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but one half-peny 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a cheap religion is as easy as cheap but Go sell all that you have Matth. 19.21 and give to the poor is a bitter pill which we hardly let down and with a sowre countenance And should we prescribe it now to men of this iron age would they not as S. Paul speaketh in another case 1 Cor. 14.23 say that we are out of our wits In the last place these two if they be truly in us are never can never be alone but suppose Faith which is sigillum bonorum operum as Chrysologus speaketh Serm. 23. the seal to every good work to make it currant and authentick He that is perfect in these cannot be to seek in the rest He that can govern a ship in a storm when the sea rageth and is unquiet may easily manage a cockboat in a calm He that can empty himself to his brother that thinketh the bellies of the poor the best granaries for his corn and the surest treasuries for his money that can give unto God the things that are Gods Matth. 22.21 and return them back by the hands of his Ambassadours the poor who beseech us in his name he that is an exile at home hath banisht himself from the world he lives in and so useth it as if he used it not 1 Cor. 7.30 31. he that hateth sin as an infectious plague and in a holy pride will keep his distance from it though it bow towards him in the person of his dearest friend that abhorreth an Oath though his friend sweareth it that lotheth Lasciviousness though his brother acteth it that detesteth Sacriledge though his father were inricht by it and passed it over to him as an inheritance He that can thus keep himself unspotted of the world will lift up pure hands and beat down his body and be ready to hearken what the Lord God will say He that sendeth up so many sacrifices to God he that thus maketh himself a sacrifice will offer up also the incense of his prayers He that can abstain from sin may fast from meat He that hath broke his heart will open his ear In a word he that approveth himself in these two cannot but be active and exact in the rest And now having shewed you what is but shadowed in this picture and description of Religion let us look upon the picture it self so look upon it as to draw it out and express it in our selves in every limb and part of it 1 Cor. 14.25 that they that behold us may say that God is in us of a truth and glorifie him at the sight of such religious men Eccl. 11.1 And first we see Charity stretching forth her hand and casting her bread upon the waters the bitter waters of Affliction going about to the widow and fatherless and doing good going about as Christ did and working miracles giving eyes to the blind and food to the hungry and light to them that sit in darkness and a staff to the lame an oracle to those who doubt and a pillar to those who droop and are ready to sink under the burden of their sins doing all those things which Jesus did and taught walking in love as Christ loved us Ephes 5.2 And this we may well call a part of Religion and a fair representation of it For by this the image of the likeness of God is repaired in us saith Bernard and is made manifest in us and as it were visible to the eye In every act of charity he that dwelleth on high cometh down in the likeness of men speaketh by the tongue and giveth by the hand of a mortal man moveth in him and moveth with him to perfect this work This maketh us as God in stead of God one to another For Homini homo quid praestat One man is not superiour to another as he is a man In the Heraldry of Nature all are of the same degree all are equal for all are men But when Charity filleth the heart of a man and stretcheth forth his hand then he taketh an higher place the place of God is his Ambassadour and Steward not of the same essence with God but bearing about with him his image saith Clemens Alexandrinus Put ye on saith S. Paul Strom. 2. Col. 3.12 bowels of mercy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the elect of God When we have put these on we then are indeed the elect of God endowed with his spirit carrying about with us the mercies of God sent as it were from his mercy-seat with comfort and relief to those who are minished and brought low by oppression affliction and sorrow We may flatter our selves Psal 107.39 and talk what we please of Election and if we please intail it on a Faction but most sure it is without Charity our election is not sure 2 Pet. 1 7-10 and without bowels of mercy we can be no more elect then Judas the traytor was Elect that is by interpretation The sons of perdition It is doing good alone that maketh us a royal priesthood and this honour have all his Saints 1 Pet. 2.9 Psal 149 9. The kings of the Gentiles saith our Saviour exercise lordship over them and they that exercise authority upon them are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 benefactours or gracious Lords are called what they should be not what they are for if they were gracious and benefactours then were they kings indeed anointed with the oyl of mercy which is sent down from heaven That day on which this distilled not from him on others Titus the Emperour did count as lost Diem perdidi so it is in Suetonius but Zonaras hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have not reigned to day This day I was not Gods Vicegerent We read that God gave Solomon largeness of heart 1 Kings 4.29 and Pineda glosseth it liberalem fecit He made him liberal and merciful And we read that David was a man after Gods own heart 1 Sam. 13.14 and Procopius upon the place giveth this as the probable reason of that denomination that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lover of the poor merciful as God is merciful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Imitation giveth us a kinde of nearness and familiarity with God That in which we represent him maketh us one with him Matth. 12.50 maketh a man as Christ speaketh his brother and sister and mother This is our affinity this is our honour this is in a manner our Divinity on earth For God and Man saith Synesius Epist. 30. have but one onely thing common to them both and that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to do good Heb.
from heaven to those who enter our Olympicks who enter Religion and give up their names to Christ that they may fight for mastery and be crowned Our Saviour telleth them they must sit down Luke 14.31 and consider what that is wherein they have ingaged themselves how full of trouble and danger how many thorns and lets there be in their way how many adversaries It is not enough to name Christ 2 Tim. 2.19 but they that name him must depart from all iniquity and carefully provide that the Integrity of their life rather commend their Religion then Religion be suborned and brought in to countenance the Irregularity of their manners We cannot but observe that from the corruption of mens lives all those corruptions and mixtures have crept into Religion which carry with them a near likeness and resemblance to those spots which men have received from the world Ambition hath brought in her mixture and Covetousness hers and Pleasures have dropt their poison and left their very mark and characters in the doctrines of men which are framed and fashioned to favour and advance that evil humour which first set them up Covetousness and Ambition may set up a chair or Consistory and from thence shall provision be made to feed and nourish them both to a monstrous growth Nam ut in vita Lib. 12. c. prim sic in causis spes improbas habent saith Quintilian Those unlawful hopes and foul desires which sway us in our lives appear again and shew themselves as full of power to pervert and mislead us in point of doctrine One would think that the world had nothing to do in the School of Christ that Mammon could not hold the pen of the Scribe or conclude in the Schools or have a voice and suffrage in a Councel that Money and Honour and Pleasure could bring nothing to the stating of a Question but through the corruptness of mens mindes and manners it hath in all ages so fallen out that these have been the great deciders of controversies have started Questions and resolved them have called Councels and decreed with them We may be soon perswaded it was no other spirit then this which was sent from Rome in a cloakbag to the Councel of Trent We have seen enough to raise such a thought That the Church hath been governed by the world that that which we call Religion hath been carried on by private Interest From hence are those corruptions of Truth and mixtures in Religion from hence those generations of Questions those catalogues of Heresies from hence so many Religions and none at all For Faction cannot be Religion since it cutteth off the fairest part and member she hath Charity And thus if Religion lose one of these colours she loseth her beauty If she be not pure she cannot long be sincere and entire and if she be defiled she will receive additions the worship of Saints to the worship of God the fire of Purgatory to the blood of Christ the Indulgence of man to the free Pardon of God Irreverence and profaneness to our hatred of Superstition and to our Zeal Oppression and Murder In a word if it be not pure without mixture and undefiled without pollution it is not Religion And now I have shewed you the Picture of Religion in little represented it to you in these two Doing of good and Abstaining from evil filling the hungry with good things and purging and emptying our selves of all uncleanness You have seen its beauty in its graceful and glorious colours of Purity and Undefiledness Dignum Deo spectaculum a Picture to be hung up in the Church nay before God himself And thus it appeareth before God and the Father and hath its ratification from him God was the first that set it up to be looked upon He hath revealed his will by his Son who is the Wisdome of the Father who gave unto us the words which his Father gave him John 17.8 which give us a full an exact rule of life a method of obedience and glory the way to be like him in this world and to see him in the next And there needeth no other method no other way no other Rule neither a Basil nor a Benedict to enlarge it Nor is it of so easie and quick dispatch that it hath left to men leisure for further practice nor so imperfect that it should need supply from a second hand Why should the phansie the unsetled and whirling phansie of a Man who is ignorant as a beast before him take the boldness to prompt and instruct the wisdome of the Almighty Quod à Deo discitur totum est All that we need learn all that we can learn God alone can teach us By this Christian Religion hath the prerogative above all other Religions in the world For though there be many that are called Gods 1 Cor. 8.5 6. as S. Paul speaketh though there be many that are called Religions yet unto us as there is but one God so there is but one Religion which is commentum Divinitatis the invention or rather the Revelation of the Deity and had no authour could have no authour but God himself Take that which seemeth to carry a fairer shew then the rest and cometh abroad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like Agrippa and Bernice Acts 25.23 with great pomp and ceremony with voluntary Humility and blinde Obedience with Sackcloth and Fasting with a Pilgrims staff with Penance and Satisfaction and we know from what hands it came of men and by men who many of them drew Religion out of the soul into the outward man betook themselves to this bodily exercise as to a sanctuary so to avoid the continual luctations and lasting agonies of the minde entred Religion that is the phrase but carried little Charity and all those spots they received from the world along with them What voice from heaven did Charles the fifth the Duke of Parma and others hear that having lived in all state and pomp they should count it meritorious to be buried in the hood of a Capuchine or what satisfaction is this before God and the Father Again take that which indeed is called Religion and with that noise and vehemency as if there were none but that yet is it as different from Religion as a picture is from a man Take all our mimick Gestures our forced and studied Deportment our Pharisaical extermination of the countenance our Libelling the Times which we help to make evil our Zeal our Revenge and Indignation against Sin in all but our selves all these are but puppets of our own making a creation of a sick and distempered phansie Luke 16.15 and do but justifie us before men as our Saviour speaketh and those too no wiser then our selves but that which followeth defaceth all our pageantry Spectat nos ex alto Deus rerum arbiter Men see us who see but our face but God also is a spectator and He knoweth the
heart Take that Zeal which consumeth not our selves but others about us this fire is not from Heaven nor was it kindled by the Father of lights That hand which is so ready to take a brother by the throat was never guided by the Authour of our Religion who is our Father That tongue which is full of bitterness and reviling Isa 6.7 James 3.6 was never toucht by a Seraphin but set on fire of hell These are not Religions before God and the Father But this Religion TO DO GOOD and TO ABSTAIN FROM EVIL ex alto originem ducit acknowledgeth no Authour but the God of heaven hath God and the Father to bear witness to it was taught by the Prophets thundred out by the Apostles and by Christ himself who is the Authour and Finisher of our Faith and Religion Hebr. 12.2 This may serve first to make us in love with this Religion because it hath such a Founder as God the Father who is wisdome it self and can neither be deceived nor deceive us Men and brethren Acts 13.26 whosoever among you feareth God to you is this word of salvation sent sent to you from Heaven from God and the Father In other things you are very curious and ever desire to receive them from the best hands What a present is a picture of Apelles making or a statue of Lysippus Not the watch you wear but you would have it from the best artificer And shall our Curiosity spend it self on vanities and leave us careless and indifferent in the choice of that which must make our way to eternity of bliss Shall we make darkness our pavilion round about us and please our selves in errour when Heaven boweth and openeth it self to receive us Shall we worship our own imaginations and not hearken what God and the Father shall say What a shame is it when God from heaven pointeth with his finger to the rule HAEC EST This is it that we should frame a Religion to our selves that every mans phansie and humour or which is the height of impiety every mans sin should be his Lawgiver that when there can be but one there should be so many Religions arbitrary Religions such as we are pleased to have because they smile upon us and flatter and bolster up our irregular desires a hearing Religion and a talking Religion and a trading Religion a Religion that shall visit the widow and orphan but rather to devour then refresh them Behold and look no farther God the Father hath made a Religion which is pure and undefiled to our hands Therefore as Seneca counselleth Palybius when thou wouldst forget all other things cogita Caesarem entertain Caesar in thy thoughts so that we may forget all other sublunary and worldly I may say Hellish Religions let us think of this Religion whose Authour and Founder is God whose wisdome is infinite whose power uncontrollable whose authority unquestionable For talk what we will of authority the authority of Man is like himself and can but binde the man and that the frailest and earthliest part of him onely God is Rex mentium the King of our minds and no authority in heaven or on earth can binde or loose a Soul but his who first breathed it into man Come then let us worship and fall down before God the Father the Maker both of us and of our Religion Again if S. James be canonical and authentick if this be true Religion then it will make up an answer sufficient to stop the mouth of those of the Romish party who are very busie to demand at our hands a catalogue of Fundamentals and where our Church was before the dayes of Reformation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is in the Proverb These and such like questions they put up unto us as Archytas did his rattles into childrens hands to keep them from doing mischief that being busie and taken up with these we may have less leisure to pull down the idoles of Rome or discover her shame Do they ask what truths are fundamental Faith supposed as it is Here they are Charity to our selves and others Nihil ultrà scire est omnia scire To know this Tert. De prascript is to know all we need to know For is it not sufficient to know that which is sufficient to make us happy But if nothing will satisfie them but a catalogue of particulars They have Moses and the Prophets they have the Apostles Luke 16.29 and if they find their Fundamentals not there in vain shall they seek for them at our hands They may if they please seek them there and then number them out as they do their Prayers by beads and present them by tale But if they will yet know what is fundamental in our conceit and what not they may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 draw out with both hands For first let them observe what points they are in which we agree with their Church and if they be in Scriptu e let them set them down if they please as fundamental in our account And on the other hand let them mark in what points we refuse Communion with them and they cannot but think that we esteem those points for no Fundamentals And again do they who measure Religion rather by the pomp and state it carrieth with it then the power and majesty of the Authour whose command alone made it Religion ask us where our Religion was in the dayes before there was a withdrawing from the Communion with that Church we may answer It was here in the Text. For HAEC EST this is it And if they further question us where it was professed we need give no other reply then this It was professed where it was professed If it were not professed in any place yet was it true Religion For the Truth dependeth not on the profession of it nor is it less truth if none receive it But professed it was even amongst them in the midst of them round about them But wheresoever it were this was it This was true Religion before God and the Father To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep our selves unspotted from the world To conclude then Men and Brethren are these things so Is this onely true Religion To do good and to abstain from evil What a busie noise then doth the world make for Religion when it offereth it self and falleth so low offereth it self to the meanest understanding the narrowest capacity and throweth it self into the embraces of any that will love it Littus Hyla Hyla omne sonabat Religion is the talk of the whole world it is preached on the house-tops and cryed up in the streets we are loud for it and smother it in that noise we write for it and leave it dead in that letter to be found no where but in our books we fight for it and it is drowned in the blood that is spilt and S. James's that is Christ's Religion is
as we please and bulge but swell our sayls and bear forward boldly till at last we are carried upon that rock which sinketh us for ever And therefore to conclude this a good Intention cannot pull out the sting from Death nor the guilt from Sin but if we sin though it be with an honest mind we sin voluntarily In brief though we know it not to be a sin though from the tribunal of Conscience we check our selves before we commit it though we do evil but intend good though we see it not though we approve it not though we intend it not as evil yet evil it is and a voluntary evil and without repentance hath no better wages then death and this Expostulation may be put up to us QVARE MORIEMINI Why will ye die For we cannot say but they are willing to die who make such hast to the pit of ruine and in their swift and eager pursuit of Death do but cast back a faint look toward the land of the living We must now draw towards a conclusion and conclude and shut up all even Death it self in the Will of man We cannot lay it upon any natural Weakness nor upon the Want of grace and assistance We cannot plead Ignorance nor the Distaste and Reluctancy of our mind Nor can a good Intention name that Will good which is sixt on evil nor the Means which we use commend and secure that end which is the work of Sin and hath Death waiting upon it If we die we can find no other answer to this question Why will ye die but that which is not worth the putting up It is quia volumus because we will die Take all the Weakness or Corruption of our nature look upon that inexhaustible fountain of Grace but as we think dryed up take the darkness of our Understanding the cloud is from the Will Nolumus intelligere We will not understand Take all those sad symptomes and prognosticks of death a wandring unruly phansy it is the Will whiffeth it about Turbulent Passions the tempest is from the Will Etiam quod invitus facere videor si facio voluntate facio even that which I do with some reluctancy if I do it I do it willingly All provocations and incitements imaginable being supposed no Love no Fear no Anger not the Devil himself can determin the Will or force us into action and if we die it is quia volumus because we will die If Death be the conclusion that which inferreth it is the Will of man which brought Sin and Death into the world And this may seem strange that any should be willing to die Ask the profanest person living that hath sold himself to wickedness and so is even bound over to Death and he will tell you he is willing to be saved Heaven is his wish and eternal happiness his desire As for Death the remembrance of it is bitter unto him Death Eccl. 41.1 if you do but name it he trembleth The Glutton is greedy after meat but loatheth a disease The wanton seeketh out pleasures but not those evils they carry with them under their wing The Revenger would wash his feet in the bloud of his enemy but not be drowned in it The Thief would steal but would not grind in the prison But the Philosopher will tell us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristot. Eth. 2.1 The beginning of all these is in the Will He that will be intemperate will surfet he that will be wanton will be weak he that taketh the sword will perish by the sword Matth. 26.52 he that will spoil will be spoiled and he that will sin will die Every mans death is a voluntary act not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. Strom. 2. out of any natural appetite to perish but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by his own choice who did chuse it though not in se not in it self which is so terrible but in causis as the Schools speak in its causes in those sins in which it is bound up and from which it cannot be severed Sin carrieth Death in its womb and if we sin we are condemned and dead already We may see it smile upon us in some alluring pleasure we may see it glitter in a piece of gold or woo us in the rayes of Beauty but every smile every resplendeney every raie is a dart and striketh us through Why will we dye Why The holy Ghost is high and full in the expressing it We love Death and Love saith the Father Prov. 8.36 is vehemens voluntas a vehement and an active will It is said to have wings and to flie to its object but it needeth them not for it is ever with it The Covetous is kneaded in with the world they are but one lump It is his God one in him and he in it The Wanton calleth his strumpet his Soul and when she departeth from him he is dead The Ambitious feedeth on Honour as it is said Chamelions do on air a disgrace killeth him Amamus mortem we love Death which implyeth a kind of union and connaturality and complacency in Death Again exsultamus rebus pessimis Prov. 2.14 we rejoyce and delight in evil Ecstasin patimur so some render it we are transported beyond our selves we talk of it we dream of it we sweat for it we fight for it we travel for it we triumph in it we have a kind of traunce and transformation we have a jubile in sin and we are carried delicately and with triumph to our death Isa 28.15 Nay further yet we are said to make a covenant with Death We joyn with it and help it to destroy our selves As Jehoshaphat said to Ahab 1 Kings 22.4 I am as thou art and my people as thy people we have the same friends and the same enemies we love that that upholdeth its dominion and we fight against that that would destroy it We strengthen and harden our selves against the light of Nature and the light of Grace against Gods whispers and against his loud calls against his exhortations and obtestations and expostulations which are strength enough to discern Death and pull him from his pale horse And all these will make it a Volumus at least not a Velleity as to good but an absolute vehement Will After we have weighed the circumstances pondered the danger considered and consulted we give sentence on Death's side and though we are unwilling to think so yet we are willing to die To love Death to rejoyce in Death to make a covenant with Death will make the Volumus full To the question Why will ye die no other answer can be given but We will For if we should ask further Yea but why will ye here we are at a stand horrour and amazement and confusion shut up our mouth in silence as Matth. 22.12 when the Guest was questioned how he came thither the Text saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 capistratus est he
was muzled he was silent he could not speak a word For conclusion then Let us as the Wise-man counselleth keep our heart Prov. 4.23 our Will with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life and out of it are the issues of Death Let us take it from Death and confine and bind it to its proper object bind it with those bonds which were made to bind Kings and Nobles the most stout and stubborn and imperious heart bind it with the Fear of Death with the Fear of that God which here doth ask the question and not seek to ease our selves by an indiscreet and ill-applied consideration of our natural Weakness For how many make themselves wicked because they were made weak How many never make any assay to go upon this thought That they were born lame Original Weakness is an article of our Creed and it is our Apologie but it is the Apologie of the worst of the Covetous 1 John 2.16 of the Ambitious of the Wanton when it is the lust of the eyes that burieth the covetous in the earth the lusts of the flesh that setteth the Wanton on fire the pride of life that maketh the Ambitious climb so high Prima haec elementa these are the first Elements these are their Alphabet They learn â—â—â—m their Parents they learn from their friends they learn from servants to raise a bank to enoble their name to delight themselves in the things of this world These they are taught and they have their method drawn to their hands By these evils words which are the proper language and dialect of the world their manners are corrupted And for this our father Adam is brought to the bar when it is Mammon Venus and the World that have bruised us more then his fall could do Secondly pretend not the Want of Grace For a Christian cannot commit a greater soloecisme then to pretend the want of that which hath been so often offered which he might have had if he would or to conceive that God should be unwilling he should do his will unwilling he should repent and turn unto him This is a charge as well as a pretense even a charge against God forbidding us rise up and walk when we were lame and not affording us a staff nor working a miracle Grace is of that nature that we may want it though it be not denied we may want it when we have it and indeed we want Grace as the covetous man wanteth money we want it because we will not use it and so we are starved to death with bread in our hands For if we will not eat our daily bread we must die In the next place let us not shut up our selves in our own darkness nor plead Ignorance of that which we were bound to know which we do know and will not which is written with the Sun-beams which we cannot say we see not when we may run and read it For what mountainous evils do men run upon what gross what visible what palpable sins do they foster quae se suâ corpulentiâ produnt sins which betray themselves to be so by their bulk and corpulency Sacrilege is no sin and I cannot see how it now should for there is scarce any thing left for its gripe Lying is no sin it is our Language and we speak as many lies almost as words Perjury is no sin for how many be there that reverence an oath Jura perjura Iusjurandum rei servandae non perdendae conditum est Plaut Rud. Act. 5. sc 3. Mantile quo quotidianae noxae extergentur â—aber is an Axiome in our Morality and Politie and secureth our estates and intaileth them on our posterity Deceit is no sin for is is our trade Nay Adultery is no sin you would think with the Heathen with those who never heard of the name of Christ nay but with those who call upon it every day and call themselves the knowing men the Gnosticks of this age And whilst men love darkness more then light with some men there will scarce be any sins upon that account as sins till the day of judgement Next bring not in thy Conscience to plead for that sin which did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beat and wound thy Conscience For the office of thy Conscience is before the fact to inform thee and after the fact if it be evil to accuse thee and what comfort can there be in this thought That thou didst not follow her information That she called it a sin and thou didst it That she pointed out to it as to a rock and thou wouldst needs chuse it for thy haven No commonly this is the plea of those whose hearts are hard and yet will tell you they have a tender conscience And so they have tender in respect of a ceremony or thing indifferent Here they are struck in a manner dead quite beside themselves as if it were a basilisk here they are true and constant to their conscience which may erre but not tender in respect of an eternal Law where it cannot mistake Here they too often leave their conscience and then excuse themselves that they did so In the one they are as bold as a Lion in the other they call it the frailty of a Saint This they do with regret and some reluctancy that is by interpretation against their will Last of all do not think thy action is not evil because thy Intention was good For it is as easie to fix a good intention upon an evil action as it is to set a fair and promising title on a box of poison Hay and stubble may be laid upon a good foundation 1 Cor. 3.12 but it will neither head vvell nor bed vvell as they say in the vvork of the Lord. We must look as vvell to vvhat vve build as to the Basis vve raise and set it on or else it vvill not stand and abide We see vvhat a fire good Intentions have kindled on the earth and vve are told that many of them burn in hell I may intend to beat down Idolatry and bury Religion in the ruines of that I beat down I may intend the establishing of a Common-wealth and shake the foundation of it I may intend the Reformation of a Church and fill it with Locusts and Caterpillars innumerable I may intend the Glory of God and do that for which his Name shall be evil spoken of and it will prove but a poor plea when we blasphemed him to say we did it for his Glory Let us then lay aside these Apologies for they are not Apologies but accusations and detain us longer in our evil wayes then the false beauty and deceitful promises of a tentation could which we should not yield to so often did not these betray us nor be fools so long if we had not something to say for our selves And since we cannot answer the Expostulation with these since these will be no plea in the court of
yet are themselves still as greedy and rapacious as before They take up the Cross but it is to lay it on other mens shoulders They follow Christ but as Peter did afar off or rather as the Jews to crucify him They fight against the world that is against one another who shall possess it For even this we do not do not fill our coffers but in the name of Christ and Religion They lay hold on Christ but it is to carry him along with them to promote and further their designes They love him it is plain they do and yet give him not a cup of cold water when he beggeth at their door They love him as they do one another till it is put to the trial They are adopted but not of his family regenerated but are liker the Father of lies then him they pretend to They are called and converted for they know the very hour and moment of time when they heard the voice and said Amen to it Lord what a noyse have these phrases these words made in the world and yet it is the world still James 3.6 Sen. Controv. even a world of wickedness As the Oratour said of Figures Possumus sine his vivere We may live and be saved with less noise For all these signifie but one and the same thing To deny our selves to take up the cross to follow Christ to fight against the world to lay hold on Christ to love him to be adopted regenerated and converted all is no more then this to believe in Christ and to be sincere upright just and honest men Yet these words are words of holy Writ the language of the Spirit of God and they are all full and significant nor can I give you a fairer interpretation of my Text He that denieth himself walketh in Christ He that loveth Christ walketh in him he that is adopted regenerate converted walketh in Christ But this is too general and I see but ill use made of these excellent expressions They should make us better but through our own wilfull folly they make us worse For we may shape our selves how we list in our phansie and be quite the contrary We will therefore interpret this Walk in Christ by that of S. Paul Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called 1 Cor. 7.20 Grot. in loc Where the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was called pointeth out and designeth as a learned man hath observed the time of his heavenly Calling and so both callings are made compatible and friendly linkt together my condition of life in this world and my calling to a better my being a part of the Common-wealth and my being a member of Christ For Christ came not to break Relations or to disturb Common-wealths not to shut up the Tradesmans shops not to block up the sea to the Merchant not to take the Husband man from the plough I may do all these and yet deny my self and take up the Cross and fight against the world Or rather I cannot do all these unless I do the other I cannot abide in one calling as I should unless I walk worthy of the other not be a good Merchant unless I be a good Christian that we doubt not nay but not walk in Christ unless we walk in our Calling The life saith S. Paul Gal. 3.2 which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God that is Those things which I do pertaining to the flesh and which this natural and mortal life requireth as to eat drink converse with others and to seek my meat by the sweat of my brows which may seem to have no relation to a spiritual life I do them in the faith of the Son of God For in all these things I have alwayes an eye to the rule of Faith I make that my Star and my Compass to steer by and my care is to make every action of my life in my temporary conformable and consonant to my heavenly calling And the reason is plain For even our natural and civil actions as far as they are capable of honesty or dishonesty pertain or have reference to Faith For although Christ's Religion do not necessitate or compel men to engage in this or that particular action or calling yet notwithstanding it is a rule sufficient to govern and direct us in any to keep us in a fair correspondency and obedience to Reason and the Will of God the Faith and Religion of Christ being practical and having that force and efficacy which may be shewn and manifested in all the civil actions of our life As the Jewish Rabbines report of the Manna the children of Israel ate in the wilderness that it had this wonderful property Wisd 16.21 that it would fit it self to every mans tast look what viand or meat it was that any was delighted with it would in tast be like unto it so doth Christianity like that Manna doctâ quadam mobilitate by a certain secret force apply it self to every tast to every calling Read the Sermon on the mount and those Epistles which the holy Apostles sent to several Churches and tell me What is there delivered the Foundation first laid but an Art of governing our selves and of conversing with men 1 Cor. 7.21 Or there it is Art thou called being a servant Eph. 6.9 Art thou called to be a Servant Serve as in the sight of Christ Art thou called to be a Master Remember thou hast a Master in heaven Art thou a Husbandman Religion will hold the plough with thee Art thou a Trades-man It will buy and sell with thee Art thou a Scholar It will study with thee If thou go into the Vineyard Matth. 20. it will bear the heat of the day with thee till the evening and then pay thee thy wages If thou sell it will oversee thy weights and measures If we bargain it will remember us that we defraud not one another 1 Thes 4.6 This counsel was given to the Thessalonians who were most of them men of Trade and Merchants When we speak Ephes 4.25 it biddeth us cast away lying Thus doth Christian Religion spread its beams through every corner of the earth shining upon us at every turn and every motion waiting upon us in every condition of life keeping every man within the bounds of his Calling and of Honesty And whilst we follow this light walk within these bounds stretch not as S. Paul speaketh 2 Cor. 10.14 beyond measure beyond our line we may be truely said to walk in Christ Therefore to make some use of this let us not deceive our selves and think we never walk in Christ but when we walk to Church to hear some news of him that when we have shut him out of our houses and shops we shall be sure to meet with him again at Church If we never serve him but in his own house we have some reason to
the Devil Why should any mortal now fear to dye It is most true Christ dyed and by his death shook the powers of the Grave Consummatum est all is finished and he is returned victoriously with the spoils of his enemies and of this last enemy Death Job 18.14 But for all this his triumph Death may be still the King of terrours and as dreadful as before All is finisht on his part but a Covenant consisteth of two parts and something is required on ours He doth not turn Conditions into Promises as some have been willing to perswade themselves and others It must be done is not Thou shalt do it If thou wilt believe is not Thou shalt believe But every Promise every Act of grace of his implieth a Condition He delivereth those that are willing to be delivered who do not feed Death and supply this enemy with such weapons as make him terrible 1 Cor. 15.56 All the terrour Death hath is from our selves our Sin our Disobedience to the commands of God that is his sting And our part of the Covenant is by the power and virtue of Christs death every day to be plucking it off from him at last to take it quite away We we our selves must rise up against this King of terrours and in the Name and Power of Christ take the sceptre out of his hand and spoil him of his strength and terrour And this we may do by parts and degrees now cut from him this sin now that now this desire and anon another and so dye daily as S. Paul speaketh dye to Profit dye to Pleasure dye to Honour be as dead to every temptation which may beget sin in us and a sting in him and so leave him nothing to take from us not a desire not a hope not a thought nothing that can make us fear Death Then we shall not look upon it as a divorcement from those delights which we have cast off already or a passage into a worse condition from that we loved too well to that we never feared enough but we shall consider it as a Sleep as it is to all wearied pilgrimes as a Message sent from heaven to tell us our walk is at an end now we are to lay down our staff and scrip and rest in that Jerusalem which is above Tert. De patientia for which we vowed this pilgrimage Et quis non ad meliora festinat What stranger will be afraid to return to his Fathers house or lose that life quam sibi jam supervacuam fecit which by dying daily to the world he hath already made superfluous and unnecessary To conclude this He that truly feareth God can fear nothing else nor is Death terrible to any but to those who would build their tabernacle here who love to feed with swine on husks Luk. 15.16 Heb. 6.5 because they have not tasted of the powers of the world to come who wish immortality to this mortal before they put it on who are willing to converse and trade with Vanity for ever who desire not with David to be spared a little but would never go hence Psal 39.13 Last of all this will moderate our sorrow for those our friends who are dead or rather fallen asleep or rather at their journeys end For why should any man who knoweth the condition of a stranger how many dangers and how many cares and how many storms and tempests he is obnoxious to hang down the head and complain that his friend hath now passed through them all and is set down at his journeys end Why should he who looketh for a City to come Hebr. 13.14 be troubled that his fellow-pilgrime is come thither and entred before him It might be a matter of holy emulation perhaps but why it should afflict us with grief I cannot see unless it be because we have not made it our meat and drink to keep Gods commandements which might give us a tast of a better estate to come unless it be because we have not well learnt to act the part of a stranger Miserable men that we are that we will be that know not our own quality and condition that are strangers yet unwilling to draw near our selves or to see others come to their home but think them lost where they are made perfect We stand by the bed of our sick and dying friend as if he were now to be removed to a place of torment and not of rest and to be either nothing or more miserable then he was in a region of misery We send out shreeks and outcries to keep time with his gasps to call him back if it were possible from heaven and to keep him still under the yoke harrow when as the fainting of his spirits the failing of his eyes the trembling of his joynts are but as the motion of bodies to their center most violent when they are nearest to their end And then we close up his eyes and with them our hopes as if with his last gasp he had breathed out his soul into air when indeed there is no more then this One pilgrime is gone before his fellows one is gone hath left others in their way in trouble and more troubled that he is gone to rest Migrantem migrantes praemisimus saith S. Hierome We are passing forward apace and have sent one before us to his journeyes end his everlasting sabbath With this contemplation doth Religion comfort and uphold us in our way and keepeth us in that temper which the Philosopher commendeth as best in which we do sentine desiderium Sen. ad Marciam op primere She giveth Nature leave to draw tears but then she bringeth in Faith and Hope to wipe them off She suffereth us to mourn for our friends but not as men without hope Nature will vent and Love is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Thess 4.13 saith the Oratour ever querulous and full of complaints when the object is removed out of sight and God remembreth whereof we are made Ps 103.14 is not angry with our Love and will suffer us to be Men But then we must silence one Love with another our natural Affection with the Love of God at least divide our language thus Alas my Father Alas my Husband Alas my Friend but then He was a stranger and now at his journeyes end And here we must raise our note and speak it more heartily Rev. 14 13. Blessed are such strangers Blessed are they that dye in the Lord even so saith the Spirit for they rest from their labours For conclusion Let us fear God and keep his commandments Eccl. 12.13 This is the whole duty of a stranger to observe those Laws which came from that place to which he is going Let these Laws be in our heart and our heart will be an Elaboratory a Limbeck to work the water of life out of the vanities and very dregs of the world
through which we are to pass It shall be a Rock firm and solid against every wave and temptation that shall beat against it It shall be a Shop of pretious receipts proper remedies against every evil It shall be spoliarium Mortis a place where Death shall be stript and spoiled of its sting and its terrour It shall be the Temâ—le of God an House of feasting and joy where Sorrow may look in at the window at the sensitive part but be soon chased away It shall be even ashamed of its tabernacle of flesh 2 Cor. 5.4 and pant and beat to get out that it may be clothed upon and mortality be swallowed up of life In brief this will make us strangers and keep us strangers even such strangers as shall be made like unto the Angels and whom when they come to their journeys end the Angels shall meet and welcome and receive into their Fathers house where they shall rest and rejoyce for evermore I have done with my Text and now must turn your eyes and thoughts upon this Pilgrime here this Honoured and worthy Knight who hath now passed through the buisie noise and tumults of this world to his long home and rest In which passage of his as I have received it from men of place and worth and unquestioned integrity he hath so exactly performed the part and office of a stranger and Pilgrime that he is followed with the applause of them that knew him And as in his death he is become an argument to prove the doctrine which I have taught so in his life he made himself a great ensample for them to look upon who are now travelling and labouring in the same way Look upon him then in every capacity and relation either as a part of the Common-wealth or a member of the City or a Father of a Family and you shall discover the image and fair representation of a Stranger in every one of these relations For no man can take this honour to himself to be a good Common-wealths-man or a good Master of a family but he who is as David was a Stranger All the ataxie and disorder all the noise we hear and mischiefs we see in the world are from men who love it too well and would live and dwell and delight themselves in it for ever For the first I may truly say as Lampridius did of Alexander Severus He was vir bonus Reipublicae necessarius a good man and of necessary use in the Common-wealth He laid all the strength he had to uphold it and preferred the peace and welfare of it to his own as well knowing that a private house might sink and fall to the ground and yet the Common-wealth stand and flourish but that the ruine of the whole must necessarily draw with it the other parts and at last bury them in the same grave And here he found as rough a passage as Aufidienus Rufus in Tacitus did in that commotion and Rebellion of Percennius l. 1. Annal. who was pulled out of his chariot loaden first with scoffs and reproches and then with a fardel of stuff and made to march foremost of all the company and then asked in scorn whether he bore his burden willingly or whether so long a journey was not tedious and irksome to him So was this worthy Knight taken from his wife whom he entirely loved and from his children those pledges of his love and conveyed to ship and by ship to prison in a remote City where he found some friends and then was brought back from thence to a prison nearer home where if the Providence of God had not gone along with him and shadowed him he had met the plague So that in some measure that befell him which S. Paul speaketh of himself 2 Cor. 11.26 He was in journeying often in perils of waters in perils of his own country-men in perils in the city in perils on the sea in perils amongst false brethren But it may be said What praise is it to suffer all this 1 Pet. 4.15 2 19 20. if he suffer as an evil-doer and not for conscience towards God I come not hither to dispute that but am willing to refer it to the great Trial which shall open every eye to behold that truth which now being dâ—zled with fears and hopes and even blinded with the love of the world it cannot see But if it were an errour and not knowledge but mistake that drove him upon these pricks yet sure it was an errour of a fair descent begot in him by looking stedfastly on the truth and by having a steady eye on the oath of God Eccl. 8.2 And if here he fell he fell like a Christian who did exercise himself to keep a good conscience Acts 24.16 For he that followeth not his Conscience when it erreth will be as far from hearkning to it when it speaketh the truth For even Errour it self sheweth the face of Truth to him that erreth or else he could not erre at all And yet I need not fear to say it it is an errour of such a nature that it may rather deserve applause then censure even from those who call it by that name For we do not use to fall willingly into so dangerous vexatious and costly errours errours which will strip us and put a yoke upon us errours which will put us in prison No to fly from these we too oft fly from the Truth it self when it is as open as the day and commandeth our faith though not our tongue and forceth our assent when we renounce it Private Interest Love of our selves Fear of restraint Hope of advancement these are the mothers commonly of this monster which we call Errour when we do not erre and in these it is ingendred and bred as serpents are in carrion or dung He that erreth and loseth by it erreth most excusably and sheweth plainly that he would not erre For who would do that which will undo him Again take him in the City In this he bore the highest honour and filled the greatest place yet was rather an ornament to it then that unto him For he sate in it as a stranger and a pilgrime as a man going out of the world nor did so much consider his power as his duty which lookt forward and had respect to that which cannot be found in this but is the riches and glory of another world Therefore this world was never in his thoughts never came in to sowr Justice to turn Judgment into wormwood by corrupting it or into vinegar by delaying it There were no cries of orphans no tears of the widow no loud complaints of the oppressed to disquiet him in his passage which use to follow the oppressour even to the gates of hell and there deliver him up to those howlings which are everlasting How oft hath he been presented to me and that by prudent and judicious men as the honour and glory of
Key still a golden Key but to open no gates but those of Death Power is a gift of God for there is no power but of him to shadow the innocent to take the prey from the oppressour to stand between two opposite parties till it draw them together and make them one to work equality out of inequality to give Mephibosheth his own lands to be the peace of the Church the wall of the Common-wealth and the life of the Laws This is the end why power is given And what may it be made Of a Sword it may be made a Rasor to cut deceitfully to cut a purse nay to cut a throat to kill and take possession as Ahab did to make Virtue vice and Vice virtue to condemn the innocent bloud and make him a Saint who hath no other father then him who was a murtherer from the beginning to make the Law a nose of wax and the Scripture as pliable as that to make that Religion not which is best but which is fittest for it self to make Men beasts and God nothing in this world to make the Common-wealth an asylum and Sanctuary for Libertines a nest of Atheists a Synagogue of hypocrites in a word a map and representation of Hell it self This I say Power may be And so may every blessing of God be drawn from that end for which it was given Wit may make us fools Riches may beget pride Power confusion and Peace it self war Health may breed wantonness and that which was made to be the womb of good may be the mother of evil as we read in Aelian that Nicippus's Sheep did yean a Lion God oft complaineth of this in holy Scripture And indeed this abuse of God's gifts is the seed-plot and cause of all the evil in the world Were it not for this we should not hear such complaints from such a place of peace as Heaven is I have brought thee out of the land of Egypt and thou breakest my statutes I took thee from the sheepcoat 2 Sam. 12. and anointed thee King and gave thee thy masters house and thou hast despised my command I washed thee with water I decked thee with ornaments Ezek. 16. I gave thee beauty and thou playedst the harlot I have chosen you twelve John 6. chosen you all to the same end Judas as well as Peter and yet one of you is a Devil It is indeed a complaint but if we slight and neglect it it will end in judgment God will confound our Wisdom blow upon our Riches and shake our Power and our Wit shall ruine us our Riches undo us our Power crush us to pieces and our Greatness make us nothing And if this were all yet it might well deserve an Ecce and be an object to be looked upon even by Atheists themselves But there is another end an end without end a fire ready kindled to devoure these adversaries a worm that shall gnaw their hearts who received the gifts of God and corrupted them torment for Health poverty for Riches and everlasting slavery for Power abused And then how happy had it been for Ahitophel if he had not been wise for Dives if he had not been rich for Hereticks if they had not been witty for Ahab and Nero if they had not been Kings how happy for the swaggerer and wanton if he had been a Clinick or a Recluse confined to his bed or shut up between two walls all the dayes of his life And now I think you will say we may well fix an Ecce to remember us of that we have received whether Health or Wit or Riches or Power that what was meant for our good turn not to our destruction So from the object considerable we pass to the Act What it is to behold and consider it ECCE Behold is as an asterisk or a finger pointing out to something remarkable some object that calleth for our eye and observation and that is already held up and we behold it That is soon done you will say for what is more sudden then the cast and twinckling of an eye If a thing be set up and placed before us we cannot but behold it But we shall find that this Ecce is of a large extent and latitude and very operative to awake all the powers and faculties of our souls to excite our faith and to enflame our love that it requireth the sedulous endeavour the contention the labour the travel of the mind Many times we do not know what we know and what we behold we do not behold because we do not rightly consider it Tantum valet unum vocabulum Of such force and energy is this finger this star this one word Behold John 1. Behold the Lamb of God saith the Baptist He points out to Christ as with a finger Why they could not but behold him But they are called upon with an ecce to behold him better The Pharisees beheld Christ the Jews beheld him but they did not behold and consider him as the Lamb of God For had they thus beheld him they had not blasphemed him 1 Cor. 2.8 they had not butchered him as they did Had they known him they had not crucified the Lord of glory We behold the heavens the work of God's fingers the Moon and the Stars which he hath ordained Rom. 1.19 We behold this wonderful frame 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That which may be known of God God hath shewed us But we do not as David speaketh consider it It doth not raise us up to the admiration of God's Majesty nor bring us down to a due acknowledgment of our subjection We are no more affected with it then as if it were still without form and void a lump a Chaos We behold our selves and we behold our selves mouldring away and decaying and yet we do not behold our selves For who considereth himself a mortal We carry our tombs upon our heads like those aves sepulcrales those sepulcral birds which Galen speaketh of we bear about with us our own funerals Every place we stand in is our grave for in every place we draw nearer to corruption Yet who considereth he is a living-dying man Dives in his purple never thought how he came into the world or how he should go out of it We neither look backward to what we were made nor forward to what we shall be Can Herod an Angel a God be struck with worms We dye daily and yet think we shall not dye at all The Certainty of death may stand for an article of our faith and as hard a one almost as the Resurrection In a word we are in our consideration any thing but what we are We sin and behold it and sin again but never look upon Sin as the work of the Devil as the deformity of the soul as that which hath no better wages then death Our Paralytick did rise and walk and could not but behold it yet Christ here in the Temple calleth upon
first command with promise For Man to be under the Law is to be under God For the Law is nothing else but the mind of God To be under the Gospel is to be under God For he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Author and Finisher of it And then to bound our Christian Liberty to bring it under under Sobriety Charity Authority is to place our selves under God even under the shadow of his wings For his wing and power spreadeth it self over all these He gave us our Charter thus interlined he past over this Liberty unto us with these exceptions and limitations that it should not break the bounds of Sobriety and the rules of Charity nor fly loose and lift it self up against Authority And this we must do if we will put Humilitie's mantle and be God's humble servants we must have our SUB we must come under under the Precept under the Gospel under our selves under the meanest thought we have Our Christian Liberty must come under Sobriety under Charity under Authority And this will make us Descendent right in our right point and aspect in our Nadir even SUB DEO under God himself Thus have we run the whole compass of the Duty and at last brought you under the mighty hand of God For that we may humble our selves the Apostle here bringeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Theodoret calleth it the plow of Reason to plow up the fallow-ground of our hearts and dig up Pride by the very roots and he calleth us to the consideration of God's Power of his mighty hand with which he bindeth Kings in chains and Nobles with fetters of iron with which he bruiseth the nations and breaketh them to pieces like a potter's vessel And if any thing will strike reverence into us and melt and thaw our petrified hearts God's Power will If his Eye his care and providence over us if his Ear his facility in hearing our complaints if his Tongue his Prophets and Teachers will not yet his powerful hand should humble us Sure I am this is the rule of Wisdom it self and if you will trust S. Peter and his keys this is the low door of Humility and the righteous must enter into it Unto the Mighty bow we should For what he will do we know not but what he can do we know even in a moment humble us so that we shall never lift up our heads again And when we are advancing our plumes and thinking what goodly creatures we are he can humble that thought too and strike us into a spiritual dejection nay annihilate that thought and which is worse punish that thought which hath but the continuance of a thought Psal 46.6 everlastingly The Lord uttered his voice and the earth melted saith the Psalmist When Power speaketh every thing even the mountains and rocks and those Hearts which are more exalted and harder then they should melt We see how the Power of Man of as near kin to the Worm and Rottenness as we doth rule and awe us how it doth unnaturalize and unprinciple and unman us and even transform us into Beasts how it fettereth the Hand and naileth the Tongue to the roof of the mouth how it maketh us kiss the hand that striketh us worship what we hate and fall down before any Idol it shall set up how it maketh us to say that we do not think to swear to that we know a lie to do that which we were never resolved to do to do that to day which we loathed and abhorred yesterday We see how many proselytes it maketh how he is able to baptize a Jew and circumcise a Christian and make them both at last turn Turks And shall not the hand of God bow us to whom all Power belongeth Shall the breath of mortals make the earth to tremble and shake and shall it be earth still or a sensless and immoveable rock when God is angry Why are we so led by Sense and yet so much commend the Eye of Faith as to give her a more certain knowledge then that of Sense and yet fear that we see more then that we believe fear the shaking of a mortal's whip more then the scorpions of a Deity fear a prison more then Hell and the frown of a man more then the wrathful displeasure of God Why do we call him the mighty God and make it an article of our Creed when we do not believe it And if we believe it why do we sleep when God thundereth and startle when Man threateneth Why do ye fear Why do ye not fear Why do you fear where no fear is and not fear him who alone is to be feared O ye of little faith Beloved what can God do more then he hath done to make bare his arm and manifest his power His Voice is in his thunder his Power is in his judgments his mighty Hand is alwayes over us But hath it not of late been as visible as that Hand Belshazzar saw written upon the wall Might we not even read a TEKEL and a PERES in capital letters Do we not see how little we weighed and how much we lost I will not ask now Whose thoughts have troubled him Whose joynts have been loosed Whose knees have smote one against another But What hath this Hand this mighty Hand this visible Hand wrought in us Hath it dulleâ— the teeth of the Oppressour or deaded the appetite of the Intempâ—â—ate Hath it beat the deceitful weights out of the bag Hath it bound the hand of the Sacrilegious or stopt the mouth of the Blasphemer Hath it plucked the phylacteries from the Pharisee or the visour from the Hypocrite Hath it turned our harp into mourning or our purple into sackcloth Miserable men that we are and the more miserable that we feel it not but lie under God's hand nay feel the weight of it and so behave our selves as if he had no hand at all To be under his hand when he striketh and not to bow to be broken and bruised and yet not humble to be brayed as it were in a mortar and be as very fools as before O dolor what a grief is this saith the Father nay what a judgment is this To be under God's hand and not to bow to be under judgment and not to feel it is the last and greatest judgment in this world But the best sight of God's Power is in his Mercy For his Mercy hath a hand as well as his Justice and there is a Crown and Diadem in the hand of the Lord as well as a Thunderbolt Isa 62.3 And indeed our Humiliation is never so kindly never so proper as when it is the product of Mercy There is mercy with thee that thou mayest be feared Psal 130.4 saith David This was the end why the acceptable year of the Lord was preached and a Jubilee proclaimed God was reconciled to his enemies that they might be friends he bought them with a price
with immortality and eternal glory The Ninth SERMON COL III. 2. Set your affections on things above not on things on the earth THe whole scope and drift of this Epistle is That all the hope of man's happiness is placed in Christ alone and that therefore we must rest in the faith of Christ and live according to the prescript of the Gospel Now the voice of Christ and the Gospel is Seek first the kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof that is the things above and Love not the world nor the things of the world that is the things on the earth The words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes signifieth To Esteem or Judge rightly of So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 16.23 Thou savourest not the things of God Thou judgest not aright of them Sometimes To Care for or Desire So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 8.6 the desire of the flesh To savour Rightly to Judge of To affect and desire the things above that is it which Christian Religion enjoyneth And it implieth both an act of the Understanding Conceiving aright of these things and an act of the Will and Affections Approving and embracing them Fastened to the things above but averse and flying the things on the earth And then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the things above are either the End or the Means either the Kingdom of heaven and the beatifical Vision of God or those things which lead unto it the graces of the Spirit Faith Charity Holiness Contempt of the world which are those seeds which grow up into a tree of life and the way by which we press unto the mark And our affections must be set on both For he that loveth not Obedience loveth not Pardon he that loveth not the Cross loveth not the Crown he cannot long for heaven whose conversation is not there already Now these are the things above For the things on the earth they are not worth a gloss or descant and we understand them but too well These are the words And they divide themselves as the Law is divided into Do and Do not an Affirmation and Negation calling and inviting our affections to the things above and taking them off from the things on the earth We will draw them both together in this general and useful Observation or Doctrine which naturally without tort or violence issueth from them both That the chief end and work of Christian Religion is To abstract and draw the soul of man from sensual objects and level and confine it to that object which is most fitted and proportioned to it even the things above A Doctrine which cannot be gainsayed but yet is not received of men with that firm and reverent persuasion of mind it should For who hath believed this report We must therefore make it good both by Scripture and Reason And first we hear David the father professing that God's word was a lamp unto his feet Psal 119.105 and a light unto his paths a light to burn by night 2 Pet. 1.19 a light that shineth in a dark place leading us from Egypt to the Promised land through the darkness of this world to that light which no eye of flesh can attain guiding us from that which is pleasant to that which is honest from that which is fair to that which is good from that which flattereth the sense to that which perfecteth the reason taking our thoughts from this world and fixing them on that new world wherein dwelleth righteousness And we may hear Solomon the son as it were paraphrasing it Prov. 15.24 and rendring it into other words The way of life is above to the wise that he may depart from hell beneath Above to him that is wise who looketh upon no light but that from heaven which discovereth the deceit and inconstancy and danger of those objects which may display to the sense a beauty like that of heaven but to us are made as hell beneath and tend thither For he that followeth his eye to the next vanity his ear to every pleasant sound his taste to every dainty his senses to every fair object that offereth it self is not wise And therefore we may hear the Son of David indeed but wiser then Solomon tell his Disciples John 15.19 John 17.6 Ye are not of the world but I have chosen you out of the world And I have manifestd thy name to the men which thou gavest me out of the world And indeed what is the whole Gospel of Christ but Spoliarium sensuum a confinement a punishment a kind of execution of the sensitive part teaching us to beat down and tame to crucifie and mortifie the flesh to deny our selves and our sensual inclinations in which we are most our selves and least our selves most tractable and least what we should be Men where the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the beast the brutish part swalloweth up the Man the Reason in a word to be dead to the world This is the constant language of the Gospel of that wisdom which descended from above For the time past 1 Pet. 4.3 saith S. Peter may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles to have lived in the flesh in the lusts of men But now Christ hath suffered in the flesh we also must be of the same mind and cease from sin and not defeat him of his end which was to set an end to our lusts and destroy the works of the flesh The time past may suffice nay it is too much But now light is come into the world we must walk as children of the light and by that light discover horrour in Beauty poverty in Wealth dishonour in Glory a hell kindling in those delights which are our Heaven upon earth The ear that hearkened to every Siren's song must be stopped the eye that was open to vanity must be shut by covenant the phansie checked the appetite dulled the affections bridled and we must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spiritualized substances though immured in matter in the gross and carnal part in the flesh yet out of the flesh having eyes yet see not ears yet hear not hands but touch not in a word chosen culled abstracted from the world I will give you one reason from the Nature and excellency of the soul another from that huge Disproportion which sensual objects hold with that diviner part We may ask with the Psalmist Psal 89.47 Hast thou made all men in vain Or rather we cannot ask the question For without question God made not such an excellent creature but for an excellent end I created him for my glory I have formed him yea I have made him Isa 43.7 God made Man to communicate his goodness and wisdom to him to make him partaker of the Divine nature and a kind of God upon earth to imprint his image on him by which according to his measure and capacity he might represent
this world saith the Apostle passeth away And what is that that passeth away to that which is immortal The Heart of man is but a little member It will not saith S. Bernard give a Kite its break fast and yet it is too large a receptacle for the whole world In toto nihil singulis satìs est There is nothing in the whole Universe which is enough for one particular man in which the appetite of any one man can rest And therefore since Satisfaction cannot be had under the Sun here below we must seek for it above And herein consisteth the excellency the very life and essence of Christian Religion To exalt the Soul to draw it back from mixing with these things below and lift it up above the highest heavens To unite it to its proper object To make that which was the breath of God Gen. 2.7 breathe nothing but God think of nothing desire nothing seek for nothing but from above from whence it had its beginning The Soul is as the Matter the things above the Form The Soul is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Plato calleth Matter the receptacle of things above as the Matter is of Forms And it is never rightly actuated or of a perfect being till it receiveth the heavenly graces The Soul is the Pot the Vial so Chrysostom calleth it not wherein is put Manna but the Son and the holy Ghost and those things which they send from above The Soul is as the Ground and these the Seed the Soul the Matrix the Womb to receive them Matth. 13. And there is a kind of sympathy betwixt the immortal Seed and the Heart and Mind of Man as there is between Seed and the Womb of the earth For the Soul no sooner seeth the things above unveiled and unclouded not disguised by the interveniencie of things below by disgrace poverty and the like but upon a full manifestation she is taken as the Bridegroom in the Canticles with their eye and beauty Heaven is a fair sight even in their eyes whose wayes tend to destruction For there is a kind of nearness and alliance between the things above and those notions and principles which God imprinted in us at the first Therefore Nature it self had a glimpse and glimmering light of these things and saw a further mark to aim at then the World in this span of time could set up Hence Tully calleth Man a mortal God born to two things to Vnderstand and Do. And Seneca telleth us that by that which is best in Man our Reason we go before other creatures but follow and seek after the first Good which is God himself Again as these things bear a correspondence with the Mind and Soul of man as the Seed doth with the Womb of the earth so hath the Soul of man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a formative faculty to shape and fashion them and by the influence of God's Grace and the kindly aspect of the Spirit to bring forth something of the same nature some heavenly creature to live in the world and hate it to walk in it and tread it under its foot THE NEW MAN which is renewed after the image of God Vers 1◠made up in righteousness and holiness The beauty of Holiness may beget that Violence in us which may break open the gates of heaven the virtue of Christ's Cross may beget an army of Martyrs and the Glory above may raise us up even out of the dust out of all our faculties to lay hold on it that so we may be fitted as with planes and marked out as with the compass as the Prophet Esay speaketh in another sense that we may be fitted to glory and those things above as others are to destruction Rom. 9.22 2 Tim. 4.8 1 Cor. 2.9 John 14.3 And hence this glory is said to be laid up and to be prepared for them which love God And our Saviour now sitteth in heaven to prepare a place for them even for all those who by setting their affections on things above are fitted and prepared for them Thus you see it is the chief work and end of Christian Religion to abstract and draw the Soul from sensual and carnal objects and to level and confine it to that object which is fitted and proportioned to it even the things above This is the work of the Gospel by which if we walk we shall suspect and fear the things below the pleasures and glory of this world as full of danger and set our affections on those things which are above and so have our conversation in heaven from whence we look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ Let us now see what use we can make of this and draw it near to us by application And certainly if Christian Religion doth draw the Soul from that which is pleasing to the Sensitive part then we ought to try and examine our selves and our Religion by this touch-stone by this rule and be jealous and suspicious and afraid of that Religion which most holdeth compliance with the Sense and with our worldly desires which flattereth and cherisheth that part at which the Soul goeth forth and too often bringeth back Death along with her which doth miscere Deum seculum joyn God and Mammon the Spirit and the Flesh Christ and the World together and maketh them friendly to communicate with each other and so maketh the Christian a monster crying Abba Father but honouring the world falling down and worshipping Christ not in a stable but in a palace taking him not with persecution and self-denial but with honours riches and pleasures which in true esteem are but as the Apostle termeth them dung I will not mention the Heathen For what Religion can they have who are without God in the world Nor yet Mahumetism although wee see with what ease it prevailed and got a side and overflowed the greater part of the world because it brought with it a carnal Paradise an eternity of lusts and such alluring promises as the sensual part could relish and digest well enough though they were never fo absurd If from these we pass over into Christendom we shall soon see Christian Religion falling from its primitive purity remitting much of its rigour and severity painted over with a smiling countenance made to favour that which formerly it looked upon as capital and which deserved no better wages then death For how hath the Church of Rome fitted and attempered it to the sensitive part and most corrupt imaginations pulled off her sackcloth put on embroidery and made her all glorious without Allaying it with Worshipping of Saints which is but a carnal thing and Worshipping of Images a carnal thing Turning Repentance into Penance Fasting into Difference of meats Devotion into Numbering of beads Shutting up all Religion in Obedience and Submission to that Church Drawing out Religion from the heart to the gross and outward act With what art doth she uphold her self in that state and
not from the Father and the Son but from our fleshly Lusts 1 Pet 2.11 from the beast within us that fighteth against our Soul I am weary of this Spirit I am sure the world hath reason to be so and to cast it out There is a third which I am ashamed of and I have much wondred that ever any who with any diligence had searched the Scriptures or but tasted of the word of truth could have so ethnick a stomach as to digest it But we see some have taken it down with pleasure and it serveth as hot waters to ease them of a pang of that worm which gnaweth within them Shall I name it to you It is Tying of the Truth to the wheel of Fortune or to set it forth in its fairest dress to the Providence of God which moveth in a certain course but most uncertain to us and is then least visible when it is most seen A Prejudice raised out of prosperity and good success Which befalleth the bad as well as the good 2 Sam. 11.25 as the Sword devoureth one as well as another If Event could crown or condem an action Virtue and Vice were not at such a distance as God and Nature have set them That would be Virtue in this age which was Vice in the former that which is true to day might be false to morrow For the same lot befalleth them both That storm which now beateth upon the one may anon be as sharp and violent against the other And indeed Virtue is most fair and glorious in the foulest weather This action hath prospered in my hand Therefore God hath signified it as just is an argument which an Heathen would deny who had but seen the best intentions and goodliest resolutions either by subtilty or violence oft beaten down to the ground Certainly no true Israelite could thus conclude 2 Kings 22.2 who had seen Josiah walking in all the wayes of David his father 2 Kings 23.29 and yet at the last stricken down by the hand of Pharaoh Nechoh in the battel at Megiddo It was indeed the argument of the Epicure against the Providence of God Lucret. l. 2. Aedes saepe suas disturbat That Jupiter let fall his thunderbolts upon his own houses and temples But the Christian can draw no such inferences and conclusions who knoweth the wayes of God are past finding out Rom. 11 3◠Gal. 6.14 that the world must be crucified unto him and he unto the world that he must * Acts 14.22 make his way through many afflictions and troubles to his everlasting rest All that can be said is God permitteth it For for any command 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where is it to be found And how can we conclude of that which we do not cannot know Permit it he doth and so he doth all the evil in the world for if he did not permit it it could not be done Hence it is that the storm falleth upon the best as well as upon the worst But to the one though ye call it a Storm it is indeed a gracious rain to water and refresh them as for the other it sweepeth them away and swalloweth them up for ever God's Judgements are like his Spirit Joh. 3.8 a wind that bloweth where it lifteth and we hear the sound thereof but cannot tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth neither for what cause in particular they are sent nor what is their end Permission is no fit basis to build a Command upon Nor can Approbation be the consequent where Permission onely is the antecedent We can no more draw such a conclusion from such premisses then we can strike water out of a flint or fire out of a cake of ice The wicked prosper in their wayes Every Sorcerer is not struck blind Every sacrilegious Ananias is not stricken dead Every Sodom is not consumed with fire But this doth not justifie Sorcery and Sacrilege and Unnatural lust And The righteous are cast down and perish Every just man doth not flourish as a green bay-tree Nay rather as the Apostle saith Not many wise not many noble 1 Cor. 1.26 c. so not many just not many righteous do flourish But this doth not condemn Innocency nor on the sudden as it were transubstantiate and change Virtue into Vice I have the rather brought this Prejudice forth and exposed it to shame because it is common especially amongst the common sort who are as good Logicians as they are Divines whose very natural Logick their Reason is tainted and corrupted by the world in which they live and to which in a manner they grow It is vox populi the language of the Many and it is taken up too oft He hath taken a wrong course Ye see God doth not bless it This is not just For it doth not thrive A Prejudice this which quite putteth out their eyes that they cannot distinguish evil from good nor good from evil the Devil's snare and he hath scarce such another in which he taketh so many He was unfortunate Therefore he was not wise He prospered in his wayes Therefore his wayes were right It is plebiscitüm an Ordinance of the people And sometimes it is senatus consultum an Ordinance of those who count themselves wise And it hath been rescriptum Imperatoris the rescript and determination of the highest A Prejudice which may drive a man like Nebuchadnezzar amongst beasts and make him worse then they An opinion which first withereth a soul that it can bear no fruit and then leaveth it as fuel for hell fire for ever An opinion bellied like the Trojane horse in which lie lurking oppression Deceit Treason all the enemies of Truth and the Father of lies the Devil himself ready to break forth and destroy and devour a soul A foundation and basis large enough to raise a Babel upon all the evil we can do all the evil we can think even confusion it self The hope of good success may flatter me into the greatest sin and when success hath crowned that hope it will dress that sin in the grave mantle of Virtue and Piety and so shut out Repentance for ever Ye see the danger of Prejudice It lieth as a serpent in our way Gen. 49.17 as an adder in our path to bite our heels to hinder us that we cannot travel to the market where Truth is to be bought Let us therefore lay aside all Prejudice and as new born babes desire the sincere milk of the Truth 1 Pet. 2.2 that we may grow thereby Let us not build our faith upon any particular Church or Sect For it is possible that a Church may erre and so deceive us Hear O Israel when the Church speaketh but not so as when God speaketh and publisheth his commands Hear the Church Matth. 18.17 but then when she speaketh the words of God Let not a name and glorious title dazle our eyes He will make but an ill
Therefore in the third place if we consider the Church which is at her best nothing else but a collection and a body of righteous men we shall find that whilest she is on the earth she is Militant And no other title doth so fully express her For do we say she is Visible The best and truest parts of her are not so 2 Tim. 2.19 For the Lord onely knoweth who are his Do we call her Catholick and Vniversal She is so when her number is but small she was so when Christ first built her as an house upon a rock open to all though not many rich not many noble entred Shall we give her the high and proud Title of Infallible Although she be so in many things without which she cannot be a Church yet in many things we erre all But when we draw her in her own bloud when we call her Militant when we bring her in fighting not onely against Flesh and Bloud against Men but against all the Powers of Darkness then we shew and describe her as she is To say she is the body of Christ filled with him who filleth all things is to set her up as a mark for the World and the Devil to shoot at and thus to set her up is to build her up into a Church So that though Persecution come forth with more or less horrour yet to say the Church is ever free from all persecution is as full of absurdity as to say a man may live without a Soul But now take it with all its terrour accompanied with whips and scorpions with fire and sword with banishment and with death it self yet is it so far from destroying this body of the righteous which we call the Church that it rather establisheth enlargeth and adorneth it For this is the Kingdom of Christ And Christ's Kingdom is not of this world but culled and chosen out of the world John 18.35 And in this the Kingdoms of this world and the Kingdom of Christ differ That which doth ruine the one doth build up the other The sword and fire and persecution demolish the Kingdomes of this world but these evermore enlarge the Church and stretch forth the curtains of her habitation Those may perish and have their fatal period but this is everlasting as his love is that built it and shall stand fast for ever Those are worn out by time but this is but melted and purged in it and shall then be most glorious when Time shall be no more Therefore I may be bold to present you with a speculation which may seem a paradox but being well examined will be found a truth and it is this That persecution is so far from ruining the righteous that it is to them as peace For if Peace signifie the integrity and whole perfection of ones good estate as it doth in Scripture often then may Persecution well deserve that name which bringeth the righteous out of the shadow into the sun setteth them on the stage there to act their parts spectantibus Angelis Archangelis before God and Angels and men maketh them more glorious putteth them to their whole armoury their whole strength the whole substance of their faith as Tertullian calleth it that they may suffer and conquer which is indeed to build them up into a Church And therefore Nazianzene calleth it the mystery of persecution where one thing is seen and another done where glory lieth hid in disgrace increase in diminution and life in death it self ecclesiae in attonito the righteous stirring and moving in their place in the midst of all these amazements and terrours of the world And thus some analogy and resemblance there is between the persecution of the righteous and the peace of the world For as in times of peace we every one sit under his own vine and fig-tree every one walketh in his own calling the merchant trafficketh the trades-man selleth the husbandman tilleth and ploweth the ground and the scholar studieth so the time of persecution though it breatheth nothing but terrour is by God's grace made the accepted time to the godly and the day of salvation a day for them to work in their calling when they sit under the shadow of God's wings when they study patience and Christian resolution when they plough up their fallow ground and sowe the seeds of righteousness when they traffick for the rich pearl and buy it with their bloud when every one in his place acteth by the virtue and to the honour and glory of the Head who himself was consecrate and made perfect by sufferings We may demonstrate this to the very eye For never did the branches of the true Vine more flourish then when they were lopped and pruned never did they more multiply then when they were diminished Constantine we are told brought in the outword peace of the Church but it is plain and evident that Christianity did spread it self in Asia Africk and Europe in far greater proportion in three hundred years before that Emperour then it did many hundred years after For Persecution occasioneth dispersion and dispersion spreadeth the Gospel It is S. Hierom's observation in the life of Malchus That the Church of Christ was sub tyrannis aurea that under tyrants it was as gold tried in the fire giving forth the lustre of pure doctrine and faith Sed postquam coepit habere Christianos Imperatores but when the Emperours themselves were Christians she grew up in favour and outward state but fell short in piety and righteousness and as Cassander professeth of the Church of Rome Crescentibus divitiis decrevit pietas what she got in wealth and pomp she lost in devotion and at last grew rich in all things but good works In time of persecution and dispersion how many children were begot unto the Church When persecution was loudest then the righteous did grow up and flourish When tyrants forbad men to speak in the name of Christ then totius mundi vox una Christus then was Christ as the same Father speaketh become the voice and language of the whole world Plures efficimur quoties metimur saith Tertullian When the righteous are drove about the world and when they are drove out of the world then they multiply To conclude this So far as righteousness or the Graces of the Spirit from bringing any privilege to exempt men from persecution that through the malice of Satan and the corruption of men they are rather provocations to raise one and make Persecution it self a privilege For in the last place it cometh not by chance that the righteous are persecuted What hath Chance to do in the school of Providence No Persecution is brought towards the righteous by the providence and wisdome of a loving Father Tam pater nemo tam sapiens nemo No such Father and none so provident I say by the providence and wisdome of God which consisteth in well ordering and bringing every thing to its right end by
evidence or confirmation at all And therefore saith Tertullian Christ shewed not himself openly to the people after his resurrection ut fides non mediocri praemio destinata difficultate constaret that faith which is destined to a crown might not consist without some difficulty but commend it self by our obedience Nec tam veniam quà m praemium habet ignorare quod credis Not perfectly to know what thou believest doth so little stand in need of pardon that it will procure and bring with it a reward What obedience is it for a man to assent to this That the whole is greater then the part That the Sun doth shine or to any of those truths which are so visible to the eye that they force the understanding and leave there an impossibility â—o dissent But when the object is in part hidden and in part seen when the truth which I assent to hath more probability to speak for it and persuade it then can be brought to shake and weaken it John 20.29 then our Saviour himself pronounceth Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed Again it were in vain that Christ should thus visibly every day shew himself We have Moses and the Prophets We have the testimony of his Disciples who saw him ascend And if we will not believe them neither would we have believed if we had been with them on mount Olivet and seen him received up into the cloud For if we will not believe God's word we should soon learn to discredit his miracles though they were done before the Sun and the people God rained down Manna upon the Israelites For all this they sinned still and believed not his wondrous works The Pharisees saw Christ's miracles yet would have stoned him The people said He hath done all things well yet these were they who crucified the Lord of Life And the reason is plain For though Faith be an act of the Understanding yet it dependeth upon the Will Whence it cometh to pass that many men build up an opinion without any basis or foundation at all without any evidence nay against all evidence whatsoever Quot voluntates tot fides So many Wills as there are nay so many Humours so many Creeds there be For every man believeth as he will I dare appeal to men of the poorest observation and least experience What else is that which turneth us about like the hand of a dial from one point to another from one persuasion to a contrary What is that that wheeleth and circleth us about that we touch at every opinion and settle on none How cometh it to pass that I now tremble at that which anon I embrace though I have the same evidence that that is not Perjury to day which was so yesterday that that is Devotion and Zeal now which from my youth upwards to this present I branded with the loathsom name of Sacrilege How is it that my belief shifteth so many scenes and presenteth it self in so many several shapes Beloved it is the prevalency and victory of our Sensitive part over our Reason that maketh so many several so many contrary impressions in the mind Self-love and the Love of the world these frame our Creeds these plant and build these root out and pull down build up a belief and then beat it down to the ground and then set up another in its place For commonly we believe and disbelieve for the same reason We are Atheists for advantage and we are Christians for advantage We embrace the Truth for our profit and convenience and for our profit we renounce it and we make the same overture for heaven which we do for destruction will believe any thing for a truth that flattereth our humour and count that Truth it self a heresie that thwarteth it In a word that we believe not the Truth is not for want of evidence but for want of will Last of all the knowledge a Christian hath of these high mysteries can be no other but by Faith Novimus si credimus Christian dost thou believe Thou hast then been at mount Olivet and seen thy crucified Saviour ascend into heaven With S. Stephen thou hast seen the glory of God and Jesus standing at his right hand And though thou canst not argue or dispute though thou canst not untie every knot and resolve every doubt though thou canst not silence the Jew nor stop the mouth of the unbelieving Arheist yet qui credit satis est ei quod credat there is required of thee no more then to believe and to believe is salvation One man saith the Father hath faith another hath also skill and ability to stand out against all the world and comâ— forth a defender of the faith another is strong and mighty in faith but not so able with art and skill to maintain it The one is doctior non fidelior The one hath advantage and preeminence over the other in learning and knowledge but not in faith may be the deeper scholar but not the better Christian may be of necessary use titubantibus to men who doubt but not credentibus to those who stand fast in the faith and liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free Both have the same evidence and it may be as powerful in the one for practice as it is in the other for speculation and argument We know those who saw Christ suscitantem mortuos raising up men from the dead believed not when he believed and confessed him who saw him pendentem in ligno hanging on the cross Surgunt indocti Simple and unlearned men take the kingdom of heaven by violence when the great Rabbies stand below and make no approch Illi ratiocinentur nos credamus Let the wise and the scribe and the disputer of this world argue and doubt our rejoycing is in our faith Let them dispute we will fall down at this great sight Let them reason we will believe not onely that this Jesus was thus taken up but that he shall come again Which is another article of our Creed and our last part and must now serve onely for conclusion And it is good to conclude with comfort And VENIET He shall come again was not onely a Resolve but a Message of comfort by two Angels who stood by in albis in the colours of joy to comfort the Disciples who were now troubled and did stoop for heaviness of heart because Christ was taken away He shall come again Prov. 12.25 was that good word which did make their hearts glad made them return to Jerusalem as Christ ascended into heaven in Jubilo in triumph But now it may be a word of comfort yet not unto all that shall hear it That which is comfort to one may be a sentence of condemnation to another The VENIET He shall come again may open as the heavens to receive the one and as the gates of hell to devour the other For what is a promise to him that is not partaker of
we sit down aâ—d dispute As he is a Saviour we will find him work enough but as he is a Lord we will do nothing When we hear he is a Stone we think onely that he is LAPIS FUNDAMENTALIS a sure stone to build on or LAPIS ANGULARIS a corner stone to draw together and unite things naturally incompatible as Man and God the guilty person and the Judge the Sinner and the Law-giver and quite forget that he may be LAPIS OFFENSIONIS a stone of offence to stumble at a stone on which we may be broken and which may fall upon us and dash us to pieces And so not looking on the Lord we shipwreck on the Saviour For this is the great mistake of the world To separate these two terms Jesus and the Lord and so handle the matter as if there were a contradiction in them and these two could not stand together Love and Obedience nay To take Christ's words out of his mouth and make them ours MISERICORDIAM VOLO NON SACRIFICIUM We will have mercy and no sacrifice We say he is the Lord it is our common language And though we are taught to forget our Liturgy yet we remember well enough 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Lord have mercy And here Mercy and Lord kiss each other We say the Father gave him power and we say he hath power of himself Psal 2. Ask of me and I will give thee the heathen for thy inheritance saith God to Christ And Christ saith I and the Father are one We believe that he shall judge the world John 5.22 and we read that the Father hath committed this judgment to the Son Dedit utique generando non largiendo God gave him this commission when he begat him and then he must have it by his eternal generation as the Son of God So Ambrose But S. Augustine is peremptory Whatsoever in Scripture is said to be committed to Christ belongeth to him as the Son of Man Here indeed may seem to be a distance but in this rule they meet and agree God gave his commission to Christ as Man but he had not been capable of it it he had not been God As he is the Son of God he hath the capacity as the Son of man the execution Take him as Man or take him as God this Jesus is the Lord. Cùm Dominus dicatur unus agnoscitur saith Ambrose There is but one Faith Vers 4 5 6. and but one Lord. In this chapter operations are from God gifts from the Spirit and administrations from the Lord. Christ might well say You call me Lord and Master and so I am a Lord as in many other respects so jure redemtionis by the right of Redemption and jure belli by way of conquest His right of Dominion by taking us out of slavery and bondage is an easie Speculation For who will not be willing to call him Lord who by a strong arm and mighty power hath brought him out of captivity Our Creation cost God the Father no more but a DIXIT He spake the word and it was done But our Redemption cost God the Son his most precious bloud and life onely that we might fall down and worship this our Lord A Lord that hath shaken the powers of the Grave and must shake the powers of thy soul A Lord to deliver us from Death and to deliver us from Sin to bring life and immortality to light and to order our steps and teach us to walk to it to purchase our pardon and to give us a Law to save us that he may rule us and to rule us that he may save us We must not hope to divide Jesus from the Lord for if we do we lose them both Save us he will not if he be not our Lord and if we obey him not Our Lord he is still and we are under his power but under that power which will bruise us to pieces And here appeareth that admirable mixture of his Mercy and Justice tempered and made up in the rich treasury of his Wisdom his Mercy in pardoning sin and his Justice in condemning sin in his flesh Rom 8.3 and in our flesh his Mercy in covering our sins and his Justice in taking them away his Mercy in forgetting sins past and his Justice in preventing sin that it come no more his Mercy in sealing our pardon and his Justice in making it our duty to sue it out For as he would not pardon us without his Son's obedience to the Cross no more will he pardon us without our obedience to his Gospel A crucified Saviour and a mortified sinner a bleeding Jesus and a broken heart a Saviour that died once unto sin and a sinner dead unto sin Rom. 6.10 these make that heavenly composition and reconcile Mercy and Justice and bring them so close together that they kiss each other For how can we be free and yet love our fetters how can we be redeemed from sin that are sold under sin how can we be justified that resolve to be unjust how can we go to heaven with hell about us No Love and Obedience Hope and Fear Mercy and Justice Jesus and the Lord are in themselves and must be considered by us as bound together in an everlasting and undivided knot If we love his Mercy we shall bow to his Power If we hope for favour we shall fear his wrath If we long for Jesus we shall reverence the Lord. Unhappy we if he had not been a Jesus and unhappy we if he had not been a Lord Had he not been the Lord the world had been a Chaos the Church a Body without a Head a Family without a Father an Army without a Captain a Ship without a Pilot and a Kingdom without a King But here Wisdom and Mercy and Justice Truth and Peace Reconcilement and Righteousness Misery and Happiness Earth and Heaven meet together and are concentred even in this everlasting Truth in these three words JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. And thus much of the Lesson which we are to learn We come now to our task and to enquire What it is to say it It is soon said It is but three words JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. The Indian saith it and the Goth saith it and the Persian saith it totius mundi una vox CHRISTUS est Christ Jesus is become the language of the whole world The Devils themselves did say it Matth. 8.29 Jesus thou Son of God And if the Heretick will not confess it dignus est clamore daemonum convinci saith Hilary What more fit to convince an Heretick then the cry of the Devils themselves Acts 19. The vagabond Jews thought to work miracles with these words And we know those virgins who cried Lord Lord open unto us were branded with the name of fools and shut out of doors Whilest we are silent we stand as it were behind the wall we lie
for the breach of the Law For let it once be granted what cannot be denied that we are all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 guilty and culpable before God that all have sinned Rom. 3.19 and are come short of the glory of God then all that noise the Church of Rome hath filled the world with concerning Merits and Satisfaction and inherent Righteousness will vanish as a mist before the Sun and Justification and Remission of sins will appear in its brightness in that form and shape in which Christ first left it to his Church Bring in Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the Patriarchs and Prophets and Apostles and deck them with all those vertues which made them glorious but yet they sinned Bring in the noble army of Martyrs who shed their bloud for Christ but yet they sinned They were stoned they were sawen asunder they were slain with the sword but yet they sinned and he that sinneth is presently the servant of sin obnoxious to it for ever and cannot be redeemed by his own bloud because he sinned but by the bloud of him in whom there was no sin to be found JUSTIFICATIO IMPII This one form of speech of justifying a sinner doth plainly exclude the Law and the works of it and may serve as an axe or hammer to beat down all their carved work and those Anticks which are fastned to the building which may perhaps take a wandering or gadding phansie but will never enter the heart of a man of understanding We do not find that beauty in their forced and artificial inventions that we do in the simple and native Truth neither are those effects which are as radiations and resultances from Forgiveness of sins so visible in their Justification by Faith and Works as in that free Remission which is by Faith alone The urging of our Merits is of no force to make our peace with God They may indeed make us gracious in his eyes after Remission but have as much power to remove our sins as our breath hath to remove a mountain or put out the fire of hell For every sin is as Seneca speaketh of that of Alexander's in killing Callisthenes crimen aeternum an eternal crime which no vertue of our own can redeem As often as any man shall say He slew many thousands of Persians it will be replied He did so but he killed Callisthenes also He slew Darius but he slew Callisthenes too And as often as we shall swell our minds and fill them with the conceit of our good deeds our Conscience will reply But we have sinned Let me adde my Passions to my Actions my Imprisonment to my Alms let me suffer for Christ let me dye for Christ But yet I have sinned Let us outgo all the ancient examples of piety and sanctity But yet we have sinned And none of all our acts can make so much for our glory and comfort as our sin doth for our reproch Our sins may obscure and darken our vertues but our vertues cannot abolish our sins For what peace so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel as our sins be so many Ot what ease can a myriad of vertues do him who is under arrest under a curse who if Mercy come not in between is condemned already And therefore we may observe those Justitiaries who will not build upon Remission or Not-imputation of sins how their complexion altereth how their colour goeth and cometh how they are not the same men in their Controversies and Commentaries that they are in their Devotions and Meditations Nothing but Merit in their ruff and jollity and nothing but Mercy on their death-beds nothing but the bloud of Martyrs then and nothing but Christ's now nothing but their own Satisfaction all their lives and nothing but Christ's at their last gasp Before magìs honorificum it was more honourable to bring in something of our own towards the Forgiveness of our sins but now for the uncertainty of our own Righteousness which were no whit available to a guilty person if it were certain because there is no harbour here Christ's Righteousness is called in with a Tutissimum est as the best shelter And here they will abide till the storm be over-past To conclude then Remission of sins hath no relation or dependence on any thing which is in man is not drawn on or furthered by any merit of ours but is an act of the Mercy and Providence of God by which he is pleased to restore us to his favour who were under his wrath to count us righteous who were guilty of death and in Christ to reconcile us unto himself and though he have a record of our sin yet not to use it as an indictment against us but so to deal with us as if his book were rased and so to look upon us as if we had not sinned at all Et merebimur admitti jam exclusi And we who were formerly shut out for our sin shall be led into the land of the living by a merciful and perfect and all-sufficient Mediatour It is his Mercy alone that must save us This is as the Sanctuary to the Legal offendor This is as mount Ararat to Noah's tossed Ark as Noah's hand to his weary Dove as Ahasuerus his golden sceptre to the humble penitent Come then put on your royal apparel your wedding garment and touch the top of it But touch it with reverence Bring not a wavering and doubtful heart an unrepented sin a rebellious thought with thee For canst thou touch this Sceprre in thy lust or anger canst thou touch it with hands full of bloud Such a bold irreverent touch will turn this Sceptre into a Sword to pierce thee through For nothing woundeth deeper then abused Mercy Behold God holdeth it forth to thee in his Word Come unto him all ye that are heavy laden and touch it and you are eased He holdeth it forth in his Sacrament first in the flesh of his Son and then in the signs and representations of it and here to touch it unworthily is to touch nay to embrace Death it self The woman in the Gospel came behind Christ and did but touch the hem of his garment and was healed Most wretched we saith the Father who touch him nay feed on him so oft in his Sacrament and our issue of bloud runneth still we are still in our sins our Pride as swelling our Malice as deadly our Appetite as keen our Love of the world as great as before and all because we do not touch it with reverence nor discern the Lord's body which must not be touched by every rude and unclean hand Wash you then make you clean and then as your Sins are pardoned so here your Pardon is sealed with the bloud of the Lamb. Here thou dost see thy ransome Onely believe and come with a heart fit to receive him The best enterteinment and welcome thou canst give him is a broken contrite and reverent heart a a heart
God's Forgiveness is free and voluntary He looketh for no motives abroad but forgiveth us secundùm misericordiam according to his mercy according to that which is in God not according to that which is in man Ex se sumit seminarium miserendi saith the Father He hath the seminary of mercy in himself and borroweth not the seeds of it from any other Nothing to move God but the mercy of God If we will seek the true cause we must go out of the world for all that is in the world is enmity with God All the benefits which his hand of mercy reacheth forth are tendered to us with this inscription Ipse quia voluit Jam. 1. Because he will he giveth them us And he forgiveth us for no other reason but because he will And this is the right SICUT by which we must set our Forgiveness Our Forgiveness must flow from a melting heart For that Forgiveness which hath need of so many motives so many allurements so many submissions to uphold it in life and being cannot be divine or from the heaven heavenly but will soon fall to the ground and vanish What Forgiveness is that which is bought with the knee and with a tear which modesty draweth on which humility beggeth Most men saith Aristotle forgive those who fall at their feet who confess an injury and repent of it We willingly lift them up who cast themselves down and submit themselves quia hoc facere tanquam majores videmur because Forgiveness is an act of a Superiour and when Emulation is wasted and spent Humanity groweth up in its room And therefore to me it is a most unnecessary question Whether a man be bound to forgive an injury before he that hath done the wrong doth acknowledge it although it be grounded upon that of our Saviour If thy brother trespass against thee seven times in a day Luke 17 4. and seven times in a day turn again to thee saying I repent thou shalt forgive him For Remission is an act of Charity which hath no limitation of time or person For we are not onely commanded to forgive others but to do them good and to pray for them But here Christ speaketh of our brother whom we must rebuke and reprehend ver 3. that if we could we should not give him open indications of a reconciled mind till we had reproved and gained him but then if he will not suffer a word of exhortation if he withdraw himself from us as unwilling to be shewed his errour our charity must follow him still nor must we be unmerciful because he is stubborn and because he turneth his back unto us withdraw our bowels from him What talk we of preparation of mind for even bitterness it self may consist with such preparation For by this it seemeth I may hate my brother before reconciliation and prepare nay resolve to forgive him when I see him upon his knees These distinctions of preparation and the act of general Love and particular of inward Forgiveness and outward are but commenta humani ingenii the work of our phansie or rather of our malice and serve for no other use but to make our Forgiveness less voluntary yea to make it none at all For thus I may be prepared to love my brother and yet hate him all the dayes of my life I may love him as my brother and hate him as my enemy I may love him in my heart and pursue him with my sword and so excuse my uncharitableness by my brother's rancor which my charity should cover Then our Forgiveness is set at the true SICUT when we have gained that God-like disposition to multiply it and make it keep time with our brother's offences when we are as active to forgive as he is to offend This sheweth that Charity is even in a manner natural to us and floweth sweetly from us as waters from their fountain so that there need no submissions or deprecations no tears nor beseechings to draw them from us nor can any frowardness or obstinacy in our brother stop their course This giveth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a kind of ascent to draw near to â—â—d and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a kind of Deification and maketh us children like to 〈◊〉 Father which is in heaven Again as God's Forgiveness is free and voluntary so is it full and plenary He hath made Christ a propitiation for our sins nay not onely for our sins but for the sins of the whole world He casteth them behind him never again to behold them he burieth them in oblivion that he may never remember them He passeth them by as if he saw them not putteth them away that they hurt us not casteth them into the sea that they drown us not washeth them away that they defile us not covereth them that they appear not And thus he presenteth us at once both with physick and instruction with a pardon and a precept and by giving us a plenary indulgence teacheth us a duty And how sweet should that command be which is thus presented in an hony-comb He teacheth us and that we may learn we have motives from his Mercy-seat not onely to forgive offences but so to esteem them as if they had never been done And indeed to make our Forgiveness of them complete and level it by the true SICUT the best way is to cast them out of our thoughts For whilest they lodge there they are but tentations and may renew that flame which is now well abated and having the same aspect in which they first appeared cannot be looked upon often but with danger These we best overcome as the Parthians did their enemies fugiendo by flying from them For how great a matter will a little fire kindle In other things tanta injuria oblivio quanta est gloria ejus cujus est injuria oblivion and forgetfulness is as hurtful and injurious to us as that is praise-worthy which it removeth out of our sight Memory is the health of the Vnderstanding saith Plato but in respect of injuries Oblivion is a benefit because it freeth us not onely from evil but from the danger of it leaveth it not as a coal ill-quenched which every puff of air every occasion may fanne and kindle again but doth utterly extinguish it For as it is well said Pax non est si veteres ad bellum causas relinquat That peace deserveth not the name of peace which leaveth any way open for war to break in again so Forgiveness is not forgiveness when we do but forgive and are willing to look back upon the injury which is passed and to converse familiarly with that which is as apt to provoke us to wrath now it is past as when it was first done For these representations present it to our mind not as past but as now done As when Antony brought Caesar's bloudy robe into the market-place the Oratour telleth us the people were so affected ut non occisus
nature is capable The Scripture is holy because it breatheth and conveyeth holiness The Sacraments are holy because they help to promote it Some Times are holy because they occasion it the Sabbath it self is holy onely in respect of its end the practice of holiness Discipline is holy as being the way to restore it Some Persons are holy because they are the helpers of our joy 2 Cor. 1.24 which is a beam of Holiness Then also some Places must be holy I will not say and yet the wisest have said it because sensible helps to stir up devotion and to better our best actions for we are so spiritual so elevated so Seraphical that we need no such helps and we are bold to profess it but here we meet together for holiness sake as a congregation or Church holy to the Lord here holiness is breathed into us and here we receive it here we assemble as so many copies of holiness and one transcribeth from another here God is present you will say with men and if with the men in the place here he speaketh to us and here we speak to him here he delivereth his oracles and here we receive them here he proclaimeth his Law and here we promise obedience here he wooeth and beseecheth us and here we kneel and importune him here he promiseth and we rejoyce here he threatneth and we tremble here he speaketh as a Father and we bless him here he thundereth and we bow before him even God in his holy place Wherefore if we loved holiness we should love the house of God for its ends sake if we loved holiness we should love any thing that doth perfect it yea that doth but promote but begin it any means time person place that is ministerial to it we should love all these for holiness that is for the Lord's sake and not strain at a gnat that we may swallow a camel not question a name or attribute or title that we may devour the thing not raise a tempest in a bason where there is so little water nor contend about that which yieldeth so little matter of strife Oppugnat Christum qui illi stultè favet An indiscreet defense of Christ and his glory doth dishonour him For whilest we thus look towards his glory for it is but a look we lose it in that look whilest we thus contend for it where there is no cause the blow we give in defense of it beateth it to the ground Beloved all storms may be slumbred all tempests calmed by these two words DOMUS DOMINI It is the house of the Lord. And if it be the house of the Lord then it should be honoured as his house not honoured as he himself is for it is not capable of such honour but honoured because it is his honoured as we bless the poor and give him an alms for the Lord's sake Honoured you will say what adorned and beautified A stout question to be put Yes certainly so far honour it as to make it the more useful for that end for which it was erected and adorn it as far as the rules of decency and the nature of the place will permit For quod docet ferè prodest as the Oratour saith That which is decent not onely presenteth a grace and beauty which may take our eye and please it but carrieth also its profit along with it and is advantageous to the work we have to do God did never yet tell us that it is his delight to dwell beggerly nor should it be ours to serve him so In the Prophet Malachi he complaineth of Israel's unkindness Mal. 1.6 that though he was their Father yet they honoured him not and though he was their Master yet they feared him not and that they despised his name And when they seemed ignorant wherein they had despised his name Mal. 1.7 8. he telleth them In that they offered polluted bread upon his altar and in that they said The table of the Lord is contemptible in that they offered the blind and the lame and the sick such as they would not have offered to their governour What if their hearts were upright in them By their questions Wherein have we despised thy name Wherein have we polluted thee it seemeth they thought so yet to think any thing good enough for God was an high contempt offered to the Majesty of heaven Prov. 23.26 My son give me thy heart It is true but my son give me that too which is fit to be offered to thy Father thy Master thy Lord Esteem not that good enough for me of which thou thy self hast no esteem All the creatures in the world from the Gnat to the Elephant all the things in the world are alike to God for they are all the works of his hands but he taketh them upon our account and expecteth that from us whereon we set the greatest price For how can our affection be shewn in giving that we care not for but are as willing to lose as to keep it That of S. Paul is an universal and eternal rule and concerneth all the men in the world from Adam to him who shall stand the last upon the earth 1 Cor. 14.40 Let all things be done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 decently This is it we first look upon And what decorum can it be that your private houses where some few meet should be trimmed and set out with all advantage and the house of God where many hundreds assemble should be ruinous and sordid even to the offense of the eye that you should have a fairer room where you meet to eat then where you meet to pray that God by dust and ashes should be served in dust and ashes inter ruta caesa amongst rubbish and lumber that decencie should be confined to yours and find no room in the house of God Yet this is the decorum which those who call themselves Spiritual men would observe that Luxury should dwell in state and Devotion in a cottage In which they shew so little of the Christian that nothing appeareth of the Man For what man till he be unmanned by the spirit of delusion and madness can be so unreasonable Who can account what is laid out in this kind to be unnecessary wast but either a Judas who would have it in his purse or such an one as Julian's Treasurer who thought the vessels of the Church too rich and glorious for the Son of Mary The Kingly Prophet could not attain to such a speculation but from his own house he draweth an argument to build and beautifie the Lord's I dwell saith he 2 Sam. 7.2 in an house of cedar but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains This he deemed the most incongruous thing in the world and therefore he would not give sleep to his eyes Psal 132.4 5. nor slumber to his eye-lids until he found out a place for the Lord an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob Psal
a seed which may be sown in any ground and will grow up even in Epicurus his garden Who deny'd indeed the Providence but not the Foreknowledge of God as thinking the events and motions of things on earth rather below his care then out of his sight And though he had the confidence to deny the Administration he had not the power to deny the Nature of God In a word it is a principle of Nature written in our hearts by the finger of God himself and we must first loose our selves before we can blot it out And yet as undeniable as it is S Peter foretells that there will come mockers in the last times even mockers of God And the words here are not a bare negative proposition and no more but a silent reprehension and being urged and preached as it were a plain intimation that some there might be who deceiving themselves in their religion would take courage at last to question a principle of Nature Psal 10. His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud under his tongue is mischief and vanity saith David and then it follows in the close God hath forgotten he hideth his face Ezek. 9.9 and will never see it nor require it The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great and the land is full of bloud and the city full of perversness for they say The Lord hath forsaken the earth and the Lord seeth not Psâ—l 53.1 They say as the fool doth in his heart There is no God say it rather by rote as that they would have then make an article of their faith For none believe that there is no God but they for whom it were better there were none indeed None believe he doth not see but those who do those works of darkness which he cannot look upon but in anger May we then conclude that there be some who attempt to cosen God as the Cerarians did their Jupiter who think they can bâ—ffle him and put a trick upon him obtrude dross for silver and a gilded sin for true holiness and righteousness A hard saying this who can bear it Yet such no doubt there are and we have just cause to fear not a few who are secretly possest of such a phansie For this their folly is manifested unto all men as the Apostle speaketh And it shews it self 1. in vita hominum in mens Lives 2. in votis hominum in the Wishes of wicked men 3. in studio in their Desire and Study to make themselves believe it And first if we look into the lives and conversations of men we shall find the whole course and order thereof to be nothing else but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a kind of scene and as it were an action upon a stage What masks and disguises do they put on and all populo ut placeant that they may deceive the people who indeed are delighted with shews and will swallow down any pill be it to their own ruine and destruction if it be gilded over with a fair pretense who cannot think themselves wise but by being constant or rather stubborn fools Thus first they deceive and mock themselves then they deceive and mock others come forth in this shew and saint-like majesty as Herod in his royal apparel that they may be taken for Gods not Men. And now they dare tell any Prophet in the world though they peradventure will not call him Blessed of the Lord that they have fulfilled the Commandment of the Lord. For having gained this applause they tread their measures with more state and majesty they begin to feel themselves to be those persons whom they did present as Quintilian observes of some Players that they put on that affection which they were but to express and went weeping off the stage Now they are Holy now they are Just now they are Defenders of the faith and by degrees work in themselves a belief that God also is of their opinion delighted in shews and apparitions And therefore in this habit which at first they did put on but for a purpose they commend themselves to God himself like the Pantomime or Dancer in Seneca who because he pleased the people well was wont every day to go up into the Capitol and dance before Jupiter and thought he did the God great pleasure in it Did I say this folly was seen in the course of mens lives You may think it is rather hid there It is true but so hid as the Bee was in the gumme latet lucet hid but so hid that with half an eye we may see it well enough For the Hypocrite though he carry on his actions with that art and subtle continuance as if he would deceive the eyes of the Sun and of Justice yet some one thing or other there will be which shall discover and unmask him I have performed the commandment of the Lord said Saul to Samuel And Samuel said 1 Sam. 15.13 What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen which I hear I am just and holy saith the Hypocrite what meaneth then this loud Oppression this raging Malice this devouring Covetousness which are as the bleating of the sheep and lowing of the oxen to discover all and make this Angel of light as full of horrour as the Devil himself And as it is seen in close and painted iniquity so is it most visible in open profaneness in those sins which we commit before the Sun and the people And in these we do not so much mock God as laugh him to scorn think that he will keep siâ—ence at our Oaths shut his eyes at our uncleanness fall asleep whilest we watch whole nights in prodigious intemperance and be at last a Father of mercy to those rebellious children which defie him to his face Such Mockers the world is full of These Locusts swarm and cover the face of the earth and corrupt the whole land Quae regio in terris What corner of the earth is there where these do not quarter Look into the Court there the King is the Preacher and his example a lasting Sermon I doubt not but there be many who do sub larva servire aulae as Nazianzene spake of his brother Caesarius who wait upon the King to do service to the King of Kings and make their place here but a step to a better in heaven Yet if we may prophesie in the Kings Court we may discover some who by their colour and complexion do not make shew as if they had lived so near the Sun or wiâ—hin the beams and influence of so resplendent an example Look into the Camp I cannot think but there be many there qui sub paludamento alterius alteri militant who in their coat-armour serve the Lord of Hosts and so live as those that fight his battels But are there none whose very words are clothed with death and whose swords are instruments of violence
Father doth of Idolatry It is summus seculi reatus tota causa judicii It is a vocal crying sin which like the importunate Widow in the Gospel will not suffer the Judge to rest till he do justice This filleth the world with the evil of sin and of punishment not so much a firm opinion that God may be deceived and mocked as a bold presumption by which we make him such a God as we would have him a God that may be trifled with a God that like the Heathen Gods may be taken by the beard that those fierce astonishing speeches which we find in Scripture are but words of art 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spoken to affright men rather then words of intended truth which will bring effect according to their natural meaning as indulgent fathers many times threaten their children with much hard language which they never intend to make good And this conceit of Gods facility and easiness that he so quickly admits of excuse is the principal ground and occasion of all the sins in the world To make it plainer yet and point out to some particulars in which we mock God when we imagine no such thing and so to conclude this point I cannot imagine when I consider that Majesty which no mortal can comprehend that Dust and Ashes the works of Gods hand should be able to put a trick upon him and mock him This were to set his creature in his Throne and place extreme Weakness and Folly above Wisdome it self Psal 50. Thou verily thoughtest I was like unto thee saith God to the Hypocrite It was but a thought a wavering imagination which enters and goes out and never remains at one stay God is not cannot be mocked For if he had believed there was a God Diagoras himself would not have mockt him nor ever thought it possible But the truth is as the relation stands betwixt God and his creature Man is said to do that which he doth not which he cannot do to fight with him who is omnipotent to dispute with him whom we cannot answer one of a thousand to contend to grieve him who cannot be moved to weary him to press him as a cart is with sheaves who by his word made and by his word beareth all things who is to himself an everlasting sabbath and rest Non ille minùs peccat cui sola deest facultas saith the Casuist We do not do it the less because we cannot do it because we vvould do it if we could Ipsa sibi imputatur voluntas saith the Father To vvill it is to do it To look upon a woman and lust after her is to commit adultery yet the vvoman as chast as before So God cannot be mockt yet vve may mock him As in the rape of Lucrece two are in the fact yet but one as Augustine speaks committed adultery For if Tully could truly say that to resist the Law of Nature and to vvalk contrary to that light which vve brought vvith us into the vvorld is nothing less then Gigantum more bellare cum Diis to vvage vvar vvith the Gods as the Giants did then may vve as truly affirm that to dissemble vvith God to flatter him vvith our lips vvhen our heart is far from him to fall down before him in a complement vvhen vve break his laws to act our part as upon a stage to vvish he had no eye to study to believe it is to mock him To be more particular yet For yet you may ask vvherein vve mock him For vve are very slow and unwilling to believe any evil of our selves and are hardly induced to think vve ever did that vvhich vve do every day Mock God! nay God forbid And that God forbid that prayer Mal. 3.7 is but a mock God calls to the Jews Return unto me and they reply Wherein shall we return as if they never had been averse from him but had been alwayes vvith him even in his bosome And vers 8. Ye have robbed me saith God and they say Wherein have we robbed thee as if they vvere utterly ignorant of any such matter but had been vvholly imployed in bringing tiths into his store-house and meat into his house They forsook him they robb'd him and yet are innocent They did and did not and God himself is made no better then a columniator So that this position is true in this sense also God is not mocked for no man thinks no man vvill acknovvledge no man dares profess that he mocks him But vve cannot thus shake off the guilt nor put it from us For vvhen vve do those things to God vvhich vve do to men vvhen vve mock them this is enough to put us into the seat of Mockers and enroll us amongst the Mockers of God When Laban gave Jacob blear-ey'd Leah for beautiful Rachel Gen. 29.25 it vvas a mock What hast thou done saith Jacob did not I serve thee for Rachel why hast thou mocked me When Micah laid an image in the bed for David and said he was sick it vvas a mock For Saul said unto Micah why hast thou deceived me When God requires justice and righteousness and we bring him vain oblations when he calls for the heart and we lift up our voice when he calls for a working fighting conquering faith and we give him a dead faith when God calls for Faith which is a stone a corner-stone to build that Obedience upon which shall reach to Heaven and we make Faith a pillow to sleep on and sin the more securely because we believe when God bids us strengthen our hands that hang down and we open our ears when God bids us Vp and be doing and we count all done in Hearing when God calls for a New creature and we return him circumcision and uncircumcision empty sacraments and lazy formalities Deut. 15. when God requires a sacrifice without blemish and we offer up that which is lame or blind when God requires perfection and we give him our weak blind halting endeavours when God seeks a Man and we give him a picture Psal 35.16 what are we but hypocritical mockers For what are Hypocrites but Players the Zanias of Religion whose art it is to deceive who are so long conversant in outward performances that they rest in them as in the end of the Law are content with shews and expressions and at last think there is no service no religion but in these As the poor Spartan travailing into another country and seeing the beams and posts of houses squared and carved which he had never seen before asked if trees did grow so in those countries So these mockers of God these formal professours having been long acquainted with a form of Godliness sqared and carved and set out with shew and advantage considering what eloquence there is in an attentive Ear a turned Eye an Angels Tongue a forced Sigh to win applause and make them glorious in the eyes of men fall at last upon this
welcome Come ye Blessed children of my Father receive the kingdome and Blessedness which was prepared for you from the beginning of the world The Five and Thirtieth SERMON COLOS. III. 1. If then you be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God THe Resurrection of the dead is the prop and stay the very life and soul of a Christian Illam credentes sumus saith Tertullian By believing this we have our being and are that which we are and without this it were better for us not to be If there be no resurrection of the dead saith the Apostle then are we of all men most miserable Now much better were it for us not to be at all then to be miserable For let us take a general survay not as Solomon doth in the book of the Preacher of all the pleasures in the world but of all the virtues of a Christian onely deny the Resurrection of the dead and what are they else but extreme vanity and vexation of the spirit To cleanse our hearts and wash our hands in innocency to hold a strict watch over all our ways to deny unto our selves the joyes and pleasures of the world to pine our bodies with fasting to bestow our hours on devotion our goods on the poor and our bodies on the fire this and whatsoever else is so full of terrour to the outward man and so full of irksomness to the flesh what may it seem to be but a kind of madness if when this little span of our life be measured out there remain no crown no reward of it if after so many strivings with our selves so many agonies so many crucifyings of our selves so many pantings for life we must in the end breath out our last But beloved Christ is risen and our faith in his Resurrection is an infallible demonstration and a most certain pledge to us that we shall rise as he hath done Of which that we may the better assure our selves we must observe that as S. Paul tells us As we have born the image of the earthy so must we bear the image of the heavenly so on the contrary we must make an account that as we hope to bear the image of the heavenly so must we first bear the image of the earthy and if we will bear a part in the resurrection to glory which is a heavenly resurrection we must have our part in a resurrection to grace which is a resurrection here on earth S. John distinguishes for me in his Revelation Ch. 20.5.6 Blessed is he that hath his part in the first resurrection And he that hath none there shall bear at all no part in the second resurrection As it is with us in nature at the end of our dayes there is a death and after that a resurrection so is it with us in grace yet the days of sin can have an end in us there is a death For the Apostle tells us we are dead to sin and we are buried with him in Baptisme Then after this death to sin cometh the resurrection to newness of life Mors perire est resurgere restingui nisi mors mortem resurrectio resurrectionem antecedat To die is quite to perish to rise again worse then to have lien for ever rotting in the grave if this first death go not before a second death and this first resurrection before the second Secondly as in our life time we die and rise again with Christ so do we likewise in a manner ascend with him into heaven For to seek those things which are above is a kind of flight and ascension of the Soul into heavenly places And as God commanded Moses before he died to ascend up into the mountain Deut. 32.49 to see a far off and discover that good land which he had promised to the Jews So it it his pleasure that through holy conversation and newness of life we should raise our selves far above the rest of the world and in this life time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzene speaks as it were from an exceeding high mountain discover and have some sight of that good land and of those good things which God hath laid up for those which are his Hebr. 6. So by the Apostle our regeneration and amendment of life that is our first resurrection is called a taste of the good spirit and word of God a relish and taste of the powers of the world to come Now of this first Resurrection doth our blessed Apostle speak in these words which I have read unto you If you be risen with Christ seek those things which are above Which speech though it go with an If and therefore seems to be conditional yet if we look neerer into it we shall find that indeed it is a peremptory and absolute command in effect as if he had said Rise with Christ and seek the things which are above Acts 12. And as the Angel said to Peter being in prison Arise up quickly at which words the chains fell off from Peters hands so God by his blessed Apostle comes to us who are in a stricter prison and commands us in the first words Arise quickly and in the next seek the things which are above and so makes as it were the chains fall off our hands and delivers us out of prison into the glorious liberty of the Saints of God For the things of this world and our love unto them are fetters to our feet and manacles to our hands holding us down groveling on the earth And except these chains fall off we can never Arise and follow the Angel as Peter did When Elias in a whirlwind went up to heaven the text tells us that his mantle fell from him And he that will go up into heaven with Elias 2 Kings 2. and seek the things that are above cannot go with his cloke thither he must be content to leave his mantle below forgo all things that are beneath and as S. Hierome speaks nudam crucem nudus sequi follow the naked cross naked and stript from all the glory and pomp of the world Now this part of Scripture which I have read is a part of the practice of our spiritual Logick for it teacheth us to frame an argument or reason by which we may conclude unto our selves that our first resurrection is past For if we seek the things which are above then are we risen with Christ if not we are in our graves still our souls are putrified and corrupt And again If we be risen with Christ then as Christ at his resurrection left in his grave the cloths wherein he was buried so these things of the world in which we lye as it were dead and buried at our resurrection to newness of life we must leave unto the world which was the grave in which we lay As it is in arched buildings all the stones do enterchangeably and mutually rest upon and hold
must put on incorruption this mortal must put on immortality There will be caro reformata angelificata as Tertullian speaks our flesh will be new refined and angelified so in our Conversion and Regeneration there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil a kind of transmutation or transfiguration 2 Cor. 3.18 We are transformed into the image of Christ For God who hath made us after his own image will have us reformed unto the likeness of his Son As the Flesh then so the soul must be reformata angelificata refined and angelified or rather Christificata Christified having the same mind which was in Christ Jesus For we are no further risen nisi in quantum caeperimus esse Angeli but so far forth as we begin to be like unto the Angels but so far forth as we have that admonishing S. John speaks of and are like unto Christ Where their is no change 1 Jo. 2.20 there is no rising Whilst our bed is in the darkness whilst Corruption is our father and the Worm our mother and sister we cannot be said to be risen And whilst all the alliance we have is with the World whilst it is both father and mother and sister unto us whilst we mind earthy things we are still in our grave nay in Hell it self and Death devoureth us For let us call the World what we please our kingdome our place of habitation our delight yet indeed it is but our grave Will you now see a Christian rising He rises fairly not with a Tongue which is a sword and a Mouth which is a sepulchre but with a Tongue which is his glory and a Mouth full of songs of thanksgiving not with a gadding eye but an eye shut up by covenant not with an itching but with an humble ear not with a heart of stone but with a heart after Gods own heart And as in the Resurrection of the body unde videtur perdidisse quod erat inde incipit hoc apparere quod non erat from whence he doth seem to have lost that which he was from thence he begins to appear to be that which he was not So no change no resurrection It is a gross errour and deceives many and keeps their heart dead within them as a stone to think they are risen when they are bound hand and foot both dead and buried to think they are up and walking when alass they are in their grave As the Philosopher speaks of ignorant and self conceited men that they might have proved men of understanding had they not thought that they had already atteined unto knowledge so many who profess the name of Christ might have also risen with Christ but for a groundless conceit that this is a business of quick dispatch and that as Hymeneus and Philetus said their resurrection is past already The rising of the thought the raising of the voice the lifting up of the hand the elevation of the eye every inclination every profer every weak resolution is with them a Resurrection But this is as we vulgarly speak to rise on the wrong side And therefore In the third place as our Resurrection so our Regeneration must be universal of every part Quid est resurrectionem credere nisi integram credere saith Tertullian We do not believe the Resurrection if we do not believe it to be entire and of every part of that part which is bruised and of that part which is cut off Detruncatio membri mors membri The maiming or detruncation of any member is the death of the member and the body must be restored and revived in those parts which are dead So that to be raised from the dead is to be made a whole man Blind Bartimaeus must have his eyes Mephibosheth his legs and John Baptist his head again or else we cannot call it a Resurrection So it is in our rising with Christ The whole man must be renewed the man of God must be made perfect to every good work and be presented unblameable and unreproveable in Gods sight with an understanding enlightened and a heart renewed with holy desires and clean hands and sanctified lips which make us as it were the integrity of his parts In the common affairs of the world many times we do things by halves we begin to build and cannot make an end we send our hopes afar off and fall short in the way that we follow them we propose to our selves a mountain and when we have done all it is but a mole-hill because many cross accidents like so many Sanballats come in between to hinder our work And yet nevertheless though we cannot finish it we may be said to have begun it and to have done something But here in our Regeneration in our Rising with Christ there can no cross accident intervene All the hindrance is from the perversness of our own wills And therefore in this work nothing is done if any thing be left undone If we end not we begin not and if we rise not in every part in every faculty of our souls we are not risen Non vult nisi totam qui totam fecit He that made the whole soul will have it all If it be not restored in every part God hath no part in it There be say the Schools particulares voluntates particular habits particular dispositions and particular wills to some kind of virtues Some are born Eunuchs saith our Saviour Some are chast not merciful Some are liberal not temperate Some have a quick ear and but a heavy hand Some can hear and speak and walk peradventure a Sabbath-days journey and yet we cannot say they are risen For these particular operations are not natural but artificial not the actions of a living soul but like unto the motions of that artificial body which Albertus made not proceeding from any life within us but formed as it were by certain wheels and engines by Love of a good name by outward Respects by a Desire to bring our purposes about and the like This is not generalis but portionalis resurrectio a portional a particular an half resurrection indeed as good none at all This is not Gods manner of raising us Deus cùm liberat non partem aliquam liberat sed totam liberat saith S. Augustine When God raiseth us he raiseth not a part but he raiseth all His voice is Lazare veni foràs Lazarus come forth not the body alone but the soul also and not one faculty of the soul but every power of it that is the whole man all Lazarus For if any part of Lazarus yet savour of rottenness and corruption we cannot say that Lazarus is risen Let us not deceive our selves He that is risen with Christ stands not as Solomon was pictured by an Archbishop half in heaven and half in hell but his conversation is in heaven and he is raised far above all principalities and powers above the power of darkness and the
the foolish Virgins and our wisdom in the Wise And this is the very reason which the Fathers give why our Saviour spake so often in Parables Because we stand in need of the help of ensamples our Saviour himself whose life was ensample enough to have instructed the whole world proposeth others The cruel Miser may read his destiny in Dives's burning tongue Non guttam qui non micam He that would not give a crum of bread could not beg a drop of water The Samaritane shall instruct the Lawyer and if the Lawyer approve the mercy of the Samaritane our Saviour is ready to drive the example home and apply it Go and do thou likewise If the Disciples grow ambitious and ask who shall be greatest he will bring a child in the midst If they be contentious to wipe out that stain he will wash their feet If I your Master have washed your feet you who are but fellow-servants ought to wash one anothers feet in all humility descend to the lowest office which the necessity of your bretheren may require and call for If the Master hath done it it is no service but an honour to be like the Master The Schools will teach us Naturalia signa magis significant quà m positiva Those signs which by their very nature and a kind of secret imitation signifie things are far more expressive then those which art and humane invention have framed to this purpose and most times we are better taught by things then by words as we know a man better by his picture then by his name Therefore some have been of opinion that the best and surest way to knowledge is that which the Aegyptians of old used and the men of China use to this day to learn by Hierogliphicks Words may admit of glosses and interpretations and therefore we are forced as Tertullian speaketh vindicare proprietatem vocabuli sorti suae in our doctrines and disputes to vindicate and preserve the propriety of words entire otherwise we teach not that which we intend to teach and two may dispute to the worlds end and yet be two and at odds Fides nominum salus est proprietatum Unless you retain their proper signification there is no trust in words at all To be justified by faith the word is plain enough and yet after 1600. years we are not agreed what it is to be justified And the difference is but verbal for some take the word in this sense and some in that and so dispute Andabatarum more as blind men fight blindfold and in the dark The duties which concern our peace are written with the Sun-beams and yet we cannot well read and understand them but when we should be up and doing doubt and ask the question what it is we are to do Nec vitae discimus sed scholae We mis-spend that time in fruitless questions which was measured out unto us that in it we might be fruitful in good works If I am to give I stay my hand because I will not know to whom I am to give or how much If I am to fast I would first be resolved of the manner and the time and at last conclude and rest in that which is least terrible to the flesh To change my dyet or to miss a meal is to fast If I am to pray I am troubled whether I may use a form or do it as the spirit that is my own phansie shall on the sudden give me utterance O what a strange darkness hath over-spread the world that men cannot yet see what it is to Fast to Pray to Give an Alms What needless controversies and disputes hath it been filled with concerning the Church and Heresie and Free-will and the like Quot palaestrae opinionum quot propagines quaestionum What wrestling in opinions what multiplying of questions which had all been stated settled and composed had not each party made advantage of the words which are capable of that sense and signification which either side will lay upon them Therefore Martin Luther saith well Omnes abutuntur his vocabulis These words have been fouly abused Non enim fidei sed suis studiis ea aptant For men have so handled the matter in their disputes that they have shaped and formed them to their own purpose not to the building up of each others faith but of that politie in the Church which they affect The CHURCH sometimes is a Congregation of Saints and sometimes like Noah's Ark it taketh in both clean and unclean beasts Sometimes it is a Body whose Head is in heaven and sometimes it is a Body whose Head is also visible on earth FAITH sometimes is an Assent and a full Persuasion of the truth of what is delivered in the Gospel and sometimes it is an Application of the promises With some it is an Instrument and with some a Condition And FREE-WILL is confined to evil alone which is not the freedom but the slavery of the Will For can there be a greater slavery then to be free that is to be bound with the chains of darkness Thus you see it is with words But that representation which one thing giveth of another is more lively and constant is not capable of so much ambiguity and dispute but carrieth about with it the same face and countenance It is true the Rule in all things must have the preeminence but we are too ready to make the Rule what we please and many times it passeth by unregarded But being written out in the practice of the Saints it is of great force and efficacy St. Paul in the flesh was the best commentary on his own Epistles Would you define Humility to the life behold Christ on the Cross What better character of Zele then Phinehas with his spear nailing the adulterous couple to the ground What fairer picture of Charity then the poor widow casting in her two mites into the Treasury Would you know the true nature of Contrition and Repentance You need not pass per spineta Scholasticorum through the briars and intricate disputes of the Schools but may learn it more perfectly in the practice of the primitive Saints Behold them kissing the chains of imprisoned Martyrs washing the feet of Lazars wallowing at the Temple doors adgeniculatos charis on their knees begging the prayers of the Saints with their hair neglected their eyes hollow their bodies withered their feet bare and their knees of horn as Nazianzene poureth it out to us in a sloud of eloquence and draweth the picture for us These were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Isidore speaketh the living statues of all Christian Philosophy for us to look upon more lively figures of true Christian Piety then all the dogmata all the positions and definitions of the Schools And this I take to be the reason why God himself hath given us a fair catalogue of all the virtues of men and women famous in their generations and hath been pleased to put it into the hearts of
Joh. 2.6 when in all our carriage and behaviour we can truly say Sic oculos sic Ille manus sic ora ferebat Thus did or thus said my Saviour The lives and actions of men are subject to errour and the best of God's Saints in all ages have had their falls David is said to have been a man after God's own heart yet if we should follow David in all his paths he would lead us into those two fearful precipices Adultery and Murther Peter was a great Apostle but if we should imitate all Peter's actions we should not follow Christ but deny him In our imitation therefore of men we must observe the Apostles Caution here in the Text and be followers of the Saints even as they also are followers of Christ and no further When they go awry from Christ's example we must leave them be they what they will and carefully follow the presedent that our Lord hath set us He is the Way and the Truth and the Life He never went astray himself Joh. 14.6 neither can he mislead us He will be unto us as the Pillar of the cloud and of sire was to the Israelites a sure Guide to the Land of promise to the heavenly Canaan If we keep our eye still fixed upon him and heedfully and constantly follow his conduct we shall walk in the wayes of Truth and Peace walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called worthy of the name whereby we are called CHRISTIANS we shall give testimony of the truth and sincerity of our Faith and perform the promise and profession made at our Baptism which is to follow the example of our Saviour Christ and be made like unto him we shall adorn the Gospel honour our Master and glorifie our Father which is in heaven in a word we shall guide others in the way to happiness by our good example shining among them as lights in the world and we our selves having served our own generation by the will of God shall in the regeneration and the times of restitution of all things be received by him whom we have followed into those mansions of rest and glory which he is gone to prepare for us that where he is there we may be also The Eight and Thirtieth SERMON PROV XXVIII 13. He that covereth his sinnes shall not prosper but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy Rom. 12.16 Prov. 3.7 Prov. 26.12 BE not wise in your own conceits It is St. Paul's counsel And it is the Wisemans counsel also And he giveth the reason for it Seest thou a wise man in his own conceit there is more hope of a fool then of him more hope of him that hath no use of reason then of him that hath and abuseth it that draweth it down to vile and base offices that maketh it ministerial and serviceable to his lusts that first imployeth it as a midwife to bring forth that sinne which his lust hath conceived and then when it hath brought it forth maketh it as a nurse to cherish it first to find out wayes to mature and perfect it and then to cast a shadow to cover it Certainly there is more hope of a fool then of him For a fool setteth not up to himself any end and so is not frustrate or defeated of it But he that is wise in his own conceit is the more unhappy fool of the two for he proposeth to himself an end and doth not only fail and come short of it but falleth and is bruised on a contrary He promiseth to himself glory and meeteth with shame he looketh towards Prosperity and is made miserable he flattereth himself with hope of Life and is swallowed up by death he smileth and pleaseth and applaudeth himself and perisheth he lifteth up himself on high and falleth and is buried in the mire and filth of his own conceits That which he seeketh flyeth from him and that which he runneth from overtaketh him The truth of which hath been visible in many particulars and written as it were with the bloud of those who have sought death in the errour of their lives and here Solomon hath manifested it in this Proverb or wise sentence which I have read unto you For how happy do we think our selves if we can sin and then hide and cover our sin from our own and others eyes and yet Wisdom it self hath said He that doth so shall not prosper What a disgrace do we count it to confess and forsake sin and yet he that doth so shall find mercy Our wayes are not as God's wayes That which we gather for a flower is a noysome and baneful weed that which we make our joy is turned into sorrow that which we apply to heal doth more wound our balm is poyson and our Paradise Hell Ye have heard of the wisedom of Solomon Hearken to it in this particular which crosseth the wisedom of this world He that covereth his sins shall not prosper but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy Which words teach us these two things 1. The Danger of covering or excusing our sins He that covereth his sins shall not prosper 2. The Remedy or way to avoid this danger but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy The first we shall especially insist upon and shew it you in respect 1. of God 2. of our selves First the danger of covering our sins appeareth in this that sin cannot be covered cannot admit of excuse Omnis excusatio sui aequitate nititur say the Civilians All excuse is founded on equity and none is good but so far as equity commendeth it As far then as Sin may be covered or excused so far it is not sin at least not lyable to punishment For our own experience will tell us that where excuse with reason may run there it exempteth the accused both from fault and punishment We read Levit. 10. Vers 19. that when Aaron's sons had not eaten the goat of the sin-offering according to the Law and Aaron had made that reasonable excuse which we find that his sorrow for his two sons Nadab and Abihu had made him unfit to eat of those Holy things vvhich they vvere to do rejoycing Deut. 12.7 Deut. 26.14 and vvhen they brought their sanctified things they vvere to say I have not eat thereof in my mourning vvhen he had made this excuse the Text telleth us When Moses heard that he was content And this is the difference betwixt Moral and Ceremonial Laws Aliud sunt imagines saith Tertullian aliud definitiones Imagines prophetant definitiones gubernant We are governed not by Ceremonies vvhich pass away as a shadow but by Laws vvhich are immutable and indispensable Ceremonies are arbitrary and not only Reason but God himself doth in this case frame excuses and putteth them in our mouth and covereth what deformity soever they may present to men that cannot but misinterpret what they understand not David in his Hunger eateth of the shew-bread
said GO SELL ALL THAT THOU HAST I may do this saith Gregory and keep it That we must leave our lands and possessions and father and mother I may do this and yet be Lord of my land and love my father and mother We may use our vvealth in this vvorld tanquam tabulâ in fluctibus saith Augustine as a plank or board in a shipvvreck neither fling Riches from us nor dravv them too near us neither cast them avvay as burthensom nor yet embrace them as firm and sure bene utendo carere vvant them by well using them Lazarus is in Abraham's bosom and the rich man in hell yet may a poor man follow the rich man into hell and many a rich man have a room in the same bosom with Lazarus In nostro arbitrio est vel Lazarum sequi vel Divitem It is in our power in what estate soever we are to chuse which we will follow Lazarus or Dives All that can be said is this that they who are not able to manage their wealth and so have reason to fear it may do well to cast it away But they who can be poor in wealth are the strongest Christians Both Riches and Poverty are equal in this that as they may be made occasions to sin so they may be made also helps to Perfection Thirdly some have placed Perfection in Virginity which they call making themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven and have laid an imputation upon the state of Matrimony as most imperfect as too much savouring of the world and carnality and no better then what the Manichees called it honestam concubitûs defensionem a fair plea and an honest apology for lust Nusquam said Martin Luther Satanas per Papam sic insanit ac in castitate libidine tractanda The Devil never seemed to rage more then in those discourses the Papists make of Chastity and Lust That they may fright men from that which is lawful and honourable to that which is foul and unwarrantable thus they number up the inconveniences of the married life The noise of the family the deceitfulness of servants the luxury of the wife the frowardness of children as if these inconveniences were more dangerous then Sin Virginity they say is an Angelical estate And we are willing it should be so esteemed but cannot see but Perfection may find a place in Matrimony as well as in Single life and that the one may people heaven as well as the other And those inconveniencies and troubles as they may prove occasions of sin so may be made materia virtutis matter out of which we may raise those virtues which shall be pleasing in his eye who did first institute this state in Paradise Nor do I conceive to what purpose it should be to bring Matrimony and Virginity into the Scales to weigh them together For what can accrue from hence but this to defame the one because it may seem some graines lighter then the other For when they have stretched their wits and taken pains in comparing them they must at last meet and agree in this that Perfection may sit them both and bring as many Husbands and Wives into heaven as Virgins Virginity they grant is not terminus sed instrumentum perfectionis not the end in which Perfection is terminated but the way to bring us to it an instrument to work it out And for ought can be said to the contrary so may Marriage also be Bring both to the balance if you please By Virginity and an unmarried life I avoid occasions I hide my self from many dangers which might otherwise come towards me I withdraw my self from the many cares and troubles of this life Et virginitas nihil magìs timet quà m seipsam Virginity is afraid of nothing but it self and hath but this one trouble to defend it self Operosius est Matrimonium But Matrimony wrestleth with more difficulties and having happily strove through them and made way to the end may seem to have made a greater and more glorious conquest Certainly to marry a wife and by my good ensample to keep her an undefiled spouse of Christ to have children and by careful education to make them Saints look upon Christ and behave my self in my house as he doth in his Church to make his Marriage of the Church a patern of mine as mine is a sign and representation of his will make my way as passable to perfection and eternal life and set the gates of heaven as open to me as an unmarried life shall to him who hath bound himself by vow to keep his virgin Perfection then is not tied and married to a single but may joyn and go hand in hand with a married life I might adde to this their vow of Blind obedience which they call the sepulcre in which their Will is buried and that of Mission by which they bind themselves to go whithersoever their Superiour commandeth to do whatsoever he enjoyneth to run upon the point of the sword to leap into the Sea to adventure on those actions which are most absurd to teach a language which they do not know All these appear as free-will offerings but if we look nearer upon them they are no better then the sacrifice of fools Of these indeed we find large elogiums in the writings of the Ancients which Posterity hath much enlarged making that a part of their policy which was their forefathers devotion For we may imagine those high expressions of theirs were occasional forced by the times or rather manners of men who were worldly and sensual such as could endure no yoke And from men of this temper iniquum petebant ut aequum ferrent they required more then was necessary to be done that they might do something that they might know some bounds and not run into all excess of riot and commit what disorder they pleased They extolled Virginity that men might not wallow in lusts They declamed against Riches that men might not love the world They commended Solitariness that men might be shie of the company of evil men and pressed a ready obedience to men that they might beget in them a greater reverence to the commandments of God For if I must yield to the will of my brother what then must I do to my Maker This is the fairest plea can be made for them But to tie Perfection to this or that state of life which is enjoyned to all is to call that common which God hath cleansed and to appropriate holiness to that kind of life which is many times stained with uncleanness Most certain it is Perfection is enjoyned to every Christian but every man attaineth not to it by the same means As there are divers mansions in God's house so there are divers wayes and courses of life by which we pass unto them Indeed there is but one way to heaven but one Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is but one but it divideth it self to all estates and
like Proteus putteth on any shape for the advantage of others 505. St. Paul's example though not to be reached by any is to be followed by all 1020. Peace True Religion hath less outward Peace then that which is false 709. v. Quiet Pentecost the feast of the Law and the feast of the holy Ghost 760. The wonders of that feast 955. v. Tongues Whether the miracle at Pentecost were in the ears of the hearers or in the tongues of the speakers 956. The end of that miracle 957. Arguments to clear the Apostles from the scoffers charge 960. How the Apostles then though not drunk might seem to be so 961. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what 560. People v. Priest The people are much taken vvith shews 1055. Perfect what 1073. Perfection many love to hear of but few strive to be perfect 691. What Perfection God requireth and we must strive after 606. The Perfection required of us is not like that of God nor that of the Angels 1085 1086. The difference between Legall P. and Evangelical 1086. Arguments to prove that vve may be perfect 1088. Perfection twofold of Parts of Degrees both atteinable in this life 1088 1089. Some confine P. to Monks and Votaries 1089. Some place it in Poverty 1089. some in Virginity 1090. some in blind Obedience 1091. P. may be atteined by any person in any condition 1089 1092. Rules of Perfection 1092 1093. We must never think we are perfect enough in this life 1095 1096. Perfectionists though haply they mean vvell trouble the Church 395 396. Permission of sin whether it signifie that which some say it doth 407 c. v. Sin That which is permitted is not good 869. Permission no sign of approbation 684 685. 712. Persecution of the godly ordained by God 697. It serveth for the trial of their graces 698 c. 982 983. Many vvho now pass for Saints vvould perhaps prove apostates if Persecution should arise 698 699. The Church is then most her self vvhen Militant and under Persecution 701. P. is a great privilege and advantage to the Church 701 702. The Providence and Wisdome of our heavenly Father is vvonderfully shewn in it 703. It is requisite we should this way be fitted for heaven 703 704. We ought not to vvonder at it as a strange thing 709 710. Nothing maketh Persecution appear dreadful but love of the World 710. How to arm our selves against P. 711. The Persecutour maketh the Martyr happy but himself miserable 712. Motives to patience under Persecution 713. v. Martyrdome Sufferings Perseverance necessary 1111. Whether it be a distinct virtue from other graces 1112. P. is not certain 1114. The denial of the certainty of Perseverance neither depriveth the true Christian of his comfort nor derogateth from God's power 1115 1116. If vve persevere not to the end all our beginnings are nothing worth 1114. Onely Perseverance crowneth us 1113. Arguments to Perseverance 380 c. 1113. Perswasion how powerful 912. 1107. 1109. Phansie an unruly faculty 526. how to be dealt with 527. to be checked 393. Pharaoh how said to be hardened by God 412 413. Pharisees not so antient as Josephus saith 1079. Some account given of them 1051. Phil. ii 13. 588. Philosophie Why Nero's Mother would not let him study Ph. 823. What arguments Philosophers used to comfort themselves in their miserie 449 450. Philosophie cannot shew us the vvay to heaven 716 717. To be a Philosopher in word and not in deed is most hateful 372. Phinehas Of his zele 526. Photinus's opinion about Christ 9. 21. 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what 645. Physician v. Ignorance Pictures We are oft more moved vvith the Picture then the thing 1017. Piety is older then the world and will outlast it 73. It is never out of season nor out of place 73. nor ever to be dispensed with 73. v. Religion It is most pretious and must be greatly laboured for 77. It is so venerable that the very shew and shadow of it pleaseth 77 78. It is most proportionable to the soul of Man 87. yea of every man 88. It is lovely in the eyes of all even of its enemies 89. 553. 662. 876. 991. 1125. It alone can satisfie 90. It sweetneth misery and maketh it advantageous 91. and maketh wealth useful to the highest ends 92. It is best learnt by practice 68 69. It is to be practiced by all people as vvell as Priests 555. It is confirmed by practice 1117. 1119. v. Practice Pilgrimage We are all Pilgrimes 531 c. v. Stranger A P. exhorted to 532. Place v. Worship Plato 508. Please To please men and to serve Christ are incompatible 496 c. 509 c. Most men desire to be pleased 497. 975. The causes of this humour 498 c. The danger of it 501 c. Every man is pleased with his own course 500 501. What Pleasing of men is lawfull 504 505. 513. vvhat unlawfull 505 506. Every Pleasing of the Sense is not sin 505. We should desire what will profit rather then what will please 506. 512. Men-pleasers their original 507 c. Pleasure v. Riches All are naturally addicted to Pleasure 561. Nothing more hurtful 562. It is very short but leaveth long grief behind it 563. Pleasures blind our Reason infatuate our minds 566. sway the Will to forbidden objects 567. and make us forget God and our selves 567. The Heathens censure of the Christians abstinence from Pleasures 565. Pope Every man is born vvith a P. in his belly 158. 631. The Pope's Infallibility Supremacy uphold each other 158. 631. The Pope and the Enthusiast both alike infallible 527 528. Popery A caution against P. as a Religion framed to please the Flesh and vvorldly Desires 650. Marks of the Popish Church examined 681. 971 972. v. Papists Porphyrie's profane speach of Daniel 166. Poverty Perfection not to be placed in Poverty 1089. Poverty no sure token either of God's love or hatred 295. 620 621. Povertie's sting Impatience 903. To bear Poverty well a great piece of piety 903. v. Riches Why God maketh one poor another rich 141 142. The Poor though they cannot challenge it yet have a right to our goods 140-143 Power serviceable to noble ends is oft most horribly abused 594. There is neither Power nor Wisdome in Oppression and Fraud 136. Practice v. Knowledge Profession Practice of Piety enableth us to go still forward 1117. It is much hindred by fruitless disputes 1018. v. Disputes Praedestinatiani Their opinions 392 393. Praise how greedily sought after 318. Prayer It s nature 1052. It is a service very acceptable to God and very prevalent with him 692. Prayers and Praises are good though private but best when publick 580. The single Prayers of one not so powerful as the joynt prayers of a multitude 838. Many pray and pray and do nothing yet are very secure 435 Prayer for the dead the Papists Corban 132. Prayers will be sure to speed if we ask what God would have
is made familiar to us winneth our affection to it delighteth and overcometh us and what did at first stand at the door and beg an entrance at last entreth in and taketh full possession of us and commandeth in chief Heb. 3.1 Last of all let us consider the Apostle and high Priest of our profession CHRIST JESVS even this Lord who is to come who hath opened the treasuries of heaven brought down Life and Immortality displayed his rich and precious promises of heaven and everlasting happiness all which he will make ours if we make good but this one word but this one syllable Watch. This is the price of Heaven This he dyed for that we should be a peculiar people unto him even his Watch-men that as he for the joy which was set before him endured the Cross despised the shame Heb. 12.2 3. 13.8 suffered the contradictions of sinners and yet was yesterday and to day and the same for ever so we by his power and the efficacy of his Spirit by the virtue of his Precepts and the glory of his Promises may establish our selves watch over our selves secure our selves in the midst of snares and so be in the world as out of the world walk in the midst of temptations and be untoucht Dan. 3.25 walk in the midst of all these fiery trials as the three Children did in the furnace and have no hurt hear the Musick of the world but not hearken to it behold its allurements and not be moved be one and the same in all the changes and variety of temptations the same when they flatter and the same when they threaten which is truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be like unto our Lord Christ And because the Watch-man watcheth in vain unless the Lord keepeth the City we must call upon this Lord to watch with us Psal 127.1 and to watch over us who is not gratiae angustus as S. Ambrose speaketh no niggard of his grace but as he hath given us a command to watch so he hath given us another to depend upon him for assistance Greg. Hom. 36. Et scimus quia petentes libenter exaudit quando hoc petitur largiri quod jubet We know it is impossible he should deny us our requests when we desire him to grant us that which he desireth we should have his help and assistance to do that which he commandeth Do we desire it He wisheth it Do we beg it of him He beseecheth us to accept it Do we beg his assistance against the lusts of the Flesh He commandeth us to crucifie them against the pollutions of the world Gal. 5.24 His will is our sanctification Against the Devil If we will 1 Thes 4.3 he will tread him under our feet He commandeth us who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Master of the race Rom. 16 2◠and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Overseer and captain of the watch by whose power and wisdom we may keep back all our enemies If the Devil suggest evil thoughts he inspireth good If the enemy lay hard at us that we may fall his mercy is ready to hold us up If he be subtle our Lord is Wisdom it self In all our trials in all time of our tribulation in all time of our wealth in the hour of death and in the day of judgement he is our Lord and his grace is sufficient for us If we fail and miscarry it is because we will not joyn him with us because we beg his assistance and will not have it call upon him for help and weary him with our refusals beseech him to do that which we will not suffer him to do bespeak him to watch over us and fall fast asleep If you will repent repent Is 21.11 If you will enquire enquire Vide Castalionis perutilem Tract de quinque impedimentis honae mentis Job 8.9 Psal 39.5 saith the Watchman If you would watch why do ye not How many years have you worn out in this spiritual exercise Nay to fall lower have we devoted two or three moneths Nay lower yet how many weeks have we spent A week is not long but how many dayes Our dayes on earth are but a shadow but how many hours And Hours we say have wings and fly away I am ashamed to ask again How many minutes hath it cost us Our life is but a span how much of this Span How little of this Little what a nothing of this Nothing hath this great business took up O that we could say with Job Job 14.14 Psal 119.164 Psal 55.17 Acts 24.25 All the dayes of my appointed time or with David Seven times a day or were it his morning his noon his evening But I fear all is shut up in Felix his convenient season that is when the World and our Flesh when our Lusts and the Devil will give us leave And then what faint and feeble breathings what thin and empty conceptions nay what noysom exhalations what contradictions what sins are our prayers Let us then call upon the Lord to be present with us and to assist us in our watch Eph 6.14 But let us gird up our loyns when we call upon him Let us watch and pray pray and watch Let us endeavour vvhen vve pray and God vvill help our indeavours Let us intend vvhat vve desire and he vvill grant it Let us mean vvhat vve speak and he vvill hear us For he never shutteth his ears against his ovvn vvords Matth. 7.7 and his ovvn words are Ask and it shall be given you Ask the blessings of the right hand or the left and he vvill give you them or that vvhich is better for you But if you ask his grace his assistance you are heard before you speak For he is all Grace all Goodness all Rayes all Beauty and vvill fill you vvith himself Prov. 8.31 for his delight is to be in the sons of men and to make them like him Trouble not your selves then vvith vvhat he vvill do or not do but be busie in your watch watch and pray in this your hour that you may knovv him and be knovvn of him that at your last day and hour you may knovv and find him vvhat novv you believe him to be your Righteousness your Lord your Saviour This is your hour This span of time this moment is that on vvhich dependeth your Eternity If in this your hour you watch and be ready to go out and meet him he vvill receive you vvith joy Math. 8.11 even receive you to his table there to rest and sit down Luk. 13.28 and delight your selves with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the Prophets and all the Apostles and all the Martyrs all your fellow-watchmen and with them to sing praises to this Lord for evermore The Thirteenth SERMON JAMES 1.27 Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this To visit the fatherless and widows in their
affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world NOthing more talkt of in the world then Religion nothing less understood nothing more neglected there being nothing more common with men then to be willing to mistake their way to withdraw themselves from that which is indeed Religion because it standeth in opposition to some pleasing errour which they are not willing to shake off Multi sibi sidem ipsi totuis consttiuunt quà m accipiunt dum quae volunt sapiunt nolunt sapere quae verá sunt cùm sapientiae haec veritas sit ea interdum sapere quae nolis Hilar l. 8. De Trin. Jam. 1.22 23. Ch. 4.3 Ch 1 26. and by the help of an unsatisfied and complying phansie to frame one of their own and call it by that name That which flattereth their corrupt hearts that which is moulded and attempered to their brutish designs that which smileth upon them in all their purposes and favoureth them in their unwarrantable undertakings that which biddeth them Go on and prosper in the wayes that leadeth unto death that with them is true Religion In this Chapter and indeed in every Chapter of this Epistle our Apostle hath made this discovery to our hands Some there were as he observeth that placed Religion in the ear did hear and not do and rested in that Some placed it in a formal devotion did pray but pray amiss and therefore did not receive Some placed it in a shadow and appearance seemed to be very religious but could not bridle their tongue and were safe they thought under this shadow Others there were that were partial in themselves despisers of the poor Ch. 2.4.6 17 c. Ch. 3.6 that had faith but no works and did boast of this Others had hell fire in their Tongue and carried about with them a world of iniquity which did set the wheel the whole course of Nature on fire Last of all some he observed warring and fighting and killing that they might take the prey Ch. 4.1 2. and divide the spoil Yet all these were religious Wisd 1.12 Every one sought out death in the errour of his life Phil. 3.14 and yet every one seemed to press forward towards the mark for the price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus To these as to men ready to dash upon the rock shipwrack doth our Apostle cry out as from the shore to turn their compass and steer their course the right way Seeing them as it were run several wayes all to meet at last in the common gulf of eternal destruction he calleth and calleth aloud after them To the superstitious to the profane to the disputer the scribe to them that do but hear and to them that do but babble to them that do but profess and to them that do but believe the word is Be not deceived That is not it but this is pure Religion This is as the Prophet speaketh a voice behind them Isa 30.21 saying This is the way walk in it This is as a light held forth to shew them where they are to walk as a royal Standard set up to bring them to their colours This doth infinitatem rei ejicere as the Civilians speak taketh them from the Devils latitudes and exspatiations from frequent but fruitless Hearing from loud but heartless Prayer from their beloved but dead Faith from undisciplined and malitious Zeal from noise and blood from fighting and warring which could not but defile them and make them fit to receive nothing but the spots of the world from the infinite mazes and by-paths of errour and bringeth them into the way where they should be where they may move with joy and safety Eccl. 12.13 looking stedfastly towards the end Let us now hear the conclusion of the whole matter Whatsoever Divines have taught whatsoever Councels have determined whatsoever Schoolmen have defined whatsoever God spake in the old times whatsoever he spake in these last dayes that which hath filled so many volumes and brought upon us that weariness of the flesh which Solomon complaineth of Eccl. 12.12 in reading that multitude of books which the world doth now swarm with that which we study and contend and fight for as if it were in Democritus his well Rom. 13.9 or rather in Hell it self quite out of our reach or if there be any truth that is necessary any other commandment it is briefly comprehended in this saying even in this of S. James Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this To visit the fatherless and widows c. I may call it the Picture of Religion in little in a small compass yet presenting all its lines and dimensions the whole Signature of Religion fit to be hung up in the Church of Christ and to be lookt upon by all that the people which are and shall be born may truly serve the Lord. May it please you therefore a while to cast your eyes upon it and with me to view I. The full Proportion and several Lineaments of it as it were its essential Parts which constitute and make it what it is We may distinguish them as the Jew doth the Law by Do and Do not The first is affirmative To do good To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction The second is negative Not to do evil To keep our selves unspotted from the world II. The colours and Beauty of it first in its Purity having no mixture secondly its Vndefiledness having no pollution III. The Epigraphe or Title of it the Ratification or Seal which is set to it to make it authentick and that not of men or by men but by the hand of God himself Matth. 3.17 17.5 which drew the first copy and pattern This is pure Religion before God and the Father As he gave witness to his Son from heaven This is my beloved Son so doth he also to Christian Religion Hebr. 12.2 of which he is the Authour and Finisher HAEC EST This is it and in this I am well pleased Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this Let us now in order view these And these two To do Good and To abstain from Evil our Charity to others in the one and our Charity to our selves in the other in being as those Dii benefici those Tutelar Gods to the Widows and Fatherless and as those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keeping all evil from our selves I call the essential parts of Religion without which it can no more subsist then a man can without a soul Jam. 2.26 For as the body without the spirit is dead so faith without works is dead also Not that we exclude Faith or Prayer or Hearing of the Word For without Faith Religion is but an empty name and it cometh by Hearing and is increased by Devotion Amb. in Psal 118. Faith is a foundation upon a foundation for as Truth is the foundation of