and our North and South at another tyde and another gale First then we looke towards our East the fountaine of light and of life There this world beganne the Creation was in the east And there our next world beganne too There the gates of heaven opened to us and opened to us in the gates of death for our heaven is the death of our Saviour and there he lived and dyed there and there he looked into our west from the east from his Terasse from his Pinacle from his exaltation as himselfe calls it the Crosse. The light which arises to us in this east the knowledge which we receive in this first word of our text Faciamus Let us where God speaking of himselfe speakes in the Plurall is the manifestation of the Trinity the Trinity which is the first letter in his Alphabet that ever thinks to read his name in the book of life The first note in his Gammut that ever thinks to sing his part in the Quire of the Triumphant Church Let him him have done as much as all the Worthies and suffered as much as all Natures Martyrs the penurious Philosophers let him have known as much as they that pretend to know Omne scibile all that can be known nay and in-intelligibilia In-investigabilia as Turtullian speakes un-understandable things unrevealed decrees of God Let him have writ as much as Aristotle writ or as is written upon Aristotle which is multiplication enough yet he hath not learnt to spel that hath not learnt the Trinity not learnt to pronounce the first word that cannot bring three Persons into one God The subject of naturall philosophy are the foure elements which God made the Subject of supernaturall philosophy Divinity are the three elements which God is and if we may so speake which make God that is constitute God notifie God to us Father Sonne and holy Ghost The naturall man that hearkens to his owne heart and the law written there may produce Actions that are good good in the nature and matter and substance of the worke He may relieve the poore he may defend the oppressed But yet he is but as an open field and though he be not absolutely barren he bears but grasse The godly man he that hath taken in the knowledge of a great and a powerfull God and enclosed and hedged in himselfe with the feare of God may produce actions better then the meere naturall man because he referres his actions to the glory of his imagined God But yet this man though he be more fruitfull then the former more then a grassy field yet he is but a ploughed field and he bears but corne and corne God knowes choaked with weeds But that man who hath taken hold of God by those handles by which God hath delivered and manifested himselfe in the notions of Father Sonne and holy Ghost he is no field but a garden a Garden of Gods planting a Paradise in which grow all things good to eate and good to see spirituall resection and spirituall recreation too and all things good to cure He hath his beeing and his diet and his physique there in the knowledge of the Trinity his beeing in the mercy of the Father his physique in the merits of the Sonne his diet his daily bread in the daily visitations of the holy Ghost God is not pleased not satisfied with our bare knowledge that there is a God For it is impossible to please God without faith and there is no such exercise of faith in the knowledge of a God but that reason and nature will bring a man to it When we professe God in the Creed by way of beleefe Credo in Deum I beleeve in God in the same article we professe him to be a Father too I beleeve in God the father Almighty And that notion the Father necessarily implies a second Person a Sonne And then we professe him to be maker of heaven and earth And in the Creation the holy Ghost the Spirit of God is expresly named So that we doe but exercise reason and nature in directing our selves upon God We exercise not faith and without faith it is impossible to please God till we come to that which is above nature till we apprehend a Trinity We know God we beleeve in the Trinity The Gentiles multiplyed Gods There were almost as many Gods as men that beleeved in them And I am got out of that thrust and out of that noise when I am come into the knowledge of one God But I am got above staires got in the Bedchamber when I am come to see the Trinity and to apprehend not onely that I am in the care of a great and a powerfull God but that there is a Father that made me a Sonne that Redeemed me a holy Ghost that applies this good purpose of the Father and Sonne upon me to me The root of all is God But it is not the way to receive fruits to dig to the root but to reach to the boughs I reach for my Creation to the Father for my Redemption to the Sonne for my sanctification to the holy Ghost and so I make the knowledge of God a Tree of life unto me and not otherwise Truly it is a sad Contemplation to see Christians scratch and wound teare one another with the ignominious invectives and uncharitable names of of Heretique and Schismatique about Ceremoniall and Problematicall and indeed but Criticall verball controversies and in the meane time the foundation of all the Trinity undermined by those numerous those multitudinous Anthills of Socinians that overflow some parts of the Christian world and multiply every where And therefore the Adversaries of the Reformation were wise in their generation when to supplant the credit of both those great assistants of the Reformation Luther and Calvin they impute to Calvin fundamentall error in the Divinity of the second Person of the Trinity the Sonne And they impute to Luther a detestation of the very word Trinity and an expunction thereof in all places of the Liturgy where the Church had received that word They knew well if that slander could prevaile against those persons nothing that they could say could prevaile upon any good Christians But though in our doctrine we keep up the Trinity aright yet God knowes in our practice we doe not I hope it cannot be said of any of us that he beleeves not the Trinity but who amongst us thinkes of the Trinity considers the Trinity Father and Sonne doe naturally imply and induce one another and therefore they fall oftner into our consideration But for the holy Ghost who feels him when he feels him Who takes knowledge of his working when he works Indeed our Fathers provided not well enough for the worship of the whole Trinity nor of the holy Ghost in particular in the endowments of the Church and Consecrations of Churches and possessions in their names What a spirituall dominion in the prayers and worship of
plurall too And againe in that declaration of his Justice in the confusion of the builders of Babel Descendamus confundamus Let us doe it And then lastly in that great worke of mingling mercy with justice which if we may so speake is Gods master-peece when he says Quis ex nobis who will goe for us and publish this In these places and these onely and not all these neither if we take it exactly according to the originall for in the Second the making of Eve though the Vulgat have it in the plurall it is indeed but singular in the Hebrew God speakes as a King in his royall plurall still And when it is but so Reverenter pensandum est says that Father it behoves us to hearken reverently to him for Kings are Images of God such Images of God as have eares and can heare and hands and can strike But I would aske no more premeditation at your hands when you come to speake to God in this place then if you sued to speake with the King no more fear of God here then if you went to the King under the conscience of a guiltinesse towards him and a knowledge that he knew it And that 's your case here Sinners and manifest sinners For even midnight is noone in the sight of God and when your candles are put out his Sunne shines still Nec quid absconditum à calcre ejus says David there is nothing hid from the heate thereof not onely no sinne hid from the light thereof from the sight of God but not from the heate therof not from the wrath indignation of God If God speak plurally onely in the Majesty of a soveraign Prince still Reverenter pensandum that calls for reverence What reverence There are nationall differences in outward worships and reverences Some worship Princes and Parents and Masters in one some in another fashion Children kneele to aske blessing of Parents in England but where else Servants attend not with the same reverence upon Masters in other nations as with us Accesses to their Princes are not with the same difficulty nor the same solemnity in France as in Turkey But this rule goes thorough all nations that in that disposition and posture and action of the body which in that place is esteemed most humble and reverend God is to be worshipped Doe so then here God is your Father aske blessing upon your knees pray in that posture God is your King worship him with that worship which is highest in our use and estimation We have no Grandees that stand covered to the King where there are such though they stand covered in the Kings presence they doe not speake to him for matters of Grace they doe not sue to him so ancient Canons make differences of Persons in the presence of God where and how these and these shall dispose of themselves in the Church dignity and age and infirmity will induce differences But for prayer there is no difference one humiliation is required of all As when the King comes in here howsoever they sate diversly before all returne to one manner of expressing their acknowledgement of his presence So at the Oremus Let us pray let us all fall down and worship and kneel before the Lord our maker So he speakes in our text not onely as the Lord our King intimating his providence and administration but as the Lord our maker and then a maker so as that he made us in a councell Faciamus Let us and that that he speakes as in councell is another argument for reverence For what interest or freedome soever I have by his favour with any Counseller of State yet I should surely use another manner of behaviour towards him at the Councell Table then at his owne Table So does there belong another manner of consideration to this plurality in God to this meeting in Councell to this intimation of a Trinity then to those other actions in which God is presented to us singly as one God for so he is presented to the naturall man as well as to us And here enters the necessity of this knowledge Oportet denuo nasci without a second birth no salvation And no second birth without Baptisme no Baptisme but in the name of Father Sonne and holy Ghost It was the entertainment of God himselfe his delight his contemplation for those infinite millions of generations when he was without a world without Creatures to joy in one another in the Trinity as Gregory Nazianz a Poet as well as a Father as most of the Fathers were expresses it ille suae splendorem cernere formae Gaudebat It was the Fathers delight to looke upon himselfe in the Sonne Numenque suum triplicique parique Luce nitens and to see the whole Godhead in a threefold and an equall glory It was Gods owne delight and it must be the delight of every Christian upon particular occasions to carry his thoughts upon the severall persons of the Trinity If I have a bar of Iron that bar in that forme will not naile a doore If a Sow of Lead that Lead in that forme will not stop a leake If a wedge of Gold that wedge will not buy my bread The generall notion of a mighty God may lesse fit my particular purposes But I coine my gold into currant money when I apprehend God in the severall notions of the Trinity That if I have been a prodigall Sonne I have a Father in heaven and can goe to him and say Father I have sinned and be received by him That if I be a decayed Father and need the sustentation of mine own children there is a Sonne in heaven that will doe more for me then mine own of what good meanes or what good nature so ever they be can or will doe If I be dejected in spirit there is a holy Spirit in heaven which shall beare witnesse to my spirit that I am the child of God And if the ghosts of those sinners whom I made sinners haunt me after their deaths in returning to my memory and reproaching to my conscience the heavy judgements that I have brought upon them If after the death of mine own sinne when my appetite is dead to some particular sinne the memory and sinfull delight of passed sinnes the ghosts of those sinnes haunt me againe yet there is a holy Ghost in heaven that shall exorcise these and shall overshadow me the God of all Comfort and Consolation God is the God of the whole world in the generall notion as he is so God but he is my God most especially and most applyably as he receives me in the severall notions of Father Sonne and holy Ghost This is our East here we see God God in all the persons consulting concurring to the making of us But then my West presents it selfe that is an occasion to humble me in the next words He makes but Man A man that is but Adam but Earth
25. Every man may see it man may behold it afar off p. 271. Serm. XXXII APOC. 7 9. After this I beheld and loe a great multitude which no man could number of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues stood before the throne and before the Lambe clothed with white robes and Palmes in their hands p. 279. Serm. XXXIII CANT 3. 11. Go forth ye daughters of Sion and behold King Solomon with the Crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals and in the day of the gladnesse of his heart p. 288. Serm. XXXIIII LUKE 23. 34. Father forgive them for they know not what they doe p. 304. Serm. XXXV MAT. 21. 44. Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken but on whosoever it shall fall it will grinde him to powder p. 311. Sermons preached at S. Pauls Sermon XXXVI JOH 1. 8. He was not that Light but was sent to beare witnesse of that Light p. 320. Serm. XXXVII A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 334. Serm. XXXVIII A third Ser. on the the same Text. p. 343. Serm. XXXIX PHIL. 3. 2. Beware of the Concision p. 356. Serm. XL. 2 COR. 5. 20. We pray yee in Christs stead Be ye reconciled to God p. 364. XLI HOSEA 3. 4. For the Children of Israel shall abide many dayes without a King and without a Prince and without a Sacrifice and without an Image and without an Ephod and without Teraphim p. 375. Serm. XLII PROV 14. 31. He that oppresseth the poor reprocheth his Maker but he that honoureth him hath mercy on the 〈◊〉 p. 385. Serm. XLIII LAMENT 4. 20. The breath of our nostrils the Anointed of the Lord was taken in their pits p. 396. Serm. XLIV MAT. 11. 6. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me p. 411. Sermons preached at S. Dunstans Serm. XLV DEUT. 25. 5. If brethren dwell together and one of them dye and have no childe the Wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger her husbands brother shall goe in unto her and take her to him to wife and performe the duty of an husbands brother unto her p. 422. Serm. XLVI PSAL. 34. 11. Come ye children Hearken unto me I will teach you the feare of the Lord. p. 430. Ser. XLVII GEN. 3. 24. And dust shalt thou eate all the dayes of thy life p. 439. Ser. XLVIII LAMENT 3. 1. I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath p. 445. Serm. XLIX GEN. 7. 24. Abraham himself was ninety nine yeeres old when the foreskin of his flesh was Circumcised p. 456. Serm. L. 1 THES 5. 16. Rejoyce evermore p. 466. A SERMON PREACHED At the Earl of Bridgewaters house in London at the mariage of his daughter the Lady Mary to the eldest sonne of the L. Herbert of Castle-iland Novemb. 19. 1627. The Prayer before the Sermon O Eternall and most gracious God who hast promised to hearken to the prayers of thy people when they pray towards thy house though they be absent from it worke more effectually upon us who are personally met in this thy house in this place consecrated to thy worship Enable us O Lord so to see thee in all thy Glasses in all thy representations of thy selfe to us here as that hereafter we may see thee face to face and as thou art in thy self in thy kingdome of glory Of which Glasses wherein we may see thee Thee in thine Unity as thou art One God Thee in thy Plurality as thou art More Persons we receive this thy Institution of Mariage to be one In thy first work the Creation the last seale of thy whole work was a Mariage In thy Sonnes great work the Redemption the first seale of that whole work was a miracle at a Mariage In the work of thy blessed Spirit our Sanctification he refreshes to us that promise in one Prophet That thou wilt mary thy selfe to us for ever and more in another That thou hast maryed thy selfe unto us from the beginning Thou hast maryed Mercy and Iustice in thy selfe maryed God and Man in thy Sonne maryed Increpation and Consolation in the Holy Ghost mary in us also O Lord a Love and a Fear of thee And as thou hast maryed in us two natures mortall and immortall mary in us also the knowledge and the practise of all duties belonging to both conditions that so this world may be our Gallery to the next And mary in us the Spirit of Thankfulnesse for all thy benefits already bestowed upon us and the Spirit of prayer for the continuance and enlargement of them Continue and enlarge them O'God upon thine universall Church c. SERM. I. MATTH 22. 30. For in the Resurrection they neither mary nor are given in Mariage but are as the Angels of God in heaven OF all Commentaries upon the Scriptures Good Examples are the best and the livelyest and of all Examples those that are nearest and most present and most familiar unto us and our most familiar Examples are those of our owne families and in families the Masters of families the fathers of families are most conspicuous most appliable most considerable Now in exercises upon such occasions as this ordinarily the instruction is to bee directed especially upon those persons who especially give the occasion of the exercise that is upon the persons to bee united in holy wedlock for as that 's a difference betweene Sermons and Lectures that a Sermon intends Exhortation principally and Edification and a holy stirring of religious affections and then matters of Doctrine and points of Divinity occasionally secondarily as the words of the text may invite them But Lectures intend principally Doctrinall points and matter of Divinity and matter of Exhortation but occasionally and as in a second place so that 's a difference between Christening sermons and Mariage sermons that the first at Christnings are especially directed upon the Congregation and not upon the persons who are to be christened and these at mariages especially upon the parties that are to be united and upon the congregation but by reflexion When therefore to these persons of noble extraction I am to say something of the Duties and something of the Blessing of Mariage what God Commands and what God promises in that state in his Scriptures I lay open to them the best exposition the best Commentaries upon those Scriptures that is Example and the neerest example that is example in their own family when with the Prophet Esay I direct them To look upon the Rock from whence they are hewen to propose to themselves their own parents and to consider there the performance of the duties of mariage imposed by God in S. Paul and the blessings proposed by God in David Thy Wife shall be a fruitfull Vine by the sides of thy House The children like olive plants round about the table For to this purpose of edifying children by example such as are truly religious fathers
is excellently said by Tertullian the name and profession of a Christian is but a superficiall outside sprinckled upon my face in Baptisme or upon mine outward profession in actions if I have not in my heart a sense of the holy Ghost that he applies the mercies of the Father and the merits of the Sonne to my soule As Saint Paul said Whilest you are without Christ you are without God It is an Atheisme with Saint Paul to be no Christian. So whilest you are without the holy Ghost you are without Christ. It is Antichristian to deny or not to confesse the holy Ghost For as Christ is the manifestation of the Father so the holy Ghost is the application of the Sonne Therein onely are we Christians that in the profession of that name of Christ we professe all the three Persons In Christ is the whole Trinity because as the Father sent him so he sent the holy Ghost And that 's our specifique forme that 's our distinctive Character from Iew and Gentile the Trinity But then is this specifique forme this distinctive Character the notion of the Trinity conveied to us exhibited imprinted upon us in our Creation in this word this plurall word in the mouth of our one God Faciamus Let us us It is here and here first This is an intimation and the first intimation of the Trinity from the mouth of God in all the Bible It is true that though the same faith which is necessary to salvation now were always necessary and so in the old Testament they were bound to beleeve in Christ as well as in the new and consequently in the whole Trinity yet not so explicitly nor so particularly as now Christ calling upon God in the name of Father says I have manifested thy name unto the men thou gavest me out of the world They were men appropriated to God men exempt out of the world yet they had not a cleer manifestation of Father and Sonne the doctrine of the Trinity till Christ manifested it to them I have manifested thy name thy name of Father And therefore the Jewish Rabbins say that the Septuagint the first translators of the Bible did disguise some places of the Scriptures in their translation lest Ptolomee for whom they translated it should be scandalized w h those places that this textwasone of those places which say they though it be otherwise in the Copies of the Septuagint which we have now they translated Faciam and not Faciamus that God said here I will make in the singular and not Let us make man in the plurall lest that plurall word might have misled King Ptâ—lomee to thinke that the Iews had a plurall Religion and worshipped divers Gods So good an evidence doe they confesse this text to be for some kinde of plurality in the Godhead Here then God notified the Trinity and here first for though we accept an intimation of the Trinity in the first line of the Bible where Moses joynes a plurall name Elohim with a singular Verbe Bara and so in construction it is Creavit Dii Gods created heaven and earth yet besides that that is rather a mysterious collection then an evident conclusion of a plurality of Persons though we read that in that first verse before this in the twenty sixth yet Moses writ that which is in the beginning of this chapter more then two thousand years after God spake this that is in our text So long was Gods plurall before Moses his plurall Gods Faciamus before Moses Bara Elohim So that in this text beginnes our Catechisme Here we have and here first the saving knowledge of the Trinity For when God spake here to whom could God speake but to God Non cum rebus Creandis nox cum re nihili says Athanasius speaking of Gods first speaking when he said of the first creature Let there be light God spake not then to future things to things that were not When God spake first there was no creature at all to speake to When God spake of the making of man there were creatures But were there any creatures able to create or able to assist him in the creation of man Who Angels Some had thought so in Saint Basils time and to them Saint Basil says Súntne Illi God says let us make man to our Image And could he say so to Angels Are Angels and God all one Or is that that is like an Angell therefore like God It was Sua Ratio Suum verbum Sua sapientia says that Father God spake to his own word and wisdome to his own purpose and goodnesse And the Sonne is the word and wisdome of God and the holy Ghost is the goodnesse and the purpose of God that is the administration the dispensation of his purposes 'T is true that when God speakes this over againe in his Church as he does every day now this minute then God speakes it to Angels to the Angels of the Church to his Ministers he says Faciamus Let us us both together you and we make a man join mine Ordinance your preaching with my Spirit says God to us and so make man Preach the oppressor and preach the wanton and preach the calumniator into another nature Make the ravening Wolfe a Man that licentious Goate a man that insinuating Serpent a man by thy preaching To day if you will heare his voice heare us For here he calls upon us to joine with him for the making of man But for his first Faciamus which is in our text it is excellently said Dictum in senatu soliloquio It was spoken in a Senat and yet in a solitarinesse spoken in private and yet publiquely spoken spoken where there were divers and yet but one one God and three Persons If there were no more intended in this plurall expression us but as some have conceived that God spake here in the person of a Prince and Soveraigne Lord and therefore spake as Princes doe in the plurall We command and We forbid yet Saint Gregories caution would justly fall upon it Reverenter pensandum est it requires a reverend consideration if it be but so For God speakes so like a King in the plurall but seldome but five times in my account in all the Scriptures and in all five in cases of important consequence In this text first where God creates man whom he constitutes his Viceroy in the World here he speakes in his royall plurall And then in the next Chapter where he extends mans terme in his Vicegerency to the end of the world in providing man meanes of succession Faciamus Let us us make him a helper There he speakes in his royall plurall And then also in the third Chapter in declaring the hainousnesse of mans fault and arraigning him and all us in him God says Sicut unus ex nobis Man is become as one of us not content to be our Viceroy but our selves There 's his royall
aquarum by the power of waters many waters and in this verse this witnesse is delivered in the plurall spirit and waters and so waters in that signification which signification they have often in the Scriptures that is affliction and tribulation be good testimonies that our Lord Jesus doth visit us though the waters of Coâ—trition and repentant teares be another good testimony of that too yet that water which testifies the presence of Jesus so as that it doth always infallibly bring Jesus with it for the Sacraments are never without Grace whether it be accepted or no there it is â— That water which is made equall with the preaching of the Word so farre as to be a fellow-witnesse with the Spirit that is onely the Sacrament of baptisme without which in the ordinary dispensation of God no soule can be surer that Jesus is come to him then if he had never heard the Word preached he mistakes the spirit the first witnesse if he refuse the water the second The third witnesse upon earth is bloud and that is briefly the Communion of the body and bloud of Iesus in the Lords Supper But how is that bloud upon earth I am not ashamed to confesse that I know not how but the bloud of Christ is a witnesse upon earth in the Sacrament and therefore upon the earth it is Now this Witnesse being made equall with the other two with preaching and with baptisme it is as necessary that he that will have an assuranceâ— that Iesus is come into him doe receive this Sacrament as that he doe heare Sermâ—nâ— and that he be baptized An over vehement urging of this necessity brought in an erroneous custome in the Primitive Church That they would give the Sacrament of the body of Christ to Children as soon as they were baptized yea and to dead man too But because this Sacrament is accompanied with precepts which can belong onely to Men of understanding for they must doe it in Remembrance and they must discerne the Lords body therefore the necessity lies onely upon such as are come to those graces and to that understanding For they that take it and doe not discerne it not know what they do they take it dangerously But else for them to whom this Sacrament belongs if they take it not their hearing of Sermons and their baptisme doth them no good for what good can they have done them if they have not prepared themselves for it And therefore as the Religion of the Church holds a stubborne Recusant at the table at the Communion bord as farre from her as a Recusant at the Pew that is a Non-communicant as ill as a not commer or a not hearer so I doubt not but the wisdome of the state weighs them in the same balance For these three agree in one says the text that is first they meet in one Man and then they testifie the same thing that is Integritatem Iesu that Iesus is come to him in outward Meanes to save his soule If his conscience find not this testimony all these availe him nothing If we remaine vessells of anger and of dishonour still we are under the Vae vâ—bis Hypocritis woe unto you Hypocrites that make cleane onely the outside of your cuppes and Platters That baptize and wash your owne and your childrens bodies but not their mindes with instructions When we shall come to say Docuisti in plateis we have heard thee preach in our streets we have continued our hearing of thy Word when we say Manducavimus coram te we have eate in thy presence at thy table yea Manducavimus tâ— we have eaten thee thy selfe yet for all this outward show of these three witnesses of Spirit and Water and bloud Preaching and Baptisme and Communion we shall heare that fearfull disclaiming from Christ Jesus Nescio vos I know not whence you are But these witnesses he will always heare if they testifie for us that Jesus is come unto us for the Gospell and the preaching thereof is as the deed that conveys Iesus unto us the water the baptisme is as the Seale that assures it and the bloud the Sacrament is the delivery of Christ into us and this is Integritas Iesu the entire and full possession of him To this purpose therefore as we have found a Trinity in heaven and a Trinity in earth so we must make it up a Trinity of Trinities and finde a third Trinity in our selves God created one Trinity in us the observation and the enumeration is Saint Bernards which are those three faculties of our soule the reason the memory the will That Trinity in us by another Trinity too by suggestion towards sin by delight in sinne by consent to sinne is fallen into a third Trinity The memory into a weaknesse that that comprehends not God it glorifies him not for benefits received The reasen to a blindnesse that that discernes not what is true and the will to a perversnesse that that wishes not what 's good But the goodnesse of God by these three witnesses on earth regenerates and reestablishes a new Trinity in us faith and hope and charity Thus farre that devout Man carries it And if this new Trinity faith and hope and charity witnesse to us Integritatem Christi all the worke of Christ If my faith testifie to me that Christ is sealed to my soule and my hope testifie that at the Resurection I shall have a perfect fruition in soule and body of that glory which he purchased for every beleever and my charity testifies to the world that I labour to make sure that salvation by a good life then there 's a Trinity of Trinities and the six are made nine witnesses There are three in heaven that testifie that this is done for all Mankinde Three in the Church that testifie this may be done for me and three in my soule that testifie that all this is applied to me and then the verdict and the Judgement must necessarily goe for me And beloved this Judgement will be grounded upon this intirenesse of Jesus and therefore let me dismisse you with this note That Integritas is in continuitate not in contignitate It is not the touching upon a thing nor the comming neare to a thing that makes it intire a fagot where the sticks touch a peece of cloth where the threds touch is not intire To come as neare Christ as we can conveniently to trie how neare we can bring two Religions together this is not to preserve Integritatem Iesu In a word Intirenesse excludes deficiency and redundancy and discontinuance we preserve not intirenesse if we preserve not the dignity of Christ in his Church and in his discipline and that excludes the defective Separatist we doe not preserve that entirenesse if we admit traditions and additions of Men in an equality to the word of God and that excludes the redundant Papist neither doe we preserve the entirenesse if we admit a discontinuance
God and divided from the storms and distractions of this world enjoys in it selfe That peace which made the blessed Martyrs of Christ Jesus sleep upon the rack upon the burning coales upon the points of swords when the persecutors were more troubled to invent torments then the Christians to suffer That sleep from which ambition not danger no nor when their own house is on fire that is their own concupiscences cannot awaken them not so awaken them that it can put them out of their own constancy and peacefull confidence in God That sleep which is the sleep of the spouse Ego dormio sed cor meum vigilâ—t I sleep but my heart is awake It was no dead sleep when shee was able to speak advisedly in it and say she was asleep and what sleep it was It was no stupid sleep when her heart was awake This is the sleep of the Saints of God which Saint Gregory describes Sancti non tâ—rpore sed virtue sâ—piuntur It is not sluggishnesse but innocence and a good conscience that casts them asleep Laboriosiâ—s dormium they are busier in their sleep nay Vigitaâ—â—ius dorâ—â—iunt they are more awake in their sleep then the watchfull men of this world for when they close their eyes in meditation of God even their dreames are services to him Sâ—mniant se dicere Psalmos says Saint Ambrose they dream that they sing psalmes and they doe more then dream it they do sing But yet even from this holy and religious sleep which is a departing from the allurements of the world and a retiring to the onely contemplation of heaven and heavenly things Iacob may be conceived to have awaked and we must awake It is note enough to shut our selves in a cloister in a Monastery to sleep out the tentations of the world but since the ladder is placed the Church established since God and the Angels are awake in this businesse in advancing the Church we also must labour in our severall vocations and not content our selves with our own spirituall sleep the peace of conscience in our selves for we cannot have that long if we doe not some good to others When the storm had almost drown'd the ship Christ was at his ease in that storm asleep upon a pillow Now Christ was in no danger himself All the water of Noahs flood multiplyed over again by every drop could not have drown'd him All the swords of an Army could not have killed him till the houre was come when hee was pleased to lay down his soul. But though he were safe yet they awaked him and said Master car'st thou not though we perish So though a man may be in a good state in a good peace of conscience and sleep confidently in it yet other mens necessities must awaken him and though perchance he might passe more safely if he might live a retired life yet upon this ladder some Angels ascended some descended but none stood still but God himself Till we come to him to sleep an eternall Sabbath in heaven though this religious sleep of enjoying or retiring and contemplation of God be a heavenly thing yet we must awake even out of this sleep and contribute our paines to the building or furnishing or serving of God in his Church Out of a sleep conceive it what sleep soever Iacob awaked and then Quid ille what did he Dixit he spoke he entred presently into an open profession of his thoughts he smother'd nothing he disguised nothing God is light and loves cleernesse thunder and wind and tempests and chariots and roaring of Lyons and falling of waters are the ordinary emblems of his messages and his messengers in the Scriptures Christ who is Sapientia Dei the wisdome of God is Verbâ—â— Sermâ— Dei the word of God he is the wisdome and the uttering of the wisdome of God as Christ is express'd to be the word so a Christians duty is to speak dearly and professe his religion With how much scorn and reproach Saint Cyprian fastens the name of Libellatices upon them who in time of persecution durst not say they were Christians but under-hand compounded with the State that they might live unquestioned undiscovered for though they kept their religion in their heart yet Christ was defrauded of his honour And such a reproach and scorn belongs to them who for fear of losing wordly preferments and titles and dignities and rooms at great Tables dare not say of what religion they are Beloved it is not enough to awake out of an ill sleep of sinne or of ignorance or out of a good sleep out of a retirednesse and take some profession if you winke or hide your selves when you are awake you shall not see the Ladder not discern Christ nor the working of his Angels that is the Ministery of the Church and the comforts therein you shall not hear that Harmony of the quire of heaven if you will bear no part in it an inward acknowledgment of Christ is not enough if you forbear to professe him where your testimony might glorify him Si sufficeret fides cordis non creasset tibi Deus â—s If the heart were enough God would never have made a mouth And to that we may adde Si sufficeret os non creasset manus if the mouth were enough God would never have made hands for as the same Father says Omni tuba clarior est per opera 〈◊〉 no voice more audible none more credible then when thy hands speak as well as thy heart or thy tongue Thou art then perfectly awaked out of thy sleep when thy words and works declare and manifest it The next is Quid dixit be spake but what said he â— first he assented to that light which was given him The Lord is in his place He resisted not this light he went not about to blow it out by admitting reason or disputation against it He imputed it not to witchcraft to illusion of the Devill but Dominus est in loco isto The Lord is in this place O how many heavy sinnes how many condemnations might we avoid if wee would but take knowledge of this Dominus in loco isto That the Lord is present and sees us now and shall judge hereafter all that we doe or think It keeps a man sometimes from corrupting or solliciting a woman to say Peter Maritus in loco the Father or the Husband is present it keeps a man from an usurious contract to say Lex in loco the Law will take knowledge of it it keeps a man from slandering or calummating another to say Testis in loco here is a witnesse by but this is Catholica Medicina and Omni morbia an universall medicine for all to say Dominus in loco The Lord is in this place and sees and heaâ—es and therefore I will say and think and do as if I were now summon'd by the lastâ— Trumpet to give an account of my thoughts and words and
one person in him My flesh shall no more be none of mine then Christ shall not be man as well as God SERMON XV. Preached at Lincolns Inne 1 COR. 15. 50. Now this I say Brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God SAint Gregory hath delivered this story That Eutychius who was Bishop of Constantinople having written a book of the Resurrection and therein maintained that errour That the body of Christ had not that our bodies in the Resurrection should not have any of the qualities of a naturall body but that those bodies were in subtilitatem redacta so rarifyed so refined so attenâ—ated and reduced to a thinnesse and subtlenesse that they were aery bodies and not bodies of flesh and blood This error made a great noise and raised a great dust till the Emperour to avoid scandall which for the most part arises out of publick conferences was pleased to hear Eutychius and Gregory dispute this point privately before himself and a small company And that upon conference the Emperour was so well satisfyed that hee commanded Eutychius his books to bee burnt That after this both Gregory and Eutychius fell sicke but Eutychius dyed and dyed with this protestation In hâc carne in this flesh taking up the flesh of his hand in the presence of them that were there in this flesh I acknowledge that I and all men shall arise at the day of Judgement Now the principall place of Scripture which in his book and in that conference Eutychius stood upon was this Text these words of Saint Paul This I say brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God And the directest answer that Gregory gave to it was Caro secundum culpam non regnabit sed Caro secundum naturam sinfull flesh shall not but naturall flesh that is flesh indued with all qualities of flesh all such qualities as imply no defect no corruption for there was flesh before there was sin such flesh and such blood shall inherit the Kingdome of God As there have been more Heresies about the Humanity of Christ then about his Divinity so there have been more heresies about the Resurrection of his body and consequently of ours then about any other particular article that concerns his Humiliation or Exaltation Simon Magus strook deepest at first to the root That there was no Resurrection at all The Gnosticks who took their name from knowledge as though they knew all and no body else any thing which is a pride transferr'd through all Heretickes for as that sect in the Roman Church which call themselves Ignorantes and seem to pretend to no knowledge doe yet believe that they know a better way to heaven then all other men doe so that sect amongst them which called themselves Nullanos Nothings thought themselves greater in the Kingdome of God then either of the other two sects of diminution the Minorits or the Minims did These Gnosticks acknowledged a Resurrection but they said it was of the soul onely and not of the body for they thought that the soul lay dead at least in a dead sleep till the Resurrection Those Heretickes that are called the Arabians did as the Gnosticks did affirm a temporary death of the soul as well as of the body but then they allowed a Resurrection to both soul and body after that death which the Gnostickes did not but to the soul onely Hymeneus and Philetus of whom Saint Paul speakes they restrained the Resurrection to the soule but then they restrained this Resurrection of the soule to this life and that in those who were baptized the Resurrection was accomplished already Eutychius whom wee mentioned before enlarged the Resurrection to the body as well as to the soul but enlarged the qualities of the body so far as that it was scarce a body The Armenian hereticks said that it was not onely Corpus humâ—num but Corpus masculinum That all should rise in the perfecter sex and none as women Origen allowed a Resurrection and allowed the Body to be a naturall body but the contracted the time he said that when we rose we should enjoy the benefits of the resurrection even in bodily pleasures for a thousand years and then be annihilated or absorpted and swallowed up into the nature and essence of God himselfe for it will be hard to state Origens opinion in this point Origen was not herein well understood in his owne time not doe we understand him now for the most part but by his accusers and those that have written against him Divers of these Heretiques for the maintenance of their severall heresies perverted this Scripture Flesh and bloud cannot inherit the kingdome of God and that occasioned those Fathers who opposed those heresies so diverse from one another to interpret these words diversly according to the heresie they opposed All agree that they are an argument for the resurrection though they seem at first to oppose it For this Chapter hath three generall parts first Resurrectionem esse that there shall be a Resurrection which the Apostle proves by many and various arguments to the thirty fifth verse And then Quati corpore the body shall rise but some will say How are the dead raised and with what body doe they come in that thirty fifth verse And lastly Quid de superstitibus what shall become of them who shall be found alive at the day We shall all be changed verse fifty one Now this text is the knot and corollary or all the second part concerning the qualities of the bodies in the resurrection Now says the Apostle now that I have said enough to prove that a resurrection there is now now that I have said enough what kind of bodies shall arise now I show you as much in the Negative as I have done in the Affirmative now I teach you what to avoid as well as I have done what to affect now this I say brethren that flesh and bloud cannot inherit the kingdome of God Now though those words be primarily principally intended of the last Resurrection yet in a secondary respect they are appliable in themselves and very often applied by the ancients to the first Resurrection our resurrection in this life Tertullian hath intimated and presented both together elegantly when he says of God Nobis arrhabonem spiritus reliquit arrhabonem à nobis accepit God hath given us his earnest and a pawn from him upon earth in giving us the holy Ghost and he hath received our earnest and a pawn from us into heaven by receiving our nature in the body of Christ Jesus there Flesh and bloud when it is conformed to the flesh and bloud of Christ now glorified and made like his by our resurrectien may inherite the kingdome of God in heaven Yea flesh and bloud being conformed to Christ by the sanctification of the holy Ghost here in this world may inherit the kingdome of God here upon earth for God hath a
Verbum The word and his servants there talk of us here and pray to him for us They talked with him but of what They talked of hiâ— Decease says the text there which he should accomplish at Jerusalem all that they talked of was of his Passion All that we shall say and sing in heaven will be of his Passion accomplished at Jerusalem in that Hymn This Lamb hath redeemed as to God by his blood Worthy is the Lamb that was slaine to receive power and riches and wisdome and strength and honour and glory and blessing Amen Even our glory in heaven at last is not principally for our selves but to contribute to the glory of Christ Jesus If we inquire further then this into the state of our glorifyed bodies remember that in this reall Parable in this Type of the Resurrection the transfiguration of Christ it is said that even Beter himself wist not what to say and remember too That even Christ himself forbad them to say any thing at all of it till his Resurrection Till our Resurrection we cannot know clearly we should not speak boldly of the glory of the Saints of God nor of our blessed endowments in that state The summe of all is Fiducis Christianorum est resurrectio mortuorum My faith directs it self first upon that which Christ hath done he is dead he is risen and my hope directs it selfe upon that which shall bee done I shall rise again And yet says Luther Papa Cardinales primarii viri I know the Pope the Cardinals the Bishops are Iâ—genio doctrinâ ratione prudentiâ excellentes they abound in naturall parts in reading in experience in civill wisdome yet says he si tres sunt qui hunc â—â—ticulum indubitanter â—redunt If there be three amongst them that do faithfully and undoubtedly believe this article of the Resurrection of the body three are more then I look for amongst them Beloved as no things are liker one another then Court and Court the same ambitions the same underminings in one Court as in another so Church and Church is alike too All persecured Churches are religious all peaceable Churches are dissolute when Luther said that of the Church of Rome That few of them believed the Resurrection the Roman Church wall owed in all abundances and dissolutenesseâ— and scarce a man in respect opened his mouth against her otherwise then that the holy Ghost to make his continuall 〈◊〉 and to interrupt their prescription in every age raised up some to declare their impieties and usurpations But then when they bent all their thoughts entirely and prosperously upon possessing this world they thought they might spare the Resurrection well enough As hee that hath a plentifull fortune in Europe cares not much though there be no land of perfumes in the East nor of gold in the West-Indies God in our days hath given us and our Church the fat of the glory of this world too and we also neglect the other But when men of a different religion from them for they will needs call a differing from their errours a different Religion as though all their religion were errours for excepting errours we differ in no point when I say such men came to enquire into them to discover them and to induce or to attempt in divers parts of their government a reformation then they shut themselves up closer then they grew more carefull of their manners and did reform themselves somewhat though not thoroughly and are the better for that reformat on which was offered to them and wrought more effectually upon others As we say in the School that even the Devill is somewhat the better for the death of Christ so the Roman Church is somewhat the better for the Reformation Our assiduity of preaching hath brought them to another manner of frequency in preaching then before the Reformation they were accustomed to and our answers to their books have brought them to a more reserved manner of writing then they used before Let us therefore by their example make as good use of our enemies as our enemies have done of us For though we have no military enmity no hostility with any nation though we must all and doe out of a true sense of our duty to God pray ever for the continuance of peace amongst Christian Princes and to withhold the effusion of Christian blood yet to that intendment and in that capacity as they were our enemies in 88. when they provoked by their Excommunications dangerous invasions and in that capacity as they were our enemies in 603. when they bent their malice even against that place where the Laws for the maintenance of our religion were enacted so they are our enemies still if we be still of the same religion He that by Gods mercy to us leads us is as sure that the Pope is Antichrist now as he was then and we that are blessedly led by him are as sure that their doctrine is the doctrine of Devils now as we were then Let us therefore make use of those enemies and of their aery insolences and their frothy confidences as thereby to be the firmer in our selves and the carefuller of our children and servants that we send not for such a Physitian as brings a Roman Priest for his Apothecary nor entertain such a School-master as brings a Roman Priest for his Vsher nor such a Mercer as brings a Priest for his Tayler for in these shapes they have and will appear But in true faith to God true Allegiance to our Prince true obedience to the Church true dealing with all men make our selves sure of the Resurrection in the next life In carne incorruptibili in flesh that shall bee capable of no corruption by having that resurrection in this life in carne incorruptâ in devesting or correcting the corruptions which cleave to our flesh here that we bee not corrupted spiritually not disputed out of our Religion nor jeasted out nor threatened out nor bought out nor beat out of the truth of God nor corrupted carnally by the pleasures or profits of this world but that wee may conforme our selves to the purity of Christ Jesus in that measure which wee are able to attain to which is our spirituall Resurrection and constitutes our second part That Kingdome of God which flesh and blood may inherit in this life From the beginning we setled that That the primary purpose of the Apostle in these words was to establish the doctrine of the last Resurrection But in Tertullians exposition Arrabonem dedit arrabonem accepit That God hath left us the earnest of his Spirit upon earth and hath taken the earnest of our flesh into heaven it grew indifferent of which Resurrection spirituall or bodily first or last it be accepted but take Tertullian in another place upon the verse immediately preceding our Text Sicut portavimus portemus for so Tertullian reads that place and so does the Vulgate As we
body of story But these Psalmes were made not onely to vent Davids present holy passion but to serve the Church of God to the worlds end And therefore change the person and wee shall finde a whole quiver of arrows Extend this Man to all Mankind carry Davids History up to Adams History and consider us in that state which wee inherit from him and we shall see arrows fly about our ears A Deo prosequente the anger of God hanging over our heads in a cloud of arrows and à conscientia remordente our own consciences shooting poisoned arrows of desperation into our souls and ab Homine Contemnente Men multiplying arrows of Detraction and Calumny and Contumely upon our good name and estimation Briefly in that wound as wee were all shot in Adam we bled out Impassibilitatem and we sucked in Impossibilitatem There we lost our Immortality our Impassibility our assurance of Paradise and then we lost Possibilitatem boni says S. August all possibility of recovering any of this by our selves So that these arrows which are lamented here are all those miseries which sinne hath cast upon us Labor and the childe of that Sicknesse and the off-spring of that Death And the security of conscience and the terrour of conscience the searing of the conscience and the over-tendernesse of the conscience Gods quiver and the Devils quiver and our own quiver and our neighbours quiver afford and furnish arrows to gall and wound us These arrows then in our Text proceeding from sin and sin proceeding from tentations and inducing tribulations it shall advance your spirituall edification most to fixe your consideration upon those fiery darts as they are tentations and as they are tribulations Origen says he would wish no more for the recovery of any soul but that she were able to see Cicatrices suas those scars which these fiery darts have left in her the deformity which every sinne imprints upon the soul and Contritiones suas the attenuating and wearing out and consumption of the soul by a continuall succession of more and men wound â— upon the same place An ugly thing in a Consumption were a fearfull spectacle And such Origen imagins a soul to be if she could see Cicatrices and Contritiones her ill-favourednesse and her leannesse in the deformity and consumption of sin How provident how diligent a patience did our blessed Saviour bring to his Passion who foreseeing that that would be our case our sicknesse to be first wounded with single tentations and then to have even the wounds of our soul wounded again by a daily reiterating of tentations in the same kinde would provide us physick agreeable to our Disease Chyrurgery conformable to our wound first to be scourged so as that his holy body was torn with wounds and then to have those wounded again and often with more violatings So then these arrows are those tentations and those tribulations which are accompanied with these qualities of arrows shot at us that they are alienae shot from others not in our power And veloces swift and sudden soon upon us And vix visibiles not discernible in their coming but by an exact diligence First then these tentations are dangerous arrows as they are alienae shot from others and not in our own power It was the Embleme and Inscription which Darius took for his coin Insculpere sagittarium to shew his greatnesse that he could wound afar off as an Archer does And it was the way by which God declared the deliverance of Israel from Syria Elisha bids the King open the window East-ward and shoot an arrow out The King does shoot And the Prophet says Sagitta salutis Domini The arrow of the Lords deliverance He would deliver Israel by shooting vengeance into Syria One danger in our arrows as they are tentations is that they come unsuspectedly they come we know not from whence from others that 's a danger But in our tentations there is a greater danger then that for a man cannot shoot an arrow at himself but we can direct tentations upon our selves If we were in a wildernesse we could sin and where we are we tempt temptations and wake the Devil when for any thing that appears he would sleep A certain man drew a bow at a venture says that story He had no determinate mark no expresse aime upon any one man He drew his bow at a venture and he hit and he flew the King Ahab A woman of tentation Tendit areum in incertum as that story speaks shee paints she curls she sings she gazes and is gazed upon There 's an arrow shot at randon shee aim'd at no particular mark And thou puttest thy self within shot and meetest the arrow Thou soughtest the tentation the tentation sought not thee A man is able to oppresse others Et glâ—riatur in malâ— quia potens He boasts himselfe because he is able to doe mischief and tendit arcum in incertum he shoots his arrow at randon he lets it be known that he can prefer them that second his purposes and thou putt'st thy self within shot and meet'st the arrow and mak'st thy self his instrument Thou sought'st the tentation the tentation sought not thee when we expose our selves to tentations tentations hit us that were not expresly directed nor meant to us And even then when we begin to flie from tentations the arrow overtakes us Iehoram fled from Iehu and Iehu shot after him and shot him through the heart But this was after Iehoram had talk'd with him After wee have parâ—ed with a tentation debated whether we should embrace it or no and entertain'd some discourse with it though some tendernesse some remorse make us turn our back upon it and depart a little from it yet the arrow overtakes us some reclinations some retrospects we have a little of Lots wife is in us a little sociablenesse and conversation a little point of honour not to be false to former promises a little false gratitude and thankfulnesse in respect of former obligations a little of the compassion and charity of Hell that another should not be miserable for want of us a little of this which is but the good nature of the Devill arrests us stops us fixes us till the arrow the tentation shoot us in the back even when wee had a purpose of departing from that sin and kils us over again Thus it is when we meet a tentation and put our selves in the arrows way And thus it is when we fly not fast enough nor farre enough from a tentation But when we doe all that and provide as safely as we can to get and doe get quickly out of distance yet The wicked bend their bowes that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart In occulto It is a work of Darknesse Detraction and they can shoot in the dark they can wound and not be known They can whisper Thunder and passe an arrow through another mans eare into mine
hidden things of dishonesty how great a burthen is there in these open and avowed sins sins that have put on so brasen a face as to out-face the Minister and out-face the Magistrate and call the very Power and Justice of God in question whether he do hate or can punish a sinne for they doe what they can to remove that opinion out of mens hearts Truly as an Hypocrite at Church may doe more good then a devout man in his Chamber at home be cause the Hypocrites outward piety though counterfeit imprints a good example upon them who doe not know it to bee counterfeit and wee cannot know that he that is absent from Church now is now at his prayers in his Chamber so a lesser sinne done with an open avowment and confidence may more prejudice the Kingdome of God then greater in secret And this is that which may be principally intended or atleast usefully raised our of this phrase of the Holy Ghost in David A facie peccati that the habituall sinner comes to sin not onely with a negligence who know it but with a glorious desire that all the world might know it and with a shame that any such Iudge as feared not God nor regarded man should be more feareless of God or regardless of man then he But now beloved when we have laid man thus low Miserable because Man and then Diseased and that all over without any soundnesse even in his whole substance in his flesh and in the height of this disease Restlesse too and Restlesse even in his bones diffident in his strongest assurances And when we have laid him lower then that made him see the Cause of all this misery to be the Anger of God the inevitable anger of an incensed God and such an anger of God as hath a face a manifestation a reality and not that God was angry with him in a Decree before he shewed man his face in the Law and saw Mans face in the transgression of the law And laid him lower then that too made him see the cause of this anger as it is sinne so to be his sinne sinne made his by an habituall love thereof which though it may be but one yet is become an out-facing sinne a sinne in Contempt and confidence when we have laid Man laid you thus low in your own eyes we returne to the Canon and rule of that Physician whom they call Evangelist aâ—â— medicinae the Evangelist of Physique Sit intentio prima in omni medicina comfâ—rtare whether the physician purge or lance or sear his principall care and his end is to comfort and strengthen so though we have insisted upon Humane misery and the cause of that the anger of God and the cause of that anger sinne in that excesse yet we shall dismisse you with that Consolation which was first in our intention and shall be our conclusion that as this Text hath a personall aspect upon David alone and therefore we gave you hit case and then a generall retrospect upon Adam and all in him and therefore we gave you your own case so it hath also an Evangelicall prospect upon Christ and therefore for your comfort and as a bundle of Myrrhe in your bosomes we shall give you his case too to whom these words belong as well as to Adam or David or you There is no soundnesse in my flesh because of thine anger neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sinne If you will see the miseries of Man in their exaltation and in their accumulation too in their weight and in their number take them in the Ecce home when Christ was presented from Pilate scourged and scorned Ecce home behold man in that man in the Prophets They have reproched the feetsteps of thine Anointed says David slandred his actions and conversation He hath no form nor comlinesse nor beauty that we should desire to see him says Esay Despised rejected of men A man of sorrows and acquainted with griefes And Ecce homo behold man in that man in the whole history of the Gospell That which is said of us of sinfull men is true in him the salvation of men from the sole of the foot even unto the Head there is no soundnesse but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores That question will never receive answer which Christ askes Is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow Never was never will there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow because there can never be such a person to suffer sorrow Affliction was upon him and upon all him for His soule was heavy unto death Even upon his Bones fire was sent into his bones and it prevailed against him And the highest cause of this affliction was upon him the anger of God The Lord had afflicted him in the day of his fierce anger The height of Gods anger is Dereliction and he was brought to his Vt quid dereliquisti My God my God why hast thou forsaken me We did esteem him striken of the Lord says Esay And we were not deceived in it Percutiam pastorem says Christ himselfe of himselfe out of the Prophet I will smite the shepheard and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered And then the cause of this anger sinne was so upon him as that though in one consideration the raine was upon all the world and onely this fleece of Gedeon dry all the world surrounded with sinne and onely He innocent yet in another line we finde all the world dry and onely Gedeons fleece wet all the world innoceâ— and onely Christ guilty But as there is a Verè tulit and a Verè portavit surely he bore those griefes and surely he carried those sorrows so they were Verè nostri surely he hath borne our griefes and carried our sorrows he was wounded for our transgressioâ—â— and bruised for our iniquitles The Chastisement of our peace was upon him 〈◊〉 â—efore it must necessarily follow as it does follow there with his stripes wee 〈◊〉 for God will not exact a debt twice of Christ for me and of me too 〈◊〉 therefore Quare moriemini Domus Israel since I have made ye of the houshold â— of Israel why will ye die since ye are recovered of your former sicknesses why will die of a new disease of a suspicion or jealousie that this recovery this redemption in Christ Iesus belongs not to you Will ye say It is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands Dei viventis of the living God 'T is so a fearfull thing But if Deâ—s mortuus the God of life bee but dead for mee be fallen into my hands applied to mee made mine it is no fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God Non sat is est medicum fecisse suum officium nisi agrotus adstantes sua It is not enough for Christ Jesus to have prepared you the balm of his bloud
him let us finde and lament all these numbers and all these weights of sin Here we are all born to a patrimony to an inheritance an inheritance a patrimony of sin and we are all good husbands and thrive too fast upon that stock upon the encrease of sin even to the treasuring up of sin and the wrath of God for sin How naked soever we came out of our mothers wombe otherwise thus we came all apparell'd apparell'd and invested in sin And we multiply this wardrobe with new habits habits of customary sins every day Every man hath an answer to that question of the Apostle What hast thou that thou hast not received from God Every man must say I have pride in my heart wantonnesse in mine eyes oppression in my hands and that I never receiv'd from God Our sins are our own and we have a covetousnesse of more a way to make other mens sins ours too by drawing them to a fellowship in our sins I must be beholden to the loyalty and honesty of my wife whether my children be mine own or no for he whose eye waiteth for the evening the adulterer may rob me of that propriety I must be beholden to the protection of the Law whether my goods shall be mine or no A potent adversary a corrupt Judge may rob me of that propriety I must be beholden to my Physician whether my health and strength shal be mine or no A garment negligently left off a disorderly meal may rob me of that propriâ—ty But without asking any man leave my sins will be mine own When the presumptuous men say Our lips are our own and our tongues are our own the Lord threatens to cut off those lips and those tongues But except we doe come to say Our sins are our own God will never cut up that root in us God will never blot out the memory in himself of those sins Nothing can make them none of ours but the avowing of them the confessing of them to be ours Onely in this way I am a holy lier and in this the God of truth will reward my lie for if I say my sins are mine own they are none of mine but by that confessing and appropriating of those sins to my selfe they are made the sins of him who hath suffered enough for all my blessed Lord and Saviour Christ Iesâ—s Therefore that servant of God S. August confesses those sins which he never did to be his sins and to have been forgiven him Peccata mihi dimissa a fateâ—r quae med sponte feci quae te duce non feci Those sins which I have done and those which but for thy grace I should have done are all my sins Alas I may die here and die under an everlasting condemnation of fornication with that woman that lives and dies a Virgin and be damn'd for a murderer of that man that out-lives me and for a robbery and oppression where no man is damnified nor any penny lost The sin that I have done the sin that I would have done is my sin We must not therefore transfer our sins upon any other Wee must not think to discharge our selves upon a Peccata Patris To come to say My father thriv'd well in this course why should not I proceed in it My father was of this Religion why should not I continue in it How often is it said in the Scriptures of evill Kings he did evill in the sight of the Lord and walk'd in via Patris in the way of his father father in the singular It is never said plurally In via Patrum in the way of his fathers Gods blessings in this world are express'd so in the plurall thou gavest this land patribus to their fathers says Solomon in the dedication of the Temple And thou brought'st Patres our Fathers out of Egypt And again Be with us Lord as thou wast with our Fathers So in Ezekiel where your Fathers dwelt you their children shall dwell too and your children and their childrens children for ever His blessings upon his Saints his holy ones in this world are expressed so plurally and so is the transmigration of his Saints out of this world also Thou shalt sleep cum patribus with thy fathers says God to Moses And David slept cum patribus with his fathers And Iacob had that care of himselfe as of that in which consisted or in which was testified the blessing of God I will lie cum patribus with my fathers and be buried in their burying place says Iacob to his son Ioseph Good ways and good ends are in the plurall and have many examples else they are not good but sins are in the singular He walk'd in the way of his father is in an ill way But carry our manners or carry our Religion high enough and we shall finde a good rule in our fathers Stand in the way says God in Ieremy and ask for the old way which is the good way We must put off veterem hominem but not antiqâ—â—m Wee may put off that Religion which we think old because it is a little elder then our selves and not rely upon that it was the Religion of my Father But Antiquissimum dieâ—um Him whose name is He that is and was and is for ever and so involves and enwraps in himself all the Fathers him we must put on Be that our issue with our adversaries at Rome By the Fathers the Fathers in the plurall when those fathers unanimely deliver any thing dogmatically for matter of faith we are content to be tried by the Fathers the Fathers in that plurall But by that 〈◊〉 Father who begers his children not upon the true mother the Church but upon the Court and so produces articles of faith according as State businesses and civill occasions invite him by that father we must refuse to be tried for to limit it in particular to my father we must say with Nehemiah Ege domus patris mei If I make my fathers house my Church my father my Bishop I and my fathers house have sinned says he and with Mordecai to Esther Thou and thy fathers house shall be destroyed They are not 〈◊〉 a patris I cannot excuse my sins upon the example of my father nor are they 〈◊〉 Tempâ—ris I cannot discharge my sins upon the Times and upon the present ill disposition that reigns in men now and doe ill because every body else does so To say there is a rot and therefore the sheep must perish Corruptions in Religion are crept in and work in every cornet and therefore Gods sheep simple souls must be content to admit the infection of this rot That there is a murrain and therefore cattell must die superstition practis'd in many places and therefore the strong servants of God must come to sacrifice their obedience to it or their bloud for it Then no such rot no such murrain no such corruption of times
prepared a Whale to transport Ionas before Ionas was cast into the Sea God prepared thee a holy Patience before he reduced thee to the exercise of that Patience If thou couldest apprehend nothing done for thy self yet all the mercies that God hath exhibited to others are former mercies to thee in the Pattern and in the Seal and in the Argument thereof They have had them therefore thou shalt All Gods Prophecies are thy Histories whatsoever he hath promised others he hath done in his purpose for thee And all Gods Histories are thy Prophesies all that he hath done for others he owes thee Hast thou a hardnesse of heart knowest thou not that Christ hath wept before to entender that hardnesse hast thou a palenesse of soul in the apparition of God in fire and in judgement knowest thou not that Christ hath bled before to give a vigour and a vegetation and a verdure to that palenesse is thy sinne Actuall sinne knowest thou not that there is a Lamb bleeding before upon the Altar to expiate that Is thy terrour from thy inherence and encombrance of Originall sinne knowest thou not that the effect of Baptism hath blunted the sting of that sinne before art thou full of sores putrid and ulcerous sores full of wounds through and through piercing wounds full of diseases namelesse and complicate diseases knowest thou not that there is a holy Charm a blessed Incantation by which thou art though not invulnerable yet invulnerable unto death wrapt up in the eternall Decree of thine Election that 's thy pillar the assurance of thine Election If thou shake that if thou cast down that Pillar if thou distrust thine Election with Samson who pulled down pillars in his blindnesse in thy blindnesse thou destroyest thy self Begin where thou wilt at any Act in thy self at any act in God yet there was mercy before that for his mercy is eternall eternall even towards thee I could easily think that that that past between God and Moses in their long conversation that that that past between Christ and Moses in his trans-figuration that that that past between Saint Paul and the Court of Heaven in his extasie was instruction and manifestation on one part and admiration and application on the other part of the mercy of God Earth cannot receive Heaven cannot give such another universall soul to all all persons all actions as Mercy And were I the childe of this Text that were to live a hundred years I would ask no other marrow to my bones no other wine to my heart no other light to mine eyes no other art to my understanding no other eloquence to my tongue then the power of apprehending for my self and the power of deriving and conveying upon others by my Ministery the Mercy the early Mercy the everlasting Mercy of yours and my God But we must passe to the consideration of this immense Light in that one Beam wherein it is exhibited here that is long life The childe shall die a hundred years old Long life is a blessing as it is an image of eternity as Kings are blessings because they are Images of God And as to speak properly a King that possest the whole earth hath no proportion at all to God he is not a dramme not a grain not an atome to God so neither if a thousand Methusalems were put in one life had that long life any proportion to eternity for Finite and Infinite have no proportion to one another But yet when we say so That the King is nothing to God we speak then between God and the King and we say that onely to assist the Kings Religious humiliation of himself in the presence of God But when we speak between the King and our selves his Subjects there we raise our selves to a just reverence of him by taking knowledge that he is the Image of God to us So though long life be nothing to eternity yet because we need such Glasses and such Images as God shews us himself in the King so he shewes us his eternitie in a long life In this that the Patriarchs complain every where of the shortnesse of life and neernesse of death Iacob at a hundred and thirtie yeares tells Pharaoh that his dayes were few In this that God threatens the shortnesse of life for a punishment to Eli God saies There shall not be an old man in thy house for ever In this that God brings it into Promise and enters it as into his Audite and his revenue With long life will I satisfie him and shew him my salvation That God would give him long life and make that long life a Type of Eternity In this that God continues that promise into performance and brings it to execution in some of his chosen servants at a hundred and twenty Moses his eyes were not dim nor his naturall force abated and Caleb saith of himself I am this day 85. yeares old and as my strength was at first for warre so is my strength now In all these and many others we receive so many testimonies that God brings long life out of his Treasurie as an immediate blessing of his And therefore as such his blessing let us pray for it where it is not come yet in that apprecation and acclamation of the antient generall Councells Multos annos Caesari Aeternâ—s annos Caesari Long life to our Cesar in this world everlasting life to our Cesar in the world to come and then let us reverence this blessing of long life where it is come in honouring those Ancient heads by whose name God hath been pleased to call himself Antiquuâ— dierum the ancient of dayes and let us not make this blessing of long life impossible to our selves by disappointing Gods purpose of long life upon us by our surfets our wantonnesse our quarrels which are all Goths and Vandals and Giants called in by our selves to fight with God against us But yet so receive we long life as a blessing as that we may also find a blessing in departing from this life For so manifold and so multiforn are his blessings as even death it self hath a place in this Sphear of blessings The childe shall live a hundred yeares but yet The childe shall die When Paradise should have extended as man should have multiplied and every holy family every religious Colony have constituted a new Paradise that as it was said of Egypt when it abounded with Hermitages in the Primitive persecutions That Egypt was a continuall City of Hermitages so all the world should have been a continuall Garden of Paradises when all affections should have been subjects and all creatures servants and all wives helpers then life was a sincere blessing But but a mixt blessing now when all these are so much vitiated onely a possible blessing a disputable a conditionable a circumstantiall blessing now If there were any other way to be saved and to get to Heaven then by being born
people and gather them so So Christ tells us things in darknesse And so Christ speakes to us in our Ear And these low voices and holy whisperings and halfe-silences denote to us the inspirations of his Spirit as his Spirit beares witnesse with our spirit as the Holy Ghost insinuates himselfe into our soules and works upon us so by his private motions But this is not Gods ordinary way to be whispering of secrets The first thing that God made was light The last thing that he hath reserved to doe is the manifestation of the light of his Essence in our Glorification And for Publication of himselfe here by the way he hath constituted a Church in a Visibility in an eminency as a City upon a hill And in this Church his Ordinance is Ordinance indeed his Ordinance of preaching batters the soule and by that breach the Spirit enters His Ministers are an Earth-quake and shake an earthly soule They are the sonnes of thunder and scatter a cloudy conscience They are as the fall of waters and carry with them whole Congregations 3000 at a Sermon 5000 at a Sermon a whole City such a City as Niniveh at a Sermon and they are as the roaring of a Lion where the Lion of the tribe of Juda cries down the Lion that seekes whom he may devour that is Orthodoxall and fundamentall truths are established against clamorous and vociferant innovations Therefore what Christ tels us in the darke he bids us speake in the light and what he saies in our eare he bids us preach on the house top Nothing is Gospell not Evangelium good message if it be not put into a Messengers mouth and delivered by him nothing is conducible to his end nor available to our salvation except it be avowable doctrine doctrine that may be spoke alowd though it awake them that sleep in their sinne and make them the more froward for being so awaked God hath made all things in a Roundnesse from the round superficies of this earth which we tread here to the round convexity of those heavens w ch as long as they shal have any beeing shall be our footstool when we come to heaven God hath wrapped up all things in Circles and then a Circle hath no Angles there are no Corners in a Circle Corner Divinity clandestine Divinity are incompatible termes If it be Divinity it is avowable The heathens served their Gods in Temples sub dio without roofs or coverings in a free opennesse and where they could in Temples made of Specular stone that was transparent as glasse or crystall so as they which walked without in the streets might see all that was done within And even nature it self taught the naturall man to make that one argument of a man truly religious Aperto vivere voto That he durst pray aloud and let the world heare what he asked at Gods hand which duty is best performed when we joyne with the Congregation in publique prayer Saint Augustine hath made that note upon the Donatists That they were Clancularii clandestine Divines Divines in Corners And in Photius we have such a note almost upon all Heretiques as the Nestorian was called Coluber a snake because though he kept in the garden or in the meadow in the Church yet he lurked and lay hid to doe mischief And the Valentinian was called a Grashopper because he leaped and skipped from place to place and that creature the Grashopper you may hear as you passe but you shall hardly find him at his singing you may hear a Conventicle Schismatick heare him in his Pamphlets heare him in his Disciples but hardly surprize him at his exercise Publication is a fair argument of truth That tasts of Luthers holy animosity and zealous vehemency when he says Audemus gloriari Christum à nobis primo vulgatum other men had made some attempts at a Reformation and had felt the pulse of some persons and some Courts and some Churches how they would relish a Reformation But Luther rejoyces with a holy exultation That he first published it that he first put the world to it So the Apostles proceeded when they came in their peregrination to a new State to a new Court to Rome it selfe they did not enquire how stands the Emperour affected to Christ and to the preaching of his Gospel Is there not a Sister or a Wife that might be wrought upon to further the preaching of Christ Are there not some persons great in power and place that might be content to hold a party together by admitting the preaching of Christ This was not their way They only considered who sent them Christ Jesus And what they brough salvation to every soul that embraced Christ Jesus That they preached and still begunne with a Vae si non Never tell us of displeasure or disgrace or detriment or death for preaching of Christ. For woe be unto us if we preach him not And still they ended with a Qui non crediderit Damnabitur Never deceive your own souls He to whom Christ hath been preached and beleeves not shall be damned All Divinity that is bespoken and not ready made fitted to certaine turnes and not to generall ends And all Divines that have their soules and consciences so disposed as their Libraries may bee At that end stand Papists and at that end Protestants and he comes in in the middle as neare one as the other all these have a brackish taste as a River hath that comes near the Sea so have they in comming so neare the Sea of Rome In this the Prophet exalts our Consolation Though the Lord give us the bread of Adversity and the water of Affliction yes shall not our Teachers be removed into corners They shall not be silenced by others they shall not affect of themselves Corner Divinity But saies he there our eyes shall see our Teachers and our eares shall hear a word saying This is the way walke in it For so they shall declare that they have taken to heart this Commandement of him that sent them Christ Jesus All that you receive from me you must deliver to my people therefore Take heed what you hear forget none of it But then you must deliver no more then that and therefore in that respect also Take heed what you hear adde nothing to that and that is the other obligation which Christ laies here upon his Apostles That reading of those words of Saint Iohn Omnis spiritus qui solvit Iesum Every spirit that dissolves Jesus that takes him asunder in pieces and beleeves not all is a very ancient reading of that place And upon that Ancient reading the Ancients infer well That not onely that spirit that denies that Christ being God assumed our flesh not onely he that denies that Christ consists of two natures God and Mam but he also that affirmes this Christ thus consisting of two natures to consist also of two persons this man dissolves Iesus takes him asunder in
it Moses required not reason to help him to be beleeved The holy Ghost hovered upon the waters and so God wrought The holy Ghost hovered upon Moses too and so he wrote And we beleeve these things to be so by the same Spirit in Moses mouth by which they were made so in Gods hand Onely beloved remember that a frame may be thrown down in much lesse time then it was set up A child an Ape can give fire to a Canon And a vapour can shake the earth And these fires and these vapours can throw down cities in minutes When Christ said Throw down this Temple and in three days I will raise it they never stopped upon the consideration of throwing it down they knew that might be soon done but they wondred at the speedy raising of it Now if all this earth were made in that minute may not all come to the generall dissolution in this minute Or may not thy acres thy miles thy Shires shrinke into feet and so few feet as shall but make up thy grave When he who was a great Lord must be but a Cottager and not so well for a Cottager must have so many acres to his Cottage but in this case a little peece of an acre five foot is become the house it selfe The house and the land the grave is all lower then that the grave is the Land and the Tenement and the Tenant too He that lies in it becomes the same earth that he lies in They all make but one earth and but a little of it But then raise thy selfe to a higher hope againe God hath made better land the land of promise a stronger city the new Ierusalem and inhabitants for that everlasting city Vs whom he made not by saying let there be men but by consultation by deliberation God said Let us make Man in our Image after our likenesse We shall pursue our great examples God in doing Moses in saying and so make hast in applying the parts But first receive them And since we have the whole world in contemplation consider in these words the foure quarters of the world by application by fair and just accommodation of the words First in the first word that God speaks here Faciamus Let us us in the plurall a denotation of divers Persons in one Godhead we consider our East where we must beginne at the knowledge and confession of the Trinity For though in the way to heaven we be travelled beyond the Gentiles when we come to confess but one God The Gentiles could not do that yet we are still among the Iews if we thinke that one God to be but one Person Christs name is Oriens the East if we will be named by him called Christians we must look to this East the confession of the Trinity There 's then our East in the Faciamus Let us us make man And then our West is in the next word Faciamus Hominem Though we be thus made made by the counsell made by the concurrence made by the hand of the whole Trinity yet we are made but men And man but in the appellation in this text and man there is but Adam and Adam is but earth but red earth earth dyed red in bloud in Soul-bloud the bloud of our own soules To that west we must all come to the earth The Sunne knoweth his going down Even the Sun for all his glory and heighth hath a going down and he knowes it The highest cannot devest mortality nor the discomfort of mortality When you see a cloud rise out of the west straightway you say there commeth a storme says Christ. When out of the region of your west that is your later days there comes a cloud a sicknesse you feele a storme even the best morall constancy is shaked But this cloud and this storme and this west there must be And that 's our second consideration But then the next words designe a North a strong and powerfull North to scatter and dissipate these clouds Ad imaginem similitudinem That we are made according to a pattern to an image to a likenesse which God proposed to himselfe for the making of man This consideration that God did not rest in that praeexistent matter out of which he made all other creatures and produced their formes out of their matter for the making of man but took a forme a patterne a modell for that work this is the North winde that is called upon to carry out of the perfumes of the garden to spread the goodnesse of God abroad This is that which is intended in Iob faire weather commeth out of the North. Our West our declination is in this that we are but earth our North our dissipation of that darknesse is in this that we are not all earth Though we be of that matter we have another forme another image another likenesse And then whose image and likenesse it is is our Meridionall height our noon our south point our highest elevation In Imagine nostra Let us make man in our Image Though our Sun set at noon as the Prophet Amos speakes though we die in our youth or fall in our height yet even in that Sunset we shall have a Noon For this Image of God shall never depart from our soule no not when that soule departs from our body And that 's our South our Meridionall height and glory And when we have thus seen this East in the faciamus That I am the workmanship and care of the whole Trinity And this West in the Hominem That for all that my matter my substance is but earth But then a North a power of overcomming that low and miserable state In Imagine That though in my matter the earth I must die yet in my forme in that Image which I am made by I cannot die and after all a South a knowledge That this Image is not the Image of Angels to whom we shall be like but it is by the same life by which those Angels themselves were made the Image of God himselfe When I am gone over this east and west and north and south here in this world I should be as sorry as Alexander was if there were no more worlds But there is another world which these considerations will discover and lead us to in which our joy and our glory shall be to see that God essentially and face to face after whose Image and likenesse we were made before But as that Pilot which had harbor'd his ship so farre within land as that he must have change of Winds in all the points of the Compasse to bring her out cannot hope to bring her our in one day So being to transport you by occasion of these words from this world to the next and in this world through all the Compasse all the foure quarters thereof I cannot hope to make all this voyage to day To day we shall consider onely our longitude our East and West
the people what a temporall dominion in the possessions of the world had the Virgin Mary Queen of heaven and Queen of earth too She was made joint purchaser of the Church with her Sonne and had as much of the worship thereof as he though she paid her fine in milke and he in bloud And till a new Sect came in her Sonnes name and in his name the name of Jesus tooke the regency so farre out of that Queen Mothers hands and sued out her Sonnes Livery so farre as that though her name be used the Virgin Mary is but a feoffee in trust for them all was hers And if God oppose not these new usurpers of the world posterity will soon see Saint Ignatius worth all the Trinity in possessions and endowments as that sumptuous and splendid foundation of his first Temple at Rome may well create a conjecture and suspicion Travaile no farther Survay but this City And of their not one hundred Churches the Virgin Mary hath a dozen The Trinity hath but one Christ hath but one The holy Ghost hath none But not to goe into the City nor out of our selves which of us doth truly and considerately ascribe the comforts that he receives in dangers or in distresses to that God of all comfort the comforter the holy Ghost We know who procured us our Presentation and our dispensation you know who procured you your offices and your honours Shall I ever forget who gave me my comfort in sicknesse Who gave me my comfort in the troubles and perplexities and diffidencies of my conscience The holy Ghost brought you hither The holy Ghost opens your eares and your hearts here Till in all your distresses you can say Veni Creator Spiritus come holy Ghost and that you feel a comfort in his comming you can never say Veni Domine Iesu come Lord Jesus come to Judgement Never to consider the day of Judgement is a fearfull thing But to consider the day of Judgement without the comfort of the holy Ghost is a thousand times more fearfull This Seale then this impression this notion of the Trinity being set upon us in the first Creation in this first plurall word of our text Faciamus Let us for Father Sonne and holy Ghost made man and this seale being re-imprinted upon us in our second Creation our Regeneration in Baptisme Man is Baptized In the name of the Father of the Sonne and of the holy Ghost This notion of the Trinity being our distinctive Character from Iew and Gentile This being our specifique forme why does not this our forme this soule of our Religion denominate us why are we not called Trinitarians a name that would embrace the profession of all the Persons but onely Christians which limits and determines us upon one The first Christians amongst whose manifold Persecutions scorne and contempt was not the least in contempt and scorne were called Nazarai Nazarites in the mouth of the Vulgar and Galilâ—i Galilaeans in the mouth of Iulian and Iudaei Iews in the mouth of Nero when he imputed the burning of Rome his owne act to them and Christiani as Tertullian says that they could accuse Christians of nothing but the name of Christians and yet they could not call them by their right name but Chrestians which was gentle quiet easie patient men made to be troden upon They gave them divers names in scorne yet never called them Trinitarians Christians themselves amongst themselves were called by divers names in the Primitive Church for distinction Fideles the faithfull and Fratres the Brethren and Discipuli Disciples And after by common custome at Antioch Christians And after that they say by a councell which the Apostles held at the same city at Antioch there passed an expresse Canon of the Church that they should be called so Christians And before they had this name at Antioch first by common usage after by a determinate Canon to be called Christians from Christ at Alexandria they were called most likely from the name of Jesus Iesseans And so Philo Iudaeus in that book which he writes De Iessenis intends by his Iessenis Christians and in divers parts of the world into which Christians travell now they find some elements some fragments some reliques of the Christian Religion in the practice of some religious Men whom those Countreys call Iesseans doubtlesly derived and continued from the name of Jesus So that the Christians took many names to themselves for distinction Brethren Disciples faithfull And they had many names put upon them in scorne Nazarites Galilaeans Iews Chrestians and yet they were never never by Custome amongst themselves never by commandement from the Church never in contempt from others called Trinitarians the profession of the Trinity being their specifique forme and distinctive Character why so Beloved the name of Christ involv'd all not onely because it is a name that hath a dignity in it more then the rest for Christ is an anointed person a King a Messiah and so the profession of that Name conferrs an Unction a regall and a holy Unction upon us for we are thereby a royall Priesthood but because in the profession of Christ the whole Trinity is professed How often doth the Sonne say that the Father sent him And how often that the Father will and that he will send the Holy Ghost This is life eternall says he to know thee the onely true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent And sent with all power in heaven and in earth This must be professed Father and Sonne And then no man can professe this no man can call Jesus the Lord but by the holy Ghost So that as in the persecutions in the primitive Church the Martyrs which were hurried to tumultuary executions and could not be heard for noise in excusing themselves of Treason and sedition and crimes imputed to them to make their cause odious did use in the sight of the people who might see a gesture though they could not heare a protestation to signe themselves with the signe of the Crosse to let them know for what profession they died so that the signe of the Crosse in that use thereof in that time was an abridgement and a Catechisme of the whole Christian Religion so is the professing of the name of Christ the professing of the whole Trinity As he that confesses one God is got beyond the meer naturall man And he that confesses a Sonne of God beyond him So is neither got to the full truth till he confesse the holy Ghost too The foole sayes in his heart there is no God The foole says David The emphaticall foole in the highest degree of folly But though he get beyond that folly he is a foole still if he say there is no Christ For Christ is the wisdome of the Father And a foole still if he deny the holy Ghost for who shall apply Christ to him but the holy Ghost Etiam Christiani Nomen superficies est
Halfe-pelagianisme to thinke grace once received to be sufficient Super-pelagianisme to thinke our actions can bring God in debt to us by merit and supererogation and Catarisme imaginary purity in Canonizing our selves as present Saints and condemning all that differ from us as reprobates All these are white spots and have the colour of goodnesse but are indications of leprosie So is that that God threatens Decorticatio ficus albi rami that the figtree shall be bark'd and the boughes thereof left white to be left white without barke was an indication of a speedy withering Ostensa candescunt arescunt says Saint Gregory of that place the bough that lies open without barke looks white but perishes the good works that are done openly to please men have their reward says Christ that is shall never have reward To pretend to doe good and not meane it To doe things good in themselves but not to good ends to goe towards good ends but not by good ways to make the deceiving of men thine end or the praise of men thine end all this may have a whiteness a colour of good but all this is a barking of the bough and an indication of a mischievous leprosie There is no good whiteness but a reflection from Christ Jesus in an humble acknowledgement that wee have none of our own and in a consident assurance that in our worst estate we may be made partakers of his We are all red earth In Adam we would not since Adam we could not avoid sinne and the Concomitants thereof miseries which we have called our West our cloud our darknesse But then we have a North that scatters these clouds in the next word Ad imaginem that we are made to another patterne in another likenesse then our own Faciamus hominem so far are we gone East and West which is halfe our Compasse and all this days voiage For we are strooke upon the sand and must stay another Tyde and another gale for our North and South SERMON XXIX Preached to the King at the Court. The second Sermon on GEN. 1. 26. And God said Let us make man in our Image after our likenesse BY fair occasion from these words we proposed to you the whole Compasse of mans voyage from his lanching forth in this world to his Anchoring in the next from his hoysing sayle here to his striking sayle there In which Compasse we designed to you his foure quarters first his East where he must beginne the fundamentall knowledge of the Trinity for that we found to be the specification and distinctive Character of a Christian where though that be so we shewed you also why we were not called Trinitarians but Christians and we shewed you the advantage that man hath in laying hold upon God in these severall notions that the Prodigall sonne hath an indulgent Father that the decayed Father hath an abundant Sonne that the dejected spirit hath a Spirit of comfort to fly to in heaven And as we shewed you from Saint Paul that it was an Atheisme to be no Christian without God says he as long as without Christ so we lamented the slacknesse of Christians that they did not seriously and particularly consider the persons of the Trinity and especially the holy Ghost in their particular actions And then we came to that consideration whether this doctrine were established or directly insinuated in this plurall word of our text Faciamus Let us us make man and we found that doctrine to be here and here first of any place in the Bible And finding God to speake in the plurall we accepted for a time that interpretation which some had made thereof that God spake in the Person of a Soveraigne Prince and therefore as they do in the plurall We. And thereby having established reverence to Princes we claim'd in Gods behalfe the same reverence to him That men would demeane themselves here when God is spoken to in prayer as reverently as when they speake to the King But after this we found God to speake here not onely as our King but as our maker as God himselfe and God in Counsell Faciamus and we applied thereunto the difference of our respect to a Person of that honorable rank when we came before him at the Counsell Table and when we came to him at his own Table and thereby advanced the seriousnesse of this consideration God in the Trinity And farther we failed not with that our Eastern winde Our West we considered in the next word Hominem that though we were made by the whole Trinity yet the whole Trinity made us but men and men in this name of our text Adam and Adam is but earth and that 's our West our declination our Sunset We passed over the foure names by which man is ordinarily expressed in the Scriptures and we found necessary misery in three of them and possible nay likely misery in the fourth in the best name We insisted upon the name of our text Adam earth and had some use of these notes First that if I were but earth God was pleased to be the Potter If I but a sheep he a shepheard If I but a cottage he a builder So he worke upon me let me be what he will We noted that God made us earth not ayre not fire That man hath bodily and worldly duties to performe and is not all Spirit in this life Devotion is his soule but he hath a body of discretion and usefulnesse to invest in some calling We noted too that in being earth we are equall We tryed that equality first in the root in Adam There if any man will be nobler earth then I he must have more originall sinne then I for that was all Adams patrimony all that he could give And we tryed this equality in another furnace in the grave where there is no meanes to distinguish Royall from Plebeian nor Catholique from Hereticall dust And lastly we noted that this our earth was red earth and considered in what respect it was red even in Gods hands but found that in the bloud-rednesse of sinne God had no hand but sinne and destruction for sinne was wholly from our selves which consideration we ended with this that there was Macula alba a white spot of leprosie as well as a red and we found the over-valuation of our own purity and the uncharitable condemnation of all that differ from us to be that white spot And so far we sayled with that Western winde And are come to our third point in this our Compasse our North. In this point the North we place our first comfort The North is not always the comfortablest clime nor is the North always a type of happines in the Scriptures Many times God threatens stormes from the North. But even in those Northern stormes we consider that action that they scatter they dissipate those clouds which were gathered and so induce a serenity And so fair weather comes from the North. And
of thy wombe In the new Testament utterly otherwise Blessed are the poore Blessed are they that mourne Blessed are they that are persecuted and reviled but the blessednesse of the old Testament temporall blessings are temporary as the old Testament was that 's expir'd The blessednesse of the Gospell is as the Gospell everlasting and therfore the low way is the best way adversity will be the best way to see God by I speake not of meere beggery of having nothing but of having lesse then we had the losse of some of that possession or honour or wealth or health which we had conduces more to this sight of God then the additions of any of these Extreme want may put a man out of his way to God as far as abundance and superfluity as we say in civill things the midde men aise the Subsidy not the great men nor the beggers so the middle men see farthest into God and serve him best not the abounding not the wanting man Solomon prayes against both against riches and against poverty too but yet not as though the danger were equall if the words be well considered the danger of his poverty is lest he steale and take the Name of God in vaine that is forsweare the theft a great fault two great faults but these two amount not to that one which arises out of abundance Lest I be full and deny thee and say Who is the Lord And that Proverb that Solomon speaks of Saint Hierome cals not paupertatem but mendicitatem and that is often indeed the mother and nurse of many enormous mischiefs Saint Bernard takes the word poverty in that place but he multiplies it Paupertates ne dederis Give me not O Lord a double poverty poverty indeed and poverty in opinion poverty and a murmurning with my poverty for that also is the mother and nurse of many enormous mischiefs I know how to abound and how to want It is the harder worke ferre abundantiam aboundance is a burden want is but a weaknesse and it is a greater torment to be pressed under a great weight then to lye bed-rid To end this the person in our Text is Enosh man but not every man as before Adam but that man upon whom Gods hand hath been in the losse of something that he had before As the body of man is mellowed in the grave and made fit for glory in the resurrection so the minde of man by suffering is suppled Adam is made Enosh and he may see The person is the same and yet changed man but another kinde of man The means of apprehending is the same and yet changed too seeing but another kinde of seeing This man thus disposed thus matured thus mellowed thus suppled thus entendred by Gods easie corrections he whom God hath not left to himself nor yet put him beyond himself not fulfilled all but yet not frustrated all his desires neither laid his hand upon him so as to keep him downe from swelling up against him but yet so too as to keep him up from sinking or falling from him that man that Enosh may see the hand of God and take God by the hand and bid him welcome and finde a rich and a sweet advantage in that correction it is a seeing of God not as before in his works abroad but in his working upon himself at home Such a man God strikes so as that when he strikes he strikes fire and lights him a candle to see his presence by we doe not finde that Iob came to his Dominus dedit to his confession The Lord giveth till he came to the Dominus abstulit to the sense of Gods taking away not to expresse his sense of Gods blessings to him till he felt his corrections upon him and then they came together Dominus dedit and abstulit The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away Darknesse is that by which the holy Ghost himselfe hath chosen to expresse hell hell is darknesse and the way to it to hell is Excacation in this life blindnesse in our spirituall eyes Eternall life hereafter is Visio Dei the sight of God and the way to that here is to see God here and the eye-salve for that is to be crossed in our desires in this world by the hand of God When Christ presents things necessary for his service he proposes them thus this is his Inventary Gold against poverty white clothes against nakednesse and collyrium eye-salve to see by Now for the two first he bids us buy them buy-gold buy clothes that is labour endeavour to get thm he does not say buy the eye-salve that is affliction no man is to thrust himselfe into unnecessary dangers or persecutions and call his indiscretion Martyrdome It is to be presumed that every man how high or how abundant soever hath eye salve enough affliction and crosses enough if he do apply them and therefore Christ does not say buy them hunt after them expose thy selfe to them but he sayes onely Anoynt thy eyes with them I will give thee the physick crosses and calamities here do thou apply them according to the nature of the medicine and to the purpose of the physitian and by them thou shalt see God Our translation carries this word no farther in this part of the Text then the other in the former There it was every man may see here it is man that is this man may behold But as we showed you that the former was in the originall Casu viderunt every man let him say what he will to the contrary yet he hath seen God so in this part the word in the originall is Iabbit and that is videbit in the future he shall see This sight of God is not in him naturally that we can be sure he hath seen him but it is reserved to the future let him be thus wrought upon by Gods hand and videbit in the future he shall see Now you remember what designes the future he shall see is a note of the future and so is he will see This man this Enosh thus moulded thus kneaded by the hand of God he shall see God he shall in a manner whether he will or no a holy and a heavenly violence shall be offered him it shall not be in the power of the world the flesh or the devill to blind him he shall see God and then he will see God his will shall be inclined and disposed to it and every first beame of Gods grace every influence of the Spirit of God shall open his eyes God shall be so jealous of him as that he shall see God he shall be so watchfull upon God and his motions as that he will see him And more then see him for Iabbit is Intuebitur he will behold him contemplate God ruminate meditate upon God Man sees best in the light but meditates best in the darke for our sight of God it is enough that God gives the light
Evangelists that that voice added Hear him for after that Declaration that he who was visibly and personally come amongst them was the Sonne of God there was no reason to doubt of mens willingnesse to hear him who went forth in person to preach unto them in this world As long as he was to stay with them it was not likely that they should need provocation to hear him therefore that was not added at his Baptisme and entrance into his personall ministery But when Christ came to his Transfiguration which was a manifestation of his glory in the next world and an intimation of the approaching of the time of his going away to the possession of that glory out of this world there that voyce from heaven sayes This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased heare him When he was gone out of this world men needed a more particular solicitation to heare him for how and where and in whom should they heare him when he was gone In the Church for the same testimony that God gave of Christ to authorize and justifie his preaching hath Christ given of the Church to justifie her power The holy Ghost fell upon Christ at his Baptism and the holy Ghost fell upon the Apostles who were the representative Church at Whitsontide The holy Ghost tarried upon Christ then and the holy Ghost shall tarry with the Church usque ad consummationem till the end of the world And therefore as we have that institution from Christ Dic Ecclesiae when men are refractary and perverse to complaine to the Church so have they who are complained of to the Church that institution from Christ also Audi Ecclesiam Hearken to the voyce of God in the Church and they have from him that commination If you disobey them you disobey God in what fetters soever they binde you you shall rise bound in those fetters and as he who is excommunicated in one Diocese should not be received in another so let no man presume of a better state in the Triumphant Church then he holds in the Militant or hope for communion there that despises excommunication here That which the Scripture says God sayes says St. Augustine for the Scripture is his word and that which the Church says the Scriptures say for she is their word they speak in her they authorize her and she explicates them The Spirit of God inanimates the Scriptures and makes them his Scriptures the Church actuates the Scriptures and makes them our Scriptures Nihil salubrius says the same Father There is not so wholsome a thing no soule can live in so good an aire and in so good a diet Quà m ut Rationem praecedat authoritas Then still to submit a mans owne particular reason to the authority of the Church expressed in the Scriptures For certainly it is very truly as it is very usefully said by Calvin Semper nimia morositas est ambitiosa A frowardnesse and an aptnesse to quarrell at the proceedings of the Church and to be delivered from the obligations and constitutions of the Church is ever accompanied with an ambitious pride that they might enjoy a licentious liberty It is not because the Church doth truly take too much power but because they would be under none it is an ambition to have all government in their own hands and to be absolute Emperors of themselves that makes them refractary But if they will pretend to believe in God they must believe in God so as God hath manifested himself to them they must believe in Christ so if they will pretend to heare Christ they must heare him there where he hath promised to speake they must heare him in the Church The first reason then in this Trinity the person that directs is the Church the Trumpet in which God sounds his Iudgements and the Organ in which he delivers his mercy And then the persons of the second place the persons to whom the Church speakes here are Filiae Sion The daughters of Sion her owne daughters We are not called Filii Ecclesiae sonnes of the Church The name of sonnes may imply more virility more manhood more sense of our owne strength then becomes them who professe an obedience to the Church Therefore as by a name importing more facility more supplenesse more application more tractablenesse she calls her children Daughters But then being a mother and having the dignity of a Parent upon her she does not proceed supplicatorily she does not pray them nor intreat them she does not say I would you would go forth and I would you would looke out but it is Egredimini videte imperatively authoritatively Do it you must do it So that she showes what in important and necessary cases the power of the Church is though her ordinary proceedings by us and our Ministery be To pray you in Christs stead to be reconciled to God In your baptisme your soules became daughters of the Church and they must continue so as long as they continue in you you cannot devest your allegiance to the Church though you would no more then you can to the State to whom you cannot say ◠will be no subject A father may dis-inherit his son upon reasons but even that dis-inherited childe cannot renounce his father That Church which conceived thee in the Covenant of God made to Christians and their seed and brought thee forth in baptisme and brought thee up in catechizing and preaching may yet for thy misdemeanor to God in her separate thee à Mensa Toro from bed and board from that sanctuary of the soule the Communion Table and from that Sanctuary of the body Christian buriall and even that Christian buriall gives a man a good rise a good helpe a good advantage even at the last resurrection to be laid down in expectation of the Resurrection in holy ground and in a place accustomed to Gods presence and to have been found worthy of that Communion of Saints in the very body is some earnest and some kinde of first-fruits of the joyfull resurrection which we attend God can call our dead bodies from the sea and from the fire and from the ayre for every element is his but consecrated ground is our element And therefore you daughters of Sion holy and religious souls for to them onely this indulgent mother speaks here hearken ever to her voice quarrell not your mothers honor nor her discretion Despise not her person nor her apparell Doe not say she is not the same woman she was heretofore nor that she is not so well dressed as she was then Dispute not her Doctrine Despise not her Discipline that as you sucked her breasts in your Baptism in the other Sacrament when you entred and whilst you stayd in this life so you may lie in her bosome when you goe out of it Hear her a good part of that which you are to hear from her is envolv'd inwrapped in that w ch we have propos'd
to the search of the Scriptures All they and they are no small number for there they are said to be ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands All they say there We are all made Kings and Priests unto our God Begin a Lambe and thou will become a Lion Reade the Scriptures modestly humbly and thou shalt understand them strongly powerfully for hence is it that Saint Chrysâ—stome more then once and Saint Gregory after him meet in that expression That the Scriptures are a Sea in which a Lambe may wade and an Elephant may swimme And this is the Gospell of those poore poore in understanding To those that are spiritually poore wrung in their souls stung in their Consciences fretted galled exulcerated viscerally even in the bowells of their Spirit insensible inapprehensive of the mercies of God in Christ the Lord and his Spirit hath sent me to preach the Gospell also That Gospell Blessed are the poore in Spirit for theirs it the Kingdome of Heaven and to recollect and redintegrate that broken and scattered heart by enabling him to expostulate and chide his owne soule with those words of comfort which the Holy Ghost offereth him once and again and again Why art thou cast downe O my soule and why art thou disquieted in me Hope thou in God and yet praise him for the light of his countenance Words of inexpresible comfort yet praise him for the light of his countenance Though thou sit in darknesse and in the shadow of death yet praise him for the light of his Countenance Whatsoever thy darknesse be put not out that candle The light of his Countenance Maintain that light discerne that light and whatsoever thy darknesse seemed it shall prove to be but an over shadowing of the Holy Ghost And so beloved if you have sufficiently considered first our generall easinesse of falling into the Passive scandall of being offended in others by misinterpreting their proceedings and then the generall scandals which the world tooke at Christ and his Gospell The Philosophers that it was an ignorant religion where you saw That the learneder the adversary is the sooner he is satisfied And the worldly and carnall man that it was a dishonourable an unpleasurable an unprofitable Religion where you saw that it were no Diminution to our Religion if it were all that but it is none of it If you have also considered the particular passive scandall that Christ deprehended in those two Disciples of Iohn That they would doe more then Christ practised or prescribed where you saw also the distemper of those that are derived from them both those that thinke there are some sinners whom Christ cannot save and those who thinke there are no sinners whom they cannot save by their Supererogations And considered lastly the way that Christ tooke to devest these men of this offence and passive scandall which was to call them to the consideration of good workes and of the best workes which he that doth them can doe where you have also seen that Christ makes that our best work To preach the Gospell to the poore both because the poore are destitute of other comforts and because their very poverty hath soupled them and mellowed them and macerated and matured and disposed them by corrections to instructions If you have received all this you have received all that we proposed for the first part the injunction the precept the way Be not sandalized be not offended in me And now that which I suspected at first is faln upon me that is to thrust our other part into a narrow conclusioÌ„ though it be blessednesse it selfe everlasting blessednesse so we must so we shall blessed is he there 's the remuneration the promise the end whosoever is not offended in me Blessed The Heathen who saw by the light of nature that they could have no Beeing if there were no God for it is from one of themselves that Saint Paul says in him we live and move and have our Beeing and Genus cjus suâ—us we are the off-spring of God saw also by the same light of nature that they could have no well-being if there were no Blessednesse And therefore as the Heathen multiplied Gods to themselves so did they also multiply blessednesse They brought their Iupiters to three hundred says Varro And from the same author from Varro does Saint Augustin collect almost three hundred severall opinions of Blessednesse But In multitudine nullitas says Tertullian excellently as where there are many Gods there is no God so where there are many blessednesses imagined there is no blessednesse possessed Not but that as the Sunne which moves onely in his owne Spheare in heaven does yet cast downe beames and influences into this world so that blessednesse which is truly onely in heaven does also cast downe beames and influences hither and gild and enamell yea inanimate the blessings of God here with the true name the true nature of blessednesse For though the vulgat edition doe read that place thus Beatum dixerant populum the world thought that people blessed that were so that is Temporally blessed as though that were but an imaginary and not a true blessednesse and howsoever it have seemed good to our Translators to insert into that verse a discretive particle a particle of difference Yea Blessed are the people that are so that is Temporally blessed Yea blessed are the people whose God is the Lord yet in truth in the Originall there is no such discretive particle no word of difference no yea in the text but both the clauses of that verse are carried in one and the same tenor Blessed are the people that are so Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord that is that people whom the Lord hath blessed so with Temporall blessings is bound to beleeve those temporall blessings to be seales and evidences to them that the Lord is their God So then there is a Viatory a preparatory an initiatory an inchoative blessednesse in this life What is that All agree in this definition that blessednesse is that in quo quiescit animus in which the minde the heart the desire of man hath settled and rested in which it found a Centricall reposednesse an acquiescence a contentment Not that which might satisfie any particular man for so the object would be infinitely various but that beyond which no man could propose any thing And is there such ablessednesse in this life There is Fecisti nos Domine ad te inquietum est Cor nostrum donec quiescat in te Lord thou hast made us for thy selfe and our heart cannot rest till it get to thee But can we come to God here We cannot Where 's then our viatory our preparatory our initiatory our in choative blessednesse Beloved though we cannot come to God here here God comes to us Here in the prayers of the Congregation God comes to us here in his Ordinance of Preaching God
reads those words speaking of the Christian Church here It is the house of all them who do as it were rejoyce who come nearest to true joy And so when the Lord turned againe the Captivity of Sion Facti sumus sicut consolati We were as it were comforted Quare sicut sayes that Father Why is it so modified with that diminution as it were Quia hic etiam in Sanctis non perfecta consolatio Because sayes he in this world even the Saints themselves have no perfect joy Where the Apostle compares the sorrow and the joy of this world then the Quasi lyes upon the sorrows side it is but a halfe sorrow Quasi tristes We are as it were sorrowfull but indeed rejoycing but compare the best ioy of this world with the next and the Quasi will fall upon the ioy of the world For though we be sealed with the holy Spirit of promise which is the earnest of our inheritance and this is the Tropique of Joy the farthest that Spirituall Joy goes in this Zodique in this world yet this carries us no farther but Vt ex arrabone aestimetur haereditas That by the proportion of the earnest we might value the whole bargaine For what a bargaine would we presume that man to have that would give 20000 l. for earnest what is the Joy of heaven hereafter if the earnest of it here be the Seale of the holy Ghost God proceeds with us as we do with other men Operariis in Saeculo cibus in opere merces in fine datur In this world we give labourers meat and drink by the way but wages at the end of their work God affords us refreshing here but joy hereafter The best Seale is the holy Ghost and the best matter that the holy Ghost seales in is in blood in the dignity of Martyrdome and even for that for Martyrdome we have a rule in the Apostle Rejoyce in as much as ye are partakers of Christs sufferings That as he suffered for you so you suffer for him but in what contemplation That when his glory shall be revealed ye may be made glad with exceeding Joy not with exceeding Joy till then For till then the Joyes of Heaven may be exceeded in the addition of the body There is the rule and the example is Christ himself Who for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse in contemplation of the Propterea exaltatus that therefore he should be exalted above all in heaven Rejoyce and be glad why for great is your reward but where in heaven And therefore Ask and you shall receive Pray and you shall have answer but what answer but what answer That your joy shall be full It shall be in heaven For Quis sic delectat quam ille qui fecit omnia quae delectant In whom can we fully rejoyce but him who made all things in which we rejoyce by the way In thy Name shall we rejoyce all the day says David Si in nomine suo non tota die St. Augustine says not that to any particular person nor any particular calling but to any man to every man Any Prince any Counsellor any Prelate any Generall any Discoverer any that goes in any way of joy and glory Si nomine suo non tota die If they rejoyce in their own names their own wisdome their own strength they shall not rejoyce all the day but they shall be benighted with darke sadnesse before their dayes end And their sunne shall set at noon too as the Prophet Amos speaks And therefore that shall be Christs expressing of that joy at the last day Enter into thy Master Ioy and leave the joy of Servants though of good Servants behind thee for thou shalt have a better Joy then that Thy Masters Ioy. It is time to end but as long as the glasse hath a gaspe as long as I have one I would breathe in this ayre in this perfume in this breath of heaven the contemplation of this Joy Blessed is that man qui scit jubilationem says David that knowes the joyfull sound For Nullo modo beatus nisi scias unde gaudeas For though we be bound to rejoyce alwayes it is not a blessed joy if we do not know upon what it be grounded or if it be not upon everlasting blessednesse Comedite amici says Christ bibite inebriamini Eat and drink and be filled Joy in this life Vbi in sudore vescimur where grief is mingled with joy is called meat says Saint Bernard and Christ cals his friends to eat in the first word Potus in future says he Joy in the next life where it passes down without any difficulty without any opposition is called drink and Christ calls his friends to drink but the overflowing the Ebriet as animae that is reserved to the last time when our bodies as well as our souls shall enter into the participation of it Where when wee shall love every one as well as our selves and so have that Joy of our owne salvation multiplied by that number wee shall have that Joy so many times over as there shall bee soules saved because wee love them as our selves how infinitely shall this Joy be enlarged in loving God so far above our selves and all them Wee have but this to add Heaven is called by many pretious names Lifeâ— Simply and absolutely there is no life but that And Kingdome Simply absolutely there is no Kingdom that is not subordinate to that And Sabbaâ—uÌ„ex Sabbate A Sabbath flowing into a Sabbath a perpetuall Sabbath but the Name that should enamour us most is that that it is Satietas gaudâ—orum fulnesse of Joy Fulnesse that needeth no addition Fulnesse that admitteth no leake And then though in the Schoole we place Blessednesse in visione in the sight of God yet the first thing that this sight of God shall produce in us for that shall produce the Reformation of the Image of God in us and it shall produce our glorifying of God but the first thing that the seeing of God shall produce in us is Joy The measure of our seeing of God is the measure of Joy See him here in his Blessings and you shall ioy in those blessings here and when you come to see him Sicuti est in his Essence then you shall have this Joy in Essence and in fulnesse of which God of his goodnesse give us such an earnest here as may binde to us that inheritance hereafter which his Sonne our Saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood Amen FINIS 51. 1. Psal. 128. 3. ◠〈◊〉 Egerton 〈◊〉 Chancellor grandfatheâ— to the Bridâ— Divisio 1 Part. Resurrectio Zech. 10. 8. Psal. 150. 6. Non nubent Luke 20. 35. Gen. 2. 23. Mat. 17. 3. Luke 7. 15. Acts 9. 41. Gen. 15. 1â— Deut. 32. 50. Luke 1. 41. Luke 16. 23.