in contemplation of whom that service is done and that is done especially when by a holy and exemplar life we draw others to the love and obedience of the same Gospell which we professe for then have we declared this true and faithfull saying this Gospell to have been worthy of all acceptation when we have look'd upon it by our reason embraced it by our Faith and declared it by our good works and all these considerations arose out of that which at the beginning we called Radicem the Roote of this Gospell the Word the Scripture the Tree it self the Body of the Gospell that is The coming of Christ and the Reason of his coming To save Sinners And then the fruit of this Gospell that Humility by which the Apostle confesseth himselfe to be the greatest Sinner we reserve for another exercise Serm. 14. A Second SERMON Preached at Whitehall April 2. 1621. SERMON XIV 1 Tim. 1.15 This is a faithfull saying and worthy of all acceptation That Christ Jesus came into the World to save Sinners of which I am the chiefest WE have considered heretofore that which appertained to the Roote and all the circumstances thereof That which belongs to the Tree it selfe what this acceptable Gospell is That Christ Jesus came into the World to save Sinners and then that which appertains to the fruit of this Gospell the Humility of the Apostle in applying it to himselfe Quorum ego Of which Sinners I am the chiefest were reserved for this time In the first of these that which we call the Tree the Body of this Gospell there are three branches first an Advent A coming and secondly the Person that came and Lastly the worke for which he came And in the first of these we shall make these steps First that it is a new coming of a Person who was not here before at least not in that manner as he comes now venit He came And Secondly that this coming is in Act not only in Decree so he was come and slaine ab initio from all eternity in God's purpose of our Salvation nor come only in promise so he came wrapped up in the first promise of a Messiah in Paradise in that ipse conteret He shall bruise the Serpents head nor come only in the often renuing of that promise to Abraham in semine tuo In thy seed shall all Nations be blessed nor only in the ratification and refreshing of that promise to Judah Donec Silo Till Silo come and to David in Solio tuo The Scepter shall not depart nor as he came in the Prophets in I says virgo concipiet That he should come of a virgin nor in Michaeas Et tu Bethlem That he should come out of that Towne but this is a Historicall not a Propheticall an Actuall not a Promissary coming it is a coming already executed venit he came he is come And then Thirdly venit in mundum He came into the World into the whole World so that by his purpose first extends to all the Nations of the World and then it shall extend to thee in particular who art a part of this world He is come into the world and into thee From hence we shall descend to our second branch to the considerations of the person that comes and he is first Christus in which one name we find first his capacity to reconcile God and man because he is a mixt person uniting both in himself and we find also his Commission to work this Reconciliation because he is Christus an annointed person appointed by that unction to that purpose And thirdly we find him to be Jesus that is actually a Saviour that as we had first his capacity and his Commission in the name of Christ so we might have the execution of this Commission in the name of Jesus And then lastly in the last branch of this part we shall see the work it self Venit salvare He came to save It is not offerre to offer it to them whom he did intend it to but he came really and truly to save It was not to show a land of promise to Moyses then say there it is but thou shalt never come at it It was not to shew us salvation then say there it is in Baptism it is in Preaching and in the other Sacrament it is but soft there is a Decree of predestination against thee and thou shalt have none of it But venit salvare He came to save And whom Sinners Those who the more they ackowledg themselves to be so the nearer they are to this salvation First then for the Advent this comming of Christ Part 1. we have a Rule reasonable general in the school Missio in divinis est novo modo operatio Then is any person of the Trinity said to be sent or to come when they work in any place or in any person in another manner or measure then they did before yet that Rule doth not reach home to the expressing of all commings of the persons of the Trinity The second person came more pretentially then so more then in an extraordinary working and Energie and execution of his power if it be rightly apprehended by those Fathers who in many of those Angels which appear'd to the Patriarcks and whose service God us'd in delivering Israel out of Egypt and in giving them the Law in Sinai to be the son of God himself to have been present and many things to have been attributed to the Angels in those histories which were done by the son of God not only working but present in that place at that time So also the Holy Ghost came more presentially then so more then by an extraordinary extention of his power when he came presentially and personally in the Dove to seal Johns Baptism upon Christ But yet though those pretential commings of Christ as an Angel in the old Testament and this comming of the Holy Ghost in a Dove in the New were more then ordinary commings and more then extraordinary workings too yet they were all far short of this comming of the son of God in this Text for it could never be said properly in any of those cases That that or that Angel was the son of God the second person or that that Dove was the Holy Ghost or the third person of the Trinity but in this Advent which we have in hand here it is truly and properly said this man is God this son of Mary is the son of God this Carpenters son is that very God that made the world He came so to us as that he became us not only by a new and more powerful working in us but by assuming our nature upon himself It is a perplex't question in the School and truly the Balance in those of the middle age very even whether if Adam had not sinned the son of God had come into the world and taken our nature and our flesh upon him Out of the infinite testimonies of
not give my glory unto another says God in Isaiah 48.11 We finde great Titles attributed to and assumed by Princes both Spiritual and Temporal Celsitudo vestra vestra Majestas is daily given and duly given amongst us and Sanctitas vestra vestra beatitudo is given amongst others Aben-Ezra and some other Rabbins mistake this matter so much as to deny that any person in the old Testament ever speakes of himself in the plural number Nos We 1 Reg. 12.9 22.3 2 Chro. 10.9 That 's mistaken by them for there are Examples But it is more mistaken in practise by the Generals nay Provincials of some Orders of Fryars In libros Porret in Mat. c. when they sign and subscribe in form and stile of Princes Nos Frater We Fryar N. c. It is not hard to name some that have taken to themselves the addition of Divus in their life-time a stile so high as that Bellarmine denies that it appertains to any Saint in heaven and yet these men have canoniz'd themselves without the consent of Rome and yet remain'd good Sons of that Mother too We shall finde in ancient stiles that high addition Eternitas nostra Our Eternity and not onely in ancient but in our own days another equal to that given to a particular Cardinal Numen Vestrum Your Godhead We find a Letter in Baronius to a Pope from a King of Britain and so Baronius leaves it and does not tell us which Britain he could have been content to have had it thought ours but he that hath abridg'd his Book hath abridg'd his Britain too there it is Britania minor Spondamus But he was a King and therefore had power if he fill'd his place and wisdom too if he answered his name for his name was Solomon and this King we finde reduc'd to this lowness as that he writes to that Bishop Adrian 2. in that stile Precor omnipotentiam Dignitatis vestrae he gives him the Title of God Almighty But two or three years before he was far from it then when he writ he plac'd his own name above the Popes but it is a slippery declination if it be not a precipitation to come at all under him great Titles have been taken Ambition goes far and great given Flattery goes as far greater then this in the Text perchance have but it hath not fallen within my narrow reading and observation that ever Prince took that ever subject gave this Title Gloria nostra or vestra May it please your Glory or It hath seem'd good to our Glory Glory be to God on high and glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost and no more As long as that scurff that leprosie sticks to every thing in this world Vanitas Vanitatum that all is vanity can any glory in any thing of this world be other then vain-glory What Title of Honour hath any man had in any State in Court that some prison in that State hath not had men of that Title in it Nay what Title hath any Heraulds Book that Lucifers Book hath not Or who can be so great in this World but that as great as he have perished in the next As it is not good for men to eat much honey Prov. 25.27 so for men to search their own glory is not glory Crowns are the Emblems of Glory and Kings out of their abundant Greatness and Goodness derive and distribute Crowns to Persons of Title and by those Crowns and those Titles they are Consanguinei Regis the Kings Cousins Christ Jesus is crowned with glory in Heaven and he sheds down Coronets upon you Honour and Blessings here that you might be Consanguinei Regis contract a spiritual Kindred with that King and be idem Spiritus cum Domino as inseparable from his Father as he himself is The glory of Gods Saints in Heaven is not so much to have a Crown as to lay down that Crown at the Feet of the Lamb. The glory of good men here upon earth is not so much to have Honour and Favour and Fortune as to employ those Beams of Glory to his glory that gave them In our poor calling God hath given us grace but grace for grace as the Apostle saies that is grace to derive and convey and seal grace to you To those of higher Rank God hath given glory and glory for glory glory therefore to glorifie him in a care of his glory And because he dwells in luce inaccessibili in a glorious light which you cannot see here glorifie him in that wherein you may see him in that wherein he hath manifested himself glorifie him in his glorious Gospel employ your Beams of Glory Honour Favour Fortune in transmitting his Gospel in the same glory to your Children as you receiv'd it from your Fathers for in this consists this Mystery of Godliness which is Faith with a pure Conscience And in this lies your best Evidence That you are already co-assumed with Christ Jesus into glory by having so laid an unremoveable hold upon that Kingdom which he hath purchased for you with the inestimable price of his incorruptible Blood To which glorious Son of God c. A Lent-SERMON Preached to the KING Serm. 5. At WHITE-HALL February 12. 1629. SERMON V. MAT. 6.21 For where your Treasure is there will your Heart be also I Have seen Minute-glasses Glasses so short-liv'd If I were to preach upon this Text to such a glass it were enough for half the Sermon enough to show the worldly man his Treasure and the Object of his heart for where your Treasure is there will your Heart be also to call his eye to that Minute-glass and to tell him There flows there flies your Treasure and your Heart with it But if I had a Secular Glass a Glass that would run an age if the two Hemispheres of the World were composed in the form of such a Glass and all the World calcin'd and burnt to ashes and all the ashes and sands and atoms of the World put into that Glass it would not be enough to tell the godly man what his Treasure and the Object of his Heart is A Parrot or a Stare docile Birds and of pregnant imitation will sooner be brought to relate to us the wisdom of a Council Table then any Ambrose or any Chrysostome Men that have Gold and Honey in their Names shall tell us what the Sweetness what the Treasure of Heaven is and what that mans peace that hath set his Heart upon that Treasure As Nature hath given us certain Elements and all Bodies are compos'd of them and Art hath given us a certain Alphabet of Letters and all Words are compos'd of them so our blessed Saviour in these three Chapters of this Gospel hath given us a Sermon of Texts of which all our Sermons may be compos'd All the Articles of our Religion all the Canons of our Church all the Injunctions of our
needed And that he might give full satisfaction even to Calumniators every way as he answer'd them out of Scriptures and out of Reason so because the Pharisees were States-men too and led by Precedents and Records he answers out of the tenour and letter of his Commission and Instructions which is that part of his answer that falls most directly into our Text Veni vocare I came to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance First then venit he came he is come venit actu he came in promise often ratified before Venit Actu now there is no more room for John Baptist's question Tune ille Art thou he that should come or must we look for another For another coming of the same Messias we do look but not for another Messias we look for none after him no post-Messias we joyn none Saints nor Angels with him no sub-Messias no vice-Messias The Jews may as well call the history of the Floud Prophetical and ask when the world shall be drown'd according to that Prophecie or the history of their deliverance from Babylon Prophetical and ask when they shall return from thence to Jerusalem according to that Prophecie as seek for a Messias now amongst their Prophets so long after all things being perform'd in Christ which were prophesied of the Messias Christ hath so fully made Prophecie History Venit actu He is really personally actually come Venit sponte and then venit sponte he is come freely and of his own meer goodness How freely Come and not sent Yes he was sent God so loved the world as that he gave his onely begotten Son for it There was enough done to magnifie the mercy of the Father in sending him How freely then Come and not brought Yes he was brought The holy Ghost overshadowed the blessed virgin and so he was conceiv'd there was enough done to magnifie the goodness of the holy Ghost in bringing him He came to his prison he abhorr'd not the Virgins womb and not without a Mittimus he was sent He came to the Execution and not without a desire of Reprieve in his Transeat Calix If it be possible let this cup pass from me and yet venit sponte he came freely voluntarily of his own goodness No more then he could have been left out at the Creation and the world made without him could he have been sent into this world without his own hand to the Warrant or have been left out at the decree of his sending As when he was come no man could have taken away his soul if he had not laid it down so if we might so speak no God no person in the Trinity could have sent him if he had not been willing to come Venit actu he is come there 's our comfort venit sponte he came freely there 's his goodness And so you have the Action Venit He came The next is his Errand his Purpose what he came to do Vocare Venit vocare He came to call It is not vocatus That Christ came when we call'd upon him to come Man had no power no will no not a faculty to wish that Christ would have come Non occurrere till Christ did come and call him For it is not Veni occurrere That Christ came to meet them who were upon the way before Man had no pre-disposition in Nature to invite God to come to him August Quid peto ut venias in me qui non essem si non esses in me How should I pray at first that God would come into me when as I could not onely not have the spirit of prayer but not the spirit of life and being except God were in me already Where was I when Christ call'd me out of my Raggs nay out of my Ordure and wash'd me in the Sacramental water of Baptism and made me a Christian so Where was I when in the loyns of my sinful parents and in the unclean act of generation Christ call'd me into the Covenant and made me the childe of Christian parents Could I call upon him to do either of these for me Or if I may seem to have made any step towards Baptism because I was within the Covenant or towards the Covenant because I was of Christian parents yet where was I when God call'd me when I was not as though I had been in the Eternal Decree of my Election What said I for my self or what said any other for me then when neither I nor they had any being God is found of them that sought him not Non venit occurrere He came not to meet them who were of themselves set out before Non Cogere But then non venit cogere He came not to force and compel them who would not be brought into the way Christ saves no man against his will There is a word crept into the later School that deludes many a man they call it Irresistibility and they would have it mean that when God would have a man he will lay hold upon him by such a power of grace as no perversness of that man can possibly resist There is some truth in the thing soberly understood for the grace of God is more powerful then any resistance of any man or devil But leave the word where it was hatcht in the School and bring it not home not into practice for he that stays his conversion upon that God at one time or other will lay hold upon me by such a power of Grace as I shall not be able to resist may stay till Christ come again to preach to the spirits that are in prison 1 Pet. 3.19 Christ beats his Drum but he does not Press men Christ is serv'd with Voluntaries There is a Compelle intrare Luk. 14.23 A forcing of men to come in and fill the house and furnish the supper but that was an extraordinary commission and in a case of Necessity Our ordinary commission is Ite praedicate Go and preach the Gospel and bring men in so it is not Compelle intrare Force men to come in it is not Draw the Sword kindle the Fire winde up the Rack for when it was come to that Mat. 22.10 that men were forc'd to come in as that Parabolical story is reported in this Evangelist the house was fill'd and the supper was furnisht the Church was fill'd and the Communion-table frequented but it was with good and bad too for men that are forc'd to come hither they are not much the better in themselves nor we much the better assur'd of their Religion for that Force and violence pecuniary and bloudy Laws are not the right way to bring men to Religion in cases where there is nothing in consideration but Religion meerly 'T is true there is a Compellite Manere that hath all justice in it when men have been baptiz'd and bred in a Church and embrac'd the profession of a Religion so as that
that thou sets thy love upon in this world He threads a string of the best stones of the best Jewels in this world knowledge in the first Chapter delicacies in the second long life in the third Ambition Riches Fame strength in the rest and then he shows you an Ice a flaw a cloud in all these stones he layes this infamy upon them all vanity and vexation of spirit Vanitas Which two words vanity and vexation because they go through all to every thing Solomon applies one of them they are the inseparable Laeven that sowers all and therefore are intended as well of this Text as of the other text we shall by the way make a little stop upon those two words first how could the wisedome of Solomon and of the Holy Ghost avile and abase this world more then by this annihilating of it in the name of vanity for what is that It is not enough to receive a definition it is so absolutely nothing as that we cannot tell you what it is Let Saint Bernard do it vanum est quod nec confert plenitudinem continenti for who amongst you hath not room for another bagg or amongst us for another benefice nec fulcimentum innitentï for who stands fast upon that which is not fast it self and the world passeth and the lusts thereof Nec fructum laboranti for you have sowen much and bring in little yee eat but have not enough yee drink but are not filled yee are cloth'd but wax not warm Agg. 1.16 and he that earneth wages puts it into a bagg with holes midsummer runs out at Michalmas and at years end he hath nothing And such a vanity is this world least it were not enough to call it vanity alone simply vanity though that language in which Solomon and the Holy Ghost spoke have no degrees of comparison no superlative they cannot say vanissimum the greatest vanity yet Solomon hath sound a way to expresse the height of it another way conformable to that language when he calls it vanitatem vanitatum for so doth it Canticum Canticorum The Song of Songs Deus Deorum the God of gods Dominus dominantium The Lord of Lords Coeli Coelorum The Heaven of Heavens alwaies signifie the superlative and highest degree of those things vanity of vanities is the deepest vanity the emptiest vanity the veriest vanity that can be conceived Saint Augustin apprehended somewhat more in it but upon a mistaking Aug. Retract for accustoming himself to a Latin copy of the Scriptures and so lighting upon copies that had been miswritten he reads that vanitas vani antum O the vanity of those men that delight in vanity he puts this lowness this annihilation not only in the thing but in the Men themselves too And so certainly he might safely do for though as he saies in his Retractations his Copies milled him yet that which he collected even by that errour was true they that trust in vain things are as vain as the things themselves If Saint Augustin had not his warrant to say so from Solomon here yet he had it from his Father before who did not stop at that when he had said Man is like to vanity Psal 144.4.39.5 but proceeeds farther surely that is without all contradiction every Man that is without all exception in his best state that is without any declination is altogether vanity Let no man grudge to acknowledge it of himself The second man that ever was begot and born into this world and then there was world enough before him to make him great and the first good man had his name from vanity Cain the first man had his name from possession but the second Habel had his name from vacuity from vanity from vanishing for it is the very word that Solomon uses here still for vanity Because his parents repose no confidence in Habel for they thought that Cain was the Messias they called him vanity Because God knew that Habel had no long term in this world he directed them he suffered them to call him vanity But therefore principally was he and so may we be content with the name of vanity that so acknowledging our selves to be but vanity we may turn for all our being and all our well being for our essence and existence and subsistence upon God in whom onely we live and move and have our being for take us at our best make every one an Abel and yet that is but Evanescentia in nihilum a vanishing an evapourating When the Prophets are said to speak the motions Jer. 23.16 and notions the visions of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord then because that was indeed nothing for a lye is nothing they are said in this very word to speak vanity And still 1 Cor. 8.4 where the Prophets have that phrase in the person of God provocaverunt me vanitatibus They have provoked God with their vanities the Chaldee Paraphrase ever expresseth it Idolis with their Idols and Idolum nihil est an Idol 1 Cor. 8.4 that is vanity is nothing Man therefore can have no deeper discouragement from enclining to the things of this world then to be taught that they are nothing nor higher encouragement to cleave to God for the next then to know that himself is nothing too This last of our selves is St. Pauls humility 2 Cor. 12.11 Esa 40.15 I am nothing The first of other Creatures is the Prophet Isaiahs instruction The nations are as a drop of the bucket as the dust of the ballance the Isles are as a little dust This was little enough but all nations are before him as nothing that was much less for the disproportion between the least thing and nothing is more infinite then between the least thing and the whole world But there is a diminution of that too they are all less then nothing and what 's that vanity in that place Nihilum in ane and that 's as low as Solomon carries them Vexatio Gen. 6.5 But because all the imaginations of the thoughts of mans heart are onely evil continually as Moses heightens the Corruption of man and therefore men are not so much affrighted with this returning to nothing for they could be content to vanish at last and turn to nothing there appears no harm to them in that that the world comes to nothing what care they when they have no more use of it and there appears an ease to them if their souls might come to nothing too therefore Solomon calls this world not onely nothing vanity but affliction and vexation of spirit Tell a natural voluptuous man of two sorts of torments in hell Poena damni and Poena sensus one of privation he shall not see God and the other of reall Torments he shall be actually tormented the loss of the sight of God will not so much affect him for he never saw him in his life not in the marking
wrapped up in a decree of his coming And therefore we are not carried upon the consideration of any decree or if any means of salvation higher or precedent to the comming of Christ for that were to antidate eternity it self So then this coming in the Text is the execution of that coming in the decree which is involv'd in St. Johns In principio and it is the performance of it coming which was enwrapped in the promise in Moses In principio 10.24 it is his actual coming in our flesh that coming of which Christ said in St. Luke many Prophets and Kings 13.17 and in St. Matth. many Prophets and righteous men desired to see these things which you see and have not seen them the prophets who in their very name were videntes seen saw not this comining thus Joh. 8.56 your Father Abraham rejoyced to see my day saith Christ and he saw it and was glad All times and all Generations before time was were Christs day but yet he cals this coming in the flesh especially his day because this day was a holy Equinoctial and made the day of the Jews and the day of the Gentiles equal and Testamenta copulat saies St. Chrisostome it binds up the two Testaments into one Bible for if the Partriarks had not desired to see this day and had not seen it in the strength of faith they and we had not been of one communion We have a most sure word of the Prophet 2 Pet. 1.19 saies the Apostle and to that we do well that we take heed but how far As unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts But now since this coming 1 Joh. 1.2 This light hath appeared and we have seen it and bear witness and shew it unto you Simon had an assurance in the Prophets and more immediatly then so in the vision but herein was his assurance and his peace established Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace Luk. 2.19 for mine eyes have seen thy salvation The kingdom of Heaven was but a reversion to them and it is no more to us but to them it was a reversion as after a Grandfather and father two lives two comings of Christ before they would come to their state Christ must come first in the flesh and he must come again to Judgment To us and in our case one of these lives is spent Christ is come in the flesh and therefore as the earth is warmer an hour after the sun sets then it was an hour before the sun rose so let our faith and zeal be warmer now after Christ departing out of this world then theirs was before his coming into it and let us so rejoyce at this Ecce venit Rex tuus that our King our Missias is already come as that we may cherefully say veni Domine Jesu come Lord Jesu come quickly and be glad if at the going out of these dores we might meet him coming in the clouds In Mundum Thus far then he hath proceeded already venit He came and venit in mundum He came into the world it is not in mundam into so clean a woman as had no sin at all none contracted from her Parents no original sin for so Christ had placed his favours and his honors ill if he had favoured her most who had no need of him to dye for all the world and not for his mother or to dye for her when she needed not that hell is a strange imagination she was not without sin for then why should she have died for even a natural death in all that come by natural generation is of sin But certainly as she was a vessel reserved to receive Christ Jesus so she was preserved according to the best capacity of that nature from great and infections sins Mary Magdalen was a holy vessel after Christ had thrown the Divel out of her the Virgin Mary was much more so into whom no reigning power of the Devil ever entred in such an acceptation then Christ came per mundam in mundum by a clean woman into an unclean world And he came in a purpose as we do piously believe to manifest himself in the Christian Religion to all the nations of the world and therefore laetentur Insulae saies David The Lord reigneth let the Island rejoyce the Island who by reason of their situation provision and trading have most means of conveying Christ Jesus over the world He hath caâ—ried us up to heaven set us at the right hand of God shal not we endeavour to carry him to those nations who have not yet heard of his name shall we still brag that we have brought our clothes and our hatchets and our knives and bread to this and this value and estimation amongst those poor ignorant Souls and shall we never glory that we have brought the name and Religion of Christ Jesus in estimation amongst them shall we stay till other nations have planted a fals Christ among them and then either continue in our sloth or take more pains in rooting out a false Christ then would have planted the true Christ is come into the world we will do little if we will not ferry him over and propagate his name as well as our own to other Nations At least be sure that he is so far come into the world as that he become into thee Thou art but a little world a world but of a few spanns in length 〈◊〉 and yet Christ was sooner carried from east to west from Jerusalem to these parts then thou canst carry him over the faculties of thy Soul and Body He hath been in a pilgrimage towards thee long coming towards thee perchance 50 perchance 60 years and how far is he got into thee yet Is he yet come to thine eye Have they made Jobs Covenant that they will not look upon a Maid yet he is not come into thine ear still thou hast an itching ear delighting in the libellous defamation of other men Is he come to thine ear Art thou rectified in that sense yet voluptousness in thy tast or inordinateness in thy other senses keep him out in those He is come into thy mouth to thy tongue but he is come thither as a diseased person is taken into a spittle to have his blood drawn to have his flesh cauterized to have his bones sawd Christ Jesus is in thy mouth but in such exrecations in such blasphemies as would he Earthquaks to us if we were earth but we are all stones and rock obdurate in a senselesnes of those wounds which are inflicted upon our God He may be come to the skirts to the borders to an outward show in thine actions and yet not be come into the land into thy heart He entred into thee at baptism He hath crept farther and farther into thee in catechisms and other infusions of his doctrine into thee He
just occasion to exercise the same affection piously and religiously which had before so sinfully transported and possest it A covetous person who is now truly converted to God he will exercise a spiritual covetousness still he will desire to have him all he will have good security the seal and assurance of the holy Ghost and he will have his security often renewed by new testimonies and increases of those graces in him he will have witnesses enough he will have the testimonie of all the world by his good life and conversation he will gain every way at Gods hand he will have wages of God for he will be his servant he will have a portion from God for he will be his Son he will have a reversion he will be sure that his name is in the book of life he will have pawns the seals of the Sacraments nay he will have a present possession all that God hath promised all that Christ hath purchased all that the holy Ghost hath the stewardship and dispensation of he will have all in present by the appropriation and investiture of an actual and applying faith a covetous person converted will be spiritually covetous still So will a voluptuous man who is turned to God find plenty and deliciousnes enough in him to feed his soul as with marrow and with fatness as David expresses it and so an angry and passionate man will find zeal enough in the house of God to eat him up All affections which are common to all men and those to which in particular particular men have been adicted to shall not only be justly employed upon God but also securely employed because we cannot exceed nor go too far in imploying them upon him According to this Rule Col. 1. St. Paul who had been so vehement a persecutor had ever his thoughts exercised upon that and thereupon after his conversion he fulfils the rest of the sufferings of Christ in his flesh he suffers most he makes most mention of his suffering of any of the Apostles And according to this Rule too Salomon whose disposition was amorous and excessive in the love of women when he turn'd to God he departed not utterly from his old phrase and language but having put a new and a spiritual tincture and form and habit in all his thoughts and words he conveyes all his loving approaches and applications to God and all Gods gracious answers to his amorous soul into songs and Epithalamians and meditations upon contracts and marriages between God and his Church and between God and his soul as we see so evidently in all his other writings and particularly in this text I love them c. August In which words is expressed all that belongs to love all which is to desire and to enjoy for to desire without fruition is a rage and to enjoy without desire is a stupidity In the first alone we think of nothing but that which we then would have and in the second alone we are not for that when we have it in the first we are without it in the second we were as good we were for we have no pleasure in it nothing then can give us satisfaction but where those two concurr amare and frui to love and to enjoy In sensual love it is so Quid erat quod me delectabat nisi amare et amari I take no joy in this world but in loving and in being beloved in sensual love it is so but in sensual love when we are come so far there is no satisfaction in that the same Father confesseth more of himself then any Commission any oath would have put him to Amatus sum et perveni occulte ad fruendum I had all I desir'd and I had it with that advantage of having it secretly but what got I by all that Ut caederer virgis ardentibus ferreis zeli suspicionis et rixarum nothing but to be scourg'd with burning iron rods rods of jealousie of suspition and of quarrels but in the love and enjoying of this text there is no room for Jealousie nor suspition nor quarrelsome complaining Devisio In this text then you may be pleased to consider these two things Quid amare quid frui what the affection of this love is what is the blessedness of this enjoying but in the first of these we must first consider the persons who are the lovers in this text for there are persons that are incredible though they say they love because they are accustomed to falshood and there are persons which are unrequitable though they be believed to love because they love not where as they should When we have found the persons in a second consideration we shall look upon the affection it self what is the love in this text and then after that upon the bond and union and condition of this love that it is mutual I love them that love me and having passed those three branches of the first part we shall in the second which is enjoying consider first that this enjoying is expressed in the word finding and then that this finding requires two conditions a seeking and an early seeking And they that seek me early shall find me The Person that professes love in this place is wisdom her self First part The Person as appears at the beginning of the Chapter so that sapere et amare to be wise to love which perchance never met before nor since are met in this text but whether this wisdom so frequently mentioned in this book of Proverbs be sapientia creata or increat whether it be the wisdom or the root of wisdom Christ Jesus hath been diversly debated the occasion grew in that great Councel of Nice where the Catholick Fathers understood this wisdom to be intended of Christ himself and then the Arrian hereticks pressed some places of this book where such things seemed to them to be spoken of wisdom as could not be applyable to any but to a Creature and that therefore if Christ were this wisdom Christ must necessarily be a Creature and not God We will not dispute those things over again now they are clearly enough largely enough set down in that Councel but since there is nothing said of wisdom in all this book which hath not been by good expositors applied to Christ much more may we presume the lover in this text though presented in the name of wisdom to be Christ himself and so we do To shew the constancy and durableness of this love the lover is a he that is Christ to shew the vehemency and earnestness of it the lover is a shee that is wisdom as it is often expressed in this Chapter she crieth she uttereth her voice yea in one place of the Bible and only in that one place I think where Moses would express an extraordinary and vehement and passionate indignation in God against his people when as it is in that text his wrath was kindled and grievously
any thing that shall be said before lessen but rather enlarge your devotion to that which shall be said of his Passion at the time of the due solemnization thereof Christ bled not a drop the lesse at last for having bled at his Circumcision before nor will you shed a teare the lesse then if you shed some now And therefore be now content to consider with me how to this God the Lord belong'd the issues of Death That God the Lord The Lord of Life could die is a strange contemplation That the red-Sea could be dry Potuisse Mori Exod. 14.21 That the Sun could stand still Jos 10.12 That an Oven could be seven times heat and not burn That Lyons could be hungry and not bite is strange miraculously strange But super-miraculous That God could die But that God would die is an exaltation of that But even of that also it is a super-exaltation that God should die must die and non exitus saith Saint Augustin God the Lord had no issue but by death and oportuit pati saith Christ himself all this Christ ought to suffer was bound to suffer Psal 94.1 Voluisse Mori Deus ultionum Deus saith David God is the God of Revenges He would not passe over the sin of man unrevenged unpunished But then Deus ultionum libere egit sayes that place The God of Revenges works freely he punishes he spares whom he will and would he not spare himself He would not Dilectio fortis ut Mors Can. 8.6 Love is as strong as Death stronger it drew in Death that naturally was not welcome Si possibile saith Christ If it be possible let this Cup passe when his Love expressed in a former Decree with his Father had made it impossible Many waters quench not Love Christ tryed many He was baptized out of his Love v. 7. and his love determin'd not there He wept over Jerusalem out of his love and his love determined not there He mingled blood with water in his Agony and that determined not his love He wept pure blood all his blood at all his eyes at all his pores in his flagellations and thornes to the Lord our God belonged the issues of blood and these expressed but these did not quench his love Oportuisse Mori He would not spare nay he would not spare himself There was nothing more free more voluntary more spontaneous then the death of Christ 'T is true libere egit he died voluntarily But yet when we consider the contract that had passed between his Father and him there was an Oportuit a kinde of necessity upon him All this Christ ought to suffer And when shall we date this obligation this Oportuit this necessity when shall we say it begun Certainly this Decree by which Christ was to suffer all this was an eternall Decree and was there any thing before that that was eternall Infiâ—ite love eternall love be pleased to follow this home and to consider it seriously that what liberty soever we can conceive in Christ to dy or not to dy this necessity of dying this Decree is as eternall as that Liberty and yet how small a matter made he of this Necessity and this dying Gen. 3.15 His Father calls it but a Bruise and but a bruising of his heele The Serpent shall bruise his heele and yet that was that the Serpent should practise and compasse his death Himself calls it but a Baptism as though he were to be the better for it I have a Baptism to be baptized with Luk. 12.50 and he was in paine till it was accomplished and yet this Baptism was his death The holy-Ghost calls it Joy For the joy which was set before him he endured the Crosse which was not a joy of his reward after his passion Heb. 12.2 but a joy that filled him even in the middest of those torments and arose from them When Christ cals his passion Calicem a cup and no worse Can ye drink of my cup He speaks not odiously not with detestation of it indeed it was a cup salus mundo Mat. 20.22 A health to all the world and quid retribuem saies David Psal 116.12 What shall I render unto the Lord Answer you with David Accipiam Calicom I will take the cup of salvation Take that that cup of salvation his passion if not into your present imitation yet into your present contemplation and behold how that Lord who was God yet could die would die must die for your salvation That Moses and Elias talked with Christ in the transfiguration both St. Matthew and St. Mark tel us but what they talked of Mat 17.3 Mat. 9.4 Luc. 9.31 only St. Luke Dicebant excessum ejus saies he they talked of his decease of his death which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem The word is of his Exodus the very word of our Text Exitus his issue by death Moses who in his Exodus had prefigured this issue of our Lord and in passing Israel out of Egypt through the red sea had foretold in that actual prophecy Christs passing of mankind through the sea of his blood and Elias whose Exodus and issue out of this world was a figure of Christs ascension had no doubt a great satisfaction in talking with our blessed Lord De excessu ejus of the full consummation of all this in his death which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem Our meditation of his death should be more viseral and affect us more because it is of a thing already done The ancient Romans had a certain tenderness and detestation of the name of death they would not name death no not in their wils there they would not say Si mori contingat but Si quid humanitas contingat not if or when I die but when the course of nature is accomplished upon me To us that speak daily of the death of Christ He was crucified dead and buried can the memory or the mention of our death be irksome or bitter There are in these latter times amongst us that name death freely enough and the death of God but in blasphemous oaths and execrations Miserable men who shall therefore be said never to have named Jesus because they have named him too often and therefore hear Jesus say Nescive vos I never knew you because they made themselves too familiar with him Moses and Elias talked with Christ of his death only in a holy and joyful sence of the benefit which they and all the world were to receive by it Discourses of religion should not be out of curiosity but edification And then they talked with Christ of his death at that time when he was at the greatest heighth of glory that ever he admitted in this world that is his transfiguration And we are afraid to speak to the great men of this world of their death but nourish in them a vain imagination of immortallity and immutability But bonum est
nobis esse hic as St. Peter said there It is good to dwell here in this consideration of his death and therefore transfer we our Tabernacle our devotion through some of these steps which God the Lord made to his issue of death that day Take in his whole day from the hour that Christ eat the passover upon Thursday to the hour in which he died the next day Make this present day Conformitas that day in thy devotion and consider what he did and remember what you have done Before he instituted and celebrated the sacrament which was after the eating of the passover he proceeded to the act of humility to wash his Disciples feet even Peters who for a while resisted him In thy preparation to the holy and blessed sacrament hast thou with a sincere humilty sought a reconciliation with all the world even with those who have been averse from it and refused that reconciliation from thee If so and not else thou hast spent that first part of this his last day in a conformity with him After the sacrament he spent the time til night in prayer in preaching in Psalms Hast thou considered that a worthy receiving of the sacrament consists in a continuation of holiness after as wel as in a preparation before If so thou hast therein also conformed thy self to him so Christ spent his time till night At night he went into the garden to pray and he prayed prolixius He spent much time in prayer Luc. 22.24 How much because it is literally expressed that he praied there three several times and that returning to his Disciples after his first prayer and finding them asleep said could ye not watch with me one hour Mat. 26.40 it is collected that he spent three houres in prayer I dare scarce ask thee whither thou wentst or how thou disposedst of thy self when it grew dark and after last night If that time were spent in a holy recommendation of thy self to God and a submission of thy will to his that it was spent in a conformity to him In that time and in those prayers was his agony and bloody sweat I will hope that thou didst pray but not every ordinary and customary prayer but prayer actually accompanied with shedding of tears and dispositively in a readiness to shed blood for his glory in necessary cases puts thee into a corformity with him About midnight he was taken and bound with a kiss Art thou not too conformable to him in that Is not that too literally too exactly thy case At midnight to have been taken and bound with a kiss from thence he was carried back to Jerusalem first to Annas then to Caiphas and as late as it was there he was examined and buffeted and delivered over to the custody of those officers from whom he received all those irrâ—sions and violences the covering of his face the spitting upon his face the blasphemies of words and the smartness of blows which that Gospel mentions In which compass fell that Gallicinium that crowing of the Cock which called up Peter to his repentance How thou passedst all that time last night thou knowest If thou didst any thing then that needed Peters tears and hast not shed them let me be thy Cock do it now now thy Master in the unworthyest of his servants looks back upon thee Do it now Betimes in the morning as soon as it was day the Jews held a Councel in the high Priests house and agreed upon their evidence against him then carried him to Pilate who was to be his Judg. Didst thou accuse thy self when thou wak'dst this morning wast thou content to admit even fals accusations that is rather to suspect actions to have been sin which were not then to smother justifie such as were truly sins then thou spendst that hour in conformity to him Pilat found no evidence against him therefore to ease himself to pass a complement upon Herod Tetrarch of Galilee who was at that time at Jerusalem because Christ being a Galilean was of Herods jurisdiction Pilat sent him to Herod rather as a mad man then a malefactor Herod remanded him with scorns to Pilat to proceed against him this was about 8 of the Clock Hast thou been content to come to this inquisition this examination this agitation this cribration this pursuit of thy conscience to sift it to follow it from the sins of thy youth to thy present sins from the sins of thy bed to the sins of thy board and from the substance to the circumstance of thy sins that 's time spent like thy Saviours Pilat would have sav'd Christ by using the priviledg of the day in his behalf because that day one prisoner was to be delivered but they chose Barrabas He would have sav'd him from death by satisfying their fury with inflicting other torments upon him scourging and crowning with thorns loading him with many scornful ignominious contumelies but this redeem'd him not they press'd a crucifying Hast thou gone about to redeem thy sin by fasting by alms by disciplines mortifications in the way of satisfaction to the justice of God that will not serve that 's not the right way We press an utter crucifying of that sin that governs thee and that conforms thee to Christ Towards noon Pilat gave Judgment and they made such hast to execution as that by noon he was upon the Cross There now hangs that sacred body upon the cross re-baptiz'd in his own tears sweat and embalm'd in his own blood alive There are those bowels of compassion which are so conspicuous so manifested as that you may see them through his wounds There those glorious eyes grew faint in their light so as the Sun asham'd to survive them departed with his light too And there that Son of God who was never from us yet had now come a new way unto us in assuming our nature delivers that soul which was never out of his Fathers hands into his Fathers hands by a new way a voluntary emission thereof for though to this God our Lord belong these issues of death so that considered in his own contract he must necessarily dy yet at no breach nor battery which they had made upon his sacred body issues his soul but emisit he gave up the Ghost as God breath'd a soul into the first Adam so this second Adam breath'd his soul into God into the hands of God There we leave you in that blessed dependancy to hang upon him that hangs upon the cross There bath in his tears there suck at his wounds lie down in peace in his grave till he vouchsafe you a Resurrection an ascension into that Kingdome which he hath purchas'd for you with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood Amen FINIS