A SERMON, PREACHED TO THE KING'S M tie. AT WHITEHALL, 24. Febr. 1625. By JOHN DONNE Deane of Saint Paul's, London. And now by his Maiestes' commandment Published. LONDON, Printed for THOMAS JONES, dwelling at the Black Raven in the Strand. 1626. TO HIS SACRED MAJESTY. MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN AMongst the many comforts of my Ministry, to the embracing whereof, Almighty God was pleased, to move the heart of your Majesty's blessed Father, of holy memory, to move mine, this is a great one, That your Majesty is pleased some times, not only to receive into yourself, but to return, unto others, my poor Meditations, and so by your gracious commandment of publishing them, to make yourself as a Glass, (when the Sun itself is the Gospel of Christ jesus) to reflect, & cast them upon your Subjects. It was a Metaphor in which, your Majesty's Blessed Father seemed to delight; for in the name of a Mirroir, a Looking Glass, he sometimes presented Himself, in his public declarations & speeches to his People; and a continued Metaphor is an Allegory, and holds in more. So your Majesty doth more of the offices of such a Glass; You do that office which Moses his Glasses did, at the Brazen Sea in the Temple, (for you show others their spots, and in a Pious and unspotted life of your own, you show your Subjects their deficiences) And you do the other office of such Glasses, by this communicating to all, the beams which your Majesty received in yourself. We are in Times when the way to Peace is War, but my Profession leads not me to those Wars; And we are in Times when the Peace of the Church, may seem to implore a kind of War, of Debatements and Conferences in some points; but my disposition leads me not to that War neither. For in this Sermon, my only purpose was, that no By-stander, should be hurt, whilst the Fray lasted, with either Opinion. And that your Majesty accepts it so yourself, & so reflects it upon others, I humbly beseech your Majesty to accept also this Sacrifice of Thanksgiving, for that, From Your Sacred Majesty's humblest Subject, and Devotedst Servant and Chaplain. JOHN DONNE. ESAI. 50.1. Thus saith the Lord: Where is the Bill of your Mother's Divorcement whom I have put away? Or which of my Creditors is it, to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have you sold yourselves, and for your transgressions, is your Mother put away. ALL Lent is Easter Eve; And though the Eve be a Fasting day, yet the Eve is halfe-holiday too. God, by our Ministry, would so exercise you in a spiritual Fast, in a sober consideration of sin, and the sad Consequences thereof, as that in the Eve you might see the holy day; in the Lent, your Easter; in the sight of your sins, the cheerfulness of his good will towards you. Nay, in this Text, he gives you your Easter before Lent, your Holiday before the Eve; For first he raises you to the sense of his goodness, Thus saith the Lord, where is the bill of your mother's Divorcement, whom I have put away, Or which of my Creditors is it to whom I have sold you? And then, and not till then, he sinks you, to the sense of your sins, and the dangers of them, Behold, for your iniquities you are sold, and for your transgressions, your Mother is put away. And this Raising, and this Sinking, are his Corks, and his Leads, by which God enables us, whom he hath made Fishers of Men, to cast out his nets, and draw in your souls. Haec dicit Dominus, Thus saith the Lord, says our Prophet here; And, Semel locutus Deus, duo haec audini, Psalm. 62.12 says the Prophet David, Once spoke the Lord, and twice have I heard him; In one speech of the Lords, two instructions, in one piece of his Word, two directions. Thus saith the Lord, where is the Bill, etc. And in these words, some hear him once, some hear him say, That how desperate soever our case be, how irremediable soever our state, we ourselves, and not God, are the cause of that desperate irremediablenesse; some hear him twice, some hear him say, There is no such matter, there is no such peremptory Divorce, there is no such absolute sale, there is no such desperate irremediablenes declared to any particular conscience, as is imagined, but you, any, may return to me, when you will, and I will receive you. Some Expositors think they have gone far enough, when they have raised that sense, God is no cause of our perishing, though we must perish, Others, (and fairly) carry it thus much farther, There is no necessity that any Man, any this or that Man should perish. Some determine it in this, It is true, your Damnation is unavoidable, but you must blame yourselves, Some extend it to this, There is no such avoidablenes in your damnation, and therefore you may comfort yourselves, Once hath the Lord spoken, and twice do we hear him; we hear him once speaking for his own honour, He does not damn us, if we be damned, And we hear him again speaking for our comfort, we need not be damned at all. And therefore, as God hath opened himself to us, both ways, let us open both ears to him, and from one Text receive both Doctrines. Divisio. You may apprehend the parts easily, and as easily comprehend them; They are few, and plain, & of things agreed by all; But two; Those, these; Gods discharge, and Man's Discharge; Gods discharge from all imputation of tyranny, Behold, for your sins you are sold, and for your transgressions your Mother is put away. And then Man's discharge from the necessity of perishing, Vbi iste libellus, Where is the Bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away, Or which of my Creditors is it, to whom I have sold you? I might justly have done both, and left you without just cause of complaint, but yet I have not done it; look to your Bill of Divorce, and look to your bill of sale, and you will find the case to be otherwise. In each of these two parts, there will be some particular branches; In the first, which is God's discharge, first the Ecce, Behold, Behold this and this will fall upon you; first there is a light showed, there is a warning afforded, of those calamities, that will follow, God begins not at judgement, but at Mercy. That Mercy being despised, It will come to a selling away, venditi estis, you are sold, And it will come to a putting away, Dimissa est, your Mother is put away; For God may sell us to punishments for sin, that when the measure of our sin is full, he shall empty the measure of this judgements upon us, And God may sell us to sins for punishments, God may make future sins, the punishments of former. And here may be a Divorce, a putting away, out of God's sight and service, in any particular soul, and there may be a putting away of your Mother, a withdrawing of God's spirit from that Church, to whose breasts he hath applied you. But if all this be done, it is not done out of any tyrannical wantonness in God, for, For your iniquities you are sold, and for your transgressions is your Mother put away: So God is fully discharged in the first part; But, least in the second it should lie heavy upon Man, (for, howsoever God be discharged, He does not kill me, though I die, it is but poor comfort to me, if I must dye, to be told that I have killed myself) God tells me here, there is no such necessity, I need not dye; show the bill of Divorce, says he, which makes your case so desperate, and see if I have not left you ways of returning to me, show the bill of Sale, which makes your state so irrecoverable, and see if I have not left myself ways of redeeming you. And in these few branches, of these two parts, I shall exercise your Devotion, and holy patience, at this time. Part. 1. First then, for the first branch of the first part, the Ecce, Ecce. Behold this will fall upon you, Upon those words of David, Ecce intenderunt, Ecce paraverunt, Behold the wicked have bend their bow, Psal. 11.2. and Behold they have made ready their arrow, Origen says, Origen. Ecce antequam vulneremur, monemur, Before our Enemies hit us, God gives us warning, that they mean to do so. When God himself is so far incensed against us, That he is turned to be our enemy, and to fight against us, (It was come to that, Esay 63, 10 in this Prophet) when he hath bend his how against us, as an Enemy, (It was come to that in the Prophet jeremy) Lam. 2.4. yet still he gives us warning before hand, and still there comes a lightning before his thunder: God comes seldom to that dispatch, a word and a blow, but to a blow without a word, to an execution without a warning, never. Cain took offence at his brother Abel; The quarrel was Gods, because he had accepted Abel's Sacrifice; Therefore God joins himself to Abel's party; and so the party being too strong for Cain to subsist, GOD would not surprise Cain, but he tells him his danger, Why is thy Countenance cast down; Gen 4.10. If thou dost not well, sin lies at thy door: you may proceed if you will, but if you will needs, you will lose by it at last. Saul persecutes Christ in the Christians; Christ meets him upon the way, speaks to him, strikes him to the ground, tells him vocally, and tells him actually, That he hath undertaken too hard a work, in opposing him: This which GOD did to Saul reduces him; that which God did to Cain, wrought not upon him; but still GOD went his own way in both, to speak before he strikes, to lighten before he thunders, to warn before he wounds. In Dathan and abiram's case, Numb. 16. God may seem to proceed apace towards Execution, but yet it had all these pauses in arrest of judgement, & these reprieves before Execution. First, when Moses had information & evidence of their factious Proceeding, vers. 4. he falls not upon them, but he falls upon his face before GOD, and laments, and deprecates in their behalf. He calls them to a fair trial, verse 5. and examination, the next day, To morrow the Lord will show, who are his, and are holy; And they said, verse 12. we will not come; And again, verse 14. (which implies that Moses cited them again) we will not come. Then GOD, upon their contumacy, when they would stand mute, and not plead, takes a resolution, verse 21 to consume them, in a Moment; And then, Moses & Aaron return to petition for them, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, verse 25 shall one Man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with the whole Congregation; And Moses went up to them again, And the Elders of Israel followed, and all prevailed not: And then Moses comes to pronounce judgement, verse 29. These men shall not dye a common death, and after, and yet not presently after that he gave judgement, Execution followed, The earth opened and swallowed them: verse 31 but God begun not there; God opened his Mouth, and Moses his, and Aaron his, and the Elders theirs, before the Earth opened hers. It is our case in the Text; For, whether this judgement wrapped up in the text, This selling away, and this putting away, have relation to the Captivity of the jews in Babylon, before Christ, or to the Dispertion of the jews since Christ, (some Expositors take it one, some the other way) still it is of a future thing: The Prophecy came before the Calamity, wheresoever you pitch it; wheresoever you pitch it, still there was a lightning before the thunder, a word before the blow, a warning before the wound. In which, as we see, that God always leaves a latitude, between his Sentence, and the Execution, (for that Interim, is Sphaera activitatis, the Sphere, in which our Repentance and his Mercy move, and direct themselves in a benign aspect, towards one another, so where this repentance is deferred, and this Mercy neglected, the execution is so certain, so infallible, as that, though this in the Text, be intended for a future judgement, a future Captivity, a future Dispersion, yet in the Text it is presented as present, nay, more than so, as past, and executed already; it is venditi estis, you are sold, sold already, and Dimissa Mater, your Mother is put away, put away already. All gathers and con-centers itself in this, God's judgements and executions are not sudden, there is always room for Repentance, and Mercy, but his judgements and Executions are certain, there is no room for Presumption nor Collusion. Venditi ab Adam. To pursue then the Holy Ghosts two Metaphors, of selling away, and putting away, First, venditi estis, says our Prophet to the jews, and to all, Behold, you are sold; And so they were; sold thrice over; sold by Adam first; sold by themselves every day; and at last, sold by God. For the first general sale by Adam, we complain now, that Land will not sell; that 20. is come to 15. years' purchase; but do we not take too late a Medium, too low a time to reckon by? How cheap was Land at first, how cheap were we? what was Paradise sold for? What was Heaven, what was Mankind sold for? Immortality was sold and what years Purchase was that worth? Immortality is our Eternity; God hath another manner of eternity in him; He hath a whole eternal day; an eternal afternoon, and an eternal forenoon too; for as he shall have no end, so he never had beginning; we have an eternal afternoon in our immortality; we shall no more see an end, than God hath seen a beginning; and Millions of years, multiplied by Millions, make not up a Minute to this Eternity, this Immortality. When Dives values a drop of water at so high a price, what would he give for a River? How poor a Clod of of Earth is a Manor? how poor an inch, a Shire? how poor a span, a Kingdom? how poor a pace, the whole World? and yet how prodigally we sell Paradise, Heaven, Souls, Consciences, Immortality, Eternity, for a few Grains of this Dust? What had Eve for Heaven; so little, as that the Holy Ghost will not let us know, what she had, not what kind of Fruit; yet something Eve had. What had Adam for Heaven? but a satisfaction that he had pleased an Ill wife, as St. Hierome states his fault, that he eat that Fruit, Ne contristaretur Delicias suas, lest he should cast her, whom he loved so much, into an inordinate dejection; but if he satisfied her, and his own Vxoriousnesse, any satisfaction is not nothing. But what had I for Heaven? Adam sinned, and I suffer; I forfeited before I had any Possession, or could claim any Interest; I had a Punishment, before I had a being, And God was displeased with me before I was I; I was built up scarce 50. years ago, in my Mother's womb, & I was cast down, almost 6000. years ago, in Adam's loins; I was borne in the last Age of the world, and died in the first. How & how justly do we cry out against a Man, that hath sold a Town, or sold an Army. And Adam sold the World. He sold Abraham, and Isaac and jacob, and all the Patriarches, and all the Prophets. He sold Peter, and Paul, and both their Regiments, both the glorious Hemispheres of the World, The jews, and the Gentiles. He sold Evangelists, and Apostles, and Disciples, and the Disciple whom the Lord loved, & the beloved Mother of the Lord, herself, say what they will to the contrary. And if Christ had not provided for himself, by a miraculous Generation, Adam had sold him: If Christ had been conceived in Original sin, he must have died for himself, nay, he could not have died for himself, but must have needed another Saviour. It is in that Contemplation, as he was descended from Adam, Rom. 7.14. that St. Paul says of himself, Venundatus, I am carual, sold under sin. For though St. Augustine, and some others of the Fathers, do sometimes take the Apostle, in that place, to speak of himself, as in the person of a natural Man, (that every Man considered in nature, is sold under sin, but the Supernatural, the Sanctified Man is not so) yet St. Augustine himself, in his latest, and gravest Books, and particularly in his Retractions, returns to this sense of these words, That no man, in what measure soever Sanctified, can so emancipate himself from that Captivity, to which Adam hath enthralld him, but that, as he is enwrapped in Original sin, he is sold under sin. And both S. Hierome, and S. Ambrose, (both which, seem in other places, to go an other way, That only they are sold under sin, which have abandoned, and prostituted themselves to particular sins,) do yet return to this sense, That because the Embers, the Spawn, the leaven of Origiginall sin, remains, by Adam's sale, in the best, the best are sold under sin. A Nobis. So the jews were, and so were we sold by Adam, to Original sin, very cheap; but in the second sale, as we are sold to actual, and habitual sins, by ourselves, cheaper; 42.19. for so, says this Prophet, You have sold yourselves for nothing: Ourselves, that is all ourselves; or bodies to intemperance, and riot, and licentiousness, and our souls to a greediness of sin; and all this for nothing, for sin itself, for which we sell ourselves, is but a privation, and privations are nothing. Rom. 6 21. What fruit had you of those things, whereof you are now ashamed, says the Apostle; here is Barrenness and shame; Barrenness is a privation of fruit, shame is a privation of that confidence, which a good Conscience administers, and when the Apostle tells them, they sold themselves for barrenness and shame, it was for privations, for nothing. job. 24.15. The Adulterer waits for the twilight, says job. The Twilight comes, & serves his turn; and sin, to night looks like a Purchase, like a Treasure; but ask this sinner to morrow, and he hath sold himself for nothing; for debility in his limnes, for darkness in his understanding, for emptiness in his purse, for absence of grace in his Soul; and Debilitie, and Darkness, and emptiness, and Absence, are privations, and privations are nothing. All the name of Substance or Treasure that sin takes, is that in the Apostle, The saurizastis Iram Dei, You have treasured up the wrath of God, against the day of wrath: And this is a fearful privation, of the grace of God here, and of the Face of God hereafter; a privation so much worse than nothing, as that they upon whom it falls, would fain be nothing, and cannot. A Deo. So then we were sold, so cheap by Adam, to Original, and cheaper by ourselves, to Actual Sin, but cheapest of all, when we come to be sold by God; For he gives us away, casts us away, delivers us over, to punishments for sin, and to sin for punishment; God makes Sin itself his executioner in us, and future sins, are the punishments of former. Vendit paenis. As some Schoolmasters have used that Discipline, to correct the Children of great Persons, whose personal correction they find reason to forbear, by correcting other Children in their names, and in their sight, and have wrought upon good Natures, that way, So did Almighty God correct the jews in the Egyptians; for the ten plagues of Egypt, were as Moses Decem Verba, as the ten Commandments to Israel, that they should not provoke GOD. Every judgement that falls upon another, should be a Catechism to me. But when this Discipline prevailed not upon them, God sold them away, gave them away, cast them away, in the tempest, in the whirlwind, in the inundation of his indignation, and scattered them as so much dust in a windy day, as so many broken straws upon a wrought Sea. With one word, One Fiat, (Let there be a world,) nay with one thought of God cast toward it, (for Gods speaking in the Creation, was but a thinking,) God made all of Nothing. And is any one rational Ant, (The wisest Philosopher is no more) Is any roaring Lion, (the most ambitious and devouring Prince is no more) Is any hive of Bees, (The wisest Counsels, and Parliaments are no more) Is any of these so estabishd, as that, that God who by a word, by a thought, made them of nothing, cannot by recalling that word, and withdrawing that thought, in sequestering his Providence, reduce them to nothing again? That Man, that Prince, that State thinks Pasteboard Canon-proofe, that thinks Power, or Policy a Rampart, when the Ordinance of God is planted against it. Navyes will not keep off Navies, if God be not the Pilot, Nor Walls keep out Men, if God be not the Sentinel. If they could, if we were walled with a Sea of fire and brimstone without, and walled with Brass within, yet we cannot ciel the Heavens with a roof of Brass, but that God can come down in Thunder that way, Nor pave the Earth with a floor of Brass, but that God can come up in Earthquakes that way. God can call up Damps, & Vapours from below, and pour down putrid defluxions from above, and bid them meet and condense into a plague, a plague that shall not be only uncurable, uncontrollable, unexorable, but undisputable, unexaminable, unquestionable; A plague that shall not only not admit a remedy, when it is come, but not give a reason how it did come. If God had not set a mark upon Cain, every Man, any Man, any thing might have killed him. He apprehended that of himself, and was afraid, when we know of none, by name, in the world, but his Father, and Mother: But, as Saint Heirome exalts this consideration, cain's own Consciennce tells him, Catharma sum, Anathema sum, I am the plague of the world, and I must dye, to deliver it Catharma sum. I am a separated Vagabond, not an Anachorit shut up between two walls, but shut out from all, Anathema sum. As long as the Cherubin, and the fiery Sword is at the Gate, Adam cannot return to Paradise; as long as the Testimonies of GOD'S anger lie at the door of the Conscience, no man can return to peace there. If God sell away a Man, give him away, give way to him, by withdrawing his Providence, he shall but need (as the Prophet says) Sibilare Muscam, to hiss, to whisper for the Fly, for the Bee, for the Hornet, for Foreign Encumbrances; nay, he shall not need to hiss, to whisper for them; for at home, Locusts shall swarm in his Gardens, and Frogs in his bedchamber, & hailstones, as big as talents, (as they are measured in the Revelation) shall break, as well the covered, and the armed, as the bare, & naked head; as well the mitred, and the Turban, & the crowned head, that lifts itself up against GOD, lies open to him, as his that must not put on his Hat, as his that hath no Hat to put on; when as that head, which being exalted here, submits itself to that GOD, that exalted it, GOD shall crown, with multiplied crowns here, and having so crowned that head with Crowns here, he shall crown those crowns, with the Head of all, Christ jesus, and all that is his, hereafter. Vendit peccato. If God sell us away to punishments for sin, it is thus, but if God sell us to sin for punishment, it is worse. For, when God, by the Prophet, offered David, his choice of three Executioners, war, famine, and pestilence, if all these three had taken hold of him, it had not been so heavy, as when God, had sold him over, given him away, into the hands of an Executioner in his own bosom, The studying and the plotting of the prosecution of his sin. When God made Murder, in the death of Vriah, his Bailiff, to attach David for his Adultery, And made Blasphemy, in the triumphant Army of the Gentiles, his Bailiff, to attach David for his Murder, And then made impenitence, and a long senselessness in his sin, his Bailiff to attach David, for that blasphemy, than was David sold, under a dangerous sub-hastation, then lay David under a heavy Execution. Let me fall into the hands of God, and not of Man, says David; Between God and Man, in this case, there may be some kind of comparison, But would any sinner say, Let me fall into the hands of the Devil, and not of Man, rather into more sins, than some punishments. David himself could not conceive a more vehement prayer and imprecation, upon his, and his God's Enemies, Psa. 69.27. then that, Add Iniquity to their Iniquity; Nor hath the Holy Ghost any where expressed a more vehement commination, then that upon jerusalem, (as the vulgat reads that place) Iniquitatem, Ezech 21.26. Iniquitatem, Iniquitatem ponam eam; Which is not Gods multiplying of punishments for sin, but his multiplying of sin itself upon them, till he had made them all Iniquity, all sin. For this is, (in a great part) that which the Apostle calls, Gods giving over to a reprobate sense; to mistake false, and miserable comforts for true comforts; to mollify and assuage the anguish of one sin, by doing another; to maintain prodigality, by Usury, or Extortion; to overcome the inordinate deiections of spirit, with a false cheerfulness and encantation from strong drink: In one word, Sap. 14. 2●. (as the wise man expresses it) to call great plagues peace; To smother sin from the eye of the world, or to slumber the eye of our own conscience from the sight of sin, by interposing more sins. And farther, we carry not this first Metaphor of the Holy Ghost, Venditi estis, You are sold, for, for the deeper impression, he presses it with another, Dimissa est, for your transgressions, your Mother is put away. And here in the way, we consider first Dimissam animam, Dimissa anima. Gods putting away of the Daughter, of any particular soul. And his putting away of such a soul, is his leaving of that soul to itself; when God will not come so near loving it, as to hate it, nor give it so much peace, as to trouble it. For, as long as God punishes me, he gives me Physic; if he draw his knife, it is but to prune his Vine, and if he draw blood, it is but to rectify a distemper: If God break my bones, it is but to set them straiter, And if he bruise me in a Mortar, it is but that I might exhale, and breath up a sweet savour, in his nostrils: I am his handiwork, and if one hand be under me, let the other lie as heavy, as he shall be pleased to lay it, upon me; let God handle me how he will, so he cast me not out of his hands: I had rather God frowned upon me, than not look upon me; and I had rather God pursued me, than left me to myself. It is the height of his indignation, Esa. 1.5. O people laden with iniquity, why should ye be smitten any more? Why should I study your recovery any longer? Basil. Vox est animi non habentis in promptu, quid statuat, et desperantis salutem; When God says so, says S. Basil, he is as a Father who had tried all ways to reduce his son, and failed in all, and then leaves him to his own desperate ways; This is the worst that God doth say, (we may say, that God can say) which he says in Ezech. Auferam zelum, 16.42. My jealousy shall depart from thee, and I will he quiet, and be no more angry: God is most angry, when he lets not us know, that he is so. And then, Refuse silver shall men call thee, jer. 6. ●0. because the Lord hath rejected thee, says the Prophet; Though thou mayest have some tincture of a precious mettle, fortune, power, valour, wisdom, yet Refuse silver shalt thou be, and more, Refuse mettle shall men call thee, (for Men are often worse, than men dare call them) because the Lord hath rejected thee. Cain cries our, that his punishment is greater than he can bear; and what's the weight? This; From thy Face shall I be hid; It is not that GOD would not look graciously upon him, but that GOD would not look at all upon him. Infinite, and infinitely desperate are the effects of Gods putting away a soul; but we wait upon the Holy Ghosts farther enlargement of this consideration, Dimissa Mater, for the children's transgressions, the Mother is put away. Dimissa Mater. This Mother, is the Church; that Church, to whose breasts GOD hath applied that Soul; and Gods putting away of this Mother, is (as it was in the Daughter) his leaving her to herself. So these imaginary Churches, that will receive no light from Antiquity, nor Primitive forms, GOD leaves to themselves, and they crumble into Conventicles: And that Church, which will needs be the Form to all Churches, God leaves to herself, to her own Traditions, and She swells into tumours, and ulcers, and blisters. And when any Church is thus left to herself, devested of the Spirit of GOD, then follow heavy Symptoms, and Accidents; That which is forbidden in the Law, Levit. 21. 16. That Men that have blemishes, offer the Bread of our God; Men blemished in their Opinions, in their Doctrine, blemished in their Lives, in their Conversation, are admitted to Sacrifice at God's Altar. Then follows that which is complained of in jeroboams time, 1 King. 22. ●3. The lowest of the People, and whosoever will, shall be made Priests; Contemptible men shall be made Priests; and so the Priesthood shall be made Contemptible. Then follows that which the Prophet Ose says, 9.7. The Prophet shall be a Fool, and the Spiritual Man mad; Mad, as Saint Hierome translates that word, Arreptitius, possest; possessed with an airy spirit of ambition, and an Earthly Spirit of Servility, And a watery Spirit of Irresolution, and dispossessed of the true Spirit of Holy fire, the Zeal of the exaltation of God's glory. There is a Curse in removing but the Candlestick; Apoc. 2.5. That the Light shall not be in that eminency, and evidence, that becomes it, but that some faint shadows, some Corner Disguises, some Temporize, some Modifications must be admitted. There is a heavier Curse, in weakening the Eye of the beholder, when (as this Prophet says) God shall make hearts fat, and ears deaf, and eyes blind; There shall be Light, but you shall not see by it, there shall be good Preaching, but you shall not profit by it. But the greatest Curse of all, is in putting out the Light, when GOD blinds the Teachers themselves: Math. 6.23. For, If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness? Luke 22 ●3. This is that Potestas tenebrarum, when power is put into their hands, who are possessed with this darkness. And this is that Procella tenebrarum, jude 13. The storm of darkness, The blackness of Darkness, (as we Translate it) when darkness, & power, and passion meet in one Man. And to these fearful heights may the sins of the Children bring the Mother, That that Church, which now enjoys so abundantly Truth and Unity, may be poisoned with Heresy, and wounded with Schism, and yet GOD be free from all imputation of Tyranny. And so we have done with all those pieces which constitute our First Part, Gods Discharge; His Mercy in his Ecce, that he warns us of his judgements before they fall; And his justice, in his Proceeding, though after we be sold cheap by Adam, to Original sin, (So Saint Paul says, He was sold under sin,) And Cheaper by ourselves, to actual sins, for Nothing, for Privations, (So the Prophet told Ahab that he was sold to sin,) God also Sell us away, Cast us away, To Punishments for sins, (So he did the Israelites,) and then to sins for punishments, (So he did David, and so he did jerusalem,) and though he come to a Divorce, of Daughter and Mother, of our Souls in particular, and the Church itself in general. Part. 2. We are descended to our second part, Man's discharge; That, not disputing what God, of his absolute power might do, nor what by his unreveald Decree he hath done, God hath not allowed me, nor thee, nor any to conclude against ourselves, a necessity of perishing. May this seem an impertinent part in a Court? To suspect that any here, are too much afraid of God; or too much dejected with the sense of their sins, or his judgements? Are sins of presumption rather to be feared here, than sins of desperation? It hath a fair probability. But, all the Lent, we prepare Men for the Sacrament. And, as Casuists, we say, Sacramentum, & articulus Mortis aequiparantur, We consider a Man, at the Sacrament, as at his deathbed: and, upon our Deathbeds, we are likelier to be attempted with sins of Dejection, then of presumption. And so, (though in a Court,) if you will be content to think of a deathbed in a Court, (and God hath taken ways, to awaken those thoughts in you) it may be pertinent, and seasonable, to establish you now, against those deiections, and diffidences, which may offer at you then. 'tis true then, there may be a selling, there may be a putting away, but hath not God reserved to himself a power of revocation in both, in all cases? Audisti repudium, Crede coniugium, Is sweetly, and safely said by St. Ambrose: As often as thy thoughts fall upon a fearfulness of a Divorce from thy God, establish thyself with that comfort, of a Marriage to thy God; for the words of his Contracts, are, Sponsabo te mihi in aeternum. There can be no Divorce imagined, if there were not a marriage; and if there be a marriage With God, there can be no Divorce, for sponsat in aeternum, he marries for ever. Can God do so, forsake for ever? The Crow went out of the Ark, and came no more; The Dove went, and came again, and came with an Olive branch. God may absent himself, that he may be sought; but he comes again, and with the Olive of peace. Zion said, Esay 49.14. The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Why will Zion say so? says God. Can Zion say, My Lord, my Lord, hath forgotten me? Can she remember that GOD is hers, and not think that she is his? Can she remember him, and think that he hath forgotten her? Can Zion retain her bowels of piety, and think that GOD is disembowelled of his? GOD calls her not to national examples; to how low conditions he came, in the behalf of Sodom; what he did for Nineve; what he did for Zion herself in Egypt, but he carries her home to her own breast, and her own Cradle, and only asks her that question, Can a Mother forget her sucking Child? And he stays not her answer, nor assures himself of a good answer from her, but adds himself, Yes, a Mother may forget her sucking Child, yet I will not forget thee. Can GOD do it? Did GOD ever do it? Did he ever put away without possibility of reassuming? when? where? whom? Israel? the ten Tribes? Yet even to them, says jeremy, After they had done all this, GOD said, turn unto me, and they would not turn: And then, God put her away, and sent her a bill of Divorce, and never re-assumd her, never brought back the ten Tribes from their dispersion. 'tis true, in a whole and entire body, GOD never brought them back, but in many fair and Noble Pieces, they came when judah came; for, from that place of Ezra, where there is an entire number in gross exhibited of all that returned from Babylon, and then the particular Numbers also exhibited, of the Tribes and families that returned, because those particular Numbers do not make up the general Number, by many thousands, the Hebrew Rabbins argue fairly; and conclude probably, that those Supernumerary thousands, which are involved in the general Number, and are not comprised in the particulars, were such, as from the other ten Tribes, in the return of judah, adhered to judah; who are so often said never to have returned, because in a body, & Magistracy of their own, otherwise then as they incorporated themselves in judah, they never returned: but God never put them away so, but that he offered them return, and in a great part effected it. I know how frivolous a tale that is, That Saint Gregory drew Tratans' soul out of Hell, after it was there; and I know, how groundless an opinion it is, that is ascribed to Origen, that at last, the Devil shall be saved; but if they could persuade me one half, that Traian, or that the Devil came to Repentance in hell, I should not be hard, in believing the other half, that they might be delivered out of hell. What mean you, says God Almighty, that ye, use this Proverb, The Fathers have eat sour herbs, Ezeck. 18.2. and the children's teeth are set on edge? Do ye mean, that because your Fathers have sinned, you must perish? Why neither his parents have sinned, nor he, says Christ, of the Man borne blind, john 9.2. but all is, that the work of God might he made manifest; Neither have thy parents sinned, nor thou thyself sinned so, as that there should be a necessity in thy perishing, but that thereby there might be the greater manifestation of God's mercy, that where sin hath abounded, grace might abound much more. If therefore thy tender Conscience, and thy startling Soul, mis-imagine the hearing of that voice, Depart thou sinner, a voice of Divorce, a voice that bids thee, go, Say thou with Peter, to his and thy Saviour, Domine quo Ibimus? Lord whither shall I go? thou hast the Word of Eternal life, and we believe and are sure, that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God; And that Christ, the Son of the living GOD, will call thee back, and call back his own Word, and find Error, holy Error, occasion of repenting his own proceeding, in his Bill of Divorce; to which purpose he calls upon thee here to produce that Bill, Vbi iste libellus, Where is the Bill, etc. First then, Vbi libellus, Libellus. where is this Bill, upon what do ye ground this jealousy and suspicion in God, that he should Divorce you? First, it is in the Original, Sepher; that which is called a Bill, is a Book; It must be GOD'S whole Book, and not a few misunderstood Sentences out of that Book, that must try thee. Thou must not press heavily to thine own damnation every such Sentence, Stipendium peccati Mors est That the reward of sin is death; Nor the Impossibile est, That it is impossible for him that falls after Grace to be renewed; That which must try thee is the whole Book, the tenor and purpose, the Scope and intention of GOD in his Scriptures. His Book is a Testament; and in the Testament, the Testator is dead, and dead for thee; And would that GOD that would dye for thee, Divorce thee? His Book is Euangelium, Gospel; and Gospel is good tidings, a gracious Message; And would God pretend to send thee a gracious Message, and send thee a Divorce? GOD is Love, and the Holy Ghost is amorous in his Metaphors; every where his Scriptures abound with the notions of Love, of Spouse, and Husband, and Marriage Songs, and Marriage Supper, and Marriadge-Bedde. But for words of Separation, and Divorce, of Spiritual Divorce for ever, of any soul formerly taken in Marriage, this very word Divorce, is but twice read in the Scriptures; once in this Text; and here God disavows it; For when he says, Where is the Bill, he means there is no such Bill; And the other place is that which we mentioned before, when after they had done all, jer. 3.8. GOD called Israel all together back, and effectually, in a fair part, and his principal purpose in that Divorce of Israel, was to intimidate, and warn her Sister judah from the like provocations. Surely a good Spirit moved our last Translators of the Bible, to depart from all Translations which were before them, in reading that place of Malachi thus, 2.16. The Lord the God of Israel saith, that he hates putting away. Whereas all other Translations, both Vulgat, and Vulgar, And in Vulgar, and in Holy Tongues, The Septuagint, the Chalde, all, read that place thus, If a man hate her, let him put her away, (which induced a facility of divorces) our Translators thought it more conformable to the Original, and to the ways of God, to read it thus, The Lord the God of Israel saith, that he hates putting away. Every where in the Scriptures, we meet with God's venites, in every Prophet's mouth, invitations to come unto God; There is a venite de circuitu, Come, though you come from compassing the Earth, job 3. 11. which is Satan's perambulation; though you have walked in his ways, yet come unto God. Esay There is a Venite non habentes, Come and buy, though you have no money; though you have no Merits of your own, come, and dilate your measures, and fill them according to that dilatation, with the merits of Christ jesus. There is a venite et revertimini, Ose. 6.1. Come, though your coming be but a returning; be not ashamed of coming, though your returning be a confessing of a former running away; come in a repentance, though you cannot come in an innocence; There is a Venite & consolamini, Esay. How heavy so ever the fetters of your own sins, or the chains of God's judgements lie upon you, come and receive ease here, change your yoke, for an easier, if you cannot divest it. There is a venite & consulite, Esay, If you find it hard to come, or if you find an easiness to fall back, though you do come, come to consult with God, how you may come, so, as you may stay, when you are come. Nay, there is a venite & arguite, Esay 1.18. Come and reason with God, argne, plead, dispute, expostulate with God, come upon any conditions: The venite is multiplied, infinite invitations to come; but the Ite maledicti, Depart ye accursed, is but once heard from God's mouth, and that not in this world neither; as long as we are in this world, God hates putting away. And therefore God calls for the bill, and God calls the bill a book, that thou mightst not vex thy soul, with mistaken sentences, but rely upon the establishment of God's purpose in the whole book, which is that he hates putting away. If the evidence pressed by thine own pressures, heighthned by thine own deiections, exalted by thine own sinking, grow strong against thee, that thou canst not quench the jealousy, nor divest the scruple of such a Divorce, do but consider, who should occasion, who should induce it; It must be God, or thyself: Though the jews put away their wives, not only for the wife's fault, but for the husband's frowardness, thou hast had too good experience of God's patience, to charge him with that: If it be done, it is thy fault; and if thou acknowledge that, it is not done; for it is never done so irrevocably, but the confessing of the fault, cancels and avoids it. Relieve thyself by reflecting upon some of those circumstances, Essential circumstances, which were required in their bills of Divorce, and without which, those bills were void, and see if those be in thine; for though we have not these circumstances, in that place of Scripture, Deut. 24. where Divorce is permitted, yet in the ordinary practice of the jews abroad, and in the books of forms and precedents, which their Rabbins have collected, we have them expressed. They are many, and many impertinent; we will but name, and but a few, such as best admit application, and most conduce to the trial of thy case. First, a man might not produce a bill written in private, in the husband's bedchamber, but he must go to a Scribe, to a public Notary, to an authorizd Officer. Vbi iste libellus? Where is this bill of thy Divorce? Thou must not look for it, in God's bedchamber, in his unrevealed Decrees in heaven, but in his public Records, his Scriptures: If from thence thou pretend to produce any thing that convinces thy sad soul, go to them, to whom God hath committed the dispensation thereof, and there thou mayest receive consolation, when thine own private misinterpretation might mislead thee. Again, the wife, how guilty so ever in her own conscience, might not take herself to be put away, except the husband had expressly given her a Bill of Divorce; Hath thy Husband; thy God done so; Vbi est libellus? Consider the bill, that is, the book of God, and see if it be not full of such protestations, Vivo ego, As I live, saith the Lord, I would not the death of any sinner, nor the departing of any soul. So also these bills must be well testified, with unreproachable witnesses; Vbi iste libellus? Hath thy bill such witnesses? who be they? Inordinate dejection of spirit, irreligious sadness; jealousy of the anger, distrustfulness of the mercy, diffidence in the promises of the Gospel; Are these witnesses to be heard against God? God calls heaven and earth to witness, that he hath offered thee thy choice of life or death; but that he hath thrust death upon thee, there is no witness. Thy conscience is a thousand witnesses? It is, that thou hast committed a thousand sins; and it is, that thou hast received a thousand blessings; but of an eternal decree of thy divorce, thy conscience, (thus misinformed can be no witness, for thou wast not called to the making of those decrees. Those Bills were also to be authentically sealed: Vbi iste Libellus? Hath thy imaginary Bill of Divorce, and everlasting separation from GOD, any Seal from him? GOD hath given thee Seals of his Mercy, in both his Sacraments; Seals in White, and Seals in Red Wax; Seals in the participation of the candour and innocence of his Son, in thy Baptism, and Seals in the participation of his Body and Blood, in the other; But Seals of Reprobation at first, or of irrevocable Separation now, there are none from GOD: No Calamity, not Temporal, no not Spiritual; No Darkness in the Understanding, no Scruple in the Conscience, no Perplexity in the resolution; Not a Sudden Death, not a Shameful Death, not a stupid, not a raging Death, must be to thyself by the way, or may be to us, who may see thine End, an Evidence, a Seal, of Eternal Reprobation, or of final Separation. Almighty God bless us all, from all these in ourselves; but his blessed Spirit bless us to, from making any of these, when he, in his unsearchable ways, to his unsearchable ends, shall suffer them to fall upon any other, seals of such Separation in them. Though we may not enlarge ourselves to far, in these Circumstances, another was, That the Names of the Parties must be set down, and of both the Parties Parents, and those to the third Generation; The Son and Daughter of such, and such, and such. Vbi iste Libellus? Findest thou in thy Bill, the three Descents, the three Generations, (if we may so say) of thy God? A Holy Ghost proceeding from a Son, And a Son begott●en by a Father? Findest thou the God of thy Consolation, the God of thy Redemption, the God of thy Creation, and canst thou produce a God of Divorce, of Separation, out of these? Findest thou thine own three Descents, as thou wast the Son of Dust, of Nothing, And the Son of Adam, reduced to nothing, And then the Son of God in Christ, in whom thou art all things; and canst thou think that that GOD who married thee in the house of dust, and married thee in the house of infirmity, and Divorced thee not then, (he made thee not no Creature, nor he made thee not no Man,) having now married thee in the House of Power, and of Peace, in the body of his Son, the Church, will now Divorce thee? Lastly, to end this consideration of Divorces, If the Bill were interlinde, or blotted, or dropped, the Bill was void. Vbi Libellus? What place of Scripture soever thou pretend, that place is enterlinde; enterlinde by the Spirit of God himself, with Conditions, and Limitations, and Provisions, If thou repent, If thou return; and that enterlining destroys the Bill. Look also if this Bill be not dropped upon, and blotted; The venom of the Serpent is dropped upon it, The Wormwood of thy Desperation, is dropped upon it, The Gall of thy Melancholy is dropped upon it, and that voids the Bill. If thou canst not discern these drops before, drop upon it now; Drop the tears of true compunction, drop the blood of thy Saviour, and that voids the Bill: And through that Spectacle, the blood of thy Saviour, look upon that Bill, and thou shalt see, that that Bill was nailed to the Cross when he was naylde, and torn when his body was torn, and that hath cancelld the bill. Oppress not thyself with what GOD may do, of his absolute power, God hath no where told thee, that he hath done any such thing as an overtender Conscience may mis-imagine, from this Metaphor of Divorcing, nor from the other, (which begs leave for one word, by way of Conclusion) Selling away; Which of my Creditors is it, to whom I have sold you? Quis Creditor? As Christ in his Parable comprehends all excuses, and all backwardnesses in the following of him, in those two, Marriage and Purchasing, Luke 14.18. (for one had bought Land and stock, and another had married a Wife) So God expresses his love to Man, in these two too, He hath married us, he hath bought us; that so he might take in all dispositions, and work upon Uxorious Men, men souple and entendered with Matrimonial love, and upon worldly men, men kneaded and plastered with earthly love: He hath Married us, he will not Divorce, He hath bought us, he will not sell; For who can give so much as he paid? Deut 32.30. Do ye thus requite the Lord, O ye foolish people? Is not he your Father that hath bought you? And will you suspect your Father? Yes, says this Disconsolate Soul, Fathers might sell their Children; and my Father, my GOD hath sold me. 'tis true, Fathers might sell their Children; Amongst the Gentiles they might; for matter of Law, for matter of Fact, their Books are full of Evidence. Amongst the jews they might, till a jubilee redeemed them. Amongst the Christians they might, and for ever. Saint Ambrose found the World in possession of that unnatural Custom, and lamented it: Vidi miserabile spectaculum, says he, liberos haeredes calamitatis, qui nec participes successionis: The Children, says he, inherit the Calamity, but not the Lands of their Fathers, when they were sold to maintain them, who had wastefully sold, that which was to maintain them all: And Saint Ambrose induces the Creditor making his Claim, Mea nutriti pecunia, This Child was nourced, and brought up with my Money, and belongs to me. Constantine found this, and amended it; enacted and constituted that it should be no more done; and canst thou imagine such a hard-heartedness in GOD, as Saint Ambrose should need to lament, or Constantin need to correct? Quis Creditor, says GOD, Which of my Creditors is it, to whom I have sold you? As in the Bill of Divorce, so in this bill of sale, we ask who should occasion it? A Father might sell, for his Son's fault, or for his own necessity; but in no other case. If thou say it is done for thy fault, it is not done; that implies a Confession, and a Repentance, and that avoids all; but if thou imagine a sale for thy Father's necessity, Quis Creditor, says he, Which of my Creditors, etc. Adam brought GOD in Debt, to Death, to Satan, to Hell; in justice, GOD ought all mankind to them; but then at one payment he paid more, in the death of his Son Christ jesus: And now, Quis Creditor? The word indeed, is originally Nashah, and Nashah is an Usurer; and so Saint Ambrose reads this place, Quis Faenerator, To what Usurer am I so indebted, as that I need sell thee? Let it be so, That the principal debt was all Mankind; pursue your Usurious Computations, that every seven years doubles, and then redoubles your Debt, (and what a Debt might this be in almost 4000 year from Adam to Christ, and 1000 from Christ to us?) yet when all this is multiplied infinitely, it was infinitely overpaid, if but one drop of the blood of the Son of God had been paid; and the Son of God bled out his Soul, and then, Quis Creditor, may God well say, Which of those Usurers is it, to whom I need sell thee? God may lend thee out, even to Satan; suffer thee to be his Bailiff, and his Instrument to the vexation of others: So he lent out Saint Paul to the Scribes and pharisees, to serve them in their Persecutions; So God may lend thee out. God may Let thee out for a time, to them that shall plough and harrow thee, fell and cleave thee, and reserve to himself but a little Rent, a little glory, in thy Patience; So he Let out job even to Satan himself; so God may Let thee out. GOD may Mortgage thee to a six months' Fever, or to a longer debility; So he Mortgaged Hezekias. God may lay thee waste, and Pull up thy Fences, extinguish their Power, or withdraw their Love, upon whom thou hast establishd thy dependence; So he laid David waste, when he withdrew his children's obedience from him; so God may lay thee waste. God may Let out all his time in thee in this World, and reserve to himself only a last year, a last day, a last minute; suffer thee in unrepented sins, to the last gasp, so God let out the good Thief. God is Lord of all that thou hast and art; and then, Dominium potestas est tum utendi tum abutendi, He that is Lord, Owner, Proprietary, may do with that which is his, what he will. But God will not, cannot divest his Dominion, nor fell thee so, as not to reserve, a Power, and a Will to Redeem thee, if thou wouldst be redeemed. For, howsoever he seem to thee, to have sold thee to Sin, to Sadness, to Sickness, to Superstition, (for these be the Ismaelits, these be the Midianite Merchants Gen. 37.27. that buy up our Joseph's, our souls) though he seem to sell his present estate, he will not sell Reversions; his future title to thee, by a future Repentance, he will not fell; But whensoever thou shalt grow due to him, by a new, and a true repentance, he shall reassume thee, into his bed, and his bosom, no bill of Divorce, and re-enter thee into his Revenue, and his Audit, No bill of sale, shall stand up to thy prejudice, but thy dejected spirit shall be raised from thy consternation, to a holy cheerfulness, and a peaceful alacrity, and no tentation shall offer a reply, to this question, which GOD makes to establish thy Conscience, ubi libellus, Where is the Bill of thy Mother's Divorcement, etc. FINIS. Errat. Pag. 13. l. 24. for retractions, read retractations. pa. 32. l. 14, for Herbs, read Grupes.