Fifty SERMONS, PREACHED BY THAT LEARNED AND REVEREND DIVINE, JOHN DONNE, Dr IN DIVINITY, Late Deane of the Cathedral Church of S. PAUL'S London. The Second Volume. LONDON, Printed by ja. Flesher for M. F. I. Marriot, and R. Royston. MDCXLIX. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE BASIL EARL OF DENBY, My very good Lord and Patron. My Lord, IN a season so tempestuous, it is a great encouragement to see your Lordship called to the Helm, who (in your public negociations) having spent so many years in that so famed Commonwealth of Venice, must of necessity have brought home such excellent Principles of Government, that if our Fate do not withstand your Directions, we may reasonably, at last, expect to see our new British Lady, excel that ancient Adriatic Queen. Neither can I offend much against the State, in begging your Patronage and perusal of this Book, knowing that your Lordship first mastered all the Learning of Padua, before you did adventure upon that wise Senate: who amongst all her other greatnesses, has ever had a principal care, that Learning might not be diminished. When these Sermons were preached, they were terminated within the compass of an hour, but your acceptance may make them outlive the very Churches that they were preached in, and give them such a perpetuity that Nec Jovis Ira, nec Amor, edacior multò, poterit abolere; For, though a fiery zeal in succeeding ages hath often both ruined the Temples, and cashiered the gods, that were worshipped in them: Yet such sacrifices as these, have beemy lays kept unburnt; and we are suffered to know those religions, that we are not allowed to practice. Nor can I expect any greater advantage, for the pains I have taken in publishing this Book, than that posterity may know, I did it, when I had the favour and protection of your Lordship, and was allowed to style myself Your Lordship's most humble Servant JO. DONNE. FOR THE RIGHT HONOURABLE BOLSTERED WHITLOCK, RICHARD KEEBLE, 〈◊〉 JOHN LEILE. Lord's Commissioners of the Great Seal. THe reward that many years since was proposed for the publishing these Sermons, having been lately conferred upon me under the authority of the Great Seal, I thought myself in gratitude bound to deliver them to the world under your Lordship's protection; both to show, how careful you are in dispensing that part of the Church's treasure, that is committed to your disposing, and to encourage all men to proceed in their industry, when they are sure to find so just and equal Patrons, whose fame and memory must certainly last longer than Books can find so noble Readers, and whose present favours do not only keep the Living alive, but the Dead from dying. Your Lordship's most humble Servant JO. DONNE. A Table directing to the several Texts of SCRIPTURE, handled in this Book. Sermons preached at Marriages. Sermon I. Preached at the Earl of Bridgwaters house in London, on MATTH. 22. 30. For, in the Resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in Marriage, but are as the Angels of God in heaven. p. 1. Serm'. II. GEN. 2. 18. And the Lord God said, It is not good, that the man should be alone; I will make him a Help, meet for him. p. 9 Serm. III. HOSEA 2. 19 And I will marry thee unto me for ever. p. 15 Sermons preached at Christen. Serm. IU. REVEL. 7. 17. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throne, shall govern them, and shall lead them unto the lively fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. p. 23 Serm. V. EPHES. 5. 25, 26, 27. Husband's love your wives, even at Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify it, and cleanse it, by the washing of water, through the Word: That he might make it unto himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blame. p. 31 Serm. VI. 1 JOH. 5. 7, 8. For there are three which bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one: And there are three which bear record in the Earth; The Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one. p. 39 Serm. VII. GAL. 3. 27. For, all ye that are baptised into Christ, have put on Christ. p. 50. Sermons preached at Church. Serm. VIII. CANT. 5. 3. I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them? p. 59 Serm. IX. MICAH 2. 10. Arise and depart, for this is not your rest. p. 67. Serm. X. A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 74. Sermons preached at Lincolns-Inne. Serm. XI. GEN. 28. 16, 17. Then jacob awoke out of his sleep, and said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware. And he was afraid, and said, How fearful is this place! This is none other but the House of God, and this is the gate of Heaven. p. 83 Serm. XII. JOH. 5. 22. The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgement to the Son. p. 94. Serm. XIII. JOH. 8. 15. I judge no man. p. 101. Serm. XIIII. JOB 19 26. And though, after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. p. 106. Serm. XV. 1 COR. 15. 50. Now this I say Brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. p. 118. Serm. XVI. COLOS. 1. 24. Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for his body's sake which is the Church. p. 128. Serm. XVII. MAT. 18. 7. woe unto the world, because of offences. p. 136. Serm. XVIII. A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 142 Serm. XIX. PSAL. 38. 2. For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore. p. 158. Serm. XX. PSA. 38. 3. There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sin. p. 162. Serm. XXI. PSAL. 38. 4. For mine iniquities are gone over my head, as a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. p. 174. Serm. XXII. A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 186. Serm. XXIII. A third Serm. on the same Text. p. 192. Sermons preached at White-Hall. Serm. XXIV. EZEK, 34. 19 And as for my flock, they eat that which ye have trodden with your feet, and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet. 199. Serm. XXV. A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 208. Serm. XXVI. ESAI. 65. 20. For the child shall die a hundred years old, but the sinner being a hundred years old, shall be accursed. p. 218 Serm. XXVII. MARK 4. 24. Take heed what you hear. p. 228 Serm. XXVIII. GEN. 1. 26. And God said, Let us make man in our own Image, after our likeness. p. 239. Serm. XXIX. A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 250 Sermons preached to the Nobility. Serm. XXX. JOB 13. 15. Lo, though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. p. 262. Serm. XXXI. JOB 36. 25. Every man may see it, man may behold it afar off. p. 271. Serm. XXXII. APOC. 7, 9 After this, I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and Palms in their hands. p. 279. Serm. XXXIII. CANT. 3. 11. Go forth ye daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon, with the Crown, wherewith his mother crowned him, in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart. p. 288. Serm. XXXIIII. LUKE 23. 34. Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. p. 304. Serm. XXXV. MAT. 21. 44. Whosoever shall fall on this stone, shall be broken; but on whosoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. p. 311. Sermons preached at S. Paul's. Sermon XXXVI. JOH. 1. 8. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. p. 320. Serm. XXXVII. A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 334. Serm. XXXVIII. A third Ser. on the the same Text. p. 343. Serm. XXXIX. PHIL. 3. 2. Beware of the Concision. p. 356. Serm. XL. 2 COR. 5. 20. We pray ye in Christ's stead, Be ye reconciled to God. p. 364. XLI. HOSEA 3. 4. For, the Children of Israel shall abide many days, without a King, and without a Prince, and without a Sacrifice, and without an Image, and without an Ephod, and without Teraphim. p. 375. Serm. XLII. PROV. 14. 31. He that oppresseth the poor, reproacheth his Maker, but he that honoureth him, hath mercy on the 〈◊〉. p. 385. Serm. XLIII. LAMENT. 4. 20. The breath of our nostrils, the Anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits. p. 396. Serm. XLIV. MAT. 11. 6. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. p. 411. Sermons preached at S. Dunstan's. Serm. XLV. DEUT. 25. 5. If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the Wife of the dead shall not marry without, unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her. p. 422. Serm. XLVI. PSAL. 34. 11. Come ye children, Harken unto me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. p. 430. Ser. XLVII. GEN. 3. 24. And dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. p. 439. Ser. XLVIII. LAMENT. 3. 1. I am the man, that hath seen affliction, by the rod of his wrath. p. 445. Serm. XLIX. GEN. 7. 24. Abraham himself was ninety nine years old, when the foreskin of his flesh was Circumcised. p. 456. Serm. L. 1 THES. 5. 16. Rejoice evermore. p. 466. A SERMON PREACHED At the Earl of Bridgewaters house in London at the marriage of his daughter, the Lady Mary, to the eldest son of the L. Herbert of Castle-iland, Novemb. 19 1627. The Prayer before the Sermon. O Eternal, and most gracious God, who hast promised to hearken to the prayers of thy people, when they pray towards thy house, though they be absent from it, work more effectually upon us, who are personally met in this thy house, in this place consecrated to thy worship. Enable us, O Lord, so to see thee, in all thy Glasses, in all thy representations of thyself to us here, as that hereafter we may see thee face to face, and as thou art in thyself, in thy kingdom of glory. Of which Glasses wherein we may see thee, Thee in thine Unity, as thou art One God; Thee in thy Plurality, as thou art More Persons, we receive this thy Institution of Marriage to be one. In thy first work, the Creation, the last seal of thy whole work was a Marriage. In thy Sons great work, the Redemption, the first seal of that whole work, was a miracle at a Marriage. In the work of thy blessed Spirit, our Sanctification, he refreshes to us, that promise in one Prophet, That thou wilt marry thyself to us for ever: and more in another, That thou hast married thyself unto us from the beginning. Thou hast married Mercy and justice in thyself, married God and Man in thy Son, married Increpation and Consolation in the Holy Ghost, marry in us also, O Lord, a Love and a Fear of thee. And as thou hast married in us two natures, mortal and immortal, marry in us also, the knowledge, and the practice of all duties belonging to both conditions, that so this world may be our Gallery to the next; And marry in us, the Spirit of Thankfulness, for all thy benefits already bestowed upon us, and the Spirit of prayer for the continuance, and enlargement of them. Continue, and enlarge them, O'God, upon thine universal Church, etc. SERM. I. MATTH. 22. 30. For, in the Resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in Marriage, but are as the Angels of God in heaven. OF all Commentaries upon the Scriptures, Good Examples are the best and the livelyest; and of all Examples those that are nearest, and most present, and most familiar unto us; and our most familiar Examples, are those of our own families; and in families, the Masters of families, the fathers of families, are most conspicuous, most appliable, most considerable. Now, in exercises upon such occasions as this, ordinarily, the instruction is to be directed especially upon those persons, who especially give the occasion of the exercise; that is, upon the persons to be united in holy wedlock: for, as that's a difference between Sermons and Lectures, that a Sermon intends Exhortation principally and Edification, and a holy stirring of religious affections, and then matters of Doctrine, and points of Divinity, occasionally, secondarily, as the words of the text may invite them; But Lectures intent principally Doctrinal points, and matter of Divinity, and matter of Exhortation but occasionally, and as in a second place: so that's a difference between Christening sermons, and Marriage sermons, that the first, at Christen, are especially directed upon the Congregation, and not upon the persons who are to be christened; and these, at marriages, especially upon the parties that are to be united; and upon the congregation, but by reflection. When therefore to these persons of noble extraction, I am to say something of the Duties, and something of the Blessing, of Marriage, what God Commands, and what God promises in that state, in his Scriptures, I lay open to them, the best exposition, the best Commentaries upon those Scriptures, that is, Example, and the nearest example, that is, example in their own family, when, with the Prophet Esay, I direct them, To look upon the Rock, 51. 1. from whence they are hewn, to propose to themselves their own parents, and to consider there the performance of the duties of marriage imposed by God in S. Paul, and the blessings proposed by God in David, Thy Wife shall be a fruitful Vine by the sides of thy Psal. 128. 3. House, The children like olive plants round about the table; For, to this purpose of edifying children by example, such as are truly religious fathers in families, are therein truly learned fathers of the Church; A good father at home, is a S augustin, and a S. Ambrose in himself; and such a Thomas may have governed a 〈◊〉, as shall, ● 〈◊〉 Egerton 〈◊〉 Chancellor grandfather to the Bride. by way of example, teach children, and children's children more to this purpose, than any Thomas Aquinas can. Since therefore these noble persons have so good a glass to dress themselves in, the useful, as the powerful example of Parents, I shall the less need to apply myself to them, for their particular instructions, but may have leave to extend myself upon considerations more general, and such as may be appliable to all, who have, or shall embrace that honourable state, or shall any way assist at the solemnising thereof; that they may all make this union of Marriage, a Type, or a remembrancer of their union with God in Heaven. That as our Genesis is our Exodus, (our proceeding into the world, is a step out of the world) so every Gospel may be a Revelation unto us: All good tidings (which is the name of Gospel) all that ministers any joy to us here, may reveal, and manifest to us, an Interest in the joy and glory of heaven, and that our admission to a Marriage here, may be our invitation to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb there, where in the Resurrection, we shall neither marry, nor be given in marriage, but shall be as the Angels of God in heaven. These words our blessed Saviour spoke to the Sadduces; Divisio. who not believing the Resurrection of the Dead, put him a Case, that one woman hath had seven husbands, and then whose wife, of those seven should she be in the Resurrection? they would needs suppose, and prefume, that there could be no Resurrection of the body, but that there must be to all purposes, a Bodily use of the Body too, and then the question had been pertinent, whose wife of the seven shall she be? But Christ shows them their error, in the weakness of the foundation, she shall be none of their wives, for, In the Resurrection, they neither marry, etc. The words give us this latitude, when Christ says, In the Resurrection they marry not, etc. The words give us this latitude, when Christ says, In the Resurrection they marry not, etc. from thence flows out this concession, this proposition too; Till the Resurrection they shall marry, and be given in marriage; no inhibition to be laid upon persons, no imputation, no aspersion upon the state of marriage. And when Christ says, Then they are as the Angels of God in heaven, from this flows this concession, this proposition also, Till than we must not look for this Angelical state, but, as in all other states and conditions of life, so in all marriages there will be some encumbrances, betwixt all married persons, there will arise some unkindnesses, some misinterpretations; or some too quick interpretations may sometimes sprinkle a little sourness, and spread a little, a thin, a dilute and washy cloud upon them; Then they marry not, till than they may; then their state shall be perfect as the Angels, till than it shall not; These are our branches, and the fruits that grow upon them, we shall pull in passing, and present them as we gather them. First then, Christ establishes a Resurrection, A Resurrection there shall be, for, that makes up God's circle. 1 Part. Resurrectio. The Body of Man was the first point that the foot of God's Compass was upon: First, he created the body of Adam: and then he carries his Compass round, and shuts up where he began, he ends with the Body of man again in the glorification thereof in the Resurrection. God is Alpha and Omega, first, and last: And his Alpha and Omega, his first, and last work is the Body of man too. Of the Immortality of the soul, there is not an express article of the Creed: for, that last article of The life everlasting, is rather the proemio, & poena, what the soul shall suffer, or what the soul shall enjoy, being presumed to be Immortal, then that it is said to be Immortal in that article; That article may, and does presuppose an Immortality, but it does not constitute an Immortality in our soul, for there would be a life everlasting in heaven, and we were bound to believe it, as we were bound to believe a God in heaven, though our souls were not immortal. There are so many evidences of the immortality of the soul, even to a natural man's reason, that it required not an Article of the Creed, to fix this notion of the Immortality of the soul. But the Resurrection of the Body is discernible by no other light, but that of Faith, nor could be fixed by any less assurance than an Article of the Creed. Where be all the splinters of that Bone, which a shot hath shivered and scattered in the Air? Where be all the Atoms of that flesh, which a Corrosive hath eat away, or a Consumption hath breathed, and exhaled away from our arms, and other Limbs? In what wrinkle, in what furrow, in what bowel of the earth, lie all the grains of the ashes of a body burned a thousand years since? In what corner, in what ventricle of the sea, lies all the jelly of a Body drowned in the general flood? What cohaerence, what sympathy, what dependence maintains any relation, any correspondence, between that arm that was lost in Europe, and that leg that was lost in Africa or Asia, scores of years between? One humour of our dead body produces worms, and those worms suck and exhaust all other humour, and then all dies, and all dries, and molders into dust, and that dust is blown into the River, & that puddled water tumbled into the sea, and that ebbs and flows in infinite revolutions, and still, still God knows in what Cabinet every seed-pearl lies, Zech. 10. 8. in what part of the world every grain of every man's dust lies; and, sibilat populum suum, (as his Prophet speaks in another case) he whispers, he hisses, he beckons for the 〈◊〉 of his Saints, and in the twinkling of an eye, that body that was fcattered over all the elements, is sat down at the right hand of God, in a glorious resurrection. A Dropsy hath extended me to an enormous corpulency, and unwieldinesse; a Consumption hath attenuated me to a feeble macilency and leanness, and God raises me a body, such as it should have been, if these infirmities had not intervened and deformed it. Psal. 150. 6. David could go no further in his book of Psalms, but to that, Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord; ye, says he, ye that have breath, praise ye the Lord, and that ends the book: But, that my Dead body should come to praise the Lord, this is that New Song, which I shall learn, and sing in heaven; when, not only my soul shall magnify the Lord, and my Spirit rejoice in God my Saviour; but I shall have mine old eyes, and ears, and tongue, and knees, and receive such glory in my body myself, as that, in that body, so glorified by God, I also shall glorify him. So very a body, so perfectly a body shall we have there, as that Mahomet, and his followers, could not consist in those heavenly functions of the body, in glorifying God, but mis-imagine a feasting and banqueting, and all carnal pleasures of the body in heaven too. But there Christ stops; A Resurrection there shall be, but, in the Resurrection we shall not marry, etc. They shall not marry, because they shall have none of the uses of marriage; Non nubent. not as marriage is physic against inordinate affections; for, every soul shall be a Consort in itself, and never out of tune: not as marriage is ordained for mutual help of one another; for God himself shall be entirely in every soul; And what can that soul lack, that hath all God? Not as marriage is a second and a suppletory eternity, in the continuation and propagation of Children; for they shall have the first Eternity, individual eternity in themselves. Therefore does S. Luke assign that reason why they shall not marry, Luke 20. 35. Because they cannot die. Because they have an eternity in themselves, they need not supply any defect, by a propagation of children. But yet, though Christ exclude that, of which there is clearly no use in Heaven, Marriage, (because they need no physic, no mutual help, no supply of children, yet he excludes, not our knowing, or our loving of one another upon former knowledge in this world, in the next; Christ does not say expressly we shall, yet neither does he say, that we shall not, know one another there. Neither can we say, we shall not, because we know not how we should. Adam, who was asleep when Eve was made, and neither saw, nor felt any thing that God had done, Gen. 2. 23. knew Eve upon the very first sight, to be bone of his bone, Mat. 17. 3. and flesh of his flesh. By what light knew he this? And in the transfiguration of Christ, Peter, and James, and John knew Moses and Elias, and by what light knew they them, whom they had never seen? Nor can we, or they, or any, be imagined to have any degree of knowledge of persons, or actions, though but occasionally, and transeuntly, in this life, which we shall not have inherently, and permanently in the next. In the Types of the general Resurrection, which were particular Resuscitations of the dead in this world, the Dead were restored to the knowledge of their friends: when Christ raised the son of the widow of Naim, Luke 7. 15. he delivered him to his Mother; when Peter raised Tabytha, Acts 9 41. he called the Saints and the Widows, Gen. 15. 1●. and presented her alive unto them. Deut. 32. 50. So God says to Abraham, Ibis ad patres, thou shalt go to thy fathers; he should know that they were his fathers: so to Moses, jungeris populis tuis, Luke 1. 41. Thou shalt die, and be gathered to thy people, as Aaron thy brother died, and was gathered to his people. john Baptist had a knowledge of Christ, though they were both in their mother's wombs; and Dives of Lazarus, Luke 16. 23. though in Hell; and it is not easily told, by what light these saw these. Whatsoever conduces to God's glory, or our happiness, we shall certainly know in heaven: And he that in a rectified conscience believes that it does so, may piously believe that he shall know them there. In things of this nature, where no direct place of Scripture binds up thy faith, believe so, as most exalts thine own Devotion; yet with this Caution too, not to condemn uncharitably, and peremptorily, those that believe otherwise. A Resurrection there shall be: In the Resurrection there shall be no Marriage, because it conduces to no end; but, if it conduce to God's glory, and my happiness, (as it may piously be believed it does) to know them there, whom I knew here, I shall know them. Now from this, In the Resurrection they marry not, flows this also, Till the Resurrection they do, they may, they shall marry. Nay, in God's first purpose and institution, They must: For God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. Gen. 2. 18. Every man is a natural body, every congregation is a politic body; The whole world is a Catholik, an universal body. For the sustentation and aliment of the natural body, Man, God hath given Meat; for the politic, for societies, God hath given Industry, and several callings; and for the Catholic body, for the sustentation, and reparation of the world, God hath given Marriage. They that scatter themselves in various lusts, commit waist, and shall undergo at last, a heavy condemnation upon that Action of waist in their souls, as they shall feel it before in their bodies which they have wasted. They that marry not, do not keep the world in reparation; And the common law, the law of nature, and the general law of God binds man in general to that reparation of the world, to Marriage: for Continency is Privilegtum, a Privilege; that is, Privata lex; when it is given, it becomes a law too; for he to whom God gives the gift of Continency, is bound by it: it is Privata lex, a Law, an Obligation upon that particular man; And then Privilegium, is Privatio Legis, it is a dispensation upon that Law, which without that privilege, and dispensation would bind him; so that all those, who have not this privilege, this dispensation, this continency, by immediate gift from God, or other medicinal Disciplines, and Mortifications, (which Disciplines and Mortifications, every state and condition of life is not bound to exercise, because such Mortifications as would overcome their Concupiscences, would also overcome all their natural strength, and make them unable to do the works of their callings) all such are bound by the general law to marry. For, from Nature, and her Law, we have that voice, ut gignamus geniti; Man is borne into the world, that others might be born from him: And from God's general Law, we have that voice, Crescite & Multiplicamini: Therefore God placed man here, that he might repair and furnish the world. He is gone at Common Law, that maries not: Not but that he may have relief; but it is only in Conscience, and by way of Equity, and as in Chancery; that is, If in a rectified Conscience he know, that he should be the less disposed to religious Offices, for marriage, he does well to abstain: otherwise he must remember that the world is one Body, and Marriage the aliment, that the world is one Building, and Marriage the Reparation. Therefore the Emperor Augustus did not only increase the rewards, and privileges which former Laws had given to married persons, but he laid particular penalties upon them, that lived unmaryed. And though that State seem to have countenanced single life, because they afforded dignities to certain Vestal Virgins, yet the number of those Vestals was small, not above six, and then the dignities and privileges, which those Vestals had, were no other, but that they were made equal in the state to married Wives; They were preferred before all that lived unmaryed, but not before married persons. This fortification and rampart of the World, Marriage, hath the Devil battered with most artillery, opposed with most instruments: for, as an Army composed of many Nations, more sects of Heretics have concurred in the condemning of Marriage, then in any one Heresy. The Adamites, the Tatians, and those whom Irenaeus calls the Encratites; all within two thousand years after Christ; and more after. And yet God kept such a hook in the nostril of this Leviathan, such a bridle in the jaws of these sects of Heretics, as that never any of them so opposed Marriage, as that they justified Incontinency, or various lust, or Indifferency, or Community in that kind. Now as in the Pelagian Heresy, those that came to modify and mollify that Heresy, and to be Semi-Pelagians, were in some points worse than those that were full Pelagians, (as truly, in many Cases, the half-papist may do more harm, and be more dangerous, than the whole Papist that declares himself) so the Semi-Adamites, the Semi-Tatians, and Semi-Encratites of the Roman Church, who, though they do not as those whole Heretics did, condemn marriage entirely, yet they condemn it in Certain persons, and in so many as constitute a great part of the Body of mankind, that is, in all their Clergy, exceed those very heretics, in favour of incontinency, and fornication, and various lusts, which those Heretics who absolutely condemned Marriage, condemned too, as absolutely; whereas in the Roman Church a Jesuit tells us; that there are divers Catholics of that opinion, Lorinus. Act. 15. 20. That it is not Heresy to say, that Fornication is no deadly sin: And yet it is Heresy to say, that Marriage in some persons, (only disabled by their Canons) is not deadly sin. And when they erect and justify their Academies of Incontinency, and various lust, (various even in the sex) if some Authors among themselves have not injured them) when they maintain public stews, and maintain their dignity by them, and make that a part of the Revenue of the Church, what Advocate of theirs can deny, but that these Semi-Adamites, Semi-Tatians, Semi-Encratites, are worse than those Heretics themselves, that did absolutely oppose Marriage? We depart absolutely from those old Heretics, Patres. who did absolutely condemn Marriage; and from those latter men, who though they be but Semi-Heretiks in respect of them, because they limit their forbidding of Marriage, to certain persons, yet they are sequi-Heretiks in this, that they countenance Incontinency, and Fornication, which those very heretics abhorred; And we must have leave too, (which we are always loath to do) to depart from the rigidness of some of those blessed Fathers of the Primitive Church, who found some necessities in their times, to speak so very highly in praise of Continency and Chastity, as reflected somewhat upon marriage itself, and may seem to imply some undervaluation of that. Many such things were so said by Tertullian, many by S. Hierome, as being crudely, and nudely taken, not decocted and boiled up with the circumstances of those times, not invested with the knowledge of those persons, to whom they were written, might diminish and dishonour marriage. But Tertullian in his most vehement persuasion of Continency, writes to his own wife, and S. Hierome, for the most part, to those Ladies, whom he had taken into his own discipline, and with one of which, he had so near a conversation, as that (as himself says) the world was scandalised with it. and that the world thought him fit to have been made Pope, but for that misconstruction which had been made of that his conversation with that Lady. Tertullian writing to his Wife, S. Hierome to those Ladies, may either have had particular reasons of this vehement proceeding of theirs in advancing Continency, or they may have conceived that way of persuasion of continency to those persons, to have been a fit way to convey down to posterity the love thereof. As Dionysius the Areopagite says, That the Church in those times at funerals, did convey their thanks to God, for the party deceased, by way of Prayer: they seemed to pray that those dead persons might be saved; and, indeed, they did but praise God, that they were saved. So Tertullian and S. Hierome, when they seem to persuade Continency to those persons, they do but tell us, how continent those persons were. But howsoever it be for that, no such magnifying of Virginity before, as should diminish the honour and dignity of Marriage, no such magnifying of Continency after, as should frustrate the purpose of Marriage after, or the returning to a second Marriage after a true dissolution of the first, can subvert, or contract the Apostles Nubant in Domino, Let them marry in the Lord; where the In Domino, in the Lord, is not to marry for matter of Title and place; nor, In Domino, In the Lord, is not to marry for matter of Lordships, and possessions, and worldly preferment; nor, In Domino, In the Lord, is not in hope to exercise a Dominion and a Lordship over the other party: but In the Lord, is in the fear of the Lord, In the love of the Lord, In the Law, that is, in the true Religion of the Lord; for this is that that makes the marriages of Christians, Contracts of another kind, than the marriages of other people are; with all people of the world, marriage is as fully the same Real, and Civil, and Moral Contract, as with us Christians. The same Obligations of mutual help, of fidelity and loyalty to one another, and of communication of all their possessions, lies upon marriage in Turkey, Ephes. 5. 32. or China, as with us. But for Marriage amongst Christians, Sacramentum hoc magnum est, says the Apostle, This is a great secret, a great mystery. Not that it is therefore a Sacrament, as Baptism, and the Lords Supper are Sacraments. For, if they will make marriage such a sacrament, because it is expressed there in that word, Magnum sacramentum, Revel. 17. 5. they may come to give us an eight sacrament after their seven; They may translate that name which is upon the mother of Harlots, and abominations of the earth, sacrament, if they will, for it is the same word, in that place of the Revelation, which they translate Sacrament in the other place to the Ephesians; And in the next verse but one, they do translate it so there; I will tell thee, says the Angel, Sacramentum mulieris, the Sacrament of Babylon. Now if all the mysteries and secrets of Antichrist, all the confused practices of that Babylon, all the emergent and occasional articles of that Church, and that State-religion, shall become Sacraments, we shall have a Sacrament of Equivocation, a Sacrament of Invasion, a Sacrament of Powder, a Sacrament of dissolving allegiance, sacraments in the Element of Baptism, in the water, in navies, and Sacraments in the Elements of the Eucharist, in Blood, in the sacred blood of Kings. But Marriage amongst Christians, is herein Magnum mysterium, A Sacrament in such a sense; a mysterious signification of the union of the soul with Christ, when both persons profess the Christian Religion, in general, there arises some signification of that spiritual union: But when they both profess Christ in one form, in one Church, in one Religion, and that, the right; then, as by the Civil Contract, there is an union of their estates, and persons, so, as that they two are made one, so by this Sacramental, this mysterious union, these two, thus made one, between themselves, are also made one with Christ himself; by the Civil union, common to all people, they are made Eadem caro; The same flesh with one another, By this mysterious, this Sacramental, this significative union, they are made Idem Spiritus cum Domino; The same Spirit with the Lord. And therefore, though in the Resurrection, they shall not marry, because then all the several uses of marriage cease, yet till the Resurrection; that is, as long as this world lasts, for the sustentation of the world, which is one Body, and Marriage the food, and aliment thereof; for the reparation of the world, which is one Building, and Marriage the supply thereof, to maintain a second eternity, in the succession of children, and to illustrate this union of our souls to Christ; we may, and in some Cases, must marry. We are come, in our order proposed at first, to our second Part, Erimus sicut Angeli, we shall be as the Angels of God in heaven; 2 Part. Divisio. where we consider, first, what we are compared to, those Angels; And then in what that Comparison lies, wherein we shall be like those Angels; And lastly, the Proposition that flows out of this proposition, In the Resurrection we shall be like them, Till the Resurrection we shall not, and therefore, in the mean time, we must not look for Angelical perfections, but bear with one another's infirmities. Angeli. Now when we would tell you, what those Angels of God in heaven, to which we are compared, are, we can come no nearer telling you that, then by telling you, we cannot tell. The Angels may be content with that Negative expressing, since we can express God himself in no clearer terms, nor in terms expressing more Dignity, then in saying we cannot express him. Only the Angels themselves know one another; and, one good point, in which we shall be like them then, shall be, that then we shall know what they are; we know they are Spirits in Nature, but what the nature of a spirit is, we know not: we know they are Angels in office, appointed to execute God's will upon us; but, How a spirit should execute those bodily actions, that Angels do, in their own motion, and in the transportation of other things, we know not: we know they are Creatures; but whether created with this world, (as all our later men incline to think) or long before, (as all the Greek, and some of the Latin Fathers thought) we know not: we know that for their number ● and for their faculties also, there may be one Angel for every man; but whether there be so, or no, because not only amongst the Fathers, but even in the Reformed Churches, in both subdivisions, Lutheran, and Calvinist, great men deny it, and as great affirm it, we know not: we know the Angels know, they understand, but whether by that way, which we call in the School, Cognitionem Matutinam, by seeing all in God, or that which we call Verspertinam, by a clearer manifestation of the species of things to them, Colos. 1. then to us, we know not: we know they are distinguished into Orders; the Apostle tells us so: but what, or how many their Orders are, (since S. Gregory, and S. Bernard differ from that Design of their nine orders, which S. Denis the Areopagite had given before, in placing of those nine, and Athanasius adds more to those nine,) we know not; But we are content to say with S. Augustine, Esse firmissimè credo, quaenam sint nescio; that there are distinct orders of Angels, assuredly I believe; but what they are, I cannot tell; Dicant qui possunt; si tamen probare possunt quod dicunt, says that Father, Let them tell you that can, so they be able to prove, that they tell you true. They are Creatures, that have not so much of a Body as flesh is, as froth is, as a vapour is, as a sigh is, and yet with a touch they shall molder a rock into less Atoms, than the sand that it stands upon; and a millstone into smaller flower, than it grinds. They are Creatures made, and yet not a minute elder now, then when they were first made, if they were made before all measure of time began; nor, if they were made in the beginning of Time, and be now six thousand years old, have they one wrinkle of Age in their face, or one sob of weariness in their lungs. They are primogeniti Dei, God's eldest sons; They are super-elementary meteors, they hang between the nature of God, and the nature of man, and are of middle Condition; And, (if we may offencelessely express it so) they are anigmata Divina, The Riddles of Heaven, and the perplexities of speculation. But this is but till the Resurrection; Then we shall be like them, and know them by that assimilation. We end this branch with this consideration, If by being like the Angels, we shall know the Angels, we are more than like ourselves, we are ourselves, why do we not know ourselves? Why did not Adam know, that he had a Body, that might have been preserved in an immortality, and yet submitted his body, and mine, and thine, and theirs, who by this union are to be made one, and all, that by God's goodness shall be derived from them, to certain, to inevitable Death? Why do not we know our own Immortality, that dwells in us still, for all Adam's fall, and ours in him; that immortality which we cannot divest, but must live for ever, whether we will or no? To know this immortality, is to make this immortality, which otherwise is the heaviest part of our Curse, a Blessing unto us, by providing to live in Immortal happiness: whereas now, we do so little know ourselves, as that if my soul could ask one of those Worms which my dead body shall produce, Will you change with me? that worm would say, No; for you are like to live eternally in torment; for my part, I can live no longer, than the putrid moisture of your body will give me leave, and therefore I will not change; nay, would the Devil himself change with a damned soul? I cannot tell; As we argue conveniently, that the Devil is tormented more than man, because the Devil fell from God, without any other Tempter, than himself, but man had a Tempter, so may it be not inconveniently argued too, that man may be more tormented than he, because man continued and relapsed, in his rebellions to God, after so many pardons offered and accepted, which the Devil never had. Howsoever, otherwise their torments may be equal, as the Devil is a Spirit, and a condemned soul a spirit, yet that soul shall have a Body too, to be tormented with it, which the Devil shall not. How little we know ourselves, which is the end of all knowledge! But we hast to the next branch, In the Resurrection we shall be like to the Angels of God in Heaven; But in what lies this likeness? In how many other things soever this likeness may lie, Similes. yet in this Text, and in our present purpose, it lies only in this, Non nubent, In the Resurrection they shall not marry. But did Angels never marry, or, as good, or, at least, as ill, as marry? How many of the ancients take those words, Gen. 6. 2. Drusius in Sulpit. Sever. That the sons of God saw the daughters of Men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose, to be intended of Angels? They offer to tell us how many these married Angels were; Origen says, sixty, or seventy. They offer to tell us some of their names; Aza, was one of these married Angels, and Azael was another. But then all those, who do understand these words, The sons of God, to be intended of Angels, who being sent down, to protect Men, fell in love with Women, and married them, all, I say, agree, that those Angels that did so, never returned to God again, but fell, with the first fallen, under everlasting Condemnation. So that still, the Angels of God in Heaven, those Angels to whom we shall be like in the Resurrection, do not marry, not so much as in any such mistaking; they do not, because they need not; they need not, because they need no second Eternity, by the continuation of children; for, says S. Luke, they cannot die. Adam's first immortality was but this, Posse non mori, that he needed not to have died, he should not have died; The Angel's immortality, and ours, when we shall be like them, in the Resurrection, is, Non posse mori, that we cannot die, for, whosoever dies, is Homicida sui, says Tertullian; he kills himself, and sin is his sword: In heaven there shall no such sword be drawn; we need not say, that the Angels in heaven have, that we when we shall be like them, in the Resurrection, shall so invest an immortality in our nature, as that God could not inflict Death upon them, or us there, if we sinned: But because no sin shall enter there, no Death shall enter there neither, for, Death is the wages of sin. Not that no sin could enter there, if we were left to ourselves; for, in that place, Angels did sin; (And, fatendum est Angelos natura mutabiles, says S. Augustine, Howsoever Angels be changed in their Condition, they retain still the same nature, and by nature they are mutable) But that God hath added another prerogative, by way of Confirmation, to that state; so, as that that Grace which he gives us here, which is, that nothing shall put a necessity of sinning upon us, or that we must needs sin, God multiplies upon us so there, as that we can conceive no inclination to sin. Therein we shall be like the Angels, that we cannot die; And the nearer we come to that state in this life, the liker we are to those Angels here. Now, beloved, only he that is Dead already, cannot die. He that in a holy mortification is Dead the Death of the righteous, dead to sin, he lives, (shall we dare to say so? yes, we may) he lives a blessed Death, for such a Death is true life: And by such a heavenly Death, Death of the righteous, Death to sin, he is in possession of a heavenly life here, in an inchoation, though the consummation, and perfection be reserved for the next world; which is our last circumstance, and the Conclusion of all, At the Resurrection we shall be like the Angels; Till than we shall not; and therefore must not look for Angelical perfections here, but bear one another's infirmities. It is as yet but in Petition, Interim. fiat voluntas, Thy will be done in Earth, as it is in Heaven: And as long as there is an Earth it will be but in Petition; His will will not be done in Earth as it is in Heaven; when all is Heaven, to his Saints, all will be well; but not all till then. In the mean time, remember all, (especially you, whose Sacramental, that is, Mysterious, and significative union now is a Type of your union with God in as near, and as fast a band, as that of Angels, for, you shall be as the Angels of God in Heaven) That the office of the Angels in this world, is to Assist, and to supply Defects. You are both of noble extraction; there's no defect in that; you need not supply one another with Honour: you are both of religious Education; there's no defect in that; you need not supply one another with fundamental instructions. Both have your parts in that testimony which S. Gregory gave of your Nation, at Rome, Angli Angeli, you have a loveliness fit for one another. But, though I cannot Name, no nor Think any thing, wherein I should wish that Angelical disposition of supporting, or supplying defects, yet, when I consider, that even he that said Ego & pater unum sumus, I and the Father are one, yet had a time to say, utquid dereliquisti? My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me? I consider thereby, that no two can be so made one in this world, but that that unity may be, though not Dissolved, no nor Rent, no nor Endangered, yet shaked sometimes by domestic occasions, by Matrimonial encumbrances, by perverseness of servants, by impertinencies of Children, by private whisper, and calumnies of Strangers. And therefore, to speak not Prophetically, that any such thing shall fall, but Provisionally, if any such thing should fall, my love, and my duty, and my Text, bids me tell you, that perfect happiness is to be stayed for, till you be as the Angels of God in heaven; here, it is a fair portion of that Angelical happiness, if you be always ready to support, and supply one another in any such occasional weaknesses. The God of Heaven multiply the present joy of your parents, by that way, of making you joyful parents also; and recompense your obedience to parents, by that way, of giving you obedient Children too. The God of heaven so join you now, as that you may be glad of one another all your life; and when he who hath joined you, shall separate you again, establish you with an assurance, that he hath but borrowed one of you, for a time, to make both your joys the more perfect in the Resurrection. The God of Heaven make you always of one will, and that will always conformable to his; conserve you in the sincere truth of his Religion; feast you with the best feast, Peace of conscience; and carry you through the good opinion, and love of his Saints in this world, to the association of his Saints, and Angels, and one another, in the Resurrection, and everlasting possession of that kingdom, which his Son, our Saviour, Christ Jesus hath purchased for us, with the inestimable price of his incorruptible Blood, Amen. SERMON II. Preached at a Marriage. GEN. 2. 18. And the Lord God said, It is not good, that the man should be alone; I will make him a Help, meet for him. IN the Creation of the world, when God stocked the Earth, and the Sea, with those creatures, which were to be the seminary, and foundation and root of all that should ever be propagated in either of those elements, and when he had made man, to rule over them, he ●●oke to man, and to other creatures, in one and the same phrase, and form of speech, Crescite, & Multiplicamini, Be fruitful and multiply; and thereby imprinted in man, and in other creatures, a natural desire to conserve, and propagate their kind by way of Generation. But after God had thus imprinted in man, the same natural desire of propagation, which he had infused into other creatures too, after he had communicated to him that blessing, Gen. 1. 22. 28. (for so it is said, God blessed them, and said, Be fruitful, and multiply) till an ability and a desire of propagating their kind, was infused into the creature, there is no mention of any blessing in the creation; after God had made men partakers of that blessing, that natural desire of propagation, he takes a farther care of man, in giving him a proper and peculiar blessing, in contracting and limiting that natural desire of his: He leaves all other creatures to the● general use and execution of that Commission, Crescite et multiplicamini, the Male was to take the Female when and where their natural desire provoked them; but, for man, Gen. 2. 22. Add●xit Deus ad Adam; God left not them to go to one another, but God brought the woman to the man: and so this conjunction, this desire of propagation, though it be natural in man, as in other creatures, by his creation, yet it is limited by God himself, to be exercised only between such persons, as God hath brought together in marriage, according to his Institution, and Ordinance. Though then societies of men do grow up, and spread themselves into Towns, and into Cities, and into Kingdoms, yet the root of all societies is in families, in the relation between man and wife, parents and children, masters and servants: so though the state of the children of God, in this world be dignified by the name of a Kingdom, (for, so we pray by Christ's own institution, Luk. 17. 22. Thy kingdom come, and so Christ says, Ecce Regnum, The kingdom of God is amongst you) and though the state of God's children here, be called a City, a new jerusalem, coming down from heaven, and in David, Apoc. 21. 2. Glorious things are spoken of thee, O City of God, yet for all these glorious titles of City and Kingdom, Psal. 87. 3. we must remember, that it is called a family too● The Household of the faithful: And so the Apostle says, in preferring Christ before Moses, That Christ as the son was over God's house, whose house we are. Heb. 3. 6. So that, both of Civil and of Spiritual societies, the first root is a family; and of families, the first root is Marriage; and of marriage, the first root, that grows out into words, is in this Text; And the Lord God said, It is not good etc. If we should employ this exercise only upon these two general considerations, first, that God puts even his care and his study to find out what is good for man, and secondly, that God doth provide and furnish whatsoever he finds to be necessary, faciam, I will make him a Helper, though they be common places we are bound to thank God that they are so; that it is a common place to good, that he ever does it towards us, that it is a common place to us, that we ever acknowledge it in him. But you may be pleased to admit a more particular distribution. For, upon the first, will be grounded this consideration, that in regard of the public good, God pretermits private, and particular respects; for, God doth not say, Non bonum homini, it is not good for man to be alone, man might have done well enough so; nor God does not say, non bonum hunc hominem, it is not good for this, or that particular man to be alone; but non bonum, Hominem, it is not good in the general, for the whole frame of the world, that man should be alone, because then both God's purposes had been frustrated, of being glorified by man here, in this world, and of glorifying man, in the world to come; for neither of these could have been done, without a succession, and propagation of man; and therefore, non bonum hominem, it was not good, that man should be alone. And then upon the second consideration, will arise these branches; first, that whatsoever the defect be, there is no remedy, but from God; for it is, faciam, I will do it. Secondly, that even the works of God, are not equally excellent; this is but faciam, it is not faciamus; in the creation ●f man, there is intimated a Consultation, a Deliberation of the whole Trinity; in the making of women, it is not expressed so; it is but faciam. And then, that that is made here, is but Adjutorium, but an accessary, not a principal; but a Helper● First the wife must be so much, she must Help; and then she must be no more, she must not Govern. But she cannot be that, except she have that quality, which God intended in the first woman, Adjutoriam simile sibi, a helper fit for him: for otherwise he will ever return, to the bonum esse solum, it had been better for him, to have been alone, then in the likeness of a Helper, to have had a wife unfit for him. First then, 〈…〉 that in regard of the public good, God pretermits private respects, if we take examples upon that stage, upon that scene, the face of Nature, we see that for the conservation of the whole, God hath imprinted in the particulars, a disposition to depart from their own nature: water will clamber up hills, and air will sink down into vaults, rather than admit Vacuity. But take the example nearer, in God's bosom, and there we see, that for the public, for the redemption of the whole world, God hath (shall we say, pretermitted?) derelicted, forsaken, abandoned, his own, and only Son. Do you so too? Regnum Dei intra nos; the kingdom of God is within you; planted in your election; watered in your Baptism; fattened with the blood of Christ Jesus, ploughed up with many calamities, and tribulations; weeded with often repentances of particular sins; The kingdom of God is within you; and will ye not depart from private affections, from Ambition and Covetousness, from Excess, and voluptuousness, from chambering and wantonness, in which the kingdom of God doth not consist, for the conservation of this kingdom? will ye not pray for this kigdome, in your private, and public devotions? will ye not fast for this kingdom, in cutting off superfluities? will ye not fight for this kingdom, in resisting suggestions? will ye not take Counsel for this kingdom, in consulting with religious friends? will ye not give subsidies for this kingdom, in relieving their necessities, for whom God hath made you his stewards? weigh and measure yourselves, and spend that, be negligent of that, which is least, and worst in you. Is your soul less than your body, because it is in it? How easily lies a letter in a Box, which if it were unfolded, would cover that Box? unfold your soul, and you shall see, that it reaches to heaven; from thence it came, and thither it should pretend; whereas the body is but from that earth, and for that earth, upon which it is now; which is but a short, and an inglorious progress. To contract this, the soul is larger than the body, and the glory, and the joys of heaven, larger than the honours, and the pleasures of this world: what are seventy years, to that latitude, of continuing as long as the Ancient of days? what is it, to have spent our time, with the great ones of this time; when, when the Angels shall come and say, that Time shall be no more, we shall have no being with him, who is yesterday, and to day, and the same for ever? we see how ordinarily ships go many leagues out of their direct way, to fetch the wind. Spiritus spirat ubi vult, says Christ; the spirit blows where he will; and, as the Angel took Habakk●k by the hair, and placed him where he would, this wind, the spirit of God, can take thee at last, by thy grey hairs, and place thee in a good station then. Spirat ubi vult, he blows where he will, and spirat ubi vis, he blows where thou wilt too, if thou be'st appliable to his inspirations. They are but hollow places that return Echoes; last syllables: It is but a hollowness of heart, to answer God at last. Be but as liberal of thy body in thy mortifications as in thy excess, and licentiousness, and thou shalt in some measure, have followed God's example, for the public to pretermit the private, for the larger, and better, to leave the narrower, and worse respects. To proceed, when we made that observation, Non homini. that God pretermitted the private for the public, we noted, that God did not say, non bonum Homini, It was not good for man to be alone; man might have done well enough in that state, so, as his solitariness might have been supplied with a farther creation of more men. In making the inventaries of those goods which man possesseth in the world, Xenoph. we see a great Author says, In possessionibus sunt amici, & inimici, not only our friends, but even our enemies, are part of our goods, and we may raise as much profit from these, as from those, It may be as good a lesson to a man's son, Study that enemy, as Observe that friend. As David says, propitius fuisti, Psal. 99 8. & ulciscens, Thou heardst them o Lord our God, and wast favour able unto them, and didst punish all their inventions: it was part of his mercy, part of his favour, that he did correct them. So we may say to our enemy, I owe you my watchfulness upon myself, and you have given me all the goodness that I have; for you have calumniated all my indifferent actions, and that kept me; from committing enormous ill ones. And if than our enemies be in possessionibus, to be inventaried amongst our goods, might not man have been abundantly rich in friends, without this addition of a woman? Quanto congruentius, says S. Augustine; how much more conveniently might two friends live together, than a man and a woman? God doth not then say, non bonum homini, man got not so much by the bargain, (especially if we consider how that wife carried herself towards him) but that for his particular, he had been better alone● nor he does not say now, non bonum hunc hominem esse solum, It is not good for any man to be alone; for, Qui potest capere capiat, says Christ: he that is able to receive it, let him receive it. What? Mat. 19 12. That some make themselves Eunuches for the kingdom of heaven: that is, the better to un-entangle themselves from those impediments, which hinder them in the way to heaven, they abstain from marriage; and let them that can receive it, receive it. Now certainly few try whether they can receive this, or no. Few strive, few fast, few pray for the gift of continency; few are content with that incontinency which they have, but are sorry they can express no more incontinency. There is a use of marriage now, which God never thought of in the first institution of marriage; that it is a remedy against burning. The two main uses of marriage, which are propagation of Children, and mutual assistance, were intended by God, at the present, at first; but the third, is a remedy against that, which was not then; for then there was no inordinateness, no irregularity in the affections of man. And experience hath taught us now, that those climates which are in reputation, hottest, are not uninhabitable; they may be dwelled in for all their heat. Even now, in the corruption of our nature, the clime is not so hot, as that every one must of necessity, marry. There may be fire in the house, and yet the house not on fire: there may be a distemper of heat, and yet no necessity to let blood. The Roman Church injures us, when they say, that we prefer marriage before virginity: and they injure the whole state of Christianity, when they oppose marriage and chastity, as though they were incompatible, and might not consist together. Heb. 13. 4. They may; for marriage is honourable, and the bed undefiled; and therefore it may be so. S. Augustine observes in marriage, Bonuam fidei, a trial of one another's truth; and that's good; And bonum prolis, a lawful means of propagation; and that's good; and bonum Sacramenti, a mystical representation of that union of two natures in Christ, and of him to us, and to his Church; and that's good too. So that there are divers degrees of good in marriage. But yet for all these goodnesses, God does not say, non bonum, it is not good for any man to be alone, but Qui capere potest capiat; according to Christ's comment, upon his Father's text, He that can contain and continue alone, let him do so. But though God do not say, non homini, It is not good for the man, that he be alone, nor quemvis hominem, it is not good for every man to be alone, yet, considering his general purpose upon all the world, by man, he says non bonum; for that end, it is not good, that man should be alone, because those purposes of God could not consist with that solitude of man. In that production, and in that survey, which God made of all that he had made, still he gives the testimony, that he saw all was good, excepting only in his Second day's work, and in his making of Man. He forbore it in the making of the firmament, because the firmament was to divide between waters and waters; it was an emblem of division, of disunion. He forbore it also in the making of man, because though man was to be an emblem of God's union to his Church, yet because this emblem, and this representation, could not be in man alone, till the woman were made too, God does not pronounce upon the making of man, that the work was good: but upon God's contemplation, that it was not good, that man should be alone, there arose a goodness, in having a companion. And from that time, if we seek bonum, quia licitum, if we will call that good, which is lawful, marriage is that, If thou takest a wife thou sinnest not, says God by the Apostle. 1 Cor. 7. 28. If we seek bonum, quia bonus author, if we call that good whose author is good, Gen. 2. 22. marriage is that; Adduxit ad Adam, God brought her to man. If we seek such a goodness, as hath good witness, good testimony, marriage is that; Christ was present at a marriage, john. 2. and honoured it with his first miracle. If we seek such a goodness, as is a constant, and not a temporary, an occasional goodness, Christ hath put such a cement upon marriage, Mat. 19 6. What God hath joined, let no man put as under. If we seek such a goodness, as no man, (that is, no sort nor degree of men) is the worse for having accepted, we see the holiecst of all, the High Priest, in the old Testament is only limited, what woman he shall not marry, but not that he shall not marry; and the Bishop in the new Testament what kind of husband he must have been, but not that he must have been no husband. To contract this, as marriage in good, in having the best author, God, the best witness, Christ, the logest term, Life, the largest extent, even to the highest persons, Priests, and Bishops; as it is, all these ways, Positively good, so it is good in Comparison of that, which justly seems the best state, that is, Virginity, in S. Augustine's opinion, Non impar meritum johannis & Abrahae: If we could consider merit in man, the merit of Abraham, the father of nations, and the merit of john, who was no father at all, is equal. But that wherein we consider the goodness of it here, is, that God proposed this way, to receive glory from the sons of men here upon earth, and to give glory to the sons of men in heaven. But what glory can God receive from man, that he should be so careful of his propagation? what glory more from man, then from the Sun, and Moon, and Stars, which have no propagation? why this, that S. Augustine observes; Musca Soli praeferenda, quia vivit, A Fly is a nobler creature than the Sun, because a fly hath life, and the Sun hath not; for the degrees of dignity in the creature are esse, vivere, and intelligere: to have a being, to have life, and to have understanding: and therefore man, who hath all three, is much more able to glorify God, than any other creature is, because he only can choose whether he will glorify God or no; the glory that the others give, they must give, Rom. 12. but man is able to offer to God a reasonable sacrifice. When ye were Gentiles, says the Apostle, 1 Cor. 12. 2. ye were carried away unto dumb Idols, even as ye were led. This is reasonable service, out of Reason to understand, and out of our willingness to do God service. Now, when God had spent infinite millions of millions of generations, from all un-imaginable eternity, in contemplating one another in the Trinity, and then (to speak humanly of God, which God in his Scriptures abhors not) out of a satiety in that contemplation would create a world for his glory, and when he had wrought the first day, and created all the matter, and substance of the future creatures, and wrought four days after, and a great part of the sixth, and yet nothing produced, which could give him any glory (for glory is rationabile obsequium, reasonable service; and nothing could give that but a creature that understood it, and would give it,) at last, as the knot of all, created man; then, to perpetuate his glory, he must perpetuate man: and to that purpose, non bonum, it was not good for man to be alone; as without man God could not have been glorified, so without woman man could not have been propagated. But, as there is a place cited by S. Paul out of David, Psal. 68 18. which hath some perplexity in it, Ep●. 4. 8. we cannot tell, whether Christ be said to have received gifts from men, or for men; or to have given gifts to men, (for so S. Paul hath it) so it is not easse for us to discern, whether God had a care to propagate man, that he might receive glory from man, or that he might give glory to man. When God had taken it into his purpose to people heaven again, depopulated in the fall of Angels, by the substitution of man in their places, when God had a purpose to spend as much time with man in heaven after, as he had done with himself before, (for our perpetuity after the Resurrection, shall no more have an end, than his Eternity before the Creation had a beginning:) And when God to prevent that time of the Resurrection, as it were to make sure of man before, would send down his own Son to assume our nature here; and, as not sure enough so, would take us up to him, and set us, in his Son, at his own right hand, whereas he never did, nor shall say to any of the Angels, Sat thou there: That God might not be frustrated of this great, and gracious, and glorious purpose of his, non bonum, it was not good that man should be alone; for without man God could not give this glory, and without woman there could be no propagation of man. And so, though it might have been Bonum homini, man might have done well enough alone; and Bonum hunc hominem, some men may do better alone, yet God, who ever, for our example, prefers the public before the private, because it conduced not to his general end, of Having, and of Giving glory, saw, and said, Non bonum hominem, it was not good that man should be alone. And so we have done with the branches of our first part. We are come now to our second general part: 2d Part. In which, as we saw in the former, that God studies man, and all things necessary for man, we shall also see, that wherein soever man is defective, his only supply, and reparation is from God, Faciam, I will do it. Saul wanted counsel, he was in a perplexity, and he sought to the Witch of Endor, and not to God; and what is the issue? he Hears of his own, and of his son Jonathan's death the next day. Asa wants health, and he seeks to the Physician, and not to God, and what is the issue? He dies. Do not say, says S. Chrysost. Quaero necessaria, I desire nothing but that which is necessary for my birth, necessary for my place: Quod non dat Deus, non est necessarium: God hath made himself thy Steward, thy Bailiff; and whatsoever God provides not for thee, is not necessary to thee. It was the poor way that Mahomet found out in his Koran, that in the next life all women should have eyes of one bigness, and a stature of one size; he could find no means to avoid contention, but to make them all alike: But that is thy complexion, that is thy proportion which God hath given thee. It may be true that S. Hierome notes, who had so much conversation amongst women, that it did him harm, Mult as insognis pudicitiae, quamvis nulli virorum, sibi scimus ornari; I know, says he, as honest women as are in the world, that take a delight in making themselves handsomely ready, though for no other body's sake but for their own. Cyprian. That may be; but, manus Deo inferunt, they take the pencil out of God's hand, who go about to mend any thing of his making. Quod nascitur Dei est, quod mutatur Diaboli, says the same Father; God made us according to his image, and shall he be put to say to any of us, Non imago mea, this picture was not taken by the life, not by me, but is a Copy of the present distemper of the time? All good remedies are of God; none but he would ever have conceived such an invention as the Ark, without that model, for the reparation of the world; and he hath provided that means for the conservation of the world, marriage, Tertul. the association of one to one: Plures costae Adae, nec fatig at a manus Dei: Adam had more ribs than one, neither were God's hands wearied with making one; and yet he made no more. For him who first exceeded that, Lamech, Gen. 4. 18. who had two wives, the first was Adah, and Adah signifies Coetum, congregationem; there is company enough, society enough in a wife: His other wife was but Zillah, and Zillah is but umbra, but a shadow, but a ghost, that will terrify at last. To proceed; Though God always provide remedies, Faciam. and supplies of defects, it is not always in the greatest measure, nor in the presentest manner, that we conceive to ourselves. So much may be intimated even in this, that in this remedy of God's provision, the woman, God proceeded not, as he did in the making of man; it is not Faciamus, with such a counsel, such a deliberation as was used in that case. When the Creation of all the substance of the whole world is expressed, it is Creavit Dit, Gods created, as though more Gods were employed; and in the making of him, who was the abridgement of all, of man, it is faciamus, let us make him, as though more persons were employed: it is not so in the woman, for though the first Translation of the Bible that ever were and the Translation of the Roman Church have it in the plural, yet it is not so in the Original; it is but faci●m. I press no more upon this, but one lesson to ourselves, That if God exercise us with temporal afflictions, narrowness in our fortunes, infirmities in our constitutions, or with spiritual afflictions, ignorance in our understandings, scruples in our conscience, if God come not altogether in his faciamus, to pour down with both hands abundance of his worldly ●reafures, or of his spiritual light and clearness, let us content ourselves with one hand from him, with that manner and that measure that he gives, and that time and that leisure which he takes. And then one lesson also to the other sex, That they will be content, even by this form and change of phrase, to be remembered, 1 Tim. 2. 14. that they are the weaker vessel, and that Adam was not deceived but the woman was. For whether you will ease that with Theodoret's exposition, Adam was not deceived first, but the woman was first deceived; Or with Chrys●st●ms exposition, Adam was not deceived by a Serpent, a creature loathsome, & unacceptable, but by a lovely person, with whom he was transported: Or with Oecumenius his exposition; Adam was not deceived, because there is no charge laid upon him in the Scriptures, no mention that he was deceived in them, as it is said, that Melchisedek had no Father nor Mother, because there is no record of his pedigree in the Scriptures: Or in Ambr●se his exposition; That Adam was not deceived in praevaricationem, not so deceived as that he deceived any body else: Take it any way, 1 Tim. 2. 11. and it implies a weakness in the woman, and an occasion of soupling her to that just estimation of herself, That she will be ●ntent to learn in sitence with all subjections That as she is not a servant, but a Mother in the house, so she is but a Daughter, and not a Mother of the Church. This is presented more fully in the next, Adjutorium. that ●he is but Adjutorium, but a Help: and no body values his staff, as he does his legges●. It is not an ordinary disease now, to be ●xori●●s that needs no great dissuasion. But if any one man in a congregation be obnoxious to any one infirmity, one note is not ●ill spent: And let S. Hierome give this note, Sapi●ns judicio am●t, non affectu, Discretion is the weight of love in a wise man's hand, and not affection. S. Hier●●● cannot stay there; he adds thus much more, Nihil foedius, quam uxorem amare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 adulteram, There is not a more uncomely, a poorer thing, then to love a wife like a Mistress. S. Augustine makes that comparison, That whensoever the Apostles preached, they were glad when their auditory liked their preaching, Non avidita●e consequendae laudis, sed charitate seminande virtutis; not that they affected the praise of the people, but that thereby they saw, that they had done more good upon the people. And in another place he makes that comparison, That a righteous man desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ, & yet this righteous man dines, and sups, takes ordinary refections and ordinary recreations: So, for marriage, says he, in temperate men, officiosum, non libidinesum, it is to pay a debt, not to satisfy appetite; lest otherwise she prove in Ruinam, who was given in Adjutorium, and he be put to the first man's plea, Mulier quam dedisti, The woman whom thou gavest me, gave me my death. So much then she should be, A Helper; for, for that she was made. She is not so, if she remember not those duties which are intimated in the stipulation and contract which she hath made. Call it Conjugium, and that is derived a judge, it is an equal patience in bearing the incommodities of this life. Call it Nuptias, and that is derived à Nube, a veil, a covering; and that is an estranging, a withdrawing herself from all such conversation as may violate his peace, or her honour. Call it Matrimonium, and that is derived from a Mother, and that implies a religious education of her children. De latere sumpta, nor-discedat à latere, says A●g. Since she was taken out of his side, let her not depart from his side, but show herself so much as she was made for, Adjutorium, a Helper. But she must be no more; If she think herself more than a Helper, she is not so much. He is a miserable creature, whose Creator is his Wife. God did not stay to join her in Commission with Adam, so far as to give names to the creatures; much less to give essence; essence to the man, essence to her husband. When the wife thinks her husband owes her all his fortune, all his discretion, all his reputation, God help that man himself, for he hath given him no helper yet. I know there are some glasses stronger than some earthen vessels, and some earthen vessels stronger than some wooden dishes; some of the weaker sex, stronger in fortune, and in counsel too, than they to whom God hath given them, but yet let them not impute that in the eye nor ear of the world, nor repeat it to their own hearts, with such a dignifying of themselves, as exceeds the quality of a Helper. S. Hierome shall be her Remembrancer, She was not taken out of the fo●t; to be trodden upon, nor out of the head, to be an overseer of him; but out of his side, where she weakens him enough, and therefore should do all she can, to be a Helper. To be so, so much, and no more, she must be as God made Eve, fimilis ei, meet and fit for her husband. She is fit for any if she have those virtues, which always make the person that hath them good; as chastity, sobriety, taciturnity, verity, and such; for, for such virtues as may be had, and yet the possessor not the better for them, as wit; learning, eloquence, music, memory, cunning, and such, these make her never the fitter. There is a Harmony of dispositions, and that requires particular consideration upon emergent occasions; but the fitness that goes through all, is a sober continency; for without that, Matrimonium jurata fornicatio, Marriage is but a continual fornication, sealed with an oath: And marriage was not instituted to prostitute the chastity of the woman to one man, but to preserve her chastity from the tentations of more men. Bathsheba was a little too fit for David, when he had tried her so far before; for there is no fitness where there is not continency. To end all, there is a Moral fitness, consisting in those moral virtues, of which we have spoke enough; And there is a Civil fitness, consisting in Discretion, and accommodating herself to him; And there is a Spiritual fitness, in the unanimity of Religion, that they be not of repugnant professions that way. Of which, since we are well assured in both these, who are to be joined now, I am not sorry, if either the hour, or the present occasion call me from speaking any thing at all, because it is a subject too mis-interpretable, and unseasonable to admit an enlarging in at this time. At this time therefore, this be enough, for the explication and application of these words. SERMON III. Preached at a Marriage. HOSEA 2. 19 And I will marry thee unto me for ever. THE word which is the hinge upon which all this Text turns, is Erash, and Erash signifies not only a betrothing, as our later Translation hath it, 2 Sam. 3. 14. but a marriage; And so it is used by David, Deliver me my wife Michal whom I married; and so our former Translation had it, and so we accept it, and so shall handle it, I will marry thee unto me for ever. The first marriage that was made, God made, and he made it in Paradise: And of that marriage I have had the like occasion as this to speak before, in the presence of many honourable persons in this company. The last marriage which shall be made, God shall make too, and in Paradise too; in the Kingdom of heaven: and at that marriage, I hope in him that shall make it, to meet, not some, but all this company. The marriage in this Text hath relation to both those marriages: It is itself the spiritual and mystical marriage of Christ Jesus to the Church, and to every marriageable soul in the Church: And it hath a retrospect, it looks back to the first marriage; for to that the first word carries us, because from thence God takes his metaphor, and comparison, sponsabo, I will marry; And than it hath a prospect to the last marriage, for to that we are carried in the last word, in aeternum, I will marry thee unto me for ever. Be pleased therefore to give me leave in this exercise, to shift the scene thrice, and to present to your religious considerations three objects, three subjects: first, a secular marriage in Paradise; secondly, a spiritual marriage in the Church; and thirdly, an eternal marriage in heaven. And in each of these three we shall present three circumstances; first the Persons, Me and Tibi, I will marry thee; And then the Action, Sponsabo, I will marry thee; And lastly the Term, In aeternam, I will marry thee to me for ever. In the first acceptation then, 1t Part. Persons. in the first, the secular marriage in Paradise, the persons were Adam and Eve: Ever since they are he and she, man and woman: At first, by reason of necessity, without any such limitation, as now: And now without any other limitation, than such as are expressed in the Law of God: As the Apostles say in the first general Council, Acts 15. 28. We lay nothing upon you but things necessary, so we call nothing necessary but that which is commanded by God. If in heaven I may have the place of a man that hath performed the Commandments of God, I will not change with him that thinks he hath done more than the Commandments of God enjoined him. The rule of marriage for degrees and distance in blood, is the Law of God; but for conditions of men, there is no Rule given at all. When God had made Adam and Eve in Paradise, God did not place Adam in a Monastery on one side, and Eve in a Nunnery on the other, and so a River between them. They that built walls and cloisters to frustrate God's institution of marriage, 1 Tim. 4. 3. advance the Doctrine of Devils in forbidding marriage. The Devil hath advantages enough against us, in bringing men and women together: It was a strange and super-devilish invention, to give him a new advantage against us, by keeping men and women asunder, by forbidding marriage. Between the heresy of the Nicolaitans, that induced a community of women, any might take any; and the heresy of the Tatians that forbade all, none might take any, was a fair latitude. Between the opinion of the Manichean heretics, that thought women to be made by the Devil, and your Colliridian heretics that sacrificed to a women, as to God, there is a fair distance. Between the denying of them souls, which S. Ambrose is charged to have done, and giving them such souls, as that they may be Priests, as your Pepution heretics did, is a fair way for a moderate man to walk in. To make them Gods is ungodly, and to make them Devils is devilish; To make them Mistresses is unmanly, and to make them servants is unnoble; To make them as God made them, wives, is godly and manly too. When in your Roman Church they dissolved marriage in natural kindred, in degrees where God forbids it not, when they dissolve marriage upon spiritual kindred, because my Grandfather Christened that woman's Father; when they dissolve marriage upon legal kindred, because my Grandfather adopted that woman's Father: they separate those whom God hath joined so, as to give leave to join in lawful marriage. When men have made vows to abstain from marriage, I would they would they would be content to try a little longer than they do, whether they could keep that vow or no: And when men have consecrated themselves to the service of God in his Church, I would they would be content to try a little farther than they do, whether they could abstain or no: But to dissolve marriage made after such a Vow, or after Orders, is still to separate those whom God hath not separated. The Persons are he and she, man and woman; they must be so much; he must be a man, she must be a woman; And they must be no more; not a brother and a sister, not an uncle and aneece; Adduxit od eum, was the cause between Adam and Eve, God brought them together; God will not bring me a precontracted person, he will not have me defraud another; nor God will not bring me a misbelieving, a superstitious person, he will not have me drawn from himself: But let them be persons that God hath made, man and woman, and persons that God hath brought together, that is, not put asounder by any Law of his, and all such persons are capable of this first, this secular marriage. In which our second Consideration is the Action, Sponsabe; Sponsabo. where the Active is a kind of Passive, I will marry thee, is, I will be married unto thee, for we mary not ourselves. They are somewhat hard driven in the Roman Church, Bellar. de Matrimo. l. 1. c. 6. when making marriage a Sacrament, and being pressed by us with this question, If it be a Sacrament, who administers it, who is the Priest? They are fain to answer, the Bridegroom and the Bride, he and she are the Priest in that Sacrament. As marriage is a civil Contract, it must be done so in public, as that it may have the testimony of men; As marriage is a religious Contract, it must be so done, as that it may have the benediction of the Priest: In a marriage without testimony of men they cannot claim any benefit of the Law; In a marriage without the benediction of the Priest they cannot claim any benefit of the Church: for how Matrimonially foever such persons as have married themselves may pretend to love, and live together, yet all that love, and all that life is but a regulated Adultery, it is not marriage. Now this institution of marriage had three objects: first, In ustionem, In ustionem. it was given for a remedy against burning; And then, In prolem, for propagation, for children; And lastly, In adjutorium, for mutual help. As we consider it the first way, In ustionem, every heating is not a burning; every natural concupiscence does not require a marriage; may every flaming is not a burning; though a man continue under the flame of carnal tentation, as long as S. Paul did; yet it needs not come presently to a Sponsabo, I will marry. God gave S. Paul other Physic, Gratia mea sufficit, grace to stand under that tentation; And S. Paul gave himself other Physic, Contundo corpus, convenient disciplines to tame his body. Ambrose. These will keepa man from burning; for Vriest desideriis vinci, desideria pati, illustris est, & perfecti; To be overcome by our concupiscences, that is to burn, but to quench the fire by religious ways, that is a noble, that is a perfect work. When God at the first institution of marriage had this first use of marriage in his contemplation, that it should be a remedy against burning, God gave man the remedy, before he had the disease; for marriage was instituted in the state of innocency, when there was no inordinateness in the affections of man, and so no burning. But as God created Reubarb in the world, whose quality is to purge choler, before there was any choler to purge, so God according to his abundant forwardness to do us good, created a remedy before the disease, which he foresaw coming, was come upon us. Let him then that takes a wife in this first and lowest sense, In medicinam, but as his Physic, yet make her his cordial Physic, take her to his heart, and fill his heart with her, let her dwell there, and dwell there alone, and so they will be mutual Antidotes and Preservatives one to another, against all foreign tentations. And with this blessing, bless thou, o Lord, these whom thou hast brought hither for this blessing: make all the days of their life like this day unto them; and as thy mercies are new every morning, make them so to one another; And if they may not die together, sustain thou the survivor of them in that sad hour with this comfort, That he that died for them both, will bring them together again in his everlastingness. The second use of marriage was In prolificationem, In prolem. for children: And therefore as S. August. puts the case, To contract before, that they will have no children, makes it no marriage but an adultery: To deny themselves to another, is as much against marriage as to give themselves to another. To hinder it by Physic, or any other practice; nay to hinder it so far, as by a deliberate wish, or prayer against children, consists not well with this second use of marriage. And yet in this second use, we dòe not so much consider generation as regeneration; not so much procreation as education, nor propagation as transportation of children. For this world might be filled full enough of children, though there were no marriage; but heaven could not be filled, nor the places of the fallen Angels supplied, without that care of children's religious education, which from Parents in lawful marriage they are likeliest to receive. How infinite, and how miserable a circle of sin do we make, if as we sinned in our Parents loins before we were born, so we sin in our children's actions when we are dead, by having given them, either example, or liberty of sinning. We have a fearful commination from God upon a good man, upon Eli, 1. Sam. 3. 11. 4. 18. for his not restraining the licentiousness of his sons; I will do a thing in Israel, says God there, at which every man's ears that hears it shall single: And it was executed, Eli fell down and broke his neck. We have also a consolation to women for children, 1 Tim. 2. 15. She shall be saved in Childbearing, says the Apostle; but as chrysostom and others of the Ancients observe and interpret that place (which interpretation arises out of the very letter) it is, Si permanserint, not if she, but if they, if the children continue in faith, in charity, in holiness, and sobriety: The salvation of the Parents hath so much relation to the children's goodness, as that if they be ill by the Parent's example, or indulgence, the Parents are as guilty as the children. Art thou afraid thy child should be stung with a Snake, and wilt thou let him play with the old Serpent, in opening himself to all tentations? Art thou afraid to let him walk in an ill air, and art thou content to let him stand in that pestilent air that is made of nothing but oaths, and execrations of blasphemous mouths round about him? It is S. Chrysostom's complaint, Perditionem magno pretio emunt; Salutem nec done accipere volunt; we pay dear for our children's damnation, by paying at first for all their childish vanities, and then for their sinful insolences at any rate; and we might have them saved, and ourselves to the bargain, (which were a frugal way, and a debt well hedged in) for much less than ours, and their damnation stands us in. If you have a desire, says that blessed Father, to leave them certainly rich, Deumiis relinque Debitorem, Do some such thing for God's service, as you may leave God in their debt. He cannot break; his estate is inexhaustible; he will not break promise, nor break day; He will show mercy unto thousands in them that love him and keep his Commandments. And here also may another shower of his benedictions fall upon them whom he hath prepared and presented here; Let the wife be as a fruitful Vine, and their children like Olive plants: Ps. 128. 3. To thy glory, let the Parents express the love of Parents, and the children, to thy glory, the obedience of children, till they both loose that secular name of Parents and Children, and meet all alike, in one new name, all Saints in thy Kingdom, and fellow servants there. The third and last use in this institution of secular marriage, In adjutorium. was, In adjutorium, for mutual help. There is no state, no man in any state, that needs not the help of others. Subjects need Kings, and if Kings do not need their Subjects, they need alliances abroad, and they need Counsel at home. Even in Paradise, where the earth produced all things for life without labour, and the beasts submitted themselves to man, so that he had no outward enemy; And in the state of innocency in Paradise, where in man all the affections submitted themselves to reason, so that he had no inward enemy, yet God in this abundant Paradise, and in this secure innocency of Paradise, even in the survey of his own work, saw, that though all that he had made was good, yet he had not made all good; he found thus much defect in his own work, that man lacked a helper. Every body needs the help of others; and every good body does give some kind of help to others. Even into the Ark itself, where God blessed them all with a powerful and an immediate protection, God admitted only such as were fitted to help one another, couples. In the Ark, which was the Type of our best condition in this life, there was not a single person. Christ saved once one thief at the last gasp, to show that there may be late repentances; but in the Ark he saved none but married persons, to show, that he eases himself in making them helpers to one another. And therefore when we come to the P●sui Deum adjutorium meum, to rely upon God primarily for our Help, God comes to the faciam tibi adjutorium, I will make thee a help like thyself: not always like in complexion, nor like in years, nor like in fortune, nor like in birth, but like in mind, like in disposition, like in the love of God, and of one another or else there is no helper. It was no kind of help that David's wife gave him, when she spoke by way of counsel, but in truth, in scorn and derision, to draw him from a religious act, as the dancing before the Ark, at that time was: It is no help for any respect, to slacken the husband in his Religion. It was but a poor help that Nabals' wife was fain to give him by telling David, Al as my husband is but a fool, like his name, and what will you look for at a fools hand? It is the worst help of all to raise a husband by dejecting herself, to help her husband forward in this world, by forfeiting sinfully, and dishonourably her own interest in the next. The husband in the Helper in the nature of a foundation, to sustain and uphold all; The wife in the nature of the roof, to cover imperfections and weaknesses: The husband in the nature of the head from whom all the sinews flow; The wife in the nature of the hands into which those sinews flow, and enable them to do their offices. The husband helps as legs to her, she moves by his motion; The wife helps as a staff to him, he moves the better by her assistance. And let this mutual help be a part of our present benediction too; In all the ways of fortune let his industry help her, and in all the crosses of fortune let her patience help him; and in all emergent occasions and dangers spiritual, or temporal, O God make speed to save them, O Lord, make haste to help them. We have spoken of the persons, In aeternum. man and woman, him and her; And of the action, first as it is Physic, but cordial Physic; and then for children, but children to be made the children of God; and lastly for help, but true help and mutual help; There remains yet in this secular marriage, the Term, how long, for ever, I will marry thee for ever. Now though there be properly no eternity in this secular marriage, nor in any thing in this world, (for eternity is that only which never had beginning, nor ever shall have end) yet we may consider a kind of eternity, a kind of circle without beginning, without end, even in this secular marriage: for first, marriage should have no beginning before marriage; no half-mariage, no lending away of the mind, in conditional precontracts before, no lending away of the body in unchaste wantonness before. The body is the temple of the Holy Ghost; and when two bodies, by marriage are to be made one temple, the wife is not as the Chancel, reserved and shut up, and the man as the walks below, indifferent and at liberty for every passenger. God in his Temple looks for first fruits from both, that so on both sides, marriage should have such a degree of eternity, as to have had no beginning of marriage before marriage. It should have this degree of eternity too, this quality of a circle to have no interruption, no breaking in the way by unjust suspicions and jealousies. Where there is Spiritus immunditei, as S. Paul calls it, a spirit of uncleanness, there will necessarily be Spiritus zelotypiae, as Moses calls it, a spirit of jealousy. But to raise the Devil in the power of the Devil, to call up one spirit by another spirit, by the spirit of jealousy and suspicion, to induce the spirit of uncleanness where it was not, if a man conjure up a Devil so, God knows who shall conjure it down again, As jealousy is a care and not a suspicion, God is not ashamed to protest of himself that he is a jealous God. Exod. 20. God commands that no idolatry be committed, Thou shalt not bow down to a graven Image; and before he accuses any man to have bowed down to a graven Image, before any Idolatry was committed, he tells them that he is a jealous God; God is jealous before there is any harm done. And God presents it as a curse, when he says, My jealousy shall depart from thee, Ezech. 16. 42. and I will be quiet, and no more angry; that is, I will heave thee to thyself, and take no more care of thee. Jealousy that implies care, and honour, and counsel, and tenderness, is rooted in God, for God is a jealous God, and his servants are jealous servants, as S. Paul professes of himself, 2 Cor. 11. 2. I am jealous over you with a ged jealousy. But jealousy that implies diffidence and suspicion, and accusation, is rooted in the Devil, for he is the Accuser of the brethren. So then, this secular marriage should be in aeternum, eternal, for ever, as to have no beginning before, and so too, as to have no jealous interruption by the way; for it is so eternal, as that it can have no end in this life: Those whom God hath joined, no man, no Devil, can separate so, as that it shall not remain a marriage so far, as that if those separated persons will live together again, yet they shall not be new married; so far, certainly, the band of marriage continues still. The Devil makes no marriages; He may have a hand in drawing conveyances; in the temporal conditios there may be practice, but the marriage is made by God in heaven. The Devil can break no marriages neither, though he can by sin break off all the good uses, and take away all the comforts of marriage. I pronounce not now whether Adultery dissolves marriage or no; It is S. Augustine's wisdom to say, Where the Scripture is silent, let me be silent too: And I may go lower than he, and say, Where the Church is silent, let me be silent too; and our Church is so far silent in this, as that it hath not said, That Adultery dissolves marriage. Perchance than it is not the death of marriage, but surely it is a deadly wound. We have Authors in the Romanc Church that think fornicationem non vagam, that such an incontinent life as is limited to one certain person, is no deadly sin, But there is none even amongst them that diminish the crime of Adultery. Habere quasi non haberes, is Christ's counsel, To have a wife as though thou hadst none, that is continency, and temperance, and forbearance and abstinency upon some occasions; But non habere quasi haberes, is not so; not to have a wife, and yet have her, to have her, that is another's, that is the Devil's counsel. That falutation of the Angle to the blessed Virgin Mary, Blessed art thou amongst memen, we may make even this interpretation, not only that she was blessed amongst women, that is, above women, but that she was Benedicta, blessed amongst women, that all women blest her, that no woman had occasion to curse her: And this is the eternity of this secular marriage as far as this world admits any eternity; that it should have no beginning before, no interruption of jealousy in the way, no such approach towards dissolution, as that incontinency, in all opinions, and in all Churches is agreed to be. And here also without any scruple of fear, or of suspicion of the contrary, there is place for this benediction, upon this couple; Build, o Lord, upon thine own foundations, in these two, and establish thy former graces with future; that no person ever complain of either of them, nor either of them of one another, and so he and she are married in aeternum for ever. We are now come in our order proposed at first, to our second Part; 2d Part. for all is said that I intended of the secular marriage. And of this second, the spiritual marriage, much needs not to be said: There is another Priest that contracts that, another Preacher that celebrates that, the Spirit of God to our spirit. And for the third marriage, the eternal marriage, it is a boldness to speak any thing of a thing so inexpressible as the joys of heaven; it is a diminution of them to go about to heighten them; it is a shadowing of them to go about to lay any colours or light upon them. But yet your patience may perchance last to a word of each of these three Circumstances, The Persons, the Action, the Term, both in this spiritual, and in the eternal marriage. First then, as in the former Part, the secular marriage, Persons. for the persons there, we considered first Adam and Eve, and after every man and woman, and this couple in particular; so in this spiritual marriage we consider first Christ and his Church, for the Persons, and more particularly Christ and my soul. And can these persons meet? in such a distance, and in such a disparagement can these persons meet? the Son of God and the son of man? When I consider Christ to be German jehovae, the bud and blossom, the fruit and offspring of Jehovah, Jehovah himself, and myself before he took me in hand, to be, not a Potter's vessel of earth, but that earth of which the Potter might make a vessel if he would, and break it if he would when he had made it: When I consider Christ to have been from before all beginnings, and to be still the Image of the Father, the same stamp upon the same metal, and myself a piece of rusty copper, in which those lines of the Image of God which were imprinted in me in my Creation are defaced and worn, and washed and burnt, and ground away, by my many, and many, and many fins: When I consider Christ in his Circle, in glory with his Father, before he came into this world, establishing a glorious Church when he was in this world, and glorifying that Church with that glory which himself had before, when he went out of this world; and then consider myself in my circle, I came into this world washed in my own tears, and either out of compunction for myself or compassion for others, I pass through this world as through a valley of tears, where tears settle and swell, and when I pass out of this world I leave their eyes whose hands close mine, full of tears too, can these persons, this Image of God, this God himself, this glorious God, and this vessel of earth, this earth itself, this inglorious worm of the earth, meet without disparagement? They do meet and make a marriage; Action. because I am not a body only, but a body and s, soul there is a marriage, Deut 21. 12. and Christ maries me. As by the Law a man might marry a captive woman in the Wars, if he shaved her head, and pared her nails, and changed her clothes: so my Saviour having fought for my soul, fought to blood, to death, to the death of the Cross for her, having studied my soul so much, as to write all those Epistles which are in the New Testament to my soul, having presented my soul with his own picture, that I can see his face in all his temporal blessings, having shaved her head in abating her pride, and pared her nails in contracting her greedy desires, and changed her clothes not to fashion herself after this world, my soul being thus fitted by himself, Christ Jesus hath married my soul, married her to all the three intendments mentioned in the secular marriage; first, in ustionem, In ustionem. against burning; That whether I burn myself in the fires of tentation, by exposing myself to occasions of tentation, or be reserved to be burnt by others in the fires of persecution and martyrdom, whether the fires of ambition, or envy, or lust, or the everlasting fires of hell offer at me in an apprehension of the judgements of God, yet as the Spirit of God shall wipe all tears from mine eyes, so the tears of Christ Jesus shall extinguish all fires in my heart, and so it is a marriage, In ustionem, a remedy against burning. It is so too, In prolem. In prolificationem, for children; first, vae soli, woe unto that single soul that is not married to Christ; that is not come into the way of having issue by him, that is not incorporated in the Christian Church, and in the true Church, but is yet in the wilderness of Idolatry amongst the Gentiles, or in the Labyrinth of superstition amongst the Papists, vae soli, woe unto that single man that is not married unto Christ in the Sacraments of the Church; and vae sterili, woe unto them that are barren after this spiritual marriage, jer. 22. 30. for that is a great curse in the Prophet jeremy, Scribe virum istum sterilem, write this man childless, that implied all calamities upon him; And assoon as Christ had laid that curse upon the Figtree, Mat. 21. 19 Let no fruit grow upon thee for ever, presently the whole tree withered; no fruit, no leaves neither, nor body left. To be incorporated in the body of Christ Jesus, and bring forth no fruits worthy of that profession, is a woeful state too. Vae soli, woe unto the Gentiles not married unto Christ; and vae sterili, woe unto inconsiderate Christians, that think not upon their calling, that conceive not by Christ; but there is a vae praegnanti too, Mat. 24. 19 woe unto them that are with child, and are never delivered; that have good conceptions, religious dispositions, holy desires to the advancement of God's truth, but for some collateral respects dare not utter them, nor bring them to their birth, to any effect. The purpose of his marriage to us, is to have children by us: and this is his abundant and his present fecundity, that working now, by me in you, in one instant he hath children in me, and grand children by me. He hath married me, in ustionem, and in prolem, against burning, and for children; but can he have any use of me, in adjutorium, for a helper? Surely, if I be able to feed him, and cloth him, and harbour him, (and Christ would not condemn men at the last day for not doing these, if man could not do them) I am able to help him too. Great persons can help him over sea, convey the name of Christ where it hath not been preached yet; and they can help him home again; restore his name, and his truth where superstition with violence hath disseised him: And they can help him at home, defend his truth there against all machinations to displant and dispossess him. Great men can help him thus; and every man can help him to a better place in his own heart, and his own actions, than he hath had there; and to be so helped in me and helped by me, to have his glory thereby advanced, Christ hath married my soul: And he hath married it in aeternum, for ever; which is the third and last Circumstance in this spiritual, as it was in the secular marriage. And here the aeternum is enlarged; In aeternum. in the secular marriage it was an eternity considered only in this life; but this eternity is not begun in this world, but from all eternity in the Book of life, in God's eternal Decree for my election, there Christ was married to my soul. Christ was never in minority, never under years; there was never any time when he was not as ancient as the Ancient of Days, as old as his Father. But when my soul was in a strange minority, infinite millions of millions of generations, before my soul was a soul, did Christ marry my soul in his eternal Decree. So it was eternal, it had no beginning. Neither doth he interrupt ●his by giving me any occasion of jealousy by the way, but loves my soul as though there were no other soul, and would have done and suffered all that he did for me alone, if there had been no name but mine in the Book of life. And as he hath married me to him, in aeternum, for ever, before all beginnings, and in aeternum, for ever, without any interruptions, so I know, that whom he loves he loves to the end, and that he hath given me, not a presumptuous impossibility, but a modest infallibility, that no sin of mine shall divorce or separate me from him, for, that which ends the secular marriage, ends not the spiritual: not death, for my death does not take me from that husband, but that husband being by his Father preferred to higher titles, and greater glory in another state, I do but go by death where he is become a King, to have my part in that glory, and in those additions which he hath received there. And this hath led us to our third and last marriage, our eternal marriage in the triumphant Church. And in this third marriage, the persons are, 3d d Part. Persons. Apoc. 19 7, 9 Esay 53. 4. the Lamb and my soul; The marriage of the Lamb is come, and blessed are they that are called to the marriage Supper of the Lamb, says S. john speaking of our state in the general Resurrection. That Lamb that was brought to the slaughter and opened not his mouth, and I who have opened my mouth and poured out imprecations and curses upon men, and execrations and blasphemies against God upon every occasion; That Lamb who was slain from the beginning, and was slain by him who was a murderer from the beginning; That Lamb which took away the sins of the world, and I who brought more sins into the world, than any sacrifice but the blood of this Lamb could take away: This Lamb and I (these are the Persons) shall meet and marry; there is the Action. This is not a clandestine marriage, Action. not the private seal of Christ in the obsignation of his Spirit; and yet such a clandestine marriage is a good marriage: Nor it is not such a Parish marriage, as when Christ married me to himself at my Baptism, in a Church here ● and yet that marriage of a Christian soul to Christ in that Sacrament is a blessed marriage: But this is a marriage in that great and glorious Congregation, where all my fins shall be laid open to the eyes of all the world, where all the blessed Virgins shall see all my uncleanness, and all the Martyrs see all my tergiversations, and all the Consessors see all my double dealings in God's cause; where Abraham shall see my faithlesness in God's promises; and job my impatience in God's corrections; and Lazarus my hardness of heart in distributing Gods blessings to the poor; and those Virgins, and Martyrs, and Confessors, and Abraham, and job, and Lazarus, and all that Congregation, shall look upon the Lamb and upon me, and upon one another, as though they would all forbid those banes, and say to one another, Will this Lamb have any thing to do with this soul? and yet there and then this Lamb shall marry me, In aeternum, for ever, which is our last circumstance. It is not well done to call it a circumstance, In aeternum. for the eternity is a great part of the essence of that marriage. Consider then how poor and needy a thing, all the riches of this world, how flat and tastlesse a thing, all the pleasures of this world, how pallid, and faint, and dilute a thing, all the honours of this world are, when the very Treasure, and Joy, and glory of heaven itself were unperfect, if it were not eternal, and my marriage shall be too, In aeternum, for ever. The Angels were not married so; they incurred an irreparable Divorce from God, and are separated for ever, and I shall be married to him, in aeternum, for ever. The Angels fell in love, when there was no object presented, before any thing was created; when there was nothing but God and themselves, they fell in love with themselves, and neglected God, and so fell in aeternum, for ever. I shall see all the beauty, and all the glory of all the Saints of God, and love them all, and know that the Lamb loves them too, without jealousy, on his part, or theirs, or mine, and so be married in aeternum, for ever, without interruption, or diminution, or change of affections. I shall see the Sun black as sackcloth of hair, Apoc. 6. 12. and the Moon become as blood, and the Stars fall as a Figtree casts her untimely Figs, and the heavens rolled up together as a Scroll. I shall see a divorce between Princes and their Prerogatives, between nature and all her elements, between the spheres, and all their intelligences; between matter itself, and all her forms, and my marriage shall be, in aeternum, for ever. I shall see an end of faith, nothing to be believed that I do not know; and an end of hope, nothing to be wished that I do not enjoy, but no end of that love in which I am married to the Lamb for ever. Yea, I shall see an end of some of the offices of the Lamb himself; Christ himself shall be no longer a Mediator, an Intercessor, an Advocate, and yet shall continue a Husband to my soul for ever. Where I shall be rich enough without Jointure, for my Husband cannot die; and wise enough without experience, for no new thing can happen there; and healthy enough without Physic, for no sickness can enter; and (which is by much the highest of all) safe enough without grace, for no tentation that need particular grace, can attempt me. There, where the Angels, which cannot die, could not live, this very body which cannot choose but die, shall live, and live as long as that God of life that made it. Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, o Lord, that in thy light we may see light: Illustrate our understandings, kindle our affections, pour oil to our zeal, that we may come to the marriage of this Lamb, and that this Lamb may come quickly to this marriage: And in the mean time bless these thy servants, with making this secular marriage a type of the spiritual, and the spiritual an earnest of that eternal, which they and we, by thy mercy, shall have in the Kingdom which thy Son our Saviour hath purchased with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. To whom, etc. SERMON IU. Preached at a Christening. REVEL. 7. 17. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throns', shal● govern them, and shall lead them unto the lively furnteins of matters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. IF our conversation be in heaven, Phil. 3. 30. as the Apostle says his was, and if that conversation be, (as Testullian reads that place) Municipatus noster, our City, our dwelling, the place from whence only we receive our Laws, to which only we direct our services, in which only we are capable of honours, and offices, where even the office of a doorkeeper was the subject of a great King's ambition; if our conversation be there, even there, there cannot be better company met, than we may see and converse withal in this Chapter. Upon those words, doth the Eagle mount up at the Cominandement, job 33. 30. or make his nest on high; S. Gregory says, Videamus aquilam, nidum sibi, in arduis construentem; Greg. Moral. 31, 34. Then we say an Eagle make his nest on high, when we heard S. Petter say so, Our conversation is in heaven; and then doth an Eagle mount up at our commandment, when our soul, our devotion, by such a conversation in heaven, associates itself with all this blessed company that are met in this Chapter, that our fellow ship may be with the Father, and with his Son jesus Christ, 1 john 1. 3. and with all the Court and Choir of the Triumphant Church. If you go to feasts, if you go to Comedies, fometimes only to meet company, nay if you come to Church sometimes only upon that errand, to meet company, (as though the House of God, were but as the presence of an earthly Prince, which upon solemn Festival days must be filled and furnished, though they that come, come to do no service there) command year Eagle to mount up, and to build his nest on high, command your souls to have their conversation in heaven by meditation of this Scripture, and you shall meet company, which no stranger shall interrupt, for they are all of a knot, and such a knot as nothing shall untie, as inseparably united to one another, as that God, with whom they are made one Spirit, is inseparable in himself. Here you shall see the Angel that comes from the East, Rev. 7. 2. (yea, that Angel which is the East, from whence all beams of grace and glory arise, for so the Prophet calls Christ jesus himself, Zecha. 6. 12. (as S. Hierome reads that place) Eccevir, Oriens nomen ejus, Behold him, whose name is the East) you shall see him come with the seal of the living God, and hold back those Angels which had power given them to hurt the Sea, and the Earth, and you shall her him say, Rev. 7. 3. Hurt not the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in the forecheads. And as you shall see him forward, so you shall see him large, and bountiful in imprinting that Seal, vers. 4. you shall see an hundred and forty four thousand of the Tribes of the Children of Israel, and you shall see a great multitude, which no man can number, of all Nations, verse 9 & 10. and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stand before the Throne, and before the Lamb, and cry out, and say, Salvation cometh of our God, that sitteth upon the Throne, and of the Lamb: and you shall see all the Angels stand round about the Throne, and about the Elders, verse 11. and the four Beasts, all falling upon their faces, and worshipping God, saying, verse 12. Amen, praise, and glory, and wisdom, and thanks, and honour, and power, and might be unto our God, for evermore, Amen. And this is good company, and good Music. And lest you should lose any of the Joy of this conversation, of this society, by ignorance what they were, one of the Elders prevents you; verse 13. and (as the Text says) answers you, saying, what are these that are arrayed in white? he answers by a question, which is some what strange; but he answers before any question, which is more strange: but God fees questions in our hearts before he hears them from our lips; and as soon as our hearts conceive a desire to be informed, he gives a full and a present satisfaction; he answers before we ask; but yet he answers by a question, that thereby he may give us occasion of farther discourse, of farther questioning with him. There, this Elder shall tell thee, that those are they which are come out of the Tribulations of this world, verse 14. and have made their Robes white in the blood of the Lamb, that therefore they are in the presence of the Throne of God, that they serve him day and night in the Temple, that they shall hunger no more, thirst no more, nor be offended with heat, or Sun; That is, as many as are appointed to receive this Seal of the living God upon their foreheads, though they be not actually delivered from all the incommodities of this life, yet nothing in this life shall deprive them of the next. For as you see the Seal given in this Chapter, and the promise of all these blessings annexed to it, so you see in this Text the reason of all this, for the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throne shall govern them, and shall lead them unto the lively fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. In which words, we shall consider for order and distincton, Divisio. first the matter, and then the form: by the matter we mean the purpose and intention of the Holy Ghost in these words; and by the form, the declaring, the proving, the illustrating, and the heightening of that purpose of his. For the matter; we take this imprinting or the Seal of the living God in the forehead of the Elect, vers. 3. and this washing in the blood of the Lamb, verse 14. to be intended of the Sacrament of Baptism: In that which we call the form, which is the illustrating of this, we shall first look upon the great benefits and blessings which these servants of God so sealed, and so washed, are made partakers of; for those blessings which are mentioned in the verses before, are rooted and enwrapped in this particular of this Text, Quoniam, for; they are blessed; for the Lamb shall dòe this and this for them; And then we shall consider what that is which this Lamb will do for them; first, Reget illos, He shall govern them, take them into his care, make them heirs of the Covenant, breed them in a visible Church: secondly, Deducet eos, He shall lead them to the lively fountains of waters; give them outward and visible means of Sanctification; thirdly, Absterget omnem lachtymam, He shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; even in this life he shall settle and establish a heavenly joy in the faithful appreliension of the joys of heaven here. First then to speak of the matter, Materia. that is of the purpose and intention of these words, it is true, they are diversely understood: They have been understood of the state of the Martyrs, which are now come to the possession of their Crown in heaven, because they are said to have made their long Robes white in the blood of the Lamb; verse 14. And so S. August. Aug. and S. Gregory Gregor. (when, by occasion of the subject which they were then in hand with, they were full of the contemplation of Martyrdom, and encouragements to that) do seem to understand these words, of Martyrs. But since it is not said, that they washed their robes in their own blood, which is proper to Martyrs, but in the blood of the Lamb, which is communicated to all that participate of the merit of Christ, the words seem larger than so, and not to be restrained only to Martyrs. Others have enlarged them farther than so, beyond Martyrs: but yet limit them to the Triumphant Church; that because it is said, that they are come out of great tribulation, and that they are in the presence of the Throne of God, and that they shall hunger no more, they see no way of admitting these perfections, in this life. But S. Paul saw a way, when he said of the Elect, even in this life, God which is rich in mercy, Ephes. 2. 4. Convivificavit, conresuscitavit, considere fecit, he hath quickened us, he hath raised us, he hath made us fit together in the heavenly places, in Christ jesus: That is, as he is our Head, and is there himself, and we with Christ Jesus, as we are his Members; we are with him there too. In the same place where the Apostle says, That we look for our Saviour from heaven, Phil. 3. 20. (there is our future, our expectation) he says also, our conversation is in heaven, there is our present, our actual possession. That is it which S. Augustine Aug. intends, Dilexisti me Domine plusquam te; Lord thou hast loved me more than thou hast loved thyself: Not only that thou gavest thyself for me, that thou didst neglect thyself to consider me, but whereas thou hadst a glory with the Father, before the world was made, thou didst admit a cloud, and a slumber upon that glory, and staiedst for thy glory till thy death, yet thou givest us, (naturally inglorious, and miserable creatures) a real possession of glory, and of inseparablenesse from thee, in this life. This is that Copiosa redemptio, Psal. 130. 7. there is with the Lord plentiful redemption; though that were Matura redemptio, a seasonable redemption, if it should meet me upon my deathbed, and that the Angels than should receive my soul, to lay it in Abraham's bosom, yet this is my Saviour's plentiful redemption, that my soul is in Abraham's bosom now whilst it is in this body, and that I am already in the presence of his Throne, now when I am in your sight, and that I serve him already day and night in his Temple, now when I meditate, or execute his Commission, in this service, in this particular Congregation. Those words are not then necessarily restrained to Martyrs, they are not restrained to the state of the Triumphant Church, they are spoken to all the Children of righteousness, and of godliness; and godliness hath the promises of the life present, and that, that is to come. 1 Tim. 4. 8. That which involves all these promises, that which is the kernel, and seed, and marrow of all, the last clause of the text, God shall wipe all tears from their eyes, those words, that clause, is thrice repeated entirely in the Scriptures: When it is spoken here, when it is spoken in the one and twentieth Chapter of the Revelation, and at the fourth verse, in both places, it is derived from the Prophet Esay, 25. 8. which is an Eacharisticall chapter, a Chapter of thanksgiving for God's deliverance of his children, even in this world, from the afflictions, and tribulations thereof, and therefore this text belongs also to this world. This imprinting then of the seal in the forehead, this washing of the robes in the blood of the Lamb, Ambr. S. Ambrose places conveniently to be accomplished in the Sacrament of Baptism: for this is Copiosissima Redemptio, this is the most plentiful redemption, that that be applied to us, not only at last in Heaven, nor at my last step towards heaven, at my death, nor in all the steps that I make in the course of my life, but in my first step into the Church, nay before I can make any step, when I was carried in another's arms thither, even in the beginning of this life; and so do divers of the later Men, and of those whom we call ours, understand all this, of baptism; because if we consider this washing away of tears, as Saint Cyprian says, young children do most of all need this mercy of God and this assistance of Man, because as soon as they come into this world Plorantes, ac flentes, nihil aliud faciunt, quam deprecantur, they beg with tears something at our hands, and therefore need this abstersion, this wiping. For though they cannot tell us, what they ail, though (if we will enter into curiosities) we cannot tell them what they ail, that is, we cannot tell them what properly, and exactly Original sin is, yet they ail something, which naturally disposes them, to weep, and beg, that something might be done, for the wiping away of tears from their eyes. And therefore though the other errors of the Anabaptist be ancient, 1000 year old, yet the denying of baptism to children, was never heard of till within 100 years, and less. The Arrians, and the Donatists did rebapsize those who were baptised by the true Christians, whom they counted Heretics; but yet they refused not to baptise children: The Pelegians denied original sin in children; but yet they baptised them. All Churches, Greek, and Russian, and Ethiopique, howsoever they differ in the body of the Church, yet they meet, they agree in the porch, in Limine Ecclesiae, in the Sacrament of baptism, and acknowledge that it is communicable to all children, and to all Men; from the child new borne to the decrepit old Man, from him that is come out of one mother's womb, to him that is going into another, into his grave, Sicut nullus prohibendus à baptism, Augustin. it a nullus est qui non peccate moritur in baptismo, As baptism is to be denied to none, so neither is it to be denied, that all, that are rightly baptised, are washed from sin. Let him that will contentiously say, that there are some children, that take no profit by baptism, show me which is one of them, and qui testatur de scientia, testetur de mode scientiae; If he say he knows it, let him tell us how he knows that which the Church of God doth not know. We come now to the second part; in which we consider first, this firstword, 2. Part. quoniam, for, which is verbum praegnans, a word that includes all those great blessings, which God hath ordained for them, whom in his eternal decree, he hath prepared for this sealing and this washing. Those blessings, which are immediately before the text, are, that in God's purpose, they are already come out of great tribulations, they have already received a whiteness by the blood of the Lamb, they are already in the presence of the throne of the Lamb, they have already overcome all hunger, and thirst, and heat. Those particular blessings we cannot insist upon; that requires rather a Comment upon the Chapter, than a Sermon upon the text. But in this word of inference, for, we only will observe this: That though all the promises of God in him, are Yea, and Amen, 2 Cor. 1. 20. certain, and infallible in themselves, though his Name, that makes them be Amen, (Thus saith Amen, the faithful and true witness) and therefore there needs no better security, Revel. 3. 14. than his word, for all those blessings, yet God is pleased to give that abundant satisfaction to Man, as that his reason shall have something to build upon, as well as his faith, he shall know why he should believe all these blessings to belong to them who are to have these Seals, and this washing. For God requires no such faith, nay he accepts, nay he excuses no such faith, as believes without reason; believes he knows not why. As faith without fruit, without works, is no faith; to faith without a roct, without reason, is no faith, but an opinion. All those blessings by the Sacrament of Baptism, & all Gods other promises to his children, and all the mysteries of Christrian Religion, are therefore believed by us, becuase they are grounded in the Scriptures of God; we believe them for that reason; and than it is not a work of my faith primarily, but it is a work of my reason, that assures me, that these are the Scriptures, that these Scriptures are the word of God. I can answer other men's reasons, that argue against it, I can convince other men by reason, that my reasons are true: and therefore it is a work of reason, that I believe these to be Scriptures. To prove a beginning of the world, I need not the Scriptures, reason will evict it forceibly enough against all the world; but, when I come beyond all Philosophy, that for Adam's fault six thousand year ago, I should be condemned now, because that fault is naturally in me, I must find reason, before I believe this, and my reason is, because I find it in the Scrpiture; Nascimur filii Irae, and therefore, nifi renatus, we are borne children of wrath, and therefore must be borne again. That a Messias should come to deliver Mankind from this sin, and all other fins, my reason is, the Semen mulieris, the seed of the woman, for the promise, and the Ecce agnus Dei, Behold the Lamb of God, for the performance. That he should come, I reft in that, The seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpent's head; And that he is come, I rest in this, that john Baptist showed the Lambs of God that taketh away the sins of the world. That this merit of his should be applied to certain Men, my reason is in the Semini two, God's Covenant, to Abraham, and to his seed; That we are of that number, included in that Covenant to Abraham, my reason is, in spiritu adoptionis, the spirit of adoption hath ingraffed us, inserted us into the same Covenant. When my reason tells me that the Seal of that Covenant, Circumcision is gone, (I am not circumcised, and therefore might doubt) my reason tells me too, that in the Scriptures, there is a new Seals, Baptism: when my reason tells me, that after that regeneration, I have degenerated again, I have fallen from those graces which I received in Baptism, my reason leads me again to those places of Scripture, where God hath established a Church for the remession and absolution of sins. If I have been negligent of all these helps, and now my reason begins to work to my prejudice, that I begin to gather and heap up all those places of the Law, and Prophets, and Gospel, which threaten certain condemnation unto such sinners, as I find myself to be, yet if my reason can see light at the Nolo mortem peccatoris, at the Quandocunque resipiscct; That God would not the death of any sinner, That no time is unseasonable for repentance: That scatters the clands of witnesses again; and to till my reason can tell me (which it can never do) that it hath found places in Scripture, of a measure, and finiteness in God, (that his mercy can go no farther) and then of an infiniteness in Man (that his fin can go beyond God) my reason will defend me from desperation; I mean the reason, that is grounded upon the Scripture; still I shall find there, that Quia, which David delighted in so much, as that he repears it almost thirty times, in one Psalm, 136. For his mercy endureth for ever. God leaves no way of satisfaction unperformed unto us; sometimes he works upon the fantasy of Man; as in those often ●isions, which he presented to his Prophets in dreams; sometimes he works upon the senses, by preparing objects for them; So he filled the Mountain round about with horses, 2 Reg. 6. 17. and chariots, in defence of Elisha; but always he works upon our reason; he bids us fear no judgement, he bids us hope for no mercy, except it have a Quia, a reason, a foundation, in the Scriptures. For God is Logos, speech and reason He declares his will by his Word, and he proved it, he confirms it, he is Logos, and he proceeds Logically. It is true, that we have a Sophistry, which as far as concerns our own destruction, frustrates his Logic; If Peter make a Quia, a reason why his fellows could not be drunk, Because it was but nine a Clock, Act. 2. 15. we can find Men that can overthrow that reason, and rise drunk out of their beds; If Christ make a Quia, a reason against fashionall, and Circumstantial christians, that do sometimes some offices of religion, Mat. 9 16. v. 17. out of custom, or company, or neighbourhood, or necessity, because no man peecethan old garment with new cloth, nor puts new wine into old vessels, yet since S. Augustine Augustin. says well, Carnalitas vetustas, gratia novitas, our carnal delights, are our old garments, and those degrees and beams of grace, which are shed upon us, are the new, we do piece this old with this new, that is, long habits of sin, with short repentances; flames of concupiscence, with little sparks of remorse; and into old vessels, (our sin-worn bodies) we put in once a year, some drops, of new wine, of the blood of our Saviour Christ jesus, in the Sacrament, (when we come to his table, as to a vintage, because of the season, and we receive by the Almanac, because it is Easter) and this new wine so taken in, breaks the vessels, (as Christ speaks in that similitude) And his breaking shall be, Esay 30. 14. as the breaking of a Potter's pot, which is broken without pity, and in the breaking thereof is not found a shared, to take fire at the hearth, nor to take water out of the pit; No way in the Church of God, to repair that Man, because he hath made either a Mockery, or at best, but a Civil action of God's institution in the Church. To conclude this, all sin is but fallacy and Sophistry; Religion is reason and Logic; The devil hides, and deludes, Almighty God demonstrates and proves: That fashion of his goes through all his precepts, through all his promises, which is in Esay, Esay 1. 8. Come now, and let us reason together; that which was in job, job. 31. 13. is a bundantly in God, That he did not contemn the judgement of his servant, nor of his maid, when they did contend with him. Nec decet Dei judicium quicquid habere affine tyrannidi, Basil. we may not think that here is any thing in God, like a Tyrant; and it is a Tyrannical proceeding, as to give no reason of his cruelties, so to give no assurance of his benefits; and therefore God seals his promises with a Quia, a reason, an assurance. Now much of the strength of the assurance, consists in the person, Persona. whose seal it is; and therefore as Christ did, we ask next, Cujus inscriptio, whose Image, whose inscription is upon his seal, who gives this assurance? And it is the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne; If it werethe Lion, the Lion of the tribe of juda, is able to perform his promises: but there are more than Christ, out of this world, that bear the Lion; The devil is a Lion too, that seeketh whom he may devour: but he never seals with that Lamb, with any impression of humility; to a Lamb he is never compared; in the likeness of a lamb, he is never noted to have appeared, in all the Legends. It is the Lamb, that is in the midst, thereby disposed to shed, and dispense his spiritual benefits on all sides; The Lamb is not immured in Rome, not coffined up in the ruins, and tubbidge of old walls, nor thrust into a corner in Conventicles. The Lamb is in the midst; & he is in the midst of the throne; though all his great, & glorious company be round about him, one hundred and forty four thousand Israelites, innumerable multitudes of all Nations, Angels, and Elders, yet it is the Lamb, that is in the midst of them, and not they that are about him, that sheds down these blessings upon us; And it is the Lamb, that is there still, in the midst of the throne; not kneaded into an Agnus Dei, of wax, or wafer here, not called down from heaven, to an Altar, by every Priest's charm, to be a witness of secrecy in the Sacrament, for every bloody, and feditious enterprise, that they undertake; It is Agnus qui est in medio Throni, the Lamb that is there, and shall be so, till he come at last, as a Lion also, to devour them, who have made false opinions of him to serve their mischievous purposes here. This is the person then, that gives the assurance, that all these blessings belong to them who are ordained to be so sealed, and so washed; this is he that assures us, and approves to us, that all this shall be, first, Quia reget, because he shall govern them, secondly, Quia deducet, because he shall lead them to the fountains of waters; thirdly, Quia absterget, because he shall wipe all tears from their eyes. First, he shall govern them; Reget. he shall establish a spiritual Kingdom for them in this world; for to govern, which is the word, of the first translation, and to feed, which is in the second, is all one in Scriptures. Dominabitur gentium, he shall be Lord of the Gentiles; but Rex Israelis, he shall govern his people Israel, as a King, by a certain, and a clear law; So that, as we shall have interest in the Covenant, as well as the Israclites, so we shall have interest in that glorious acclamation of theirs; Unto what nation are their Gods come so near unto them, as the Lord our God, is come near unto us; what nation hath Laws, and ordinances so righteous as we have? for in that Paul & Barnabas express the heaviest indignation of God upon the Gentiles, Act. 14. 16. that God suffered the Gentiles to walk in their own ways; he showed them not his ways, he settled no church, no kingdom, amongst them, he did not govern them. Except one of those Eight persons whom God preserved in the Ark, were here to tell us, the unexpressible comfort, that he conceived in his safety, when he saw that flood wash away Princes from their thrones, misers from their bags, lovers from their embracements, Courtiers from their wardrobes, no man is able to express that true comfort, which a Christian is to take, even in this, That God hath taken him into his Church, and not left him in that desperate, and irremediable inundation of Idolatry, and paganisace that overflows all the world beside. For beloved, who can express, who can conceive that strange confusion, which shall overtake, and oppress those infinite multitudes of Souls, which shall be changed at the last day, and shall meet Christ Jesus in the clouds, and shall receive an irrevocable judgement, of everlasting condemnation, dut of his mouth, whose name they never heard of before, that must be condemned by a Judge, of whom they knew nothing before, and who never had before any apprehension of torments of Hell, till by that lamentable experience they began to learn it? What blessed means of preparation against that fearful day doth he afford us, even in this, that he governs us by his law, delivered in his Church. The first thing, that the householder in the parable, Mat. 21. 33. is noted to have done for his Vineyard was, Sepe circumdedit, he hedged it in. That, God hath done for us, in making us his Church; Eccles. 10. 8. he hath inlaid us, he hath hedged us in. But he that breaketh the hedge, a Serpent shall bite him, he that breaketh this hedge, the peace of the Church, by his Schism, the old Serpent hath bitten, and poisoned him, and shall bite worse hereafter: and if God, having thus severed us, and hedged us in, have expected grapes, and we bring none, though we break no hedge here amongst ourselves, that is, no Papist breaks in upon us, no Separatist breaks out from us, we enjoy security enough, yet even for our own barrenness, Godwill take away the hedge, Esay 5. 5. and it shall be eaten up, he will break the wall, and it shall be trodden down. Surely, says the Prohet there, The Vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the Men of Indah are his pleasant plans: Surely we are the Church, which God hath hedged in; but yet if we answer not his expectation, certainly the confusion of the Gentiles, at the last day, (when they shall say to themselves of Christ Nescivi te, dost thou condemn us, and we know thee not?) shall not be so great, as out confusion shall be, when we shall hear Christ say to us, whom he bred in his Church, Nesiciovos, I know not whence you are. Even this, that the ill use of this mercy of having been bred in his Church, shall aggravate our condemnation then, shows the great benefit, which we may receive now by this Quod regit nos, that he takes care of us in his Church; for how many in the world would have lived ten times more christianly than we do, if they had but half that knowledge of Christ, which we have? When he hath then brought us into his kingdom, Deducet. that we are his subjects, (for all the heathen are in the condition of slaves) he brings us nearer, into his service; he gives us outward distinctions, liveries, badges, names, visible marks in Baptism: yea he incorporates us more inseparably to himself, then that which they imagine to be done in the Church of Rome, where their Canonists, say; that a Cardinal is to incorporated in the Pope, he is so made one flesh, and blood with him, as that he may not let blood without his leave, because he bleeds not his own, but the Pope's blood: But of us it is true, that by this Sacramen we are so incorporated into Christ, that in all our afflictions after we fulfil the sufferings of Christ in our flesh, and in all afflictions, which we lay upon any of our Christian brethren, our consciences hear Christ crying to us, Quid me persequerts? why persecutest thou me? Christ's body is wounded in us, when we suffer, Christ's body is wounded by us, when we violate the peace of the Church, or offend the particular members thereof. First then deducet, he shall lead them, it is not he shall force them, he shall thrust them, he shall compel them; it implies a gentle, and yet an effectual way, he shall lead them. Those which come to Christianity, from judaism, or Gentisme, when they are of years of discreation, he shall lead them by instruction, by Catechism, by preaching of his word, before they be baptised, for they that are of years & are baptised, without the word, that is, without understanding, or considering the institution, & virtue of baptisime, expressed in God's word, and so receive baptism only for temporal, and natural respects, they are not led to the waters, but they fall into them: and so, as a Man may be drowned in a wholesome bath, so such a Man, may perish eternally in baptism, if he take it, for satisfaction of the State, or any other by respect, to which that Sacrament is not ordained, in the word of God. He shall lead Men of years, by Instruction; and he shall lead young children in good company, and with a strong guard, he shall lead them by the faith of his Church, by the faith of their Parents, by the faith of their sureties and undertakers. He shall lead them; and then, when he hath taken them into his government; for first it is Reget, he shall govern them, and then Deducet, that is, he shall lead them, in his Church; and therefore they that are led to baptism, any other way then by the Church, they are misled; nay they are miscarried, misdriven, Spiritu vertiginis, Esay 19 14. with the spirit of giddiness. They that join any in commission with the Trinity, though but as an asstsant, (for so they say in the Church of Rome, baptism may be administered, Aquin. in the name of the Father, Son, and holy Ghost, and the virgin Mary) they follow not, as Christ led in his Church, Non fuit sic ab initio, it was not so from the beginning: for quod extra hos tres est, totum Conservum est; though much dignity belong to the memory of the Saints of God, yet whosoever is none of the three Persons, ●asil. Conservus est, he is our fellow-servant: though his service lie above stairs, and ours below, his in the triumphant, ours in the militant Church, Conservus est, yet he, or she, is in that respect, but our fellow-servant, and not Christ's fellow-redeemer. Exod. 15. So also, if we be led to Marah, to the waters of bitterness, that we bring a bitter taste, of those institutions of the Church for the decency, and signification in Sacramental things, things belonging to Baptism, if we bring a misinterpretation of them, an indisposition to them, an averseness from them, and so nourish a bitterness, and uncharitableness towards one another, for these Ceremonies, if we had rather cross one another, and cross the Church, then, cross the child, as God showed Moses, a tree, which made those waters in the wilderness sweet, when it was cast in, so remember that there is the tree of life, the cross of Christ jesus, and his Merits, in this water of baptism, & when we all agree in that, that all the virtue proceeds from the cross of Christ, the God of unity and peace and concord, let us admit any representation of Christ's cross, rather than admit the true cross of the devil, which is a bitter and schismatical crossing of Christ in his Church: for it is there in his Church, that he leads us to these waters. Well then, Eos. they to whom these waters belong, have Christ in his Church to lead them; and therefore they need not stay, till they can come alone, till they be of age and years of discretion, as the Anabaptists say: for it is Deducet, and Deducet eos; generally, universally; all that are of this government, all that are appointed for the Seal, all the one hundred and forty four thousand, all the Innumerable multitudes of all Nations Christ leads them all. Act. 2. 39 Be Baptised every one of you, in the name of jesus Christ, for the remission of sins; for the promise is made unto you, and your children. Now all promises of God, are sealed in the holy Ghost; To whom soever any promise of God belongs, he hath the holy Ghost; and therefore Nunquid aquam quis prohibere potest? Can any Man forbid water, that these should not be baptised, which havereceived the holy Ghost, as well as we? says S. Peter. And therefore the Children of the Covenant which have the promise, Act. 10. 47. have the holy Ghost, & all they are in this Regiment, Deducet eos, Christ shall lead them all. But whither? Ad aquas. unto the lively, (says our first edition) unto the living, (says our last edition) fountains of waters; In the original, unto the fountains of the water of life; now in the Scriptures nothing is more ordianry, then by the name of waters to design and mean tribulations: so, amongst many other, God says of the City of Tyre, Ezek. 16. 19 that he would make it a desolate: City, and bring the deep upon it, and great waters should cover it. But then there is some such addition, as leads to that sense; either they are called Aqua multae, great waters, or Profunda aquarum, deep waters, or Absorbebit aqua, whirlpools of waters, or Tempestas aquae, tempestuous waters, jer. 8. 14. or Aqua Fellis, bitter water, (God bath mingled gall in our water:) but we shall never read fontes aquarum, jer. 2. 13. fountains of waters, but it hath a gracious sense, and presents God's benefits. So, they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters; So, the water, that I shall give, joh. 4. 14. shall be in him, a well of water, springing up unto everlasting life; and so, every where else, when we are brought to the fountains, to this water, in the fountain, in the institution, howsover we puddle it with impertinent questions in disputation, however we soul it with our fins, and all conversation, the fountain is pure; Baptism presents, and offers grace, and remission of sins to all. Nay not only, this fountain of water, but the greatest water of all, the flood itself, Saint Basil Basil. understands, and applies to Baptism, as the Apostle himself does, 1 Pet. 3. 21. Baptism was a figure, of the flood, and the Ark, Psal. 29. 10. for upon that place, The Lord sitseth upon the flood, and the Lord doth remain King for ever, he says, Baptismi gratiam Diluvium nominat, nam deles & purgat; David calls Baptism the flood, because it destroys all that was sinful in us; and so also he refers to Baptism, those words, (when David had confessed his sins) I thought I would confess against myself my wickedness, unto the Lord; and when it is added, Surely in the flood of great waters, they shall not come near him, peccato non appropinquabunt; says he, original sin shall not come near him, that is truly baptised; nay all the actual sins in his future life, shall be drowned in this baptism, as often, as he doth religiously, and repentantly consider, that in Baptism, when the merit of Christ was communicated to him, he received an Antidote against all poison, against all sin, if he applied them together, sin and the merit of Christ; for so also he says, of that place, God will subdue all our iniquities, and cast our sins into the bottom of the Sea, Hoc est, in mare Baptismi, Mic. 7. 19 says Basil, into the Sea of Baptism; There was a Brazen Sea in the Temple; 1 Reg. 7. 24. and there is a golden Sea in the Church of Christ, which is Baptistrisum, the font, the Sea, into which God flings all their sins, who rightly, and effectually receive that Sacrament. These fountains of waters then in the text, are the waters of baptisime: and if we should take them also, in that sense, that waters signify tribulations, and afflictions, it is true too, that in baptism, (that is, in the profession of Christ,) we are delivered over to many tribulations; Luke 24. The rule is general, Castigat omnes, he chastiseth all; The example, the precedent is peremptory, Opertuit pati, Christ ought to suffer, and so enter into glory: but howsoever waters be afflictions, they are waters of life, too, says the text; Though baptism imprint a cross upon us, that we should not be ashamed of Christ cross, that we should not be afraid of our own crosses, yet by all these waters, by all these Cross ways, we go directly to the eternal life, the kingdom of heaven, for they are lively fountains, fountains of life. And this is intended, and promised, Absterget. in the last words, Absterget omnem Lachrymam, God shall wipe all tears from our eyes; God shall give us a joyful apprehension of heaven, here in his Church in this life. But is this a way to wipe tears from the child's face, to sprinkle water upon it. Is this a wiping away, to pour more on? It is the powerful, and wonderful way of his working; for as his red blood, makes our red souls, white, that his redness, gives our redness a candour, so his water, his baptisime, and the powerful effect thereof; shall dry up, and wipe away Omnem ●achrymam, all tears from our Eyes, howsoever occasioned. This water shall dry them up; Christ had many occasion of tears; we have more; some of our own, which he had not: we must weep because we are not so good, as we should be: we cannot perform the law. We must weep, because we are not so good, as we could be; our free will is lost; but yet every Man finds, he might be better, if he would: but the sharpest, and saltest, and smartest occasion of our tears, is from this, that we must not be so good, as we would be; that the prosanenesse of the Libertine, the reproachful slanders, the contumelious scandals, the seornfull names, that the wicked lay upon those, who in their measure desire to express their zeal to God's glory, makes us afraid, to profess ourselves so religious as we could find in our hearts to be, and could truly be if we might. Christ went often in contemplation of others; foreseeing the calamities of jerualem, he wept over the City. coming to the grave of Lazarus, he wept with them, but in his own Agony in the garden, it is not said that he weps; If we could stop the stood of tears, in our afflictions, yet there belongs an excessive grief to this, that the ungodly disposion of other Men, is slacking of our godliness, of our sanctification too. Heb. 12. Christ Jesus for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross; we for the joy of this promise, that God will wipe all tears from our eyes; must suffer all this, whether they be tears of Compunction, or tears of Compassion, tears for ourselves, or tears for others; whether they be magdalen's tears, or Peter's tears; tears for sins of infirmity of the flesh, or tears for weakness of our faith; whether they be tears for thy parents; because they are improvident towards thee, or tears for thy children, because they are disobedient to thee, whether they be tears for Church, because our Sermons, or our Censures pinch you, or tears for the State, that penal laws, pecuniary, or bloody, lie heavy upon you, Deus absterget omneni lachryman, here's your comfort; that as he hath promised inestimable blessings to them, that are sealed, and washed in him, so he hath given you security, that these blessings belong to you: for, if you find, that he hath govened you, (bred you in his visible Church) and led you to his fountain of the water of lifein baptism, you may be sure, that he will in his due time, wipe all tears from your eyes, establish the kingdom of heaven upon you, in this life, in a holy, and modest infallibility. SERMON V. Preached at a Christening. EPHES. 5. 25, 26, 27. Husband's love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify it, and cleanse it, by the washing of water, through the Word: That he might make it unto himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, on any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blame. ALmighty God ever loved unity, but he never loved singularity; God was always alone in heaven, there were no other Gods, but he; but he was never singular, there was never any time, when there were not three persons in heaven; Pater & ego unum summi; The father and I are one, says Christ: one in Esseuct, and one in Consent; our substance is the same, and our will is the same; but yet, Tecum fui ab initio, says Christ, in the person of Wisdom, I was with thee, disposing all things, at the Creation, As than God seems to have been eternally delighted, with this eternal generation, (with persons that had ever a relation to one another, Father, and Son) so when he came to the Creation of this lower world, he came presently to those three relations, of which the whole frame of this world consists; of which, (because the principal foundation, and preservation of all States that are to continue, is power) the first relation was between Prince and Subject, Gen. 1. 28. when God said to Man, Subjecite & dominamini, subdue and govern all Creatures; The second relation was between husband and wife, 2. 23. when Adam said, This now is house of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; And the third relation was between parents and children, when Eve said, that she had obtained a Man by the Lord, that by the plentiful favour of God, 4. 1. she had conceived and borne a son: from that time, to the dissolution of that frame, from that beginning to the end of the world, these three relations, of Master and Servant, Man's and Wife, Father and Children, have been, and ever shall be the materials, and the elements of all society, of families, and of Cities, and of Kingdoms. And therefore it is a large, and a subtle philosophy which S. Paul professes in this place, to show all the qualities, and properties of these several Elements, that is, all the duties of these several callings; but in this text, he handles only the mutual duties of the second couple, Man, and Wife, and in that consideration, shall we determine this exercise, because a great part of that concerns the education of Children, (which especially occasions our meeting now.) The general duty, that goes through all these three relations, v. 12. is expressed, Subditi estate inviceus, Submit yourselves to one another, in the fear of God; for God hath given no Master such imperiousness, no husband such a superiority, no father such a sovereignty, but that there lies a burden upon them too, to consider with a compassionate sensibleness, the grievances, that oppress the other part, which is coupled to them. For if the servant, the wife, the son be oppressed, worn out, annihilated, there is no such thing left as a Master, or a husband, or a father; They depend upon one another, and therefore he that hath not care of his fellow, destroys himself. The wife is to submit herself; and so is the husband too: They have a burden both, There is a greater subjection lies upon her, then upon the Man, in respect of her transgression towards her husband at first: Eyes before there was any Man in the world, to solicit, or tempt her chastity, she could finde another way to be self and treacherous to her husband: both the husband, and the wife offended against God, but the husband offended not towards his wife, but rather eat the Apple, Hier. Ne contristaretur delicias suas, as S. Hierome assigns the cause, left by refusing to eate, when she had done so, he should deject her into a desperate sense of her sin. And for this fault of hers, her Subjection was so much aggravated, Thy desire shall be subject to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee, But if she had not committed that fault, yet there would have been a mutual subjection between them; as there is even in Nature, between both the other couples; for if Man had continued in innocency, yet it is most probably thought, that as there would certainly have been Marriage, and so children, so also there would have been Magistracy, and propriety, and authority, and so a mutual submitting, a mutual assisting of one another, in all these three relations. Now, that submitting, of which the Apostle speaks of here; is a submitting to one another, a bearing of one another's burdens: what this submission is on the wife's part, is expressed in the two former verses; And I forbear that, because husbands at home, are likely enough to remember them of it; but in the duty, in the submitting of the husband, we shall consider first, what that submitting is, and that is love, Husbands love your wives; Even the love of the husband to the wife, is a burden, a submitting, a descent; and secondly, the pattern and example of this love, Even as Christ loved his Church. In which second part, as sometimes the accessary is greater than the principal, the Symptom, the accident, is greater than the disease, so that from which the comparison is drawn in this place, is greater than that which is illustrated by it; the love of Christ to his Church requires more consideration, than the love of the husband to the wife; and therefore it will become us to spend most of our thoughts upon that; and to consider in that, Quod factum, and Quis sinis; what Christ did for his Church; and that was, a bounty, which could not be exceeded, seipsum tradidit, he gave, he delivered himself for it; And then, secondly, what he intended that should work; and that was, first, that he might make it to himself a glorious Church, and without spot and wrinkle, in the Triumphant state of the Church at last; And then, that whilst it continues in a Militant state upon Earth, it might have preparations to that glory, by being sanctified and cleansed by the washing of water, through his Word; he provides the Church means of sanctification here, by his Word, and Sacraments. First then De Amoremaritali, Amor. of this contracting a Man's love to the person of a wife, of one woman, as we find an often exclamation in the Prophets, Onus visionis, The burden of my prophecy upon Nineveh, and Onus verbi Domini, The burden of the word of God upon Israel, so there is Onus amoris, a burden of love, when a Man is appointed whom he shall love. Gen. 38. When Onan was appointed by his father judah, to go in to his brother's widow, and to do the office of a kinsman to her, he conceived such an unwillingness to do so, when he was bid, as that he came to that detestable act, for which God slew him. And therefore the Panegyrique, that raised his wit as high as he could, to praise the Emperor Constantine, and would express it, in praising his continence, and chastity, he expressed it by saying that he waried young; that as soon as his years endangered him, formavit animum maritalem, nihil de concessu atati voluptatibus admittens: he was content to be a husband, and accepted not that freedom of pleasure, which his years might have excused. He concludes it thus, Novum jam tum miraculum, juvenis ●xorius; Behold a miracle, such a young Man, limiting his affections, in a wife. At first the heats and lusts of youth overflow all, as the waters overflowed all at the beginning; and when they did so, the Earth was not only barren, (there were no Creatures, no herbs produced in that) but even the waters themselves, that did overflow all, were barren too; there were no fishes, no fowls produced out of that; as long as a Man's affections are scattered, there is nothing but accursed barrenness; but when God says, and is heard, Gen. 1. 9 and obeyed in it, Let the waters be gathered into one place, let all thy affections be settled upon one wife, than the earth and the waters became fruitful, then God gives us a type, and figure of the eternity of the joys of heaven, in the succession, and propagation of children here upon the earth. It is true, this contracting of our affections is a burden, it is a submitting of ourselves; All States that made Laws, and proposed rewards for married Men, conceived it so; that naturally they would be loath to do it. God married his first couple, as soon as he made them; he dignified the state of Marriage, by so many Allegories, and figures, to which he compares the uniting of Christ to his Church, and the uniting of our souls to Christ, and by directing the first Miracle of Christ, to be done at a Marriage. Many things must concur to the dignifying of Marriage, because in our corrupt nature, the apprehension is general, that it is burdenous, and a submitting, and a descending thing, to marry. And therefore Saint Hierome argues truly out of these words, Hier. Husbands love your Wives, Audiant Episcopi, audiant presbyteri, audiant doctores, subjectis suis se esse subjectos, let Bishops, and Priests, and Doctors learn in this, that when they have married themselves to a charge, They are become subject to their Subjects. For by being a husband, I become subject, to that sex which is naturally subject to Man, though this subjection be no more in this place, but to love that one woman. Love then, when it is limited by a law, is a subjection, but it is a subjection commanded by God; Plinius Trajano. Nihil majus à te subjecti animo factum est, quam quod imper are coepisti● A Prince doth nothing so like a subject as when he puts himself to the pain to consider the profit, and the safety of his Subjects; and such a subjection is that of a Husband, who is bound to study his wife, and rectify all her infirmites'; Her infirmities he must bear; but not her sins; if he bear them they become his own. The pattern, the example goes not so far; Christ married himself to our Nature, and he bore all our infirmities, hunger, and weariness, and sadness, and death, actually in his own person; but so, he contracted no sin in himself, nor encouraged us to proceed in sin. Christ was Salvator corporis, A Saviour of his body, of the Church, v. 23. to which he married himself, but it is a tyranny, and a devastation of the body, to whom we marry ourselves, if we love them so much, as that we love their Sin too, suffer them to go on in that, or if we love them so little, as to make their sin our way to profit, or preferment, by prostituting them, and abandoning them to the solicitation of others. still we must love them so, as that this love be a subjection; not a neglecting, to let them do, what they will, nor a tyrannising, to make them do what we will. You must love them then, first, Quia vestrae, because they are yours; As we said at first, God loves Couples; He suffers not our body to be alone, Gen. 2. 20. nor our soul alone, but he maries them together; when that's done, to remedy the vae soli, left this Man should be alone, he maries him to a help meet for him● and to avoid fornication, (that is, if fornication cannot be avoided otherwise) Every Man is to have his wife, 1 Cor. 7. 1. and every woman her own husband. When the love comes to exceed these bounds, that it departs à vestris, from a Mans own wife, and settles upon another, though he may think he discharges himself of some of his subjection which he was in before, yet he becomes much more subject, subject to household and foreign jealousies, subject to ill grounded quarrels, subject to blasphemous protestations, to treacherous misuse of a confident friend, to ignoble an unworthy disguises, to base satisfactions; subject, lastly, either to a clamorous Conscience, or that which is worse slavery, to a seared and obdurate, and stupefied Conscience, and to that Curse, which is the heavier because it hath a kind of scorn in it, Be not deceived, (as though we were co●sened of our souls) Be not deceived, for no adulterer shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. All other things, that are ours, we may be the better for leaving; Vade & vend, which Christ said to the young Man, that seemed to desire perfection, reached to all his goods; Go and sell them says Christ, and thou shalt follow me the better. But there is no selling, nor giving, nor lending, nor borrowing of wives; we must love them Quia nostrae, because they are ours; and if that be not a ty, and obligation strong enough, that they are Nostrae, ours, we must love them Quia nos, because they are ourselves; v. 29. for no man yet ever hated his own flesh. We must love them then, Quia nostrae, Vxor. because they are ours, those whom God hath given us, and Quia uxores, because they are our wives. Saint Paul does not bid us love them here, Quanquam uxores, but Quia, not though they be, but because they are our wives; Saint Paul never thought of that indisposition, of that disaffection, of that impotency, that a Man should come to hate her, whom he could love well enough, but that she is his wife. Were it not a strange distemper, if upon consideration of my soul, finding it to have some seeds of good dispositions in it, some compassion of the miseries of others, some inclination of the glory of God, some possibility, some interest in the kingdom of heaven, I should say of this soul, that I would fast, and pray, and give, and suffer any thing for the salvation of this Soul if it were not mine own soul, if it were any bodies else, and now abandon it to eternal destruction, because it is mine own? If no Man have felt this barbarous inhumanity towards his own soul, I pray God no man have felt it towards his own wife neither, That he loves her the less, for being his own wife. For we must love them, not Quanquam, says Saint Paul, though she be so; That was a Caution, which the Apostle never thought he needed, but Quia, because in the sight of God, and all the Triumphant Church, we have bound ourselves, that we would do so. Here Marriages are sometimes clandestine, and witnesses die, and in that case no Man can bind me to love her● Quia ux●r, because she is my wife, because it lies not in proof, that she is so; Here sometimes things come to light, which were concealed before, and a Marriage proves no Marriage, Decepta est Ecclesia, The Church was deceived, and the poor woman loses her plea, Quia ux●r, because she is his wife, for it falls out that she is not so; but, if thou have married her, in the presence of God, and all the Court, and Choir of heaven, what wilt thou do to make away all these witnesses? who shall be of thy Council to assign an Error in God's judgement? whom wilt thoubribe to embezzle the Records of heaven? It is much that thou are able to do in heaven; Thou art able, by thy sins, to blot thy name out of the book of life, but thou are not able to blot thy wife's name out of the Records of heaven, but there remains still the Quia ux●r, because she is thy wife. And this Quia ux●r is Qua●diu ux●r; since thou art bound to love her because she is thy wife, it must be as long as she is so. You may have heard of that quinquennium Neronis; The worst tyrant that ever was, was the best Emperor that ever was for five years; the most corrupt husbands may have been good at first: but that love may have been for other respects: satisfaction of parents, establishing of hopes, and sometimes Ignorance of evil; that ill company had not taught them ill conditions; it comes not to be Quia uxor, because she is thy wife, to be the love which is commanded in this text, till it bring some subjection, some burden. Till we love her then, when we would not love her, except she were our wife, we are not sure, that we love her Quia uxor, that is, for that, and for no other respect. How long that is, how long she is thy wife, never ask wrangling Controverters, that make Gypsie-knots of Marriages; ask thy Conscience, and that will tell thee that thou wast married till death should depart you. If thy marriage were made by the D●vill (upon dishonest Conditions) the Devil may break it by sin; if it were made by God, God's way of breaking of Marriages, is only by death. It is then a Subjection, and it is such a subjection, as is a love; and such a love, as is upon a Reason, (for love is not always so.) This is; Quiauxor, because our wife, and that implies these three uses; God hath given Man a wife, Ad adjutorium, ad sobolem, ad medicinam; for a Help, for Children, and for a Remedy, and Physic. Now the first, Society, and increase, we love naturally; we would not be banished, we would not be robbed, we would not be alone, we would not be poor; Society and increase, every Man loves; but doth any Man love Physic? he takes it for necessity; but does he love it; Husbands therefore are to love wives Ad Sobolem, as the Mothers of their Children; Ad adjutorium, as the comforters of their lives; but for that, which is Ad medicinam, for physic, to avoid burning, to avoid fornication, that's not the subject of our love, our love is not to be placed upon that; for so it is a love, Quia mulier, because she is a woman, and not Quia uxor, because she is my wife. A Man may be a drunkard at home, with his own wine, and never go out to Taverns; A man may be an adulterer in his wife's bosom, though he seek not strange women. We come now to the other part, 2. Part. the pattern of this love, which is Christ Jesus: we are commanded to be holy, and pure, as our Father is holy, and pure; but that's a proportion of which we are incapable; And therefore we have another Commandment, from Christ, Discite à me, learn of me; there is no more looked for, but that we should still be Scholars, and learners how to love; we can never love so much as he hath loved: It is still Discite; still something to be learned, and added; and this something is, Quia mitis, learn of me, make me your pattern, because I am meek, and gentle; not suspicious, not forward, not hard to be reconciled; not apt to discomfort my spouse, my Church; not with a sullen silence, for I speak to her always in my Word; not apt to leave her unprovided of apparel, and decent ornaments, for I have allowed her such Ceremonies, as conduce to edification; not apt to pinch her in her diet; she hath her two Courses, the first, and the second Sacrament: And whensoever she comes to a spiritual hunger and thirst under the heat, and weight of sin, she knows how, and where there is plentiful refreshing and satisfaction to be had, in the absolution of sin. Herein consists the substance of the Comparison, Husbands love your wives, as Christ did his Church: that is, express your loves in a gentle behaviour towards them, and in a careful providence of Conveniencies for them. The comparison goes no farther, but the love of Christ to his Church goes farther. In which we consider first, Quid factum, what Christ did for his spouse, for his Church. It were pity to make too much haste, in considering so delightful a thing, Quid factum. as the expressing of the love of Christ Jesus to his Church. It were pity to ride away so fast from so pleasant, so various a prospect, where we may behold our Saviour, in the Act of his liberality, Giving; in the matter of his liberality, Giving himself; and in the poor exchange that he took, a few Contrite hearts, a few broken spirits, a few lame, and blind, and leprous sinners, to make to himself, and his Spirit a Church, a house to dwell in; no more but these, and glad if he can get these. First then, Ille dedit, jile He gave, it was his own act; as it was he, that gave up the ghost, he that laid down his soul, and he that took it again; for no power of Man had the power, or disposition of his life. It was an insolent, and arrogant question in Pilate to Christ, Nescis, quia potestatem habc●, Knowest not thou that I have power to Crucify thee, and have power to lose thee? If Pilate thought that his power extended to Christ, joh. 19 10. yet Tua damnaris sententia qui potestate latrone● abs●lvis, autorem vitae interficis. His own words and actions condemned him, when having power to condemn and absolve, Ambr. Serm. 20 in P●. 119. v. 4. he would condemn the Innocent, and absolve the guilty. A good Judge does nothing, says he. Do●●estice proposito voluntatis, according to a resolution taken at home; Nihil meditatum deme defert, he brings not his judgement from his chamber to the bench, but he takes it there according to the Evidence. If pilate thought he had power, his Conscience told him he misused that power; but Christ tells him he could have none, Nisi datum desuper, Except it had been given him from above; that is, except Christ had given him power over himself: for Christ speaks not in that place of pilate's general power and Jurisdiction, (for so, also, all power is Desuper, from above) but for this particular power that Pilate boasts to have over him, Christ tells him that he could have none over him, except himself had submitted himself to it. So, before this passage with Pilate, Iud●s had delivered Christ; and there arose a sect of Heretics, judaists, Philaster. that magnified this act of judes', and said that we were beholden to him for the hastening of our salvation, because when he was come to the knowledge that God had decreed the Crucifying of Christ for Mankind, judas took compassion of Mankind, and hastened their Redemption, by delivering up of Christ to the jews. But judas had no such good purpose in his haste; though our jesus permitted judas to do it, and to do it quickly, when he said Quod facis fac citò. For out of that ground in the Schools, Missia in divinis ●st mov● operacio in Creatura, When any person of the Trinity, job. 13. 27. Aug. is said to be sent, that only denotes an extraordinary manner of working of that person: Saint Augustine says truly, that as Christ Misit seipsum, he sent himself, and Sanitificavit seipsum, he sanctified himself, so tradidit seipsum; judas could not have given him, if he had not given himself, Pilate could not give him, judas could not give him; nay, if we could consider several wills in the several Persons of the Trinity, we might be bold to say, That the Father could not have given him, if he had not given himself. We consider the unexpressible mercy of the Father, in that he would accept any satisfaction at all for all our Sins. We consider the unexpressible working of the Holy Ghost that brings this satisfaction and our souls together; for without that, without the application of the Holy Ghost, we are as far from Christ's love now, as we were from the Father's before Christ suffered. But the unexpressible and unconceivable love of Christ is in this, that there was in him a willingness, a propenseness, a forwardness to give himself to make this great peace and reconciliation, between God and Man; It was himself that gave himself; Nothing inclined him, nothing wrought upon him, but his own goodness. It was then his Deed; and it was his gift; it was his Deed of gift: and it hath all the formalities and circumstances that belong to that; for here is a seal in his blood; and here is a delivering, pregnantly implied in this word, which is not only Dedit, Dedit. he gave, but Tradidit, he delivered. First, Dedit, he gave himself for us to his Father, in that eternal Decree, by which he was Agnus occisus ab origine mundi, The Lamb slain from the beginning of the world. And then Tradidit, he delivered possession of himself to Death, and to all humane infirmities, when he took our Nature upon him, and became one of us. Yea this word implies a further operativeness, and working upon himself, than all this; for the word which the Apostle uses here, for Christ giving of himself, is the same word, which the Evangelists use still, for judas betraying of him: so that Christ did not only give himself to the will of the Father, in the eternal Decree; nor only deliver himself to the power of death in his Incarnation, but he offered, he exhibited, he exposed, (we may say) he betrayed himself to his enemies; and all this, for worse enemies; to the jews, that Crucified him once, for us, that make fin our sport, and so make the Crucifying of the Lord of life a Recreation. It was a gift then, free, and absolute; He keeps us not in fear of Resumption; Seipsum. of ever taking himself from the Church again; nay he hath left himself no power of Revocation: I am with you, says he, to the end of the world. To particular men, he comes, & he knocks, and he enters, and he stays, and hesups, and yet for their unworthiness goes away again; but with the Church he is usque ad consummationem, till the end; It is a permanent gift; Dedit, and Dedit seipsum; It was he that did it; That which he did was to give; and that which he gave, was himself. Now since the Holy Ghost, that is the God of unity and peace, hath told us at once, that the satisfaction for our sins is Christ himself, and hath told us no more, Christ entirely, Christ altogether, let us not divide and mangle Christ, or tear his Church in pieces, by froward and frivolous difputations, whether Christ gave his divinity for us, or his humanity; whether the divine Nature, or the humane Nature redeemed us; for neither his divinity nor his humanity, is Ipse, He himself, and Dedit seipsum, He gave himself: Let us not subdivide him into less pieces, than those, God, and Man; and inquire contentiously, whether he suffered in soul, as well as in body, the pains of H●ll, as well as the sting of Death; the Holy-Ghost hath presented him unite, and knit together. For neither soul nor body was Ipse. He himself, and Dedit seipsum, He gave himself; let us least of all shred Christ jesus into less scruples and atoms than these, Soul, and body; and dispute whether consisting of both, it were his active, or his passive obedience that redeemed us; whether it were his death and passion only, or his innocency, and fulfilling of the Law too; let us only take Christ, himself, for only that is said, he gave himself, It must be an Innocent person, and this Innocent person must die for us; separate the Innocency, and the Death, and it is not Ipse, it is not Christ himself: and Dedit seipsum, it was himself. Let us abstain from all such curiosities, which are all but forced dishes of hot brains, and not sound meat, that is, from all perverse wranglings, whether God, or Man redeemed us; and then, whether this God, and Man suffered in soul, or in body; and than whether this person, consisting of soul and body, redeemed us, by his action, or by his passion only; for as there are spiritual wickednesses, so there are spiritual wantonnesses, and unlawful and dangerous dallyings with mysteries of Divinity. Money that is changed into small pieces is easily lost; gold that is beat out into leaf-gold, cannot be coined, nor made currant money: we know the Heathens lost the true God, in a thrust; they made so many false gods, of every particular quality, and attribute of God, that they scattered him, and evacuated him, to an utter vanishing; so doth true, and sound, and nourishing Divinity vanish away, in those impertinent Questions. All that the wit of Man adds to the Word of God, is all quicksilver, and it evaporates easily. Beloved, Custodi Depositum, says the Apostle, keep that which God hath revealed to thee; for that God himself calls thy Talon; it hath weight and substance in it. Depart not from thy old gold; leave not thy Catechism-divinity, for all the School-divinity in the world; when we have all, what would we have more? if we know that Christ hath given himself for us, that we are redeemed, and not redeemed with corruptible things but with the precious blood of Christ Jesus, we care for no other knowledge but that, Christ, and Christ crucified for us; for this is another, and a more peculiar and profitable giving of himself for thee, when he gives himself to thee, that is, when he gives thee a sense, and apprehension, and application of the gift, to thyself, that Christ hath given himself, to thyself. We are come now to his exchange; Pro Ecclesia. what Christ had for himself when he gave himself; And he had a Church. So this Apostle, which in this place, writes to the Ephesians, Act. 20. 28. when he preached personally to the Ephesians, he told them so too, The Church is that Quam acquisivit sanguine suo, which he purchased with his blood. Here Christ bought a Church, but I would there were no worse Simony than this. Christ received no profit from the Church, and yet he gave himself for it; and he stays with it to the end of the world; Here is no such Nonresidency, as that the Church is left unserved: other men give enough for their Church, but they withraw themselves, and necessary provision; And if we consider this Church that Christ bought, and paid so dearly for, it was rather an Hospital, than a Church: A place where the blind might recover sight; that is, Men borne in Paganism, or Superstition, might see the true God, truly worshipped: and where the lame might be established; that is, those that Halted between two Religions, might be rectified in the truth: where the Deaf might receive so quick a hearing, as that they might discern Music in his Thunder, in all his fearful threatenings; that is, mercy in his Judgements, which are still accompanied with conditions of repentance; and they might find Thunder, in his Music, in all his promises; that is, threatenings of Judgements, in our misuse of his mercies. Where the hereditary Leper, the new borne Child, into whose marrow, his father's transgression, cleaves in original sin, and he that hath enwrapped Implicatos morbos, one disease in another, in Actual sins, might not only come, if he would but be entreated to come, yea compelled to come, as it is expressed in the Gospel, when the Master of the feast sends into the streets, and to the hedges to compel blind and lame to come in to his feast. Luke 14. 21. A fountain breaks out in the wilderness, but that fountain cares not, whether any Man come to fetch water, or no; A fresh, and fit gale blows upon the Sea, but it cares not whether the Mariners hoist sail or no; A rose blows in your garden, but it calls you not to smell to it. Christ Jesus hath done all this abundantly; he hath bought an Hospital, he hath stored it with the true balm of Palestine, with his blood, which he shed there, and he calls upon you all to come for it, Ho every one that thirsteth; you that have no money, come buy Wine, and Milk without money: eat that which is good, and let your soul's delight in fatness, Esay 55. 1. and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. This Hospital, this way, and means to cure spiritual diseases, was all that Christ had for himself: but he improved it, he makes it a Church, and a glorious Church: which is our last consideration, Quis sinis, to what end, he bestowed all this cost. His end was, Quis finis. that he might make it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle; Augstin. Retrac. l. 1. c. 7. but that end, must be in the end of all; here it cannot be: Cum tot a dicat ecclesia, quamdiu hîc est, Dimitte debita nostra, non utique hîc est sine macula et ruga, Since as yet the whole Church says, forgive us our Trespasses, the Church as yet is not without spots or wrinkles. The wrinkles are the Testimonies of our age; that is, our sin derived from Adam; and the spots are the sins, which we contract ourselves; and of these spots, and wrinkles, we cannot be delivered in this world. And therefore the Apostle says here, that Christ hath bestowed all this cost on this purchase, ut sisteret sibi Ecclesiam, that he might settle such a glorious, and pure Church to himself: first, ut sisteret, that he might settle it; which can only be done in heaven; for here in Earth, the Church will always have earthquakes. Opartet haereses esse; storms, and schisms must necessarily be; the Church is in a warfare, the Church is in a pilgrimage, and therefore here is no settling. And then he doth it, ut sisteret sibi, to settle it to himself; for, in the tyranny of Rome, the Church was in some sort settled, things were carried quietly enough; for no Man durst complain; but the Church was settled all upon the Vicar, and none upon the Parson: the glory of the Bishop of Rome, had eclipsed, and extinguished the glory of Christ jesus. In other places we have seen the Church settled, so as that no man hath done or spoken any thing against the government thereof; but, this may have been a settling by strong hand, by severed discipline, and heavy Laws; we see where Princes have changed the Religion, the Church may be settled upon the Prince, or settled upon the Prelates, that is, be serviceable to them, and be ready to promote and further any purpose of theirs, and all this while, not be settled upon Christ: this purpose, ut sisteret sibi, to settle such a glorious Church, without spot, or wrinkle, holy to himself, is reserved for the Triumphant time when she shall be in possession of that beauty, which Christ foresaw in her, long before when he said, Thou art all fair my love, and there is no spot in thee; Cant. 4.6. and when we that shall be the Children of the Marriage Chamber● shall be glad and rejoice, and give glory to him, because the Marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready; Apoc. 19 7. that is, we that are of that Church, shall be so clothed, as that our own clothes shall not defile us again; as Io● complaines that they do, as long as we are in this world; for, though I make me never so clean, yet mine own clothes defile me again, as it is in that place. But yet, Beloved, Christ hath not made so improvident a bargain, as to give so great a rate, himself, for a Church, so far in reversion, as till the day of Judgement: That he should enter into bonds for this payment, from all eternity, even in the eternal decree between the Father, and him, that he should really pay this price, his precious blood, for this Church, one thousand six hundred years ago, and he should receive no glory by this Church till the next world● Here was a long lease, here were many lives; the lives of all the men in the world, to be served before him; But it is not altogether so; for he gave himself, that he might settle such a Church then, a glorious, and a pure Church: but all this while, the Church is building in heaven, by continual access of holy Souls, which come thither, and all the way he works to that end, He sanctifies it, and cleanses it, by the washing of water, through the word, as we find in our Text. He therefore stays not so long, for our Sanctification, but that we have means of being sanctified here; Christ stays not so long for his glory, but that he hath here a glorious Gospel, his Word, and mysterious Sacraments here. Here then is the writing, and the Seal, the Word, and the Sacrament; and he hath given power, and commandment to his Ministers to deliver both writing, and Seal, the Word and Baptism to his children. This Sacrament of Baptism is the first; It is the Sacrament of inchoation, of Initiation; The Sacrament of the Supper, is not given but to them, who are instructed and presumed to understand all Christian duties, and therefore the Word, (if we understand the Word, for the Preaching of the Word) may seem more necessary at the administration of this Sacrament, then at the other. Some such thing seems to be intimated in the institution of the Sacraments. In the institution of the Supper, it is only said, Mat. 26. 26. Take, and eat and drink, and do that in remembrance of me; and it is only said that they sand a Pslame, and s● departed. In the institution of Baptism there is more solemnity, Luke 11. 19 more circumstance; for first, it was instituted after Christ's Resurrection, and then Christ proceeds to it, Mat. 28. 18. with that majestical preamble, All power is given unto me in heaven, and in earth● and therefore, upon that title he gives power to his Apostles, to join heaven and earth by preaching, and by baptism: but here is more than singing of a Psalm; for Christ commands them first to teach, and then to baptise, and then after the commandment of Baptism, he refreshes that commandment again of teaching them, whom they baptised, to observe all things, that he had commanded them. I speak not this, as though Baptism were uneffectuall without a Sermon; S. Angustines' words, Accedat yerbum, & fiat Sacramentum, when the Word is joined to the element, or to the Action, than there is a true Sacrament, Augustin. are ill understood by two sorts of Men● first by them, that say that it is not verbum Deprecatorium, nor verbum Conci●nat●riu●, not the word of Prayer, nor the word of preaching, but verbum Consecratorium, and verbum Sacramentale, that very phrase, and form of words, by which the water is sanctified, and enabled of itself to cleanse our Souls; and secondly, these words are ill understood by them, who had rather their children died unbaptised, then have them baptised without a Sermon; whereas the use of preaching at baptism is, to raise the whole Congregation, to a consideration, what they promised by others, in their baptism; and to raise the Father and the Sureties to a consideration, what they undertake for the child, whom they present then to be baptised; for therefore says Saint Augustine, Acoeda● verbum, there is a necessity of the word, Non qu●a dicitur, sed quia creditur, not because the word is preached, but because it is believed; and That, Beleese, faith, belongs not at all to the incapacity of the child, but to the disposition of the rest; A Sermon is useful for the congregation, not necessary for the child, and the accomplishment of the Sacrament. From hence then arises a convenience, little less, then necessary, (in a kind) that this administration of the Sacrament be accompanied with preaching; but yet they that would evict an absolute necessity of it, out of these words, force them too much, for here the direct meaning of the Apostle is, That the Church is cleansed by water, through the word, when the promises of God expressed in his word, are sealed to us by this Sacrament of Baptism: for so Saint Augustine answers himself in that objection, which he makes to himself, Cum per Baptis●●● fundati sint, quare sermoni tribuit radicem. He answers, In Sermone intelligendus Baptismus● Quia sine Sermone non perficitur. It is rooted, it is grounded in the word; and therefore true Baptism, though it be administered, without the word, that is, without the word preached, yet it is never without the word, because the whole Sacrament, and the power thereof is rooted in the word, in the Gospel. And therefore since this Sacrament belongs to the Church, as it is said here (that Christ doth cleanse his Church by Baptism) as it is argued with a strong probability, That because the Apostles did baptise whole families, therefore they did baptise some children, so we argue with an invincible certainty, that because this Sacrament belongs generally to the Church as the initiatory Sacrament, it belongs to children, who are a part, and for the most part, the most innocent part of the Church. To conclude, As all those Virgins which were beautiful, were brought into Susan, Ad domum mulierum, to be anointed, Esther 2. and presumed, and prepared there for Assuerus delight, and pleasure, though Assuerus took not delight, and pleasure in them all, so we admit all those children which are within the Covenant made by God, to the elect, and their seed, In domum Sanctorum, into the household of the faithful, into the communion of Saints: whom he chooseth for his Marriage day, that is, for that Church which he will settle upon himself in heaven, we know not; but we know that he hath not promised, to take any into that glory, but those upon whom he hath first shed these fainter beams of glory, and sanctification, exhibited in this Sacrament: Neither hath he threatened to exclude any but for sin after. And therefore when this blessed child derived from faithful parents, and presented by sureties within the obedience of the Church, shall have been so cleansed, by the washing of water, through the word, it is presently sealed to the possession of that part of Christ's purchase, for which he gave himself, (which are the means of preparing his Church in this life) with a faithful assurance, I may say of it and to it, jam mundus es, Now you are clean. through the word, john 15. 3. which Christ hath spoken unto you: The Seal of the promises of his Gospel hath sanctified, and cleansed you; but yet, Mandatus mundandus, says Saint Augustine upon that place, It is so sanctified by the Sacrament, here, that it may be farther sanctified by the growth of his graces, and be at last a member of that glorious Church, which he shall settle upon himself, without spot, or wrinkle; which was the principal, and final purpose of that great love of his, whereby he gave himself for us, and made that love, first a pattern of men's loves to their wives here, and then a means to bring Man, and wife, and child, to the kingdom of heaven. Amen. SERMON VI. Preached at a Christening. 1 JOHN 5. 7, 8. For there are three which bear record in heaven; The Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one: And there are three which bear record in the Earth; The Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one. IN great and enormous offences, we find that the law, in a well governed State, expressed the punishment upon such a delinquent, in that form, in that curse, Igni & aqua interdicitor; let him have no use of fire, and water, that is, no use of any thing, necessary for the sustentation of life. Beloved, such is the miserable condition of wretched Man, as that we come all into the world under the burden of that curse; Aqua, & igni interdicim●r; we have nothing to do, naturally, with the spiritual water of life, with the fiery beams of the holy Ghost, till he that hath wrought our restitution from this banishment, restore us to this water, by pouring out his own blood, and to this lively fire, by laying himself a cold, and bloodless carcase in the bowels of the Earth: till he who haptized none with wa●er, direct his Church to do that office towards us; and he without whom, none was baptised with fire, perfect that Ministerial work of his Church with the effectual seals of his grace; for this is his testimony, the witness of his love. Yea, that law, in cases of such great offences, expressed itself in another Malediction, upon such offenders, appliable also to us, Intestabiles sunte, let them be Intestable. Now, this was a sentence, a Condemnation so pregnant, so full of so many heavy afflictions, as that he, who by the law was made intestable, was all these ways intestable: First, he was able to make no Testament of his own, he had lost all his interest in his own estate, and in his own will; Secondly, he could receive no profit by any testament of any other Man, he had lost all the effects of the love, and good disposition of other Men to him; Thirdly, he was Intestable, so, as that he could not testify, he should not be believed in the behalf of another; and lastly the testimony of another could do him no good, no Man could be admitted to speak for him. After that first, and heavy curse of Almighty God upon Man, Morte morieris, If thou eat, thou shalt die, and die twice, thou shall die a bodily, thou shalt die a spiritual death (a punishment which no sentence of any law, or lawmaker could ever equal, to deter Men from offending, by threatening to take away their lives twice, and by inflicting a spiritual death eternally upon the Soul,) after we have all incurred that malediction, Morte moriemur, we shall die both death, we cannot think to scape any less malediction of any law, and therefore we are all Intestabiles we are all intestable, in all these senses, and apprehensions, which we have touched upon. We can make no testament of our own; we have no good thing in us to dispose; we have no good inclination, no good disposition, in our Will; we can make no use of another's testament; not of the double testaments of Almighty God; for in the Old testament, he gives promises of a Messias, but we bring into the world no Faith, to apprehend those promises; and in the New testament, he gives a performance, the Messias is come, but he is communicable to us, no way but by baptism, and we cannot baptise ourselves; we can profit no body else by our testimony, we are not able to endure persecution, for the testimony of Christ, to the edification of others, we are not able to do such works, as may shine before Men, to the glorifying of our God. Neither doth the testimony of others do us any good; for neither the Martyrdom of so many Millions, in the primitive Church, nor the execution of so many judgements of God, in our own times, do testify any thing to our Consciences; neither at the last day, when those Saints of God, whom we have accompanied in the outward worship of God here in the visible Church, shall be called to the right hand, and we detruded to the left, shall they dare to open their mouths for us, or to testify of us, or to say, Why Lord, these Men, when they were in the world, did as we did, appeared, and served thee in thy house, as we did, they seemed to go the same way that we did upon Earth, why go they a sinister way now in heaven? We are utterly intestable; we can give nothing; we can take nothing; nothing will be believed from us, who are all falsehood itself; nor can we be relieved by any thing, that any other will say for us. As long, as we are considered under the penalty of that law, this is our case; Interdicti, intestabiles, we are accursed, and so, as that we are intestable. Now as this great malediction, Morte marieris, in volves all other punishments, (upon whom that falls, all fall) so when our Saviour Christ Jesus hath a purpose to take away that, or the most dangerous part of that, the spiritual death, when he will reverse that judgement, Aqua & igni interdicitur, to make us capable of his water, and his fire; when he will reverse the intestabiles, the inte●●ability, and make us able to receive his graces by faith, and declare them by works; then, as he that will re-edify a demolished house, begins not at the top but at the bottom, so Christ Jesus, when he will make this great preparation, this great reedification of mankind, he begins at the lowest step, which is, that we may have use of the testimony of others, in our behalf: and he proceeds strongly, and effectually; he produces three witnesses from heaven, so powerful, that they will be heard, they will be believed; and three witnesses on earth, so near us, so familiar so domestic as that they will not be denied, they will not be discredited; Three are three that bear Record in heaven, and three that bear record in earth. Since than Christ Jesus makes us all our own jury, able to conceive, and judge upon the Evidence, and testimony of these three heavenly, and three earthly witnesses, let us draw near, and hearken to the evidence, and consider three things; Testimonium esse. Quid sit, and Qui testes. That God descends to means proportionable to Man; Divisio. he affords him witness; and secondly, the matter of the proof, what all these six witnesses testify, what they establish; Thirdly, the quality, and value of the witnesses, and whether the matter be to be believed, for their sakes, and for their reasons. God requires nothing of us, but Testimony: for Martyrdom is but that; A Martyr is but a witness. God offers us nothing without testimony: for his Testament, is but a witness. Teste ipso, is shrewd evidence; when God says, I will speak, and I will testify against thee; I am God, Psal. 50. 7. even thy God: when the voice of God testifies against me in mine own conscience. It is more pregnant evidence than this, when his voice testifies against me in his word, in his Scriptures: The Lord testified against Israel, by all the Prophets and by all the Seers. 2. Reg. 17. 13. When I can never be alone, but that God speaks in me, but speaks against me; when I can never open his book, but the first sentence mine eye is upon, is a witness against me, this is fearful evidence. But in this text, we are not in that storm, for he hath made us Testabiles, that is, ready to testify for him, to the effusion of our blood; and Testabiles, that is, fit to take benefit by the testament, that he hath made for us, The effusion of his blood; which is our second branch: what is testified for us, what these witnesses establish. First then, that which a sinner must be brought to understand, and believe, 2. Part. Integritas Christi. by the strength of these witnesses, is Integritas Christi; not the Integrity, as it signifies the Innocency of Christ: but integrity, as it signifies Entireness, not as it is Integer vitae, but Integra vita; not as he kept an integrity in his life, but as he only, is entirely our life. That Christ was a person composed of those two Natures, divine, and humane, whereby he was a fit, and a full satisfaction for all our sins, and by death could be our life: for when the Apostle writ this Epistle, it seems there had been a schism, not about the Mystical body of Christ, the Church, but even about the Natural; that is to say, in the person of Christ, there had been a schism, a separation of his two natures: for, as we see certainly before the death of this Apostle, that the Heresy of Ebion and of Cerinthus, (which denied the divine nature of Christ) was set on foot, (for against them purposely was the Gospel of Saint john written) so by Epiphanius his ranking of the Heresies, as they arose, where he makes Basilides his Heresy, (which denied that Christ had any natural body) to be the fourth heresy, and Ebions, to be the tenth, it seems, that they denied his humanity, before they denied his Divinity. And therefore it is well collected, that this Epistle of Saint john, being written long before his Gospel, was written principally, and purposely against the opposers of Christ's humanity, but occasionally also, in defence of his divine nature too. Because there is Solutio jesu, a dissolving of Jesus, a taking of Jesus in pieces, a dividing of his Natures, or of his Offices, which overthrows all the testimonies of these six great witnesses when Christ said, Solvite templum hoc, destroy, dissolve this temple, and in three days I will raise it, he spoke that but of his natural body; there was Solutio corporis, Christ's body and soul were parted, but there was not Solutio jesu; the divine nature parted not from the humane, no not in death, but adhered to, and accompanied the soul, even in hell, and accompanied the body in the grave. And therefore, says the Apostle, Omnis spiritus qui solvit jesum, ex deo non est; 1 john 4. 3. (for so Irenaeus, and Saint Augustine, and Saint Cyrill with the Grecians, read those words) That spirit which receives not Jesus entirely, which dissolves Jesus and breaks him in pieces, that spirit is not of God. All this then is the subject of this testimony; first that Christ Jesus is come in the flesh; 4. 2. (there is a Recognition of his humane nature) And then that this Jesus is the son of God; 5. 5 (there is a subscription to his divine nature:) he that separates these, and thereby makes him not able, or not willing to satisfy for Man, he that separates his Nature, or he that separates the work of the Redemption, and says, Christ suffered for us only as Man, and not as God, or he that separates the manner of the work, and says that the passive obedience of Christ only redeemed us, without any respect at all, to his active obedience, only as he died, and nothing as he died innocently, or he that separates the perfection, and consummation of the work, from his work, and finds something to be done by Man himself, meritorious to salvation, or he that separates the Prince, and the Subject, Christ and his members, by nourishing Controversies in Religion, when they might be well reconciled, or he that separates himself from the body of the Church, and from the communion of Saints, for the fashion of the garments, for the variety of indifferent Ceremonies, all these do Solvere jesum, they slacken, they dissolve that Jesus, whose bones God provided for, that they should not be broken, whose flesh God provided for, that it should not see Corruption, and whose garments God provided, that they should not be divided. There are other luxations, other dislocations, of Jesus, when we displace him for any worldly respect, and prefer preferment before him; there are other wound of Jesus, in blasphemous oaths, and exerations; there are other maiming of Jesus, in pretending to serve him entirely, and yet retain one particular beloved sin still; there are other rackings, and extending of Jesus when we delay him and his patience to our deathbed, when we stretch the string so far, that it cracks there, that is, appoint him to come then, and he comes not; there are other dissolutions of Jesus, when men will melt him, and pour him out, and mould him up in a waser Cake, or a piece of bread; there are other annihilations of Jesus when Men will make him, and his Sacraments, to be nothing but bare signs; but all these will be avoided by us, if we be gained by the testimony of these six witnesses to hold fast that integrity, that intirensse of Jesus, which is here delivered to us by this Apostle. In which we believe first I●sum, a Saviour; which implies his love, and his will to save us; and then we believe Christum, the anointed, that is God and man, able, and willing to do this great work, and that he is anointed, and sealed for that purpose; and this implies the decree, the contract, and bargain, of acceptation by the Father, that Pactum salis, that eternal covenant which seasons all, by which, that which he meant to do, as he was jesus, should be done, as he was Christ. And then as the entireness of Jesus is expressed, in the verse before the text, we believe, Quod venit, that as all this might be done, if the Father and Son would agree, as all this must be done, because they had agreed it, so all this was done, Qu●a venit, because this Jesus is already come; and that, for the father entireness, for the perfection, and consummation, and declaration of all, venit per aquam & sanguinem, He came by water, and blood. Which words Saint Bernard understands to imply but a difference between the coming of Christ, and the coming of Moses; Bernard. who was drawn out of the water, and therefore called by that name of Moses. But before Moses came to be a leader of the people, he passed through blood too, through the blood of the Egyptian, whom he slew; and much more when he established all their bloody sacrifices, so that Mases came not only by water. Neither was the first Testament ordained without blood. Heb. 9 18. Others understand the words only to put a difference between john Baptist, and Christ: because john Baptist is still said to baptise with water● Because he should be declared to Israel; therefore am I come, baptising with water: john 1. 31. but yet john Baptists baptism had not only a relation to blood, but a demonstration of it, when still he pointed to the Lamb, Ecce Agnus, for that Lamb was slain from the beginning of the world. So that Christ, which was this Lamb, came by water, and blood, when he came, in the risuall types, and figures of Moses; and when he came in the baptism of john: for in the Law of Moses, there was so frequent use of water, as that we reckon above fifty several Immunditi as uncleannesses, which might receive their expiation by washing, without being put to their bloody sacrifies for them: And then there was so frequent use of blood, that almost all things are by the Law purged with blood, Heb. 9 22. and without shedding of blood, is no Remission, But this was such water, and such blood, as could not perfect the work, but therefore was to be renewed every day. The water that Jesus comes by, is such a water, as he that arinketh of it, shall thirst no more; nay there shall spring up in him a well of water; that is, his example shall work to the satisfaction of others; (we do not say to a satisfaction for others.) And then this is that blood, that perfected the whole work at once, By his own blood entered he once into the holy place, Heb. 19 12. and obtained eternal Redemption for us. So that Christ came by water, and blood, (according to the old ablutions, and old sacrifices) when he wept, when he sweat, when he poured out blood; precious, incorruptible, inestimable blood, at so many channels, as he did, all the while that he was upon the altar, sacrificing himself in his passion. But after the immolation of this sacrifice, after his Consummatum est; when Christ was come and gone for so much as belonged to the accomplishing of the types of the old law, than Christ came again to us by water and blood, in that wound, which he received upon his side, from which there flowed out miraculously true water, & true blood. This wound Saint Augustine calls januam utriusque Sacramenti, Augustine. the door of both sacraments; where we see he acknowledges but two, and both presented in this water, and blood and so certainly do most of the fathers, make this wound if not the foundation, yet at least a sacrament of both the sacraments. And to this water and blood doth the Apostle here, without doubt, aim principally; which he only of all the Evangelists hath recorded; and with so great asseveration, and assuredness in the recording thereof, He that saw it bare record, and his record is true, and he knoweth that he saith truth, john 19 34. that ye might believe it. Here then is the matter which these six witnesses must be believed in, here is Integritas jesu, quae non solvenda, the entireness of Christ Jesus, which must not be broken, That a Saviour, which is jesus, appointed to that office, that is Christ, figured in the law, by ablutions of water, and sacrifices of blood, is come, and hath perfected all those figures in water, and blood too; and then, that he remains still with us in water, and blood, by means instituted in his Church, to wash away our uncleannesses, and to purge away our iniquities, and to apply his work unto our Souls; this is Integritas jesu, jesus the son of God in heaven, Jesus the Redeemer of man, upon earth, Jesus the head of a Church to apply that to the end, this is Integritas jesu; all that is to be believed of him. Take thus much more, that when thou comest to hearken what these witnesses shall say to this purpose, thou must find something in their testimony, to prove him to be come not only into the world, but into thee; He is a mighty prince, and hath a great train; millions of ministering spirits attend him, and the whole army of Martyrs follow the Lamb wheresoever he goes: Though the whole world be his Court, thy soul is his bedchamber; there thou mayst contract him, there thou mayst lodge, and entertain Integrum jesum, thy whole Saviour. And never trouble thyself, how another shall have him, if thou have him all; leave him, and his Church to that; make thou sure thine own salvation. When he comes to thee, he comes by water and by blood; If thy heart, and bowels have not yet melted in compassion of his passion for thy soul, if thine eyes have not yet melted, in tears of repentance and contrition, he is not yet come by water into thee; If thou have suffered nothing for sin, nor found in thyself a cheerful disposition to suffer, if thou have found no wresting in thyself, no resistance of Concupiscences, he that comes not to set peace, but to kindle this war, is not yet come into thee, by blood. Christ can come by land, by purchases, by Revenues, by temporal blessings, for so he did still convey himself to the Jews, by the blessing of the land of promise, but here he comes by water, by his own passion, by his sacraments, by thy tears: Christ can come in a marriage and in Music, for so he delivers himself to the spouse in the Canticles; but here he comes in blood; which coming in water, and blood (that is, in means for the salvation of our souls, here in the militant Church) is the coming that he stands upon and which includes all the Christian Religion; and therefore he proves that coming to them, by these three great witnesses in heaven, and three in earth. For there are three which bear record in heaven. The Father, the word, and the holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three which bear record in the earth; The spirit, and the water, and the blood, and these three agree in one. By the mouth of two, or three witnesses every word shall be confirmed, 2 Part. Mat. 18. 16. says Christ out of the law. That's as much as can be required, in any Civil, or Criminal business; and yet Christ gives more testimony of himself, for here he produces not Duos testes, but Duas Classes; two ranks of witnesses; and the fullest number of each, not two, but three in heaven, and three in earth. And such witnesses upon earth, as are omni exceptione majores, without all exception. It is not the testimony of earthly men; for when Saint Paul produces them in abundance, (The Patriarch, the judges, the Prophets, the elders of the old times; of whom he exhibits an exact Catalogue,) yet he calls all them but Nubes testium clouds of witnesses; Heb. 11. Heb. 12. for though they be clouds in Saint Chrysostom's sense, (that they invest us, and enwrap us, and so defend us from all diffidence in God,) (we have their witness what God did for them, why should we doubt of the like?) though they be clouds in Athanasius sense, they being in heaven, shower down by their prayers, the dew of God's grace upon the Church; Though they be clouds, they are but clouds; some darkness mingled in them, some controversies arising from them; but his witnesses here, are Lux inaccessibilis, that light, that no eye can attain to, and Pater Luminum, the father of lights, from whom all these testimonies are derived. When God employed a man, to be the witness of Christ, because men might doubt of his testimony, God was content to assign him his Compurgators; Mat. 3. 3 when john Baptist must preach, that the kingdom of God, was at hand, God fortifies the testimony of his witness, then, Hic enim est, for this is he of whom that is spoken by the prophet Esay; Mar. 1.2. and lest one were not enough, he multiplies them, as it is written, in the prophets. john Baptist might be thought to testify as a man, and therefore men must testify for him; but these witnesses are of a higher nature; these of heaven are the Trinity, and those of earth, are the sacraments and seals of the Church. The prophets were full of favour with God, Abraham full of faith, Stephen full of the Holy Ghost, many full of grace, and john Baptist a prophet, and more than a prophet, yet never any prophet, never any man, how much soever interessed in the favour of Almighty God was such an instrument of grace, as a sacrament or as God's seals and institutions in his Church: and the least of these six witnesses, is of that nature, and therefore might be believed without more witnesses. To speak then first of the three first, 3 In Caelis. the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, it was but a poor plot of the devil, to go about to rob us, of their testimony; for as long as we have the three last, the spirit, the water, and blood, we have testimony enough of Christ, because God is involved in his ordinance; and though he be not tied to the work of the Sacrament, yet he is always present in it. Yet this plot, the devil had upon the Church: And whereas this first Epistle of Saint john was never doubted to be Canonical, (whereas both the other have been called into some question) yet in this first Epistle, the first verse of this text, was for a long time removed, or expunged, whether by malice of Heretics, or negligence of transcribers. The first Translation of the new testament, (which was into Syriaque) hath not this verse; That which was first called Vulgata editio, had it not, neither hath Luther it in his German translation: very many of the Latin Fathers have it not; and some very ancient Greek Fathers want it, though more ancient than they, have it; for Athanasius in the Council of Nice citys it, and makes use of it; and Cyprian, beheaded before that Council, hath it too. But now, he that is one of the witnesses himself, the Holy Ghost hath assured the Church, that this verse belongs to the Scripture; and therefore it becomes us to consider thankfully, and reverently, this first rank of witnesses, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. The Father than hath testified De integritate Christi, of this entireness, Pater. that Christ should be all this and do all this, which we have spoken of, abundantly: he begun before Christ was borne; in giving his name, Mat● 1. 21. Thou shalt call his name jesus: for he shall save his people from sin. Well; how shall this person be capable to do this office of saving his people from sin? Why, in him say God the father, (in the representation of an Angel) 23. shall be fulfilled that prophecy, A virgin shall bear a Son, and they shall call his name Emanuel, which is by interpretation God with us: This seems somewhat an incertain testimony, of a Man, with an Alias dictus, with two names. God says he shall be called jesus, that the prophecy may be fulfilled which says he shall be called Emanuel: but therein consists, Integritas Christi, this entireness; he could not be Jesus, not a Saviour, except he were Emanuel, God with us, God in our nature. Here then is Jesus, a Saviour, a Saviour that is God, and Man, but where is the Testimony De Christo; that he was anointed, and prepared for this sacrifice; that this work of his was contracted between the Father, and him, and acceptable to him? It is twice testified by the Father; both in Christ's act of humiliation, when he would be Baptised by john; when he would accept an ablution, who had no uncleanness, than God says, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, Mat. 3. ult. he was well pleased in his person, and he was well pleased, in his act, in his office. And he testifies it again in his first act of glory, in his transfiguration; where the Father repeats the same words with an addition, Mat. 17.5. Hear him: God is pleased in him, and would have Men pleased in him too. He testified first, only for Joseph's sak that had entertained, and lodged some scrupulous suspicion against his wife, the Blessed Virgin; His second testimony at the baptism, had a farther extent; for that was for the confirmation of john Baptist, of the preacher himself, who was to convey his doctrine to many others; His third testimony in the transfiguration, was larger than the Baptism; for that satisfied three, and three such as were to carry it far, Peter, and james, and john: All which no doubt made the same use of his testimony, as we see Peter did, who preached out of the strength of his manifestation, 2 Pet. 1. 16. we followed not deceivable fables, but with our own eyes we saw his Majesty; for he received of God the Father, honour, and glory, when there came such a voice to him, from the Excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. But yet the Father gave a more free, a more liberal testimony of him, than this, at his Conception, or Baptism, or Transfiguration: when upon Christ's prayer, Father glorify thy Name, there came a voice from heaven, john 19 28. I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. For this all the people apprehended; some imputed it to Thunder, some to an Angel; but all heard it; and all heard Christ's comment upon it, That that voice came not for him, but for their sakes; so that when the Father had testified of a jesus, a Saviour, and a Christ, a Saviour sent to that purpose, and a Son in whom he is pleased, and whom we must hear, when it is said of him, moreover, Gratificavit ●●s in Dilect●, he hath made us accepted in his beloved, Ephes. 1.6 this is his way of coming in water, and blood, that is, in the sacraments of the Church, by which we have assurance of being accepted by him; and this is this Integritas Christi, the entireness of Christ, testified by our first witness, that bears record in heaven. The father. The second witness in heaven, is ver●um, The Word: and that is a welcome message, Verbum, Esa. 9 8. for it is Christ himself: It is not so when the Lord sends a word; The Lord sent a word unto jacob, and it lighted upon Israel● there the word is a judgement, and an execution of the Judgement: for that word, that signifies, 2 word there, in the same letters exactly signifies, a pestilence, a Calamity; It is a word, and a blow; but the word here, is verbum cara, that Word which for our sakes was made ourselves. The word then in this place, is the second person in the Trinity, Christ jesus, who in this Court of heaven, where there is no corruption, no falsification, no passion, but fair and just proceeding, is admitted to be a witness in his own cause; It is jesus, that testifies for jesus now, when he was upon earth, and said, If I should bear witness of myself, my witness were not true, whether we take those words to be spoken, per Co●nlventiam, by an allowance, and concession, (It is not true, that is, I am content that you should not believe my witness of myself to be true) (as Saint Cyrill understand them) or whether we take them, Humana mare, that Christ as a man, acknowledged truly, and as he thought, that inlegall proceeding a man's own testimony ought not to be believed in his own behalf, (as Athan●●ius and Saint Ambrose understand them) yet Christ might safely say as he did, john 8. 14. Though I bear a record of myself, yet my record is true; why? because I know whence I come, and whither I go. Christ could not be Singularis ●●stis, a single witnesse● He was always more than one witness, because he had always more than 〈◊〉; God and man; and therefore Christ instructing Nicodemus, speaks plurally, we speak, that 〈◊〉 know, we testify that we have seen, and you receive not Testimoni●● n●strum, our witnesse● he does not say my witness, but ours, because although a singular, yet he was a plural person too. His testimony then was credible, but how did he testify Integritatem, this entireness, all that belonged to our faith● All consists in this, that he was jesus, capable in his nature, to be a Saviour, that he was Christus, ordained, and sent for that office, and then Quod venit, that be was come, and come, in aqus & sanguine, in water and blood, in sacraments, which might apply him to us. That he was jesus a person capable, his miracles testified aloud and frequently: that he was Christ, anointed, and sent for that, his reference of all his actions to his Father testified; both these were enwrapped in that, that he was the Son of God; and that he professed himself upon the earth to be so; for so it appears plainly, that he had plainly done: We have a law, john 9 7. say the Jews to Pilate, and by our law, he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. And for the last part, that he came In aqua & sanguine, in water, and blood, in such means, as were to continue in the Church, for our spiritual reparation, and sustentation, he testified that, in preaching so piercing Sermons, in instituting so powerful Sacraments, in assuring us, that the love of God expressed to mankind in him, extended to all persons, john 3. 16. and all times, God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoseever believeth in him, should not perish, but have life everlasting. And so the words bear record, De Integritate, of this Entireness, of the whole work of our Redemption: and therefore, Christ is not only truly called a Martyr, in that sense, as Martyr signifies a witness, but he is truly called a Martyr, in that sense, as we use the word ordinarily; for he testified this truth, and suffered for the testimony of it: and therefore he is called Jesus Christ, Apoc. 1. 5. Martyr, a faithful witness. And there is Martyrium, a Martyrdom attributed to him, where it is said, Jesus Christ under Pontius Pilate, witnessed a good confession; Tim. 6. 13. so he was a speaking, and a doing, and a suffering witness. Now for the third witness in heaven, Spiritus sanctus. which is the holy Ghost; we may contract ourselves in that; for the whole work was his; Before joseph and Mary came together, Mat. 1. 18. she was found with Child of the holy Ghost: which (if we take it, as Saint Basil, and divers others of the Fathers do) that joseph found it, by the holy Ghost, that is, the holy Ghost informed him of it, than here the holy Ghost was a witness to joseph, of this Conception: but we rather take it (as it is most ordinarily taken) that the Angel intimated this to joseph, v. 20. That that which was conceived in her, was of the holy Ghost; and then the holy Ghost did so primarily testify, this decree of God, to send a jesus, and a Christ, for our Redemption, that himself was a blessed and bountiful actor in that Conception, he was conceived by him, by his overshadowing. So that the holy Ghost did not only testify his coming, but he brought him: And then, for his coming in Aqua & sanguine, in water and blood, that is, in Sacraments, in means, by which he might be able to make his coming useful, and appliable to us, first the holy Ghost, was a pregnant witness of that, at his Baptism; for the holy Ghost had told john Baptist beforehand, That upon whomsoever he should descend, and tarry still, that should be he, that should baptise with the holy Ghost: john 1. 31. and then according to those Marks, he did descend, and tarry still upon Christ jesus, in his baptism. And after this falling upon him, and tarrying upon him, (which testified his power) in all his life, expressed in his doctrine, and in his Sermons, after his death, and Resurrection, and Ascension, the holy Ghost gave a new testimony, when he fell upon the Apostles in Cloventongues, and made them spiritual channels, in which this water and blood, the means of applying Christ to us, should be conveyed to all Nations; and thus also the third witness in heaven, testified De integritate, of this entireness of jesus. Of these three witnesses then, 3. Vnum. which are of heaven, we shall need to add no more, but that which the text adds, that is, That these three are one; that is, not only one in Consent, (they all testify of one point, they all speak to one Interrogatory; Ad integritatem Christi, to prove this entireness of Christ;) but they are Vnum Essentia, The Father, the Son, and the holy Ghost are all one Godhead, and so meant and intended to be in this place. And therefore as Saint Hierome complained, when some Copies were without this seventh verse, that thereby we had lost a good argument for the unity of the three Persons, because this verse said plainly that the three witnesses were all one, so I am sorry, when I see any of our later expositors deny, that in this place, there is any proof, of such an unity, but that this Vnum sunt, (They are one) is only an unity of consent, and not of essence. It is an unthrifty prodigality (howsoever we be abundantly provided with arguments, from other places of Scriptures, to prove this Unity in Trinity) to cast away so strong an argument, against jew, and Turk, as is in these words, for that, and for the consubstantiality of Christ, which was the Tempest, and the Earthquake of the Primitive Church, raised by Arius; and his followers then, and (God knows) not extinguished yet. Thus much I add of these three witnesses, that though they be in heaven, their testimony is upon the earth; for they need not to testify to one another, this matter of Jesus: The Father hears of it every day, by the continual intercession of Christ Jesus: The Son feels it every day; in his new crucifying by our sins, and in the perfecution of his Mystical body here: The holy Ghost hath a bitter sense of it, in our sins against the holy Ghost, and he hath a loving sense of it, in those abundant seas of graces, which flow continually from him upon us; They need no witnesses in heaven; but these three witnesses testify all this, to our Consciences. And therefore the first author, that is observed to have read, and made use of this seventh verse (which was one of the first Bishops of Rome) he reads the words thus, Higinus. Tres in nobis, there are three in us, which bear witness in heaven; they testify for our sakes, and to establish our assurance, De Integritate jesu; that Jesus is come, and come with means, to save the world, and to save us. And therefore upon these words, Saint Bernard collects thus much more, Bernard. that there are other witnesses in heaven, which testify this work of our Redemption, Angels, and Saints, all the Court, all the Choir of heaven testify it; but catera nobis occults, says he, what all they do we know not: but (according to the best dispositions here in this world) we acquaint ourselves, and we choose to keep company with the best, and so not only the poor Church s the earth, but every poor soul in the Church, may hear all these three witnesses testifying to him, Integrum jesum suum, that all, which Christ Jesus hath done, and suffered, appertains to him: but yet, to bring it nearer him, in visible and sensible things, There are, tres de terra, three upon earth too. The first of these three upon earth, is the Spirit: Spiritus. which Saint Augustine understands of the spirit, the soul of Christ: for when Christ commended his spirit, into the hands of his Father, this was a testimony, that he was Verus hemo, that he had a soul; and in that he laid down his spirit, his soul, (for no Man could take it from him) and took it again, at his pleasure, in his resurrection, this was a testimony, that he was Verus Deus, true God; And so says Saint Augustine, Spiritus, The spirit, that is anima Christi, the soul of Christ, did testify De integritate jesu, all that belonged to Jesus, as he was God, and as he was Man. But this makes the witnesses in heaven, and the witnesses in earth all one; for the personal testimony of Christ's preaching, and living, and dying, the testimony which was given by these three Persons of the Trinity, was all involved in the first rank of witnesses: Those three which are in heaven. Other later Men understand by the Spirit here the Spirit of every Regenerate Man; and that in the other heavenly witnesses, the spirit is Spiritus sanctus, the spirit that is holy in itself, the holy Ghost, and here it is Spiritus sanctificatus, that spirit of Man, which is made holy by the holy Ghost, Rom. 8. 16. according to that, The same spirit, beareth witness, with our spirit, that we are the children of God. But in this sense, it is too particular a witness, too singular, to be intended here; for that speaks but to one Man, at once; The spirit therefore here is; Spiritus oris, the word of God, the Gospel; and the preaching, and ministration thereof. 2 Cor. 3. 6. Ibid. We are made Ministers of the New testament of the spirit, that giveth life: And if the ministration of death were glorious, how shall not the ministration of the spirit, be more glorious? It is not therefore the Gospel merely, but the preaching of the Gospel, that is this spirit. Spiritus sacerdotis vehioulum Spiritus Dei; The spirit of the Minister, is not so pure, as the spirit of God, but it is the chariot, the means, by which God will enter into you. The Gospel is the Gospel, at home, at your house; and there you do well to read it, and reverence it, as the Gospel: but yet it is not Spiritus, it is not this Spirit, this first witness upon earth, but only there, where God hath blessed it with his institution, and ordinance, that is, in the preaching thereof. The stewardship, and the dispensation of the graces of God, the directing of his threatenings against refractory, and wilful sinners, the directing of his promises to simple, and supple, and con●rite penitents, the breaking of the bread, the applying of the Gospel according to their particular indigences, in the preaching thereof, this is the first witness. The second witness here is The water, Aqua. and I know there are some Men which will not have this to be understood of the water of Baptism; but only of the natural effect of water; that as the abtutions of the old law, by water did purge us, so we have an inward testimony, that Christ doth likewise wash us clean; so the water here, must not be so much as water; but a metaphorical, and figurative water. These men will not allow water, in this place, to have any relation to the sacrament; and Saint Ambrose was so far from doubting that water in this place belonged to the sacrament, that he applies all these three witnesses to the Sacrament of Baptism: Spiritus mentem renovat, All this is done in Baptism, says he; The Spirit renews and disposes the mind; Aqua perficit ad Lavacrum; The water is applied to cleanse the body; Sanguis Spectat ad pre●lium; and the blood intimates the price, and ransom, which gives force, and virtue to this sacrament: And so also (says he in another place) In sanguine mors, in the blood there is a representation of death, in the water, of our burial, and in the spirit, of our own life. Some will have none of these witnesses on earth to belong to baptism, not the water; and Ambrose will have all, spirit, and water, and blood to belong to it. Now both Saint Ambrose, who applies all the three witnesses to Baptism, and those later men which deny any of the witnesses to belong to baptism, do both depart from the general acceptation of these words, that water here, and only that, signifies the Sacrament of baptism. For as in the first creation, the first thing, that the spirit of God, is noted to have moved upon, was the waters, so the first creature, that is sanctified by Christ's institution, to our Salvation, is this element of water. The first thing that produced any living sensible creature was the water; Primus liquor qnod viveret edidit; ne mirum sit quod in Baptismo, aquae a●nimare noverunt; water brought forth the first creatures, Tertullian. says Tertullian; That we should not wonder, that water should bring forth Christians. The first of God's afficting miracles in Egypt, was the changing of water into blood; Exod. 3. and the first miracle of grace, in the new Testament, was the changing of water into wine at the marriage. So that water hath still been a subject, and instrument of God's conversation with man: So then Aqua janua ecclesiae, we cannot come into the Church, but by water, by baptism: for though the Church have taken knowledge of other Baptisms, (Baptisma sanguinis, which is Martyrdom, and Baptisma Flaminis, which is a religious desire to be baptised when no means can be got) yet there is no other sacrament of Baptism, but Baptisma Fluminis, the Baptism of water; for the rest, Conveniunt in causando, sed non in significando, says the School; that is, God doth afford a plentiful retribution to the other baptisms Flaminis and Sanguinis, but God hath not ordained them, to be outward seals, and significations of his grace, and to be witnesses of jesus his coming upon earth, as this water is. And therefore they that provide not duly to bring their children to this water of life, (not to speak of the essential necessity thereof) they take from them one of the witnesses, that jesus is come into them; and (as much as they can) they shut the Church door against them, they leave them out of the Ark, and for want of this water, cast them into that general water, which overflows all the rest of the world, which are not brought within the Covenant, by this water of baptism. For, though in the first Translation of the new Testament, into Syriaque, that be said in the sixth verse, that Jesus is come per manus aquarum, by the power of waters, many waters, and in this verse, this witness is delivered in the plural, spirit and waters, (and so, waters in that signification, (which signification they have often in the Scriptures) that is, affliction, and tribulation, be good testimonies that our Lord Jesus doth visit us) though the waters of Contrition, and repentant tears be another good testimony of that too, yet that water, which testifies the presence of Jesus so, as that it doth always infallibly bring Jesus with it, (for the Sacraments are never without Grace) whether it be accepted or no, there it is) ● That water which is made equal with the preaching of the Word, (so far as to be a fellow-witnesse with the Spirit) that is only the Sacrament of baptism, without which (in the ordinary dispensation of God) no soul can be surer that Jesus is come to him, then if he had never heard the Word preached; he mistakes the spirit, the first witness; if he refuse the water the second. The third witness upon earth, Sanguinis. is blood: and that is briefly the Communion of the body, and blood of jesus, in the Lord's Supper. But how is that blood upon earth? I am not ashamed to confess, that I know not how, but the blood of Christ is a witness upon earth, in the Sacrament, and therefore, upon the earth it is. Now this Witness being made equal with the other two, with preaching, and with baptism, it is as necessary, that he that will have an assurance● that jesus is come into him, do receive this Sacrament, as that he do hear Serm●n●, and that he be baptised. An over vehement urging of this necessity, brought in an erroneous custom in the Primitive Church: That they would give the Sacrament of the body of Christ to Children, as soon as they were baptised; yea, and to dead man too. But because this Sacrament is accompanied with precepts, which can belong only to Men of understanding, (for they must do it in Remembrance, and they must discern the Lords body) therefore the necessity lies only upon such, as are come to those graces, and to that understanding. For they that take it, and do not discern it, (not know what they do) they take it dangerously. But else, for them, to whom this Sacrament belongs, if they take it not, their hearing of Sermons, and their baptism doth them no good; for what good can they have done them, if they have not prepared themselves for it? And therefore, as the Religion of the Church holds a stubborn Recusant at the table, at the Communion board, as far from her, as a Recusant at the Pew, that is, a Non-communicant as ill, as a not comer, or a not hearer, so I doubt not but the wisdom of the state weighs them in the same balance; For these three agree in one, says the text: that is, first they meet in one Man, and then they testify the same thing, that is, Integritatem jesu, that jesus is come to him in outward Means, to save his soul. If his conscience find not this testimony, all these avail him nothing. If we remain vessels of anger, and of dishonour still, we are under the Vae v●bis Hypocritis: woe unto you Hypocrites, that make clean only the outside of your cups and Platters. Mat. 25. 23. That baptise, and wash your own, and your children's bodies, but not their minds with instructions. When we shall come to say Docuisti in plateis, we have heard thee preach in our streets, Luke 13. 25. we have continued our hearing of thy Word, when we say Manducavimus coram te, we have eat in thy presence, at thy table, yea Manducavimus t●, we have eaten thee thyself, Ibid. yet for all this outward show of these three witnesses, of Spirit, and Water, and blood, Preaching, and Baptism and Communion, we shall hear that fearful disclaiming from Christ Jesus, Nescio vos, I know not whence you are. But these witnesses, he will always hear, if they testify for us, that Jesus is come unto us; for the Gospel, and the preaching thereof, is as the deed that conveys jesus unto us; the water, the baptism, is as the Seal, that assures it; and the blood, the Sacrament, is the delivery of Christ into us; and this is Integritas jesu, the entire, and full possession of him. To this purpose therefore, as we have found a Trinity in heaven, and a Trinity in earth, so we must make it up a Trinity of Trinities, and find a third Trinity in ourselves. God created one Trinity in us; (the observation, and the enumeration is Saint Bernard's) which are those three faculties of our soul, the reason, the memory, the will; That Trinity in us, by another Trinity too, (by suggestion towards sin, by delight in sin, by consent to sin) is fallen into a third Trinity; The memory into a weakness, that that comprehends not God, it glorifies him not for benefits received; The reasen to a blindness, that that discerns not what is true; and the will to a perverseness, that that wishes not what's good; But the goodness of God, by these three witnesses on earth regenerates, and reestablishes a new Trinity in us, faith, and hope, and charity; Thus far that devout Man carries it; And if this new Trinity, faith, and hope, and charity, witness to us Integritatem Christi, all the work of Christ, If my faith testify to me, that Christ is sealed to my soul; and my hope, testify, that at the Resurrection, I shall have a perfect fruition in soul, and body, of that glory which he purchased for every believer; and my charity testifies to the world, that I labour to make sure that salvation, by a good life, then there's a Trinity of Trinities, and the six are made nine witnesses: There are three in heaven that testify that this is done for all Mankind, Three in the Church that testify, this may be done for me, and three in my soul, that testify, that all this is applied to me; and then the verdict, and the Judgement must necessarily go for me. And beloved, this Judgement will be grounded upon this entireness of Jesus, and therefore let me dismiss you with this note, That Integritas is in continuitate, not in contignitate; It is not the touching upon a thing, nor the coming near to a thing, that makes it entire; a faggot, where the sticks touch, a piece of cloth, where the threads touch, is not entire; To come as near Christ as we can conveniently, to try how near we can bring two Religions together, this is not to preserve Integritatem jesu: In a word, Entireness excludes deficiency, and redundancy, and discontinuance; we preserve not entireness, if we preserve not the dignity of Christ, in his Church, and in his discipline, and that excludes the defective Separatist; we do not preserve that entireness if we admit traditions, and additions of Men, in an equality to the word of God, and that excludes the redundant Papist; neither do we preserve the entireness, if we admit a discontinuance, a slumbering of our Religion for a time, and that excludes the temporisers, the Statist, the Politician. And so, beloved, I recommend unto you Integritatem jesu, Jesus, and his truth, and his whole truth, and this whole Truth, in your whole lives. SERMON VII. Preached at a Christening. GAL. 3. 27. For, all ye that are baptised into Christ, have put on Christ. THis text is a Reason of a Reason; an Argument of an Argument; The proposition undertaken by the Apostle to prove, is, That after faith is come, we are no longer under the Schoolmaster, v. 25. 26. the law. The reason, by which he proves that, is: For ye are all the Sons of God by faith, in Christ Jesus; And then the reason of that, is this text, for all ye that are baptised into Christ, have put on Christ. Here then is the progress of a sanctified Man, and here is his standing house; here is his journey, and his Lodging; his way, and his end. The house, the lodging, the end of all is faith; for whatsoever is not of faith, is sin. To be sure that you are in the right way to that, you must find yourselves to be the Sons of God; And you can prove that, by no other way to yourselves, but because you are baptised into Christ. So that our happiness is now at that height, and so much are we preferred before the jews, that whereas the chiefest happiness of the Jews was to have the law, (for without the law they could not have known sin, and the law was their Schoolmaster to find out Christ) we are admitted to that degree of perfection, that we are got above the law; It was their happiness to have had the law, but it is ours, not to need it: They had the benefit of a guide, to direct them, but we are at our journey's end; They had a schoolmaster to lead them to Christ; but we have proceeded so far, as that we are in possession of Christ. The law of Moses therefore, binds us not at all, as it is his Law; Whatsoever binds a Christian, in that law, would have bound him, though there had been no law given to Moses. The Ceremonial part of that law, which was in the institution, Mortal, (it was mortal, It might die) and by Christ's determination of those Typical things, Mortuum, (It did die) is now also Mortiferum, (deadly) so that it is sin to draw any part of that law, into a necessity of observation; because the necessary admission of any Type, or figure, implies a confession, that that which was signified, or figured, is not yet come; So that that law, and Christ cannot consist together. The judicial law of Moses, was certainly the most absolute, and perfect law of government, which could have been given to that people, for whom it was given; but yet to think, that all States are bound to observe those laws, because God gave them, hath no more ground, then that all Men are bound to go clothed in beasts skins, because God apparelled Adam, and Eve in that fashion. And for the moral part of that law, and the abridgement of that moral part, the decalogue, that begun not to have force, and efficacy then, when God writ it in the tables; but was always, and always shall be written in the hearts of Men; And though God of his goodness, was pleased to give that declaration of it, and that provocation to it, by so writing it, yet if he had not written it, or if (which is impossible) that writing could perish, yet that moral law, those commandments, would bind us, that are Christians, after the expiration of that law, which was Moses law, as it did (de jure) bind all those which lived, before any written law was. So that he that will perfectly understand, what appertains to his duty in any of the ten Commandments; he must not consider that law, with any limitation, as it was given to the jews, but consider what he would have done, if he had lived before the Tables had been written. For certainly, even in the Commandment of the Sabbath, which was accompanied with so many Ceremonies amongst the jews, that part only is moral, which had bound us, though that Commandment had never been given; and he that performs that part, keeps the Sabbath; the Ceremonial part of it, is not only not necessary; but when it is done with an opinion of necessity, it is erroneous, and sinful. For neither that Commandment nor any other of the ten, began to bind them, when they were written, nor doth bind now, except it bound before that. Thus far then we are directed by this Text, (which is as far, as we can go in this life) To prove to ourselves, that we have faith, we must prove, that we need not the law; To prove that emanecipation, and liberty, we must prove, that we are the sons of God; To prove that engraffing, and that adoption, we must prove, that we have put on Christ jesus; And to prove that apparelling of ourselves, our proof is, that we are baptised into him. All proofs must either arrest, and determine in some things confessed, and agreed upon, or else they proceed in infinitum. That which the Apostle takes to be that which is granted on all sides, and which none can deny, is this, that to be baptised is to put on Christ: And this putting on of Christ, doth so far carry us to that Infinitissimum, to God himself, that we are thereby made Semen Dei, the seed of God; The field is the world, Mat. 13. and the good seed are the Children of the kingdom; And we are translated even into the nature of God, 2 Pet. 1. By his precious promises we are made partakers of the Divine nature; yea, we are discharged of all bodily, and earthly encumbrances, and we are made all spirit, 1 Cor. 6. yea the spirit of God himself, He that is joined to the Lord, is one spirit with him. All this we have, if we do put on Christ: and we do put on Christ, if we be baptised into him. These than are the two actions which we are now to consider: Baptizari, To be washed. Divisio: Endure, To be clothed. Endure, is to cover so far, as that Covering can reach; A hat covers the head; a glove the hand; and other garments, more; But Christ, when he is put on, Covers us all. If we have weak heads, shallow brains, either a silexce, and a reservedness, which make the fool and the wise equal, or the good interpretation of friends, which put good Constructions upon all that we say, or the dignity of authority, and some great place, which we hold, which puts an opinion in the people, that we are wise, or else we had never been brought thither, these cover our heads, and hide any defect in them. If we have foul hands, we can cover them, with excuses; If they be foul with usurious Extortion, we can put on a glove, an excuse, and say, He that borrowed my money, got more by it, than I that lent it; If, with bribery in an office, we can cover it and say, He that knew, that I bought my office, will be content to let me be a saver by it; If our hands be foul with shedding of innocent blood, as Saint Hierome says that Adam eat the Apple, Ne contristaretur Delicias suas, left he should over grieve his wife, by refusing it, Ne contristaremur Delicias nostras, either because we would not displease another, or because our beloved sin, to which we had married ourselves, did solicit us to it. Particular excuses cover our particular defects, from the sight of men, but to put on Christ, covers us all over, even from the sight of God himself. So that how narrowly so ever he search into us, he sees nothing but the whiteness of his Son's innocency, and the redness of his Son's blood. When the prodigal child returned to his father, his father clothed him entirely, and all at once; he put a robe upon him, to cover all his defects: which Robe, when God puts upon us, in clothing us with Christ, that robe is not only Dignitaes quam perdidit Adam, as Augustine says, but it is Amictus sapientiae, Augustine. Ambrose. as Ambrase enlarges it, It does not only make us aswell, as we were in Adam, but it enables us better, to preserve that state; It does not only cover us, that is, make us excusable, for our past, and present sins, but it endues us with grace; and wisdom to keep that robe still, and never to return to our former foulnesses, and deformities. Our first parents Adam and Eve were naked all over; but they were not sensible of all their nakedness, but only of those parts whereof they were ashamed. Nothing but the shame of the world makes us discern our deformities; And only for those faults, which shame makes us take knowledge of, we go about to provide; And we provide nothing but short Aprons, as that word signified; and those but of fig-leaves; That which comes first to hand, and that which is withered before it is made, that do we take for an excuse, for an aversion of our own conscience, when she begins to cast an eye, or to examine the nakedness, and deformities of our souls. But when God came to clothe them, their short aprons were extended to coats, Gen. 3. 21. that covered them all over, and their fig-leaves to strong skins; for God saw that not only those parts, of which they were already ashamed, needed covering, but that in all their other parts, if they continued, naked, and still exposed to the Injury, and violence of the weather, they would contract diseases, and infirmities; and therefore God covers them so throughly, as he doth not only provide for reparation of former inconveniences, but prepare against future. And so perfect effects doth this garment, Christ jesus, work upon us, if we put him on; He doth not only cover Original sins, (which is the effect of those disobedient Members, which derive sin, upon us, in the sinful generation of our parents) but he covers all our actual sins, which we multiply every day: and not only those, which the world makes us ashamed of, but which we hide from the world; yea which we hide from ourselves; that is, sins, which by a long custom of practice, we commit so habitually, and so indifferently, as that we have forgot, that they are sins. But as it was in Adam's Clothing there, so must it be in our spiritual putting on of Christ. The word used there, Labash, doth not signify that God clothed Adam, nor that Adam clothed himself; but as the Grammarians call it, it is in Hiphil, and it signified Endure fecit eos; God caused them to be clothed, or God caused them to clothe themselves; which is also intimated, nay evidently expressed in the words of this text; we are ourselves poor, and impotent creatures, we cannot make ourselves ready; we are poor and beggarly creatures, we have nothing to put on; Christ is that garment; and than Christ is the very life, by which we stretch out our arms and our legs, to put on that garment; yea he puts it on upon us, he doth the whole work: but yet he doth not thrust it on: He makes us Able to put it on: but if we be not willing, than he puts no necessity upon our will: but we remain naked still. Endure then, to put on, is an extension, a dilatation over all; And sometimes it signifies an abundant, and overflowing, and overwhelming measure of God's judgements upon us, Princeps Induetur desolatione, Ezech. 7. 27. & 16. 16. The prince shallbe 〈◊〉 with desolation and with astonishment: But most commonly, the rich and all-sufficient proportion of his mercies and spiritual benefits: as he expressed it to his Apostles, at his ascension, Stay you in the City, quousque Induamini virtute ex alto; till ye be endued (so we translate it) that is, clothed with power from on high. And this was per fidem ei innitends, Luke 24. 49. and per opera cum declar ando, says Saint Augustine, He only hath pat on Christ, which hath Christ in himself by faith, and shows him to others by his works, which is Lucern● arden's, (as Christ said of john Baptist) a burning lamp, and a shining lamp, profitable to others, as well as to himself. There is a degree of vanity, and pride, whereby some Men delight to wear their richest clothes innermost, and most out of sight; But in this double garment of a Christian, it is necessarily so; for faith is the richest, and most precious part of this garment; an this, which is our Holiday garment, is worn innermost; for that (our faith) is only seen by God; but our outward garment, of works, which is our workday garment, that is our sanctification is seen of all the world. And that also must be put on, or else we have not put on Christ: and it must cover us all over; that is, our sanctification must go through our whole life in a constant, and an even perseverance; we must not only be Hospitale, and feed the poor at Christmas, be sober, and abstinent, the day that we receive, repent, and think of amendment of life, in the day of visitation, and sickness; but as the garment, which Christ wore, was seamlesse, and entire, so this garment, which is Christ jesus, that is, our sanctification, should be entire, and uninterrupted, in the whole course of our lives, we must remember, that at the Marriage which figured the kingdom of heaven, the master of the feast reprehended, Mat. 22. and punished him, that was come in, not expressly because he had not a wedding garment, but Qu●modo intrasti, says he, how camest thou in not having on thy wedding garment? So that (if it could be possible) though we had put on the inside of this garment, which is Christ, that is, if we had faith, yet if we have not the outside too, that is sanctification, we have not put on Christ, as we should; for this is Indui virtute ex alto; to have both inside, faith, and outside, sanctification: and to put it on so, that it may cover us all over, that is all our life; because it is not in our power, if we put it off, by new sins, to put it on again, when we will. I have put off my coat, how shall I put it on, 5. 3. was the doubt of the spouse, in the Canticles, even when Christ had called her: So hard a thing is it, if we divest the righteousness of Christ, after we have put it on, to clothe ourselves again in that garment. As then this word, Endure, to put on, to be clothed, signifies a largeness, and an abundance, according to that, The pastures are clothed with sheep, and the valleys with corn: Psal. 65. So is this garment, Christ Jesus, such a garment, as is alone so all sufficient, as that if we do put on that, we need no other; Put ye on the Lord jesus Christ, Rom. 13. and take no thought for the flesh; if ye have put on that, you are clothed, and armed, and adorned sufficiently. In the first creation, in the Faciamus hominem ad Imaginem nostrûm, when God seems to have held a consultation about the making of Man, man put on all the Trinity, all God; & in the redemption God put on all Man; not only all the nature of Mankind in general, but in particular, every Man. But as the spirit of God, I●d: 6. 34. is said to have put on a particular Man, Spiritus Domini induit Gedeon, the spirit of the Lord, clothed, or put on Gedeon, when he selected him for his service, so must the spirit of every particular Man, put on Christ, he must not be content, to be under the general cover, (either under his general providence, because he is a Creature, or a member of his Mystical body, because he adheres to a visible Church) he must not say, I am as warm clothed, as another, I have as much of Christ in me, as a great many, that do well enough in the world, but he must so inwrap himself in Christ, and in his Merits, as to make all that to be his own. No man may take the frame of Christ's merit in pieces; no Man may take his forty days fasting and put on that, and say, Christ hath fasted for me, and therefore I may surfeit; No man may take his Agony, and pensiveness, and put on that, and say, Christ hath been sad for me, and therefore I may be merry. He that puts on Christ, must put him on all● and not only find, that Christ hath died, nor only that he hath died for him, but that he also hath died in Christ, and that whatsoever Christ suffered, he suffered in Christ. For, as Christ's merit, and satisfaction, is not too narrow for all the world, so is it not too large for any one Man; Infinite worlds might have been saved by it, if infinite worlds had been created; And, if there were no more Names in the book of life, but thine, all the Merit of Christ were but enough to save thy one sinful soul, which could not have been redeemed, though alone, at any less price, than his death. All that Christ did, and suffered, he did and suffered for thee, as thee; not only ●s Man, but as that particular Man, which bears such, or such a name; and rather, than any of those, whom he loves, should appear naked before his Father, and so discover to his confusion, those scars, and deformities, which his sins have imprinted upon him, (as his love is devoutly, and plously extended by the Schools and some contemplative Men) Christ would be content to do, and suffer, as much as he hath done, for any one particular Man yet: But beyond Infinite, there is no degree: and his merit was infinite, both because an infinite Majesty resided in his person, and because an infinite Majesty accepted his sacrifice for infinite. But this act of Christ, this redemption makes us only servants; servi à servand●, we are servants to him, that preserved, and saved us, is the derivation of the Law. But the application of this redemption (which is the putting on of Christ,) makes us s●ns; for we are not to put on Christ, only as a Livery, to be distinguished by external marks of Christianity; but so, as the son puts on his father; that we may be of the same nature and substance as he; and that God may be in us, Non tanquam in denario, not as the King is in a piece of coin, or a medal, but tanquam in filio, as he is in his son, in whom the same nature both humane, and Royal doth reside. There is then a double Endure, a twofold clothing; we may 〈◊〉 1. Vestem, put on a garment; 2. Personam, put on a person. We may put on Christ so, as we shall be his, and we may put him on so, as we shall be Herald And even to put him on as a garment is also twofold; The first is to take only the outward name, and profession of Christians upon us; Hag. 1. and this do●h us no good; ye clothe ye, but are not warm, says the Prophet, of this kind of putting on of Christ. For this may be done only to delude others; Zach. 13. which practice God discovered, and threatened, in the false Prophets, The Prophets shall not wear a rough garment to deceive; As God himself cannot be deluded, so for the encouragement of his Church, he will take off this garment of the Hypocrite, and discover his nakedness, and expose him to the open shame of the world; He shall not wear arough garment to deceive. For this is such an affront and scorn to Christ, as Han●● cutting off of David's servants clothes at the middle, 1 Chron. 19 4. was; we make this garment of what stuff, and what fashion we list; As Hanun did, we cut it off in the middle; we will be Christians till noon, (in the outward acts of Religion) and Libertines in the afternoon, in putting off that garment again; we will be Christians all day, and return to wanto●nesse, and licentiousness at night; we do that which Christ says, no Man doth, (that is, no Man should do) Mat. 9 we put new pieces to an old garment; and to that habit of sin, which covers us as a garment, we put a few new patches of Religion, a few flashes of repentance, a few shreds of a Sermon, but we put not on, that entire and feamlesse garment Christ Jesus. And can we hope, that these disguises, these half coats, these imperfect services will be acceptable to God, when we ourselves would not admit this, at our children, or at our servants hands? It is the argument by which the Prophet convinces the Israelites, Mal 1. about their unclean sacrifices; offer this now unto the Prince; will he be conte●t with thee, and accept thy person? If thou shouldest wear the prince's Livery, in a scantler proportion, or in a different fashion, or in a courset stuff, then belongs to thy place, would he accept it at thy hands? No more will Christ if thou put him on, (that is, take his profession upon thee) either in a courser stuff, (Traditions of Men, in stead of his word) or in scantler measure, (not to be always a Christian, but then, when thou hast use of being one) or in a different fashion, (to be singular and Schismatical in thy opinion) for this is one, but an ill manner of putting on of Christ as a garment. The second, and the good way is, to put on his righteousness, and his innocency, by imitation, and conforming ourselves to him. Now when we go about earnestly to make ourselves Temples, and Altars, and to dedicate ourselves to God, we must change our clothes; Gan. 35. As when God bad jacob, to go up to Bethel, to make an Altar, he commanded all his family to change their clothes; In which work, we have two things, to do; first, we must put off those clothes which we had; and appear naked before God, without presenting any thing of our own; (for when the Spirit of God came upon Saul, and that he prophesied, his first act was, 1 Sam. 19 to strip himself naked: And then s●condly, we come to our transfiguration, and to have those garments of Christ communicated to us which were as white, as the light; and we shall be admitted into that little number, Mat. 17. of which it is said, Thou hast a few Namees in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments, Revel. 3. and they shall walk with ●e in white. And from this (which is Endure vestem,) Personam. from this putting on Christ as a garment, we shall grow up to that perfection, as that we shall In●●ere personam, put on hi●, his person; That is, we shall so appear before the Father, as that he shall take us for his own Christ; we shall bear his name and person; and we shall every one be so accepted, as if every one of us were all Mankind; yea, as if we were he himself. He shall find in all our bodies his wounds, in all our minds, his 〈◊〉; in all our hearts, and actions his obedience. And as he shall do this by imputation, so really in all our Agonies, he shall send his Angels to minister unto us, as he did to Eli●s; In all our tentations he shall furnish us with his Scriptures to confounded the Tempter, as be in person, did in his tentation, and in our heaviest tribulation, which may ex●●●● from us the voice of diffidence, My God, My God, why hast 〈◊〉 forsaken me? He shall give us the assurance to say, In manus tuas & c● Into thy ●ands O Lord have I co●●●●nded my spirit, and there I am safe; He shall use us in all things, as his son; and we shall find restored in us, the Image of the whole Trinity, imprinted at our creation; for by this Regeneration, we are adopted by the Father in the blood of the Son by the sanctification of the holy Ghost. Now this putting on of Christ, Baptismus. whereby we stand in his place at God's Tribunal, implies, as I said, both our Election, and our sanctification; both the eternal purpose of God upon us, and his execution of that purpose in us. And because by the first (by our Election) we are members of Christ, in God's purpose, before baptism, and the second, (which is sanctification) is expressed after baptism, in our lives, and conversation, therefore Baptism intervenes, and comes between both, as a seal of the first, (of Election) and as an instrument, and conduit of the second, Sanctification. Now, Abscendita Domin●, Dea nostro, quae manifesta su●s nobis; let no Man be too curiously busy, to search what God does in his hedchamber; we have all enough to answer, for that, which we have done in our bedchamber. For God's eternal decree, himself is master of those Rolls; but out of those Rolls he doth exemplify those decrees in the Sacrament of baptism; by which Copy, and exemplification of his invisible and unsearchable decree, we plead to the Church, that we are Gods children, we plead to our own consciences, that we have the Spirit of adoption, and we plead to God himself, the obligation of his own promise, that we have a right to this garment, Christ jesus, and to those graces, which must sanctify us; for from thence comes the reason of this text, for all ye● that are baptised into Christ, have put on Christ. As we cannot see the Essence of God, but must see him in his glasses, in his Images, in his Creatures, so we cannot see the decrees of God, but must see them in their duplicats, in their exemplification, in the sacraments. As it would do him no good, that were condemned of treason, that a Bedchamber man should come to the Judge, and swear he saw the king sign the prisoners pardon, except he had it to plead: so what assurance soever, what pri●y mark soever, those men, which pretend to be so well acquainted, and so familiar with the decrees of God, to give thee to know, that thou art elect to eternal salvation, yea if an Angel from heaven comedowne and tell thee, that he saw thy name in the book of life, if thou have not this Exemplification of the decree, this seal, this Sacrament, if thou be'st not baptised, never delude thyself with those imaginary assurances. This Baptism than is so necessary, that first, as Baptism (in a large acceptation) signifies our dying, and burial with Christ, and all the acts of our regeneration, so in that large sense, our whole life is a baptism: But the very sacrament of Baptisms the actual administration, and receiving thereof, was held so necessary, that even for legal and Civil uses, (as in the law, that child, that died without circumcision, had no interest in the family, no participation of the honour, nor name thereof) So that we see in the reckoning of the Genealogy, 1 Chron. 3. and pedigree of David, that first son of his, which he had by Bathshebae, which died without circumcision is never mentioned, nor touched upon.) So also, since the time of M●ses law, in the Imperial law, by which law, a posthume child, borne after the father's death, is equal with the rest in division of the state, yet if that child die before he be baptised, no person which should derive a right from him, (as the mother might, if he died) can have any title by him; because he is not considered to have been at all, if he die unbaptised. And if the State will not believe him to be a full Man, shall the Church believe him to be a full Christian, before baptism? Yea, the apprehension of the necessity of this Sacrament, was so common, and so general, even in the beginning of the Christian Church, that out of an excessive advancing of that trnth, they came also to a falshood● to an error, That even they that died without baptism, might have the benefit of baptism, if another were baptised in their name, after their death's And so, out of a mistaking of those words, 1 Cor. 15. 29. Else what shall they do, Qui baptizantur pro mortuis (which is, that are ready to die, when they are baptised) the Marcionites induced a custom, to lay one under the dead body's bed, that he, in the name of the dead man, might answer to all the questions usually asked, in administering of Baptism. But this was a corrupt effect of pure, and sincere doctrine, which doctrine is, That Baptism is so necessary, as that God. hath placed no other ordinary scale, nor conveyance of his graces in his Church, to them that have not received that, than buptisme. And they, who do not provide duly, for the Baptism of their children, if their children die, have a heavier account to make to God for that child, then if they had not provided a Nurse, and suffered the child to starve. God can preserve the child without Milk; and he can save the child without a sacrament; but as that mother that throws out, and forsakes her child in the field, or wood, is guilty before God of the Temporal murder of that child, though the child die not, so are those parents of a spiritual murder, if their children, by their fault die unbaptised, though God preserve that child out of his abundant, and miraculous mercy, from spiritual destruction. When the custom of the Christian Church was to baptise but twice in the year, at Easter, and Whi●sontide, for the greater solemnity of that action, yea when that ill custom was grown (as it was even in the Primitive Church) that upon an opinion, that all sins were absolutely forgiven in Baptism, Men did defer their Baptism, till their deathbed, (as we see the Ecclesiastical histories full of such examples, even in some of the Christian Emperors: and according to this ill custom, we see Tertullian chides away young children for coming so soon to Baptism, quid festinat innocens aetas, ad rem●ssionem peccatorum, why should this child, that as yet hath done no sin, make such haste to be washed from sinnce?) which opinion had got so much strength, that Saint Basil was fain to oppose it, in the Eastern Church, and both the Gregory's, Nazianzen and Nissen, and Saint Ambrose in the Western; yet, in the height of both their customs, of seldom baptising, and of late baptising, the case of infants, that might be in danger of dying without baptism, was ever excepted, So that none of those old customs, (though some of them were extremely ill) went ever so far, as to an opinion, that it were all one, whether the child were baptised or no. I speak not this, as though the state of children that died without baptism were desperate; God forbid, for who shall shorten the Arm of the Lord? God is able to rain down Manna and Quails into the souls of these children, though negligent parents turn them out into the wilderness, and put God to that extraordinary work. They may have Manna, and Quails, but they have not the Milk, and Honey, of the Land of promise; They may have salvation from God, but they have not those graces, so sealed, and so testified to them, as God hath promised they should be in his Sacraments. When God in spiritual offences, makes Inquisition of blood, he proceeds not, as Man proceeds; for we, till there appear a Man to be dead, never inquire who killed him; but in the spiritual Murder, of an unbaptized child, though there be no child spiritually dead, (though God's mercy have preserved the child from that) yet God imputes this as such a murder to them, who endangered the child, as far as they could, by neglecting his ordinance of baptism. This is then the necessity of this Sacrament; not absolutely necessary, but necessary by Gods ordinary institution; and as it is always necessary, so is it always certain; whosoever is baptised according to Christ's institution, receives the Sacrament of baptism; and the truth is always infallibly annexed with the sign; Nec fieri potest visio hominis, ut non sit Sacramentum quod figurat; Though the wicked may feel no working by the Sacrament, yet the Sacrament doth offer, and present grace as well to the unworthy as to the worthy Receiver: Calvin. Nec fallaciter promittit; The wicked may be a cause, that the Sacrament shall do them no good; but that the Sacrament, become no Sacrament, or that God should be false in his promises, and offer no grace, where he pretends to offer it, this the wicked cannot do; baptism doth truly, and without collusion, offer grace to all; and nothing but baptism, by an ordinary institution, and as an ordinary means, doth so: for when baptism is called a figure, yet both that figure is said there to save us, 1 Pet. 3. 21. (The figure that now saveth us, baptism; and it is a figure of the Ark; it hath relation to it, to that Ark which did save the world, when it is called a figure; So it may be a figure; but if we speak of real salvation by it, baptism is more than a figure. Now as our putting on of Christ was double, by faith, and by sanctification, so by this Sacrament also, we are baptised in Nomen Christi, into the Name of Christ, and in mortem Christi, into the death of Christ: we are not therefore baptised into his Name, because names are imposed upon us in our baptism: for that was not always permanently accustomed, in the Christian Church, to give a name at baptism. To men who were of years, and well known in the world already by their name● if they were converted to the Christian faith, the Church did not use to give new names at their baptism: neither to Children always; but sometimes as an indifferent thing, they left them to the custom of that country, or of that family, from which they were derived. When Saint Augustine says, that he came to Milan, to S. Ambrose, at that time, qu● dari nomina oportuit, when Names were to be given, it is true, that he speaks of a time, when Baptism was to be administered, but that phrase of Giving of Names, was not a receiving of Names at Baptism, (for neither Ambrose, nor Augustine, received any new name at their Baptism) but it was a giving up of their Names, a Registering, a Matriculating of their Names in the book of the profession of the Christian Religion, and a public declaration of that profession. To be baptised therefore into the name of Christ, is to be translated into his Family, by this spiritual adoption, in which adoption (when it was legal) as they that were adopted, had also the name of the family into which they were adopted, as of octavius Octavianus, and the rest, so are we so baptised, into his name, that we are of Christus Christiani; and therefore to become truly Christians, to live Christianly, this is truly to be baptised into his name. No other name is given under heaven, whereby we can be saved; nor must any other name accompany the name of God, in our Baptism. When therefore they teach in the Roman Church, that it is a good Baptism, which is administered in this form, I baptise thee in the name of the Father, and Son, and holy Ghost, and the virgin Mary, if he which baptises so, do not mean in his intention, that the virgin Mary is equal to the Trinity, but only an assistant, this is not only an impertinent, but an impious addition to that God, that needs no assistant. And as in our baptism, we take no other name necessarily, but the name of Christ: So in our Christian life, we accept no other distinctions of jesuits, or Franciscans; but only Christians: for we are baptised into his name, and the whole life of a regenerate man is a Baptism. For as in putting on Christ, sanctification doth accompany faith, so in baptism, the imitation of his death (that is, mortification) and the application of his passion, (by fulfilling the sufferings of Christ in our flesh) is that baptism into his death. Which do so certainly follow one another, (that he that is truly baptised into the name of Christ, is also baptised into his death) as that Saint Paul couples them together, 1 Cor. 1. 13. Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptised into the name of Pa●l? If you were not baptised into his name, than you have no interest, no benefit by his death, nor by any thing which he suffered, that his merits, or his works of supereragation should be applied to you: And if he did not suffer for you, (if all that any Paul (much less any Ignatins) could do, were but enough, and too little for himself) than you are not baptised into his name, nor to be denominate by him. This is then to be Baptised into Christ's death, Habere, & reddere testimonium, Christam pro me mortuum, to be sure that christ died for me; and to be ready to die for him; so that I may fulfil his sufferings, and may think that all is not done, which belongs to my Redemption, except I find a mortification in myself. Not that any mortification of mine, works any thing, as a cause of my redemption, but as an assurance and testimony of it; 〈◊〉 sit pignus & sigillu● redemptionis; It is a pledge, and it is a Seal, of my redemption. Christ calls his death a Baptism; So Saint Augustine calls our Baptism a death, Quod crux Christo, & Sep●lcr●m, id nobis Baptisma; Baptism to us, says he, is our cross, and our passion, and our burial; that is, in that, we are conformed to Christ as he suffered, died, and was buried. Because if we be so baptised into his Name, and into his death, we are thereby dead to sin, and have died the death of the righteous. Since than Baptism is the death of sin, and there cannot be this death, this conquest, this victory over sin, without faith, there must necessarily faith, concur with this baptism; for if there be not faith, (none in the child, none in the parents, none in the sureties, none in the Church) then there is no baptism performed; Now, in the Child there is none actually; In the sureties, we are not sure, there is any; for their infidelity cannot impeach the sacrament; The child is well baptised though they should be misbelievers; for, when the Minister shall ask them, Dost thou believe in God? dost thou renounce the Devil? perchance they may lie in their own behalves; perchance they do not believe, they do not renounce, but they speak truth in the behalf of the child, when they speak in the voice of the Church who receives this child for her child, and binds herself to exhibit, and reach out to that child, her spiritual paps, for her future nourishment thereof. How comes it to pass, says Saint Augustine, that when a man presents another man's child at the font, to be baptised, if the Minister should ask him, Shall this man child be a valiant man, or a wise man, shall this woman child, be a chaste, and a continent woman? the surety would answer, I cannot tell, and yet, if he be asked, of that child, of so few days old, Doth that child believe in God now, will he renounce the Devil hereafter? the surety answers confidently, in his behalf, for the belief, and for the renouncing: How comes this to pass, says Saint Augustine? He answers to this, that as Sacramentum Corporis Christi, est secundum modum Corpus Christi, so Sacramentum fidei est fides; As the Sacrament of the body, and blood of Christ is, in some sense, and in a kind, the body, and blood of Christ, says Augustine, so in the sacrament of faith, says he, (that is, Baptism) there is some kind of faith. Here is a child borne of faithful parents; and there is the voice of God, who hath sealed a Covenant to them, and their seed; Here are sureties, that live (by God's gracious spirit) in the unity, and in the bosom of the Church: and so, the parents present it to them, they present it to the Church, and the Church takes it into her care; It is still the natural child, of her parents, who begot it, it is the spiritual child of the Sureties that present it; but it is the Christian child of the Church, who in the sacrament of Baptism, gives it a new inanimation, and who, if either parents, or sureties, should neglect their parts, will have a care of it, and breed it up to a perfection, and full growth of that faith, whereof it hath this day, an inchoation and beginning. As than we have said, that Baptism is a death, a death of sin, and as we said before, sin dies not without faith, so also can there be no death of sin, without sorrow, and contrition, which only washes away sin: as therefore we see the Church, and Christ's institution, furnishes this child, with faith, which it hath not of itself, so let us bring to this action, that sorrow and that condoling, that we produce into the world such miserable wretches, as even by peccatum involuntarium, by that sin, to which no act, nay no will of theirs concurred, that is, Original sin, are yet put into the state of damnation. But let us also rejoice, in our own, and this child's behalf, that as we that have been baptised, so this child, that shall be, have, and shall put on Christ Jesus in Baptism. Augustine. Both as a garment, for Sacramenta sunt vestimenta, As Christ is a garment, so the Sacraments are Christ's garment, Idem. and as such a garment; as Ornat militem, and convincit desertores, It gives him, that continues in God's battles, a dignity, and discovers him that forsakes God's tents, to be a fugitive; Baptism is a garland, in which two ends are brought together, he begins aright, and perseveres, so, Ornat militem, It is an honour to him, that fights out in God's battle, but Convincit Desertorem, Baptism is our prest-money, and if we forsake our colours, after we have received that, even that forfeits our lives; our very having been baptised, shall aggravate our condemnation. Yea it is such a garment, as those of the children of Israel in the wilderness, which are (by some expositors) thought to have grown all the forty years, with their bodies; for so by God's blessed provision, shall grace grow with this infant, to the life's end. And both we and it, shall not only put on Christ, as a garment, but we shall put on his person, and we shall stand before his Father, with the confidence, and assurance of bearing his person, and the dignity of his innocence. SERMON VIII. Preached at Essex house, at the Churching of the Lady Doncaster. CANT. 5. 3. I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them? ALL things desire to go to their own place, and that's but the effect of Nature; But if Man desires to go the right way, that's an effect of grace, and of Religion. A stone will fall to the bottom naturally, and a flame will go upwards naturally; but a stone cares not whether it fall through clean water, or through Mud; a flame cares not whether it pass through pure air, or cloudy; but a Christian, whose end is heaven, will put himself into a fair way towards it, and according to this measure, be pure as his father in heaven is pure. That which is our end, salvation, we use to express in Schools by these two terms, we call it visionem Dei, the sight of God, and we call it unionem, an union with God; we shall see God, and we shall be united to God: for our seeing, we shall see him Sicuti est, as he is; which we cannot express, till we see him; 1 john 3. 2. Cognoscam ut cognitus, I shall know as I am known, 1 Cor. 13. 12. which is a knowledge reserved for that School, and a degree for that Commencement, and not to be had before. Moses obtained a sight of God here, that he might see, Posterior a, Gods hinder parts; Exod. 33. 23. and if we consider God in posterioribus, in his later works, in the fulfilling of all his Prophecies, concerning our Redemption, how he hath accomplished in novissimis, in the later times, all that which he spoke ab initio, by the mouth of his Prophets, which have been since the world began, if we see God in them, it is a great beam of that visio beatifica, that beautificall sight of God in heaven; for herein we see the whole way of our salvation, to be in Christ jesus; all promise, all performance, all prophecy, all history concern us, in and by him. And then for that union with God, which is also our salvation (as this vision is) when we shall be so united, as that we shall follow the Lamb whither soever he goes, though that union be unexpressible here, yet here, there is an union with God, which represents that too. Such an union, as that the Church of which we are parts, is his spouse, and that's Eadem care, the same body with him; and such an union as that the obedient children of the Church, are Idem spiritus cum Domin●, we are the same body, and the same spirit: So united, as that by being sowed in the visible Church, we are Semen Dei, the seed of God, 1 john 3. 9 and by growing up there in godliness, and holiness, we are participes Divinae naturae, partakers of the divine Nature itself. Now these two unions, which represent our eternal union with God (that is, the union of the Church to him, and the union of every good soul in the Church to him) is the subject of this Song of songs, this heavenly Poem, of solomon's; and our baptism, at our entrance into this world, is a Seal of this union; our marriage, in the passage of this world, is a Sacrament of this union; and that which seems to be our dissolution, (our death) is the strongest ●and of this union, when we are so united, as nothing can disunite us more. Now, for uniting things in this world, we are always put to employ base, and courser stuff, to unite them together, than they themselves; If we lay Marble upon Marble, how well soever we polish the Marble, yet we must unite them with mortar: If we unite riches to riches, we temper a mortar (for the most part) of our own covetousness, and the loss, and oppressing of some other Men; if we unite honours to honours, titles to titles, we temper a mortar, (for the most part) of our own Ambition, and the supplanting, or excluding of some other Men; But in the uniting of a Christian soul to Christ Jesus, here is no mortar, all of one Nature; Nothing but spirit, and spirit, and spirit, the soul of Man to the Lord Jesus, by the holy Ghost. Worldly unions have some corrupt foulnesses in them, but for this spiritual union, Lavi pedes, I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them? Which words, though in the rigour of the coherence, Divisio. and connexion of this Scripture, they imply a delay in the spouse of Christ, and so in every soul too, that when Christ called here, the soul was not ready to come forth to him, but made her excuses, that she had put off her coat, and was loath to rise to put it on, that she had washed her feet, and was loath to rise, and foul them again, yet because the excuse itself, (if it were an excuse) hath a piety, and a Religious care in it, the Fathers for the most part, pretermit that weakness that produced an excuse, and consider in their expositions, the care that the soul had, not to defile herself again, being once washed. Gregory. Saint Gregory says, that the soul had laid off, Omnia externa, quae non tam ornant quam ●nerant, all outward ornaments, which are rather encumbrances, than ornaments; And Saint Ambrose says, Pedes lavi, dum egrederer de corporis contubernio, when I departed from the confederation of my body, and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that, I washed my feet, Quomod● in tenebr●sum carcerem reverterer? And 〈◊〉 I return into that dark, and dirty prison, again, the love of mine own body● 〈◊〉 suing therefore their pious acceptation of these words, we have in them, two festivals of the soul, a Resurrection, and an ascension of it; This soul hath raised itself, from the dirt and Mud of this world, Lavit pedes, she hath washed her feet, and then she hath ascended to a resolution, of keeping herself in that state, Quom●do inquinab●eos, how shall I defile them? Call these two parts a Gratulation of the soul, and an Indignation; first she congratulates with her good, and gracious God, that she is cleansed from worldly corruptions, Lavi pedes, I have washed my feet and then she conceives a Religious scorn and indignation, of setting her foot in the same foul way again. Quom●do, how, how is it possible that I should descend, to so low a disposition, as to foul them again? This Resurrection then of the soul, and gratulation, & this Ascension of the soul & Indignation, will be our two parts. And in the first, we shall stop a little, upon every one of these five branches; There is abluti● necessaria; There is a washing, that is necessary to all; for we enter in foulness, and corruption into this world; and that we have in Baptism for Original sin; Secondly, there is abluti● pedum, a washing of our feet, of our steps, and walks in this world, and that's by repentance, sealed in the other Sacrament, and properly, that is for actual sins; Thirdly, in this ablution, there is an Ego lavi, there is a washing, and I myself do something towards this cleansing of myself; And fourthly, it is Lavi, it is, I have washed, not Lavabo, it is not, I will wash; it is already done, it is not put off to mine age, nor to my death bed, but Lavi, I have washed; And lastly, it is Pedes meas, I have washed mine own feet; for if by my teaching, I cleanse others, and remain, by my bad life, in foul ways myself, I am not within this text, Lavi pedes meos; I have not washed my feet; But if we have sincerely performed the first part, we shall perform the other too, Quomodo, we shall come into a religious detestation, and indignation of falling into the same foulness again. To pass then through all these (for of all these that's true which Saint Basil says of all words in the Scriptures, First Part. Habent minutissime particulae suae mysteria, Basil. Every word hath force and use, as in Pearl, every seed Pearl is as medicinal, as the greatest, so there is a restorative nature in every word of the Scriptures, and in every word, the soul finds a rise, and help for her devotion,) To begin with the first, the necessity of washing, consider us in our first beginning, Psal. 51. 5. Concepti in peccatis, our Mothers conceived us in sin; and being wrapped up in uncleanness there, can any Man bring a clean thing out of filthiness? job 14. 4. There is not one; for as we were planted, in our Mother's womb, in conception, so we were transplanted from thence into this world, in our Baptism, Nascimur filii ●rae, Eph. 2. 3. for we are by nature the children of wrath, as well as others. And as in the bringing forth, and bringing up, of the best, and most precious, and most delicate plants, Men employ most dung, so the greatest persons, where the spirit and grace of God, doth not allay that intemperance, which naturally arises, out of abundance, and provocation, and out of vanity, and ambitious glory, in outward oftentations; there is more dung, more uncleanness, more sin in the conception, and birth of their children, then of meaner and poorer parents; It is a degree of uncleanness, to fix our thoughts too earnestly upon the uncleanness of our conception, and of our birth: when we call that a testimony of a right coming, if we come into the world with our head forward, in a headlong precipitation; and when we take no other testimony of our being alive, but that we were heard cry; and for an earnest, and a Prophecy, that we shall be viri sanguinum, et d●losi, bloody, and deceitful Men, false and treacherous, to the murdering of our own souls we come into this world, as the Egyptians went out of it, swallowed, and smothered in a red sea, Pueri sanguinum, & infirmi, weak, and bloody infants at our birth. But to carry our thoughts from material, to sptrituall uncleannesses, In peccat● concepti, we were conceived in sin, but who can tell us how? That flesh in our mother's womb, which we are, having no sin in itself, (for that mass of flesh could not be damned, if there never came a soul into it) and that soul, which comes into that flesh from God● having no sin in it neither, (for God creates nothing infected with sin, neither should that soul be damned, if it came not into that body) The body, being without sin, and the soul being without sin, yet in the first minute, that this body and soul meet, and are united, we become in that instant, guilty of Adam's sin, committed six thousand years before. Such is our sin and uncleanness, in Original sin, as the subtlest Man in the Schools, is never able to tell us, how, or when we contracted that sin, but all have it; And therefore if there be any, any anywhere, of that generation, that are pure in their own eyes, Prov. 30. 12. Bernard. and yet are not washed from their filthiness, Basil. as Solomon speaks, Erubesce vas stercorum, says good Saint Bernard, If it be a vessel of gold, it is but a vessel of excrements, if it be a bed of curious plants, it is but a bed of dung; as their tombs hereafter shall be but glorious covers of rotten carcases, so their bodies are now, but pampered covers of rotten souls; Erubescat vas stercorum, let that vessel of uncleanness, that barrel of dung, confess a necessity of washing, and seek that, and rejoice in that, for thus far, (that is, to the pollution of Original sin,) in peccato concepti, and nas●imur filii ira●, we are conceived in sin, first, and then we are borne the children of wrath. But where's our remedy? Why for this, for this original uncleanness, is the water of Baptism. Op●rtet nos renasci; we must be borne again; we must; There is a necessity of Baptism: john 3. 7. As we are the children of Christian parents, we have Ius ad rem, a right to the Covenant, we may claim baptism, the Church cannot deny it us; And as we are baptised in the Christian Church, we have Ius in re, a right in the Covenant, and all the benefits thereof, all the promises of the Gospel: we are sure that we are conceived in sin, and sure that we are borne children of wrath, but not sure that we are cleansed, or reconciled to God, by any other means then that, which he hath ordained, Baptism. The Spirit of God moved first upon the water; and the spirit of life grew first in the water; Primus liquor, quod viveret edidit: Tertullian. The first living creatures in the first creation, were in the waters; and the first breath of spiritual life, came to us, 1 Reg. 7.24. from the water of baptism. In the Temple there was Mare aeneum, a brazen sea; In the Church there is Mare aureum, a golden sea, which is Baptisterium, the font, in which we discharge ourselves, of all our first uncleannesses, of all the guiltiness of Original sin; but because we contract new uncleannesses, by our unclean ways here; therefore there must be Ablutio pedum, a washing of our feet, of our ways, of our actions, which is our second branch. Cecidimus in lutum, 2. Pedes. Bern. & super acervum lapidum, says Saint Bernard; we fell by Adam's fall, into the dirt; but from that, we are washed in baptism; but we fell upon a heap of sharp stones too; and we feel those wounds, and those bruises, all our lives after; Impingimus meridie, we stumble at noon day; In the brightest light of the Gospel, Esay 59 10. in the brightest light of grace, in the best strength of Repentance, and our resolutions to the contrary, yet we stumble, and fall again. Duo nobis pedes, says that Father, Natura, & Cons●e●●do; we stand, says he, upon two feet, Nature, and Custom; and we are lame of one foot hereditarily, we draw a corrupt Nature from our parents; and we have lamed the other foot, by crooked, and perverse customs. Now, as God provided a liquor in his Church, for Original sin, the water of Baptism, so hath he provided another for those actual sins; that is, the blood of his own body, in the other Sacrament. In which Sacrament, besides the natural union, (that Christ hath taken our Nature,) and the Mystical union, (that Christ hath taken us into the body of his Church) by a spiritual union, when we apply faithfully his Merits to our souls, and by a Sacramental union, when we receive the visible seals thereof, worthily, we are so washed in his blood, as that we stand in the sight of his Father, as clean, and innocent, as himself, both because he and we are thereby become one body, and because the garment of his righteousness covers us all. But, for a preparation of this washing in the blood of Christ, in that Sacrament, Christ commended to his Apostles, and in them, to all the world, by his practice, and by his precept too, ablutionem pedam, a washing of their feet; before they came to that Sacrament he washed their feet; john 13. And in that exemplary action of his, his washing of their feet, Bernard. he poured water into a Basin, says the text: Aqua spiritus sanctus, pelvis Ecclesia,; These preparatory waters are the gift of the holy Ghost, the working of his grace in repentance; but pelvis Ecclesia, the basin is the Church; that is, these graces are distributed, and dispensed to us, in his institution, and ordinance in the Church: No Man can wash himself at first, by Baptism; no Man can baptise himself; no Man can wash in the second liquor, no Man, (that is but a Man) can administer the other Sacrament to himself: Pelvis ecclesia, the Church is the basin, and God's Minister in the Church, washes in both these cases. And, in this ablutione pedum, in the preparatory washing of our feet, by a survey of all our sinful actions and repentance of them, no Man can absolve himself, but pelvis ecclesia, the basin of this water of absolution, is in the Church and in the Minister thereof. First then this washing of the feet, which prepares us for the great washing, in the blood of Christ, requires a stripping of them, a laying of them naked; covering of the feet in the Scriptures, is a phrase, that denotes a foul, and an unclean action; judg. 3. 2●. Saul was said to cover his feet, in the Cave, and Eglon was said to cover his feet in his Parlour; and we know the unclean action, that is intended here: but for this clean action, for washing our feet, we must discover all our sinful steps, in a free and open confession to almighty God. This may be that which Solomon calls, Prov. 3. 21. sound wisdom; My son keep sound wisdom, and discretion. There is not a more silly folly, then to think to hide any sinful action from God. Nor sounder wisdom then to discover them to him, by an humble, and penitent confession; This is sound wisdom, and then, discretion is, to wash, and discern, and debate, and examine all our future actions, and all the circumstances, that by this spirit of discretion we may see, where the sting, and venom of every particular action lies: My son keep sound wisdom, and discretion, says he, And then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble; If thy discretion be not strong enough, (if thou canst not always discern, Psal. 91. 11. what is, and what is not sin) he shall give his Angels charge over thee, that thou dash not thy foot against a stone; and that's good security; and if all these fail, though thou do fall, thou shalt not be utterly cast down, Psal. 37. 24. for the Lord shall uphold thee with his hand, says David; God shall give that Man, that loves this found wisdom, (humble confession of sins past) this spiritual discretion, the spirit of discerning spirits, that is, power to discern a tentation, and to overcome it; confess that which is passed with true sorrow, that is sound wisdom, and God shall enlighten thee for the future, and that's holy discretion. The washing of our feet then, being a clean, and pure and sincere examination of all our actions, we are to wash all the instruments of our actions, in repentance; Lavanda facies, Gen. 43. 31. we are to wash our face, as joseph did, after he had wept, before he looked upon his brethren again: If we have murmured, and mourned, for any cross, that God hath laid upon us, we must return to a cheerful countenance towards him, in embracing whatsoever he found best for us; we must wash our Intestina, Exod. 29. 17. our bowels, (as it is after commanded in the law) when our bowels, which should melt at the relation, and contemplation, and application of the passion of our Saviour, do melt at the apprehension, or expectation, or fruition of any sinful delight, Exod. 19 10. Lavanda intestina, we must wash those bowels▪ Lavanda vestimenta, we must wash our clothes; when we apparel and palliate our sins with excuses, of our own infirmity, or of the example of greater Men, these clothes must be washed, these excuses; Lavanda currus & arma, as ahab's chariot and armour were washed; 1 Reg. 2 2. 38. If the power of our birth or of our place, or of our favour, have armed us against the power of the law, or against the clamour of Men justly incensed, Lavandi currus, these chariots, and arms, this greatness must be washed; Lavanda retia; Luk. 1. 2. what Nets soever we have fished with, by what means soever we raise, or sustain our fortune, Lavanda retia, These nets must be washed. Bernard. Saint Bernard hath drawn a great deal of this heavenly water together, for the washing of all, when he presents, (as he calls it) Martyrium, sine sanguine, triplex, a threefold Martyrdom, & all without blood; and that is, Largitas in paupertate, a bountiful disposition, even in a low fortune; parcitas in ubertate, a frugal disposition in a full fortune; and Castitas in juventute, a pure, and chaste disposition, in the years, and places of tentation. These are Martyrdoms, without blood, but not without the water that washes our feet; This is sound wisdom, and discretion, to strip, and lay open our feet, our sinful actions, by Confession; To cover them, and wrap them up by precaution, from new uncleanness; and then to tie and bind up all safe, by participation of the blood of Christ Jesus, in the Sacrament; for that's the seal of all; And Christ in the washing of his disciples feet, took a towel to dry them, as well, as water to wash them; so when he hath brought us to this washing of our feet, to a serious consideration of our actions, and to repentant tears, for them, Absterget omnem lachrymam, he will wipe all tears from our eyes; all tears of confusion towards Men, or of diffidence towards him; Absterget omnem lachrymam, and deliver us over to a settled peace of conscience. There is a washing then, absolutely, generally necessary, the water of Baptism; Ego. and a washing occasionally necessary, because we fall into actual sins, the blood of our Saviour in the Sacrament; and there is a washing between these, preparatory to the last washing, the water of Contrite, and repentant tears, in opening ourselves to God, and shutting up of ourselves against future tentations: of the two first, the two Sacraments, sons in Ecclesia, the whole spring, and river is in the Church, there is no baptism, no blood of Christ, but in the Church; And of this later, which is most properly ablutio pedum, the washing of the feet, that is, tears shed in repentance of our sinful lives, of this water, there is Pelvis in Ecclesia, the Basin is in the Church; for our best repentance (though this repentance be at home in our own hearts) doth yet receive a Seal, from the absolution of God's Ministers in the Church. But yet though there be no cleansing, but from the spirit of God, no ordinary working of God's spirit, but in the Church, and his ordinances there, yet we ourselves are not so left out, in this work, but that the spouse here, and every careful soul here says, truly, Ego lavi, I my self have washed my feet; which is our third branch. It is said often in Philosophy, Nihil in intellectu, quod non prius in sensu; till some sense apprehend a thing, the judgement cannot debate it, nor discourse it; It may well be said in Divinity too, Nihil in gratia, quod non prius in natura, there is nothing in grace, that was not first in nature, so far, as that grace always finds nature, and natural faculties to work on; though that nature be not disposed to the receiving of grace, when it comes, yet that nature, and those faculties, which may be so disposed by grace, are there, before that grace comes. And the grace of God doth not work this cleansing, but where there is a sweet, and supple, and tractable, and ductile disposition wrought in that soul. This disposition is no cause why God gives his grace; for there is no cause, but his own mere, and unmeasurable goodness; But yet, without such a disposition, God would not give that; and therefore let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness, says the Apostle; 2 Cor. 7. 1. There is something, which we ourselves may do. A Man that had poured out himself in a vehement, and corrupt solicitation of the chastity of any woman, if he found himself surprised by the presence of a husband, or a father, he could give over in the midst of a protestation; A Man that had set one foot into a house of dangerous provocations, if he saw ● bill of the plague, upon the door, he could go back; A Man that had drawn his sword to rob a passenger, if he saw a hue and cry come, could give over that; and all this is upon the Ego lavi, I have washed; without use of grace, his own natural reason declines him from that sin then. How long shall we make this bad use, of this true doctrine, that, because we cannot do enough, for our salvation, therefore we will do nothing? Shall I see any Man shut out of heaven, that did what he could upon earth? Thou that canst mourn for any worldly loss, mourn for thy sin; Thou that lovest meetings of company for society, and conversation, love the meeting of the Saints of God, in the Congregation, and communion of Saints; Thou that lovest the Rhetoric, the Music, the wit, the sharpness, the eloquence, the elegancy, of other authors, love even those things in the Scriptures, in the word of God, where they abound more, then in other authors. Put but thy affections out of their ordinary sinful way, and then Lavasti pedes, thou hast washed thy feet; and God will take thy work in hand, and raise a building far beyond the compass, and comprehension of thy foundation; that which the soul began, but in good nature, shall be perfected in grace. But do it quickly; for the glory of this soul here was in the Lavi; It is not Lavabo; that she had already; not that she would wash her feet; Lavi. since thou art come to know thy natural uncleanness, and baptism for that, and thine actual uncleanness; and that for that, there is a River, that brings thee into the main Sea, (the water of repentance leads thee to the bottomless Sea of the blood of thy Saviour, in the Sacrament) continue not in thy foulness, in confidence that all shall be drowned in that at last, whensoever thou wilt come to it. It was a common, but an erroneous practice, even in the Primitive Church, to defer their baptism, till they were old; because an opinion prevailed upon them, that baptism discharged them of all sins, they used to be baptised then, when they were past sinning, that so they might pass out of this world, in that innocency, which their baptism imprinted in them: And out of this custom; Men grew to be the more careless all their lives, because all was done at once in baptism. But says Saint Augustine in that case, (and it was his own case) It were uncharitably said, Augustin. Vulneretur amplius, that if we saw a Man welter in his blood, and wounded in divers places, it were uncharitably said, Vulneretur amplius, give him two or three wounds more, for the Surgeon is not come yet; It is uncharitably said to thine own soul, Vulneretur amplius, take thy pleasure in sin yet, when I come to receive the Sacrament, I will repent altogether, do not think to put off all to the washing week; all thy sins, all thy repentance, to Easter, and the Sacrament then; There may be a washing then, and no drying; thou mayst come to weep the tears of desperation, to seek mercy with tears, and not find it; tears for worldly losses, tears for sin, tears for bodily anguish, may overflow thee then; and whereas God's goodness to those, that are his, is, ut abstergat omnem Lachrymam, to wipe all tears from their eyes; absterget nullam Lachrymam, he may leave all unwiped upon thee, he may leave thy soul to sink, and to shipwreck, under this tempest, and inundation, and current of divers tides; tears of all kinds, and ease of none: for those of whom it is said, Deus absterget omnem lachrymam, God shall wipe all tears from their eyes, are they Qui laverunt Stolas, (as we see there) who have already washed their long robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb: who have already by tears of repentance, become worthy receivers of the seal of reconciliation, in the Sacrament of his body, and blood; To them, God shall wipe all tears from their eyes; but to the unrepentant sinner, he shall multiply tears; from tears, for the loss, of a horse, or of a house, to tears for the loss of a soul, and wipe no tear from his eyes. But yet though this Lavi, exclude the Lavabo, as it is dilatory, that is, I will wash, but not yet, yet it excludes not the Lavabo, I will wash, as it is an often washing; I must come to that, Lavi, I have washed, but yet I will wash again: for till our feet be so washed, as that they be wrapped up in our last linen, and so raised from the ground, as that they be laid upon other men's shoulders, our feet will touch the ground again and need new washing. When Christ washed his disciples feet, there is agreat difference amongst the Fathers, where he began, whose feet he washed first: Saint Augustine, and Saint Bernard think he began with Peter; they think Christ respected the dignity of his person: origin, Augustine & Bernard. Origen & chrysostom. and chrysostom think he began with judas; they think Christ respected the necessity of the Patient, and applied the Physic soon, where the disease was most malignant, and venomous. None of them say he began with john, whom it is clear he loved most. If any soul have apprehended that Christ came late to her washing, not till now, let her not argue, to her own danger, that he loved her the less for that: if he have suffered sin to abound, that grace might abound, what Patient shall dare to appoint, that Physician his Dosis, or his times; whomsoever he washed first of his Apostles, he washed them all; and to him that was forwardest ever in his own strength, to Peter, he said, Non habebis partem, If I wash thee not, thou shalt have no part with me; If we come not to this washing of our feet, this preparatory washing by tears of repentance, we can have no part in him, that is, in the participation of his body, and his blood; but when he hath brought us to this jordan, which is Fluvius judicii, the water of Judgement, and that we have judged, and condemned ourselves of this Leprosy of sin, Lavemur septies, let us often call ourselves to account, implore the council often, often accept the absolution of God's Minister, and often settle our souls, in a true peace, by a worthy receiving of the seal thereof, in the Sacrament: And as in that we come to the Lavi, (a peaceful testimony, that we have washed our consciences) so let us pursue it with a Lavabo, with an humble acknowledgement, that we fall every day, and every day need a new washing; for as from poor tenants, Landlords are not content to receive their rent at the years end, but quarterly, or in shorter terms, so from such beggarly and bankrupt souls as ours are, God is not content with an anniversary repentance once a year, at Easter; but we shall find our rent, our payment heavy enough, if we pay every day, and wash our feet every night, for the uncleannesses of that one day. To shut up this part then; This washing of the feet, is the spirit of discerning, Meos. and censuring particular actions: but it is pedes meos, a discerning, and censuring of my actions, not only, or not principally the actions of other Men; quam speciosi pedes Evangelizantium, how beautiful are the feet of them, that preach peace, Rom. 10. says Saint Paul, out of the mouth of two witnesses, two Prophets, that had said so before. If we will preach peace, that is, relieve the consciences of others, by presenting them their sins, Isay 52. 7. we must have speciosoes pedes, Nab. 1. 15. clean ways, and a clean life of our own; so it is with us, and our profession; But Gens sancta, regale Sarcerdotium, as the Apostle joins them, If you be a holy people, you are also a royal priesthood; If you be all God's Saints, 1 Pe●. 2. 9 you are all God's Priests; and if you be his priests, it is your office to preach too; as we by words, you by your holy works; as we by contemplation, you by conversation; as we by our doctrine, so you by your lives, are appointed by God to preach to one another: and therefore every particular Man, must wash his own, feet, look that he have speciosoes pedes, that his example may preach to others, for this is truly Regale Sacerdotium, a regal priesthood, not to work upon others by words, but by actions. If we love one another, as Christ loved us, we must wash one another's feet, as he commanded his Apostles; There is a priestly duty lies upon every Man, brotherly to reprehend a brother, whom he sees trampling in foul ways, wallowing in foul sins; but I may preach to others and be myself a reprobate● (as Saint Paul speaks with terror to Men of our coat) in his own person, I may bring others to heaven, 1 Cor. 9 27. and be shut out myself; And thou mayst preach that a Man should not steal, and steal, That a Man should not commit adultery, and commit it; And in these cases, Non speciosi pedes, Rom. 2. 21. here are no clean, no fair feet, and therefore no edifying. Nay if, in either kind, we, or you, abhor Idols, and yet commit sacrilege, that is, reprehend a sin in another, which we are free from ourselves, but yet are guilty ourselves, of another sin as great, here's no clean feet no profitable preaching; And therefore the only way to do God service, is, to wash and to censure the feet, (that is, particular actions) but principally, our own feet, that which we do ourselves. 2. Part. There remains yet a second part: and perchance but a little time for it; and I shall proportion, and fit myself to it. It is, That as this soul had a Resurrection, she hath an ascension; As she had vocem gratulantis, a thanksgiving, that she hath washed her feet, so she hath vocem indignantis, a religious scorn and indignation, to fall into those foul ways again. For this holy indignation, is one link in the Apostles chain of Repentance, where, upon Godly sorrow, depends care, and upon that, cleansing of ourselves, and upon that indignation, 2 Cor. 7. 11. and so fear, and so desire, and so zeal, and so punishments of ourselves: every link worthy of a longer consideration; but here we consider only this indignation; when that soul that is washed, and thereby sees, to what a fair conformity with her Saviour she is come, is come also to a scorn, to a disdain to compare any beauty in this world, to that face, which Angels desire to look upon; any nearness to great persons in this world, to the following of the Lamb wheresoever he goes; any riches of this world, to that riches wherewith the poverty of Christ Jesus hath made us rich; any length of life in this world, to that union which we shall have, to the Ancient of days; where even the everliving God, shall not overlive us, but carry out our days to the unmeasured measure of his own, to eternity. This indignation, this soul expresses here, in this question, Quomodo, how shall I defile them? First then, this voice of indignation, hath this force; Quomodo, how shall I defile them, is, how is it possible, that I should defile them? I have washed my feet, repented my sins and taken the seal of my Reconciliation, the Sacrament, Bernard. and that hath this effect, ut sensum minuat in minimis, & toliat consensum in magnis peccatis, That grace, that God gives in the Sacrament, makes us less sensible of small tentations, (they move us not) and it makes us resist, and not yield to the greatest tentations; since I am in this state, Quomodo inquinubo? How shall I defile them? The difference will be, of whom thou askest this question: If thou ask the world, the world will tell thee, well enough. Quomodo, How; It will tell thee, that it is a Melancholy thing, to sit thinking upon thy sins; That it is an unsociable thing, to seek him, who cannot be seen, an invisible God; That it is poor company, to pass thy time with a Priest; Thou mayest defile thyself again, by forgetting thy sins, and so doing them over again: And thou mayst defile thyself again by remembering thy sins, and so sin over thy sins again, in a sinful delight of thy passed sins, and a desire that thou couldst commit them again. There are answers enough to this Quomodo, How, how should I defile them, if thou ask the world: but ask thy Saviour, and he shall tell thee, john 4. 11. That whosoever hath this water, shall never thirst more, but that water shall be in him an everlasting spring; that is, he shall find means to keep himself in that cleanness, Rom. 8. to which he is come; and neither things present, nor things to come shall separate him from the love of God. Thus the voice of this religious indignation, Quomodo, is, how is it possible, but it is also, Quomodo, how, that is, why should I? The first is, how should I be so base, the other, how should I be so bold? Though I have my pardon, written in the blood of my Saviour; sealed to me in his Sacrament, brought home to me in the testimony of the holy Ghost, pleaded for me, at the tribunal of the Father, yet as Prince's pardons have, so God's pardons have too, this clause, It a quod se bene gerat; He that is pardoned must continue of good behaviour; for whensoever he breaks the peace, he forfeits his pardon; When I return to my repent sins again, I am under the burden of all my former sins, and my very repentance, contracts the nature of a sin: and therefore Quomodo, how should I, that is, why should I defile them? To restore you to your liberty, and to send you away with the meditation, which concerns you most, consider, what an astonishment this would be, that when Christ Jesus shall lay open the great volumes of all your sins, to your sight, who had forgot them, and to their sight, from whom you had disguised them, at the last judgement, when you shall hear all the wantonnesses of your youth, all the Ambitions of your middle years, all the covetous desires of your age, published in that presence, and think then, this is the worst that can be said, or laid to my charge, this is the last indictment, and the last evidence, there shall follow your very repentances in the list of your sins, and it shall be told you, and all the world then, Here, and here you deluded that God, that forbore to inflict his Judgements, upon new vows, new contracts, new promises, between you and him; even your repentances shall bind up that book, and tie your old sins, and new relapses into one body. And let this meditation bring you ad vocem gratulantis, to rejoice once again in this Lavi pedes, that you have now washed your feet, in a present sorrow, and ad vocem indignantis, to a stronger indignation, and faster resolution, than heretofore you have had, never to defile them again. SERMON IX. Preached at a Churching. MICAH 2. 10. Arise and depart, for this is not your Rest. ALL that God asks of us, is, that we love him with all our heart: All that he promises us, is, that he will give us rest, round about us; Judah sought the Lord with a whole desire, and he gave her rest, round about her. Now a Man might think himself well disposed for Rest, when he lies down, I will lay me down, and sleep in peace, says David; but it is otherwise here; Psal. 4. 8. Arise, and depart; for here, (that is, in lying, and sleeping) is not your Rest, says this Prophet. These words have a threefold acceptation, and admit a threefold exposition; for, first, they are a Commination, the Prophet threatens the Jews; Secondly, they are a Commonition, the Prophet instructs all future ages; Thirdly, they are●a Consolation, which hath reference to the Consummation of all, to the rising at the general Judgement. First, he foretells the Jews of their imminent captivity; Howsoever you build upon the pactum salis, the Covenant of salt, the everlasting Covenant, that God will be your God, and this land your land, yet since that confidence sears you up in your sins, Arise and depart, for this is not your rest, your jerusalem must be changed into Babylon; there's the Commination: Secondly, he warns us, who are bedded and bedrid in our sins; howsoever you say to yourselves, Soul take thy rest, enjoy the honours, the pleasures, the abundances of this world, Tush the Lord sees it not, The Master will not come, we may lie still safely, and rest in the fruition of this Happiness, yet this Rest will betray you, this rest will deliver you over to eternal disquiet: And therefore arise and depart, for this is not your Rest, and that's the Commonition. And in the third acceptation of the words as they may have relation to the Resurrection, they may well admit a little inversion; Howsoever you feel a Resurrection by grace from the works of death, and darkness in this life, yet in this life, there is no assuredness, that he that is risen, and thinks he stands, shall not fall; here you arise and depart, that is, rise from your sins, and depart from your sinful purposes, but you arise, and depart so too, that you fall, and depart again into your sinful purposes, after you have risen; and therefore Depart and arise, for here is not your rest; till you depart altogether out of this world, and rise to Judgement, you can have no such rest, as can admit no disquiet no perturbation; but than you shall; and that's the Consolation. First then, as the words concern the jews; Here is first an increpation, 1. Part. Divisio. a rebuke, that they are fallen from their station, and their dignity, implied in the first word, Arise, for than they were fallen; Secondly, here is a demonstration in the same word, That though they liked that state into which they were fallen, which was a security, and stubbornness in their sins, yet they should not enjoy even that security, and that stubbornness, that fall of theirs, but they should lose that; though it were but a false contentment, yet they should be rou●'d out of that, Arise; first arise, because you are fallen, and then, arise, though you think yourselves at ease● by that fall. And then thirdly, here is a continuation of God's anger, when they are risen; for they are not raised to their former state and dignity, from which they were fallen, they are not raised to be established, but it is arise, and depart; And in all this (which is a fourth Consideration) God precludes them from any hope by solicitation, he reveals his purpose his Decree, and consequently his inexorableness evidently, in that word, for; never murmur, never dispute, never entreat, you must depart, For it is determined, it is resolved, and here is not your Rest; In which also the Commination is yet more and more aggravated; first, in that they lose their Rest, which God hath sold them so dearly, by so many battles, and so many afflictions, and which God had sworn to them so solemnly by so many ratifications; they must lose their Rest, they must have no Rest, Here; not there; not in the Land of Promise itself; And then lastly, as they are denied all rest there; There, where was the womb, and Centre of their Rest, so there is no intimation, no hope given, that they should have rest any where else, for as they were to rise, only to depart, so they were to depart into Captivity. The first is an increpation, they were fallen; but from whence? It was once said, Increpatio. Ceciderunt. Qui jacet in terra, non habet unde cadat, but he that is earth itself, whither can he fall? whither can Man, derived from earth before his life, enamoured of the earth, embracing it, and married to it in his life, destined to the earth, betrothed to it for a second marriage after this life, whither can he fall? It is true of us all, I shall say to corruption, Thou art my father, and to the worm, Thou art my Mother, and my sister; job 16. 14. and can we fall into worse company, contract an alliance with a more base, and beggarly kindred than this? Not if we were left there; then we could not: but when we consider a nation, of whom God hath said, sponsabo te mihi, I will marry thee, without any respect of disparagement in thy lowness, I will not refuse thee for it, I will not upbraid thee with it, I will marry thee for ever, and without any purpose of divorce (sponsabo in aeternum,) of this nation thus assumed, thus contracted, thus endowed, thus assured, why may not we wonder as vehemently, as the Prophet did, of the fallen Angels, Quomodo cecidisti de caelo, Lucifer filius Orientis, how did this nation fall out of God's arms, out of God's bosom? Himself tells us how; what he had done to exalt them, what they had done to divest his favours: for their natural lownes, he says, In thy nativity when thou wast born, thy Navel was not cut, thou wast not washed, thou wast not salted, thou wast not swaddled; No eye pitied thee, but thou wast cast into the open fields in contempt, I passed by, Ezek. 16. 3. and saw thee in thy blood, and said thou shalt live; I swore unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, and thou becamest mine; I washed thee, anointed thee, and adorned thee: and thou wast perfect through my beauty, which I set upon thee; well then, in this state, Quomodo cecidisti de caelo; how fell she out of God's arms, out of his bosom? thus; Thou didst trust in thine own beauty, because of thy renown, and so playedst the harlot. When that nation was in massa damnata, a loaf of Adam's dough, through all which the infectious leaven of sin had passed without difference, when that nation had no more title, nor pretence to God's mercy, than any of their fellow worms, when God had heaped, and accumulated his tempor all blessings upon them, and above all, dwelled with them, in the alliance, and in the familiarity of a particular Religion, which contracted God and them, and left out all the world beside, when God had imprinted this beauty in them, and that they had a renown, and reputation for that, they trusted to their own beauty, (to worship whom they would, and how they would) they followed their own invention; yea they trusted in beauty, which was not their own, in borrowed beauty, in painted beauty, and so took in, and applied themselves to all the spiritual fornications, to all the Idolatries of the nations about them; some that were too absurd to be harkened to; some too obscene, and foul to be named now by us, though the Prophets, (to their farther reproach, and confusion) have named them; some, too ridiculous to fall into any Man's consideration, that could seriously think of a Majesty, in a God, which should be worshipped; yet all these, absurd, and obscene, and ridiculous Idolatries, they prostituted themselves unto. Take them in their lowness, for any disposition towards the next world, and this was their state, Their navel was not cut; that is, they were still incorporated into their mother, to earth, and to sin; and they were not one step higher, than all the world beside, in Jacob's ladder, whose top is in heaven. Take them in their dignity in this world, and then we find them in Egypt, where they were not Personae, but Res, they were not their Master's Men, but their Master's goods; they were their cattle, to vex, and wear out, with their labours spent upon the delights of others; They must go far for straw; a great labour, for a little matter; and they must burn it, when they had brought it; they must make brick, but others must build houses, with their materials, and they perish in the fields; they must beget children, but only for the slaughter, and to be murdered as soon they were borne; what nation, what Man, what beast, what worm, what weed, if it could have understood their state, would have changed with them then? This was their dejection, their exinanition in Egypt, if we shall begin there to consider, what he did for them: As after, in the Christian Church, he made the blood of the Martyrs, the seed of the Church, so in Egypt, he propagated, and multiplied his Children, in the midst of their cruel oppressions, and slaughters, as though their blood had been seed to increase by; under the weight of their depressions, he gave them growth, and stature, and strength, as though their wounds had been plasters, and their vexations cordials; when he had made Egypt as a Hell, by kindling all his plagues, in her bosom, yet Non dereliquit in Inferno, he left not his beloved in this Hell, he paled in a Paradise in this Hell, a Goshen in Egypt, and gave his servant's security; briefly, those whom the sword should have lessened, whom labour should have creepled, whom contempt should have beggared, he brought out, numerous, and in multitudes, strong, and in courage, rich, and in abundance; and he opened the Red-sea, as he should have opened the book of life, to show them their Names, their security, and he shut the sea, as that book, upon the Egyptians, to show them their irrecoverable exclusion. If we consider, what he did for them, what he suffered from them, in their way, the battles, that he fought for them, in an outstretched arm, the battles, that they fought against him, in the stiffness of their necks, and their murmuring, we must, to their confusion, acknowledge, that at a great deal a less price, than he paid for them, he might have gained all the people of the earth; all the Nations of the earth, (in appearance) would have come in to his subjection, upon the thousand part of that which he did for the Israelites in their way. But for that which he did for them, at home, when he had planted them in the Land of Promise, as it were an ungrateful thing, not to remember those blessings, so it is some degree of ingratitude, to think them possible to be numbered. Consider the narrowness of the Land, (scarce equal to three of our shires) and their innumerable armies; consider the barrenness of many parts of that Country, and their innumerable sacrifices of cattle; consider their little trade, in respect, and their innumerable treasures; but consider especially, what God had done for their souls, in promising, and ratifying so often a Messias unto them, and giving them Law and prophets, in the mean time, and there you see their true height; and then consider the abominations, and Idolatries, in which they had plunged, and buried themselves, and there you see their lowness, how far they were fallen. This than was their descent; Non gaudebunt. and as Saint Paul says (when he describes this descent of the Jews, into all manner of abominations) one step of this stair, of this descent, is, unnatural affection, they were unnatural to themselves; that is, not sensible of their own misery, but were proud of their fall, and thought themselves at ease in their ruin; and another stair in this fall is, Rom. 1. 28. that God had delivered them up to a reprobate mind, to suffer them to think so still. And then for their farther vexation, God would take from them, even that false, that imaginary comfort of theirs. Surgite, says God, since you have made that perverse shift, to take comfort in your fall, Arise from that, from that security, from that stupidity, for you shall not choose but see your misery; when all the people were descended to that baseness, (as nothing is more base, then to court the world, and the Devil, for poor and wretched delights, when we may have plentiful, and rich abundance in our confidence in God) when the people were all of one mind, and one voice, omnes unius labii, their hearts, Gen. 11. Aug. and tongues spoke all one language, and, (populus tanto deterior, quanto in deterioribus concors, Men are the worse, the more they are, and the more unanime, and constant they are in ill purposes) when they were all come to that Venite comburamus, Come, and let us burn brick, and trust in our own work, and Venite, aedificemus, Come, and let us build a tower, and provide a safety for ourselves; since they would descend from their dignity, (which dignity consists in the service of God, whose service is perfect freedom) God would descend with them, Venite descendamus, says God; but what to do? Descendamus, ut confundamus, let us go down to confound their language, and to scatter them upon the earth. Ascensio mendax, descensio crudelis, Bern. says holy Bernard, A false ascending, is a cruel descending: when we lie weltering in our blood, secure in our sins, and can flatter ourselves, that we are well, and where we would be, this deceitful ascension, is a cruel descent into hell; we lie still, we feel no pain, but it is because we have broke our necks; we do not groan, we do not sigh, but it is, because our breath is gone, the spirit of God is departed from us. They were descended to a flatness of taste, Egyptian Onions had a better savour, than the Manna of heaven; They were descended to a new-fanglednesse in Civil government, they liked the form of government amongst their neighbours, better than that of judges, which God had established for them then; They were descended to a newfangledness in matter of Religion, to the embracing of a foreign, and a frivolous, and an Idolatrous worship of God: but then being in their descent, when they delighted in it, as Sea-sick men, who had rather be trodden upon, then rise up, than God frustrate that false joy and false ease of theirs, he rouses them from all that, which they had proposed to themselves, Surgite, arise, arise from this security, because you are fallen, you should rise, but because you love your misery, you shall rise, you shall come to a sense, and knowledge of it, you shall not enjoy the ease of an ignorance. But he raised them not, Depart. to re-establish them, to restore them to their former dignity; there was no comfort in that Surgite, which was accompanied with an Ite, arise and depart: and depart into captivity. If we compare the captivity, which they were going into, (that of Babylon) with the other bondage, which they had been delivered from, (that of Egypt) it is true, there were many, and real, and important differences. That of Egypt was Ergastulum, Exod. 6. 6. Deut. 4. 20. a prison; and it was fornax ferrea, an Iron furnace; but in Babylon, they were not slaves, as they were in Egypt, but they were such a kind of prisoners, as only had not liberty, to return to their own country. But yet, if we consider their state in Egypt in their root, in jacob, and in his sons, they came for food thither in a time of necessity; and consider them in that branch that overshadowed, and refreshed them, in joseph, he came thither as a bondman, in a servile condition. So that they were but few persons, and not so great, as that their pressures could be aggravated, or taste much more the bitterly, by comparing it, with any greatness which they had before; Though they were fallen into great misery, they were not fallen from any remarkable greatness. But between the two captivities of Egypt, and Babylon, they were come to that greatness, and reputation, as that they had the testimony of all the world, Deut. 4. 6. Only this people is wise, and of understanding, and a great nation. Now wherein? In that which follows; what nation is so great, as to have the Lord come so near unto them; so great, as to have Laws, and Ordinances, so righteous, as they had? Now this peculiar greatness, they lost in this captivity; whether they lost absolutely the books of the Law, or not, and that they were reinspired, and redictated again by the holy Ghost to Esdras, or whether Esdras did but recollect them, and recompile them, Saint Hierome will not determine: He will not say whether Moses, or Esdras, be author of the first five books of the Bible; but it is clear enough, that they were out of that ordinary use wherein they had been before: and though they kept their Circumcision, and their Sabbaths in Babylon, yet being cast thither for their sins, they had lost all ordinary expiations of their sins, for they had no sacrifices there; (as the jews, which are now in dispersion, are everywhere without their sacrifices) They were to rise, but not to stay, Arise and depart; And they were to depart, both from their Imaginary comforts, which they had framed, and proposed to themselves (when they were fallen from God, they should be deceived in their trust in themselves) and they were to depart even with the law, and ordinances, in which their pre-eminence, and prerogative above all nations consisted: when Man comes to be content with this world, God will take this world from him: when Man frames to himself imaginary pleasures, God will inflict real punishments; when he would lie still, he shall not sleep; but God will take him and raise him, but to a farther vexation. And this vexation hath another heavy weight upon it, Quia. in this little word, for; for this draws a Curtain between the face of God, and them: this locks a door between the Court of mercy, and them, when God presents his judgements with such an assuredness, such a resolution, as leaves no hope in their heart, that God will alter it, no power in themselves to solicit God to a pardon, Prov. or a reprieve; but as he was led as a fool to the stocks, when he harkened to pleasant sins before, so he is led as an ox to the slaughters, when he hears of God's Judgements now; his own Conscience prevents God, and tells him, there is a for, a reason, a necessity, an irrecoverableness in his condemnation. God had iterated, and multiplied this Quia, this for, oftentimes in their ears: This Prophet was no upstart, no sudden, no transitory Man, to pass through the streets with a Vae, Vae, Woe, woe unto this City, and no more; but he prophesied constantly, v. 1. during the reign of three Kings, of jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah: He was no suspicious Man out of his singularity; but he prophesied jointly with Isaiah, without separation, and he held the communion of his fellow-Prophets; He was no particular man, (as many Interpreters have taken it) so, as that he addressed his prophecies upon judah only; but he extended it to all, to all the Tribes. It is not a prophecy limited to Idolatry, and the sins against the first Table, but to robbery, and murder, and fornication, and oppression, and the sins between Man, and Man: It is not a timorous prophecy, directed only to persons, whom a low fortune, and a miserable estate, or a sense of sin, and a wounded Conscience, had depressed, and dejected, but principally bend upon rulers and Magistrates, and great persons. So that no Man hath a Quia against this Quia, a for against this for, to say, we need not heed him, for he is an upstart, a singular person, and all these his threatenings are rather Satirical, then Prophetical, or Theological; but this thunderbolt, this Quia, this reason, why these judgements must necessarily fall upon them, fell upon them with so much violence, as that it stupefied with the weight, and precluded all ways of escape. These be the heaviest Texts that a Man can light upon in the Scriptures of God, and these be the heaviest Commentaries, that a Man can make upon these Texts, that when God wakens him and raises him from his dream, and bed of sin, and pleasure, and raises him with the voice of his judgements, he suffers him to read to the Quia, but not to come to the Tamen; He comes to see reason why that Judgement must fall, but not to see any remedy. His inordinate Melancholy, and half desperate sadness carries his eye, and mind upon a hundred places of Commination, of threatening in the Prophets, and in them all he finds quickly that Quia, This curse must fall upon me, for I am fallen into it; but he comes not to the Tamen, to that relief, yet turn to the Lord, and he will turn to thee. This was a particular step in their misery, that when they were awaked, and risen, that is, taken away from all taste, and comfort, in their own imaginations, and pleasures, when God was ready to give fire to all that artillery, which he had charged against them, in the service of all the Prophets, they could see no refuge, no sanctuary, nothing but a quia, an irresistibleness, an irremediablenesse, a necessity of perishing; a great while there was no such thing, as Judgement, (God cannot see us) Now, there is no such thing as Mercy, (God will not see us.) What then is this heavy Judgement, Quies. that is threatened ● It is the deprivation of Rest. Though there be no war, no pestilence, no new positive calamity, yet privative calamities are heavy Judgements; to lose that Gospel, that Religion, which they had, is a heavy loss; Deprivations are heavy Calamities; and here they are deprived of Rest; Here is not your Rest: Now, besides that betwixt us and heaven, there is nothing that rests, (all the Elements, all the planets, all the spheres are in perpetual motion, and vicisitude) and so the Joys of heaven are expressed unto us, in that name of Rest; Certainly this blessing of Rest was more precious, more acceptable to the Jews, then to any other Nation; and so they more sensible of the loss of it, than any other. For as God's first promise, and the often ratification of it, had ever accustomed them to a longing for that promised rest, as their long, and laborious peregrinations, had made them ambitious, and hungry of that Rest, so had they (which no other Nation had but they) a particular feast of a Sabhath, appointed for them, both for a ●●all cessation and rest from bodily labours, and for a figurative expressing of the eternal Rest, their imagination, their understanding, their faith, was filled with this apprehension of Rest. When the contentment and satisfaction, which God took in 〈◊〉 sacrifice, after he came out of the Ark, is expressed, it is expressed thus, The Lord 〈◊〉 a savour of Rest; Gen. 8. 21. our services to God, are a Rest to him; he rests in our devotions; And when the Idolatrous service, and forbidden sacrifices of the people are expressed, Ezck. 20. 28. they are expressed thus, When I had brought them into the Land, Po●u●runt ibi ●dorem quieturn suarum, they placed there the sweet savours of their own Rest; not of God's Rest, (his true Religion) but their own Rest, a Religion, which they, for collaterll respects, rested in. And therefore when God threatens here, that there shall be no rest, that is, none of his rest, he would take from them their Law, their Sacrifices, their Religion, in which he was pleased, and rested gracious towards them, he will change their Religion: And when he says, Here is not your Rest, he threatens to take from them, that Rest, that Peace, that Quiet which they had proposed, and imagined to themselves; when they say to themselves, Why, 'tis no great matter; we may do well enough for all that, though our Religion be changed; he will impoverish them, he will disarm them, he will infatuate them, he will make them a prey to their enemies, & take away all true, and all imaginary rest too. Briefly, Tertul. it is the mark of all men, even natural men, Rest: for though Tertullian condemn that, to call Quietis Magisterium Sapientiam, The act of being, and living at quiet, wisdom, therein seeming to exclude all wisdom, that conduces not to rest, as though there were no wisdom, in action, and in business; Though in the person of Epicurus he condemn that, and that saying, Nemo alii nascitur, moriturus sibi, It is no reason, that any Man should think himself born for others, since he cannot live to himself, or to labour for others, since himself cannot enjoy rest, yet Tertullian leaving the Epicures, that placed felicity in a stupid, and unsociable retiring, says in his own person, and in his own opinion, almost as much, Vnicum mihi negotium, nec aliud curo, quam ne curem, All that I care for, is that I might care for nothing; and so, even Tertullian, in his Christian Philosophy, places happiness in rest; Now, he speaks not only of the things of this world, they must necessarily be cared for, in their proportion; we must not decline the businesses of this life, and the offices of society, out of an aery, and imaginary affection of rest: our principal rest is, in the testimony of our Conscience, and in doing that which we were sent to do; And to have a Rest, and peace, in a Conscience of having done that religiously, and acceptably to God, is our true Rest: and this was the rest, which the Jews were to lose in this place, the testimony of their consciences, that they had performed their part, their Conditions, so, that they might rely upon God's promises, of a perpetual rest in the Land of Canaan; and that rest they could not have; not that peaceful testimony of their Consciences. They could not have that rest, Hic. no Rest, not there, not in Canaan; which was the highest degree of the misery, because they were confident in their term, their state in that Land, that it should be perpetual; and they were confident in the goodness of the Land, that it should evermore give them all conveniencies in abundance, conducing to all kind of rest: for, this Land, God himself calls by the name of rest, and of his rest; Psal. 95. 11. Aug. Ser. 105. de tempore. I swore they should not enter into my rest; So that, rest was proper to this Land, and this Land was proper to them. For, (as St. Augustine notes well) though God recovered this Land for them, and reestablished miraculously their possession, yet they came but in their Remitter, and in postliminio, the inheritance of that Land, was theirs before: for, Sem the son of Neah, was in possession of this Land; and the sons of Cham, the Canaanites, expelled his race out of it; and Abraham of the race of Sem, was restored unto it again: So that, as the goodness of the Land promised rest, so the goodness of the title promised them the Land; and yet they might have no rest there. They had a better title than that; Those often oaths, which God had sworn unto them, that that land should be theirs forever, was their evidence; If then that land were Requies Domini, the rest of the Lord, that is, the best, and the safest Rest, and that land were their land, why should they not have that rest here, when the Lord had sworn they should? Why, because he swore the contrary after; but will God swear contrary things? Aug. why, s●lus securus jurat, qui falli●non potest, says Saint Augustine, only he can swear a thing safely, that sees all circumstances, and foresees all occurrences; only God can swear safely, because nothing can be hid from him. God therefore that knew upon what conditions he had taken the first oath, and knew again how contemptuously those conditions were broken, he takes knowledge that he had sworn, he denies not that, Psal. 95. 11. but he swears again, and in his anger, I swore in my wrath, that they should not enter into my rest. Those Men (says he) which have seen my glory and my Miracles, and have tempted me ten times, and not obeyed my voice, certainly they shall not see the land whereof I swore unto their fathers; Numb. 14. 23. neither shall any that provoke me see it; He pleads not Non est factum, but he pleads conditions performed; he denies not that he swore but he justifies himself, that he had done as much as he promised; for his promise was conditional. The Apostle seems to assign but one reason of their exclusion, from this Land, and from this rest, and yet he expresses that one Reason so, as that it hath two branches; Heb. 3. 18, 19 He says, we see that they could not enter, because of unbeleef and yet he asks the question; To whom swore he, that they should not enter into his Rest, but unto them, that obeyed not? unbelief is assigned for the cause, and yet they were shut out for disobedience; now, if the Apostle make it all one, whether want of faith, or want of works, exclude us from the Land of Rest, let not us be too curious enquirers, whether faith or works bring us thither; for neither faith, nor works bring us thither, as a full cause; but if we consider mediate causes, so they may be both causes; faith, instrumental, works, declaratory; faith may be as evidence, works as the scale of it; but the cause is only, the free election of God. Nor ever shall we come thither, if we leave out either; we shall meet as many Men in heaven, that have lived without faith, as without works. This than was the case; God had sworn to them an inheritance permanently there, but upon condition of their obedience; If they had not had a privity in the condition, if they had not had a possibility to perform the condition, their exclusion might haveseemed unjust: and it had been so; for though God might justly have forborn the promise, yet he could not justly break the promise, if they had kept the conditions; therefore he expressed the condition without any disguise, at first, Deut. 30. 17. If thy heart turn away, ●●pr●nounce unto you this day that you shall surely perisho you shall not prolong your days in the land. And then, when those conditions were made, and made known, and made easy, and accepted, when they so rebelliously broke all conditions, his first oath lay not in his way, Ezek. 17. 19 to stop him from the second, As I live, saith the Lord, I will surely bring mine oath that they have broken, and my covenant that they have despised upon their head, shall they break my covenant, and he delivered, says God there. v. 15. God confesses the oath and the covenant, to be his covenant and his oath, but the breach of the oath, and covenant, was theirs, and not his. He expresses his promise to them, and his departing from them together, in another Prophet; God says to the Prophet, Buy thee a girdle, bury it in the ground, and fetch it again; And than it was rotten, and good for nothing: for says he, as the girdle cleaveth to the loins, so have I tied to me the house of Israel, and judah, that they might be my people, that they might have a name and a praise, and a glory, but they would not hear; Therefore, say unto them, Every bottle shall be filled with wine; (Here was a promise of plenty:) and they shall say unto thee, Do not we know, that every bottle shall be filled with wine● (that God is bound to give us this plenty?) because he hath tied himself by oath, and covenunt, and promise.) But behold, I fill all the inhabitants with drunkenness; (since they trust in their plenty, that shall be an occasion of sin to them) and I will dash them against one another, even the father, and sons together; I will not spare, I will not pity, I will not have compassion, but destroy them. God could not promise more, than he did in this place at first; he could not depart farther from that promise, then by their occasion, he came to at last. God's promise goes no farther with Moses himself; My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest; Exod. 24. 14. If we will steal out of God's presence, Prov. 4. 1. into dark and sinful corners, there is no rest promised. Receive my words, Psal. 37. 3. says Solomon, and the years of thy life shall be many; Trust in the Lord, says David, and do good, (perform both, stand upon those two legs, faith, and works; not that they are alike; there is a right, and a left leg: but stand upon both; upon one in the sight of God; upon the other in the sight of Man;) Trust in the Lord, and do good, and then shall dwell in the land, and be fed assuredly. That paradise, that peace of Conscience, which God establishes in thee, by faith, hath a condition, of growth, and increase, from faith to faith; heaven itself, in which the Angels were, had a condition; they might, they did fall from thence; The land of Canaan, was their own land, and the rest of that land, their Rest by God's oath, and covenant; and yet here was not their rest: not here; nor for any thing expressed, or intimated in the word, any where else. Here was a Nunc dimittis, but not in pace; The Lord lets them depart, and makes them depart, but not in peace, for their eyes saw no salvation; they were sent away to a heavy captivity. Beloved, we may have had a Canaan, an inheritance, a comfortable assurance in our bosoms, in our consciences, and yet hear that voice after, that here is not our rest, except, as God's goodness at first moved him to make one oath unto us, of a conditional rest, as our sins have put God to his second oath, that he swore we should not have his rest, so our repentance bring him to a third oath, as I live I would not the death of a sinner, that so he do not only make a new contract with us, but give us withal an ability, to perform the conditions, which he requires. SERMON X. Preached at the Churching of the Countess of Bridgewater. MICAH 2● 10. [second Sermon.] THus far we have proceeded in the first acceptation of these words, according to their principal, and literal sense, as they appertained to the jews, and their sta●e; so they were a Commination; As they appertain to all succeeding Ages, and to us, so they are a Commonition, an alarm, to raise us from the sleep, and death of sin: And then in a third acceptation, they are a Consolation, that at last we shall have a rising, and a departing into such a state, in the Resurrection, as we shall no more need this voice, Arise, and depart, because we shall be no more in danger of falling, no more in danger of departing from the presence, and contemplation; and service, and fruition of God; And in both these latter senses, the words admit a just accommodation to this present occasion, God having raised his honourable servant, and handmaid here present, to a sense of the Curse, that lies upon women, for the transgression of the first woman, which is painful, and dangerous Childbirth; and given her also, a sense of the last glorious resurrection, in having raised her, from that Bed of weakness, to the ability of coming into his presence, here in his house. First then to consider them, in the first of these two latter senses, Divisio. as a Commonition to them, that are in the state of sin, first there is an increpation implied in this word Arise; when we are bid arise, we are told, that we are fallen: sin is an unworthy descent, and an ignoble fall; Secondly, we are bid to do something, and therefore we are able to do something, God commands nothing impossible so, as that that degree of performance, which he will accept, should be impossible, to the man, whom his grace hath affected; That which God will accept, is possible to the godly; And thirdly, that which he commands here, is derived into two branches; We are bidden to rise● that is, to leave our bed, our habit of sin; and then not to be idle, when we are up, but to depart; not only to depart from the Customs, but from tentations of Recidivation; and not only that but to depart into another way, a habit of Actions, contrary to our former Sins. And then, all this is pressed, and urged upon us, by a Reason; The Holy Ghost appears not like a ghost in one sudden glance, or glimmering, but he testifies his presence, and he presses the business, that he comes for; And the reason that he uses here, is, Quia non requies, because otherwise we lose the Pondus animae, the weight, the ballast of our soul, rest, and peace of Conscience: for how●ever there may be some rest, some such show of Rest, as may serve a carnal man a little while, yet, says our Text, it is not your Rest, it conduces not to that Rest, which God hath ordained for you, whom he would direct to a better Rest. That Rest, (your Rest) is not here; not in that, which is spoken of here; not in your lying still, you must rise from it; not in your standing still, you must depart from it; your Rest is not here: but yet, since God sends us away, because our Rest is not here, he does tacitly direct ●s thereby, where there is Rest; And that will be the third acceptation of these words; to which we shall come anon. For that then, which rises first; the increpation of our fall implied in the word, Arise, Increpatio. there is nothing, Bernard. in which, that which is the mother of all virtues, discretion, is more tried, then in the conveying, and imprinting profitably a rebuke, an increpation, a knowledge, and sense of sin, in the conscience of another. The rebuke of sin, is like the fishing of Whales; the Mark is great enough; one can scarce miss hitting; but if there be not sea room and line enough, & a dexterity in letting out that line, he that hath fixed his harping Iron, in the Whale, endangers himself, and his boat; God hath made us fishers of Men; and when we have struck a Whale, touched the conscience of any person, which thought himself above rebuke, and increpation, it struggles, and strives, and as much as it can, endeavours to draw fishers, and boat, the Man and his fortune into contempt, and danger. But if God tie a sickness, or any other calamity, to the end of the line, that will wind up this Whale again, to the boat, bring back this rebellious sinner better advised, to the mouth of the Minister, for more counsel, and to a better souplenesse, and inclinableness to conform himself, to that which he shall after receive from him; only calamity makes way for a rebuke to enter. There was such a tenderness, amongst the orators, which were used to speak in the presence of the people, to the Roman Emperors, (which was a way of Civil preaching) that they durst not tell them then their duties, nor instruct them, what they should do, any other way then by saying, that they had done so before; They had no way to make the Prince wise, and just, and temperate, but by a false praising him, for his former acts of wisdom, and justice, and temperance, which he had never done; and that served to make the people believe, that the Princes were so; and it served to teach the Prince, that he ought to be so. And so, though this were an express, and a direct flattery, yet it was a collateral increpation too; And on the other side, our later times have seen, another art, another invention, another workmanship, that when a great person hath so abused the favour of his Prince, that he hath grown subject to great, and weighty increpations, his own friends have made Libels against him, thereby to lay some light aspersions upon him, that the Prince might think, that this coming with the malice of a Libel, was the worst that could be said of him: and so, as the first way to the Emperors, though it were a direct flattery, yet it was a collater all Increpation too, so this way, though it were a direct increpation, yet it was a collater all flattery too. If I should say of such a congregation as this, with acclamations and shows of much joy, Blessed company, holy congregation, in which there is no pride at all, no vanity at all, no prevarication at all, I could be thought in that, but to convey an increpation, and a rebuke mannerly, in a wish that it were so altogether. If I should say of such a congregation as this, with exclamations and show of much bitterness, that they were sometimes somewhat too worldly in their own business, sometimes somewhat too remiss, in the businesses of the next world, and add no more to it, this were but as a plot, and a faint libelling, a publishing of small sins to keep greater from being talked of: slight increpations are but as whisper, and work no farther, but to bring men to say, Tush, no body hears it, no body heeds it, we are never the worse, nor never the worse thought of for all that he says. And loud and bitter increpations, are as a trumpet, and work no otherwise, but to bring them to say, Since he hath published all to the world already, since all the world knows of it, the shame is past, and we may go forward in our ways again: Is there then no way to convey an increpation profitably? David could find no way; Vidi praevaricatores & tabescebam, says he, I saw the transgressors, Psal. 119. 158. but I languished and consumed away with grief, because they would not keep the law; he could not mend them, and so impaired himself with his compassion: but God hath provided a way here, to convey, to imprint this increpation, this rebuke, sweetly, and successfully; that is, by way of counsel: by bidding them arise, he chides them them for falling, by presenting the exaltation and exultation of a peaceful conscience, he brings them to a foresight, to what miserable distractions, and distortions of the soul, a habit of sin will bring them to. If you will take knowledge of God's fearful judgements no other way, but by hearing his mercies preached, his Mercy is new every morning, and his dew falls every evening; and morning, and evening we will preach his mercies unto you. If you will believe a hell no other way, but by hearing the joys of heaven presented to you, you shall hear enough of that; we will receive you in the morning, and dismiss you in the evening, in a religious assurance, in a present inchoation of the joys of heaven. It is God's way, and we are willing to pursue it; to show you that you are Enemies to Christ, we pray you in Christ's stead, that you would be reconciled to him: to show you, that you are fallen, we pray you to arise, and si audieritis, if you hear us so, if any way, any means, convey this rebuke, Mat. 18. 15. this sense into you, Si audieritis, lucrati sumus fratrem, If you hear, we have gained a brother; and that's the richest gain, that we can get, if you may get salvation by us. God's rebukes and increpations than are sweet, and gentle, to the binding up, not to the scattering of a Conscience; And the particular Rebuke in this place, conveyed by way of counsel, is, That they were fallen; and worse could not be said, how mild, Dejectio. and easy soever the word be. The ruin of the Angels in heaven, the ruin of Adam in Paradise, is still called by that word, it is but the fall of Angels, and the fall of Adam; and yet this fall of Adam cost the blood of Christ, and this blood of Christ, did not rectify the Angels after their fall. Inter objectos, objectissimus peccator; Chrysost. amongst them that are fallen, he falls lowest, that continues in sin: for (says the same Father,) Man is a king in his Creation; he hath that Commission, Subjicite, & dominamini; Idem. the world, and himself, (which is a less world, but a greater dominion) are within his Jurisdiction; and then servilly, he submits himself, and all, to that, Qua nihil magis barbarum, than which nothing is more tyrannous, more barbarous. All persons have naturally, all Nations ever had, a detestation of falling into their hands who were more barbarous, more uncivil than themselves, & peccato nihil magis barbarum; (says that Father) sin doth not govern us by a rule, by a Law, but tyrannically, impetuously, and tempestuously; It hath been said of Rome, Romae regulariter malè agitur; There a man may know the price of a sin, before he do it; and he knows what his dispensation will cost; whether he be able to sin at that rate, whether he have wherewithal, that if not, he may take a cheap sin. Thou canst never say that of thy soul, Intus regulariter malè agitur; Thou canst never promise thyself to sin safely, and so to elude the Law, for the Law is in thy heart; nor to sin wisely, and so to escape witnesses, for the testimony is in thy Conscience; nor to sin providently, and thriftily, and cheaply, and compound for the penalty, and stall the fine, for thy soul, that is the price, is indivisible, and perishes entirely, and eternally at one payment, and yet ten thousand thousand times over and over. Thou canst not say: Thou wilt sin, that sin, and no more; or so far in that sin, and no farther; If thou fall from an high place, thou mayst fall through thick clouds, and through moist clouds, but yet through nothing that can sustain thee, but thou fallest to the earth; If thou fall from the grace of God, thou mayst pass through dark Clouds, oppression of heart, and through moist Clouds, some compunction, some remorseful tears; but yet, (of thyself) thou hast nothing to take hold of, till thou come to that bottom, which will embrace thee cruelly, to the bottomless bottom of Hell itself. Our dignity, and our greatest height, is in our interest in God, and in the world, and in ourselves; and we fall from all, either non utend●, or abutendo; either by neglecting God, or by over-valuing the world; our greatest ●all of all is, into Idolatry; and yet Idolatry is an ordinary fall; Hieron: for tot habemus Deas recentes, quot habemus vitia, As many habitual sins as we embrace, so many Idols we worship; If all sins could not be called so, Idols, yet for those sins, which possess us most ordinarily, and most strongly, we have good warrant to call them so; which sins are Licentiousness in our youth, and Covetousness in our age, and voluptuousness in our middle time. For, for Licentiousness, Idolatry, and that, are so often called by one another's names in the Scriptures, as many times we cannot tell, when the Propehts mean spiritual Adultery, and when Carnal; when they mean Idolatry, and when Fornication. For Covetousness, that is expressly called Idolatry by the Apostle: and so is voluptuousness too, in those men, whose belly is their God. We fall then into that desperate precipitation of Idolatry, by 〈◊〉, when by fornication, we profane the temple of the Holy Ghost, and make even his temple, our bodies, a Stews: And we fall into Idolatry by Covetousness, when we come to be, tam putidi minutíque animi, Basil. of so narrow, and contracted a soul; and of so sick, and dead, and buried, and putrefied a soul, as to lock up our soul, in a Cabinet where we lock up our money, to tie our soul in the corner of a handkerchief, where we ty our money, to imprison our soul, in the imprisonment of those things, Quae te ad gloriam ●●bvectur●e, the dispensation, Idem. and distribution whereof, would carry thy soul to eternal glory. And when by our voluptuousness, we raise the prices of necessary things, Et eorum vulnera, qui à Deo flagris caeduntur, adangemus; and thereby scourge them with deeper lashes of famine, whom God hath scourged with poverty before, we fall into Idolatry by voluptuousness; Numismatis inscriptiones inspicuis, & non Christi in sratre, thou takest a pleasure, Idem. to look upon the figures, and Images of Kings in their several coins; and thou despisest thine own Image in thy poor brother, and God's Image in thy ruinous, and defaced soul, and in his Temple, thy body, demolished by thy Licentiousness, and by all these Idolatries. This is the fall, when we fall so far into those sins, which have naturally a tyranny in them, and that that sin becomes an Idol to us; which fall of ours, God intimates unto us, and rebukes us for, by so mild a way, as to bid us rise from it. Now when God bids us rise, as the Apostle says, Be not deceived, Gal. 6. 7. Non irridetur Deus, God cannot be mocked by any man, so we may boldly say, Be not afraid, Non irridet Deus; God mocks no man; God comes not to a miserable bedrid man, as a man would come in scorn to a prisoner, and bid him shake off his fetters, or to a man in a Consumption, and bid him grow strong; when God bids us arise, he tells us, we are able to rise; God bad Moses go to Pharaoh; Moses said he was Incircumcisus labiis, Exod. 4. 10. heavy, and slow of tongue; but he did not deny, but he had a tongue: God bade him go, and I will be with thy mouth, says he; He does not say, I will be thy mouth; but, thou hast a mouth, and I will be with thy Mouth. It was God's presence, that made that mouth serviceable, and useful, but it was Moses mouth; Moses had a mouth of his own; we have faculties, and powers of our own, to be employed in God's service. So when God employed jeremy, the Prophet says, O Lord God, behold, jer. 1. 6. I cannot speak, for I am a child; but God replies, say not thou, I am a child; for whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak: When God bids thee rise from thy sin, say not thou it is too late, or that thou art bedrid in the custom of thy sin, and so canst not rise; when he bids thee rise, he enables thee to rise; and thou mayst rise, by the power of that will which only his mercy, and his grace, hath created in thee; for as God conveys a rebuke in that counsel, Surgite, arise, so he conveys a power in it too; when he bids thee rise, he enables thee to rise. That which we are to do then, is to rise; to leave our bed, our sleep of Sin. Surgite. Saint Augustine takes knowledge of three ways, Aug. by which he escaped sins; first, occasionis substractione; and that's the safest way, not to come within distance of a tentation; secondly, resistendi data virtute, That the love, and the fear of God, imprinted in him, made him strong enough for the sin; Can I love God, and love this person thus? thus, that my love to it, should draw away my love from God? Can I fear God, and fear any Man, (who can have power but over my body) so, as for fear of him, to renounce my God, or the truth, or my Religion? Or affectionis sanitate, that his affections, had, by a good diet, by a continual feeding upon the Contemplation of God, such a degree of health, and good temper, as that some sins he did naturally detest, and, though he had not wanted opportunity, and had wanted particular grace, yet he had been safe enough from them. But, for this help, this detestation, of some particular sins, that will not hold out; We have seen men infinitely prodigal grow infinitely Covetous at last. For the other way, (the assistance of particular grace) that we must not presume upon; for, he that opens himself to a tentation, upon presumption of grace to preserve him, forfeits by that, even that grace, which he had. And therefore there is no safe way, but occasionis substractio, the forbearing of those places, and that Conversation, which ministers occasion of tentation to us. First therefore, let us find, that we are in our bed, that we are naturally unable to rise; We are not born Noble: 2 Tim. 1. 3. Saint Paul considers himself, and his birth, and his Title to grace, at best; That he was a jew, and of the Tribe of Benjamin, and of holy parents, and within the Covenant; yet all this raised him not out of his bed, for, says he, Ephes. 2. 3. we were by nature the Children of wrath, as well as others. But where then was the rising? that is, in the true receiving of Christ. To as many as received him, he gave, Potestatem praerogativae, joh. 1. 12. to be the sons of God; yea, power to become the sons of God, as it is in our last Translation. Christianus non de Christiano nascitur, nec facit generatio, sed regeneratio Christianum; Tertullian. A Christian Mother does not conceive a Christian; only the Christian Church conceives Christian Children. judaeus circumcisus generat filium incircumcisum, Aug. A Jew is circumcised, but his child is born uncircumcised: The Parents may be up, and ready, but their issue a-bed, and in their blood, till Baptism have washed them, and till the spirit of Regeneration have raised them, from that bed, which the sins of their first Parents have laid them in, and their own continuing sins continued them in. This rising is first, from Original sin, by baptism, and then from actual sin, best, by withdrawing from the occasions of tentation to future sins, after repentance of former. But it is not, Arise, and stand still: But Surgite, & ite, arise, and depart; Ite. But whither? Into actions, contrary to those sinful actions, and habits contrary to those habits. Let him that is righteous, be righteous still, and him that is holy, be holy still; Apoc. 22. 11, 12 and that cannot be, without this; for it is but a small degree of Convalescence, and reparation of health, to be able to rise out of our bed, to be able to forbear sin: Qui febri laborat, post morbum infirmior est; though the fever be off, we are weak after it; though we have left a sin, there is a weakness upon us, that makes us reel, and lean towards that bed, at every turn; decline towards that sin, upon every occasion. And therefore according to that example, and pattern, of Gods proceeding at the creation, who first made all, and then digested, and then perfected them; Ambros. Primò faciamus, deinde venustemus, says Saint Ambrose; first let us make us up a good body, a good habitude, a good constitution, by leaving our beds, our occasions of tentations; and then venustemus, let us dress ourselves, adorn ourselves, yea, arm ourselves, with the whole armour of God, which is faith in Christ Jesus, and a holy and sanctified conversation. Memento peregisse te aliquid, restare aliquid: Remember, Augusti. (and do not deceive thyself, to remember that, which was never done) but remember truly, that thou hast done something, towards making sure thy salvation already, and that thou hast much more to do; Divertisse te ad Refectionem, non ad defectionem, that God hath given thee a baiting place, a resting place; peace in conscience, for all thy past sins, in thy present repentance; but it is, to refresh thyself with that peace; it is not to take new courage, and strength to sin again. Let not the ease which thou hast found in the remission of sins now embolden thee to commit them again; not to trust to that strength which thou hast already recovered; but arise and depart; avoid old tentations, and apply thyself to a new course in the world, and in a calling; for there may be as much sin, to leave the world, as to cleave to the world: and he may be as inexcusable at the last day, that hath done Nothing in the world, as he that hath done some ill. Now, we noted it to be a particular degree of God's mercy, that he insisted upon it, Quia. that he pressed it, that he urged it with a reason; do thus, says God, for, it stands thus with you. It is always a boldness, to ask a reason of those decrees of God, which were founded, and established only in his own gracious will, and pleasure; In those cases, Exitiales vaculae, our & quomodo; to ask, why God elected some, Luther. and how it can consist with his goodness, to leave out others there the how, and why are dangerous, and deadly Monosyllables. But of God's particular purposes upon us, and revealed to us, which are so to be wrought and executed upon us, as that we ourselves have a fellow-working, and co-operation with God, of those, it becomes us to ask, and to know the reason. When the Angel Gabriel promised such unexpected blessings to Zachary, Zachary asks, whereby shall I know this? Luke 1. 18. and the Angel does not leave him unsatisfied. When that Angel promises a greater miracle to the blessed Virgin Mary, she says also, Quomodo, how shall this be? and the Angel settles, and establishes the assurance in her: Whatsoever we are bid to believe, whatsoever we are bid to do, God affords us a reason for it, and we may try it by reason, but because that sinner, whom in this text, he speaks to, to arise and depart, is likely to stand upon false reasons, against his rising, to murmur, and ask Cur or quomodo, why should I arise, since me thinks I lie at my ease, how shall I arise, that am already at the top of my wishes? God who is loath to lose any soul, that he undertakes, follows him with this reason. Quia non requies, Arise, and depart, for here is not your rest. Now this rest, is in itself, so grateful, so acceptable a thing, Requies. as all the service, which David, and Solomon, could express towards God, in the dedication of the Temple, (which was then in intention, and project) is described in that phrase, Psal. 132. 8. Arise O Lord, and come into thy rest, thou and the Ark of thy strength; God himself hath a Sabbath, in our Sabbaths; It is welcome to God, and it is so welcome to Man, as that Saint Augustine preaching upon those words, Augusti. Qui posuit fines tuos pacem, He maneth peace in thy borders, Psal. 147. 14. (as we translate it) he observed such a passion, such an alteration in his auditory, as that he took knowledge of it in his Sermon; Nihil dixeram, nihil exposuerans, verbum pronunciavi & exclamastis, says he; I have entered into no part of my text; I have scarce read my text; I did but name the word, Rest, and Peace of conscience, and you are all transported, affected, with an exultation, with an acclamation, in the hunger, and ambition of it; That, that the natural, that, that the supernatural Man affects, is Rest; Inquire pacem, & persequere eam; Psal. 36. it is not only seque●t, but persequere; seek peace & ensue it; follow this rest, this peace so, as if it fly from you, if any interruption, any heaviness of heart, any warfare of this world, come between you, and it, yet you never give over the pursuit of it, till you overtake it. Persquere, follow it, but first Inquire, says David, seek after it, find where it is, for here is not your rest. Vnaqu●que res in sua patria fortior; If a Star were upon the Earth, Non hic. it would give no light; If a tree were in the Sea, Chrys. it would give no fruit; every tree is fastest rooted, and produces the best fruit, in the soil, that is proper for it. Heb. 13. 14. Now, here we have no continuing City, but we seek one; when we find that, we shall find rest. Here how shall we hope for it? for ourselves, Intus pugnae, foris timores; 2 cor. 7. 5. we feel a war of concupiscencies within, and we fear a battery of tentations without: Si dissentiunt in domo uxor & maritus: pericul●sa molestia, says Saint Augustine; If the Husband, and wife agree not at home, it is a troublesome danger; and that's every man's case; Augusti. for Care conjux, our flesh is the wife, and the spirit is the husband, and they two will never agree. But si dominetur uxor, perversa pax, says he, and that's a more ordinary case, than we are aware of, that the wife hath got the Mastery, that the weaker vessel, the flesh, hath got the victory; and then, there is a show of peace, but it is a stupidity, a security, it is not peace. Let us depart out of ourselves, and look upon that, in which most ordinarily we place an opinion of rest, upon worldly riches; They that will be rich, fall into tentations, and snares, and into many foolish, and noisome lusts, 1 Tim. 6. 9 which drown Men in perdition, and in destruction, for the desire of money is the root of evil; Not the having of Money, but the desire of it; for it is Theophylacts observation, Theophyl. that the Apostle does not say this, of them that are rich, but of them, that will be made rich; that set their heart upon the desire of riches, and will be rich, what way soever. As the Partridge gathereth the young, which she hath not brought forth, jer. 17. 11. so he that gathereth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool; (he shall not make a wise will) But shall his folly end, at his end, or the punishment of his folly? We see what a restless fool he is, all the way; first, because he wants room, he says, he will pull down his barns, and build new; Luke 12. 10. (thus far there's no rest; in the Diruit, and adificat, in pulling down, and building up;) Then he says to his soul, live at ease; he says it, but he gives no ease; he says it as he shall say to the Hills, fall down, and cover us● but they shall stand still; and his soul shall hear God say, whilst he promises himself this case, O fool, this night, they shall fetch away thy soul; God does not only not tell him, who shall have his riches, but he does not tell him, who shall have his soul. He leaves him no affurance, no ease, no peace, no rest, Here. This rest is not then in these things; not in their use; Vestra. for they are got with labour, and held with fear; and these, labour and fear, admit no rest; not in their nature; for they are fluid, and transitory, and movable, and these are not attributes of rest. If that word do not reach to Land, (the land is not movable,) yet it reaches to thee; when thou makest thine Inventory, put thyself amongst the moveables, for thou must remove from it, though it remove not from thee. So that, what rest foever may be imagined in these things, it is not your rest, for howsoever the things may seem to rest, yet you do not. It is not here at all: not in that Here, which is intimated in this Text; not in the falling, that is Here; for sin is a stupidity, it is not a rest; not in the rising that is Here, for this remorse, this repentance, is but as a surveying of a convenient ground, or an emptying of an inconvenient ground, to erect a building upon; not in the departing that is here, for in that, is intimated a building of new habits, upon the ground so prepared, and so a continual, and laborious travail, no rest; falling, and rising, and departing, and surveying, and building, are no words of rest, for give these words their spiritual sense, that this sense of our fall, (which is remorse after sin) this rising from it, (which is repentance after sin) this departing into a safer station, (which is the building of habits contrary to the former) do bring an ease to the conscience, (as it doth that powerfully, and plentifully) yet, as when we journey by Coach, we have an ease in the way, but yet our rest is at home, so in the ways of a regenerate Man, there is an unexpressible ease, and consolation here, but yet even this is not your rest; for, as the Apostle says, If I be not an Apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am unto you, so what rest soever others may propose unto themseleves, for you, whose conversation is in heaven, (for this world to the righteous is Atrium templi, and heaven is that Temple itself, the Militant Church, is the porch, the Triumphant, is the Sanctum Sanctorum, this Church and that Church are all under one roof, Christ Jesus) for you, who appertain to this Church, your rests is in heaven; And that consideration brings us to the last of the three interpretations of these words. The first was a Commination, a departing without any Rest, proposed to the Jews: 3. Part. The second was a Commonition, a departing into the way towards Rest, proposed to repentant sinners; And this third is a Consolation, a departing into Rest itself, proposed to us, that believe a Resurrection. It is a consolation, and yet it is a funeral; for to present this eternal Rest, we must a little invert the words, to the departing out of this world, by death, and so to arise to Judgement; Depart, and arise; for, etc. This departing then, is our last Exodus, our last passover, our last transmigration, Depart. our departing out of this life. And then, the Consolation is placed in this, that we are willing, and ready for this departing; Chrysost. Qua gratia breve nobis tempus praescripsit Deus? How mercifully hath God proceeded with Man, in making his life short? for by that means he murmurs the less at the miseries of this life, and he is the less transported upon the pleasures of this life, because the end of both is short. It is a weakness, says Saint Ambrose, to complain, De immaturitate mortis, of dying before our time; Ambr. for we were ripe for death at our birth; we were born mellow: Idem. Secundum aliquem modum, immortalis dici posset homo, si esset tempus intra quod mori non posset, is excellently said by the same Father; If there were any one minute in a man's life, in which he were safe from death, a man might in some sort be said to be immortal, for that minute; but Man is never so; Nunquam ei vicinius est, posse vivere, quam posse mori: Idem. That proposition is never truer, This man may live to morrow, than this proposition is, This man may die this minute. Though then shortness of life be a malediction to the wicked, (The bloody and deceitful men shall not live half their days) there's the sentence, Psal. 55. 23. the Judgement, job 22. 16. the Rule, (And they were cut down before their time) there's the execution, the example, God hath threatened, God hath inflicted, shortness of days to the wicked, yet the Curse consists in their indisposition, in their overloving of this world, in their terrors concerning the next world, and not merely in the shortness of life; for this Ite, depart out of this world, is part of the Consolation. I have a Reversion upon my friend, and (though I wish it not) yet I am glad, if he die; Men that have inheritances after their fathers, are glad when they die; though not glad that they die, yet glad when they die: I have a greater, after the death of this body, and shall I be loath to come to that? Yet, it is not so a Consolation, as that we should by any means, be occasions to hasten our own death; Aug. Multi Innocentes ab aliis occiduntur, à seipso nemo; Many men get by the malice of others, if thereby, they die the sooner; for they are the sooner at home, and die innocently: but no man dies innocently, that dies by his own hand, or by his own haste. We may not do it, never; we may not wish it, always, nor easily. Before a perfect Reconciliation with God, it is dangerous to wish death. David apprehended it so, Psal. 102. 24. I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days. In an over tender sense, and impatience of our own Calamities, it is dangerous to desire death too. Very holy men have transgressed on that hand: Elias in his persecution came inconsiderately to desire that he might die; 1 Reg. 14. 4. It is enough, o Lord, take away my soul; He would tell God how much was enough. job 7. 15. And so says job, My soul chooseth rather to be strangled and to die, then to be in my bones; He must have that that his soul chooses. But to omit many cases wherein it is not good, nor safe to wish Death, certainly, when it is done primarily in respect of God, for his glory, and then, for the respect which is of ourselves, it is only to enjoy the sight, and union of God, and that also with a Conditional submission to his will, and a tacit, and humble reservation of all his purposes, we may think David's thought, and speak David's words, Psal. 42. 2. My soul thirsteth for God, even for the living God, Phil. 1. when shall I come, and appear before the presence of my Living God? Saint Paul had David's example for it, when he comes to his Cupio dissolvi, Aug. to desire to be dissolved; And Saint Augustine had both their examples, when he says so affectionately, Eia Domine videam, ut hîc moriar, O my God, let me see thee in this life, that I may die the death of the Righteous, die to sin; & moriar ut te videam, let me die absolutely, that I may see thee essentially. Here we may be in his Presence, we see his state; there we are in his Bedchamber, Idem. and see his eternal and glorious Rest. The Rule is good, given by the same Father, Non injustum est justo optare mortem, A righteous man, may righteously desire death's Si Deus non dederit, injustum erit, non tolerare vitam amarissimam, but if God affords not that ease, he must not refuse a laborious life; So that, this departing, is not a going before we be called: Christ himself stayed for his ascension, till he was taken up. But when these comes a Lazare veni foras, that God calls us, from this putrefaction, which we think life, let us be not only obedient, but glad to depart. For without such an Ite, there is no such Surgite, as is intended here; Surgite. without this departing there is no good rising, without a joyful Transmigration, no joyful Resurrection; He that is loath to depart, is afraid to rise again; and he that is afraid of the Resurrection, had rather there were none; and he that had rather there were none, a●t ●aecitate, aut animos●tate, says S. Augustine, either he will make himself believe, that there is none, or if he cannot overcome his Conscience so absolutely, he will make the world believe, that he believes there is none: and truly to lose our sense of the Resurrection, is as heavy a loss, as of any one point of Religion; It is the knot of all, and hath this privilege, above all, that though those Joys of heaven, which we shall possess immediately after our death, be infinite, yet even to these infinite Joys, the Resurrection given an addition, and enlarges even that which was infinite. And therefore is job so passionately desirous, that this doctrine of the Resurrection, might be imparted to all, imprinted in all; 19 13. Oh that my words more now written, Oh that they were written in a book; and graven with an Iron pen in lead, and stone, for ever: what is all this, that job recommends with so much devotion to all? I am sure that my Redeemer liveth, and be shall stand the last on Earth, and though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet I shall see God in my flesh; whom I myself shall see; and mine eyes shall behold, and none either for me. This doctrine of the Resurrection, had job, so vehement, and so early a care of. Neither could the malicious, and pestilent inventions of man, no not of Satan himself, abolish this doctrine of the Resurrection: Hiero. Ep. 13. ad Paulinum. for, as Saint Hierome observes, from Adrian's time, to Constantin's, for 180 years, in the place of Christ's birth, they had set up an Idol, a statue of Adonis: In the place of his Crucifying, they had set up an Idol of Venus; and in the place of his Resurrection, they had erected a I●●p●ter: in opinion, that these Idolatrous provisions of theirs, would have abolished the Mysteries of our Religion; but they have outlived all them, and shall outlive all the world, eternally beyond all Generations. Ambros. And therefore doth Saint Ambrose apply well, and usefully to our Death, and Resurrection, to our departing, and rising, these words, Esa. 26. 20. Come my people, enter then into thy Chambers, and shut thy doors after thee; Hide thyself for a very little while, until the Indignation passover thee; that is, Go quietly, to your graves, attend your Resurrection, till God have executed his purpose upon the wicked of this world; Murmur not to admit the dissolution of body, and soul, upon your deathbeds, nor the resolution, and putrefaction of the body alone in your graves, till God be pleased to repair all, in a full consummation, and reuniting of body and soul, in a blessed Resurrection. Ite & Surgite, depart so, as you may desire to rise; Depart with an In manus tuas, and with a Veni Domi●e jesu; with a willing surrendering of your souls, and a cheerful meeting of the Lord Jesus. For else, all hope of profit, and permanent Rest is lost: Requies. for, as Saint Hierome interprets these very words; Here we are taught that there is no rest, in this life, Sed quasi●●● mortuis resurgentes; ad sublime tendere, & ambulare post Daminum jesum; we depart Hier. when we depart from sin, and we rise, when we raise ourselves to a conformity with Christ: And not only after his example, but after his person, that is, to hasten thither, whither he is gone to prepare us a Room. For, this Rest, in the Text, though it may be understood of the Land of Promise; and of the Church, and of the Ark, and of the Sabbath, (for, if we had time to pursue them, we might make good use of all these acceptations) yet we accept Chrysost●me's acceptation best, Chrys. Requies est ipse Christus, our rest is Christ himself. Not only that rest that is in Christ, (peace of conscience in him) but that Rest, that Christ is in; eternal rest in his kingdom, Heb. 4. 7. There remaineth a Rest, to the people of God; besides that inchoation of Rest, which the godly have here, there remains a fuller Rest. jesus is entered into his Rest, 10. says the Apostle there; his Rest was not here, in this world; and, 11. Let us study to enter into thate Rest, says he; for no other can accomplish our peace. 1 Thes. 1. 6 It is righteousness with God, is recompense tribulation to them, that trouble you, and, to you, which are troubled, Rest; but, when? in this world? no: when the Lord jesus shall she● himself from heaven, with his mighty Angels, then comes your Rest; for, for the grave, the body lies still, but it is not a Rest, because it is not sensible of that lying still; In heaven the body shall rest, rest in the sense of that glory. This Rest than is not here, Not only not Here, Non hîc. at this Here was taken in the first interpretation, Here in the Earth; but not Here in the second interpretation, not in Repentance itself; for all the Rest of this life, even the spiritual Rest, is rather a Truce, than a peace, rather a Cessation, than an end of the war. For when these words, (I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians, Every one shall fight against his brother, Esa. 19 2. and every one against his neighbour, City against City, and Kingdom against Kingdom) may be interpreted, and are so interpreted of the time of the Gospel of Christ Jesus, when Christ himself says, Nolite putare quod venerim mittere pacem in terrâ, Mat. 10. 34. Never think that I came to settle peace, or Rest in this world; Nay, when Christ says, None of them that were bidden shall come to his supper, Luke 14. 34. and that may be verified of any Congregation, none of us that are called now, shall come to that Rest, a Man may be at a security in an opinion of Rest, and be far from it; A man may be nearer Rest in a troubled Conscience, then in a secure. Here we have often Resurrections, that is, purposes to depart from sin: but they are such Resurrections, as were at the time of Christ's Resurrection: when (as the strongest opinion is) Resurrexerunt iterum morituri, Many of the dead rose, but they died again; we rise from our sins here, but here we fall again; Monumenta aperta sunt; (it is Saint Hierome's note,) The graves were opened, presently upon Christ's death; Hier. but yet the bodies did not arise, Mat. 27. till Christ's Resurrection: The godly have an opening of their graves, they see some light, some of their weight, some of their Earth is taken from them, but a Resurrection to enter into the City, to follow the Lamb, to come into an established security, that they have not, till they be united to Christ in heaven. Here we are still subject to relapses, and to looking back; Aug. Memento uxoris L●t, Ipsa in loco manet, transeuntes monet, She is fixed to a place, that she might settle those, that are not fixed; Vt quid in statuam salis conversa, si non homines, ut sapiant, condiat? to teach us the danger of looking back, till we be fixed, she is fixed. When the Prophet● Eliah● was at the door of Desperation, an Angel touched him, and said, 1 Reg. 19 5. Up, and eat: and there was bread, and water provided, and he did eat; but he slept again; and we have some of these excitations, and we come, and eat, and drink, even the body, and blood of Christ, but we sleep again, we do not perfect the work. Our Rest Here then, is never without a fear of losing it: This is our best state, Hebr. 4. 1 To fear le●t at any time, by forsaking the promise of entering into his rest, we should seem to be deprived. The Apostle disputes not, (neither do I) whether we can be deprived or no; but he assures us, that we may fall back so far, as that to the Church, and to our own Consciences we may seem to be deprived; and that's argument enough, that here is no Rest. To end all, Alicubi. though there be no Rest in all this world, no not in our sanctification here, yet this being a Consolation, there must be rest some where; And it is, Aug. In superna Civitate, unde amicus non exit, quâ inimicus non intrat, In that City, in that Jerusalem, where there shall never enter any man, whom we do not love, nor any go from us, whom we do love. Which, though we have not yet, yet we shall have: for upon those words, (because I live, ye shall live also) Saint Augustine says, john 14. 19 that because his Resurrection was to follow so soon, Aug. Christ takes the present word, because I do live. But because their life was not to be had here, he says, Vivetis, you shall live, in heaven; not Vivitis; for here, we do not live. So, 1 Cor. 35. 22. as in Adam we all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive; says the Apostle: All our deaths are here, present now; now we die; our quickening is reserved for heaven, that's future. And therefore let us attend that Rest, as patiently as we do the things of this world, and not doubt of it therefore, because we see it not yet: even in this world we consider invisible things, more than visible; Vidimus pelagus, non autem mercedem, Chrysost The Merchant sees the tempestuous Sea, when he does not see the commodities, which he goes for: Videmus terram, non autem messem, The Husbandman sees the Earth, and his labour, when he sees no harvest; and for these hopes, that there will be a gain to the Merchant, and a harvest to the Labourer, Naturae fidimus, we rely upon Creatures; for our Resurrection, fide us●orem habemus Coranatum; Not Nature, not Sea, nor Land, is our surety, but our surety is one, who is already crowned, with that Resurrection. Num in hominibus terrae legenera●, quae omnia regenerate, says Saint Ambrose, will the earth, Ambr. that gives a new life to all Creatures, fail in us, and hold us in an everlasting winter, without a spring, and a Resurrection? Certainly no; but if we be content so to depart into the womb of the Earth, our grave, as that we know that, to be but the Entry into glory, as we depart contentedly, so we shall arise gloriously, to that place, where our eternal Rest shall be, though here there be not our Rest; for he that shoots an arrow at a mark, yet means to put that arrow into his Quiver again; and God that glorifies himself, in laying down our bodies in the grave, means also to glorify them, in reaffirming them to himself, at the last day. SERMON XI. Preached at Lincoln's Inn, preparing them to build their Chapel. G●N. 28. 16, 17. Then jacob aw●ke out of his sleep, and said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware. And he was afraid, and said, Now fearful us this place! This is none other but the House of God, and this is the gate of Heaven. IN these verses jacob is a Surveyor, he considers a fit place for the house of God; and in the very next verse, he is a Builder, he erects Bethel, the house of God itself. All was but a drowsiness, but a sleep, till he came to this Consideration; as soon as he awoke, he took knowledge of a fit place; as soon as he found the place, he went about the work. But to that we shall not come yet. But this Text, being a preparation for the building of a house to God, though such a house as jacob built then, require no contribution, yet because such Churches, as we build now, do, we shall first say a little, of that great virtue of Charity; and then somewhat of that virtue, as it is exercised by advancing the house of God, and his outward worship; And thirdly we shall consider Iacob's steps, and proceedings, in this action of his. This virtue then, Charity, is it, that conducts its in this life, 1. Part. and accompanies us in the next. In heaven, where we shall know God, there may be no use of faith; Charitas. In heaven, where we shall see God, there may be no use of hope; but in heaven, where God the Father, and the Son, love one another in the Holy Ghost, the bond of charity shall everlastingly unite us together. But Charitas in patria, and Charitas in via, differ m this, That there we shall love one another because we shall not need one another, for we shall all be full● Here the exercise of our charity is, because we do stand in need of one another. Dives & pauper duo sunt sibi contraria; sed iterum duo sunt sibi necessaria; August. Rich, and poor are contrary to one another, but yet both necessary to one another; They are both necessary to one another; but the poor man is the more necessary; because though one man might be rich, though no man were poor, yet he could have no exercise of his charity, he could send none of his riches to heaven, to help him there, except there were some poor here. He that is too fat, would fain divest some of that, though he could give that to no other man, that lacked it; And shall not he that is wantonly pampered, nay, who is heavily laden, and encumbered with temporal abundances, be content to discharge himself of some of that, wherewith he is over-straighted, upon those poor souls, whom God hath not made poor for any sin of theirs, or of their fathers, but only to present rich men exercise of their charity, and occasions of testifying their love to Christ; who having given himself, to convey salvation upon thee, if that conveyance may be sealed to thee, by giving a little of thine own, is it not an easy purchase? When a poor wretch begs of thee, and thou givest, thou dost but justice, it is his. But when he begs of God for thee, and God gives thee, this is mercy; this was none of thine. When we shall come to our Red rationem villicationis, to give an account of our Stewardship, when we shall not measure our inheritance by Acres, but all heaven shall be ours, and we shall follow the Lamb, wheresoever he goes, when our estate, and term shall not be limited by years, and lives, but, as we shall be in the presence of the Ancient of days, so our days shall be so far equal to his, as that they shall be without end; Then will our great Merchants, great practisers, great purchasers, great Contracters, find another language, another style, than they have been accustomed to, here. There no man shall be called a prodigal, but only the Covetous man; Only he that hath been too diligent a keeper, shall appear to have been an unthrift, and to have wasted his best treasure, the price of the blood of Christ jesue, his own soul. There no man shall be called good security, but he that hath made sure his salvation. No man shall be called a Subsidy man, but he that hath relieved Christ Jesus; in his sick, and hungry Members. No man shall be called a wise Steward, but he that hath made friends of the wicked Mammon; Nor provident Merchant, but he that sold all to buy the pearl; Nor a great officer, but he that desires to be a doorkeeper in the kingdom of Heaven. Now, every man hath a key to this door of heaven. Every man hath some means to open it; every man hath an oil to anoint this key, and make it turn easily; he may go with more case to Heaven, than he doth to Hell. Every man hath some means to pour this oil of gladness and comfort into another's heart; No man can say, Quid retribuam tibi Domine; Lord what have I to give thee? for every man hath something to give God: Money, or labour, or counsel, or prayers. Every man can give, and he gives to God, who gives to them that need it, for his sake. Come not to that expostulation, When did we see thee hungry, or sick, or imprisoned, and did not minister? Nor to that, Quid retribuam, What can I give, that lack myself: lest God come also to that silence, and weariness of ask at thy hands, to say, as he says in the Psalm, If I be hungry, I will not tell thee; That though he have given thee abundance, though he lack himself in his children, yet he will not tell thee, he will not ask at thy hands, he will not enlighten thine understanding, he will not awaken thy charity, he will not give thee any occasion of doing good, with that which he hath given thee. But God hath given thee a key: yea as he says to the Church of Philadelphia, Revel. 3. 8. Behold I set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it. Thou hast a gate into Heaven in thyself; If thou be'st not sensible of others men's poverties, and distresses, yet Miserere animae tuae, have mercy on thine own soul; thou hast a poor guest, an Inmate, a sojourner, within these mudwals, this corrupt body of thine; be merciful and compassionate to that Soul; cloth that Soul, which is stripped and left naked, of all her original righteousness; feed that Soul, which thou hast starved; purge that Soul, which thou hast infected; warm, and thaw that Soul; which thou hast frozen with indevotion; cool, and quench that Soul which thou hast inflamed with licentiousness; Miserere animae tuae, begin with thine own Soul; be charitable to thyself first, and thou wilt remember, that God hath made of one blood, all Mankind, and thou wilt find out thyself, in every other poor Man, and thou wilt find Christ Jesus himself in them all. Now of those divers gates, which God opens in this life, 2. Part. those divers exercises of charity, the particular which we are occasioned to speak of here, is not the clothing, nor feeding of Christ, but the housing of him, The providing Christ a house, a dwelling; whether this were the very place, where Solomon's Temple was after built, is perplexedly, and perchance, impertinently controverted by many; but howsoever, here was the house of God, and here was the gate of Heaven. It is true, God may be devoutly worshipped any where; Ubique. In omni loco dominationis ejus benedic anima mea Domino; In all places of his dominion, my Soul shall praise the Lord, says David. It is not only a concurring of men, a meeting of so many bodies that makes a Church; If thy soul, and body be met together, an humble preparation of the mind, and a reverend disposition of the body, if thy knees be bend to the earth, thy hands and eyes lifted up to heaven, if thy tongue pray, and praise, and thine ears hearken to his answer, if all thy senses, and powers, and faculties, be met with one unanime purpose to worship thy God, thou art, to this intendment, a Church, thou art a Congregation, here are two or three met together in his name, and he is in the midst of them, though thou be alone in thy chamber. The Church of God should be built upon a Rock, and yet job had his Church upon a Dunghill; The bed is a scene, and an emblem of wantonness, and yet Hezekiah had his Church in his Bed; The Church is to be placed upon the top of a Hill, and yet the Prophet jeremy had his Church in Luto, in a miry Dungeon; Constancy, and settledness belongs to the Church, and yet jonah had his Church in the Whale's belly; The Lion that roars, and seeks whom he may devour, is an enemy to this Church, and yet Daniel had his Church in the Lion's den; Aquae quietudinum, the waters of rest in the Psalm, were a figure of the Church, and yet the three children had their Church in the fiery furnace; Liberty & life appertain to the Church, and yet Peter, & Paul had their Church in prison, and the thief had his Church upon the Crosse. Every particular man is himself Templum Spiritus sancti, a Temple of the holy Ghost; yea, Solvite templum hoc, destroy this body by death, and corruption in the grave, john 10. yet there shall be Festum encaeniorum, a renewing, a re-edifying of all those Temples, in the general Resurrection: when we shall rise again, not only as so many Christians, but as so many Christian Churches, to glorify the Apostle, and Highpriest of our profession, Heb. 3. 1. Christ Jesus, in that eternal Sabbath. In omni loco domi●ationis ejus, Every person, every place is fit to glorify God in. God is not tied to any place; not by essence; Implet & continendo implet, In templo. Augustin. God fills every place, and fills it by containing that place in himself; but he is tied by his promise to a manifestation of himself, by working in some certain places. Though God were long before he required, or admitted a sumptuous Temple, (for Solomon's Temple was not built, in almost five hundred years after their return out of Egypt) though God were content to accept their worship, and their sacrifices, at the Tabernacle, (which was a transitory, and movable Temple) yet at last he was so careful of his house, as that himself gave the model, and platform of it; and when it was built, and after repaired again, he was so jealous of appropriating, and confining all his solemn worship to that particular place, as that he permitted that long schism, and dissension, between the Samaritans, and the jews, only about the place of the worship of God; They differed not in other things: but whether in Mount Zion, or in Mount Garizim. And the feast of the dedication of this Temple, which was yearly celebrated, received so much honour, as that Christ himself vouchsafed to be personally present at that solemnity; though it were a feast of the institution of the Church, and not of God immediately, as their other festivals were, yet Christ forbore not to observe it, upon that pretence, that it was but the Church that had appointed it to be observed. So that, as in all times, God had manifested, and exhibited himself in some particular places, more than other, (in the Pillar in the wilderness, and in the Tabernacle, and in the pool, which the Angel troubled) so did Christ himself, by his own presence, ceremoniously, justify, and authorize this dedication of places consecrated to God's outward worship, not only once, but anniversarily by a yearly celebration thereof. To descend from this great Temple at Jerusalem, Synagogue. to which God had annexed his solemn, and public worship, the lesser Synagogues, and Chappells of the jews, in other places, were ever esteemed great testimonies of the sanctity and piety of the founders, for Christ accepts of that reason which was presented to him, Luke 7. 4. in the behalf of the Centurion, He is worthy that thou shouldst do this for him, for he loveth our Nation; And how hath he testified it? He hath built us a Synagogue. He was but a stranger to them, and yet he furthered, and advanced the service of God amongst them, of whose body he was no member. This was that Centurion's commendation; Ambros. Et quanto commedatior qui adificat Ecclesiam, How much more commendation deserve they, that build a Church for Christian service? And therefore the first Christians made so much haste to the expressing of their devotion, that even in the Apostles time, for all their poverty, and persecution, they were come to have Churches: as most of the Fathers, and some of our later Expositors, understand these words, (Have ye not houses to eat and drink, or do ye despise the Church of God?) to be spoken, 1 Cor. not of the Church as it is a Congregation, but of the Church as it is a Material building. Abdias Anaclet. Durant. d●it l. 1. c. l. Yea, if we may believe some authors, that are pretended to be very ancient, there was one Church dedicated to the memory of Saint john, and another by Saint Mark, to the memory of Saint Peter, whilst yet both Saint John, and Saint Peter were alive. Howsoever, it is certain, that the purest and most innocent times, even the infancy of the Primitive Church, found this double way of expressing their devotion, in this particular of building Churches, first that they built them only to the honour, and glory of God, without giving him any partner, and then they built them for the conserving of the memory of those blessed servants of God, who had sealed their profession with their blood, and at whose Tombs, God had done such Miracles, as these times needed, for the propagation of his Church. They built their Churches principally for the glory of God, but yet they added the names of some of his blessed servants and Martyrs; L●o. for so says he, (who as he was Peter's successor, so he is the most sensible feeler, and most earnest, and powerful promover and expresser, of the dignities of Saint Peter, of all the Fathers) speaking of Saint Peter's Church, Beato Petri Basilica, quae uni Deo vero & vivo dicata est, Saint Peter's Church is dedicated to the only living God; They are things compatible enough to bear the name of a Saint, and yet to be dedicated to God. There the bodies of the blessed Martyrs, did peacefully attend their glorification; There the Histories of the Martyrs were recited and proposed to the Congregation, for their example, and imitation; There the names of the Martyrs were inserted into the public prayers, and liturgies, by way of presenting the thanks of the Congregation to God, for having raised so profitable men in the Church; and there the Church did present their prayers to God, for those Martyrs, that God would hasten their glory, and final consummation, in reuniting their bodies, and souls, in a joyful resurrection. But yet though this divers mention were made of the Saints of God, in the house of God, Non Martyrs ipsi, sed Deus ●orum, nobis est Deus, only God, Augustin. and not those Martyrs, is our God; we and they serve all one Master; we dwell all in one house; in which God hath appointed us several services; Those who have done their days work, God hath given them their wages, and hath given them leave to go to bed; they have laid down their bodies in peace to sleep there, till the Sun rise again; till the Sun of grace and glory, Christ jesus, appear in judgement; we that are yet left to work, and to watch, we must go forward in the services of God in his house, with that moderation, and that equality, as that we worship only our Master, but yet despise not our fellow servants, that are gone before us: That we give to no person, the glory of God, but that we give God the more glory, for having raised such servants: That we acknowledge the Church to be the house only of God, and that we admit no Saint, no Martyr, to be a lointenant with him; but yet that their memory may be an encouragement, yea and a seal to us, that that peace, and glory, which they possess, belongs also unto us in reversion, and that therefore we may cheerfully gratulate their present happiness, by a devout commemoration of them, with such a temper, and evenness, as that we neither dishonour God, by attributing to them, that which is inseparably his, nor dishonour them in taking away that which is theirs, in removing their Names out of the Collects, and prayers of the Church, or their Monuments, and memorials out of the body of the Church: for, those respects to them, the first Christian founder's of Churches did admit in those pure times, Damase. when Illa obsequia, ornamenta memoriarum, n●n sacrificia mortuorum, when those devotions in their names, were only commemorations of the dead, not sacrifices to the dead, as they are made now in the Roman Church: when Bellarmine will needs falsify chrysostom, to read Adoramus monumenta, in stead of Adornamus; and to make that which was but an Adorning, an adoring of the Tombs of the Martyrs. This than was in all times, a religious work, an acceptable testimony of devotion, to build God a house; to contribute something to his outward glory. The goodness, and greatness of which work, appears evidently, and shines gloriously, even in those several names, by which the Church was called, and styled, in the writings, and monuments of the Ancient Fathers, and the Ecclesiastic story. It may serve to our edification (at least) and to the axalting of our devotion, to consider some few of them: First then the Church was called Ecclesia, that is, a company, a Congregation; Ecclesia. That whereas from the time of john Baptist, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and every violent Man, that is, every earnest, and zealous, and spiritually valiant Man, may take hold of it, we may be much more sure of doing so, in the Congregation, Tertul. Quando ag●●ine fact● Deum obsidemus, when in the whole body, we Muster our forces, and besiege God. For, here in the congregation, not only the kingdom of heaven, is fallen into our hands, The kingdom of heaven is amongst you, (as Christ says) but the King of heaven is fallen into our hands; When two, or three are gathered together in my Name, I will be in the midst of you; not only in the midst of us, to encourage us, but in the midst of us, to be taken by us, to be bound by us, by those hands, those covenants, those contracts, those rich, and sweet promises, which he hath made, and ratified unto us in his Gospel. A second name of the Church 〈◊〉 in use, was Dominicum: Dominicum. The Lord's possession; It is absolutely, it is entirely his; And therefore, as to shorten, and contract the possession and inheritance of God, the Church, so much, as to confine the Church only within the obedience of Rome, (as the Donatists imprisoned it in Africa) or to change the Landmarks of God's possession, and inheritance, which is the Church; either to set up new works, of outward prosperity, or of personal, and Local succession of Bishops, or to remove the old, and true marks, which are the Word, and Sacraments, as this is Injuria Dominico mystico, a wrong to the mystical body of Christ, the Church, so is it Injuria Dominico materiali, an injury to the Material body of Christ sacrilegiously to dilapidate, to despoil, or to demolish the possession of the Church, and so far to remove the marks of God's inheritance, as to mingle that amongst your temporal revenues, that God may never have, nor ever distinguish his own part again. And then (to pass faster over these names) It is called Domus Dei, Domus. Gods dwelling house. Now, his most glorious Creatures are but vehicula Dei; they are but chariots, which convey God, and bring him to our sight; The Tabernacle itself was but Mobilis domus, and Ecclesia portatilis, a house without a foundation; a running, a progress house: but the Church is his standing house; there are his offices fixed: there are his provisions, which fat the Soul of Man, as with marrow and with fatness, his precious blood, and body: there work his seals; there beats his Mint; there is absolution, and pardon for past sins, there is grace for prevention of future in his Sacraments. But the Church is not only Domus Dei, but Basilica; not only his house, Basilica. but his Court: he doth not only dwell there, but reign there: which multiplies the joy of his household servants: The Lord reigneth, let all the earth rejoice, yea let the multitude of the Islands be glad thereof. That the Church was usually called Martyrium, that is, Martyrium. a place of Confession, where we open our wounds and receive our remedy, Oratorium. That it was called Oratorium, where we might come, and ask necessary things at God's hands, all these teach us our several duties in that place, and they add to their spiritual comfort, who have been God's instruments, for providing such places, as God may be glorified in, and the godly benefited in all these ways. But of all Names, which were then usually given to the Church, the name of Temple seems to be most large, and significant, as they derive it à Tuendo; for Tueri signifies both our beholding, and contemplating God in the Church: and it signifies Gods protecting, and defending those that are his, in his Church: Tueri embraces both; And therefore, though in the very beginning of the Primitive Church, to depart from the custom, and language, and phrase of the jews, and Gentiles, as far as they could, they did much abstain from this name of Temple, and of Priest, so that till Ireneus time, some hundred eighty years after Christ, we shall not so often find those words, Temple, or Priest, yet when that danger was overcome, when the Christian Church, and doctrine was established, from that time downward, all the Fathers did freely, and safely call the Church the Temple, and the Ministers in the Church, Priests, as names of a religious, and pious signification; where before out of a loathness to do, or say any thing like the jews, or Gentiles, where a concurrence with them, might have been misinterpretable, and of ill consequence, they had called the Church by all those other names, which we passed through before; and they called their Priests, by the name of Elders, Presbyteros: but after they resumed the use of the word Temple again, as the Apostle had given a good pattern, who to express the principal holiness of the Saints of God, he chooses to do it, in that word, 2 Cor. 6. 16. ye are the Temples of the holy Ghost: which should incline us to that moderation, that when the danger of these ceremonies which corrupt times had corrupted, is taken away, we should return to a love of that Antiquity, which did purely, and harmelesly induce them: when there is no danger of abuse, there should be no difference for the use of things, (in themselves indifferent) made necessary by the just commandment of lawful authority. Thus than you see as far (as the narrowness of the time will give us leave to express it) the general manner of the best times, to declare devotion towards God, to have been in appropriating certain places to his worship; And since it is so in this particular history of Jacob's proceeding in my text, I may be hold to invert these words of David, Nisi Deus aedificaverit domum, unless the Lord do build the house, in vain do the labourer's work, thus much, as to say, Nisi Domino aedificaveritis domum, except thou build a house for the Lord, in vain dost thou go about any other buildings, or any other business in this world. I speak not merely literally of building Material Chappells; (yet I would speak also to further that;) but I speak principally of building such a Church, as every man may build in himself: for whensoever we present our prayers, and devotions deliberately, and advisedly to God, there we consecreate that place, there we build a Church. And therefore, beloved, since every master of a family, who is a Bishop in his house, should call his family together, to humble, and pour out their souls to God, let him consider, that when he comes to kneel at the side of his table, to pray, he comes to build a Church there; and therefore should sanctify that place, with a due, and penitent consideration how voluptuously he hath formerly abused Gods blessings at that place, how superstitiously, and idolatrously he hath flattered and humoured some great and useful guests invited by him to that place, how expensively, he hath served his own ostentation and vainglory, by excessive feasts at that place, whilst Lazarus hath lain panting, and gasping at the gate; and let him consider what a dangerous Mockery this is to Christ jesus, if he pretend by kneeling at that table, fashionally to build Christ a Church by that solemnity at the table side, and then crucify Christ again, by these sins, when he is sat at the table. When thou kneelest down at thy bed side, to shut up the day at night, or to begin it in the morning, thy servants, thy children, thy little flock about thee, there thou buildest a Church too: And therefore sanctify that place; wash it with thy tears, and with a repentant consideration; That in that bed thy children were conceived in sin, that in that bed thou hast turned marriage which God afforded thee for remedy, and physic to voluptuosness, and licentiousness; That thou hast made that bed which God gave thee for rest, and for reparation of thy weary body, to be as thy dwelling, and delight, and the bed of idleness, and stupidity. Briefly, you that are Masters, continue in this building of Churches, that is, in drawing your families to pray, and praise God, and sanctify those several places of bed, and board, with a right use of them; And for you that are servants, you have also foundations of Churches in you, if you dedicate all your actions, consecreate all your services principally to God, and respectively to them, whom God hath placed over you. But principally, let all of all sorts, who present themselves at this table, consider, that in that receiving his body, and his blood, every one doth as it were conceive Christ Jesus anew; Christ Jesus hath in every one of them, as it were a new incarnation, by uniting himself to them in these visible signs. And therefore let no Man come hither, without a search, and a privy search, without a consideration, and re-consideration of his conscience. Let him that began to think of it, but this morning, stay till the next. When Moses pulled his hand first out of his bosom, it was white as snow, but it was leprous; Exod. 1. 4. 6. when he pulled it the second time, it was of the colour of flesh, but it was sound. When thou examinest thy conscience but once, but flightly, it may appear, white as snow, innocent; but examine it again, and it will confess many fleshly infirmities, and then it is the sounder for that; though not for the infirmity, yet for the confession of the infirmity. Neither let that hand, that reaches out to this body, in a guiltiness of pollution, and uncleanness, or in a guiltiness of extortion, or undeserved see, ever hope to sign a conveyance, that shall fasten his inheritance upon his children, to the third generation, ever hope to assign a will that shall be observed after his death; ever hope to lift up itself for mercy to God, at his death; but his case shall be like the case of judas, if the devil have put in his heart, to betray Christ, to make the body and blood of Christ Jesus false witnesses to the congregation of his hypocritical sanctity, Satan shall enter into him, with this sop, and seal his condemnation. Beloved, in the bowels of that Jesus, who is coming into you, even in spiritual riches, it is an unthrifty thing, to anticipate your moneys, to receive your rents, before they are due: and this treasure of the soul, the body, and blood of your Saviour, is not due to you yet, if you have not yet passed, a mature, and a severe examination, of your conscience. It were better that your particular friends, or that the congregation, should observe in you, an abstinence and forbearing to day, and make what interpretation, they would of that forbearing then that the holy Ghost should deprehend you, in an unworthy receiving; lest, as the Master of the feast said to him that came without his wedding garment, then when he was set, Amice quomodo intrâsti, friend how came you in? so Christ should say to thee, then when thou art upon thy knees, and hast taken him into thy hands, Amice quomodo intrabo, friend how can I enter into thee, who hast not swept thy house, who hast made no preparation for me? But to those that have, he knocks and he enters, and he ●ups with them, and he is a supper to them. And so this consideration of making Churches of our houses, and of our hearts, leads us to a third part, the particular circumstances, in Jacob's action. In which there is such a change, such a dependence, 3. Part. whether we consider the Metal, or the fashion, the several doctrines, or the sweetness, and easiness, of raising them, as scarce in any other place, a fuller harmony. Divisio. The first link is the Tunc jacob, than jacob; which is a Tunc consequentiae, rather than a Tunc temporis; It is not so much, at what time jacob did, or said this, as upon what occasion. The second link is, Quid operatum, what this wrought upon jacob; It awaked him out of his sleep, A third is Quid ille, what he did, and that was, Et dixit, he came to an open profession of that, which he conceived, he said; and a fourth is, Quid dixit, what this profession was; And in that, which is a branch with much fruit, a pregnant part, a part containing many parts, thus much is considerable, that he presently acknowledged, and assented to their light which was given him, the Lord is in this place; And he acknowledged his own darkness, till that light came upon him, Et ego nesciebam, I knew it not; And then upon this light received, he admitted no scruple, no hesitation, but came presently to a confident assurance, Verè Dominus, surely, of a certainty, the Lord is in this place; And then another doctrine is, Et timuit, he was afraid; for all his confidence he had a reverential fear; not a distrust, but a reverend respect to that great Majesty; and upon this fear, there is a second, Et dixit, he spoke again; this fear did not stupefy him, he recovers again and discerned the manifestation of God, in that particular place, Quam terribilis, how fearful is this place; And then the last link of this chain is, Quid inde, what was the effect of all this; and that is, that he might erect a Monument, and mark for the worship of God in this place, Quia non nisi domus, because this is none other than the house of God, and the gate of heaven. Now I have no purpose to make you afraid of enlarging all these points: I shall only pass through some of them, paraphrastically, and trust them with the rest, (for they insinuate one another) and trust your christianly meditation with them all. The first link than is, the Tunc jacob, the occasion, (than jocob did this) which was, Tunc. that God had revealed to jocob, that vision of the ladder, whose foot stood upon earth, and whose top reached to heaven, upon which ladder God stood, and Angels went up and down. Now this ladder is for the most part, understood to be Christ himself; whose foot, that touched the earth, is his humanity, and his top that reached to heaven, his Divinity; The ladder is Christ, and upon him the Angels, (his Ministers) labour for the edifying of the Church; And in this labour, upon this ladder, God stands above it, governing, and ordering all things, according to his providence in his Church. Now when this was revealed to jacob, now when this is revealed to you, that God hath let fall a ladder, a bridge between heaven, and earth, that Christ, whose divinity departed not from heaven, came down to us into this world, that God the father stands upon this ladder, as the Original hath it, Nitzab, that he leans upon this ladder, as the vulgar hath it, Innixus scalae, that he rests upon it, as the holy Ghost did, upon the ●ame ladder, that is, upon Christ, in his baptism, that upon this ladder, which stretches so far, and is provided so well, the Angel's labour, the Ministers of God do their offices, when this was, when this is manifested, than it became jacob, and now it becomes every Christian, to do something for the advancing of the outward glory, and worship of God in his Church: when Christ is content to be this ladder, when God is content to govern this ladder, when the Angels are content to labour upon this ladder, which ladder is Christ, and the Christian Church, shall any Christian Man forbear his help to the necessary building, and to the sober and modest adorning of the material Church of God? God studies the good of the Church, Angel's labour for it; and shall Man, who is to receive all the profit of this, do nothing? This is the Tunc jacob; when there is a free preaching of the Gospel, there should be a free, and liberal disposition, to advance his house. Well; to make haste, the second link is Quid operatum, Quid operatum. what this wrought upon jacob: and it is, jacob awoke out of his sleep. Now in this place, the holy Ghost imputes no sinful sleep to jacob; but it is a natural sleep of lassitude and weariness after his travel, there is an ill sleep, an indifferent, and a good sleep, which is that heavenly sleep, that tranquillity, which that soul, which is at peace with God, and divided from the storms, and distractions of this world, enjoys in itself. That peace, which made the blessed Martyrs of Christ Jesus sleep upon the rack, upon the burning coals, upon the points of swords, when the persecutors were more troubled to invent torments, than the Christians to suffer. That sleep, from which, ambition, not danger, no nor when their own house is on fire, (that is, their own concupiscences) cannot awaken them; not so awaken them, that it can put them out of their own constancy, and peaceful confidence in God. That sleep, which is the sleep of the spouse, Ego dormio, sed cor meum vigil●t, I sleep, but my heart is awake; Cant. 5. It was no dead sleep when she was able to speak advisedly in it, and say she was asleep, and what sleep it was: It was no stupid sleep, when her heart was awake. This is the sleep of the Saints of God, which Saint Gregory describes, Sancti non t●rpore; Gregory. sed virtue s●piuntur; It is not sluggishness, but innocence, and a good conscience, that casts them asleep. Laboriosi●s dormium, they are busier in their sleep, nay, Vigita●●ius, dor●●iunt; they are more awake in their sleep, than the watchful men of this world; for when they close their eyes in meditation of God, even their dreams are services to him, S●mniant se dicere Psalmos, says Saint Ambrose; Ambros. they dream that they sing psalms; and they do more than dream it, they do sing. But yet even from this holy, and religious sleep (which is a departing from the allurements of the world, and a retiring to the only contemplation of heaven, and heavenly things) jacob may be conceived to have awaked, and we must awake; It is note enough to shut ourselves in a cloister, in a Monastery, to sleep out the tentations of the world, but since the ladder is placed, the Church established, since God, and the Angels are awake in this business, in advancing the Church, we also must labour, in our several vocations, and not content ourselves with our own spiritual sleep; the peace of conscience in ourselves; for we cannot have that long, Mar. 4. 37. if we do not some good to others. When the storm had almost drowned the ship, Christ was at his ease in that storm, asleep upon a pillow. Now Christ was in no danger himself; All the water of Noah's flood, multiplied over again by every drop, could not have drowned him. All the swords of an Army could not have killed him, till the hour was come, when he was pleased to lay down his soul. But though he were safe, yet they awaked him, and said, Master carest thou not though we perish? So though a man may be in a good state, in a good peace of conscience, and sleep confidently in it, yet other men's necessities must awaken him, and though perchance he might pass more safely, if he might live a retired life, yet upon this ladder some Angels ascended, some descended, but none stood still but God himself. Till we come to him, to sleep an eternal Sabbath in heaven, though this religious sleep of enjoying or retiring and contemplation of God, be a heavenly thing, yet we must awake even out of this sleep, and contribute our pains, to the building, or furnishing, or serving of God in his Church. Out of a sleep (conceive it what sleep soever) jacob awaked; and then, Quid ille dixit. Quid ille? what did he? Dixit, he spoke, he entered presently into an open profession of his thoughts, he smothered nothing, he disguised nothing. God is light, and loves clearness; thunder, and wind, and tempests, and chariots, and roaring of Lions, and falling of waters are the ordinary emblems of his messages, and his messengers in the Scriptures. Christ who is Sapientia Dei, the wisdom of God, is Verb●●, Serm● Dei, the word of God, he is the wisdom, and the uttering of the wisdom of God, as Christ is expressed to be the word, so a Christians duty is to speak dearly, and profess his religion. With how much scorn and reproach Saint Cyprian fastens the name of Libellatices upon them, who in time of persecution durst not say they were Christians, but underhand compounded with the State, that they might live unquestioned, undiscovered, for though they kept their religion in their heart, yet Christ was defrauded of his honour. And such a reproach, and scorn belongs to them, who for fear of losing worldly preferments, and titles, and dignities, and rooms at great Tables, dare not say, of what religion they are. Beloved, it is not enough to awake out of an ill sleep of sin, or of ignorance, or out of a good sleep, out of a retiredness, and take some profession, if you wink, or hide yourselves, when you are awake, you shall not see the Ladder, not discern Christ, nor the working of his Angels, that is, the Ministry of the Church, and the comforts therein, you shall not hear that Harmony of the choir of heaven, if you will bear no part in it; an inward acknowledgement of Christ is not enough, if you forbear to profess him, where your testimony might glorify him. Chrys. Si sufficeret fides cordis, non creasset tibi Deus ●s, If the heart were enough, God would never have made a mouth; And to that, we may add, Si sufficeret os, non creasset manus, if the mouth were enough, God would never have made hands; for as the same Father says, Omni tuba clarior est per opera 〈◊〉, no voice more audible, none more credible, then when thy hands speak as well as thy heart or thy tongue; Thou art then perfectly awaked out of thy sleep, when thy words and works declare, and manifest it. The next is, Quid dixit; be spoke, Quid. but what said he ● first, he assented to that light which was given him. The Lord is in his place. He resisted not this light, he went not about to blow it out, by admitting reason, or disputation against it. He imputed it not to witchcraft, to illusion of the Devil; but Dominus est in loco isto, The Lord is in this place; O how many heavy sins, how many condemnations might we avoid, if we would but take knowledge of this, Dominus in loco isto, That the Lord is present, and sees us now, and shall judge hereafter, all that we do, or think. It keeps a man sometimes from corrupting, or soliciting a woman, to say, Peter, Maritus in loco, the Father, or the Husband is present; it keeps a man from an usurious contract to say, Lex in loco, the Law will take knowledge of it; it keeps a man from slandering or calummating another, to say, Testis in loco, here is a witness by; but this is Catholica Medicina, and Omni morbia, an universal medicine for all, to say, Dominus in loco, The Lord is in this place, and sees, and heaves, and therefore I will say, and think, and do, as if I were now summoned by the last● Trumpet, to give an account of my thoughts, and words, and deeds to him. But the Lord was there and jacob knew it not. Nesciebam. As he takes knowledge by the first light of God's presence, so he acknowledges that he had none of this light, of himself, Ego nesciebam, jacob a Patriarch and dearly beloved of God, knew not that God was so near him. How much less shall a sinful man, that multiples sins, like clouds between God and him, know, that God is near him? As Saint Augustine said, when he came out of curiousty to hear Saint Ambrose preach at Mila●, without any desire of profiting thereby, Appropinquavi, & vesciebam, I came 〈◊〉 God, but knew it not; So the customary and habitual sinners, may say, Elo●gavi, & nisciebam, I have ●loyn'd myself, I have gone farther, and farther from my God, and was never sensible of it; It is a desperate Ignorance, not to be sensible of God's absence; but to acknowledge with jacob, that we cannot see light, but by that light, that we cannot know God's presence but by his revealing of himself, is a religious, and a Christian humility. To know it by Reason, by Philosophy, is a dim and a faint knowledge, but only by the testimony of his own spirit, and his own revealing, we come to that confidence, Vere. Verè Domine, Surely the Lord is in this place. Est apud 〈◊〉, sed de●●●●lans, God is with the wicked, but he dissembles his being there, that is, B●rn. conceals it, he will not be known of it; Et 〈◊〉, mal●rum dissi●●●latio quodammodo Veritas non est, when God winks at men's sins, when he dissembles, or disguises his knowledge, we may almost say, says Saint Bernard, Veritas non est, Here is not direct dealing, here is not entire truth, his presence is scarce a true presence. And therefore as the same Father proceeds, Si dicere licet, if we may be bold to express it so, Apud impios est, sed in dissimulatione, he is with the wicked, but yet he dissembles, he disguises his presence, he is there to no purpose, to no profit of theirs; but Est apud justos in veritate, with the righteous he is in truth, and in clearness. Est apud Angel●s in foelicitate, with the Angels and Saints in heaven, he is in an established happiness, Est apud inferos in feritate, he is in Hell in his ●ury, in an irrevocable, and undeterminable execution of his severity: God was surely, and truly with jacob, and with all them, who are sensible of his approaches, and of his gracious manifestation of himself. Verè non erat apud eos quibus dixit, quid vocati●● me Dominum, & non facitis qua dixi vobis? God is not truly with them, Idem. whom he rebukes for saying; Why call ye 〈◊〉 Lord, and do not my Commandments? but ubi in ejus nomive Angeli simul & homines congregantur, When Angels and men, Priest and people, Idem. the Preacher and the congregation labour together upon this Ladder, study the advancing of his Church (as by the working of God's gracious Spirit we do at this time) 〈◊〉 verè est & ibi verè Dominus est, surely he is in this place, and surely he is Lord in this place, he possesses, he fills us all, he governs us all: and as, though we say to him, Our Father which art in heaven, yet we believe that he is within these walls, so though we say Adveniat regnum tuum, thy kingdom come, we believe that his kingdom is come, and is amongst us in grace now, as it shall be in glory hereafter. When he was now throughly awake, when he was come to an open profession, Timnit. when he acknowledged himself to stand in the sight of God, when he confessed his own ignorance of God's presence, and when after all he was come to a settled confidence, Verè Dominus, surely the Lord is here, yet it is added, Et timuit, and he was afraid. No man may think himself to be come to that familiar acquaintance with God, as that it should take away that reverential fear which belongs to so high and supreme a Majesty. judg. 13. When the Angel appeared to the wife of Manoah, foretelling Samsons birth, she says to her husband, the fashion of him was like the fashion of the Angel of God; what's that? Exceeding fearful. When God appears to thy soul, even in mercy, in the forgiveness of thy sins, yet there belongs a fear even to this apprehension of mercy: Not a fearful diffidence, not a distrust, but a fearful consideration, of that height, and depth; what a high Majesty thou hast offended, what a desperate depth thou wast falling into, what a fearful thing it had been, to have fallen into the hands of the living God, and what an irrecoverable wretch thou hadst been, if God had not manifested himself, to have been in that place, with thee And therefore though he have appeared unto thee in mercy, yet be afraid, lest he go away again; As Manoab prayed, and said, I beseech thee my Lord, let the Man of God, whom thou sentest, come again unto us, and teach us, what we shall do with the child; when he is born, so when God hath once appeared to thy soul in mercy, pray him to come again, and tell thee what thou shouldest do with that mercy, how thou shouldest husband those first degrees of grace and of comfort, to the farther benefit of thy soul, and the farther glory of his name, and be afraid that thy dead flies may putrefy his ointment; those relics of sin, job 4. 14. (though the body of sin, be crucified in thee) which are left in thee, may overcome his graces: for upon those words, Pavor tenuit me & tremor, & emni●●ssa mea perterrita sunt, fear came upon me, and trembling, Gregory. which made all my bones to shake, Saint Gregory says well, Quid per ●ssa nisi fortia act a designantur, our good deeds, our strongest works and those which were done in the best strength of grace, are meant by our bones, and yet ossa perterrita our strongest works tremble at the presence and examination of God. Psalm. 35. 10. And therefore to the like purpose (upon those words of the Psalm) the same Father says, Omnia ossa mea dicent, Domine quis similis tibi, all my bones say, Lord who is like unto thee? Carnes meae, verba non habent, (my fleshly parts, my carnal affections) Infirma mea funditus silent, my sins; or my infirmities dare not speak at all, not appear at all, Sed ossa mea, quae fortia credidi, sua consideratione tremiscunt, my very bones shake, there is no degree, no state neither of innocence, nor of repentance, nor of faith, nor of sanctification, above that fear of God: and he is least acquainted with God, who things that he is so familiar, that he need not stand in fear of him. Et dixit. But this fear hath no ill effect. It brings him to a second profession, Et dixit; and he spoke again. He waked, and then he spoke, as soon as he came out of ignorance; He was afraid, and then he spoke again that he might have an increase of grace. The earth stands still: and earthly Men may be content to do so: Bern. but he whose conversation is in heaven, is as the heavens are in continual progress. For Inter profectum, & defectum & defectum, medium in hac vita non datur. A Christian is always in a proficiency, or deficiency: If he go not forward, he goes backward. Nemo dicat, satis est, sic manere vol●; Let no man say, I have done enough, I have made my profession already, I have been catechised, I have been thought fit to receive the Communion, sufficit mihi esse sicut heri & nudiustertius; though he be in the way, in the Church, yet he sleeps in the way, he is got no farther in the way, than his godfathers carried him in their arms, to engraft him in the Church by Baptism: for this man, says he, Idem. In via residet, in scala subsistit, quod nemo angelorum fecit, he stands still upon the ladder, Luke 2. 52. and so did none of the Angels. Christ himself, increased in wildome, and in stature, and in favour with God, and Man; so must a Christian also labour to grow and to increase, by speaking and speaking again, by ask more, and more questions, and by farther, Act. 10. 58. and farther informing his understanding, and enlightening his faith; per transiit benefaciendo, & sanavit omnes, says Saint Peter of Christ; He went about doing good, Acts 10. 38. and healing all that were oppressed of the Devil; and it was prophesied of him, Psal. 19 Exultavit ut Gigas ad currendam vim, He went forth as a Giant, to run a race; If it be Christ's pace, it must be a Christians pace too. Currentem non apprehendit, nisi qui & pariter currit; Bern. There is no overtaking of him that runs, without running too. Quid prodest Christum sequi, si non consequamur? and to what purpose do we follow Christ, if not to overtake him, and lay hold upon him? Sic currite, ut comprehendatis, fige Christiane cursus & profectus metam ubi Christus suum; run so as ye may obtain; and if thou be'st a Christian, propose the same end of thy course, as Christ did; factus est obediens usque ad mortem; and the end of his course was, to be obedient unto death. Speak then, and talk continually of the name, and the goodness of God; speak again, and again; It is no tautology, no babbling, to speak, and iterate his praises: Who accuses Saint Paul for repeating the sweet name of Jesus so very many times in his Epistles? Who accuses David for repeating the same phrase, the same sentence [for his mercy endureth for ever] so many times, as he doth in his Psalms? nay, the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm is scarce any thing else, than an often repetition of the same thing. Thou spokest assoon as thou wast awake, as soon as thou wast born, thou spokest in Baptism. So proceed to the farther knowledge of Religion, and the mysteries of God's service in his house; and conceive a fearful reverence of them in their institution, and speak again, inquire what they mean, what they signify, what they exhibit to thee. Conceive a reverence of them, first, out of the authority that hath instituted them, and then speak, and inform thyself of them. God spent a whole week in speaking for thy good; Dixit Deus, God spoke that there might be light, Dixit Deus, God sp●ke that there might be a firmament; for immediately upon Gods speaking, the work followed: Dixit & factum, he spoke the word, and the world was created. As God did, a godly man shall do; If he delight to talk of God, to mention often upon all occasions, the greatness, and goodness of God, to prefer that discourse, before obscene, and scurrile, and licentious, and profane, and defamatory, and ridiculous, and frivolous talk; If he delight in professing God with his tongue, out of the abundance of his heart, his works shall follow his words, he will do as he says. If God had given over, when he had spoke of Light, and a Firmament, and Earth, and Sea, and had not continued speaking till the last day, when he made thee, what hadst thou got by all that? what hadst thou been at all for all that? If thou canst speak when thou awakest, when thou beginnest to have an apprehension of God's presence, in a remorse, if then, that presence, and Majesty of God, make thee afraid, with the horror and greatness of thy sins, if thou canst not speak again then, not go forward with thy repentance; thy former speech is forgotten by God, and unprofitable to thee. jacob at first speaking confessed God to be in that place; but so he might be every where; but he conceived a reverential fear at his presence; and then he came to speak the second time, to profess, that that was none other but the house of God, and the gate of heaven; that there was an entrance for him in particular, a fit place for him to testify and exercise his Devotion; he came to see, what it was fit for him to do, towards the advancing of God's house. Now whensoever a man is proceeded so far with jacob, first to sleep, Domus. to be at peace with God, and then to wake, to do something for the good of others, and then to speak, to make profession, to publish his sense of God's presence, and then to attribute all this only to the Light of God himself, by which light he grows from faith to faith, and from grace to grace, whosoever is in this disposition, he may say in all places, and in all his actions, This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. He shall see heaven open, and dwell with him, in all his undertake: and particularly, and principally in his expressing of a care, and respect, both to Christ's Mystical, and to his material body; both to the sustentation of the poor, and to the building up of God's house. In both which kinds of Piety, and Devotion, (non nobis Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam; Not unto us O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy Name be given the glory;) As to the confusion of those shameless slanderers, who place their salvation in works, and accuse us to avert men from good works, there have been in this Kingdom, since the blessed reformation of Religion, more public charitable works performed, more Hospitals and Celleges erected, and endowed in threescore, then in some hundreds of years, of superstition before, so may God be pleased to add one example more amongst us, that here in this place, we may have some occasion to say, of a house erected, and dedicated to his service, This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven: and may he vouchsafe to accept at our hands, in our intention, and in our endeavour to consummate that purpose of ours, that thanksgiving, that acclamation which he received from his Royal servant Solomon, at the Consecration of his great Temple, when he said, Is it true indeed, 1 Reg. 8. 27. that God will dwell on the earth? Behold, the heavens, and the heaven of heavens are not able to contain thee, how much more unable shall this house be, that we intent to build? But have thou respect unto the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord, my God, to hear the cry & the prayer that thy servant shall make before thee that day; That thine eye may be open towards that house night and day, that thou mayst hear the supplications of thy servants, and of thy people, which shall pray in that place, and that thou mayst hear them in the place of thy habitation even in heaven, and when thou hearest, mayst have mercy. Amen. SERMON XII. Preached at Lincoln's Inn. JOHN 5. 22. The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgement to the Son. When our Saviour forbids us to cast pearl before swine, Mat. 7. 6. we understand ordinarily in that place, that by pearl, are understood the Scriptures, and when we consider the natural generation and production of Pearl, that they grow bigger and bigger, by a continual succession, and devolution of dew, and other glutinous moisture that falls upon them, and there condenses and hardens, so that a pearl is but a body of many shells, many crusts, many films, many coats enwrapped upon one another. To this Scripture which we have in hand, doth that Metaphor of pearl very properly appertain, because our Saviour Christ in this Chapter undertaking to prove his own Divinity and Godhead to the Jews, who acknowledged, and confessed the Father to be God, but denied it of him, he folds and wraps up reason upon reason, argument upon argument, that all things are common between the Father and him, That whatsoever the Father does, he does, whatsoever the Father is, he is; for first, he says, he is a partner, a cooperator with the Father, in the present administration and government of the world, Verse 17. My Father worketh hitherto, and I work; well, if the Father do ease himself upon instruments now, yet was it so from the beginning? had he a part in the Creation? Yes; What things soever the Father doth, those also doth the Son likewise. But do those extend to the work properly, Verse 19 and naturally belonging to God, to the remission, to the effusion of grace, to the spiritual resurrection of them that are dead in their iniquities? Yes, even to that too, For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, Verse 21. even to the Son quickeneth whom he will. But hath not this power of his a determination, or expiration? shall it not end, at least when the world ends? no, not then, for God hath given him authority to execute judgement, because he is the Son of man. Verse 27. Is there then no Supersedeas upon this commission? Is the Son equal with the Father in our eternal election, in our creation, in the means of our salvation, in the last judgement, in all? In all, Omne judicium, God hath committed all judgement to the Son; And here is a pearl made up, the dew of God's grace sprinkled upon your souls, the beams of God's Spirit shed upon your souls, that effectual and working knowledge; That he who died for your salvation is perfect God, as well as perfect man, fit, as willing to accomplish that salvation. In handling then this judgement, which is a word that embraces and comprehends all, All from our Election, where no merit or future actions of ours were considered by God to our fruition and possession of that election, where all our actions shall be considered and recompensed by him, we shall see first that Judgement belongs properly to God; And secondly, that God the Father whom we consider to be the root and foundation of the Deity, can no more divest his Judgement than he can his Godhead, and therefore in the third place we consider, what that committing of Judgement, which is mentioned here imports, and then to whom it is committed, To the Son: and lastly the largeness of that which is committed, Omne, all Judgement, so that we cannot carry our thoughts so high, or so far backwards, as to think of any Judgement given upon us in God's purpose or decree without relation to Christ; Nor so far forward, as to think that there shall be a Judgement given upon us, according to our good, moral dispositions or actions, but according to our apprehension and imitation of Christ. Judgement is a proper and inseparable Character of God; that's first, the Father cannot divest himself of that; that's next. The third is that he hath committed it to another; And then the person that is his delegate, is his only Son, and lastly his power is everlasting; And that Judgement day that belongs to him, hath, and shall last from our first Election, through the participation of the means prepared by him in his Church, to our association and union with him in glory, and so the whole circle of time, and before time was, and when time shall be no more, makes up but one Judgement day to him, to whom the Father who judgeth no man hath committed all Judgement. First then Judgement appertains to God, It is his in Criminal causes, 1. Part. ● Vindicta mihi, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord; It is so in civil things too; for God himself is proprietary of all, Domini est terra et plenitudo ejus, juticium Dei● a Rom. 12. 19 The earth is the Lords, and all that is in, and on the earth; Your silver is mine, and your gold is mine, says the Prophet, and the beasts on a Thousand hills are mine, says David, you are usu●●ructuaries of them, but I am proprietary; No attribute of God is so often iterated in the Scriptures, no state of God so often incultated, as this Judge, and Judgement: no word concerning God so often repeated, but it is brought to the height, where in that place of the Psalm, where we read, God judgeth among the Gods, the Latin Church ever read it, Psal. 82. 1. Deus dijudicat De●s, God judgeth the Gods themselves, for though God say of Judges and Magistrates, Ego dixi dii estis; I have said ye are Gods, (and if God say it, who shall gainsay it?) yet he says too, Moriemini, sicut homines, The greatest Gods upon earth shall die like men; And if that be not humiliation enough, there is more threatened in that which follows, ye shall fall like one of the Princes, for the fall of a Prince involves the ruin of many others too, and it fills the world with horror for the present, and ominous discourse for the future; but the farthest of all is Deus dijudicat Deos, even these Judges must come to Judgement, and therefore that Psalm which begins so, is concluded thus, Surge Domine, arise o God, and judge the earth: If he have power to judge the earth, he is God, and even in God himself it is expressed as a kind of rising, as some exaltation of his power, that he is to Judge; And that place in the beginning of that Psalm many of the ancients read in the future Dijudicabit, God, shall judge the Gods, because the frame of the Psalm seems to refer it to the last Judgement; Turtullian reads it Dijudicavit, as a thing past, God hath judged in all times; and the letter of the text requires it to be in the present, Dijudicat. Collect all, and Judgement is so essential to God, as that it is coeternal with him, he hath, he doth, and he will judge the world, and the Judges of the world, other Judges die likemen, weakly, and they fall, that's worse ignominiously, and they fall like Princes, that's worst, fearfully, and yet scornfully, and when they are dead and fallen, they rise no more to execute Judgement, but have Judgement executed upon them the Lord dies not, nor he falls not, and if he seem to slumber, the Martyrs under the Altar awake him with their Vsque quo Domine, how long O Lord before thou execute judgement? And he will arise and Judge the world, for Judgement is his; God putteth down one, and setteth up another, says David; Psal 75. 7. where hath he that power? Why, God is the Judge, not a Judge, but the Judge, and in that right he putteth down one, and setteth up another. Now for this Judgement, which we place in God, judicinm detestationis. we must consider in God three notions, three apprehensions, three kinds of Judgement. First, God hath judicium detestationis, God doth naturally know, and therefore naturally detest evil; for no man in the extremest corruption of nature is yet fallen so far, as to love or approve evil at the same time that he knows, and acknowledges it to be evil. But we are so blind in the knowledge of evil, that we needed that great supplement, and assistance of the law itself to make us know what was evil; Moses magnifies (and justly) the law, Non appropinqu●vit, says Moses, God came not so near to any nation as to the jews; Non taliter fecit, God dealt not so well with any nation, as with the jews, and wherein? because he had given them a law, and yet we see the greatest dignity of this law, to be, That by the law is the knowledge of sin; for though by the law of nature written in our hearts, there be some condemnation of some sins, yet to know that every sin was Treason against God, to know that every sin hath the reward of death, and eternal death annexed to it; this knowledge we have only by the law. Now if man will pretend to be a Judge, what an exact knowledge of the law is required at his hand? for some things are sin to one nation, which are not to another, as where the just authority of the lawful Magistrate, changes the nature of the thing, and makes a thing naturally indifferent, necessary to them, who are under his obedience; some things are sins at one time, which are not at another, as all the ceremonial law, created new sins which were not sins before the law was given, nor since it expired; some things are sins in a man now, which will not be sins in the same man to morrow, as when a man hath contracted a just scruple, against any particular action, it is a sin to do it during the scruple, and it may be sin in him to omit it, when he hath devested the scruple; only God hath judicium detestationis, he knows, and therefore detests evil, and therefore flatter not thyself with a Tush, God sees it not, or, Tush, God cares not, Doth it disquiet him or trouble his rest in heaven that I break his Sabbath here? Doth it wound his body, or draw his blood there, that I swear by his body and blood here? Doth it corrupt any of his virgins there, that I solicit the chastity of a woman here? Are his Martyrs withdrawn from their Allegiance, or retarded in their service to him there, because I dare not defend his cause, nor speak for him, nor fight for him here? Beloved, it is a degree of superstition, and an effect of an undiscreet zeal, perchance, to be too forward in making indifferent things necessary, and so to imprint the nature, and sting of sin where naturally it is not so: certainly it a more slippery and irreligious thing to be too apt to call things merely indifferent, and to forget that even in eating and drinking, waking and sleeping, the glory of God is intermingled, as if we knew exactly the prescience and foreknowledge of God, there could be nothing contingent or casual, (for though there be a contingency in the nature of the thing, yet it is certain to God) so if we considered duly, wherein the glory of God might be promoved in every action of ours, there could scarce by any action so indifferent, but that the glory of God would turn the scale and make it necessary to me, at that time; but then private interests, and private respects create a new indifferency to my apprehension, and calls me to consider that thing as it is in nature, and not as it is considered with that circumstance of the glory of God, and so I lose that judicium detestationis, which only God hath absolutely and perfectly to know, and therefore to detest evil, and so he is a Judge. And as he is a Judge, so judicat rem, he judges the nature of the thing, he is so too, as he hath judicium discretionis, and so judicat personam, he knows what is evil, judicium discretionis. and he discerns when thou committest that evil. Here you are fain to supply defects of laws, that things done in one County may be tried in another; And that in offences of high nature, transmarine offences may be enquired and tried here; But as the Prophet says; Esay 40. 12. Who measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or meted 〈◊〉 the heavens with a span, who comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, or weighed the mountains in a scale? So I say, who hath divided heaven into shires or parishes, or limited the territories and Jurisdictions there, that God should not have judicium discretionis, the power of discerning all actions, in all places? When there was no more to be seen, or considered upon the whole earth but the garden of Paradise, for from the beginning Deliciae ejus esse cum filiis hominum, God's delight was to be with the sons of men, and man was only there, shall we not diminish God nor speak too vulgarly of him to say, that he hovered like a Falcon over Paradise, and that from that height of heaven, the piercing eye of God, saw so little a thing, as the forbidden fruit, and what became of that, and the reaching ●are of God heard the hissing of the Serpent, and the whispering of the woman, and what was concluded upon that? Shall we think it little to have seen to have things done in Paradise when there was nothing else to divert his eye, nothing else to distract his counsels, nothing else done upon the face of the earth? Take the earth now as it is replenished, and take it either as it is torn and crumbled into rags, and shivers, not a kingdom, not a family, not a man agreeing with himself; Or take it in that concord which is in it, as All the Kings of the earth set themselves, Psalm 2. 2. and all the Rulers of the earth take counsel together against the Lord; take it in this union, or this division, in this concord, or this discord, still the Lord that sitteth in the heavens discerns all, looks at all, laughs at all, and hath them all in derision. Earthly Judges have their distinctions, and so their restrictions, some things they cannot know, what mortal man can know all? Some things they cannot take knowledge of, for they are bound to evidence: But God hath judicium discretionis, no mist, no cloud, no darkness, no disguise keeps him from discerning, and judging all our actions, and so he is a Judge too. And he is so lastly, as he hath judicium retributionis, God knows what is evil, he knows when that evil is done, and he knows, how to punish and recompense that evil: for the office of a Judge who judges according to a law, being not to contract, or extend that law, but to declare what was the true meaning of that Lawmaker when he made that law, God hath this judgement in perfection, because he himself made that law by which he judges, and therefore when he hath said, Morte morieris; If thou do this, thou shalt die a double death, where he hath said, Stipendium peccati mors est, every sin shall be rewarded with death; If I sin against the Lord, who shall entreat for me? Who shall give any other interpretation, 1 Sam. 2. 15. any modification, any Non obstante upon his law in my behalf, when he comes to judge me according to that law which himself hath made? Who shall think to delude the Judge, and say, Surely this was not the meaning of the Lawgiver, when he who is the Judge was the Lawmaker too? And then as God is Judge in all these respects, Sine Appellatione. so is he a Judge in them all, Sine Appellatione, and Sine judiciis, man cannot appeal from God, God needs no evidence from man; for, for the Appeal first, to whom should we appeal from the Sovereign 〈◊〉 Wrangle as long as ye will who is Chief Justice, and which Court hath Juris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 over another; I know the Chief Justice, and I know the Sovereign 〈…〉 the King of heaven and earth shall send his ministering Spirits, his Angels to the 〈◊〉, and bowels of the Earth, and to the bosom, and bottom of the Sea, and Earth must deliver, Corpus cum causâ, all the bodies of the dead, and all their actions, to receive a judgement in this Court: when it will be but an erroneous, and frivolous Appeal, to call to the Hills to fall down upon us, and the Mountains to cover, and hide us from the wrathful judgement of God. He is a Judge than Sine appellatione, without any Appeal, from him, he is so too Sine judiciis, without needing any evidence from us. Now if I be wary in my actions here, incarnate Devils, detractors, and informers cannot accuse me; If my sin come not to action, but lie only in my heart, the Devil himself who is the accuser of the brethren, hath no evidence against me, but God knows my heart; doth not he that pondereth the heart, understand it? Prov. 24. 12. where it is not in that faint word, which the vulgar Edition hath expressed it in, inspector cordium, That God sees the heart; but the word is Tochen, which signifies every where to weigh, to number, to search, to examine, as the word is used by Solomon again, The Lord weigheth the spirits, and it must be a ready hand, Prov. 16. 2. and exact scales that shall weigh spirits. So that though neither man, nor Devil, nay nor myself give evidence against me, yea, though I know nothing by myself, I am not thereby justified, why? where is the farther danger? 1 Cor. 4. 4. In this which follows there in Saint Paul, He that judges me is the Lord, and the Lord hath means to know my heart better than myself: And therefore, as Saint Augustine makes use of those words, Abyssus Abyssum invocat, one depth calls upon another, The infinite depth of my sins must call upon the more infinite depth of God's mercy, for if God, who is Judge in all these respects, judicio detestationis, he knows, and abhors evil, and judicio discretionis, he discerns every evil person, and every evil action, judicio retributionis, he can, and will recompense evil with evil; And all these Sine Appellatione, we cannot appeal from him, & Sine judiciis, he needs no evidence from us; If this judgement enter into judgement with me, not only not I, but not the most righteous man, no, nor the Church whom he hath washed in his blood, that she might be without spot or wrinkle, shall appear righteous in his sight. This being then thus, that judgement is an unseparable character of God the Father, 2. Part. being Fons Deitatis, the root and spring of the whole Deity, how is it said, that the Father judgeth no man? Not that we should conceive a weariness, or retiring in the Father, or a discharging of himself upon the shoulders, and labours of another, in the administration, and judging of this world; for as it is truly said, that God rested the seventh day, that is, he rested from working in that kind, from creating, so it is true that Christ says here; My Father worketh yet, and I work, and so as it is truly said here, The Father judgeth no man, it is truly said by Christ too, of the Father, I seek not mine own glory, there is one that seeketh, and judgeth; still it is true, that God hath judicium detestationis, Thy eyes are pure eyes O Lord, and cannot behold iniquity, says the Prophet, still it is true, that he hath judicium discretionis (because they committed villainy in Israel, and I know it, jer. 29. 23. saith the Lord;) still it is true, that he hath judicium retributionis, The Lord killeth and maketh alive, 1 Sam. 2. 6. he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up; still it is true, that he hath all these sine appellatione; for go to the Sea, or Earth, or Hell, as David makes the distribution, and God is there; and he hath them sine judiciis, for our witness is in heaven, and our record is on high: job 16. 19 All this is undeniably true, and besides this, that great name of God, by which he is first called in the Scriptures Elohim, is not inconveniently derived from Elah, which is jurare to swear, God is able as a Judge to minister an oath unto us, and to draw evidence from our own consciences against ourselves, so that then, the Father he judges still, but he judges as God, and not as the Father. In the three great judgements of God, the whole Trinity judges, In the first judgement, before all times, which was God's Judiciary separating of vessels of honour, from vessels of dishonour, in our Election, and Reprobation; In his second judgement, which is in execution now, which is God's judiciary separating of servants from enemies, in the seals, and in the administration of the Christian Church; and in the last judgement, which shall be God's Judiciary separating of sheep from goats, to everlasting glory, or condemnation; in all these three judgements, all the three Persons of the Trinity are Judges. Consider God altogether, and so in all outward works, all the Trinity concurres, because all are but one God; but consider God in relation, in distinct Persons, and so the several Persons do something in which the other Persons are not interessed; The Son hath not a generation from himself, so, as he had from the Father, and from the holy Ghost, as a distinct person, he had none at all; the holy Ghost had a proceeding from the Father and Son, but from the Son as a person, who had his generation from another, but not so from the Father. Not to stray into clouds, or perplexities in this contemplation, God, that is, the whole Trinity, judges still, but so as the Son judgeth, the Father judgeth not, for that Judgement he hath committed. That we may husband our hour well, Commisit. and reserve as much as we can for our two last considerations, the Cui, & Quid, to whom, and that's to the Son, and what he hath committed, and that's all judgement, we will not stand much upon this, more needs not then this; That God in his wisdom foreseeing, that man for his weakness would not be able to settle himself upon God and his judgements, as they are merely heavenly, and spiritual, out of his abundant goodness hath established a judgement, and ordained a Judge upon earth like himself, and like ourselves too, That as no man hath seen God, so no man should go about to see his unsearchable decrees, and judgements, but rest in those sensible, and visible means which he hath afforded, that is, Christ Jesus speaking in his Church, and applying his blood unto us in the Sacraments to the world's end: God might have suffered Abraham to rest in the first general promise, Semen mulieris, the Seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpent's head, but he would bring it nearer to a visible, to a personal Covenant, In semine tuo, In thy Seed shall all nations be blessed; he might well have let him rest in that appropriation of the promise to his race, but he would proceed farther, and seal it with a sensible seal in his flesh with Circumcision; he might have let him rest in that ratification, that a Messias should come by that way, but he would continue it by a continual succession of Prophets, till that Messias should come; and now that he is come and gone, still God pursues the same way; How should they believe, except they hear? and therefore God evermore supplies his Church with visible and sensible means, and knowing the natural inclination of man, when he cannot have, or cannot comprehend the original, and prototype, to satisfy, and refresh himself with a picture, or representation; So, though God hath forbidden us that slippery, and frivolous, and dangerous use of graven Images, yet he hath afforded us his Son, who is the image of the invisible God, and so more proportional unto us, more apprehensible by us; Col. 1. 15. And so this committing is no more but that God in another form, then that of God, hath manifested his power of judging, and this committing, this manifestation is in Filio, in his Son. But in the entrance into the handling of this, Filio. we ask only this question, Cui filio, to which Son of God is this commission given? Not that God hath more Sons than one; but because that Son is his Son by a twofold filiation; by an eternal, and inexpressible generation, and by a temporary, but miraculous incarnation, in which of these rights is this commission derived upon him? doth he judge as he is the Son of God? or as he is the Son of man? I am not ordinarily bold in determining points (especially if they were fundamental) wherein I find the Fathers among themselves, and the School in itself, and the reverend Divines of the Reformation amongst themselves to differ; But yet neither am I willing to raise doubts, and leave the auditory unsatisfyed, and unsettled; we are not upon a Lecture, but upon a Sermon, and therefore we will not multiply variety of opinions; sum up the Fathers upon one side in Saint Ambrose mouth, and they will say with him, Huic dedit ubique generundo, non largiendo, God gave his Son this commission then (and when was that then?) then when he begot him, and then he must have it by his eternal generation, as the Son of God: sum up the Fathers on the other side, in Saint Augustine's mouth, and there they will say with him, that it is so clear, and so certain, that whatsoever is said in the Scripture to be committed, and given to Christ, belongs to Christ as the Son of man, and not as the Son of God, as that th'other opinion cannot be maintained; and at this distance we shall never bring them to meet, but take in this rule, judicium convenit ei ut homo, causa ut Deus, God hath given Christ this commission as man, but Christ had not been capable of this commission if he had not been God too, and so it is easily reconciled: If we shall hold simply to the letter of the text, Pater dedit, than it will seem to have been committed to him in his eternal generation, because that was a work of the Father's only, and in that generation the holy Ghost had no part; But since in this judgement, which is now committed to him, the holy Ghost hath a part, (for as we said before, the Judgement is an act of the whole Trinity) we must look for a commission from the whole Trinity, and that is as he is man, for, tota Trinitas univit humanitatem, August, The hypostatical union of God and man in the person of Christ, was a work of the whole Trinity. Taking it then so settled, that the capacity of this Judgement, and (if we may say so) the future title to it, was given to him, as God by his essence, in his eternal generation, by which non vitae particeps, sed vitae naturaliter est, we cannot say that Christ hath life, Civil. but that he is life, for whatsoever the Father is, he is, excepting only the name and relation of Father, the capacity, the ability is in him, eternally before any imaginable, any possible consideration of time; But the power of the actual execution of this Judgement, which is given, and is committed, is in him as man: because as the same Father says, Ad heminem dicitur, Quid habes quod non accepisti? When Saint Past says, What hast thou that thou hast not received? he asks that question of a man, that which is received, is received as man, For as Bellarmine in a place where he disposes himself to quarrel, De Christo. l. 2. c. 19 at some few words of calvin's, though he confess the matter to be true, and (as he calls it there) Catholic, says, Essentiam genitam negamus, we confess that Christ hath not his essence from his Father by generation, the relation, the filiation, he hath from his Father, he hath the name of Son, but he hath not this execution of this judgement by that relation, by that filiation, still as the Son of God, he hath the capacity, as the Son of man, he hath the execution; And therefore Prosper that follows S. Augustine limits perchance too narrowly to the very flesh, to the humanity, Ipsa (not Ipsae) ●rit judex, quae sub judice stetit, and ipsa judicabit, quae judicatae est, where he places not this Judgement upon the mixed person (which is the safest way) of God and man, but upon man alone, God hath appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness; But by whom? By that man whom he hath ordained God will judge still; but still in Christ; and therefore says S. Augustine upon those words: Arise O Lord, and judge the earth, Cui Deo dicitur surge, nisi ei qui dormivit? What God doth David call upon to arise, but that God who lay down to sleep in the grave? as though he should say (says August.) Dormivisti judicatus à terra, surge & jud●ca terram. So that to collect all, though judgement be such a character of God as he cannot divest, yet the Father hath committed such a Judgement to the Son, as none but he can execute. And what is that? Omne judicium, all judgement, that is, omne imperium, Omne judicium. omnem potestatem; It is presented in the name of Judgement, but it involves all, It is literally, and particularly Judgement in S. john, 5. 27. The Father hath given him authority to execute judgement, It is extended unto power in Saint Matthew, 28. 18. All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth; And it is enlarged as far farther, as can be expressed or conceived in another place of Saint Matthew, All things are delivered to me of my Father. 11. 27. Now all things our Saviour Christ Jesus exercises, either per carnem, or at least in carne, whatsoever the Father does, the Son does too, In carne, because now there is an unseparable union betwixt God and the humane nature: The Father creates new souls every day in the inanimation of Children, and the Son creates them with him; The Father concurs with all second causes as the first moving cause of all natural things, and all this the Son does too; but all this in carne; Though he be in our humane flesh, he is not the less able to do the acts belonging to the Godhead, but per carnem, by the flesh instrumentally, visibly, he executes judgement, because he is the Son of man, God hath been so indulgent to man, as that there should be no judgement given upon man, but man should give it; Christ then having all Judgement, we refresh to your memory those three Judgements which we touched upon before; first, the Judgement of our Election, severing of vessels of honour and dishonour; next, the Judgement of our Justification here severing of friends from enemies; and then the Judgement of our Glorification, severing sheep from goats; judicium Electionis. and for the first, of our Election, As if I were under the condemnation of the Law, for some capital offence, and going to execution, and the King's mercy expressed in a sealed pardon were presented me, I should not stand to inquire what moved the King to do it, what he said to any body else, what any body else said to him, what he saw in me, or what he looked for at my hands, but embrace that mercy cheerfully, and thankfully, and attribute it only to his abundant goodness: So, when I consider myself to have been let fall into this world, in massa Damnata, under the general condemnation of mankind, and yet by the working of God's Spirit, I find at first a desire, and after a modest assurance, that I am delivered from that condemnation, I inquire not what God did in his bedchamber, in his cabinet counsel, in his eternal decree, I know that he hath made judicium electionis in Christ Jesus: And therefore that I may know, whether I do not deceive myself, in presuming myself to be of that number, I come down, and examine myself whether I can truly tell my conscience, that Christ Jesus died for me, which I cannot do, if I have not a desire and an endeavour to conform myself to him; And if I do that, there I find my Predestination, I am a Christian, and I will not offer to go before my Master Christ Jesus, I cannot be saved before there was a Saviour, In Christ Jesus is Omne judicium, all judgement, and therefore the judgement of Election, the first separation of vessels of honour and dishonour in Election and Reprobation was in Christ Jesus. Much more evidently is the second judgement of our Justification by means ordained in the Christian Church, the Judgement of Christ, it is the Gospel of Christ which is preached to you there, There is no name given under heaven whereby you should be saved, there are no other means whereby salvation should be applied in his name given, but those which he hath instituted in his Church; So that when I come to the second ●udgement, to try whether I stand justified in the sight of Christ, or no, I come for that Judgement to Christ in his Church; Do I remember what I contracted with Christ Jesus, when I took the name of a Christian at my entrance into his Church by Baptism? Do I find I have endeavoured to perform those Conditions? Do I find a remorse when I have not performed them? Do I feel the remission of those sins applied to me when I hear the gracious promises of the Gospel shed upon repentant sinners by the mouth of his Minister? Have I a true and solid consolation, (without shift, or disguise, or flattering of my conscience) when I receive the seal of his pardon in the Sacrament? Beloved, not in any moral integrity, not in keeping the conscience of an honest man, in general, but in using well the means ordained by Christ in the Christian Church, am I justified. And therefore this Judgement of Justification is his too. And then the third and last judgement, which is the judgement of Glorification, judicium Glorificationis. Apot. 1. 7. that's easily agreed by all to appertain unto Christ, Idem jesus, The same jesus that ascended, shall come to judgement, Videbunt quem pupugerant, Apoc. 1. 7. Every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him; Then the Son of man shall come in glory, and he, as man, shall give the judgement, for things done, or omitted towards him as man, for not feeding, for not clothing, for not harbouring, for not visiting. The sum of all is, that this is the overflowing goodness of God, that he deals with man by the son of man; and that he hath so given all judgement to the Son, as that if you would be tried by the first judgement; are you elected or no? The issue is, do you believe in Christ Jesus, or no? If you would be tried by the second judgement, are you justified or no? The issue is, do you find comfort in the application of the Word, and Sacraments of Christ Jesus, or no? If you would be tried by the third Judgement, do you expect a Glorification, or no? The issue is, Are you so reconciled to Christ Jesus now, by hearty repentance for sins past, and by detestation of occasion of future sin, that you durst welcome that Angel which should come at this time, and swear that time should be no more, that your transmigration out of this world should be this minute, and that this minute you might say unfeignedly and effectually, Veni Domine jesu; come quickly, come now; if this be your state, then are you partakers of all that blessedness, which the Father intended to you, when for your sake, he committed all Judgement to the Son. SERMON XIII. Preached at Lincoln's Inn. JOHN 8. 15. I judge no man. THe Rivers of Paradise did not all run one way, and yet they flowed from one head; the sentences of the Scripture flow all from one head, from the holy Ghost, and yet they seem to present divers senses, and to admit divers interpretations; In such an appearance doth this Text differ from that which I handled in the forenoon, and as heretofore I found it a useful and acceptable labour, to employ our Evening exercises, upon the vindicating of some such places of Scripture, as our adversaries of the Roman Church had detorted in some point of controversy between them and us, and restoring those places to their true sense, (which course I held constantly for one whole year) so I think it a useful and acceptable labour, now to employ for a time those Evening exercises to reconcile some such places of Scripture, as may at first sight seem to differ from one another; In the morning we saw how Christ judged all; now we are to see how he judges none; I judge no man. To come then to these present words, here we have the same person Christ Jesus, and hath not he the same Office? Is not he Judge? certainly though he retained all his other Offices, though he be the Redeemer, and have shed his blood in value satisfactory for all our sins, though he be our Advocate and plead for us in heaven, and present our evidence to that Kingdom, written in his blood, sealed in his wounds, yet if he be not our Judge, we cannot stand in judgement; shall he be our Judge, and is he not our Judge yet? Long before we were he was our Judge at the separation of the Elect and Reprobate, in God's eternal Decree. Was he our Judge then, and is he not so still? still he is present in his Church, and clears us in all scruples, rectifies us in all errors, erects us in all dejections of spirit, pronounces peace and reconciliation in all apprehensions of his Judgements, by his Word and by his Sacraments, was he, and is he, and shall he not be our Judge still? I am sure my Redeemer liveth, and he shall stand the last on earth. job 19 24. So that Christ Jesus is the same to day, and yesterday, and for ever, before the world begun, and world without end, Sicut erat in principio, as he was in the beginning, he is, and shall be ever our Judge. Divisio. So that then these words are not De temp●re, but De modo, there was never any time when Christ was not Judge, but there were some manner of Judgements which Christ did never exercise, and Christ had no commission which he did not execute; for he did all his Fathers will. 1. In secularibus, in civil, or criminal businesses, which belong merely to the Judicatures, and cognisance of this world, judicat neminem, Christ judges no man. 2. Secundum carnem, so as they to whom Christ spoke this; who judged, as himself says here, according to fleshly affections, judicat neminem, he judges no man: and 3. Ad internecionem, so as that upon that Judgement, a man should despair of any reconciliation, any redintegration with God again, and be without hope of pardon, and remission of sins in this world, judicat neminem, he judges no man; 1. Christ usurps upon no man's Jurisdiction, that were against justice. 2. Christ imputes no false things to any man, that were against charity. 3. Christ induces no man to desperation, that were against faith; and against Justice, against charity, against faith, judicat neminem. First then, Christ judgeth not in secular judgements, 1. Part. and we note his abstinence therein; first, in civil matters, when one of the company said to him, Non secularla. Master, bid my brother divide the inheritance with me, Luke 12. 14. as Saint Augustine says, the Plaintiff thought his cause to be just, and he thought Christ to be a competent Judge in the cause, and yet Christ declines the judgement, disavows the authority, and he answers, Homo, quis me constituit judicem, Man, who made me a Judge between you? To that General, which we had in the morning, Omne judicium, the Son hath all judgement; here is an exception of the same Judges own making, for in secular judgements, Nemo constituit, he had no commission, and therefore judicat neminem, he judges no man; he forbore in criminal matters too, for when the woman taken in adultery, was brought before him, he condemned her not; It is true, he absolved her not, the evidence was pregnant against her, but he condemned her not, he undertook no office of a Judge, but of a sweet and spiritual Counsellor, Go, and sin no more, for this was his Element, his Tribunal. When then Christ says of himself, with such a pregnant negative, Quis me constituit judicem, may not we say so too, to his pretended Vicar, the Bishop of Rome, Qui●te? Who made you Judge of Kings, that you should depose them, in criminal causes? Or who made you proprietary of Kingdoms, that you should dispose of them, as of civil inheritances? when to countenance such a pretence, they detort places of Scripture, not only perversely, but senselessly, blasphemously, ridiculously, (as ridiculously as in their pasquils, when in an undiscreet shamlesnes, to make their power greater than it is, they make their fault greater than it is too, & fill their histories with examples of Kings deposed by Popes, which in truth were not deposed by them, for in that they are more innocent than they will confess themselves to be) when some of their Authors say, that the Primitive Church abstained from deposing Emperors, only because she was not strong enough to do it, when some of them say, That all Christian Kingdoms of the earth, may fall into the Church of Rome, by faults in those Princes, when some of them say, that De facto, the Pope hath already a good title to every Christian Kingdom, when some of them say, that the world will never he well governed, till the Pope put himself into possession of all (all which several propositions are in several Authors of good credit amongst them) will be not endure Christ's own question, Quis te constituit? Who made you Judge of all this? If they say Christ did; did he it in his Doctrine? It is hard to pretend that, for such an institution as that must have very clear, very pregnant words the carry in; did he do it by his example and practice? we see he abstained in criminal causes, when they come to their last shift, that is, that Christ did exercise Judiciary Authority, when he whipped Merchants out of the Temple, when he cursed the figtree, and damnified the owner thereof, and when he destroyed the Herd of Swine, (for there, say they, the Devil was but the Executioner, Christ was the Judge) to all these, and such as these, it is enough to say, All these were miraculous, and not ordinary; and though it might seem half a miracle how that should exercise so much authority as he hath done over the world, yet when we look nearer, and see his means, that he hath done all this by Massacres of millions, by withdrawing Subjects from their Allegiance, by assasinating and murdering of Princes, when we know that miracles are without means, and we see the means of his proceedings, the miracle ceases, howsoever that Bishop as Christ's Vicar can claim no other power, than was ordinary in Christ, and so exercised by Christ, and so judicavit neminem; In secular judgement, Christ judges no man, and therefore that Bishop as his Vicar should not. Secondly, Christ judges no man by calumny, by imputing, 2. Part. or laying false aspersions upon him, nor truths extrajudicially, for that's a degree of calumny; Detractio. We enter into a large field, when we go about to speak against calumny, and slander, and detracti●on, so large a field, as that we may fight out the last drop of our blood, preach out the last gasp of our breath, before we overcome it, those to whom Christ spoke here, were such as gave perverse judgements, caluminiating censures upon him, and so he judges no man, we need not insist upon that, for it is manifestè verum; but that we may see our danger, and our duty, what calumny is, and so how to avoid it actively, and how to bear it passively, I must by your leave stop a little upon it. When then we would present unto you that monster Slander, and Calumny, though it be hard to bring it within any compass of a division, yet to take the largeness of the school, and say, that every calumny is either direct, or indirect, that will comprehend all, and then a direct calumny, will have three branches, either to lay a false and unjust imputation, or else to aggravate a just imputation, with unnecessary, but heavy circumstances, or thirdly to reveal of fault which in itself was secret and I by no duty bound to discover it, and then the indirect calumny will have three branches too, either to deny expressly some good that is in another, or to smother it in silence, when my testimony were due to him, and might advantage him, or lastly to diminish his good parts, and say they are well, but not such as you would esteem them to be; collect then again, for that's all, that we shall be able to do, that he is a calumniator directly, that imputes a false crime, that aggravates a true crime, that discovers any crime extrajudicially; That he is an indirect calumniator, that denies another man's sufficiencies, that conceals them, that diminishes them; Take in some of Saint Bernard's examples of these rules, that it is a calumny to say, Doles vehementer, Serm. 24. in Can. I am sorry at the heart for such a man because I love him, but I could never draw him from such and such a vice, or to say, per me nunquam innotuisset, I would never have spoken of it, yet since all the world talks of it, the truth must not be disguised, and so take occasion to discover a fault which no body knew before, and thereby (as the same Father says) cum gravitate et tarditate aggredi maledictionem, to cut a man's throat gravely, and soberly, and so much the more perswasively; because he seems, and pretends to do it all against his will; This being the rule, and this the exumple, who amongst us is free from the passive calumny? Who amongst us hath not some other man calumniated? Nay who is free from the active part? Which of us in some of these degrees hath not calumniated some other? But those to whom Christ makes his exception here, that he judges no man as they judge, were such calumniators, as David speaks of, Sede● adversus fratrem tuum loque ba●is, Then sittest and speakest against thy neighbour, Psal. 50. 20. as Saint Augastin notes upon that place, Non transitoriè, non surreptionis passione, sed quasi ad hoc vacans, not by chance, & unawares, not in passion because he had offended thee, not for company, because thou wouldst be of their minds, but as though thy profession would bear thee out in it, to leave the cause and lay aspersion upon the person, so thou art a calumniator, They up 〈◊〉 my people as bread, as David says in God's person: And upon those words of the same Prophet, says the same Father, De caeteris, when we eat of any thing else, Psal. 53. 4. we taste of this dish, and we taste of that, non semper hoc ●lus, says he we do not always eat one salad, one meat, one kind of fruit, sed semper panem, whatsoever we eat else we always eat bread, howsoever they implored their thoughts, or their wits otherways, it was always one exercise of them to calumniate Christ Jesus, and in that kind of calumny, which is the bitterest of all, they abounded most, which is in scorn and derision, David, and job, who were slander proof, in a good measure, yet every where complain passionately that they were made a scorn, that the wits made libels, that drunkards sung songs, that fools, and the children of fools derided them; And when Saul was in his last, and worst agony, and had abandoned himself to a present death, and prayed his armourbearer to kill him, it was not because the uncircumcised should not kill him (for he desired death, and he had their deadly arrows already in his bosom) but it was (as it is expressed there) lest the uncircumcised should come and abuse him, he was afraid of scorn when he had but a few minutes of life. Since than Christ judges no man (as they did) secundum carnem ejus, according to the outward appearance, for they thought no better of Christ than he seemed to be, (as Fathers take that phrase, nor secundum carnem suam, according to his own fleshly passions, (as some others take it) judge not you so neither, first judge not that ye be not judged, Mat. 7. 1. that is, as Saint Ambrose interprets it well enough, Nolite ●udicare de judiciis Dei, when you see God's judgements fall upon a man, when you see the tower of Silo fall upon a man, do not you judge that that man had sinned more than you, when you see another borne blind, do not you think that he or his Father had sinned, and that you only are derived from a pure generation, especially n●n maledic as surdo, speak not evil of the deaf that hears not; That is, (as Gregory interprets it if not literally, yet appliably, and usefully) calumniate not him who is absent, Leu. 19 14. and cannot defend himself, it is the devil's office to be Accusator fratrum, and though God do not say in the law, Non erit, yet he says, Non erit criminator, it is not plainly, Leu. 19 16. there shall be no Informer: (for as we dispute, and for the most part affirm in the School, that though we could, we might destroy no entire species of those creatures, which God made at first, though it be a Tiger, or a viper, because this were to take away one link of God's chain out of the world, so such vermin as Informers may not, for some good use that there is of them, be taken away) though it be not non erit, there shall be none, yet it is at least by way of good counsel to thee, non eris, thou shalt not be the man, thou shalt not be the Informer, and for resisting those that are, we are bound, not only not to harm our neighbour's house, but to help him, if casually his house fall on fire, Prov. 25. 23. we are bound where where we have authority to stop the mouths of other calumniators where we have no authority, yet since as the North wind driveth away rain, an angry countenance driveth away a backbiting tongue, at least deal so with a libeler, with a calumniator, for he that looks pleasantly, and hearkens willingly to one libel, makes another, occasions a second; always remember David's case, when he thought that he had been giving judgement against another he was more severe, more heavy, than the law admitted; The law was, that he that had stolen the sheep should return fourfold, and David's anger was kindled says the text, and he said, and he swore, As the Lord liveth, 2 Sam. 12. that man shall restore fourfold, Et filius mortis, and he shall surely dies O judicis superfluentem justitiam, O superabundant and overflowing Justice, when we judge another in passion; Chrysost. But this is judicium secundum carnem, according to which Christ judges no man, for Christ is love, and that non cogitat malum, love thinks no evil any way; 1 Cor. 13. 5. The charitable man neither meditates evil against another, nor believes not easily any evil to be in another, though it be told him. Lastly, Christ judges no man Ad internecionem, he judges no man so, Non ad internecionem. in this world, as to give a final condemnation upon him here; There is no error in any of his Judgements, but there is an appeal from all his Judgements in this world; There is a verdict against every man, every man may find his case recorded, and his sin condemned in the law, and in the Prophets, there is a verdict, but before Judgement, God would have every man saved by his book, by the apprehension, and application of the gracious promises of the Gospel, to his case, and his conscience, Christ judges no man so, as that he should see no remedy, but to curse God, and die, not so, as that he should say, his sin is greater than God could forgive, for God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. john 3. 17. Do not thou then give malicious evidence against thyself, do not weaken the merit, nor lessen the value of the blood of thy Saviour, as though thy sin were greater than it; Doth God desire thy blood now, when he hath abundantly satisfied his justice with the blood of his Son for thee? what hast thou done? hast thou come hypocritically to this place upon collateral reasons, and not upon the direct service of God? not for love of Information, of Reformation of thyself? If that be thy case, yet if a man hear my words, says Christ, and believe not, I judge him not, job. 12. 47. he hath one that judgeth him, says Christ, and who is that? The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him; It shall, but when? It shall judge him, says Christ, at that last day, for till the last day, the day of his death, no man is past recovery, no man's salvation is impossible: Hast thou gone farther than this? Hast thou admitted scruples of diffidence, and distrust in God's mercy, and so tasted of the lees of desperation? It is true, perpetrare flagitium est mors anima, sed desper are est descensus ad inferos, In every sin the soul dies, but in desperation it descends into hell, Isidor. but yet portae inferi non praevalebunt, Mat. 16. 18. even the gates of this hell shall not prevail against thee; Assist thyself, argue thine own case, desperation itself may be without infidelity; desperation aswell as hope is rooted in the desire of happiness; desperation proceeds out of a fear and a horror of sin, Thom. 1. 2d. 9 40. or 4. desperation may consist with faith thus far, that a man may have a true, and faithful opinion in the general, that there is a remission of sin, to be had in the Church, and yet have a corrupt imagination in the particular, that to him in this sinful state that he is in, this remission of sins shall not be applied, so that the resolution of the School is good, Desperatio potest esse 〈◊〉 solo excessu boni; desperation may proceed from an excess of that which is good in itself, from an excessive over fearing of God's justice, from an excessive over hating thine own sins, Et virtute quis malè utitur? Can any man make so ill use of so great virtues, as the fear of God and the hare of sin? yes they may, so froward a weed is sin, as that it can spring out of any root, and therefore if it have done so in thee, and thou thereby have made thy case the harder, yet know still, that Objectum spe● est ardu●, et possibile, the true object of hope is hard to come by, but yet possible to come by, and therefore as David said, 2. Sam. 22. 30. By my God have I leapt over a wall, so by thy God mayst thou break through a wall, through this wall of obduration, which thou thyself hast begun to build about thyself. Feather thy wings again, which even the flames of hell have touched in these beginnings of desperation, feather them again with this text Neminem judicat, Christ judges no man, so as a desperate man judges himself, do not make thyself believe, that thou hast sinned against the holy Ghost; for this is the nearest step thou hast made to it, to think that thou hast done it; walk in that large field of the Scriptures of God, and from the first flower at thy entrance, the flower of Paradise, Semen mulieris, the general promise of the seed of the woman should bruise the Serpent's head, to the last word of that Messias upon the Cross, Consummatum est, that all that was promised for us is now performed, and from the first to the last thou shalt find the savour of life unto life in all those flowers; walk over the same alley again and consider the first man Adam in the beginning who involved thee in original sin; and the thief upon the Cross who had continued in actual sins all his life, and sealed all with the sin of reviling Christ himself a little before his expiration, and yet he recovered Paradise, and Paradise that day, and see if thou canst make any shift to exclude thyself, receive the fragrancy of all these Cordials, Vivit Domin●●, as the Lord liveth I would not the death of a sinner, Quandocunque, At what time soever a sinner repenteth, and of this text Neminem judieat, Christ judgeth no man to destruction here, and if thou find after all these Antidotes a suspicious air, a suspicious working in that Impossibi●e est, that it is impossible for them, who were once enlightened if they fall away, to renew them again by repentance, sprinkle upon that worm wood of Impossibile est, that Manna of Quorum remiseritis, whose sins ye remit, are remitted, and then it will have another taste to thee, and thou wilt see that that impossibility lies upon them only, who are utterly fallen away into an absolute Apostasy, and infidelity, that make a mock of Christ, and crucify him again, as it is expressed there, who undervalue, and despise the Church of God, & those means which Christ Jesus hath instituted in his Church for renewing such as are fallen. To such it is impossible, because there are no other ordinary means possible, but that's not thy case, thy case is only a doubt, that those means that are sha●● not be applied to thee, and even that is a slippery state to doubt of the mercy of God to thee in particular, this goes so near making thy sin greater than God's mercy, as that it makes thy sin greater than daily adulteries, daily murders, daily blasphemies, daily prophanings of the Sabbath could have done, and though thou canst never make that true in this life that thy sins are greater than God can forgive, yet this is a way to make them greater, than God will forgive. Now to collect both our Exercises, and to connexe both Texts, Christ judgeth all men and Christ judgeth no man, he claims all judgement, and he disavows all judgement, and they consist well together, he was at our creation, but that was not his first sense; the Arians who say, Erat quando non erat, there was a time when Christ was not, intimating that he had a beginning, and therefore was a creature, yet they will allow that he was created before the general creation, and so assisted at ours, but he was infinite generations before that, in the bosom of his Father, at our election, and there in him was executed the first judgement of separating those who were his, the elect from the reprobate, and then he knows who are his by that first Judgement: And so comes to his second Judgement, to seal all those in the visible Church with the outward mark of his baptism, and the inward mark of his Spirit, and those whom he calls so, he justifies, and sanctifies, and brings them to his third Judgement, to an established and perpetual glory. And so all Judgement is his. But then to judge out of humane affections, and passions, by detraction, and calumny, as they did to whom he spoke at this time, so he judges no man, so he denies judgement: To usurp upon the jurisdiction of others, or to exercise any other judgement, than was his commission, as his pretended Vicar doth so he judges no man, so he disavows all judgement: To judge so as that our condemnation should be irremediable in this life, so he judges no man, so he forswears all judgement, As I live, saith the Lord of hosts, and as I have died, saith the Lord Jesus, so I judge none. Acknowledge his first Judgement, thy election in him, Christ his second Judgement, thy justification by him, breath and pant after his third Judgement, thy Crown of glory for him; intrude not upon the right of other men, which is the first, defame not, calumniate not other men, which is the second, lay not the name of reprobate in this life upon any man, which is the third Judgement, that Christ disavows here, and then thou shalt have well understood, and well practised both these texts, The Father hath committed all judgement to the Son, and yet The Son judges no man. SERMON XIIII. Preached at Lincoln's Inn. JOB 19 26. And though, after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. AMongst those Articles, in which our Church hath explained, and declared her faith, this is the eight Article, that the three Creeds, (that of the council of Nice, that of Athanasius, and that which is commonly known by the name of the Apostles Creed) ought throughly to be received, and embraced. The meaning of the Church is not, that only that should be believed in which those three Creeds agree; (for, the Nicen Creed mentions no Article after that of the holy Ghost, not the Catholic Church, not the Communion of Saints, not the Resurrection of the flesh; Athanasius his Creed does mention the Resurrection, but not the Catholic Church, nor the communion of Saints,) but that all should be believed, which is in any of them, all which is summed up in the Apostles Creed. Now, the reason expressed in that Article of our Church, why all this is to be believed, is; Because all this may be proved by most certain warrants of holy Scriptures. The Article does not insist upon particular places of Scripture; not so much as point to them. But, they who have enlarged the Articles, by way of explanation, have done that. And when they come to cite those places of Scripture, which prove the Article of the Resurrection, I observe that amongst those places they forbear this text; so that it may seem, that in their opinion, this Scripture doth not concern the Resurrection. It will not therefore be impertinent, to make it a first part of this exercise, whether this Scripture be to be understood of the Resurrection, or no; And then, to make the particular handling of the words, a second part. In the first, we shall see, that the jews always had, and have still, a persuasion of the Resurrection. We shall look after, by what light they saw that; whether by the light of natural reason; And, if not by that, by what light given in other places of Scripture; and then, we shall shut up this inquisition with a unanime consent, (so unanime, as I can remember but one that denies it, and he but faintly) that in this text, the doctrine of the resurrection is established. In the second part, the doctrine itself comprised in the words of the text, (And though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God) we shall see first, that the Saints of God themselves, are not privileged from the common corruption and dissolution of the body; After that curse upon the Serpent, super pectus gradieris, Gen. 3. 14. upon thy belly shalt thou go, we shall as soon see a Serpent go upright, and not crawl, as, after that Judgement, In pulverem revertêris, to dust thou shalt return, see a man, that shall not see death, and corruption in death. Corruption upon our skin, says the text, (our outward beauty;) corruption upon our body, (our whole strength, and constitution.) And, this corruption, not a green paleness, not a yellow jaundice, not a blue lividnesse, not a black morpheu upon our skin, not a bony leanness, not a sweaty faintness, not an ungracious decrepitness upon our body, but a destruction, a destruction to both, After my skin my body shall be destroyed. Though not destroyed by being resolved to ashes in the fire, (perchance I shall not be burnt) not destroyed by being washed to slime, in the sea, (perchance I shall not be drowned) but destroyed contemptibly, by those whom I breed, and feed, by worms; (After my skin worms shall destroy my body.) And thus far our case is equal; one event to the good and bad; worms shall destroy all in them all. And farther than this, their case is equal too, for, they shall both rise again from this destruction. But in this lies the future glory, in this lies the present comfort of the Saints of God, that, after all this, (so that this is not my last act, to die, nor my last scene, to lie in the grave, nor my last exit, to go out of the grave) after, says job; And indefinitely, After, I know not how soon, nor how late, I press not into God's secrets for that; but, after all this, Ego, ay, I that speak now, and shall not speak then, silenced in the grave, I that see now, and shall not see then, ego videbo, I shall see, (I shall have a new faculty) videbo Deam, I shall see God (I shall have a new object) and, In carne, I shall see him in the flesh, (I shall have a new organ, and a new medium) and, In carne mea, that flesh shall be my flesh, (I shall have a new propriety in that flesh) this flesh which I have now, is not mine, but the worms; but that flesh shall be so mine, as I shall never divest it more, but in my flesh I shall see God for ever. In the first part then, which is an inquiry, 1. Part. whether this text concern the Resurrection, or no, we take knowledge of a Crediderunt, and of a Credunt in the jews, judhi credunt. that the jews did believe a Resurrection, and that they do believe it still. That they do so now, appears out of the doctrine of their Talmud, where we find, that only the jews shall rise again, but all the Gentiles shall perish, body and soul together, as Korah, Numb. 16. 31. 26. 19 Dathan, and Abiram were swallowed all at once, body, and soul into hell. And to this purpose, (for the first part thereof, that the jews shall rise) they abuse that place of Esay; Thy dead men shall live; awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust. And, 14. for the second part, that the Gentiles shall not rise, they apply the words of the same Prophet before, They are dead, they shall not live, they are deceased, they shall not rise. The jews only, say they shall rise; but, not all they; but only the righteous amongst them. And, to that purpose, they abuse that place of the Prophet Zachary, two parts shall be cut off, and die, but the third shall be left therein, and I will bring that third part, 13. 8. through the fire, and will refine them, as silver is refined, and try them, as gold is tried. The jews only of all men, the good jews only of all jews, and of these good jews, only they who were buried in the land of promise shall have this present, and immediate resurrection; And to that purpose they force that place in Genesis where jacob, upon his deathbed, advised his son joseph, to bury him in Canaan, and not in Egypt, 47. 29. and to that purpose, they detort also, that place of jeremy, where the Prophet lays that curse upon Pashur, That he should die in Babylon, and be buried there. For, 20. 6. though the jews do not absolutely say, that all that are buried out of Canaan, shall be without a resurrection, yet, they say, that even those good and righteous jews, which are not buried in that great Churchyard, the land of promise, must, at the day of judgement, be brought through the hollow parts of the earth into the land of promise at that time, and only in that place, receive their resurrection, wheresoever they were buried. But yet, though none but jews, none but righteous jews, none but righteous jews in that place, must be partakers of the Resurrection, yet still a Resurrection there is in their doctrine. It is so now; it was so always. We see, in that time, when Christ walked upon the earth, Crediderunt. john 11. 23. when he came to the raising of Lazarus, and said to his sister Martha, Thy brother shall rise again, she replies to Christ, Alas, I know he shall rise again, at the Resurrection of the last day, I make no doubt of that, we all know that. So also, when Christ put forth that parable, that in placing of benefits, Luke 14. 12. we should rather choose such persons, as were able to make no recompense, he gives that reason, Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. The Resurrection was a vulgar doctrine, well known to the jews then, and always. For, even Herod, when Christ preached and did miracles, was apt to say, Mat. 6. 14. john Baptist is risen from the dead; And when it is said of those two great Apostles, john 20. 9 (the loving, and the beloved Apostle, Peter, and john) that as yet they knew not the Scripture, that Christ must rise from the dead, this argues no more, but that as Peter's compassion before Christ's death, made him dissuade Christ from going up to jerusalem, to suffer, Mat. 16. 12. so their extreme passion after Christ's death, made them the less attentively to consider those particular Scriptures, which spoke of the Resurrection. For, the jews in general, (much more, they) had always an apprehension, and an acknowledgement of the Resurrection of the dead. By what light they saw this, and how they came to this knowledge, is our next consideration. Had they this by the common notions of other men, An exratione. out of natural Reason? Melanothon, (who is no bold, nor rash, nor dangerous expressor of himself) says well, Articulus resurrectionis propria Ecclesiaevox; It is the Christian Church, that hath delivered to us the article of the resurrection. Nature says it not, Philosophy says it not; it is the language and the Idiotism of the Church of God, that the resurrection is to be believed as an article of faith. For, though articles of faith be not facta Ecclesiae, they are dicta Ecclesiae, though the Church do not make articles, yet she declares them. In the Creation, the way was, Dixit & facta sunt, God spoke, and so things were made; In the Gospel, the way is, Fecit, & dicta sunt, God makes articles of faith, and the Church utters them, presents them. That's manifestè verum, evidently, undeniably true, that Nature, and Philosophy say nothing of articles of faith. But, even in Nature, and in Philosophy, there is some preparation A priore, and much illustration A posteriore, of the Resurrection. For, first, we know by natural reason, that it is no such thing, as God cannot do; It implies no contradiction in itself, as that new article of Transubstantiation does; It implies no defectiveness in God, as that new article, The necessity of a perpetual Vicar upon earth, does. For, things contradictory in themselves, (which necessarily imply a falsehood) things arguing a defectiveness in God, (which implies necessarily a derogation, to his nature, to his natural goodness, to that which we may justly call even the God of God, that which makes him God to us, his mercy) such things God himself cannot do, not things which make him an unmerciful, a cruel, a precondemning God. But, excepting only such things, God, who is that, Grog. Narianz. Quod cum dicitur, non potest dici, whom if you name you cannot give him half his name; for, if you call him God, he hath not his Christian name, for he is Christ as well as God, a Saviour, as well as a Creator; Quod cum astimatur, non potest aestimari, If you value God, weigh God, you cannot give him half his weight; for, you can put nothing into the balance, to weight him withal, but all this world; and, there is no single sand in the sea, no single dust upon the earth, no single atom in the air, that is not likelier to weigh down all the world, than all the world is to co●●●pose pose God; Mat. 8. 36. What is the whole world to a soul? says Christ; but what are all the souls of the world, to God? What is man, that God should be mindful of him, that God should ever think of him, Psal. 8. 5. and not forget that there is such a thing, such a nothing? Quod cum definitur, ipsa definitione crescit, says the same Father; If you limit God with any definition, he grows larger by that definition; for even by that definition you discern presently that he is something else than that definition comprehends. That God, Quem omnia nesciunt, & metuendo sciunt, whom no man knows perfectly, Idem. yet every man knows so well, as to stand in fear of him, this incomprehensible God, I say, that works, and who shall let it? can raise our bodies again from the dead, because, to do so, implies no derogation to himself, Esay 43. 13. no contradiction to his word. Our reason tells us, he can do it; doth our reason tell us as much of his will, that he will do it? Our reason tells us, that he will do, Anvelit. whatsoever is most convenient for the Creature, whom, because he hath made him, he loves, and for his own glory. Now this dignity afforded to the dead body of man, cannot be conceived, but, as a great addition to him. Nor can it be such a diminution to God, to take man into heaven, as it was for God to descend, and to take man's nature upon him, upon Earth. A King does not diminish himself so much, by taking an inferior person into his bosom at Court, as he should do by going to live with that person, in the Country, or City; and this God did, in the incarnation of his Son. It cannot be thought inconvenient, it cannot be thought hard. Our reason tells us, that in all God's works, in all his material works, still his latter works are easier than his former. The Creation, which was the first, and was a mere production out of nothing, was the hardest of all. The specification of Creatures, and the disposing of them, into their several kinds, the making of that which was made something of nothing before, a particular thing, a beast, afowle, a fish, a plant, a man, a Sun or Moon, was not so hard, as the first production out of nothing. And then, the conservation of all these, in that order in which they are first created, and then distinguished, the Administration of these creatures by a constant working of second causes, which naturally produce their effects, is not so hard as that. And so, accordingly, and in that proportion, the last work is easiest of all; Distinction and specification easier than creation, conservation, and administration easier than that distinction, and restitution by resurrection, easiest of all. Tertullian hath expressed it well, Plus est fecisse quam refecisse, & dedisse quam reddidisse; It is a harder work to make, Tertull. then to mend, and, to give thee that which was mine, then to restore thee that which was thine. Et institutio carnis quam destitutio; It is a less matter to recover a sick man, then to make a whole man. Does this trouble thee, says justin Martyr, (and Athenagor as proceeds in the same way of argumentation too, in his Apology) does this trouble thee, Just. Mart. Athenago. Quòd homo à piscibus, & piscis ab homine comeditar, that one man is devoured by a fish, and then another man that eats the flesh of that fish, eats, and becomes the other man? Id nec hominem resolvit in piscem, nec piscem in hominem, that first man did not become that fish that eat him, nor that fish become that second man, that eat it; sed utriusque resolutio fit in elementa, both that man, and that fish are resolved into their own elements, of which they were made at first. Howsoever it be, if thine imagination could carry thee so low, as to think, not only that thou wert become some other thing, a fish, or a dog that had fed upon thee, and so, thou couldst not have thine own body, but therewithal must have his body too, but that thou wert infinitely farther gone, that thou wert annihilated, become nothing, canst thou choose but think God as perfect now, at least as he was at first, and can he not as easily make thee up again of nothing, Tertull. as he made thee of nothing at first? Recogita quid fueris, antequam esses; Think over thyself; what wast thou before thou wast any thing? Meminisses utique, si fuisses; If thou hadst been any thing then, surely thou wouldst remember it now. Qui non eras, factus es; Cum iterum non eris, fies; Thou that wast once nothing, wast made this that thou art now, and when thou shalt be nothing again, thou shalt be made better than thou art yet. And, Redderationem quâ factus es, & ego reddam rationem quâ fies; Do thou tell me, how thou wast made then, and I will tell thee how thou shalt be made hereafter. And yet as Solomon sends us to creatures, & to creatures of a low rank & station, to Ants & Spiders, for instruction, so Saint Gregory sends us to creatures, to learn the Resurrection. Lux quotidie moritur, & quotidie resurgit; Greg. That glorious creature, that first creature, the light, dies every day, and every day hath a resurrection. In arbustis folia resurrectione erumpunt; from the Cedar of Libanus, to the Hyssop upon the wall, every leaf dies every year, and every year hath a Resurrection. Vbi in brevitate seminis, tam immensa arbor latuit? (as he pursues that meditation.) If thou hadst seen the bodies of men rise our of the grave, at Christ's Resurrection, could that be a stranger thing to thee, then, (if thou hadst never seen, nor hard, not imagined it before) to see an Oak that spreads so far, rise out of an Akorne? Or if Churchyards did vent themselves every spring, and that there were such a Resurrection of bodies every year, when thou hadst seen as many Resurrections as years, the Resurrection would be no stranger to thee, than the spring is. And thus, this, and many other good and reverend men, and so the holy Ghost himself sends us to Reason, and to the Creature, for the doctrine of the Resurrection; Saint Paul allows him not the reason of a man, that proceeds not so; Thou fool, says he, that which thou sowest, is not quickened except it die; 1 Cor. 15. 36. but than it is. It is truly harder to conceive a translation of the body into heaven, than a Resurrection of the body from the earth. Ambr. Num in hominibus terra degenerate, quae omnia regenerare consuevit? Do all kinds of earth regenerate, and shall only the Churchyard degenerate? Is there a yearly Resurrection of every other thing, and never of men? Tertull. Omnia pereunde servantur, All other things are preserved, and continued by dying; Tu homo solus ad hoc morieris, ut pereas? And canst thou, O man, suspect of thyself, that the end of thy dying is an end of thee? Fall as low as thou canst, corrupt and putrefy as desperately as thou canst, Idem. sis nihil, think thyself nothing; Ejus est nihilum ipsum cujus est totum, even that nothing is as much in his power, as the world which he made of nothing; And, as he called thee when thou wast not, as if thou hadst been, so will he call thee again, when thou art ignorant of that being which thou hast in the grave, and give thee again thy former, and glorify it with a better being. The jews then, if they had no other helps, Anex Scriptures. might have, (as natural men may) preparations a Priore, and illustrations a Posteriore, for the doctrine of the Resurrection. The jews had seen resuscitations, from the dead in particular persons, and they had seen miraculous cures done by their Prophets. And Gregory Nyssen says well, Greg. Nyss. that those miraculous cures which Christ wrought, with a Tolle grabatum, and an Este sanus, and no more, they were praeludia resurrectionis, halfe-resurrections, prologues, and inducements to the doctrine of the resurrection, which shall be transacted with a Surgite mortui, and no more. So these natural helps in the consideration of the creature, are praeludia resurrectionis, they are halfe-resurrections, and these natural resurrections carry us half way to the miraculous resurrection. But certainly, the jews, who had that, which the Gentiles wanted, The Scriptures, had from them, a general, though not an explicit knowledge of the resurrection. That they had it, we see by that practice of judas the Maccabee, 2. Macab. 12. 43. in gathering a contribution to send to jerusalem, which is therefore commended, because he was therein mindful of the Resurrection. Neither doth Christ find any that opposed the doctrine of the Resurrection, but those, who though they were tolerated in the State, because they were otherwise great persons, Act. 15. 5. were absolute Heretics, even amongst the jews, The Sadduces. And Saint Paul, when, finding himself to be oppressed in Judgement, he used his Christian wisdom, and to draw a strong party to himself, protested himself to be of the sect of the Pharisees; and that, as they, and all the rest, in general, did, he maintained the Resurrection, he knew it would seem a strange injury, and an oppression, to be called in question for that, that they all believed; Though therefore our Saviour Christ, who disputed then, only against the Sadduces, argued for the doctrine of the Resurrection, only from that place of the Scripture, which those Sadduces acknowledged to be Scripture, (for they denied all but the books of Moses) Luke 20. 37. and so insisted upon those words, Exod. 3. 6. I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of jacob, yet certainly the jews had established that doctrine, upon other places too, though to the Sadduces who accepted Moses only, Moses were the best evidence. It is evident enough in that particular place of Daniel, Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth, shall awake, 12. 2. some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And in Daniel, that word many, must not be restrained to less than all; Daniel intends by that many, that how many soever they are, they shall all arise; Rom. 5. 19 12. as Saint Paul does, when he says, By one man's disobedience, many were made sinners; that is, All, for, death passed over all men, for all have sinned. And Christ doth but paraphrase that place of Daniel, who says, Multi, many, when he says, Omnes, all; All that are in the grave shall hear his voice and shall come forth; They that have done good, Mat. 5. 28. unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation. This then being thus far settled, that the jews understood the resurrection, and more than that, they believed it, and therefore, as they had light in nature, they had assurance in Scripture, come we now, to that which was our last purpose in this first part, whether in this text, in these words of job, (though after my skin, worms destroy my body) there be any such light of the Resurrection given. It is true, that in the new Testament, where the doctrine of the resurrection is more evidently, An ex hâc Scripturá. more liquidly delivered, then in the old, (though it be delivered in the old too) there is no place cited out of the book of job, for the resurrection; and so, this is not. But it is no marvel; both upon that reason which we noted before, that they who were to be convinced, were such as received only the books of Moses, and therefore all citations from this book of job, or any other had been impertinently and frivolously employed, and, because in the new Testament, there is but one place of this book of job cited at all. 1. 3. 19 5. 13. To the Corinthians the Apostle makes use of those words in job, God taketh the wise in their own craft; And more than this one place, is not, (I think) cited out of this book of job in the new Testament. But, the authority of job is established in another place; you have heard of the patience of job, and you have seen the end of the Lord, 5. 11. says Saint james. As you have seen this, so you have heard that; seen and heard one way, out of the Scripture; you have hard that out of the book of job, you have seen this out of the Gospel. And further than this, there is no naming of jobs person, or his book in the new Testament. Saint Hierome confesses, Praefat. in job. that both the Greek, and Latin Copies of this book, were so defective in his time, that seven or eight hundred verses of the original were wanting in the book. And, for the original itself, he says, Obliquus totus liber fertur, & lubricus, it is an uncertain and slippery book. But this is only for the sense of some places of the book; And that made the authority of this book, to be longer suspended in the Church, and oftener called into question by particular men, than any other book of the Bible. But, in those who have, for many ages, received this book for Canonical, there is an unanime acknowledgement, (at least, tacitly) that this piece of it, this text, (When, after my skin, worms shall destroy my body, yet in my flesh I shall see God) does establish the Resurrection. Divide the expositors into three branches; (for, so, the world will needs divide them) The first, Parts. the Roman Church will call theirs; though they have no other title to them, but that they received the same translation that they do. And all they use this text for the resurrection. Greg. Verba viri in gentilitate positi erubescamus; It is a shame for us, who have the word of God itself, (which job had not) and have had such a commentary, such an exposition upon all the former word of God, as the real, and actual, and visible resurrection of Christ himself, Erubescamus verba viri in gentilitate positi, let us be ashamed and confounded, if job, a person that lived not within the light of the covenant, saw the resurrection more clearly, and professed it more constantly than we do. Greg. Nyss. 42. 10. And, as this Gregory of Rome, so Gregory Nyssen understood job too. For, he considers jobs case thus; God promised job twofold of all that he had lost; And in his sheep and camels, and oxen, and asses, which were utterly destroyed, and brought to nothing, God performs it punctually, he had all in a double proportion. 12. But job had seven sons; and three daughters before, and God gives him but seven sons; and three daughters again; And yet job had twofold of these too; for Postnati cum prioribus numerantur, quia omnes deo vivunt; Those which were gone, and those which were new given, lived all one life, because they lived all in God; Necquicquam aliud est mors nisi viti, ositatis expiatio; Death is nothing else, but a divesting of those defects, which made us less fit for God. And therefore, agreeably to this purpose, says Saint Cyprian, Scimus non amitti, sed praemitti; Cyprian. thy dead are not lost, but lent. Non recedere, sed praecedere; They are not gone into any other womb, than we shall follow them into; nec acquirendae, atrae vestes, pro iis qui albis induuntur, neither should we put on blacks, for them that are clothed in white, nor mourn for them, that are entered into their Master's joy. We can enlarge ourselves no farther in this consideration of the first branch of expositors, but that all the ancients took occasion from this text to argue for the resurrection. Take into your Consideration the other two branches of modern expositors, Lutheran. Calvinist. (whom others sometimes contumeliously, and themselves sometimes perversely have called Lutherans and Calvinists, and you may know, that in the first rank, Osiander, and with him, all his interpret these words so; And in the other rank, Tremellius, and Pellicanus, heretofore, Polanus lately, and Piscator, for the present; All these, and all the Translators into the vulgar tongues of all our neighbours of Europe, do all establish the doctrine of the Resurrection by these words, this place of job. And therefore, though one, (and truly for any thing I know, but one) though one, to whom we all owe much, for the interpretation of the Scriptures, Calvin. do think that job intends no other resurrection in this place, but that, when he shall be reduced to the miserablest estate that can be in this life, still he will look upon God, and trust in him for his restitution, and reparation in this life; let us with the whole Christian Church, embrace and magnify this Holy and Heroical Spirit of job; Scio, says he; I know it, (which is more in him, than the Credo is in us, more to know it then, in that state, then to believe it now, after it hath been so evidently declared, not only to be a certain truth, but to be an article of faith) Scio Redemptorem, says he; I know not only a Creator, but a Redeemer; And, Redemptorem meum, My Redeemer, which implies a confidence, and a personal application of that Redemption to himself. Scio vivere, says he; I know that he lives; I know that he begun not in his Incarnation, I know he ended not in his death, but it always was, and is now, and shall for ever be true, Vivit, that he lives still. And then, Scio venturum, says he too; I know he shall stand at the last day to Judge me and all the world; And after that, and after my skin and body is destroyed by worms, yet in my flesh I shall see God. And so have you as much as we proposed for our first part; That the Jews do now, that they always did believe a Resurrection; That as natural men, and by natural reason they might know it, both in the possibility of the thing, and in the purpose of God, that they had better helps then natural reason, for they had divers places of their Scripture, and that this place of Scripture, which is our text, hath evermore been received for a proof of the Resurrection. Proceed we now, to those particulars which constitute our second part, such instructions concerning the Resurrection, as arise out of these words, Though after my skin, worms destroy my body, yet in my flesh I shall see God. In this second part, the first thing that was proposed, was, That the Saints of God, 2. Part. Sancti non eximuntur. are not privileged from this, which fell upon job, This Death, this dissolution after death. Upon the Morte morieris, that double death, interminated by God upon Adam, there is a Non obstante; Revertere, turn to God, and thou shalt not die the death, not the second death. But upon that part of the sentence, In pulverem reverteris, To dust thou shalt return, there is no Non obstante; though thou turn to God, thou must turn into the grave; for, he that redeemed thee from the other death, redeemed not himself from this. Carry this consideration to the last minute of the world, 1 Thes. 4. 17. when we that remain shall be caught up in the clouds, yet even that last fire may be our fever, those clouds our winding sheets, that rapture our dissolution; and so, with Saint Augustine, most of the ancients, most of the latter men think, that there shall be a sudden dissolution of body and soul, which is death, and a sudden reuniting of both, which is resurrection, in that instant; Quis Homeo, is David's question; What man is he that liveth and shall not see death? Let us add, Quis Deoram? What god is he amongst the Gentiles, Psal. 89. 48. that hath not seen death? Which of their three hundred jupiters', which of their thousands of other gods, have not seen death? Mortibus morjuntur; we may add to that double death in God's mouth, another death; The gods of the Gentiles have died thrice; In body, in soul, and in fame; for, though they have been glorified with a Deification, nor one of all those old gods, is, at this day, worshipped, in any part of the world, but all those temporary, and transitory Gods, are worn out, and dead in all senses. Those gods, who were but men, fall under David's question, Quis Home? And that man who was truly God, falls under it too, Christ Jesus; He saw death, though he saw not the death of this text, Corruption. And, if we consider the effusion of his precious blood, the contusion of his sacred flesh, the extension of those sinews, and ligaments which tied heaven, and earth together, in a reconciliation, the departing of that Intelligence from that sphere, of that high Priest from that Temple, of that Dove from that Ark, of that soul from that body, that dissolution (which, as an ordinary man he should have had in the grave, but that the decree of God, declared in the infallibility of the manifold prophecies, preserved him from it) had been but a slumber, in respect of these tortures, which he did suffer; The Godhead stayed with him in the grave, and so he did not corrupt, but, though our souls be gone up to God, our bodies shall. Corruption in the skin, says job; In the outward beauty, In pelle. These be the Records of velim, these be the parchmins, the endictments, and the evidences that shall condemn many of us, at the last day, our own skins; we have the book of God, the Law, written in our own hearts; we have the image of God imprinted in our own souls; we have the character, and seal of God stamped in us, in our baptism; and, all this is bound up in this velim, in this parchmin, in this skin of ours, and we neglect book, and image, and character, and feal, and all for the covering. It is not a clear case, if we consider the original words properly, That jesabel did paint; and yet all translators, 2 Reg. 5. 30. and expositors have taken a just occasion, out of the ambiguity of those words, to cry down that abomination of painting. It is not a clear case, if we consider the propriety of the words, That Absalon was hanged by the hair of the head; 2 Sam. 18. 9 and yet the Fathers and others have made use of that indifferency, and verisimilitude, to explode that abomination, of cherishing and curling hair, to the enveagling, and ensnaring, and entangling of others; judicium patietur aeternum, says Saint Hierome, Thou art guilty of a murder, though no body die; Quia vinum attulisti, si faisset qui bibisset; Hieron: Thou hast poisoned a cup, if any would drink, thou hast prepared a tentation, if any would swallow it. Tertullian Tertul. thought he had done enough, when he had writ his book De Habitu muli●bri, against the excess of women in clothes, but he was fain to add another with more vehemence, De cultu foeminarum, that went beyond their clothes to their skin. And he concludes, Illud ambitionis crimen, there's vainglory in their excess of clothes, but, Hoc prostitutionis, there's prostitution in drawing the eye to the skin. Pliny says, that when their thin silk stuffs were first invented at Rome, Excogitatum ad faeminas denudandas, It was but an invention that women might go naked in clothes, for their skins might be seen through those clothes, those thin stuffs: Our women are not so careful, but they expose their nakedness professedly, and paint it, to cast birdlime for the passengers eye. Beloved, good diet makes the best Complexion, and a good Conscience is a continual feast; A cheerful heart makes the best blood, and peace with God is the true cheerfulness of heart, Thy Saviour neglected his skin so much, as that at last, he scarce had any; all was torn with the whips, and scourges; and thy skin shall come to that absolute corruption, as that, though a hundred years after thou art buried, one may find thy bones, and say, this was a tall man, this was a strong man, yet we shall soon be past saying, upon any relic of thy skin, This was a fair man; Corruption seizes the skin, all outward beauty quickly, and so it does the body, the whole frame and constitution, which is another consideration; After my skin, my Body. If the whole body were an eye, or an ear, where were the body, says Saint Paul; but, In corpore. 1 Cor. 12. 17. when of the whole body there is neither eye nor ear, nor any member left, where is the body? And what should an eye do there, where there is nothing to be seen but loathsomeness; or a nose there, where there is nothing to be smelled, but putrefaction; or an ear, where in the grave they do not praise God? Doth not that body that boasted but yesterday of that privilege above all creatures, that it only could go upright, lie to day as flat upon the earth as the body of a horse, or of a dog? And doth it not to morrow lose his other privilege, of looking up to heaven? Is it not farther removed from the eye of heaven, the Sun, than any dog, or horse, by being covered with the earth, which they are not? Painters have presented to us with some horror, the s●cleton, the frame of the bones of a man's body; but the state of a body, in the dissolution of the grave, no pencil can present to us. Between that excremental jelly that thy body is made of at first, and that jelly which thy body dissolves to at last; there is not so noisome, so putrid a thing in nature. This skin, (this outward beauty) this body, (this whole constitution) must be destroyed, says Iob● in the next place. The word is well chosen, by which all this is expressed, in this text, Nakaph, Destroyed. which is a word of as heavy a signification, to express an utter abolition, and annihilation, as perchance can be found in all the Scriptures. Tremellius hath mollifyed it in his translation; there it is but Confodere, to pierce. And yet it is such a piercing, such a sapping, such an undermining, such a demolishing of a fort of Castle, as may justly remove us from any high valuation, or any great confidence, in that skin, and in that body, upon which this Confoderint must fall. But, in the great Bible it is Contriverint, Thy skin, and thy body shall be ground away, trod away upon the ground. Ask where that iron is that is ground off of a knife, or axe; Ask that marble that is worn off of the threshold in the Church-porch by continual treading, and with that iron; and with that marble, thou mayst find thy Father's skin, and body; Contrita sunt, The knife, the marble, the skin, the body are ground away, trod away, they are destroyed, who knows the revolutions of dust? Dust upon the King's highway, and dust upon the King's grave, are both, or neither, Dust Royal, and may change places; who knows the revolutions of dust? Even in the dead body of Christ Jesus himself, one dram of the decree of his Father, one sheet, one sentence of the prediction of the Prophets preserved his body from corruption, and incineration, more than all Joseph's new tombs, and fine linen, and great proportion of spices could have done. O, who can express this inexpreffible mystery? The foul of Christ Jesus, which took no harm by him, contracted no Original sin, in coming to him, was guilty of no more sin, when it went out, then when it came from the breath and bosom of God, yet this soul left this body in death. And the Divinity, the Godhead, incomparably better than that soul, which soul was incomparably better than all the Saints, and Angels in heaven, that Divinity, that Godhead did not forsake the body, though it were dead If we might compare things infinite in themselves, it was nothing so much, that God did assume man's nature, as that God did still cleave to that man, then when he was no man, in the separation of body and soul, in the grave. But full we from incomprehensible mysteries; for, there is mortification enough, (and mortification is vivification, and aedification) in this obvious consideration; skin and body, beauty and substance must be destroyed; And, Destroyed by worms, which is another descent in this humiliation, and ex●anition of man, in death; After my skin, worms shall destroy this body. I will not insist long upon this, because it is not in the Original, In the Original there is no mention of worms. Vermes. 21. 26. 24. 20. But because in other places of job there is, (They shall lie down alike in the dust, and the worms shall cover them) (The womb shall forget them, and the worm shall feed sweetly on them; & because the word Destroying is presented in that form & number, Contriverint, when they shall destroy, they and no other persons, no other creatures named) both our later translations, (for indeed, our first translation hath no mention of worms) and so very many others, even Tremell●s that adheres most to the letter of the Hebrew, have filled up this place, with that addition, Destroyed by worms. It makes the destruction the more contemptible; Thou that wouldst not admit the beams of the Sun upon thy skin, and yet hast admitted the pollutions of sin; Thou that wouldst not admit the breath of the air upon thy skin, and yet hast admitted the spirit of lust, and unchaste solicitations to breath upon thee, in execrable oaths, and blasphemies, to vicious purposes; Thou, whose body hath (as far as it can) putrefyed and corrupted even the body of thy Saviour, in an unworthy receiving thereof, in this skin, in this body, must be the food of worms, the prey of destroying worms. After a low birth thou mayst pass an honourable life, after a sentence of an ignominious death, Acts 12: 23. thou mayst have an honourable end; But, in the grave canst thou make these worms silk worms? They were bold and early worms that eat up Herod before he died; They are bold and everlasting worms, which after thy skin and body is destroyed, shall remain as long as God remains, in an eternal gnawing of thy conscience; long, long after the destroying of skin and body, by bodily worms. Thus far then to the destroying of skin and body by worms, all men are equal; Thus far all's Common law, Post. and no Prerogative, so is it also in the next step too; The Resurrection is common to all. The prerogative lies not in the Rising, but in the rising to the fruition of the sight of God; in which consideration, the first beam of comfort is the Postquam, After all this, destruction before by worms; ruinous misery before; but there is something else to be done upon me after. God leaves no state without comfort. God leaves some inhabitants of the earth, under longer nights than others, but none under an everlasting night; and, those, whom he leaves under those long nights, he recompenses with as long days, after. I were miserable, if there were not an Antequam in my behalf; if before I had done well or ill actually in this world, God had not wrapped me up, in his good purpose upon me. And I were miserable again, if there were not a Postquam in my behalf; If, after my sin had cast me into the grave, there were not a loud trumpet to call me up, and a gracious countenance to look upon me, when I were risen. Nay, let my life have been as religious, as the infirmities of this life can admit, 1 Cor. 15. 19 yet, If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are, of all men, most miserable. For, for the worldly things of this life, first, the children of God have them in the least proportions of any; and besides that, those children of God, which have them in larger proportion, do yet make the least use of them, of any others, because the children of the world, are not so tender conscienced, nor so much afraid, lest those worldly things should become snares, and occasions of tentation to them, if they open themselves to a full enjoying thereof, as the children of God are. And therefore, after my wanting of many worldly things, (after a penurious life) and, after my not daring to use those things that I have, so freely as others do, after that holy and conscientious forbearing of those things that other men afford themselves, after my leaving all these absolutely behind me here, and my skin and body in destruction in the grace, After all, there remains something else for me. After; but how long after? That's next. When Christ was in the body of that flesh, which we are in, Quando? Mar. 13. 32. now, (sin only excepted) he said, in that state that he was in then, Of that day and hour, no man knoweth, not the Angels, not the Son. Then, in that state, he excludes himself. And when Christ was risen again, in an uncorruptible body, he said, even to his nearest followers, Non est vestru●●, Act●. 17. Basil. it is not for you, to know times, and seasons. Before in his state of mortality, 〈…〉 ignor antibus, he pretended to know no more of this, than they that knew nothing. After, when he had invested immortality, per sui exceptionem, (says that Father) he excepts none but himself; all the rest, even the Apostles, were left ignorant thereof. For this non est vestrum, (it is not for you) is part of the last sentence that ever Christ spoke to them. If it be a convenient answer to say, Christ knew it not, as man, how bold is that man that will pretend to know it? And, if it be a convenient interpretation of Christ's words, that he knew it not, that is, knew it not so, as that he might tell it them, how indiscreet are they, who, though they may seem to know it, will publish it? For, thereby they fill other men with scruples, and vexations, and they open themselves to scorn and reproach, when their predictions prove false, as Saint Augustine observed in his time, and every age hath given examples since, of confident men that have failed in these conjectures. It is a poor pretence to say, this intimation, this impression of a certain time, prepares men with better dispositions. For, they have so often been found false, that it rather weakens the credit of the thing itself. In the old world they knew exactly the time of the destruction of the world; that there should be an hundred & twenty years, Gén. 6. 3. before the flood came; And yet, upon how few, did that prediction, though from the mouth of God himself, work to repentance? Na●● found grace in God's eyes; but it was not because he mended his life upon that prediction, but he was grations in God's sight before. At the day of our death, we write Pridi●r●surr●ctioni●, the day before the resurrection; It is Vigilia resurectionis; Our Easter Eve. Adveniat regnum tuum, possess my soul of thy kingdom then: And, Fi●● voluntas tua, my body shall arise after, but how soon after, or how late after, thy will be done then; by thyself, and thy will be known, till then, to thyself. We pass on. Ego. As in Massa damnata, the whole lump of mankind is under the condemnation of Adam's sin, and yet the good purpose of God severs some men from that condemnation, so, at the resurrection, all shall rise; but not all to glory. But amongst them, that do, Ego, says job, I shall. ay, as I am the same man, made up of the samebody, and the same soul. Shall I imagine a difficulty in my body, because I have lost an Arm in the East, and a leg in the West? because I have left some blood in the North, and some bones in the South? Do but remember, with what ease you have sat in the chair, casting an account, and made a shilling on one hand, a pound on the other, or five shillings below, ten above, because all these lay easily within your reach. Consider how much less, all this earth is to him, that sits in heaven, and spans all this world, and reunites in an instant arms, and legs, blood, and bones, in what corners so ever they be scattered. The greater work may seem to be in reducing the soul; That that soul which sped so ill in that body, last time it came to it, as that it contracted Original sin then, and was put to the slavery to serve that body, and to serve it in the ways of sin, not for an Apprenticeship of seven, but seventy years after, that that soul after it hath once got loose by death, and lived God knows how many thousands of years, free from that body; that abused it so before, and in the sight and fruition of that God, where it was in no danger, should willingly, nay desirously. ambitiously seek this scuttered body; this Eastern, and Western, and Northern, and Southern body, this is the most inconsiderable consideration, and yet, Ego, ay, I the same body, and the same soul, shall be recompact again, and be identically, numerically, individually the same man. The same integrity of body, and soul, and the same integrity in the Organs of my body, and in the faculties of my soul too; I shall be all there, my body, and my soul, & all my body, & all my soul I am not all here, I am here now preaching upon this text, and I am at home in my Library considering whether S. Gregory, or S. Hierome, have said best of this text, before. I am here speaking to you, and yet I consider by the way, in the same instant, what it is likely you will say to one another, when I have done, you are not all here neither; you are here now, hearing me, and yet you are thinking that you have heard a better Sermon somewhere else, of this text before, you are here, and yet you think you could have heard some other doctrine of downright Predestinations and Reprobation roundly delivered somewhere else with more edification to you● you are here, and you remember yourselves that now ye think of it. This had been the fittest time, now, when every body else is at Church, to have made such and such a private visit; and because you would be there, you are there. I cannot say, you cannot say so perfectly, so entirely now, as at the Resurrection, Ego, I am here; I, body and soul; I, soul and faculties: as Christ said to Peter, Noli timere, Ego sum, Fear nothing, it is I; so I say to myself, Noli timere; My soul, why art thou so sad, my body, why dost thou languish: Ego, ay, body and soul, soul and faculties, shall say to Christ Jesus, Ego sum, Lord, it is I, and he shall not say, Nescio te, I know thee not, but avow me, and place me at his right hand. Ego sum, Lam. 3. 1. 1 Pet. 5. 4. I am the man that hath seen affliction, by the rod of his wrath; Ego sum, and I the same man, shall receive the crown of glory which shall not fade. Ego, Videbo. ay, the same person; Ego videbo, I shall see; I have had no lookingglass in my grave, to see how my body looks in the dissolution; I know not how. I have had no hourglass in my grave to see how my time passes; I know not when: for, when my eyelids are closed in my deathbed, Apoc. 10. 7. Dan. 7. 9 the Angel hath said to me, that time shall be no more; Till I see eternity, the ancient of days, I shall see no more; but then I shall: Now, why is job gladder of the use of this sense of seeing, then of any of the other? He is not; He is glad of seeing, but not of the sense, but of the Object. It is true that is said in the School, ● quin. sup. q. 82. ●. 4. Viciniùs se habent potentiae sensitivae ad animam quam corpus; Our sensitive faculties have more relation to the soul, then to the body; but yet to some purpose, and in some measure, all the senses shall be in our glorified bodies, In actu, or in potentiâ, say they; so as that we shall use them, or so as that we might. But this sight that job speaks of, is only the fruition of the presence of God, in which consists eternal blessedness. 1 Cor. 13. 12. Here, in this world, we see God per speculum, says the Apostle, by reflection, upon a glass; we see a creature; and from that there arises an assurance that there is a Creator; we see him in aenigmate, says he; which is not ill rendered in the margin, in a Riddle, we see him in the Church; but men have made it a riddle; which is the Church, we see him in the Sacrament, but men have made it a riddle; by what light, and at what window: Do I see him at the window of bread and wine; Is he in that; or do I see him by the window of faith; and is he only in that? still it is in a riddle. Do I see him à Priore, (I see that I am elected, and therefore I cannot sin to death.) Or do I see him à Posteriore, (because I see myself careful not to sin to death, therefore I am elected) I shall see all problematical things come to be dogmatic, I shall see all these rocks in Divinity, come to be smooth alleys; I shall see Prophecies untied, Riddles dissolved, controversies reconciled; but I shall never see that, till I come to this sight which follows in out text, Videbo Deum, I shall see God. No man ever saw God and lived; Deum. and yet, I shall not live till I see God; and when I have seen him I shall never die. What have I ever seen in this world, that hath been truly the same thing that it seemed to me? I have seen marble buildings, and a chip, a crust, a plaster, a face of marble hath piled off, and I see brick-bowels within. I have seen beauty, and a strong breath from another, tells me, that that complexion is from without, not from a sound constitution within. I have seen the state of Princes, and all that is but ceremony; and, I would be loath to put a Master of ceremonies to define ceremony, and tell me what it is, and to include so various a thing as ceremony, in so constant a thing, as a Definition. I see a great Officer, and I see a man of mine own profession, of great revenues, and I see not the interest of the money, that was paid for it, I see not the pensions, nor the Annuities, that are charged upon that Office, or that Church. As he that fears God, fears nothing else, so, he that sees God, sees every thing else: 1 john 3. 2. when we shall see God, Sicuti est, as he is, we shall see all things Sicuti sunt, as they are; for that's their Essence, as they conduce to his glory. We shall be no more deluded with outward appearances: for, when this sight, which we intent here comes, there will be no delusory thing to be seen. All that we have made as though we saw, in this world, will be vanished, and I shall see nothing but God, and what is in him; and him I shall see in carne, in the flesh, which is another degree of Exaltation in mine Exinanition. I shall see him, In carne. In car●e suâ, in his flesh: And this was one branch in Saint Augustine's great wish, That he might have seen Rome in her state, That he might have heard S. Paul preach, That he might have seen Christ in the flesh: Saint Augustine hath seen Christ in the flesh one thousand two hundred years; in Christ's glorified flesh; but, it is with the eyes of his understanding, and in his soul. Our flesh, even in the Resurrection, cannot be a spectacle, a perspective glass to our soul. We shall see the Humanity of Christ with our bodily eyes, then glorified; but, that flesh, though glorified, cannot make us see God better, nor clearer, than the soul alone hath done, all the time, from our death, to our resurrection. But as an indulgent Father, or as a tender mother, when they go to see the King in any Solemnity, or any other thing of observation, and curiosity, delights to carry their child, which is flesh of their flesh, and bone of their bone, with them, and though the child cannot comprehend it as well as they, they are as glad that the child sees it, as that they see it themselves, such a gladness shall my soul have, that this flesh, (which she will no longer call her prison, nor her tempter, but her friend, her companion, her wife) that this flesh, that is, I, in in the reunion, and redintegration of both parts, shall see God; for then, one principal clause in her rejoicing, and acclamation, shall be, that this flesh is her flesh; In carne meâ, in my flesh I shall see God. It was the flesh of every wanton object here, Mea. that would allure it in the petulancy of mine eye. It was the flesh of every Satirical Libeler, and defamer, and calumniator of other men, that would call upon it, and tickle mine ear with aspersions and slanders of persons in authority. And in the grave, it is the flesh of the worm; the possession is transferred to him. But, in heaven, it is Caro mea, My flesh, my souls flesh, my Saviour's flesh. As my meat is assimilated to my flesh, and made one flesh with it; as my soul is assimilated to my God, 2. Pet. 1. 4. 1. Cor. 6. 17. and made partaker of the divine nature, and Idem Spiritus, the same Spirit with it; so, there my flesh shall be assimilated to the flesh of my Saviour, and made the same flesh with him too. Verbum caro factum, ut caro resurgeret; Therefore the Word was made flesh, Athanas. therefore God was made man, that that union might exalt the flesh of man to the right hand of God. That's spoken of the flesh of Christ; and then to facilitate the passage for us, Reformat ad immortalitatem suam participes sui; Cyril. those who are worthy receivers of his flesh here, are the same flesh with him; Rom. 8. 11. And, God shall quicken your mortal bodies, by his Spirit is that dwelleth in you. But this is not in consummation, in full accomplishment, till this resurrection, when it shall be Caro mea, my flesh, so, as that nothing can draw it from the allegiance of my God; and Caro mea, My flesh, so, as that nothing can divest me of it. Here a bullet will ask a man, where's your arm; and a Wolf will ask a woman, where's your breast. A sentence in the Star-chamber will ask him, where's your ear, and a mouths close prison will ask him, where's your flesh? A fever will ask him, where's your Red, and a morphew will ask him, where's your white? But when after all this, when after my skin worms shall destroy my body, I shall see God, I shall see him in my flesh, which shall be mine as inseparably, (in the effect, though not in the manner) as the Hypostatical union of God, and man, in Christ, makes our nature and the Godhead one person in him. My flesh shall no more be none of mine, than Christ shall not be man, as well as God. SERMON XV. Preached at Lincoln's Inn. 1 COR. 15. 50. Now this I say Brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. SAint Gregory hath delivered this story; Moral. 14. 29. That Eutychius, who was Bishop of Constantinople, having written a book of the Resurrection, and therein maintained that error, That the body of Christ had not, that our bodies, in the Resurrection should not have any of the qualities of a natural body, but that those bodies were, in subtilitatem redacta, so rarifyed, so refined, so attenuated, and reduced to a thinness, and subtleness, that they were airy bodies, and not bodies of flesh and blood. This error made a great noise, and raised a great dust, till the Emperor, to avoid scandal, (which for the most part arises out of public conferences) was pleased to hear Eutychius, and Gregory dispute this point privately before himself, and a small company; And, that upon conference, the Emperor was so well satisfied, that he commanded Eutychius his books to be burnt. That after this, both Gregory and Eutychius fell sick; but Eutychius died; and died with this protestation, In hâc carne, in this flesh, (taking up the flesh of his hand in the presence of them that were there) in this flesh, I acknowledge, that I, and all men shall arise at the day of Judgement. Now, the principal place of Scripture, which in his book, and in that conference Eutychius stood upon, was this Text, these words of Saint Paul; (This I say brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.) And the directest answer that Gregory gave to it was, Caro secundum culpam non regnabit, sed Caro secundum naturam; sinful flesh shall not, but natural flesh, that is, flesh endued with all qualities of flesh, all such qualities as imply no defect, no corruption, (for there was flesh before there was sin) such flesh, and such blood shall inherit the Kingdom of God. As there have been more Heresies about the Humanity of Christ, then about his Divinity, so there have been more heresies about the Resurrection of his body, and consequently of ours, then about any other particular article, that concerns his Humiliation, or Exaltation. Simon Magus struck deepest at first, to the root; That there was no Resurrection at all; The Gnostics, (who took their name from knowledge, as though they knew all, and no body else any thing, which is a pride transferred through all Heretics: for, as that sect in the Roman Church, which call themselves Ignorantes, and seem to pretend to no knowledge, do yet believe that they know a better way to heaven, than all other men do, so that sect amongst them, which called themselves Nullanos, Nothings, thought themselves greater in the Kingdom of God, then either of the other two sects of diminution, the Minorits, or the Minims did) These Gnostics acknowledged a Resurrection, but they said it was of the soul only, and not of the body, for they thought that the soul lay dead (at least, in a dead sleep) till the Resurrection. Those Heretics that are called the Arabians, did (as the Gnostics did) affirm a temporary death of the soul, as well as of the body, but then they allowed a Resurrection to both soul, and body, after that death, which the Gnostickes did not, but to the soul only. Hymeneus and Philetus, (of whom Saint Paul speaks) they restrained the Resurrection to the soul, 2. Tim. 2. 18. but then they restrained this Resurrection of the soul to this life, and that in those who were baptised, the Resurrection was accomplished already. Eutychius, (whom we mentioned before) enlarged the Resurrection to the body, as well as to the soul, but enlarged the qualities of the body so far, as that it was scarce a body. The Armenian heretics said; that it was not only Corpus hum●num, but Corpus masculinum, That all should rise in the perfecter sex, and none, as women. Origen allowed a Resurrection, and allowed the Body to be a natural body; but the contracted the time; he said, that when we rose we should enjoy the benefits of the resurrection, even in bodily pleasures, for a thousand years, and then be annihilated, or absorpted and swallowed up into the nature, and essence of God himself; (for, it will be hard to state origen's opinion in this point; Origen was not, herein, well understood in his own time; not do we understand him now, (for the most part) but by his accusers, and those that have written against him.) Divers of these Heretics, for the maintenance of their several heresies, perverted this Scripture, (Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God) and that occasioned those Fathers who opposed those heresies, so divers from one another, to interpret these words diversely, according to the heresy they opposed. All agree, that they are an argument for the resurrection, though they seem at first, to oppose it. For, this Chapter hath three general parts; first, Resurrectionem esse, that there shall be a Resurrection, which the Apostle proves by many and various arguments to the thirty fifth verse. And then Quati corpore, the body shall rise, but some will say, How are the dead raised, and with what body, do they come? in that thirty fifth verse: And lastly, Quid de superstitibus, what shall become of them, who shall be found alive, at the day? We shall all be changed, verse fifty one. Now, this text is the knot, and corollary or all the second part, concerning the qualities of the bodies in the resurrection; Now, says the Apostle, now that I have said enough to prove that a resurrection there is, now, now that I have said enough what kind of bodies shall arise, now, I show you as much in the Negative as I have done in the Affirmative, now I teach you what to avoid, as well as I have done what to affect, now this I say brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Now, though those words be primarily, principally intended of the last Resurrection, yet in a secondary respect, they are appliable in themselves, and very often applied by the ancients, Tertull. to the first Resurrection, our resurrection in this life. Tertullian hath intimated, and presented both together, elegantly, when he says of God, Nobis arrhabonem spiritus reliquit, & arrhabonem à nobis accepit, God hath given us his earnest, and a pawn from him upon earth, in giving us the holy Ghost, and he hath received our earnest, and a pawn from us into heaven, by receiving our nature, in the body of Christ Jesus there. Flesh and blood, when it is conformed to the flesh and blood of Christ now glorified, and made like his, by our resurrectien, may inherit the kingdom of God, in heaven. Yea flesh and blood being conformed to Christ by the sanctification of the holy Ghost, here, in this world, may inherit the kingdom of God, here upon earth; for, God hath a kingdom here; and there is a Communion in Arms, as well as a communion in Triumph. Leaving then that acceptation of flesh and blood, which many think to be intended in this text, that is, Animalis caro, flesh and blood that must be maintained by eating, and drinking, and preserved by propagation and generation, that flesh, and that blood cannot inherit heaven, where there is no marrying, nor giving in marriage, but Erimus sicut Angeli, we shall be as the Angels, (though such a heaven, in part, Mahomet hath proposed to his followers, a heaven that should abound with worldly delights, and such a heaven the Disciples of Origen, and the Millenarians, that look for one thousand years of all temporal felicity, proposed to themselves; And, though amongst our latter men, Cajetan do think, that the Apostle in this text, bend himself upon that doctrine, non caro, non Animalis caro, flesh and blood, that is, no carnal, no worldly delights are to be looked for, in heaven,) leaving that sense, as too narrow, and too shallow for the holy Ghost, in this place, in which he hath a higher reach, we shall determine ourselves at this time, in these too acceptations of this phrase of speech; Divisio. first, non caro, that is, non caro corrupta, flesh and blood cannot, sinful flesh, corrupt flesh, flesh not discharged of sinful corruption here, by repentance, and Sanctification, and the operation of God's spirit, such flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of God here. Secondly, noncar●, is non car● corruptibilis, flesh and blood cannot, that is, flesh that is yet subject to corruption, and dissolution, and natural passions and impressions, tending to defectiveness, flesh that is still subject to any punishment that God lays upon flesh, for sin, such flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of God hereafter; for our present possession of the kingdom of God here, our corrupt flesh must be purged by Sanctification here, for the future kingdom, our natural corruptibleness must be purged by glorification there. We will make the last part first, as this flesh, and this blood, by divesting the corruptibleness it suffers here, by that glorification, shall inherit that kingdom; and, not stay long upon it neither. For, of that we have spoken conveniently before, of the resurrection itself. Now we shall look a little into the qualities of bodies in the resurrection; and that, not in the intricacies, and subtleties of the School, but only in that one pattern, which hath been given us of that glory, upon earth, which is the Transfiguration of Christ; for, that Transfiguration of his, was a representation of a glorified body in a glorified state. And then in the second place, we shall come to our first part, what that flesh and blood is that is denied to be capable of the inheritance of that kingdom here, that is, that earnest of heaven, and that inchoation of heaven which may be had in this world; and, in that part we shall see, what this inheritance, what this title to heaven here, and what this kingdom of God, that heaven which is proposed to us here, is. First then, 1. Part. Melancthon. for the first acceptation, (which is of the later resurrection) no man denies that which Melancthon hath collected and established to be the sum of this text, Statuit resurrectionem in corpore, sed non quale jam corpus est; The Apostle establishes a resurrection of the body, but yet not such a body as this is. It is the same body, and yet not such a body; which is a mysterious consideration, that it is the same body, and yet not such as itself, nor like any other body of the same substance. But, what kind of body then? We content ourselves with that, Transfiguratio specimen appositissimum Resurrectionis, Musculus. the Transfiguration of Christ, is the best glass to see this resurrection, and state of glory in. But how was that transfiguration wrought? We content ourselves with Saint Hieromes expressing of it, Hierom. non pristinam amisit veritatem, vel formam corporis; Christ had still the same true, and real body, and he had the same form, and proportion, and lineaments, and dimensions of his body, in itself. Transfiguratio non faciem subtraxit, sed splendorem ad didit, says he; It gave him not another face, but it super-immitted such a light, such an illustration upon him, as, by that irradiation, that coruscation, the beams of their eyes were scattered, and disgregated, dissipated so, as that they could not collect them, as at other times, nor constantly, and confidently discern him. Moses had a measure, a proportion of this; but yet when Moses came down with his shining face, Exod. 23. 29. Mat. 17. though they were not able to look long upon him, they knew him to be Moses. When Christ was transfigured in the presence of Peter, james and john, yet they knew him to be Christ. Transfiguration did not so change him, nor shall glorification so change us, as that we shall not be known. There is nothing to convince a man of error, nothing in nature, nothing in Scriptures, if he believe that he shall know those persons in heaven, whom he knew upon earth; and, if he conceive soberly, that it were a less degree of blessedness, not to know them, then to know them, he is bound to believe that he shall know them, Aquin. for he is bound to believe, that all that conduces to blessedness shall be given him. The School resolves, that at the Judgement, all the sins of all, shall be manifested to all; even those secret sinful thoughts that never came out of the heart. And, when any in the School differs or departs from this common opinion, they say only, Lombar. that those sins which have been, in particular, repent, shall not be manifested: all others shall. And therefore it is a deep uncharitableness, to reproach any man, of sins formerly repent; and a deep uncharitableness not to believe, that he whom thou seest at the Communion, hath repent his former sins; Reproach no man, after thou hast seen him receive, with last years sins; except thou have good evidence of his Hypocrisy then, or of his Relapsing after; For, in those two cases, a man remains, or becomes again guilty of his former sins. Now, if in heaven they shall know the hearts of one another, whose faces they never knew before, there is less difficulty in knowing them, whom we did know before. From this transfiguration of Christ, in which, the mortal eye of the Apostles, did see that representation of the glory of Christ, the Schools make a good argument, that in heaven we shall do it much more. And though in this case of the Transfiguration, in which the eyes of mortal men could have no proportion with that glory of heaven, this may be well said to have been done, either Moderando lumen, (that God abated that light of glory) or Confortando visum, (that God exalted their sense of seeing supernaturally) no such distinctions, or modifications will be needful in heaven, because how highly soever the body of my Father, or of my friend shall be glorified there, mine eyes shall be glorified as much, and we are both kept in the same proportion there, as we had towards one another here; here my natural eye could see his natural face, and there mine eye is as much mended, as his body is, and my sense as much exalted as mine object; And as well, as I may know, that I am I; I may know, that He is He; for, I shall not know myself, nor that state of glory which I am then in, by any light of Nature which I brought thither, but by that light of Glory which I shall receive there. When therefore a man finds, that this consideration does him good in his conversation, and retards him towards some sins; how shall I stand then, when all the world shall see, that my solicitation hath brought such a woman to the stews, to the Hospital, to hell, who had scaped all this, if I had not corrupted her at first, (which no man in the world knew before, and all shall know then.) Or that my whispering, and my calumny hath overthrown such a man in his place, in his reputation, in his fortune (which he himself knew not before, and all shall know then.) Or, that my counsel, or my example hath been a furtherance to any man's spiritual edification here. He that in rectified reason, and a rectified conscience finds this, in God's name let him believe; yea, for God's sake let him take heed of not believing that we shall know one another, Actions and Persons, in the Resurrection, as the Apostles did know Christ at the Transfiguration, which was a Type of it. This Transfiguration then upon earth; was the same glory, which Christ had after, in heaven. Transfiguratio. Hierom. Qualis venturus, talis apparuit; such as all eyes shall see him to be, when he comes in glory at last, those Apostles saw him then, but of the particular circumstances, even of this transfiguration upon earth, there is but little said to us. Let us modestly take that which is expressed in it, and not search over-curiously farther into that which is signified, and represented by it; which is, the state of glory in the Resurrection. First, his face shined as the Sun, says that Gospel, he could not take a higher comparison, Sol. Mat. 17. 2. for our Information, and for our admiration in this world, than the Sun. And then, the Saints of God in their glorified state are admitted to the same comparison. The righteous shall shine out as the Sun in the Kingdom of the Father; the Sun of the firmament which should be their comparison, 13. 43. will be gone; But the Sun of grace and of glory, the Son of God shall remain; and they shall shine as he; that is, in his righteousness. In this transfiguration, Nix. his clothes were white, says the text; but how white, the holy Ghost does not tell us at once, as white as snow, says Saint Mark, as white as light, says Saint Matthew. Let the garments of the glorified Saints of God be their bodies, and then, 9 3. their bodies are as white as snow, as snow that falls from heaven, and hath taught no pollution of the earth. For, though our bodies have been upon earth, and have touched pitch, and have been defiled, yet that will not lie in proof, not be given in evidence; Though he that drew me, and I that was drawn too, know, in what unclean places, and what unclean actions, this body of mine hath been, yet it lies not in proof, it shall not be given in evidence, for, Accusator fratrum, The accuser of the brethren is cast down, Apoc. 12. 10. the Devil shall find nothing against me; And if I had spontaneum Daemonem, as Saint chrysostom speaks, a bosom Devil, and could tempt myself, though there had been no other tempter in this world, so I have spontan●um Demonem, a bosom accuser, a conscience that would accuse me there, if I accuse myself there, I reproach the mercy of God, who hath sealed my pardon, and made even my body, what sins soever had discoloured it, as white as snow. As white as snow, Lux: and as white as light, says that Gospel. Light implies an active power, Light is operative, and works upon others. The bodies of the Saints of God; shall receive all impressions of glory in themselves, and they shall do all that is to be done, for the glory of God there. There, they shall stand in his service, and they shall kneel in his worship, and they shall fall in his reverence, and they shall sing in his glory, they shall glorify him in all positions of the body; They shall be glorified in themselves passively, and they shall glorify God actively, sicut Nix, sicut Lux, their being, their doing shall be all for him; Thus they shall shine as the Sun; Thus their garments shall be white, white as snow, in being glorified in their own bodies, white as light, in glorifying God in all the actions of those bodies. Now, Societas. there is thus much more considerable, and appliable to our present purpose, in this tranfiguration of Christ, that there was company with them. Be not apt to think heaven in an Ermitage, or a Monastery, or the way to heaven a sullen melancholy; Heaven, and the way to it, is a Communion of Saints, in a holy cheerfulness. Get thou thither; make sure thine own salvation; but be not too hasty to think, that no body gets thither, except he go thy way in all opinions, and all actions. There was company in the transfiguration; Quaesocietas. but no other company than Moses, and Elias, and Christ, and the Apostles; none but they, to whom God had manifested himself otherwise then to a mere natural man, otherwise then as a general God. For, in the Law, and in the Padagogie, and Schoolmastership, and instruction thereof, God had manifested himself particularly by Moses, In Elias and the Prophets, whom God sent in a continual succession, to refresh that manifestation which he had given of himself in the Law, before, in the example of these rules, in him, who was the consummation of the Law, and the Prophets, Christ jesus; And then, in the Application of all this, by the Apostles, and by the Church established by them, God had more particularly manifested himself, then to natural men. Moses, Elias, Christ, and the Apostles, make up the household of the faithful; and none have interest in the Resurrection, but in, and by these; These, to whom, and by whom, God hath exhibited himself, to his Church, by other notions, then as one universal God; For, nothing will save a man, but to believe in God; so as God hath proposed himself, in his Son, in his Scriptures, in his Christ. These were with him in the transfiguration, Communicatio. and they talked with him, says that text. As there is a Communion of Saints, so there is a Communication of Saints. Think not heaven a Charter-house, where men, who only of all creatures, are enabled by God to speak, must not speak to one another. The Lord of heaven is Verbum, The word, and his servants there talk of us here, and pray to him for us. They talked with him; but of what? They talked of hi● Decease, Quae communicatio. Luke 9 31. (says the text there) which he should accomplish at Jerusalem, all that they talked of, was of his Passion. All that we shall say, and sing in heaven, will be of his Passion, accomplished at Jerusalem, in that Hymn, Apoc. 5. 9 12. This Lamb hath redeemed as to God, by his blood; Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing, Amen. Even our glory in heaven, at last, is not principally for ourselves, but to contribute to the glory of Christ Jesus. If we inquire further than this, into the state of our glorified bodies, remember that in this real Parable, in this Type of the Resurrection, Mar. ●. 6. the transfiguration of Christ, it is said, that even better himself wist not what to say; and remember too, That even Christ himself forbade them to say any thing at all of it, Mat. 17. 9 till his Resurrection. Till our Resurrection, we cannot know clearly, we should not speak boldly, of the glory of the Saints of God, nor of our blessed endowments in that state. The sum of all is, Tertull. Fiducis Christianorum est resurrectio mortuorum; My faith directs itself first upon that which Christ hath done, he is dead, he is risen; and my hope directs itself upon that which shall be done, Luther. I shall rise again. And yet says Luther, Papa, Cardinals & primarii viri, I know the Pope, the Cardinals, the Bishops are I●genio, doctrinâ, ratione, prudentiâ excellentes, they abound in natural parts, in reading, in experience, in civil wisdom: yet says he, si tres sunt, qui hunc ●●ticulum indubitanter ●redunt, If there be three amongst them. that do faithfully and undoubtedly believe this article of the Resurrection of the body, three are more than I look for amongst them. Beloved, as no things are liker one another, than Court and Court, the same ambitions, the same undermine in one Court as in another, so Church and Church is alike too; All persecured Churches are religious, all peaceable Churches are dissolute, when Luther said that of the Church of Rome, (That few of them believed the Resurrection) the Roman Church wall owed in all abundances, and dissolutenesse● and scarce a man, (in respect) opened his mouth against her, otherwise then that the holy Ghost, to make his continual 〈◊〉, and to interrupt their prescription, in every age raised up some to declare their impieties and usurpations. But then, when they bend all their thoughts entirely, and prosperously upon possessing this world, they thought they might spare the Resurrection well enough; As he that hath a plentiful fortune in Europe, cares not much though there be no land of perfumes in the East, nor of gold, in the West-Indies; God in our days, hath given us, and our Church, the fat of the glory of this world too, and we also neglect the other: But when men of a different religion from them, (for they will needs call a differing from their errors, a different Religion, as though all their religion were errors, for (excepting errors) we differ in no point) when, I say, such men came to inquire into them, to discover them, and to induce or to attempt in divers parts of their government a reformation, than they shut themselves up closer, than they grew more careful of their manners, and did reform themselves somewhat, though not thoroughly, and are the better for that reformat on which was offered to them, and wrought more effectually upon others? As we say in the School, that even the Devil is somewhat the better for the death of Christ, so the Roman Church is somewhat the better for the Reformation. Our assiduity of preaching hath brought them to another manner of frequency in preaching, then before the Reformation they were accustomed to, and our answers to their books have brought them to a more reserved manner of writing, than they used before. Let us therefore by their example, make as good use of our enemies, as our enemies have done of us. For, though we have no military enmity, no hostility with any nation, though we must all, and do, out of a true sense of our duty to God, pray ever for the continuance of peace amongst Christian Princes, and to withhold the effusion of Christian blood, yet to that intendment, and in that capacity as they were our enemies in 88 when they provoked by their Excommunications, dangerous invasions, and in that capacity as they were our enemies in 603. when they bend their malice even against that place, where the Laws for the maintenance of our religion were enacted, so they are our enemies still, if we be still of the same religion. He that by God's mercy to us, leads us, is as sure that the Pope is Antichrist, now, as he was then; and we that are blessedly led by him, are as sure, that their doctrine is the doctrine of Devils, now, as we were then. Let us therefore make use of those enemies, and of their airy insolences, and their frothy confidences, as thereby to be the firmer in ourselves, and the carefuller of our children, and servants, that we send not for such a Physician as brings a Roman Priest for his Apothecary, nor entertain such a Schoolmaster, as brings a Roman Priest for his Usher, nor such a Mercer, as brings a Priest for his Tailor;) for, in these shapes they have, and will appear.) But in true faith to God, true Allegiance to our Prince, true obedience to the Church, true dealing with all men, make ourselves sure of the Resurrection in the next life; In carne incorruptibili, in flesh that shall be capable of no corruption, by having that resurrection in this life, in carne incorruptâ, in divesting or correcting the corruptions which cleave to our flesh here, that we be not corrupted spiritually, (not disputed out of our Religion, nor jested out, nor threatened out, nor bought out, nor beat out of the truth of God) nor corrupted carnally by the pleasures or profits of this world, but that we may conform ourselves to the purity of Christ Jesus, in that measure, which we are able to attain to, which is our spiritual Resurrection, and constitutes our second part, That Kingdom of God, which flesh and blood may inherit in this life. From the beginning we settled that, 2. Part. That the primary purpose of the Apostle in these words, was to establish the doctrine of the last Resurrection. But in Tertullia's exposition, Arrabonem dedit, & arrabonem accepit; That God hath left us the earnest of his Spirit upon earth, and hath taken the earnest of our flesh into heaven, it grew indifferent, of which Resurrection, spiritual, or bodily, first, or last, it be accepted. but take Tertullian in another place, upon the verse immediately preceding our Text (Sicut portavimus, portemus, (for so Tertullian reads that place, and so does the Vulgate) As we have born the image of the earthly, so let us bear the Image of the heavenly) there from Tertullian it must necessarily be referred to the first Resurrection, the Resurrection by grace in this life, for, says he there, Non refertur ad substantiam resurrectionis, sed ad pr●●sentis temporis disciplinam; the Apostle does not speak of our glorious resurrection at last, but of our religious resurrection now. Portemus, non portabimus, Let us bear his image, says the Apostle; Let us now, not that we shall bear it at the last day. Praeceptive dictum, non promissive; The Apostle delivers it as a duty, that we must, not as a reward, that we shall bear that image. And therefore in Tertulli●● construction, it is not only indifferent, and probable, but necessary to refer this Text to the first Resurrection in this life; where it will be fittest, to pursue that order, which we proposed at first, first to consider Quid regnum, what Kingdom it is, that is pretended to; And then, Quid haeredetas, what estate and term is to be had in it: It is an Inheritance. And lastly, Quid care, & sanguis, what flesh and blood it is, that is excluded out of this Kingdom. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. First, for this kingdom of God in this world, let us be glad that it is a kingdom, that it is so much, Regnum Dei. that the government is taken out of the hands of Saints, and Angels and reunited, re-annexed to the Crown, restoted to God, to whom we may come immediately, and be accepted. Let us be glad that it is a kingdom, so much, and let us be glad that it is but a kingdom, and no more, not a Tyranny; That we come not to a God that will damn us, because he will damn us, but a God that proposes Conditions, and enables us to perform those conditions, in such a measure as he will vouchsafe to accept from us; A God that governs us by his word, for in his word is truth, and by his law, for in his law is clearness. Will you ask what this kingdom of God is? What did you take it to be, or what did you mean by it, when, even now, you said with me, in the Lord's prayer, Thy kingdom come? Did you deliberately, and determinately pray for the day of Judgement, and for his coming in the kingdom of glory, then? Hierom. Were you all ready for that, when you said so? Purae conscientiae, & grandis audaciae est, It is a very great confidence, and (if it be not grounded upon a very pure conscience) it must have a worse name, Regnum Dei postul are, & judicium non time●●; To call upon God for the day of Judgement, upon confidence of our own righteousness, is a shrewd distemper; To say, V●ni Domine jesu, come Lord Iesu● come and take us, as thou findest us, is a dangerous issue. But Adveniat regnum, and then veniat Rex, let his kingdom of grace come upon us, in this life, and then let himself come too, in his good time, and when his good pleasure shall be, in the kingdom of Glory: Sive velimus sive nolimus, Augustin. regnum Dei utique veniet, what need we hasten him, provoke him? says Saint Augustine; whether we will or no, his kingdom, his Judgement will come. Nay, before we called for it, even his kingdom of grace was come. Christ said to the Scribe, Mar. 12. 34. Luke 17. 21. Non longè, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God; And to the Pharisees themselves he said; Intra vos, the kingdom of God is among you, within you. But, where there is a whole Hospital of three hundred blind men together, (as there is at Paris) there is as much light, amongst them there, as amongst us here, and yet all they have no light, so this kingdom of God is amongst us all, and yet God knows whether we see it, Augustin. or no. And therefore Adveniat ut manifestet●r Deus, says S. Augustine, his kingdom come, that we may discern it is come, that we may see that God offers it to us; and, Adveniat regnum, ut manefestemur Deo, his kingdom come so, that he may discernus in our reception of that Kingdom, and our obedience to it. He comes when we see him, and he comes again, Idem. when we receive him: Quid est, Regnum ejus veniat, quam ut nos bonos inveniat? Then his Kingdom comes, when he finds us willing to be Subjects to that Kingdom. God is a King in his own right. By Creation, by Redemption, by many titles, and many undoubted claims. Chrys. But, Aliud est Regem esse, aliud regnare, It is one thing to be a King, another to have Subjects in obedience; A King is not the less a King, for a Rebellion; But, Verè justum regnum est, (says that Father) quando & Rex vult homines habere sub se, & cupiunt homines esse sub ●o, when the King would wish no other Subjects, nor the Subjects other King, then is that Kingdom come, come to a durable, and happy state. When God hath showed himself in calling us, and we have showed our willingness to come, when God shows his desire to preserve us, Psal. 97. 1. and we adhere only to him, when there is a Dominus regnat, Latetur terra, When our whole Land is in possession of peace, and plenty, and the whole Church in possession of the Word and Sacraments, when the Land rejoices because the Lord reigns; and when there is a Dominus regnat, Laetentur Insulae, Because the Lord reigneth, every Island doth rejoice; that is, every man; that every man that is encompassed within a Sea of calamities in his estate, with a Sea of diseases in his body, with a Sea of scruples in his understanding, with a Sea of transgressions in his conscience, with a Sea of sinking and swallowing in the sadness of spirit, may yet open his eyes above water, and find a place in the Ark above all these, a recourse to God, and joy in him, in the Ordinances of a well established, and well governed Church, this is truly Regnum Dei, the Kingdom of God here; God is willing to be present with us, (that he declares in the preservation of his Church) And we are sensible of his presence, and residence with us, and that we declare in our frequent recourses to him hither, and in our practice of those things which we have learned here, when we are gone hence. This then is the blessed state that we pretend to, Haereditas. in the Kingdom of God in this life; Peace in the State, peace in the Church, peace in our Conscience: In this, that we answer the motions of his blessed Spirit here in his Ordinance, and endeavour a conformity to him, in our life, and conversation; In this, he is our King, and we are his Subjects, and this is this Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Grace. Now the title, by which we make claim to this Kingdom, is in our text Inheritance: Who can, and who cannot inherit this Kingdom of God. I cannot have it by purchase, by mine own merits and good works; It is neither my former good disposition, nor God's foresight of my future cooperation with him, that is the cause of his giving me his grace. I cannot have this by Covenant, or by the gift, or bequeathing of another, by works of Supererogation, (that a Martyr of the primitive Church should send me a viol of his blood, a splinter of his bone, a Collop of his flesh, wrapped up in a half sheet of paper, in an imaginary sixpenny Indulgence from Rome, and bid me receive grace; and peace of Conscience in that.) I cannot have it by purchase, I cannot have it by gift, I cannot have it by Courtesy, in the right of my wife, That if I will let her live in the obedience of the Roman Church, and let her bring up my children so, for myself, I may have leave to try a Court, or a worldly fortune, and be secure in that, that I have a Catholic wife, or a Catholic child to pray, and merit for me; I have no title to this Kingdom of God. but Inheritance, whence grows mine Inheritance? Ex semine Dei; because I am propagated of the seed of God, I inherit this peace. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit fin; 1 joh. 3. 9 for, his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God: That is, he cannot desire to sin; He cannot antedate a sin, by delighting in the hope of a future sin, and sin in a praefruition of his sin, before the act; He cannot post-date a sin, delight in the memory of a pastsinne, and sin it over again, in a post-fruition of that sin; He cannot boast himself of sin, much less belly himself in glorying in sins, never done; He cannot take sins diet, therefore, that he may be able to sin again next Spring; He cannot hunger and thirst, and then digest and sleep quietly after a sin; and to this purpose, and in this sense Saint Bernard says, Praedestinati non possunt peccare, That the Elect cannot sin; And in this also, That when the sins of the Elect, are brought to trial, and to judgement, there their sins are no sins; not because they are none in themselves, but because the blood of Jesus covering them, they are none in the eyes of God. I am Heir then as I am the Son of God, born of the seed of God. But, what is that seed? Verbum Dei, james 1. 18. the seed is the word of God, Of his own will beg at he us, (says that Apostle) with the word of truth; And our Saviour himself speaks very clearly in expounding the Parable; Luke 8. 11. The seed is the word of God. We have this Kingdom of God, as we have an inheritance, as we are Heirs; we are Heirs as we are Sons; we are Sons as we have the seed, and the seed is the Word. So that all ends in this; We inherit not this Kingdom if we possess not the preaching of the Word; if we profess not the true ●ligion still: for, the word of this text which we translate to inherit, for the most part, in the translation of the Septuagint, answers the Hebrew word, Nachal; and Nachal is Haereditas cum possessione; Exod. 34. 9 Hier. not an inheritance in reversion, but in possession. Take us O Lord for thine inheritance, says Moses; Et possideas nos, as Saint H●erome translates that very place; Inherit us, and Possess us; Et erimus tibi, whatsoever we are, we will be thine, says the Septuagint: You see then how much goes to the making up of this Inheritance of the Kingdom of God in this world, First, Vt habeamus verbum, That we have this seed of God, his word; (In the Roman Church they have it not; not that that Church hath it not, not that it is not there; but they, the people that have it not) and then, Vt possideamus, That we possess it, or rather that it possess us; that we make the Word the only rule of our faith, and of our actions; (In the Roman Church they do not so, they have not pure wheat, but mestlin, other things joined with this good seed, the word of God) and last, Vt simus Deo, That we be his, that we be so still, that we do not begin with God, and give over, but that this seed of God, of which we are born, 11. 23. may (as Saint Peter says) be incorruptible, and abide for ever; that we may be his so entirely, and so constantly, as that we had rather have no being, then for any time of suspension, or for any part of his fundamental truth, be without it, and this the Roman Church cannot be said to do, that expunges and interlines articles of faith, Mal. 2: 15. upon Reason of State, and emergent occasions. God hath made you one, says the Prophet, Ribera. who be the parties whom God hath married together, and made One, in that place? you and your religion; (as our expositors interpret that place.) And why One, says the Prophet there; That God might have a godly seed, says he, that is, a continuation, a propagation, a race, a posterity of the same religion; Therefore says he, Let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. Let none divorce himself from that religion, and that worship of God, which God put into his arms, and which he embraced in his Baptism. Except there be error in fundamental points, such as make that Church no Church, let no man depart from that Church, and that religion, in which he delivered himself to the service of God at first. Woe be unto us, if we deliver not over our religion to our posterity, in the same sincerity, and the same totality in which our Fathers have delivered it us; for that, that continuation, is that, that makes it an inheritance: for, (to conclude this) every man hath an inheritance in the Law, and yet if he be hanged, he is hanged by the Law, in which he had his inheritance: so we have our inheritance in the Word of God, and yet, if we be damned, we are damned by that Word; Deut. 30. 18. If thy heart turn away, so as that thou worship other Gods, I denounce unto you this day, that you shall surely perish. So then, we have an inheritance in this Kingdom, if we preserve it, and we incur a forfeiture of it, if we have not this seed, (The Word, the truth of Religion) so as that we possess it; that is, conform ourselves to him, whose Word it is, by it, and possess it so, as that we persevere in the true profession of it, to our end; for, Perseverance, as well as Possession, enters into our title, and inheritance to this Kingdom. You see then, Caro & sanguis. what this Kingdom of God is; It is, when he comes, and his welcome, when he comes in his Sacraments, and speaks in his Word; when he speaks and is answered; knocks and is received, (he knocks in his Ordinances, and is received in our Obedience to them, he knocks in his example, and most holy conversation, and is received in our conformity, and imitation.) So have you seen what the Inheritance of this Kingdom is, it is a Having, and Holding of the Gospel, a present, and a permanent possession, Apoc. 3. 11. a holding fast, lest another (another Nation, another Church) take our Crown. There remains only that you see, upon whom the exclusion falls; and for the clearing of that, This I say brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. It is fully expressed by Saint Paul, Rom. 8. 7. The carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not a coldness, a slackness, an omission, a preterition of some duties towards God, but it is Enmity, and that's an exclusion out of the Kingdom; for, (says the Apostle there) it is not subject to the Law of God; and no subjection, no Kingdom; it is not, says he, neither can it be; It is not, that excludes the present; It cannot be, that excludes the future; so that it is only this incorrigible, this desperate state that constitutes this flesh, and blood, that cannot inherit the Kingdom of God; for this implies impenitablenesse, which is the sin against the holy Ghost. Take the word flesh, so literally, as that it be either the adorning of my flesh in pride, or the polluting of my flesh in wantonness, whether it be a pampering of my flesh with voluptuous provocations, or a withering, a shriveling of my flesh with superstitious and meritorious fastings, or other macerations, and lacerations by inhuman violence upon my body; Take the word Blood so literally, as that it be either an admiring and adoring of honourable blood, in a servile flattering of great persons, or an insinuating of false and adulterous blood, in a bastardising a race, by supposititious children, whether it be the inflaming the blood of young persons by lascivious discourse, or shedding the blood of another in a murderous quarrel, whether it be in blaspheming the blood of my Saviour, in execrable oaths, or the profaning of his blood in an unworthy receiving thereof, all these ways, and all such, doth this flesh and blood exclude from the Kingdom of God; It is summarily, all those works which proceed merely out of the nature of man, without the regeneration of the Spirit of God; all that is flesh and blood, and enmity against God, says the Apostle in that place. But in another place, Gal. 5. 19 that Apostle leads us into other considerations; to the Galatians he says, The works of the flesh are manifest: And amongst those manifest works of the flesh, he reckons not only sins of wantonness, and sins of anger, not only sins in concupiscibili, and in irascibili, but in intelligibili, sins and errors in the understanding, particularly Heresy, and Idolatry are works of the flesh, in Saint Paul's inventory, in that place, Heresy and Idolatry, are that flesh and blood which shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. Bring we this consideration home to ourselves. The Church of Rome does not charge us with affirming any Heresy, nor does she charge us with any Idolatry in our practice. So far we are discharged from the works of the flesh. If they charge us with Doctrine of flesh and blood because we prefer Marriage before Chastity, it is a charge ill laid, for Marriage and Chastity consist well together; The bed undefiled is chastity. If they charge us that we prefer Marriage before Continency, they charge us unjustly, for we do not so: Let them contain that can, and bless God for that heavenly gift of Continency, and let them that cannot, marry, and serve God, and bless him for affording them that Physic for that infirmity. As Marriage was ordained at first, for those two uses, Procreation of children, and mutual assistance of man, and wife, so Continency was not preferred before Marriage. As there was a third use of Marriage added after the fall, by way of Remedy, so Marriage may well be said to be inferior to continency, as physic is in respect of health. If they charge us with it, because our Priests marry, they do it frivolously, and impertinently, because they deny that we are Priests. We charge them with Heresy in the whole new Creed of the Council of Trent, (for, if all the particular doctrines be not Heretical, yet, the doctrine of inducing new Articles of faith is Heretical, and that doctrine runs through all the Articles, for else they could not be Articles.) And we charge them with Idolatry, in the people's practice, (and that practice is never controlled by them) in the greatest mystery of all their Religion, in the Adoration of the Sacrament; And Heresy and Idolatry are manifest works of the flesh. Our Kingdom is the Gospel; our Inheritance is our holding that; our exclusion is flesh and blood, Heresy and Idolatry. And therefore let us be able to say with the Apostle, when God had called us, and separated us, immediately we conferred not with flesh and blood. Gal. 1. 16. Since God hath brought us into a fair prospect, let us have no retrospect back; In Canaan, let us not look towards Egypt, nor towards Sodom being got to the Mountain; since God hath settled us in a true Church, let us have no kind of bias, and declination towards a false; for that is one of Saint Paul's manifest works of the flesh, and I shall lose all the benefit of the flesh and blood of Christ Jesus, if I do so, for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. We have done; Add we but this, by way of recollecting this which hath been said now, upon these words, and that which hath been formerly said upon those words of job, 19 26. which may seem to differ from these, (In my flesh I shall see God) Omne verum omni vero consentiens, whatsoever is true in itself agrees with every other truth. Because that which job says, and that which Saint Paul says, agree with the truth, they agree with one another. For, as Saint Paul says, Non omni● caro eadem caro, there is one flesh of man, another of beasts, so there is one flesh of job, another of Saint Paul; 1 Cor. 15. 39 And jobs flesh can see God, and Paul's cannot; because the flesh that job speaks of hath overcome the destruction of skin and body by worms in the grave, and so is mellowed and prepared for the sight of God in heaven; And Paul's flesh is overcome by the world. jobs flesh triumphs over Satan, and hath made a victorious use of God's corrections, Paul's flesh is still subject to tentations, and carnalities. jobs argument is but this, some flesh shall see God, (Mortified men here, Glorified men there shall) Paul's argument is this, All flesh shall not see God, (Carnal men here, Impenitent men there, shall not.) And therefore, that as our texts answer one another, so your resurrections may answer one another too, as at the last resurrection, all that hear the sound of the Trumpet, shall rise in one instant, though they have passed thousands of years between their burials, so do all ye, who are now called, by a lower and infirmer voice, rise together in this resurrection of grace. Let him that hath been buried sixty years, forty years, twenty years, in covetousness, in uncleanness, in indevotion, rise now, now this minute, and then, as Adam that died five thousand before, shall be no sooner in heaven, in his body, than you, so Abel that died for God, so long before you, shall be no better, that is, no fuller of the glory of heaven, than you that die in God, when it shall be his pleasure to take you to him. SERMON XVI. Preached at Lincoln's Inn. COLOS. 1. 24. Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for his body's sake which is the Church. WE are now to enter into the handling of the doctrine of Evangelicall counsels; And these words have been ordinarily used by the writers of the Roman Church, for the defence of a point in controversy between them and us; which is a preparatory to that which hereafter is to be more fully handled upon another Text. Out of these words, they labour to establish works of supererogation, in which (they say) men do or suffer more than was necessary for their own salvation; and then the superfluity of those accrues to the Treasury of the Church, and by the Stewardship, and dispensation of the Church may be applied to other men living here, or suffering in Purgatory by way of satisfaction to God's justice; But this is a doctrine which I have had occasion heretofore in this place to handle; And a doctrine which indeed deserves not the dignity to be too diligently disputed against; And as we will not stop upon the disproving of the doctrine, so we need not stay long, nor insist upon the vindicating of these words, from that wresting and detortion of theirs, in using them for the proof of that doctrine. Because though at first, Greg. de Valent. they presented them with great eagerness and vehemence, and assurance, Quicquid haeretici obstrepunt, illustris hic locus, say the Heretics what they can, this is a clear and evident place for that doctrine, yet another after him is a little more cautelous and reserved, Bellar. Negari non potest quin ita expeni possint, it cannot be denied, but that these words may admit such an exposition; And then another more modified than both says, Cornel a Lapide. Primò & propriè non id intendit Apostolus; the Apostle had no such purpose in his first and proper intention to prove that doctrine in these words. Sed innuitur ille sensus; qui et si non genuinus, tamen à pari deduci potest: some such sense (says that author) may be implied and intimated, because, though it be not the true and natural sense, yet by way of comparison, and convenience, such a meaning may be deduced. Generally their difference in having any patronage for that corrupt doctrine out of these words, appears best in this, that if we consider their authors who have written in controversies, we shall see that most of them have laid hold upon these words for this doctrine; because they are destitute of all Scriptures, and glad of any, that appear to any, any whit that way inclinable; But if we consider those authors, who by way of commentary and exposition (either before, or since the controversies have been stirred) have handled these words, we shall find none of their own authors of that kind, which by way of exposition of these words doth deliver this to be the meaning of them, that satisfaction may be made to the justice of God by the works of supererogation one man for another. To come then to the words themselves in their true sense, and interpretation, Divisio. we shall find in them two general considerations. First, that to him that is become a new creature, a true Christian, all old things are done away, and all things are made new: As he hath a new birth, as he hath put on a new man, as he is going towards a new jerusalem, so hath he a new Philosophy, a new production, and generation of effects out of other causes, than before, he finds light out of darkness, fire out of water, life out of death, joy out of afflictions, Nunc ga●de●, now I rejoice in my sufferings etc. And then in a second consideration he finds that this is not by miracle, that he should hope for it but once, but he finds an express, and certain, and constant reason why it must necessarily be so, because I still up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ etc. It is strange that I should conceive joy out of affliction, but when I come to see the reason that by that affliction, I fill up the sufferings of Christ etc. it is not strange, it cannot choose but be so. The parts then will be but two, a proposition, and a reason; But in the first part it will be sit to consider first, the person, not merely who it is, but in what capacity, the Apostle conceives this joy; And secondly, the season, Now, for joy is not always seasonable, there is a time of mourning, but now rejoicing; And then in a third place we shall come to the affection itself, Joy, which when it is true, and truly placed, is the nearest representation of heaven itself to this world. From thence we shall descend to the production of this joy, from whence it is derived, and that is out of sufferings, for this phrase in passionibus, in my sufferings, is not in the midst o● my sufferings, it is not that I have joy and comfort, though I suffer, but in passionibus is so in suffering as that the very suffering is the subject of my joy, I had no joy, no occasion of joy, if I did not suffer. But then these sufferings which must occasion this joy, are thus conditioned, thus qualified in our text; That, first, it be passio mea, my suffering, and not a suffering cast by my occasion upon the whole Church, or upon other men, mea, it is determined and limited in myself, and mea, but not prome, not for myself, not for mine own transgressions, and violating of the law, but it is for others, pro vobis, says the Apostle, for out of that root springs the whole second part why there appertains a joy to such sufferings, which is that the suffering of Christ being yet, not unperfect, but unperfected, Christ having not yet suffered all, which he is to suffer to this purpose, for the gathering of his Church, I fill up that which remains undone; And that in Carne, not only in spirit and disposition, but really in my flesh, And all this not only for making sure of mine own salvation, but for the establishing and edifying a Church, but yet, his Church, for men seduced, and seducers of men have their Churches too, and suffer for those Churches; but this is for his Church, and that Church of his which is properly his body, and that is the visible Church: and these will be the particular branches of our two general parts, the proposition, Gaudeo in afflictionibus etc. And the reason, Quiae adimpleo etc. To begin then with the first branch of the first part, 1. Part. Ego. The person; we are sure it was Sain● Paul, who we are sure was an Apostle, for so he tells the Colossians in the beginning of the Epistle; Paul an Apostle of jesus Christ, by the will of God, but yet he was not properly, peculiarly their Apostle, he was theirs as he was the Apostle of the Gentiles; but he was not theirs, Rom. 11. 12. 1 Cor. 9 1. as he was the Apostle of the Corinthians; If I be not an Apostle to others (says he) yet doubtless I am to you; for amongst the Corinthians he had laid the foundations of a Church, Are ye not my work in the Lord? (says he there) but for the Colossians, he had never preached to them, never seen them; Epaphras had laid the foundation amongst them; And Archippus was working, now at the writing of this Epistle, upon the upper buildings, as we may see in the Epistle itself; Epaphras had planted, Col. 1. 7. 4. 17. and Archippus watered; How entered Paul? First as an Apostle, he had a general jurisdiction, and superintendency over them, and over all the Gentiles, and over all the Church; And then, as a man whose miraculous conversion, and religious conversation, whose incessant preaching, and whose constant suffering, had made famous, and reverend over the whole Church of God, all that proceeded from him had much authority, and power, in all places to which it was directed; As himself says of Andronicas and junia his kinsmen; Rom. 16. 7. that they were Nobiles in Apostolis, Nobly spoken of amongst the Apostles, so Saint Paul himself was Nobilis Apostolus in Discipulis, reverendly esteemed amongst all the Disciples, August. for a laborious Apostle; Saint Augustine joined his desire to have heard Saint Paul preach, with his other two wishes, to have seen Christ in the flesh, and to have seen Rome in her glory; Chrysost. And Saint chrysostom admires Rome, so much admired for other things, for this principally, that she had heard Saint Paul preach; And that, Si●ut●orpus magnum & validum, ita duos haberet illustres oculos, as she was a great and glorious body, so she had two great and glorious eyes; The presence and the memories of Saint Peter, and Saint Paul; he writes not to them then merely as an Apostle not in that capacity, for he joins Timothy with himself at the beginning of the Epistle, who was no Apostle, properly; though upon that occasion, of Paul's writing in his own, and in Timothy's name, Saint Chrysostame say, Chrysoft. in a larger sense, Ergo Timothe●s Apostolus, if Timothy be in commission with Paul, Timothy is an Apostle too: But Saint Paul by his ●ame and estimation, having justly got a power and interest in them, he cherishes that by this salutation, and he binds them the more to accept his instructions, by giving them a part in all his persecutions, and by letting them see, how much they were in his care, even in that distance; A servile application of himself to the humours of others, becomes not th● ministers of God; It becomes him not to depart from his ingenuity, and freedom, to a servile humouring, but to be negligent of their opinion of him, with whom he is to converse, and upon whose conscience he is to work, becomes him not neither. It is his doctrine that must bear him out; But if his discretion do not make him acceptable too, his doctrine will have the weaker root when; Saint Paul and the Colossians thought well of one another, the work of God was likely to go forward amongst them; And where it is not so, the work prospers not. This was then the person; Nunc. Paul, as he had a calling, and an authority by the Apostleship, and Paul as he had made his calling, and authority, and Apostleship acceptable to them, by his wisdom and descreet behaviour towards them, and the whole Church. The season follows next, when he presents this doctrine to them Nunc Gaudeo, now I rejoice, and there is a Nunc illi, and a Nunc illis to be considered, one time it hath relation to Saint Paul himself, and another that hath relation to the Colossians. His time, Illi. the Nunc illis, was nunc in vinculis, now when he was in prison at Rome, for from thence he writ this Epistle; Ordinarily a prisoner is the less to be believed for his being in prison and in fetters, if he speak such things as conduce to his discharge of those fetters, or his deliverance from that imprisonment, it is likely enough that a prisoner will lie for such an advantage; But when Saint Paul being now a prisoner for the preaching of the Gospel, speaks still for the advancement of the Gospel, that he suffers for, and finds out another way of preaching it by letters and by epistles, when he opens himself to more danger, to open to them more doctrine, then that was very credible which he spoke, though in prison; There is in all his epistles impetus Spiritus Christi, as Irenaeus says, a vehemence of the holy Ghost, but yet amplius habent quae è vinculis, says Chrisostome, Irenae. Chrysost. Those epistles which Saint Paul writ in prison, have more of this vehemency in them: a sentence written with a coal upon a wall by a close prisoner, affects us when we come to read it; Stolen letters, by which a prisoner adventers the loss of that liberty which he had, come therefore the more welcome, if they come; It is not always a bold and veliement reprehension of great persons, that is argument enough of a good and a rectified zeal, for an intemperate use of the liberty of the Gospel, and sometimes the impotency of a satirical humour, makes men preach freely, and overfreely, offensively, scandalously; and so exasperate the magistrate; God forbid that a man should build a reputation of zeal, for having been called in question for preaching of a Sermon; And then to think it wisdom, redimere se quo queat minimo, to sink again and get off as good cheap as he can; But when the malignity of others hath slandered his doctrine, or their galled consciences make them kick at his doctrine, then to proceed with a Christian magnanimity, and a spiritual Nobility in the maintenance of that doctrine, to prefer then before the greatness of the their persons and the greatness of his own danger, the greatness of the glory of God, and the greatness of the loss which Gods Church should suffer by his lenity and prevarication: To edify others by his constancy, then when this building in appearance and likelihood must be raised upon his own ruin, than was Saint Paul's Nunc, concerning himself, than was his season to plant and convey this doctrine to these Colossians, when it was most dangerous for him to do so. Now to consider this season and fitness as it concerned them; The Nunc illis, Illis. It was then, when Epaphras had declrared unto him their love, and when upon so good testimony of their disposition, he had a desire that they might be fulfilled with knowledge of Gods will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, as he says verse 9 when he knew how far they had proceeded in mysteries of the Christian Religion, and that they had a spiritual hunger of more, than it was seasonable to present to them this great point, that Christ had suffered throughly, sufficiently, abundantly, for the reconciliation of the whole world, and yet that there remained some sufferings, (and those of Christ too) to be fulfilled, by us; That all was done; and yet there remained more to be done, that after Christ's consummatum est, which was all the text, there should be an Adimplendum est, interlined, that after Christ had fulfilled the Law, and the Prophets by his sufferings, Saint Paul must fulfil the residue of Christ's sufferings, was a doctrine unseasonably taught, till they had learned much, and showed a desire to learn more; In the Primitive Church men of ripe understandings were content to think two or three years well spent in learning of Catechisms and rudiments of Christian Religion; and the greatest Bishops were content to think that they discharged their duties well, if they catechised ignorant men in such rudiments, for we know from Genna●dius an Ecclesiastical author, that the Bishops of Greece, and of the Eastern Church, did use to con S. Cyrils' sermons (made at Easter and some other Festivals) without book, and preached over those Sermons of his making, to Congregations of strong understanding, and so had more time for their Catechising of others; Optatus thinks, that when Saint Paul says, Ego plantavi, Apollo's rigavit, I planted the faith, and Apollo's watered, he intended in those words, Optatus. Ego de pagano feci catechumenum, ille de catechumeno Christianum, That Saint Paul took ignorant persons into his charge, to catechise them at first, and when they were instructed by him, Apollo's watered them with the water of Baptism, Tertullian thought he did young beginners in Christianity no wrong, Tertull. when he called them catulos infantiae re●entis, nec perfectis luminibus reptantes, Young whelps which are not yet come to a perfect use of their eyes, in the mysteries of Religion. Now God hath delivered us in a great measure from this weakness in seeing, because we are catechised from our cra●●●s, and from this penury in preaching, we need not preach others Sermons, nor feed upon cold meat, in Homilies, but we are fallen upon such times too, as that men do not think themselves Christians, except they can tell what God meant to do with them before he meant they should be Christians; for we can be intended to be Christians, but from Christ; and we must needs seek a Predestination, without any relation to Christ; a decree in God for salvation, and damnation, before any decree for the reparation of mankind, by Christ, every Common-placer will adventure to ●each, and every artificer will pretend to understand the purpose, yea, and the order too, and method of God's eternal and unrevealed decree, Saint Paul required a great deal more knowledge than these men use to bring, before he presented to them, a great deal, a less point of Doctrine than these men use to ask. This was then the Nunc illis their season, when they had humbly received so much of the knowledge of the fundamental points of Religion. Gaudium. Saint Paul was willing to communicate more and more, stronger and stronger meat unto them; That which he presents here is, that which may seem least to appertain to a Christian, (that is loy) because a Christian is a person that hath surrendered himself over to a sad and serious, and a severe examination of all his actions, that all be done to the glory of God; but for all this, this joy, true joy is truly, properly, only belonging to a Christian; because this joy is the Testimony of a good conscience, that we have received God, so as God hath manifested himself in Christ, and worshipped God, so God hath ordained: In a true Church there are many tesserae externae, outward badges and marks, by which others may judge, and pronounce me to be a true Christian; But the tessera internal, the inward badge and mark, by which I know this in myself, is joy; The blessedness of heaven itself, Salvation, and the fruits of Paradise, (that Paradise which cannot be expressed, cannot be comprehended) have yet got no other name in the subtlety of the Schools, nor in the fullness of the Scriptures, but to be called the joys of heaven; Matth. 25. 21. Luke 15. 7. & 10. 2. 10. Essential blessedness is called so, Enter into thy Master's joy, that is, into the Kingdom of heaven; and accidental happiness added to that essential happiness is called so too: There is joy in heaven at the conversion of a sinner; and so in the Revelation, Rejoice ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them, for the a●c●ser of our brethren is cast down There is now joy even in heaven, which was not there before; Certainly as that man shall never see the Father of Lights after this, to whom the day never breaks in this life: As that man must never look to walk with the Lamb wheresoever he goes in heaven, that ran away from the Lamb whensoever he came towards him, in this life; so he shall never possess the joys of heaven hereafter, that feels no joy here; There must be joy here, which Tanquam Cellulae mellis (as Saint Bernard says in his mellifluous language) as the honeycomb walls in, Bernard. and prepares, and preserves the honey, and is as a shell to that kernel; so there must be a joy here, which must prepare and preserve the joys of heaven itself, and be as a shell of those joys. For heaven and salvation is not a Creation, but a Multiplication; it begins not when we die, but it increases and dilates itself infinitely then; Christ himself, when he was pleased to feed all that people in the wilderness, he asks first, Quot panes habetis, how many loafes have you? and then multiplied them abundantly, as conduced most to his glory; but some there was before. When thou goest to eat that bread, of which whosoever eats shall never die, the bread of life in the Land of life, Christ shall consider what joy thou broughtest with thee out of this world, and he shall extend and multiply that joy unexpressibly; but if thou carry none from hence, thou shalt find none there. He that were to travel into a far country, would study before, somewhat the map, and the manners, and the language of the Country; He that looks for the fullness of the joys of heaven hereafter, will have a taste, an insight in them before he go: And as it is not enough for him that would travail, to study any language indifferently (were it not an impertinent thing for him that went to lie in France, to study Dutch?) So if we pretend to make the joys of heaven our residence, it is a madness to study the joys of the world; The Kingdom of heaven is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, Rom. 14. 7. says Saint Paul; And this Kingdom of heaven is Intra nos, says Christ, it is in us, and it is joy that is in us; but every joy is not this Kingdom, and therefore says the same Apostle, Phil. 4.4. Rejoice in the Lord; There is no other true joy, none but that; But yet says he there, Rejoice, and again, I say rejoi●e; that is, both again we say it, again, and again we call upon you to have this spiritual joy, for without this joy ye have not the earnest of the Spirit; And it is again rejoice, bring all the joys ye have, to a second examination, and see if you can rejoice in them again; Have you rejoiced all day in Feasts, in Musics, in Conversations? well, at night you must be alone, hand to hand with God. Again, I say rejoice, sleep not, till you have tried whether your joy will hold out there too. Have you rejoiced in the contemplation of those temporal blessings● which God hath given you? 'tis well, for you may do so: But yet again I say Rejoice; call that joy to an account, and see whether you ca●● rejoice again, in such a use of those blessings as he that gave them to you, requires of you. Have you rejoiced in your zeal of God's service? that's a true rejoicing in the Lord; But yet still rejoice again, see that this joy be accompanied with another joy; that you have zeal with knowledge: Rejoice, but rejoice again, refine your joy, purge away all dross, and lees from your joy, there is no false joy enters into heaven, but yet no sadness neither. There is a necessary sadness in this life, Tristitiae. but even in this life necessary only so, as Physic is necessary, Chrisost. Tristitia data, ut peccata deleamus, It is Data, a gift of God, a sadness and sorrow infused by him, & not assumed by ourselves upon the crosses of this world; And so it is physic, and it is Morbi illius peccati, it is proper and peculiar physic for that disease for sin; But, (as that Father pathetically enlarges that consideration) Remedium lippitudinis non t●llit alios morbos, water for fore eyes, will not cure the toothache, sorrow and sadness which is prescribed for sin, will not cure, should not be applied to the other infirmities and diseases of our humane condition; Pecunia mulctatus est, (says that Father still) Doluit, non emendavit, A man hath a decree passed against him in a Court of Justice, or lost a Ship by tempest, and he hath grieved for this, hath this reversed the decree, or repaired the shipwreck? Filium amisit, doluit, non resuscitavit. His Son, his eldest Son, his only Son, his towardly Son is dead, and he hath grieved for this; hath he raised his Son to life again? Infirmatur ipse, doluit, abstulit morbum? Himself is fallen into a consumption, and languishes, and grieves, but doth it restore him? Why no, for sadness, and sorrow is not the physic against decrees, and shipwrecks, and consumptions, and death: But then Peccavit quis (says he still) & deluit? peccata delevit; Hath any man sinned against his God, and come to a true sorrow for that sin? peccata delevit he hath washed away that sin, from his soul; for sorrow is good for nothing else, intended for nothing else, but only for our sins, out of which sadness first arose: And then, considered so, this sadness is not truly, nor properly sadness, because it is not so entirely; There is health in the bitterness of physic; There is joy in the depth of this sadness; Saint Basill enforces those words of the Apostle, Concor. ●. in Psal. 48. 2 Cor. 6. 10. Quasi tristes, semper autem gandentes, usefully to this point; Tristitia nostra habet quasi, gaudium non habet, Our sorrow, says he, hath a limitation, a modification, it is but as it were sorrow, and we cannot tell whether we may call it sorrow or no, but our joy is perfect joy, because it is rooted in an assurance: Est in spe certa, our hope of deliverance is in him that never deceived any; for says he then, our sadness passes away as a dream, Et qui insomnium judicat, addit quasi, quasi dicebam, quasi equitabam, quasi cogitabam, he that tells his dream, tells it still in that phrase, me thought I spoke, me thought I went, and me thought I thought, so all the sorrow of God's children is but a quasi tristes, because it determines in joy, and determines soon. To end this, because there is a difference inter delectationem & gaudium, between delight and joy (for delight is in sensual things, and in beasts, as well as in men, but joy is grounded in reason, and in reason rectified, which is, conscience (therefore we are called to rejoice again; to try whether our joy be true joy, and not only a delight, and when it is found to be a true joy, we say still rejoice, that is, continue your spiritual joy till it meet the eternal joy in the kingdom of heaven, and grow up into one joy, but because sadness and sorrow have but one use, and a determined and limited employment, only for sin, we do not say, be sorry, and again be sorry, but when you have been truly sorry for your sins, when you have taken that spiritual physic, believe yourself to be well, accept the seal of the holy Ghost, for the remission of your sins, in Christ Jesus, and come to that health which that physic promises, peace of conscience. This joy then which Saint Paul found to be so essential, In passionibus. so necessary for man, he found that God placed within man's reach; so near him as that God afforded man this joy where he lest looked for it, even in affliction; And of this joy in affliction, we may observe three steps, three degrees; one is indeed but half a joy; and that the Philosophers had; A second is a true joy, and that all Christians have; but the third is an overflowing, and abundant joy, to which the Apostle was come, and to which by his example, he would rouse others, that joy, of which himself speaks again; 1. Cor. 17. 4. I am filled with comfort and am exceeding joyful, in all our tribulations; The first of these, which we call a half joy, is but an indolency, and a forced unsensibleness of those miseries which were upon them; a searing up, a stupefaction, is not of the senses, yet of the affections; That resolution which some moral men had against misery, Non facies ut te dicam malam, no misery should draw them to do misery that honour, as to call it misery; And, in respect of that extreme anguish which out of an over tenderness, ordinary men did suffer under the calamities of this life, even this poor indolency and privation of grief, was a joy, but yet but a half joy; the second joy, which is a true joy, but common to all Christians, is that assurance, which they have in their tribulations, that God will give them the issue with the temptation; not that they pretend not to feel that calamity, so the Philosophers did, but that it shall not swallow them, this is natural to a Christian, he is not a Christian without this; Think it not strange, says the Apostle, as though some strange thing were come unto you, (for we must accustom ourselves to the expectation of tribulation) but rejoice, says he, and when his glory shall appear, ye shall be made glad and rejoice; He bids us rejoice, and yet all that he promises, is but rejoicing at last, he bids us rejoice, all the way; though the consummate, and determinable joy come not till the end, yet God hath set bounds to our tribulations, as to the sea, and they shall not overflow us; But this perfect joy (to speak of such degrees of perfection, as may be had in this life) this third joy, the joy of this text, is not a collateral joy, that stands by us in the tribulation, and sustains us, but it is a fundamental joy, a radical joy, a viscerall, a gremiall joy, that arises out of the bosom and womb and bowels of the tribulation itself. It is not that I rejoice, though I be afflicted, but I rejoice because I am afflicted; It is not because I shall not sink in my calamity, and be buried in that valley, but because my calamity raises me, and makes my valley a hill, and gives me an eminency, and brings God and me nearer to one another, then without that calamity I should have been, Acts 5. 41. when I can depart rejoicing, and that therefore, because I am worthy to suffer rebuke for the name of Christ, as the Apostles did, when I can feel that pattern proposed to my joy, Matth. 5. 12. and to my tribulation, which Christ gives, Rejoice and be glad, for so persecuted they the Prophets, when I can find that seal printed upon me, 1 Pet. 4. 14. by my tribulation, If ye be railed on for the name of Christ, blessed are ye, for the spirit of God and of glory resteth on you, that is, that affliction fixes the holy Ghost upon me, which in prosperity, falls upon me but as Sunbeams; Briefly if my soul have had that conference, that discourse with God, that he hath declared to me his purpose in all my calamities, (as he told Ananias that he had done to Paul, he is a chosen vessel unto me, Acts 9 16. for I will show him how many things he must suffer for my sake) If the light of God's Spirit show us the number, the force, the intent of our tribulations, then is our soul come to that highest joy, which she is capable of in this life, when as cold and dead water, when it comes to the fire, hath a motion and dilatation and a bubbling and a kind of dancing in the vessel, so my soul, that lay asleep in prosperity, hath by this fire of Tribulation, a motion, a joy, an exaltation. This is the highest degree of suffering; In passionibus meis. but this suffering hath this condition here, that it be passio mea; And this too, that it be mea, and not pro me, but pro aliis: that it be mine, and no bodies else, by my occasion; That it be mine without any fault of mine, that I be no cause that it fell upon me, and that I be no occasion, that it fall upon others. And first, it is not mine, if I borrow it; I can have no joy in the sufferings of Martyrs and other Saints of God, by way of applying their sufferings to me, by way of imitation and example I may, by way of application and satisfaction I cannot, borrowed sufferings are not my sufferings: They are not mine neither, if I steal them, if I force them; If my intemperate, and scandalous zeal, or pretence of zeal, extort a chastisement from the State, if I exasperated the Magistrate and draw an affliction upon myself, this stolen suffering, this forced suffering is not passio mea, it is not mine, if it should not be mine; August. Natura cujusque rei est, quam Deus indidit, That only is the nature of every thing which God hath imprinted in it: That affliction only is mine, which God hath appointed for me, and what he hath appointed we may see by his exclusions: Let none of you suffer as a murderer, 1 Pet. 4. 15. or as a thief, or as an evil doer, or as a busybody in other men's matters, (and that reaches far:) I am not possessor bonae fidei, I come not to this suffering by a good title, I cannot call it mine; I may find joy in it, that is, in the midst of it, I may find comfort in the mercy of Christ, though I suffer as a malefactor; But there is no joy in the suffering itself, for it is not mine, it is not I, but my sin, my breach of the law, my disobedience that suffers. It is not mine again, if it be not mine in particular, mine, and limited in me. To those sufferings that fall upon me for my conscience, or for the discharge of my duty, there belongs a joy, but when the whole Church is in persecution, and by my occasion especially, or at all, woe unto them, by whom the first offence comes; this is no joyful matter, and therefore vae illis per quos scandalum, they who by their ambition of preferment, or indulgence to their present case, or indifferency how things fall out, or presumptuous confidence in God's care, for looking well enough to his own, how little soever they do, give way to the beginnings of superstition, in the times of persecution; when persecutions come, either they shall have no sufferings, that is, God shall suffer them to fall away, and refuse their testimony in his cause, or they shall have no joy in their sufferings, because they shall see this persecution is not theirs, it is not limited in them, but induced by their prevarication upon the whole Church; And lastly, this suffering is not mine, if I stretch it too far; if I over-value it, it is not mine; A man forfeits his privilege, by exceeding it; There is no joy belongs to my suffering, if I place a merit in it; Meum non est cujus nomine nulla mihi superest acts, says the Law; That's none of mine for which I can bring no action; and what action can I bring against God, for a reward of my merit? Have I given him any thing of mine? Quid habeo quod non accepi? what have I that I received not from him? Have I given him all his own? how came I to abound then, and see him starve in the streets in his distressed members? Hath he changed his blessings unto me in single money? Hath he made me rich by half pence and farthings; and yet have I done so much as that for him? Have I suffered for his glory? Am not I vas figuli, a potter's vessel, and that Potter's vessel; and whose hand soever he employs, the hand of sickness, the hand of poverty, the hand of justice, the hand of malice, still it is his hand that breaks the vessel, and this vessel which is his own; for, can any such vessel have a propriety in itself, or be any other bodies primarily than his, from whom it hath the being? To recollect these, if I will have joy in suffering it must be mine, mine, and not borrowed out of an imaginary treasure of the Church; from the works of others Supererogation: mine, and not stolen or enforced by exasperating the Magistrate to a persecution: mine by good title and not by suffering for breach of the Law, mine in particular, and not a general persecution upon the Church by my occasion; And mine by a stranger title than all this, mine by resignation, mine by disavowing it, mine by confessing that it is none of mine; Till I acknowledge, that all my sufferings are even for God's glory, are his works, and none of mine, they are none of mine, and by that humility they become mine, and then I may rejoice in my sufferings. Through all our sufferings then, there must pass an acknowledgement that we are unprofitable servants; Pro vobis. towards God utterly unprofitable; So unprofitable to ourselves, as that we can merit nothing by our sufferings; but still we may and must have a purpose to profit others by our constancy; it is Pro vobis, that Saint Paul says he suffers for them, 1 Cor. 12. 15. for their souls; I will most gladly bestow, and be bestowed for your souls, (says he. 1 Cor. 1. 13. ) But Numquid Paulus crucifixus pro vobis, was Paul crucified for you? is his own question, as he suffered for them here, so we may be bold to say he was crucified for them; that is, that by his crucifying and suffering, the benefit of Christ's sufferings, and crucifying might be the more cheerfully embraced by them, and the more effectually applied to them; Pro vobis, is Pro vestro commodo, for your advantage, and to make you the more active in making sure your own salvation; 1 Cor. 1. 16. We are afflicted (says he) for your consolation; that's first, that you might take comfort, and spiritual courage by our example, that God will no more forsake you, than he hath done us, and then, he adds salvation too; for your consolation and salvation; for our sufferings beget this consolation; and then, this consolation facilitates your salvation; and then, when Saint Paul had that testimony in his own conscience, that his purpose in his sufferings, was Pro illis, to advantage God's children, and then saw in his experience so good effect of it, as that it wrought, and begot faith in them, than the more his sufferings increased, the more his joys increased; Though (says he) I be offered up, upon the service, and sacrifice of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all; And therefore he calls the Philippians, who were converted by him, Gaudium, & Coronam, his Joy and his Crown; not only a Crown, in that sense, as an auditory, a congregation that compasses the Preacher, was ordinarily called a Crown, Cor●na. (In which sense that Martyr Cornelius answered the Judge, when he was charged to have held intelligence, and to have received Letters from Saint Cyprian against the State, Ego de Corona Domini, (says he, from God's Church, 'tis true, I have, but Contra Rempublicam, against the State, I have received no Letters.) But not only in this sense, Saint Paul calls those whom he had converted, his Crown, his Crown, that is, his Church; but he calls them his Crown in heaven, What is our hope, our joy, our Crown of rejoicing, are not even you it? and where? even in the presence of our Lord jesus Christ at his coming, says the Apostle; And therefore not to stand upon that contemplation of Saint Gregory's, that at the Resurrection Peter shall lead up his converted Jews, and Paul his converted Nations, and every Apostle his own Church; Since you, to whom God sends us, do as well make up our Crown, as we do yours, since your being wrought upon, and our working upon you conduce to both our Crowns, call you the labour, and diligence of your Pastors, (for that's all the suffering they are called to, till our sins together call in a persecution) call you their painfulness your Crown, and we shall call your applyablenesse to the Gospel, which we preach, our Crown, for both conduce to both; but especially children's children, are the Crown of the Elders, says Solomon: If when we have begot you in Christ, by our preaching, you also beget others by your holy life and conversation, you have added another generation unto us, and you have preached over our Sermons again, as fruitfully as we ourselves; you shall be our Crown, and they shall be your Crowns, and Christ Jesus a Crown of everlasting glory to us all. Amen. SERMON XVII. Preached at Lincoln's Inn. MATTH. 18. 7. We unto the world, because of offences. THe Man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the Earth. Numb. 12. 3. The man Moses was so; but the Child jesus was meeker than he. Compare Moses with men, and Moses will scarce be paralleled; Compare him with him, who being so much more than man, as that he was God too, was made so much less than man, as that he was a worm and no man, and Moses will not be admitted. If you consider Moses his highest expression, what he would have parted with for his brethren, in his Deal me, Pardon them, or blot my name out of thy book, yet Saint Paul's zeal will enter into the balance, and come into comparison with Moses in his Anathema pro fratribus, in that he wished himself to be separated from Christ, rather than his brethren should be. But what comparison hath a sudden, a passionate, and indigested vehemence of love, expressed in a phrase that tastes of zeal, but is not done, (Moses was not blotted out of the book of life, nor Saint Paul was not separated from Christ for his brethren) what comparison hath such a love, that was but said, and perchance should not have been said (for, we can scarce excuse Moses, or Saint Paul, of all excess and inordinateness, in that that they said) with a deliberate and an eternal purpose in Christ Jesus conceived as soon as we can conceive God to have known that Adam would fall, to come into this world, & die for man, and then actually and really, in the fullness of time, to do so; he did come, and he did die. The man Moses was very meek, the child Jesus meeker than he. Moses his meekness had a determination, (at least an interruption, a discontinuance) when he revenged the wrong of another upon that Egyptian whom he slew. Exod. 2. 11. Esay 42. 3. But a bruised reed might have stood unbroken, and smoking flax might have lain unquenched for ever, Mat. 23. 1. for all Christ. And therefore though Christ send his Disciples to School, to the Scribes and Pharisees, because they sat in Moses seat, for other lessons, yet for this, 11. 29. he was their Schoolmaster himself, Discite à me, learn of me, for I am meek. In this Chapter he gives them three lessons in this doctrine of meekness; He gives them foundations, and upperbuildings, The Text, and a Comment, all the Elements of true instruction, Rule and Example. First, he finds them contending for place, ver. 1. Quis maximus, who should be greatest in the kingdom of heaven. The disease which they were sick of, was truly an ignorance what this kingdom was; For, though they were never ignorant that there should be an eternal kingdom in heaven, yet they thought not that the kingdom of Christ here should only be a spiritual kingdom, but they looked for a temporal inchoation of that kingdom here. That was their disease, and a dangerous one. But as Physicians are forced to do sometimes, to turn upon the present cure of some vehement symptom, and accdient, and leave the consideration of the main disease for a time, so Christ leaves the doctrine of the kingdom for the present, and does not rectify them in that yet, but for this pestilent symptom, this malignant accident of precedency, and ambition of place, he corrects that first, and to that purpose gives them the example of a little child, and tells them, that except they become as humble, as gentle, as supple, as simple, as silly, as tractable, as ductile, as careless of place, as negligent of precedency, as that little child, they could not only not be great, but they could not at all enter into the kingdom of heaven. He gives them a second lesson in this doctrine of meekness against scandals, and offences, against an easiness in giving or an easiness in taking offences. For, how well soever we may seem to be in ourselves, we are not well, if we forbear not that company, and abstain not from that conversation, which by ill example may make us worse, or if we forbear not such things, as, though they be indifferent in themselves, and can do us no harm, yet our example may make weaker persons than we are, worse, because they may come to do as we do, and not proceed upon so good ground as we do; They may sin in doing those things by our example, in which we did not sin, because we knew them to be indifferent things, and therefore did them, and they did them though they thought them to be sins. And for this Doctrine, vers. 8. Christ takes an example very near to them, If thy hand, or foot, or eye offend thee, cut it off, pull it out. His third lesson in this doctrine of meekness is against hardness of heart, against a loathness, a weariness in forgiving the offences of other men, vers. 21. against us, occasioned by Peter's question, Quoties remittam, How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? and the example in this rule Christ hath wrapped up in a parable, vers. 28. The Master forgave his servant ten thousand Talents, (more money than perchance any private man is worth) and that servant took his fellow by the throat, and cast him into prison, because he did not presently pay an hundred pence, perchance fifty shillings, not three pound of our money: in such a proportion was Christ pleased to express the Master's inexhaustible largeness and bounty, (which is himself,) and the servants inexcusable cruelty, and penuriousness, (which is every one of us.) The root of all Christian duties is Humility, meekness, that's violated in an ambitious precedency, for that implies an over-estimation of ourselves, and an undervalue of others; And it is violated in scandals, and offences, for that implies an unsettledness and irresolution in ourselves, that we can be so easily shaked, or a neglecting of weaker persons, of whom Christ neglected none; and it is violated in an unmercifulness, and inex●rablenesse, for that implies an indocilenesse, that we will not learn by Christ's doctrine; & an ungratefulness, that we will not apply his example, and do to his servants, as he, our Master, hath done to us: And so have you some Paraphrase of the whole Chapter, as it consists of Rules and Examples in this Doctrine of meekness, endangered by pride, by scandal, by uncharitableness. But of those two, pride & uncharitabenes (though they deserve to be often spoken of,) I shall have no occasion from these words of my text, to speak, for into the second of these three parts, The Doctrine of scandals, our text falls, and it is a Doctrine very necessary, and seldom touched upon. As the words of our Text are, Divisio. our parts must be three. First, that heavy word Vae, woe; Secondly, that general word, Mundo, Woe be unto the world; And lastly, that mischievous word, A scandalis, Woe be unto the, world because of scandals, of offences. each of these three words will receive a twofold consideration; for the first, Vae, is first Vox dolentis, a voice of condoling and lamenting, Christ laments the miseries imminent upon the world, because of scandals, and then it is Vox minantis, a voice of threatening, and intermination, Christ threatens, he interminates heavy judgements upon them, who occasion and induce these miseries by these scandals; This one Vae denotes both these; sorrow, and yet infallibility; They always go together in God; God is loath to do it, and yet God will certainly inflict these judgements. The second word, Mundo, Woe be unto the world, looks two ways too; Vae malis, woe unto evil men that raise scandals, vae bonis, woe unto them who are otherwise good in themselves, if they be so various, as to be easily shaked and seduced by scandals. And then upon the last word A scandalis, Woe be unto the world, because of scandals, of offences, we must look two ways also; first, as it denotes Scandalum activum, a scandal given by another, and then, as it denotes Scandalum passivum, a scandal taken by another. First then, 1. Part. our first word, in the firrst acceptation thereof, is Vae dolentis, the voice of condoling and lamentation; God laments the necessity that he is reduced to, and those judgements which the sins of men have made inevitable. In the person of the Prophets which denounced the judgements of God, it is expressed so, Onus Babyl●nis, Onus Egypti, Onus Damasci? O the burden of Damascus, the burden of Egypt, the burden of Babylon; And not only so, but Onus visionis, Not only that that judgement would be a heavy burden, when it fell upon that Nation, but that the very pre-contemplation, and pre-denunciation of that judgement upon that people, was a burden and a distasteful bitterness, to the Prophet himself, that was sent upon that message. In reading of an Act of Parliament, or of any Law that inflicts the heaviest punishment that can be imagined upon a delinquent, and transgressor of that Law, a man is not often much affected, because he needs not, when he does but read that law, consider that any particular man is fallen under the penalty, and bitterness thereof. But if upon evidence and verdict he be put to give judgement upon a particular man that stands before him, at the bar, according to that Law, That that man that stands there that day, must that day be no man; that that breath breathed in by God, to glorify him, must be suffocated and strangled with a halter, or evaporated with an Axe, he must be hanged or beheaded, that those limbs which make up a Cabinet for that precious Jewel, the image of God, to be kept in, must be cut into quarters, or torn with horses; that that body which is a consecrated Temple of the Holy Ghost, must be chained to a stake, and burnt to ashes, he that is not affected in giving such a judgement, upon such a man, hath no part in the bowels of Christ Jesus, that melt in compassion, when our sins draw and extort his Judgements upon us in the mouth of those Prophets, those men whom God sends, it is so, and it is so in the mouth of God himself that sends them. Esa. 1. 24. Heu vindicabor, (says God) Alas, I will revenge me of mine enemies; Alas, I will, is Alas, I must, his glory compels him to do it, the good of his Church, and the sustentation of his Saints compel him to it, and yet he comes to it with a condolency, with a compassion, Heu vindicabor, Alas, I will revenge me of mine enemies: Ezech. 6. 11. so also in another Prophet, Heu abominationes, Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel; for (as it is added there) they shall fall, (that is, they will fall) by the sword, by famine, by pestilence, and (as it follows) I will accomplish my fury upon them; Though it were come to that height, fury, and accomplishment, consummation of fury, yet it comes with a condolency, and compassion, Heu abominationes, Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel, I would they were not so ill, that I might be better to them. Men sent by God do so, so does God that sends those men, & he that is both God and man, Christ Jesus does so too: We have but two clear records in the Scriptures of Christ's weeping, and both in compassion for others, when Mary wept for her dead brother Lazarus, joh. 11. 33. and the Jews that were with her wept too, jesus also wept, and he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled. This was but for the discomfort of one family, (it was not a mortality over the whole Country) It was but for one person in that family, (it was not a contagion that had swept, or did threaten the whole house) it was but for such a person in that family, as he meant forthwith to restore to life again, and yet jesus wept, & groaned in the Spirits, & was troubled; he would not lose that opportunity of showing his tenderness, and compassion in the behalf of others. How vehement, how passionate then, must we believe his other weeping to have been, Luke. 19 41. when he had his glorious and beloved City Jerusalem in his sight, and wept over that City, and with that stream of tears poured out that Sea, that tempestuous Sea, those heavy judgements, which, (though he wept in doing it) he denounced upon that City, that glorious, that beloved City, which City (though Christ charge, to have stoned them that were sent to her, Mat. 23. 34. and to be guilty of all the righteous blood shed upon the earth) the holy Ghost calls the holy City for all that, 4. 5. not only at the beginning of Christ's appearance, (The Devil took him up into the holy City) (for at that time she was not the unholyer for any thing that she had done upon the person of Christ,) but when they had exercised all their cruelty, even to death, the death of the Cross upon Christ himself, Mat. 27. 33. the Holy Ghost calls still the holy City; Many bodies of Saints, which slept, arose, and went into the holy City. When the Fathers take into their contemplation and discourse, that passionate exclamation of our Saviour upon the Cross, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? those blessed Fathers, that never thought of any such sense of that place, that Christ was, at that time, actually in the real torments of hell, assign no fitter sense of those words, then that the foresight of those insupportable, and inevitable, and imminent judgements upon his City, and his people, occasioned that passionate exclamation, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Acts 9 4. That as, after he was ascended into heaven, he said to Saul, Cur me persequeris? He called Saul's persecuting of his Church, a persecuting of him, so when he considered that God had forsaken his people, his City, his Jerusalem, he cried out, that God had forsaken him. God that sent the Prophets; the Prophets that were sent; Christ who was both, the person sent, and the sender, came to the inflicting and denouncing of judgements, with this Vae dolentis, a heart, and voice of condoling and lamentation. Grieve not then the holy Spirit of God, Eph. 4. 30. says the Apostle; extort not from him those Judgements, which he cannot in justice forbear, and yet is grieved to inflict. How often do we use that motive, to divert young men from some ill actions, and ill courses, How will this trouble your friends, how will this grieve your Mother, this will kill your Father? The Angels of heaven who are of a friendship and family with us, as they rejoice at our conversion, so are they sorry and troubled at our aversion from God. Our sins have grieved our Mother; that is, made the Church ashamed, and blush that he hath washed us, and clothed us, in the whiteness and innocency of Christ Jesus in our baptism, and given us his blood to drink in the other Sacrament. Our sins have made our mother the Church ashamed in herself, (we have scandalised and offended the Congregation) and our sins have defamed and dishonoured our mother abroad, that is, imprinted an opinion in others, that that cannot be a good Church, in which we live so dissolutely, so falsely to our first faith, and contract, and stipulation with God in Baptism. We have grieved our brethren, the Angels, Mal. 2. 10. our mother, the Church, and we have killed our Father: God is the father of us all; Act. 20. 28. and we have killed him; for God hath purchased a Church with his blood, says Saint Paul. And, oh, how much more is God grieved now, that we will make no benefit of that blood which is shed for us, than he was for the very shedding of that blood! We take it not so ill, (pardon follow a comparison in so high a mystery; for, since our blessed Saviour was pleased to assume that metaphor, Mat. 20. 22. and to call his passion a Cup, and his death a drinking, we may be admitted to that Comparison of drinking too) we take it not so ill, that a man go down into our Cellar, and draw, and drink his fill, as that he go in, and pierce the vessels, and let them run out, in a wasteful wantonneste. To satisfy the thirst of our souls, there was a necessity that the blood of Christ Jesus, should be shed; To satisfy Christ's own sitto, that thirst which was upon him, when he was upon the Cross, there was a necessity too, that Christ should bleed to death. On our part there was an absolute and a primary necessity; God in his justice requiring a satisfaction, nothing could redeem us, by way of satisfaction, but the blood of his Son. And though there were never act more voluntary, more spontaneous, than Christ's dying for man, nor freer from all coaction, and necessity of that kind, yet after Christ had submitted himself to that Decree and contract that passed between him, Luke 24. 26. and his Father, that he, by shedding his blood, should redeem Mankind, there lay a necessity upon Christ himself to shed his blood, as himself says first to his Disciples that went with him to Emans, Nun op●rtuit, ought not Christ to suffer all these things? do ye not find by the prophets that he was bound to do it? and then to his Apostles at jerusalem, verse 36. Sic opertuit, Thus it behoved Christ to suffer. There was then an absolute necessity upon us, an obediential necessity upon Christ, that his blood must be shed; But to let him die in a wantonness, to let out all that precious liquor, and taste no drop of it, to draw out all that immaculate and unvaluable blood, and make no balsamum, no antidote, no plaster, no fomentation in the application of that blood, to labour still under a burning fever of lust, and ambition, and presumption, and find no cooling julips there, in the application of that blood, to labour under a cold damp of indevotion, and under heartless desperation, and find no warming Cordials there, to be still as far under judgements and executions for fin, as if there had been no Messias sent, no ransom given, no satisfiaction made, not to apply this blood thus shed for us, by those means which God in his Church presents to us, this puts Christ to his woeful Interjection, to cast out this woe upon us, (which he had rather have left out) woe be unto the world, which, though it begin in a vae dolentis, a voice of condoling and lamenting, yet it is also vae minantis, a voice of threatening, and intermination, denoting the infallibility of Judgements, Vae minantis. and that's our next consideration. I think we find no words in Christ's mouth so often, as vae, and Amen. Each of them hath two significations; as almost all Christ's words, and actions have; consolation, and commination. For, as this vae signifies (as before) a sorrow, (woe, that is, woe is me, for this will fall upon you) and signifies also a Judgement inevitable and infallible, (woe, that is, woe be unto you, for this Judgement shall fall upon you) so Amen is sometimes vox Asserentis, and signifies verè, verily, Verily I say unto you, when Christ would confirm, and establish a belief in some doctrine, john 14. 12. or promise of his, (as when he says Amen, Amen, verily verily I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do, shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do) so it is vox Asserentis, a word of assertion, Mat. 5. 26. and it is also vox Deserentis, a word of desertion, when God denounces an infallibility, Mat. 5. 26. an unavoydablenesse, an inevitableness in his judgements, Amen dico, verily I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing; so this Amen signifies Fiat, this shall certainly be thus done. And this seal, this Amen, as Amen is Fiat, is always set to his vae, as his vae is vox minantis; whensoever God threatens any Judgement, he means to execute that Judgement as far as he threatens it; God threatens nothing in terrorem only, only to frighten us; every vae hath his Amen, every Judgement denounced, a purpose of execution. This then is our woeful case; every man may find upon record, in the Scriptures, a vae denounced upon that sin, which he knows to be his sin; and if there be a vae, there is an Amen too, if God have said it shall, it shall be executed, so that this is not an execution of a few condemned persons, but a Massacre of all: It is not a Decimation, as in a rebellion, to spare nine, and hang the tenth, but it is a washing, a sweeping away of all: every man may find a Judgement upon record against him. It doth not acquit him that he hath not committed an adultery; and yet, is he sure of that? He may have done that in a look, in a letter, in a word, in a wish: It doth not acquit him, that he hath not done a murder; and yet, is he sure of that? He may have killed a man, in not defending him from the oppression of another, if he have power in his hand, and he may have killed in not relieving, if he have a plentiful fortune. He may have killed in not reprehending him who was under his charge, when he saw him kill himself in the sinful ways of death. Ardoinus. As they that write of Poisons, and of those creatures that naturally malign and would destroy man, do name the Flea, as well as the Viper, because the Flea sucks as much blood as he can, so that man is a murderer that stabs as deep as he can, though it be but with his tongue, with his pen, with his frown; for a man may kill with a frown, in withdrawing his countenance from that man, that lives upon so low a pasture as his countenance, nay he may kill with a smile, with a good look, if he afford that good look with a purpose to delude him. And, beloved, how many dye of this disease; how many dye laughing, die of a tickling; how many are overjoyed with the good looks, and with the familiarity of greater persons than themselves, and led on by hopes of getting more, waste that they have? An adultery, a murder may be done in a dream, if that dream were an effect of a murderous, or an adulterous thought conceived before. 1 Cor. 4. 4. The Apostle says, I know nothing by myself, yet am I not thereby justified, we sin some sins, that all the world sees, and yet we see not, but then, how many more, which none in the world sees but ourselves? Scarce any man escapes all degrees of any sin; scarce any man some great degree of some great sin; no man escapes so, but that he may find upon record, in the Scriptures, a vae, and an Amen, a Judgement denounced, and an execution sealed against him. And, if that be our case, where is there any room for this milder signification of these two words, vae, and Amen, which we spoke of before, as they are words of Consolation? If because God hath said Stipendium peccati mors est, the wages of sin is death, because I have sinned, I must die, what can I do in a Prayer? can I flatter God? what can I do in an Alms? Can I bribe God, or frustrate his purpose? Can I put an Euge upon his vae, a vacat upon his Fiat, a Nonobstante upon his Amen. God is not man, not a false man that he can lie, nor a weak man that he can repent. Where then is the restorative, the consolatory nature of these words? In this, beloved, consists our comfort, that all Gods vae's and Amens, all judgements, and all his executions are Conditional; There is a Crede & vives, Believe and thou shalt live; there is a Fac hoc & vives, do this and thou shalt live; If thou have done otherwise, there is a Converte & vives, turn unto the Lord and thou shalt live; If thou have done so, and fallen off, there is a Revertere & vives, return again unto the Lord, and thou shalt live. How heavy so ever any of God's judgements be, 2 Sam. 12. 22. yet there is always room for David's question, Quis scit, who can tell whether God will be gracious unto me? What better assurance could one have, than David had? The Prophet Nathan had told David immediately from the mouth of God, this child shall surely die, and ratified it by that reason, because thou hast given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, this child shall surely die, yet David fasted, and wept, and said, who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious unto me, that the child may live? There is always room for David's question, Quis scit, who can tell? Nay there is no room for it, as it is a question of diffidence and distrust; every man may and must know, that whatsoever any Prophet have denounced against any sin of his, yet there are conditions, upon which the Lord will be gracious and thy soul shall live. But if the first condition, that is Innocency, and the second, that is Repentance, be rebelliously broken, than every man hath his vae, and every vae hath his Amen, the judgements are denounced against him; and upon him they shall be executed; for God threatens not to fright children, but the Mountains melt, and Powers, and Thrones, and Principalities tremble at his threatening. And so have you the doubled signification of the first word vae, as it is vox Dolentis, and as it is Vox minantis, God is loath, but God will infallibly execute his judgement, and we proceed to the extension of this vae, over all, vae mundo, woe unto the world, and the double signification of that word. I have wondered sometimes that that great Author, 2. Part. Mund●. and Bishop in the Roman Church, Abulensis, is so free, as to confess that some Expositors amongst them, have taken this word in our Text, Mundo, adjectiuè, not to signify the world, but a clean person, a free man, that it should be vae immuni, woe unto him that is free from offences, that hath had no offences; perchance they mean from crosses. And so, though it be a most absurd, and illiterate, and ungrammaticall construction of the place that they make, yet there is a doctrine to be raised from thence, of good use. As God brought light out of darkness, and raises glory out of sin, so we may raise good Divinity out of their ill Grammar; for vae mundo, indeed, vae immuni, woe be unto him that hath had no crosses. There cannot be so great a cross as to have none. I lack one loaf of that daily bread that I pray for, if I have no cross; for afflictions are our spiritual nourishment; I lack one limb of that body I must grow into, which is the body of Christ Jesus, if I have no crosses; for, my conformity to Christ, (and that's my being made up into his body) must be accomplished in my fulfilling his sufferings in his flesh. So that, though our adversaries out of their ignorance misled us in a wrong sense of the place; the Holy Ghost leads us into a true, and right use thereof. But there is another good use of their error too, another good doctrine out of their ill Grammar; Take the word mundo, adjectiuè, for an adjective, and vae mundo, vae immuni, woe unto him that is so free from all offences, as to take offence at nothing; to be indifferent to any thing, to any Religion, to any Discipline, to any form of God's service; That from a glorious Mass to a sordid Conventicle, all's one to him, all one to him whether that religion, in which they meet, and light candles at Noon; or that, in which they meet, and put out candles at midnight; what innovations, what alterations, what tolerations of false, what extirpations of true Religion soever come, it shall never trouble, never offend him; 'Tis true, Vae mundo indeed, woe unto him that is so free, so unsensible, so unaffected with any thing in this kind; for, as to be too inquisitive into the proceedings of the State, and the Church, out of a jealousy and suspicion that any such alterations, or tolerations in Religion are intended or prepared, is a seditious disaffection to the government, and a disloyal aspersion upon the persons of our Superiors, to suspect without cause, so, not to be sensible that the Caterpillars of the Roman Church, do eat up our tender fruit, that the Jesuits, and other enginiers of that Church, do seduce our forwardest and best spirits, not to be watchful in our own families, that our wives and children and servants be not corrupted by them, for the Pastor to s●acken in his duty, (not to be earnest in the Pulpit) for the Magistrate to slacken in his, (not to be vigilant in the execution of those Laws as are left in his power) vae mundo, vae immuni, woe unto him that is unsensible of offences. Jealously, suspiciously to misinterpret the actions of our Superiors, is inexcusable, but so is it also not to feel how the adversary gains upon us, and not to wish that it were, and not to pray that it may be otherwise; vae mundo, vae immuni, woe to him that is un-offended unsensible, thus. But as I have wondered that that Bishop would so easily confess, that some of their Expositors were so very unlearned, so barbarously ignorant, so enormously stupid, as to take this vae mundo adjective, so do I wonder more, that after such confessions, and acknowledgements of such ignorances' and stupidities amongst them, they will not remedy it in the cause, but still continue so rigid, so severe in the maintenance of their own Translation, their Vulgate Edition, as in places, and cases of doubt, not to admit recourse to the Original, as to the Supreme Judge, nor to other Translations: for, by either of those ways, it would have appeared, that this vae mundo could not be taken adjectiuè, but is a cloud cast upon the whole world, a woe upon all, no place, no person, Gen. 25. no calling free from these scandals, and offences, from tentations, and tribulations; when there was a vae Sodom, that God reigned fire and brimstone upon Sodom, yet there was a Zoar, where Let might be safe. When there was a vae Egypto, woe and woe upon woe upon Egypt, there was a Go●hen a Sanctuary for the children of God in Egypt. When there is a vae inhabitantibus, a persecution in any place, there is a Fuge in aliam, leave to fly into another City. But in such an extension, such an expansion, such an exaltation, such an inundation of woe, as this in our text, Vae mundo, woe to the world, to all the world, a tide, a flood without any ebb, a Sea without any shore, a dark sky without any Horizon; That though I do withdraw myself from the woeful uncertainties, and irresolutions and indeterminations of the Court, and from the snares and circumventions of the City; Though I would divest, and shake off the woes and offences of Europe in Africa, or of Asia in America, I cannot, since wheresoever, or howsoever I live, these woes, and scandals, and offences, tentations, and tribulations will pursue me, who can express the wretched condition, the miserable station, and prostration of man in this world? vae mundo. Take the word, joh. 17. 9 World, in as ill a sense as you will, as ill as when Christ says, I pray not for the world, (and they are very ill, for whom Christ Jesus who prayed for them that crucified him, would not pray:) Take the word world, in as good a sense as you will, 6. 51. as good as when Christ says, I give my flesh for the life of the world, (and they are very good that are elemented, made up with his flesh, and alimented and nursed with his blood:) Take it for the Elect, take it for the Reprobate, the Reprobate and the Elect too are under this vae, woe to the world, from tentations, and tribulations, scandals, and offences. So it is if the world be persons, and it is so also, if it be times; Take the world for the times we live in now, 1 joh. 2. 18. and it is Novissima hora, this is the last time, and the Apostle hath told us, that the last times are the worst. Take the world for the Old world, Originalis mundus, 2. 2. 5. as Saint Peter calls it; the Original world, of which, this world; since the flood, is but a copy, and God spared not the Old world, says that Apostle. Take it for an elder world than that, the world in Paradise, when one Adam, the Son of God, and one Eve produced by God, from him, made up the world: or take it for an elder world than that, the world in heaven, when only the Angels, and no other creatures made up the world; Take it any of these ways, we in this latter world do, Noah in the old world did, so did Adam in the world in Paradise, and so did the Angels in the oldest world of all, find these woes from offences, and scandals, tentations, and tribulations. So it is in all persons, in all men, so it is in all times, in all ages, and so it is in all places too; for he that retires into a Monastery upon pretence of avoiding tentations, and offences in this world, he brings them thither, and he meets them there; He sees them intramittendo, and extramittendo, he is scandalised by others, and others are scandalised by him. That part of the world that sweats in continual labour in several vocations, is scandalised with their laziness, and their riches, to see them anoint themselves with other men's sweat, and lard themselves with other men's fat; and then these retired and cloistrall men are scandalised with all the world, that is out of their walls. There is no sort of men more exercised with contentious and scandalous wranglings, than they are: for, first, with all eager animosity they prefer their Monastical life before all other secular callings, yea, before those Priests, whom they call Secular Priests, such as have care of souls, in particular parishes, (as though it were a Diminution, and an inferior state to have care of souls, and study and labour the salvation of others.) And then as they undervalue all secular callings, (Mechaniques, and Merchants, and Magistrates too) in respect of any Regular order, (as they call them) so with the same animosity do they prefer their own Order, before any other Order. A Carthusian is but a man of fish, for one Element, to dwell still in a Pond, in his Cell alone, but a Jesuit is a useful ubiquitary, and his Scene is the Court, as well as the Cloister. And howsoever they pretend to be gone out of the world, they are never the farther from the Exchange for all their Cloister; they buy, and sell, and purchase in their Cloister. They are never the farther from Westminster in their Cloister, they occasion and they maintain suits from their Cloister; and there are the Courts of Justice noted to abound most with suits, where Monasteries abound most. Nay, they are never the farther from the field for all their Cloister; for they give occasions of armies, they raise armies, they direct armies, they pay armies from their Cloister. Men should not retire from the mutual duties of this world, to avoid offences, tentations, tribulations, neither do they at all avoid them, that retire thus, upon that pretence. Shall we say then, Mat. 19 9 as the Disciples said to Christ; If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry? If the world be nothing but a bed of Adders, a quiver of poisoned arrows, from every person, every time, every place, woes by occasion of offences, and scandals, it had been better God had made no world, better that I had never been born into the world, better, if by any means I could get out of the world quickly, ● 2. 22. shall we say so? God forbid. As long as job charged not God foolishly, it is said, in all this job sinned not; but when he came to curse his birth, and to loathe his life, 1 Reg. 19 4. than job charged God foolishly. When one Prophet (Eliah) comes to proportion God the measure of his corrections, jon. 4. Satisest, Lord, this is enough; Thou hast done enough, I have suffered enough, now take away my life. When another Prophet comes to wish his own death in anger, and to justify his anger, and dispute it out with God himself, for not proceeding with the Ninivites, as he would have had him do; nay for the withering of his gourd that shadowed him, in all these, they did, in all such, we do charge God foolishly; And shall we that are but worms, but silkworms, but glow-worms at best, chide God that he hath made slow-wormes, and other venomous creeping things? shall we that are nothing but boxes of poison in ourselves, reprove God for making Toads and Spiders in the world? shall we that are all discord, quarrel the harmony of his Creation, or his providence? Can an Apothecary make a Sovereign treacle of Vipers, and other poisons, and cannot God admit offences, and scandals into his physic? scandals, and offences, tentations, and tribulations, are our leaven that ferment us, and our lees that preserve us. Use them to God's glory, and to thine own establishing, and then thou shall be a particular exception to that general Rule, the Vae mundo à scandalis, shall be an Euge tibi à scandalis, thou shalt see that it was well for thee, that there were scandals and offences in the world, for they shall have exercised thy patience, they shall have occasioned thy victory, they shall have assured thy triumph. SERMON XVIII. Preached at Lincoln's Inn. The second Sermon on MATTH. 18. 7. woe unto the world, because of offences. We have seen in the first word the vae, as it is vox Dolentis, the voice of condoling and lamenting, that it is accompanied with a Heu; God's judgements come against his will, he had rather they might be forborn, he had rather those easy conditions had been performed; And as it is vox minantis, a voice of threatening and intermination, it is accompanied with an Amen; if conditions be rebelliously broken, God's judgements do come infallibly, inevitably; And we have seen in the second word, vae mundo, and the twofold signification of that, that these offences, and scandals fall upon all the world; the wicked embrace tentations, and are glad of them, and sorry when they are but weak; the godly meet tentations, and wrestle with them, and sometimes do overcome them, and are sometimes overcome by them; but all have them, and yet we must not break out of the world by a retired life, nor break out of the world by a violent death, but take Gods ways, and stay God's leisure. In this our third part, we are to consider the root from which this overspreading vae, this woe proceeds, A scandalis, from scandals, from offences, and the double signification of that word, first, Scandalum activum, the active scandal, which is a malice, or at least an indiscretion in giving offence, and Scandalum passivum, the passive scandal, which is a forwardness, at least an easiness in taking offence; To know the nature of the thing, look we to the derivation, the extraction, the Origination of the word. The word from which scandal is derived (scazein) signifies claudicare, to halt; and thence, a scandal is any trap, or Engine, any occasion of stumbling, and laming, hid in the way that I must go, by another person; and as it is transferred to a spiritual use, appropriated to an Ecclesiastical sense, it is an occasion of sinning. It hath many branches; too many to be so much as named; but some fruits from some of them we shall gather, Activum. and present you. First, in our first, the Active Scandal, to do any thing that is naturally ill, formally sin, whereby another may be occasioned or encouraged by my example to do the like, this is the active scandal most evidently, and most directly, and this is morbus complicatus, a disease that carries another disease in it, a fever exalted to a frenzy; It is Peccatum pragnans, peccatum gravidum, a spauning sin, a sin of multiplication, to sin purposely, to lead another into tentation. But there is a less degree than this, and it is an active scandal too; To do any thing that in itself is indifferent, (and so no sin in me, that do it) in the sight of another that thinks it not indifferent, but unlawful, and yet because he hath a real, or a reverential dependence upon me, (my Son, my Servant, my Tenant) and thinks I would be displeased if he did it not, does it against his conscience by my example, though the sin be formally his, radically it is mine, because I gave the occasion, And there is a lower degree than this; and yet is an active scandal. If I do an indifferent thing in the sight and knowledge of another, that thinks it unlawful, though he do not come to do it, out of my example, by any dependence upon me, yet if he come to think uncharitably of me, or to condemn me for doing it, though this uncharitableness in him be his sin, yet the root grew in me, and I gave the scandal. And there is a lower degree than this, and yet is an Active scandal too. Origen hath expressed it thus, Scandalum est quo scandentium pedes offenduntur; To hinder the feet of another, that would go farther, or climb higher in the ways of godliness; but for me, to say to any man, What need you be so pure, so devout, so godly, so zealous, will this make you rich, will this bring you to preferment? this is an active scandal in me, though he that I speak to, be not damnified by me. Of which kind of scandal, Mat. 16. 23. there is an evident, and an illustrious example, between Saint Peter, and Christ; Christ calls Peter a scandal unto him, when Peter rebuked Christ for offering to go up to Jerusalem in a time of danger. Christ was to accomplish the work of our salvation at Jerusalem, by dying, and Peter dissuades, discounsels that journey; and for this, Christ lays that heavy name upon his indiscreet zeal, and that heavy name upon his person, Vade retro, Get thee behind me Satan, thou art a scandal unto me. This is Scandalum oppositionis, the scandal of opposing, dissuading, discounselling, discountenancing, and consequently the frustrating of God's purpose in man; This is but by word, and yet there is a less than this, which is Scandalum timoris, when he that hath power in his hand, in a family, in a parish, in a City, in a Court, intimidates them who depend upon him, (though nothing be expressly done or said that way) and so slackens them in their religious duties to God; and in their constancy in Religion itself; And vae illis, woe unto them that do so, and vae mundo ab illis; woe unto the world, because there are so many that do so. And yet there is another scandal which seems less than this, Scandalum amoris, the scandal of love; as Saul gave David his daughter Mich●l, ut esset ei in scandalum, that she might be a snare unto him; 1 Sam. 18. 21. that is, that David being over-uxorious, and over-indulgent to his wife, might thereby lie the more open to Saul's mischievous purposes upon him, and vae illis, woe unto them that do so; and vae munde ab illis, woe unto the world, because there are so many that do so, that study the affections, and dispositions, and inclinations of men, and then, minister those things to them, that affect them most, which is the way of the instruments of the Roman Church, to promise preferments to discontented persons, and is indeed, his way, whose instrument the Roman Church is, The Devil; for this is all that the Devil is able to do, in the ways of tentation, Applicare passivis activa, To find out what will work upon a man, and to work by that. The Devil did not create me, nor bring materials to my creation; The Devil did not infuse into me, that choler, that makes me ignorantly and indiscreetly zealous, nor that phlegm that chokes me with a stupid indevotion; He did not infuse into me that blood, that inflames me in licentiousness, nor that melancholy that damps me in a jealousy and suspicion, a diffidence and distrust in God. The Devil had no hand in composing me in my constitution. But the Devil knows, which of these govern, and prevail in me, and ministers such tentations, as are most acceptable to me, and this is Scandalum amoris, the scandal of Love. So have ye then the Name, and Nature, and extent of the Active Scandal; against which, the inhibition given in this Text is general, we are forbidden to scandalise any person by any of these ways, The scandal of Example, or the scandal of Persuasion, The scandal of Fear, or the scandal of Love. For, there is scarce any so free to himself, so entirely his own, so independent upon others, but that Example, or Persuasion, or Fear, or Love may scandalise him, that is, Led him into tentation, and make him do some things against his own mind. Our Saviour Christ had spoken, De pusillis, of little children, of weak persons, easy to be scandalised, before this Text, and he returns, ad pusillos, to the consideration of little children, persons easy to be scandalised again; ver. 10. this Text is not of them, or not of them only, but of all; say not thou of any man, aetatem habet, he is old enough, let him look to himself, he hath reason as other men have, he hath had a learned and a religious education, ill example can do him no harm; but give no ill example to any, study the settling, and the establishing of all; for, scarce is there any so strong, but may be shaked by some of these scandals, Example, Persuasion, Fear, or Love. And he that employs his gift of wit, and Counsel to seduce and misled men, or his gift of Power, and Authority to intimidate, and affright men, or his gift of other graces, loveliness of person, agreeableness of Conversation, powerfulness of speech, to ensnare and entangle men by any of these scandals, may draw others into perdition, but he falls also with them, and shall not be left out by God in the punishments inflicted upon them that fall by his occasion. The Commandment is general, scandalise none, scarce any but may be overthrown, by some of these ways; And then the Apostles practice was general too, we give no occasion of offence in any thing. 2 Cor. 6. 3. As he requires that we should eat and drink to the glory of God, so he would have us study to avoid scandalising of others, 1 Cor. 10. 31. 8. 13. even in our eating and drinking; If meat make my brother to offend, (offend either in eating against his own conscience, or offend in an uncharitable misinterpretation of my eating) In aeternum, Rom. 14. 15. says the Apostle there, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth; Nor, destroy my brother with my meat, for whom Christ died. That's the Apostles tenderness in things; (He would give no occasion of offence in any thing) And it is as general in contemplation of persons, he would have no offence given, neither to the jew, 1 Cor. 10. 32. nor to the Grecian, nor to the Church of God: He was as careful not to scandalise, not to give just occasion of offence to Jew, not Gentile, as not to the Church of God; so must we be towards them of a superstitions religion amongst us, as careful as towards one another, not to give any scandal, any just cause of offence. But what is to be called a just cause of offence towards those men? Good ends, and good ways, plain, and direct, and manifest proceedings, these can be called no scandal, no just cause of offence, to Jew, nor Gentile, to Turk, nor Papist; nor does Saint Paul intent that we should forbear essential and necessary things, for fear of displeasing perverse and peevish men. To maintain the doctrinal truths of our religion, by conferences, by disputations, by writing, by preaching, to avow, and to prove our religion to be the same, that Christ Jesus and his Apostles proposed at beginning, the same that the general Counsels established after, the same that the blessed Fathers of those times, unanimely, and dogmatically delivered, the same that those glorious Martyrs quickened by their death, and carried over all the world in the rivers, in the seas of their blood, to avow our religion by writing, and preaching, to be the same religion, an then to preserve and protect that religion which God hath put into our hearts, by all such means as he hath put into our hands, in the due execution of just Laws, this is no scandal, no just cause of offence to Jew not Gentile, Turk nor Papists. But when leaving fundamental things, and necessary truths, we wrangle uncharitably about Collateral impertinencies, when we will refuse to do such things as conduce to the exaltation of Devotion, or to the order, and peace of the Church, not for any harm in the things, but only therefore because the Papists do them, when, because they kneel in the worship of the bread in the Sacrament, we will not kneel in Thanksgiving to God for the Sacrament; when because they pray to Saints, we will reproach the Saints, or not name the Saints, when because they abuse the Cross, we will abhor the Cross; This is that that Saint Paul protests against, and in that protestation Catechizes us, that as he would give no just occasion of offence to the true Church of God, so neither would he do it to a false or infirm Church. He would not scandalise the true Church of God, by any modifications, any inclinations towards the false; nor he would not scandalise the false and infirm Church, by refusing to communicate with them, in the practice of such things, as might exalt our Devotion, and did not endanger nor shake any foundation of religion: which was the wisdom of our Church, in the beginning of the Reformation, when the Injuctions of our Princes forbade us to call one another by the odious names of Papist, or Papistical Heretic, or schismatic, or Sacramentary, or such convitions (as the word of the Injunction is) and reproachful names; but cleaving always entirely, and inseparably to the fundamental truths of our own religion, as far as it is possible we should live peaceably with all men. Saint Paul would give no offence to the true Church of God, he would not prevaricate, nor to the Jew nor Gentile neither, he would not exasperate. And this may be enough to have been said of the active scandals, and pass we now, in our order, to the Passive. It is no wonder to see them who put all the world, Passivum. into differences, (the Jesuits) to differ sometimes amongst themselves. And therefore though the Jesuit Maldonat say of this Text, That Christ did not here intent to warn, or to arm his Disciples against scandals, as scandals occasions of sin, but only from offering injury to one another, That scandal in this text is nothing but wrong, yet another Jesuit, (Vincemius Rhegius) is not only of another opinion himself, but thinks that opinion (as he calls it) absurd; It is absurd, says he, to interpret it so; for, can a man's own hand or foot, or eye, be said to injure him? And yet, in this place, they are often said to scandalise him, to offend him. The interpretation that Maldonat departs from, himself acknowledges to be the interpretation of Saint chrysostom, of Euthymius, of Theophylact, of others of the Fathers; and, by the council of Trent, he is bound to interpret Scriptures according to the Fathers, and he is angry with us, if at any time we do not so; and here he departs from them, where, not only his reverence to them, but the frame, and the evidence of the place should have kept them to him; for here Christ utters his vae, as it is vae Dolentis, as he laments their miseries, and as it is vae Minantis, as he threatens his judgements, not only upon them that offend and scandalise others, but upon them also that are easily scandalised by others, and put from their religion, and Christian constancy with every rumour. Hierom. Par●m distat scandalizare, & scandalizari; It is almost as great a sin to be shaked by a scandal given, as to give it. Christ intends both in this Text; the Active, and the Passive scandal; but the latter, meliùs quadrat, says a later Divine, Calvin. worthy to be compared to the Ancients, for the exposition of Scriptures, it fits the scope and purpose of Christ best, to accept and interpret this vae, (Woe be unto the world) of the Passive scandal, the scandal taken. In that, we consider the working of this Vae, three ways; first, vae quia illusiones fortes, woe unto the world because these scandals and offences, tentations, and tribulations are so strong in their nature; and then vae quia infirmi vas, woe because you are so weak in your nature; and again, vae quia Pravaricatores, woe because we prevaricate in our own case, and make ourselves weaker than we are, and are scandalised with things which are not in their nature scandalous, nor were scandalously intended. The two first, are woe because we shall be scandalised, for scandals are truly strong, and you are truly weak; The other is woe because ye will be scandalised, when, and where you might easily unentangle the snare, and divest the ●scruple. First, for the vehemence, the violence, the unavoydablenesse and impetuousness of these scandals, tentations, and tribulations under which we all suffer in this world, it may be enough to consider that one saying of our Saviour's, They shall seduce, Si possibile, Mat. 24. 23. even the elect, where (by the way, it is not merely, not altogether, as we have translated it, If it were possible, for that sounds, as if Christ had positively, and dogmatically determined, that it is not possible for the elect to be seduced; but Christ says only, Si possibile, if it be possible, as being willing to leave it in doubt, and in suspense how far, in so great scandals, so very great tentations, even the elect might be seduced. Gregor. Ista Dominici sermonis dubitatto, trepidationem mentis in electis relinquit; this doubtfulness in Christ's speech, makes the very elect stand in fear of falling, in the midst of such tentations, for, howsoever the elect shall rise again, the elect may fall by these scandals, and though they may be reduced, they may be seduced. We are to consider men, as they are delivered in the approbation, and testimony of the Church, that judges s●cundum allegata & probata, according to the evidence that she sees and hears, and not as they are wrapped up in the infallible knowledge of God; and so, our election admits an outward trial, 1 Pet. 1. 1. that is, Sanctification: so S. Peter writes, to the strangers elect through sanctification. They were strangers, strangers to the Covenant, and yet Elect; for, as all of the household, all within the Covenant, all children of the faithful, are not elect, (for to be born of Christian parents within the Covenant, gives us a title to the Sacrament of Baptism, so as that we may claim it, and the Church cannot deny it us; but this birth doth not give us that title to heaven, which Baptisin itself does) so all strangers, all that are without the Covenant, are not excluded in the election. S. Peter admits stragers to election, but yet no otherwise then through sanctification; when we are come to that hill, 2 Thes. 2. 13. to sanctification, we have a fair prospect to see our election; in: so, God hath elected you to salvation, says S. Paul, to the Thes. but how? To salvation through sanctification; that's your hill, there opens your prospect. Agreeably to these two great Astles, says the beloved Apostle, 2 joh. 1. 1. the Elder unto the elect Lady, and her children; but still, how elect? verse 6. as he tells you, elect if she walk in the Commandments of God, elect if she lose not her former good works, verse. 8. that she may receive a full reward; elect, if she abide in the doctrine of Christ. Always from that mount of sanctification arises our prospect to election; and sanctification were glorification, if it were impossible to fall from it. If a tentation of money made judas an Apostle fall from his Master, how easily will such a tentation make men fall with their Master, that is, run into dangerous and ruinous actions with them? How easily will our children, our servants, our tenants fall form the truth of God, if they have both the example of their superiors to countenance them, and their purse to reward them for it? That scandal, that tentation is a Giant, and an armed Giant, a Goliath, and a Goliath with a spear like a weaver's beam, that marches upon those two legs, Example to do it, and Preferment for doing it. This is the vae, in the consideration of the passive scandal, as it arises out of the vehemence of the scandal, Quia infirmi and tentation, Quia illusiones fortes, because they are so strong in themselves. It arises also out of our weakness, Quia infirmi nos, because we are so weak, even the strongest of us. And for this, it may also be enough to consider those words of our Saviour; Mat. 13. 21. That a man may receive the word, and receive it with joy, and yet, Temporalis est, says Christ, it may be but for a while, he may be but a timeserver, for, assoon as persecution comes, Illico continuò scandalizatur, by and by, instantly, forthwith he is scandalised and shaked. He stays not to give God his leisure, whether God will succour his cause to morrow, though not to day. He stays not to give men their Law, to give Princes, and State's time to consider, whether it may not be fit for them to come to leagues, and alliances, and declarations for the assistance of the Cause of Religion next year, though not this. But continuò scandalizatur, as soon as a Catholic army hath given a blow, and got a victory of any of our forces, or friends, or as soon as a crafty jesuit hath forged a Relation, that that Army hath given such a blow, or that such an Army there is, (for many times they intimidate weak men, when they shoot nothing but Paper, when they are only Paper-Armies, and Pamphlet-Victories, and no such in truth) Illico scandalizatur, yet with these forged rumours, presently he is scandalised, and he comes apace to those dangerous conclusions, Non potens Deus, (for any thing I see, God is not so powerful a God, as they make him, for his enemy's Armies prevail against his) Non sapiens Deus, (for any thing I see, God does not take so wise courses for his glory, of which he talks so much, and pretends to be so jealous, for his enemy's Counsels prevail against his;) And he comes at last to the Non est Deus, to labour to overrule his own Conscience, and make himself bebeleeve, or (at least) to wish, though he cannot believe it, that there were no God. Now to correct, or to repair this weakness, you see our Saviour's physic here; If thy foot, thy hand, thine eye, scandalise thee, offend thee, abscind & proj●ce, erue & projice, Cut it off, pull it out, and then cast it away. You see Christ's method in his physic, It determines not in a preparative, that does but stir the humours, (for every remorse, and every compunction, and every sense that a man hath, that such, and such company leads him into tentation, does that, it works in the nature of such a preparative, as stirs the humours, affects the soul,) Christ's physic determines not in a blood-letting, no not in cutting off the gangrened part, for it is not only Cut off, and pull out, but, Cast away, it is an absolute evacuation and purging out of the peccant humour. It is not a halting with the foot, nor a shifting with the hand, it is not a winking with the eye, but abscinde, and erue, Cut off, pull out; and, after that, Though he be the foot upon which thou standest, thy Master, thy Patron, thy Benefactor; Though he be thy hand by which thou gettest thy living, thy means, the instrument of thy maintenance, or preferment; Though he be thine eye, the man from whom thou receivest all thy Light, and upon whose learning thou engagest thy Religion, abscindatur, & projice, if he scandalise thee, shake thee in thy Religion at the heart, or in the ways of godliness in thine actions, Cut him off; that is, cut off thyself from that conversation, and cast him away, return no more within distance of that tentation: for, as sin hath that quality of a worm, that it gnaws, (it gnaws the conscience) so hath it also that quality of a worm, that if you cut it into pieces, yet if those pieces come together again, they will reunite again; sin, though discontinued, will find his old pieces, if they keep not far asunder. And since it is said of God himself by David, Psalm 18. Cum perverso perverteris, That God will grow froward with the froward, and since God says of himself, That with them that go crookedly, he will go crookedly too, that the behaviour of other men are said to make impressions upon God himself, cosider the slipperiness of our corrupt nature, how easily the vices of other men insinuate and infuse themselves into us, and how much need we have of all Christ's physic, abscind, erue, projice, Cut off, pull out, and cast away. But to come to our last note, Besides the woe arising from the strength of the scandal, and the woe from the corruptness of our weak nature, there is a woe upon our wilfulness, upon our easiness in being scandalised by an over-jealousie, and suspicious misinterpretations of the actions of other men. And for this, in the highest consideration, as it hath relation to our Saviour himself, and his Gospel, it may be enough to consider that which himself says, Mat. 11. 6. Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. But, Quis homo, What man is he that is not offended in him, and his Gospel? Qui non crubescit, aut timet, what man is he that is not ashamed of the Gospel, or afraid of it; that does not desire that the religion that he professes, were a religion of more liberty & of less threatenings? We see, that though the Cross of Christ, that is, Christ crucified, were daily represented to the Jews in their sacrifices, & preached to the in the succession of their Prophets, 1 Cor. 1. 23. yet this Cross of Christ was Scandalum judais, a scandal to the Jews; It was, (as the Apostle says there) Stultitia Gracis, to the Gentiles, that had no such preparation to the Gospel, as the Jews had in their Law, and Sacrifices, the Gospel was mere foolishness, a religion unconformable to nature, and to reason, but even to the Jews themselves, it was a scandal, a stumbling block; they grudged that that religion left them so narrow a way open to pleasure, and to profit, and that it referred all to a spiritual Kingdom, whereas the Jews looked for a temporal Kingdom in their Messias. And so truly Christ and his Gospel will be a scandal to all them that will needs set Christ a price, at which he shall sell his Gospel. If Tithes, or some some small matter in lieu of Tithes, will serve his turn, and now and then a groat to a Brief, and sometimes an extraordinary contribution, when extraordinary knowledge may be taken of it, if this will serve his turn he shall have it. But if it must come to a Non pacem, that Christ profess he comes not to settle peace, but to kindle a war, if we must maintain armies for his Gospel, if it come to an Odisse vitam, to hate Father, and Mother, and Wife, and Children, and our own lives for his Gospel, this is too high a price, Nolumus hunc regnare, now the Gospel grows a Tyrant, and we will not be under a tyrannous government; If he will govern by his Law, that he be content with our coming to Church every Sunday, and our receiving every Easter, we will live under his Law; but if he come to exercise his Prerogative, and press us to extraordinary duties, in watching all our particular actions, and calling ourselves to an account, for words and thoughts, than Christ and his Gospel become a scandal, a stumbling block unto us, and lie in our way, and retard our ends, our pleasures, and our profits. But if we can overcome this one scandal of the Gospel, that we be not ashamed nor afraid of that, (that is, well satisfied in the sufficiency of that Gospel for our salvation, and then content to suffer for that Gospel) if we can divest this scandal, no other shall trouble us. Psal. 119. 165. Great peace have they which love thy Law, says David; To love it, is to prefer it before all things; and great peace have they that do so, says he; Wherein consists this peace? In this, Et non est illis scandalum, Great peace have they that love thy Law, Prov. 12. 21. for they have no scandals; nothing shall offend them. There shall no evil happen to the just, says his son Solomon; not that the just shall feel no worldly misery, but that that misery shall not make them miserable; how evil so ever it be in itself, it shall not be evil to them, Rom. 8. 28. 1. 3. 13. but Omnia in bonum, All things work together for good, to them that love God. Who is he that will harm you, if you be followers of God? says Saint Peter, The wicked will not follow you in that strange Country; their conversation is not in heaven; if yours be, they will not follow you thither. They will do, as he, whose instruments they are, jacob. 4. 7. do, the Devil; and Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. A religious constancy blunts the edge of any sword, damps the spirits of any counsel, benumbs the strength of any arm, opens the corners of any Labyrinth, and brings the subtlest plots against God and his servants, not only to an invalidnesse, an ineffectualness, but to a derision; jude 5. 20. Psal. 2. 4. not only to a Dimicatum de coelis, that the world shall see, that the Lord fights for his servants from heaven, but to an Irridebit in coelis, that he that sits in heaven, shall laugh them to scorn; he shall ruin them, and ruin them in contempt. That prayer that David makes, Libera me Domine ab homine malo, deliver me O Lord, from the evil man, is a large, an extensive, an indefinite prayer; for, there is an evil man (occasion of tentation) in every man, in every woman, in every action; there is Coluber in via, a snake in every path, danger in every calling. But Saint Augustine contracts that prayer, and fixes it, Liberet te Deus à temes, noli tibi esse malius; God bless me from myself, that I be not that evil man to myself, that I lead not myself into tentation, and nothing shall scandalise me. To which purpose it concerns us to divest that natural, but corrupt easiness of uncharitable misconstruing that which other men do, especially those whom God hath placed in his own place, for government over us; that we do not come to think that there is nothing done, if all be not done; that no abuses are corrected, if all be not removed; that there's an end of all Protestants, if any Papists be left in the world. Upon those words of our Saviour, speaking of the last day of Judgement, Mat. 13. 41. The son of man shall send forth his Angels, and they shall gather out of his Kingdom, Omnia scandala, All things that might offend: Calvin says learnedly and wisely, Qui ad extirpandum quicquid displicet praepostere festinant, They that make too much haste to mend all at once, antevertunt Christi judicium, & ereptum Angelis officium sibi temereusurpant, They prevent Christ's judgement, and rashly, and sacrilegiously they usurp the Angel's office. Christ hath reserved the cleansing and removing of all scandals, all offences to the last day; the Angels of the Church, the Minister, the Angels of the State, the Magistrate, cannot do it; not the Angels of heaven themselves, till the day of judgement. All scandals cannot be removed in this life; but a great many more might be then are, if men were not so apt to suspect, and mis-constru, and imprint the name of scandal upon every action, of which they see not the end, nor the way; for from this jealousy and suspicion; and misconstruction of the Angels of Church and State (our Superiors in those spheres) we shall become jealous, and suspicious of God himself, that he hath neglected us, abandoned us, if he do not deliver us, and establish us, at those times, and by those means, which we prescribe him; we shall come to argue thus against God himself, Surely, if God meant any good to us, he would not put us into their hands, who do us no good. Reduce all to the precious mediocrity; To be unsensible of any declination, of any diminution of the glory of God, or his true worship and religion, is an irreligious stupidity; But to be so ombragious, so startling, so apprehensive, so suspicious, as to think every thing that is done, is done to that end; this is a seditious jealousy, a satire in the heart, and an unwritten Libel; and God hath a Star-chamber, to punish unwritten Libels before they are published; Libels against that Law, Curse not, or speak not ill of the King, Eccles. 1●. 20. no not in thy thought. Not to mourn under the sense of evils, that may fall upon us, is a stony disposition; Nay, the hardest stone, marble, will weep towards foul weather. But, to make all Possible things Necessary, (this may fall upon us, therefore it must fall upon us,) and to make contingent, and accidental things, to be the effects of counsels, (this is fallen upon us, therefore it is fallen by their practice that have the government in their hands) this is a vexation of spirit in ourselves, and a defacing, a casting of dirt in the face of God's image, of that representation, and resemblance of God, which he hath imprinted in them, of whom he hath said, They are Gods. In divine matters there is principally exercise of our faith, That which we understand not, we believe. In civil affairs, that are above us, matters of State, there is exercise of our Hope; Those ways which we see not, we hope are directed to good ends. In Civil actions amongst ourselves, there is exercise of our Charity, Those hearts which we see not, let us charitably believe to be disposed to God's service. That when as Christ hath shut up his w●e only in those two, Va quia f●rtes illusiones, W●e because scandals and offences are so strong in their nature; and Va quia infirmivos, w●e because you are so weak in yours, we do not create a third Woe, Va quia praevaricatores, in an uncharitable jealousy, and misinterpretation of him, (that we are not in his care) nor of his Ministers (that they do not execute his purposes,) nor of one another; that when as God hath placed us in a Land, where there are no wolves, we do not think Hominem homini Lupum, imagine every man to be a wolf to us, or to intend our destruction. But as in the Ark there were Lions, but the Lion shut his mouth, and clincht his paw, (the Lion hurt nothing in the Ark) and in the Ark there were Vipers and Scorpions, but the Viper showed no teeth, nor the Scorpion no tail, (the Viper bit none, the Scorpion stung none in the Ark) (for, if they had occasioned any disorder there, their escape could have been but into the Sea, into irreparable ruin) so, in every State, (though that State be an Ark of peace, and preservation) there will be some kind of oppression in some Lions, some that will abuse their power; but Vae si scandalizemur, woe unto us if we be scandalised with that, and seditiously lay aspersions upon the State and Government, because there are some such in every Church, (though that Church be an Ark, for integrity and sincerity) there will be some Vipers, Vipers that will gnaw at their Mother's belly, men that will shake the articles of Religion; But Vae si scandalizemur, woe if we be so scandalised at that, as to defame that Church, or separate ourselves from that Church which hath given us our Baptism, for that. It is the chase of the Lion, and the stirring of the Viper, that aggravates the danger; The first blow makes the wrong, but the second makes the fray; and they that will endure no kind of abuse in State or Church, are many times more dangerous than that abuse which they oppose. It was only Christ Jesus himself that could say to the Tempest, Mar. ●4. 39 Tace, ●b●utesce, peace, be still, not a blast, not a sob more; only he could becalm a Tempest at once. It is well with us, if we can ride out a storm at anchor, that is, lie still and expect, and surrender ourselves to God, and anchor in that confidence, till the storm blow over. It is well for us if we can beat out a storm at sea, with boarding to and again; that is, maintain and preserve our present condition in Church, and State, though we increase not, that though we gain no way, yet we lose no way whilst the storm lasts. It is well for us, if, though we be put to take in our sails, and to take down our masts, yet we can hull it out; that is, if in storms of contradiction, or persecution, the Church, or State, though they be put to accept worse conditions than before, and to depart with some of their outward splendour, be yet able to subsist and swim above water, and reserve itself for God's farther glory, after the storm is past; only Christ could becalm the storm; He is a good Christian that can ride out, or board out, or hull out a storm, that by industry, as long as he can, and by patience, when he can do no more, over-lives a storm, and does not forsake his ship for it, that is not scandalised with that State, nor that Church, of which he is a member, for those abuses that are in it. The Ark is peace, peace is good dispositions to one another, good intepretations of one another; for, if our impatience put us from our peace, and so out of the Ark, all without the Ark is sea; The bottomless and boundless Sea of Rome, will hope to swallow us; if we dis-unite ourselves, in uncharitable misinterpretations of one another; The peace of God is the peace that passeth all understanding; Phil. 4. 7. That men should subdue and captivate even their understanding to the love of this peace, that when in their understanding they see no reason why this or this thing should be thus or thus done, or so and so suffered, the peace of God, that is, charity, may pass their understanding, and go above it; for, howsoever the affections of men, or the vicissitudes and changes of affairs may vary, or apply those two great axioms, and aphorisms of ancient Rome, Salus populi suprema lex est●●, The good of the people is above all Law, and then, Quod Principi places, lex esto, The pleasure of the Prince is above all Law, howsoever I say, various occasions may vary their Laws, adhere we to that Rule of the Law, which the Apostle prescribes, that we always make, 1 Tim. ●. 5. Finem pra●cepti charit●tem, The end of the Commandment charity; for, no Commandment, (no not those of the first Table) is kept, if, upon pretence of keeping that Commandment, or of the service of God, I come to an uncharitable opinion of other men. Ephef. 3. 17. That so first, Fundemur & radic●mur in charitate, that we be planted, and take root in that ground, in charity, (so we are, by being planted in that Church, that thinks charitably even of that Church, that uncharitably condemns us) And then, 1 P●t. 1. 2. Vt ●ultiplice●ur, That Grace and peace may be multiplied in us, (so it is, if to our outward peace, God add the inward peace of conscience in our own bosoms) and last, 1 Thes. 3. 11. Vt abundemus, that we may not only increase, (as the Apostle says there) but (as he adds) abound in charity towards one another, and towards all men, for this abundant and overflowing charity, (as long as we can, to believe well, for the present, and where we cannot do so, to hope well of the future) is the best preservative and antidote against the woe of this Text, Woe unto the world because of scandals and offences; which, though it be spoken of the Active, is more especially intended of the Passive scandal; and though it be pressed upon us, first, Quia Illusiones fortes, because those scandals are so strong, and then, Quia infer●● nos, because we are so weak, do yet endanger us most, in that respect, Quia pr●varicatores, because we open ourselves, nay offer ourselves to the vexation of scandals, by an easy, a jealous, a suspicious, an uncharitable interpreting of others. SERMON XIX. Preached at Lincoln's Inn. PSAL. 38. 2. For thine arr●wes stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore. ALmost every man hath his Appetite, and his taste disposed to some kind of meats rather than others; He knows what dish he would choose, for his first, and for his second course. We have often the same disposition in our spiritual Diet; a man may have a particular love towards such or such a book of Scripture, and in such an affection, I acknowledge, that my spiritual appetite carries me still, upon the Psalms of David, for a first course, for the Scriptures of the Old Testament: and upon the Epistles of Saint Paul, for a second course, for the New, and my meditations even for these public exercises to God's Church, return oftenest to these two. For, as a hearty entertainer offers to others, the meat which he loves best himself, so do I oftenest present to God's people, in these Congregations, the meditations which I feed upon at home, in those two Scriptures. If a man be asked a reason why he loves one meat better than another, where all are equally good, (as the books of Scripture are) he will at least, find a reason in some good example, that he sees some man of good taste, and temperate withal, so do: And for my Diet, I have Saint Augustine's protestation, that he loved the Book of Psalms, and Saint Chrysostom's, that he loved Saint Paul's Epistles; with a particular devotion, I may have another more particular reason, because they are Scriptures, written in such forms, as I have been most accustomed to; Saint Paul's being Letters, and David's being Poems: for, God gives us, not only that which is merely necessary, but that which is convenient too; He does not only feed us, but feed us with marrow, and with fatness; he gives us our instruction in cheerful forms, not in a sour, and sullen, and angry, and unacceptable way, but cheerfully, in Psalms, which is also a limited, and a restrained form; Not in an Oration, not in Prose, but in Psalms; which is such a from as is both curious, and requires diligence in the making, and then when it is made, can have nothing, no syllable taken from it, nor added to it: Therefore is God's will delivered to us in Psalms, that we might have it the more cheerfully, and that we might have it the more certainly, because where all the words are numbered, and measured, and weighed, the whole work is the less subject to falsification, either by substraction or addition. God speaks to us in or atione strictâ, in a limited, in a diligent form; Let us speak to him in or atione solutâ; not pray, not preach, not hear, flackly, suddenly, unadvisedly, extemporally, occasionally, indiligently; but let all our speech to him, be weighed, and measured in the weights of the Sanctuary, let us be content to preach, and to hear within the compass of our Articles, and content to pray in those forms which the Church hath meditated for us, and recommended to us. This whole Psalm is a Prayer, Divisio. and recommended by David to the Church; And a Prayer grounded upon Reasons. The Reasons are multiplied, and dilated from the second to the 20. verse. But as the Prayer is made to him that is Alpha, and Omega, first, and last; so the Prayer is the Alpha and Omega of the Psalm; the Prayer possesses the first and the last verse thereof; and though the Reasons be not left out, (Christ himself settles that Prayer, which he recommended to our daily use, upon a Reason, Quia tuum est Regnum, for thine is the Kingdom,) yet David makes up his Circle, he begins, and ends in prayer. But our text falls within his Reasons; He prays in the first verse that God would forbear him, upon the Reasons that follow; of which some are extrinsecall, some arising out of the power, some out of the malice, some out of the scorn of other men; And some are intrinsecall, arising out of himself, and of his sense of God's Judgements upon him; and our Text begins the Reasons of that last kind, which because David enters, with that particle, not only of Connexion, but of Argumentation too, For, (Rebuke me not O Lord, for it stands thus and thus with me) we shall make it a first short part, to consider, how it may become a godly man, to limit God so far, as to present and oppose Reasons against his declared purpose, and proceedings. And then in those calamities which he presents for his Reasons in this Text, For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore, we shall pass by these steps, first, we shall see in what respect, in what allusion, in what notification he calls them arrows: And therein first, that they are alienae, they are shot from others, they are not in his own power; a man shoots not an arrow at himself; And then, that they are Veloces, swift in coming, he cannot give them their time; And again, they are Vix visibiles, though they be not altogether invisible in their coming, yet there is required a quick eye, and an express diligence, and watchfulness to discern and avoid them; so they are arrows in the hand of another; not his own; and swift as they come, and invisible before they come. And secondly, they are many arrows; The victory lies not in scaping one or two; And thirdly, they stick in him; they find not David so good proof, as to rebound back again, and imprint no sense; And they stick fast; Though the blow be felt, and the wound discerned, yet there is not a present cure, he cannot shake them off; Infixae sunt; And then, with all this, they stick fast in him; that is, in all him; in his body, and soul; in him, in his thoughts, and actions; in him, in his sins and in his good works too; Infixae mihi, there is no part of him, no faculty in him, in which they stick not: for, (which may well be another consideration) That hand, which shot them, presses him: follows the blow, and presses him sore, that is, vehemently. But yet, (which will be our conclusion) Sagittaetuae, and manus tua, These arrows that are shot, and this hand that presses them so sore, are the arrows, and is the hand of God; and therefore, first, they must have their Effect, they cannot be disappointed; But yet they bring their comfort with them, because they are his, because no arrows from him, no pressing with his hand, comes without that Balsamum of mercy, to heal as fast as he wounds. and of so many pieces will this exercise consist, this exercise of your Devotion, and perchance Patience. First then, 1 Part. this particle of connexion and argumentation, For, which begins our text, occasions us, in a first part, to consider, that such an impatience in affliction, as brings us toward a murmuring at God's proceedings, and almost to a calling of God to an account, in inordinate expostulations, is a leaven so kneaded into the nature of man, so innate a tartar, so inherent a sting, so inseparable a venom in man, as that the holiest of men have scarce avoided it in all degrees thereof. job had God's testimony of being an upright man; and yet job bent that way, O that I might have my request, says job, and that God would grant me the thing that I long for. 6. ●. Well, if God would, what would, job ask? That God would destroy me, and cut me off. Had it not been as easy, and as ready, and as useful a prayer, That God would deliver him? Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh of brass? says he, in his impatience. What though it be not? Not stones, not brass; is there no remedy, but to wish it dust? Moses had God's testimonies of a remarkable and exemplar man, for meekness. But did God always find it so? was it a meek behaviour towards God, to say, Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant? Have I conceived all this people, Numb. 11. 11. have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom? Elias had had testimonies of God's care and providence in his behalf; and God was not weary of preserving him, and he was weary of being preserved; He desired that he might die, 1 Reg. 19 4. and said, Sufficit Domine, It is enough O Lord, now take my soul. Io●as, even then, when God was expressing an act of mercy, takes occasion to be angry, and to be angry at God, and to be angry at the mercy of God. we may see his fluctuation and distemper, and irresolution in that case, and his transportation; He was a●gry, says the text; very angry; And yet, the text says, He prayed, but he prayed angrily; O Lord take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die, 4. 1. 3. then to live. Better for him, that was all he considered; not what was best for the service and glory of God, but best for him. God asks him, If he do well to be angry? And he will not tell him there; 4. God gives him time to vent his passion, and he asks him again ●after: Dost thou well to be angry? And he answers more angrily, I do well to be angry, 9 even unto death. jeremy was under this tentation too. jonas was angry because his Prophecy was not performed; because God would not second his Prophecy in the destruction of Nineveh. jeremy was angry because his Prophecy was like to be performed; he preached heavy Doctrine, and therefore his Auditory hated him; Woe is me, my Mother, says he, that thou hast born me a man of strife, and a man of contention to the whole earth! 15. 11. I preach but the messages of God; and (vae mihi si non, woe be unto me if I preach not them) I preach but the sense of God's indignation upon mine own soul, in a conscience of mine own sins, I impute nothing to another, that I confess not of myself, I call none of you to confession to me, I do but confess myself to God, and you, I rack no man's memory, what he did last year, last week, last night, I only gather into my memory, and power out in the presence of my God, and his Church, the sinful history of mine own youth, and yet I am a contentious man, says jeremy, a worm, and a burden to every tender conscience, says he, and I strive with the whole earth, I am a bitter, and satirical preacher; This is that that wearies me, says he, I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent me on usury, yet, as though I were an oppressing lender, or a fraudulent borrower, every one of them doth curse me. This is a natural infirmity, which the strongest men, being but men, cannot divest, that if their purposes prosper not, they are weary of their industry, weary of their lives; But this is Summa ingratitude in Deum, m●lle non esse, quam miserum esse: There cannot be a greater unthankfulness to God then to desire to be Nothing at all, rather than to be that, that God would have thee to be; To desire to be out of the world, rather than to glorify him, by thy patience in it. But when this infirmity overtakes Gods children, Chrysost. Patiuntur ut homtines, sustinent ut Dei amici; They are under calamities, as they are r●en, but yet they come to recollect themselves and to beat those calamities, as the valiant Soldiers, as the faithful servants, as the bosom friends of almighty God: Si vis discere, qualis esse debi●s, disce post gratiam, says the same Father; Learn patience, not from the stupidity of Philosophers, who are but their own statues, men of stone, without sense, without affections, and who placed all their glory, in a Non facies ut te dicam analum, that no pain should make them say they were in pain; nor from the per●i●acy of Heretics, how to bear a calamity, who gave their bodies to the fire, for the establishing of their Disciples, but take out a new lesson in the times of Grace; Consider the Apostles there, Act. 5. 42. Gaudentes & Gloriantes, They departed from the Council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy, 1. 2. to suffer rebuke for his name. It was joy, and all joy, says S. james; It was Glory, and all Glory, says S. Paul, Absit mihi, God forbid that I should glory, Gal. 6. 14. save in the Cross of our Lord jesus Christ; And if I can glory in that, (to glory in that, is to have a conscience testifying to me, that God receives glory by my use of his correction) I may come to God, reason with God, plead with God, wrestle with God, and be received and sustained by him. This was David's case in our Text: therefore he doth not stray into the infirmities of these great, and good Men, Moses, job, Elias, jeremy, and jonah; whose errors, it is labour better bestowed carefully to avoid, then absolutely to excuse, for that cannot be done. But David presents only to God the sense of his corrections, and implies in that, that since the cure is wrought, since God's purpose, which is, by corrections, to bring a sinner to himself, and so to God, is effected in him, God would now be pleased to remember all his other gracious promises too; and to admit such a zealous prayer as as he doth from Esay after, 64. 9 Be not angry, O Lord, above measure; (that is, above the measure of thy promises to repentant souls, or the measure of the strength of our bodies) Neither remember iniquities for ever; But, lo, we beseech thee, Behold, we are thy people. To end this first part, (because the other extends itself in many branches.) Then when we are come to a sense of God's purpose, by his corrections, it is a seasonable time to fly to his mercy, and to pray, that he would remove them from us; and to present our Reasons, to spare us, for thy corrections have wrought upon us; Give us this day, our daily bread, for thou hast given us stones, and scorpions, tribulations and afflictions, and we have fed upon them, found nourishment even in those tribulations and afflictions, and said thee grace for them, blessed and glorified thy name, for those tribulations, and afflictions; Give us our Cordials now, and our Restoratives, for thy physic hath evacuated all the peccant humour, and all our natural strength; shine out in the light of thy countenance now, for this long cold night hath benumbed us; since the dr●sse is now evaporated, now withdraw thy fire; since thy hand hath anew cast us, now imprint in us anew thine Image; since we have not disputed against thy corrections, all this while, O Lord open thou our lips now, and accept our remembering of thee, that we have not done so; Accept our Petition, and the Reason of our Petition, for thine Arrows stick fast in us, and thy hand presseth us sore. David in a rectified conscience finds that he may be admitted to present reasons against farther corrections, 2. Part. And that this may be received as a reason, That God's Arrows are upon him; for this is phrase or a Metaphor, in which Gods indignation is often expressed in the Scripture. Ps. 18. 14. He sent out his Arrows, and scattered them; says David; magnifying God's goodness in his behalf, against his enemies. And so again, God will ordain his Arrrowes for them that persecute me. Ps. 7. 13. Complebo sagittas, says God, I will heap mischiefs upon them, Deut. 32. 23. v. 42. and I will spend mine arrows upon them: yea, Inebriabo sanguine, I will make mine Arrows drunk in their blood. It is Idiotismus Spiritus sancti, a peculiar character of the holy Ghosts expressing God's anger, in that Metaphor of shooting Arrows. In this place, some understand by these Arrows, foul and infectious diseases, in his body, derived by his incontinence. Others, the sting of Conscience, and that fearful choice, which the Prophet offered him, war, famine, and pestilence. Others, his passionate sorrow in the death of Bethsheba's first child; or in the Incest of Amnon upon his sister, or in the murder upon Amnon by Absalon; or in the death of Absolen by joab; or in many other occasions of sorrow, that surrounded David and his family, more, perchance, than any such family in the body of story. But these Psalms were made, not only to vent David's present holy passion, but to serve the Church of God, to the world's end. And therefore, change the person, and we shall find a whole quiver of arrows. Extend this Man, to all Mankind; carry David's History up to Adam's History, and consider us in that state, which we inherit from him, and we shall see arrows fly about our ears, A Deo prosequente, the anger of God hanging over our heads, in a cloud of arrows; and à conscientia remordente, our own consciences shooting poisoned arrows of desperation into our souls; and ab Homine Contemnente, Men multiplying arrows of Detraction, and Calumny, and Contumely upon our good name, and estimation. Briefly, in that wound, as we were all shot in Adam, we bled out Impassibilitatem, and we sucked in Impossibilitatem; There we lost our Immortality, our Impassibility, our assurance of Paradise, and then we lost Possibilitatem boni, says S. August: all possibility of recovering any of this by ourselves. So that these arrows which are lamented here, are all those miseries, which sin hath cast upon us; Labour, and the child of that, Sickness, and the offspring of that, Death; And the security of conscience, and the terror of conscience; the searing of the conscience, and the over-tendernesse of the conscience; God's quiver, and the Devil's quiver, and our own quiver, and our neighbour's quiver, afford, and furnish arrows to gall, and wound us. These arrows then in our Text, proceeding from sin, and sin proceeding from tentations, and inducing tribulations, it shall advance your spiritual edification most, Eph. 6. 16. to fix your consideration upon those fiery darts, as they are tentations, and as they are tribulations. Origen says, he would wish no more, for the recovery of any soul, but that she were able to see Cicatrices suas, those scars which these fiery darts have left in her, the deformity which every sin imprints upon the soul, and Contritiones suas, the attenuating and wearing out, and consumption of the soul, by a continual succession of more, and men wound, ● upon the same place. An ugly thing in a Consumption, were a fearful spectacle, And such Origen imagines a soul to be, if she could see Cicatrices, and Contritiones, her ill-favourednesse, and her leanness in the deformity, and consumption of sin. How provident, how diligent a patience did our blessed Saviour bring to his Passion, who foreseeing that that would be our case, our sickness, to be first wounded with single tentations, and then to have even the wounds of our soul wounded again, by a daily reiterating of tentations in the same kind, would provide us physic agreeable to our Disease, Chirurgery conformable to our wound, first to be scourged so, as that his holy body was torn with wounds, and then to have those wounded again, and often, with more violating. So then these arrows, are those tentations and those tribulations, which are accompanied with these qualities of arrows shot at us, that they are alienae, shot from others, not in our power; And veloces, swift and sudden, soon upon us; And vix visibiles, not discernible in their coming, but by an exact diligence. First then, Alienae. these tentations are dangerous arrows, as they are alienae, shot from others, and not in our own power. It was the Emblem, and Inscription, which Darius took for his coin, Insculpere sagittarium, to show his greatness, that he could wound afar off, as an Archer does. And it was the way, by which God declared the deliverance of Israel from Syria; 2 Reg. 13. 17. Elisha bids the King open the window Eastward, and shoot an arrow out. The King does shoot: And the Prophet says, Sagitta salutis Domini, The arrow of the Lords deliverance: He would deliver Israel, by shooting vengeance into Syria. One danger in our arrows, as they are tentations, is, that they come unsuspectedly; they come, we know not, from whence; from others; that's a danger; But in our tentations, there is a greater danger than that, for a man cannot shoot an arrow at himself; but we can direct tentations upon ourselves; If we were in a wilderness, we could sin; and where we are, we tempt temptations, and wake the Devil, 1 Reg. 22. 34. when for any thing that appears, he would sleep. A certain man drew a bow at a venture, says that story; He had no determinate mark, no express aim, upon any one man; He drew his bow at a venture, and he hit, and he flew the King Ahab. A woman of tentation, Tendit areum in incertum, as that story speaks; she paints, she curls, she sings, she gazes, and is gazed upon; There's an arrow shot at random; she aimed at no particular mark; And thou puttest thyself within shot, and meetest the arrow; Thou soughtest the tentation, the tentation sought not thee. A man is able to oppress others; Ps. ●2. 1. Et gl●riatur in mal● quia potens, He boasts himself because he is able to do mischief; and tendit arcum in incertum, he shoots his arrow at random, he lets it be known, that he can prefer them, that second his purposes, and thou puttest thyself within shot, and meetest the arrow, and mak'st thyself his instrument; Thou soughtest the tentation, the tentation sought not thee; when we expose ourselves to tentations, tentations hit us, that were not expressly directed, nor meant to us. And even then, when we begin to fly from tentations, the arrow overtakes us. 2 Reg. 9 23. jehoram fled from jehu, and jehu shot after him, and shot him through the heart. But this was after jehoram had talked with him. After we have par●ed with a tentation, debated whether we should embrace it or no, and entertained some discourse with it, though some tenderness, some remorse, make us turn our back upon it, and depart a little from it, yet the arrow overtakes us; some reclinations, some retrospects we have, a little of Lot's wife is in us, a little sociableness, and conversation, a little point of honour, not to be false to former promises, a little false gratitude, and thankfulness, in respect of former obligations, a little of the compassion and charity of Hell, that another should not be miserable, for want of us, a little of this, which is but the good nature of the Devil, arrests us, stops us, fixes us, till the arrow, the tentation shoot us in the back, even when we had a purpose of departing from that sin, and kills us over again. Thus it is, when we meet a tentation, and put ourselves in the arrows way; And thus it is when we fly not fast enough, nor far enough from a tentation. But when we do all that, and provide as safely as we can to get, and do get quickly out of distance, yet, The wicked bend their bows, Ps. 11. 2. that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart; In occulto; It is a work of Darkness, Detraction; and they can shoot in the dark; they can wound, and not be known. They can whisper Thunder, and pass an arrow through another man's ear, into mine heart; Let a man be zealous, and fervent in reprehension of sin, and there flies out an arrow, that gives him the wound of a Puritan. Let a man be zealous of the house of God, and say any thing by way of moderation, for the repairing of the ruins of that house, and making up the differences of the Church of God, and there flies out an arrow, that gives him the wound of a Papist. One shoots East, and another West, but both these arrows meet in him, that means well, to defame him. And this is the first misery in these arrows, these tentations, Quia alienae, they are shot from others, they are not in our own quiver, not in our own government. Another quality that tentations receive from the holy Ghosts Metaphor of arrows is, Veloces. Quia veloces, because this captivity to sin, comes so swiftly, so impetuously upon us. Consider it first in our making; In the generation of our parents, we were conceived in sin; that is, they sinned in that action; so we were conceived in sin; in their sin. And in ourselves, we were submitted to sin, in that very act of generation, because than we became in part the subject of Original sin. Yet, there was no arrow shot into us then; there was no sin in that substance of which we were made; for if there had been sin in that substance, that substance might be damned, though God should never infuse a soul into it; and that cannot be said well then; God, whose goodness, and wisdom will have that substance to become a Man, he creates a soul for it, or creates a soul in it, (I dispute not that) he sends a light, or he kindles a light, in that lantern; and here's no arrow shot neither; here's no sin in that soul, that God creates; for there God should create something that were evil; and that cannot be said; Here's no arrow shot from the body, no sin in the body alone; None from the soul, no sin in the soul alone; And yet, the union of this soul and body is so accompanied with God's malediction for our first transgression, that in the instant of that union of life, as certainly as that body must die, so certainly the whole Man must be guilty of Original sin. No man can tell me out of what Quiver, yet here is an arrow comes so swiftly, as that in the very first minute of our life, in our quickening in our mother's womb, we become guilty of Adam's sin done 6000 years before, and subject to all those arrows, Hunger, Labour, Grief, Sickness, and Death, which have been shot after it. This is the fearful swiftness of this arrow, that God himself cannot get before it. In the first minute that my soul is infused, the Image of God is imprinted in my soul; so forward is God in my behalf, and so early does he visit me. But yet Original sin is there, as soon as that Image of God is there. My soul is capable of God, as soon as it is capable of sin; and though sin do not get the start of God, God does not get the start of sin neither. Powers, that dwell so far asunder, as Heaven, and Hell, God and the Devil, meet in an instant in my soul, in the minute of my quickening, and the Image of God, and the Image of Adam, Original sin, enter into me at once, in one, and the same act. So swift is this arrow, Original sin, from which, all arrows of subsequent tentations, are shot, as that God, who comes to my first minute of life, cannot come before death. And then, a third, and last danger, which we noted in our tentations, Invisibiles. as they are represented by the holy Ghost, in this Metaphor of arrows, is, that they are vix visibiles, hardly discernible. 'Tis true, that tentations do not light upon us, as bullets, that we cannot see them, till we feel them. An arrow comes not altogether so: but an arrow comes so, as that it is not discerned, except we consider which way it comes, and watch it all the way. An arrow, that finds a man asleep, does not wake him first, and wound him after; A tentation that finds a man negligent, possesses him, before be sees it. In grautssimis criminibus, confinia virtutum ladunt; This is it that undoes us, Ambros. that virtues and vices are contiguous, and borderers upon one another; and very often, we can hardly tell, to which action the name of vice, and to which the name of virtue appertains. Many times, that which comes within an inch of a noble action, falls under the infamy of an odious treason; At many executions, half the company will call a man an Heretic, and half, a Martyr. How often, an excess, makes a natural affection, an unnatural disorder? utinam aut sororem non amasset, Hamon, aut non vindicasset Absalon; Hamon loved his sister Tamar; but a little too well; Idem. Absalon hated his brother's incest, but a little too ill. Though love be good, and hate be good, respectively, yet, says S. Ambrose, I would neither that love, nor that hate had gone so far. The contract between jonathan and David, was, If I say, The arrow on this side of thee, all is well; 1 Sam. 20. If I say, The arrow is beyond thee, thou art in an ill case. If the arrow, the tentation, be yet on this side of thee, if it have not lighted upon thee, thou art well; God hath directed thy face to it, and thou may'st, if thou wilt, continue thy diligence, watch it, and avoid it. But if the arrow be beyond thee, and thou have cast it at thy back, in a forgetfulness, in a security of thy sin, thy case is dangerous. In all these respects, are these arrows, these infirmities, derived from the sin of Adam, dangerous, as they are alienae, in the hand of others, as they are veloces, swift in seizing us, and as they are vix visibiles, hardly discerned to be such; And these considerations fell within this first branch of this second part, Thine arrows, tentations, as they are arrows, stick fast in me. These dangers are in them, as they are sagittae, arrows; and would be so, Plures. if they were but single arrows; any one tentation would endanger us, any one tribulation would encumber us; but they are plural, arrows, and many arrows. A man is not safe, because one arrow hath missed him; nor though he be free from one sin. jos. 7. 25. In the execution of Achan, all Israel threw stones at him, and stoned him. If Achan had had some brother, or cousin amongst them, that would have flung over, or short, or weakly, what good had that done him, when he must stand the mark for all the rest? All Israel must stone him. A little disposition towards some one virtue, may keep thee from some one tentation; Thou mayst think it pity to corrupt a chaste soul, and forbear soliciting her; pity to oppress a submitting wretch, and forbear to vex him; and yet practise, and that with hunger and thirst, other sins, or those sins upon other persons. But all Israel stones thee; arrows fly from every corner; and thy measure is not, to thank God, that thou art not as the Publican, as some other man, but thy measure is, to be pure and holy, as thy father in heaven is pure, and holy, and to conform thyself in some measure, to thy pattern, Christ Jesus. Against him it is noted, that the Jews took up stones twice to stone him. Once, when they did it, He went away and hid himself. Our way to scape these arrows, job. 8. 59 these tentations, is to go out of the way, to abandon all occasions, and conversation, that may lead into tentation. In the other place, Christ stands to it, 10. 31. and disputes it out with them, and puts them from it by the scriptum est; and that's our safe shield, since we must necessarily live in the way of tentations, (for coluber in via, there is a snake in every path, tentation in every calling) still to receive all these arrows, upon the shield of faith, still to oppose the scriptum est, the faithful promises of God, that he will give us the issue with the tentation, when we cannot avoid the tentation itself. Otherwise, these arrows are so many, as would tyre, and wear out, all the diligence, and all the constancy of the best moral man. We find many mentions in the Scriptures of filling of quivers, and emptying of quivers, and arrows, and arrows, still in the plural, many arrows. But in all the Bible, I think, we find not this word, (as it signifies tentation, or tribulation) in the singular, one arrow, any where, but once, where David calls it, The arrow that flies by day; And is seen, that is, known by every man; for, for that, the Fathers, and Ancients run upon that Exposition, Psal. 91. 5. that that one arrow common to all, that day-arrow visible to all, is the natural death; (so the Chalde paraphrase calls it there expressly, Sagitta m●rtis, The arrow of death) which every man knows to belong to every man; (for, as clearly as he sees the Sun set, he sees his death before his eyes.) Therefore it is such an arrow, as the Prophet does not say, Thou shalt not feel, but, Thou shalt not fear the arrow that flies by day. The arrow, the singular arrow that flies by day, is that arrow that falls upon every man, death. But every where in the Scriptures, but this one place, they are plural, many, so many, as that we know not whence, nor what they are. Nor ever does any man receive one arrow alone, any one tentation, but that he receives another tentation, to hide that, though with another, and another sin. And the use of arrows in the war, was not so much to kill, as to rout, and disorder a battle; and upon that routing, followed execution. Every tentation, every tribulation is not deadly. But their multiplicity disorders us, discomposes us, unse●●les us, and so hazards us. Not only every periodical variation of our years, youth and age, but every day hath a divers arrow, every hour of the day, a divers tentation. An old man wonders then, how an arrow from an eye could wound him, when he was young, and how love could make him do those things which he did then; And an arrow from the tongue of inferior people, that which we make shift to call honour, wounds him deeper now; and ambition makes him do as strange things now, as love did then; A fair day shoots arrows of visits, and comedies, and conversation, and so we go abroad: and a foul day shoots arrows of gaming, or chambering, and wantonness, and so we stay at home. Nay, the same sin shoots arrows of presumption in God, before it be committed, and of distrust and diffidence in God after; we do not fear before, and we cannot hope after: And this is that misery from this plurality, and multiplacity of these arrows, these manifold tentations, which David intends here, and as often as he speaks in the same phrase of plurality, vituli multi, many bulls, canes multi, Ps. 22. 13. 17. many dogs, and bellantes multi, many warlike enemies, and aquae● multae, many deep waters compass me. For as it is said of the spirit of wisdom, that it is unicus multiplex, Wisd. 7. 22. manifoldly one, plurally singular: so the spirit of tentation in every soul is unicus multiplex, singularly plural, rooted in some one beloved sin, but derived into infinite branches of tentation. And then, these arrows stick in us; the rain falls, Fixae. but that cold sweat hangs not upon us; Hail beats us, but it leaves no pock-holes in our skin. These arrows do not so fall about us, as that they miss us; nor so hit us, as they rebound back without hurting us: But we complain with jeremy, The sons of his quiver are entered into our reins. Lam. 3. 13. The Roman Translation reads that filias, The daughters of his quiver; If it were but so, daughters, we might limit these arrows in the signification of tentations, by the many occasions of tentation; arising from that sex. But the Original hath it filios, the sons of his quiver, and therefore we consider these arrows in a stronger signification, tribulations, as well as tentations; They stick in us; Consider it but in one kind, diseases, sicknesses. They stick to us so, as that we are not sure, that any old diseases mentioned in Physicians books are worn out, but that every year produces new, of which they have no mention, we are sure. We can scarce express the number, scarce sound the names of the diseases of man's body; 6000 year hath scarce taught us what they are, how they affect us, how they shall be cured in us, nothing, on this side the Resurrection, can teach us. They stick to us so, as that they pass by inheritance, and last more generations in families, than the inheritance itself does; and when no land, no Manor, when no title, no honour descends upon the heir, the stone, or the gout descends upon him. And as though our bodies had not naturally diseases, and infirmities enough, we contract more, inflict more, (and that, out of necessity too) in mortifications, and macerations, and Disciplines of this rebellious flesh. I must have this body with me to heaven, or else salvation itself is not perfect; And yet I cannot have this body thither, except as S. Paul did his, I beat down this body, 1 Cor. 9 ult. attenuate this body by mortification; Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? I have not body enough for my body, and I have too much body for my soul; not body enough, not blood enough, not strength enough, to sustain myself in health, and yet body enough to destroy my soul, and frustrate the grace of God in that miserable, perplexed, riddling condition of man; sin makes the body of man miserable, and the remedy of sin, mortification, makes it miserable too; If we enjoy the good things of this world, Duriorem carcerem praeparamus, Basil. we do but carry an other wall about our prison, an other story of unwieldy flesh about our souls; and if we give ourselves as much mortification as our body needs, we live a life of fridays, and see no Sabbath, we make up our years of Lents, and see no other Easters, and whereas God meant us Paradise, we make all the world a wilderness. Sin hath cast a curse upon all the creatures of the world, they are all worse than they were at first, and yet we dare not receive so much blessing, as is left in the creature, we dare not eat or drink, and enjoy them. The daughters of God's quiver, and the sons of his quiver, the arrows of tentation, and the arrows of tribulation, do so stick in us, that as he lives miserably, that lives in sickness, and he as miserably, that lives in physic: so plenty is a misery, and mortification is a misery too; plenty, if we consider it in the effects, is a disease, a continual sickness, for it breeds diseases; And mortification, if we should consider it without the effects, is a disease too, a continual hunger, and fasting; and if we consider it at best, and in the effects, mortification is but a continual physic, which is misery enough. They stick, and they stick fast; altè infixae; every syllable aggravates our misery. Alrè Infixae. Now for the most part, experimentally, we know not whether they stick fast or no, for we never go about to pull them out: these arrows, these tentations, come, and welcome: we are so far from offering to pull them out, that we fix them faster and faster in us; we assist our tentations: yea, we take preparatives and fomentations, we supple ourselves by provocations, lest our flesh should be of proof against these arrows, that death may enter the surer, and the deeper into us by them. And he that does in some measure, soberly and religiously, go about to draw out these arrows, yet never consummates, never perfects his own work; He pulls back the arrow a little way, and he sees blood, and he feels spirit to go out with it, and he lets it alone: He forbears his sinful companions, a little while, and he feels a melancholy take hold of him, the spirit and life of his life decays, and he falls to those companions again. Perchance he rushes out the arrow with a sudden, and a resolved vehemence, and he leaves the head in his body: He forces a divorce from that sin, he removes himself out of distance of that tentation; and yet he surfeits upon cold meat, upon the sinful remembrance of former sins, which is a dangerous rumination, and an unwholesome chawing of the cud; It is not an ill derivation of repentance, that poenitere is poenam tenere; that's true repentance, when we continue in those means, which may advance our repentance. When joash the King of Israel came to visit Elisha upon his sick bed, 2 Reg. 13. 17. and to consult with him about his war, Elisha bids the King smite the ground, and he smites it thrice, and ceases: Then the man of God was angry, and said, Thou shouldst have smitten five or six times, and so thou shouldst have smitten thine enemies, till thou hadst consumed them. Now, how much hast thou to do, that hast not pulled at this arrow at all yet? Thou must pull thrice and more, before thou get it out; Thou must do, and leave undone many things, before thou deliver thyself of that arrow, that sin that transports thee. One of these arrows was shot into Saint Paul himself, and it stuck, 1 Cor. 12. 7. and stuck fast; whether an arrow of tentation, or an arrow of tribulation, the Fathers cannot tell; And therefore, we do now, (not inconveniently) all our way, in this exercise, mingle these two considerations, of tentation, and tribulation. Howsoever Saint Paul pulled thrice at this arrow, and could not get it out; I besought the Lord thrice, says he, that it might depart from me. But yet, joash his thrice striking of the ground, brought him some victory; Saint Paul's thrice praying, brought him in that provision of Grace, which God calls sufficient for him. Once pulling at these arrows, a slight consideration of thy sins will do no good. Do it thrice; testify some true desire by such a diligence; Do it now as thou sittest, do it again at the Table, do it again in thy bed; Do it thrice, do it in thy purpose, do it in thine actions, do it in thy constancy; Do it thrice, within the walls of thy flesh, in thyself, within the walls of thy house in thy family, and in a holy and exemplar conversation abroad, and God will accomplish thy work, which is his work in thee; And though the arrow be not utterly pulled out, yet it shall not fester, it shall not gangrene; Thou shalt not be cut off from the body of Christ, in his Church here, nor in the Triumphant Church hereafter, how fast soever these arrows did stick upon thee before. God did not refuse Israel for her wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores, though from the sole of the foot, Esa. 1. 6. to the crown of the head, but because those wounds were not closed, nor bound up, nor suppled with ointments, therefore he refused her. God shall not refuse any soul, because it hath been shot with these arrows; Alas, God himself hath set us up for a mark, says job, and so says jeremy, against these arrows. Lam. 3. 12. But that soul that can pour out floods of tears, for the loss, or for the absence, or for the unkindness, or imagination of an unkindness of a friend, mis-beloved, beloved a wrong way, and not afford one drop, one tear, to wash the wounds of these arrows, that soul that can squeeze the wound of Christ Jesus, and spit out his blood in these blasphemous execrations, & shed no drop of this blood upon the wounds of these arrows, that soul, and only that soul, that refuses a cure, does God refuse; not because they fell upon it, and stook, and stook fast, and stook long, but because they never, never went about to pull them out; never resisted a tentation, never lamented a transgression, never repented a recidivation. Now this is more put home to us in the next addition, Infixae mihi, Mihi. they stick, and stick fast, in me, that is, in all me. That that sin must be saved or damned; That's not the soul alone, nor body alone, but all, the whole man. God is the God of Abraham, as he is the God of the living; Therefore Abraham is alive; And Abraham is not alive, if his body be not alive; Alive actually in the person of Christ; alive in an infallible assurance of a particular resurrection. Whatsoever belongs to thee, belongs to thy body and soul; and these arrows stick fast in thee; In both. Consider it in both; in things belonging to the body and to the soul; We need clothing; Baptism is God's Wardrobe; there Induimur Christo; In Baptism we put on Christ; there we are invested, apparelled in Christ; And there comes an arrow, that cuts off half our garment, 2 Sam. 10. 4. (as Hammon did David's servants) A tentation that makes us think, it is enough to be baptised, to profess the name of Christ; for Papist, or Protestant, it is but the train of the garment, matter of civility, and policy, and government, and may be cut off, and the garment remain still. So we need meat, sustenance, and then an arrow comes, a tentation meets us, Edite, & bibite, Eat and drink, tomorrow you shall die; That there is no life, but this life, no blessedness but in worldly abundances. If we need physic, and God offer us his physic, medicinal corrections, there flies an arrow, a tentation, Medice cura teipsum, that he whom we make our Physician, died himself, of an infamous disease, that Christ Jesus from whom we attend our salvation, could not save himself. In our clothing, in our diet, in our physic, things which carry our consideration upon the body, these arrows stick fast in us, in that part of us. So in the more spiritual actions of our souls too. In our alms there are trumpets blown, there's an arrow of vainglory; In our fastings, there are disfiguring, there's an arrow of Hypocrisy; In our purity, there is contempt of others; there's an arrow of pride; In our coming to Church, there is custom and formality; In hearing Sermons, there is affection to the parts of the Preacher. In our sinful actions these arrows abound; In our best actions they lie hid; And as thy soul is in every part of thy body, so these arrows are in every part of thee, body, and soul; they stick, and stick fast, in thee, in all thee. And yet there is another weight upon us, in the Text, Manus. there is still a Hand that follows the blow, and press it, Thy hand presses me sore; so the Vulgat read it, Confirmasti super me manum tuam, Thy hand is settled upon me; and the Chalde paraphrase carries it farther than to man, Sit super me vulnus manus tua; Thy hand hath wounded me, and that hand keeps the wound open. And in this sense the Apostle says, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Heb. 10. 31. But as God leaves not his children without correction, so he leaves them not without comfort, and therefore it behoves us to consider his hand upon these arrows, more than one way. First, because his hand is upon the arrow, it shall certainly hit the mark; Tua ut afflictio. God's purpose cannot be disappointed. If men, and such men, lefthanded men, and so many 700 lefthanded men, and so many of one Tribe, 700 Benjamites, jud. 20. 16. could sling stones at a hairs breadth, and not fail, God is a better Markman than the lefthanded Benjamites; his arrows always hit as he intends them. Take them then for tribulation, his hand is upon them; Though they come from the malice of men, his hand is upon them. S. Ambrose observes, that in afflictions, God's hand, and the Devils are but one hand. Stretch out thy hand, says Satan to God, concerning job; And, all that he hath is in thy hand, says God to Satan. Stretch out thy hand, and touch his bones, says Satan again to God; And again, God to Satan, He is in thy hand, but touch not his life. A difference may be, that when God's purpose is but to punish, as he did Pharaoh, in those several verall premonitory plagues, there it is Digitus Dei; It was but a finger, Exod. 8. 19 and God's finger. When Balshazzar was absolutely to be destroyed, there were Digiti, Dan. 5. 5. and Manus hominis, mens fingers, and upon a man's hand. The arrows of men are ordinary, more venomous, and more piercing, than the arrows of God. 2 Reg. 13. 17. But as it is in that story of Elisha, and joash, The Prophet bade the King shoot, but Elisha laid his hand upon the King's hand; So from what instrument of Satan soever, thy affliction come, God's hand is upon their hand that shoot it, and though it may hit the mark according to their purpose, yet it hath the effect, and it works according to his. Yea, let this arrow be considered as a tentation, yet his hand is upon it; Tua ut Peccatum. at least God sees the shooting of it, and yet lets it fly. Either he tries us by these arrows, what proof we are; Or he punishes us by those arrows of new sins, for our former sins; and so, when he hath lost one arrow, he shoots another. He shoots a sermon, and that arrow is lost; He shoots a sickness, and that arrow is lost; He shoots a sin; not that he is author of any sin, as sin; but as sin is a punishment of sin, he concurs with it. And so he shoots arrow after arrow, permits sin after sin, that at last some sin, that draws affliction with it, might bring us to understanding; for that word, in which the Prophet here expresses this sticking, and this fast sticking of these arrows, which is Nachath, is here, (as the Grammarians in that language call it) in Niphal, figere factae, they were made to stick; God's hand is upon them, the work is his, the arrows are his, and the sticking of them is his, whatsoever, and whosesoever they be. His hand shoots the arrow, as it is a tribulation, he limits it, whosoever inflict it. Tua ut Medicamenta. His hand shoots it, as it is a tentation; He permits it, & he order it, whosoever offer it. But it is especially from his hand, as it hath a medicinal nature in it; for in every tentation, and every tribulation, there is a Catechism, and Instruction; nay, there is a Canticle, a lovesong, an Epithalamion, a marriage song of God, to our souls, wrapped up, if we would open it, and read it, and learn that new tune, that music of God; So when thou hear●st nathan's words to David, The child that is born unto thee, shall surely die, 2 Sam. 12. 14. (let that signify, the children of thy labour, and industry, thy fortune, thy state shall perish) so when thou hearest God's word to David, Choose famine, or war, or pestilence, 2 Sam. 24. for the people, (let that signify, those that depend upon thee, shall perish) so when thou hearest Esays words to Hezekiah, Put thy house in order, for thou shalt die; (let that signify, Esa. 38. thou thyself in person shalt perish) so when thou hearest all the judgements of God, as they lie in the body of the Scriptures, so the applications of those judgements, by God's Ministers, in these services, upon emergent occasions, all these are arrows shot by the hand of God, and that child of God, that is accustomed to the voice, and to the ear of God, to speak with him in prayer, when God speaks to him, in any such voice here, as that to David, or Hezekiah, though this be a shooting of arrows, job 41. 19 Non sugabit eum vir sagittarius, The arrow, (as we read it) The Archer, (as the Roman Edition reads it) cannot make that child of God afraid, afraid with a distrustful fear, or make him loath to come hither again to hear more, how close soever God's arrow, and God's archer, that is, his word in his servants mouth, come to that Conscience now, nor make him misinterpret that which he does hear, or call that passion in the Preacher, in which the Preacher is but sagittarius Dei, the deliverer of God's arrows; for God's arrows, are sagitta Compunctionis, arrows that draw blood from the eyes; Tears of repentance from Mary Magdalen, and from Peter; And when from thee? There is a probatum est in S. Aug. Sagittaveras cor meum, Thou hast shot at my heart; Confess. l. 9 c. 2. and how wrought that? To the withdrawing of his tongue, à nundinis loquacitatis, from that market in which I sold myself, (for S. Aug. at that time taught Rhetoric) to turn the stream of his eloquence, and all his other good parts, upon the service of God in his Church. You may have read, or heard that answer of a General, who was threatened with that danger; that his enemy's arrows were so many, as that they would cover the Sun from him; In umbra pugnabimus; All the better, says he, for than we shall fight in the shadow. Consider all the arrows of tribulation, even of tentation, to be directed by the hand of God, and never doubt to fight it out with God, to lay violent hands upon heaven, to wrestle with God for a blessing, to charge and press God upon his contracts and promises, for in umbra pugnabis, though the clouds of these arrows may hide all suns of worldly comforts from thee, yet thou art still under the shadow of his wings. Nay, thou art still, for all this shadow, in the light of his countenance. To which purpose there is an excellent use of this Metaphor of arrows, H●bak. 3. 11. where it is said, that God's servants shall have the light of his arrows, and the ●●ining of his glittering spear: that is, the light of his presence, in all the instruments, and actions of his corrections. To end all, and to dismiss you with such a re-collection, as you may carry away with you; literally, primarily, this text concerns David: He by tentations to sin, Christus. by tribulations for sin, by comminations, and increpations upon sin, was bodily, and ghostly become a quiver of arrows of all sorts; they stook, and stook fast, and stook full in him, in all him. The Psalm hath a retrospect too, it looks back to Adam, and to every particular man in his loins, and so, David's case is our case, and all these arrows stick in all us. But the Psalm and the text hath also a prospect, and hath a prophetical relation from David to our Saviour Christ Jesus. And of him, and of the multiplicity of these arrows upon him in the exinanition, and evacuation of himself, in this world for us, have many of the Ancients interpreted these words literally, and as in their first and primary signification; Turn we therefore to him, before we go, and he shall return home with us. How our first part of this text is appliable to him, that our prayers to God, for ease in afflictions, may be grounded upon reasons, out of the sense of those afflictions, Saint Basil tells us, that Christ therefore prays to his Father now in heaven, to spare mankind, because man had suffered so much, and drunk so deep of the bitter cup of his anger, in his person and passion before: It is an avoidable plea, from Christ in heaven, for us, Spare them O Lord in themselves, since thou didst not spare them in me. And how far he was from sparing thee, we see in all those several weights which have aggravated his hand, and these arrows upon us: If they be heavy upon us, much more was their weight upon thee, every dram upon us was a Talon upon thee, Non del●r sicut dolor tuus, take Rachel weeping for her children, Mary weeping for her brother Lazarus, Hezekiah for his health, Peter for his sins, Non est delor sicut dolor ●uus. The arrows that were shot at thee, were Alienae, Afflictions that belonged to others; and did not only come from others, as ours do; but they were alienae so, Alienae. as that they should have fallen upon others; And all that should have fallen upon all others, were shot at thee, and lighted upon thee. Lord, though we be not capable of sustaining that part, this passion for others, give us that, which we may receive, Compassion with others. They were veloces, these arrows met swiftly upon thee; from the sin of Adam that induced death, to the sin of the last man, that shall not sleep, but be changed, Veloces. when thy hour came they came all upon thee, in that hour. Lord put this swiftness into our fins, that in this one minute, in which our eyes are open towards thee, and thine ears towards us, our sins, all our sins, even from the impertinent frowardness of our childhood, to the unsufferable frowardness of our age, may meet in our present confessions, and repentances, and never appear more. They were (as ours are too) Invisibiles; Invisibiles. Those arrows which fell upon thee, were so invisible, so undiscernible, as that to this day, thy Church, thy School cannot see, what kind of arrow thou tookest into thy soul, what kind of affliction it was, that made thy soul heavy unto death, or dissolved thee into a jelly of blood in thine agony. Be thou O Lord, a Father of Lights unto us, in all our ways and works of darkness; manifest unto us, whatsoever is necessary for us to know, & be a light of understanding and grace before, and a light of comfort and mercy after any ●in hath benighted us. These arrows were, as ours are also, plures, Plures. plural, many, infinite; they were the sins of some that shall never thank thee, never know that thou borest their sins, never know that they had any such sins to be horn. Lord teach us to number thy corrections upon us, so, as still to see thy torments suffered for us, and our own sins, to be infinitely more that occasioned those torments, than those corrections that thou layst upon us. Thine arrows stook and stook fast in thee; the weight of thy torments, thou wouldst not cast off, nor lessen, when at thy execution they offered thee, Fixae. that stupesying drink, (which was the civil charity of those times to condemned persons, Mar. 15. 23. to give them an easier passage, in the agonies of death) thou wouldst not taste of that cup of ease. Deliver us, O Lord, in all our tribulations, from turning to the miserable comforters of this world, or from wishing or accepting any other deliverance, then may improve and make better our Resurrection. These arrows were in thee, in all thee: from thy Head torn with thorns, to thy feet pierced with nails; and in thy soul so as we know not how, so as to extorta Si possibile, If it be possible let this cup pass, and an Vt quid dereliquisti, My God, my God, why half thou forsaken me? Lord, whilst we remain entire here, in body and soul, make us, and receive us an entire sacrifice to thee, in directing body and soul to thy glory, and when thou shalt be pleased to take us in pieces by death, receive our souls to thee, and lay up our bodies for thee, in consecrated ground, and in a Christian burial. And lastly, thine arrows were followed, and pressed with the hand of God; The hand of God pressed upon thee, in that eternal decree, in that irrevocable contract, between thy Father and thee, in that Oportuit pati, That all that thou must suffer, and so enter into our glory. Establish us, O Lord, in all occasions of diffidences here; and when thy hand presses our arrows upon us, enable us to see, that that very hand, hath from all eternity written, and written in thine own blood, a decree of the issue, as well, and as soon, as of the tentation. In which confidence of which decree, as men, in the virtue thereof already in possession of heaven, we join with that Choir in that service, in that Anthem, Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, Apoc. 7. 11, 12. and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever, and ever, Amen. SERMON XX. Preached at Lincoln's Inn. PSAL. 38. 3. There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sin. IN that which is often reported to you, out of Saint Hierome, Titulus clavis, that the title of the Psalm, is the key of the Psalm, there is this good use, That the book of Psalms is a mysterious book; and, if we had not a lock, every man would thrust in, and if we had not a key, we could not get in ourselves. Our lock is the analogy of the Christian faith; That we admit no other sense, of any place in any Psalm, then may consist with the articles of the Christian faith; for so, no Heretic, no Schismatique, shall get in by any countenance of any place in the Psalms; and then our key is, that intimation which we receive in the title of the Psalm, what duty that Psalm is principally directed upon; and so we get into the understanding of the Psalm, and profiting by the Psalm. Our key in this Psalm, given us in the title thereof, is, that it is Psalmus ad Recordationem, a Psalm of Remembrance; The faculty that is awakened here, is our Memory. That plural word nos, which was used by God, in the making of Man, when God said Faciamus, Let us, us make man, according to our image, as it intimates a plurality, a concurrence of all the Trinity in our making, so doth it also a plurality in that image of God, which was then imprinted in us; As God, one God created us, so we have a soul, one soul, that represents, and is some image of that one God; As the three Persons of the Trinity created us, so we have, in our one soul, a threefold impression of that image, and, as Saint Bernard calls it, A trinity from the Trinity, in those three faculties of the soul, the Understanding, the Will, and the Memory. God calls often upon the first faculty, O that this people would but understand; But understand? Inscrutabili● judicia tua; Thy judgements are unsearchable, and thy ways past finding out; And, oh that this people would not go about to understand those unrevealed decrees, and secrets of God. God calls often upon the other faculty, the Will too, and complains of the stiff perverseness, and opposition of that. Through all the Prophets runs that charge, Noluerunt, and Noluerunt, they would not, they refused me, Noluerun● audire, says God in Esay; They are rebellious children, that will not hear. Domus Israel noluit, says God to Ezekiel, The house of Israel will not hear thee; not Thee, 30. 9 3. 7. not the minister; That's no marvel; it is added by God there, Noluit me, they will not hear me. Noluerunt erubescere, says God to jeremy, They will not be ashamed of their former ways, And therefore Noluerunt reverti, They will not return to better ways: 3. 3. 5. 3. He that is past shame of sin, is past recovery from sin. So Christ continues that practice, and that complaint in the Gospel too; He sends forth his servants, (us) to call them, Mat. 22. 3. that were bidden, Et noluerunt venire, and they would not come upon their call; He comes himself, and would gather them, as hen her chickens, and they would not; 23. 37. Their fault is not laid in this, that they had no such faculty, as a will, (for then their not coming were not their fault) but that they perverted that will. Of our perverseness in both faculties, understanding, and will, God may complain, but as much of our memory; for, for the rectifying of the will, the understanding must be rectified; and that implies great difficulty: But the memory is so familiar, and so present, and so ready a faculty, as will always answer, if we will but speak to it, and ask it, what God hath done for us, or for others. The art of salvation, is but the art of memory. When God gave his people the Law, he proposes nothing to them, but by that way, to their memory; I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt; Exod 20. Remember but that. And when we express God's mercy to us, we attribute but that faculty to God, that he remembers us; Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? Ps. 8. 6. And when God works so upon us, as that He makes his wonderful works to be had in remembrance, 111. 4. it is as great a mercy, as the very doing of those wonderful works was before. It was a seal upon a seal, a seal of confirmation, it was a sacrament upon a sacrament, when in instituting the sacrament of his body and his blood, Christ presented it so, Luc 22. 19 Do this in remembrance of me. Memorare novissima, remember the last things, and fear will keep thee from sinning; Memorare praeterita, remember the first things, what God hath done for thee, and love, (love, which, misplaced, hath transported thee upon many sins) love will keep thee from sinning. Plato placed all learning in the memory; we may place all Religion in the memory too: All knowledge, that seems new to day, says Plato, is but a remembering of that, which your soul knew before. All instruction, which we can give you to day, is but the remembering you of the mercies of God, which have been new every morning. Nay, he that hears no Sermons, he that reads no Scriptures, hath the Bible without book; He hath a Genesis in his memory; he cannot forget his Creation; he hath an Exodus in his memory; he cannot forget that God hath delivered him, from some kind of Egypt, from some oppression; He hath a Leviticus in his memory; he cannot forget, that God hath proposed to him some Law, some rules to be observed. He hath all in his memory, even to the Revelation; God hath revealed to him, even at midnight alone, what shall be his portion, in the next world; And if he dare but remember that night's communication between God and him, he is well-near learned enough. There may be enough in remembering ourselves; but sometimes, that's the hardest of all; many times we are farthest off from ourselves; most forgetful of ourselves. It was a narrow enlargement, it was an addition that diminished the sense, when our former Translators added that word, themselves; Ps. 22. 27. All the world shall remember themselves; there is no such particularity, as themselves, in that text; But it is only, as our later Translators have left it, All the world shall remember, and no more; Let them remember what they will, what they can, let them but remember thoroughly, and then as it follows there, They shall turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the Nations shall worship him. Therefore David makes that the key into this Psalm; Psalmus ad Recordationem, A Psalm for Remembrance. Being locked up in a close prison, of multiplied calamities, this turns the key, this opens the door, this restores him to liberty, if he can remember. Non est sanitas, there is no soundness, no health in my flesh; Dost thou wondet at that? Remember thyself, and thou wilt see, that thy case is worse than so; That there is no rest in thy bones. That's true too; But dost thou wonder at that? Remember thyself, and thou wilt see the cause of all that, The Lord is angry with thee; Findest thou that true, and wonder'st why the Lord should be angry with thee? Remember thyself well, and thou wilt see, it is because of thy sins, There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sin. So have I let you in, into the whole Psalm, by this key, by awaking your memory, that it is a Psalm for Remembrance: And that that you are to remember, is, that all calamities, that fall upon you, fall not from the malice or power of man, but from the anger of God; And then, that God's anger falls not upon you, from his Hate, or his Decree, but from your sins, There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sin. Which words we shall first consider, as they are our present object, Divisio. as they are historically, and literally to be understood of David; And secondly, in their retrospect, as they look back upon the first Adam, and so concern Mankind collectively, and so you, and I, and all have our portion in these calamities; And thirdly, we shall consider them in their prospect, in their future relation to the second Adam, in Christ jesus, in whom also all mankind was collected, and the calamities of all men had their Ocean and their confluence, and the cause of them, the anger of God was more declared, and the cause of that anger, that is sin, did more abound; for the sins of all the world were his, by imputation, for this Psalm, some of our Expositors take to be a historical, and personal Psalm, determined in David; some, a Catholic, and universal Psalm, extended to the whole condition of man, and some a Prophetical, and Evangelicall Psalm, directed upon Christ. None of them inconveniently; for we receive help and health, from every one of these acceptations; first, Adam was the Patient, and so, his promise, the promise that he received of a Messiah, is our physic; And then David was the Patient, and there, his Example is our physic; And lastly, Christ jesus was the Patient, and so, his blood is our physic. In Adam we shall find the Scriptum est, the medicine is in our books, an assurance of a Messiah there is; In David we shall find the Probatum est, that this medicine wrought upon David; and in Christ we find the deceit itself; Thus you may take this physic, thus you may apply it to yourselves. In every acceptation, as we consider it in David, in ourselves, in Christ, we shall consider first, That specification of humane misery and calamity, expressed here, sickness, and an universal sickness; No soundness in the flesh: And more than that, trouble, and an universal trouble; No peace, no rest, not in the bones. And then in a second branch, we shall see, that those calamities proceed from the anger of God; we cannot discharge them, upon Nature, or Fortune, or Power, or Malice of Men or Times; They are from the anger of God, and they are, as the Original Text hath it, à fancy irae Dei, from the face of the anger of God, from that anger of God that hath a face, that looks upon something in us, and grows not out of a hate in God, or decree of God against us. And then lastly, this that God's anger looks upon is sin; God is not angry till he see sin; nor with me, till it come to be my sin; and though Original sin be my sin, and sickness, and death would follow, though there were no more but Original sin, yet God comes not to this, Non sanitas, N● soundness in my flesh, nor to this, N●n pax, No rest in my bones, till I have made sin, my sin, by act, and habit too, by doing it, and using to do it. But then, though it be but Peccatum in the singular, (so the Text hath it) One sin, yet for that one beloved sin, especially when that my sin comes to have a face, (for so, the Original phrase is in this place too, à fancy peccati, from the face of my sin) when my sin looks big, and justifies itself, then come these calamities, No soundness in the flesh, ●o rest in the bones, to their height, because the anger of God which exals them, is in the exaltation: There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither any rest in my bones, because of my sin. All these particulars will best arise to us in our second consideration, 1. Part. when we consider, Hamanitatem, not Hominem, our humane condition, as we are all kneaded up in Adam, and not this one person David. But because we are in the consideration of health, and consequently of physic, (for the true and proper use of physic, is to preserve health, and, but by accident to restore it) we embra●e that Rule, Paracels. Medio●rum theoria experientia est, Practice is a Physicians study; and he concludes out of events: for, says he, He that professes himself a Physician, without experience, Chronica de future scribit, He undertakes to write a Chronicle of things before they are done, which is an irregular, and a perverse way. Therefore, in this spiritual physic of the soul, we will deal upon Experience too, and see first, how this wrought upon this particular person, upon David. David durst not presume, that God could not, or would not be angry. Anger is not always a Defect, nor an inordinateness in man; Be angry, and sin not: Ephes. 4. 26. anger is not utterly to be rooted out of our ground, and cast away, but transplanted; A Gardener does well to grub up thorns in his garden; there they would hinder good herbs from growing; but he does well to plant those thorns in his hedges, there they keep bad neighbours from entering. In many cases, where there is no anger, there is not much zeal. David himself came to a high exaltation in this passion of anger. He was ordinarily so meek, as that that which we translate afflictions, the Vulgat Edition translates meekness, and patience in his afflictions. Remember David and all his afflictions, Psal. 132. 1. says our translation; and Memento David & omnis mansuetudinis ejus, say they, Remember David, and all his mildness. How mildly he endured joabs' insultation; Thou lovest, says joab, thine enemies, and thou hatest thy friends. Bitterly spoken; Come out, 2 Sam. 19 6. and speak comfortably, says joab, or, I swear by the Lord, there will not tarry a man with thee this night; Seditiously spoken; And David obeyed him. How mildly he endured Shimei's cursing? 2 Sam. 16. 5. He cast stones at him and at all his servants; He charges him with murder; and, that which is heaviest of all, he calls Absalon's rebellion, a judgement of God; and David accepts it so, and says, The Lord hath bidden him to curse David. And yet this exemplar mild man, David himself, upon a scorn offered to him by Hanun in the abuse of his Ambassadors, goes himself in person, into a dangerous war, against the Ammonites, assisted with 32000 chariots of their neighbours the Aramites, 2 Sam. 10. and there he destroys those great numbers, which are mentioned in that story: and after this defeat, 1 Chron. 19 in cold blood, he goes out against them, that had assisted them; He takes the City Rabbah, and the people he cuts with Saws, and with Harrows of iron, and with Axes; David saw that a mild man can grow angry, and that a fire that is long kindling, burns most vehemently. That which is an Adage, and Proverb now, was ever true in substance, Ab inimico flegmatico libera me Domine; from him that is long before he be angry, for he is long before he be reconciled again. God's goodness hath that disposition, to be long suffering; man's illness and abuse of that, is able to inflame God. So David's sin had inflamed him; and the fire of God's anger produced the calamities of this text upon him: which our Expositors ordinarily take to have been historically this, that when David had provoked God, with that sinful confidence in numbering his people, 2 Sam. 24. 17. when God's anger was executed in that devouring plague, and David saw the persecuting Angel, than à fancy irae Domini, from that face, that manifestation of God's anger, he fell into that damp, and dead cold, that howsoever they covered him, 1 Reg. ●. they could never get heat in him: And this was the sin, say our Expositors, and this was the anger, and this was the manifestation, and this was the disease that David complains of here. And be this enough of the personal acceptation of these words; There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither is there rest in my bones, because of my sin; for in their second acceptation as they are referred to the miserable condition of all mankind by sin, the particulars which we laid down before, will fall into more particular consideration. In this second part, first we contemplate man, as the Receptacle, 2. Part. Miseria. the Ocean of all misery. Fire and Aire, Water and Earth, are not the Elements of man; Inward decay, and outward violence, bodily pain, and sorrow of heart may be rather styled his Elements; And though he be destroyed by these, yet he consists of nothing but these. As the good qualities of all creatures are not for their own use, (for the Sun sees not his own glory, nor the Rose smells not her own breath: but all their good is for man) so the ill conditions of the creature, are not directed upon themselves, (the Toad poisons not itself, nor does the Viper bite itself) but all their ill powers down upon man. As though man could be a Microcosm, a world in himself, no other way, except all the misery of the world fell upon him. Adam was able to decipher the nature of every Creature in the name thereof, and the Holy Ghost hath deciphered his in his name too; In all those names that the Holy Ghost hath given man, he hath declared him miserable, for, Adam, (by which name God calls him, Gem. 5. 2. and Eve too) signifies but Redness, but a Blushing: and whether we consider their low materials, as it was but earth, or the redness of that earth, as they stained it with their own blood, and the blood of all their posterity, and as they drew another more precious blood, the blood of the Messias upon it, every way both may be Adam, both may blush. So God called that pair, our first Parents, man in that root, Adam: But the first name, by which God called man in general, mankind, is Ish, Therefore shall a man leave his Father, etc. And Ish, Gen. 2. 24. is but à sonitu, à rugitu: Man hath his name from crying, and the occasion of crying, misery, testified in his entrance into the world, for he is born crying; and our very Laws presume, that if he be alive, he will cry, and if he be not heard cry, conclude him to be born dead. And where man is called Gheber, (as he is often) which is derived from Greatness, man is but great so, as that word signifies; It signifies a Giant, an oppressor, Great in power, and in a delight to do great mischiefs upon others, or Great, as he is a Great mark, and easily hit by others. But man hath a fourth name too in Scripture, Enosh, and that signifies nothing but misery. When David says, Put them in fear O Lord, that the Nations may know they are but men; there's that name Enosh, Psal. 9 20. that they are but miserable things. Adam is Blushing, Ish is lamenting, Geber is oppressing, Enosh is all that; but especially thate which is especially notified for the misery in our Text, Enosh is Homo aeger, a man miserable, in particular, by the misery of sickness, which is our next step, Non sanitas, There is no soundness, no health in me. God created man in health, but health continued but a few hours, Morbus. and sickness hath had the Dominion 6000 years. But was man impassable before the fall? Had there been no sickness, if there had been no sin? Secundum passiones perfectivas, Aquin. we acknowledge in the School, man was passable before: Every alteration is in a degree a passion, a suffering; and so, in those things which conduced to his well-being, eating, and sleeping, and other such, man was passable: that is, subject to alteration, But, Secundum passiones destructiv●●, to such sufferings, as might frustrate the end for which he was made, which was Immortality, he was not subject, and so, not to sickness. Now he is; and put all the miseries, that man is subject to, together, sickness is more than all. It is the immediate sword of God. Phalaris could invent a Bull, and others have invented Wheels and Racks; but no persecutor could ever invent a sickness or a way to inflict a sickness upon a condemned man: To a galley he can send him, and to the gallows, and command execution that hour; but to a quartane fever, or to a g●ut, he cannot condemn him. In poverty I lack but other things; In banishment I lack but other men; But in sickness, I lack my self. And, as the greatest misery of war, is, when our own Country is made the seat of the war; so is it of affliction, when mine own Body is made the subject thereof. How shall I put a just value upon God's great blessings of Wine, and Oil, and Milk, and Honey, when my cast is gone, or of Liberty, when the gout fetters my feet? The King may release me, and say, Let him go whither he will, but God says, He shall not go till I will. God hath wrapped up all misery, in that condemnation, Morte morietur, That the sinner shall die twice: But if the second death did not follow, the first death were an ease, and a blessing in many sicknesses. And no sickness can be worse, then that which is intended here, for it is all over, Non sanitas, no soundness, no health in any part. This consideration arises not only from the Physicians Rule, Non sanitas. that the best state of Man's body is but a Neutrality, neither well nor ill, but Nulla sanitas, a state of true and exquisite health, say they, no man hath. But not only out of this strictness of Art, but out of an acknowledgement of Nature, we must say, sanitas hujus vitae, b●ne intelligentibus, sanitas non est; It is but our mistaking, when we call any thing Health. Augustin. But why so? fame's naturalis morbus est; Hunger is a sickness; And that's naturally in us all. Medicamentum famis cibus, & potus sitis, & fatigationis somnus; when I eat, I do but take Physic for Hunger, and for thirst, when I drink, and so is sleep my physic for weariness. Detrahe medicamentum, & interficient; for bear but these Physic's, and these diseases, Hunger, and thirst, and weariness, will kill thee. And as this sickness is upon us all, and so non sanitas, there is no Health, in none of us, so it is upon us all, at all times, and so Non sanitas, there is never any soundness in us: for, Augustin. saemper deficimus; we are Borne in a Consumption, and as little as we are then, we grow less from that time. Vita cursus ad mortem, Before we can crawl, we run to meet death; & urgemur ownes pari passu: Though some are cast forward to death, by the use, which others have of their ruin, and so throw them, through Discontents, into desperate enterprises, and some are drawn forward to death, by false Marks, which they have set up to their own Ambitions, and some are spurred forward to death, by sharp Diseases contracted by their own intemperance and licentiousness; and some are whipped forward to death, by the Miseries, and pen●ries of this life, take away all these accidental furtherances to death, this drawing, and driving, and spurring, and whipping, pari paessu urgemur omnes, we bring all with us into the world, that which carries us out of the world, a natural, unnatural consuming of that radical virtue, which sustains our life. Non sanitas, there is no health in any, so universal is sickness, nor at any time in any, so universal; and so universal too, as that not in any part of any man, at any time. As the King was but sick in his feet, and yet it killed him: It was but in his fact, 2. Chron. 16. 12. yet it flew up into his head, it affected his head; as our former translation observed it in their margin; that the disease did not only grow to a great height in the disease, but to the highest parts of the body: It was at first but in the feet, but it was presently all over. josiah the King was shot with an arrow at the battle of Megiddo; One book that reports the story says he was carried out of the field alive & died at jerusalem and another, 2 Chron. 35. 24. that he was carried out of the field dead. Deadly wounds & deadly sicknesses spread themselves all over, 2 Reg. 23. 30. so fast, as that the holy Ghost, in relating it, makes it all one, to tell the beginning, and the end thereof. If a man do but prick a finger, and bind it above that part, so that the Spirits, or that which they call the Balsamum of the body, cannot descend, by reason of that ligature, to that part, it will gangrene; And, (which is an argument, and an evidence, that mischiefs are more operative, more insinuating, more penetrative, more diligent, than Remedies against misch●efes are) when the Spirits, and Balsamum of the body cannot pass by that ligature to that wound, yet the Gangrene will pass from that wound, by that ligature, to the body, to the Heart, and destroy. In every part of the body death can find a door, or make a breach; Mortal diseases breed in every part. But when every part at once is diseased, death does not bsie ge him, but inhabit him. In the day, when the keepers of the house shall tremble, Ec●l●s. 12. 3. and the strong men shall how themselves, and the grinders cease, because they are few, and those that look out at the windows, he darkened, when age of Gods making, age grown by many years, or age of the Devils making, age grown by many sins, hath spread an universal debility upon me, that all sicknesses are in me, & have all lost their names, as all simples have in treacle, I am sick of sickness, and not of a Fever, or any particular distemper, then is the misery of this Text fallen upon me, Non sanitas, no health, none at any time, none in any part, non in Carne, not in my flesh, not in my whole substance, which is also another circumstance of exaltation in humane misery. Take flesh in the largest extent and signification, that may be, as Moses calls God, Non in carne. The God of the spirits of all flesh, that is, of the Being of all Creatures, Numb. 27. 16. and take all these Creatures to be ours in that Donation, Subjicite & dominamini, subdue, and rule all Creatures, yet there is no soundness in our flesh, for, all these Creatures are corrupted, and become worse than they were, (to us) by the sin of Adam. Bring flesh to a nearer signification, to our own, there was Caro juxta naturam, and there is Caro juxta culpam. That flesh which was natural, to man, Gregor. that which God gave man at first, that had health and soundness in it; but yet not such a degree of soundness, as that it needed no more, than it then had. That had been naturally enough, (if that had been preserved to carry that flesh itself to heaven, but even that flesh if it had not sinned, though it had an Immortality in itself, yet must have received a glorification in heaven; as well, (though in another measure) as those bodies, which shall be alive at the last day, and shall be but changed, and not dissolved in the dust, must receive a glorification there, besides that preservation from dissolution. Now this Caro juxta culpam, sinful flesh, is farther from that Glorification; Our natural flesh, when it was at best, had some thing to put on; but our sinful flesh hath also something to put off, before it can receive glory. So then, for flesh in general, the body of Creatures, though that flesh be our flesh, because all Creatures are ours, in that flesh there is no soundness, because they are become worse; for that flesh, which we call natural Adam's first flesh, besides that it was never capable of glory in itself, but must have received that, by receiving the light of God's presence, there is none of that flesh remaining now; now universa caro, all flesh is corrupted; and that curse is gone upon it, The glory of jacob shall be empoverished, and the fatness of his flesh shall be made lean. Esay 4. 17. Quia elatum sumpsimus spiritum, because we have raised our spirits in pride, Gregory. higher than God would, Ecce defluens quotidie portamus lutum, Behold God hath walled us with mud walls, and wet mud walls, that waste away faster, than God meant at first, they should. And by sins, this flesh, that is but the loam and plaster of thy Tabernacle, thy body, that, all, that, that in the entire substance is corrupted. Those Gums, and spices, which should embalm thy flesh, when thou art dead, are spent upon that diseased body whilst thou art alive: Thou seemest, in the eye of the world, to walk in silks, and thou dost but walk in cerecloth; Thou hast a desire to please some eyes, when thou hast much to do, not to displease every Nose; and thou wilt solicit an adulterous entrance into their beds, who, if they should but see thee go into thine own bed, would need no other mortification, nor answer to thy solicitation. Thou pursuest the works of the flesh, and hast none, for thy flesh is but dust held together by plasters; Dissolution and putrefaction is gone over thee alive; Thou hast over lived thine own death, and art become thine own ghost, and thine own hell; No soundness in all thy flesh; and yet beyond all these, beyond the general miserable condition of man, and the highest of humane miseries, sickness, and sickness over all the parts, and so over them all, as that it hath putrefied them all, there is another degree, which follows in our Text, and David calls Trouble, There is no soundness in my flesh, nor rest in my bones. That which such a sick man most needs, this sick soul shall not have, Rest. Non Pax. The Physician goes out, and says, he hath left him to Rest, but he hath left no Rest to him. The anguish of the disease, nay, the officiousness of visitors, will not let him rest. Such send to see him as would fain hear he were dead, and such weep about his sickbed, as would not weep at his grave. Psal. 41. 5. Mine enemies speak evil of me, (says David) and say, When shall he die, and his name perish? And yet these evil-speaking enemies come there to see him. They say, ver. 6. an evil disease cleaveth fast unto him; and that they say is true, but they say it not out of compassion, for they add, And now that he lieth, let him rise no more. He shall not get to that good trouble, to that holy disquiet of a conscientious consideration, how his state was got; and, it shall be a greater trouble than he can overcome, how to dispose it: He shall not only not make a religious restitution, but he shall not make a discreet Will. He shall suspect his wife's fidelity, and his children's frugality, and clog them with Executors, and them with Overseers, and be, or be afraid he shall be over-seen in all. And yet a farther trouble than all this, is intended in the other word, which is the last and highest of these vexations, Non in ossibus, no rest in my bones. Saint Basil will needs hav● us leave the obvious, In ossibus. and the natural signification of this, Bones; for, Habet & anima ossa sua, says he, The soul hath Bones, as well as the body, and there shall be no Rest in those Bones. Such a signification is appliable to the Flesh, as well as the Bones; The flesh may signify the lower faculties of the soul, or the weaker works of the higher faculties thereof; There may be a Carnality in the understanding; a concupiscence of disputation, and controversy in unnecessary points. Requirit quod sibi respondere nequit, Grego. The mind of a curious man delights to examine itself upon Interrogatories, which, upon the Rack, it cannot answer, and to vex itself with such doubts as it cannot resolve. Sub eo ignara deficit, quod prudenter requirit; We will needs show wit in moving subtle questions, and the more ignorance, in not being able to give ourselves satisfaction. But not only seditions, and contentions, but Heresies too, Gal. 5. 20. are called works of the flesh; howsoever men think themselves witty, and subtle, and spiritual in these wranglings, yet they have carnal respects, they are of the flesh, and there is no soundness in them. But beyond this carnality in matters of Opinions, in points of a higher nature, this diseased man in our Text, comes to trouble in his Bones, S. Basils' spiritual bones: He shall suspect his Religion, suspect his Repentance, suspect the Comforts of the Minister, suspect the efficacy of the Sacrament, suspect the mercy of God himself. Every fit of an Ague is an Earthquake that swallows him, every fainting of the knee, is a step to Hell; every lying down at night is a funeral; & every quaking is a rising to judgement; every bell that distinguishes times, is a passing-bell, and every passing-bell, his own; every singing in the ear, is an Angel's Trumpet; at every dimness of the candle, he hears that voice, Fool, this night they will fetch away thy soul; and in every judgement denounced against sin, he hears an lto maledicte upon himself, Go thou accursed into hell fire. And whereas such meditations as these, might sustain a rectified soul, as Bones in this sinner, despair shall have sucked out all the marrow of these Bones, and so there shall be no soundness in his flesh, no rest in his bones. And so have you this sick sinner dissected and anatomised; He hath not only his portion in misery that lies upon all mankind, which was our first branch, but in the heavyest of all, sickness, which was a second, and then a third sickness spread over all, no soundness, nor rest in that sickness, which was a fourth consideration, No soundness in his flesh, in his weaker faculties and operations, No rest in his bones, no acquiescence in his best actions, with which we end this first part. In which, we consider sinful man, in himself, and so all is desperate; But in the second, where we find him upon the consideration of the cause of all these distresses, That it is from the Contemplation of the anger of God, There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine Anger, there we shall find a way offered to him, that may, if he pursue it aright, bring him to a Reparation, to a Redintegration; for, if he look upon the Anger of God in a right line, it will show him, that as that Anger is the cause of his Calamities, so his sins are the cause of that Anger. May we not piously apply that Proverbial speech, Corruptio optimi pessima, (that when good things take in another nature then their own, Ira Dei. they take it in the highest exaltation) thus, that when God, who is all mercy, grows angry, he becomes all anger? The Holy Ghost himself seems to have given us leave to make that application, when expressing God in the height of his anger, he calls God then, in that anger, a Dove; we read it the fierceness of an oppressor, but Saint Hierome reads it, The anger of a Dove. And truly there is no other word then that, jer. 25. ult. in that tongue, (the word is jonah,) that signifies a Dove, and that word does signify a Dove, in many other places of Scripture; And that Prophet which made his flight from God, when he sent him to Nineveh, is called by that name, jonah, a Dove; And the Fathers of the Latin Church, have read, and interpreted it so, of a Dove. Some of them take Nabuchadnezzar to be this angry Dove, because he left his own Dove-coat to feed abroad, to pray upon them; and some, because the Dove was the Arms and Ensign of the Assyrians from the time of Semiramis; But the rest take this Dove to be God himself, and that the sins of men had put a Gall into a Dove, Anger into God. And then, to what height that anger grows, is expressed in the Prophet Hosea; I will meet them, says God, (when he is pleased, he says, he will wait for them) as a Bear, 13. 8. (no longer a Dove) as a Bear robbed of her whelps, (sensible of his injuries) and I will rend the call of their hearts, (shiver them in pieces with a dispersion, with a discerption) And I will devour them as with a Lion, (nothing shall reunite them again But I will break them as a Potter's vessel, that cannot be made whole again.) jer. 19 11. Honour not the malice of thine enemy so much, as to say, thy misery comes from him: Dishonour not the complexion of the times so much, as to say, thy misery comes from them; justify not the Deity of Fortune so much, as to say, thy misery comes from her; Find God pleased with thee, and thou hast a hook in the nostrils of every Leviathan, power cannot shake thee, Thou hast a wood to cast into the waters of Marah, joh 40. 19 the bitterness of the times cannot hurt thee, thou hast a Rock to dwell upon, and the dream of a Fortune's wheel, Excd. 15. 23. can not overturn thee. But if the Lord be angry, he needs no Trumpets to call in Armies, if he do but sibilare muscam, hiss and whisper for the fly, and the Bee, there is nothing so little in his hand, as cannot discomfort thee, discomfit thee, dissolve and powr-out, attenuate and annihilate the very marrow of thy soul. Every thing is His, and therefore every thing is He; thy sickness is his sword, and therefore it is He that strikes thee with it, still turn upon that consideration, the Lord is angry; But then look that anger in the aface, take it in the right ●line, as the Original phrase in this text directs, à facieirae Dei, There is no soundness in my flesh, from the face of thine anger. As there is a Manifestation of God's anger in this phrase, The face of God's anger, so there is a Multiplication, a plurality too, for it is indeed, Mippenei à faciebus, A fancy irae. the faces, the divers manifestations of God's anger; for, the face of God, (and so of every thing proceeding from God) is that, by which God, Aug. or that work of God is manifested to us. And therefore since God manifests his anger so many useful, and medicinal ways unto thee, take heed of looking upon his anger, where his anger hath no face, no manifestation; take heed of imagining an anger in God, amounting to thy Damnation, in any such Decree, as that God should be angry with thee in that height, without looking upon thy sins, or without any declaration why he is angry. He opens his face to thee in his Law, he manifests himself to thee in the Conditions, by which he hath made thy salvation possible, and till he see thee, in the transgression of them, he is not angry. And when he is angry so, be glad he shows it in his face, in his outward declarations; that fire smothered, would consume all God's anger reserved till the last day, will last as long as that day, as that undeterminable day, for ever. When should we go about to quench that fire, that never bursts out, or to seek reconciliation, before a hostility be declared? Therefore Saint Bernard begs this anger at God's hands, Irascaris mihi Domine, O Lord, be angry with me; And therefore David thanks God, in the behalf of that people, for his anger, Psalm 99 8. Thou forgavest them, though thou tookest vengeance of their inventions. The fires of hell, in their place, in hell, have no light; But any degrees of the fires of Hell, that can break out in this life, have, in Gods own purpose, so much light, as that through the darkest smother of obduration; or desperation, God would have us see him. Therefore Saint Hierome makes this milder use of this phrase, that God shows faciem irae, but non iram, that his face of anger is rather a telling us, that he will be angry, then that he is angry yet; the corrections that God inflicts to reduce us, if we profit not by them, were anger Ab initio, we shall suffer for the sins, from which those corrections should have reduced us, and for that particular sin, of not being reduced by them; but if they have their effect, there was not a drop of gall, there was not a dram of anger in the anger. Now that that God intends in them is, that as we apprehend our calamities to proceed from God's anger, and to discharge Destiny, and Fortune, so we apprehend that anger to proceed from our own sins, and so discharge God himself; There is no rest in my bones because of my sin. As we are the sons of Dust, (worse, the sons of Death) we must say to Corruption, 3. Part. Peccatum. job 17. 14. Thou art my Father, and to the worm, Thou art my Mother, so we may say to the anger of God, it is our grandfather, that begot these miseries, but we must say too, to our sin, Thou art my great-grandfather, that begot God's anger upon us: and here is our woeful pedigree, howsoever we be otherwise descended. 'Tis true, there is no soundness, there is misery enough upon thee; and true, that God is angry, Gregor. vehemently angry; But, Expone juststiam irae Dei, deal clearly with the world, and clear God, and confess it is because of thy sin. When Cain says, My sin is greater than can be forgiven, Gen. 4. that word Gnavon is ambiguous, it may be sin, it may be punishment, and we know not whether his impatience grew out of the horror of his sin, or the weight of his punishment. But here we are directed by a word that hath no ambiguity; Kata signifies sin, and nothing but sin; Here the holy Ghost hath fixed thee upon a word, that will not suffer thee to consider the punishment, nor the cause of the punishment, the anger, but the cause of that anger, and all, the sin. We see that the bodily sickness, and the death of many is attributed to one kind of sin, to the negligent receiving of the Sacrament, 1 Cor. 11. 30. For this cause many are weak and sick amongst you, and many sleep. Imaginem judicii ostenderat, Ambrose. God had given a representation of the day of Judgement in that proceeding of his, for than we shall see many men condemned for sins, for which we never suspected them: so we think men die of Fevers, whom we met lately at the Sacrament, and God hath cut them off perhaps for that sin of their unworthy receiving the Sacrament. My miseries are the fruits of this Tree; God's anger is the arms that spreads it; but the root is sin. My sin, which is another consideration. We say of a Possession, Transit cum onere, It passes to me, Meum. with the burden that my Father laid upon it; his debt is my debt: so does it, with the sin too; his sin, by which he got that possession, is my sin, if I know it: and, perchance, the punishment mine, though I know not the sin. Adam's sin, 6000 years ago, is my sin; and their sin, that shall sin by occasion of any wanton writings of mine, will be my sin, though they come after. Woeful riddle; sin is but a privation, and yet there is not such another positive possession: sin is nothing, and yet there is nothing else; I sinned in the first man that ever was; and, but for the mercy of God, in something that I have said or done, might sin, that is, occasion sin, in the last man that ever shall be. But that sin that is called my sin in this text, is that that is become mine by an habitual practice, or mine by a wilful relapse into it. And so my sin may kindle the anger of God, though it be but a single sin, One sin, as it is delivered here in the singular, and no farther, Because of my sin. Every man may find in himself, Peccatum complicatum, sin wrapped up in sin, Singular. a body of sin. We bring Elements of our own; earth of Covetousness, water of unsteadfastnesse, air of putrefaction, and fire of licentiousness; and of these elements we make a body of sin; as the Apostle says of the Natural body, 1 Cor. 12. 20. There are many members, but one body, so we may say of our sin, it hath a wanton eye, a griping hand, an itching ear, an insatiable heart, and feet swift to shed blood, and yet it is but one body of sin; It is all, ●and yet it is but One. But let it be simply, and singularly but One, (which is a miracle in sin, truly I think an impossibility in sin, to be single, to be but One) (for that unclean Spirit, which possessed the man that dwelled amongst the tombs, Mar. 5. carried it at first, as though he had been a single Devil, and he alone in that man, I, I adjure thee, says he to Christ, and torment not me, not me, so far in the singular, but when Christ puts him to it, he confesses, we are many, and my name is legion: So though thy sin, slightly examined, may seem but One, yet if thou dare press it, it will confess a plurality, a legion) if it be but One, yet if that One be made thine, by an habitual love to it, as the plague needs not the help of a Consumption to kill thee, so neither does Adultery need the help of Murder to damn thee. For this making of any One sin, thine, thine, by an habitual love thereof, will grow up to the last and heaviest weight, intimated in that phrase, which is also in this clause of the Text, In fancy paccati; that this sin will have a face, that is, a confidence, and a divesting of all 〈◊〉 or disguises. There cannot be a heavier punishment laid upon any sin, Fancies peccati. Luke 17. 2. than Christ lays upon scandal: It were better for him a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he drowned in the Sea. If something worse, than such a death, belong to him, surely it is eternal Death. And this, this eternal death, is interminated by Christ, in cases, where there is not always sin, in the action which we do, but if we do any action, so, as that it may scandalise another, or occasion sin in him, we are bound to study, and favour the weakness of other men, and not to do such things, as they may think sins. We must prevent the misinterpretation, yea the malice of other men; for though the fire be theirs, the fuel, or at least, the ●ellows, is ours; The uncharitableness, the malice is in them, but the awaking, and the stirring thereof, is in our carelessness, who were not watchful upon our actions. But when an action comes to be sin indeed, and not only occasionally sin, because it scandalises another, but really sin in itself, than even the Poet tells you, Maxima debetur pueris reverentia, si quid T●rpe paras, Take heed of doing any sin, in the sight of thy Child: for, if we break through that wall, we shall come quickly to that faci●m Sacerdotis non erubuerunt, they will not be afraid, nor ashamed in the presence of the Priest, they will look him in the face, Lam. 4. 16. nay receive at his hands, and yet sin their sin, that minute, in their hearts; and to that also, faciem seniorum non erubuerunt, they will not be afraid, nor ashamed of the Office of the Magistrate; but sin for nothing, or sin at a price, bear out, or buy out all their sins. They sin as Sodom, and bide it not, is the highest charge that the Holy Ghost could lay upon the sinner. When they come to say, Our lips are ours, who is Lord ever us? Psal. 12. ● 4. They will say so of their hands, and of all their bodies, They are ours, who shall forbid us, to do what we will with them? And what lack these open sinners of the last judgement, and the condemnation thereof? That judgement is, that men shall stand naked in the sight of one another, and all their sins shall be made manifest to all, and this open sinner, does so, and chooses to do so, even in this world. When David prays so devoutly, Psal. 19 12. 2 Cor. 4. ●. to be cleansed from his secret sins; and Saint Paul glories so devoutly, in having renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, how great a burden is there, in these open and avowed sins; sins that have put on so brazen a face, as to outface the Minister, and outface the Magistrate, and call the very Power, and Justice of God in question, whether he do hate or can punish a sin? for, they do what they can to remove that opinion out of men's hearts. Truly, as an Hypocrite at Church, may do more good, than a devout man in his Chamber at home, be cause the Hypocrites outward piety, though counterfeit, imprints a good example upon them, who do not know it to be counterfeit, and we cannot know, that he that is absent from Church now, is now at his prayers in his Chamber: so a lesser sin done with an open avowment, and confidence, may more prejudice the Kingdom of God, than greater in secret. And this is that which may be principally intended, or, atleast, usefully raised our of this phrase of the Holy Ghost in David, A fancy peccati, that the habitual sinner comes to sin, not only with a negligence, who know it, but with a glorious desire, that all the world might know it; and with a shame, that any such judge as feared not God nor regarded man, should be more fearless of God, or regardless of man, Luke 18. 2. than he. But now, beloved, when we have laid man thus low, Miserable, because Man, and then Diseased, and that all over, without any soundness, even in his whole substance, in his flesh, and in the height of this disease, Restless too, and Restless even in his bones, diffident in his strongest assurances; And when we have laid him lower than that, made him see the Cause of all this misery to be the Anger of God, the inevitable anger of an incensed God, and such an anger of God as hath a face, a manifestation, a reality, and not that God was angry with him in a Decree, before he showed man his face in the Law, and saw Man's face in the transgression of the law; And laid him lower than that too, made him see the cause of this anger, as it is sin, so to be his sin, sin made his by an habitual love thereof, which, though it may be but one, yet is become an outfacing sin, a sin in Contempt and confidence, when we have laid Man, laid you, thus low, in your own eyes, we return to the Canon and rule of that Physician whom they call Evangelist a●● medicinae, the Evangelist of Physic, Mesues. Sit intentio prima in omni medicina comf●rtare, whether the physician purge, or lance, or sear, his principal care, and his end, is to comfort and strengthen: so though we have insisted upon Humane misery, and the cause of that, the anger of God, and the cause of that anger, sin in that excess, yet we shall dismiss you with that Consolation, which was first in our intention, and shall be our conclusion, that as this Text hath a personal aspect upon David alone, and therefore we gave you hit case, and then a general retrospect upon Adam, and all in him, and therefore we gave you your own case, so it hath also an Evangelicall prospect upon Christ, and therefore, for your comfort, and as a bundle of Myrrh in your bosoms, we shall give you his case too, to whom these words belong, as well as to Adam, or David, or you; There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sin. If you will see the miseries of Man, in their exaltation, and in their accumulation too, Christus. in their weight, and in their number, take them in the Ecce home, when Christ was presented from Pilate, scourged and scorned, Ecce home, behold man, in that man, in the Prophets; They have reproached the feetsteps of thine Anointed, says David, Psal. 89. 51. slandered his actions, and conversation; He hath no form, nor comeliness, nor beauty, that we should desire to see him, says Esay; Despised, rejected of men; A man of sorrows, 53. 2. and acquainted with griefs. And Ecce homo, behold man, in that man, in the whole history of the Gospel. That which is said of us, of sinful men, is true in him, the salvation of men, from the sole of the foot, even unto the Head, there is no soundness, Esay 1. 6. but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores. That question will never receive answer, which Christ asks, Is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow? Never was, Lam. 1. 12. never will there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow, because there can never be such a person, to suffer sorrow. Affliction was upon him, and upon all him; for, His soul was heavy unto death; Even upon his Bones; fire was sent into his bones, and it prevailed against him. ver. 13. And the highest cause of this affliction was upon him, the anger of God; The Lord had afflicted him, ver. 12. in the day of his fierce anger. The height of God's anger, is Dereliction; and he was brought to his Vt quid dereliquisti, My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me? We did esteem him stricken of the Lord, says Esay; And we were not deceived in it; 53. 4. Mat. 26. 31. Zech. 13. 7. Percutiam pastorem, says Christ himself of himself, out of the Prophet, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered; And then, the cause of this anger, sin, was so upon him, as that, though in one consideration, the rain was upon all the world, and only this fleece of Gedeon dry, all the world surrounded with sin, and only He innocent, yet in another line we find all the world dry, and only gedeon's fleece wet, jud. 6. all the world innoce●, and only Christ guilty. But, as there is a Verè tulit, and a Verè portavit, Esay 5. 3. surely he bore those griefs, and surely he carried those sorrows, so they were Verè nostri, surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows, he was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquitles; The Chastisement of our peace was upon him; 〈◊〉 ●efore it must necessarily follow, (as it does follow there) with his stripes we 〈◊〉; for, God will not exact a debt twice; of Christ for me, and of me too. 〈◊〉 therefore, Quare moriemini Domus Israel? since I have made ye of the household ● of Israel, why will ye die? since ye are recovered of your former sicknesses, Ez●k. 18. why will die of a new disease, of a suspicion, or jealousy, that this recovery, this redemption in Christ jesus belongs not to you? Will ye say, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands, Heb. 10. Dei viventis, of the living God? 'Tis so; a fearful thing; But if De●s mortuus, the God of life be but dead for me, be fallen into my hands, applied to me, made mine, it is no fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Hypocrates. Non sat is est medicum fecisse suum officium, nisi agrotus, & adstantes sua; It is not enough for Christ Jesus to have prepared you the balm of his blood, not enough for us, to minister it to you, except every one of you help himself, in a faithful application, and help one another, in a holy and exemplar conversation. quam exactè, Chrysost. & accuratè usus dictionibus? How exact and curious was the holy Ghost, in David, in choice of words? he does not say, Non sanitas mihi, sed non in car ne; not that there is no health for me, but none in me; non in carne mea, not in my flesh, but in carne ejus, in the flesh and blood of my Saviour, there is health, and salvation. In ossibus ejus, in his bones, in the strength of his merits, there is rest, and peace, à fancy peccati, what face soever my sin have had, in my former presumptions, or what face soever they put on now, in my declination to desperation. The Lord waits that he may have mercy upon you; Esa. 30. 18. He stays your leisure; and therefore will he be exalted, (says that Prophet there) that he may have mercy upon you; He hath chosen that for his way of honour, of exaltation, that he may have mercy upon you. And then, Quare moriemini? If God be so respective towards you, as to wait for you, if God be so a●bitions of you, as to affect a kingdom in you, why will ye die? since he will not let ye die of Covetousness, of adultery, of ambition, of profaneness in yourselves, why will ye die of jealousy, of suspicion in him? It was a merciful voice of David; 2 Sam. 9 1. Is there yet any man left of the house of Saul, that I may show mercy for Jonathans' sake? It is the voice of God to you all, Is there yet any man of the house of Adam, that I may show mercy for Christ jesus sake? that takes Christ Jesus in his arms, and interposes him, between his sins, and mine indignation, and non morietur, that man shall not die. We have done; Paracels. Est ars ●anandorum morborum medicina, non rhetorica; Our physic is not eloquence, not directed upon your affections, but upon your conscien●os; To thus we present this for physic, The whole need not a Physician, but the sick do. If you mistake yourselves to be well, or think you have physic enough at home, knowledge enough, divinity enough, to save you without us, you need no Physician; that is, a Physician can do you no good; but then is this God's physic, and God's Physician welcome unto you, if you be come to a remorseful sense, and to an humble, and penitent acknowledgement, that you are sick, and that there is no soundness in your flesh, because of his anger, nor any rest in your bones, because of your sins, till you turn upon him, in whom this anger is appeased, and in whom these sins are forgiven, the Son of his love, the Son of his right hand, at his right hand Christ Jesus. And to this glorious Son of God, etc. SERMON XXI. Preached at Lincoln's Inn. PSALM 38. 4. For mine iniquities are gone over my head, as a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. DAvid having in the former verses of this Psalm assigned a reason, why he was bound to pray, because he was in misery, (O Lord rebuke me not in thine anger, for thine arrows stick fast in me) And a reason why he should be in misery, because God was angry, (Thy hand presseth 〈◊〉 v. 2. And, there is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, 〈◊〉 And a reason, why God should be angry, because he had finned, (There is no 〈◊〉 my bones, because of my sin, in the same verse) He proceeds to a reason, why this prayer of his must be vehement, why these miseries of his are so violent, and why God's anger is permanent, and he finds all this to be, because in his sins, all these venomous qualities, vehemence, violence, and continuance, were complicated, and enwrapped; for, he had sinned vehemently, in the rage of lust, and violently, in the effusion of blood, and permanently in a long, and senseless security. They are all contracted in this Text, into two kinds, which will be our two parts, in handling these words; first, the supergressa super, Mine iniquities are gone over my head, there's the multiplicity, the number, the succession, and so the continuation of his sin: and then, the Gravatae super, My sins are as a heavy burden, too heavy for me, there's the greatness, the weight, the insupportablenesse of his sin. S. Augustine calls these two distinctions, or considerations of sin, Ignorantiam, & Difficultatem; first, that David was ignorant, that he saw not the Tide, as it swelled up upon him, Abyssus Abyssum, Depth called upon Depth; and, all thy waters, and all thy billows are gone ever me, (says he in another place) he perceived them not coming till they were over him, he discerned not his particular sins, Ps. 42. 7. than when he committed them, till they came to the supergressae super, to that height, that he was overflowed, surrounded, his iniquities were gone over his head, and in that S. Aug. notes Ignorantism, his in-observance, his inconsideration of his own case; and then he notes Difficultatem, the hardness of recovering, because he that is under water, hath no air to see by, no air to hear by, he hath nothing to reach to, he touches not ground, to push him up, he feels no bough to pull him up, and therein that Father notes Difficultatem, the hardness of recovering. Now Moses expresses these two miseries together, in the destruction of the Egyptians, in his song, after Israel's deliverance, and the Egyptians submersion, The Depths have covered them, (there's the supergressa super, their iniquities, in that punishment of their iniquities, Exod. 15. 5. were gone over their heads) And then, They sank into the bottom as a stone (says Moses) there's the gravata super, they depressed them, suppressed them, oppressed them, they were under them, and there they must lie. The Egyptians had, David had, we have too many sins, to swim above water, and too great sins to get above water again, when we are sunk; The number of sins then, and the greatness of sin, will be our two parts; the dangers are equal, to multiply many lesser sins, or to commit a few, more heinous: except the danger be greater, (as indeed it may justly seem to be) in the multiplication, and custom, and habit of lesser sins; but how great is the danger then, how desperate is our state, when our sins are great in themselves, and multiplied too? In his many sins, we shall touch thus many circumstances: First, Divisio. they were pecca●a, sins, iniquities; and then peccata sua, his sins, his iniquities, which intimates actual sins; for though God inflict miseries for original sin, (death, and that, that induces it, sickness, and the like) yet those are miseries common to all, because the sin is so too; But these, are his punishments, personal calamities, and the sins are his own sins; And then, (which is a third circumstance) they are sins in the plural, God is not thus angry for one sin; And again, they are such sins, as have been long in going, and are now got over, supergressae sunt, they are gone, gone over; And then lastly, for that first part, supergressae Caput, they are gone my head. In which exaltation, is intimated all this; first, sicut tectum, sicut fornix, they are over his head, as a roof, as a ceiling, as an Arch, they have made a wall of separation, betwixt God and us, so they are above our head; And then sicut clamour, they are ascended as a noise, they are got up to heaven, and cry to God for vengeance, so they are above our head; And again sicut aquae, they are risen and swollen as waters, they compass us, they smother us, they blind us, they stupefy us, so they are above our head; But lastly and principally, sicut Dominus, they are got above us, as a Tyrant, and an usurper, for so they are above our head too: And in these we shall determine our first part. When from thence we come to our second part, in which, (as in this we shall have done their number) we shall consider their greatness, we find them first heavy sin is no light matter; And then, they are too heavy, a little weight would but ballast us, this sinks us; Too heavy for me, even for a man equal to David; and where is he? when is that man? for, says our text, they are as heavy, Burden; And the nature, and inconvenience of a Burden is, first to Crooken, and bend us downward from our natural posture, which is erect, for this incurvation implies a declination in the inordinate love of the Creature, Incurvat. And then the nature of a burden is, to Tyre us; our very sin becomes fulsome, and wearisome to us, fatigat; and it hath this inconvenience too, ut retardet, it slackens our pace, in our right course though we be not tried, yet we cannot go so fast, as we should in any way towards godliness; and lastly, this is the inconvenience of a burden too, ut praecipitet, it makes us still apt and ready to stumble, and to fall under it: It crookens us, it deprives us of our rectitude; it tires us, extinguishes our alacrity; It slackens us, enfeebles and intepidates our zeal; It occasions our stumbling, opens and submits us, to every emergent tentation. And these be the dangers, and the mischievous inconveniences, notified to us, in those two Elegancies of the holy Ghost, the supergressae, the multiplicity of sins, They are gone over my head, and the gravatae, They are a heavy burden, too heavy for me. First then, all these things are literally spoken of David; By application, of us; David. and by figure, of Christ. Historically, David; morally, we; Typically, Christ is the subject of this text. In David's person, we shall insist no longer upon them, but only to look upon the two general parts, the multiplicity of his sin, and the weight and greatness thereof: And that only in the matter of Vriah, as the Holy Ghost, 1 Reg. 15. 5. (without reproaching the adultery or the murder, after David's repentance) vouchsafes to mollify his manifold, and his heinous sin. First, he did wrong to a loyal and a faithful servant; and who can hope to be well served, that does so? He corrupted that woman, who for aught appearing to the contrary, had otherwise preserved her honour, Psal. 50. 18. and her Conscience entire; It is a sin, To run with a thief when thou seest him, or to have thy p●rtion with them that are adulterers already; to accompany them in their sin, who have an inclination to that sin before, is a sin; but to solicit them, who have no such inclination, nor, but for thy solicitation, would have had, is much more inexcusable. In David's sin, there was thus much more, he defrauded some, to whom his love was due, in dividing himself with a strange woman. To steal from another man, though it be to give to the poor, and to such poor, as would otherwise starve, if that had not been stolen, is injustice, is a sin. To divide that heart, which is entirely given to a wife, in marriage, with another woman, is a sin, though she, to whom it is so given, pretend, or might truly suffer much torment and anguish if it were not done. David's sin flew up to a higher sphere; He drew the enemy to blaspheme the name of God, in the victory over Israel, where Vriah was slain: God hates nothing more in great persons, than that prevarication, to pretend to assist his cause, and promove his Religion, and yet underhand give the enemies of that Religion, way to grow greater. His sins, indeed, were too many to be numbered; too great too, to be weighed in comparison with others. Vriah was innocent towards him, and faithful in his employment, and, at that time, in an actual, and in a dangerous service, for his person, for the State, for the Church. Him David betrays in his letter to joab; Him David makes the instrument of his own death, by carrying those letters, the warrants of his own execution; And he makes joab, a man of honour, his instrument for a murder to cover an adultery. Thus many sins, and these heavy degrees of sin, were in this one; and how many, and how weighty, were in that, of numbering of his people, 1 Ch●on. 21. 1. we know not. We know, that Satan provoked him to do it; and we know, that joab, who seconded and accomplished his desire in the murder of Vriah, did yet dissuade, and dis-counsell this numbering of the people, and not out of reason of State, but as an express sin. Put all together, and less than all, we are sure David belied not himself, ver. 3. His iniquities were gone over his head, and as a heavy burden, they were too heavy for him; Though this will be a good rule, for the most part, in all Davids confessions and lamentations, that though that be always literally true of himself, for the sin, or for the punishment, which he says, personally David did suffer, that which he complains of in the Psalms, in a great measure, yet David speaks prophetically, as well as personally, and to us, who exceed him in his sins, the exaltation of those miseries, which we find so often in this book, are especially intended; That which David relates to have been his own case, he foresees will be ours too, in a higher degree. And that's our second, and our principal object of all those circumstances, in the multiplicity, and in the heinousness of sin; And therefore, to that second part, these considerations in ourselves, we make thus much haste. First then, they were peccata, sins, iniquities. And we must not think to ease ourselves in that subtlety of the School, Peccatum nihil; That sin is nothing, because sin We are not all Davids, amabiles, lovely and beloved in that measure that David was, Sua. men according to God's heart: But we are all adam's, terrestres, and lutosis, earth, and dirty earth, red, and bloody earth, and therefore in ourselves, as derived from him, let us find, and lament all these numbers, and all these weights of sin. Here we are all born to a patrimony, to an inheritance; an inheritance, a patrimony of sin; and we are all good husbands, and thrive too fast upon that stock, upon the increase of sin, even to the treasuring up of sin, and the wrath of God for sin. How naked soever we came out of our mother's womb, otherwise, thus we came all apparelled, apparelled and invested in sin; And we multiply this wardrobe, with new habits, habits of customary sins, every day. Every man hath an answer to that question of the Apostle, What hast thou, that thou hast not received from God? Every man must say, I have pride in my heart, wantonness in mine eyes, oppression in my hands; and that I never received from God. Our sins are our own; and we have a covetousness of more; a way, to make other men's sins ours too, by drawing them to a fellowship in our sins. I must be beholden to the loyalty and honesty of my wife, whether my children be mine own, or no; for, he whose eye waiteth for the evening, the adulterer, may rob me of that propriety. I must be beholden to the protection of the Law, whether my goods shall be mine, or no; A potent adversary, a corrupt Judge may rob me of that propriety. I must be beholden to my Physician, whether my health, and strength shall be mine, or no; A garment negligently left off, a disorderly meal may rob me of that propriety. But without ask any man leave, my sins will be mine own. When the presumptuous men say, Our lips are our own, and our tongues are our own, Ps. 12. the Lord threatens to cut off those lips, and those tongues. But except we do come to say, Our sins are our own, God will never cut up that root in us, God will never blot out the memory in himself, of those sins. Nothing can make them none of ours, but the avowing of them, the confessing of them to be ours. Only in this way, I am a holy liar, and in this the God of truth will reward my lie; for, if I say my sins are mine own, they are none of mine, but, by that confessing and appropriating of those sins to myself, they are made the sins of him, who hath suffered enough for all, my blessed Lord, and Saviour Christ Ies●s. Therefore that servant of God, S. August. confesses those sins, which he never did, to be his sins, and to have been forgiven him: Peccata mihi dimissa a fate●r & quae med sponte feci, & quae te duce non feci; Those sins which I have done, and those, which, but for thy grace, I should have done, are all, my sins. Alas, I may die here, and die under an everlasting condemnation of fornication with that woman, that lives, and dies a Virgin, and be damned for a murderer of that man, that outlives me, and for a robbery, and oppression, where no man is damnified, nor any penny lost. The sin that I have done, the sin that I would have done, is my sin. We must not therefore transfer our sins upon any other. We must not think to discharge ourselves upon a Peccata Patris; To come to say, Non patris. My father thrived well in this course, why should not I proceed in it? My father was of this Religion, why should not I continue in it? How often is it said in the Scriptures, of evil Kings, he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in via Patris, in the way of his father? father in the singular; It is never said plurally, In via Patrum; in the way of his fathers. God's blessings in this world, are expressed so, in the plural, thou gavest this land patribus, to their fathers, says Solomon, in the dedication of the Temple; 1 Reg. 8. 48. y. 53. y. 57 37. 25. And, thou brought'st Patres, our Fathers out of Egypt; And again, Be with us, Lord, as thou wast with our Fathers; So; in Ezekiel, where your Fathers dwelled, you, their children, shall dwell too, and your children, and their children's children for ever. His blessings upon his Saints, his holy ones in this world, are expressed so, plurally, and so is the transmigration of his Saints out of this world also; Thou shalt sleep cum patribus, Deut. 31. 13. with thy fathers, says God to Moses; And David slept cum patribus, with his fathers; And jacob had that care of himself, as of that in which consisted, 1 Reg. 2. 10. or in which, was testified the blessing of God, I will lie cum patribus, with my fathers, and be buried in their burying place, says jacob to his son joseph Good ways, Gen. 47. 30. and good ends are in the plural, and have many examples; else they are not good, but sins are in the singular, He walked in the way of his father, is in an ill way: But carry our manners, or carry our Religion high enough, and we shall find a good rule in our fathers: Stand in the way, says God in jeremy, and ask for the old way, which is the good way. 6. 16. We must put off veterem hominem, but not antiq●●m; We may put off that Religion, which we think old, because it is a little elder than ourselves, and not rely upon that, it was the Religion of my Father. But Antiquissimum die●um, Him, whose name is, He that is, and was, and is for ever, and so involves, and enwraps in himself all the Fathers, him we must put on. Be that our issue with our adversaries at Rome, By the Fathers, the Fathers in the plural, when those father's unanimely deliver any thing dogmatically, for matter of faith, we are content to be tried by the Fathers, the Fathers in that plural. But by that 〈◊〉 Father, who beggars his children, not upon the true mother, the Church, but upon the Court, and so produces articles of faith, according as State businesses, and civil occasions invite him, by that father we must refuse to be tried: for, to limit it in particular, to my father, we must say with Nehemiah, Ege & domus patris mei, Nchem. 1. If I make my father's house my Church, my father my Bishop, I, and my father's house have sinned, says he; and with Mordecai to Esther, Thou, and thy father's house shall be destroyed. 4. 51. They are not 〈◊〉 a patris, I cannot excuse my sins, upon the example of my father: nor are they 〈◊〉 Temp●ris, Non temp●ris. I cannot discharge my sins upon the Times, and upon the present ill disposition that reigns in men now, and do ill, because every body else does so. To say, there is a rot, and therefore the sheep must perish, Corruptions in Religion are crept in, and work in every cornet, and therefore God's sheep, simple souls, must be content to admit the infection of this rot. That there is a murrain, and therefore cattle must die, superstition practised in many places and therefore the strong servants of God, must come to sacrifice their obedience to it, or their blood for it. Then no such rot, no such murrain, no such corruption of times, as can lay a necessity, or can afford in excuse so them who are corrupted with the times. As it is not pax temporis, such a State-peace, us takes away honour, that secures a Nation, nor such a Church-peace, as takes away ze●l, that secures a conscience, so neither is it peccatum temporis, an observation what other men incline to, but what truth, what integrity thou declin'st from, that appertains to thy consideration. It is not peccatum ●●atis; not the sin of thy father, not the sin of the times, Non aetatis. not the sin of thine own years. That thou shouldest say in thy old age, in excuse of thy Covetousness, All these things have I observed from my youth, I have lived temperately, continently all my life, and therefore may be allowed one sin for mine case in mine age. Or, that thou shouldest say in thy youth, I will rear myself in mine age, and live contentedly with a little then, but now, how vain were it to go about to keep out a tide, or to quench the heats, and imperuous violence of youth? But ●uge ●venilis defideria 〈◊〉 also youthful lusts; 2 Tim. 2. 22. And left God hear not thee at last, when thou comost with that petition, Remember not the sins of my youth, Remember thou thy Creator, Ps. 25. 7. Eccles. 12. 1. now in the days of thy youth: for, if thou think it enough to say, I have but lived as other men have lived, wantonly, thou wilt find some examples to die by too, and die, as other old men, old in years, and old in sins, have died too, negligently, or fearfully; without any sense at all, or all their sense turned into fearful apprehensions, and desperation. They are not peccata et atis, such sins, as men of that age must needs commit, Non artis. nor pec●● ar●tis, such sins as men of thy calling, or thy profession, cannot avoid; that thou shouldst say, I shall not be believed to understand my profession, as well as other men, if I live not by it, as well as other men do. Is there no being a Carpenter, Esa. 44. 13. but that after he hath warmed him by the chips, and baked, and roasted by it, he must needs make an idol of his wood, & worship it? Is there no being a Silver-smith, Acts 19 24. but he must needs make shrines for Dia●a of the Ephesians, as Demetrius did? No being a Lawyer, without serving the passion of the Client? no being a Divine, without sowing pillows under great men's elbows? It is not the sin of thy Calling that oppresses thee; As a man may commit a massacre, in a single murder and kill many in one man, if he kill one, upon whom many depended, so is that man a general libeler, that defames a lawful Calling, by his abusing thereof; that lives so scandalously in the Ministry, as to defame the Ministry itself, or so imperiously in the Magistracy, as to defame the Magistracy itself, as though it were but an engine, and instrument of oppression, or so unjustly in any Calling, as his abuse dishno●rs the Calling itself. God hath instituted Calling, for the conservation of order in general, not for the justification of disorders in any particular. For he that justifies his faults by his calling, hath not yet received that calling from above, whereby he must be justified, and sanctified in the way, and glorified in the end. There is no lawful calling, in which, a man may not be an honest man. It is not peccatum Magistratus, thou canst not excuse thyself upon the unjust command of thy superior; Non Magistratus. that's the blind and implicit obedience practised in the Church of Rome; Nor peccatum Pastoris, the ill example of thy Pastor, whose life counter-preaches his doctrine, for, that shall aggravate his, but not excuse thy sin; Nor Peccata Coeli, the influence of Stars, concluding a fatality, amongst the Gentiles, or such a working of a necessary, and inevitable, and unconditioned Decree of God, as may shut up the ways of a Religious walking in this life, or a happy resting in the life to come; It is none of these, not the sin of thy Father, not the sin of the present times, not the sin of thy years, and age, nor of thy calling, nor of the Magistrate, nor of thy Pastor, nor of Destiny, nor of decrees, but it is peccatum tuum, thy sin, thy own sin. And not only thy sin so, as Adam's sin is communicated to thee, by propagation of Original sin; for, so thou mightest have some colour to discharge thyself upon him, as he did upon Eve, and Eve upon the Serpent; Though in truth it make no difference, in this spiritual debt, of that sin, who is first in the bond: Adam may stand first, but yet thou art no surety but a Principal, and for thyself; and he, and thou are equally subject to the penalty. For though Saint Augustine confess, that there are many things concerning Original sin, of which he is utterly ignorant, yet of this he would have no man ignorant, that to the guiltiness of original sin, our own wills concur as well as to any actual sin: An involuntary act, cannot be a sinful act; and though our will work not now, in the admitting of original sin, which enters with our soul in our conception, or in our inanimation and quickening, yet, at first, August. Sicut ominium natura, ita omnium voluntates erant in Adam, as every man was in Adam, so every faculty of every man, and consequently the will of every man concurred to that sin, which therefore lies upon every man now: So that that debt, Original sin, is as much thine as his; And for the other debts, which grow out of this debt, (as nothing is so generative, so multiplying, as debts are, especially spiritual debts, sins) for actual sins, they are thine, out of thine own choice; Thou mightest have left them undone, and wouldst needs do them; for God never induces any man into a perplexity, that is, into a necessity of doing any particular sin. Thou couldst have dissuaded a Son, or a friend, or a servant, from that sin, which thou hast embraced thyself: Thou hast been so far from having been forced to those sins, which thou hast done, as that thou hast been sorry, thou couldst not do them, in a greater measure. They are thine, thine own, so, as that thou canst not discharge thyself upon the Devil; Chrysost. but art, by the habit of sin, become Spontaneus Damon, a Devil to thyself, and wouldst minister tentations to thyself, though there were no other Devil. And this is our propriety in sin; They are our own. This is the propriety of thy sin; The next is the Plurality, the multiplicity, iniquitates; Not only the committing of one sin often; and yet, Plural. he deceives himself in his account dangerously, that reckons but upon one sin, because he is guilty but of one kind of sin. Would a man say he had but one wound, if he were shot seven times in the same place? Could the jews deny, that they flayed Christ, with their second or third or twentieth blow, because they had torn skin, and flesh, with their former scourges, and had left nothing but bones to wound? But it is not only that, the repeating of the same sin often, but it is the multiplicity of divers kinds of sins, that is here lamented in all our behalves. It is not when the conscience is tender, and afraid of every sin, 2 Reg. 5. and every appearance of sin. When Naaman desired pardon of God by the Prophet, for sustaining the King upon his knees, in the house of Rimmon, the Idol, and the Prophet bade him go in peace, it is not that he allows him any peace under the conscience, and guiltiness of a sin; That was indispensable. Neither is their any dispensation in Naaman's case, but only a rectifying of a tender and timoruos conscience, that thought that to be a sin, which was not, if it went no further, but to the exhibiting of a Civil duty to his Master, in what place soever, Religious, or profane, that service of kneeling were to be done. Naaman's service was truly no sin; but it had been a sin in him to have done it, when he thought it to be a sin. And therefore the Prophet's phrase, Go in peace, may well be interpreted so, set thy mind at rest● for all that, that thou requirest, may be done without sin. Now that tenderness of conscience is not in our case in the Text. He that proceeds so, to examine all his actions, may meet scruples all the way, that may give him some anxiety and vexation, but he shall never come to that overflowing of sin, intended in this plurality, and multiplicity here. For, this plurality, this multiplicity of sin, hath found first a spunginess in the soul, an aptness to receive any liquor, to embrace any sin, that is offered to it, and after a while, a hunger and thirst in the soul, to hunt, and pant and draw after a tentation, and not to be able to endure any vacuum, any discontinuance, or intermission of sin: and he will come to think it a melancholic thing, still to stand in fear of Hell; a sordid, a yeomanly thing, still to be ploughing, and weeding, and worming a conscience; mechanical thing, still to be removing logs, or filing iron, still to be busied in removing occasions of tentation, or filing and clearing particular actions: and, at last he will come to that case, which S. Augustine out of an abundant ingenuity, and tenderness, and compunction, confesses of himself, Ne vituperarer; vitiosior fiebam, I was fain to sin, left I should lose my credit, and be undervalved; Et ubi non suberat, quo admisso, aquarer perditis, when I had no means to do some sins, whereby I might be equal to my fellow, Fingebam me fecisse quod non feceram, ne viderer abjectior, quo innocentior, I would belly myself, and say I had done that, which I never did, lest I should be undervalved for not having done it. Audiebam eos exaltantes flagitia, says that tender blessed Father, I saw it was thought wit, to make Sonnets of their own sins, Et libebat facere, non libidine facti, sed libidine laudis, I sinned, not for the pleasure I had in the sin, but for the pride that I had to write feelingly of it. O what a Leviathan is sin, how vast, how immense a body! And then, what a spawner, how numerous! Between these two, the denying of sins, which we have done, and the bragging of sins, which we have not done, what a space, what a compass is there, for millions of millions of sins! And so have you the nature of sin, which was our first; The propriety of sin, which was our second; and the plurality, the multiplicity of sin, which was our third branch; And follows next, the exaltation thereof; supergressae sunt, My sins are gone over my head. They are, that is, they are already got above us; Supergressae sunt. for in that case we consider this plural, this manifold sinner, that he hath slipped his time of preventing, or resisting his sins; His habits of sins are got, already got above him. 1 Reg. 18. 41. Elisha bids his man look towards the Sea, and he saw nothing; He bids him look again, and again to a seventh time, and he saw nothing. After all, he sees but a little cloud, like a man's hand; and yet, upon that little appearance, the Prophet warns the King, to get him into his Chariot, and make good haste away, lest the rain stopped his passage, for, instantly the heaven was black, with clouds, and rain. The sinner will see nothing, till he can see nothing; and, when he sees any thing, (as to the blindest conscience something will appear) he thinks it but a little cloud, but a melancholic fit, and, in an instant, (for 7 years make but an instant to that man, that thinks of himself, but once in 7 years) Supergresae sunt, his sins are got above him, and his way out is stopped. The Sun is got over us now, though we saw none of his motions, and so are our sins, though we saw not their steps. You know how confident our adversaries are in that argument, Why do ye oppugn our doctrine of prayer for the dead, or of Invocation of Saints, or of the fire of Purgatory, since you cannot assign us a time, when these doctrines came into the Church, or that they were opposed or contradicted, when they entered? When a conscience comes to that inquisition, to an iniquitates supergressae, to consider that our sins are gone over our head, in any of those ways, which we have spoken of if we offer to awaken that conscience farther, it startles, & it answers us drowsily, or frowardly, like a new waked man, Can you remember when you sinned this sin first, or did you resist it then, or since? whence comes this troublesome singularity now? pray let me sleep still, says this startled conscience. Beloved, if we fear not the wetting of our foot in sin, it will be too late, when we are over head and ears. God's deliverance of his children, was sicco pede, he made the sea dry land, and they wet not their foot. At first, in the creation, Exod. 14. subjecit omnia sub pedibus, God put all things under their feet; In man's ways, in this world, his Angels bear us up in their hands; why? Ne impingamus pedem, Ps. 8. 7. that we should not hurt our foot against a stone, but have a care of every step we make. If thou have defiled thy feet, (strayed into any unclean ways) wash them again, and stop there, and that will bring thee to the consideration of the Spouse, I have washed my feet, Cant. 5. 3. how shall I then defile them again? I have found mercy for my former sins, how shall I dare to provoke God with more? still God appoints us a permanent means to tread sin under our feet here, in this life; The woman, that is, the Church, hath the Moon, that is, all transitory things, Apoc. 12. (& so, all tentations) under her feet; As Christ himself expressed his care of Peter, to consist in that, That if his feet were washed, all was clean; And as in his own person he admitted nails in his feet, as well as in his hands, so crucify thy hands, abstain from unjust actions but crucify thy feet too, make not one step towards the way of Idolaters, or other sinners. If we watch not the ingressus sum, we shall be insensible of the supergressae sunt; If we look not to a sin, when it comes towards us, we shall not be able to look towards it, when it is got over us: for, if a man come to walk in the counsel of the ungodly, he will come to fit in the seat of the scornful; for, that's the sinner's progress, in the first warning that David gives in the beginning of his 1t Psal. If he give himself leave to enter into sinful ways, he will sit & sin at ease, & make a jest of sin; & he that loveth danger, shall perish therein. So have you then the nature of sin; it was sin; it was sin that oppressed him; and the propriety of sin, it was his sin, actual sin; and the plurality of sin, habitual, customary sin and the victory of sin, they had been long climbing, and were now got up to a height; and this height & exaltation of theirs, is expressed thus, super caput, Mine iniquities are got above my head. S. Augustine, (who truly had either never true copy of the Bible, Super caput. or else cited sometimes, as the words were in his memory, and not as they were in the Text) he reads not these words so, supergressae super caput, but thus, sustulerunt caput; And so he interprets the words, not that his sins had got over his head, and depressed his head, subdued and subjugated his head, but that they had extolled his head, made him life his head high, and say, Who is the Lord? Sursum tellitur, says he upon this place cui erigitur caput contra Deum, his head is exalted, who is set against God. And certainly, that's a desperate state in sin, when a man thinks himself the wiser, or the better, or the more powerful for his sin; That he can the better stand upon his own legs, or the less needs the assistance of God, because he hath prospered in the world, by the ways of sin. S. August is an useful mistaking, but it is a mistaking. But to pursue the right word, and the true meaning of this metaphorical expressing, supergressae caput, My sins are got above my head, sin may be got to our foot, & yet not to the eye. A man may stray into company of tentations, & yet not be tempted; A man may make a covenant with his eye, that he will not see a maid. job. Sin may come to the eye, & yet the hand be above water; we may look, & lust, & yet, by God's watchful goodness, & studious mercy, escape action. But if it be above our head, than the brain is drowned that is, our reason, and understanding, which should dispute against it, and make us ashamed of it, or afraid of it; And our memory is drowned, we have forgot that there belongs a repentance to our sins, perchance forgot that there is such a sin in us; forgot that those actions are sins, forgot that we have done those actions; and forgot that there is a law, even in our own hearts, by which we might try, whether our actions were sins, or no. If they be above our heads, they are so, in many dangerous acceptations. Of which, the first is, that they cover our heads sicut tectum, sicut fornix, as a roof, as an arch, as a separation between God and us. Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, says the Prophet. Tectum. Esa. 59 2. A wall of separation between man and man, even in the service of God, there was always; a wall of Gods making; that is, the Ceremonial Law, by which God enclosed the jews from the Gentiles. But this was but a side wall, and Christ threw it down; He is our peace, Eph. 2. 14. says the Apostle, and hath made of both one, and hath broken the stop of the partition wall; This he did when he opened the Gentiles a way into his religion. This wall was the distinction between the jew, & Gentile, when the jew called the ignominiously Incircumcisos, uncircumcised, and they called the jews, with as much scorn, Recutitoes, & Apellas; when the jew wondered at the Gentises eating of unclean things, and the Gentiles wondered to hear them call things, of as good nourishment, as their clean meats, unclean; when the jew placed his holiness in singularity, and ceremonies of distinction, and the Gentiles called that but a pride in them, and a scornful detestation of their neighbours. And truly it is a lamentable thing, when ceremonial things in matter of discipline, or problematical things in matter of doctrine, come so far, as to separate us from one another, in giving ill names to one another. Zeal is directed upon God, and charity upon our brethren, but God will not be seen, but by that spectacle; not accept any thing for an act of zeal to himself, that violates charity towards our brethren, by the way. Neither should we call any man Lutheran, or Calvinist, or by any other name, ignominiously, but for such things, as had been condemned in Luther, or Calvin, and condemned by such, as are competent Judges between them, and us; that is, by the universal, or by our own Church. This wall then, between the jew and Gentile, (as it was the ceremony itself, and not the abuse of it) God built, and Christ threw down. There are outward things, Ceremonial things, in the worship of God, that are temporary, and they did serve God that brought them in, and they do serve God also, that have driven them out of the Church, because their undeniable abuse had clogged them with an impossibility of being restored to that good use, which they were at first ordained for; of which, the brazen serpent is evidence enough. God set up a wall, which God himself meant should be demolished again. Such another wall, (as well as the Devil can imitate God's workmanship) the Devil hath built now in the Christian Church; and hath mortered it in the brains & blood of men, in the sharp and virulent contentions arisen, and fomented in matters of Religion. But yet, says the Spouse, Cant. 2. 9 My well bel●ved stands behind the wall, showing himself through the grates: he may be seen on both sides. For all this separation, Christ Jesus is amongst us all, and in his time, will break down this wall too, these differences amongst Christians, & make us all glad of that name, the name of Christians, without affecting in ourselves, or inflicting upon others, other names of envy, and subdivision. But besides this wall of Gods making, the Ceremonial law, & this wall of the Devils making, dissension in Christian Churches, there is a wall of our own making, a roof, an arch above our heads, by which our continual sins have separated God and us. God had covered himself with a cloud, so that prayer could not pass through; That was the misery of jerusalem. But in the acts and habits of sin, Lam. 3. 44. we cover ourselves, with a roof, with an arch, which nothing can shake, nor remove, but Thunder, and Earthquakes, that is, the execution of God's fiercest judgements; And whether in that fall of the roof, that is, in the weight of God's judgements upon us, the stones shall not brain us, overwhelm and smother, and bury us, God only knows. How his Thunders, and his Earthquakes, when we put him to that, will work upon us, he only knows, whether to our amendment, or to our destruction. But whilst we are in the consideration of this arch, this roof of separation, between God and us, by sin, there may be use in imparting to you, an observation, a passage of mine own. Lying at Ai● at Aquisgrane, a well known Town in Germany, and fixing there some time, for the benefit of those Baths, I found myself in a house, which was divided into many families, & indeed so large as it might have been a little Parish, or, at least, a great limb of a great one; But it was of no Parish: for when I asked who lay over my head, they told me a family of Anabaptists; And who over theirs? Another family of Anabaptists; and another family of Anabaptists over theirs; and the whole house, was a nest of these boxes; several artificers; all Anabaptists; I asked in what room they met, for the exercise of their Religion; I was told they never met: for, though they were all Anabaptists, yet for some collateral differences, they detested one another, and, though many of them, were near in blood & alliance to one another yet the son would excommunicate the father, in the room above him, and the Nephew the Uncle. As S. john is said to have quitted that Bath, into which Cerinthus the Heretic came, so did I this house; I remembered that Hezekiah in his sickness, turned himself in his bed, to pray towards that wall; that looked to jerusalem; And that Daniel in Babylon, when he prayed in his chamber, opened those windows that looked towards jerusalem; for, in the first dedication of the Temple, at jerusalem, there is a promise annexed to the prayers made towards the Temple: And I began to think, how many roofs, how many floors of separation, were made between God and my prayers in that house. And such is this multiplicity of sins, which we consider to be got over us, as a roof, as an arch, many arches, many roofs: for, though these habitual sins, be so of kin, as that they grow from one another, and yet for all this kindred excommunicate one another, (for covetousness will not be in the same room with prodigality) yet it is but going up another stair, and there's the t'other Anabaptist; it is but living a few years, and then the prodigal becomes covetous. All the way, they separate us from God, as a roof, as an arch, & then, an arch will bear any weight; An habitual sin got over our head as an arch will stand under any sickness, any dishonour, any judgement of God, and never sink towards any humiliation. They are above our heads, sicus tectum, as a roof, as an arch, Clamour. and they are so toe sicut clamour, as a voice ascending, & not stopping, till they come to God. O my God, I am confounded and ashamed to lift up mine eyes to there, O my God; why not thine eyes? Ezra 9 6. there is a cloud, a clamour in the way; for as it follows, Our iniquities are increased over our heads, and our trespass is grown up to the heaven. I think to retain a learned man of my counsel, and one that is suit to be heard in the Court, and when I come to instruct him, I find mine adversaries name in his book before, and he is all ready for the other party. I think to find an Advocate in heaven, when I will, and my sin is in heaven before me. The voice of Abel's blood, and so, of cain's sin, was there: The voice of Sodoms' transgression was there. Bring down that sin again from heaven to earth: Bring that voice that cries in heaven, to speak to Christ here in his Church, upon earth, by way of confession; bring that clamorous sin to his blood, to be washed in the Sacrament; for, as long as thy sin cries in heaven, thy prayers cannot be heard there. Bring thy sin under Christ's feet there, when he walks amongst the Candlesticks, in the light, and power of his Ordinances in the Church, and then, thine absolution will be upon thy head, in those seals which he hath instituted, and ordained there, and thy cry will be silenced. Till then, supergr●sse, caput, thine iniquities will be over thy head, as a roof, as a cry, and, in the next place, sicut aqua, as the overflowing of waters. We consider this plurality, this multiplicity of habitual sins, to be got over our heads, as waters, especially in this, that they have stupefied us, Aqua. and taken from us all sense of reparation of our sinful condition. The Organ that God hath given the natural man, is the eye; he sees God in the creature. The Organ that God hath given the Christian, is the ear; he hears God in his Word. But when we are under water, both senses, both Organs are vitiated, and depraved, if not defeated. The habitual, and manifold sinner, sees nothing aright; He sees a judgement, and calls it an accident. He hears nothing aright; He hears the Ordinance of Preaching for salvation in the next world, and he calls it an invention of the State, for subjection in this world. And as under water, every thing seems distorted and crooked, to man, so does man himself to God, who sees not his own Image in that man, in that form as he made it. When man hath drunk iniquity like water, job 15. 16. then, The floods of wickadnesse shall make him afraid; The water that he hath swum in, the sin that he hath delighted in, Ps. 18. 4. shall appear with horror unto him. As God threatens the pride of Tyrus, Ezck. 26. 19 I shall bring the deep upon thee, and great waters shall cover thee, That, God will execute upon this sinner; And then, upon every drop of that water, upon every affliction, every tribulation, he shall come to that fearfulness, Waters flowed over my head; then said I, Lam. 3. 54. I am c●● off; Either he shall see nothing, or see no remedy, no deliverance from desperation. Keep low these waters, as waters signify sin, and God shall keep them low, as they signify punishments; And his Dove shall return to the Ark with an Olive leaf, Gen. 8. 8. to show thee that the waters are abated; he shall give thee a testimony of the return of his love, in his Oil, and Wine, and Milk, and Honey, in the temporal abundances of this life. And, si impleat Hydrias aqua, if he do fill all your vessels with water, job. 2. 7. with water of bitterness, that is, fill and exercise all your patience, and all your faculties with his corrections, yet he shall do that, but to change your water into wine, as he did there, he shall make his very Judgements, Sacraments, conveyances and seals of his mercy to you, though those manifold sins be got over your heads, as a roof, as a noise, as an overflowing of waters: And, that, which is the heaviest of all, and our last consideration, sicut Dominus, as a Lord, as a Tyrant, as an Usurper. Pretty redempti es●is, nolite fieri servi, says the Apostle, you are bought with a price, Dominus. therefore glorify God. There he shows you, your own value, and then, 1 Cor. 6. 20. Ne dominetur peccas●um, Let not sin have dominion over you; there he shows you the insolency of that Tyrant. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free, job. 8. 32. says Christ to the jews. Well; They stood not much upon the truth, but for the freedom, We were Abraham's seed, and were never bound to any; but Christ replies, Whosoever committesh sin, is the servant of sin; And, of whomsoever a man is overcome, 2 Pet. 9 29. to the same he is in bondage. Now we are slaves to sin, not only as we have been overcome by sin for he that is said to be overcome by sin, is presumed to have made some resistance) but as we have sold ourselves to sin, which is a worse, and a more voluntary act. There was none like him, like Ahab; 1 Reg. 21. 20. (says the holy Ghost) wherein was his singularity above all? He had sold himself, to work wickedness, in the fight of the Lord. Now, how are we sold to sin? By Adam? That's true; Ejus praevaricatione, & ut it a dicam, Cassian. Negotiatione, demnoso, & frandulento commercio venditi sumus: We were all sold under hand, fraudulently sold, and sold under foot, cheaply sold by Adam. But thus, we might seem to be sold by others; so joseph was, and no fault in himself; But we have sold ourselves since. Did not Adam sell himself too? Did God sell him by any secret Decree, or contract, between the Devil and him? Was God of counsel in that bargain? God forbid. Thus faith the Lord, Where is the bill of your mother's divorce, Esa. 50. 1. whom I have put away? or, which of my creditors is it, to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you have sold yourselves; and for your transgressions, is your mother put away. In Adam we were sold in gross; in ourselves we are sold by retail, In the first, and general sale, we all passed, even the best of us. We know the Law is spiritual, Rom. 7. 14. but I am carnal, sold under sin, says the Apostle, even of himself. But when does the Apostle say this? in what state was he, when he accuses himself of this mancipation, and sale under sin? Says he this only with relation to his former times, when he was a jew, and under the Law? Or, but then when he was newly come to the light of the Gospel, and not to a clear sight of it? It is true, that most of the Eastern Fathers, and it is true, that S. Augustine himself was of that opinion, that S. Paul said of himself, that he was sold under sin, respecting himself before his regeneration. Non qui vult esse sapiens, statim fit sapiens, says Origen; A man is not presently learned, because he hath a good desire to be learned; nor hath he that hath begun a conversion, presently accomplished his regeneration; nor is he discharged of his bargain of being sold under sin, as soon as he sees that he hath made an ill bargain. But when he grows up in grace, (say they) as S. Paul had done, when he said this, than he is discharged. But, as S. Augustine ingenuously retracts that opinion, which, (as he says) he had held, Retract. 1. c. 23. when he was a young Priest at Carthage, so is there nothing clearer, by the whole purpose of the Apostle in that place, then that he in his best state, was still sold under sin. As David speaks of himself being then regenerated, In thy sight shall no man living be justified. So S. Paul speaks of himself in his best state, still he was sold under sin, because still, that concupiscence, under which he was sold in Adam, remains in him. And that concupiscence is sin, Quia inest ei inobedientia contra domin●●m mentis. August. Because it is a rebellion against that sovereignty which God hath instituted in the soul of man, and an ambition of setting up another Prince; so it is peccatum, sin in itself; And it is poena peccati, says that Father, Quia reddita est meritis inobedientis; Because it is laid upon us for that disobedience, it hath also the nature of a punishment of sin, as well as so sin itself; And than it is Causa peccati too, Defectione consentientis, because man is so enfeebled by this inherence, and invisceration of Original sin, as that thereby he is exposed to every emergent tentation, to any actual sin. So, Original sin, is called by many of the Ancients, the cause of sin, and the effect of sin, but not so, exclusively, as that it is not sin, really sin in itself too. Now, as Original sin causes Actual, in that consideration (as we sell ourselves over again in our acts of recognition, in ratifying our first sale, by our manifold sins here) so is sin gone over our heads, by this dominion, as a Tyrant, as an usurper. Hoc lex posuit, Non concupisces; August. This is the Law, Thou shalt not covet: Non quod sic valcamus, sed ad quod persiciendo tendamus; Not that we can perform that Law, but that that Law might be a rule to direct our endeavours: Multum boni facit, qui facit quod scriptum est, Post concupiscentias tuas non eas; He does well, and well in a fair measure, that fulfils that Commandment, Thou shalt not walk in the concupiscences of thine own heart; sed non perficit, quia non implet quod scriptum est, Non concupisces, But yet, says he, he does not all that is commanded, because he is commanded not to covet at all: Vt sciat, quò debeat in hac m●●talitate conari, That that commandment might teach him, what he should labour for in this life, Et quò possit in illa immortalitate pervenire, to what perfection we shall come in the life to come, but not till then. Though therefore we did our best, yet we were sold under sin, that is, sold by Adam; but because we do not, but consent to that first sale, in our sinful acts, and habits, we have sold ourselves too, and so sin is gone over our heads; in a dominion, and in a tyrannical exercise of that dominion. If we would go about to express, by what customs of sin this dominion is established, we should be put to a necessity of entering into every profession, and every conscience. And the moral man says usefully, Si tantum irasci vis sapientem, Seneca. quantum exigit indignitas scelerum, (we will translate it in the Church tongue, and make his morality divinity) If we would have a zealous Preacher, cry out as fast, or as loud, as sins are committed, non irascendum, sed in santiendum, says he, you would not call that man an angry man, but a mad man, you would not call that Preacher, a zealous preacher, but a Puritan. Touch we but upon one of his reprehensions, because that may have the best use now; he considers the iniquities, and injustices, admitted, and committed in Courts of justice; and he says, Turpes lights, turpiores Advocati; Ill suits are set on foot, and worse advocates defend them. Delator est criminis qui manifestior reus, even in criminal matters, he informs against another, that should be but defendant in that crime; And (as he carries it higher) Iudex damnaturus quae fesit, eligitur, the Judge himself condemns a man for that, which himself is far more guilty of, than the prisoner. Nullus nisi ex alieno damno quaestus, and one man grows rich, by the empoverishing of many. But than it is so in all other professions too. And this Tyranny, and dominion is justly permitted by God upon us, ut qui noluit superiorr obedire, nec et obediat inferior caro, we have been rebellious to our Sovereign, to God, and therefore our subject, the flesh, is first rebellious against us, and then Tyrannical over us. But he that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity; yea, Revel. 13. 10. Christ hath led captivity itself captive, Ephes. 4. 8. and given gifts to men; that is, he hath established his Church, where, by a good use of those means which God hath ordained for it, the most oppressed soul, may raise itself above those exaltations, and supergressions of sin; And so we have done with our first part, and with all that will enter into this time, where David in his humble spirit feels in himself, but much more in his prophetical spirit, foresees, and foretells in others, the infectious nature of sin; It is a mortal wound, and in a strange consideration; for, it is a wound upon God, and mortal upon man; And then the propriety of sin, that sin is not at all from God, nor it is not all from the Devil, but our sin is our own; Our sins in a Plurality; our sins of one kind, determine not in one sin, we sin the same sin often, and then we determine not in one kind, but slide into many. And after this multiplication of sin, the continuation thereof, to an irrecoverableness, supergressae sunt, we think not of them, till it be too late to think of them, till they produce no thought but despair; for supergressae Caput, they are got above our Heads, above our strongest faculties; Above us, in the nature of an arched roof, they keep God's grace in a separation from us, and our prayers from him, so they have the nature of a roof, and then, they feel no weight, they bend not under any judgement, which he lays upon us, so they have the nature of an Arch. Above us, as a voice, as a cry; Their voice is in possession of God, and so prevents our prayers; above us as waters, they disable our eyes, and our ears, from right conceiving all apprehensions; And above us, as Lords, and Tyrant's, that came in by conquest, and so put what Laws they list upon us. And these instructions have arisen from this first, the Multiplicity, Mine iniquities are gone over my Head, and more will from the other, the weight and burden, They are as a heavy burden, too heavy for me. SERMON XXII. Preached at Lincoln's Inn. Second Sermon on PSAL. 38. 4. For mine iniquities are gone over my head, as a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. AS the Philosopher says, if a man could see virtue, he would love it, so if a man could see sin, he would hate it. But as the eye sees every thing but itself, so does sin, too. It sees Beauty, and Honour, and Riches, but it sees not itself, not the sinful coveting and compassing of all these. To make, though not sin, yet the sinner to see himself, for the explication, and application of these words, we brought you these two lights; first, the Multiplicity of sin, in that elegancy of the holy Ghost, supergressae sunt, Mine iniquities are gone over my head, and the weight, and oppression of sin, in that, Gravatae nimis, As a heavy burden they are too heavy for me; In the first, how numerous, how manifold they are, in the other, how grievous, how insupportable; first, how many hands, then how fast hold sin lays upon me. The first of these two, was our exercise the last day, when we proposed and proceeded in these words, in which we presented to you, the dangerous multiplicity of sin, in those pieces, which constituted that part. But because, as men, how many soever, make but a Multitude, or a Throng, and not an Army, if they be unarmed, so sin, how manifold, and multiform so ever, might seem a passable thing, if it might be easily shaked off, we come now to imprint in you a sense of the weight and oppression thereof, As a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me; The particular degrees whereof, we laid down the last day, in our general division of the whole Text, and shall now pursue them, according to our order proposed then. First then, sin is heavy. Does not the sinner find it so? No marvel, Gravatae. nothing is heavy in his proper place, in his own Sphere, in his own Centre, when it is where it would be, nothing is heavy. He that lies under water finds no burden of all that water that lies upon him; but if he were out of it, how heavy would a small quantity of that water seem to him, if he were to carry it in a vessel? An habitual sinner is the natural place, the Centre of sin, and he feels no weight in it, but if the grace of God raise him out of it, that he come to walk, and walk in the ways of godliness, not only his watery Tympanies, and his dropsies, those waters which by actual and habitual sins he hath contracted, but that water, of which he is properly made, the water that is in him naturally, infused from his parents, Original sin, will be sensible to him, and oppress him. Scarce any man considers the weight of Original sin; And yet, as the strongest tentations fall upon us when we are weakest, in our deathbed, so the heavyest sin seizes us, when we are weakest; as soon as we are any thing, we are sinners, and there, where there can be no more tentations ministered to us, than was to the Angels that fell in heaven, that is, in our mother's womb, when no world, nor flesh, nor Devil could present a provocation to sin to us, when no faculty of ours is able to embrace, or second a provocation to sin, yet there, in that weakness, we are under the weight of Original sin. And truly, if at this time, God would vouchsafe me my choice, whether he should pardon me all those actual and habitual sins, which I have committed in my life, or extinguish Original sin in me, I should choose to be delivered from Original sin, because, though I be delivered from the imputation thereof, by Baptism, so that I shall not fall under a condemnation for Original sin only, yet it still remains in me, and practices upon me, and occasions all the other sins, that I commit: now, for all my actual and habitual sins, I know God hath instituted means in his Church, the Word, and the Sacraments, for my reparation; But with what a holy alacrity, with what a heavenly joy, with what a cheerful peace, should I come to the participation of these means and seals of my reconciliation, and pardon of all my sins, if I knew myself to be delivered from Original sin, from that snake in my bosom, from that poison in my blood, from that leaven and tartar in all my actions, that casts me into Relapses of those sins which I have repent? And what a cloud upon the best serenity of my conscience, what an interruption, what a dis-continuance from the sincerity and integrity of that joy, which belongs to a man truly reconciled to God, in the pardon of his former sins, must it needs be still to know, and to know by lamentable experiences, that though I wash myself with Soap, and Nit●e, and Snow water, mine own clothes will defile me again, though I have washed myself in the tears of Repentance, and in the blood of my Saviour, though I have no guiltiness of any former sin upon me at that present, yet I have a sense of a root of sin, that is not grubbed up, of Original sin, that will cast me back again. Scarce any man considers the weight, the oppression of Original sin. No man can say, that an Akorn weighs as much as an Oak; yet in truth, there is an Oak in that Akorn: no man considers that Original sin weighs as much as Actual, or Habitual, yet in truth, all our Actual and Habitual sins are in Original. Therefore Saint Paul's vehement, and frequent prayer to God, to that purpose, could not deliver him from Original sin, and that stimulus carnis, that provocation of the flesh, that Messenger of Satan, which rises out of that, God would give him sufficient grace, it should not work to his destruction, but yet he should have it: Nay, the infinite merit of Christ Jesus himself, that works so upon all actual and habitual sins, as that after that merit is applied to them, those sins are no sins, works not so upon Original sin, but that, though I be eased in the Dominion, and Imputation thereof, yet the same Original sin is in me still; and though God do deliver me from eternal death, due to mine actual and habitual sins, yet from the temporal death, due to Original sin, he delivers not his dearest Saints. Thus sin is heavy in the seed, in the grain, in the akorn, how much more when it is a field of Corn, a barn of grain, a forest of Oaks, in the multiplication, and complication of sin in sin? And yet we consider the weight of sin another way too, for as Christ feels all the afflictions of his children, so his children will feel all the wounds that are inflicted upon him; even the sins of other men; as Lots righteous soul was grieved with sins of others. If others sin by my example & provocation, or by my connivance and permission, when I have authority, their sin lies heavyer upon me, then upon themselves; for they have but the weight of their own sin; and I have mine, and theirs upon me; and though, I cannot have two souls to suffer, and though there cannot be two everlastingnesses in the torments of hell, yet I shall have two measures of those unmeasurable torments upon my soul. But if I have no interest in the sins of other men, by any occasion ministered by me, yet I cannot choose but feel a weight, a burden of a holy anguish, and compassion and indignation, because every one of these sins inflict a new wound upon my Saviour, when my Saviour says to him, that does but injure me, Why persecutest thou me, and feels the blow upon himself, shall not I say to him that wounds my Saviour, Why woundest thou me, and groan under the weight of my brother's sin, and my Fathers, my Makers, my Saviour's wound? If a man of my blood, or alliance, do a shameful act, I am affected with it; If a man of my calling, or profession, do a scandalous act, I feel myself concerned in his fault; God hath made all mankind of one blood, and all Christians of one calling, and the sins of every man concern every man, both in that respect, that I, that is, This nature, is in that man that sins that sin; and I, that is, This nature, is in that Christ, who is wounded by that sin. The weight of sin, were it but Original sin, were it but the sins of other men, is an insupportable weight. But if a sinner will take a true balance, and try the right weight of sin, let him go about to leave his sin, and then he shall see how close, and how heavily it stook to him. Then one sin will lay the weight of seelinesse, of falsehood, of inconstancy, of dishonour, of ill nature, if you go about to leave it: and another sin will lay the weight of poverty, of disestimation upon you, if you go about to leave it. One sin will lay your pleasures upon you, another your profit, another your Honour, another your Duty to wife and children, and weigh you down with these. Go but out of the water, go but about to leave a sin, and you will find the weight of it, and the hardness to cast it off. Gravatae sunt, Mine iniquities are heavy, (that was our first) and gravatae nimis, they are too heavy, which is a second circumstance. Some weight, some ballast is necessary to make a ship go steady; Nimis. we are not without advantage, in having some sin; some concupiscence, some tentation is not too heavy for us. The greatest sins that ever were committed, were committed by them, who had no former sin, to push them on to that sin: The first Angel's sin, and the sin of Adam are noted to be the most desperate and the most irrecoverable sins, and they were committed, when they had no former sin in them. The Angel's punishment is pardoned in no part; Adam's punishment is pardoned in no man, in this world. Now such sins as those, that is, sins that are never pardoned, no man commits now; not now, when he hath the weight of former sins to push him on. Though there be a heavy guiltiness in Original sin, yet I have an argument, a plea for mercy out of that, Lord, my strength is not the strength of stones, nor my flesh brass; Lord, job 6. 12. no man can bring a clean thing out of uncleanness; Lord, no man can say after, I have cleansed my heart, I am free from sin, I could not be borne clean, I could not cleanse myself since. It magnifies God's glory, it amplifies man's happiness, that he is subject to tentation. If man had been made impeccable, that he could not have sinned, he had not been so happy; for then, he could only have enjoyed that state, in which he was created, and not have risen to any better; because that better estate, is a reward of our willing obedience to God, in such things, as we might have disobeyed him in. Therefore when the Apostle was in danger, of growing too light, lest he should be exalted out of measure, 2 Cor. 12. 7. through the abundance of revelation, (says that Scripture) he had a weight hung upon him; There was something given him, therefore it was a benefit, a gift; And it was Angelus, an Angel, that was given him; But it was not a good Angel, a Tutelar, a Guardian Angel, to present good motions unto him, but it was Angelus Satane, a messenger of Satan, sent, as he says, to buffet him; and yet this hostile Angel, this messenger of Satan was a benefit, a gift, and a forerunner, and some kind of Inducer of that Grace, which was sufficient for him; and it would not have appeared to us, no nor to himself, that he had had so much of that grace, if he had not had this tentation. God is as powerful upon us when he delivers us from tentation, that it do not overtake us; but not so apparent, so evident, so manifest, as when he delivers us in a tentation, that it do not overcome us: some weight does but ballast us, as some enemies never do us more harm, but occasion us, to arm and to stand upon our guard. Therefore, this weight that is complained of here, is not In carne, in our natural flesh; (though in that be no goodness) it is nothing that God from the beginning hath imprinted in our nature, not that peceability, and possibility of sinning; nor it is not in stimule carnis, in these accessary tentations, and provocations which awaken, and provoke the malignity of this flesh, and put a sting into it; we do not consider this heavy weight to be the natural possibility which was in man, before Original sin entered, nor to be that natural proneness to sin, which is original sin itself. But it is, when we ourselves whet that sting, when we labour to break hedges, and to steal wood, and gather up a stick out of one sin, and stick out of another, and to make a faggot to load us, in this life, and burn us in the next, in multiplying sins, and aggravating circumstances, so it is Heavy, so it is too heavy, It is too heavy for me, (for that's also another circumstance) for David himself, for any man even in David's state. Though this consideration might be enlarged, Mihi. and usefully carried into this expostulation, can sin be too heavy for me, any burden of sin sink me into a dejection of spirit, that am wrapped up in the Covenans, borne of Christian Parents, that am bred up in an Orthodox, in a Reformed Church, that can persuade myself sometimes, that I am of the number of the elect; Can any sin be too heavy for me, can I doubt of the execution of his first purpose upon me, or doubt of the efficacy of his ordinances here in the Church, what sin soever I commit, can any sins be too heavy for me? yet it is enough that in this Se●, God holds no man up by the chin so, but that if he sin in confidence of that sustentation, he shall sink. But in this personal respect in our text we consider only with what weights David weighed his sins, when he found here that they were too heavy for him. He weighed his sin with his punishment, and in his punishment he saw the anger, and indignation of God, and when we see sin through that spectacle, through an angry God, it appears great, and red, and fearful unto us; when David came to see himself in his infirmity, in his deformity, when his body could not hear the punishment here in this world, he considered how insupportable a weight the sin, and the anger of God upon that sin, would be in the world to come. For me that rise to preferment by my sin, for me that come to satisfy my carnal appetites by my sin, my sin is not too heavy; But for me that suffer penury in the bottom of a plentiful state exhausted by my sin, for me that languish under diseases and putrefaction contracted by my sin, for me upon whom the hand of God lies heavy in any affliction for my sin, for me, my sins are too heavy. Till I come to hear that voice, Mat. 11. Come unto me all you that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you, till I come to consider my sin in the mercy of God, and not only in his justice, in his punishments, my sins will be too heavy for me; for, though that be a good way, to consider the justice of God, yet it is not a good end; I must stop, but not stay at it, I must consider my sin in his justice, how powerful a God I have provoked; but I must pass through his justice to his mercy; his justice is my way, but his mercy is my ledging; for we cannot tell by the construction and origination of the words, whether Cain said, My sin is greater than can b●e pardoned, or, my punishment is greater than can be borne: But it needs not be disputed; for it is all one; He that considers only the anger of God in the punishment, will think his sin unpardonable, his sin will be see heavy for him. But as a fever is well spent, when the patient is fit to take physic, so if God give me physic, if I take his corrections as medicines, and not as punishments, than my disease is well spent, my danger is well overcome; If I have buried my sins in the wounds of my Saviour, they cannot be too heavy for me, for they are not upon me at all; But if I take them out again, by relapsing into them, or imagine them to rise again, by a suspicion and jealousy in God, that he hath not forgiven them, because his hand lies still upon me, in some afflictions, so, in such a relapse, so, in such a jealous misinterpretation of Gods proceeding with me, my sins are too heavy for me; for me, because I do not sustain myself by those helps that God puts into my hands. It is heavy, too heavy, too heavy for me, says David; Onus. if you consider the elect themselves, their election will not bear them out in their sins. But here we consider the insupportablenesse, in that, wherein the holy Ghost hath presented it, Quia onus, because it lies upon me, in the nature and quality of a Burden, Mine iniquities are as a burden, too heavy for me. When all this is packed up upon me, that I am first under a Calamity, a sickness, a scorn, an imprisonment, a penury, and then upon that calamity, there is laid the anger and indignation of God, and then upon that, the weight of mine own sins; this is too much to settle me, it is enough to sink me, it is a burden, in which the danger arises from the last addition, in that, which is last laid on: for, as the sceptic Philosopher pleases himself in that argumentation, that either a penny makes a man rich, or he can never be rich, for says he, if he be not rich yet, the addition of a penny more would make him rich: or if not that penny, yet another, or another, so that at last it is the addition of a penny that makes him rich; so without any such fallacious or facetious circumvention in our case, it is the last addition, that that we look on last, that makes our burden insupportable, when upon our calamity we see the anger of God piled up, and upon that, our sin, when I come to see my sin, in that glass, in that glass, not in a Saviour bleeding for me, but in a Judge frowning upon me; when my sins are so far off from me, as that they are the last thing that I see; for, if I would look upon my sins, first, with a remorseful, a tearful, a repentant eye, either I should see no anger, no calamity; or it would not seem strange to me, that God should be angry, nor strange, that I should suffer calamities, when God is angry; Therefore is sin heavy as a burden, because it is the last thing that I lay upon myself, and feel not that till a heavy load of calamity and anger be upon me before. But then, as when we come to be unloaded of a burden, that that was las● laid on, is first taken off, so when we come, by any means, though by the sense of a calamity, or of the anger of God, to a sense of our sin, before the calamity itself be taken off, the sin is forgiven. When the Prophet found David in this state, the first act that the Prophet came to was the Transtulit peccatum, God hath taken away thy sin, but the calamity was not yet taken away. The child begot in sin shall surely die, though the sin be pardoned. The fruit of the tree may be preserved and kept, after the tree itself is cut down and burnt; The fruit, and off spring of our sin, calamity, may continue upon us, after God hath removed the guiltiness of the sin from us. In the course of civility, our parents go out before us, in the course of Mortality, our parents die before us; In the course of God's mercy, it is so too; The sin that begot the calamity, is dead, and gone, the calamity, the child, and off spring of that sin, is alive and powerful upon us. But for the most part, as if I would lift an iron chain from the ground, if I take but the first link, and draw up that, the whole chain follows, so if by my repentance, I remove the uppermost weight of my load, my sin, all the rest, the declaration of the anger of God, and the calamities that I suffer, will follow my sin, and depart from me. But still our first care must be to take off the last weight, the last that comes to our sense, The sin. You have met, I am sure, in old Apophtbegms, an answer of a Philosopher celebrated, that being asked, what was the heaviest thing in the world, answered, Senex Tyrannus, An old Tyrant; For a Tyrant, at first, dares not proceed so severely; but when he is established, and hath continued long, he prescribes in his injuries, and those injuries become Laws. As sin is a Tyrant, so he is got over our head, in Dominie, as we showed you in the supergressaesunt, in our former part; As he is an, old Tyrant, so he is the heaviest burden that can be imagined; An inveterate sin, is an inveterate sore, we may hold out with it, but hardly cure it; we may slumber it, but hardly kill it. Weigh sin in heaven; heaven could not bear it, in the Angels; They fell: In the waters; The Sea could not bear it in jonas; He was cast in: In the earth; That could not bear it in Dathan, and Abiram; They were swallowed: And because all the inhabitants of the earth are sin itself, Esay 24. 20. The earth itself shall reel to and fro, as a Drunkard, and shall be removed like a Cottage, and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall and notrise again; There's the total, the final fall, proper to the wicked; they shall fall; so shall the godly; And fall every day; and fall seven times a day; but they shall rise again and stand in judgement; The wicked shall not do so; They shall rise, Psal. 1. rise to judgement; and they shall stand, stand for judgement, stand to receive judgement; and then not fall, but be cast out, out of the presence of God, and cast down, down into an impossibility of rising, for ever, for ever, for ever. There is a lively expressing of this deadly weight, this burden in the Prophet Zechary. First, there was a certain vessel, a measure showed, 〈◊〉 5. 6. and the Angel said, Hic est oculus, This is the sight, (says our first translation) This is the resemblance through all the earth, (says our second.) That is, to this measure, and to that that is figured in it, every man must look, this every man must take into his consideration; what is it? In this measure sat a woman whose name was Wickedness; At first, this woman, this wickedness, sat up in this vessel, she had not filled the measure, she was not laid securely in it, she was not prostrate, not grovelling, but her nobler part, her head, was yet out of danger, she sat up in it. But before the Vision departs, she is plunged wholly into that measure; (into darkness, into blindness) and not for a time; for, then, there was a cover, (says the text) and agreat cover, and a great cover of Led put upon that vessel; and so, a perpetual imprisonment, no hope to get out; and heavy fetters, no ease to be had within; Hard ground to tread upon, and heavy burdens to carry; first a cover, that is, an excuse; a great cover, that is, a defence, and a glory; at last, of Lead; all determines in Desperation. This is when the multiplicity and indifferency to lesser sins, and the habitual custom of some particular sin, meet in the aggravating of the burden: for then, job 6. 3. they are heavyer then the sand of the Sea, says the holy Ghost: where he expresses the greatest weight by the least thing; Nothing less than a grain of sand, nothing heavyer than the sands of the Sea, nothing easier to resist then a first tentation, or a single sin in itself, nothing heavyer, nor harder to divest, than sins complicated in one another, or then an old Tyrant, and custom in any one sin. And therefore it was evermore a familiar phrase with the Prophets, when they were to declare the sins, or to denounce the punishments of those sins upon the people, to call it by this word, Onus visionis, Onus Babylonis, Onus Ninives, O the burden of Babylon, the burden of Niniveh. And because some of those woes, those judgements, those burdens, did not always fall upon that people presently, they came to mock the Prophets, and say to them, New, what is the burden of she Lord, What Burden have you to preach to us, jer. 23. 23. and to talk of now● Say unto them, says God to the Prophet there; This is the Burden of the Lord, I will even forsake you. And, as it is elegantly, emphatically, vehemently added, Every man's word shall be his burden; That which he says, shall be that that shall be laid to his charge; ver. 36. His scorning, his idle questioning of the Prophet, What burden now, what plague, what famine, what war now? Is not all well for all your crying The burden of the Lord? Every man's word shall be his burden, the deriding of God's Ordinance, and of the denouncing of his Judgements in that Ordinance shall be their burden, that is, aggravate those Judgements upon them, Nay, there is a heavyer weight then that, added; Ye shall say no more (says God to the Prophet) the burden of the Lord, ver. 38. that is, you shall not bestow so much care upon this people, as to tell them, that the Lord threatens them. God's presence in anger, and in punishments, is a heavy, but God's absence, and dereliction, a much heavyer burden; As (if extremes will admit comparison) the everlasting loss of the fight of God in hell, is a greater torment, than any lakes of inextinguishable Brimstone, than any gnawing of the incessant worm, than any gnashing of teeth can present unto us. Now, let no man ease himself upon that fallacy, sin cannot be, nor sin cannot induce such burdens as you talk of, for many men are come to wealth, and by that wealth, to honour, who, if they had admitted a tenderness in their consciences, and forborn some sins. had lost both; for, are they without burden, because they have wealth, and honour? In the Original language, the same word, that is here, a burden, Ch●bad, signifies honour, and wealth, as well as a burden. And therefore says the Prophet, Habak. 2. 9 Greg●r. Woe unto him that loadeth himself with thick clay. Non densantur nisi per laborem; There goes much pains to the laying of it thus thick upon us; The multiplying of riches is a laborious thing; and than it is a new pain to bleed out those riches for a new office, or a new title; Et tamen lutum, says that Father, when all is done, we are but rough-cast with dirt; All those Riches, all those Honours are a Burden, upon the just man, they are bu● a multiplying of fears, that they shall lose them; upon the securest man, they are but a multiplying of duties & obligations; for the more they havet, he more they have to answer; and upon the unjust, they are a multiplying of everlasting torments. job 7. 3. They possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed them. Men are as weary of the day, upon Carpets and Cushions, as at the plough. And the labourer's weariness, is to a good end; but for these men, They weary themselves to commit iniquity. Some do, and some do not; All do. The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them; jer. 9 5. Why? Because he knows not how to go to the City. Eccles. 10. 15. He that directs not his labours to the right end, the glory of God, he goes not to Jerusalem, the City of holy peace, but his sinful labours shall be a burden to him; and his Riches, and his Office, and his Honour he shall not be able to put off, then when he puts off his body in his deathbed; He shall not have that happiness, which he, till then, thought a misery, To carry nothing out of this world, for his Riches, his Office, his Honour shall follow him into the next world, and clog his soul there. But we proposed this consideration of this Metaphor, That sin is a burden, (as there is an infinite sweetness, and infinite latitude in every Metaphor, in every elegancy of the Scripture, and therefore I may have leave to be loath to depart from it) in some particular inconveniences, that a burden brings, and it is time to come to them. SERMON XXIII. Preached at Lincoln's Inn. The third Sermon on PSAL. 38. 4. For mine iniquities are gone over my head, as a heavy Burden, they are too heavy for me. AS a Torch that hath been lighted, and used before, is easier lighted than a new torch, so are the branches, and parts of this Text, the easier reduced to your memory, by having heard former distributions thereof. But as a Torch that hath been lighted & used before, will not last so long as a new one, so perchance your patience which hath already been twice exercised with the handling of these words, may be too near the bottom to afford much. And therefore much I have determined not to need. God did his greatest work upon the last day, and yet gave over work betimes. In that day he made man, and, (as the context leads us, most probably, to think) he made Paradise, and placed man in Paradise that day. For the variety of opinions amongst our Expositors, about the time when God made Paradise, arises from one error, an error in the Vulgat Edition, in the translation of the Roman Church, that reads it Plantaver at, God had planted a garden, Gen. 2. 8. as though God had done it before. Therefore some state it before the Creation, which Saint Hierome follows, or at least relates, without disapproving it; and others place it, upon the third day, when the whole earth received her accomplishment; but if any had looked over this place with the same ingenuity as their own great man Tyr: (an active man in the Council of Trent) hath done over the Book of Psalms, in which one Book he hath confessed 6000 places, in which their translation differs from the Original, they would have seen this difference in this place, that it is not Plantaver at, but Plantavit, not that God had before, but that he did then, then when he had made man, make a Paradise for man. And yet God made an end of all this days work betimes; in that day, He walked in the garden in the cool of the Evening. The noblest part of our work, in handling this Text falls upon the conclusion, reserved for this day; which is, the application of these words to Christ. But for that, I shall be short, and rather leave you to walk with God in the cool of the Evening, to meditate of the sufferings of Christ, when you are gone, then pretend to express them here. The Passion of Christ Jesus is rather an amazement, an astonishment, an ecstasy, a consternation, than an instruction. Therefore, though something we shall say of that anon. First, we pursue that which lies upon ourselves, the Burden, in those four mischievous inconveniences wrapped up in that Metaphor. Of them, the first was, Inclinat; That a Burden sinks a man, declines him, Inclinat. crookens him, makes him stoop. So does sin. It is one of Saint Augustine's definitions of sin, Conversio ad creaturam, that it is a turning, a withdrawing of man to the creature. And every such turning to the creature, let it be upon his side, to her whom he loves, let it be upwards, to honour that he affects, yet it is still downward, in respect of him, whom he was made by, and should direct himself to. Every inordinate love of the Creature is a descent from the dignity of our Creation, and a disavowing ', a disclaiming of that Charter, Subjicite & dominamini, subdue, and govern the Creature. Est quoddam bonum, quod si diligat anima rationalis, peccat. August. De. ver. releg c. 20. There are good things in the world, which it is a sin for man to love, Quia infra illam ordinantur, because though they be good, they are not so good as man; And man may not decline, and every thing, except God himself, is inferior to man, and so, it is a declination, a stooping in man, to apply himself to any Creature, till he meet that Creature in God; for there, it is above him; And so, as Beauty and Riches, and Honour are beams that issue from God, and glasses that represent God to us, and ideas that return us into him, in our glorifying of him, by these helps, so we may apply ourselves to them; for, in this consideration, as they assist us in our way to God, they are above us, otherwise, to love them for themselves, is a declination, a stooping under a burden; And this declination, this incurvation, this descent of man, in the inordinate love of the Creature, may very justly seem to be forbidden in that Commandment, that forbids Idolatry, Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them; If we bow down to them, we do worship them; for it is in the love of all Creatures, as it is in money; Covetousness, that is, the love of money, is Idolatry, says the Apostle; and so is all other inordinate love of any, Idolatry. And then, as we have seen some grow crooked, by a long sitting, a lying in one posture, so, by an easy resting in these descents and declination of the soul, it comes to be a fashion to stoop, and it seems a comely thing to be crooked; and we become, infruniti, that is, quibus nem● frui velit, such as no body cares for our conversation, or company, except we be ill company, sociable in other sins, August. Et viliores quò castiores, if we affect Chastity, or any other virtue, we disaffect and distaste other men; for one man's virtue chides, and reproaches a whole vicious company. But if he will needs be in fashion, C●m perverse perverti, to grow crooked with the crooked, His iniquities shall take him, and he shall be holden with the cards of his sin; Prov. 5. 22. that is, in that posture that he puts himself, he shall be kept; kept all his life; and then, (as it follows there) He shall die without instruction; Die in a place, where he can have no Absolution, no Sacrament, or die, in a disposition, that he shall receive no benefit by them, though he receive them. He hath packed a burden upon himself, in habitual sin, he hath chosen to stoop under this burden, in an Idolatrous love of those sins, and nothing shall be able to erect him again, not Preaching, not Sacraments, no not judgements. And this is the first inconvenience, and mischief, employed in this Metaphor which the holy Ghost hath chosen, Mine iniquities are as a burden, Inclinant, they bend down my soul, created straight, to an incurvation, to a crookedness. A second inconvenience intimated in this Metaphor, a burden, is the fatigat, Fatigat. a burden wearies us, tires us: and so does our sin, and our best beloved sin. It hath wearied us, and yet we cannot divest it. We would leave that sin, and yet there is one talon more to be added, one child more to be provided for, one office, or one title more to be compassed, one tentation more to be satisfied. Though we grumble, not out of remorse of conscience, but out of a bodily weariness of the sin, yet we proceed in it. How often men go to Westminster, how often to the Exchange, called by unjust suits, or called by corrupt bargains to those places, when their case, or their health persuades them to stay at home? How many go to forbidden beds, than when they had rather stay at home, if they were not afraid of an unkind interpretation? We have wearied ourselves in the ways of wickedness; Plus miles in uno torneamento, quam sanctus Monachus in decem annis, says our Holkot, upon that place, a soldier suffers more in one expedition, than a Monk does, in ten years, says he, and perchance he says true, and yet no commendation to his Monk neither; for that soldier may do even the cause of God, more good, in that one expedition, than that Monk in ten years: But it is true as Holkot intended it, (though perchance his example do not much strengthen it) vicious men are put to more pains, and to do more things against their own minds, than the Saints of God are in the ways of holiness. We have wearied ourselves in the ways of wickedness, says he, that is, in doing as other wicked men have done, in ways which have been beaten out to us, by the frequent practice of other men; but he adds more, We have gone the rough Deserts, where there lay no way; that is, through sins, in which, we had no example, no precedent, the inventions of our hearts. The covetous man lies still, and attends his quarter days, and studies the endorsements of his bonds, and he wonders that the ambitious man can endure the shutting and thrustings of Courts, and can measure his happiness by the smile of a greater man: And, he that does so, wonders as much, that this covetous man can date his happiness by an Almanac, and such revolutions, and though he have quick returns of receipt, yet scarce affords himself bread to live till that day come, and though all his joy be in his bonds, yet demes himself a candle's end to look upon them. Hilly ways are wearisome ways, and tyre the ambitious man; Carnal pleasures are dirty ways, and tyre the licentious man; Desires of gain, are thorny ways, and tyre the covetous man; Aemulations of higher men, are dark and blind ways, and tyre the envious man, Every way, that is out of the way, wearies us; But, lass●it sumus; sed 〈◊〉 non datur requires, we labour, and have no rest, Lem. 5. 5. when we have done; we are wearied with our sins, and have no satisfaction in them; we go to bed to night, weary of our sinful labours, and we will rise freshly to morrow, to the same sinful labours again; And when a sinner does so little remember yesterday, how little does he consider to morrow? He that forgets what he hath done, foresees not what he shall suffer: so sin is a burden, it crookens us, it wearies us; And those are the two first inconveniences. And then a third is Retardat. Though a man can stand under a burden, that he do not sink, but be able to make some steps, yet his burden slackens his pace, and he goes not so fast, as without that burden he could have gone. So it is an habitual sins; though we do not sink into desperation, and stupefaction, though we do come to the participation of outward means, and have some sense, some feeling thereof, yet, Retardat. as long as any one beloved and habitual sin hangs upon us, it slackens our pace in all the ways of godliness. And we come not to such an appropriation of the promises of the Gospel, in hearing Sermons, nor to such a re-incarnation, and invisceration of Christ and his merits into ourselves, in the Sacrament; as if we were altogether devested of that sin, and not only at that time, we should do. Quis ascends, says David; Ps. 24. 3. who shall ascend unto the hill of the Lord? It is a painful clambering; up a hill. And Saint August. makes use of the answer, Innocens manibus, He that hath clean hands; first, he must have hands, as well as feet; He must do something for himself; And then, Innocent hands; such as do no harm to others, such as hold, and carry no hurtful thing to himself; Either he must have the first Innocence, Abstinence from ill getting, or the second Innocence, Restitution of that which was ill gotten, or he shall never get up that hill; for, it is a steep hill, and there is no walking up, but he must crawl, hand and foot. Therefore, says the Apostle, Deponamus pondus, Let us lay aside every weight; He does not say, sin in general, but every weight, every circumstance that may aggravate our sin, every conversation that may occasion our sin; And, (as he adds, particularly and emphatically) The sin, that does so easily beset us; Easily, because customarily, habitually; And then, says that Apostle, in that place, Let us run; when we have laid down the sin, that does so easily beset us, our beloved and habitual sin, and laid down every weight, every circumstance that aggravates that sin, than we may be able to run, to proceed with a holy cheerfulness and proficiency in the ways of sanctification; but till that we cannot, how due observers soever we be of all outward means; for, sin is a burden, in perverting us, in tiring us, in retarding us. And last of all, it is a burden, quaetenus praecipitat, Praecipitat. as it gives him ever new occasion of stumbling; He that hath not been accustomed to a sin, but exercised in resisting it, will find many tentations, but as a wash way that he can troth thorough, and go forward religiously in his Calling for all them;) for though there be coluber in via, A snake in every way, tentations in every calling, yet, In Christo omnia possumus, In Christ, we can do all things, and therefore, in him, we can bruise the Serpent's head) and spurn a tentation out of his way. But he that hath been long under the custom of a sin, evermore meets with stones to stumble at, and bogs to plunge in. It is S. Chrys●stomes application; He that hath had fever, though he have cast it off, yet he walks weakly, and he hath an inclination to the bed's side, or to a chair, at every turn that he makes about his chamber. So hath he to relapses, that hath been under the custom of an habitual sin, though he have discontinued the practice of that sin. And these be the inconveniences, the mischiefs, represented to us in this metaphor, A burden, Mine iniquities are as a burden too heavy for me, Because they sink me down, from the Creator to the creature; Because they tyre and weary me, and yet I must bear them; Because when they do not absolutely tyre me, yet they slacken my pace; and because, though I could lay off that burden, leave off that sin, for the present practice, yet the former habit hath so weakened me, that I always apt to stumble, and fall into relapses. Thus have you the mischievous inconveniences of habitual sin laid open to you, Conclusiv. Christus. in these two elegancies of the holy Ghost, supergressae, Mine iniquities are gone over my head, and the gravatae, As a burden they are too heavy for me. But as a good Emperor received that commendation, that no man went ever out of his presence discontented, so our gracious God never admits us to his presence in this his Ordinance, but with a purpose to dismiss us in heart, and in comfort; for, his Almoner, he that distributeth his mercies to Congregations, is the God of comfort, of all comfort, the holy Ghost himself. Nay, they whom he admits to his presence here, go not out of his presence, when they go from hence; He is with them, whilst they stay here, and he goes home with them, when they go home. Prince's out of their Royal care call Parliaments, and graciously deliver themselves over to that Representative Body; God out of his Fatherly love calls Congregations, and does not only deliver himself over, in his ordinance, to that Representative Body, the whole Church there, but when every man is become a private man again, when the Congregation is dissolved, and every man restored to his own house, God, in his Spirit, is within the doors, within the bosoms of every man that received him here. Therefore we have reserved for the conclusion of all, the application of this Text to our blessed Saviour; for so our most ancient Expositors direct our meditations, first, historically, and literally, upon David, and that we did at first; Then morally, and by just application to ourselves, and that we have most particularly insisted upon; And lastly, upon our Saviour Christ jesus himself; and that remains for our conclusion and consolation; for, even from him, groaning under our burden, we may hear these words, Mine iniquities are gone over my head, and, etc. First then, that that lay upon Christ, was sin, properly sin. Peccatum. Nothing could estrange God from man, but sin; and even from this Son of man, though he were the Son of God too, was God far estranged; therefore God saw sin in him. Non novit peccatum, He knew no sin; not by any experimental knowledge, not by any perpetration; for, 2 Cor. 5. 21. Non fecit peccatum, He did no sin, be committed no sin. 1 Pct. 2. 23. What though? we have sin upon us, sin to condemnation, Original sin before we know sin, before we have committed any sin. They esteemed him stricken, and smitten of God; Esa. 53. 4. and they mistook not in that; He was stricken and smitten of God; It pleased the Lord to bruile him, v. 10. and to put him to grief; And the Lord proceeds not thus, where he sees no sin. Therefore the Apostle carries it to a very high expression, God made him to be sin for our sakes; 2 Cor. 5. 21. not only sinful, but sin itself. And as one cruel Emperor wished all mankind in one man, that he might have beheaded mankind at one blow, so God gathered the whole nature of sin into one Christ, that by one action, one passion, sin, all sin, the whole nature of sin might be overcome. It was sin that was upon Christ, else God could not have been angry with him, nor pleased with us. It was sin, and his own sin; Mine iniquities, says Christ, in his Type, and figure, Sua. David; and in his body, the Church; and, (we may be bold to add) in his very person; Mine iniquities. Many Heretics denied his body, to be his Body, they said it was but an airy, an imaginary, an illusory Body; and denied his Soul to be his Soul, they said he had no humane soul, but that his divine nature supplied that, and wrought all the operations of the soul. But we that have learned Christ better, know, that he could not have redeemed man, by that way that was contracted between him and his Father, that is, by way of satisfaction, except he had taken the very body, and the very soul of man: And as verily as his humane nature, his body and soul were his, his sins were his too. As my mortality, and my hunger, and thirst, and weariness, and all my natural infirmities are his, so my sins are his sins. And now when my sins are by him thus made his sins, no Hell-Devill, not Satan, no Earth-Devill, no Calumniator, can any more make those sins my sins, than he can make his divinity, mine. As by the spirit of Adoption, I am made the child of God, the seed of God, the same Spirit with God, but yet I am not made God, so by Christ's taking my sins, I am made a servant of my God, a Beadsman of my God, a vassal, a Tributary debtor to God, but I am no sinner in the sight of God, no sinner so, as that man or the Devil can impute that sin unto me, than when my Saviour hath made my sins his. As a Soldier would not part with his scars, Christ would not. They were sins, Plura. that lay upon him, part with our sins; And his sins; and, as it follows in his Type, David, sins in a plurality, many sins. I know nothing in the world so manifold, so plural, so numerous, as my sins; And my Saviour had all those. But if every other man have not so many sins, as I, he owes that to God's grace, and not to the Devil's forbearance, for the Devil saw no such parts, nor no such power in me to advance or hinder his kingdom, no such birth, no such education, no such place in the State or Church, as that he should be gladder of me, then of other men. He ministers tentations to all; and all are overcome by his tentations; And all these sins, in all men, were upon Christ at once. All twice over; In the root, and in the fruit too; In the bullein, and in the coin too; In gross, and in retail; In Original, and in Actual sin. And, howsoever the sins of former ages, the sins of all men for 4000 years before, which were all upon him, when he was upon the Cross, might possibly be numbered, (as things that are past, may easilier fall within a possibility of such an imagination) yet all those sins, which were to come after, he himself could not number; for, he, as the Son of man, though he know how long the world hath lasted, knows not how long this sinful world shall last, and when the day of Judgement shall be; And all those future sins, were his sins before they were committed; They were his before they were theirs that do them. And lest this world should not afford him sins enough, he took upon him the sins of heaven itself; not their sins, who were fallen from heaven, and fallen into an absolute incapacity of reconciliation, but their sins, which remained in heaven; Those sins, which the Angels that stand, would fall into, if they had not received a confirmation, given them in contemplation of the death and merits of Christ, Christ took upon him, for all things, in Earth, and Heaven too, were reconciled to God by him: for, if there had been as many worlds, as there are men in this, (which is a large multiplication) or as many worlds, as there are sins in this, (which is an infinite multiplication) his merit had been sufficient to all. They were sins, Supergressae. his sins, many sins, the sins of the world; and then, as in his Type, David, Supergressae, his sins, these sins were got above him. And not as david's, or ours, by an insensible growth, and swelling of a Tide in Course of time, but this inundation of all the sins of all places, and times, and persons, was upon him in an instant, in a minute; in such a point as admits, and requires a subtle, and a serious consideration; for it is eternity; which though it do infinitely exceed all time, yet is in this consideration, less than any part of time, that it is indivisible, eternity is so; and though it last for ever, is all at once, eternity is so. And from this point, this timeless time, time that is all time, time that is no time, from all eternity, all the sins of the world were gone over him. And, Caput. in that consideration, supergressae caput, they were gone over his head. Let his head be his Divine nature, yet they were gone over his head: for, though there be nothing more voluntary, than the love of God to man, (for, he loves us, not only for his own sake, or for his own glories sake, but he loves us for his love's sake, he loves us, and loves his love of us, and had rather want some of his glory, than we should not have, nay, than he should not have so much love towards us) though this love of his be an act simply voluntary, yet in that act of expressing this love, in the sending a Saviour, there was a kind of necessity contracted on Christ's part; such a contract had passed between him and his Father, that as himself says, there was an oportuit pati, Luc. 24. a necessity that he should suffer all that he suffered, and so enter into glory, when he was come; so there was an oportuit venire a necessity, (a necessity induced by that contract) that he should come in that humiliation, and smother, and suppress the glory of the divine nature, under a cloud of humane, of passable, of inglorious flesh. So, Tectum. be his divine nature this head, his sins, all our sins made his, were gone above his head; And over his head, all those ways, that we considered before, in ourselves; Sicut tectum, sicut fornix, as a roof, as an arch, that had separated between God, and him, in that he prayed, and was not heard; when in that Transeat Calix, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, the Cup was not only not taken out of his hands, but filled up again as fast, as he, in obedience to his Father, drank of it, more and worse miseries succeeding, and exceeding those which he had born before. They were above him in clamore, Clamour. in that voice, in that clamour which was got up to heaven, and in possession of his Father's ears, before his prayer came, Father, forgive them, for they are not forgiven that sin of crucifying the Lord of life, yet. They were above his head, Aquae. tanquam aquae, as an inundation of waters, than when he sweat water and blood, in the Agony, when he, who had formerly passed his Israel through the Red Sea, as though that had not been love large enough, was now himself overflowed with a Red Sea of his own blood, for his Israel again. And they were over his head in Dominio, Dominium, in a Lordship, in a Tyranny, then when those marks of sovereign honour, a robe, and a sceptre, and a Crown of thorns were added to his other afflictions. And so is our first part of this Text, the supergressae sunt, the multiplicity of sin, appliable to Christ, as well as to his Type, to David, and to us, the members of his body. And so is the last part, Graves. that which we handled to day, too, the gravata sunt, the weight and insupportablenesse of sin. They were heavy, they weighed him down from his Father's bosom, they made God Man. That one sin could make an Angel a Devil, is a strange consideration; but that all the sins of the world, could make God Man, Nimis. is stranger. Yet sin was so heavy; Too heavy, says the Text. It did not only make God Man; in investing our nature by his birth, but it made him no Man, by divesting that body, by death; and, (but for the virtue, and benefit of a former Decree) submitting that body, to the corruption, and putrefaction of the grave; But this was the peculiar, the miraculous glory of Christ Jesus. He had sin, all our sin, and yet never felt worm of conscience; He lay dead in the grave, and yet never felt worm of corruption. Sin was heavy; It made God Man; Too heavy; It made Man no Man; Mihi. Too heavy for him, even for him, who was God and Man together; for, even that person, so composed, had certain velleitates, (as we say in the School) certain motions arising sometimes in him, which required a veruntamen, a review, a re-consideration, Not my will, O Father, but thine be done; and such, as in us, who are pushed on by Original sin, and drawn on by sinful concupiscences in ourselves, would become sins, though in Christ they were far from it. Sin was heavy, even upon him, in all those inconveniences, which we noted in a burden; Onus. Incurvando, when he was bowed down, and gave his back to their scourges; Fatigando, when his soul was heavy unto death; Retardando, when they brought him to think it long, Viquid dereliquisti, Why hast thou forsaken me? And then, praecipitando, to make that haste to the Consummatum est, to the finishing of all, as to die before his fellows that were crucified with him, died; to bow down his head, and to give up his soul, before they extorted it from him. Thus we burdened him; Bernard. And thus he unburdned us; Et cum exonerat nos onerat, when he unburdens us, he burdens us even in that unburdening: Onerat beneficio, cum exonerat peccato. He hath taken off the obligation of sin, but he hath laid upon us, the obligation of thankfulness, Ps. 116. 12. and Retribution. Quid retribuam? What shall I render to the Lord, for all his benefits to me? is vox onerati, a voice that groans under the burden, though not of sin, Luke 5. 8. yet of debt, to that Saviour, that hath taken away that sin. Exi à me Domine, that which Saint Peter said to Christ, Lord depart from me, for I am a sinful man, is, says that Father, vox onerati, the voice of one oppressed with the blessings and benefits of God, and desirous to spare, and to husband that treasure of God's benefits, as though he were better able to stand without the support of some of those benefits, then stand under the debt, which so many, so great benefits laid upon him: Truly he that considers seriously, what his sins have put the Son of God to, cannot but say, Lord lay some of my sins upon me, rather than thy Son should bear all this; that devotion, that says after, Spare thy people, whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood, would say before, spare that Son, that must die, spare that precious blood, that must be shed to redeem us. And rather than Christ should truly, really bear the torments of hell, in his soul, (which torments cannot be severed from obduration, nor from everlastingness) I would, I should desire, that my sins might return to me, and those punishments for those sins; I should be ashamed to be so far exceeded in zeal, by Moses, who would have been blotted out of the book of life, or by Paul, who would have been separated from Christ for his brethren, as that I would not undertake as much, to redeem my redeemer, and suffer the torments of Hell myself, rather than he should; But it is an insupportable burden of debt, that he hath laid upon me, by suffering that which he suffered, Idem. without the torments of Hell. Those words, Vis sanus fieri, hast thou a desire to be well, and a faith that I can make thee well? are vox ex●nerantis, the words of him that would take off our burden; But then, the Tolle grabatum & ambula, Take up thy bed and walk, this is vox oncrantis, the voice of Christ, as he lays a new burden upon us; ut quod prius suave, jam onerosum sit, that bed which he had ease in before, must now be born with pain; that sin which was forgotten with pleasure, must now be remembered with Contrition Christ speaks not of a vacuity, nor of a levity; when he takes off one burden, he lays on another; nay, two for one. He takes off the burden, of Irremediablenesse, of irrecoverableness, and he reaches out his hand, in his Ordinances, in his Word and Sacraments, by which we may be disburdened of all our sins; but then he lays upon us, Onus resipiscentiae, the burden of Repentance for ourselves, and Onus gratitudinis, the burden of retribution, and thankfulness to him, in them who are his, by our relieving of them, in whom he suffers. The end of all, (that we may end all in endless comfort) is, That our word, in the original, in which the holy Ghost spoke, is jikkebedu, which is not altogether, as we read them, graves sunt, but graves fieri; not that they are, but that they were as a burden, too heavy for me; till I could lay hold upon a Saviour to sustain me, they were too heavy for me: And by him, Psal. 18. 29. I can run through a troop (through the multiplicity of my sins,) and by my God I can leap over a wall; Though mine iniquities be got over my head, as a wall of separation, yet in Christo omnia possum, In Christ I can do all things; Mine iniquities are got over my head; but my head is Christ; and in him, I can do whatsoever he hath done, by applying his sufferings to my soul for all; my sins are his, and all his merit is mine: And all my sins shall no more hinder my ascending into heaven, nor my sitting at the right hand of God, in mine own person, than they hindered him, who bore them all in his person, mine only Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus, blessed for ever. SERMON XXIV. Preached at White-Hall. EZEK. 34. 19 And as for my flock, they eat that, which ye have troen with your feet, and they drink that which ye have folded with your feet. THose four Prophets, whom the Church hath called the great Prophets, Esay, and jeremy, Ezekiel and Daniel, are not only therefore called great, because they writ more, than the lesser Prophets did, (for Zecbary, who is amongst the lesser, writ more than Daniel who is amongst the greater) but because their Prophecies are of a larger comprehension, and extent, and, for the most part, speak more of the coming of Christ, and the establishing of the Christian Church, than the lesser Prophets do, who were more conversant about the temporal deliverance of Israel from Babylon, though there be aspersions of Christ, and his future government in those Prophets too, though more thinly shed. Amongst the four great ones, our Prophet Ezekiel is the greatest. I compare not their extraction and race; for, though Ezekiel were de genere sacerdotali, of the levitical and Priestly race; (And, as Philo Iud●us notes, all nations having some marks of Gentry, some calling that ennobled the professors thereof, (in some Arms, and Merchandise in some, and the Arts in others) amongst the jews, that was Priesthood, Priesthood was Gentry) though Ezekiel were of this race, Esay was of a higher, for he was of the extraction of their Kings, of the blood royal. But the extraordinary greatness of Ezekiel, is in his extraordinary depth, and mysteriousness, for this is one of those parts of Scripture, (as the beginning of Genesis, and the Canticles of Solomon, also are) which are forbid to be read amongst the jews, till they come to be thirty years old, which was the Canonical age to be made Priests; In so much, that Saint Gregory says, when he comes to expound any part of this Prophet, Noctunum iter ago, that he traveled by night, and did but guess at his way. But, besides that many of the obscure places of the Prophets are more open to us, than they were to the ancients, because many of those prophecies are now fulfilled, and so that which was Prophecy to them, is History to us, in this place, which we have now undertaken, there never was darkness, not difficulty, neither in the first emanation of the light thereof, nor in the reflection; neither in the Literal, nor in the Figurative sense thereof; for the literal sense is plainly that, that amongst the manifold oppressions, under which the Children of Israel languished in Babylon, this was the heaviest, that their own Priests joined with the State against them, and infused pestilent doctrines into them, that so themselves might enjoy the favour of the State, and the people committed to their charge, might slacken their obedience to God, and surrender themselves to all commandments of all men; This was their oppression, the Church joined with the Court, to oppress them; Their own Priests gave these sheep grass which they had trodden with their feet, (doctrines, not as God gave them to them, but as they had tampered, and tempered them, and accommodated them to serve turns, and fit their ends; whose servants they had made themselves, more than Gods) And they gave them water to drink which they had troubled with their feet, that is, doctrines mudded with other ends then the glory of God; And that therefore God would take his sheep into his own care, and reduce them from that double oppression of that Court, and that Church, those Tyrannous officers, and those over-obsequious Priests. This is the literal sense of our text, and context, evident enough in the letter thereof. And then the figurative and Mystical sense is of the same oppressions, and the same deliverance over again in the times of Christ, and of the Christian Church; for that's more than figurative, fully literal, soon after the Text, I will set up one shepherd, my servant David, And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, which is the same that Esay had called A rod out of the stem of jesse, and jeremy had called A righteous branch, ver. 23. 29. 11. 1. 23. 5. a King thus should reign, and prosper. This prophecy then comprehending the kingdom of Christ, it comprehends the whole kingdom of Christ, not only the oppressions, and deliverances of our forefathers, from the Heathen, and the Heretics in the Primitive Church, but that also which touches us more nearly, the oppressions and deliverance of our Fathers, in the Reformation of Religion, and the shaking off of the yoke of Rome, that Italian Babylon, as heavy as the Chaldean. We shall therefore at this time fix our meditations upon that accommodation of the Text, the oppression that the Israel of God was under, then, when he delivered them by that way, the Reformation of Religion, and consider how these metaphors of the holy Ghost, The treading with their feet the grass that the sheep were to eae, and the troubling with their feet the water that the sheep were to drink, do answer and set out the oppressions of the Roman Church then, as lively as they did in the other Babylon. And so, having said enough of the primary sense of these words, as they concern Gods Israel, in the first Babylon, and something by way of commemoration, and thankfulness, for God's deliverance of his Israel, from the persecutions in the Primitive Church, insist we now, upon the several metaphors of the Text, as the holy Ghost continues them to the whole reign of Christ, and so to the Reformation. First, pastors concurrebant. the greatest calamity of those sheep in Babylon, was that their own shepherds concurred to their oppression. In Babylon they were a part, but in Rome they were all; In Babylon they joined with the State, but in Rome they were the State. Mal. 1. 7. Saint Hierome notes out of a Tradition of the jews, that those loafes which their priests were to offer to the Lord, were to be of such corn as those Priests had sowed, and reaped and threshed, and ground, and baked all with their own hands. But they were so far from that at Babylon, job 4. 8. and at Rome, jer. 12. 20. as that they ploughed iniquity, and sowed wickedness, and reaped the same; and (as God himself complains) trod his portion under foot; That is, first, neglected his people, (for God's people are his portion) And than whatsoever pious men had given to the Church, is his portion too, and that portion they had trodden under foot; not neglected it, not despised it, for they collected it, and audited it providently enough, but they trod it under foot, when that which was given for the sustentation of the Priest, they turned upon their own splendour, and glory, and surfeit: Christ will be fed in the poor that are hungry, and he will be clothed in the poor that are naked, so he would be enriched in those poor Ministers that serve at his Altar; when Christ would be so fed, he desires not feasts and banquets; when he would be so clothed, he desires not soft raiment fit for King's houses, nor embroideries, nor perfumes; when he would be enriched in the poor Churchman, he desires not that he should be a sponge, to drink up the sweat of others, and live idly; but yet, as he would not be starved in the hungry, nor submitted to cold and unwholesome air in the naked, so neither would he be made contemptible, nor beggarly in the Minister of his Church. Nor, was there in the world, (take in Turkey, and all the heathen) (for they also have their Clergy) a more contemptible & more beggarly Clergy then that of Rome; I speak of the Clergy in the most proper sense, that is, they that minister, they that officiate, they that execute, they that personally & laboriously do the service of the Church. The prelacies, and Dignities of the Church, were multiplied in the hands of them, who under pretext of Government, took their ease, and they that laboured, were attenuated & macerated, with lean, & penurious pensions. In the best governed Churches there are such Dignities, & supplies without Cure of souls, or personal service; but they are intended for recompense of former labours, and sustentation of their age, of whose youth, and stronger days, the Church had received benefit. But in the Roman Church these preferments are given almost in the womb; and children have them not only before they can merit them, but before they can speak for them; and they have some Church-names, Dean, or Bishop, or Abbot, as soon almost as they have any Christian names. Yea, we know many Church dignities, entailed to noble families, and, if it fall void, whilst the child is so incapable, it must be held for him, by some that must resign it, when it may, by any extent of dispensation, be asked for him. So then the Church joined with the State, to defraud the people; The Priest was poorly maintained, and so the people poorly instructed. And this is the first conformity between the two Babylon's, the Chaldean and the Italian. Pursue we then the holy Ghosts purpose and manner of implying, Gramen. and expressing it the food ordained for sheep, Grass. In which make we only these two stops, that the sheep are to eat their grass super terram, Super terram. upon the ground; And they are to eat it sinerore, when the dew is off. First, upon the ground; that is, where the hand of God hath set it; which for spiritual food is the Church. In hard winters we give sheep hay, but in open times open grass. In persecutions of Tyrant's, in Interdicts of Antichristian Bishops, who sometimes out of passion, or some secular respect shut up Church doors and forbid service, and Sacraments, to whole Cities, to whole nations, sheep must live by hay, God's Children must relieve themselves at home, by books of pious and devout meditation; But when God affords abundant pastures, and free entrance thereunto, God's sheep are to take their grass upon the ground, God's grace at the Church. Impossibile est eum corrigere, qui omnia scit, Chrysost: It is an impossible thing to correct him, that thinks he knows all things already. As long as he will admit counsel from another, he acknowledges the other, to know more than he; but if he thinks, he knows all before, he hath no room for farther instruction, nor love to the place where it is to be had. We read in the Eastern Histories, of a navigable River, that afforded all the inhabitants exportation, and importation, and all commerce. But when every particular man, to serve his own curiosity, for the offices of his house, for the pleasures of his gardens, and for the sumptuousness of Grots and aqueducts, and such water-works, drew several channels, infinite channels our of this great River, this exhausted the main channel, and brought it to such a shallowness, as would bear no boats, and so, took from them the great and common commodities that it had afforded them. So if every man think to provide himself Divinity enough at home, for himself and his family, and out of laziness and singularity, or state, or disaffection to the preacher leave the Church unfrequented, he frustrates the Ordinance of God, which is, that his sheep should come to his pastures, and take his grass upon his ground, his instructions at his house at Church. And this we could not do in the Roman Church, where all our prayers, and all God's service of that kind, were in a language, not only not understood by him that heard it, but for the most part, not by him that spoke it, It is not of their manifold, and scornful, and ridiculous and histrionical Ceremonies in their service, nor of the dangerous poisons, the direct Idolatries (in the practice of the people) in their service, that we complain of now, but of this, that though it had been never so wholesome grass, it was not so to those sheep, they could not know it to be their proper aliment, for certainly they ask without faith, that ask without understanding; nor can I believe or hope that God will give me that I ask, if I know not what I asked. And what a miserable supply had they for this in their Legends; for many of those Legends were in vulgar tongues and understood by them. B. Virgo femoralia. B. Tho. Cantuar, veparavit. Cantiprat. l. 2. c. 29. In which Legends, the Virgin Mary was every good man's wife, and every good woman's midwife, by a neighbourly, and familiar, and ordinary assistant in all household offices, as we see in those Legends, and revelations. In which Legends, they did not only feign actions, which those persons never did, but they feigned persons which never were; and they did not only mis-canonize men, made Devils Saints, but they mis-christened men, put names to persons, and persons to names that never were. And these legends being transferred into the Church, the sheep lack their grass upon the ground, that is, the knowledge of God's will, in his house, at Church. And this is another conformity between the two Babylon's, the Chaldean, and the Italian Babylon, that the sheep lacked due food in the due place. So is it also, Ros super gramen. that the sheep eat their grass, whilst the Dew was upon it, which is found by experience to be unwholesome. The word of God is our grass, which should be delivered purely, simply, sincerely, and in the natural verdure thereof. The Dews which we intent, are Revelations, Apparitions, Inspirations, Motions, and Interpretations of the private spirit. Now, though we may see the natural dew to descend from heaven, yet it did first ascend from the earth, and retains still some such earthly parts, as sheep cannot digest. So howsoever these Revelations and Inspirations seem to fall upon us from heaven, they arise from the earth, from ourselves, from our own melancholy, and pride, or our too much homeliness and familiarity in our accesses, and conversation with God, or a facility in believing, or an often dreaming the same thing. And with these Dews of Apparitions and Revelations, did the Roman Church make our fathers drunk and giddy; And against these does S. Augustine devoutly pray, and praise God, that he had delivered him from the curiosity of sipping these dews, of harkening after these apparitions and revelations. But so ordinary were these apparitions then, as that any son, or nephew, or friend, could discern his fathers, or uncles, or companions soul, ascending out of Purgatory into heaven, and know them as distinctly, as if they kept the same hair, and beard, and bodily lineaments, as they had upon earth. And as a ship which hath struck Sail, will yet go on with the wind it had before, for a while, so now, when themselves are come to acknowledge, That it was the unanime opinion of the Fathers, Maldon. that the souls of the dead did not appear after death, but that it was still the Devil, howsoever sometimes that that he proposed were holy & religious, Coccius. yet we see a great Author of theirs attribute so much to these apparitions, and revelations, that when he pretends to prove all controversies by the Fathers of the Church, he every where intermingles that reverend Book, of Brigids' Revelations, that they might also have some Mothers of the Church too; which is not disproportionall in that Church; if they have had a woman Pope, to have Mothers of the Church too. I speak not this, as though God might not, or did not manifest his will by women; The great mystery of the Resurrection of Christ was revealed to women before men; and to the sinfullest woman of company, first. But I speak of that bold injury done to the mysteries of the Christian Religion, by pouring out that dew upon the grass, the Revelations of S. Brigid, upon the controversies of Religion. A book of so much blasphemy, and impertinency, and incredibility, that if a Heathen were to be converted, he would sooner be brought to believe Ovid's Metamorphoses, then Brigids Revelations, to conduce to Religion. And this is also another conformity between the two Babylon's, the Chaldean, and the Italian Babylon, that we could not receive our grass pure, but infected, and dewed with these frivolous, nay pernicious apparitions, and Revelations. But press we a little closer to the very steps, Gramen conculcatum. & metaphor of the holy Ghost, who here lays the corrupting of the sheep's grass in this, That the shepherds had trodden it down. And this treading down will be pertinently considered two ways. Tertullian in his Book De habitu muliebri, notes two excesses in women's dressing; One he calls Ornatum, the other cultum; One mundum muliebrem, the other, (according to the liberty that he takes in making words) Immundum muliebrem; the first is a superfluous diligence in their dressing, but the other an unnatural addition to their complexion; the first he pronounces to be always ad ambitionem, for pride, but the other, ad prostitutionem, for a worse, for the worst purpose. These two sorts of Excesses do note these two kinds of treading down the grass, which we intent; of which one is, the mingling of too much humane ornament, and secular learning in preaching, in presenting the word of God, which word is our grass; The other is of mingling humane Traditions, as of things of equal value, and obligation, with the Commandments of God. For the first, humane ornament, if in those pastures, which are ordained for sheep, you either plant rare and curious flowers, delightful only to the eye, or fragrant and odoriferous herbs delightful only to the smell, nay, be they medicinal herbs, useful, and behooveful for the preservation, and restitution of the health of man, yet if these specious and glorious flowers, and fragrant, and medicinal herbs, be not proper nourishment for sheep, this is a treading down of the grass, a pestering and a suppressing of that which appertained to them. So if in your spiritual food, our preaching of the Word, you exact of us more secular ornament, then may serve, as Saint Augustine says, Ad ancillationem, to convey, and usher the true word of life into your understandings, and affections, (for both those must necessarily be wrought upon) more than may serve ad vehiculum, for a chariot for the word of God to enter, and triumph in you, this is a treading down of the grass, a filling of that ground which was ordained for sheep, with things improper, and impertinent to them. If you furnish a Gallery with stuff proper for a Gallery, with Hangings and Chairs, and Couches, and Pictures, it gives you all the conveniencies of a Gallery, walks and prospect, and ease; but if you pester it with improper and impertinent furniture, with Beds, and Tables, you lose the use, and the name of a Gallery, and you have made it a Wardrobe; so if your curiosity extort more than convenient ornament, in delivery of the word of God, you may have a good Oration, a good Panegyrique, a good Encomiastique, but not so good a Sermon. It is true that Saint Paul applies sentences of secular Authors, even in matters of greatest importance; but than it is to persons that were accustomed to those authors, and affected with them, and not conversant, not acquainted at all, with the phrase and language of Scripture amongst us now, almost every man (God be blessed for it) is so accustomed to the text of Scripture, as that he is more affected with the name of David, or Saint Paul, then with any Seneca or Plutarch. I am far from forbidding secular ornament in divine exercises, especially in some Auditories, acquainted with such learn. I have heard men preach against witty preaching; and do it with as much wit, as they have; and against learned preaching, with as much learning, as they could compass. If you should place that beast, which makes the Bezoar stone, in a pasture of pure, but only grass, it is likely, that out of his natural faculty, he would petrify the juice of that grass, and make it a stone, but not such a medicinal stone, as he makes out of those herbs which he feeds upon. Let all things concur in the name of God, to the advancing of his purpose, in his ordinance, which is, to make his will acceptable to you, by his word; only avoid excess in the manner of doing it. Saint Augustine's is an excellent rule, when after in his book De Doctrina Christiana, he had taught a use of all Arts in Divinity, he allows them only thus far, ut cum ingenia his reddantur exercitatiora, cavendum ne reddantur maligniora, that when a man by these helps is the more full, and the more ready & the more able for Church service, he be not also thereby made the more bold and the more confident; Nec ament decipere verisimili sermone, lest because he is able to make any thing seem probable and likely to the people, by his eloquence, he come to infuse paradoxical opinions, or schismatical, or (which may be believed either way) problematical opinions, for certain and constant truths, and so be the less conversant, and the less diligent in advancing plain, and simple, and fundamental doctrines and catechistical, which are truly necessary to salvation, as though such plain, and ordinary, and catechistical doctrines were not worthy of his gifts and his great parts. In a word, in sheep-pastures you may plant fruit trees in the hedge-rowes; but if you plant them all over, it is an Orchard; we may transfer flowers of secular learning, into these exercises; but if they consist of those, they are but Themes, and Essays. But why insist we upon this? Was there any such conformity between the two Babylon's as that the Italian Babylon can be said to have trodden down the grass in that kind, with overcharging their Sermons with too much learning. Truly it was far, very very far from it; for when they had prevailed in that Axiom, and Aphorism of theirs, that it was best to keep the people in ignorance, they might justly keep the Priest in ignorance too; for when the people needed no learned instruction, what needed the Church a learned instructor? And therefore I laid hold of this consideration, the treading down of grass, by oppressing it with secular learning, there by to bring to your remembrance, the extreme ignorance that damped the Roman Church, at that time; where Aristotle's Metaphysics were condemned for Heresy, Hosius. and ignorance in general made not only pardonable, but meritorious. Of which times, if at any time, you read the Sermons, which were then preached, and after published, you will excuse them of this treading down the grass, by oppressing their auditories with overmuch learning, for they are such Sermons as will not suffer us to pity them, but we must necessarily scorn, and contemn, and deride them; Sermons, at which the gravest, and saddest man could not choose but laugh; not at the Sermon, God forbid; nor at the plainness, and homeliness of it; God forbid; but at the Solecisms, the barbarismes, the servilities, the stupid ignorance of those things which fall within the knowledge of boys of the first form in every School. This was their treading down of grass, not with overmuch learning, but with a cloud, a damp, an earth of ignorance. After an Ox that oppresseth the grass, after a Horse that devours the grass, sheep will feed; but after a Goose that stanches the grass, they will not; no more can God's sheep receive nourishment from him that puts a scorn upon his function, by his ignorance. But in the other way of treading down grass, Conculcatum per traditiones. (that is, the word of God) by the Additions and Traditions of men, the Italian Babylon Rome abounded, superabounded, overflowed, surrounded all. And this is much more dangerous than the other; for this mingling of humane additions, and traditions, upon equal necessity, and equal obligation as the word of God itself, is a kneading, an incorporating of grass and earth together, so, as that it is impossible for the weak sheep, to avoid eating the meat of the Serpent, Gen. 3. Dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. Now man upon his transgression, was not accursed, nor woman; The sheep were not accursed; But the earth was, and the Serpent was; and now this kneading, this incorporating of earth with grass, traditions with the word, makes the sheep to eat the cursed meat of the cursed Serpent, Dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. Now, in this treading down this grass, this way, this suppressing it by traditions, be pleased to consider these two applications; some traditions do destroy the word of God, Scicut Porcus. extirpate it, annihilate it, as when a Hog doth root up the grass; In which case, not only that turf withers, and is presently useless, and unprofitable to the sheep, but if you dig never so low after, down to the Centre of the earth, it is impossible ever to find any more grass under it: so some traditions do utterly oppose the word of God, without having under them, any mysterious signification, or any occasion or provocation of our devotion, which is the ordinary pretext of traditions, and Ceremonial additions in their Church. And of this sort was that amongst the jews, of which our blessed Saviour reproaches them, Mat. 15. that whereas by the law, children were to relieve decayed parents, they had brought in a tradition, of Commutation, of Compensation, that if those children gave a gift to the Priest, or compounded with the Priest, they were discharged of the former obligation. And of this sort are many traditions in the Roman Church; where, not only the doctrines of men but the doctrine of Devils, (as the Apostle calls the forbidding of Marriage, and of meats) did not only tread down, 1 Tim. 1. but root up the true grass. The other sort of Traditions, Sicut Talpa. and Ceremonies, do not as the Hog, root up the grass, but as a Mole, cast a slack, and thin earth upon the face of the grass. Now, if the shepherd, or husbandman be present to scatter this earth again, the sheep receive no great harm, but may safely feed upon the wholesome grass, that is under; but if the sheep, who are not able to scatter this earth, nor to find the grass that lies under, be left to their own weakness, they may as easily starve in this case, as in the other; the Mole may damnify them as much as the Hog. And of this sort, are those traditions, which induce Ceremonies into the Church, in vestures, in postures of the body, in particular things, and words, and actions, in Baptism or Marriage, or any other thing to be transacted in the Church. These ceremonies are not the institutions of God immediately, but they are a kind of light earth, that hath under it good and useful significations, which when they be understood conduce much to the increase and advancement of our devotion, and of the glory of God. And this is the iniquity that we complain of in the Roman Church, that when we accuse them of multiplying impertinent, and insupportable ceremonies, they tell us, of some mysterious and pious signification, in the institution thereof at first; They tell us this, and it is sometimes true; But neither in Preaching nor practice, do they scatter this earth to their own sheep, or show them the grass that lies under, but suffer the people, to inhere, and arrest their thoughts, upon the ceremony itself, or that to which that ceremony mis-leads them; as in particular, (for the time will not admit many examples) when they kneel at the Sacrament, they are not told, that they kneel because they are then in the act of receiving an inestimable benefit at the hands of God, (which was the first reason of kneeling then) And because the Priest is then in the act of prayer in their behalf, that that may preserve them, in body and soul, unto eternal life. But they are suffered to go one, in kneeling in adoration of that bread, which they take to be God. We deny not that there are Traditions, nor that there must be ceremonies, but that matters of faith should depend of these, or be made of these, that we deny; and that they should be made equal to Scriptures; for with that especially doth Tertullian reproach the Heretics, that being pressed with Scriptures, they fled to Traditions, as things equal or superior to the word of God. I am loath to depart from Tertullian, both because he is every where a Pathetical expresser of himself, and in this point above himself. Nobis curiositate opus non est, post jesum Christum, nec Inquisitione, post Evangelium. Have we seen that face of Christ Jesus here upon earth, which Angels desired to see, and would we see a better face? Traditions perfecter than the word? Have we read the four Evangelists, and would we have a better Library? Traditions fuller than the word? Cum credimus● nihil desideramus ultra credere; when I believe God in Christ, dead, and risen again according to the Scriptures, I have nothing else to believe; Hoc enim prius credimus, non esse quod ultra credere debeamus; This is the first Article of my Faith, that I am bound to believe nothing but articles of faith in an equal necessity to them. Will we be content to be well, and thank God, when we are well? Hilary tells us, when we are well; Bene habet quod iis, quae scripta sunt, contentus sis; then thou art well, when thou satisfiest thyself with those things, which God hath vouchsafed to manifest in the Scriptures. Si aliquis aliis verbis, quam quibus à Deo dictum est, demonstrare velit, if any man will speak a new language, otherwise than God hath spoken, and present new Scriptures, (as he does that makes traditions equal to them) Aut ipse non intelligit, aut legentibus non intelligendum relinquit, either he understands not himself, or I may very well be content not to understand him, if I understand God without him. The Fathers abound in this opposing of Traditions, when out of those traditions, our adversaries argue an insufficiency in the Scriptures. Solus Christus audiendus, says Saint Cyprian, we harken to none but Christ; nec debemus attendere quid aliquis ante nos faciendum putarit, neither are we to consider what any man before us thought fit to be done, sed quid qui ante emnes est, fecerit; but what he, who is before all them, did; Christ jesus and his Apostles, who were not only the primitive but the pre-primitive Church, did and appointed to be done. In this treading down of our grass then in the Roman Church, first by their supine Ignorance, and barbarism, and then by traditions, of which, some are pestilently iufectious and destroy good words, some cover it so, as that not being declared to the people in their signification, they are useless to them, no Babylon could exceed the Italian Babylon, Rome, in treading down their grass. Their oppression was as great in the other, Aqua. Psal. 23. 2. In troubling their water, My sheep drink that which you have troubled. When the Lord is our shepherd, he leadeth us ad aquas quietudinum, to the waters of rest, of quietness; of these, in the plural, quietudinum, quietness of body, and quietness of Conscience too. The endowments of heaven are joy, and Glory; joy, and glory are the two Elements, the two Hemispheres of Heaven; And of this Joy, and this Glory of heaven, we have the best earnest that this world can give, if we have rest; satisfaction and acquiescence in our religion, for our belief, and for our life and actions, peace of Conscience. And where the Lord is our shepherd he leads us, and ad aquas quietudinum, to the waters of rest, multiplied rest; all kind of rest. But the shepherds, in our text, troubled the waters; and more than so; for we have just cause to note the double signification of this word, which we translate Trouble, and to transfer the two significations to the two Sacraments, as they are exhibited in the Roman Babylon; The word is Mirpas; and it denotes not only Conturbationem, a troubling, a mudding, but Obturationem too, an interception, a stopping, as the Septuagint translates it, Prov. 35. and in these two significations of the word, a troubling, and a stopping of the waters, hath the Roman Church exercised her tyranny, and her malignity, in the two Sacraments. For, in the Sacrament of Baptism, they had troubled the water, with additions of Oil, and salt, and spittle, and exorcisms; But in the other Sacrament of they came Ad obturationem, to a stopping, to an intercision, to an interruption of the water, the water of life, Aquae quietudinum, the water of rest to our souls, and peace to our consciences, in withholding the Cup of salvation, the blood of Christ Jesus from us. Psal. 116. 12. So that if thou come to David's holy expostulation, Quid retribuam, what shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me; And pursue it to David's holy resolution, Accipiam Calicem, I will take the Cup of salvation, you shall be told, Sir you must take Orders first, or you cannot take that Cup. But water is as common as Air; And as that Element Aire, in our spiritual food, that is preaching, (which is Spiritus Domini, the breath of God) is common to all, I●e, praedicate omni Creaturae, Mar. 16. 15. Mat. 26. 27. go preach the Gospel to every Creature, so is this water of life in the Sacrament, common to all, Bibite ex eo omnes, Drink ye all of this; and thereby do the names of Communion, and participation accrue to it, because all have an interest in it. This is that blood, of which Saint chrysostom says, Hic sanguis facit, ut Imago Dei in nobis floreat; That we have the Image of God in our souls, we have by the benefit of the same nature, by which we have our souls; There cannot be a humane soul without the Image of God in it. But, ut floreat, that this Image appear to us, and be continually refreshed in us, ut non Languescat animae nobilitas, that this holy nobleness of the soul do not languish not degenerate in us, we have by the benefit of this blood of Christ jesus the seal of our absolution in that blessed and glorious Sacrament; And that blood they deny us. This is that blood of which they can make as much as they will, with a thought, with an intention; so, as they pretend a power, of changing a whole vintage at once, all the wine of all the nations in the world, into the blood of Christ, if the Priest have an intention to do so, in the time of his Consecration; And yet, as easily as they come by it, they will givesus none. They have told us, that we had it per Concomitantiam, by a necessary concomitancy; That because we had the body in the bread, and that body could not be without the blood, that therefore we had the blood also. But if the bread alone be enough, if the Cup be impertinent, why did Christ give it? If we have no loss in their detaining it from us, what gain have they in retaining it to themselves, let all have it, or none? It is true that they can perform all the ill, that they would do, by the bread alone. They can work the spiritual ill, of inducing adoration to a Creature, by the bread alone; And they could work the temporal ill, of poisoning an Emperor in the Sacrament, by the bread alone. They can come to all their purposes, to all their ill, by the bread alone, but we have not all our good, because we have not Christ's entire Institution. And so in this troubling, and in this stopping of these waters, in these confusions, we challenge any Babylon, in the behalf of this Italian Babylon, Rome. All these oppressions are aggravated by the last, Pedes. and (as weightiest things sink to the bottom) so is this in the bottom the heaviest pressure, that they did this with their feet, they corrupted the grass with their feet, and troubled the waters with their feet. Now in the Scriptures, when this word, feet, doth not signify that part of man's body which is ordinarily so called, but is transferred to a Metaphorical signification, (as in our text it is) it does most commonly signify Affections, 1 Sam. 2. 9 or Power. So the Lord will keep the feet of his Saints; that is, direct their desires, and affections in the ways of holiness. And then for Power, (which is the more frequent acceptation of the word) he will not suffer thy foot to be moved, that is, thy power to be shaked; And all such places, qui festinus, he hath hasteth with his feet sinneth, our interpreters expound of a hasty abuse of Power; Psal. 121. 3. And those, they have not refrained their feet, and then, Prov. 19 2. thy feet are sunk in the mire, are still interpreted of Power, of a wanton abuse of Power, jer. 14. 10. 38. 22. or of a withdrawing this Power from man, by God; feet signifies Affections, and them corrupted and depraved, and power, and that abused. David seems to have joined them, (as when they are joined, they must necessarily be the most heavy) in that prayer, Psal. 36. 11. Let not the foot of pride come against me. The hand of pride, nay the sword of pride, affects not a tender soul so much, as the foot of pride; to be oppressed, and that with scorn; not so much in an anger, as in a wantonness. Rehoboams people were more confounded, with that scornful answer of his to them, when they were come, (My little finger shall be thicker than my Father's loins; my father chastised you with whips, 1 King. 12. 10. but I will chastise you with Scorpions) than they were with the grievances themselves, for which they came; when the King would not only be cruelly sharp, but wittily sharp upon them, this cut on every side, and pierced deep. And so do the Rabbins, the Jewish expositors expound this text, literally, that in the captivity of Babylon, the great men of their Synagogues, compounded with the State, and for certain tributes, had commissions, by which they governed their people at their pleasure, and so milked them to the last drop, the last drop of blood, and sheared them to the naked skin, & then flayed off that, & all this while laughed at them, contemned them, because they had no where, to appeal, nor relieve themselves: And this we complain to have been the proceeding in the Italian Babylon, Rome, with our Fathers, They oppressed them, with their feet, that is, with Power, and with scorn. First, Pes-potestatis. for their illimited and enormous Power, they had so slumbered, so intoxicated the Princes of the Earth, the weaker by intimidations, the stronger by communicating the spoil, and suffering those Princes to take some fleeces, from some of the sheep in their dominions, as there was no relief any way. They record, nay they boast, gloriously, triumphantly, of three score thousand of the Waldenses, slain by them in a day, in the beginning of the Reformation; and Possevine the Jesuit will not lose the glory of recording the five hundred thousand, slain in a very few years, only in France, and the low Country, for some declarations of their desire of a Reformation. Let all those innumerable numbers of wretches, (but now victorious Saints in the Triumphant Church) who have breathed out their souls in the Inquisition (where even the solicitations of Kings, and that for their own sons, have not prevailed) confess the power, the immenseness of that power, then, when as under some of the Roman Emperors, it was treason to weep, treason to sigh, treason to look pale, treason to fall sick, and all these were made arguments of discontent, and ill affection, to the present government: so in Rome, there were Heretical sighs, Heretical tears, paleness, and Heretical sickness; every things was interpreted to be an accusation of the present times, and an anhelation after a Reformation, and that was formal heresy, three piled, deep-died heresy: so that a man durst scarce have prayed for the enlarging of God's blessings to the Church, because to with it better, seemed a kind of accusing of it, that it was not well already; and it was heresy to think so. Let those Israelites, which found no way from this Egypt, but by the red sea, no way out of Idolatry, but by Martyrdom, as they have testified for Christ, so testify against Antichrist, how heavy his feet, as feet signify Power, trod upon the necks of Princes and people. But that that affected and afflicted most, Pessuperbiae. was the scorn and the contempt, that accompanied their oppressions. To bring Kings to Kiss his feet, was a scorn; but that scorn determined in man; but it was a scorn to God himself, to say that he had said, it should be so, to apply Scripture to the justification thereof, Kings and Queens shall bow down to thee, Esay. 49. 23. their faces towards the Earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet. But limit we all considerations of their scorn in one; In this, that they did these wrongs professedly, and without any disguise. Great men will oppress and ruin others, a great while before they will be content to be seen and known to do it. There is such a kind of reverence, not only to Law, but even to honour, and opinion, as that men are loath to publish their evil actions; To sin as Sodom did, and not to hide it, is an evidence, of neglecting, and scorning of all the world. And therefore the Roman Historiographers would not forbear to note the insolency of that young gallant, who knowing what any man whom he struck could recover by action against him, would strike every poor soul or inferior person, whom he met in the street and then bid his man give him so much money, as the Law would for damages. And this oppressing with scorn, this proceeding without any respect of fame, we note (for haste) but in two things, in the Italian Babylon Rome; Taxa camerae. first, in that Book, their Taxa Camerae, and then in that doctrine, their Reservatio Casuum, that they durst compose, and divulge such a book, as their, Taxa Camerae, which is an Index, a Repertory for all sins, and in which every man may see beforehand, how much money, an Adultery, an Incest, a Murder, a Parricide, or any other sin, whose name he would never have thought of, but by that Remembrancer, that book will cost him, that so, he may sin, and not undo himself, sin according to his means, and within his compass, that they durst let the world see such a book, was argument enough that they were feared up, and scorned all that all men could think, or say, or do in opposition. So also is their Reservation of Cases; that though all Priests have an equal power of remitting all sins, Reservatio caswim. yet are some sins reserved only to Prelates, some only to the Pope's Legates, some only to the Pope himself. Is not this a scornful spurning and kicking of the world, a plain telling them that all is done for money, and shall be so, say all the world what it can. They have a national custom in civil courtesies in that place in Italy, to offer entertainments and lend of money, and the like, but it must not be accepted. It is a discourtesy, to take their courteous offers in earnest. Will they play so with the great Seal of heaven, the remission and absolution of sins, and send out their Priests with that commission, whose sins ye forgive, are forgiven, but see you forgive none upon which we have set a higher price, and reserved to ourselves. They had such a fashion in old Rome, whilst the Republic stood; He that was admitted to Triumph must invite the Consuls to the feast, and the Consuls must promise to come, but they must forbear, lest their presence should diminish the glory of the Triumpher. So the Priest must profess that he hath (as he hath indeed) power to remit all sins, but there are a great many, that he must not meddle withal. They practise this reservation upon higher persons than their ordinary Priests, upon Cardinals. A Cardinal is created, and by that creation he hath a voice in all the great affairs of the world, but at his creation Os clauditur à Papa, he that made him, makes him dumb, and he that out of the nature of his place is duly to be heard over all the world, must not be heard in the Consistory, the Pope gives him an universal voice, and then shuts his mouth; He makes him first a Giant, and then a dwarf in an hour; He makes him thunder, and speechless, all at once; fearful to the Kings of the earth, if he might speak, but he must not. They were not content to make Merchandise of our souls, but they make plays, jests, scorns, of matter of salvation, and play fast and loose with that sovereign Balsamum of our souls, the absolution and remission of sins. Though, no doubt, many of them confess in their own bosoms, that which one of them professes ingenuously, Tapperus. and publicly, Diffiteri non possumus abusum Reservationum, & stragem animarum in iis; we cannot deny the abuse of reservations, even to the butchery of those poor souls, who, by reason of these reservations, want their absolution, Dolendum, deflendum, pecuniâ numeratâ, omnia dispensare; This deserves all our tears, all our sighs, that for money, and not without it, all sins are dispensed withal; but there are fixed seasons for salvation, (some remissions and pardons are reserved to certain times of the year) and there are fixed shops of salvation, (some remissions and pardons are appropriated to certain Fairs and Markets, and cannot be given (that is sold) at any other time, or place. And farther we cannot (we need not) extend this accommodation of the words of our text, literally intended of the condition of God's Children in Babylon, but pregnantly appliable to the condition of our Fathers in the Italian Babylon, Rome. But having at this time seen the oppressions that those shepherds inflicted there, for the rest which are many and important considerations, as first that they stayed, that they eat that grass, that yet they remained God's sheep, and remained his flock, his Church, though a Church under a greater Church; And then the behaviour of the sheep, whilst they stayed there, their obedience to Gods call in coming from them when he called them, and made them way; And lastly the little ground that our Separatists can have, for their departing from us either by Israel's departing from Babylon, or our Father's departing from Rome, must be the exercise of your devotion another day. SERMON XXV. Preached at White-Hall. The second Sermon on EZEK. 34. 19 And as for my flock, they eat that, which ye have trodden with your feet, and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet. AS by way of accommodation, we have considered these words, as they concern the iniquity and oppression of the shepherds, (that is, the chief rulers amongst the jews) in the Chaldean Babylon, and as they are appliable to the condition of our Fathers in the Italian Babylon, Rome, so now in this exercise are we to consider, the behaviour of the sheep, their nature, and their demeanour under all these pressures; in which we have many steps to go; All these; first, Manebant, that for all this ill usage there they did stay, they did not break out, not scatter themselves, manebant; And then Edebant, though their grass were trodden, and their water troubled, yet they did eat that grass, and they did drink that water, Edebant; And doing so, Manebant Oves, they continued sheep, they lost not the nature, nor property of sheep, Manebant Oves, and Oves Dei, they continued God's sheep; (for the Devil hath his sheep too) my sheep, says God; not those which bade been mine, when they eat fresh grass, and drunk pure water, but then, when they eat trodden grass, and drunk troubled water, they were God's sheep; And more than that, they were Grex Dei, God's flock; for those whom our former translation calls my sheep, the latter calls my flock; God hath single sheep in many corners of the heathen, but these, though thus fed, were his flock, his Church. But then, though they stayed God's leisure, and lived long upon this ill diet, yet when God was pleased to call them out of Babylon, out of Babylon they went, when God was pleased to lead our Fathers out of Rome, they left it. And justly, howsoever our Adversaries load us with contumelious names for that departure; in which branch, we shall see the vanity of their criminations, and imputations to us for that secession from them. And then lastly, by way of condoling and of instructing, we shall make it appear to our weak brethren, that our departing from Rome, can be no example, no justification of their departing from us. Our branches then, from whence we are to gather our fruit, being thus many, it is time to lay hold upon the first, which is Manebant, Though these sheep were thus ill fed, yet they did stay. Optimis ovibus pedes breves; Manebant. Pliny. Prov. 19 2. Chrysost. The best sheep have-shortest legs; Their commendation is, not to make haste in straying away. He that hasteth with his feet sinneth; that is, from the station in which God hath placed him. Si innumera bona fecerimus, If we have abounded in good works, and done God never so good service, Non minores Poenas dabimus, quam qui Christi corpus proscindebant, si integritatem Ecclesiarum discerpserimus, we are as guilty in the eyes of God, as they that crucified the Lord of life himself, if we violate his spouse, or rend the entireness of his Church. Vir quidam sanctus dixit, (says the same father of another, chrysostom of Cyprian) A certain holy man hath ventured to say, Quod audaciùs sapere videtur, attamen dixit, That which perchance may seem bodily said, but yet he said it; what was it? This, peccatum istud nec martyrio deleri; That this sin of schism, of renting the unity of the Church, cannot be expiated no not by Martyrdom itself. When God had made but a hedge about job, job 1. 10. yet that hedge was such a ●ence as the Devil could not break in: jer. 1. 18. when God hath carried Murum aeneum a wall of brass, nay Murum igneum, a wall of fire about his Church, wilt thou break out through that wall, Zech. 2. 5. that brass, that fire? Paradise was not walled, nor hedged; and there were serpents in Paradise too; Gen. 3. 24. yet Adam offered not to go out of Paradise, till God drove him out; and God saw that he would have come in again, if the Cherubims and the flaming sword had not been placed by God to hinder him. Charm the Charmer never so wisely, Psal. 58. 5. (as David speaks) he cannot utter a sweeter, nor a more powerful charm, ●hen that, Ego te baptizo, I baptise thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; And, Nos admittimus, we receive this child, into the congregation of Christ's flock; There is a sweet and a powerful charm, in the Ego te absolvo, I absolve thee from all thy sins; But this blessed charm I may hear from another, if I stray into another Church. But the Ego te baptizo I can hear but once; and to depart from that Church, in which I have received my baptism, and in which I have made my Contracts and my stipulations with God, and pledged and engaged my sureties there, deserve a mature consideration; for I may mistake the reasons upon which I go, and I may find after, that there are more true errors in the Church I go to, then there were imaginary in that that I left. Truly I have been sorry to see some persons converted from the Roman Church, to ours; because I have known, that only temporal respects have moved them, and they have lived after rather in a nullity, or indifferency to either religion, then in a true, and established zeal. Of which kind, I cannot forbear to report to you so much of the story of a French gentleman, P●le●er. who though he were of good parts, and learned, yet were not worthy to be mentioned in this place, but that he soared so high, as to write against the learnedst King, that any age hath produced, our incomparable King james. This man, who was turned from the Reformed to the Roman religion, being asked, half in jest; Sir, which is the best religion, you must needs know, that have been of both? answered, Certainly, the religion I left, the reformed religion, must needs be the best religion, for when I changed, I had this religion, the Romans religion, for it, and three hundred Crowns a year to boot; which was a pension given him, upon his conversion. Neither truly doth any thing more loosen a man's footing, nor slacken his hold upon that Church in which he was baptised, nor open him more to an undervaluation of all Churches, then when he gives himself leave, to think irreverently, slightly, negligently of the Sacraments, as of things, at best, indifferent, and, many times, impertinent. I should think I had no bowels, if they had not earned and melted, when I heard a Lady, whose child of five or six days, being ready to die every minute, she being moved often that the child might be christened, answered, That, if it were Gods will, that the child should live to the Sabbath, that it might be baptised in the Congregation, she should be content, otherwise, Gods will be done upon it, for God needs no Sacrament. With what sorrow; with what holy indignation did I hear the Son of my friend, who brought me to that place, to minister the Sacrament to him, then upon his deathbed, and almost at his last gasp, when my service was offered him in that kind, answer his Father, Father, I thank God, I have not lived so in the sight of my God, as that I need a Sacrament. I name a few of these, because our times abound with such persons as undervalue, not only all ritual, and ceremonial assistances of devotion, which the wisdom, and the piety of the Church hath induced, but even the Sacraments themselves, of Christ's own immediate institution, and are always open to solicitations to pass to another Church, upon their own surmises of errors in their own. Whereas there belongs much consideration, and a well grounded assurance, of fundamental errors in one Church, and that those errors are repaired, and no other, as great as those, admitted, in the other Church, before, upon any collateral pretences, we abandon that Church, in which God hath sealed us to himself in Baptism. Our Fathers stayed in Rome; Manebant, They stayed, and Edebant, they eat that grass, and they drunk that water, which was trodden and troubled. Alas, Edebant. what should they have eaten, what should they have drunk? should a man strangle himselse rather than take in an ill air? Or forbear a good table, because his stomach cannot digest every dish? We do not call money, base money, till the Alloy exceed the pure metal; and if it do so, yet it may be currant, and serve to many offices; Those that are skilful in that art, know how to sever the base from the pure, the good parts of the religion from the bad; and those that are not, will not cast it away, for all the corrupt mixture. It is true, they had been better to have stayed at home and served God in private, then to have communicated in a superstitious service. Domum vestram Christi Ecclesian deputamus, I shall never doubt to call your House the Church of Christ. Aug. Iuli●●●ae viduae. cp. 242. But this was not permitted to our Fathers; to serve God at home; to Church they must come, and there, all their grass was trodden, and all their water troubled. What should they do? God never brings us to a perplexity, so as that we must necessarily do one sin to avoid another. Never● It seems that the Apostles had been traduced, and insimulated of teaching this Doctrine, That in some cases evil might be done that good might follow; Rom. 3. 8. and therefore doth S. Paul with so much diligence discharge himself of it. And yet, long after this, when those men, who attempted the Reformation, whom they called Pauperes de Lugduno, taught that Doctrine, That no less sin might he done, to escape a greater, this was imputed to them, then, by the Roman Church, for an Heresy; Pra●eolus Art. 23. That that was Orthodox in Saint Paul, was Heresy in them that ●studyed a Reformation. But the Doctrine stands like a rock against all waves, That nothing that is naturally ill, intrinsically sin, may upon any pretence be done, not though our lives, nor the lives of all the Princes in the world, though the frame, and being of the whole world, though the salvation of our souls lay upon it; no sin, naturally, intrinsically sin might be done, for any respect. Christus peccatum factus est, August. sed non fesit peccatum, Though Christ pursued our redemption with hunger, and thirst, yet he would have left us unredeemed, rather than have committed any sin. Of this kind therefore, naturally, intrinsically sin, and so known to be to them that did it, certainly our Fathers coming to the superstitious service in the Church of Rome, was not: for had it been, naturally sin, and so known to them, when they did it, they could not have been saved, otherwise then by repentance after, which we cannot presume in their behalf, for there are not testimonies of it. If any of them had invested at any time a scruple, a doubt whether they did well or no, alas how should they divest and overcome that scruple? To whom durst they communicate that doubt? They were under an invincible ignorance, and sometimes under an indevestible scruple. They had heard that Christ commanded to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, Mat. 16. 6. and Sadduces, and so of the Herodians; that is, of the doctrines of those particular sects; Ma●. 8. 15. of affirming Fate, and Destiny, and Stoical necessity, with the Pharisees; of denying Spirits, and Resurrection with the Sadduces; of mis-applying the prophecies concerning the Messias, to the person of Herod, or any earthly King; Mat. 23. 1. But yet, after all this, he commands them to observe, and perform the doctrine of the Pharisees, because they sat in Moses chair; Though with much vehemence and bitterness, he call them Hypocrites, though with many ingeminations upon every occasion, he reiterate that name, though he aggravate that name with other names of equal reproach, Fools, blind guides, painted tombs, and the like, yet he commands to obey them; and, which is most remarkable, this is said, not only to the common sort, but even to his own disciples too; Christ had begun his work of establishing a Church, which should empty their Synagogues; but because that work was not yet perfected, he would not withdraw the people from their Synagogues; for there wrought God's Ordinance, (though corrupted by the workmen) which Ordinance was, that the law should be publicly expounded to the people; and so it was there; There God was present; And though the Devil (by their corruption) were there too, yet, the Devil came in at the window, God at the door; the Devil by stealth, God by his declared Ordinance, and Covenant. And this was the case of our Fathers in the Roman Church; They must know that all that hath passed between God and man hath passed Ex pacto, by way of contact and covenant. The best works of the best man have no proportion with the kingdom of heaven, The best. for I give God but his own: But I have it Ex pacto, God hath covenanted so, Fac, hoc & vives, Do this and thou shalt live; and at the last judgement, Christ shall ground his Venite benedicti, Come ye blessed, and his Ite maledicti, Go ye accursed, upon the Quia, and upon the Quia non, Because you have, and Because you have not done this and this. Faith, that is of infinite value above works, hath yet no proportion to the kingdom of heaven; Faith saves me, as my hand feeds me; It reaches the food, but it is not the food; but faith saves Ex pacto, Mar. 5. 36. by virtue of that Covenant; which Christ hath made, Tantummodo crede, Only believe. To carry it to the highest, the merit of Christ jesus himself, though it be infinite so, as that it might have redeemed infinite worlds, yet the working thereof is safeliest considered in the School to be Ex pacto, by virtue of that contract which had passed between the Father and him, that all things should thus and thus be transacted by Christ, and so man should be saved; for, if we shall place it merely, only in the infiniteness of the merit, Christ's death would not have needed; for his first drops of blood in his Circumcision, nay his very Incarnation (that God was made man) and every act of his humiliation after, being taken singly, yet, in that person, God and man, were of infinite merit; and also, if it wrought merely by the infiniteness of the merit, it must have wrought, not only upon all men, but to the salvation of the Devil; for, certainly there is more merit in Christ then there is sin in the Devil. But the proceeding was Ex pacto, according to the contract made, and to the conditions given; Ipse conteret caput tuum, That the Messias should bruise the Serpent's head for us, included our redemption, That the Serpent's head should be bruised, excluded the Serpent himself. This contract, then between God and man, as it was able to put the nature of a great fault, in a small offence, if we consider only the eating of an apple, and so to make even a Trespass High-Treason, (because it was so contracted) so does this contract, the Ordinance of God, infuse a great virtue & efficacy, in the instruments of our reconciliation, how mean in gifts, or how corrupt in manners soever they be. Circumcision in itself a low thing, yea obscene, & subject to misinterpretation, yet by reason of the covenant, He that is not circumcised, Gen. 17. 14. that person shall be cut off from my people. So also Baptism, considered in itself, john 3. 3. a vulgar, and a familiar thing; yet, except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of heaven. The Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, a domestic, a daily thing; if we consider only the breaking of the bread and participation of the Cup, but if we ascend up to the contract in the institution, it is to every worthy receiver, the seal, and the Conduit of all the merits of Christ, jos. 6. 4. to his soul. God threw down the walls of Jericho, with the sound of Horns, not of Trumpets. A homely sound; yet it did the work; so neither is the weakness, no, nor the corruptness of the instruments always to be considered in the Church of God. Our Fathers knew there had passed a contract between God and man, A Church there should be Ad consummationem, to the end of the world, therefore they might safely make their recourse thither; and Porta Inferi, Mat. 16. 18. the gates of hell should not prevail against it, therefore they might confidently dwell there; Mat. 18. 17. They knew there was a Dic Ecclesiae a bill to be exhibited to the Church, upon any disorder, and a Si noluerit, an excommunication upon disobedience, If he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man, and as a Publican. This Church they saw, and God's contract upon them sealed in Baptism, they knew, God had revealed no other Church, nor contract to them. And therefore, though they did not eat their trodden grass, with that ridiculous tentation, as the Friar is boasted to have eaten a Toad which was set upon the Table, because he had read, 1 Cor. 10. 27. whatsoever is set before you eat; Nor, as their Dorotheus, who when his man had reachd him ratsbane, in stead of honey, which he called for, refused it not, because said he, If Gods will had been, that I should have had honey, he would have directed thy hand to the honey, but being under an invi ciblenignorance, and indevestible scruples, and having this contract, and this Church, to give them some satisfaction and acquiescence, they were partakers of that blessing, That though Serpents and Scorpions lurked in their grass, Luke 10. 19 they had power to tread on scorpions and on serpents, and nothing could hurt them, and That if they drink any deadly thing, it shall do them no harm. Mar. 16. 18. And so our Fathers with a good conscience, Manebant, stayed there, and Edebant, they eat trodden grass, and drunk troubled water, and yet Manebantoves, they continued sheep still. Sheep, Oves. that is, without Barking, or biting. Some faint and humble bleat there were always in the days of our Fathers; In every age there arose some men, who did modestly, and devoutly, but yet courageously and confidently appear, and complain against those tread, and those troubling. Every age, every nation had some such bleat, some men who by writing or preaching against those abuses, interrupted the tyrannical prescriptions of that Church, and made their continual claim, to their Christian liberty; But still they continued sheep, without denying either their fleece or their throats to those Pastors. We read in Natural story of divers pastures, and divers waters, which will change the colour of cattle, or sheep, but none that changes the form, and makes them no such cattle, or no sheep. Some waters change sheep of any colour to white. And these troubled waters, temporal or spiritual afflictions, may bring God's children to a faint and lean, 1. 15. and languishing paleness. If it do, as Daniel and his fellows, appeared fairer, and fatter in flesh, with their pults and water, which they desired rather than the King's polluted delicates, than others that said voluptuously: so the hearts of God's children shall be filled, Psalm 63. 5. as with marrow and with fatness, when others shall have all their hearts desire, but leanness in their souls. There are waters that change all coloured sheep to black. joel 2. 6. So may these troubled waters, afflictions, effect that upon God's children, The enemy shall come, and before him all faces shall gather blackness; Lam. 4. 8. as Jerusalem complains, That their faces were blacker than coals. If it do, yet as long as they stay, and continue sheep, members of the body, as long as they partake of the body, they shall partake of the complexion of the Church, who says of herself, I am black, O daughters of jerusalem, but comely, (acceptable in the sight of my Christ) and that shall be verified in them, Eccles. 7. 5. which Solomon says, By the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better; that is, by the occasion of the sadness, God's correction. But the strangest change is, that some waters change sheep into red, the most unlikely, most extraordinary, most unproper colour for sheep, of any other. Yet there is one redness natural to our sheep in the Text, the redness of blushing, and modesty, and self-accusing; And there is another redness, which is not improper, the redness of zeal and godly anger. The worst redness that can befall them, is the redness of sin, and yet, lest that should deject them, Esai. 1. 18. God proceeds familiarly with them, Come now, and let us reason together, Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like Crimson, they shall be as wool. Rom. 5. 20. Yea, to show, that where sin abounds, grace also may abound, to show that that whiteness of God's mercy doth pursue and overtake this redness of sin, it pleases the Holy Ghost to use such a phrase as expresses a redness in whiteness itself; He says, that the religious men of the Jews before that time, Lam. 4. 7. were whiter than milk, and redder than pearl: Mippeninim is the original word, which the Rabbins translate pearl; And the Vulgate Edition hath it, Rubicundiores ebore antiquo, redder than the oldest ivory, which is the whitest thing, that can be presented. Perchance to intimate thus much, that there is neither in the holiest actions, of the holiest man, any such degree of whiteness, but that it is always accompanied with some redness, some tincture, some aspersion of sin, nor any such deep redness in sin, any sin so often, and deeply died in grain, but that it is capable of whiteness, in the application of the candour, and pureness, and innocency of Christ Jesus: Therefore may the Holy Ghost have wrapped up this whiteness in redness, redder than Pearl. Our Fathers were not discouraged, when they were discolored; what paleness, what blackness, what redness soever, these troubled waters induced upon them, still they were sheep; They become not Foxes, to delude the State with equivocations; nor Wolves, to join with the State to the oppression of the rest; nor Horses, to suffer themselves to be ridden by others, and so made instruments of their passions; no nor unicorns, to think to purge and purify the waters for all the forest, to think to reform all abuses in State, and Church at once; but they continued sheep; opened not their mouths in biting, nor barking, in murmuring, or reproaching the present government. So our Fathers stayed, Manebant, so they eat that grass, so they continued sheep, and, as it follows next, Oves Dei, God's sheep, my sheep have eaten, my sheep have drunken. God's sheep; Oves Dei. for nature hath her sheep; some men by natural constitution, are lazy, drowsy, frivolous, unactive, sheepish men. And States have their sheep; timorous men, following men, speechless men, men, who because they abound in a plentiful State, are loath to stir. Nay the Devil hath his sheep too; Men whom he possesses so entirely, that, as the Law says, Domintum est potestas, tum utendi, tum abutendi, Only he is truly Lord of any thing, who may do what he will with it, he does what he will with those men, even to their own ruin. And from these folds and flocks did the Devil always serve his shambles, in his false Martyrdoms in the Primitive Church; when (as Eusebius notes) envying the honour which the Orthodox Christians had in their thousands of Martyrs, the Heretics studied ways of equalling them in that. And though within four hundred years after Christ, the Church, (who could not possibly take knowledge of all) was come to celebrate, by name, five thousand Martyrs (as some books have the account) for every day in the year, yet the Heretics went so far towards equalling them, as that they had some whole sects, (particularly the Euphemitae) which called themselves Martyrians, men exposed to the slaughter. One limb of the Donatists, the Circumcelliones, might have furnished their shambles; They would provoke others to kill them; and if they failed in that, they would kill themselves. And this was, as Saint Augustine says, Ludus quotidianus, their daily sport, they played at no other game. And left all these means should not have provided Martyrs enough, Petilian, against whom Saint Augustine writes, invented a new way of Martyrdom, when he taught, that if a man were guilty in his Conscience of any great offence to God, and only to punish that fault, did kill himself, he was by that act of Justice a Martyr. The Devil had his sheep then; He hath so still; Those Emissarii papae, those whom the Bishop of Rome sends hither into this kingdom; whom Baronius calls Candidates Martyrii, pretenders to Martyrdom, suitors for Martyrdom; Men, who (as he adds there) do sacramento spondere sanguinem, take an oath at Rome that they will be hanged in England; and, in whose behalf he complains de sterilitate Martyrii, that there is such a dearth of Martyrdom, that they find it hard to be hanged; and therefore, (perchance) they find it necessary to enter into Powder plots, and actual Treasons, because they see that for Religion merely, this State would never draw drop of blood, & sacramento sanguinem, they have taken an oath to be hanged, and are loath to be forsworn. But the sheep of our text, were not Nature's sheep, men naturally lazy, and unactive, nor State sheep, men loath to adventure, by stirring, nor the Devil's sheep, men headlong to their own ruin, even by way of provocation; But they were God's sheep, men, who, out of a rectified conscience, would not prevaricate, not betray nor forsake God, if his glory required the expense of their lives, and yet would not exasperate nor provoke their superiors, how corrupt soever, by unseasonable, and unprofitable complaints: so our Fathers stayed in Rome, so they eat trodden grass, and drunk troubled waters, so they continued harmless sheep towards others, and the sheep of God, such as though they stayed there and fed upon an ill diet, God had distinguished from Goats, and reserved for his right hand, at the day of separation. And they were more than so; they were not only his sheep, but his flock; for so, this translation reads it, my flock hath eaten, my flock hath drunk. God had single sheep in many nations; Grex. jobs, and naaman's, and such; servants, and yet not in the Covenants, sheep, and yet not brought into his flock. For though God have revealed no other way of salvation to us, but by breeding us in his Church, yet we must be so far, from straightening salvation, to any particular Christian Church, of any subdivided name, Papist or Protestant, as that we may not straiten it to the whole Christian Church, as though God could not, in the largeness of his power, or did not, in the largeness of his mercy, afford salvation to some, whom he never gathered into the Christian Church. But these sheep in our text, were his flock, that is, his Church. Though they durst not communicate their sense of their miseries, and their desires to one another, yet they were a flock. When Elias complained, I, even I only am left, 1 King. 19 14. and God told him, that he had seven thousand besides him, perchance Elias knew none of this seven thousand, perchance none of this seven thousand and knew one another, and yet, they were his flock, though they never met. That timber that is in the forest, that stone that is in the quarry, that Iron, that Led that is in the mine, though distant miles, Counties, Nations, from one another, meet in the building of a material Church; So doth God bring together, living stones, men that had no relation, no correspondence, no intelligence together, to the making of his Mystical body, his visible Church. Who ever would have thought, that we of Europe, and they of the Eastern, or Western Indies, should have met to the making of Christ a Church? And yet, before we knew, on either side, that there was such a people, God knew there was such a Church. He that lies buried, in the consecrated dust under your feet, knows not who lies next him; but one Trumpet at last shall raise them both together, and show them to one another, and join them, (by God's grace) in the Triumphant Church. These that knew not one another, that knew not of one another, were yet God's flock, the Church in his eye; for there, (and only there) the Church is always visible. So were our Fathers in Rome, though they durst not meet, and communicate their sorrows, nor fold themselves so in the fold of Christ Jesus, that is in open, and free Confessions. They therefore that ask now, Where was your Church before Luther, would then have asked of the jews in Babylon, Where was your Church before Esdras; that was in Babylon, ours was in Rome. Now, Secessio. beloved, when our Adversaries cannot deny us this truth, that our Church was enwrapped, (though smothered) in theirs, that as that Balsamum naturale, which Paracelsus speaks of, that natural Balm which is in every body, and would cure any wound, if that wound were kept clean, and recover any body, if that body were purged, as that natural balm is in that body, how diseased soever that body be, so was our Church in theirs, they vex us now, with that question, Why, if the case stood so, if your Fathers, when they eat our trodden grass, and drunk our troubled waters, were sound and in health, and continued sheep, and God's sheep, and God's flock, his Church with us, why went they from us? They ought us their residence, because they had received their Baptism from us. And truly, it is not an impertinent, a frivolous reason, that of Baptism, where there is nothing but conveniency, and no necessity in the case. But, if I be content to stay with my friend in an aguish air, will he take it ill, if I go when the plague comes? Or if I stay in town till 20 die of the plague, shall it be looked that I should stay when there die 1000? The infection grew hotter and hotter in Rome; & their may, came to a must, those things which were done before de facto, came at last to be articles of Faith, and de jure, must be believed and practised upon salvation. They chide us for going away, and they drove us away; If we abstained from communicating with their poisons, (being now grown to that height) they excommunicated us; They gave us no room amongst them but the fire, and they were so forward to burn Heretics, that they called it heresy, not to stay to be burnt. Yet we went not upon their driving, Vox Dei. but upon God's calling. As the whole prophecy of the deliverance of Israel, from Babylon, belongs to the Christian Church, both to the Primitive Church, at first, and to the Reformed since, so doth that voice, spoken to them, reach unto us, Egredimini de Babylone, Go ye out of Babylon with a voice of singing, Esay 48. 20. declare, show to the ends of the earth, that the Lord hath redeemed his servant jacob. Lud. Vives. For, that Rome is not Babylon, they have but that one half-comfort, that one of their own authors hath ministered, that Romae regulariter male agitur; that Babylon is Confusion, disorder, but at Rome all sins are committed in order, by the book, and they know the price, and therefore Rome is not Babylon. And since that many of their authors confess, 1 Pet. 5. 13. that Rome was Babylon, in the time of the persecuting Emperors, and that Rome shall be Babylon again, in the time of Antichrist, how they will hedge in a jerusalem, a holy City, between these two Babylon's, is a cunning piece of Architecture. From this Babylon then were our Fathers called by God; not only by that whispering sibilation of the holy Ghost, Zech. 10. 8. sibilab● populum, I will hiss for my people, and so gather them, for I have redeemed them, and they shall increase, not only by private inspirations, but by general acclamations; every where principal writers, and preachers, and Princes too, (as much as could stand with their safety) crying out against them before Luther, howsoever they will needs do him that honour, to have been the first mover, in this blessed revolution. They reproach to us our going from them, Curia. when they drove us, and God drew us, and they discharge themselves for all, by this one evasion; That all that we complain of, is the fault of the Court of Rome, and not of the Church; of the extortion in the practice of their Officers, not of error in the doctrine of their Teachers. Let that be true, (as in a great part it is) for, almost all their errors proceed from their covetousness and love of money) this is that that we complain most of, and in this especially lies the conformity of the jewish Priests in the Chaldean Babylon, and these Prelates in the Roman Babylon, that the Court, and the Church, joined in the oppression. But since the Court of Rome, and the Church of Rome are united in one head, I see no use of this distinction, Court and Church. If the Church of Rome be above the Court, the Church is able to amend these corruptions in the Court. If the Court be got above the Church, the Church hath lost, or sold away, her supremacy. To oppress us, Miracula. and ease themselves, now, when we are gone from them, they require Miracles at out hands; when indeed it was miracle enough, how we got from them. But, Chrysost. magnum charitatis argumentum, credere absque pignoribus miraculorum, He loves God but a little that will not believe him without a miracle. Miracles are for the establishing of new religions; All the miracles of, and from Christ and his Apostles, are ours, because their Religion is ours. Indeed it behoves our adversaries to provide new miracles every day, because they make new articles of Faith every day. As Aesop therefore answered in the Market, when he that sold him was asked what he could do, that he could do nothing, because his fellow had said, that he could do all, so we say, we can do no miracles, because they do all; all ordinary cures of Agues, and toothache being done by miracle amongst them. We confess that we have no such tye upon the Triumphant Church, to make the Saints there do those anniversary miracles, which they do by their relics here, upon their own holy days, ten days sooner every year, than they did before the new computation. We pretend not to raise the dead, but to cure the sick; and that but by the ordinary Physic, the Word, and Sacraments, and therefore need no miracles. jos. Acosta. And we remember them of their own authors, who do not only say, that themselves do no miracles, in these latter times, but assign diligently strong reasons, why it is that they do none. If all this will not serve, we must tell them, that we have a greater miracle, than any that they produce; that is, that in so few years, they that forsook Rome, were become equal, even in number, to them that adhered to her. We say, with Saint Augustine, That if we had no other miracle, hoc unum stupendum & potentissimum miraculum esse, that this alone were the most powerful, and most a mazing miracle, ad hanc religionem, totius orbis amplitudinem, sine miraculis subjugatam, that so great a part of the Christian world, should become Protestants of Papists, without any miracles. They pursue us still, Dissensiones. being departed from them, and they ask us, How can ye pretend to have left Babylon confusion, Dissension, when you have such dissensions, & confusions amongst yourselves? But neither are our differences in so fundamental points, as theirs are, (for a principal author of their own, who was employed by Clement the eight, to reconcile the differences between the jesuits and the Dominicans, Beni●●s. about the concurrence of the grace of God, and the free will of man, confesses that the principal articles, and foundations of faith were shaken between them, between the jesuits, and Dominicans) neither shall we find such heat, and animosity, and passion between any persons amongst us, as between the greatest amongst them; The succeeding Pope mangling the body of his predecessor, casting them into the river for burial, disannulling all their decrees, and ordinations; their Ordinations; so that no man could be sure who was a Priest, nor whether he had truly received any Sacrament, or no. Howsoever, as in the narrowest way there is most justling, the Roman Church going that broad way, to believe as the Church believes, may scape some particular differences, which we that go the narrower way, to try every thing by the exact word of God, De doctri. Christia. may fall into. Saint Augustine tells us of a City in Mauritania Caesarea, in which they had a custom, that in one day in the year, not only Citizens of other parishes, but even neighbours, yea brethren, yea Fathers, did fling stones dangerously, and furiously at one another in the streets, and this they so solemnised, as a custom received from their ancestors; which was a licentious kind of Carnavall. If any amongst us have fallen into that disease, to cast stones, or dirt at his friends, it is an infection from his own distemper, 1 Cor. 11. 16. not from our doctrine; for, if any man list to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the Church of God. We departed not from them then, till it was come to a hot plague, in a necessity of professing old opinions to be new articles of Faith; not till we were driven by them, and drawn by the voice of God, in the learnedest men of all nations; when they could not discharge themselves by the distinction of the Court of Rome, and the Church of Rome, because, if the abuses had been but in the Court, it was the greatest abuse of all, for that Church, which is so much above that Court, not to mend it. Nor can they require Miracles at our hands, who do none themselves, and yet need them, because they induce new articles of Religion; neither can they reproach to us our Dissensions amongst ourselves; because they are neither in so fundamental points, nor pursued with so much uncharitableness, as theirs. So we justify our secession from them; but all this justifies in no part, the secession of those distempered men, who have separated themselves from us, which is our next, and our last consideration. When the Apostle says, Separatistae. study to be quiet, (1 Thes. 4. 11. me thinks he intimates something towards this, that the less we study for our Sermons, the more danger is there to disquiet the auditory; extemporal, unpremeditated Sermons, that serve the popular care, vent, for the most part, doctrines that disquiet the Church. Study for them, and they will be quiet; consider ancient and fundamental doctrines, and this will quiet and settle the understanding, and the Conscience. Many of these extemporal men have gone away from us, and vainly said, that they have as good cause to separate from us, as we from Rome. But can they call our Church, a Babylon; Confusion, disorder? All that offends them, is, that we have too much order, too much regularity, too much binding to the orderly, and uniform service of God in Church. It affects all the body, Ambros. when any member is cut off; Cum dolore amputatur, etiam quae putruit, pars corporis; and they cut off themselves, and feel it not; when we lose but a mystical limb, and they lose a spiritual life, we feel it and they do not. When that is pronounced sit tibi sicut ethnicus, if he hear not the Church, let him be to thee as a Heathen, August. gravius est quam si gladio feriretur, flammis absumeretur, feris subigeretur, it is a heavier sentence, then to be beheaded, to be burnt, or devoured with wild beasts; and yet these men, before any such sentence pronounced by us, excommunicate themselves. Of all distempers, Calvin falls oftenest upon the reproof of that which he calls Morositatem, a certain peevish frowardness, which, as he calls in one place, deterrimam pestem, the most infectious pestilence, that can fall upon a man, so, in another, he gives the reason, why it is so, semper nimia morositas est ambitiosa, that this peevish frowardness, is always accompanied with a pride, and a singularity, and an ambition to have his opinions preferred before all other men, and to condemn all that differ from him. A civil man will depart with his opinion at a Table, at a Council table, rather than hold up an argument to the vexation of the Company; so will a peaceable man do, in the Church, in questions that are not fundamental. That reverend man whom we mentioned before, who did so much in the establishing of Geneva, professes, that it was his own opinion, that the Sacrament might be administered in prisons, and in private houses; but because he found the Church of Geneva, of another opinion, and another practice before he came, he applied himself to them and departed, (in practice) from his own opinion, even in so important a point, as the ministration of the Sacrament. Which I present to consideration the rather, both because thereby it appears, that greater matters than are now thought fundamental, were then thought but indifferent, and arbitrary, (for, surely, if Calvin had thought this a fundamental thing, he would never have suffered any custom to have prevailed against his conscience) and also, because divers of those men, who trouble the Church now, about things of less importance, and this of private Sacraments in particular) will needs make themselves believe, that they are his Disciples, and always conclude that whatsoever is practised at Geneva was calvin's opinion. Saint Augustine saith excellently, Ep. 209. Feliciae virgini. and appliably, to a holy Virgin, who was ready to leave the Church, for the ill life of Churchmen, Christus nobis imperavit Congregationem, sibi servavit separationem; Christ Jesus hath commanded us to gather together, and recommended to us the Congregation; as for the separation, he hath reserved it to himself, to declare at the last day, who are Sheep and who are Goats. And he wrought that separation which our Fathers made from Rome, by his express written Word, and by that which is one word of God too, Vox populi, The invitation and acclamation of Doctors, and People, and Princes; but have our Separatists any such public, and concurrent authorising of that which they do, since of all that part from us, scarce a dozen meet together in one confession? When you have heard the Prophet say, Amos. Can two walk together, except they be agreed, when you have heard the Apostle say, 1. Cor. 1. 10. I beseech you brethren by the name of our Lord jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same things, and that there be no divisions among you, (for, if preachers speak one one way, another another, there will be divisions among the people) And then, it is not only, that in obedience to authority, they speak the same things; But, Be perfectly joined in the same mind, and in the same judgement, you had need make haste to this union, this pacification; for when we are come thither, to agree among ourselves, we are not come to our journey's end. Our life is a warfare; Conclusio. other wars, in a great part, end in marriages: Ours in a divorce, in a divorce of body and soul in death. Till then, though God have brought us, from the First Babylon, the darkness of the Gentiles, and from the Second Babylon, the superstitions of Rome, and from the third Babylon, the confusion of tongues, in bitter speaking against one another, after all this, every man shall find a fourth Babylon, enough to exercise all his forces, The civil war, the rebellious disorder, the intestine confusion of his own Concupiscencies. This is a transmigration, a transportation laid upon us all, by Adam's rebellion, from Jerusalem to Babylon, from our innocent State in our Creation, to this confusion of our corrupt nature. God would have his children first brought to Babylon, before he would be glorified in their deliverance, Mich. 4. 10. Venies usque ad Babylonem; Ibi liberaberis; To Babylon thou shalt come; there I will deliver thee; but not till then; that is, till you come to a holy sense of the miseries you are in, and what hath brought you to them. Though then you have suffered the calamities of all these Babylon's in some proportions, though you be not Incolae but Indigenae, not naturalised but borne Babylonians, (Original sin makes you so) yet since you are within the Covenant, hear him, Gen. 12. 1. that said to you in Abraham's ears, Egredere de terrâ tuâ, Get thee out of thy Country, and from thy kindred, unto the land I will show thee; Come out of Babylon to Jerusalem; since ye are within his Adoption, and may cry Abba father, hear that voice, Cant. 3. 11. Egredimini filiae Zion, Come forth ye daughters of Zion, come to Jerusalem. Though ye be dead, and buried, and putrefyed in this corrupted, and corrupting flesh, yet since he cries with a loud voice, (as it is said in that Text) Lazare veni for as, joh. 11. 43. Lazarus come forth, come forth of your Tombs in Babylon, to this Jerusalem, come from your troubled waters, your waters of contention, of anxiety, of envy, of solicitude, and vexation for worldly encumbrances, and come Ad aquas quietudinum, Psal. 23. to the waters of rest, the application of the merits of Christ, in a true Church: Vinum non habetis? have ye no wine to refresh your hearts; no merits of your own to take comfort in? joh. 2. 4. Implete Hydrias aquâ, fill all your vessels with water, that water of life, remorseful tears, perchance he will change your water into wine, as he did in that place; perchance he will give you abundance of temporal blessings; perchance he will change that water into blood, as in Egypt; that is, into persecutions, into afflictions, into Martyrdom, for his sake, for he will accept our water for blood, our tears of repentance and contrition for Martyrdom, ut cum desit Martyrium sanguinis, habeamus Martyrium aquae, that we may be Martyrs in his sight, and shed no blood; Martyrs of a new die, white Martyrs. That our waters of sorrow for sin may answer our Saviour's tears over Lazarus and over jerusalem; and the sweat of our brows in a lawful calling may answer our Saviour's sweat of water and blood in his agony; and that our reverend and profitable receiving of the Sacrament, may answer the water and blood that issued from his side, which represented omnia Sacramenta, all the Sacraments; That, as we do, we may still feed upon grace that is not trodden, and drink water, that is not troubled, with the feet of others, or our own; that we be never shaked in the sincerity nor in the integrity of Religion with their power, nor our own distempers of fears or hopes. But that our meat may be, to do the will of him that sent us, and to finish his work, Joh. 4. 2. SERMON XXVI. Preached to the King, at White-Hall, the first Sunday in Lent. ESAI. 65. 20. For the child shall die a hundred years old; But the sinner, being a hundred years old, shall be accursed. PEace is in Zion; Gods whole Choir is in tune; Nay, here is the music of the Spheres; all the Spheres (all Churches) all the Stars in those Spheres (all Expositors in all Churches) agree in the sense of these words; and agree the words to be a Prophecy, of the Distillation, nay Inundation, of the largeness, nay the infiniteness of the blessings, and benefits of Almighty God, prepared and meditated before, and presented, and accomplished now in the Christian Church. The Sun was up betimes, in the light of nature, but then the Sun moved but in the winter Tropic, short and cold, dark and cloudy days; A Diluculum and a Crepusculum, a Dawning and a Twilight, a little Traditional knowledge for the past, and a little Conjectural knowledge for the future, made up their day. The Sun was advanced higher to the jews in the Law; But then the Sun was but in Libra; as much day as night: There was as much Baptism, as Circumcision in that Sacrament; and as much Lamb as Christ, in that Sacrifice; The Law was their Equinoctial, in which, they might see both the Type, and that which was figured in the Type: But in the Christian Church the Sun is in a perpetual Summer Solstice; which are high degrees, and yet there is a higher, the Sun is in a perpetual Meridian and Noon, in that Summer solstice. There is not only a Surge Sol, but a Siste Sol: God hath brought the Sun to the height, and ●ixt the Sun in that height in the Christian Church● where he in his own Son by his Spirit hath promised to dwell, usque ad consummationem, till the end of the world. Here is Manna; and not in Gomers, but in Barns; and Quails; and not in Heaps, but in Hills; the waters above the Firmament, and not in drops of Dew, but in showers of former and latter Rain; and the Land of Canaan; not in Promise only, nor only in performance, and Possession, but in Extension, and Dilatation. The Graces, and blessings of God, that is, means of salvation, are so abundantly poured upon the Christian Church, as that the triumphant Church if they needed means, might fear they should want them. And of these means and blessings, long life, as it is a Model and abridgement of Eternity, and a help to Eternity, is one● and one in this Text, The Child shall die 100 Io● 2. 10. years old. But shall we receive good from God, and not receive evil too? shall I shed upon you Lumen visionis, the light of that vision, which God hath afforded me in this Prophecy, the light of his countenance, and his gracious blessings upon you, and not lay upon you Onus visionis, as the prophets speak often, The burden of that vision which I have seen in this Text too? It was a scorn to David, that his servants were half clothed; The Samaritan woman believed, that if she might see Christ, joh. 4. 25. he would tell her all things: Christ promises of the Holy Ghost, that he should lead them into all Truth: 16. 3. 2 Cor. 7● 14. And the Apostles discharge in his office was, that he had spoken to them all Truth: And therefore lest I should be defective in that integrity, I say with Saint Augustine, Non vos fallo, non praesumo, non vos fallo; I will not be so bold with you as flatter you, I will not presume so much upon your weakness, as to go about to deceive you, as though there were nothing but blessing in God, but show you the Commination, and judgement of this Text too, that though the child should die a hundred years old, yet the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed. If God had not lengthened his child's life, extended my days, but taken me in the sins of my youth, where had I been, may every soul here say? And where would you be too; if no man should tell you, that though The child should die a hundred years old, yet the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed? What can be certain in this world, if even the mercy of God admit a variation? what can be endless here, if even the mercy of God receive a determination? and sin doth vary the nature, sin doth determine even the infiniteness of the mercy of God himself, for though The child shall die a hundred years old, yet the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed. Disconsolate soul, dejected spirit, bruised and broken, ground and trodden, attenuated, evaporated, annihilated heart come back; hear thy reprieve, and sue for thy pardon; God will not take thee away in thy sins, thou shalt have time to repent, The child shall die a hundred years old. But then lame and decrepit soul, grey and inveterate sinner, behold the full ears of corn blasted with a mildew, behold this long day shutting up in such a night, as shall never see light more, the night of death; in which, the deadliest pang of thy Death will be thine Immortality: In this especially shalt thou die, that thou canst not die, when thou art dead; but must live dead for ever: for The sinner being a hundred years old, shall be accursed, he shall be so for ever. In this discovery from this Red Sea, Divisio. to this dead Sea; from the mercy of God, in the blood of his Son, to the malediction of God, in the blood of the sinner, be pleased to make these the points of your Compass, and your Landmarks by the way, in those, the two parts of this exercise. First, in the first, consider the precedency, and primogeniture of Mercy; God begins at Mercy, and not at judgement: God's method here, is not, The sinner shall be accursed, but The child shall have long life: but first, the blessing, and then the malediction. And then secondly, we shall see, in what form the particular blessing is given here; In long life; The child shall die a hundred years old. And then also, because we find it in the company of Mercies, in the region of Mercies, in this first part of the Text, which is the Sphere of Mercy; we shall look also how this very dying is a Mercy too: The mercy is especially placed in the long life: The child shall live a hundred years; but the Holy Ghost would not leave out that, that he should die; The child shall die a hundred years old. And in these three, first the precedency, and primogeniture of God's mercy, and then the specification of that mercy in long life, and lastly, the association of mercy, that death as well as life is a blessing to the Righteous; we shall determine that first part. And in the second, But the sinner being a hundred years old, shall be accursed, we shall see first, that the malediction of God hath no object but a sinner: God antidates no malediction: Till there be a sinner, there is no malediction; nay not till there be an inveterate sinner; A sinner of a hundred years, at least, such a sinner, as would be so, if God would spare him a hundred years here. And upon such a sinner, God thunders out this Prosternation, this Consternation, in this one word of our Text, which involves and enwraps all kinds of miseries, feebleness in body, infatuation in mind, evacuation of power, dishonour in ●ame, eclipses in favour, ruin in fortune, dejection in spirit, He shall be accursed. Where, because in this second part we are in the Region and Sphere of maledictions, we cannot consider this future, He shall be, as a future of favour, a prorogation, a deferring of the malediction: He shall be, is not, he shall be hereafter, but not yet: but it is a future of continuation; He shall be accursed, that is, he shall be so for ever. And so have you the frame, and partitions of this B●thel, this House of God in which he dwells, which is both Iosuah's Beth-hagla, the house of Joy, and John's Bethania, his house of affliction too; and we pass now to the furnishing of these rooms, with such stuff as I can have laid together. First, Part. 1. in our first part, we consider the precedency, and primogeniture of Mercy. It is a good thing to be descended of the eldest Brother; To descend from God, to depend upon God, by his eldest Son, the Son of his love, the Son of his right hand, Mercy, and not to put God to his second way, his sinister way, his way of judgement. David prophesies of God's exaltation of Solomon so, Psal. 89. 27. Ponam in Primogenitum, I will make him my firstborn: Though Solomon were not so, God would make him so. And in that Title, Ecclus. 36. 12. the Wiseman makes his prayer for Israel; Quem coaequasti Primogegenito, whom thou hast named thy firstborn; for so God had in Exod. Israel is my Son, 4. 22. even my firstborn: and in job, the fiercest terror of death is expressed so, Primogenitus mortis, 18. 13. the firstborn of Death shall devour his strength: Still the exaltation, the Superlative is called so; The firstborn. And in such a sense; if we could think of more degrees of goodness in God, of an exaltation of God himself in God, of more God in God, of a Superlative in God, we must necessarily turn upon his mercy, for that Mercy must be the Superlative: So is it too, if we consider Gods first action, or God's first thought towards Man; Mercy was the firstborn by every Mother; by that Understanding, by that Will, by that Power, which we conceive in God; Mercy was the firstborn, and first-mover in all. We consider a preventing Grace in God; and that preventing Grace is before all; for that prevents us so, as to Visit us when we sit in darkness. And we consider an Antecedent-Will in God, and that Antecedent Will is before all; for by that Will, God would have all men saved. And when we call God's Grace by other names then Preventing, whether Assisting Grace, that it stand by us and sustain us, or Concomitant Grace, that it work with us, and inanimate our action, when it is doing, or his Subsequent Grace, that rectifies or corrects an action, when it is done; when all is done, still it is the Preventing Power, and quality of that Grace, that did all that in me: If I stand by his Assisting Grace, if I work with his Concomitant Grace, if I rectify my error by his Subsequent Grace, that that moves upon me in all these, is still the preventing power of that Grace. For as all my Natural actions of life are done by the power of that Soul, which was in me before, so all the Supernatural actions of that Soul, are done by that power of that Grace, that prevents and preinanimates that action; and all my co-operation is but a post-operation, a working by the Power of that All-preventing Grace. I moved not at first by the Tide, by the strength of natural faculties, nor do I move after by that wind● which had formerly filled my sails: I proceed not now by the strength of that Grace which God gave me heretofore. But as God infuseth a Soul into every man, and that Soul elicites a new Act in itself, before that man produce any action; so God infuses a particular Grace into every good work of mine, and so prevents me, before I cooperate with him. For as Nature in her highest exaltation, in the best Moral man that is, cannot flow into Grace, Nature cannot become Grace; so neither doth former Grace flow into future Grace, but I need a distinct influence of God, a particular Grace, for every good work I do, for every good word I speak, for every good thought I conceive. When God gives me access into his Library, Liber vitae. leave to consider his proceedings with man, I find the first book of Gods making to be the Book of Life. The Book where all their names are written that are elect to Glory. But I find no such Book of Death: All that are not written in the Book of Life, are certainly the sons of Death: To be pretermitted there, there to be left out, wraps them up, at least leaves them wrapped up, in death. But God hath not wrought so positively, nor in so primary a consideration in a book of Death, as in the Book of Life. As the aftertimes made a Book of Wisdom out of the Proverbs, of Solomon, and out of his Ecclesiastes; but yet it is not the same Book, nor of the same certainty: so there is a Book of Life ●ere, but that is not the same book that is in Heaven, nor of the same certainty: For in this Book of Life, which is the Declaration and Testimony which the Church gives of our Election, by those marks of the Elect, which she seeth in the Scriptures, and believeth that she seeth in us, Psal. ●9. ●8. a man may be Blotted out of the Book of the living, as David speaketh; and as it is added there, Not written with the Righteous: Intimating that in some cases, and in some Book of Life, a man may have been written in, and blotted out, and written in again. The Book of Life in the Church, The Testimony of our Election here, admits such expunctions, and such redintegrations: but Gods first Book, his Book of Mercy; (for this Book in the Church, is but his Book of Evidence) is inviolable in itself, and all the names of that Book indelible. In God's first Book, Liber Scripturae the Book of Life, Mercy hath so much a precedency, and primogeniture, as that there is nothing in it, but Mercy. In Gods other Book, his Book of Scripture, in which he is put often to denounce judgements, as well as to exhibit mercies, still the Tide sets that way, still the Bias leads on that hand, still his method directs us ad Primogenitum, to his firstborn, to his Mercy. So he began in that Book: He made man to his Image, Gen. 1. 26. and then he blessed him. Here is no malediction, no intermination mingled in God's first Act, in God's first purpose upon man: In Paradise there is, That if he eat the forbidden fruit, Gen. 2. 17. if he will not forbear that, that one Tree, He shall die. But God begins not there: before that, he had said, of every tree in the Garden thou mayst freely eat; neither is there more vehemency in the punishment, then in the liberty. For as in the punishment there is an ingemination, Morte morieris, Dying thou shalt die; that is, thou shalt surely die; so in the liberty, there was an ingemination too, Comedendo comedes, Deut. 27. Eating thou shalt eat; that is, thou mayst freely eat. In Deut. we have a fearful Chapter of Maledictions; but all the former parts of that Chapter, are blessings in the same kind: And he that reads that Chapter, will begin at the beginning, and meet Gods firstborn, his Mercy first. And in those very many places of that Book where God divides the condition, If you obey you shall live, if you rebel you shall die, still the better Act, and the better condition, and the better reward, is placed in the first place, that God might give us possession, In jure Primogeniti, in the right of his firstborn, his mercy. And where God pursues the same method, and first dilates himself, Psalm. 89. 23. and expatiates in the way of mercy, I will beat down his foes before his face, and plague them that hate him; when after that he is brought to say, If his children forsake my Law, I will visit their transgression with the rod; where first he puts it off for one Generation from himself, verse 30. to his Children, which was one Mercy: And then he puts it upon a forsaking, an Apostasy, and not upon every sin of infirmity, which was another Mercy; when it comes to a correction, it is but a mild correction, with the r●d: And in that, he promises to visit them; to manifest himself, and his purpose to them in the correction; all which are higher and higher degrees of Mercy: yet because there is a spark of anger, a tincture of judgement mingled in it, God remembers his firstborn, verse 33. his Mercy, and returns where he begun: Nevertheless my Covenant will I not break, nor alter the things that is gone out of my lips; once have I sworn by my Holiness, that I will not lie unto David. There are elder pictures in the world of Water, than there are any of oil; but those of oil have got above them, and shall outlive them. Water is a frequent emblem of Affliction, in the Scriptures; and so is oil of Mercy; If at any time in any place of Scripture, God seemed to begin with water, with a judgement, yet the oil will get to the top: in that very judgement, you may see that God had first a merciful purpose in inflicting that medicinal judgement; for his mercy is his firstborn. His Mercy is new every morning, saith the Prophet; not only every day, but as soon as it is day. Trace God in thyself, and thou shalt find it so. If thou be'st drowsy now, and unattentive, curious or contentious, or quarrelsome now, now God leaves thee in that indisposition, and that is a judgement: But it was his Mercy that brought thee hither before. In every sin thou hast some remorse, some reluctation, before thou do that sin; and that pre-reluctation, and pre-remorse was Mercy. If thou hadst no such remorse in thy last sin, before the sin, and hast it now, this is the effect of God's former mercy, and former good purpose upon thee, to let thee see that thou needest the assistance of his Minister, and of his Ordinance, to enable thee to lay hold on Mercy when it is offered thee. Can any calamity fall upon thee, in which thou shalt not be bound to say, I have had blessings in a greater measure than this? If thou have had losses, yet thou hast more, out of which God took that. If all be lost, perchance thou art but where thou begunst at first, at nothing. If thou begunst upon a good height, and be'st fallen from that, and fallen low, yet as God prepared a Whale to transport jonas, before jonas was cast into the Sea, God prepared thee a holy Patience, before he reduced thee to the exercise of that Patience. If thou couldst apprehend nothing done for thyself, yet all the mercies that God hath exhibited to others, are former mercies to thee, in the Pattern, and in the Seal, and in the Argument thereof: They have had them, therefore thou shalt. All Gods Prophecies, are thy Histories: whatsoever he hath promised others, he hath done in his purpose for thee: And all God's Histories are thy Prophecies; all that he hath done for others, he owes thee. Hast thou a hardness of heart? knowest thou not that Christ hath wept before to entender that hardness? hast thou a paleness of soul, in the apparition of God in fire, and in judgement? knowest thou not, that Christ hath bled before, to give a vigour, and a vegetation, and a verdure to that paleness? is thy sin Actual sin? knowest thou not, that there is a Lamb bleeding before upon the Altar, to expiate that? Is thy terror from thy inherence, and encumbrance of Original sin? knowest thou not, that the effect of Baptism hath blunted the sting of that sin before? art thou full of sores, putrid and ulcerous sores? full of wounds, through and through piercing wounds? full of diseases, nameless and complicate diseases? knowest thou not that there is a holy Charm, a blessed Incantation, by which thou art, though not invulnerable, yet invulnerable unto death, wrapped up in the eternal Decree of thine Election? that's thy pillar, the assurance of thine Election: If thou shake that, if thou cast down that Pillar, if thou distrust thine Election, with Samson, who pulled down pillars in his blindness, in thy blindness thou destroyest thyself. Begin where thou wilt at any Act in thyself, at any act in God, yet there was mercy before that, for his mercy is eternal, eternal even towards thee. I could easily think that that, that past between God and Moses in their long conversation; that that, that past between Christ and Moses in his trans-figuration; that that, that past between Saint Paul and the Court of Heaven in his ecstasy was instruction and manifestation on one part, and admiration and application on the other part of the mercy of God. Earth cannot receive, Heaven cannot give such another universal soul to all: all persons, all actions, as Mercy. And were I the child of this Text, that were to live a hundred years, I would ask no other marrow to my bones, no other wine to my heart, no other light to mine eyes, no other art to my understanding, no other eloquence to my tongue, than the power of apprehending for myself, and the power of deriving and conveying upon others by my Ministry, the Mercy, the early Mercy, the everlasting Mercy of yours, and my God. But we must pass to the consideration of this immense Light, in that one Beam, wherein it is exhibited here, that is, long life: The child shall die a hundred years old. Long life is a blessing, Vita longa. as it is an image of eternity: as Kings are blessings, because they are Images of God. And as to speak properly, a King that possessed the whole earth, hath no proportion at all to God, (he is not a dram, not a grain, not an atom to God) so neither if a thousand Methusalems' were put in one life, had that long life any proportion to eternity; for Finite and Infinite have no proportion to one another. But yet when we say so, That the King is nothing to God, we speak then between God and the King; and we say that; only to assist the King's Religious humiliation of himself in the presence of God. But when we speak between the King and ourselves his Subjects, there we raise ourselves to a just reverence of him, by taking knowledge that he is the Image of God to us. So though long life be nothing to eternity, yet because we need such Glasses and such Images, as God shows us himself in the King, so he shows us his eternity in a long life. In this, that the Patriarches complain every where of the shortness of life, Gen. 4. 9 and nearness of death; (jacob at a hundred and thirty years tells Pharaoh, that his days were few,) In this, that God threatens the shortness of life for a punishment to Eli, 1 Sam. 2. 32. God says, There shall not be an old man in thy house for ever: In this, that God brings it into Promise, and enters it, as into his Audite, and his revenue, (With long life will I satisfy him, Psal. 91. 16. and show him my salvation,) That God would give him long life, and make that long life a Type of Eternity; In this, that God continues that promise into performance, and brings it to execution, in some of his chosen servants; at a hundred and twenty Moses his eyes were not dim, Deut. 24. 7. nor his natural force abated; and Caleb saith of himself, jos. 14. 10. I am this day 85. years old, and as my strength was at first, for war, so is my strength now; In all these and many others, we receive so many testimonies that God brings long life out of his Treasury, as an immediate blessing of his. And therefore, as such his blessing, let us pray for it, where it is not come yet, in that apprecation and acclamation of the ancient general Counsels, Multos annos Caesari, Aetern●s annos Caesari, Long life to our Cesar in this world, everlasting life to our Cesar in the world to come: and then let us reverence this blessing of long life, where it is come, in honouring those Ancient heads, by whose name, God hath been pleased to call himself, Antiquu● dierum, the ancient of days: and let us not make this blessing of long life, impossible to ourselves, by disappointing Gods purpose of long life upon us, by our surfeits, our wantonness, our quarrels, which are all Goths, and Vandals, and Giants, called in by ourselves to fight with God against us. But yet, so receive we long life, as a blessing, as that we may also find a blessing in departing from this life: For so manifold, and so multiforn are his blessings, as even death itself hath a place in this Sphere of blessings, The child shall live a hundred years, but yet The child shall die. When Paradise should have extended, Morietur. as man should have multiplied, and every holy family, every religious Colony have constituted a new Paradise, that as it was said of Egypt, when it abounded with Hermitages in the Primitive persecutions, That Egypt was a continual City of Hermitages; so all the world should have been a continual Garden of Paradises, when all affections should have been subjects, and all creatures servants, and all wives helpers, than life was a sincere blessing. But, but a mixed blessing now, when all these are so much vitiated; only a possible blessing; a disputable, a conditionable, a circumstantial blessing now. If there were any other way to be saved and to get to Heaven, then by being born into this life, I would not wish to have come into this world. And now that God hath made this life a Bridge to Heaven; it is but a giddy, and a vertiginous thing, to stand long gazing upon so narrow a bridge, and over so deep and roaring waters, and desperate whirlpools, as this world abounds with: Psal. 90. 12. So teach us to number our days, saith David, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom: Not to number them so, as that we place our happiness, in the increase of their number. Psal. 21. 14. What is this wisdom? he tells us there; He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him: But was that this life? It was Length of days for ever and ever, the days of Heaven. As houses that stand in two Shires, trouble the execution of Justice, the house of death that stands in two worlds, may trouble a good man's resolution. As death is a sordid Postern, by which I must be thrown out of this world, I would decline it: But as death is the gate, by which I must enter into Heaven, would I never come to it? certainly now, now that Sin hath made life so miserable, if God should deny us death, he multiplied our misery. We are in this Text, upon blessings appropriated to the Christian Church, and so to these times. And in theseTimes, we have not so long life, as the Patriarches had before. They were to multiply children for replenishing the world, and to that purpose had long life. We multiply sins, and the children and offspring of sins, miseries, and therefore may be glad to get from this generation of Vipers. God gave his Children Manna and Quails, in the Wilderness, where nothing else was to be had; but when they came to the Land of Promise, that Provision ceased: God gave them long life in the times of Nature, and long, (though shorter than before) in the times of the Law; because in nature especially, but in the Law also, it was hard to discern, hard to attain the ways to Heaven. But the ways to Heaven are made so manifest to us in the Gospel, as that for that use, we need not long life; and that is all the use of our life here. He that is ready for Heaven, hath lived to a blessed age; and to such an intendment, a child newly baptised may be elder than his Grandfather. Therefore we receive long life for a blessing, when God is pleased to give it; though Christ entered it into no Petition of his Prayer, that God would give it: and so though we enter it into no Petition, nor Prayer, we receive it as a blessing too, when God will afford us a deliverance, a manumission, an emancipation from the miseries of this life. Truly I would not change that joy and consolation, which I proposed to my hopes, upon my Deathbed, at my passage out of this world, for all the joy that I have had in this world over again. And so very a part of the Joy of Heaven is a joyful transmigration from hence, as that if there were no more reward, no more recompense, but that I would put myself to all that belongs to the duty of an honest Christian in the world, only for a joyful, a cheerful passage out of it. And farther we shall not exercise your patience, or your devotion, upon these three pieces which constitute our first part: The Primogeniture of God's Mercy, which is first in all; The specification of God's Mercy, long Life, as it is a figure of, and a way to eternity; and then the association of God's Mercy; that Death, as well as Life, is a blessing to the Righteous. So then we have brought our Sun to his Meridianall height, Part. 2. to a full Noon, in which all shadows are removed: for even the shadow of death, death itself is a blessing, and in the number of his Mercies. But the Afternoon shadows break out upon us, in our second part of the Text. And as afternoon shadows do, these in our Text do also; they grow greater and greater upon us, till they end in night, in everlasting night, The sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed. Now of shadows it is appliably said, Vmbrae non sunt tenebrae sed densior lux, shadows are not utter darkness, but a thicker light; shadows are thus much nearer to the nature of light than darkness is, that shadows presume light, which darkness doth not; shadows could not be, except there were light. The first shadows in this dark part of our Text, have thus much light in them, that it is but the sinner, only the sinner that is accursed. The Object of God's malediction, is not man, but sinful man. If God make a man sin, God curses the man; August. but if sin make God curse, God curses but the sin. Non talem Deum tuum putes, qualis nec tu debes esse, Never propose to thyself such a God, as thou wert not bound to imitate: Thou mistakest God, if thou make him to be any such thing, or make him to do any such thing, as thou in thy proportion shouldst not be, or shouldst not do. And shouldst thou curse any man that had never offended, never transgressed, never trespassed thee? Can God have done so? Imagine God, as the Poet saith, Ludere in humanis, to play but a game at Chess with this world; to sport himself with making little things great, and great things nothing: Imagine God to be but at play with us, but a gamester, yet will a gamester curse, before he be in danger of losing any thing? Deut. 27. 13. Will God curse man, before man have sinned? In the Law there are denuntiations of curses enjoined and multiplied: There is maledictus upon maledictus; but it is maledictus homo, cursed be the man; He was not cursed by God, before he was a man; nor cursed by God, because he was a man; but if that man commit Idolatry, Adultery, Incest, Beastiality, Bribery, Calumny, (as the sins are reckoned there) there he meets a particular curse, upon his particular sin. The book of Life is but names written in Heaven; all the Book of Death, that is, is but that in the Prophet, when names are written in the Earth. jer. 17. 13. But whose names are written in the Earth there? They that depart from thee, shall be written in the Earth: They shall be, when they depart from thee. For saith he, They have forsaken the Lord, the Fountain of Living water; They did not that, because their names were written in the Earth, but they were written there, because they did that. Our Saviour Christ came hither to do all his Father's will; and he returned cheerfully to his Father again, as though he had done all, when he had taken away the sins of the world by dying for all sins, and all sinners. But if there were an Hospital of miserable men, that lay under the reprobation and malediction of God's decree, and not for sin; the blood of that Lamb is not sprinkled upon the postils of that door. Forgive me O Lord, O Lord forgive me my sins, the sins of my youth, and my present sins, the sin that my Parents cast upon me, Original sin, and the sins that I cast upon my children, in an ill example; Actual sins, sins which are manifest to all the world, and sins which I have so laboured to hide from the world, as that now they are hid from mine own conscience, and mine own memory; Forgive me my crying sins, and my whispering sins, sins of uncharitable hate, and sins of unchaste love, sins against Thee and Thee, against thy Power O Almighty Father, against thy Wisdom, O glorious Son, against thy Goodness, O blessed Spirit of God; and sins against Him and Him, against Superiors and Equals, and Inferiors; and sins against Me and Me, against mine own soul, and against my body, which I have loved better than my soul; Forgive me O Lord, O Lord in the merits of thy Christ and my jesus, thine Anointed, and my Saviour; Forgive me my sins, all my sins, and I will put Christ to no more cost, nor thee to more trouble, for any reprobation or malediction that lay upon me, otherwise then as a sinner. I ask but an application, not an extension of that Benediction, Blessed are they whose sins are forgiven; Let me be but so blessed, and I shall envy no man's Blessedness: say thou to my sad soul, Son be of good comfort, thy sins are forgiven thee, and I shall never trouble thee with Petitions, to take any other Bill off of the file, or to reverse any other Decree, by which I should be accursed, before I was created, or condemned by thee, before thou saw'st me as a sinner; For the object of malediction is but a sinner, (which was our first) and an Inveterate sinner, A sinner of a hundred years, which is our next consideration. First, 100 Annorum. Quia centum annorum, because he is so old; so old in sin, He shall be accursed. And then, Quamvis centum annorum, though he be so old, though God have spared him so long, Ecclus. 4. 30. he shall be accursed. God is not a Lion in his house, nor frantic amongst his servants, saith the Wiseman; God doth not roar, nor tear in pieces for every thing that displeaseth him. Amos 1. 3. But when God is pressed under us, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves; the Lord will groan under that burden a while, but he will cast it off at last. That which is said by David, Psal. 18. 26. is, if it be well observed, spoken of God himself, Cum perverso pervertêris; from our frowardness God will learn to be froward: But he is not so, Levit. 26. 21. of his own nature. If you walk contrary unto me, I will walk contrary unto you, saith God. But this is not said of one, first, wry step; but it is a walking, which implies a long, and a considerate continuance. And if man come to sin so, and will not walk with God, God will walk with that man in his own pace, and overthrow him in his own ways. Nay, it is not only in that place, If you walk contrary to me, In occursu, as Calvin hath it, ex adverso, as the vulgate hath it, which implies an Actual Opposition against the ways of God: but the word is but Chevi, and Chevi is but In accident, in contingente; if you walk negligently, inconsiderately; if you leave out God, pretermit, and slight God; if you come to call God's Providence Fortune, to call God's Judgements Accidents, or to call the Mercies of a God, favours of great Persons, if you walk in this neglect of God, God shall proceed to a neglect of you; and than though God be never the worse for your leaving him out, (for if it were in your power to annihilate this whole world, God were no worse, than before there was a World) yet if God neglect you, forget, pretermit you, it is a miserable annihilation, a fearful malediction. But God begins not before sin, nor at the first sin. God did not curse Adam and Eve for their sin; it was there first, and God foresaw they would not be sinners of a hundred years. But him that was in the Serpent, that inveterate sinner, him, who had sinned in God's Court, in Heaven, before, and being banished from thence, fell into this transmarine treason, in another land, to seduce Gods other Subjects there, him God accursed. Who amongst us can say, that he had a Fever upon his first excess, or a Consumption upon his first wantonness, or a Commission put upon him for his first Bribery? Till he be a sinner of a hundred years, till he have brought age upon himself, by his sin, before the time, and thereby be a hundred years old at forty, and so a sinner of a hundred years, till he have a desire that he might, and a hope that he shall be able to sin to a hundred years; and so be a sinner of a hundred years; Till he sin hungerly and thirstily, and ambitiously, and swiftly, and commit the sins of a hundred years in ten, and so be a sinner of a hundred years; till he infect and poison that age, and spoil that time that he lives in by his exemplary sins, till he be Pestis secularis, the plague of that age, peccator secularis, the proverbial sinner of that age, and so be a sinner of a hundred years, till in his actions he have been, or in his desires be, or in the foreknowledge of God would be a sinner of a hundred years, an inveterate, an incorrigible, an everlasting sinner, God comes not to curse him. But then Quamvis centum annorum, though he have lived a hundred years, though God have multiplied upon him Evidences, and Seals, and Witnesses, and Possessions, and Continuances, and prescriptions of his favour, all this hath not so riveted God to that man, as that God must not depart from him. God was crucified for him, but will not be crucified to him; still to hang upon this Cross, this perverseness of this habitual sinner, and never save himself and come down, never deliver his own Honour, by delivering that sinner to malediction. It is true, that we can have no better Title to God's future Blessings, than his Blessings formerly exhibited to us; God former blessings are but his marks set up there, that he may know that place, and that man the better against another time, when he shall be pleased to come thither again with a supply of more Blessings: God gives not Blessings as payments, but as obligations; and becomes a debtor by giving. If I can produce that, Remember thy mercies of old, I need ask no new; for even that is a Specialty by which God hath bound himself to me for more. But yet not so, if I abuse his former Blessings, and make them occasions of sin. How often would I have gathered you as a hen gathers her chickens, saith Christ, I know not how often; surely very often; for many hundreds of years: But yet, how often soever, God left them open to the Eagle, the Roman Eagle at last. God gives thee a recovery from sickness, that doth not make thee Immortal. God gives thee a good interpretation of thine actions from a gracious Prince, this doth not make thee impeccable in thyself. God gives thee titles of Honour upon thyself, this doth not always give thee honour, Psalm. 113. 7. and respect from others. For as it is God that Raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill, that he may set him with Princes; Psal. 86. 12. so it is God that Cuts off the spirit of Princes, and is terrible to the Kings of the Earth. Psalm. 33. 10. It is God that maketh the devices of the People of none effect, and it is God that destroys the Counsels of Egypt. Esay 19 3. It is God that maketh their Nobles like Oreb, and like Zeb, and like them that perished at Endor, and became as dung for the Earth; that is, profitable only in their ruin, and conculcation. And so with the same unwillingness, that God comes to the execution, we come to the denunciation of this malediction. They, They, these inveterate, incorrigible sinners, Quamvis centum annorum, though God have spared them so long, yet Quia centum annorum, because they have employed all that time in sin, They shall be accursed. Accursing is malediction, Maledictus. malediction is literally but maledicence; and that is but evil speaking. Now all kinds of evil speaking do not inwrap a man within the curse of this Text; For, though it be a shrewd degree of this curse of God, to be generally ill spoken of by sad, sober, and discreet, and dis-passioned, and disinteressed Men, yet we are fallen into times, when men will speak ill of men, in things which they do not know, nor should not know, and out of credulity and easy believing of men, whom they should not believe; men distempered and transported with passion: So men speak evil out of passion, and out of compassion; out of humour, and out of rumour. But malediction in our Text, is an Imprecation of evil, by such men as would justly inflict it if they could, and because they cannot, they pray to God that he would, and he doth: When God seconds the Imprecations of good men, that is this curse. The Person that is cursed here is Peccator centum annorum; an habitual, an incorrigible sinner. If you put me to assign, in what rank of men, Magistrates or Subjects, rich or poor, Judges or prisoners, All. If you put me to assign, for what sins, sins of complexion and constitution, sins of society and conversation, sins of our profession, and calling, sins of the particular place, or of the whole times, that we live in, sins of profit, or sins of pleasure, or sins of glory; (for we all do some sins which are sins merely of glory; sins that we make no profit by, nor take much pleasure in, but do them only out of a mis-imagined necessity, left we should go too much less, and sink in the estimation of the World, if we did them not;) if I must say which of these sins put us under this curse, All; If he be centum annorum, Inveterate, Incorrigible, He is accursed. But than who curses him? God put an extraordinary spirit, and produced extraordinary effects from curses, in the mouths of his Prophets which have been since the World began. 2 Reg. 2. So Elizeus curses, and two Bears destroy forty two persons. These curses are deposited by God, in the Scriptures, and then inflicted by the Church, in her ordinary jurisdiction, by excommunications, and other censures. But this may be but matter of form in the Church, or matter of indignation in the Prophet. Not so, but as God saith, Esay. That the rod in Ashurs' hand is his rod, and the sword in Babylon's hand his sword, so the curse deposited in the Scripture, and denounced by the Church, is his curse. Amos. For as the Prophet saith, Non est malum, all the evil (that is, all the penal ill, all plagues, all war, all famine,) that is done in the World, God doth; so all the evil that is spoken, all the curses deposited in the Scriptures, and denounced by the Church, God speaks. But be all this so; there is a curse deposited, denounced, seconded by God; yet, all this is but malediction, but a speaking, here is no execution spoken of: yes, there is, for as the sight of God is Heaven, and to be banished from the sight of God, is Hell in the World to come, so the blessing of God, is Heaven, and the curse of God is Hell and damnation, even in this Life. The Hieroglyphique of silence, is the hand upon the mouth; If the hand of God be gone from the mouth, it is gone to strike. Esay. If it be come to an Os Domini locutum, that the mouth of the Lord have spoken it, it will come presently to an Immittam manum, That God will lay his hand upon us, in which one Phrase, Exod. 7. 4. all the plagues of Egypt are denounced. Solomon puts both hand and tongue together; Prov. 18. 21. In manibus linguae, saith he, Death and Life are in the hand of the tongue: God's Tongue hath a hand; where his Sentence goeth before, the execution followeth. Nay, in the execution of the last sentence, we shall feel the Hand, before we hear the Tongue, the execution is before the sentence; It is, Ite maledicti, go ye accursed: First, you must Go, go out of the presence of God; and by that being gone, you shall know, that you are accursed; Whereas in other proceedings, the sentence denounces nounces the execution, here the execution denounces the sentence. But be all this allowed to be thus; There is a malediction deposited in the Scriptures, denounced by the Church, ratified by God, brought into execution, yet it may be born, men do bear it. How men do bear it, we know not; what passes between God and those men, upon whom the curse of God lieth, in their dark horrors at midnight, they would not have us know, because it is part of their curse, to envy God that glory. But we may consider in some part the insupportablenesse of that weight, if we proceed but so far, as to accommodate to God, that which is ordinarily said of natural things. Corruptio optimi pessima; when the best things change their nature, they become worst. When God, who is all sweetness, shall have learned frowardness from us, as David speaks; and being all rectitude, shall have learned perverseness and crookedness from us, as Moses speaks; and being all providence, shall have learned negligence from us: when God who is all Blessing, hath learned to curse of us, and being of himself spread as an universal Honeycomb over All, takes in an impression, a tincture, an infusion of gall from us, what extraction of Wormwood can be so bitter, what exaltation of fire can be so raging, what multiplying of talents can be so heavy, what stiffness of destiny can be so inevitable, what confection of gnawing worms, of gnashing teeth, of howling cries, of scalding brimstone, of palpable darkness, can be so, so insupportable, so inexpressible, so in-imaginable, as the curse and malediction of God? And therefore let not us by our works provoke, jam. 3. 9 nor by our words teach God to curse. Lest if with the same tongue that we bless God, we curse Men; that is, seem to be in Charity in our Prayers here, and carry a ranckerous heart, and venomous tongue home with us God come to say, Psal. 100L. 7. (and Gods saying is doing) As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him; as he clothed himself with cursing, as with a garment, so let it be as a girdle, wherewith he is girded continually: When a man curses out of Levity, and makes a loose habit of that sin, God shall so gird it to him, as he shall never divest it. The Devil's grammar is Applicare Activa Passivis, to apply Actives to Passives; where he sees an inclination, to subminister a temptation; where he seeth a froward choler, to blow in a curse. And God's grammar is to change Actives into Passives: where a man delights in cursing, to make that man accursed. And if God do this to them who do but curse men, will he do less to them, who blaspheme himself? where man wears out Aeternum suum, (as Saint Gregory speaketh) his own eternity, his own hundred years; that is, his whole life, in cursing and blaspheming, God shall also extend his curse, In aeterno suo, in his eternity, that is, for ever. Which is that, that falls to the bottom, as the heaviest of all, and is our last consideration; that all the rest, that there is a curse deposited in the Scriptures, denounced by the Church, avowed by God, reduced to execution, and that insupportable in this life, is infinitely aggravated by this, that he shall be accursed for ever. This is the Anathema Maran-atha, Aeternum. accursed till the Lord come; and when the Lord cometh, he cometh not to reverse, nor to alleviate, but to ratify and aggravate that curse. As soon as Christ cursed the figtree, it withered, and it never recovered: for saith that Gospel, Matth. 2●. ●9. he cursed it Inaeternum, for ever. In the course of our sin, the Holy Ghost hath put here a number of years, a hundred years: We sin long, as long as we can, but yet sin hath an end. But in this curse of God in the Text, there is no number; it is an indefinite future; He shall be accursed: A mile of cyphers or figures, added to the former hundred, would not make up a minute of this eternity. Men have calculated how many particular grains of sand, would fill up all the vast space butweens the Earth and the Firmament: and we find, that a few lines of cyphers will design and express that number. But if every grain of sand were that number, and multiplied again by that number, yet all that, all that inexpressible, inconsiderable number, made not up one minute of this eternity; neither would this curse, be a minute the shorter for having been endured so many Generations, as there were grains of sand in that number. Our Esse, our Being, is from Gods saying, Dixit & facti, God spoke, and we were made: our Bene esse, our well-being, is from Gods saying too; Benedicit God blesses us, in speaking graciously to us. Even our ill-being, our condemnation is from Gods saying also: for Malediction is Damnation. So far God hath gone with us that way, as that our Being, our well-being, our ill-being is from his saying: But God shall never come to a Non esse, God shall never say to us, Be nothing, God shall never succour us with an annihilation, nor give us the ease of resolving into nothing, for this curse flows on into an everlasting future, He shall be accursed, he shall be so for ever. In a true sense we may say, that God's foreknowledge grows less and less every day; for his foreknowledge is of future things, and many things which were future heretofore are past, or present now; and therefore cannot fall under his foreknowledge: His foreknowledge in that sense, grows less, and decayeth. But his eternity decayeth in no sense; and as long as his eternity lasts, as long as God is God, God shall never see that soul, whom he hath accursed, delivered from that curse, or eased in it. But we are now in the work of an hour, and no more. If there be a minute of sand left, (There is not) If there be a minute of patience left, hear me say, This minute that is left, is that eternity which we speak of; upon this minute dependeth that eternity: And this minute, God is in this Congregation, and puts his ear to every one of your hearts, and hearkens what you will bid him say to yourselves: whether he shall bless you for your acceptation, or curse you for your refusal of him this minute: for this minute makes up your Century, your hundred years, your eternity, because it may be your last minute. We need not call that a Fable, but a Parable, where we hear, That a Mother to still her froward child told him, she would cast him to the Wolf, the Wolf should have him; and the Wolf which was at the door, and within hearing, waited, and hoped he should have the child indeed: but the child being stilled, and the Mother pleased, than she saith, so shall we kill the Wolf, the Wolf shall have none of my child, and then the Wolf stole away. No metaphor, no comparison is too high, none too low, too trivial, to imprint in you a sense of God's everlasting goodness towards you. God bids your Mother the Church, and us her Servants for your Souls, to denounce his judgements upon your sins, and we do it; and the executioner Satan, believes us, before you believe us, and is ready on his part. Be you also ready on your part, to lay hold upon those conditions, which are annexed to all God's maledictions, Repentance of former, preclusion against future sins, and we shall be always ready, on our part to assist you with the Power of our Intercession, to deliver you with the Keys of our Absolution, and to establish you with the seals of Reconciliation, and so disappoint that Wolf, that roaring Lion, that seeks whom he may devour: Go in Peace, and be this your Peace, to know this, Maledictus qui pendet in Cruse, God hath laid the whole curse belonging to us upon him, that hangs upon the Cross; But Benedictus qui pendet in pendentem; To all them that hang upon him, that hangeth there, God offereth now, all those blessings, which he that hangeth there hath purchased with the inestimable price of his Incorruptible blood; And to this glorious Son of God, who hath suffered all this, and to the most Almighty Father, who hath done all this, and to the blessed Spirit of God, who offereth now to apply all this, be ascribed by us, and by the whole Church, All power, praise, might, majesty, glory, and dominion, now and for evermore Amen. SERMON XXVII. Preached to the King, at White-Hall, the first of April, 1627. MARK. 4. 24. Take heed what you hear. WHether that which is recorded by this Evangelist, in, and about this Chapter, be one entire Sermon of our Saviour's, preached at once, or Notes taken and erected from several Sermons of his, we are no further curious to inquire, then may serve to ground this Note, that if it were one entire Sermon our Saviour preached methodically, and eased his hearers with certain landmarks by the way, with certain divisions, certain transitions, and callings upon them, verse 3. to observe the points as they arose: For as he beginneth so, Harken, Behold, so he returneth to that refreshing of their considerations, Et dixit illis, He said unto them; and, Again, he said unto them, seven or eight times, in this Chapter; so many times he calleth upon them, to observe his passing from one point to another. If they be but Notes of several Sermons, we only note this from that, That though a man understand not a whole Sermon, or remember not a whole Sermon, yet he doth well, that layeth hold upon such Notes therein as may be appliable to his own case, and his own conscience, and conduce to his own edification. The widow of Sarepta had no Palaces to build, 1 Reg. 17. and therefore she went not out to survey Timber; she had only a poor cake to bake to save her own and her child's life, and she went out to gather a few sticks, two sticks as she told the Prophet Elias, to do that work. Every man that cometh to hear here, every man that cometh to speak here, cometh not to build Churches, nor to build Commonwealths; to speak only of the duties of Kings, and of Prelates, and of Magistrates; but that poor soul that gathers a stick or two, for the baking of her own cake, that layeth hold upon any Note for the rectifying of her own perverseness hath performed the commandment of this Text, Take heed what ye hear. He that is drowning, will take hold of a bulrush; and even that bulrush may stay him, till stronger means of succour come. If you would but feel, that you are drowning in the whirlpools of sin, and Gods judgements for sin, and would lay hold upon the shallowest man, (be that man dignified with God's Character, the Character of Orders,) and lay hold upon the meanest part of his speech, (be that speech dignified with God's Ordinance, be it a Sermon) even I, and any thing that I say here, and say thus, (spoken by a Minister of God, in the house of God, by the Ordinance of God) might stop you till you heard better, and you might be the fitter for more, if you would but take heed now what you heard; Take heed what you hear. These words were spoken by Christ, Divisio. to his Apostles upon this occasion. He had told them before, That since there was a candle lighted in the world, it must not be put under a bushel, nor under a bed, verse 21. That all that is hid, should be made manifest; That all that was kept secret, should come abroad, verse 22. That if any man had ears to hear, he might hear, verse 23. That is, that the Mystery of salvation, which had been hid from the world till now, was now to be published to the world, by their Preaching, their Ministry, their Apostleship: And that therefore, since he was now giving them their Commission, and their instructions; since all that they had in charge for the salvation of the whole world, was only that, that he delivered unto them, that which they heard from him, they should take heed what they heard; Take heed what you hear. In which he layeth a double obligation upon them: First, All that you hear from me, you are to preach to the world; and therefore Take heed what you hear; forget none of that; And then, you are to preach no more than you hear from me; and therefore Take heed what you hear; add nothing to that. Be not over-timorous so to prevaricate and forbear to preach that, which you have truly heard from me; But be not over-venturous neither, to pretend a Commission when you have none, and to preach that for my word, which is your own passion, or their purpose that set you up. And when we shall have considered these words in this their first acceptation, as they were spoken literally, and personally to the Apostles, we shall see also, that by reflection they are spoken to us, the Ministers of the Gospel; and not only to us, of the Reformation, but to our Adversaries of the Roman persuasion too; and therefore, in that part, we shall institute a short comparison, whether they or we do best observe this commandment, Take heed what you hear; Preach all that, preach nothing but that, which you have received from me. And having passed through these words, in both those acceptations, literally to the Apostles, and by reflection to all the Ministers of the Gospel, the Apostles being at this time, when these words were spoken, but Hearers, they are also by a fair accommodation appliable to you that are Hearers now, Take heed what you hear: And since God hath extended upon you that glorification, that beatification, as that he hath made you regale Sacerdotium, a royal Priesthood, since you have a Regality and a Priesthood imprinted upon you, since by the prerogative which you have in the Gospel of the Kingdom of Christ Jesus, and the co-inheritance which you have in that Kingdom with Christ Jesus himself, you are Regum genus, and Sacerdotum genus, of kin to Kings, and of kin to Priests, be careful of the honour of both those, of whose honour, you have the honour to participate, and take heed what you hear of Kings, take heed what you hear of Priests, take heed of harkening to seditious rumours, which may violate the dignity of the State, or of schismatical rumours, which may cast a cloud, or aspersion upon the government of the Church; Take heed what you hear. First then as the words are spoken, in their first acceptation, literally to the Apostles, the first obligation that Christ lays upon them, 1 Part. is the publication of the whole Gospel. Take heed what you hear; for, all that, which you hear from me, the world must hear from you; for, for all my death and resurrection the world lies still surrounded under sin, and Condemnation, if this death and resurrection, be not preached by you, Acts 1. 8. unto them. Therefore the last words that ever our Saviour spoke unto them, were a ratification of this Commission, You shall be my witnesses both in jerusalem, and in judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. God proceeds legally; Publication before Judgement. God shall condemn no man, for not believing in Christ, to whom Christ was never manifested. 'Tis true, that God is said to have come to Eliah in that still small voice, and not in the strong wind, not in the Earthquake, 1. Reg. 19 12. Zech. 10. 8. Mat. 10. 27. not in the fire. So God says, Sibilab● populum meum, I will but kiss, I will but whisper for my people, and gather them so. So Christ tells us things in darkness; And so Christ speaks to us in our Ear; And these low voices, and holy whisper, and halfe-silences, denote to us, the inspirations of his Spirit, as his Spirit bears witness with our spirit; as the Holy Ghost insinuates himself into our souls, and works upon us so, by his private motions. But this is not God's ordinary way, to be whispering of secrets. The first thing that God made, was light; The last thing, that he hath reserved to do; is the manifestation of the light of his Essence in our Glorification. And for Publication of himself here, by the way, he hath constituted a Church, in a Visibility, in an eminency, as a City upon a hill; And in this Church, his Ordinance is Ordinance indeed; his Ordinance of preaching batters the soul, and by that breach, the Spirit enters; His Ministers are an Earthquake, and shake an earthly soul; They are the sons of thunder, and scatter a cloudy conscience; They are as the fall of waters, and carry with them whole Congregations; 3000 at a Sermon, 5000 at a Sermon, a whole City, such a City as Niniveh at a Sermon; and they are as the roaring of a Lion, where the Lion of the tribe of Juda, cries down the Lion that seeks whom he may devour; that is, Orthodoxal and fundamental truths, are established against clamorous, and vociferant innovations. Therefore what Christ tells us in the dark, he bids us speak in the light; and what he says in our ear, he bids us preach on the house top. Nothing is Gospel, not Evangelium, good message, if it be not put into a Messenger's mouth, and delivered by him; nothing is conducible to his end, nor available to our salvation, except it be avowable doctrine, doctrine that may be spoke aloud, though it awake them, that sleep in their sin, and make them the more froward, for being so awaked. God hath made all things in a Roundness, from the round superficies of this earth, which we tread here, to the round convexity of those heavens, which (as long as they shall have any being) shall be our footstool, when we come to heaven, God hath wrapped up all things in Circles, and then a Circle hath no Angles; there are no Corners in a Circle. Corner Divinity, clandestine Divinity are incompatible terms; If it be Divinity, it is avowable. The heathens served their Gods in Temples, sub dio, without roofs or cover, in a free openness; and, where they could, in Temples made of Specular stone, that was transparent as glass, or crystal, so as they which walked without in the streets, might see all that was done within. And even nature itself taught the natural man, to make that one argument of a man truly religious, Aperto vivere voto, That he durst pray aloud, and let the world hear, what he asked at God's hand; which duty is best performed, when we join with the Congregation in public prayer. Saint Augustine, hath made that note upon the Donatists, That they were Clancularii, clandestine Divines, Divines in Corners. And in Photius, we have such a note almost upon all Heretics; as the Nestorian was called Coluber, a snake, because though he kept in the garden, or in the meadow, in the Church, yet he lurked and lay hid, to do mischief. And the Valentinian was called a Grasshopper, because he leapt and skipped from place to place; and that creature, the Grasshopper, you may hear as you pass, but you shall hardly find him at his singing; you may hear a Conventicle Schismatic, hear him in his Pamphlets, hear him in his Disciples, but hardly surprise him at his exercise. Publication is a fair argument of truth. That tastes of Luther's holy animosity, and zealous vehemency, when he says, Audemus gloriari Christum à nobis primo vulgatum; other men had made some attempts at a Reformation, and had felt the pulse of some persons, and some Courts, and some Churches, how they would relish a Reformation; But Luther rejoices with a holy exultation, That he first published it, that he first put the world to it. So the Apostles proceeded; when they came in their peregrination, to a new State, to a new Court, to Rome itself, they did not inquire, how stands the Emperor affected to Christ, and to the preaching of his Gospel; Is there not a Sister, or a Wife that might be wrought upon to further the preaching of Christ? Are there not some persons, great in power and place, that might be content to hold a party together, by admitting the preaching of Christ? This was not their way; They only considered who sent them; Christ Jesus: And what they borough; salvation to every soul that embraced Christ Jesus. That they preached; and still begun with a Vae si non; Never tell us of displeasure, or disgrace, or detriment, or death, for preaching of Christ. For, woe be unto us, if we preach him not: And still they ended with a Qui non crediderit, Damnabitur, Never deceive your own souls, He, to whom Christ hath been preached, and believes not, shall be damned. All Divinity that is bespoken, and not ready made, fitted to certain turns, and not to general ends; And all Divines that have their souls and consciences, so disposed, as their Libraries may be, (At that end stand Papists, and at that end Protestants, and he comes in in the middle, as near one as the other) all these have a brackish taste; as a River hath that comes near the Sea, so have they, in coming so near the Sea of Rome. In this the Prophet exalts our Consolation, Esai. 30. 20. Though the Lord give us the bread of Adversity, and the water of Affliction, yes shall not our Teachers be removed into corners; (They shall not be silenced by others, they shall not affect of themselves Corner Divinity. But (says he there) our eyes shall see our Teachers, and our ears shall hear a word, saying, This is the way, walk in it. For so they shall declare, that they have taken to heart this Commandment of him that sent them, Christ Jesus. All that you receive from me, you must deliver to my people; therefore, Take heed what you hear; forget none of it. But than you must deliver no more than that; and therefore in that respect also, Take heed what you hear; add nothing to that, and that is the other obligation which Christ lays here upon his Apostles. That reading of those words of Saint john, Oblige. 2. 1 joh. 4. 3. Omnis spiritus qui solvit jesum, Every spirit that dissolves Jesus, that takes him asunder, in pieces, and believes not all, is a very ancient reading of that place. And upon that Ancient reading, the Ancients infer well, That not only that spirit that denies that Christ being God, assumed our flesh, not only he that denies that Christ consists of two natures, God and Mam, but he also that affirms this Christ, thus consisting of two natures, to consist also of two persons, this man dissolves jesus, takes him asunder, in pieces, and slackens the band of the Christian faith, which faith is, That Christ consisting of two natures, in one person, suffered for the salvation of man. So then, not only to take from Jesus, one of his natures, God or man, but to add to him, another person, this addition is a Diminution, a dissolution, an annihilation of Jesus. So also to add to the Gospel, to add to the Scriptures, to add to the articles of faith, this addition is a Diminution, a Dissolution, an Annihilation of those Scriptures, that Gospel, that faith, and the Author, and finisher thereof. jesus grew in stature, says the Gospel; But he grew not to his life's end; we know to, how many feet he grew. So the Scriptures grew to; the number of the books grew; But they grow not to the world's end, we know to how many books they grew. The body of man and the vessels thereof, have a certain, and a limited capacity, what nourishment they can receive and digest, and so a certain, measure and stature to extend to. The soul, and soul of the soul, Faith, and her faculties, hath a certain capacity too, and certain proportions of spiritual nourishments exhibited to it, in certain vessels, certain measures, so many, these Books of Scriptures. And therefore as Christ says, Mat. 6. 27. Which of you can add one Cubit to your stature? (how plentifully, and how delicately soever you feed, how discreetly, and how providently soever you exercise, you cannot do that) so may he say to them who pretend the greatest power in the Church, Which of you can add another book to the Scriptures, A Codicill to either of my Testaments? 22. 18. The curse in the Revelation falls as heavy upon them that add to the book of God, as upon them that take from it: Nay, it is easy to observe, that in all those places of Scripture which forbid the taking away, or the adding to the Book of God, still the commandment that they shall not, and still the malediction if they do, is first placed upon the adding, and after upon the taking away. So it is in that former place, Plagues upon him, 4. 2. that takes away: but first, Plagues upon him, that adds: so in Deut. you shall not diminish, 12. 32. but first, you shall not add: So again in that Book, whatsoever I command you observe to do it: Thou shalt not diminish from it; but first, Thou shalt not add to it. And when the same commandment seems to be given in the Proverbs, 30. 6. there is nothing at all said of taking away, but only of adding, as though the danger to God's Church consisted especially in that; Every word of God, is pure, saith Solomon there: Add thou not unto his word, lest thou be reproved and found a liar. For, though heretofore some Heretics have offered at that way, to clip God's coin in taking away some book of Scripture, yet for many blessed Ages, the Church hath enjoyed her peace in that point: None of the Books are denied by any church, there is no substraction offered; But for addition of Apocryphal Books to Canonical, the Church of God is still in her Militant state, and cannot triumph: and though she have victory, in all the Reasons, the cannot have peace. You see Christ's way, to them that came to hear him; Matth. 5. Audiistis, and Audiistis, This, and that you have heard others say; Eg● autem dico; your Rule is, what I say; for Christ spoke Scripture; Christ was Scripture. As we say of great and universal Scholars, that they are viventes Bibliothecae, living, walking, speaking Libraries; so Christ was l●quens Scriptura; living, speaking Scripture. Our Sermons are Text and Discourse; Christ Sermons were all Text: Christ was the Word; not only the Essential Word, which was always with God, but the very written word too; Christ was the Scripture, and therefore, when he refers them to himself, he refers them to the Scriptures, for though here he seem only, to call upon them, to hearken to that which he spoke, yet it is in a word, of a deeper impression; for it is Videte; See what you hear. Before you preach any thing for my word, see it, see it written, see it in the body of the Scriptures. Here then lies the double obligation upon the Apostles, The salvation of the whole world lies upon your preaching of that, of All That, of only That, which you hear from me now, And therefore, take heed what you hear. And farther we carry not your consideration, upon this first acceptation of the words as they are spoken personally to the Apostles, but pass to the second, as by reflection, they are spoken to us, the Ministers of the Gospel. In this consideration, Part. 2. we take in also our Adversaries; for we all pretend to be successors of the Apostles; though not we, as they, in the Apostolical, yet they as well as we in the Evangelicall, and Ministerial function: for, as that which Christ said to Saint Peter, he said in him, to all the Apostles, Upon this Rock will I build my Church, so in this which he saith to all the Apostles, he saith to all us also, Take heed what you hear. Be this then the issue between them of the Roman distemper, and us; whether they or we, do best perform this commandment, Take heed what you hear, conceal nothing of that which you have heard, obtrude nothing but that which you have heard: Whether they or we do best apply our practice to this rule, Preach all the Truth, preach nothing but the Truth, be this lis contestata, the issue joined between us, and it will require no long pleading for matter of evidence; An omnem. Matth. 4. 4. Deut. 8. 3. first, our Saviour saith, Man liveth by every word, that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And this Christ saith from Moses also: so that in the mouth of two unreproachable witnesses, Moses, and Christ, the Law, and the Gospel, we have this established, Man's life is the Word of God, the Word is the Scripture. And then our Saviour saith further, The Holy Ghost shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance: joh. 14. 26. and here is the Latitude, the Totality, the Integrality of the means of salvation; you shall have Scriptures delivered to you, by them the Holy Ghost shall teach you all things; and than you shall be remembered of all, by the explication and application of those Scriptures, at Church, where lies the principal operation of the Holy Ghost. Now, is this done in the Roman Church? Are the Scriptures delivered, and explicated to them? To much of the Scriptures as is read to them, in their Lessons and Epistles, and Gospels, is not understood when it is read, for it is in an unknown language; so that, that way, the Holy Ghost teaches them nothing. Neither are all the Scriptures distributed into these Lessons and Epistles, and Gospels which are read: so that if they did understand all they heard, yet they did not hear all they were bound to understand. And for remembering them by the way of preaching, though it be true, that the Reformation (by way of example, though not by Doctrine) have so much prevailed upon them, as that they have now twenty Sermons in that Church, for one that they had before Luther, yet if a man could hear six Sermons a day, all the days of his life, he might die without having heard all the Scriptures explicated in Sermons: But when men have a Christian liberty afforded to them to read the Scriptures at home, and then are remembered of those things at Church, and there taught to use that liberty modestly, to establish their faith upon places of Scripture that are plain, and to suspend their judgement upon obscurer places, till they may, by due means, preaching or conference, receive farther satisfaction therein, from them, who are thereunto authorized by God in his Church, there certainly is this Rule of our Saviour's, Take heed what you hear, preach all that you have received from me, likelier to be observed then there, where the body of the conveyance, the Scripture itself is locked up from us; and the soul of the conveyance, the sense, and interpretation of the Scriptures, is locked into one man's breast; and the Great Seal of that conveyance, the Sacrament of our Reconciliation, is broken, and mutilated, and given us but by half. But they do not only stray on that hand, An solam. in not giving all that the Scripture gives; (They do not give the liberty of meats, nor the liberty of marriage, which the Scripture gives; Nay, they do not give the liberty of trying, whether the Scripture give it or no; for they do not give the liberty of reading the Scriptures) But on the other hand, they stray too, and further, That they deliver more than the Scriptures do, and make other Rules and Canons equal to Scriptures. In which excess, they do not only make the Apocryphal Books, (Books that have always had a favourable aspect, and benign countenance from the Church of God) equal to Canonical Scriptures, But they make their decretal Epistles of their Popes and of their Extravagants, (as they call them) and their occasional Bulls, nay their Bull-baitings, their Bulls fight, and crossing and contradicting one another, equal to Canonical Scripture. So that these men have put the salvation of the world, upon another science, upon another profession; It is not the Divine, that is the Minister of salvation, but the Canonist. I must not determine my belief in the Apostles Creed, nor in Athanasius, nor in that of the Nicen Fathers; not only not the Scriptures, but not the Counsels, nor Fathers must give the Materials, and Elements of my faith, but the Canon law; for so they rule it: Gratian that hath collected the sentences of Fathers and Counsels, and digested them into heads of Divinity, he is no rule of our belief, because, say they, he is no part of the body of the Canon law; But they that first compiled the Decretals, and the Extravagants, and they who have since recompiled more Decretals, and more Extravagants, the Clementins, and the Sextins, and of late years the Septims, with those of john the 22. these make up the body of the Canon law, and these must be our Rule; what to believe. How long? Till they fall out with some State, with whom they are friends yet, or grown friends with some State, that they are fallen out with now; and then upon a new Decretal, a new Extravagant, I must contract a new, or enlarge, or restrain my old belief. Certainly, as in natural things, the assiduity takes off the admiration, (The rising, and the setting of the sun, would be a miracle to him, that should see it but once) and as in civil things, the profuseness, and the communication, and the indifferency takes off the Dignity, (for, as gold is gold still, the heaviest metal of all, yet if it be beat into leaf gold, I can blow it away; so Honour is honour still, the worthiest object of the worthiest spirits, and the noblest reward of the greatest Princes, yet the more have it, the less every one hath of it) So in the Roman Church, they have not found a better way to justify their blasphemy of the insufficiency of the Scriptures, then by making contemptible writings, as sufficient as Scriptures, equal to Scripture. If they could make me believe, the Scriptures were no more sufficient than their Decretals, and Extravagants, I should easily confess there were no Scriptures sufficient for salvation. And farther we press not this evidence, how far they depart from this rule, Take heed what you hear, How much less, and how much more than Christ gave, they give, but pass to the third acceptation of these words, as, in a fair accommodation, they are spoken to you, who are now as the Apostles were then, Hearers, Take heed what you hear. And into this part I enter with such a protestation, 3 Part. as perchance may not become me: That this is the first time in all my life, (I date my life from my Ministry; for I received mercy, as I received the ministry, as the Apostle speaks) this is the first time, that in the exercise of my Ministry, I wished the King away; That ever I had any kind of loathness that the King should hear all that I said. Here, for a little while, it will be a little otherwise; because in this branch, I am led, to speak of some particular duties of subjects; and in my poor way, I have thought it somewhat an Eccentrique motion, and off of the natural Poles, to speak of the Duties of subjects before the King, or of the duties of Kings, in public and popular Congregations. As every man is a world in himself, so every man hath a Church in himself; and as Christ referred the Church for hearing to the Scriptures, so every man hath Scriptures in his own heart, to hearken to. Obedience to Superiors, and charity to others, are In-nate Scriptures; Obedience and Charity, are the Natural man's, the Civil man's, the Moral man's Old and New Testament. Take heed, that is, observe what you hear from them, and they will direct you well. And first, Take heed what you hear, is, take heed that you hear; That you do hearken to them, john 8. 47. whom you should hear. Our Saviour saith, He that is of God, heareth his words; ye therefore hear them not, because you are not his. Transfer this to a civil application; to obedience to Superiors. Christ makes account that he hath argued safely so; If you hear him not, you are none of his. If you hear him not in his Laws, hear him not in his Proclamations, hear him not in the Declarations of his wants and necessities, you are none of his, that is, you had rather you were none of his: There is a Nolumus hunc regnare smothered in our breasts, if we will not hear, and we had rather we might divest our Allegiance, rather we might be no subjects. By the Law, Exod. 21. 6. he that was willing to continue in the service of his Master, was willing to be boared in the ear, willing to testify a readiness of hearing and obedience. And when David describes the refractory man so, Psalm 53. 4. He is like the deaf Adder, that stoppeth her ear, which will not hearken to the voice of Charmers, charming never so wisely, that word Charmer, signifies an eloquent, a persuasive man, a powerful speaker; this Viper will not hear such. And for the sins of a Nation, when those sins come to the height, 8. 17. God will first inflict that punishment in the Prophet jeremy, I will send Serpents, Cockatrices amongst you, which will not be charmed, that is, venomous, and mutinous, and seditious spirits, upon whom, no language, no reason, no counsel, no persuasion can prevail; 3. 1. And then, he will second, and aggravate that punishment, with that in Esay, The Lord shall take from jerusalem, the man of war, and the judge, and the Prophet, and the honourable man, and the Counsellor, and the eloquent Orator. As when they will not embrace religious duties, God shall take away their Preachers, so when they will not believe their Civil dangers, God shall take from them the spirit of persuasibility, and the power of perswasivenesse towards them, from them who should work upon them; and leave them a miserable example of that fearful rule, whom God will destroy, he will infatuate first; from that Nation from whom God will depart, as he is the Lord of hosts, and not fight their battles, he will depart first, as he is the Angel of the great counsel, and not enlighten their understandings, that they might see their dangers. The Potion of jealousy, Num. 5. 12. was a bitter potion, and a putrefying potion, where it was to be ministered; and it was to be ministered to them, who gave the occasion of the jealousy. Now not to have brought Saul presents, not to have contributed to his present wars, and his present wants, 1 Sam. 10. ult. this occasioned the jealousy; for so, says the text, They despised Saul, and brought him no presents; This was evidence enough of their contempt, That they brought him no presents. And where jealousies are so occasioned, much bitterness may follow; many bitter potions may be administered; many bitter pills may be swallowed. And therefore, take heed that you hear, and hear so, as may in one act testify your obedience to Superiors, and charity towards others, who are already enwrapped in the same miseries, that may reach you; for obedience and charity are an Old, and a New Testament. Take heed that you hear them whom God hath appointed to speak to you; But, when you come abroad, take heed what you hear; for, certainly, the Devil doth not cast in more snares at the eye of man, then at the ear. Our Saviour Christ proposes it as some remedy against a mischief, Mat. 18. 8. That if the eye offend thee, thou mayst pull it out, and if thy hand or foot offend thee, thou mayst cut it off, and thou art safe from that offence. But he does not name nor mention the ear: for, if the ear betray thee, though thou do cut it off, yet thou art open to that way of treason still, still thou canst hear. Where one man libels with the tongue, or hand, a hundred libel with the ear; One man speaks, or writes, but a hundred applaud and countenance a calumny. Therefore sepi aures tuas spinis, Ecclus. 28. 28. as the Vulgate reads that place, hedge thine ears with thorns; that he that would whisper a calumny in thine ear, against another man, may be pricked with those thorns, that is, may discern from thee, that he is not welcome to thee, and so forbear; or if he will press upon thee, those thorns may prick thee, and warn thee that there is an uncharitable office done which thou shouldest not countenance. Neither only may thy charity towards another, be violated by such a whisperer, but thine own safety endangered; And therefore, Take heed what you hear. There are two dangerous sorts of men, whom we call Auricularios, Earwigs transformed into men. And certainly there is no lycanthropy so dangerous, not when men are changed into devouring wolves, as when these Earwigs are metamorphosed into men. The first sort is of those, who take us into their ears; the other, that put themselves into ours. The first are they, that receive Auricular confessions; in which a man will propose to his Confessar, treasonable and bloody purposes; and if he allow them, than it is no longer a confession, but a consultation, and he may disclose it to any, whom he may thereby draw in; But if his Confessar disallow it, than it retains the nature of a confession still, and being delivered under that Seal, it may not be revealed, though the concealing cost Christendom, or, (as they express it) all the souls, that Christ hath died for. And of these Earwigs, of these Auricular men, we had shrewd experience in the carriage of that treason, the Emphatical Treason, in respect of which, all other Treasons are but Trespasses, all Rebellions but Riots, all battles but Frays. But then, the more frequent, and the more dangerous Earwig is he, that upon pretence of trusting thee with a secret, betrays thee, and therefore Take heed what you hear. Bartelus that great Lawyer, had delivered it for law, that whosoever hears treason, and reveals it not, is a Traitor. And though Baldus, a great Lawyer, and one between whom, and Bartolus, the scales are even, say, That Bartolus his soul, and all their souls that follow him in that opinion, burn in hell for that uncharitableness, yet, to verify that, that the most do go to hell, the most do follow Bartolus, and so thy danger, that huntest after the knowledge of great secrets, is the greater, and therefore, Take heed what you hear. Arridet tibi homo, & instar privati sermones occupat, says the little great Epictetus, or Arrian upon him, a man will put himself into thy company, and speak in the confidence of a dear friend, and then, De Principe inclementer loquitur, he comes to speak boldly and irreverently of the greatest persons; and thou thinkest thou hast found Exemplum & monumentum fidei, a rare, a noble, an ingenuous, a free, and confident Spirit, Et pertexis, quod prior inceperat; Thou dost but say on that which he was saying, and make up his sentence, or dost but believe him, or dost but not say, that thou dost not believe him, and thy few words, thy no words, may cost thee thy life. Per ornamenta ferit, says the Patriarch, and Oracle of Moral men, Seneca; This whisperer wounds thee, and with a stilletta of gold, he strangles thee with scarves of silk, he smothers thee with the down of Phoenixes, he stifles thee with a perfume of Ambar, he destroys thee by praising thee, overthrows thee by exalting thee, and undoes thee by trusting thee; By trusting thee with those secrets that bring thee into a desperate perplexity, Aut alium accusare in subsidium tui, (as the Patriarch, and Oracle of Statesmen, Tacitus, says) Either to betray another, that pretends to have trusted thee, or to perish thyself, for the saving of another, that plotted to betray thee. And therefore, if you can hear a good Organ at Church, and have the music of a domestic peace at home, peace in thy walls, peace in thy bosom, never harken after the music of spheres, never hunt after the knowledge of higher secrets, then appertain to thee; But since Christ hath made you Regale Sacerdotium, Kings and Priests, in your proportion, Take heed what you hear, in derogation of either the State, or the Church. In declaring ill affections towards others, Regnum. Exod. 21. 17. the Holy Ghost hath imprinted these steps. First, he begins at home, in Nature, He that curseth Father or Mother shall surely be put to death; and then, as families grow out into Cities, the Holy Ghost goes out of the house, Exod. 22. 28. into the consideration of the State, and says, Thou shalt not curse the Ruler of the people, no Magistrate. 2 Sam. 19 21. And from thence he comes to the highest upon earth, for in Samuel, Leu. 24. 15. it comes to a cursing of the Lords Anointed; and from thence to the highest in heaven, Whosoever curseth his God, shall bear his sin; and as though both those grew out of one another, The cursing of the King, and the cursing of God, the Prophet Esai hath joined them together, 8. 21. They shall be hungry, says he, (indigent, poor, penurious) and they shall fret, (be transported with ungodly passion) and they shall curse their King and their God: If they do one, they will do the other. The Devil remembers from what height he is fallen, and therefore still clambers upward, and still directs all our sins, in his end, upon God: Our end, in a sin, may be pleasure, or profit, or satisfaction of affections, or passions; but the Devils end in all is, that God may be violated and dishonoured in that sin: And therefore by casting in ill conceptions and distastes, first, against Parents and Masters at home, and then against subordinate Magistrates abroad, and so against the Supreme upon earth, He brings us to ill conceptions and distastes against God himself; first, to think it liberty to be under no Governor, and then, liberty to be under no God; when as, only those two services, of a gracious God, and of a good King, are perfect freedom. Therefore the wise King Solomon meets with this distemper in the root, at first ebullition, in the heart; Eccles. 10. 20. Curse not the King, no not in thy thought; for, that Thought hath a tongue, and hath spoken, and said Amen in the ears of God; That which thy heart hath said, though the Law have not, though the Jury have not, though the Peers have not, God hath heard thee say. The word which Solomon uses there, is jadung; and that our Translators have in the margin called Conscience; Curse not the King, no not in thy conscience; Do not thou pronounce, that whatsoever thou dislikest, cannot consist with a good conscience; never make thy private conscience the rule of public actions; for to constitute a Rectitude, or an Obliquity in any public action, there enter more circumstances, then can have fallen in thy knowledge. But the word that Selomon takes there, jading, signifies properly all ways of acquiring knowledge, and Hearing is one of them, and therefore, Take heed what you hear: Come not so near evil speaking, as to delight to hear them, that delight to speak evil of Superiors. A man may have a good breath in himself, and yet be deadly infected, if he stand in an ill air; a man may stand in a cloud, in a mist, in a fog of blasphemers, till, in the sight of God, himself shall be dissolved into a blasphemous wretch, and in that cloud, in that mist, God shall not know him, that endured the hearing, from him, that adventured the speaking of those blasphemies. The ear, in such cases, is as the cleft in the wall, that receives the voice, and then the Echo is below, in the heart; for the most part, the heart affords a return, and an inclination to those things that are willingly received at the ear; The Echo returns the last syllables; The heart concludes with his conclusions, whom we have been willing to hearken unto. We make Satyrs; and we look that the world should call that wit; when God knows, that that is in a great part, self-guiltiness, and we do but reprehend those things, which we ourselves have done, we cry out upon the illness of the times, and we make the times ill: so the calumniator whispers those things, which are true, no where, but in himself. But thy greater danger, is that mischievous purpose, (which we spoke of before) to endanger thee by hearing, and to entangle thee in that Dilemma, of which, an ingenuous man abhors one part, as much as a conscientious man does the other, That thou must be a Delinquent, or an Accuser, a Traitor or an Informour: God hath imprinted in thee characters of a better office, and of more dignity, of a Royal Priesthood; as you have sparks of Royalty in your souls, Take heed what you hear of State-government; as you have sparks of holy fire, and Priesthood in your souls, Take heed what you hear of Church-government, which is the other consideration. The Church is the spouse of Christ: Noble husbands do not easily admit defamations of their wives. Ecclesia. Very religious Kings may have had wives, that may have retained some tincture, some impressions of error, which they may have sucked in their infancy, from another Church, and yet would be loath, those wives should be publicly traduced to be Heretics, or passionately proclaimed to be Idolaters for all that. A Church may lack something of exact perfection, and yet that Church should not be said to be a supporter of Antichrist, or a limb of the beast, or a thirster after the cup of Babylon, for all that. From extreme to extreme, from east to west, the Angels themselves cannot come, but by passing the middle way between; from that extreme impurity, in which Antichrist had damped the Church of God, to that intemerate purity, in which Christ had constituted his Church, the most Angelical Reformers cannot come, but by touching, yea, and stepping upon some things, in the way. He that is come to any end, remembers when he was not at the middle way; he was not there as soon as he set out. It is the posture reserved for heaven, to sit down, at the right hand of God; Here our consolation is, that God reaches out his hand to the receiving of those who come towards him; And nearer to him, and to the institutions of his Christ, can no Church, no not of the Reformation, be said to have come, then ours does. It is an ill nature in any man, to be rather apt to conceive jealousies, and to suspect his Mother's honour, or his sister's chastity, than a strange woman's. It is an irreverent unthankfulness, to think worse of that Church, which hath bred us, and fed us, and led us thus far towards God, then of a foreign Church, though Reform too, and in a good degree. How often have I heard our Church condemned abroad, for opinions, which our Church never held? And how often have I heard foreign Churches exalted and magnified at home, for some things in the observation of the Sabbath, and in the administration of the Sacrament, which, indeed, those Churches do not hold, nor practise? Take heed what you hear; And that ill, which you hear of your own Church, at home, by God's abundant goodness to it, is not true; And, I would all that good, which you hear of Churches abroad, were true; but I must but wish, that it were so, and pray that it may be so, and praise God, for those good degrees towards it, which they have attained; But no Church in the world, gives us occasion of emulation towards them, or of undervaluing Gods blessings upon ours. And therefore, as to us, who pretend an ambassage from him, if we make ourselves unworthy of that employment, God shall say, Psal. 50. ●6. What hast thou to do, to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my Covenant into thy mouth, seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee? So to them, that harken greedily after defamations of the persons and actions of his Church, God shall say, Why takest thou mine Ordinance into thy construction, or my servants into thy consideration, since thou hatest my yoke, and proposest to thyself no other end, in defaming others, than a licentious liberty, and an uncontrolled impunity in thyself? As you are Christians, God hath given you a Royal Priesthood; be so Noble, be so Holy, as to take heed what you hear, of State and Church, and of those persons, whom God hath called Gods, in both those firmaments. And, for conclusion of all, Take heed what you hear of yourselves. Men speak to you, Conclusio. and God speaks to you, and the Devil does speak to you too; Take heed what you hear of all three. In all three the words look two ways; for, in them, there is both a Videte, and a Cavete, first see that you do hear them, and then take heed what you hear from them. Men will speak; and they will speak of you: Men will discourse, and you must be their subject; Men will declaim, and you must be their Theme. And truly you should desire to be so: As only man can speak, so only man can desire to be spoken of. If gold could speak, if gold could wish, gold would not be content to lie in the dark, in the mine, but would desire to come abroad, to entertain Armies, or to erect, or endow Civil, or Ecclesiastical buildings. He that desires to Print a book, should much more desire, to be a book; to do some such exemplar things, as men might read, and relate, and profit by. He that hath done nothing worth the speaking of, hath not kept the world in reparations, for his Tenement and his Term. Videte, see that you do hear, That you do give occasion to be spoken of, that you do deserve the praise, the thanks, the testimony, the approbation of the good men of your own times, for that shall deliver you over fairly to posterity. But then, Cavete, Take heed what you hear, that you suffer not these approbations to swerve, Eccles. 7. 5. or swell into flattery: for, it is better to hear the Rebuke of the wise, then to hear the songs of fools, Prov. 26. 25. says the wise King: And, when the flatterer speaks thee fair, says he, believe him not, for there are seven abominations in his heart; And, (by the way) the Holy Ghost at any time, had as lief say seventy millions, as seven; for seven is the holy Ghosts Cipher of infinite; There are infinite abominations, in the flatterer's heart. And of these flatterers, these wasps, that swarm in all sweet, and warm places, and have a better outside● than the Bee, (the Wasp hath a better shape, and a better shape, and a better appearance than the Bee, but a sharper and a stronger sting, and, at last, no honey) of these, no authors of any books of the Bible, have warned us so much, and armed us so well, as those two Royal Authors, those two great Kings, David, and Solomon; In likelihood because they, as such, had been most offered at by them, Psal. 55. 22. and could best give a true character of them, as David does, Their words are smother than butter, but war is in their hearts, and softer than oil, and yet they are naked swords. Videte, Cavete, see that you do hear, that you give good men occasion to speak well of you; But take heed what you hear, that you encourage not a flatterer, by your over easy acceptation of his praises. Man speaks; and God speaks too; and first Videte, Deus. see that you do hear him; for, as he that fears God, fears nothing else, so he that hears God hears nothing else, that can terrify him. Ab Auditione mala non timebit, Psal. 112. 7. says David, a good man shall not be afraid of evil tidings, for his heart is fixed, trusting in the lord A rumour shall come one year, 51. 46. says jeremy, and next year another rumour; new inventions from Satan, for new intimidations; but still he is at home, for he dwells in God. Videte, see that you hear him; But then Cavete, take heed what you hear, even from God himself, that you mistake not what God says, for as all God's pardons have an Ita quòd se bene gerat; He whom God pardons, for that that is past, is bound to the good behaviour for the future, Es●. 1. 19 so all God's promises have a Si audiertis, si volueritis, if I harken, if I obey, I shall eat the good things of the land; otherwise I shall starve, body, and soul. There is a Vives proposed to me, I may conceive justly an infallibility of eternal life, but still it is; fac hoc & vives, this I must do, and then I shall live; otherwise, moriar, and morte moriar, I shall die both ways, body and soul. There is not much asked of joshua, but something there is; It is but a Tantummodo hoc, only this; but a Tantummodo hoc, an only this there is, Only be thou valiant, and of a good courage; forsake not the cause of God, and God will never forsake thee. There is not much asked of jairus, for the resuscitation of his dead daughter, but something there is, it is Tantummodo hoc, but only this; but an only this there is, Tantummodo crede, & non metuas; do not mistrust Christ, do not disable Christ, from doing a miracle, in thy behalf, by not believing; as, in one place, where he came, it is said that Christ could not do much, by reason of their unbelief. Hear God there, where God speaks to thee, and then thou shalt hear, that, that he speaks to thee. Above, in heaven, in his decrees, he speaks to himself, to the Trinity: In the Church, and in the execution of those decrees, he speaks to thee. Climb not up, to the search of unsearchable things, to the finding out of investigable things, as Tertullian speaks; but look to that which is near thee; not so much to those Decrees which have no conditions, as to be able to plead conditions performed, or, at least, a holy sorrow, that thou hast not performed them. Videte, Cavete; see that you do hear God, else every rumour will scatter you; But take heed what you hear, else you may come to call conditional things absolute. And lastly, since Satan will be speaking too, Videte, be sure you do hear him, be sure you discern it to be his voice, and know what leads you into tentation. For, you may hear a voice that shall say, youth must have pleasures, and greatness must have State, and charge must have support. And this voice may bring a young man to transfer all his wantonness upon his years, when it is the effect of high diet, or licentious discourse, or wanton Images admitted, and cherished in his fancy; and this voice may bring great officers, to transfer their inaccessibleness, upon necessary State, when it is an effect of their own laziness, or indulgence to their pleasures; and this voice may bring rich landlords to transfer all their oppression of tenants, to the necessity of supporting the charge of wives and children, when it is an effect of their profuseness and prodigality. Nay you may hear a voice, that may call you to this place, and yet be his voice; which is that, which Saint Augustine confesses and laments, that even to these places persons come to look upon one another, that can meet no where else. Videte; see you do hear, that you do discern the voice; for, that is never Gods voice that puts upon any man, a necessity of sinning, out of his years and constitution, out of his calling and profession, out of his place, and station, out of the age, and times that he lives in, out of the pleasure of them, that he lives upon, or out of the charge of them, that live upon him. But then, Cavete, take heed what you hear from him too, especially then, when he speaks to thee upon thy deathbed, at thy last transmigration; then when thine ears shall be deaf, with the cries of a distressed, and a distracted family, and with the found, and the change of the found of thy last bell; then when thou shalt hear a hollow voice in thyself, upbraiding thee, that thou hast violated all thy Maker's laws, worn out all thy Saviour's merits, frustrated all the endeavours of his blessed Spirit upon thee, evacuated all thine own Repentances, with relapses; then when thou shalt see, or seem to see his hand turning the stream of thy Saviour's blood into another channel, and telling thee, here's enough for jew and Turk, but not a drop for thee; then when in that multiplying glass of Despair, which he shall present, every sinful thought shall have the proportion of an Act, and every Act, of a Habit, when every Circumstance of every sin, shall enter into the nature of the sin itself, and vary the sin, and constitute a particular sin; and every particular sin, shall be a sin against the holy Ghost; Take heed what you hear; and be but able to say to Satan then, as Christ said to Peter, in his name, Vade retro Satan, come after me Satan, come after me tomorrow; come a minute after my soul is departed from this body, come to me, where I shall be then, and when thou seest me washed in the blood of my Saviour, clothed in the righteousness of my Saviour, lodged in the bosom of my Saviour, crowned with the merits of my Saviour, confess, that upon my deathbed, thou wast a liar, and wouldst have been a murderer, and the Lord shall, and I, in him, shall rebuke thee. See that ye refuse not him, that speaketh, says the Apostle; Heb. 12. 25. not any that speaks in his name; but especially not him, whom he names there, that speaks better things, than the blood of Abel; for, the blood of Abel speaks but by way of example, and imitation; the blood of Christ Jesus, by way of Ransom, and satisfaction. Hear what that blood says for you, in the ears of the Father, and then no singing of the flatterer, no lisping of the tempter, no roaring of the accuser, no thunder of the destroyer shall shake thy holy constancy. Take heed what you hear, remember what you have heard; and the God of heaven, for his Son Christ Jesus sake, by the working of his blessed Spirit, prosper and emprove both endeavours in you. Amen. SERMON XXVIII. Preached to the King, at the Court in April, 1629. GEN. 1. 26. And God said, Let us make man, in our Image, after our likeness. NEver such a frame, so soon set up, as this, in this Chapter. For, for the thing itself, there is no other thing to compare it with. For it is All, it is the whole world. And for the time, there was no other time to compare it with, for this was the beginning of time, In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth. That Earth, which in some thousands of years, men could not look over, nor discern what form it had: (for neither Lactantius, almost three hundred years after Christ, nor Saint Augustine, more than one hundred years after him, would believe the earth to be round) that earth, which no man, in his person, is ever said to have compassed, till our age; That earth which is too much for man yet, (for, as yet, a very great part of the earth is unpeopled) that earth, which, if we will cast it all but into a Map, costs many Month's labour to grave it, nay, if we will cast but a piece of an acre of it, into a garden, costs many years labour to fashion, and furnish it: All that earth, and then, that heaven, which spreads so far, as that subtle men have, with some appearance of probability, imagined, that in that heaven, in those manifold Spheres of the Planets, and the Stars, there are many earths, many worlds, as big as this, which we inhabit; That earth and that heaven, which spent God himself, Almighty God, six days in furnishing; Moses sets up in a few syllables, in one line, In principio, in the beginning God created heaven and earth. If a Livy or a Guicciardine, or such extensive and voluminous authors, had had this story in hand; God must have made another world, to have made them a Library to hold their Books, of the making of this world. Into what Wire would they have drawn out this earth? Into what leafe-gold would they have beat out these heavens? It may assist our conjecture herein to consider, that amongst those men, who proceed with a sober modesty, and limitation in their writing, and make a conscience not to clog the world with unnecessary books; yet the volumes which are written by them, upon this beginning of Genesis, are scarce less than infinite, God did no more but say, let this and this be done; And Moses does no more but say, that upon Gods saying it was done. God required not nature to help him to do it: Moses required not reason to help him to be believed. The holy Ghost hovered upon the waters, and so God wrought: The holy Ghost hovered upon Moses too, and so he wrote. And we believe these things to be so, by the same Spirit in Moses mouth, by which they were made so, in God's hand. Only, beloved, remember, that a frame may be thrown down in much less time, than it was set up. A child, an Ape can give fire to a Canon: And a vapour can shake the earth: And these fires, and these vapours can throw down cities in minutes. When Christ said, Throw down this Temple, and in three days I will raise it; they never stopped upon the consideration of throwing it down; they knew, that might be soon done; but they wondered at the speedy raising of it. Now, if all this earth were made in that minute, may not all come to the general dissolution in this minute? Or may not thy acres, thy miles, thy Shires shrink into feet, and so few feet, as shall but make up thy grave? When he who was a great Lord, must be but a Cottager; and not so well; for a Cottager must have so many acres to his Cottage; but in this case, a little piece of an acre, five foot, is become the house itself; The house, and the land; the grave is all: lower then that; the grave is the Land, and the Tenement, and the Tenant too: He that lies in it, becomes the same earth, that he lies in. They all make but one earth, and but a little of it. But then raise thyself to a higher hope again. God hath made better land, the land of promise; a stronger city, the new jerusalem; and, inhabitants for that everlasting city, Us; whom he made, not by saying, let there be men, but by consultation, by deliberation, God said, Let us make Man in our Image, after our likeness. We shall pursue our great examples; Divisio. God in doing, Moses in saying; and so make haste in applying the parts. But first receive them. And since we have the whole world in contemplation, consider in these words, the four quarters of the world, by application, by fair, and just accommodation of the words. First, in the first word, that God speaks here, Faciamus, Let us, us in the plural, (a denotation of divers Persons in one Godhead) we consider our East where we must begin, at the knowledge and confession of the Trinity. For, though in the way to heaven, we be traveled beyond the Gentiles, when we come to confess but one God, (The Gentiles could not do that) yet we are still among the jews, if we think that one God to be but one Person. Christ's name is Oriens the East, if we will be named by him, (called Christians) we must look to this East, Zech. 6. 12. the confession of the Trinity. There's then our East, in the Faciamus; Let us, us make man: And then our West is in the next word, Faciamus Hominem. Though we be thus made, made by the counsel, made by the concurrence, made by the hand of the whole Trinity; yet we are made but men: And man, but in the appellation, in this text: and man there, is but Adam: and Adam is but earth, but red earth, earth died red in blood, in Soul-bloud, the blood of our own souls. To that west we must all come, Psal. 104. 19 to the earth. The Sun knoweth his going down: Even the Sun for all his glory, and height, hath a going down, and he knows it. The highest cannot divest mortality, Luac. 22. 54. nor the discomfort of mortality. When you see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway you say there cometh a storm, says Christ. When out of the region of your west, that is, your later days, there comes a cloud, a sickness, you feel a storm, even the best moral constancy is shaked. But this cloud, and this storm, and this west there must be; And that's our second consideration. But then the next words design a North, a strong, and powerful North, to scatter, and dissipate these clouds: Ad imaginem, & similitudinem; That we are made according to a pattern, to an image, to a likeness, which God proposed to himself for the making of man. This consideration, that God did not rest, in that preaexistent matter, out of which he made all other creatures, and produced their forms, out of their matter, for the making of man; but took a form, a pattern, a model for that work, this is the North wind, Cant. 4. 16. 37. 22. that is called upon to carry out of the perfumes of the garden, to spread the goodness of God abroad. This is that which is intended in job; fair weather cometh out of the North. Our West, our declination is in this, that we are but earth, our North, our dissipation of that darkness, is in this, that we are not all earth; Though we be of that matter, we have another form, another image, another likeness. And then, whose image and likeness it is, is our Meridional height, our noon, our south point, our highest elevation. In Imagine nostra, Let us make man in our Image. Though our Sun set at noon, as the Prophet Amos speaks; 8. 8. though we die in our youth, or fall in our height: yet even in that Sunset, we shall have a Noon. For this Image of God shall never depart from our soul; no, not when that soul departs from our body. And that's our South, our Meridional height and glory. And when we have thus seen this East, in the faciamus, That I am the workmanship and care of the whole Trinity; And this West in the Hominem, That for all that, my matter, my substance, is but earth: But then a North, a power of overcoming that low and miserable state, In Imagine; That though in my matter, the earth, I must die; yet in my form, in that Image which I am made by, I cannot die: and after all a South, a knowledge, That this Image is not the Image of Angels, to whom we shall be like, but it is by the same life, by which those Angels themselves were made; the Image of God himself: When I am gone over this east, and west, and north, and south, here in this world; I should be as sorry as Alexander was, if there were no more worlds. But there is another world, which these considerations will discover, and lead us to, in which our joy, and our glory shall be, to see that God essentially, and face to face, after whose Image, and likeness we were made before. But as that Pilot which had harboured his ship so far within land, as that he must have change of Winds, in all the points of the Compass, to bring her out, cannot hope to bring her our in one day: So being to transport you, by occasion of these words, from this world to the next; and in this world, through all the Compass, all the four quarters thereof; I cannot hope to make all this voyage to day. To day we shall consider only our longitude, our East, and West; and our North and South at another tide, and another gale. First then we look towards our East, the fountain of light, and of life. There this world began; 1 Part. Oriens. the Creation was in the east. And there our next world began too. There the gates of heaven opened to us; and opened to us in the gates of death; for, our heaven is the death of our Saviour, and there he lived, and died there, and there he looked into our west, from the east, from his Terasse, from his Pinnacle, from his exaltation (as himself calls it) the Crosse. The light which arises to us, in this east, the knowledge which we receive in this first word of our text, Faciamus, Let us, (where God speaking of himself, speaks in the Plural) is the manifestation of the Trinity; the Trinity, which is the first letter in his Alphabet, that ever thinks to read his name in the book of life; The first note in his Gammut, that ever thinks to sing his part, in the Choir of the Triumphant Church. Let him him have done as much, as all the Worthies; and suffered as much as all Nature's Martyrs, the penurious Philosophers; let him have known as much, as they that pretend to know, Omne scibile, all that can be known nay, and in-intelligibilia, In-investigabilia, (as Turtullian speaks) un-understandable things, unrevealed decrees of God; Let him have writ as much, as Aristotle writ, or as is written upon Aristotle, which is, multiplication enough: yet he hath not learned to spell, that hath not learned the Trinity; not learned to pronounce the first word that cannot bring three Persons into one God. The subject of natural philosophy, are the four elements, which God made, the Subject of supernatural philosophy, Divinity, are the three elements, which God is; and (if we may so speak) which make God, that is, constitute God, notify God to us, Father, Son, and holy Ghost. The natural man, that hearkens to his own heart, and the law written there; may produce Actions that are good, good in the nature and matter, and substance of the work. He may relieve the poor, he may defend the oppressed. But yet, he is but as an open field; and though he be not absolutely barren, he bears but grass. The godly man; he that hath taken in the knowledge of a great, and a powerful God, and enclosed, and hedged in himself with the fear of God, may produce actions better than the mere natural man, because he refers his actions to the glory of his imagined God. But yet this man, though he be more fruitful, than the former, more than a grassy field; yet he is but a ploughed field, and he bears but corn, and corn, God knows, choked with weeds. But that man, who hath taken hold of God, by those handles, by which God hath delivered, and manifested himself in the notions of Father, Son, and holy Ghost; he is no field, but a garden, a Garden of Gods planting, a Paradise in which grow all things good to eat, and good to see, (spiritual resection, and spiritual recreation too) and all things good to cure. He hath his being, and his diet, and his physic, there, in the knowledge of the Trinity; his being in the mercy of the Father; his physic in the merits of the Son; his diet, his daily bread, in the daily visitations of the holy Ghost. God is not pleased, not satisfied, with our bare knowledge, Heb. 11. 6. that there is a God. For, it is impossible to please God, without faith: and there is no such exercise of faith, in the knowledge of a God, but that reason, and nature will bring a man to it. When we profess God, in the Creed, by way of belief, Credo in Deum, I believe in God, in the same article we profess him to be a Father too, I believe in God the father Almighty: And that notion, the Father, necessarily implies, a second Person, a Son: And then we profess him to be maker of heaven, and earth: And in the Creation, the holy Ghost, the Spirit of God, is expressly named. So that we do but exercise reason, and nature, in directing ourselves upon God. We exercise not faith, (and without faith it is impossible to please God) till we come to that, which is above nature, till we apprehend a Trinity. We know God, we believe in the Trinity. The Gentiles multiplied Gods. There were almost as many Gods as men, that believed in them. And I am got out of that thrust, and out of that noise, when I am come into the knowledge of one God: But I am got above stairs, got in the Bedchamber, when I am come to see the Trinity, and to apprehend not only, that I am in the care of a great, and a powerful God, but that there is a Father, that made me, a Son that Redeemed me, a holy Ghost, that applies this good purpose of the Father, and Son, upon me, to me. The root of all is God. But it is not the way to receive fruits, to dig to the root, but to reach to the boughs. I reach for my Creation to the Father, for my Redemption to the Son, for my sanctification to the holy Ghost: and so I make the knowledge of God, a Tree of life unto me; and not otherwise. Truly it is a sad Contemplation, to see Christians scratch and wound & tear one another, with the ignominious invectives, and uncharitable names of of Heretic, and schismatic, about Ceremonial, and problematical, and indeed but Critical, verbal controversies: and in the mean time, the foundation of all, the Trinity, undermined by those numerous, those multitudinous Anthills of Socinians, that overflow some parts of the Christian world, and multiply every where. And therefore the Adversaries of the Reformation, were wise in their generation, when to supplant the credit of both those great assistants of the Reformation, Luther, and Calvin, they impute to Calvin fundamental error, in the Divinity of the second Person of the Trinity, the Son; And they impute to Luther, a detestation of the very word Trinity, and an expunction thereof, in all places of the Liturgy, where the Church had received that word. They knew well, if that slander could prevail against those persons, nothing that they could say, could prevail upon any good Christians. But though in our doctrine, we keep up the Trinity aright; yet, God knows, in our practice we do not. I hope it cannot be said of any of us, that he believes not the Trinity, but who amongst us thinks of the Trinity, considers the Trinity? Father, and Son do naturally imply, and induce one another; and therefore they fall oftener into our consideration. But for the holy Ghost, who feels him, when he feels him? Who takes knowledge of his working, when he works? Indeed our Fathers provided not well enough, for the worship of the whole Trinity, nor of the holy Ghost in particular, in the endowments of the Church, and Consecrations of Churches, and possessions in their names. What a spiritual dominion, in the prayers, and worship of the people, what a temporal dominion in the possessions of the world had the Virgin Mary, Queen of heaven, and Queen of earth too? She was made joint purchaser of the Church with her Son, and had as much of the worship thereof as he, though she paid her fine in milk, and he in blood. And, till a new Sect came in her Son's name; and in his name, the name of Jesus, took the regency so far out of that Queen Mother's hands, and sued out her Son's Livery so far, as that though her name be used, the Virgin Mary is but a feoffee in trust, for them; all was hers. And if God oppose not these new usurpers of the world, posterity will soon see Saint Ignatius worth all the Trinity in possessions and endowments, as that sumptuous, and splendid foundation of his first Temple at Rome, may well create a conjecture, and suspicion. Travail no farther; Survey but this City; And of their not one hundred Churches, the Virgin Mary hath a dozen; The Trinity hath but one; Christ hath but one; The holy Ghost hath none. But not to go into the City, nor out of ourselves; which of us doth truly, and considerately ascribe the comforts, that he receives in dangers, or in distresses, to that God of all comfort, the comforter, the holy Ghost? We know who procured us, our Presentation, and our dispensation: you know who procured you, your offices, and your honours. Shall I ever forget who gave me my comfort in sickness? Who gave me my comfort, in the troubles, and perplexities, and diffidencies of my conscience? The holy Ghost brought you hither. The holy Ghost opens your ears, and your hearts here. Till in all your distresses, you can say, Veni Creator Spiritus, come holy Ghost, and that you feel a comfort in his coming: you can never say Veni Domine jesu, come Lord Jesus, come to Judgement. Never to consider the day of Judgement, is a fearful thing. But to consider the day of Judgement, without the comfort of the holy Ghost, is a thousand times more fearful. This Seal then, this impression, this notion of the Trinity being set upon us, Trinitarii. in the first Creation, in this first plural word of our text, Faciamus; Let us, (for Father, Son, and holy Ghost made man) and this seal being re-imprinted upon us, in our second Creation, our Regeneration, in Baptism, (Man is Baptised In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the holy Ghost) This notion of the Trinity being our distinctive Character, from jew and Gentile; This being our specifique form: why does not this our form, this soul of our Religion denominate us? why are we not called Trinitarians, a name that would embrace the profession of all the Persons, but only Christians, which limits, and determines us upon one? The first Christians, amongst whose manifold Persecutions, scorn, and contempt, was not the least, in contempt and scorn, were called Nazarai, Nazarites in the mouth of the Vulgar; and Galil●i, Galilaeans in the mouth of julian; and judaei, jews in the mouth of Nero, when he imputed the burning of Rome (his own act) to them; and Christiani; (as Tertullian says) that they could accuse Christians of nothing, but the name of Christians; and yet they could not call them by their right name, but Chrestians, (which was gentle, quiet, easy patient men, made to be trodden upon) They gave them divers names in scorn, yet never called them Trinitarians. Christians themselves amongst themselves were called by divers names in the Primitive Church, for distinction; Fideles, the faithful, and Fratres, the Brethren, and Discipuli, Disciples; And, after, by common custom at Antioch, Christians. And after that, (they say) by a council which the Apostles held, Act. 11. 26. at the same city, at Antioch, there passed an express Canon of the Church, that they should be called so, Christians. And before they had this name at Antioch, first by common usage, after by a determinate Canon, to be called Christians, from Christ, at Alexandria, Epiph. Heres. 29 they were called (most likely from the name of Jesus) jesseans. And so Philo judaeus, in that book, which he writes De jessenis, intends by his jessenis, Christians; and in divers parts of the world, into which Christians travel now, they find some elements; some fragments, some relics of the Christian Religion, in the practice of some religious Men, whom those Country's call, jesseans, doubtlessly derived, and continued from the name of Jesus. So that the Christians took many names to themselves for distinction, (Brethren, Disciples, faithful) And they had many names put upon them in scorn, (Nazarites, Galilaeans, jews, Chrestians,) and yet they were never, never by Custom amongst themselves, never by commandment from the Church, never in contempt from others, called Trinitarians, the profession of the Trinity being their specifique form, and distinctive Character; why so? Beloved, the name of Christ involved all: not only, because it is a name, that hath a dignity in it, more than the rest; (for Christ is an anointed person, a King, a Messiah, and so the profession of that Name, conferrs an Unction, a regal and a holy Unction upon us) (for we are thereby a royal Priesthood) but because in the profession of Christ, the whole Trinity is professed. How often doth the Son say, that the Father sent him? And how often that the Father will, and that he will send the Holy Ghost? This is life eternal, john 17. 3. says he, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent; And sent, with all power, in heaven, and in earth. This must be professed, Father, and Son; And then, no man can profess this; no man can call Jesus the Lord, but by the holy Ghost. So that, as in the persecutions, in the primitive Church, the Martyrs which were hurried to tumultuary executions, and could not be heard for noise, in excusing themselves of Treason, and sedition, and crimes imputed to them, to make their cause odious, did use in the sight of the people, (who might see a gesture, though they could not hear a protestation) to sign themselves with the sign of the Cross, to let them know, for what profession they died, so that the sign of the Cross, in that use thereof, in that time, was an abridgement, and a Catechism of the whole Christian Religion, so is the professing of the name of Christ, the professing of the whole Trinity. As he that confesses one God, is got beyond the mere natural man; And he that confesses a Son of God, beyond him: So is neither got to the full truth, till he confess the holy Ghost too. The fool says in his heart, there is no God. The fool, says David, The emphatical fool, in the highest degree of folly. But though he get beyond that folly, he is a fool still, if he say there is no Christ; For Christ is the wisdom of the Father: And a fool still, if he deny the holy Ghost: for who shall apply Christ to him, but the holy Ghost? Etiam Christiani Nomen superficies est, is excellently said by Tertullian, the name, and profession of a Christian, is but a superficial outside, sprinkled upon my face in Baptism, or upon mine outward profession, in actions: if I have not in my heart, a sense of the holy Ghost, that he applies the mercies of the Father, and the merits of the Son to my soul. As Saint Paul said, Whilst you are without Christ, you are without God. It is an Atheism, with Saint Paul, to be no Christian. So whilst you are without the holy Ghost, you are without Christ. It is Antichristian, to deny, or not to confess the holy Ghost. For as Christ is the manifestation of the Father, so the holy Ghost is the application of the Son. Therein only are we Christians, that in the profession of that name of Christ, we profess all the three Persons: In Christ is the whole Trinity; because, as the Father sent him, so he sent the holy Ghost. And that's our specifique form, that's our distinctive Character, from jew, and Gentile, the Trinity. But then, An in textu. is this specifique form, this distinctive Character, the notion of the Trinity, conveied to us, exhibited, imprinted upon us, in our Creation, in this word, this plural word, in the mouth of our one God, Faciamus, Let us, us. It is here, and here first. This is an intimation, and the first intimation, of the Trinity, from the mouth of God, in all the Bible. It is true, that though the same faith, which is necessary to salvation now, were always necessary, and so in the old Testament, they were bound to believe in Christ, as well, as in the new, and consequently in the whole Trinity; yet not so explicitly, john 17. 6. nor so particularly as now. Christ calling upon God, in the name of Father, says; I have manifested thy name unto the men, thou gavest me out of the world. They were men appropriated to God, men exempt out of the world; yet they had not a clear manifestation of Father, and Son, the doctrine of the Trinity, till Christ manifested it to them. I have manifested thy name, thy name of Father. And therefore the Jewish Rabbins say that the Septuagint, the first translators of the Bible, did disguise some places of the Scriptures, in their translation, lest Ptolomee, for whom they translated it, should be scandalised with those places, & that this textwasone of those places, which say they though it be otherwise in the Copies of the Septuagint, which we have now, they translated Faciam, and not Faciamus, that God said here, I will make, in the singular; and not, Let us make man, in the plural, lest that plural word, might have misled King Pt●lomee to think, that the jews had a plural Religion, and worshipped divers Gods. So good an evidence do they confess this text to be, for some kind of plurality in the Godhead. Here then God notified the Trinity; and here first, Primo hic. for though we accept an intimation of the Trinity, in the first line of the Bible, where Moses joins a plural name, Elohim, with a singular Verb, Bara; and so in construction, it is, Creavit Dii, God's created heaven, and earth: yet, besides that, that is rather a mysterious collection, than an evident conclusion of a plurality of Persons, though we read that in that first verse, before this in the twenty sixth, yet Moses writ that, which is in the beginning of this chapter, more than two thousand years after God spoke this, that is in our text. So long was Gods plural, before Moses his plural; Gods Faciamus, before Moses Bara Elohim. So that in this text, begins our Catechism. Here we have, and here first the saving knowledge of the Trinity. For, Cui dixit. when God spoke here, to whom could God speak but to God? Non cum rebus Creandis, nox cum re nihili, says, Athanasius, speaking of God's first speaking, when he said, of the first creature, Let there be light. God spoke not then to future things, to things that were not. When God spoke first, there was no creature at all, to speak to. When God spoke of the making of man, there were creatures. But were there any creatures able to create, or able to assist him, in the creation of man? Who? Angels? Some had thought so in Saint Basils' time; and to them Saint Basil says, Súntne Illi? God says, let us make man to our Image, And could he say so to Angels? Are Angels and God all one? Or is that that is like an Angel, therefore like God? It was Sua Ratio, Suum verbum, Sua sapientia, says that Father, God spoke to his own word, and wisdom, to his own purpose, and goodness. And the Son is the word and wisdom of God: and the holy Ghost is the goodness, and the purpose of God; that is, the administration, the dispensation of his purposes. 'Tis true, that when God speaks this over again in his Church, as he does every day, now, this minute than God speaks it to Angels; to the Angels of the Church, to his Ministers, he says Faciamus, Let us, us both together, you, and we make a man; join mine Ordinance (your preaching) with my Spirit, (says God to us) and so make man. Preach the oppressor, and preach the wanton, and preach the calumniator into another nature. Make the ravening Wolf a Man, that licentious Goat a man, that insinuating Serpent a man, by thy preaching. To day if you will hear his voice, hear us. For here he calls upon us, to join with him for the making of man. But for his first Faciamus, which is in our text; it is excellently said, Rupertus. Dictum in senatu, & soliloquio; It was spoken in a Senate, and yet in a solitariness; spoken in private, and yet publicly spoken; spoken where there were divers, and yet but one; one God, and three Persons. If there were no more intended in this plural expression, Rex. us, but, (as some have conceived) that God spoke here in the person of a Prince, and Sovereign Lord, and therefore spoke as Princes do, in the plural, We command, and We forbid, yet Saint Gregory's caution would justly fall upon it, Reverenter pensandum est, it requires a reverend consideration, if it be but so. For, God speaks so, like a King, in the plural, but seldom, but five times, (in my account) in all the Scriptures; and in all five, in cases of important consequence. In this text first, where God creates man, whom he constitutes his Viceroy in the World: here he speaks in his royal plural. And then in the next Chapter, ver. 18. where he extends man's term in his Vicegerency to the end of the world, in providing man, means of succession; Faciamus, Let us, us make him a helper; There he speaks in his royal plural. And then also in the third Chapter, 1. 22: in declaring the heinousness of man's fault, and arraigning him, and all us, in him, God says, Sicut unus ex nobis, Man is become as one of us, not content to be our Viceroy, but ourselves; There's his royal plural too. And again in that declaration of his Justice, Gen. 11. 7. in the confusion of the builders of Babel, Descendamus, confundamus, Let us do it: And then lastly, in that great work of mingling mercy with justice, which (if we may so speak) is God's masterpiece, Esa●. 6. 8. when he says, Quis ex nobis, who will go for us, and publish this? In these places, and these only, (and not all these neither, if we take it exactly according to the original; for in the Second, the making of Eve, though the Vulgat have it in the plural, it is indeed but singular in the Hebrew) God speaks as a King in his royal plural still. And when it is but so, Reverenter pensandum est, says that Father; it behoves us to hearken reverently to him, for Kings are Images of God; such Images of God, as have ears, and can hear; and hands and can strike. But I would ask no more premeditation at your hands, when you come to speak to God in this place, then if you sued to speak with the King: no more fear of God here, then if you went to the King, under the conscience of a guiltiness towards him; and a knowledge that he knew it. And that's your case here; Sinners, and manifest sinners. For even midnight is noon in the sight of God, and when your candles are put out, Psal. 19 7. his Sun shines still. Nec quid absconditum à calcre ejus, says David, there is nothing hid from the heat thereof: not only, no sin, hid from the light thereof, from the sight of God; but not from the heat thereof, not from the wrath & indignation of God. If God speak plurally only in the Majesty of a sovereign Prince, still Reverenter pensandum, that calls for reverence. What reverence? There are national differences in outward worships, and reverences. Some worship Princes, and Parents, and Masters, in one, some in another fashion. Children kneel to ask blessing of Parents in England, but where else? Servants attend not with the same reverence upon Masters, in other nations, as with us. Accesses to their Princes are not with the same difficulty, nor the same solemnity in France, as in Turkey. But this rule goes through all nations, that in that disposition, and posture, and action of the body which in that place is esteemed most humble, and reverend, God is to be worshipped. Do so then here, God is your Father: ask blessing upon your knees; pray in that posture. God is your King: worship him with that worship, which is highest in our use, and estimation. We have no Grandees that stand covered to the King; where there are such, though they stand covered in the King's presence, they do not speak to him, for matters of Grace; they do not sue to him: so ancient Canons make differences of Persons in the presence of God; where, and how, these, and these shall dispose of themselves in the Church, dignity, and age, and infirmity will induce differences. But for prayer there is no difference, one humiliation is required of all; As when the King comes in here; howsoever, they sat diversely before, all return to one manner of expressing their acknowledgement of his presence. So at the Oremus, Let us pray, let us all fall down, and worship, and kneel before the Lord our maker. So he speaks in our text; not only as the Lord our King, In concilio. intimating his providence, and administration; but as the Lord our maker, and then a maker so, as that he made us in a council, Faciamus, Let us; and that that he speaks, as in council, is another argument for reverence. For what interest, or freedom soever I have, by his favour, with any Counsellor of State: yet I should surely use another manner of behaviour towards him, at the Council Table, then at his own Table. So does there belong another manner of consideration to this plurality in God, to this meeting in Council, to this intimation of a Trinity, then to those other actions in which God is presented to us, singly, as one God, for so he is presented to the natural man, as well, as to us. And here enters the necessity of this knowledge, john 3. 3: Oportet denuo nasci; without a second birth no salvation; And no second birth without Baptism; no Baptism, but in the name of Father, Son, and holy Ghost. It was the entertainment of God himself, his delight, his contemplation, for those infinite millions of generations, when he was without a world, without Creatures, to joy in one another, in the Trinity, as Gregory Nazianz: (a Poet, as well as a Father, as most of the Fathers were) expresses it: ille suae splendorem cernere formae, Gaudebat: It was the Father's delight, to look upon himself in the Son; Numenque suum triplicique parique Luce nitens, and to see the whole Godhead, in a threefold, and an equal glory. It was Gods own delight, and it must be the delight of every Christian, upon particular occasions to carry his thoughts upon the several persons of the Trinity. If I have a bar of Iron, that bar in that form will not nail a door; If a Sow of Lead, that Led in that form will not stop a leak; If a wedge of Gold, that wedge will not buy my bread. The general notion of a mighty God, may less fit my particular purposes. But I coin my gold into currant money, when I apprehend God, in the several notions of the Trinity. That if I have been a prodigal Son, I have a Father in heaven, and can go to him, and say, Father I have sinned, and be received by him. That if I be a decayed Father, and need the sustentation of mine own children; there is a Son in heaven, that will do more for me, than mine own, of what good means or what good nature so ever they be, can or will do. If I be dejected in spirit, there is a holy Spirit in heaven, which shall bear witness to my spirit, that I am the child of God. And if the ghosts of those sinners, whom I made sinners, haunt me after their deaths, in returning to my memory, and reproaching to my conscience, the heavy judgements that I have brought upon them: If after the death of mine own sin, when my appetite is dead, to some particular sin, the memory and sinful delight of passed sins, the ghosts of those sins haunt me again; yet there is a holy Ghost in heaven, that shall exorcise these, and shall overshadow me, the God of all Comfort and Consolation. God is the God of the whole world, in the general notion, as he is so, God; but he is my God, most especially, and most applyably, as he receives me in the several notions of Father, Son, and holy Ghost. This is our East, 2 Part. Occidens. here we see God, God in all the persons, consulting, concurring to the making of us. But then my West presents itself, that is, an occasion to humble me in the next words. Adam. He makes but Man; A man that is but Adam, but Earth. I remember four names, by which man is often called in the Scriptures: and of those four, three do absolutely carry misery in their significations: Three to one against any man, that he is miserable. One name of Man is Ish; and that they derive à Sonitu; Man is but a voice, but a sound, but a noise, he begins the noise himself, when he comes crying into the world, and when he goes out; perchance friends celebrate, perchance enemies calumniate him, with a divers voice, a divers noise. A melancholic man, is but a groaning; a sportful man, but a song; an active man, but a Trumpet; a mighty man, but a thunderclap. Every man but Ish, but a found, but a noise. Another name is Enosh. is mere Calamity, misery, depression. It is indeed most properly Oblivion. And so the word is most elegantly used by David, Quid est homo? Psal. 8. 4. where the name of man, is Enosh: And so, that which we translate What is man, that thou art mindful of him; is indeed, What is forgetfulness, that thou shouldest remember it; That thou shouldest think of that man, whom all the world hath forgotten? First, man is but a voice, but a sound. But because fame, and honour may come within that name of a sound, of a voice; therefore he is overtaken, with another damp: man is but oblivion: his fame, his name shall be forgotten. One name man hath, that hath some taste of greatness, and power in it, Gheber. And yet, I that am that man, Lam. 1. 3. says the Prophet, (for there that name of man Gheber is used) I am the man, that hath seen affliction, by the rod of God's wrath. Man, Ish, is so miserable, as that he afflicts himself, cries, and whines out his own time. And man, Enosh, so miserable, as that others afflict him, and bury him, in ignominious oblivion; And man, that is Gheber, the greatest, and powerfullest of men, is yet, but that man, that may possibly, nay that may justly see affliction by the rod of God's wrath, and from Gheber be made Adam, which is the fourth name of man, indeed the first name of man, the name in this text, and the name to which every man must refer himself, and call himself by, Earth, and red Earth. Now God did not say of man, Adam: as of other creatures; Let the earth bring forth herbs, and fruits, and trees as upon the third day; nor let the earth bring forth cattle, and worms, as upon the sixth day, the same day that he made man; Non imperia●i verbo, sed familiari manu, says Tertullian, God calls not man out with an imperious Command, but he leads him out, with a familiar, with his own hand. And it is not Fiat homo, but Faciamus; not let there be, but let us make man. Man is but an earthen vessel. 'Tis true, but when we are upon that consideration, God is the Potter. If God will be that, I am well content to be this. Let me be any thing, so that that I am be from my God, I am as well content to be a sheep, as a Lion, so God will be my Shepherd: and the Lord is my shepherd: To be a Cottage, as a Castle, so God will be the builder; And the Lord builds, and watches the City, the house, this house this City, me, To be Rye, as Wheat, so God will be the husbandman; And the Lord plants me: and waters, and weeds, and gives the increase: and to be clothed in leather, as well, as in silk, so God will be the Merchant: and he clothed me in Adam, and assures me of clothing, in clothing the Lilies of the field, and is fitting the robe of Christ's righteousness to me now, this minute. Adam is as good to me as Ghebaer, a clod of earth, as a hill of earth; so God be the Potter. God made man of earth, Nonster. not of air, not of fire. Man hath many offices, that appertain to this world, and whilst he is here, must not withdraw himself, from those offices of mutual society, upon a pretence of zeal, or better serving God in a retired life. A ship will no more come to the harbour without Ballast, then without Sails; a man will no more get to heaven, without discharging his duties to other men, then without doing them to God himself. Luke 4. 4. Man liveth not by bread only, says Christ; But yet he liveth by bread too. Every man must do the duties; every man must bear the encumbrances of some calling. Pulvises: Thou art earth, he whom thou treadest upon is no less; and he that treads upon thee is no more. Positively it is a low thing, to be but earth; and yet thy low earth, is the quiet Centre. There may be rest, acquiescence, content in the lowest Condition. But comparatively earth is as high as the highest. Challenge him, that magnifies himself above thee, to meet thee in Adam. There bid him, if he will have more Nobility, more Greatness, than thou, take more original sin than thou hast. If God have submitted thee, to as much sin, and penalty of sin, as him; he hath afforded thee as much, and as noble earth as him. And if he will not try it in the root, in your equality in Adam; yet, in another Test, another Furnace, in the grave he must. There all dusts are equal. Except an Epitaph tell me, who lies there, I cannot tell by the dust; nor by the Epitaph, know which is the dust it speaks of, if another have been laid before, or after in the same grave. Nor can any Epitaph be confident in saying here lies; but here was laid. For, so various, so vicissitudinary is all this world, as that even the dust of the grave hath revolutions. As the motions of an upper Sphere, imprint a motion in a lower Sphere, other then naturally it would have: So the changes of this life work after death. And, as envy supplants, and removes us alive; a shovel removes us, and throws us out of our grave, after death. No limbeque, no weights can tell you, this is dust Royal, this Plebeian dust: no Commission, no Inquisition can say, this is Catholic, this is Heretical dust. All lie alike; and all shall rise alike: alike, that is, at once, and upon one Command. The Saint cannot acclerate; The Reprobate cannot retard the Resurrection. And all that rise to the right hand, shall be equally Kings: and all at the left, equally, what? The worst name we can call them by, or affect them with, is Devil. And then they shall have bodies to be tormented in, which Devils have not. Miserable, unexpressible, unimaginable. Miserable condition, where the sufferer would be glad to be but a Devil; where it were some happiness, and some kind of life, to be able to die; and a great preferment, to be nothing. He made us all of earth, and all of red earth. Our earth was red, even when it was in God's hands: Terra rub●a. a redness that amounts to a shamefastness, to a blushing at our own infirmities, is imprinted in us, by God's hand. For this redness, is but a Conscience, a guiltiness of needing a continual supply, and succession of more, and more grace. And we are all red, red so, even from the beginning, and in our best state. Adam had, the Angels had thus much of this infirmity, that though they had a great measure of grace, they needed more. The prodigal child grew poor enough, after he had received his portion: and he may be wicked enough, that trusts upon former, or present grace, and seeks not more. This redness, a blushing, that is, an acknowledgement, that we could not subsist, with any measure of faith, except we pray for more faith; nor of grace, except we seek more grace, we have from the hand of God: And another redness from his hand too, the blood of his Son, so that blood was effused by Christ, in the value of the ransom for All, and accepted by God, in the value thereof for All: and this redness, is, in the nature thereof, as extensive, as the redness derived from Adam is; Both reach to all. So we were red earth in the hands of God, as redness denotes our general infirmities, and as redness denotes the blood of his Son, our Saviour, all have both. But that redness, which we have contracted from blood shed by ourselves, the blood of our own souls by sin, was not upon us, when we were in the hands of God. That redness is not his tincture, not his complexion. No decree of his is writ in any such red ink. Our sins are our own, and our destruction is from ourselves. We are not as accessaries, and God as principal in this soule-murder. God forbid, we are not as executioners of God's sentence, and God the Malefactor, in this soule-damnation. God forbid. Cain came not red in his brother's blood, out of God's hands; nor David red with Vriahs' blood; nor Achitophel with his own; nor judas with Christ's, or his own. That that Pilate did illusorily, God can do truly; wash his hands from the blood of any of these men. It were a weak Plea to say, I killed not that man; but 'tis true, I commanded one, who was under my command to kill him. It is rather a prevarication, than a justification of God to say, God is not the author of sin in any man, but 'tis true, God makes that man sin, that sin. God is Innocency; and the beams that flow from him are of the same nature, and colour. Christ when he appeared in heaven, Apoc. 14. 14. was not red but white. His head and hairs were white, as white wool, and as snow; not head only, but hairs too. He, and that that grows from him; he, and we, as we come from his hands are white too. His Angels that provoke us to the Imitation of that pattern, Act. 1. 10. are so; in white. Two men, two Angels stood by the Apostles in white apparel. The imitation is laid upon us by precept too: At all times let thy garments be white; Eccles. 9 8. Those actions in which thou appearest to the world, innocent. It is true, that Christ is both. Cant. 5. 10. My beloved is white and ruddy, says the Spouse. But the white was his own: his redness is from us. That which Zipporah said to her husband Moses in anger; the Church may say to Christ in thankfulness, Exod 4. 25. Verè sponsus Sanguinum, thou art truly a bloody husband to me; Damim, sanguinum, of bloods, bloods in the plural; for all our bloods are upon him. This was a mercy to the Militant Church, that even the Triumphant Church wondered at it. Esai. 63. 1. They knew not Christ, when he came up to heaven in red. Who is this that cometh in red garments? Wherefore is thy apparel red, like him that treadeth in the winepress? They knew he went down in white, in entire innocency: and they wondered to see him return in red. But he satisfies them; Calcavi, you think I have trodden the winepress, and you mistake it not: I have trodden the winepress; and Calcavi solus, I have trodden it alone, all the redness, all the blood of the whole world is upon me. And as he adds Non vir de gentibus, of all people there was none with me, with me so, as to have any part in the Merit; So, of all people there was none without me; without me so, as to be excluded by me, without their own fault, from the benefit of my merit. This redness he carried up to heaven: for, by the blood of his Cross came peace, Coles. 1. 20. both to the things in earth, and the things in heaven. For that peccability, that possibility, of sinning, which is in the Nature of the Angels of heaven, would break out into sin, but for that confirmation, which those Angels have received in the blood of Christ. This redness he carried to heaven; and this redness he hath left upon earth, that all we miserable clods of earth, might be tempered with his blood; that in his blood exhibited in his holy and blessed Sacrament, Apoc. 7. 13. our long robes might be made white in the blood of the Lamb: that though our sins be robes, habits of sin; though long robes, habits of long continuance in sin: yet through that redness, which our sins have cast upon him, we might come to participate of that whiteness, that righteousness, which is his own. We, that is, all we; for, as to take us in, who are of low condition, and obscure station, a cloud is made white by his sitting upon it, Apoc. 14. 14. He sat upon a great white cloud, so to let the highest see, that they have no whiteness, Apoc. 20. 11. but from him, he makes the Throne white by sitting upon it. He sat upon a great white Throne. It had not been great, if it had not been white. White is the colour of dilatation; goodness only enlarges the Throne. It had not been white, if he had not sat upon it. That goodness only, which consists in glorifying God, and God in Christ, and Christ in the sincerity of his truth, is true whiteness. God hath no redness in himself, no anger towards us, till he considers us as sinners. God cast no redness upon us; inflicts no necessity, no constraint of sinning upon us. We have died ourselves in sins, as red as Scarlet: we have drowned ourselves in such a red Sea. But as a garment, that were washed in the red Sea, would come out white, (so wonderful works hath God done at the red Sea, Psal. 105. 13. says David) so doth his whiteness work through our red, Apoc. 2. 17. and makes this Adam, this red earth, Calculum candidum, that white stone, that receives a new name, not Ish, not Enosh, not Gheber, no name that tastes of misery or of vanity; but that name, renewed, and manifested, which was imprinted upon us, in our elections, the Sons of God; the irremoveable, the undisinheritable Sons of God. Be pleased to receive this note at parting, Macula Alba. Levit. 1●. that there is Macula Alba, a spot, and yet white, as well as a red spot: a whiteness, that is an indication of a Leprosy, as well as a redness. Whole-pelagianisme, to think nature alone sufficient; Halfe-pelagianisme, to think grace once received to be sufficient; Super-pelagianisme, to think our actions can bring God in debt to us, by merit, and supererogation, and Catarisme, imaginary purity, in Canonising ourselves, as present Saints, and condemning all, that differ from us, as reprobates. All these are white spots, and have the colour of goodness; but are indications of leprosy. So is that that God threatens, joel. 17. Decorticatio ficus & albi rami, that the figtree shall be barked, and the boughs thereof left white: to be left white without bark, was an indication of a speedy withering. Ostensa candescunt, & arescunt, says Saint Gregory of that place, Greg. the bough that lies open without bark looks white, but perishes: the good works that are done openly to please men have their reward, says Christ, that is, shall never have reward. To pretend to do good, and not mean it; To do things, good in themselves, but not to good ends; to go towards good ends, but not by good ways; to make the deceiving of men, thine end; or the praise of men, thine end: all this may have a whiteness, a colour of good: but all this, is a barking of the bough, and an indication of a mischievous leprosy. There is no good whiteness, but a reflection from Christ Jesus, in an humble acknowledgement that we have none of our own, and in a confident assurance, that in our worst estate we may be made partakers of his. We are all red earth. In Adam we would not, since Adam we could not, avoid sin, and the Concomitants thereof, miseries; which we have called our West, our cloud, our darkness. But then we have a North that scatters these clouds, in the next word, Ad imaginem; that we are made to another pattern, in another likeness, than our own. Faciamus hominem; so far are we gone, East, and West; which is half our Compass, and all this days voyage. For we are struck upon the sand; and must stay another Tide, and another gale for our North, and South. SERMON XXIX. Preached to the King, at the Court. The second Sermon on GEN. 1. 26. And God said, Let us make man, in our Image, after our likeness. BY fair occasion from these words, we proposed to you the whole Compass of man's voyage, from his launching forth in this world, to his Anchoring in the next; from his hoisting sail here, to his striking sail there. In which Compass we designed to you his four quarters; first, his East, where he must begin, the fundamental knowledge of the Trinity (for, that we found to be the specification, and distinctive Character of a Christian) where, though that be so, we showed you also, why we were not called Trinitarians, but Christians: and we showed you, the advantage, that man hath, in laying hold upon God, in these several notions; that the Prodigal son hath an indulgent Father; that the decayed Father hath an abundant Son; that the dejected spirit hath a Spirit of comfort, to fly to in heaven. And, as we showed you from Saint Paul, that it was an Atheism to be no Christian, (without God, says he, as long as without Christ) so we lamented the slackness of Christians, that they did not seriously, and particularly, consider the persons of the Trinity, and especially the holy Ghost, in their particular actions. And then we came to that consideration, whether this doctrine were established, or directly insinuated, in this plural word of our text, Faciamus, Let us, us make man: and we found that doctrine, to be here, and here first of any place in the Bible. And finding God to speak in the plural, we accepted (for a time) that interpretation, which some had made thereof; that God spoke in the Person of a Sovereign Prince; and therefore (as they do) in the plural, We. And thereby having established reverence to Princes, we claimed in God's behalf the same reverence to him: That men would demean themselves, here, when God is spoken to in prayer, as reverently, as when they speak to the King. But after this, we found God to speak here, not only as our King; but as our maker; as God himself; and God in Counsel, Faciamus: and we applied thereunto, the difference of our respect to a Person of that honourable rank, when we came before him at the Counsel Table, and when we came to him at his own Table: and thereby advanced the seriousness of this consideration, God in the Trinity. And farther we failed not, with that our Eastern wind. Our West we considered in the next word, Hominem; that though we were made by the whole Trinity, yet the whole Trinity made us but men, and men, in this name of our text, Adam; and Adam is but earth, and that's our West, our declination, our Sunset. We passed over the four names, by which man is ordinarily expressed in the Scriptures; and we found necessary misery in three of them; and possible, nay likely misery in the fourth, in the best name. We insisted upon the name of our text, Adam, earth; and had some use of these notes; First, that if I were but earth, God was pleased to be the Potter; If I but a sheep, he a shepherd; If I but a cottage, he a builder. So he work upon me, let me be what he will. We noted that God made us earth, not air, not fire: That man hath bodily, and worldly duties to perform; and is not all Spirit in this life. Devotion, is his soul; but he hath a body of discretion, and usefulness to invest in some calling. We noted too, that in being earth, we are equal. We tried that equality, first in the root, in Adam; There if any man will be nobler earth than I, he must have more original sin than I: for that was all Adam's patrimony, all that he could give. And we tried this equality in another furnace, in the grave; where there is no means to distinguish Royal from Plebeian, nor Catholic from Heretical dust. And lastly we noted, that this our earth, was red earth: and considered in what respect it was red, even in God's hands, but found that in the bloud-rednesse of sin, God had no hand: but sin, and destruction for sin, was wholly from ourselves: which consideration, we ended with this, that there was Macula alba, a white spot of leprosy, as well, as a red; and we found the overvaluation of our own purity, and the uncharitable condemnation of all that differ from us, to be that white spot. And so far we sailed, with that Western wind. And are come to our third point in this our Compass, our North. In this point, Aquilo. the North, we place our first comfort. The North is not always the comfortablest clime: nor is the North always a type of happiness in the Scriptures. Many times God threatens storms from the North. But even in those Northern storms, we consider that action, that they scatter, they dissipate those clouds, which were gathered, and so induce a serenity: job. 37. 12. And so, fair weather comes from the North. And that's the use which we have of the North in this place. The consideration of our West, our low estate; that we are but earth, but red earth, died red by ourselves: and that imaginary white, which appears so to us, is but a white of leprosy. This West enwraps us in heavy clouds of murmuring, in this life; that we cannot live so freely as beasts do; and in clouds of desperation for the next life; that we cannot die so absolutely as beasts do, we die all our lives, and yet we live after our deaths. These are our clouds; Prov. 25. 23. And then the North shakes these clouds. The North Winde driveth away the rain, says Solomon. There is a North in our text, that drives all those tears from our eyes. Cant. 4. 16. Christ calls upon the North, as well as the South, to blow upon his Garden, and to diffuse the perfumes thereof. Adversity, as well as prosperity, opens the bounty of God unto us: and oftentimes better. But that's not the benefit of the North in our present consideration. But this is it, that first our sun sets in the West. The Eastern dignity, which we received in our first Creation, as we were the work of the whole Trinity, falls under a Western cloud, that that Trinity made us but earth. And then blows our North, and scatters this cloud. That this earth hath a nobler form, than any other part or limb of the world. For, we are made by a fairer pattern, by a nobler Image, by a higher likeness. Faciamus; Though we make but a man, Let us make him, in our Image, after our likeness. The variety which the holy Ghost uses here, Imago similitudo. in the pen of Moses, hath given occasion to divers, to raise divers observations, upon these words, which seem divers, Image and likeness; as also in the variety of the pharse. For it is thus conceived, and laid, in our Image and then after our likeness. I know it is a good rule, that Damascen gives, Parva, parva non sunt, ex quibus magna proveniunt: Nothing is to be neglected as little, from which great things may arise. If the consequence may be great, the thing must not be thought little. No Jod in the Scripture shall perish; therefore no Jod is superfluous. If it were superfluous, it might perish. Words, and less particles than words have busied the whole Church. In the Council of Ephesus, where Bishops in a great number excommunicated Bishops in a greater, Bishop, against Bishop, and Patriarch, against Patriarch; in which case, when both parties had made strong parties in Court, and the Emperor forbore to declare himself, on either side for a time, he was told, that he refused to assent to that, which six thousand Bishops had agreed in: the strife was but for a word, whether the blessed Virgin might be called Deipara, the mother of God, for Christipara, the mother of Christ, (which Christ all agree to be God) Nestorius, and all his party agreed with Cyrill, that she might be. In the Council of Chalcedon, the difference was not so great, as for a word composed of syllables. It was but for a syllable, whether Ex, or In. The Heretics condemned then, confessed Christ, to be Ex duabus naturis, to be composed of two natures, at first; but not to be in duabus naturis, not to consist of two natures after: and for that In, they were thrust out. In the council of Nice, it was not so much as a syllable made of letters. For it was but for one letter; whether Homoousion, or Homoousion, was the issue. Where the question hath not been of divers words, nor syllables, nor letters, but only of the place of words; what tempestuous differences have risen? How much Sola fides and fides sola, changes the case? Nay where there hath been no quarrel for precedency, for transposing of words, or syllables, or letters; where there hath not been, so much as a letter in question; how much doth an accent vary a sense? An interrogation, or no interrogation will make it directly contrary. All Christian expositors read those words of Cain, My sin is greater than can be pardoned, positively; and so they are evident words of desperation. The Jews read them with an interrogation, Are my sins greater, then can be pardoned? And so they are words of compunction, and repentance. The Prophet Micah says, that Bethlehem is a small place; the Evangelist Saint Matthew says no small place. ●. ●. 2. 6. An interrogation in Micahs mouth reconciles it; Art thou a small place? amounts to that, thou art not. Sounds, voices, words must not be neglected. For, Christ's forerunner john Baptist qualified himself no otherwise: He was but a voice. And Christ himself is Verbum; the Word, is the name, even of the Son of God. No doubt but Statesmen and magistrates find often the danger of having suffered small abuses to pass uncorrected. We that see State business but in the glass of story, and cannot be shut out of Chronicles, see there, upon what little objects, the eye, and the jealousy of the State is oftentimes forced to bend itself. We know in whose times in Rome a man might not weep; he might not sigh; he might not look pale; he might not be sick; but it was informed against, as a discontent, as a murmuring against the present government, and an inclination to change. And truly many times upon Damascens true ground, though not always well applied, Parva non sunt parva, nothing may be thought little, where the consequence may prove great. In our own Sphere, in the Church, we are sure it is so. Great inconveniencies grew upon small tolerations. Therefore in that business, which occasioned all that trouble, which we mentioned before, in the Council of Ephesus, when Saint Cyrill writ to the Clergy of his Diocese about it; at first, he says prastiterat abstinere, it had been better, these questions had not been raised. But says he, Si his nugis nos adoriantur, if they vex us with these impertinencies these trifles; And yet these which were but trifles at first, came to occasion Counsels; and then to divide Council, against Council; and then to force the Emperor to take away the power of both Counsels, and govern in Council, by his Vicar general, a secular Lord, sent from Court. And therefore did some of the Ancients, (particularly Philastrius) cry down some opinions for Heresies, which were not matters of faith, but of Philosophy; and even in Philosophy truly held by them, who were condemned for heretics, and mistaken by their Judges, that condemned them. Little things were called in question, left great things should pass unquestioned. And some of these upon Damascens true ground, (still true in the rule, but not always in the application) Parva non sunt parva, nothing may be thought little, where the consequence may be great. Descend we from those great Spheres, the State, and the Church, into a lesser, that is, the Conscience of particular men, and consider the danger of exposing those vines to little Foxes; Coct. 2. 15. of leaving small sins unconsidered, unrepented, uncorrected. In that glistering circle in the firmament, which we call the Galaxy, the milky way, there is not one Star of any of the six great magnitudes, which Astronomers proceed upon, belonging to that circle. It is a glorious circle, and possesses a great part of heaven: and yet is all of so little stars, as have no name, no knowledge taken of them. So certainly are there many Saints in heaven, that shine as stars; and yet are not of those great magnitudes, to have been Patriarches, or Prophets, or Apostles, or Martyrs, or Doctors, or Virgins: but good and blessed souls, that have religiously performed the duties of inferior callings, and no more. And, as certainly are there many souls tormented in hell, that never sinned sin of any of the great magnitudes, Idolatry, Adultery, Murder, or the like; but inconsiderately have slid, and insensibly continued in the practice, and habit of lesser sins. But Parva non sunt parva, nothing may be thought little, where the consequence may prove great. When our Saviour said, that we shall give an account of every Idle word, Mat 12. 36. in the day of Judgement; what great hills of little sands will oppress us then? And, if substances of sin were removed, yet what circumstances of sin would condemn us? If idle words have this weight, there can be no word thought idle, in the Scriptures. And therefore I blame not in any, I decline not in mine own practice, the making use of the variety, and copiousness of the holy Ghost, who is ever abundant, and yet never superfluous in expressing his purpose, in change of words. And so no doubt we might do now, in observing a difference between these words in our text, Image, and likeness; and between these two forms of expressing it, in our Image, and after our likeness. This might be done: but that that must be done, will possess all our time; that is, to declare, (taking the two words for this time to be but a farther illustration of one another, Image, and likeness, to our present purpose, to be all one) what this Image, and this likeness imparts; and how this North scatters our former cloud, what our advantage is, that we are made to an Image, to a pattern; and our obligation to set a pattern before us, in all our actions. God appointed Moses to make all that he made according to a pattern. God himself made all that he made according to a pattern. God had deposited, and laid up in himself certain forms, patterns, Ideas of every thing that he made. He made nothing of which he had not preconceived the form, and predetermined in himself, I will make it thus. And when he had made any thing, he saw it was good; good because it answered the pattern, the Image; good, because it was like to that. And therefore, though of other creatures, God pronounced they were good, because they were presently like their pattern, that is, like that form, which was in him for them, yet of man, he forbore to say that he was good because his conformity to his pattern was to appear after in his subsequent actions. Now, as God made man after another pattern, and therefore we have a dignity above all, that we had another manner of creation, than the rest: so have we a comfort above all, that we have another manner of Administration than the rest. God exercises another manner of Providence upon man, then upon other creatures. Mat. 10. 23. A Sparrow falls not without God, says Christ: yet no doubt God works otherwise in the fall of eminent persons, then in the fall of Sparrows. For ye are of more value than many Sparrows, says Christ there of every man; and some men single, are of more value than many men. God does not thank the Ant for her industry, and good-husbandry in providing for herself. God does not reward the Foxes, judg. 15. for concurring with Samson in his revenge. God does not fee the Lion, which was the executioner upon the Prophet, 1 Reg. 13. 23. which had disobeyed his commandment: nor those two she-Beares, 2. Reg. 2. 25. which slew the petulant children, who had caluminated and reproached Elisha. God does not fee them before, nor thank them after, not take knowledge of their service. But for those men, Exod. 32. 25. that served God's execution upon the Idolaters of the Goden Calf, it is pronounced in their behalf, that therein they consecrated themselves to God; and for that service God made that tribe, the tribe of Levi his portion, Gen, 22. 16. his Clergy, his consecrated Tribe. So, Quiae fecisti hoc, says God to Abraham, by myself I have sworn; because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy Son thine only son: in blessing, I will bless thee, and in multiplying, I will multiply thee. So neither is God angry with the dog that turns to his vomit, 2 Pet. 2. 22. nor with the sow, that after her washing wallows in the mire. But of Man in that case he says; It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, Heb. 6. 4. if they fall away, to renew them again by repentance. The creatures live under his law; but a law imposed thus, This they shall do, this they must do. Man lives under another manner of law; This you shall do; that is, this you should do, this I would have you do: And fac hoc, do this, and you shall live; disobey, and you shall die. But yet, the choice is yours: Choose ye this day life, or death. So that this is God's administration in the Creature, that he hath imprinted in them an Instinct, and so he hath something to preserve in them: In man his administration is this, that he hath imprinted in him a faculty of will, and election; and so hath something to reward in him. That instinct in the creature God leaves to the natural working thereof in itself: But the free will of man God visits, and assists with his grace to do supernatural things. When the creature does an extraordinary action above the nature thereof, (as, when Balaams' Ass spoke) the creature exercises no faculty, no will in itself; but God forced it to that it did. When man does any thing conducing to supernatural ends; though the work be Gods, the will of man is not merely passive. The will of man is but God's agent; but still an agent it is: And an agent in another manner, than the tongue of the beast. For, the will considered, as a will, (and grace never destroys nature, nor, though it make a dead will a live will, or an ill will a good will, doth it make the will, no will) might refuse or omit that that it does. So that because we are created by another pattern, we are governed by another law, and another providence. Go thou then the same way. If God wrought by a pattern, and writ by copy, and proceeded by a precedent, do thou so too. Never say, there is no Church without error: therefore I will be bound by none; but frame a Church of mine own, or be a Church to myself. What greater injustice, then to propose no Image, no pattern to thyself to imitate; and yet propose thyself for a pattern, for an Image to be adored? Thou wilt have singular opinions, and singular ways differing from all other men; and yet all that are not of thy opinion must be heretics; and all reprobates, that go not thy ways. Propose good patterns to thyself; and thereby become a fit pattern for others. God, we see, was the first, that made Images; and he was the first, that forbade them. He made them for imitation; he forbade them in danger of adoration. Arnob. For, Qualis dementiae est id colere, quod melius est? What a drowsiness, what a laziness, what a cowardliness of the soul is it, to worship that, which does but represent a better thing than itself? Worship belongs to the best, know thou thy distance, and thy period, how far to go, and where to stop. Dishonour not God by an Image in worshipping it; and yet benefit thyself by it, in following it. There is no more danger out of a picture, then out of a history, if thou intent no more in either, than example. Though thou have a West, a dark and a sad condition, that thou art but earth, a man of infirmities, and ill counselled in thyself: yet thou hast herein a North, that scatters and dispels these clouds that God proposes to thee in his Scriptures, and otherwise; Images, patterns, of good and holy men to go by. But beyond this North this assistance of good examples of men; thou hast a South, a Meridional height, by which thou seest thine Image, they pattern, to be no copy; no other man, but the original itself, God himself: Faciamus ad nostram, Let us make man in our Image, after our likeness. Here we consider first, 4 Part. Meridies. Vbi Imago. where this Image is, and then what it does: first, in what part of man God hath imprinted this his Image; And than what this Image confers, and derives upon man; what it works in man. And, as when we seek God in his essence, we are advised to proceed by negatives, God is not mortal, not passable: so when we seek the Image of God in man, we begin with a negative; This Image is not in his body. Non in Corpore. Teriullian declined to think it was; nay Tertullian inclined others to think so. For he is the first, that is noted, to have been the author of that opinion, that God had a body. Deus non est Corpus. Yet Saint Augustine excuses Tertullian from heresy: because (says he) Tertullian might meance, that it was so sure, that there is a God; and that that God was a certain, though not a finite Essence; that God was so far from being nothing, as that he had rather a body. Because it was possible to give a good interpretation of Tertullian, that charitable Father Saint Augastine, would excuse him of heresy. I would Saint Augustine's charity might prevail with them, that pretend to be Augustinianissimi, and to adore him so much in the Roman Church, not to cast the name of Heresy upon every problem; nor the name of Heretic, upon every inquirer of Truth. Saint Augustine would deliver Tertullian from heresy in a point concerning God, and they will condemn us of heresy, in every point that may be drawn to concern not the Church, Chrysost. but the Court of Rome; not their doctrine, but their profit. Malo de Misericordia Deo rationem reddere, quam de crudelitate, I shall better answer God for my mildness, then for my severity. And, though anger towards a brother, or a Raca, or a fool, will bear an action: yet he shall recover less against me at that bar, whom I have called weak, or misled, (as I must necessary call many in the Roman Church) than he whom I have passionately and peremptorily called heretic. For, I dare call an opinion heresy for the matter, a great while before I dare call the man that holds it an heretic. For that consists much in the manner. It must be matter of faith, before the matter be heresy. But there must be pertinacy after convenient instruction, before that man be an heretic. But how excusable so ever Tertullian be herein in Saint Augustine's charity: there was a whole sect of heretics, one hundred years after Tertullian, the Audianis, who over literally taking those places of Scripture, where God is said to have hands, and feet, and eyes, and ears, believed God to have a body like ours; and accordingly interpreted this text; that in that Image, and that likeness, a bodily likeness, consisted this Image of God in man. And yet even these men, these Audians, Epiphanius, who first takes knowledge of them, calls but Schismatics, not Heretics: so loath is charity to say the worst of any. Yet we must remember them of the Roman persuasion, that they come too near giving God a body in their pictures of God the Father. And they bring the body of God, that body which God the Son hath assumed, the body of Christ too near, in their Transubstantiation: not too near our faith, (for so it cannot be brought too near; so, it is as really there as we are there) too near to our sense: not too near in the Vbi; for so it is there: There, that is, in that place to which the Sacrament extends itself. For the Sacrament extends as well to heaven, from whence it fetches grace, as to the table, from whence it delivers Bread and Wine: but too near in modo. For it comes not thither that way. We must necessarily complain, that they make Religion too bodily a thing. Our Saviour Christ corrected Marry magdalen's zeal, where she flew to him, joh. 20. 17. in a personal devotion; and he said, Touch me not: for I am not yet ascended to my Father. Fix your meditations upon Christ Jesus so, as he is now at the right hand of his Father in heaven, and entangle not yourselves so with controversies about his body, as to lose real charity, for imaginary zeal; nor enlarge yourselves so far in the pictures and Images of his body, as to worship them, more than him. As Damdscen says of God, that he is Super-principale principium, a beginning, before any beginning we can conceive; and prae-aeterna aeternitas, an eternity infinitely elder than any eternity we can imagine: so he is Super-spiritualis Spiritus, such a Super-spirit, as that the soul of man, and the substance of Angels is but a body, compared to this Spirit. God hath no body, though Tertullian disputed it; though the Audians preached it; though the Papists paint it. And therefore this Image of God is not in the body of man, that way. Nor that way neither, Non Corpus assumptum. which some others have assigned, that God, who hath no body as God, yet in the creation did assume that form, which man hath now, and so made man in his Image, that is, in that form, which he had then assumed. Some of the Ancients thought so; and some other men of great estimation in the Roman Church have thought so too; In particular, Oleaster, a great officer in the Inquisition of Spain. But great inquirers into other men, are easy neglecters of themselves. The Image of God is not in man's body this way. Non ut venturus Christus. Nor that third way, which others have imagined; that is, that when God said, Let us make man after our likeness, God had respect to that form, which in the fullness of time, his Son was to take upon him, upon earth. Let us make him now, (says God at first) like that which I intent hereafter, my Son shall be. For, though this were spoken before the fall of man, and so before any occasion of decreeing the sending of Christ: yet in the School a great part of great men adhered to that opinion, that God from all eternity had a purpose that his Son should become man in this world, though Adam had not fallen: Non ut Medicus, sed ut Dominus ad nobilitandum genus humanum, say they: though Christ had not come as a Redeemer, if man had not needed him by sin, but had kept his first state; yet as a Prince that desired to heap honour upon him whom he loves, to do man an honour, by his assuming that nature, Christ, say they, should have come, and to that Image, that form, which he was to take then was man made in this text, say these imaginers. But alas, how much better were wit, and learning bestowed to prove to the Gentiles; that a Christ must come; (that they believe not) to prove to the jews, that the Christ is come; (that they believe not) to prove to our own Consciences, that the same Christ may come again this minute to Judgement, (we live as though we believed not that) then to have filled the world, and torn the Church, with frivolous disputations, whether Christ should have come, if Adam had not fallen? woe unto fomentors of frivolous disputations. None of these ways, not because God hath a body; not because God assumed a body, not because it was intended, that Christ should be born, before it was intended, that man should be made, is this Image of God in the body of man. Nor hath it in any other relation, respect to the body, but as we say in the School, Arguitiuè, and Significatiuè that because God hath given man a body of a nobler form, than any other creature; we infer, and argue, and conclude from thence, that God is otherwise represented in man, then in any other creature. So far is this Image of God in the body, that as you see some Pictures, to which the very tables are Jewels; some. Watches, to which the very cases are Jewels, and therefore they have outward cases too; and so the Picture, and the Watch is in that outward case, of what meaner stuff soever that be: so is this Image in this body as in an outward case; so, as that you may not injure, nor enfeeble this body, neither by sinful intemperance and licentiousness, nor by inordinate fastings or other disciplines of imaginary merits, while the body is alive; (for the Image of God is in it) nor to defraud thy body of decent burial, and due solemnities after death; for the Image of God is to return to it. But yet the body is but the out-cafe, and God looks not for the gild, or enamelling, or painting of that: but requires the labour, and cost therein to be bestowed upon the Tablet itself, in which this Image is immediately, that is the soul. And that's truly the Vbi, the place where this Image is: And there remains only now, the operation thereof, how this Image of God in the soul of man works. The Sphere then of this intelligence, In anima. the Gallery for this Picture, the Arch for this Statue, the Table, and frame and shrine for this Image of God, is properly immediately the soul of man. Not immediately so, as that the soul of man is a part of the Essence of God: For so effentially, Christ only is the Image of God. Saint Augustine at first thought so: Putaham te Deus, Corpus Lucidum, & me frustum de illo Corpore; I took thee, o God, (says that Father) to be a Globe of fire, and my soul a spark of that fire; thee to be a body of light, and my soul to be a beam of that light. But Saint Augustine does not only retract that in himself, but dispute against it, in the Manichees. But this Image is in our soul, as our soul is the wax, and this Image the seal. The Comparison is Saint Cyril's, and he adds well, that no seal but that, which printed the wax at first, can fit that wax, and fill that impression after. No Image, but the Image of God can fit our soul. Every other seal is too narrow, too shallow for it. The magistrate is sealed with the Lion; The wolf will not fit that seal: the Magistrate hath a power in his hands, but not oppression. Princes are sealed with the Crown; The Mitre will not fit that seal. Powerfully, and graciously they protect the Church, and are supreme heads of the Church; But they minister not the Sacraments of the Church. They give preferments; but they give not the capacity of preferment. They give order who shall have; but they give not orders, by which they are enabled to have, that have. Men of inferior and laborious callings in the world are sealed with the Cross; a Rose, or a bunch of Grapes will not answer that seal. Ease, and plenty in age, must not be looked for without Crosses and labour and industry in youth. All men, Prince, and People; Clergy, and Magistrate, are sealed with the Image of God, with the profession of a conformity to him: and worldly seals will not answer that, nor fill up that seal. We should wonder to says a Mother in the midst of many sweet Children passing her time in making babies and puppets for her own delight. We should wonder to see a man, whose Chambers and Galleries were full of curious masterpieces, thrust in a Village Fair to look upon sixpenny pictures, and three farthing prints. We have all the Image of God at home, and we all make babies, fancies of honour, in our ambitions. The masterpiece is our own, in our own bosom; and we thrust in country Fairs, that is, we endure the distempers of any unseasonable weather, in night-journies', and watchings: we endure the oppositions, and scorns, and triumphs of a rival, and competitor, that seeks with us, and shares with us: we endure the guiltiness, and reproach of having deceived the trust, which a confident friend reposes in us, and solicit his wife, or daughter: we endure the decay of fortune, of body, of soul, of honour, to possess lower Pictures; pictures that are not originals, not made by that hand of God, nature; but Artificial beauties. And for that body, we give a soul, and for that drug, which might have been bought, where they bought it, for a shilling, we give an estate. The Image of God is more worth than all substances; and we give it, for colours, for dreams, for shadows. But the better to prevent the loss, Tota Trinitas in omni facultate. let us consider the having of this Image: in what respect, in what operation, this Image is in our soul. For, whether this Image, be in those faculties, which we have in Nature; or in those qualifications, which we may have in Grace; or in those super-illustrations, which the blessed shall have in Glory; hath exercised the contemplation of many. Properly this Image is in Nature; in the natural reason, and other faculties of the immortal Soul of man. For, thereupon does Saint Bernard say, Imago Dei uri potest in Gehenna, non exuri: Till the soul be burnt to ashes, to nothing, (which cannot be done no not in hell) the Image of God cannot be burnt out of that soul. For it is radically, primarily, in the very soul itself. And whether that soul be infused into the Elect, or into the Reprobate, that Image is in that soul, and as far, as he hath a soul by nature, he hath the Image of God by Nature in it. But then the seal is deeper cut, or harder pressed, or better preserved in some, then in others; and in some other considerations, then merely natural. Therefore we may consider Man who was made here to the Image of God; and of God, in three Persons, to have been made so, in God's intendment, three ways: Man had this Image in Nature, and does deface it; he hath it also in Grace here, and so does refresh it; and he shall have it in Glory hereafter, and that shall fix it, establish it. And in every of these three, in this Trinity in man, Nature, Grace, and Glory, man hath not only the Image of God, but the Image of all the Persons of the Trinity, in every of the three capacities. He hath the Image of the Father, the Image of the Son, the Image of the holy Ghost in Nature; and all these also in Grace; and all in Glory too. How all these are in all, I cannot hope to handle particularly; not though I were upon the first grain of our sand, upon the first dram of your patience, upon the first flash of my strength. But a clear repeating of these many branches, that these things are thus, that all the Persons of the heavenly Trinity, are (in their Image) in every branch of this humane Trinity, in man, may, at least must suffice. In Nature then, In natura Deus, man, that is, the soul of man hath this Image, of God, of God considered in his Unity, entirely, altogether, in this, that this soul is made of nothing, proceeds of nothing. All other creatures are made of that pre-existent matter, which God had made before, so were our bodies too; But our souls of nothing. Now, not to be made at all, is to be God himself: Only God himself was never made. But to be made of nothing; to have no other parent but God, no other element but the breath of God, no other instrument but the purpose of of God, this is to be the Image of God. For this is nearest to God himself, who was never made at all, to be made of nothing. And then man, (considered in nature) is otherwise the nearest representation of God too. For the steps, which we consider are four; First, Esse, Being; for some things have only a being, and no life, as stones: Secondly, Vivere, Living; for some things have life, and no sense; as Plants: and then, thirdly, Sentire Sense; for some things have sense, and no understanding. Which understanding and reason, man hath with his Being, and Life, and Sense; and so is in a nearer station to God, than any other creature, and a livelier Image of him, who is the root of Being, than all they, because man only hath all the declarations of Beings. Nay if we consider God's eternity, the soul of man hath such an Image of that, as that though man had a beginning, which the original, the eternal God himself had not; yet man shall no more have an end, than the original, the eternal God himself shall have. And this Image of eternity, this past Meridian, this afternoon eternity, that is, this Perpetuity and after everlastingness is in man merely as a Natural man, without any consideration of grace. For the Reprobate can no more die, that is, come to nothing, than the Elect. It is but of the natural man, that Theodoret says, a King built a City, and erected his statue in the midst of the City; that is, God made man, and imprinted his Image in his soul. How will this King take it, (says that Father) to have his statue thrown down? Every man does so, if he do not exalt his natural faculties; If he do not hearken to the law written in his heart; if he do not as much as Plato, or as Socrates in the ways of virtuous actions, he throws down the Statue of this King; he defaces the Image of God. How would this King take it (says he) if any other Statue, especially the Statue of his enemy, should be set up in this place? Every man does so too, that embraces false opinions in matter of doctrine, or false appearances of happiness in matter of conversation. For these a natural man may avoid in many cases, without that addition of grace, which is offered to us as Christians. That comparison of other creatures to man, 40. 14. which is intimated in jeb, is intended but of the natural man. There speaking of Behemoth, that is, of the greatest of Creatures, he says, in our translation, that he is the chief of the ways of God: Saint Hierome hath it, Principium; and others before him, Initium viarum Dei: That when God went that progress over all the world, in the Creation thereof, he did but begin, he did but set out at Behemoth, at the best of all such Creatures; he, all they were but Initium viarum, the beginning of the ways of God. But Finis viarum, the end of his journey, and the Eve, the Vespers of his Sabbath was the making of man, even of the natural man. Behemoth, and the other creatures were Vestigia, (says the School) in them we may see, where God hath gone, for all being is from God, and so every thing that hath a being hath filiationem vestigii a testimony of Gods having passed that way, and called in there. But man hath filiationem Imaginis, an expression of his Image; and does the office of an Image or Picture, to bring him, whom it represents, the more lively to our memory. God's abridgement of the whole world was man. Reabridge man into his least volume, in pura naturalia, as he is but mere man, & so he hath the Image of God in his soul. He hath it, Pater in Intellectu. as God is considered in his Unity, (for as God is, so the soul of man is, indivisibly, impartibly one, entire) and he hath it also, as God is notified to us in a Trinity. For as there are three Persons in the Essence of God: so there are three faculties in the Soul of man. The Attributes, and some kind of specification of the Persons of the Trinity are, Power to the Father, Wisdom to the Son, and Goodness to the holy Ghost. And the three faculties of the Soul have the Images of these three. The Understanding is the Image of the Father, that is, Power. For no man can exercise power, no man can govern well without understanding the natures and dispositions of them whom he governs. And therefore in this consists the power, which man hath over the creature, that man understands the nature of every creature, For so Adam did, when he named every creature according to the nature thereof. And by this advantage of our understanding them, and comprehending them, we master them, and so obliviscuntur quod nata sunt, says Saint Ambrose; the Lion, the Bear, the Elephant have forgot what they were borne to. Induuntur quod jubentur; they invest and put on such a disposition, and such a nature, as we enjoin them, and appoint to them. Serviunt ut famuli; (as that Father pursues it elegantly) and verberantur, ut timidi: they wait upon us as servants; who, if they understood us as well, as we understand them, might be our Masters: and they receive correction from us, as though they were afraid of us; when, if they understood us, they would know, that we were not able to stand in the teeth of the Lion, in the horn of the Bull, in the heels of the Horse. And adjuvantur ut infirmi; they sergeant a weakness, that they might be beholden to us for help: and they are content to thank us, if we afford them any rest, or any food; who, if they understood us, as well, as we do them, might tear our meat out of our throats; nay tear out our throats for their meat. So then in this first natural faculty of the soul, the Understanding, stands the Image of the first Person, Filius in Voluntate. the Father, Power: and in the second faculty which is the Will, is the Image, the Attribute of the second Person the Son, which is Wisdom: for wisdom is not so much in knowing, in understanding, as in electing, in choosing, in assenting. No man needs go out of himself, nor beyond his own legend, and the history of his own actions for examples of that, that many times we know better, and choose ill ways. Wisdom is in choosing in Assenting. And then, Spiritus in Memoria. in the third faculty of the soul, the Memory, is the Image of the third person, the holy Ghost, that is, Goodness. For to remember, to recollect our former understanding, and our former assenting, so far as to do them, to Crown them with action, that's true goodness. The office, that Christ assigns to the holy Ghost, and the goodness, which he promises in his behalf is this, job. 14. 20. that he shall bring former things to our remembrance. The wiseman places all goodness in this faculty, the memory, properly nothing can fall into the memory, but that which is past, and yet he says, Whatsoever thou takest in hand, Eccles. 7. 36. remember the end, and thou shalt never do amiss. The end cannot be yet come, and yet we are bid to remember that. Visus per omnes sensus recurrit, says Saint Augustine. As all senses are called fight, in the Scriptures, (for there is Gustate Dominum, and Audite, and Palpate; Taste the Lord, and hear the Lord, and feel the Lord, and still the Videte, is added, taste, and see the Lord) so all goodness is in remembering, all goodness, (which is the Image of the holy Ghost) is in bringing our understanding and our assenting into action. Certainly beloved, if a man were like the King but in countenance, and in proportion, he himself would think somewhat better of himself, and others would be the less apt to put scorns, or injuries upon him, then if he had a Vulgar, and course aspect. With those, who have the Image of the King's power, (the Magistrate) the Image of his Wisdom, (the Counsel) the Image of his Goodness, (the Clergy) it should be so too. There is a respect due to the Image of the King in all that have it. Now, in all these respects man, the mere natural man, hath the Image of the King of Kings. And therefore respect that Image in thyself, and exalt thy natural faculties. Emulate those men, and be ashamed to be outgone by those men, who had no light but nature. Make thine understanding, and thy will, and thy memory (though but natural faculties) serviceable to thy God; and auxiliary and subsidiary for thy salvation. For, though they be not naturally instruments of grace; yet naturally they are susceptible of grace, and have so much in their nature, as that by grace they may be made instruments of grace: which no faculty in any creature, but man, can be. And do not think that because a natural man cannot do all, therefore he hath nothing to do for himself. This then is the Image of God in man, In Gratia. the first way, in nature; and most literally this is the intention of the text. Man was this Image thus; and the room furnished with this Image was Paradise. But there is a better room than that Paradise for the second Image, (the Image of God in man by grace) that is, the Christian Church. For though for the most part this text be understood De naturalibus, of our natural faculties: yet Origen, and not only such Allegorical Expositors, but Saint Basill, and Nyssen and Ambrose, and others, who are literal enough, assign this Image of God, to consist in the gifts of God's grace, exhibited to us here in the Church. A Christian then in that second capacity, as a Christian, and not only as a man, hath this Image of God; of God first considered entirely. And those expressions of this impression, those representations of this Image of God, in a Christian by grace, which the Apostles have exhibited to us; that we are the sons of God; the feed of God; the offspring of God; and partakers of the divine nature, (which are high and glorious exaltations) are enlarged, and exalted by Damascen to a farther height, Orat. de Assumpt. Mariae. when he says; Sicut Deus homo, it a ego Deus; As God is man, so I am God, says Damascen. ay, taken in the whole mankind, (for, so Damascen takes it out of Nazianzen; and he says, Sicut verbum caro, ita caro verbum, as God was made man, man may become God) but especially ay; I, as I am wrought upon by grace, in Christ Jesus. So a Christian is made the Image of God entirely. To which expression Saint Cyrill also comes near, when he calls a Christian Deiformem hominem, man in the form of God; which is a mysterious, and a blessed metamorphosis, and transfiguration: that, whereas it was the greatest trespass, Esai. 14. 14. of the greatest trespasser in the world, the Devil, to say Similis ero Altissimo, I will be like the Highest: it would be as great a trespasle in me, not to be like the Highest, not to conform myself to God, by the use of his grace, in the Christian Church. And whereas the humiliation of my Saviour is in all things to be imitated by me: yet herein I am bound to depart, from his humiliation; that whereas he being in the form of God, took the form of a servant; I being in the form of a servant, Phil. 2. 5. may, nay must take upon me the form of God, in being Deiformis homo, a man made in Christ, the Image of God. So have I the Image of God entirely, in his unity, because I profess that faith, Ephe. 4. 5. which is but one faith; and under the seal of the Baptism, which is but one Baptism. And then, as of this one God; so I have also the Image of the several persons of the Trinity, in this capacity, as I am a Christian, more than in my natural faculties. The Attributes of the first Person, Pater. the Father, is Power, and none but a Christian hath power over those great Tyrants of the world, Sin, Satan, Death, and Hell. For thus my Power accrues and grows unto me. First, Possum judicare, 1 Cor. 6. 5. I have a Power to Judge; a judiciary, a discretive power; a power to discern between a natural accident; and a Judgement of God, and will never call a Judgement, an accident; and between an ordinary occasion of conversation and atentation of Satan, Possum judicare, and then Possum resistere, Ephe. 6. 13. which is another act of power. When I find it to be a tentation, I am able to resist it: and Possum stare, (which is another) I am able, not only to withstand, Ibid. but to stand out this battle of tentations to the end; And then Possum capere, Mat. 19 12. that which Christ proposes for a trial of his Disciples, Let him, that is able to receive it, receive it, I shall have power to receive the gift of continency, against all tentations of that kind. Bring it to the highest act of power, that with which Christ tried his strongest Apostles, 20. 21. Possum bibere calicem, I shall be able to drink of Christ's Cup; even to drink his blood, and be the more innocent for that, and to pour out my blood, Phil. 4. 13. and be the stronger for that. In Christo omnia possum, there's the fullness of Power, in Christ I can do all things, I can want, or I can abound, I can live, or I can die. And yet there is an extension of Power, 1 john 39 beyond all this, in this Non possum peccare, being borne of God in Christ, I cannot sin. This that seems to have a name of impotence, Non possum, I cannot, is the fullest omnipotence of all, I cannot sin; not sin to death; not sin with a desire to sin; not sin, with a delight in sin; but that tentation, that overthrows another, I can resist, or that sin, which being done, casts another into desperation, I can repent. And so I have the Image of the first Person, the Father, in Power. The Image of the second Person, Filius. whose Attribute is Wisdom, I have in this, that Wisdom being the knowledge of this world, and the next, I embrace nothing in this world, but as it leads me to the next. For, thus my wisdom, my knowledge grows. First, 2 Tim. 1. 12, Scio cui credidi, I know whom I have believed in: Rom. 6. 9 I have not mislaid my foundation; my foundation is Christ; and then Scio non moriturum; my foundation cannot sink, 8. 27. I know that Christ being raised from the dead, dies no more; again Scio quod desideret Spiritus, I know what my spirit, enlightened by the Spirit of God, desires; I I am not transported with illusions, and singularities of private spirits. And as in the Attribute of Power, we found an omnipotence in a Christian, so in this, there is an omniscience, 1. Cor. S. 1. Scimus, quia omnem Scientiam habemus; there's all together; we know that we have all knowledge, for all Saint Paul's universal knowledge was but this, jesum Crucifixum, 2. 2. I determine not to know any thing, save Jesus Christ, and him Crucified; and then, the way by which he would proceed, and take degrees in this Wisdom, was Sultitia praedicandi, 1. 21. the way that God had ordained, when the world by Wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. These than are the steps of Christian Wisdom, my foundation is Christ, of Christ I inquire no more, but fundamental doctrines, him Crucified, and this I apply to myself, by his ordinace of Preaching. And in this wisdom, I have the Image of the second Person. And then, of the third also in this, that his Attribute being Goodness, I as a true Christian, Spiritus Sanctus. call nothing good, that conduces not to the glory of God in Christ Jesus, nor any thing ill, that draws me not from him. Thus I have an express Image of his Goodness, Rom. 8. 28. that Omnia cooperantur in bonum, all things work together for my good, if I love God. I shall thank my fever, bless my poverty, praise my oppressor, nay thank, and bless, and praise, even some sin of mine, which by the consequences of that sin, which may be shame, or loss, or weakness, may bring me to a happy sense of all my former sins; and shall find it to have been a good fever, a good poverty, a good oppression, yea a good sin. Vertit in bonum, says joseph to his brethren, you thought evil, Gen. 50. 20. but God meant it unto good; and I shall have the benefit of my sin, according to his transmutation, that is, though I meant ill, in that sin, I shall have the good, Amos 3. 6. that God meant in it. There is no evil in the City, but the Lord does it; But, if the Lord do it, it cannot be evil to me. I believe that I shall see Bona Dei, the goodness of the Lord, Psal. 27. 13. in the land of the living, that's in heaven; but David speaks also of Signum in bonum, show me a token of good, and God will show me a present token of future good, an inward infallibility, that this very calamity shall be beneficial, and advantageous unto me. And so, as in Nature I have the Image of God, in my whole soul, and of all the three Persons, in the three faculties thereof, the Understanding, the Will, and the Memory, so in Grace, in the Christian Church, I have the same Images, of the Power of the Father, of the Wisdom of the Son, of the Goodness of the holy Ghost, in my Christian profession: And all this we shall have in a better place, than Paradise, where we considered it in nature, and a better place than the Church, as it is Militant, where we considered it in grace, that is, in the kingdom of heaven, where we consider this Image in glory; which is our last word. There we shall have this Image of God in perfection; for, if Origen could lodge such a conceit, In gloria Deus. that in heaven, at last, all things should ebb back into God, as all things flowed from him, at first, and so there should be no other Essence but God, all should be God, even the Devil himself, how much more may we conceive an unexpressible association, (that's too far off) an assimilation, (that's not near enough) an identification, (the School would venture to say so) with God in that state of glory. Where, as the Sun by shining upon the Moon, makes the Moon a Planet, a Star, as well, as itself, which otherwise would be but the thickest, and darkest part of that Sphere, so those beams of Glory which shall issue from my God, and fall upon me, shall make me, (otherwise a clod of earth, and worse, a dark Soul, a Spirit of darkness) an Angel of Light, a Star of Glory, a something, that I cannot name now, not imagine now, nor to morrow, nor next year, but, even in that particular, I shall be like God, that as he, that asked a day to give a definition of God, the next day asked a week, and then a month, and then a year, so undeterminable would my imaginations be, if I should go about to think now, what I shall be there: I shall be so like God, as that the Devil himself shall not know me from God, so far, as to find any more place, to fasten a tentation upon me, then upon God, nor to conceive any more hope of my falling from that kingdom, then of Gods being driven out of it; for, though I shall not be immortal as God, yet I shall be as immortal, as God. And there's my Image of God; of God considered altogether, and in his unity, in the state of Glory. I shall have also then; the Image of all the three Persons of the Trinity. Pater. Power is the Fathers; and a greater Power, than he exercises here, I shall have there: here he overcomes enemies; but yet here he hath enemies; there, there are none; here they cannot prevail, there they shall not be. So Wisdom is the Image of the Son; Filius. And there I shall have better Wisdom, then spiritual Wisdom itself is here: for, here our best Wisdom is, but to go towards our end, there it is rest in our end; here it is to seek to be Glorified by God, there it is, that God may be everlastingly glorified by me. The Image of the holy Ghost is Goodness, Spiritus Sanctus. here our goodness is mixed with some ill; faith mixed with scruples and good works mixed with a love of praise, and hope of better, mixed with fear of worse. There I shall have sincere goodness, goodness impermixt, intemerate, and indeterminate goodness; so good a place, as no ill accident shall annoy it; so good company, as no impertinent, no importune person shall disorder it; so full a goodness, as no evil of sin, no evil of punishment for former sins, can enter; so good a God, as shall no more keep us in fear of his anger, nor in need of his mercy, but shall fill us first, and establish us in that fullness in the same instant; and give us a satiety, that we can with no more, and an infallibility, that we can lose none of that, and both at once. Where, as the Cabalists express our nearness to God, in that state, in that note, that the name of man, and the name of God, Adam, and jehovah; in their numeral letters, are alike, and equal, so I would have leave, to express that inexpressible state, so far, as to say, that if there can be other world imagined besides this that is under our Moon, and if there could be other Gods imagined of those worlds, besides this God, to whose Image we are thus made, in Nature, in Grace, in Glory; I had rather be one of these Saints in this heaven, then of those Gods in those other worlds; I shall be like the Angels in a glorified Soul, and the Angels shall not be like me in a glorified body. The holy nobleness, and the religious ambition, that I would imprint in you, for attaining of this Glory, makes me medismiss you with this note, for the fear of missing that Glory; that as we have taken just occasion, to magnify the goodness of God, towards us, in that he speaks plurally, Faciamus, Let us, All us do this, and so powers out the blessings of the whole Trinity upon us, in this Image of himself, in every Person of the three, and in all these ways, which we have considered: so when the anger of God is justly kindled against us, God collects himself, summons himself assembles himself, musters himself, and threatens plurally too: for, of those four places in Scripture, in which only (as we noted before) God speaks of himself in a Royal plural, God speaks in anger, and in a preparation to destruction, in one of those four, entirely; as entirely, he speaks of mercy, but in one of them, in this text; here he says, merely out of mercy, Faciamus, Let us, us, all us, make man, and in the same plurality, Gen. 11. the same universality, he says after, Descendamus & confundamus, Let us, us, all us, go down to them, and confound them, as merely out of indignation, and anger, as here out of mercy. And in the other two places where God speaks plurally, he speaks not merely in mercy, nor merely in justice, in neither; but in both he mingles both. So that God carries himself so equally herein, as that no Soul, no Church, no State, may any more promise itself patience in God, if it provoke him, then suspect anger in God, if we conform ourselves to him. For, from them, that set themselves against him, God shall withdraw his Image, in all the Persons, and all the Attributes; the Father shall withdraw his Power, and we shall be enfeebled in our forces, the Son his Wisdom, and we shall be infatuated in our counsels, the holy Ghost his Goodness, and we shall be corrupted in our manners, and corrupted in our Religion, and be a prey to temporal, and spiritual enemies, and change the Image of God into the Image of the Beast: and as God loves nothing more than the Image of himself, in his Son, and then the Image of his Son Christ Jesus, in us, so he hates nothing more, than the Image of Antichrist, in them, in whom he had imprinted his Son's Image, that is, declinations towards Antichrist, or concurrencies with Antichrist in them, who were borne, and baptised, and catechised, and blessed in that profession of his truth. That God who hath hitherto delivered us from all cause, or colour of jealousies, or suspicions thereof, in them, whom he hath placed over us, to conform us to his Image, in a holy life, that sins continued, and multiplied by us against him, do not so provoke him against us, that those two great helps, the assiduity of Preaching, and the personal, and exemplary piety and constancy in our Princes, be not by our sins made unprofitable to us. For that's the height of God's malediction upon a Nation, when the assiduity of preaching, and the example of a Religious Prince, does them no good, but aggravates their fault. SERMON XXX. Preached to the Countess of Bedford, then at Harrington house. January 7. 1620. JOB 13. 15. Lo, though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. THe name, by which God notified himself, to all the world, at first, was, Exod. 3. 14. Qui sum, I am; this was his style, in the Commission, that he gave to Moses to Pharaoh; say, that he whose name is, I am, hath sent thee, forthere, God would have it made known, that all Essence, all Being, all things, that fall out, in any time, past, or present, or future, had their dependece upon him, their derivation from him, their subsistence in him. But then, when God contracts himself into a narrower consideration, not to be considered as God, which implies the whole Trinity, but as Christ, which is only the second Person, and when he does not so much notify himself to the whole world, as to the Christian Church, than he contracts his name too, from that spacious and extensive Qui sum, I am, which includes all time, to Alpha and Omega, first and last, which are pieces of time, as we see, in several places of the Revelation, he styles himself: when God speaks to the whole world, his name is, Qui sum, I am, that all the world may confess, that all that is, is nothing, but with relation to him; when he speaks to a Christian, his name is Alpha and Omega, first and last, that a Christian may, in the very name of God, fix his thoughts upon his beginning, and upon his end, and ever remember, that as a few years since, in his Cradle, he had no sense of that honour, those riches, those pleasures, which possesses his time now, so, God knows how few days hence, in his grave, he shall have no sense, no memory of them. Our whole life is but a parenthesis, our receiving of our soul, and delivering it back again, makes up the perfect sentence; Christ is Alpha and Omega, and our Alpha and Omega is all we are to consider. Now, for all the letters in this Alphabet of our life, that is, for all the various accidents in the course thereof, we cannot study a better book, than the person of job. His first letter, his Alpha, we know not, we know not his Birth; His last letter, his Omega, we know not, we know not his Death: But all his other letters, His Children, and his riches, we read over and over again, How he had them, how he lost them, and how he recovered them. By which though it appear that those temporal things do also belong to the care and provision of a godly man, yet it appears too, that neither his first care, nor his last care appertains to the things of this world, but that there is a Primùm quaerite, something to be sought for before, The kingdom of God; And there is a Memorare novissima, something to be thought on after, The joys of heaven; And then, Catera adjicientur, says Christ, All other cares are allowable by way of Accessary, but not as principal. And therefore, though this History of job, may seem to spend itself, upon the relation of jobs temporal passages, of his wealth, and poverty, of his sickness, and recovery, yet, if we consider the Alpha and Omega of the book itself, the first beginning, and the later end thereof, we shall see in both places, a care of the Holy ghost, to show us first jobs righteousness, and then his riches, first his Goodness, and then his Goods; in both places, there is a Catechism, a Confession of his faith before, and then an Inventory, and Catalogue of his wealth; for, in the first place, it is said, He was an upright and just man, and feared God, and eschewed evil, and then, his Children, and his substance follow; And in the last place, it is said, That job was accepted by God, and that he prayed for those friends, which had vexed him, and then it is, that his former substance was doubled unto him. This world than is but an Occasional world, a world only to be used; and that but so, as though we used it not: The next world is the world to be enjoyed, and that so, as that we may joy in nothing by the way, but as it directs and conduces to that end; Nay, though we have no Joy at all, though God deny us all conveniencies here, Etiamsi occiderit, though he end a weary life, with a painful death, as there is no other hope, but in him, so there needs no other, for that alone is both abundant, and infallible in itself. Now, as no History is more various, than jobs fortune, so is no phrase, no style, more ambiguous, then that in which jobs history is written; very many words so expressed, very many phrases so conceived, as that they admit a divers, a contrary sense; for such an ambiguity in a single word, there is an example in the beginning, in jobs wife; we know not (from the word itself) whether it be Benedicas, or maledicas, whether she said Bless God, and die or Curse God: And for such an ambiguity, in an entire sentence, the words of this text are a pregnant, and evident example, for they may be directly, and properly thus rendered out of the Hebrew, Behold he will kill me, I will not hope; and this seems to differ much from our reading, Behold, though he kill me, yet will I trust in him. And therefore to make up that sense, which our translation hath, (which is truly the true sense of the place) we must first make this paraphrase, Behold he will kill me, I make account he will kill me, I look not for life at his hands, his will be done upon me for that; And then, the rest of the sentence (I will not hope) (as we read it in the Hebrew,) must be supplied, or rectified rather, with an Interrogation, which that language wants, and the translators use to add it, where they see the sense require it: And so reading it with an Interrogation, the Original, and our translation will constitute one and the same thing; It will be all one sense to say, with the Original, Behold he will kill me, (that is, let him kill me) yet shall not I hope in him? and to say with our translation, Behold though he kill me, yet will I hope in him: And this sense of the words, both the Chaldee paraphrase, and all translations (excepting only the Septuagint) do unanimously establish. So then, the sense of the words being thus fixed, we shall not distract your understandings, Divisio. or load your memories, with more than two parts: Those, for your ease, and to make the better impression, we will call propositum, and praepositum; first, the purpose, the resolution of a godly man, which is, to rely upon God; and then the consideration, the inducement, the debatement of this beforehand, That no Danger can present itself, which he had not thought of before, He hath carried his thoughts to the last period, he hath stirred the potion to the last scruple of Rheuharb, and Wormewod, which is in it, he hath digested the worst, he hath considered Death itself, and therefore his resolution stands unshaked, Etiamsi occiderit, Though he die for it, yet he will trust in God. In the first then, 1 Part. The Resolution, the purpose itself, we shall consider, Quem, and Quid; The Person, and the Affection: To whom job will bear so great, and so reverend a respect; Quis. and then, what this respect is, I will trust in him. I would not stay you, upon the first branch, upon the person, as upon a particular consideration (though even that, The person upon whom, in all cases, we are to rely, be entertainment sufficient for the meditation of our whole life) but that there arises an useful observation, out of that name, by which job delivers that person, to us, in this place: job says, though He kill me, yet he will trust in him; but he tells us not in this verse, who this He is. And though we know, by the frame, and context, that this is God, yet we must have recourse to the third verse, to see, in what apprehension, and what notion, in what Character, and what Contemplation, in what name, and what nature, what Attribute, and what Capacity, job conceived and proposed God to himself, when he fixed his resolution so entirely to rely upon him; for, as God is a jealous God, I am sure I have given him occasion of jealousy, and suspicion, Ezck. 16. I have multiplied my fornications, and yet am not satisfied, as the prophet speaks: As God is a Consuming fire, I have made myself fuel for the fire, and I have brought the fires of lust, and of ambition, to kindle that fire: As God visits the sins of fathers upon Children, I know not what sins my fathers and grandfathers have laid up in the treasure of God's indignation: As God comes to my notion, in these forms, Horrendum, it were a fearful thing to flesh and blood, to deliver one's self over to him, as he is a jealous God, and a Consuming fire; But in that third verse, job sets before him, that God, whom he conceives to be Shaddai, that is, Omnipotens, Almighty; I will speak to the Almighty, and I desire to dispute with God. Now, if we propose God to ourselves, in that name, as he is Shaddai, we shall find that word in so many significations in the scriptures, as that no misery or calamity, no prosperity or happiness can fall upon us, but we shall still see it (of what kind so ever it be) descend from God, in this acceptation, as God is Shaddai. For, first, this word signifies Dishonour, as the Septuagint translate it in the Proverbs, 19 26. He that Dishonoureth his parents, is a shameless child; There's this word; Shaddai is the name of God, 33. 1. and yet Shaddai signifies Dishonour. In the prophet Esay it signifies Depredation, a forcible and violent taking away of our goods; vae praedanti, says God in that place, woe to thee that spoyledst, and wast not spoilt; Shaddai is the name of God, and yet Shaddai is spoil, and violence and depredation. In the prophet jeremy, the word is carried farther, there it signifies Destruction, and an utter Devastation; D●vastati sumus, says he, we unto us, for we are Destroyed; The word is Shaddai, and is Destruction, though Shaddai be the name of God: yea, the word reaches to a more spiritual affection, it extends to the understanding, and error in that, and to the Conscience, and sin in that; for so the Septuagint makes use of this word in the Proverbs, Prov. 24. 15. Psal. 91. To deceive, and to lie; and in one place of the Psalms, they interpret the word, of the Devil himself. So that, (recollecting all these heavy significations of the word) Dishonour and Disreputation, force and Depredation, Ruin and Devastation, Error and Illusion, the Devil and his Tentations, are presented to us, in the same word, as the name and power of God is, that, when so ever any of these do fall upon us, in the same instant when we see and consider the name and quality of this calamity that falls, we may see and consider the power and the purpose of God which inflicts that Calamity; I cannot call the calamity by a name, but in that name, I name God; I cannot feel an affliction, but in that very affliction I feel the hand (and, if I will, the medicinal hand) of my God. If therefore our Honour and Reputation decay, all honour was a beam of him, and if he have sucked that beam into himself, let us follow it home, let us labour to be honourable in him, glorified in him, and our honour is not extinguished in this world, but grown too glorious for this world to comprehend. If spoil and Depredation come upon us, that we be covered with wrath, and persecuted, slain and not spared, That those that fed delicately perish in the streets, and they that were brought up in scarlet embrace the Dunghill, and that the hands of pitiful women have sodden their own children, as the prophet complains in the Lamentations; if there be such an irreparable Devastation upon us, as that we be broken as an Earthern vessel, in the breaking whereof there remains not a sheard to fetch fire from the hearth, nor water from the pit, That our estate be ruined so, as that there is nothing left, not only for future posterity, but not for the present family, yet still God and the calamity are together; God does not send it, but bring it, he is there as soon as the calamity is there, and calling that calamity by his own name, Shaddai, he would make that very calamity a candle to thee, by which thou mightst see him; that, if thou wert not so puffed up before, as that thou forgotst to say, Dominus dedit, It was the Lord that gave all, thou shouldst not be so dejected, so rebellious now, as not to say Dominus tulit, It is the Lord that hath taken, and committed to some better steward, those treasures of his, which he saw, thou dost employ to thine own danger. Yea, if those spiritual afflictions, which reach to the understanding, and are intimated and involved in this word, Lam. 1. 19 in this name of God, do fall upon us, That we call for our lovers, and they deceive us (as we told you, the word did signify deceit) that is, we come to see how much we mistook the matter, when we fell in love with worldly things, (as certainly, once in our lives, though it be but upon our Death beds, we do come to discover that deceit) yea, when the deceit is so spiritual, as that it reaches not only to the understanding, but to the Conscience, that that have been deceived either with security at one time, or with anxieties, and unnecessary scruples, and impertinent perplexities at another; if this spiritual deceit have gone so high, as that we came to think ourselves to be amongst them, jer. 4. 10. of whom the prophet says, Ah Lord God, surely thou hast deceived thy people, and jerusalem, that we come to suspect, that God hath misled us in a false religion all this while, and that there is a better than this, if we would look to it; if God to punish our negligence, jer. 5. 31. Hose. 9 7. and surfeit of his word, should suffer the prophet to prophecy lies, That the prophet should be a fool, and the spiritual man mad, (that is, as Saint Hierom reads that place, Arreptitius, possessed, possessed with the spirit of ambition, and flattery, and temporising, to preach to their appetites, who govern the times, and not to his instructions, who sent them to preach) yea, where this word is carried the highest of all, that this word, which is the name of God, is used for the Devil, (as we noted before, Lam. 2. 2. out of the Psalms) That Satan was let loose, and polluted the kingdom, and the princes thereof, with false worships, yet to what height to ever, this violence, or this deceit, or this tentation should come, God comes with it; and, with God, there is strength and wisdom, He discerns our Distresses, and is able to succour us in them; job 12. 16. And, (as it is added there) He that is deceived, and he that deceives are his; The deceiver is his, because he catcheth the crafty in their own nets, and the deceived are his, that he may rectify and unbeguile them. So then the children of God, are the Marble, and the Ivory, upon which he works; In them his purpose is, to re-engrave, and restore his Image; and affliction, and the malignity of man, and the deceits of Heretics, and the tentations of the Devil himself, are but his instruments, his tools, to make his Image more discernible, and more dnrable in us. job will speak to God, he will dispute with God, he will trust in God, therefore, because he is Shaddai, because neither dishonour, nor Devastation, of fortune, or understanding, or Conscience, by deceit of treacherous friends, by backsliding of false teachers, by illusion of the Devil himself, can be presented him, but the name and power of God accompanies that calamity, and he sees that they came from God, and therefore he should be patient in them, and how impatient so ever he be, he sees he must bear them, because they came from him. But job hath another hold too, another assurance, for his Confidence in God, from this name Shaddai; It is not only because all Calamity comes from him, and therefore should be borne, or therefore must be borne; but all Restitution, all Reparation of temporal, or spiritual detriment, is included in that name too, for Shaddai is Omnipotens, Almighty, He can do all things; And the consolation is brought nearer than so, in one place, it is Omnia faciens, That, not only for the future he can, job. 8. 3. but for the present, he does study, and he does accomplish my good; even then, when his hand is upon me, in a calamity, his hand is under me, to raise me up again; as he that flings a ball to the ground, or to a wall, intends in that action, that that ball should return back, so even now, when God does throw me down, it is the way that he hath chosen to return me to himself. Since therefore this name Shaddai assured job, that all which we call Good; and all which we call Evil, that is, prosperity, and adversity, proceed from God; that God (who in the signification of this name) is able to shatter, and scatter, to devastate and depopulate, not only our estate, but our Conscience, in an instant, with the horror of his judgements; and then is able to bind up, and consolidate all this again, with his temporal, and spiritual Comforts, since he can destroy in an instant that Temple, which was so long in building, that is, overthrew that fortune, which employed the industry of man, the favour of princes, and the ruin and supplantations of other men, for many years, to the making thereof, and then can raise this ruin'd Temple, this overthrown man, in three days, or hours, or minutes, as it pleaseth him, to measure his own purposes since good and bad, peace and anguish, life and death proceed from him, who is Shaddai, the Almighty God, job had good reasons, to trust in him, in that God, though he, that God, should kill him; which Emphatical, and appliable significations of the name, hath occasioned me (though it be obvious and present to every apprehension, that God is the person, who in this text, is to be relied upon) to insist upon this, as a particular part of branch; And so we pass to that, which we proposed for a second branch, from the person, (God, and God in this notion, Shaddai, Almighty) to the respect, which he promises, Trust, Though he kill me, yet will I trust in him. It is a higher degree of Reverence and Confidence, Quid. to trust in one, then to trust one. we see it so expressed in the Articles of our Creed; Credimus in Deum, we believe in God, and in Christ, and in the Holy Ghost; And then Credimus Ecclesiam Catholicam, we believe the Catholic Church. We will believe a honest man, that he will do as he says, we believe God much more, that he will perform his promises; we will trust God, that he will do as he says; But then, job will trust in God, That though God have not spoken to his soul as yet, though he have not interessed him in his promises, and in his Covenant, (for job is not conceived to be within the Covenant made by God to his people) yet he will trust in him, that in his due time, he will visit him, and will apply him those mercies, and those means, which no man, that had interest in them, can doubt, or distrust. And therefore job professes his trust in God, in that word, which hath in the use thereof in Scriptures, ordinarily three acceptations; The word is jakal, and jakal signifies Expectavit Deum, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his eye, his expectation was upon nothing but God; And than it signifies speravit, he Hoped for him, As he looked for nothing else, so he doubted not of him; And than it is Moratus est, As he was sure of him, so he prescribed him not a time, but humbly attended his jeasure, and received his temporal, or spiritual blessings thankfully, whensoever it should be his pleasure to afford them. First then, Expectavit. Expectavit, He trusted in him, that is, he trusted in nothing but him. For, beloved, as we have in the Schools, a short and a round way, to prove that the world was made of nothing, which is, only to ask that man, who will need deny the world to be made of nothing, of what it was made; and, if he could find a preexistent matter, of which he thought the world was made, yet we must ask him again, of what, that preexistent matter was made, and so upwards still, till at last it must necessarily come to nothing: so we must ask that man, that will not be of jobs mind, to trust in God, in what he would trust; would he trust in his riches? who shall preserve them to him? The Law? Then he trusts in the Law. But who shall preserve the Law? The King? Then his trust is in him. And who shall preserve him? Almighty God; and therefore his trust must be at last in him. Deut. 14. To what nation is their God come so near to them as the Lord our God is come near unto us? what nation hath laws, and ordinances, so righteous as we have? Moses said this historically of the jew, and prophetically of us; 'tis true, we are governed by a peaceable, and a just law; Moses his prophecy is fulfilled upon us, and so is Esays too, 49. 23. Reges nutricii, Kings shall be thy nursing fathers; It is true to us, The law is preserved to us, by a just, and a peaceful prince; but how often have the sins of the people, and their unthankfulness especially, induced new laws, and new princes? The prince, and the law, are the two most reverend, and most safe things, that man can rely upon; but yet (in other nations at least) sacred, and secular story declares, that for the iniquity of the people the law hath been perverted by princes, and for the sin of the people, the prince hath been subverted by God. Howsoever there may be some collateral, and transitory trust in by things, the radical, the fundamental trust, is only in God. job trusted in him, that is, in nothing but him: but then, speravit, Speravit. he hoped for something at his hands; none can give but God; but God will give to none that do not hope for it, and that do not express their hope, by ask, by prayer; God scatters not his blessings, as Princes do money, in Donatives at Coronations or Triumphs, without respect upon whom they shall fall. God reigned down Manna and Quails, plentifully, abundantly; but he knew to what hand every bird, and every grain belonged. To trust in nothing else, is but half way; it is but a stupid neglecting of all; It is an ill affection to say, I look for nothing at the world's hands, nor at Gods neither. God only hath all, and God hath made us capable of all his gifts; and therefore we must neither hope for them, any where else, nor give over our hope of them, from him, by intermitting our prayers, or our industry in a lawful calling; for we are bound to suck at those breasts which God puts out to us, and to draw at those springs, which flow from him to us; and prayer, and industry, are these breasts, and these springs; and whatsoever we have by them, we have from him. Expectavit, job trusted not in the means, as in the fountain, but yet speravit, he doubted not, but God, who is the fountain, would, by those means, derive his blessings, temporal and spiritual, upon him. He Hoped; now Hope is only, or principally of invisible things, for Hope that is seen, Rom. 8. 24. is not hope, says the Apostle. And therefore, though we may hope for temporal things, for health, wealth, strength, and liberty, and victory where God's enemies oppress the Church, and for execution of laws, where God's enemies undermine the Church; (for, whatsoever we may pray for, we may hope for, and all those temporal blessings are prayed for, by Christ's appointment, in that petition, Give us this day our daily bread) yet our Hope is principally directed upon the invisible part, and invisible office of those visible and temporal things; which is, that by them, we may be the better able to perform religious duties to God, and duties of assistance to the world. When I expect a friend, I may go up to a window, and wish I might see a Coach; or up to a Cliff, and wish I might see a ship, but it is because I hope, that that friend is in that Coach, or that ship: so I wish, and pray, and labour for temporal things● because I hope that my soul shall be edified, and my salvation established, and God glorified by my having them: And therefore every Christian hope being especially upon spiritual things, is properly, and purposely grounded, upon these stones; that it be spes veniae, a hope of pardon, for that which is past, and then spes gratiae, a hope of Grace, to establish me in that state with God, in which, his pardon hath placed me, and lastly spes gloriae, a hope that this pardon, and this grace, shall lead me to that everlasting glory, which shall admit no night, no eclipse, no cloud. First, for the first object of this hope, pardon, we are to consider sin, in two aspects, Spes veniae. two apprehensions; as sin is an injury, a treason; yea a wound to God; And then as sin is a Calamity, a misery fallen inevitably upon man. Consider it the first way, and there is no hope of pardon, Nectalem Deum tuum putes, qualis nec tu debes esse, is excellently said by Saint Augustine: never imagine any other quality to be in Christ, than such, as thou, as a Christian, art bound to have in thyself. And, if a Snake have stung me, must I take up that Snake, and put it into my bosom? If so poor a snake, so poor a worm as I, have stung my Maker, have crucified my Redeemer, shall he therefore, therefore take me into his bosom, into his wounds, and save me, and glorify me? No, if I look upon sin, in that line, in that angle, as it is a wound to God, I shall come to that of Cain, Major iniquitas, my sin is greater, then can be forgiven, and to that of judas, Peccavi tradens, I have sinned in betraying the innocent blood, that is, in Crucifying him again, who was crucified for me, in betraying his righteous blood, as much, by my unworthy receiving, as judas did, in an unjust delivering of it. But if I look upon sin, as sin is now, the misery and calamity of man, the greater the misery appears, the more hope of pardon I have; Abyssus Abyssum, Psal. 42. 7. as David speaks, One Depth calls upon another; Infinite sins call for infinite mercy; and where sin did abound, grace, and mercy shall much more. First David presents the greatness of his sins, and then follows the Miserere mei, have mercy upon me, according to the greatness of thy mercy. Is there any little mercy in God? Is not all his mercy infinite, that pardons a sin done against an infinite majesty? yes; but herein the greatness appears to us, that it delivers us from a great calamity. Quia infirmus, Because I am weak, (borne weak, and subject to continual infirmities) Quia oss a conturbata, Because my bones are troubled, (my best repentances, and resolutions are shaked) Quia vexata anima, because my soul is in anguish, when after such resolutions, and repentances; and vows, I relapse into those sins, these miseries of his, were David's inducements why God should pardon him, because it is thus with me, have mercy upon me. And so God himself seems to have had a divers, a twofold apprehension of our sins, when he says, Gen. 6. 5. that because all the imaginations of the thoughts of man's heart, were only evil continually, therefore he would spare none, 8, 21. he would destroy all, and after he says, that because the imaginations of the thoughts of man's heart, were evil from his youth, he would no more smite all things living, as he had done; for sin, he would destroy them, and yet for sin, he would spare them: when we examine our sins, and find them to be out of infirmity, and not out of rebellion, we may conclude God's corrections, to be by way of Medicine, and not of poison, to be for our amendment, and not for our annihilation, and in that case, there is spes veniae, just hope of pardon. Another degree of hope is, spes gratiae, Spes Gratiae. Rom. 5. 10. hope of subsequent grace; for, as Saint Paul builds his argument, If when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life: in like manner, every sinner may build his trust, and hope in God, He that hath pardoned us, the sins we have done, will much more assist us with his grace, that we may be able to stand in that state with him, to which he hath brought us. He that succoured us, when there was nothing in us, but his enemies, will much more send new supplies, when the town is held for him, and by his friends. And this hope of pardon, for that which is past, and of grace for the present, Spes Gloriae. continueth to the hope of glory to come: of which glory we apprehend strong and effectual beams here, by conforming ourselves, to that Gospel, which the Apostle calls the glorious Gospel of the blessed God; and for the consummation of this glory, 1 Tim. 1. 11. we do with patience abide for it, Rom. 8. 25. says the Apostle: which is the last of those three senses, in which we noted, this word, in which job expresses his trust in God, to be used in the Scriptures, jakal, moratus est; he did trust in nothing else, did trust in him, and then, he stayed his leisure. jacob makes a solemn prayer to God, Moratus est. in Genesis, 32. O God of my Fathers, Abraham, and Isaac, than he remembers God of his promise, (Thou saidst unto me return, and I will do thee good) he tells him his danger, (I fear my brother Esau, will come and smite me) he makes his petition, (Deliver me from the hand of my brother) And yet, for all this, though he trusted in God, yet God infuses not that confidence into him, as to go on: He sent his present to his brother, but himself tarried there all night, says the text. Yea, God was so far, from giving him present means of deliverance, that he made him worse able to deliver himself, he wrestled with him, and lamed him: but after all, in God's appointed time, he and his brother were reconciled. If thou pray to Almighty God, in temporal, in spiritual calamities, if God do not presently enlighten thine understanding in every controversy of Religion, in every scruple of Conscience, if he do not rectify thine estate, when it is decayed, thy reputation, when thou art reproached, yea if he wrestle with thee, and lame thee, that is, bring all to a greater impotency, and improbability of amendment then before, yet thou hast thy Rule from job, thou hast thy example from jacob, that to trust in God, is not only to trust in nothing else, nor only to hope particularly, for pardon, for grace, for glory from him, but it is to stay his leisure, for the outward, and inward seals of all his mercies, and his benefits, which he shall, in his time, bestow upon thee. The ambitious man must stay, till he, whose office he expects, be dead: the Covetous man must stay, till the six months be run, before his use come in. Though thou have a religious ambition, a holy covetousness even at God's graces, Psal. 119. 131. thou must stay his time. Os aperui, & attraxi, says David, I opened my mouth, and panted, because I loved thy Commandments; He loved them, and he longed for them, yet he had not presently a full satisfaction. Domine labia mea aperies, says he also first it must be the Lord that must open our lips, in all our petitions; It must not be the anguish of the calamity only, nor the desire of that which thou prayest for only, that must open thy lips, but the Lord, that is, the glory of God: when the Lord hath opened thy lips in a rectified prayer, Psal: 145. 16. then follows the Aperuit manus, the eyes of all things wait upon him, & he gives them their meat in due season; he opens his hand, & fills every living thing, at his good pleasure: Here's plentiful opening, and filling, and filling every thing, but still in due season, & that due season expressed, At his pleasure: for, as that is the Nature of every thing, which God hath imprinted in it, Augustin. so that is the season of every thing, which God hath appointed for it. Thou wouldst not pray for harvest at Christmas; seek not unseasonable comforts, out of Music, or Comedies, or Conversation, or Wine in thy distresses, but seek it at the hand of God, and stay his leisure, for else thou dost not trust in him. We have now passed over all those branches, 2 Part. which constituted our first part, that which we called Propositum, what is the purpose and resolution of a godly man, in job: that he would not scatter his thoughts in trusting upon Creatures, and yet he would not suffer his thoughts to vanish and evaporate, he would rest them upon something, and not leave all to fortune, he would rest upon God, and yet stay his time for the execution of his gracious purposes. There remains yet, that which we called praepositum, in which we intended, the foundation, and ground of that purpose and resolution; which seems in job, to have been, a debatement in himself, a contemplation of all dangers, the worst was death, and yet, Si occiderit, if I die for it, and die at his hands, Though he kill me, yes will I trust in him. For when the children of God take that resolution, to suffer any affliction, which God shall lay upon them, patiently, and cheerfully, it must not be a sudden, a rash, an undebated resolution, but they must consider why they undertake it, and in whose strength, they shall be able to do it: They must consider what they have done for God, before they promise themselves the glory of suffering for him. When they which enterprised the building of Babel, Gen. 11. did no more but say to one another, Come let us make brick, go to, let us build a tower, whose top may reach to heaven, how quickly they were scattered over the earth? The way is, Luke 14. 28. if you mind to build, to sit down and count the cost; if you purpose to suffer for Christ, to look to your stock, your strength, and from whence it comes. The King that intends a war, in that Gospel, takes counsel, whether he be able with his ten thousand to meet the enemy with twenty thousand. We are too weak for our enemy; the world, the flesh, and the Devil, are mustered against us; but yet, with our ten thousand, we may meet their twenty thousand, if we have put on Christ, and be armed with him, and his holy patience, and constancy; but from whom may we derive an assurance, that we shall have that armour, that patience, that constancy? First, a Christian must purpose to Do, and then in cases of necessity, to suffer: And give me leave to make this short note by the way, no man shall suffer like a Christian, that hath done nothing like a Christian: God shall thank no man, for dying for him, and his glory, that contributed nothing to his glory, in the actions of his life: very hardly shall that man be a Martyr in a persecution, that did not what he could, to keep off persecution. Thus than job comes first, to the Si occiderit; If he should kill me; If God's anger should proceed so far, as so far, it may proceed. Let no man say in a sickness, or in any temporal calamity, this is the worst; for a worse thing than that may fall: five and thirty years' sickness may fall upon thee; and, (as it is in that Gospel) a worse thing than that; Distraction, and desperation may fall upon thee: let no Church, no State, in any distress say, this is the worst, for only God knows, what is the worst, that God can do to us. job does not deny here, but that this Si occiderit, if it come to a matter of life, it were another manner of trial, then either the si irruerent Sabaei, if the Sabaeans should come, and drive his cattle, and slay his servants; more, than the si ignis caderet; if the fire of God should fall from heaven, and devoute all; more, than the si ventus concuteret, if the wind of the wilderness, should shake down his house, and kill and all his children. The Devil in his malice saw, that if it came to matter of life, job was like enough to be shaked in his faith; Skin for skin, and all that ever a man hath will he give for his life. God foresaw that, in his gracious providence too; and therefore he took that clause out of Satan's Commission, and inserted his veruntamen animam ejus servae, meddle not with his life. The love of this life, which is natural to us, and imprinted by God in us, is not sinful: Few and evil have the days of my pilgrimage been, says lacob to Pharaeoh: though they had been evil, (which makes our days seem long) and though he were no young man, when he said so, yet the days which he had past, he thought few, and desired more. When Eliah was fled into the wilderness, and that in passion, and vehemence he said to God, Sufficit Domine, tolle animam meam, It is enough O Lord, now take away my life, if he had been heartily, thoroughly weary of his life, he needed not to have fled from jesabel, for he fled but to save his life. The Apostle had a Cupie dissolvi, a desire to be dissolved; but yet a love to his brethren corrected that desire, and made him find that it was far better for him to live. Our Saviour himself, when it came to the pinch, and to the agony, had a Transeat Calix, a natural declining of death. The natural love of our natural life is not ill: It is ill, in many cases, not to love this life: to expose it to unnecessary dangers, is always ill; and there are overtures to as great sins, in hating this life, as in loving it; and therefore jobs first consideration is, si occideret, if he should kill me, if I thought he would kill me, this were enough to put me from trusting in any. But jobs consideration went farther, then to the si occideret, Though he should kill me, for it comes to an absolute assurance that God will kill him; for so it is in the Original, Ecce occidet, Behold, I see he will kill me; I have, I can have no hope of life, at his hands. 'tis all our cases; Adam might have lived, if he would, but I cannot. God hath placed an Ecce, a mark of my death, upon every thing living, that I can set mine eye upon; every thing is a remembrancer, every thing is a Judge upon me, and pronounces, Heb. 9 27. I must die. The whole frame of the world is mortal, Heaven and Earth pass away: and upon us all, there is an irrecoverable Decree past, statutum est, It is appointed to all men, that they shall once die. But when? quickly; If thou look up into the air, job 7. 7. remember that thy life is but a wind; jam. 4. 14. If thou see a cloud in the air, ask St. james his question, what is your life? and give St. james his answer, It is a vapour that appeareth and vanisheth away. If thou behold a Tree, than job gives thee a comparison of thyself; A Tree is an emblem of thyself; nay a Tree is the original, thou art but the copy, job 14. 7. thou art not so good as it: for, There is hope of a tree (as you read there) if the root wax old, if the stock be dead, if it be cut down, yet by the sent of the waters, it will bud, but man is sick, and dyeth, and where is he? he shall not wake again, till heaven be no more. Look upon the water, and we are as that, and as that spilt upon the ground: Look to the earth, and we are not like that, but we are earth itself: At our Tables we feed upon the dead, and in the Temple we tread upon the dead: and when we meet in a Church, God hath made many echoes, many testimonies of our death, in the walls, and in the windows, and he only knows, whether he will not make another testimony of our mortality, of the youngest amongst us, before we part, and make the very place of our burial, our deathbed. jobs contemplation went so far; not only to a Si occideret, to a possibility that he might die, but to an Ecce occidet, to an assurance that he must die; I know there is an infallibleness in the Decree, an inevitableness in nature, an inexorableness in God, I must die. And the word bears a third interpretation beyond this; for si occiderit, is not only, if he should kill me, as he ma●, if he will, and it may be he will; nor only, that I am sure he will kill me, I know I must die, but the word may very well be also, though he have killed me. So that jobs resolution that he will trust in God, is grounded upon all these considerations, That there is exercise of our hope in God, before death, in the agony of death, and after death. First, in our good days, and in the time of health, Memorare novissima, says the wise man, we must remember our end, our death. But that we cannot forget, every thing presents that to us; But his counsel there, is, in omnibus operibus, In all thine undertake, in all thine actions, remember thine end; when thou art in any worldly work, for advancing thy state, remember thy natural death, but especially when thou art in a sinful work, for satisfying thy lusts, remember thy spiritual death: Be afraid of this death, Psal. 120. 5. and thou wilt never fear the other: Thou wilt rather sigh with David, My soul hath too long dwelled with him that hateth peace: Thou wilt be glad when a bodily death may deliver thee from all farther danger of a spiritual death: And thou wilt be ashamed of that imputation, which is laid upon worldly men, by St. Cyprian, Ad nostros navigamus, & ventos contrarios optamus, we pretend to be sailing homewards, and yet we desire to have the wind against us; we are travelling to the heavenly jerusalem, and yet we are loath to come thither. Here then is the use of our hope before death, that this life shall be a gallery into a better room, and deliver us over to a better Country: for, 1. Cor. 15. 19 if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most miserable. Secondly, in the agony of death; when the Sessions are come, and that as a prisoner may look from that Tower, and see the Judge that must condemn him to morrow, come in to night; so we lie upon our deathbed, and apprehend a present judgement to be given upon us, when, if we will not plead to the Indictment, if we will stand mute, and have nothing to say to God, we are condemned already, condemned in our silence; and if we do plead, we have no plea, but guilty; nothing to say, but to confess all the Indictment against ourselves; when the flesh is too weak, as that it can perform no office, and yet would fain stay here, when the soul is laden with more sins than she can bear, and yet would fain contract more; in this agony, there is this use of our hope, that as God shall then, when our bodily ears are deaf, whisper to our souls, and say, Memento homo, Remember, consider man, that thou art but dust, and art now returning into dust, so we, in our hearts, when our bodily tongues are speechless, may then say to God, as it is in job, 10. Memento quaeso, Remember thou also, I beseech thee, O God, that it is thou that hast made me as clay, and that it is thou that bringest me to that state again; and therefore come thou, and look to thine own work; come and let thy servant depart in peace, in having seen his salvation. My hope before death is, that this life is the way; my hope at death is, that my death shall be a door into a better state. Lastly, the use of our hope, is after death, that God by his promise, hath made himself my debtor, till he restore my body to me again, in the resurrection: My body hath sinned, and he hath not redeemed a sinner, he hath not saved a sinner, except he have redeemed and saved my body, as well as my soul. To those souls that lie under the Altar, and solicit God, for the resurrection, in the Revelation, God says, 6. 11. That they should rest for a little season, until their fellow-servants, and their brethren, that should be killed, even as they were, were fulfilled. All that while, while that number is fulfilling, is our hopes exercised after our death. And therefore the bodies of the Saints of God, which have been Temples of the Holy Ghost, when the soul is gone out of them, are not to be neglected, as a sheath that had lost the knife, as a shell that had spent the kernel; but as the Godhead did not depart from the dead body of Christ Jesus, then when that body lay dead in the grave, so the power of God, and the merit of Christ Jesus, doth not depart from the body of man, but his blood lives in our ashes, and shall in his appointed time, awaken this body again, to an everlasting glory. Since therefore job had, and we have this assurance before we die, when we die, after we are dead, it is upon good reason, that he did, and we do trust in God, though he should kill us, when he doth kill us, after he hath killed us. Especially since it is Ille, He who is spoken of before, Deut. 32. 39 he that kills, and gives life, he that wounds, and makes whole again. God executes by what way it pleases him; condemned persons cannot choose the manner of their death; whether God kill by sickness, by age, by the hand of the law, by the malice of man, si ille, as long as we can see that it is he, he that is Shaddai, Vastator, & Restaurator, the destroyer, and the repairer, howsoever he kill, yet he gives life too, howsoever he wound, yet he heals too, howsoever he lock us into our graves now, yet he hath the keys of hell, and death, and shall in his time, extend that voice to us all, Lazare veni for as, come forth of your putrefaction, to incorruptible glory. Amen. SERMON XXXI. Preached at Hanworth, to my Lord of Carlisle, and his company, being the Earls of Northumberland, and Buckingham, etc. Aug. 25. 1622. JOE 36. 25. Every man may see it, man may behold it afar off. THe words are the words of Elihu; Elihu was one of jobs friends, and a mere natural man: a man not captivated, not fettered, not enthralled, in any particular form of Religion, as the jews were; a man not macerated with the fear of God; not infatuated with any preconceptions, which Nurses, or Godfathers, or Parents, or Church, or State had infused into him; not dejected, not suppled, not matured, not entendered, with crosses in this world, and so made apt to receive any impressions, or follow any opinions of other men, a mere natural man; and in the mere use of mere natural reason, this man says of God in his works, Every man may see it, Man may behold it afar off. It is the word of a natural man; and the holy Ghost having canonised it, sanctified it, by inserting it into the book of God, it is the word of God too. Saint Paul citys sometimes the words of secular Poets; and approves them; and then the words of those Poets, become the word of God; Elihu speaks, a natural man, and God speaks, in canonising his words; and therefore when we speak to godly men, we are sure to be believed, for God says it; if we were to speak to natural men only, we might be believed, for Elihu, a natural man, and wise in his generation, says it, that for God in his works, Every man may see it, man may behold it afar off. Be pleased to admit, Divisio. and charge your memories with this distribution of the words; Let the parts be but two, so you will be pleased to stoop, and gather, or at least to open your hands to receive some more (I must not say flowers, for things of sweetness, and of delight grow not in my ground) but simples rather, and medicinal herbs; of which as there enter many into good cordials, so in this supreme cordial, of bringing God into the eyes of man, that every man may see it, men may behold it afar off, there must necessarily arise many particulars to your consideration. I threaten you but with two parts; no farther tediousness; but I ask room for divers branches; I can promise no more shortness. The first part is a discovery, a manifestation of God to man; though that be undeniably true, Psal. 18. 11. Posuit tenebra s latibulum, God hath made darkness his secret place, yet it is as true, which proceeds from the same mouth, and the same pen, Amictus tanquam pallio, 104. 2. God covers himself with light as with a garment, he will be seen through his works: As we shall stand naked to one another, and not be ashamed of our scars, or morphews, in the sight of God, so God stands naked to the eyes of man, and is not ashamed of that humiliation, Every man may see it, man may behold it afar off. This proposition, this discovery, will be the first part; and the other will be a tacit answer, to a likely objection, is not God far off, and can man see at that distance? yes, he may. Man may behold that afar off. Every man may see it, man may behold it afar off. God is the subject of both parts; God alone; one God. But in both parts there is a Trinity too; three branches in each part; for in each, there is an object, something to be apprehended; there is a means of apprehending it, it is to be seen; there is a person enabled to see it, Every man may see it, man may behold it afar off. But these three are not alike in each part; for in the first, that object is determined, limited; it is illud; it; God in his works. In the second, there is no object limited, for it is not illud, but there is more left to be seen; not only God in his works, as here below, but God in his glory above; Man may behold, but he does not offer to tell us what; there is an object, but another object. In the second there is a difference too, in the means of apprehending: It is but Casah in the first, it is Nibbat in the second; in that, every man may see, in the other, man may behold. And in the third, there is also a difference, the man, that may see God, is Adam; Adam is a man, made of earth, the weakest man, even in nature may see God; but the man that must behold afar off, is Enoch, and Enoch is homo aeger, a miserable man, a man that hath tasted affliction, and calamity, for that man looks after God in the next world, and as he feels God with a rod in his hand here, so he beholds God with a crown in his hand there. And of those sticks of sweet wood, of those drops of sweet gums, shall we make up this present sacrifice. In our first part, 1 Part. Illud. the manifestation of God to man, the first branch is the object, the limited object, illud, Optus. Every man may see it; what is that? That which was proposed in the verse immediately before, Remember that thou magnify his work which men behold; First, it is a work, and therefore it is made, it hath an author, a creator; and than it is his work, the work of God, and therefore manifests him. It is a work, a deliberate, not a casual matter, this frame, this world. It is a work, it was begun, and made up, Epipha. not an eternal matter, this frame, this world. Epiphanius says well, Omnis error à caecitate ad vanitatem; that's the progress of error; every error begins in blindness, and ignorance, but proceeds, and ends, in absurdity, in frivolousness. If men had not put out the light of nature, they might discern a creation in the world, that that was made, it is a work; but when they do put out that light, and deny a creation, into what frivolous opinions they scatter themselves; what contradictory things, men that seem constant, say; what childish, what ridiculous things, men that seem grave, and sober fathers in Philosophy, say of this world? when they have said all, this one thing will destroy all, if the world be eternal, it is God; for whatsoever had no beginning, whatsoever needed nothing to give it a being, whatsoever was always of itself, is God. So that to build up their opinions in one part, they destroy it in another; and to overthrow our Hall, they build up our Chapel; by denying that the world was made, they imply, they confess a God; for if it had no Creator, it is no Creature, it is God; so that they lose more than they gain, and they seek damnation, unthriftily, and perish prodigally; they deny the Creation, left by the Creation, we should prove God, and their very denial of a Creation, their making of the world eternal, constitutes it to be God. They deny any God, and then make a worse God. This world than is a work, Opus ejus. a limited, a determined, a circumscribed work; and it is Opus ejus, his work, says Elihu there. But whose? Will you lay hold upon that? upon that, that Elihu only says, Remember his work, but names none? But two verses before, (with which this verse hath connexion) he does name God. But let the work be whose it will, whosoever be this He, this He must be God, whosoever gave the first being to Creatures, must be the Creator. If you will think, that Chance did it, and fortune, than fortune must be your God; and destiny must be your God, if you think destiny did it; and therefore you were as good attribute it to the right God, for a God it must have; if it be a work, it was made, if it be a Creature, there is a Creator; and if it be his work, that He, must be God, and there are no more Gods, but one. Every man hath a delight, and complacency in knowledge, and is ashamed of ignorance, even in booklearning: a man would have a Library pro supellectile; even for a part of furniture, Senec●. a man would read for Ornament: His house is not well furnished, he is not well furnished, without books. Many a man, who lets the Bible dust, and rust, because the Bible hath a kind of majesty and prerogative, and command over a man; it will not be jested withal, it will not be disputed against; a man can very hardly divest the reverence, that appertains to that book, and therefore he had rather deal with his fellows, more humane Authors, that will hear reason, and not bind his faith; many a man can let the Fathers stand, because they write out of a pious credulity, and such anticipations, and preconceptions, as the Bible hath submitted them under, and captivated them to; But if thou let the Bible, and Fathers alone, and yet love books, what book (what kind of book) canst thou take into thy hand, that proves not this world to be Opus, a work, made, and opus ejus, his work made by him, by God? Dost thou love learning, as it is expounded, Cicero. dilated, by Orators? The Father of Orators testifies, Nihil tam perspicuum, there is nothing so evident, as that there is a sovereign power, that made, and governs all. Dost thou love learning, as it is contracted, brought to a quintessence, wrought to a spirit, by Philosophers? the eldest of all them in that whole book, Quod Deus latens, simul & patens est, testifies all that, Trismeg. and nothing but that, that as there is nothing so dark, so there is nothing so clear, nothing so remote, nothing so near us, as God. Dost thou love learning, as it is sweetened and set to music by Poets? the King of the Poets testifies the same, Virgil. Mens agitat molem, & magno se corpore miscet; that is, a great, an universal spirit, that moves, a general soul, that inanimates, and agitates every piece of this world. But Saint Paul is a more powerful Orator, than Cicero, and he says, The invisible things of God, are seen by things which are made; and thereby man is made inexcusable: Moses is an ancienter Philosopher, Rom. 1. 20. than Trismegistus; and his picture of God, is the Creation of the world. David is a better Poet than Virgil; and with David, Coeli enarrant, the heavens declare the glory of God; The power of oratory, in the force of persuasion, the strength of conclusions, in the pressing of Philosophy, the harmony of Poetry, in the sweetness of composition, never met in any man, so fully as in the Prophet Esay, nor in the Prophet Esay more, than where he says, Levate Oculos, 40. 20. Lift up your eyes, on high, and behold who hath created these things; behold them, therefore, to know that they are created, and to know who is their creator. All other authors we distinguish by tomes, by parts, by volumes; but who knows the volumes of this Author; how many volumes of Spheres involve one another, how many tomes of God's Creatures there are? Hast thou not room, hast thou not money, hast thou not understanding, hast thou not leisure, for great volumes, for the books of heaven, (for the Mathematics) nor for the books of Courts, (the Politics) take but the Georgiques', the consideration of the Earth, a farm, a garden, nay seven foot of earth, a grave, and that will be book enough. Goel lower; every worm in the grave, lower, every weed upon the grave, is an abridgement of all; nay lock up all doors and windows see nothing but thyself; nay let thyself be locked up in a close prison, that thou canst not see thyself, and do but feel thy pulse; let thy pulse be intermitted, or stupefied, that thou feel not that, & do but think, and a worm, a weed, thy self, thy pulse, thy thought, are all testimonies, that All, this All and all the parts thereof, are opus, a work made, and opus ejus, his work, made by God. He that made a Clock or an Organ, will be sure to engrave his Me fecit, such a man made me; he that builds a fair house, takes it ill, if a passenger will not ask, whose house is it; he that bred up his Son to a capacity of noble employments, looks that the world should say, he had a wise and an honourable Father; Can any man look upon the frame of this world, and not say, there is a powerful, upon the administration of this world, and not say, there is a wise and a just hand over it? Thus is the object, 'tis but Illud, the world; but such a world, as may well justify Saint Hieromes translation, who renders it Illum; not only that every man may see it, the work, the world; but may see him; God in that work. That's the object, Vid●re possunt. not only the work, but the workman, God in the work; and the means is, that man may see it; that is, by that spectacle, he may see God; what of God? how much of God? Is it his essence? D●●and. For that, the resolution of the School is sufficient; Nulla visio naturalis in terris; no man can see God in this world, and live, but no man can see God in the next world, and die, there visio is beatitudo, sight is salvation. Yet, Nulla visio corporalis in Coelis: These bodily eyes, even then, when they are glorified, shall not see the Essence of God: our mortal eyes do not see bodies here; they see no substance, they see only quantities, and dimensions; our glorified bodily eyes, shall see the glory shed out of God, but the very essence of God, those glorified bodily eyes shall not see: but the eyes of our soul, shall be so enlightened, as that they shall see God Sicuti est, even in his essence, which the best illumined & most sanctified men are very far from in this life. Now the sight of God in this text, is the knowledge of God, to see God, is but to know, that there is a God. And can man as a natural man, do that? See God so, as to know that there is a God? Can he do it? Nay can he choose but do it? The question hath divided the School; those two great, Boveriax so. 14. and well known families of the School, whom we call, Thomists, and Scotists: the first say, that this proposition, Deus est, is per se nota, evident in itself, and the others deny that. But yet they differ, but thus far, that Thomas thinks that it is so evident, that man cannot choose but know it, though he resist it; The other thinks, in itself, it is but so evident, as that a man may know it, if he employ his natural faculties, without going any farther; Viderunt. thus much, indeed, thus little, they differ. Now the holy Ghost is the God of Peace, and doth so far reconcile these two, in this text, as that first in our reading, it is, That man may see God; and that Scotus does not deny; but in the Original, in the Hebrew, it is Casu, and Casu is, viderunt: not, every man may, but every man hath seen God: Though it go not absolutely, so far, as Thomas, every man must, no man can choose but see God, yet it goes so far further than Scotus, (who ends in every man may) as that it says, every man hath seen God. So that our labour never lies in this, to prove to any man, that he may see God, but only to remember him that he hath seen God: not to make him believe that there is a God, but to make him see, that he does believe it. Quid habes, quod non accepisti? And hast thou received any thing and not seen, not known him that gave it? Who hath infused comfort into thee, into thy distresses? Thine own Moral constancy? Who infused that? Who hath imprinted terrors in thee? A damp in thine own heart? Who imprinted it? Swear to me now that thou believest not in God, and before midnight, thou wilt tell God, that thou dost; Miserable distemper! not to see God in the light, and see him in the dark: not to see him at noon, and see him fearfully at midnight: not to see, where we all see him, in the Congregation, and to see him with terror, in the Suburbs of despair, in the solitary chamber. Man may, Omnis home. says Scotus, man must, he cannot choose, says Thomas, man hath seen God, says the holy Ghost. Man, that is, every man; and that's our last branch in this first part. The inexcusableness goes over man, Rom. 1. 20. over all men: Because they would not see invisible things in visible, they are inexcusable, all. Death passed upon all men, for all have sinned. 5. 12. All sinners, all dead. Is God's right hand shorter than his left? his mercy shrunk, and his justice stretched? no certainly; certainly every man may see him. Man cannot hide himself from God; God does not hide himself from man: not from any man. Col-Adam, Omnis home; even in that low name, that lowest acceptation of man, as he is but derived from earth, as he is but earth, he may see God. We have divers names for man in Hebrew, at least four; This that makes him but earth, Adam, is the meanest, and yet Col-Adam, Every man may see God. David calls us to the contemplation of the heavens, 38. 31. Coeli enarrant, and job to the contemplation of the firmament, of the Pleyades, and Orion, and Arcturus, and the ordinances of heaven; but it is not only the Mathematician, that sees God, Demini terra, the earth is the Lords, and all that dwell therein; all, Psal. 107. 23. in all corners of the earth, may see him. David tells us, They that go down to the sea, in ships, they see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep: but it is not only the Mariner, Luk. 9 62. the discoverer, that discovers God: but he that puts his hand to the plough, and looks not back, may see God there. Let him be filius terra, the son of the earth, without noble extraction, without known place, of uncertain parents, (even Melchisedeck was so) Let him be filius percussionis, the son of affliction, a man that hath inward heavy sentences, and heavy executions of the law; Let him be filius mortis, Deut. 25. 2. the son of death (as Saul said to jonathan of David) a man designed to die; 1 Sam. 20. 31. nay let him be filius Belial, Deut. 13. 13. the son of iniquity, and of everlasting perdition, there is no lowness, no natural, no spiritual dejection so low, but that that low man may see God. Let him be filius terrae, the son of the earth, and of no body else, let him be Dominus terrae, Lord of the earth, busied upon the earth, and nothing else, let him be hospes terrae, a guest, a tenant, an inmate of the earth, half of him in the earth, and the rest no where else, this poor man, this worldly man, this dying man, may see God. To end this, you can place the sphere in no position, in no station, in which the earth can eclipse the Sun; you can place this clod of earth, man, in no ignorance, in no melancholy, in no oppression, in no sin, but that he may, but that he does see God. The Marigold opens to the Sun, though it have no tongue to say so, the Atheist does see God, though he have not grace to confess it. We have passed through our first part, 2 Part. and the three branches of that; The object, God in his works, and the faculty that apprehends, seeing, that is knowing, and the person endued with the faculty, every man, even Adam. In our second part, which is a tacit answer to a likely objection, (Is not God in the highest heaven, afar off? yes; but man may see afar off) we have the same three branches too, and yet not the same; the same object, God, but in another manifestation, then in his work, in glory; the same faculty, seeing, but with other manner of eyes, glorified eyes; the same person, man, but not man, as he is Adam, a mere natural and earthly man, but man, as he is Enosh, who by having tasted God's corrections, or by having considered the miseries of this world, is prepared for the joy and glory of the next. And in this part we will begin with the person, man; Man may behold it afar off. How different are the ways of God, Enosh. from the ways of man? the eyes of God from the eyes of man? and the ways, and eyes of a godly man, from the eyes, and ways of a man of this world? We look still upon high persons, and after high places, and from those heights, we think, we see far; but he that will see this object, must lie low; it is best discerned in the dark, in a heavy, and a calamitous fortune. The natural way is upward; I can better know a man upon the top of a steeple, then if he were half that depth in a well; but yet for higher objects, I can better see the stars of heaven, in the bottom of a well, then if I stood upon the highest steeple upon earth. If I twist a cable of infinite fathoms in length, if there be no ship to ride by it, nor anchor to hold by it, what use is there of it? If Manor thrust Manor, and title flow into title, and bags pour out into chests, if I have no anchor, (faith in Christ) if I have not a ship to carry to a haven, (a soul to save) what's my long cable to me? If I add number to number, a span, a mile long, if at the end of all that long line of numbers, there be nothing that notes, pounds, or crowns, or shillings, what's that long number, but so many millions of millions of nothing? If my span of life become a mile of life, my penny a pound, my pint a gallon, my acre a shear; yet if there be nothing of the next world at the end, so much peace of conscience, so much joy, so much glory, still all is but nothing multiplied, and that is still nothing at all. 'Tis the end that qualifies all; and what kind of man I shall be at my end, upon my deathbed, what trembling hands, and what lost legs, what deaf ears, and what gummy eyes, I shall have then, I know; and the nearer I come to that disposition, in my life, (the more mortified I am) the better I am disposed to see this object, future glory. God made the Sun, and Moon, and Stars, glorious lights for man to see by; but man's infirmity requires spectacles; and affliction does that office. God's meaning was, that by the sunshine of prosperity, and by the beams of honour, and temporal blessings, a man should see far into him; but I know not how he is come to need spectacles; scarce any man sees much in this matter, till affliction show it him. God made the balance even; riches may show God, and poverty may show God; let the two Testaments, the old and the new, be the balance, and so they are even; the blessedness of the old Testament runs all upon temporal blessings, and worldly riches; Blessed in the city, and in the field; blessed in the fruit of thy cattle, and of thy womb; In the new Testament utterly otherwise; Blessed are the poor, Blessed are they that mourn, Blessed are they that are persecuted, and reviled; but the blessedness of the old Testament, temporal blessings, are temporary, as the old Testament was; that's expired. The blessedness of the Gospel, is as the Gospel, everlasting: and therefore the low way is the best way; adversity will be the best way to see God by. I speak not of mere beggary, of having nothing; but of having less than we had; the loss of some of that possession, or honour, or wealth, or health, which we had, conduces more to this sight of God, than the additions of any of these. Extreme want may put a man out of his way to God, as far as abundance and superfluity; as we say in civil things, the mid men aise the Subsidy, not the great men, nor the beggars; so the middle men see farthest into God, and serve him best; not the abounding, Prov. 30. 8. not the wanting man. Solomon prays against both; against riches, and against poverty too; but yet not as though the danger were equal, if the words be well considered; the danger of his poverty is, lest he steal, and take the Name of God in vain; that is, forswear the theft; a great fault, two great faults; but these two amount not to that one, which arises out of abundance, Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Hierome. Who is the Lord? And that Proverb, that Solomon speaks of, Saint Hierome calls not, paupertatem, but mendicitatem; and that is often indeed, the mother and nurse of many enormous mischiefs. Bernard. Saint Bernard takes the word, poverty, in that place, but he multiplies it, Paupertates ne dederis, Give me not, O Lord, a double poverty; poverty indeed, and poverty in opinion; poverty, and a murmurning with my poverty; for that also is the mother, Phil. 4. 12. and nurse of many enormous mischiefs. Chrysost. I know how to abound, and how to want; It is the harder work, far abundantiam; abundance is a burden, want is but a weakness; and it is a greater torment, to be pressed under a great weight, then to lie bedrid. To end this, the person in our Text is Enosh, man; but not every man, as before, Adam; but that man upon whom God's hand hath been in the loss of something, that he had before. As the body of man is mellowed in the grave, and made fit for glory in the resurrection, so the mind of man by suffering is suppled; Adam is made Enosh; and he may see. The person is the same, Intuebitur. and yet changed; man, but another kind of man; The means of apprehending is the same, and yet changed too, seeing, but another kind of seeing. This man, thus disposed, thus matured, thus mellowed, thus suppled, thus entendered by Gods easy corrections, he whom God hath not left to himself, nor yet put him beyond himself, not fulfilled all, but yet not frustrated all his desires neither, laid his hand upon him, so as to keep him down from swelling up against him, but yet so too, as to keep him up, from sinking, or falling from him, that man, that Enosh may see the hand of God, and take God by the hand, and bid him welcome, and find a rich, and a sweet advantage in that correction; it is a seeing of God, not as before, in his works abroad, but in his working upon himself, at home. Such a man God strikes so, as that when he strikes, he strikes fire, and lights him a candle, to see his presence by; we do not find that job came to his Dominus dedit, to his confession, The Lord giveth, till he came to the Dominus abstulit; to the sense of Gods taking away, not to express his sense of God's blessings to him, till he felt his corrections upon him; and then they came together, Dominus dedit, and abstulit, The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Darkness is that, by which the holy Ghost himself hath chosen to express hell; hell is darkness; and the way to it, to hell, is Excacation in this life, blindness in our spiritual eyes. Eternal life hereafter is Visio Dei, the sight of God, and the way to that here, is to see God here: and the eyesalve for that is, to be crossed in our desires in this world, by the hand of God. When Christ presents things necessary for his service, he proposes them thus; this is his Inventary; Gold against poverty, white clothes against nakedness, Apo 3. 18. and collyrium, eyesalve to see by. Now for the two first he bids us buy them; buy-gold, buy clothes, that is, labour, endeavour to get thm; he does not say, buy the eyesalve, that is, affliction; no man is to thrust himself into unnecessary dangers, or persecutions, and call his indiscretion Martyrdom; It is to be presumed, that every man, how high or how abundant soever, hath eye salve enough, affliction and crosses enough, if he do apply them: and therefore Christ does not say, buy them; hunt after them, expose thyself to them; but he says only, Anoint thy eyes with them, I will give thee the physic, (crosses and calamities here) do thou apply them according to the nature of the medicine, and to the purpose of the physician, and by them thou shalt see God. Our translation carries this word no farther in this part of the Text, than the other in the former; There it was, every man may see; here it is, man, that is, this man may behold. But as we showed you, that the former was in the original Casu, viderunt, every man, (let him say what he will to the contrary) yet he hath seen God, so in this part, the word in the original, is jabbit, and that is videbit, in the future, he shall see, This sight of God is not in him, naturally, that we can be sure he hath seen him, but it is reserved to the future; let him be thus wrought upon by God's hand, and videbit, in the future, he shall see. Now, you remember what designs the future; he shall see; is a note of the future, and so is, he will see. This man, this Enosh, thus moulded, thus kneaded, by the hand of God, he shall see God, he shall (in a manner) whether he will or no, a holy, and a heavenly violence shall be offered him, it shall not be in the power of the world, the flesh or the devil, to blind him, he shall see God; and then he will see God, his will shall be inclined, and disposed to it, and every first beam of God's grace, every influence of the Spirit of God, shall open his eyes; God shall be so jealous of him, as that he shall see God, he shall be so watchful upon God, and his motions, as that he will see him. And more than see him; for jabbit, is Intuebitur, he will behold him, contemplate God, ruminate, meditate upon God. Man sees best in the light, but meditates best in the dark; for our sight of God, it is enough, that God gives the light of nature; to behold him so, as to fix upon him in meditation, God benights us, or eclipses us, or casts a cloud of medicinal afflictions, and wholesome corrections upon us. Naturally we dwell longer upon the consideration of God, when we see the Sun eclipsed, then when we see it rise, we pass by that as an ordinary thing; and so in our afflictions we stand, and look upon God, and we behold him. A man may see God, and forget that ever he saw him; Mat. 25. 44. When saw we thee hungry, or naked, or sick, or in prison, say those merciless men; they forgot; but Christ remembers that they did see him, but not behold him, see him, and look off, see him so as aggravated their sin, more than if they had never seen him. But that man, who through his own red glass, can see Christ, in that colour too, through his own miseries, can see Christ Jesus in his blood, that through the calumnies that have been put upon himself, can see the revile that were multiplied upon Christ, that in his own imprisonment, can see Christ in the grave, and in his own enlargement, Christ in his resurrection, this man, this Enosh, beholds God, and he beholds him é longinquo, which is another step in this branch, he sees him afar off. Now this seeing afar off, E longinqu●. is not a phrase of diminution, a circumstance of extenuation, as though it were less, to see God afar off, and more to see him nearer. This far off, is far from that; it is a power of seeing him so, as wheresoever I am, or wheresoever God is, I can see him at any distance. Being established in my foundation upon God, being built up by faith, in that notion of God, in which he hath manifested himself to me in his Son, being mounted, and raised by dwelling in his Church, being made like unto him, in suffering, as he suffered, I can see round about me, even to the Horizon, and beyond it, I can see both Hemispheres at once, God in this, and God in the next world too. I can see him, in the Zenith, in the highest point, and see how he works upon Pharaoh, on the Throne, and I can see him in the Nadir, in the lowest dejection, and see how he works upon joseph in the prison; I can see him in the East, see how mercifully he brought the Christian Religion amongst us, and see him in the West, see how justly he might remove that again, and leave us to our own inventions; I can see him in the South, in a warm, and in the North, in a frosty fortune: I can see him in all angles, in all postures; Abraham saw God coming to him, as he fate at the door of his Tent; 〈◊〉. 18. 1. and though (as the Text says there) God stood by him, (yet says the Text too) Abraham ran to meet God; I can see God in the visitation of his Spirit come to me; and when he is so, he is already in me; but I must run out to meet him; that is, labour to hold him there, and to advance that manifestation of himself in me. Abraham saw God coming; Moses saw God going, his glory passing by; he saw posteriora, Exod. 33. 23. his hinder parts; so I can see God in the memory of his blessings formerly conferred upon me; And Moses saw him too, in a burning bush, in thorns and fire: And had I no other light, but the fire of a pile of faggots, in that light I could see his light, I could see himself. Let me be the man of this Text, this Enosh, Lam. 3. 1. to say with jeremy, I am the man that hath seen affliction, by the rod of his wrath, Let me have had this third concoction, that as I am Adam, a man of earth, (wrought upon that wheel) and, as I am a Christian, a vessel in his house, a member of his Church (wrought upon that wheel) so let me be vir dolorum, a man of affliction, a vessel baked in that furnace, fitted by God's proportion, and dosis of his corrections, to make a right use of his corrections, and I can see God, E longinquo, afar off, I can see him writing down my name in the book of life, before I was borne, and I can see him giving his Angels, The Angel of the great Counsel, Christ Jesus himself, and his spirit, charge of my preservation, all the way, and of my transmigration upon my deathbed, and that is E longinquo, from before I was, to after I shall be no more. There remains a word more; Objection. 'Tis scarce well said; for there remains not a word more. There is not another word, and yet there is another branch in the Text. This man, (not every man, as before) this Enosh, (not every Adam as before) he sees not only as before, but he beholds afar off; and so far we are gone; but what beholds he afar off? That the Text tells us not. Before there was an illud, Every man may see that, ask what is that, and I can tell you, I have told you out of the coherence of the Text, It is God's works, manifesting himself even to the natural man. But this man, this Enosh, raised by his dejection, rectified by humiliation, may behold, what? here is no illud, no such word as that, no object limited, and therefore it is that which no eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor heart of man conceived, it is God in the glory, and assembly of his immortal Saints in heaven. How many times go we to Comedies, to Masques, to places of great and noble resort, nay even to Church only to see the company? If I had no other errand to heaven, but the communion of Saints, the fellowship of the faithful, Lo see that flock of Lambs, Innocent, unbaptized children, recompensed with the twice-baptized Martyrs, (baptised in water, and baptised in their own blood) and that middle sort, the children baptised in blood, and not in the water, that rescued Christ Jesus, by their death, under Herod; to see the Prophets and the Evangelists, and not know one from the other, by their writings, for they all write the same things (for prophecy is but antedated Gospel, and Gospel but postdated prophecy;) to see holy Matrons saved by the bearing, and bringing up of children, and holy Virgins, saved by restoring their bodies in the integrity, that they received them, sit all upon one seat; to see Princes, and Subjects crowned all with one crown, and rich and poor inherit one portion; to see this scene, this Court, this Church, this Catholic Church, not only Eastern and Western, but Militant and Triumphant Church, all in one room together, to see this Communion of Saints, this fellowship of the faithful, is worth all the pains, that that sight costs us in this world. But then to see the head of this Church, the Sun, that shed all these beams, the God of glory face to face, to see him sicuti est, as he is, to know him, at cognitus, as I am known, what dark, and inglorious fortune would I not pass thorough, to come to that light, and that glory? How then hath God doubled his mercies upon those persons to whom he hath afforded two great lights, a Sun to rule their day, honour and prosperity, and a Moon to rule their night, humiliation and adversity, to whom he hath given both Types, in themselves, to see this future glory by, that is, Titles and places of honour in this world, and spectacles in themselves to see this glory by afflictions, and crosses in this world. And therefore since God gives both these no where so plentifully, as in Courts the place of Honour, and the place of Crosses too, the place of rising and the place of falling too, you, you especially, who by having your station there, in the Court itself, are in the Court exemplified, and copied in your own noble house, you that have seen God characterized in his Types, in titles of greatness, you that have beheld God presented in his spectacle of Crosses and afflictions, the daily bread of Courts, Bless ye the Lord; praise him, and magnify him for ever, and declare the wondrous works that he hath done for the Sons of men; for certainly many woes, and invincible darkness attend those, to whom neither the hand of God in his works, nor the hand of God upon themselves, neither the greatness of this world, nor the cress' of this world, can manifest God; for what picture of God would they have, that will neither have him in great, nor little? SERMON XXXII. Preached to the Earl of Exeter, and his company, in his Chapel at Saint john's; 13. jun. 1624. APOC. 7. 9 After this, I beheld, and lo, a great Multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the Throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and Palms in their hands. WE shall have occasion by and by, to say something of the danger of Curiosity, and something of the danger of the broad way, in which, too many walk: we will not therefore fall into either of these faults, at first, we will not be over curious, nor we will not stray, nor cast ourselves into that broad, and boundless way, by entering into those various, and manifold senses, which Expositors have multiplied, in the handling of this place, and this part of this book; but we take the plainest way, and that in which, the best meet, and concur, that these words are spoken of the joys, and Glory, reserved for them, who overcome the fraud, and the fury, the allurements, and the violences of Antichrist; in whom, in that name, and person of Antichrist, we consider all supplanters, and all seducers, all opposers of the kingdom of Christ, in us; for, as every man hath spontaneum daemonem, (as S. chrysostom speaks) a devil of his own making, (which is, some customary, and habitual sin in him) so every man hath spontaneum Antichristum, an Antichrist of his own making, some objections in the weakness of his faith, some oppositions in the perverseness of his manners, against the kingdom of Christ in himself; & as, if God would suspend the devil, or slumber the devil a day, I am afraid we should be as ill that day, as if the devil were awake, and in action, so if those disputed, & problematical Antichrists, Eastern & Western Antichrist, Antichrist of Rome, and Antichrist of Constantinople, Turk and Pope, were removed out of the world, we should not for all that be delivered of Antichrist, that is, of that opposition to the kingdom of Christ, which is in our selus. This part of the book of the Revelation, is literally, and primarily, the glorious victory of them, who, in the later end of the world, having stood out the persecutions of the Antichrist, enter into the triumph of heaven: And it extends itself to all, by way of fair accommodation, who after a battle with their own Antichrists, and victory over their own enemies, are also made partakers of those triumphs, those joys, those glories, of which S. john, in this prophetical glass, in this perspective of visions, saw A great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations etc. We are then upon the contemplation of the joys of heaven, Divisio: which are everlasting, & must we wring them into the discourse of an hour? of the glory of heaven which is entire, and must we divide it into parts? we must; we will; we do; into two parts; first, the number, the great number of those that shall be saved; And then, the glorious qualities, which shall be imprinted on them, who are saved: first, that salvation is a more extensive thing, & more communicable, then sullen cloystrall, that have walled salvation in a monastery, or in an ermitage, take it to be; or then the over-valuers of their own purity, and righteousness, which have determined salvation in themselves, take it to be; for, It is a great multitude, which no man can number, of all nations etc. And then, in the second place, salvation is the possession of such endowments, as naturally invite all, to the prosecution of that, which is exposed and offered to all; that we all labour here, that we may all stand hereafter, before the Throne, and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes etc. In the first of these, we shall pass by these steps; first, we shall consider the sociableness, the communicablenesse of God himself, who gives us the earth, and offers us heaven, and desires to have his kingdom well peopled; he would have many, he would have all, he would have every one of them have all. And then, the first word of the text, (After this) will carry us to the consideration of that which was done before; which was, first, that they which were of this number, were sealed, and then they which were so sealed before, were a great number, one hundred forty four thousand; but they who were made partakers of all this after, were innumerable, After this I beheld a great multitude, which no man could number; And therefore we shall shut up that first part with this consideration, what sense, what interpretation may belong unto those places, where Christ says, that the way to heaven is narrow, and the gate strait: of these pieces we shall make up our first part; And for the particulars belonging to the second, we shall fitliest open them, then, when we come to the handling of them. Our first step then in this first part, 1 Part. is, the sociableness, the communicablenesse of God; He loves holy meetings, he loves the communion of Saints, the household of the faithful: Deliciae ejus, says Solomon, his delight is to be with the Sons of men, and that the Sons of men should be with him: Religion is not a melancholy; the spirit of God is not a damp; the Church is not a grave: it is a fold, it is an Ark, it is a net, it is a city, it is a kingdom, not only a house, but a house that hath many mansions in it: still it is a plural thing, consisting of many: and very good grammarians amongst the Hebrews, have thought, and said, that that name, by which God notifies himself to the world, in the very beginning of Genesis, which is Elohim, as it is a plural word there, so it hath no singular: they say we cannot name God, but plurally: so sociable, so communicable, so extensive, so derivative of himself, is God, and so manifold are the beams, and the emanations that flow out from him. It is a garden worthy of your walking in it: Come into it, Deus unus. but by the gate of nature: The natural man had much to do, to conceive God: a God that should be but one God: and therefore scattered his thoughts upon a multiplicity of Gods: and he found it, (as he thought) reasonable, to think, that there should be a God of justice, a God of Wisdom, a God of Power, and so made the several Attributes of God, several Gods, and thought that one God might have enough to do, with the matters of justice, another with the causes that belonged to power, and so also, with the courts of Wisdom: the natural man, as he cannot conceive a vacuity, that any thing should be empty, so he cannot conceive that any one thing, though that be a God, should fill all things: and therefore strays upon a pluralty of Gods, upon many Gods, though, in truth, (as Athanasius expresses it) ex multitudine numinum, nullitas numinum, he that constitutes many Gods destroys all God; for no God can be God, if he be not all-sufficient; yet naturally, (I mean in such nature, as our nature is) a man does not easily conceive God to be alone, to be but one; he thinks there should be company in the Godhead. Bring it farther than so. 3 Personae. A man that lies in the dregs of obscured, and vitiated nature, does not easily discern, unicum Deum, a God that should be alone, a God that should be but one God. Reason rectified, (rectified by the word of God) can discern this, this one God. But when by that means of the Scripture, he does apprehend Deum unicum, one God; does he find that God alone? are there not three Persons, though there be but one God? 'Tis true the Romans mistake infinitely, in making 300 jupiters'; Varro mistake infinitely, in making, Deos terrestres, and Deos c●les●es, sub-lunary, and super-lunary, heavenly, and earthly Gods, and Deus marinos, and fluviatiles, Sea Gods, and River Gods, salt, and freshwater Gods, and Deos mares, and faeminas, he Gods, and she Gods, and (that he might be sure to take in all) Deos certos & incertos, Gods, which they were sure were Gods, & Gods which might be Gods, for any thing they knew to the contrary. There is but one God; but yet was that one God ever alone? There were more generations (infinitely infinite) before the world was made, then there have been minutes, since it was made: all that while; there were no creasures; but yet was God alone, any one minute of all this? was there not always a Father and a Son, & a holy Ghost? And had not they, always an acquiescence in one another, an exercise of Affection, (as we may so say) a love, a delight, and a complacency towards one another? So, as that the Father could not be without the Son and the holy Ghost, so as neither Son, nor holy Ghost could be without the Father, nor without one another; God was from all eternity collected into one God, yet from all eternity he derived himself into three persons: God could not be so alone, but that there have been three persons, as long as there hath been one God. Had God company enough of himself; Creatio. was he satisfied in the three Persons? We see he proceeded further; he came to a Creation; And as soon as he had made light, (which was his first Creature) he took a pleasure in it; he said it was good; he was glad of it; glad of the Sea, glad of the Earth, glad of the Sun, and Moon, and Stars, and he said of every one, It is good; But when he had made All, peopled the whole world, brought all creatures together, than he was very glad, and then he said, not only, that it was good, but that it was very good: God was so far from being alone, as that he found not the fullness of being well, till all was made, till all Creatures met together, in an Host, as Moses calls it, than the good was extended into very good. Did God satisfy himself with this visible and discernible world; Angeli. with all on earth, and all between that, and him? were those four Monarchies, the four Elements, and all the subjects of those four Monarchies, (if all the four Elements have Creatures) company enough for God? was that Heptarchy, the seven kingdoms of the seven Planets, conversation enough for him? Let every Star in the firmament, be (so some take them to be) a several world, was all this enough? we see, God drew persons nearer to him, than Sun, or Moon, or Stars, or any thing, which is visible, and discernible to us, he created Angels; How many, how great? Arithmetic lacks numbers to to express them, proportion lacks Dimensions to figure them; so far was God from being alone. And yet God had not shed himself far enough; he had the Leviathan, Homines. the Whale in the Sea, and Behemoth and the Elephant upon the land; and all these great heavenly bodies in the way, and Angels in their infinite numbers, and manifold offices, in heaven; But, because Angels, could not propagate, nor make more Angels, he enlarged his love, in making man, that so he might enjoy all natures at once, and have the nature of Angels, and the nature of earthly Creatures, in one Person. God would not be without man, nor he would not come single, not alone to the making of man; but it is Faciamas hominem, Let us, us, make man; God, in his whole counsel, in his whole College, in his whole society, in the whole Trinity, makes man, in whom the whole nature of all the world should meet. And still our large, and our Communicable God, Christus. affected this association so, as that having three Persons in himself, and having Creatures of divers natures, and having collected all natures in man, who consisted of a spiritual nature, as well as a bodily, he would have one liker himself, than man was; And therefore he made Christ, God and Man, in one person, Creature and Creator together; One greater than the Seraphim, and yet less than a worm; Sovereign to all nature, and yet subject to natural infirmities; Lord of life, life, itself, and yet prisoner to Death; Before, and beyond all measures of Time, & Born at so many months, yet Circumcised at so many days, Crucified at so many years, Rose again at so many Hours; How sure did God make himself of a companion in Christ, who united himself, in his godhead, so inseparably to him, as that that godhead left not that body, then when it lay dead in the grave, but stayed with it then, as closely, as when he wrought his greatest miracles. Beyond all this, Ecclesia. God having thus married soul and body in one man, and man and God, in one Christ, he maries this Christ to the Church. Now, consider this Church in the Type and figure of the Church, the Ark; in the Ark there were more of every sort of clean Creatures reserved, Gen. 7. 2. then of the unclean; seven of those, for two of these: why should we fear, but that in the Church, there are more reserved for salvation then for destruction? Act. 2. 3. And into that room (which was not a Type of the Church, but the very Church itself) in which they all met upon whitsunday, the holy Ghost came so as that they were enabled, by the gift of tongues, to convey, and propagate, and derive God, (as they did) to every nation under heaven: so much does God delight in man, so much does God desire to unite and associate man unto him; and then, what shall disappoint, or frustrate Gods desires and intentions so far, as that they should come to him, but singly, one by one, whom he calls, and woos, and draws by thousands, and by whole Congregations? Be pleased to carry your considerations, quam citò. upon another testimony of God's love to the society of man, which is, his dispatch in making this match, his speed in gathering and establishing this Church; for, forwardness is the best argument of love, and dilatory interruptions by the way, argue no great desire to the end; disguises before, are shrewd prophecies of jealousies after: But God made haste to the consummation of this Marriage, 1. 6. between Christ and the Church. Such words as those to the Colosrians, (and such words, that is, words to such purpose, there are divers) The Gospel is come unto you, as it is into all the world; 13. And again; It bringeth forth fruit, as it doth in you also; And so likewise, The Gospel which is preached to every creature which is under heaven; such words, I say, a very great part of the Ancients have taken so literally, as thereupon to conclude, That in the life of the Apostles themselves, the Gospel was preached, and the Church established over all the world. Now will you consider also, who did this, what persons? cunning and crafty persons are not the best instruments in great businesses, Quae Instrumenta. if those businesses be good, as well as great. Here God employed such persons, as would not have persuaded a man, that grass was green, that blood was red, if it had been denied unto them: Persons that could not have bound up your understanding, with a Syllogism, nor have entendered, or mollified it with a verse: Persons that had nothing but that which God himself calls the foolishness of preaching, to bring Philosophers that argued, Heretics that wrangled, Lucian's, and julian's, men that whet their tongues, and men that whet their swords against God, to God. Unbend not this bow, Quae Doctrina. blacken not these holy thoughts, till you have considered, as well, as how soon, and by what persons, so to what Doctrine, God brought them. We ask but St. Augustins' question, Quis tantam multitudinem, ad legem, carni & sanguini centrariam, induceret, nisi Deus? Who but God himself, would have drawn the world to a Religion so contrary to flesh and blood? Take but one piece of the Christian Religion, but one article of our faith, in the same Father's mouth; Res incredibilis resurrectio; That this body should be eaten by fishes in the sea, and then those fishes eaten by other men, or that one man should be eaten by another man, and so become both one man, and then that for all this assimilation, and union, there should arise two men, at the resurrection, Res incredibilis, says he, this resurrection is an incredible thing, Sed magis incredibile, totum mundum credidisse rem tam incredibilem, That all the world should so soon believe a thing so incredible, is more incredible, than the thing itself. That any should believe any, is strange, but more that all such believe all, that appertains to Christianity. The Valentinians, and the Marcionites, pestilent Heretics, grew to a great number, Sed vix duo vel tres, de iisdem, eadem docebant, says Irenaeus, scarce any two or three amongst them, were of one opinion. The Acatians, the Eunomians, and the Macedonians, omnes Arium parentem agnoscunt, says the same Father, they all call themselves Arians, but they had as many opinions, not only as names, but as persons. And that one Sect of Mahomet, Irenaeus. was quickly divided, and subdivided into 70 sects. But so God loved the world, the society and company of good souls, ut quasi una Domus Mundus, the whole world was as one well governed house; similiter credunt quasi una anima, all believed the same things, as though they had all but one soul; Constanter praedicabant, quasi unum os, At the same hour there was a Sermon at jerusalem, and a Sermon at Rome, and both so like, for fundamental things, as if they had been preached out of one mouth. And as this Doctrine, Durat adbue. so incredible in reason, was thus soon, and by these persons, thus uniformly preached over all the world, so shall it, as it doth, continue to the world's end; which is another argument of God's love to our company, and of his loathness to lose us. All Heresies, and the very names of the Heretics, are so utterly perished in the world, as that if their memories were not preserved in those Fathers which have written against them, we could find their names no where. Irenaeus, about one hundred and eighty years after Christ, may reckon about twenty heresies: Tertullian, twenty or thirty years after him, perchance twenty seven; and Epiphanius, some a hundred and fifty after him, sixty; and fifty year after that, St. Augustine some ninety: yet after all these, (and but a very few years, after Augustine) Theodoret says, that in his time, there was no one man alive, that held any of those heresies: That all those heresies should rot, being upheld by the sword, and that only the Christian Religion should grow up, being mowed down by the sword, That one grain of Corn should be cast away, and many ears grow out of that, (as Leo makes the comparison) That one man should be executed, because he was a Christian, and all that saw him executed, and the Executioner himself, should thereupon become Christians, (a case that fell out more than once, in the primitive Church) That as the flood threw down the Courts of Princes, and lifted up the Ark of God, so the effusion of Christian blood, should destroy heresies, and advance Christianity itself; this is argument abundantly enough, that God had a love to man, and a desire to draw man to his society, and in great numbers to bring them to salvation. I will not dismiss you from this consideration, Reformatio. till you have brought it thus much nearer, as to remember a later testimony of God's love to our company, in the reformation of Religion; A miracle scarce less, than the first propagation thereof, in the primitive Church. In how few years, did God make the number of learned ●riters, the number of persons of all qualities, the number of Kings, in whose Dominions the reformed Religion was exercised, equal to the number of them, who adhered to the Roman Church? And yet, Tu ipse. thou must not depart from this contemplation, till thou have made thyself an argument of all this; till thou have concluded out of this, that God hath made love to thy soul, thy weak soul, thy sick, and foul, and sinful soul, That he hath written to thee, in all his Scriptures, sent Ambassage to thee, in all his preachers, presented thee, in all his temporal, and spiritual blessings, That he hath come to thee, even in actions of uncle annesse, in actions of unfaithfulness towards men, in actions of distrustfulness towards God, and hath checked thy conscience, and delivered thee from some sins, even then when thou wast ready to commit them, as all the rest, (That that God, who is but one in himself, is yet three persons, That those three, who were all-sufficient to themselves, would yet make more, make Angels, make man, make a Christ, make him a Spouse, a Church, and first propagate that, by so weak men, in so hard a doctrine, and in so short a space, over all the world, and then reform that Church again, so soon, to such a height) as these, I say, are to all the world, so be thou thy self, and Gods exceeding goodness to thee, an argument, That that God who hath showed himself so loath to lose thee, is certainly loath to lose any other soul; but as he communicates himself to us all here, so he would have us all partake of his joy, and glory hereafter; he that fills his Militant Church thus, would not have his Triumphant Church empty. So far we consider the accessiblenesse, Sigillati. the communicablenesse, the conversation of our good, and gracious God to us, in the general. There is a more special manner intimated, even in the first word of our Text, After this; After what? After he had seen the servants of God sealed; sealed: This seal seals the contract between God and Man: And then consider how general this seal is: First, God sealed us, in imprinting his Image in our souls, and in the powers thereof, at our creation; and so, every man hath this seal, and he hath it, as soon as he hath a soul: The wax, the matter, is in his conception; the seal, the form, is in his quickening, in his inanimation; as, in Adam, the wax was that red earth, which he was made of, the seal was that soul, that breath of life, which God breathed into him. Where the Organs of the body are so indisposed, as that this soul cannot exercise her faculties, in that man, (as in natural Idiots, or otherwise) there, there is a curtain drawn over this Image, but yet there this Image is, the Image of God, is in the most natural Idiot, as well as in the wisest of men: worldly men draw other pictures over this picture, other images over this image: The wanton man may paint beauty, the ambitious may paint honour, the covetous wealth, and so deface this image, but yet there this image is, and even in hell itself it will be, in him that goes down into hell: uri potest in gehenna, non exuri, says St. Bernard, The image of God may burn in hell, but as long as the soul remains, that image remains there too; And then, thou who wouldst not burn their picture, that loved thee, wilt thou betray the picture of the Maker, thy Saviour, thy Sanctifier, to the torments of hell? Amongst the manifold and perpetual interpretations of that article, He descended into hell, this is a new one, that thou sentest him to hell in thy soul: Christ had his Consummatum est, from the jews; he was able to say at last, All is finished, concerning them; shall he never have a Consummatum est from thee; never be at an end with thee? Never, if his Image must burn eternally in thy soul, when thou art dead, for everlasting generations. Thus than we were sealed; ● Christo. all sealed; all had his image in our creation, in the faculties of our souls: But then we were all sealed again, sealed in our very flesh, our mortal flesh, when the image of the invisible God, Christ jesus, the only Son of God, took our nature: for, as the Tyrant wished, that all mankind were but one body, that he might behead all mankind at a blow, so God took into his mercy, all mankind in one person: As entirely, as all mankind was in Adam, all mankind was in Christ; and as the seal of the Serpent is in all, by original sin, so the seal of God, Christ jesus, is on us all, by his assuming our nature. Christ Jesus took our souls, and our bodies, our whole nature; and as no Leper, no person, how infectiously soever he be diseased in his body, can say, surely Christ never took this body, this Leprosy, this pestilence, this rottenness, so no Leprous soul must say, Christ never took this pride, this adultery, this murder upon himself; he sealed us all in soul and body, when he took both, and though both dye, the soul in sin daily, the body, in sickness, perchance this day, yet he shall afford a resurrection to both, to the soul here, to the body hereafter, for his seal is upon both. These two seals than hath God set upon us all, In Baptism. his Image in our souls, at our making, his Image, that is his Son, upon our bodies and souls, in his incarnation; And both these seals he hath set upon us, then when neither we ourselves, nor any body else knew of it: He sets another seal upon us, when, though we know not of it, yet the world, the congregation does, in the Sacrament of Baptism, when the seal of his Cross, is a testimony, not that Christ was borne, (as the former seal was) but that also he died for us; there we receive that seal upon the forehead, that we should conform ourselves to him, who is so sealed to us. And after all these seals, he offers us another, C●●. 8. 6. and another seal, Set me as a seal upon thy heart, and as a seal upon thine arm, says Christ to all us, in the person of the spouse; in the Heart, by a constant faith, in the Arm, by a declaratory works; for then are we sealed, and delivered, and witnessed; that's our full evidence, then have we made sure our salvation, when the works of a holy life, do daily refresh the contract made with God there, at our Baptism, and testify to the Church, that we do carefully remember, what the Church promised in our behalf, at that time: for, otherwise beloved, without this seal upon the arm, that is, a steadfast proceeding in the works of a holy life, we may have received many of the other seals, and yet deface them all. Eph. 4. 30. Grieve not the holy Ghost, whereby you are sealed, unto the day of Redemption, says the Apostle: they were sealed, and yet might resist the Spirit, and grieve the Spirit, and quench the Spirit, if by a continual watchfulness over their particular actions, they did not refresh those seals (formerly received in their Creation, in Christ's incarnation, in their Baptism, and in their beginnings of faith) to themselves, and plead them to the Church, and to the world, by such a declaration of a holy life. But these seals being so many, and so univesall, that argues still, that which we especially seek to establish, that is, the Accessiblenesse, the communicablenesse, the sociableness, the affection, (shall I say) the Ambition, that God hath, to have us all. Now how is this extensiveness declared here, Ante. in our text? It is declared in the great number of those who were sealed, both before, and after; to the consideration of both which, we are invited, by this phrase, which begins the text, After this: for, before that john saw this, there were one hundred forty four thousand sealed; Is that then, (that one hundred forty four thousand) intended for a small number? If it had been so, it would rather have been said, of such a Tribe but twelve thousand, and but twelve thousand of such a Tribe; but God as expressing a joy, that there were so many, repeats his number of twelve thousand, twelve times over, of juda twelve thousand, of Levi twelve thousand, and twelve thousand of every Tribe. So that then, we may justly take this number of twelve and twelve thousand, for an indefinite, and uncertain number; and as Saint Augustine does, wheresoever he finds that number of twelve, (as the twelve Thrones, where the Saints shall judge the world, and divers such) we may take that number of twelve, and twelve, pro universitate salvandorum, that that number signifies, all those who shall be saved. If we should take the number to be a certain and exact number, so many, and no more, yet this number hath relation to the jews only; And of the jews, it is true, that there is so long a time of their exclusion, so few of them do come in, since Christ came into the world, as that we may, with Saint Augustine, 22. 17. interpret that place of Genesis, where Abraham's seed is compared both to the Stars of heaven, and to the dust of the earth, that the Stars of heaven signify those that shall be saved in heaven, and the dust of the earth, those that perish; and the dust of the earth may be more than the Stars of heaven; though (by the way) there are an infinite number of Stars more than we can distinguish, and so, by God's grace, there may be an infinite number of souls saved, more than those, of whose salvation, we discern the ways, and the means. Let us embrace the way which God hath given us, which is, the knowledge of his Son, Christ jesus: what other way God may take with others, how he wtought upon job, and Naaman, and such others as were not in the Covenant, let us not inquire too curiously, determine too peremptorily, pronounce too uncharitably: God be blessed, for his declaring his goodwill towards us, & his will be done his way upon others. Truly, even those places, which are ordinarily understood of the pa●city of the jews, that shall be saved, will receive a charitable interpretation, and extension. God says, 3. 17. in jeremy, I will take you, one out of a City, & two out of a family; yet he says, he will do this therefore, because he is married to them; so that this seems to be an act of his love; And therefore, I had rather take it, that God would take a particular care of them, one by one, 27. 12. then that he would take in but one and one: As it is in that place of Esay, In that day ye shall be gathered one by one, o ye children of Israel; that is, in the day of Christ, of his coming to and toward Judgement; Howsoever they come in but thinly yet, by the way, Rom. 11. 1. yet the Apostle pleads in their behalf thus, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. At this present, 5. says he, there is a Remnant; then when they had newly crucified Christ, God had a care of them. God hath given them the spirit of slumber, 8. says he also; it is but a slumber, not a death, not a dead sleep. Have they stumbled that they should fall? Fall utterly? God forbid. But says he, as concerning the Gospel, they are enemies, for your sakes; (that is, that room might be made for you the Gentiles) but, as touching election, they are beloved for their Father's sakes; that is, they have interest by an ancient title, which God will never disannul. And therefore a great part, of the ancient, and later men too, do interpret divers passages of Saint Paul, of a general salvation of the jews, that all shall be effectually wrought upon, to salvation, before the second coming of Christ. I end this, concerning the jews, with this note, that in all these Tribes, which yielded to this sealing, twelve thousand a piece, the Tribe of Dan is left out, it is not said, that any were sealed of the Tribe of Dan; many have enquired the reason, and satisfied themselves over easily with this, that because Antichrist was to come of that Tribe, that Tribe is forsaken. It is true, that very many of the Fathers, Irenaeus, Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory, (and more than these) have thought so, that Antichrist must be of that Tribe; but yet for all that profession, which they make in the Roman Church, Tostat. of adhering to the Fathers, one amongst them, says, Incertum, be the Fathers as clear, and as unanimous as they will in it, it is a very uncertain, a very disputable thing; and another says, fabulosum est, be the Fathers as earnest, as they will, it is but a poetical and a fabulous thing, Oleast. that Antichrist must come of the Tribe of Dan. But he that hath most of the works of Antichrist upon him, of any person in the world now, is thus far of the Tribe of Dan; Dan signifies judgement; And he will needs be the Judge of all faith, and of all actions too, and so severe a Judge, as to give an irrevocable Judgement of Damnation, upon all that agree not with them, in all points. Certainly this Tribe of Dan, that is, of such uncharitable Judges of all other men, that will afford no salvation to any but themselves, are in the greatest danger to be left out, at this general seal; nothing hinders our own salvation more, then to deny salvation, to all but ourselves. This then which was done before, Christiani. though it concern but the jews, was in a great number, and was a great argument, of God's sociable application of himself to man, but that which was after, was more, A great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations etc. God's mercy was not confined, nor determined upon the jews; Other sheep have I, which are not of this fold, says Christ, them also I must bring in: I must; it is expressed, not only as an act of his good will, but of that eternal decree, to which, he had, at the making thereof, submitted himself: I must bring them; who are they? Many shall come from the east, Mat. 8. 11. and from the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isacc, and jacob, in the kingdom of heaven; from the Eastern Church, and from the WesterN Church too, from the Greek Church, and from the Latin too, and, (by God's grace) from them that pray not in Latin too, from every Church, (so it be truly, and fundamentally a Church) Many shall come; How many? a multitude that no man can number: For, 23. 12● the new jerusalem, in the Revelation, (which is heaven) hath twelve gates, three to every corner of the world; so that no place can be a stranger, or lack access to it: Nay, it hath (says that Text) twelve foundations, Other foundation can no man lay, then that which is laid, Christ jesus: But that first foundation-stone being kept, though it be not hewed, nor laid alike in every place, though Christ be not preached, nor presented in the same manner, for outward Ceremonies, or for problematical opinions, yet the foundation may remain one, though it be, in such a sort, varied; and men may come in at any of the twelve gates, and rest upon any of the twelve foundations, for they are all gates, and foundations of one and the same jerusalem; and they that enter, are a multitude that no man can number. If then there be this sociable, Via angusta. this appliable nature in God, this large and open entrance for man, why does Christ call it a straight gate, and a narrow way? Not that it is straight in itself, Mat. 7. 13. but that we think it so, and, indeed, we make it so. Christ is the gate, and every wound of his admits the whole world. The Church is the gate; And in omnem terram, Psal. 119. 96. says David, she hath opened her mouth, and her voice is gone over all the world. His word is the gate; And, thy Commandment is exceeding broad, says David too; His word and his light reaches to all cases, and all distresses. Lata porta Diabolus; saith Saint chrysostom, The Devil is a broad gate; but he tells us how he came to be so, Mon magnitudine potestatis extensus, sed superbiae licentia dilatatus; not that God put such a power into his hands, at first, as that we might not have resisted him, but that he hath usurped upon us, and we have given way to his usurpations: so, says that Father, Angusta porta Christus, Christ is a narrow gate, but he tells us also wherein, and in what respect, Non parvitate potestatis exiguus, sed humilitatis ratione collectus; Christ is not a narrow gate, so as that the greatest man may not come in, but called narrow, because he fits himself to the least child, to the simplest soul, that will come in: not so straight, as that all may not enter, but so straight as that there can come in but one at once, for he that will not forsake Father and Mother, and wife, and children for him, cannot enter in. Therefore we call the Devil's way broad, because men walk in that, with all their equipage, all their sumpters, all their state, all their sins; and therefore we call Christ's way straight, because a man must strip himself of all inordinate affections, of all desires of ill getting, and of all possessions that are ill gotten. In a word, it is not straight to a man's self, but if a man will carry his sinful company, his sinful affections with him, and his sinful possessions, it is straight, for than he hath made himself a Camel, and to a Camel Heaven gate is as a needle's eye: But it is better coming into heaven with one eye, Mat. 18. 9 then into hell with two; Better coming into heaven without Master, or Mistress, Esac. 6●. 11. then into hell for over-humouring of either. There, The gates are not shut all day; says the Prophet, and, there is no night there; And here, if we shut the door, yet Christ stands at the door and knocks; Apoc. 3. Be but content to open thy door, be but content to let him open it, and he will enter, and be but thou content to enter into his, content to be led in by his preaching, content to be drawn in by his benefits, content to be forced in by his corrections, and he will open his: since thy God would have died for thee, if there had been no man born but thou, never imagine, that he who lets in multitudes, which no man can number, of all Nations, etc. would ever shut out thee, but labour to enter there; August. ubi non intrat inimicus, ubi non exit amicus, where never any that hates thee, shall get to thee, nor any that loves thee, part from thee. We have but ended our first part, 2 Part. The assurance which we have from God's manner of proceeding, that Religion is not a sullen, but a cheerful Philosophy, and salvation not cast into a corner, but displayed as the Sun, over all. That which we called at first, our second part, must not be a Part, admit it for a Conclusion; It is that, and beyond that; It is beyond our Conclusion, for it is our everlasting endowment in heaven: and if I had kept minutes enough for it, who should have given me words for it? I will but paraphrase the words of the Text, and so leave you in that, which, I hope, is your gallery to heaven, your own meditations: The words are, You shall stand before the Throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white Fobes, and palms in their hands. First, Stabunt. stabitis, you shall stand; which is not, that you shall not sit, for the Saints shall sit & judge the world; & they shall sit at the right hand of God● It is not, that you shall not sit, nor that you shall not lie, for you shall lie in Abraham bosom: But yet you shall stand, that is, you shall stand sure, you shall never fall, you shall stand, but yet you shall but stand, that is, remain in a continual disposition and readiness to serve God, and to minister to him. And therefore account no abundance, no height, no birth, no place here, to exempt you from standing and labouring in the service of God, since even your glorious state in heaven is but a station, but a standing in readiness to do his will, and not a posture of idleness: you shall stand, that is, stand sure, but you shall but stand, that is, still be bound to the service of God. Stabitis ante Thronum; Ante Thronum. you shall stand, and stand before the Throne; Here in the militant Church, you stand, but you stand in the porch, there, in the triumphant, you shall stand in Sancto sanctorum, in the Choir, and the Altar. Here you stand, but you stand upon Ice, perchance in high and therefore in slippery places; And at the judgement you shall stand, but stand at the bar; But when you stand before the Throne, you stand, (as it is also added in this place) before the Lamb: Ante Agnum. who having not opened his mouth, to save his own fleece, when he was in the shearers hand, nor to save his own life, when he was in the slaughterer's hand, will much less open his mouth to any repentant sinner's condemnation, or upbraid you with your former crucifyings of him, in this world, after he hath nailed those sins to that cross, to which those sins nailed him. You shall stand amicti stolis, Stolis. (for so it follows) covered with Robes, that is, covered all over: not with Adam's fragmentary rags of fig-leafes, nor with the halfe-garments of David's servants: Though you have often offered God halfe-confessions, and halfe-repentances, yet if you come at last, to stand before the Lamb, his fleece covers all; he shall not cover the sins of your youth, and leave the sins of your age open to his justice, nor cover your sinful actions, and leave your sinful words and thoughts open to justice, nor cover your own personal sins, and leave the sins of your Fathers before you, or the sins of others, whose sins your tentations produced and begot, open to justice; but as he hath enwrapped the whole world in one garment, the firmament, & so clothed that part of the earth, which is under our feet, as gloriously as this, which we live, and build upon: so those sins which we have hidden from the world, and from our own consciences, and utterly forgotten, either his grace shall enable us, to recollect, and to repent in particular, or (we having used that holy diligence, to examine our consciences so) he shall wrap up even those sins, which we have forgot, and cover all, with that garment of his own righteousness, which leaves no foulness, no nakedness open. You shall be covered with Robes, Albis. All over; and with white Robes; That as the Angels wondered at Christ coming into heaven, Esa. 93. 2. in his Ascension, Wherefore art thou red in thine Apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth the wine fat? They wondered how innocence itself should become red, so shall those Angels wonder at thy coming thither, and say, Wherefore art thou white in thine apparel? they shall wonder how sin itself shall be clothed in innocence. And in thy hand shall be a palm, which is the last of the endowments specified here. After the waters of bitterness, Palma. they came to seventy (to innumerable) palms; even the bitter waters were sweetened, with another wood cast in: The wood of the Cross of Christ Jesus, Exod. 15. 23. refreshes all tears, and sweetness all bitterness, even in this life: but after these bitter waters, which God shall wipe from all our eyes, we come, to the seventy, to the seventy thousand palms; infinite seals, infinite testimonies, infinite extensions, infinite durations of infinite glory: Go in, beloved, and raise your own contemplations, to a height worthy of this glory; and chide me for so lame an expressing of so perfect a state, and when the abundant spirit of God hath given you some measure, of conceiving that glory here, Almighty God give you, and me, and all, a real expressing of it, by making us actual possessors of that Kingdom, which his Son, our Saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us, with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. Amen. SERMON XXXIII. Preached at Denmark house, some few days before the body of King james, was removed from thence, to his burial, Apr. 26. 1625. CANT. 3. 11. Go forth ye Daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon, with the Crown, wherewith his mother crowned him, in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart. IN the Creation of man, in that one word, Faciamus, let Us make man, God gave such an intimation of the Trinity, as that we may well enlarge, and spread, and paraphrase that one word, so far, as to hear therein, a council of all the three Persons, agreeing in this gracious design upon Man, faciamus, let us make him; make and him, mend him, and make him sure: I, the Father, will make him by my power; if he should fall, Thou the Son shalt repair him, re-edify him, redeem him; if he should distrust, that this Redemption belonged not to him, Thou, the Holy Ghost, shalt apply to his particular soul, and conscience, this mercy of mine, and this merit of the Sons; and so let us make him. In our Text there is an intimation of another Trinity. The words are spoken but by one, but the persons in the text, Divisio. are Three; For first, The speaker, the Director of all, is the Church, the spouse of Christ, she says, Go forth ye daughters of Zion; And then the persons that are called up, are, as you see, The Daughters of Zion, the obedient children of the Church, that harken to her voice: And then lastly, the persons upon whom they are directed, is Solomon crowned, That is, Christ invested with the royal dignity of being Head of the Church; And in this, especially, is this appliable to the occasion of our present meeting (All our meetings now, are, to confess, to the glory of God, and the rectifying of our own consciences, and manners, the uncertainty of the prosperity, and the assuredness of the adversity of this world) That this Crown of solomon's in the text, will appear to be Christ's crown of Thorns, his Humiliation, his Passion; and so these words will dismiss us in this blessed consolation, That then we are nearest to our crown of Glory, when we are in tribulation in this world, and then enter into full possession of it, when we come to our dissolution and transmigration out of this world: And these three persons, The Church, that calls, The children that harken, and Christ in his Humiliation, to whom they are sent, will be the three parts, in which we shall determine this Exercise. First then, 1 Part. the person that directs us, is The Church; no man hath seen God, and lives; but no man lives till he have heard God; Ecclesia. for God spoke to him, in his Baptism, and called him by his name, then. Now, as it were a contempt in the King's house, for any servant to refuse any thing, except he might hear the King in person command it, when the King hath already so established the government of his house, as that his commandments are to be signified by his great Officers: so neither are we to look, that God should speak to us mouth to mouth, spirit to spirit, by Inspiration, by Revelation. for it is a large mercy, that he hath constituted an Office, and established a Church, in which we should hear him. When Christ was baptised by john, it is said by all those three Evangelists, that report that story, in particular circumstances, that there was a voice heard from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased: and it is not added in any of those three Evangelists, that that voice added, Hear him: for, after that Declaration, that he, who was visibly and personally come amongst them, was the Son of God, there was no reason to doubt of men's willingness to hear him, who went forth in person, to preach unto them, in this world; As long as he was to stay with them, it was not likely that they should need provocation, to hear him, therefore that was not added at his Baptism, and entrance into his personal ministry: But when Christ came to his Transfiguration, which was a manifestation of his glory, in the next world, and an intimation of the approaching of the time of his going away, to the possession of that glory, out of this world, there that voice from heaven says, Mat. 17. 5. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear him: When he was gone out of this world, men needed a more particular solicitation to hear him; for how, and where, and in whom should they hear him, when he was gone? In the Church, for the same testimony that God gave of Christ, to authorise and justify his preaching, hath Christ given of the Church, to justify her power: The holy Ghost fell upon Christ, at his Baptism, and the holy Ghost fell upon the Apostles, (who were the representative Church) at Whitsuntide: The holy Ghost tarried upon Christ then, and the holy Ghost shall tarry with the Church, usque ad consummationem, till the end of the world, And therefore, as we have that institution from Christ, Dic Ecclesiae, when men are refractory and perverse, to complain to the Church, so have they who are complained of to the Church, that institution from Christ also, Audi Ecclesiam, Harken to the voice of God, in the Church; and they have from him that commination, If you disobey them, you disobey God; in what fetters soever they bind you, you shall rise bound in those fetters; and, as he who is excommunicated in one Diocese, should not be received in another; so let no man presume of a better state, in the Triumphant Church, than he holds in the Militant, or hope for communion there, that despises excommunication here. That which the Scripture says, God says, (says St. Augustine) for the Scripture is his word; and that which the Church says, the Scriptures say, for she is their word, they speak in her; they authorise her, and she explicates them; The Spirit of God inanimates the Scriptures, and makes them his Scriptures, the Church actuates the Scriptures, and makes them our Scriptures: Nihil salubrius, says the same Father, There is not so wholesome a thing; no soul can live in so good an air, and in so good a diet, quam ut Rationem praecedat authoritas, Then still to submit a man's own particular reason, to the authority of the Church expressed in the Scriptures: For, certainly it is very truly (as it is very usefully) said by Calvin, Semper nimia morositas, est ambitiosa, A frowardness, and an aptness to quarrel at the proceedings of the Church, and to be delivered from the obligations, and constitutions of the Church, is ever accompanied with an ambitious pride, that they might enjoy a licentious liberty; It is not because the Church doth truly take too much power, but because they would be under none; it is an ambition, to have all government in their own hands, and to be absolute Emperors of themselves, that makes them refractory: But, if they will pretend to believe in God, they must believe in God so, as God hath manifested himself to them, they must believe in Christ; so if they will pretend to hear Christ, they must hear him there, where he hath promised to speak, they must hear him in the Church. The first reason then in this Trinity, 2 Part. the person that directs, is the Church; the Trumpet in which God sounds his judgements, and the Organ, in which he delivers his mercy; And then the persons of the second place, the persons to whom the Church speaks here, are Filiae Zion, The daughters of Zion, her own daughters. We are not called, Filii Ecclesiae, sons of the Church: The name of sons may imply more virility, more manhood, more sense of our own strength, then becomes them, who profess an obedience to the Church: Therefore, as by a name, importing more facility, more suppleness, more application, more tractableness, she calls her children, Daughters. But then, being a mother, and having the dignity of a Parent upon her, she does not proceed supplicatorily, she does not pray them, nor entreat them, she does not say, I would you would go forth, and I would you would look out, but it is Egredimini, & videte, imperatively, authoritatively, Do it, you must do it: So that she shows, what, in important and necessary cases, the power of the Church is, though her ordinary proceedings, by us, and our Ministry, be, To pray you, in Christ's stead, to be reconciled to God. In your baptism, your souls became daughters of the Church; and they must continue so, as long as they continue in you; you cannot divest your allegiance to the Church, though you would; no more than you can to the State, to whom you cannot say, ● will be no subject. A father may disinherit his son, upon reasons, but even that disinherited child cannot renounce his father. That Church which conceived thee, in the Covenant of God, made to Christians, and their seed, and brought thee forth in baptism, and brought thee up in catechising, and preaching, may yet, for thy misdemeanour to God in her; separate thee, à Mensa & Toro, from bed and board; from that sanctuary of the soul, the Communion Table, and from that Sanctuary of the body, Christian burial, and even that Christian burial gives a man a good rise, a good help, a good advantage, even at the last resurrection, to be laid down in expectation of the Resurrection, in holy ground, and in a place accustomed to God's presence, and to have been found worthy of that Communion of Saints, in the very body, is some earnest, and some kind of first-fruits, of the joyful resurrection, which we attend: God can call our dead bodies from the sea, and from the fire, and from the air, for every element is his; but consecrated ground is our element. And therefore you daughters of Zion, holy and religious souls, (for to them only this indulgent mother speaks here) harken ever to her voice; quarrel not your mother's honour, nor her discretion: Despise not her person, nor her apparel; Do not say, she is not the same woman, she was heretofore, nor that she is not so well dressed, as she was then; Dispute not her Doctrine, Despise not her Discipline; that as you sucked her breasts in your Baptism, & in the other Sacrament, when you entered, and whilst you stayed in this life, so you may lie in her bosom, when you go out of it. Hear her; & a good part of that, which you are to hear from her, is involved & enwrapped in that which we have proposed to you, for our third part, Go forth, & behold Solomon, etc. Here are two duties enjoined; at least two steps, 3 Part. two degrees; Egredimini, Go forth, and then, Videte, Behold, contemplate; And, after the duty, or wrapped in the duty, we have the Object, which we are to look upon, & in that, divers things to be considered; as we shall see in their order. Egredimini. First, when we are bid to Go forth, it is not to go so far, as out of that Church, in which God hath given us our station; for, as Moses says, That the word of God is not beyond Sea; so the Church of God, is not so beyond Sea, as that we must needs seek it there, either in a painted Church, on one side, or in a naked Church, on another; a Church in a Dropsy, overflown with Ceremonies, or a Church in a Consumption, for want of such Ceremonies, as the primitive Church found useful, and beneficial for the advancing of the glory of God, and the devotion of the Congregation. That which Christ says to the Church itself, the Church says to every soul in the Church: Go thy way forth, Cant. 1. 8. by the footsteps of the flock; Associate thyself to the true shepherd, and true sheep of Christ Jesus, and stray not towards Idolatrous Chapels, nor towards schismatical Conventicles, but go by the footsteps of the flock; there must be footsteps, some must have gone that way before, take heed of Opinions, that begin in thyself; and the whole flock must have gone that way, take heed of opinions vented by a few new men, which have not had the establishment of a Church. And truly the best way to discern footsteps, is daniel's way, daniel's way was to straw ashes, and so their footsteps that had been there, were easily discerned: Walk in thine own ashes, in the meditation of thine own death, or in the ashes of God's Saints, who are dead before thee, in the contemplation of their example, and thou wilt see some footsteps of the flock, some impressions, some directions, how they went, and how thou art to follow, to the heavenly Jerusalem. In conversing evermore, with them which tread upon Carpets, or upon Marbles, thou shalt see no footsteps, Carpets and Marbles receive no impressions; Amongst them that tread in ashes, in the ways of holy sorrow, and religious humiliation, thou shalt have the way best marked out unto thee. Go forth, that is, go farther than thyself, out of thyself; at least out of the love of thyself, for that is but a short, a giddy, a vertiginous walk how little a thing is the greatest man? If thou have many rooms in thyself, many capacities to contemplate thyself in, if thou walk over the consideration of thyself, as thou hast such a title of Honour, such an Office of Command, such an Inheritance, such a pedigree, such a posterity, such an Alliance, if this be not a short walk, yet it is a round walk, a giddy, a vertiginous proceeding. Get beyond thine own circle; consider thyself at thine end, at thy death, and then Egredere, Go further than that, Go forth and see what thou shalt be after thy death. Still that which we are to look upon, Videte. is especially ourselves, but it is ourselves, enlarged & extended into the next world; for till we see, what we shall be then, we are but unbiased. Wouldst thou say, thou knewest a man, because thou hadst seen him in his Cradle? no more canst thou be said, to have known thyself, because thou knowest the titles, and additions, which thou hast received in this world; for all those things which we have here, are but swaddling clouts, & all our motions, & preferments, from place, to place, are but the rocking of a cradle. The first thing that Christ says to his spouse in the Canticles, is, If thou know not thyself, 1. 8. (for so all the Ancients read it, and so the Original bears it) If thou know not thyself, O thou fairest of women; she might know, that she was the fairest of women, and yet not know herself; Thou mayst know, that thou art the happiest of men, in this world, and yet not know thyself. All this life is but a Preface, or but an Index and Repertory to the book of life; There, at that book begins thy study; To grow perfect in that book, to be daily conversant in that book, to find what be the marks of them, whose names are written in that book, and to find those marks, ingenuously, and in a rectified conscience, in thyself, To find that no murmuring at God's corrections, no disappointing of thy hopes, no interrupting of thy expectations, no frustrating of thy possibilities in the way, no impatience in sickness, and in the agony of death, can deface those marks, this is to go forth, and see thyself, beyond thyself, to see what thou shalt be in the next world. Now, we cannot see our own face, without a glass: and therefore in the old Temple, Exod. 38. 8. In, or about that laver of brass, where the water, for the uses of the Church was reserved, Moses appointed looking-glasses to be placed; that so, at the entering into the Temple, men might see themselves, and make use of that water, if they had contracted any foulness, in any part about them. Here, at your coming hither now, you have two glasses, wherein you may see yourselves from head to foot; One in the Text, your Head, Christ jesus, represented unto you, in the name and person of Solomon, Behold King Solomon crowned, etc. And another, under your feet, in the dissolution of this great Monarch, our Royal Master, now laid lower by death then any of us, his Subjects and servants. First then, behold yourselves in that first glass, Behold King Solomon; Solomon the son of David, Solomon. but not the Son of Bathsheba, but of a better mother, the most blessed Virgin Mary. For, Solomon, in this text, is not a proper Name, but an Appellative; a significative word: Solomon is pacificus, the Peacemaker, and our peace is made in, and by Christ Jesus: and he is that Solomon, whom we are called upon to see here. Now, as Saint Paul says, that he would know nothing but Christ, (that's his first abridgement) and then he would know nothing of Christ, but him crucified, (and that's the re-abridgement) so we seek no other glass, to see ourselves in, but Christ, nor any other thing in this glass, but his Humiliation. What need we? Even that, his lowest humiliation, his death, is expressed here, in three words of exaltation, It is a Crown, it is a Marriage, it is the gladness of heart: Behold King Solomon crowned, etc. The Crown, which we are called to see him crowned with, his mother put upon him; The Crown which his Father gave him, Corona. was that glory, wherewith he was glorified, with the Father, from all eternity, in his divine nature: And the Crown wherewith his Father crowned his Humane nature, was the glory given to that, in his Ascension. His Mother could give him no such Crown: she herself had no Crown, but that, which he gave her. The Crown that she gave him, was that substance, that he received from her, our flesh, our nature, our humanity; and this, Athanasius, and this, Saint Ambrose, calls the Crown, wherewith his Mother crowned him, in this text, his infirm, his humane nature. Or, the Corwn wherewith his Mother corwned him, was that Crown, to which, that infirm nature which he took from her, submitted him, which was his passion, his Crown of thorns; for so Tertullian, and divers others take this Crown of his, from her, to be his Crown of thorns: Woe to the Crown of pride, whose beauty is a fading flower, says the Prophet; Esa. 28. 1. But blessed be this Crown of Humiliation, whose flower cannot fade. Then was there truly a Rose amongst Thorns, when through his Crown of Thorns, you might see his title, jesus Nazarenus: for, in that very name Nazarenus, is involved the signification of a flower; the very word signifies a flower. Esay's flower in the Crown of pride fades, and is removed; This flower in the Crown of Thornes fades not, nor could be removed; for, for all the importunity of the Jews, Pilate would not suffer that title to be removed, or to be changed; still Nazarenus remained, and still a rose amongst thorns. You know the curse of the earth, Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee; It did so to our Solomon here, it brought forth thorns to Christ, Gen. 3. 18. and he made a Crown of those thorns, not only for himself, but for us too, Omnes aculei mortis, in Dominici Corporis tolerantia, ●btusi sunt, All the thorns of life and death, 〈◊〉 are broken, or blunted upon the head of our Solomon, and now, even our thorns, make up our Crown, our tribulation in life, our dissolution in death, conduce to our glory: Behold him crowned with his Mother's Crown, for even that brought him to his Father's Crown, his humiliation to exaltation, his passion to glory. Behold your Solomon, your Saviour again, Desponsatio. and you shall see another beam of Comfort, in your tribulations from his; for even this Humiliation of his, is called his Espousals, his marriage, Behold him crowned in the day of his Espousals. His Spouse is the Church, His marriage is the uniting of himself to this Spouse, in his becoming Head of the Church. The great City, the heavenly Jerusalem, is called The Bride, and The Lamb's wife, 21. 19 in the Revelation: And he is the Head of this body, the Bridegroom of this Bride, the Head of this Church, as he is The firstborn of the Dead; Death, that dissolves all ours, made up this marriage. His Death is his Marriage, and upon his Death flowed out from his side, those two Elements of the Church, water and blood; The Sacraments of Baptism, and of the Communion of himself. Behold then this Solomon crowned and married; both words of Exaltation, and Exultation, and both by Death and trust him for working the same effects upon thee; That thou (though by Death) shalt be crowned with a Crown of Glory, and married to him, in whose right and merit thou shalt have that Crown. And Behold him once again, Letitia. and you shall see not a beam, but a stream of comfort; for this day, which is the day of his death, he calls here The day of the gladness of his heart. Behold him crowned in the day of the gladness of his heart. The fullness, the compass, the two Hemispheres of Heaven, are often designed to us, in these two names, joy and Glory: If the Cross of Christ, the Death of Christ, present us both these, Heb. 2. 9 how near doth it bring, how fully doth it deliver Heaven itself to us in this life? And then we hear the Apostle say, We see jesus, for the suffering of Death, crowned with Honour and Glory: There is half Heaven got by Death, Glory. And then, 12, 2. for the joy that was set before him, he endured the Cross; There is the other half, joy; 1 Pet. 4. 16. All Heaven purchased by Death. And therefore, if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, saith the Apostle; but let him glorify God, In isto Nomine, as the vulgate read it; In that behalf, as we translate it. But, In isto Nomine, saith S. August: Let us glorify God, in that Name; Non solum in nomine Christiani, sed Chriani patientis, not only because he is a Christian in his Baptism, but a Christian in a second Baptism, a Baptism of blood; not only as he hath received Christ, in accepting his Institution, but because he hath conformed himself to Christ, in fulfilling his sufferings. And therefore, though we admit natural and humane sorrow, in the calamities which overtake us, and surround us in this life: (for as all glasses will gather drops and tears from external causes, Matth. 26. 38. Luc. 22. 44. jam. 1. 2. so this very glass which we look upon now, our Solomon in the Text, our Saviour, had those sadnesses of heart toward his Passion, and Agonies in his passion) yet count it all joy when you fall into tentations, saith the Apostle: All joy, that is, both the interest, and the principal, hath the earnest and the bargain; for if you can conceive joy in your tribulations in this world, how shall that joy be multiplied unto you, when no tribulation shall be mingled with it? There is not a better evidence, nor a more binding earnest of everlasting Joy in the next world, then to find joy of heart in the tribulations of this; fix thyself therefore upon this first glass, this Solomon, thy Saviour, Behold King Solomon crowned, etc. and by conforming thyself to his holy sadness, and humiliation, thou shalt also become like him, in his Joy, and Glory. But then the hand of God, Rex. hath not set up, but laid down another Glass, wherein thou mayst see thyself; a glass that reflects thyself, and nothing but thyself. Christ, who was the other glass, is like thee in every thing, but not absolutely, for sin is excepted; but in this glass presented now (The Body of our Royal, but dead Master and Sovereign) we cannot, we do not except sin. Not only the greatest man is subject to natural infirmities, (Christ himself was so) but the holiest man is subject to Original and Actual sin, as thou art, and so a ●it glass for thee, to see thyself in. jet shows a man his face, as well as Crystal; nay, a Crystal glass will not show a man his face, except it be steeled, except it be darkened on the backside: Christ as he was a pure Crystal glass, as he was God, had not been a glass for us, to have seen ourselves in, except he had been steeled, darkened with our humane nature; Neither was he ever so throughly darkened, as that he could present us wholly to ourselves, because he had no sin, without seeing of which we do not see ourselves. Those therefore that are like thee in all things, subject to humane infirmities, subject to sins, and yet are translated, and translated by Death, to everlasting joy, and Glory, are nearest and clearest glasses for thee, to see thyself in; and such is this glass, which God hath proposed to thee, in this house. And therefore, change the word of the Text, in a letter or two from Egredimini, to Ingredimini; never go forth to see, but Go in and see a Solomon crowned with his mother's crown, etc. And when you shall find that hand that had signed to one of you a Patent for Title, to another for Pension, to another for Pardon, to another for Dispensation, Dead: That hand that settled Possessions by his Seal, in the Keeper, and rectified Honours by the sword, in his Marshal, and distributed relief to the Poor, in his Almoner, and Health to the Diseased, by his immediate Touch, Dead: That Hand that balanced his own three Kingdoms so equally, as that none of them complained of one another, nor of him, and carried the Keys of all the Christian world, and locked up, and let out Armies in their due season, Dead; how poor, how faint, how pale, how momentany, how transitory, how empty, how frivolous, how Dead things, must you necessarily think Titles, and Possessions, and Favours, and all, when you see that Hand, which was the hand of Destiny, of Christian Destiny, of the Almighty God, lie dead? It was not so hard a hand when we touched it last, nor so cold a hand when we kissed it last: That hand which was wont to wipe all tears from all our eyes, doth now but press and squeeze us as so many sponges, filled one with one, another with another cause of tears. Tears that can have no other bank to bond them, but the declared and manifested will of God: For, till our tears flow to that Height, that they might be called a murmuring against the declared will of God, it is against our Allegiance, it is Disloyalty, to give our tears any stop, any termination, any measure. It was a great part of Annaes' praise, Lue. 2. 37. That she departed not from the Temple, day nor night; visit God's Temple often in the day, meet him in his own House, and depart not from his Temples, (The dead bodies of his Saints are his Temples still) even at midnight; at midnight remember them, who resolve into dust, and make them thy glasses to see thyself in. Look now especially upon him whom God hath presented to thee now, and with as much cheerfulness as ever thou heardst him say, Remember my Favours, or remember my Commandments; hear him say now with the wise man, Ecclus. 38. 22. Remember my judgement, for thine also shall be so; yesterday for me, and to day for thee; He doth not say to morrow, but to Day, for thee. Look upon him as a beam of that Sun, as an abridgement of that Solomon in the Text; for every Christian truly reconciled to God, and signed with his hand in the Absolution, and sealed with his blood in the Sacrament, (and this was his case) is a beam, and an abridgement of Christ himself. Behold him therefore Crowned with the Crown that his Mother gives him: His Mother, The Earth. In ancient times, when they used to reward Soldiers with particular kinds of Crowns, there was a great dignity in Corona graminea, in a Crown of Grass: That denoted a Conquest, or a Defence of that land. He that hath but Coronam Gramineam, a turf of grass in a Church yard, hath a Crown from his Mother, and even in that burial taketh seizure of the Resurrection, as by a turf of grass men give seizure of land. He is crowned in the day of his Marriage; for though it be a day of Divorce of us from him, and of Divorce of his body from his soul, yet neither of these Divorces break the Marriage: His soul is married to him that made it, and his body and soul shall meet again, and all we, both then in that Glory where we shall acknowledge, that there is no way to this Marriage, but this Divorce, nor to Life, but by Death. And lastly, he is Crowned in the day of the gladness of his heart: He leaveth that heart, which was accustomed to the half joys of the earth, in the earth; and he hath enlarged his heart to a greater capacity of Joy, and Glory, and God hath filled it according to that new capacity. And therefore, to end all with the Apostles words, 1 Thess. 4. 13. I would not have you to be ignorant, Brethren, concerning them, which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, as others that have no hope; for if ye believe that jesus died, and rose again, even so, them also, which sleep in him, will God bring with him. But when you have performed this Ingredimini, that you have gone in, and mourned upon him, and performed the Egredimini, you have gone forth, and laid his Sacred body, in Consecrated Dust, and come then to another Egredimini, to a going forth in many several ways: some to the service of their new Master, and some to the enjoying of their Fortunes conferred by their old; some to the raising of new Hopest ● some to the burying of old, and all; some to new, and busy endeavours in Court, some to contented retire in the Country; let none of us, go so far from him, or from one another, in any of our ways, but that all we that have served him, may meet once a day, the first time we see the Sun, in the ears of almighty God, with humble and hearty prayer, that he will be pleased to hasten that day, in which it shall be an addition, even to the joy of that place, as perfect as it is, and as infinite as it is, to see that face again, and to see those eyes open there, which we have seen closed here. Amen. SERMON XXXIIII. LUKE ●●●● Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. THe word of God is either the coeternal and coessential Son, our Saviour, which took flesh (Verbum Caro factum est) or it is the spirit of his mouth, by which we live, and not by bread only. And so, in a large acceptation, every truth is the word of God; for truth is uniform, and irrepugnant, and indivisible, as God Omne verum est omni vero consentiens. More strictly the word of God, is that which God hath uttered, either in writing, as twice in the Tables to Moses; or by ministry of Angels, or Prophets, in words; or by the unborn, in action, as in john Baptists exultation within his mother; or by newborn, from the mouths of babes and sucklings; or by things unreasonable, as in Balaams' Ass; or insensible, as in the whole book of such creatures, The heavens declare the glory of God, etc. But nothing is more properly the word of God to us, then that which God himself speaks in those Organs and Instruments, which himself hath assumed for his chiefest work, our redemption. For in creation God spoke, but in redemption he did; and more, he suffered. And of that kind are these words. God in his chosen manhood saith, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. These words shall be fitliest considered, like a goodly palace, if we rest a little, as in an outward Court, upon consideration of prayer in general; and then draw near the view of the Palace, in a second Court, considering this special prayer in general, as the face of the whole palace. Thirdly, we will pass thorough the chiefest rooms of the palace itself; and then insist upon four steps: 1. Of whom he begs, (Father) 2. What he asks, (forgive them.) 3. That he prays upon reason, (for.) 4. What the reason is, (they know not.) And lastly, as into the backside of all, we will cast the objections: as why only Luke remembers this prayer: and why this prayer, (as it seems by the punishment continuing upon the Jews to this day) was not obtained at God's hands. So therefore prayer is our first entry, Of Prayer. for when it is said, Ask and it shall be given, it is also said, Knock and it shall be opened, showing that by prayer our entrance is. And not the entry only, but the whole house: My house is the house of prayer. Of all the conduits and conveyances of God's graces to us, none hath been so little subject to cavillations, as this of prayer. The Sacraments have fallen into the hands of flatterers and robbers. Some have attributed too much to them, some detracted. Some have painted them, some have withdrawn their natural complexion. It hath been disputed, whether they be ● how many they be, what they be, and what they do. The preaching of the word hath been made a servant of ambitions, and a shop of many men's new-fangled wares. Almost every means between God and man, suffers some adulterating and disguises: But prayer lest: And it hath most ways and addresses. It may be mental, for we may think prayers. It may be vocal, for we may speak prayers. It may be actual, for we do prayers. For deeds have voice; the vices of Sodom did cry, and the Alms of Toby. And if it were proper for St. john, in the first of the Revelations to turn back to see a voice, it is more likely God will look down, to hear a work. So then to do the office of your vocation sincerely, is to pray. How much the favourites of Princes, and great personages labour, that they may be thought to have been in private conference with the Prince. And though they be forced to wait upon his purposes, and talk of what he will, how fain they would be thought to have solicited their own, or their Dependants business. With the Princes of Princes, this every man may do truly; and the sooner, the more beggar he is: for no man is heard here, but in form● pauperis. Here we may talk long, welcomely, of our own affairs, and be sure to speed. You cannot whisper so low alone in your Chamber, but he hears you, nor sing so loud in the Congregation, but he distinguishes you. He grudges not to be chidden and disputed with, by job. The Arrows of the Almighty are in me, and the venom thereof hath drunk up my spirit. Is my strength, the strength of stones, or is my flesh of brass, etc. Not to be directed and counselled by jonas: who was angry and said; Did not I say, when I was in my Country, thou wouldst deal thus? And when the Lord said, Dost thou well to be angry? He replied, I do well to be angry to the death. Nor almost to be threatened and neglected by Moses: Do this, or blot my name out of thy book. It is an Honour to be able to say to servants, Do this: But to say to God, Domine fac hoc, and prevail, is more; And yet more easy. God is replenishingly every where: but most contractedly, and workingly in the Temple. Since then every rectified man, is the temple of the Holy Ghost, when he prays; it is the Holy Ghost itself that prays; and what can be denied, where the Asker gives? He plays with us, as children, shows us pleasing things, that we might cry for them, and have them. Before we call, he answers, and when we speak, he hears: so Esay 65. 24. Physicians observe some symptoms so violent, that they must neglect the disease for a time, and labour to cure the accident; as burning fevers, in Dysenteries. So in the sinful consumption of the soul, a stupidity and indisposition to prayer, must first be cured. For, Ye lust, and have not, because ye ask net, Jam. 4. 2. The adulterous Mother of the three great brothers, Gratian, Lombard, and Comestor, being warned by her Confessor, to be sorry for her fact, said, she could not, because her fault had so much profited the Church. At least, said he, be sorry that thou canst not be sorry. So whosoever thou be, that canst not readily pray, at least pray, that thou mayst pray. For, as in bodily, so in spiritual diseases, it is a desperate state, to be speechless. It were unmannerliness to hold you longer in the Entry. One turn in the inner Court, Of this Prayer. of this special prayer in general, and so enter the Palace. This is not a prayer for his own ease, as that in his Agony seems. It hath none of those infirmities, which curious schismatics find in that. No suspicion of ignorance, as there, (If it be possible.) No tergiversation nor abandoning the noble work which he had begun, as there, (Let this cup pass.) It is not an exemplar, or form, for us to imitate precisely, (otherwise then in the Doctrine) as that Prayer, Mat. 6. which we call the Lords Prayer, not because he said it, for he could never say, forgive us our trespasses, but because he commanded us to say it. For though by Matthew, which saith, After this manner pray, we seem not bound to the words, yet Luke saith, When you pray, say, Our Father which art, etc. But this is a prayer of God, to God. Not as the Talmudists Jews feign God to pray to himself, Sit voluntas mea, ut misericordia mea superet iram meam; But as when foreign merchandise is mis-ported, the Prince may permit, or inhibit his Subjects to buy it, or not to buy it. Our blessed Saviour arriving in this world fraited with salvation, a thing which this world never had power to have without him, except in that short time, between man's Creation and fall, he by this prayer begs, that even to these despisers of it, it may be communicable, and that their ignorance of the value of it, may not deprive them of it. Teaching that by example here, which he gave in precept before, Mat. 5. 44. Pray for them which persecute you, that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore, Father. doing so now, he might well say, Father, forgive them, which is the first room in this glorious Palace. And in this contemplation, my unworthy soul, thou art presently in the presence. No passing of guards, nor ushers. No examination of thy degree or habit. The Prince is not asleep, nor private, nor weary of giving, nor refers to others. He puts thee not to prevail by Angels nor Archangels. But lest any thing might hinder thee, from coming into his presence, his presence comes into thee. And lest Majesty should dazzle thee, thou art to speak but to thy Father. Of which word, Abba, the root is, To will; from which root, the fruit also must be willingness, and propenseness to grant. God is the Father of Christ, by that mystical and eternal unexpressible generation, which never began nor ended. Of which incomprehensible mystery, Moses and the ancient Prophets spoke so little, and so indirectly, that till the dawning of the day of Christ, after Esdras time, those places seem not to be intended of the Trinity. Nay, a good while after Christ, they were but tenderly applied to that sense. And at this day, the most of the writers in the reformed Churches, considering that we need not such far fetched, and such forced helps, and withal, weighing how well the Jews of these times are provided with other expositions of those places, are very sparing in using them, but content themselves modestly herein, with the testimonies of the New Testament. Truly, this mystery is rather the object of faith then reason; and it is enough that we believe Christ to have ever been the Son of God, by such generation, and ourselves his sons by adoption. So that God is Father to all; but yet so, that though Christ say, john 10. My Father is greater than all, he adds, I and my Father are all one, to show his eternal interest: and john 20. He seems to put a difference, I go to my Father, and your Father, my God, and your God. The Roman stories have, that when Claudius saw it conduce to his ends, to get the tribuneship, of which he was incapable, because a Patrician, he suffered himself to be adopted. But against this Adoption, two exceptions were found; one, that he was adopted by a man of lower rank, a Plebeian; which was unnatural; and by a younger man than himself, which took away the presentation of a Father. But our Adoption is regular. For first, we are made the sons of the Most High, and of the ancient of days, there was no one word, by which he could so nobly have maintained his Dignity, kept his station, justified his cause, and withal expressed his humility and charity, as this, Father. They crucified him, for saying himself to be the Son of God. And in the midst of torment, he both professes the same still, and lets them see, that they have no other way of forgiveness, but that he is the Son of that Father. For no man cometh to the Father but by the Son. And at this voice (Father) O most blessed Saviour, Forgive them. thy Father, which is so fully thine, that for thy sake, he is ours too, which is so wholly thine, that he is thyself, which is all mercy, yet will not spare thee, all justice, yet will not destroy us. And that glorious Army of Angels, which hitherto by their own integrity maintained their first and pure condition, and by this work of thine, now near the Consummatum est, attend a confirmation, and infallibility of ever remaining so; And that faithful company of departed Saints, to whom thy merit must open a more inward and familiar room in thy Father's Kingdom, stand all attentive, to hear what thou wilt ask of this Father. And what shall they hear? what dost thou ask? Forgive them, forgive them? Must murderers be forgiven? Must the offended ask it? And must a Father grant it? And must he be solicited, and remembered by the name of Father to do it? Was not thy passion enough, but thou must have compassion? And is thy mercy so violent, that thou wilt have a fellow-feeling of their imminent afflictions, before they have any feeling? The Angels might expect a present employment for their destruction: the Saints might be out of fear, that they should be assumed or mingled in their fellowship. But thou wilt have them pardoned. And yet dost not out of thine own fullness pardon them, as thou didst the thief upon the Cross, because he did already confess thee; but thou tellest them, that they may be forgiven, but at thy request, and if they acknowledge their Advocate to be the Son of God. Father, forgive them. I that cannot revenge thy quarrel, cannot forgive them. I that could not be saved, but by their offence, cannot forgive them. And must a Father, Almighty, and well pleased in thee, forgive them? Thou art more charitable towards them, then by thy direction we may be to our selus. We must pray for our selus limitedly, forgive us, as we forgive. But thou wilt have their forgiveness illimited and unconditioned. Thou seemest not so much as to presume a repentance; which is so essential, and necessary in all transgressions, as where by man's fault the actions of God are diverted from his appointed ends, God himself is content to repent the doing of them. As he repented first the making of man, and then the making of a King. But God will have them within the arms of his general pardon. And we are all delivered from our Debts; for God hath given his word, his coessential word, for us all. And though, (as in other prodigal debts, the Interest exceed the Principal) our Actual sins exceed Original, yet God by giving his word for us, hath acquitted all. But the Affections of our Saviour are not inordinate, nor irregular. He hath a For, For. for his Prayer: Forgive them, for, etc. And where he hath not this For, as in his Prayer in his agony, he quickly interrupts the violence of his request, with a But, Father, let this cup pass; but not my will: In that form of Prayer which himself taught us, he hath appointed a for, on God's part, which is ever the same unchangeable: For thine is the Kingdom; Therefore supplications belong to thee: The power, Thou openest thy hand and fillest every living thing: The Glory, for thy Name is glorified in thy grants. But because on our part, the occasions are variable, he hath left our for, to our religious discretion. For, when it is said, James 4. You lust and have not, because you ask not; it followeth presently, You ask and miss, because you ask amiss. It is not a fit for, for every private man, to ask much means, for he would do much good. I must not pray, Lord put into my hands the strength of Christian Kings, for out of my zeal, I will employ thy benefits to thine advantage, thy Soldiers against thine enemies, and be a bank against that Deluge, wherewith thine enemy the Turk threatens to overflow thy people. I must not pray, Lord fill my heart with knowledge and understanding, for I would compose the Schisms in thy Church, and reduce thy garment to the first continual and seemlesse integrity; and redress the deafnesses and oppressions of Judges, and Officers. But he gave us a convenient scantling for our for'rs, who prayed, Give me enough, for I may else despair, give me not too much, for so I may presume. Of Schoolmen, some affirm Prayer to be an act of our will; for we would have that which we ask. Others, of our understanding; for by it we ascend to God, and better our knowledge, which is the proper aliment and food of our understanding; so, that is a perplexed case. But all agree, that it is an act of our Reason, and therefore must be reasonable. For only reasonable things can pray; for the beasts and Ravens, Psalm 147. 9 are not said to pray for food, but to cry. Two things are required to make a Prayer. 1. Pius affectus, which was not in the Devil's request, Matth. 8. 31. Let us go into the Swine; nor Job 1. 2. Stretch out thy hand, and touch all he hath; and, stretch out thy hand, and touch his bones; and therefore these were not Prayers. And it must be Rerum decentium: for our government in that point, this may inform us. Things absolutely good, as Remission of sins, we may absolutely beg: and, to escape things absolutely ill, as sin. But mean and indifferent things, qualified by the circumstances, we must ask conditionally and referringly to the givers will. For 2 Cor. 8. when Paul begged stimulum Carnis to be taken from him, it was not granted, but he had this answer, My grace is sufficient for thee. Let us now (not in curiosity, but for instruction) consider the reason: They know not. They know not what they do. First, if Ignorance excuse: And then, if they were ignorant. Ignorance. Hast thou, O God, filled all thy Scriptures, both of thy Recorders and Notaries, which have penned the History of thy love, to thy People; and of thy Secretaries the Prophets, admitted to the foreknowledge of thy purposes, and instructed in thy Cabinet; hast thou filled these with praises and persuasions of wisdom and knowledge, and must these persecutors be pardoned for their ignorance? Hast thou bid Esay to say, 27. 11. It is a people of no understanding, therefore he that made them, shall not have compassion of them. And Hosea 4. 6. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: and now dost thou say, Forgive them because they know not? Shall ignorance, which is often the cause of sin, often a sin itself, often the punishment of sin, and ever an infirmity and disease contracted by the first great sin, advantage them? Who can understand his faults, saith the man according to thy heart, Psalm 19 12. Lord cleanse me from my secret faults: He durst not make his ignorance the reason of his prayer, but prayed against ignorance. But thy Mercy is as the Sea: both before it was the Sea, for it overspreads the whole world; and since it was called into limits: for it is not the less infinite for that. And as by the Sea, the most remote and distant Nations enjoy one another, by traffic and commerce, East and West becoming neighbours: so by mercy, the most different things are united and reconciled; Sinners have Heaven; Traitors are in the Prince's bosom; and ignorant persons are in the spring of wisdom, being forgiven, not only though they be ignorant, but because they are ignorant. But all ignorance is not excusable; nor any less excusable, than not to know, what ignorance is not to be excused. Therefore, there is an ignorance which they call Nescientiam, a not knowing of things not appertaining to us. This we had had, though Adam had stood; and the Angels have it, for they know not the latter day, and therefore for this, we are not chargeable. They call the other privation, which if it proceed merely from our own sluggishness, in not searching the means made for our instruction, is ever inexcusable. If from God, who for his own just ends hath cast clouds over those lights which should guide us, it is often excusable. For 1 Tim. 1. 13. Paul saith, I was ablasphemer, and a persecutor, and an oppressor, but I was received to mercy, for I did it ignorantly, through unbelief. So, though we are all bound to believe, and therefore faults done by unbelief cannot escape the name and nature of sin, yet since belief is the immediate gift of God, faults done by unbelief, without malicious concurrences and circumstances, obtain mercy and pardon from that abundant fountain of grace, Christ Jesus. And therefore it was a just reason, Forgive them, for they know not. If they knew not, which is evident, both by this speech from truth itself, and by 2 Cor. 2. 8. Had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; and Acts 3. 17. I know that through ignorance ye did it. And though after so many powerful miracles, this ignorance were vincible, God having revealed enough to convert them, yet there seems to be enough on their parts, to make it a perplexed case, and to excuse, though not a malicious persecuting, yet a not consenting to his Doctrine. For they had a Law, Whosoever shall make himself the son of God, let him die: And they spoke out of their Laws, when they said, We have no other King but Caesar. There were therefore some among them reasonably, and zealously ignorant. And for those, the Son ever-welcome, and well-heard, begged of his Father, ever accessible, and exorable, a pardon ever ready and natural. We have now passed through all those rooms which we unlocked and opened at first. And now may that point, Why this prayer is remembered only by one Evangelist, and why by Luke, be modestly inquired: For we are all admitted and welcomed into the acquaintance of the Scriptures, upon such conditions as travellers are into other Countries: if we come as praisers and admirres of their Commodities and Government, not as spies into the mysteries of their State, nor searchers, nor calumniators of their weaknesses. For though the Scriptures, like a strong rectified State, be not endangered by such a curious malice of any, yet he which brings that, deserves no admittance. When those great Commissioners which are called the Septuagint, sent from Jerusalem, to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, had perfected their work, it was, and is an argument of Divine assistance, that writing severally, they differed not. The same may prove even to weak and faithless men, that the holy Ghost super-intended the four Evangelists, because they differ not; as they which have written their harmonies, make it evident: But to us, faith teacheth the other way. And we conclude not, because they agree, the holy Ghost directed; for heathen Writers and Malefactors in examinations do so; but because the holy Ghost directed, we know they agree, and differ not. For as an honest man, ever of the same thoughts, differs not from himself, though he do not ever say the same things, if he say not contraries; so the four Evangelists observe the uniformity and sameness of their guide, though all did not say all the same things, since none contradicts any. And as, when my soul, which enables all my limbs to their functions, disposes my legs to go, my whole body is truly said to go, because none stays behind; so when the holy Spirit, which had made himself as a common soul to their four souls, directed one of them to say any thing, all are well understood to have said it. And therefore when to that place in Matth. 27. 8. where that Evangelist citys the Prophet jeremy, for words spoken by Zachary, many medicines are applied by the Fathers; as, That many copies have no name, That jeremy might be binominous, and have both names, a thing frequent in the Bible, That it might be the error of a transcriber, That there was extant an Apocryph book of jeremy, in which these words were, and sometimes things of such books were vouched, as jannes' and jambres by Paul; St. Augustine insists upon, and teaches rather this, That it is more wonderful, that all the Prophets spoke by one Spirit, and so agreed, then if any one of them had spoken all those things; And therefore he adds, Singula sunt omnium, & omnia sunt singulorum, All say what any of them say; And in this sense most congruously is that of St. Hierome appliable, that the four Evangelists are Quadriga Divina, That as the four Chariot wheels, though they look to the four corners of the world, yet they move to one end and one way, so the Evangelists have both one scope, and one way. Yet not so precisely, but that they differ in words: For as their general intention, common to them all begat that consent, so a private reason peculiar to each of them, for the writing of their Histories at that time, made those diversities which seem to be for Matthew, after he had preached to the Jews, and was to be transplanted into another vineyard, the Gentiles, left them written in their own tongue, for permanency, which he had preached transitorily by word. Mark, when the Gospel fructified in the West, and the Church enlarged herself, and grew a great body, and therefore required more food out of Peter's Dictates, and by his approbation published his Evangile. Not an Epitome of Matthewes, as Saint Jerome (I know why) imagines, but a just and entire History of our blessed Saviour. And as Matthewes reason was to supply a want in the Eastern Church, Marks in the Western; so on the other side Luke's was to cut off an excess and superfluity: for then many had undertaken this Story, and dangerously inserted and mingled uncertainties and obnoxious improbabilities: and he was more curious and more particular than the rest, both because he was more learned, and because he was so individual a companion of the most learned Saint Paul, and did so much write Paul's words, that Eusebius thereupon mistaketh the words 2 Tim. 2. 1. Christ is raised according to my Gospel, to prove that Paul was author of this Gospel attributed to Luke. john the Minion of Christ upon earth, and survivor of the Apostles, (whose books rather seem fallen from Heaven, and writ with the hand which ingraved the stone Tables, than a man's work) because the heresies of Ebion and Cerinthus were rooted, who upon this true ground, then evident and fresh, that Christ had spoke many things which none of the other three Evangelists had Recorded, uttered many things as his, which he never spoke: john I say, more diligently than the rest handleth his Divinity, and his Sermons, things specially brought into question by them. So therefore all writ one thing, yet all have some things particular. And Luke most, for he writ last of three, and largeliest for himself, 1 Act. 1. saith, I have made the former Treatise of all that jesus began to do and teach, until the Day that he was taken up; which speech, lest the words in the last of john, If all were written which jesus did, the world could not contain the Books, should condemn, Ambrose and chrysostom interpret well out of the words themselves, Scripsit de omnibus, non omnia, He writ of all, but not all: for it must have the same limitation, which Paul giveth his words, who saith, Acts 20. in one verse, I have kept nothing back, but have showed you all the counsel of God; and in another, I kept back nothing that was profitable. It is another peculiar singularity of Luke's, that he addresseth his History to one man, Theophilus. For it is but weakly surmised, that he chose that name, for all lovers of God, because the interpretation of the word suffereth it, since he addeth most noble Theophilus. But the work doth not the less belong to the whole Church, for that, no more than his Master's Epistles do though they be directed to particulars. It is also a singularity in him to write upon that reason, because divers have written. In humane knowledge, to abridge or suck, and then suppress other Authors, is not ever honest nor profitable: We see after that vast enterprise of justinian, who distilled all the Law into one vessel, and made one Book of 2000 suppressing all the rest, Alciate wisheth he had let them alone, and thinketh the Doctors of our times, would better have drawn useful things from those volumes, than his Trebonian and Dorothee did. And Aristotle after, by the immense liberality of Alexander, he had engrossed all Authors, is said to have defaced all, that he might be in stead of all: And therefore, since they cannot rise against him, he imputes to them errors which they held not: vouches only such objections from them, as he is able to answer; and propounds all good things in his own name, which he ought to them. But in this History of Luke's, it is otherwise: He had no authority to suppress them, nor doth he reprehend or calumniate them, but writes the truth simply, and leaves it to outwear falsehood: and so it hath: Moses rod hath devoured the Conjurer's rods, and Luke's Story still retains the majesty of the maker, and theirs are not. Other singularities in Luke, of form or matter, I omit, and end with one like this in our Text. As in the apprehending of our blessed Saviour, all the Evangelists record, that Peter cut off Malchus ear, but only Luke remembers the healing of it again: (I think) because that act of curing, was most present and obvious to his consideration, who was a Physician: so he was therefore most apt, to remember this Prayer of Christ, which is the Physic and Balsamum of our Soul, and must be applied to us all, (for we do all Crucify him, and we know not what we do) And therefore Saint Hierome gave a right Character of him, in his Epistle to Paulinus, Fuit Medicus, & pariter omnia verba illius, Animae languentis sunt Medicinae, As he was a Physician, so all his words are Physic for a languishing soul. Now let us dispatch the last consideration, of the effect of this Prayer. Did Christ intend the forgiveness of the Jews, whose utter ruin God (that is, himself) had fore-decreed? And which he foresaw, and bewailed even then hanging upon the Cross? For those Divines which reverently forbear to interpret the words Lord, Lord, why hast thou forsaken me? of a suffering hell in his soul, or of a departing of the Father from him; (for joh. 16. it is, I am not alone, for the Father is with me) offer no exposition of those words more convenient, then that the foresight of the Jews imminent calamities, expressed and drew those words from him: In their Afflictions, were all kinds, and all degrees of Misery. So that as one writer of the Roman Story saith elegantly, He that considereth the Acts of Rome, considereth not the Acts of one People, but of Mankind: I may truly of the Jews Afflictions, he that knoweth them, is ignorant of nothing that this world can threaten. For to that which the present authority of the Romans inflicted upon them, our Schools have added upon their posterities; that they are ●laves to Christians, and their goods subject to spoil, if the Laws of the Princes where they live, did not out of indulgency defend them. Did he then ask, and was not heard? God forbid. A man is heard, when that is given which his will desired; and our will is ever understood to be a will rectified, and concurrent with God. This is Voluntas, a discoursed and examined will. That which is upon the first sight of the object, is Velleit as, a willingness, which we resist not, only because we thought not of it. And such a willingness had Christ, when suddenly he wished that the cup might pass: but quickly conformed his will to his Fathers. But in this Prayer his will was present, therefore fulfilled. Briefly then, in this Prayer he commended not all the Jews, for he knew the chief to sin knowingly, and so out of the reach of his reason, (for they know not.) Nor any, except they repented after: for it is not ignorance, but repentance, which deriveth to us the benefit of God's pardon. For he that sins of Ignorance, may be pardoned if he repent; but he that sins against his Conscience, and is thereby impenitible, cannot be pardoned. And this is all, which I will say of these words, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. O eternal God, look down from thy Throne to thy footstool: from thy blessed Company of Angels and Saints, to us, by our own faults made more wretched and contemptible, than the worms, which shall eat us, or the dust which we were, and shall be. O Lord, under the weight of thy justice we cannot stand. Nor had any other title to thy mercy, but the Name of Father, and that we have forfeited. That name of Sons of God, thou gavest to us, all at once in Adam; and he gave it away from us all by his sin. And thou hast given it again to every one of us, in our regeneration by Baptism, and we have lost it again by our transgressions. And yet thou was not weary of being merciful, but didst choose one of us, to be a fit and worthy ransom for us all; and by the death of thy Christ, our jesus, gavest us again the title and privilege of thy Sons; but with conditions, which though easy, we have broke, and with a yoke, which though light, and sweet, we have cast off. How shall we then dare to call thee Father? Or to beg that thou wilt make one trial more of us? These hearts are accustomed to rebellions, and hopeless. But, O God, create in us new hearts, hearts capable of the love and fear, due to a Father. And then we shall dare to say, Father, and to say, Father forgive us. Forgive us O Father, and all which are engaged, and accountable to thee for us: forgive our Parents, and those which undertook for us in Baptism. Forgive the civil Magistrate, and the Minister. Forgive them their negligences, and us our stubbornnesses. And give us the grace that we may ever sincerely say, both this Prayer of Example and Counsel, Forgive our enemies, and that other of Precept, Our Father which art in Heaven, etc. SERMON XXXV. Preached February 21. 1611. MATTHEW 21. 44. Whosoever shall fall on this stone, shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. ALmighty God made us for his glory, and his glory is not the glory of a Tyrant, to destroy us, but his glory is in our happiness. He put us in a fair way towards that happiness in nature, in our creation, that way would have brought us to heaven, but then we fell, and (if we consider ourselves only) irrecoverably. He put us after into another way, over thorny hedges and ploughed Lands, through the difficulties and encumbrances of all the Ceremonial Law; there was no way to heaven then, but that; after that, he brought us a cross way, by the Cross of Jesus Christ, and the application of his Gospel, and that is our way now. If we compare the way of nature, and our way, we went out of the way at the Town's end, as soon as we were in it, we were out of it. Adam died as soon as he lived, and fell as soon as he was set on foot; If we compare the way of the Law, and ours, the Jews and the Christians, their Synagogue was but as God's farm, Verse 33. our Church is as his dwelling house; to them locavit vineam, he let out his Vine to husbandmen, and then peregrè profectus, he went into a far Country, he promised a Messias, but deferred his coming a long time; but to us Dabitur Regnum, a Kingdom is given; the Vineyard is changed into a Kingdom, here is a good improvement, and the Lease into an absolute deed of gift, here is a good enlargement of the Term. He gives, therefore he will not take away again. He gives a Kingdom, therefore there is a fullness and all-sufficiency in the gift; and he does not go into any far Country, but stays with us, to govern us, usque ad consummationem, till the end of the world; here therefore God takes all into his own hands, and he comes to dwell upon us himself, to which purpose he ploughs up our hearts, 1. C●r. 3. 9 and he builds upon us; Vos Dei agricultura, & Dei aedificium, Ye are God's husbandry, and God's building: Now of this, this husbandry God speaks familiarly and parabolicaly many times in Scriptures: of this building particularly and principally in this place, where having intimated unto us the several benefits we have received from Christ Jesus in that appellation, as he is a stone; he tells us also our dangers in mis-behaving ourselves towards it, Whosoever shall fall on this etc. Christ then is a stone, and we may run into two dangers: first, we may fall upon this stone, and then this stone may fall upon us; but yet we have a great deal of comfort presented to us, in that Christ is presented to us as a stone, for there we shall find him, first, to be the foundation stone, nothing can stand which is not built upon Christ; Secondly, to be Lapis Angularis, a corner stone, that unites things most disunited; and then to be Lapis jacob, the stone that jacob slept upon; fourthly, to be Lapis Davidis, the stone that David flew Golih withal; And lastly, to be Lapis Petra, such a stone as is a Rock, and such a Rock as no Waters nor Storms can remove or shake, these are benefits: Christ Jesus is a stone, no firmness but in him; a fundamental stone, no building but on him; a corner stone, no piecing nor reconciliation, but in him; and Jacob's stone, no rest, no tranquillity, but in him; and David's stone, no anger, no revenge, but in him; and a rocky stone, no defence against troubles and tribulations, but in him; And upon this stone we fall and are broken, and this stone may fall on us, and grind us to powder. First in the metaphor, Lapis. that Christ is called a stone, the firmness is expressed: Forasmuch as he loved his own which were in the world, In finem dilexit eos, says St. john, He loved them to the end; and not to any particular end, joh. 13. for any use of this own, Cyrill. but to their end; Qui erant in mundo, says cyril, ad distinctionem Angelorum, he loved them in the world, and not Angels; he loved not only them who were in a confirmed estate of mutual loving him too, but even them who were themselves conceived in sin, and then conceived all their purposes in sin too, them who could have no cleansing but in his blood, and when they were cleansed in his blood, job 27. their own clothes would defile them again, them who by nature are not able to love him at all, and when by grace they are brought to love him, can express their love no other way, but to be glad that he was betrayed, and scourged, and scorned, and nailed, and crucified; and to be glad, that if all this were not already done, it might be done yet, to long, and wish, that if Christ were not crucified, he might be crucified now, (which is a strange manner of expressing love) those men he loved, and loved unto the end; Men and not Angels; and then men, Ad distinctionem mortuorum, says chrysostom, not only the Patriarches, who were departed out of the world, who had loved him so well, as to take his word for their salvation, and had lived and died in the faithful contemplation of a future promise, which they never saw performed; but those who were partakers of the performance of all those promises, those into the midst of whom he came in person, those upon whom he wrought with his piercing Doctrine, and his powerful miracles, those who for all this loved not him, he loved: Et in finem, he loved them to the end: It is much that he should love them in fine, at their end, that he should look graciously on them at last, that when their sun sets, their eyes faint, his sun of grace should arise, and his East be brought to their West, that then in the shadow of death, the Lord of life should quicken and inanimate their hearts: that when their last bell tolls, and calls them to their first Judgement, (and first and last Judgement to this purpose is all one) the passing bell, and Angels trump sound all but one note, Surgite qui dormitis in pulvere, Arise ye that sleep in the dust, which is the voice of the Angels, and Surgite qui vigilatis in plumis, Arise ye that cannot sleep in feathers, for the pangs of death, which is the voice of the bell, is but one voice; for God at the general Judgement, shall never reverse any particular Judgement, formerly given; that God should then come to the bed's side, ad sibilandum populum suum, as the Prophet Ezekiel speaks, to hiss softly for his child, to speak comfortably in his ear, to whisper gently to his departing soul, and to drown and overcome with this soft Music of his, all the danger of the Angels Trumpets, all the horror of the ringing Bell, all the cries, and vociferations of a distressed, and distracted, and scattering family, yea all the accusations of his own conscience, and all the triumphant acclamations of the Devil himself; that God should love a man thus in fine, at his end, and return to him then, though he had suffered him to go astray from him before, it is a great testimony of an unspeakable love: but his love is not only in fine, at the end, but in finem, to the end, all the way to the end. He leaves them not uncalled at first, he leaves them not unaccompanied in the way, he leaves them not unrecompensed at the last, that God who is Almighty, Alpha and Omega, first and last, that God is also love itself, and therefore this love is Alpha and Omega, first and last too; Consider Christ's proceeding with Peter in the ship, Matth. 14. 14. in the storm; first he suffered him to be in some danger, but then he visits him with that strong assurance, Noli timere, Be not afraid, it is I, any testimony of his presence rectifies all. This puts Peter into that spiritual knowledge and confidence, jube me venire, Lord bid me come to thee; he hath a desire to be with Christ, but yet stays his bidding; he puts not himself into an unnecessary danger, without a commandment; Christ bids him, and Peter comes, but yet, though Christ were in his sight, and even in the actual exercise of his love to him, yet as soon as he saw a gust, a storm, timuit, he was afraid, and Christ letteth him fear, and letteth him sink, and letteth him cry; But he directeth his fear, and his cry to the right end. Domine salvum me fac, Lord save me, and thereupon he stretcheth out his hand and saved him: God doth not raise his children to honour, and great estates, and then leave them, and expose them to be subjects, and exercises of the malice of others, nor he doth not make them mighty, and then leave them, ut glorietur in malo qui potens est, that he should think it a glory to be able to do harm. He doth not impoverish and dishonour his children, and then leave them; leave them unsensible of that Doctrine, that patience is as great a blessing as abundance: God giveth not his children health, and then leaveth them to a boldness in surfeiting; nor beauty, and leave them to a confidence of opening themselves to all solicitations; nor valour, and then leaveth them to a spirit of quarrelsomnesse: God maketh no patterns of his works, no models of his houses, he maketh whole pieces, he maketh perfect houses, he putteth his children into good ways, and he directeth and protecteth them in those ways: For this is the constancy and the perseverance of the love of Christ Jesus, as he is called in this Text a stone. To come to the particular benefits; Fundamentalis. 1 Cor. 3. the first is that he is lapis fundamentalis, a foundation stone; for other foundation can no man lay then that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. Now where Saint Augustine saith, (as he doth in two or three places) that this place of Saint Paul's to the Corinthians, is one of these places of which Saint Peter saith Quaedam difficilia, There are some things in Saint Paul hard to be understood: Saint Augustine's meaning is, that the difficulty is in the next words, how any man should build hay or stubble upon so good a foundation as Christ, how any man that pretendeth to live in Christ, should live ill, for in the other there can be no difficulty, how Christ Jesus to a Christian, should be the only foundation: And therefore to place salvation or damnation in such an absolute Decree of God, as should have no relation to the fall of man, or reparation in a Redeemer; this is to remove this stone out of the foundation, for a Christian may be well content to begin at Christ: If any man therefore have laid any other foundation to his Faith, or any other foundation to his Actions, possession of great places, alliance in great Families, strong parties in Courts, obligation upon dependants, acclamations of people; if he have laid any other foundations for pleasure, and contentment, care of health, and complexion, appliableness in conversation, delightfulness in discourses, cheerfulness in disporting, interchanging of secrets, and such other small wares of Courts and Cities as these are: whosoever hath laid such foundations as these, must proceed as that General did, who when he received a besieged Town to mercy, upon condition that in sign of subjection they should suffer him to take off one row of stones from their walls, he took away the lowest row, the foundation, and so ruined and demolished the whole walls of the City: So must he that hath these false foundations, (that is, these habits) divest the habit, root out the lowest stone, that is, the general, and radical inclination to these disorders: For he shall never be able to watch and resist every particular temptation, if he trust only to his Moral Constancy; No, nor if he place Christ for the roof to cover all his sins, when he hath done them; his mercy worketh by way of pardon after, not by way of Non obstante, and privilege to do a sin before hand; but before hand we must have the foundation in our eye; when we undertake any particular Action, in the beginning, we must look how that will suit with the foundation, with Christ; for there is his first place, to be Lapis fundamentalis. And then, Angularis. after we have considered him, first, in the foundation (as we are all Christians) he grows to be Lapis Angularis, the Corner stone, to unite those Christians, which seem to be of divers ways, divers aspects, divers professions together; as we consider him in the foundation, there he is the root of faith, As we consider him in the Corner, Esay 28. there he is the root of charity, In Esay he is both together, A sure foundation and a Corner stone, as he was in the place of Esay, Lapis probatus, I will lay in Zion a tried stone; 118. and in the Psalm, Lapis reprobatus, a stone that the builders refused, In this consideration, he is Lapis approbatus, a stone approved by all sides, that unites all things together: Consider first, what divers things he unites in his own person; That he should be the son of a woman, and yet no son of man, That the son of a woman should be the son of God, that man's sinful nature, and innocency should meet together, a man that should not sin, that God's nature and mortality should meet together, a God that must die; Briefly, that he should do and suffer so many things impossible as man, impossible as God. Thus he was a Corner stone, that brought together natures, naturally incompatible. Thus he was Lapis Angularis, a Corner stone in his Person, Consider him in his Offices, as a Redeemer, as a Mediator, and so, he hath united God to man; yea, rebellious man to jealous God: He is such a Corner stone, as hath united heaven, and earth, Jerusalem and Babylon together. Thus in his Person, and thus in his Offices, Consider him in his power, and he is such a Corner stone, as that he is the God of Peace, and Love, and Union, and Concord. Such a Corner stone as is able to unite, and reconcile (as it did in Abraham's house) a Wife, and a Concubine in one bed, a covetous Father, and a wasteful Son in one family, a severe Magistrate, and a licentious people in one City, an absolute Prince, and a jealous People in one Kingdom, Law, and Conscience in one Government, Scripture, and tradition in one Church. If we would but make Christ Jesus and his peace, the life and soul of all our actions, and all our purposes; if we would mingle that sweetness and suppleness which he loves, and which he is, in all our undertake; if in all controversies, book controversies, and sword controversies, we would fit them to him, and see how near they would meet in him, that is, how near we might come to be friends, and yet both sides be good Christians; then we placed this stone in his second right place, who as he is a Corner stone reconciling God and man in his own Person, and a Corner stone in reconciling God and mankind in his Office, so he desires to be a Corner stone in reconciling man and man, and settling peace among ourselves, not for worldly ends, but for this respect, that we might all meet in him to love one another, not because we made a stronger party by that love, not because we made a sweeter conversation by that love, but because we met closer in the bosom of Christ Jesus; where we must at last either rest altogether eternally, or be altogether eternally thrown out, or be eternally separated and divorced from one another. Having then received Christ for the foundation stone, Lapis jacob. (we believe aright) and for the Corner stone (we interpret charitably the opinions, and actions of other men) The next is, that he be Lapis jacob, a stone of rest and security to ourselves. When jacob was in his journey, he took a stone, and that stone was his pillow, Gen. 28. upon that he slept all night, etc. resting upon that stone, he saw the Ladder that reached from heaven to earth; it is much to have this egress and regress to God, to have a sense of being gone from him, and a desire and means of returning to him; when we do fall into particular sins, it is well if we can take hold of the first step of this Ladder, with that hand of David, Psal. 47. 20. Domine respice in Testamentum, O Lord, consider thy Covenant, if we can remember God of his Covenant, to his people, and to their seed, it is well; it is more, if we can clamber a step higher on this ladder to a Domine labia mea aperies, if we come to open our lips in a true confession of our wretched condition and of those sins by which we have forfeited our interest in that Covenant, it is more; and more than that too, Esay 16. 9 if we come to that inebriabo me lacrymis, if we overflow and make ourselves drunk with tears, in a true sense, and sorrow for those sins, still it is more; And more than all this, if we can expostulate with God in an Vsque quo Domine, How long, Psal. 13. 2. O Lord, shall I take counsel in myself, having weariness in my heart? These steps, these gradations towards God, do well; war is a degree of peace, as it is the way of peace; and these colluctations and wrestle with God, bring a man to peace with him; But than is a man upon this stone of jacob, when in a fair, and even, and constant religious course of life, he enters into his sheets every night, as though his neighbours next day were to shroud and wind him in those sheets; he shuts up his eyes every night, as though his Executors had closed them; and lies down every night, not as though his man were to call him up next morning, or to the next day's sport, or business, but as though the Angels were to call him to the resurrection; And this is our third benefit, as Christ is a stone, we have security and peace of conscience in him. The next is, Lapis David. That he is Lapis David, the stone with which David slew Goliath, and with which we may overcome all our enemies; Sicut baculus crucis, ita lapis Christi habuit typum; david's sling was a type of the Cross, August. and the stone was a type of Christ, we will choose to insist upon spiritual enemies, sins; And this is that stone that enables the weakest man to overthrow the strongest sin, if he proceed as David did: David says to Goliath, Thou comest to me with a spear and a shield, but I come to thee in the name of the God of the hosts of Israel, whom thou hast railed upon,) 1 Sam 14. 15. if thou watch the approach of any sin, any giant sin that transports thee most; if thou apprehend it to rail against the Lord of Hosts, (that is, that there is a loud and active blasphemy against God, in every sin) if thou discern it to come with a sword, or a spear, (that is, persuasions of advancement if thou do it, or threatings of dishonour, if thou do it not,) if it come with a shield, (that is, with promises to cover and palliate it, though thou do it,) If then this David, Gregory. (thy attempted soul) can put his hand into his bag (as David did) (for quid cor hominis nisi sacculus Dei? a man's heart is that bag in which God lays up all good directions) if he can but take into his consideration his Jesus, his Christ, and sling one of his works, his words, his commandments, his merits, This Goliath, this Giant sin, will fall to the ground, and then, as it is said of David, that he slew him when he had no sword in his hand, and yet in the next verse, that he took his sword and slew him with that: so even by the consideration of what my Lord hath done for me, I shall give that sin the first death's wound, and then I shall kill him with his own sword, that is, his own abomination, his own foulness shall make me detest him. If I dare but look my sin in the face, if I dare tell him, I come in the name of the Lord, August. if I consider my sin, I shall triumph over it, Et dabit certan●● victoriam qui dedit certandi audaciam, That God that gave me courage to fight, will give me strength to overcome. The last benefit which we consider in Christ, Lapis, Petra. as he is a stone, is, That he is Petra, a Rock; Num. 20. The Rock gave water to the Israelites in the wilderness; and he gave them honey out of the stone, Deut. 32. 13. and oil out of the hard Rock: Now when Saint Paul says, That our Fathers drank of the same Rock as we, he adds that the same Rock was Christ; 1. Cor. 10 So that all Temporal, and all Spiritual blessings to us, and to the Fathers, were all conferred upon us in Christ; but we consider not now any miraculous production from the Rock, but that which is natural to the Rock; that it is a firm defence to us in all tempests, in all afflictions, in all tribulations; and therefore, La●date Dominum habitatores petrae, says the Prophet, You that are inhabitants of this Rock, you that dwell in Christ, Esay 42. 11. and Christ in you, you that dwell in this Rock, Praise ye the Lord, bless him, and magnify him for ever. If a son should ask bread of his father, will he give him a stone, was Christ's question? Yes, O blessed Father, we ask no other answer to our petition, no better satisfaction to our necessity, then when we say, Da nobis panem, Give us this day our daily bread, that thou give us this Stone, this Rock, thyself in thy Church, for our direction, thyself in the Sacrament, for our refection; what hardness soever we find there, what corrections soever we receive there, all shall be easy of digestion, and good nourishment to us● Thy holy spirit of patience shall command, That these stones be made bread; And we shall find more juice, more marrow in these stones, in these afflictions, then worldly men shall do in the softness of their oil, in the sweetness of their honey, in the cheerfulness of their wine; for as Christ is our foundation, we believe in him, and as he is our cornerstone, we are at peace with the world in him; as he is Jacob's stone, giving us peace in ourselves and david's stone, giving us victory over our enemies, so he is a Rock of stone, (no affliction, no tribulation shall shake us.) And so we have passed through all the benefits proposed to be considered in this first part, As Christ is a stone. It is some degree of thankfulness, 2 Part. to stand long in the contemplation of the benefit which we have received, and therefore we have insisted thus long upon the first part. But it is a degree of spiritual wisdom too, to make haste to the consideration of our dangers, and therefore we come now to them, We may fall upon this stone, and be broken. This stone may fall upon us, and grind us to powder, and in the first of these, we may consider, Quid cadere, what the falling upon this stone is: and secondly, Quid frangi, what it is to broken upon it: and then thirdly, the latitude of this unusquisque, that whosoever falls so, is so broken; first then, because Christ loves us to the end, therefore will we never put him to it, never trouble him till then; as the wiseman said of Manna, Wisd. 16. 24. that it had abundance of all pleasure in it, and was meat for all tastes, that is, (as Expositors interpret it) that Manna tasted to every one, like that which every one liked best: so this stone Christ Jesus, hath abundance of all qualities of stone in it, and is all the way such a stone to every man, as he desires it should be. Unto you that believe saith, Saint Peter, it is a precious stone, but unto the disobedient, a stone to stumble at: for if a man walk in a gallery, where windows, and tables, and statues, are all of marble, yet if he walk in the dark, or blindfold, or carelessly, he may break his face as dangerously against that rich stone, as if it were but brick; So though a man walk in the true Church of God, in that Jerusalem which is described in the Revelation, the foundation, the gates, the walls, all precious stone, yet if a man bring a mis-belief, a mis-conceipt, that all this religion is but a part of civil government and order; if a man be scandalised, at that humility, that patience, that poverty, that lowliness of spirit which the Christian Religion inclines us unto; if he will say, Si Rex Israel, If Christ will be King, let him come down from the Cross, and then we will believe in him, let him deliver his Church from all crosses, first, of doctrine, and then of persecution, and then we will believe him to be King; if we will say, Nolumus hunc regnare, we will admit Christ, but we will not admit him to reign over us, to be King; if he will be content with a Consulship, with a Collegueship, that he & the world may join in the government, that we may give the week to the world, and the Sabbath to him, that we may give the day of the Sabbath to him and the night to our licentiousness, that of the day we may give the forenoon to him, and the afternoon to our pleasures, if this will serve Christ, we are content to admit him, but Nolumus regnare, we will none of that absolute power, that whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, we must be troubled to think on him, and respect his glory in every thing. If he will say, Praecepit Angelis, God hath given us in charge to his Angels, and therefore we need not to look to our own ways, He hath locked us up safely, and lodged us softly under an eternal election, and therefore we are sure of salvation, if he will walk thus blindly, violently, wilfully, negligently in the true Church, though he walk amongst the Saphires, and Pearls, and Chrysolytes, which are mentioned there, that is, in the outward communion and fellowship of God's Saints, yet he may bruise and break, and batter himself, as much against these stones, as against the stone Gods of the heathen, or the stone Idols of the Papists; for first, the place of this falling upon this stone, is the true Church; Qui jacet in terra, he that is already upon the ground, in no Church, can fall no lower, till he fall to hell; but he whom God hath brought into his true Church, if he come to a confident security, that he is safe enough in these outward acts of Religion, he falls, though it be upon this stone, he erreth, though in the true Church. This is the place then, the true Church; the falling itself (as far as will fall into our time of consideration now) is a falling into some particular sin, but not such as quenches our faith; we fall so, as we may rise again. Saint Hierome expresseth it so, Hierome. Qui cadit, & tamen credit, he that falls, but yet believes, that falls and hath a sense of his fall, reservatur per paenitentiam ad salutem, that man is reserved by God's purpose, to come by repentance, to salvation; for this man that falls there, falls not so desperately, as that he feels nothing between hell and him, nothing to stop at, nothing to check him by the way, Cadit super, he falls upon some thing; nor he falls not upon flowers, to wallow and tumble in his sin, nor upon feathers, to rest and sleep in his sin, nor into a cooling river, to disport, and refresh, and strengthen himself in his sin; but he falls upon a stone, where he may receive a bruise, a pain upon his fall, a remorse of that sin he is fallen into: And in this fall, our infirmity appears three ways: The first is Impingere in lapidem, To stumble, for though he be upon the right stone in the true Religion, and have light enough, Esa. 50. 10. yet Impingimus meredie, as the Prophet saith, even at noon we stumble; we have much more light, by Christ being come, than the Jews had, but we are sorry we have it: when Christ hath said to us for our better understanding of the Law, He that looketh and lusteth hath committed Adultery, He that coveteth hath stolen, He that is angry hath murdered, we stumble at this, and we are scandalised with it; and we think that other Religions are gentler, and that Christ hath dealt hardly with us, and we had rather Christ had not said so, we had rather he had left us to our liberty and discretion, to look, and court, and to give a way to our passions, as we should find it most conduce to our ease, and to our ends. And this is Impingere, to stumble, not to go on in an equal and even pace, not to do the will of God cheerfully. And a second degree is calcitrare, to kick, to spur at this stone; that is, to bring some particular sin, and some particular Law into comparison: To debate thus, if I do not this now, I shall never have such a time; if I slip this, I shall never have the like opportunity; if I will be a fool now, I shall be a beggar all my life: and for the Law of God that is against it, there is but a little evil for a great deal of good; and there is a great deal of time to recover and repent that little evil. Now to remove a stone which was a landmark, and to hide and cover that stone, was all one fault in the Law; to hide the will of God from our own Consciences with excuses and extenuatious, this is, calcitrare, as much as we can to spurn the stone, the landmark out of the way; but the fullness and accomplishment of this is in the third word of the Text, Cadere, to fall; he falls as a piece of money falls into a river; we hear it fall, and we see it sink, and by and by we see it deeper, and at last we see it not at all: So no man falleth at first into any sin, but he hears his own fall. There is a tenderness in every Conscience at the beginning, at the entrance into a sin, and he discerneth a while the degrees of sinking too: but at last he is out of his own sight, till he meet this stone; (this stone is Christ) that is, till he meet some hard reprehension, some hard passage of a Sermon, some hard judgement in a Prophet, some cross in the World, some thing from the mouth, or some thing from the hand of God, that breaks him: He falls upon the stone and is broken. So that to be broken upon this stone, Frangi. is to come to this sense, that though our integrity be lost, that we be no more whole and entire vessels, yet there are means of piecing us again: Though we be not vessels of Innocency, (for who is so?) (and for that enter not into judgement with thy servants O Lord) yet we may be vessels of repentance acceptable to God, and useful to his service: for when any thing falls upon a stone, the harm that it suffereth, is not always (or not only) according to the proportion of the hardness of that which it fell upon, but according to the height that it falleth from, and according to that violence that it is thrown with: If their fall who fall by sins of infirmity, should refer only to the stone they fall upon, (the Majesty of God being wounded and violated in every sin) every sinner would be broken to pieces, and ground to powder: But if they fall not from too far a distance, if they have lived within any nearness, any consideration of God, if they have not fallen with violence, taken heart and force in the way, grown perfect in the practice of their sin, if they fall upon this stone, that is, sin, and yet stop at Christ, after the sin, this stone shall break them; that is, break their force, and confidence, break their presumption, and security, but yet it shall leave enough in them, for the Holy Ghost to unite to his Service; yea, even the sin itself, cooperabitur in bonum, Rom. 8. 28. as the Apostle saith, the very fall itself shall be an occasion of his rising: And therefore though Saint Augustine seem to venture far, it is not too far, when he saith, Audeo dicere, it is boldly said, and yet I must say it, utile est ut caderem in aliquod manifestum peccatum; A sinner falleth to his advantage, that falleth into some such sin, as by being manifested to the World, manifesteth his own sinful state, to his own sinful Conscience too: It is well for that man that falleth so, as that he may thereby look the better to his footing ever after; Bernard. Dicit Domino Susceptor meus es tu, says St. Bernard, That man hath a new Title to God, a new name for God; all creatures (as St. Bernard enlarges this meditation) can say, Creator meus es tu, Lord thou art my Creator; all living creatures can say, Pastor meus es tu, Thou art my shepherd, Thou givest me meat in due season; all men can say, Redemptor meus es tu, thou art my Redeemer; but only he which is fallen, and fallen upon this stone, can say, Susceptor meus es tu, only he which hath been overcome by a temptation, and is restored, can say, Lord thou hast supported me, thou hast recollected my shivers, and reunited me; only to him hath this stone expressed, both abilities of stone; first to break him with a sense of his sin, and then to give him peace and rest upon it. Now there is in this part this circumstance, Quicunque Quicunque. cadit, whosoever falleth; where the quicunque is unusquisque, whosoever falls, that is, whosoever he be, he falls; Quo●odo de coelo cecidisti Luciter? says the Prophet, Esay 14. 12. the Prophet wonders how Lucifer could fall, having nothing to tempt him (for so many of the Antiens interpret that place of the fall of the Angels, and when the Angels fell, there were no other creatures made,) but Quid est homo aut filius hominis? since the Father of man, Adam, could not, how shall the sons of him, that inherit his weakness, and contract more, and contribute their temptations to one another, hope to stand? Adam fell, and he fell à longè, far off, for he could see no stone to fall upon, for when he fell, there was no such Messias, no such means of reparation proposed, nor promised when he fell, as now to us; The blessed Virgin, and the forerunner of Christ, john Baptist, fell too, but they fell propè, nearer hand, they fell but a little way, for they had this stone (Christ Jesus) in a personal presence, and their faith was always awake in them; but yet he, and she, and they all fell into some sin. Quicunque cadit is unusquisque cadit, whosoever falls, is, whosoever he be, he falls, and whosoever falls, (as we said before) is broken; If he fall upon something, and fall not to an infinite depth; If he fall not upon a soft place, to a delight in sin, but upon a stone, and this stone, (no harder, sharper, ruggedder than this, not into a diffidence, or distrust in God's mercy) he that falls so, and is broken so, that comes to a remorseful, to a broken, and a contrite heart, he is broken to his advantage, left to a possibility, yea brought to a nearness of being pieced again, by the Word, by the Sacraments, and other medicinal institutions of Christ in his Church. We must end only with touching upon the third part, 3 Part. upon whom this stone falls, it will grind him to powder; where we shall only tell you first, Quid conteri, what this grinding is; and then, Quid cadere, what the falling of this stone is; And briefly this grinding to powder, is to be brought to that desperate and irrecoverable estate in sin, as that no medicinal correction from God, no breaking, no bowing, no melting, no moulding can bring him to any good fashion; when God can work no cure, do no good upon us by breaking us; not by breaking us in our health, for we will attribute that to weakness of stomach, to surfeit, to indigestion; not by breaking us in our states, for we will impute that to falsehood in servants, to oppression of great adversaries, to inquity of Judges; not by breaking us in our honour, for we will accuse for that, factions, and practices, and supplantation in Court; when God cannot break us with his corrections, but that we will attribute them to some natural, to some accidental causes, and never think of God's judgements, which are the true cause of these afflictions; when God cannot break us by breaking our backs, by laying on heavy loads of calamities upon us, nor by breaking our hearts, by putting us into a sad, and heavy, and fruitless sorrow and melancholy for these worldly losses, than he comes to break us by breaking our necks, by casting us into the bottomless pit, and falling upon us there, in this wrath and indignation, Comminuam eos in pulverem, saith he, Psal. 15. 42. I will beat them as small as dust before the wind, and tread them as flat as clay in the streets, Esay 30. 14. the breaking thereof shall be like the breaking of a Potter's vessel, which is broken without any pity. (No pity from God, no mercy, neither shall any man pity them, no compassion, no sorrow:) And in the breaking thereof, saith the Prophet, there is not found a sheard to take fire at the hearth, nor to take water at the pit: that is, they shall be incapable of any beam of grace in themselves from heaven, or any spark of zeal in themselves, (not a sheard to fetch fire at the hearth) and incapable of any drop of Christ's blood from heaven, or of any tear of contrition in themselves, not a sheard to fetch water at the pit, jerem. 19 11. I will break them as a Potter's vessel, quod non potest instaurari, says God in jeremy, There shall be no possible means (of those means which God hath ordained in his Church) to recompact them again, no voice of God's word to draw them, no threatenings of God's judgements shall drive them, no censures of God's Church shall fit them, no Sacrament shall cement and glue them to Christ's body again; In temporal blessings, he shall be unthankful, in temporal afflictions, he shall be obdurate: And these two shall serve, as the upper and nether stone of a mill, to grind this reprobate sinner to powder. Lastly, Cadere. this is to be done, by Christ's falling upon him, and what is that? I know some Expositors take this to be but the falling of God's judgements upon him in this world; But in this world there is no grinding to powder, all God's judgements here, (for any thing that we can know) have the nature of Physic in them, & may, & are wont to cure; & no man is here so absolutely broken in pieces, but that he may be reunited: we choose therefore to follow the Ancients in this, That the falling of this stone upon this Reprobate, is Christ's last & irrecoverable falling upon him, in his last judgement; that when he shall wish that the Hills might fall and cover him, this stone shall fall, & grind him to powder; He shall be broken, and he no more found, says the Prophet, yea, he shall be broken and no more sought: No man shall consider him what he is now, Dan. 11. 18. nor remember him what he was before: For, that stone, which in Daniel, Dan. 2. was cut out without hands (which was a figure of Christ, who came without ordinary generation) when that great Image was to be overthrown, broke not an arm or a leg, but broke the whole Image in pieces, and it wrought not only upon the weak parts, but it broke all, the clay, the iron, the brass, the silver, the gold; so when this stone falls thus, when Christ comes to judgement, he shall not only condemn him for his clay, his earthly and covetous sins, nor for his iron, his revengeful oppressing, and justly sins, nor for his brass, his shining, and glittering sins, which he hath filled and polished, but he shall fall upon his silver and gold, his religious and precious sins, his hypocritical hearing of Sermons, his singular observing of Sabbaths, his Pharisaical giving of alms, and as well his subtle counterfeiting of Religion, as his Atheistical opposing of religion, this stone, Christ himself, shall fall upon him, and a shower of other stones shall oppress him too. Sicut pluit laque●s, Psal. 1●. 6. says David, As God reigned springs and snares upon them in this world (abundance of temporal blessings to be occasions of sin unto them:) So plues grandinem, he shall rain such hailstones upon them, as shall grind them to powder; there shall fall upon him the natural Law, which was written in his heart, and did rebuke him, then when he prepared for a sin; there shall fall upon him the written Law, which cried out from the mouths of the Prophets in these places, to avert him from sin; there shall fall upon him those sins which he hath done, and those sins which he hath not done, if nothing but want of means & opportunity hindered him from doing them; there shall fall upon him those sins which he hath done after another's dehortation, and those, which others have done after his provocation; there the stones of Nineveh shall fall upon him, and of as many Cities as have repent with less proportions of mercy and grace, than God afforded him; there the rubbage of Sodom and Gomorrah shall fall upon him, and as many Cities as in their ruin might have been examples to him. All these stones shall fall upon him, and to add weight to all these, Christ Jesus himself shall fall upon his conscience, with unanswerable questions, Rev. 2. 11. and grind his soul to powder. But he that overcometh, shall not be hurt by the second death, he that feels his own fall upon this stone, shall never feel this stone fall upon him, he that comes to a remorse, early, and earnestly after a sin, and seeks by ordinary means, his reconcileation to God in his Church, is in the best state that man can be in now; for howsoever we cannot say that repentance is as happy an estate as Innocency, yet certainly every particular man feels more comfort and spiritual joy, after a true repentance for a sin, than he had in that degree of Innocence which he had before he committed that sin; and therefore in this case also we may safely repeat those words of Augustine, Audeo dicere, I dare be bold to say, that many a man hath been the better for some sin. Almighty God, who gives that civil wisdom, to make use of other men's infirmities, give us also this heavenly wisdom, to make use of our own particular sins, that thereby our own wretched conditions in ourselves, and our means of reparation in jesus Christ, may be the more manifested unto us; To whom with the blessed Spirit, etc. SERMON XXXVI. Preached at Saint Paul's upon Christmas day, 1621. JOHN 1. 8. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. IT is an injury common to all the Evangelists, (as Irenaeus notes) that all their Gospels were severally refused by one Sect of Heretics or other. But it was proper to Saint john alone, to be refused by a Sect, that admitted all the other three Evangelists, (as Epiphanius remembers) and refused only Saint john. These were the Alogiani, a limb and branch of the Arians, who being unable to look upon the glorious Splendour, the divine Glory, attributed by Saint john to this Logos, (which gave them their name of Alogiani) this Word, this Christ, not comprehending this Mystery, That this Word was so with God, as that it was God; they took a round way, and often practised, to condemn all that they did not understand, and therefore refuse the whole Gospel. Indeed his whole Gospel is comprehended in the beginning thereof. In this first Chapter is contracted all that which is extensively spread, and dilated through the whole Book. For here is first, the Foundation of all, the Divinity of Christ, to the 15. verse. Secondly, the Execution of all, the Offices of Christ, to the 35. verse. And then the Effect, the Working, the Application of all, that is, who were to Preach all this, to the ends of the world, the calling of his Apostles, to the end of the Chapter: for the first, Christ's Divinity, there is enough expressed in the very first verse alone: for, there is his Eternity, intimated in that word, In principio, in the beginning. The first book of the Bible, Genesis, and the last book, (that is, that which was last written) this Gospel, begin both with this word, In the beginning. But the last beginning was the first, if Moses beginning do only denote the Creation, which was not 6000. years since, and Saint john's, the Eternity of Christ, which no Millions, multiplied by Millions, can calculate. And then, as his Eternity, so his distinction of Persons, is also specified in this 1. verse, when the Word, (that is, Christ) is said to have been apud Deum, with God. For, therefore, (saith Saint Basil) did the Holy Ghost rather choose to say apud Deum, then in Deo, with God, then in God, ne auferenda Hypostaseos occasionem daret, lest he should give any occasion of denying the same Nature, in divers Persons; for it doth more clearly notify a distinction of Persons, to say, he was with him, then to say, he was in him; for the several Attributes of God, (Mercy and justice, and the rest) are in God, and yet they are not distinct Persons. Lastly, there is also expressed in this 1. verse Christ's Equality with God, in that it is said, & Verbum erat Deus, and this Word was God. As it was in the beginning, and therefore Eternal, and as it was with God, and therefore a distinct Person, so it was God, and thereforre equal to the Father; which phrase doth so vex and anguish the Arians, that being disfurnished of all other escapes, they corrupted the place, only with a false interpunction, and broke of the words, where they admitted no such pause; for, they read it thus, Verbum erat apud Deum; (so far, well) Et Deus erat. There they made their point; and then followed in another sentence: Verbum hoc erat in principio, etc. The first part then of this Chapter, (and indeed of the whole Gospel) is in that 1. verse the manifestation of his Divine Nature, in his Eternity, in the distinction of Persons, in the equality with the Father. The second part of the Chapter layeth down the Office of Christ, his Prophetical, his Priestly, his Royal Office. For the first, the Office of a Prophet consisting in three several exercises, to manifest things past, to foretell things to come, and to expound thing present, Christ declared himself to be a Prophet in all these three: for, for the first, he was not only a Verbal, but an Actual manifester of former Prophecies, for all the former Prophecies were accomplished in his Person, and in his deeds, and words, in his actions and Passion. For the second, his foretelling of future things, he foretold the state of the Church, to the end of the world. And for the third (declaring of present things) He told the Samaritan woman, john 4. 19 so tightly, all her own History, that she gave presently that attestation, Sir, I see that thou art a Prophet: so his Prophetical Office, is plainly laid down. For his second Office, his Priesthood, that is expressed in the 36. verse, Behold the Lamb of God; for, in this, he was our Priest, that he was our Sacrifice; he was our Priest, in that he offered himself for our sins. Lastly, his Royal Office was the most natural to him of all the rest. The Office of a Prophet was Natural to none; none was born a Prophet. Those who are called the children of the Prophets, and the sons of the Prophets, are but the Prophet's Disciples. Though the Office of Priesthood, by being annexed to one Tribe, may (in some sense) be called Natural, yet in Christ it could not be so, for he was not of that Tribe of Levi: so that he had no interest in the legal Priesthood, but was a Priest according to the Order of Melchisedec. But his Title to be King, was natural, by descent, he was of the blood Royal, and the nearest in succession; so that he, and only he, had, De jure, all the three unctions upon him. David had two; he was both a Prophet, and a King; he had those two capacities; Melchisedec had two too; he was both a King and a Priest; he had two: Only Christ had all three, both a Prophet, and Priest, and King. In the third part of the Chapter, which is the calling of four of his Apostles, we may observe that the first was called, was not Peter, but Andrew; that there might be laid at first some interruption, some stop to their zealous fury, who will still force, and heap up every action which any way concerns Saint Peter, to the building up of his imaginary primacy, which primacy, they cared not though Peter wanted, if they could convey that primacy to his Successor, by any other Title; for which Successors sake it is, and not for Saint Peter's own, that they are so over diligent in advancing his prerogative. But, it was not Peter, that was called, but Andrew. In Andrews present and earnest application of himself to Christ, we may note, (and only so) diverse particulars, fit for use and imitation. In his first question, Master, where dwellest thou? there is not only, (as Cyrill observes) a reverend ascribing to him a power of instructing in that compellation, Master, but a desire to have more time afforded to hearken to his instructions, Where dwellest thou, that I may dwell with thee? And as soon as ever he had taken in some good portion of knowledge himself, he conceives presently a desire to communicate his happiness with others; and he seeks his brother Peter, and tells him, Invenimus Messiam, we have found the Messias; which is, (as Saint chrysostom notes) vox quaerentis: In this, that he rejoices in the finding of him, he testifies that he had sought him, and that he had continued in the expectation of a Messias before. Invenit Messiam, he had found the Messias; but, saith the Text, Duxit ad jesum, he brought his brother the glorious news of having found a King, the King of the Jews, but he led him to jesus, to a Saviour; that so, all kinds of happiness, temporal and spiritual, might be intimated in this discovery of a King, and of a Saviour; What may not his servants hope for at his hands, who is both those, a King and a Saviour, and hath worldly preferments, and the Glory of Heaven in his power? Now, though the words of this Text, (He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light) are placed in the first part of the Chapter, that which concerns Christ's Divine nature, yet they belong, and they have a respect to all three; To his Divine nature, to his Offices, and to his Calling of his Apostles: For, first, light denotes his Divine nature; secondly, the testimony that is given of him by john Baptist, (of whom the words of our Text are spoken) declares him to be the Messias, and Messias, (which signifies anointed) involves all his Offices, are his three Offices, are his three vocations; and thirdly, the Application of this testimony, given by john Baptist here, by the Apostles and their Successors after, intimates or brings to our memory this their first vocation, in this Chapter. So that the Gospel of Saint john contains all Divinity, this Chapter all the Gospel, and this Text all the Chapter. Therefore it is too large to go through at this time; at this time we shall insist upon such branches as arise out of that consideration, what, and who this light is, (for, we shall find it to be both a personal light, (it is some body) and, otherwise too, a real light, (it is some thing) therefore we inquire, what, this light is, (what thing) and who this light is, (what person) which john Baptist is denied to be. Hereafter we shall consider, the Testimony which is given of this light; in which part in due time, we shall handle, the person of the witness john Baptist, in whom we shall find many considerable, and extraordinary circumstances: and then, his Citation, and calling to this testimony; and thirdly, the testimony itself that he gave: and lastly, why any testimony was requisite to so evident a thing as light. But the first part, who, and what this light is, belongs most properly to this day, and will fill that portion of the day, which is afforded us for this exercise. Proceed we therefore to that, john Baptist was not that light, who was, what was? Though most expositors, 1 Part. as well ancient, as modern agree with one general, and unanime consent, Quis lux. that light in this verse is intended and meant of Christ, Christ is this light, yet in some precedent and subsequent passages in this Chapter, I see other senses have been admitted of this word, light, then perchance those places will bear; certainly other than those places need: particularly, in the fourth verse (In it was life, and that life was the light of men) there they understand life, to be nothing but this natural life which we breathe, and light to be only that natural life, natural reason, which distinguishes us men, from other creatures. Now, it is true that they may have a pretence for some ground of this interpretation in antiquity itself, for, so says Saint Cyrill, Filius Dei Creatiuè illuminat, Christ doth enlighten us, in creating us. And so some others of the Fathers, and some of the Schools, understand by that light natural Reason, and that life, conservation in life. But this interpretation seems to me subject to both these dangers, that it goes so far, and yet reaches not home. So far, in wresting in divers senses into a word, which needs but one, and is of itself clear enough, that is light, and yet reaches not home, for it reaches not to the essential light, which is Christ jesus, nor to the supernatural light, which is Faith and Grace, which seems to have been the Evangelists principal scope, to declare the coming of Christ, (who is the essential light) and his purpose in coming, to raise and establish a Church, by Faith and Grace, which is the supernatural light: For, as the holy Ghost himself interprets life to be meant of Christ, 1 joh. 5. 12. (He that hath the Son hath life) so we may justly do of light too, he that sees the Son, the Son of God hath light. For, light is never, (to my remembrance) found in any place of the Scripture, where it must necessarily signify the light of nature, natural reason; but wheresoever it is transferred from the natural to a figurative sense, it takes a higher signification than that; either it signifies Essential light, Christ Jesus, (which answers our first question, Quis lux, who is this light, it is Christ, personally) or it signifies the supernatural light of Faith and Grace, (which answers our second question, Quid lux, what is this light, for it is the working of Christ, by his Spirit, in his Church, in the infusion of Faith and Grace, for belief, and manners) And therefore though it be ever lawful, and often times very useful, for the raising and exaltation of our devotion, and to present the plenty, and abundance of the holy Ghost in the Scriptures, who satisfies us as with marrow, and with fatness, to induce the divers senses that the Scriptures do admit, yet this may not be admitted, if there may be danger thereby, to neglect or weaken the literal sense itself. For there is no necessity of that spiritual wantonness of finding more than necessary senses; for, the more lights there are, the more shadows are also cast by those many lights. And, as it is true in religious duties, so is it in interpretation of matters of Religion, Necessarium & Satis convertuntur; when you have done that you ought to do in your calling, you have done enough; there are no such Evangelicall counsels, as should raise works of supererogation, more than you are bound to do, so when you have the necessary sense, that is the meaning of the holy Ghost in that place, you have senses enough, and not till then, though you have never so many, and never so delightful. Light therefore, Illa lux. is in all this Chapter fitliest understood of Christ; who is noted here, with that distinctive article, Illa lux, that light. For, non sic dicitur lux, sicut lapis; Christ is not so called Light, Augustin. as he is called a Rock, or a Cornerstone; not by a metaphor, but truly, and properly. It is true that the Apostles are said to be light, and that with an article, the light; but yet with a limitation and restriction, Mat. 5. the light of the world, that is, set up to convey light to the world. It is true that john Baptist himself was called light, and with large additions, Lucerna arden's, a burning, joh. 5. and a shining lamp, to denote both his own burning zeal, and the communicating of this his light to others. It is true, Ephe. 5. that all the faithful are said to be light in the Lord; but all this is but to signify that they had been in darkness before; they had been beclouded, but were now illustrated; they were light, but light by reflection, by illustration of a greater light. And as in the first creation, vesper & mane dies unus, The evening and the morning made the day, evening before morning, darkness before light, so in our regeneration, when we are made new Creatures, the Spirit of God finds us in natural darkness, and by him we are made light in the Lord. But Christ himself, and he only, is Illa lux, vera lux; that light, the true light. Not so opposed to those other lights, as though the Apostles, or john Baptist, or the faithful, who are called lights, were false lights; but that they were weak lights. But Christ was fons lucis, the fountain of all their light; light so, as no body else was so; so, as that he was nothing but light. Now, neither the Apostles, nor john Baptist, nor the Elect, no nor the virgin Mary (though we should allow all that the Roman Church ask in her behalf) for the Roman Church is not yet come to that searedness, that obdurateness, that impudence, as to pronounce that the virgin Mary was without original sin, (though they have done many shrewd acts towards it, to the prejudice of the contrary opinion) yet none of these were so light, as they were nothing but light. Moses himself who received and delivered the law, was not so; and to intimate so much, there was an illustration, and irradiation upon his face, but not so of all his body. Nay, Christ jesus himself, who fulfilled the law, as man, was not so; which he also intimated in the greatest degree of glorification which he accepted upon earth, which was his transfiguration, for, though it be said in that, That the fashion of his Countenance was changed, and his garment was white, and glisteren, Luke ●. 27. yet, lineamenta Petro agnoscibilia servavit, Tertull. he kept that former proportion of body, that Peter could know him by it. So that this was not a glorifying of the body, and making it through light; but he suffered his Divine nature to appear and shine through his flesh, and not to swallow, or annihilate that flesh. All other men, by occasion of this flesh, have dark clouds, yea nights, yea long and frozen winter nights of sin, and of the works of darkness. Christ was incapable of any such nights, or any such clouds, any approaches towards sin; but yet Christ admitted some shadows, some such degrees of humane infirmity, as by them, he was willing to show, that the nature of man, in the best perfection thereof, is not vera lux, tota lux, true light, all light, which he declared in that Si possible, and that Transeat calix, If it he possible, let this cup pass; words, Mat. 26. 39 to which himself was pleased to allow so much of a retractation, and a correction, Veruntamen, yet Father, whatsoever the sadness of my soul have made me say, yet, not my will but thine be done; not mine, but thine; so that they were not altogether, all one; humane infirmity made some difference. So that no one man, not Christ, (considered but so as man) was tota lux, all light, no cloud. No not mankind, consider it collectively, can be light so, as that there shall be no darkness. It was not so, when all mankind was in one person, in Adam. It is said sometimes in School, that no man can keep the commandments, yet man, collectively, may keep them. They intent no more herein, but that some one man may abstain from doing any act against worshipping of Images, another from stealing, another from adultery, and others from others. But if it were possible to compose a man of such elements, as that the principallest virtues, and eminencies of all other men, should enter into his composition, and if there could be found a man, as perfect in all particular virtues, as Moses was in meekness, Numb. 12. (who was a meek man, above all the men that were upon the earth) yet this man would not be vera lux, tota lux, true light, all light. Moses was not so meek, but that he slew the Egyptian, nor so meek, but that he disputed and expostulated with God many times, passionately. Every man is so far from being tota lux, all light, as that he hath still within him, a dark vapour of orginal sin, and the cloud of humane flesh without him. Nay not only no man, (for so we may consider him in the whole course of his life) but noon act, of the most perfect, and religious man in the world, though that act employ but half a minute in the doing thereof, can be vera lux, true light, all light, so perfect light, as that it may serve another, or thyself, for a lantern to his, or thy feet, or a light to his, or thy steps, so that he or thou may think it enough to do so still. For, another man may do so good works, as it may justly work to thy shame, and confusion, and to the aggravating of thy condemnation, that thou livest not as well as he, yet, it would not perchance serve thy turn, to live but so well; for, to whom God gives more, of him he requires more. No man hath veram lucem, true light, through light; no man hath meridiem, Augem, that high point that casts no shadow, because, besides original sin, that ever smokes up, and creates a foot in the soul, and besides natural infirmities, which become sins, when we consider Grace, no man does carry his good actions to that height as, by that grace, which God affords him, he might do. Slacker men have a declination even in their mornings; a West even in their East; coolings, and faintnesses and afternoon's, as soon as they have any dawnings, any break of day, any inchoation of any spiritual action or purpose. Others have some farther growth, and increasing, and are more diligent in the observation of spiritual duties; but yet they have not their meridiem, their Augem, their noon, their south point, no such height, as that they might not have a higher, by that grace which they have received. In the best degree of our best actions, particularly in this service, which we do to God at this hour, if we brought with us hither a religious purpose to sanctify this festival, if we answer to the callings of his most blessed Spirit, whilst we are here, if we carry away a detestation of our sins, and a holy purpose of amendment of life, this is a good degree of proficiency, and God be blessed, if any of us all arrive to that degree; but yet, this is not vera lux, true light, all light; for, who amongst us can avoid the testimony of his conscience, that since he begun this present service to God, his thoughts have not strayed upon pleasures and vanities or profit, and leapt the walls of this Church, yea, perchance within the walls of this flesh, which should be the Temple of the holy Ghost? Besides, to become vera lux, tota lux, true light, through light, requires persebrrance to the end. So that till our natural light go out, we cannot say that we have this light; for, as the darkness of hell fire is, so this light of this heavenly fire, must be everlasting. If ever it go clean out, it was never throughly kindled, but kindled to our farther damnation; it was never vera lux, true light, for, as one office of the law is, but to show sin, so all the light of grace may end in this, to show me my desperate estate, from the abuse of grace. In all Philosophy there is not so dark a thing as light; As the sun, which is fons lucis naturalis, the beginning of natural light, is the most evident thing to be seen, and yet the hardest to be looked upon, so is natural light to our reason and understanding. Nothing clearer, for it is clearness itself, nothing darker, it is enwrapped in so many scruples. Nothing nearer, for it is round about us, nothing more remote, for we know neither entrance, nor limits of it. Nothing more easy, for a child discerns it, nothing more hard, for no man understands it. It is apprehensible by sense, and not comprehensible by reason. If we wink, we cannot choose but see it, if we stare, we know it never the better. No man is yet got so near to the knowledge of the qualities of light, as to know whether light itself be a quality, or a substance. If then this natural light be so dark to our natural reason, if we shall offer to pierce so far, into the light of this text, the Essential light Christ jesus, (in his nature, or but in his offices) or the supernatural light of faith and grace, (how far faith may be had, and yet lost, and how far the freewill of man may concur and cooperate with grace, and yet still remain nothing in itself) if we search farther into these points, than the Scripture hath opened us a way, how shall we hope to unentangle, or extricate ourselves? They had a precious composition for lamps, amongst the ancients, reserved especially for Tombs, which kept light for many hundreds of years; we have had in our age experience, in some casual openings of ancient vaults, of finding such lights, as were kindled, (as appeared by their inscriptions) fifteen or sixteen hundred years before; but, as soon as that light comes to our light, it vanishes. So this eternal, and this supernatural light, Christ and faith, enlightens, warms, purges, and does all the profitable offices of fire, and light, if we keep it in the right sphere, in the proper place, (that is, if we consist in points necessary to salvation, and revealed in the Scripture) but when we bring this light to the common light of reason, to our inferences, and consequencies, it may be in danger to vanish itself, and perchance extinguish our reason too; we may search so far, and reason so long of faith and grace, as that we may lose not only them, but even our reason too, and sooner become mad then good. Not that we are bound to believe any thing against reason, that is, to believe, we know not why. It is but a slack opinion, it is not Belief, that is not grounded upon reason. He that should come to a Heathen man, a mere natural man, uncatechized, uninstructed in the rudiments of the Christian Religion, and should at first, without any preparation, present him first with this necessity; Thou shalt burn in fire and brimstone eternally, except thou believe a Trinity of Persons, in an unity of one God, Except thou believe the Incarnation of the second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God, Except thou believe that a Virgin had a Soon, and the same Son that God had, and that God was Man too, and being the immortal God, yet died, he should be so far from working any spiritual cure upon this poor soul, as that he should rather bring Christian Mysteries into scorn, then him to a belief. For, that man, if you proceed so, Believe all, or you burn in Hell, would find an easy, an obvious way to escape all; that is, first not to believe Hell itself, and then nothing could bind him to believe the rest. The reason therefore of Man, must first be satisfied; but the way of such satisfaction must be this, to make him see, That this World, a frame of so much harmony, so much concinnity and conveniency, and such a correspondence, and subordination in the parts thereof, must necessarily have had a workman, for nothing can make itself: That no such workman would deliver over a frame, and work, of so much Majesty, to be governed by Fortune, casually, but would still retain the Administration thereof in his own hands: That if he do so, if he made the World, and sustain it still by his watchful Providence, there belongeth a worship and service to him, for doing so: That therefore he hath certainly revealed to man, what kind of worship, and service, shall be acceptable to him: That this manifestation of his Will, must be permanent, it must be written, there must be a Scripture, which is his Word and his Will: And that therefore, from that Scripture, from that Word of God, all Articles of our Belief are to be drawn. If then his Reason confessing all this, ask farther proof, how he shall know that these Scriptures accepted by the Christian Church, are the true Scriptures, let him bring any other Book which pretendeth to be the Word of God, into comparison with these; It is true, we have not a Demonstration; not such an Evidence as that one and two, are three, to prove these to be Scriptures of God; God hath not proceeded in that manner, to drive our Reason into a pound, and to force it by a peremptory necessity to accept these for Scriptures, for then, here had been no exercise of our Will, and our assent, if we could not have resisted. But yet these Scriptures have so orderly, so sweet, and so powerful a working upon the reason, and the understanding, as if any third man, who were utterly discharged of all preconceptions and anticipations in matter of Religion, one who were altogether neutral, disinteressed, unconcerned in either party, nothing towards a Turk, and as little toward a Christian, should hear a Christian plead for his Bible, and a Turk for his Alcoran, and should weigh the evidence of both; the Majesty of the Style, the punctual accomplishment of the Prophecies, the harmony and concurrence of the four Evangelists, the consent and unanimity of the Christian Church ever since, and many other such reasons, he would be drawn to such an Historical, such a Grammatical, such a Logical belief of our Bible, as to prefer it before any other, that could be pretended to be the Word of God. He would believe it, and he would know why he did so. For let no man think that God hath given him so much ease here, as to save him by believing he knoweth not what, or why. Knowledge cannot save us, but we cannot be saved without Knowledge; Faith is not on this side Knowledge, but beyond it; we must necessarily come to Knowledge first, though we must not stay at it, when we are come thither. For, a regenerate Christian, being now a new Creature, hath also a new faculty of Reason: and so believeth the Mysteries of Religion, out of another Reason, then as a mere natural Man, he believed natural and moral things. He believeth them for their own sake, by Faith though he take Knowledge of them before, by that common Reason, and by those humane Arguments, which work upon other men, in natural or moral things. Divers men may walk by the Sea side, and the same beams of the Sun giving light to them all, one gathereth by the benefit of that light pebbles, or speckled shells, for curious vanity, and another gathers precious Pearl, or medicinal Ambar, by the same light. So the common light of reason illumins us all; but one employs this light upon the searching of impertinent vanities, another by a better use of the same light, finds out the Mysteries of Religion; and when he hath found them, loves them, not for the lights sake, but for the natural and true worth of the thing itself. Some men by the benefit of this light of Reason, have found out things profitable and useful to the whole world; As in particular, Printing, by which the learning of the whole world is communicacable to one another, and our minds and our inventions, our wits and compositions may trade and have commerce together, and we may participate of one another's understandings, as well as of our Clothes, and Wines, and Oils, and other Merchandise: So by the benefit of this light of reason, they have found out Artillery, by which wars come to quicker ends than heretofore, and the great expense of blood is avoided: for the numbers of men slain now, since the invention of Artillery, are much less than before, when the sword was the executioner. Others, by the benefit of this light have searched and found the secret corners of gain, and profit, wheresoever they lie. They have found wherein the weakness of another man consisteth, and made their profit of that, by circumventing him in a bargain: They have found his riotous, and wasteful inclination, and they have fed and fomented that disorder, and kept open that leak, to their advantage, and the others ruin. They have found where was the easiest, and most accessible way, to solicit the Chastity of a woman, whether Discourse, Music, or Presents, and according to that discovery, they have pursued hers, and their own eternal destruction. By the benefit of this light, men see through the darkest, and most impervious places, that are, that is, Courts of Princes, and the greatest Officers in Courts; and can submit themselves to second, and to advance the humours of men in great place, and so make their profit of the weaknesses which they have discovered in these great men. All the ways, both of Wisdom, and of Craft lie open to this light, this light of natural reason: But when they have gone all these ways by the benefit of this light, they have got no further, then to have walked by a tempestuous Sea, and to have gathered pebbles, and speckled cockle shells. Their light seems to be great out of the same reason, that a Torch in a misty night, seemeth greater than in a clear, because it hath kindled and inflamed much thick and gross Air round about it. So the light and wisdom of worldly men, seemeth great, because he hath kindled an admiration, or an applause in Airy flatterers, not because it is so in deed. But, if thou canst take this light of reason that is in thee, this poor snuff, that is almost out in thee, thy saint and dim knowledge of God, that riseth out of this light of nature, if thou canst in those embers, those cold ashes, find out one small coal, and wilt take the pains to kneel down, and blow that coal with thy devout Prayers, and light thee a little candle, (a desire to read that Book, which they call the Scriptures, and the Gospel, and the Word of God;) If with that little candle thou canst creep humbly into low and poor places, if thou canst find thy Saviour in a Manger, and in his swathing clouts, in his humiliation, and bless God for that beginning, if thou canst find him flying into Egypt, and find in thyself a disposition to accompany him in a persecution, in a banishment, if not a bodily banishment, a local banishment, yet a real, a spiritual banishment, a banishment from those sins, and that sinful conversation, which thou hast loved more than thy Parents, or Country, or thine own body, which perchance thou hast consumed, and destroyed with that sin; if thou canst find him contenting and containing himself at home in his father's house, and not breaking out, no not about the work of our salvation, till the due time was come, when it was to be done. And if according to that example, thou canst contain thyself in that station and vocation in which God hath planted thee, and not, through a hasty and precipitate zeal, break out to an imaginary, and intempestive, and unseasonable Reformation, either in Civil or Ecclesiastical business, which belong not to thee; if with this little poor light, these first degrees of Knowledge and Faith, thou canst follow him into the Garden, and gather up some of the drops of his precious Blood and sweat, which he shed for thy soul, if thou canst follow him to jerusalem, and pick up some of those tears, which he shed upon that City, and upon thy soul; if thou canst follow him to the place of his scourging, and to his crucifying, and provide thee some of that balm, which must cure thy soul; if after all this, thou canst turn this little light inward, and canst thereby discern where thy diseases, and thy wounds, and thy corruptions are, and canst apply those tears, and blood and balm to them, (all this is, That if thou attend the light of natural reason, and cherish that, and exalt that, so that that bring thee to a love of the Scriptures, and that love to a belief of the truth thereof, and that historical faith to a faith of application, of appropriation, that as all those things were certainly done, so they were certainly done for thee) thou shalt never envy the lustre and glory of the great lights of worldly men, which are great by the infirmity of others, or by their own opinion, great because others think them great, or because they think themselves so, but thou shalt find, that howsoever they magnify their lights, their wit, their learning, Habak 1. their industry, their fortune, their favour, and sacrifice to their own nets, yet thou shalt see, that thou by thy small light hast gathered Pearl and Amber, and they by their great lights nothing but shells and pebbles; they have determined the light of nature, upon the book of nature, this world, and thou hast carried the light of nature higher, thy natural reason, and even humane arguments, have brought thee to read the Scriptures, and to that love, God hath set to the seal of faith. Their light shall set at noon; even in their height, some heavy cross shall cast a damp upon their soul, and cut off all their succours, and divest them of all comforts, and thy light shall grow up, from a fair hope, to a modest assurance and infallibility, that that light shall never go out, nor the works of darkness, nor the Prince of darkness ever prevail upon thee, but as thy light of reason is exalted by faith here, so thy light of faith shall be exalted into the light of glory, and fruition in the Kingdom of heaven. Before the sun was made, there was a light which did that office of distinguishing night and day; but when the sun was created, that did all the offices of the former light, and more● Reason is that first, and primogeniall light, and goes no farther in a natural man; but in a man regenerate by faith, that light does all that reason did, and more; and all his Moral, and Civil, and Domestic, and indifferent actions, (though they be never done without Reason) yet their principal scope, and mark is the glory of God, and though they seem but Moral, or Civil, or domestic, yet they have a deeper tincture, a heavenly nature, a relation to God, in them. The light in our Text then, is essentially and personally Christ himself, from him flows the supernatural light of faith and grace, here also intended; and because this light of faith, and grace flowing from that fountain of light Christ Jesus, works upon the light of nature, and reason, it may conduce to the raising of your devotions, if we do (without any long insisting upon the several parts thereof) present to you some of those many and divers lights, which are in this world, and admit an application to this light in our Text, the essential light, Christ jesus; and the supernatural light, faith and grace. Of these lights we shall consider some few couples; and the first pair, Lux Essentiae, Lux Essentiae. and Lux Gloriae, the light of the Essence of God, and the light of the glory of his Saints. And though the first of these, be that essential light, by which we shall see God face to face, as he is, and the effluence and emanation of beams, from the face of God, which make that place Heaven, of which light it is said, That God who only hath Immortality, 1Tim. 6. 16. dwells in luce inaccessibili, in the light that none can attain to, yet by the light of faith, and grace in sanctification, we may come to such a participation of that light of Essence, or such a reflection of it in this world, that it shall be true of us, which was said of those Ephesians, 5. 8. You were once darkness, but now are light in the Lord; he does not say enlightened, Phil. 2. 20. nor lightsome, but light itself, light essentially, for our conversation is in heaven; Ezek 16. 10. And as God says of jerusalem, and his blessings here in this world, Calceavit janthino, I have shod thee, with Badgers skin, (some translate it) (which the Ancients take for some precious stuff) that is, I have enabled thee to tread upon all the most estimable things of this world, (for as the Church itself is presented, so every true member of the Church is endowed, Apo 12. 1. Luna sub pedibus, the Moon, and all under the Moon is under our feet, we tread upon this world, even when we are trodden upon in it) so the precieus' promises of Christ, 2 Pet. 1. 4. make us partakers of the Divine Nature, and the light of faith, 1 Cor. 6. 17. makes us the same Spirit with the Lord; And this is our participation of the light of essence, in this life. The next is the light of glory. This is that Glorification Lux Gloriae. which we shall have at the last day, of which glory, we consider a great part to be in that Denudation, that manifestation of all to all; as, in this world, a great part of our inglorious servitude is in those disguises, and palliations, those colours, and pretences of public good, with which men of power and authority apparel their oppressions of the poor; In this are we the more miserable, that we cannot see their ends, that there is none of this denudation, this laying open of ourselves to one another, which shall accompany that state of glory, where we shall see one another's bodies, and souls, actions and thoughts. And therefore, as if this place were now that Tribunal of Christ Jesus, and this that day of Judgement, and denudation, we must be here, as we shall be there, content to stand naked before him; content that there be a discovery, a revealing, a manifestation of all our sins, wrought upon us, at least to our own consciences, though not to the congregation; If we will have glory, we must have this denudation. We must not be glad, when our sins scape the Preacher. We must not say, (as though there were a comfort in that) though he have hit such a man's Adultery, and another's Ambition, and another's extortion, yet, for all his diligence, he hath miss my sin; for, if thou wouldst fain have it missed, thou wouldst fain hold it still. And then, why camest thou hither? What camest thou for to Church, or to the Sacrament? Why dost thou delude God, with this complemental visit, to come to his house, if thou bring not with thee, a disposition to his honour, and his service? Camest thou only to try whether God knew thy sin, and could tell thee of it, by the Preacher? Alas, he knows it infallibly; And, if he take no knowledge of his knowing it, to thy conscience, by the words of the Preacher, thy state is the more desperate. God sends us to preach forgiveness of sins; where we find no sin, we have no Commission to execute; How shall we find your sins? In the old sacrifices of the law, the Priest did not fetch the sacrifice from the herd, but he received it from him that brought it, and so sacrificed it for him. Do thou therefore prevent the Preacher; Accuse thyself before he accuse thee; offer up thy sin thyself; Bring it to the top of thy memory, and thy conscience, that he finding it there, may sacrifice it for thee; Tune the instrument, and it is the fitter for his hand. Remember thou thine own sins, first and then every word that falls from the preachers lipsshall be a drop of the dew of heaven, a dram of the balm of Gilead, a portion of the blood of thy Saviour, to wash away that sin, so presented by thee to be so sacrificed by him; for, if thou only of all the congregation find that the preacher hath not touched thee, nor hit thy sins, know then, that thou wast not in his Commission for the Remission of sins, and be afraid, that thy conscience is either gangrend, and unsensible of all incisions, and cauterizations, that can be made by denouncing the judgements of God, (which is as far as the preacher can go) or that thy whole constitution, thy complexion, thy composition is sin; the preacher cannot hit thy particular sin, because thy whole life, and the whole body of thy actions is one continual sin. As long as a man is alive, if there appear any offence in his breath, the physician will assign it to some one corrupt place, his lungs, or teeth, or stomach, and thereupon apply convenient remedy thereunto. But if he be dead, and putrefied, no man asks from whence that ill air and offence comes, because it proceeds from thy whole carcase. So, as long as there is in you a sense of your sins, as long as we can touch the offended and wounded part, and be felt by you, you are not desperate, though you be froward, and impatient of our increpations. But when you feel nothing, whatsoever we say, your soul is in an Hectic fever, where the distemper is not in any one humour, but in the whole substance; nay, your soul itself is become a carcase. This then is our first couple of these lights, by our Conversation in heaven here, (that is, a watchfulness, that we fall not into sin) we have lucem essentiae, possession and fruition of heaven, and of the light of God's presence; and then, if we do, by infirmity, fall into sin, yet, by this denudation of our souls, this manifestation of our sins to God by confession, and to that purpose, a gladness when we hear our sin spoken of by the preacher, we have lumen gloriae, an inchoation of our glorified estate; and then, an other couple of these lights, which we propose to be considered, is lumen fidei, and lumen naturae, the light of faith, and the light of nature. Of these two lights, Lux fidei. Faith and Grace, first, and then Nature and Reason, we said something before, but never too much, be cause contentious spirits have cast such clouds upon both these lights, that some have said, Nature doth all alone, and others, that Nature hath nothing to do at all, but all is Grace: we decline wranglings, that tend not to edification, we say only to our present purpose, (which is the operation of these several couples of lights) that by this light of Faith, to him which hath it, all that is involved in Prophecies, is clear, and evident, as in a History already done; and all that is wrapped up in promises, is his own already in performance. That man needs not go so high, Gen. 3. 15. for his assurance of a Messias and Redeemer, as to the first promise made to him in Adam, 12 3. nor for the limitation of the stock and race from whence this Messias should come: so far as to the renewing of this promise in Abraham: nor for the description of this Messias who he should be, Esay ●. 14. and of whom he should be born, as to Esaias; nor to Micheas, for the place; Mich. 5. 2. nor for the time when he should accomplish all this, so far as to Daniel; no, Dan. 9 24. nor so far, as to the Evangelists themselves, for the History and the evidence, that all this that was to be done in his behalf by the Messias, was done 1600. years since. But he hath a whole Bible, and an abundant Library in his own heart, and there by this light of Faith, (which is not only a knowing, but an applying, an appropriating of all to thy benefit) he hath a better knowledge than all this, than either Prophetical, or Evangelicall; for though both these be irrefragable, and infallible proofs of a Messias, (the Prophetical, that he should, the Evangelicall, that he is come) yet both these might but concern others: this light of Faith brings him home to thee. How sure so ever I be, that the world shall never perish by water, yet I may be drowned; and how sure so ever that the Lamb of God hath taken away the sins of the world, I may perish, without I have this applicatory Faith. And as he needs not look back to Esay, nor Abraham, nor Adam, for the Messias, so neither needs he to look forward. He needs not stay in expectation of the Angels Trumpets, to awaken the dead; he is not put to his usquequo Domine, How long, Lord, wilt thou defer our restitution? but he hath already died the death of the righteous; which is, to die to sin; He hath already had his burial, by being buried with Christ in Baptism, he hath had his Resurrection from sin, his Ascension to holy purposes of amendment of life, and his judgement, that is, peace of Conscience, sealed unto him, and so by this light of applying Faith, he hath already apprehended an eternal possession of God's eternal Kingdom. And the other light in this second couple is Lux naturae, the light of Nature. This, Lux Naturae. though a fainter light, directs us to the other, Nature to Faith: and as by the quantity in the light of the Moon, we know the position and distance of the Sun, how far, or how near the Sun is to her, so by the working of the light of Nature in us, we may discern, (by the measure and virtue and heat of that) how near to the other greater light, the light of Faith, we stand. If we find our natural faculties rectified, so as that that free will which we have in Moral and Civil actions, be bend upon the external duties of Religion, (as every natural man may, out of the use of that free will, come to Church, hear the Word preached, and believe it to be true) we may be sure, the other greater light is about us. If we be cold in them, in actuating, in exalting, in using our natural faculties so far, we shall be deprived of all light; we shall not see the Invisible God, Rom. 1. 20. in visible things, which Saint Paul makes so inexcusable, so unpardonable a thing, we shall not see the hand of God in all our worldly crosses, nor the seal of God in all our worldly blessings; we shall not see the face of God in his House, his presence here in the Church, nor the mind of God in his Gospel, that his gracious purposes upon mankind, extend so particularly, or reach so far, as to include us. I shall hear in the Scripture his Vinite omnes, come all, and yet I shall think thate his eye was not upon me, that his eye did not because me and I shall hear the Deus vult omnes salves, that God would save all, and yet I shall find some perverse reason in myself, why it is not likely that God will save me. I am commanded scrutari Scripturas, to search the scriptures; now, that is not to be able to repeat any history of the Bible without book, it is not to ruffle a Bible, and upon any word to turn to the Chapter, and to the verse; but this is exquisite a scrutatio, the true searching of the Scriptures, to find all the histories to be examples to me, all the prophecies to induce a Saviour for me, all the Gospel to apply Christ Jesus to me. Turn over all the folds, and plaits of thine own heart, and find there the infirmities, and waver of thine own faith, and an ability to say, Lord, I believe, help mine unbelief, and then, though thou have no Bible in thy hand, or though thou stand in a dark corner, nay though thou canst not read a letter, thou hast searched that Scripture, thou hast turned to Mark 9 ver. 24 Turn thine ear to God, and hear him turning to thee, and saying to thy soul, I will marry thee to myself for ever; and thou hast searched that Scripture, and turned to Host 2. ver. 19 Turn to thine own histery, thine own life, and if thou canst read there, that thou hast endeavoured to turn thine ignorance into knowledge, and thy knowledge into Practice, if thou find thyself to be an example of that rule of Christ's, If you know these things, blessed are you, if you do them, than thou hast searched that Scripture, and turned to Io. 13. ver. 14. This is Scrutari Scripturas, to Search the Scriptures, not as though thou wouldst make a concordance, but an application; as thou wouldst search a wardrobe, not to make an Inventory of it, but to find in it something fit for thy wearing. john Baptist was not the light, he was not Christ, but he bore witness of him. The light of faith, in the highest exaltation that can be had, in the Elect, here, is not that very beatifical vision, which we shall have in heaven, but it bears witness of that light. The light of nature, in the highest exaltation is not faith, but it bears witness of it. The lights of faith, and of nature, are subordinate john Baptists: faith bears me witness, that I have Christ, and the light of nature, that is, the exalting of my natural faculties towards religious uses, bears me witness, that I have faith. Only that man, whose conscience testifies to himself, and whose actions testify to the world, that he does what he can, can believe himself, or be believed by others, that he hath the true light of faith. And therefore, 1 Thes. 5. 19 as the Apostle saith, Quench not the Spirit, I say too, Quench not the light of Nature, suffer not that light to go out; study your natural faculties; husband and improve them, and love the outward acts of Religion, though an Hypocrite, and though a natural man may do them. Certainly he that loves not the Militant Church, hath but a faint faith in his interest in the Triumphant. He that cares not though the material Church fall, I am afraid is falling from the spiritual. For, can a man be sure to have his money, or his plate, if his house be burnt? or to preserve his faith, if the outward exercises of Religion fail? He that undervalues outward things, in the religious service of God, though he begin at ceremonial and ritual things, will come quickly to call Sacraments but outward things, and Sermons, and public prayers, but outward things, in contempt. As some Platonique Philosophers, did so over-refine Religion, and devotion, as to say, that nothing but the first thoughts and ebullitions of a devout heart, were fit to serve God in. If it came to any outward action of the body, kneeling, or lifting up of hands, if it came to be but invested in our words, and so made a Prayer, nay if it passed but a revolving, a turning in our inward thoughts, and thereby were mingled with our affections, though pious affections, yet, say they, it is not pure enough for a service to God; nothing but the first motions of the heart is for him. Beloved, outward things apparel God; and since God was content to take a body, let not us leave him naked, nor ragged; but, as you will bestow not only some cost, but some thoughts, some study, how you will cloth your children, and how you will cloth your servants, so bestow both cost and thoughts, think seriously, execute cheerfully in outward declarations, that which becomes the dignity of him, who evacuated himself for you. The zeal of his house needs not eat you up, no nor eat you out of house and home; God asks not that at your hands. But, if you eat one dish the less at your feasts for his house sake, if you spare somewhat for his relief, and his glory, you will not be the leaner, nor the weaker, for that abstinence. john Baptist bore witness of the light, outward things bear witness of your faith, the exalting of our natural faculties bear witness of the supernatural. We do not compare the master and the servant, and yet we thank that servant that brings us to his master. We make a great difference between the treasure in the chest, and the key that opens it, yet we are glad to have that key in our hands. The bell that calls me to Church, does not catechise me, nor preach to me, yet I observe the sound of that bell, because it brings me to him that does those offices to me. The light of nature is far from being enough; but, as a candle may kindle a torch, so into the faculties of nature, well employed, God infuses faith. And this is our second couple of lights, the subordination of the light of nature, and the light of faith. And a third pair of lights of attestation, that bear witness to the light of our Text, is Lux aeternorum Corporum, that light which the Sun and Moon, and those glorious bodies give from heaven, and lux incensionum, that light, which those things; that are naturally combustible, and apt to take fire, do give upon earth; both these bear witness of this light, Lux aeternorum corporum. that is, admit an application to it. For, in the first of these, the glorious lights of heaven, we must take nothing for stars, that are not stars; nor make Astrological and fixed conclusions out of meteors, that are but transitory; they may be Comets, and blazing stars, and so portend much mischief, but they are none of those aeterna corpora, they are not fixed stars, not stars of heaven. So is it also in the Christian Church, (which is the proper sphere in which the light of our text, That light the essential light Christ Jesus moves by that supernatural light of faith and grace, which is truly the Intelligence of that sphere, the Christian Church) As in the heavens the stars were created at once, with one Fiat, and then being so made, stars do not beget new stars, so the Christian doctrine necessary to salvation, was delivered at once, that is, entirely in one sphere, in the body of the Scriptures. And then, as stars do not beget stars, Articles of faith do not beget Articles of faith; so, as that the Council of Trent should be brought to bed of a new Creed, not conceived before by the holy Ghost in the Scriptures, and, (which is a monstrous birth) the child greater than the Father, as soon as it is borne, the new Creed of the Council of Trent to contain more Articles, than the old Creed of the Apostles did. Saint jude writing of the common salvation (as he calls it) (for, verse 3. Saint jude, it seems, knew no such particular salvation, as that it was impossible for any man to have, salvation is common salvation) exhorts them to contend earnestly for that faith, which was once delivered unto the Saints. Semel, once; that is; at once, semel, simul, once altogether. For this is also Tertullia's Tertull. note; that the rule of faith is, that it be una, immobilis, irreformabilis; it must not be deformed, it cannot be Reform; it must not be marred, it cannot be mended; whatsoever needs mending, and reformation, cannot be the rule of faith, says Tertullian. Other foundation can no man lay then Christ; 1 Cor. 3. 11. not only no better, but no other; what other things soever are added by men, enter not into the nature and condition of a foundation. The additions, and traditions, and superedifications of the Roman Church, they are not lux aeternorum corporum, they are not fixed bodies, they are not stars to direct us; they may be meteors, and so exercise our discourse, and Argumentation, they may raise controversies; And they may be Comets, and so exercise our fears, and our jealousies, they may raise rebellions and Treasons, but they are not fixed and glorious bodies of heaven, they are not stars. Their non-communions, (for, communions where there are no communicants, are no communions) when they admit no bread at all, no wine at all, all is transubstantiated, are no communions; their semi-communions, when they admit the bread to be given, but not the wine; their sesqui-communions, Bread and Wine to the taste, and to all other trials of bread and wine, and yet that bread and wine, the very body, and the very blood of Christ; their quotidian miracles, which destroy and contradict even the nature of the miracle, to make miracles ordinary, and fixed, constant and certain; (for, as that is not a miracle which nature does, so that's not a miracle which man can do certainly, constantly, infallibly every day, and every day, every Priest can miraculously change bread into the body of Christ, and besides they have certain fixed shops, and Marts of miracles, in one place a shop of miracles for barrenness, in another, a shop for the toothache) To contract this, their occasional Divinity, doctrines to serve present occasions, that in eighty eight, an Heretical Prince must necessarily be excommunicated, and an Heretical Prince excommunicated must necessarily be deposed, but at another time it may be otherwise, and conveniencies, and dispensations may be admitted, these, and such as these, traditional, occasional, Almanac Divinity, they may be Comets, they may be Meteors, they may rain blood, and rain fire, and rain hailstones, hailstones as big as Talents, (as it is in the Revelation) millstones, to grind the world by their oppressions, but they are not lux aeternorum corporum, the light of the stars and other heavenly bodies, for, they were made at once, and diminish not, increase not. Fundamental articles of faith, are always the same. And that's our application of this lux aeternorum corporum, the light of those heavenly bodies, to the light of our Text, Christ working in the Church. Now, Lux incensionum. for the consideration of the other light in this third couple, which is lux incensionum, the light of things, which take, and give light here upon earth, if we reduce it to application and practice, and contract it to one Instance, it will appear that the devotion and zeal of him, that is best affected, is, for the most part, in the disposition of a torch, or a knife, ordained to take fire, and to give light. If it have never been lightened, it does not easily take light, but it must be bruised, and beaten first; if it have been lighted and put out; though it cannot take fire of itself, yet it does easily conceive fire, if it be presented within any convenient distance. Such also is the soul of man towards the fires of the zeal of God's glory, and compassion of others misery. If there be any that never took this fire, that was never affected with either of these, the glory of God, the miseries of other men, can I hope to kindle him? It must be God's work to bruise and beat him, Hierom. with his rod of affliction, before he will take fire. Paulus revelatione compulsus ad fidem, St. Paul was compelled to believe; not the light which he saw, but the power which he felt wrought upon him; not because that light shined from heaven, but because it struck him to the earth. August. Agnoscimus Christum in Paulo prius cogentem, deinde docentem; Christ begun not upon St. Paul, with a catechism, but with a rod. If therefore here be any in Paul's case, that were never kindled before, Almighty God proceed the same way with them, and come so near to a friendship towards them, as to be at enmity with them; to be so merciful to them, as to seem unmerciful; to be so well pleased, as to seem angry; that so by inflicting his medicinal afflictions, he may give them comfort by discomfort, and life by death, and make them seek his face, by turning his face from them; and not to suffer them to continue in a stupid inconsideration, and lamentable senselessness of their miserable condition, but bruise and break them with his rod, that they may take fire. But for you, who have taken this fire before, that have been enlightened in both Sacraments, and in the preaching of the word; in the means, and in some measure of practice of holiness heretofore, if in not supplying oil to your Lamps, which God by his ordinance had kindled in you, you have let this light go out by negligence or inconsideration, or that storms of worldly calamities have blown it out, do but now at this instant call to mind, what sin of yesterday, or t'other day, or long ago, begun, and practised, and prevailed upon you, or what future sin, what purpose of doing a sin to night, or to morrow, possesses you; do but think seriously what sin, or what cross hath blown out that light, that grace, which was formerly in you, before that sin, or that cross invaded you, and turn your soul, which hath been enlightened before, towards this fire which Gods Spirit blows this minute, and you will conceive new fire, new zeal, new compassion. As this Lux incensionum, kindles easily, when it hath been kindled before, so the soul accustomed to the presence of God in holy meditations, though it fall asleep in some dark corner, in some sin of infirmity, a while, yet, upon every holy occasion, it takes fire again, and the meanest Preacher in the Church, shall work more upon him, than the four Doctors of the Church should be able to do, upon a person who had never been enlightened before, that is, never accustomed to the presence of God in his private meditations, or in his outward acts of Religion. And this is our third couple of lights, that bears witness, that is, admit an application to the light of our Text; and then the fourth and last couple, which we consider, is Lux Depuratarum Mixtionum, the light and lustre of precious stones, and then Lux Repercussionum, the light of Repercussion, and Reflection, when one body, though it have no light in itself, casts light upon other bodies. In the application of the first of these lights, Lux Depuratarum Mixtionum. Depuratarum Mixtionum, precious stones, we shall only apply their making and their value. Precious stones are first drops of the dew of heaven, and then refined by the sun of heaven. When by long lying they have exhaled, and evaporated, and breathed out all their gross matter, and received another concoction from the sun, than they become precious in the eye, and estimation of men: so those actions of ours, that shall be precious or acceptable in the eye of God, must at first have been conceived from heaven, from the word of God, and then receive another concoction, by a holy deliberation, before we bring those actions to execution, lest we may have mistaken the root thereof. Actions precious, or acceptable in God's eye, must be holy purposes in their beginning, and then done in season; the Dove must lay the egg, and hatch the bird; the holy Ghost must infuse the purpose, and sit upon it, and overshadow it, and mature and ripen it, if it shall be precious in God's eye. The reformation of abuses in State or Church, is a holy purpose, there is that drop of the dew of heaven in it; but if it be unseasonably attempted, and have not a farther concoction, than the first motions of our own zeal, it becomes ineffectual. Stones precious in the estimation of men, begin with the dew of Heaven, and proceed with the sun of Heaven; Actions precious in the acceptation of God, are purposes conceived by his Spirit, and executed in his time to his Glory, not conceived out of Ambition, nor executed out of sedition. And this is the application of this Lux depuratarum mixtionum, of precious stones, out of their making, we proposed another out of their valuation; which is this, That whereas a Pearl or Diamond of such a bigness, of so many Carats, is so much worth, one that is twice as big, is ten times as much worth. So, though God vouchsafe to value every good work thou dost, yet as they grow greater he shall multiply his estimation of them infinitely, When he hath prized at a high rate, the chastity and continency of thy youth, if thou add to this, a moderation in thy middle age, from Ambition, and in thy latter age from covetousness and indevotion, there shall be no price in God's treasure (not the last drop of the blood of his Son) too dear for thee, no room, no state in his Kingdom (not a jointenancy with his only Son) too glorious for thee. This is one light in this Couple; The lustre of precious stones: the other the last is Lux Repercussionum, The light of Repercussion, of Reflection. This is, Lux Repercussionum. when Gods light cast upon us, reflecteth upon other men too, from us; when God doth not only accept our works for ourselves, but employs those works of ours upon other men. And here is a true, and a Divine Supererogation; which the Devil, (as he doth all God's Actions, which fall into his compass) did mischievously counterfeit in the Roman Church, when he induced their Doctrine of Supererogation, that a man might do so much more than he was bound to do for God, as that that superplusage might save whom he would; and that if he did not direct them in his intention, upon any particular person, the Bishop of Rome, was general Administrator to all men, and might bestow them where he would. But here is a true supererogation; not from Man, or his Merit, but from God; when our good works shall not only profit us, that do them, but others that see them done; and when we by this light of Repercussion, of Reflection, shall be made specula divinae gloriae, quae accipiunt & reddunt, such looking glasses as receive God's face upon ourselves, Tertull. and cast it upon others by a holy life, and exemplary conversation. To end all, Conclusio. we have no warmth in ourselves; it is true, but Christ came even in the winter: we have no light in ourselves; it is true, but he came even in the night. And now, I appeal to your own Consciences, and I ask you all, (not as a judge, but as an Assistant to your Consciences, and Amicus Curiae,) whether any man have made a good use of this light, as he might have done. Is there any man that in the compass of his sin, hath not met this light by the way, Thou shouldest not do this? Any man, that hath not only as Balaam did, Numb. 2●. 22. met this light as an Angel, (that is, met Heavenly inspirations to avert him,) but that hath not heard as Balaam did, his own Ass; that is, those reasons that use to carry him, or those very worldly respects that use to carry him, dispute against that sin, and tell him, not only that there is more soul and more heaven, and more salvation, but more body, and more health, more honour, and more reputation, more cost, and more money, more labour, and more danger. spent upon such a sin, than would have carried him the right way. They that sleep, Recapitulatio. sleep in the night, and they that are drunk, are drunk in the night. But to you the Day star, the Sun of Righteousness, the Son of God is risen this day. The day is but a little longer now, 1 Thes. 5. 7. then at shortest; but a little it is. Be a little better now, then when you came, and mend a little at every coming, and in less than seven years' app●entissage, which your occupations cost you, you shall learn, not the Mysteries of your twelve companies, but the Mysteries of the twelve Tribes, of the twelve Apostles, of their twelve Articles, whatsoever belongeth to the promise, to the performance, to the Imitation of Christ Jesus. He, who is Lu● una, light and light alone, and Lux tota, light and all light, shall also, by that light, which he sheddeth from himself upon all his, the light of Grace, give you all these Attestations, all these witnesses of that his light; he shall give you Lucem essentiae, (really, and essentially to be incorporated into him, Essentiae. to be made partakers of the Divine Nature, and the same Spirit with the Lord, by a Conversation in Heaven, here) and lucem gloriae, (a gladness to give him glory in a donudation of your souls, and your sins, Gloriae. by humble confession to him, and a gladness to receive a denudation and manifestation of yourselves to yourselves, by his messenger, in his medicinal and musical increpations, and a gladness to receive an inchoation of future glory, in the remission of those sins.) He shall give you lucem fidei, Fidei. ) (faithful and unremovable possession of future things, in the present, and make your hereafter, now, in the fruition of God.) And Lucem naturae (a love of the outward beauty of his house, Naturae. and outward testimonies of this love, in inclining your natural faculties to religious duties.) He shall give you Lucem aeternorum Corporum, Aeternorum Corporum. (a love to walk in the light of the stars of heaven, that never change, a love so perfect in the fundamental articles of Religion, without impertinent additions.) And Lucem incensionum, Incensionum. ) (an aptness to take holy fire, by what hand, or tongue, or pen soever it be presented unto you, according to God's Ordinance, though that light have formerly been suffered to go out in you.) He shall give you Lucem depuratarum Mixtionum, Depuratarum Mixitionum. (the lustre of precious stones, made of the dew of heaven, and by the heat of heaven, that is, actions intended at first, and produced at last, for his glory; and every day multiply their value, in the sight of God, because thou shalt every day grow up from grace to grace.) And Lucem Repercussionum, Repercussionum. (he shall make you able to reflect and cast this light upon others, to his glory, and their establishment.) Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord, with all these lights; that in thy light we may see light; that in this Essential light, which is Christ, and in this Supernatural light, which is grace, we may see all these, and all other beams of light, which may bring ut to thee, and him, and that blessed Spirit which proceeds from both. Amen. SERMON XXXVII. Preached at St. Paul's on Midsummer day. 1622. JOHN 1. 8. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. OF him, who was this light, which john Baptist is here denied to be, I spoke out of these words, and out of this place, the first time that I ascended to it, upon the great Epiphany, (as the first Church used to call it) the manifestation of Christ jesus in the flesh, Christmas day; I reserved the rest of the Text, which concerns john Baptist himself, and his office, for this day, in which the Church celebrates his memory, who, though he were not that light, was sent to bear witness of that light. We shall make our parts but two, Testem, and Testimonium, the person, and the Office; first, who the witness is, and then what he witnesses. In the first, we shall consider first, the dignity, the fitness of the person, employed in the first word of this part of our Text, but; he was not that light; that is true, but yet he was something towards it; he was nothing considered with Christ, but he was much considered with any other man. And then we shall see his title to his office, Missus est, as he was fit in himself, so he was sent by him that had power to give Commission; and from these two, in which we shall determine our first part, the consideration of his person, we shall descend to the other, his office; and therein stop but upon two steps neither; first, why any testimony was required to so clear a thing as light, and such a light, that light; and then, what kind of testimony john Baptist did give to that light. So have you the design, and frame of our building, and the several partitions, the rooms; pass we now to a more particular survey, and furnishing of them. The first branch of the first part, is the Idoneus, 1 Part. Idoneus. that he was fit to be a witness. If we should insist upon the nobility of his race, his father and mother, (his father a Priest, and his mother also descended of Aaron) (and, as all Nations have some notes and marks of nobility, Philo jud. (Merchandise, or Arms, or Letters, amongst the Jews Priesthood was that, the Priesthood ennobled men) in all well policed States, caeteris paribus, if they were not otherwise defective, they have ever thought it fittest to employ persons of good families, and of noble extraction, as well because, in likelihood they had had the best education, from their parents, and the best knowledge of things that concern the public, by having had their conversation with the best, and most intelligent persons; as also, because they have for the most part, more to lose them inferior persons have, and therefore are likelier to be careful and vigilant in their employment; And again, because they draw a better respect from those to whom they are employed, (which is of great importance in such negotiations, to send persons acceptable to them to whom they are sent) and yet, do not lie so open to the tentations and corruptions of their Ministers, as men of needy fortunes, and obscure extractions do. This fitness john Baptist had, he was of a good family and extraction. It adds to him, that as he had a noble, he had a miraculous birth ● for, to be born of a Virgin, is but a degree more, then to be borne of a barren woman. A birth, which only of all others the Church celebrates; for, though we find the days of the Martyrs still called, Natalitia Martyrum, their birthdays, yet that is always intended of the days of their death; only in john Baptist it is intended literally of his natural birth; for, his spiritual birth, his Martyrdom, is remembered by another name, Decollatio joannis, john Baptists beheading. If we should enlarge all concerning him, as infinitely, as infinite Authors have done, or contract all as summarily, Luk. 7. 28. as Christ hath done, (Amongst those that are borne of women, there is not a greater Prophet than john the Baptist) yet we should find that Saint Augustine had done all this before, August. Non est quod illi adjiciat homo, cui Deus contulit totum, What man can add more, where God said all, and he hath said of john Baptist, Spiritu Sa●cto replebitur, He shall be filled with the holy Ghost. Two things especially make a man a competent witness: First, that he have in himself a knowledge of the thing that he testifies; else he is an incompetent witness: And then, that he have a good estimation in others, that he be reputed an honest man; else he is an unprofitable witness. If he be ignorant, he says truth, but by chance; if he be dishonest, and say truth, it is but upon design, and not for the truth's sake; for, if those circumstances did not lead him, he would not say truth. john Baptist had both, knowledge and estimation. He knew, Scientia. per scientiam infusam, by infused knowledge; as he was a Prophet; for so Christ testifies that he was. But all Prophets knew not all things; therefore he was more than a Prophet, Matth. 11.9. which is also testified by Christ, in his behalf. More than any former Prophet. Hierom. And yet, the Prophet Esaiah was (even in his Prophecy) an Evangelist, his Prophecy of Christ was so clear, so particular, as that it was rather Gospel, and History, than Prophecy. john Baptist was more than that; for, he did not only declare a present Christ, (in that, Esay may seem to come near him) but he was Propheta Prophetatus, A Prophet that was prophesied of; even Esay himself bore witness of this witness; Esay 40. 3. (A voice cried in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the lord) And the Prophet Malachi bore witness of this witness too, Mal. 3. 1. (Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me.) So he hath the testimony of the first and last of the Prophets; and of him too, who was the first and the last, the cause and the effect, the moving and fulfilling of all prophecy, of Christ himself, Matth. 11. 10. (This is he, of whom it is written,) and so he citys those words of Malachi concerning john Baptist. john Baptist then had this competency, by knowledge infused by God, declared in former Prophecies, he knew the matter, which he was to testify. Which is so essential, so substantial a circumstance in matter of testimony, in what way soever we will be witnesses to God, as that no man is a competent witness for God, not in his preaching, not in his living, not in his dying, (though he be a witness in the highest sense, that is, a Martyr) if he do not know, upon what ground, he says, or does, or suffers that, which he suffers, and does, and says. Howsoever he pretend the honour of God in his testimony, yet, if the thing be materially false, (false in itself, though true in his opinion) or formally false, (true in itself, but not known to be so, to him that testifies it) both ways he is an incompetent witness. And this takes away the honour of having been witnesses for Christ, and the consolation and style of Martyrs, both from them, who, upon such evidence, as can give no assurance (that is, traeditions of men) have grounded their faith in God, and from them, who take their light in corners, and conventicles, and not from the City set upon the top of a hill, the Church of God. Those Roman Priests who have given their lives, those Separatists which have taken a voluntary banishment, are not competent witnesses for the glory of God; for a witness must know; and qui testatur de scientia, testetur de modo scientiae, says the Law, He that will prove any thing by his knowledge, must prove how he came by that knowledge; The Papist hath not the knowledge of his Doctrine from any Scripture, the Separatist hath not the knowledge of his Discipline from any precedent, any example in the primitive Church. How far then is that wretched and sinful man, from giving any testimony or glory to Christ in his life, who never comes to the knowledge, and consideration, why he was sent into this life? who is so far from doing his errand, that he knows not what his errand was; not whether he received any errand or no. But, as though that God, who for infinite millions of ages, delighted himself in himself, and was sufficient in himself, and yet at last did bestow six day's labour for the creation, and provision of man, as though that God, who when man was soured in the lump, poisoned in the fountain, withered in the root, in the loins of Adam, would then engage his Son, his beloved Son, his only Son to be man, by a temporary life, and to be no man, by a violent and a shameful death, as though that God, who when he was pleased to come to a creation, might have left out thee, amongst privations, amongst nothings, or might have shut thee up, in the close prison, of a bare being, and no more, (as he hath done earth and stones) or, if he would have given thee life, might have left thee a Toad, or, if he would have given thee a humane soul, might have left thee a heathen, without any knowledge of God, or, if he had afforded thee a Religion, might have left thee a jew, or, though he had made thee a Christian, might have left thee a Papist; as though that God that hath done so much more, in breeding thee in his true Church, had done all this for nothing, thou passest through this world, like a flash, like a lightning, whose beginning or end no body knows, like an Ignis fatuus in the air, which does not only not give light for any use, but not so much as portend or signify any thing; and thou passest out of the world, as thy hand passes out of a basin of water, which may be somewhat the fouler for thy washing in it, but retains no other impression of thy having been there; and so does the world for thy life in it. When God placed Adam in the world, he bade him fill it, and subdue it, and rule it; and when he placed him in paradise, he bade him dress, and keep paradise; and when he sent his children into the overflowing Laud of promise, he bade them fight, and destroy the Idolaters; to every body some task, some errand for his glory; And thou comest from him, into this world, as though he had said nothing unto thee, but Go and do as you see cause, Go, and do as you see other men do. Thou knowest not, that is, considerest not, what thou wast sent to do, what thou shouldest have done, but thou knowest much less, what thou hast done. The light of nature hath taught thee to hide thy sins from other men, and thou hast been so diligent in that, as that thou hast hid them from thyself, and canst not find them in thine own conscience, if at any time the Spirit of God would burn them up, or the blood of Christ Jesus wash them out; thou canst not find them out so, as that a Sermon or Sacrament can work upon them. Perchance thou canst tell, when was the first time, or where was the first place, that thou didst commit such or such a sin; but as a man can remember when he began to spell, but not when he began to read perfectly, when he began to join his letters, but not when he began to write perfectly, so thou remember'st when thou goest timorously and bashfully about sin, at first, and now perchance art ashamed of that shamefastness, and sorry thou beganst no sooner. Poor bankrupt! that hast sinned out thy soul so profusely, so lavishly, that thou darest not cast up thine accounts, thou darest not ask thyself whether thou have any soul left; how far art thou, from giving any testimony to Christ, that darest not testify to thyself, nor hear thy conscience take knowledge of thy transgressions, but hadst rather sleep out thy days, or drink out thy days, then leave one minute for compunction to lay hold on; and dost not sin always for the love of that sin, but for fear of a holy sorrow, if thou shouldest not fill up thy time, with that sin. God cannot be mocked, saith the Apostle, nor God cannot be blinded. He seeth all the way, and at thy last gasp, he will make thee see too, through the multiplying Glass, the Spectacle of Desperation. Canst thou hope that that God, that seeth this dark Earth through all the vaults and arches of the several spheres of Heaven, that seeth thy body through all thy stone walls, and seeth thy soul through that which is darker than all those, thy corrupt flesh, canst thou hope that that God can be blinded with drawing a curtain between thy sin and him? when he is all eye, canst thou hope to put out that eye, with putting out a candle? when he hath planted legions of Angels about thee, canst thou hope that thou hast taken away all Intelligence, if thou have corrupted, or silenced, or sent away a servant? O bestow as much labour, as thou hast done, to find corners for sin to find out those sins, in those corners where thou hast hid them. As Prince's give● pardons by their own hands, but send Judges to execute Justice, come to him for mercy in the acknowledgement of thy sins, and stay not till his Justice come to thee, when he makes inquisition for blood; and do not think, that if thou feel now at this presents a little tenderness in thy heart, a little melting in thy bowels, a little dew in thine eyes, that if thou be'st come to know, that thou art a sinner, thou dost therefore presently know thy sins. Thou wouldst have so much tenderness, so much compassion, if thou knewest that he that fits next thee, were in this danger of God's heavy indignation; thou wouldst commiserate thy neighbours wretched condition so much. But proceed with thyself further, bring this dawning and break of day to a full light, and this little spark to a perfect acknowledgement of thy sins. Go home, with this spark of God's Spirit in you, and there look upon your rentals, and know your oppressions, and extorsions; look upon your shop-books, and know your deceits and falsifications; look upon your wardrobes, and know your excesses; look upon your children's faces, and know your fornications. Till then, till you come to this scrutiny, this survey, this sifting of the Conscience, if we should cry peace, peace, yet there were no peace. The Orator said, Imposuimus populo, & Oratores visi sumus; we have cozened the people, and they say we are excellent Orators, powerful, well spoken men. We might flatter you, and you would say, we were sweet, and smooth, and comfortable Preachers, and we might perish together. But if you study yourselves, read your own History, if you get to the knowledge of your errand hither, and the ill discharge of those duties here, the sorrow and compunction which will grow from thence, is a fair degree of Martyrdom, (for as Saint Hierome Hierom. saith of Chastity, Habet pudicitia servata, Martyrium suum, Chastity preserved is a continual Martyrdom, so a true remorse, if that Chastity have not been preserved, and likewise a true remorse for every sin, is a fair degree of Martyrdom) for, Martyr is Testis, the very name of Martyr signifieth a Witness; and this Martyrdom, this true remorse and sorrow, and compunction for your sins, becomes a witness to yourselves of your reconciliation to God in the merits of Christ Jesus. But we may carry this branch no further, that john Baptist being a competent witness therefore, because he understood the matter he testified, before we can be competent witnesses to our own Consciences, of our Reconciliation to God, we must understand, (and therefore search into our particular sins) not only that we are sinners, but sinners in such and such kinds, such times, such places, such persons; for that Soul, that is content to rest in generals, would but deceive itself. john Baptists other qualification was, That as he knew the matter about which he was sent, so he had, (and justly) a good estimation amongst them, to whom he was employed. If I have a prejudice against a Man, Integritas. and suspect his honesty, I shall not be much moved with his Testimony. The Devil testified for Christ; but, if there were no other Testimony but his, I should demur upon the Gospel, I should not die for that Faith. john Baptist was a credible person amongst them. How was this credit acquired? It seemeth john Baptist did no Miracles; Whether he did or no, is not a clear Case; for that which is said, (john Baptist did no miracles) is not said by the Evangelist himself; Saint john doth not say, john 10. 41. that john Baptist did no miracles; but those that resorted to him at that place, said that (He doth no miracles) for they had seen none. If he did none, Aquin. that reason may be good enough, ne aequalis Christo putaretur, it was forborn in him, that he might appear to be inferior to Christ. And, if he did none, yet there were miracles done by him. The reformation of manners, and bringing men to repentance, is a miracle. It is a less miracle to raise a man from a sick bed, then to hold a man from a wanton bed, a litentious bed; less to overcome and quench his fever, then to quench his lust. joseph that refused his mistress was a greater miracle than Lazarus raised from the dead. Of these resurrections, we have divers examples, Joseph's case, (I think) is singular. There were miracles done so, by john Baptist preaching to others; and there were miracies done upon himself; & early; for, his springing in his mother's womb, August. was a miracle; and a miracle done for others: Significatio rei à majoribus cognoscende, non à minori cognitae; The child catechised his elders, in that which himself understood not; that is, the presence of his Saviour, in the virgin then present, Divinitus in infante, non humanitus ab infante, says the same Father; it was not a joy, and exultation in the child, but an institution, an instruction to the rest. But miracle or no miracle is not our issue; witnesses for Christ, require not wonder, but belief; we pretend not miracles, but propose Gods ordinary means, we look not for Admiration, but Assent. And therefore forbear you acclamations and expectations of wonderful good preachers, and admirable good Sermons. It was enough for john Baptist that even they confessed, that all that he said was true. Content thyself with truths evident truths, fundamental truths, let matter of wonder and admiration alone. He was a witness competent to them for his truth, Austeritas. and integrity, and he was so also for the outward holiness of his life; which, for the present, we consider only in the strict and austere manner of living, that he embraced. For, certainly, he that uses no fasting, no discipline, no mortification, exposes himself to many dangers in himself, and to a cheap and vulgar estimation amongst others. Caro mea jumentum meum, says S. Augustine, August. my body is the horse I ride; iter ago in jerusalem, my business lies at jerusalem; thither I should ride; De via conatur excutere, my horse over pampered casts me upon the way, or carries me out of the way; non cohibebo jejunio, says he; must not that be my way, to bring him to a gentler riding, & more command, by lessening his proportions of provender? 1 Cor. 9 27. S. Augustine means the same that S. Paul preached, I beat down my body, says he, and bring it in subjection; And, (as Paulinus reads that place) Lividum reddo, I make my body black and blue; white and red were not Saint Paul's colours. Saint Paul was at this time departed, (in outward profession) from the sect of the Pharisees, and from their ostentations of doing their disciplines in the sight and for the praise of man; but yet, being become a Christian he left not his austerity; And it is possible for us, to leave the leaven of the Papist, the opinion of merit, and supererogation, and doing more than we are bound to do in the ways of godliness, and yet nourish our souls, with that wholesome bread of taming our bodies. Saint Paul had his Disciplines, his mortifications; he tells us so, but he does not tell us what they were; lest perchance a reverence to his person, and example, might bind mis-devout men, to do punctually as Saint Paul did. The same Rule cannot serve all; but the same Reason may. The institution of friars under a certain Rule, that all of them, just at this time, shall do just thus, cannot be a rule of justice; but the general doctrine, that every body needs at some times, some helps, some means, is certainly true. Shall the riotous, the voluptuous man stay till this something be a surfeit or a fever? 'Tis true, this surfeit and this fever, will subdue the body, but then thou dost it not. Shall a lascivious wanton stay, till a consumption or such contagious diseases as shall make him unsociable, and so, unable to exercise his sin, subdue his body? These can do it, Ambrose. but this is Perimere, non subjugare, not a subduing of the body alone, but a destroying of body and soul together. Moderate disciplines subdue the body, as under the government of a King, a father of his people, that governs them by a law. But when the body comes to be subdued, by pains, and anguish, and loathsome diseases, this becomes a tyranny, a conquest; and he that comes in by conquest, imposes what laws he will; so that these subduing of the body brought in by sin, may work in us, an obduration; we shall feel them, but not discern the hand of God in them; or, if his hand, yet not his hand to that purpose, to relieve us, but to seal our condemnation to us. Beloved, because our Adversaries of the Roman heresy, have erroneously made a pattern for their Eremitical and Monastical life in john Baptist, and coloured their idleness, by his example; some of the Reformation have bend a little too far the other way, and denied, that there was any such austerity in the life of St. john, as is ordinarily conceived: They say that his conversation in the Desert, may well be understood to have been but a withdrawing of himself from public and civil businesses, home to his father's house; for, his father dwelled in that Desert, and thither went Mary to salute Elizabeth. Luc. 1. 4●. And joab had his house in this Desert; 1 Reg. 2. 23. and in this Desert are reckoned five or fix good Towns; jos. 1. ●1. so that indeed it was no such savage solitude as they fancy. But yet, for a Son of such Parents, an only Son, a Son so miraculously afforded them, to pass on with that apparell● and that diet, is certainly remarkable, and an evidence of an extraordinary austerity, and an argument of an extraordinary sanctity. Especially to the Jews it was so; amongst them this austerity of life, and abstaining from those things which other men embraced, procured ordinarily a great estimation; We know that amongst them, joseph. the Essaei a severe Sect, had a high reverence: They did not marry, they did not eat flesh, they did not ease themselves by servants, but did all their own work, they used no propriety, they possessed nothing, called nothing their own; Vicatim habitant, & urbes fugiunt, Philo. jud. they forsake all great Towns, and dwell in Villages; And yet, flying the world, they drew the world so much after● them, Pliai. as that it is noted with wonder, per saeculorum Milia gens aeterna, in qua nemo nascitur; that there was an eternal Nation, that had lasted many Generations, and yet never any borne amongst them; I am foecunda illis aliorum vitae poenitentia, for, every man that was crossed or wearied in his own course of life, applied himself to their Sect and manner of living, as the only way to Heaven. And josephus writing his own life and forwardness, and pregnancy, (perchance a little too favourably or gloriously in his own behalf, to be throughly believed; for he saith, that when he was but fourteen years old, the greatest Doctors of the Law, came to him to learn penitiorem sensum juris, the secretest Mysteries of the Law; and their Law, was Divinity) thought himself unperfect till he had spent some time, in the strictness of all the three Sects of the Jews; and after he had done all that, he spent three years more, with one Bannus an Ermit, who lived in the wilderness, upon herbs and roots, john Baptists austerity of life made him a competent and credible witness to them, who had such austerity in estimation. And truly, he that will any way be a witness for Christ, that is, glorify him, he must endeavour, even by this outward holiness of life, to be acceptable to good men. Vox Populi, vox Dei, the general voice is seldom false; so also Oculi populi, Oculi Dei, In this case God looketh upon man, as man doth; Singuli decipi & decipere possunt, One man may deceive another, & be deceived by another; Nemo omnes, neminem omnes fefellerunt, no man ever deceived all the world, nor did all the world ever join to deceive one man. The general opinion, the general voice, is for the most part, good evidence, with, or against a man. Every one of us is ashamed of the praise and attestation of one, whom all the world besides, taketh to be dishonest; so, will Christ be ashamed of that witness, that seeketh not the good opinion of good men. When I see a jesuit solicit the chastity of a daughter of the house, where he is harboured, and after knowledge taken by the Parents, upon her complaint, excuse it with saying, that he did it but to try her, and to be the better assured of her religious constancy; when I see a jesuit conceal and foment a powder Treason, and say he had it but in Confession, and then see these men to proclaim themselves to be Martyrs, witnesses for Christ in the highest degree; I say still, the Devil may be a witness, but I ground not my Faith upon that Testimony: A competent witness must be an honest man. This competency john Baptist had, the good opinion of good men; And then, he had the seal of all, Missus est, he had his Commission, He was sent to bear witness of that Light. Though this word Missus est, Missus. He was sent, be not literally in the Text here, yet it is necessarily employed, and therefore providently supplied by the Translatours in this verse, and before in the sixth verse, it is literally expressed, There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The Law saith, concerning witnesses, Qui se ingerunt & offerunt, suspecti habentur, those that offer their testimony before they be cited, are suspicious witnesses. Therefore they must have a Mission, a sending. For, by Saint Paul's rule, How can they preach except they be sent? Rom. 10. 15 Preach they may; but how? with what success, what effect, what blessing? So that the good success of john Bapstists preaching, Luc. 3. 7. (For, the multitudes, The people came to him; and not light people carried about with every wind of rumour and noise, Matt. 3. 7. and novelty, but pharisees, and Sadduces, men of learning, of sadness and gravity; and not only Scholars affected with subtleties, but, Publicans too, Luc. 3. 12. men intent upon the world; and other men, whose very profession submits them to many occasions of departing from the strict rules, which regularly bind other men, and therefore may be in some things, (which taste of injustice) more excusable than other men; 14. The soldiers likewise came to him, and said, What shall we do?) This his working upon all sorts of men, the blessing that accompanied his labours, was a subsequent argument of his Mission, that he was sent by God. God himself argues against them, that were not sent, so, They were not sent, for they have done no good. I have not sent those Prophets, jer. 23. 21. saith the Lord, yet they ran, I have not spoken to them, and yet they prophesied; but, if they had stood in my counsel, than they should have turned the people from their evil ways, and from the wickedness of their inventions. This note God lays upon them, to whom he affords this vocation of his internal Spirit, that though others which come without any calling, may gather men in corners, and in Conventicles, and work upon their affections and passions, to singularity, to schism, to sedition: and though others which come with an outward, and ordinary calling only, may advance their own Fortunes, and increate their estimation, and draw their Auditory to an outward reverence of their Persons, and to a delight in hearing them rather then other men, yet, those only who have a true inward Calling from the Spirit, shall turn the people from their evil ways, and from the wickedness of their inventions. To such men's planting and watering God gives an increase; when as others which come to declaim, and not to preach, and to vent their own gifts, or the purposes of great men for their gifts, have only a proportionable reward, wind for wind, Acclamation for Declamation, popular praise for popular eloquence: for, if they do not truly believe themselves, why should they look that others should believe them? Qui loquitur ad cor, loquatur ex cord; he that will speak to the heart of another, must find that that he saith in his own heart first. Whether the Mission of the Church of Rome of Priests and Jesuits hither, be sufficient to satisfy their consciences who are so sent, and sent (in intendment of the Law) to inevitable loss of life here, hath been laboriously enough debated, and safely enough concluded, that such a Mission cannot satisfy a rectified conscience. What are they sent for? Baroni To defend the Immunities of the Church: that is, to take away the inherent right of the Crown, the supremacy of the King: What seconds them? what assures them? Alvarez. That which is their general Tenent, that into what place so ever the Pope may send Priests, Azor. he may send Armies for the security of those Priests; and (as another expresses it) in all Cases, Maynardus. where the Pope may enjoin any thing, he may lawfully proceed by way of War against any that hinder the execution thereof. That these Missions from the Bishop of Rome are unlawful, vide Pseudo-Mart. f. 154. is safely enough concluded, A priori, in the very nature of the commandment and Mission. For, it is to a place, in which he that sends hath no power, for it is into the Dominions of another absolute King; and it is of Persons; in whom he hath no interest, for they are the subjects of another Prince; and my neighbours setting his mark upon my sheep, doth not make my sheep his. Now, beloved, if that which they cannot make lawful A priori, in the Nature of the thing, you will make lawful in their behalf, A posteriori, in the effect and working thereof; that is, if when these men are thus sent hither, you will run after them to their Masses, though you pretend it be but to meet company, and to see who comes, and to hear a Church-Comedy; if, though you abstain yourself, you will lend them a wife, or a child, or a servant to be present there, A posteriori, by this effect, by this their working upon you, you justify their unjust Mission, and make them think their sending and coming lawful. So also, (to return to our former consideration) If you depart not from your evil ways, and from the wickedness of your own inventions: If for all our preaching you proceed in your sins, you will make us afraid, that our Mission, our Calling is not warrantable, for thereby you take away that consolation, which is one seal of our Mission, when we see a good effect of our preaching in your lives. It lies much in you, to convince them, and to establish us, by that way, which is Gods own way of arguing, à posteriori, by the effect, by our working upon you. If you say God is God, we are sent; if you say Baal is God, you justify their sending. Missus est, john Baptist was sent, it appeared by the effect of his preaching; but it appears too, by a divers and manifold citation, which he had received, upon some of which, there may be good use to insist a little. First, 1 Citation. he was cited, called, before he was at all; and called again before he was borne; called a third time, out of the desert, into the world; and called lastly out of this world into the next; and by all these callings, these citations, these missions, he was a competent witness. His first citation was before he was any thing, before his conception. Out of the dead embers of Zacharies aged loins, and Elizabeth's double obstacle, age and barrenness, when it was almost as great a work as a creation, to produce a child out of the corners, and inwardest bowels of all possibility, and with so many degrees of improbability, as that Zachary, who is said to have been just before God, Luke 1. 6. and to have walked in all his commandments without reproof, and had, without doubt, often considered the like promise of such a child, made and performed to Abraham, was yet incredulous of it, and asked, how he should know it. Out of this nothing, or nothing naturally disposed to be such a thing, a child, did God excite, and cite this Io. Baptist to bear witness of this light, and so made the son of him, who, for his incredulity, was struck with dumbness, all voice. And, beloved, such a citation as this, when thou wast merely nothing, hast thou had too, to bear witness of this light, that is, to do something for the glory of God. When thy free will is as impotent and as dead as Zacharies loins, when thou art under Elizabeth's double obstacle of age and barrenness, (barrenness in good works, age in ill) then when thou thinkest not of God, then when thou art walking for air, or sitting at a feast, or slumbering in a bed, God opens these doors, he rings a bell, he shows thee an example in the concourse of people hither, and here, he sets up a man, to present the prayer of the Congregation to him, and to deliver his messages to them; and whether curiosity, or custom, or company, or a loathness to incur the penalties of Laws, or the censures and observations of neighbours, bring thee hither, though thou hadst nothing to do with God, in coming hither, God hath something to do with thee, now thou art here, even this is a citation, a calling, by being personally here at these exercises of Religion, thou art some kind of witness of this light. For, in how many places of the world hath Christ yet never opened such doors for his ordinary service, in all these 1600. years? And in how many places hath he shut up these doors, of his true worship, within these three or four years? Quod citaris huc, That thou art brought hither, within distance of his voice, within reach of his food, intra sphaeram Activitatis, within the sphere and latitude of his ordinary working, that is, into his house, into his Church, this is a citation, a calling, answerable to john Baptists first calling, from his father's dead loins, and his mother's barren womb; and his second citation was before he was borne, in his mother's womb. When Mary came to visit Elizabeth, 2 Citation. the child sprang in her belly, as soon as Mary's voice sounded in her ears. Luke 1. 41. And though naturally, upon excess of joy in the mother, the child may spring in her; yet the Evangelist means to tell an extraordinary and supernatural thing; and whether it were an anticipation of reason in the child, (some of the Fathers think so, though St. Augustine do not, that the child understood what he did) or that this were a fulfilling of that prophecy, Verse 15. That he should be filled with the holy Ghost from his mother's womb, all agree that this was an exciting of him to this attestation of his Saviour's presence, August. whether he had any sense of it, or no. Exultatio significat, says St. Augustine, This springing declared, that his mother, whose forerunner that child should be, was come. Origen. And so both Origen, and St. Cyrill, Cyrill. refer that commendation, which our Saviour gives him, Inter natos Mulierum, Among those that were born of women, there was not a greater Prophet; that is, none that prophesied before he was borne, but he. And such a citation, beloved, thou mayest have, in this place, and at this time. A man may upon the hearing of something that strikes him, that affects him, feel this springing, this exultation, this melting, and colliquation of the inwardest bowels of his soul; a new affection, a new passion, beyond the joy ordinarily conceived upon earthly happinesses; which, though no natural Philosopher can call it by a name, no Anatomist assign the place where it lies, yet I doubt not, through Christ jesus, but that many of you who are here now, feel it, and understand it this minute. Citaris huc, thou wast cited to come hither, whether by a collateral, and oblique, and occasional motion, or otherwise, hither God hath brought thee, and Citaris hîc, here thou art cited to come nearer to him. Now both these citations were before john Baptist was borne; both these affections, to come to this place, and to be affected with a delight here, may be before thy regeneration, which is thy spiritual birth; a man is not borne, not borne again, because he is at Church, nor because he likes the Sermon, john Baptist had, and thou must have a third citation; which was in him, from the desert into the public, into the world, from contemplation to practice. This was that mission, that citation, 3 Citation. Luke 3. 2. which most properly belongs to this Text, when the word came to the voice, (The word of God came to john in the wilderness, and he came into all the Country preaching the Baptism of repentance.) To that we must come, to practise. For, in this respect, an University is but a wilderness, though we gather our learning there, our private meditation is but a wilderness, though we contemplate God there, nay our being here, is but a wilderness, though we serve God here, if our service end so, if we do not proceed to action, and glorify God in the public. And therefore Citaris huc, thou art cited hither, here thou must be, and Citaris hîc, thou art cited here, to lay hold upon that grace which God offers in his Ordinance; and Citaris hinc, thou art cited from hence, to embrace a calling in the world. He that undertakes no course, no vocation, he is no part, no member, no limb of the body of this world; no eye, to give light to others; no ear to receive profit by others. If he think it enough to be excremental nails, to scratch and gripe others by his lazy usury, and extortion, or excremental hair, made only for ornament, or delight of others, by his wit, or mirth, or delightful conversation, these men have not yet felt this third citation, by which they are called to glorify God, and so to witness for him, in such public actions, as God's cause for the present requires, and comports with their calling. And then john Baptist had a fourth citation 4 Citation. to bear witness for Christ, by laying down his life for the Truth; and this was that that made him a witness, in the highest sense, a Martyr. God hath not served this citation upon us, nor doth he threaten us, with any approaches towards it, in the fear of persecution for religion. But remember that john Baptists Martyrdom, was not for the fundamental rock, the body of the Christian religion, but for a moral truth, for matter of manners. A man may be bound to suffer much, for a less matter than the utter overthrow, of the whole frame and body of religion. But leaving this consideration, for what causes a man is bound to lay down his life, consider we now, but this, that a man lays down his life for Christ, and bears witness of him, even in death, when he prefers Christ before this world, when he desires to be dissolved, and be with him, and obeys cheerfully that citation, by the hand of death, whensoever it comes; and that citation must certainly be served upon you all; whether this night in your beds, or this hour, at the door, no man knows. You who were cited hither, to hear, and cited here, to consider, and cited hence, to work in a calling in the world, must be cited from thence too, from the face to the bosom of the earth, from treading upon other men's, to a lying down in your own graves. And yet that is not your last citation, there is fifth. In the grave, john Baptist does, and we must attend a fifth citation, 5 Citation. from the grave to a judgement. The first citation hither to Church, was served by Example of other men, you saw them come, and came. The second citation, here, in the Church, was served by the Preacher, you heard him and believed. The third, from hence, is served by the law, and by the Magistrate, they bind you to embrace a profession, and a calling, and you do so. The fourth, which is from thence, from this, to the next world, is served by nature in death, he touches you, and you sink. This fifth to judgement shall be by an Angel, 1 Thess. 4. 16. by an Archangel, by the Lord himself, The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the Trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise. This citation is not served by a bell, that tolls to bring you hither; not by a man that speaks to instruct you here; not by a law, that compels you to live orderly in the world; not by a bell, that rings out to lay thee in thy grave; but by the great shout of the Lord descending from heaven, with the voice of the Archangel, 2 Chro. 9 27. and with the Trump of God, to raise the dead in Christ. It is not the Apeperire fores, That the Levites have charge to open these doors every day to you, that you may come in, (that is your first citation, Psal. 51.15. hither) it is not the Domine labia mea aperies, That God opens our mouth, the mouth of the Preacher, to work upon you, (that is your second citation, here,) it is not that aperuimus saccos, Gen. 43. 21. The opening of your sack of Corn, and finding that, and your money too, that is, your trading in this world, in a calling, Num. 16. 30. (that is your third citation from hence) nor it is not the Aperuit terra os situm, That the earth opens her mouth, and swallows all in the grave, (that is your fourth citation from thence,) it is none of these Apertions, these openings; but it is the Aperta monumenta, Mat. 27. 52. The grave itself shall be open again; and Aperti coeli, The heavens shall be open, Act. 7. 56. and I shall see the Son of man, the Son of God, and not see him at that distance, that Stephen saw him there, but see him, and sit down with him. I shall rise from the dead, from the dark station, from the prostration, from the prosternation of death, and never miss the sun, which shall then be put out, for I shall see the Son of God, the Sun of glory, and shine myself, as that sun shines. I shall rise from the grave, and never miss this City, which shall be no where, for I shall see the City of God, the new jerusalem. I shall look up, and never wonder when it will be day, Apoc. 10. 6. for, the Angel will tell me that time shall be no more, and I shall see, and see cheerfully that last day, the day of judgement, which shall have no night, never end, Dan. 7. 9 and be united to the Ancient of days, to God himself, who had no morning, never began. There I shall bear witness for Christ, in ascribing the salvation of the whole world, to him that sits upon the Throne, and to the Lamb, and Christ shall bear witness for me, in ascribing his righteousness unto me, and in delivering me into his Father's hands, with the same tenderness, as he delivered up his own soul, and in making me, who am a greater sinner, than they who crucified him on earth for me, as innocent, and as righteous as his glorious self, in the Kingdom of heaven. And these occasions of advancing your devotion, and edification, from these two branches of this part, first, the fitness of john Baptist to be sent, and then his actual sending, by so divers callings, and citations in him, appliable, as you have seen, to us. More will be ministered, in due time, out of the last part, and the two branches of that; first, why this light required any witness, and then, what witness john Baptist gave to this light. But those, because they lead us not to the celebration of any particular Festival, (as these two former parts have done, to Christmas and Midsummer) I may have leave to present to you at any other time. At this time let us only beg of God a blessing upon this that hath been said etc. SERMON XXXVIII. Preached at Saint Paul's 13. Octob. 1622. JOHN 1. 8. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. THis is the third time that I have entertained you (in a business of this nature, intended for God's service, and your edification, I must not say, troubled you) with this Text. I begun it at Christmas, and in that dark time of the year told you who, and what was this light which john Baptist is denied to be. I pursued it at Midsummer, and upon his own day, insisted upon the person of john Baptist, who, though he were not this light, was sent to bear witness of this light. And the third consideration, which (as I told you then) was not tied nor affected to any particular Festival, you shall (by God's grace) have now, the office of john Baptist, his testimony; and in that, these two parts; first, a problematical part, why so evident a thing as light, Divisio. and such a light, that light, required testimony of man: and then a dogmatic part, what testimony this man gives of this light. And in the first of these we shall make these two steps, first, why any testimony at all, then why, after so many others, this of john. First then God made light first, ut innotescerent omnia, that man might glorify God in seeing the creature, and him in it; 1 Part. Curio testis. Ambrose. for, frustra fecisset, (says the same Father) it had been to no purpose to have a world, and no light. But though light discover and manifest every thing else to us, and itself too, if all be well disposed, yet, in the fifth verse of this chapter, there is reason enough given, why this light in our text, requires testimony; that is, the light shines in darkness, and the darkness comprehends it not; and therefore, Propter non intelligentes, propter incredulos, propter in●rmos, Sol lucernas quaerit; August. Propter non intelligentes. for their sakes that are weak in their understanding, and not enlightened in that faculty, the Gentiles; for their sakes who are weak in their faith, that come, and hear, and receive light, but believe not; for their sakes that are perverse in their manners, and course of life, that hear, and believe, but practise not, sol lucernas quaerit, this light requires testimony. There may be light then and we not know it, because we are asleep; and asleep so, Mat. 9 24. as jairus daughter was, of whom Christ says, the maid is not dead but asleep. The maid was absolutely dead; but because he meant forthwith to raise her, he calls it a sleep. The Gentiles, in their ignorance, are dead; we, in our corrupt nature, dead, as dead as they, we cannot hear the voice, we cannot see the light; without God's subsequent grace, the Christian can no more proceed, than the Gentile can begin without his preventing grace. But, because, amongst us, he hath established the Gospel, and in the ministry and dispensation thereof, ordinary means for the conveyance of his farther grace, we noware but asleep and may wake. A sudden light brought into a room doth awaken some men; but yet a noise does it better, and a shaking, and a pinching. The exalting of natural faculties, and good moral life, inward inspirations, and private meditations, conferences, reading, and the life, do awaken some; but the testimony of the messenger of God, the preacher, crying according to God's ordinance, shaking the soul, troubling the conscience, and pinching the bowels, by denouncing of God's Judgements, these bear witness of the light, when otherwise men would sleep it out; and so propter non intelligentes, for those that lie in the suds of nature, and cannot, or of negligence, and will not come to hear, sol lucernas, this light requires testimony. These testimonies, Propter incredulos. Gods ordinances, may have wakened a man, yet he may wink, and covet darkness, and grow weary of instruction, and angry at increpation; And, as the eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, job 24. 15. so, the ear of this fastidious and impatient man, longeth for the end of the Sermon, or the end of that point in the Sermon, which is a thorn to his conscience; But as, if a man wink in a clear day, he shall for all that discern light through his eyelids, but not light enough to keep him from stumbling: so the most perverse man that is, either in faith or manners, that winks against the light of nature, or light of the law, or light of grace exhibited in the Christian Church, the most determined Atheist that is, discerns through all his stubbornness, though not light enough to rectify him, to save him, yet enough to condemn him, though not enough to enable him, to read his own name in the book of life, yet so much, as makes him afraid to read his own story by, and to make up his own Audit and account with God. And doth not this light to this man need testimony, That as he does see, it is a light, so he might see, that there is warmth and nourishment in this light, and so, as well see the way to God by that light, as to see by it, that there is a God; and, this he may, if he do not sleep nor wink; that is, not forbear coming hither, nor resist the grace of God, always offered here, when he is here. Propter incredulos, for their sakes, who though they do hear, hear not to believe, sol lucernas, this light requires testimony; and it does so too, propter infirmos, for their sakes, who though they do hear, and believe, yet do not Practise. If he neither sleep, Propter infirmos. nor wink, neither forbear, nor resist, yet how often may you surprise and deprehend a man, whom you think directly to look upon such an object, yet if you ask him the quality or colour of it, he will tell you, he saw it not? That man sees as little with staring, as the other with winking. His eye hath seen, but it hath returned nothing to the common sense. We may poor upon books, stare upon preachers, yet if we reflect nothing, nothing upon our conversation, we shall still remain under the increpation and malediction of Saint Paul, Act. 28. 26. out of Esay, Seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive; seeing and hearing shall but aggravate our condemnation, and it shall be easier at the day of Judgement, for the deaf and the blind that never saw Sacrament, never heard Sermon, then for us, who have frequented both, propter infirmos, for their sakes, whose strength though it serve to bring them hither, and to believe here, doth not serve them to proceed to practise, sol lucernas, this light requires testimony. Yet, if we be neither dead, nor asleep, nor wink, nor look negligently, but do come to some degrees of holiness in practice for a time, Propter Relapsos. yet if at any time, we put ourselves in such a position and distance from this light, as that we suffer dark thick bodies to interpose, and eclipse it, that is, sadness and dejection of spirit, for worldly losses; nay, if we admit inordinate sadness for sin itself, to eclipse this light of comfort from us, or if we suffer such other lights, as by the corrupt estimation of the world, have a greater splendour to come in; (As the light of Knowledge and Learning, the light of Honour and Glory, of popular Applause and Acclamation) so that this light which we speak of, (the light of former Grace) be darkened by the access of other lights, worldly lights, than also you shall find that you need more and more Testimony of this light. God is light in the Creature, in nature; yet the natural Man stumbles and falls, and lies in that ignorance, Christ bears witness of this light, in establishing a Chrishian Church; yet many Christians fall into Idolatry and Superstition, and lie and die in it. The Holy Ghost hath born further witness of this light, and, (if we may take so low a Metaphor in so high a Mystery) hath snuffed this candle, mended this light, in the Reformation of Religion; and yet there is a damp, or a cloud of uncharitableness, of neglecting, of defaming one another; we deprave even the fiery, Act. 2. 3. the claven tongues of the Holy Ghost: Our tongues are fiery only to the consuming of another, and they are cloven, only in speaking things contrary to one another. So that still there need more witnesses, more testimonies of this light. God the Father is Pater Luminum the Father of all Lights; God the Son, is Lumen de lumine, Light of light, of the Father; God the Holy Ghost is Lumen de luminibus, Light of lights, proceeding both from the Father, and the Son; and this light the Holy Ghost kindles more lights in the Church, and drops a coal from the Altar upon every lamp, he lets fall beams of his Spirit upon every man, that comes in the name of God, into this place; and he sends you one man to day, which beareth witness of this light ad ignaros, that bends his preaching to the convincing of the natural man, the ignorant soul, and works upon him. And another another day, that bears witness ad incredulos, that fixeth the promises of the Gospel, and the merits of Christ Jesus, upon that startling and timorous soul, upon that jealous and suspicious soul, that cannot believe that those promises, or those merits appertain to him, and so bends all the power of his Sermon to the binding up of such broken hearts, and faint believers. He sendeth another to bear witness ad infirmos, to them who though they have shaked off their sickness, yet are too weak, to walk, to them, who though they do believe, are intercepted by tentations from preaching, and his Sermon reduces them from their ill manners, who think it enough to come, to hear, to believe. And then he sendeth another ad Relapsos, to bear witness of this light to them who have relapsed into former sins, that the merits of Christ are inexhaustible, and the mercies of God in him indefatigable: As God cannot be deceived with a false repentance, so he cannot resist a true, nor be weary of multiplying his mercies in that case. And therefore think not that thou hast heard witnesses enough of this light, Sermons enough, if thou have heard all the points preached upon, which concern thy salvation. But because new Clouds of Ignorance, of Incredulity, of Infirmity, of Relapsing, rise every day and call this light in question, and may make thee doubt whether thou have it or no, every day, (that is, as often as thou canst) hear more and more witnesses of this light; and bless that God, who for thy sake, would submit himself to these Testimonia ab homine, these Testimonies from men, and being all light himself, and having so many other Testimonies, would yet require the Testimony of Man, of john; which is our other branch of this first part. Christ, A seipso. (who is still the light of our Text, That light, the essential light) had testimony enough without john. First, he bore witness of himself. And though he say of himself, (If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true) yet that he might say either out of a legal and proverbial opinion of theirs, john. 5. 31. that ordinarily they thought, That a witness testifying for himself, was not to be believed, whatsoever he said; Or, as Man, (which they then took him to be) he might speak it of himself out of his own opinion, that, in judicature it is a good rule, that a man should not be believed in his own case. But, after this, and after he had done enough to make them see, that he was more than man, 8. 13. by multiplying of miracles, than he said, though I bear witness of myself, my witness is true. So the only infallibility and unreproachable evidence of our election, is in the inward word of God, when his Spirit bears witness with our Spirit, that we are the Sons of God; for, if the Spirit, (the Spirit of truth) say he is in us, he is in us. But yet the Spirit of God is content to submit himself to an ordinary trial, to be tried by God and the Country; he allows us to doubt, and to be afraid of our regeneration, except we have the testimony of sanctification. Christ bound them not to his own testimony, till it had the seal of works, of miracles; nor must we build upon any testimony in ourselves, till other men, that see our life, testify for us to the world. He had also the testimony of his Father, (the Father himself which hath sent me, beareth witness of me.) But where should they see the Father, A Patre. or hear the Father speak? That was all which Philip asked at his hands, john. 5. 37. 14. 8. (Lord show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.) He had the testimony of an Angel, Ab Angelo. who came to the shepherds so, as no where in all the Scriptures, there is such an Apparition expressed, (the Angel of the Lord came upon them, Luke 2. 8. and the glory of the Lord shone round about them) but where might a man talk with this Angel, and know more of him? As Saint Augustine says of Moses, Scripsit & abiit, he hath written a little of the Creation, and he is gone; Si hîc esset, tenerem & rogarem, if Moses were here, says he, I would hold him fast, till I had got him to give me an exposition of that which he writ. For, beloved, we must have such witnesses, as we may consult farther with. A stella. I can see no more by an Angel, then by lightning. A star testified of him, at his birth. But what was that star? was it any of those stars that remain yet? Gregory Nissen thinks it was, and that it only then changed the natural course, and motion for that service. But almost all the other Fathers think, that it was a light but then created, and that it had only the form of a star, and no more; and some few, that it was the holy Ghost in that form. And, if it were one of the fixed stars, and remain yet, yet it is not now in that office, it testifies nothing of Christ now. The wise men of the East testified of him, A Magis. too; But what were they, or who, or how many, or from whence, were they; for, all these circumstances have put Antiquity itself into more distractions, A Simeone. and more earnest disputations, than circumstances should do. Simeon testified of him, Luke 2. 25. who had a revelation from the holy Ghost, that he should not see death, till he had seen Christ. Ab Anna. And so did the Prophetess Anna, who served God, with fasting and prayer, Ambrose. day and night. Omnis sexus & aetas, both sexes, and all ages testified of him; and he gives examples of all, as it was easy for him to do. Now after all these testimonies, from himself, from the Father, from the Angel, from the star, from the wise men, from Simeon, from Anna, from all, what needed the testimony of john? All those witnesses had been thirty years before john was cited for a witness, to come from the wilderness and preach. And in thirty years, by reason of his obscure and retired life, in his father Joseph's house, all those personal testimonies of Christ might be forgotten; and, for the most part, those witnesses only testified that he was borne, that he was come into the world, but for all their testimony, he might have been gone out of the world long. Before this, he might have perished in the general flood, in that flood of innocent blood, in which Herod drowned all the young children of that Country. When therefore Christ came forth to preach, when he came to call Apostles, when he came to settle a Church, to establish means for our ordinary salvation, (by which he is the light of our text, the Essential light shining out in his Church, by the supernatural light of faith and grace) than he admitted, than he required Testimonium ab homine, testimony from man. And so, for our conformity to him, in using and applying those means, which convey this light to us, in the Church, we must do so too; we must have the seal of faith, and of the Spirit, but this must be in the testimony of men; still there must be that done by us, which must make men testify for us. Every Christian is a state, a commonwealth to himself, and in him, the Scripture Scripturas esse. is his law, and the conscience is his judge. And though the Scripture be inspired from God, and the conscience be illumined and rectified by the holy Ghost immediately, yet, both the Scriptures and the Conscience admit humane arguments. First, the Scriptures do, in all these three respects; first that there are certain Scriptures, that are the revealed will of God. Secondly, that these books which we call Canonical, are those Scriptures. And lastly, that this and this is the true sense and meaning of such and such a place of Scripture. First, that there is a manifestation of the will of God in certain Scriptures, if we who have not power to infuse Faith into men, (for that is the work of the Holy Ghost only) but must deal upon the reason of men, and satisfy that, if we might not proceed, per testimonia ab homine, by humane Arguments, and argue, and infer thus, That if God will save man for worshipping him, and damn him for not worshipping him, so as he will be worshipped, certainly God hath revealed to man, how he will be worshipped, and that in some visible, in some permanent manner in writing, and that that writing is Scripture, if we had not these testimonies, these necessary consequences derived even from the natural reason of man to convince men, how should we convince them, since our way is not to create Faith, but to satisfy reason? And therefore let us rest in this testimony of men, that all Christian men, nay jews and Turks too, have ever believed, that there are certain Scriptures, which are the revealed will of God, and that God hath manifested to us, in those Scriptures, all that he requires at our hands for Faith or Manners. Now, which are those Scriptures? As for the whole body entirely together, Hos eos libros esse. so for the particular limbs and members of this body, the several books of the Bible, we must accept testimonium ab homine, humane Arguments, and the testimony of men. At first, the Jews were the Depositaries of God's Oracles; and therefore the first Christians were to ask the Jews, which books were those Scriptures. Since the Church of God is the Master of those Rolls, no doubt but the Church hath Testimonium à Deo, The Spirit of God to direct her, in declaring what Books make up the Scripture; but yet even the Church, which is to deal upon men, proceedeth also per testimonium ab homine, by humane Arguments, such as may work upon the reason of man, in declaring the Scriptures of God. For the New Testament, there is no question made of any Book, but in Conventicles of Anabaptists; and for the Old, it is testimony enough that we receive all that the Jews received. This is but the testimony of man, but such as prevails upon every man. It is somewhat boldly said, (not to permit to ourselves any severer, or more bitter animadversion upon him) by a great man in the Romam Church, that perchance the book of Enoch, which S. jude citys in his Epistle, Melchilanus. was not an Apocryphal book, but Canonical Scripture in the time of the jews. As though the holy Ghost were a timeserver, and would sometimes issue some things, for present satisfaction, which he would not avow nor stand to after; as though the holy Ghost had but a Lease for certain years, a determinable estate in the Scriptures, which might expire, and he be put from his evidence; that that book might become none of his, which was his before. We therefore, in receiving these books for Canonical, which we do, and in post-posing the Apocryphal, into an inferior place, have testimonium ab homine, testimony from the People of God, who were, and are the most competent, and unreproachable witnesses herein: and we have Testimonium ab inimico, testimony from our adversary himself, Idem ex Aquin. Perniciosius est Ecclesiae librum recipere pro sacro, qui non est, quam sacrum rejicere, It is a more pernicious danger to the Church, to admit a book for Canonical, which is not so, then to reject one that is so. And therefore, ne turberis novity, Cajetan. (saith another great Author of theirs) Let no young student in Divinity be troubled, si alicubi repererit, libros istos supputari inter Canonicos, if he find at any time, any of these books reckoned amongst the Canonical, nam ad Hiero. limam, verba Doctorum & Concilio rum reducenda, for saith he, Hieroms file must pass over the Doctors, and over the Counsels too, and they must be understood, and interpreted according to S. Hier. now this is but testimonium ab homine, S. Hier. testimony, that prevailed upon Cajetan, and it was but testimonium ab homine, the testimony of the jews, that prevailed upon S. Hierom himself. It is so for the whole body, Sensus locorum. The bible; it is so for all the limbs of this body, every particular book of the Bible; and it is so, for the soul of this body, the true sense of every place, of very book thereof; for, for that, (the sense of the place) we must have testimonium ab homine, the testimony, that is, the interpretation of other men. Thou must not rest upon thyself, nor upon any private man. john was a witness that had witnesses, the Prophets had prophesied of john Baptist. The men from whom we are to receive testimony of the sense of the Scriptures, must be men that have witnesses, that is, a visible and outward calling in the Church of God. That no sense be ever admitted, that derogateth from God, that makes him a false, or an impotent, or a cruel God, That every contradiction, and departing from the Analogy of Faith, doth derogate from God, and divers such grounds, and such inferences, as every man confesses, and acknowledges to be naturally and necessarily consequent, these are Testimonia ab homine, Testimonies that pass like currant money, from man to man, obvious to every man, suspicious to none. Thus it is in the general; but then, when it is deduced to a more particular trial, (what is the sense of such or such a place) when Christ saith, Scrutamini Scripturas, john 5.39. search the Scriptures, non mittit ad simplicem lectionem, sed ad scrutationem exquisitam, It is not a bare reading, but a diligent searching, that is enjoined us. Now they that will search, must have a warrant to search; they upon whom thou must rely for the sense of the Scriptures, must be sent of God by his Church. Thou art robbed of all, devested of all, if the Scriptures be taken from thee; Thou hast no where to search; bless God therefore, that hath kept thee in possession of that sacred Treasure, the Scriptures; and then, if any part of that treasure lie out of thy reach, or lie in the dark, so as that thou understandest not the place, search, that is, apply thyself to them that have warrant to search, and thou shalt lack no light necessary for thee. Either thou shalt understand that place, or the not understanding of it shall not be imputed to thee, nor thy salvation hindered by that Ignorance. It is but to a woman that Saint Hierome saith, Hierom. Ama Scripturas, & amabit te Sapientia, Love the Scriptures, and Wisdom will love thee: The weakness of her Sex must not avert her from reading the Scriptures. It is instruction for a Child, and for a Girl, Idem. that the same Father giveth, Septem annorum discat memoriter Psalterium, As soon as she is seven years old, let her learn all the Psalms without book; the tenderness of her age, must not avert her from the Scriptures. It is to the whole Congregation, consisting of all sorts and sexes, that Saint chrysostom saith, Chrysost. Horror, & hortari non desinam, I always do, and always will exhort you, ut cum domi fueritis, assiduae lectioni Scripturarum vacetis, that at home, in your own houses, you accustom yourselves to a daily reading of the Scriptures. And after, to such men as found, or forced excuses for reading them, he saith with compassion, and indignation too, O homo, non est tuum Scripturas evolvere, quia innumeris curis distraheris? Busy man, belongeth it not to thee to study the Scriptures, because thou art oppressed with worldly business? Imòmagis tuum est, saith he, therefore thou hadst the more need to study the Scriptures; Illi non tam egent, etc. They that are not disquieted, nor disordered in their passions, with the cares of this world, do not so much need that supply from the Scriptures, Corn. Agrip. as you that are, do. It is an Author that lived in the obedience of the Roman Church, that saith, the Council of Nice did decree, That every man should have the Bible in his house. Escalante. But another Author in that Church saith now, Consilium Chrysostomi Ecclesiae nunc non arridet; The Church doth not now like Chrysostom's counsel, for this general reading of the Scriptures, Quia etsi ille locutus ad plebem, plebs tunc non erat haeretica; Though Saint chrysostom spoke that to the people, the people in his time were not an Heretical people: And are the people in the Roman Church now an Heretical people? If not, why may not they pursue Saint Chrystomes' counsel, and read the Scriptures? Because they are dark? It is true, in some places they are dark; August. purposely left so by the Holy Ghost, ne semel lectas fastidiremus, lest we should think we had done when we had read them once; so saith S. Gregory too, Gregor. In plain places, fami occurrit, he presents meat for every stomach; In hard and dark places, fastidia detergit, Hierom. he sharpens the appetite: Margarita est, & undique perforari potest; the Scripture is a Pearl, and might be bored through every where. Not every where by thyself; there may be many places, which thou of thyself canst not understand; not every where by any other man; no not by them, who have warrant to search, Commission from God, by their calling, to interpret the Scriptures, not every where by the whole Church, God hath reserved the understanding of some places of Scripture, till the time come for the fulfilling of those Prophecies; as many places of the Old Testament were not understood, till Christ came, in whom they were fulfilled. If therefore thou wilt needs know, whether, when Saint Paul took his information of the behaviour of the Corinthians, 1 Cor. 1. 11. from those of Chloe, whether this Chloe, were a woman, or a place, the Fathers cannot satisfy thee, the latter Writers cannot satisfy thee, there is not Testimonium ab homine, no such humane Arguments as can determine thee, or give thee an Acquittance; the greatest pillars whom God hath raised in his Church, cannot give a satisfaction to thy curiosity. But if the Doctrine of the place will satisfy thee, (which Doctrine is, that S. Paul did not give credit to light rumours against the Corinthians, nor to clandestine whisperers, but tells them who accused them, and yet, as well as he loved them, he did not stop his ears against competent witnesses, (for he tells them, they stood accused, and by whom) than thou mayst boar this pearl through, and make it fit for thy use, and wearing, in knowing so much of Saint Paul's purpose therein, as concerns thy edification, though thou never know, Tertull. whether Chloe were a Woman, or a Place. Tantum veritati obstrepit adulter sensus; quam corruptor stylus; a false interpretation may do thee as much harm, as a false translation, a false Commentary, as a false copy; And therefore, forbearing to make any interpretation at all, upon dark places of Scripture, (especially those, whose understanding depends upon the future fulfilling of prophecies) in places that are clear, & evident thou mayst be thine own interpreter; In places that are more obscure, go to those men, whom God hath set over thee, and either they shall give thee that sense of the place, which shall satisfy thee, by having the sense thereof, or that must satisfy you, that there is enough for your salvation, though that remain uninterpreted. And let this Testimonium ab homine, this testimony of man establish thee for the Scripture, that there is a Scripture, a certain book, that is the word; and the revealed will of God; That these books which we receive for Canonical, make up that book; And then, that this and this is the true sense of every place, which the holy Ghost hath opened to the present understanding of his Church. We said before, Conscientia. that a Christian being a Commonwealth to himself, the Scripture was his law, (and for that law, that Scripture, he was to have Testimonium ab homine, the testimony of man) And then, his Conscience is his judge, and for that he is to have the same testimony too. Thou must not rest upon the testimony and suggestions of thine own conscience; Hierom. Nec illud de trivio paratum habere, thou must not rest in that vulgar saying, sufficit mihi etc. As long as mine own Conscience stands right, I care not what all the world say. Thou must care what the world says, and study to have the approbation and testimony of good men. Every man is enough defamed in the general depravation of our whole naturens: Adam hath cast an infamy upon us all: And when a man is defamed, it is not enough that he purge himself by oath, but he must have compurgators too: other men must swear, that they believe he swears a truth. Thine own conscience is not enough, but thou must satisfy the world, and have Testimonium ab homine, good men must think thee good. A conscience that admits no search from others, is cauterizata, burnt with a hot Iron; not cured, but seared; not at peace, but stupefied. And when in the verse immediately before our text, it is said, That john came to bear witness of that light, it is added, that through him, (that is, through that man, through john, not through it, through that light) that through him all men believe. For though it be efficiently the operation of the light itself, (that is, Christ himself) that all men believe yet the holy Ghost directs us to that that is nearest us, to this testimony of man, that instrumentally, ministerially works this belief in men. If then for thy faith, thou must have testimonium ab homine, the testimony of men, and mayst not believe as no man but thyself believes, much more for thy manners, and conversation. Think it not enough to satisfy thyself, but satisfy good men; nay weak men; nay malicious men: till it come so far, as that for the desire of satisfying man, thou leave God unsatisfied, endeavour to satisfy all. God must weigh down all; thyself and others; but as long as thyself only art in one balance, and other men in the other, let this preponderate; let the opinion of other men, weigh down thine own opinion of thyself. 'Tis true, (but many men flatter themselves too far, with this truth) that it is a sin, to do any thing in Conscientiâ dubiâ, when a man doubts whether he may do it, or no, and in Conscientiâ scrupulosâ, when the conscience hath received any single scruple, or suspicion to the contrary, and so too in conscientiâ opinante, in a conscience that hath conceived, but an opinion, (which is far from a debated, and deliberate determination) yea in conscientiâ errante, though the conscience be in an error, yet it is sin to do aright against the conscience; but then, as it is a sin, to do against the conscience labouring under any of these infirmities, so is it a greater sin, not to labour to recover the conscience, and divest it of those scruples, by their advice, whom God hath endued with knowledge, and power, for that purpose. For, (as it is in civil judicature) God refers causes to them, and according to their reports, Gods ordinary way is to decree the cause, to lose where they lose, to bind where they bind. Their imperfections, or their corruptions God knows how to punish in them; but thou shalt have the recompense of thy humility and thy obedience to his ordinance, in harkening to them, whom he hath set over thee, for the rectifying of thy conscience. Neither is this to erect a parochial popacy, to make every minister a Pope in his own parish, or to re-enthrall you to a necessity of communicating all your sins, or all your doubtful actions to him; God forbid. God of his goodness hath delivered us, from that bondage, and butchery of the conscience, which our Fathers suffered from Rome, and Anathema, 1 Cor. 16. 22. and Anathema Maran-atha, cursed be he till the Lord comes, and cursed when the Lord comes, that should go about to bring us in a relapse, in an eddy, in a whirlpool, into that disconsolate estate, or into any of the pestilent errors of that Church. But since you think it no diminution to you, to consult with a Physician for the state of your body, or with a Lawyer for your Lands, since you are not borne, nor grown good Physicians, and good Lawyers, why should you think yourselves born, or grown so good Divines, that you need no counsel, in doubtful cases, from other men? And therefore, as for the Law that governs us, that is, the Scripture, we go the way that Christ did, to receive the testimony of man, both for the body, that Scriptures there are, and for the limbs of that body, that these books make up those Scriptures, and for the soul of this body, that this is the sense of the holy Ghost in that place; so, for our judge, which is the conscience, let that be directed before hand, by their advice whom God hath set over us, and settled, and quieted in us, by their testimony, who are the witnesses of our conversation. And so we have done with our problematical part; we have asked and answered both these questions, Why this light requires any testimony, (and that is because exhalations, and damps, and vapours arise, first from our ignorance, then from our incredulity, after from our negligence in practising, and lastly, from our slipperiness in relapsing, and therefore we need more and more attestations, and remembrances of this light) and the other question, Why after so many other testimonies, (from himself, from his Father, from the Angel, from the Star, from the Magis, from Simeon, from Anna, from many, many, very many more) he required this testimony of john; and that is, because all those other witnesses had testified long before, and because God in all matters belonging to Religion here, or to salvation hereafter, refers us to man, but to man sent, and ordained by God, for our direction, that we may do well; and to the testimony of good men, that we have done well. And so we pass to our dogmatic part, what his testimony was; what john Baptist and his successors in preaching, and preparing the ways of Christ, are sent to do; he was sent to bear witness of that light. Princes which send Ambassadors, 2 Part. use to give them a Commission, containing the general scope of the business committed to them, and then Instructions, for the fittest way to bring that business to effect. And upon due contemplation of both these, (his Commission, and his Instructions) arises the use of the Ambassadors judgement and discretion, in making his Commission, and his Instructions, (which do not always agree in all points, but are often various, and perplexed) serve most advantageously towards the ends of his negotiation. john Baptist had both; therefore they minister three considerations unto us; first, his Commission, what that was; and then his Instructions, what they were; and lastly, the execution, how he proceeded therein. His Commission was drawn up, Commissio. and written in Esa●, and recorded and entered into God's Rolls by the Evangelists. Esa. 40. 3. It was, To prepare the way of the Lord, to make straight his paths, Mark 1. 2. that therefore every valley should be exalted, every mountain made law; and all this he was to cry out, to make them inexcusable, who contemn the outward Ministry, and rely upon private inspirations. This Commission lasts during God's pleasure; and God's pleasure is, that it should last to the end of the world; Therefore are we also joined in Commission with john, and we cry out still to you to all those purposes. First, that you prepare the way of the Lord. Praeparate viam. But when we bid you do so, we do not mean, that this preparing or pre-disposing of yourselves, is in yourselves, that you can prevent Gods preventing grace, or mellow, or supple, or fit yourselves for the entrance of that grace, by any natural faculty in yourselves. When we speak of a co-operation, a joint working with the grace of God, or of a post-operation, an after working upon the virtue of a former grace, this co-operation, & this post-operation must be mollified with a good concurrent cause with that grace. So there is a good sense of co-operation, and post-operation, but praeoperation, that we should work, before God work upon us, can admit no good interpretation. I could as soon believe that I had a being before God was, as that I had a will to good, before God moved it. But then, God having made his way into you, by his preventing grace, prepare that way, not your way, but his way, (says our Commission) that is, that way that he hath made in you, prepare that by forbearing and avoiding to cast new hindrances in that way. In sadness and dejections of spirit, seek not your comfort in drink, in music, in comedies, in conversation; for, this is but a preparing a way of your own. To prepare the Lords way, is to look, and consider, what way the Lord hath taken, in the like cases, in the like distresses with other servants of his, and to prepare that way in thyself, and to assure thyself, that God hath but practised upon others, that he might be perfect when he comes to thee, and that he intends to thee, in these thy tribulations, all that he hath promised to all, all that he hath already performed to any one. Prepare his way; apply that way, in which he hath gone to others, to thyself. And then, Rectas facite semitas Dei. Tertull. by our Commission we cry out to you, to make straight his paths. In which we do not require, that you should absolutely rectify all the deformities and crookedness, which that Tortuositas Serpentis, the winding of the old Serpent hath brought you to; for, now the stream of our corrupt nature, is accustomed to that crooked channel, and we cannot divert that, we cannot come to an absolute directness, and straightness, and profession in this life; and, in this place, the holy Ghost speaks but of a way, a path; not of our rest in the end, but of our labour in the way. Our Commission then is not to those sinless men, that think they have nothing for God to forgive; But, when we bid you make straight his paths, (as before we directed you, to take knowledge what his ways towards others had been) so here we intent, that you should observe, which is the Lords path into you, by what way he comes oftenest into you, who are his Temple, and do not lock that door, do not pervert, do not cross, do not deface that path. The ordinary way, even of the holy Ghost, for the conveying of faith, and supernatural graces, is (as the way of worldly knowledge is) by the senses: where his way is by the care, by hearing his word preached; do not thou cross that way of his, by an inordinate delight, in hearing the eloquence of the preacher; for, so thou hearest the man, and not God, and goest thy way, and not his. God hath divers ways into divers men; into some he comes at noon, in the sunshine of prosperity; to some in the dark and heavy clouds of adversity. Some he affects with the music of the Church, some with some particular Collect or Prayer; some with some passage in a Sermon, which takes no hold of him, that stands next him. Watch the way of the Spirit of God, into thee; that way which he makes his path, in which he comes oftenest to thee, and by which thou findest thyself most affected, and best disposed towards him, and pervert not that path, foul not that way. Make straight his paths, that is, keep them straight; and when thou observest, which is his path in thee, (by what means especially he works upon thee) meet him in that path, embrace him in those means, and always bring a facile, a fusil, a ductile, a tractable soul, to the offers of his grace, in his way. Our Commission reaches to the exalting of your valleys, Omnis Vallis exaltetur. Let every valley be exalted; In which, we bid you not to raise yourselves in this world, to such a spiritual height, as to have no regard to this world, to your bodies, to your fortunes, to your families. Man is not all soul, but a body too; and, as God hath married them together in thee, so hath he commanded them mutual duties towards one another; and God allows us large uses of temporal blessings, and of recreations too. To exalt valleys, is not to draw up flesh, to the height of spirit; that cannot be, that should not be done. But it is to draw you so much towards it, as to consider (and consider with an application) that the very Law, which was but the schoolmaster to the Gospel, was given upon a mountain; Exo. 24. 29. That Moses could not so much as see the Land of promise, till he was brought up into a mountain; D●ut. 32. 43. That the inchoation of Christ glory, Matth. 17. 2 14. 23. which was his transfiguration, was upon a mountain; That his conversation with God in prayer; That his return to his eternal Kingdom by his ascension, Acts 1. 10. was so too, from a mountain; even his exinanition, his evacuation, his lowest humiliation, his crucifying was upon a mountain; and he calls, john 12. 32● even that humiliation, an exaltation, Si exaltatus, If I be exalted, lifted up, says Christ signifying what death he should die. Now, if our depressions, our afflictions be exaltations, (so they were to Christ, so they are to every good Christian) how far doth God allow us, an exalting of our valleys, in a considering with a spiritual boldness, the height and dignity of mankind, and to what glory God hath created us. Certainly man may avoid as many sins, by this exalting his valleys, this considering the height and dignity of his nature, as by the humblest meditations in the world. For, 20. 8. Greg. upon those words of job, Manus tuae fecerunt me, Saint Gregory says, Misericordiae judicis, dignitatem suae conditionis opponit; job presents the dignity of his creation, by the hand of God, as an inducement why God should regard him; It is not his valley, but his mountains, that he brings into God's sight; not that dust which God took into his hands, when he made him, but that person which the hands of God had made of that dust. Man is an abridgement of all the world; and as some Abridgements are greater, than some other authors, so is one man of more dignity, than all the earth. And therefore exalt thy valleys, raise thyself above the pleasures that this earth can promise. And above the sorrows, it can threaten too. A painter can hardly diminish or contract an Elephant into so little a form, but that that Elephant, when it is at the least, will still be greater than an Ant at the life, and the greatest. Sin hath diminished man shrewdly, and brought him into a narrower compass; but yet, his natural immortality, (his soul cannot die) and his spiritual possibility, even to the last gasp, of spending that immortality in the kingdom of glory, and living for ever with God, (for otherwise, our immortality were the heaviest part of our curse) exalt this valley, this cold of earth, to a noble height. How ill husbands then of this dignity are we by sin, to forfeit it by submitting ourselves to inferior things? either to gold, than which every worm, (because a worm hath life, and gold hath none) is in nature, more estimable, and more precious; Or, to that which is less than gold, to Beauty; for there went neither labour, nor study, nor cost to the making of that; (the Father cannot diet himself so, nor the mother so, as to be sure of a fair child) but it is a thing that happened by chance, wheresoever it is; and, as there are Diamonds of divers waters, so men enthrall themselves in one clime to a black, in another to a white beauty. To that which is less than gold or Beauty, voice, opinion, fame, honour, we sell ourselves. And though the good opinion of good men, by good ways, be worth our study, yet popular applause, and the voice of inconsiderate men, is too cheap a price to set ourselves at. And yet, it is hardly got too; for as a ship that lies in harbour within land, sometimes needs most of the points of the Compass, to bring her forth: so if a man surrender himself wholly to the opinion of other men, and have not his Criterium, his touchstone within him, he will need both North and South, all the points of the Compass, the breath of all men; because, as there are contrary Elements in every body, so there are contrary factions in every place, and when one side cries him up, the other will depress him, and he shall, (if not shipwreck) lie still. But yet we do forfeit our dignity, for that which is less than all, than Gold, than Beauty, than Honour; for sin; sin which is but a privation, (as darkness is but a privation) and privations are nothing. And therefore exalt every valley, consider the dignity of man in his nature, and then, in the Son of God his assuming that nature, which gave it a new dignity, and this will beget in thee a Pride that God loves, a valuing of thyself above all the tentations of this world. But yet exalt this valley temperately, Omnis mons humiliabitur consider and esteem this dignity modestly, for our Commission goes farther, not only to the exalting of every valley, but, Omnis mons humiliabitur, every mountain must be made low: which is not to bring our mountainous, and swelling affections, and passions, to that flatness, as that we become stupid, and insensible. Mortification is not to kill nature, but to kill sin. Bring therefore your Ambition to that bent, to covet a place in the kingdom of heaven, bring your anger, to flow into zeal, bring your love to enamour you of that face, which is fairer than the children of men, that face, on which the Angels desire to look, Christ Jesus, and you have brought your mountains to that lowness, which is intended, and required here. Now, In Deserto. this Commission, john Baptist was, and we are, to publish in deserto, in the Desert, in the wilderness; that is, as Saint Hierome notes, not in jerusalem, in a tumultuary place, a place of distraction, but in the Desert, a place of solitude, and retiredness. And yet this does not imply an abandoning of society, and mutual offices, and callings in the world, but only informs us, that every man is to have a Desert in himself, a retiring into himself, sometimes of emptying himself of worldly businesses, and that he spend some hours in such solitudes, and lay aside, (as one would lay aside a garment) the Lawyer, the Physician, the Merchant, or whatsoever his profession be, and say, Domine hîe sum, Lord, I am here, ay, he whom thou madest, and such as thou madest him, not such as the world hath made me, Hî sum, I am here, not where the affairs of the world scatter me, but here, in this retiredness, Lord, I am here, command what thou wilt; in this retiredness, in this solitude, (but is not a Court, is not an Army, is not a Fair a solitude, in respect of this association, when God and a good soul are met?) but in this home solitude, in this home Desert, are we commanded to publish this Commission, as the fittest time to make impressions of all the parts thereof, Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his path, exalt your valleys, and bring down your mountains. And this was john Baptists Commission, What to do, And then he had Instructions with his Commission, how to do it; which is another consideration. His Commission was long before in Esay, Instructions. so he was Legatus natus, born an Ambassador; his Instructions were delivered to him by God immediately, when The Word of God came unto John, Luc. 3. 2. in the wilderness. Prince's oftentimes vary their Instructions from their Commissions, and to perplex their Ambassadors, God proceeded with john Baptist, and doth with us directly. Our Commission is to conform you to him, our Instructions are to do that, that way, By preaching the Baptism of Repentance, for the remission of sins. It is, in a word, by the Word and Sacraments. First, he sends us not as Spies, to lie, and learn, nor to learn and lie; but to deal apertly, manifestly, to publish, to preach; which as it forbids forcible and violent pressing the Conscience by secular or Ecclesiastical authority, so it forbids clandestine and whispering Conventicles; It is a Preaching, a working by instructing and informing the understanding; it is a Preaching a public avowing of God's Ordinance, in a right Calling. He gives us not our Instructions to offer Peace and reconciliation to all, and yet he not mean it to all; He bids us preach unto all; he bids all hearers repent, and he allows us to set to his seals of reconciliation, to all that come as penitents. He knows who will, and who will not repent, we do not; but both he knows, and so do we, that all may, so far as that, if they do not, they find enough in themselves to condemn themselves, and to discharge God and us. Our Instructions are to preach, that is our way, and to preach Repentance; there begin you in your own bosoms: He that seeks upwards to a River, is sure to find that head; but he that upon every bubbling spring, will think to find a River, by that may err many ways. If thou repent truly, thou art sure to come up to God's Decree for thy salvation; but if thou begin above at the Decree, and say, I am saved, therefore I shall repent, thou mayest miss both. Repent, and you shall have the Seals; the Seals are the Sacraments; john's was Baptism; but to what? He baptised to the amendment of life. This then is the chain; we preach, you repent; then we give you the Seals, the Sacraments, and you plead them, that is, declare them in a holy life; for, till that (Sanctification) come, Preaching, and Repentance, atd Seals, are ineffectual. A good life inanimates all. And so, having done with his Commission, what he was to do, and his Instructions, how he was to do it, we pass to our last branch, in this last part, The execution of his Commission, and Instructions, what, and how he did it, what Testimony he gave of this light. First, he testified, se non esse, Se non esse. that he was not this light, this Christ, this Messias. And secondly, Christum esse, that this light, this Christ, this Messias was come into the world, there was no longer expectation: And lastly, hunc esse, that this particular person whom he designed and specified in the Ecce Agnus, behold the Lamb of God, was this Light, this Christ, this Messias. He was not, One was, Christ was; In these three consists his Testimony. First, job. 1. 20. he testified that himself was not the Messias, he confessed and denied not, and said plainly, I am not the Christ. Therefore, lest I. Baptist might be overvalued, August. and their devotions fixed and determined in him, S. Augstine enlarges this consideration, Erat Mons illustratus, non ipse Sol; john Baptist was a hill, and a hill gloriously illustrated by the Sun, but he was not that Sun; Mirare, mirare, sed tanquam montem; john Baptist deserves a respect, and a regard; but regard him, and respect him but as an hill, which though high, lies but the same earth; and mons ●int ●●ebiis est nisi luce luce vestiatur, A hill hath no more light in itself, than the valley, till the light invest it; Si montem esse lucem putas, in monte naufragium facies; If you take the hill, because it shines, to be the light itself, you shipwreck upon the top of a hill. If we rest in the person, or in the gifts of any man, to what height soever this hill be raised in opinion, or in the Church, still we mistake; john Baptist, men of the greatest endowments, and goodness too, are but instruments, they are not the workman himself. And therefore as they are most inexcusable, that put an infallibility in the breast of one man, (our adversaries of Rome) so do they transgress too far that way, that run, and pant, and thrust after strange preachers, and leave their own Church deserted, and their own Pastor discouraged; for some one family, by the greatness thereof, or by the estimation thereof, may induce both those inconveniences. Truly, though it may seem boldly said, it may be said safely, that we were better hear some weaknesses from our own Pastor, than some excellencies from another; go farther, some mistake from our own, than some truths from another; for, all truths are not necessary; nor all mistake pernicious; but obedience to order is necessary, and all disorder pernicious. Now what a way had john Baptist open to him, if he had been popularly disposed. Amongst a people, that at that time expected their Messias, (for, all the Prophecies preceding his coming were then fulfilled) and such a Messias as should be a Temporal King, and had invested an opinion, that he, john Baptist, was that Christ, what rebellions, what earthquakes, what inundations of people might he have drawn after him, if he would have countenanced and cherished their error to his advantage? They would have lacked no Scriptures, to authorise their actions. They would have found particular places of the Prophets, to have justified any act of theirs, in advancing their Messias, then expected. Therein he is our pattern; not to preach ourselves, but Christ jesus; not to preach for admiration, but for edification; not to preach to advance civil ends, without spiritual ends; to promote all the way the peace of all Christian Kingdoms, but to refer all principally to the Kingdom of peace, and the King of peace, the God of heaven. He confessed, and denied not, and said plainly, I am not the Christ; That was his Testimony; we confess, and deny not, and say plainly, That our own parts, our own passions, the purpose of great persons, the purpose of any State, is not Christ; we preach Christ jesus, and him crucified; and whosoever preaches any other Gospel, or any other thing for Gospel, let him be accursed. I am not the man, Esse Natum. john 1. 26. says john Baptist, for, that man is God too; but yet that man, that God, that Messias consisting of both, is come, though I be not he. There is one amongst you, whom you know not, whose shooe-latchet I am not worthy to lose. In which, he says all this; There is one among you; you need seek no farther; all the promises, and Prophecies, (the Semen mulieris, That the seed of the woman should bruise the Serpent's head; the appropriation to Abraham, In semine tuo, In thy seed shall all Nations be blessed: the fixation upon David, Donec Shiloh, till Shiloh come; Esay's Virgo concipiet, Behold a Virgin shall conceive; Micahs & tu Bethlem, that Bethlem should be the place, daniel's seventy Hebdomades, that that should be the time,) all promises, all prophecies, all computations are at an end, the Messias is come. Is he come, Hunc esse. and amongst you, and do you not know him? what will make you know him? You believe you need a Messias; you cannot restore yourself. You believe this Messias must come at a certain time, specified by certain marks; were all these marks upon any other? or lacks there any of these in him? Do you thus magnify me, and neglect a person, whose shooe-latchet I am not worthy to lose. john Baptist was a Prophet, more than a Prophet, The greatest of the sons of women: Who could be so much greater than he, and not the Messias? we must necessarily enwrap all these three in one another, and into one another they do easily and naturally fall: He testifies that he was not the man, (he preaches not himself) he testifies that that man is come; (future expectations are frivolous) and he testifies, that the characters and marks of the expected Messias, can fall upon none but this man, and therefore he delivers him over to them with that confidence, Ecce Agnus Dei, Behold the Lamb of God, there you may see him; and this is his Testimony. These three, Conclusio. we, we to whom john Baptists Commission is continued, testify too. First, we tell you, what is not Christ; austerity of life, and outward sanctity is not he; john Baptist had them abundantly, but yet permitted not, that they should have that opinion of him. But yet, much less is chambering and wantonness, and persevering in sin, that Christ, or the way to him. We tell you, stetit in medio, he hath been amongst you, you have heard him preached in your ears; yea ye have heard him knock at your hearts, and for all that, we tell you that you have not known him. Which, though it be the discomfortablest thing in the world, (not to have known Christ in those approaches) yet we tell it you somewhat to your comfort; and to your excuse, I Cor. 2. 8. for, had you known● it, you would not have crucified the Lord of glory, Act. 17. 30. as we do all, by our daily sins. And though God have winked at these times of ignorance, (pretermitted your former inconsiderations) now, Luke 19 42. he commandeth all men every where to repent. And therefore, that thou mayst know, even thou, (as Christ iterates it) at least in this thy day, the things which belong to thy Peace, we tell you who he is, and where he is; Ecce agnus Dei, Behold the lamb of God, Here, here in this his ordinance he supplicates you, when the Minister, 2 Cor. 5. 20. how mean soever, prays you, in his stead, be ye reconciled to God. Here he proclaims, and cries to you, Venite omnes, come all that are weary and heavy laden. Here he bleeds in the Sacrament, here he takes away the sins of the world, in deriving a jurisdiction upon us, to bind and lose upon earth, that which he will bind and lose in heaven. This we testify to you; Do you but receive this testimony. Till you hear that voice of consummation in heaven, Venite benedicti, come ye blessed, you shall never hear a more comfortable Gospel than this, which was preached by Christ himself, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, to preach the Gospel to the poor, to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and the acceptable year of the Lord: Luke 4. 16. Esay 61. 1. for, this was not a deliverance from their brick-making in Egypt, nor from their scorns and contempts in Babylon, but a deliverance from that unexpressible, that unconceivable bondage of sin, August. and death, not by the hand of a Moses, but a Messias, Oped as dare qui praecipit petere, he that commands us to ask, would fain give: Cupit largiri, qui desider at postulari, he that desires us to pray to him, hath that ready, and a readiness to give that, that he bids us pray for. If the King give a general pardon, will any man be so suspiciously treacherous in his own behalf, as to say, for all this large extent of his mercy, he meant not me, and therefore I will sue out no pardon? If the King cast a donative, at his Coronation, will any man lie still and say, he meant none of that money to me? Luke 14. When the master of the feast sent his servants for guests, had it become those poor, and mai●ed, and halt, and blind, to have stood and disputed with the steward, and said, Surely sir, you mistook your Master, your Master did not mean us? Why should any man think that God means not him? When he offers grace, and salvation to all, why not to him? Should God exclude him as a man? Why, God made him good, and, as a man and his creature, August. he is good still. But, non Deus Esan hominem odit, fed odit Esau peccatorem? God did not hate Esau, as he was a man, but as he was a sinner. Should he exclude him as a sinner? Mar. 2. 17. Why then he should receive none, August. for we are all so; and he came for none but such, but sinners. Perfectiorum est nihil in peccatore odiisse praeter peccata, To hate nothing in a sinner, but his sin, is a great degree of perfection; God is that perfection; he hates nothing in thee but thy sin; and that sin he hath taken upon himself, and sees it not in thee. Should he exclude thee because thou art impenitent, Chrysoft. because thou hast not repent? Do it now. Peccasti, paenitere, Hast thou sinned? repent. Millies peccasti? millies poenitere? Hast thou multiplied thy sins by thousands? multiply thy penitent tears so too. Should he exclude thee, because thou art impenitible, thou canst not repent; how knowest thou thou canst not repent? Dost thou try, dost thou endeavour, dost thou strive? why, this, this holy contention of thine is repentance. Discredit not God's evidence; he offers thee Testimonium ab homine, the testimony of man, of the man of God, the Minister, that the promises of the Gospel belong to thee. Judge not against that evidence; confess that there is no other name given under heaven, Act. 4. 12. to be saved, but the name of jesus, and that that is. And then, when thou hast thus admitted his witnesses to thee, that his preaching hath wrought upon thee, be thou his witness to others, by thy exemplar life, and holy conversation. In this chapter, in the calling of the Apostles some such thing is intimated, when of those two Disciples, which, upon john's testimony, followed Christ, one is named, (Andrew) and the other is not named. No doubt, verse 40. but the other is also written in the book of life, and long since enjoys the blessed fruit of that his forwardness. But in the testimony of the Gospel, written for posterity, only Andrew is named, who sought out his brother Simon, and drew him in, and so propagated the Church, and spread the Glory of God. They who testify their faith by works, give us the better comfort, and posterity the better example. It will be but Christ's first question at the last day, What hast thou done for me? If we can answer that, he will ask, What hast thou suffered for me? and if we can answer that, he will ask, at last, Whom hast thou won to me, what soul hast thou added to my Kingdom? Our thoughts, our words, our doings, our sufferings, if they bring but ourselves to Heaven, they are not Witnesses; our example brings others; and that is the purpose, and the end of all we have said, john Baptist was a witness to us, we are so to you, be you so to one another. SERMON XXXIX. Preached at Saint Paul's. PHILIP. 3. 2. Beware of the Concision. THis is one of those places of Scripture, which afford an argument for that, which I find often occasion to say, That there are not so eloquent books in the world, as the Scriptures. For there is not only that non refugit, which Calvin speaketh of in this place, (Non refugit in Organis suis Spiritus Sanctus leporem & facetias, The Holy Ghost in his Instruments, (in those whose tongues or pens he makes use of) doth not forbid, nor decline elegant and cheerful, and delightful expression; but as God gave his Children a bread of Manna, that tasted to every man like that that he liked best, so hath God given us Scriptures, in which the plain and simple man may hear God speaking to him in his own plain and familiar language, and men of larger capacity, and more curiosity, may hear God in that Music that they love best, in a curious, in an harmonious style, unparallelled by any. For, that also Calvin adds in that place, that there is no secular Author, Qui jucundis vocum allusionibus, & figuris magis abundat, which doth more abound with persuasive figures of Rhetoric, nor with musical cadences and allusions, and assimilations, and conformity, and correspondency of words to one another, than some of the Secretaries of the Holy Ghost, some of the authors of some books of the Bible do. Of this Rule, this Text is an example. These Philippians, amongst whom Saint Paul had planted the Gospel in all sincerity, and impermixt, had admitted certain new men, that preached Traditional, and Additionall Doctrines, the Law with the Gospel, Moses with Christ, Circumcision with Baptism. To these new Convertites, these new Doctors inculcated often that charm, You are the Circumcision, you are they whom God hath sealed to himself by the Seal of Circumcision; They whom God hath distinguished from all Nations, by the mark of Circumcision; They in whom God hath imprinted, (and that in so high a way, as by a Sacrament) an internal Circumcision, in an external; and will you break this Seal of Circumcision? will you deface this mark of Circumcision? will you depart from this Sacrament of Circumcision? You are the Circumcision. Now Saint Paul meets with these men upon their haunt; and even in the sound of that word which they so often pressed; he says they press upon you Circumcision, but beware of Concision, of tearing the Church of God, of Schisms, and separations from the Church of God, of aspersions and imputations upon the Church of God, Verse 3. either by imaginary superfluities, or imaginary defectiveness, in that Church: for, saith the Apostle, We are the Circumcision, we who worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. If therefore they will set up another Circumcision beyond this Circumcision, if they will continue a significative, a relative, a preparative figure, after the substance, the body, Christ Jesus is manifested to us, a legal Circumcision in the flesh, after the spiritual Circumcision in the heart is established by the Gospel, their end is not Circumcision, but Concision: they pretend Reformation, but they intent Destruction, a tearing, a renting, a wounding the body, and frame, and peace of the Church, and by all means, and in all cases Videte Concisionem, Beware of Concision. First then, Divisio. we shall from these words consider, the loathness of God to lose us. For, first, he leaves us not without a Law, he bids and he forbids, and then he does not surprise us with obsolete laws, he leaves not his laws without proclamations, he refreshes to our memories, and represents to us our duties, with such commonefactions as these in our Text, Videte, Cavete, this and this I have commanded you, Videte, see that ye do it, this and this will hinder you, Cavete, beware ye do it not, Beware of Concision. And this, thus derived, and digested into these three branches: first, God's loathness to lose us; and then his way of drawing us to him, by manifestation of his will in a law; and lastly his way of holding us with him, by making that law effectual upon us, by these his frequent commonefactions, Videte, Cavete, look to it, beware of it, this will be our first part. And then our second will be the thing itself that falls under this inhibition, and caution, which is Concision, that is, a tearing, a renting, a shredding in pieces that which should be entire. In which second part, we shall also have, (as we had in the former) three branches; for, we shall consider, first, Concisionem corporis, the shredding of the body of Christ into fragments, by unnecessary wrangling in Doctrinal points; and then, Concisionem vestis, the shredding of the garment of Christ into rags, by unnecessary wrangling in matter of Discipline, and ceremonial points; and lastly, Concisionem spiritus, (which will follow upon the former two) the concision of thine own spirit, and heart, and mind, and soul, and conscience, into perplexities, and into sandy, and incoherent doubts, and scruples, and jealousies, and suspicions of God's purpose upon thee, so as that thou shalt not be able to recollect thyself, nor reconsolidate thyself, upon any assurance, and peace with God, which is only to be had in Christ, and by his Church. Videte Concisionem, beware of tearing the body, the Doctrine; beware of tearing the Garment, the Discipline; beware of tearing thine own spirit, and conscience, from her adhaesion, her agglutination, her cleaving to God, in a holy tranquillity, and acquiescence in his promise, and mercy, in the merits of his Son, applied by the holy Ghost, in the Ministry of the Church. For our first consideration, 1 Part. Vult omnes. of God's loathness to lose us, this is argument enough● That we are here now, now at the participation of that grace, which God always offers to all such Congregations as these, gathered in his name. For, I pray God there stand any one amongst us here now, that hath not done something since yesterday, that made him unworthy of being here to day; and who, if he had been left under the damp, and missed of yesterday sin, without the light of new grace, would never have found way hither of himself. If God be weary of me, and would fain be rid of me, he needs not repent that he wrapped me up in the Covenant, and derived me of Christian parents, (though he gave me a great help in that) nor repent that he bred me in a true Church, (though he afforded me a great assistance in that) nor repent that he hath brought me hither now, to the participation of his Ordinances, (though thereby also I have a great advantage) for, if God be weary of me, and would be rid of me, he may find enough in me now, and here, to let me perish. A present levity in me that speak, a present formality in you that hear, a present Hypocrisy spread over us all, would justify God; if now, Luke 18. 8. and here, he should forsake us. When our blessed Saviour says, When the Son of man comes, shall he find faith upon earth? we need not limit that question so, if he come to a Westminster, to an Exchange, to an Army, to a Court, shall he find faith there? but if he come to a Church, if he come hither, shall he find faith here? If (as Christ speaks in another sense, That judgement should begin at his own house,) the great and general judgement should begin now at this his house, and that the first that should be taken up in the clouds, to meet the Lord Jesus, should be we, that are met now in this his house, would we be glad of that acceleration, or would we thank him for that haste? Men of little faith, job 1. 6. I fear we would not. There was a day, when the Sons of God presented themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also amongst them; one Satan amongst many Sons of God. Blessed Lord, is not our case far otherwise? do not we, (we, who, as we are but we, are all the Sons of Satan) present ourselves before thee, and yet, thou Lord art amongst us? Is not the spirit of slumber and weariness upon one, and the spirit of detraction, and misinterpretation upon another; upon one the spirit of impenitence for former sins, and the spirit of recidivation into old, or of facility and openness to admit tentations into new upon another? We, as we are but we, are all the Sons of Satan, and thou Lord, the only Son of God, only amongst us. If thou Lord wert weary of me, and wouldst be rid of me, (may many a soul here say) Lord thou knowest, and I know many a midnight, when thou mightest have been rid of me, jer. 27. 28. if thou hadst left me to myself then. But vigilavit Doninus, the Lord vouchsafed to watch over me, Prov. 8. 31. and deliciae ejus, the delight of the Lord was to be with me; And what is there in me, but his mercy? but then, what is there in his mercy, that that may not reach to all, as well as to me? The Lord is loath to lose any, the Lord would not the death of any; not of any sinner; much less if he do not see him, nor consider him so; the Lord would not lose him, though a sinner, much less make him a sinner, that he might be lost: Vult omnes, the Lord would have all men come unto him, and be saved, which was our first consideration, and we have done with that, and our second is, The way by which he leads us to him, that he declares and manifests his will unto us, in a Law, he bids, and he forbids. The laborers in the Vine-yard took it ill at the Steward's hand, Lex. Mat. 20. 22. and at his Masters too, that those which came late to the labour, were made equal with them, who had borne the heat, and the burden of the day. But if the Steward, or the Master had never meant, or actually never had given any thing at all, to them that had borne the heat and the burden of the day, there had been much more cause of complaint, because there had passed a contract between them. So hath there passed a contract between God, and us, Believe, and thou shalt live, Do this and thou shalt live. And in this especially hath God expressed his love to us, and his lothenesse to lose us, that he hath passed such a contract with us, and manifested to us a way, to come to him. We say, every day, in his own prayer, Fiat voluntas tua, thy will be done; that is, done by us, as well as done upon us. But this petition presumes another; the Fiat suposes a Patefiat voluntas, if it must be done, it must be known. If man were put into this world, & under an obligation of doing the will of God, upon damnation, and had no means to know that will which he was bound to do, of all creatures he were the most miserable. That which we read, Psal. 144. 3. Lord what is man that thou takest knowledge of him? the Vulgat edition; and the Father's following the Septuagint, read thus, Quia innotuisti ei, Lord what is man that he should have any knowledge of thee, that thou shouldest make thyself known to him? This is the height of the mercy of God, this innotescence, this manifestation of himself to us. Now what is this innotescence, this manifestation of God to us? It is, say our old Expositors, the law. That's that, which is so often called the face of God, and the light of his Countenance; August. for, facies Dei est, qua nobis innotescit, that's God's face, by which God is known to us, and that's his law, the declaration of his will to me, and my way to him. When Christ reproaches those hardhearted men, that had not fed him, Mat. 25. 44. when he was hungry, nor clothed him, when he was naked, and that they say, Lord when did we see thee naked, or see thee hungry? (inconsiderate men, or men loath to give, the penurious and narrow soul, shall not see an occasion of charity, when it is presented, which is a heavy blindness, and obcaecation, not to see occasions of doing good) yet those men do not say, when did we see thee at all, as though they had never seen him? The blindest man that is, hath the face of God so turned towards him, as that he may be seen by him; even the natural man hath so; for, therefore does the Apostle make him inexcusable, Rom. 1.12. if in the visible work, he do not see the invisible God. But all sight of God, is by the benefit of a law; the natural man sees him by a law written in his heart, the jew, by a law given by Moses, the Christian, in a clearer glass, for, his law is the Gospel. But there is more mercy, that is, more manifestation in this text, than all this. For, besides the natural man's seeing God, in a law, in the faculties of his own nature, (which we consider to be the work of the whole Trinity, in that Faciamus hominem, Let us make man in our own Image, let us shine out in him, so as that he may be a glass, in which he may see us, in himself) and besides the jews seeing of God in the law written in the stone tables, (which we consider to be the work of the Father) And besides the Christians seeing of God, in the law written in blood, (in which we consider especially the Son) there is in this text an operation, a manifestation of God, proper to the holy Ghost, and wrought by his holy suggestions and inspirations, That God does not only speak to us, but call upon us; not only give us a Law, but Proclamations upon that law, that he refreshes to our memories, general duties, by such particular warnings, and excitations, and commonefactions, as in this text, Videte, Beware, which is the last branch of this part, though it be the first word of our text, Videte, Videte. Beware. Nothing exalts God's goodness towards us, more than this, that he multiplies the means of his mercy to us, so, as that no man can say, once I remember I might have been saved, once God called unto me, once he opened me a door, a passage into heaven, but I neglected that, went not in then, and God never came more. No doubt, God hath come often to that door since, and knocked, and stayed at that door; And if I knew who it were that said this, I should not doubt to make that suspicious soul see, Psal. 62. 11. that God is at that door now. God hath spoken once, and twice have I heard him; for the foundation of all. God hath spoken but once, in his Scriptures. Therefore doth Saint jude call that fidem semel traditam, Verse 3. the faith once delivered to the Saints; once, that is, at once; not at once so, all at one time, or in one man's age; the Scriptures were not delivered so; for, God spoke by the mouth of the Prophets, that have been, since the world began; But, at once, that is, by one way, by writing, by Scriptures; so, as that after that was done, after God had declared his whole will, in the Law, and the Prophets, and the Gospel, there was no more to be added. God hath spoken once, in his Scriptures, and we have heard him twice, at home, in our own readings, and again and again here, in his Ordinances. This is the height of God's goodness, that he gives us his Law, and a Comment upon that Law, Proclamations, declarations upon that Law. For, without these subsequent helps, even the law itself might be mistaken; as you see it was, Mat. 5. when Christ was put to rectify them, with his Audiistis, and Audiistis, this you have heard, and this hath been told you, Ego autem dico, but this I say, ab initio, from the beginning it was not so, the foundations were not thus laid, and upon the foundations laid by God in the Scriptures, and not upon the superedifications of men, in traditional additions, must we build. In storms and tempests at sea men come sometimes to cut down Galleries, and tear up Cabins, and cast them overboard to ease the ship, and sometimes to hew down the Mast itself, though without that Mast the ship can make no way; but no soul weather can make them tear out the keel of the ship, upon which the ship is built. In cases of necessity, the Church may forbear her Galleries, and Cabinets, means of ease and conveniency; yea, and her Mast too, means of her growth, and propagation, and enlarging of herself, and be content to hull it out, and consist in her present, or a worse state, during the storm. But to the keel of the ship, to the fundamental articles of Religion, may no violence, in any case, be offered. God multiplies his mercies to us, Psal. 19 2. in his divers ways of speaking to us. Caeli enarrant, says David, The heavens declare the glory of God; and not only by showing, but by saying; there is a language in the heavens; for it is enarrant, a verbal declaration; and, as it follows literally, Day unto day uttereth speech. This is the true harmony of the Spheres, which every man may hear. Though he understand no tongue but his own, he may hear God in the motions of the same, in the seasons of the year, in the vicissitudes and revolutions of Church, and State, in the voice of Thunder, and lightnings, and other declarations of his power. This is God's English to thee, and his French, and his Latin, and Greek, and Hebrew to others. God once confounded languages; that conspiring men might not understand one another, but never so, as that all men might not understand him. When the holy Ghost fell upon the Apostles, they spoke so, as that all men understood them, in their own tongues. When the holy Ghost fell upon the waters, in the Creation, God spoke so, in his language of Works, as that all men may understand them. For, in this language, the language of works, the Eye is the ear, seeing is hearing. How often does the holy Ghost call upon us, in the Scriptures, Ecce, quia os Domini locutum, Behold, the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it? he calls us to behold, (which is the office of the eye) and that that we are to behold, is the voice of God, belonging to the ear; seeing is hearing, in God's first language, the language of works. But then God translates himself, in particular works; nationally, he speaks in particular judgements, or deliverances to one nation; &, domestically, he speaks that language to a particular family; & so personally too; he speaks to every particular soul. God will speak unto me, in that voice, and in that way, which I am most delighted with, & hearken most to. If I be covetous, God will tell me that heaven is a pearl, a treasure. If cheerful and affected with mirth, that heaven is all joy.. If ambitious, and hungry of preferment, that it is all Glory. If sociable, and conversable, that it is a communion of Saints. God will make a Fever speak to me, and tell me his mind, that there is no health but in him, God will make the disfavour, and frowns of him I depend upon, speak to me, and tell me his mind, that there is no safe dependence, no assurance but in him; God will make a storm at Sea, or a fire by land, speak to me, and tell me his mind, that there is no perpetuity, no possession but in him; nay, God will make my sin speak to me, and tell me his mind; even my sin shall be a Sermon, and a Catechism to me; God shall suffer me me to fall into some such sin, as that by some circumstances in the sin, or consequences from the sin, I shall be drawn to hearken unto him; and whether I hear Hosannaes', acclamations, and commendations, or Crucifiges, exclamations and condemnations from the world, I shall still find the voice and tongue of God, though in the mouth of the Devil, and his instruments. God is a declaratory God. The whole year, is, to his Saints, a continual Epiphany, one day of manifestation. In every minute that strikes upon the Bell, is a syllable, nay a syllogism from God. And, and in my last Bell, God shall speak too; that Bell, when it tolls, shall tell me I am going, and when it rings out, shall tell you I am gone into the hands of that God, who is the God of the living and not of the dead, for, they die not that depart in him. Dives pressed Abraham to send a preacher from the dead, Luke 16. 27. to his brethren. This was to put God to a new language, when he had spoken sufficiently by Moses, and the Prophets. And yet, even in this language, the tongue of the dead, hath God spoken too. Saint Hierome says, that that Prophet jonas, Prooemium in jonam. 1 Reg. 17. who was sent to Niniveh, was the same man, whom, being then a child, and dead in his mother's house, the widow of Zarepta's house, Elias the Prophet raised to life again; and so, God spoke to Niniveh in that language, in the tongue of the dead. But be that but problematical, wrapped up in a Traditional, and Historical faith, this is Dogmatic, and irrefragable, that God hath spoken to the whole world in the tongue of the dead, in his Son Christ jesus, the Lord of life, and yet the first borne of the dead. God is loath to lose us, at worst, and therefore, did not, surely, reject us, before we were ill, (And that was our first) God hath drawn us to him, by manifesting his will, and our way in a law, and therefore, will not judge us at last, by any thing never revealed to us, (And that was our second) God holds us to him by these remembrances, these common manifestations in our text, Videte, Cavete, and therefore let no man that does not hear God speaking to him, in this present voice, despair that he shall never hear him, but harken still, and in one language or other, perchance a sickness, perchance a sin, he shall hear him, for these are several Dialects in God's language, several instruments in God's Consort; And this is our third consideration, and the end of this first part, the Prohibition, the Commonefaction, Videte, Cavete; And we pass to our second general part, and the three branches of that, that that falls under this Prohibition, Videte Concisionem, Beware the Concision. Saint Paul embraces here, 2. Part. Concision. that elegancy of language familiar to the holy Ghost, They pretend Circumcision, they intent Concision; there is a certain elegant and holy delicacy, a certain holy juvenility in Saint Paul's choosing these words of this musical cadence and agnomination, Circumcision, and Concision; But then this delicacy, and juvenility presents matter of gravity and soundness. Language must wait upon matter, and words upon things. In this case, (which indeed makes it a strange case) the matter is the form; The matter, that is, the doctrine that we preach, is the form, that is, the Soul, the Essence; the language and words we preach in, is but the Body, but the existence. Therefore, Saint Paul, who would not allow Legal figures, not Typical figures, not Sacramental figures, not Circumcision itself, after the body, Christ Jesus, was once exhibited, does not certainly allow Rhetorical figures, nor Poetical figures, in the preaching, or hearing of Christ preached, so, as that that should be the principal leader of hearer, or speaker. But this Saint Paul authoriseth in his own practice, and the holy Ghost in him, That in elegant language, he incorporates, and invests sound and important Doctrine; for, though he choose words of musical sound, Circumcision and Concision, yet it is a matter of weighty consideration that he intends in this Concision. Saint chrysostom, and Saint Hierome both agree in this interpretation, That whereas Circumcision is an orderly, a useful, a medicinal, a beneficial pruning and paring off, that which is superfluous, Conciditur quod temere, & inutiliter decerpitur, Concision is a hasty and a rash plucking up, or cutting down, and an unprofitable tearing, and renting into shreds and fragments, such, as the Prophet speaks of, jer. 19 11. The breaking of a Potter's vessel, that cannot be made up again. Concision is, at best, Solutio Continui, The severing of that, which should be kept entire. In the State, the aliening of the head from the body, or of the body from the head, is Concision; and videte, it is a fearful thing to be guilty of that. In the Church, (which Church is not a Monarchy, otherwise then as she is united in her head, Christ Jesus) to constitute a Monarchy, an universal head of the Church, to the dis-inherison, and to the tearing of the Crowns of Princes, who are heads of the Churches in their Dominions, this is Concision; and videte, it is a fearful thing to be guilty of that, to advance a foreign Prelate. In the family, where God hath made man and wife, one, to divide with others, is Concision; and videte, it is a fearful thing to be guilty of that. Generally, the tearing of that in pieces, which God intended should be kept entire, is this Concision, and falls under this Commonefaction, which implies an increpation, videte, beware. But because thus, Concision would receive a concision into infinite branches, we determined this consideration, at first, into these three; first, Concisio Corporis, the concision of the body, dis-union in Doctrinal things; and Concisio vestis, the Concision of the garment, dis-union in Ceremonial things; and then Concisio Spiritus, the Concision of the Spirit, dis-union, irresolution, unsettledness, diffidence, and distrust in thine own mind and conscience. First, for this Concision of the body, Concisio Corporis. of the body of Divinity, in Doctrinal things, since still Concision is Solutio continui, the breaking of that which should be entire, consider we first, what this Continuum, this that should be kept entire, is; and it is, says the Apostle, jesus himself. Omnis spiritus qui solvit jesum, (so the Ancients read that place) Every spirit which dissolveth jesus, 1 john 4. 3. that breaks Jesus in pieces, that makes Religion serve turns, that admits so much Gospel as may promove and advance present businesses, every such spirit is not of God. Not to profess the whole Gospel, Totum jesum, not to believe all the Articles of faith, this is Solutio continui, a breaking of that which should be entire; and this is truly concision. Now with concision in this kind, our greatest adversaries, they of the Roman heresy, and mis-perswasion, do not charge us. They do not charge us that we deny any article of any ancient Creed: nor may they deny, that there is not enough for salvation in those ancient Creeds. This is Continuitas universalis, a continuity, an entireness that goes through the whole Church; a skin that covers the whole body; the whole Church is bound to believe all the articles of faith. But then, there is Continuitas particularis, Continuitas modi, a continuity, a harmony, an entireness, that does not go through the whole Church; the whole Church does not always agree in the manner of explication of all the articles of faith; but this may be a skin that covers some particular limb of the body, and not another; one Church may expound an article thus, and some other some other way, as, in particular, the Lutheran Church expounds the article of Christ's descent into hell, one way, and the Calvinist another. Now, in cases, where neither exposition destroys the article, in the substance thereof, it is Concision, that is, Solutio continui, a breaking of that which should be kept entire, for any man to break the peace of that Church, in which he hath received his baptism, and hath his station, by advancing the exposition of any other Church, in that. And as this is Concision, Solutio continui, a breaking of that which is entire, to break the peace of the Church, where we were baptised, by teaching otherwise then that Church teaches, in these things De modo, of the manner of expounding such or such articles of faith, so is there another dangerous Concision too. For, to inoculate a foreign bud, or to engraft a foreign bough, is concision, as well as the cutting off an arm from the tree; to inoculate, cleaves the rind, the bark; and to engraft, cleaves the tree: it severs that which should be entire. So, when a particular Church, in a holy, and discreet modesty, hath abstained from declaring herself in the exposition of some particular Articles, or of some Doctrines, by fair consequence deducible from those Articles, and contented herself with those general things which are necessary to salvation, (As the Church of England hath, in the Article of Christ's descent into Hell) it is Concision, it is solution Continui, a breaking of that which should be entire, to inoculate a new sense, or engraft a new exposition, which howsoever it may be true in itself, it cannot be truly said, to be the sense of that Church; not perchance because that Church was not of that mind, but because that Church finding the thing itself to be no fundamental thing, thought it unnecessary to descend to particular declarations, when as in such declarations she must have departed from some other Church of the Reformation, that thought otherwise, and in keeping herself within those general terms that were necessary, and sufficient, with a good conscience she conserved peace and unity with all. David, in the person of every member of the Church, submits himself to that increpation, Let my right hand forget her cunning, and let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not jerusalem before my chiefest joy. Psal. 137. 6. Our chiefest joy, is, for the most part, our own opinions, especially when they concur with other learned and good men too. But then, jerusalem is our love of the peace of the Church; and in such things as do not violate foundations, let us prefer jerusalem before our chiefest Joy, love of peace before our own opinions, though concurrent with others. For, this is that, that hath misled many men, that the common opinion in the Church is necessarily the opinion of the Church. It is not so; not so in the Roman Church: There the common opinion is, That the blessed Virgin Mary was conceived without original sin: But cannot be said to be the opinion of that Church; nor may it be safely concluded in any Church: Most Writers in the Church have declared themselves this way, therefore the Church hath declared herself, for the declarations of the Church are done publicly, & orderly, and at once. And when a Church hath declared herself so, in all things necessary and sufficient, let us possess our souls in peace, and not say that that Church hath, or press that that Church would proceed to further declarations in less necessary particulars. When we are sure we have believed & practised, all that the Church hath recommended to us, in these generals, then, and not till then, let us call for more declarations; but in the mean time prefer jerusalem before our chiefest joy, love of peace by a general forbearance on all sides, rather than victory by wrangling, and uncharitableness. And let our right hand forget her cunning, (let us never set pen to paper to write) Let our tongue cleave to the roof of our mouth, (let us never open our mouth to speak of those things) in which Silence was an Act of Discretion, and Charity before, but now is also an Act of Obedience, and of Allegiance and Loyalty. But that which David said to the Lord, (Psalm 65. 1.) Let us also accommodate to the Lords anointed, Tibi laus silentium, our best sacrifice to both, is to be silent in those things. So then, this is Concisio corporis, that Concision of the body, which you are to beware in Doctrinal things, first, non solvere jesum, not to dissolve, not to break Jesus in pieces, not to depart, in any respect, with any fundamental Article of faith, for that is a skin that covers the whole body, an obligation that lies upon the whole Church, and then for that particular Church, in which you have your station, first, to conform yourself to all that, in which she had evidently declared herself, and then not to impute to her, not to call such articles hers, as she never avowd. And our next consideration is Concisio vestis, the tearing of the garment, matter of discipline, and government. To a Circumcision of the garment, Concisio Vestis. that is, to a pa●ing, and taking away such Ceremonies, as were superstitious, or superfluous, of an ill use, or of no use, our Church came in the beginning of the Reformation. To a Circuncision we came; but those Churches that came to a Concision of the garment, to an absolute taking away of all ceremonies, neither provided so safely for the Church itself in the substance thereof, nor for the exaltation of Devotion in the Church. Divide the law of the jews into 2 halfs, and the Ceremonial will be the greater; we cannot call the Moral law, the jews law; that was ours as well as their, peculiar to none; but of that law which is peculiar to the Jews▪ judicial & Ceremonial, the Ceremonial is far the greater part. So great a care had God, of those thing, which though they be not of the revenue of Religion, yet are of the subsidy of Religion, and, though they be not the soul of the Church, yet are they those Spirits that unite soul and body together. H's man did but shave the beards of David's servants, 2 Sam. 10. he did not cut off their heads; He did not cut their clothes so, as that he stripped them naked. Yet, for that that he did, (says that story) he stanke in David's sight, (which is a phrase of high indignation in that language) and so much, as that it cost him forty thousand of his horsemen in one battle. And therefore as this Apostle enters this Caveat in another place, If ye by't one another, cavete, take heed ye be not consumed of one another, so cavete, Gal. 5. 15. take heed of this concision of the garment, lest if the garment be torn off, the body whither, and perish. A shadow is nothing, yet, if the rising or falling Sun shine out, and there be no shadow, I will pronounce there is no body in that place neither. Ceremonies are nothing; but where there are no Ceremonies, order, and uniformity, and obedience, and at last, (and quickly) Religion itself will vanish. And therefore videte concisionem, beware of tearing the body, or of tearing the garment, which will induce the other, and both will induce the third, concisionem spiritus, the tearing of thine own spirit, from that rest which it should receive in God; for, when thou hast lost thy hold of all those handles which God reaches out to thee, in the Ministry of his Church, and that thou hast no means to apply the promises of God in Christ to thy soul, which are only applied by God's Ordinances in his Church, when anything falls upon thee, that overcomes thy moral constancy (which moral constancy, God knows, is soon spent, if we have lost our recourse to God) thou wilt soon sink into an irrecoverable desperation, which is the fearfullest concision of all; and videte, beware of this concision. When God hath made himself one body with me, Concisio Spiritus. by his assuming this nature, and made me one spirit with himself, and that by so high a way, as making me partaker of the divine nature, 1 Cor. 6.17. so that now, in Christ jesus, he and I are one, this were solutio jesus, a tearing in pieces, 2 Pet. 2. 4. a dissolving of Jesus, in the worst kind that could be imagined, if I should tear myself from Jesus, or by any jealousy or suspicion of his mercy, or any horror in my own sins, come to think myself to be none of his, none of him. Who ever comes into a Church to denounce an excommunication against himself? And shall any sad soul come hither, to gather arguments, from our preaching, to excommunicate itself, Numb. 16. 30. or to pronounce an impossibility upon her own salvation? God did a new thing, Says Moses, a strange thing, a thing never done before, when the earth opened her mouth (and Dathan, and Abiram went down quick into the pit. Wilt thou do a stranger thing than that? To tear open the jaws of Earth, and Hell, and cast thyself actually and really into it, out of mis-imagination, that God hath cast thee into it before? Wilt thou force God to second thy irreligious melancholy, and to condemn thee at last, because thou hadst precondemned thyself, and renounced his mercy? Wilt thou say with Cain, My sin is greater than can be pardoned? This is Concisio potestatis, a cutting off the power of God, and Treason against the Father, whose Attribute is Power. Wilt thou say, God never meant to save me? this is Concisio Sapientiae, a cutting off the Wisdom of God, to think, that God intended himself glory in a kingdom, and would not have that kingdom peopled, and this is Treason against the Son whose Attribute is wisdoms? Wilt thou say, I shall never find comfort in Praying, in Preaching, in Receiving? This is Concisio consolationis, the cutting off consolation, and treason against the holy Ghost, whose office is comfort. No man violates the Power of the Father, the Wisdom of the Son, the Goodness of the holy Ghost, so much as he, who thinks himself out of their reach, or the latitude of their working. Rachel wept for her children, Mat. 2. 18. and would not be comforted; but why? Because they were not. If her children had been but gone for a time from her, or but sick with her, Rachel would have been comforted; but, they were not. Is that thy case? Is not thy soul, a soul still? It may have gone from thee, in sins of inconsideration; it may be sick within thee, in sins of habit and custom; but is not thy soul, a soul still? And hath God made any species larger than himself? is there more soul, than there is God, more sin than mercy? Truly Origen was more excusable, more pardonable, if he did believe, that the Devil might possibly be saved, than that man, that believes that himself must necessarily be damned. And therefore, videte concisionem, beware of cutting off thy spirit from this spirit of comfort, take heed of shreading Gods general promises; into so narrow propositions, as that they will not reach home to thee, cover thee, invest thee; beware of such distinctions, & such subdivisions, as may make the way to heaven too narrow for thee, or thegate of heaven too straight for thee. 'Tis true, one drop of my Saviour's blood would save me, if I had but that, one tear from my Saviour's eye, if I had but that; but he hath none that hath not all; A drop, a tear, would wash away an Adultery, a murder, but less than the whole sea of both, will not wash away a wanton look, an angry word. God would have all, and gives all to all. And for God's sake, let God be as good as he will; as merciful, and as large, as liberal, and as general as he will. Christ came to save sinners; thou are sure thou art one of them; At what time soever a sinner reputes, he shall be heard; be sure to be one of them too. Believe that God in Christ proposes conditions to thee; endeavour the performing, repent the not performing of those conditions, and be that the issue between God and thy soul; And lest thou end in this concision, the concision of the Spirit, beware of the other two concisions, of the body, and of the garment, by which only, all heavenly succours are appliable to thee. SERMON XL. Preached at Saint Paul's. 2 Cor. 5. 20. We pray ye in Christ's stead, Be ye reconciled to God. IN bestowing of Benefits, there are some Circumstances, that vitiate and deprave the nature of the benefit (as when a man gives only in contemplation of Retribution, for than he is not Dator, but Mercator, this is not a giving, but a Merchandising, a permutation, or when he is Cyminibilis Dator, (as our Canons speak) one that gives Mint and Cumin, so small things, and in so small proportions, as only keeps him alive that receives, and so Ipsum quod dat, perit, & vitam producit ad miseriam, that that is given is lost, and he that receives it, is but continued in misery, and so the benefit, hath almost the nature of an injury, because but for that poor benefit, he might have got out of this life. And then there are circumstances, that do absolutely annihilate a benefit, amongst which, one is, if the giver take so express, so direct, so public knowledge of the wants of the receiver, as that he shall be more ashamed by it, then refreshed with it; for in many courses of life, it does more deject a man, in his own heart, and in the opinion of others too, and more retard him in any preferment, to be known to be poor, then to be so indeed; And he that gives so, does not only make him that receives, his Debtor, but his Prisoner, for he takes away his liberty of applying himself to others, who might be more beneficial to him, the he that captivated, and ensnared him, with that small benefit. And therefore many times in the Scripture, the phrase is such in doing a courtesy, as though the receiver had done it, in accepting it; so when jacob made a present to his brother Esau, I beseech thee, Gen. 33. says he, to take my blessing that I may find favour in thy sight; so he compelled him to take it. So when Christ recommends here to his people, the great, and inestimable benefit in our text, Reconciliation to God, he delivers that benefit of all those accidents, or circumstances, that might vitiate it; and amongst those, of this, that we should not be confounded with the notice taken of our poverty, and indigence; for he proceeds with man, as though man might be of some use to him, and with whom it were fit for him to hold good correspondence, he sends to him by Ambassadors, (as it is in the words immediately before the text) and by those Ambassadors he prays him, that he would accept the benefit of Reconciliation. To us, who are his Creatures, and therefore might be turned and wound by his general providence, without employment of any particular messengers, he sends particular messengers; to us that are his enemies, and fitter to receive denunciations of a war, by a Herald, than a Message, by Ambassadors, he sends Ambassadors, to us, who are indeed Rebels, and not enemies, and therefore rather to be reduced and reclaimed by Executioners, then by Commissioners, he sends Commissioners, not to article, not to capitulate, but to pray, and to entreat, and not to entreat us to accept God's reconciliation to us, but, as though God needed us, to entreat us to be reconciled to him; We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. In these words, Divisio. our parts will be three: Our Office towards you; yours towards us; and the Negotiation itself, Reconciliation to God. In each of these three, there is a rederivation into three branches: for, in the two first (besides the matter) there are two kinds of persons, we and you, The Priest and the People (we pray you.) And in the last there are two kinds of persons too, you and God; Be ye reconciled to God. But because all these kinds of persons, God, and we, and you, fall frequently into our consideration, there is the less necessity laid upon us to handle them, as distinct branches, otherwise then as they fall into the Negotiation itself. Therefore we shall determine ourselves in these three: First, our office towards you, and our stipulation and contract with you, We pray you; we come not as Lords or Commanders over you, but in humble, in submissive manner, We pray you. And then your respect to us, because in what manner soever we come, we come in Christ's stead, and though dimly, yet represent him. And lastly, the blessed effect of this our humility to you, and this your respect to us, Reconciliation to God. Humility in us, because we are sent to the poorest soul; respect in you, because we are sent to represent the highest King, work in you this reconciliation to God, and it is a Text well handled; practice makes any Sermon a good Sermon. First, 1. Part. then, for our office towards you, because you may be apt to say, You take too much upon you, you sons of Levi; We the sons of Levi, open unto you our Commission, and we pursue but that we profess, that we are sent but to pray, but to entreat you; and we accompany it with an outward declaration, we stand bare, and you sit covered. When greater power seems to be given us, of treading upon Dragons and Scorpions, of binding and losing, of casting out Devils, and the like, we confess these are powers over sins, over Devils that do, or endeavour to possess you, not over you, for to you we are sent to pray and entreat you. jer. 1. 10. Though God sent jeremy with that large Commission, Behold this day, I have set thee over the Nations, and over the Kingdoms, to pluck up, and to rout out, to destroy and to throw down; and though many of the Prophets had their Commissions drawn by that precedent, we claim not that, we distinguish between the extraordinary Commission of the Prophet, and the ordinary Commission of the Priest, we admit a great difference between them, and are far from taking upon us, all that the Prophet might have done; which is an error, of which the Church of Rome, and some other overzealous Congregations have been equally guilty, and equally opposed Monarchy and Sovereignty, by assuming to themselves, in an ordinary power, whatsoever God, upon extraordinary occasions, was pleased to give for the present, to his extraordinary Instruments the Prophets; our Commission is to● pray, and to entreat you. Though upon those words, Ascendunt salvatores in Montem Zion, there shall arise Saviour's in Mount Zion, Obad. 1. 21. in the Church of God, Saint Hierom saith, That as Christ being the light of the world, called his Apostles the light of the world too; so, Ipse Salvator Apostolas voluit esse Salvatores, The Saviour of the world communicates to us the name of Saviour's of the world too, yet howsoever instrumentally and ministerially that glorious name of Saviour may be afforded to us, though to a high hill, though to that Mount Zion, we are led by a low way, by the example of our blessed Saviour himself; and since there was an Oportuit pati, laid upon him, there may well be an Op●rte● Obsecrare laid upon us; since his way was to be dumb, ours may well be to utter no other voice but Prayers; since he bled, we may well sweat in his service, for the salvation of your souls. If therefore ourselves, who are sent, be under contempt, or under persecution, if the sword of the Tongue, or the sword of the Tyrant be drawn against us, against all these, Arma nostra, preces & fletus, we defend with no other shield, we return with no other sword, Ambros. but Tears and Prayers, and blessing of them that curse us. Yea, if he that sent us suffer in us, if we see you denounce a war against him, nay, triumph over him, and provoke him to anger, and because he shows no anger, conclude our of his patience, an impotency, that because he doth not, he cannot, when you scourge him, and scoff him, and spit in his face, and crucify him, and practise every day all the Jews did to him once, as though that were your pattern, and your business were to exceed your pattern, and crucify your Saviour worse than they did, by tearing & mangling his body, now glorified, by your blasphemous oaths, and execrable imprecations, when we see all this, Arma nostra preces & fletus, we can defend ourselves, nor him, no other way, we present to you our tears, and our prayers, his tears, and his prayers that sent us, and if you will not be reduced with these, our Commission is at an end. I bring not a Star-chamber with me up into the Pulpit, to punish a forgery, if you sergeant a zeal in coming hither now; nor an Exchequer, to punish usurious contracts, though made in the Church; nor a high Commission, to punish incontinencies, if they be promoted by wanton interchange of looks, in this place. Only by my prayers, which he hath promised to accompany and prosper in his service, I can diffuse his overshadowing Spirit over all the corners of this Congregation, and pray that Publican, that stands below afar off, and dares not lift up his eyes to heaven, to receive a cheerful confidence, that his sins are forgiven him; and pray that Pharisee, that stands above, and only thanks God, that he is not like other men, to believe himself to be, if not a rebellious, yet an unprofitable servant. I can only tell them, that neither of them is in the right way of reconciliation to God, Aug. Nec qui impugnant gratiam, nec qui superbè gratias agunt, neither he who by a diffidence hinders the working of God's grace, nor he that thanks God in such a fashion, as though all that he had received, were not of mere mercy, but between a debt and a benefit, and that he had either merited before, or paid God after, in pious works, for all, and for more than he hath received at God's hand. Scarce any where hath the Holy Ghost taken a word of larger signification, than here; for, as though it were hard, even to him, to express the humility which we are to use, rather than lose any soul for which Christ hath died, he hath taught us this obsecration, this praying, this entreating in our Text, in a word, by which the Septuagint, the first Translators into Greek, express divers affections, and all within the compass of this Obsecramus, We pray you. Some of them we shall present to you. Those Translators use that word for Napal. Napal is Ruere, Postrare, to throw down, to deject ourselves, to admit any undervalue, any exinanition, any evacuation of ourselves, so we may advance this great work. I fell down before the Lord, says Moses of himself; and Abraham fell upon his face, says Moses of him, and in no sense is this word oftener used, by them, then in this humiliation. But yet, as it signifies to need the favour of another, so does it also to be favourable, and merciful to another; for so also, the same Translators use this word for Chanan, which is to oblige and bind a man by benefits, or to have compassion upon him; Job 19 21. Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends, for the hand of God hath touched me; there is our word repeated. So that, whether we profess to you, that as Physicians must consider excrements, so we must consider sin, the leprosy, the pestilence, the ordure of the soul, there is our dejection of ourselves, or make you see your poverty and indigence, and that that can be no way supplied, but by those means, which God conveys by us, both ways we are within our word, Obsecramus, we pray you, we entreat you. They use this word also for Calah, and Calah is Dolere, to grieve within ourselves, for the affliction of another; But it signifies also vulnerare, to wound, and afflict another; for so it is said in this word, 1 Sam. 31. 3. Saul was sore wounded. So that, whether we express our grief, in the behalf of Christ, that you will not be reconciled to God, or whether we wound your consciences, with a sense of your sins, and his judgements, we are still what in the word of our Commission, Obsecramus, we pray, we entreat. To contract this consideration, they use this word for Cruciare, to vex, and for Placare too, Mic. 6. 3. to appease, to restore to rest and quiet. Therefore will I make thee sick in smiting thee; Zech. 7. 12. there it is vexation; And then, They sent unto the House of the Lord, Placare Dominum, to appease the Lord, as we translate it, and well, To pray. And therefore, if from our words proceed any vexation to your consciences, you must not say, Transeat calix, let that Cup pass, no more of that matter, for it is the physic that must first stir the humour, before it can purge it; And if our words apply to your consciences, the sovereign balm of the merits of your Saviour, and that thereupon your troubled consciences find some rest, be not too soon secure, but proceed in your good beginnings, and continue in hearing, as we shall continue in all these manners of praying and entreating, which fall into the word of our Text, Obsecramus, by being beholden to you for your application, or making you beholden to us, for our ministration, which was the first use of the words, of grieving for you, or grieving you for your fins, which was the second, of troubling your consciences, and then of settling them again, in a calm reposedness, which was the third signification of the word in their Translation. Yet does the Holy Ghost carry our office, (I speak of the manner of the execution of our office, for, for the office itself, nothing can be more glorious, than the ministration of the Gospel, Acts 2. 15. into lower terms then these. He suffered his Apostles to be thought to be drink; They were full of the Holy Ghost, and they were thought full of new wine. A dram of zeal more than ordinary, against a Patron, or against a great Parishioner, makes us presently scandalous Ministers. Truly, beloved, we confess, one sign of drunkenness is, not to remember what we said. If we do not in our practice, remember what we preached, and live as we teach, we are dead all the week, and we are drunk upon the Sunday. But Hannah prayed, 1 Sam. 1. 15. and was thought drunk, and this grieved her heart; so must it us, when you ascribe our zeal to the glory of God, and the good of your souls, to any inordinate passion, or sinister purpose in us. And yet hath the Holy Ghost laid us lower than this. To be drunk is an alienation of the mind, but it is but a short one; but S. Paul was under the imputation of madness. Nay, Mar. 3. 21. our blessed Saviour himself did some such act of vehement zeal, as that his very friends thought him mad. S. Paul, because his madness was imputed to a false cause, to a pride in his much learning, disavowed his madness, I am not mad, O noble Festus. But when the cause was justifiable, 2 Cor. 5. 13. Theophil. he thought his madness justifiable too; If we be besides ourselves, it is for God; and so long well enough. Insaniebat amatoriam insaniam Paulus, S. Paul was mad for love; S. Paul did, and we do take into our contemplation, the beauty of a Christian soul; Through the ragged apparel of the afflictions of this life; through the scars, and wounds, and paleness, and morphews of sin, and corruption, we can look upon the soul itself, and there see that incorruptible beauty, that white and red, which the innocency and the blood of Christ hath given it, and we are mad for love of this soul, and ready to do any act of danger, in the ways of persecution, any act of diminution of ourselves in the ways of humiliation, to stand at her door, and pray, and beg, that she would be reconciled to God. And yet does the Holy Ghost lay us lower than this too. Mad men have some flashes, some twilights, 1 Cor. 4. 10. some returns of sense and reason, but the fool hath none; And, we are fools for Christ, says the Apostle; And not only we, the persons, but the ministration itself, Mat. 5. the function itself is foolishness; It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Anger will bear an action, and Racah will bear an action, but to say Fool, was the heaviest imputation; and we are fools for Christ, and pretend nothing to work by, but the foolishness of preaching. Lower than this, we cannot be cast, and higher than this we offer not to climb; Obsecramus, we have no other Commission but to pray, and to entreat, and that we do, in his words, in his tears, in his blood, and in his bowels who sent us, we pray you in Christ's stead, which is that that constitutes our second Part, with what respect you should receive us. In mittendariis servanda dignitas mittentis. 2. Part. To diminish the honour of his Master, is not an humility, but a prevarication in any Ambassador; and that is our quality, expressed in this verse. God is the Lord of Hosts, and he is the Prince of peace; He needs neither the Armies of Princes, nor the wisdom of Council Tables, to come to his ends. He is the Proprietary and owner of all the treasures in the world; Amos 3. Hag. 2. Ye have taken my silver and my gold; and, The silver is mine, and the gold is mine. All that you call yours, all that you can call yours, is his; yourselves are but the furniture of his house, and your great hearts are but little boxes in his cabinet, and he can fill them with dejection, and sadness, when he will. And does any Prince govern at home, by an Ambassador? he sends Pursuivants, and Sergeants; he sends not Ambassadors; God does, and we are they; and we look to be received by you, but as we perform those two laws which bind Ambassadors, First, Reisuae ne quis legatus esto, Let no man be received as an Ambassador, that hath that title, only to negotiate for himself, and do his own business in that Country; And then, Nemini credatur sine principale mandato, Let no man be received for an Ambassador; without his Letters of Credence, and his Master's Commission. To these two we submit ourselves. First, we are not Rei nostrae legati, Rei nostrae. 1 Cor. 9 16. we come not to do our own business; what business of ours is it, what is it to us, that you be reconciled to God? Vae mihi si non, Necessity is laid upon me, and ●oe unto me, if I preach not the Gospel; but if I do, I have nothing to glory in; nay, I may be a reprobate myself. I can claim no more at God's hand, for this service, than the Sun can, for shining upon the earth, or the earth for producing flowers, and fruits; and therefore we are not Rei nostrae● legati, Ambassadors in our own behalves, and to do our own business. Indeed where men are sent out, to vent and utter the ware and merchandises of the Church and Court of Rome, to proclaim, and advance the value, and efficacy of uncertain relics, and superstitious charms, and incantations, when they are sent to sell particular sins at a certain price, and to take so much for an incest, so much for a murder, when they are sent with many sums of Indulgencies at once, as they are now to the Indies, and were heretofore to us, when these Indulgencies are accompanied with this Doctrine, that if the Indulgence require a certain piece of money to be given for it, (as for the most part they do) if all the spiritual parts of the Indulgence be performed by the poor sinner, yet if he give not that money, though he be not worth that money, though that Merchant of those Indulgencies, do out of his charity give him one of those Indulgencies, yet all this doth that man no good, in these cases, they are indeed Rei suae Legati, Ambassadors to serve their own turns, and do their own business. When that Bishop sends out his Legatos à latere, Ambassadors from his own chair and bosom into foreign Nations, to exhaust their treasures, to alien their Subjects, to infect their Religion; these are Rei suae Legati, Ambassadors that have businesses depending in those places, and therefore come upon their own errand. Nor can that Church excuse itself, (though it use to do so) upon the mis-behaviour of those officers) when they are employed; for, Bern● they are employed to that purpose: And, Tibi imputae quicquid pateris ab eo, qui sine te, nihil potest facere: Since he might mend the fault, it is his fault, that it is done; he cannot excuse himself, if they be guilty, and with his privity: for, as the same devout man saith, to Eugenius, than Pope, Ne te dixeris sanum dolentem latera; If thy sides ache, (if thy Legates à latere, be corrupt) call not thyself well, nec bonum malis innitentem, nor call thyself good, if thou rely upon the counsel of those that are ill; They, those Legates à latere, are, (as they use to express it) incorporated in the Pope, and therefore they are Rei sui Legati, Ambassadors that lie to do their own business. But when we seek to raise no other war in you, but to arm the spirit against the flesh, when we present to you no other holy water, but the tears of Christ Jesus, no other relics, but the commemoration of his Passion in the Sacrament, no other Indulgencies, and acquittances, but the application of his Merits to your souls, when we offer all this without silver, and without gold, when we offer you that Seal which he hath committed to us, in Absolution, without extortion or fees, wherein are we Rei nostrae Legati, Ambassadors in our own behalves, or advancers of our own ends? And as we are not so, Sine Mandato. so neither are we in the second danger, to come sine Principali Mandato, without Commission from our Master. Christ himself would not come of himself, john 12. 49. but acknowledged and testified his Mission, The Father which sent me, he gave me commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. Those whom he employed produced their Commissions, Gal. 1. 12. Neither received I it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of jesus Christ. How should they preach except they be sent? is a question which Saint Paul intended for a conclusive question, that none could answer, till in the Roman Church they excepted Cardinals, Quibus sine literis creditur, propter personarum solennitatem, who for the dignity inherent in their persons, must be received, though they have no Commission. When our adversaries do so violently, so impetuously cry out, that we have no Church, no Sacrament, no Priesthood, because none are sent, that is, none have a right calling, for Internal calling, who are called by the Spirit of God, they can be no Judges, and for external calling, we admit them for Judges, and are content to be tried by their own Canons, and their own evidences, for our Mission and vocation, or sending and our calling to the Ministry. If they require a necessity of lawful Ministers to the constitution of a Church, we require it with as much earnestness as they; Ecclesia non est quae now habet sacerdotem, we profess with Saint Hierome, It is no Church that hath no Priest. If they require, that this spiritual power be received from them, who have the same power in themselves, we profess it too, Nemo dat quod non habet, no man can confer other power upon another, than he hath himself. If they require Imposition of hands, in conferring Orders, we join hands with them. If they will have it a Sacrament; men may be content to let us be as liberal of that name of Sacrament, as Calvin is; and he says of it, Institut. l. 4. c. 14. § 20. Non invitus patior vocari Sacramentum, it a inter ordinaria Sacramenta non numero, I am not loath, it should be called a Sacrament, so it be not made an ordinary, that is, a general Sacrament; and how ill hath this been taken at some of our men's hands, to speak of more such Sacraments, when indeed they have learned this manner of speech, and difference of Sacraments, not only from the ancient Fathers, but from Calvin himself, who always spoke with a holy wariness, and discretion. Whatsoever their own authors, their own Schools, their own Canons do require to be essentially and necessarily requisite in this Mission in this function, we, for our parts, and as much as concerns our Church of England, admit it too, and profess to have it. And whatsoever they can say for their Church, that from their first Conversion, they have had an orderly derivation of power from one to another, we can as justly and truly say of our Church, that ever since her first being of such a Church, to this day, she hath conserved the same order, and ever hath had, and hath now, those Ambassadors sent, with the same Commission, and by the same means, that they pretend to have in their Church. And being herein convinced, by the evidence of undeniable Record, which have been therefore showed to some of their Priests, not being able to deny that such a Succession and Ordination, we have had, from the hands of such as were made Bishops according to their Canons, now they pursue their common beaten way, That as in our Doctrine, they confess we affirm no Heresy, but that we deny some Truths, so in our Ordination, and sending, and Calling, when they cannot deny, but that from such a person, who is, by their own Canons, able to confer Orders, we, in taking our Orders, (after their own manner) receive the Holy Ghost, and the power of binding and losing, yet, say they, we receive not the full power of Priests, for, we receive only a power in Corpus mysticum, upon the mystical body of Christ, that is, the persons that constitute the visible Church, but we should receive it in Corpus verum, a power upon the very natural body, a power of Consecration, by way of Transubstantiation. They may be pleased to pardon, this, rather Modesty, than Defect, in us, who, so we may work fruitfully, and effectually upon the mystical body of Christ, can be content that his real, and true body work upon us. Not that we have no interest to work upon the real body of Christ, since he hath made us Dispenser's even of that, to the faithful, in the Sacrament; but for such a power, as exceeds the Holy Ghost, who in the incarnation of Christ, when he overshadowed the blessed Virgin, did but make man of the woman, who was one part disposed by nature thereunto, whereas these men make man, and God too of bread, naturally wholly indisposed to any such change, for this power we confess it is not in our Commission; and their Commission, and ours was all one; and the Commission is manifest in the Gospel; and, since they can charge us with no rasures, no expunctions, we must charge them with interlinings, and additions, to the first Commission. But for that power, which is to work upon you, to whom we are sent, we are defective in nothing, which they call necessary thereunto. This I speak of this Church, in which God hath planted us, That God hath afforded us all that might serve, even for the stopping of the Adversaries mouth, and to confound them in their own way: which I speak, only to excite us to a thankfulness to God, for his abundant grace in affording us so much, and not to disparage, or draw in question any other of our neighbour Churches, who, perchance, cannot derive, as we can, their power, and their Mission, by the ways required, and practised in the Roman Church, nor have had from the beginning a continuance of Consecration by Bishops, and such other concurrences, as those Canons require, and as our Church hath enjoyed. They, no doubt, can justly plead for themselves, that Ecclesiastical positive Laws admit dispensation in cases of necessity; They may justly challenge a Dispensation, but we need none; They did what was lawful in a case of necessity, but Almighty God preserved us from this necessity. As men therefore, Bern. Qui nec jussi renuunt, nec non jussi affectant, which neither neglect God's calling, when we have it, nor counterfeit it, when we have it not, Qui quod verecundè excusant, obstinatiùs non recusant, who though we confess ourselves altogether unworthy, have yet the seals of God, and his Church upon us, Nec rei nostrae legati, not to promove our own ends, but your reconciliation to God, Nec sine principali mandate, not without a direct and published Commission, in the Gospel, we come to you in Christ's stead, and so should be received by you. As for our Mission, that being in the quality of Ambassadors, we submitted ourselves to those two obligations, which we noted to lie upon Ambassadors, Receptio. so here in our Reception, we shall propose to you two things, that are, for the most part, practised by Princes, in the reception of Ambassadors. One is, that before they give audience, they endeavour, by some confident servant of theirs, to discern and understand the inclination of the Ambassador, and the general scope, and purpose of his negotiation, and of the behaviour that he purposeth to use in delivering his Message; left for want of thus much light, the Prince might either be unprepared in what manner to express himself, or be surprised with some such message, as might not well comport with his honour to hear. But in these Ambassages from God to man, no man is made so equal to God, as that he may refuse to give Audience, except he know before hand that the message be agreeable to his mind. Only he that will be more than man, that Man of sin, who esteemeth himself to be joined in Commission with God, only he hath a particular Officer to know before hand, what message God's Ambassadors bringeth, and to peruse all Sermons to be preached before him, and to expunge, correct, alter, all such things as may be disagreeable to him. It cannot therefore become you to come to these Audiences upon conditions; to inform yourselves from others first, what kind of messages, such or such an Ambassador useth to deliver; whether he preach Mercy or judgement; that if he preach against Usury, you will hear Court-sermons, where there is less occasion to mention it; If he preach against Incontinency, you will go; whither? Is there any place that doth not extort from us, reprehensions, exclamations against that sin? But if you believe us to come in Christ's stead, what ever our message be, you must hear us. Do that, and for the second thing that Princes practise in the Reception of Ambassadors, which is, to refer Ambassadors to their Council, we are well content to admit from you. Whosoever is of your nearest Council, and whose opinion you best trust in, we are content to submit it to. Let natural reason, let affections, let the profits or the pleasures of the world be the Council Table, and can they tell you, that you are able to maintain a war against God, and subsist so, without being reconciled to him? Deceive not yourselves, no man hath so much pleasure in this life, as he that is at peace with God. What an Organ hath that man tuned, how hath he brought all things in the world to a Consort, and what a blessed Anthem doth he sing to that Organ, that is at peace with God? His Rye-bread is Manna, and his Beef is Quails, his day-labours are thrustings at the narrow gate into Heaven, and his night●watchings are ecstasies and evocations of his soul into the presence and communion of Saints, his sweat is Pearls, and his blood is Rubies, it is at peace with God. No man that is at suit in himself, no man that carrieth a Westminster in his bosom, and is Plaintiff and Defendant too, no man that serveth himself with Process out of his own Conscience, for every night's pleasure that he taketh, in the morning, and for every day's pound that he getteth, in the evening, hath any of the pleasure, or profit, that may be had in this life; nor any that is not at peace with God. That peace we bring you; how will you receive us? That vehemence of zeal which the Apostle found, we hope not for; you received me as an Angel of God, even as Christ jesus. And, G●l. 4. 14 if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me. Consider the zeal of any Church to their Pastor, it will come short of the Pastor to the Church. All that Saint Paul saith of the Galatians towards him, is far short of that which he said to the Romans, That he could wish himself separated from Christ, for his brethren; or that of Moses, that he would be blotted out of the Book of Life, rather than his charge should. When we consider the manner of hearing Sermons, in the Primitive Church, though we do not wish that manner to be renewed, yet we cannot deny, but that though it were accompanied with many inconveniences, it testified a vehement devotion, and sense of that that was said, by the preacher, in the hearer; for, all that had been formerly used in theatres, Acclamations and Plaudites, was brought into the Church, and not only the vulgar people, but learned hearers were as loud, and as profuse in those declarations, those vocal acclamations, and those plaudites in the passages, and transitions, in Sermons, as ever they had been at the Stage, or other recitations of their Poets, or Orators. S. Hierom charges Vigilantius, that howsoever he differed from him in opinion after, yet when he had heard him preach of the Resurrection before, he had received that Doctrine with Acclamation and Plaudites. And as Saint Hierome saith of himself, that he was thus applauded in his Preaching; he saith it also of him whom he called his Master, Gregory Nazianzen, a grave and yet a facetious man, of him he telleth us this Story. That he having entreated Nazianzen, to tell him the meaning of that place, Luc. 6. 1. What that second Sabbath after the first was? he played with me, he jested at me, saith he, Eleganter lusit, and he bade me be at Church next time he preached, and he would preach upon that Text, Et toto acclamante populo, cogeris invitus scire quod nescis, and when you see all the Congregation applaved me, and cry out that they are satisfied, you will make yourself believe you understand the place, as they do, though you do not; Et si solus tacueris, solus ab omnibus stultitiae condemnaberis, And if you do not join with the Congregation in those Plaudites, the whole Congregation will think you the only ignorant person in the Congregation; for, as we may see in Saint Augustin, the manner was, that when the people were satisfied in any point which the Preacher handled, they would almost tell him so, by an acclamation, and give him leave to pass to another point; for; so saith that Father, Vidi in voce intelligentes, plures video in silent●o requirentes, I hear many, to whom, by this acclamation, I see, enough hath been said, but I see more that are silent, and therefore, for their sakes, I will say more of it, Saint Agustine accepted these acclamations more willingly, at least more patiently, than some of the Fathers before had done; Audistis, laudastis; Deo gratias; you have heard that hath been said, and you have approved it with your praise; God be thanked for both; Et laudes vestrae foliae sunt arborum, sed fructus quaero; Though I look for fruit from you, yet even these acclamations are Leaves, and Leaves are Evidences that the tree is alive. Saint chrysostom was more impatient of them, yet could never overcome them. To him, they came a little closer; for it was ordinary, that when he began to speak, the people would cry out, Audiamus tertiumdecimum Apostolum; Let us hearken to the thirteenth Apostle. And he saith, Si placet, hanc nunc legem firmabimus, I pray let us now establish this for a Law, between you and me, Hom. 30. in Act. Ne quis auditor plaudat, quamdiu nos loquimur; That whilst I am speaking, I may speaking, I may hear no Plaudate; yet he saith in a Sermon preached after this, Animo cogitavi Legem ponere, I have often purposed to establish such a Law, Vt decore, & cum silentio audiatis, Hom. 31. that you would be pleased to hear with silence, but he could never prevail. Sidonius Apollinaris, (a Bishop himself, but whether then or no, know not) saith of another Bishop, that hearing even praedicationes repentinas, his extemporal Sermons raucus plausor audivi, I poured myself out in loud acclamations, till I was hoarse: And, to contract this consideration, we see evidently, that this fashion continued in the Church, even to Saint Bernard's time. Neither is it left yet in some places, beyond the Seas, where the people do yet answer the Preacher, it his questions be appliable to them, and may induce an answer, with these vocal acclamations, Sir, we will, Sir, we will not. And truly we come too near re-inducing this vain glorious fashion, in those often periodical murmurings, and noises, which you make, when the Preacher concludeth any point; for those impertinent Interjections swallow up one quarter of his hour, and many that were not within distance of hearing the Sermon, will give a censure upon it, according to the frequency, or paucity of these acclamations. These fashions then, howsoever, in those times they might be testimonies of Zeal, yet because they occasioned vain glory, and many times, faction, (as those Fathers have noted) we desire not, willingly we admit not. We come in Christ's stead; Christ at his coming met Hosann' as and Crucifige's; A Preacher may be applauded in his Pulpit, and crucified in his Barn: but there is a worse crucifying then that, a piercing of our hearts, Because we are as a very lovely song, of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an Instrument, and you hear our words, and do them not. Having therefore said thus much to you, Ezech. 33. 32. first of our manner of proceeding with you, Obsecramus, of all those ways of humiliation, which we insisted upon, and engaged ourselves in, we pray, & entreat you, and the respect which should come from you, because we come in Christ's stead, if, Act. 8. as the E●●●ch said to Philip, Here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptised? so you say to us, we acknowledge that you do your duties, and we do receive you in Christ's stead; what is it that you would have us do? it is but this, We pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God; which is our third, and last part, and that to which all that we have said of a good Pastor and a good people; (which is the blessedest union of this world) bendeth, and driveth, what, and how blessed a thing it is to be reconciled to God. Reconciliation is a redintegration, a renewing of a former friendship, that hath been interrupted and broken. So that this implieth a present enmity, 3 Part. and hostility with God; and then a former friendship with God, and also a possibility of returning to that former friendship; stop a little upon each of these, and we have done. Amongst natural Creatures, because howsoever they differ in bigness, yet they have some proportion to one another, Inimicus. we consider that some very little creatures, contemptible in themselves, are yet called enemies to great creatures, as the Mouse is to the Elephant. (For the greatest Creature is not Infinite, nor the least is not Nothing.) But shall man, between whom and nothing, there went but a word, Let us make Man, That Nothing, which is infinitely less than a Mathematical point, than an imaginary Atom, shall this Man, this yesterday Nothing, this to morrow worse than Nothing, be capable of that honour, that dishonour able honour, that confounding honour, to be the enemy of God, of God who is not only a multipled Elephant, millions of Elephants multiplied into one, but a multiplied World, a multiplied All, All that can be conceived by us, infinite many times over; Nay, (if we may dare to say so,) a multiplied God, a God that hath the Millions of the Heathens gods in himself alone, shall this man be an enemy to this God? Man cannot be allowed so high a sin, as enmity with God. The Devil himself is but a slave to God, and shall Man be called his enemy? It is true, if we consider the infinite disproportion between them, he cannot; but to many sad purposes, and in many heavy applications Man is an enemy to God. job could go no higher in expressing his misery, 13. 24. 33. 10. Why hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy? and again, Behold, he findeth occasions against me, and counteth me for his enemy. So man is an enemy to God; And then to adhere to an enemy, is to become an enemy; for Man to adhere to Man, to ascribe any thing to the power of his natural faculties, to think of any beam of clearness in his own understanding, or any line of rectitude in in his own will, this is to accumulate and multiply enmities against God, and to assemble and muster up more, and more man, to fight against God. A Reconciliation is required, Amici. therefore there is an enmity; but it is but a reconciliation, therefore was a friendship; There was a time when God and Man were friends, God did not hate man from all Eternity, God forbid. And this friendship God meant not to break; God had no purpose to fall out with man, for than he could never have admitted him to a friendship. August. Net hominem amicum quisquam potest fidelitter amare, cui se noverit futurum inimicum: No man can love another as a friend this year, and mean to be his enemy next. God's foreknowledge that man and he should fall out, was not a foreknowledge of any thing that he meant to do to that purpose, but only that Man himself would become incapable of the continuation of this friendship. Man might have persisted in that blessed amity; and, since if he had done so, the cause of his persisting had been his own will, I speak of the next and immediate Cause, Polanus syntag. To. 1. fol. 784. (As the cause why the Angels that did persist, was Bona ipsorum Angelorum voluntas; the good use of their own freewill) much more was the cause of their defection and breaking this friendship (in their own will; God therefore, having made man, that is Mankind, in a state of love, and friendship, God having not by any purpose of his done any thing toward the violation of this friendship, in man, in any man, God continueth his everlasting goodness towards man, towards mankind still, in inviting him to accept the means of Reconciliation, and a return to the same state of friendship, which he had at first, by our Ministry. Be ye reconciled unto God. You see what you had, and how you lost it. If it might not be recovered, God would not call you to it. Reconciliamini. It was piously declared in a late Synod, That in the offer of this Reconciliation, God means, as the Minister means; and I am sure I mean it, Chrysost. and desire it to you all; so does God. Nec Deus est qui inimicitias gerit, sed vos, M. c. 6. 3. it is not God, but you, that oppose this Reconciliation; O my people what have I done unto thee, or wherein have I grieved thee, testify against me; testify if I did any thing towards inducing an enmity, or do any thing towards hindering this Reconciliation; which reconciliation is, to be restored to as good an estate in the love of God, as you had in Adam, and our estate is not as good, if it be not as general, if the merit of Christ be not as large, as the sin of Adam; and if it be not as possible for you to be saved by him, as it is impossible for you to be saved without him. It is therefore but praying you in Christ's stead, that you be reconciled to God. And, if you consider what God is, The Lord of hosts, and therefore hath means to destroy you, or what he is not, He is not man that he can repent, and therefore it belongs to you, to repent first, If you consider what the Lord doth, He that dwells in the heavens doth laugh them to scorn, and hath them in derision, or what he doth not, He doth not justify the wicked balance, Mic. 6. 11. nor the bag of deceitful weights, If you consider what the Lord would do, jerusalem, jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as the Hen gathereth her Chickens, and ye would not, or what he would not do, As I live, sayeth the Lord, I desire not the death of the wicked, if ye consider all this, any of this, Ezck. 33. 11. dare you, or can you if you durst, or would you if you could, stand out in an irreconciliable war against God? Especially if you consider, that that is more to you, than what God is, and does, and would do, and can do, for you or against you, that is, what he hath done already; that he who was the party offended, hath not only descended so low, as to be reconciled first, and to pay so dear for that, as the blood of his own, and only Son, but knowing thy necessity better than thyself, he hath reconciled thee to him, though thou knewest it not; God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, as it is in the former verse; there the work is done, thy reconciliation is wrought; God is no longer angry so, as to withhold from thee the means; for, there it follows, He hath committed to us the word of Reconciliation; That we might tell you the instrument of Reconciliation is drawn between God and you, Binius. To. 1. so. 320. and, as it is written in the history of the Council of Nice, that two Bishops who died before the establishing of the Canons, did yet subscribe and set their names to those Canons, which to that purpose were left upon their graves all night, so though you were dead in your sin and enemies to God, and Children of wrath, (as all by nature are) when this Reconciliation was wrought, yet the Spirit of God may give you this strength, to dip your pens in the blood of the Lamb, and so subscribe your names, by acceptation of this offer of Reconciliation. Do but that, subscribe, accept, and then, Caetera omnia, all the rest that concerns your holy history, your justification and Sanctification, nun scripta sunt, are they not written in the books of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel, says the Holy Ghost, in another case; Are they not written in the books of the Chronicles of the God of Israel? Shalt thou not find an eternal Decree, and a Book of life in thy behalf, if thou look for it by this light, and reach to it with this Hand, the acceptation of this Reconciliation? They are written in those reverend and sacred Records, and Rolls, and Parchments, even the skin and flesh of our Blessed Saviour; written in those his stripes, and those his wounds, with that blood, that can admit to Index expurgatorius, no expunction, no satisfaction; But the life of his death lies in thy acceptation, and though he be come to his, thou art not come to thy Consummatum est, till that be done. Do that, Mat. 22● and then thou hast put on thy wedding garment. A man might get into that feast, without his wedding garment; so a man may get into the Church, to be a visible part of a Christian Congregation, without this acceptation of reconciliation, that is the particular apprehension, and application of Christ; but he is still subject to a remove, and to that question of confusion, Quomodo intrasti, How came you in? That man in the Gospel could have answered to that question, directly, I came in by the invitation, and conduct of thy servants, I was called in, I was led in; So they that come hither without this wedding garment, they may answer to Christ's Quomodo intrasti, How camest thou in? I came in by faithful parents, to whom, and their seed thou hast sealed a Covenant; I was admitted by thy Servants and Ministers in Baptism, and have been led along by them, by coming to hear them preach thy word, and doing the other external offices of a Christian. But there is more in this question; Quomodo intrasti, is not only how didst thou come in, but how durst thou come in? If thou camest to my feast, without any purpose to eat, and so to discredit, to accuse either my meat, or the dressing of it, to quarrel at the Doctrine, or at the Discipline of my Church, Quomodo intrasti, How didst thou, how dared thou come in? If thou camest with a purpose to poison my meat, that it might infect others, with a determination to go forward in thy sin, whatsoever the Preacher say, and so to encourage others by thy example, Quomodo intrasti, How dared thou come in? If thou camest in with thine own provision in thy pocket, and didst not rely upon mine, and think that thou canst be saved without Sermons, or Sacraments, Qumodo intrasti, How dared thou come in? Him that came in there, without this Wedding garment, the Master of the Feast calls Friend; but scornfully, Friend how camest thou in? But he cast him out. God may call us Friends, that is, admit, and allow us the estimation and credit of being of his Church, but at one time or other, he shall minister that Interrogatory, Friend, how came you in? and for want of that Wedding garment, and for want of wearing it in the sight of men, (for it is not said that that man had no such Wedding garment at home, in his Wardrobe, but that he had none on) for want of Sanctification in a holy life, God shall deliver us over to the execution of our own consciences, and eternal condemnation. But be ye reconciled to God, embrace this reconciliation in making your use of those means, and this reconciliation shall work thus, it shall restore you to that state, that Adam had in Paradise. What would a soul oppressed with the sense of sin give, that she were in that state of Innocency, that she had in Baptism? Be reconciled to God, and you have that, and an elder Innocency than that, the Innocency of Paradise. Go home, and if you find an over-burden of children, negligence in servants, crosses in your trade, narrowness, penury in your estate, yet this penurious, and this encumbered house shall be your Paradise. Go forth, into the Country, and if you find unseasonableness in the weather, rots in your sheep, murrains in your cattle, worms in your corn, backwardness in your rents, oppression in your Landlord, yet this field of thorns and brambles shall be your Paradise. Lock thyself up in thyself, in thine own bosom, and though thou find every room covered with the ●oot of former sins, and shaked with that Devil whose name is Legion, some such sin as many sins depend upon, and are induced by, yet this prison, this rack, this hell in thine own conscience shall be thy Paradise. And as in Paradise Adam at first needed no Saviour, so when by this reconciliation, in apprehending thy Saviour, thou art restored to this Paradise, thou shalt need no sub-Saviour, no joint-Saviour, but Caetera adjicientur, no other Angel, but the Angel of the greas Council, no other Saint, but the Holy One of Israel, he who hath wrought this reconciliation for thee, and brought it to thee, shall establish it in thee; For, if when we were enemies, Rom. 5. 10. we were reconciled to God, by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. This is the sum and the end of all, That when God sends humble and laborious Pastors, to supple and appliable Congregations; That we pray, and you receive us in Christ's stead, we shall not only find rest in God, but, (as it is said of No●hs sacrifice) God shall find the savour of rest in us; God shall find a Sabbath to himself in us, and rest from his jealousies, and anger towards us, and we shall have a Sabbatary life here in the rest and peace of conscience, and a life of one everlasting Sabbath hereafter, where to our Rest there shall be added joy, and to our joy Glory, and this Rest, and joy, and Glory superinvested with that which crownes them all, Eternity. SERMON XLI. Preached at Saint Paul's Crosse. 6 May. 1627. HOSEA 3. 4. For, the Children of Israel shall abide many days, without a King, and without a Prince, and without a Sacrifice, and without an Image, and without an Ephod, and without Teraphim. SOme Cosmographers have said, That there is no land so placed in the world, but that from that land, a man may see other land. I dispute it not, I defend it not; I accept it, and I apply it; there is scarce any mercy expressed in the Scriptures, but that from that mercy you may see another mercy. Christ sets up a candle now here, only to lighten that one room, but as he is lumen de lumine, light of light, so he would have more lights lighted at every light of his, and make every former mercy an argument, an earnest, a conveyance of more. Between land and land you may see seas, and seas enraged with tempests; but still, say they, some other land too. Between mercy, and mercy, you may find Comminations, and Judgements, but still more mercy. For this discovery let this text be our Map. First we see land, we see mercy in that gracious compellation, Children, (the Children of Israel) Then we see sea, then comes a Commination, ● Judgement that shall last some time, (many days shall the Children of Israel suffer) But there they may see land too, another mercy, even this time of Judgement shall be a day, they shall not be benighted, not left in darkness in their Judgement; (many days, all the while, it shall be day) Then the text opens into a deep Ocean, a spreading Sea, (They shall be without a King, and without a Prince, and without a Sacrifice, and without an Image, and without an Ephod, and without Teraphim.) But even from this Sea, this vast Sea, this Sea of devastation, we see land; for, in the next verse follows another mercy, (The Children of Israel shall return, and shall seek the Lord their God, and David their King, and shall fear the Lord, and his goodness in the later days.) And beyond this land, there is no more Sea; beyond this mercy, no more Judgement, for with this mercy the Chapter ends. Consider our text then, as a whole Globe, as an entire Sphere, and then our two Hemispheres of this Globe, Divisio: our two parts of this text, will be, First, that no perverseness of ours, no rebellion, no disobedience puts God beyond his mercy, nor extinguishes his love; still he calls Israel, rebellious Israel his Children; nay his own anger, his own Judgements, then, when he is in the exercise thereof, in the execution thereof, puts him not beyond his mercy, extinguishes not his love; he hides not his face from them then, he leaves them not then, in the dark, he accompanies their calamity with a light, he makes that time, though cloudy, though overcast, yet a day unto them; (the Children of Israel shall abide many days in this case.) But then, as no disobedience removes God from himself, (for he is love, and mercy) so no interest of ours in God, doth so privilege us, but that he will execute his Judgements upon his Children too, even the Children of Israel shall fall into these Calamities. And from this first part, we shall pass to the second; from these general considerations, (That no punishments should make us desperate, that no favours should make us secure) we shall pass to the particular commination, and judgements upon the children of Israel in this text, without King, without Prince etc. In our first part, 1 Part. we stop first, upon this declaration of his mercy, in this fatherly appellation, Filii. Children, (the children of Israel) He does not call them children of Israel, as though he disavowed them, and put them off to another Father; but therefore, because they are the Children of Israel, they are his Children, for, Hose. 2. 9 he had married Israel; and married her to himself for ever. Many of us are Fathers; and, from God, here may learn tenderness towards children. All of us are children of some parents, and therefore should hearken after the name of Father, Tertull. which is nomen pietatis & potestatis, a name that argues their power over us, and our piety towards them; and so, concerns many of us, in a double capacity, (as we are children, and parents too) but all of us in one capacity, as we are children derived from other parents. God is the Father of man, otherwise than he is of other creatures. He is the Father of all Creatures; so Philo calls all Creatures sor●res suas, his sisters; but then, all those sisters of man, all those daughters of God are not alike married. God hath placed his Creatures in divers ranks, and in divers conditions; neither must any man think, that he hath not done the duty of a Father, if he have not placed all his Sons, or not matched all his daughters, in a condition equal to himself, or not equal to one another. God hath placed creatures in the heavens, and creatures in the earth, and creatures in the sea, and yet, all these creatures are his children, and when he looked upon them all, in their divers stations, he saw, omnia valde bora, that all was very well; And that Father that imploies one Son in learning; another to husbandry, another to Merchandise, pursues God's example, in disposing his children, (his creatures) diversely, and all well. Such creatures as the Rain, (though it may seem but an imperfect, and ignoble creature, fallen from the womb of a cloud) have God for their Father; job 38. 28. (God is the Father of the Rain.) And such creatures as light, james 1. 17. have but God for their Father. God is Pater l●minum, the Father of lights. Whether we take lights there to be the Angels, created with the light, (some take it so) or to be the several lights set up in the heavens, Sun, and Moon and Stars, (some take it so) or to be the light of Grace in infusion by the Spirit, or the light of the Church, in manifestation, by the word, (for, all these acceptations have convenient. Authors, and worthy to be followed) God is the Father of lights, of all lights; but so he is of rain, Eph. 1. 17. and clouds too. And God is the Father of glory; (as Saint Paul styles him) of all glory; 2 Cor. 4. 17. whether of those beams of glory which he sheds upon us here, in the blessings, and preferments of this life, or that weight of glory which he reserves for us, in the life to come. From that inglorious drop of rain, that falls into the dust, and rises no more, to those glorious Saints who shall rise from the dust, and fall no more, but, as they arise at once to the fullness of Essential joy, so arise daily in accidentiall joys, all are the children of God, and all alike of kin to us. And therefore let us not measure our avowing, or our countenancing of our kindred, by their measure of honour, or place, or riches in the world, but let us look how fast they grow in the root, that is, in the same worship of the same God, who is ours, and their Father too. He is nearest of kin to me, that is of the same religion with me; as they are creatures, they are of kin to me by the Father, but, as they are of the same Church, and religion, by Father and mother too. Philo calls all creatures his sisters, but all men are his brothers. God is the Father of man in a stronger and more peculiar, and more masculine sense, then of other Creatures. Filius particeps & condominus cum patre: as the law calls the Son, the partner of the Father, and fellow-Lord, joint-Lord with the Father, of all the possession that is to descend, so God hath made man his partner, and fellow-Lord of all his other creatures in Moses his Dominamini, when he gives man a power to rule over them, and in david's Omnia subjecisti, Gen. 1. 28. Psal. 8. 7. when he imprints there, a natural disposition in the creature to the obedience of man. So high, so very high a filiation, hath God given man, as that, having another Son, by another filiation, a higher filiation than this, by an eternal generation, yet he was content, that that Son should become this Son, that the Son of God should become the Son of Man. God is the Father of all; Israel. of man otherwise then of all the rest; but then, of the children of Israel, Deut. 32. 6. otherwise then of all other men. For he bought them; and, is not be thy Father that hath bought thee? says God by Moses. Not to speak of that purchase, which he made by the death of his Son, (for that belongs to all the world) he bought the Jews in particular, at such a price, such silver, and such gold, such temporal, and such spiritual benefits, such a Land, and such a Church, such a Law, and such a Religion, as, certainly, he might have had all the world at that price. If God would have manifested himself, poured out himself to the Nations, as he did to the jews, all the world would have swarmed to his obedience, and herded in his pale. God was their father's Chrysoft. and, as S. Chrysost●me, (that he might be sure to draw in all degrees of tender affection) calls him, Their Mother too. For, Matris nutrire, Patris erudire; It was a Mother's part to give them suck, and to feed them with temporal blessings; It was a Father's part to instruct them, and to feed them with spiritual things; and God did both abundantly. Therefore doth God submit himself to the comparison of a Mother in the Prophet Esay, Esay 49. 15. Can a woman forget her sucking child? But then, he stays not in that inferior, in that infirmer sex, but returns to a stronger love, then that of a Mother, (yes, (says he) she may forget, yet will not I forget thee.) And therefore, when David says, Psal. 103. 1. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits; David expresses that, which we translate in a general word, Benefits, in this word, Gamal, which signifies Ablactationes; forget not that God nursed thee as a Mother, and then, Ablactavit, we and thee, and provided thee stronger food, out of the care of a father. In one word, all creatures are Gods children; man is his son; but then, Israel is his firstborn son; for that is the addition, Exed. 4. 22. which God gives Israel by Moses to Pharaoh, (Say unto Pharaoh, Israel is my son, even my firstborn.) Why God adopted Israel into this siliation, into this primogeniture, before all the people of the world, we can assign no reason, but his love only. But why he did not before this Text, disinherit this adopted son, is a higher degree, and exercise of his love, than the Adoption itself, if we consider, (which is a useful consideration) their manifold provocations to such an exhaeredation, and what God suffered at their hands. The ordinary causes of Exhaeredation, Exhaeredatio. for which, a man might disinherit his son, are assigned and numbered in the law, to be fourteen. But divers of them grow out of one root, (Vndutifulnesse, Inofficiousnesse towards the father) and as, by that reason, they may be extended to more, so they may be contracted to sewer, to two. These two, Ingratitude, and Irreligion. Unthankfulness, and Idolatry were ever just causes of Exhaeredation, of Disinheriting. And with these two, did the Jews more provoke Almighty God, than any children, any father. Stop we a little our Consideration upon each of these. He is not always ungrateful, Ingratitudo. that does not recompense a benefit, but he only that would not, though he could make, and though the Benefactor needed a recompense. When Furnius, upon whom Augustus had multiplied benefits, told him, that in one thing he had damnified him, in one thing he had undone him, Effecisti at viverem & mo●erer ingratus, You have done so much for me, (says he) that I must live, and die unthankful, that is, without showing my thankfulness by equivalent recompenses: This which he calls unthankfulness, was thankfulness enough. There are men, (says the Moral man) Qui quo plus debent, magis od●rant, Senec. that hate those men most, who have laid most obligations upon them. Leave as alienum debitorem facit, grave inimicum; for a little debt he will be content to look towards me, but when it is great, more than he can pay, or as much as he thinks he can get from me, than he would be glad to be rid of me. Acknowledgement is a good degree of thankfulness. But, ingratitude at the highest, (and the jews ingratitude was at the highest) involves even a concealing, and a denying of benefits, and even a hating, Bern. and injuring of Benefactors. And so, Res peremptoria ingrati●udo, says Bernard significantly, Ingratitude is a peremptory sin; it does Perimere, that is, destroy, not only all virtues, but it destroys, that is, overflows all other particular Vices; no vice can get a name, where ingratitude is; it swallows all, devours all, becomes all; Ingratum dicas, omnia dixisti, If you have called a man unthankful, you have called him by all the ill names that are: for this complicated, this manifold, this pregnant vice, Ingratitude, the holy language, the Hebrew, lacks a word. The nearest root that they can draw Ingratitude into, is Caphar, and Caphar is but Tegere, to hide, to conceal a benefit; but to deny a benefit, or to hate or injure a Benefactor, they have not a word. And therefore, as S. Hierome found not the word in the Hebrew, so in all Saint Hieromes translation of the Old Testament, (or in that which is reputed his, the vulgat Edition) you have not that Latin word, Ingratus; Curious sinners, subtle self-damners; they could not name Ingratitude, and in all the steps of Ingratitude, they exceeded all men, all Nations. From the Ingratitude of murmuring, upon which, God lays that woe, Isa. 55. 10. (Woe unto him that says to his father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth? A dog murmurs not that he is not a Lion, nor a blinde-worm without eyes, that he is not a Basilisk to kill with his eyes; Dust murmurs not that it is not Amber, nor a Dunghill that it is not a Mine, nor an Angel that he is not of the Seraphim; and every man would be something else than God hath made him,) from this murmuring for that which he hath not, to another degree of Ingratitude, The appropriation of that which he hath, Bern. to himself, Vti Datis tanquam Innatis, (as S. Bernard speaks in his music) To attribute to ourselves that which we have received from God, to think ourselves as strong in Nature as in Grace, and as safe in our own freewill, as in the love of God; as God says of jerusalem, Ezek. 16. (That he had given her her beauty, and then she played the harlot, as if it had been her own) by these steps of Ingratitude to the highest of all which is, rather than to confess herself beholden to God, to change her God, and so to ●lide from Ingratitude to Idolatry, jerusalem came, and over-went all the Nations upon the earth. Their Ingratitude induced Idolatry in an instant. Idololatria. Exod. 32. 1. As soon as they came to that ungrateful murmuring, (As for Moses we cannot tell what is become of him) they came presently to say to Aaron, (Up and make us Gods that may go before us) which is an impotency, a leprosy, that derives itself far, spreads far, that as soon as our sins induce any worldly cross, any clamity upon us, we come to think of another Church, another Religion, and conclude, That that cannot be a good Church, in which we have lived in. Now, against this impious levity, of facility in changing our Religion, God seems to express the greatest indignation, Deut. 32. 17. when he says, They sacrificed unto gods whom they knew not, to new gods. Men, amongst us, that have been baptised, and catechised in the truth, and in the knowledge thereof, fall into ignorant falsehood, and embrace a Religion which they understand not, nor can understand, because it lies in the breast of one man, and is therefore subject to alterations. They sacrifice to gods whom they know not, (says God) and those gods new gods too; The more suspicious, for their newness; and, (as it is added there) unto gods whom their fathers feared not. Men, that fall from us, (whose fathers were of that Religion) put themselves into more bondage and slavery to the Court of Rome now, than their fathers did to the Church of Rome then; They sacrifice to gods, whom they know not, and whom their fathers feared not, so much as they do. But, they have corrupted themselves; Ver. 5. (as God charges them farther) They are fallen from us, whom no example of their fathers led that way; fathers have left their former superstition, which they were born and bred in, and the sons, which were born, and bred in the truth, have embraced those superstitions; Their spot is not the spot of children, (so it follows in the same place) a weakness that might have that excuse, that they proceeded out of a reverential respect to their fathers, and followed their example; (for their fathers have stood, and they are fallen. (Their spot is not the spot of children.) And, because Kings are pictures of God, when they trun upon new gods, they turn to new pictures of God too, and with a foreign Religion, invest a foreign Allegiance. Did not I deliver you from the Egyptians, jud. 10. 11. says God, and from the Ammonites. and from the Amorites, and Philistims? from a succession of enemies, at times, and from a league of enemies at once, Yet you have forsaken me, and served other gods, says God there; And therefore, (to that resolution God comes) Therefore, I will deliver you no more. And yet, how often did God deliver them after this? Ingratitude, Idolatry, are just causes of Exhaeredation; Israel abounded in both these, and yet, after all these, in this Text, he calls them Children, The Children of Israel, and therefore his children. God is kind even to the unthankful, Dies. saith christ himself, and himself calls Jerusalem, Luc. 6. 35. The holy City, even when she was de●iled with many and manifold uncleannesses, because she had been holy, Mat. 4. 5. and had the outward help of holiness remaining in her still. Christ doth not disavow, not disinherit those children which gave most just cause of exheredation; much less doth he justify, by his example, final and total disinheriting of children, occasioned by single and small faults in the children, and grounded in the Parents, upon sudden, and passionate, and intemperate, and imaginary vows, They have vowed to do it, therefore they will do it; for, so they put a pretext of Religion upon their impiety, and make God accessary to that which he dislikes, and upon colour of a vow, do that which is far from a service to God, as the performance of every lawful, and discreet vow is. God calls them his Children, (which is one) and then, though as a Father he correct them, yet he shows them his face, in that correction, (which is another beam of his mercy) He calls their calamity, their affliction, Not a night, but a day, (many days shall the children of Israel suffer this.) We find these two words often joined together in the Scriptures, Dies visitationis, The day of visitation; though as it is a visitation, it be a sad, a dark contemplation, yet as it is a day, it hath always a cheerfulness in it. If it were called a night, I might be afraid, that this night, They (I am not told who) would fetch away my soul; but, Luc. 12. 20. being a day, I have assurance, that the Sun, the Sun of Righteousness will arise to me. At the light of thine Arrows, they went forward, saith the Prophet Habakkuk. Though they be Arrows, 3. 11. yet they are Torches too, though they burn, yet they give light too; though God shoot his Arrows at me, even by them, I shall have light enough to see that it is God that shoots. As there is a heavy commination in that of Amos, (I will cause the Sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth, in clear day) so is there a gracious promise, 8. 9 and a constant practice in God, That he will (as he hath done) command light of darkness, and enable thee to see a clear day, by his presence, in the darkest night of tribulation. For, truly, such a sense, (I think) belongs to those words in Hosea, That when God had said, The days of visitation are come, the days of recompense are come, 9 12. God adds that, as an aggravating of the calamity; yea, woe also to them, when I depart from them; as though the oppression of the affliction, the peremptoriness of the affliction, were not in the affliction itself, hut in Gods departing from them, when he afflicted them; they should be visited, but see no day in their visitations, afflicted from God, but see no light from him, receive no consolation in him. In this place we take it, (for the exaltation of your devotion) as a particular beam of his mercy) That though the Children of Israel were afflicted many days, yet still he affords them the name of Children, and still their dark and cloudy days were accompanied with the light, and presence of God, still they felt the Hand of God under them, the Face of God upon them, the Heart of God towards them. Those then, Non securi. which have this filiation, God doth not easily disinherit; because they were his Children, after unnatural disobediencies, he avows them, and continues that name to them. But yet, this must not imprint a security, a presumption; for, even the children here, are submitted to heavy and dangerous calamities; when Christ himself saith, The children of the kingdom shall be cast into utter darkness, who can promise himself a perpetual, Matt. 8. 12. or unconditioned station? we have in the Scriptures two especial Types of the Church, Paradise, and the Ark. But, in that Type, the Ark, we are principally instructed, what the Church in general shall do, and in that in Paradise, what particular men in the Church should do. For, we do not read, that in the Ark Noah, or his company, did weigh any anchor, hoist any sail, ship any oar, steer any rudder; but, the Ark, by the providence of God, who only was Pilot, road safe upon the face of the waters. The Church itself, (figured by the Ark) cannot shipwreck; though men sleep, though the Devil wake, Matt. 16. 18. The gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church. But in the other Type of the Church, where every man is instructed in his particular duty therein, Paradise, Adam himself was commanded to dress Paradise, and to keep Paradise. And when he did not that which he was enjoined to do in that place, Gen. 2. 15. he forfeited his interest in it, and his benefit by it. Though we be born and bred in God's house, as Children Baptised, and Catechised in the true Church, if we slacken our holy industry in making fare our salvation, we, though Children of the Kingdom, may becast out, and all our former helps, and our proceedings by the benefit of those helps, shall but aggravate our condemnation. Alpha and Omega make up the Name of Christ; and, between Alpha and Omega, are all the letters of the Alphabet included. A Christian is made up of Alpha and Omega, and all between. He must begin well, (embrace the true Church) and live well according to the profession of that true Church, and die well, according to that former holy life, and practise. Truth in the beginning, Zeal all the way, and Constancy in the end make up a Christian. Otherwise for all this filiation, children may be disinherited, or submitted to such calamities as these which are interminated upon the children of Israel, which constitute our second part, They shall be without a King, and without a Prince, and without a Sacrifice, and without an Ephod, and without a Teraphim. Disobedient children are not cast off; 2 Part. but yet disobedience is not left uncorrected. Be merciful, Non exhaeredantur, Corriguntur tamen. Exod. 23. 22. but merciful so, as your Father in Heaven is merciful; Be not so merciful upon any private respect, as to be thereby cruel to the public. And be Just; but, just, as your Father in Heaven is just; Hate not the vice of a man so, as thereby to hate the man himself. God hath promised to be an enemy to our enemies, an adversary to our adversaries; but, God is no irreconciliable enemy, no implacable, no inexorable Adversary. For, Psalm. 139. 22. that hatred which David calls Odium perfectum, (I have hated them with a perfect hatred) is not only a vehement hatred, but (as Saint Hilary calls it) Odium religiosum, a hatred that may consist with religion: That I hate not another man, for his religion, so as that I lose all religion in myself, by such a hating of him. And Saint Augustine calls it Odium Charitativum, a hate that may consist with Charity; that I hate no man for his peremptory uncharitableness towards my religion, so as to lose mine own Charity; for, I am come to one point of his religion, if I come to be as uncharitable as he. God and Kings are at a near distance, All gods; Magistrates, and inferior persons are at a near distance, all dust. As God proceeds with a King, with jehosaphat, 2 Chro. 19 2. in that temper, that moderation, (Shouldst thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord?) So men with men, Magistrates with inferior men, learned men with ignorant men, should proceed with Saint Paul's moderation, 2 Thes. 3. 14. If any man obey not (but be refractory, unconformable) note that man (saith the Apostle) and have no company with him, but yet count him not as an enemy. The union of the two Natures in Christ, give us a fair example, that Divinity and Humanity may consist together. No Religion induces Inhumanity; no Piety, no Zeal destroys nature; and since there is a time to hate, and a time to love, Eccles. 8. 3. then is love most seasonable, when other civil contracts, civil alliances, civil concurrences, have souple and intenerated the dispositions of persons, or nations, formerly farther asunder, to a better possibility, to a fairer probability, to a nearer propinquity of harkening to one another, Ephes. 2. 16: That Christ might reconcile both unto God, in one body, by the Cross, having slain the enmity thereby. Civil Offices may work upon religions too; and where that may follow, (That our mildness in civil things, may prevail upon their obduration in religion) there is the time to love. But in cases, where civil peace and religious foundations are both shaked, that the State and the Church, as they are both in one bottom, so they are chased by one Pirate, I hate not with a perfect hatred, not perfect towards God, except I declare, and urge, and press home, the truth of God, against their errors in my Ministry, nor perfect towards man, except I advance, in my place, the execution of those Laws against their practices, without which, they are enabled, nay encouraged, nay persuaded, nay entreated to go forward in those practices. God himself proceeds against his own children so far, (and dearer than those children were to God, can no friends be to us, no allies to any Prince) That they should be without King, without Prince, without Sacrifice, without Image, without Ephod, without Teraphim; that is, without Temporal, without Ecclesiastical Government. First, then, we presume, we presuppose, (and that necessarily) every piece of this part of our Text, Comminatio. to fall under the Commination; they were threatened with the loss of every particular, and therefore they were the worse for every particular loss. Not the worse only because they thought themselves the worse, because they had fixed their love and their delight upon these things, but because they were really the better for having them, it was really a curse, a Commination, that they should lose them; as well that they should lose their Ephod, and their Image, and their Teraphim, as that they should lose their Sacrifices. But first, (though that other fall also within the Commination, that they should be without a settled form of Religion, without Sacrifice, and Ephod, and the rest) the first thing that the Commination falls upon, is, That they should be without a Civil form of government, without King, and without Prince. For, though our Religion prepare us to our Bene esse, our well-being, our everlasting happiness, yet it is the State, the civil and peaceable government, which preserves our very Esse, our very Being; and there cannot be a Bene esse, without an Esse, a well and a happy Being, except there be first a Being established. It is the State, the Law, that constitutes Families and Cities, and Propriety, and Magistracy, and Jurisdiction. The State, the Law preserves and disting●●shes, not only the Meum & Tuum, the Possessions of men, but the Me & Te, the very persons of men; The Law tells me, not only whose land I must call every Acre, but whose son I must call every man. Therefore God made the Body before the Soul; Therefore there is in man a vegetative, and a sensitive soul, before an immortal, and reasonable soul enter. Therefore also, in this place, God proposes first the Civil State, the temporal Government, (what it is, to have a King and a Prince) before he proposes the happiness of a Church, and a Religion; not but that our Religion conduces to the greater happiness, but that our Religion cannot be conserved, except the Civil State, and temporal Government be conserved too. The first thing then that the Commination falls upon, Sine Rege. is the loss of their Temporal State. But the Commination doth not fall so fully upon the exclusion of all forms of Government, as upon the exclusion of Monarchy; It does not so expressly threaten an Anarchy, that they should have no Government, no Governors; It is not sine Regimine, but sine Rege, If they had any, they should not have the best, They should be without a King. Now, if with S. Hierome, and others that accompany him in that interpretation, Hi●rome. we take the Prophecy of this Text, to be fulfilled in that Dispersion which hath continued upon the Jews, ever since the destruction of jerusalem, the Jews have been so far from having had any King, as that they have not had a Constable of their own, in any part of the world; no interest at all, in any part of the Magistracy and Jurisdiction of the world, Gen. 4. 12. any where, but they are a whole Nation of cain's, fugitives, and vagabonds. But howsoever it be, the heat, and the vehemency of this Commination falls upon this particular, sine Rege, they shall be without a King. It was long before God afforded the Jews a King; and he did not easily do it, then when he did it. Not, that he intended not that form of Government for them, but because they would extort it from him, before his time, and because they asked it only in that respect, That they might be like their neighbours, to whom God would not have had them too like: And also, because God, to keep their thankfulness still awake, would reserve, and keep back some better thing, than he had given them yet, to give them at last. For, so he says, (as the Coronation of all his benefits to Israel, of which there is a glorious Inventary in that Chapter) Thou didst prosper into a Kingdom; Till the Crown of glory be presented, Ezek. 16. 13. in the coming of the Messias, thou canst not be happier. Those therefore that allow but a conditional Sovereignty in a Kingdom, an arbitrary, a temporary Sovereignty, that may be transferred at the pleasure of another, they oppose the Nolumus hoc, we would not have, we would not live under this form of Government, not under a temporal Monarchy, Nolumus hoc. Those that determine Allegiance, and civil obedience only by their own religion, and think themselves bound to obey none, that is of another persuasion, they oppose the Nolumus hunc, We will not have this man to reign over us; and so, make their relations, and fix their dependencies upon foreign hopes, Nolumus hunc. Those that fix a super-Soveraignty in the people, or in a Presbytery, they oppose the Nolumus sic, we would not have things carried thus; They pretend to know the happiness of living under that form, A Kingdom, and to acknowledge the person of the King, but they would be governed every man according to his own mind. And all these, the Nolumus hoc, (they that desire not the continuance of that form, of a Kingdom in an Independency, but would have a dependency upon a foreign power;) And the Nolumus hunc, (they that are disaffected to the person of him that governs for the present;) And the Nolumus sic, (they that will prescribe to the King, ends, and ways to those ends:) all these assist this malediction, this commination, which God interminates here, as the greatest calamity, sine Rege, They shall be without a King; for this is to Canton out a Monarchy, to ravel out a Kingdom, to Crumble out a King. There is another branch in this Part, which is of Temporal calamities, Sine Principe. That they shall be sine Principe, Without a King, and without a Prince. The word in the original is Sar; and take it, as it sounds most literally in our Translation, The Prince is the King's Son; so, this very word is used in Esay; Sar Salem; The Son of God, Isa. 9 9 is called the Prince of Peace. And so, the commination upon the Jews is thus far aggravated, That they shall be without a Prince, that is, without a certain heir; and Successor; which uncertainty, (more than any thing else) slackens the industry of all men at home, and sharpens the malice of all men abroad; fears at home, and hopes abroad, discompose and disorder all, where they are sine Principe, without a certain heir. But the word enlarges itself farther; for, Sar signifies a judge; when Moses rebuked a Malefactor, he replies to Moses, Who made thee a judge? Exod. 2. 13. And in many, very many places, Sar signifies a Commander in the Wars. So that where the justice of the State, or the Military power of the State fail, (and they fail, where the men who do, or should execute those places, will not, or dare not do, what appertains to their places) there this Commination falls, They are without a Prince, that is, without future assurance, without present power, or Justice. But we pass to the spiritual Commination; Damna spiritualia. that is, They shall be without Sacrifice, without Ephod, without Image, without Teraphim. It is not that their understanding shall be taken away, no, nor that the tenderness of their conscience, or their zeal shall be taken away; It is not that they shall come to any impiety, or ill opinion of God; They may have religious, and well-disposed hearts, and yet be under a curse, if they have not a Church, an outward Discipline established amongst them. It is not enough for a man to believe aright, but he must apply himself to some Church, to some outward form of worshipping God; It is not enough for a Church, to hold no error in doctrine, but it must have outward assistances for the devotion of her children, and outward decency for the glory of her God. Both these kinds are intended in the particulars of this Text, Sacrifice and Ephod, Image and Teraphim. First, Sine Sacrificio. it is a part of the curse, to be without Sacrifice. Now, if according to S. Hieromes interpretation, this Text be a Prophecy upon the Jews, after Christ's time, and that the Malediction consist in this, That they shall not embrace the Christian Religion, nor the Christian Church entertain them; if the Prophet drive to this, They shall be without Sacrifices, because they shall not be of the Christian Church, certainly the Christian Church is not to be without Sacrifice. It is a miserable impotency, to be afraid of words; That from a former holy and just detestation of real errors, we should come to an uncharitable detestation of persons, and to a contentious detestation of words. We dare not name Merit, nor Penance, nor Sacrifice, nor Altar, because they have been abused. How should we be disappointed, and disfurnished of many words in our ordinary conversation, if we should be bound from all words, which blasphemous men have profaned, or unclean men have defiled with their ill use of those words? There is Merit, there is Penance, there is Sacrifice, there are Altars, in that sense, in which those blessed men, who used those words first, at first used them. The Communion Table is an Altar; and in the Sacrament there is a Sacrifice. Not only a Sacrifice of Thanksgiving, common to all the Congregation, but a Sacrifice peculiar to the Priest, though for the People. There he offers up to God the Father, (that is, to the remembrance, to the contemplation of God the Father) the whole body of the merits of Christ jesus, and begs of him, that in contemplation of that Sacrifice so offered, of that Body of his merits, he would vouchsafe to return, and to apply those merits to that Congregation. A Sacrifice, as far from their blasphemous overboldness, who constitute a propitiatory Sacrifice, in the Church of Rome, as from their over-tendernesse, who startle at the name of Sacrifice. We do not, (as at Rome) first invest the power of God, and make ourselves able to make a Christ, and then invest the malice of the Jews, and kill that Christ, whom we have made; for, Sacrifice, Immolation, (taken so properly, and literally as they take it) is a killing; But the whole body of Christ's actions and passions; we sacrifice, we represent, we offer to God. Calvin alone, hath said enough, Non possumus, except we be assisted with outward things, we cannot fix ourselves upon God. Therefore is it part of the malediction here, that they shall be sine Sacrificio, without Sacrifice; so is it also in inferior helps, fine Ephod, they shall be without an Ephod. The Ephod amongst the Jews, Sine Ephod. was a garment, which did not only distinguish times, (for it was worn only in time of divine Service) but, even in time of divine Service, it distinguished persons too. For, Exod. 26. 6. we have a Pontifical Ephod, peculiar only to the high Priest; And we have a levitical Ephod, 1 Sam. 2. 18. belonging to all the Levites; (Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child, girded with a linen Ephod.) And we have a common Ephod, which, any man, that assisted in the service of God might wear; That linen Ephod, 2 Sam. 6. 14. which David put on, in that Procession, when he danced before the Ark. But all these Ephods were bound under certain Laws, to be worn by such men, and at such times. Christ's garment was not divided; nay, the Soldiers were not divided about it, but agreed in one way; And shall we, (the Body of Christ) be divided about the garment, that is, vary in the garment, by denying a conformity to that Decency which is prescribed? When Christ devested, or suppressed the Majesty of his outward appearance, job. 20. 1●. at his Resurrection, Marry Magdalen took him but for a Gardener. Ecclesiastical persons in secular habits, lose their respect. Though the very habit be but a Ceremony, yet the distinction of habits is rooted in nature, and in morality; And when the particular habit is enjoined by lawful Authority, obedience is rooted in nature, and in morality too. In a Watch, the string moves nothing, but yet, it conserveses the regularity of the motion of all. Ritual, and Ceremonial things move not God, but they exalt that Devotion, and they conserve that Order, which does move him. Therefore is it also made a part of the Commination, that they shall be fine Ephod, without these outward Ritual, and Ceremonial solemnities of a Church; first, without Sacrifices, which are more substantial and essential parts of Religion, (as we consider Religion to be the outward worship of God, and then, without Ephod, without those other assistances, which, though they be not of God's Revenue, yet they are of his Subsidies, and though they be not the soul, yet are the breath of Religion. And so also is it of things of a more inferior nature than Sacrifice or Ephod, that is of Image and Teraphim, which is our next, and last Consideration. Both these words, Image, Teraphim. (that which is translated, and called Image, and that which is not translated, but kept in the original word, Teraphim) have sometimes a good, sometimes a bad sense in the Scriptures. In the First, Image, there is no difficulty; good and bad significations of that word, are obvious every where. And for the other, Gen. 31. 19 though when Rachel stole her father's Teraphim, (Images) though when the King of Babylon consulted with Teraphim, (Images) Ezek. 21. 21. the word Teraphim have an ill sense, yet, 1 Sam. 19 13. when Michal, David's wife, put an Image into his bed, to elude the fury of Saul, there the word hath no ill sense. Accept the words in an Idolatrous sense, yet, because they fall under the commination, and that God threatens it, as a part of their calamity, that they should be without their Idols, it hath been, not inconveniently, argued from this place, that even a Religion mixed with some Idolatry, and superstition, is better than none, as in Civil Government a Tyranny is better than an Anarchy. And therefore we must not bring the same indisposition, the same disaffection towards a person misled, and soured with some leaven of Idolatry, as towards a person possessed with Atheism. And yet, how ordinarily we see, zealous men start, and affected, and troubled at the presence of a Papist, and never moved, never forbear the society and conversation of an Atheist: Which is an argument too evident, that we consider ourselves more than God, and that peace which the Papist endangers, more than the Atheist, (which is, the peace of the State, and a quiet enjoying our ease) above the glory of God, which the Atheist wounds, and violates more than the Papist; The Papist withdraws some of the glory of God, in ascribing it to the Saints, to themselves, and their own merits, but the Atheist leaves no God to be glorified. And this use we have of these words, Images, and Teraphim, if they should have an ill sense in this place, and signify Idols. But Saint Hierome, and others with him, take these words, in a good sense; to be the Cherubin, and Palms, and such other representations, as God himself had ordained in their Temple; and that the Commination falls upon this, That in some cases, it may be some want, to be without some Pictures in the Church. So far as they may conduce to a reverend adoring of the place, so far as they may conduce to a familiar instructing of unlettered people, it may be a loss to lack them. For, so much Calvin, out of his religious wisdom, Institut. 1. 11. 7. is content to acknowledge, Fateor, ut res se habet hodiè, etc. I confess, as the case stands now, (says he) (speaking of the beginning of the Reformation) there are many that could not be without those Books, (as he calls those Pictures) because then they had no other way of Instruction; but, that that might be supplied, if those things which were delivered in picture, to their eyes, were delivered in Sermons to their ears. And this is true, that where there is a frequent preaching, there is no necessity of pictures; but will not every man add this, That if the true use of Pictures be preached unto them, there is no danger of an abuse; and so, as Remembrancers of that which hath been taught in the Pulpit, they may be retained; And that was one office of the Holy Ghost himself, That he should bring to their remembrance those things, which had been formerly taught them. And since, by being taught the right use of these pictures, in our preaching, no man amongst us, is any more inclined, or endangered to worship a picture in a Wall or Window of the Church, then if he saw it in a Gallery, were it only for a reverend adorning of the place, they may be retained here, as they are in the greatest part of the Reformed Church, 1● Eliz. 1559. and in all that, that is properly Protestant. And though the Injunctions of our Church, declare the sense of those times, concerning Images, yet they are wisely and godly conceived; for the second is, That they shall not extol Images, (which is not, that they shall not set them up) but, (as it followeth) They shall declare the abuse thereof. And when in the 23 Injunction, it is said, That they shall utterly extinct, and destroy, (amongst other things) pictures, yet it is limited to such things, and such pictures, as are monuments of feigned miracles; and that Injunction reaches as well to pictures in private houses, as in Churches, and forbids nothing in the Church, that might be retained in the house. For those pernicious Errors, which the Roman Church hath multiplied in this point, not only to make Images of men, which never were, but to make those Images of men, very men, to make their Images speak, and move, and weep, and bleed; to make Images of God who was never seen, and to make those Images of God, very gods; to make their Images do daily miracles; to transfer the honour due to God, to the Image, and then to encumber themselves with such ridiculous riddles, and scornful distinctions, as they do, for justifying unjustifiable, unexcusable, uncolourable enormities, Va Idololatris, woe to such advancers of Images, as would throw down Christ, rather than his Image: But Vae Iconeclastis too, woe to such peremptory abhorrers of Pictures, and to such uncharitable condemners of all those who admit any use of them, as had rather throw down a Church, then let a Picture stand. Laying hold upon S. Hieromes exposition, that falls within the Vae, the Commination of this Text, to be without those Sacrifices, those Ephods, those Images, as they are outward helps of devotion. And, laying hold, not upon S. Hierome, but upon Christ himself, who is the God of love, and peace, and unity, yet falls under a heavy, and insupportable Vae, to violate the peace of the Church, for things which concern it not fundamentally. problematical things are our silver, but fundamental, our gold; problematical out sweat, but fundamental our blood. If our Adversaries would be bought in, with our silver, with our sweat, we should not be difficult in meeting them half way, in things, in their nature, indifferent. But if we must pay our Gold, our Blood, our fundamental points of Religion, for their friendship, A Fortune, a Liberty, a Wife, a Child, a Father, a Friend, a Master, a Neighbour, a Benefactor, a Kingdom, a Church, a World, is not worth a dram of this Gold, a drop of this Blood. Neither will that man, who is truly rooted in this foundation, redeem an Empoverishing, an Emprisoning, a Disinheriting, a Confining, an Excommunicating, a Deposing, with a dram of this Gold, with a drop of this Blood, the fundamental Articles of our Religion. Blessed be that God, who, as he is without change or colour of change, hath kept us without change, or colour of change, in all our foundations; And he in his time bring our Adversaries to such a moderation as becomes them, who do truly desire, that the Church may be truly Catholic, one stock, in one fold, under one Shepherd, though not all of one colour, of one practice in all outward and disciplinarian points. Amen. SERMON XLII. A Sermon Preached in Saint Paul's in the Evening, November 23. 1628. PROV. 14. 31. He that oppresseth the poor, reproacheth his Maker, but he that honoureth him, hath mercy on the poor. Part of the first Lesson, for that Evening Prayer. THese are such words, as if we were to consider the words only, might make a Grammar Lecture, and a Logic Lecture, and a Rhetoric and Ethick, a Philosophy Lecture too; And of these four Elements might a better Sermon than you are like to hear now, be well made. Indeed they are words of a large, of an extensive comprehension. And because all the words of the Word of God, are, in a great measure, so, that invites me to stop a little, as upon a short first part before the rest, or as upon a long entry into the rest, to consider, not only the powerfulness of the matter, but the sweetness and elegancy of the words of the Word of God in general, before I descend to the particular words of this Text, He that oppresseth the poor, etc. We may justly accommodate those words of Moses, Deut. 3. 24. to God the Father, What God is there in Heaven, or in Earth, that can do according to thy works? And those words of jeremy, to God the Son, Behold, and see, if there be any sorrow, like unto my sorrow; And those to the Holy Ghost which are in Esay, Lam. 1. 12. Loquimini, ad Cor, speak to the heart, speak comfortably to my People, And those of Saint john too, Apoc. 4. 1. 10. 3. A voice of Thunder, and after, A voice of seven Thunders talking with me: for, who can do, like the Father, who can suffer like the Son, who can speak like the Holy Ghost? Eloquia Domini, eloquia casta, Psal. 12. 6. saith David, The words of the Lord are chaste words, sincere, pure words, no dross, no profaneness, no such allay mingled with them; for, as it followeth there, They are as silver tried and purified seven times in the fire. They are as that silver, that is so tried, and they are as that fire that trieth it. It is Castum, a Pure Word in itself, and then it is powerful upon the Hearer too; Ignitum Eloquium tuum vehementer, saith he, Psal. 119. 140. Thy word hath the vehement operation of fire; and therefore, thy servant loveth it well, as it followeth there; Therefore, because it pierces; But therefore especially, because it carrieth a sweetness with it. For, the sting of the Serpent pierces, and the tooth of the Viper pierces, but they carry venenosam salivam, a venomous and mischievous liquor with them. 103. But Dulcia faucibus super Mel, Thy words are sweeter to my mouth, than Honey; Prov. 16. 24. then Honey itself. For, verba composita, saith Solomon, chosen words, studied, premeditated words, pleasing words, (so we translate it) are as a Honeycomb. Now, in the Honey comb, the Honey is collected and gathered, and dispensed, and distributed from the Honeycomb, And of this Honeycomb is wax, wax apt for sealing, derived too. The distribution of this Honey to the Congregation, The sealing of this Honey to the Conscience, is in the outward Ordinance of God, and in the labour of the Minister, and his conscionable fitting of himself for so great a service. But the Honeycomb is not the Honey, The gifts of the man, is not the Holy Ghost. jacob laid this blessing upon his son Naphtali, Dabit Eloquia pulchritudinis; Gen. 49. 21. That he should be a well-spoken, and a persuasive man. For, of a defect in this kind, Moses complained, and so did Esay, and jeremy did so too, when they were to be employed in God's service, Moses that he was of uncircumcised; Esay that he was of unclean lips, and jeremy that he was a Child, and could not speak; and therefore this was a Blessing upon Naphtali, that he should be a well-spoken, and a persuasive man. For so, Moses, after God had farther enabled him, Deut. 32. 1. saith, Give ear, O ye Heavens, and I will speak; Hear O Earth, the words of my mouth, My mouth, saith Moses; The Minister of God, that cometh with convenient gifts, and due preparation, may speak such things, as Earth, and Heaven itself may be content to hear. For, Ephes. 3. 10. when Saint Paul saith, That to the Principalities, and Powers in Heavenly places, the manifold wisdom of God, is made known by the Church, that is, by the Ministry, and Service of the Church, and by that which is done here, we may congruously and piously believe, that even those Principalities and Powers in Heavenly places, The Angels of Heaven do hear our Sermons, and hearken how the glory of God is communicated, and accepted, and propagated through the Congregation; and as they rejoice at the conversion of a Sinner, so rejoice also at the means of their Conversion, the powerful, and the congruous preaching of the Word of God. And therefore, let no man, though an Angel of the Church, though an Archangel of the Church, Heb. 13. 2. Bishop or Archbishop, refuse to hear a man of imeriour place, or inferior parts to himself; neither let any man be discouraged by the fewness or meanness of his Hearers: For, as the Apostle saith, with relation to Abraham, Entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained Angels unawares, so, preach to all, and that seat that thou thinkest empty, may have Angels in it: To them is the manifold Wisdom of God made known by the Church, and Angels are here; here, for the augmentation of their own joy, in their fresh knowledge of the propagation of the Kingdom of God, in this Congregation, and they are here, for their Accusation that are not here, but frivolously and causelessely absent, or negligently, absently present, if they be here. Therefore Moses might say, Give ear O ye Heavens, though it be but I, that speak; And he might add, as he doth there, My Doctrine shall drop as the rain, and my speech shall distll as the dew. And why? Because I will publish the Name of the Lord, saith Moses there; because I will deliver the Messages of my God to his People. What though you do, must this be ascribed unto you? no, Moses claimeth not that; for when he had said, Give ear, O ye Heavens, (let no man think himself too high, or too wise to hear me) and called it his Doctrine, and his speech, because he published the Name of the Lord, yet he transferreth all upon God himself, He establisheth their attentions with that Ascribe ye Greatness unto our God. It becometh me to make myself as acceptable a messenger as I can, and to infuse the Word of God into you, as powerfully as I can, but all that I can do, is but a small matter, the greatness of the work lieth in your Application, and that must proceed from the Word of God itself, quickened by his Spirit, and therefore Ascribe all Greatness unto our God, for that is the Honey, whatsoever, or whosoever be the Honeycomb. Truly, when I read a Sermon of chrysostom, or of Chrysologus, or of Ambrose, Men, who carry in the very signification of their Names, and in their Histories, the attributes of Honey mouthed, and Golden-mouthed Men, I find myself oftentimes, more affected, with the very Citation, and Application of some sentence of Scripture, in the midst or end of one of their Sermons, then with any witty, or forcible passage of their own. And that is it, which Saint Hierome doth especially magnify in Saint Paul. After he had said, Quotiescunque lego, non verba mihi videor, sed tonitrua audire, wheresoever I open Saint Paul's Epistles, it is not a word or a sentence, but a clap of Thunder, that flieth out; he addeth moreover, Legatis, do but use yourselves to the reading of Saint Paul's Epistles, Videbitis, in testimoniis quae sumit, ex veteri Testamento, quam Artifex sit, quam prudens, you will easily see how artificially, how dexterously, how cunningly, and how discreetly he makes his use of those places which he citeth out of the Old Testament; Videntur verba Innocontis, & rusticani; you would take them saith he, sometimes for words of some plain Countryman, (as some of the Prophets were no other;) But before Saint Paul have done with those words, Fulmina sunt, & capiunt omne quod tangunt, he maketh you see, that they are flashes of lightning, and that they possess, and melt, affect and dissolve every soul they touch. And hence it is, Beloved, that I return so often at home in my private Meditations, that I present so often to God's People in these Exercises, this Consideration, That there are not so exquisite, so elegant Books in the World, as the Scriptures; neither is any one place a more pregnant example thereof, for the purity and elegancy, for the force and power, for the largeness and extension of the words, than these which the Holy Ghost hath taken in this Text, He that oppresseth the poor, reproaches his Master, etc. And so we pass from this first Consideration, The power and Elegancy of the whole word of God, in general, to the same consideration in these particular words. The Matter, Divisio. which in the general is but this, That the poor must be relieved, being a Doctrine obvious to all; The Manner will rather be our object, at this time: How the Holy Ghost, by Solomon's hand, hath enwrapped this Doctrine, in these words, How the Omission of this Duty is aggravated, how the performance thereof is celebrated in this Text, and in the force and elegancies thereof. Man's perverseness hath changed God's method; God made man good, but in a possibility of being ill; Now, God finds man ill, but in a possibility of being good. When man was good, and enabled to continue so, God began with him, with affirmative Commandments; Commandments that implied liberty and Sovereignty; such as that, Subjicite & Dominamini, Subdue the Creature, and rule over the Creature; and he comes not till after, to Negative, to Prohibitive Commandments, Commandments that imply infirmity, and servility; such as this, Of this Tree thou shalt not eat, upon thy life; this life, and the next, thou shalt not. But now, because God finds man ill, and prone to be worse, God is fain to change his method, and to begin, and stop him at first with negative, and prohibitive Commandments. So he does in the thirty fourth Psalm, ver. 14. (which is also again repeated) first, 1 Pet. 3. 10. Depart from evil, and then, Do good. For man brings with him something into the world now, to forget, and to unlearn, before he can take out any new lesson: Man is so far from being good of himself, as that he must forget himself, divest himself, forsake himself, before he can be capable of any good. And such is the method of our Text; Because God sees a natural declination in man, to abuse his power, to the oppression of inferiors, he begins with that Prohibition, Oppress not the poor; And then when he hath brought them to that moderation, and that temper, than he carries them farther towards perfection, to an honouring of God in showing mercy to the poor. In which method, so disposed into two parts, the fault first, and then the duty, we shall proceed by these steps; First, in the first, we shall consider the fault itself, Oppression; which, in general, is an unjust damnifying of others. And secondly, the specification of the Persons, the Poor; for others, our Superiors, we may unjustly damnify too; but that is a fault of another nature; I should rather call it envy, or emulation, or ambition, or supplantation, than oppression; and therefore that second branch will fairly admit a little disquisition, a short comparison of those two kinds of sins, Whether emulation of superiors, or oppression of inferiors, be in the nature, and root thereof, the greater sin. In which latter sin, which is properly the sin of our Text, that is, oppression of the poor, we shall see, (in a third branch) the iniquity, and heinousness thereof aggravated in this, that it is said to be a Reproach, a Contumely; and Contumely, and Reproach, against whomsoever it be bend; hath always a venomous, and a mischievous Nature. But much more here, where it is bend against God himself; and against God in that supreme, and primary notion, as a Creator, as a Maker, He reproaches the Maker; But then whose Maker? If I should say I cannot tell, the words themselves, and the construction thereof, in the variety of the Hebrew Grammars, would justify mine ignorance, for they will not admit it to be easily determined, whether it be Factorem ejus, or Factorem suum, whether he that oppresses the poor, be said to reproach his Maker that is made poor, or his own Maker: And therefore we shall make our use of both; for both meet to aggravate the fault; If I oppress the poor, I reproach him that made that poor man, and made that man poor, and I reproach him that made me. And in these circumstances, The fault, Oppression; the specification of the Persons, the Poor; the Problem, the Comparison of the two sins; the Aggravation, as it is a Reproach, a reproach against God, and God as a Creator, as his Creator, as my Creator, we shall determine that first part. And when in our order thus proposed, we shall come to our second Part, which is the recommendation, and celebration of the Duty itself, To honour God, by showing mercy to the poor, we shall first consider the persons, the poor; and then the act, to show mercy to the poor; and lastly the effect, and benefit thereof; for, as the omission of the duty was aggravated with that, that it was a reproaching of God, the performance thereof is exalted by this, That it is an honouring of God. After all which we shall conclude all, with the consideration of that which is indeed the poorest of all, the sickest, and forest, and saddest, the feeblest and faintest, the wretchedest, and miserablest thing in the world, your own souls; and lead you to see, how you do reproach God in oppressing, how you might honour God in showing mercy to those poor souls of yours. And this will be the compass, in which I shall lead your devotions for this hour; this will be the circle, which from this centre, relief of the poor, (which is the sum, and resultance of the Text) and by these poles, the heinousness of the fault, the happiness of the duty, I shall design unto you. We proposed at first, to consider our two parts, 1 Part. the fault, and the duty, in the elegancy of the words chosen by the holy Ghost here, according to their origination, and extraction, in the nature of the words, and their latitude and extension, in their use, in other places of Scripture. That we shall do; and in that way, our first word is oppression; Gnashak in the Original; and Gnashak, as it does oftentimes signify vim, violence, and force, so does it often signify dolum, deceit and fraud also: so that violence and deceit concur in this oppression. And more than they. For Solomon does not depart from that which he means, Prov. 17. 5. when he says here, He that oppresses the poor, reproaches his Maker, when he says in another place, He that macks the poor, reproaches his Maker. So that now these three, violence, and deceit, and scorn are the elements, the ingredients that make up this oppression. There is not a more brutish thing than violence; amongst beasts all goes by force. There is not a more devilish thing than deceit; the Serpent destroyed us all by that. But man hath raised a degree of oppression, beyond beasts, and their violence, and beyond the devil, and his falsehood, that is, scorn. For, though the devil oppress man, and hate man, he does not scorn man; he finds man a considerable enemy. For when he hath thrown a man into the world, oppressed with original sin, that man is not therefore his; the Sacrament of Baptism frustrates him of that Title. When he hath oppressed him in the world, by actual and habitual sins, that man is not therefore his, for a worthy receiving of the body and blood of Christ Jesus frustrates him of that Title. And how weak soever man be in himself, yet, in Christo omnia possumus, There is one man (and in that one man are all men, that is, all mankind, enwrapped) who lie open to the Serpent only in his heel, and the Serpent to him, in his head; and in him, Omnia possumus, in Christ, the weakest man can do any thing. The Devil could oppress job with violence; fire, and sword, and ruin upon his goods, and cattle, and servants, and children, and himself too. The Devil could oppress him with deceit, corrupt the wife of his bosom, to tempt him to desperation; but he never came to scorn job; for he saw job did not serve God for nought; job had good wages, and God had hedged him, enclosed him, for himself. Scorn is an affection, that implies such a height above another, as cannot be justified in any but God himself. Man can oppress by deceit; The Kings of the earth take counsel together; they study how to circumvent; Psal. 2. 2. and man can oppress with violence; there they break bands asunder, and cast away cords; they will be bound by no laws. But then, it is only God, who there laughs them to scorn, and hath them in derision. Now here, the oppressor practices the beasts part, he comes to violence, and the Devil's part, he comes to deceit, and he usurps upon God's part, he comes to that height, as to think he may scorn and contemn. And whom? for that is our next consideration; he oppresseth the poor, he treads down the poor; him that was dust before, he treads into dirt, macerated with his own sweat, his own tears, his own blood. He oppresses him with deceit; the credulous and confident wretch, who, because he is harmless in himself, is fearless of others, he betrays, he circumvents. And he oppresses with scorn; him whom poverty hath made the subject of pity and of prayers, he makes the anvil of scorn and of jests. For, so far, our first word, Gnashak, carries his signification and our meditation, he oppresses by violence, by deceit, by scorn, brutishly, devilishly, and more, (which is the qualification of the fault, and was our first consideration) and all this upon the poor, (which is the specification of the persons, and is our second.) You see who this oppressor is, and how you may know him; you have his marks; Violence, deceit, scorn. Pauper. But who is this poor man, and how shall you know him? How shall you know, whether he that asks be truly poor or no? Truly, beloved, there is scarce any one thing, in which our ignorance is more excusable then in this, To know whether he to whom we give, be truly poor, or no: In no case is our inconsideration more pardonable, then in this. God will never examine me very strictly, why I was no stricter in examining that man's condition to whom I gave mine alms. If I give to one that is poor in my sight, I shall find that alms upon God's score, amongst them, who were poor in God's sight: And my mistaking the man, shall never make God mistake my meaning. Where I find undeniable, unresistible evidence to the contrary, when I see a man able in his limbs live in continual idleness, when I see a man poor in his means, and oppressed with his charge, spend in continual drunkenness, in this case, I were the oppressor of the poor, Apoc. 22. 1●. if I should give to that man, for this were to give the children's bread to dogs. And that is not a name too bad for them; for, foris Canes, they are dogs that are without, that is, without the Church: And how few of these, who make beggary an occupation from their infancy, were ever within Church, how few of them ever Christened, or ever married? Foris Canes, they are dogs, that are without; and the children's bread must not be given to Dogs. But to pursue our first intention, and so to find out these poor in the origination of the words chosen by the holy Ghost here, we have in this text two words for the poor. One is Ebion; and Ebion is a beggar. It was the name given to one of those first heretics who occasioned the writing of St. john's Gospel; he was called Ebion. So that it may well be imagined, that those first Heretics were Mendicants: Men that professed begging, and lived upon the labours, and sweat of other men. For the Ebionit is a beggar; not only he that needs, but he that declares his need, that asks, that craves, that begs: for, the root of Ebion is Ahab; which is not only to desire, but to declare that desire, to ask, to crave, to beg. Now, this poor man must be relieved. The charity that God required in Israel, was, Deut. 15. ●. 22. 16. that no man should be put to this necessity, but provided for otherwise; There shall be no beggar amongst you; for, there is our very word, no Ebionite; that is, no poor man shall be put to beg. But yet in the Prophet jeremy, that man is well spoken of, that did good even to the Ebionit, to the beggar; he that is brought to a necessity of ask, must be relieved. Not that we are not bound to give, till another ask, or never to open our hand, till another open his mouth; for, as Saint john did, in the beginning of the Revelation, a man may see a sound, see a voice. A sad aspect, a pale look, a hollow cheek, a bloodless lip, a sunk eye, a trembling hand, speak so loud, as that if I will not hear them from him, God will hear them against me. In many cases, and with many persons, it is a greater anguish to ask, then to want; and easier to starve, then to beg; therefore I must hearken after another voice, and with another organ; I must hearken with mine eye. Many times I may see need speak, when the needy man says nothing, and his case may cry aloud, when he is silent. Therefore I must lay mine ear to the ground, and hearken after them that lie in the dust, and inquire after the distresses of such men; for this is an imitation of Gods preventing grace, that grace, than which we can conceive no higher thing in God himself, (that God should be found of them, that seek him not) if I relieve that man, that was ashamed to tell me he wanted. The Ebionit the beggar, but not he only, must be relieved: for our word, in this part of the text, is not Ebion, but a word derived from Dalal; and Dalal, in this word, signifies Exhaustum, attenuatum, a man whose former estate is exhausted, and gone, or whose present labours do not prosper, but that God, for ends best known to himself, exercises him with continual poverty; the word signifies also a man enfeebled, and decrepit with age; and more than that, Esay 38. 11. the word signifies sickness too: for this very word we have in Hezekiahs' mouth, The Lord will cut me off with sickness. So that now you have the specification of the person, who is the poor man, that is most properly the object of your charity, he whose farmer estate is wasted, and not by his vices, but by the hand of God, He whose present industry does not prosper, He who is overtaken with Age, and so the less able to repair his wants, and in his age, afflicted with sickness, and so the less able to endure his wants. And this poor man, this labouring man, this decayed man, this aged man, this sickly man, this oppressor in our text pursues; and pursues with violence, with deceit, with scorn. And so have you the qualification of the fault, (which was our first) and the specification of the persons, which was our second consideration. But before we depart from this branch, Problema. I remember, I asked leave at first, only to stir this consideration, only to propound this Problem, only to ask this question, whether Envy, and Emulation, and supplantation of Superiors, or this oppression, and conculcation of Inferiors in this kind, were in the nature, and root thereof, the greater sin; and surely the sentence, and the Judgement will be against this oppressor of the poor. For, Envy, conceived against a man in place, hath evermore some emulation of those gifts, which enable a man for that place. Whosoever labours to supplant another, that he may succeed, will in some measure endeavour to be fit for that succession. So that, though it be but a squint-eye, and not a direct look, yet some eye, some aspect, the envious man hath upon virtue. Besides, he that envies a higher person, he does not practise (as the Poet says) sine talione; He deals with a man that can be at full even with him, and can deal as ill with him. But he that oppresses the poor, digs in a dunghill for worms; And he departs from that posture, which God, in nature gave him, that is, erect, to look upward; for his eye is always down, upon them, that lie in the dust, under his feet. Certainly, he that sears up himself, and makes himself insensible of the cries, and curses of the poor here in this world, does but prepare himself for the howl, & gnash of teeth, in the world to come. It is the Serpent's taste, the Serpent's diet, Dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life; and he feeds but on dust, that oppresses the poor. And as there is evidently, more inhumanity, more violation of nature, in this oppression, then in emulation, so may there well seem to be more impiety, and more violation of God himself, by that word, which the holy Ghost chooses in the next place, which is Reproach, He that oppresses the poor, reproaches his Maker. This word, Reproach. which we translate to Reproach, Theodotion translates to Blaspheme: And blasphemy is an odious thing, even towards men. For, men may be blasphemed. The servant of God, Act. 6. 11. 1 Chron. 20. Moses, is blasphemed, as well as God: And Goliath blasphemed the Israel of God, as well as the God of Israel; and, for the most part, where we read Reviling, the word is Blaspheming. Our word here, (that we may still pursue our first way, a reverend consideration of the elegancy of the Scriptures, in the origination of the words) is Charak; and this word job uses, as it is used in our text, for reproach, My heart shall not reproach me, so long as I live. 27. 6. And this, this reproaching of the heart, is, in many cases, a Blaspheming, and a strange one, a self-blaspheming. When I have had, by the goodness of God's Spirit, a true sense of my sins, a true remorse, and repentance of those sins, true Absolution from those sins, true seals of reconciliation after those sins, true diligence, and preclusion of occasions of relapsing into those sins, still to suspect my state in God's favour, and my full redintegration with him, still to deny myself that peace, which his Spirit, by these means, offers me, still to call my repentance imperfect, and the Sacramental seals ineffectual, still to accuse myself of sins, thus devested, thus repent, this is to reproach, this is to to blaspheme mine own soul. If I will say with job, My heart shall reproach me of nothing, this is not, that I will accuse myself of no sin, or say, the elect of God cannot sin, no, nor that God sees not the sins of the elect, nor that God is not affected, or angry with those sins, and those sinners, as long as they remain unrepented, but after I have accused myself of those sins, and brought them into Judgement, by way of Confession, and received my pardon under seal, in the Sacrament, and pleaded that pardon, to the Church, by a subsequent amendment of life, than I reproach myself of nothing, for this were a self-blaspheming, and a reproaching of mine own soul. Now, the word of our text, in the root thereof, Charak, is manifestare; prostituere; It is to publish the fault, or to prostitute the fame of any man, extrajudicially, not in a right form of Judgement, and amongst those men, who are not to be his Judges. So to fill itching ears with rumours, and whisper, so to minister matter and fuel to fiery tongues, so to lay imputations, and aspersions upon men, though that which we say, of those men, be true, is a libelling, is a calumny, is a blaspheming and a reproach, in the word of this text: for it is manifestare, prostituere, to publish a man's faults, and to prostitute a man's fame, there, where his faults can receive no remedy, if they be true, nor his fame Reparation, if they be false. It is properly, to speak ill of a man, and not before a competent Judge. And in such a sense, a man may reproach God himself. But is there then a Judge between God and man? Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? is Abraham's question; Deus. Gen. 18. 25. but there, that Judge of all the earth, is God himself. But is there a Judge of heaven too? A Judge between God and man, for Gods proceeding there? There is. The Scripture is a Judge, by which God himself will be tried. As the Law is our Judge, and the Judge does but declare what is Law, so the Scripture is our Judge, and God proceeds with us according to those promises and Judgements, which he hath laid down in the Scripture. Esay 9 3. When God says in Esay, judge between me and my Vineyard, certainly, God means that there is something extant, some contract, some covenant, something that hath the nature of a Law, some visible, some legible thing, to judge by. And Christ tells us what that is; Search the Scriptures. says he; for, by them we must be tried for our lives. So then, if I come to think that God will call me in question for my life, for my eternal life, by any way that hath not the Nature of a Law, (And, by the way, it is of the Nature and Essence of a Law, before it come to bind, that it be published) if I think that God will condemn me, by any unrevealed will, any reserved purpose in himself, this is to reproach God, in the word of this Text, for it is prostituere, to prostitute, to exhibit God, otherwise than he hath exhibited himself, and to charge God with a proceeding upon secret and unrevealed purposes, and not rest in his Scriptures. God will try us at last, God himself will be tried all the way by his Scriptures; And to charge God with the damnation of men, otherwise then by his Tantummodo Crede, I have commanded thee to believe, and thou hast not done that, And by his Fac hoc & vives, I have commanded thee, to live well, and thou hast not done that, which are conditions evidently laid down in the Scriptures, and not grounded upon any secret purpose, is a reproaching of God, in the word of this Text. This, Factorem. this Oppressor of the poor is said to do here; He reproaches the Maker; God, in that notion, as he is the Creator. Now this is the clearest notion, and fastest apprehension, and first handle that God puts out to man, to lay hold upon him by, as he is The Creator. For though God did elect me, before he did actually create me, yet God did not mean to elect me, before he meant to create me; when his purpose was upon me, to elect me, surely his purpose had passed upon me, to create me; for when he elected me, I was I. So that this is our first notion of God towards us, as he is The Creator. The School will receive a pregnant child from his parents, and work upon him; The University will receive a grounded Scholar from the School, and work upon him; The State, or the Church, will receive a qualified person from the University, and work by him. But still the State, and the Church, and the University, and the first School itself, had something to work upon; But God, in the Creation, had nothing at all: He called us when we were not, as though we had been. Now, here is this world, we make ourselves; that is, we make one another: Kings make judges, and judges make Officers: Bishops make Parsons, and Parsons make Curates: But when we consider our Creation, It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we did not only not do any thing, but we could not do so much as wish any thing to be done, towards our Creation, till we were created. In the Application of that great work, The Redemption of mankind, that is, in the conversion of a sinner, and the first act of that conversion, though the grace of God work all, yet there is a faculty in man, a will in man, which is in no creature but man, for that grace of God to work upon; But in the Creation there was nothing at all. I honour my Physician, upon the reasons that the Wise man assigns; Ecclus. 38. 7. because he assists my health, and my well-being; But I honour not my Physician with the same honour as my Father, who gave me my very Being. I honour my God in all those notions, in which he hath vouchsafed to manifest himself to me; Every particular blessing of his is a Remembrancer; but my Creation is a holy wonder, and a mysterious amazement. And therefore, as David, the Father, wraps up all stubborn ignorance of God, in that, The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God; so Solomon, the Son, Eccles. 12. 1. wraps up all knowledge of God in that, Remember thy Creator; still contemplate God in that notion, as he made thee of nothing, for, upon that, all his other additions depend. And when thou comest to any post-creations', any after-making in this world, to be made rich, made wise, made great, Praise thou the Lord, bless him, and magnify him for ever, for those Additions, and bless him for having made thee capable of those Additions, by something conferred upon thee before, That he gave thee a patrimony from thy parents, and thine industry working upon that, made thee rich; That he raised thee to Riches, and the Eye of the State looking upon that, made thee Honourable; But still return to thy first making, thy Creation, as thou wast made of nothing, nothing; so low, as that not sin itself, not sin against the holy Ghost himself can cast thee so low again; nothing can make thee nothing; nothing that thou canst do here, nothing that thou canst suffer hereafter, can reduce thee to nothing. And in this notion, this supreme, and Majestical notion, does this oppressor of the poor reproach God; He reproaches the Maker. But then, whose Maker? for that is also another branch, another Disquisition. Here we accept willingly, Ejus. and entertain usefully their doubt, that will not resolve, whether our Gnoshehu in the Text, be Factorem Ejus, or Factorem Suum; whether this oppressor of the poor be said here to reproach his Maker, that is made poor, or his own Maker. Let them enjoy their doubt; Be it either; Be it both. First, let it be the poor Man's Maker, And then, does this oppressor consider, that it is God that hath made that poor man, or that hath made that man poor, and will he oppress him then? If a man of those times, had heard a song of Nero's making, & had been told that it was his, (as that Emperor delighted in compositions of that kind) he would not, he durst not have said, that it was a harsh, an untunable song. If a man saw a Clock or a Picture of his Princes making, (as some Princes have delighted themselves with such manufactures) he would not, he durst not say, it was a disorderly Clock, or a disproportioned picture. Wise Fathers have foolish children, and beautiful, deformed; yet we do not oppress, nor despise those children, if we loved their parents; nor will we any poor man, if we truly love that God, that made him poor; And, if his poverty be not of Gods making, but of the Devils, induced by his riot and wastfulnesse, howsoever the poverty may be the Devils, still the Man is of Gods making. Probris afficit factorem ejus, Suum. He reproaches Him that made that man poor, and Probris afficit factorem suum, He reproaches that God who made him rich, his own Maker. Now, doth he consider, that the Devil hath super-induced a half-lycantropy upon him, The Devil hath made him half a wolf, so much a wolf as that he would tear all that fall into his power, And half a spider, so much a spider, as that he would entangle all that come near him, And half a Viper, so much a Viper, as that he would envenome all that any way provoke him. Does he consider that the Devil hath made him half a wolf, half a spider, half a viper, and doth he not consider that that God that is his Maker, could have made him a whole Wolf, a whole Spider, a whole Viper, and left him in that rank of ignoble, and contemptible, and mischievous creatures? Does he not consider, that that God that made him richer than others, can make him a prey to others, & raise up enemies, that shall bring him to confusion, though he had no other crimes, Therefore, because he is so rich? God can make his very riches the occasion of his ruin here, and the occasion of his everlasting ruin hereafter, by making those riches snares and occasions of sin. God who hath made him, could have left him unmade; or made him what he would; and he reproaches God, as though God could have done nothing less for him, than he hath done, nor could not undone him now. But, before we depart from this branch, consider we wherein this offender, this oppressor, sins so very heinously, as to deserve so high an increpation, as to be said to Reproach, and to Reproach God, and God in that supreme Notion, A Maker, His Maker, and his own Maker. If his fault be but neglecting or oppressing a poor man, why should it deserve all this? In all these respects. First, In Orphanis. The poor are immediately in God's protection. Rich and poor are in God's administration, in his government, in his providence; But the poor are immediately in his protection. Tibi derelictus est pauper, Ps. 10. 14. says David, The poor commits himself unto thee. They are Orphans, Wards, delivered over to his tuition, to his protection. Princes have a care of all their Allies, but a more especial care of those that are in their protection. And the poor are such; And therefore God more sensible in their behalf. And so, he that oppresses the poor, Reproaches God, God in his Orphans. Again, In Imagine. rich and poor are Images, Pictures of God; but, (as Clement of Alexandria says wittily and strongly) The poor is Nuda Imago, a naked picture of God, a picture without any drapery, any clothes about it. And it is much a harder thing, & there is much more art showed in making a naked picture, then in all the rich attire that can be put upon it. And howsoever the rich man, that is invested in Power, and Greatness, may be a better picture of God, of God considered in himself, who is all Greatness, all Power, yet, of God considered in Christ, (which is the contemplation that concerns us most) the poor man is the better picture, and most resembles Christ who lived in continual poverty. And so, he that oppresses the poor, reproaches God, God in his Orphans, God in his Picture. Saint Augustine carries this consideration farther, In Corpore. then that the poor is more immediately God's Orphan, and more perfectly his picture, That he is more properly a member of himself, of his body. For, contemplating that head, which was not so much crowned as hedged with thorns, that head, of which, he whose it was, says, The Son of man hath not where to lay his head, Matth. 8. 19 Saint Augustine says, Ecce caput Panperum, Behold that head, to which, the poor make up the body, Ob eam tantùm causam venerabiles, says that Father, Therefore venerable, therefore honourable, because they are members suitable to that head. And so, all that place, where the Apostle says, That upon those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, we bestow most honour, 1 Cor. 12. 23. that Father applies to the poor, that therefore most respect and honour should be given to them, because the poor are more suitable members to their head Christ Jesus, than the rich are. And so also, he that oppresses the poor reproaches God, God in his Orphans, God in his Image, God in the Members of his own body. Saint chrysostom carries this consideration farther than this of Saint Augustine. That whereas every creature hath filiationem vestigii, In Haeredibus. that because God hath imparted a being, an essence, from himself, who is the root, and the fountain of all essence, and all being, therefore every creature hath a filiation from God, and is the Son of God so, as we read in job, God is the father of the rain; and whereas every man hath filiationem imaginis, as well Pagan as Christian, hath the Image of God imprinted in his soul, and so hath a filiation from God, and is the Son of God, as he is made in his likeness; and whereas every Christian hath filiationem Pacti, by being taken into the Covenant made by God, with the Elect, and with their seed, he hath a filiation from God, and is the Son of God, as he is incorporated into his Son Christ Jesus, by the Seals of the Christian Church; besides these filiations, of being in all creatures, of the Image in all men, of the Covenant in all Christians, The poor, says that Father, are not only filii, but Haeredes, and Primogeniti, Sons and eldest Sons, Sons, and Sons and Heirs. And to that purpose he makes use of those words in St. james, 2. 5. Harken, my beloved brethren, hath not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and Heirs of that Kingdom? Heirs, Mat. 5. 3. for, Ipsorum est, says Christ himself, Theirs is the Kingdom of heaven; And upon those words of Christ, Saint chrysostom comments thus, Divites ejus regnitantum habent, quantum à pauperibus, eleemosynis coemerunt, The rich have no more of that Kingdom of heaven, than they have purchased of the poor, by their alms, and other erogations to pious uses. And so he that oppresses the poor reproaches God, God in his Orphans, God in his Image, God in the Members of his own Body, God in his Sons, and Heirs of his Kingdom. But then Christ himself carries his consideration, In Seipso. Mat. 25. 40. beyond all these resemblances, and conformities, not to a proximity only, but to an identity, The poor are Herald In as much as you did it unto these, you did it unto me; and, In as much as you did it not unto these, you did it not unto me. And after his ascension, and establishing in glory, still he avowed them, not only to be his, but to be He, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? The poor are He, He is the poor. And so, he that oppresseth the poor, reproaches God, God in his Orphans, God in his Image, God in the Members of his own Body, God in the Heirs of his Kingdom, God in himself, in his own person. And so we have done with all those pieces, which constitute our first part, the heinousness of the fault, in the elegancy of the words chosen by the holy Ghost, in which you have seen, The fault itself, Oppression, and the qualification thereof, by the marks, Violence, Deceit, and Scorn. And then the specification of the persons, The poor, as he is the Ebionite, the very vocal beggar, and as the word is Dalal, a decayed, an aged, a sickly man; And in that branch, you have also had that Problem, Whether emulation of higher, or oppression of lower, be the greater sin: And then, the aggravation of this sin, in those weights, That it is a reproach, a reproach of God, of God as The Maker, as His Maker whom he oppresses, and as his own Maker; And lastly, in what respects especially this increpation is laid upon him. And farther we have no occasion to carry that first part, the fault. In passing from that first part, the fault, to the duty, and the celebration thereof, 2 Part. in those words of choice elegancy, He that hath mercy on the poor, honours God, though we be to look upon the persons, the poor, and the act, showing mercy to the poor, and the benefit, honouring of God, yet, of the persons, (who are still the same poor, poor, made poor by God, rather than by themselves) more needs not be said, then hath been said already. And of the act, showing of mercy to the poor, only thus much more needs be said, that the word, in which, the holy Ghost expresses this act here, is the very same word, Exod. 33. 19 in which, he expresses the free mercy of God himself, Miserebor cujus miserebor, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy. So that God hath made the charitable man partaker with himself, in his own greatest attribute, his power of showing mercy. And then, left any man should think, that he had no interest in this great dignity, that God had given him no means to partake of this attribute of God, this power of showing mercy to the poor, because he had left him poor too, and given him nothing to give, the same word, which the holy Ghost uses in this text, 1 Reg. 8. and in Exodus, for mercy, which is Canan, he uses in other places, particularly in the dedication of the Temple, for prayer. So that he, who being destitute of other means to relieve the poor, prays for the poor, is thereby made partaker of this great attribute of Gods, this power of showing mercy. He hath showed mercy to the poor, if, having nothing to give, he have given mild and comfortable words, and have prayed to his abundant, and inexhaustible God, to relieve that poor man, whom he hath not made him able to relieve. So then, Honorat Detem. no more being needful to be said, of the persons, the poor, nor of the Act, showing of mercy to the poor, there remains no more in this last part, but according to our way, all the way, to consider the origination and latitude of this last word, Cahad, this honouring of God. The word does properly signify Augere, ampliare, To enlarge God, to amplify, to dilate God; to make infinite God, shall I dare to say, more God? certainly, God to more, than he was before. O who can express this abundant, this superabundant largeness of God's goodness to man, that there is a power put into man's hands, to enlarge God, to dilate, to propagate, to amplify God himself! I will multiply this people, jer. 30. 19 says God, and they shall not be few, I will glorify them, and they shall not be small; there's the word of our text. God enables me to glorify him, to amplify him, to increase him, by my mercy, my alms. For this is not only that increase, that Saint Hierom intends, that he that hath pity on the poor, Foeneratur Domino, he lends upon use to the Lord, Prov. 19 17. for, this, though it be an increase, is but an increase to himself; but he that shows mercy to the poor, increases God, says our text, dilates, enlarges God. How? Heb. 10. 5. Corpus aptasti mihi; when Christ comes into the world, (says Saint Paul) he says to his Father, Thou hast prepared and fitted a body for me. That was his natural body, that body which he assumed in the bowels of the blessed Virgin. They that pretend to enlarge this body by multiplication, by making millions of these bodies in the Sacraments, by the way of Transubstantiation, they do not honour this body, whose honour is to sit in the same dimensions, and circumscriptions, at the right hand of God. But then, as at his coming into this world, God had fitted him a body, so in the world, he had fitted himself another body, a Mystical body, a Church purchased with his blood. Now this body, this Mystical body I feed, I enlarge, I dilate, and amplify, by my mercy, Ezek. 16. 1. and my charity. For, as God says to jerusalem, Thou wast in thy blood, thou wast not salted, nor swaddled, no eye pitied thee, but thou wast cast out into the open field, and I loved thee, I washed thee, I apparelled and adorned thee, & prosperataes in regnum, I never gave thee over, till I saw thee an established kingdom: so may all those Saints of God say to God himself, to the Son of God invested in this body, this mystical body, the Church, thou was cast out into the open field, all the world persecuted thee, and then we gave thee suck with our blood, we clothed thee with our bodies, we built thee houses and adorned and endowed those houses to thine honour, & prosperatus es in regnum, we never gave over spending, and doing, and suffering for thy glory, till thou hadst an established kingdom, over all the earth. And so thou, thy body, thy mystical body, the Church, is honoured, that is, amplified, dilated, enlarged, by our mercy. Magnificat Anima mea Dominum, was the exultation of the blessed Virgin; My soul doth magnify the Lord. When the meditations of my heart, digested into writing, or preaching, or any other declaration of God's glory, carry, or advance the knowledge of God, in other men, than My soul doth magnify the Lord, enlarge, dilate, amplify God. But when I relieve any poor wretch, of the household of the faithful, with mine alms, than my mercy magnifies the Lord, occasions him that receives, to magnify the Lord by this thanksgiving, and them that see it to magnify the Lord by their imitation, in the like works of mercy. And so far, do these two elegant words chosen here by the holy Ghost, carry our meditation: in the first, Canan, God makes the charitable man partaker of his own highest power, mercy; and in the other Cabad, God enables us, by this mercy, to honour him so far, as to dilate, to enlarge, to amplify him, that is that body, which he in his Son, hath invested by purchase, his Church. We have done; Conclusic. If you will but clasp up all this in your own bosoms, if you will but lay it to your own hearts, you may go. A poorer thing is not in the world, nor a sicker, (which you may remember to have been one signification of this word poor) than thine own soul. And therefore the Chalde paraphrase renders this text thus, He that oppresses the poor reproaches his own soul; for, his own soul is as poor, as any whom he can oppress. To a beggar, that needs, and asks but bodily things, thou wilt say, Alas poor soul; and wilt thou never say Alas poor soul to thyself, that needest spiritual things? If thy affections, thy pleasures, thy delights, beg of thee, and importune thee so far, to bestow upon them, say unto them, I have those that are nearer me than you, Wife and Children, and I must not empoverith them, to give unto you, I must not starve my family, to feed my pleasures. But if this Wife and Children beg, and importune so far, say unto them too, I have one that is nearer me, than all you, a soul; and I must not endanger that, to satisfy you; I must not provide jointures, and Portions with the damnifying, with the damning of mine own soul. It is a miserable Alchemy and extracting of spirits, that stills away the spirit, the soul itself; and a poor Philosopher's Stone, that is made with the coals of Hell-fire; a lamentable purchase, when the soul is paid for the land. And therefore show mercy to this soul. Do not oppress this soul; not by Violence, which was the first signification of this word Oppression: Do not violate, do not smother, not strangle, not suffocate the good motions of God's Spirit in thee● for, it is but a woeful victory, to triumph over thine own conscience, and but a servile greatness to be able to silence that. Oppress not thy soul by Fraud, which was the second signification of this word Oppression. Defraud not thy soul of the benefit of God's Ordinances; frequent these exercises; come hither; And be not here like gideon's fleece, dry when all about it was wet; parched in a remorselesnesse when all the Congregation about thee is melted into holy tears; Be not as gideon's fleece dry, when all else is wet, nor as that fleece, wet when all about it was dry: Be not jealous of God, stand not here as a person unconcerned, disinteressed; as though those gracious promises, which God is pleased to shed down upon the whole Congregation, from this place, appertained not to thee, but that all those Judgements denounced here, over which, they that stand by thee, are able, by a faithful and cheerful laying hold of God's offers, though they stand guilty of the same sins that thou dost, to lift up their heads, must still necessarily overflow and surround thee. Oppress not that soul, by violence, by Fraud, nor by Scorn, which was the other signification of this word Oppression. Hoc nos perdit, Chrysoft. quod divina quoque eloquia in facetias, in dicteria vertamus. Damnation is a serious thing, and this aggravates it, that we slight and make jests at that which should save us, the Scriptures, and the Ordinances of God. For by this oppression of thy poor soul, by this Violence, this Fraud, this Scorn, thou wilt come to Reproach thy Maker, to impute that loss of thy soul, which thou hast incurred by often breach of Laws evidently manifested to thee; to his secret purpose, and un-revealed will; than which, thou canst not put a greater Reproach, a greater Contumely, a greater Blasphemy upon God. For, God cannot be God, if he be not innocent, nor innocent if he draw blood of me, for his own Act. But if thou show mercy to this soul, mercy in that signification of the word, as it denotes an actual performance of those things that are necessary for the making sure of thy salvation, or, if thou canst not yet attain to those degrees of Sanctification, mercy in that signification of the word, as the word denotes hearty and earnest Prayer, that thou couldst, Lord I believe, Lord help mine unbelief, Lord I stand yet, yet Lord raise me when I fall, Honorabis Deum, thou shalt honour God, in the sense of the word in this Text, thou shalt enlarge God, amplify, dilate God, that is, the Body of God, the Church, both here, and hereafter. For, thou shalt add a figure to the number of his Saints, and there shall be a Saint the more for thee; Thou shalt add a Theme of Joy, to the Exultation of the Angels; They shall have one occasion of rejoicing the more from thee: Thou shalt add a pause, a stop to that Vsquequo of the Martyrs, under the Altar, who solicit God for the Resurrection, for, Thou shalt add a step to the Resurrection itself, by having brought it so much nearer, as to have done thy part for the filling up of the number of the Saints, upon which fullness the Resurrection shall follow. And thou shalt add a Voice, to that Old, and ever-new Song, that Catholic Hymn, in which, both Churches, Apoc. 5. 13. Militant and Triumphant, shall join, Blessing, Honour, Glory, and Power, be unto him, that sitteth upon the Throne, and to the Lamb, for ever, and ever. Amen. SERMON XLIII. A Sermon upon the fist of Novemb. 1622. being the Anniversary celebration of our Deliverance from the Powder Treason. Intended for Paul's Cross, but by reason of the weather, Preached in the Church. LAMENT. 4. 20. The breath of our nostrils, the Anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits. The Prayer before the Sermon. O LORD open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise; for thou, O Lord, didst make haste to help us, Thou, O Lord, didst make speed to save us. Thou that sittest in heaven, didst not only look down, to see what was done upon the Earth, but what was done in the Earth; and when the bowels of the Earth, were, with a key of fire, ready to open and swallow us, the bowels of thy compassion, were, with a key of love, opened to succour us; This is the day, and these are the hours, wherein that should have been acted: In this our Day, and in these hours, We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee, to be the Lord; All our Earth doth worship thee; The holy Church throughout all this Land, doth knowledge thee, with commemorations of that great mercy, now in these hours. Now, in these hours, it is thus commemorated, in the King's House, where the Head and Members praise thee; Thus, in that place, where it should have been perpetrated, where the Reverend Judges of the Land do now praise thee; Thus, in the Universities, where the tender youth of this Land, is brought up to praise thee, in a detestation of their Doctrines, that plotted this; Thus it is commemorated in many several Societies, in many several Parishes, and thus, here, in this Mother Church, in this great Congregation of thy Children, where, all, of all sorts, from the Lieutenant of thy Lieutenant, to the meanest son of thy son, in this Assembly, come with hearts, and lips, full of thanksgiving: Thou Lord, openest their lips, that their mouth may show forth thy praise, for, Thou, O Lord, didst make haste to help them, Thou didst make speed to save them. Accept, O Lord, this Sacrifice, to which thy Spirit giveth fire; This of Praise, for thy great Mercies already afforded to us, and this of Prayer, for the continuance, and enlargement of them, upon the Catholic Church, by them, who pretend themselves the only sons thereof; dishonoured this Day; upon these Churches of England, Scotland, and Ireland, shaked and threatened dangerously this Day; upon thy servant, our Sovereign, for his Defence of the true Faith, designed to ruin this day; upon the Prince, and others derived from the same root, some but Infants, some not yet Infants, enwrapped in dust, and annihilation, this day; upon all the deliberations of the Counsel, That in all their Consultations, they may have before their eyes, the Record and Registers of this Day; upon all the Clergy, That all their Preaching, and their Government, may preclude, in their several jurisdictions, all re-entrances of that Religion, which, by the Confession of the Actors themselves, was the only ground of the Treason of this day; upon the whole Nobility, and Commons, all involved in one Common Destruction, this Day; upon both our Universities, which though they lack no Arguments out of thy Word, against the Enemies of thy Truth, shall never leave out this Argument out of thy Works, The History of this Day; And upon all those, who are any ways afflicted, That our afflictions be not multiplied upon us, by seeing them multiplied amongst us, who would have diminished thee, and annihilated us, this Day; And lastly, upon this Auditory assembled here, That till they turn to ashes in the Grave, they may remember, that thou tookest them, as firebrands out of the fire, this Day. Hear us, O Lord, and hearken to us, Receive our Prayers, and return them with Effect, for his sake, in whose Name and words, we make them: Our Father which art, etc. The SERMON. OF the Author of this Book, I think there was never doubt made; but yet, that is scarce safely done, which the Council of Trent doth, in that Canon, which numbers the Books of Canonical Scriptures, to leave out this Book of Lamentations. For, though I make no doubt, but that they had a purpose to comprehend, and involve it, in the name of jeremy, yet that was not enough; for so they might have comprehended and involved, Genesis, and Deuteronomie, and all between those two, in one name of Moses; and so they might have comprehended, and involved, the Apocalypse, and some Epistles in the name of john, and have left out the Book itself in the number. Castro. But one of their own jesuits, though some, (whom in that Canon they seem to follow) make this Book of Lamentations, but an Appendix to the Prophecy of jeremy, determines, for all that Canon, that it is a distinct Book. Indeed, if it were not, the first Chapter would have been called, the 53 of jeremy, and not the first of the Lamentations. But that which gives most assuredness, is, That in divers Hebrew Bibles, it is placed otherwise, than we place it, and not presently, and immediately after the Prophecy of jeremy, but discontinued from him, though he were never doubted to be the Author thereof. The Book is certainly the Prophet Ieremies, and certainly a distinct book, But whether the Book be a history, or a Prophecy, whether jeremy lament that which he had seen, or that which he foresees, calamities past, or future calamities, things done, or things to be done, is a question which hath exercised, and busied divers Expositors. But, as we say of the Parable of Dives, and Lazarus, that it is a Historical parable, and a parabolical history, some such persons there were, and some such things were really done, but some other things were figuratively, symbolically, parabolically added: So we say of jeremy's Lamentation, It is a Prophetical history, and a Historical prophecy; Some of the sad occasions of these Lamentations were passed, when he writ, and some were to come after: for, we may not despise the testimony of the Chalde Paraphrasts, who were the first that illustrated the Bible, in that Nation, nor of S. Hierome, who was much conversant with the Bible, and with that Nation, nor of josephus, who had justly so much estimation in that Nation, nor of those later Rabbins, who were the learnedest of that Nation; who are all of opinion, that jeremy writ these Lamentations, after he saw some declinations in that State, in the death of josiah, and so the Book is Historical, but when he only foresaw their transportation into Babylon, before that calamity fell upon them, and so it is Prophetical. Or, if we take the exposition of the others, That the whole Book was written after their transportation into Babylon, and to be, in all parts, Historical, yet it is Prophetical still; for the Prophet laments a greater Desolation than that, in the utter ruin, and devastation of the City, and Nation, which was to fall upon them, after the death of Christ jesus. Neither is any piece of this Book, the less fit to be our Text, this day, because it is both Historical, and Prophetical, for, they, from whom, God, in his mercy, gave us a Deliverance, this day, are our Historical Enemies, and our Prophetical Enemies; historically we know, they have attempted our ruin heretofore, and prophetically we may be sure, they will do so again, whensoever any new occasion provokes them, or sufficient power enables them. The Text than is as the Book presented to Ezckiel; Divisio. Ezck. 2. 20. In it are written Lamentations, and Mournings, and Woe; and all they are written within, and without, says the Text there; within, as they concern the jews, without, as they are appliable to us: And they concern the jews, Historically (attempts upon that State jeremy had certainly seen,) and they concern them prophetically, for farther attempts jeremy did certainly foresee. They are appliable to us both ways too: Historically, because we have seen, what they would have done, And Prophetically, because we foresee what they would do. So that here is but a difference of the Computation; here is stilo veteri, and stilo nove; here is the jews Calendar, and the Papists Calendar; In the Jews Calendar, one Babylon, wrought upon the people of God, and in the Papists Calendar, another Babylon: Stilo veteri, in the Jews Calendar, 700 year before Christ came, there were pits made, and the breath of their nostrils, The anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits: Stilo nove, in the Papists Calendar, 1600 year after Christ came in all fullness, in all clearness, There were pits made again, and The breath of our nostrils, The anointed of the Lord, was almost taken in those pits. It is then Ieremies, and it is a distinct Book; It concerns the jews, and it concerns us too; And it concerns us both, both wages, Historically, and Prophetically. But whether jeremy lament here the death of a good King, of josiah, (for so Saint Hierome, and many of the Ancients, and many of the jews themselves take it, and think that those words in the Chronicles, have relation to these Lamentations, 2. 35. 25. And jeremy lamented for josiah, and all the people speak of him, in their Lamentations,) Or whether he lament the transportation and the misery of an ill King, of Zedekiah, (as is more ordinarily, and more probably held by the Expositors) we argue not, we dispute now; we embrace that which arises from both● That both good Kings, and bad Kings, josiah, and Zedekiah, are the anointed of the Lord, and the breath of the nostrils, that is, The life of the people; and therefore both to be lamented, when they fall into dangers, and consequently both to be preserved by all means, by Prayer from them who are private persons, by counsel from them, who have that great honour and that great charge, to be near them in that kind, and by support and supplly, from all, of all sorts, from falling into such dangers. These considerations will, I think, have the better impression in you, if we proceed in the handling of them thus: First, the main cause of the Lamentation was the Ruin, or the dangerous declination of the Kingdom of that great and glorious State, The Kingdom; But than they did not seditiously sever the King, and the Kingdom, as though the Kingdom could do well, and the King ill, That safe, and he in danger, for they see cause to lament, because misery was fallen upon the Person of the King; perchance upon josiah, a good, a religious King; perchance but upon Zedekiah, a worse King; yet which soever it be, they acknowledge him to be Vnctus Domini, The anointed of the Lord, and to be Spiritus narium, The breath of their nostrils: When this person therefore, was fallen into the pits of the Enemy, the Subject laments; but this lamenting because he was fallen, implies a deliverance, a restitution, he was fallen, but he did not lie there: so the Text, which is as yet but of Lamentation, will grow an hour hence to be of Congratulation; and then we shall see, That whosoever, in rectified affections, hath lamented a danger, and then congratulated a deliverance, he will provide against a relapse, a falling again into that or any other danger, by all means of sustaining the Kingdom and the King, in safety and in honour. Our first step then in this Royal progress, 1. Regnum. is, That the cause of this Lamentation, was, the declination, the diminution of the Kingdom. If the Centre of the world should be moved but one inch out of the place, it cannot be reckoned, how many miles, this Island, or any building in it, would be thrown out of their places; A declination in the Kingdom of the Jews, in the body of the Kingdom, in the soul of the State, in the form of Government, was such an Earthquake, as could leave nothing standing. Of all things that are, there was an Idea in God; there was a model, a platform, an examplar of every thing, which God produced and created in Time, in the mind and purpose of God before: Of all things God had and Idea, a preconception; but of Monarchy, of Kingdom, God, who is but one, is the Idea; God himself, in his Unity, ●s the Model, He is the Type of Monarchy. He made but one World; for, this, and the next, are not two Worlds; This is but the Morning, and that the everlasting Noon, of one and the same Day, which shall have no Night: They are not two Houses; This is the Gallery, and that the Bedchamber of one, and the same Palace, which shall feel no ruin. He made this one World, but one Eye, The Sun; The Moon is not another Eye, but a Glass; upon which, the Sun reflects. He made this one World, but one Ear, The Church; He tells not us, that he hears by a left Ear, by Saints, but by that right Ear, the Church he doth. There is One God, One Faith, One Baptism, and these lead us to the love of one Sovereign, of Monarchy, of Kingdom. In that Name, God hath conveyed to us the state of Grace, and the state of Glory too; and he hath promised both, in injoining that Petition, Adveniat Regnum, Thy Kingdom come, Thy Kingdom of Grace here, Thy Kingdom of Glory hereafter. All forms of Government have one and the same Soul, that is, Sovereignty; That resides somewhere in every form; and this Sovereignty is in them all, from one and the same Root, from the Lord of Lords, from God himself, for all Power is of God: But yet this form of a Monarchy, of a Kingdom, is a more lively, and a more masculine Organ, and Instrument of this Soul of Sovereignty, than the other forms are: We are sure Women have Souls as well as Men, but yet it is not so expressed, that God breathed a Soul into Woman, as he did into Man; All forms of Government have this Soul, but yet God infuseth it more manifestly, and more effectually, in that form, in a Kingdom: All places are alike near to Heaven, yet Christ would take a Hill, for his Ascension; All governments may justly represent God to me, who is the God of Order, and fountain of all government, but yet I am more eased, and more accustomed to the contemplation of Heaven, in that notion, as Heaven is a kingdom, by having been borne, and bred in a Monarchy: God is a Type of that, and that is a Type of Heaven. This form then, Iudaeis promissa. in nature the noblest, in use the profitablest of all others; God always intended to his best-beloved people, God always meant that the Jews should have a King, though he prepared them in other forms before; As he meant them peace at last, though he exercised them in War, and meant them the land of promise, though he led them through the Wilderness; so he meant them a King, though he prepared them by judges. God intended it in himself, and he declared it to them, 400 years before he have them a King, Deut. 17. 14. he instructed them, what kind of King they should set over them, when they came to that kind of government: And long before that he made a promise, Gen. 49. 10. by jacob to judah of a Kingdom, and that the Sceptre should not depart from him, till Siloh came. And when God came near the time, in which he intended to them that government, in the time of Samuel, who was the immediate predecessor to their first King, Saul, God made way for a Monarchy; for Samuel had a much more absolute authority, in that State, than any of the Judges had; Samuel judged them, and in their petition for a King, 1 Sam. 8. 5. they ask but that, Make us a King to judge us; Samuel was little less than a King; and Saul's reign, and his, are reckoned both in one number, and made as the reign of one man; Acts 13. 21. when it is said in the Acts, that Saul reigned 40 years, samuel's time is included in that number, for all the years, from the death of Eli, ● to the beginning of David, are but 40 years. God meant them a Kingdom in himself, promised them a kingdom in judah, made Laws for their kingdom in Deuteronomy, made way for the kingdom in Samuel, and why then was God displeased with their petition for a Kingdom? It was a greater fault in them, than it could have been in any other people, to ask a King; not that it was not the most desirable form of government, but that God governed them, so immediately, so presentially himself, as that it was an ingrateful intemperance in them, to turn upon any other means; God had ever performed that which he promised them, in that which comprehended all, Ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me, Exod. 19 5. above all people; And therefore josephus hath expressed it well; All other people are under the form of Democrati●, or Aristocrati●, or such other forms, composed of men; Sed noster Legislator, Theocratiam instituit, The Jews were only under a Theocratic, an immediate government of God, he judged them himself, and he himself fought their battles: And therefore God says to Samuel, They have not rejected thee, Thou wast not King, But they have rejected me, I was. To be weary of God, is it enough to call it a levity? But if they did only compare form with form, and not God himself with any form, if they did only think Monarchy best, and believe that God intended a Monarchy to them, yet yet to limit God his time, and to make God perform his promise before his day, was a fault, and inexcusable. Daniel saw, that the Messiah should come within seventy weeks: Daniel did not say, Lord, let it be within fifty weeks, or let it be this week: The Martyrs under the Altar, cry Vsqueque Domine, How long Lord, but then, they leave it there, Even as long as pleaseth thee: Their petition should have been, Adveniat regnum ●words●, Let us have that Kingdom, which because thou knowest it is good for us, thou hast promised to us; But yet Fiat voluntas tua, Let us have it then, when thy Wisdom sees it best for us: 1 Sam. 12. 12. You said to me (says Samuel, by way of Reproof and Increpation) You said, Nay but a King shall reign over us; Now, that was not their fault; but that which follows, The unseasonablesse and inconsideration of their clamorous Petition, You said a King shall reign over us, when the Lord your God, was your King; They would not trust God's means, there was their first fault: And then, though they desired a thing good in itself, and a good intended to them, yet they fixed God his time, and they would not stay his leisure; And either of these, To ask other things than God would give, or at other times, then God would give them, is displeasing to him: Use his means, and stay his leisure. But yet, Dabat. though God were displeased with them, he executed his own purpose; he was angry with their manner of ask a King, but yet he gave them a King: Howsoever God be displeased with them, who prevaricate in his cause, who should sustain it, and do not, God's cause shall be sustained, though they do it not. We may distinguish the period of the Jewish State well enough, thus, that they had Infantiam, or pueritiam, their infancy, their minority, in Adam, and the first Patriarches till the flood: that they had Adolescentiam, A growing time, from Noah, through the other Patriarches, till Moses: and that they had Iuventu●em, a youth and strength from Moses, through the Judges, to Saul: but then they had Virilitatom, virilem, atatem, their established vigour, under their Kings; and after them, they fell in s●nectutem, into a wretched and miserable decay of old age, and decrepitness: their kingdom was their best State; and so much, Ezek. 16. 3. God in the Prophet, intimates pregnantly, when refreshing to their memories, in a particular Inventory, and Catalogue, all his former benefits to them, how he clothed jerusalem, how he fed, her; how he adorned her, he summed up all, in this one, & profecisti in regnum, I have advanced thee, to be a kingdom: there was the Tropic, there was the Solstice, farther than that, in this world, we know not how God could go; a kingdom was really the best State upon Earth, and Symbolically, the best figure, and Type of Heaven. And therefore, when the Prophet jeremy, historically beheld the declination of this kingdom, in the death of I●osiah, and prophetically foresaw the ruins thereof, in the transportition of Zedekiah, or, if he had seen that historically too, yet prophetically he foresaw the utter devastation, and depopulation, and extermination, which scattered that nation, soon after Christ, to this day, (and God and no man knows, for how long,) when they, who were a kingdom, are now no where a village, and they who had such Kings, have now no where a Constable of their own, historically, prophetically, jeremy had just cause of lamentation for the danger of that kingdom. We had so also, for this our kingdom, this day; God hath given us a kingdom, not as other kingdoms, made up of divers Cities, but of divers kingdoms, and all those kingdoms were destined to desolation, in one minute. It was not only the destruction of the persons present, but of the kingdoms for to submit the kingdom to the government of a foreign Prelate, was to destroy the Monarchy, to annihilate the Supremacy, to ruin the very form of a kingdom; a kingdom under another head, besides the King, is not a kingdom, as ours is. The oath that the Emperor takes to the Pope, is by their authors called juramentum Sidelitatis, an oath of Allegiance; and if they had brought our Kings, to take an oath of Allegiance so, this were no kingdom. Pope Nicolas the second, went about to create two kingdoms, that of Tuscan, and that of Lombardy; his successors have gone about to destroy more; for to make it depend upon him, were to destroy our kingdom. That they have attempted historically; and as long as these Axioms, and Aphorisms remain in their Authors, that one shall say, that De jurs? by right all Christian kingdoms do hold of the Pope, and De facto, are forfeited to the Hope, and another shall say, that Christendom would be better governed if the Pope would take the forfeiture, and so bring all these Royal farms, into his own demesne, we see also, their prophetical desire, their prophetical intention, against this kingdom, what they would do: In their Actions we have their history, in their Axioms we have their prophecy. jeremy lamented the desolation of the kingdom, Regnum in Rege. but that, expressed in the death, and destruction of the King. He did not divide the King and the kingdom, as if the kingdom could do well, and the King in distress: Umnipotentia Dei, Asylum haeresic●rum; it is well said, by more than one of the ancients, that the Omnipotence of God, is the Sanctuary of Heretics: when they would establish any heresy, they fly to God's Almightiness. God can do All, therefore he can do this. So, in the Roman Church, they establish their heresy of Transubstantiation; And so, their deliverance of souls not from Purgatory only, but from Hell itself. They think to stop all mouths with that, God can do it, no man dares deny that; when as, if that were granted, (which, in such things, as naturally imply contradiction in themselves, or contradiction to God's word, cannot be granted, for God cannot do that, God cannot lie,) yet though God can do it, concludes not that God will do it, or hath done it: Omnipotenti● Dei Asylum haereticorum, The omnipotency of God, is the Sanctuary of Heretics, and so, Salus Regni, is Asylum proditorum, Greater Treasons, and Seditions, and Rebellions have never been set on foot, then upon colour, and pretence, of a care of the State, and of the good of the Kingdom. Every where, the King is Sponsus Regni, the husband of the Kingdom; and to make love to the King's wife, and undervalue him, must necessarily make any King jealous: The King is Anima Regni, The soul of the Kingdom; and to provide for the health of the body, with the detriment of the soul, is perverse physic: The King is Caput Regni, The head of the Kingdom; and to cure a Member, by cutting off the head, is ill surgery: Man and wife, soul and body, head and members, God hath joined, and those whom God hath joined, let no man sever. Salus Regni, Asylum Proditorum, To pretend to uphold the Kingdom, and overthrow the King, hath ever been the tentation before, and the excuse after, in the greatest Treasons. In that action of the jews, which we insisted upon before, 1. Sam. 8. in their pressing for a King, The Elders of Israel were gathered together, and so far they were in their way, for this was no popular, no seditious Assembly of light and turbulent men, but The Elders; And then, they came to Samuel, And so far they were in their right way too, for they held no counsels apart, but came to the right place, for redress of grievances, to their then highest Governor, to Samuel: When they were thus lawfully met, they forbear not to lay open unto him, the injustice of his greatest Officers, though it concerned the very Sons of Samuel; and thus far they kept within their convenient limits; But when they would press Samuel to a new way of remedy, to an inconvenient way, to a present way, to their own way, and refer nothing to him, what care soever they pretended of the good of the State, it is evident, that they had no good opinion of Samuel himself, and even that displeased God, That they were ill affected to that person, whom he had set over them. To sever the King, and the Kingdom, and pretend the weal of the one, without the other, is to shake and discompose God's building. Historically this was the Jews case, when jeremy lamented here, if he lamented the declination of the State, in the death of the King josiah, And if he lamented the transportation of Zedekiah, and that that cross were not yet come upon them; Or if he lamented the future devastation of that Nation, occasioned by the death of the King of Kings Christ Jesus, when he came into the world, this was their case prophetically: Either way, historically, or prophetically, jeremy looks upon the Kingdom, but yet through that glass, through the King. The duty of the Day, and the order of the Text, invites us to an application of this branch too. Our adversaries did not come to say to themselves, Nolumus Regnum hoc, we will not have this Kingdom stand, Luke 14. 14. the material Kingdom, the plenty of the Land, they would have been content to have, but the formal Kingdom, that is, This form of Government, by a Sovereign King, that depends upon none but God, they would not have. So that they came implicitly 〈◊〉 Nolumus Regnum hoc, we will not have this Kingdom governed thus, and they came explicitly to a Nolumus Regem hunc (as the Jews were resolved of Christ) We will not have this King to govern at all. Non hunc? Will you not have him? you were at your Nolumus hanc long before; Her, whom God had set over you, before him, you would not have. Your, not Anniversary, but Hebdomadary Treasons, cast upon her a necessity of drawing blood often, and so your Nolumus h●nc, your desire that she were gone, might have some kind of ground, or colour: But for your Nolumus hunc, for this King who had made no Inquisition for blood, who had forborn your very pecuniary penalties, who had (as himself witnesses of himself) made you partakers with his Subjects of his own Religion, in matters of grace, and in real benefits, Psal. 2. 1. and in Titles of Honour, Quare fremuerant, Why did these men rage, and imagine a vain thing? What they did historically, we know; They made that house, which is the hive of the Kingdom, from whence all her honey comes; that house where justice herself is conceived, in their preparing of Laws, and inanimated, and quickened and borne by the Royal Assent, there given; they made that whole house one Murdering piece, and charged that piece with Peers, with People, with Princes, with the King, and meant to discharge it upward at the face of heaven, to shoot God at the face of God, Him, of whom God hath said, Dii estis, You are Gods, at the face of God, that had said so, as though they would have reproached the God of heaven, and not have been beholden to him for such a King, but shoot him up to him, and bid him take his King again, with a nolumus hunc regnare, we will not have this King to reign over us. This was our case Historically, and what it is Prophetically, as long as that remains to be their doctrine, which he, against whom that attempt was principally made, found by their examination; to be their doctrine, That they, and no Sect in the world, but they, did make Treason an article of Religion, That their Religion bound them to those attempts, so long they are never at an end; Till they dis-avow those Doctrines, that conduce to that, prophetically they wish, prophetically they hope for better success in as ill attempts. It is then the kingdom that jeremy laments; but his nearest object is the King; He laments him. First, let it be, (as with S. Hierome, many of the Ancients, and with them, many of the later Rabbins will have it) for Josiah, for a good King, in whose death, the honour, and the strength of the kingdom took that deadly wound, to become tributary to a foreign Prince: for, to this lamentation they refer those words of the Prophet, which describe a great sorrow, Zech. 12. 11. In that day shall there be a great mourning in jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon, in the valley of Megiddon; which was the place, where josiah was slain; There shall be such a lamentation (says the Prophet, in this interpretation) as was for the death of josiah. This than was for him; for a good King. Wherein have we his goodness expressed? 2 Reg. 22. 2. Abundantly. He did that which was right in God's fight; (And whose Eye need he fear, that is right in the Eye of God?) But how long did he so? To the end; for, Nero, who had his Quinquennium, and was a good Emperor for his first five years, was one of the worst of all: He that is ill all the way, is but a Tyrant, He that is good at first, and after ill, an Angel's face, and a Serpent's tail make him a Monster; josiah began well, and persevered so, He turned not aside to the right ●and, nor to the left. That is, (if we apply it to the josiah of our times) neither to the fugitive, that leaves our Church, and goes to the Roman, nor to the Separatist, that leaves our Church, and goes to none. In the eighteenth year of his reign, josiah undertook the reparation of God's house; If we apply this to the josiah of our times, I think, in that year of his reign, he visited this Church, and these walls, and meditated, and persuaded the reparation thereof. 2●. 25. In one word, Like unto josiah, there was no King before, nor after. And therefore there was just cause of lamentation for this King, for josiah; historically for the very loss of his person, prophetically for the misery of the State, after his death. Our errand is to day, to apply all these branches to the day; Those men who intended us, this cause of lamentation this day, in the destruction of our josiah, spared him not, because he was so, because so, because he was a josiah, because he was good; no, not because he was good to them, his benefits to them, had not mollified them, towards him: for that is not their way; Both the French Henry's were their own, and good to them; but did that rescue either of them, from the knife? And was not that Emperor, whom they poisoned in the Sacrament, their own, and good to them? and yet was that, any Antidote against their poison? To so reprobate a sense hath God given them over herein, as that, though in their Books, they lie heaviest upon Princes of our Religion, yet truly they have destroyed more of their own, then of ours. Thus it is Historically in their proceedings past: And Prophetically it can be but thus, since no King is good, in their sense, if he agree not to all points of Doctrine with them: And when that is done, not good yet, except he agree in all points of jurisdiction too; and that, no King can do, that will not be their Farmer of his Kingdom. Their Authors have disputed Auferibilitatem Papae, whether the Church of God might not be without a pope, they have made a problematical, a disputable matter, and some of their Authors have diverted towards an affirmation of it; but Aufleribilitas potestatis, to imagine a King without Kingly Sovereignty, never came into problem, into disputation. We all lamented, and bitterly, and justly, the loss of our Deborah, though then we saw a josiah succeeding: but if they had removed our josiah, and his Royal children, and so, this form of government, where, or who, or what had been an object of Consolation to us? The cause of lamentation in the loss of a good King, Rex malus. is certainly great, and so it was, if jeremy lamented josiah; but if it were but for zedekiah, an ill King, (as the greater part of Expositors take it) yet the lamentation you see, is the same. How ill a King was Zedekiah? 2 Reg. 24. 19 As ill, as josiah was good, that's his measure. He did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that jehoiakim had done; Here is his sin, sin by precedent; and what had jehoiakim done? 2 Reg. 25. ult. He had done evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his Fathers had done. It is a great, and a dangerous wickedness, which is done upon pretext of Antiquity; The Religion of our Fathers, the Church of our Fathers, the Worship of our Fathers, is a pretext that colours a great deal of Superstition. He did evil, as his Fathers; there was his comparative evil: And his positive evil, (I mean, his particular sin) was, 2. C●●. 36. 12. Ver. 13. That he humbled not himself to God's Prophets, to jeremy speaking from the mouth of the Lord; there was irreligiousness; And then, He broke the Oath which he had sworn by God, there was perfidiousness, faithlesnsse; And lastly, He stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart, from turning to the Lord of Israel, there was impenitibleness: Thus evil was Zedekiah, irreligious to God, treacherous to man, impenitible to himself, and yet the State, and men truly religious in the State, the Prophet lamented him; not his spiritual defections, by sin; for, they did not make themselves Judges of that; but they lamented the calamities of the Kingdom, in the loss even of an evil King. That man must have a large comprehension, that shall adventure to say of any King, He is an ill King; he must know his Office well, and his actions well, and the actions of other Princes too, who have correspondence with him, before he can say so. When Christ says, Mat. ●. 37. Let your communication be yea, yea, and nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than this, (that is, when it comes to swearing) that cometh of evil, Saint Augustine does not understand that, of the evil disposition of that man that swears, but of them, who will not believe him, without wearing; Many times a Prince departs from the exact rule of his duty, not out of his own indisposition to truth, and clearness, but to countermine underminers. Vers. 26. That which David says in the eighteenth Psalm, David speaks, not of man, but of God himself; Cum perverso perveriêris, With the froward, thou wilt show thyself froward; God, who is of no froward nêature, may be made froward; with crafty neighbours, a Prince will be crafty, and perchance false with the false. Alas, (to look into no other profession but our own) how often do we excuse Dispensations, and pluralities, and non-residencies, with an Omnes faciunt, I do, but as other men of my profession, do? Allow a King but that, That he does but as other Kings do, Nay, but this, He does but as other Kings put him to a necessity to do, and you will not hastily call a King an ill King. When God gives his people for old shoes, and sells them for nothing, and, at the same time, gives his and their enemy's abundance, when God commands Abraham, to sacrifice his own and only Son, and his enemies have Children at their pleasure, as David speaks, To give yourselves the liberty of humane affection, you would think God an ill God; but yet, for all this, his children are to him, a Royal Priesthood, and a holy Nation; and all their tears are in his bottles, and registered in his book, for all this. When Princes pretermit in some things, the present benefit of their Subjects, and confer favours upon others give yourselves the liberty to judge of Prince's actions, with the affections of private men, and you may think a King an ill King: But yet, we are to him, as David says, 2 Sam. 19 12. His brethren, his bone, his flesh, and so reputed by him. God himself cannot stand upright in a natural man's interpretation, nor any King in a private man's. But then, how soon our adversaries come to call Kings, ill Kings, we see historically, when they boast of having deposed Kings, Quia minus utiles, Because some other hath seemed to them, fitter for the Government; and we see it prophetically, by their allowing those Indictments, and Attainders of Kings, which stand in their books De Syndicatu, That that King which neglects the duties of his place (and they must prescribe the duty, and judge the negligence too) That King that exercises his Prerogative, without just cause (and they must prescribe the Prerogative, and judge the cause,) That that King that vexes his Subjects, That that King that gives himself to intemperate hunting (for in that very particular they instance) that in such cases, (and they multiply these cases infinitely) Kings are in their mercy, and subject to their censures, and corrections. We proceed not so, in censuring the actions of Kings; we say, with St. Cyrill, Impium est dicere Regi, Iniquè agis; It is an impious thing, (in him, who is only a private man, and hath no other obligations upon him) to say to the King, or of the King, He governs not as a King is bound to do: we remit the judgement of those their actions, which are secret to God; and when they are evident, and bad, yet we must endeavour to preserve their persons; for there is a danger in the loss, and a lamentation due to the loss, even of Zedekiah, for even such are uniti Domini, The anointed of the Lord, and the breath of our nostrils. First, (as it lies in our Text) The King is spiritus narium, Spiritus Narium. the breath of our vostrills. First, Spiritus, is a name, most peculiarly belonging to that blessed Person of the glorious Trinity, whose Office it is to convey, to insinuate, to apply to us the Mercies of the Father, and the Merits of the Son: He is called by this Name, by the word of this Text, Ruach, even in the beginning of the Creation, God had created Heaven and Earth, and then The Spirit of God, sus●labat, saith Pagnins translation, (and so saith the Chalde Paraphrase too) it breathed upon the waters, and so induced, or deduced particular forms. So God hath made us, a little World of our own, This Island; He hath given us Heaven and Earth, The truth of his Gospel, which is our earnest of Heaven, and the abundance of the Earth, a fruitful Land; but then he, who is the Spirit of the Lord, he who is the breath of our nostrils, Incubat aquis, (as it is said there in the Creation) he moves upon the waters, by his royal and warlike Navy at Sea, (in which he hath expressed a special and particular care) And by the breath and influence of his providence throughout the Land, he preserves, he applies, he makes useful those blessings unto us. If this breath, that is, this power, be at any time sourd in the passage, and contract an i'll savour by the pipes that convey it, so, as that his good intentions are ill executed by inferior Ministers, this must not be imputed to him; That breath that comes from the East, the bed and the garden of spices, when it is breathed out there, is a presume, but by passing over the beds of Serpents and putrefied Lakes, it may be a breath of poison in the West: Princes purpose some things for ease to the people, (and as such, they are sometimes presented to them) and if they prove grievances, they took their putrefaction in the way, that is, their corruption, from corrupt executors of good and wholesome intentions; The thing was good in the root, and the ill cannot be removed in an instant. But then, Spiritus sermo. we carry not this word Ruach, Spirit, so high; though since God hath said that Kings are Gods, the Attribute of the Holy Ghost and his Office, which is, to apply to man the goodness of God, belongs to Kings also; for, God gives, but they apply all blessings to us. But here, we take the word literally, as it is in the Text; Ruach, spirit, is the Breath that we breathe, the Life that we live; The King is that Breath, that Life, and therefore that belongs to him. First our Breath, that is, serme, our speech belongs to him; Be faithful unto him, and speak good of his Name, is commanded by David of God. To Gods Anointed, we are not faithful, if we do not speak good of his Name. First, there is an internal, speech in the heart, and God looks to that; the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God; though he say it but in his heart, yet he is a fool: for, as wise as a Politician would think him, for saying it in his heart, and coming no further, yet even that is an overt act with God, for God seeth the heart. It is the fool that saith in his heart, there is no God, and it is the fool that saith in his heart, I would there were no King. That enormous, that infamous Tragedy of the Levites Concubines, and her murder, of which it is said there, jud. 19 30. There was no such thing seen, nor done before, (and many things are done, which are never seen) with that emphatical addition, Consider of it, advise, and say your mind, hath this addition too, In those days there was no King in Israel; If there had been any King, but a Zedekiah, it could not have been so: Eccles. 10. 20. Curse not the King, not in thy thoughts: for, they are sins that tread upon the heels of one another, and that induce one another, to conceive ill of God's Lieutenant, and of God himself; for so the Prophet joineth them, They shall fret themselves, Esay 8. 21. and curse their King, and their God: He that beginneth with the one, will proceed to the other. Thus than he is our Breath; our Breath is his; our speech must be contained, not expressed in his dishonour; not in misinterpretations of his Actions; jealousies have often made women ill; incredulity, suspiciousness, jealousy in the Subject, hath wrought ill effects upon Princes, otherwise not ill. We must not speak ill; but our duty is not accomplished in that abstinence, we must speak well: And in those things, which will not admit a good interpretation, we must be apt to remove the perverseness and obliquity of the act from him, who is the first mover to those who are inferior instruments. In these divers opinions which are ventilated in the School, how God concurreth to the working of second and subordinate causes, that opinion is I think, the most ancient, that denies that God works in the second cause, but hath only communicated to it, a power of working, and rest himself. This is not true; God does work in every Organ, and in every particular action; but yet though he do work in all, yet he is no cause of the obliquity, of the perverseness of any action. Now, earthly Princes are not equal to God; They do not so much as work in particular actions of instruments; many times, they communicate power to others, and rest wholly themselves; and then, the power is from them, but the perverseness of the action is not. God does work in ill actions, and yet is not guilty, but Princes do not so much as work therein, and so may be excusable; at least, for any cooperation in the evil of the action, though not for countenancing, and authorising an evil instrument; but that is another case. They are our breath then; Our breath is theirs, in good interpretations of their actions; 1 Tim. 2. 1. and it is theirs especially, in our prayers to Almighty God, for them. The Apostle exhorts us to pray; for whom? first, for all men in general; but in the first particular, that he descends to, for Kings. And both Theodoret, and Theophylact, make that the only reason, why the Apostle did not name Kings first, Vt non videatur adulari, lest he should seem to flatter Kings: Whether mankind itself, or Kings, by whom mankind is happy here, be to be preferred in prayer, you see both Theodoret, and Theophylact, make it a problem. And those prayers, there enjoined, were for Infidel Kings, and for persecuting Kings; for even such Kings, were the breath of their nostrils; their breath, their speech, their prayers were due to them. But then, beloved, a man may convey a Satir into a Prayer; a man may make a prayer a Libel; If the intention of the prayer be not so much, to incline God to give those graces to the King, as to tell the world, that the King wants those graces, it is a Libel. We say sometimes in scorn to a man, God help you, and God send you wit; and therein, though it have the sound of a prayer, we call him fool. So we have seen of late, some in obscure Conventicles, institute certain prayers, That God would keep the King, and the Prince in the true Religion; The prayer is always good, always useful; but when that prayer is accompanied with circumstances, as though the King and the Prince were declining from that Religion, than even the prayer itself is libellous, and seditious; Saint Paul, in that former place, apparels a Subjects prayer well, when he says, Let prayers be given with thanks; Let our prayers be for continuance of the blessings, which we have, and let our acknowledgement of present blessings, be an inducement for future: pray, and praise together; pray thankfully, pray not suspiciously: for, beloved in the bowels of Christ Jesus, before whose face I stand now, and before whose face, I shall not be able to stand amongst the righteous, at the last day, if I lie now, and make this Pulpit my Shop, to vent sophisticate Wares, In the presence of you, a holy part, I hope, of the Militant Church, of which I am, In the presence of the whole Triumphant Church, of which, by him, by whom I am that I am, I hope to be, In the presence of the Head of the whole Church, 1. Cor. 7. 44. who is All in all, ay, (and I think I have the Spirit of God,) (I am sure, I have not resisted it in this point) I, (and I may be allowed to know something in Civil affairs) (I am sure I have not been stupefied in this point) do deliver that, which upon the truth of a Moral man, and a Christian man, and a Church man, believe to be true, That he, who is the Breath of our nostrils, is in his heart, as far from submitting us to that Idolatry, and superstition, which did heretofore oppress us, as his immediate Predecessor, whose memory is justly precious to you, was: Their ways may be divers, and yet their end the same, that is, The glory of God; And to a higher Comparison, then to her, I know not how to carry it. As then the Breath of our nostrils, our breath, is his, that is, our speech, first, in containing it, not to speak in his diminution; then in uttering it amongst men; to interpret fairly, and loially, his proceedings; and then in uttering it to God, in such prayers for the continuing thereof, as imply a thankful acknowledgement of the present blessings, spiritual and temporal, which we enjoy now by him; So far, Breath is speech; but Breath is life too, and so our life is his. How willingly his Subjects would give their lives for him, I make no doubt, but he doubts not. This is argument enough for their propenseness and readiness, to give their lives, for his honour, or for the possessions of his children; That though not contra voluntatem, not against his will, yet Praeter voluntatem, without any Declaration of his will, or pleasure, by any Command, they have been as ready voluntarily, as if a Press had commanded them. But these ways, which his wisdom hath chosen for the procuring of peace, have kept off much occasion of trial, of that, how willingly his Subjects would have given their lives for him. Yet, their lives are his, who is the breath of their nostrils: And therefore, though they do not leave them for him, let them lead them for him; though they be not called to die for him, let them live so, as that may be for him; to live peaceably, to live honestly, to live industriously, is to live for him; for, the sins of the people endanger the Prince, as much as his own. When that shall be required at your hand, then die for him; In the mean time, live for him; live so, as your living do not kindle God's anger against him, and that is a good Confession, and acknowledgement, That he is the breath of your nostrils, That your life is his. As then the breath of our nostrils, Animd. Gen. 2. 7. is expressed by this word in this Text, Ruach, spiritus, speech, and life, so it is his. When the breath of life was first breathed into man, there is called by another word, Neshamah, and that is the soul, the immortal soul: And is the King the breath of that life? Is he the soul of his Subjects so, as that their souls are his; so, as that they must sin towards men, in doing unjust actions, or sin towards God, in forsaking, and dishonouring him, if the King will have them? If I had the honour to ask this question, in his royal presence, I know he would be the first man, that would say No, No; your souls are not mine, so. And, as he is a most perfect Text-man, in the Book of God, (and by the way, I should not easily fear his being a Papist, that is a good Text-man) I know he would cite Daniel, saying, Though our God do not deliver us, yet know, O King, that we will not worship thy Gods; Act. 5. 29. And I know he would cite S. Peter, We ought to obey God, rather than men; And he would cite Christ himself, Fear not them, (for the soul) that cannot hurt the soul. He claims not your souls so: It is Ruach here, it is not Neshamah; your life is his, your soul is not his, in that sense. But yet, beloved, these two words are promiscuously used in the Scriptures; Ruach is often the soul; Neshamah; is often the temporal life; And thus far, the one, as well as the other, is the Kings, That he must answer for your souls; so they are his; for he is not a King of bodies, but a King of men, bodies and souls; nor a King of men only, but of Christian men; so your Religion, so your souls are his; his, that is, appertaining to his care, and his account. And therefore, though you owe no obedience to any power under heaven, so as to decline you from the true God, or the true worship of that God, and the fundamental things thereof, yet in those things, which are, in their nature but circumstantial, and may therefore, according to times, and places, and persons, admit alterations, in those things, though they be things appertaining to Religion, submit yourselves to his directions; for here, the two words meet, Ruach, and Neshamah, your lives are his, and your souls are his too; His end being to advance God's truth, he is to be trusted much, in matters of indifferent nature, by the way. He is the word of our Text, Spiritus, as Spiritus is the Holy Ghost, so far, by accommodation, as that he is God's instrument to convey blessings upon us; and as spiritus is our breath, of speech, and as it is our life, and as it is our soul too, so far, as that in those temporal things which concern spiritual, (as Times of meeting, and much of the manner of proceeding when we are met) we are to receive directions from him: So he is the breath of our nostrils, our speech, our lives, our souls, in that limited sense, are his. But then, did those subjects of his (And I charge none but his subjects, with this plot, for, I judge not them who are without) from whom God delivered us this day, did they think so of him, That he was the breath of our nostrils? If the breath be sour, if it be tainted and corrupt, (as they would needs think, in this case) is it good Physic for an ill breath, to cut off the head, or to suffocate it, to smother, to strangle, to murder that man? He is the breath of their nostrils; They owe him their speech, their thanks, job 30. 1. their prayers, and how have these children of fools made him their song, and their byword? How have these Drunkards, (men drunk with the Babylonian Cup) made Libels against him? Act. 17. 18. How have those Seminatores verborum, word-scatterers, defamed him, even with contrary defamations. Heretofore, that he persecuted their Religion, when he did not; now, that he hath left his own Religion. He is their breath, they owe him their tongues, and how foully do they speak; and they owe him their lives, and how prodigally do they give away their lives to others, that they might take away His? He is their breath, (as breath is the soul) that is, Accountant for their souls, and how have they raised themselves out of his Audit, and withdrawn themselves from his Allegiance? This they have done historically, and to say prophetically, what they would do, first, their Extenuation of this fact, when they call it an enterprise of a few unfortunate Gentlemen. And then their Exaltation of this fact, when they make the principal person in it, a Martyr, this is prophecy enough, that since they are not ashamed of the Original, they will not be afraid to copy it often, and pursue the same practices, to the same end. Let it be josiah then, Vnctus Domini. let it be Zedekiah, he was the Breath, the life of his Subjects, (and that was the first attribute) and he was The Anointed of the Lord, which is the other. Unction itself always separated that which was anointed from profane, and secular use; unction was a religious distinction. It had that signification in practice, before any Law was given for it; when jacob had had that vision upon the stone, Gen. 28. 18. which made him see, that that place was the house of God, and the gate of heaven, than he took up that stone which he had stepped upon, and set it up for a pillar, and anointed it. This was the practice in nature; and then the precept in the Law, was, as for the Altar itself, so for many other things. belonging to the service of God in the Temple, Exod 29. 36. Thou shalt anoint them, to sanctify them. Thus it was for things; and then, if we consider persons, we see the dignity that anointing gave; for it was given but to three sorts of persons, to Kings, to priests, and to Prophets: Kings, and Priests had it, to testify their ordinary, and permanent, and indelible jurisdiction, their power is laid on in Oil; And Prophets had it, because they were extraordinarily raised to denounce, and to execute God's Judgements, upon persons that were anointed, upon Priests, and upon Kings too, in those cases, for which, they were then particularly employed. Thus than it is, anointed things could not be touched, but by anointed persons, and then anointed persons could not be touched, but by persons anointed; The Priest not directed, but by the King; The King, as King, not corrected, but by the prophet: And this was the State, that they lamented so compassionately, That their King, thus anointed, thus exempted, was taken prisoner, saw his Sons slain in his presence, and then had his own eyes pulled out, was bound in chains, and carried to Babel. And less than this, in himself, and in his Son, and in all, was not intended this day, against our, not Zedekiah, but josiah: for death (speaking in nature) hath all particular miseries in it. An anointed King (and many King's anointed there are not) and he that is anointed prae Consortibus suis, above his fellow Kings, (for, I think, no other King of his Religion, is anointed) The anointed of the Lord, who in this Text hath both those great names, Meshiach Iehovah● Christus Domini, as though he had been but the Bramble anointed for King of the Trees, judg. 9 8. and so made the fitter fuel for their ●ire, as though (as David's lamentation is for Saul) He had not been anointed with Oil, 2 Sam. 1. 21. This eye of God, he by whom God looks upon us, This hand of God, he by whom God protects us, This foot of God, he by whom, in his due time, (and Vsquequo Domine, How long, O Lord, before that time come?) God shall tread down, his own, and our enemies, was swallowed and devoured by them, in their confidence of their own plot, and their infallible assurance of his perishing. So it was historically; And how it stands prophetically, that is, What such as they were, would do for the future; as long as they write, (not in Libels clandestinely and subreptitiously stolen out, Coquaeus. fo. 18. but avowed by public Authority) That our Priests are no Priests, but the Priests of ●aal, for so they write, That the conspiracy of this day, being against him, fol. 39 who oppressed Religion, was as just, as that against Caesar, who did but oppress the State, fol. 43. And that they write, That those who were the actors herein, are therefore saved, because at their execution, they submitted all to the Roman Church, fol. 78. and were content, if the Church condemned it, then to repent the Fact, for so they write also, That the Religion of our present King, is no better, than the Religion of jeroboam, fol. 65. or of Num● Pompilius, for so they write too, that the last Queen, though an Heretic, yet because she was Anointed, did cure that disease, The King's evil, but because, in scorn thereof, the King refused to be anointed at his Coronation, therefore he cannot cure that disease, and so non dicendus unctus Domini, he is not to be called the Anointed of the Lord, says that Author, (for all these are the words of one man, and one, who had no other provocation to say all this but only the Kings Apology for the oath of Allegiance) by retaining in their avowed books, and by relying upon such Authors, and Authorities as these, which remain for their future instruction, we see their dispositions for the future, and judge of them prophetically, as well as historically. Now the misery which is here lamented, Captus. the declination of the kingdom, in the person of the King, is thus expressed, He was taken in their pits; taken, and taken in pits, and taken in their pits, are so many stairs, so many descents, so many gradations (rather degradations) in this calamity. Let it be josiah, let it be Zedekiah; They were taken; taken, and never returned; Let it be our josiah, and will it hold in that application? Was he taken? He was plotted for, but was he Taken? When he himself takes public knowledge, that both at home and abroad, those of the Roman persuasion, assured themselves, of some especial work, for the advancement of their cause, at that time, when they had taken that assurance, he was so taken, taken in that their assurance, infallibly taken in their opinion; so, as this kingdom was taken in their opinion, who thought their Navy invincible; so this King was taken in their assurance, who thought this plot infallible. He was taken, Fovea. and in fovea, in a pit, says the Text; If our first translation would serve, the sorrow were the less, for there it is, he was taken in their net; now, a man that flattereth, spreadeth a net, and a Prince that discerns not a flatterer, from a Counsellor, is taken in a net; but that's not so desperate, as in a pit: In josiahs' case, it was a pit, a Grave; in Zedekiahs' case, it was a pit, a prison: in our josiahs' case, it was fully, as it is in the Text, not in fovea, but in foveis, Foveis. plurally, in their pits, in their divers pits; death in the mine where they began, death in the Cellar where they pursued their mischief. And then it was in foveis Illorum, Illorum. in their pits, says the Text; but the Text does not tell us, in whose; in the verse before, it is said, our persecutors did this, and this, than it follows, He was taken in their pits; In the persecutors pits certainly; but yet, 2 Chron. 35. 23. who are they? If it were josiah that was taken, the persecutor was Necho, King of Egypt, for from his army, josiah received his death's wound: If it were Zedekiah, the persecutor was Nabuchadnezzar King of Babylon, for he carried Zedekiah into captivity. Certainly the holy Ghost knew well enough, and could have spoken plain, whose these pits were, but it pleased him to forbear names. Certainly our josiah knows well enough, whose, those pits, which were digged for him, were; but, according to his natural sweetness, to decline the drawing of more blood, then necessarily he must, or the laying of imputations and aspersions upon more, then necessarily he must, he hath forborn names. The holy Ghost knows better than all the expositors, in all our Libraries, who digged those pits, our josiah knows, better than all we, who come but to celebrate, and solemnize the deliverance, whose hands, and whose counsels were in the digging of these pits too. He was taken, says our Text: fuit, he Was. Fix that in josiah, who was taken, and never taken back: fix it in Zedekiah, who was taken, and never taken back; they both perished; in both them, there is just cause, of perpetual, and permanent lamentation, and no room left, for the exercise of any other affection. But transfer it to our josiah, and then, He was taken, is, He was but taken; God did not suffer his holy one to see Correction, nor God did not suffer his Anointed, to perish in this taking; And so the lamentation is become (as we said at first) a Congratulation, so our Vae is an Euge, our exclamation turned to acclamation; and so our De profundis, is a Gloria in excelsis, The pit, the vault is become a hill, from whence we may behold the power of our great God; this Sepher kinoth, the book of Lamentations, is become Sepher tehillim, the book of Psalms, and thanksgivings; And David's Bonus es omnibus, Lord thou art good to all, is come to Moses non taliter, Lord thou hast not done so well, with any nation, as with us; for when we might have feared a dereliquisti, that God had forsaken us, we had S. August appropinquavi & nesciebam, we came nearer & nearer to God, and knew it not, we knew not our danger, and therefore knew not his special Protection. It was one particular degree of his mercy, to proceed so: As it is an ease to a man, not to hear of his friend's sickness, till he hear it, by hearing of his recovery, so God did not shake us, with the knowledge of the danger, till he established us, with the deliverance: And by making his servant, and our Sovereign, the blessed means of that discovery, and that deliverance, he hath directed us, in all apprehensions of dangers, to rely upon that Wisdom, in civil affairs, affairs of State, and upon that Zeal, in causes of Religion, which he hath imprinted in that soul. Historically, God hath done great things for us, by him; Prophetically, God hath great things to do for us, and all the Christian world, and will make him, his Instrument to do them. Now, Auxilia. we reserved at first, for the last gasp, and for the knot to tie up all, this Consideration: That he that was truly affected in the sad sense of such a danger, and the pious sense of such a deliverance, would also use all means in his power, to secure the future, that that Kingdom, in that King, might always be safe, from the like dangers. No doubt, our josiah doth that, in that which appertaineth unto him; and all, that is, The care of all, appertaineth unto him. If God had made him his Rod, to scourge others with Wars and Armies, we might be afraid, that when God had done his work by him, he would cast the rod in the fire, God doth not always bless those Instruments, who love blood, though they pretend his Glory. But since God hath made him his Dove, to fly over the world, with the Olive branch, with endeavours of Peace, in all places, as the Dove did, so he shall ever bring his Olive branch to the Ark, that is, endeavour only such peace, as may advance the Church of God, and establish peace of Conscience in himself. That care, Ne peccemus. on his part, shall preserve him: And for his preservation, and ours in him, these things are to be done on our part: First, let us return to God, so, as God may look upon us, clothed in the righteousness of Christ; who will not be put on, as a fair gown, to cover course clothes; but first put off your sins, and then put on him; sins of the Time, sins of your Age, sins of your Sex, sins of your Complexion, sins of your Profession; put off all; for your Time, your Age, your Sex, your Complexion, your Profession, shall not be damned; but you, you yourselves shall Do not think that your Sundays zeal once a week, can burn our all your extortions, and oppressions, and usury, and butchery, and simony, and chambering and wantonness practised from Monday to Saturday. Do not think it to be so with the Spiritual man, as with the Natural: In a Natural body, a great proportion of Choler will rectify a cold, or old, or ●leginatique man, he is the better, for having so much choler; but a vehement zeal on Sunday, doth not rectify the six day's sinner: To cry out then, I am sterved for want of an afternoon Sermon, and to fast all the week long, so as never to taste how sweet the Lord is, in thy cleansing thy heart, and withdrawing thy hand from sin, this is no good diet; Not only upon you Allegiance to God, but upon your Allegiance to the King, be good: No Prince can have a better guard, than Subjects truly religious. Quantus 〈◊〉 patri● est vir just●s, is S. Ambrose his holy exclamation, What a wall to a City, what a Sea, what a Navy to an Island, is a holy man? The sins of former times, 2 Reg. 23. 26. the sins and provocations of M●nasseh, lay heavy upon josiah, as well as God loved him. The sins of our days, our sins, may open any Prince to God's anger. This is the first way of preserving our josiah, to turn away the wrath of God, by our abstinence from future sins, after our repentance of former. A second is, Honor. to uphold his honour and estimation with other men; especially amongst strangers that live with us, who for the most part, value Princes so, as they find their subjects to value them. Ambassadors have ever been sacred persons, and partakers of great privileges. A Prince, that lives as ours, in the eye of many Ambassadors, is not as the children of Israel, in the midst of Canaanites, and jebusites, and Ammonites, who all watched the destruction of Israel; but he is in the midst of Tu●el●r Angels, national Angels, who study (by God's grace, & as it becomes us to hope) the peace and welfare of the Christian State. But then all strangers in the land, are not noble, and candid, and ingenuous Ambassadors; & even Ambassadors themselves may be tri●led to an undervalue of the Prince, by rumours, and by disloyal, and by negligent speeches, from the Subject; we have not yet felt Solomon's whips; but our whinings and repine, and discontents may bring us to Rehoboams Scorpions. 1 Reg. 12. 11. This way hath a part, in the King's safety, and in our safety, to hold in ourselves, and to convey to strangers, a good estimation of that happy government, which is truly good in itself. And then a third, Subsidia. and very important way towards his preservation, is, a cheerful disposition, to supply, and to support, and to assist him, with such things as are necessary for his outward dignity. When God himself was the immediate King of the Israelites, and governed them, by himself, he took it ill, that they would depart from him, who needed nothing of theirs, for there could be no other King, but must necessarily be supplied by them: And yet, consider, Beloved, what God, who needed nothing, took: The sacrifices of the Jews, 2 Chron. 35. were such, as would have kept divers Royal houses: Take a bill of them, but in one Passeover, that josiah kept, and compare that and other the like, with the smallness of the land, that they possessed, and you will see, that that they gave, was a very great proportion. Now, it is the service of God, to contribute to the King as well as to the Priest: He that gives to a Prophet, shall have a Prophet's reward; he that gives to the King, shall have a King's reward, a Crown: in those cases, where to give to your King, is to give to God, that is, where the peace of the State, and the glory of God in his Gospel depends much, upon the sustentation of the estimation, and outward honour and splendour of the King: preserve him so, and he shall the less be subject to these dangers, of such falling into their pits. But lastly, Religio. and especially, let us preserve him, by preserving God amongst us, in the true, and sincere profession of our Religion. Let not a misgrounded, and disloyal imagination of coolness in him, 1 john 4. 3. cool you, in your own families. Omnis spiritus, qui solvit jesum, says the Apostle, in the Vulgat, every spirit that dissolves Jesus, that embraces not jesus entirely, All jesus, and All his, All his Truth, and all that suffer for that Truth, is not of God. Do not say, I will hold as much of Jesus, as shall be necessary, so much as shall distinguish me from a Turk, or a jew, but if I may be the better, for parting with some of the rest, why should I not? Do not say, I will hold All, myself, but let my wife, or my son, or one of my sons, go the other way, as though Protestant, and Papist were two several callings; and, as you would make one son a Lawyer, another a Merchant, you will make one son a Papist, another a Protestant. Excuse not your own levity, with so high a dishonour to the Prince; when have you heard, that ever he thanked any man, for becoming a Papist? Leave his doors to himself; The doors into his kingdom, The Ports, and the doors in his kingdom, The prisons; Let him open and shut his doors, as God shall put into his mind: look thou seriously to thine own doors, to thine own family, and keep all right there. A Thief that is let out of Newgate is not therefore let into thy house; A Priest that is let out of prison, is not therefore let into thy house neither: still it may be felony, to harbour him, though there were mercy in letting him out. Cities are built of families, and so are Churches too; Every man keeps his own family, and then every Pastor shall keep his flock, and so the Church shall be free from schism, and the State from sedition, and our josiah preserved, Prophetically for ever, as he was Historically this day, from them, in whose pits, the breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken. Amen. SERMON XLIV. Preached at St. Paul's Cross, Novemb. 22. 1629. MAT. 11. 6. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. THese are words spoken by our Blessed Saviour, to two Disciples, sent by john Baptist, than a prisoner, to inform themselves of some particulars concerning Christ. Christ, who read Hearts, better than we do faces, and heard Thoughts clearer than we do words, saw in the thoughts, and hearts of these men, a certain perverseness, an obliquity, an irregularity towards him, a jealousy and suspicion of him, and according to that indisposition of theirs he speaks to them, and tells them, This, and This only is true Blessedness, not to be scandalised in me, not to be offended in me; I see you are; but, as you love Blessedness, (and there is no other object of true love, but Blessedness) establish yourselves in me, maintain in yourselves a submission, and an acquiescence to me, in my Gospel, suspect not me, be not jealous of me, nor press farther upon me, than I open and declare myself unto you, for, Blessed is he, whosoever is not scandalised, not offended in me. The words have in them an Injunction, Divisio. and a Remuneration; A Precept, and a Promise; The Way, and the End of a Christian. The Injunction, The Precept, The way is, As you love blessedness, be not offended in me, Be satisfied with me, and mine Ordinances; It is an Acquiescence in the Gospel of Christ Jesus: And the Remuneration, the Promise, the End, is Blessedness; That, which, in itself, hath no end, That, in respect of which, all other things are to no end, Blessedness, everlasting Blessedness, Blessed is he, whosoever is not scandalised, not offended in me. In the first, Christ gives them first, if not an Increpation, yet an Intimation of our facility in falling into the Passive scandal, the misinterpreting of the words or actions of other men, which is that which our Saviour intends, by being offended in another; And Blessed are they, in general, who are not apt to fall into this Passive scandal, not subject to this facility of misinterpreting other men. In a second branch in this first part, Christ appropriates this to himself, Blessed is he, whosoever is not scandalised, not offended in me; In which branch, we shall see, that the general scandal, and offence that the world took at Christ, and his Gospel, was, that he induced a Religion that opposed the Honours, and the Pleasures, and the Profit of this world: And these three being the Triangle within our circle, the three corners, into which Satan, that compasses the world, leads us, (all is Honour, or Pleasure, or Profit) because the Christian Religion seemed to the world to withdraw men's affections from these, the world was scandalised, offended in Christ. But then, in a third consideration, we shall see, that Christ discerned in these two persons, these Disciples of john, a Passive scandal of another kind; Not that Christ's Gospel, and the Religion that he induced, was too low, too base, too contemptible, as the world thought, but that it was not low enough, not humble enough, and therefore john's Disciples would do more than Christ's Disciples, and bind themselves to a greater strictness and austerity of life, than Christ in his Gospel required. In which third branch, we shall take knowledge of some Disciples of john's Disciples, in the world yet; and, (as for the most part it falls out in Sectaries) of divers kinds and ways; for, we shall find some, who in an overvaluation of their own purity, condemn, and contemn other men, as unpardonable Reprobates; And these are scandalised, and offended in Christ, that is, not satisfied with his Gospel, in that they will not see, that it is as well a part of the Gospel of Christ, to rely upon his Mercy, if I have departed from that purity, which his Gospel enjoined me, as it is, to have endeavoured to have preserved that purity; And a part of his Gospel, as well to assist with my prayers, and my counsel, and with all mildeness, that poor soul that hath strayed from that purity, as it is to love the Communion of those Saints, that have in a better measure preserved it; Not to believe the Mercy of God in Christ, after a sin, to be a part of the Gospel, as well as the Grace of God for prevention before, not to give favourable constructions, and conceive charitable hopes of him, who is fall'n into some sin, which I may have escaped, this is to be scandalised, to be offended in Christ, not to be satisfied with his Gospel; And this is one Sect of the offspring of john's Disciples. And the other is this, that other men thinking the Gospel of Christ to be too large a Gospel, a Religion of too much liberty, will needs undertake to do more, than Christ, or his Disciples practised, or his Gospel prescribed: for, this is to be offended in Christ, not to believe the means of salvation ordained by him, to be sufficient for that end, which they were ordained to, that is, salvation. And then, after all this, in a fourth branch we shall see, the way, which our Saviour takes to reclaim them, and to divest them of this Passive scandal, which hindered their Blessedness, which was, to call them to the contemplation of his good works, and of good works in the highest kind, his Miracles; for in the verse immediately before the text, (which verse induces the Text) he says to them, you see the blind receive their sight, the lame go, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life. Christ does not propose, at least, he does not put all, upon that external purity, and austerity of life, in which, these Disciples of john pretended to exceed all others, but upon doing good to others; the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk. Which miracles, and great works of his, our blessed Saviour sums up with that, which therefore seems the greatest of all, Pauperes Evangelizantur, The poor have the Gospel preached unto them. Beloved, the greatest good that we, (we to whom the dispensation of the word of reconciliation is committed) can do, is, to preach the Gospel to the poor, to assist the poor, to apply ourselves by all ways, to them, whether they be poor in estate, and fortune, or poor in understanding and capacity, or poor in their accounts and dis-estimation of themselves, poor and dejected in spirit. And all these considerations, which, as you see, are many, and important, (first our general easiness to fall into the passive scandal, to be offended in others, to misinterpret others; And then the general passive scandal and offence that the world took at Christ, That he induced a Religion incapable of the honours, or the pleasures, or profits of this world; And thirdly, the particular passive scandal that dis-affected these Disciples of john towards Christ, which was, That his Gospel enjoined not enough, and therefore they would do more, in which kind, we find two sects in the world yet, the offspring, and Disciples of those Disciples; And then lastly, the way that Christ took to reclaim and satisfy them, which was, by good works, and the best works that they that did them, could do, (for in himself it was by doing miracles, for the good of others) and preferring in his good and great works, the assisting of the poor) All these considerations, I say, will fall into our first part, As you love blessedness, be not scandalised, be not offended in me, which is the injunction, the precept, the way. And, when in our due order, we shall come to our second part, The remuneration, the promise, the end, Blessedness, everlasting blessedness, I may be glad, that the time will give me some colour, some excuse of saying little of that, as I can foresee already, by this distribution, that we shall be forced to thrust that part into a narrow conclusion. For, if I had Methusalems' years, and his years multiplied by the minutes of his years, (which were a fair term) if I could speak till the Angel's Trumpets blew, and you had the patience of Martyrs, and could be content to hear me, till you heard the Surgite M●rtui, till you were called to meet the Lord jesus in the clouds, all that time would not make up one minute, all those words would not make up one syllable, towards this Eternity, the period of this blessedness. Reserving ourselves therefore for that, to those few minutes which may be left, or borrowed, when we come to the handling thereof, pursue we first, those considerations which fall more naturally into our comprehension, the several branches of our first part; As you love blessedness, Be not scandalised, be not offended in me. First then our Saviour's answer to these Disciples of john, 1. Part. gives us occasion to consider our inclination, Scandalum Passivum. our propenseness to the passive scandal, to be offended in others, to misinterpret the words and actions of others, and to lament that our infirmity, or perverseness, in the words of our Saviour, Mat 18. 7. Vae Mundo à scandalis, Woe to the world by reason of scandals, of offences: For, that is both a Vae Dolentis, The voice of our Saviour lamenting that perverseness of ours, and Vae Minantis, his voice threatening punishments for that perverseness. For, Parum distat scandalizare, & scandalizari, says St. Hierome excellently; It is almost all one to be scandalised by another, as to scandalise another; almost as great a sin, to be shaked in our constancy, in ourselves, or in our charity towards others, as to offer a scandal to others. For, this Vae, this intermination of woe from our Saviour, Mat. 24. 32. is bend upon us, from three batteries; for, it is Vae quia Illusiones fortes, woe, because scandals are so strong in their nature, as that they shall seduce, if it be possible, the Elect; And then, Vae quia infirmi vos, Woe because you are so weak in your nature, as that, Mat. 13. 21. though you receive the word, and receive it with joy, yet Temporales estis, you may be but Time servers for all that, for, as soon as persecution comes, ilico, continuò, scandalizamini, Instantly, presently, you are scandalised, offended; But especially Vae quia Praevaricatores, Woe be unto you, not because the scandals are so strong, not because you are so weak, but because you prevaricate against your own souls, because you betray yourselves, and make yourselves weaker than you are, you open yourselves too easily to a scandal, you assist a scandal, create a scandal, by your aptness to misinterpret other men's proceedings. Great peace have they that love thy Law, Psal. 119. 165. says David: Wherein consists this great peace? In this, Non est illis scandalum, nothing scandalises, nothing offends them, nothing puts them off from their Kings, their Constancy in themselves, their Charity towards others. And therefore upon that prayer of David, Liberet te Deus ab Homine malo, The Lord deliver thee from the evil man, Saint Augustin retires himself into himself, he sends every man home into himself, and says, Liberette Deus à te, ne sis tibi homo malus, the Lord deliver thee from thyself, that thou be not that evil man to thyself; God bless me from myself, that I lead not myself into tentation, by a wilful misinterpreting of other men, especially my superiors; that I cast not aspersions or imputations upon the Church, or the State, by my mistake. And thus much being said of this general facility of falling into the Passive scandal, and being offended in others, (which is a great interruption of blessedness, for Blessed is he, and he only, that is not so scandalised, offended so) pass we now to the second branch of this first part, our Saviour's, appropriating of this more particularly to himself, Blessed is he, whosoever is not scandalised, not offended in me. Christ Crucified, In me. that is, the Gospel of Christ, is said by the Apostle, to be scandalum Iudaeis, 1 cor. 1. 23. a scandal, a stumbling block to the jews, but Graecis stultitia, to the Grecians, to the Gentiles, mere foolishness. So that one scandal & offence that was taken at Christ, & his Gospel, was by the wisemen, the learned, the Philosophers of the world; they thought that Christ induced a religion improbable to Reason, a silly and a foolish religion. But these learned men, these Philosophers, were sooner convinced & satisfied, than others. For, when we have considered justin Martyr, and Minutius Felix, and Arnobius, and Origen, and Lactantius, and some things of Theodoret, & perchance one or two more, we have done with those Fathers, 1 Cor. 1. 20. that did any thing against the Gentiles, and their Philosophers, and may soon come to that question of the Apostle, Vbi sapiens, where is the wiseman, where is the Philosopher, where is the disputer of the world? Indeed, all that the Fathers writ against them, would not amount to so much, as may be found at one mart, of papists against Protestants, or of Protestants, Lutherans and Calvinists, against one another. The reason is, Reason will be satisfied, Passion will not. And therefore, when it came to that issue between the Christian and the Natural man, which Religion was most comfortable to Reason, it soon resolved into these two, whether it were more conformable to Reason to believe One God, as the Christian does, or many, as the Gentiles; and then, being brought to the belief of one God, whether it were more conformable to reason, to believe three Persons in that one God, as we, or but one, as they do. Now, for the first of these, the Multiplicity of Gods, it involved so many, so evident, so ridiculous absurdities, as not only those few Fathers soon disputed them, but some of themselves, such as Lucian, soon laughed them, out of it; and so reason prevailed soon for the unity of the Godhead, that there is but one God, and that question was not long in suspense, nor agitation. And for the other, three persons in this one God, the Trinity, though we cannot so immediately prove that by Reason, nor so entirely, altogether, yet, by these steps we can: first, that there is nothing in the doctrine of the Trinity against Reason; the doctrine of the Trinity implies no contradiction; It may be so; and then, that it is so, if we have the word of God, for it, Reason itself will conclude, that we have Reason on our side; And that we have the word of God for it, we proceed thus, that for this Book, which we call the Bible, which book delivers us the Doctrine of the Trinity, we have far better reasons, and stronger arguments to satisfy any natural man, that this book is the word of God, than the Turk, or any professors of any other Religion have, that those books which they pretend to be so, are so. So that positively for the first, that there is but one God, & Comparatively for the other, that there are three persons, Reason itself, (if we were bound to submit all Religion to Reason) may receive a satisfaction, a calm, and peaceable acquiescence. And so, the scandal that the Philosophers took, was, with no great difficulty, overcome. But then the scandals that worldly and carnal men took, lasted longer. They were offended in Christ, that he induced an inglorious, a contemptible Religion, a Religion that opposed the Honours of this world; and a sooty, and Melancholic Religion, a Religion that opposed the Pleasures, and delights of this world; and a fordid, and beggarly Religion, a Religion that opposed the Gain, and the Profit of this world. But were this enough to condemn the Christian Religion, if it did oppose worldly honour, or pleasure, or profit? Or does our Religion do that? Be pleased to stop a little upon both these Problems; whether that were enough to their ends, if it were so, and then, whether there be any such thing in our Religion; and begin we with their first offence at Christ, The point of Honour. The Apostle speaks of an Eternal weight of Glory; Honor. Glory, A weight of Glory, An eternal weight of Glory; 2 Cor. 1. 17. But where? In heaven, not in this world. The Honours of this world, are far from being weights, or fraights, or ballast to carry us steady; they are but light froths, but leaven, but fermentation, that puffes and swells us up. And they are as far from being eternal; for, in every family, we know, in which father, or grandfather the Honour began, and we know not how soon, or how ignominiously it may end; but such ends of worldly Honours, we see every day. When a Lord meets a man that honours him, makes him courtesy, and curses him withal, what hath his Lordship got by that Honour? when popular acclamations cast him into insolent actions, and into the net of the Law, where is the ease, the benefit, the consolation of his Honour? But especially, if worldly Honour must be had upon those conditions here, as shall hinder my eternal weight of Glory hereafter, I should honour any dishonour, glorify any inglorious state, embrace any Dunghill, call any poverty Treasure, rather than bring the Honours of this world into the Balance, into competition, into comparison with that eternal weight of Glory in heaven. So that if the Christian Religion did oppose worldly Honour, it were not to be opposed for that: But it is far from that; for, as no Religion imprints more honour, more reverence, more subjection in the hearts of men, towards their Superiors of all sorts, Natural, or Civil, or Ecclesiastical, Parents, or Magistrates, or Prelates, than the Christian Religion does (for, we bind even the conscience itself) so never was there any form of Religion upon the face of the earth, in which persons were capable of greater Titles, and styles of dignity, then in the Christian Church. Never any Moscovite, any Turk, received such titles, as the world hath, and does give to the Bishop of Rome; so great, as that some of the greatest later Emperors, have had an ambition of that dignity, and endeavoured to have been elected Popes too, being Emperors. If Religion opposed Honour, that should not diminish it; but it does not that, nor Pleasure neither, which was another thing, in which, the world was offended in Christ. As when we compared the Honour of this world, Voluptas. with the Glory of Heaven, we found it nothing, so should we do the Pleasures of this world, if we compared them with the Joys of heaven. And therefore if my religion did enwrap me in a continual cloud, damp me in a continual vapour, smoke me in a continual sourness, and joylesnesse in this life, yet I have an abundant recompense in that Reversion, which the Lord, Ps. 36. 28. the righteous Judge hath laid up for me, That I shall drink è torrente valuptatis, of the Rivers of his pleasures; pleasures, His pleasures, Rivers, ever-flowing, overflowing Rivers of his pleasures. So that if my Religion denied me pleasure here, I would not deny my Religion, nor be displeased with my Religion for that; But it does not that; for what Christian is denied a care of his health, or of a good habitude of body, or the use of those things, which may give a cheerfulness to his heart, or a cheerfulness to his countenance? What Christian is denied such Garments, or such Ornaments, as his own rank, and condition, in particular requires, or as the national and general custom of his times hath induced and authorised? What Christian is denied Conversation, or Recreation, or honest Relaxation of Body or Spirit? Excess of these pleasures, as well in the Heathen, as in the Christian, falls under Solomon's Vanity, and Vexation of spirit. But with the right use of these pleasures, the Christian hath that, which none but he, hath, Psal. 4. 8. That the Lord puts gladness into my heart, That the Lord enables me to lay me down in peace, and sleep, That the Lord assures me that he will keep me in safety. If Religion excluded worldly pleasure, that were no cause of scandal or offence; but it does not that; no nor Profit neither, which is a third consideration. What is a man profited, Lucrum. says our Saviour, (he saw all the world was carried upon profit, and he goes along with them, that way) What is a man profited, Mat. 16. 26. if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? If a man have an answer to that question, that question of Confusion, Luc. 12. 10. and Consternation, that Christ asks, Cujue erunt, fool this night they shall fetch away thy soul, and then, Cuju● erunt, whose shall all those things be, that thou hast provided? if a man can answer, Haeredis erunt, They shall be mine heirs, mine heir shall have them; Besides that, though thy bell toll first, his may ring out first; though thou be'st old, and crazy, and sickly, Though they do fetch away thy soul this night, they may fetch away his before thine, thine heir may die before thee, and there's that assurance disappointed; If thine heir do enjoy all this, will all that distil one drop of cold water upon thy tongue in hell? And so is he, (says Christ, in the conclusion of that parable) that layeth up riches for himself, and is not rich towards God. So that if Riches might not consist with Religion, it would not hurt our cause; but they may, they do. Godliness hath the promise of this life, 1 Tim. 4. 8. and of the next; of both, but of this first. The seed of the righteous, Ps. 112. 3. shall be mighty upon earth, and wealth and riches shall be in his house. Many places of Scripture tell us that the wicked may be rich, and that they are rich; but in no place does God promise that they shall be rich. So says David's son, Solomon, too, Prov. 14. 24. The Crown of the wise is their riches; we all know what men Solomon means by wise men; Godly men, Religious men; And their Crown is Riches. Beloved, there is an inward joy, there is an outward dignity and reverence, that accompanies Riches, and the Godly, the righteous man is not incapable of these; Nay, they belong rather to him, then to the ungodly: Prov. 19 10. Non decent stultum divitiae, (as the Vulgat reads that place) Riches do not become a fool. But because, for all that, though Riches do not become a fool, yet fools do become rich; our Translations read that place thus: joy, pleasure, delight, is not seemly for a fool; Though the fool, the ungodly man, may be rich, yet a right joy, a holy delight in riches, belongs only to the wise, to the righteous. The Patriarches in the Old Testament, many examples in the New, are testimonies to us of the compatibility of riches, and righteousness; that they may, that they have often met in one person. For, is fraud, and circumvention so sure a way, of attaining Gods blessings, as industry, and conscientiousness is? Or is God so likely to concur with the fraudulent, the deceitful man, as with the laborious, and religious? Was not Ananias, with his disguises, more suddenly destroyed, than job, and more irrecoverably? And cannot a Star-chamber, or an Exchequer, leave an ungodly man as poor, as a storm at sea, in a shipwreck, or a fire at land, in a lightning, can do the godly? Murmur not, be not scandalised, nor offended in him, if God, for reasons reserved to himself, keep thee in poverty; but know, that God hath exposed the riches of this world, as well, rather to the godly, than the wicked. And so have you the second branch of this first part, The scandals which, for the most part, were taken at Christ, and his Gospel, by the Philosophers, that it was a Religion contrary to Reason, by worldly, and carnal men, that it was a Religion contrary to the honours, to the pleasures, to the profits of this world; which, if it were so, were no impeachment to it, but it is not: And so we are come to the third branch, The particular passive scandal, which our Saviour deprehended in these two Disciples of john, divers from the rest. That, Discipuli joannis. which mis-affected them towards Christ, was not that he induced a Religion too low, too sordid, too humble, but not low enough, not humble enough; and therefore they would outbid Christ, and undertake more, than his Disciples practised, or himself prescribed. Their Master, john Baptist, discerned this distemper in them, than when they said to him, Io●. 3. 26. 30. Rabbi, He that was with thee beyond jordan, baptises as fast as thou, and all the world comes to him. john Baptist deals plainly with them, and he tells them, that they must not be offended in that, for so it must be, He must increase, and I must decrease. This troubled them; and because it did so, john sends them personally to Christ, to receive farther satisfaction. When they come at first to him, they say, Sir, Mat. 9 14. we fast, and, even the Pharisees fast, why do not you, and your Disciples fast too? And then our blessed Saviour enlarges himself to them, in that point of fasting, and they go home satisfied. Now they return again, and they continue their wonder, that Christ should continue his greatness, and his estimation in the world, they exceeding him so far in this outward austority of life, which was so specious, and so winning a thing amongst the Jews. Ambr. But duo Discipuli fortasse duo populi, These two Disciples of john may have their Disciples in the world to this day; And therefore forbearing their persons, we shall consider their offspring; Those men, who in an overvaluation of their own purity, despise others, as men whom nothing can save; & those men, who in an overvaluation of their own merits, think to save themselves and others too, by their supererogations. Begin we with the first, C●●●ari. The over-pure despisers of others; Men that will abridge, and contract the large mercies of God in Christ, and elude, and frustrate, in a great part, the general promises of God. Men that are loath, that God should speak so loud, as to say, He would have all men saved, And loath that Christ should spread his arms, or shed his blood in such a compass, as might fall upon all. Men that think no sin can hurt them, because they are elect, and that every sin makes every other man a Reprobate. But with the Lord there is Copiosa redemption Ps. 130. 7. plentiful redemption, and an overflowing cup of mercy. Aquae quae non mentiuntur, As the holy Ghost says more than once, more than many times, in the Prophets, Waters that will not lie, that will not dry, james 3. 17. not deceive, not disappoint any man. The wisdom that is from above, is first pure, & then peaceable. Purity, Sincerity, Integrity, Holiness, is a skirt of Christ's garment; It is the very livery that he puts upon us; we cannot serve him without it, (we must serve him in holiness and pureness) we cannot see him without it, without holiness no man shall see God. But then to be pure, and not peaceable, to determine this purity in ourselves, and condemn others, this is but an imaginary, but an illusory purity Not to have relieved that poor wretch, that lay wounded, and weltering in his blood in the way to jericho, Luc. 10. 30. was the uncharitableness of the Levite, and the Priest, in that parable. But that parable presents no man so uncharitable, as would have hindered the Samaritan, from pouring his ●●yle, and his Wine into the wounds of that distressed wretch. To hinder the blood of Christ Jesus, not to suffer that blood to flow as far, as it will, to deny the mercy of God in Christ, to any sinner, whatsoever, upon any pretence, whatsoever, this is to be offended in Christ, to be scandalised with his Gospel; for, that's his own precept, Have sa●● in yourselves, (be it, purity, the best preservative of the soul) And then, Mar. 9 50. Have peace with one another, Deny no man the benefit of Christ; Bless thou the Lord, praise him, and magnify him, for that which ho hath done for thee, and believe, that he means as well to others, as to thee. And these are one Sect of the Disciples of john's Disciples, That think there are men, whom Christ cannot save, And the other is of men that think they can save other men. Ignatius, Papiste. who is so ancient, as that we have letters from him to S. john, and from him to the Blessed Virgin, and if the copies be true) from her to him, as ancient as he is, says, Monet quisquam antiquorum, One of the Ancients hath given us this caution, Vt nemo bonus dicatur qui malum bono permiscuerit, That we call no man good, that is good to ill ends, nor believe any man to speak truth, that speaks truth at some times, to make his future lies the more credible. And much this way does the Roman Church proceed with us, in this behalf. They magnify sanctification, and holiness of life well; well do they propose many good means, for the advancement, and ex●ltation thereof; fasting, and prayer, and alms, and other Medicinal Disciplines, and Mortifications. But all this to a wrong end; Not to make them the more acceptable to God, but to make God the more beholden to them; To merit, and over-merit; To satisfy, and super-satisfie the justice of God for their own, and for others sins. Now, God will be served with all our power; But, say they, we may serve God, with more than all our power. How? Because I may have more power, more grace, more help, to day, than I had yesterday? But does not the same Commandment, of serving God, with all my power, lie upon me, to day, as did yesterday? If yesterday, when I had less power, less grace, less help, all was but Duty and service that could be done, is it the less a service and a duty now, because God hath enlarged my capacity with more grace, and more helps than before? Do I owe God the less, because he hath given me more? All that my Saviour hath taught me, in this, to pray for, is but this, Dimitte debita, Lord forgive me the not-endevouring to keep thy Commandments: But for not doing more than thy Commandments, I ask no forgiveness, by any prayer, or precept recommended to me by him. Ad Evangelii impletionem conscendat nostra religio, nec transcendats says the learnedest Nun, and the best Matriarch, and Mother of that Church, I think, that ever writ, Heloyssa; I pray God, our Order may get so far, as the Gospel enjoins, and not press beyond that; Nec quid amplius, quam ut Christianae simus, appetamus, That we desire to be no more, then good Christians. And farther we extend not this third consideration, The particular passive scandal, which Christ found in these Disciples of john, and which we have noted in their progeny, and offspring but go on to the fourth, The way that Christ took to divest them thereof, by calling them to the contemplation of his works, Consider what you have seen done, The blind see, The lame go, The deaf hear, and then you will not endanger your blessedness, by being offended in me. The evidence that Christ produces, Opera. and presses, is good works; for, if a man offer me the root of a tree to taste, I cannot say this is such a Pear, or Apple, or Plum; but if I see the fruit, I can. If a man pretend Faith to me, I must say to him, with Saint james, Can his Faith save him? 2. 14. such a Faith, as that the Apostle declares himself to mean, A dead Faith, 17. as all Faith is that is inoperative, and works not. But if I see his works, I proceed the right way in Judicature, I judge secundum allegata & probata, according to my evidence: And if any man will say, those works may be hypocritical, I may say of any witness, He may be perjured; but as long as I have no particular cause to think so, it is good evidence to me, Hilar. as to hear that man's Oath, so to see this man's works. Cum in Coelis sedentem in Crucem agere non possum, Though I cannot crucify Christ, being now set at the right hand of his Father in Heaven, yet there is Odium impietatis, saith that Father, A crucifying by ungodliness; An ungodly life in them that profess Christ, is a daily crucifying of Christ. Therefore here Christ refers to good works; And there is more in this then so: It is not only good works, but good works in the highest proportion, The best works, that he that doth them, can do: Therefore, in his own case he appeals to Miracles. For if fasting were all, or wearing of Camels hair, all, or to have done some good to some men, by Baptising them, were all, these Disciples and their Master might have had as much to plead as Christ. Therefore he calls them to the consideration of works of a higher nature, of Miracles; for, God never subscribes nor testifies a forged Deed; God never seals a falsehood with a Miracle. Therefore, when the Jews say of Christ, Io●. 10. 20. He hath a Devil, and is mad, why hear ye him? some of the other Jews said, These are not the words of one that hath a Devil: But though by that it appear, that some evidence, some argument may be raised in a man's behalf, from his words, from that he saith, from his Preaching, yet Christ's friends who spoke in his favour, do not rest in that, That those are not the words of one that hath a Devil, but proceed to that, Can the Devil open the eyes of the blind? He doth more than the Devil can do; They appeal to his works, to his good works, to his great works, to his Miracles. But doth he put us to do miracles? no; Though, in truth those sumptuous and magnificent buildings, and endowments, which some have given for the sustentation of the poor, are almost Miracles, half Miracles, in respect of those penurious proportions, that Myut and Cumin, and those half-ounces of broken bread, which some as rich as they, have dropped, and crumbled out; Truly, he that doth as much as he can, is almost a Miracle; And when Christ appeals to his Miracles he calls us therein, to the best works we can do. God will be loved with the whole heart, and God will have that love declared with our whole substance. I must not think I have done enough, if I have built an Almshouse; As long as I am able to do more, I have done nothing. This Christ intimates in producing his greatest works, Miracles; which Miracles he closeth up with that, as with the greatest, Pauperes evangelizantur, The poor have the Gospel preached unto them. In this our Blessed Saviour doth not only give an instruction to john's Disciples, Paupores. but therein also derives and conveys a precept upon us, upon us, who as we have received mercy, 1 Pet. 2. 5. have received the Ministry, and indeed, upon all you, whom he hath made Regale Sacerdotium, A royal Priesthood, and Reges & Sacerdotes, Kings and Priests unto your God, Apoc. 5. 10. and bound you thereby, as well as us to preach the Gospel to the poor, you, by an exemplar life, and a Catechising conversation, as well as us, by our words and meditations. Now beloved, there are Poor, that are literally poor, poor in estate and fortune; and poor, that are naturally poor, poor in capacity, and understanding; and poor, that are spiritually poor, dejected in spirit, and insensible of the comforts, which the Holy Ghost offers unto them; and to all these poor, are we all bound to preach the Gospel. First then for them which are literally poor, poor in estate, how much do they want of this means of salvation, Preaching, which the rich have? They cannot maintain Chaplains in their houses; They cannot forbear the necessary labours of their calling, to hear extraordinary Sermons; They cannot have seats in Churches, whensoever they come; They must stay, they must stand, they must thrust, they must overcome that difficulty, which Saint Augustine makes an impossibility, that is, for any man to receive benefit by that Sermon, that he hears with pain: They must take pains to hear. To these poor therefore, the Lord and his Spirit hath sent me to preach the Gospel; That Gospel, The Lord knoweth thy poverty, Rev. 2. 9 but thou art rich; That Gospel, Be content with such things as thou hast, Hob. 13. 5. for the Lord hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee; And that Gospel, God hath chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, heirs of that Kingdom, which he hath promised to them that love him; I. unes 2. 5. And this is the Gospel of those poor, literally poor, poor in estate. To those that are naturally poor, poor in understanding, the Lord and his Spirit hath sent me to preach the Gospel too; That Gospel, If any man lack wisdom, james 1. 5. let him ask it of God; Solomon himself had none, till he asked it there. Apoc. 5. 1. And that Gospel where john went bitterly, because there was a Book preseated, but no man could open it, It were a sad consideration, if now, when the Book of God, the Scripture is afforded to us, we could not open that Book, not understand those Scriptures. But there is the Gospel of those poor; That Lamb, which is spoken of there, That Lamb, which in the same place is called a Lion too, That Lambe-Lion hath opened the Book for us. The humility of the Lamb gathereth the strength of the Lion; come humbly to the reading and hearing of the Scriptures, and thou shalt have strength of understanding. The Scriptures were not written for a few, nor are to be reserved for a few; All they that were present at this LambLions opening of the Book, that is, All they that come with modesty and humility, to the search of the Scriptures, All they, (and they are no small number, for there they are said to be ten thousand times ten thousand, verse 11. and thousands of thousands) All they say there, We are all made Kings and Priests unto our God. Begin a Lamb, and thou will become a Lion; Read the Scriptures modestly, humbly, and thou shalt understand them strongly, Homil. 2. in Gen. & 3. in 2 Thess. powerfully; for hence is it that Saint Chrys●stome, more than once, and Saint Gregory after him, meet in that expression, That the Scriptures are a Sea, in which a Lamb may wade, and an Elephant may swim. And this is the Gospel of those poor, poor in understanding. To those that are spiritually poor, wrung in their souls, stung in their Consciences, fretted, galled, exulcerated viscerally, even in the bowels of their Spirit, insensible, inapprehensive of the mercies of God in Christ, the Lord and his Spirit hath sent me to preach the Gospel also, Matt. 5. That Gospel, Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs it the Kingdom of Heaven; and to recollect, and redintegrate that broken and scattered heart, by enabling him to expostulate, and chide his own soul, with those words of comfort, which the Holy Ghost offereth him, once, and again, and again, Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God; Psal 42. 5. 11. and, yet praise him for the light of his countenance. Psal. 43. 5. Words of inexpresible comfort, yet praise him for the light of his countenance; Though thou sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death, yet praise him for the light of his Countenance. Whatsoever thy darkness be, put not out that candle, The light of his Countenance. Maintain that light, discern that light, and whatsoever thy darkness seemed, it shall prove to be but an over shadowing of the Holy Ghost. And so beloved, if you have sufficiently considered, first, our general easiness of falling into the Passive scandal, of being offended in others, by misinterpreting their proceedings, and then the general scandals which the world took at Christ, and his Gospel, The Philosophers, that it was an ignorant religion, (where you saw, That the learneder the adversary is, the sooner he is satisfied) And the worldly and carnal man, that it was a dishonourable, an unpleasurable, an unprofitable Religion, (where you saw, that it were no Diminution to our Religion, if it were all that, but it is none of it) If you have also considered the particular passive scandal that Christ deprehended in those two Disciples of john, That they would do more than Christ practised or prescribed, (where you saw also the distemper of those, that are derived from them, both those that think there are some sinners whom Christ cannot save, and those who think there are no sinners whom they cannot save, by their Supererogations) And considered lastly, the way that Christ took, to divest these men of this offence, and passive scandal, which was to call them to the consideration of good works, and of the best works, which he that doth them, can do, (where you have also seen, that Christ makes that our best work, To preach the Gospel to the poor, both because the poor are destitute of other comforts, and because their very poverty hath souple them, and mellowed them, and macerated, and matured, and disposed them, by corrections to instructions) If you have received all this, you have received all that we proposed for the first part the injunction, the precept, the way, Be not sandalized, be not offended in me. And now, that which I suspected at first, is fallen upon me, that is to thrust our other part into a narrow conclusion, though it be blessedness itself, everlasting blessedness; so we must; so we shall; blessed is he, (there's the remuneration, the promise, the end) whosoever is not offended in me. Blessed. The Heathen, 2. Part, Blessed. who saw by the light of nature, that they could have no Being, if there were no God, (for it is from one of themselves, that Saint Paul says, in him we live, Act. 17. 28. and move, and have our Being, and Genus cjus su●us, we are the offspring of God) saw also by the same light of nature, that they could have no well-being, if there were no Blessedness. And therefore, as the Heathen multiplied Gods to themselves, so did they also multiply blessedness. They brought their jupiters' to three hundred, says Varro; And from the same author, from Varro, does Saint Augustin collect almost three hundred several opinions of Blessedness. But, In multitudine nullitas, says Tertullian excellently; as where there are many Gods, there is no God, so where there are many blessednesses imagined, there is no blessedness possessed. Not but that, as the Sun which moves only in his own Sphere in heaven, does yet cast down beams and influences into this world, so that blessedness which is truly, only in heaven, does also cast down beams and influences hither, and gild, and enamel, yea inanimate the blessings of God here, with the true name, the true nature of blessedness. Psal. 144.15. For, though the vulgat edition do read that place, thus, Beatum dixerant populum, the world thought that people blessed that were so, that is, Temporally blessed, as though that were but an imaginary, and not a true blessedness; and howsoever it have seemed good to our Translators, to insert into that verse a discretive particle, a particle of difference, Yea, (Blessed are the people that are so,) that is, Temporally blessed, Yea, blessed are the people whose God is the Lord, yet in truth, in the Original, there is no such discretive particle, no word of difference, no yea, in the text, but both the clauses of that verse are carried in one and the same tenor, Blessed are the people that are so, Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord; that is, that people whom the Lord hath blessed so, with Temporal blessings, is bound to believe those temporal blessings, to be seals and evidences to them that the Lord is their God. So then there is a Viatory, a preparatory, an initiatory, an inchoative blessedness in this life. What is that? All agree in this definition, that blessedness is that in quo quiescit animus, in which the mind, the heart, the desire of man hath settled, and rested, in which it found a Centrical reposedness, an acquiescence, a contentment. Not that which might satisfy any particular man; for, so the object would be infinitely various; but that, beyond which no man could propose any thing; August. And is there such ablessednesse in this life? There is. Fecisti nos Domine ad te, & inquietum est Cor nostrum, donec quiescat in te; Lord thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart cannot rest, till it get to thee. But can we come to God here? We cannot. Where's then our viatory, our preparatory, our initiatory, our in choative blessedness. Beloved, though we cannot come to God here, here God comes to us; Here, in the prayers of the Congregation God comes to us; here, in his Ordinance of Preaching, God delivers himself to us; here in the administration of his Sacraments, he seals, ratifies, confirms all unto us; And to rest in these his seals and means of reconciliation to him, this is not to be scandalised, not to be offended in him; and, not to be offended in him, not to suspect him or these means which he hath ordained, this is our viatory, our preparatory, our initiatory and inchoative Blessedness, beyond which, nothing can be proposed in this life. And therefore, as the Needle of a Sea-compasse, though it shake long, yet will rest at last, and though it do not look directly, exactly to the North Pole, but have some variation, yet, for all that variation, will rest, so, though thy heart have some variations, some deviations, some aberrations from that direct point, upon which it should be bend, which is an absolute conformity of thy will to the will of God, yet, though thou lack something of that, afford thy soul rest: settle thy soul in such an infallibility, as this present condition can admit, and believe, that God receives glory as well in thy Repentance, as in thine Innocence, and that the mercy of God in Christ, is as good a pillow to rest thy soul upon after a sin, as the grace of God in Christ is a shield, and protection for thy soul, before. In a word, this is our viatory, our preparatory, our initiatory, and inchoative blessedness, beyond which there can be no blessedness proposed here, first to receive a satisfaction, an acquiescence, that there are certain and constant means ordained by Christ, for our reconciliation to God in him, in all cases, in which a Christian soul can be distressed, that such a treasure there is deposited by him, in the Church, And then, the testimony of a rectified Conscience, that thou hast sincerely applied those general helps to thy particular soul. Come so far, and then, as the Suburbs touch the City, and the Porch the Church, and deliver thee into it, so shall this Viatory, this preparatory, this initiatory and inchoative blessedness deliver thee over to the everlasting blessedness of the Kingdom of heaven. Of which everlasting blessedness, I would ask leave, not so much of you; (yet of you too, for with you, I would not be overbold) but I would ask leave of the Angels of heaven, leave of the holy Ghost himself, to venture to say a little, of this everlasting blessedness: The tongues of Angels cannot, the tongues of the holy Ghost, the Authors of the books of Scripture have not told us, what this blessedness is; And what then shall we say, but this? Blessedness itself, In Caelis. is God himself; our blessedness is our possession; our union with God. In what consists this? A great limb of the School with their Thomas, place this blessedness, this union with God, In visione, in this, That in heaven I shall see God, see God essentially, God face to face, God as he is. We do not see one another so, in this world; In this world we see but outsides; In heaven I shall see God, and God essentially. But then another great branch of the School, with their Scotus, place this blessedness, this union with God, in Amore, in this, that in heaven, I shall love God. August. Now love presumes knowledge; for, Amari nisi nota new possunt, we can love nothing, but that which we do, or think we do understand. There, in heaven, I shall know God, so, as that I shall be admitted, not only to an Adoration of God, to an admiration of God, to a prosternation, and reverence before God, but to an affection, to an office, of more familiarity towards God, of more equality with God, I shall love God. But even love itself, as noble a passion as it is, is but a pain, except we enjoy that we love; and therefore another branch of the School, with their Aureolus, place this blessedness, this union of our souls with God, in Gaudio, in our joy, that is, in our enjoying of God. In this world we enjoy nothing; enjoying presumes perpetuity; and here, all things are fluid, transitory: There I shall enjoy, and possess for ever, God himself. But yet, every one of these, to see God, or to love God, or to enjoy God, have seemed to some too narrow to comprehend this blessedness, beyond which, nothing can be proposed; and therefore another limb of the School, with their Bonaventure, place this blessedness in all these together. And truly, if any of those did exclude any of these, so, as that I might see God, and not love him, or love God, and not enjoy him, it could not well be called blessedness; but he that hath any one of these, hath every one, all: And therefore the greatest part concur, and safely, In visione, That vision is beatification, to see God, as he is, is that blessedness. There then, in heaven, I shall have continuitatem Intuendi; It is not only vision, but Intuition, not only a seeing, but a beholding, a contemplating of God, and that in Continuitate, I shall have an uninterrupted, an un-intermitted, an un-discontinued sight of God, I shall look, and never look off; not look, and look again, as here, but look, and look still, for that is, Continuitas intuendi. There my soul shall have Inconcussam qu●etem; we need owe Plato nothing; but we may thank Plato for this expression, if he meant so much by this Inconcussa quies, That in heaven my soul shall sleep, not only without trouble, and startling, but without rocking, without any other help, than that peace, which is in itself; My soul shall be thoroughly awake, and thoroughly asleep too; still busy, active, diligent, and yet still at rest. But the Apostle will exceed the Philosopher, St. Paul will exceed Plato, as he does when he says, I shall be unus spiritus cum Deo, 1 cor. 6. 17. I shall be still but the servant of my God, and yet I shall be the same spirit with that God. When? Dies quem tanquam supremum reformidas, aterni natalis est, says the Moral man's Oracle, Seneca. Our last day is our first day, our Saturday is our Sunday, our Eve is our Holiday, our sunset is our morning, the day of our death, is the first day of our eternal life. The next day after that, which is the day of judgement, Veniet dies, quae me mihi revelabit; comes that day that shall show me to myself; here I never saw myself, but in disguises: There, Then, I shall see myself, and see God too. Totam lucem, & Totus lux aspiciam; I shall see the whole light; Here I see some parts of the air enlightened by the Sun, but I do not see the whole light of the Sun; There I shall see God entirely, all God, totam lutem, and totus lax, I myself shall be all light to see that light by. Here, I have one faculty enlightened, and another left in darkness: mine vuderstanding sometimes cleared, my will, at the same time perverted. There, I shall be all light, no shadow upon me; my soul invested in the light of joy, and my body in the light of glory. How glorious is God, as he looks down upon us, through the Sun? How glorious in that glass of his? How glorious is God, as he looks out amongst us through the king? How glorious in that Image of his? How glorious is God, as he calls up our eyes to him, in the beauty, and splendour, and service of the Church? How glorious in that spoufe of his? But how glorious shall I conceive this light to be, cum sub loco viderim, when I shall see it, in his own place. In that Sphere, which though a Sphere, is a Centre too; In that place, which, though a place, is all, and every where. I shall see it, in the face of that God, who is all face, all manifestration, August. all all Innotescence to me, (for, facies Deiest, qua Deus nobis innotescit, that's God's face to us, by which God manifests himself to us) I shall see this light in his face, who is all face, and yet all hand, all application, and communication, and delivery of all himself to all his Saints. This is Beatitudo in Auge, blessedness in the Meridional height, blessedness in the South point, in a perpetual Summer solstice, beyond which nothing can be proposed, to see God so, Then, There. And yet the farmers of heaven and hell, the merchants of souls, the Roman Church, make this blessedness, but an under degree, but a kind of apprenticeship; after they have beatified, declared a man to be blessed in the fruition of God in heaven, if that man, in that inferior state do good service to that Church, that they see much profit will rise, by the devotion, and concurrence of men, to the worship; of that person, than they will proceed to a Canonization; and so, he that in his Novitiat, and years of probation was but blessed Ignatius, and blessed Xavier, is lately become Saint Xavier, and Saint Ignatius. And so they pervert the right order, and method, which is first to come to Sanctification, and then to Beatification, first to holiness, and then to blessedness. And in this method, our blessed God be pleased to proceed with us, by the operation of his holy Spirit, to bring us to Sanctification here, and by the merits and intercession of his glorious Son, to Beatification hereafter. That so not being offended in him, but resting in those means and seals, of reconciliation, which thou hast instituted in thy Church, we may have life, and life more abundantly, life of grace here, and life of glory there, in that kingdom, which thy Son, our Saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us, with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. Amen. SERMON XLV. Preached at Saint Dunstan's April 11. 1624. The first sermon in that Church, as Vicar thereof. DEUT. 25. 5. If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no Child, the Wife of the dead shall not marry without, unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her. FRom the beginning God intimated a detestation, a dislike of singularity; of being Alone. The first time that God himself is named in the Bible, in the first verse of Genesis, he is named plurally, Creavit Dit, Gods, Gods in the plural, Created Heaven and Earth. God, which is but one, would not appear, nor be presented so alone, but that he would also manifest more persons. As the Creator was not Singular, so neither were the creatures; First, he created heaven and earth; both together; which were to be the general parents, and out of which were to be produced all other creatures; and then, he made all those other creatures plurally too; Male, and female created he them; And when he came to make him, for whose sake (next to his own glory) he made the whole world, Adam, he left not Adam alone, but joined an Eve to him; Now, when they were married, we know, but we know not when they were divorced; we hear when Eve was made, but not when she died; The husband's death is recorded at last, the wives is not at all. So much detestation hath God himself, and so little memory would he have kept of any singularity, of being alone. The union of Christ to the whole Church is not expressed by any metaphor, by any figure, so oft in the Scripture, as by this of Marriages and there is in that union with Christ to the whole Church, neither husband, nor wife can ever die; Christ is immortal as he is himself, and immortal, as he is the head of the Church, the Husband of that wife: for that wife, the Church is immortal too; for as a Prince is the same Prince, when he fights a battle, and when he triumphs after the victory: so the militant, and the triumphant Church is the same Church. There can be no widower, There can be no Dowager, in that case; He cannot, she cannot die. But then this Metaphor, this spiritual Marriage, holds not only between Christ and the whole Church, in which case thee can be no Widow, but in the union between Christ's particular Ministers, and particular Churches; and there, in that case, the husband of that wife may die; The present Minister may die, and so that Church be a Widow; And in that case, and for provision of such Widows, we consider the accommodation of this Law. If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without, unto a stranger, etc. This law was but a permissive law; rather a dispensation, than a law: as the permitting of usury to be taken of strangers, and the permitting of divorces in so many cases, were. At most it was but a judicial law, and therefore lays no obligation, upon any other nation, then them, to whom it was given, the jews. And therefore we inquire not the reasons of that law, (the reasons were determined in that people) we examine not the conveniences of the law; (the conveniences were determined in those times) we lay hold only upon the Typique signification, and appliableness of the law, as that secular Marriage there spoken of, may be appliable to this spiritual Marriage, the Marriage of the Minister to the Church: If brethren dwell together, etc. From these words then, we shall make our approaches, and application, Divisio. to the present occasion, by these steps; First, there is a marriage, in the case. The taking, and leaving of a Church, is not an indifferent, an arbitrary thing; It is a Marriage, and Marriage implies, Honour: It is an honourable estate, and that implies charge, it is a burdensome state; There is Honos, and Onus, Honour, and labour, in Marriage; You must be content to afford the honour, we must be content to endure the labour. And so in that point, as our incumbency upon a Church, is our Marriage to that Church, we shall as far, as the occasion admits, see what marriage includes, and what it excludes; what it requires, what it forbids. It is a marriage, and a marriage after the death of another: If one die, says the Text; Howsoever the Roman Church in the exercise of their Tyranny, have forbidden Churchmen to marry, then when they have orders, and forbidden orders to be given to any, who have formerly been married, if they married Widows, God is pleased here, to afford us, some intimation, some adumbration, a Typical and exemplar knowledge of the lawfulness of such marriages, he maries after the death of a former husband; and then farther, a brother maries the wife of his deceased brother; Now into the reasons of the law, literally given, and literally accepted, we look not; It is enough, that God hath a care of the preservation of names and families and inheritances in those distinctions, and in those Tribes; where he laid them then; but for the accommodation of the law to our present application, it must be a brother, a spiritual brother, a professor of the same faith, that succeeds in this marriage, in this possession, and this government of that widow Church. It must be a brother, and Frater c●habitans, says our Text, a brother that dwelled together, with the former husband; he must be of the same household of the faithful, as well as profess the same faith; he must dwell in the house of God, not separate himself, or encourage others to do so, for matter of Ceremonies, and discipline; Idolaters must not, Separaists must not be admitted to these marriages, to these widow churches. And then it is a surrendering to a brother dead without children: In this spiritual procreation of children, we all die without children of our own; Though by our labours, when God blesses them, you become children, yet you are God's children, not ours; we nurse you by his word, but his Spirit begets you by the same word; we must not challenge to us, that which God only can do. And then being thus married to this widow, taking the charge of this Church, he must, says our text, perform the duty of a husband's brother. He must, it is a personal service, not to be done always by Proxy, and Delegates; He must; and he must perform; not begin well, and not persist, commence and not consummate, but perform the work, and perform the work, as it is a duty; It is a mere mercy in God, to send us to you, but it is a duty in us, to do that which we are sent for, by his Word, and his Sacraments, to establish you in his holy obedience, and his rich, and honourable service. And then our duty consists in both these, that we behave ourselves, as your husband, which implies a power, an authority; but a power and authority rooted in love, and exercised with love; and than that we do all as brothers to the former husband, that as one intentation of this law was, that inheritances, and temporal proprieties might be preserved, so our care might be through predecessor, and successor, and all, that all rights might be preserved to all men, that nothing not due, or due only in rigour, be extorted from the people, nothing that is in truth, or in equity due, be withheld from the Minister; but that the true right of people, and Pastor, and Patron be preserved, to the preservation of love, and peace, and good opinion of one another. First then, that which we take upon us, is a Marriage. Matrimonium. Amongst the jews, it was almost an ignominious, an infamous thing, to die unmarried, at least to die without children, being married. Amongst the gentiles it was so too all well governed States ever enlarged themselves, in giving places of command and profit, to married men. Indeed such men are most properly said to keep this world in reparations, that provide a succession of children; and for the next world, though all that are borne into this world, do not enter into the number of God's Saints, in heaven, yet the Saints of heaven can be made out of no other materials, but men borne into this world. Every stone in the quarry is not sure to be employed in the building of the church, but the Church must be built out of those stones; and therefore they keep this world, they keep heaven itself in reparation, that marrow in the fear of God, and in the same fear bring up the children of such a marriage. But I press not this too literally, nor over perswasively, that every man is bound to Mary; God is no accepter of persons, nor of conditions. But being to use these words in their figurative application, I say, every man is bound to marry himself to a profession, to a calling: God hath brought him from being nothing, by creating him, but he resolves himself into nothing again, if he take no calling upon him. In our Baptism we make our contract with God, that we will believe all those Articles there recited; there's our contract with hi●; and then, pursuing this contract, in the other Sacrament, when we take his body and his blood, we are married to him. So at the same time, at our Baptism, we make a contract in the presence of God, and his congregation with the world; that we will forsake the covetous desires of the world, that is, the covetous proprieting of all things to ourselves, the covetous living only for ourselves, there's our contract with the world, that we will mutually assist, and serve our brethren in the world; and then, when we take particular callings, by which we are enabled to perform that former contract, than we are married to the world; so every man is duly contracted to the world, in Baptism, and lawfully married to the world in accepting a profession. And so this service of ours to the Church is our marriage. Now in a Matrioniall state, Onus. there is onus and Honos, a burden to be born, an Honour to be received. The burden of the sins of the whole world, was a burden only for Christ's shoulders; but the sins of this Parish, willly upon my shoulders, if I be silent, or if I be indulgent, and denounce not God's Judgement upon those sins. It will be a burden to us, if we do not, and God knows it is a burden to us, when be do denounce those Judgements. Esay felt, and groaned under this burden, when he cried Onus Babylonis Onus Moab, and Onus Damasci, O the burden of Babylon, and the burden of Damscus, and so the other Prophets groan often under this burden, in contemplation of other places: It burdened, it troubled, it grieved the holy Prophets of God, that they must denounce God's judgements, though upon God's enemies. We read of a compassionate General, that looking upon his great Army, from a hill, fell into a bitter weeping, upon this consideration, that in fifty or sixty years hence, there will not be a man of these that fight now, alive upon the earth. What Sea could furnish mine eyes with tears enough, to pour out, if I should think, that of all this Congregation, which looks me in the face now, I should not meet one, at the Resurrection, at the right hand of God And for so much as concerns me, it is all one, if none of you be saved, as if none of you be saved by my help, my means, my assistance, my preaching. If I put you upon miraculous ways, to be saved without hearing, or upon extraordinary ways to be saved by hearing others, this shall aggravate my condemnation, though you be saved: How much more heavy must my burden be, if by my negligence both I and you perish too? So then this calling, this marriage, is a burden every way. When at any midnight I hear a bell toll from this steeple, must not I say to myself, what have I done at any time for the instructing or rectifying of that man's Conscience, who lieth there now ready to deliver up his own account, and my account to Almighty God? If he be not able to make a good account, he and I are in danger, because I have not enabled him; and though he be for himself able, that delivers not me, if I have been no instrument for the doing of it. Many, many burdens lie upon this calling, upon this marriage; but our recompense is, that marriage is as well an honourable as a painful calling. If be a Father, where is mine Honour, Honos. Malac. 1. 6. faith God: If you can answer God, why, you have it in your Prophets, They have it, that satisfieth him, that dischargeth you. For, he that receiveth them, receiveth him: But if Christ, who repeats that complaint, in every one of us, That a Prophet hath no honour in his own Country, that a Pastor is least respected of his own stock, you have not your Quctus est, for the honour due to God; God never discharges the honour due to him, if it be not paid into their hands, whom he sendeth for it, to them upon whom he hath directed it. Would the King believe that man, to honour him, that violateth his Image, or that calumniateth his Ambassador? Every man is the Image of God; every Creature is the Ambassador of God; The Heavens, (and as well as the Heavens, the Earth) declare the glory of God; but the Civil Magistrate, and the Spiritual Paster, who have married the two Daughters of God, The state and the Church, are the Images and Ambassadors of God, in a higher and more peculiar sense, and for that marriage are to be honoured. And then Honour implieth that, by which Honour subsisteth, maintenance; and they which withdraw that injuriously, or withhold that contentiously, dishonour God, in the dishonour of his servants, and so make this marriage, this calling only burdensome and not honourable. So then the interest of your particular Minister, and the particular Church, being such as between Man and Wife, a marriage, we consider the uses of marriage in God's first intention, and apply them to this marriage. God's first intentions in marriage were two. In adjutorium, for mutual helpers, and in prolem, for procreation, and education of Children. For both these are we made Husbands of Churches; in prolem, to assist in the regeneration of Children, for the inheritance of Heaven; and in adjutorium, to be helpers to one another. And therefore if the husband, the Pastor, put the wife, his flock in a circumcision, to pair themselves to the quick, to take from their necessary means to sustain their families, to satisfy him; the wife will say as Zipporah said to Moses, spon● sus sanguinum, a bloody husband art thou, that exactest and extortest more than is due, In that case the Husband is no helper. But if we be always ready to help your children over the threshold, (as Saint Augustine calls Baptism, Limen Ecclesiae) always ready to Baptise the Children; if we be always ready to help you in all your spiritual diseases, to that Cordial, that Balsamum, the body and blood of Christ jesus; If we be always ready to help you in all your bodily distresses, ready even at your last gasp to open your eyes then, when your best friends are ready to close them; ready to deliver your souls into the hands of God, when all the rest about you are ready to receive into their hands, that which you leave behind you, and then ready to lay up the garments of your souls, your bodies, in the wardrobe the grave, till you call for them, and put them on again, in the resurrection, then are we truly helpers, true husbands; and than if the Wife will say, as jobs wife to the husband, Curse God and die, be sorry, that thou hast taken this Profession upon thee, and live in penury, and die in poverty. In a word, if he press too much, if she withdraw too much, this frustrates God's purpose in making that a marriage; they are not mutual helpers to one another. These were Gods two principal intentions in marriage, in adjutorium, in prolem. But than man's fall induced a third, in remedium, That for a remedy against burning, and to avoid fornication, every man should have his own wife, every woman her own husband. And so in remedium, for a remedy against spiritual fornication, of running after other men in other places, out of disaffection to their own Pastor, or over affecting another, God hath given every wife, her own husband, Every Church her own Pastor. And to all these purposes, our function is a marriage. It is a marriage, Defuncti. it deserves the honour, it undertakes the burden of that state; and than it is a marriage of a widow, Levit. 21. 13. of a Church left in widowhood by the death of her former husband. In the Law literally God forbade the High Priest to marry a widow. The Roman Church continues that literally, and more; they extend it; that which was in figure, enjoined to the High Priest only, they in fact extend to all Priests; no man that ever married a widow, may be a priest, though she be dead, when he desires orders. There is no question but there is a more exemplary sanctity required in the Priest, then in other persons, and more in those, who are in high places in the Church, then in those of inferior Jurisdictions, and the name and title of Virginity, hath ever been exhibited as an Emblem, as a Type of especial Sanctity. And as such the Apostle uses it when he saith, 2 Cor. 11. 2. That he would present the Church of Corinth, as a chaste Virgin to Christ; That is, as chaste as a Virgin, though married, for so he saith in the words immediately before, That he had espoused them to a husband: As marriage is an honourable state, though in poverty, so is the bed undefiled with strange lust, a chaste bed even in marriage. And in the accommodation of the Figure to the present occasion, our marriage to several Churches, If we might marry no widows, (no Churches, which had been wives to former husbands) we should find few Virgins, that is, Churches newly erected for us. But when the wife of a former husband is left a widow, Nubat in Domino, saith the Apostle, 1 Cor. 7. ult. In God's name let her marry. But the former husband must be dead: The husband's absence makes not the wife a widow; nor doth the necessary, and lawful absence of the Pastor, make the Church vacant. The sickness of the husband makes not a widow; The bodily weakness nay the spiritual weakness of the Pastor in case that his parts and abilities, and faculties, be grown but weak, do not make his Church vacant. If the Pastor be suspended, or otherwise censured, this is but as a separation, or as a divorce; and as the wife is not a widow, upon a divorce, so neither is the Church vacant, upon such censures. And therefore for them that take advantages upon the weaknesses, or upon the disgrace, or upon the poverty of any such incumbent, and so insinuate themselves into his Church, this is intrusion, this is spiritual adultery, for the husband is not dead, though he be sick. Nay if they would remove him by way of preferment, Gen. 25. 26. yet that is a supplantation; when jacob had Esau by the heel, whether he kept him in, till he might be strong enough to go out before him, or whether he pushed him out, before he would have gone, jacob was a supplanter. Some few cases are put when a wife becomes as a widow, her husband living; but regularly it is by death. In some few cases, Churches may otherwise be vacant, but regularly it is by death. And then Esto vidua in Dom● Patris, saith judah to Thamar, Remain a widow at thy father's house: Then the Church remaineth in the house, Gen. 38. 11. in the hands of her Father, the Bishop of that Di●ces, till a new husband be lawfully tendered unto her: And till that time, as our Saviour Christ recommended his most blessed Mother, to Saint john, but not as a wife, so that Bishop delivers that Church, to the care and administration of some other during her widowhood, till by due course she become the wife of another. Thus our calling is a marriage; It should have honour; It must have labour; and it is a lawful marriage upon a just and equitable vacancy of the place, Fratris. without any supplantation; upon death; And than it is upon death of a brother, If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife, etc. Aswell Saint Gregory, Gregor. as Saint Augustine before, interpret this of our elder, our eldest brother Christ jesus. Aug. That he being dead, we marry his wife, the Church, and become husbands to her. But Christ, in that capacity, as he is head of the Church, cannot die. That to which, the application of this law, leads us, is, That predecessor, and successor, be brethren of the same faith, and the same profession of faith. The Sadduces put a case to Christ of a woman married successively to seven men; let seven signify infinite; still those seven were brethren. How often soever any wife change her husband, any Church, her Pastor, God sends us still a succession of brethren, sincere, and unfeigned Preachers of the same truth, sons of the same father; Who is that father? God is our Father; Mal. 2. 10. Have we not all one Father, job 38. 28. says the Prophet? Yes, we have, and so a worm, and we, are brethren, by the same father, and mother, the same God, the same Earth. Hath not the rain a father? The rain hath; and the same that we have. More narrowly, and yet very largely, Christ is our father; One of his names is, The everlasting Father; Esa. 9 6. And then after these, after God, after Christ, the King is our father; 1 Sam. 24. 11. See, my father, the skirt of thy robe, in my hand, says David to his King Saul; Now if any husband should be offered to any widow, any Pastor to any vacant Church, who were not our brother by all these fathers, in a right belief in God, the Father of all men, in a right profession of Christ jesus, the Father of all Christians, in a right affection, and allegiance to the King, the Father of all Subjects, Bellarmin. Any that should incline to a foreign father, an imaginary universal father, he of whom his Vice-fathers', his Junior fathers, the Jesuits (for all the Jesuits are Fathers) says, That the Fathers of the Church are but sons, and not fathers, to him; They that say to a stock, to the Image of the beast) Thou art my father, who, (not in a sense of humiliation, as job speaks the words) but of pride, say to corruption, Thou art my father, jer. 2. 27. that is, that prostrate themselves to all the corruptions of a prostitute Church: job 17. 14. If any so inclined of himself, or so inclinable if occasion should invite him, or rather tempt him, be offered for husband to any widow, for a Pastor to any vacant Church, he is not within the accommodation of this law, he is not our brother, by the whole blood, who hath not a brotherhood rooted in the same religion, and in the allegiance to the same Sovereign. He must be a brother, Cohabitans. and Frater Cohabitans, a brother dwelling with the former brother. As he is a brother, we consider the unity of faith: As he dwells in the same house, we consider the unity of discipline; That as he believes, and professes the same articles of faith, so by his own obedience, and by his instructing of others, he establish the same government; A Schismatique is no more a brother to this purpose, than an Heretic. If we look well, we shall see, that Christ provided better for his garments, then for his flesh; he suffered his flesh to be torn, but not his seamlesse garment. There may be, in many cases, more mischief, in disobeying the uniformity of the discipline of the Church then in mistaking in opinion, some doctrine of the Church. We see in God's institution of his first Church, whom he called brethren: 1 Chron. 5. 27. Those who were instructed, and cunning in the songs of the Church, they are called brethren; To oppose the orders of the Church solemnly ordained, or customarily admitted, for the advancement of God's glory, and the devotion of the Congregation, forfeits this brotherhood, or at least discontinues the purpose and use of it; for, howsoever they may be in a kind, brothers, if they succeed in the profession of the same faith, yet we see where the blessedness is settled, Blessed are they that dwell in thy house; And we see, Psal. 84. 〈◊〉 133. 1. where the goodness, and the pleasantness is settled, Behold, how good, and how pleasant a thing it is, for brethren to dwell together in unity: So that, if they be not brothers in the same faith, and brothers in the same household of the faithful, and brothers in the same allegiance, If they advance not the truth of the Church, and the peace of the Church, and the head of the Church, fomentors of Error, and of Schism, and Sedition, are not husbands for these widows, Pastors for these Churches. He must be a brother; Sine liberis. A brother dwelling in the same house of Christ, and then brother to one dead without children, as Tertullian expresses it in his particular elegancy Illiberis; that is, content to be his brother, in that sense, in that capacity, to claim no children, no spiritual children of his own begetting; not to attribute to himself that holy generation of the Saints of God, as though his learning, or his wit, or his labour, had saved them; but to content himself to have been the foster father, and to have nursed those children, jer. 1. 18. whom the Spirit of God, by over-shadowing the Church, hath begot upon her, for, though it be with the word of truth, in our preaching, yet of his own will begot he us, though by the word, says the Apostle. Saint Paul might say to the Corinthians, 1. 4. 15. Though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers, for in Christ jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel; And he might say of his spiritual son Onesimus, Phil. 10. That he begot him in his bonds; Those, to whom he first of any presented the Gospel, That had not heard of a Christ, nor a holy Ghost, before, They, into whom, he infused a new religion, new to them, might well enough be called his children, and he their father; But we have no new doctrine to present, no new opinion to infuse, or miracles to amaze, as in the Roman Church, they are full of all these: 1 Cor. 1. 13. 3. 6. we have no children to beget of our own: Paul was not crucified for you, nor were you baptised in the name of Paul, says Paul himself; as he says again, who is Paul? but a Minister by whom ye believed, and that also not by him, but as the Lord gave to every man; Not as Paul preached to every man, for he preached alike to every man; but as the Lord gave to every man; I have planted, says he, it is true, but he that planteth is nothing, says he also; Only they that proceed, as they proceed in the Roman Church Ex opere operato, to tie the grace of God, to the action of the man, will venture to call God's children, their children in that sense. My prayer shall be against that commination, That God will not give us a miscarrying womb, nor dry breasts; Hose. 9 14. that you may always suck pure milk from us, and then not cast it up, but digest it, to your spiritual growth; And I shall call upon God with a holy passion, Gen. 30. 1. as vehement as Rachel's to jacob, Da mihi liberos, give me children, or I die: That God would give me children, but his children; that he by his Spirit, may give you an inward regeneration, as I, by his ordinance shall present to you, the outward means, that so being begot by himself, the father of life, and of light, you may be nursed, and brought up, in his service by me. That so, not attributing the work to any man, but to God's Ordinances, you do not tie the power of God, nor the breath of life, to any one man's lips, as though there were no regeneration, no begetting, but by him; but acknowledging the other to be but an instrument, and the weakest to be that, you may remember also, That though a man can cut deeper with an Axe, then with a knife, with a heavy, then with a lighter instrument; yet God can pierce as far into a conscience, by a plain, as by an exquisite speaker. Now this widow being thus married, This Church thus undertaken, He must perform the duty of a husband's brother: Ille. First, it is a personal office, he must do it himself. When Christ shall say, at the Judgement, I was naked, and ye clothed me not, sick, and ye visited me not, Mat. 25. 43. it shall be no excuse to say, When saw we thee naked, when saw we thee sick? for we might have seen it, we should have seen it. When we shall come to our account, and see them, whose salvation was committed to us, perish, because they were uninstructed, and ignorant, dare we say then, we never saw them, show their ignorance, we never heard of it? That is the greatest part of our fault, the heaviest weight upon our condemnation, that we saw so little, heard so little, conversed so little amongst them, because we were made watchmen, and bound to see, and bound to hear, and bound to be heard; not by others, but by our selves; My sheep may be saved by others; but I save them not, that are save so, nor shall I myself be saved by their labour, where mine was necessarily required. The office is personal, I must do it, and it is perpetual, Perpetual. I must perform it, says the text, go through with it. Lot's wife looked back, and God never gave her leave to look forward again. Luke 9 62. 3. 3. That man who hath put his hand to the plough, and looks back, Christ disables him for the kingdom of God. The Galatians who had begun in the spirit, and then relapsed, before whose eyes Christ jesus had been evidently set forth, as the Apostle speaks, fall under that reproach of the Apostle, to be called, and called again, fools, and men bewitched. If I begin to preach, amongst you, and proceed not, I shall fall under that heavy increpation from my God, you began, that you might for your own glory, show that you were in some measure, able to serve the Church, and when you had done enough for your own glory, you gave over my glory, and the salvation of their souls, to whom I sent you. God hath set our eyes in our foreheads, to look forward, not backward, not to be proud of that which we have done, but diligent in that which we are to do. In the Creation, if God had given over his work, the third, or fifth day, where had man been? If I give over my prayers, due to the Church of God, as long as God enables me to do it service, I lose my thanks, nay, I lose the testimony of mine own conscience for all. My office is personal, and it is perpetual, and then it is a duty. Duty. He must perform the duty of a husband's brother unto her. It is not of courtesy, that we preach, but it is a duty, it is not a bounty given, but it is a debt paid: for, though I preach the Gospel, I have nothing to glory of, for a necessity is laid upon me, says Saint Paul himself. It is true, 1 Cor. 9 16. that as there is Vae si non, Woe be unto me, if I do not preach the Gospel, Mat. 25. 21. so there is an Euge bone serve, Well done, good and faithful servant, to them that do. But the Vae, is of justice, the Euge is of Mercy; If do it not, I deserve condemnation from God; but if, I do it, I deserve not thanks from him. Nay, it is a debt, not only to God, but to God's people, to you: and indeed there is more due to you, than you can claim, or can take knowledge of. For the people can claim but according to the laws of that State, and the Canons of that Church, in which God hath placed them; such preaching, as those Laws, and those Canons enjoin, is a debt which they can call for: but the Pastor himself hath another Court, another Bar in himself, by which he tries himself, and must condemn himself, if he pay not this debt, perform not this duty, as often, as himself, knows himself, to be fit, and able to do it. It is a duty, and it is the duty of an husband's brother. Now the husband hath power, Mariti. and authority over the wife. 1 Cor. 11. 3. The head of the woman is the Man; and when the office of this spiritual husband is particularly expressed, 2 Tim. 4. 3. thus, Reprove, Rebuke, Exhort, you see, for one word of familiarity, that is, Exhort, there are two of authority, Reprove, and Rebuke. But yet, all the authority of the husband, secular, or ecclesiastical, temporal, or spiritual husband, is grounded, rooted in love: for, the Apostle seems to delight himself, in the repeating of that Commandment, to the Ephesians, and to the Colossians, Husbands love your wives. Moses extends himself no farther, in expressing all the happinesses, that Isaak and Rebecca enjoyed in one another, but this, she become his wife, and he loved her. If she had not been his wife, Moses would never have proposed that love for an example; for so it is also between Elkanah, and his wife Hannah. 1 Sam. 1. 5. 1 Sam. 1. 5. Unto Hannah he gave a double portion, for (says the Text) he loved Hannah. If the Pastor love, there will be a double labour; if the People love, there will be double respect. But being so, he thought he said all, when he said they loved one another; For where the Congregation loves the Pastor, he will forbear bitter reproofs, and wounding increpations, and where the Pastor loves his Congregation, his Rebukes, because they proceed our of love, will be acceptable, and well interpreted by them. It is a duty, Fratris and personal, and perpetual; a duty, of a husband, and lastly, of a husband that is brother to the former husband; In which last circumstance, we have time to mark but this one note, that the reason of that law, which drew the brother to this marriage, was the preservation of the temporal inheritance, in that family. Even in our spiritual marriages to widow Churches, we must have a care to preserve the temporal rights of all persons; That the Parish be not oppressed with heavy extortions, nor the Pastor defrauded with unjust substraction, nor the Patron damnified by usurpations, nor the Ordinary neglected by disobediences; but that people, and Pastor, and Patron, and Ordinary, continuing in possession of their several rights, love being the root of all, the fruit of all may be peace, love being the soul of all, the body of all may be unity; which the Lord of unity, and concord, grant to us all, for his Son Christ Jesus sake, Amen. SERMON XLVI. The second Sermon Preached by the Author after he came to St. Dunstanes, 25 Apr. 1624. PSAL. 34. 11. Come ye children, Harken unto me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. THE Text does not call children simply, literally, but such men, and women, Mat. 18. 3. as are willing to come in the simplicity of children; such children, as Christ spoke of, Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven; Come ye children come such children. Nor does the Text call such as come, and would fain be gone again; it is Come and Harken; not such as wish themselves away, nor such as wish another man here; but such as value God's ordinance of Preaching, though it be, as the Apostle says, but the foolishness of Preaching, and such, as consider the office, and not the person, how mean soever; 1 Cor. 1. 21. Come ye children; And, when ye are come, Harken, And, though it be but I, Harken unto me; And, I will teach you the fear of the Lord; the most noble, the most courageous, the most magnanimous, not affection, but virtue, in the world; Come ye children, Harken unto me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord. To every Minister and Dispenser of the word of God, Divisio. and to every Congregation belong these words; Divisio. And therefore we will divide the Text between us; To you one, to us appertains the other part. You must come, and you must hearken; we must teach, and teach to edification; There is the Meum & Tuum, your part, and our part. From each Part, these branches flow out naturally; In yours, first, the capacity, as children; Then the action, you Come; Then your Disposition here, you harken; And lastly, your submission to God's Ordinance, you harken even unto me, unto any Minister of his sending. In our Part, there is first a Teaching; for, else, why should you come, or hearken unto me, or any? It is a Teaching, it is not only a Praying; And then, there is a Catholic doctrine, a circular doctrine, that walks the round, and goes the compass of our whole lives, from our first, to our last childhood, when age hath made us children again, and it is the Art of Arts, the root, and fruit of all true wisdom, The true fear of the Lord. Come ye children, harken unto me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord. First then, 1 Part. the word, in which, in the first branch of the first part, your capacity is expressed, filii, pueri, children, is, from the Original, which is Banim, often accepted in three notions, and so rendered; Three ways, men are called children, out of that word Ban●m, in the Scriptures. Either it is servi, servants; for, they are fili● familiares; as the Master is Pater familias, Father of the family, (and that he is, though there be no natural children in the family) the servants are children of the family, and are very often in Scriptures called so, Pueri, children; Or it is Alumni, Nurse-children, foster-childrens, filii m●mmillares, children of the breasts; whether we minister to them, temporal or spiritual nourishment, they are children; Or else it is filii viscerales, children of our bowels, our natural children. And in all these three capacities, as servants, as sucking children, as sons, are you called upon in this appellation, in this compellation, children. First, Serv●. as you are servants, you are children; for, without distinction of age, servants are called so, 1 Sam. 21. 5. frequently, ordinarily, in the Scriptures, Pueri. The Priest asks David, before he would give him the holy bread, An vasa puerorum sancta, Whether those children, (speaking of David's followers) were clean from women; 1 King. 20. 15. Here were children that were able to get children. Nay, David's Soldiers are often called so, pueri, children. In the first of the Kings, he takes a Muster, recenset pueros; Here were children that were able to kill men. You are his children, (of what age soever) as you are his servants; and in that capacity he calls you. You are unprofitable servants; but it is not an unprofitable service, to serve God; He can get nothing by you, but you can have nothing without him. The Centurion's servants came, when he said, Come; and was their wages like yours? Had they their being, their everlasting well-being for their service? You will scarce receive a servant, that is come from another man, without testimony; If you put yourselves out of God's service, whither will ye go? In his service, and his only, is perfect freedom. And therefore as you love freedom, and liberty, be his servants; and call the freedom of the Gospel, the best freedom, and come to the Preaching of that. He calls you children, Alumni. as you are servants, (filii familiares) and he calls you children, as you are Alumni, nurse-childrens, filii mammillares, as he requires the humility, and simplicity of little children in you. Prov. 3. 32. For, Cum simplicibus sermocinatio ejus, (as the vulgat reads that place) Gods secret discourse is with the single heart. The first that ever came to Christ, (so as he came to us, in blood) they that came to him so, before he came so to us, that died for him, before he died for them, were such sucking children, those whom Herod slew. Mat. 11. 25. As Christ thought himself bound to thank his Father, for that way of proceeding, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast revealed these things unto babes; 19 14. so Christ himself pursues the same way, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me, for of such is the Kingdom of heaven. Of such; not only of those who were truly, literally children, (children in age) but of such as those, (Talium est regnum coelorum) such as come in such a disposition, in the humility, in the simplicity, in the singleness of heart, as children do. An habitual sinner is always in minority, always an Infant; an Infant to this purpose, All his acts, all the bands of an Infant, are void all the outward religious actions, even the band and contract of Baptism in an habitual sinner is void, and ineffectual. He that is in the house, and favour of God, though he be a child, (a child to this purpose, simple, supple, tractable, single-hearted) is, as Adam was in the state of Innocency, a man the first minute, able to stand upright in the sight of God. And out of one place of Esay, Esay 65. 20. our Expositors have drawn, conveniently enough, both these conclusions; A child shall die 100 years old, says the Prophet; that is, (say some) a sinner though he live 100 years, yet he dies a child, in ignorance; And then, (say others, and both truly) He that comes willingly, when God calls, though he die a child in age, he hath the wisdom of 100 years upon him. There is not a graver thing, then to be such a child; to conform his will to the will of God. Whether you consider temporal or spiritual things, you are God's children. For, for temporal, if God should take off his hand, withdraw his hand of sustentation, all those things, which assist us temporally, would relapse to the first feeble, and childish estate, and come to their first nothing. Army's would be but Hospitals, without all strength; Councell-tables but Bedlams, without all sense; and Schools and Universities, but the wrangling of children, if God, and his Spirit did not inanimate our Schools, and Armies, and Counsels. His adoption makes us men, therefore, because it makes us his children. But we are his children in this consideration especially, as we are his spiritual children, as he hath nursed us, fed us with his word. In which sense, the Apostle speaks of those who had embraced the true Religion, (in the same words that the Prophet had spoken before) Behold, Heb. 2. 13. I, and the children that God hath given me; Esay 2. 6. And in the same sense, the same Prophet, in the same place, says of them who had fallen away from the true Religion, They please themselves in the children of strangers, In those men, who have derived their Orders, and their Doctrine from a foreign Jurisdiction. In that State where Adoptions were so frequent, (in old Rome) a Plebeian could not adopt a Patrician, a Yeoman could not adopt a Gentleman, nor a young man could not adopt an old. In the new Rome, that endeavours to adopt all, in an imaginary filiation, you that have the perfect freedom of God's service, be not adopted into the slavery, and bondage of men's traditions; you that are in possession of the ancient Religion, of Christ, and his Apostles, be not adopted into a younger Religion. Religio à religando; That is Religion, that binds; that binds, that is necessary to salvation. That which we affirm, our adversaries deny not; that which we profess, they confess was always necessary to salvation. They will not say, that all that they say now, was always necessary; That a man could not be saved without believing the Articles of the Council of Trent, a week before that Council shut up. You are his children, as children are servants; Malach. and, If he be your Lord, where is his fear? you are his children, as he hath nursed you, with the milk of his word; and if he be your Father so, (your foster Father) where is his love? But he is your Father otherwise; you are not only Filii familiares, children because servants, nor only Filii mammillares, children because nursed by him, but you are also Filii viscerales, children of his bowels. For, we are otherwise allied to Christ, than we can be to any of his instruments, Phil. v 12. though Angels of the Church, Prophets, or Apostles; and yet, his Apostle says, of one whom he loved, of Onesimus, Receive him, that is mine own bowels; my Son, says he, whom I have begotten in my hands. How much more art thou bound to receive and refresh those bowels from which thou art derived, Christ jesus himself; Receive him, Refresh him. Carry that, which the wiseman hath said, Miserere animae tuae, be merciful to thine own soul, higher than so; and Miserere salvatoris tui, Colos. 3. 12. have mercy upon thine own Saviour, put on the bowels of mercy, and put them on even towards Christ jesus himself, who needs thy mercy, by being so tome, and mangled, and emboweled, by blasphemous oaths, and execrations. For, beloved, it is not so absurd a prayer, as it is conceived, if Luther did say upon his death bed, Oremus pro Domino nostro jesu Christo, Let us pray for out Lord and Saviour jesus Christ. Had we not need pray for him? If he complain that Saul persecutes him, had we not need pray for him? It is a seditious affection in civil things, to divide the King and the kingdom; to pray, to fight for the one, and leave out the other, is seditiously done. If the kingdom of Christ need thy prayers, and thy assistance, Christ needs it; If the Body need it, the Head needs it; If thou must pray for his Gospel, thou must pray for him; Nay, thou canst not pray for thyself, but thou must pray for him, for, thou art his bowels; when thou in thy forefathers, the first Christians in the Primitive Church, wast persecuted, Christ cried out, why persecutest thou me? Christ made thy case his, because thou wast of his bowels. When Christ is disseised, and dispossessed, his truth profligated, and thrown out of a nation, that professed it before, when Christ is wounded by the blasphemies of others, and crucified by thee, in thy relapses to repent sins, wilt thou not say to Them, to Thyself, in the behalf of Christ, why persecute ye me? Wilt thou not make Christ's case thine, as he made thine his? Art not thou the bowels of Christ? If not, (and thou art not, if thou have not this sense of his suffering) thou hast no interest in his death, by thy Baptism, nor in his Resurrection, by thy feeble half repentances. But in the duty of a child, as thou art a servant, in the simplicity of a child, as thou hast sucked from him, in the interest and inheritance of a child, as thou art the Son of his bowels, in all these capacities, (and with all these we have done) God calls thee, come ye children; and that is our next step, the Action, Come. Passing thus from the Persons to the action, Venite, Venite. Come, we must ask first, what this coming is? The whole mystery of our redemption is expressed by the Apostle in this word, 1 Tim. 1. 15. venit, that Christ jesus is come into the world. All that thou hast to do, is to come to, and to meet him. Where is he? At home; in his own house, in the Church. Which is his house, which is his Church? That to thee, in which he hath given thee thy Baptism, if that do still afford thee, as much as is necessary for thy salvation. Come thither, to the participation of his ordinances, to the exercises of Religion there. The gates of heaven shall be opened to you, at last in that word, Venite benedicti, come ye blessed, the way to those gates is opened to you now, in the same word, Venite filii, come ye children, come. Christ can come, and does often, into thy bedchamber, in the visitation of his private Spirit, but, here, he calls thee out into the congregation, into the communion of Saints. And then the Church celebrates Christ's coming in the flesh, a month before he comes, in four Sundays of Advent, before Christmas. When thou comest to meet him in the Congregation, come not occasionally, come not casually, not indifferently, not collaterally; come not as to an entertainment, a show, a spectacle, or company, come solemnly, with preparation, with meditation. He shall have the less profit, by the prayer of the Congregation, that hath not been at his private prayer before he came. Much of the mystery of our Religion lay in the venturus, that Christ was to come, all that the law and Prophets undertook for, was that venturus, that Christ was to come; but the consummation of all, the end of the law and the Prophets, is in the venit, he is come. Do not clog thy coming with future conditions, and contingencies, thou wilt come, if thou canst wake, if thou canst rise, if thou canst be ready, if thou like the company, the weather, the man. Matt. 9 2. We find one man who was brought in his bed to Christ; but it was but one. Come, come actually, come earnestly, come early, come often; and come to meet him, Christ Jesus and no body else. Christ is come into the world; and therefore thou needest not go out of the world to meet him; He doth not call thee from thy Calling, but in thy Calling. Gen. 8. 11. The Dove went up and down, from the Ark, and to the Ark, and yet was not disappointed of her Oliveleafe, Thou mayest come to this place at due times, and mayest do the businesses of the world, in other places too, and still keep thy Olive, thy peace of Conscience. If no Heretical recusancy, (thou dost like the Doctrine) no schismatical recusancy, (thou dost like the Discipline) no lazy recusancy, (thou forbearest not because thou canst not sit at thine ease) no proud recusancy, (that the company is not good enough for thee) if none of these detain thee, thou mayst be here, even when thou art not here; God may accept thy desire, as, in many cases, thou mayst be away, when thou art here; as, in particular thou art, if being here, thou do not hearken to that which is said here; for that is added to the coming, and follows in a third consideration, after the capacity, Children, and the Action, Come, The disposition, Harken: Come ye children & hearken. Upon those words of David, Conturbata sunt ossa mea. Audite. St. Basil faith well, Psalm. 6. 3. Habet & anima ossa sua, The soul hath bones as well as the body. And in this Anatomy, and dissection of the soul, as the bones of the soul, are the constant and strong resolutions thereof, and as the seeing of the soul is understanding (The eyes of your understanding being opened) so the Hearing of the soul is harkening in these religious exercises, Ephes. 1. 18. we do not htar, except we harken; for harkening is the hearing of the soul. Some men draw some reasons, out of some stories of some credit, to imprint a belief of ecstasy, and raptures; That the body remaining upon the floor, or in the bed, the soul may be gone out to the contemplation of heavenly things. But it were a strange and a perverse ecstasy, that the body being here, at a religious exercise, and in a religious posture, the soul should be gone out to the contemplation, and pursuit of the pleasures or profits of this world. You come hither but to your own funerals, if you bring nothing hither but your bodies; you come but to be interred, to be laid in the earth, if the ends of your coming be earthly respects, praise, and opinion, and observation of men, you come to be Canonised, to grow Saints, if your souls be here, and by grace here always diffused, grow up to a sanctification. Bonus es Domine animae quaerenti te, Thou art good, O Lord, to that soul that seeks thee; It is St. Augustine's note, that it is put in the singular, Animae, to that soul: Though many come, few come to him. A man may thread Sermons by half dozen a day, and place his merit in the number, a man may have been all day in the perfume and incense of preaching, and yet have received none of the savour of life unto life. Some things an Ape can do as well as a Man; some things an Hypocrite as well as a Saint. We cannot see now, whether thy soul be here now, or no; but, to morrow, hereafter, in the course of thy life, they which are near thee, & know whether thy former faults be mended, or no, know whether thy soul use to be at Sermons, as well as thy body uses to go to Sermons. Faith comes by hearing, saith the Apostle; but it is by that hearing of the soul, Harkening, Considering. And then, as the soul is infused by God, but diffused over the whole body, & so there is a Man, so Faith is infused from God, but diffused into our works, and so there is a Saint. Practice is the Incarnation of Faith, Faith is incorporated and manifested in a body, by works; and the way to both, is that Hearing, which amounts to this Harkening, to a diligent, to a considerate, to a profitable Hearing. In which, one essential circumstance is, that we be not over affectionately transported with an opinion of any one person, but apply ourselves to the Ordinance, Come, and hearken unto me, To any whom God sends with the Seal and Character of his Minister, which is our fourth and last branch in your part. David doth not determine this in his own person, Me. that you should hearken to him, and none but him, but that you should hearken to him in that capacity and qualification, which is common to him with others, as we are sent by God upon that Ministry; Me. that you say to all such, Blessed art thou that comest in the Name of the Lord. St. Augustine, and not he alone, interprets this whole Psalm of Christ, that it is a thanksgiving of Christ to his Father, upon some deliverance received in some of his Agonies, some of his persecutions; and that Christ calleth us to hearken unto him. To him, so, as he is present with us, in the Ministry of his Church, He is a perverse servant, that will receive no commandment, except he have it immediately from his Master's mouth; so is he too, that pretendeth to rest so wholly in the Word of God, the Scriptures, as that he seeks no interpretation, no exposition, no preaching, All is in the Scriptures, but all the Scriptures are not always evident to all understandings. He also is a perverse servant, that will receive no commandment by any Officer of his Masters, except he like the man, or, if his Master might, in his opinion, have chosen a fitter man, to serve in that place. And such a perverseness is in those hearers who more respect the man, than the Ministry, and his manner of delivering it, 1 Co●. 4. 1. than the message that he delivers. Let a man so account of us, as of the Ministers of Christ, and Stewards of the mysteries of God. That is our Classis, our rank, our station, what names soever we brought into the world by our extraction from this or that family, what name soever we took in our baptism, and contract between God and us, that name, in which we come to you, is that, The Ministers of Christ, The Stewards of the Mysteries of God, And so let men account of us, says the Apostle. Invention, and Disposition, and Art, and Eloquence, and Expression, and Elocution, and reading, and writing, and printing, are secondary things, accessary things, auxiliary, subsidiary things; men may account us, and make account of us, as Orators in the pulpit, and of Authors, in the shop; but if they account of us as of Ministers and Stewards, they give us our due; that's our name to you. All the Evangelists mention john Baptist and his preaching; but two of the four say never a word of his austerity of life, his Locusts, nor his Camel's hair; and those two that do, Matthew and Mark, they insist, first, upon his calling, and then upon his actual preaching, how he pursued that Calling, And then upon the Doctrine that he preached, Repentance, and Sanctification, and after that, they come to these secondary and subsidiary things, which added to his estimation, and assisted the passage of his Doctrine, Exod. 6. 12. His good life. Learning, and other good parts, and an exemplar life fall into second places; jer. 1. 6. They have a first place, in their consideration who are to call them, but in you, to whom they are sent, but a second; fix you, in the first place, upon the Calling. Esa. 6. 6. This Calling circumcised Moses uncircumcised lips; This made jeremy able to speak, though he called himself a child; This is Esays coal from the Altar, which takes away even his sin, and his iniquity. Be therefore content to pass over some infirmities, and rest yourselves upon the Calling. And when you have thus taken the simplicity of Children, (they are the persons, which was our first step) and are come to the Congregation, (that is your Action, and was our second) and have conformed yourselves to hearken, (that also is the Disposition here, which was our third) And all this with a reverence to the Calling before an affection to the man, (that is your submission to God's Ordinance, and was our fourth and last step) you have then built up our first part in yourselves, & laid together all those pieces which constitute your Duty, Come ye Children, and hearken unto me; And from hence we pass, to our duty, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. In this second part, 2 Part. we made two steps; first, The manner, Docebo, I will teach; And then the Matter, Docebo. Timorem Domini, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Upon the first, we will stay no longer, but to confess, That we are bound to teach, and that this teaching is to preach; And Vae si non, W● be unto us, if we do not preach. woe to them, who out of ease, or state, silence themselves; And woe to them too, who by their distemper, and Schismatical and seditious manner of preaching, occasion and force others to silence them; and think, (and think it out of a profitable, and manifold experience) That as forbidden books sell best, so silence Ministers thrive best. It is a Duty, Docendum, we must teach, Preach; but a duty that excludes not Catechising; for cateching seems especially to be intended here, where he calls upon them who are ot be taught, by that name, Children. It is a duty that excludes not Praying; but Praying excludes not it neither. Prayer and Preaching may consist, nay they must meet in the Church of God. Now, he that will teach, must have learned before, many years before; And he that eil preach, must have thought of it before, many days before. Extemporal Ministers, that resolve in day what they will be, Extemporal Preachers, that resolve in a minute, what they will say, outgo God's Spirit, and make too much haste. It was Christ's way; He took first Disciples to learn, and then● out of them, he took Apostles to teach; an those Apostles made more Disciples. Though your first consideration be upon the Calling, yet our consideration must be for our fitness to that Calling. Our Prophet David hath put them both together, well, Psal. 71. 17. O God, thou hast taught me from my youth; (you see what was his University; Moses was his Aristotle; he had studied Divinity from his youth) And hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works, says he there. Hitherto? How long was that? It follows in the next verse, Now am I old, and grey headed, and yet he gave not over. Then God's work goes well forward, when they whom God hath taught, teach others, He that can say with David, Docnistime, O God thou hast taught me, may say with him too, Docebo vos, I will teach you But what? that remains only, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. There is a fear, which needs no teaching, a fear that is naturally imprinted in us. Timor Naturalis. We need not teach men to be sad, when a mischief is upon them, nor to fear it is coming towards them; for, fear respects the future, so as sadness does the present; feal looks upon Danger, and sadness upon Detriment; fear upon a sick friend, and sadness upon as dead. And as these need not be taught us, because they are natural, so, because they are natural, they need nor be untaught us, they need not be forbidden, nor dissuaded. Our Saviour Christ had them both, fear, and sadness; and that man lacks Christian wisdom, who is without a provident fear of future dangers, and without Christian charity, who is without a compassionate sadness in present calamities. Now this fear, thought but imprinted in nature, is Timor Domini, Tha fear of the Lord, because the Lord is the Lord of Nature, He is the Nature of Narture, Lord of all endowments and impressions in Nature. And therefore, though for this natural fear, you go no farther than nature, (for it is born with you, and i● lives in you) yet the right use even of this natural fear, is from Grace, though in the root it be a feare● of nature, yet in the government thereof, in the degrees, and practise thereof, it is the fear of the Lord; Not only as he is Lord of Nature, (for so, you have the fear itself from the Lord) but as this natural fear produces good or had effects, as it is regulated and ordered, or as it is deserted, and abandoned, by the Spirit of the Lord; And therefore you are called hither, Come, that you may learn the fear of the Lord, that is, the right use of natural fear, and natural affections, from the Law of God; For, as it is a wretched condition, to be without natural a affections, so is it a dangerous dereliction, if our natural affections be left to themselves, and not regulated, not inanimated by the Spirit of God; Sap. 17. 12. for than my sadness will sink into Desperation, and my fear will betray the succours which reason offereth. This I gain by letting in the fear of the Lord, into my natural fear; that whereas the natural object of my natural fear is malum, something that I apprehend sub ratione mali, as it is ill for me, (for, if I did not conceive it to be ill, I would not fear it) yet when I come to thaw this Ice, when I come to discuss this cloud, and attenuate this damp, by the light and heat of Grace, and the illustration of the Spirit of God, breathing in his word, I change my object, or at least, I look upon it in another line, in another angle, I look not upon that evil which my natural fear presented me, of an affliction, or a calamity, but I look upon the glory that God receives by my Christian constancy in that afflicton, but I look upon that everlasting blessedness, which I should have lost, if God had not laid that affliction upon me. So that though fear look upon evil, (for affliction is malum poenae, evil as it hath the nature of punishment) yet when the fear of the Lord is entered into my natural fear, my fear is more conversant, more exercised upon the contemplation of Good, then Evil, more upon the glory of God, and the joys of heaven, then upon the afflictions of this life, how malignant, how manifold soever. And therefore, that this fear, and all your natural affections, (which seem weakness in man, and are so indeed, if they be left to themselves, now in our corrupt and depraved estate) may advance your salvation, (which is the end why God hath planted them in you) Come and learn the fear of the Lord, Learn from the Word of God, explicated by his minister, in his Ordinance upon occasions leading him thereunto, the limits of this natural fear, & where if may become sin, if it be not regulated, and inanimated by a better fear, than itself. There is a fear, Timor seminaturalis. which grows out of a second nature, Custom, and so is half-naturall, to those men that have it. The custom of the place we live in, or of the times we live in, or of the company we live in. Topical customs of such a place, Chronical customs of such an Age, Personal customs of such a company. The time, or the place, or the persons in power have advanced, & drawn into fashion and reputation, some vices, & such men as depend upon them, are afraid, not to concur with them in their vices; for, amongst persons, & in times, & places, that are vicious, and honest man is a rebel; he goes against that State, & that Government, which is the kingdom of sin, Amongst drunkards, a sober man is a spy upon them; Amongst blasphemers, a prayer is a libel against them; And amongst dissolute and luxurious persons, a chaste man is a Bridewell, his person, his presence is a house of Correction. In vicious times and companies, a good man is unacceptable, and cannot prosper. And, because as amongst Merchants, men trade half upon stock, and half upon credit, so, in all other courses, because men rise according to the opinion & estimation which person in power have of them, as well as by real goodness, therefore to build up, or to keep up this opinion and estimation in them upon whom they depend, they are afraid to cross the vices of the Time, so far, as by being virtuous in their own paticular. They are afraid it will be called a singularity, and a schismatical and seditious disposition, and taken for a Reproach, and a Rebuke laid upon their betters, if they be not content to be as ill, as those their betters are, Now, the fear of the Lord brings the Quo Warranto against all these privileged sins, and privileged places, and persons, and overthrows all these Customs, and Prescriptions. The fear of the Lord is not a Topical, not a chronical, ot a Personal, but a Catholic, a Canonical, a Circular, an Universal fear; It goes through all, and over all; and when this halfe-naturall fear, this fear grown out of Custom, suggests to me, That if I be thus tender-conscienced, if I startle at an oath, if I be sick at a Health, if I cannot conform myself to the vices of my betters, I shall lose my Master, my Patron, my Benefactor, This fear of the Lord enters, and presents the infallible loss of a far greater Master, and Patron, & Benefactor, if I comply with to other. And therefore as you were called hither, (that is to the explication of the Word of God) to learn how to regulate the natural fear, that that fear do not deject you into a diffidence of God's mercy, so come hither ot learne the fear of God, against this half-naturall fear, that is, be guided by the Word of God, how far you are to serve the turns of those persons, upon whom ye depend, and when to leave their commandments unperformed. Well; Frtitudo. what will this fear of the Lord teach us? Valour, fortitude; fear teach valour? yes; And nothing but fear; True fear. As Moses his Serpents devoured the false serpents, so doth true fear all false fear. There is nothing so contrary to God, as false fear; neither in his own nature, nor in his love to us. Therefore God's first Name in the Bible, and the Name which he sticks to, in all the work of the Creation, is his Name of Power, Elohim; El, is fortis Deus, The God of Power; and it is that Name in the plural, multiplied power, All Power; And what can he fear? God descends to many other humane affections; you shall read that God was Angry, and sorry. and weary; But non timuit Deus, God was never afraid. Neither would God that man should be. So his first blessing upon man, was to fill the earth, and to subdue the creatures, and to rule over them, and to eat what he would upon the earth; All Acts of Power, Gen. 3. 10. and of Confidence. As soon as he had offended God, the first impotency that he found in himself, was fear: I heard thy voice, and I was afraid, says he. He had heard the voice of Lions, and was not afraid. There is not a greater commination of a curse, Ps. 53. 6. then that, They shall be in a great fear, where no fear is; Which is more vehemently expressed in another place, Leu. 26. 17. 36. I will set my face against you, and thou shall fly, when none pursues you; I will send a faintness into their hearts, and the sound of a shaken leaf, shall chase them, as a sword. Flase fear is a fearful curfe. To fear that all favours, and all preferments, will go the wrong way, and that therefore I must clap on a bias, and go that way too, this inordinate fear is the curse of God. David's last counsel to Solomon (but reflecting upon us all) was, 1 Reg. 2. 2. Be thou strong therefore, and show thyself a man. Gregor. E Culmine corruens, ad gyrum laboris venit, The Davill fell from his place in heaven, and now is put to compass the earth. The fearful man that falls from his moral and his Christian constancy, from the fundamental rules of his religion, falls into labyrinths, of incertitudes, and impertinencies, and ambiguities, and anxieties, job 7. 1. & irresolutions. Militia, vita; our whole life is a warfare; God would not choose Cowards; he lad rather we were valiant in the fight of his battles; for battles, and exercise of valour, we are sure to have. God sent a Cain into the world before an Abel; An Enemy, Gregor. before a Champion. Abel non suspicor qui non habet Cain; Gregor. we never hear of an Abel, 1 Pet. 4. 12. but there is a Cain too. And therefore think it not strange, concerning the fiery trial, as though some strange thing happened unto you; Make account that this world is your Scene, your Theatre, and that god himself sits to see the combat, the wrestling. Chrysost. Vetuit Deus mortem job; job was God's Champion, and God forbade Satan the taking away of jobs life; for, if he die, (says God in the mouth of that Father) Theatrum nobis non amplius plaeudetar, My Theatre will ring with no more Plaudites, I shall be no more glorified in the valour and constancy of my Saints, my Champions. God delights in the constant and valiant man, and therefore a various, a timorous man frustrates, disappoints God. My errand then is to teach you valour; and must my way be to intimidate you, to teach you fear? yes, still there is no other fortitude, but the fear of the Lord. We told you before, sadness and fear differ but in the present, and future. And as for the present, Nihil aliud triste quam Deum offendere, Chrysost. There is no just cause of sadness, but to have sinned against God, (for, sudden sadness arising in a good Conscience, is a spark of fire in the Sea, it must go out;) so there is no just cause of fear, but in God's displeasure. Mens in timore Domini constituta, Gregor. non invenit extra quod metuat. God is all; and if I be established in him, what thing can I fear, when there is nothing without him? nothing simply, Chrysost. at lest nothing that can hurt me; Quae sunt in mundo non nocentiis qui extra mundum sunt, This world cannot hurt him that made it, nor them that are laid up in him. jonas did but change his vessel, his ship, when he entered the Whale, he was not shipwracked, God was his Pilot there, as well as in the ship, and therefore he as confident there. P●ov. 1. 38. It is meant of Christ, which is spoken in the person in Wisdom, Who so hearkeneth unto me, shall dwell safely, and be quiet from the fear of evil. And therefore; when you hear of wars and commotions, Luc. 21. 9 be not terrified; these things must come to pass, but the end is not by and by; Imaginations, and tentations, and alienations, and tribulations must come: But this is not the end; the end that God looks for, is, that by the benefit of his fear we should stand out all these. So them to teach you the fear of the Lord, Quid operatur. is to teach you what it doth, that you may love it, and what it is, that you may know it. That which it doth, is that it makes you a constant, a confident, a valiant man, That which God, who is always the same, loves. How doth it that? Thus. As he that is fall'n into tha King's hand for debt to him, is safe from other creditors, so is he, that fears the Lord, form other fears. He that loves the Lord, loves him witl all his love; he that fears the Lord, fears him withal his fear too; God takes no half affections. Rom. 11. 02. Upon those words, Be not highminded, but fear, Clement of Alexandria, hath another reading; super-time, over-feare; that is, carry thy fear to the highest place; Eccles. 5. 7. place thy fear there, where it may be above all other fears. In the multitude of dreams, there are divers vanities, but fear thou the Lord. All fearful things pass away as dreams, as vanities, to him that fears the Lord; They offer at him, but in vain, if he be established with that fear. In Christ there was no bone broken; In him that fears the Lord, job. 1. 1. no constant purpose is ever shaken. Of job it is said, that he was perfect and upright; That is a rare wonder, but the wonder is qualified in the addition, He feared God. So are they put together in Simeon, Luke 2. 25. justus & timoratus, he was a just man; how should he be otherwise? He feared God. Consider your enemies, and be not deceived with an imagination of their power, but see whether they be worthy of your fear, if you fear God. The World is your enemy; sed vicit mundum, be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world, john 16. 33. 15. 19 saith Christ. If it were not so, yet we are none of it; ye are not of the world, for I have chosen you out of the that world. Howsoever, the world would do us no harm, the world would be good enough of itself, but that the Prince of the world, the Devil, is anima mundi, the soul of this lower world, he inanimates, he actuates, he exalts, the malignity of the world against us; and he is our second enemy. It was not the Apple, but the Serpent that tempted; Eve. no doubt, had looked upon the fruit before, and yet did not long. But even this enemy is not so dangerous, as he is conceived. In the life of St. Basil, we have a story, that the Devil appeared to a penitent sinner at his prayers, and told him, If you will let me alone, I will let you alone, meddle not with me, and I will not meddle with you, He found that by this good souls prayers to God, God had weakened his power, not only upon that man the prayed, but upon others too; and therefore he was content, to come to a cessation of arms with him, that he might turn his forces another way. Truly he might say to many of us, in a worse sense, Let me alone, and I will let you alone; tempt not me, & I will not tempt you: Our idleness, our high diet, our wanton discourse, our exposing ourselves to occasion of sin, provoke and call in the Devil, when he seeks not us. The Devil possesses the world, and we possess the Devil. But then, if the fear of the Lord possess us, our own Concupiscencies, (though they be indeed our greatest enemies) because the war that they maintain is a civil war) shall do us no harm, for as the Septuagins in their Translation, diminish the power of the Devil, in that name ●words●, (a disproportioned Creature, made up of a Lion and an Ant, because as St. Gregory saith upon that place) formicis ●eoest, volatilibus formica, The Devil is a Lion. to Ants, dasheth whole hills of them with his paw, that creep under him, but he is but an Ant to birds; they pray upon him, that fly above him. If we fear the Lord, our concupiscencies, our carnal affections, ourselves, may prove our best friends, because, as the fire in the furnace did not burn the men, Dan. 3. but it burned off those bands, that fettered and manacled them, 2. 25. (for they were loose, and walked in the furnace) so our concupiscencies, if we resist them, shall burn off themselves, and file off their own rust, and our salvation shall be surer by occasion of temptations. August. We may prevent mortem mortificatione, everlasting death, by a disciplinary life. Mori, ne moriamur, is his rule too, To die to the fires of lust here, lest we die in unquenchable fires hereafter; to die daily, (as S. Paul speaks of himself) lest we die at the last day. To end this, this is the working of the fear of the Lord, it devours all other fears; God will have no half-affections, God will have no partners; He that fears God fears nothing else. This then is the operation of the fear of the Lord, Quid iste Timor. this is his working; remains only to consider what this fear of the Lord is: And, beloved in him, be not afraid of it; for, this fear of God, is the love of God. And, howsoever there may be some amongst us, whom the height of birth, or of place, or of spirit hath kept from fear, They never feared any thing, yet, I think, there is none, that never loved any thing. Obligations of Matrimony, or of friendship, or of blood, or of alliance, or of conversation, hath given every one of us, no doubt, some sense in ourselves, what it is to love, and to enjoy that which we do love; And the fear of God, is the love of God. The love of the Lord passeth all things, Ecclus. 25. 11. saith the Wise man: The love, what is that to fear? It follows, The fear of the Lord, is the beginning of his love. As they that build Arches, place centres under the Arch, to bear up the work, till it be dried, and settled, but, after, all is Arch, and there is no more centre, no more support; so to lie at the Lords feet a while delivers us into his arms, to accustom ourselves to his fear, establishes us in his love. Be content to stop a little, even at the lowest fear, the fear of hell. When Saul was upon an expedition, 1 Sam. 11. 7. and did not find himself well followed, he took a yoke of Oxen, and hewed them in pieces, and proclaimed, that whosoever came not to the supply, all his Oxen should be so served; and upon this, (says the Text there) The fear of the Lord fell upon all the people, and they came out, as one man, three hundred and thirty thousand. If Saul's threatening of their worldly goods, wrought so; let Gods threatening of thyself, thine inwardest self, thy soul, with hell, make thee to stop even upon thy fear of the Lord, the fear of Torment. Stop upon the second fear too, the fear of privation, and loss of the sight of God in heaven; That when all we have disputed, with a modest boldness, and wondered with a holy wonder, what kind of sight of God we shall have in heaven, than when thou shouldst come to an end, and to an answer of all these doubts, in an experimental trial, how he shall be seen, (seen thus) thou shalt see then that thou shalt never see him. After thou hast used to hear, all thy life, blessedness summed up into that one act, We shall see God, thou shalt never come nearer to that knowledge, thou shalt never see him; fear the Lord therefore in this second fear, fear of privation. And fear him in a third fear, the fear of the loss of his grace here in this world, though thou have it now. S. chrysostom serves himself and us, with an ordinary comparison, A Tyler is upon the top of the house, but he looks to his footing, he is afraid of falling. A righteous man is in a high place in God's favour, but he may lose that place. Who is higher than Adam, higher than the Angels? and whither fell they. Make not thou than thy assurance of standing, our of their arguments, that say it is impossible for the righteous to fall, The sins of the righteous are no sins in the sight of God; but built thy assurance upon the testimony of a good conscience, that thou usest all diligence, and holy industry, that thou mayst continue in God's favour, and fearest to lose it; for, he that hath no fear of losing, hath no care of keeping. Accustom thyself to these fears, and these fears will flow into a love. As love, and jealousy may be the same thing, so the fear and love of God will be all one; August. for, jealousy is but a fear of losing. Brevissima differentia Testamentorum, Timor & Amor; This distinguishes the two Testaments, The Old is a Testament of fear, the New of love; yet in this they grow all one, That we determine the Old Testament, in the New, and that we prove the New Testament by the Old; for, but by the Old, we should not know, that there was to be a New, nor, but for the New, that there was an Old; so the two testaments grow one Bible; so in these two Affections, if there were not a jealousy, a fear of losing God, we could not love him; nor can we fear to lose him, except we do love him. Place the affection, (by what name soever) upon the right object, God, and I have, in some measure, done that which this Text directed, (Taught you the fear of the Lord) if I send you away in either disposition, Timorous; or amorous, possessed with either, the fear, or the love of God; for, this fear is inchoative love, and this love is consummative fear; The love of God begins in fear, and the fear of God ends in love; and that love can never end, for God is love. SERMON XLVII. An Anniversary Sermon preached at St. Dunstan's, upon the commemoration of a Parishioner, a Benefactor to that Parish. GEN. 3. 24. And dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. THis is God's malediction upon the Serpent in Paradise, There in the Region, in the Storehouse of all plenty, he must starve; This is the Serpent's perpetual fast, his everlasting Lent, (Dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.) There is a generation derived from this Serpent, Progenies viperarum, a generation of Vipers, that will needs in a great, and unnecessary measure, keep this Serpents Lent, and bind themselves to perform his fact; for, the Carthusian will eat no flesh, (and yet, I never saw better bodied men, men of better habitudes and constitution, howsoever they recompense their abstinence from flesh) and the Fueillans will eat neither flesh nor fish, but roots, and fallets, (and yet amongst them, amongst men so enfeebled by roots, was bred up that man, who was both malicious courage, and bodily strength, to kill the last King, who was killed amongst them) They will be above others in their fasts, Fish, and Roots will they eat, all the days of their life, but their Master will be above them in his fast, (Dust must he eat all the days of his life.) It is Luther's observation upon this place, That in all Moses his Books, God never spoke so long, so much together, as here, upon this occasion. Indeed the occasion was great; It was the arraignment of all the world, and more; of mankind, and of Angels too; of Adam, and Eve, (and there were no more of them) and then of the Serpent, and of Satan in that, and of all the fallen Angels in him. For the sentence which God, as Judge gave upon them, upon all these Malefactors, of that part which fell upon the woman, all our mothers are experimental witnesses; they brought forth us in sorrow and in travail. Of that part of the sentence which fell upon man, every one of us is an experimental witness, for in every calling, in the sweat of our face, we eat our bread. And of that part of the Judgement, which was inflicted upon the Serpent, and Satan in him, this dead brother of ours who lies in this consecrated earth, is an experimental witness, who being by death reduced to the state of dust, for so much of him, as is dust, that is, for his dead body, and then, for so long time, as he is to remain in that state of dust, is in the portion, and jurisdiction, and possession of the Serpent, that is, in the state which the Serpent hath induced upon man, and dust must he eat all the days of his life. In passing through these words, Divisio. we shall make but these two steps; first, What the Serpent lost, by this judgement inflicted upon him; and secondly, What man gained by it; for these two considerations embrace much, involve much; first, That God's anger is so intensive, and so extensive, so spreading, and so vehement, as that in his Justice, he would not spare the Serpent, who had no voluntary, no innate, no natural ill disposition towards man, but was only made the instrument of Satan, in the overthrow of man. And then, that God's mercy is so large, so overflowing, so super-abundant, as that even in his Judgement upon the Serpent, he would provide mercy for man. For, as it is a great weight of judgement upon the Serpent, that the Serpent must eat dust, so is it a great degree of mercy to man, that the Serpent must eat but dust, because man's best part is not subject to be served in at his table, the soul cannot become dust, (and dust must he eat all the days of his life. O, in what little sin, though but a sin of omission, though but a sin of ignorance, in what circumstance of sin, may I hope to scape Judgement, if God punished the Serpent who was violently, and involuntarily transported in this action? And in what depth, in what height, in what heinousness, in what multiplicity of sin can I doubt of the mercy of my God, who makes judgement itself the instrument, the engine, the Chariot of his mercy? What room is there left for presumption, if the Serpent, the passive Serpent were punished? What room for desperation, if in the punishment, there be a manifestation of mercy? The Serpent must eat dust, that is his condemnation, but he shall eat no better meat, he shall eat but dust, there is man's consolation. First then, 1 Part. as it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, so is it an impossible thing to scape it. Heb. 10. 31. God is not ashamed of being jealous; he does not only pronounce that he is a jealous God, but he desires to be known by none other name, (The Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God) so jealous, Exod. 34. 14. as that he will not have his name uttered in vain; not only not blasphemed, not sworn by, but not used indifferently, transitorily, not Proverbially, occasionally, not in vain. And if it be, what then? Even for this, he will visit to the third, and fourth generation; and three and four are seven, and seven is infinite. So jealous, as that in the case of the Angels, not for looking upon any other Creatures, or trusting in them, (for, when they fell, (as it is ordinarily received) there were no other creatures made) but for not looking immedidiately, directly upon God, but reflecting upon themselves, and trusting in their own natural parts, God threw those Angels into so irrecoverable, and bottomless a depth, as that the merits of Christ Jesus, though of infinite, super-infinite value, do not boy them up; so jealous a God, is God, so jealous, as that in Adam's case, for overloving his own wife, for his over tender compassion of her, foreating the forbidden fruit, ne contristaretur delicias suas, (as Saint Hierome lays his fault) left he should deject her into an inordinate and desperate melancholy, and so make her incapable of God's mercy, God threw the first man, and in him, all, out of Paradise, out of both Paradises, out of that of rest, and plenty here, Numb. 22. 5. 20. 11. and that of Joy, and Glory hereafter. Consider Balaams' sin about cursing God's people, or Moses sin about striking the rock, and wouldst not thou be glad to change sins, with either of them? Are not thy sins greater, heavier sins; And yet, wouldst thou not be sorry, to undergo their punishments? are not thy punishments less? Prov. 25. 16. Hast thou found honey, says the holy Ghost in Solomon; and, he says it promiscuously, and universally, to every body; eat, as much as is sufficient. Every man may. 1. Sam. 14. 17. And then, jonathan found that honey, and knew not that it was forbidden by Saul's proclamation, and did but taste it, and that in a case of extreme necessity, and jonathan must die. Any man might eat enough, He did but taste, and he must die. If the Angels, if Adam, if Balaam, if Moses, if jonathan did, if the Serpent in the text, could consider this, how much cheaper God hath made sin to thee, then to them, might they not have colour in the eye of a natural man, to expostulate with God? Might not Ananias, Act. 5. 8. and Saphira, who only withheld a little of that, which, but a little before, was all their own, and now must die for that, have been excusable if they had said at the last gasp, How many direct Sacrileges hath God forborn, in such and such, and we must die? Mighty not E●, and Onan, after their unclean act upon themselves only, for which they died, Gen. 38. 2. have been excusable, if they had said at the last gasp, How many direct adulteries, how many unnatural incests hath God forborn in such and such, and we must die? How many loads of miserable wretches mayst thou have seen suffer at ordinary executions, when thou mightest have said with David, Lord I have done wickedly, but these sheep what have they done? What had this Serpent done? The Serpent was more subtle than any other beast. Quia instrumentum. It is a dangerous thing to have a capacity to do evil; Gen. 3. 1. to be fit to be wrought upon, is a dangerous thing. How many men have been drawn into danger, because they were too rich? How many women into solicatation, and tentation, because they were too beautiful? Content thyself with such a mediocrity in these things, as may make thee fit to serve God, and to assist thy neighbour, in a calling, and be not ambitious of extraordinary excellency in any kind; It is a dangerous thing, to have a capacity to do evil. God would do a great work; Num. 28. 22. and he used the simplicity of the Ass; he made Balaams' Ass speak; But the Devil makes use of the subtlety, of the craft of the Serpent; The Serpent is his Instrument; no more but so, but so much he is, his instrument. And then, says S. chrysostom, Pater noster execuratur gladium, as a natural father would, so our heavenly father does hate, that which was the instrument of the ruin of his children. Wherein hath he expressed that hate? not to bind ourselves to josephus his opinion, (though some of the ancients in the Christian Church have seconded that opinion, too) that at that time the Serpent could go upright, and speak, and understand, and knew what he did, and so concurred actually and willingly to the temptation and destruction of man, though he were but another's instrument, he became odious to God. Our bodies, of themselves, if they had no souls, have no disposition to any evil; yet, these bodies which are but instruments, must burn in hell. The earth was accursed for man's sin, though the earth had not been so much as an instrument of his sin; Only because it was, after, to conduce to the punishment of his children, it was accursed, God withdrew his love from it. And in the law, Leu. 20. 15. those beasts with which men committed bestiality, were to be stoned, as well as the men. How poor a plea will it be, to say, at the last day, I got nothing by such an extortion, to mine own purse, it was for my master; I made no use of that woman whom I had corrupted, it was for a friend. Miserable instrument of sin, that hadst not the profit, nor the pleasure, and must have the damnation! As the Prophet calls them, that help us towards heaven, Obad. v. 21. Saviour's, (Saviour's shall come up on Mount Zion) so are all that concur instrumentally to the damnation of others, Devils. And, at the last day, we shall see many sinners saved, and their instruments perish. Adam, and Eve both God interrogated, and, gave them time, to meditate and to deprecate; To Adam, he says, Where art thou, and, who told thee that thou wast naked? And to Eve, What is this that thou hast done? But to the Serpent no such breathing; The first words is, Quia fecisti; no calling for evidence whether he had done it or no, but, Because thou hast done it, thou art accursed. Sin is Treason against God; and in Treason there is no Accessary; The instrument is the Principal. We pass from that first Part, 2 Part. the consideration of heavy Judgements upon faults, in appearance but small, derived from the punishment of the Serpent, though but an Instrument. Let no man set a low value upon any sin; let no man think it a little matter to sin some one sin, and no more; or that one sin but once, and no oftener; or that once but a little way in that sin, and no father; or all this, to do another a pleasure, though he take none in it himself (as though there were charity in the society of sin, and that it were an Alms to help a man to the means of sinning.) The least sin cost the blood of the Son of God, and the least sinner may lose the benefit of it, if he presume of it. No man may cast himself from a Pinnacle, because an Angel may support him; no man may kill himself, because there is a Resurrection of the body; nor wound his soul to death by sin, because there may be a resurrection of that, by grace. Here is no room for presumption upon God; but, as little for desperation in God; for, in the punishment of the Serpent, we shall see, that his Mercy, and Justice are inseparable; that, as all the Attributes of God, make up but one God (Goodness, and Wisdom, and Power are but one God) so Mercy and Justice make up but one act; they do not only duly succeed, and second one another, they do not only accompany one another, they are not only together, but they are all one. As Manna, though it tasted to one man like one thing, to another like another, (for it tasted to every man like that, that that man liked best) yet still was the same Manna; so, for God's corrections, they have a different taste in different persons; and howsoever the Serpent found nothing but Judgement, yet we find mercy even in that Judgement. The evening and the morning make up the day, Gen. 1. 5. says Moses; as soon as he had named evening comes in morning, no interposing of the mention of a dark, and sad night between. As soon as I hear of a Judgement, I apprehend Mercy, no interposing of any dark or sad suspicion, or diffidence, or distrust in God, and his mercy; and to that purpose we consider the Serpent's punishment, and espcially as it is heightened, and aggravated in this Text, Dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. There are three degrees in the Serpent's punishment; Super pectus. First, Super pectus, He must creep upon his belly; And secondly, Inimicitias ponam, I will put enmity, God will raise him an enemy. And thirdly, Pulverem comedes, Dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And, in all these three, though they aggravate the judgement upon the Serpent, there is mercy to us; For, for the first, that the Serpent now does but creep upon his belly, S. Augustine, and S. Gregory understands this belly to be the seat of our affections, and our concupiscencies; That the Serpent hath no power upon our heart, nor upon our brain, for, if we bring a tentation to consideration, to deliberation, that we stop at it, think of it, study it, and foresee the consequences, this frustrates the tentation. Our nobler faculties are always assisted with the grace of God to resist him, though the belly, the bowels of sin, in sudden surprisals, and ebullitions, and foamings of our concupiscencies, be subject to him: for, though it may seem, that if that be the meaning, (which, from S. Augustine and S. Gregory we have given you) That the Serpent hath this power over our affections, and that is intended by that, The belly, it should rather have been said, super pectus vestrum, He shall creep upon your belly, then upon his own, yet, indeed, all that is his own, which we have submitted and surrendered to him, and he is upon his own, because we make ourselves his; (for, to whom ye yield your servants to obey, his servants you are. Rom. 6. 18. ) So that if he be super pectus nostrum, if he be upon our belly, he is upon his own. But he does but creep; He does not fly; He is not presently upon you, in a present possession of you; you may discern the beginning of sin, and the ways of sin, in the approaches of the Serpent, if you will. The Serpent leaves a slime that discovers him, where he creeps; At least behind him, after a sin, you may easily see occasion of remorse, and detestation of that sin, and thereby prevent relapses, if you have not watched him well enough in his creeping upon you. When he is a Lion, he does not devour all whom he finds; 1 Pet. 5. 8. He seeks whom he may devour; He may not devour all, nor any but those, who cast themselves into his jaws, by exposing themselves to tentations to sin. He does but creep; An forma mutata. why, did he any more before? was his form changed in this punishment? Many of the Ancients think literally that it was; and that before the Serpent did go upon feet; we are not sure of that; nor is it much probable. That may well be true, which Luther says, fuit suavissima bestiola, till than it was a creature more lovely, more sociable, more conversable with man, and, (as Calvin expresses the same) Minus odiosus, man did less abhor the Serpent before, then after. Beloved, it is a degree of mercy, if God bring that, which was formerly a tentation to me, to a less power over me, then formerly it had; If deformity, if sickness, if age, if opinion, if satiety, if inconstancy, if any thing have worn out a tentation in that face, that transported me heretofore, it is a degree of mercy. Though the Serpent be the same Serpent, yet if he be not so acceptable, so welcome to me, as heretofore, it is a happy, a blessed change. And so, in that respect, there was mercy. It was a punishment to the Serpent, Inimicitias ponam. that, though he were the same still as before, yet he was not able to insinuate himself as before, because he was not so welcome to us. So, the having of the same form, which he had, might be a punishment, as nakedness was to man after his fall; He was naked before, but he saw it not, he felt it not, he needed no clothes before; Now, nakedness brings shame, and infirmities with it. So, God was so sparing towards the Serpent, as that he made him not worse in nature, than before, and so merciful to us, as that he made us more jealous of him, and thereby more safe against him, than before. Which is also intimated pregnantly, in the next step of his punishment, Inimicitias ponam, That God hath kindled a war between him and us. Peace is a blessed state, but it must be the peace of God; for, simeon and Levi are brethren, Gen. 49. 5. they agree well enough together; but they are instruments of evil; and, in that case, the better agreement, the worse. So, war is a fearful state; but not so, if it be the war of God, undertaken for his cause, or by his Word. Many times, a State suffers by the security of a Peace, and gains by the watchfulness of a War. Woe be to that man is so at peace, as that the spirit fights not against the flesh in him; and woe to them too, who would make them friends, or reconcile them, between whom, God hath perpetuated an everlasting war, The seed of the woman, and the seed of the Serpent, Christ and belial, Truth and Superstition. Till God proclaimed a war between them, the Serpent did easily overthrow them, but therefore God brought it to a war, that man might stand upon his guard. And so it was a Mercy. But the greatest mercy is in the last, Pulverem comedes. and that which belongs most directly, (though all conduce pertinently and usefully) to our present occasion;) Dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. He must eat dust, that is, our bodies, and carnal affections; He was at a richer diet, he was in better pasture before; before, he fed upon souls too; But for that his head was bruised, in the promise of a Messias, who delivers our souls from his tyranny; But the dust, the body, that body, which for all the precious ransom, and the rich, and large mercy of the Messias, must die, that dust is left to the Serpent, to Satan, that is, to that dissolution, and that putrefaction, which he hath induced upon man, in death. He eats but our dust, in our death, when he hath brought us to that; that is a mercy; nay he eats up our dust before our death, which is a greater mercy; our carnal affections, our concupiscencies are eaten up, and devoured by him; and so, even his eating is a sweeping, a deansing, a purging of us. Many times we are the better for his tentations. My discerning a storm, makes me put on a cloak. My discerning a tentation, makes me see my weakness, and fly to my strength. Nay, I am sometimes the safer, and the readier for a victory, by having been overcome by him. The sense, and the remorse of a sin, after I have fallen into it, puts me into a better state, and establishes better conditions between God and me then were before, when I felt no tentations to sin. He shall eat up my dust, so, as that it shall fly into mine eyes; that is, so work upon my carnal affections, as that they shall not make me blind, nor unable to discern that it is he that works. It is said of one kind of Serpent, that because they know, Stellio by an instinct they have, that their skin is good for the use of man, (for the falling sickness) out of Envy, they hide their skin, when they cast it. The Serpent is loath we should have any benefit by him; but we have; even his tentations arm us, and the very falling exalts us, when after a sin of infirmity, we come to a true, and scrutiny of our conscience. So he hath nothing to eat but our dust, and he eats up our dust so, as that he contributes to our glory, jon. 1. 17. by his malice. The Whale was jonas Pilot; The Crows were Elias cators; The Lions were daniel's sentinels; 1 Reg. 7. 6. The Viper was Paul's advocate; it pleaded for him, & brought the beholders in an instant, Dan. 6. 22. from extreme to extreme, Act. 28. from crying out that Paul was a murderer, to cry that he was a god. Though at any time, the Serpent having brought me to a sin, cry out, Thou art a murderer, that is, bring me to a desperate sense of having murdered mine own soul, yet in that darkness I shall see light, & by a present repentance, & effectual application of the merits of my Saviour, I shall make the Serpent see, I am a God, thus far a God, 2 Pet. 1. 4. that by my adhering to Christ, I am made partaker of the Divine Nature. For, that which S. Chrysost. says of Baptism; is true too in the second Baptism, Repentance, Deposui terram, & coelum indui; then I may say to the Serpent, Your meat is dust; 2 Cor. 5. 17. and I was dust; but Deposui terram, I have shaked off my dust, by true repentance, for I have shaked off myself, and am a new creature, and am not now meat for your Table. jam terra non sum, sed sal, says the same Father, I am not now unsavoury dust, but I am salt; And, Sal ex aqua & vento says he; Salt is made of water and wind; I am made up of the water of Baptism, of the water of Repentance, of the water that accompanies the blood of Christ Jesus, joh. 3. 8. and of that wind that blows where it list, and hath been pleased to blow upon me, the Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost, and I am no longer meat for the Serpent, for Dust must he eat all the days of his life. I am a branch of that Vine, (Christ is the Vine, joh. 15. 5. and we are the branches) I am a leaf of that Rose of Sharon, and of that Lily of the valleys; Cant. 2. 1. 4. 14. 5. 2. I am a plant in the Orchard of Pomegranates, and that Orchard of Pomegranates is the Church; I am a drop of that dew, that dew that lay upon the head of Christ. And this Vine, and this Rose, and Lily, and Pomegranates, of Paradise, and this Dew of heaven, are not Dust, And dust must thou eat all the days of thy life. So then, Totâ vitâ. the Prophecy of Esay Esay 65. 25. fulfils itself, That when Christ shall reign powerfully over us, The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, (Saul and Ananias shall meet in a house, (as S. Hierome expounds that) and Ananias not be afraid of a Persecutor.) The Lion shall eat straw like the Bullock, says that Prophet in that place, Tradent se rusticitati Scripturarum, says the same Father, The strongest understandings shall content themselves with the homeliness of the Scriptures, and feed upon plain places, and not study new dishes, by subtleties, and perplexities, and then, Dust shall be the Serpent's meat, says the Prophet there, The power of Satan shall reach but to the body, and touch a soul wrapped up in Christ. But then, it is Totâ vitâ, all his life. His diet is impaired, but it is not taken away; He eats but dust, but he shall not lack that, as long as he lives. And how long lives the Serpent, this Serpent? The life of this Serpent is to seduce man, to practise upon man, to prevail upon man, as far, and as long as man is dust. And therefore we are not only his dust, whilst we live (all which time we serve in our carnal affections, for him to feed upon) but when we are dead, we are his dust still. Man was made in that state, as that he should not resolve to dust, but should have passed from this world to the next, without corruption, or resolution of the body. Gen. 3. 18. That which God said to Adam, Dust thou art, belonged to all, from the beginning, he, and all we were to be of dust, in his best integrity; but that which God adds there, & in terram revertêris, (dust thou art, and to it thou shalt return) that the Serpent brought in, that was induced upon man by him, and his tentation. So that when we are living dust here he eats us, and when we are dead dust too, in the grave, he feeds upon us, because it proceeds from him both that we die, and that we are detained in the state of exinanition, and ingloriousness, in the dust of the earth, and not translated immediately to the joys of heaven, as but for him, we should have been. But as, though he do feed upon our living dust, that is, induce sicknesses, and hunger, and labour, and cold, and pain upon our bodies here, God raises even that dust out of his hands, and redeems it from his jaws, in affording us a deliverance, or a ●●●●itution from those bodily calamities here, as he did abundantly to his servant, and our example job, so, though he feed upon our dead dust and detain our bodies in the disconsolate state of the grave, yet, as the Godhead, the divine nature did not depart from the body of Christ when it lay dead in the grave, so neither doth the love and power of God, depart from the body of a Christian, though resolved to dust in the grave, but, in his due time, shall recollect that dust, and recompact that body, and reunite that soul, in everlasting joy and glory. And till then, the Serpent lives; till the Judgement, Satan hath power upon that part of man; and that's the Serpent's life, first to practise our death, and then to hold us in the state of the dead. Till than we attend with hope, and with prayers Gods holy pleasure upon us, and then begins the unchangeable state in our life, in body and soul together, than we begin to live, and then ends the Serpent's life, that is, his earnest practice upon us in our life, and his faint triumph in continuing over our dust. That time, Mat. 8. 28. (the time of the general Resurrection) being not yet come, the devils thought themselves wronged, and complained that Christ came before the time to torment them; and therefore Christ yielded so much to their importunity, as to give them leave to enter into the swine. And therefore, let not us murmur nor over-mourne for that, which as we have induced it upon ourselves, so God shall deliver us from, at last, that is, both death, and corruption after death, and captivity in that comfortless state, but for the resurrection. For, so long we are to be dust, and so long lasts the Serpent's life, Satan's power over man; dust must he eat all the days of his life. In the mean time, Conclusio. (for our comfort in the way) when this Serpent becomes a Lion, Apoc. 5. 5. yet there is a Lion of the Tribe of judah, that is too strong for him. so, if he who is Serpens serpens humi, the Serpent condemned to creep upon the ground, do transform himself into a flying Serpent, and attempt our nobler faculties, there is Serpens exaltatus, a Serpent lifted up in the wilderness, Numb. 12. 18. to recover all them that are stung, and feel that they are stung with this Serpent, this flying Serpent, that is, these high and continued sins. The creeping Serpent, the grovelling Serpent, is Craft; the exalted Serpent, the crucified Serpent, is Wisdom. All you worldly cares, all your crafty bargains all your subtle matches, all your diggings into other means estates, all your hedgings, in of debts, all your planting of children in great allyances; all these diggings, and hedgings and plantings savour of the earth, and of the craft of that Serpent, that creeps upon the earth: But crucify this craft of yours, bring all your worldly subtlety under the Cross of Christ Jesus, husband your farms so, as you may give a good account to him, press your debts so, as you would be pressed by him, market and bargain so, as that you would give all, to buy that field, in which his treasure, and his pearl is hid, and then you have changed the Serpent, from the Serpent of perdition creeping upon the earth, to the Serpent of salvation exalted in the wilderness. Creeping wisdom, that still looks downward, is but craft; Crucified wisdom, that looks upward, is truly wisdom. Between you and that ground Serpent God hath kindled a war; and the nearer you come to a peace with him, the farther ye go from God, and the more ye exaspetate the Lord of Hosts, and you whet his sword against your own souls. A truce with that Serpent, is too near a peace; to condition with your conscience for a time, that you may continue in such a sin, till you have paid for such a purchase, married such a daughter, bought such an annuity. undermined and eaten out such an unthrift, this truce, (though you mean to end it before you die) is too near a peace with that Serpent, between whom and you, God hath kindled an everlasting war. A cessation of Arms, that is, not to watch all his attempts and tentations, not to examine all your particular actions, A Treaty of Peace, that is, to dispute and debate in the behalf and favour of a sin, to palliate, to disguise, to extenuate that sin, this is too near a peace with this Serpent, this creeping Serpent. But in the other Serpent, the crucified Serpent, God hath reconciled to himself, all things in heaven, and earth, and hell. You have peace in the assistance of the Angels of heaven, Peace in the contribution of the powerful prayers, and of the holy examples of the Saints upon earth, peace in the victory and triumph over the power of hell, peace from sins towards men, peace of affections in yourselves, peace of conscience towards God. From your childhood you have been called upon to hold your peace; To be content is to hold your peace; murmur not at God, in any corrections of his, and you do hold this peace. That creeping Serpent, Satan, is war, and should be so; The crucified Serpent Christ Jesus is peace, and shall be so for ever. The creeping Serpent eats our dust, the strength of our bodies, in sicknesses, and our glory in the dust of the grave: The crucified Serpent hath taken our flesh, 2 Sam. 5. 14. and our blood, and given us his flesh, and his blood for it; And therefore, as David, when he was thought base, for his holy freedom in dancing before the Ark, said he would be more base; so, since we are all made of red earth, let him that is red, be more red; Let him that is red with the blood of his own soul, be red again in blushing for that redness, and more red in the Communion of the blood of Christ Jesus; whom we shall eat all the days of our life, and be mystically, and mysteriously, and spiritually, and Sacramentally united to him in this life, and gloriously in the next. In this state of dust, and so in the territory of the Serpent, the Tyrant of the dead, lies this dead brother of ours, and hath lain some years, who occasions our meeting now, and yearly upon this day, and whose soul, we doubt not, is in the hands of God, who is the God of the living. And having gathered a good Gomer of Manna, a good measure of temporal blessings in this life, and derived a fair measure thereof, upon them, whom nature and law directed it upon, (and in whom we beseech God to bless it) hath also distributed something to the poor of this Parish, yearly, this day, and something to a meeting for the conserving of neighbourly love, and something for this exercise. In which, no doubt, his intention was not so much to be yearly remembered himself, as that his posterity, and his neighbours might be yearly remembered to do as he had done. For, this is truly to glorify God in his Saints, to sanctify ourselves in their examples; To celebrate them, is to imitate them. For, as it is probably conceived, and agreeably to God's Justice, that they that write wanton books, or make wanton pictures, have additions of torment, as often as other men are corrupted with their books, or their pictures: so may they, who have left permanent examples of good works, well be believed, to receive additions of glory and joy, when others are led by that to do the like: And so, they who are extracted, and derived from him, and they who dwelled about him, may assist their own happiness, and enlarge his, by following his good example in good proportions. Amen. SERMON XLVIII. Preached at St. Dunstan's. LAMENT. 3. 1. I am the man, that hath seen affliction, by the rod of his wrath. YOU remember in the history of the Passion of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus, there was an Ecce homo, a showing, an exhibiting of that man, in whom we are all blessed. joh. 19 5. Pilat presented him to the Jews so, with that Ecce homo, Behold the man. That man upon whom the wormwood and the gall of all the ancient Prophecies, and the venom and malignity of all the cruel instruments thereof, was now poured out; That man who was left as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground, without form, or beauty, or comeliness, that we should desire to see him, Esay 53. 2. as the Prophet Esay exhibits him; That man who upon the brightness of his eternal generation in the bosom of his Father, had now cast a cloud of a temporary and earthly generation in the womb of his mother, that man, who, as he entered into the womb of his first mother, the blessed Virgin, by a supernatural way, by the overshadowing of the holy Ghost, so he vouchsafed to enter into the womb of her, whom he had accepted for his second mother, the earth, by an unnatural way, not by a natural, but by a violent, and bitter death, that man so torn and mangled, wounded with thorns, oppressed with scorns and contumelies, Pilite presents and exhibits so, Ecce homo, Behold the man, But in all this depression of his, in all his exinanition, and evacuation yet he had a Crown on, yet he had a purple garment on, the emblems, the Characters of majesty were always upon him. And these two considerations, the miseries that exhaust, and evacuate, and annihilate man in this life, and yet, those sparks, and seeds of morality, that lie in the bosom, that still he is a man, the affilictions that depress and smother, that suffocate and strangle their spirits in their bosoms, and yet that unsmotherable, that unquenchable Spirit of Adoption, by which we cry Abba Father, that still he is a Christian, these Thorns, and yet these Crowns, these contumelies, and yet this Purple, are the two parts of this text, I am the man, that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. For, here is an Ecce, behold; jeremy presents a map, a manifestation of as great affliction, as the rod of God's wrath could inflict; But yet it is Ecce homo, Behold the man, I am the man, he is not demolished, he is not incinerated so, not so annihilated, but that he is still a man; God preserves his children from departing from the dignity of men, and from the sovereign dignity of Christian men, in the deluge, and inundation of all afflictions. And these two things, so considerable in that Ecce homo, in the exhibiting of Christ, that then when he was under those scorns, and Crosses, he had his Crowns, his purples, ensigns of majesty upon him, may well be parts of this text; for, when we come to consider who is the person of whom jeremy says, I am the man, we find many of the ancient Expositors take these words prophetically of Christ himself; and that Christ himself who says, 1. 12. Behold and see if there be any sorrow, like unto my sorrow, says here also, I am the man, that hath seen affliction, by the rod of his wrath. But because there are some other passages in the Chapter, that are not conveniently appliable to Christ, (it is not likely that Christ would say of himself; verse 8. That his Father shut out his prayer, even then when he cried and shouted; 10. not likely that Christ would say of himself, That his Father was to him, as a Bear in the way, and as a Lion in secret places; 17. not likely that Christ would say of himself, That his Father had removed his soul far from peace) therefore this chapter, and this person cannot be so well understood of Christ. Others therefore have understood if of jerusalem itself; but than it would not be expressed in that Sex, it would not be said of jerusalem, I am the man. Others understand if of any particular man, that had his part, in that calamity, in that captivity; that the affliction was so universal upon all of that nation of what condition soever, that every man might justly say, Ego vir, I am the man that have seen affliction. But then all this chapter must be figurative, and still, where we can, it becomes, it behoves us to, maintain a literal sense and interpretation of all Scriptures. And that we shall best do in this place, if we understand these words literally of jermy himself, that the Minister of God, the Preacher of God, the Prophet of God, jeremy himself, was the man; the Preacher is the text, Ego vir, I am the man: As the Ministers of God are most exposed to private contumelies, so should they be most affected with public calamities, & soon come to say with the Apostle, Quis infirmatur who is weak, 2 Cor. 11. 29. and I am not weak too, who is offended, and I am not affected with it? when the people of God are distressed with sickness, with dearth, with any public calamity, the Minister is the first man, that should be compassionate, that should be compassionate, and sensible of it. In these words then, Divisio. (I am the man etc.) these are our two parts; first the Burden, and then the Ease, first the weight, and then the Alleviation, first the Discomfort, and then the Refreshing, the sea of afflictions that overflow, and surround us all and then our emergency and lifting up our head above that sea. In the first we shall consider, first, the Generality of afflictions; and that first in their own nature, And then secondly in that name of man. upon whom they fall here, Gheber, Ego vir, I am the man, which is that name of man, by which the strongest, the powerfullest of men are denoted in the Scriptures; They, the strongest, the mightiest, they that thought themselves safest, and sorrow-proofe, are afflicted. And lastly, in the person, upon whom these afflictions are fastened here, jeremy the Prophet, of whom literally we understand this place: The dearliest beloved of God, and those of whose service God may have use in his Church, they are subject to be retarded in their service, by these afflictions. Nothing makes a man so great amongst men, nothing makes a man so necessary to God, as that he can escape afflictions. And when we shall have thus considered the generality thereof, these three ways, In the nature of affliction itself, In the signification of that name of exaltation Gheber, And in the person of jeremy, we shall pass to the consideration of the vehemency and intenseness thereof, in those circumstances that are laid down in our Text, First, that these afflictions are Ejus, His, The Lords, And then they are in virga, in his rod, And again, In virga irae, in the rod of his wrath. And in these two branches, the extent and the weight of afflictions, and in these few circumstances, that illustrate both, we shall determine our first part, the burden, the discomfort. When we shall come at last, to our last part, of comfort, we shall find that also to grow out into 2 branches; for, first, Vidit, he saw his affliction, (I am the Man that hath seen affliction) Affliction did not blind him, not stupefie him, affliction did not make him unsensible of affliction, (which is a frequent, but a desperate condition) vidit, he saw it; that is first; And then, Ego vir, I am the man that saw it, he maintained the dignity of his station, still he played the man, still he survived to glorify God, and to be an example to other men, of patience under God's corrections, and of thankfulness in God's deliverance. In which last part, we shall also see, that all those particular that did aggravate the affliction, in the former part, (That they were from the Lord, from his Rod, from the Rod of his wrath) do all exalt our comfort in this, That it is a particular comfort that our afflictions are from the Lord, Another that they are from his Rod, and another also, that they are from the Rod of his wrath. First then in our first art, 1 Part. and the first branch thereof, The Generality of affliction, considered in the nature thereof: Generalitas. We met all generally, in the first Treason against ourselves; without exception all; In Adam's rebellion, who was not in his loins? And in a second Treason, we met all too; in the Treason against Christ jesus, we met all; All our sins were upon his shoulders. In those two Treasons we have had no exception, no exemption. The penalty for our first Treason, in Adam, in a great part, we do all undergo; we do all die, though not without a loathness and colluctation at the time, yet without a deliberate desire to live in this world for ever. How loath soever any man be to die, when death comes, yet I think, there is no man that ever form a deliberate Prayer, or wish, that he might never die. That penalty for our first Treason in Adam, we do bear. And would any be excepted from bearing any thing deduced from his second Treason, his conspiracy against Christ, from imitation of his Passion, and fulfilling his sufferings in his body, in bearing cheerfully the afflictions and tribulations of this life? Gen. 6. 12. Omnis caro corruper at; and thou art within that general Indictment, all flesh had corrupted his way upon Earth. Statutum est omnibus mori; Heb. 9 27. and thou art within that general Statute, It is appointed unto all men once to die. Anima quae peccaverit, ipsa morietur: and thou art within that general Sentence, and Judgement, Every soul that sinneth shall die, The death of the soul. Out of these general Propositions thou canst not get; Ezek. 18. 4. And when in the same universality there cometh a general pardon, 1 Tim. 2. 4. Deus vult omnes slavoes, God will have all men to be saved, Because that Pardon hath in it that Ita quod, that condition, Omnem filium, He sc●urgeth every son whom he receiveth, Heb. 12. 6. wouldst thou lose the benefit of that Adoption, that Filiation, that Patrimony and Inheritance, rather than admit patiently his Fatherly chastisements in the afflictions and tribulations in this life? Col. 2. 14. Beloved, the death of Christ is given to us, as a Handwriting: for, when Christ nailed that Chirographum, that first hand-writing, that had passed between the Devil and us, to his Cross, he did not leave us out of debt, nor absolutely discharged, but he laid another Chirographum upon us, another Obligation arising out of his death. His death is delivered to us, as a writing, but not a writing only in the nature of a piece of Evidence, to plead our inheritance by, but a writing in the nature of a Copy, to learn by; It is not only given us to read, but to write over, and practise; Not only to tell us what he did, but how we should do so too. All the evils and mischiefs that light upon us in this world, come (for the most part) from this, Quia fruimur utendis, August. because we think to enjoy those things which God hath given us only to use. God hath given us a use of things, and we set our hearts upon them. And this hath a proportion, an assimilation, an accommodation in the death of Christ. God hath proposed that for our use, in this world, and we think to enjoy it; God would have us do it over again, and we think it enough to know that Christ hath done it already; God would have us write it, and we do only read it; God would have us practise the death of Christ, and we do but understand it. The fruition, the enjoying of the death of Christ, is reserved for the next life; To this life belongs the use of it; that use of it, to fulfil his sufferings in our bodies, by bearing the afflictions and tribulations of this life. Ambros. For, prius Trophaeum Crucis erexit, deinde Martyribus tradidit erigendum; first Christ set up the victorious Trophy of his Cross himself, and then he delivered it over to his Martyrs to do as he had done. Nor are they only his Martyrs that have actually died for him, but into the signification of that name, which signifies a Witness, fall all those, who have glorified him, in a patient and constant bearing the afflictions and tribulations of this life. All being guilty of Christ's death, there lies an obligation upon us all, to fulfil his sufferings. And this is the generality of afflictions, as we consider them in their own nature. Now, Gheber. Vir. this generality is next expressed, in this word of exaltation, Gheber, Ego vir, I am the man; It was that man, that is denoted and signified in that name, that hath lain under affliction, and therefore no kind of man was likely to scape. There are in the Original Scriptures, four words, by which man is called; four names of man; and any of the others, (if we consider the origination of the words) might better admit afflictions to insult upon him, than this, Gheber, vir, I am the man. At first, man is called Ishe; a word, which their Grammarians derive à sonitu, from a sound, from a voice. Whether man's excellency be in that, that he can speak, which no other creature can do; or whether man's impotency be in that, that he comes into the world Crying, in this denomination, in this word, man is but a sound, but a voice, and that is no great matter. Another name of man is Adam, and Adam is no more but earth, and red earth, and the word is often used for blushing. When the name of man imports no more but so, no more but the frailty of the earth, and the bashful acknowledgement and confession of that frailty, in infinite infirmities, there is no great hope of scaping afflictions in this name, Adam. Less in his third name, Enosh: for Enosh signifies aegrum, calamitosum, a person naturally subject to, and actually possessed with all kinds of infirmities. So that this name of man, Enosh, is so far from exempting him, as that it involves him, it overflows him in afflictions: He hath a miserable name, as well as a miserable nature, Put them in fear, Ps● 9 20. O Lord, (says David) that they may know they are but men; but such men, as are denoted in that name of man, Enosh, (for there that name is expressed) weak and miserable men. Now, (to collect these) as man is nothing but a frivolous, an empty, a transitory sound, or but a sad and lamentable voice, (he is no more in his first name Ishe) As man is nothing but red earth, a moldring clod of infirmities, and then, blushing, that is, guilty, sensible, and ashamed of his own miserable condition, (and man is no more, as he is but Adam) As man is nothing but a receptacle of diseases in his body, of crosses in his estate, of immoderate griefs for those crosses in his mind, (and man is no more as he is but Enosh) so there is no wonder, why man in general should be under affliction, for these names import, these names enforce it: As Adam gave names to the creatures according to their natures, so God hath given names to man, according to his nature, miserable names, to miserable wretches. But when man is presented in this Text, in this fourth and great name, Gheber, which denotes excellency, Excellency in virtue, (his mind rectified) Excellency in wealth, (his estate enlarged) Excellency in power, (his authority extended) Excellency in favour, (all seas calm on the top, and foordable at the bottom to him) when man is expressed in that word, Gen. 27. 29. which Isaac used to jacob, in his abundant blessing, Be Lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee: And then, in this height, this height of virtue and merit, of wealth and treasure, of command and power, of favour and acclamation, is thrown down into the pit of misery, and submitted to all afflictions, what man can hope to be exempted? Man carries the spawn and seed and eggs of affliction in his own flesh, and his own thoughts make haste to hatch them, and to bring them up. We make all our worms snakes, all our snakes vipers, all our viper's dragons, by our murmuring. And so have you this generality of affliction, considered in this name of Exaltation Gheber. Now, jeremy. in our third consideration of this extent of affliction, in that this person, this Prophet jeremy, (for, of him literally we understand these words, Ego vir, I am the man) is thus submitted to these extraordinary afflictions, Nemo necessarius Deo. we see first, that no man is so necessary to God, as that God cannot come to his ends without that man; God can lack, and leave out any man in his service. If Christ had revealed to his Apostles, before he called them to be Apostles, or qualified them for that service, that he had a purpose to subdue and convert the whole world, by the labour and the means of twelve men, would it ever have fallen or entered into their imaginations, that any of them, should have been any of those twelve? Men of low rank, and estimation, men disfurnished, not only of all helps of learning, but of all experience in Civil or in Ecclesiastical affairs? And as Christ infused new abilities into these men that had none, so can he effect his purposes without them, who think they have all. And therefore, when he had chosen his twelve Apostles, and had endowed and qualified them for that service, when in their sight some of his Disciples forsook him, because he preached Duros' sermons, Doctrines hard to flesh and blood, job. 6. ●7. Christ was not afraid to say to the twelve, Numquid & vos vultis abire, Will ye also go away? He says it to the twelve; and he does not say, Will any of you, but will you, you twelve, all, go away? I can do my work without you. And therefore let no man go about to promove or advance his own fancies, his own singularities, his own Schismatical opinions, because he hath done God service before, because he hath possessed himself of the love of that Congregation, because no man's preaching is so acceptable there, as his, and that the Church cannot be without him; for, no man hath made God beholden to him, so far, as that he should be afraid to offend him. So also let no man be disheartened nor discouraged, if he have brought a good conscience, and faithful labour to the service of God. Let him not think his wages the worse paid, if God do mingle bodily sickness, temporal losses, personal disgraces, with his labours; Let him not think that God should not do thus to them that wear out themselves in his service; for the best part of our wages is adversity, because that gives us a true fast, and a right value of our prosperity. jeremy had it; the best of his rank must. In his example, Non excusamur à futuris per praeterita. 1 Reg. 19 4. we have thus much more, that no man is excused of subsequent afflictions, by precedent, nor of falling into more, by having born some already. Elias reckoned too hastily, when he told God, Satis est, now it is enough, Lord take away my life; God had more to lay upon him. A last years fever prevents not this, nor a sickness in the fall, another in the Spring. Men are not as such Copises, as being felled now, stand safe from the Axe for a dozen year after; But our Afflictions are as beggars, they tell others, and send more after them; Sickness does but usher in poverty, and poverty contempt, and contempt dejection of spirit, And a broken spirit who can bear? No man may refuse a privy seal, because he hath lent before. And, though Afflictions be not of God's revenue, for, Afflictions are not real services to God) yet they are of his Subsidies, and he hath additional glory out of our Afflictions; and, the more, the more. jeremy had been scornfully and despitefully put in the stocks by Pashur, Cap. 20. 1. 32. 2. 38. 9 before; He had been imprisoned in the King's house, before; He had been put in the dungeon, & almost starved in the mire, before; And yet he was reserved to this farther calamity. Affliction is truly a part of our patrimony, of our portion. If, as the prodigal did, we wast our portion, (that is, make no use of our former affliction) it is not the least part of God's bounty and liberality towards us, if he give us a new stock, a new feeling of new calamities, that we may be better emproved by them, then by the former; jeremy's former afflictions were but preparatives for more; no more are ours. And, Publicavit. in his example we have this one note more, That when the hand of God had been upon him, he declared, he published God's hand-writing: not only to his own conscience, by acknowledging that all these afflictions were for his sins, but by acknowledging to the world, that God had laid such and such afflictions upon him. There is not a nearer step to obduration, nor a worse defrauding of God of his glory, then to be loath to let the world know, what God hath laid upon us. Say to yourselves, These afflictions are for my sins, and say to one another, Ego vir, I am the man whom God hath thus, and thus afflicted. For, as Executions in Criminal justice, are done as much for example of others, as for punishment of delinquents, so would God fain proceed that cheap way, to make those afflictions which he lays upon thee, serve another too; as they will, if thou be content to glorify God, in letting others know, how he hath afflicted thee. Shut we up this first branch of this first part (The extent and universality of afflictions) which we have considered first in the nature of the case, (we have all contributed to the afflictions of Christ, and therefore must all fulfil his sufferings in our flesh) And then secondly, in this name of Exaltation, Gheber, (man, in the highest consideration of man, is the subject of affliction) And last, in the person of jeremy, in whom we have made our use of those three observations; First, That no man is so necessary to God, as that God cannot be without him, Then, That no man is excused of future calamities, by former, And lastly, That he whom God hath exercised with afflictions, is bound to glorify God in the declaration thereof; shut we up this branch, with that story of S. Ambrose, who, in a journey from Milan to Rome, passing sometime in the evening with his Host, and hearing him brag that he had never had any cross in his life, S. Ambrose presently removed from thence to another house, with that protestation, That either that man was very unthankful to God, that would not take knowledge of his corrections, or that God's measure was by this time full, and he would surely, and sound, and suddenly pour down all together. And so we pass to our other branch of this first part, from the extent and generality of afflictions, to the weight and vehemence of them, expressed in three heavy circumstances, That they are His, the Lords, That they are from his Rod, That they are from the Rod of his wrath: I am the man, that have seen afflictions, by the rod of his mouth. First, Ejus. they are aggravated in that they are Ejus, His, The Lords. It is ordinary in the Scriptures, that when the Holy Ghost would express a superlative, or the highest degree of any thing, to express it, by adding to it, the name of God. So, in many places, fortitudo Domini, and timor Domini, The power of the Lord, and the fear of the Lord, do not import that power which is in the Lord, nor that fear which is to be conceived by us of the Lord, but the power of the Lord, and the fear of the Lord denote the greatest power, and the greatest fear that can be conceived. As in particular, when Saul and his company were in such a dead sleep, as that David could enter in upon them, and take his spear, and his pot of water from under his head, this is there called sopor Domini, 1 Sam. 26. 22. the sleep of the Lord was upon him, the heaviest, the deadliest sleep that could be imagined. so may these Afflictions in our Text be conceived to be exalted to a superlative height, by this addition, that They, and the Rod, and the wrath, are said to be His, The Lords. But this cannot well be the sense, nor the direct proceeding, and purpose of the Holy Ghost, in this place, because where the addition of the name of God constitutes a superlative, that name is evidently and literally expressed in that place, as fortitudo Det, sopor Dei, and the rest; But here, the name of God is only by implication, by illation, by consequence; All necessary, but yet but illation, but implication, but consequence. For, there is no name of God in this verse; but, because in the last verse of the former chapter, the Lord is expressly named, and the Lords Anger, and then, this which is the first verse of this chapter, and connected to that, refers these afflictions, and rods, and wrath to Him, (The rod of his wrath) it must necessarily be to him who was last spoken of, The Lord, They are Ejus, His, and therefore heavy. Then is an Affliction properly God's Affliction, when thou in thy Conscience canst impute it to none but God. When thou disorderest thy body with a surfeit, nature will submit to sickness; When thou wearest out thyself with licentiousness, the sin itself will induce infirmities; when thou transgressest any law of the State, the justice of the State will lay hold upon thee. And for the Afflictions that fall upon thee in these cases, thou art able to say to thyself, that they would have fall'n upon thee, though there had been no God, or though God had had no rod about him, no anger in him; Thou knowest in particular, why, and by whose, or by what means, these Afflictions light upon thee. But when thou shalt have thy Conscience clear towards such and such men, and yet those men shall go about to oppress thee, when thou labourest uprightly in thy calling, and yet dost not prosper, when thou studiest the Scriptures, hearkenest to Sermons, observest Sabbaths, desirest conferences, and yet receivest not satisfaction, but still remainest under the torture of scruples and anxieties, when thou art in S. Paul's case, Nihili conscius, That thou knowest nothing by thyself, 1 Cor. 4. 4. and yet canst not give thyself peace, Though all Afflictions upon God's Children, be from him, yet, take knowledge that this is from him, more entirely, and more immediately, and that God remembers something in thee, that thou hast forgot; And, as that fit of an Ague, or that pang of the Gout, which may take thee to day, is not necessarily occasioned by that which thou hast eaten to day, but may be the effect of some former disorder, so the affliction which lights upon thee in thine age, may be inflicted for the sins of thy youth. Thy affliction is his, The Lords; And the Lord is infinite, and comprehends all at once, and ever finds something in thee to correct, something that thou hast done, or something that thou wouldst have done, if the blessing of that correction had not restrained thee. And therefore, when thou canst not pitch thy affliction upon any particular sin, yet make not thyself so just, August. as that thou make God unjust, whose Judgements may be unsearchable, but they cannot be unjust. This then is the first weight that is laid upon our afflictions, In Virga. that they are His, The Lords; and this weight consists in this, That because they are his, they are inevitable, they cannot be avoided, And because they are His, they are certainly just, and cannot be pleaded against, nor can we ease ourselves with any imagination of an innocency, as though they were undeserved. And the next weight that is laid upon them, is that they are, In virga ejus, in his rod. For, though this Metaphor, the Rod, Prov. 23. 13. may seem to present but an easy correction, such as that, If thou beat thy child with a rod, be shall not die, (It will not kill him) yet there is more weight than so in this Rod; Exod. 21. 20. for the word here is Shebet, and Shebet is such a Rod as may kill; If a man smite his servant with a Rod, so that he die under his hand, he shall be surely punished. Beloved, whether God's Rod, and his correction, shall have the savour of life unto life, or of death unto death, consists much in the hand, that is to receive it, and in the stomach that is to digest it. As in God's Temporal blessings that he raines down upon us, it is much in our gathering, and inning, and spending them, whether it shall be frumenti, or laqueorum, whether this shall prove such a shower, as shall nourish our soul spiritually, in thankfulness to God, and in charitable works towards his needy Servants, Psal. 11. 6. or whether it shall prove a shower of snares, to minister occasions of tentations; so when he raines afflictions upon us, it is much in our gathering, whether it shall be Roris, or Grandinis, whether it shall be a shower of fattening dew upon us, or a shower of Fgyptian hailstones, to batter us in pieces, as a Potter's Vessel, jerem. 19 11. that cannot be renewed. Our murmuring makes a rod a staff, and a staff a sword, and that which God presented for physic, poison. The double effect and operation of God's Rod, and Corrections, is usefully and appliably expressed in the Prophet Zachary: 11. 7. where God complains, That he had fed the sheep of slaughter, that he had been careful for them, who would needs die, say he what he could. Therefore he was forced to come to the Rod, to correction. So he does; And I took unto me, says he there, two Staves, the one I called Beauty, the other Bands; Two ways of correction, a milder, and a more vehement. When his milder way prevailed not, Then said I, I will not feed you; I will take no more care of you; That which dyeth let it die, (says he) and that which is to be cut off, let it be cut off; And I took my staff of Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my Covenant, which I had made with them. Beloved, God hath made no such Covenant with any State, any Church, any soul, but that, being provoked, he is at liberty to break it. But then, upon this, when the stubborn, and the refractory, the stiffnecked and the rebellious were cut off, The poor of the sheep (says God) that waited upon me, knew that it was the word of the Lord. It is not every man's case, to mend by God's corrections; only the poor of the sheep, the broken hearted, the contrite spirit, the discerner of his own poverty and infirmity, could make that good use of affliction, as to find God's hand, and then God's purpose in it. For, this Rod of God, this Shebet, can kill; Affliction can harden, as well as mollify, and entender the heart. And there is so much the more danger, that it should work that effect, that obduration, because it is Virga Irae, The rod of his wrath, which is the other weight that aggravates our afflictions. In all afflictions that fall upon us from other instruments, Virga Irae. there is Digitus Dei, The finger of God leads their hand that afflicts us; Though it be sickness, by our intemperance, though it be poverty, by our wastfulnesse, though it be oppression, by the malice, or by our exasperation of potent persons, yet still the finger of God is in all these. But in the afflictions which we speak of here, such as fall upon us, when we think ourselves at peace with God, and in state of grace, it is not Digitus, but Manus Dei, the whole work is his, and man hath no part in it. Whensoever he takes the Rod in hand, there is a correction towards; but yet, it may be but his Rod of Beauty, of his Correction, not Destruction. But, if he take his Rod in anger, the case is more dangerous; for, though there be properly no anger in God, yet then is God said to do a thing in anger, when he does it so, as an angry man would do it. Upon those words of David, Psal. 6. 1. O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, Saint Augustine observes, that David knew God's rebukes and corrections were but for his amendment; but yet, In Ira corrigi noluit, in Ira emendari noluit, David was loath, that God should go about to mend him in anger; afraid to have any thing to do with God, till his anger were over-passed. Beloved, to a true anger, and wrath, and indignation towards his children, God never comes; but he comes so near it, as that they cannot discern, whether it be anger, or no. A Father takes a Rod, and looks as angrily, as though he would kill his child, but means nothing but good to him. So God brings a soul to a sad sense of an angry countenance in God, to a sad apprehension of an angry absence, to a sad jealousy and suspicion that God will never return to it again; And this is a heavy affliction, whilst it lasts. Our Saviour Christ, in that case, came to expostulate it, to dispute it with his Father, Vt quid dereliquisti, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Do but tell me why. Fo●, if God be pleased to tell us, why he is angry, his anger is well allayed, and we have a fair overture towards our restitution. But, in our infirmity, we get not easily so far; we apprehend God to be angry; we cannot find the cause, and we sink under the burden; we leave the disease to concoct itself, and we take no Physic. And this is truly the highest extent, and exaltation of affliction, That in our afflictions we take God to be angrier than he is. For, then is God said to take his Rod in anger, when he suffers us to think that he does so, and when he suffers us to decline, and sink so low towards diffidence, and desperation, that we dare not look towards him, because we believe him to be so angry. And so have you all those pieces which constitute both the branches of this first part, The generality and extent of afflictions, considered in the nature of the thing, in the nature of the word, this name of man, Gheber, and in the person of jeremy, the Prophet of God, And then the intensene●●e, and weight and vehemency of afflictions, considered in these three particulars, That they are His, The Lords, That they are from His Rod, And from the Rod of his anger. But to weigh down all these, we have comforts ministered unto us, in our Text, which constitute our other part. Of these the first is Vidi, 2 Part. Vidi. I have seen these afflictions, for this is an act of particular grace and mercy, when God enables us to see them: for, naturally this is the infirmity of our spiritual senses, Eph. 1. 18. 4. 18. that when the eyes of our understanding should be enlightened, our understanding is so darkened, as that we can neither see prosperity, nor adversity, for, in prosperity our light is too great, and we are dazzled, in adversity too little, none at all, and we are benighted, we do not see our afflictions. There is no doubt, but that the literal sense of this phrase, To see afflictions, is to feel, to suffer afflictions. Psal. 89. 48. 16. 10. As, when David says, What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death, and when Christ says, Thou shalt not suffer thine holy one to see corruption, to see death, and to see corruption, is to suffer them. But then, the literal sense being thus duly preserved, That the children of God shall certainly see, that is, certainly suffer afflictions, receive we also that sweet odour and fragrancy which the word breathes out, That they shall see it, that is, understand it, consider it: For, as when the wicked come to say, Psal. 4. 7. The Lord does not see it, it is presently added, Neither doth the God of jacob regard it, (It is a seeing that induces a regarding) so when the godly come to see their afflictions, they come to regard them, to regard God's purpose in them. Vidisti Domine, ne sileas, 35. 22. says David, All this thou hast seen, O Lord, Lord do not hold thy peace. David presumed, that if God saw his afflictions, he would stir in them; when we come to see them, we stir, we wake, we rise, we look about us, from whence, and why these afflictions come; and therein lies this comfort, Vidi, I have seen afflictions, I have been content to look upon them, to consider them. The Prophets in the Old Testament, do often call those sights, and those prenotions which they had of the misery and destruction of others, Onus visionis, Onus verbi Domini, O the burden of this sight, O the burden of this message of God. It was a burden to them, to see God's judgements directed upon others; how much more is it a burden to a man, to see his own affliction, and that in the cause thereof? But this must be done, we must see our affliction in the Cause thereof. No man is so blind, so stupid, as that he doth not see his affliction, that is, feel it; but we must see it so, as to see through it, see it to be such as it is, so qualified, so conditioned, so circumstanced, as he that sends it, intends it. We must leave out the malice of others in our oppressions, and forgive that; leave out the severity of the Law in our punishments, and submit to that; and look entirely upon the certainty of God's judgement, who hath the whole body of our sins written together before him, and picks out what sin it pleaseth him, and punisheth now an old, now a yesterday sin, as he findeth it most to conduce to his glory, and our amendment, Dan. 5. 51. and the edification of others, We must see the hand of God upon the wall as Belshazzar did, (for even that was the hand of God) though we cannot read that writing, no more than Belshazzar could. We must see the affliction, so as we must see it to be the hand of God, though we cannot presently see, for what sin it is, nor what will be the issue of it. And then when we have seen that, than we must turn to the study of those other particulars, for, till we see the affliction to come from God, we see nothing; There is no other light in that darkness, but he. If thou see thy affliction, thy sickness, in that glass, in the consideration of thine own former licentiousness, thou shalt have no other answer, but that sour remorse, and increpation, you might have lived honestly. If thou see thy affliction, thy poverty, in that glass, in the malice & oppression of potent adversaries, thou wilt get no farther, then to that froward and churlish answer, Psal. 55. 23. The Law is open, mend yourself as you can. But jactate super Dominum, saith David, Lay all thy burden upon the Lord, and he will apply to thee that Collyrium, that sovereign eyesalve, Apos. 3. 18. whereby thou shalt see thy afffiction, (it shall not blind thee) And see from whence it cometh, (from him, who, as he liveth, would not the death of a sinner) And see why it cometh, (that thou mightest see and taste the goodness of God thyself, and declare his loving kindness to the Children of Men.) And this is the comfort deduced from this word Vidi, I have seen affliction. And this leadeth us to our other Comfort, Ego vir. That though these Afflictions have wrought deep upon thee, yet thou canst say to thy soul, Ego vir, I am that man; Thy Morality, vers. 22. thy Christianity is not shaked in thee. It is the Mercy of God, that we are not conumed, saith jeremy here; And it is a great degree of his mercy, to let us feel that we are not consumed, to give us this sense, that our case is not desperate, but that Ego vir, I am the man, that there remaineth still strength enough to gather more; That still thou remainest a man, a reasonable man, and so art able to apply to thyself; all those medicines and reliefs, which Philosophy and natural reason can afford. For, even these helps, deduced from Philosophy and natural reason, are strong enough against afflictions of this world, as long as we can use them, as long as these helps of reason and learning are alive, and awake, and actuated in us, they are able to sustain us from sinking under the afflictions of this world, for, they have sustained many a Plato, and Socrates, and Seneca in such cases. But when part of the affliction shall be, that God worketh upon the Spirit itself, and damps that, enfeebles that, that he casts a sooty Cloud upon the understanding, and darkens that, that he doth Exuere hominem, divest, strip the man of the man, Eximere hominem, take the man out of the man, and withdraw and frustrate his natural understanding so, as that, to this purpose, he is no man, yet even in this case, God may mend thee, in marring thee, he may build thee up in dejecring thee, he may infuse another, Ego vir, another Manhood into thee, and though thou canst not say Ego vir, I am that Moral man, safe in my Natural Reason and Philosophy, that is spent, yet Ego vir, I am that Christian man, who have seen this affliction in the Cause thereof, so far off, as in my sin in Adam, and the remedy of this affliction, so far off, as in the death of Christ jesus I am the Man, that cannot repine, nor murmur, since I am the Cause; I am the man that cannot despair, since Christ is the remedy. I am that man, which is intended in this Text, Gheber. Not only an Adam, a man amongst men, able to convince me, though they speak eloquently against me, job 16. ●●. and able to prove that God hath forsaken me, because he hath afflicted me, but able to prevail with God himself, Gen. 32. 24. as jacob did, and to wrestle out a blessing out of him, &, though I do halt, become infirm with manifold afflictions, yet they shall be so many seals of my infallibility in him. Now this comfort hath three gradations in our text, three circumstances, which, as they aggravated the discomfort in the former, so they exalt the comfort in this part, That they are His, The Lords, That they are from his rod, That they are from the rod of his wrath. We may compare our afflictions that come immediately from God, Ejus. with those that come instrumentally from others, by considering the choice and election which David made, and the choice which Susanna made in her case. The Prophet G●d offers David his choice of three afflictions, 2 Sam. 24. War, Famine, or pestilence. It does not appear, it is not expressed, that David determined himself, or declared his choice of any of the three. 2 Sam. 12. 13. He might conceive a hope, that God would forbear all three. As, when another Prophet Nathan had told him, The child shall surely die, yet David said, for all that determined assurance, Who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live, and he fasted a fast, and mourned and prayed for the child's life; Beloved, no commination of God, is unconditioned, or irrevocable. But in this case David intimates some kind of election, Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercies are exceeding great, and not into the hands of men. Susanna, when she was surprised, (and in a strait too, though of another kind) she resolves that it is better for her to fall into the hands of men, (let men defame her, let men accuse her, condemn her, execute her) rather then sin in the sight of God, and so fall into his hands. So that, if we compare offences, we were better offend all the Princes of the earth, then offend God, because he is able to cast body and soul into hell fire. But when the offence is done, for the punishment which follows, God forgives a treason, sooner than thy neighbour will a trespass; God seals thee a Quietus est, in the blood of his Son, sooner than a Creditor will renew a bond, or withdraw an Action; and a Scandalum magnatum, will lie longer upon thee here, than a blasphem● against God, in that Court. And therefore, as it is one degree of good husbandry, in ill husbands, to bring all their debts into one hand, so dost thou husband thy afflictions well, if thou put them all upon thy debts to God, and leave out the consideration of Instruments; And he shall deal with thee, 2 Sam. 24. 18. as he did with David there, that plague, which was threatened for three days, he will end in one; In that trouble, which, if men had had their will upon thee, would have consumed thee, thou shalt stand unconsumed. For, if a man wound thee, it is not in his power, though he be never so sorry for it, whether that wound shall kill thee, or no; but if the Lord wound thee to death, he is the life, he can redeem thee from death, and if he do not, he is thy resurrection, and recompenses thee with another, and a better life. And so lies our first comfort, that it is Ejus, His, The Lords, And a second is, that it is In virga ejus, In his rod. job would fain have come to a cessation of arms, In Virga. 9 34. before he came to a treaty with God; Let the Lord take away his rod from me, says he, and let not his fear terrify me; Them would I speak. As long as his rod was upon him, and his fears terrified him, it was otherwise; he durst not. But truly his fears should not terrify us, though his rod be upon us; for herein lies our comfort, That all Gods rods are bound up with that mercy, which accompanied that rod that God threatened David, to exercise upon his son Solemon, 2 Sam. 7. 14. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men; (I will let him fall into the hands of men) This was heavy; Therefore it is eased with that Cordial, But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul. But for this mercy, the oppressions of men were merciless; But all God's rods are bound up with this mercy; and therein lies our comfort. And for the rods of other men, O my people be not afraid of the Assyrian, Esa. 10. 24. says God. Why, blessed Lord, shal● the Assyrian do thy people no harm? yes, says God there, He shall smite them with a rod, and he shall lift up his staff against them; Some harm he shall do; (He shall smite them with a rod) And he shall threaten more, offer at more (he shall lift up his staff) where then is the people's relief, V. 26. and comfort? In this; The Lord of Hosts shall stir up a scourge for him. God shall appear in that notion of power, The Lord of Hosts, and he shall encounter his enemies, and the enemies of his friends, with a scourge upon them, against their rod upon us. God's own rods are bound up in mercy, (they end in mercy) And, for the rods of other men, God cuts them in pieces, and their owners, with his sword. God's own rods, even towards his own Children, are sometimes, as that rod which he put into Moses hand was, Exod. 7. 12. changed into Serpents. God's own rods have sometimes a sting, and a bitterness in them; but then, they are changed from their own nature; Naturally Gods rods towards us, are gentle, and harmless: When God's rod in Moses hand, was changed to a Serpent, it did no harm, that did but devour the other Serpents: when God's rods are heaviest upon us, if they devour other rods, that is, enable us to put off the consideration of the malice and oppression of other Men, and all displeasure towards them, and lay all upon God, for our sins, these serpentine rods have wrought a good effect: When Moses his Rod was a Serpent, yet it returned quickly to a Rod again; how bitter so ever God's corrections be, they return soon to their natural sweetness, and though the correction continue, the bitterness does not: with this Rod Moses tamed the Sea, and divided that; but he drowned none in that Sea, but the Egyptians. God's rod will cut, and divide between thy soul, and spirit, but he will destroy nothing in thee, not thy Morality, not thy Christianity, but only thine own Egyptians, thy Persecutors, thy concupiscencies. But all this while, Quia Virga. we have but deduced a comfort out of thy Word, Quia Virga, though that be a rod; but this is a comfort Quia Virga, therefore, because that is a Rod: for, this word which is here a Rod, is also, in other places of Scriptures, an Instrument, not of correction, Mich. 7. 14. but direction: Feed thy sheep with thy Rod, says God; and there it is a Pastoral Rod, the direction of the Church; Virga rectitudinis virgaregni tui, Psal. 45. 7. says David; The Sceptre of thy kingdom is a right Sceptre; and there its a royal rod, the protection of the state: so that all comforts that are derived upon us, by the direction of the Church, and by the protection of the State, are recommended to us, and conferred upon us in this His Rod. Nor is it only a Rod of comfort, by implication, and consequence; Psal. 23. 4. but expressly and literally it is so: Though I should walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; Thy rod, and thy staff, they comfort me. He had not only a comfort, though he had the rod, but he had not had so much comfort, except he had had it; we have not so good evidence of the joys of the next life, except we have the sorrows of this. The discomfort than lies not in this, Virga Irae. That the affliction is ejus, his, the Lords, (for we have an ease in that) nor, that it is In Virga ejus, in his rod, (for we have a benefit by that) but it is In virga irae, in that it is the rod of his wrath, of his anger. But truly, beloved, there is a blessed comfort ministered unto us, even in that word; for that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gnabar, which we translate Anger, wrath, hath another ordinary signification in Scripture, which, though that may seem to be an easier, would prove a heavier sense for us to bear, than this of wrath and anger; this is, preteritio, conniventia, Gods forbearing to take knowledge of our transgressions; when God shall say of us, as he does of Israel, Esa. 1. 5. Why should ye be smitten any more? when God leaves us to ourselves, and studies our recovery no farther, by any more corrections; for, in this case, there is the less comfort, because there is the less anger showed. And therefore S. Bernard, who was heartily afraid of this sense of our word, heartily afraid of this preterition, that God should forget him, leave him out, affectionately, passionately embraces this sense of the word in our Text, Anger; and he says, Irascaris mihi Domine, Domine mihi irascaris, Be angry with me o Lord, O Lord be angry with me, lest I perish! for, till we have a sense of such an anger in God, towards us, as Children have from their Parents, that not only they correct them, but deny them some things that they ask, and keep them some time from their sight and presence, till we be made Partakers of this blessed anger of God, (for we do not pray, that God would not be angry, but that he would not be angry with us for ever) till than we come not to see an affliction, that is, to discern, what, and whence, and why that comes: Nor we see that not like Men, like such Men, like Christian Men, not with a faithful and constant assurance, that all will have an end in him who suffered infinitely more for us, than he hath laid upon us. SERMON XLIX. A Sermon Preached at Saint Dunstan's upon New-years-day, 1624. GEN. 17. 24. Abraham himself was ninety nine years old, when the foreskin of his flesh was Circumcised. THis is the place where Circumcision began, and this is the Day, when Circumcision ended; in this Scripture it was Instituted, in the person of Abraham; and upon this Day it was perfected and consummated in the person of Christ jesus: for, though Circumcision were admitted in a few cases, in the Apostles time, after Christ, yet that was, as dead berbs are readmitted into medicines in the winter, when fresh and green herbs cannot be had of that kind: So Circumcision was sometimes admitted for peace, and to avoid scandal, and the better to propagate the Church, Divisio. after the virtue thereof was extinguished in Christ. In the Institution thereof in this Text, we will consider Abraham's ready, and exact obedience: In the Consummation thereof, in the person of Christ, we will consider that, to which, this Circumcision had relation, that is, the spiritual Circumcision of our hearts. It is a Text well handled, and it is a Day well spent, if the Text teach us to obey God readily, and immediately, what inconveniences soever present themselves in the way, and if the celebration of the Day, teach us to come this Day, to that which is the true Circumcision, the Circumcision of the Heart. In the first, in Abraham's example, we shall pass by these steps: First, that though there be allowed to us an Omnia Probate, a Trial of all things, and a spirit to discern spirits; yet when once it appears to us, to be a common dement of God, there's a fine levied, all Titles concluded, no more claim to be made by our under standing, our reason, but a present, and an exact obedience must be given to it. Secondly, that in particular Men, and in particular cases, there may arise tentations, objections, reasons, why a Man might forbear altogether, or at least differ the execution of such a commandment, as there may have done in Abraham's case, as we shall see anon. Thirdly, that though such tentations do arise in us out of our infirmities, yet God gives his Children strength to overcome those difficulties, and to oppose stronger reasons against those reasons, and so to come to a willing obedience to his will. And then lastly, the triumph that belongs to this victory; which we shall find, in considering what benefit Abraham received by this obedience in his Circumcision: And these will be the branches of out first part, rising out of the Institution of Circumcision, in the person of Abraham at that great age, First, that God's manifest will must not be disputed, nor reasoned upon: Secondly, that Man's corrupt nature will offer reasons against it: Thirdly, that God will give the issue with the tentation, reason above that reason: And lastly, he will accompany that victory, with other blessings too. First then, 1 Pa●t. Obediendum. for our exact obedience to that which God exacts of us, it is well said by Luther, Depuerascendum est, cum agitur de obedientia Dei: when the question is, whether this, or this be commanded by God or no, when traditions and additions of men, are imposed upon us, as commandments of God, here's no Depuerascendum in this case, this is no Childs-play; than viriliter agendum, (as the Apostle speaks) we must quit ourselves like men, we must dispute like Men, (like learned men) preach like Men, (like Zealous Men) pray like Men (like devout Men) resist like Men, (like valiant Men) or at least, (in cases where we may not resist) suffer like Men, (like constant Christian Men.) But when the question is, De obedientia Dei, that this is agreed to be the will of God, and all the question is, whether God might not be content to accept an obedience to some part of it, or to all of that hereafter, but not now, whether God would not forgive the debt, or at least give day for the payment of it; either when we are old, or by legacies to pious uses, when we die, when this is the question, Depuerascendum est, we must grow Children again; we must not only, not argue, not dispute against it (which are acts of men, of strong & able understandings) but we must return to the first weakness of Children, to be speechless, to be thoughtlesse; we must not utter a word, not conceive a thought against it, Periculosa & pestilens quaestio, Quare; says Luther also, It is a Dangerous and Infectious Monasillable, How or Why: If I will ask a reason, why God commands such a thing; first, Periculosum est, It is Dangerous; for, I have nothing to answer me, but mine own reason, and that affords not Lead enough, nor Line enough, to sound the depth of God's proceedings, nor length enough, nor strength enough to reach so far, and therefore I may mistake the reason, and go upon false grounds. So, Periculosum est, It is a Dangerous question, and a lost question, because I can have no certain answer; and it is an infectious question too, for here is one coal of the Devil's fire, of his pride, kindled in me; as the Devil said, Similis ere Altissimo, I will be like the Highest, and see whether I may not stand by myself, without any Influence from God, without any Dependence upon God: so, in our case, I will be so far equal to God, as that I will measure his actions by my reason, and nor do his Commandments till I know why he commanded them: And then, when the infection is got into a House, who can say, it shall end here in this Person, and kill no more; or it shall end this week, and last no longer? So if that infectious inquisition, that Quare, (Why should God command this or this particular? be entered into me, all my Humility is presently infected, and I shall look for a reason, why God made a world, or why he made a world no sooner than 6000. years ago, and why he says some, and why but some, and I shall examine God upon all the Interrogatories that I can frame, upon the Creed (why I should believe a Son of a Virgin without a Man, or believe the Son of God to descend into Hell) Or frame upon the Pater Noster, (why I should worship such a God, that must be prayed to, not to lead me into tentation) Or frame upon the Ten Commandments, why after all is done and heaped, for any sinful action, yet I should be guilty of all, for covering in my heart another man's horse or house. And therefore Luther pursues it farther, with words of more vehemence, Odiosa & exitialis vocule, Quare, It is an Execrable and Damnable Monasillable, Why; it exasperates God, it ruins us: For, when we come to ask a reason of his actions, either we doubt of the goodness of God, that he is not so careful of us, as we would be; or of his power, that he cannot provide for us, so well as we could do; or of his wisdom, that he hath not grounded his Commandments so well as we could have advised him: whereas Saint Augustine says justly, Qui rationem quaerit voluntatis Dei, aliquid majus Deo quaerit, He that seeks a reason of the will of God, seeks for something greater than God. It was the Devil that opened our eyes in Paradise, it is our parts to shut them so far, as not to gaze upon God's secret purposes. God guided his Children as well by a Pillar of Cloud, as by a Pillar of Fire, and both, Cloud and Fire, were equally Pillars: There is as much strength in, and as safe relying upon some ignorances', as some knowledges; for God provided for his people, as well in this, that he did Moses body from them, as that he revealed other Mysteries to them, by him. All is well summed and collected by Saint Augustine, Dominus cur jusserit, viderit; faciendum est à serviente, quod jusserit: Why God commands any thing, God himself knows; our part is, not to inquire why, by to do what he commands. This is the Rule: Tamen temamur. 'Tis true, there should not be: but yet is there not sometimes, in the minds and mouths of good and godly men, a Quare, a reasoning, a disputing against that which God hath commanded or done? The murmuring of the Children in the Desert, had still this Quare, Quare eduxisti, Wherefore have you brought us hither to die here, Num. 20. in this miserable place, where there is no Seed, no Figs, no Vines, no Pomegrantes, no Water? Saul had this Quare, this rebellious inquisition, upon that Commandment of God against the Amalekites, 1 Sum. 4. Slay both Man and Woman, Infant and Suckling, Ox and Sheep, Camel and Ass: And from this Quare, from this disputation of his, arose that conclusion, That it were better to spare some for Sacrifice, then to destroy all: But though his pretence had a religious colour, that would not justify a slackness in obeying the manifested will of God; for, for this, God repented that he made him King, and told him that he had more pleasure in Obedience, then in Sacrifice. But, to come to better men than the Israelites in the Wilderness, or Saul in his Government, job, though he, and his Friends held out long, (They sat upon the ground even days and seven nights, and none spoke a word) yet at last fell into these Quares, Why did I not die in the birth? or, why sucked I the breast? Peter himself had this reluctation; and though that were out of piety, yet he was chidden for it, Quare lavas, says he, Joh. 13. Lord, dost thou wash my feet? thou shalt never wash my feet: till Christ was fain to say, If I wash thee not, thou shalt have no part with me. Upon this common infirmity; inherent in the best men that may (and not unlikely) be, that when God commanded Abraham, at that great age to circumcise himself, there might arise such Quares, such scruples and doubts, as there, in Abraham's mind, (for, as Saint Paul says of himself, If any man think he hath whereof to trust in the flesh, Phil. 3. much more I, Circumcised, an Hebrew, an Israelite, a Pharisee, a Zealous Servant in the persecution, and in righteousness unblameable: So if any man might have taken this liberty to have disputed with God, upon his precepts, Abraham might have done it; for, when God called him out to number the Stars, (which was, even to Art, impossible) and promised him, Gen. 15. that his seed should equal them, (which was, in Nature, incredible) for all this incredibility and Impossibility, Abraham believed, and this was accounted to him for Righteousness: Heb. 11. And Abraham had declared his easy, and forward, and implicit faith in God, when God called him, and he went out, not knowing whither he went: And therefore when God offered him a new seal, Circumcision, Abraham might have said, Quare sigillum? What needs a seal between thee and me? I have used to take thy word before, and thou hast tried me before: But Abraham knew that Obedience was better than wit or disputation; for, though Obedience and good works, do not beget faith, yet they nurse it; Per ea augescit fidei, & pinguescit, says Luther, Our faith grows into a better state, and into a better liking, by our good works. Again, when Abraham considered, that it was, Mandatum in re turpi, That this Circumcision, in itself, was too frivolous a thing; and, in that part of the Body, too obscene a thing, to be brought into the fancy of so many Women, so many young Men, so many Strangers to other Nations, as might bring the Promise and Covenant itself into scorn, and into suspicion, that should require such a seal to it as that was, he might have come to this, Quare tam turpe, quare tam sordidum? why does God command me so base and unclean a thing, so scornful and mis-interpretable a thing, as Circumcision, and Circumcision in that part? Again, when he considered, that to Circumcise all his family in one day, (as by the Commandment he must) which could not be (in likelihood) of less than 400. (for he went out before, to the rescue of Lot, with 318. borne and brought up in his House) he must make his House a spital of so many impotent Persons, unable to help one another for many days, (for such was the effect of Circumcision, Gen. 14. as we see in their Story, when Simeon and Levi came upon the Sichemites three days after they had been, by their persuasion, circumcised, the Sichemites were unable to resist or defend themselves, Gen. 34. and so were slain: Yea the soreness and incommodity upon Circumcision was so great, as that the very Commandment itself of Circumcision, was forborn in the Wilderness, because they were then put to sudden removes, which presently after a Circumcision, they could not have performed) Might not Abraham have come to his Quare tam molestum? Why will God command me so troublesome and incommodious a thing as this? And (to contract this) when he considered, That one principal reason of the Commandment of Circumcision, was, that that mark might be always a remembrance to them against intemperance and incontinency. Might not Abraham have come to his Quare mihi? What use is there of this, in my Body, which is now dried up and withered by 99 years? What Quares, what reluctations Abraham had, or whether he had any or no, is not expressed; but very religious and good men, sometimes, out of humane infirmities, have them: But then, God brings them quickly about to Christ's Veruntamen, Yet not my will, but thine be done; and he delivers them from the tentation, and brings them to an entire obedience to his will, which is that which we proposed for the next Branch in this part. Tu qui vas figuli, says the Apostle; whensoever any disputation against a commandment of God, Liberat Deus. arises in God's children, the Spirit of God smothers that spirit of Rebellion with that, Tu qui vas figuli, wilt thou who art but the vessel, dispute with the potter, that fashioned thee? If Abraham had any such doubts, of a frivolousness in so base a seal, of an obscenity in so foul a seal, of an incommodiousness in so troublesome a seal, of a needlessness in so impertinent a seal; if he had these doubts, no doubt but his forwardness in obeying God, did quickly oppose these reasons to those, and overcome them: That that part of the body is the most rebellious part; and that therefore, only that part Adam covered, out of shame, for all the other parts he could rule: Ad hominis inobedientiam redarguendam, suâ inobedientiâ quodammodo caro testimonium perhibet, August. to reproach Man's rebellion to God, God hath left one part of Man's body, to rebel against him; for though the seeds of this rebellion be dispersed through all the body, yet, In illa parte magis regnat additamentum Leviathan, says Saint Bernard, the spawns of Leviathan, the seed of sin, the leven of the Devil, abound and reigns most in that part of the body; it is sentiva peccati, says the same Father, the Sewar of all sin; not only because all sin is derived upon us, by generation, and so employed, and involved in original sin; but because, almost all other sins have relation to this: for, Gluttony is a preparation to this sin in ourselves; Pride and excess is a preparation to it, in others, whom we would inveigle and assure, by our bravery; Anger and malice inclines us to pursue this sinful and inordinate love, quarrelsomly, so, as, that then, we do not quarrel for ways, and walls in the street, but we quarrel for our way to the Devil; and when we cannot go fast enough to the Devil, by wantonness in the chamber, we will quarrel with him, who hinders us of our Damnation, and find a way, to go faster in the field, by Duels, and unchristian Murder, in so foul a cause, as unlawful lust. In this rebellious part, is the root of all sin, and therefore did that part need this stigmatical mark of Circumcision, to be imprinted upon it. Besides, (for the Jews in particular) they were a Nation prone to Idolatry, and most, upon this occasion, if they mingled themselves with Women of other Nations: And therefore, Dedit eft signum, ut admoverentnr de generatione pura, says Saint chrysostom, God would be at the cost even of a Sacrament, (which is the greatest thing that passes between God and Man next to his Word) to defend them thereby against dangerous alliances, which might turn their hearts from God; God imprinted a mark in that part, to keep them still in mind of that law, which forbade them foreign Marriages, Theodor. or any company of strange Women: Custodia pietati servandae, ne macularent paternam Nobilitatem, left they should degenerate from the Nobility of their race, God would have them carry this memorial about them, in their flesh. And God foresaw that extreme Idolatry, that gross Idolatry, which that Nation would come to, and did come to, when Maachah the Mother of Asa worshipped that Idol, 1 Reg. 15. 13. which Saint Hierome calls Belphegor, and is not fit to be named by us; and therefore, in foresight of that Idolatry, God gave this mark, and this mutilation upon this part. If Abraham were surprised with any suggestions, any half reasons against this commandment, he might quickly recollect himself, and see, that Circumcision was first, Signum memorativum, & monimentum isti faederis, it was a sign of the Covenant between God and Abraham; Gen. 17. the Covenant was the Messias, who being to come, by a carnal continuance of Abraham's race, the sign and seal was conveniently placed in that part. And that was, secondly, Signum representativum, it represented Baptism, In Christ you are circumcised, says the Apostle, in that you are buried with him, Colos. 2. through Baptism: And then, that was Signum Distinctivum; for, besides that it kept them from Idolatry, as the Greeks called all Nations, whom they despised, Barbares, Barbarians, so did the Jews, Incircumcisos, Uncircumcised: And that was a great threatening in the Prophet, Ezek. 28. Thou shalt die the death of the Uncircumcised; that is, without any part in the everlasting promise, and Covenant. But yet, the principal dignity of this Circumcision, was, that it was Signum figurativum, it prefigured, it directed to that Circumcision of the heart; Circumcise the foreskin of your heart, for the Lord your; Deut. 10. God is God of Gods, and Lord of Lords. And for all the other reasons that could be assigned, of Remembrance, of Representation, of Distinction, Caret ubique ratione Iudaica carnis Circumcisio, (says Lactantius) Nisi quod est Circumcisionis figura, quae est Cor Mundum: The Jewish Circumcision were an absurd and unreasonable thing, if it did not intimate and figure the Circumcision of the heart: And that is our Second part of this Exercise: But before we come to that, we are to say a word of the fourth branch of this part, That as there is no Quaere to be made nor admitted against God, (which was our first part) If Man, out of his infirmity, do fall into that, (which was our Second) God provides and furnishes them with Reasons against those Reasons, (which was our third.) And then, God rewards their fight of that battle, (which is his own work) with victories, and crowns, and blessings here; (which must be our fourth branch.) Of Examples of this, Retributio. the Book of God is full: but we contract ourselves only to that, which God did to Abraham at this time, in contemplation of this obedience. We consider Abraham at the end of one Age, he was almost one hundred, ninety nine when he was Circumcised; and now was entering into another age, (for he lived seventy five years after this:) this therefore was as the Eve of his New-years-day, and God presents him thus many New-years-gifts: First, he gives him a new Name; in which change of his Name, from Abram, to Abraham, (besides that he was changed from Pater Magnus, to Pater Multudinis, from the Father of a great possession and family, to the Father of a great successession and posterity, for that diminishes any Greatness, to have no posterity to leave that to) this also arises to be noted, that God's Name jehovah, having in that two Letters of one kind, two H H, God divides with his Servant, God affords one of those letters to the dignifying of Abraham's name, he adds an H of his own Name to his: jehovah is his essential name; and in communicating any beam of that Essence, any letter of that Name, we become semen Dei, the seed of God; and filii Dei, the Sons of God; and participes divinae naturae, Partakers of the Divine nature; and idem spiritus cum Domino, the same spirit with the Lord; and Hearers of that voice; Ego dixi Dii estis, I have said you are Gods: If we were careful to answer our old name, the name of Christians, in our conformity to Christ, and performance of Christianly duties, that were well, and other Names needed not, as remembrancers unto us: But God does give us new Names and additions of Offices, and Titles in School, or Court, or Commonwealth, as new testimonies of his love, and rebukes of our former negligences, and Remembrancers of our present Duties in those places, and Encouragers to a more careful proceeding in them. Secondly, God gave Abraham a new Wife: in which, the blessing was, that he took not from him that virtuous and obedient Wife which he had before, Sara, but now he made her a Wife unto him, and he supplied that only defect which was in her, Barrenness, and so made her fully a Wife, a Mother. Thirdly, he gave him a new Son; for, God who purposed to bless all Nations in Abraham's seed, would not only repair and furnish his old house, (that is, bless Ishmael with temporal blessings) but he would build him a new house, raise him up a new Son, Isaac: He would not only fulfil that petition of Abraham's, Oh that Ishmael might live in thy sight! not only preserve Ishmael, which signifies, Exauditionem Domini, that the Lord had heard that prayer, in the behalf of Ishmael; but he would give him an Isaac, which signifies, Risum, laetitiam, that is, he would give him a new, and true occasion of joy. Fourthly, he gave him a new promise; that as in Adam he had promised a Messias, in semine mulieris, in the seed of the Woman; now he contracts that promise to Abraham, in semine tuo, in thy seed shall all Nations be blessed; and so makes Abraham, not only a Partner with his other Children, in the Salvation of that Messias, but he makes Abraham a means to derive that Salvation upon others also, In semine tuo, thou shalt not only be blessed in the Seed of the Woman, but all Nations shall be blessed in thy seed. And lastly, he gives him a new seal; not only that seal, under which he was wont to deal with him, not only an inward seal in his heart, but he gives him a new seal, a visible seal, the seal of Circumcision. This being then the Dignity of God's precepts, that they require a present, and an exact obedience, without any counter-disputing; this being the infirmity of man's nature, that he is ever ready to object and oppose reasons, according to flesh and blood, against God's precepts; this being the overflowing measure of God's mercy to his Children, to give them the issue with the tentation; Reason above that Reason, victory at last, and alacrity in the performance of that precept; and this being his infinite bounty, to give us such rewards and retributions for those victories, of which, only his goodness, and his strength, was the Author in us, when we do perform those duties, (all which we have seen in Abraham's obedience to a fleshly Circumcision) that Circumcision being come to an end in the Circumcision of Christ, performed this day: Let us come to this Circumcision, of which, that was but a Figure, a Spiritual Circumcision, the Circumcision of the heart, and God shall give us new Names (new Demonstrations, that our names are written in the Book of life) and new Marriages (refresh his promise in the Prophet, that he will marry himself to us for ever) and new Sons, new isaack's (assurance of new joys, Essential and Accidental, in the Kingdom of Heaven, and inchoative here in the way) and new promises, and new seals (new obligations of his Blessed Spirit) that that Infallibility of salvation which we have conceived, is well grounded. We have done with our first part, 2 Part. with that which was occasioned by the Institution of Circumcision in Abraham; we pass to that, which is occasioned by the celebrating of this Day, in which this legal Circumcision taking an end, in the Person of Christ, we come aptly to consider Spiritual Circumcision, by which only we can be made conformable to our pattern and example, Divisio. Christ jesus: In which, we will charge your memory but with these two considerations; First, Quid sit, what this spiritual Circumcision is, (for in that is employed the Quomodo, how this Circumcision is to be wrought and effected) And Secondly, the Ubi, what part of a Man is to be circumcised in this Circumcision, for that implies Integritatem, that it is the whole Man in every part. Briefly then, Quid. Spiritual Circumcision is to walk in the spirit; for then, says the Apostle, Gal. 5. ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh; no Circumcision can bring us to this, that we shall not have them, for they are borne in us, and they will live in us, whilst we live; but this is this Circumcision, not to fulfil them. Neither was Abraham's race, which was to be circumcised, more numerous, more plentiful, more manifold, then is this issue of the flesh, Sin: How sudden, and how large a pedigree! A Child, at the first minute, when the soul enters, is as good a Sinner, that is, as absolute a Sinner, and hath as good title to Damnation, by being conceived in sin, as the eldest man; nay, he is as old a Sinner as the eldest man that is; nay, as the eldest man that ever was; for, he sinned in Adam, and, though conceived but this night, sinned 6000 years ago. In young Men, vanity begets excess; excess; licentiousness; licentiousness, envy, hatred, quarrels, murders; so that here is generation upon generation, here are risen Grandfather and Great-grandfather-sinnes quickly, a forward generation: And then they grow suddenly to be habits, and they come to prescribe in us: Prescription is, when there is no memory to the contrary; and we cannot remember when that sinful custom begun in us: yea, our sins come to be reverenced in us, and by us; our sins contract a majesty, and a state, and they grow sacred to us; we dare not trouble a sin, we dare not displace it, nor displease it; we dare not dispute the prerogative of our sin, but we come to think it a kind of sedition, a kind of innovation, and a troubling of the state, if we begin to question our Conscience, or change that security of sin which we sleep in, and we think it an easier Reformation to repent a sin once a year, at Easter, when we must needs Receive, then to watch a sin every Day. There is scarce any sin, but that in that place of the Apostle to the Galatians, it comes within the name of works of the flesh; for, though he names divers sins, which are literally and properly works of the flesh, (as Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, wantonness) yet those sins that are against a man's own self, (as Gluttony and Drunkenness) those that are against other men, (as Contentions and Murders) those that are directed upon new Gods (as Idolatry) those that are Contracts with the Devil (as Witchcraft) those that are offences to the Church (as Heresy) are all called by Saint Paul in that place, works of the flesh: So that the object of this Spiritual Circumcision is all that concerns the flesh, the world, the Devil, or God, or man, or the Church; in every one of these we may find somewhat to circumcise. But because abundance and superfluity begets these works of the flesh, (for though we carry the Serpent about us, yet he does not sting, nor hiss, till he be warm: As long as poverty and wretchedness freezes our Concupiscences, they are not so violent) therefore spiritual Circumcision is well expressed by Saint Bernard; Moralis Circumcisio est, victum & vestitum habentem, esse contentum; A cutting off of these superfluities, is this moral, that is, this spiritual Circumcision. Now for some understanding of these superfluities, Medus. we must consider, that sometimes a poor man, that hath no superfluity in his estate, is yet wasteful in his mind, and puts himself to superfluous expenses, in his diet, in his apparel, and in all things of outward show and ostentation: And on the other side, a covetous man, that hath a superfluous estate, yet starves himself, and denies himself all conveniences for this life: Here's a superfluous confidence in the one, that he cannot want, though he throw away money; and here's a superfluous fear in the other, that he shall want, if he give himself bread; and here's work for this spiritual Circumcision on both sides: But then the Circumcision is not necessarily to be applied to the riches of the rich man, so as that every rich man must necessarily cast away his riches (a Godly man may be rich) nor necessarily applied so to all outward expenses of the free and liberal minded man, as that he should shut up doors, and wear rags; for, a Godly man may far in his diet, and appear in his garments, according to that Degree which he holds in that state: But the superfluity is, and (consequently the Circumcision is to be) in the Affection, in our Confidence, that whatsoever we wast, by one means or other, we shall have more; or in our diffidence, that if we lay not up all, we shall never have enough. These be the inordinate affections that must be Circumcised: But how? for that's intended in this part. We need inquire no farther, for the means of this spiritual Circumcision, then to the very word which the Holy Ghost hath chosen for Circumcision here, which is Mul and Namal; for that word hath in other places of Scripture, three significations, that express much of the manner, how this Circumcision is to be wrought: It signifies, Purgare, to purge, to discharge the Conscience: (and that is, by Confession of our sins) It signifies, Mundare, to cleanse and purify the Conscience: (and that is, by Contrition and Detestation of that sin) And it signifies, Succidere, to cut down, to weed and root out whatsoever remains in our possession, that is unjustly got (and that is) by Destitution. Now for the first of these, Putgare. the purging; the proper use and working of purging Physic, is, not that that Medicine pierces into those parts of the Body, where the peccant humour lies, and from which parts, Nature, of herself, is not able to expel it: the substance of the Medicine does not go thither, but the Physic lies still, and draws those peccant humours together; and being then so come to an unsupportable Mass, and burden, Nature herself, and their own weight expels them out. Now, that which Nature does in a natural body, Grace does in a regenerate soul, for Grace is the nature and the life of a regenerate man. As therefore the bodily Physic goes not to that part of the body that is affected; we must not stay till out Spiritual Physic (the judgements of God) work upon that particular sin, that transports us: That God should weaken me with a violent sickness, before I will purge myself of my licentiousness; Or strike me with poverty, and loss of my stock, before I will purge myself of my usury; or lay me flat with disgraces and dis-favours of great Persons, before I will purge myself of my Ambition; or evict my land from me, by some false title, that God, in his just Judgement, may give way to, to punish my sins, before I will purge myself of my oppression, and racking of Tenants: But before these violent Medicines come, if thou canst take Gods ordinary Physic, administered in the Word and Sacraments; if thou canst but endure that qualm of calling thyself to an account, and an examination; if thou canst draw all thy sins together, and present them to thine own Conscience, than their own weight will find a vent, and thou wilt utter them in a full and free Confession to thy God, and that is Circumcision; as Circumcision consists in the purging of the Conscience, to be moved upon hearing the Word preached, and the denouncing of his judgements in his Ordinance, before those Judgements surprise thee, to recollect thy sins in thine own memory, and pour them out in a true Confession. The next step in this Circumcision, Mundare. (as they are intimated in that word, which the Holy Ghost uses here) is Mundare, to cleanse; and this is a Contrition for those sins, and a Detestation of those sins, which I have thus gathered in my Memory, and poured out in my Confession. A house is not clean, though all the Dust be swept together, if it lie still in a corner, within Doors; A Conscience is not clean, by having recollected all her sins in the Memory, for they may fester there, and Gangreen even to Desperation, till she have emptied them in the bottomless Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus: and the mercy of his Father, by this way of Confession. But a house is not clean neither, though the Dust be thrown out, if there hang Cobwebs about the Walls, in how dark corners soever. A Conscience is not clean, though the sins, brought to our memory by this Examination, be cast upon God's mercy, and the merits of his Son, by Confession, if there remain in me, but a Cobweb, a little, but a sinful de light in the Memory of those sins, which I had formerly committed. How many men sin over the sins of their youth again, in their age, by a sinful Delight in remembering those sins, and a sinful Desire, that their Bodies were not passed them? How many men sin over some sins, but imaginarily, (and yet Damnably) a hundred times, which they never sinned actually at all, by filling their Imaginations, with such thoughts as these, How would I be revenged of such an Enemy, if I were in such a place of Authority? How easily could I overthrow such a wasteful young Man, and compass his Land, if I had but Money, to seed his humours? Those sins which we have never been able to do actually, to the harm of others, we do as hurtfully to our own Souls, by a sinful Desire of them, and a sinful Delight in them. Therefore is there a cleansing required in this Circumcision; such a cleansing as God promises, I will cleanse their blood, Joel 3. that is, the fountain, the work of all corrupt Desires, and sinful Delights. Now there is no cleansing of our blood, but by his blood; and the infusion, and application of his blood, is in the seal of the Sacrament; so that that soul only is so cleansed, as is required in this spiritual circumcision, that preserves itself always, or returns speedily, to a disposition of a worthy receiving of that holy and blessed Sacrament: He that is now in that disposition, as that, in a rectified Conscience, he durst meet his Saviour at that Table, and receive him there, (which cannot be done without Contrition, and Detestation of former sins) hath admitted this spiritual Circumcision, so far, as is intended in the second signification of this word, which is, To cleanse. But then there is a third action, Succidere. which is, succidere, to cut up, to root out all, from whence this sin may grow up again, as the word is used in job 18. His root shall be dried beneath, and all his branches shall be cut down. In this Circumcision, we must cut the root, the mother-sinne, that nourishes all our sins, and the branches too, that if one sin have begot another, there be a fall of all our woods, of our timber wood, (our grown and habitual sins) and of our underwoods, (those lesser sins which grow out of them.) It is a cutting down, and a stubbing up, which is not done, till we have shaked off all, that we have gotten by those Sins: It is not the Circumcision of an Excessive use of that sin, that will serve our turn, but such a Circumcision, as amounts to an Excession, a cutting off the root, and branch, the sin, and the fruits, the profits of that sin. I must not think to bribe God, by giving him some of the profit of my sin, to let me enjoy the rest: for, was God a venturer with me in my sin? Or did God set me to Sea, that is, put me into this world, to see what I could get by Usury, by Oppression, by Extortion, and then give him a part to charitable uses? As this word signifies Excedere, to cut of all that is grown out of sin, so from this word Namal, comes Nemâla, which is Formicae, an Ant, which the Hebrews derive from this word, out of this reason, That as an Ant doth gnaw all the Corn it lays up, upon one side, so that it may never grow again, so this spiritual Circumcision must provide, that that sin take no new root: but as long as thou makest profit, or takest pleasure in any thing sinfully gotten, thy sin grows; so that this Circumcision is not perfected but by restitution and satisfaction of all formerly damnified. These than be all the ways that are presented in these significations and use of this word, Ubi which the holy Ghost hath chosen here, purging by Consideration and Confessing, cleansing by Contrition and Detesting, preventing of future growth by Satisfaction in Restoring. A little remains to be said (though it be also employed in that which hath been said) of the Ubi, the place where this Circumcision is to be applied. The Scripture speaks of uncircumcised hearts, and uncircumcised lips, and uncircumcised ears; And our eyes in looking, and coveting, and our hands in reaching to that which is not ours, are as far uncircumcised as ears, or lips, or hearts: Therefore we are to carry this Circumcision all over; we must Circumcise, says Saint Bernard, In carne, peccatum, the flesh, the body, the substance of the sin, in cute, operimentum, in the skin, all covers, and palliations, and disguises, and extenuations of the sin; and, in sanguine incentivum, in the blood all somentations and provocations to that sin: the sin itself, the circumstances of the sin, the relapses to or towards that sin must be circumcised: judaeus ut parvulus, congruum accepit mandatum, exiguae Circumcisionis, says the same Father, The Jew was but in an infancy, in a minority, and God did not look for so strong a proceeding from the jew, as from us, but led him by the arms, by the help of Ceremonies and Figures, and accordingly required but a Circumcision in one part of the body: but God looks for more, at the hands of Christians, to whom he hath fully manifested and applied himself. As Christ said to the Jews, Except your righteousness exeeed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, it is nothing: So except our righteousness exceed them that exceeded the Scribes, it is nothing; and therefore, Toto corpore baptizamur (says Bernard) quia totius hominis integra Circumcisio; to show, that it is the whole man that is to be circumcised; we are baptised, we are washed all over, (for so long, even to Bernard's time, it seems, that manner of Baptising, by Immersion of the whole body, and not by Aspersion upon the face only, continued in the general practice of the Church.) So that if it be not an entire Circumcision of the whole man, that will fall upon us, which God threatens in the Prophet, Jer. 9 25. I will visit all them which are circumcised, with them which are not circumcised; If we circumcise in part, leave some sins, and cleave to others, we shall be, in the sight of God, altogether uncircumcised; Adam was not the less naked in God's sight, for his Figge-leafe; halfe-repentances are no repentances; either we are in a privation, or in a habit; covered over with righteousness, or naked. When therefore the Lord and his Spirit calls thee to this spiritual Circumcision, remember that Abraham did not say when he was called, Lord, I have followed thy voice, in leaving my Country; Lord, I have built thee an Altar, what needs more demonstration of my obedience? Say not thou, Lord, I have built an Hospital; Lord, I have fed the poor at Christmas; Lord, I have made peace amongst thy people at home; I have endowed an Almshouse; but persevere in doing good still, for, God takes not the Tree, where it grows, but where it falls; for the most part, the death of a man is such, as his life was; but certainly the life of a man, that is, his everlasting life, is such as his death is. Again, Abraham did not say of this, that it was a Commandment in a flight, and frivolous, and uncivil matter; do not thou say, that it is an impertinent thing in this spiritual Circumcision, to watch thy eating and drinking, and all such indifferent actions, and to see that all they be done to the glory of God; for, as the Apostle says, That the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man; so we may piously say, that the levity of God is graver than the gravity of all the Philosophers and Doctors of the world; as we may see in all his Ceremontall Laws, where the matter seems very light in many places, but yet the signification very important; and therefore apply this Circumcision, even in thy least, and most familiar action. So also Abraham was not diverted from obeying God, by the inconvenience of having all his family diseased at once; he did not say, I am content to circumcise my Son, but would spare my Servants yet, for necessary uses; do not thou say, thou art content to circumcise thine eldest Son, to abate somewhat of that sin which thou beganst with in thy youth, but wouldst feign spare some serviceable and profitable sins for a time, and circumcise them hereafter. To pursue this example, Abraham did not say, Cras Domine, Lord, I will do all this to morrow; but, as the Commandment was given in that phrase of expedition, Circumcidendo circumcides, In Circumcising thou shalt circumcise; which denoted a diligent and a present dispatch; so Abraham did dispatch it diligently and presently that day. Do not thou say, Cras Domine, to morrow, some other day, in the day of mine age, or of my Death, or of affliction and tribulation; I will circumcise all, for age, and sickness, and t●ibulations, are Circumcisions of themselves; a Fever circumcises thee then, or an Apoplexy, and not thy Devotion; and incapacity of sinning is not sanctification: If any man put off his Repentance till death, Fateor non negamus quod petit, says Saint Augustine, I dare not deny that man, whatsoever God may be pleased to grant him; Sed non presumimus, quod bene erit; I dare not presume to say, that that man died well, Non presumo, non vas fallo, non presumo, says that Father, with some vehemency, I dare not warrant him, let me not deceive you with saying that I dare, for I dare not: And, Beloved, that is but a suspicious state in any man, in which another Christian hath just reason to doubt of his salvation, as Saint Augustine doth shrewdly doubt of these late Repenters, Sicut ejus damnatio inoerta, it a remissio dubia; As I am not sure he is damned, so I am not sure he is saved, no more sure of one then of the other. It is true, we have the example of the Crucified Thief, but it is but a hard case, when a Thief must guide us and be our Example; we suspect wills that are made of temporal goods in that state, at the last gasp, and shall we think a Man to be compos mentis, of a perfect understanding for the bequeathing of his Soul at his last gasp? non presumo, non nos fallo, non presumo, I should deceive you, if I should say it, I dare not say it, says that Father. Come therefore to this Circumcision betimes, come to it, this Day, come this Minute: This Day thy Saviour was Circumcised in the flesh, for thee; this Day Circumcise thy heart to him, and all thy senses, and all thy affections. It is not an utter destroying of thy senses, and of thy affections, that is enjoined thee; but, Deut. 21. 11. as when a Man had taken a beautiful Woman captive in the wars, he was not bound to kill her, but he must shave her head, and pair her nails, and change her garments, before he might marry her; so captivate, subdue, change thy affections, and that's the Destruction which makes up this Circumcision: change thy choler into Zeal, change thy amorousness into devotion, change thy wastfulnesse into Alms to the poor, and then thou hast circumcised thy affections, and mayest retain them, and mayest confidently say with the Apostle, Phil. 3. 3. we are the Circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Do this to day; as God this day gives thee a New year, and hath not surprised thee, nor taken thee away in the sins of last year; as he gives thee a new year, do thou give him a New-years-gift, Cor novum, a new and a Circumcised heart, and Canticum novum, a new Song, a delight to magnify his name, and speak of his glory, and declare his wondrous works to the Sons of men, and be assured that whether I, or any other of the same Ministry, shall speak to you from this place, this day twelve month, and shall ask your consciences then, whether those things which you heard now, have brought you to this Circumcision, and made you better this year than you were the last, and find you under the same uncircumcision still, be assured that God will not, God cannot be mocked, but as he will receive us, with an Euge bone serve, Well done my good and faithful Servant; so he will say to you, Perditio tua ex te, Your destruction is from yourselves: Enough hath been done for you by me, enough hath been said to you by my Servants, Quare moriemini, Why will you die o house of Israel? And after a long despising of his graces, he will come to a final separation; you shall come to say, Nolumus hunc regnare, we will not have Christ Jesus to reign over us; and Christ Jesus shall come to say, Nescio vos, I know you not, nor whence you are. Hodie si vocem ejus, If you will hear his voice this day, Hodie eritis, This day you shall be with him in Paradise, and dwell in it all the year, and all the years of an Everlasting life, and of infinite generations. Amen. SERMON L. A Sermon Preached in Saint Dunstan's. 1 THES. 5. 16. Rejoice evermore. WE read in the natural Story, of some floating Islands, that swim and move from place to place; and in them a Man may sow in one place, and reap in another: This case is so far ours, as that in another place we have sowed in tears, and by his promise, in whose tears we sowed then, when we handled those two words, jesus wept, we shall reap in Joy: That harvest is not yet; it is reserved to the last Resurrection: But the Corn is above ground, in the Resurrection of our head, the first fruits of the Dead, Christ Jesus, and that being the first visible step of his exaltation, begins our exultation, who in him are to rejoice evermore. Prov. 14. 10. The heart knoweth his own bitterness; he and none but he; others feel it not, retain it not, pity it not; and therefore says the Text, A Stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy: He shall have a Joy which no stranger, not he himself whilst he was a stranger to God, and to himself, could conceive. If we ask, as Christ's Disciples asked of him, Mat. 24. 3. Quod signum? what shall be the sign of thy coming, of this Joy in the midst of thy bitterness? Aug: Ipsae lachrymae laetitiae testes, & nuncii: The tears themselves shall be the sign, the tears shall be Ambassadors of Joy; a present gladness shall consecrate your sorrow, and tears shall baptise, and give a new name to your passion, for your Wormwood shall be Manna; even then when it is Wormwood, it shall be Manna, for, Ga●debitis semper, you shall Rejoice evermore. But our Text does more than imply a promise to us, Divisio. for it lays a precept upon us: It is not, Gaudebitis, you shall Rejoice, by way of Comfort, but it is, Gaudete, Rejoice, see that you do Rejoice, by way of Commandment, and that shall be our first part. Cadit sub praecepto; It hath the nature of a commandment. Angels pass not from extreme to extreme, but by the way between; Man passes not from the miseries of this life, to the joys of Heaven, but by joy in this life too; for he that feels no joy here, shall find none hereafter. And when we pass from the substance of the precept, to the extent thereof (which will be our second part) from the first word, Rejoice, to the other, Rejoice always; we shall cleave that into two periods, Gaudete in bonis, Rejoice in your prosperity, and Gaudete in malis, Rejoice in your adversity too. But because it is in sempiternum, that must be in sempiterno, because it is always, it must be in him who is always, yesterday and to day, and the same for ever, Joy in God, Joy in the Holy Ghost, which will be another branch in that second part; of which Joy, though there be a preparatory, and inchoative participation and possession in this life, yet the consummation being reserved to our entrance into our Master's Joy, not only the Joy which he gives, that's here, but the Joy which he is, that's only there, we shall end in that, beyond which none can go, no not in his thoughts, in some dim contemplation, and in some faint representation of the Joys of Heaven, and in that Contemplation we shall dismiss you. First than it is presented in the nature of a Commandment, Part. and lays an Obligation upon all, at all times to procure to ourselves, and to cherish in ourselves, this Joy, this Rejoicing. Aquin: 12●. 28. 3. What is Joy? Comparatur ad desiderium sic ut quies admotum; As Rest in the end of motion, every thing moves therefore that it may rest, so Joy is the end of our desires, whatsoever we place our desires, our affections upon, it is therefore, that we may enjoy it; Ba●nez. and therefore, Quod est in brutis in parte sensitiva Delectatio, in hominibus in parte intellectiva est gaudium: Beasts and carnal men, who determine all their desires in the sensual parts, come no farther then to a delight: but men, who are truly men, and carry them to the intellectual part, they, and only they, come to Joy. And therefore says Solomon, It is the joy of the just to do judgement; to have lain still, and done no wrong occasions, is not this Joy; Joy is not such a Rest, as the Rest of the Earth, that never moved; but as the Sun rejoiceth to run his race, and his circuit is unto the end of heaven; so this Joy is the rest and testimony of a good conscience, that we have done those things which belong to our calling, that we have moved in our Sphere. For, if men of our profession, whose Function it is, to attend the service of God, delight ourselves in having gathered much in this world; if a Soldier shall have delighted himself, in giving rules of Agriculture, or a Architecture; if a Counsellor of State, who should assist with his counsel upon present emergencies, delight himself in writing Books of good counsel for posterity, all this occasions not this joy; because though there have been motion, and though there be Rest, yet that is not Rest after the Motion proper to them. A Man that hath been out of his way all the day, may be glad to find a good Inn at night; but yet 'tis not properly Joy, because he is never the nearer home. Joy is peace for having done that which we ought to have done: Banner ibid. And therefore it is well expressed, Optima conjectura an homo sit in gratia est gaudere; The best evidence that a Man is at peace, and in favour with God, is, that he can rejoice. To try whether I be able by Argument and disputation to prove all, that I believe, or to convince the Adversary, this is Academia animae, the soul's University, where some are Graduates, and all are not: To try whether I be able to endure Martyrdom for my belief, this is Gehenna animae, the rack, the torture of the Soul, and some are able to hold it out, and all are not: But to try whether I can rejoice in the peace, which I have with God, this is but Catechismus animae, the Catechism of the Soul, and every Man may examine himself, and every Man must; for it is a Commandment, Gaudete semper, Rejoice evermore. It is, we cannot say the Office, but the Essence of God to do good; and when he does that, Deut. 30. 9 Zeph. 3. 17. he is said to rejoice: The Lord thy God will make thee plenteous; (there is his goodness) and he will Rejoice again over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy Fathers. The Lord will love thee, there is his goodness; and rejoice in thee, and he will rest in his love. Such a joy as is a rest, a complacency in that good which he hath done, we see is placed in God himself. It is in Angels too: Their office is to minister to Men, (for by nature they are Spirits, but by office they are Angels) and when they see so good effect of their service, Luk. 15. 10. as that a Sinner is converted, There is joy in the presence of the Angels of God. Christ himself had a spiritual office and employment, To give light to the blind, and to inflict blindness upon those who thought they saw all. And when that was done, Exultavit in spiritu, in that hour Christ rejoiced in the Spirit, and said, I thank thee o Father, Luc. 10. 2●. Lord of Heaven and Earth, etc. To have something to do, to do it, and then to Rejoice in having done it, to embrace a calling, to perform the Duties of that calling, to joy and rest in the peaceful testimony of having done so; this is Christianly done, Christ did it; Angelically done, Angels do it; Godly done, Esay 62. 1. God does it. As the Bridegroom rejoiceth in his Bride, so doth thy God rejoice in thee. Example, as well as the Rule, repeats it to you, Gaudete semper. But how far may we carry this joy? Basil. q. brevis 31. To what outward declarations? To laughing? Saint Basil makes a round answer to a short question. An in Universum ridere non licet? May a Man laugh in no case? Admodum perspicuum est, It is very evident, that a Man may not, because Christ says, Vae vobis, Woe be unto you that laugh; And yet Saint Basil himself in another place says (which we are rather to take in explanation, Homil. de gratiar. actione. than in contradiction, of himself) that that woe of Christ is cast in obstreperum Sonum, non in sinceram hilaritatem: upon a dissolute and undecent, and immoderate laughting, not upon true inward joy, howsoever outwardly expressed. At the promise of a Son, Gen. 17. 17. Abraham fell on his face and laughed; a religious Man, and a grave Man, 100 years old, expressed this joy of his heart, by this outward declaration. Hierome's Translation reads it, Risit in Cord, he laughed within himself, because Saint Hierome thought that was a weakness, a declination towards unbelief, to laugh at God's promise, as he thinks Abraham did. But Saint Paul is a better Witness in his behalf; Rom. 4. Amo. Against hope he believed in hope; he was not weak in faith; he staggered not at the promise of God, through unbelief. Quòd risit, non incredulitatis, sed exultation is indicium fuit, his laughing was no ebb of faith, but a flood of joy. It is not as S. Hier. Hierome takes it, Risit in Cord putans celare deum, apertè ridere non ausus; he kept-in his laughing, and durst not laugh out; But as St. Ambrose says well, Risus non irrisio diffidentis, sed exultatio gratulantis; he laughed not in a doubtful scorn of God's promise, but in an overflowing of his own joy: It is well expressed, and, well concluded, Rupertus. O virum aeterno risu vere dignum, & sempiternae jueunditati bene praeparatum, This was good evidence, that he was a man well disposed for the joys of heaven; that he could conceive joy in the temporal blessings of God, and that he thought nothing misbecoming him, that was an outward declaration of this joy. It is a dangerous weakness, to forbear outward declarations of our sense of God's goodness, for fear of misinterpretations; to smother our present thankfulness, for fear that some should say it was a levity to thank God so soon, till God had done the whole work. For God does sometimes leave half his work undone, because he was not thanked for it. When David danced and leapt, 2 Sam. 6. 14. and shouted before the Ark; if he laughed too, it misbecame him not. Not to feel joy is an argument against religious tenderness, not to show that joy, is an argument against thankfulness of the heart: that is a stupidity, this is a contempt. A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance. Prov. 15. 13. If it be within, it will be without too. Except I hear thee say in thine actions, Gaudeo, I do rejoice, I cannot know that thou hast heard the Apostle say, Gaudete. Joy for God's blessings to us, joy for God's glory to himself, may come ad Risum, and farther: Not only add Ridendum, but ad Irridendum, not only to laugh in our own prosperity, but to laugh them to scorn that would have impeached it. They are put both together in God himself, Ridebo, and Irridebo, I will laugh at your calamities, and I will mock when your fear cometh. Prov. 1. 26. And this being in that place intended of God, is spoken in the person of Wisdom; It misbecomes not wisdom and gravity to laugh in God's deliverances, not to laugh to scorn those that would have blown up God's Servants, when it is carried so high as to the Kings of the Earth, Psal 2. 2. and the Rulers that take counsel against the Lord, and against his Anointed, we may come Ad Gaudium, to joy in God's goodness, but because their place, and persons are sacred, we leave the Ridere and the Irridere to God: Verse 4. who says, ver. 4. That he will laugh at them, and hold them in derision. But at lower instruments, lower persons may laugh, when they fill the world with the Doctrine of killing of Kings, and mean that that should animate men against such Kings as they call Heretics, and then find in experience that this hath wrought only to the kill of Kings of their own Religion, we lament justly the event, but yet we forbear our Ridere and our Irridere, at the crossing and the frustrating of their plots and practices. Pharaohs Army was drowned, Et Cecinit Moses, Moses sung, Sisera was slain Et Cecinit Deborah, Deborah sung. Thus in the disappointing of God's enemies, Gods servants come to outward manifest signs of joy. Not by a libellous and scurrile profanation of persons that are sacred, but in fitting Psalms and Sermons, and Prayers, and public Writings to the occasion, to proceed to a Ridere and Irridere, and as Saint Augustine reads that place of the Proverbs, Superridere, to laugh God's Enemies into a confusion to see their Plots so often, so often, so often frustrated. For so far extends Gaudete, Rejoice evermore. Joy then, and cheerfulness, is Sub praecepto, it hath the nature of a commandment, and so he departs from a commandment that departs, and abandons himself into an inordinate sadness. Psal. 42. 5. And therefore David chides his soul, Why art thou cast down, O my soul, why art thou disquiesed within me? And though he come after to dispute against this sadness of the soul, which he had let in, Hope yet in God, and yet the Lord will command his loving kindness, and my prayer shall be unto the God of my life, yet he could not put it off, but he imagines that he hears his enemies say, Where is thy God? and when he hath wrestled himself weary, he falls back again in the last verse, to his first faintness, Why art thou cast down, O my soul, why art thou disquieted within me? For, As he that taketh away a garment in cold weather, Prov. 25. 20. so is he that singeth Songs to a heavy heart: That heaviness makes him uncapable of Natural, of Moral, of Civil, of Spiritual comforts, charm the Charmer never so wisely. Heli heard that the Battle was lost, and that his Sons were slain, and admitted so much sorrow for those, that when the last was added, 1 Sam. 4. 17. The Ark was taken by the Enemy, he was too weak for that, and fell down and broke his neck. It was his daughter in Law's case too; she overcharged her soul with sadness for her husband's death, and her father's death, and when the report of the Ark came, she fell into labour and died; and though the women told her, Fear not, thou hast born a Son, yet she answered not. Though the Ark of God, the worship of his Name, be at any time transferred from where it was, despair not thou of Gods reducing it; for this despairing of others, may bring thee to despair in some accident to thyself: Accustom thyself to keep up the consideration of God's mercy at the highest, lodge not a sad suspicion in any public, in any private business, that God's powerful mercy can go but thus far: he that determineth God's Power and his Mercy, and faith here it must end, is as much an Atheist, as he that denieth it altogether. The Key of David openeth and no man shutteth; The Spirit of Comfort shineth upon us, and would not be blown out. Monastery, and Ermimitage, and Anchorate, and such words of singularity are not Synonym● with those plural words Concio, Coetus, Ecclesia, Synagoga & Congregatio, in which words God delivereth himself to us. A Church is a Company, Religion is Religation, a binding of men together in one manner of Worship; and Worship is an exterior service; and that exterior service is the Venite exultemus, to come and rejoice in the presence of God. If in any of these ways God cast a Cloud upon our former joys, yet to receive good at God's hand, and not to receive evil; to rejoice in the calm, and not in the storm; this is to break at least half of the Commandment, which is, Gaudete semper. And so from the first part, which is the substance which we have passed by these steps, That this rejoicing hath the nature of a Commandment, it must be maintained, And that inward joy must be outwardly expressed, even to the disgrace and confusion of God's enemies, and to the upholding of a joyful constancy in ourselves: We pass now to the extent of the Commandment, Gaude●e semper, Evermore. Did God mean that we should rejoice always; 2 Part. when he made six days for labour, and but one for rest? Semper. Certainly he did. Six days we are to labour, and to do all that we have to do: And part of that which we have to do, is to rejoice in our labour. Adam in the state of Innocency had abundant occasion of continual rejoicing; but yet even in that joyful state he was to labour, Gen. 2. 15. 3. 19 to dress and to keep the Garden. After the fall, when God made the labour of man more heavy in sudore vultus, that he should not eat, but in the sweat of his brow, yet God gave him not that penalty, that occasion of sadness, till he had first imprinted the root of true Joy, the promise of a Messias; that promise he made before he came to denounce the penalty, first came the Ipse conteret, and then in sudore vultus: upon those words, Thou shalt eat the labour of thy hand; Debuit dicere fructum, non laborem, Psal 128. 2. August. saith Augustine, David should have said, he shall eat the fruit, not the labour of his hands. Sed ipsi labores non sunt sine gaudio, but the very labours, the very afflictions of good men, have joy in them. Si labour potest manducari & jucundari, manducatus fructus laboris qualis erit? And if labour itself, affliction itself, minister Joy, what a manner, what a measure of joy is in the full possession thereof in Heaven? And as the consideration of the words immediately after the Text, hath made more than one of the Fathers say, Etiam Somnia justorum preces sunt, Even the sleep of the righteous is a service to God, and their very Dreams are Prayers and Meditations, so much more properly, may we call the sleep, and the bodily rest, nay, the bodily torments of the righteous, joy, rejoicing. So that neither week day, nor Sabbath day nor night, labour nor rest interrupteth this continual Joy: We may, we must rejoice evermore. Gaudete in bonis, Rejoice when God giveth you the good things of this world; First, In bonis Temporalibus. in Temporalibus when God giveth you the good Temporal things of this world. Gaudete in Terra, Rejoice that God hath placed you in so fertile, in so fruitful a Land. Gaudete in pace, Rejoice that God hath afforded you peace to till the Land, Gaudete de Temporibus, Rejoice that God giveth good seasons, that the Earth may give her increase, and that Man may joy in the increase of the Earth: And Gaudete de amicitiis, Rejoice that God giveth you friendship with such Nations, as may take of your superfluities, and return things necessary to you. There is a joy required for Temporal things; for he that is not joyful in a benefit, is not thankful. Next to that detestable assertion (as Saint Augustine calleth it) That God made any man to to damn him, it is the perversest assertion, That God gives man temporal things to ensnare him. Gen. 9 20. Was that God's primary intention in prospering Noah's Vineyard, That Noah should be drunken? God forbid. Doth God give any man honour or place, Vt glorietur in malo, qui potens est, that his power might be an occasion of mischief and oppression? God forbid. God made light at first; but we know not what that light was: but God gathered all light into the Sun, and all the world sees it. God infuses grace and spiritual blessings into a man's heart, and no man sees that, but the Spirit that is in that man; but the Evidence, the great Seal, that he pleads in the Eye of the world, is God's temporal blessings. When Assuerus put the Royal Vesture and Ring, and Crown upon Mordecas, it was to show that he was in his favour; in the same intention proceeds God too, when he gives riches, or honour, or favour, or command; he would have that soul rejoice in these, as in testimonies of his favour. God loves hilarem datorem, a cheerful giver, but he that is not a cheerful receiver, is a worse natured man, and more dishonours, nay, reproaches his benefactor. They then disobey this Commandment, of rejoicing in temporal things, that employ not their industry, that use not all good means to attain them. Every man is therefore planted in the world, that he may grow in the world, and as venomous herbs delight in the shade, so a sullen retiring argues a murmuring and venomous disposition; To contemn Gods temporal blessings, or to neglect or undervalue those instruments, those persons, by whom God sheds such blessings upon us, is to break that branch of this Commandment Gaudete semper, Rejoice evermore; for he does not rejoice in bonis temporalibus. So is it also, as not to seek them before, so not to use them when we have them. When in a fear of growing poor, makes us think God to be poor too, that if we spend this, God can give us no more, when for fear of lacking at our end, we lack all the way, when we abound and yet will pay no debts, not to our own bellies, our own backs, our own respect, and the decency that belongs to our rank, these men so sordid, so penurious, & suspicious of God's Providence, break this branch of this Commandment too, because they do not rejoice in bonis temporalibus. And as the not-seeker, and the not-user, so the abuser of these temporal blessings is in the same transgression. He that thinks all the world as one Jewel, and himself the Cabinet, that all was made for him, and he for none, forgets his own office, his Stewardship, by which he is enabled and bound to the necessities of others: to collect, he that seeks not, he that denies all to himself, he that denies all but himself, break this branch, for they do not rejoice in bonis temporalibus. This we must do; In spiritualibus. but in bonis spiritualibus, in the spiritual good things of this world, much more we call those the spiritual good things of this world, which advance our devotion here, and consequently our salvation hereafter. The ritual and ceremonial, the outward worship of God, the places, the times, the manner of meetings, which are in the disposition of Christian Princes, and by their favours of those Churches, which are in their government: and not to rejoice in the peaceful exercise of those spiritual helps, not to be glad of them, is a transgression. Now the Prophet expresses this rejoicing thus, Venite exultemus, let us come and rejoice. We must do both. And therefore they who out of a thraldom to another Church abstain from these places of these exercises, that do not come, or if they do come, do not rejoice, but though they be here brought by necessity of law, or of observation, yet had rather they were in another Chapel, or that another kind of service then in this: and they also who abstain out of imaginary defects in this church, & think they cannot perform david's De profundis, they cannot call upon God out of the depth, except it be in a Conventicle in a cellar, Excles. 5. 8. nor acknowledge Solomon's Excelsis Excelsior, that God is higher than the highest, except it be in a Conventicle in a garret, & when they are here wink at the ornaments, & stop their ears at the music of the Church, in which manner she hath always expressed her rejoicing in those helps of devotion; or if there be a third sort who abstain, because they may not be here at so much case, and so much liberty, as at their own houses, all these are under this transgression. Are they in the King's house at so much liberty as in their own? and is not this the King of King's house? Or have they seen the King in his own house, use that liberty to cover himself in his ordinary manner of covering, at any part of Divine Service? Every Preacher will look, and justly, to have the Congregation uncovered at the reading of his Text: and is not the reading of the Lesson, at time of Prayer, the same Word of the same God, to be received with the same reverence? The service of God is one entire thing; and though we celebrate some parts with more, or with less reverence, some kneeling, some standing, yet if we afford it no reverence, we make that no patr of God's service. And therefore I must humbly entreat them, who make this Choir the place of their Devotion, to testify their devotion by more outward reverence there; we know our parts in this place, and we do them; why any stranger should think himself more privileged in this part of God's House, than we, I know not. I presume no man will misinterpret this that I say here now; nor, if this may not prevail, misinterpret the service of our Officers, if their continuing in that unreverent manner give our Officers occasion to warn them of that personally in the place, whensoever they see them stray into that uncomely negligence. They should not blame me now, they must not blame them then, when they call upon them for this reverence in this Choir; neither truly can there be any greater injustice, then when they who will not do their duties, blame others for doing theirs. But that we are bound to a thankful rejoicing in all that falls well to us, In malis. In bonis, admits less doubt, and therefore requires less proof: But the semper of our Text extends farther, Gandete in malis, we do not rejoice always, except we rejoice in evil days, in all our crosses and calamities. Now, if we be not affected with God's judgements, if we conceive not a sorrow for them, or the cause of them, our sins, God is angry; will he be angry too, if we be not glad of them, if we do not rejoice in them? Can this sorrow and this joy consist together? very well. The School in the mouth of Aquinas gives instances; Aquin. 3. 84. 9 2. If an Innocent man be condemned, Simul placet ejus justitia, & displices afflictio, I congratulate his innocency, and I condole his death both at once. So Displicet mihi quod peccavi, & placet quod displicet; I am very sorry that I have sinned, but yet I am glad that I am sorry. So that, Ipsatristitia materia gaudii; Some sorrow is so far from excluding joy, Aug. as that naturally it produces it. S. Augustine hath sealed it with this advice, Semper doleat poenitens, Let him who hath sinned always lament; But then where is the Gaudete semper? he tells us too, Semper gaudeat de dolore, Let him always rejoice, Basil. that God hath opened him a way to mercy, by sorrow. Lacrymae Seminium quoddam sunt & foenus, quibus increscit gaudium; Sorrow is our Seminary, from whence we are transplanted into a larger Orchard, into the dilatation of the heart, Joy; sorrow, says he, Seminium est, & foenus est; It is our interest, our use; And if we have sorrow upon sorrow, it is use upon use, it doubles the principal, which is joy, the sooner. Cordae cum distenduntur, it is S. Augustine's musical comparison, when the strings of an instrument are set up, the musical sound is the clearer; if a man's sinew be stretched upon the rack, his joy is not the less perfect. Not that a man must seek out occasion of sorrow; provoke the Magistrate by seditious intemperance, and call it zeal; or macerate the body with fastings, Aug. or mangle it with whip, and call that merit; Non ut quaerant materiam quam non habent, sed at inveniant cam quam nescientes habent; This is the way of joy, not to seek occasions of sorrow, which they have not, but to find out those which they have, and know not; that is, their secret sins, the causes of God's judgements in themselves. To discern that that correction that is upon me, is from God, and not a natural accident, this is a beam of joy, for I see that he would cure me, though by corrosives. To discern that God is not unjust, nor cruel, and therefore it is something in me, and not in him, that brings it to this sharpness, this is a beam of joy too; for I see how to discharge God, and to glorify him, and how to accuse myself; and that is a good degree of repentance. But to perfect my repentance, A sensis. Non sufficit dolere de peccatis, sed requiritur gaudi●m de dolore, It is not enough to come to a sorrow in my sin, that may flow out into despair, but I must come to a joy in my sorrow, for that fixes me upon the application of Christ, and such a joy a man must suscitate and awaken in himself by these steps, In malis temporalibus, in all worldly crosses; Else he does not Gaudere semper. No nor except he find this joy, In spiritualibus. In malis Spiritualibus, in Spiritual afflictions too. When I fall into new sorrow, after my former joy, relapse into those sins which I have repent (and beloved, the dangerous falling in any man, is to fall backward, he that falls forward, hath his eyes to help him, and his hands to help him, but he that falls backward lacks much) yet even out of these relapses we must find joy too. For when Saint james says, james 1, 2. Count it all joy when you fall into divers tentations, as he speaks of all joy, so he intends, or may justly be extended to all tentations, not only tentations, that is, trials, when God proves a man by affliction, where moral constancy is exercised, but even in trial of religious constancy; in tentations to sin, still there is fresh occasion of joy in discerning Gods deliverance from the falling into the sin, or from lying in the sin. Ambros. Ipsa tentatio sal animae, as salt preserves flesh, so tentations preserve the Soul: not the sinning, but the discerning that it is, nay that that was a tentation to sin, preserves the soul. And therefore, he calls tentationes custodes; he makes even the evil Angels, our Guardians, our Tutelar Angels, because by their tentations they bring us up in the fear of God, and in the ways of joy. And therefore though it be a joyful thing to have overcome a tentation, yet determine not your Joy in that; that if that tentation had overcome you, you might have no more Joy, but (as Christ says) In this rejoice not, Luke 10. 20. that is, not only in this, that the Spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Rejoice not in this, that is, determine not, conclude not your joy in this, that you have overcome that tentation, but rather in this; that God does not forsake you after a sin, nor after a relapse into sin; but manifests your election by continual returning to you: But that this may be the joy of the text, true Joy, not a joy that induces presumption, for that will fail, that it may be Semper, it must be in Sempiterno, a Joy rightly conceived, and rightly placed. Gaudium in Domino: and that is our next step. Rejoice in the Lord always, says the Apostle; and left it should admit any interruption, he repeats it, In sempiterno. Basil. Iterum dico gaudete, Again I say rejoice, But still in the Lord. For, Quasi locus quidam, iustorum capax est Dominum: though God be in no place, God is the place, in whom all good men are. God is the Court of every just King: God is the Church of every holy Priest: God is the field of every valiant man; and the bed of every sickly man: whatsoever is done in Domino, in the Lord, is done at home in the right place. Chrysoft. He that is settled in God, centred in God, Laetitiae fontem, voluptatis radicem lucratus est. They are all considerable words; Lucratus est, he hath purchased something which he did not inherit, he hath acquired something which was not his before, and what? Fontem laetitiae; 'tis joy, else it were nothing: for what is wealth if sickness take away the joy of that? Or what is health, if imprisonment take away the joy of that? Or what is liberty, if poverty take away the joy of that? but he hath joy, and not a Cistern but a fountain, the fountain of joy, that rejoices in God: He carries it higher in the other Metaphor; he hath radicem voluptatis; a man may have Flores, flowers of joy, and have no fruit, a man may have some fruit, and not enough, but if he have joy in God, he hath radicem voluptatis; if we may dare to translate it so, (and in a spiritual sense we may) it is a voluptuous thing to rejoice in God. In rejoicing in another thing Saint Bernard's harmonious charm will strike upon us, Bern. Rara hora, brevis mora, they are joys that come seldom, and stay but a little while when they come. Call it joy, to have had that thou lovest, in thine eye, or in thine arms, remember what oaths, what false oaths, it did cost thee before it came to that? And where is that joy now, is there a Semper in that? Call it joy to have had him whom thou hatest, in thine hands or under thy feet, what ignoble disguises to that man, what servile observations of some greater, then either you, or he, did that cost you before you brought him into your power? and where is that joy, if a Funeral or a bloody conscience benight it? Currus Domini, says David, the Chariots of the Lord are twenty thousand, Psal. 68 17. thousands of Angels, says our translation; Millia laetantium, says the vulgat; thousands of them that rejoice. How comes it to be all thing Angels and rejoices? Ne miremur illos laetari continuò subiecit, August. Dominus in illis, Saint Augustine saith, to take away all wonder, it is added, the Lord is in the midst of them, and then, be what they will, they must rejoice; For if he be with them they are with him, and he is Joy. The name of Isaac signifies joy; Bern. and the trial of Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac: Immola Isaac tuum, sacrifice all thy Joy in this world, to God, Et non mactatus sed sanctificatus Isaac tuus, thy Joy shall not be destroyed, but sanctified, so far from being made none, that it shall be made better, better here, but not, better than that hereafter; which is our last step, beyond which there is nothing, that even true Joy, rightly placed, is but an inchoative, a preparatory Joy in this world. The consummation is for the next; Gaudebimus semper. Sicut laetantium omnium habitatio est inte, Psal. 87. 7. as Saint Hierome reads those words, speaking of the Christian Church here, It is the house of all them, who do as it were rejoice; who come nearest to true joy. And so, when the Lord turned again the Captivity of Zion, Psal. 126. Facti sumus sicut consolati, We were as it were comforted. Quare sicut, says that Father, Why is it so modified with that diminution, as it were? Quia hic etiam in Sanctis non perfecta consolatio; Because; says he, in this world, even the Saints themselves have no perfect joy. Where the Apostle compares the sorrow and the joy of this world, than the Quasi lies upon the sorrows side; it is but a half sorrow; Quasi tristes, 2 Cor. 6. 10. We are as it were sorrowful, but indeed rejoicing; but compare the best joy of this world, with the next, and the Quasi will fall upon the joy of the world. Eph. 1. 14. For though we be sealed with the holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, (and this is the Tropic of Joy, the farthest that Spiritual Joy goes in this Zodique, Hierom. in this world) yet this carries us no farther, but Vt ex arrabone aestimetur haereditas; That by the proportion of the earnest, we might value the whole bargain: For what a bargain would we presume that man to have, that would give 20000 l. for earnest? what is the Joy of heaven hereafter, if the earnest of it here, be the Seal of the holy Ghost? God proceeds with us, as we do with other men. Operariis in Saeculo, Bernard. cibus in opere, merces in fine datur: In this world, we give labourers meat and drink by the way, but wages at the end of their work. God affords us refreshing here, but joy hereafter. The best Seal is the holy Ghost, and the best matter that the holy Ghost seals in, is in blood; in the dignity of Martyrdom; and even for that, 1 Pet. 4. 13. for Martyrdom, we have a rule in the Apostle, Rejoice in as much as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; That as he suffered for you, so you suffer for him: but in what contemplation? That when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be made glad with exceeding Joy; not with exceeding Joy, till then; For till then, the Joys of Heaven may be exceeded in the addition of the body. There is the rule, and the example is Christ himself, Who for the joy that was set before him, endured the Cross; in contemplation of the Propterea exaltatus, that therefore he should be exalted above all in heaven. Rejoice and be glad; Mat. 5. 12. why? for great is your reward: but where? in heaven. And therefore Ask and you shall receive; john 16. 24. Pray and you shall have answer: but what answer: but what answer? That your joy shall be full. August. It shall be; in heaven. For Quis sic delectat quam ille, qui fecit omnia quae delectant: In whom can we fully rejoice, but him, who made all things in which we rejoice by the way, Psal. 89. 16. In thy Name shall we rejoice all the day, says David; Simo in nomine suo, August. non tota die. St. Augustine says not that to any particular person, nor any particular calling but to any man, to every man; Any Prince, any Counsellor, any Prelate, any General, any Discoverer, any that goes in any way of joy, and glory, Si nomine suo, non tota die, If they rejoice in their own names, their own wisdom, their own strength, they shall not rejoice all the day, but they shall be benighted with dark sadness, before their day's end; And their sun shall set at noon too, as the Prophet Amos speaks. And therefore that shall be Christ's expressing of that joy, at the last day, Enter into thy Master joy, and leave the joy of Servants (though of good Servants) behind thee; for thou shalt have a better Joy than that, Thy Masters joy.. It is time to end; but as long as the glass hath a gasp, as long as I have one, I would breathe in this air, in this perfume, in this breath of heaven, the contemplation of this Joy. Psal. 89. 15. Blessed is that man, qui scit jubilationem, says David, that knows the joyful sound: August. For, Nullo modo beatus, nisi scias unde gaudeas; For though we be bound to rejoice always, it is not a blessed joy, if we do not know upon what it be grounded: or if it be not upon everlasting blessedness. Cant. 5. 1. Comedite amici, says Christ, bibite & inebriamini. Eat and drink, and be filled. Joy in this life, Vbi in sudore vescimur, where grief is mingled with joy, Bernard. is called meat, says Saint Bernard, and Christ calls his friends to eat in the first word. Potus in future, says he, Joy in the next life, where it passes down without any difficulty, without any opposition, is called drink; and Christ calls his friends to drink: but the overflowing, the Ebriet as animae, that is reserved to the last time, when our bodies as well as our souls, shall enter into the participation of it: Where, when we shall love every one, as well as ourselves, and so have that Joy of our own salvation multiplied by that number, we shall have that Joy so many times over, as there shall be souls saved, because we love them as ourselves, how infinitely shall this Joy be enlarged in loving God, so far above ourselves, Matt. 9 15. and all them. We have but this to add. Heaven is called by many precious names; Luc. 12. 32. Life● Simply and absolutely there is no life but that. And Kingdom; Simply, absolutely there is no Kingdom, Esay 66. 23. that is not subordinate to that. And Sabba●ūex Sabbate, A Sabbath flowing into a Sabbath, a perpetual Sabbath: but the Name that should enamour us most, is that, that it is Satietas gaud●orum; fullness of Joy. Fullness that needeth no addition; Psal. 16. 11. Fullness, that admitteth no leak. And then though in the School we place Blessedness, in visione, in the sight of God, yet the first thing that this sight of God shall produce in us (for that shall produce the Reformation of the Image of God, in us, and it shall produce our glorifying of God) but the first thing that the seeing of God shall produce in us, is Joy. The measure of our seeing of God is the measure of Joy. See him here in his Blessings, and you shall joy in those blessings here; and when you come to see him Sicuti est, in his Essence, than you shall have this Joy in Essence, and in fullness; of which, God of his goodness give us such an earnest here, as may bind to us that inheritance hereafter, which his Son our Saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us, with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. Amen. FINIS.