SIX SERMONS UPON SEVERAL OCCASIONS, PREACHED before the King, and elsewhere: By that late learned & reverend Divine JOHN DONNE, Doctor in divinity, and Dean of S. Paul's, LONDON.  
¶ Printed by the Printers to the University of CAMBRIDGE:  
And are to be sold by Nicholas Fussell and Humphrey Mosley, at their shop in Paul's Churchyard.  
1634.   

TWO SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE KING CHARLES, Upon the xxvi verse of the first Chapter of GENESIS.  
Bianca Dr. DONNE DEAN OF PAUL'S.  
¶ Printed by the Printers to the University of CAMBRIDGE.  
MDCXXXIIII.   
Genesis 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 year's men could not look over, nor discern what form it had (for neither Lactantius, almost three hundred years after Christ; nor S. Augustine, more than a 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 but cast 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 fare, 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 finishing, 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 leafgold 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, & make a conscience not to clog the world with unnecessary books; yet the volumes which are written by them, upon the beginning of Genesis, are scarce less than infinite. God did no more but say, Let this & this be done; and Moses doth 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 believe: 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 the mouth of Moses, 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 cannon; and a vapour can shake the earth: and when Christ said, Throw down this Temple, and in three days I will raise it, they never stood 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, & 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, & 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; & 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, etc.  
We shall pursue our great examples, God in 
Divisio.  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 accommodations of the words. First, in the first word that God speaks here, Faciamus, Let Us, in the plural, (a denotation of diverse persons in the 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 have 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, 
Zech. 6. 12.  the East; if we will be named by him, (called Christians) we must look to this East, the confession of the Trinity: there is 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 council, 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, died red in blood, in blood, in soul, the blood of our own souls. To that West we must all come, to the earth; The sun knoweth his going down: even 
Psal. 104. 19  the sun, for all his glory and height, hath a going down, and he knows it. The highest cannot divest mortality, nor the discomfort of mortality. When you see a cloud rise out of the 
Lue. 12. 54.  west, straightway you say, There cometh a storm, says Christ: When out of the region of your West, (that is, your latter days) there comes a cloud, a sickness; you feel a storm: even the best moral constancy is shaken. But this cloud, and this storm, and this West there must be; and that is our second consideration. But then the next word designs 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 preexistent 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 Northwind that is called upon to carry 
Cant. 4. 16.  out 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 
Job. 37. 22.  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 on 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 
Amos 8. 9  speaks; 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 departed from our soul, no not when that soul departs from our body: And that is 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 this, my matter, my substance is but earth; But then a North, a power of overcoming that law 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 themselves, 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 have gone over this East, and West, and North, & South here in this world, I should be 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 hath harboured his ship so fare 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 out 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 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 Part. 1 of light and life; There this world began: 
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 terrace, from his pinnacle, from his exaltation (as himself calls it) the Cross. 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 Triumphant Church. Let him have done as much as all the worthies, and suffer as much as all nature's martyrs, the penurious Philosophers; let him have known as much as they pretend to know, Omne scibile, all that can be known; nay, and In-intelligibilia, In-investigabilia (as Tertullian 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: he hath not learned to pronounce the first word, that cannot bring three persons into one God. The subject of natural Philosophers, 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 powerful God, and enclosed and hedged in himself with the fear of God, may produce actions better than the mere nature of man, because he refers his actions to the glory of an imagined God: but yet this man, though he be more fruitful than the former, more than a grassy field, is but a ploughed field, and bears but corn, and corn (God knows) choked with weeds. But the man that 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, paradise, in which grow all things good to eat, and good to see (spiritual refection, 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 his Son; his diet, his daily bread, in the daily visitations of the holy Ghost. God is not pleased, not satisfied with our bare knowledge that there is a God; for, it is impossible to please God without faith: and 
Hebr. 11. 6.  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 throng, and out of that noise, when I am come into the knowledge of one God: but I am got above stairs, got into the bedchamber, when I am come to see the Trinity, and to apprehend not only, that I am in the care of a great & 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, and tear one another with the ignominious invectives and uncharitable names 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 ant-hills 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 & 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 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 of the Trinity? Father and Son do naturally imply and induce one another, & 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 the Churches, and possessions in their names: what a spiritual dominion in the Prayers & worship of the people, what a temporal dominion in the possessions of the world, had the Virgin Marie, Queen of heaven, and Queen of earth too! She was made joynt-purchaser of the Church with the 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 fare out of that Queen-mothers' hands, and sued out her son's livery so fare, as that, though her name be used, the Virgin Marie is but a Feofee in trust for them; all was hers. And if God oppose not these new usurpers of the world, posterity will soon see S. Ignatius worth all the Trinity in possessions and endowments; and that sumptuous and splendid foundation of his first Temple at Rome, may well create a conjecture and suspicion. Travel no farther; Survey but this City, and, of their not one hundred Churches, the Virgin Marie 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 & 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, the holy Ghost brought you hither; The holy Ghost opens your ears and your hearts here. Till in all your distresses you say, Veni Creator Spiritus, Come holy Ghost; and that you feel a comfort in his coming: you can never say, Veni Domine Jesus, 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 holy Ghost, is a thousand times more fearful.  
This seal then, this impression, this notion of the Trinity, being set upon us in this first plural word of our Text, Faciamus, Let us (for Father, Son, and holy Ghost made man) and this seal being reimprinted upon us in our second Creation, or Regeneration, in Baptism, (man is baptised in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Ghost) this notion of the Trinity, being our distinctive character from Jew and Gentile; this being our specifical form; why doth 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 Nazaraei, Nazarites, in the mouth of the vulgar; and Galilaei, Galileans, in the mouth of Julian; & Judaei, Jews, in the mouth of Nero, when he imputed the burning of Rome (his own art) to them; and Christiani, Christians, so that (as Tertullian says) they could accuse Christians of nothing, but the name of Christians: and yet they could not call them by their right name of Christians, which was gentle, quiet, easy, patiented men, made to be trodden upon; but they gave them diverse names in scorn, yet never called them Trinitarians. Christians themselves amongst themselves were called by diverse names in the Primitive Church, for distinction; Fideles, the Faithful; and Fratres, the Brethren; and Discipuli, Disciples; & after, by common custom at Antioch, Christians: and after that (they say, by a council which the Apostles held 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, they were called (most likely from the name of Jesus) Jesseans. And so Philo Judaeus, in that book which he writes the Jessaeis, intends by his Jesseans, Christians. And in diverse 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 Countries 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, Galileans, Jews, Christians) & yet they were 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 specific 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 confers 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, & 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 confesseth one God, is got beyond the mere natural man; And he that confesseth 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. 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 my outward profession in actions, if I have not in my heart a sense of the holy Ghost, that applies the mercies of the Father, and the merits of the Son to my soul. As S. Paul said, Whilst you are without Christ, you are without God; It is an Atheism (with S. 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 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 sent he the holy Ghost: And that is our specific form; that is our distinctive character from Jew & Gentile, the Trinity.  
But than is this specific form, this distinctive character, the notion of the Trinity, conveyed to us, exhibited, imprinted upon us in our creation in this word, this plural word, in the mouth of our own 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, nor so particularly as now: now Christ, calling upon God, in the name of the Father, says, I have manifested thy Name unto the men which thou gavest me out of 
John 17. 6.  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 Son. And therefore the Jewish Rabbins say, that the Septuagint, the first Translatours of the Bible, did disguise some places of the Scriptures, in their translation, lest Ptolomey (for whom they translated it) should be scandalised with those places: And that this text was one of those places, which, (say they) though it be otherwise in the copies of the Scriptures 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 Ptolomey to think that the Jews had a plural religion, and worshipped diverse 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. For though we accept an intimation of the Trinity, in the first line of the Bible, where Moses joined 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 26; yet Moses writ that, which is in the beginning of this chapter, more than 2000 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 gins our Catechism: here we have (and here first) the saving knowledge of the Trinity. For, when God spoke here, to whom could God speak, but to God? Non cum rebus creandis, non 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, 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 no 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 S. Basils' time; and to them S. 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 Church. It is true, that when God speaks this over again, in the Church (as he doth every day, now this minute) than God speaks to his 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 calumniatour, into an other nature; make that 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, Dictum in senatu, & 
Rupertus.  soliloquio: It was spoken in a senate, and yet in solitariness; spoken in private, and yet publicly spoken; spoken where there were diverse, and yet but one, one God, and three persons.  
If there were no more intended in this plural expression, 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 forbidden: yet S. Gregory's caution would justly fall upon it, Reverenter pensandum est, It requires 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, where he exempts man's term in this vice-regencie to the end of the world, in propounding man means of succession; Faciamus, Let us make him a helper: there he speaks in his Royal plural. And also in the third Chapter, in declaring the heinousness of man's fault, & 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 is his Royal plural too: And again, in that declaration of his justice, in that confusion of the builders of Babylon, 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, when he says, Quis ex nobis? Who will go for us, and publish this? In these places, & 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 vulgar 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: to speak with 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 is your case here; sinners, and even manifest sinners: for even midnight is noon in the sight of God; and when your candles are put out, his sun shines still. Nec quid absconditum à calore ejus (says David) 
Psal. 19 6.  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 and 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 reverence and worships: 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 & estimation. We have no Grandes, 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 difference of persons in the presence of God: where and how this and this shall dispose of themselves in the Church of God, 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, 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 he speaks as in council, is an other argument for reverence. For what trust or freedom soever I have by his favour with any Counsellor of state; yet I should surely use 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, O portet denuo nasci; without a second birth, no salvation: And so no second birth without Baptism, no Baptism, but in the name of the 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 Nazianzene, and 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,  
— Numénque suum triplicique parique  
Luce nitens—  
And to see the whole Godhead, in a threefold and 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 lead 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 my own children, there is a Son in heaven, that will do more for me then my own children (of what good means or good nature soever 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 a child of God: And if the ghosts of those sinners, whom I made sinners, haunt me after their deaths, in returning to my memory, & reproaching my conscience with the heavy judgements that I have brought upon them; If after the death of my own sin, when my appetite is dead to some particular sin, the memory and sinful delight of those 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 the whole world is God alone, in the general notion, as he is so, God; but he is my God most especially, & most appliably, as he is received by me in the several notions of Father, Son, and holy Ghost.  
This is our East; here we see God, God in Part. TWO all the persons, consulting, concurring to the 
Occidens.  making of us. But then my West presents itself; that is an occasion to humble me, in the next word: he makes but man; a man, that is, but Adam, but Earth. I remember 4. names, by which man is often called in the scriptures: & of these 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 gins the noise himself, when he comes crying into the world; & 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 sound, but a noise. An other name is Enosh. 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? 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 & 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 (says the Prophet, for there that name of man Gheber is used) I am the man that hath seen affliction by 
Lam. 3. 1.  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 & powerfullest of men, is yet but that man, that may possibly, that may justly see affliction by the rod of God's wrath. And from Gheber, he 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 be called, and refer himself, and call himself by; earth, and red earth.  
Now God did not say of man, as of other creatures, Let us, or let the earth bring forth herbs, and fruits, and trees, as upon the third day; Now let the earth bring forth cattles and worms, as upon the sixth day, the same day that he made man: Non imperiali 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. It is 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; the house, as a city, 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 Gheber; a clod of earth, as a hill of earth, so God be the potter.  
God made man of earth, 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 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: Man liveth not by bread only, says Christ; but 
Luke 4. 4.  yet he liveth by bread too: every man must do the duties, every man must bear the encumbrances of some calling.  
Pulvis es, 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 the 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 there 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 vicissitudinarie 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 the 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 limbeck, 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 accelerate, 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, macerable 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: a redness that amounts to a shamefastness, to a blushing at our infirmities, is imprinted in us by God's hands: 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 an other redness from his hand too, the blood of his Son; for that blood was effused by Christ, in the vail of this ransom for us all, and accepted by God in the vail thereof for us 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, & our destruction is from ourselves. We are not as accessaries, and God as principal in this soul-murder: God forbidden. We are not as executioners of God's sentence, and God the malefactor in this soul-damnation: God forbidden. 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 those men. It were a weak plea to say, I killed not that man; but it is 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 it is true, God makes that man's sin, that sin. God is innocence: and the beams that flow from him, are of the same nature and colour. Christ, when he appeared in heaven, was not red, but white; his hand, his head, and 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, are so in white; two men, two angels stood by the apostles in white 
Acts 1. 10.  apparel: the imitation is laid upon us, by precept too: At all times let thy garments be 
Eccles 9 8.  white; those actions, in which thou appearest to the world, innocent. It is true that Christ is both; My beloved is white and ruddy, says the 
Cant. 5. 10.  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, 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. They knew not Christ, when he came up into heaven in red; Who is this that cometh in red garments? 
Isa. 63. 1.  wherefore is thy apparel red, like him that treadeth in the winepress? They knew he went down in white, in entire innocence; 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, and that 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 with me: without me so, as to be excluded by me, without their own fault, from the benefit of the merit. This redness he carried up to heaven; for by the blood of his cross came peace, both to the things in heaven, and the 
Col. 1. 21.  things on earth. For the peccabilitie, 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 & blessed Sacrament, our long robes might be made white in the blood of the Lamb: that, though our sins be 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; He sat upon a white cloud: so, to let the highest see, that they have no whiteness, but from him, he makes the throne white by sitting upon it: He sat upon a great white throne. It had been great, if it had not been white: white is the colour of dilatation; Goodness 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 the truth, is true whiteness. God hath no redness in himself, no anger towards us, till he considers us as sinners. God casts 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 was washed in the Red sea, would come out white, (so wonderful works hath God 
Psal. 106. 22.  done at the Red sea, says David) so doth his whiteness work through our red, 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, nor 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, 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. It is whole-Pelagianisme, to think nature alone sufficient; half-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, & Catharisme, 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, Decorticatio ficûs & albi rami; that 
Joel 1. 7.  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 S. Gregory of that place: the bough that lies open without bark, looks white, but perisheth. 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 fare we are gone, East and West; which is half our compass, and all this day's voyage: for we are struck upon the sand, and must stay another tide and another gale for our North and South.  
FINIS.   

THE SECOND SERMON PREACHED BEFORE KING CHARLES, Upon the xxvi verse of the first Chapter of GENESIS.  
Bianca Dr. DONNE DEAN OF PAUL'S.  
¶ Printed by the Printers to the University of CAMBRIDGE.  
MDCXXXIIII.   
Genesis 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 & distinctive character of a Christian) where, though that be so, we shown you also, why we were not called Trinitarians, but Christians: and we shown 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 shown you from S. 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 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 afterwards we found God to speak here not only as our King, but as our Maker, as God himself, and God in council, Faciamus: And we applied thereunto the difference of our respect to a person of that honourable rank, when we came before him at the councel-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 sailed not with 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 is 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 & 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; & 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 destructions for sin, were 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 fare we sailed with that Western wind, & are come to our third point in this our compass, our North.  
In this point, the North, we place our first Part. III comfort. The North is not always the comfortablest 
Aquilo.  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 their action, that they scatter, they dissipate those clouds which were gathered, and so induce a serenity. And so fair weather comes 
Job 37. 22.  from the North. 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; & then the North shakes these clouds. The Northwind driveth away the 
Prov. 25. 13.  rain, says Solomon. There is a North in our text, that drives all these tears from our eyes. Christ calls upon the North as well as the 
Cant. 4. 16.  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 is 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 in the pen of Moses, hath given occasion to diverse, to raise diverse observations upon these words, which seem diverse, Image and Likeness; as also in the variety of the phrase: 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 non sunt parva, 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 6000 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 Cyril, 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 Homonusion, was the issue. Where the question hath not been of diverse words, nor syllables, nor letters, but only of the place of words, what tempestuous differences have risen! How much hath sola fides and fides sola changed 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  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, 
Gen. 4. 13.  positively; and so they are evident words of desperation. The Jews read them with an interrogation, Are my sins greater than can be pardoned? and so they are words of compunction and repentance. The prophet Micheas says, that 
Mich. 5. 3.  Bethlehem is a small place: The Evangelist S. 
Matth. 2. 6.  Matthew says, No small place. An interrogation in Micheas 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 & 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, when the consequence may prove great. In our own sphere, in the Church, we are sure it is so; great inconveniences grew upon small tolerations. Therefore in that business, which occasioned all that trouble which we mentioned before, in the Council of Ephesus, when S. Cyril wrote to the Clergy of his diocese about it, at first he says, Praestiterat 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 impertinences, 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, lest great things should pass unquestioned: and some of these upon Damascens true ground (still true in rule, but not always in the application) Parva non sunt parva; Nothing may be thought little, where the consequence may prove 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 
Cant. 2. 15.  little foxes; of leaving small sins unconsidered, unrepented, uncorrected. In that glistering circle in the firmament, which we call the Galaxy, the milkie-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 possesseth 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 & 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 says, That we 
Matth. 12. 36.  shall give an account for every idle word 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 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 imports; 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, by 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. A sparrow falls not without God, says 
Matth. 10. 29.  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: & some men single, are of more value than many men. God doth not thank the ant, for her industry and good husbandry in providing for herself. God doth not reward the foxes, for concurring 
Judg. 15. 4.  with Samson in his revenge. God doth not fee the lion, which was his executioner upon the 
1. King. 13. 24  Prophet which had disobeyed his commandment; nor those few she-bears, which slew 
2. King. 2. 24.  the petulant children who had calumniated and reproached Elisha. God doth not fee them before, nor thank them after, nor take knowledge of their service: But for those men that served God's execution upon the idolaters of 
Exod. 32. 25.  the golden calf, it is pronounced in their behalf, that therein they consecrated themselves unto God; and for that service God made that Tribe, the Tribe of Levi, his portion, his clergy, his consecrated Tribe: So, Quia fecisti hoc, 
Gen. 22. 16.  says God to Abraham, By myself I have sworn, because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thee. So neither is God angry with the dog 
2. Pet. 2. 22.  that turns to his vomit; nor with the sow, that after her washing wallows in the mire. But of man in that case he says, It is impossible for 
Hebr. 6. 4.  those who were once enlightened, if they fall away, to renew themselves 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 you 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 hath something to reward in him. That instinct in the creature God leaves to the natural working thereof in itself: but the freewill of man God visits & assists with his grace, to do supernatural things. When the creature doth 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 doth 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 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 a 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. For, what a baseness, what a madness of the soul is it, to worship that which is no better, nay, not so good as itself! Worship belongs to the best: know then thy distance and thy period, how fare 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 then 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 here 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, thy 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, where the image is; Part. IIII and then, what it doth: first, in what part of 
Meridies.  man God hath imprinted this his image; and then, 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 his Body. Tertullian 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: yet S. Augustine excuses Tertullian for heresy: Because (says he) Tertullian might mean, That it was so sure that there is a God; and that God was a certain, though not a finite essence; that God was so fare from being nothing, as that he had rather a body. Because it was possible to give a good interpretation of Tertullian, that charitable Father would excuse him of heresy. I would S. 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. S. 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, but the Court of Rome; not their doctrine, but their profit. Malo de misericordia Deo rationem reddere, quàm de crudelitate; I shall better answer God for my mildness, then for my severity. And though anger towards a brother, or a Racha, 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 necessarily 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 the man be an heretic. But how excusable soever Tertullian be herein, in S. Augustine's charity, there was a whole sect of heretics an 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 took 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 to our sense, so it is as really there as we are there) not too near in the ubi; 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 Marie Magdalen's zeal, where she flew to him in a personal devotion; and said, Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended 
John 20. 17.  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 fare in the pictures and images of his body, as to worship them more than him. As Damascen says of God, that he is Superprincipale principium, A beginning before any beginning we can conceive; and praeterea aeternitas, an eternity infinitely elder than any eternity we can imagine: so he is superspiritualis Spiritus, such a Superspirit, 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 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.  
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 adhere 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 fomentours 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 significatiué; 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: and so fare is this image of God in the body above that in the creatures, 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 are 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 defraud the 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 outward case, 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 table itself, in which this image is immediately, that is, the soul: and that is truly the ubi, 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, the gallery for this picture, the arch for this statue, the table and frame and shrine for this image of God, is inwardly and immediately the soul of man: not immediately so, as that the soul of man is a part of the essence of God; for so essentially Christ only is the image of God. S. Augustine at first thought so; Putabam 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 to be a spark of that fire; thee to be a body of light, and my soul to be a beam of that light. But S. Augustine doth not only retract that in himself, but dispute against it in the Manichees. But this image is in our soul, as the soul is the wax, and this image the seal. The comparison is S. Cyrils; 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 hand, 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 preferments: they give order who shall have, but they have not Orders by which they are enabled to have that they 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 a conformity to him; and worldly seals will not answer that, nor fill up that seal. We should wonder to see 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-fayre, to look upon sixpenie pictures & 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 countrey-fayres, that is, we endure the distempers of any unseasonable weather, in night-journeys and watchings; we endure the oppositions, and scorns, and triumphs of a rival and competitour, 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 lovers 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, 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 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 doth S. 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 the soul; for it is radically, primarily in the very soul itself: and whether that soul be infused into the elect, or reprobate, that image is in that soul: as fare 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 doth deface it; he hath it also in Grace here, and so doth 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 his 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 these 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, 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 preexistent 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 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 creature, and a livelier image of him (who is the root of being) then 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 post-meridian, this afternoon eternity, that is, this perpetuity and after-everlastingnesse 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 that city; that is, God made man, and imprinted his image in his soul. How will this King take it (says that Father) to have this statue thrown down? Every man doth 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 run, 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 his place? Every man doth 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, which is intimated in Job, 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 
Job 40. 19  the ways of God: S. Hierom hath it, Principium; and others before him, Initium viarum Dei; that when God went the progress over the world in the creation thereof, he did but begin, he did but set out at Behemoth, at the best of all such creatures; Herald 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 doth the office of an image or picture, to bring him whom it represents, the more lively to our memories. God's abridgement of the whole world was man; reabridge man into his least volume, in pura naturalia, as he is but mere man, and so he hath the image of God in his soul.  
He hath it as God is considered in his unity; for as God is, 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 are there three faculties in the soul of man. The attributes, and some kind of speculation of the persons in 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 exercises power, no man can govern well, without understanding the natures & 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 natae sunt, says S. Ambrose: the lion, the bear, the elephant, have forgot what they were born to; Induuntur quod jubentur, they invest and put on such a disposition and such a nature as we enjoin them & appoint 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, the horn of the bull, in the heels of the horse; and, Adjuvantur ut infirmi, they sergeant a weakness, that they might be beholding to us for help; and they are content to thank us, if we afford them 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, 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 or assenting.  
And then 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 fare as to do them, to crown them with action, that is true goodness. The office that Christ assigns to the holy Ghost, and the goodness which he promiseth in his behalf is this, that he shall bring former things to our remembrance. 
John 14. 26.  The wise man 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, remember the end, and 
Ecclus 7. 36.  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 S. Augustine: as all senses are called sight 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 coarse aspect: with those who have the image of the King's power (the Magistrate) the image of his wisdom (the Council) 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 & 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, he hath nothing to do for himself.  
This then is the image of God in man, 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 Basil, and Nissen, 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 seed 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 further height, when he says, Sicut Deus homo, ità ego Deus; As God i● man, so I am God, says Damascen; I, taking in the whole mankind (for so Damascen takes it out of Nazianzen; and he says, Sicut verbum caro, ità caro verbum; As God was made man, man may become God) but especially I; I, as I am wrought upon by grace in Christ Jesus. So a Christian is made the image of God entirely. To which expression S. Cyril 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 of the greatest trespasser in the world, the devil, to say, Similis ero Altissimis, 
Isa. 14. 14.  I will be like the Highest; it would be as great a trespass 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 departed from his humiliation; that, whereas he being in the 
Phil. 2. 6, 7.  form of God, took the form of a servant; I, being in the form of a servant, 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 which is but one faith, and 
Ephes. 4. 5.  under the seal of that 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 attribute of the first person, 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, I have a power 
1. Cor. 6. 5.  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 conversion, & a temptation of Satan: Possum judicare. And then, Possum resistere, which is another act 
Eph. 6. 13.  of power: when I find it to be a temptation, I am able to resist it. And Possum stare (which is another) I am able not only to withstand, but to stand out this battle of temptations to the end. And then, Possum capere; that which Christ proposes for a trial of his disciples, He that is able to receive it, 
Matt. 19 12.  let him receive it: I shall have power to receive the gift of continency against all temptations of that kind. Bring it to the highest act of power, that with which Christ tried his strongest Apostles; Possum bibere calicem, I shall be able to drink of 
Matt. 20. 22.  Christ's cup, even to drink his blood, and be the more innocent for that; and to pour out my blood, and be the stronger for that. In Christo omnia 
Phil. 4. 13.  possum; there is 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 beyond all this, in this, Non possum peccare; 
1 John 3. 9  being born of God in Christ, I cannot sinne. This that seems to have a name of impotence, Non possum, I cannot, is the fullest omnipotence of all: I cannot sinne; not sin to death, not sin with a desire to sin, not sin with a delight in sin; but that temptation 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, 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, Scio cui credidi, I know whom I have believed; 
2. Tim. 1. 12.  I have not mislayed my foundation; my foundation is Christ: and then, Scio non moriturum; my foundation cannot sink: I know that Christ being 
Rom. 6. 9  raised from the dead, dies no more: again, Scio quod 
Rom. 8. 27.  desideret spiritus; I know what my spirit, enlightened by the Spirit of God, desires: 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. Scimus quia omnem scientiam habemus; 
1. Cor. 3. 1.  there is all together: We know that we have all knowledge; for all S. Paul's universal knowledge was but this, Jesum crucifixum: I determined not to know 
1. Cor. 2. 2.  any thing, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And then the way by which he would proceed and take degrees in this wisdom, was, stultitia praedicandi, 
1. Cor. 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 ordinance 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, call nothing good, that conduceth 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, that Omnia cooperantur in bonum; 
Rom. 8. 28.  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, but 
Gen. 50. 20  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 that God meant in it. There is no evil in the 
Amos 3. 6.  city, but the Lord doth 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 in the land of the living; 
Psal. 27. 13.  that is, 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 considered 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, 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 is too fare off) an assimilation (that is not near enough) an identification (the School would venture to say so) with God in that state of glory! Whereas 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 fare as to find any more place to fasten a temptation 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 is my image of God, of God considered all together, and in his unity in the state of grace.  
I shall have also then the image of all the three persons of the Trinity. 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; and there I shall have better wisdom: the spiritual wisdom itself is here: for here our best wisdom is, but to go towards our end; there it is to 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. Here our goodness is mixed with some ill; faith mixed with scruples, & 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 wish no more, and an infallibility that we can lose none of that, and both at once. Whereas 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 equal: so I would have leave to express that inexpressible state, so fare as to say, that if there can be other worlds 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 made, in Nature, in Grace, in Glory; I had rather be one of these Saints in this heaven, than one 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 religious ambition that I would imprint in you for attaining of this glory, makes me dismiss 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; & so pours out the blessings of the whole Trinity upon us, in this image of himself, in every person of the three, and in all these three 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, the same universality, he says after, Descendamus & confundamus, 
Gen. 11. 7.  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 enfatuated 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 concurrences with Antichrist, in them who were born, and baptised, and catechised, & blessed in the 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, so 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 & constancy in our Princes, be not by our sins made unprofitable unto us: for that is the height of God's malediction upon a nation, when the assiduity of preaching and the example of a religious Prince doth them no good, but aggravates their fault.  
FINIS.   

A SERMON Upon the nineteen verse of the two Chapter of HOSEA.  
Bianca Dr. DONNE DEAN OF PAUL'S.  
¶ Printed by the Printers to the University of CAMBRIDGE.  
MDCXXXIIII.   
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, but a marrying; and so it is used by David, Deliver me my wife Michal, whom I 
2. Sam. 3. 14  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 then 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 aeternum, I will marry thee to me for ever.  
In the first acceptation then, in the first, the secular Part. I 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 limitations, than such as are expressed in the law of God. As the Apostles say, in the first general Council, We lay nothing upon you but things 
Act. 15. 28.  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 at all given. When God had made Adam and Eve in Paradise, though there were four rivers 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 build walls and cloisters to frustrate God's institution of marriage, advance the doctrine of devils, in forbidding of marriage. The devil hath advantages enough against us, in bringing men and women together: it was a strange and superdevilish 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 Manichaean heretics, that thought women to be made by the devil; and the Colliridian heretics, that sacrificed to a woman, 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 the Peputian 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 the Roman church they dissolve marriages 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 fare, as to give them leave to join in lawful marriage. When men have made vows to abstain from marriage, I 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 further than they do, whether they could abstain or no: But to dissolve marriages 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 a niece. Adduxit ad eum, was the case between Adam & Eve; God brought them together: God will not bring me a precontracted person; he will not have me defraud another: 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 asunder by any law of his; and all such are persons capable of this first, this secular marriage.  
In which our second consideration is the action, Sponsabo; where the active is a kind of passive: I will marry thee, is, I will be married to thee; for we marry not ourselves. They are somewhat hard driven in the Roman church, 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 by the Law; in a marriage without the benediction of the Priest, they cannot claim any benefit of the Church: for how matrimonially soever, 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 3 objects: First, 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: nay, every flaming is not a burning; though a man continue under the flame of carnal temptation, 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 temptation: and S. Paul gave himself other physic, Contundo corpus, convenient disciplines to tame his body. These will keep a man from burning; for, Vri, est desideriis vinci; desideria pati, illustris est & perfecti: To be overcome by our concupiscencies, that is to burn; but to quench that 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 innocence, when there was no inordinateness in the affections of man, and so no burning. But as God created Rheubarb 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 his 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 to one another, against all foreign temptations. 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, For children: And therefore (as S. Augustine puts the case) to contract before, that they will have no children, makes it no marriage, but an adultery. To deny themselves to one another, is as much against marriage, as to give themselves to another. To hinder that by physic, or any other practice; nay, to hinder that so fare, 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 do not so much consider generation, as regeneration; not so much procreation, as education; nor propagation, as transplantation 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, for his not restraining the licentiousness of his sons: I will do a thing in Israel, 
1. Sam. 3. 11  says God there, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle: and it was executed; Eli fell down, and broke his neck. We have also 
1. Sam. 4. 18  a promise of consolation to women, for children: She shall be saved in child-bearing, says the Apostle: 
1. Tim. 2. 15  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, and charity, and holiness, with 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 temptations? 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 dono 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, Deum iis 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 
Ps. 128. 3.  vine, and their children like olive-plants. To thy glory, let the parents express the love of parents, and the children, to thy glory, the obedience of children, till they both lose 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, 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 innocence 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 innocence of paradise, even in the survey of his own works, 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 an 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 Posui Deum adjutorium meum, to rely upon God primarily for our helper; 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, Alas, 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 is 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 whence 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, 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 only that 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 marriages, 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 immunditiei, 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. God commands that no idolatry be committed, Thou shalt not bow down to a graven image; 
Exod. 20. 5  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 be any harm done. And God presents it as a curse, when he says, My jealousy shall departed from thee, and I will be 
Eze. 16. 42.  quiet, and no more angry; that is, I will leave 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, I am jealous over 
2. Cor. 11. 2  you with a godly 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 fare, as that, if those separated persons will live together again, yet they shall not be new married; so fare, certainly, the band of marriage continues still. The devil makes no marriages: he may have a hand in drawing conveyances; in the temporal conditions 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 dissolve marriage or no: It is S. Augustine's wisdom to say, When 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 fare 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 Roman church, that think Fornicationem non vagam, that such an incontinent life, as is limited to one certain person, is no deadly sin: but there are 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, for continency and temperance, and forbearance, and abstinence 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, this is the devil's counsel. Of that salutation of the Angel to the blessed Virgin Mary, Blessed art thou amongst women, we may make ever 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 blessed her, that no woman had occasion to curse her. And this is the eternity of this secular marriage, as fare 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 come now, in our order proposed at Part. TWO first, to our second 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 offer to say 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 lights 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, 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; but more particularly, Christ and my soul. And can these persons meet? In such a distance, and in such a disparagement, can 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 & 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 sins: 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 mine 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 have 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: because I am not a body only, but a body and soul; there is a marriage, and Christ marries me. As by the Law a man might marry a captive woman in the 
Deut. 21. 12  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, Against burning; that, whether I burn myself in the fire of temptation, by exposing myself to occasions of temptation; 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 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 either 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 to Christ in the sacraments of the Church; and, Vae sterili, Woe unto them that are barren after this spiritual marriage: for that is a great curse in the Prophet Jeremy, Scribe virum istum sterilem, 
Jer. 22. 30.  Writ this man childless; that implied all calamities upon him. And assoon as Christ had laid that curse upon the figtree, Let no fruit grow on thee 
Matt. 21. 19  henceforward for ever, presently the whole tree withered: if 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: First, Woe unto the Gentiles not married to Christ: and, Vae sterili, Woe unto inconsiderate Christians, that think not upon their calling, that conceive not by Christ: but there is a Vae pregnanti too, Woe unto 
Matt. 24. 19  them that are with child, and are never delivered; that have sometimes 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 grandchildren 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 disseized 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 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 this, 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 beginning; 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, doth not end the spiritual; not death: for my death doth 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, & 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 the Part. III Lamb and my Soul. The marriage of the Lamb 
Apoc. 19 7, 9  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 who was brought to the slaughter, and 
Isa. 53. 7.  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 which was slain from the beginning, and I, who 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, not the private seal of Christ in the obsignation of his Spirit; and yet such a clandestine marriage is a good marriage: nor is it 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 sins shall be laid open to the eyes of all the world; where all the blessed Virgins shall see all my uncleannesses, and all the Martyrs see all my tergiversations, and all the Confessors 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, and marry me In aeternum, For ever; which is our last circumstance.  
It is not well done to call it a circumstance; 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 so, 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 
Reve. 6. 12, 13, 14.  of hair, 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 that 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 temptation that needs 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 that kingdom, which thy Son our Saviour hath purchased with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. To whom, etc.  
FINIS.   

A SERMON Upon the xliiii verse of the xxi Chapter of MATTHEW.  
Bianca Dr. DONNE DEAN OF PAUL'S.  
¶ Printed by the Printers to the University of CAMBRIDGE.  
MDCXXXIIII.   
Matth. 21. 44. Whosoever shall fall on this stone, he shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will dash him in pieces. 
Almighty God made us for his glory, and his glory is not the glory of a tyrant, to destroy us, but his glory is our happiness: he put us in a fair way towards that happiness, in nature, in creation; that way would have brought us to heaven, but there we fell, and, if we consider ourselves, irrevocably: he put us after into another way, through many hedges and ploughed lands, through the difficulties and encumbrances of all the ceremonial Law; there was no way to heaven but that: after he brought us a cross way, by the cross of Christ Jesus, and the application of his Gospel; and that is our way now: and if we compare one way of nature, and our way, we went out of that way at the towns end, assoon as we were in it: Adam died assoon as he lived, and fell assoon 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, our Church is as his dwelling house. Locavit vineam, He let out his vine to husbandmen; and then Peregrè profectus, He went into a fare country, he promised a Messiah, but deferred his coming a long time. But to us Dabitur regnum, A kingdom is given: here is a good improvement, & the lease changed 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 an all-sufficiency in the gift. And he doth not go into a fare country, but stays with us, to govern us Vsque ad consummationem, Until 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, and he builds upon us: Vos dei agricultura, & Dei aedificium; You are God's husbandry, and God's building. Now of this husbandry God speaks familiarly and parabolically many times in Scripture, of this building particularly and principally in this place: where having intimated unto us the several benefits we receive from Christ Jesus, in that appellation as he is a stone, he tells us also our dangers, in misbehaving ourselves towards it; Whosoever shall fall upon this stone, he shall be broken. 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 unto us, in that Christ is presented unto 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 being most disunited: Thirdly, to be Lapis Jacob, The stone which Jacob slept upon: Fourthly, to be Lapis Davidis, The stone which David slew Goliath with: Fifthly, to be Lapis Petra, Such a stone as is a rock, as no waters or storms can remove or shake. These are benefits, Christ Jesus is a stone, no firmness but in him; a fundamental stone, no building but upon him; a corner stone, no piecing nor reconciliation but in him; David's stone, no revenge, no anger 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 upon us, and grind us to powder.  
First, in the Metaphor 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, saith S. John, He loved them to the end, 
John 13. 1.  not for any particular end, for any use of his own, but to their end Qui erant in mundo, saith 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 of him too, but even them who were themselves conceived in sin, and then conceived all their purposes in sin too; them who would have no cleansing but in his blood, and when they were cleansed in his blood, 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; and to long and to wish, if Christ were not crucified, to have him crucified now (which is a strange manner of expressing love) these men he loved, and loved to the end; men, and not Angels, Ad distinctionem mortuorum, saith 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 a faithful contemplation of a future promise, which they never saw performed; but those who were the partakers of the performance of the promises; those, in the midst of whom he came in person; those, upon whom he wrought by his piercing doctrine and powerful miracles; those, who for all this loved not him, he loved, Et in finem, he loved them to the end. It is much he should love them in fine, at their end; that he should look graciously at last; that when their sun sets, their eyes faint, his sun of grace should arise, and his East should 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 and last judgement, which to this purpose is all one; for the passing bell and the Angel's trump sound 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 in effect but one voice: for God at the general judgement shall never reverse any particular judgement formerly given: that God should then come to thy bedside Ad sibilandum populum suum, as the Prophet Ezechiel saith, to hisse 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 clangour 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 before, is a great testimony of an inexpressible love. But this love is not in fine, in the end; but in finem, to the end. He leaves them not uncalled at the first, he leaves them not unaccompanied in the way, he leaves them not unrecompensed at the last. That God, who is 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 
Matt. 14. 17  with Peter in the ship, in the storm: First he suffered him to be in some danger in the storm, but then he visits him with a strange assurance, Noli timere, Be not afraid, it is I: any testimony of his presence rectifies all. This puts Peter into that spiritual confidence and courage, 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 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, so soon as he saw a storm, Timuit, He was afraid; and Christ lets him fear, and lets him sink, and lets him cry▪ but he directs his fear and his cry to the right end: Domine, salvum me fac; Lord, save me; and thereupon he stretched forth his hand and saved him. God doth not raise his children to honour and great estate, and then leave them, and expose them to be subjects and exercises of the malice of others, neither doth he make them mighty and then leave them, ut glorietur in malo qui potens est, that he should think it a glory to do harm: he doth not impoverish and dishonour his children, and then leave them unsensible of that doctrine, that patience is as great a blessing as abundance. God gives not his people health, and then leaves them to a boldness in surfeiting; nor beauty, and then leaves them to a confidence, and opening themselves to all solicitations; nor valour, and then leaves them to a spirituous quarrelsomnesse: God makes no patterns of his works, nor models of his houses; he makes whole pieces, and perfect houses: he puts his children into good ways, and he directs and protects them in those ways; for this is the constancy and perseverance of the love of Christ Jesus to us, as he is called in this Text a stone.  
To come to the particular benefits, the first is, that he is Lapis fundamentalis, A foundation stone: for other foundation can no man lay, then that is laid, 
1. Cor. 3. 11  which is Jesus Christ. Now when S. Augustine says (as he doth in the 2 and 3 places) that this place of S. Paul to the Corinthians is one of those places, of which Peter says, Quaedam difficilia, There are some things in S. Paul hard to be understood; S. Augustine's meaning is, that the difficulty is in the next words, how any man should build stubble or hay upon such a 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, and reparation in a Redeemer, this is to remove this stone out of the foundation; for a Christian may well be content to begin at Christ: if any man therefore have laid any other foundation to his possession of great places, alliance in great families, strong practice in courts, obligations upon dependants, acclamations of people; if he have laid any other foundation, for pleasure and contentment, care of health and complexion, delight in discourse, cheerfulness in disporting, interchange of secrets, and such other small wares of court and cities as these are: whosoever hath laid such foundations as these, must needs do as that General did when he besieged a town, who compounded to take it to mercy upon a condition, that in sign of subjection they should suffer him to take one row of stones from their walls; whereupon 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 foundations, that is, these habits, divest the habit, root out the lowest stone, the general and radical inclination of 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 his sins, when he hath done them: his mercy works, by way of pardon after, not by way of an Obstante, and privilege, to do a sin beforehand; but beforehand he must be in the foundation, in our eye, when we undertake any particular action; in the beginning, for there he is to be in the first place, Lapis fundamentalis. And then after we have considered him in the foundation, as we are there all Christians, he grows to be Lapis angularis, to unite those Christians which seem to be of diverse ways, diverse aspects, diverse professions, together. As we consider him in the foundation, there he is the root of faith; as we consider him in the corner, there he is the root of charity. In Esay he is both together, a sure foundation, and a corner 
Isa. 28. 16.  stone, as he was in that place of Esay Lapis probatus, I will lay in Zion a tried stone; 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 together.  
Consider first what diverse 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 nature and innocence should meet together; a man that should not sin; that God's nature and mortality should meet together, be God that must die: briefly, that he should do and suffer many things, impossible as man, impossible as God; thus he was a cornerstone, that brought together natures naturally incompatible: Thus he was Lapis angularis, a cornerstone, in his person.  
Consider him in his offices, as a Redeemer, as a Mediator, and so he hath united God to man, rebellious men to jealous God; yea, such a corner stone, as hath builded heaven and earth, Jerusalem and Babel together; thus in his person, and thus in his offices.  
Consider him in his power, and he is such a cornerstone as he is the God of grace, and love, and union, and concord; such a cornerstone as is able to reconcile and unite (as he 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 will but consider Christ Jesus the life and soul of all our accounts, 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 our 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 could come to be friends, and yet both sides good Christians: then we placed this stone in the second right place: who as he is a cornerstone, reconciling God and man, in his own person; and God and man, in reconciling mankind in his office: so he desires to be a cornerstone in reconciling man and man, and setting peace amongst 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 meet closer in the bosom of Christ Jesus, where we must all at last either rest all together, or else be all together eternally thrown out, or be eternally separated and divorced one from another. Having then received Christ as a foundation stone, we believe aright; and for the cornerstone, we interpret charitably the opinions and accounts of other men: the next is, that he is Lapis Jacob, a stone of rest and security to our souls. When Jacob was in his journey, he took a stone, and that stone was his pillow; when that he slept all night, and rested upon the 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 the 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, Domine respice in testamentum, 
Psal. 74. 10.  O Lord consider the covenant: if we can remember God of his covenant to his people and to their seed, it is well. That is more, if we can clamber a step higher on this ladder, to a Domine labia mea aperi, if we can 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, if we can 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 than all these, if we can expostulate with God in an Vsque quò Domine? How long Lord shall I take counsel within myself, having weariness in my heart? These steps, these gradations to God do well. War is a degree of peace, as it is the way to prayer; and this colluctation and wrestling with God, brings a man to peace with him: But than is a man upon the stone of David, when in a fairer, and even, and constant religious course of life, he enters into sheets every night, as though his executours had closed him, as though his neighbours next day were to shroud and wind him in those sheets, and lies down every night, not as though his man was to call him up the next day morning to hunt, or to the next day's sport 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, that he is Lapis David, the stone with which he slew Goliath, and with which we may overcome all our enemies. Sicut baculus crucis, ità lapis Christi habet typum, says Augustine; David's sling was a type of the cross, and the stone was a type of Christ. We will choose to insist upon spiritual enemies, sins. And this is the stone that enables the weakest man to overthrow the strongest sin, if he proceed as David did. David said to Goliath, Thou comest to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a shield; but I come unto thee in the name of the God of hosts, of Israel, whom thou hast railed upon. 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, in that there is a loud and active blasphemy against God in every sin; if it desire to come with a sword, or a spear, persuasions of advancement if thou do it, threatenings of dishonour if thou do it not; if it come with a shield, with promises to cover and palliate it if thou do it: if then this David, thy attempted soul, can put his hand into his bag, as David did, (for, Quid cor hominis nisi sacculus Dei? man's heart is that bag in which God lays up all good directions) if he can take into his consideration his Christ Jesus, and sling out his works, his commandments, his merits; this Goliath, this giant sin will fall to the ground. And then as it is said of David there, 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 that which my Saviour hath done for me, I shall give this sin the first death's wound, and then I shall kill him with his own sword; his own abomination, his own foulness shall make me detest him: if I dare but look him in the face, if I dare call him, I come in the name of the Lord, if I consider him, I shall triumph over him: Et dabit certandi victoriam, qui dedit certandi audaciam; That God who gave me courage to fight, will give me courage to overcome.  
The last benefit, which we consider in Christ as he is a stone, is, that he is Petra, A rock: the rock gave water to the Israelites, and he gave them honey 
Num. 20. 11.  out of the stone, and oil out of the rock. Now when S. Paul saith that our fathers drank of the same rock, as we heard, that rock was Christ, so 
1. Cor. 10. 4  that all temporal and spiritual blessings to us, and to our 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 tribulation. And therefore Laudate Dominum habitationes petrae, 
Isa. 42. 11.  says the Prophet, You that are inhabitants of this rock, you that dwell in Christ, and Christ in you, you that dwell in earth, in this rock, praise ye the Lord, bless him, and magnify him for ever. If the son shall ask bread of the father, will he give him a stone, as is Christ's question? Yes, O blessed Father, we ask no other: answer to our petition; no better satisfaction to our necessity, when we say, Da nobis hodie panem, Give us this day our daily bread, then that thou give us this stone, this rock, thyself in the Church for our direction, thyself in thy sacraments for our refection; what hardness soever we find there, what corrections soever we receive there, all shall be of easy digestion and good nourishment to us: thy holy Spirit of patience shall command these stones to 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 our corner stone, we are at peace with all the world in him: as he is jacob's stone, giving us peace in ourselves; and David's stone, giving us victory over all 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 the first place.  
It is some degree of thankfulness to stand long 
TWO Part.  in the contemplation of the benefits which we have received, and therefore we have insisted thus long upon this first part: But it is a degree of spiritual wisdom too, to make haste to the considerations of our dangers, and therefore we come now to them: we will 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 frangi, Quid cadere; What that falling upon this stone is, and what it is to be broken upon it; and then the latitude of this, Vnusquisque, that whosoever falls so, is so broken. First then because Christ loves us to the end, therefore some will never put him to it, never trouble him till then. As the wise man said of Manna, that 
Wisd. 16. 25  it had abundance of all pleasures in it, and was meet for all tastes, that is (as Expositors interpret it) that Manna tasted to every man like that which every man liked best: so hath this stone Christ Jesus abundance of all qualities of stone in it; and it is such a stone to every man, as he desires it should. Unto you that believe, saith S. Peter, he is 
1. Pet. 2. 7.  a precious stone; but unto the disobedient, a stone to stumble at: for if a man walk in a gallery, where windows and statues and tables are all of marble, yet if he walk in the dark, or blindefolded, 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, whose foundation, and gates, and walls are all precious stone; yet if a man bring misbelief, all his 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, then of persecution, and then we will believe him to be King: if he 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 Colleagueship, that he and the world may join in government, that we may give the week to the world, and the sabbath unto 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 can be content to admit him: but Nolumus regnare, We will not admit of his 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 charge to his Angels, and therefore we need not look to our own ways; he hath locked us up safe, and lodged us safely 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 chrysolites which are mentioned there, that is, in the outward common and fellowship of God's saints; yet he may bruise, and break, and batter himself as much against these, 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, can fall no lower, till he fall to hell; but he whom God hath brought into his Church, if he come to a confident security that he is gone fare enough in these outward acts of religion, he falls, though he be upon this stone. This is the place of the true Church; the falling itself (as fare as will fall into one time of consideration now) is a falling into some particular sin, but not of such as quenches our faith; we fall so as we may rise again: S. Jerome expresseth it so, Qui cadit, & tamen credit, He that falls and yet believes, revocatur per poenitentiam ad salutem, that man is reserved by God's purpose to come by repentance to salvation: for this man that falls here, falls not so desperately, as that he feels nothing between him and hell, nothing to stop at, nothing to check him by the way: Cadit super, he falls upon something, 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 and pain upon his fall, a remorse of that sin that he is fallen into. And in this fall our infirmities appear three ways: the first is, Impingere in lapidem; for though he be upon the right stone, in the true religion, and have life enough, yet Impingimus meridie, (as the Prophet says) Even 
Isa. 59 10.  at noon we stumble: we have much more light by Christ being come, than the Jews had, but are sorry we have it: when Christ said to us, for the better understanding of the Law, He that looks and lusts, hath committed adultery; he that covets, 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 covet, and give way to our passions, as we should find it most to conduce to our ease and to our ends: and this is Impingere, to stumble, and not to go on in an equal pace, & not to do the will of God cheerfully. And a second degree is, Calcitrare, to kick and to spurn at this stone, 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 that shall be against it, there is but a little evil for a great good, and there is a great deal of time to recover and repent that little evil. Now to remove a stone that was a landmark, and to hide and cover that stone, was all our fault in the Law: to hide the will of God from our own conscience with excuses and extenuations, 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 word of the text, Cadere. He falls as a piece of money into a river; we hear it fall, and we see it sink, and by and by we see it deep, and at last we see it not at all: so no man falls at first into any sin, but he hears his own fall, there is a tenderness in his own conscience at the beginning, at the entrance into a sin, and he discerns a while the degrees of sinking too, but at last he is out of his own sight, till he meet this stone, some hard reprehension, some hard passage of a sermon, some hard judgement in a Prophet, some cross in the world, something from the mouth, or something from the hand of God, that breaks him, he falls upon this stone and is broken. So that to be broken upon this stone, is 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 in again: though we be not vessels of innocence (for who is so? and for that, Enter not into judgement with thy servant) 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 which it suffers is not always or not only according to the height that it falls from, and that violence that it is thrown down 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 in pieces and ground to powder. But if they fall not from too fare a distance, if they lived within any nearness, any consideration of God, if they have not fallen with violence, taken heat and force in the way, grown confident in the practice of their sins they fall upon; if this stone sink and stop at Christ, this shall break them, break their force and confidence, break their presumption and security, but yet it shall leave enough in them for the holy Ghost to revet to his service; yea, the sin itself Cooperatur ad bonum, as the 
Rom. 8. 28.  Apostle says, the very fall itself shall be an occasion of rising: And therefore if S. Augustine seem to venture fare, it is not too fare, when he says, Audeo dicere, It is boldly said, and yet I must say it, Vtile esse, cadere in aliquod manifestum peccatum; A sinner falls into his advantage, that falls into some such sin, as he being manifested to the world, manifests his own sinful state to his sinful conscience too; it is well for that man that falls so, as that he may thereby look the better to his footing ever after: Dicit Dominus, Susceptor meus es tu, says S. Bernard; That man hath a new title to God, a new name for God. All creatures (as S. Bernard sayeth) enlarge this meditation, can say, Creator meus es tu, 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 who hath been overcome by a temptation, and is restored, can say, Lord thou hast supported me, thou hast recollected my shivers, and reveted 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 rest and peace upon it. Now there is in this part this circumstance more, Quicunque cadit, Whosoever falls; where the Quicunque is Vnusquisque; Whosoever falls, that is, Whosoever he be, he falls: Quomodo cecidisti de coelo Lucifer? says 
Isa. 14. 12.  the Prophet Isaiah; the Prophet wonders how Lucifer should fall, having no body to tempt him, for so many of the Ancients 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 should the sons of man, which inherit his weakness, and contracting more and more, contribute their temptations to another, hope to stand? Adam fell, and he fell a longè, afar off, for he could see no stone to fall upon, when he fell; their Messiah was no such Messiah, no such means of reparation proposed or promised: when he fell, the blessed Virgin, and the forerunner of Christ, John Baptist, fell too; but they fell propè, near hand, they fell but a little way, for they had this stone 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, Vnusquisque cadit; Whosoever falls, is, Whosoever he be, he falls; and whosoever falls too, as we said before, is broken, if he fall upon something, 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 (none harder, sharper, raggeder then this) not to a diffidence or distrust in God's mercy; he that falls so, and is broken so, comes to a remorseful, 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 and sacraments, and other the medicinal meditations of Christ in his Church.  
We must end only with touching upon the 
III Part.  third part, Upon whom this stone falls, it will grind him to powder: where we shall only tell you, 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 irrevocable estate in sin, as that no medicinal correction from God, no breaking, no bowing, no melting, no mending 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 healths (for we will attribute that to weakness of stomach, to surfeit in digestion) not by breaking us in our estates (for we will impute that to falsehood in servants, to oppression of great adversaries, to iniquity of judges) not by breaking us in our honours (for we will accuse for that, factions and practices and supplications in court) when God cannot break us with his corrections, but that we will attribute them to some natural, some accidental causes, and never think of God's judgements which are the true causes of these afflictions: when God cannot break us by breaking our backs, by laying an heavy load of calamities upon us; nor by breaking our hearts, by putting us into a sad and heavy, but fruitless sorrow and melancholy, for these worldly losses: then he comes to break us by breaking our necks, by casting us into the bottomless pit, and falling upon us there in his wrath and indignation. Comprimam eos in pulverem, says David, I will beat them as dust before the wind, and tread them as flat as the clay in the street; and the breaking thereof shall be as the breaking of a potter's vessel, which is broken without any pity, no pity from God, nor shall any pity them: the Prophet saith further, There is not found 
Isa. 30. 14.  a sheard to take fire from the hearth, but uncapable of one drop of Christ's blood from heaven, or of any tear of contrition in themselves; not a sheard to fetch water at the pit. I will break them as a potter's 
Jer. 19 11.  vessel, Quod non potest instaurari, says God in Jeremiah: 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 shall draw them, no threatening of God's judgements shall drive them, no censure 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 neither millstone, and so shall grind the reprobate sinner to powder.  
Lastly, this is to be done by falling upon him; and what is that? I know some expositors take it to be but the falling of God's judgements upon him in this world: there is no grinding to powder: All God's judgements here (for any thing we can know) have the nature of physic in them; and no man is here so absolutely broken in pieces, but that he may be reunited. We choose to follow the Ancients in this, that the falling of the stone upon the reprobate, is Christ's last and irrevocable falling upon him in his last judgement, that when he shall wish that the hills might fall and cover him, this stone shall fall and grind him to powder. He shall be broken, and be no more found, says the Prophet 
Dan. 11. 19  Daniel: yea, he shall be broken, and be no more sought, no man shall consider him what he is now, or what he was before; for that stone which in Daniel was cut out without the hand, which was a figure of Christ, who came without ordinary generation, when that great image was to be overthrown, broke not an arm or leg, but the whole image in pieces; and it wrought not only upon the weak parts, but it broke all the clay and the iron, the brass, the silver, the gold: so when a stone falls thus, when Christ comes to judgement, he shall not only condemn him for his clay, his earthly covetous sins; not for his iron, his revengeful and oppressing and rusty sins; nor for his brass, his shining and glistering sins, which he hath filled and polished: but he shall fall upon his silver, his gold, his religious, his precious sins, his hypocritical hearing of sermons, his Pharisaical giving of alms, and aswell 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. Sicut pluit laqueos, says David, As God reigned snares and springs upon them in this world, abundance of temporal blessings, to be occasions of sin unto them; so pluet 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 when he prepared for a sin; there shall fall upon him that written law which cried out from the mouths of the Prophets in these places to avert them from sin; there shall fall upon him those sins that he hath done, and those sins which he hath not done, if nothing but want of opportunity and means hinder him from doing them; there shall fall upon him these sins which he hath done after another's dehortation, & those which another hath done after his provocation: there the stones of Nineve shall fall upon him, and of as many cities as have repent, with less proportions of mercy and grace then God afforded him; there the rubbish of Sodom and Gomorrah shall fall upon him, and as many cities as their ruin might have been example to him: all those stones shall fall upon him; and, to add weight to these, Christ Jesus himself shall fall upon his conscience with unanswerable questions, and grind his soul to powder: but He that overcometh, his soul 
Revel. 2. 11  shall not be hurt by the second death. He that comes to remorses early and earnestly after a sin, and seeks by ordinary means his reconciliation to God in his Church, is in the best estate that man can be in now: for howsoever we can say now, that repentance is as happy an estate as innocence; yet certainly every 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 easily repeat those words of S. Augustine, Audeo dicere, I dare be bold to say, that many a man hath been the better for some sin. Almighty God, who hath given us civil wisdom to make use of our enemies, give us also this heavenly wisdom to make that use of our particular sins, that thereby our wretched condition in ourselves, and our means of reparation in Christ Jesus, may be manifested unto us: To whom, etc.  
FINIS.   

A SERMON Upon the xxii verse of the v Chapter of JOHN.  
Bianca Dr. DONNE DEAN OF PAUL'S.  
¶ Printed by the Printers to the University of CAMBRIDGE.  
MDCXXXIIII.   
John 5. 22. The Father Judgeth no man, but hath committed all Judgement to the Son. 
WHen our Saviour Christ forbids us to cast pearls before swine, we understand 
Matth. 7. 6.  ordinarily in that place, that by pearls are understood the Scriptures: and when we consider the natural generation and production of pearls, 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 that 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, the Son is: for first, he says he is a partner, a copartner with the Father in the present administration and government of the world; My Father worketh hitherto, 
John 5. 17  and I work: well, if the Father ease himself upon instruments now, yet was it so from the beginning? had he a part in the creation? yes: What 
John 5. 19  things soever the Father doth, those also doth the Son likewise. But doth this extend to the works properly and naturally belonging to God, to the remission of sins, to the infusion of grace, to the spiritual resurrection of them that are dead in their iniquities? yes, even to that too: For as the 
John 5. 21.  Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. But hath not this power a determination and expiration? shall it end at the least when the world ends? no, not then; for God hath given him authority to execute 
John 5. 27.  judgement, because he is the Son of man. Is there then no Supersedeas upon the commission? is the Son equal with the Father in our eternal election, 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 the pearl made up: the dew of God's grace sprinkle 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 aswell as perfect man, fit and 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, no future actions of ours were considered by God to our fruition and possession of that election, where all our accounts 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 fountain 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 commission, Omne, All judgement, so that we cannot carry our thoughts so high or so fare backwards, as to think of any judgement given upon us in God's purpose or decree, without relation to Christ; nor so fare forwards, as to think 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 is first: the Father cannot divest himself of that; that is next: the third is, that he hath committed it to another: and then the person, and that is his delegate, 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 Part. I his in criminal causes. 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 & plenitudo ejus, The earth is the Lords, and all that is in and on the earth; your silver mine, and your gold mine, says the Prophet, and the beasts upon a thousand mountains are mine, says David: you are the usufructuaries of them, but I am proprietary. No attribute of God is so often iterated in the Scriptures, no act of God so often inculcated as this judge and judgement, no word concerning God so often repeated: but it is brought to the height in that place of the Psalm, where we read, God judgeth among the gods, the 
Psal. 82. 1.  Latin Church ever read it, Deus dijudicat deos, God judgeth the gods themselves: for though God say of judges and magistrates, Ego dixi, Dii estis, I have said, You are gods (and if God say it, who shall gainsay it?) yet he says too, Moriemini sicut homines; the greatest gods upon earth 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 dominions with discourse for the future: but the farthest of all is, Deus dijudicabit deos, even these judges must come to judgement: and therefore that Psalm which gins 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 the 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. Tertullian read 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 like men, weakly; and they fall (that is worse) ignominiously; and they fall like princes (that is worse) fearfully and scornfully; and when they are dead and fallen, they rise no more to execute judgement, but to have judgement executed upon them: the Lord dies not, he falls not; and if he seem to slumber, the martyrs under the altar awake him with their Vsque quò, 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: 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, we must consider in God three notions, three apprehensions, three kinds of judgements. First, God hath Judicium detestationis; God doth naturally know, and therefore naturally detest all evil: for no man in the extremest corruption of nature is yet fallen so fare, 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 appropinquavit, 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 
Rom. 3. 20.  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 hands! for some things are sins to one nation, which are not so to another; and where the just authority of the lawful Magistrate changes the nature of the thing, that which is naturally indifferent, is necessary to them who are under his obedience: some things are sins at one time, which are not so at another, as all the ceremonial Law created new sins, which were not sins before that 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 a sin in him to omit it, when he hath digested the scruple. Only God hath Judicium detestationis, he knows and therefore detests evil: and therefore flatter not thy soul 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, as it is a degree of superstition, and an effect of an indiscreet zeal perchance, to be too forward by making indifferent things necessary, and so to imprint the nature and sting of sin, where naturally it is not (for certainly it is a most slippery and irreligious thing to be too apt to call things merely indifferent, and to forget that even in eating and drinking, walking and sleeping, the glory of God is intermingled; as if we knew exactly the presence 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 consider duly wherein the glory of God might be promoted in every action of ours, there could scarce be 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 call me to consider that thing as it is in nature, and not as it is conditioned with the 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. As he is a Judge so, judicat rem, he judges the nature of a thing; he is so too, that he hath judicium discretionis, and so judicat personam: he knows what is evil, and he discerns when thou committest that evil. Here you are fain to supply defects of laws, that things done in our country may be tried in another; and that in offences of high nature, transmarine offences might be enquired and tried here: but as the Prophet says, Who hath measured the waters in the hollow 
Isa. 40. 12.  of his hand, or meted out 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 or jurisdictions there, that God should not have and exercise judicium discretionis, the power of discerning all actions in all places, when there was no more to be seen nor 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 or speak too vulgarly of him, to say that he hovered like a falcon over Paradise, and that from the 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 ear 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 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 in 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, and all the rulers of the earth take counsel together against 
Psal. 2. 2.  the Lord; take it in this union, or this disunion; in this concord, or this disconcord; still the Lord that sitteth in the heavens discerns all, looks at all, laughs at all, and hath them in derision. Earthly judges have their districtions, 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 bounded: 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, and 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 nor to extend that law, but to know what was the true meaning of the lawmaker, when he made that law; God hath this judgement in perfection, because he himself made that Law by which he judges. When he hath said, Stipendium peccati mors est, Every sin shall be rewarded with death; If I sinne against the 
1. Sam. 2. 25  Lord, who shall entreat for me? who shall give any other interpretation, 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 three respects, so he is a Judge in them all Sine appellatione, and Sine judiciis: man cannot appeal from God: God needs no evidence from man. For the appeal first, to whom should we appeal from the Sovereign? wrangle as long as we will, who is chief Justice, and which County hath jurisdiction one over another? I know the chief Justice, and I know the Sovereign court; the King of heaven and earth shall send his ministering spirits, his Angels, to the womb and bowels of the earth, and to the bosom and bottom of the sea, and earth and sea shall deliver Corpus cum causa, all the bodies of the dead, and all their actions, to receive a judgement in his court; when it will be an erroneous and frivolous appeal to call to the hills to fall down upon us, and to the mountains to cover and hide us from the wrathful judgement of God.  
He is Judge then, Sine appellatione, Without any appeal from him; he is so too Sine judiciis, Without any evidence from us. Now if I be wary in my actions here, incarnate devils, detractours and informers cannot accuse me: if my sin come not into 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 the heart: Doth not he that pondereth the heart, understand 
Prov. 24. 12  it? where it is not in that faint word which the vulgar edition hath expressed it in, Suspector cordium, that God sees the heart; but the word is Fochen, that is, every where to weigh, to number, to search, to examine; as the word is used by Solomon: again, The Lord weigheth the spirits: and 
Prov. 16. 2.  it must be a steady hand and exact scales that shall weigh spirits: so 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 further danger? in this which follows there, in S. Paul, He that judgeth 
1. Cor. 4. 4.  me is the Lord: and the Lord hath means to know my heart better than myself. And therefore S. Augustine makes use of those words, Abyssus 
Psal. 42. 9  abyssum invocat, One depth calls up another, the infinite depth of my sins must call upon the infinite depth of God's mercy: for if God who is a Judge in all these respects, Judicio detestationis (he knows and abhors evil) and Judicio discretionis (he discerns every evil person and every evil action) and Judicio retributionis (he can and will recompense evil with evil) and all these Sine appellatione (we cannot appeal from him) and Sine judiciis (he needs no evidence from us) if this Judge enter into judgement with me, not only not I, but not the most righteous man, nay, 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 then being thus, that judgement is an inseparable Part. TWO character of God, and God the Father 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 it is truly said here, The Father judgeth no man; it is truly 
John 8. 5.  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 
Jer. 29. 23.  Villainy in Israel, even I know it, saith the Lord: still it is true that he hath Judicium retributionis; The Lord killeth, and maketh alive; he bringeth 
1. Sam. 2. 6.  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 on high. 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 judgeth 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 sheep from goats to everlasting glory or condemnation: In all these three judgements all the three persons of the Trinity are Judges. Consider God all together, 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 of the Trinity do some things which the other persons of the Trinity are not interessed in: the Son had not generation from himself, so as he had from the Father; and the holy Ghost, as a distinct person, had none at all; the holy Ghost had a proceeding from the Father and the Son, but from the Son a person, who had his generation from another, but not so from the Father. Not to stray into clouds or perplexities in the 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 as well, and rescribe as much as we can for our two last considerations, the Cui and the Quid, To whom, and that is to the Son; and what he hath committed, and that is all judgement; we will not stand much upon this, more needs not then this, that God in his wisdom foreseeing that man by his weakness would not be able to settle himself upon the consideration of God and his judgements, as they are merely spiritual and heavenly, 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 & 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 unto 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 his promise to his race; but he would proceed further, and seal it with a sensible seal in his flesh, with circumcision. He might have let him rest in that ratification, that a Messiah should come by that way: but he would refresh it by a continual succession of Prophets till the Messiah 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 that the natural inclination of man, who when he cannot have or cannot comprehend the original and prototype, desires to satisfy and refresh himself with a picture and representation: so, though God hath forbidden us that slippery, 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 to us, more apprehensible by us: 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 manifesting, is In Filio, In his Son.  
But in our entrance into the handling of this, we ask only this question, Cui Filio? To which Son of God is this commission given? not that God hath more sons then one, but because that one Son is his Son by a twofold filiation; by an internal and expressible generation, and by a temporary and 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 reverend Divines of the Reformation amongst themselves to differ: But yet neither am I willing to raise doubts, and leave the auditory unsatisfied and unsettled. We are not upon a lecture, but upon a sermon, and therefore we will not multiply variety of opinions. Summe up the Fathers upon one side in S. Ambrose mouth, and they will say with him, Deditutique generando, non largiendo, God gave his Son this commission then, and when was that then? then when he begat him, and then he must have it by his eternal generation, as the Son of God. Sum up the Fathers now on the other side in S. 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 or given to Christ, belongs to Christ as the son of man, and not as the Son of God, as that the 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 this commission to Christ as man; but Christ had not been capable of this commission, if he had not been God too: and so it is easily to be reconciled. If we shall hold simply to the letter of the text, Pater dedit, than it will seem to be committed unto him in his eternal generation, because that was a work of the Father 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) and that is as he is man; for, Tota Trinitas univit 
August.  humanitatem, 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 vita naturaliter est, We cannot say that Christ hath life, but that he is Life, and the 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 hominem dicitur, Quid habes quod non accepisti? when S. Paul says, What hast thou that thou hast not received? he asks that question of man; that which is received, is received as man. For Bellarmine in a place where he disposes himself to quarrel at some form of 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 and filiation he hath from his Father; he hath the name of Son, but he hath not the execution of this judgement, by that relation, by that filiation: still as he is the Son of God, he hath that capacity; as the son of man, he hath the execution. And therefore Prosper, that follows S. Augustine, limits it (perchance too narrowly) to the flesh, to the humanity; Ipsa, non ipse, erit Judex, quae sub judice stetit; & ipsa judicabit, quae judicata 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 
Act. 17. 31.  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 God 
Psal. 82. 8.  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 S. Augustine, Dormivisti judicatus à terra, surge & judica terram: so that to collect all, though judgement be such a character of God as God 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, omnem potestatem: It is presented in the name of judgement, but it involves all. It is literally and particularly judgement in S. John; The Father hath given him authority to 
John 5. 27.  execute judgement: it is extended into power in S. Matthew; All power is given to me in heaven and 
Matt. 28. 18  in earth: and it is enlarged as fare further, as can be expressed, in another place of S. Matthew; All 
Matt. 11. 27  things are delivered me of my Father. Now all this our Saviour Christ Jesus exercises either Per carnem, or at the least In carne; whatsoever the Father does, the Son does also In carne, because now there is an inseparable union between God and humane nature: the Father creates new souls every day in the inanimation of children, and the Son creates them with him. The Father concurres with all second causes, as the first moving cause of all in natural things. And all this the Son doth too, but this is 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 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, or (to refresh your memories) 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 justification here, severing friends from enemies; and then the judgement of glorification, severing the sheep from the goats: 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 endeavour to conform myself unto him: and if I do that, there I find my predestination, I am a Christian, and I will not offer 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 separating of vessels of honour and dishonour, in election and reprobation, was Jesus Christ.  
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 unto you there, it is the blood of Christ which is presented unto you there; there is no other name given under heaven whereby you may be saved, there are no other means given wherein salvation should be applied in his name, but those which he hath instituted in his Church: so that when I come to the second judgement, to try whether I stand justified in the sight of God 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 the Church by Baptism? do I find that I have endeavoured to perform those conditions? do I find remorse when I have not performed them? do I seek the message of remission of sins, from the mouth of his minister? have I a true and sound 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, that is easily agreed by all, that it appertains to Christ. Idem Jesus, The same Jesus that ascended, shall come to judgement: Videbunt quem pupugerunt. Every 
Apoc. 1. 7.  eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him. Then the son of man shall come in glory, & 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, 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 a detestation of occasions of future sins, that you durst welcome that Angel that 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 could say unfeignedly and effectually, Veni Domine Jesus, Come Lord Jesus, 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 sakes he committed all judgement to the Son.  
FINIS.   

A SERMON Upon the xv verse of the viii Chapter of JOHN.  
Bianca Dr. DONNE DEAN OF PAUL'S.  
¶ Printed by the Printers to the University of CAMBRIDGE.  
MDCXXXIIII.   
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 diverse senses, and to admit diverse interpretations: in such an appearance doth the text differ from that which I handled in the morning. And as heretofore I found it an usual and acceptable labour, to employ our evening exercises upon the vindicating of such places of Scripture, as our adversaries of the Roman Church had detorted in some points 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 an usual and acceptable labour now, to employ for a time these evening exercises, to reconcile some such places of Scripture as may at first sight seem to differ one from another. In the morning we saw how Christ judged all; now we are to see how he judgeth none, I judge no man.  
To come then to these present words, here we have the same person Christ Jesus; and hath he not the same office? is not he Judge? certainly though he retain all his other offices, though he be the Redeemer, and hath shed 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 Gods eternal decree: was he our Judge then, and is he not 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, by his sacraments: was he, and is he, and shall he not be our Judge still? I am 
Job 19 25.  sure my Redeemer liveth, and he shall stand at the last day on the earth; so that Christ Jesus is the same to day, and yesterday, and for ever, before the world began, and world without end; sicut erat in principio, as he was in the beginning, he is, and shall be ever our Judge.  
So that then these words are not the tempore, 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. First, In secularibus, in civil and criminal businesses, which belong merely to the judicature and cognisance of the world, Judicat neminem, Christ judges no man. Secondly, 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 thirdly, 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 or remission of sins in this world, Judicat neminem, He judges no man. First, Christ usurps upon no man's jurisdictions; that were against justice. Secondly, he imputes no false things to any man; that were against charity. Thirdly, Christ induces no man to desperation; that were against faith: and against justice, against charity, against faith, Judicat neminem.  
First then, Christ judges not in secular judgements, Part. I and we note his absence therein, first in civil matters. When one of the company said unto him, Master, bid my brother divide the inheritance with me, (as S. Augustine says) the party thought his cause to be just, and he thought Christ to be a competent Judge in the cause; yet Christ declines the judgement, disavows the authority, and he answers, Homo, quis me constituit judicem? 
Luk. 12. 14.  Man, who made me a judge between you two? That general which we had in the morning, Omne judicium, The Son hath all judgement, here is an exception of the same Judges making: for in secular judgement Nemo constituit, He had no commission; and therefore Judicat neminem, He judges no man: he forbore in civil, he forbore in criminal matters too. For when the woman taken in adultery was brought before him, 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? Quis te? Who made you a judge of kings, and that you should depose them in criminal causes? or who made you proprietour of kingdoms, that you should dispose of them as of civil inheritance? when to countenance such a pretence, they detort places of Scripture not only perversely, but senselessly, blasphemously, and ridiculously (as ridiculously as in their pasquils) when in an undiscreet shamelessness, to make their power greater than it is, they make their fault greater than it is too, and fill their histories with kings deposed by Popes, which in truth were not deposed by them (for in that they are more innocent than they confess themselves) when some of their authors say that the Primitive Church abstained from deposing of the Emperors, only because she was not strong enough to do it; when some of them say that all the 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 the world will never be well governed till the Pope himself puts himself in possession of all (all which several propositions are in several authors of good reputation amongst them) will he not endure Christ's own question, Quis to constituit? Who made you a 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 to carry it. Did he do it by his example and practise? we see he abstained in civil, he abstained in criminal causes. When they come to their last shift, that Christ did exercise judiciary authority, when he whipped merchants out of the temple, when he cursed the figtree, and damnified the owner thereof, 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 Bishops 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, by massacres, & that of millions, by withdrawing subjects from their allegiance, by assassinating and murdering of princes; when we know that miracles are without means, and we see the means of his proceed, the miracle ceaseth: howsoever that Bishop, as Christ's Vicar, can claim no other power than was ordinary in Christ, and so exercised by Christ; and so Judicat neminem, In secular judgement Christ judges no man; and therefore that Bishop, as his Vicar, should not.  
Secondly, Christ judges no man by calumny, Part. TWO by imputing or laying false aspersions upon him, nor true things extrajudicially: for that is a degree of calumny, and slander, and detraction, 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, and calumniated the 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 see how to avoid it actively, and how to bear it passively, I must by your leave stop a little upon it.  
When we would present to 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 a 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 the world esteems them to be. Collect them again (for that is all we are able to do) that he is a direct calumniatour, that imputes a false crime, that aggravateth a true crime, that discovers any crime extrajudicially; That he is an indirect calumniatour, that denies another man's sufficiencies, that conceals them, that diminishes them. Take in some of S. Bernard's examples of these rules, that it is a calumny to say, Doleo vehementer, I am sorry at the heart for such a man, because I love him, but I would never draw him from such and such vice; or to say, Per me nunquam innotuisset, I should 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 gravamine & 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 being the example, who amongst us is free from the passive calumny? whom amongst us hath not some other man calumniated? nay, who is free from the active part? which of us hath not in some of these degrees calumniated some other?  
But those of whom Christ makes this exception here, that he judges no man as they judge, were such calumniatours as David speaks of, Sedens adversus fratrem tuum loquebaris, Thou sattest and 
Psal. 50. 20  spakest against thy neighbour: as S. Augustine notes upon that place, Non transitoriè, non surreptionis passione, sed quasi ad hoc vacans; Not by chance and 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 an aspersion upon the person, so thou art a calumniatour. They eat up my people like 
Psal. 53. 5.  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, we taste of this dish, and we taste of that. Non semper hoc olus, says he; We do not always eat of one salad, one meat, one kind of fruit; sed semper panem; whatsoever we eat else, we eat bread: howsoever they employed their thoughts or their wits otherwise, it was ever 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 children of fools derided them: and when Saul was in his last, but 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 judgeth no man, as they did, Secundum carnem, neither Secundum carnem ejus, according to the outward appearance (for they thought no better of Christ than he seemed to be (as some Fathers take that phrase) Nec secundum carnem suam, nor according to his own fleshly passions, as some others take it; judge not you neither. First, Judge not that ye be 
Matt. 7. 1.  not judged, that is, (as Ambrose interprets it well enough) Nolite judicare de judiciis Dei, When you see God's judgements fall upon a man, do not you judge that that man sinned more than you; when you see another man born blind, do not you think that he or his father had sinned, and that you are only derived from a pure generation; especially Non maledicas surdo, Speak not evil of the deaf that 
Leu. 19 14.  hears not, that is, as Gregory interprets it (if not literally, yet appliably and usefully) Calumniate not him who is absent, 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 eris criminator; It is not plainly, There shall be no informer: for as we dispute, and 
Levit. 19 16  for the most part affirm in the School, that though we could, we may destroy no entire species of the creatures which God made at first, though it were a tiger or a viper, because this were to take one link of God's chain out of the world; so such vermin as informers, may not for some good use that 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 burn our neighbour's house, but to help him, if casually his house fall on fire: we are bound, where we have authority, to stop the mouths of other calumniatours; where we have no authority, yet (since as the north wind driveth 
Pro. 25. 23.  away rain, so an angry countenance driveth away a backbiting tongue) at least to deal so with a libeler, with a calumniatour: for he that looks pleasantly, and hearkens willingly to one libel, makes another, occasions a second. Always remember David's case, when he thought 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 restore fourfold; And David's anger was kindled, says the 
2. Sam. 12. 5.  text, and he swore, As the Lord liveth, that man shall restore fourfold: Et filius mortis, and he shall surely die. O judicis effluentem justitiam! O superabundant and overflowing justice, when we judge another in passion! But this is Judicium secundum carnem, according to which Christ judgeth no man: for Christ is Love, and that non cogitat malum, Love thinks no evil any way; the charitable man 
1. Cor. 13. 5.  neither meditates evil against another, nor believes easily any evil to be in another, though it be told him.  
Lastly, Christ judgeth no man Ad internecionem, he judges no man so 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 judgeth no man so as that he should see no remedy but to curse God and die, nor so as that he should say his sin were 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 
John 3. 17.  saved.  
Do not 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 is. 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 or reformation of thyself? if that be thy case, yet, If a man will hear my word, says Christ, and believe it not, I judge him not, he hath one that judgeth him; 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 the 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 further than this? hast thou committed scruples of diffidence and distrust of God's mercy, and so tasted of the lees of desperation? It is true, Perpetrare flagitium, est mors animae; sed desperare, est descensus ad inferos; In every sin thy soul dies, but in desperation it descends into hell: But yet, Portae inferni non praevalebunt, The 
Matt. 16. 18  gates of hell shall not prevail against thee. Assist thyself, argue thine own case; desperation itself may be without infidelity, desperation as well as hope is rooted in the desire of happiness. Desperation proceeds out of a fear of God, and horror of sin: desperation may consist with faith thus fare, that a man may have a true and faithful opinion in the general, that there is remission of sins to be had in the Church, and yet have a corrupt imagination in the particular, that to him in this sinful estate that he is in, this remission of sins shall not be applied; so that the resolution of the School is good, Desperatio potest esse ex solo excessu boni, Desperation may proceed out of excess of that which is good in itself, from any 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 hatred of sin? yes, they may: so forward 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 hast made thy case the harder, yet know still, that Objectum spei est arduum & possibile, The true object of hope is that which is hard to come by, yet possible to come by. And therefore as David said, By my God have I leapt over the wall, so by thy 
2. Sam. 22. 30.  God thou must break through the 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 judgeth 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 unto it, to think that thou hast done it: walk in that field, in the Scriptures of God, and from the first flower at the entrance, the flower of Paradise, Semen mulieris, the general promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, to the last word of that Messiah 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 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, and a little before his expiration, and yet recovered Paradise that day; and see if thou canst make any shift to exclude thyself. Receive the fragrancy of all these cordials, Vivit Dominus, 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 judicat, Christ judgeth no man to destruction here; and if thou find after all these antidotes a suspicious air, a suspicious working in that Impossibile est, that it is impossible for them who were once enlightened, if they fall away, to renew them again by repentance; sprinkle upon that wormwood of Impossibile est, that Manna of Quorum remiseritis, Whose sins ye remit, they are remitted; and than it will have another taste of thee, and then thou wilt see that that impossibility lies only upon them 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 despite the Church of God, and those means which Christ Jesus hath instituted in his Church for renewing of such as are fallen. To such it is impossible, because there are no other ordinary means possible: but that is not thy case, thy case is only a doubt that those means that are shall 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 blaspheming, daily profaning 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 conject both texts, Christ judgeth all men, and Christ judgeth no man; he claims all judgement, and he disavows all judgement; & they consist well together. He was at our creation, but that was not his first scene. The Arians, though they 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 which 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, sanctifies, and brings them to this 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 judgeth no man, so he denieth judgement. To usurp upon this jurisdiction of others, or to exercise any other judgement than was in his commission, as his pretended Vicar does, so he judges no man, so he disavows all judgement: to judge so as that our condemnation may be irremediable in this life, so he judgeth no man, so he forswears all judgement. As I live, saith the Lord of hosts, and, As I have died, saith the Lord Jesus, I judge none. Acknowledge his first judgement, thy election in him; cherish his second judgement, thy justification by him; breathe and pant after the third judgement, thy crown of glory for him: intent 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 judgeth no man.  
FINIS.