Fifty Sermons
First then, the person that directs us, is The Church; no man hath seen God, and lives; but no man lives till he have heard God; for God spake to him, in his Baptism, and called him by his name, then. Now, as it were a contempt in the Kings house, for any servant to refuse anything, except he might hear the King in person command it, when the King hath already so established the government of his house, as that his commandments are to be signified by his great Officers: so neither are we to look, that God should speak to us mouth to mouth, spirit to spirit, by Inspiration, by Revelation. for it is a large mercy, that he hath constituted an Office, and established a Church, in which we should hear him. When Christ was baptized by John, it is said by all those three Evangelists, that report that story, in particular circumstances, that there was a voice heard from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased: and it is not added in any of those three Evangelists, that that voice added, Hear him: for, after that Declaration, that he, who was visibly and personally come amongst them, was the Son of God, there was no reason to doubt of men's willingness to hear him, who went forth in person, to preach unto them, in this world; As long as he was to stay with them, it was not likely that they should need provocation, to hear him, therefore that was not added at his Baptism, and entrance into his personal ministry: But when Christ came to his Transfiguration, which was a manifestation of his glory, in the next world, and an intimation of the approaching of the time of his going away, to the possession of that glory, out of this world, there that voice from heaven says, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear him: When he was gone out of this world, men needed a more particular solicitation to hear him; for how, and where, and in whom should they hear him, when he was gone? In the Church, for the same testimony that God gave of Christ, to authorize and justify his preaching, hath Christ given of the Church, to justify her power: The holy Ghost fell upon Christ, at his Baptism, and the holy Ghost fell upon the Apostles, (who were the representative Church ) at Whitsuntide: The holy Ghost tarried upon Christ then, and the holy Ghost shall tarry with the Church, us{que} ad consummationem, till the end of the world, And therefore, as we have that institution from Christ, Dic Ecclesiae, when men are refractary and perverse, to complain to the Church, so have they who are complained of to the Church, that institution from Christ also, Audi Ecclesiam, Hearken to the voice of God, in the Church; and they have from him that commination, If you disobey them, you disobey God; in what fetters soever they bind you, you shall rise bound in those fetters; and, as he who is excommunicated in one Diocese, should not be received in another; so let no man presume of a better state, in the Triumphant Church, then he holds in the Militant, or hope for communion there, that despises excommunication here. That which the Scripture says, God says, (says St. Augustine ) for the Scripture is his word; and that which the Church says, the Scriptures say, for she is their word, they speak in her; they authorize her, and she explicates them; The Spirit of God inanimates the Scriptures, and makes them his Scriptures, the Church actuates the Scriptures, and makes them our Scriptures: Nihil salubrius, says the same Father, There is not so wholesome a thing; no soul can live in so good an air, and in so good a diet, Quàm ut Rationem praecedat authoritas, Then still to submit a man's own particular reason, to the authority of the Church expressed in the Scriptures: For, certainly it is very truly (as it is very usefully) said by Calvin, Semper nimia morositas, est ambitiosa, A frowardness, and an aptness to quarrel at the proceedings of the Church, and to be delivered from the obligations, and constitutions of the Church, is ever accompanied with an ambitious pride, that they might enjoy a licentious liberty; It is not because the Church doth truly take too much power, but because they would be under none; it is an ambition, to have all government in their own hands, and to be absolute Emperors of themselves, that makes them refractary: But, if they will pretend to believe in God, they must believe in God so, as God hath manifested himself to them, they must believe in Christ; so if they will pretend to hear Christ, they must hear him there, where he hath promised to speak, they must hear him in the Church.
The first reason then in this Trinity, the person that directs, is the Church; the Trumpet in which God sounds his Judgments, and the Organ, in which he delivers his mercy; And then the persons of the second place, the persons to whom the Church speaks here, are Filiae Zion, The daughters of Zion, her own daughters. We are not called, Filii Ecclesiae, sons of the Church: The name of sons may imply more virility, more manhood, more sense of our own strength, then becomes them, who profess an obedience to the Church: Therefore, as by a name, importing more facility, more supplenesse, more application, more tractableness, she calls her children, Daughters. But then, being a mother, and having the dignity of a Parent upon her, she does not proceed supplicatorily, she does not pray them, nor entreat them, she does not say, I would you would go forth, and I would you would look out, but it is Egredimini, & videte, imperatively, authoritatively, Do it, you must do it: So that she shows, what, in important and necessary cases, the power of the Church is, though her ordinary proceedings, by us, and our Ministry, be, To pray you, in Christ's stead, to be reconciled to God. In your baptism, your souls became daughters of the Church; and they must continue so, as long as they continue in you; you cannot devest your allegiance to the Church, though you would; no more then you can to the State, to whom you cannot say, • will be no subject. A father may dis-inherit his son, upon reasons, but even that dis-inherited child cannot renounce his father. That Church which conceived thee, in the Covenant of God, made to Christians, and their seed, and brought thee forth in baptism, and brought thee up in catechizing, and preaching, may yet, for thy misdemeanor to God in her; separate thee, à Mensa & Toro, from bed and board; from that sanctuary of the soul, the Communion Table, and from that Sanctuary of the body, Christian burial, and even that Christian burial gives a man a good rise, a good help, a good advantage, even at the last resurrection, to be laid down in expectation of the Resurrection, in holy ground, and in a place accustomed to God's presence, and to have been found worthy of that Communion of Saints, in the very body, is some earnest, and some kind of first-fruits, of the joyful resurrection, which we attend: God can call our dead bodies from the sea, and from the fire, and from the air, for every element is his; but consecrated ground is our element. And therefore you daughters of Zion, holy and religious souls, (for to them only this indulgent mother speaks here) hearken ever to her voice; quarrel not your mothers honor, nor her discretion: Despise not her person, nor her apparel; Do not say, she is not the same woman, she was heretofore, nor that she is not so well dressed, as she was then; Dispute not her Doctrine, Despise not her Discipline; that as you sucked her breasts in your Baptism, & in the other Sacrament, when you entered, and whilst you stayed in this life, so you may lie in her bosom, when you go out of it. Hear her; & a good part of that, which you are to hear from her, is envolv'd & inwrapped in that w ch we have proposed to you, for our third part, Go forth, & behold Solomon, &c.
Here are two duties enjoin'd; at least two steps, two degrees; Egredimini, Go forth, and then, Videte, Behold, contemplate; And, after the duty, or wrapped in the duty, we have the Object, which we are to look upon, & in that, divers things to be considered; as we shall see in their order. First, when we are bid to Go forth, it is not to go so far, as out of that Church, in which God hath given us our station; for, as Moses says, That the word of God is not beyond Sea; so the Church of God, is not so beyond Sea, as that we must needs seek it there, either in a painted Church, on one side, or in a naked Church, on another; a Church in a Dropsy, overflown with Ceremonies, or a Church in a Consumption, for want of such Ceremonies, as the primitive Church found useful, and beneficial for the advancing of the glory of God, and the devotion of the Congregation. That which Christ says to the Church it self, the Church says to every soul in the Church: Go thy way forth, by the footsteps of the flock; Associate thyself to the true shepherd, and true sheep of Christ Jesus, and stray not towards Idolatrous Chapels, nor towards schismatical Conventicles, but go by the footsteps of the flock; there must be footsteps, some must have gone that way before, take heed of Opinions, that begin in thyself; and the whole flock must have gone that way, take heed of opinions vented by a few new men, which have not had the establishment of a Church. And truly the best way to discern footsteps, is Daniel's way, Daniel's way was to straw ashes, and so their footsteps that had been there, were easily discerned: Walk in thine own ashes, in the meditation of thine own death, or in the ashes of God's Saints, who are dead before thee, in the contemplation of their example, and thou wilt see some footsteps of the flock, some impressions, some directions, how they went, and how thou art to follow, to the heavenly Jerusalem. In conversing evermore, with them which tread upon Carpets, or upon Marbles, thou shalt see no footsteps, Carpets and Marbles receive no impressions; Amongst them that tread in ashes, in the ways of holy sorrow, and religious humiliation, thou shalt have the way best marked out unto thee. Go forth, that is, go farther then thyself, out of thyself; at least out of the love of thyself, for that is but a short, a giddy, a vertiginous walk how little a thing is the greatest man? If thou have many rooms in thyself, many capacities to contemplate thyself in, if thou walk over the consideration of thyself, as thou hast such a title of Honor, such an Office of Command, such an Inheritance, such a pedigree, such a posterity, such an Allyance, if this be not a short walk, yet it is a round walk, a giddy, a vertiginous proceeding. Get beyond thine own circle; consider thyself at thine end, at thy death, and then Egredere, Go further then that, Go forth and see what thou shalt be after thy death.
Still that which we are to look upon, is especially ourselves, but it is ourselves, enlarged & extended into the next world; for till we see, what we shall be then, we are but short-sighted. Wouldst thou say, thou knew'st a man, because thou hadst seen him in his Cradle? no more canst thou be said, to have known thyself, because thou knowest the titles, and additions, which thou hast received in this world; for all those things w ch we have here, are but swaddling clouts, & all our motions, & preferments, from place, to place, are but the rocking of a cradle. The first thing that Christ says to his spouse in the Canticles, is, If thou know not thyself, (for so all the Ancients read it, and so the Original bears it) If thou know not thyself, O thou fairest of women; she might know, that she was the fairest of women, and yet not know her self; Thou mayst know, that thou art the happiest of men, in this world, and yet not know thyself. All this life is but a Preface, or but an Index and Repertory to the book of life; There, at that book begins thy study; To grow perfect in that book, to be daily conversant in that book, to find what be the marks of them, whose names are written in that book, and to find those marks, ingenuously, and in a rectified conscience, in thyself, To find that no murmuring at God's corrections, no disappointing of thy hopes, no interrupting of thy expectations, no frustrating of thy possibilities in the way, no impatience in sickness, and in the agony of death, can deface those marks, this is to go forth, and see thyself, beyond thyself, to see what thou shalt be in the next world. Now, we cannot see our own face, without a glass: and therefore in the old Temple, In, or about that laver of brass, where the water, for the uses of the Church was reserved, Moses appointed looking-glasses to be placed; that so, at the entering into the Temple, men might see themselves, and make use of that water, if they had contracted any foulness, in any part about them. Here, at your coming hither now, you have two glasses, wherein you may see yourselves from head to foot; One in the Text, your Head, Christ Jesus, represented unto you, in the name and person of Solomon, Behold King Solomon crowned, &c. And another, under your feet, in the dissolution of this great Monarch, our Royal Master, now laid lower by death then any of us, his Subjects and servants.
First then, behold yourselves in that first glass, Behold King Solomon; Solomon the son of David, but not the Son of Bathsheba, but of a better mother, the most blessed Virgin Mary. For, Solomon, in this text, is not a proper Name, but an Appellative; a significative word: Solomon is pacificus, the Peacemaker, and our peace is made in, and by Christ Jesus: and he is that Solomon, whom we are called upon to see here. Now, as Saint Paul says, that he would know nothing but Christ, (that's his first abridgement) and then he would know nothing of Christ, but him crucified, (and that's the re-abridgement) so we seek no other glass, to see ourselves in, but Christ, nor any other thing in this glass, but his Humiliation. What need we? Even that, his lowest humiliation, his death, is expressed here, in three words of exaltation, It is a Crown, it is a Marriage, it is the gladness of heart: Behold King Solomon crowned, &c.
The Crown, which we are called to see him crowned with, his mother put upon him; The Crown which his Father gave him, was that glory, wherewith he was glorified, with the Father, from all eternity, in his divine nature: And the Crown wherewith his Father crowned his Human nature, was the glory given to that, in his Ascension. His Mother could give him no such Crown: she her self had no Crown, but that, which he gave her. The Crown that she gave him, was that substance, that he received from her, our flesh, our nature, our humanity; and this, Athanasius, and this, Saint Ambrose, calls the Crown, wherewith his Mother crowned him, in this text, his infirm, his human nature. Or, the Corwn wherewith his Mother corwned him, was that Crown, to which, that infirm nature which he took from her, submitted him, which was his passion, his Crown of thorns; for so Tertullian, and divers others take this Crown of his, from her, to be his Crown of thorns: Woe to the Crown of pride, whose beauty is a fading flower, says the Prophet; But blessed be this Crown of Humiliation, whose flower cannot fade. Then was there truly a Rose amongst Thorns, when through his Crown of Thorns, you might see his title, Jesus Nazarenus: for, in that very name Nazarenus, is involved the signification of a flower; the very word signifies a flower. Isaiah's flower in the Crown of pride fades, and is removed; This flower in the Crown of Thorns fades not, nor could be removed; for, for all the importunity of the Jews, Pilate would not suffer that title to be removed, or to be changed; still Nazarenus remained, and still a rose amongst thorns. You know the curse of the earth, Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee; It did so to our Solomon here, it brought forth thorns to Christ, and he made a Crown of those thorns, not only for himself, but for us too, Omnes aculei mortis, in Dominici Corporis tolerantia, • btusi sunt, All the thorns of life and death, are broken, or blunted upon the head of our Solomon, and now, even our thorns, make up our Crown, our tribulation in life, our dissolution in death, conduce to our glory: Behold him crowned with his Mothers Crown, for even that brought him to his Fathers Crown, his humiliation to exaltation, his passion to glory.
Behold your Solomon, your Savior again, and you shall see another beam of Comfort, in your tribulations from his; for even this Humiliation of his, is called his Espousals, his marriage, Behold him crowned in the day of his Espousals. His Spouse is the Church, His marriage is the uniting of himself to this Spouse, in his becoming Head of the Church. The great City, the heavenly Jerusalem, is called The Bride, and The Lambs wife, in the Revelation: And he is the Head of this body, the Bridegroom of this Bride, the Head of this Church, as he is The first-borne of the Dead; Death, that dissolves all ours, made up this marriage. His Death is his Marriage, and upon his Death flowed out from his side, those two Elements of the Church, water and blood; The Sacraments of Baptism, and of the Communion of himself. Behold then this Solomon crowned and married; both words of Exaltation, and Exultation, and both by Death and trust him for working the same effects upon thee; That thou (though by Death ) shalt be crowned with a Crown of Glory, and married to him, in whose right and merit thou shalt have that Crown.
And Behold him once again, and you shall see not a beam, but a stream of comfort; for this day, which is the day of his death, he calls here The day of the gladness of his heart. Behold him crowned in the day of the gladness of his heart. The fullness, the compass, the two Hemispheres of Heaven, are often designed to us, in these two names, Joy and Glory: If the Cross of Christ, the Death of Christ, present us both these, how near doth it bring, how fully doth it deliver Heaven itself to us in this life? And then we hear the Apostle say, We see Jesus, for the suffering of Death, crowned with Honor and Glory: There is half Heaven got by Death, Glory. And then, for the joy that was set before him, he endured the Cross; There is the other half, Joy; All Heaven purchased by Death. And therefore, if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, saith the Apostle; but let him glorify God, In isto Nomine, as the vulgate read it; In that behalf, as we translate it. But, In isto Nomine, saith S. August: Let us glorify God, in that Name; Non solum in nomine Christiani, sed Chriani patientis, not only because he is a Christian in his Baptism, but a Christian in a second Baptism, a Baptism of blood; not only as he hath received Christ, in accepting his Institution, but because he hath conformed himself to Christ, in fulfilling his sufferings. And therefore, though we admit natural and human sorrow, in the calamities which overtake us, and surround us in this life: (for as all glasses will gather drops and tears from external causes, so this very glass which we look upon now, our Solomon in the Text, our Savior, had those sadnesses of heart toward his Passion, and Agonies in his passion) yet count it all Joy when you fall into temptations, saith the Apostle: All Joy, that is, both the interest, and the principal, hath the earnest and the bargain; for if you can conceive joy in your tribulations in this world, how shall that joy be multiplied unto you, when no tribulation shall be mingled with it? There is not a better evidence, nor a more binding earnest of everlasting Joy in the next world, then to find Joy of heart in the tribulations of this; fixe thyself therefore upon this first glass, this Solomon, thy Savior, Behold King Solomon crowned, &c. and by conforming thyself to his holy sadness, and humiliation, thou shalt also become like him, in his Joy, and Glory.
But then the hand of God, hath not set up, but laid down another Glass, wherein thou mayest see thyself; a glass that reflects thyself, and nothing but thyself. Christ, who was the other glass, is like thee in everything, but not absolutely, for sin is excepted; but in this glass presented now (The Body of our Royal, but dead Master and Sovereign ) we cannot, we do not except sin. Not only the greatest man is subject to natural infirmities, (Christ himself was so) but the holiest man is subject to Original and Actual sin, as thou art, and so a • it glass for thee, to see thyself in. Ieat shows a man his face, as well as Crystall; nay, a Crystall glass will not show a man his face, except it be steeled, except it be darkened on the backside: Christ as he was a pure Crystall glass, as he was God, had not been a glass for us, to have seen ourselves in, except he had been steeled, darkened with our human nature; Neither was he ever so thoroughly darkened, as that he could present us wholly to ourselves, because he had no sin, without seeing of which we do not see ourselves. Those therefore that are like thee in all things, subject to human infirmities, subject to sins, and yet are translated, and translated by Death, to everlasting Joy, and Glory, are nearest and clearest glasses for thee, to see thyself in; and such is this glass, which God hath proposed to thee, in this house. And therefore, change the word of the Text, in a letter or two from Egredimini, to Ingredimini; never go forth to see, but Go in and see a Solomon crowned with his mothers crown, &c. And when you shall find that hand that had signed to one of you a Patent for Title, to another for Pension, to another for Pardon, to another for Dispensation, Dead: That hand that settled Possessions by his Seal, in the Keeper, and rectified Honors by the sword, in his Marshall, and distributed relief to the Poor, in his Almoner, and Health to the Diseased, by his immediate Touch, Dead: That Hand that balanced his own three Kingdoms so equally, as that none of them complained of one another, nor of him, and carried the Keys of all the Christian world, and locked up, and let out Armies in their due season, Dead; how poor, how faint, how pale, how momentary, how transitory, how empty, how frivolous, how Dead things, must you necessarily think Titles, and Possessions, and Favors, and all, when you see that Hand, which was the hand of Destinie, of Christian Destinie, of the Almighty God, lie dead? It was not so hard a hand when we touched it last, nor so cold a hand when we kissed it last: That hand which was wont to wipe all tears from all our eyes, doth now but press and squeaze us as so many sponges, filled one with one, another with another cause of tears. Tears that can have no other bank to bound them, but the declared and manifested will of God: For, till our tears flow to that Heighth, that they might be called a murmuring against the declared will of God, it is against our Allegiance, it is Disloyaltie, to give our tears any stop, any termination, any measure. It was a great part of Annaes praise, That she departed not from the Temple, day nor night; visit God's Temple often in the day, meet him in his own House, and depart not from his Temples, (The dead bodies of his Saints are his Temples still) even at midnight; at midnight remember them, who resolve into dust, and make them thy glasses to see thyself in. Look now especially upon him whom God hath presented to thee now, and with as much cheerfulness as ever thou heardest him say, Remember my Favors, or remember my Commandments; hear him say now with the wise man, Remember my Judgment, for thine also shall be so; yesterday for me, and today for thee; He doth not say tomorrow, but to Day, for thee. Look upon him as a beam of that Sun, as an abridgement of that Solomon in the Text; for every Christian truly reconciled to God, and signed with his hand in the Absolution, and sealed with his blood in the Sacrament, (and this was his case) is a beam, and an abridgement of Christ himself. Behold him therefore Crowned with the Crown that his Mother gives him: His Mother, The Earth. In an • ient times, when they used to reward Soldiers with particular kinds of Crowns, there was a great dignity in Corona graminea, in a Crown of Grass: That denoted a Conquest, or a Defense of that land. He that hath but Coronam Gramineam, a turfe of grass in a Church yard, hath a Crown from his Mother, and even in that burial taketh seisure of the Resurrection, as by a turfe of grass men give seisure of land. He is crowned in the day of his Marriage; for though it be a day of Divorce of us from him, and of Divorce of his body from his soul, yet neither of these Divorces break the Marriage: His soul is married to him that made it, and his body and soul shall meet again, and all we, both then in that Glory where we shall acknowledge, that there is no way to this Marriage, but this Divorce, nor to Life, but by Death. And lastly, he is Crowned in the day of the gladness of his heart: He leaveth that heart, which was accustomed to the half joys of the earth, in the earth; and he hath enlarged his heart to a greater capacity of Joy, and Glory, and God hath filled it according to that new capacity. And therefore, to end all with the Apostles words, I would not have you to be ignorant, Brethren, concerning them, which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, as others that have no hope; for if ye believe that Jesus died, and rose again, even so, them also, which sleep in him, will God bring with him. But when you have performed this Ingredimini, that you have gone in, and mourned upon him, and performed the Egredimini, you have gone forth, and laid his Sacred body, in Consecrated Dust, and come then to another Egredimini, to a going forth in many several ways: some to the service of their new Master, and some to the enjoying of their Fortunes conferred by their old; some to the raising of new Hopes • some to the burying of old, and all; some to new, and busy endeavors in Court, some to contented retirings in the Country; let none of us, go so far from him, or from one another, in any of our ways, but that all we that have served him, may meet once a day, the first time we see the Sun, in the ears of almighty God, with humble and hearty prayer, that he will be pleased to hasten that day, in which it shall be an addition, even to the joy of that place, as perfect as it is, and as infinite as it is, to see that face again, and to see those eyes open there, which we have seen closed here. Amen.
SERMON XXXIIII.
LUKE •• ••
T He word of God is either the co-eternal and co-essential Son, our Savior, which took flesh (Verbum Caro factum est) or it is the spirit of his mouth, by which we live, and not by bread only. And so, in a large acceptation, every truth is the word of God; for truth is uniform, and irrepugnant, and indivisible, as God Omne verum est omni vero consentiens. More strictly the word of God, is that which God hath uttered, either in writing, as twice in the Tables to Moses; or by ministry of Angels, or Prophets, in words; or by the unborne, in action, as in John Baptists exultation within his mother; or by new-borne, from the mouths of babes and sucklings; or by things unreasonable, as in Balaam's Ass; or insensible, as in the whole book of such creatures, The heavens declare the glory of God, &c. But nothing is more properly the word of God to us, then that which God himself speaks in those Organs and Instruments, which himself hath assumed for his chiefest work, our redemption. For in creation God spoke, but in redemption he did; and more, he suffered. And of that kind are these words. God in his chosen man-hood saith, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
These words shall be fitliest considered, like a goodly palace, if we rest a little, as in an outward Court, upon consideration of prayer in general; and then draw near the view of the Palace, in a second Court, considering this special prayer in general, as the face of the whole palace. Thirdly, we will pass thorough the chiefest rooms of the palace itself; and then insist upon four steps: 1. Of whom he begs, (Father) 2. What he asks, (forgive them.) 3. That he prays upon reason, (for.) 4. What the reason is, (they know not.) And lastly, as into the backside of all, we will cast the objections: as why only Luke remembers this prayer: and why this prayer, (as it seems by the punishment continuing upon the Jews to this day) was not obtained at God's hands.
So therefore prayer is our first entry, for when it is said, Ask and it shall be given, it is also said, Knock and it shall be opened, showing that by prayer our entrance is. And not the entry only, but the whole house: My house is the house of prayer. Of all the conduits and conveyances of God's graces to us, none hath been so little subject to cavillations, as this of prayer. The Sacraments have fallen into the hands of flatterers and robbers. Some have attributed too much to them, some detracted. Some have painted them, some have withdrawn their natural complexion. It hath been disputed, whether they be • how many they be, what they be, and what they do. The preaching of the word hath been made a servant of ambitions, and a shop of many men's newfangled wares. Almost every means between God and man, suffers some adulteratings and disguises: But prayer least: And it hath most ways and addresses. It may be mental, for we may think prayers. It may be vocal, for we may speak prayers. It may be actual, for we do prayers. For deeds have voice; the vices of Sodom did cry, and the Alms of Toby. And if it were proper for St. John, in the first of the Revelations to turn back to see a voice, it is more likely God will look down, to hear a work. So then to do the office of your vocation sincerely, is to pray. How much the favorites of Princes, and great personages labor, that they may be thought to have been in private conference with the Prince. And though they be forced to wait upon his purposes, and talk of what he will, how fain they would be thought to have solicited their own, or their Dependants business. With the Princes of Princes, this every man may do truly; and the sooner, the more beggar he is: for no man is heard here, but in form • pauperis.
Here we may talk long, welcomely, of our own affairs, and be sure to speed. You cannot whisper so low alone in your Chamber, but he hears you, nor sing so loud in the Congregation, but he distinguishes you. He grudges not to be chidden and disputed with, by Job. The Arrows of the Almighty are in me, and the venom thereof hath drunk up my spirit. Is my strength, the strength of stones, or is my flesh of brass, &c. Not to be directed and counseled by Jonah: who was angry and said; Did not I say, when I was in my Country, thou wouldest deal thus? And when the Lord said, Doest thou well to be angry? He replied, I do well to be angry to the death. Nor almost to be threatened and neglected by Moses: Do this, or blot my name out of thy book. It is an Honor to be able to say to servants, Do this: But to say to God, Domine fac hoc, and prevail, is more; And yet more easy. God is replenishingly everywhere: but most contractedly, and workingly in the Temple. Since then every rectified man, is the temple of the Holy Ghost, when he prays; it is the Holy Ghost it self that prays; and what can be denied, where the Asker gives? He plays with us, as children, shows us pleasing things, that we might cry for them, and have them. Before we call, he answers, and when we speak, he hears: so Isaiah 65. 24. Physicians observe some symptoms so violent, that they must neglect the disease for a time, and labor to cure the accident; as burning fevers, in Dysenteries. So in the sinful consumption of the soul, a stupidity and indisposition to prayer, must first be cured. For, Ye lust, and have not, because ye ask net, Jam. 4. 2. The adulterous Mother of the three great brothers, Gratian, Lombard, and Comestor, being warned by her Confessor, to be sorry for her fact, said, she could not, because her fault had so much profited the Church. At least, said he, be sorry that thou canst not be sorry. So whosoever thou be, that canst not readily pray, at least pray, that thou mayst pray. For, as in bodily, so in spiritual diseases, it is a desperate state, to be speechless.
It were unmannerlinesse to hold you longer in the Entry. One turn in the inner Court, of this special prayer in general, and so enter the Palace. This is not a prayer for his own ease, as that in his Agony seems. It hath none of those infirmities, which curious schismatics find in that. No suspicion of ignorance, as there, (If it be possible.) No tergiversation nor abandoning the noble work which he had begun, as there, (Let this cup pass.) It is not an exemplar, or form, for us to imitate precisely, (otherwise then in the Doctrine) as that Prayer, Mat. 6. which we call the Lord's Prayer, not because he said it, for he could never say, forgive us our trespasses, but because he commanded us to say it. For though by Matthew, which saith, After this manner pray, we seem not bound to the words, yet Luke saith, When you pray, say, Our Father which art, &c. But this is a prayer of God, to God. Not as the Talmudists Jews fain God to pray to himself, Sit voluntas mea, ut misericordia mea superet iram meam; But as when foreign merchandise is mis-ported, the Prince may permit, or inhibit his Subjects to buy it, or not to buy it. Our blessed Savior arriving in this world fraited with salvation, a thing w ch this world never had power to have without him, except in that short time, between man's Creation and fall, he by this prayer begs, that even to these despisers of it, it may be communicable, and that their ignorance of the value of it, may not deprive them of it. Teaching that by example here, which he gave in precept before, Mat. 5. 44. Pray for them which persecute you, that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore, doing so now, he might well say, Father, forgive them, which is the first room in this glorious Palace. And in this contemplation, my unworthy soul, thou art presently in the presence. No passing of guards, nor ushers. No examination of thy degree or habit. The Prince is not asleep, nor private, nor weary of giving, nor refers to others. He puts thee not to prevail by Angels nor Archangels. But lest anything might hinder thee, from coming into his presence, his presence comes into thee. And lest Majesty should dazzle thee, thou art to speak but to thy Father. Of which word, Abba, the root is, To will; from which root, the fruit also must be willingness, and propenseness to grant. God is the Father of Christ, by that mystical and eternal inexpressible generation, which never began nor ended. Of which incomprehensible mystery, Moses and the ancient Prophets spake so little, and so indirectly, that till the dawning of the day of Christ, after Esdras time, those places seem not to be intended of the Trinity. Nay, a good while after Christ, they were but tenderly applied to that sense. And at this day, the most of the writers in the reformed Churches, considering that we need not such far fetched, and such forced helps, and withal, weighing how well the Jews of these times are provided with other expositions of those places, are very sparing in using them, but content themselves modestly herein, with the testimonies of the New Testament. Truly, this mystery is rather the object of faith then reason; and it is enough that we believe Christ to have ever been the Son of God, by such generation, and ourselves his sons by adoption. So that God is Father to all; but yet so, that though Christ say, John 10. My Father is greater then all, he adds, I and my Father are all one, to show his eternal interest: and John 20. He seems to put a difference, I go to my Father, and your Father, my God, and your God. The Roman stories have, that when Claudius saw it conduce to his ends, to get the tribuneship, of which he was incapable, because a Patrician, he suffered himself to be adopted. But against this Adoption, two exceptions were found; one, that he was adopted by a man of lower rank, a Plebeian; which was unnatural; and by a younger man then himself, which took away the presentation of a Father. But our Adoption is regular. For first, we are made the sons of the Most High, and of the ancient of days, there was no one word, by which he could so nobly have maintained his Dignity, kept his station, justified his cause, and withal expressed his humility and charity, as this, Father. They crucified him, for saying himself to be the Son of God. And in the midst of torment, he both professes the same still, and lets them see, that they have no other way of forgiveness, but that he is the Son of that Father. For no man cometh to the Father but by the Son.
And at this voice (Father) O most blessed Savior, thy Father, which is so fully thine, that for thy sake, he is ours too, which is so wholly thine, that he is thyself, which is all mercy, yet will not spare thee, all justice, yet will not destroy us. And that glorious Army of Angels, which hitherto by their own integrity maintained their first and pure condition, and by this work of thine, now near the Consummatum est, attend a confirmation, and infallibility of ever remaining so; And that faithful company of departed Saints, to whom thy merit must open a more inward and familiar room in thy Fathers Kingdom, stand all attentive, to hear what thou wilt ask of this Father. And what shall they hear? what doest thou ask? Forgive them, forgive them? Must murderers be forgiven? Must the offended ask it? And must a Father grant it? And must he be solicited, and remembered by the name of Father to do it? Was not thy passion enough, but thou must have compassion? And is thy mercy so violent, that thou wilt have a fellow-feeling of their imminent afflictions, before they have any feeling? The Angels might expect a present employment for their destruction: the Saints might be out of fear, that they should be assumed or mingled in their fellowship. But thou wilt have them pardoned. And yet doest not out of thine own fullness pardon them, as thou didst the thief upon the Cross, because he did already confess thee; but thou tellest them, that they may be forgiven, but at thy request, and if they acknowledge their Advocate to be the Son of God. Father, forgive them. I that cannot revenge thy quarrel, cannot forgive them. I that could not be saved, but by their offense, cannot forgive them. And must a Father, Almighty, and well pleased in thee, forgive them? Thou art more charitable towards them, then by thy direction we may be to our selves. We must pray for our selves limitedly, forgive us, as we forgive. But thou wilt have their forgiveness illimited and unconditioned. Thou seemest not so much as to presume a repentance; which is so essential, and necessary in all transgressions, as where by man's fault the actions of God are diverted from his appointed ends, God himself is content to repent the doing of them. As he repented first the making of man, and then the making of a King. But God will have them within the arms of his general pardon. And we are all delivered from our Debts; for God hath given his word, his co-essential word, for us all. And though, (as in other prodigal debts, the Interest exceed the Principal) our Actual sins exceed Original, yet God by giving his word for us, hath acquitted all.
But the Affections of our Savior are not inordinate, nor irregular. He hath a For, for his Prayer: Forgive them, for, &c. And where he hath not this For, as in his Prayer in his agony, he quickly interrupts the violence of his request, with a But, Father, let this cup pass; but not my will: In that form of Prayer which himself taught us, he hath appointed a for, on God's part, which is ever the same unchangeable: For thine is the Kingdom; Therefore supplications belong to thee: The power, Thou openest thy hand and fillest every living thing: The Glory, for thy Name is glorified in thy grants. But because on our part, the occasions are variable, he hath left our for, to our religious discretion. For, when it is said, James 4. You lust and have not, because you ask not; it followeth presently, You ask and miss, because you ask amiss. It is not a fit for, for every private man, to ask much means, for he would do much good. I must not pray, Lord put into my hands the strength of Christian Kings, for out of my zeal, I will employ thy benefits to thine advantage, thy Soldiers against thine enemies, and be a bank against that Deluge, wherewith thine enemy the Turk threatens to overflow thy people. I must not pray, Lord fill my heart with knowledge and understanding, for I would compose the Schisms in thy Church, and reduce thy garment to the first continual and seemlesse integrity; and redress the deafnesses and oppressions of Judges, and Officers. But he gave us a convenient scantling for our fors, who prayed, Give me enough, for I may else despair, give me not too much, for so I may presume. Of Schoolmen, some affirm Prayer to be an act of our will; for we would have that which we ask. Others, of our understanding; for by it we ascend to God, and better our knowledge, which is the proper aliment and food of our understanding; so, that is a perplexed case. But all agree, that it is an act of our Reason, and therefore must be reasonable. For only reasonable things can pray; for the beasts and Ravens, Psalm 147. 9. are not said to pray for food, but to cry. Two things are required to make a Prayer. 1. Pius affectus, which was not in the Devils request, Matth. 8. 31. Let us go into the Swine; nor Job 1. 2. Stretch out thy hand, and touch all he hath; and, stretch out thy hand, and touch his bones; and therefore these were not Prayers. And it must be Rerum decentium: for our government in that point, this may inform us. Things absolutely good, as Remission of sins, we may absolutely beg: and, to escape things absolutely ill, as sin. But mean and indifferent things, qualified by the circumstances, we must ask conditionally and referringly to the givers will. For 2 Cor. 8. when Paul begged stimulum Carnis to be taken from him, it was not granted, but he had this answer, My grace is sufficient for thee.
Let us now (not in curiosity, but for instruction) consider the reason: They know not what they do. First, if Ignorance excuse: And then, if they were ignorant.
Hast thou, O God, filled all thy Scriptures, both of thy Recorders and Notaries, which have penned the History of thy love, to thy People; and of thy Secretaries the Prophets, admitted to the foreknowledge of thy purposes, and instructed in thy Cabinet; hast thou filled these with praises and persuasions of wisdom and knowledge, and must these persecutors be pardoned for their ignorance? Hast thou bid Isaiah to say, 27. 11. It is a people of no understanding, therefore he that made them, shall not have compassion of them. And Hosea 4. 6. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: and now dost thou say, Forgive them because they know not? Shall ignorance, which is often the cause of sin, often a sin itself, often the punishment of sin, and ever an infirmity and disease contracted by the first great sin, advantage them? Who can understand his faults, saith the man according to thy heart, Psalm 19. 12. Lord cleanse me from my secret faults: He durst not make his ignorance the reason of his prayer, but prayed against ignorance. But thy Mercy is as the Sea: both before it was the Sea, for it overspreads the whole world; and since it was called into limits: for it is not the less infinite for that. And as by the Sea, the most remote and distant Nations enjoy one another, by traffic and commerce, East and West becoming neighbors: so by mercy, the most different things are united and reconciled; Sinners have Heaven; Traitors are in the Princes bosom; and ignorant persons are in the spring of wisdom, being forgiven, not only though they be ignorant, but because they are ignorant. But all ignorance is not excusable; nor any less excusable, then not to know, what ignorance is not to be excused. Therefore, there is an ignorance which they call Nescientiam, a not knowing of things not appertaining to us. This we had had, though Adam had stood; and the Angels have it, for they know not the latter day, and therefore for this, we are not chargeable. They call the other privation, which if it proceed merely from our own sluggishness, in not searching the means made for our instruction, is ever inexcusable. If from God, who for his own just ends hath cast clouds over those lights which should guide us, it is often excusable. For 1 Tim. 1. 13. Paul saith, I was ablasphemer, and a persecutor, and an oppressor, but I was received to mercy, for I did it ignorantly, through unbelief. So, though we are all bound to believe, and therefore faults done by unbelief cannot escape the name and nature of sin, yet since belief is the immediate gift of God, faults done by unbelief, without malicious concurrences and circumstances, obtain mercy and pardon from that abundant fountain of grace, Christ Jesus. And therefore it was a just reason, Forgive them, for they know not. If they knew not, which is evident, both by this speech from truth itself, and by 2 Cor. 2. 8. Had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; and Acts 3. 17. I know that through ignorance ye did it. And though after so many powerful miracles, this ignorance were vincible, God having revealed enough to convert them, yet there seems to be enough on their parts, to make it a perplexed case, and to excuse, though not a malicious persecuting, yet a not consenting to his Doctrine. For they had a Law, Whosoever shall make himself the son of God, let him die: And they spoke out of their Laws, when they said, We have no other King but Caesar. There were therefore some among them reasonably, and zealously ignorant. And for those, the Son ever-welcome, and well-heard, begged of his Father, ever accessible, and exorable, a pardon ever ready and natural.
We have now passed through all those rooms which we unlocked and opened at first. And now may that point, Why this prayer is remembered only by one Evangelist, and why by Luke, be modestly inquired: For we are all admitted and welcommed into the acquaintance of the Scriptures, upon such conditions as travellers are into other Countries: if we come as praisers and admirres of their Commodities and Government, not as spies into the mysteries of their State, nor searchers, nor calumniators of their weaknesses. For though the Scriptures, like a strong rectified State, be not endangered by such a curious malice of any, yet he which brings that, deserves no admittance. When those great Commissioners which are called the Septuagint, sent from Jerusalem, to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, had perfected their work, it was, and is an argument of Divine assistance, that writing severally, they differed not. The same may prove even to weak and faithless men, that the holy Ghost super-intended the four Evangelists, because they differ not; as they which have written their harmonies, make it evident: But to us, faith teacheth the other way. And we conclude not, because they agree, the holy Ghost directed; for heathen Writers and Malefactors in examinations do so; but because the holy Ghost directed, we know they agree, and differ not. For as an honest man, ever of the same thoughts, differs not from himself, though he do not ever say the same things, if he say not contraries; so the four Evangelists observe the uniformity and sameness of their guide, though all did not say all the same things, since none contradicts any. And as, when my soul, which enables all my limbs to their functions, disposes my legs to go, my whole body is truly said to go, because none stays behind; so when the holy Spirit, which had made himself as a common soul to their four souls, directed one of them to say anything, all are well understood to have said it. And therefore when to that place in Matth. 27. 8. where that Evangelist cites the Prophet Jeremiah, for words spoken by Zacharias, many medicines are applied by the Fathers; as, That many copies have no name, That Jeremiah might be binominous, and have both names, a thing frequent in the Bible, That it might be the error of a transcriber, That there was extant an Apocryph book of Jeremiah, in which these words were, and sometimes things of such books were vouched, as Jannes and Jambres by Paul; St. Augustine insists upon, and teaches rather this, That it is more wonderful, that all the Prophets spake by one Spirit, and so agreed, then if any one of them had spoken all those things; And therefore he adds, Singula sunt omnium, & omnia sunt singulorum, All say what any of them say; And in this sense most congruously is that of St. Jerome appliable, that the four Evangelists are Quadriga Divina, That as the four Chariot wheels, though they look to the four corners of the world, yet they move to one end and one way, so the Evangelists have both one scope, and one way.
Yet not so precisely, but that they differ in words: For as their general intention, common to them all begat that consent, so a private reason peculiar to each of them, for the writing of their Histories at that time, made those diversities which seem to be for Matthew, after he had preached to the Jews, and was to be transplanted into another vineyard, the Gentiles, left them written in their own tongue, for permanency, which he had preached transitorily by word. Mark, when the Gospel fructified in the West, and the Church enlarged herself, and grew a great body, and therefore required more food out of Peters Dictates, and by his approbation published his Evangile. Not an Epitome of Matthews, as Saint Jerome (I know why) imagines, but a just and entire History of our blessed Savior. And as Matthews reason was to supply a want in the Eastern Church, Markes in the Western; so on the other side Luke's was to cut off an excess and superfluity: for then many had undertaken this Story, and dangerously inserted and mingled uncertainties and obnoxious improbabilities: and he was more curious and more particular then the rest, both because he was more learned, and because he was so individual a companion of the most learned Saint Paul, and did so much write Paul's words, that Eusebius thereupon mistaketh the words 2 Tim. 2. 1. Christ is raised according to my Gospel, to prove that Paul was author of this Gospel attributed to Luke. John the Minion of Christ upon earth, and survivor of the Apostles, (whose books rather seem fallen from Heaven, and writ with the hand which engraved the stone Tables, then a man's work) because the heresies of Ebion and Cerinthus were rooted, who upon this true ground, then evident and fresh, that Christ had spoke many things which none of the other three Evangelists had Recorded, uttered many things as his, which he never spoke: John I say, more diligently then the rest handleth his Divinity, and his Sermons, things specially brought into question by them. So therefore all writ one thing, yet all have some things particular. And Luke most, for he writ last of three, and largeliest for himself, 1 Act. 1. saith, I have made the former Treatise of all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the Day that he was taken up; which speech, lest the words in the last of John, If all were written which Jesus did, the world could not contain the Books, should condemn, Ambrose and Chrysostom interpret well out of the words themselves, Scripsit de omnibus, non omnia, He writ of all, but not all: for it must have the same limitation, which Paul giveth his words, who saith, Acts 20. in one verse, I have kept nothing back, but have shown you all the counsel of God; and in another, I kept back nothing that was profitable. It is another peculiar singularity of Luke's, that he addresseth his History to one man, Theophilus. For it is but weakly surmised, that he chose that name, for all lovers of God, because the interpretation of the word suffereth it, since he addeth most noble Theophilus. But the work doth not the less belong to the whole Church, for that, no more then his Masters Epistles do though they be directed to particulars.
It is also a singularity in him to write upon that reason, because divers have written. In human knowledge, to abridge or suck, and then suppress other Authors, is not ever honest nor profitable: We see after that vast enterprise of Justinian, who distilled all the Law into one vessel, and made one Book of 2000. suppressing all the rest, Alciate wisheth he had let them alone, and thinketh the Doctors of our times, would better have drawn useful things from those volumes, then his Trebonian and Dorothee did. And Aristotle after, by the immense liberality of Alexander, he had engrossed all Authors, is said to have defaced all, that he might be instead of all: And therefore, since they cannot rise against him, he imputes to them errors which they held not: vouches only such objections from them, as he is able to answer; and propounds all good things in his own name, which he ought to them. But in this History of Luke's, it is otherwise: He had no authority to suppress them, nor doth he reprehend or calumniate them, but writes the truth simply, and leaves it to outweare falsehood: and so it hath: Moses rod hath devoured the Conjurers rods, and Luke's Story still retains the majesty of the maker, and theirs are not.
Other singularities in Luke, of form or matter, I omit, and end with one like this in our Text. As in the apprehending of our blessed Savior, all the Evangelists record, that Peter cut off Malchus ear, but only Luke remembers the healing of it again: (I think) because that act of curing, was most present and obvious to his consideration, who was a Physician: so he was therefore most apt, to remember this Prayer of Christ, which is the Physic and Balsamum of our Soul, and must be applied to us all, (for we do all Crucify him, and we know not what we do) And therefore Saint Jerome gave a right Character of him, in his Epistle to Paulinus, Fuit Medicus, & pariter omnia verba illius, Animae languentis sunt Medicinae, As he was a Physician, so all his words are Physic for a languishing soul.
Now let us dispatch the last consideration, of the effect of this Prayer. Did Christ intend the forgiveness of the Jews, whose utter ruin God (that is, himself) had foredecreed? And which he foresaw, and bewaild even then hanging upon the Cross? For those Divines which reverently forbear to interpret the words Lord, Lord, why hast thou forsaken me? of a suffering hell in his soul, or of a departing of the Father from him; (for John. 16. it is, I am not alone, for the Father is with me ) offer no exposition of those words more convenient, then that the foresight of the Jews imminent calamities, expressed and drew those words from him: In their Afflictions, were all kinds, and all degrees of Miserie. So that as one writer of the Roman Story saith elegantly, He that considereth the Acts of Rome, considereth not the Acts of one People, but of Mankind: I may truly of the Jews Afflictions, he that knoweth them, is ignorant of nothing that this world can threaten. For to that which the present authority of the Romans inflicted upon them, our Schools have added upon their posterities; that they are • laves to Christians, and their goods subject to spoil, if the Laws of the Princes where they live, did not out of indulgency defend them. Did he then ask, and was not heard? God forbid. A man is heard, when that is given which his will desired; and our will is ever understood to be a will rectified, and concurrent with God. This is Voluntas, a discoursed and examined will. That which is upon the first sight of the object, is Velleit as, a willingness, which we resist not, only because we thought not of it. And such a willingness had Christ, when suddenly he wished that the cup might pass: but quickly conformed his will to his Fathers. But in this Prayer his will was present, therefore fulfilled. Briefly then, in this Prayer he commended not all the Jews, for he knew the chief to sin knowingly, and so out of the reach of his reason, (for they know not.) Nor any, except they repented after: for it is not ignorance, but repentance, which deriveth to us the benefit of God's pardon. For he that sins of Ignorance, may be pardoned if he repent; but he that sins against his Conscience, and is thereby impenitible, cannot be pardoned. And this is all, which I will say of these words, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.
O eternal God, look down from thy Throne to thy footstool: from thy blessed Company of Angels and Saints, to us, by our own faults made more wretched and contemptible, then the worms, which shall eat us, or the dust which we were, and shall be. O Lord, under the weight of thy Justice we cannot stand. Nor had any other title to thy mercy, but the Name of Father, and that we have forfeited. That name of Sons of God, thou gavest to us, all at once in Adam; and he gave it away from us all by his sin. And thou hast given it again to everyone of us, in our regeneration by Baptism, and we have lost it again by our transgressions. And yet thou was not weary of being merciful, but diddest choose one of us, to be a fit and worthy ransom for us all; and by the death of thy Christ, our Jesus, gavest us again the title and privilege of thy Sons; but with conditions, which though easy, we have broke, and with a yoke, which though light, and sweet, we have cast off. How shall we then dare to call thee Father? Or to beg that thou wilt make one trial more of us? These hearts are accustomed to rebellions, and hopeless. But, O God, create in us new hearts, hearts capable of the love and fear, due to a Father. And then we shall dare to say, Father, and to say, Father forgive us. Forgive us O Father, and all which are engaged, and accountable to thee for us: forgive our Parents, and those which undertook for us in Baptism. Forgive the civil Magistrate, and the Minister. Forgive them their negligences, and us our stubbornnesses. And give us the grace that we may ever sincerely say, both this Prayer of Example and Counsel, Forgive our enemies, and that other of Precept, Our Father which art in Heaven, &c.
SERMON XXXV.
Preached February 21. 1611.
MATTHEW 21. 44.
A Lmighty God made us for his glory, and his glory is not the glory of a Tyrant, to destroy us, but his glory is in our happiness. He put us in a fair way towards that happiness in nature, in our creation, that way would have brought us to heaven, but then we fell, and (if we consider ourselves only) irrecoverably. He put us after into another way, over thorny hedges and ploughed Lands, through the difficulties and incumbrances of all the Ceremonial Law; there was no way to heaven then, but that; after that, he brought us a cross way, by the Cross of Jesus Christ, and the application of his Gospel, and that is our way now. If we compare the way of nature, and our way, we went out of the way at the Towns end, as soon as we were in it, we were out of it. Adam died as soon as he lived, and fell as soon as he was set on foot; If we compare the way of the Law, and ours, the Jews and the Christians, their Synagogue was but as God's farm, our Church is as his dwelling house; to them locavit vineam, he let out his Vine to husbandmen, and then peregre profectus, he went into a far Country, he promised a Messias, but deferred his coming a long time; but to us Dabitur Regnum, a Kingdom is given; the Vineyard is changed into a Kingdom, here is a good improvement, and the Lease into an absolute deed of gift, here is a good enlargement of the Terme. He gives, therefore he will not take away again. He gives a Kingdom, therefore there is a fullness and all-sufficiency in the gift; and he does not go into any far Country, but stays with us, to govern us, usque ad consummationem, till the end of the world; here therefore God takes all into his own hands, and he comes to dwell upon us himself, to which purpose he ploughs up our hearts, and he builds upon us; Vos Dei agricultura, & Dei aedificium, Ye are God's husbandry, and God's building: Now of this, this husbandry God speaks familiarly and parabolicaly many times in Scriptures: of this building particularly and principally in this place, where having intimated unto us the several benefits we have received from Christ Jesus in that appellation, as he is a stone; he tells us also our dangers in mis-behaving ourselves towards it, Whosoever shall fall on this &c.
Christ then is a stone, and we may run into two dangers: first, we may fall upon this stone, and then this stone may fall upon us; but yet we have a great deal of comfort presented to us, in that Christ is presented to us as a stone, for there we shall find him, first, to be the foundation stone, nothing can stand which is not built upon Christ; Secondly, to be Lapis Angularis, a corner stone, that unites things most dis-united; and then to be Lapis Jacob, the stone that Jacob slept upon; fourthly, to be Lapis Davidis, the stone that David flew Golih withal; And lastly, to be Lapis Petra, such a stone as is a Rock, and such a Rock as no Waters nor Stormes can remove or shake, these are benefits: Christ Jesus is a stone, no firmness but in him; a fundamental stone, no building but on him; a corner stone, no piecing nor reconciliation, but in him; and Jacob's stone, no rest, no tranquility, but in him; and David's stone, no anger, no revenge, but in him; and a rocky stone, no defense against troubles and tribulations, but in him; And upon this stone we fall and are broken, and this stone may fall on us, and grind us to powder.
First in the metaphor, that Christ is called a stone, the firmness is expressed: Forasmuch as he loved his own which were in the world, In finem dilexit eos, says St. John, He loved them to the end; and not to any particular end, for any use of this own, but to their end; Qui erant in mundo, says Cyril, ad distinctionem Angelorum, he loved them in the world, and not Angels; he loved not only them who were in a confirmed estate of mutual loving him too, but even them who were themselves conceived in sin, and then conceived all their purposes in sin too, them who could have no cleansing but in his blood, and when they were cleansed in his blood, their own clothes would defile them again, them who by nature are not able to love him at all, and when by grace they are brought to love him, can express their love no other way, but to be glad that he was betrayed, and scourged, and scorned, and nailed, and crucified; and to be glad, that if all this were not already done, it might be done yet, to long, and wish, that if Christ were not crucified, he might be crucified now, (which is a strange manner of expressing love) those men he loved, and loved unto the end; Men and not Angels; and then men, Ad distinctionem mortuorum, says Chrysostom, not only the Patriarchs, who were departed out of the world, who had loved him so well, as to take his word for their salvation, and had lived and died in the faithful contemplation of a future promise, which they never saw performed; but those who were partakers of the performance of all those promises, those into the midst of whom he came in person, those upon whom he wrought with his piercing Doctrine, and his powerful miracles, those who for all this loved not him, he loved: Et in finem, he loved them to the end: It is much that he should love them in fine, at their end, that he should look graciously on them at last, that when their sun sets, their eyes faint, his sun of grace should arise, and his East be brought to their West, that then in the shadow of death, the Lord of life should quicken and inanimate their hearts: that when their last bell tolls, and calls them to their first Judgment, (and first and last Judgment to this purpose is all one) the passing bell, and Angels trump sound all but one note, Surgite qui dormitis in pulvere, Arise ye that sleep in the dust, which is the voice of the Angels, and Surgite qui vigilatis in plumis, Arise ye that cannot sleep in feathers, for the pangs of death, which is the voice of the bell, is but one voice; for God at the general Judgment, shall never reverse any particular Judgment, formerly given; that God should then come to the beds side, ad sibilandum populum suum, as the Prophet Ezekiel speaks, to hiss softly for his child, to speak comfortably in his ear, to whisper gently to his departing soul, and to drown and overcome with this soft Music of his, all the danger of the Angels Trumpets, all the horror of the ringing Bell, all the cries, and vociferations of a distressed, and distracted, and scattering family, yea all the accusations of his own conscience, and all the triumphant acclamations of the Devil himself; that God should love a man thus in fine, at his end, and return to him then, though he had suffered him to go astray from him before, it is a great testimony of an unspeakable love: but his love is not only in fine, at the end, but in finem, to the end, all the way to the end. He leaves them not uncalled at first, he leaves them not unaccompanied in the way, he leaves them not unrecompensed at the last, that God who is Almighty, Alpha and Omega, first and last, that God is also love it self, and therefore this love is Alpha and Omega, first and last too; Consider Christ's proceeding with Peter in the ship, in the storm; first he suffered him to be in some danger, but then he visits him with that strong assurance, Noli timere, Be not afraid, it is I, any testimony of his presence rectifies all. This puts Peter into that spiritual knowledge and confidence, Iube me venire, Lord bid me come to thee; he hath a desire to be with Christ, but yet stays his bidding; he puts not himself into an unnecessary danger, without a commandment; Christ bids him, and Peter comes, but yet, though Christ were in his sight, and even in the actual exercise of his love to him, yet as soon as he saw a gust, a storm, timuit, he was afraid, and Christ letteth him fear, and letteth him sink, and letteth him cry; But he directeth his fear, and his cry to the right end. Domine salvum me fac, Lord save me, and thereupon he stretcheth out his hand and saved him: God doth not raise his children to honor, and great estates, and then leave them, and expose them to be subjects, and exercises of the malice of others, nor he doth not make them mighty, and then leave them, ut glorietur in malo qui potens est, that he should think it a glory to be able to do harm. He doth not impoverish and dishonor his children, and then leave them; leave them unsensible of that Doctrine, that patience is as great a blessing as abundance: God giveth not his children health, and then leaveth them to a boldness in surfeiting; nor beauty, and leave them to a confidence of opening themselves to all solicitations; nor valor, and then leaveth them to a spirit of quarrelsomnesse: God maketh no patterns of his works, no modells of his houses, he maketh whole pieces, he maketh perfect houses, he putteth his children into good ways, and he directeth and protecteth them in those ways: For this is the constancy and the perseverance of the love of Christ Jesus, as he is called in this Text a stone. To come to the particular benefits; the first is that he is lapis fundamentalis, a foundation stone; for other foundation can no man lay then that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. Now where Saint Augustine saith, (as he doth in two or three places) that this place of Saint Paul's to the Corinthians, is one of these places of which Saint Peter saith Quaedam difficilia, There are some things in Saint Paul hard to be understood: Saint Augustine's meaning is, that the difficulty is in the next words, how any man should build hay or stubble upon so good a foundation as Christ, how any man that pretendeth to live in Christ, should live ill, for in the other there can be no difficulty, how Christ Jesus to a Christian, should be the only foundation: And therefore to place salvation or damnation in such an absolute Decree of God, as should have no relation to the fall of man, or reparation in a Redeemer; this is to remove this stone out of the foundation, for a Christian may be well content to begin at Christ: If any man therefore have laid any other foundation to his Faith, or any other foundation to his Actions, possession of great places, alliance in great Families, strong parties in Courts, obligation upon dependants, acclamations of people; if he have laid any other foundations for pleasure, and contentment, care of health, and complexion, appliablenesse in conversation, delightfulnesse in discourses, cheerfulness in disportings, interchanging of secrets, and such other small wares of Courts and Cities as these are: whosoever hath laid such foundations as these, must proceed as that General did, who when he received a besieged Town to mercy, upon condition that in sign of subjection they should suffer him to take off one row of stones from their walls, he took away the lowest row, the foundation, and so ruined and demolished the whole walls of the City: So must he that hath these false foundations, (that is, these habits) divest the habit, root out the lowest stone, that is, the general, and radical inclination to these disorders: For he shall never be able to watch and resist every particular temptation, if he trust only to his Moral Constancy; No, nor if he place Christ for the roof to cover all his sins, when he hath done them; his mercy worketh by way of pardon after, not by way of Non obstante, and privilege to do a sin before hand; but before hand we must have the foundation in our eye; when we undertake any particular Action, in the beginning, we must look how that will suite with the foundation, with Christ; for there is his first place, to be Lapis fundamentalis.
And then, after we have considered him, first, in the foundation (as we are all Christians) he grows to be Lapis Angularis, the Corner stone, to unite those Christians, which seem to be of divers ways, divers aspects, divers professions together; as we consider him in the foundation, there he is the root of faith, As we consider him in the Corner, there he is the root of charity, In Isaiah he is both together, A sure foundation and a Corner stone, as he was in the place of Isaiah, 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, that unites all things together: Consider first, what divers things he unites in his own person; That he should be the son of a woman, and yet no son of man, That the son of a woman should be the son of God, that man's sinful nature, and innocence should meet together, a man that should not sin, that God's nature and mortality should meet together, a God that must die; Briefly, that he should do and suffer so many things impossible as man, impossible as God. Thus he was a Corner stone, that brought together natures, naturally incompatible. Thus he was Lapis Angularis, a Corner stone in his Person, Consider him in his Offices, as a Redeemer, as a Mediator, and so, he hath united God to man; yea, rebellious man to jealous God: He is such a Corner stone, as hath united heaven, and earth, Jerusalem and Babylon together.
Thus in his Person, and thus in his Offices, Consider him in his power, and he is such a Corner stone, as that he is the God of Peace, and Love, and Union, and Concord. Such a Corner stone as is able to unite, and reconcile (as it did in Abraham's house) a Wife, and a Concubine in one bed, a covetous Father, and a wasteful Son in one family, a severe Magistrate, and a licentious people in one City, an absolute Prince, and a jealous People in one Kingdom, Law, and Conscience in one Government, Scripture, and tradition in one Church. If we would but make Christ Jesus and his peace, the life and soul of all our actions, and all our purposes; if we would mingle that sweetness and supplenesse which he loves, and which he is, in all our undertakings; if in all controversies, book controversies, and sword controversies, we would fit them to him, and see how near they would meet in him, that is, how near we might come to be friends, and yet both sides be good Christians; then we placed this stone in his second right place, who as he is a Corner stone reconciling God and man in his own Person, and a Corner stone in reconciling God and mankind in his Office, so he desires to be a Corner stone in reconciling man and man, and settling peace among ourselves, not for worldly ends, but for this respect, that we might all meet in him to love one another, not because we made a stronger party by that love, not because we made a sweeter conversation by that love, but because we met closer in the bosom of Christ Jesus; where we must at last either rest altogether eternally, or be altogether eternally thrown out, or be eternally separated and divorced from one another.
Having then received Christ for the foundation stone, (we believe aright) and for the Corner stone (we interpret charitably the opinions, and actions of other men) The next is, that he be Lapis Jacob, a stone of rest and security to our selves. When Jacob was in his journey, he took a stone, and that stone was his pillow, upon that he slept all night, &c. resting upon that stone, he saw the Ladder that reached from heaven to earth; it is much to have this egress and regress to God, to have a sense of being gone from him, and a desire and means of returning to him; when we do fall into particular sins, it is well if we can take hold of the first step of this Ladder, with that hand of David, Domine respice in Testamentum, O Lord, consider thy Covenant, if we can remember God of his Covenant, to his people, and to their seed, it is well; it is more, if we can clamber a step higher on this ladder to a Domine labia mea aperies, if we come to open our lips in a true confession of our wretched condition and of those sins by which we have forfeited our interest in that Covenant, it is more; and more then that too, if we come to that inebriabo me lacrymis, if we overflow and make our selves drunk with tears, in a true sense, and sorrow for those sins, still it is more; And more then all this, if we can expostulate with God in an Vsque quo Domine, How long, O Lord, shall I take counsel in myself, having weariness in my heart? These steps, these gradations towards God, do well; war is a degree of peace, as it is the way of peace; and these colluctations and wrestlings with God, bring a man to peace with him; But then is a man upon this stone of Jacob, when in a fair, and even, and constant religious course of life, he enters into his sheets every night, as though his neighbors next day were to shroud and wind him in those sheets; he shuts up his eyes every night, as though his Executors had closed them; and lies down every night, not as though his man were to call him up next morning, or to the next days sport, or business, but as though the Angels were to call him to the resurrection; And this is our third benefit, as Christ is a stone, we have security and peace of conscience in him.
The next is, That he is Lapis David, the stone with which David slew Goliath, and with which we may overcome all our enemies; Sicut baculus crucis, ita lapis Christi habuit typum; David's sling was a type of the Cross, and the stone was a type of Christ, we will choose to insist upon spiritual enemies, sins; And this is that stone that enables the weakest man to overthrow the strongest sin, if he proceed as David did: David says to Goliath, Thou comest to me with a spear and a shield, but I come to thee in the name of the God of the hosts of Israel, whom thou hast railed upon,) if thou watch the approach of any sin, any giant sin that transports thee most; if thou apprehend it to rail against the Lord of Hosts, (that is, that there is a loud and active blasphemy against God, in every sin) if thou discern it to come with a sword, or a spear, (that is, persuasions of advancement if thou do it, or threatings of dishonor, if thou do it not,) if it come with a shield, (that is, with promises to cover and palliate it, though thou do it,) If then this David, (thy attempted soul) can put his hand into his bag (as David did) (for quid cor hominis nisi sacculus Dei? a man's heart is that bag in which God lays up all good directions) if he can but take into his consideration his Jesus, his Christ, and sling one of his works, his words, his commandments, his merits, This Goliath, this Giant sin, will fall to the ground, and then, as it is said of David, that he slew him when he had no sword in his hand, and yet in the next verse, that he took his sword and slew him with that: so even by the consideration of what my Lord hath done for me, I shall give that sin the first deaths wound, and then I shall kill him with his own sword, that is, his own abomination, his own foulness shall make me detest him. If I dare but look my sin in the face, if I dare tell him, I come in the name of the Lord, if I consider my sin, I shall triumph over it, Et dabit certan •• victoriam qui dedit certandi audaciam, That God that gave me courage to fight, will give me strength to overcome.
The last benefit which we consider in Christ, as he is a stone, is, That he is Petra, a Rock; The Rock gave water to the Israelites in the wilderness; and he gave them honey out of the stone, and oil out of the hard Rock: Now when Saint Paul says, That our Fathers drank of the same Rock as we, he adds that the same Rock was Christ; So that all Temporal, and all Spiritual blessings to us, and to the Fathers, were all conferred upon us in Christ; but we consider not now any miraculous production from the Rock, but that which is natural to the Rock; that it is a firm defense to us in all tempests, in all afflictions, in all tribulations; and therefore, La • date Dominum habitatores petrae, says the Prophet, You that are inhabitants of this Rock, you that dwell in Christ, and Christ in you, you that dwell in this Rock, Praise ye the Lord, bless him, and magnify him forever. If a son should ask bread of his father, will he give him a stone, was Christ's question? Yes, O blessed Father, we ask no other answer to our petition, no better satisfaction to our necessity, then when we say, Da nobis panem, Give us this day our daily bread, that thou give us this Stone, this Rock, thyself in thy Church, for our direction, thyself in the Sacrament, for our refection; what hardness soever we find there, what corrections soever we receive there, all shall be easy of digestion, and good nourishment to us • Thy holy spirit of patience shall command, That these stones be made bread; And we shall find more juice, more marrow in these stones, in these afflictions, then worldly men shall do in the softness of their oil, in the sweetness of their honey, in the cheerfulness of their wine; for as Christ is our foundation, we believe in him, and as he is our corner-stone, we are at peace with the world in him; as he is Jacob's stone, giving us peace in ourselves and David's stone, giving us victory over our enemies, so he is a Rock of stone, (no affliction, no tribulation shall shake us.) And so we have passed through all the benefits proposed to be considered in this first part, As Christ is a stone.
It is some degree of thankfulness, to stand long in the contemplation of the benefit which we have received, and therefore we have insisted thus long upon the first part. But it is a degree of spiritual wisdom too, to make haste to the consideration of our dangers, and therefore we come now to them, We may fall upon this stone, and be broken. This stone may fall upon us, and grind us to powder, and in the first of these, we may consider, Quid cadere, what the falling upon this stone is: and secondly, Quid frangi, what it is to broken upon it: and then thirdly, the latitude of this unusquisque, that whosoever falls so, is so broken; first then, because Christ loves us to the end, therefore will we never put him to it, never trouble him till then; as the wiseman said of Manna, that it had abundance of all pleasure in it, and was meat for all tastes, that is, (as Expositors interpret it) that Manna tasted to everyone, like that which everyone liked best: so this stone Christ Jesus, hath abundance of all qualities of stone in it, and is all the way such a stone to every man, as he desires it should be. Unto you that believe saith, Saint Peter, it is a precious stone, but unto the disobedient, a stone to stumble at: for if a man walk in a gallery, where windows, and tables, and statues, are all of marble, yet if he walk in the dark, or blindfold, or carelessly, he may break his face as dangerously against that rich stone, as if it were but brick; So though a man walk in the true Church of God, in that Jerusalem which is described in the Revelation, the foundation, the gates, the walls, all precious stone, yet if a man bring a mis-belief, a mis-conceit, that all this religion is but a part of civil government and order; if a man be scandalized, at that humility, that patience, that poverty, that lowliness of spirit which the Christian Religion inclines us unto; if he will say, Si Rex Israel, If Christ will be King, let him come down from the Cross, and then we will believe in him, let him deliver his Church from all crosses, first, of doctrine, and then of persecution, and then we will believe him to be King; if we will say, Nolumus hunc regnare, we will admit Christ, but we will not admit him to reign over us, to be King; if he will be content with a Consulship, with a Collegueship, that he & the world may join in the government, that we may give the week to the world, and the Sabbath to him, that we may give the day of the Sabbath to him and the night to our licentiousness, that of the day we may give the forenoon to him, and the afternoon to our pleasures, if this will serve Christ, we are content to admit him, but Nolumus regnare, we will none of that absolute power, that whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, we must be troubled to think on him, and respect his glory in every thing. If he will say, Praecepit Angels, God hath given us in charge to his Angels, and therefore we need not to look to our own ways, He hath locked us up safely, and lodged us softly under an eternal election, and therefore we are sure of salvation, if he will walk thus blindly, violently, willfully, negligently in the true Church, though he walk amongst the Sapphires, and Pearls, and Chrysolytes, which are mentioned there, that is, in the outward communion and fellowship of God's Saints, yet he may bruise and break, and batter himself, as much against these stones, as against the stone God's of the heathen, or the stone Idols of the Papists; for first, the place of this falling upon this stone, is the true Church; Qui jacet in terra, he that is already upon the ground, in no Church, can fall no lower, till he fall to hell; but he whom God hath brought into his true Church, if he come to a confident security, that he is safe enough in these outward acts of Religion, he falls, though it be upon this stone, he erreth, though in the true Church. This is the place then, the true Church; the falling it self (as far as will fall into our time of consideration now) is a falling into some particular sin, but not such as quenches our faith; we fall so, as we may rise again. Saint Jerome expresseth it so, Qui cadit, & tamen credit, he that falls, but yet believes, that falls and hath a sense of his fall, reservatur per paenitentiam ad salutem, that man is reserved by God's purpose, to come by repentance, to salvation; for this man that falls there, falls not so desperately, as that he feels nothing between hell and him, nothing to stop at, nothing to check him by the way, Cadit super, he falls upon something; nor he falls not upon flowers, to wallow and tumble in his sin, nor upon feathers, to rest and sleep in his sin, nor into a cooling river, to disport, and refresh, and strengthen himself in his sin; but he falls upon a stone, where he may receive a bruise, a pain upon his fall, a remorse of that sin he is fallen into: And in this fall, our infirmity appears three ways: The first is Impingere in lapidem, To stumble, for though he be upon the right stone in the true Religion, and have light enough, yet Impingimus meredie, as the Prophet saith, even at noon we stumble; we have much more light, by Christ being come, then the Jews had, but we are sorry we have it: when Christ hath said to us for our better understanding of the Law, He that looketh and lusteth hath committed Adultery, He that coveteth hath stolen, He that is angry hath murdered, we stumble at this, and we are scandalized with it; and we think that other Religions are gentler, and that Christ hath dealt hardly with us, and we had rather Christ had not said so, we had rather he had left us to our liberty and discretion, to look, and court, and to give a way to our passions, as we should find it most conduce to our ease, and to our ends. And this is Impingere, to stumble, not to go on in an equal and even pace, not to do the will of God cheerfully. And a second degree is calcitrare, to kick, to spurr at this stone; that is, to bring some particular sin, and some particular Law into comparison: To debate thus, if I do not this now, I shall never have such a time; if I slip this, I shall never have the like opportunity; if I will be a fool now, I shall be a beggar all my life: and for the Law of God that is against it, there is but a little evil for a great deal of good; and there is a great deal of time to recover and repent that little evil. Now to remove a stone which was a landmarke, and to hide and cover that stone, was all one fault in the Law; to hide the will of God from our own Consciences with excuses and extenuatious, this is, calcitrare, as much as we can to spurn the stone, the landmarke out of the way; but the fullness and accomplishment of this is in the third word of the Text, Cadere, to fall; he falls as a piece of money falls into a river; we hear it fall, and we see it sink, and by and by we see it deeper, and at last we see it not at all: So no man falleth at first into any sin, but he hears his own fall. There is a tenderness in every Conscience at the beginning, at the entrance into a sin, and he discerneth a while the degrees of sinking too: but at last he is out of his own sight, till he meet this stone; (this stone is Christ) that is, till he meet some hard reprehension, some hard passage of a Sermon, some hard judgment 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 the stone and is broken.
So that to be broken upon this stone, is to come to this sense, that though our integrity be lost, that we be no more whole and entire vessels, yet there are means of piecing us again: Though we be not vessels of Innocency, (for who is so?) (and for that enter not into judgment with thy servants O Lord) yet we may be vessels of repentance acceptable to God, and useful to his service: for when anything falls upon a stone, the harm that it suffereth, is not always (or not only) according to the proportion of the hardness of that which it fell upon, but according to the heighth that it falleth from, and according to that violence that it is thrown with: If their fall who fall by sins of infirmity, should refer only to the stone they fall upon, (the Majesty of God being wounded and violated in every sin) every sinner would be broken to pieces, and ground to powder: But if they fall not from too far a distance, if they have lived within any nearness, any consideration of God, if they have not fallen with violence, taken heart and force in the way, grown perfect in the practice of their sin, if they fall upon this stone, that is, sin, and yet stop at Christ, after the sin, this stone shall break them; that is, break their force, and confidence, break their presumption, and security, but yet it shall leave enough in them, for the Holy Ghost to unite to his Service; yea, even the sin itself, cooperabitur in bonum, as the Apostle saith, the very fall it self shall be an occasion of his rising: And therefore though Saint Augustine seem to venture far, it is not too far, when he saith, Audeo dicere, it is boldly said, and yet I must say it, utile est ut caderem in aliquod manifestum peccatum; A sinner falleth to his advantage, that falleth into some such sin, as by being manifested to the World, manifesteth his own sinful state, to his own sinful Conscience too: It is well for that man that falleth so, as that he may thereby look the better to his footing ever after; Dicit Domino Susceptor meus es tu, says St. Bernard, That man hath a new Title to God, a new name for God; all creatures (as St. Bernard enlarges this meditation) can say, Creator meus es tu, Lord thou art my Creator; all living creatures can say, Pastor meus es tu, Thou art my shepherd, Thou givest me meat in due season; all men can say, Redemptor meus es tu, thou art my Redeemer; but only he which is fallen, and fallen upon this stone, can say, Susceptor meus es tu, only he which hath been overcome by a temptation, and is restored, can say, Lord thou hast supported me, thou hast recollected my shivers, and reunited me; only to him hath this stone expressed, both abilities of stone; first to break him with a sense of his sin, and then to give him peace and rest upon it.
Now there is in this part this circumstance, Quicunque cadit, whosoever falleth; where the quicunque is unusquisque, whosoever falls, that is, whosoever he be, he falls; Quo • odo de coelo cecidisti Luciter? says the Prophet, the Prophet wonders how Lucifer could fall, having nothing to tempt him (for so many of the Antiens interpret that place of the fall of the Angels, and when the Angels fell, there were no other creatures made,) but Quid est homo aut filius hominis? since the Father of man, Adam, could not, how shall the sons of him, that inherit his weakness, and contract more, and contribute their temptations to one another, hope to stand? Adam fell, and he fell à longe, far off, for he could see no stone to fall upon, for when he fell, there was no such Messias, no such means of reparation proposed, nor promised when he fell, as now to us; The blessed Virgin, and the forerunner of Christ, John the Baptist, fell too, but they fell prope, nearer hand, they fell but a little way, for they had this stone (Christ Jesus) in a personal presence, and their faith was always awake in them; but yet he, and she, and they all fell into some sin. Quicunque cadit is unusquisque cadit, whosoever falls, is, whosoever he be, he falls, and whosoever falls, (as we said before) is broken; If he fall upon something, and fall not to an infinite depth; If he fall not upon a soft place, to a delight in sin, but upon a stone, and this stone, (no harder, sharper, ruggedder then this, not into a diffidence, or distrust in God's mercy) he that falls so, and is broken so, that comes to a remorsefull, to a broken, and a contrite heart, he is broken to his advantage, left to a possibility, yea brought to a nearness of being pieced again, by the Word, by the Sacraments, and other medicinal institutions of Christ in his Church.
We must end only with touching upon the third part, upon whom this stone falls, it will grind him to powder; where we shall only tell you first, Quid conteri, what this grinding is; and then, Quid cadere, what the falling of this stone is; And briefly this grinding to powder, is to be brought to that desperate and irrecoverable estate in sin, as that no medicinal correction from God, no breaking, no bowing, no melting, no moulding can bring him to any good fashion; when God can work no cure, do no good upon us by breaking us; not by breaking us in our health, for we will attribute that to weakness of stomach, to surfeit, to indigestion; not by breaking us in our states, for we will impute that to falsehood in servants, to oppression of great adversaries, to iniquity of Judges; not by breaking us in our honor, for we will accuse for that, factions, and practices, and supplantation in Court; when God cannot break us with his corrections, but that we will attribute them to some natural, to some accidental causes, and never think of God's judgments, which are the true cause of these afflictions; when God cannot break us by breaking our backs, by laying on heavy loads of calamities upon us, nor by breaking our hearts, by putting us into a sad, and heavy, and fruitless sorrow and melancholy for these worldly losses, then he comes to break us by breaking our necks, by casting us into the bottomless pit, and falling upon us there, in this wrath and indignation, Comminuam eos in pulverem, saith he, I will beat them as small as dust before the wind, and tread them as flat as clay in the streets, the breaking thereof shall be like the breaking of a Potters vessel, which is broken without any pity. (No pity from God, no mercy, neither shall any man pity them, no compassion, no sorrow:) And in the breaking thereof, saith the Prophet, there is not found a sheard to take fire at the hearth, nor to take water at the pit: that is, they shall be incapable of any beam of grace in themselves from heaven, or any spark of zeal in themselves, (not a sheard to fetch fire at the hearth) and incapable of any drop of Christ's blood from heaven, or of any tear of contrition in themselves, not a sheard to fetch water at the pit, I will break them as a Potters 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 to draw them, no threatenings of God's judgments shall drive them, no censures of God's Church shall fit them, no Sacrament shall cement and glue them to Christ's body again; In temporal blessings, he shall be unthankful, in temporal afflictions, he shall be obdurate: And these two shall serve, as the upper and nether stone of a mill, to grind this reprobate sinner to powder.
Lastly, this is to be done, by Christ's falling upon him, and what is that? I know some Expositors take this to be but the falling of God's judgments upon him in this world; But in this world there is no grinding to powder, all God's judgments here, (for anything that we can know) have the nature of Physic in them, & may, & are wont to cure; & no man is here so absolutely broken in pieces, but that he may be re-united: we choose therefore to follow the Ancients in this, That the falling of this stone upon this Reprobate, is Christ's last & irrecoverable falling upon him, in his last judgment; that when he shall wish that the Hills might fall and cover him, this stone shall fall, & grind him to powder; He shall be broken, and he no more found, says the Prophet, yea, he shall be broken and no more sought: No man shall consider him what he is now, nor remember him what he was before: For, that stone, which in Daniel, was cut out without hands (which was a figure of Christ, who came without ordinary generation) when that great Image was to be overthrown, broke not an arm or a leg, but brake the whole Image in pieces, and it wrought not only upon the weak parts, but it brake all, the clay, the iron, the brass, the silver, the gold; so when this stone falls thus, when Christ comes to judgment, he shall not only condemn him for his clay, his earthly and covetous sins, nor for his iron, his revengeful oppressing, and rustly sins, nor for his brass, his shining, and glittering sins, which he hath filed and polished, but he shall fall upon his silver and gold, his religious and precious sins, his hypocritical hearing of Sermons, his singular observing of Sabbaths, his Pharisaical giving of alms, and as well his subtle counterfeiting of Religion, as his Atheistical opposing of religion, this stone, Christ himself, shall fall upon him, and a shower of other stones shall oppress him too. Sicut pluit laque • s, says David, As God rained springs and snares upon them in this world (abundance of temporal blessings to be occasions of sin unto them:) So plues grandinem, he shall rain such hail-stones upon them, as shall grind them to powder; there shall fall upon him the natural Law, which was written in his heart, and did rebuke him, then when he prepared for a sin; there shall fall upon him the written Law, which cried out from the mouths of the Prophets in these places, to avert him from sin; there shall fall upon him those sins which he hath done, and those sins which he hath not done, if nothing but want of means & opportunity hindered him from doing them; there shall fall upon him those sins which he hath done after another's dehortation, and those, which others have done after his provocation; there the stones of Nineveh shall fall upon him, and of as many Cities as have repented with less proportions of mercy and grace, then God afforded him; there the rubbage of Sodom and Gomorrah shall fall upon him, and as many Cities as in their ruin might have been examples to him. All these stones shall fall upon him, and to add weight to all these, Christ Jesus himself shall fall upon his conscience, with unanswerable questions, and grind his soul to powder. But he that overcometh, shall not be hurt by the second death, he that feels his own fall upon this stone, shall never feel this stone fall upon him, he that comes to a remorse, early, and earnestly after a sin, and seeks by ordinary means, his reconcileation to God in his Church, is in the best state that man can be in now; for howsoever we cannot say that repentance is as happy an estate as Innocency, yet certainly every particular man feels more comfort and spiritual joy, after a true repentance for a sin, then he had in that degree of Innocence which he had before he committed that sin; and therefore in this case also we may safely repeat those words of Augustine, Audeo dicere, I dare be bold to say, that many a man hath been the better for some sin.
Almighty God, who gives that civil wisdom, to make use of other men's infirmities, give us also this heavenly wisdom, to make use of our own particular sins, that thereby our own wretched conditions in ourselves, and our means of reparation in Jesus Christ, may be the more manifested unto us; To whom with the blessed Spirit, &c.
SERMON XXXVI.
Preached at Saint Paul's upon Christmas day, 1621.
JOHN 1. 8.
I T is an injury common to all the Evangelists, (as Irenaeus notes) that all their Gospels were severally refused by one Sect of Heretics or other. But it was proper to Saint John alone, to be refused by a Sect, that admitted all the other three Evangelists, (as Epiphanius remembers) and refused only Saint John. These were the Alogiani, a limb and branch of the Arians, who being unable to look upon the glorious Splendour, the divine Glory, attributed by Saint John to this Logos, (which gave them their name of Alogiani ) this Word, this Christ, not comprehending this Mystery, That this Word was so with God, as that it was God; they took a round way, and often practiced, to condemn all that they did not understand, and therefore refuse the whole Gospel. Indeed his whole Gospel is comprehended in the beginning thereof. In this first Chapter is contracted all that which is extensively spread, and dilated through the whole Book. For here is first, the Foundation of all, the Divinity of Christ, to the 15. verse. Secondly, the Execution of all, the Offices of Christ, to the 35. verse. And then the Effect, the Working, the Application of all, that is, who were to Preach all this, to the ends of the world, the calling of his Apostles, to the end of the Chapter: for the first, Christ's Divinity, there is enough expressed in the very first verse alone: for, there is his Eternity, intimated in that word, In principio, in the beginning. The first book of the Bible, Genesis, and the last book, (that is, that which was last written) this Gospel, begin both with this word, In the beginning. But the last beginning was the first, if Moses beginning do only denote the Creation, which was not 6000. years since, and Saint John's, the Eternity of Christ, which no Millions, multiplied by Millions, can calculate. And then, as his Eternity, so his distinction of Persons, is also specified in this 1. verse, when the Word, (that is, Christ ) is said to have been apud Deum, with God. For, therefore, (saith Saint Basil ) did the Holy Ghost rather choose to say apud Deum, then in Deo, with God, then in God, ne auferenda Hypostaseos occasionem daret, lest he should give any occasion of denying the same Nature, in divers Persons; for it doth more clearly notify a distinction of Persons, to say, he was with him, then to say, he was in him; for the several Attributes of God, (Mercy and Justice, and the rest) are in God, and yet they are not distinct Persons. Lastly, there is also expressed in this 1. verse Christ's Equality with God, in that it is said, & Verbum erat Deus, and this Word was God. As it was in the beginning, and therefore Eternal, and as it was with God, and therefore a distinct Person, so it was God, and thereforre equal to the Father; which phrase doth so vex and anguish the Arians, that being disfurnished of all other escapes, they corrupted the place, only with a false interpunction, and broke of the words, where they admitted no such pause; for, they read it thus, Verbum erat apud Deum; (so far, well) Et Deus erat. There they made their point; and then followed in another sentence: Verbum hoc erat in principio, &c.
The first part then of this Chapter, (and indeed of the whole Gospel) is in that 1. verse the manifestation of his Divine Nature, in his Eternity, in the distinction of Persons, in the equality with the Father. The second part of the Chapter layeth down the Office of Christ, his Prophetical, his Priestly, his Royal Office. For the first, the Office of a Prophet consisting in three several exercises, to manifest things past, to foretell things to come, and to expound thing present, Christ declared himself to be a Prophet in all these three: for, for the first, he was not only a Verball, but an Actual manifester of former Prophecies, for all the former Prophecies were accomplished in his Person, and in his deeds, and words, in his actions and Passion. For the second, his foretelling of future things, he foretold the state of the Church, to the end of the world. And for the third (declaring of present things ) He told the Samaritan woman, so exquisitely, all her own History, that she gave presently that attestation, Sir, I see that thou art a Prophet: so his Prophetical Office, is plainly laid down. For his second Office, his Priesthood, that is expressed in the 36. verse, Behold the Lamb of God; for, in this, he was our Priest, that he was our Sacrifice; he was our Priest, in that he offered himself for our sins. Lastly, his Royal Office was the most natural to him of all the rest. The Office of a Prophet was Natural to none; none was born a Prophet. Those who are called the children of the Prophets, and the sons of the Prophets, are but the Prophets Disciples. Though the Office of Priesthood, by being annexed to one Tribe, may (in some sense) be called Natural, yet in Christ it could not be so, for he was not of that Tribe of Levi: so that he had no interest in the legal Priesthood, but was a Priest according to the Order of Melchizedek. But his Title to be King, was natural, by descent, he was of the blood Royal, and the nearest in succession; so that he, and only he, had, De Iure, all the three unctions upon him. David had two; he was both a Prophet, and a King; he had those two capacities; Melchizedek had two too; he was both a King and a Priest; he had two: Only Christ had all three, both a Prophet, and Priest, and King.
In the third part of the Chapter, which is the calling of four of his Apostles, we may observe that the first was called, was not Peter, but Andrew; that there might be laid at first some interruption, some stop to their zealous fury, who will still force, and heap up every action which any way concerns Saint Peter, to the building up of his imaginary primacy, which primacy, they cared not though Peter wanted, if they could convey that primacy to his Successor, by any other Title; for which Successors sake it is, and not for Saint Peters own, that they are so over diligent in advancing his prerogative. But, it was not Peter, that was called, but Andrew. In Andrew's present and earnest application of himself to Christ, we may note, (and only so) divers particulars, fit for use and imitation. In his first question, Master, where dwellest thou? there is not only, (as Cyril observes) a reverent ascribing to him a power of instructing in that compellation, Master, but a desire to have more time afforded to hearken to his instructions, Where dwellest thou, that I may dwell with thee? And as soon as ever he had taken in some good portion of knowledge himself, he conceives presently a desire to communicate his happiness with others; and he seeks his brother Peter, and tells him, Invenimus Messiam, we have found the Messias; which is, (as Saint Chrysostom notes) vox quaerentis: In this, that he rejoices in the finding of him, he testifies that he had sought him, and that he had continued in the expectation of a Messias before. Invenit Messiam, he had found the Messias; but, saith the Text, Duxit ad Iesum, he brought his brother the glorious news of having found a King, the King of the Jews, but he led him to Jesus, to a Savior; that so, all kinds of happiness, temporal and spiritual, might be intimated in this discovery of a King, and of a Savior; What may not his servants hope for at his hands, who is both those, a King and a Savior, and hath worldly preferments, and the Glory of Heaven in his power?
Now, though the words of this Text, (He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light) are placed in the first part of the Chapter, that which concerns Christ's Divine nature, yet they belong, and they have a respect to all three; To his Divine nature, to his Offices, and to his Calling of his Apostles: For, first, light denotes his Divine nature; secondly, the testimony that is given of him by John the Baptist, (of whom the words of our Text are spoken) declares him to be the Messias, and Messias, (which signifies anointed ) involves all his Offices, are his three Offices, are his three vocations; and thirdly, the Application of this testimony, given by John the Baptist here, by the Apostles and their Successors after, intimates or brings to our memory this their first vocation, in this Chapter. So that the Gospel of Saint John contains all Divinity, this Chapter all the Gospel, and this Text all the Chapter. Therefore it is too large to go through at this time; at this time we shall insist upon such branches as arise out of that consideration, what, and who this light is, (for, we shall find it to be both a personal light, (it is somebody ) and, otherwise too, a real light, (it is something ) therefore we inquire, what, this light is, (what thing) and who this light is, (what person) which John the Baptist is denied to be. Hereafter we shall consider, the Testimony which is given of this light; in which part in due time, we shall handle, the person of the witness John the Baptist, in whom we shall find many considerable, and extraordinary circumstances: and then, his Citation, and calling to this testimony; and thirdly, the testimony it self that he gave: and lastly, why any testimony was requisite to so evident a thing as light. But the first part, who, and what this light is, belongs most properly to this day, and will fill that portion of the day, which is afforded us for this exercise. Proceed we therefore to that, John the Baptist was not that light, who was, what was?
Though most expositors, as well ancient, as modern agree with one general, and unanime consent, that light in this verse is intended and meant of Christ, Christ is this light, yet in some precedent and subsequent passages in this Chapter, I see other senses have been admitted of this word, light, then perchance those places will bear; certainly other then those places need: particularly, in the fourth verse (In it was life, and that life was the light of men) there they understand life, to be nothing but this natural life which we breath, and light to be only that natural life, natural reason, which distinguishes us men, from other creatures. Now, it is true that they may have a pretence for some ground of this interpretation in antiquity it self, for, so says Saint Cyril, Filius Dei Creative illuminate, Christ doth enlighten us, in creating us. And so some others of the Fathers, and some of the Schools, understand by that light natural Reason, and that life, conservation in life. But this interpretation seems to me subject to both these dangers, that it goes so far, and yet reaches not home. So far, in wresting in divers senses into a word, which needs but one, and is of it self clear enough, that is light, and yet reaches not home, for it reaches not to the essential light, which is Christ Jesus, nor to the supernatural light, which is Faith and Grace, which seems to have been the Evangelists principal scope, to declare the coming of Christ, (who is the essential light ) and his purpose in coming, to raise and establish a Church, by Faith and Grace, which is the supernatural light: For, as the holy Ghost himself interprets life to be meant of Christ, (He that hath the Son hath life) so we may justly do of light too, he that sees the Son, the Son of God hath light. For, light is never, (to my remembrance) found in any place of the Scripture, where it must necessarily signify the light of nature, natural reason; but wheresoever it is transferred from the natural to a figurative sense, it takes a higher signification then that; either it signifies Essentiall light, Christ Jesus, (which answers our first question, Quis lux, who is this light, it is Christ, personally ) or it signifies the supernatural light of Faith and Grace, (which answers our second question, Quid lux, what is this light, for it is the working of Christ, by his Spirit, in his Church, in the infusion of Faith and Grace, for belief, and manners ) And therefore though it be ever lawful, and often times very useful, for the raising and exaltation of our devotion, and to present the plenty, and abundance of the holy Ghost in the Scriptures, who satisfies us as with marrow, and with fatness, to induce the diverse senses that the Scriptures do admit, yet this may not be admitted, if there may be danger thereby, to neglect or weaken the literal sense it self. For there is no necessity of that spiritual wantonness of finding more then necessary senses; for, the more lights there are, the more shadows are also cast by those many lights. And, as it is true in religious duties, so is it in interpretation of matters of Religion, Necessarium & Satis convertuntur; when you have done that you ought to do in your calling, you have done enough; there are no such Evangelical counsels, as should raise works of supererogation, more then you are bound to do, so when you have the necessary sense, that is the meaning of the holy Ghost in that place, you have senses enow, and not till then, though you have never so many, and never so delightful.
Light therefore, is in all this Chapter fitliest understood of Christ; who is noted here, with that distinctive article, Illa lux, that light. For, non sic dicitur lux, sicut lapis; Christ is not so called Light, as he is called a Rock, or a Cornerstone; not by a metaphor, but truly, and properly. It is true that the Apostles are said to be light, and that with an article, the light; but yet with a limitation and restriction, the light of the world, that is, set up to convey light to the world. It is true that John the Baptist himself was called light, and with large additions, Lucerne ardens, a burning, and a shining lamp, to denote both his own burning zeal, and the communicating of this his light to others. It is true, that all the faithful are said to be light in the Lord; but all this is but to signify that they had been in darkness before; they had been beclouded, but were now illustrated; they were light, but light by reflection, by illustration of a greater light. And as in the first creation, vesper & mane dies unus, The evening and the morning made the day, evening before morning, darkness before light, so in our regeneration, when we are made new Creatures, the Spirit of God finds us in natural darkness, and by him we are made light in the Lord. But Christ himself, and he only, is Illa lux, vera lux; that light, the true light. Not so opposed to those other lights, as though the Apostles, or John the Baptist, or the faithful, who are called lights, were false lights; but that they were weak lights. But Christ was fons lucis, the fountain of all their light; light so, as nobody else was so; so, as that he was nothing but light. Now, neither the Apostles, nor John the Baptist, nor the Elect, no nor the virgin Mary (though we should allow all that the Roman Church ask in her behalf) for the Roman Church is not yet come to that searednesse, that obduratenesse, that impudency, as to pronounce that the virgin Mary was without original sin, (though they have done many shrewd acts towards it, to the prejudice of the contrary opinion) yet none of these were so light, as they were nothing but light. Moses himself who received and delivered the law, was not so; and to intimate so much, there was an illustration, and irradiation upon his face, but not so of all his body. Nay, Christ Jesus himself, who fulfilled the law, as man, was not so; which he also intimated in the greatest degree of glorification which he accepted upon earth, which was his transfiguration, for, though it be said in that, That the fashion of his Countenance was changed, and his garment was white, and glistered, yet, lineamenta Petro agnoscibilia servavit, he kept that former proportion of body, that Peter could know him by it. So that this was not a glorifying of the body, and making it thorough light; but he suffered his Divine nature to appear and shine thorough his flesh, and not to swallow, or annihilate that flesh. All other men, by occasion of this flesh, have dark clouds, yea nights, yea long and frozen winter nights of sin, and of the works of darkness. Christ was incapable of any such nights, or any such clouds, any approaches towards sin; but yet Christ admitted some shadows, some such degrees of human infirmity, as by them, he was willing to show, that the nature of man, in the best perfection thereof, is not vera lux, tota lux, true light, all light, which he declared in that Si possible, and that Transeat calix, If it he possible, let this cup pass; words, to which himself was pleased to allow so much of a retractation, and a correction, Veruntamen, yet Father, whatsoever the sadness of my soul have made me say, yet, not my will but thine be done; not mine, but thine; so that they were not altogether, all one; human infirmity made some difference. So that no one man, not Christ, (considered but so as man) was tota lux, all light, no cloud. No not mankind, consider it collectively, can be light so, as that there shall be no darkness. It was not so, when all mankind was in one person, in Adam. It is said sometimes in School, that no man can keep the commandments, yet man, collectively, may keep them. They intend no more herein, but that someone man may abstain from doing any act against worshipping of Images, another from stealing, another from adultery, and others from others. But if it were possible to compose a man of such elements, as that the principallest virtues, and eminencies of all other men, should enter into his composition, and if there could be found a man, as perfect in all particular virtues, as Moses was in meekness, (who was a meek man, above all the men that were upon the earth ) yet this man would not be vera lux, tota lux, true light, all light. Moses was not so meek, but that he slew the Egyptian, nor so meek, but that he disputed and expostulated with God many times, passionately. Every man is so far from being tota lux, all light, as that he hath still within him, a dark vapor of orginall sin, and the cloud of human flesh without him.
Nay not only no man, (for so we may consider him in the whole course of his life) but noon act, of the most perfect, and religious man in the world, though that act employ but half a minute in the doing thereof, can be vera lux, true light, all light, so perfect light, as that it may serve another, or thyself, for a lantern to his, or thy feet, or a light to his, or thy steps, so that he or thou may think it enough to do so still. For, another man may do so good works, as it may justly work to thy shame, and confusion, and to the aggravating of thy condemnation, that thou livest not as well as he, yet, it would not perchance serve thy turn, to live but so well; for, to whom God gives more, of him he requires more. No man hath veram lucem, true light, thorough light; no man hath meridiem, Augem, that high point that casts no shadow, because, besides original sin, that ever smoakes up, and creates a foot in the soul, and besides natural infirmities, which become sins, when we consider Grace, no man does carry his good actions to that heighth as, by that grace, which God affords him, he might do. Slacker men have a declination even in their mornings; a West even in their East; coolings, and faintnesses and after-noones, as soon as they have any dawnings, any break of day, any inchoation of any spiritual action or purpose. Others have some farther growth, and increasing, and are more diligent in the observation of spiritual duties; but yet they have not their meridiem, their Augem, their noon, their south point, no such heighth, as that they might not have a higher, by that grace which they have received. In the best degree of our best actions, particularly in this service, which we do to God at this hour, if we brought with us hither a religious purpose to sanctify this festival, if we answer to the callings of his most blessed Spirit, whilst we are here, if we carry away a detestation of our sins, and a holy purpose of amendment of life, this is a good degree of proficiency, and God be blessed, if any of us all arrive to that degree; but yet, this is not vera lux, true light, all light; for, who amongst us can avoid the testimony of his conscience, that since he begun this present service to God, his thoughts have not strayed upon pleasures and vanities or profit, and leapt the walls of this Church, yea, perchance within the walls of this flesh, which should be the Temple of the holy Ghost? Besides, to become vera lux, tota lux, true light, thorough light, requires persebrrance to the end. So that till our natural light go out, we cannot say that we have this light; for, as the darkness of hell fire is, so this light of this heavenly fire, must be everlasting. If ever it go clean out, it was never thoroughly kindled, but kindled to our farther damnation; it was never vera lux, true light, for, as one office of the law is, but to show sin, so all the light of grace may end in this, to show me my desperate estate, from the abuse of grace. In all Philosophy there is not so dark a thing as light; As the sun, which is fons lucis naturalis, the beginning of natural light, is the most evident thing to be seen, and yet the hardest to be looked upon, so is natural light to our reason and understanding. Nothing clearer, for it is clearness it self, nothing darker, it is enwrapped in so many scruples. Nothing nearer, for it is round about us, nothing more remote, for we know neither entrance, nor limits of it. Nothing more easy, for a child discerns it, nothing more hard, for no man understands it. It is apprehensible by sense, and not comprehensible by reason. If we wink, we cannot choose but see it, if we stare, we know it never the better. No man is yet got so near to the knowledge of the qualities of light, as to know whether light it self be a quality, or a substance. If then this natural light be so dark to our natural reason, if we shall offer to pierce so far, into the light of this text, the Essentiall light Christ Jesus, (in his nature, or but in his offices ) or the supernatural light of faith and grace, (how far faith may be had, and yet lost, and how far the freewill of man may concur and cooperate with grace, and yet still remain nothing in it self) if we search farther into these points, then the Scripture hath opened us a way, how shall we hope to unentangle, or extricate ourselves? They had a precious composition for lamps, amongst the ancients, reserved especially for Tombes, which kept light for many hundreds of years; we have had in our age experience, in some casual openings of ancient vaults, of finding such lights, as were kindled, (as appeared by their inscriptions) fifteen or sixteen hundred years before; but, as soon as that light comes to our light, it vanishes. So this eternal, and this supernatural light, Christ and faith, enlightens, warms, purges, and does all the profitable offices of fire, and light, if we keep it in the right sphere, in the proper place, (that is, if we consist in points necessary to salvation, and revealed in the Scripture) but when we bring this light to the common light of reason, to our inferences, and consequences, it may be in danger to vanish it self, and perchance extinguish our reason too; we may search so far, and reason so long of faith and grace, as that we may lose not only them, but even our reason too, and sooner become mad then good. Not that we are bound to believe anything against reason, that is, to believe, we know not why. It is but a slack opinion, it is not Beliefe, that is not grounded upon reason. He that should come to a Heathen man, a mere natural man, uncatechized, uninstructed in the rudiments of the Christian Religion, and should at first, without any preparation, present him first with this necessity; Thou shalt burn in fire and brimstone eternally, except thou believe a Trinity of Persons, in an unity of one God, Except thou believe the Incarnation of the second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God, Except thou believe that a Virgin had a Soone, and the same Son that God had, and that God was Man too, and being the immortal God, yet died, he should be so far from working any spiritual cure upon this poor soul, as that he should rather bring Christian Mysteries into scorn, then him to a belief. For, that man, if you proceed so, Believe all, or you burn in Hell, would find an easy, an obvious way to escape all; that is, first not to believe Hell it self, and then nothing could bind him to believe the rest.
The reason therefore of Man, must first be satisfied; but the way of such satisfaction must be this, to make him see, That this World, a frame of so much harmony, so much concinnitie and conveniency, and such a correspondence, and subordination in the parts thereof, must necessarily have had a workman, for nothing can make it self: That no such workman would deliver over a frame, and work, of so much Majesty, to be governed by Fortune, casually, but would still retain the Administration thereof in his own hands: That if he do so, if he made the World, and sustain it still by his watchful Providence, there belongeth a worship and service to him, for doing so: That therefore he hath certainly revealed to man, what kind of worship, and service, shall be acceptable to him: That this manifestation of his Will, must be permanent, it must be written, there must be a Scripture, which is his Word and his Will: And that therefore, from that Scripture, from that Word of God, all Articles of our Beliefe are to be drawn.
If then his Reason confessing all this, ask farther proof, how he shall know that these Scriptures accepted by the Christian Church, are the true Scriptures, let him bring any other Book which pretendeth to be the Word of God, into comparison with these; It is true, we have not a Demonstration; not such an Evidence as that one and two, are three, to prove these to be Scriptures of God; God hath not proceeded in that manner, to drive our Reason into a pound, and to force it by a peremptory necessity to accept these for Scriptures, for then, here had been no exercise of our Will, and our assent, if we could not have resisted. But yet these Scriptures have so orderly, so sweet, and so powerful a working upon the reason, and the understanding, as if any third man, who were utterly discharged of all preconceptions and anticipations in matter of Religion, one who were altogether neutral, disinteressed, unconcerned in either party, nothing towards a Turk, and as little toward a Christian, should hear a Christian plead for his Bible, and a Turk for his Alcoran, and should weigh the evidence of both; the Majesty of the Style, the punctual accomplishment of the Prophecies, the harmony and concurrence of the four Evangelists, the consent and unanimity of the Christian Church ever since, and many other such reasons, he would be drawn to such an Historical, such a Grammatical, such a Logical belief of our Bible, as to prefer it before any other, that could be pretended to be the Word of God. He would believe it, and he would know why he did so. For let no man think that God hath given him so much ease here, as to save him by believing he knoweth not what, or why. Knowledge cannot save us, but we cannot be saved without Knowledge; Faith is not on this side Knowledge, but beyond it; we must necessarily come to Knowledge first, though we must not stay at it, when we are come thither. For, a regenerate Christian, being now a new Creature, hath also a new faculty of Reason: and so believeth the Mysteries of Religion, out of another Reason, then as a mere natural Man, he believed natural and moral things. He believeth them for their own sake, by Faith though he take Knowledge of them before, by that common Reason, and by those human Arguments, which work upon other men, in natural or moral things. Divers men may walk by the Sea side, and the same beams of the Sun giving light to them all, one gathereth by the benefit of that light pebbles, or speckled shells, for curious vanity, and another gathers precious Pearl, or medicinal Ambar, by the same light. So the common light of reason illumins us all; but one employs this light upon the searching of impertinent vanities, another by a better use of the same light, finds out the Mysteries of Religion; and when he hath found them, loves them, not for the lights sake, but for the natural and true worth of the thing itself. Some men by the benefit of this light of Reason, have found out things profitable and useful to the whole world; As in particular, Printing, by which the learning of the whole world is communicacable to one another, and our minds and our inventions, our wits and compositions may trade and have commerce together, and we may participate of one another's understandings, as well as of our Clothes, and Wines, and Oyles, and other Merchandize: So by the benefit of this light of reason, they have found out Artillery, by which wars come to quicker ends then heretofore, and the great expense of blood is avoided: for the numbers of men slain now, since the invention of Artillery, are much less then before, when the sword was the executioner. Others, by the benefit of this light have searched and found the secret corners of gain, and profit, wheresoever they lie. They have found wherein the weakness of another man consisteth, and made their profit of that, by circumventing him in a bargain: They have found his riotous, and wasteful inclination, and they have fed and fomented that disorder, and kept open that leak, to their advantage, and the others ruin. They have found where was the easiest, and most accessible way, to solicit the Chastity of a woman, whether Discourse, Music, or Presents, and according to that discovery, they have pursued hers, and their own eternal destruction. By the benefit of this light, men see through the darkest, and most impervious places, that are, that is, Courts of Princes, and the greatest Officers in Courts; and can submit themselves to second, and to advance the humors of men in great place, and so make their profit of the weaknesses which they have discovered in these great men. All the ways, both of Wisdom, and of Craft lie open to this light, this light of natural reason: But when they have gone all these ways by the benefit of this light, they have got no further, then to have walked by a tempestuous Sea, and to have gathered pebbles, and speckled cockle shells. Their light seems to be great out of the same reason, that a Torch in a misty night, seemeth greater then in a clear, because it hath kindled and inflamed much thick and gross Air round about it. So the light and wisdom of worldly men, seemeth great, because he hath kindled an admiration, or an applause in Aiery flatterers, not because it is so in deed.
But, if thou canst take this light of reason that is in thee, this poor snuff, that is almost out in thee, thy saint and dim knowledge of God, that riseth out of this light of nature, if thou canst in those embers, those cold ashes, find out one small coal, and wilt take the pains to kneell down, and blow that coal with thy devout Prayers, and light thee a little candle, (a desire to read that Book, which they call the Scriptures, and the Gospel, and the Word of God;) If with that little candle thou canst creep humbly into low and poor places, if thou canst find thy Savior in a Manger, and in his swathing clouts, in his humiliation, and bless God for that beginning, if thou canst find him flying into Egypt, and find in thyself a disposition to accompany him in a persecution, in a banishment, if not a bodily banishment, a local banishment, yet a real, a spiritual banishment, a banishment from those sins, and that sinful conversation, which thou hast loved more then thy Parents, or Country, or thine own body, which perchance thou hast consumed, and destroyed with that sin; if thou canst find him contenting and containing himself at home in his fathers house, and not breaking out, no not about the work of our salvation, till the due time was come, when it was to be done. And if according to that example, thou canst contain thyself in that station and vocation in which God hath planted thee, and not, through a hasty and precipitate zeal, break out to an imaginary, and intempestive, and unseasonable Reformation, either in Civil or Ecclesiastical business, which belong not to thee; if with this little poor light, these first degrees of Knowledge and Faith, thou canst follow him into the Garden, and gather up some of the drops of his precious Blood and sweat, which he shed for thy soul, if thou canst follow him to Jerusalem, and pick up some of those tears, which he shed upon that City, and upon thy soul; if thou canst follow him to the place of his scourging, and to his crucifying, and provide thee some of that balm, which must cure thy soul; if after all this, thou canst turn this little light inward, and canst thereby discern where thy diseases, and thy wounds, and thy corruptions are, and canst apply those tears, and blood and balm to them, (all this is, That if thou attend the light of natural reason, and cherish that, and exalt that, so that that bring thee to a love of the Scriptures, and that love to a belief of the truth thereof, and that historical faith to a faith of application, of appropriation, that as all those things were certainly done, so they were certainly done for thee) thou shalt never envy the luster and glory of the great lights of worldly men, which are great by the infirmity of others, or by their own opinion, great because others think them great, or because they think themselves so, but thou shalt find, that howsoever they magnify their lights, their wit, their learning, their industry, their fortune, their favor, and sacrifice to their own nets, yet thou shalt see, that thou by thy small light hast gathered Pearl and Amber, and they by their great lights nothing but shells and pebbles; they have determined the light of nature, upon the book of nature, this world, and thou hast carried the light of nature higher, thy natural reason, and even human arguments, have brought thee to read the Scriptures, and to that love, God hath set to the seal of faith. Their light shall set at noon; even in their heighth, some heavy cross shall cast a damp upon their soul, and cut off all their succors, and devest them of all comforts, and thy light shall grow up, from a fair hope, to a modest assurance and infallibility, that that light shall never go out, nor the works of darkness, nor the Prince of darkness ever prevail upon thee, but as thy light of reason is exalted by faith here, so thy light of faith shall be exalted into the light of glory, and fruition in the Kingdom of heaven. Before the sun was made, there was a light which did that office of distinguishing night and day; but when the sun was created, that did all the offices of the former light, and more • Reason is that first, and primogeniall light, and goes no farther in a natural man; but in a man regenerate by faith, that light does all that reason did, and more; and all his Moral, and Civil, and Domestic, and indifferent actions, (though they be never done without Reason) yet their principal scope, and mark is the glory of God, and though they seem but Moral, or Civil, or domestic, yet they have a deeper tincture, a heavenly nature, a relation to God, in them.
The light in our Text then, is essentially and personally Christ himself, from him flows the supernatural light of faith and grace, here also intended; and because this light of faith, and grace flowing from that fountain of light Christ Jesus, works upon the light of nature, and reason, it may conduce to the raising of your devotions, if we do (without any long insisting upon the several parts thereof) present to you some of those many and divers lights, which are in this world, and admit an application to this light in our Text, the essential light, Christ Jesus; and the supernatural light, faith and grace.
Of these lights we shall consider some few couples; and the first pair, Lux Essentiae, and Lux Gloriae, the light of the Essence of God, and the light of the glory of his Saints. And though the first of these, be that essential light, by which we shall see God face to face, as he is, and the effluence and emanation of beams, from the face of God, which make that place Heaven, of which light it is said, That God who only hath Immortality, dwells in luce inaccessibili, in the light that none can attain to, yet by the light of faith, and grace in sanctification, we may come to such a participation of that light of Essence, or such a reflection of it in this world, that it shall be true of us, which was said of those Ephesians, You were once darkness, but now are light in the Lord; he does not say enlightened, nor lightsome, but light itself, light essentially, for our conversation is in heaven; And as God says of Jerusalem, and his blessings here in this world, Calceavit Ianthino, I have shod thee, with Badgers skin, (some translate it) (which the Ancients take for some precious stuff) that is, I have enabled thee to tread upon all the most estimable things of this world, (for as the Church itself is presented, so every true member of the Church is endowed, Luna sub pedibus, the Moon, and all under the Moon is under our feet, we tread upon this world, even when we are trodden upon in it) so the precieus promises of Christ, make us partakers of the Divine Nature, and the light of faith, makes us the same Spirit with the Lord; And this is our participation of the light of essence, in this life. The next is the light of glory.
This is that Glorification which we shall have at the last day, of which glory, we consider a great part to be in that Denudation, that manifestation of all to all; as, in this world, a great part of our inglorious servitude is in those disguises, and palliations, those colors, and pretences of public good, with which men of power and authority apparel their oppressions of the poor; In this are we the more miserable, that we cannot see their ends, that there is none of this denudation, this laying open of ourselves to one another, which shall accompany that state of glory, where we shall see one another's bodies, and souls, actions and thoughts. And therefore, as if this place were now that Tribunal of Christ Jesus, and this that day of Judgment, and denudation, we must be here, as we shall be there, content to stand naked before him; content that there be a discovery, a revealing, a manifestation of all our sins, wrought upon us, at least to our own consciences, though not to the congregation; If we will have glory, we must have this denudation. We must not be glad, when our sins scape the Preacher. We must not say, (as though there were a comfort in that) though he have hit such a man's Adultery, and another's Ambition, and another's extortion, yet, for all his diligence, he hath missed my sin; for, if thou wouldest fain have it mist, thou wouldest fain hold it still. And then, why camest thou hither? What camest thou for to Church, or to the Sacrament? Why doest thou delude God, with this complemental visit, to come to his house, if thou bring not with thee, a disposition to his honor, and his service? Camest thou only to try whether God knew thy sin, and could tell thee of it, by the Preacher? Alas, he knows it infallibly; And, if he take no knowledge of his knowing it, to thy conscience, by the words of the Preacher, thy state is the more desperate. God sends us to preach forgiveness of sins; where we find no sin, we have no Commission to execute; How shall we find your sins? In the old sacrifices of the law, the Priest did not fetch the sacrifice from the herd, but he received it from him that brought it, and so sacrificed it for him. Do thou therefore prevent the Preacher; Accuse thyselfe before he accuse thee; offer up thy sin thyself; Bring it to the top of thy memory, and thy conscience, that he finding it there, may sacrifice it for thee; Tune the instrument, and it is the fitter for his hand. Remember thou thine own sins, first and then every word that falls from the preachers lipsshall be a drop of the dew of heaven, a dram of the balm of Gilead, a portion of the blood of thy Savior, to wash away that sin, so presented by thee to be so sacrificed by him; for, if thou only of all the congregation find that the preacher hath not touched thee, nor hit thy sins, know then, that thou wast not in his Commission for the Remission of sins, and be afraid, that thy conscience is either gangrend, and unsensible of all incisions, and cauterizations, that can be made by denouncing the Judgments of God, (which is as far as the preacher can go) or that thy whole constitution, thy complexion, thy composition is sin; the preacher cannot hit thy particular sin, because thy whole life, and the whole body of thy actions is one continual sin. As long as a man is alive, if there appear any offense in his breath, the physician will assign it to some one corrupt place, his lungs, or teeth, or stomach, and thereupon apply convenient remedy thereunto. But if he be dead, and putrefied, no man asks from whence that ill air and offense comes, because it proceeds from thy whole carcass. So, as long as there is in you a sense of your sins, as long as we can touch the offended and wounded part, and be felt by you, you are not desperate, though you be froward, and impatient of our increpations. But when you feel nothing, whatsoever we say, your soul is in an Hectique fever, where the distemper is not in any one humor, but in the whole substance; nay, your soul it self is become a carcass. This then is our first couple of these lights, by our Conversation in heaven here, (that is, a watchfulness, that we fall not into sin) we have lucem essentiae, possession and fruition of heaven, and of the light of God's presence; and then, if we do, by infirmity, fall into sin, yet, by this denudation of our souls, this manifestation of our sins to God by confession, and to that purpose, a gladness when we hear our sin spoken of by the preacher, we have lumen gloriae, an inchoation of our glorified estate; and then, an other couple of these lights, which we propose to be considered, is lumen fidei, and lumen naturae, the light of faith, and the light of nature.
Of these two lights, Faith and Grace, first, and then Nature and Reason, we said something before, but never too much, because contentious spirits have cast such clouds upon both these lights, that some have said, Nature doth all alone, and others, that Nature hath nothing to do at all, but all is Grace: we decline wranglings, that tend not to edification, we say only to our present purpose, (which is the operation of these several couples of lights) that by this light of Faith, to him which hath it, all that is involved in Prophecies, is clear, and evident, as in a History already done; and all that is wrapped up in promises, is his own already in performance. That man needs not go so high, for his assurance of a Messias and Redeemer, as to the first promise made to him in Adam, nor for the limitation of the stock and race from whence this Messias should come: so far as to the renewing of this promise in Abraham: nor for the description of this Messias who he should be, and of whom he should be born, as to Isaiah; nor to Micah, for the place; nor for the time when he should accomplish all this, so far as to Daniel; no, nor so far, as to the Evangelists themselves, for the History and the evidence, that all this that was to be done in his behalf by the Messias, was done 1600. years since. But he hath a whole Bible, and an abundant Library in his own heart, and there by this light of Faith, (which is not only a knowing, but an applying, an appropriating of all to thy benefit) he hath a better knowledge then all this, then either Prophetical, or Evangelical; for though both these be irrefragable, and infallible proofs of a Messias, (the Prophetical, that he should, the Evangelical, that he is come) yet both these might but concern others: this light of Faith brings him home to thee. How sure so ever I be, that the world shall never perish by water, yet I may be drowned; and how sure so ever that the Lamb of God hath taken away the sins of the world, I may perish, without I have this applicatory Faith. And as he needs not look back to Isaiah, nor Abraham, nor Adam, for the Messias, so neither needs he to look forward. He needs not stay in expectation of the Angels Trumpets, to awaken the dead; he is not put to his usquequo Domine, How long, Lord, wilt thou defer our restitution? but he hath already died the death of the righteous; which is, to die to sin; He hath already had his burial, by being buried with Christ in Baptism, he hath had his Resurrection from sin, his Ascension to holy purposes of amendment of life, and his Judgment, that is, peace of Conscience, sealed unto him, and so by this light of applying Faith, he hath already apprehended an eternal possession of God's eternal Kingdom. And the other light in this second couple is Lux naturae, the light of Nature.
This, though a fainter light, directs us to the other, Nature to Faith: and as by the quantity in the light of the Moon, we know the position and distance of the Sun, how far, or how near the Sun is to her, so by the working of the light of Nature in us, we may discern, (by the measure and virtue and heat of that) how near to the other greater light, the light of Faith, we stand. If we find our natural faculties rectified, so as that that free will which we have in Moral and Civil actions, be bent upon the external duties of Religion, (as every natural man may, out of the use of that free will, come to Church, hear the Word preached, and believe it to be true) we may be sure, the other greater light is about us. If we be cold in them, in actuating, in exalting, in using our natural faculties so far, we shall be deprived of all light; we shall not see the Invisible God, in visible things, which Saint Paul makes so inexcusable, so unpardonable a thing, we shall not see the hand of God in all our worldly crosses, nor the seal of God in all our worldly blessings; we shall not see the face of God in his House, his presence here in the Church, nor the mind of God in his Gospel, that his gracious purposes upon mankind, extend so particularly, or reach so far, as to include us. I shall hear in the Scripture his Vinite omnes, come all, and yet I shall think that • his eye was not upon me, that his eye did not beckon me and I shall hear the Deus vult omnes salves, that God would save all, and yet I shall find some perverse reason in myself, why it is not likely that God will save me. I am commanded scrutari Scripturas, to search the scriptures; now, that is not to be able to repeat any history of the Bible without book, it is not to ruffle a Bible, and upon any word to turn to the Chapter, and to the verse; but this is exquisite a scrutatio, the true searching of the Scriptures, to find all the histories to be examples to me, all the prophecies to induce a Savior for me, all the Gospel to apply Christ Jesus to me. Turn over all the folds, and plaits of thine own heart, and find there the infirmities, and waverings of thine own faith, and an ability to say, Lord, I believe, help mine unbelief, and then, though thou have no Bible in thy hand, or though thou stand in a dark corner, nay though thou canst not read a letter, thou hast searched that Scripture, thou hast turned to Mark 9. ver. 24 Turn thine ear to God, and hear him turning to thee, and saying to thy soul, I will marry thee to myself forever; and thou hast searched that Scripture, and turned to Hos. 2. ver. 19. Turn to thine own histery, thine own life, and if thou canst read there, that thou hast endeavored to turn thine ignorance into knowledge, and thy knowledge into Practice, if thou find thyself to be an example of that rule of Christ's, If you know these things, blessed are you, if you do them, then thou hast searched that Scripture, and turned to Io. 13. ver. 14. This is Scrutari Scripturas, to Search the Scriptures, not as though thou wouldest make a concordance, but an application; as thou wouldest search a wardrobe, not to make an Inventory of it, but to find in it something fit for thy wearing. John Baptist was not the light, he was not Christ, but he bore witness of him. The light of faith, in the highest exaltation that can be had, in the Elect, here, is not that very beatifical vision, which we shall have in heaven, but it bears witness of that light. The light of nature, in the highest exaltation is not faith, but it bears witness of it. The lights of faith, and of nature, are subordinate John Baptists: faith bears me witness, that I have Christ, and the light of nature, that is, the exalting of my natural faculties towards religious uses, bears me witness, that I have faith. Only that man, whose conscience testifies to himself, and whose actions testify to the world, that he does what he can, can believe himself, or be believed by others, that he hath the true light of faith.
And therefore, as the Apostle saith, Quench not the Spirit, I say too, Quench not the light of Nature, suffer not that light to go out; study your natural faculties; husband and improve them, and love the outward acts of Religion, though an Hypocrite, and though a natural man may do them. Certainly he that loves not the Militant Church, hath but a faint faith in his interest in the Triumphant. He that cares not though the material Church fall, I am afraid is falling from the spiritual. For, can a man be sure to have his money, or his plate, if his house be burnt? or to preserve his faith, if the outward exercises of Religion fail? He that undervalues outward things, in the religious service of God, though he begin at ceremonial and ritual things, will come quickly to call Sacraments but outward things, and Sermons, and public prayers, but outward things, in contempt. As some Platonique Philosophers, did so over-refine Religion, and devotion, as to say, that nothing but the first thoughts and ebullitions of a devout heart, were fit to serve God in. If it came to any outward action of the body, kneeling, or lifting up of hands, if it came to be but invested in our words, and so made a Prayer, nay if it passed but a revolving, a turning in our inward thoughts, and thereby were mingled with our affections, though pious affections, yet, say they, it is not pure enough for a service to God; nothing but the first motions of the heart is for him. Beloved, outward things apparel God; and since God was content to take a body, let not us leave him naked, nor ragged; but, as you will bestow not only some cost, but some thoughts, some study, how you will clothe your children, and how you will clothe your servants, so bestow both cost and thoughts, think seriously, execute cheerfully in outward declarations, that which becomes the dignity of him, who evacuated himself for you. The zeal of his house needs not eat you up, no nor eat you out of house and home; God asks not that at your hands. But, if you eat one dish the less at your feasts for his house sake, if you spare somewhat for his relief, and his glory, you will not be the leaner, nor the weaker, for that abstinence. John the Baptist bore witness of the light, outward things bear witness of your faith, the exalting of our natural faculties bear witness of the supernatural. We do not compare the master and the servant, and yet we thank that servant that brings us to his master. We make a great difference between the treasure in the chest, and the key that opens it, yet we are glad to have that key in our hands. The bell that calls me to Church, does not catechise me, nor preach to me, yet I observe the sound of that bell, because it brings me to him that does those offices to me. The light of nature is far from being enough; but, as a candle may kindle a torch, so into the faculties of nature, well employed, God infuses faith. And this is our second couple of lights, the subordination of the light of nature, and the light of faith. And a third pair of lights of attestation, that bear witness to the light of our Text, is Lux aeternorum Corporum, that light which the Sun and Moon, and those glorious bodies give from heaven, and lux incensionum, that light, which those things; that are naturally combustible, and apt to take fire, do give upon earth; both these bear witness of this light, that is, admit an application to it. For, in the first of these, the glorious lights of heaven, we must take nothing for stars, that are not stars; nor make Astrological and fixed conclusions out of meteors, that are but transitory; they may be Comets, and blazing stars, and so portend much mischief, but they are none of those aeterna corpora, they are not fixed stars, not stars of heaven. So is it also in the Christian Church, (which is the proper sphere in which the light of our text, That light the essential light Christ Jesus moves by that supernatural light of faith and grace, which is truly the Intelligence of that sphere, the Christian Church) As in the heavens the stars were created at once, with one Fiat, and then being so made, stars do not beget new stars, so the Christian doctrine necessary to salvation, was delivered at once, that is, entirely in one sphere, in the body of the Scriptures. And then, as stars do not beget stars, Articles of faith do not beget Articles of faith; so, as that the Council of Trent should be brought to bed of a new Creed, not conceived before by the holy Ghost in the Scriptures, and, (which is a monstrous birth) the child greater then the Father, as soon as it is borne, the new Creed of the Council of Trent to contain more Articles, then the old Creed of the Apostles did. Saint Jude writing of the common salvation (as he calls it) (for, Saint Jude, it seems, knew no such particular salvation, as that it was impossible for any man to have, salvation is common salvation ) exhorts them to contend earnestly for that faith, which was once delivered unto the Saints. Semel, once; that is; at once, semel, simul, once altogether. For this is also Tertullian's note; that the rule of faith is, that it be una, immobilis, irreformabilis; it must not be deformed, it cannot be Reformed; it must not be mard, it cannot be mended; whatsoever needs mending, and reformation, cannot be the rule of faith, says Tertullian. Other foundation can no man lay then Christ; not only no better, but no other; what other things soever are added by men, enter not into the nature and condition of a foundation. The additions, and traditions, and superedifications of the Roman Church, they are not lux aeternorum corporum, they are not fixed bodies, they are not stars to direct us; they may be meteors, and so exercise our discourse, and Argumentation, they may raise controversies; And they may be Comets, and so exercise our fears, and our jealousies, they may raise rebellions and Treasons, but they are not fixed and glorious bodies of heaven, they are not stars. Their non-communions, (for, communions where there are no communicants, are no communions) when they admit no bread at all, no wine at all, all is transubstantiated, are no communions; their semi-communions, when they admit the bread to be given, but not the wine; their sesqui-communions, Bread and Wine to the taste, and to all other trials of bread and wine, and yet that bread and wine, the very body, and the very blood of Christ; their quotidian miracles, which destroy and contradict even the nature of the miracle, to make miracles ordinary, and fixed, constant and certain; (for, as that is not a miracle which nature does, so that's not a miracle which man can do certainly, constantly, infallibly every day, and every day, every Priest can miraculously change bread into the body of Christ, and besides they have certain fixed shops, and Marts of miracles, in one place a shop of miracles for barrenness, in another, a shop for the tooth-ache ) To contract this, their occasional Divinity, doctrines to serve present occasions, that in eighty eight, an Heretical Prince must necessarily be excommunicated, and an Heretical Prince excommunicated must necessarily be deposed, but at another time it may be otherwise, and conveniencies, and dispensations may be admitted, these, and such as these, traditional, occasional, Almanac Divinity, they may be Comets, they may be Meteors, they may rain blood, and rain fire, and rain hailstones, hailstones as big as Talents, (as it is in the Revelation) millstones, to grind the world by their oppressions, but they are not lux aeternorum corporum, the light of the stars and other heavenly bodies, for, they were made at once, and diminish not, increase not. Fundamental articles of faith, are always the same. And that's our application of this lux aeternorum corporum, the light of those heavenly bodies, to the light of our Text, Christ working in the Church.
Now, for the consideration of the other light in this third couple, which is lux incensionum, the light of things, which take, and give light here upon earth, if we reduce it to application and practice, and contract it to one Instance, it will appear that the devotion and zeal of him, that is best affected, is, for the most part, in the disposition of a torch, or a knife, ordained to take fire, and to give light. If it have never been lightened, it does not easily take light, but it must be bruised, and beaten first; if it have been lighted and put out; though it cannot take fire of itself, yet it does easily conceive fire, if it be presented within any convenient distance. Such also is the soul of man towards the fires of the zeal of God's glory, and compassion of others misery. If there be any that never took this fire, that was never affected with either of these, the glory of God, the miseries of other men, can I hope to kindle him? It must be God's work to bruise and beat him, with his rod of affliction, before he will take fire. Paulus revelatione compulsus ad fidem, St. Paul was compelled to believe; not the light which he saw, but the power which he felt wrought upon him; not because that light shined from heaven, but because it struck him to the earth. Agnoscimus Christum in Paulo prius cogentem, deinde docentem; Christ begun not upon St. Paul, with a catechism, but with a rod. If therefore here be any in Paul's case, that were never kindled before, Almighty God proceed the same way with them, and come so near to a friendship towards them, as to be at enmity with them; to be so merciful to them, as to seem unmerciful; to be so well pleased, as to seem angry; that so by inflicting his medicinal afflictions, he may give them comfort by discomfort, and life by death, and make them seek his face, by turning his face from them; and not to suffer them to continue in a stupid inconsideration, and lamentable senselessness of their miserable condition, but bruise and break them with his rod, that they may take fire. But for you, who have taken this fire before, that have been enlightened in both Sacraments, and in the preaching of the word; in the means, and in some measure of practice of holiness heretofore, if in not supplying oil to your Lamps, which God by his ordinance had kindled in you, you have let this light go out by negligence or inconsideration, or that storms of worldly calamities have blown it out, do but now at this instant call to mind, what sin of yesterday, or toother day, or long ago, begun, and practiced, and prevailed upon you, or what future sin, what purpose of doing a sin to night, or tomorrow, possesses you; do but think seriously what sin, or what cross hath blown out that light, that grace, which was formerly in you, before that sin, or that cross invaded you, and turn your soul, which hath been enlightened before, towards this fire which God's Spirit blows this minute, and you will conceive new fire, new zeal, new compassion. As this Lux incensionum, kindles easily, when it hath been kindled before, so the soul accustomed to the presence of God in holy meditations, though it fall asleep in some dark corner, in some sin of infirmity, a while, yet, upon every holy occasion, it takes fire again, and the meanest Preacher in the Church, shall work more upon him, then the four Doctors of the Church should be able to do, upon a person who had never been enlightened before, that is, never accustomed to the presence of God in his private meditations, or in his outward acts of Religion. And this is our third couple of lights, that bears witness, that is, admit an application to the light of our Text; and then the fourth and last couple, which we consider, is Lux Depuratarum Mixtionum, the light and luster of precious stones, and then Lux Repercussionum, the light of Repercussion, and Reflexion, when one body, though it have no light in itself, casts light upon other bodies.
In the application of the first of these lights, Depuratarum Mixtionum, precious stones, we shall only apply their making and their value. Precious stones are first drops of the dew of heaven, and then refined by the sun of heaven. When by long lying they have exhal'd, and evaporated, and breathed out all their gross matter, and received another concoction from the sun, then they become precious in the eye, and estimation of men: so those actions of ours, that shall be precious or acceptable in the eye of God, must at first have been conceived from heaven, from the word of God, and then receive another concoction, by a holy deliberation, before we bring those actions to execution, lest we may have mistaken the root thereof. Actions precious, or acceptable in God's eye, must be holy purposes in their beginning, and then done in season; the Dove must lay the egg, and hatch the bird; the holy Ghost must infuse the purpose, and sit upon it, and overshadow it, and mature and ripen it, if it shall be precious in God's eye. The reformation of abuses in State or Church, is a holy purpose, there is that drop of the dew of heaven in it; but if it be unseasonably attempted, and have not a farther concoction, then the first motions of our own zeal, it becomes ineffectual. Stones precious in the estimation of men, begin with the dew of Heaven, and proceed with the sun of Heaven; Actions precious in the acceptation of God, are purposes conceived by his Spirit, and executed in his time to his Glory, not conceived out of Ambition, nor executed out of sedition. And this is the application of this Lux depuratarum mixtionum, of precious stones, out of their making, we proposed another out of their valuation; which is this, That whereas a Pearl or Diamond of such a bigness, of so many Carats, is so much worth, one that is twice as big, is ten times as much worth. So, though God vouchsafe to value every good work thou dost, yet as they grow greater he shall multiply his estimation of them infinitely, When he hath prized at a high rate, the chastity and continency of thy youth, if thou add to this, a moderation in thy middle age, from Ambition, and in thy latter age from covetousness and indevotion, there shall be no price in God's treasure (not the last drop of the blood of his Son) too dear for thee, no room, no state in his Kingdom (not a Iointenancie with his only Son) too glorious for thee. This is one light in this Couple; The luster of precious stones: the other the last is Lux Repercussionum, The light of Repercussion, of Reflexion.
This is, when God's light cast upon us, reflecteth upon other men too, from us; when God doth not only accept our works for ourselves, but employs those works of ours upon other men. And here is a true, and a Divine Supererogation; which the Devil, (as he doth all God's Actions, which fall into his compass) did mischievously counterfeit in the Roman Church, when he induced their Doctrine of Supererogation, that a man might do so much more then he was bound to do for God, as that that superplusage might save whom he would; and that if he did not direct them in his intention, upon any particular person, the Bishop of Rome, was general Administrator to all men, and might bestow them where he would. But here is a true supererogation; not from Man, or his Merit, but from God; when our good works shall not only profit us, that do them, but others that see them done; and when we by this light of Repercussion, of Reflexion, shall be made specula divinae gloriae, quae accipiunt & reddunt, such looking glasses as receive God's face upon ourselves, and cast it upon others by a holy life, and exemplary conversation.
To end all, we have no warmth in ourselves; it is true, but Christ came even in the winter: we have no light in ourselves; it is true, but he came even in the night. And now, I appeall to your own Consciences, and I ask you all, (not as a Judge, but as an Assistant to your Consciences, and Amicus Curiae, ) whether any man have made a good use of this light, as he might have done. Is there any man that in the compassing of his sin, hath not met this light by the way, Thou shouldest not do this? Any man, that hath not only as Balaam did, met this light as an Angel, (that is, met Heavenly inspirations to avert him,) but that hath not heard as Balaam did, his own Ass; that is , those reasons that use to carry him, or those very worldly respects that use to carry him, dispute against that sin, and tell him, not only that there is more soul and more heaven, and more salvation, but more body, and more health, more honor, and more reputation, more cost, and more money, more labor, and more danger. spent upon such a sin, then would have carried him the right way.
They that sleep, sleep in the night, and they that are drunk, are drunk in the night. But to you the Day star, the Sun of Righteousness, the Son of God is risen this day. The day is but a little longer now, then at shortest; but a little it is. Be a little better now, then when you came, and mend a little at every coming, and in less then seven years app • entissage, which your occupations cost you, you shall learn, not the Mysteries of your twelve companies, but the Mysteries of the twelve Tribes, of the twelve Apostles, of their twelve Articles, whatsoever belongeth to the promise, to the performance, to the Imitation of Christ Jesus. He, who is Lu • una, light and light alone,